{"id":3371,"date":"2011-12-14T08:28:34","date_gmt":"2011-12-14T13:28:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=3371"},"modified":"2013-01-14T13:03:15","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T18:03:15","slug":"ask-boswell-12511-edition-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=3371","title":{"rendered":"Ask Boswell 12\/12\/11 edition"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3378\" style=\"width: 254px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pujolsalbert_fanasyknuckleheads.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3378\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3378\" title=\"pujolsalbert_fanasyknuckleheads.com\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pujolsalbert_fanasyknuckleheads.com_-244x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"244\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pujolsalbert_fanasyknuckleheads.com_-244x300.jpg 244w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/pujolsalbert_fanasyknuckleheads.com_.jpg 326w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 244px) 100vw, 244px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3378\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">If you squint, this almost looks like an Angels uniform already.  Photo: unknown via fantasyknuckleheads.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Here&#8217;s <strong>Tom Boswell<\/strong>&#8216; weekly <a href=\"http:\/\/live.washingtonpost.com\/ask-boswell-1212.html\">Monday chat on 12\/12\/11<\/a>.\u00a0 Despite being in the baseball off-season, the chat had a TON of baseball questions.\u00a0 Of the baseball questions he took, here&#8217;s how I&#8217;d have answered them.<\/p>\n<p>As always, questions are edited for clarity and I write my own answer prior to reading his.<\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Is Albert Pujols a cautionary tale for the Nats signing Ryan Zimmerman to a long term contract?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Its not *quite* the same; <strong>Pujols <\/strong>is better but older, and if you believe the scuttlebutt\/internet rumors may be even older still.\u00a0 Zimmerman will hit his walk year at age 28 with a good 3-4 years of &#8220;peak&#8221; in him (assuming that your &#8220;peak&#8221; is somewhere around age 31).\u00a0 So the Angels just bought 10 years of almost-certain decline for Pujols while the next deal that <strong>Zimmerman <\/strong>signs will still include his most productive years.\u00a0 The Cardinals were nearly $40M off in the end, AND didn&#8217;t offer up something like the personal services contract that guarantees the retired Pujols income into his 50s.\u00a0 So there&#8217;s more at work here, honestly.\u00a0 In the respect that the Cardinals &#8220;played chicken&#8221; to a certain extent with Pujols, then yes there is a cautionary tale for how the Nats treat Zimmerman.<\/p>\n<p>But there are some issues with extending Zimmerman.\u00a0 He&#8217;s injury-prone.\u00a0 He&#8217;s missed nearly 150 games in 5 seasons, had two surgeries and a third major injury (his labrum) that could have been surgical.\u00a0 Is his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/z\/zimmery01.shtml\">2009 season<\/a> (33 homers, 106 rbi and a 133 ops+) the best possible case or is that his sustainable production?\u00a0 The team <a href=\"http:\/\/www.natsinsider.com\/2011\/12\/nats-zim-can-learn-from-pujols-drama.html\">wants to extend him<\/a> (if you believe the beat reporters) but the team has also rebuffed Zimmerman&#8217;s agents&#8217; attempts to negotiate this off-season (if you believe ex-Nats gm hack <strong>Jim Bowden<\/strong>).\u00a0 Me?\u00a0 I&#8217;d see what happens in 2012 and make a decision next off-season.\u00a0\u00a0 <em>Boswell assumes the Nats will offer Zimmerman a <strong>Troy Tulowitzki <\/strong>type deal, and so do I frankly<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>What are your opinions on the seemingly arbitrary Hall of Fame voting process?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: My issues with HoF voting include the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Voters who are voting on morals\/ethics stances and not productivity on the field (say, <strong>Roberto Alomar<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<li>Voters who are swayed by revisionist-historian sabremetrics nerds who canonize players 25 years after they played but forget that those same players were essentially mediocre during their day (i&#8217;m looking at you <strong>Bert Blyleven<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<li>Voters who use the HoF vote to penalize players that stiffed them or were mean to them during their career (how else can you explain some of the voting results for players that should be sure-fire near 100% electees?\u00a0 <strong>Willie Mays<\/strong> only got 94% of the vote, <strong>Mickey Mantle<\/strong> an even more ridiculous 88%.<\/li>\n<li>Voters who fail to vote for players who have never had any sniff of PED controversy but who played in the era (<strong>Jeff Bagwell<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<li>Voters who have now elected nearly <a href=\"fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/01\/05\/is-the-hall-of-fame-too-small\/\">13% of active players<\/a> from the 30s and 40s but who can&#8217;t find a place for the best players from the 80s (<strong>Raines<\/strong>, <strong>Larkin<\/strong>, <strong>Morris<\/strong> and the like).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As for the election of <strong>Ron Santo<\/strong>, he is another case of a guy who slipped through the cracks and who should have been elected by the veterans committee long before he passed.\u00a0 What sense does it make to canonize a guy right after he dies?\u00a0 So that his wife can be happy?\u00a0 I don&#8217;t get it.\u00a0 Santo was the same guy, with the same stats, ever since the day he retired.<\/p>\n<p><em>Boswell says he agrees with the &#8220;first ballot hall of fame&#8221; distinction and supports NOT voting for guys who aren&#8217;t the uber-elite on the first ballot.\u00a0 He also mentions that Blyleven&#8217;s candidacy was clearly helped by outside lobbying.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Where &#8212; if at all &#8212; does Yu Darvish fit within your &#8220;pay up for quality&#8221; theory in last weekend&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/sports\/nationals\/in-mlb-free-agency-teams-face-the-albert-pujols-dilemma-how-much-is-too-much\/2011\/12\/09\/gIQAxANTlO_story.html\">post-Pujols signing column<\/a>? <\/strong><\/em>Also, <em><strong>How likely are the Nats to make a serious bid for Darvish?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Boswell&#8217;s theory in baseball free agency is simple: you pay up for quality because the rest is junk.\u00a0 A good working theory in some respects; he figures that &#8220;going for it&#8221; and failing is better than just dipping your toes into the FA water.<\/p>\n<p>I think the Nats will put in a legitimate offer, but that it won&#8217;t be close to the $51M that it took to sign Dice-K.<\/p>\n<p>My personal concern with Darvish is the fact that many have come before him from Japan and very few have succeeded.\u00a0 There&#8217;s yet to really be one impact pitcher that has come from the Japanese leagues.\u00a0 And even those that do come over with great pedigrees (<strong>Dice-K <\/strong>as the most recent high profile example) tend to burn out quickly.\u00a0 It isn&#8217;t a race thing; its more of a level of competition and a different pitching routine in the Japanese leagues (starters go on 5 days rest, not our traditional 4).\u00a0 For me, the risk is not worth it.\u00a0 I know these teams have scouted the hell out of Darvish and believe what they believe, but the fact is that the NPB is a AAA-quality league and the minors are FILLED with guys who dominated AAA but who couldn&#8217;t get guys out in the majors.\u00a0 If it was just a FA signing (4yrs $50M) that&#8217;s one level of risk, but throwing in nearly that amount just in posting fees and suddenly you&#8217;re compensating a guy at the level of an elite Ace in this league without any proof that the guy will actually live up to that level.\u00a0\u00a0 <em>Boswell uses the same comparisons as I do, and predicts that the Nats will be over-bid by the major market teams that are looking for starters.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>How much should St. Louis fans be remonstrating about Pujols leaving?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Not much.\u00a0 For all those that say that athletes should take less money to be &#8220;the man&#8221; for their first team, I say, &#8220;put yourself in his shoes.&#8221;\u00a0 He was offered more money in Los Angeles.\u00a0 Plain and simple.\u00a0 If it was a few million dollars over 10 years that&#8217;s one thing; $30M over 10 years plus the personal services contract?\u00a0 That&#8217;s a lot more.\u00a0 Everyone who thinks that Pujols &#8220;owed&#8221; something to St. Louis, or that he should have wanted to stay there his whole career like <strong>Stan Musial<\/strong> needs to remind themselves of one thing; If Musial played in the Free Agency era instead of the reserve clause era, would he have stayed in St. Louis his whole career?\u00a0 In my opinion if St. Louis couldn&#8217;t come up with the per-year payroll, they should have gotten creative with perhaps points in the team or something along those lines.\u00a0 If St. Louis really wanted Pujols to be the face of the Cardinals for the next 50 years, they could have made it happen. <em>Boswell agrees with me, for the most part.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Do you agree with the Washington Post preventing its writers from voting for Baseball Awards?\u00a0 (post-season and hall of fame, the typical BBWAA awards)?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: I think its ridiculous that the Post, and the Post alone apparently, takes this stance.\u00a0 The whole point of using baseball writers to vote on these awards is because baseball writers are the BEST people to use; they cover teams, go to the games, and see the stars in action to a greater extent than anyone else besides the team officials and players themselves.\u00a0 <em>Boswell points out the obvious conflicts of interest, but those same conflicts exist for every writer in every market.\u00a0 Honestly I think the way the NFL does things (with a nominating board of senior national writers) is a far better way to determine who gets in to the Hall of Fame.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Is is just me, or did it seem obvious the Cards didn&#8217;t really want to sign Pujols?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: No, to me the Cardinals set their price and when the price went above it, they waved good bye.\u00a0 Now, you can argue that the price they set was far too low (If Pujols was looking to beat AAV of <strong>Alex Rodriguez<\/strong>&#8216;s contract just on principle, then he&#8217;s a fool and was never going to beat that), but in the end the Angels just offered more money than made sense to St. Louis from a long term financial viability perspective.\u00a0 Fair enough.\u00a0 There&#8217;s lots of articles out there saying how much St. Louis privately breathed a sign of relief that they&#8217;re not going to have to go through the &#8220;oh my gosh how overpaid is Pujols&#8221; phase 8-10 years from now&#8230; <em>Boswell thinks St. Louis was banking on a home-town discount.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Should the Nats be looking to sign guys like Clippard and Storen long term (as they should be doing with Strasburg)?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: No.\u00a0 Not that I don&#8217;t like these two players, but relievers (outside of the uber-elite, guys like <strong>Mariano Rivera<\/strong>) are mostly replaceable.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve posted <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=724\">time and again<\/a> about how overvalued relievers and (especially) closers are.\u00a0 You just should not over-spend for these guys; you can always find more of them in your farm system.\u00a0 <em>Boswell says you can&#8217;t sign them all<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Do you see Ross Detwiler making the 2012 rotation<\/strong><\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>A: No, not at this point.\u00a0 The team is clearly trying to find another FA starter, which puts <strong>Detwiler<\/strong>&#8216;s spot directly in their cross hairs.\u00a0 Look for Detwiler to be traded as soon as a new pitcher is signed, now that they&#8217;ve locked up <strong>Gorzelanny<\/strong> as the lefty long-man\/spot starter already; I can&#8217;t see both Detwiler and Gorzelanny in the bullpen.\u00a0 Detwiler is out of options and can&#8217;t be stashed in AAA.\u00a0 Of course, he could come down with a mystery soft-tissue injury that delays the inevitable.\u00a0\u00a0 <em>Boswell says the same thing, but doesn&#8217;t talk about Detwiler&#8217;s lack of options<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Did the Nats lack of winter meeting activity indicate that the Lerners are cheap and that the team is going nowhere?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Wow, fail to sign a $200M player and you&#8217;re a failure.\u00a0 Lets have some patience here; the team may have really been on <strong>Buehrle<\/strong> but wasn&#8217;t on anybody else that has already signed frankly.\u00a0 <strong>Oswalt<\/strong> is still out there, as is Darvish.\u00a0 As is <strong>Fielder<\/strong>, who could be the massive run-creating machine that this lineup needs.\u00a0 <em>Boswell says the need to sign Oswalt is bigger now, and I&#8217;d tend to agree since he was the guy I wanted in the first place<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Any idea whether the Nats ever made Buerhle an offer or whether there  really was any interest in Reyes?  Do you think the Nats will make a  move on Darvish or the Cuban CF Cespesdes?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Nats definitely made Buehrle an offer; it just wasn&#8217;t very close.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t think there was interest in Reyes; they really like Desmond at 1\/20th of the cost right now.\u00a0 I think the team will definitely post a reasonable bid (perhaps $25-$30M for Darvish) but probably gets out-bid.\u00a0 And yes I think the team will be in the Cespedes bonanza, but may be out-bid by another team as well that has a longer-term view on the guy.\u00a0 <em>Boswell mirrors what I&#8217;ve said here and also says they&#8217;re &#8220;serious&#8221; about Oswalt now.\u00a0 But are they serious enough?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Do you expect the Nats to try and bid on Zack Greinke next year? <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Yes absolutely.\u00a0 If <strong>Greinke <\/strong>hits the open market, this team will be all over him.\u00a0 If they sign Oswalt this year and Greinke next, you could be looking at a 2013 rotation that goes Strasburg, Zimmermann, Oswalt, Greinke and a death-match struggle between our best 5-6 starter prospects for the #5 spot.\u00a0 That&#8217;s scary good.\u00a0 <em>Boswell says he hopes the team doesn&#8217;t pass on the rest of this off-season just to wait for the next one.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Did the Marlin&#8217;s offer too much or did the Nationals not offer enough for Buehrle?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: A little of both probably; Buehrle reportedly liked DC and liked the money,\u00a0 but a 4th year and nearly $19M more was too much to match.\u00a0 3yrs\/$39M has an AAV of $13M, which was actually LESS than he earned on his last contract.\u00a0 So that doesn&#8217;t sound right; would we have offered him a pay cut?\u00a0 <em>Boswell says the Marlins went too high, which was my initial reaction until seeing the AVV<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Braun&#8217;s steroid test showed twice the level of any other sample. Ever. That has to be a false positive&#8230; or some other such type of error.  What does that mean medically? Did they take the blood sample from the  same cheek and 5 minutes after Braun shot up?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Fair point.\u00a0 That&#8217;s kind of what i&#8217;m thinking frankly.\u00a0 The test doesn&#8217;t seem to make sense.\u00a0 I will say that its awfully irritating to read all these posts already assuming he&#8217;s guilty.\u00a0 <em>Boswell didn&#8217;t have much of an opinion yet<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>So, is Fielder completely off the table for the Nats? Seems weird that  we were one of the teams linked to him all season, and now, nada. Boras  power play at work here?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Boras clearly uses us to play for his clients.\u00a0 But I also don&#8217;t think the team is completely out of it for Fielder.\u00a0 The team needs offense, can stay with Morse in left for a bit and just can eat it on <strong>LaRoche<\/strong>.\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 <em>Boswell doesn&#8217;t know what to think<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Q: <em><strong>Have you heard of any more interest in Edwin Jackson from the Nats?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>A: Interestingly no.\u00a0 I would have thought the Nats would be full bore over the guy, based on past interest.\u00a0 But nobody&#8217;s printed a single word of Jackson rumors this offseason.\u00a0 Perhaps his representation is just waiting out the big names before shopping their guy.\u00a0 He did seem to come up rather ineffective in the post-season, dampering his value, so perhaps the team has soured on him.\u00a0 <em>Boswell says Oswalt is better option<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s Tom Boswell&#8216; weekly Monday chat on 12\/12\/11.\u00a0 Despite being in the baseball off-season, the chat had a TON of baseball questions.\u00a0 Of the baseball questions he took, here&#8217;s how I&#8217;d have answered them. As always, questions are edited for clarity and I write my own answer prior to reading his. Q: Is Albert Pujols [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14,1390,5],"tags":[184,123,357,574,572,314,52,253,575,576,507,171,339,161,129,183,571,577,51,297,388,36,180,355,38,573,125,176,128,279,393,300,254],"class_list":["post-3371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","category-chatmailbag-responses","category-hall-of-fame","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-laroche","tag-albert-pujols","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-barry-larkin","tag-bert-blyleven","tag-daisuke-matsuzaka","tag-drew-storen","tag-edwin-jackson","tag-jack-morris","tag-jeff-bagwell","tag-jim-bowden","tag-mariano-rivera","tag-mark-buehrle","tag-mickey-mantle","tag-mike-rizzo","tag-prince-fielder","tag-roberto-alomar","tag-ron-santo","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-roy-oswalt","tag-ryan-braun","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-scott-boras","tag-stan-musial","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tim-raines","tag-tom-boswell","tag-tom-gorzelanny","tag-tyler-clippard","tag-willie-mays","tag-yoenis-cespedes","tag-yu-darvish","tag-zack-greinke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371","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=3371"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3392,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3371\/revisions\/3392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}