Some Musings As We Shovel Dirt Upon the Padres

First, some personnel comments. Juan Pierre? Nationals Interest says yes, Curly W says no. I'm leaning towards the latter, and the more I look at it the farther I lean. I like the idea behind getting Pierre -- it's hard to hit home runs in RFK, but Pierre doesn't hit them anyway, so let him run around real fast. His on-base percentage was just .326, though, and that's pretty ugly for a guy with less power than ¡Livan!. It must be mentioned that this was after two years of very effective getting-on-basedness (gimme a GOB!) and that the dude really does steal a lot of bases (average of 52 over his five full years), which is just entertainment value added to your Nats ticket.

Then there's defense, allegedly the other neat part of Pierre's game. We could certainly use a DiMaggio-type in center, and even if he hits more like Vince than Joe, he'd be contributing something we lacked in '05. Pierre, however, doesn't seem to be that good. Win Shares credits him with 2.9 fielding shares, which, let me assure you, does not place him in lofty company. Baseball Prospectus has him as barely above average in his best years and consistently below recently. As usual, it comes down to money. He made $3.7 million last year and may not be offered arbitration by the penny-pinching Marlins. I wouldn't want us paying him that much, but I'd be fine with taking a $2 million-ish chance on him.

Every once in a while, when things are quiet, I like to pull a player idea out of my Bowden, so here's today's: Kenny Rogers. We need some pitchers, right? Kenny Rogers is certainly that. Sure, he's a violent jackass, but the Nationals have had remarkable success with violent jackasses so far.

He'll be a free agent, and my hope is that his age and violent jackassery keep his value on the open market reasonable. Isn't it about time Washington had a baseball player good-looking enough to keep up with its baseball bloggers?

Above: Artist's conception of Kenny Rogers hanging out with local bloggers. (l-r) Kenny Rogers, Me, Basil, Needham, Yuda.

Speaking of Basil, he moved. The former Inquirer got himself some new digs that don't look like everyone else's Blogger site. Personally, I've convinced myself that I prefer the ascetism of the default Blogger template to some competently designed site, but good for Basil, and let's all welcome Federal Baseball.

In getting myself a link from the Post news, this is going to get me a link from the Post. The venerable Barry Svrluga, who really is as good as everyone says he is, will be co-hosting a chat with Washington Post second banana beat writer Jorge Arangure, Jr. Will their feud be kind of funny or just tiresome? Tune in at 2:00 pm to find out!