{"id":304,"date":"2010-11-10T17:36:17","date_gmt":"2010-11-10T22:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=304"},"modified":"2013-12-27T10:53:41","modified_gmt":"2013-12-27T15:53:41","slug":"nats-gm-for-a-day-part-2-the-free-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=304","title":{"rendered":"Nats GM for a day. Part 2: the Free Agents"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Is this the National’s 2011 First Baseman? Photo: J. Meric\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

In our first <\/a>of a 3-part post, we talked about the arbitration cases that the Nats face.\u00a0 Some of those decisions are already being made and that post has been updated.\u00a0 Now, lets talk about the free agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Player<\/td>\nWhat Should Washington Do?\/What WILL We do?<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dunn, Adam<\/td>\nWe should resign him, but Rizzo seems dead set against it.\u00a0 Offer him arbitration and let him walk.<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Batista, Miguel<\/td>\nValuable rubber arm in BP; I would resign him to a simliar 1 year deal in 2011.<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Harris, Willie<\/td>\nLet him go.\u00a0 Declining value, Morse a better utility option.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mench, Kevin<\/td>\nLet him go; awful september numbers.\u00a0 Perhaps ML FA in AAA<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Kennedy, Adam<\/td>\nDecline club option and let him go.\u00a0 No need for 2nd baseman.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Clearly, the Adam Dunn<\/strong> decision will be critical to the direction of the team and our offense next year.\u00a0 As noted above, personally I think he needs to be re-signed.\u00a0 The team’s actions all year (plus Tom Boswell<\/strong>‘s repeated comments about how the front office has bungled the negotiations) seem to indicate though that we’re content with getting the compensatory picks and moving another direction.\u00a0 If we decide to let him go, I’d prefer to sign someone like Adam LaRoche<\/strong>, a player who plays decent defense and shows a good bat.\u00a0 I don’t think Carlos Pena<\/strong> (as is frequently rumored) is a good choice, and there’s sentiment in the Tampa Bay community that he may stay on in Tampa and try to improve on an awful 2010 season.\u00a0 But, most pundits seem to think he’s coming here.<\/p>\n

We also could become more creative and put someone like Josh Willingham<\/strong>, Michael Morse<\/strong> or even a supposedly healthy Jesus Flores<\/strong> at first as a stop gap until one of our prospects like Chris Marrero<\/strong> or even, say it isn’t so, Bryce Harper<\/strong> is ready to come up.\u00a0 I mean come on, you “hide” defensive liabilities at first base.\u00a0 If someone is 6’4″ and has any fielding ability they should be good enough to play the position.<\/p>\n

Moving on to other FAs to be the decisions are relatively easy.\u00a0 Harris<\/strong>, Mench<\/strong>, and Kennedy<\/strong> are gone.\u00a0 None batted well enough to even consider and we have more able (and cheaper) minor leaguers ready to come up and serve as backups.\u00a0 The last FA to be Miguel Batista<\/strong> proved to be a great asset to the bullpen at relatively little cost and would be worth bringing back.\u00a0 We signed him last year on a non-guaranteed contract but guaranteeing him $1M wouldn’t be a huge risk.<\/p>\n

Now, given the above, what is in store in the FA market?\u00a0 I know i’ve heard lots of noise about how the Nats are going after Cliff Lee<\/strong> but I just don’t see that happening.\u00a0 Here’s what I do see them doing:<\/p>\n

1. Getting one or two pitchers<\/strong>.\u00a0 Rizzo has a history with Brandon Webb<\/strong>, Arizona has blown enough cash on the guy, and he may be ready to come back.\u00a0 We sign him to a one year deal and try to get lucky.\u00a0 I’d also be happy with trading for one of Tampa’s spare starters (Garza<\/strong>, Shields<\/strong>), acquiring Vazquez <\/strong>(who I think is an NL, non-NY market pitcher and could return to his 2009 Atlanta form) or a De La Rosa<\/strong> type (hard thrower and can get Ks).\u00a0 Most pundits have us signing Vazquez, some have us getting Webb.<\/p>\n

2. Get a FA first baseman<\/strong>: I’ve previously said I like Adam LaRoche.\u00a0 Rizzo likes Carlos Pena.\u00a0 We’ll see what happens.\u00a0 There’s lots of teams looking for first basemen, so the competition for these guys may force our hand into a guy we don’t want.<\/p>\n

3. Find a utility player<\/strong>: we need a better version of Willie Harris<\/strong>.\u00a0 May come from the minors as a prospect but probably not.\u00a0 We need a guy who can play 2nd\/ss or 3b in a pinch.<\/p>\n

Less Likely:<\/p>\n

4. Sign or acquire a marquee outfielder<\/strong>.\u00a0 I’d love to see someone like Werth <\/strong>or Ross <\/strong>in right field, which could move Bernadina <\/strong>to center, allow us to rid ourselves of Morgan <\/strong>and then use Maxwell <\/strong>as the 4th outfielder.\u00a0 We could also acquire someone like Rasmus <\/strong>or Ellsbury<\/strong>, put them in center, dump Morgan and go with Willingham<\/strong>-new CF-Bernadina.\u00a0 Or we could use a Morse<\/strong>\/Bernadina platoon in Right with Bernadina occasionally spelling Morgan in center (though they’re both lefty and both hit relatively the same, so that may not actually work).<\/p>\n

I don’t really see us going after any bullpen help or a closer.\u00a0 As Zuckerman once said, we’re remarkably set on 2011 positions despite being a 90-loss team.\u00a0\u00a0 We had a good bullpen last year and have a couple of decent looking reliever prospects in Carr <\/strong>and Kimball<\/strong>.\u00a0 I could see a 2011 bullpen with Clippard, Burnett, Storen, Stammen, Balester, Slaten<\/strong> and Carr<\/strong>.\u00a0 Or substitute some of our arbitration\/fa guys for Stammen and Balester.<\/p>\n

I’ve said for a while that the Nats need to spend like a mid market team.\u00a0 $90M payroll at a minimum so as not to insult the fanbase.\u00a0 Perhaps this off season we’ll see it.\u00a0 They only have a paltry $24M committed for 2011 right now and, while that number will increase with potentially 13 arbitration cases, a huge chunk of last year’s payroll is now gone (just Guzman<\/strong> and Dunn consisted of nearly 1\/3 of our 2010 payroll).\u00a0 So, lets see some FA dollars get spent!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our first of a 3-part post, we talked about the arbitration cases that the Nats face.\u00a0 Some of those decisions are already being made and that post has been updated.\u00a0 Now, lets talk about the free agents. Player What Should Washington Do?\/What WILL We do? Dunn, Adam We should resign him, but Rizzo seems […]<\/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":[106,139,1585,184,353,164,362,124,246,500,174,100,101,98,1219,80,52,281,49,341,115,112,729,580,915,2158,301,131,136,173,129,122,167,108,125,128,987],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","tag-adam-carr","tag-adam-dunn","tag-adam-kennedy","tag-adam-laroche","tag-brandon-webb","tag-bryce-harper","tag-carlos-pena","tag-chris-marrero","tag-cliff-lee","tag-cody-ross","tag-colby-rasmus","tag-cole-kimball","tag-collin-balester","tag-craig-stammen","tag-cristian-guzman","tag-doug-slaten","tag-drew-storen","tag-jacoby-ellsbury","tag-james-shields","tag-javier-vazquez","tag-jayson-werth","tag-jesus-flores","tag-jorge-de-la-rosa","tag-josh-willingham","tag-justin-maxwell","tag-kevin-mench","tag-mark-zuckerman","tag-matt-garza","tag-michael-morse","tag-miguel-batista","tag-mike-rizzo","tag-nyjer-morgan","tag-roger-bernadina","tag-sean-burnett","tag-tom-boswell","tag-tyler-clippard","tag-willie-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","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=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8384,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/8384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}