Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
March 21, 2008
Pitter Patterson

The Washington Nationals released John Patterson. They'll save $850,000 on his contract. It seems strange to release a starter when the Nationals used thirteen last season. However, Patterson only had one great season in his career, 2005, in which he posted a 3.13 ERA. Take that outlier away, and there's really no reason to continue carrying the oft-injured pitcher.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:09 AM | Pitchers | TrackBack (0)
Comments

I think the point about the Nats using 13 SPs last year is a good one. They have some decent young pitching, but very little depth. And now Tim Redding is their #1. $850K is bupkis these days, I would have kept him on the off chance he became even half the pitcher he was in 2005. Remember the Nats ran out Mike Bacsick for about 20 starts last year. Half of Patterson 2005 is better than a whole Bacsik 2007.

Posted by: B-dogg at March 21, 2008 11:24 AM

Remember that one of the reasons the Nats had run Mike Bacsik (and Jason Simontacchi, etc.) out there was in order to replace the starts that they thought were going to go to John Patterson.

Posted by: Simon Oliver Lockwood at March 21, 2008 12:57 PM

This team's personnel decisions make less and less sense every day. They were going nowhere in 2006 and had a stud to trade (A Soriano) that they new they couldn't sign long-term, but they failed to make a deal, and just got a couple of low picks for him. Last year they had Dmitri Young having a great comeback year, and Ronnie Belliard doing well when the Mets had their 2B go down. Again they failed to deal, and now they have too many middle infielders, and D Young has no place to play, and is completely out of shape. The farm system is improving, but if they had made the deals they should have made, they could have the best farm system around. And with the pitching staff the way it is there is no good reason to ditch Patterson. If they don't think he's ready to start, make him the mop-up guy and see if he can get his stuff back. This reeks of a cheap $$$ driven deal.

Posted by: Jim Casey at March 21, 2008 02:34 PM

Jim -

The personnel decisions actually make a whole lot of sense if you know more about the facts on the ground. The first fact is that there were no good deals out there for Soriano in 2006 (people seem to assume that other teams were offering the farm for him, but the Nats have been pretty forthcoming on the deals they were offered and there wasn't much there). The FO decided that it was better to let Soriano finish out his great season with the team for PR reasons and then take the picks, which ended up working out very well for them (they turned him into Josh Smoker...nice haul).

As for Dmitri Young, they resigned him back when they were completely unsure whether Nick Johnson would be able to make a comeback or whether he was permanently cashed. Now that Johnson is looking good (although he's still a major injury risk), Young still serves a valuable mentoring role with Elijah Dukes and Lastings Milledge while providing a great bat off the bench. Again, what do you think they really would have been able to get for Young, a troubled & overweight 1B/DH lacking power with only a comeback season under his belt?

As for Belliard, again it was a hedge against uncertainty. With Felipe Lopez a big question mark and Cristian Guzman moreso, the presence of a competent supersub at a cheap price was something worth more to the team than the z-grade prospects they might have gotten in return.

The Church/Schneider trade demonstrates that the Nats are unafraid to part with popular, tenured players to get quality prospects in return. It's more than a little ridiculous to snipe at them without a full understanding of what this rebuilding franchise is/was trying to accomplish.

Posted by: Jeff B. at March 21, 2008 04:34 PM

@SOL: Duh. Obviously they don't count on Patterson, but for only $850K I'd put him in minors to build up arm strength and see what you have in a few months. Worth the price on even a small chance he regains some of his old form.

Posted by: B-dogg at March 24, 2008 09:59 AM
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