A Marlon Latte, Extra Foam

Now that I've had a time to delve into the stats, I'm ready to reconsider my snap judgement of the Marlon Anderson signing. And after reconsidering it, I'm standing by what I said. A few points.

1) Marlon Anderson is not a bad player; he's quite useful to an NL team. He has appeared to show talent as a pinch-hitter. (Although Bill "Lapdog" Ladson's assessment of him as a "Pinch-hitter extraordinaire" seems a bit much!)

2) He can play several positions, but it's important to point out that he's not especially adept at them. At second, he's passable -- a good stop-gap. But he's not really a true utility infielder. He's played nearly 5,000 defensive innings in his career. And how many of them were played at shortstop or third base? I'll give you a hint -- it's equal to the number of home runs that Jamey Carroll hit last year.

He can't replace Guzman, and he probably doesn't have the arm to fill in at third if Zimmerman were to move over to short. He's simply insurance for Jose Vidro's and Nick Johnson's inevitable injuries.

3) Nationals pinch-hitters stunk on ice last year. (Stats here) Tony Blanco was second on the team in PH ABs. That's pathetic.

Much of that was probably a result of Terrmel Sledge's injury. He would've been available to PH, or would have left an extra outfielder back as top PHer. Much of that also was a fact of Ryan Church's injury. He had several big pinch hits early in the season, including the game-winner against the Marlins that vaulted the Nationals into first place. But after he banged into that wall, he was doomed to wander into the desert for forty days or so, only to regain his form in the final weekend of the season.

4) Here's one that shocked me: Several Nationals batters have been solid PHers for their careers; they just slumped last year. If pinch-hitting is a talent (and I think there might be something to that, isn't their total career a better sample than the 20 or so ABs they had last year?)

Carlos Baerga: .292/ .365/ .405
Marlon Byrd: .321/ .355/ .500
Jamey Carroll: .346/ .414/ .365

They're far from perfect (and I realize that Baerga's not likely to repeat those numbers, since most of those are from when he was young and non-penguin-like.), but they're not as bad as they were last season.

Marlon Anderson, to compare: .308/ .365/ .479
That's excellent. It's hard to argue with that.

Much of that could be sample-size issues. I like Ball-Wonk's approach. He's discovered a valuable hitter already on our team, who had amazing production in 83 ABs, while flying under the radar!

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How much is a pinch-hitter worth though? Is $1 million on a team with just a $50 million payroll a bit much for someone who's only going to PH 50-70 times?

Yes, he's good at what he does, but he's also not young. And he's not cheap. And there are some pasable (but probably not as good) alternatives in-house. Since he's not much of a defensive player, what's wrong with paying Brendan Harris the league minimum, and giving him a crack? (He even had one of the team's PH homers!) What's wrong with trying to bring Jamey Carroll back, who's almost certainly to be non-tendered now? He doesn't have Anderson's power, but he gets on base, and can play anywhere on the IF in a pinch, unlike Anderson.

Now $1 million isn't going to kill the team, but given the team's needs, especially on the pitching side, wouldn't that money be better spent trying to bring Hector Carrasco back? Aren't the 60 innings of relief he'd provide more important than the 50 ABs of PHing? I'm not sure, but it seems like the difference between 60 innings of Carrasco compared to 60 innings of Darrel Rasner are greater than 70 ABs of Anderson compared to Jamey Carroll.

The Nationals are like a low-paid office worker. That Starbucks venti latte sure sounds awfully tasty in the morning, but when you're bringing home only $24K a year, can you really afford the $4.50? Is the coffee that much better (and more importantly the caffeine buzz) than the $1 cup from the gas station, or even the free cup of swill from the break room?

Marlon Anderson is the venti latte. If you're one of those fat-cat lobbyists, that latte is pretty damn tasty, and it barely makes a dent in your wallet.

But when you're the Nationals and you go for that venti latte every day, when it comes time to make a major purchase like a car or a house (or an outfielder or starting pitcher), you've gotta scrimp, and you wind up living in Waldorf or driving an (GASP!) American car.

I don't know about you, but I'd prefer to drive my Acura and drink the free swill.