Author Topic: Can't the Nats get a AAA team closer to home? (YES! Rochester)  (Read 12689 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline bluestreak

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 11259
:bang: what does he think will become available in two years?

The only way this makes sense is if they are planning to buy a team.

Offline UMDNats

  • Posts: 18063
Wow, that is insane. The talk here was the Sounds wanted a long-term partner and Nashville would have been a great AAA team for the Nats - a new market of potential fans, a very short flight away and despite being in the PCL plays a ton of teams closeby (Iowa, Memphis, New Orleans).

Rizzo ends up with egg on his face again.

Bluestreak is right that this only makes sense if the Lerners play to buy a team in 2 years. We'll see, I guess.

Offline varoadking

  • Posts: 29487
  • King of Goodness
Trying really hard to understand why people care about where the Nats AAA team in located...

Offline UMDNats

  • Posts: 18063
Trying really hard to understand why people care about where the Nats AAA team in located...

It affects how quickly we can get a guy to the major league team, not to mention players don't have to fly cross-country to meet up with the major league squad.

For example, the NYY have a AAA team in Scranton, 2 hours from the city. They literally have the "Scranton shuttle" for relievers because they can call up/send down guys quickly as they need a fresh arm. We can't do that; sending players cross country back and forth is not good for anyone.

If we need to call up someone quickly, it's basically impossible right now to get them here the same day. Say it's noon, and it turns out Max is scratched because he's sick. OK, Fedde/long reliever starts in his place, but then we're short a bullpen arm. There's no direct Fresno-to-DC flights IIRC, so they have to connect, complicating things, too. So the soonest we can get a guy on a plane is, say, 11 AM PT, which is 2 PM in DC. It's then a six-hour flight to DC, so he maybe lands at first pitch, but he's probably unavailable.

If we had a team in Nashville, there are multiple flights to DC every day and connecting flights through Atlanta even more frequently, plus it's a short flight.

Offline varoadking

  • Posts: 29487
  • King of Goodness
It affects how quickly we can get a guy to the major league team, not to mention players don't have to fly cross-country to meet up with the major league squad.

For example, the NYY have a AAA team in Scranton, 2 hours from the city. They literally have the "Scranton shuttle" for relievers because they can call up/send down guys quickly as they need a fresh arm. We can't do that; sending players cross country back and forth is not good for anyone.

It's not like they move guys around every day.  If they want to stash some arms, they can do it at the AA team. 

We have bigger issues...


Offline UMDNats

  • Posts: 18063
It's not like they move guys around every day.  If they want to stash some arms, they can do it at the AA team. 

We have bigger issues...



Quality minor league free agents (I know that's a paradox, but there are better minor league free agent pitchers) aren't going to sign to then get stashed in Double-A, and those are usually the fringe guys we're shuttling around.

We are stashing arms in AA, but there is a bigger jump from AA to the majors than people realize and it doesn't help us to rely solely on prospects playing in AA. If we had more quality arms we'd be making more moves and it'd be hurting us more than it is now.

Also, prospects get paid less in AA than AAA, so if this was a long-term thing, there's gonna be a lot of unhappy players being stuck in AA despite performing well enough for AAA.

Players are human, and cross-country travel and jet lag are real things. It's not an ideal or acceptable situation when the margin for error in the majors is razor thin.

Offline bluestreak

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 11259
Trying really hard to understand why people care about where the Nats AAA team in located...

Quote
It’s the worst possible scenario,” a rival GM said of Washington’s plight, which involves incoming players taking a 6 1/2-hour red-eye to D.C. for a day game or a 6 a.m. fight to arrive in time for a night game. “It’s a much bigger deal than people think.”

It’s 2,796 miles from Fresno’s stadium to Nationals Park, more than double the commute of the second-farthest Triple-A team, which is the Los Angeles Dodgers’ affiliate — one in which they have an ownership stake — in Oklahoma City. Just two other clubs have their Triple-A team more than 1,000 miles away: the Milwaukee Brewers’ brand-new affiliate in San Antonio and the Minnesota Twins’ team in Rochester

Quote
So what, you might be thinking, these players have to sit on a plane for a long time and be sleep deprived. That comes with the territory. But in an age when player development is a major part of an organization’s lifeline, and in a season in which the Nationals’ depth has been continually tested, why make things harder than they have to be?

It’s not just about the late-night moves that have been made. It’s the transactions that haven’t occurred because Fresno is on the other side of the country and there’s a late injury or a day game the next day. It’s about stashing guys at Double-A Harrisburg in the event of an emergency, demoting relievers with a cross-country ticket and a long time to think about what they’ve done (or failed to do).

The Mets know all about those struggles. They left Las Vegas after years of struggling to get players to New York on time and sometimes even playing short-handed. They were more than happy to ditch the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, which made it tougher to evaluate their talent.

“It’s not ideal,” said former Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, who was with New York until July 2018, when he took a leave of absence because of a reoccurrence of cancer. “Vegas to New York had a lot of flights for obvious reasons. But Fresno isn’t Vegas. It’s a lot tougher to get out of there, I’d imagine.

Offline bluestreak

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 11259
Quality minor league free agents (I know that's a paradox, but there are better minor league free agent pitchers) aren't going to sign to then get stashed in Double-A, and those are usually the fringe guys we're shuttling around.

We are stashing arms in AA, but there is a bigger jump from AA to the majors than people realize and it doesn't help us to rely solely on prospects playing in AA. If we had more quality arms we'd be making more moves and it'd be hurting us more than it is now.

Also, prospects get paid less in AA than AAA, so if this was a long-term thing, there's gonna be a lot of unhappy players being stuck in AA despite performing well enough for AAA.

Players are human, and cross-country travel and jet lag are real things. It's not an ideal or acceptable situation when the margin for error in the majors is razor thin.

There are a lot of people here that think that travel has no effect on baseball players.

Offline varoadking

  • Posts: 29487
  • King of Goodness
I'd say that this is the least of our problems...and much ado about virtually nothing.  Is it ideal?  Clearly not.  Something to lose sleep over?  Clearly not...

I'd rather they figure out a way to get rid of FP...


Offline bluestreak

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 11259
I'd say that this is the least of our problems...and much ado about virtually nothing.  Is it ideal?  Clearly not.  Something to lose sleep over?  Clearly not...

I'd rather they figure out a way to get rid of FP...

lol at losing sleep over anything the nats do

Offline varoadking

  • Posts: 29487
  • King of Goodness
lol at losing sleep over anything the nats do


We forgave lot a crap when they were fielding a competitive team.  Now that they are on the verge of a purge and rebuild, we need to concentrate on getting hot dogs for less than 7:00 and a quality TV color guy.  Maybe more fireworks nights.  (They have fireworks Fridays in Cincy!)

Offline bluestreak

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 11259


We forgave lot a crap when they were fielding a competitive team.  Now that they are on the verge of a purge and rebuild, we need to concentrate on getting hot dogs for less than 7:00 and a quality TV color guy.  Maybe more fireworks nights.  (They have fireworks Fridays in Cincy!)

They had fireworks last Friday at Nats Park.

Offline mitlen

  • Posts: 66171
  • We had 'em all the way.


We forgave lot a crap when they were fielding a competitive team.  Now that they are on the verge of a purge and rebuild, we need to concentrate on getting hot dogs for less than 7:00 and a quality TV color guy.  Maybe more fireworks nights.  (They have fireworks Fridays in Cincy!)

Those aren't fireworks.     :)

Online Natsinpwc

  • Posts: 25666


We forgave lot a crap when they were fielding a competitive team.  Now that they are on the verge of a purge and rebuild, we need to concentrate on getting hot dogs for less than 7:00 and a quality TV color guy.  Maybe more fireworks nights.  (They have fireworks Fridays in Cincy!)
Al Stewart is at the Ludlow Garage tomorrow night. Sorry I will miss that.

Offline mitlen

  • Posts: 66171
  • We had 'em all the way.
Al Stewart is at the Ludlow Garage tomorrow night. Sorry I will miss that.

Not sure why but my mind flashed to Al Kooper.      :old:     Gettin' old, I guess.     I saw Kooper at the Cellar Door once upon a time.

Online Natsinpwc

  • Posts: 25666
Not sure why but my mind flashed to Al Kooper.      :old:     Gettin' old, I guess.     I saw Kooper at the Cellar Door once upon a time.
It’s all good.


Offline LincolnDD

  • Posts: 72
Nashville preferred the Rangers, so I don't know that the Nats willing to go four years would've made much of a difference.

Offline imref

  • Moderator
  • ***
  • Posts: 42504
  • Re-contending in 202...5?
Quote
Dan Steinberg
@dcsportsbog
Because of travel difficulties, the Nats have all but abandoned Fresno as a legitimate place to keep fringe major league players whom they could need on short notice wapo.st/2MGRPZl

Offline LincolnDD

  • Posts: 72
I wonder how many more articles like this one we're going to see over the next year+.

But they're doing the right thing, using Harrisburg as the emergency go-to, especially as we head closer to the post season.

Offline JCA-CrystalCity

  • Global Moderator
  • ****
  • Posts: 39371
  • Platoon - not just a movie, a baseball obsession
It seems like the guys who they want to get in development, like Crowe and C. Kieboom, stay in Fresno, but the guys who are on a shuttle and they care less about development (like McGowin and Sanchez) stay in Harrisburg. Reminds me, where's Taylor?

Offline varoadking

  • Posts: 29487
  • King of Goodness

Offline GburgNatsFan

  • Posts: 22277
  • Let's drink a few for Mathguy.
It seems like the guys who they want to get in development, like Crowe and C. Kieboom, stay in Fresno, but the guys who are on a shuttle and they care less about development (like McGowin and Sanchez) stay in Harrisburg. Reminds me, where's Taylor?

Harrisburg, while Stevenson is here, for some reason.

Online Natsinpwc

  • Posts: 25666
Harrisburg, while Stevenson is here, for some reason.
Taylor is really killing that double A pitching. .743 OPS. Shouldn’t he just stay in the minors and get at bats?

Offline GburgNatsFan

  • Posts: 22277
  • Let's drink a few for Mathguy.
Taylor is really killing that double A pitching. .743 OPS. Shouldn’t he just stay in the minors and get at bats?

Neither he or Stevenson is going to make contact much. I think he's a better defensive sub, baserunner, etc.

I think we have to face that MAT is never going to make much contact. His good year under Dusty was a fluke.

Online Natsinpwc

  • Posts: 25666
Neither he or Stevenson is going to make contact much. I think he's a better defensive sub, baserunner, etc.

I think we have to face that MAT is never going to make much contact. His good year under Dusty was a fluke.
Small sample size but Stevenson is 6 for 17 and an .888 OPS.  Also gives them another lefty bat off the bench.