Thursday, January 29, 2015

I Told You Guys!

In my previous post, I said to expect the Nationals to announce some more big news in the next 7 to 10 days. Here we are about a week later and the Nationals have signed reliever Casey Janssen. Alright, not exactly the big announcement I was expecting/talking about. It's actually better. There was a glaring hole in the bullpen after Tyler Clippard was traded to Oakland and that hole will now be filled by Janssen, who has saved 81 games over the past 3 seasons for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Mike Rizzo turned the savings from Tyler Clippard's salary of around $8-8.5 million this year into two players who combined will make $8.5 million (Escobar is due $5 million and Janssen's newly signed deal will pay him $3.5 million this season, with a $7 million option for next season or a $1.5 million buyout). So when all is said and done, you picked up your starting second baseman and a replacement set-up man for no extra money added to the team's payroll. Great job by Rizzo.

Casey Janssen had sort of a Rafael Soriano type season last year, which probably isn't too comforting to Nationals fans. His first half ERA was 1.23, while in the second half he posted a 6.46 ERA. Janssen however lost a good amount of weight during the season last year due to food poisoning, so that may have had something to do with those second half stats. His average WHIP from 2011-2013 was .982, which is outstanding and the kind of numbers you like to see from a late inning reliever like Janssen (for comparison, Drew Storen who had arguably the best season of his career had a .976 WHIP last year). Janssen hasn't had any arm issues and at 33 years old, which is two years younger than Soriano, the Nationals should be able to count on him getting back to his old form.

With the addition of Janssen, the Nationals bullpen is pretty close to set. With Drew Storen, Craig Stammen, Casey Janssen, Jerry Blevins, Matt Thornton, Aaron Barrett, and Tanner Roark all guaranteed spots in the bullpen, there appears to be no more room for Blake Treinen, Matt Grace, or Xavier Cedeno. I personally would have loved to see the Nationals make some room for Blake Treinen in the bullpen. Treinen can hit 98-99 MPH on the radar gun, but consistently sits around 96 MPH. Add in a slider and changeup (which he can throw, but not with as much consistency as his sinking fastball) and you've got a closer in the making in my opinion. He's a guy that could have been your shut down set-up man this year, but the Nationals for now still view him as a starting pitcher. With as much depth that the organization has with starting pitching, I think it may be wise to convert Treinen over to a closer sooner rather than later considering Drew Storen can leave via free agency after the 2016 season.

The roster is starting to take shape and the closer we get to Spring Training, the more likely it looks like the Nationals are all in the season with a dominant rotation of Scherzer, Zimmermann, Strasburg, Fister, and Gonzalez. Davey Johnson said it was World Series or bust two seasons ago. Two years later, Ted Lerner has used his wallet and not his words to tell the baseball world that now it actually is World Series or bust.



Also - 21 days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, it's coming quick!

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