- On the topic of Jordan Zimmermann making the opening day 25-man, OMG says "smoke 'em if you got 'em," while Chris Needham I'm pretty sure for the first time ever weighs in for doing the less expensive thing.
- OMG makes a strong case for Lastings the lead-off man.
- Fed Baseball has an interview with SI's Lee Jenkins, who just wrote a feature story on Strasburg.
- Fed Baseball also has Keith Law's video of Strasburg, including a pretty cool shot of the radar gun clocking him at 99.
- NFA offers a breakdown of how the 6-year, $50 million contract for Strasburg might be structured (hint: it wouldn't be all guaranteed money).
- Nationals Review ranks the NL East position-by-position, first hitters, then pitchers. He's got a decidedly home-town slant, but hell why not?
- NNN takes a look at the Nationals young pitchers.
- We've Got Heart wants to make sure you don't miss Ladies' Night!
- Brian, one of the new guys over at Nationals Pride, reminds us that Dunn is quite bad as a fielder.
- Finally, the Stan Kasten chat on WaPo.com inspired the latest StanSpeak translation.
Friday, March 27, 2009
This Week's Natmosphere Round-Up
Here's this week's round-up of notable posts from around the Natmosphere. Enjoy:
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6 comments:
Thanks for the link. I do have to say, while I can't necessarily argue with your statement, I could have had MUCH more of a hometown slant...
Sure, if it was just total homer non-sense, I wouldn't have linked. But you were about as generous as you could possibly be without tipping into blind homerdom.
I AM rather bullish on one Mr Elijah Dukes, among others.
My quibbles would be Jesus Flores and Guzman, both of whom I think are the weakest in the division, and Shairon Martis, who isn't better than Moyer.
Cool, I appreciate the opportunity to debate... In response to Martis, I know Moyer had a fantastic 2008. But his numbers from '04-'07 make me think he's not that good. PECOTA has them with similar numbers, that's prior to Martis' excellent spring. I'd rather have Martis than Moyer, but maybe that's just me.
As for Guzman, it took me a long time to buy into his whole LASIK improved vision thing. Be he has hit something like .320/.355/.450 since he's gotten the surgery. I don't think Escobar can do that yet. In a year or two, sure, but not yet.
As for catching, I truly believe there isn't much good in spots 2-5. Schneider can't hit, he shouldn't be starting in this league. Ruiz was completely lost at the plate last year. Maybe Baker belongs in the #2 spot, but that's it.
Of course, these are my opinions, and are clouded by my bias. I'm sure I've convinced nobody, but I think I can at least make the case that they are ranked correctly.
Thanks again for checking it out, keep up the good work.
-Charlie
Milledge is a joy to watch (except on the base paths), but I really don't want him leading off. I know he cracked the 70% mark last season, but I saw him goof up a bunch in non-SB situations.
I'd like to see him 5th, it just makes sense to try the risk/reward of him stealing bases when there's much less of chance the upcoming batter's could knock him in from first collectively. Until he proves himself to be .350+ OBP guy (which I think he will by season's end), let him pile up some time where his learning curve will do less damage. Plus he's got enough pop to clear the slow pokes who'd hit in front of him about 45-50 times this season (the rough number of extra base hits I expect, which is basically his rate Chone/Bill James expect, but set for 50 more PAs).
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