Stealing Money

I remember reading an article about the men at the periphery of professional basketball (this was back in the day when "NewsRadio" was still on the air, so I have no chance of tracking it down now). These were players who went un- or barely drafted and wound up in Europe or playing on ephemeral teams with silly names in some of your less glamorous cities.

A common complaint among these athletes was that the guys in the NBA - not the stars; the 12th men - weren't as good as they were. Why, they asked, are those chumps making the NBA minimum on ten day contracts while I'm making basically nothing playing for the North Dakota Fargonauts?

I made up the Fargonauts, but this one's real.

They had a term for it. The undeserving NBA players were "stealing money."

You have to wonder if Brian Goodwin of the Syracuse Chiefs is thinking something similar.

The Nationals aren't scoring much lately. They totaled three runs in the three games against Philadelphia. There's been a lot of talk about lineup construction, but making it so Harper and Murphy bat one after the other wasn't going to scare up enough runs to win that series.

The problem is personnel, and why in the hell is Michael A. Taylor still around? He's been stealing money for parts of three seasons, and he hasn't shown the ability to do much but hit a home run a couple times a month.

Meanwhile, Brian Goodwin is hitting .350 for the Fargonauts and probably staring wistfully at his phone.

Is there an explanation for this? It's possible. I don't follow prospects, and maybe there's something I don't know about Goodwin - maybe he compares people to Hitler all the time. But Taylor had a chance and didn't get the job done, so it's time to get Goodwin out of Fargo.

Reinforcements

During World War I, the Germans had an idea. Rather than having the guys who were good at World War I spread out all over the army, they decided to concentrate them into all star teams which, having been given special training, would actually accomplish something after years of everyone sitting around in trenches picking vermin out of their food.

Combat prancing was a big part of the training.

Baseball would copy this all star team idea in 1933 as a way to raise money for penurious former players. 82 years after that they would ruin it by getting rid of paper ballots.

Germany's stormtrooper idea kind of worked. The elite soldiers did accomplish some stuff, but running out in front got a whole lot of them killed, leaving the rest of the army to carry on with that many fewer competent dudes.

It was a matter of attrition, and we're seeing something similar with the Nationals pitching staff.

Nats pitching has been really good, leading baseball in ERA even after coughing up five to Miami earlier today. They've even been shouldering some of the offensive burden - this fellow points out that Nats leadoff hitters are getting out-hit by the pitching staff, 517 OPS to 577.

Being out in the forefront of all the baseballing is taking its toll, though. Joe Ross developed a blister and may miss his next start. Max Scherzer had mechanical issues in Thursday's start. He insists that it's nothing to worry about, but what does he know? He's no more a trained medical professional than last year's training staff.

We need reinforcements. Lucas Giolito has a 1.17 ERA over two games in AA, and that's good enough for me. We're not looking for any Taylor Jordan half measures here.

Speaking of leadoff hitters and reinforcements, it's time to give up on Michael A. Taylor. It's not clear why he's in the majors, or why it was assumed that he'd be with the Nats out of spring training (maybe there's a good explanation; I skipped spring training this year because I hate it).

Taylor got into 17 games in 2014 and didn't hit. He followed that up by not hitting in 2015. This year he's switched it up a little by not hitting.

What's he doing here? I know he wasn't supposed to be the starter, but that's not good enough for a fourth outfielder. That might not be good enough for Syracuse.

Where, by the way, center fielder Brian Goodwin is hitting .372.

It's time.