The Washington Post reported today that if Nick Johnson is healthy he will be the Washington Nationals first baseman for 2009. This means that newly signed slugger Adam Dunn will be moved to the outfield and in doing so cause one big mess.
This report comes in response to Nick Johnson saying that he refused to serve a back up role and would like to be traded if Dunn was supposed to play first base. To be fair to Johnson, this has been his team and when healthy he has produced very well. Behind Dunn, he is their second best hitter and the two of them in their line up at the same time would be much more potent.
Prior to the Dunn signing the Nats had Lastings Milledge, Austin Kearns, Wily Mo Pena, Josh Willingham, Elijah Dukes, and Willie Harris all competing for three outfield spots. Now with Dunn in left; make that two outfield spots.
This quite simply is a terrible misappropriation of talent. How do we have that many players vying for two outfield position yet absolutely no pitching? The clear move here for the Nationals should be to trade Nick Johnson. Aside from Kearns (who has 0 trade value), he is making almost as much as the other outfielders combined. His trade value is higher, as he gets on base and has a professional track record, and his contract is up at the end of this year.
If he were traded we could receive possibly a solid relief pitcher, or a starter. We could shed his contract and have money to pick up one of the remaining free agents available...say Orlando Hudson. With Dunn in the infield we can give guys like Lastings Milledge and Elijah Dukes security in the outfield, instead of making them compete all year long.
Let's be smart...for once?
3 comments:
What, if any, should I read in to Nationals.com's depth chart? It was updated today and seems more sensible than this crap.
Please tell me that we didn't sign Dunn just to take away a spot from a player we got earlier this offseason. Ugh.
I'm pretty confidant in the Washington Post's report...Besides it would look worse for the Nats to have 3 players making 20 million at 1 position than 7 players making 20 million at one position....The worst part is Johnson and Young are very hard to trade
Unfortunately, Johnson has very little trade value right now because nobody believes that he will be healthy enough to play. What we really need is for Johnson to hit .400 with 6 HR during spring training -- that might establish enough value to allow him to be traded. Most of our outfielders are of dubious trade value too - What we need to do is try to get some value out of Johnson, trade Willingham (even though we just got him) and give the kids a chance to play. Unfortunately, much as I like the idea of having some proven players, the kids really won't develop while sitting on the bench.
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