{"id":922,"date":"2011-03-28T10:38:21","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T14:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=922"},"modified":"2013-05-29T15:05:24","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T19:05:24","slug":"thoughts-on-the-morgan-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=922","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts on the Morgan trade"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Nats fans have seen their last Nyjer Morgan tantrum<\/p><\/div>\n

Just two days after it became rather clear that Morgan was not going to win the starting Center Field job, Rizzo <\/strong>dealt the player to Milwaukee<\/a> for low-level infield prospect Cutter Dykstra<\/strong> and some cash.\u00a0 Nice move by Rizzo, taking a guy we were probably going to release in a few days and getting something (anything) in return.\u00a0 Dykstra is a younger player but he’s a 2nd round pick who has put up decent numbers in the lower minor leagues thus far.\u00a0 Keith Law <\/strong>says he’s no more than an Organizational player, but something is better than nothing.<\/p>\n

Morgan should be happy with the deal; he may not start in Milwaukee but at least he’s now on a contender instead of being a 30-yr old in AAA.<\/p>\n

One could argue the Nats were a bit hasty on the decision; Morgan had turned around his spring, rebounding from a slow start to post a .241\/.328\/.315 line<\/a> for the spring.\u00a0 Perhaps giving him a month into the regular season to see if he could return to 2009 form would have been the right thing to do.\u00a0 Unfortunately, a log-jam of outfielders in camp that were outperforming Morgan were pressing the team’s hand.<\/p>\n

Morgan’s trade means we have no real lead-off hitter.\u00a0 We probably go with Desmond <\/strong>but he only had a .308 obp<\/a> last year.\u00a0 We will replace Morgan in the outfield with a platoon between Rick Ankiel<\/strong> and Jerry Hairston, Jr<\/strong>, neither of which really is a long term solution.\u00a0 We also seem set to keep Laynce Nix<\/strong> after his great spring, meaning that Bernadina<\/strong> loses the options game and will go to AAA.\u00a0 My guess is that we’re keeping Nix solely to trade him and get something in value, and Bernadina should be right back up.<\/p>\n

My guess on what happens next is something like the following: Ankiel struggles at the plate, we trade Nix and Bernadina returns to the majors as the 4th outfielder.\u00a0 Then, Corey Brown<\/strong> recovers from his ankle issues, gets healthy in AAA, hits well and gets called up to be the new leadoff\/center fielder around mid June.<\/p>\n

One nice side-effect of the deal is the freeing up of a roster spot.\u00a0 Since it is looking more and more likely that we’re keeping 2 and perhaps 3 non-roster invitees we need to make some 40man moves.\u00a0 Gaudin <\/strong>and Nix, perhaps Stairs <\/strong>seem to have made this team.\u00a0 We’re at 39\/40 now with the Morgan move.\u00a0 I can see Wang <\/strong>going to the 60-day DL to free up one spot but an extra spot for Stairs is tough.\u00a0 Perhaps we 60-day DL Elvin Ramirez<\/strong>.\u00a0 We could just return him flat out (though I’m not sure you are allowed to return an injured rule5 guy).\u00a0 We could also look to DFA someone; Severino<\/strong> may be expendable with the acquisition of lefty specialist Lee Hyde<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just two days after it became rather clear that Morgan was not going to win the starting Center Field job, Rizzo dealt the player to Milwaukee for low-level infield prospect Cutter Dykstra and some cash.\u00a0 Nice move by Rizzo, taking a guy we were probably going to release in a few days and getting something […]<\/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":[141,233,37,143,1803,311,114,234,110,177,104,337,129,122,179,167],"class_list":["post-922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-atahualpa-severino","tag-chad-gaudin","tag-chien-ming-wang","tag-corey-brown","tag-cutter-dykstra","tag-elvin-ramirez","tag-ian-desmond","tag-jerry-hairston","tag-keith-law","tag-laynce-nix","tag-lee-hyde","tag-matt-stairs","tag-mike-rizzo","tag-nyjer-morgan","tag-rick-ankiel","tag-roger-bernadina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922","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=922"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6807,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/922\/revisions\/6807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}