Jon Lieber signed a one-year deal with the Chicago Cubs yesterday, and the Rangers inked fellow righty Jason Jennings to a one-year contract worth $4 million. This means that they are off the table for the Nats to sign as their loser-injured-bad-leader-of-pitching-staff-starter-guy.
You know what I think of Jennings-no big loss. As for Lieber, he's 37 and has been bad and injured recently (just like the others), but he has a couple good seasons under his belt, and he's always been a likable player. Basically, we're down to Bartolo Colon and Kris Benson. Bartolo had pretty much the same story as Lieber, except for the fact that Colon has been more injured and worse the past couple years. Benson is more like Jennings--quite bad even when healthy, and not healthy at the moment. However, as I noted back on December 18, the Nationals, along with a bunch of other teams went to watch him throw and were quite impressed. There have been a few different reports recently about Colon--some saying he was close with the Royals, some saying with the White Sox, some saying with the Mets. There was one report that said he wasn't even hitting 90 mph on the radar gun in Winter League games in his native Dominican Republic. Bill Ladson, nationals.com's "beat writer," said on December 4 that Colon was looking for at least a two-year deal. Seems a bit ridiculous to me. I'd give him a shot for, say, one year and $2 mil. After all, he did win the AL Cy Young Award in 2005 after going 21-8 with a 3.48 ERA with the Angels.
After these two gems, there's basically not much out there. There's Livan Hernandez, but he's probably going to be too expensive, and anyway isn't even that good. At least his arm isn't in danger of falling off any time soon. Then there's Freddy Garcia, whom I've always been a fan of--but won't be back from an injury until midseason. I'm pretty sure that's aftermath of the Phillie Phanatic go-cart incident. Rodrigo Lopez is just abysmal, and I'd really prefer life without a Tony Armas Jr. return. Thankfully, I'm pretty sure Nats front office officials feel the same way.
By the way, what do you all think the Nats' final record will be like this year? With the predictions from last year so far off, who knows? Opening Day rotation predictions? I'll be listening.
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4 comments:
Put me down for 74 wins.
The Nats have more than enough guys to man a rotation at least as good as the one they had -- Hill, Chico, Simontacchi, Bergmann, Williams -- at the moment they were 9-25 last season.
After that, remember, they posted a .500 record, and that with little of Guz and none of Nick. (Yes, it helped that the Chief snapped back to something like his accustomed form, and Ayala came off the DL.)
What this means:
1. At this stage of the Nats' development, this was not the time to panic and overpay for FA pitching. A star-quality name doesn't hurt ticket sales, true, but it wouldn't necessarily have helped the Nats' record this season.
2. Between the pitching we have, the improved hitting (I'm not even banking on Nick for Opening Day -- femurs can take two years to heal), and possible rotation upgrades both at the beginning (Patty?) and at the ASB (Det?), I'm looking for something between 74 and 83 wins.
The path they've chosen to address the pitching concerns I think is a positive one. Don't waste money on injury prone has beens. Let the youngsters and returnees from 07 have another crack at it. As far as a projected record, I'm looking for 80 to 85 wins, possibly more. I wouldn't be surprised to see this team contend into september.
90 is wishful thinking. however, you never know. if the pitching holds up, and the new park helps the offense, this team might not be bad at all. There's only on way to find out.
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