Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Rule 5 Fun

Brian at Nationals Farm Authority takes a good look at the upcoming Rule 5 draft, throwing out some names and scouting reports of guys whom the Nats might be interested in.

One name he didn't list is one that's somewhat intriguing to me: Mark Johnson. Johnson was a minor-league free agent, and probably the best catcher available through the process. He signed with the Cardinals, but was left exposed to the draft. I have no idea whether the Nationals were interested in him in the first place, but if they were, his selection of St. Louis wouldn't be surprising, since, at the time of his signing, the Nats had two catchers, and the Cardinals were looking for a backup.

Now I'm not going to pretend that Johnson is particularly good. But he's left-handed. He's (essentially) freely available. And he had a pretty good year in the minors (Usual PCL warnings notwithstanding).

I don't know about his defense, but it can't be worse than Lo Duca's. And he would come at a fraction of the cost.

If there's someone on the board that the Nats like, I'd pass on him, and take my chances that he'd be around the second time through. If they select him, they could still sign a veteran free agent and give Flores more PT in the minors. Or they could live large and carry three catchers. (I hope not!)

We certainly expect big things from the Rule 5 draft. Flores is going to be a thorn on Mets fans' sides for years. And Luis Ayala was picked up that way. But for every success, there's Levale Speigner and Tony Flores. So every pick is its own little crapshoot.

So why not take a chance on a semi-disposable backup?

6 Comments:

  • Do you mean "Tony Blanco"?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/05/2007 10:03 PM  

  • Sounds like Nats could have got Jones for a two year deal?

    Nats could have had their CFer,a Left-hand bat/4th OF in Church and a LH C in Brian S......if only they were willing to spend the money for 2 years on Jones.

    I would think the Jones CF team beats the Millidge/Dukes CF team over the next two years by a lot and we could have even been looking at winning the division in 2009 if we had only focused on Starting Pitching and Jones in CF instead of Jimbo's obsessions with troubled head cases.

    By Blogger JayB, at 12/06/2007 5:44 AM  

  • I can't agree Jayb. Church and BS were never going to be keys to the future. They weren't even big players in this team, which really says something about them. At least Millidge and Dukes have the potential to be key players in the future. Jimbo can't look to win anything in the next 2 years, but in 3 or 4 you might have a team of young super stars.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/06/2007 5:55 AM  

  • Jimbo could look at winning earlier than 2011/12....last year Stan sure said they thought that they would be winning much sooner than people thought and surely before 2011......yet now they have jumped with both feet into an expansion team mind set. While that well might be OK with many of you it is much different than the PLAN v1.0

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/06/2007 6:08 AM  

  • I think what the change from Plan V1.0 to V.2.1 tells us that the 2007 season pointed out many things and one that Jimbo would never admit is that his “Core Pieces” evaluation was dead wrong.

    His view of Lopez, Kearns, BS, Patterson, Hill, Chad, Nick J as core building blocks was exposed in 2007. Actions speak louder than words here, which is a good thing, because getting jimbo's massive ego to admit he was wrong is a quite a task.

    By Blogger JayB, at 12/06/2007 6:29 AM  

  • I'm not quite seeing where the two steps back mentality is coming in. Shouldn't the outfield put up markedly better numbers this year? I mean, no more Langerhans.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12/06/2007 9:20 AM  

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