Why Scott Olsen Doesn't Deserve to Be the Fifth Starter

He's still smoking. That's everything you need to know about his commitment to athletic excellence. I'd rather root for someone like J.D. Martin 100 times out of 100. At least he's trying to get everything he can out of his ability.

Marlins Preview with FishStripes

We wrap up our NL East preview with an excellent chat with Craig from FishStripes. Craig is to Miami baseball as Dana Milbank is to obnoxiousness and snark, and he really took the time to give us some great thoughts here. Enjoy.

The Marlins will be better than expected if...
Three to five in the starting rotation have decent years. Last season, that part of the rotation ended up start after start requiring the bullpen to save them. It was rare if they went 5 IP, and their friends in the pen would inherit the job of keeping the game close in order for the hitters to try and catch up to eliminate the damage the starters caused at the beginning of the game. Luckily the bullpen did a decent job at it last year. Also, the Marlins will have a new first baseman this season, and Cantu will play at third, not his best defensive spot on the field. Gaby Sanchez will be the first baseman, and he is good on defense, but he is going to need to produce with the bat. It is time to find out what he can do in the majors. If he lives up to expectations, then no problem. Also Maybin needs to show he has finally come into his own. Not to mention what is true for every club, key injuries must be at a minimum.

The Marlins will be worse than expected if...
The 3-5 starters can't get it together and the bullpen can't preform the magic they did last season. Since one never knows what the bullpen will do from year-to-year, this is a concern. With Leo Nunez as the closer, if he stinks, and he could, the Marlins will be scrambling for someone else to close. Probably Dan Meyer will get the first shot at the spot. If Nunez can't close out the games, the Marlins will be in trouble early on. The Marlins have a history of sticking with the same closer long after they have proven they can't get anybody out. Also, if Gaby and Maybin start showing they are really AAAA players, then the team has a problem since Maybin is slated to be second in the order. Also, along this line, if Chris Coghlan joins in with a sophomore slump, then the team will have four hitters in the lineup who can't hit.

Every year the Marlins are at the bottom of the league in payroll, and every year they seem to field a competitive team. What's the secret?
The strength of the Marlins organization is its ability to recognize young talent and develop it. The Marlins scouts know everyone else's minor league talent probably better than the other teams know their own. When the Marlins trade an arbitration eligible player, they normally, not always, but normally get talented prospects in return and then do a good job of getting them ready for the majors. The weird thing about this is the Marlins are kind of iffy when it comes to the draft. But I don't think that is because they have trouble recognizing who the most talented players are, I think they know, it is just trying to find the best player in the Marlins price range, which as everyone knows, isn't too high.

Who will and who should play first base? Logan Morrison? Gaby Sanchez? Jorge Cantu? Dan Uggla? Someone else?
Gaby Sanchez will play first to start the season and should. Logan Morrison maybe the first baseman of the future but he isn't quite ready yet. If Sanchez has a good season look for Morrison to get more time in the outfield in the Minors. Gaby is the better defensive first baseman. If this happens, the Marlins will move Morrison to left when they eventually move Coghlan to second.

How much longer will Dan Uggla be the Marlins' second baseman (thinking about either a team or position change)?
Dan Uggla will be the second baseman for the Marlins as long as he stays with the organization, which I don't think will be very long. If the Marlins fall out contention for the playoffs before or at the trading deadline, look for the Marlins to begin shopping him to contending teams for prospects. Uggla is getting real expensive by Marlins standards and he has recently turned 30. Therefore the Marlins probably won't be willing to pay for his decline, not that it is going to happen in the next couple of years, but it will happen eventually.

How excited are you about a future outfield with Cameron Maybin and Mike Stanton?
I tend to be an "excited when I see it happen" kind of guy. Until then, I don't get excited about top prospects that are unproven. Been disappointed way too many times. That said, Maybin has what it takes but he needs to show it consistently at the Major League level, something he hasn't done. But Maybin is only 23 and should start coming into his own. Injuries have been a bit of a bother but his body is still maturing. Mike Stanton on the other hand needs to learn some plate discipline--he strikeouts 33% of the time and doesn't take walks. His power is undeniable but if he doesn't learn to improve his contact rate and draw some walks he will end up a low OBP, home run hitter and not much more. Stanton is only 20 so there is plenty of time to teach plate discipline.

Is Joe Girardi to blame for all the injuries suffered by Scott Olsen, Josh Johnson, and Anibal Sanchez?
Girardi is not solely to blame but he had a large part in the injuries to the young players. Pitching Coach Rick Kranitz should also share in the blame for the injuries. Scott Olsen in 2006 had an increase in IP of 87, combining major league with minor league stats, for a total of 187 innings pitched. Josh Johnson was brought back into pitch after a one hour and 22 minute rain delay and that pretty much ended his season that year and the next when he was reassigned to Dr. Andrews' team for Tommy John surgery. Anibal Sanchez increased his number of innings pitched by 64 innings in 2006 finishing with a total of 200 IP. When dealing with young arms over taxing them tends to lead to injuries and all three were extended beyond the acceptable norms. Of course, Girardi and Kranitz weren't around for the next season, leaving Fredi Gonzalez to deal with the mess.

Will Anibal Sanchez be anything like the guy we remember before the torn labrum? In general, how do you see the Marlins' starting pitching stacking up this year? Things seem to have been pretty rough this spring.
I don't know. I hope Anibal regains his form of old. However, shoulder surgeries are so tough to recover from. Some pitchers do, but most don't return to being the pitchers they once were. If Anibal can, that will be great news for the Marlins, 'cause that boy can pitch. He has the mental game, it just remains to be seen if the body is willing. The rotation is set to start the season, it goes like this: Josh Johnson, Ricky Nolasco, Anibal Sanchez, Chris Volstad and Nate Robertson.

Johnson and Nolasco will be their usually dominating selves. After that, it is a crap shoot bringing more questions than answers. Can Anibal regain his form? Can Chris Volstad get his sinker to work and actually keep the ball in the park? Is Nate Robertson healthy and can he put together a decent year? The spring, overall, hasn't been kind to Sanchez and Volstad, but nothing is won in the spring. What matters, of course, is the regular season. Hopefully they were working some problems and will be good to go when the regular season starts. But given their recent track record, I won't hold my breath.

Mets Preview with Amazin' Avenue

Continuing our team-by-team NL East preview with our friends who blog about our enemies, today we're chatting with Eric from Amazin' Avenue....

Finish this sentence: The Mets will contend this season if:
Everyone stays healthy (this already hasn't happened) and Chase Utley and Roy Halladay are sidelined for the the whole year following a bizarre hot tub-related incident.

And this one: The Mets will challenge the Nationals for last place if:
Two of Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, David Wright, and Johan Santana miss significant time.

There's a sizable camp of baseball fans who think Omar Minaya is one of the very worst GMs in baseball and should be fired. What's your take on Omar?
I think he excels in a couple of key areas, namely the big ticket items and the scrap heap reclamations. When he spends big he generally does so effectively: Carlos Beltran, Pedro Martinez (mixed bag, but ultimately a good signing), Billy Wagner, Johan Santana. He's also seen good returns on nominal investments in guys like Jose Valentin, Fernando Tatis, and Pedro Feliciano, among others.

Where he seems to have trouble is in that fat middle area, which helps to explain how the Mets have so many holes despite a payroll north of $130 million. Huge money has been invested in Beltran, Santana, Francisco Rodriguez, Jason Bay, and to a slightly lesser degree David Wright and Jose Reyes, yet they're getting decent value from guys like Angel Pagan, Mike Pelfrey, and their catching tandem.

Despite all of that, they could field near replacement level players in right field, at second base, and at first base, with big question marks in at least three of the starting rotation spots. I'd expect fewer ifs at the price tag this team carries.

I think a lot of the criticism leveled at Minaya is completely justified, but it got to a point this offseason where the echo chamber of Internet baseball writing would disparage him even for reasonable deals like bringing Tatis back or no-risk deals like those for Mike Jacobs and Gary Matthews Jr.

Who should play centerfield while Beltran is hurt?
Probably Angel Pagan, which says more about the alternatives than it does about Pagan. The only other in-house options are Gary Matthews Jr. and Jason Pridie, and neither is especially attractive. Pagan performed well in Beltran's absence in 2009 and probably deserves a shot to play while he can. If he doesn't hurt himself as he usually does there's a good chance he can be an average center fielder while Voltron is on the shelf.

Everyone knows the Mets had an incredible run of injuries last season. If there had been only an average number of injuries, would the Mets have contended? Or are the problems deeper than that?
I don't think those are mutually exclusive. The Mets have a lot of deep-seated organization problems, but they probably would have been a decent team last season if not for the injuries. I'm not sure they could have overcome the Phillies (in fact, I'm pretty sure they couldn't have), but a little bit of luck and I think they could have been playing semi-meaningful games in September. The injury problem was compounded by a failure to provide reasonable fill-ins for practically everyone who was hurt. Even though a lot of the backups also got hurt, most of those guys weren't much good to begin with (Fernando Nieve? Ramon Martinez?).

How do you rate the team's off-season? On one hand, the Mets scored Jason Bay, but on the other they didn't upgrade the rotation or first base, and the Mike Jacobs and Gary Matthews acquisitions were widely panned.
The Mets maintained the status quo this off-season. They chased one of the two big free agent outfielders, ultimately landing the lesser of the two to a more favorable contract than the deal Matt Holiday got from the Cardinals. Bay is a great hitter and a terrible fielder, but you're right that he only partially solved one of their problems at the cost of most of the team's winter budget. Minaya misplayed the market by signing Alex Cora to a $2 million deal early on only to watch far superior players like Orlando Hudson sign similar deals in the hot stove's waning days.

The Mike Jacobs and GMJ deals are hard to pan because they basically cost the Mets nothing, but in this case they got what they paid for because neither player is likely to contribute anything above replacement-level production.

The scope of possible outcomes for the starting rotation is expansive, with an upside of "great all-around" and a downside of "Johan Santana plus four." I think we've all grown a little tired of Oliver Perez and John Maine falling short of expectations, but I guess we're gonna ride that train one more time in 2010. The good news is that the Mets have a few semi-credible backups in Nelson Figueroa, Hisanori Takahashi, and Pat Misch to step in and take on some innings when Perez and/or Maine inevitably lands on the disabled list, but the bad news is that those three pitchers are little more than decent fifth starter candidates.

Minaya seems to have succeeded in two areas, though: the bullpen looks pretty strong and the catching tandem of Rod Barajas and Henry Blanco is cheap and decent. For the former, Ryota Igarashi, Kiko Calero, and the aforementioned Takahashi will help support Francisco Rodriguez, Pedro Feliciano, and Sean Green, who collectively give the Mets a lot of different relief options. For the latter, the Mets avoided the temptation of overpaying for Bengie Molina and brought in a couple of solid veterans in Barajas and Blanco who should be around league average in aggregate for the grand sum of a few million dollars.

Who will, and who should, get the majority of starts at catcher?
Barajas, who is better offensively and defensively than Blanco. Blanco is no slouch with the glove, but he doesn't really hit much (Barajas doesn't hit much, either, but he's the better of the two).

To win, the team needs major bounce-back seasons from Jose Reyes and David Wright. Will that happen?
I think so. Reyes needs to be on the field, and despite the recent thyroid scare that could keep him out of the Opening Day lineup, he figures to be back in action in early April and has had no setbacks following hamstring surgery in October. If he's on the field he'll return to being one of the few most valuable shortstops in baseball.

Wright, too, I expect to bounce back. He didn't have a terrible 2009, but his power dropped significantly and his strikeout rate shot up as well. He continued to get on base with relative ease, but his high batting average was buoyed by an unsustainable .394 BABIP. I think his power stroke will return in 2010, dampered somewhat by Citi Field, but a return to 20-25 home runs is a definitely possibility.

(Required Mets-Nats question) Who's better: Wright or Zimmerman?
Zimmerman was far better last year, but Wright has the superior career resume. The truth is that I'm happy to have Wright because I think he's a good fit for this team and this city (and he grew up a Mets fan), but it's a coin flip as to who will be better over the next decade.

Someone Call Glenn Beck!

So Barack Obama is going to throw out the first pitch at the Nationals' home opener. You know what this means, right? Another step towards socialism. You think it's a coincidence that this team has used the advertising slogan "get your RED on"? And what's it called when the government forcibly takes over a private industry? NATIONAL-ization! Ha! Coincidence? I don't think so. By the way, has anyone seen Stan Kasten's birth certificate? I fear for my country.

Wherein I Side with Stan Kasten over the Players' Agents

Frequent FJB readers know that I have a strong bias in favor of the players in baseball's ongoing labor wars. It's not that I think baseball players are underpaid. I just that I think the players have a more legitimate claim on the enormous spoils of MLB than the corporate shills hand-picked by Bud Selig for entry into the monopolists' club of baseball owners.

So it may surprise you to learn that I really don't have a problem with the Nationals' front office choosing 12 vastly inferior pitchers for the opening day roster instead of Stephen Strasburg in an blatant attempt to keep their money out of his pockets.

Let's be clear. Strasburg is the best pitcher in the Nationals organization. It's really not close. Their best chance of winning games in 2010 is to have him pitch as many innings and make as many starts as possible. If there was anything like an open, fair competition to "make the team," he would have been a lock.

There are a number of reasons he's getting sent down. Clearly, one of them is that management wants to be cautious with the long-term development of such a valuable player. By letting him ease into the life of a professional, including, for instance, pitching every five days instead of once a week, they reduce the risk of disaster, either a mental breakdown or a physical one.

But the development rationale only goes so far. Money is the reason why Strasburg, like Ryan Braun, Matt Wieters, and so many others, will almost surely wait till around Memorial Day to come up. If Strasburg started with the team on opening day and stuck, he'd become arbitration-eligible in 2013 and hit free agency in 2016. By waiting till June to call him up, the team can push all that back a year, keep the player under team control for another year, and save millions.

Now, a lot of players and agents say this manipulation of the service time clock isn't fair. And they have a point. If you're the best man for the job, you deserve to get the promotion. You'd feel the same way if your boss passed you over for a deserved promotion in order to pay you less because of some obscure provision in your contract.

But ultimately in this case I think it's more important for management to make the best decision given the rules of the game as they are now to win long-term. And clearly if they don't spend an extra $18 million over the next 3-6 years to get an extra half dozen meaningless starts for a terrible team, they will have that money for other things (whether they actually spend that money on making the team better is an issue for another post).

So I say leave Strasburg down--it's the right thing to do for the long-term success of the team on the field. However, I wouldn't blame him for grumbling a bit (not that he is), and I think fans should appreciate his willingness to take his undeserved demotion in stride.

Monday Morning Quick Hits

Catching up on recent news that I haven't had a chance to weigh in on:

• Going into spring training, the outcome to root for was to see Craig Stammen and Garrett Mock seize spots in the rotation, because of their relative youth and upside. It's good to see that they both not only got those spots, but pitched well enough to really earn them.
• Mike MacDougal lucked out last season, saving 20 games in 21 opportunities, despite walking 34 batters in 50 innings. This spring training, the Marlins let him go after he walked 7 in 4.1 innings. He's terrible, and if he's pitching high-leverage innings for the Nationals this year, it'll be a major knock on Rizzo's efforts to fix the bullpen.
• With Justin Maxwell getting sent down, it's looking increasingly likely that we're going to see Willy Taveras in Washington at least as a back-up. This isn't good news.
  
• In a flashback to 2008, the team looks like they will enter the season with no defensively adequate first-baseman, even as a late-inning replacement.
• When the Yankees put Chad Gaudin on waivers, the Nationals could have gotten the second solid veteran starter they never signed this winter, and it would have cost just $2.95 million. Gaudin is certainly a better pitcher than Livan Hernandez, Miguel Batista or Scott Olsen, and if the Strasburg-Wang-Marquis-Lannan-Mock/Stammen/Detwiler rotation ever comes together, Gaudin could be effective as a reliever. But Mike Rizzo passed. Gaudin is now a pitching for Oakland, and the Nationals missed an easy chance to get better.
  
• Alberto Gonzalez will never be a starter in the majors, but there's no reason not to choose him to be the team's utility infielder instead of the horrid Eric Bruntlett.

Ian Desmond: Starting Shortstop

I admit, I really didn't see this coming. After the excessive deference paid to Cristian Guzman last fall and the fact that Guzman hadn't logged any innings at all at second base, I figured there was no chance that Ian Desmond would get the nod.

And I wouldn't have raised holy hell if the team went with Guzman to start the season either. It's a long year, and if the team waited till May to make the change, that would have eased the pressure on Desmond a bit. And this move is riskier. If Guzman flips out and Desmond flames out, the Nationals could quickly go from two options at short to none.

But now that it's done, I'm pretty psyched. Desmond has real talent. He's done everything possible to show that the bat will play. He's still making too many errors, but let's face it--a routine play in Syracuse isn't much different than a routine play in the majors. You just have to hope it gets better at some point.

Plus, if Guzman is the safe choice, it's a safe choice with no upside whatsoever. Even when Guzman was at his best, all you could do is hope for good luck on balls in play. He never walks and has very limited power, and a below-average glove. His contact skills are excellent, but if that's your only tool, and you don't even have particularly good speed, there's just no path for improvement.

Of course there's now talk again of trying to trade Guzman. I'm not sure given the team's extreme lack of depth at the position that it makes sense to do that yet. But let's get one thing straight: people who say it's impossible to trade him because of his contract are wrong. If Milton Bradley and the $20 million owed him can be traded, anyone can be traded. You just have to do what the Cubs did: trade Guzman for a player with a contract as bad as his. And to do that, the team needs to make a deal with the sole aim of making the team better, not to save money.

Finally, given this news, the two-year, $16 million contract that Jim Bowden gave Guzman in July 2008 now really has to be considered one of the worst contracts in baseball over the last few years. For the cost of that one starting season with a .306 OBP and below-average defense, Bowden could have signed Randy Wolf and Jon Garland last year and still had almost $4 million left over.

So congratulations to Demond, and here's hoping that the interminable Cristian Guzman experience really truly is over.

Braves Preview with Braves Journal

Continuing my team-by-team preview on the NL East, here's my Q&A with Braves Journal:

The Braves will be better than expected if...
Troy Glaus can provide some needed power from the right side. The 2009 Braves had trouble driving in runs, particularly against lefthanded pitching. If Glaus can be eighty percent or so of the power hitter he used to be, a lot of that will be mitigated.

The Braves will be worse than expected if...
Tommy Hanson has too much of a sophomore jinx. It's not that they need him to be a superstar--yet--but they need him to give them something close to what he did last year.

Will Jason Heyward be the next Barry Bonds or the next Babe Ruth?
The lefthanded Hank Aaron.

If/when Heyward plays, who sits? Cabrera? Diaz?
Right now, it looks like they'll platoon in left, with Melky moving around to spell McLouth and Heyward. On the other hand, McLouth has played so poorly in spring that the rumors have started of Melky taking his job. Unless McLouth is hurt, that would be foolish.

How does Tim Hudson look? Is he going to be the guy we remember?
He might be the guy you remember from Oakland. His velocity is up and he's striking people out, with no loss in control. Everybody is extremely optimistic about him.

Any concerns about team fielding? Based on the statistical metrics, the team has several below-par fielders scheduled to start every day.
I'm somewhat concerned. Yunel Escobar is superb at short, but he's flanked by a couple of trouble spots. Chipper really showed his age on defense last year, and while Martin Prado was better at second than he had been, he continued to make some of the dumbest plays you'll ever see. Throw in that we don't know how Glaus will play at first, and... The outfield is, no matter the alignment, going to be weak in center and good in the corners.

The Nationals hired former Braves scouting director Roy Clark. Judging by the performance of the Braves' minor league system during his tenure, people around here think it was a good hire. What can you tell us about him?
I can't speak too much to Clark personally, but as part of the Braves' organization? When drafting, they specialize, focusing on southern high school talent. Because you can't scout everyone, concentrating like this is a way to maximize returns. They've also been aggressive in the Caribbean.

Billy Wagner and Takashki Saito are a pretty fragile pair at the back of the bullpen. What happens if/when they both can't pitch?
I'm not really worried about Wagner, who is returning from Tommy John surgery and seemed fully recovered last year. Saito is another matter. If both are out, the Braves are in serious trouble because their next reliever, Peter Moylan, is not really suited for the closer role. If Saito is out, Moylan and Eric O'Flaherty can handle eighth innings.

At Least No One Else's Right Fielder is Any Good Either

The Nationals announced that Willie Harris will start on opening day for the Nationals in right field, and presumably he'll get a big share of the playing time after that.

This is not very good news, because Willie Harris really isn't a very good player. And he certainly doesn't stack up against other rightfielders around the league. After all, last year, the average rightfielder hit .270 / .345 / .446. Harris hit .235 / .364 / .393, and CHONE projects him at .243 / .350 / .377 for 2010. That's a big gap.

But here's the crazy thing (and I literally realized it just as I was sitting down to write a different post altogether). As underwhelming as Harris is, there's a good number of right fielders who aren't much if at all better.

Check it out. Here's the list of 30 projected starting right fielders around the league, ranked by projected wOBA (the Tom Tango rate stat for overall offensive production):

Name	Team	AVG	OBP	SLG	wOBA
Justin Upton	ARI	.296	.372	.515	.383
Jay Bruce	CIN	.286	.351	.539	.379
Nick Markakis	BAL	.301	.373	.484	.374
Jayson Werth	PHI	.265	.365	.475	.372
Carlos Quentin	CHW	.265	.358	.494	.371
Brad Hawpe	COL	.273	.367	.484	.370
Shin-Soo Choo	CLE	.284	.372	.460	.367
Nelson Cruz	TEX	.267	.340	.508	.366
Andre Ethier	LAD	.281	.356	.488	.365
Nick Swisher	NYY	.242	.362	.459	.361
J.D. Drew	BOS	.263	.372	.443	.359
Hunter Pence	HOU	.285	.345	.488	.358
Magglio Ordonez	DET	.295	.362	.453	.357
Ryan Ludwick	STL	.269	.341	.482	.356
Michael Cuddyer	MIN	.268	.342	.459	.351
Bobby Abreu	LAA	.273	.368	.415	.351
Garrett Jones	PIT	.270	.324	.476	.346
Corey Hart	MIL	.271	.333	.456	.344
Kosuke Fukudome	CHC	.260	.364	.405	.343
Nate Schierholtz	SFG	.286	.325	.457	.339
Cody Ross	FLA	.262	.320	.460	.339
Ichiro Suzuki	SEA	.313	.346	.410	.338
David DeJesus	KCR	.278	.351	.410	.336
Ryan Sweeney	OAK	.286	.350	.409	.335
Matthew Joyce	TBR	.242	.327	.427	.330
Willie Harris	WAS	.243	.350	.377	.328
Jeff Francoeur	NYM	.277	.317	.435	.327
Jason Heyward	ATL	.258	.324	.416	.325
Jose Bautista	TOR	.230	.326	.393	.320
Will Venable	SDP	.249	.315	.406	.318

We see Willie's near the bottom, but he's not the worst by any means. The whole bottom half of this list is pretty grim. And factor in that CHONE don't really like Harris very much (Marcel, PECOTA, and ZIPs all expect a little better), and if he's average or better in the field, you could easily seeing him as the second best rightfielder in the division, somewhere in the Garrett Jones/Kosuke Fukudome range of overall value.

He doesn't look the part, and he'll never be the guy who delivers a World Series trophy to DC, but Willie Harris in right field clearly is not the team's biggest problem.

Phillies Preview with Balls, Sticks, & Stuff

Starting today, I'm previewing the competition across the NL East by chatting with some of the best team bloggers in the division. We're getting started by talking about the National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies with Tom from Balls, Sticks & Stuff.

Finish this statement: The Phillies will repeat as NL Champs if...

...they have some luck go their way. They'll certainly make the playoffs, but to advance several rounds, things have to go your way a bit.

And this one: The Phillies will be worse than expected if...

...they suffer some bad, bad, bad luck. In 2009 they had the worst closer since the sales team in Glengarry Glen Ross before Alec Baldwin tore then a new one. Raul Ibanez missed have the season and Jimmy Rollins OBA never got above .300. On top of that, Cole Hamels ERA spent most of the season north of 5.00. All of that happened and they still won the National League East by six games and made it to the World Series.

I really don't want to seem cocky, because these are the types of things I never thought I'd write about the Phillies, but this team is a bunch of winners. They've showed that.

The Phillies added Roy Halladay, but gave up Cliff Lee. Did they miss an opportunity to have a historically great team by keeping both?

It depends how you look at it, and believe me, I've spent the entire winter doing just that, and, well, moving snow. I think by keeping Lee, the Phillies would have closed the door to contending very much after 2011 or 2012. By keeping him, they MIGHT have sealed the deal on another World Series, but they CERTAINLY would have been in trouble a few years from now. I fully expect Tyson Gillies [and Domonic Brown] to be in the outfield in a few years and Phillipe Aumont to be on the big club in some capacity. Unfortunately the firm of Utley-Howard-Rollins-Werth won't be around forever.

You can't forget, the Phillies have very few periods of sustained success. There was the 1976-1980 teams, and really, that's about it other than a few lightning in a bottle teams here and there (1950, 1993) and I think the current regime is very wary of drifting into insignificance again. They want to contend year in, year out. They don't want the golden era of Phillies baseball--and that's what this is--to end.

My heart wanted to keep Lee, my head tells me it was the right thing to do.

Brad Lidge in 2008 had one of the best seasons ever for a closer. Last year, he had perhaps the worst season for a closer ever. What do you expect this year? Shouldn't he have been replaced by now?

Lidge was healthy in 2008 and unhealthy in 2009. When you look at his career, whenever he is unhealthy, he is atrocious, and whenever he is healthy he is quite good. The question I ask over and over is, how do we get him healthy again and keep him that way.

Give me your take on Ruben Amaro's overall performance as a general manager so far.

Signing the deal he did with Roy Halladay is amazing. The guy is one of the top three pitchers in baseball and Rube got him to sign essentially a three year deal for $60 million with a team option for a fourth. In doing so, he didn't break the rule Pat Gillick put in place when he got here: no free agent pitchers signed for more than three years. It's a rule I think is spot on on even with a guy like Halladay it's the right thing to do.

And lets not forget, the Lee trade was pretty good too. I give Amaro a lot of credit for how he handled the summer of 2009. When J.P. Riccardi, the GM of the Blue Jays, went a little whackadoodle, Amaro kept his cool and moved on to Lee. A lot of general managers wouldn't have been able to turn the page like that.

Outside of those deals though, Rube does have some head-scratchers. Raul Ibanez and Placido Polanco are signed for contracts that are way too long given their age. I think Ibanez will spend significant amounts of time on the disabled list in the final two years of his deal and Polanco has been declining for a while now.

Will Jimmy Rollins bounce back, or is he simply in decline?

A bit of both. Will he bounce back from his sub-.300 OBA in 2009? Yes, no doubt about it. Having said that, I do think his best offensive years are behind him. That's not to say he isn't quite valuable when you look at his overall game, but I do think we've seen his best. Let me tell you though, one of the most beautiful things in the world is a Jimmy Rollins triple in front of a packed house at Citizens Bank Park.

Is Chase Utley a Hall of Famer?

Does the pope wear a funny hat?

Look, he's entering his age 31 season and already has three seasons of at least 30 home runs, which is tied for first all-time among second basemen. His career .902 OPS is second only to Rogers Hornsby among second basemen and at the rate he is going, he'll have more hits than Joe Morgan. As for defense, some say average, some say above, some say excellent. Plus he's got three division titles in a row, two National League pennants in a row and of course, a World Series title. When you combine all that, you have yourself a Hall of Famer my friend.

Rizzo's Guilt

Mike Rizzo and I have a lot in common. He's from a middle-class community in the northwest suburbs of Chicago; I'm from another middle-class community 30 minutes up the Kennedy Expressway. He was raised Catholic; I was raised Catholic. He went to University of Illinois; I went to the University of Illinois.

Sharing a common background, Mike and I share some common values: family, hard work, humility, authenticity, stoicism, and, perhaps most of all, guilt.

Oh, yes, guilt above all. For decades, guilt has powered the rise and fall of great cities and industries from Lake Michigan to the Red River. And we learned yesterday that despite every good intention, Mike Rizzo feels terrible about cutting Elijah Dukes:

Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo reiterated Friday afternoon that outfielder Elijah Dukes was given his unconditional release two days ago because of lack of performance on the field.

Rizzo was irritated by reports that he had a dislike for Dukes. Rizzo pointed out that he did a lot for Dukes on and off the field after the young outfielder was acquired from the Rays following the 2007 season.

"The decision to release Elijah was a tough decision -- not only for me, but for [manager] Jim Riggleman, too," Rizzo said. "I've known Elijah since the beginning when he first arrived here. I was the guy who he came to with any problems that he had. I was the guy who always cared about him.

How many MLB executives can you imagine seeking out a reporter two days after the fact to insist he really cares about a player he just cut?

Now, non-Midwestern Catholics may think that I'm implying that Mike is re-thinking whether he make the right call thing. Not so. I'm sure he's 100% confident that he's right. But that's now how it works in our tribe. We do the right thing, work hard, live honestly, and we still have to feel guilty about it. I know, it seems strange to outsiders, and it's not the best thing for overall life-expectancy, but it's the way our parents raised us, and it works for us.

If not Dukes, why not Damon?

In hindsight, knowing now that the Nationals had been at least strongly considering moving on from Elijah Dukes for weeks if not months, it raises questions about how the team approached the roster make-up this off-season. In particular, it's puzzling why the team never even made an effort to sign Johnny Damon, an underpaid near-all-star player who had no home at all less than a month ago.

After badly overplaying his hand in negotiations with the Yankees, Johnny Damon ended up without a team until late February. He eventually signed with Detroit for one year and $8 million. Damon gave the Yankees 6.8 wins above replacement over the last two seasons--not quite all-star level, but enough to make him the second or third best player on the Nationals. CHONE projects him to hit .268 / .350 / .425, and he's still an above average defender in left (assuming Willingham would move to right).

Damon's obviously a rental, and he'd get the team at best from maybe 74 wins to 76 wins. But it's not like the Nationals have payroll issues. They seem more than anxious to keep paying Adam Dunn even more money for lesser production. This is the kind of signing that the Nationals could make to get better in the near-term with no downside long-term.

It's certainly possible that Damon wouldn't have come to DC, but for the team to be sitting there in mid-February, knowing that there was a seriously high likelihood of starting the year with Justin Maxwell or Willie Harris starting in right, it's crazy that they wouldn't even make a run at a player of Damon's caliber.

Updated Nationals Wins Above Replacement Projection

Updating the WAR projection with the Elijah Dukes release, Livan Hernandez signing, and some other minor moves, the Nationals now project as a 74-win team, using CHONE projections and my own guesstimates on playing time. CHONE projections are available at baseballprojection.com and on FanGraphs. That's about two wins below what was projected last time I ran the spreadsheet. Have a look:

Pos	Name	PT	wOBA	FRAA	WAR
C	Jesus Flores	30%	.324	0.0	0.85
C	Ivan Rodriguez	70%	.290	0.0	0.55
1B	Adam Dunn	85%	.378	-8.4	2.34
1B	Mike Morse	15%	.343	0.3	0.23
2B	Adam Kennedy	75%	.313	1.8	1.00
2B	Ian Desmond	25%	.324	0.0	0.46
SS	Cristian Guzman	75%	.316	-2.0	1.24
SS	Ian Desmond	25%	.324	-4.5	0.47
3B	Ryan Zimmerman	85%	.379	10.1	5.22
3B	Ian Desmond	15%	.324	0.0	0.27
RF	Mike Morse	35%	.343	-0.3	0.68
RF	Roger Bernadina	30%	.319	0.0	0.16
RF	Justin Maxwell	35%	.315	0.0	0.10
CF	Nyjer Morgan	85%	.321	8.5	2.11
CF	Willie Harris	15%	.328	-0.6	0.30
LF	Josh Willingham	85%	.361	-6.0	2.94
LF	Willie Harris	15%	.328	6.5	0.26
	Total				19.18

		IP	nERA	WAR
SP	Jason Marquis	180	4.73	1.5
SP	John Lannan	170	4.58	1.7
SP	Livan Hernandez	120	5.05	0.6
SP	Scott Olsen	120	5.33	0.2
SP	Craig Stammen	70	5.19	0.2
SP	Garrett Mock	70	4.69	0.6
SP	J.D. Martin	70	4.68	0.6
SP	Chien-Ming Wang	70	3.93	1.2
SP	Ross Detwiler	40	4.97	0.2
SP	Stephen Strasburg	40	4.22	0.6
RP	Matt Capps	65	4.02	0.3
RP	Tyler Clippard	65	4.02	0.3
RP	Jason Bergmann	60	4.30	0.1
RP	Brian Bruney	55	4.15	0.2
RP	Sean Burnett	55	4.63	-0.1
RP	Tyler Walker	50	4.11	0.2
RP	Collin Balester	50	5.11	-0.3
RP	Miguel Batista	50	5.36	-0.5
RP	Drew Storen	40	6.12	-0.7
	Total	1440		7.2

Focus on the Process

In times like this, when the Nationals do something that I disagree with (and I disagree with releasing Elijah Dukes--at minimum I would have sent him down to the minors if you must, but don't just cut him), I try to focus on the process rather than the outcome.

The team won't always do what I want, and the outcomes won't always be good. But if the team is at least gathering the right information, taking the right factors into account, considering all alternatives, and making decisions for sound reasons, then I can live with it.

Probably the quintessential example of bad process for the Nationals is keeping Jim Bowden on as GM after the team was sold to the Lerners. You can argue that Bowden was a good GM, and many of you did (you know who you are), but the truth is that Bowden kept his job because he had a cozy relationship with the owner's kid. I don't care if Bowden turned out to be Earl Weaver, Vince Lombardi, and Erwin Rommel rolled into one. Mark Lerner's personal feelings for Jim Bowden shouldn't even be a factor in the decision. That's bad process.

As friend of FJB Rob Neyer wrote today, chances are that history won't remember the Dukes release as a big deal. Last season was a big step backwards for him. I would give Dukes maybe a 10% chance of making the Nationals regret this, and a 20% chance of thinking "wow, we dodged a bullet there." I guess that leaves 70% chance that he fades away like Glenn Gibson never to be thought of much again.

But still, I don't believe the Elijah Dukes decision was made for the right reasons or as a result of good process. I think Mike Rizzo decided before he even got this job that if he ever had the chance, he would dump Dukes (as well as Lastings Milledge, for that matter). Mark Zuckerman (kind of accidentally) nails it:

There's a reason a guy like Austin Kearns is kept on the roster an entire season despite his horrific production at the plate. Kearns was revered inside the Nationals' clubhouse for his work ethic, his attitude and his refusal to grumble over lost playing time.

And there's a reason a guy like Elijah Dukes is cut loose on March 17 even when he's got minor-league options and would have cost the organization less than one-fifth of what Kearns made a year ago.

And there's a reason why certain teams lose 100 games year after year after year. Bad decisions resulting from bad process.

The factors Mark Z. cites are all relevant. It's not like he asked his fiancee which guy was cuter and cut him to avoid competition. It's just painfully obvious that too much weight is being placed on clubhouse clubbiness, and not nearly enough on talent.

OMG lays out the comps between Dukes and the players we're likely to see in right this season and concludes, fairly indisputably, that Dukes is the better talent on the field. But the point doesn't end there. Because Dukes had options, you have to believe that he's less valuable than the least valuable outfielder anywhere in the organization. Worse than Willy Taveras, worse than Jerry Owens, worse than all the late-20s organizational filler players who have never appeared on anyone's prospect lists ever?

The key factor here wasn't whether anyone would trade for him. After all, if the Nationals called you up anxious to deal a guy like Dukes, wouldn't you assume that there was something you didn't know? It's that he has all-star tools, cost next to nothing, and had options. Unless he was really so disruptive in the clubhouse that he'd be an impediment even as a leftfielder in Potomac, there's no possible way this makes the team better. And we know how he'd handle a demotion. He handled it just fine last year with no incidents of any kind.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not making excuses for Dukes' bad behavior. He should have been more punctual. He should have used a condom. He should have paid his child support on time. He should have used a condom. He should have just flipped Nishea Gilbert the bird like a normal hot-head, not texted her a jpeg of a handgun. He should have used a condom.

But the team has made it perfectly clear that there was nothing Dukes did to make himself unemployable. (Riggleman: "Elijah was great. He's done his work. He's got no issues.") Rizzo just didn't like him and wanted him gone. Bad process.

As for the future, I do think Dukes will be back in the major leagues, probably soon. My guesses for where? 1. Chicago, South Side, which I think is both the most likely and the best fit. Grab him in deep fantasy leagues if that happens. 2. Chicago, North Side. This would be a disaster, but Jim Hendry's made this kind of mistake before, and failed to learn from mistakes other times. 3. Anaheim. I don't think it would work out long term, but they have a lot of faith in Mike Scioscia's ability to manage a clubhouse, and I bet they'd get a win or two out of him. 5. New York Mets. If no one else does, Omar will take the bait.

Finally--for the people who are applauding this new era of strict accountability in the Nationals organization, I wonder how you square that with the fact that Smiley Gonzalez, er Carlos Alvarez, is still drawing a paycheck? I mean, it's a bit of a non-sequitor, but if you think Dukes needed to be fired for his off-field issues and unreliability, shouldn't Alvarez be drawn, quartered, and his remains shot out of a cannon?

I Guess I'll Have to Think of a New Headline for my Passover Post

Elijah Dukes released. Quick reactions:

• There really has to be something we don't know. Dukes is too talented, and despite years of warnings about what a bad guy he is, the other shoe just never dropped. People like Chico Harlan who have watched Dukes day in and day out insist that he's got some issues, but he's not a bad guy, and he hasn't been a problem for this team.
• If there isn't something we don't know, I'm really worried that Mike Rizzo is going way, way, way overboard emphasizing 'clubhouse chemistry.' I hate to even validate the idea that getting rid of Dukes helps the chemistry, because we really don't have any reason to think Dukes was a problem in the clubhouse. People say he doesn't give everyone warm fuzzies, but is that the standard? Just following the rules and working hard isn't enough? Do you have to fit in really well with the Dunn-Willingham-Zimmerman clique? Is this a baseball team or a frat rush?
• Who plays right field now? I guess it has to be Mike Morse. They could stick Willingham in right and start Maxwell or Harris in left, but I don't think that's where they're headed. Adam Kilgore dropped a Mike Morse-Jason Werth comp into a blog post recently, and I don't think he made that up himself. We'll see, but I would expect the Nationals to have substantially sub-replacement performance from the corner outfield if that's really the plan.
• Dukes haters will say be clucking today, but any way you cut it, this is a talented player who didn't fulfill his promise. I won't call that a failure of the organization, but it's not a success. I often point to the Dennis Rodman example. I don't blame the Spurs for what happened there, but I give Phil Jackson a ton of credit for how well it worked out in Chicago. Truly great organizations can succeed in bringing out the best even in deeply flawed individuals. That didn't happen here. Who's fault is that? Dukes'. But just cuz Elijah failed doesn't mean the team succeeded. Quite the opposite.
• Bottom line, the Nationals are a worse team and a step closer to a third straight 100-loss season than they were yesterday.

Update: Riggleman says it was 100% a baseball decision, that "Elijah was great," and they simply like their other options better. Sorry, I usually try to keep it clean and avoid name-calling, but they're either lying sacks of shit or stupid sacks of shit. We can speculate all day long on what might have happened, but the team is selling a totally implausible story.

Chatting with the Enemy

I had a nice little back and forth with the folks over at Crashburn Alley, one of the better Phillies team sites, about the team on the other end of the NL East standings. Check it out here.

Rizzo Overrules Riggles: Good for Mike

Ever since Ian Desmond first came up last fall and proved that his bat will play, Jim Riggleman has been wanting to turn him into a super-sub utilityman.

It's somewhat understandable, if you're only thinking about how to win the next game, and you believe in Cristian Guzman and Adam Kennedy (nevermind what it says about you if you believe in Cristian Guzman and Adam Kennedy). All managers, at least those in the NL, like to have a guy they can shuffle around all over, and Riggleman is correct that Desmond has the arm and athleticism to perform adequately at every position on the diamond, except presumably pitcher and catcher (though really who knows?).

Last fall, Rizzo ok-ed Riggleman's line-up noodling, even specifically signing off on the spur-of-the-moment decision to start Desmond in right field.

But this spring it appears that Rizzo has done the right thing and laid down the law: Desmond is a shortstop, he needs to focus on being a shortstop, and whether he's in DC or Syracuse, he needs to play every day.

From a development perspective, it's clearly the right decision. You don't get better sitting and watching, and it's harder to master a new level when you're also learning a bunch of new positions.

Now, if the Nationals were contending, and Desmond could help them win another game or two as the first guy off the bench, then I'd be all for using him that way. But they're not, so the priority should go on doing everything possible to set the kid up for success long-term.

Good for Mike that he's setting the right priorities and isn't afraid to make a clear and decisive call down the chain of command.

So Who Are the Five Free Agents Boz Has Heard Of?

In a really kind of bizarre column yesterday by Tom Boswell about how the Nationals are winless in spring training but oh so improved, he credits the team with "signing five recognizable free agents."

Now, setting aside that recognizable-ness is a really standard for evaluating free agent signings, I got to wondering, who are the five Boz is thinking of? He throws that out there as if it's clear and obvious, but I'm not sure.

It seems like it has to be five of this seven: Jason Marquis, Matt Capps, Ivan Rodriguez, Brian Bruney, Adam Kennedy, Chien-Ming Wang, and Livan Hernandez.

Here are the free agents from other teams that the Nationals have signed this off season:

Miguel Batista*
Matt Capps
Eddie Guardado*
Adam Kennedy
Jason Marquis
Ivan Rodriguez
Tyler Walker
Chien-Ming Wang
Josh Whitesell*

Then they also resigned these 2009 Nationals who had become free agents:

Livan Hernandez*
Scott Olsen
Ron Villone*

*minor league deals

Help me here. Who are the five guys who were recognizable to Boz, and which had he not heard of? It's not Guardado, since he'd already been cut. Commenters are saying that he probably wasn't referring to a re-signing, though in the cases of Livo and Villone I'm not sure how they were really all that different from any other signing.

But even if you only look at the players who didn't play for the team at all in 2009, it's still not really clear to me. In terms of fame, Wang and Rodriguez are the only ones really in their own league, and Wang is damaged goods and Rodriguez is way over the hill. Is Adam Kennedy really a big name? Tyler Walker? Miguel Batista? Capps and Marquis have been in all-star games recently, so I assume he included them, but especially in Capps' case, he's not very well known and it's been a year since he was any good.

I guess the thing that puzzles me is that Boz is trying to make a case that the Nationals have been somehow much more active in free agency, and he's pointing to a list that includes the likes of Adam Kennedy, Matt Capps, Tyler Walker, and/or Miguel Batista as evidence. Is this really an advancement from signing Mike McDougal or Paul LoDuca or Johnny Estrada or Ronnie Belliard?

By all means, praise the team for ponying up for Ryan Zimmerman and Stephen Strasburg. Jason Marquis was a very good value signing. But it seems to me Boz is trying way too hard to drive a certain narrative.

The Meaning of the Guardado Cut (assuming there is one)

There are three ways to interpret the Eddie Guardado experience. First, and by far the most likely, Mike Rizzo gave him an invite to camp thinking he was worth a look, he wasn't impressed, and now Everyday Eddie's gone. Simple as that.

The second theory is that Rizzo really did think what Bill Ladson and Tom Boswell 'reported,' that Guardado was considered an important signing for the team, and by cutting him so quickly, he's showing some fairly erratic judgment. Frankly I just don't buy that at all. Ladson and Boswell write dumb stuff all the time, and John Dever sometimes tries to hard to make news where there isn't any. Rizzo doesn't have a track record of massively overvaluing obviously bad pitchers. It just doesn't pass the ol' Occam's razor test.

The third possibility is the rosiest. Rizzo signed Guardado in order to have a fall-back plan on hand in case something goes wrong with the first 7-8 relief pitchers he actually expected to use. This is good practice and is to be applauded. You don't want to get to opening day with no options in case, oh let's say your plan for Mike Hinckley to indefinitely maintain a zero ERA falls through.

But perhaps Rizzo's willingness to move on quickly from Guardado is a sign that he's feeling better than he expected to at this point about plan A. Perhaps he's feeling confident about the so-so veterans like Sean Burnett, Brian Bruney, Tyler Clippard, and Jason Bergmann to give him 60 solidly so-so innings each--or that maybe one of those guys might be even better than that. Maybe he's looking at Drew Storen and thinking he really does have this year's Andrew Bailey on his hands. Maybe he's looking at young guys like Luis Atilano and Atahualpa Severino, and thinking, "ok, that'll play." Maybe he's just (knock on wood) seeing fewer injuries than you have to plan for.

(Now, before you go posting double-digit spring training ERAs in the comments, let me repeat that I think this is pretty unlikely, and I'm choosing for one day to throw out some happy thoughts, so lemme have my moment ok?)

There's actually a fourth theory that pops to mind, which is that Stan Kasten, in his insatiable need to show players and agents what a big strong man he is, decided to mess with Guardado to get back at him for the bad press he got after the "the effing Nationals?!?" incident in 2008. That's probably not what happened, but I bet Stan wishes it had.