6:18pm: Ken Gurnick of MLB.com reports that the Dodgers were the team that placed the claim on Madson (Twitter link).
5:53pm: Nationals right-hander Ryan Madson was claimed on revocable trade waivers by an unknown team earlier today, reports Robert Murray of The Athletic (on Twitter). The Nationals and the claiming team will have 48 hours to work out a trade, which would give the two sides until early afternoon Friday to work out a deal. The Nats, alternatively, could simply allow Madson and the roughly $1.36MM remaining on his salary go for no return other than full salary relief.
Madson, who turned 38 yesterday, is in the final season of a three-year deal and will reach free agency at season’s end. He’s struggled to a 5.28 ERA in 44 1/3 innings this season and missed time on the DL due to chest and back injuries. However, he’s also averaging a career-best 95.8 mph on his fastball this season and has posted solid marks of 8.3 K/9 and 3.1 BB/9. Much of the damage done against Madson has come in a trio of meltdowns this season, as he’s had a pair of outings in which he yielded four earned runs and another in which he was clobbered for six runs.
For all of his struggles in 2018, Madson has a lengthy track record of quality results as a late-game reliever and has been highly effective in recent seasons. From 2015-17, Madson notched a 2.55 ERA (3.08 FIP) with 8.4 K/9 against 2.1 BB/9 in 187 innings for the Royals, Athletics and Nationals. If a deal is ultimately reached, he’d join his new team in advance of the Sept. 1 deadline for postseason eligibility and have a month to get back on track following a change of scenery.
Dodgers in 6 now, a little extra breathing room. Nice work.
Ha, great trolling dude. Oh, wait, you’re serious…
Check your facts….they have won 5 in a row. Not 6.
There go the Brewers again.
The phillies should go after him the need in bullpen help and used to pitch for them.
It was the Dodgers. Now to see if the Nats let him go
Rockies took him ..
No they didnt dodgers took him
Early word is that is was the Dodgers.
Where are the usual suspects who claim the Front Office isn’t trying to fix the bullpen?
I guess you’re calling on me. So, how is Madson going to fix it?
Yes, he was good, once. Is he now?
A variety of people.
Madson is one of the few guys with a stellar track record that could be had without giving up a blue chipper or three.
It’s easy to criticize, without knowing how hard they’ve tried, or actually coming up with reasonable ideas.
When the calendar is about to flip over to September, the stellar track record better be recent, or its another long shot bet on a very quick improvement on his current much less than stellar track record.
I’ve come up with plenty of reasonable ideas. The guy they really needed was Keone Kela. The price on him wasn’t very steep. based on what the Pirates gave up, especially considering the skill set and the four more years of team control. Is that a reasonable enough idea?
It isn’t as simple as saying “Oh, this Team paid this price, so my Team should have paid this and got it done”. It takes a Team to actually want what’s on offer, and clearly Texas wanted what the Pirates offered, to accept it.
If it were as simple as offering X to get the job done, Teams would never need the other side to accept it – it would be a foregone conclusion. But it’s not. It takes two to tango. Money has a straight forward, black and white value that can be compared directly. Prospects do not.
Again, we don’t know how hard the Front Office has tried to make upgrades. But what I see is a number of people making assumptions about the process, based purely on the outcome.
Madson was one of the best non closers in baseball from 2015-17. He was injured for a chunk of this season. If he comes to LA and produces anything close to the past 3 years it would be a great addition.
So, now it wasn’t even a reasonable idea? Moving target city.
Yes, Madson has some great seasons behind him. The question is how far behind him, given his struggles this season (which don’t seem to be behind him). Sure he could be a great addition if the struggles are over and he reverts to something close to his former self. It won’t take a lot of improvement for him to bump someone out of the bullpen.
It’s a good attempt, but a situation we’ll probably never be able to validate. I had to lead you there, but it’s for a reason. It’s just necessary to point out that it’s unfair to level criticism towards a Team for not making a particular move, when we don’t actually know the process involved that led to this conclusion – other than, the Team with the asset choosing someone else.
The hate the Dodgers FO has received lately is borderline ridiculous, considering they’ve shown incredibly sound decision making in the past, and deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Oh look! The Dodgers got Walter Johnson, in his prime. “Well he may have been good once but is he still?”
A good attempt. Really? Sorry but that’s a totally weak response. The other puzzling statement you made was that we should not judge them on results. Last I checked, baseball was a results based game. No credit given for effort. I’ve been critical of this front office when they failed to produce results and complementary when they have produced. I think even they would not argue with that as a reasonable basis of evaluating their work. Why any fan would not just kind of floors me.
Must have missed the”complimentary” (not complementary) part. Now, I have to spend hours looking for your past praise of the FO.
Great!
Got anything else to add to this discussion other than dinging the autocorrect? I’m guessing not.
For what it’s worth, BlueSky is easily one of the best posters on these boards. I’ve been coming here for years, and have seen plenty of balanced comments, and more often than not, he’s right.
Further, are we really arguing that claiming a guy that has been a bum lately isn’t a long shot not that great of an idea? Hasn’t the passed 10 years of criticism been paying for guys that were once great, but are no longer?
Finally, to say that we don’t know enough of what’s going on with the FO behind closed doors so we can’t judge is absurd. We clearly have a bullpen problem, and it isn’t a recent one. It’s safe to assume that the FO has attempted to fix it, but has it been enough? If we don’t make it to the post season, then clearly, they did not. I really like our FO, but they do seem to go digging through garbage a bit too often when they shouldn’t.
Thanks, it’s worth something to me to hear that, if only because without fail I take a whole lot of heat whenever I criticize anything Friedman & Co have done (or not done).
For the record, I think they’ve done a great job of rebuilding the farm system. Kudos. This fan gives them two thumbs up. They’ve also unearthed some hidden gems in position players. They resigned Turner, Jansen and Hill, traded for Machado and Dozier. Well done also.
What I see as not being nearly as successful is their bullpen philosophy, which seems to involve placing a lot of small bets and hoping one of them pays off. How many of them actually have? One? Objectively we can see this approach isn’t really working. Do they deserve praise on that score just the same as if it was working? Some seem to answer that question in the affirmative, and that just puzzles me to no end.
So now we get to see if they can complete a trade for Madson. I plan to grade them on whether they made it happen, and if so, on whether works out. Seems totally fair to me.
Honestly, whenever I see things on this site I’m unsure of what I think of it, I look for your posts first. People can disagree and give you heat all they want, you still clearly have loads of baseball knowledge, and I, for one, appreciate it.
I think the bullpen philosophy is that bullpen arms are a crapshoot anyway, so they’re just as likely to score big as to bust, so it doesn’t make sense to spend freely and have it turn into a money sink- so they try to catch guys coming back from injury with something to prove. It makes sense- and I think it’s been a bit more successful than you’ve given credit for, depending on how you define success.
The thing I don’t like about this philosophy is that they do it at a time when we shouldn’t be gambling..
I can understand the approach up to a point, especially where middle relievers are concerned. A team will burn through a lot of them in the course of a season, especially if they have multiple starters who regularly struggle to get through six. But I think we also know that teams rarely go deep into a postseason with weak back ends. The teams that do get to the finish line usually have some redundancy in that area, and redundancy is never going to be cheap. The Dodgers had it last year and it made all the difference, even if they came up a dollar short at the end. This year, they’re about a hundred dollars short. Even if they do make the postseason it will be with a two-legged stool.
Madson has actually had a pretty great season with the exception of a few horrendous innings…and the injuries, of course. His stuff has looked better than ever when healthy, though. I’d think he’d be a welcomed addition to that Dodgers pen. Definitely an upgrade over Scott Alexander and a few of the other guys they keep running out there. With Jansen being “off” lately, they need all the reenforcements they can muster if they’re going to play deep into the playoffs.
Wait for it. Wait… ah, there he is.
Before even hearing it was the Dodgers I automatically thought it had to be he Dodgers but no hearing it definitely was the Dodgers. They need to make this happen. Yea he’s had a rough season but he’d be a nice addition and a breath of fresh air with what we’ve been dealing with. Maybe even get him back to his old self.
Please! Please! Please! Madson to the Dodgers! The Reds are waiting!!
He can’t be any worse than the crap that’s in the bullpen now.
And that’s probably the most succinct way of describing this entire deal, assuming it actually happens.
+ 1 for that comment. I laughed out loud. In summary, notable bad bullpen acquisitions I remember : Brian Wilson, Brandon League, Chris Hatcher…
That was exactly my thought on hearing they claimed him.
I think kenley just blew another save