First baseman Adam LaRoche would like to stay with the Nationals, Chase Hughes of Nats Insider writes. “If it was up to me, I’m signing a deal with D.C. that puts me there for the rest of my career,” says LaRoche. The Nationals are expected to pay LaRoche a $2MM buyout rather than picking up their end of a $15MM option, and with Ryan Zimmerman likely to play first base next season, it’s unlikely the Nats will retain LaRoche even for a smaller amount. Nonetheless, LaRoche, coming off a .259/.362/.455 season, will likely attract significant interest on the free agent market. Here are more notes from the East divisions.
- The Marlins might have interest in Pirates first baseman Ike Davis, Andy Martino of the New York Daily News writes. The Marlins already have another former Pirates first baseman, Garrett Jones, under contract for 2015, but Jones is 33 and coming off a second consecutive near-replacement-level season. The Pirates, meanwhile, may want Pedro Alvarez (who suffered from serious throwing issues at third base in 2014) to play first in 2015, which would leave nowhere for Davis, particularly since he and Alvarez are both left-handed. The Bucs could deal or non-tender Davis this offseason.
- After a terrific season in 2014, Nelson Cruz has a big contract coming his way, but whether the Orioles should be the team to pay it is questionable, MASNsports.com’s Steve Melewski writes. The O’s plan to extend Cruz a qualifying offer, and they’ll get a draft pick if another team signs him. Also, Cruz is in his mid-30s and is coming off a great season, so it’s possible whichever team signs him won’t get much bang for their buck as Cruz declines over the next few years. Cruz has said he wants to remain in Baltimore, but the Orioles sound skeptical about keeping him.
Rendon’s natural position in 3B – a long shot to be a Hall Of Famer there. Zimmerman can’t throw. They can try hiding him in LF, but Harper can’t play CF while Span is great there. And Zim is the face of the franchise so trading him is pretty much out of the question (the Nationals value things like that to create bonds with their fans).
Mr. Laroche is a very good 1B, and with multiple teams needing one, he should have no problem playing the rest of his career on a good team, or teams.
Spot on – Rendon’s moving to 3B with Zimm going to 1B.
Umm did you just put Rendon and HOF in the same sentence?
Don’t be so quick to dismiss that idea! All he needs to do is have 12-15 more seasons like the one (and only good one) he just had.
If you’ve watched him since the day he came up to the majors, you would be a believer. He doesn’t get the publicity and he likes it that way. But he was way more valuable to the Nationals than Harper.
While Rendon is a great player he is a massive long shot to ever be a HOFer. He would need multiple top 3 MVP finishes and likely an MVP award too. Aramis Ramirez had nearly 10 seasons with an OPS+ of 122 or more and most don’t even think he has a chance at the HOF. Mostly due to never being considered one of the best in any given year.
Until he has 4 more good seasons and at least one top 3 finish this conversation should never be brought up again.
On a side not I am not sure why him being more valuable than Harper is really surprising. Harper only played in 100 games vs.153 by Rendon.
I base my comments on watching him play.
ike davis had a worse season this year than garret jones did. why on earth would they want him?
Davis had a 120 wRC+ vs RHP and Jones had a 107 wRC+ vs RHP. Davis also had much stronger K% and BB% against RHP than Jones, and has better numbers vs RHP than Jones for his career.
And he’s 6 years younger.
Ike Davis has very good “secondary” skills and because BA/homers don’t jump out at you he isn’t going to cost much through arbitration. Still, entering the 2015 season he will only be 28 years old so turning it around is not at all far-fetched. I think it’d be a great move more the Marlins to trade for him.
As for the Nats, let Laroche walk. He’ll be expensive and is in the latter years of his career now. He has been great and will likely still be a productive player but in context to the Nationals situation, it would be best to part ways. Because of his importance to the franchise Zimmerman has to be an everyday guy for them and obviously it is most likely going to be as a 1st baseman with Rendon moving to 3rd. It all works out..
I don’t know many teams in this case the Nats who willingly give up on the guy who led the team in hr’s and rbi’s for this amount of money. In fact I’d like to know when the last time this scenario happened and how it turned out.
It happens. Not the exact same situation but a reasonable comp just the same. Josh Willingham hit 29 home runs and had 98 RBI during the 2011 season for the Athletics. Those were far and away the highest totals on the team. The Athletics did not even try to re-sign him even though he signed for just 3/21 with the Twins as a free agent. They gladly took the draft pick compensation and moved on to rebuild the team through trades and the Cespedes signing. They went from 74 to 94 wins and won the AL west. The Nationals would likely pick up the option on LaRoche if they could count on Zimmerman at third but they can’t. They have to put Zimmerman somewhere given his bat and contract. 1B is the only reasonable place for him to go on a NL team.
my only question is; is that 3k before or after tax?