Thursday, April 1, 2010

This Is What 100 Losses Looks Like

I guess this could be a somewhat lame April Fool's joke, but Adam Kilgore tweets: "As of now, Willy Taveras will be the #Nats right-handed platoon option in RF, Riggleman said."

Willy Taveras is awful. Here are his rates against left-handed pitching:
2009: .219 / .245 / .257
Career: .262 / .309 / .326
Just absolutely inexcusable that any team would go into a season planning to give starts to a guy like this. They can't even blame injuries. This is as bad or worse than anything we've seen from this team in the last five years. Rizzo better have something up his sleeve.

And since he's never played right field, I want to see him make the throws before conceding he's even a plus-defender out there.

24 comments:

estuartj said...

The only thing Tavaras should be starting is looking for an apartment in Syracuse.

Dave Nichols said...

kills me. truly kills me.

Deacon Drake said...

So where will Tavares bat? 11th?

Deez Nats said...

I think you need to re-open the right track/wrong track poll.

Anonymous said...

This is an upgrade over Dukes...how? I feel like I just got kicked in the chest by a donkey.

Steven said...

Giving up on dukes is understandable. Having this as a plan is not. Rizzo has been in charge now for a year. If he wanted to move in another direction like this, then the time to decide (or at LEAST prepare for) that was at the end of last season. Then you sign Damon or Nady or Ankiel or Winn or DeRosa or Coco Crisp or hell sign Ryan Church or Ryan Langerhans. They would have been better choices then Willy Taveras. You cannot not not not not go into a season with a guy like that as your starter. And in RF!

phil dunn said...

Rizzo is under the same constraint that Jim Bowden was--and that's the Lerner/Kasten cheapness. But Rizzo should be well aware of the circumstances he's in so he was butt stupid for letting Dukes go without a decent replacement.

Steven said...

That's BS. If you wanna cry about the salary available, don't waste 6 million on the corpse of Pudge Rodriguez when there are better players available for 1/5th the cost. Xavier Nady got 3.3m. Ryan Church got 1.5m. We're not talking about Matt Holliday here.

Mark said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Will said...

I would have never ever ever guessed that I would want Austin Kearns back.

I stand corrected.

estuartj said...

Don't even joke about Austin Kearns!

How many LHP do we face in a normal month? This may be much ado about nothing if Morse is getting starts in RF too and Harris starts against all the RHPers.

Still if Tavaras is the answer you are asking the wrong question...

estuartj said...

Except if Tavaras makes the 25 man roster someone will have to be outrighted or DL'd to make room for him on the 40, which is NOT the case for Bernadina!

estuartj said...

Imagine how much better off we'd be if JimBow had traded Kearns to the Mets instead of Church and had gotten Nolasco from Florida instead of Olsen.

Ok, not that much better, but better.

Meridian said...

Kills me too.

It's like Groundhog Day. Same bunch of bums, same result.

Pitching is not significantly improved from last year -- at least til the second half of the season. D still shaky. No solution at catcher. Bullpen scary.

And I agree with Steven. It's one thing to give up on Dukes; it's another to do it without a Plan B. If Maxwell was their Plan B (which is what I suspect) they should have shown him some confidence, given him the job, and let him prove over a reasonable number of at-bats whether he's a major leaguer. At least there would be some interest/excitement in the effort.

sec314 said...

They gave Maxwell the opportunity... and he didn't grab it. Definitely poor planning. Maybe they can trade an extra starter for a decent OF at some point.

Even so, at this point Taveras probably has the best arm available and he could back up Morgan. The lack of a back up CF was pretty glaring last year.

Anonymous said...

http://masnsports.com/2010/04/-welcome-to-this-weeks.html

Rizzo doesn't even mention Taveras as a possibility in RF. Maybe Riggleman made that platoon statement without first discussing with Rizzo?

Will said...

He listed Bernadina, Harris, Maxwell and Morse as examples, not necessarily the only candidates.

With that said, if Riggleman was naming non-roster invitees to the 25 man roster without the general manager's knowledge or approval, that just might be worse than the act of naming Willy Taveras to the team. That's a serious disconnect between the two most important members of the Nationals management.

Steven said...

Is it possible that Riggleman simply isn't that smart, and frequently speaks without thinking? Like, "I'd be a liar if I tried to tell you I know anything at all about pitching mechanics..."

JayB said...

Oh I think he is thinking....as hard as he can....that is the problem. Riggs is doing just what they told him they wanted.....do whatever you need to do to win as many games as you can. Riggs really thinks Tavaras is better than his other choices for a platoon....and he likely is....that is on Rizzo. He really blew RF this winter and that is on him to fix and fast.

JCA said...

this makes no sense. Why burn a roster slot on Taveras? If you wanted a speedy, no hit, good glove RH bat to platoon with Harris, then keep Maxwell around. Even with his awful batting average, he still drew walks and could occasionally hit one out. That's got to be a better option than Taveras.

Anonymous said...

"Willy Taveras against LHP

2009: .219 / .245 / .257
Career: .262 / .309 / .326"

Austin Kearns against LHP:

2009: .122/.348/.204 (note: 66 PAs)
Career: .262/.389/.420

Church: (who's LH, and therefore at a platoon disadvantage)
2009: .213/.297/.313
Career: .248/.321/.380

i.e. it would have been a less-stupid decision to sign Church and make him hit exclusively at a platoon disadvantage than playing Taveras regularly. Awesome.

Bland Moniker said...

Wow, Taveras. Really? Throw in that Harris hasn't really played Right (does he even have the arm for it?) and our 2 sub .700 career OPS right fielders have all the makings of a disaster. There's good news though, I hear Elijah Dukes is available. Some idiot team cut him. Maybe he'll sign with us?

Anonymous said...

"None of these guys are really right-fielders other than Taveras."
- Riggleman, on Taveras platooning in right.
Taveras has played one game in right field in his career. Shoot me now

RA said...

This is what happens when you hire Jim Riggleman as your baseball manager. Why isn't Pete Orr getting a look?