{"id":341,"date":"2010-11-15T21:49:58","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T02:49:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=341"},"modified":"2013-02-07T11:09:54","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T16:09:54","slug":"nats-lineup-when-all-tradefa-rumors-go-through","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=341","title":{"rendered":"Nats Lineup when all Trade\/FA rumors go through."},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_375\" style=\"width: 268px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/brandonwebbzeroes.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-375\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-375\" title=\"brandonwebbzeroes\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/brandonwebbzeroes-258x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"258\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/brandonwebbzeroes-258x300.jpg 258w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/brandonwebbzeroes.jpg 299w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 258px) 100vw, 258px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-375\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Is this the Nat&#39;s 2011 Opening Day Starter?  (Photo deadspin.com)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By now we&#8217;ve all seen predictions of free agents in the off season.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s some from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2010\/11\/2011-top-50-free-agents.html\">Tim Dierkes<\/a>, here&#8217;s the rest of the <a href=\"https:\/\/spreadsheets.google.com\/ccc?key=tA_e1uO9bmOtok7ngLx6-KA&amp;hl=en&amp;authkey=CP6mo98K#gid=0\">MLB trade rumors writers<\/a>, here&#8217;s some by <a href=\"http:\/\/sportsillustrated.cnn.com\/2010\/writers\/jon_heyman\/11\/10\/cliff-lee-free-agents\/index.html?eref=writers\">Jon Heyman<\/a>, and here&#8217;s a bunch by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hardballtimes.com\/main\/blog_article\/top-2011-free-agent-landing-spots\/#When:05:04:53Z\">HardBall Times<\/a> guys. \u00a0 By various accounts the Nats are going to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Let <strong>Adam Dunn<\/strong> walk.<\/li>\n<li>Sign <strong>Carlos Pena<\/strong> to take his place<\/li>\n<li>Roll the dice on <strong>Brandon Webb<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Chase after but not obtain <strong>Cliff Lee<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Eventually sign <strong>Javier Vazquez <\/strong>(I really hope not)<\/li>\n<li>Maybe get <strong>Jorge de la Rosa<\/strong> (I hope not)<\/li>\n<li>Possibly get <strong>JJ Putz <\/strong>as a closer placeholder\/trade bait version of <strong>Matt Capps<\/strong><\/li>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/ul>\n<p>Note: I&#8217;ve also seen comments here and there that we&#8217;d be interested in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/takahhi01.shtml\">Hisanori Takahashi<\/a>, a 35yr old utility guy in the Mets bullpen or taking <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fukudko01.shtml\">Kosuke Fukudome<\/a> off the Cub&#8217;s hands.\u00a0 The former isn&#8217;t a FA and is arbitration eligible but the Mets <a href=\"http:\/\/sportsillustrated.cnn.com\/2010\/writers\/jon_heyman\/11\/10\/cliff-lee-free-agents\/1.html\">reportedly <\/a>are non-tendering him.\u00a0 The latter could be mildly intriguing; he&#8217;s a decent hitter, a decent fielder who has played center in the past.\u00a0 But it doesn&#8217;t necessarily improve over a Morse\/Bernadina combo.\u00a0 Of course, i&#8217;m also hearing about possible trades for <strong>Zack Greinke<\/strong> (as covered in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=312\">this blog posting<\/a>) or <strong>Matt Garza<\/strong>.\u00a0 I&#8217;d love to have either guy of course, but don&#8217;t want to give up the farm for either guy.\u00a0 And now that <strong>Dan Uggla<\/strong> has indicated that he wants out of Florida (and honestly, given the cheap-skate way the franchise is run and the way the players are run out of town as soon as they get too expensive, who wouldn&#8217;t?), there&#8217;s all sorts of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2010\/11\/dan-uggla-rumors-monday.html\">rumors <\/a>about his possible destination &#8230; and the Nats are in the <a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/news\/article.jsp?ymd=20101115&amp;content_id=16107480&amp;vkey=news_was&amp;c_id=was&amp;partnerId=rss_was\">thick <\/a>of it.<\/p>\n<p>(Side note: do you start to think that the Nats are acting a little out of character this off season?\u00a0 They&#8217;re attached to marquee free agents, they&#8217;re listed as &#8220;interested parties&#8221; on half the free agents out there, and they&#8217;re putting their name in the hat for all the big names on the trading block.\u00a0 Is this all for real or is this severe over-compensation for the Lerner&#8217;s spending the past 5 years of acting like MLB paupers?)<\/p>\n<p>So, our 2011 rotation could look like this:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Livan Hernandez<\/li>\n<li>Brandon Webb<\/li>\n<li>John Lannan<\/li>\n<li>Javier Vazquez<\/li>\n<li>Jordan Zimmermann<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Leaving the likes of <strong>Maya<\/strong>, <strong>Detwiler<\/strong>, injury disappointment <strong>Wang <\/strong>and $15M bust <strong>Jason Marquis <\/strong>on the sidelines (to say nothing of the next tier of guys like <strong>Stammen<\/strong>, <strong>Atilano<\/strong>, <strong>Martis<\/strong>, <strong>Mock <\/strong>and <strong>Chico <\/strong>looking at bullpen spots or AAA).\u00a0 I can&#8217;t see <strong>Sammy Solis<\/strong> making a <strong>Mike Leake<\/strong>-esque debut at the MLB level having never pitched a day in the minors, especially after his less-than-dominant AFL numbers.<\/p>\n<p>The POTENTIAL of this rotation is great.\u00a0 Webb&#8217;s a former Cy Young winner, Vazquez an innings eater who garnered Cy Young votes in 2009 in Atlanta.\u00a0 Lannan (outside of the first half of last year) is a difficult lefty who gets a ton of ground balls and pitches at a 110 era+ level, Livan is a revalation and Zimmermann is a <strong>Matt Cain<\/strong> replica who could be just as dominant with mid 90s possible shutdown stuff.\u00a0 The reality could be just as bad: Livan is a soft tossing righty who depends on guile and is regularly shelled, Webb hasn&#8217;t pitched in 2 years, Vazquez has lost his fastball, Zimmermann is promising but has never produced, and Lannan (our Ace) is a #4 pitcher on a good staff.\u00a0 Nothing like glass is half empty\/glass is half full analysis.<\/p>\n<p>Our non-pitching\/out-field lineup looks pretty set already for the 2011 season.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>(L) Nyjer Morgan &#8211; CF<\/li>\n<li>(R) Ian Desmond &#8211; 2b (yes I think he and Espinosa need to switch)<\/li>\n<li>(R) Ryan Zimmerman &#8211; 3b<\/li>\n<li>(L) Carlos Pena &#8211; 1b (he has to bat cleanup to go R-L-R in the heart of the order)<\/li>\n<li>(R) Josh Willingham &#8211; LF<\/li>\n<li>(L) Roger Bernadina\/(R) Michael Morse platoon in RF<\/li>\n<li>(R) Ivan Rodriguez &#8211; C<\/li>\n<li>(S) Danny Espinosa &#8211; SS<\/li>\n<li>Pitcher<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I can live with that.\u00a0 Frankly i&#8217;d like to see another outfielder acquisition.\u00a0 I liked Bernadina and Morse&#8217;s production this year but they&#8217;re not game changers.\u00a0 You really need to use your power positions on the field (first and third base, right field, left field) to hold your big boppers, and we need more production out of the RF spot.\u00a0 <strong>Jayson Werth<\/strong> would really fit in nicely there wouldn&#8217;t he?\u00a0 I guess we wait til 2012 and the introduction of <strong>Bryce Harper<\/strong> to fill that spot.<\/p>\n<p>I also think we need to do something in center\/leadoff.\u00a0 Morgan&#8217;s troubles towards the end of last season are well documented, but his production wasn&#8217;t earning him playing time.\u00a0 If the Red Sox acquire <strong>Carl Crawford<\/strong>, that might make <strong>Jacoby Ellsbury<\/strong> available.\u00a0 His 2010 was a wash but he&#8217;d be the perfect center fielder\/leadoff guy.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/e\/ellsbja01.shtml\">2009 stats<\/a>: 70sbs, .301 BA and a .355 obp.<\/p>\n<p>Willingham has mentioned that he would be willing to play First, and I think that&#8217;d be a great alternative if we can&#8217;t get any of the free agent 1st basement to come here.\u00a0 We could go with an outfield of Bernadina, Morgan and Morse with Willingham at 1st base, giving us a decently good lineup both offensively and defensively.<\/p>\n<p>It looks to be a really interesting offseason for the Nats.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By now we&#8217;ve all seen predictions of free agents in the off season.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s some from Tim Dierkes, here&#8217;s the rest of the MLB trade rumors writers, here&#8217;s some by Jon Heyman, and here&#8217;s a bunch by the HardBall Times guys. \u00a0 By various accounts the Nats are going to: Let Adam Dunn walk. Sign [&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":[139,353,164,251,362,37,246,98,1005,135,90,1493,114,146,281,42,341,115,1492,39,302,43,729,580,1008,41,74,317,434,87,131,136,893,122,167,51,36,19,76,366,264,883,254],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-dunn","tag-brandon-webb","tag-bryce-harper","tag-carl-crawford","tag-carlos-pena","tag-chien-ming-wang","tag-cliff-lee","tag-craig-stammen","tag-dan-uggla","tag-danny-espinosa","tag-garrett-mock","tag-hisanori-takahashi","tag-ian-desmond","tag-ivan-rodriguez","tag-jacoby-ellsbury","tag-jason-marquis","tag-javier-vazquez","tag-jayson-werth","tag-jj-putz","tag-john-lannan","tag-jon-heyman","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-jorge-de-la-rosa","tag-josh-willingham","tag-kosuke-fukudome","tag-livan-hernandez","tag-luis-atilano","tag-matt-cain","tag-matt-capps","tag-matt-chico","tag-matt-garza","tag-michael-morse","tag-mike-leake","tag-nyjer-morgan","tag-roger-bernadina","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-sammy-solis","tag-shairon-martis","tag-ted-lerner","tag-tim-dierkes","tag-yunesky-maya","tag-zack-greinke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","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=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5941,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/5941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}