{"id":15662,"date":"2019-02-12T14:40:10","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T19:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=15662"},"modified":"2019-02-13T09:25:10","modified_gmt":"2019-02-13T14:25:10","slug":"pitchers-and-catchers-reporting-for-2019-heres-an-all-fa-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=15662","title":{"rendered":"Pitchers and Catchers reporting for 2019 &#8230; here&#8217;s an &#8220;all FA Team&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_14476\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Harper-reacts-to-zims-game2-hr-via-fanragsports.com_.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14476\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14476\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14476\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Harper-reacts-to-zims-game2-hr-via-fanragsports.com_-300x180.jpg\" alt=\"Still waiting. Photo via fanragsports.com\" width=\"300\" height=\"180\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Harper-reacts-to-zims-game2-hr-via-fanragsports.com_-300x180.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Harper-reacts-to-zims-game2-hr-via-fanragsports.com_-768x461.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Harper-reacts-to-zims-game2-hr-via-fanragsports.com_.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-14476\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Still waiting. Photo via fanragsports.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Unbelievably, its now mid February, pitchers and catchers are reporting to Spring Training &#8230; and the two best FAs and two of the best players in the game remain unsigned.<\/p>\n<p>If there was ever a sign that baseball&#8217;s collective pay system is broken, we&#8217;re seeing it.\u00a0 An amazing combination of tanking, salary cap, poor CBA negotiating and GMs too smart for their own good has the game barrelling towards a large, ugly work stoppage in a few years time.\u00a0 But we have to get there first.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s my all-still unemployed team.\u00a0 Every one of these players is unsigned as of the date\/time i&#8217;m writing this and per mlbtraderumors: https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2016\/12\/2018-19-mlb-free-agents.html<\/p>\n<p>How many games do you think this team wins?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Catcher:\u00a0<strong>Matt Wieters<\/strong> starting with\u00a0<strong>A.J. Ellis<\/strong> backing him up (post publishing correction per comments; Ellis has retired so we&#8217;ll go with <strong>Evan Gattis<\/strong> as the backup\/DH).\u00a0 Poor defense, but halfway decent offense based on 2018 numbers.<\/li>\n<li>1B:\u00a0<strong>Logan Morrison<\/strong>: he fell off a cliff in 2018, but had an OPS+ of 133 in 2017.\u00a0 Bet on a rebound.<\/li>\n<li>2B:\u00a0<strong>Josh Harrison<\/strong>.\u00a0 2 time all star, solid player.<\/li>\n<li>SS:\u00a0<strong>Manny Machado<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>3B:\u00a0<strong>Mike Moustakas<\/strong>: four straight years of above MLB average production.<\/li>\n<li>LF:\u00a0<strong>Carlos Gonzalez<\/strong>: would you bet against CarGo with a chip on his shoulder?<\/li>\n<li>CF:\u00a0<strong>Adam Jones<\/strong>: maybe he can&#8217;t really play CF anymore, but he can still play<\/li>\n<li>RF:\u00a0<strong>Bryce Harper<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Utility:\u00a0<strong>Marwin Gonzalez<\/strong>: can play 6 positions, hits the ball and isn&#8217;t 30 yet.\u00a0 Why is he still a FA?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lots of power potential here: I&#8217;d go Harrison, Machado, Harper, CarGo, Jones, Morrison, Moustakas, Wieters and Pitcher.<\/p>\n<p>My Rotation?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>#1: <strong>Dallas Keuchel<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>#2\u00a0<strong>Gio Gonzalez<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>#3:\u00a0<strong>Clay Buchholz<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>#4:\u00a0<strong>Ervin Santana<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>#5:\u00a0<strong>Yovani Gallardo<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That rotation is better than 10 teams&#8217; rotations right now.<\/p>\n<p>bullpen?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Closer:\u00a0<strong>Craig Kimbrel<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Setup:\u00a0<strong>Jim Johnson<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Sergio Romo<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>RH middle relief:\u00a0<strong>Bud Norris<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>AJ Ramos<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>LH middle relief:\u00a0<strong>Xavier Cedeno<\/strong>,\u00a0<strong>Aaron Loup<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>Is that a lot of talent still waiting to be signed?\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 I still count at least 15 starters who could impact nearly any team in the league on the bench.\u00a0 its just crazy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Unbelievably, its now mid February, pitchers and catchers are reporting to Spring Training &#8230; and the two best FAs and two of the best players in the game remain unsigned. If there was ever a sign that baseball&#8217;s collective pay system is broken, we&#8217;re seeing it.\u00a0 An amazing combination of tanking, salary cap, poor CBA [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4000,485,3998,3999,164,1676,1659,319,961,2593,1024,1718,385,1829,3973,2272,1753,3982,2094,416,1052,1786,1251],"class_list":["post-15662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","tag-aaron-loup","tag-adam-jones","tag-aj-ellis","tag-aj-ramos","tag-bryce-harper","tag-bud-norris","tag-carlos-gonzalez","tag-clay-buchholz","tag-craig-kimbrel","tag-dallas-keuchel","tag-ervin-santana","tag-evan-gattis","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-jim-johnson","tag-josh-harrison","tag-logan-morrison","tag-manny-machado","tag-marwin-gonzalez","tag-matt-wieters","tag-mike-moustakas","tag-sergio-romo","tag-xavier-cedeno","tag-yovani-gallardo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15662","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=15662"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15673,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15662\/revisions\/15673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}