Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
February 20, 2009
Zimmerman and the Future

The Nationals avoid arbitration with Ryan Zimmerman, signing him to a one-year, $3.25 million contract. Fire Jim Bowden, however, wonders why the Nationals failed to lock up their third baseman for four years:

Zimmerman is coming off an injury-riddled season that must have put some doubt in his mind (if witnessing the career-fizzling injures of friends Nick Johnson, John Patterson, Shawn Hill, and Chad Cordero didn't) about his ability to avoid injury for the next three years and score a big pay day in free agency. And in a down economy, everyone's getting less than they expect.

In that environment, the team had every opportunity to walk in and blow Zimmerman away with a deal that a year ago might have been considered a modest opening bid.

After watching Odalis Perez settle for a minor-league deal and Bobby Abreu sign for half of Eric Gagne's 2008 contract, I'm done trying to predict contract numbers in the current environment. But barring injury, it's hard to imagine that Zimmerman will ever be cheaper than he would have been now. Of course, that might have made Zim reluctant to do a long-term deal now too--he's gotta be thinking that if he can just go out there and do what he did when he was 21 years old (and maybe wait for the economy to settle down a little), he could dramatically improve his negotiating posture.

Still, if the team offered him a deal that would have seemed close to fair, even if Zimmerman had been healthy and the economy hadn't cratered, then surely he would have signed. There are no guarantees, and Zim is one ACL tear away from missing his last chance to set himself and his family up for life.

Zimmerman's had a disappointing career so far. His OPS+ dropped each year since his rookie season, and it wasn't that high to begin with. He's in the part of his career where he should be improving, and that hasn't happened yet. I don't blame the Nationals for going one more year. Maybe he breaks out in 2009. If he doesn't, however, he's a good but not great player, and a modest long term contract would be more appropriate.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:43 AM | Transactions | TrackBack (0)
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