The Winter Meetings
December 11, 2009


The Winter Meetings have concluded and there were a good number of transactions that stirred plenty of debate.  The most controversial for the Nats was obviously giving Ivan Rodriguez two years for $6 million.  When I first heard about the deal, my immediate reaction was this was a bad signing and that the Nats had decided to hemorrage money this offseason to make fans think they were trying to do something.  After all, they're signing a 38-year old who is clearly on the downside of his career to be a back-up catcher for $3 million a year.  His bat is well south of where it was when he was establishing his Hall of Fame credentials and if he's only going to be a back-up, he won't catch the staff more than once or twice a week  That's not going to have a huge educational impact on the pitchers, or at least the kind of impact he had in 2003 with the Marlins or 2006 with the Tigers.  And if Jesus Flores, the guy he's supposed to mentor, isn't all the way back from his injury, then the Nats probably should have been targeting a guy with more life in his bat, like Greg Zaun or 56 other guys who posted better OPS last year.

But then I thought, what if Ivan Rodriguez was a real person and not just a compilation of statistics?  What if, in fact, that most baseball players are real people, whose lives aren't completely based on spreadsheets and statistics?  What if they make decisions based on what they think and feel in the moment rather than just raw data that's been "cleaned" of noise and manipulated in order to prove a preconceived notion.  Well, that just blew my mind and I had to sit down to brace myself for the possible ramifications. 

For example, what if the Nationals had two young catchers with immense offensive potential but needed some instruction on the finer nuances of playing top quality defense?  Even more to the point, what would happen if the Nats had an opportunity to draft yet another catching prospect who many scouts say has once-in-a-generation talent?  Wouldn't having around a player who has built a reputation as one of the best defensive catchers ever be a plus?  Especially if he has the ability to teach his craft.  I'll admit there have been a lot of Hall of Fame players who couldn't teach a fish to swim, much less how they did what they did because they themselves didn't completely understand it.  They functioned on such a high level because of instinct and natural talent, not analysis of their performance.  But what if Rodriguez is like Frank Robinson or Ted Williams, teachers of the highest order, who made players better?  There's no real evidence that Rodriguez has that ability, but he's not really been instructed to do so yet.  It would be worth something if he could, wouldn't it? 

In fact, what would the value be of having three catchers with all-star ability?  Only about ten teams have as many as one of those.  How much trade value would the Nats have with three such talents?  And how much money would that be worth?  Three million?  Six million?  They talk about Joe Mauer getting a deal in the neighborhood of $15-20 million a year.  Victor Martinez just signed an extension for $7.1 million a year, he's past his prime and he doesn't even play defense.  Flores could be an All-Star.  Derek Norris is well on his way to being one of the best catchers in the game.  And with the first overall pick, the Nats could take Bryce Harper, who several talent evaluators say has as much talent as Alex Rodriguez or Justin Upton.  So what would having Rodriguez teach them be worth?  If he is a capable "catching coach", then the $6 million the Nats just spent could be worth tens of millions if the other two or three guys develop to their full potential given that they would have each of them for well under value for 3 to 6 years.

But that's not the only benefit of signing Rodriguez.  He's a no doubt first ballot Hall of Famer.  How many pitchers would like to have him as their catcher?  Assuming of course that pitchers are human beings.  A few years ago I was in the Mariner's locker-room when they were visiting Camden Yards and Hall of Famer now broadcaster Jim Palmer came down to visit with his friend, the ageless Jamie Moyer, who was a prominent starter for the Ms back then.  Anyway, as Palmer and Moyer were reminiscing, George Sherrill stood just a few feet away with eyes as wide as an 6-year olds' on Christmas with a ball in his hand.  He wanted Palmer's autograph.  We're talking about a big leaguer who had already established himself as a very good reliever, but he was still like a little kid around a Hall of Famer.  Rodriguez has the reputation of being one of the best defensive catchers ever and a very good signal caller. With a reputation like that, what pitcher would not want to have him behind the plate?  What's my point?

Well, assume for a second you are a free agent pitcher and you have a few choices of where to sign.  Admittedly, their first priority is to target a team they think can make the playoffs and the Nats aren't going to be that this year.  But all things being equal, if your choices are Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Kansas City or Houston or Washington, wouldn't the prospect of throwing to one of the best catchers ever be a tipping point in favor of the Nats?  And unless you are the Yankees or Red Sox, competing for the playoffs depends on a lot going right, so one year might not be long enough to make it to the promised land.  So even a "competitive" team might not be that great a destination if things don't go right this year.  Having an offer of several years might be preferable to a one-year deal, even if the multi-year deal is from a non-contender.  Rodriguez was a bell cow for the Tigers when they were trying to recover from a near record-setting awful season, allowing them to attract several of the players who took them to the World Series in the third year after he signed.  Although it would certainly be to a lesser degree, might Rodriguez have the same effect in Washington?

So while six million is way too much to pay for what Rodriguez will likely produce on the field, the Nats are taking a gamble that his influence off the field will yield millions more in value.  And that's exactly the kind of deals the Nationals should be making right now.  They have nothing to lose, so they can take high reward risks that other teams can't.  That's one of the reasons I hope they offer a multi-year deal to Ben Sheets.  No team with a chance to make the playoffs this year is going to offer him more than a one-year deal because of his recent injury history.  But if the Nats offered him the security of a two- or even three-year deal, I imagine that he would seriously consider it.  When he's been healthy, Sheets has been one of the 5 best starters in the National League.  Even if the Nats only get one healthy year out of the deal it will have been money well spent because other players will see that they are signing top talent and are serious about competing.  And if they get full value for the duration of the contract they will have have gotten a huge bargain.  For Sheets, the incentive to sign such a deal is that he will have guaranteed money and won't have to worry about a deal if he can't stay healthy, with the bonus of pitching to one of the great catchers ever and being a mentor to one of the best pitching talents ever, Stephen Strasburg.  Who knows, with Jordan Zimmermann back in 2011, the Nats could have a playoff-worthy rotation with Sheets/Strasburg/Zimmerman as well as a pretty good offensive team.  The defense still needs work before anyone can seriously consider a playoff run but that is something that doesn't require too much tinkering to fix.

What the Nats definitely do not need to do right now is sign Livan Hernandez or Jon Garland (unless he comes at a huge discount) or Jason Marquis (likewise) or Joel Pineiro (ibid) or Jarrod Washburn (even moreso) or Braden Looper (ibid) because all of those guys depend so heavily on their defense to make plays.  The Nats have excellent D at third, center and possibly shortstop if Desmond plays as well as he did in September.  But the rest of the team is either average (Dukes) or below average (Dunn, Guzman, Willingham) and depending on them catching the ball in order to prevent runs would be a mistake.  If the idea is to sign some veteran pitching to knock out some innings and preserve the bullpen, then the Nats need to focus on the guys who can get them there and those guys have to be strikeout pitchers.  And since the Nats are focusing on players who are perceived to be good clubhouse/good character guys - that eliminates Vicente Padilla and probably Brett Myers - and pitchers who have a track record of going deep into games - that eliminates Erk Bedard and Kelvim Escobar - the list of free agents they should be targeting is not a very long one.  So all I want for Christmas (for the Nats) is:

1) Ben Sheets
2) John Smoltz
3) Justin Duchscherer,
4) John Lackey (yeah, that's not gonna happen)

Getting one of those, especially one of the first three who I think can be signed if the Nats offer multiple years, would put a star on the Nationals' Christmas tree... assuming they are human, of course.