{"id":1844,"date":"2011-06-29T10:03:28","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T14:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1844"},"modified":"2011-06-29T10:03:28","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T14:03:28","slug":"my-answers-to-boswells-chat-questions-62711","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1844","title":{"rendered":"My Answers to Boswell’s Chat Questions 6\/27\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As one may expect, Boswell's latest chat was filled with Riggleman questions. Photo unknown credit.<\/p><\/div>\n

In the wake of the Jim Riggleman<\/strong> debacle, I’m guessing that Boswell fields and opines a lot on Riggleman.\u00a0 Boswell and I differ in our opinions of Riggleman as a manager, and I found it telling that Riggleman noted on a radio show last week that Boswell had never interviewed him (a point refuted by Boswell below).\u00a0 That would put a severe damper on Boswell’s opinions of Riggleman in my mind; if you don’t have the courtesy to interview the subject of multiple highly critical columns and op-ed pieces, then how can you claim 100% credibility?\u00a0 Now i’m not sure who to believe, since Boswell reports near daily conversations with Riggleman.\u00a0 Perhaps Riggleman meant that the two had never talked about one particular topic.<\/p>\n

Regardless, here’s Boswell’s 6\/27\/11 chat<\/a>.\u00a0 As always, I read the question, write my own answer then interpret Boswell’s answer.\u00a0 All questions are paraphrased from the chatroom for clarity here.<\/p>\n

Q: Given the latest string of performances, should the Nats be buyers or sellers at the trade deadline?<\/strong>
\nA: Clearly their amazing run has reversed my answer to this question from a few weeks ago.\u00a0 Now, if the team continues at a 111-win pace (as was noted today on twitter … the team’s form in the past 14 games would put them on a 111-win pace for a full season), then they will factor into the wild card race amazingly.\u00a0 If you’re in the WC race, you are buyers at the deadline.\u00a0 If you have a shot at the playoffs, then you take that shot.\u00a0 (Boswell thinks they’ll be “non-sellers,” preferring to stand pat b\/c they have no obvious holes.\u00a0 A fair assessment of the team right now).<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Did the Nats upgrade at Manager?<\/strong><\/div>\n
A: Well, clearly yes.\u00a0 Even if Davey Johnson<\/strong> turns out to be a Joe Gibbs-esque over the hill and out of touch (something I really don’t believe happens in this slower-moving strategic sport versus the fast advances of the pro football game), he will command more respect than Riggleman could ever expect.\u00a0 But I think the team was exposed in a certain way throughout this whole Riggleman affair.\u00a0 Riggleman may go down as the man who made the career-suicide move, but Rizzo is not blameless here.\u00a0 You couldn’t find time to spend an hour with your most important subordinate to discuss contract status?\u00a0 And the owners clearly are too-hands off here; I agree with the sentiment of Adam Kilgore<\/strong> who wrote a post that essentially said that this situation wouldn’t have happened if Stan Kasten<\/strong> was still here.\u00a0 That’s not a great endorsement of the state of your front office right now.\u00a0 (Boswell actually compliments Riggleman in his answer.).<\/em><\/div>\n

Q: Why not just leave Bernadina in leadoff instead of all these lineup experiments?<\/strong>
\nA: Good question.\u00a0 Its hard to guess what will happen tomorrow (with a new manager) based on what happened yesterday (with the old manager).\u00a0 Personal opinion; batting a pitcher 8th is asinine, Bernadina should be batting leadoff until Desmond either figures out how to hit or we acquire a replacement, and you leave Werth in a power-hitting position where he should be.\u00a0 Simple as that. Boswell says Bernadina should be leading off and cites his defense as a reason to include him.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: What does Boswell think about Riggleman’s pointed statements about him to the press?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

A: Wow, can’t wait to read this answer.\u00a0 I’m guessing Boswell will trash him, again.\u00a0 (Boswell refutes Riggleman’s comments, that I alluded to above, about how he was never interviewed by Boswell.\u00a0 Hmm.\u00a0 Otherwise Boswell deflects some of Riggleman’s comments and actually excuses his statements as being heat of the moment.\u00a0 Interesting.<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: What changes will Davey Johnson institute on this team?<\/strong>
\nA: No idea.\u00a0 Johnson certainly was a master strategist and depends on matchups and stats, so perhaps we’ll see more platooning.\u00a0 He’s old-school, so perhaps we’ll see pitchers going longer into games and less bullpen churn.<\/p>\n

Q: Is the Werth-Leadoff and Pitcher-8th experiment dead?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A: Probably.\u00a0 Honestly it smacked of desperation from Riggleman, though I’d be desperate too if my $126M hitter was batting in the .220s.<\/p>\n

Q: Is small-ball dead (Nats were 2nd in NL in sac bunts)?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I doubt it; its still the National league.\u00a0 And I don’t completely blame sac bunting on Riggleman.\u00a0 I’ve seen our struggling hitters gladly take a sac bunt instead of trying to get a hit when they’ve been down.\u00a0 Johnson is still an old-school manager.<\/div>\n

Q: Which player benefits the most from Johnson’s arrival?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I’d guess Jayson Werth<\/strong>, who clearly was fed up with Riggleman and should have more respect for Johnson.<\/p>\n

Q: Does Johnson’s arrival raise expectations for this team for the season?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: Yeah unfortunately.\u00a0 Or fortunately, who knows.\u00a0 For me, if you’re not going to make the playoffs I’d rather finish dead last and get higher draft picks.\u00a0 There’s not a lot of value in winning 78 games year after year.\u00a0 I still think .500 is a great goal for this squad.<\/p>\n

\n

(Boswell punted on these last 5 questions, saying they’d all be addressed in his 6\/28 column).<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: Did ownership somehow derail the team, or were they responsible for Riggleman’s departure by being cheap?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

A: I’m not going to blame the owners for being cheap, despite Riggleman’s contract paying him 2nd to last in the league.\u00a0 I will blame Rizzo for letting him hang on the option and failing to be a professional and just grant the guy a meeting.\u00a0 (Boswell says that ownership gets some blame here… but then explains why they shouldn’t since Riggleman signed the contract and that’s that)<\/em><\/p>\n

Q: How is the bullpen holding up?\u00a0 When will Zimmermann be shutdown for the season on innings limits?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A: I think the bullpen is starting to fray.\u00a0 Kimball, Slaten out, Clippard with a “tired arm” and Burnett continuing to blow leads.\u00a0 Storen got hammered the other night too.\u00a0 Mattheus has shown that he’s a nice mid-season callup, and we have other such arms in AAA that we can try out soon (Mandel, Wilkie).<\/p>\n

Zimmermann may be done sooner than we think.\u00a0 He’s at 94 innings now, is averaging 6 1\/3 per start, and if you think 150 is his limit then he’s only got 8-9 more starts.\u00a0 That’s only going to take us to the end of July.\u00a0 (boswell doesn’t really answer, just notes that Storen is on pace to appear in 80 games, which is ridiculous for a high-end closer).<\/em><\/p>\n

Conclusion: Boswell seems to really soften his opinion on Riggleman, gives him many compliments throughout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the wake of the Jim Riggleman debacle, I’m guessing that Boswell fields and opines a lot on Riggleman.\u00a0 Boswell and I differ in our opinions of Riggleman as a manager, and I found it telling that Riggleman noted on a radio show last week that Boswell had never interviewed him (a point refuted by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","category-natsgeneral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844","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=1844"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1868,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1844\/revisions\/1868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}