Ladson and Lannan

Just a few quick bites on a lazy Friday.

Bill Ladson put out a twitter q to his followers on whether Dunn should be re-signed or not. In it we find another reason why Dunn should probably be locked up for a few more years. Out of 29 responses, 26 were positive. Unscientific? Certainly. From what I've heard/felt a good indication of Nats' fans desires? Yes.

If this were a cut and dried situation, if bringing back Adam was a horrible idea, the management should feel free to ignore the fans. Fans are sentimental fools. However, there is no obvious decision here, and in that case you really should weigh in things like "how will the fans feel". The Nats don't have to do whatever it takes to bring back Dunn, but if they don't want to lose even more of their dwindling fanbase they need to make sure they make a fair offer to Adam and that the public knows about it one way or the other. If they throw out 3 years 33 million to Adam and he rejects it because he wants 4 for 60, the fans will (probably) see that the management made an honest effort to keep Adam here and HE chose to leave.


Lannan is a favorite around here because of the fact that his raw stats were never in line with his performance. The sum of his pitching was always much greater than the parts and it drove stats geeks wild. Earlier this year, when Lannan collapsed, there was a bit of glee from their end. However, it was clear to those of us that followed John that he wasn't the same pitcher. He was worse. He had no room for error. He erred (perhaps due to injury). The first few months were the painful result.

Now Lannan is on a roll with a 3.07 ERA since coming back in August. It would be nice to say "See! We told you Lannan could pitch like he does and still be successful!" Except that would be a lie. Just as Lannan pitched much worse than "usual" before going out, he's pitched much better after. See for yourselves.

Career before '10
BB/9 : 3.3
K/9 : 4.6

Before
BB/9 : 4.2
K/9: 2.9

After
BB/9: 1.9
K/9: 6.6

The K's are WAY up. He's a different, and better, pitcher than the one that managed success his first three years.

Side note: Lannan can't hit the 200 IP mark, but can he get his ERA under 4.00? No. Well yes, but it would be remarkable. It would take 3 shutouts in his 3 last starts to make it happen.