The Nationals have agreed to sign free agent right-hander Brad Lidge to a one-year deal, the team announced. Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com tweets that Lidge will earn $1MM plus incentives. MLB.com's Bill Ladson reported the agreement via Twitter after Salisbury first tweeted that a deal was close. Rex Gary of Turner Gary Sports represents Lidge.
Lidge, 35, appeared in just 25 games in 2011 because of a rotator cuff injury. He posted a 1.40 ERA with 10.7 K/9 and 6.1 BB/9 in 19 1/3 regular season innings for the Phillies before pitching two scoreless frames in the Division Series. The ten-year veteran owns a career ERA of 3.44 with 12.0 K/9, 4.2 BB/9 and a 40.7% ground ball rate.
Lidge, who earned $12MM in 2011, did not receive an offer of arbitration from Philadelphia after the season. Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com hears that the Phillies made him a lowball offer (Twitter link). Lidge joins a Nationals bullpen that includes Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard, Henry Rodriguez and Sean Burnett.
I don’t really get this. Even if healthy, what role do they see him fitting into?
7th inning guy in front of Clippard and Storen?? Great signing for them.
7th inning guy in front of Clippard and Storen?? Great signing for them.
Perhaps used as a “veteran, right-handed reliever to help pick up the slack in the middle innings (someone to hold down the role Todd Coffey had last season)”?
Or so Natsinsider says 😛
Who cares what his title is. This has the potential to be the best signing of the off season.
A drop in the bucket in salary for a potential very, very good 7th or 8th inning guy? What’s not to like? Great signing IMO.
If healthy, he’s a steal. Potentially a Joel Zumaya type of guy to get out the powerful righties.
We will never forget you, Lidge. Thanks for the Perfect season in 2008!
Lidge can now give back the wins he should have to the Phillies. Maybe start out with a walkoff hitbatter. Hes really good at those.
Lidge > Coffey. 1 Year deal. Bullpen depth. Nothing to get excited about here.
Lidge is a great guy to have around the clubhouse. His veteran arm will certainly help the young guys in Washington. I could easily see him being a 7th inning guy before Clippard and Storen. If healthy, this could be a very productive signing for the Nationals. Regardless, I bet they didn’t pay too much for him. I like it.
1 million dollars. plus incentives.. That’s ridiculously cheap, considering the potential.
Would you rather have Lidge or Cordero (at this point)? (Assuming salaries are close to similar).
Lidge won’t be closing. Cordero will probably want to close. I would rather have Cordero but the Nationals already have a young, productive closer in Storen.
All things equal, Cordero.
However, I’d much rather have Lidge at 1MM than Cordero at 4MM.
Lidge’s perfect 2008 helped get the Nats to where they are. Remember the next-to-last game of the season, where the Phils clinched the NL East? Lidge induced Ryan Zimmerman to hit into a game-ending double play that also assured Washington of the worst record in the majors…and the first draft pick in 2009, which of course was Stephen Strasburg.
Nice point
As a Padre fan, I’d like to chime in. The Padres swept the Nats with a week to go in the season. The Nats ended the year with a 59-102 record with the Padres at 63-99.
If things were different in that series…
Nats sweep SD
WAS – 62-99 / SD 60-102
Nats take 2 out of 3
WAS 61-100 / SD 61-101
The second scenario would have had the Padres & Mariners ending with the same record so it might have taken a sweep to change both teams fortunes. Though swapping Tate for Ackley wouldn’t be soo bad either.
He was filthy when came back. His poor performance was undoubtedly related to his injury, which appears to be in the past. If he reutrn to form the Nats bullpen will be absolutely nasty. If I were Rizzo I would have added a vesting option for next year to take advantage of being the team that gave him his shot this year.
Cordero got 4.5M, Lidge has only 1M gauranteed…that is almost 5 times the amount. I love Cordero, but given the deals I would opt for the Lidge deal given Storen is the closer.
Filthy as in dirty or bad, bc he was. He had no control and his now 88mph fastball isnt enough of a different over his slider to throw hitting off timing. His fastball is now also straight as an arrow. He lacks control which shows by his last year game tying walked batter and then next game gives up the win off a walkoff hitbatter. You can have him there is a reason no one took him for 1mil.
You don’t know what you’re talking about at all.
He didn’t blow any leads last year, so how did he “walk in the tying batter?” He had that one game against Washington in which he hit Gomes with the bases loaded. That game came AFTER Ryan Madson imploded the night before including a grand slam to Ryan Zimmerman.
“He had no control and now his 88mph fastball isn’t enough of a different over his slider to throw hitting off his timing.”
Other than the fact that the statement is fulled with typos and it’s kind of difficult to read, you’re once again wrong. Brad Lidge had a 10.7 k/9. While yes, he doesn’t have control, he still has a top 5 slider in the game. And yes, while his fastball is 88-92, his slider is also 78-82 which is a fine difference.
Nice post.
He was filthy when came back. His poor performance was undoubtedly related to his injury, which appears to be in the past. If he reutrn to form the Nats bullpen will be absolutely nasty. If I were Rizzo I would have added a vesting option for next year to take advantage of being the team that gave him his shot this year.
Cordero got 4.5M, Lidge has only 1M gauranteed…that is almost 5 times the amount. I love Cordero, but given the deals I would opt for the Lidge deal given Storen is the closer.
Filthy as in dirty or bad, bc he was. He had no control and his now
88mph fastball isnt enough of a different over his slider to throw
hitting off timing. His fastball is now also straight as an arrow. He
lacks control which shows by his last year game tying walked batter and
then next game gives up the win off a walk off hit batter. You can have
him there is a reason no one took him for 1mil.
Seems like a good low-risk deal for the Nats. Especially considering that Joe Nathan (37, Tommy John) got 2 years, $14.5 million this offseason.
Why couldn’t the mariners of done this….instead we signed George sherrill….we could of then flipped either league or lidge at the deadline for something….
a gamble worth taking for the price; just think if he is even close to back to his old self; it gives Davey (loved him as an Oriole player and manager – he makes the game fun – when he talks, just listen and learn) more options; Davey will take full advantage.
If healthy, a great signing for the Nationals
Closer: Storen
Set-up: Clippard
7th inning: Lidge
MR: H-Rod, Mattheus
Lefty: Burnett
LR: Gorzo
it does sound exciting.
Detweiler needs to fit in there somewhere. Probably at the expense of Mattheus.
I think Detwiler has more potential then Lannan, I’d rather see Lannan moved and have Detwiler in the 5 spot of the rotation
I saw somewhere they are considering using a six man rotation or something to keep Strasburg active longer into the season.
Between Wang and Strasburg, they are going to need a 6th starter in fairly short order. Personally, I don’t think that Wang makes it past May 1 without going on the DL with some kind of boo-boo.
Wang seemed fine in the 17 starts he made last year
a gamble worth taking for the price; just think if he is even close to back to his old self; it gives Davey (loved him as an Oriole player and manager – he makes the game fun – when he talks, just listen and learn) more options; Davey will take full advantage.
For this price, great signing. Maybe if he’s on fire they can trade arround the all star break for a CF where they are looking for. (Although i like Bernadina in center so….)
Are you serious? I like Bernadina as nothing more than platooning right field until Harper is in D.C.
The shark is like Morse, let him play and he will be fine.
Not at all
How can you say that. He has never be given a legitimate chance.
How about 2010?
Looking at any of his statistics over his career, both minor league and major league, how can you say he would be anything more than a 4th outfielder?
Dang really thought the Astros would reunite with him.. Especially at this price
Lidge would give the Astros too much of a chance at winning a game or two.
Why couldn’t the mariners of done this….instead we signed George sherrill….we could of then flipped either league or lidge at the deadline for something….
If healthy, a great signing for the Nationals
Closer: Storen
Set-up: Clippard
7th inning: Lidge
MR: H-Rod, Mattheus
Lefty: Burnett
LR: Gorzo
Sorry for the duplicate.. How do I get this deleted?
His fastball is straighter than this line ______________________
Awesome pick-up for a measly $1mil. Wonder if the incentives are ridiculously large and really easy to reach?
Great sign. If he is healthy its a win-win. If they are contending great he is useful, if they arn’t great he could get a prospect at the deadline.
Wrong Henry Rodriguez tagged here, haha. But should be an outstanding bullpen in 2012.
It hurts to see the Nationals make great relief signings like this when I have to sit here as a Twins fans and watch the Twins pay about 10 million dollars too much for the ever- worthless Matt Capps. Your welcome for Wilson Ramos, btw.
He was just asking a question. Relax.
I bet he meant Chad Cordero.
Way to cherry pick the last 3 years. Lidge has better stuff than Coffey. If healthy and at only 1M for the year, I’ll take Lidge every time. And Lidge had the better ERA, FIP and xFIP.
are you sure about that? I am checking BBref and Lidge had 1.1 and .9 WAR last two years while Coffey had -0.8 and 0.4. 2009 was disaster for Lidge. Anyways WAR is not the only measure that matters.
Lidge sucks ? Let’s be realistic here … he was picked up for a $1M contract and is coming off back to back seasons where he put up a 2.51 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, and 10.5 K/9. His control is an issue as always(5.2 BB/9) but this is a no brainer deal. Cheap enough that if it doesn’t work out, cut him and move on. If he catches fire, then its a bargain.
Lidge’s stuff has diminished significantly over the past couple of years. Slider slops up to the plate at 86-87 mph and his fastball isn’t much harder. He needs to pitch as a closer to be effective. He needs the hitters to be less patient (as they are in the ninth inning as oppossed to the 7th or 8th). He will walk a ton of batters as a set up man. Doubt he will magically find his control. The flipside is that at this contract amount why not? If he doesn’t pan out no big deal.
Three seasons is a fairly large sample. The results of his last 3 seasons is a better indicator of a player’s current value than his overall career numbers. Especially with someone who’s played as long as Lidge has had. Not that I’m arguing which one is better, I just can’t agree with your usage of the word “cherry-picking”
He purposely took Lidge’s worst season which is why he went back 3 years. If you use BBREF or other statistical categories like ERA, FIP, xFIP, K/9 then Lidge has the edge in just about every category. He was cherry picking one stat while using a selective time frame and ignoring other stats.
Looking at all the stats comprehensively I don’t think many folks would consider Coffey the better player.
Agreed. That’s why I said in my original post that there is nothing here to get excited about. They just swapped one reliever for a slightly better one IMO.
His velocity has definitely diminished, but his slider is still a beautiful, goofy thing.
Did you see him and what he did last year? Lidge was pretty darn good
It was probably Luca Cordero
To be fair, I made my comment before the contract details were announced (I assumed that he would sign for close to Cordero money). I am with you that his peripherals look good, but his FB velocity is down to below 90 and he is a big injury risk. Just doesn’t seem like he adds to much in value to the Nats already deep bullpen that has guys like Craig Stammen, Ryan Mattheus and Cole Kimball (assuming healthy by July/Aug) ready to fill the role that Lidge would for less money and more upside. The good thing is that for $1 mil he doesn’t have to be that good–I just don’t see the value unless we are placing a premium on ‘veteran presence’ in the bullpen.
Oh, and he also gave up that home run to Pujols in the 2005 playoffs that I still do this day may still be in orbit. *cheapshot
The cheap shot is fair – I heard that it took out two satellites as it made its way into orbit. One of the most majestic home runs that I can remember.
Houston won that series and went on to the WS.
Houston won that series and went on to the WS.
I think that I was screaming ‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO’ for about three hours after Pujols hit that blast. Majestic indeed.
Where Brad Lidge lost two games.
Once again the past 2 years