Nationals Baseball: Monday!

Monday, October 03, 2011

Monday!

It's the best day of the week, am I right?  

Over/Under results

9pts - WINNER
Calindc (only missed on the Pudge 2 hit barrage)

8 pts
Hoo
Michael K
7pts
Nattydread
6pts
Me!
Wally
Donald
Cass
5pts
John O'Connor
Froggy
4pts
Dezo

Smarties -
  • Donald was the only one to go with Pudge getting more than one hit and presumably paid off Davey and a couple pitchers to make it happen.  Hope it was worth it Donald.
  • Calindc was the only one to not believe in Werth.  In the last 2 weeks of the season, Jayson hit .200 / .256 / .300. Way to finish strong there.

Dummies -
  • John O'Connor was the only one not to believe in John Lannan.  BOOOOOO!  BOOOOOO!  
  • Cass was the only one who had Clippard going over 2.00 in ERA.  From Sept 5th to the end of the year Clip pitched 14 2/3 innings, gave up 1 run (solo homer), 6 hits in total, 2 walks, 16 Ks.
Notes

Davey Johnson or Terry Francona?  Does it matter?  When Davey got hired I noted that there seemed to be no "Lay off" effect for managers. So he should be ok.  Francona should be ok.  I'd say keep Davey because if it doesn't matter then why rock the boat.

Pitcher Needed? Yes.  But only if they get an outfielder first and trade a pitcher to do it. (or if they let Wang walk - which I'm ok with but I'm not the fan of Wang that some people here are).  

Anyone else excited about the prospect of Nyjer Morgan in the World Series?

10 comments:

Hoo said...

I hate you Werth. Denying me a place on the pinnacle of Harper's blog standings. Same story as guess the rotation! Bah.


As for Morgan. My fists clench when I think of giving up a starter on a playoff team for Cutter Dykstra. Really?

OTOH, the Nats would have had him bat leadoff, which the Brewers didn't do. The Brewers also handcuffed his running pretty effectively.

Essentially, Ankiel was the poor's man but still more highly paid Nyjer Morgan. Except Ankiel was even less effective stealing bases. And Morgan posted a +300 OBP instead of Ankiels sub 300. And somehow morgan outslugged him. I'm not a huge fan of Morgan and I'm pretty happy he's gone. But I hated this trade. Generally, any time you make a trade that causes a huge gaping, sucking hole in your organization with no positive return, that's not a good trade. Now I'm bitter again.

calindc said...

Wow, so many to thank, so little time.

Jayson Werth: Thank you sooo much for your continued effect to prove others wrong. You started off September at a little above league average pace, but I always had faith in your 2011 performance.

(By the way, Tampa's 2011 team salery is $41,932,171, roughly 33% of Werth's total contract. Brad Pitt should have saved his MLB sabermetrics role for mullet-man Maddon.)

Game 162's: SS pitched a gem, Nats got to 80 wins, and some unbelieveable wildcard finishes in both leagues. I got about 4 hours sleep that night, my good friend (and Boston fan) hasn't slept since.

Nats2012: It's going to be a fun year!

Harper said...

You mean Cutter "I won't be in organized baseball by 2013" Dykstra? A .265 OBP in A+ ball as a 22 year old? a .265 SLG?

Drop Dukes with no replacement ready.Trade Morgan with no replacement ready. The first parts aren't necessarily terrible, but a competent GM really should not make a deal with no idea of how he's going to fill the hole he creates. I can't wait till 2019 when Rizzo deals Bryce off a pennant winner for being a jerk and replaces him in left with an aging Chris Young in late March.

calindc - Nats 2012 : Next year is finally this year!

brendan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
David said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Donald said...

The harder guess with Pudge is how many hits he gets with the Nats next year. With Flores maybe wanting out, do they keep him, and if so how often does he play? Or does he opt out to team where he may be able to start more often?

Froggy said...

Ok, so it is the beginning of a new off season-ish....

...how about Davey Johnson or Theo Epstein instead of Rizzo. And Francona as the new Manager.

I think that would get a few FA's thinking of jumping over to the Nats.

John O'Connor said...

If you set the over/under on 2012 Pudge hits for the Nats at 1, I'll take the under. He will want to go somewhere that he can play more than once every four games. I can't say I blame him; hard to be critical of someone who just wants to play and will go somewhere that needs him more.

Nattydread said...

The over-under competition is fun. You should do it more often.

Maybe you can put some of your massive advert revenue into cool prizes?

On Morgan --- just call it good karma all the way round. He was struggling in DC. We were sick of him.

A big fan of T Plush at first --- even I got tired! Riggleman, Rizzo --- they wanted a baseball player not a sideshow. His chest thumping during the Marlins bench-clearance incident was the low water mark.

Was it a big mistake --- Rizzos biggest blunder --- to trade him without a plan? Of course, but my guess is that Rizzo expected a MASSIVE BREAKOUT from Ankiel. What we got --- some entertaining catches, very occasional pop, good make-up and lots of Ks.

You go T Plush. It will be nice to see the bean balls if STL & MIL meet!

Harper said...

Donald - It wouldn't be the worst to keep him figuring Ramos plays 130+ games or so. If Pudge is serious about 3000 hits or getting another ring he'll leave. (my guess is that he is serious about 3K so he will jump)

Froggy - meh - I don't think FAs really care about GM and manager (unless they hate them), and why would a GM come to the Nats if they kicked out a guy who presided over two straight 10+ win improvement seasons?

JOC - agreed - he'll look for a 50/50 split. Florida, maybe?

Nattydread - I like it too and I'll gladly put my advert money into a prize. Go ahead and click on any banner to support any of the hundreds of companies I get money from.

I don't think he expected a Ankiel breakout, I think it was just as you said - he got tired of Morgan and wanted him out, plan be damned. Rizzo is definitely a my way or the highway type of guy even if it hurts the team. Pride over performance. Let's hope it continues to be fringe older players that annoy him.

STL / MIL would be a killer NLCS wouldn't it?