{"id":15589,"date":"2018-12-21T10:06:56","date_gmt":"2018-12-21T15:06:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=15589"},"modified":"2018-12-21T10:06:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-21T15:06:56","slug":"anibal-sanchez-as-4-starter-i-like-the-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=15589","title":{"rendered":"Anibal Sanchez as #4 starter; I like the risk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sanchez<\/a>

Sanchez joins the Nats on a 2 year deal. photo Atl official via ESPN<\/p><\/div>\n

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Well, now we can have the argument; was the\u00a0Tanner Roark<\/strong> salary dump worth it?\u00a0 Because just a few days later the team signed his replacement;\u00a0Anibal Sanchez\u00a0<\/strong>last night to a\u00a0 deal to be his replacement.\u00a0 Contract details are a bit complicated by the reports i’ve seen: 2 guaranteed years, $19M of guaranteed money, with $6M deferred and a 2021 option worth $12M, and some unspecified details that could add $4M to the package.<\/p>\n

From what I can tell, the luxury tax implications are just the guarantees; $19M over two years means $9.5M of a luxury tax hit this season … which is almost identical to the $9.8M we’d been using to project Roark.<\/p>\n

So, is the team better off?\u00a0 Probably.\u00a0 Roark has had flashes of brilliance (2014 and 2016) … but his last two years he was losing velocity and had plateaued as a slightly below league average pitcher.\u00a0 \u00a0Despite being much younger, we all kind of saw where he seems to be going, and the team clearly didn’t think his potential performance was worth the money.<\/p>\n

Sanchez was a solid, familiar opponent in our division for years, always a solid competitor, an under the radar solid rotation piece.\u00a0 He was god-awful in the AL, then suddenly found a new pitch and a new approach upon returning to the NL and pitched like a #2 starter most of last season.<\/p>\n

So the Nats are betting on his 35-year old resurgence continuing, and paying him for it.<\/p>\n

Implications for the team:<\/p>\n

40-man<\/strong>: this is the 40th guy on the 40 man; the next move requires us to cut loose someone.<\/p>\n

Salary Cap<\/strong>: We’re basically treading water from where we were a week ago; i’ve got the team at $188.8M in luxury tax dollars for fy2019, versus a cap of $206M, still leaving $17.6M of room.\u00a0 I’ve seen other reports saying the Nats are now above $200M for the year and I don’t really see how people are arriving at that conclusion:<\/p>\n