{"id":14266,"date":"2017-07-22T10:38:48","date_gmt":"2017-07-22T14:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=14266"},"modified":"2017-07-22T10:38:48","modified_gmt":"2017-07-22T14:38:48","slug":"ask-collier-72117","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=14266","title":{"rendered":"Ask Collier 7\/21\/17"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Doolittle<\/a>

Doolittle has settled right hin. Photo via federal baseball\/getty images<\/p><\/div>\n

Off days seem to be accompanied by mail bags. \u00a0And that’s good, because i’m kind of in a writing lull. \u00a0I have no interest in looking at the hundreds of players in the game and trying to write one of those speculative, useless “hey we should make this trade” posts. \u00a0So here’s MLB.com nats beat reporter\u00a0Jamal Collier<\/strong>‘s latest mail bag<\/a> and how i’d have answered the questions he took.<\/p>\n

\n

Q:\u00a0With the A’s trade and Robertson traded, do you think the Nats still look for a closer? Or do they go for another bullpen piece (ie Neshek)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: …. and yet, \u00a0here we are, needing to look at all 30 teams and all the theoretically “available” closers to write an educated answer. \u00a0*sigh*<\/p>\n

Ok: here’s who is for certain selling: Detroit, Chicago WS, Oakland, NY Mets, Miami, Philly, Cincinnati, San Diego, San Francisco. \u00a0And here’s who probably should be selling: Baltimore,\u00a0Toronto, Atlanta, maybe Texas.<\/p>\n

That’s 12-13 teams, some of which have pretty good closers. \u00a0So there’s some arms available. \u00a0But at what cost? \u00a0Does anyone want to stomach the trading of yet another set of higher-end prospects for a rental “proven closer?” \u00a0I’m hoping the team goes a different direction, with a trade of lesser quality prospects for another couple 7th and 8th inning guys.<\/p>\n

Bullpen now: \u00a0Doolittle, Madsen, Albers, Romero, Perez, Blanton<\/strong> and Grace<\/strong>. \u00a0Lefty heavy, and Blanton just cannot seem to get it together. \u00a0So another righty to replace Blanton could work, given how bad he’s been this year. \u00a0Maybe the return of Glover or a healthy\/effective Kelley is what the team really needs instead of another trade (because who else on that current list of 7 do you want to jettison?).<\/p>\n

Collier says that the team added a lot of payroll and may not do another blockbuster.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Will the Nats make a push for a fifth starter at the trade deadline?<\/p>\n

A: Nope. \u00a0They’ll give\u00a0Edwin Jackson<\/strong> starts until he gives them a reason to dump him, may try existing internal solutions, and will eventually call up\u00a0Erick Fedde<\/strong> to try him out too. \u00a0But they seem likely to cull the veteran 1yr FA market next off-season instead of overpaying now. \u00a0Of course, that being said seemingly the next available option in AAA (Jacob Turner<\/strong>) just got absolutely shelled (1 2\/3rds innings 6 runs<\/a>) … maybe he had transaction-lag from being activated and DFAd within like a 24 hour period. \u00a0A.J. Cole<\/strong> seems to have nearly exhausted his effectiveness as a starting pitcher; wow how far has he fallen. \u00a0Hill<\/strong> and Voth<\/strong> both now demoted to AA, along with\u00a0Greg Ross<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Collier agrees<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Who are the tradeable assets on the big league squad & in the minors? Likeliest to be dealt?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Hmm. \u00a0Most tradeable assets (outside the obvious all stars\/marquee players we’d never move) on the big league squad might be\u00a0Taylor<\/strong> and\u00a0Goodwin<\/strong> thanks to their excellent seasons, and\u00a0Gio Gonzalez<\/strong> who has pitched great and has two more option years. \u00a0But now that\u00a0Ross<\/strong> is on the shelf for a year, we can’t possibly trade Gio. \u00a0Eaton<\/strong> should be back \u00a0in 2018 so there’s no room for both Goodwin and Taylor; i’d guess they’d trade one of them and let the other start in LF after\u00a0Werth<\/strong> plays out his contract. \u00a0That is unless the Nats seek to improve offense in LF (like I think they should) and go for a big bopper … then they might have two OF trade assets (I think i’d rather move these guys than have them sit to be the 4th option).<\/p>\n

In the minors? \u00a0Andrew Stevenson<\/strong> comes to mind as someone who might be surplus to requirements in the short term and be someone worth flipping. \u00a0That is unless we move both TAylor and Goodwin; then he’d make a perfect 4th OF for 2018 behind a LF FA acquisition. \u00a0Past that? \u00a0Its pretty empty in AAA and AA, so you’d be looking at guys in Low- and \u00a0High-A as trade assets. \u00a0Perhaps even lower; we have a number of high-dollar IFAs in the GCL right now.<\/p>\n

Collier doesn’t even speculate; i guess he’s not a minor league guy.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Q:\u00a0Will Koda Glover close games when he returns?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Lets get him to return first. \u00a0Is there even a time table for him to return? \u00a0Honestly I was almost assuming he was done for the year. \u00a0If he does return … then yeah, absolutely he’s in the closer mix.<\/p>\n

Collier says the same thing basically<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0Any word on Davey Lopes return?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: didn’t even know he was gone. \u00a0Its been a busy summer. \u00a0\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Collier has no updates; he’s away on personal matter.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Off days seem to be accompanied by mail bags. \u00a0And that’s good, because i’m kind of in a writing lull. \u00a0I have no interest in looking at the hundreds of players in the game and trying to write one of those speculative, useless “hey we should make this trade” posts. \u00a0So here’s MLB.com nats beat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5],"tags":[3142,2814,1815,257,253,385,3467,115,2691,2827,708,3277,197],"class_list":["post-14266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chatmailbag-responses","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-eaton","tag-andrew-stevenson","tag-austin-voth","tag-brian-goodwin","tag-edwin-jackson","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-greg-ross","tag-jayson-werth","tag-joe-ross","tag-koda-glover","tag-michael-taylor","tag-shawn-kelley","tag-taylor-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14266","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=14266"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14273,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14266\/revisions\/14273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}