National Catastrophe In The MakingPosted on December 22, 2010 by admin
A non-partisan nightmare:
The factional disputes inherent in Washington politics are generally put aside when a true catastrophe occurs. Of course there are always—-in every situation—-those who will take any kind of disaster and twist it to suit their own needs, truth be damned.
In a baseball sense, the Washington Nationals have the potential to be just such a calamity.
What are they doing?
You can debate the Jayson Werth signing; call it an expensive mistake; say that they’ll be paying a good player great player money until he’s in his late-30s. But the fact remains that at least Werth is a good player. The assertions that he’s a “player who’s never driven in 100 runs” as if that’s the barometer of the contract are absurd.
But it’s the other moves the Nationals have made that are going to exacerbate the hellish fate that awaits them.
They desperately need pitching. Their current number 1 starter is listed as Livan Hernandez; they re-signedChien-Ming Wang after Wang missed the entire 2010 season recovering from shoulder surgery and hasn’t pitched at all since mid-2009; they have the middling likes of Jason Marquis, Scott Olsen and John Lannanon the roster; they’re looking at Carl Pavano; and appear to be waiting—-again—-for Stephen Strasburg to arrive, yank open his shirt, show the “S” on his T-shirt and rescue the franchise.
That didn’t exactly work the last time.
As for their offense, are they better with Werth? Perhaps they would be had they not traded Josh Willinghamto the Athletics for outfielder Corey Brown and RHP Henry Rodriguez.
This exacerbates the overall point.
What are the Nationals?
What’s the plan?
Are they trying to win immediately?
Are they rebuilding and trying to compete simultaneously?
Do they have the young personnel to justify the aggressive, expensive and risk/reward decisions that are currently being made?
The latest is Rick Ankiel.
Rick Ankiel?
Like Werth, I have to ask the question: is he going to pitch?
Ankiel can play the outfield; he’s better than what they currently have on their depth chart beside Werth (Nyjer Morgan and Roger Bernadina), but he’s not better than Willingham. Willingham’s abilities have long be underappreciated and he was inexpensive for everything he did. When he was with the Marlins, all the focus was placed on Dan Uggla and Hanley Ramirez, but the hitter I most feared in a big situation was Willingham. And they dispatched him for the future.
But are they playing for the future or making the mistake of being several things at once?
Well-run teams who are successful are learning the error of their ways as they use dual strategies of winning and maintaining the pipeline. They’re correctly altering their strategy. But the Nats? A franchise that has had one .500 season since 2003 (when they were still in Montreal); they’re not good. They’re not in a financial position to be making such prohibitive signings as Werth for that amount of money.
But they are.
One thing that’s glossed over when players are signed to deranged contracts like that of Werth isn’t that it’s an overpayment for a limited player; it’s that it hinders what the club can do to fill out the roster.
Such is the situation the Cardinals are going to face with Albert Pujols as they come to grips with the prospect of a contentious negotiation with the Joe DiMaggio of this generation; can the Cardinals maintain competition with Pujols taking up a massive percentage of their payroll so they can barely afford anyone else?
Jayson Werth is not Albert Pujols.
The only answer to my question as to whether there’s a plan is this: there is no plan. They’re just doing things. Things that aren’t going to assist in a leap to contention; things that are going to keep the club in the netherworld of mediocrity and worse. They’re in a vicious division, they have no pitching and they can’t really hit.
So where’s the improvement?
It’s not there.
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