{"id":4097,"date":"2012-04-04T20:11:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T00:11:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4097"},"modified":"2013-06-11T08:04:48","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T12:04:48","slug":"lannan-option-shocker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4097","title":{"rendered":"Lannan option shocker"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Hope to see you back soon Mr Lannan. Photo Luis Alvarez\/AP via www.timesunion.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I was sort of curious why there was so much volume on my Nationals RSS feeds this morning; little did I know there was a relatively shocking piece of news to report and comment on; John Lannan<\/strong> has been optioned to AAA to start the 2012 season.<\/p>\n

I’ll admit it: I had Lannan penciled in as the 5th starter as soon as Chien-Ming Wang<\/strong> went down with injury. \u00a0I didn’t give it a second thought. \u00a0When the Nats bought Edwin Jackson<\/strong>, they had 6 starters for 5 spots and my presumption was that Lannan was the default choice for the 5th starter once Wang proved not to be ready for the start of the season. \u00a0In the back of my mind I knew Lannan had an option … but never thought that he and his $5M salary would be dropped to Syracuse.<\/p>\n

This action definitely sends some statements. \u00a0In no particular order:<\/p>\n

1. Unlike past iterations of the team (notably the 2009 team and the bullpen construction decisions made at the end of spring training), this sends the message that roster spots are not entirely guaranteed by virtue of salary or options status. \u00a0We all knew Ross Detwiler<\/strong> had no options and was set to make the 25-man roster, but nobody thought he’d be beating out Lannan for the 5th starter spot. \u00a0Its hard to argue he didn’t earn it; his Spring Training ERA was half that of Lannan’s.<\/p>\n

2. The team isn’t concerned about “wasting” salary: Lannan joins fellow multi-millionare Yuniesky Maya<\/strong> in Syracuse, meaning that the Syracuse rotation is set to earn a sizeable percentage per annum of the major league rotation (roughly $20M for the Nats starting 5 versus $7M and change in AAA).\u00a0 In fact if it weren’t for Jackson’s $11M salary the two rotations would be roughly equal.\u00a0 Amazing.<\/p>\n

3. Was there a stated rotation competition still ongoing this late into Spring Training? \u00a0If so it certainly didn’t come out in the dozens of stories filed by the beat reporters from Viera. \u00a0Perhaps the real shock here is that nobody knew that Lannan’s job was in jeopardy. \u00a0Did Lannan?<\/p>\n

4. Sending Lannan down isn’t the same thing as sending Bryce Harper<\/strong> down: I’ve seen some bloggers kvetching about the statement “we’re starting with our best 25” when explaining the demotion while the team breaks camp with 3 non-roster invitees (Tracy, Carroll, Nady<\/strong>), at least one of which is set to get major reps in the outfield, and none of which are as good as Harper right now. \u00a0The simple matter is this; there’s “money” considerations and then there’s “MONEY” considerations. \u00a0Just keeping Harper in the minors a couple of weeks guarantees us one more year of his service prior to FA eligibility, and that’s hugely important. \u00a0No-one will argue the WAR-value add of 2 weeks of a 19yr old rookie versus 162 games of a 25-yr old emerging slugger.<\/p>\n

I can buy some of the argument, by the way, that the Super-2 status concerns may be moot with Harper, considering that the team is in its best interests to buy out Harper’s arbitration years before he hits them. \u00a0Other forward-thinking teams (Tampa, Colorado, Los Angeles, Milwaukee) have certainly been doing this with their younger stars (Evan Longoria<\/strong>, Matt Moore<\/strong>, Troy Tulowitzki<\/strong>, Matt Kemp<\/strong>, and Ryan Braun<\/strong> respectively for the above teams). \u00a0But, as far as I can tell none of the above players are advised by Scott Boras<\/strong>, who knows maximum value is obtained by waiting til the last minute, by playing all the angles, and by not giving “home town \u00a0discounts.” \u00a0So for me, there is still significant future value in keeping Harper in the minors until mid-to-late June. \u00a0The difference can be googled by the reader, as WP writers have done this analysis several times in the past and discovered that a superstar avoiding super-2 can mean $14-$18M in future salary.<\/p>\n

5. Davey Johnson <\/strong>needs to get on the same page as his boss (aka, Mike Rizzo<\/strong>). \u00a0Johnson telling the press “John’s my guy,” as he reportedly did just last week, or Johnson prematurely announcing that Lannan had won the 5th starter spot and then revoking it is a serious breach of boss-employee trust. \u00a0 No wonder Lannan “took the news hard;” how would you feel if you were blindsided by your employer a week after them telling you that you were doing a great job and that everything seemed fine? \u00a0In this respect, the team seemed to have done Lannan wrong. \u00a0I’ll caveat this by saying that none of us armchair pundits are in the clubhouse on a day to day basis, so none of us had any idea what conversations Johnson and Lannan may have had leading up to his demotion.<\/p>\n

6. I will have to agree with others who think this sends a bad message to the rest of the team. \u00a0Lannan by all respects is the kind of player teams want. \u00a0He doesn’t make waves, he doesn’t get bad press. \u00a0He was our opening day starter twice in recent years, he was a great example of a middle-round player overcoming his draft position and potential to make the majors, and he frankly isn’t that bad a pitcher. \u00a0Does the team’s “treatment” of Lannan send the wrong message to its veterans? \u00a0If so, that’s a bad cloud to have hanging over a team with some serious money tied up with its veterans (namely Werth<\/strong>, Zimmerman<\/strong> and Gonzalez<\/strong>). \u00a0If these guys didn’t like the way the team handled this situation, the clubhouse could be lost fairly easily.<\/p>\n

7. You would think this action kills what remaining trade value Lannan had; Rizzo had already spoken of how the trade market for him was “thin” to begin with. \u00a0Lannan is a tough asset to get equal value for; he doesn’t over power you, he has unimposing stats (career 101 ERA+, or exactly MLB average), and he doesn’t get a ton of Ks. \u00a0He is a durable lefty who can fit at the back of your rotation. \u00a0Is that worth $5M a year (and more next year when he hits arbitration again)? \u00a0Or, more importantly to the Nats, is that worth a starting position player? \u00a0Certainly the Angels aren’t giving up their promising CF Peter Bourjos<\/strong> (as an example) for Lannan straight up. \u00a0We’d have to sweeten the pot. \u00a0Except that at some point, the value of keeping a disgruntled Lannan in AAA as starter insurance will eventually be more important than whatever role player we could get in return.<\/p>\n

The one precedent that gives me hope on the trade front is when the team somehow turned demoted and malcontented\u00a0Lastings Milledge<\/strong> into Nyjer Morgan<\/strong> (yes I know there was two others involved, but in terms of like for like, Milledge essentially turned into Morgan). \u00a0Perhaps Detwiler will continue his late 2011 performance into April of 2012 and will remain our starter-in-waiting to cover for eventual injuries and what not. \u00a0This would give the team more confidence to shop the now-insurance policy Lannan and wait for the right deal.<\/p>\n

All in all, just your ordinary Wednesday in Nats town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was sort of curious why there was so much volume on my Nationals RSS feeds this morning; little did I know there was a relatively shocking piece of news to report and comment on; John Lannan has been optioned to AAA to start the 2012 season. I’ll admit it: I had Lannan penciled in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[1027,164,835,37,137,253,472,385,115,39,491,145,229,129,122,512,51,388,36,180,458,837,883],"class_list":["post-4097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-minorspitching","tag-brett-carroll","tag-bryce-harper","tag-chad-tracy","tag-chien-ming-wang","tag-davey-johnson","tag-edwin-jackson","tag-evan-longoria","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-jayson-werth","tag-john-lannan","tag-lastings-milledge","tag-matt-kemp","tag-matt-moore","tag-mike-rizzo","tag-nyjer-morgan","tag-peter-bourjos","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-ryan-braun","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-scott-boras","tag-troy-tulowitzki","tag-xavier-nady","tag-yunesky-maya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4097","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=4097"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6949,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4097\/revisions\/6949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}