{"id":13313,"date":"2017-01-16T09:26:46","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T14:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13313"},"modified":"2017-01-16T09:26:46","modified_gmt":"2017-01-16T14:26:46","slug":"colliers-inbox-11217","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13313","title":{"rendered":"Collier’s Inbox 1\/12\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Holland<\/a>

Holland would look good in a Nats uniform … for the right price. Photo via mlb.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Looks like Nats MLB.com beat reporter\u00a0Jamal Collier<\/strong> will be doing these inboxes weekly! \u00a0Great way to generate some content during the dark period prior to the beginning of spring training (as alluded to in the comments by KW)…<\/p>\n

Here’s his 1\/12\/17 inbox<\/a>\u00a0and how i’d respond if someone bothered to ask my opinion about stuff like this \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Why have the Nationals been so patient with finding a closer as other teams are signing closers that the Nats might have been interested in?<\/b><\/p>\n

A: Probably because the price on closers (and relievers in general) is sky high after the industry watched what two dominant lefty arms like\u00a0Andrew Miller<\/strong> and\u00a0Aroldis Chapman<\/strong> can do in a post-season. \u00a0And probably because once the big four FAs went out … the drop-off in quality was significant. \u00a0The current list of available relievers<\/a>\u00a0does not inspire that much confidence; quite a few former closers are out there … and they’re out there for a reason. \u00a0Interesting fact; there’s no less than 8 former Nats on the active reliever FA market, perhaps an indication of the churn and burn we’ve been doing with arms lately. \u00a0Collier mentions the general transaction slowdown in the industry<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0It seems like the Nats still need a right-handed power bat to protect Daniel Murphy<\/a> and Bryce Harper<\/a>. Banking on Ryan Zimmerman<\/a> to provide that power appears risky. Any chance they are secretly looking at Jose Bautista<\/a>?<\/b><\/p>\n

A: (asked by John C from Vienna … \u00a0JohnC is this you? \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0I’d love if they were looking at\u00a0Jose Bautista<\/strong>; its something I suggested prior to the\u00a0Adam Eaton<\/strong> move. \u00a0But now? \u00a0The corner positions Bautista can play seem rather filled, unless someone is willing to go to one of the the two most respected\/highest paid\/long standing players on the team (Jayson Werth<\/strong> and\/or\u00a0Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong>) and tell them they’re riding the pine. \u00a0I know there’s lots of pundits\/bloggers out there who are ready to take both these guys out into the woods and shoot them … but I don’t see this regime doing that. \u00a0Therefore, unless they’re trading Harper, I can’t see where Bautista (or his $20M\/year demand) fits in. \u00a0Plus Bautista is as we speak reportedly looking at a return to Toronto … yet another example where the QO has stifled the market for a veteran player.\u00a0Collier says the team has faith in a Zimmerman rebound<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Will the stadium at West Palm Beach be ready by Feb. 14? Will fans be admitted then? Will Zimmerman be ready?<\/b><\/p>\n

A: I know nothing about the spring training stadium, other than to say that TWO major league franchises are planning on being there, so I’m pretty sure it’ll be ready or heads will roll.<\/p>\n

Zimmerman be ready? \u00a0Didn’t he play in the playoffs? \u00a0Why wouldn’t he be ready for 2\/14? \u00a0Did I miss an off-season surgery for him?<\/p>\n

Collier notes that both the stadium and the player will be ready to go. \u00a0I guess I missed something early in the off-season.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looks like Nats MLB.com beat reporter\u00a0Jamal Collier will be doing these inboxes weekly! \u00a0Great way to generate some content during the dark period prior to the beginning of spring training (as alluded to in the comments by KW)… Here’s his 1\/12\/17 inbox\u00a0and how i’d respond if someone bothered to ask my opinion about stuff like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2972,569,164,1859,814,3391,36],"class_list":["post-13313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-andrew-miller","tag-aroldis-chapman","tag-bryce-harper","tag-daniel-murphy","tag-greg-holland","tag-jamal-collier","tag-ryan-zimmerman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13313"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13313\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13318,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13313\/revisions\/13318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}