{"id":455,"date":"2010-12-09T13:40:24","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T18:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=455"},"modified":"2013-04-23T14:16:02","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T18:16:02","slug":"nats-should-trade-for-jacoby-ellsbury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=455","title":{"rendered":"Nats should trade for Jacoby Ellsbury"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Rizzo; go get this guy! Photo Bosoxinjection.com<\/p><\/div>\n

The Red Sox’s signing of Carl Crawford<\/strong><\/a> to a 7yr, $142M contract<\/a> (a contract undoubtedly pushed skyward by the Nats Jayson Werth <\/strong>deal a few days earlier)\u00a0 makes for a rather imposing possible Red Sox Lineup in 2011.\u00a0 Here’s a probable opening day lineup:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. 2B Dustin Pedroia (R)<\/li>\n
  2. LF Carl Crawford (L)<\/li>\n
  3. 1B Adrian Gonzalez (L)<\/li>\n
  4. 3B Kevin Youkilis (R)<\/li>\n
  5. DH David Ortiz (L)<\/li>\n
  6. RF J.D. Drew (L)<\/li>\n
  7. SS Marco Scutaro (R)<\/li>\n
  8. C Jarrod Saltalamacchia (S)<\/li>\n
  9. CF Jacoby Ellsbury (L)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now, one thing is immediately apparent with this lineup.\u00a0 They are incredibly lefty-heavy through the heart of their order.\u00a0 And in a division with CC Sabathia<\/strong>, probably Andy Pettitte <\/strong>and potentially Cliff Lee <\/strong>on their main competitor, this could be rather bad during key divisional games.<\/p>\n

    Clearly the Red Sox need to get some righty help in the heart of their lineup.\u00a0 Enter Josh Willingham<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

    Trade Proposal: The Nats trade Willingham and a decent prospect (perhaps one of our AA pitchers) to the Red Sox for Jacoby Ellsbury<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 Crawford slides over to center for Boston, Willingham plays left, and you have Mike Cameron <\/strong>as your late inning defensive replacement outfielder.<\/p>\n

    Ellsbury is exactly what the Nats need; leadoff center fielder who shows more promise and more self control than our current leadoff\/CF Nyjer Morgan<\/strong>.\u00a0 He lost most of 2010 to injury but in 2009 lead the league in stolen bases and would give us good defense in center per his uzr\/150<\/a> rankings.\u00a0 He’s cost contained (not yet arbitration eligible) and we’d control him for at least 3 more years.<\/p>\n

    Willingham’s approach at the plate fits the Sabremetric-thinking Red Sox; he has a high OBP, sees a lot of pitches and puts up a good OPS when healthy.\u00a0 He is defensively challenged but left field at Fenway might be the best place in all of baseball to “hide” a crummy defender.\u00a0 He’d give the Red Sox a righty presence in the middle of the lineup and replace a 9th place hitter with a middle of the order hitter.\u00a0 He’s in the last year of arbitration but still projects to be relatively cheap (by Boston’s standards), probably earning around $6M\/year.\u00a0 He clearly wants to set down roots and could be a nice 3 or 4-year signing in Boston.<\/p>\n

    With Willingham, here’s a Potential Boston lineup:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. 2B Dustin Pedroia (R)<\/li>\n
    2. CF Carl Crawford (L)<\/li>\n
    3. 3B Kevin Youkilis (R)<\/li>\n
    4. 1B Adrian Gonzalez (L)<\/li>\n
    5. LF Josh Willingham (R)<\/li>\n
    6. DH David Ortiz (L)<\/li>\n
    7. RF J.D. Drew (L)<\/li>\n
    8. SS Marco Scutaro (R)<\/li>\n
    9. C Jarrod Saltalamacchia (S)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Now they go R-L alternatively for the first 6 hitters, and if Saltamacchia catches or if Varitek gets some ABs they both switch hit and could slot above Scutaro to give even more flexibility.<\/p>\n

      Who says no first?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      The Red Sox’s signing of Carl Crawford to a 7yr, $142M contract (a contract undoubtedly pushed skyward by the Nats Jayson Werth deal a few days earlier)\u00a0 makes for a rather imposing possible Red Sox Lineup in 2011.\u00a0 Here’s a probable opening day lineup: 2B Dustin Pedroia (R) LF Carl Crawford (L) 1B Adrian Gonzalez […]<\/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":[403,704,251,47,246,605,356,1735,281,1734,768,115,743,580,1172,1733,578,122],"class_list":["post-455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-adrian-gonzalez","tag-andy-pettitte","tag-carl-crawford","tag-cc-sabathia","tag-cliff-lee","tag-david-ortiz","tag-dustin-pedroia","tag-jacoby-ellisbury","tag-jacoby-ellsbury","tag-jarrod-saltalamacchia","tag-jason-varitek","tag-jayson-werth","tag-jd-drew","tag-josh-willingham","tag-kevin-youklis","tag-marco-sctutaro","tag-mike-cameron","tag-nyjer-morgan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455","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=455"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6552,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455\/revisions\/6552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}