FG on Fox: The Nationals and the Yoenis Cespedes Conundrum
As I write this, it’s looking increasingly likely that the Nationals will swing in and sign Yoenis Cespedes as a free agent. Reports are circulating that the Nationals have offered a five-year deal, and though that doesn’t mean anything’s finished, the rest of the market hasn’t developed like this. The Mets, according to other reports, are holding at three years, and if that were to keep up, Cespedes wouldn’t have much of a choice on his hands. Players love security, and Cespedes wants the biggest offer he can land.
An interesting side note is that, from appearances, the Nationals’ pursuit of Cespedes is ownership-driven. The owners have made such big moves before, and if Washington’s front office thought it was going to grab a high-profile outfielder, it probably wouldn’t have recently traded for Ben Revere. Adding Cespedes and Revere would leave someone out of a regular job, and that wouldn’t be an ideal circumstance. But it matters only so much how a move happens — what’s more important is what happens next. And the Nationals could soon have to deal with the Cespedes mystery.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
It’s so many dollars.
Sounds like a good training regimen to me:
the relationship between owner age and their willingness to go above baseball ops with these large contracts is fascinating. it’s refreshing to see that winning a WS is in fact so important to the Lerners, Illitchs, and Angelos’ of the f it’s validating as a fan to see that these incredibly wealthy men care as much about the ultimate goal as we do and aren’t just here looking at the bottom line.
of the world*
So there’s talk among Nats fans that, if Rob Manfred succeeds in implementing the DH for 2017, Werth and then Cespedes would become the Nationals’ DHs. That would certainly resolve any questions about a fast defensive decline.
But the DH scenario also leaves the Nationals in need of a center fielder – not just a defensive replacement now, but a full-timer next year. And that suggests to me that they can’t trade Michael Taylor, or that doing so would be a mistake.
If they trade Taylor, that puts a lot of pressure on minor leaguers to develop quickly. A smarter move, maybe, would be to flip Revere for another relief pitcher – since we all kinda know that the Storen trade was about Storen’s (unfair) reputation in DC anyway.
Agreed that I doubt they trade Taylor even if they pick up Cespedes. As a Nats fan I’d rather have Harper in CF than Cespedes; the numbers show that Cespedes (in over 3300 innings) is really good in LF – and pretty terrible in CF. Harper has been good in CF in the past. Taylor and Revere would be a R/L bench combination for depth and defensive replacements.
If the DH kicks in for 2017, Werth moves to DH and the OF would be Cespedes (LF); Taylor (CF) and Harper (RF). That’s a very good defensive outfield, and decent offensively. If Taylor develops the way they hope, it becomes an excellent all-around OF>
i’m sure that move will somehow turn out bad for the nats!
Is it really that obvious that Werth would start and Revere would be relegated to 4th outfielder?