SB Nation User Blog: Basil

Proceed with caution

Basil — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:15:30 -0000

It's almost the close of the season -- hurry up, close of the season! -- and the next loss will be the one hundredth. Again.

Surely, better times are ahead. How can they not be? On the Die Hard scale, we're about at the point where John McClane drags himself into the bathroom and picks glass out of his bloodied feet. You don't think it can get too much worse than that, and any additional bad news, like the FBI taking over things, is more an annoyance than a calamity. What does it matter if the building is running on backup generators when you're extricating large shards of plate glass from your arches? Fists with your toes, indeed!

But Die Hard also teaches us that just because you've picked the glass out of your feet doesn't mean that other bumps in the road can't happen. You could run into a bad guy set on revenge, or you could be forced to repel down a high-rise roof with only a fire hose at your disposal, or you could find out that even though everyone else is safe your wife has been taken hostage. All is not necessarily roses just because you've hit bottom.

Using such sage source material as a guide, let us begin with the premise that not all will go smoothly starting next year, even if things might not seem as bad as they have been this year. Do not fall into the trap of thinking Karl is really dead just because you've strangled him and left him to withstand a major explosion. Let me, your buddy Reginald VelJohnson, pump a few bullets into that idea. Um, so to speak.

So here's a list of potential perception pratfalls for 2010. Note that some of these perceptions will bear fruit next season. I'm not denying that. But reliance on most of these positions will prove quite frustrating in the end, and reliance on all of them is just plain nuts.

1. Nyjer Morgan's Return Will Make It All Better.

Morgan made his Nats debut on July 3, when the Nats were 15-36. Morgan played his last game this season on August 27, and the team has gone 5-17 since. The Nats are 20-53 this season when Morgan hasn't been on the active roster. Let's stipulate the obvious: Morgan was more or less dynamic from July 3 to August 27. He hit .351 and played excellent defense. But even to the extent that some may have believed that it was Morgan who really got things humming -- and there's enough sentiment out there to make this not quite a straw man position -- the team was all of 31-46 during that time. Put it another way: in July (all with the Nats), Morgan hit .388/.418/.495. And he stole 14 bases. And he played the great defense. And the Nats went 9-18 that month. This isn't a knock at Morgan. A whole lot of awful stuff contributed to those losses. It's merely expressing the reality that the Nats were a very bad team -- no, not an abjectly miserable team, but a very bad team -- even with Morgan playing at what must be considered the absolute peak of his abilities. So yes, Morgan's return might set things right again, but right sucked.

2. John Lannan Is Our Constant.

Look, I'm not going to knock Lannan. I might have at some point, probably way too much, had I continued the blogging thing. But I didn't, and he's long since satisfied my "He's a Nats prospect, so he can't be much good" and "He looks disturbingly like a young David Ferrie" concerns. He's pretty good, and Joe Pesci isn't doing much acting these days, anyway. Lannan's got poise and presence, and he's somehow going to give the Nats a 200-inning hurler. Plus, he broke a dude's hand, so he's got street cred. Cool. But, yeah, it's the strikeouts. I know this has been beaten to death, but there are, generally speaking, two types of low-strikeout guys. There are the Mark Buerhles, and there are the Horacio Ramirezes. There are guys who are in-between, who can succeed for a little while, but those guys are a sub-class of the Horacio Ramirez type. Even Horacio Ramirez himself pulled it off somewhat decently for a spell. Please note that Lannan is not Horacio Ramirez, even the somewhat decent Horacio Ramirez. But there are a lot more of these guys who resemble the Ramirez type than the Buerhle type. Some meddle along for a few seasons like Scott Karl, and some quickly devolve into an ineffective blob of goop like Dave Fleming. Lannan is poised and cool and all that, but to some extent he's simply subject to fortune.

3. Well, Strasburg/Storen Are On Their Way!

No. Please, no. They're not a matched pair. I've seen them referred to that way at places like Nationals Journal, but it's a fairly dumb thing to say. Strasburg is, well, Strasburg. Whether he pans out or not, he inhabits some Super-Cool Rarified Prospect realm. Storen is a big league pitching prospect, all lower case. The only way the matched pair thing works is if the Nats had owned the first two picks and selected Jango Strasburg followed by Boba Strasburg. Would've been a campy thing to do, granted, but undeniably badass. Didn't happen, though, so please don't pretend it did.

4. Okay, Strasburg Is On His Way . . .

Sure, but when? Immediately? Maybe, maybe not. David Price was drafted No. 1 in 2007, signed on August 15 of that year, and debuted in 2008. So far, so good. Except Price debuted in High-A ball, took in the sights in lovely Montgomery and Durham, Frankie Rodriguez Ruled his way onto the big league roster for postseason purposes, and has been sort of erratic this year. But let's say Strasburg is better than Price, even considerably better. Chances are still pretty slight he breaks camp with the team, for a variety of reasons, and there's no assurance that he immediately kicks it into hyperdrive when he does reach the majors. MLB domination is neither a birthright nor a subject Scott Boras can negotiate, and it will require work even for Mr. Strasburg to attain. Best guess is that Strasburg gets at most 20 MLB starts next season. If he goes 8-6, 3.95, will NatsTown vomit with rage? Hopefully not.

5. . . . And Storen!

The early returns are positive, no doubt. But even crediting him with 37 innings of domination at the A, A+, and AA levels, isn't this pretty much in line of what we should have expected? All the pre-draft talk was that he could be a fast riser, and that's what he showed. Then what? Maybe he goes all Gregg two-g's Olson and establishes himself as a closer. Maybe he goes all Greg one-g Olson and becomes a two-month flash in the pan. Maybe goes the way of Craig Hansen and Joey Devine, fast-rising closer prospects of recent vintage, and becomes an organizational headache. Or maybe he goes the way of Zech Zinicola and stagnates after a very nice pro debut. Storen seems more polished than Hansen and Devine, and he seems superior in many ways to Zinicola. So he does rate a decent chance at some degree of MLB success. But he's no sure thing for 2010.

6. Ian Desmond, The Once And Future King.

So that took quite awhile -- it was back in 2005 when Desmond was a spring training monster and Bodes compared him favorably to Derek Jeter -- but perhaps Desmond's prospect status was just a Heinz ketchup commercial writ large. You know: the best things come to those who wait. Unbelievably, he only turned 24 a few days ago. We're past the early September parsing and moaning, and it would appear that the Riggler has no philosophical objection to playing the guy (although the "where" seems completely at random). Hey, I want the guy to play too, but I do think there's a bit of a googly-eye effect going on here. For one, there's the spectacular debut series. For another . . . well, there's the sense of newly requited love. I'd try throwing out a stupid reference like "The last time the Washington Nationals had a decent position player prospect was back when J. Robert Oppenheimer was charming the ladies with his impressive sliderule," but it wouldn't work. Ryan Zimmerman was a much better than decent prospect, and I have no idea if Oppenheimer used a sliderule. But, save for Zimmerman, who was something of a slam-dunk, we've had little except really wild expectations based on a brief glimpse of Desmond years ago. Of course we want him to succeed, and we want him to be a fixture. But be wary of revertigo with this one. He's made strides, but we're still talking a hit-or-miss proposition here. Far better shortstop prospects have failed.

7. Danny Espinosa?

I can't believe that anyone would advocate plugging this guy into the middle infield picture as recently as next season, but I've actually seen it out there, so I thought I'd take a second to bat it down. I have no opinion as to whether Espinosa is a quality prospect, and he did show power and patience this season. But he hit .264 with 129 strikeouts at Potomac. He'd get eaten alive in the majors next year. Give him time.

8. 2009 Zimmerman = 2010 Zimmerman.

I'm going to be a jerk for a moment. Ryan Zimmerman's season has been one of only a handful of highlights in 2009. But does it represent a newly established level of offensive ability? My heart votes yes, but my head merely votes present. Some years ago, a baseball writer named Brock Hanke posited what he called the serpentine perspective on baseball development. The idea, premised on the maxim that baseball is a game of adjustments, is that a young hitter's development resembles more a curved pattern than a linear form. There are ebbs and flows as the hitter learns the game, as the league adjusts to the player's talents (through scouting and other means), the player matures to account for those adjustments, and so forth, until things settle. Zimmerman is still a few days away from turning 25. He's young, and, for all the walkoff homers, he hasn't been a tremendous league-wide concern until this season. He's OPS'ing .874, 50 points above his previous full-season career high. It's hard to maintain an OPS of .874. It's taken a .290 batting average and an isolated power figure of about .250 for him to get there now. Should Zimmerman maintain the batting average but lose 50 points of isolated power, his OPS drops into range of his .822 career mark thus far. If he even splits the difference, that should probably be viewed as a positive. There's no shame in being very good, rather than excellent, some years.

* * * *

Well, that's all the notable action points for now. I could talk about other stuff, like whether Mike MacDougal should be trusted as a closer, but it's not even certain he'll be back. And who out there would trust him anyway? Toodles.

Oh, for the love of ...

Basil — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:46:03 -0000

He's going to sign, people.

This isn't directed specifically at anyone -- not at anyone here; not anyone at Natty Farm Authority; not anyone at Chico's place; not even at our two Nobel laureates in the television broadcast booth, Mssrs. Carpenter and Dibble -- and surely I know how the game of anticipatory news is played, but, really, people, it's a lot more fun just to let midnight approach gracefully. In the meantime, do something good in this world. Take that elderly old widow across the street to the grocery store. Hug an abandoned kitty. Maybe even do some work.

And, if it turns out that he doesn't sign, you have my reluctant permission to toss rotten tomatoes at, say, Chris Needham.

Rip Van Winkle's Worst Nightmare

Basil — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:54:22 -0000

I spent perhaps ninety seconds flipping through the unabridged Webster's Third New International Dictionary collecting dust here on my office bookshelf looking for a word descriptive of our Washington Nationals, specifically the bullpen. I settled for a noun, ghorkhar.

Ghorkhar (noun): a wild ass of northwestern India believed to be identical with the onager.

I spent no further time on the project, and, consequently, have no idea what an onager is. Ghorkhar seemed sufficient to me at the time, however, what with its definition's reference to a "wild ass."

A wild ass: that's the Nationals bullpen. Or, if you prefer to express the thought as a pseudo-adjective, the Nats have a wild-ass bullpen.

At the close of Monday's action, Washington's bullpen had issued 60 walks in 105 innings pitched. (All of these stats are through Monday on account of laziness.) Even keeping in mind that the average pen doesn't have a sterling collective walk rate and that Nats relievers have pitched far more innings so far than the average pen, this is absurd.

Take a quick scan at the roster, and tell me who you would trust to enter the game in a tight spot and throw some quality strikes. Biemel, I'll grant you. (Or I would grant you, prior to Tuesday's action.) Hanrahan and Villone so far, though this early performance is in significant tension with their career numbers. (And there's also a lingering issue of whether Hanrahan can be trusted in a tight spot, period.) Other than those guys, who remains? Tavarez, Mock, the Kipster, and Kensing. Nope, nope, nope, and you have got to be kidding me. A decent walk rate is the foundation of a pitcher's reliability, and the Nationals bullpen lacks a foundation.

That's not so bad, you might begin to suggest, because maybe the bullpen is designed to live life on the edge, to go max-effort and throw a goodly share of smoke past opposition bats, too. The Rickey Wild Thing Vaughan Method to Bullpen Management, we could call it. Maybe the Rob Dibble one, come to think of it.

No. Washington's bullpen has fanned 6.94 guys per nine innings, the second lowest rate in the National League; only Colorado's relievers have a lower strikeout rate, but, thanks to some preternatural control, they also have the best bullpen strikeout-to-walk ratio in the league. Nationals relievers are next to last in that category, too, ahead of only Pittsburgh, which hardly counts as existing. So when Nationals relievers are on the mound, it's kind of a situation where the plate appearance ends with a walk or with the baseball put in play somewhere.

About that last part: opponents are slugging .438 against Nationals relievers. At least that's not the second worst figure in the league too; it's third worst. Opponents are batting .280/.374/.438 against Washington's bullpen, good for an 812 OPS. Whenever a Nats reliever faces an opposing batter, the opposing batter might as well be the average National League first baseman offensively, for all the good our reliever will do.

Toss out the misfires of Madman Mike Hinckley and Sad Saul Rivera, just to be fair, and things might look a little better, but not appreciatively so. One of their replacements, Logan Kensing, has managed to combine all the ghorkharishisness of Hinckley with all the hittability of Rivera, without adding the ability to strike out enemy combatants imbued in, say, a viable big league pitcher.

Maybe ghorhkar, while providing adequate wild ass coverage, misses the entire scope of outlandish suck-o-rama that is the Nationals bullpen. I suppose I should have searched longer for a better word.

* * * *

Even without the benefit of 30 or so games of retrospection, it hardly seems possible that any sane man, even Jim Bowden, could have looked at this simpering collective of relievers and thought, "Yeah, that'll work." Well, maybe if the middle word were italicized to indicate some sarcasm, like, "Yeah, that'll work." But I don't think even Bodes constructed rosters for scats and giggles, and I'd imagine that Mike Rizzo sure doesn't. I'm not as up on the blogging scene as I used to be, but I'd imagine every reader here would say that four out of five Nats bloggers stranded on a desert island would have chosen Advil over Tylenol for their headaches, and would have foreseen that their headaches were caused by Washington's bullpen.

And so we watch as the Nats cope. It's a strange thing, but even a mere 30 or so games into the season, we have long-gone relievers whose residual roster presences have waned to faint whispers: "Steve Shell - weren't we upset that he was sent out, or was that some other guy?" and "Wil Ledezma - he pitched for us? Oh, yeah . . ." I would say that Kensing will soon be one of those guys, but he's done too much psychic damage. Wait till August on that one. In the meantime, guys will come, and guys will go. Things will seem pretty okay for a game or two or three at a time as the bleeding ceases, but the tissue has to come off the proverbial shaving cut eventually. And so, say, Kip Wells might put out a fire one night and put the first two guys on base on eight pitches the next night.

I'm afraid I have no fancy solution devised for this problem. Citing fancy Fangraphs numbers seems like overkill, and there's nothing much to report on the PitchfX front other than the standard-issue "Throw strikes! No, no, no throw better strikes!" kind of admonitions. There's no (non-Strasburgian) kid on the farm who will make things better now, hopefully none of the Nationals Journal commenters waiving Strasburg-for-Closer!!!111!!! signs is a sock puppet for Mike Rizzo, and, if you're going to keep Daniel Cabrera around, you might as well take advantage of the lonely fact that he can throw 90 pitches every five days without hurting himself. The days of pondering whether Cabrera could be transitioned into a fireballing eighth inning guy seem to be as pathetically antiquated as the days of Bob Carpenter wondering what would happen if Wily Mo could just gettaholdaone. There's no white knight on the horizon, and, unless you magnify Joe Biemel's impact by a factor of "Bruce Sutter, 1978," there's never been one.

* * * *

Ultimately, what we're left with are questions of convenience. Would you rather bite your fingernails as Julian Tavarez tries to pitch out of this first-and-third, one-out jam, or Mike MacDougal? Would you rather watch Garrett Mock desperately try to bridge this see-saw affair through the fifth inning, or Jason Bergmann? Would you rather trust Joel Hanrahan try to nail down this game, or Kip Wells? Or Tavarez? Or Biemel? Or Villone? Or maybe Jesus Colome? The answers to these questions might depend greatly upon what happened the night before. Like McCormick & Schmick's, I suppose, it's the fresh approach.

Whatever direction the Nats go from here with their bullpen in 2009, it won't be good, it won't be fun even to those with the most peculiar of sensation-seeking predispositions, and it might not even be bad in an interesting way. But we can at least root for bad and interesting, I suppose.

* * * *

An observation: I don't know if it's intentional, but it seems as though Rizzo is looking for relievers who can (to use the colloquialism) "miss bats," accepting that this often comes at the cost of control. The Bergmann-for-Kensing flip a few weeks ago seems illustrative of this. Bergmann has, on the whole, a decent strikeout and walk record, nothing too special either way. Kensing has basically whiffed a batter per inning in his major league career, but his control has bordered on deplorable.

Kensing became available, and along he came, joining relievers with similarly high walk and strikeout rates. Hanrahan, we remember from last year. Mock fanned a lot of guys out of the bullpen last year, though he also had a high walk rate. Tavarez had a strikeout rate resurgence last season (although he posted a bad ERA). Wells has posted pretty good strikeout rates for a starter, but control's always been a problem. Villone, who became a reliever earlier in his career, has the same general history. And so forth.

Maybe it's a pretty decent approach, given the outfield could be Willingham-Dukes-Dunn any time one of these guys is on the mound, but it hasn't worked. Monday night's disaster in San Francisco provides an example. Cabrera was walking the house after Willingham's misplay, and Kensing promptly perpetuated the damage. When your pitchers issue five straight walks, it seems sort of hollow to reflect that the first one was intentional and the last one was surrendered by the dude relieving your ghorking starter.

Mind you, I have no idea what else to propose at this point beyond joining the Why they gotta play Bergmann like that, dawg? crowd. This isn't to say that Bergmann's any great shakes, but he at least deserves the right to fight off the burgeoning Brad Bergesen as the best B-E-R-G of this decade. Bergmann is like a four on the Ghorkhar Scale, whereas most of the guys in the current Nationals pen are like sixes or sevens at least. That's pretty much what Colome and MacDougal have been throughout their careers, and rumor has it they're the next guys up. Oh well. Maybe Tyler Clippard has matured into a league average reliever. Godspeed.

* * * *

The other observation to be made here is on how this mess has affected Manny Acta's ability to assign the cutesy little bullpen roles that he loves to assign. I'm referring to stuff like "Jon Rauch: Eighth Inning Guy" for a squad like the '07 Nationals - which, while a nice surprise (thanks in no small part to the effectiveness of the Rauch-Cordero late-game combo, one must acknowledge), still only won 73 games. Acta, one of the newer and younger managers in the game, seems to consider something like the "eighth inning guy" as a quasi-discrete role necessary in today's baseball.

That's the only way to explain his handling of Luis Ayala last season, which, from afar, seemed a lot like the managerial equivalent of striking a hammer to your shins repeatedly. Don't let Phil Wood see this post, because I'm going to criticize Manny briefly here. Only in April did Ayala pitch particularly well, and he otherwise pitched poorly, and particularly poor at some particularly inopportune times. Yet, he had succeeded Rauch as the eighth inning guy, so the eighth inning was his pretty much up to the point that he went to the Mets. Ayala made 62 appearances with the Nats, 43 of which began in the eighth inning. This was a very bad team with pretty bad starters who were very bad at getting deep into games, yet Acta still all but reserved one pitcher for the eighth inning in the overwhelming majority of his appearances, and a bad pitcher at that.

But this year is not last year, and this year the Nats don't even have a guy to this point whom Acta can trust as the closer. This mess more or less means that "roles" go out the window. Although I find some displeasure in the cause (terrible, erratic, unreliable relief pitching), the effect of moving away from such rigid bullpen roles pleases me for some reason. It throws out the closer role (which I grudgingly accept), the eighth inning role (which I detest to this point), and even the LOOGY role (which is fun in name, but ultra-limiting even when executed well). At this point, it looks like Acta's just going to go with whatever the hot had is at the time to close out games, and, as for the eighth inning role, it's hard to detect much of a pattern at all: Tavarez, Biemel, Hanrahan, Wells, whatevs. Yay!

Please understand that I don't think throwing spaghetti up against the bullpen wall makes the team better. It simply means the relievers' stat lines might look a little more what they would've looked like when baseball was awesome in the 1980s and I was a kid. We could have a reliever with 12 saves, another with eight, another with seven, and so forth. Some of our relievers might actually average something appreciably over an inning per appearance - or at least they would if they didn't suck, requiring Manny to go to the parade-of-relievers approach for survival purposes (rather than match-up purposes). Fun!

Okay, not fun, but at least a little bit different. That, or Kip Wells somehow racks up 28 saves with a 3.35 ERA.

Either way, though, we're pretty much ghorked.

Out With The Old, In With The Nuclear

Basil — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 00:30:26 -0000

This is my final post.

I would love to depart with a precious little theme, like As the Nationals truly commit to the future with the Jack McGeary signing, I realize there is not much left to say, nay, to criticize, and so I pack it up and walk into the blogging sunset humming an optimistic tune and bearing a broad smile on my countenance. Actually, that precious little theme would be layered with all kinds of cheese, so I am fortunate it is not based in reality.

In fact, my earliest resolve to give up blogging came last November. My resolve did not sufficiently bond or otherwise become strong enough to pull the trigger until early June, when I notified the good folks at Sports Blog Nation that I could not continue up to the network's expectations. And, if I could not continue up to the network's expectations, then there was little sense continuing on the network's blog. One cannot imagine anybody really cares why I made this decision, of course, and I do not expect you the reader to respond with any particular interest. There is no fascinating or lurid reason. I just couldn't maintain it; something had to go, and blogging was it. I agreed to post sporadically until a new blogger could be found, and found a new blogger was.

As you can tell, the new Federal Baseball blogger is e chigliak, formerly of DC Daily. I wish him the very best in his new endeavor, and I will continue to be a Federal Baseball reader.

* * * *

I'm going to make a token attempt not to drag out this last post - I promise - but I do have something on the order of thirty-one months' experience at Nationals blogging, both here and at the former Nationals Inquirer. This is certainly not the longest tenure in the so-called Natosphere; it might not even be in the top five. But it is a goodly amount of time. A kid born in January 2005 could, by sitcom logic, drive expertly by now; if I had held out six or eight more months, the kid could be performing special ops missions or inventing a hilarious refrigerator magnet. Oh well. At any rate, I figured I could use my remaining time here to impart some final reflections. For your benefit, I won't even reference Die Hard!

See you after the jump.

Hey, Ma! Get Off the Danged Roof!

This blogging thing is a strange activity. I daresay no one who does a Nats blog works in baseball. I don’t. Well, I know some people who work in baseball, and my best friend’s church softball team features an ex-big leaguer. Does that count? I’ve never taken one of those Duncha Wanna Be a Scout? courses, nor have I ever taken one of those Duncha Wanna Be in Sports Management? courses. I know anything above ten-speed in Baseball Stars is pretty darn fast, and I know how to balance a checkbook. Does that stuff count? Though I am an attorney and have seen many lawsuits, I’ve never worked a Major League grievance; though I am on my church’s board, I’ve never negotiated a multi-million dollar player contract or mollified the rare kid who really wants to go to college. Yet, I – and at least a dozen like-minded people at any given time – have no hesitation in opining on any of these matters. It’s strange.

But, at the risk of delving into meta-something, it’s entirely natural. This is merely the way human communication has developed. Up until very recently – recently even in the context of recorded history – Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel had the right idea about the most feasible way to communicate over vast distances: climb up a big object secured in the ground and yell, "Ma! Get off the danged roof!" Lord only knows how Cletus knew Ma was on the danged roof, but he had the right idea on how to communicate this apparent knowledge. In due course, people smarter than even Cletus figured it would help matters to secure big poles in the ground and to attach first telegraph wire and then telephone wire to those poles. To help people like Cletus demonstrate that Ma was on the danged roof, things like the photograph and moving film and videotape were invented. Cletus could point to a picture or display the video channeled through a television and proclaim, "Ya see? Ma’s on the danged roof!" Even more recently still, Cletus could publish the fact that Ma’s on the danged roof over vast, vast distances and to a veritable mob of danged roof enthusiasts via the internet, whereby he could proclaim Heh ma is on Teh Danged roof, lol she is teh suxor!!!111!!!! ::smiley::

This is all to say Cletus could well say the same thing hundreds of years ago as he says today, except he could publish those samesuch thoughts in vastly different ways today. And so it is for sports fans, including fans of the Nationals. What I do – what I did – is little different than a fan sitting on a bar stool in 1947 after witnessing a tough loss and sourly spitting that the whole lot ‘o them’s bums.

I think this fundamental point is sometimes hard to grasp. Maybe it’s because of the Blog Triumphalists, who, it seems, envision bloggers or citizen journalists or whatever-you-wanna-call-‘em replacing the established -- sorry -- Main-Stream Media. Maybe it’s because of the Blog Haters, who, it seems, view bloggers as acne-infested overgrown adolescents who, yes indeed, blog in their underwear out of their parents’ basements. Or maybe it’s because of Bloggers Themselves, who, to be honest, tend to be a bit afraid to reveal the existence of their blogs to co-workers or pretty ladies on the street for fear of being labeled obsessives, dorks, massive dorks, or massive dorks who base their operations out of their parents’ basements. Maybe it’s all of that and more. I don’t know.

I am a blogger minimalist. I love baseball, I love to write, and I live in an age where technology has enabled me to publish my writings on baseball to as large an audience as wants to read them. That’s it, and nothing more. There was a time when I wanted to be a sportswriter, but that time ended at the conclusion of my teen years; I selected my profession, and I am happy with it, even if I know my odds of seeing paradise were reduced by a factor of ten the moment I passed the bar exam. There was a time, when I was in my early- or mid-twenties or so, when I suspected I could do just as well running a baseball team as the guy actually running a team; however, that team was the Baltimore Orioles, and Syd Thrift (R.I.P.) was nominally running it. The moment passed. There was a time . . . well, you get the point.

This isn’t to say that there’s nothing more out there, nothing greater out there, than merely typing in some words and hitting submit. There are some wonderful success stories floating around cyberspace. Look at the Baseball Prospectus people. I was just some college nitwit tooling around on the Usenet group rec.sport.baseball (basically a proto-form of blogging) when those same folks were getting ready to organize and start out. Look at them now; some have media jobs, some have jobs with big league teams, and one guy has been established for so long that he had a job with a big league team and now has a media job. Look at Sean Forman of Baseball Reference fame. Seven or eight years ago, he was writing for the Big Bad Baseball Annual, and I was one of the winners of the player comment competition. I made a joke about a certain reliever winning one of those hoagie-eating contests. My comment was never published owing to some editing snafu, but Sean wrote me a really nice note saying he thought the comment was funny; should’ve saved that one. Look at Aaron Gleeman. I have no quasi-personal story with him, but he’s transformed from some Twins obsessive into a nearly ubiquitous professional writer. Good for him. There are others.

But I don’t tend to look at it that way. I started a blog because a couple friends suggested I start one, because the Nats were a new team (of sorts) and I wanted to learn about them, and because it sounded like a fun creative activity. Curse me the day I regarded the blog as anything other than in the spirit of those reasons.

This isn’t to say I didn’t have pride in what I wrote and that I didn’t take some of the content personally – maybe too personally at times. But, in retrospect now, I am perfectly comfortable with probably ninety-eight percent of what I have written and have no regrets quitting without caring one iota about how many people read those words, how many agreed or disagreed with them, or how influential they were. I reject any attempt to "rank" baseball blogs as pointless, fruitless, and downright stupid (and, if any ranking system does not list U.S.S. Mariner as No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3, then almost certainly inaccurate).

Thus, in the final analysis, I see baseball blogdom being unduly blown up in all directions. It’s not really anything revolutionary (but for the technology), and it’s not anything worthy of fear or scorn (even with the technology). It exists because it’s natural it would exist.

That’s my take, at least. Now, please – Ma! Get off the danged roof!

Never Right, Just Not Yet Proven Wrong

A quick definitional moment: virtually without exception, Nats bloggers don’t report -- or at least don’t "report" as is commonly understood by the journalistic trade. It may sound like a point of semantics, but I think any reference to "So-and-So at [Nationals Whatever] reports" is wholly erroneous.

The Nats blog that comes closest, Nationals Farm Authority, is great at what it does, but, as I’m sure Brian Oliver would agree, it doesn’t "report" things. It’s closer to the vest than other Nats blogs, it tends to play things a little straighter, and it has a more newsy feel. Those are content and stylistic decisions, and good ones at that. NFA is an invaluable clearing house of Nats minor league information, a post-production of performances, an aggregator of relevant news items, and a source of informed commentary on related issues. The one time I can recall NFA truly "reported" something, according to the understanding of the term to which I refer, was when Scott Collins attended 2006 spring training and conveyed that Brian Lawrence would miss the year with arm problems. Scott actually "broke" the story in the sense that he posted it before the team’s beatwriters included the nugget in their notebook articles or before the Associated Press writer had a chance to file the story. That was "reporting," serendipitous as it was for Scott (though, I’d imagine, not for the pitcher), and, to my knowledge, that is the only act of "reporting" that the Natsophere has produced.

I may be forgetting something along the way, but who really cares? If so, it’s beside the point. My point is that, as I blogger, I was operating on second-, third-, or fourth-hand information. I was largely dependent on the team’s beat writers for content – content I could then reframe in other contexts. This is what is known as the creative process. Bloggers, in essence, and to borrow a cliched expression, "stand on the shoulders of giants" and then plop out something a little bit or a lot bit different than what the "giants" gave us, all the while knowing, at least implicitly, that there would be little content upon which to blog without the information and insight conveyed by the journalists. (Incidentally, this is why NFA seems a bit different than other Nats blogs; outside of occasional updates or infrequent key dates, the team’s big league beatwriters largely ignore the minor league system. NFA, in its own way, and using different primary sources, fills that gap.)

Sometimes, I wonder whether the beatwriters -- the Svrlugas and Ladsons and Zuckermans of the world -- understand and appreciate the significance of this arrangement. I hope they do, although maybe the attractive aspects of the arrangement are drowned out when a blogger slams a journalist, with or without cause. When a blogger repeats, parses, scrutinizes, or even slams a beatwriter, a transformative process has occurred. I don’t want to overstate the significance of this event, but it is accurate to say the journalist has become not just a news man (or news woman) but a man (or woman) of mass influence. It is both an awesome responsibility but also an awesome compliment to know your words are analyzed and relied upon long away you have finished composing them. From my own professional experience, I know that much.

I hope we have now established the blogger doesn’t "report" this stuff. Instead, he or she analyzes it and/or opines on it. The task is quite a bit different, and it carries with it far different rules and stakes. As for rules, on the basest level, anything goes; Nats blogs are self-run enterprises and even the content at Federal Baseball, which belongs to a larger network, isn’t scrutinized by any powers that be to any critical degree. Bloggers tend to set their own rules, if only because that seems to be the tidy thing to do, but those rules of operation are moreso implied expectations or functional customs. In other words, they are extensions of the individual rather than products of edicts from above. But, no matter the approach, the stakes are generally the same: you want your work to look smart rather than dumb, wise rather than foolish, and interesting rather than humdrum. No one puts his or her own thoughts on a subject out there for the world to see and settles for dumb, foolish, and humdrum.

How the avoidance of dumb, foolish, and humdrum is accomplished depends on the person or group of persons. Generally speaking, my modus operandi was:

write longish (okay, long) essays, preferably using stats and some bigger (okay, tedious) vocabulary, while
trying to consider alternative viewpoints (okay, equivocating), never truly locking into one or alienating the other, while
throwing in some pretty (okay, hideous) pictures using MS Paint.

It’s a simple formula – except for the long essay part, but at least I’m a very accomplished typist. Strike me down if I spent one minute longer than necessary twirling my musings on this ~~crapbag team~~ steadily improving organization.

But that was only my formula. There are others. I’ve found others tend to bring in more readers, so they must be on to something, I suppose. Anyway, the common thread is that we, Nats bloggers, gain our impressions based on what we know, evaluate based on what we know, and often attempt to predict based on what we know. What we know is dependent on what is reported to us, but what we cannot know, at least with full assurance, is whether what has been reported to us is firmly accurate, whether we have fully understood what has been reported to us, whether what has been reported to us is the final story on the matter, or whether what has been reported to us is free of supposition in the first instance. Human beings are not perfect creatures. What has been reported to us might not be perfect knowledge; what we have done with what has been reported to us might not be a perfect application based on a perfect understanding or free from imperfect preconceptions, either from us or from the beatwriter’s pen.

And so, mistakes do happen. Often, you’re not aware of the mistake until -- you guessed it -- you’re actually aware of the mistake. I use the following story as merely an illustration, not as a Gotcha! moment to unnamed parties, especially since I was part of said unnamed party. Back in 2005, the Nationals had a pitcher named Claudio Vargas. It’s hard to remember this was the case, but it’s true. Vargas was injured to start the year, came back from injury, was lit like Lindsay Lohan with ninety seconds to spare, and then was designated for assignment. Vargas was there, and then he was gone; it was all a very clean hit job. The next thing you knew, he was in Arizona, and no one particularly cared.

Except the Nats bloggers, and I was one of them. Vargas had an option year remaining -- this much seemed apparent -- so why had not Jim Bowden and his crew merely optioned Vargas to New Orleans to work out his issues? Why waste a guy like that? The Vargas debacle, when compounded with a few other transactions, underscored how the ‘05 Nats had been reduced from reasonable rotational depth to a kitchen sink rotation by September. We all remember that part. Stupid, dumb Cap’n Leatherpants.

The only problem, as we found out later, was . . . well, it was all a simple mistake. Vargas was out of options, and that’s why he was designated for assignment, and that’s why he was waived, and that’s why the D-Backs picked him up for nothing. Say what you will about getting nothing for a guy who is at least a capable fifth starter in the National League, but the premise was wrong. Whoops.

Those things happen, you know. And, in retrospect, you’d think the lack of a mention of this purported procedural curiosity would have gotten a mention in real-time. But it didn’t, because there was nothing procedurally curious about it. A blogger’s opinions are only as strong as his or her understanding of the fundamental facts of the team. Without the one, the other fails. Sooner or later, the truth will catch up with the opinion. Lesson learned.

I wrote the preceding paragraphs prior to the Jack McGeary signing, but I suppose they are ever more relevant now. Other than the Vargas affair, I didn’t stick my neck out too far on such things. I’d offer my opinion, because that’s what bloggers do, and I tried my best to support it, because that seemed like the thing bloggers should do. A lot of times, I was wrong. I was wrong about the Soriano trade, and I was wrong about the need for an innings-eater this season. Was it a certainty I’d be wrong about such things? I’d say not. Was it a probability? At the time, I’d guess it was no more than fifty-fifty, but who can really say?

Anyway, I think that’s the process that a blogger takes: Is there a firm basis – perhaps a firm probability – that my opinion on a matter will be correct? I’m not sure any blogger actually does the calculus on this in his or her mind; it’s more of a gut feeling. But I’m pretty sure, impliedly or not, that’s how most of us operate when forming an opinion, on a blog or at the office lunch table.

At the risk of contradicting my earlier comments about the foolishness of ranking blogs, I’m going to note that I’m very fond of the Capitol Punishment blog. I’m fond of quite a few Nats blogs, across a broad spectrum of styles and viewpoints, but CP provides a combination of incisiveness and timeliness that gives it a real bang for the buck. (The cost, of course, being zero.) Chris ended up wrong, at least in some tangible sense, about the McGeary thing. He found that out when he woke up in the morning. To some degree, there was egg on his face, although I imagine he can take it.

The thing is, based on what he knew, his criticisms and apparent prediction (I say apparent because, to my knowledge, he never predicted anything) about what would come to pass were reasonably sound. They just turned out incorrect in the end. In a way, this is like the Kennedy assassination. Yes, bear with me. One of the criticisms from conspiracy buffs is that Oswald couldn’t have made the kill shot. Either he was obstructed by a tree out front of the School Book Depository Building, or the rifle he was using was of poor quality, or the scope was misaligned, or he was a lousy shot anyway. I don’t think much of these observations (except maybe the first; Oswald did entirely miss on the first shot, after all), but beyond that they are framed way too ambiguously to demonstrate Oswald wasn’t the shooter. Even if one would concede for the sake of the argument that his "success" (I use the quotes advisedly) was highly improbable, that means little if an act has already occurred. A lot of stuff happens that is highly improbable.

As most of us went to bed last night, I’d say the chances of McGeary signing with the Nats seemed . . . well, if not highly improbable, then improbable or at least doubtful just the same. That’s certainly what I thought. But it happened. Does the fact that it happened make the prior assessment of improbable or doubtful any less valid? In hindsight, of course, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is at the time of the assessment and based on what an outsider could have known at the time – based largely on media reports.

I don’t think so. I don’t think many people would say so. The team’s MLB.com website had already reported that McGeary would "forgo professional baseball and attend Stanford University" -- which, as it turned out, was half-right and incorrect in the most significant aspect. I don’t point out this inaccuracy to castigate any particular reporter but instead to note that this report was in the stew of information for an observer, such as a blogger, to consider. On the other hand, at least somewhat, Svrluga was reporting McGeary’s signing wasn’t foreclosed; significantly, it wasn’t about the money but about whether the Lerners wanted to cheese off Bud Selig and completely whomp all over a sixth-round slot expectation.

Now, Chris is pretty up-front in his suspicion that the Lerners tend to talk big but act with a tighter purse string than the talk would indicate. The Ken Rosenthal report earlier this season provided at least some degree of support for this characterization. The characterization no doubt colored the passion with which he assessed the McGeary situation. Which leads to . . .

Know Thyself, and Revel In it

Back when, someone tried to label me but largely came away frustrated. I was a skeptic yet religious, a cynic yet – how was it put? -- not overly so. I suppose part of life is figuring out what you are, while the rest of life is figuring out you are your own person. Anyway, long ago I figured it would be best not to let my emotions go too much on a sports team. I think it happened in the seventh grade when I tore down my favorite poster in a fit of rage after my favorite team lost on a late field goal, and I ended up working on a fishin’ boat right outside of Delacroix. Don’t know how that happened; things are a bit hazy.

Anyway, that’s sort of the tact I took with the blog. There was something special about that first season with the Nationals – it was new and exciting, and I didn’t find them as pointless and Jim Hunter-infested as I had the Orioles. But I was content with sitting back and evaluating the team somewhat dispassionately. I was happy with the team but realistic. I liked some of the players but saw some obvious weaknesses. And so forth. It was no big thing.

Then they started winning, and then they stopped losing altogether. There was the ten-game winning streak and the first eighty-one games at a hundred-win pace. Somewhere along the way, my rational side flipped out, or went on a month-long hunting expedition in the backwoods of Oregon, or something. Because I not only totally bought into the excitement but I reframed all expectations. Suddenly, it was Come and get us, Atlanta!!! I was aware of the one-run wins and that rat bastard Pythagoras and all that stuff, but I didn’t care. I bought into it, I let go, and I even think I quoted Kenny Loggins. Yeesh.

You know what happened next. The Nats trailed off, experiencing a frustrating July, and could never put together a decent enough push in August to stay current enough in the NL wild card race to the bottom. And then there was San Diego. Enough said.

I looked back at my posts from July and August ‘05 and found them to be very bitter. In essence, I was angry that the team had the audacity to return to a reasonable form. I decided never again to let that kind of emotionalism bleed into my blogging. Not that there is anything wrong with emotionalism, either positively or negatively charged. It just isn’t my style.

Neither the ‘06 nor ‘07 Nats did too much to test that resolution, but at times I’ve found myself looking to Harper from Oleander & Morning Glories as an example. [Note: It should go without saying that I’m mentioning particular blogs just for reflective purposes; I’m not intentionally omitting anyone.] In some ways, I’ve observed, my blogging outlook is similar to Harper’s; actually, that’s the case with several blogs (many of us are products of the same general baseball and generational influences and, thus, all the blogs are non-essential in their own way, one reason why me leaving isn’t any big loss, as if it would be for any other reason!), but I notice it a lot with Harper’s work. The only difference is that he’s sufficiently far-minded and committed to his particular style that he rarely strays from it. He tends to look at a bigger picture, rather than any specific moment. Consequently, I doubt he suffered anywhere near the letdown that I did in the second half of ‘05.

There are other styles, of course. Some are enthusiastic, some are skeptical, some delve into the nitty-gritty, and some tend to be more lighthearted. And those are just tendencies; any particular blog might blur those lines over a series of months. The only thing that really matters is remaining true to oneself.

* * * *

Well, that’s that. I’m going to wrap up now. Given this post’s length, I’d imagine the only entity left reading is one of those Google search readers. With that in mind, here:

Don Zimmer thong

Should bring a few hits.

I want to thank the good people at Sports Blog Nation for hosting this blog. Even when I had a blog called Nationals Inquirer, I wanted a blog called Federal Baseball. I was only too dim to realize that I couldn't register a Federal Baseball name at Blogspot because I had already done so (but didn't realize it due to a faulty dial-up connection or something). So thanks to SBN for a dream come true. Among others, thanks to Blez for inviting me over, to Larry and Eric for their guidance, to Al for helping me figure out far more technical things than I was capable of on my own, to Ian for being really kind, and to Grant for making me laugh.

To everyone else, you know who you are. But I do want to thank two people in particular: first, Ryan from Distinguished Senators, whose blog was the first Nats blog I discovered (before the Nats even existed) and who encouraged me to start my own blog on teh internets; and second, the aforementioned Chris from Capitol Punishment, with whom I have discussed probably half the blog entries I ever wrote. This fact would seem unduly burdensome to him had we not also discussed half the blog entries he's written. Oh, and Danny Rueckel, if you're out there: Thanks for not thinking it was utterly creepy that some online weirdo was tracking your performance on a biweekly basis in 2005. I slacked off the last couple seasons, but wherever it is you go next in professional ball, you'll have a fan.

I've been doing this for a long time -- certainly not as long as a handful of others, but long enough -- and now it's time to end it. I hope it's been worthwhile. I hope my posts have provoked even a modicum of thought, a semblance of inspection. If nothing else, I hope they have adequately explored one of life's great questions. So, yes, let's review it together:

Don't you hate pants?

Don't You Hate Pants?

Basil — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:23:55 -0000

I'm not sure what else to say about the Bonds thing, so I might as well resort to the old Homer J. standby. You should try it some time: Don't you hate pants? It rolls off the tongue and is strangely metaphorical. I remember reading on some idiot screenwriter's blog about how he thought "Snakes on a Plane" was this deceptively telling phrase, indeed worthy of mantra status. That's pushing it, but Don't you hate pants? The "pants" could be any of society's ills or any individual's bugaboos.

No, really.

Ah hell, I'm here now, so I might as well flesh this one out. And by that I mean I simply don't care.

Well, that's not entirely true. I care about Hank Aaron. I don't think he has any sort of entitlement to sit on top of a record list in perpetuity, but I have absolute respect for what he has accomplished in life. True story: Parker Field, the old park here in Richmond, closed its doors one night late in 1984. I was eight years old, and I was at the ballpark the night of Parker Field's last game. So was Hank Aaron, who at that time worked in Atlanta's front office. Aaron served as the dignitary for that final game, and during pregame introductions he walked up one of the aisles and shook the hands of several Parker Field patrons. I was one of them; I shook the great Hank Aaron's hand. I was all of eight, but did I know who he was? Hell yes. He was Hank Aaron.

Harry Caray was by far my most exciting childhood baseball brush with greatness, but similarly Hank Aaron was by far my most proud.

As for the Bonds factor, I find myself indifferent. Look, I'm not a child anymore; I've regressed, and so I'm an attorney. There are a few types of attorneys. There's the ridiculously overzealous hyper-prosecutor/hanging judge, the meely moral relativist, the unconscionable scourge of ethical unscrupulousness, and the unremittingly maddening sophist. On my good days, I am none of the above; on most days, I tend to resemble the last.

I could construct an argument about how this all doesn't really matter, about how baseballdom's relentless and childlike obsession with quasi-mythical numbers and hierarchical lists is utterly sophomoric, about how if you want to regard Hank Aaron (or Babe Ruth before him) as the Home Run King then by all means do so. Whether Bonds surpasses Aaron on a list of raw home run totals really needn't diminish what Aaron was as a player or is as a baseball legend. I could waste my time doing that.

I could.

But I won't. It's pointless. Instead, I'm going to direct a quick flash of trademark condescension at every single announcer who has indicated the weight of the world is on his shoulders for the horrible burden of maybe, maybe having to call Bonds's record-breaking homer. Screw you, fellas. I'm not going to name-drop, but I have some idea of what your job entails. You are among a very elite fraternity of voices of this game, in some ways the noblest stewards of the National Pastime. Your job is not easy. Granted.

But get off it, you jerks. You're living the dream of countless people: calling games played by people who live the dreams of all those aforementioned people from back when they were dreaming as kids. You're a lucky man, Ted Leitner. Stop taking yourself so damned seriously.

As for the rest, check out McCovey Chronicles. You won't regret that.

"We didn't have to trade anybody."

Basil — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:56:58 -0000

This is what Jim Bowden told Barry Svrluga after the Nats in fact did not trade anyone prior to this afternoon's non-waivers trade deadline. The statement is true, quite literally true.

If the team didn't have to trade Alfonso Soriano, a prospective free agent, one year ago today, then it certainly did not have to trade Chad Cordero and Jon Rauch, who are under club control for another three years. What Bowden said is correct, of course. If the offers out there for Cordero or Rauch were insufficient -- and, from today's deadline coverage, it certainly appeared the Mets were not willing to expand a deal for Cordero -- then Bodes and company were under no compulsion to trade either of the two relievers. A team always has options at the trade deadline, and the Nats were definitely no exception.

Nevertheless, I am vaguely disappointed. I'll get to that feeling in a second, but first I need to put something out in the open, to stipulate it, if you will: it's hard enough to evaluate a trade that's consummated, but it's doubly hard to evaluate a trade that was never made. It's not something that should be too arrogantly done by bloggers -- if such restraint is feasible for bloggers -- because, when the flop hits the fan, we lack a firm grasp of the flop and are obscured by the fan.

Such was the case last year -- has it ever been resolved what exactly the Nats were offered for Soriano? -- and such is largely the case this year. Granted, the details are a bit firmer this time around. Nats.com, for instance, provided the straight dope of what was offered for Cordero. Or at least it appears to be the straight dope, or at least decidedly non-crooked swank:

Cordero for Phil Humber: Thanks but no thanks.
Cordero for Carlos Quentin: Never on the table.
Cordero for Carlos Gonzalez: Asked and answered, and the Snakes said no.

So there.

But wait, there's more! It turns out -- admittedly somewhat inconceivably -- teams were looking at the Nats' prospects. Yeah, I know; the Nats' prospects suck. Except they don't, or at least some of them don't, and a few among them are actually quite promising. Colton Willems and Glenn Gibson are both 19, both doing quite well at Low-A Vermont, and both on the radar of some other clubs, according to Nats.com, according to sources.

Now, progress is nice, but the time is not exactly ripe to go high on the hog here, if you'll pardon the inartfully mixed metaphors. For instance, I submit for your perusal this recent Nats.com article, in relevant part:

Kasten also pointed out Washington's Minor League system is now filled with quality arms, something that was non-existent two years ago. For example, Class A Vermont has three stud pitchers -- Adrian Alaniz, Glenn Gibson and Colton Willems -- who have ERAs under 3.00.

(emphasis added)

Uh, yeah -- filled. Let's see: there's Lannan, who's performed a nifty four-level rise this season; Ballester, who's making fine progress; Mock, who's been injured and disappointing so far but has some untapped potential; and the three guys at Vermont. Yes, I know there are a few guys I didn't mention, but those are the pitchers in the minor league system with the most promise at the moment. (Not to discount from Chico, who's holding his own in the bigs.) Is that a system filled with quality arms? Get off it. It's two guys who have made it through the trials far enough to be on the precipice -- or, in Lannan's case, the recipient of a preliminary look -- of the majors. The Vermont guys are doing great, for sure, but the emphasis should be placed on "doing." They're in medias res, and much closer to the start than the finish; we won't know anything truly significant about them for quite awhile, and that's on the order of years rather than months. "Filled"? No way.

Willfully childish characterizations aside, the general point is that the organization's pitching depth is improving. And, Nats.com reported, other teams wanted a shot at the Vermont guys. This is a time to enhance that organizational depth, not relinquish it.

So, let's say we get to 3:45 this afternoon, fifteen minutes prior to the deadline. And let's say -- and, trust me, I'm just spitfiring here -- some of us are, you know, really pining for some trade news. Where's the trades? Why haven't there been any trades? Is everybody alright over there, because I don't see any trades? Hey, are they going to make any trades? Again, I'm just going through the motions of an exercise here, you know. But let's say we were thinking such things fifteen minutes prior to the deadline. We might have even heard rumors of what was offered, what was rejected, and what was under final, frantic consideration. But I guaran-Nats-an-tee you we wouldn't have known other teams were saying, "Sure, we'll trade; just give us Colton Williems." Or we wouldn't have known -- and, in fact, we didn't know until Bowden's comments after the deadline were passed on -- that the team had a suitor for Dmitri Young that backed off before a trade was consummated. (Hello, Minnesota Twins!) It's hard enough to frame a cogent argument when we have the necessary info placed before us; it's somewhat pointless when we're blind to relevant facts.

Nevertheless, nevertheless . . .

And finally we reach my vague disappointment. The Nats have, by Bowden's own admission, been "treading water" in terms of player development acquisitions for the past month. The problem is that July is normally a pretty good month for player development acquisitions if you're motivated to grab some talent. This isn't to say you can snap your fingers and gobble up a Grade-A prospect or two on demand. You have to have some talent to offer in exchange, and, as Bowden argued, other teams are more reticent to give up top young talent these days. But if you need to enhance your organizational depth -- and, rosy soundbytes aside, this is something the Nats desperately, vigilantly, comprehensively, and tirelessly need to do -- then you have to put in a good faith effort to that end and then some.

Instead, at present, the Nats have received nothing for Ronnie Belliard, nothing for Dmitri Young, nothing for Jon Rauch, and nothing for Chad Cordero. That's a lot of nothing. Granted, the first three guys weren't going to bring in a tremendous stock of talent, but they would have fetched something if the Nats had been willing to sell. Instead, they brought the team nothing.

Again, Bowden is right, and let's be clear about that: Washington didn't need to trade anyone. Rauch and Cordero, as mentioned, are under team control; Belliard and Young, you might have heard, are recent recipients of surprising multi-year deals. There's only one guy who really needs to be traded, but that's Ray King, and he doesn't really need to be traded, not yet. Hello, August 31 deadline.

But still, but still . . .

This isn't like last year, when the Nats knew (some new CBA trepidation aside) that they'd get two picks for Soriano. The Nats have one prospective free agent now, and that's King. I haven't exhaustively researched the matter, but I'm presuming he won't bring any compensation to the dance. And that's that. No deadline prospects, no compensation draft picks. These young talents, these prospects, that the Nats need don't grow on trees, spontaneously combust, or hang ten in Kamino's surfy oceans.

Is this organization really at a point where it can tread water in terms of acquiring young talent? My, that was quick.

Personally -- and this is one of those "bloggers sticking his neck out fruitlessly" moments -- I believe the Nats should have moved Rauch. What Bowden says about Rauch's salary and club control status is correct, of course, but what are the chances Rauch is chuggin' along as the team's setup man when it comes time to contend -- I mean really contend, not '05 contend -- in, you know, three or four or whatever years? I don't know much about this game of baseball, but I know you don't do a few things when projecting players. You don't plan on things as simultaneously ridiculous and mundane as backup catchers of the future, and you don't etch into stone the identity of your eighth-inning pitcher years in advance. Bowden's quote, as pertaining to Rauch, sounds like a bit of an etch job. Let's say the Nats are ready to contend in 2010 -- this scenario involves a heavy infusion of talent, obviously, especially among position players. Is Rauch still around? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he's long become ineffective by then; maybe, after hitting the arbitration game, he's long priced himself out of the team's plans. Remember where guys like Rauch, Colome, and Rivera have come from, and that where is nowhere in particular. Why pay millions upon millions for middle relief, unless you're the Baltimore Orioles of course?

So yeah, I guess I'm quibbling here. Rauch wouldn't have brought a championship-caliber prospect, if that's the standard Bowden is setting forth in these discussions, but he would have brought something. And that someone representing the something might, just might, be around come 2010 or 2012 or whenever, whereas Rauch might or probably will not be. You could apply that same principle to Belliard or Young or maybe even the Chief, too, but I'm not going to press my luck.

One more thought occurs to me, and it's that we could be seeing a change of course for this team. Guys are remaining rather than departing. In some cases, the stated reasons for standing pat are, if you'll pardon, a bit moronic:

And in Young's case, he was re-signed because the team doesn't know if Nick Johnson will fully recover from his broken leg. The team feels it has nothing at first base had Young been traded.

Just think about that for a second. Prior to this year, the Nats were concerned about Nick Johnson's health, and they had nothing at first base. (Well, Larry Broadway; with apologies to the Broadway family, that's pretty much nothing.) One of Bowden's greatest strengths is his ability to cast a line and find bounce-back guys. He found a good one in Young, and now it's time to quell his ambition for reclamation projects? Meaning no offense to Dmitri, who has been pretty much awesome so far, I just don't see why the team wouldn't try to rinse and repeat the process for 2008. (As for the rest of 2007, well, who gives two craps?)

Unless, that is, the Nats are in the midst of a course correction and, instead of picking at some marrow off the proverbial carrion, they are loading for bear. So they keep Belliard, keep Young, keep Rauch, keep Cordero, keep anyone and everyone who can contribute in the very near term.

That would be an interesting way to go, but let's be clear about something: it would take a hell of a lot of loading to get anywhere. They'd need a centerfielder, a bona fide slugger, a real leadoff man, and something on the order of three to four reliable starting pitchers. We're talking about a very active and expensive offseason.

Is that possible? As intriguing as the prospect may be, I'd guess not. More than likely, the plan -- to the extent there really is a plan, as in "The Plan" -- remains roughly the same. It will just take time and perspective to see how today fits in that vision.

But we've got time for that perspective to materialize. After all, as Bowden says, they didn't have to trade anybody.

Double The Fat, Half The Cost

Basil — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 00:17:40 -0000

It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a Ronnie Belliard re-signing to post? Or it takes a Ronnie Belliard re-signing to laugh, it takes a Dmeat-Train re-signing to cry? Whatever. The Nats inked Ronnie B. to a two-year extension today, and here I am taking time out of my busy schedule and crazy social calendar to make a note of it.

A major leauge source with knowledge of the deal says it's a two-year, $3.5 million contract. He'll make $1.6 million next season, $1.9 million in '09. . . .

Belliard is making $850,000 this season.

So sayeth Das Svrluga. By happy coincidence, Nats 320 posted an interview with Belliard today. Belliard indicated he enjoyed playing in Washington and for Manny Acta, which cannot really be considered a surprise. (Sometimes, if for no reason other than novelty, I'd love to see a player, when asked about his host city, reply, "Dude, that place is the slimiest mudhole this side of Dagobah" -- or, you know, words to a less dorky effect.) Anyway, Belliard also said quite a few interesting things, like an explanation for why he plays second base while positioned in the opposition bullpen.

I cannot decide whether Belliard's signing says more about the malleability of the organizational plan (hereinafter, of course, "The Plan") or says nothing about The Plan, or whether the two are functionally the same thing when discussing The Plan. Is it overly cynical to postulate that just about every transaction, statement, manuever, or movement will be construed by some as not only in light of The Plan, but also in furtherance thereof? Hell, I swear Stan Kasten could announce tomorrow that he's going out for the role of the King of Siam in a community production held at the local middle school and a sizable contingent would note he's doing so as a calculated measure to gain in-roads in terms of Far East talent accumulation. Does signing Belliard to a two-year contract extension say anything at all about team-building? Must it?

It doesn't, and it needn't. All it means, as the preliminary Nats.com article notes, is Belliard won't be traded prior to next Tuesday's deadline. Or at least it means he more than likely won't be.

The article also states that the extension additionally means Belliard will be a part of the Nats' long-term future. Keeping in mind I'm a mere outsider -- and keeping in mind the phrase "long-term future" can refer to varying terms of, uh, longness -- I'm not so sure about that. The extension means the Nats now hold Belliard's rights through the 2009 season. But, pursuant to the metaphorical "bundle of rights" a property-owner holds, the Nats by and large dictate what to do with those rights. They could well keep Belliard through 2009; on the other hand, barring the extremely unlikely event the contract extension contains a no-trade clause, they could also trade Belliard along the way. It is not as though Belliard will accrue ten-and-five rights during the life of the contract.

Let's return to those salary figures for a moment: $1.6 million next year, $1.9 million in 2009. Those are correct? They're all we have at the moment; we'll presume they're correct. [Whoops, Nats.com has $3.5 million now. That's correct.] Either Belliard is an extraordinarily charitable chap, or in a moment of extreme clairvoyance he saw his professional demise and decided to get what he can while he can. From where I'm sitting, this seems like below-market -- or at least below what the market for Belliard will be in a matter of months. Granted, he settled for an NRI and $850,000 prior to this season, but the guy is hitting above .300 and has established he can fill in at all infield positions. Belliard has had to have reclaimed a good bit of value.

You can look at that two ways. First, you can say -- correctly -- the Nats have re-signed a quality contributor, a guy who can at worst fill in at a couple infield positions and provide a nice bench bat, for a relatively de minimis cost. Belliard doesn't need to continue hitting .300 for his contributions to be worth $1.6 to 1.9 million these days, even after considering much of his value lies in his batting average. It's quite possible Belliard has indeed been locked into the Nats' long-term future.

But that needn't be the case and, as a second matter, the contract extension would seem to accentuate Belliard's trade value next season for the same reasons the Nats themselves would find him valuable. Let's presume Belliard continues to hit and is indeed hitting well next season. A contender comes along and notes not only is the fellow the type of guy who could help in '08 but, hey! -- he's signed through '09, too. And for less than two million?

Come next July, Belliard will be viewed as neither a rental nor a millstone. Not that he could haul in a Grade-A prospect, of course, but he could stand to be an attractive trade bait. All he has to do is continue performing.

* * * *

The other thought Belliard's extension invokes -- and it is noted a bit in the Capitol Punishment post linked above, which you've no doubt read already, of course -- is whether the move impacts Felipe Lopez's future with the club. I guess it's too early to say. What we do know is that:

Lopez is arbitration-eligible at the end of the season;
Lopez can play both short and second; and
Lopez is better at second than short.

Oh, and we also know Cristian Guzman is signed through '08, and he's a shortstop.

I'd imagine the club hopes Lopez finishes this season with a strong kick. To tell the truth, I'm inclined to write off this season as bad campaigns for both Lopez and Austin Kearns and hope for bounce-backs next season. So, I'd say the club should pay Lopez his due in arbitration (Kearns, of course, is signed long-term), although I understand it isn't my money at play, and the Lerners don't seem too excited about ponying up any more of their money than absolutely necesary.

But Belliard's continued presence does give the team unanticipated options for next year and beyond. The Nats could maintain the status quo (ante-Guzman injury), employ Belliard as a bench presence, and get decent value out of that kind of contribution. Or they could trade Lopez for what they can. Or they could even non-tender Lopez. The last option seems unlikely, though one could argue Lopez has backed into a discussion on that on the merits.

At any rate, this is an interesting development. And hey, if Belliard is dealt next July 31 for prospects, you can always say that's about The Plan, too.

Even Better Than The Real Thing

Basil — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:28:11 -0000

It's July, which means a few things. High gas prices. Old men modeling the latest in knee-sock and Hawaiian shirt fashions. NFL talk on sports radio. And, yes, baseball trading season.

All of these topics seem germane to a blog post, except it seems Stan already has the Hawaiian shirt angle covered and, seeing as it's been nearly three weeks since I posted anything and it could be eternity until I post again, perhaps it would be best to talk about baseball, which means talking about trading season, especially as applied to Our Washington Nationals. As it is, there seems to be a lot of Nats trade talk going down. I'm way behind the curve when it comes to Natosphering, but it seems much of the discussion focuses on our Husky Triumvirate of Dmitri, Ronnie, and Burger.

I'll simply refer you to the usual sources on such discussions and leave the Fat at that. I appreciate the discussion, but I find it overwrought. This is not to say I don't think Dmitri Young has not reclaimed his trade value, because I really think he has. And it's not that I think Ronnie Belliard can't help a contender, beause I suspect he can. And it's not that I think Ray King could be a useful pitcher, because I don't. That's all fine, but this kind of discussion overlooks our most transactionally-mobile player -- the man, history suggests, who is most likely to change teams out of all of Washington's stars.

Tony Batista.

I'm not really sure Batista's appeal demands much exposition, but just in case, I've prepared a Brandeis brief on the matter. If you haven't realized it before now, you will certainly recognize it now. More than any other commodity, Tony Batista is not long for this team.

The Historical Appeal

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the man who replaced Cal Ripken. Forget your Ryan Minor references; when Cal walked away, he handed the positional torch to Tony Batista.

Upon Ripken's retirement at the conclusion of the 2001 season, the Baltimore Orioles faced the hugest of holes to fill at the hot corner. How would the O's cope? Fortunately, they had one Leocadio Batista on hand. And they didn't miss a beat. Batista bopped thirty-one homers (twice as many as Cal had in his final season!), and he made the transition incredibly seamless. The O's didn't even lose a spot in the standings!

The Professional Appeal

It is no surprise that a player of Batista's historical stature would be such an accomplished professional. One of the hallmarks of professionalism is the ability to adapt to changes in conditions, a trait that enables an individual to thrive in a myriad contexts. Batista has amply demonstrated this skill.

When he first established himself in the major leagues, he found himself in a game typified by power. In 1998, when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were captivating our nation with their long ball exploits, Batista was wowing devotees of the expansion Diamondbacks with his potent bat. Batista clubbed eighteen homers in barely a half-season of at-bats, and his power ability was only enhanced when he moved on to Toronto the following season. He bashed seventy-two homers over the next two seasons, including an astounding forty-one in 2000.

The baseball world took notice of Batista's long ball ability, and he soon became known as one of the tactic's finest practitioner. In that monstrous 2000 season, Batista earned an All-Star berth. Two seasons later, when Batista took the positional baton from a legend, Tony whomped thirty-one more homers and earned a second All-Star berth. You can count on one hand the number of American League third sackers from the last decade who have had earned multiple All-Star appearances -- perhaps two hands, but obviously the point stands with just as much force.

But Batista did not rest on his laurels. In the years 2003-04, he averaged just about thirty homers per campaign. He was an elite power hitter.

By 2006, when Batista returned to the States, America's game had changed. Power-hitting was sooooooo 1998 (-2004), and good old-fashioned hittin'-'em-where-they-ain't was back in vogue. Ozzie Guillen's SmartBall reigned supreme, and Tony Batista no doubt realized he needed to change his approach to fit in with the changing times. To everthing there is a season . . .

So Batista adapted. One thing traditional baseball fans tend to like is a nice ribbie-to-homer ratio. If you're an Adam Dunn type and drive in two or three runners per homer, then you're just not a sound baseball player. Tony Batista used to average three ribbies per homer, but guess what? Upon his return to America the Beautiful, he's averaged over five ribbies per homer. His current ribbie/homer ratio is mathematically indistuishable from that of the great Ozzie Smith in 1987!

The man is a professional at this game, no matter how the game is played.

The Aesthetic Appeal

Not only are Batista's career numbers intriguing, but so is his approach at the plate. When you see Tony Batista at the plate, you know Tony Batista is at the plate.

Bill James once commented that you can identify greatness by locating uniqueness. Which players are truly similar to, say, Babe Ruth or Willie Mays or Barry Bonds? Very few, if any. And whose batting stance is similar to Tony Batista's? Indeed.

The stance typifies intelligence. His left foot, flared from the batter's box, resembles that of a jab step in basketball. Truly, the man sets himself in triple-threat position. He might swing. Occasionally, he might make contact. Sometimes -- once in awhile -- he'll let the pitch pass by. The pitcher doesn't know what to expect; the hurler is intimidated.

But we, as fans, appreciate. We realize his approach is designed to strike the ball at an optimum angle, not unlike the winning strategy in Nintendo Golf lo those years ago. In Golf, the successful player did not strike the ball straight-on. No; the experienced player knew the key was to employ an extreme fade. So he positioned Mario well off-center, aligned far to the left of the target. A position, you might have noticed, not at all unlike that adopted by Tony Batista.

Hit 'em high and far, Tony!

The Popular Appeal

Given the many stops that Batista has made throughout his career (see below), and given his abilities noted above, it is no surprise he has attracted legions of fans. Crowds line up to see Tony's batting practice exploits, or just to see him lean against the rail during pre-game warmups. With Tony Batista, it's all good.

One undeniable fact is that he draws throngs of young fans. Our future stars and Svrlugas love him, as attested by this picture I lifted off the internets:

[Young autograph-seekers mob Tony Batista prior to a July home date. (Photo Courtesy M.L.B. Advanced Media.)]

Given Batista's popularity, it's no wonder so many teams have clamored to acquire him. Speaking of which . . .

The Demand Appeal

Not surprisingly, Batista has found his services in significant demand. It seems everyone wants a shot at this premium talent!

Tony started with Oakland way back when. Billy Beane may be a smart guy, but he missed the boat on this one. To be fair, Beane isn't alone in this regard. From Oakland, it was on to Arizona. From Arizona, it was on to Baltimore. Nevertheless, the peak demand for Tony Batista had not yet developed.

By 2004, the demand for Batista's services had reached international proportions. The Montreal club had a third base hole, and they were willing to pay international fares to get a particular third sacker's attention. The move paid off -- too well, as it were. Thirty-two homers and a hundred-ten ribbies speak loudly, and the folks in Japan were listening. By 2005, Batista had become an intercontinental superstar!

Tony returned to the United States the following season, but the club who called him back, the Minnesota Twins, soon learned not even they could not hold on to him forever. From Minnesota, it was on to Washington. Along that journey, Batista even drew the attention of a minor league team, the Columbus Clippers.

Simply put, it seems like everyone wants to employ Tony Batista. It only seems logical to conclude this behavior will continue.

Sorry, Nationals fans. Let us enjoy Tony Batista while we can. A player like him doesn't come along every day.

Down The Highway, Down The Bend, Down The Road To (Something Less Than) Ecstasy (But Not Bad!)

Basil — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:06:59 -0000

When I was in middle school and high school, there was this guy a year ahead of me. He was really good at sports -- baseball, basketball, football, and looking like he could kick anybody's ass -- so we'll call him something authentic like Jock. They used to say all kinds of things about Jock, as they tend to do about anybody of such school-yard stature. They said he was related to an all-star forward (which was almost certainly not true). They said college scouts used to come out to see him when he was in the eighth grade (definitely not true). They said he roomed with A-Rod while on some amateur all-star team (perhaps true). And, according to sites like Baseball Reference and the Baseball Cube, they say he's the only player in the history of my high school to be taken in the MLB draft.

This is all to say Jock was a pretty big deal around my town. As it turned out, he wasn't a top pick, but word is he got a nice bonus. By my recollection, his pro career got off to a decent start but stalled out in low-A ball, when he first couldn't find a position and then couldn't hit. Jock is more of a memory these days; I haven't seen or heard of him in years, and the only reason his professional career is a matter of public record is because teh internets makes damn near everything a matter of public record.

But people still remember Jock in my town. Just a week or two ago, I was standing in line at Firestone -- a nearly interminable line, as it were, which gave me ample opportunity to strike up a conversation with the guy behind me. I noticed he was wearing a golf shirt bearing the name of the baseball team of the other high school in my town, which just happened to be the state champion and a top ten team in the country this season. He was the coach. Great guy -- a little nervous about his car passing inspection, but a really gracious sort and with ample knowledge of area baseball. Oh sure, he remembered Jock. If you were familiar with sports in my area, you'd certainly remember Jock.

And that's what Jock is, in context. He's nothing much on a broader scale; maybe he would even be considered something of a disappointment, if any of the front office or scouting types of the big league club that drafted him were still around, which they more than likely aren't. Jock's forgotten, and if you had no reason to care about him, then you wouldn't. But if you invested some pride in him and his accomplishments, then you would remember him. And you would be proud.

* * * *

In their own way, those are our Washington Nationals at the mid-way point of the 2007 season. If you have no reason to care about the Nats, then you might not recognize the significance of this season's performance, might not understand their fans have a special sort of pride in their efforts, and might not fathom how Boz could put the word "boast" in the same sentence as "32-43 record." Well, perhaps that last item is a bit unfathomable, especially when underscored by the team's 1-5 week following that column's publishing date. But when people don't invest much interest in something, their memories tend to be short. How many people who shrug at the Nats' 33-48 record remember back to three months ago, when many national pundits predicted heavy, "historically bad" losses?

Such predictions are something of a two-way sword. On the one hand, as Loverro implied the other day, a 120-loss prediction is tantamount to a competitive get-out-of-jail free card. For this reason, Loverro contends the Nats should be "thankful" for such predictions, because they in essence preemptively reframed expectations for a team that is, on the whole, performing at a 96-loss pace. On the other hand, those national predictions are just as relevant today as they were in mid-March, which is to say not very relevant at all. As we have explored numerous times, it's mighty hard to spot an historically bad team in advance, and it was just as presumptuous to predict this team to be one. On their own merits, the Nats are a bad team, and you'd surely recognize that from afar, but they are also a competitive team capable of good baseball, and that's something we can surely appreciate from a far more attuned posture.

So, with another three months left, here we stand. They're our group of Jocks. We will remember this team, even if no one else will. And we'll remember it fondly and, yes, with some pride. We'll know, on a broader level, the team isn't much at all. But -- if I may be so bold -- to us, the 2007 Nats are something. We'll recall this team fondly, even if our reasons, like the reasons for my hometown's fondness for Jock, are mainly provincial.

* * * *

A quick review of what the first half of the Nats' season has established:

Manny Acta Is Good At This Managing Thing

It's tough enough evaluating a manager. There are a lot of factors to consider -- lineup selection, in-game strategy, pitcher usage, and demeanor, to say nothing of won/lost record -- and getting a firm grasp on a manager's effectiveness is often hard enough before one really dwells on how much the manager actually influences the team's performance. This is particularly true of Acta. One wonders how he could have possibly been a failure in this first season of such low expectations.

But, whatever expectations could realistically be placed on Acta, I believe he's far exceeded them. Acta draws an occasional eyebrow, like most managers do, but he's a steady, positive guy. I'm not claiming any inside knowledge (far from it, of course, since I'm decidedly an outsider), but everything I've read about the team's clubhouse indicates Acta has the team's respect. And, it has been said, gaining the players' respect is the one, non-negotiable ability a manager must possess.

Acta is firm when he has to be, affirming at all other times. Judging by the postgame interviews, he's occasionally and appropriately blunt. He offers a realistic appraisal of what must be appraised, and I can only infer he does in private what he does in public. Acta started out his managerial career 9-25, but not once did he appear to hang his head.

His team is one game over .500 since that 9-25 start, which, if you'll pardon the digression, is a tidbit I consider fraught with potential inanity. It's one of those tidbits you could classify under the general banner of Sports Hearsay. This is to say, in the law, hearsay is considered "bad" when it's offered for the "truth of the matter asserted." Something similar is true here. If you say "the Nats are one game over .500 after a 9-25 start" for the purpose of asserting the Nats are pretty much of .500 quality (after that bad start, of course), then I'm going to object. In all likelihood, it's a baseless statement and one, I must observe, that attempts to render that 9-25 start entirely irrelevant. It's too convenient, too caught in the moment, and too ignorant of the various ebbs and flows that constitute a baseball season. But if you make that same statement for another purpose -- say, to express your state of mind concerning the team -- then the statement is far less perilous.

And so it is with Manny Acta's leadership of this team. His team started out 1-8 -- remember, it took a week-and-a-half just to get an in-game lead -- on its way to a 9-25 mark in early May. But Acta didn't fold out, didn't panic, and didn't lash out. He remained steady, showed some tough love when appropriate, and rode out a lot of injuries. And this Nats fan's state of mind is emboldened by how the team has responded to Acta's direction.

"Jim Bowden" And "Character Reference" Are Not Mutually Exclusive

There's a flip side to this "Jim Bowden and his Gang of Former Reds" thing, you know. We usually explore the more cynical side of things, as bloggers. So, yeah, there's the part about lacing the organization with guys who couldn't play, guys who couldn't manage, and guys who don't really make good studio analysts. But the flip side of this deal is that when Bowden vouches for a guy, he's vouching on the basis of prior experience. Unless his judgment is entirely not to be trusted, then his experience is potentially wortwhile.

This is all fluffy introduction to perhaps this season's most gratifying revelation, Dmitri Young. I'm not sure if more people laughed or revulsed when the Bowden signed Young. Dmitri seemed sort of washed up, and he did have a personal issue that certainly seemed revolting. But Young insisted medical issues rendered him something other than himself last season, and he insisted he merely needed a second chance. Bowden bet Young would make-good. Granted, it wasn't much of a bet -- there was no commitment involved, and Young would merely serve as placeholder for an injured starter -- but it was still a gamble.

One thing I love about baseball is how perceptions can change if you just take the time to watch the games and invest yourself in a team. Last season, I grew to love Alfonso Soriano. The 46 homers certainly didn't hurt, but there was something thrilling about watching him play independent of the 40-40(-40) status. Young is nowhere near as explosive a player, but he has put a face on a baseball cliche; he is, in a very real sense, a "professional hitter." And who, after reading about his travails last season and watching him jumble all over the field, would have guessed "professional" would have described Dmitri Young in any sense?

But that's what Dmitri is, and now he's added "2007 All-Star" to the list. He's undoubtedly a temp, and we shouldn't lose sight of that. But I'll enjoy watching him represent the Curly W, just the same.

It's Still Basically Ryan Zimmerman And A Thousand Guesses

Let's brush aside the obvious as quickly as we can: Zimmerman has been touched with the dreaded sophomore slump. He's lost about 40 points off his batting average, a bit more off his on-base percentage, his OPS+ is a chilly 90, and his defense has alternated between spectacular and unreliable at times. Whatever. He doesn't turn 23 until late September, and as Needham (who, by the way, is away for a week to stand in line for Transformers or something) has mentioned enough times already, Zimmerman will look like a 30+ homer guy once the team moves into the new park. In some ways, it'll be his new park. Zimmerman is the centerpiece, the franchise, and to this point really the one-man gang.

Aside from that, Matt Chico has established he's a pretty resilient guy, though I think it's far from certain he's built some solid ground as of yet, and Chad Cordero has re-affirmed he is indeed Chad Cordero, a pretty good closer given the right circumstances. Otherwise, we've seen Jim Bowden exploit the fat guy market inefficiency and this club extend starting invitations to nearly ever living pitcher since Howie Koplitz. And we've been told Stan Kasten prefers "the plan," uncapitalized, over "The Plan," capitalized, which might be a good thing, since "The Plan" sounds so rigorously pretentious and, meaning no offense to these fine gentlemen, any master plan cannot seriously be made to include Jason Simontacchi, Mike Bacsik, and Micah Bowie as rotational cogs in it, even for a nanosecond's worth of attention.

What else? Well, can Felipe Lopez and Austin Kearns still be considered part of this team's future? It's a legitimate question, and right now the answer seems to be trending toward the negative. Kearns is locked up, of course, but it's possible Lopez would be a non-tender candidate but for his past all-star appearance and the cache that type of thing brings. We'll see. Ryan Church demonstrated he could cover some ground in center, and then he went into a May/June tailspin that demonstrated he quite possibly is stretched as a regular. Kory Casto demonstrated nothing, which shouldn't necessarily harm his organizational status, insofar as he wasn't really given the opportunity to demonstrate anything. The team is still spinning its wheels in the outfield, and just about the only sure thing we could conclude in that regard requires no real conclusion: Nook Logan, Ryan Langerhans, and Brandon Watson are so far from the answer in center that the question cannot even really be composed necessitating the answer. Logan and Langerhans might have depth utility. I like Watson and feel bad he was sent down, but he doesn't even have a solid defensive rep upon which to hang his hat.

I could go on, but the future of this franchise is Zimmerman and a bunch of uncertains. That much hasn't changed. Even the partial first-half rotation breakouts, Shawn Hill and Jason Bergmann, are uncertains by reason of the specter of injury -- and for that reason, it might even be optimistic to label John Patterson an uncertain at this point. It's still Zimmerman and the uncertains, even if the uncertains have changed. They've changed via the draft (Detwiler and Smoker and Burgess and Zimmermann and that Stanford chap, McGeary, who will be a tough sign), and it's changed via 2007 movers and shakers. Who even knew who John Lannan was prior to the season? Now, he's a step away from the majors. Who thought Zech Zinicola would stall in his rapid pursuit of the majors?

And so forth. Zimmerman is the constant, so far.

Still, if the tone of this post is positive, please don't feel compelled to adjust your settings. There's not much point to this 2007 edition of the Washington Nationals, but don't tell that to the guys out on the field. Dmitri and fellow fatster don't care that this season is basically a fly-by until the new park opens; they're looking to reestablish their value, and it seems they're succeeding, especially Young. Don't tell Chico that the main reason to buy season tickets this year is to reserve a spot for next year, when the real fun begins; he's out there now, trying to make a name for himself. Don't tell Simontacchi and Bacsik that they don't belong because they stink; they mainly do stink, but they're putting in their all to stink a little less and stick around awhile longer, because awhile longer is all they have in this game.

It's not a good team, certainly, and it's not even an entertaining team. There's no power/speed combo fulcrum like Soriano. But there's a roster full of guys scratching and clawing and, yes, being scrappy on occasion. With a few notable exceptions, they've played hard all season and, with a few more notable exceptions, they've played smarter than past Nats teams did under Frank Robinson. They're on exactly the same pace the '06 Nats were, which means nothing to me in particular, but it seems a source of pride to some fans and to the guys in the MASN studios. And, to tell you the truth, I've got no problem with that attitude.

It's entirely possible this team still loses 100 games, but I'm ready to cheer on the drive to 72 wins.

DE-TROIT BASE-BALL!

Basil — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:11:08 -0000

It was the darnest thing. I've been away at Club Fed, just lounging around, working on selling off some of my MS Paint art, basically not thinking about Levale Speigner's WHIP, and Ian from Bless You Boys tracked me down. Ian runs a heckuva blog, and Detroit's an interesting team, and I've seen people compare the Nats to the Tigers (and not just in the prospective "historically bad" sense), so I immediately thought Ian had a capital idea: exchange five questions and answers.

Ian beat me to it, as it were, and my responses to his questions can be found here.

And, in turn, here are Ian's answers to my questions below. His responses are very thoughtful, and it's interesting to piece together how Detroit got from there to here. Come to think of it, given tonight's debacle, I sure wouldn't mind if the Nats hurried up progressively from here to there!

* * * *

1. The Tigers have come a long way, baby -- from 119 losses in '03 to a World Series three years later. How did this happen? Was it the result of long-range planning or massive amounts of serendipity?

I'm glad you asked this because I've been thinking about it quite a bit. The short answer is "both," but I think it's more of the latter. That's not to say Dave Dombrowski shouldn't get credit for having a plan, especially in regards to building a pitching staff. For instance, Jeremy Bonderman was a "player to be named later" in the Jeff Weaver trade back in 2002, but Dave Dombrowski had designs on him eventually developing into an ace. Joel Zumaya was drafted the same year. Justin Verlander was drafted in 2004.

But luck and good fortune have also been major factors in the Tigers' resurgence. Carlos Guillen, arguably their most important everyday player, came to Detroit only after two things happened: 1) Guillen was originally going to be traded to Cleveland, but Omar Vizquel failed a physical, which voided the deal. 2) Rich Aurilia, who the Tigers hoped would play shortstop for them, opted to sign with Seattle, thus making Guillen expendable and available in a trade. There have also been a few free agents who chose to sign with other teams, which turned out to be fortunate for Detroit. Carl Pavano is one example. Steve Finley is another.

However, the Tigers have also benefited from acting decisively to fill holes on the roster. When Dombrowski saw a lack of veteran presence for a young team, he convinced Pudge Rodriguez (albeit with a lot of cash) to come to Detroit and provide some leadership - especially to a young pitching staff. The Tigers needed a closer, so Ugueth Urbina was signed. Then he traded for Kyle Farnsworth. He signed Troy Percival. Finally, Todd Jones was brought in. Once it became apparent that Omar Infante couldn't be an everyday second baseman, he traded Urbina for Placido Polanco. When the starting rotation needed a mentor, someone to shepherd the younger pitchers along, he signed Kenny Rogers. And last October, just weeks after losing the World Series largely because their lineup had no pop, he traded for exactly the type of slugger (and patient hitter) the batting order needed.

One more important thing the Tigers did this off-season was begin to lock up their young talent to long-term contracts. Brandon Inge was given a four-year deal and avoided arbitration. So did Jeremy Bonderman. Even a player like Carlos Guillen, whose injury history should call any long-term agreement into question, has become so important (and at a key position) that the Tigers had to keep him around. So he was signed to a four-year extension, as well.

2. For a decade or so, it seemed like the Tigers were viewed as "small-market" cousins with the Royals and, depending on the years, the Twins, Indians, and even White Sox in the AL Central. Setting aside the sometimes ridiculous "big market/small market" distinctions, there didn't really seem to be much juice for the Tigers. Attendance was near the bottom of the league in the final years of Tiger Stadium, and it only briefly hit the mid-point of the AL in the first season of Comerica. But now the team is winning, attendance is in the top-five, and the Tigers are jumping in to grab hot properties like Andrew Miller and Rick Porcello. Do you envision the Tigers being players in the long-term?

Last year was eye-opening for the city of Detroit and the Tigers organization. I think everyone underestimated just how voracious the appetite was for a good baseball team. We'd heard people talk about how big baseball used to be in Detroit, and how it was a sleeping bear just ready to be poked awake. But the Tigers have completely taken over this town. The sports culture has completely changed, with winning teams like the Pistons and Red Wings moving down the totem pole. You see it in the newspaper and TV coverage, as well. Even during NBA and NHL playoff time, the Tigers got much more attention than they would have in past years. They're the team Detroit sports fans really care about right now. And even if they stumble a bit over the next couple of seasons, there's enough young talent for fans to follow for years to come.

On the ownership side, I think Mike Ilitch was hesitant to sink a lot of money before 2004 into player payroll for a couple of reasons. 1) He was heavily in debt for Comerica Park. And until Ilitch could get out from under that, most revenues were going to be steered in that direction. 2) He didn't trust his general manager, Randy Smith. Smith was a slick salesman who made plenty of trades to give the appearance he was making things happen, and drafted players who showed promise, but none of his moves ultimately translated into success on the field. And until Ilitch got results, he wasn't going to invest more money into the payroll. When it became clear that Smith was just making stuff up as he was going along and didn't have a real plan, Ilitch brought in someone who knew how to run a baseball team. Once he saw that Dave Dombrowski actually had a plan to build a team, and produced some results in player development, Ilitch felt comfortable shelling out money for free agents. And now that he's seen how the fans have responded, he doesn't want that to end.

3. Which pitcher has the better future going forward: Bonderman or Verlander?

You know, if you'd asked me this question a week ago, I might have said Bonderman because he was tabbed as the staff ace before the season and has thrived in that role. But I think I'd forgotten just how good Verlander can be, which sounds ludicrous, given that he was the AL Rookie of the Year last season. Part of that might be because Bonderman seemed more able to put up noticeable strikeout numbers and could go eight or nine innings if needed. Verlander, meanwhile, often pitches to contact and tires out after six or seven innings. But he's also not as far along in his development, either. He's only in his second full year, while Bonderman has had four seasons in the majors.

"Upside" might be one of the most over-used words in sports these days, but it applies here. The ceiling for Verlander is higher. He's still trying to figure out how good he can be, still building arm strength and stamina, still developing his repertoire of pitches. Bonderman is almost a fully formed product now, other than learning to develop another secondary pitch with the change-up. He's making the transition from prospect to veteran.

Ultimately, I think Verlander has shown he's the more talented pitcher and a year or two from now will be considered the staff ace. He's the guy who other teams won't want to face, who can shut down an opposing lineup, who fans will come out to see.

4. Last season, it seemed like Detroit's bullpen was close to unbeatable. I thought it telling that the team's closer, the guy in the glory role, was maybe its fourth- or fifth-best member. Guys like Zumaya and Rodney were studs. Now . . . well, not so much, it seems. Will the bullpen be the primary focus of improvement around the trade deadline? If the Tigers were to look at a guy like Chad Cordero, what could they realistically offer?

The bullpen will be Priority A1 for the Tigers at the trade deadline. The concern is already at Threat Level Orange. First base is another position they might want to address, though Sean Casey's been hitting pretty well lately (power numbers notwithstanding). But the Tigers aren't losing games because of their play at first base. The bullpen isn't only costing them games that they won last year, but - as we saw last night - it's also turning decisive margins into nail-biting outcomes. Even eight-run leads aren't safe right now, and that becomes draining for a team. It's a huge issue, and if the Tigers don't take care of it, they can probably kiss a playoff spot goodbye.

The problem is that every other team in the majors is looking for middle relief help, too. So it's going to be a brutally competitive market up until the deadline. A lot of fans want the Tigers to get Eric Gagne, Brad Lidge, or Chad Cordero, but then names like Cameron Maybin and Andrew Miller are mentioned, and those same people say, "No way!" And I agree with that. There are some prospects that should be untouchable, especially if you're talking about getting a three-month rental in return. But the Tigers have some other highly regarded pitching talent that will probably have to go if it means getting some bullpen help (and keeping it away from division rivals like Cleveland).

What could the Tigers offer Washington in exchange for Cordero? Well, we know Jim Bowden wanted Maybin last year in a package for Soriano, which turned out to be a deal-breaker. I don't know if Bowden can reasonably expect that in return this time around, but he surely has to ask. And the answer from Dave Dombrowski would probably still be no. But if Bowden wants starting pitching prospects, the Tigers have plenty to offer. And if the Nationals are still looking for answers in their outfield, the Tigers might have a prospect or veteran (Craig Monroe? Marcus Thames?) that could help them out.

5. To close, a fun one. ("Fun" depending on your point of view, I suppose.) Which happens first: Pudge draws his tenth walk of the year, or Sean Casey's slugging average reaches .400?

Oooh, that's a good one. This past weekend, it looked like Casey might be able to give his slugging average a boost in Philadelphia, but just couldn't manage enough extra base hits (let alone his first home run of the season). You would think Casey could rack up plenty of doubles in Comerica Park's huge outfield gaps, yet he doesn't really have the speed to make that turn at first and occasionally stretch out a longer hit. That also presumes that Casey would have the power to generate some extra base hits, and he just doesn't seem to anymore.

Yet Pudge goes up to the plate and is just straight hackin'. He rarely works the count to three balls in an at-bat, and often seems to be down 0-1 or 1-2. I think the only time he draws a walk is if a pitcher can't find the strike zone.

This is going to be a long, protracted slog of a battle. And there might be times when it looks like neither batter will be able to reach this arbitrary goal we've now established for them. But I think it will come down to opportunities. Pudge isn't coming out of the lineup except when he gets his one day a week off. Casey might sit against a tough left-hander, or if he slumps, Marcus Thames will spot him at first base. And there's also the possibility that he won't play at all if the Tigers feel the need to upgrade at that position. So I'm going to (reluctantly) give the nod to Pudge. It might take until September, however.

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A quick addendum: Notwithstanding Casey's limp bat thus far, Ian predicted the Mayor would homer in the top of the third of the middle game of this series.

Amazing!