MVN - Most Valuable Network

2 Responses to “This Table is not Square”

1. Hoo says:
   

   July 2nd, 2008 at 11:15 am

   I think injuries are a valid excuse. I think only Guzman/Belliard are healthy and playing their same opening day positions. You have a lot of guys playing that aren’t ready (Hello Roger) or just filler (Casto).

   I’d like to see Dukes be a big question on your roundtable. He’s been redhot since that ST. Lous game in early June (320 AV/410 OBA and obviously power). If you leave aside his off-field issues, Dukes is the best OF in the organization. But you can’t ignore his volatile temper and odious past.

   I expect improvement over the latter half of the year b/c I think Kearns/Milledge will be better than they were in April-May. Anyone will be an improvement over Pena and if Dukes hits anything remotely like the last month, suddenly LF isn’t a gaping hole anymore.

   This year is a disaster but on the other hand, this year is better in the long-run than 2007. B/c this year you have questions answered either positively or negatively about your core players. You’re worried that the team will only spend money if they have 5 or 6 good players, but how far are we? Milledge, Zim, Dukes and Flores could be 4 of the 5 or 6 you mention (Which begs the question, are these players you could see on a playoff team?). Balester, Redding, Lannan could be a start to a competitve rotation with the chance that Bergman or Hill could join them.

   When I evaluate the future of a FB team, I always do it in terms of answering questions. I think the 2008 Nats team has anwered a lot more questions about the future than the 2007 team. So that’s progress of a sort.

   It’s just that many of those questions were answered in the negative, which is what you’d expect since the team hasn’t shelled out the money to answer a lot of those questions (ie Pena).

   I guess I see this year is seeing what players are ready to breakthrough and be real contributors instead of just marking time for the future.

   I’d like to see 2009 as the year where the question changes from “Can this guy be a regular solid contributor at the majors” to “Is this a guy who can be a contributor on a playoff contending team?”

   just random thoughts.

2. harper says:
   

   July 2nd, 2008 at 12:22 pm

   I agree that the injuries are valid reason for the play on the field, but they tend to act as a crutch for the management. “We would be winning BUT…” Some things though (1) No one knows that for a fact though, all we know is that the Nats are losing now, (2) injuries don’t make Nats lose, the Nats threadbare apporach to roster management makes the Nats lose. (3) doesn’t it seem the Nats handle injured players worse that other teams?

   This IS a better team that last years squad, screw the wins. It has more talent and more hope. All those guys you speak of could be contributers, good contributers I think the dismay is the beating down of sevearl mediocre years. Some just hate losing at anytime, others think (I’d say realize) the Nats didn’t have to suffer through these seasons in order to grow.

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