Michael Morse, Suicide King

For goodness sake, VOTE FOR MORSE!

Snakebitten

This team cannot catch a break. We draft one of the most heralded pitchers in recent memory and he lives up to the hype only to have his arm fall off. Then we draft a wunderkind who has all the physical gifts needed to be great at this game and who may or may not be a potential clubhouse cancer. We lose our face-of-the-franchise third baseman for the first third of the season. Then miraculously everything seems to be coming together. We get Ryan back, we go on tear winning 11 of 12 and the team fights its way to a .500 record and then one game over. Things are looking up.

And then the manager decides to replace the stadium fireworks with his career. Regardless of who you think is right or wrong, this team cannot catch a break.

Answer Unclear, Ask Again Later

Are the 2011 Washington Nationals surprise NL Wild Card contenders or just slightly better than expected playoff pretenders? The next 10 days should tell us quite a bit about the suddenly scrappy boys in red, white and blue.

Starting tonight the Nats play a nine game stretch versus the Mariners, at the White Sox, and at the Angels before wrapping up June with an off day. All three clubs are hovering right around the .500 mark, providing additional evidence of this season's unusual parity. Seattle, like Washington has ridden a better than expected pitching staff into contention in a year when Texas was supposed to run away with the AL West. M's starters Doug Fister, Erik Bedard and Michael Pineda are probably the best trio the reconstituted Nats lineup has faced, and while their offense is not good, that didn't exactly stop the Padres from rolling the Nats, did it?

After that the team hits the road to take on under-performing squads in Chicago (Hi, Big Dunnkey!) and Anaheim (aka Los Angeles). Both clubs have struggled at times but are talented enough to blow the Nats out of the water if the team that showed up Sunday versus the Orioles makes a repeat appearance. A club with serious playoff aspirations would expect to win all three of these series, or at worst take 2 of 3 at home and 3 of 6 on the road. By June 30th we'll know if these Nats are more than just talented enough to reel off a random win streak.

But even with that out of the way it's not at all clear that this year's Nats have the tools to compete. In fairness they weren't really meant to. Any National League club that carries a full-time pinch hitter is not seriously thinking playoffs. This was supposed to be the bridge season to 2012 - Strasburg, possibly Harper (and now perhaps Rendon) to go along with the Zimmermen(n), Jayson Werth, a more seasoned Ramos, Espinosa, and Desmond and Clippard, Burnett and Storen at the back of the 'pen. Improvement, including a run at .500 was in the cards, but nobody was talking playoffs.

They are now, but that talk will need to translate into action to improve the CF defense and the OBP at the top of the order, find a reliable fifth starter, add at least one more (left-handed) arm to the bullpen, and maybe a utility infielder better than Alex Cora and/or Brian Bixler. The Nats will also have to commit to keeping Jason Marquis and mini-Morse Laynce Nix around past July 31st, meaning Rizzo would have to dip into the farm to make upgrades to the big league clubs.

Is that the right path to take? Harper clearly thinks not. I'm less of a believer in the success cycle myself, and more of a Nats fan, so it's a harder call for me. If the Nats come home on June 30th two games over .500 and reel off a winning record at home in the 10 games leading up to the All-Star break, it's going to be awfully difficult for me to get on the "Break Up the Nats!" bandwagon.

Among other things, 2012 will be Strasburg's first post-TJ season, so it's hard to see him being dominant even in the best case. The best case would also feature at most 2/3 of a season of 19 year old Bryce Harper, rookie Anthony Rendon and a few rookie pitchers (perhaps AAA LHP Tom Milone and AA RHP Brad Peacock), who while they look intriguing in the minors will have virtually no MLB experience. Tough to see that being a significantly more playoff caliber club.

But all this is cheap progNATStication. The next 10 days will tell us more about who the 2011 Nationals are, and where they're headed. Stay tuned.

Drew Storen > Aaron Crow

Erstwhile never-quite-a-Nat Aaron Crow was just named Kansas City's pitcher of the month for April. The lefty reliever worked 12 1/3 scoreless innings, striking out 11 and stranding all 10 runners he inherited. That's nice work for a setup man, no doubt, but Crow was supposed to be a starter, a dominant lefty that the Nats could pair with Jordan Zimmermann atop the rotation.

Of course, as we all know, it didn't work out that way. Drafted by the Nats in the first round in 2008, Crow balked at the Nats contract offer and spent a year pitching for the independent Fort Worth Cats before re-entering the draft and signing with Kansas City. Harsh words were leveled at the front office and ownership in the immediate aftermath, and the consensus was that Crow's flight was a serious failure, to be mitigated only if the Nats' compensation pick, reliever Drew Storen, ended up being better than Crow.

On the face of it, those were long odds. Aaron Crow was a starter, Storen a relief pitcher. Even the best relievers rarely provide anything approaching the value of an average starting pitcher. Here's the thing though, once in the minor leagues Crow wasn't an average starting pitcher; he was terrible. ERA over 5 in hi-A ball terrible. No 3rd pitch terrible. Just plain terrible.

Storen, meanwhile, blew through the minors, literally and figuratively, balancing his pitching responsibilities with duty as Stephen Strasburg's unofficial spokesman. He made his MLB debut on May 17, 2010 and went on to post an ERA+ of 113 over 55 innings, including 5 saves. Storen's matched that save total already in 2011, with an ERA+ of 660 (over 15 innings).

By all rights there is a lot of baseball ahead of both these young men, but here are their career lines to date:

• Aaron Crow
• Drew Storen
  

None of this excuses the process that led to the botched 2008 draft, but knowing what we know now, it's hard to think the Nationals didn't come out on top in spite of themselves. A little over a month from now, Drew Storen will have two years of professional baseball experience, Aaron Crow almost three. By the numbers you'd have to take Storen every time, wouldn't you?

Not Dead Yet

Whew, this once a month posting schedule is punishing. Much like watching Chad Gaudin pitch. Which we won't have to do for at least two weeks.

Apparently the enormous sucking force generated by his 6.48 ERA placed an insupportable strain on his shoulder, causing inflammation. Get well, Chad, but not soon. And have your doctor take a look at Doug Slaten too, hmmm? He may have elbow tendonitis, or a prolapsed colon or something, dontchathink?

Coincidentally, Henry Rodriguez is ready to join the big club. God works in mysterious ways. The bullpen may still be shaky, but they just got much more intimidating.

Beyond Baseball

WaPo's Barry Svrluga was the chronicler of baseball's return to Washington, D.C. in 2005, so it's only fitting that he authored this heart-breaking, inspiring story of Chad Cordero's most recent return to the game following the sudden death of his infant daughter.

For those of us who mark the spring of 2005 as the return of our interest in baseball, the members of that inaugural Nationals team will always hold a special place in our hearts. Livan, John Patterson, Nick Johnson, Joey Eischen, Brian Schneider, Jose Vidro, Jon Rauch, and, of course, The Chief will always be connected to D.C., regardless of where they've gone and what they've done since.

More on the story, and back-story, here. It's a useful counter-point to stories of athletes living outsized lives who are in the news for all the wrong reasons. Svrluga's piece is also a poignant reminder of what a great writer Nats fans lost when Barry was "promoted" to his current beat. Take a break from Spring Training and read it.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Chad and his family, with best wishes for his current comeback effort.

Spring Training in Photos

Clearly we've been on a bit of a blogging hiatus here at NTP, but some things just can't pass unremarked. This is either a training exercise or a particularly unsavory clause in Jayson Werth's $126M contract:

Shots like that are why Mark Zuckerman gets paid the big bucks. Is that a camouflage bungee? Of course it is. Now for your daily double, speaking of big bucks:

Meet new 1B Adam LaRoche (center) and the Buck Commander Team, courtesy of Curly W Live. I'm with Mottram on this one, who would have guessed that replacing Adam Dunn would up the redneck factor at first base?

Finally, this is a few days old, but worth commenting on:

I'm not sure that Roger Bernadina can win the left field job outright over Mike Morse and Rick Ankiel, but I'm pretty sure he could bludgeon them to death if he had to. Those Dutch trainers must mix a mean protein shake.