Could we pursue Joe Blanton?

[PANatsFan]

Trade for James Shields.

/It's my new thing.

Better than LAC

[PatsNats28]

RA is a repeatable stat, but Potomac Cannons keeps ignoring the facts.

RA? Runners Allowed? Isn't that basically WHIP?

[Lintyfresh85]

I think RA is runs allowed?

[Potomac Cannons]

RA? Runners Allowed? Isn't that basically WHIP?

Runs allowed.  Depends as much on defense, errors, etc. as it does on pitching.  The repeatable stats are the true pitching stats that only measure pitching.

[PatsNats28]

Is that a rate stat or total runs allowed? I assume it's like ERA but including non-earned runs.

[welch]

He's been top 35 in every meaningful, repeatable statistic for the last two years.  Add in 03-04 both being good seasons (04 being his best year) and he's been top 35 or better his last 4 healthy years.

If you only see two good years then you simply can't even approach being honest.  His only negative when healthy is being below league average in K/9.  Everything else is very good.

OK, PCan: looking only at the last two seasons and the odd 2004 and maybe 2003 seasons, you see a good Pavano. You've cherry-picked the years.

Cut Jerry Koosman's career after 1970, because he threw his arm away in '71, and you have a pitcher equal to or better than Tom Seaver. The stats are just as good, and I saw them both. Koosman was electric before the arm injury. He came back and pitched on smarts, and still pitched pretty well.

We can do that with many players: this guy was good except for the seasons when he wasn't.

I look at Pavano and see an older pitcher who has usually been somewhere in the middle. He had an somewhat poor season in 2009, and a moderately good season in 2010. Those numbers don't convince me that Pavano is much more than a respectable older pitcher who pitched for a strong team.

[hammondsnats]

Better than LANC

fixed

[PANatsFan]

fixed

Either one, it's tiresome.

[hammondsnats]

Either one, it's tiresome.

there's only way to stop LAC ... Lerners prove 'em wrong.

And for the record James Shields > Joe Blanton

[Potomac Cannons]

Is that a rate stat or total runs allowed? I assume it's like ERA but including non-earned runs.

Total runs allowed.

[The Chief]

Either one, it's tiresome.

Then why'd you bring it up?

[comish4lif]

He's been top 35 in every meaningful, repeatable statistic for the last two years.  Add in 03-04 both being good seasons (04 being his best year) and he's been top 35 or better his last 4 healthy years.

If you only see two good years then you simply can't even approach being honest.  His only negative when healthy is being below league average in K/9.  Everything else is very good.

Sure, when you use his last 4 healthy years, he's solid. The problem is, that you need to go back 7 seasons to get 4 healthy ones.

Pavano would probably be a good 1-2 year risk. But if he's asking for 3 years, I'll pass.

[spidernat]

You know, the Werth signing has bought them some time in my book, but IMO it proves nothing in the near term in and of itself.  The contract is backloaded and you have no idea how they might get rid of the loaded part in 4 years.

Not LACing (yet) but come on, one backloaded contract does not absolve them of 4 years of crappy low-cost rosters.

All it did was transfer some of Dunn's money to Werth so using that as an argument is saying that the Lerner have not been cheap for all these years and that's absurd.

[Kevrock]

Yes, we could pursue Joe Blanton. But we shouldn't, because he flipping sucks.

No.  We should not help the Phillies get out of the Blanton contract.  I realize I may be making that statement out of spite rather than rationally weighing (har) the positives and negatives of Blanton. 

Also this.

[Coladar]

I'm not even going to try and get this thread off topic, but I just feel it needs noting. Chien Ming Wang. I think I might have mentioned this once, although I probably didn't. We blew two million on him.

Anyway, MLBTR said the Rangers are seriously interested in Wang and his request for a ML deal. After Lee, if they want Wang, they are going to get Wang. He might end up with more than the $2mil we could have had him for the way the market is shaping up and the massive hole the Rangers now need to fill, with the Yankees. So am I just high as a kite and/or retarded, or what? Now we are going on about "let's trade for Blanton." am I the only one who thinks Wang has a tremendous upside, at the cost of a risk only in as much as we pay him? A guy the organization knows back and front. A guy who we still should have signed!!! Someone explain to me how Blanton > Wang. If you can do that, how Blanton + losing prospects > Wang. It truly seems like I'm the only one utterly infuriated over what's gone on and continues to go in with Wang. And go back, when we signed this deal, I thought it was stupid, hated it, etc. I'm hardly a suckup on Wangs. Now we are talking about Joe freaking Blanton... With Wang still, miraculously, out there... For the next few days at least. If anyone has Rizzo's phone or direct email, send him a line and tell him to get Wang back here yesterday, or else provide a damn good excuse what they saw that makes these options, with the most likely scenario being no option at all and our 2010 staff, preferable to a one year ML Wang deal.

What, did this team meet it's quota for selling Wang jersey's in Taiwan, so they figure they got all they wanted out of the deal? I know it's starting to seem like I'm obsessing over every little detail, but I'm not. Just common sense moves any team would and should make, that would likely improve the team. In the meantime, deals that don't make sense keep going and going. So yeah, it's starting to turn me into a neurotic person.

[Kevrock]

At this point our front office knows Wang's progress and potential better than anyone in the world. If he signs somewhere else and does well at the MLB level I will go absolutely bonkers... but for the time being I'm going to assume that he's not close to ready and won't ever be ready and the Nats passed on him for this reason.

[Coladar]

At this point our front office knows Wang's progress and potential better than anyone in the world. If he signs somewhere else and does well at the MLB level I will go absolutely bonkers... but for the time being I'm going to assume that he's not close to ready and won't ever be ready and the Nats passed on him for this reason.

Yeah, thats the only reason I'm not camping outside Rizzo's house due to anger over this, but every comment from the team post July was he's coming along well. His two instructional league starts in October were average, and showed he is ready to pitch come six months off and ST. If they know something, I can accept it, begrudgingly. But I also believe there's a strong, strong chance this was all to save money. "hey, he wasted two mil, he's not a lock next year for another two mil. He's said in the press he's indebted to the club and would sign a favorable deal out of gratitude." boom, non-tender. Boom, pitchers market blows up and then disappears. Boom, we are screwed. They might have saw something, they might also have criminally misjudged the market to try and save some money. Right now, it's 50-50. Even if they did see something, when you're debating trading for Joe Blanron versus $1.5 mil at most for one season of Wang... They couldn't have seen anything that bad, given he did play at the end, to let me accept that as a rational explanation.

Like I said, maybe they sold their quota of Nationals Wang jerseys in Taiwan for $200 a pop and figured with what there's a chance he'll produce coming off injury, they got all they wanted out of the deal. It's teams like this, in off seasons like this, where you'd sell a kidney and sacrifice your first born to be a GM during the offseason. There is so much obvious that either makes no sense or doesn't work, I know I could put together a better team than Rizzo having the exact same limitations. And yes, everyone and their kid sister says the same thing. If only there were a track to FO work without playing baseball that wasn't a nightmare and unlikely. It'd be nice to try and breathe some common sense, or forgoing that, just understand why they make these decisions that seem to, on face value, make zero sense.

[PatsNats28]

Total runs allowed.

So that means that Matt Chico > Stephen Strasburg because he gave up fewer runs this season...

[comish4lif]

At this point our front office knows Wang's progress and potential better than anyone in the world. If he signs somewhere else and does well at the MLB level I will go absolutely bonkers... but for the time being I'm going to assume that he's not close to ready and won't ever be ready and the Nats passed on him for this reason.

For the small amount of money (in the MLB scheme of things), I think that they should have offered him Arbitration. I think it's high reward and low risk considering it would probably have cost them $2-2.5M.

If you haven't been completely healthy since 2007,  how much of a raise can a guy get?

[aspenbubba]

For the small amount of money (in the MLB scheme of things), I think that they should have offered him Arbitration. I think it's high reward and low risk considering it would probably have cost them $2-2.5M.

If you haven't been completely healthy since 2007,  how much of a raise can a guy get?

For the small amount of money (in the MLB scheme of things), I think that they should have offered him Arbitration. I think it's high reward and low risk considering it would probably have cost them $2-2.5M.

If you haven't been completely healthy since 2007,  how much of a raise can a guy get?

If they went to arb and won they would have to pay him 1.6 mil. They chose not to go to arb with him and non-tendered him. I think this is what they did with Scott oLSEN LAST YEAR AND HE RE-SIGNED WITH AN INCENtive laden contract.It could still happen with Wang but I have to agree that he did not progress well enough or quickly enough for the Nats to risk 1.6.

[comish4lif]

If they went to arb and won they would have to pay him 1.6 mil. They chose not to go to arb with him and non-tendered him. I think this is what they did with Scott oLSEN LAST YEAR AND HE RE-SIGNED WITH AN INCENtive laden contract.It could still happen with Wang but I have to agree that he did not progress well enough or quickly enough for the Nats to risk 1.6.

Right, the Nats would not be permitted to submit an arbitration figure that cut his salary by more than 20%. So, the Nats would have to offer him at least $1.6M.

But, by offering him arbitration, the Nats would have gained Wang's exclusivity (no one would be able to touch Rizzo's Wang). Now, if they want to resign him, they can at any price that makes a Wang happy. But they also have to compete for the Wang. And someone might make him a better offer. And the Wang might opt for some strange....

[PANatsFan]

Right, the Nats would not be permitted to submit an arbitration figure that cut his salary by more than 20%. So, the Nats would have to offer him at least $1.6M.

But, by offering him arbitration, the Nats would have gained Wang's exclusivity (no one would be able to touch Rizzo's Wang). Now, if they want to resign him, they can at any price that makes a Wang happy. But they also have to compete for the Wang. And someone might make him a better offer. And the Wang might opt for some strange....

If you bid too low, the arbitrator will take the players number. Wang certainly would have tried for 2.5-3.

[comish4lif]

If you bid too low, the arbitrator will take the players number. Wang certainly would have tried for 2.5-3.

Right, and that's what my original post (Today at 11:02:12 AM ) said, that the risk was $2-2.5M. You say $2.5-3. Fine. That's reasonable too.

I'm thinking from the arbitrator's perspective, Wang made $2M last year for 0 innings. He put up a 9.64 ERA in 09 in limited innings - when he was obvioulsy hurt. In 2008, when he had the ankle injury, he made only 15 starts. I think that the Nats could make the case in arbitration that he's an injury risk and a long ways from his stellar 06 and 07.

Until then, the Nats would have time and exclusivity to work out another $2-2.5M incentive laden deal.

I mean, wasn't the point of paying him the $2M last season to rehab was - that even if he wasn't healthy, we had him under club control for 2011?

[PANatsFan]

I have to trust them on this one. Apparently Wang didn't like the incentivized deal.

[asindc]

I have to trust them on this one. Apparently Wang didn't like the incentivized deal.

And I don't trust players who have been often injured and/or ineffective who don't want incentives put into their contract.  If they don't have enough faith in their own ability to bounce back from injury and/or poor performance, why should any team?