Not good but cheap so whatever.
The Good:
Nick was a extremely well-thought of player coming out of college and ended up being drafted 2nd. He was able to hit for high average through the minors before his final promotion
Nick was able to handle CF in his youth and seems to be an ok corner OF.
The Bad :
Nick never developed the power it was thought he would. Because they had no fear of the big hit major league pitchers didn't have to pitch around him and his decent eye was made useless. He was left with only his contact skills but he can't make it translate into high average.
Nick doesn't seem to be able to handle CF anymore and was always a questionable IF.
Basically it's kicking the tires on a player to see if he really just didn't mesh with the Reds. He's a high contact guy but the Nats are oddly full of such players and really need power. I don't like the signing but again it's cheap so as long as the Nats don't feel committed to him it's a nothing move.
14 comments:
It's better than signing Jeimar for three years.
If they can sign stars for long-term deals, then go for it, but otherwise simply finding enough warm bodies to fill uniforms makes sense. Missing the playoffs with 70-80 wins isn't that different from missing the playoffs with 60-70.
I hope Senzel and kieboom are given shots to compete with Garcia at 2b. But from write up sounds like Senzel isn’t really an infielder. More competition for 2b is a good thing in my book (assuming Senzel can deliver).
As a fan, I feel there is a big difference with 60-70 vs 70-80 season. I still want to see $ go to sp’s and that’s where 70-80 wins might come into focus.
I think its interesting that both Joe Ross and Erick Fedde have already found Major League deals. I'm wondering if the nats moved on from Fedde too soon.
I'm sure that Fedde will move into the category of "former Nats players who we notice when they do well and use that to slam the organization while ignoring when he struggles because it doesn't fit that narrative."
I've named that category the "Bonifacio" category, after a guy that the Nats traded to the Marlins years ago. Every three seasons or so he would have a useful productive season and Nats fans would say "why can't the Nats have players like that?" In the other 2/3 of the time, when he sucked, not one peep. A more recent example of this is Austin Voth.
I mean, Fedde isn't exactly being paid like an expected superstar. Expectations for that contract are probably 3/4 of a WAR a year? If he meets those expectations he'd still probably improve the Nats rotation, but if we're talking mistakes that would be a very small one.
My general feeling is that evaluation of management should be pretty much entirely about whether they got the right players back from the Dodgers and Padres. Everything else is small potatoes by comparison.
Anon @ 7:16 - depends on the cost and if Jeimer's fielding drop at the end of last year was a blip. (probably was) I think he'll be worth his contract
Anon @ 10:04 - Nah I think the Nats gave Fedde plenty of time and chances. Good for him figuring out how to get some real money.
John C - That's just human nature. It's hard to remember the guys that move on and fail because they disappear. Guys that do well you see. Personally I think Fedde will end up a Matt Moore esque guy who won't work as a starter but might do ok as a reliever. But not as good as Matt Moore has bc that guy was actually good at one point.
Matt - Yeah the money in theory is for a Jake Irvin season. But the thing is... you can probably get close to that from hey! Jake Irvin! So you could really argue that money should be put somewhere else.
Here's a Q - what if the Nats get 5 regulars from those trades but no stars? Is that good or bad? In my mind that would be good - it's very hard to get regular players - but I think fans see it as a star or nothing return
@Harper -- I don't think you can answer your last question without more information.
I mean, just objectively 5 solid, non-star regulars (ie true talent of 2-3 WAR) with 5+ controllable years each is incredibly valuable and clearly worth the 4.5 seasons of star performance that we traded for them. Especially since we were trading from a part of the win curve where there wasn't much effect on our chances for postseason success.
But the fan's experience isn't an objective one. And stars, especially HOF level guys like Max and Soto, make a team worth watching even when they're bad. No matter how the accounting works, those trades hurt.
If those regulars end up the best five players on a team that tops out at mediocre during their time in DC, it's going to feel bad and arguments that we "won the trades" are going to fall on deaf ears. But if we can add a couple stars to that group (say, Crews and Yamamoto) and actually contend, I think the vast majority of fans would be open to seeing the trades as a successful and necessary part of the rebuild process.
@Harper -- I don't know, depends on what kind of ML regulars. If they're getting 15 WAR a year out of the 5 combined, I think the trades in the aggregate were fine. 5 WAR a year combined and I think they blew it. I'd reduce the WAR totals just a little bit if they came from fewer than 5 players, but not much.
I don't understand how management can decide not to spend money (with many "fans" apparently endorsing it), but management still expects usto spend money buying seats; my season tickets are very expenseive, and I keep paying for them (stupid me). The team is paid entertainment; paying for a star or two, or even some averge players that would make the team suck less, would make the team more watchable. I understand the desire not to block young players, but for lots of positions (pitching in particlar) there is no one to block. And signing Senzel will not make them suck less
If the Scherzer/Soto/Bell trades produce 5 professional Major League players that put up 2-3 WAR per year for 5-ish seasons apiece, I will be happy with the return on the trades. What I won't necessarily be happy with is the impact on the team, because that means for the team to have success they will have to spend money on free agents or prospects on other trades to produce stars for whom Gore/Gray/Ruiz/Abrams/Wood/Hassell/Susana/etc. can be complementary players alongside. At some point, the front office has to pull the trigger on moves like that.
(And those moves have to be long-term deals. I wouldn't have wanted the Nats to sign Jeimer for three years, either. I think it's more likely than not that he will be worth that contract; the problem is that it leaves the Nats fishing for a third baseman just when what we hope will be another run of success is out of the starting blocks. (What if after 2013, the 2014 Nats had to replace someone more meaningful than Dan Haren?)
Senzel seems to be another warm body who might catch on. Maybe Garrett's leg is worse off so we end up with Joey at 1B, Stone at DH, and Senzel in LF. Or maybe Senzel can still play CF since it's not like the Robles/Call/Young crew is going to make anyone scream for their presence. Or maybe it's just a case of inviting a guy with some positional flexibility to the team and seeing if anything good happens without any specific plan.
But seriously, somebody has to be the Jayson Werth for this team sooner or later, or this rebuild is going to have us looking like the Royals.
The Tale of Erick Fedde is actually an incredible indictment of Nats development failures with pitchers. The WaPo did an long profile on him that included this fun tidbit at the beginning:
For the first nine years of his professional baseball career, all spent with the Washington Nationals’ organization, Fedde lived and trained in his hometown of Las Vegas during the offseason. But last fall, he was 29 and on the verge of being released. He had never been to a pitching lab, only heard the way his teammates and friends raved about the experience. So he put his home on the market and moved to Scottsdale, Ariz., a short drive from a workout facility named Push Performance.
“Where I’m at right now, maybe it’s a bit aggressive to say it was life-changing,” said Fedde, taking a call last month from his apartment in Changwon, South Korea. “But it really does feel that way. Going to Scottsdale, going to Push, I just needed to get my shoulder right and dig in to pitch shapes and mechanics and everything like that. I basically needed a makeover.”
(paywalled, sorry): https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/09/03/erick-fedde-south-korea-nc-dinos/
I'll be interested to see how Fedde does after winning the Korean Cy Young. Obviously a significant step down in competition, but I wouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be a solid 4 instead of the borderline 5 we always saw.
That WaPo article is yet another anecdotal data point indicating that the Nats player development is god awful. It's not exactly a huge expense to using analytics/sensors and such to improve your players.
I haven't looked extensively into it myself, but lets say, on average, using a lab like Push results in a 0.2 WAR improvement per player. On an MLB roster, that's good for 5 wins. In FA, teams are spending ~$10M per win. That means you'd have to spend $50M to get 5 more wins, I can guarantee the staff/equipment for a lab like this won't run anywhere close to that. Even at 0.1 WAR per player, you're looking at $25M/year breakeven. I just don't get why you wouldn't invest in that stuff, the ROI has to be there right? Maybe it's all voodoo science though and wishful thinking on my part
ocw5000: I'd say "The Tale of Erick Fedde" is an indictment of Erick Fedde more than the Washington Nationals organization.
Fedde didn't make the plunge to go to a pitching lab (which "HIS TEAMMATES and friends: had raved about, by Fedde's own admission) until Fedde's mediocre-to-poor performance led to him not only getting non-tendered but having no other MLB team sniff at him (at least with more than a minor league contract offer--else why go to the KBO?).
He needed a makeover, but the primary person to decide that was Erick Fedde. Good luck to him and I hope it works out for him. His tale looks like a case of a guy who was comfortable (possibly over-confident) that he could just keep doing what he was doing and would be okay.
Is it possible the Nationals could have held a gun to his head and forced him to change? Arguably, that may well be what happened:
- the Nationals telling Fedde "look, buddy, this has gotta change"
- Fedde does not meaningfully change
- Nationals non-tender Fedde ("you're not listening")
- Fedde gets religion, extends himself out of his comfort zone and digs in hard working at a pitching lab. Since nobody in MLB wants him, he takes that work to the KBO and may have turned a corner
That's on Fedde as much or more as on the Nationals in my book
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