I'm sick right now so this'll be brief but this is real improvement. This is something to be excited about. In September you are playing other teams full of youngsters or teams vying for playoff spots. To come out with a winning record means your young'uns are pretty good. And the Nats ones are.
It'll be an interesting offseason. We've talked about how the Nats need one more arm in the rotation, but do they really? If they just keep everyone they have now wouldn't that work? There's nothing wrong with getting another solid arm, but I think it would.
Then again the offense (12th in runs scored) is an issue. They have no reliable superstar bats. Zimm should be good - but he's starting to get injured more than you'd like. Morse should be good - but it is a season that has "career year" written all over it. Ramos and Espinosa could be better, could. Werth should be better, should. There's a lot of question marks here and to bring in one more reliable bat (presumably in center) would help alot. To do that they may need to deal one of the young arms they have now. Then the team would have to go out and get another arm. So it's not needing another arm, because they don't have the arms here now. It's needing another arm because they won't have the arms there later.
Get excited for next season and in the meantime... Go Yankees
Over / Under challenge Update :
Mike Morse : .300 average - OVER (.303)
Danny Espinosa : 20 homers - OVER (21)
Pudge Rodrgiuez : 1 hit. - OVER (2)
Ian Desmond : 4.0 K / BB ratio
- UNDER (3.97)
Jayson Werth : 100 OPS+
- UNDER (97)
Nats Offense : .700 OPS. -
UNDER (.691)
Strasburg : 18 innings pitched.
- OVER (24)
John Lannan : 9 wins. (over or match bet) - OVER(10)
Milone + Peacock + Detwiler : 5 wins - OVER (7)
Tyler Clippard - 2.00 ERA
- UNDER (1.83)
Drew Storen - 39 saves. - OVER (42)
Fancy chart is at work so it'll have to wait till tomorrow to fins out who won.
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4 comments:
You might be right about Morse, but still this is first full season. He hass never had more than 300 at bats before. So, really, the only reasonable thing to assume is that now, with practice, he is better next year. Right?
I predict* next year he hits at least .310/.370/.610 with 35 home runs.
*=hope
He will not start declining until we resign him to a 5 year $60,000,000 contract.
What do the dodgers want for Kemp? Could we trade one of our young pitcher and a boatload of cash?
Ironic Goat makes a good point. Morse's performance this year isn't that different from last year's, only with more playing time. And his career stats, albeit with a lousy sample size, aren't much different either. And he's only 29, so he's probably got 2-3 years until he hits his decline phase. There's really no reason to expect decline other than "no one ever believed he could be good before we made him a starter." .850-.900 OPS seems like a reasonable expectation.
On the pitching...yeah, it's not the weak spot of this team, any more. Strasburg and Znn are quality starters, Lannan can now be a good #3-4 type of guy instead of a way underperforming #1, Wang appears to be basically recovered from injury, and the kids have upside instead of being Stammen/Chico/Martis/Martin/etc. And that's not counting Livan and Gorzo as long men/spot starters, and a bullpen that's been genuinely good for two straight years now.
The best news about the EOY bets is that only two of them--Werth's OPS+ and the Nats' team OPS--did the team not hit the better result! That's as good a result as most of us did picking. ^_^
Though if we're talking pipe dreams for CF, how about we send Detweiler, Gorzo, Coffey,and Rodriguez to the Red Sox for Ellsbury?
The Pudge fanned club says "Ha!"
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