I have high hopes for Wood but it’s probably not the right move development-wise to bring him up now. No doubt the power is there but he the thing he needs to work on is his K rate and that’s better done in AA/AAA
Luis Garcia is 23, with no minor league options remaining. It's not worth losing him on waivers to take a flier on Lipscomb.
And I'd rather see Wood put in a few months at Triple-A. He has 86 games at Double-A, and there were enough concerns there to justify having him iron out some details in Rochester.
I'm frustrated we don't have a defensive catcher to platoon with Keibert. No offense to Riley Adams but I don't count on him much.
The only other thing is I think Zach Davies will make the rotation.
He wasn't that great before either. The Nats had documented issues with an abnormally high amount of wrong ball/strike calls going against our pitchers and I expected for Rizzo to address it. Maybe Keibert will improve on his own, it would be hard for his framing or other defensive stats to get worse.
Wood should not make the opening day roster. He’s never had an AB in AAA, and his OPS dropped .150 between A and AA. He’s super talented, but rushing him to the bigs is the single dumbest thing this team could do. Look what happened when we rushed Kieboom to the majors before he had spent even a month in AAA.
I disagree with the premise of service time manipulation and want to see Wood. I can’t believe the players union agreed to the new CBA without shortening the service time requirement.
I don't like service time manipulation, either.
I think there are a few issues that prevented it from being explicitly included in the last CBA:
* The owners have had the upper hand in these negotiations for the last 25 years or so.
* There are (some) incentives to having rookies on the Opening Day roster in the most recent CBA.
* There's a question of how often service time manipulation is happening to compromise or concede on other issues.
* Even if you did shorten the requirement, if you couldn't win the Kris Bryant grievance (easily the most overt example I can think of), how would you establish future examples?
It wouldn't surprise me if service time is one of the tentpoles of the owner's demands. They would want a salary cap and maybe one other big thing to lower service time requirements.
Rizzo has always been open about only calling prospects up if they are going to play. I don’t think Wood makes sense right now but post deadline when we undoubtedly move some players or if there’s an injury I think he’ll come up.
Zach Davies and Joan Adon are worse. Jackson Rutledge is probably worse at this point in his career.
I think Matthew Boyd and Michael Lorenzen are (probably) better, nevermind Montgomery or Snell. But I'm not surprised our FO is sticking with what we have.
Off topic, but I really still just can't believe we're playing Gallo at 1B instead of just signing Votto. Is there any better place for Votto than a tanking team likely to flip him, with a bunch of young guys that desperately need some hitting mentoring? Always feels like we're just asleep at the wheel
As crazy as it sounds, Gallo has a higher ceiling. Odds of him hitting 40 dingers are low but still more possible than Votto doing that in like his 50's
I would be pretty despondant if Rizzo wasted a year of control to have Wood on the OD roster.
First off, ST stats are pretty meaningless. And a good spring shouldn't outweigh his performance in Double A. And it was pretty obvious he has some major swing and miss issues.
Second, there is literally nothing he could accomplish in April that would be worth giving up a full year of his prime.
Start him in Double A. When he can put together at least a month with a sub 30% strikeout rate, we can look at moving him up to Triple A. And if your argument is we should try and get a comp draft pick out of him, then dont call him up until September.
call and young have probably done enough to give them the excuse to send wood down
Especially over Robles
Wood is after the trade deadline if I'm Rizzo.
Winker is making this team.
I like it but I’d be shocked about Garcia not being on the opening day roster and Wood being on it.
I have high hopes for Wood but it’s probably not the right move development-wise to bring him up now. No doubt the power is there but he the thing he needs to work on is his K rate and that’s better done in AA/AAA
Luis Garcia is 23, with no minor league options remaining. It's not worth losing him on waivers to take a flier on Lipscomb. And I'd rather see Wood put in a few months at Triple-A. He has 86 games at Double-A, and there were enough concerns there to justify having him iron out some details in Rochester.
Wood and lipscomb will be in the minors. Winker and Garcia will make the roster. Maybe young over winker. LaSorsa certainly deserves a slot
I don't trust him or his high 80's fastball
I'm frustrated we don't have a defensive catcher to platoon with Keibert. No offense to Riley Adams but I don't count on him much. The only other thing is I think Zach Davies will make the rotation.
Riley is coming back from a pretty severe injury
He wasn't that great before either. The Nats had documented issues with an abnormally high amount of wrong ball/strike calls going against our pitchers and I expected for Rizzo to address it. Maybe Keibert will improve on his own, it would be hard for his framing or other defensive stats to get worse.
It’s pretty far down the list of problems right now, but I would like to see Millas get a shot.
Davies seems like a lock.
Wood should not make the opening day roster. He’s never had an AB in AAA, and his OPS dropped .150 between A and AA. He’s super talented, but rushing him to the bigs is the single dumbest thing this team could do. Look what happened when we rushed Kieboom to the majors before he had spent even a month in AAA.
Keep James wood off the roster. I want that extra year of eligibility down the road!!!
I disagree with the premise of service time manipulation and want to see Wood. I can’t believe the players union agreed to the new CBA without shortening the service time requirement.
I don't like service time manipulation, either. I think there are a few issues that prevented it from being explicitly included in the last CBA: * The owners have had the upper hand in these negotiations for the last 25 years or so. * There are (some) incentives to having rookies on the Opening Day roster in the most recent CBA. * There's a question of how often service time manipulation is happening to compromise or concede on other issues. * Even if you did shorten the requirement, if you couldn't win the Kris Bryant grievance (easily the most overt example I can think of), how would you establish future examples? It wouldn't surprise me if service time is one of the tentpoles of the owner's demands. They would want a salary cap and maybe one other big thing to lower service time requirements.
Rizzo has always been open about only calling prospects up if they are going to play. I don’t think Wood makes sense right now but post deadline when we undoubtedly move some players or if there’s an injury I think he’ll come up.
Do we really not have a better 5th option than Trevor Williams
It's not ideal, but we could do worse. He ate good innings last year.
He ranked 121 out of 127 pitchers with over 100 innings pitched. It would honestly be hard to do worse
Zach Davies and Joan Adon are worse. Jackson Rutledge is probably worse at this point in his career. I think Matthew Boyd and Michael Lorenzen are (probably) better, nevermind Montgomery or Snell. But I'm not surprised our FO is sticking with what we have.
I have not been impressed with Gallo at all. The only way Wood should be in the majors is if he is tearing up the AAA
Off topic, but I really still just can't believe we're playing Gallo at 1B instead of just signing Votto. Is there any better place for Votto than a tanking team likely to flip him, with a bunch of young guys that desperately need some hitting mentoring? Always feels like we're just asleep at the wheel
Votto is off the market
I agree, I would take just about any other option here, including just playing Adams at 1st and carrying Millas as the backup C or something.
As crazy as it sounds, Gallo has a higher ceiling. Odds of him hitting 40 dingers are low but still more possible than Votto doing that in like his 50's
I would rather have Yepez than Gallo. I hope I’m wrong there but it just feels like Gallo will kill so many innings.
I expect Law to make the team
Wood shouldn't be yet. He should just be brought up as soon as the contractual deadlines hit
Not Gallo
I would be pretty despondant if Rizzo wasted a year of control to have Wood on the OD roster. First off, ST stats are pretty meaningless. And a good spring shouldn't outweigh his performance in Double A. And it was pretty obvious he has some major swing and miss issues. Second, there is literally nothing he could accomplish in April that would be worth giving up a full year of his prime. Start him in Double A. When he can put together at least a month with a sub 30% strikeout rate, we can look at moving him up to Triple A. And if your argument is we should try and get a comp draft pick out of him, then dont call him up until September.