Nationals Discouraged On Dunn, Hudson, Wolf

As a dodger fan, it could be worse..

Looks like you were wrong Tim!!!

Hardy-har-har

If nobody wants Dunn, I might actually support Dunn on the A's. Yes, there goes the defense.

But, BOMBS AWAY!!!!!!!

This news is another sign that Orlando Hudson will be signed by the White Sox.

Wasn't the DH invented for guys like Dunn?

If Dunn went to the A's (or any AL team), he would be DH, so his defense wouldn't matter.

Eh. Sucks for Washington fans, thinking they might get a big-time name only to have their hopes dashed. At least in Pittsburgh, we know what to expect year in and year out.

The nats have a great farm system so i'm expecting that some pitching will come from there soon. As far as the holes/issues around the diamond, we're gonna have to hope nick Johnson can stay healthy or that Dmitri young gets and stays healthy.

What is this, "Not intrigued enough by Adam dunn or Orlando hudson" Bullshit. Just ebcuase they missed out on two free agents, one of whom was a big name, doesnt mean they should give up and look internally. Adam Dunn would be a huge help for the Nats, As would Orlando Hudson (even if that would create a stopgap at 2nd base).

Somebody please knock some sense into Bowden and the Nationals front office please

"If Dunn went to the A's (or any AL team), he would be DH, so his defense wouldn't matter."

Except the A's already have two guys who should be DHing.

introducing daric barton

bowden wanted him at the winter meeting for nick johnson which A's wouldnt do

but if beane's holy grail milledge was available, something could happen

add in the nats horrible bullpen and A's strength in relievers

something like...

milledge
johnson - A's take on his 5mill

for

barton
casilla
throw in like patterson, murton, or denorfia

so does this mean they arent going after lowe

This just goes to show you that the Cubs should have saved money by going after someone like Dunn. If he couldn't play RF, they could have switched things around (yes, they could).

Instead, they wasted their money on a guy who won't play more than 100 games for them a season, if that, and who is probably only a year away from being incapable of playing the field at all without getting hurt.

And to Chris above, I don't think Derek Lowe would want to play for the Nats. They have about 12 outfielders, some over priced washed up infielders, and nothing else. Who would want to play for them?

i dont think he would play for them either, but there was that speculation by the ny post.

One less "mystery team" for Lowe!

C Flores (23)
1B Nick Johnson (29)
2B Anderson Hernandez (25)
3B Ryan Zimmerman (24)
SS Cristian Guzman (30)
LF Josh Willingham (30)
CF Lastings Milledge (23)
RF Elijah Dukes (24)

IF Ronnie Belliard (33)
IF Kory Casto (26)
C Wil Nieves (30)
OF Willie Harris (30)
OF Austin Kearns (28)

SP John Lannan (23)
SP Scott Olsen (25)
SP Colin Balester (22)
SP Open
SP Open

SP Contenders : Daniel Cabrera (28), Shairon Martis (21), Shawn Hill (27), Jordan Zimmermann (22), Gustavo Chacin (27), J.D. Martin (25)

RP Garrett Mock (25)
RP Steven Shell (25)
RP Mike Hinckley (26)
RP Open
RP Open
SU Saul Rivera (30)
CL Joel Hanrahan (26)

RP Contenders: Marco Estrada (24), Terell Young (22), Matt Chico (25), J.D. Martin (25), Wil Ledezma (27)

that's the Nationals going into spring training, if nothing further is done.

compare that roster to the roster we fielded last season, just for a point of reference.

The Nationals are out of the FA running?

Holy cow, what's the next piece of news going to be? That the sun's going to rise in the east again?

Dear MLB

Please dissolve the Nationals, Marlins, Pirates, and Rockies into the rest of baseball. They do not have a fan base and just pocket the money from revenue sharing and the luxury tax (minus the Rockies, they are just unfortunate of playing where they do).

It is a joke that the Marlins payroll is under 40 million but yet they collect 30-40 million from MLB (aka Yankees) every year.

The influx of talent spread throughout the league would force teams like the Yankees and Red Sox to build a solid core from the ground up rather than spend it all in free agency. It would also shorten the gap with many teams and their ability to compete year in and year out.

Sincerely,

A Yankee fan who is sick of his team being accused of ruining baseball why teams like the Nationals rape the system.

Yanks09, do you really thing any high level executives from MLB read this site?

Dear MLB

Please dissolve the Nationals, Marlins, Pirates, and Rockies into the rest of baseball. They do not have a fan base and just pocket the money from revenue sharing and the luxury tax (minus the Rockies, they are just unfortunate of playing where they do).

It is a joke that the Marlins payroll is under 40 million but yet they collect 30-40 million from MLB (aka Yankees) every year.

The influx of talent spread throughout the league would force teams like the Yankees and Red Sox to build a solid core from the ground up rather than spend it all in free agency. It would also shorten the gap with many teams and their ability to compete year in and year out.

Sincerely,

A Yankee fan who is sick of his team being accused of ruining baseball why teams like the Nationals rape the system.

Posted by: yanks09 | January 08, 2009 at 07:01 PM

shut up you uppity, self-righteous, self-entitled "yankee hat wearer". (I'm not going to call you a "fan").

not everyone is willing to simply throw a half-billion dollars at their team's problems.

deal with it.

and not every team has the luxury of being ESPN's team of choice for eternity in order to reach bandwagon "hat wearers".

fanbases take time to build. the Nats have only been in town for 4 years.

"Sniping aside you really can't fault the Nats trying to put the money into development and scouting."

the problem with teams like the Nats, my beloved Royals, the Marlins, the Pirates..is this is ALL the teams do every single year..sadly, it wasn't until Moore came along that the Royals began developing.

hell, Mike Aviles, our new stud SS/2B we had in our system all along was a 7th round pick. and signed for $1000 dollars...take it or leave it. when the pick before him got $150,000 and the one after like 100k...1000 dollars. and he took it.

that's how lowball and shady david glass was with the development of the Royals for many years.

the 20-25 million dollar contracts out there...will never see them on a team that cycles the "development and scouting" excuse. but ESPN coudn't be happier, because I don't think John Kruk or Peter Gammons even know what scouting and development are. it's all about the FA signings to them.

the free agent pools each year should be like the Rule 5 draft.

tradeable picks where a team with no money to spend can actually gain draft picks for trading down in the FA draft.

the scenario:

1. washington
2. seattle
3. SD
etc.

washington gets to draft Teixeira. if no contract is reached, his negotiation rights go to Seattle. They pass, SD gets a shot at making an offer. woah though. the Yankees want him bad but they are deep in the draft. How much are they willing to give up? How about Shelley Duncan, Melky Cabrera and their 1st and 2nd round picks in the 2009 draft.

ok, they signed Teixera.

next, CC is passed on by washington, but seattle makes a fair-to-the-players-and-league bid. Yankees want Sabathia too!!! but...Seattle wants him more, and NY has no first and second rounder to give up for him. oh shucks...CC is a mariner.

Next is Manny. Washington chooses to bid, he's gone.

now the top of the draft for FA's involves the #4 pick starting on the 4th best FA available, say Dunn...and they can pass etc.

i know its raw in theory and may sound stupid. but it does 2 things..

1. makes baseball FA a much fairer experience
2. forces owners of teams to actually TRY to improve their club with better players, without teams like the Yankees stacking the deck.

i was VERY angry at the yankees for signing CC, AJ and Teix..but you know what? points have been made its not these teams faults. the money is there and for owners to act like they can't spend it..is cheap. The Steinbrenner's actually show they WANT to be the best team in baseball. The Red Sox show this...time for the rest of baseball's owners to put 50%-50% of their baseball time into BOTH 'scouting and development' and signing free agents.

IMO, the nats, pirates and royals need to be dissolved. Its obvious that their owners have no intention of trying to compete for a championship. They're just a waste of time and money.

Posted by: williams411 | January 08, 2009 at 08:16 PM

another clueless hat wearer spewing his self-entitlement.

let them dissolve your team. leave mine alone. I've only had it for 4 years.

The problem that a LOT of "large market" teams seem to fail to recognize is that ALL MLB teams have debt covenants that Major League Baseball MAKE them abide by. So, according to what their debt-to-equity ratio is each year and what they project their upcoming revenue and expenditure totals are going to be, THAT determines how much they have to spend.

Because of that, teams like the Royals, Pirates and others can NOT just go out and spend $600 million dollars and sign Sabathia, Teixiera, Burnett, K Rod and Manny all in one year. Because if they did, they would go well past the covenant level and have to dump payroll the very next year, EVEN IF THEY DID WIN THE WORLD SERIES!!!

THIS is why the "large market" teams have an advantage. They can spend the money and still be well within the debt covenant levels.

If you want to make the playing field more level for everyone, here are two things you can do;

1) Put a cap on what Amateur Draft palyers are paid. No more of this paying $6 million dollars to a top round Draft pick kind of stuff.

I mean, just think if there were an Albert Pujols-type of player out there who wanted a large signing bonus and ateam like the Royals couldn't or wouldn't pay it? Even worse, just think if that type of player were out there and DIDN'T want to play for the Pirates. Imagine him saying that he would take $5 million to sign with the Red Sox but $10 million to sign with the Pirates? Is THAT fiar? NO!!!

So, put a cap on ALL Amateur Draft picks (and also include foreign players in the Amateur Draft) and then put a floor in as far as how low a Major League baseball team's payroll could be.

2) For Inter League play, make it so the teams are equal as far as their scheduling goes.

Last year, the Reds had to play the Red Sox and Yankees while the Cubs had to play teams like the Indians and Orioles. So, because of that, the Reds had to play teams that had someting like a .544 Winning Percentage in 2007 while the Cubs got to play teams that had something like a .465 Winning Percentage in 2007. Is that fair? NO!!

So, to try and make things fair, MLB should go back over the previous five years and find out what each teams Winning Percentage is and then rank them by league. After that, they should match them up and then make the Inter League schedule so that good teams from the AL play good teams from the NL and bad teams from each league play bad teams.

To MrMadison: Given time, the nats may mature into a winning team like the rays. However, the royals and the pirates have been around for quite a while and have an extremly small fan base. So, there really is no point in having them around.

You wouldn't think it by the comments, but for Nats fans, this is good news. You don't want to give out long term deals to guys right now. Even signing Teixeira would have made no sense at all. Build internally and sign free agents when you have a better idea of what you already have. If there is one guy I can see making sense for the Nats, it is Ben Sheets. We know they are just starved for pitching, and you can probably get him on a deal for 2/18-2/22 right now. If he is pitching well come July, think about what you can get for a year and a half of Ben Sheets at way below market value.

Why would they do that when even if they were to add both Dunn, and Hudson, would have zero chance of winning. Wait until you develop more talent internally, and then sign some free agent to fill in the holes. It would be nothing but foolish to commit money and years to guys like Dunn and Hudson right now. All you are doing is wasting money and taking away roster spots from somebody else when you aren't going to compete anyway.