Nationals Baseball: Werth Quick thoughts

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Werth Quick thoughts

The good : Werth is consistent. He's patient. He sees a lot of pitches fitting Rizzo's want to find people to grind out at bats. He hits for a decent average. He's a good baserunner. Offensively he's just a smidge below Dunn, and that's only because Dunn's power is the bestest. In other words JaYson's a VERY good offensive player. He's a good defensive outfielder that solves the RF issue for the next X years.

The bad : 7 years! That's a lot of years!

The good : It shows the Nats don't fall into the silly "only spend money when you are about to be good, else wallow in the misery of losing" that a lot of supposedly bright baseball analysts believe every team should do even though if every team did that some teams would find themselves losing year after year after year... stupid supposedly bright baseball analysts.


nationalsanthems said...

Rizzo came on board with a terrible bullpen, now the bullpen is reasonable. Center field needed fixing, and he worked on that and got Morgan. Right field was a problem, and now it isn't. I detect a pattern.

Wally said...

Years seem to be way overpay, but there is no way they keep Strasburg or Harper beyond Y6, respectively, so they won't have multiple big ticket guys to worry about.

Prince next.

Unknown said...

I'm just not sure Werth is the right guy to be paying these kind of dollars. And at the end of this contract, he will be THIRTY-EIGHT!! Unfortunately for the Nats, I think they overpaid for someone that only has the downside of his career to come.

bdrube said...


Why wouldn't the keep Strasburg & Harper beyond year 6? Surely they will be offering those two pre-abitration extensions through at least year 8 like they did with Zim. As this deal shows, the Lerners DO have the cash and as Strasburg's sudden injury shows he and Harper would be fools NOT to take it.

Harper said...

natant - he's certainly identifying the problems and attacking them. Whether he's doing it right, we'll see.

Wally - I think you can keep Bryce. I think they are resigned (and ok with) to losing Strasburg though. Funny this far out but that's all I can think of not sticking with 6 years for Werth so his $ comes off the books when Strasburg frees up.

Kevin - unfortunately the 26 year old free agent superstar doesn't come around often. You're going to have to accept some bad years on any long term deal (but 7 when you wouldn't give Dunn 4?)

bdrube - It's not set in stone obviously, but I've already heard rumblings that Strasburg is a west coast guy that wants to go back there. Way to early to call but when that gets floated out this early it's never a good sign.