Monday, December 03, 2007

Another Deal!

Svrulga says that the Nats have traded (To Sutton's delight) Johnathon Albaladejo to the Yankees for Tyler Clippard.

Excellent, excellent move. The Nats' pen is loaded. Here's a quick list:

Cordero
Rauch
Rivera
Ayala
Colome
King

We're six deep and not even to Mr. Alba. He's got potential, but Bowden has shown time after time that he can dig up a reliever while blindfolded and with one finger up his nose.

Clippard turns just 23 and has a pretty solid track record in the minors, including an eye-popping 175 K in 2006 and 181 in 2005! For his career, he has 640 K in 609 minor-league innings, and he instantly becomes one of the Nats' best K pitchers.

Attention Female Nats fans and non-traditional Male Nats fans: Bonus shirtless pics of our new pitcher can be found here.

The more I think about it, the more I like it. He's got a live arm and decent control... what's not to like? I'm wondering what NY is thinking here.

  • Brian from NFA raised a good point. One of the things that makes this trade a steal is how they acquired Albaladejo -- he's someone they plucked from the Pirates on a waiver claim (might've been a pure release?). In other words, they got him for nothing, and traded him for something of value. That's how you fill a system with talent.

    Clippard probably immediately becomes the team's best advanced pitching prospect.

    • posted by Chris Needham at 11:38 PM

    26 Comments:

    • What's not to like? He was arrested in high school for drunk driving! He's a thug! He's a reprobate! He's a bad human being! The Nationals are on their way to acquiring an All-Gangster lineup!

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/04/2007 12:04 AM  

    • I'm working under the assumption that that's satire. ;)

      By Blogger Chris Needham, at 12/04/2007 12:08 AM  

    • Well, the DUI thing's totally legit, but the rest was satire. Oh, yes, it was definitely satire.

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/04/2007 12:11 AM  

    • Holy f***ing s**t!!!

      Does that resemble your reaction at all Chris?

      If I was ever skeptical about the plan before, they just made a believer out of me. Even though all the talk is about Santana right now, the Nats are absolutely dominating the trade market. If these Winter Meetings don't get Boswell to write about the Nats, then he should just be fired.

      By Blogger Michael Taylor, at 12/04/2007 12:12 AM  

    • Shhhh! Keep quiet and stop swearing! You'll wake up Boz. He's napping with Coach Joe.

      By Blogger Chris Needham, at 12/04/2007 12:14 AM  

    • HOLY SHIT, A COUP!!!

      By Blogger (j)on, at 12/04/2007 12:17 AM  

    • Please, who among us hasn't been arrested for underaged DUI, excessively celebrated a major league homerun and engaged in a campaign of cell phone-based harassment and intimidation?

      This is America people! Let he who is without a rap sheet cast the first stone! Besides, I have it on good authority that Albaladejo shaves kittens and attempts to pass them off as hypoallergenic. Is that really the kind of influence we want in our bullpen?

      By Blogger Nate, at 12/04/2007 12:18 AM  

    • Actually, it's not that much of a coup. Clippard looked way overmatched against Major League hitters. He's a junkball pitcher without a plus fastball and relies on hitting spots. He could turn out to be good, but he's a middle-of-the-rotation NL pitcher at best. This was a trade of a spare part for a spare part. Don't let his Minor League numbers seduce you like they did to us Yankee fans.

      By Blogger Ben K., at 12/04/2007 12:32 AM  

    • I'd trade the 5th reliever in my pen for a middle-of-the-order starting pitcher just about any chance I get.

      The team needs starters MUCH more than it needs relievers. In that sense, it's an excellent deal for the Nats, even if he only ends up being a 4th starter type.

      By Blogger Chris Needham, at 12/04/2007 12:34 AM  

    • Chris: Agreed. And I like your point about getting something for what was in effect nothing. Bowden's doing some good work the last few days.

      By Blogger Ben K., at 12/04/2007 12:41 AM  

    • PECOTA says some interesting things about him.

      His weighted mean ERA for the next 4 years hovers around 4.85 or so.

      Most comparable pitchers are Anibal Sanchez in 2006 and (gasp) John Patterson in 2000.

      At his very best, his projected ERA only would be 4.0 or so.

      Still, he'll be a cheap, decent solution and we need some capable inning-eaters.

      By Blogger Michael Taylor, at 12/04/2007 12:45 AM  

    • 4.00 would be excellent, but seems high at first blush.

      But then, he IS getting out of the AL East. And out of the AL itself. That's probably worth half a run over what we'd expect.

      150 innings of 4.00 ball is a hell of a lot better than 120 innings of whatever the hell Bacsik does!

      By Blogger Chris Needham, at 12/04/2007 12:47 AM  

    • Again though, 4.0 is the rosiest possible scenario (90th percentile). The 50th percentile is around 4.85 or so, so he's really projected to be more like a poor man's Kyle Lohse or Livan Hernandez rather than anything better. Unfortunately, because he's a rookie, we really won't let him eat that many innings next year (if we're smart) which sort of limits his utility.

      By Blogger Michael Taylor, at 12/04/2007 12:58 AM  

    • I can't remember... PECOTA numbers aren't neutral, right? That's what they project him to do in Yankee Stadium?

      If so, we're looking at low 4s, which is quite valuable.

      As far as the innings-eating, if he can go 6 consistently, we'll be fine. The only SP who worked deep into games was Bergmann, and that wasn't really much.

      They DO need to do something to reduce the strain on Saul and Rauch before one or the other implodes.

      By Blogger Chris Needham, at 12/04/2007 1:01 AM  

    • We did sign Albaladejo as an amateur free agent on May 3, 2007, two weeks after the Pirates released him

      http://www.baseball-reference.com/a/albaljo01.shtml

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/04/2007 2:10 AM  

    • It is interesting to see that Yankee fans do not seem overly upset about this trade. They are so spoiled with the depth of talent that they have that they see Clippard as having fallen off their radar. Last year he was their #7 prospect, and somebody now ahead of him in their minds could have a bad year. Regardless, since at this very moment (and Yankee fans are only ever thinking of now), Clippard's stock fell some, they wish him a fond goodbye.

      We'll take it. You are making more and more believers, Mr. Bowden.

      By Blogger Positively Half St., at 12/04/2007 7:01 AM  

    • I am assuming you saw the 'props' you got on ESPN.com?

      http://insider.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=3140455&name=Neyer_Rob

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/04/2007 8:28 AM  

    • Chris, congrats on the espn.com plug.

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/04/2007 9:02 AM  

    • it's deals like this that resurrect bowden and company in my eyes when i'm ready to tear my hair out over deals like the one for elijah dukes.

      he does a pretty damned good job getting something from nothing. the only trades i really haven't liked are the ones where we acted in reverse of our MO, i.e., trading a guy like izturis for guillen.

      bottom line - take a AAA spare part (signed for nothing) and spin into a potential ML contributor who only happens to be 23 = perfect deal for this team

      By Blogger DCPowerGator, at 12/04/2007 9:54 AM  

    • Chris -- congrats on the espn plug. But can you tell me why you're not wild about Nelson:

      "Capitol Punishment's Chris Needham has the scouting report on minor-league pitcher Glenn Gibson. Needham's not wild about Nelson, but he's even less wild about Dukes."

      Who the hell is Nelson and what did he ever do to you?

      Also, don't forget to add Schroder in the bullpen mix. He had a pretty solid year last year and I expect more of the same, if not better in '08.

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/04/2007 10:27 AM  

    • Did the Nats resign Ray King?

      He was traded in September, but Chris's initial blog entry lists King in the Nat pen. What were the contract terms?

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/04/2007 10:37 AM  

    • Few posts down... non-gauranteed $850K contract. Unless he's completely terrible, he's coming north. The Nats don't really have any other LHP options.

      By Blogger Chris Needham, at 12/04/2007 10:38 AM  

    • Everybody Sutton can't pronounce gets gone.

      "Don, our catcher is SCHNEIDER not Snyder."
      "Yeah, whatever. Snyder's the man."
      "We'll get rid of him."
      "Good, now what about that Albaladoohickey guy? I got no chance there?"
      "Good as gone."
      "Cool. So let's talk about that Charpintay guy, the one I share the booth with - I'm struggling with his name, too."

      By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/04/2007 11:14 AM  

    • Good move. Anytime you can flip a reliever (unless he's the caliber of a Mariano Rivera) for decent a starting pitcher, you've won the battle.

      By Blogger Unknown, at 12/04/2007 1:41 PM  

    • One of the things that makes this trade a steal is how they acquired Albaladejo -- he's someone they plucked from the Pirates on a waiver claim (might've been a pure release?).

      It was, in fact, a release, and there was absolutely no reason for it - dude wasn't even on the 40-man roster. They cut him to make room on the AA roster for Mike Nannini. Completely irresponsible, and typical of Dave Littlefield.

      Charlie
      http://bucsdugout.com

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