Strasburgeddon and Other Catchy Headlines

I'm not a doctor, and I don't play one on TV, but it seems to me that a precautionary MRI is not something a pitcher gets because he has "trouble getting loose in the bullpen". It might, however, be the kind of thing a pitcher gets when he "may be favoring his four-seam fastball over his two-seamer." "There's no pain" should be words of comfort, except that a brief history of DC pitchers who have felt no pain includes John Patterson, Brian Lawrence, Chad Cordero, Matt Chico, Jordan Zimmermann, Scott Olsen and Jason Marquis. In other words, it was fun while it lasted, Nats fan.

Capps & Trade

As the trade deadline draws nearer the Nationals are the subject of an unusual amount of speculation. Beyond the usual suspects (Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham) opposing teams are rumored to have varying levels of interest in Cristian Guzman, Adam Kennedy, Willie Harris and Matt Capps. Nationals Journal and Nationals Review both took in-depth looks at the pros and cons of trading the Nats' closer. Here's the bottom line: closers are made, not born. And even good relief pitchers are notoriously volatile commodities. DC fans need look no farther than Chad Cordero, Joel Hanrahan and Mike MacDougal to find recent examples of the boom-and-bust closer phenomenon.

Even without Capps the Nats have at least three relievers who are arguably capable of holding a lead in the 9th inning. Tyler Clippard has been the consummate set-up man. You might not want to bring him in with men on, but if you need three outs and the bases are empty there's no reason to think he can't do the job. Joel Peralta saved 2o games for AAA Syracuse this season and has pitched well since his promotion, with basically the same arsenal that Capps employs. Then there's Drew Storen, consensus "closer of the future". He's done everything asked of him so far, so unless he's on an inning count, why not see if he can handle the 9th inning?

If Mike Rizzo can trade Matt Capps for anything of value he should do it now and not think twice. That said, we ain't getting Wilson Ramos for Capps or Matt Garza for Adam Dunn. Who let Jim Bowden back in here?

Dunn Roaming

I have no problem with Adam Dunn's impromptu visit to the Miller Park broadcast booth on Saturday night. I do have a problem with him not clearing it by Jim Riggleman or bench coach John McLaren. The talking to he got was justified. However well-intentioned, Adam's decision to duck out of the clubhouse without telling anyone projects a devil-may-care indifference that the worst defensive team in baseball should probably try to avoid. On the plus side, at least he wasn't taking a nap.

Thanks For Strasburg, Now Beat It

If this report is accurate, gratitude ain't what it used to be. That said, whether Mike Rizzo has earned the Washington Nationals GM job is open to debate, and this quote is pretty silly:

“If they let Mike go now, they really will have some explaining to do,” one Rizzo loyalist said Tuesday. “He changed the face of the club, got some of the bad apples out.”

Why exactly would they have some explaining to do? Mike Rizzo signed players, executed trades, negotiated contracts... pretty much what you'd expect a GM, interim or otherwise, to do. As for changing the face of the club, Morgan and Burnett in, Johnson, Milledge, Hanrahan, Beimel and Hernandez out is less like a facelift than like buying a new shade of lipstick.

Rizzo got a middling at best return for Nick Johnson, and may have sold short on Milledge at the nadir of his value. He didn't shed the Kearns or Guzman contracts, despite having opportunities to do so. Yes the Nats signed Strasburg, but they didn't stretch to sign any talent in the lower rounds. The international scouting and player development operations are still underwhelming. Is it unfair to saddle Mike Rizzo for responsibilty for all of this? Perhaps, but it comes with the job of major league general manager.

A competent GM may look like a revelation to the Nats, but competence is a baseline, not an aspirational goal.

(h/t MLB Trade Rumors)

Final Acta

The Nationals did something pointless. Dog bites man.

Did Manny Acta "deserve" to get fired? Being 26-61 in the midst of a third consecutive losing season is a strong argument in favor of making changes. But does anyone honestly expect a significant improvement from the Nats in the 2nd half?

I've spilled far too many bytes on the Acta situation already. The manager doesn't pitch, he doesn't hit, he doesn't field. He can't go out there and close out games himself. He can't make Adam Dunn anything more than an indifferent fielder. (Sure, he could bench Dunn to send a "message" to the club, but what would that message be, exactly?)

More worrisome than the firing itself is the atmosphere surrounding the team. Remember that Acta was allegedly supposed to fired a month ago, only to be left hanging when Ken Rosenthal and others "broke the story." So did Stan Kasten stay the execution for 30 days in a fit of pique at the media? If not, what happened between then and now that cost Manny his job?

With Manny out, the last barrier between Stan Kasten and accountability is gone. Kasten talks a good game about being responsible for everything that has gone wrong over the past 3 years, but I missed the part where he offered his resignation after showing Jim Bowden, Randy St. Claire and Acta the door in the space of a few months. Mike Rizzo is an interim GM. Jim Riggleman is a stop-gap manager. This is Stan Kasten's team now, for worse or worse.

Reaction from the Natosphere has been measured and mixed. General consensus: Manny was dealt a lousy hand, but still didn't play it all that well. Brian Oliver makes a good case for giving a new manager a three month audition rather than recycling a retread like Riggleman. But that would require the Nats doing something smart, now wouldn't it?

I'm awfully close to the point of hoping the team screws up the Strasburg negotiations so I can finally write this organization off and go back to enjoying my summers.

Acta Out?

Is the curtain coming down on Manny's act? According to Ken Rosenthal, Acta could be axed following this weekend's series at Tampa Bay. The info comes from Ladson-esque "major-league sources" but it's hardly a far-fetched rumor. (As an aside, are "major-league sources" sources in the big leagues or sources who are a really big deal? Is Rahm Emanuel a major-league source? But I digress...)

Robothal's "sources" indicate that the unenviable task of managing the rest of this season in DC will fall to bench coach Jim Riggleman. Riggleman took over as interim manger of the almost equally terrible 2008 Seattle Mariners before coming to DC to backstop (backstab?) Manny. There's no word yet on who will be promoted to bench coach to play MacDuff to Riggleman's MacBeth. Where have you gone, Pat Corrales?

It's my view that canning Manny is unjustified and will be at least unproductive if not actively counter-productive. I've said so repeatedly. But the numbers don't lie. 15-42 does not portend job security. Likewise, Acta's career record of 147-231 is hardly confidence inspiring. If your solution is to replace him with someone with a track record just as bad, over a much larger sample size, well that's where you lose me. Maybe Manny "deserves" to be fired in some sense. But if the goal is to improve the team, shouldn't you shoot for somebody who would be an improvement? And if Riggleman's just a stop-gap, what's the point?

In one sense though, this is a good thing. The lines of authority are as clear as they've ever been on South Capitol Street. If things don't improve there are no more buffers between the President and the people. June 13, 2009 is Inauguration Day for the Kasten Administration.

They Killed Jesus!

Figuratively speaking. First the Saint, now this? Good thing God Shammgod is in Oregon.

Seriously though, Opening Night 2005, Diamondback (D-Back? d-bag?) reliever Lance Cormier plunks Vinny Castilla, denying him a shot at the cycle. Four years later, they take out our backstop and savior? I'd don't care what Barry White says. Next time you see a snake, you whack 'em good!

Blame It On Rijo

Just leave Michael Caine out of it. The axe has finally, officially fallen on Nats Special Assistant to the GM Jose Rijo, Washington's man in the Dominican and the linchpin of the Smiley "Carlos Daniel Paul Reubens von Hauptmann Alvarez Lugo" Gonzalez fiasco. Also gone is Rijo's aide-de-camp Jose Baez, day-to-day manager of Rijo's Dominican Baseball Academy and Home for Overaged Boys.

Taking their place is Fernando "Un" Ravelo, current GM of the Tigres del Licey baseball club in the DR. Potential GM-in-waiting Mike Rizzo is on the island firing Rijo and scouting new homes for the Nationals' scaled-down Dominican operations. Nationals Farm Authority has a more, ummm, authoritative take on the repercussions of these moves, but if Brian's generally on board, it's all fine by me.

Was Rijo a big enough target to buy Trader Jim a little more time? I don't know, and you don't know, but what worries me is the that Stan Kasten and the Lerners may not even know yet. Indecision and in-fighting are such attractive qualities in an ownership group.

Your 2009 Washington Nationals: Desperately hoping the team improves enough to distract from the off-field donkey show already in progress!

Damn

Well, it happened.

Bacsik had the worst look on his face. His shoulders slumped, and he just looked at it. That's the footage we're going to see for ages, and I really did hope it wasn't going to be a Nationals pitcher we saw.

Too funny not to comment

Doing my morning roundup of news, blogs, and stupidity, I found this quote in the comments of this story:

"If the Nats trade Zimmerman they would be absolute morons and I'd immediately sell all my Nats hats and stuff.

I hope they keep Young, I like him, and I hope they trade Ryan Church for anything. A minor leaguer, a pizza, a pile of sticks, whatever"

I say we get a pile of sticks. Not because I think we should trade Church, but because it's one of those brilliant ideas I can only think of after four beers. Kudos to Andrew W for thinking of it without that much beer.

The Grim Reaper has Bleacher Seats

So I watched the Home Run Derby last night and it looked like a beautiful day out in San Francisco. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. That's great if you're a tourist walking the streets but I swear it was going to mean the death of some of the kids in the outfield.

Every year at the Derby the outfield is crowded with young kids who catch the fly balls that don't make it out of the park. I figure they're the kids of team executives, players, coaches, or whichever big wigs have that kind of access. It's always funny to see forty kids all try to pick up the same ground ball. That wasn't the case yesterday.

The sun was beaming down so brightly that the kids couldn't follow the ball. And because AT&T park has that deep right center field there were a lot of moon shots that didn't make it over the fence. These kids are staring blindly up into space while hundred mile-per-hour meteorites are dropping out of the sky. At one point a ball missed someone's little girl by about two feet. MLB and the national disgrace are damn lucky nobody got hurt yesterday. Even the announcers mentioned it.

I can hear Chris Berman now ". . . and the ball goes back, back, back, back and oh no that ball just flattened little Timmy!"