New podcast up

I couldn’t disagree with Newberg more on the notion that we should trade some depth for a controllable player. This team needs to fail with a pitching prospect before it trades one. This team has missed so many times (McCarthy), that it needs to avoid the idea of trading a pitching prospect for a guy that is supposed to be better.

What’s with the Grienke love fest? Isn’t everyone complaining about the mental toughness of our pitchers? Do the you really think he has the head to be a championship pitcher? I pass on Grienke.

The main cause of all of the trouble in the last few years had been poor evaluation of the team’s talents and poor understanding of the state of the team, and this same issue is in play now. This ties into what type of goals the organization will try to accomplish next year, which will in turn determine what personnel moves will be made this offseason. We discuss these topics here all the time, and all of them will be determined by where the organization thinks it’s at.

1) Starting pitching: you have two pitchers who should have job locks next season: Millwood, who is still average but a risk for senility regression, and Padilla, who is a little bit worse than Millwood, but less of a risk for regressing, and is crazy. Then you’ve got a mixbag of flawed gems, polished granite, and the Gabbard-McCarthy clay formation. Feldman looks to be in good shape to get a spot, but of all SPs on the team (Can you name them?) who had more than 50 innings this season, he was probably only better than Matt Harrison statistically, and most would agree that Harrison has a higher ceiling than Feldman. McCarthy and Gabbard can’t be counted on, obviously, and McCarthy wasn’t good in the small sample size that he did have. Gabbard looked okay at times, but one can only guess when his strike percentage of 57.4% completely implodes on him. Dusty Tits looked good against bad teams (or when his breaking pitches are on), but still relies way to much on his fastball, which he doesn’t command all that well, and Hurley was actually somewhat similar to Nippert in that either he looked good, or he got hit hard. Essentially, 3 spots in the rotation are up in air; if they think they want to compete now, then they will HAVE to throw money into FA or make a trade for someone like Greinke. On the other hand, if they are willing to wait, it will give them more options to make a prospect-for-prospect swap for someone like Homer Bailey, or a higher risk, but not necessarily so expensive pitcher like Jonathan Sanchez. They will also have to make some decisions on the pool of pitchers, what to do with Gabbard/Nippert/Mendoza. There will not be enough room in the OKC starting rotation or the 40-man to stash them all around, decision will have to be made regarding the future of these pitchers, particularly if they want to compete right away. If you get creative, you might even try to trade Millwood and/or Padilla and reshuffle the resources to sign someone else.

2) Bullpen: a few people worried/feared that the bullpen will suffer a letdown after last season, and they were right. As of now, it’s full of question marks; we know that CJ, Frankie, and Benoit will be in the group, but we don’t know which of the 2007 or 2008 version will show up for any of them. They might bring back Wright, and he might be serviceable in certain roles. Rupe was horrible this year, but he threw more innings than all but 3 pitchers on the entire staff (starters included). You can shift some of the possible starters into the pen and hope that they work out, sign some cheap replacements, or try to go find a FA guy or two like Jeremy Affeldt and pay him $4 million a year. I think having a good bullpen is a good thing in all situations, but at what cost? If they are ready to go, then getting bullpen guys is mandatory.

3) The catching situation: I would be very disappointed if all we got was an average catcher who will be paid like an average catcher out of the catching surplus, but the truth is that other than Laird, we found out very little about everyone else are far as being catcher is concerned. Keeping Laird is safe, but is relatively expensive both in terms of monetary cost and the cost of forgoing the chance of finding a better catcher. Trading Laird is risky, and depends on his trade value, which seems quite uncertain. If he has as much value as one of the prospects, then as long as one of the prospects turns out average, it would be an improvement. On the other hand, if his perceived value by other teams is low, your risk is even greater.

4) Defense: this one is a bit tricky; if they are not concerned about defense, they may very well stick Blalock at first, put Davis on third, and MY at SS. If this happens, it would be an unmitigated disaster in the field. I don’t think Blalock has much trade value as a first baseman, and I am not sure if any team realistically thinks that he can play third base. So his option is picked up, they need to be prepared to play him next season – they are not going to just sit him if he can’t play third base. On the other hand, Adam’s Hardy route will go a long way in fixing the infield defense, but at the cost of some chance in being able to get a better pitcher. If immediate success is not necessary, it is actually okay organizationally to go with status quo (and suffer) for another year, given that the organization is keenly aware of the problem.

5) Management and Coaching: the podcast went into a lot of detail regarding to state of coaching on the team, one of the biggest question is whether they are really committed to Washington or not. If the team struggles next year, do they fire him? They should have their mind made up about this very quickly; if you want to compete, you don’t count on this to happen right after a managerial change, and if you want to compete consistently, you better be prepared to have a guy there for a long time. If the goal next year is partly is to continue to find out if Wash is up to the job, I think they are taking way too much time.

I think the organization need to do a better job setting specific targets; too often do they seem to take a go-and-see philosophy, and while it provides flexibility, doesn’t help you in long term and doesn’t provide you with as much information. Rather, it’s necessary to make “to-do” lists and not leave the season until the items are crossed out. It is said that we have a long-term strategy, and it is true that we now have a good talent pool to draw resource from. Now it’s the time to show that they have a good understanding of the strength and weaknesses of this team; now it’s the time to put the strategy and talent to concrete steps, and it starts this offseason.