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Shifting Gears

Shifting-GearsIt’s time to shift gears away from day-to-day coverage and wait for the minors to start up. This is the third time in four years that I’ve pulled the plug without a specific action or event, just a feeling that it’s been enough.

It’s an indulgence for a minors site to write about spring training, but especially when there are virtually no jobs up for grabs. There’s a teeny-tiny bit of drama over who might be the backup catcher or who’s the #5 starter, but the big club’s made it pretty damn clear that it’s not going to be one of “our guys.”

So sometime this week, Pedro Severino, Erick Fedde, Victor Robles, and Andrew Stevenson will get the proverbial red card in their lockers and prepare to play the RailRiders on April 5 instead of the Reds on March 29.

This year when the minors start up I’ll be in New Orleans for a work conference (and the Baby Cakes, natch), so it might be a little bumpy at the beginning of Season 9 of this little site. My hope is that the week-long gap (as opposed 2-3 days) will enable the full-season rosters to be set earlier, too (if no one gets hurt).

Until then, we’ll back to offseason mode… waiting for news… waiting for… snow?!

18 Commments

  1. You’re going to New Orleans and not looking forward to the Lucky Dogs?

  2. Thanks for keeping us in the loop with early ST. It was a welcome reminder that baseball is just around the corner.

    To anyone at ST, can you guys get a word in about Cole Freeman? Either with the beat writers or FO types? There’s no indication he’s doing any sort of training yet and isn’t in camp. Nor has he appeared in social media with any sort of brace/cast/crutches/visible injury since he lost in the CWS final (which he also played every inning of), which was almost 9 months ago…

    The lack of info is really perplexing. Usually young players talk about tearing their ACL/getting serious surgery, especially one so active online as Freeman. So it’s rather strange that there’s no info out there.

    Has someone tried tweeting at Chelsea Janes or Zuckerman about this?

    2. The end result of Cole Freeman could be as silent as the Kyle Simonds walking away from the game. Right, Gil??

  3. Fedde has been my preference over Cole as the 5th starter. Cole just hasn’t been good at AAA over the last two seasons. Fedde and Cole have been pretty close during the spring, with Cole having a solid start on Sunday. There are multiple complications with Cole out of options and with Hellickson now in the mix, although Edwin Jackson was better than Hellickson in 2017, for whatever that’s worth. Milone has also had a good spring.

    Where does all of this leave us? Wild guess: Hellickson is the 5th starter, Cole goes to the bullpen as the long man, Fedde is optioned to Syracuse and Milone accepts assignment there, and Jackson opts out. It’s theoretically possible, however, that Syracuse could begin the season with a rotation of Hellickson, Jackson, Milone, and Fedde. If it were me, I would trade Cole while he’s at a point where he’s rekindled at least a little value. If he gets clobbered, particularly as a starter, they’re going to have little choice but to DFA him and likely lose him for almost nothing in return.

    1. Given the short turnaround, I hope Hellickson starts the season in AAA. Gets a few starts, and the Nats re-assess with more information.

      Either was both Hellickson and Jackson were terrible last season. Jackson was surprisingly good after being miserable with the Orioles (7.20 ERA), but finished with the Nats where he began with the O’s: a 9.82 ERA in September with 9 HR in 22 IP (yikes!).

      Neither are an adequate solution, even as the Nats 5th starter.

      With Cole out of options, he has to be the first choice. If he stumbles, then move him to the pen (WHERE HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN MOVED TO 3 YEARS AGO, but never mind that), and promote whoever of Hellickson, Fedde, Milone and Jackson are playing best. By the end of the season, it should be Fedde’s spot. If at age 25 he doesn’t seize the spot, then he never will.

      A potential spoiler: Alex Cobb remains unsigned. As does John Lackey. Both could be late April/May signings if the 5th spot remains up for grabs by then.

      1. Over 93.1 IP at Syracuse last season, Cole had a 1.74 WHIP and a 5.88 ERA. That’s against guys not really quite good enough to be in the big leagues. I agree that Jackson was just a bad against major-leaguers, and Hellickson was worse. I don’t love any of these options. I just keep scratching my head over why the Nats keep thinking that Cole should be the presumptive anything. At least Hellickson was good in 2016.

        I totally agree that it’s time for Fedde to stake his claim, which is why I thought that if anyone should have entered the spring as the presumptive 5th starter, it should have been him. The Nats really need to find out this season what they’ve got it Fedde, and in Ross when he comes back, before they have to decide on whether to make a bid to keep Gio after this season. Meanwhile, Cole has had his chances over the last two years to stake his claim and hasn’t done it. So we ended up with guys like Guthrie and EJax last season, with a late cameo by Cole.

        Maybe Cole proves me wrong; I’m always glad when our guys do. I just find it curious how much more talk there’s been this spring about guys who are out of options (Cole, Romero, Grace) than discussion of whether the better players might be Fedde, Solis, and Collins (or Adams or Gott), even if it means parting with some guys who are out of options. “Out of options” is Latin for “guy who has already tried for three years to stick in the majors and hasn’t been able to do it.”

      3. Will, I forgot to echo you about Cole being better off in the ‘pen. He probably could have been in the majors over the last couple of years if the Nats had made that move. Maybe he could have turned into the next Stammen, maybe not, but that’s probably the role in which he’s going to end up after the latest prolonging of the attempt to make him a starter.

        On the flip side, it’s fairly easy to see why they’ve kept him as a starter: they haven’t had a lot of other options in the upper minors. Jordan got hurt, Hill and then Voth regressed, and a slew of others stalled somewhere between Potomac and Harrisburg. Well, and they traded Giolito, Lopez, and Dunning. They’ve been waiting for Fedde, but until his arrival, Cole has been the constant, albeit a regressing one at AAA over the last two seasons.

        1. Chelsea Janes tweeted that she has been told AJ Cole will make the opening day 25 man roster (not surprise given that he is out of options). Looking like Cole will get the first crack at the #5 starter spot, rather than start the season in the pen. Guessing that Hellickson will use the next few weeks to get MLB ready, and if/when Cole struggles, Hellickson will be the #5 early on. Fedde will get the call once Hellickson proves to be worse than ordinary, and if there’s an injury or Fedde is ineffective too, the Nats will shop for a 5th starter during the season: Cobb would only come into play if he is still unsigned after the MLB draft (meaning the Nats would not lose picks to sign Cobb). Would love for Cole to pan out, but agree his AAA numbers are hard to dismiss.

          Janes also reported that the last bullpen slot will comedown to Romero, Grace and Collins. Collins has been the most impressive this Spring, but he is the only one with remaining options. Hope the Nats keep Collins up, but I doubt it.

          1. Cobb just signed with the O’s, who overpaid, for some reason.

            I don’t buy Janes’s confidence that Benoit is a lock. He’s been shaky, and it wouldn’t be much for them to eat $1M. Gott stayed clean for the spring today, and Adams has had only one bad outing. I could also see some mystery DL malady for Kelley, which wouldn’t be hard to fake for him.

            Hellickson was good as recently as 2016, and even as he struggled last season, his WHIP was still a quite-respectable 1.26. He strikes me as only a tweak or two away from getting back to respectability. If not, the Nats ventured virtually nothing to find out.

            I do hope EJax and Milone are willing to go to Syracuse. They need the depth, not just for the 5th starter slot, but if one or more of the Big 4 go down.

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