12:04pm: Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post reports that Campana’s minor league deal runs through the 2016 season (Twitter link). Even if he doesn’t end up seeing time with the big league club this season, then, the Nats will get a look at him this summer and next year in Spring Training as well, when he’d have a chance to crack the roster. With Denard Span set to hit free agency this winter, Campana will provide the Nats with a depth piece beyond this season.
12:00pm: The Nationals have agreed to a deal with speedy center fielder Tony Campana, reports Jon Heyman of CBS Sports (Twitter links). MLB.com’s Bill Ladson adds (also via Twitter) that it’s a minor league contract.
Campana, a client of Pro Star Sports Management, signed a minor league deal with the White Sox this past offseason but suffered a partially torn ACL in February. He’s rehabbed quickly from the injury, however and has already been performing baseball activities for a month, per Heyman.
The 29-year-old Campana has appeared in the Majors in each of the past four seasons, spending time with the Cubs, Diamondbacks and Angels. He’s batted .249/.296/.288 in 477 plate appearances, but his speed his calling card. As Heyman notes, if he gets back on track in time, Campana could be a September/October bench asset much in the same way that Terrence Gore was for the Royals in 2014. Campana is 66-for-75 in stolen base attempts in his Major League career, and he’s 211-for-279 in minor league attempts.
Always liked Campana, one of those guys who gives everything he has when he puts on the uniform. Doesn’t have all the talent some guys do, but gives 100% effort day in and out.
Good pickup for Sept 1st 40 man increase to pinchrun and maybe show some teams he can hit a little towards a job next year.
Good comment re Campana. He seems to be a real “player for the love of the game” moving to Caracas for a year. And there’s his story of overcoming childhood illness (wiki). And he’s a lefty bat. And he was released in March, leading me to believe the Nats’ scouts have had an eye on him for awhile. Hope it works out well for both sides.
White Sox likely had that roster expansion in mind for Campana when the ACL tear happened. Curious to see how it effected his speed…but he could have some Jarrod Dyson type pinch running responsibility
Campana’s speed is huge. I wonder if it will be another area of study to attempt to quantify the effects of a baserunner kind of like the attempts to quantify the effects of pitch framing that’s coming to the fore now.
I mean, the number of extra bases is easy to see, but what other effect is there? Does the constant throwing to first to keep a guy close have an effect on the pitcher? Is he more likely to throw a fastball to the batter because he doesn’t want to toss an offspeed pitch that gives his catcher almost no chance to get the out on a steal? Has anybody in the sabermetric community gone in-depth with that?
I remember reading something from BP sometime last decade. You might have to slog through the search engine there to find the article.
Possibly something written by Dan Fox.
Whitey Herzog would argue for this, and so would the naked eye…hard to imagine tension placed on the pitcher/catcher combo doesn’t result in any benefit.