The Nationals have agreed to sign Todd Coffey, the team announced. MLB.com's Bill Ladson (on Twitter) first reported the agreement and Jon Heyman of SI.com first reported that the team was closing in on a deal with the BHSC client. Heyman reports that the deal guarantees Coffey $1.35MM (Twitter link).
Coffey posted a 4.76 ERA with 8.1 K/9 and 3.3 BB/9 for the Brewers last year before they non-tendered him. He has appeared in at least 69 games in 2009 and '10, so the Nationals are adding a durable piece to Jim Riggleman's bullpen. The 30-year-old right-hander boasts a 52.1 % career ground ball rate and an average fastball velocity of 93.2 mph.
Click here for more analysis of the Beverly Hills Sports Council's work with relievers this winter.
A valuable addition to an otherwise young and unproven bullpen. Coffey won’t light the world on fire, but he will take pressure off Clippard, Burnett, English, Storen et. al. I think that Rizzo is also doing this to counter balance his other off season bullpen moves, that brought in real power arms with high walk rates (Ramirez and Rodriguez), which just stunk to me as being very high risk. It will be nice to see the competition in the spring between these guys.
Jesse English? I don’t even thinks he’s on the 40-man anymore if he’s still in the organization. You just gave arb to Burnett and Slaten, you used a 1st round pick on Storen, Ramirez is a rule 5 that you have to cut if you start running out of arms, Rodriguez has no options according to the Washington beat reporters, and Colin Balester is at a stage where you need to keep him in the bigs to build off of his strong finish in 2010 or trade him out of the organization.
Either this is a minor league deal or Rizzo is looking to trade some of the attractive younger bullpen arms he’s got at some point. I thought they’d be looking at a guy like Fuentes before these kind of meh arms.
Jesse English was my bad. Confused him Slaten in my mind.
Rodriguez has no options and way a ‘key’ piece in a trade, so he is likely to stick with the club. As for Ramirez, I guess I don’t see what the big deal is–he is a rule 5 guy. If he works out that is awesome, but it is not like we traded or gave anything for him other than a net $25,000 investment. Worst case scenario he bombs and we give him back. if that happened and the nats didn’t have Coffey filling up space, our bullpen would look even thinner. Balester put together a streak of a few good games to go along with a career of inconsistency… i don’t think that he is entitled to anything…
My take on Rizzo’s offseason is that he is doing his best to build areas of strength and depth where he can without taking serious risks (ed. note: Werth is a pretty big gamble, to be fair). This, to me, seems like one of those moves that adds depth and protects the team against relying too heavily on Bally to come to form and Ramirez and Rodriguez finding the plate.
He’s a meh arm but just think–a couple seasons ago we were trotting out Saul friggin Rivera. Signings like this have “Trade Deadline” written all over them.
Another ex-Red on the Nationals…
Coffey *will* light the world on fire, but not in a good way.
meh. signing scrap heap relievers is russian roulette
He had a pretty good year in 2009. Could be a good sign for the Nats, but more than likely, he won’t be. Lol
I like Rizzo’s track record with relievers. About the only one he whiffed on was Brian Bruney. If this is a depth guy on a minor league deal, I like this. If he’s going to push Balester or Rodriguez out of the bullpen or Stammen off the roster I don’t like this as much. Nats have way, way too many meh pitchers at this moment. Be interesting to see what the corresponding 40-man moves are. Hopefully some of the other 40-man guys they can get on to Syracuse’s roster.
another piece to the puzzle
a cup of coffee with the Nats. he’ll be one of those year here, year there guys from here on out, might even get a ring out of it if he bounces around enough.
Waiting for Strasburg and Solis, I want to see Livan, Zimmerman, Gorz, Marquis, and Lannan in the rotation with Maya, Detwiller, and Wang on stand by. And a plus bullpen with Stammen, Ballister, Ramirez, Burnett, Coffey, Clippard, Storen, Rodriguez, Kimball, and Carr.
I think a 10-man bullpen, while innovative, isn’t really the best case.
Bullpen will be Storen, Slaten, Clippard, Coffey, Burnett, Rodriguez, and Stammen. With Kimball, Bally, Carr, and a cast of thousands as backups.
Todd needs to take a break from baseball and really work on his personal life. He and his wife are divorcing and they have 3 kids. (Went to school w/both of them) but Congrats Todd hope everything works out.
Wow,
This is absolutely none of your business, is it?
Surprised that Coffey didn’t have other offers, someone out of the pen who throws gas and a decent groundball %.