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JasonEvans
04-11-2007, 09:45 AM
How many games will the Nats lose this year?

JasonEvans
04-11-2007, 09:51 AM
For perspective:

1899 Cleveland Spiders NL 20-134

And here are some other huge losers (only teams since 1950 listed because I am too lazy to do the older ones)

1962 New York Mets NL 40-120

2003 Detroit Tigers AL 43-119

1952 Pittsburgh Pirates NL 42-112

1965 New York Mets NL 50-112

1963 New York Mets NL 51-111

2004 Arizona Diamondbacks NL 51-111

Channing
04-11-2007, 10:18 AM
I dont care how many they lose, as long as they lose all 17 or 18 or however many it is to the braves!!!

feldspar
04-11-2007, 10:40 AM
I dont care how many they lose, as long as they lose all 17 or 18 or however many it is to the braves!!!

1 down, 16 to go.

dkbaseball
04-11-2007, 11:18 AM
I recommend that everyone hold the Lerners to the standard established by Tom Boswell. They have reduced payroll by about 50 percent from last year and begun the season with a Triple A pitching staff. All in the name of player development. But with the windfall of the new stadium, donated by the city, they are going to be in a position, starting next year, to add at least $30 million in payroll in each of the next several seasons. If they aren't strong contenders by 2009, it's time for D.C. fans to start getting real crabby.

As a side note, it's a shame Duke's Larry Broadway wasn't able to nail down the first base job in spring training. I saw him early in last year's Triple A season and thought he was swinging real well. But apparently he really tailed off, and the slump carried over into the spring. Funny how that confidence comes and goes.

JasonEvans
04-11-2007, 01:14 PM
As a side note, it's a shame Duke's Larry Broadway wasn't able to nail down the first base job in spring training. I saw him early in last year's Triple A season and thought he was swinging real well. But apparently he really tailed off, and the slump carried over into the spring. Funny how that confidence comes and goes.

When you can't beat out 49-year-old Dmitri Young for the starting job, that's bad!

As an aside, I think the Nats need to really overspend on a free agent or two to show they are serious. I am sure the other ML owners will really like that ;)

-Jason "Braves better sweep the Nats or I will feel silly about posting this poll" Evans

feldspar
04-12-2007, 10:14 AM
Seriously, someone please end the season now! The Braves are the best team in baseball!

Jason, I think you're going to get your sweep wish, especially with Smoltzy pitching tonight.

JasonEvans
04-12-2007, 11:45 AM
I can't even believe how bad the Nats are. The more I look into it, the worse it gets.

Here are their starting pitchers:

Matt Chico - rookie with 2 career starts, 7.27 career ERA
Jason Bergman - 8 career starts, 5.93 career ERA
Shawn Hill - 11 career starts, 6.12 career ERA
Jerome Williams - ace of the staff with 67 career starts (but only 5 in the past 2 years) and a 4.05 ERA
John Patterson - 73 career starts (only 8 last year), and a 4.19 ERA

I may be wrong, but I think that most starting pitchers in baseball had more starts last year than the entire Nats staff had combined. Guys in the middle of their career (like Carlos Zambrano, Brett Meyers, Jake Peavey, and a slew of others) have many many more career starts than the entire Nats staff combined.

These guys are just terrible.

Seriously-- the folks who are forecasting that they will lose less than 100 games. What are you smoking??

-Jason "the average score of a Nats game this year - 6.77 to 2.33" Evans

JBDuke
04-12-2007, 06:24 PM
I can't even believe how bad the Nats are. The more I look into it, the worse it gets.

Here are their starting pitchers:

Matt Chico - rookie with 2 career starts, 7.27 career ERA
Jason Bergman - 8 career starts, 5.93 career ERA
Shawn Hill - 11 career starts, 6.12 career ERA
Jerome Williams - ace of the staff with 67 career starts (but only 5 in the past 2 years) and a 4.05 ERA
John Patterson - 73 career starts (only 8 last year), and a 4.19 ERA

I may be wrong, but I think that most starting pitchers in baseball had more starts last year than the entire Nats staff had combined. Guys in the middle of their career (like Carlos Zambrano, Brett Meyers, Jake Peavey, and a slew of others) have many many more career starts than the entire Nats staff combined.

These guys are just terrible.

Seriously-- the folks who are forecasting that they will lose less than 100 games. What are you smoking??

-Jason "the average score of a Nats game this year - 6.77 to 2.33" Evans

I have drunk the Nats Kool-Aid, and I'm one of those guys that voted for less than 100 losses.

Yes, the rotation is very young and very inexperienced. Yes, the team lacks a big time hitter to build a lineup around. But this is an easy team to like. The bullpen is pretty good, and some of the starters might turn out to be good enough. You see young position guys like Zimmerman, Johnson, Lopez, Kearns, and Logan, and you see what they can do and you just want them to succeed. You believe that they can succeed. And it's April! Everyone gets to be hopeful in April!

So, I'm boldly predicting that the season won't be a complete disaster. Yes, it's likely they won't contend. They may be 25 games out by the All-Star break. But I'm guessing they have a stretch of a few weeks this year that recall the magic that happened two years ago in June, when the Nats went 20-6. At some point, all the young guys will have that glorious stretch where everything is working. And it will be quite a ride.

My prediction: 68-94

JBDuke
04-12-2007, 10:23 PM
...(snip)...
-Jason "Braves better sweep the Nats or I will feel silly about posting this poll" Evans

AND DOWN GOES SMOLTZ!!!! Time to start a Nats winning streak!!!

JasonEvans
04-13-2007, 01:01 PM
AND DOWN GOES SMOLTZ!!!! Time to start a Nats winning streak!!!

There was never a question in my mind that the Braves would lose game 3 when I saw that it was a close game around the mid-way point. I knew I had jinxed my team.

A pox upon me!!!!

If the Braves win another game this season, it will be a miracle.

-Jason "great pitching performance by the Nats!!" Evans

Channing
04-13-2007, 04:33 PM
There was never a question in my mind that the Braves would lose game 3 when I saw that it was a close game around the mid-way point. I knew I had jinxed my team.

A pox upon me!!!!

If the Braves win another game this season, it will be a miracle.

-Jason "great pitching performance by the Nats!!" Evans

Thanks Jason . . . :(

JBDuke
04-15-2007, 03:01 PM
Nice win yesterday for the Nats. Shawn Hill looked very good in Spring Training, and his work so far (2.89 ERA) has continued that trend. Now we need to get Patterson going. The offense seems to have woken up, too, which will help.

Watch your backs, Braves!! ;-)

JBDuke
04-17-2007, 06:50 PM
With their 5-1 win yesterday over the BRAVES, Washington moves out of the NL East cellar with a 4-9 record. They've won 3 of their last 4, and these over the Braves and the Mets, supposedly the cream of the NL East. They've outhit their opponents in 3 of the last 4, too.

Matt Chico tallied his first major league win yesterday, allowing the Braves only four hits and one run over five innings of work. The star on offense was "49 year old Dmitri Young", as Evans likes to call him, who had two doubles and a single, driving in 2. Ryan Zimmerman also woke up, going 2-4, driving in the Nats' first run, and taking his batting average over the Mendoza line, finally.

Woo Hoo! Plenty of room on the Nats bandwagon!!! ;-)

feldspar
04-20-2007, 02:08 PM
Seriously-- the folks who are forecasting that they will lose less than 100 games. What are you smoking??

Boswell (not our Boswell, WaPo's Boswell) has a great column today regarding the Nats' prospects this season. In a nutshell, they're gonna be bad, and may lose 100 games, but they won't be the worst team in history.

Link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/19/AR2007041902839.html)

TheGodfather
05-22-2007, 05:16 PM
Before the season began the Nationals were expected to be history making terrible. Projections for 130 plus losses were serious. For the most part MLB teams have held up that part. The Nationals are 2 and 15 against teams outside the NL East which projects to around 140 losses. But they are 14 -14 against NL East teams that's .500 baseball! If they played only NL East teams the entire season that's a projected 80 win season. What is going on in the NL East that they are struggling to beat the Nats while the rest of baseball finds it so easy?

JBDuke
10-01-2007, 10:58 AM
Just wanted to bring this post back to show everyone how wrong we all were about the Nationals this year. Even my at-the-time optimistic prediction of 68-94 fell short of how well the Nats ended up performing for the season.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, they turned in a very respectable performance. No one wanted to play the Nats, because they never gave up - not on a game, and certainly not on the season. They played a significant role in the downfall of the Mets here at the end of the season, gave the Braves fits all season long, and ended up at 73-89. That's better than 8 other teams in MLB.

Okay, so finishing 16 games under .500 and in the bottom half of the league isn't much to crow about, but given where everyone thought they were headed in April, you gotta give this team some credit.

Randy St. Claire did a pretty masterful job with the Nats pitching staff all year long. The Nats cycled 26 pitchers through the doors, including 13 different starters. Of the five designated starters coming out of camp, four were on the DL within a couple of weeks - and that's off a staff that wasn't exactly a murderer's row of pitching. No pitcher had 10 wins, and none had 10 losses. The bullpen ended up with the 5th best collective ERA in the league.

I'm excited about the future of baseball in DC. This team is just a couple of players away from contending in the NL East, their farm system has been completely retooled, and the new stadium opens up next April.

It's a good time to be a Nats fan!!!

BlueDevilBaby
10-01-2007, 02:08 PM
Right on JBDuke! Love them Nats. Isn't it the first time in MLB history that a team had no 10-game winners and no 10-game losers? Pretty remarkable to get 70+ wins with a stat like that. Only wish they had won one more yesterday.

greybeard
10-01-2007, 06:18 PM
As bad as the Nats are, the new stadium is worser still. The former mayor needs a lobotomy. Seems that he was fine with being able to force through the decision to fund the stadium even though he couldn't get the city to fund building adequate parking to go with it. So, what we will have is a 45,000 seat stadium with parking for 1200 vehicles. You do the math, Anthony Williams, the former mayor didn't. Plus, the lone roadway to the stadium from Va runs smack dab into a major commuter line to the Maryland suburbs. Traffic for night games is gonna be real interesting.

I heard on the radio that adding as many metro cars as one could possibly imagine is still going to make leaving the stadium after games a complete nightmare--2 hours plus to empty out, that is, if everything works properly and when was the last time anything in the District did that. How many people do you know are going to (1) take a metro to and from, rather than sit back in their beemers listening to their radios; (2) spend 3 hours at a ball game plus two hours waiting afterwards to begin getting home; and (3) want to pay big bucks to go to a stadium in the middle of nowhere once the newness wears off.

They should have built a freakin hospital and allocated land for a soccer stadium for a team whose owner is actually willing to pay for the stadium himself.

I wonder if Bud agreed to indemnify the District if the stadium does not pay for itself. He promised us it would, you know, pay for itself that is. And Anthony Williams, who now is a financial consultant for folks wanting to do business with the city, swore to us Bud was right.

How the Nationals present on the field is the least of our worries here in the District.

wilson
10-01-2007, 07:40 PM
Stadiums in the middle of nowhere lead franchises nowhere. Just ask the Florida Marlins (or, for that matter, the NHL's Florida Panthers). I didn't know that about the DC stadium situation. I must agree, however, that the Nats are headed in the right direction with regard to their on-field product. If they continue that trajectory, and the Marlins can somehow rescue themselves from being a complete disaster, the NL East will shortly be an absolute bear of a division. As a baseball fan, I of course think that's good, but as a Braves fan, I've got to admit it's troublesome.

dkbaseball
10-01-2007, 09:08 PM
The stadium's near or in Anacostia and is supposed to have spectacular city views, so it's not in the middle of nowhere. But access is obviously a concern, if Greybeard is correct. And being a fan of the retro-chic look in ballparks, I'll be a skeptic about the novel glass design until I see it.

But definitely a franchise with a future, which is a bit hard to imagine for someone who had the Senators for a home team in the '60s (though there was huge optimism for a while when Ted Williams was signed as manager). Great job to this point of bringing this franchise along, and supposedly the Lerners are ready to start spending big bucks on free agents, now that the farm system groundwork is in place. Which raises the question: As the Nats ascend, and the Bravos descend (?), how important has Stan Kasten's presence and absence been in all of this?

mapei
10-01-2007, 09:41 PM
I couldn't disagree more with greybeard's take on the stadium. It's right on Metro, within walking distance for a lot of people getting off work, and in a neighborhood that needs revitalization. It will be great for fans and I think it will be good for the city, too.

I also hope the proposed soccer stadium gets built, but that's another story that has nothing to do with this one.

JBDuke
10-01-2007, 11:16 PM
I couldn't disagree more with greybeard's take on the stadium. It's right on Metro, within walking distance for a lot of people getting off work, and in a neighborhood that needs revitalization. It will be great for fans and I think it will be good for the city, too.

I also hope the proposed soccer stadium gets built, but that's another story that has nothing to do with this one.

Hear hear!! Don't let the sourpusses get you down!

Folks, let's give the stadium a chance, rather than trashing it before it's even built. Sheesh!

Mapei's right - it's not in Anacostia, it's near the Navy Yard. It's in a neighborhood with some interesting restaurants but one that could use a shot in the arm. It's got GREAT metro access. Yes, they won't have as much parking as they wanted for opening day, but that is being worked. For example, there's a LOT of spaces at some of the office buildings just a couple of blocks from the stadium site, and the team is working with the DC gov't. to get permission from the Feds to use them.

The stadium's architecture is new - it won't have that "classic" look of Camden or other parks - but that's to blend in better with the other major landmarks in the area. Most of the seats will have a great view of the Capitol dome, too.

I, for one, am optimistic about both the team and the stadium.

C'mon, greybeard! See the glass as half full for once! :-)

DevilAlumna
10-01-2007, 11:55 PM
Count me in as someone who thinks the new stadium & location should work out wonderfully.

Do any of you DC-area residents remember what Chinatown and surrounding areas used to be like, pre-MCI (now Verizon) Center? It was an open air drug market by day, and prostitute central at night. Now it's a hip, trendy area at all times of day. The center itself is well served by 2 metro lines, and the absence of parking in the immediate area hasn't been a major hindrance.

I wouldn't expect any less for a new stadium in the Navy Yard, an area crying out for urban renewal in an otherwise very cool (on the river) section of town.

mapei
10-02-2007, 10:35 AM
I have done some writing using the MCI/Verizon Center as a great example of smart growth. They draw 80% of their attendance from Metro; I walk from my office to Hoyas games. It's been a great success by all accounts.

greybeard
10-02-2007, 11:40 AM
I couldn't disagree more with greybeard's take on the stadium. It's right on Metro, within walking distance for a lot of people getting off work, and in a neighborhood that needs revitalization. It will be great for fans and I think it will be good for the city, too.

I also hope the proposed soccer stadium gets built, but that's another story that has nothing to do with this one.

Just repeating what I heard on the Sports Reporters driving home two evenings ago. Not by Pollen or Zab, the nebishy sounding guy who actually knows his facts. Said that they'll need 100 extra rail cars working two hours to empty the ballpark with only 12-1500 parking spaces, which is all they have. He and Zab made the observations about traffic patterns and about how the average fan much prefers to listen to the radio commentary about the game while driving home rather than traveling by metro. Said most stadiums have in the 10,000 parking space range. They both predicted a big fall off in attendance after a few months unless the product on the field really changes, which they said was unlikely.

Perhaps, when the area is developed and there is a downtown with ancilliary parking things might change. By then, I'll be eating oatmeal out of a straw in a nursing home somewhere.

grey "I don't even follow baseball and will never pay to see a game but am paying for the ballpark which I do not like one little bit" beard

Friend offered me a seat in Lerner's box for the last game; replied, "What, and miss watching the bike riders who occasionally ride up my street" True, except for the reason; thought the ad on was kinda appropo. :)

mapei
10-02-2007, 09:37 PM
As JBDuke suggested, I think the market will respond by providing more parking spaces in office buildings that clear out before game time. In a downtown situation it shouldn't be necessary for the park to provide all the spaces - in fact, I think it's pretty wasteful. We'll see. Like JB, I'm optimistic.

Hey, if I had known, I would have ridden up your street at the appointed hour!