{"id":8393,"date":"2013-12-31T12:21:48","date_gmt":"2013-12-31T17:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8393"},"modified":"2013-12-31T12:21:48","modified_gmt":"2013-12-31T17:21:48","slug":"nationals-arm-race-best-stories-for-2013-happy-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8393","title":{"rendered":"Nationals Arm Race Best Stories for 2013; Happy New Year!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On the last day of 2013, I thought I&#8217;d take a quick peek back at the posts and discussion that shaped the blog this year. \u00a0Here&#8217;s a highlight reel by month of the most read and commented-upon posts in this space, as well as recaps of major events and personal favorite entries.<\/p>\n<p>January 2013:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5868\">Gonzalez linked with PED-clinic; are we worried<\/a>? \u00a0(Turns out <strong>Gonzalez<\/strong> was the sole player who was exonerated out of this scandal, which threatens <strong>Alex Rodriguez<\/strong> to this day).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5703\">Are players from the 1980s under-represented in the Hall of Fame<\/a>?\u00a0<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>(Yes, I think they are).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5767\">Soriano? \u00a0Well at least its Rafael and not Alfonso<\/a>\u00a0(<strong>Soriano<\/strong> ends up having a serviceable 2013 but arguably disrupts the mojo of the bullpen, which finishes ranked 17th-19th in most major statistical categories).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5626 \">How good is an &#8220;All Virginia&#8221; team<\/a>? \u00a0(Pretty good as it turns out, but not nearly as good as an all-Maryland team, led by\u00a0<strong>Babe Ruth<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Cal Ripken, Jr.<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>February 2013:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5960\">Gonzalez to play in WBC: why this is really Bad News for the Nats<\/a> (Gonzalez ended up regressing in 2013 but didn&#8217;t fall off a cliff\/get hurt like other Nats pitchers that were WBC participants).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4932\">Why is Toradol &#8220;ok&#8221; but Steroids and HGH &#8220;bad?&#8221;<\/a> (I still don&#8217;t know the answer, but this issue continues to come up again and again, especially during HoFame voting season).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1369\">Washington is a Football Town; What&#8217;s yours?<\/a>\u00a0(Still Football despite all of\u00a0<strong>Danny Snyder<\/strong>&#8216;s hard work to kill the golden goose).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>March 2013:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5513\">Pitcher Wins on the Free Agency Market; an analysis<\/a>\u00a0(a recurring $\/win analysis post that I&#8217;ll revisit in 2014 once all the major FA pitchers are signed).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\" http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6194\">Why does MLB want to damage its sport with an International Draft<\/a>?? (because owners are cheap and they&#8217;d rather save a couple million on amateurs instead of blowing it on mediocre veteran 5th starters).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>April 2013:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5385\">Are we too worried about pitch counts<\/a>? (yes we are; <strong>Davey Johnson<\/strong> mis-managed the pitching staff in this regard many times over the course of 2013).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6370\">Does Andrus&#8217; new contract really affect Desmond<\/a>? (yes I think it does; if <strong>Andrus<\/strong> is worth 8 figures so is <strong>Desmond<\/strong> &#8230; a factor this team needs to start planning for).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6480\">Braves sweep shows some areas of concern<\/a> (the three concerns were mis-management of the pitching staff, <strong>Zimmerman<\/strong>&#8216;s throwing arm and the offense; these concerns did not get corrected all year).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>May 2013:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6647\">Davey Johnson: Over Manager<\/a> (another complaint about Johnson&#8217;s decision making).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=5839\">Minor League Pitching Age Appropriateness for 2013<\/a>\u00a0(the main take away was that our Hagerstown rotation was very old for its level).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\" http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6708\">Injuries and Idiocy lead to interesting Call-ups<\/a>\u00a0(a theme all year, with the team surprising us with <strong>Jordan, Krol, Karns<\/strong> and other callups).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6749\">Maya DFA and outright; the end of an era<\/a>: (<strong>Maya<\/strong> was DFA&#8217;d in May, released in November).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6792\">Nathan Karns: First look<\/a>: (Karns surprise call-up and review of his debut).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>June 2013<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6881\">First Look; Nats top 10 rounds of 2013 Draftees<\/a> (I also tracked local and Virginia draft prospects all spring and had a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6877\">separate post just about them<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6922\">Virginia Region and State High School Results<\/a> and Recaps (last in a running recap of local High School baseball tournament play recaps).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7064\">College World Series Finals: UCLA Wins<\/a> (the last in a series of CWS recap posts; I feel like i&#8217;m one of the only DC bloggers who pays attention to local or college baseball).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7045\">Haren&#8217;s 6 week Demotion, er I mean D\/L Trip<\/a> (we forget just how bad <strong>Haren<\/strong> was at this point in the season; he was 99th out of 99 qualifying starters in ERA).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7104\">Taylor Jordan: First Look<\/a>: (the culmination of a pretty story-book season for Jordan).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>July 2013<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7127\">Nats all-star review: 2013 and years past<\/a>\u00a0(<strong>Bryce Harper<\/strong> remains an answer to one of my favorite baseball trivia questions: what 3 players were selected to the all-star game in every season in which they appeared in the majors?).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=475\">How much live action occurs in each sport<\/a>? \u00a0Ball-in-Play studies summarized (I&#8217;ve been working on this post for years, looking for data &#8230; still could use better data).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6896\">Ryan Zimmerman; Mr. Walkoff<\/a>; (his 9th career walk-off homer, not too far behind the all-time leader <strong>Jim Thome<\/strong>\u00a0at 13).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7323 \">Is it time to fire Davey Johnson<\/a>? (nope; they stuck with him and rebounded eventually &#8230; but it was too late).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>August 2013<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7391\">First Look: Tanner Roark<\/a> (one of the best stories of the season for this team; i&#8217;m an unapologetic fan. \u00a0I did another <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7488\">gushing post<\/a> 3 weeks later).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7404\">Virginia Little League loses in Regional Final<\/a> (as with HS and College ball, not a whole lot of coverage of Little League ball in the blogosphere either).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7445\">Why aren&#8217;t the Nats getting Harper&#8217;s back<\/a>?? (a great question, and one that I laid on the hands of the manager. \u00a0Lets just say this; I don&#8217;t think <strong>Matt Williams<\/strong> will have the same problems in 2014).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7463\">What will Shark fans do now<\/a>? (<strong>Roger Bernadina<\/strong> released after nearly a decade in the organization).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7498\">Matt Harvey; just unlucky<\/a> (discussion on <strong>Harvey<\/strong>&#8216;s UCL injury; its hard to understate just how dominant a season he was having statistically).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>September 2013<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7486\">Season Statistical Review of all Nats 2013 draft picks<\/a> (a great way to stay current on all our draft picks; I also did this for all the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7620\">2012 picks too<\/a>).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7569\">Great performances from Nats minor league teams in 2013&#8230;<\/a> (4 of 6 domestic teams making the playoffs).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7710\">11 games over .500, 4 1\/2 games back<\/a>. (a late season charge left a glimmer of hope, soon extinguished).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>October 2013<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7659\">2013 Pre-season Rotation Rankings revisited<\/a> (possibly a record for the number of player name tags used on this blog).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7411\">Nationals 2013 post-mortem<\/a> (a cathartic b*tch session about everything that went wrong this season).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7961 \">Roster construction of 2013 playoff teams<\/a> (something I like doing every year).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8045 \">World Series Game 6 Pitching Matchup and Prediction<\/a> (I ended up posting a whole slew of game-by-game predictions during the post-season this year, and this was the last such piece).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8047\">What &#8220;proof&#8221; is there that David Ortiz used PEDs<\/a>? (in my opinion, the &#8220;proof&#8221; is pretty thin, unless you&#8217;re a fan of anonymous lawyers and the reliability of their testimony).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>November 2013<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8062 \">Will the Cardinals get the same grief we got over not using Shelby Miller<\/a>? (answer: nope).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=6639\">My 2013 End-of-Season award Predictions<\/a>\u00a0and a review of how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=7808\">we did predicting the awards<\/a> (8\/8 in major awards, 10\/12 in all awards)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4817\">What is the \u201cceiling\u201d of various Nats pitching prospects<\/a>? (Updated for 2013)<\/li>\n<li>Repost: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8128\">Why didn&#8217;t Carlos Gomez get more NL MVP support<\/a>?? (My belief is that\u00a0<strong>Mike Trout<\/strong> for MVP votes are just as narrative driven as the Cabrera-for-MVP votes).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>December 2013<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8189\">Fister acquisition thoughts and fallout<\/a>\u00a0(a significant acquisition and what it means going forward for the team and some role players)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8232\">Blevins Acquired; who is getting DFA&#8217;d<\/a>? (answer was <strong>Corey Brown<\/strong> as predicted)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8320 \">GCL\/Rookie Pitching Staff Year in Review; 2013<\/a>\u00a0(with links to the other 6 pitching staff reviews)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=8215\">2014 Projected Pitching Staffs and Rotations<\/a>; entire Nats system (the last major bit of analysis for the Nats this year).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Happy New Year! \u00a0Its been fun.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the last day of 2013, I thought I&#8217;d take a quick peek back at the posts and discussion that shaped the blog this year. \u00a0Here&#8217;s a highlight reel by month of the most read and commented-upon posts in this space, as well as recaps of major events and personal favorite entries. January 2013: Gonzalez [&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":[357,153,164,681,1924,143,983,383,137,605,241,1307,385,114,1695,2123,1000,1666,1314,456,196,1398,167,36,1333,77,24,883],"class_list":["post-8393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-alex-rodriguez","tag-babe-ruth","tag-bryce-harper","tag-cal-ripken","tag-carlos-gomez","tag-corey-brown","tag-dan-haren","tag-dan-snyder","tag-davey-johnson","tag-david-ortiz","tag-doug-fister","tag-elvis-andrus","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-ian-desmond","tag-ian-krol","tag-jerry-blevins","tag-jim-thome","tag-matt-harvey","tag-matt-williams","tag-mike-trout","tag-nathan-karns","tag-rafael-soriano","tag-roger-bernadina","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-shelby-miller","tag-tanner-roark","tag-taylor-jordan","tag-yunesky-maya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393","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=8393"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8396,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8393\/revisions\/8396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}