Yeah I was only doing bats. Gore is the only arm that I think deserves talking about in terms of a long-term signing. I like Lord and Ferrer but relief pitching is notoriously fickle, neither of these guys is lights out (or likely to be that) so they just feel very replaceable and not something you gamble money on keeping past age 30. As arms go Parker and Irvin are nothing to hold on to. I mean I guess if they want to be REAL reasonable and sign for cheap so they don't have to move...
You can wonder about Cavalli who was supposed to be good and who has looked good since coming back from injury but that last part puts a damper on the whole thing. He's just back. Now's not the time to double down on the arm. Let's see it last through a whole season first.
So Gore, I think you do try to sign him. I think he's a weak #1 but a #1 regardless, even given recent struggles. But he's also on a collision course with getting paid way too much for what he's done. So... I don't know if it gets done. I don't know if a fair offer, or even a moderate overpay gets you Gore. But where do you get pitching then?
Susana and Sykora both look fairly strong but you are looking at... 2028 before you are counting on them to be good? And the only thing less reliable that FA pitching are pitching prospects.
So much hinges on this and you have to get it right. Trading for Gio, the first Stras extension, the Scherzer FA contract. All hits. The team soars. The signing of Corbin (post-2019), the second Stras contract. Huge misses. The team crashes.
Sigh... this one isn't as easy but I still lean toward making a good faith effort to sign him. Not a Wood "pay the man what he wants" but an above market deal now. And if he refuses so be it. Treat him like a key piece but not the only piece. You expect to win with Gore, but not to have Gore carry you. I think that's right.
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I think it's too late to extend Gore. Maybe he loves it here like Stras did, but players with that kind of pedigree almost never sign extensions once they're within a couple of years of free agency. And why would he?
He's looking at another $20M through arbitration and then hitting FA as an ace-ish 28 year old (turning 29 before the season starts, though). Someone is going to give him $250M/8.
Unless he gets hurt. And if I were in his situation, I'd be hard pressed to turn down an extension that establishes a floor at "more money than I can spend" and not really care about the extra $50M in expected career earnings, but from what we've seen of Gore's psychology, I don't expect him to feel the same way.
I can see buying out Lord's arbitration time for ~$4-5M/year. These team-friendly deals do not make much sense for the player unless there is a lot of uncertainty about their future performance. $20-$25M looks very attractive when one's memories of Lowe's Hardware are fresh.
Give Gore credit for definitely wanting to be an Alpha Dog Ace. He definitely has the fire. But he's just never been able to maintain that consistently, and he's going to get told that by everyone he negotiates with.
He's a Boras guy, which means he def wants to get paid. But by same token, given pitcher injuries.. you hope he's more open to taking a deal. Assuming the Nats actually make a good faith effort to meet the market. Which they havent shown they'll do in a while.
Given the frustration of the fan base and the seemingly lack of success of the rebuild, I think it is essential for the Nationals to resign Gore. This will signal to the fan base that the Nationals are committed to rebounding and not resigned to being a small market team (news flash, DC isn't a small market)
I don't understand why there any uncertainty on the ability of the Nationals to resign Gore.
1) Gore is not general talent like Harper, Soto, or Ohtani. Signing Gore is not going to bring glitz and gravitas to a franchise. Another suitor may offer an overpay, but it is not going to be a massive overpay.
2) This is a team that once had signed Werth, Scherzer, Corbin as free agents while also paying Zimmerman and Strasberg "fair market value" contracts (by that I mean a contract that isn't a rookie contract or a salary arbitration negotiated contract). They have the ability to do so.
3) The Nationals aren't paying anybody else anything significant at the moment and there is only two other players (Wood, Abrams) in the pipeline that will need to get resign to massive monies.
4) Nationals no longer have the Angelos sucking at the tv revenue trough
Pay the man!
On the last point, while the Nationals will escape from MASN after this season, there’s no guarantee that they will increase that revenue stream. MASN was able to hold down the Nats rights fees past the end of the RSN bubble. Suffice it to say that if the team had been able to negotiate its own deal ten years ago it would have been in a much better position to get a large deal done than it is today.
The popping of the RSN bubble will affect all teams. So in terms of having the revenue to compete for free agents, the Nationals shouldn't be disadvantaged as they were before. All teams will have less tv revenue from which to use for bidding.
The only possible exception perhaps if there are teams still benefiting from a contractual agreement made prebubble that is still in effect today/post bubble.
"Pay the man!" is always easy advice that ignores all kinds of reality. Starting right from the point that a team *cannot* force a player to extend. And Gore (like Wood and Crews) signed Scott Boras as their agent *knowing* that Boras' entire schtick is "get to free agency as soon as possible and then go for maximum dollar."
Doesn't mean don't try. Strasburg *told* Boras to work an extension and (since Boras works for the player, not vice versa) he did. Which worked out great until Stras activated the opt out Boras included in his 2016 extension.
But absent a player dictating to Boras to work an extension Boras' long-standing approach is to take any extension offers as the floor for future offers and then see what he can get for his player.
To break down each of the items in the above list:
1) The only way a player can determine what the market will give them is to go for free agency. Remember Ian Desmond (also not a "generational talent") deciding to reject a pretty good extension offer from the Nats? Turned out that was the best offer he ever received, but Ian didn't KNOW that until he tried the free agency market.
Unless Gore decides to forego the POTENTIAL for a future "overpay", he goes to free agency. Every player who signs an extension with their original team knowingly blocks any potentially better future offers. Desmond commented that he felt pressure from other players to go for maximum dollars to help OTHER players by setting higher "comps" they could use in their own future contract negotiations.
2) The team needs to do better with things like patches and stadium naming rights. But it also remains true that the Nats (long crippled by the MASN anchor) only could run a high-end MLB player payroll by losing money. Outside the Steve Cohens of the world, few billionaires are willing to run an MLB team as a constant massive money drain.
I think we both agree the team should be willing to spend more than they are now. But the team also can't afford to have a many (if any) more massive misses at the level of post-2019 Stras (still one more year left at $35M/year) and Corbin (still glad we signed him for 2019 WS G7, but the last five years were UGH). If Gore wants $35M+ per year for 5-6 years, do you give that to him? "Pay the man!" assumes the answer is "yes"--but I wouldn't do $35M/year for six years for Gore.
3) Leaving aside the Nats still having a year left on Stras II, the Nats should be willing to offer extensions to Gore, Wood, Abrams etc. But most MLB players don't sign extensions because MLB players fought hard (and just as bitterly defend) their free agency rights.
Which is why it is at least as likely the Nats would add spending in the form of free agents rather than extensions. Not because "they hate extending their players!" (Zim, Stras and Ruiz say "really?"). It's because while there are exceptions most players don't like signing extensions if there is a chance they can get a Big Rock Candy Mountain contract in free agency.
4) As John C. noted, the Nats (typical bad luck, like COVID raining on their chance to cash in after the magical 2019 run) are getting their RSN freedom at a time when the RSN bubble has well and truly popped ("cord cutting" being a thing).
1) My "pay the man" comments still apply if Gore reaches free agency and the Nationals are forced to big against other teams. The Nationals have more of vested interest in keeping Gore than any other team does. They have more of a reason to overpay.
2) The Nationals have no expensive talent on the payroll. So while the Dodgers, Yankees, and Mets have a bigger budget for salaries, they are already dipping into their budget to pay their big stars such as Ohtani, Judge, and Soto. Is the Nationals budget so small that they can afford to pay an ace pitcher? An ace that isn't so great when compared amongst the great pitchers of the league.
3) I don't care whether the Nationals extend him now or have to wait until he reaches free agency, sign him when the opportunity is available.
4) RSN bubble has popped for all teams. Nationals tv revenues will be down. Other teams tv revenues will be done. Bidding budgets should be down across the league.
Should the Nats sign Alvarez long term? Asking for a friend.
Are the Nats coaches ruining James Wood? Harper, tell me what to think.
If Nats coaches are "ruining" James Wood, can we also give them credit for developing him since he came to the org? He, like CJ Abrams, has improved steadily ever since coming to the Nationals organization; shouldn't we give the Nats coaches credit for that?
For most fans, it seems that the default assumption is that anything bad that happens to a player's performance is because of the coaching staff, while anything good that happens is despite them. When we really have no idea how coaches do their jobs/interact with the players.
Wood developed in the minors. No credit to MLB hitting coach
I was chatting with a friend of mine over the weekend about Dylan Crews and whether he’ll end the season over or under .200 BA.
On the topic of coaches “ruining” players, might the Nats have rushed his development? I get it, he’s one of the more polished college hitters to come thru the draft in recent memory (70 grade hit tool). And this is that same guy?
Looking at Crews performance at all levels thru his minor league development, he crushed low-A for 14 games and decent to mediocre everywhere else. On the flip side, Yohandy Morales has outhit Crews at every level and is still in AAA. Perhaps that’s where Crews should have stayed to see if can prove he can hit before getting promoted. But, I’m of the opinion that his call up last year had to do with advancing the narrative of “the young Nats have arrived” with his debut occurring the same weekend Soto came back to town.
He, like House, look lost out there and it makes no sense other than they don’t look like they should be here (in MLB) right now.
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