Keeping the ship afloat.

How much will Tom Gorzelanny really help the Nationals?

On Monday, the Washington Nationals sent 3 mid-level prospects to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for Tom Gorzelanny. Many people have written informative pieces on this trade. Those can be found here, here and here. I want to take a look at whether or not this move actually improves the Washington Nationals or whether it was a superfulous trade.

Tampa Relief Fund



Photo from the Tampa Tribune

It's a good year to be a free agent reliever.  Rafael Soriano signed with the

New York Yankees for 3 years and $35MM.

This off season has seen a meteoric rise in reliever contracts.  The quality of relief pitchers on the market this off season has been high but the contracts have been higher.  The real questions are, are relief pitchers worth giving up draft picks for (if they are a type A free agent) and are they worth large mutli year deals?  The Tampa Bay Rays don't seem to think so.

Utility Bill

(AP Photo/Newsday, Audrey C. Tiernan)

Willie Harris can't buy a starting job anywhere but he may be

your team's new utility man next season.






  My last post was about the mid January doldrums of the MLB off season and I focused on the starting pitching aspects of it.  This time I’d like to take a minute to examine the mythical creature known as the utility player.  Is having a “utility player” on your roster a necessity or just one of those old school baseball clichés?  In recent times the notion of a utility player has been hyped more and more, culminating in Omar Infante actually making the NL All Star team last season.

Project Pitcher



Brad Penny (left) signed a $3 million contract with the Tigers this offseason possibly making Armando Gallaraga (right) the odd man out in the Tigers 2011 rotation.  Is that the right move?


This time of the MLB off season is usually slow going.  A slew of minor league deals for utility players and late signing relievers come to terms with new teams each year.  This is also the part of the off season when teams in need of starting pitch, which let's face it, is pretty much every team, start to look hard at the so-called "reclamation projects."  This off season is no different, other than there seems to be an abundance of these pitchers available this off season.  Pitchers such as Jeff Francis, Chris Young, Justin Duchscherer and a handful of others will be coming off of injuries or down years and looking to parlay a team friendly, one year contract into a long term deal in the future.