Nats trade for Scott Olsen & Josh Willingham
"The Nationals, carrying out their pledge to be aggressive this offseason, have acquired left-hander Scott Olsen and outfielder Josh Willingham from the Marlins, according to major-league sources.
In return, the Marlins will receive second baseman Emilio Bonifacio and two minor leaguers: Single A right-hander P.J. Dean and outfielder Jake Smolinski."
That about says it all. Doesn't sound like much of a haul for the Marlins, but as usual they're likely more interested in the salary savings than anything else.
over 3 years ago
zempf
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We should have gotten Willingham.
Travis Hafner is overrated. Clarity is underrated. David Dellucci is David Dellucci.
I can’t wait till we trade Grady to Oakland. Then we can say “we should’ve gotten Grady.”
by world dictator on Nov 11, 2008 2:57 PM EST up reply actions
I’d say my comment was intended to be about 50% sarcasm, but who wouldn’t love Willingham for that little in return?
Travis Hafner is overrated. Clarity is underrated. David Dellucci is David Dellucci.
50% sarcasm? If you half say the thing and half say the opposite of the thing, do they cancel out, such that you’re actually saying nothing?
by Logodaedalus on Nov 11, 2008 11:06 PM EST up reply actions
Seems to me the deal in the deal is Olsen. Seems pretty cheap for a young middle of the rotation starter with room to improve. Seems like a team that was going to be “aggressive” going into the offseason would…
…wait, never mind. Any news on the Casey Blake signing?
Wow, we really have 6 guys in their mid twenties that have 30+ major league starts the last 3 yrs and strike out more than 6 batters per 9 innings with league avg or better era?
No, we don’t. We do have a bunch of lefties after Lee that will all be vying for the bottom of the rotation because they have yet to prove they can stick. The odds on any of them making 30 starts and being league avg anytime soon? Maybe even – collectively a worse gamble than Olsen would be next year.
With CC gone and Westy on the shelf, seems to me the highest priority in the offseason is to bring in someone who has proven they can take the ball every fifth game and be decent. I don’t mind our “6 Olsens” battling for the final 2 spots, but right now we have two starting pitchers and a bunch of question marks.
If Shap really means that he’s going to be aggressive this winter, and pitchers like Olsen and Jackson and Sonnanstine are available for prospects and role players, he needs to go get them.
I posted something about Jackson elsewhere (forgot in which thread). I don’t get why anyone would be interested in him. He’s had poor stats at virtually every level (except AA) and has done it repeatedly without much sign of improvement.
Keep in mind how young he’s been and how high the expectations were.
And the simple fact is he has gotten better – last year he had his second straight year of 30+ starts in the AL and improved in almost every stat category from the prior year. At age 24. If he simply repeats that, he’s better than anyone we have now competing for 3-5, and he’s right at the age/experience point where it wouldn’t be unexpected for him to actually start putting it together and improve.
He is young, and he might turn out to be a good pitcher. But, his strikeouts per inning actually declined (quite a bit) last year. I just don’t see the indications that he’s going to be a strikeout pitcher. There’s very little in his record pointing to that. He had numbers that were around league average last year, with a poor K/BB ratio. Laffey’s numbers, admittedly for only half a season, were really very similar. The difference between them right now is that Jackson has more experience at the major league level.
Yes, his K’s declined, but in the context of an improved BB and hit ratio, you might want to read that as actually learning how to pitch a little rather than trying to throwing the ball by people. He’s not Laffey, he’s a right-handed horse with a very live arm.
Seriously, look at his last two years – you wouldn’t say, on either a cursory or in depth look at the numbers, that he improved?
I’m not denying that at all. I just don’t see the indication that he’s going to become the pitcher you described (with big strikeout potential); I see the possibility that he will become a solid major league pitcher if he continues to improve, something I think one can say, too, about Laffey, for example (and Laffey’s minor league numbers (WHIP, control, etc.) are actually more encouraging. They’re obviously different pitchers, but I don’t see any overwhelming evidence that makes me say we’ve got to make it a priority to acquire Jackson.
I never said anything about Jackson’s big strikeout potential – unless he develops a new pitch he’ll probably never be a big K guy. I just mentioned his name as someone reportedly available, like Olsen (was).
I will say, like Olsen, he’s a better major league starter with a better track record right now than anyone we have currently vying to back up Lee and Carmona. He makes our rotation better and if he continues to improve at age 25, we’ll actually have a fairly solid, durable front 3. Not great perhaps, but much better than what is at the moment our biggest weakness going into ’09.
It’s not a priority to get any specific pitcher – its a priority to get the kind of pitcher to fill a role – someone who can eat innings and hold down a spot in the rotation while Laffey et al compete to establish who can do the same for the remaining two spots that are up for grabs.
My mistake about the strikeout prediction. That was someone else’s comment in another thread, I think. I agree we need to add a starter to shore up our rotation. I’m just not persuaded that the way to go is with someone like Jackson, who strikes me as a real risk to regress (although he obviously could progress too). To me, although he has more experience and more of a record (much of it not very good), we’d really just be adding another pitcher with potential. We need someone who we’re pretty confident can be a number 3.
No prob. Personally, I’m less concerned with getting an ideal “#3” than simply improving the rotation with someone who will stay there (given health) the whole season because they’ve shown they can do that, which no current Indian beyond Fausto and Lee has done yet. If they’re young enuf to still have some ceiling left, so much the better.
With any luck, with the amount of untested depth we have, some combination of Sowers, Laffey and the crew will end up being a “#3”. But that will make a lot more difference if there are already 3 guys eating up innings in the rotation.
Yes, I do. We’re not talking some platonic ideal when we say “#3”, we’re talking about OUR rotation, which, if we leave 3 spots for internal competition, could very well suck.
Name one pitcher outside of Lee and Carmona you feel confident will make 30 starts next year (given health – we’re just talking being effective enuf to stay in the rotation) .
call me crazy but laffey, and if he was up long enough (which he won’t be), huff
Anti-Ben Fran before it was cool.
by Gradyforpresident on Nov 12, 2008 2:08 PM EST up reply actions
I’m not down on either one, but that’s just very optimistic. The simple fact is that neither has come close to doing that before. And as you point out, the odds that Huff will get that kind of exposure next year is close to nil, even though he will be 24.
I will point out that at the age of 22, Olsen was in a major league roatation for a whole year, pitched 180 innings, gave up 160 hits, and struck out 166. Who is the better bet?
Huff last year put together as good a year of pitching of any minor leaguer we have had in awhile (25 K, 5 BB, 50 GB%). The FO has the luxury of not having to put him in Cleveland if they don’t want to, but I don’t think they will hesitate in promoting him if they think he will substantively improve the chances of the team making the post-season. Which is to say if Huff comes out of the gate the first 6 weeks like he finished last season, and if anyone is clearly not cutting it in Cleveland, I wouldn’t be surprised if Huff gets an early call.
I hope he forces their hand by midseason, I really do. One thing in his favor is that his competition is basically his peers – not someone like Byrd who they pretty much had little option but to keep putting him out there.
But, he’ll have to be very good and 4 of Sowers, Laffey, Reyes, Jackson, Lewis (am I missing anyone?) will have to be pretty bad for him to get an early jump up.
And good as Huff’s year was last year, my basic point was that its still hard to compare age and performance with someone like Olsen and bet that he’ll be as good as quickly.
Olsen is two years removed from that season, and there is a consensus that his stuff has declined since then. His peripherals seem to support that notion.
In his rookie season, his K/G 8.5. In ‘07, it was 6.3. This year, it was 5.1. That’s not an encouraging sign, given that his BB/G has only gone from 3.8 in ’06 to 3.1 this past year.
And he still pitched 200 innings with a whip of 1.3 this year.
I did read somewhere that he lost velocity on his fastball in the middle of the year, but gained it back to his usual low 90’s by the end. His splits bear that out – July/Aug were his toughest months, Sept very strong.
Again, is he Jake Westbrook, our prototypical #3 the last few years? Not quite, but not that far off at an age when Jake was just getting his bearings.
His ERA was good in September, but he still didn’t strike anybody out.
My concern with Olsen is that he’s a year removed from being really bad and even though his run prevention in ‘08 was closer to his ’06 production, his ’08 peripherals are more in line with his ’07 numbers, including his GB%. Going forward, I think there is a significant possibility that we could see the ’07 Olsen again. Add in that he’d be switching to the AL, the character issues, the fact that he’s arb-elgible, and I don’t really see him as someone the Indians should necessarily be targeting.
here’s what it boils down to for me. i can almost, almost buy lamenting we didn’t get quentin, swisher, and haren as potential difference makers. but that meant, reportedly, giving up lees and asdrubals. so i’m glad we didn’t.
now, olsen won’t command lees (07) and asdrubals, but the difference between him and laffey/sowers/huff/jackson isn’t anything to lament in my opinion.
You’ve forgotten that the Marlins are insane.
We would’ve had to provide them a player in the majors who makes $400,000 dollars a year and is young with some upside. That’s not an awe-inspiring commodity but it is a relatively scarce one.
We were never in the Olsen hunt, I’m sure, because we didn’t have a player in the majors cheap enough. The only thing we have that’s close is Barfield and he’s not as cheap or as young or as good.
You’re imagining you can trade with the Marlins on the idea of making their team better. That’s not the case.
The Marlins are even more extreme than we are on money/value issues, that’s the thing. They’re looking for teams to provide their life’s blood, but that’s also our life’s blood. Hard to imagine who’d be a good fit to move from us to them outside of Gutierrez and someone like Mastny or Mujica.
Say, how’d that eight-player Marlins/Tigers deal work out for the Tigers?
C’mon, the deal was for 3 prospects. Bonifacio has done nothing in the majors and little in the minors. We have prospects.
No. They regard Bonifacio as a major leaguer. Even if they think he’s a AAA player on the verge, who do we have like that in the MI? Who do we have like that at that cost, period?
Cabrera. Gutz. That’s about it.
You’re missing the forest for the trees anyway. The reason we didn’t want Olsen or Willingham is because were waiting for this deal to happen so that we can try to get some of the Marlins’ MI depth.
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