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gue kang s 356 batting average isn t so great in the eastern league he doesn t win the batting title here t j rivera of binghamton takes it barely with a 358 ba but you know what kang s 356 is just better than portland s mookie betts a highly touted middle infield prospect in the red sox organization kang s obp of 459 would top the eastern league ahead of you guessed it mookie betts 443 kang s slugging 759 demolishes the eastern league leader ryan schimpf 616 kang would be second in hits but he got them in fewer games ditto homers where kang s 40 is five better than eastern league leader erie s steven moya who hit 35 so nats town this is what you ve got an international free agent that s as good or possibly better than mookie betts he s much better than anyone the nats have in the organization or in the pipeline he s available now and the only thing he costs is money come on rizzo sign kang jung ho posted in uncategorized tagged aa aaa cristian guzman eastern league free agents international league kang jung ho kbo minor leagues mookie betts ryan tatusko stephen souza 2 replies nobody beats the rizz posted on july 3 2014 by ouij 1 i won a masn contest and got to have a brief meet and greet with nats gm mike rizzo before yesterday s game i was one of 8 fans who got to stand on the warning track by the first base dugout and chat questions ranged from the state of the spring training facility lease i wasn t paying very close attention to the amount of time rizzo spends with the big league team the majority of his time during the year i was interested in international scouting and free agency a few things i learned in a brief conversation with the rizz rizzo expressed great satisfaction with the newly rebuilt academy in the dr livan hernandez does a lot more than throw live bp to nats batters he spends at least some time in the dominican republic and elsewhere in the caribbean with some prompting rizzo half jokingly referred to livo as the cuban liaison speaking of cuban players the nationals keep as close an eye on them as they re permitted to i asked rizzo about the difficulty in obtaining good information on cuban players he replied that given the number of times cuban teams compete in international tournaments it is possible to gain some idea about the players they are interested in i asked whether the nationals sale of minor leaguer ryan tatusko to the hanwha eagles of the korean baseball organization signals a new willingness to explore the east asian market rizzo replied that the nationals maintain a scouting department for the entire pacific rim we ve scouted the darvishes and the tanakas he went on noting that he himself had 20 years of dealing with asian players and clubs he added with a note of wistfulness that he had scouted a japanese pitcher during his time with the diamondbacks nishimura currently with the yomiuri giants i wish i had him the most interesting thing about mike rizzo is that he seems most comfortable talking about baseball fan meet and greet sessions are pretty awkward contrived situations but once he got on to baseball and scouting he was as enthusiastic as a man in his position could prudently be posted in uncategorized tagged free agents livan hernandez mike rizzo ryan tatusko scouting 1 reply what the hell is the matter with tyler clippard posted on april 13 2014 by ouij 2 nothing of course you might have expected me to say that since this is a post in the same spirit as last year s what the hell is the matter with drew storen post fine i get it it s kind of hard to like tyler clippard right now so far in 2014 clip has recorded 4 meltdowns and it isn t even may yet he recorded 8 meltdowns in all of 2013 and i can see how you might yearn for the good old days back in 2012 when the nats were shutting everybody down clippard was awesome right clippard s 2013 seemed disappointing by comparison and his 2014 is off to a truly awful start maybe you wish that rizzo had traded him and not lombo well i ve got news for you if you thought tyler clippard was a great reliever in 2011 he is still the same guy he was in 2011 we know that clip is mainly a two pitch reliever fastballs and changeups so far in 2014 his fastball averages between 92 8 fangraphs and 93 8 brooks baseball miles per hour his change up has averaged between 81 4 fangraphs and 82 3 brooks baseball miles per hour back in the good old days of 2011 tyler clippard s fastball averaged between 92 6 fangraphs and 93 3 brooks baseball miles per hour the changeup in 2011 averaged between 80 8 fangraphs and 81 3 brooks baseball mph would you look at that no difference here s the thing about tyler clippard he s a fly ball pitcher over his career he has a fly ball rate of 57 2 in 2011 he had a fly ball rate of 60 1 in 2013 he had a fly ball rate of 55 8 if a batter puts the ball in play against clippard there s a better than even money chance that it s going to be up in the air now if you re a fly ball pitcher the thing you want to do is to try and keep the ball in the yard if at all possible clippard does a reasonable job of this he has a career hr fb rate of 9 1 that is of all the balls batters put in play about 60 of those will be in the air and of the ones hit in the air about 9 of them are going to leave the yard live by the fly ball easy f8s die by the fly ball hr meltdown blown save etc so far this year clippard s hr fb rate is preposterously high 25 cut the bum i hear you howling but look in the good old days of 2011 clip s hr fb rate was 9 5 and i didn t hear anyone calling for his head then and in 2013 clippard s hr fb rate was 9 4 if there s an anomalous year in clippard s performance it s 2012 where he had a hr fb rate far below his career average 6 8 in spite of that he posted a lower than you d think era of 3 72 with a fip of 3 31 and yet clippard still notched 32 shutdowns in that year while recording 10 meltdowns don t take my word for it clippard 1st 6g 4 76 era 0 57 re24 2013 1st 6g 6 35 era 2 02 re24 2012 1st 6g 6 00 era 3 k bb 1 15 re24 not time to panic yet ess dubba yew tclippardsspecs april 12 2014 so i repeat if you thought tyler clippard was an awesome reliever in 2011 and really you did then you need to relax about how he s started out in 2014 he s still the same tyler clippard if his hr fb rate stabilizes above 10 by about june though maybe start panicking posted in uncategorized tagged brooks baseball clippard fb hr fb pitching tyler clippard velocity 2 replies o rly image 2 always amusing how playoff stats are separate from regular season stats edited because i am an idiot game 4 wasn t a grand slam this is what happens when i get too happy i promise it won t happen again april 10 2014 by ouij posted in uncategorized tagged jayson werth masn 2 replies this has to be the year posted on april 5 2014 by ouij 1 i m not going to write about how washington beat the nats in the home opener yesterday i already went ballistic about that on twitter so instead i m going to write about why you should be all in god i hate that expression on the 2014 nats no it s not because my projection has them winning 96 games rather it s because of this article in the post in it adam kilgore talks to nats principal owner mark lerner what uncle mark says about the nats payroll going forward is not very encouraging we re beyond topped out lerner said our payroll has skyrocketed to like 140 million it s in the papers i don t think we can go much further with the revenue streams that we have we take it one at a time lerner said we ll look at it after the season as far as what we can do we went into this thing it s a business we ve got to run it smartly we re not going to do something where we re losing tens of millions of dollars a year anybody can understand that we re going to be smart first of all the nats payroll is not like 140 million according to baseball reference in 2014 the nats have committed 135 8 million in guaranteed salary in 2014 that s a lot of money but it s not 140 million the difference of 4 2 million could have gotten you another nate mclouth say or one year of hyun jin ryu as a left handed starting pitcher so it s not chump change but things start getting hairy fast let s look at the young core and see where the trouble might come from the nats bought out ian desmond s remaining arbitration years this offseason in a two year 17 5 million dollar deal that means barring an extension at the end of 2015 ian desmond will hit the open market in 2016 likewise the nats bought out jordan zimmermann s arbitration years he s under contract for 2014 and 2015 for a total of 24 million barring an extension he will also become a free agent in 2016 the nats have opted instead to go year to year with stephen strasburg in 2014 he s owed 3 975 million he would remain arbitration eligible until 2017 at which point he too will become a free agent drew storen is also year to year and still arbitration eligible after this year he s making 3 45 million this year he will become a free agent in 2017 bryce harper s free agent days are a long way away in 2014 he ll make 0 9 million that s right less than one million dollars he s under contract through 2015 after which he d be eligible for arbitration he won t become a free agent until 2018 by my count what s it going to take to keep all of these guys around i don t know but we can make a few guesses desmond is the second best shortstop in the national league behind the rockies troy tulowitzki and ahead of the braves andrelton simmons both of those guys are under long term contracts so it s worth looking at them i n 2011 the rockies gave tulo a 10 year 157 75 million dollar contract the braves just extended andrelton simmons for 7 years at 58 million heavily back loaded it s not unreasonable to think that desmond would demand tulo type money on the free agent market so 10 years 160 to 170 million call it 16 5 million a year for 10 years that bill comes due in 2016 jordan zimmermann is likely going to hit the open market what s he worth it s harder to find comparables for pitchers but r ecent research over at beyond the box score tells us that a win above replacement is worth about 7 million a year these days jordan zimmermann is a pretty good pitcher he s worth about 3 wins above replacement a year fine that s 21 million a year right there that bill also comes due in 2016 we can do the same for storen he s worth about a third of a war every year so call it 2 million a year coming due in 2016 too same deal with strasburg he s worth anywhere between 3 and 4 war a year say we believe the hype fine that s anywhere between 21 and 28 million a year starting in 2017 and harper his west coast analog mike trout just signed a 6 year 144 5 million extension with the los angeles angels of anaheim in orange county california the new contract takes effect in 2015 comes with full no trade protection and works out to an average annual value of 24 million a year harper s going to want that kind of money and if the nats won t give it to him the yankees probably will thus fulfilling harper s lifelong dream of wearing yankee pinstripes so the young core that all together costs the nats 22 3 million in 2014 will cost something on the order of 88 5 million a year collectively in 2018 seen in the context of lerner s payroll limit talk here s what it means for you nats town if you like these nats that is if you like these players and enjoy seeing them on the field together enjoy them while you can there is no way none that the current ownership group is going to tolerate a payroll spike of that magnitude remember the lerners acquired the nationals franchise from mlb for 450 million in 2006 i m not aware of any details as to the club s finances but it s pretty safe to assume that the acquisition was heavily debt financed it s a sound business practice to take on considerable debt to buy a business then transfer the debt to the business so the nationals as an organization probably have a lot of debt service to pay every year that acts as a brake on profits and investment in the business in this case players this is to say nothing about the continued swindle that is the masn deal that sees nats tv dollars shipped to baltimore of course it s also speculated that the lerners or the nats it s not clear are getting kickbacks to prevent them from pursuing the masn matter more vigorously so look out onto that field and dream big nats town dream hard dream as if your very ability to dream depended on it because soon this team that rizzo built that we all came to see it will be gone as denard span so famously said on twitter just before opening day it s our time posted in uncategorized tagged bryce harper denard span editorial ian desmond jordan zimmermann masn money payroll salary salary arbitration stephen strasburg 1 reply link pitches illustrated this is an excellent little site cheatsheet illustrating how various pitches look from the catcher s batter s perspective these diagrams assume a right handed pitcher for lefties imagine them roughly in reverse for extra fun print this out and read stu s excellent piece on strasburg s opening day pitch selection it looks like strasburg s new slider is part of a plan to start busting left handed batters down and in contrast this with strasburg s previous approach against lefties the changeup running away from the batter in old timey pitch classification this gives strasburg both an in shoot slider and an out shoot changeup against lefties if you re a dc baseball fan and believe in baseball reincarnation this is a good thing guess who else had this kind of repertoire the ball that bothered the naps cleveland indians managed by napoleon nap lajoie yesterday from johnson s delivery was a fast high inshoot that broke just in front of the plate he had all the cleveland batsmen guessing on this ball if it failed to break it cut the plate at about the height of the batsman s breast letters when they swung at it however it seemed to lift over the handle of the bat this ball breaking properly is practically impossible to hit squarely and will fool the cleverest stick artist in the business johnson s speed of course is a factor in all of his work his curves taking their swing viciously just before reaching the batting area not bad strassy learn from the big train posted on april 2 2014 by ouij tagged changeup pitch selection pitching slider stephen strasburg walter johnson leave a reply predicting the 2014 nats once more into the breach posted on march 30 2014 by ouij 1 i m going to cut to the chase i project the 2014 washington nationals to win 96 games i caught a lot of static last year when i predicted the 2013 nationals to win 98 games and take the nl east they won 86 of course bryce harper hit a wall literally that cost about 100 plate appearances which had to be allocated to a series of bench players that were frankly terrible adam laroche was not the hitter we knew from his amazing comebac...