Happy Opening day!<\/p>\n
Every season\u00a0David Nichols<\/strong>\u00a0(editor in chief of DC Pro Sports Blog<\/a>) organizes the unofficial DC Chapter of Nats bloggers<\/a> to do some surveying about will happen, and then a post-mortem about what happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n For 2014; here’s how the DCIBWA members voted in total<\/a>.<\/p>\n And here’s how I voted:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0Who will lead the Nats in home runs in 2014?<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0Hard not to go with the kid\u00a0Bryce Harper<\/strong>. \u00a0I’ll predict he manages to stay healthy, stop running into walls, and hits 32 bombs out of mostly the middle of the order. \u00a0Last year’s leader was\u00a0Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong>, who I like for 20-25 homers again but not as many as Harper.<\/p>\n 2. Who will lead the Nats in RBI?<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0I’m going with Ryan\u00a0Zimmerman<\/strong> here, mostly because I feel like he’s going to be the beneficiary of many guys getting on base ahead of him and will have plenty of RBI opportunities. \u00a0Last year’s leader was\u00a0Jayson Werth<\/strong> by a hair; something tells me he’s more of a table-setter this year (a #2 hitter) rather than a middle of the order bat. \u00a0I could be wrong though. \u00a0(Insert obligatory argument about lineup construction and dazzle us with your proof of why your best hitter should be batting 2nd while the 3rd place hitter should be one of your lesser batters…)<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0Who will lead the Nats in stolen bases?<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0I’ll go with 2013 leader\u00a0Ian Desmond<\/strong> again;\u00a0Denard Span<\/strong> is the obvious choice here but he seems to have lost a step. \u00a0All in all, speed on this team seems to be lacking on this team; will\u00a0Matt Williams<\/strong> be a more- or less-aggressive manager on the basepaths?<\/p>\n 4.\u00a0Who will lead the staff in wins?<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0Stephen Strasburg<\/strong>, who I feel is destined for a break-out season with no leashes and no afterthoughts of his injury. \u00a0He’s two years removed from TJ recovery; when 2013 staff wins leader\u00a0Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong> was in his 3rd year back he went 19-9 and got Cy Young votes. \u00a0I predict a 20 win season for Mr. Strasburg, some serious consideration for a Cy Young, and a significant arbitration fight next off-season.<\/p>\n 5.\u00a0How many games will Ryan Zimmerman play first base?<\/strong><\/span> \u00a0I’ll go with 10-12, maybe fewer. \u00a0Perhaps once a week he’ll go over to the other corner. \u00a0Something tells me that\u00a0Adam LaRoche<\/strong> in a contract season will step it up and make it really tough to take his bat out of the lineup. \u00a0And something else tells me that Zimmerman may return to his plus-defense now that his shoulder issues are seemingly behind him, and we’ll be talking about how we can stick with him at 3rd for the long haul when the season is over. \u00a0(I may be eating my words on Zimmerman here; he’s already shown some air-mailing tendencies during Spring; such a shame that his arm is affecting his overall defense so badly). \u00a0For what its worth, Zimmerman has played a grand total of 2 innings at first this spring.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n 6.\u00a0Who starts more games: Ross Detwiler, Taylor Jordan, Tanner Roark, Ross Ohlendorf?<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 Tanner Roark<\/strong>. \u00a0The winner of the 5th starter spot will pitch to a relatively non-descript league average for months, while the loser (Taylor Jordan<\/strong>) toils in obscurity in Syracuse, waiting for Roark to fail or someone to get hurt. \u00a0Ross Ohlendorf<\/strong>‘s trip to the 60-day D\/L means he’s likely a non-factor for the first half, and\u00a0Ross Detwiler<\/strong>‘s trip to the bullpen looks permanent.\u00a0\u00a0(When I wrote the first draft of this in Mid Feb, it was Detwiler). \u00a0Even given what has transpired at the end of spring (Fister’s D\/L trip meaning both guys are in the rotation), I feel like Roark is going to stick when Fister comes back.<\/p>\n 7.\u00a0Who will get more at bats for the Nats<\/i>\u00a0this season: Danny Espinosa or Jamey Carroll? \u00a0<\/strong>Danny Espinosa<\/strong> obviously, since Carroll has already been released. \u00a0But even in my first draft of this post in Feb, I was predicting that Espinosa would win the backup middle infielder battle with\u00a0Jamey Carroll<\/strong>. \u00a0I just didn’t think the team was ready to punt on a former 20-home run guy with superior defense. 8. \u00a0Which minor leaguer are you most interested in keeping tabs on this season? \u00a0<\/strong>Instead of copping out and saying an obvious name from our consensus top 3 prospects (Giolito, Cole<\/strong> and Goodwin<\/strong>), I’m going to throw out a couple other names that really intrigue me. \u00a0Matt Skole<\/strong>\u00a0lost all of 2013 by virtue of a freak injury but impressed last year; i’d like to see him bash his way into consideration for a call-up. \u00a0I’d like to see what 2013 draftee\u00a0Austin Voth<\/strong> can do in a full season; I like this guy as a sleeper, a potential\u00a0Tim Hudson-<\/strong>esque mid-rotation starter who doesn’t get a ton of credit because of his size but suddenly is posting double-digit wins for your team. \u00a0I’d like to see what\u00a0Matthew Purke<\/strong> does this year; the shine is off this guy; I’d really like to see him\u00a0put himself back into relevance with this organization. \u00a0Like everyone else\u00a0Stephen Souza<\/strong> has really elevated his status; what can he bring to the table if he gets an opportunity? \u00a0And lastly we now know that fireballer\u00a0Blake Treinen<\/strong> is in the AAA rotation; is he a behind-the-scenes important piece of rotation depth for this farm system now?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 9. \u00a0Who will reach majors first: Sammy Solis, A.J. Cole, Lucas Giolito or Matt Purke?<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Well, this one is easy to me;\u00a0Sammy Solis<\/strong> is on the 40-man, is 25, and is already being talked about as being a potential loogy in 2014. \u00a0After that I’d predict Purke (also by virtue of \u00a0his 40-man placement); if Purke shows the team something or anything this year, he could earn a Sept 1 call-up to help in the pennant race. \u00a0After that say Cole since he will be put on the 40-man this coming off-season (if not before) and then Giolito last; he’s not rule-5 eligible til 2016 and would have to pitch his way into relevance before then (much like\u00a0Taylor Jordan<\/strong> did in 2013).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 10. How many all-stars will the Nats have? Who? \u00a0<\/strong>I’ll predict three: Strasburg, Desmond and Harper.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n 11. Total wins and what place in the division? \u00a0<\/span><\/strong>94 wins, 1st place in division. \u00a0This could trend higher with every new Atlanta injury.<\/span><\/p>\n Essay: What should be the single most important development for the Nats this season?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Hitting in the clutch. \u00a0The 2013 team to score 80 fewer runs than the magical 2012 team despite a lineup that seemed better on paper. \u00a0A lot of this regression was due to the drop-off in bench production, but an awful lot of it was due to coming up weak in the clutch. \u00a0In high-leverage batting situations (as defined by fangraphs), the Nats were dead last in 2013<\/a>. \u00a0This team needs to do better all the way up and down the lineup. \u00a0We need Harper healthy. \u00a0We need Span producing like he did in September. \u00a0I’d like to see something better out of LaRoche in 2014. \u00a0Give us that and all these great pitchers will look that much better.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Happy Opening day! Every season\u00a0David Nichols\u00a0(editor in chief of DC Pro Sports Blog) organizes the unofficial DC Chapter of Nats bloggers to do some surveying about will happen, and then a post-mortem about what happened. For 2014; here’s how the DCIBWA members voted in total. And here’s how I voted: 1.\u00a0Who will lead the Nats […]<\/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":[184,17,1815,1693,257,164,135,482,114,2172,115,43,852,733,1314,166,51,1554,36,19,38,1328,77,24,219],"class_list":["post-8544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-laroche","tag-aj-cole","tag-austin-voth","tag-blake-treinen","tag-brian-goodwin","tag-bryce-harper","tag-danny-espinosa","tag-denard-span","tag-ian-desmond","tag-jamey-carroll","tag-jayson-werth","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-lucas-giolito","tag-matt-skole","tag-matt-williams","tag-matthew-purke","tag-ross-detwiler","tag-ross-ohlendorf","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-sammy-solis","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-steven-souza","tag-tanner-roark","tag-taylor-jordan","tag-tim-hudson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8544","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=8544"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11592,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8544\/revisions\/11592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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