Think The Washington Nationals Could Use This Guy?

Thursday, May 5th, 2011 at 7:59 am  
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I was catching up on some MLB transactions yesterday and I saw that the Texas Rangers just signed 23 year old Cuban defector and outfielder Leonys Martin to a Major League contract. Great move for the Rangers. They gave this 6’2″, 190lbs, left fielder a $5 million signing bonus and $15.5 million total for the second richest contract given out to a Cuban defector ever. This guy must be good huh? Judging from his stats in the Cuba league, he should be. Here’s what he did in Cuba:

He hit .398 in 2007-08 in Cuba, garnering some attention with the second-highest batting average in the league. He also had 13 stolen bases and nine triples.

In 2008-09, Martin batted .311 and had a .491 on-base percentage. He stole 17 bases and was fifth in the league in walks with 78.

To my keen baseball eye, this kid looks like he could be quite the leadoff hitter for a few years to come. He’s got a good eye, gets walks and hits and he steals bases. I mean, he sounds ideal as a leadoff hitter if he can duplicate his success in Cuba at the Major League level. He looks like everything that Nyjer Morgan wishes he was! Now, which team that I follow does not have one of those leadoff hitter type players I was just speaking of…hm…oh wait, THE WASHINGTON NATIONALS.

This really begs the question, “Why didn’t we even hear any mention of the Washington Nationals with regards to this player?” We heard their name bandied about in discussions with Aroldis Chapman who eventually signed with the Cincinnati Reds for the largest contract ever handed out to a Cuban defector (over $30 million) but we didn’t hear a peep about the Nationals with regards to Martin at all. WHAT GIVES?

Currently the Nationals have no legitimate lead-off hitter on their team. Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa have failed miserably at the #1 spot in the Nationals’ lineup. Also, the highest batting average of a regular starter on their team belongs to a pitcher, Jason Marquis, who is batting .385 in 14 at bats. Not to mention the highest on base percentage of a position player is the .415 belonging to their catcher Wilson Ramos with no other active regular player having an OBP over .333. In light of all of this lack of offensive production, do you think the Nationals might want to make an attempt to get in on the bidding of a player that could help them out sooner and/or later?

Besides being a weak hitting team with no lead-off man in sight for the immediate future, its not as if the Nationals’ outfield, as currently constructed, is under-going some sort of youth movement. Mike Morse is 29, Rick Ankiel is 31, Laynce Nix is 30 and, recently signed to a big money seven year deal, Jason Werth is 32 years old.  That is old!  Obtaining the services of  what looks like the 23 year old Cuban version of a skinny Tony Gwinn might be something a GM would want to do to keep the overall “youth” movement of the team going forward. Sure phenom Bryce Harper is going to be joining the outfield as early as next season but wouldn’t it have been great if the team could have a second young guy that could get on base in front of Harper so that he could pick up a few RBI opportunities?

Sure it is way too early to know if Martin is the real deal but the point is that Leonys Martin could be that guy and certainly appears to have a better chance at being that guy than the majority of the outfields the Nationals currently have on their roster.

Sure we don’t know all the behind the scenes discussions between agents and front office types, but the media knew about the Nationals’ discussions with Chapman and so far no one has said any of the same discussions happened with Martin. If Mike Rizzo was too busy celebrating Osama Bin Laden’s death at the White House when he could have been making phone calls trying to get another talented young outfielder on his team, then maybe the Nationals need to hire a new GM.

It was painful to miss out on the flamethrower arm of Chapman but at least the Nationals tried. Not making the same attempt to gain the services of Martin, especially in light of the lack of organizational depth and lack of production from the current Major League roster, is practically inexcusable.

Bryce Harper, Setting DC Up For Another Massive Letdown

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 at 11:01 am  
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Young Washington National, Bryce Harper, played in his first simulated game against real major leaguers yesterday afternoon and do you want to guess how he fared in his two at bats?  Well he struck out twice.  Disappointing?  Totally! Surprising?  Not in the least.

It just can’t be surprising if you’ve followed sports in this town for the last twenty years.  DC has been full of young athletes with promise that only serve to let us down over and over again.  We have had several high draft picks or young phenoms that have come into this town and failed, sometimes in spectacular fashion.  DC might actually be one of the worst cities in all of sports in terms of positively assisting in a young athlete’s growth.

Plus, he’s super young (big strike against him), he’s super confident (can he handle not having immediate success), and he’s super inexperienced (can he handle injuries, can he handle the life in the big city, can he handle his money). The odds really are stacked against this kid unless the stars align.

The stars rarely align in DC however. If history is our guide, Harper will be yet another huge disappointment. So let’s look at a brief history of the other highly touted disappointments DC has had, at least in recent memory:

Stephen Strasburg

Ok, so sure, its a little early to judge the whole career of this kid but c’mon, he blew out his arm in his first taste of the majors.  That is a huge disappointment.  Especially from a pitcher who can only be compared to the likes of Doc Gooden, who never took care of his body and in fact abused it to hell with drugs and partying but still managed to avoid Tommy John surgery his entire career.  This city named the day that Strasburg pitched “Strasmas!” for crying out loud. What a huge disappointment that in his FIRST YEAR he blew out his arm.

Sure he could recover from it and be as good or even better than what he was those first few starts he had for the Nationals.  On the other hand, he couldn’t.  Knowing DC superstar disappointment history…he probably won’t. As of right now, this whole city is disappointed that Livan Hernandez will be tossing out the first pitch on opening day instead of Strasburg.

Alexander Ovechkin

This guy was supposed to be a combination of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux with a dash of pre-concussion Eric Lindros in there.  A big guy, unafraid to mix it up, who was agile, fast and an unstoppable scorer.  He was supposed to be the best. For a little while, there might’ve been an argument that he was the best, this year however, he isn’t even close.

With 24 goals in 63 games, Sidney Crosby is STILL ahead of him even though he’s been out with a concussion for what seems like half the year.

This isn’t even the real problem with Ovechkin however.  All of this season stats could just be a massive, season-long slump. A blip on the career of an incredible player.  Its way too early to tell.  The real problem with Ovechkin is that he has never won anything, anywhere.

Great players are supposed to elevate the talent around them…or at least win a championship at some point.  That Ovechkin hasn’t been able to do that yet, despite teams full of massive talent and promise, is INCREDIBLY disappointing. Read the rest of this entry

Ten Things I Think I Think, Peter King Style

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 11:25 am  
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I’m not a huge Peter King fan, but once you get past his blatant homerism (King is to the Patriots what Peter Gammons is to the Red Sox) and his ruminations about airport bathrooms, coffee, and television (PK loves “The Nard Dog“), his Monday Morning Quarterback articles are actually pretty informative (as well as provide some of the best comic relief on the Internet).  “Ten Things I Think I Think” is supposed to be a section of his column devoted to quick hitters you’d most likely find on Twitter, but it’s really just a laundry list of his random thoughts that morph into something more like “38 Things I Think I Think.”  Anyway, I’ll keep the basic premise, but spare you the stories about colonoscopies.
 
1. I know I’m not the first person to say this, but I really think the Phillies are going to regret giving Ryan Howard $25M a year into his late thirties.  Howard is a wonderful player who is a bit underrated: since 2006, he has consistently mashed the baseball for over 140 games a year.  However, at 30 years old, he’s probably begun to enter the decline phase of his career and while he has worked to alter the reputation that he has a “bad body,” he still doesn’t profile as a guy who will be doing much more than players like Mo Vaughn and Richie Sexson did at similar points in their careers.  For pending free agent Albert Pujols, prepare to own the Arch.
 
2. The Cleveland Cavaliers are in real trouble if they think Shaq is the missing piece that will carry them past Orlando and onto a shot at the championship.  After an uninspired 17 minutes in Game 4, Shaq’s six points and seven rebounds barely eclipsed his five fouls.  Shaq’s creaky play was only amplified by Joakim Noah’s 21 points and 20 rebounds, which will seem like child’s play if they have to face Dwight Howard.
 
3. Jaroslav Halak absolutely owned the Capitals in Game 6 of their playoff series.  It didn’t matter what edge the Caps had: two-man advantage, whatever.  Fifty-three saves.  While I still think the Capitals will win Game 7 at home, this sets up a dangerous precedent for them: the NHL playoffs are an entire second season.  At some point, you have to win a series in less than six games, rest up and regroup.  The Caps’ last four playoff series have gone seven games — they have to learn to finish teams off… And to score on a power play.
 
4. Bryce Harper has to be the first overall pick in June’s MLB Amateur Draft.  Playing in a junior college league with wooden bats, he’s hit 21 homeruns in 47 games with 15 stolen bases.  Oh yeah, the 6’3 205 lbs kid also plays catcher, closes games with a fastball that touches 96, and isn’t old enough to vote.  Yep, he’s only 17.  Forget the supposed character issues: show me a person who wasn’t a jackass when they were 17.  Stan Kasten: pay that man his money.
 
5. The on-going discussion about the BCS conferences expanding along with the imminent explosion of the NCAA Tournament only magnifies the fallacy of the term “student athlete.”  I understand they get a free education and opportunities that 99% of normal college kids will never get, but $10.8 billion is a serious amount of money.  That’s not surprising, but let’s be honest: college sports has quickly become one of the most exploitative uses of labor in the history of sports.  Unreal.
 
6.  Maybe there is something to the hate: A-Rod has the longest homerun trot of anyone on the Yankees.  I guess if you make almost as much as an baseball entire team, you’ve earned it. 

This guy right here supposedly only sleeps three hours a night. You'd think that'd leave plenty of time for an adult haircut.

7. While it would be devastating to Caps fans if they failed to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals, the San Jose Sharks might have them beat in the “choke” department if they can’t advance in Round 2.  Since 2005-2006, the Sharks have averaged 109 points in the regular season, making them perhaps the best regular season team in the Western Conference.  And yet, they still have found themselves sitting at home during the conference finals.  Early signs are not good: the Sharks struggled with a Colorado, a team that backed its way into the Playoffs.  

8. If Las Vegas took bets on the number of times Jon Gruden said, “This guy” during last weekend’s draft, they’d have to set the over/under at 9,843,344.  Coach, please get a new verbal crutch.  I’m not sold on Gruden as an analyst – for every “this guy right here” there’s a “QB Camp” where Gruden just annihilates the hopes and dreams of 22 year-olds, which is sports schadenfreude at its best.  If I was a football player I’d hate to play for him, but I’d love it if he coached my team.
 
9. I think taking your team’s ace (who’s making close to $19 million this season) and installing him as a setup man is a desperate move, even if you think he’ll eventually be moved back to the rotation.  Carlos Zambrano hasn’t been the ace the Cubs are paying him to be, but he’s still better than Carlos Silva.  This is a no-win move for the Cubs: Zambrano hasn’t pitched in relief since 2002, so this is no Joba Chamberlain situation.  What if his return to the rotation doesn’t happen as quickly as Zambrano would like?  What happens if Zambrano is actually really good at relieving but Silva and the rest of the rotation begin to implode?  Shortcuts like this don’t usually work.  The Cubbies are grasping.  
 
Former NFL running back Najeh Davenport, who joined the [Pittsburgh] Steelers that season [2005] after spending four seasons in Green Bay, says he soon heard the jabs at [Ben] Roethlisberger, then 24, despite the quarterback’s remarkable two-year résumé of success. “Team leaders there didn’t respect the fact that he didn’t respect what it took to be like a champion, like a true champion,” Davenport says.