Werth is determined, not bitter

WASHINGTON — Let’s not get it twisted, Jayson Werth is not bitter. Who gets bitter about signing a $126 million, no-trade contract? In this economy and with the unemployment rate near 10 percent, Werth can work for seven more years before cashing out. In fact, with the right money manager, Werth’s young children can retire, too.

Bitter? C’mon… he’s not stupid. Early on during the 2010 season Werth told us he was going to test the free-agent market and go for the best deal out there and that’s exactly what he did. Werth wanted to get paid like his former teammates Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Roy Halladay and the rest of the players on the Phillies who were taken care of by management. Instead, he had to go somewhere else for that big contract.

The Phillies reportedly had just a three-year deal worth $16 million per season for him when Werth hit the open market.

Nevertheless, Werth is also a pretty competitive dude. No one gets to the big leagues and slugs 13 postseason home runs by accident or by tricking people. Moreover, not many ballplayers accomplish what Werth has so soon after his career was nearly over.

So if you want to know what this is all about, it’s the injury. It’s the sitting at home during the 2006 season with nobody knocking at the door or ringing the phone. It’s about the misdiagnosis of a wrist injury that forced Werth out of desperation to trudge up to Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic with one last chance to save his career. A person can almost hear music in Werth’s voice when he describes how specialist Dr. Richard Berger figured out the injury was a ulnotriquetral ligament split.

He hasn’t been the same since.

Yes, that’s why Werth took the seven years from lowly Washington instead of the three from Philadelphia.

“A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this,” Werth said. “Obviously the years were important to me. The chance to come to a city, guaranteed to be here for a long time, the no-trade was a big deal for me. I have a chance to set my family up for years to come here.”

It’s hard to fault a guy for thinking like that. However, Werth is not without his pride. Baseball is his job for goshsakes. Sure it’s fun and a remarkable way to make an obscene amount of money, but Werth isn’t messing around out there. He wants to perform well, win games and celebrate at the end of the season. Looking for examples? OK, how about when he hit that home run against the Yankees in the World Series at the Bank, slammed his bat down and yelled into the Phillies’ dugout?

Or what about Game 4 of the 2008 World Series when Werth hit a homer in the eighth inning and circled the bases with a fist in the air. He looked as if he could feel the championship ring being placed on his finger right then. Of course there was that incident with the kid and his father in right field last year, too… didn’t they know Werth thought he could stretch into the stands beyond his reach to catch a foul ball? Didn’t they know ballplayers use those types of words when things don’t go their way?

If anything, the pride aspect of Werth’s personality is what makes the move to Washington puzzling even when factoring in the $126 million. That’s especially so when listening to him speak on Wednesday afternoon at his new ballpark.

“I’ve been in the postseason a lot the last couple of years,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about. That’s what you play for. That’s what you work out for. That's what you get to spring training early for. I hate to lose. I’m here to win.”

That task didn’t seem so daunting when Werth first signed the deal. After all, the Phillies were basically the same team that fell short in 2010 minus their everyday right fielder. Then the Cliff Lee thing happened and everything changed.

“They got their boy back, I guess,” Werth said. 

Yes they did and it wasn’t Jayson Werth. Instead he was allowed to run off much like Aaron Rowand, a player who signed with San Francisco for a lot of years and a lot of dollars because the view from management was that his stats were enhanced by Citizens Bank Park and the Phillies’ lineup. Maybe that’s where the twinge of bitterness might come in for Werth.

No, he wasn’t double-crossed, but he wasn’t really needed, either.

That’s not the case in Washington, though. Instead, GM Mike Rizzo submitted on nearly every point to Werth and his agent Scott Boras. From the Nats, Werth got big money, a huge length of the contract and a no-trade clause on top of it all with promises of more players to come. Actually, the undercurrent from the Nats’ view was that Werth was the first one onboard and the one who gives them credibility with other potential ballplayers.

That’s the sense “No Discounts” Boras gets, too.

“When Jayson signed, the first thing (players) all asked me was, ‘Oh, so Washington's stepping up? They’re taking those steps? They’re looking to win now?’” Boras said. “In the player community, when you gain that kind of street credit, you have taken a huge step as far as what players will look at your organization, and how they’ll look at it differently.”

It’s not going to happen overnight, though, but Werth hammered home the theme that promises were made.

“The thing about this team is, I think there's some pieces of the puzzle that could be put together and make this team a winner,” Werth said. “I was assured by the Lerner family and Mike Rizzo that they’re going to take steps needed to go get those players and fill the roster accordingly—not with just anybody, but the right-talented guy and the right mix, the person that will make the clubhouse a good place. That was important to me, and that was one of the things that led me to sign here.”

No, that doesn’t sound like a bitter guy at all. Actually, it sounds like a guy with a lot of pride and a hunger to lift the Nats to the top of the standings.

“He doesn’t like losing. I certainly don’t like losing,” Rizzo said. “My job is to put a winner on the field, and we’re hell-bent on doing that.”

It’s not going to be easy, though. After all, Jayson Werth can’t pitch.

Nationals go familiar route, but can Werth lead the way?

Stick around baseball long enough and you’re bound to hear something new every once in a while. That is the beauty of it, after all. Nothing stays the same, which is good because it chases away the boredom. Still, it was a remarkable thing to hear some of things Roy Halladay said just about a year ago.

“This is where we wanted to be,” Halladay said during last December’s introductory press conference at Citizens Bank Park. “It was an easy decision for me.”

Halladay just didn’t say it that one time either. Oh yes, the big right-hander made it point to drive home his point that more than anywhere else, he wanted to be in Philadelphia.

My, how far we have come.

“He did say that his was the place where he wanted to be,” general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. pointed out the day the Halladay trade went down. “A player of his caliber saying that? I’m not sure [if that’s happened].”

Remember how it used to be, though? Ballplayers used to go out of their way to avoid our fair city. Some even had it written into their contracts that they could be traded anywhere in the world as long as it wasn’t to Philadelphia. Then there was J.D. Drew and Scott Rolen, for whatever reasons, needed to play anywhere else. In fact, with Rolen it was turned into something personal instead of what it really was…

He was sick of losing.

But even Rolen admitted that in order for the Phillies to get to the level they enjoy now where players like Roy Halladay beg to be sent here, he was the one who had to go. See, before the 2002 season then general manager Ed Wade reportedly offered Rolen a deal that he would still be playing out. Oh sure, with Rolen at third base and healthy, the Phillies never would have had David Bell, Wes Helms, Abraham Nunez, Pedro Feliz or Placido Polanco. Chances are they would be trying to find someone take the last few years of the 10-year, $140 million that was said to be offered.

See, it was OK that the Phillies had a veritable revolving door at third base because that meant players had changed their minds about going to Philadelphia. Plus, 10-year contract aside, if Rolen had taken the deal, he said.

“If I would have stayed there, there was no way they would have gotten Thome,” Rolen told me during a conversation at old Yankee Stadium in 2003. “They might have been able to get [Kevin] Millwood, but there's no way they would have been able to have Thome and me on the same team.”

Jim Thome was the linchpin. Without Thome there is no Cliff Lee or Pedro Martinez. Without Cliff Lee there is no Roy Halladay. Without Rolen, Bobby Abreu and those not-quite-ready ball players, the Phillies don’t get the draft picks for Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell or Ryan Howard.

Still, it was Thome who made all the difference… Thome and that crazy six-year deal worth $85 million that just came off the books last year.

“We needed to do something at the time,” Rollins said. “He brought excitement back to Philly baseball.”

More than that, Thome was the secret to the formula. Getting the future Hall of Famer to agree to a six-year deal even though he would have preferred to stay in Cleveland sent a message to the rest of baseball that the Phillies were serious about being serious. Sure, it might have been the best contract, but that $85 million looks pretty cheap these days.

“At that point he was the most-coveted and the best player during the off-season and we really made a push to get him to Philadelphia,” Amaro said last December. “I really believe, honestly, that put us over the hump.”

Yes, getting that one player can have a trickle-down effect. It’s like a snowball that rolls downhill and turns into a runaway behemoth by the time it gets to the bottom.

“He came at kind of the right time for all our kids," Amaro said. “The Rollinses and Utleys and those guys weren’t quite coming into their prime and we’re fortunate to have those guys, with Ryan Howard, step up and come into their own. … All those guys didn’t get to their primes until after Jimmy was gone, but he certainly helped legitimize what we were trying to do.”

So is that what the Washington Nationals are attempting to do with Jayson Werth? No doubt the seven years and $126 million makes the Thome deal look like tip money, but is Werth the kind of guy a team uses to draw the others to town?

That is the $126 million question.

Let’s get it out of the way right here… Jayson Werth is no Jim Thome. Not even close. Sure, Werth is popular with the stat geeks and is certainly a better fielder than Thome was, but as far as the whole package goes, no, not in the same ballpark. Thome is revered by teammates, coaches and the press. He is a leader whose words carry weight in the clubhouse. Werth is an acquired taste. Sure, he’s a tireless worker and has a lot of friends in the clubhouse, but in certain circles he can be merely tolerated.

Jayson Werth is a piece teams like the Phillies add, not a centerpiece to be built around like the Nationals say they are going to do.

“He’ll be a centerpiece of our ballclub on the field and in the clubhouse,” Nats GM Mike Rizzo said to The Washington Post. “It kind of exemplifies Phase 2 of the Washington Nationals’ process. Phase 1 was a scouting-and-player development, build-the-farm-system type of program. We feel that we’re well on our way of doing that. We feel that now, it's the time to go to this second phase and really compete for division titles and championships.”

Rizzo isn’t laying out an unfamiliar program. In fact, it is the program to build a winning team. It’s the same one the Phillies relied on many times in their history, like when they got Thome or Pete Rose before the 1979 season. Not only were they deals that resonated in terms of the finances (Rose got $3.2 million for four years), but they changed the way everyone saw the franchise.

They changed the culture of the organization.

Werth is doing that in Washington, but he’s not going to be able to do it all by himself. Ryan Zimmerman will be by Werth’s side until at least 2013, and ace of the future Stephen Strasburg should be recovered from Tommy John surgery in time for the 2012 season. The ETA on last summer’s top pick of the draft, Bryce Harper, could be 2012, too. But there are still many question marks that go with prospects. If Werth is going to be what the Nats expect, the Lerner family (owners of the club) need to spend some more cash.

Werth’s close friend Cliff Lee would be a good place to start.

“I think in a short time, we’re going to surprise a lot of people,” Werth told The Washington Post. “I’ve been given a lot of assurance by the Lerner family and by Mike that we’re going to go after some guys that are going to make a difference, that are going to put this team where it needs to be. . . . I came here to win.”

Hey, maybe Werth is the man to build a club around. Why not? He's a young 31, a former first-round pick who has been to the top of the game with the Phillies and nearly quit a few years ago when he was unsure if his injuries would clear up. He's from a baseball family in which his grandfather and uncle spent a combined 33 years in the majors, and his dad played 11 pro seasons with a cup of coffee with the Yankees and Royals in the early 1980s. Yes, Werth has a baseball education, but can he pass it on?

Give Rizzo, the Lerners and the Nats credit for taking big risks. After all, there is a chance Strasburg never comes back at all and playing in a city that is rather ambivalent about its third crack at a big league franchise, the future of the team very well could be on the precipice.

Think about it… Washington is a two-time loser in baseball, yet when the Expos where no longer right for Montreal, MLB insisted on giving the city a third shot. Worse, they stuck it to the overburdened taxpayers of D.C. and forced them to build a ballpark that no one goes to. So yes, there is plenty of culture to change for Werth and his young sidekicks.

The future of the team could depend on it because Washington could be a three-time loser with baseball with a guarantee that there will not be a fourth chance.

Nats pay what others wouldn't to ink Werth

To properly understand the deal that sent Jayson Werth to the lowly Washington Nationals after spending the past five of his last six seasons in the playoffs, there is only one number that matters.

Seven.

That’s seven years with $126 million tied to it for a player who has been in one All-Star Game as an injury substitute and played just two seasons as an everyday player. In fact, it wasn’t until veteran Geoff Jenkins got injured that Werth finally got a shot to be the starting right fielder for the Phillies.

Now, he’s the centerpiece of the Nationals' offense after the team’s brass decided to let slugger Adam Dunn take a four-year, $56 million deal with the Chicago White Sox. Dunn, in comparison, has belted at least 38 home runs and driven in 92 RBIs for seven straight seasons. Moreover, Dunn is a 10-year vet who is actually younger than Werth.

So just what is it that general manager Mike Rizzo and the Nationals are trying to do? Or, is this the type of deal that solidifies Scott Boras as the agent most able to deliver the bottom line? More importantly, what’s the difference between a three year deal worth $16 million per season like the one CSNPhilly’s Jim Salisbury reported, and the $18 million Werth will get from the Nationals?

Surely those playoff shares make up the difference along with the idea of building a legacy as one of the few men to help the Phillies win the World Series.

Still, $126 million for seven years. Seven years!

“It is an elite player,” Rizzo said at a news conference from the Winter Meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. “Elite players get a lot of money.”

In that regard, Werth and Rizzo are both shortsighted. After all, Werth isn’t exactly an elite player. At least he is not compared to Matt Holliday, whose contract with the Cardinals served as a model for the one Boras and Werth sought. Sure, Werth had strong numbers in categories favored by devotees to advanced metrics, posting a .921 OPS, .532 slugging percentage, .296 batting average and led the league with 46 doubles. But those numbers seemed to ring hollow. In 2010, Werth was incredibly streaky and certainly benefitted from batting behind Ryan Howard in the Phillies’ lineup.

Despite a favorable spot in the batting order, Werth hit a league-worst .186 with runners in scoring position and .136 with runners in scoring position and two outs. As a result, Werth was the poster boy of a July slump that saw the Phillies sink to 48-46 and fire hitting coach Milt Thompson. During a four-game series in Chicago to start the second half, Werth went 2-for-14 with nine strikeouts. He whiffed without even moving the bat off his shoulder in five of his first seven hitless at-bats.

Regardless, who would have thought Werth would be in this position when general manager Pat Gillick plunked him off the scrap heap before the 2007 season? When Gillick signed him in December of 2006, it was a move that slipped under the radar. The acquisitions of Abraham Nunez and Wes Helms rightfully made more news that winter.

Werth did nothing to change that in 2007 when he nursed injuries and appeared in just 94 games after missing all of 2006. Shane Victorino, a former teammate of Werth’s with the Dodgers and Phillies, remembered talking to Werth during his season spent adrift where the talk was about giving up.

“I remember him calling me in 2006 and telling, ‘Hey, I’m on a boat and I’m battling my wrist injury and it hasn’t gotten better and I don’t know if I’ll ever play again.’ He said that. That’s crazy,” Victorino said. “He was so frustrated with his wrist injury that he doubted it would ever get better. And now to see where he is today, I’m happy for the guy. I’m overly happy for the guy. Whatever he goes out and gets he deserves.”

Of course, that’s the player in Victorino talking. Rival general managers around the league are undoubtedly shaking their heads at the Nationals’ largesse. According to the Newark Star-Ledger, new Mets GM Sandy Alderson scoffed at the announcement.

“It makes some of our contracts look pretty good,” Alderson said. “That's a long time and a lot of money. I thought they were trying to reduce the deficit in Washington.”

Moreover, deep-pocketed teams like the Yankees and Red Sox quickly backed away from pursuit of Werth when they learned what he and Boras were after.

Perhaps it was postseason abilities that got Werth the big cheese? After all, in 2008 Werth was so good during the playoffs the Phillies let Pat Burrell walk away because they had a capable right-handed bat to put in the lineup behind Howard and Utley.

 Then, when doubters wondered if he could handle the rigors of playing the full slate of games in 2009, he belted 36 homers, got 99 RBIs and made the All-Star team.

“When he first came here, he came here with a lot of talent. Pat Gillick always liked him, and he definitely was the one that kind of like wanted him and kind of persuaded him to like to come with us,” manager Charlie Manuel said. “It took him a while to really, I think, adjust to our team and really kind of get things going. I think that he was like he needed to play. He hadn't played in like a year, year and a half or something. And once he got started, he earned a spot and he actually beat Geoff Jenkins out of right field. He earned a spot to play, and he definitely enjoys playing here. He’s been a solid player for us, and he's got a ton of ability.”

Certainly postseason ability probably won’t matter in 2011 since Werth is joining a young team that rated in the bottom half in the league of every offensive category and just allowed a younger, perennial 40-homer slugger walk away. Worse, Werth joins a team that hasn’t had a winning season since 2003, when it was playing in Montreal, in a city that has not fielded a baseball team with a winning record since 1969.

The last World Series played in Washington, D.C. was 1933 when the first version of the Senators lost to the New York Giants. The city had a winner in 1924 when Walter Johnson came on in relief to beat the Giants in 12 innings of Game 7.

Then again, a lot can change in seven years. Back when the Phillies were battling mediocrity, it took a six-year, $86 million deal to Jim Thome to get folks to take them seriously. Plus, with phenom pitcher Stephen Strasburg expected to return from Tommy John surgery in 2012, a season that could be the arrival time for 2010 No. 1 draft pick Bryce Harper, the Nats could be building toward something.

Whether they get there with Werth, of course, is the big question. 

Strasburg's injury hurts more than Nationals

It’s no fun celebrating cautionary tales or being a cynic. No one with any semblance of tact or class wants to be the “told-you-so” guy or the jackass always pointing out the mistakes of others. There’s too much of that as it is.

It would have been fun to witness greatness for a change. No, not the drug-fueled superhuman feats of strength that defined baseball just a short time ago, but instead we long for pure, unbridled skill and talent. A right arm touched by the gods, for lack of better hyperbole.

So with the news that Stephen Strasburg, the once-in-a-lifetime pitching phenom for the Washington Nationals, would likely have to undergo Tommy John surgery to fix that right arm, well, the cynicism rang hollow.

No one wanted the kid to get hurt. Not the players on the Phillies, manager Charlie Manuel or any real fans of the game. Yeah, the Phillies have six games remaining against the Nationals and will likely be fighting for a playoff spot in those games, so not having to face a pitcher like Strasburg is key. In his lone appearance against the Phillies, which was also the game where the “significant tear” of the ligament holding his elbow together was too much to bear, the pitcher dominated. He allowed two hits in 4 1/3 innings without a walk to go with six strikeouts. Noting that he had three mediocre outings in a row leading up to the game against the Phillies, the first four innings of the game were promising.

Manuel, who said he was looking forward to seeing the kid pitch against his team in the days leading up to the game, was pleased to report that the hype matched the skill. Even Ryan Howard, who got one of the hits against Strasburg, walked away impressed.

“He has an easy 98-mph fastball and a great hammer. He’s really good, though it’s like some of us said — the media took it and ran with it,” Howard said. “To his credit, he’s handled it all pretty well.”

Easy. That was the word a lot of players used when talking about Strasburg’s pitching motion. It seemed as if he wasted very little energy before throwing the ball 100-mph. He also had that hammer—the curve ball from hell—that had the makings of becoming the best pitch in the game.

That is if it wasn’t already.

Then he reportedly heard a “pop” in his elbow and got scared. Obviously, that pop resonated pretty loudly because it conjured up names and tales of haunted glory and unfilled promise. As quickly as one of those fastballs old names were bandied about. And as skewed as the angle on his curve, opinion came from mouth breathers of satellite radio and the floor of Congress. Actually, you could set your watch to it. Todd Van Poppel, David Clyde, Brien Taylor, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood should be starring in beer commercials any day for as much as they have been talked about lately. Talk about a Q rating…

Or maybe we should say, gentlemen, start your second-guessing. Based on watching Strasburg pitch in the minors, his major league debut and his final big league start, the kid was treated as if he were a Ming vase since signing with the Nats last year. Even in the minors Strasburg had an entourage of major league public relations people setting up the velvet ropes around the meal ticket. Moreover, his outings were monitored as if they were science experiments with strict pitch counts and plenty of rest.

If there was one pitcher who should not have gotten hurt it was Strasburg. After all, there were all those ex-big leaguers who said the kid was being babied too much. He needed to toughen up and pitch more.

Oops.

“It's frustrating, because this happens to people you think it shouldn't happen to,” Nats GM Mike Rizzo told The Washington Post. “This player was developed and cared for the correct way. Things like this happen. Pitchers break down. Pitchers get hurt. We're satisfied with the way he was developed. I know [Strasburg's agent] Scott Boras was satisfied with the way he's been treated, and Stephen is also. We're good with that. Frustrated, yes. Second-guessing ourselves, no.”

The silver lining is that Tommy John surgery is very common. There are plenty of players on every team in the big leagues that have undergone the operation, which more and more seems like one of those milestones pitchers have to cross…

The minors, a big league debut, arbitration, free agency and Tommy John. Not necessarily in that order.

There’s also a chance that when Strasburg returns in April of 2012 that his fastball will be faster than it was before. The drawback is it will take him some time to regain the feel for his curveball, but the fastball will be OK. Besides, there were nine players in the All-Star Game that had Tommy John surgery: Chris Carpenter, Tim Hudson, Josh Johnson, Arthur Rhodes, Brian Wilson, Joakim Soria, Hong-Chih Kuo, Rafael Soriano and Billy Wagner.

Is baseball doomed in D.C.?
The problem isn’t the surgery, it’s the recovery. It’s not the process, either, but the time. In baseball, like any other corporate structure, time is money. Considering that Strasburg wasn’t just the ace of the Nats, but also The Franchise, it’s fair to ask if baseball in Washington can weather this storm. Yes, Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman are good ballplayers, and Josh Willingham is having a tremendous season while Nyjer Morgan could become a solid leadoff man. But those guys weren’t putting the butts in the seats.

Only the Pirates and Marlins averaged fewer fans per game than the Nationals amongst National League teams, and even in Strasburg’s last home start just 21,695 fans turned out—a good 2,000 below the team’s average per game.

So even with Strasburg was baseball viable in Washington?

Think about it… Washington is a two-time loser in baseball, yet when the Expos where no longer right for Montreal, MLB insisted on giving the city a third shot. Worse, they stuck it to the overburdened taxpayers of D.C. and forced them to build a ballpark that no one goes to.

Now it could be a career-threatening arm injury to cause a section of Southeast D.C. to go back to its pre-Nationals Park form, while the franchise moves on to Portland, Charlotte, Las Vegas or maybe even Monterrey, Mexico. We’ll start using names like Brien Taylor, David Clyde and Todd Van Poppel. We’ll tell more cautionary tales only to go back to believing the hype with the next kid with an arm that supersedes his years.

Washington could be a three-time loser with baseball, which only guarantees that there will not be a fourth chance.

“He’s going to be a tremendous pitcher,” Manuel said. “He has to stay healthy, though.”

Stay healthy because only the entire franchise is depending on it.

Going long on Strasburg

WASHINGTON — There were so many unique moments during the major league pitching debut of pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg that it’s hard to settle on one that was the best. Sure, that 100-mph fastball and breathtaking curve were otherworldly and maybe even the filthiest pitches in the league right now, but we knew about those things coming into Tuesday night’s game.

OK, maybe we didn’t know how good those pitches were beforehand. Last month when Strasburg was pitching for Double-A Harrisburg at Reading, his repertoire of pitches was not as good as the stuff he had on Tuesday night. In other words, the kid is getting better.

Still, the moments that stood out the most to me all involved Pirates outfielder Delwyn Young.

Young, 28, spent his first full season in the majors last season where he slugged seven homers with 43 RBIs in 124 games. This season Young has been used as a second baseman and a right fielder where he has appeared in 43 of the Pirates’ 58 games, posting modest to poor stats. The most subpar amongst those numbers is the four walks and the .275 on-base percentage mostly coming from a guy who gets most of his plate appearances batting out of the No. 7 spot in the order.

At least when he doesn’t come off the bench.

Nevertheless, Young’s legacy as a ballplayer just might come down to his two-run homer in the fourth inning off Strasburg at Nationals Park on Tuesday night. It was that shot into the first row of the right-field seats that were marked down not just for the first home run off the kid, but also as the first two runs.

Now the interesting part wasn’t the home run itself as much as it was the machinations behind it. For instance, Young belted just the 13th homer of his career and his third of the season simply by dropping the bat head on a pitch that was thigh high. In the instances where such a swing sends the ball into the seats, the pitcher typically has thrown a fastball in a spot where the equipment, not the ferocity of the swing, does the damage.

Obviously, Strasburg could become prone to allowing homers since his 100-mph fastball supplies all the power.

But the thing about the homer Young hit off him was that it came on Strasburg’s changeup. Make that a 91-mph changeup, but a changeup nonetheless.

Often, a pitcher’s changeup is only as good as his fastball. With guys like Cole Hamels, Johan Santana and Pedro Martinez, three pitchers with the best changeups ever, the most important part is that all of those guys could bring the heat into the mid-90s. When they throw the change there is a significant difference for the hitter looking at a pitch going 95 to 85. In fact, often that difference is crippling to hitters. Pedro is known as one of the greatest pitchers in history because of that drop-off in velocity between pitches.

But when a guy throws one 100-mph and comes back with a 91-mph changeup, the difference is somewhat negligible. Only a good guess will help a hitter against a fastball as rapid as Strasburg’s, while his changeup is more like a pedestrian fastball. If he misses with a changeup like he did with Young in the fourth inning, he’s going to get hurt.

So if there is a flaw in his pitches it’s that Strasburg’s changeup is way too fast.

The other interesting part of Strasburg’s debut was that the media presence dwarfed that at the Wachovia Center for the Stanley Cup Final. Both ESPN and the MLB Network did pre- and post-game shows from the field, including a segment on ESPN that featured Young on the set still in uniform after the game. Strasburg was so good that the one guy to interview from the Pirates was the guy who walked into a bad pitch and hit it out. Had it been Strasburg’s fastball instead of his changeup, it’s doubtful Young would have been asked to sit with the ESPN crew.

The final intriguing part about Tuesday’s game was what happened after Young hit the homer. From that spot in the game, Strasburg faced 10 hitters and retired them all. He got eight of those outs on strikeouts including whiffs against the final seven hitters of the game.

Yes, it was Young that forced Strasburg to stop goofing around with pitches like 91-mph changeups when it was clear no one could hit the 100-mph heater and wiffle ball-like hammer.

There’s your moment Delwyn Young. Enjoy Pittsburgh.

The Big Train returns to Washington

WASHINGTON — Like most people, I love a good party. In fact, the only thing better than a good party is a great story. After all, a story is a gift that keeps on giving each time it’s retold and in the end aren’t stories all we have?

You know… something saccharine sweet like that.

Anyway, in the sports media business they combine the two with things called “events.” The All-Star Game is an event and so are the league championships, though with the late start times for the games they are much more festive for others. Truth is, the craziest time I ever had at a World Series was when I ordered up a 4 a.m. wake-up call for Kevin Roberts. He repaid me with a gift of a muscle contusion following a punch to the brachial plexus.

The jerk.

Nevertheless, the traveling circus known as The Stephen Strasburg Experience finally settled in The District after a two-month tour of exotic locales to places like Altoona, Reading, Norwich, New Britain and Harrisburg. Unfortunately, Strasburg made it away from City Island in Harrisburg where the flying insects are known to take up residence during the summer months. Some of those big bugs have been known to have pets, like puppies or ponies.

If a pitcher can spend a summer at City Island and survive, places like Nationals Park or any other big league outpost is a breeze.

Yet without that experience we’re all buckled in to see the second coming of Walter Johnson, which in Washington is pretty significant. See, baseball in Washington has been flirting with becoming a three-time loser since the National League club from Montreal pulled up stakes and set up on the banks of the muddy Anacostia. Past versions of the Washington Major League Baseball Club found better futures in St. Paul, Minnesota and Arlington, Texas while some have argued that things weren’t all that worse when the team was called the Expos.

Indeed, we might have to go back to when Johnson pitched Washington to the World Series in back-to-back seasons in 1924 and 1925 to find a player who has meant as much to the survival of baseball in The District as young Strasburg. Johnson’s career ended after the 1927 season and the franchise hung around for 33 more seasons after that.

Actually, Johnson was as good as it got for baseball in D.C. He was born in Kansas, went to high school in California, but was so beloved (schools and parks were named in his honor) in Washington that he remained there until his death in 1946. After The Big Train retired in ’27, the three different Washington franchises finished in first place in 1933, second place in 1930 and 1943, and never came closer than that since. Get this: Johnson won 417 games in his 21 seasons in the majors and still the Senators only made it to the World Series twice. In 1913 when Johnson won 36 games, the Senators came in second place with just 90 wins. That comes to 40 percent of the team's wins.

That’s so amazing it makes one’s head spin.

And that might only begin to explain why the sports world is focused on a Tuesday night matchup between the Nationals and Pirates. It’s not merely the debut of a pitcher paid $15 million for just signing his name to a piece of paper or the promise of a kid with a right arm so explosive it can hurl a baseball more than 100-mph with a curve ball that leaves grown men in a cowering mess while begging not to be forced to hold a bat ever again. This Strasburg kid—still just 21—is moving history. It’s as if he’s powered the flux capacitor and completely erased the entire time/space continuum. 

Or, if Washington and baseball are not transformed by a kid born in San Diego the same day as when Michael Dukakis was accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for President, we’ll all take the easy road and label it the biggest failure in baseball. A career-threatening arm injury could cause a section of Southeast D.C. to go back to its pre-Nationals Park form while the franchise moves on to Portland, Charlotte, Las Vegas or maybe even Monterrey, Mexico. We’ll start using names like Brien Taylor, David Clyde and Todd Van Poppel. We’ll tell more cautionary tales only to go back to believing the hype with the next kid with an arm that supersedes his years.

That is truly what the media calls a party.

So we’re buckled up in Washington ready for an eyeful of the next savior… at least until The Next One is identified and sold for at least $15 million.

Strasburg dominant in Reading, but is he ready for the NL East?

READING, Pa. — It’s almost easier to expect the worst. Likemaybe his fastball will be flat and hitable, or maybe the torque on his elbow from throwing his curveball will mean more business for Dr. Frank Jobe.

It’s worth noting that some of baseball’s biggest flops might have achieved greater fame for being a cautionary tale than if they had put together a solid big-league career. Oh yes, sometimes we celebrate failure as much as we immortalize success.

Try this out for size: Ever hear of the pitcher Ed Figueroa? From 1975 to 1978 he won 71 games, including 20 for the World Champion Yankees in ’78. Twice during that span Figueroa finished in the top seven in the Cy Young balloting though he was overshadowed by more well-known pitchers on the Yankees staff like Ron Guidry, Catfish Hunter, Sparky Lyle and Goose Gossage.

Still, from 1976 to 1978, three seasons in which the team went to the World Series, no Yankees pitcher won more games than Figueroa. Obviously, he was a solid pitcher for some really good teams.

Now, how many people have heard about Brien Taylor, the overall No. 1pick in the 1991 draft? Of course you know Brien Taylor. He was the lefty with electric stuff who signed for a $1.55 bonus with the Yankees and appeared to be on the fast track to the big leagues until he tore the labrum in his pitching shoulder in a fight. Taylor pitched in a handful of games in his final five seasons and never made it past Double-A. These days, according to reports, he was working for a beer distributor.

No, we’re not comparing Stephen Strasburg to Brien Taylor. By all accounts Strasburg has been treated as if he were a Ming vase since he signed with the Washington Nationals after being selected as the top overall pick in last June’s draft. When the right-hander with the triple-digit fastball and a knee-buckling curve showed up at First Energy Stadium on Tuesday night with his Double-A Harrisburg teammates, a veritable entourage of press folks also took over the quaint, old ballpark.

Scribes from The New York Times and Washington Post came out to watch Strasburg while members of the Nationals’ PR staff strung the velvet ropes around the 21-year old. Moreover, the fans that turned out on a chilly night caught a glimpse of something. Strasburg retired the first 13 he faced before losing the perfect game with one out in the fifth on a strikeout/passed ball. Regrouping and working out of the stretch, Strasburg got a pair of ground balls to get out of the inning.

“My command of my pitches allowed me to [throw more off-speed pitches],” said the pitcher after throwing fastballs on approximately 60 percent of his 64 pitches. “If I don’t have command of my pitches, why would I throw off-speed? That’s the big thing I was able to do.”

Well, that wasn’t the only big thing he was able to do. All told, Strasburg did not allow a hit in five innings, picked up six strikeouts and allowed just two fair balls to leave the infield. And just to make it seem like he wasn’t just some freak throwing fastballs past everyone, Strasburg singled home the first run of the game.

Outings like the one on Tuesday night in Reading have been closer to the norm for the phenom. In four professional starts, Strasburg has allowed one run in 17 1/3 innings (0.51 ERA), with three walks and 23 strikeouts. In those four starts he has allowed just 11 base runners. On Tuesday, he topped 96 on the stadium radar gun, but it was more than enough to overpower Double-A hitters.

In other words, he hasn’t been tested.

So how good is the kid? Or better yet, why is he pitching for Harrisburg?

“He’s pretty impressive. If he’s able to pitch in effectively to Major League hitters, then he’s going to be really tough,” said Brad Lidge, who also was a first-round pick after a solid college career. “He has command of his changeup and curveball and that kind of arm doesn’t come around very often. It’s not often to see a guy with that kind of fast ball and with a good idea of what he’s doing with his off-speed pitches. Hopefully our hitters will figure him out when he gets called up this year.”

This year, huh? Clearly Strasburg has the stuff to pitch in the Majors now considering his heater likely got closer to triple-digits than the stadium gun indicated. Better yet, because he was able to throw his fastball for strikes, he got a better workout than expected.

Still, it’s difficult to determine how good Strasburg is until he moves up. Then, of course, expect to hear names like David Clyde and Todd Van Poppel ticked off the first time the kid gets roughed up. Clyde and Van Poppel? Yeah, like Strasburg they were both can’t-miss No. 1 picks in the draft who went on to have very poor big league careers. Combined, the former top picks went 58-85, which, of course, is 58-85 better than Brien Taylor did.

Nevertheless, Strasburg seems to have prepared himself for everything. He knows just as many people will be rooting for another flop as much as a Hall-of-Fame career. Since he grew up in an age where media encompasses just about every facet of life, Strasburg is better prepared than perhaps anyone before him. Plus, his college coach was Tony Gwynn—one of the big leaguers well known for being great.

Well schooled, Strasburg seems grounded enough to not let it all get ahead of him. He’ll be in the big leagues eventually, so until he gets the call he has no control of his situation.

“It’s obviously not a normal situation for a guy in his first year of pro ball, but it goes with the territory and I’ve accepted that,” he said.

Besides, they have the minor leagues for a reason. Lidge pitched in 53 games over four seasons in the minors after he left Notre Dame and made it to the big leagues for good. This experience will be good for Strasburg, Lidge says.

After all, Clyde went from his high school graduation to his Major League debut in the same month when he was just 18, while Van Poppel made his debut when he was 19 after one season in the minors. Clearly those guys needed a little more seasoning.

“I think it’s a good idea because at the very least it’s going to get him used to being on that clockwork of the rotation and pitching every five days,” Lidge said. “If nothing else, he gets to experience the minor leagues a little bit. That’s a good thing for guys. But clearly he’s showing he’s ready to move on from Double-A and I’m sure he’ll have the same results in Triple-A.”

As for the Majors, we’ll probably find out about that soon enough.

Piling on (and then some)

WASHINGTON—Initially I came down here to The District to write about baseball, but that all kind of took a back seat as soon as I exited 295 and drove over the bridge crossing the Anacostia. Since then it’s been pretty much all Donovan all the time.

But that’s over now. We’ll pick it back up next September when the Redskins and Eagles face off. It’s sure to be a mind-numbingly tiresome huge deal even though Donovan says playing against the Eagles won’t be any different than going against the Giants or Cowboys.

Yeah, right.

So baseball… the Phillies opened up the season on Monday at Nationals Park and it went quite well. Roy Halladay pitched well and Placido Polanco hit a grand slam and got six RBIs in the 11-1 victory. The President of the United States also showed up, which no matter how many times you see it is always cool.

All in all it was a pretty good day.

But to be fair, it was the Nationals, a team that has a pretty decent lineup but paper-thin pitching. With 18 games a season against Washington, the Phillies should do quite well in padding their stats.

Nevertheless, it wasn’t so much the number of runs the Phillies scored in Monday’s opener as it was the way they were scored. They came like a bolt of lightning and in all sorts of unique ways. Sure, there were two homers that accounted for six of the runs (Ryan Howard hit a two-run BOMB in the five-run fourth), but before Polanco’s slam put the cherry on top there was plenty of manufacturing out there.

For instance, the Phillies scored runs on a sacrifice fly, and a swinging bunt from Halladay. They drew walks and made the Nats pay for them, got a RBI triple from Jimmy Rollins, and even scored a pair of runs on the old-fashioned single with a man on base.

Sure, the Phillies stranded 11 runners, but a 5-for-14 with runners in scoring position is nothing to scoff at.

“Philly is a tough team to stop once they get the momentum,” said losing pitcher John Lannan of his run-in with the hitters, Monday. “The momentum kept on going, and I couldn't stop it.”

Momentum, as grizzly old baseball guys like to say, is only as good as the next day’s pitcher. For the Phillies that is Cole Hamels on Wednesday night and Kyle Kendrick on Thursday afternoon. Joe Blanton, the regular No. 3 man, is on the DL and 47-year old Jamie Moyer, who spent the off-season having surgery, is the fifth guy.

Lefty J.A. Happ is wedged between Kendrick and Moyer and is starting his second full season in the Majors. Who knows if the hitters have figured him out yet?

Then there is a team’s bullpen that needs some reinforcements with Brad Lidge and J.C. Romero on the shelf. Yes, there are some question marks.

Still, with 18 games scheduled against the Nats and 34 starts penciled in for Halladay, the Phillies have no excuses if they don’t win the NL East for a fourth straight season. In fact, we’re going to ahead and predict that right now.

Here’s how it will shake out without any annoying analysis from some know-it-all.

NL East
Phillies
Braves
Marlins
Mets
Nationals

NL Central
Cardinals
Brewers
Cubs
Reds
Astros
Pirates

NL West
Rockies
Giants
Diamondbacks
Dodgers
Padres

NLDS
Phillies beat Rockies
Cardinals beat Braves

NLCS
Phillies beat Cardinals

MVP: Pedro Martinez

We’ll just leave it at that for the time being. Sure, there’s an American League and all, but it takes way too long to watch those games. It’s a little ridiculous how long it takes those games to complete. But instead of leaving you in the lurch, just go ahead and pick one of the AL East teams (as long as it’s not Baltimore or Toronto) to go to the World Series.

Day 2: Some stuff happened

INDIANAPOLIS—Just because a guy goes to sleep at night doesn’t mean the world stops spinning on its axis. That’s especially the case here at the baseball Winter Meetings where every old baseball anachronism still holds true.

Oh sure, nearly everyone here as a Twitter and/or Facebook account where updates or musings about the local flavor here in Indianapolis (a bit more about the local history later), and it’s difficult to imagine Jimmy Cannon hunched over his Blackberry with his thumbs racing to tweet some little nugget of news while talking shop with Horace Stoneham.

Go look it up on Wikipedia, kids.

Sure, things have changed a bit when it comes to the media and the coverage of sports (for the better), but even with all the technology things still only get done and reported the old fashioned way. That’s where a little mingling, a hotel lobby and a whole bunch of beer comes in. Gently mix those elements and then back up and watch the tweets fly.

So when I woke up this morning to the sound of a shovel scraping across concrete from beyond windows and walls as thin as graham crackers and the red light blinking on my Blackberry like a lantern or far off beacon, I was able to deduce a lot.

For one, it snowed last night. If it hadn’t, why shovel? And two, something went down in the lobby of the Downtown Marriott.

Oh boy!

From all the tweets and modern plays on the smoke signal, we learned that future Hall-of-Fame catcher (is he?) Ivan Rodriguez agreed to a two-year deal with the Washington Nationals. This is quite interesting considering how bad the Nats are, how old Rodriguez is, and the two years he was offered. Plus, since the Phillies play the Nationals 18 times a season, it means we will see Pudge a lot.

In 2003 when the Marlins slipped past the Phillies to capture the wild card and then the World Series, Rodriguez was integral capturing the MVP of the NLCS as his club upset the Yankees. Better yet, 10 years ago Pudge was the best catcher on the planet. In 1999 he was the MVP of the American League and has posted numbers that align with the likes of Carlton Fisk and Gary Carter.

Still, Rodriguez turned 38 last week and will get a significant raise to be the Nationals’ catcher for the next two seasons at $3 million per year. Just what were the Nats thinking?

Conversely, the fact that Rodriguez is clearly in the twilight of his career, has won an MVP, a World Series, gone to the playoffs with three different teams and the World Series with the Marlins and Tigers while earning well more than nine figures in salary during his career, what in the hell is he doing signing with the Nats?

Really, what the hell is Pudge thinking?

A story from the Washington Post with the headline, “Why Pudge? Why two years?” kind of sums it up.

Meanwhile, one of our all-time favorite guys, Randy Wolf, reportedly has a three-year offer on the table from the Brewers. Three years for a pitcher—particularly one like Wolf—is about the max that any team will go. In fact, Phils’ GM Ruben Amaro Jr. told us yesterday that he feels, “less comfortable going more than three years on any pitcher.”

Obviously the Brewers really want Wolf, but so do the Mets. Reportedly the offer from the Brewers is approximately $30 million, which means Wolf’s agent Arn Tellem will go back to the Mets and get the auction going.

All things being equal, I’d go to Milwaukee if I were Wolfie. A guy like him could run that town pretty quickly.

*
Now back to the local history of Indianapolis, or, more specifically, the historical markers sprinkled around town… yeah, they are wacky. Better yet, here in Indianapolis the historical society in charge of posting some rather dubious moments in time aren’t into the whole “window dressing” thing.

It’s as if the subtext of the two markers (directly across the street from the capitol, I might add) photographed and posted on this site are saying, “Some stuff happened a long time ago and, well, it was kind of stupid. But sometimes bad stuff happens, too.”

So to the folks of Indiana, thank you for the transparency. Speaking for all of the old students of American history (if I may be so bold as to take the rostrum), we appreciate your candor.

Meanwhile, tomorrow I will seek out the marker for mass genocide of natives peoples or maybe a plaque for the spot where little Scott Rolen had his SuperGoose BMX bike stolen.