Nationals Journal

I had the chance to speak briefly this morning with Manager Jim Riggleman re: all things Kennedy. Here's an excerpt of the conversation.

Q: First off, what are your general feelings about the Kennedy acquisition?

A: Well, I feel good about Adam Kennedy. I feel like another left-handed bat in the lineup will help, whether that would have been [Orlando] Hudson or Kennedy. Hudson was a switch-hitter, I know. But the thing about Adam Kennedy: He's a pro. He's not a spectacular player, but he doesn't have any weaknesses. He won't hit 30 homers, he won't steal 30 bases, but he's what I like. Good hands, good second baseman, a good hitter. He'll make all the right plays. And he's a nice addition to what we already have there, guys with experience who are just real pros.

Q: You overlapped briefly in St. Louis. How much experience did you have there with Adam?

A: Well I was a minor league field coordinator with the Cardinals and was just with the [big league] club for three weeks before the minor leaguers reported. So that was my experience with Adam. But it's more that I've seen him from the other dugout over the years.

Q: So how do you see the rest of the middle infield picture shaping up?

A: Well my guess is, we'll have to get a good read on [the health of Cristian] Guzman -- how his arm is feeling and all that. He anticipates his arm will be 100 percent when we're opening up camp. Physically, if he's able to move around and throw from shortstop, he'll be playing shortstop. Because second base is locked up with Kennedy.

Q: And what about Ian Desmond? Is it better to keep him on the 25-man roster as a back-up or keep in Class AAA where he can get regular at bats?

A: That's a decision we all make in spring training -- myself, Mike [Rizzo], Bob Boone, the major league staff. If Guzman is physically unable to play shortstop, we feel comfortable slotting Ian Desmond in there. But if we make a determination that Ian will be on the club with Guzman playing shortstop, we'd also want him to be able to run around in the outfield some too. That way we could get him on the field some, pinch-running for an outfielder, double-switches.

Q: Rizzo had mentioned all winter his desire to boost the team's fielding, in particular in the middle infield. Do you think the Kennedy signing addresses that?

A: Well it's always important with every club, but it becomes more important when you have pitchers who throw ground balls, and we kind of do. In particular Lannan and Marquis and Stammen. It becomes pretty vital to be able to cover some ground out there and make the plays when you've got guys who will be getting ground balls. We get the ultimate there with the coverage we get from Zimmerman, and we hope we can get more of the same from Kennedy.

Acting quickly after losing Orlando Hudson to the Minnesota Twins, the Washington Nationals have reached an agreement with free agent second baseman Adam Kennedy in an attempt to fill the last major need of their offseason. Kennedy has agreed to a one-year deal worth $1.25 million, with a $2 million option for 2011.

The signing came just hours after the Nationals gave up on inking Hudson, unable to meet his salary demands.

"This signing makes sense," one team source said.

The Nationals will head into spring training with Kennedy and Cristian Guzman as their double play combination. In 2009, Kennedy, with Oakland, batted .289 in 529 at bats with 11 home runs and 63 RBI. He is a lifetime .277 hitter with a .391 slugging percentage.

The Nationals have other middle-infield options beyond Guzman and Kennedy, but none are proven major leaguers. Ian Desmond, who showed flashes during his call-up last September, could benefit from some additional time with Class AAA Syracuse. Meantime, well-regarded shortstop prospect Danny Espinosa, who played in 2009 with Class A Potomac, is at least another year or two away.

Kennedy, an 11-year veteran, has spent the bulk of his career in the American League -- most notably with the Angels in 2002, when they won the World Series. Kennedy was MVP of the ALCS that year. Kennedy was drafted by St. Louis and returned to the organization in 2007 and 2008, overlapping briefly with Jim Riggleman, who served as St. Louis's minor league field coordinator. But Riggleman and Kennedy didn't have much experience with one another.

Kennedy last season earned $4 million, the final year of a three-year, $10 million deal.

[UPDATE] -- The latest from Buster Olney suggests that Hudson is closing in on a deal with the Twins -- one year, $5 million.

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The Washington Nationals had hoped to cap their offseason -- and further reduce their list of needs -- with the acquisition of free agent Orlando Hudson. But the Nationals, according to published reports, have dropped from the running for the second baseman, unwilling to match his salary wishes. That leaves Hudson to pick between either the Minnesota Twins or Cleveland Indians, and it leaves the Nationals to find a Plan B for their middle infield.

Washington has yet to confirm that negotiations with Hudson are officially over, but one team source was willing to at least paint a pessimistic picture. "Obviously there's some difference in money," the source said.

As it currently stands, the Nationals will rely on Cristian Guzman and Ian Desmond as their starting double play combination. But General Manager Mike Rizzo has said all winter that he would like to add a major league veteran, preferably one known for his defense, to that group. The Nationals are known to have interest in free agent Adam Kennedy. They might also pursue a trade.

The Nationals had long pursued Hudson as their top choice at second base, and are believed to have offered an annual salary topping $3 million, heavy on incentives. In 2009 with Los Angeles, Hudson earned a base salary of $3.38 million. He also accumulated more than $4 million in performance bonuses.

In recent days, several players had lobbied for Hudson, and close friend Adam Dunn even suggested that Hudson wanted to play in Washington.

Here's a guarantee: Several times within the next month, you will consume a news story -- not even counting this blog post -- asserting that a particular baseball player is Reporting to Spring Training in the Best Shape of His Life. Chances are, you will read several of these stories, because they are a rite of the baseball calendar, and because certain players do bust their butts during the offseason. When they reemerge into the public eye, ready for workouts, everybody notices the difference.

The invention of spring training stories about fitness coincided, best as I can tell, with the invention of February itself. Not that the accounts have always been positive. A 1932 story in the Post about aging "big moundsman" Fred Marberry included several quotes from team president Clark Griffith, who said, "[H]e is getting older, and takes on fat over his shoulders and around his stomach, and has trouble not only getting it off but keeping it off. Why, he gains a few pounds when he has two or three off-days. And this excess fat also prevents him from getting all of his stuff on the ball."

More recently, of course, with innovations like the treadmill and the nutritional info .pdf on the Panera Bread Web site, more and more players have returned from their winters in tip-top shape. Nats reliever Ray King reporting to spring training in 2008 weighing 23 pounds lighter than he did the previous season. As recounted in a WaPo Health section story, King "stopped drinking soda and swapped greasy, fast-food burgers for salmon." MLB.com's Bill Ladson wrote at the time that King "hardly has a gut" and is "in the best shape of his life."

Baseball America, in its weekly rundown of minor league transactions, details the latest batch of Nationals' minor league signings. We already knew about the Chuck James signing, but the addition of Kevin Mench is also worth noting. Mench had a promising run with the Rangers in 2004 and 2005, swatting a combined 51 homers, but since then he's come nowhere close to such productivity. Evidently he spent 2009 with the Hanshin Tigers, in Japan. If you want to customize your own "Mench" Tigers jersey, click here.

Mench, 32, an outfielder, is a lifetime .269 hitter with a .460 slugging percentage. According to baseball-reference.com, Mench finished seventh in 2002 AL rookie of the year voting. (And check out who finished third in the NL.)

Speaking recently about keys for the upcoming season, Ryan Zimmerman said that "we have to play better defense" -- a contention that is, of course, impossible to dispute. And unless the Nats take the field this year holding Formica countertops instead of mitts, it'll be likewise impossible for them avoid some defensive improvement. We know the fielding miseries of '09, and there's no purpose in rehashing them here.

But to the point about improvement ...

"Everyone talks about the pitching," Zimmerman said, "but [our pitchers] had to get a lot more outs than other people had to. So it's just taking more responsibility on that side of the ball. I think it was just pushed under the rug [last year]. It's unacceptable, and I think we all know that and we're ready to work and be better."

The Nats hope this week to come to terms with free agent second baseman Orlando Hudson. Even if the 32-year-old's range has diminished somewhat, he's still a four-time Gold Glover -- he even won the honor in 2009 -- and he committed just eight errors in 145 games at second. When GM Mike Rizzo has discussed Hudson, the interest has always been labeled as a means to "upgrade the defense."

NatsFest 2010 just wrapped up. For those returning from the stadium, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the event: Was it well-organized? Do any players have legible autographs? Did Stan Kasten, in his Q&A with fans, break even for a second from his talking points? (My hunch is, not even David Gregory could make him break.)

Anyway, I spent a good chunk of the session talking to players. And whatdya know, many of them are now talking a big game. If springtime is the period in baseball reserved for optimism, the dead of winter -- at least in the case of the 2010 Washington Nationals -- has become the gathering point for an outlook even less restrained, and certainly less practiced. I'm trying to come up with the right summarizing term for the vibe, but nothing so tidy comes to mind. It was like a mix of delight and assuredness and anticipation. Delight, because they like the moves the front office has already made. Assuredness, because even the young players (like John Lannan and Ryan Zimmerman) now talk with a team-leader-type authority. Anticipation, because more player-signings could still come -- and yes, the current Nats are all members of the Orlando Hudson fan club.

"I think he would be great, obviously, defensively," Zimmerman said. "You can put him into the lineup anywhere. He's a great person, a great team guy. And I think he would kind of help some of the younger guys and all of us come together."

"I'm a contact pitcher, I pitch to contact, I'm a sinker guy," Jason Marquis said. "And having a strong defense up the middle -- center, short, second -- is very important. He brings more to the table than just defense; his offensive side is as consistent as his second base. Just watching him, the energy he brings to the game ... you'll never see a lack of effort."

Friday afternoon the Nats hosted their second annual "Hot Stove" season ticket holders luncheon, where the menu included chicken marsala, cheesecake, and some news about budding contract talks with Adam Dunn. The first baseman (wearing a camo Texas Longhorns trucker hat) was actually among the players in attendance, but word of his contract talks only became public during the post-lunch Q&A, moderated by David Gregory. The panelists: team president Stan Kasten, GM Mike Rizzo, manager Jim Riggleman and third baseman Ryan Zimmerman.

At one point, Rizzo was asked by a fan in attendance if there was a timetable to extend Dunn's contract, because "we'd really like to see him retire as a National."

The crowd of several hundred applauded.

"It's something that we've discussed with Adam and his people," Rizzo said. "We had a little conversation this afternoon about it. ... Seriously, he's become one of the family. We love him here. He had a terrific season for us last year, he's one of the most consistent players in the league, and he's a guy that fits for us long-term."

After the luncheon, I asked Rizzo a few follow-up questions. Turns out, Friday afternoon marked the first day that parameters of a new deal were discussed.

"It's the first time we had a sit-down conversation," Rizzo said. "We'd like to get an extension done. There's no time parameter or anything, so I have no expectations. No timetables, no time limits."

The Nationals have announced that they've agreed to terms with right-hander Miguel Batista on a minor league contract that includes an invitation to spring training.

In 530 appearances (237 starts) over 15 seasons with Seattle, Arizona, Toronto, Kansas City, Montreal, Chicago (NL), Florida and Pittsburgh, Batista is 95-108 with 39 saves an an ERA of 4.54.

Batista, 38, went 7-4 with one save and a 4.04 ERA in 56 relief appearances last season with the Mariners.

Chico Harlan will have more on Batista later on.

I wasn't surprised in the slightest to learn that Tim Redding was accusing Mike Bacsik of grooving the fastball that Barry Bonds smashed for career home run number 756 back in 2007. I recall rumblings at the time within the Nationals' clubhouse to that effect -- although, in my recollection, those rumblings were more pointed towards the enjoyment Bacsik seemed to get from his sudden celebrity, as opposed to outright accusations that he served up No. 756 on purpose.

(The following spring, in fact, I wrote an entire story on Bacsik's newfound fame, which he certainly did not appear to shun. In the story, he denied suggestions he had grooved the pitch.)

But yeah, in my memory the pitch that led to No. 756 was a velocity-challenged fastball right down the middle of the stinkin' plate. In the 2 1/2 years since, I don't believe I had viewed the pitch -- let alone the entire at-bat -- again.

Luckily, MLB.com has the entire game in its archive. (I found it by googling "Bonds 756 video," then clicking on this link, then the "watch" button next to "Bonds hits No. 756." This brings up the pop-up media player with a replay of the home run. Near the top right of the media player is an option to open a linescore, from which you can choose any half-inning to pick up the full game action. I chose the bottom of the fifth, and there was Barry, digging in the batter's box.)

Here is a pitch-by-pitch description (the observations are mine) of the entire seven-pitch at-bat:

[UPDATE, 5:30 p.m.] -- To clear room for Walker on the 40-man roster, the Nationals have designated RHP Marco Estrada for assignment. Estrada, 26, drafted by the Nats in 2005 (6th round), had late-season stints in the big leagues in both 2008 and 2009. For his career, he has a 7.20 ERA (20 innings) and an 0-1 record.

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The Nats' signing of reliever Tyler Walker to a one-year, $650,000 deal became official on Thursday, as announced to a team release. There's no word yet on who will be removed from the 40-man roster.