Nationals Baseball: Merry Christmas!

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Merry Christmas!

Here's Gio in a Santa hat from 2011 

Look at him! Just a baby!

I'll probably have some more posts between then and Christmas about movies or such. (Here's my list of what to watch in general from last year) but nothing on the Nats unless they do something, which I doubt.

Anyway again - Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Delightful Days Off!

12 comments:

SM said...

And the same to you, Harper!

Dr Trea (formerly #werthquake) said...

I just read the old post on when we acquired gio and what we gave up. Amazing how none of them except Norris to a degree, have turned out to be much of anything

Chas R said...

Thanks Harper!

Harper said...

C& Store - that's underselling Milone and Norris. Norris was an All-Star, and Milone has given 4 straight league average pitching years which is worth something. I'd say the give up for Gio has pretty much matched the get up until now and at this point we're dealing with extensions and trades and free agencies and etc. so we can stop counting. I'd say it was a fine "window deal" for the Nats.

Strasburger said...

Daniel Murphy.

I hate this offseason.

What in the world are we doing?

G cracka X said...

Daniel Murphy? But what about the D? And the qualifying offer?

Zimmerman11 said...

HEY! We got our FOURTH CHOICE for infield help! Merry Christmas :) Murphy is ultimately a super sub/utility guy and injury fill-in. Makes the team better... loss of the draft pick stings... as does missing out on Zobrist and Phillips.

Half the price of Desmond, with half the homers? Sounds about right.

DezoPenguin said...

What bothers me about Murphy (and Phillips, and Kendrick, and honestly all of the non-Zobrist FA 2B guys out there) is that they aren't appreciably any better than Danny Espinosa overall. (Obviously, Zobrist would have been the exception, particularly since he also would provide the ability to shift to LF if/when Werth got hurt or stank it up, but that ship sailed and he wanted the Cubs.) We already had a 1.5-2 WAR 2B on the team. Why sign a guy for 3/37.5 (plus lose the draft pick) to get, what, half a win net? Yes, Murphy is more predictable (though we get his age 31-33 seasons, so age-related decline is also a thing), but that predictability comes with a high cost in dollars AND poor defense. Basically we replaced 2015 Yunel Escobar with...a guy who can actually be expected to be 2015 Yunel Escobar, on both sides of the ball (well, with fewer double plays hit into, we can hope). Heck, Murphy even played some 3B last year and was stone awful at it...you know, exactly like Escobar.

Or, to put it another way, what we've really gained is the difference between Danny Espinosa as 2016's utility infielder, and the guy who would have been that UI if we hadn't picked up Murphy (Difo, maybe?). I don't think it's worth 12M/year over three years to improve the backup middle infielder.

The only way this move makes any real logical, practical sense is if Rizzo and Baker are absolutely convinced, based on reliable internal information, that Trea Turner won't be ready for the majors in 2016 and that the Nationals genuinely *needed* a 2B or SS with Danny to play the other MI position. (I concede that this is a possibility. Turner isn't necessarily going to be Correa or Lindor 2.0, after all.) Otherwise, I just don't understand why the team is going hell-bent for leather after a middle infielder.

Now, I do admit that Murphy is likely to be a useful player--he's a solid major-league hitter with a track record of reliability and his LH bat will help the lineup. He'll slot nicely into the #5-6 spot in the order or so and his bat should help the team more than his glove hurts it, and the ability to bring Espi off the bench instead of a random replacement-level guy is also an overall improvement to the team. It's an incremental gain, and if Rizzo is going to spend resources it might as well be for a move that at least is likely to help in some way. But it's merely an incremental gain, mostly useful for improving the bench and reducing variability, smacks some of the "veteranitis" I fear from Baker, and it mostly seems like a continuation of the "okay, we missed on Zobrist, but we now need to grab one of the lower-level 2B options!" line of thought.

Alessandra Rosati said...

Hi

h said...

Documentary Reportedly Links Ryan Howard, Ryan Zimmerman, Taylor Teagarden To PED Claims

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2015/12/documentary-reportedly-links-ryan-howard-ryan-zimmerman-taylor-teagarden-to-ped-claims.html

JW said...

If Ryan Zimmerman is using PEDs, he needs to get his money back the way his body keeps breaking down.

The Murphy pick-up isn't as bad as some are making it out to be. At 12mil a year, it isn't crazy expensive. 4 or 5 mil more than Yunel, which isn't bad given the need for a LH bat. It probably leaves a little more money available for another OF pickup, depending on the ability to move Storen and Pap. Of the free agents, not the worst pick-up and could likely be better value than Zobrist at the tail-end of the contracts.

I know Espinosa is a likeable guy that everyone wants to see succeed, but he can't hit consistently. We have to have two of Turner, Espi and Murphy hitting consistently for this team to be successful at all. Murphy is actually the most likely of that group to hit for average in 2016, bad defense or not.

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