{"id":2193,"date":"2011-11-28T08:50:52","date_gmt":"2011-11-28T13:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2193"},"modified":"2011-11-28T09:23:19","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T14:23:19","slug":"nationals-off-season-todo-list-2011-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=2193","title":{"rendered":"Nationals off-season todo-list: 2011 edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3190\" style=\"width: 236px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/wangCheinming_copyright-the-Washington-Nationals1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3190\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3190\" title=\"wangCheinming_copyright the Washington Nationals\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/wangCheinming_copyright-the-Washington-Nationals1-226x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"226\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/wangCheinming_copyright-the-Washington-Nationals1-226x300.jpg 226w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/wangCheinming_copyright-the-Washington-Nationals1.jpg 362w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 226px) 100vw, 226px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3190\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signing Wang took care of one of our most important off-season tasks.  Photo via Washington Nationals<\/p><\/div>\n<p>(I&#8217;ve had this in draft form for weeks; might as well publish it now that the FA period has started).<\/p>\n<p>Before we get too deep into the off-season, I thought it&#8217;d be good to do a level set of what exactly this team is in the market for.\u00a0 Last year&#8217;s to-do list included a Center Fielder (<strong>Ankiel<\/strong>), a Right Fielder (<strong>Werth<\/strong>), a First baseman (<strong>LaRoche<\/strong>), a couple of Utility Infielders (<strong>Cora, Hairston<\/strong>), some veteran Starting Pitching (<strong>Gorzelanny<\/strong>), and some bullpen help (<strong>Coffey, Ramirez<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p>Based on how the team has played down the stretch and watching some players rise and fade in September, here&#8217;s what I think the team&#8217;s off-season to-do list may look like.<\/p>\n<p>First, lets start with what we know we do NOT need.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s players that seemingly have spots already locked up for 2012:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>C: With Pudge leaving, <strong>Ramos<\/strong> and <strong>Flores<\/strong> seem set to be the 2 catchers for a while here.\u00a0 Flores is healthy but clearly inferior to Ramos right now both defensively and at the plate.\u00a0 We just added <strong>Solano<\/strong> and <strong>Norris <\/strong>for catcher cover in case someone gets hurt.<\/li>\n<li>1B: <strong>LaRoche <\/strong>should be back healthy, and <strong>Morse <\/strong>has shown he clearly can play first if not, though that would lead to a hole in left field.<\/li>\n<li>2B: Should be ably filled by <strong>Espinosa<\/strong>, or <strong>Lombardozzi <\/strong>if we move Espinosa to short (see next).<\/li>\n<li>SS: <strong>Desmond<\/strong>&#8216;s one of the lowest qualifying OPS hitters in the league, but the team management loves him.\u00a0 I&#8217;m guessing he&#8217;s given one more season.\u00a0 <strong>Rizzo<\/strong> has already stated he&#8217;s not after <strong>Jose Reyes<\/strong>, and the Marlins seem set to over-pay him.<\/li>\n<li>3B: <strong>Zimmerman<\/strong> isn&#8217;t going anywhere, despite <a href=\"http:\/\/firejimbowden.blogspot.com\/2011\/08\/trade-never-considered.html\">some blogger&#8217;s statements<\/a> that he should be moved.<\/li>\n<li>LF: We&#8217;re assuming that <strong>Morse<\/strong> is the starter in left.<\/li>\n<li>RF: As with Zimmerman, Werth is set to play right field well into the next presidency.<\/li>\n<li>SPs: <strong>Strasburg<\/strong>, <strong>Zimmermann<\/strong>, and <strong>Lannan<\/strong> seem locks to be in the rotation.\u00a0 We re-signed <strong>Wang<\/strong> for the #4 rotation spot.\u00a0 There&#8217;s some talk here and there about non-tendering Lannan; he&#8217;s a solid mid-rotation guy who is still under arbitration control who is underrated by most people outside of this area, and I believe it would be a mistake to cut him loose at this stage.<\/li>\n<li>Setup\/Closer: <strong>Clippard<\/strong> and <strong>Storen<\/strong> managed to survive silly trade rumors this season and should be the 8th\/9th inning tandem for at least 2012.<\/li>\n<li>Loogy: <strong>Burnett<\/strong>: He struggled at times in 2011. He&#8217;s also under contract for 2012 with guaranteed money.\u00a0 So he&#8217;s going to be back.\u00a0 He&#8217;s more than a loogy though, so we&#8217;ll look for the team to replace <strong>Slaten<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Middle Relief:<strong> Henry Rodriguez<\/strong> and <strong>Ryan Mattheus<\/strong> look to return in their middle relief roles.\u00a0 <strong>Kimball<\/strong> will be on the 60-day DL until he&#8217;s proven to have regained his fastball.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s actually a pretty large chunk of our planned 25-man roster (17 of the 25 are already accounted for, for the most part).<\/p>\n<p>So, what do we need?\u00a0 In rough priority order:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><em><strong>Center Field<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: again, we go into an off season with  questions about center field.\u00a0 Ankiel had a decent September but overall his 2011 offense was poorl.\u00a0 He does fit Rizzo&#8217;s defensive mind, but is he the answer?\u00a0 Perhaps this is the  off-season Rizzo finally gets <strong>Upton<\/strong> or <strong>Span<\/strong> or someone of that ilk.\u00a0 Or perhaps we re-sign Ankiel to a holding deal, waiting for wunder-kid <strong>Bryce Harper<\/strong> to come up and take over.\u00a0 Or, perhaps the lineups that Johnson has  been fielding in September featuring Morse in LF, Werth in CF and Nix in  RF are telling enough that we can &#8220;get by&#8221; without investing in a  center fielder for 2012.\u00a0 (I&#8217;ve got a very large CF-only post coming up, with lots more detail).<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><em><strong>Right-handed middle relief<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: we may have to go digging for one-year FA <strong>Todd Coffey <\/strong>types again, because <strong>Kimball<\/strong> is on the DL til probably July and <strong>Carr<\/strong> was flat out released in September.\u00a0 That&#8217;s it in terms of 40-man roster options for right handed relievers.\u00a0 An internal option could be using <strong>Peacock<\/strong> as a 7th inning guy in 2012; he&#8217;s shown he can bring it 95-96 and perhaps even higher in short term situations.\u00a0 The team doesn&#8217;t seem to trust either <strong>Balester <\/strong>or <strong>Stammen<\/strong>, meaning we need a one-year guy.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><em><strong>Utility guys<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: we used Hairston, Cora, and <strong>Bixler<\/strong> as backup infielders.\u00a0 Hairston did a great job starting at 3B in  Zimmerman&#8217;s absence; the other two were awful.\u00a0 So we need a couple  replacements.\u00a0 <strong>Lombardozzi<\/strong> could fit in, but he&#8217;d be better served with a full season in AAA.\u00a0 Bixler was waived and claimed, so we&#8217;re almost guaranteed to go hunting on the FA pile.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><em><strong>Backup Outfielder<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: <strong>Bernadina<\/strong> seems to have run out of chances with this team.\u00a0 <strong>Corey Brown<\/strong> has been god-awful in AAA this year and was assigned off of our 40-man to the AAA team.\u00a0 <strong>Nix<\/strong> and <strong>Gomes<\/strong> are FAs.\u00a0\u00a0We can&#8217;t possibly offer Gomes arbitration and <a href=\"http:\/\/mlbcontracts.blogspot.com\/2005\/01\/washington-nationals_01.html\">guarantee him a $2M salary<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/split.cgi?id=nixla01&amp;year=2011&amp;t=b\">Nix can&#8217;t hit lefties.<\/a> In any case, we look like we may need a backup outfielder from  somewhere.\u00a0 Nix has been getting starts in RF (as mentioned above) down  the stretch and certainly has enough power to feature 6th in a lineup.\u00a0  Perhaps he&#8217;s worth another year.\u00a0 The team was in preliminary talks on a  2012 contract with him but nothing official has been signed.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><em><strong>Loogy<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: we could use a one-out guy, assuming that we need a 2nd lefty to Burnett.\u00a0 I&#8217;m guessing that <strong>Severino<\/strong> is not the answer, based on how little use he got in September.\u00a0 Or  maybe he is.\u00a0 Certainly I&#8217;d prefer giving him a shot versus scraping the  bottom of the reliever barrel again and finding another guy who performs as badly as Slaten.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><em><strong>Starting Pitcher<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: We re-signed our own FA <strong>Wang<\/strong>, and continue to be in the mix for more of a marquee name like <strong>Buehrle<\/strong> and <strong>Oswalt<\/strong>.\u00a0 Do we need another starter?\u00a0 Signing either of these two vets will probably indicate team flexibility to trade some of our younger starting pitching cache of <strong>Detwiler<\/strong>, <strong>Peacock<\/strong>, and <strong>Milone<\/strong>, but also may end up blocking a guy who could be just as good for a fraction of the price.<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #3366ff;\"><em><strong>Long man<\/strong><\/em><\/span>: I&#8217;m guessing that we assign a long man from one of\u00a0 Gorzelanny (most likely), Detwiler (somewhat likely), Balester and Stammen (less likely).\u00a0 The team seems down on both the latter guys, who are probably destined for DFA when they run out of options.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, thats a somewhat big todo list.\u00a0 Some spots are clearly fill-able from within, but we&#8217;re still looking at a few acquisitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(I&#8217;ve had this in draft form for weeks; might as well publish it now that the FA period has started). Before we get too deep into the off-season, I thought it&#8217;d be good to do a level set of what exactly this team is in the market for.\u00a0 Last year&#8217;s to-do list included a Center [&hellip;]<\/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":[106,184,335,141,188,35,259,164,37,100,101,143,98,135,482,369,80,52,181,114,115,234,112,461,39,149,43,113,177,339,136,129,179,167,51,297,86,36,108,38,142,172,176,34,128,147],"class_list":["post-2193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-carr","tag-adam-laroche","tag-alex-cora","tag-atahualpa-severino","tag-bj-upton","tag-brad-peacock","tag-brian-bixler","tag-bryce-harper","tag-chien-ming-wang","tag-cole-kimball","tag-collin-balester","tag-corey-brown","tag-craig-stammen","tag-danny-espinosa","tag-denard-span","tag-derek-norris","tag-doug-slaten","tag-drew-storen","tag-henry-rodriguez","tag-ian-desmond","tag-jayson-werth","tag-jerry-hairston","tag-jesus-flores","tag-jhonatan-solano","tag-john-lannan","tag-jonny-gomes","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-jose-reyes","tag-laynce-nix","tag-mark-buehrle","tag-michael-morse","tag-mike-rizzo","tag-rick-ankiel","tag-roger-bernadina","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-ryan-mattheus","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-sean-burnett","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-steve-lombardozzi","tag-todd-coffey","tag-tom-gorzelanny","tag-tommy-milone","tag-tyler-clippard","tag-wilson-ramos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193","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=2193"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3195,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2193\/revisions\/3195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}