Weekend Wrap-Up and All Star Thoughts

Scott Olsen looked good for the second game in a row. Not great yet, but good enough to make me wonder if he could be part of the rotation for a few years. Remember, he is still under the Nats control for 2 more years after this. Of course, don’t be fooled by his ER count, he still isn’t pitching great. But he’s been hurt, just got back, and he does look much better than he did early in the year. And after 2 starts since coming off the DL, both of them quality starts, he’s lowered his ERA to 6.04. Yeah, it was really bad earlier this year. I’m gonna leave my jump to conclusions mat in the closet for now, and just hope he continues to look good.

Bring on the Defense?

Newly arrived Nyjer Morgan finally collected some hits as a National on Sunday. More importantly, though, he has looked very very impressive in the field. Again, I’m not gonna start judging anything after 2 or 3 games, but it is refereshing to see someone besides Zimmerman providing strong defense. And he makes great throws, to boot! It’s got me daydreaming about my vision. You know, the one where they move Guzman to second base and get a real stellar fielding SS to shore up the defense? Throw in a rangey CF with an arm who can really fly, the young starters might be able to go 7 innings once in a while.

Dukes Sent Down, But for How Long

Elijah Dukes was sent down to the minors today, and it’s not like he didn’t deserve it. He’s only batting .244/.308/.415 this year, and in the last month he’s dropped .100 points of OPS and has hit only .198/.253/.333. He needs to play to get his bat back, and playing for the major league team hurts them. Everyday play in the minors should get him right, at least that is the assumption, and then he can be brought back up to play for the big league team. But if he gets right by the end of the trade deadline, assuming he himself isn’t getting traded, then they need to bring him up immediately after.

First Real 2009 Trade in the Books

I’m not sure I like this book so far. The Nats have traded perennial complainer and potential star Lastings Milledge away, along with ace closer Joel Hanrahan. In exchange they get Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett from the Pirates.

What They Get

Well, the big piece that everyone is probably excited about it Nyjer Jamid Morgan. I am mostly excited about his name. And he can play the outfield, which is nice. Other than that… He is fast, too, but he isn’t exactly a good baserunner. His 18 SB go with 10 CS, leading the league in that dubious category.

Perfect Time to Move Willingham

I like Josh Willingham. I liked when they got him in the trade for Bonifacio. More on that later. As for Willingham, he is a decent OFer, a guy who can hit 25 HR in a season and get on base. And the Nats have control of him for 2 more years. But I really think they should trade him.

Why Trade What’s Going Good?

Willingham is in the midst of the best year of his career. His .948 OPS is .100 higher than his career average. Some of this has to due with maturity, some has to do with the fact that his AVG and his SLG (and his ISO) have all spiked. I’m guessing, at 30 years old, he hasn’t started to become significantly better than before. It’s more likely that he is playing slightly above his head. Not to say he couldn’t hit .280/.400/.540 for another year or two, but I just don’t think that is realistic. I could see him hitting .270/.390/.500, although those numbers are admittedly arbitrary. Regardless, let’s just go with the assumption that his numbers are probably in the “sell high” category (even if they aren’t outrageous).

Rotation Kept in a Somewhat Suprising Way

After I wrote an article discussing who should be moved and who should be demoted with the impending promotion of Scott Olsen, I was pretty proud of myself. After all, I found out that the Nats had indeed moved Stammen to the bullpen. This was my idea exactly, I was just waiting for them to decide whether to move down Hanrahan (my idea) or Colome. Then the job offer from the front office, I assumed, would arrive in my e-mail inbox.

So much for that, they instead decided to take Stammen back out of the bullpen, and he gets to stay as a starter. And as if to rub salt in the wound, they suggested to move Martis down to the minors. I was kind of surprised, considering I assumed he was the #2 of the 4 rookies in terms of performance. Yes, as the Nationals Journal points out “…since his May 13 victory against San Francisco, Martis is 0-3 with a 6.34 ERA. In those eight starts, he’s walked 22 and struck out just 13,” but that’s not the whole story. He has a better ERA than the other guys and started out so strong.

Keeping a 5 Man Rotation

Scott Olsen is allegedly healthy and doing rehab starts in AAA. The success of these rehab can be debated – his last one wasn’t too bad but he has looked spectacular. In his latest, and really only good start of the 3 so far, he went 6 IP, give up 2 ER with 5 K and only 1 BB. But he did give up 8 H. Anyway, Manny was miked up earlier this week and said that when Olsen came back, one of the youngsters would have to either move to the bullpen or go down to the minors. I guess they feel that Olsen has the most experience of the group, might as well start him.

Who Should Be Moved?

I’m taking Lannan out of this discussion. Besides being the only non-rookie, he’s been the most successful starter. He’s the Ace of the staff, even if he’s not a #1 pitcher. As for the others, well let’s look at what they’ve done over their last 5 games. I’ve listed the stats for each one of them, including the average over these games their totals.

A Reason to Watch Tonight

I don’t usually need a reason to watch the Nationals, or baseball in general. It’s baseball, why wouldn’t I watch? But not everyone is like me, and if you’re a more casual Nats fan who is disappointed in the last few games, or last few seasons, well, there’s still a reason to watch today. That reason is John Smoltz.

He’s the Smoltziest

Smoltz will be a member of the Hall of Fame, that is not in doubt. He is one of the best pitchers of his time, and any time you have a chance to see that, I think you should be watching. It’s easier to recognize these things when players are at the end of their careers, but baseball is an individual sport in many ways, and seeing the best individuals is a great way to see the game. And Smoltz, for the last 2 decades, has been one of the best.

Behind the Scenes Photos at Nationals Park

As mentioned yesterday, The Nats Review was able to spend the day at Nats Park on saturday. It included lots of cool things, already gone over. But I didn’t throw out the pictures. I’m just going to put a few up here for now, until I can reduce their size, the rest can be found on the Nationals Review Flickr page.

Here are Dunn, Zimm, NJ and Willie Harris before the game:

Pretending to Work in Baseball

The great thing about blogging on baseball is that you are kind of blurring the line between just a fan and someone who actually works in baseball. The Nats helped blur that line even more on Saturday by inviting bloggers to the stadium for a packed day of activities. I was not able to go, as I was about 1,000 miles away. But I really wanted someone to represent The Nationals Review. Friend of the blog, someone I bounce many ideas off of, and now fellow contributor Brian was happy to go to a free baseball game and meet baseball players. Go figure. Call him the official Nats Review beat reporter now. Here’s his take on the day:

I’ve never been to a baseball stadium at three in the afternoon for a night game. I’ve never had the reason to be. Today was different though. We here at The Nationals Review were invited to attend a blogger’s day at Nationals Park. The Nationals really rolled out the red carpet for us and a number of other Nationals blogs. Arriving at the stadium I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I was able to make it to the home plate gate with a few minutes to spare. Once there, Mike Gazda (Nats Director of Baseball Media Relations) brought us upstairs to the main press briefing room. This is where they will hold the post game press conferences. Here, Mike went over the ground rules. I was expecting him to say that we couldn’t ask about Strasburg or steroids or the Manny Acta situation. I was surprised to learn that NOTHING was off-limits. This was very cool and appreciated from my perspective.

A Good Few Days for the Team

The Nats had a good, dare I say great, few days when I was out of town. Maybe I should take vacation more often, just for the team, you know. Rattling off a 4 game win streak, it finally ended Sunday with a loss to Toronto. But they started by taking 2 out of 3 from the Yankees earlier in the week. I wasn’t surprised that Lannan beat em. In fact, that was the matchup I was really looking forward to, Lannan vs. Wang – 2 similar pitchers with a history of success in the majors. Lannan won the game, but also lowered his ERA to an impressive 3.38. And since I mentioned it last week, I’ll follow up, that puts him 14th in the NL among starters. And once again – after game 2 of the season (his first 2 outings weren’t pretty) – he has an ERA of 2.59.