Ooop, just submitted. MLBTR says 10/12/2m buyout, Morse likely to be moved.

I still don't get why they'd want to trade Morse.

You have Harper/LaRoche/Span... all left-handed batters where Harper could fill in. If you face two lefties a week and he pinch hits, that's 400 ABs for the year, not even counting him filling in for someone getting injured. There's a very good role for him that maximizes his abilities, minimizes flaws in some of those other players, and improves upon what they'd otherwise do: plug in Tyler Moore. (ugh)

If they end up trading him for a LOOGY, when they very well could've had JP Howell for $4 million cash, I'll be really annoyed.

Ah, so LaRoche did actually get his option year for the 2015 -- as a mutual buyout with a low price-tag. That always struck me as the inevitable solution, and I think it's fair enough.

Can't say how happy I am to see LaRoche back with the Nationals for next year. It wasn't even his bat that was so valuable...it was his GLOVE. The thought of having to watch Morse (likable oaf though he is) butcher plays at 1B was not a pleasing prospect. LaRoche, on the other hand, made Desmond and Zimmerman (who are both superlative defenders in terms of their ability to get to tough grounders, but occasionally make wonky, errant throws) look much better.

I still don't get why they'd want to trade Morse.

You have Harper/LaRoche/Span... all left-handed batters where Harper could fill in. If you face two lefties a week and he pinch hits, that's 400 ABs for the year, not even counting him filling in for someone getting injured. There's a very good role for him that maximizes his abilities, minimizes flaws in some of those other players, and improves upon what they'd otherwise do: plug in Tyler Moore. (ugh)

Well, keeping in mind the fact that this is an organization that has demonstrated its immunity to sentimental appeal (see: John Lannan last year), the consensus seems to be that Morse is a starter, not a bench player, and that it's unnatural and unfair to force him into a pinch-hitting role. (Beyond "fairness" there's the open question of how could he would be coming off the bench...that's a difficult skill for a lot of players.)

Incidentally, I wouldn't mind seeing Morse go for a reliever at all -- it just depends on the reliever. Morse should be able to bring back a bullpen arm significantly better than J.P. Howell.

Morse crowds the trade market for OFs. That makes Upton's asking price less. Yay!

Aw man...Michael Morse just updated his Facebook page, and all he wrote was

:-(

Seriously.

I'm going to miss him a lot when he's gone. No more singing "Take On Me" by a-ha during his late-inning at-bats. No more Beast Mode. Thanks for all the fish, Mikey.

Anyone know the salary for the option year? What are the mechanics of it?

Anyone know the salary for the option year? What are the mechanics of it?

$2 million dollar mutual option. In other words, a pittance guaranteeing an extra $2 million, not a 'real' option for 2015.

@4, sure... but 2 starts a week plus pinch-hitting opportunities isn't quite the same as the role Chad Tracy had last year. 400-500 ABs is easily doable -- keep in mind, IL play means he's almost guaranteed a few extra starts each month -- and not all the dissimilar from what he's had the last few years, given all his injuries.

Morse would so fit the Phils' needs. NFW that happens though.

$2 million dollar mutual option. In other words, a pittance guaranteeing an extra $2 million, not a 'real' option for 2015.

What I have read is that the $2 million is the buyout, not the amount of the option.

@4, sure... but 2 starts a week plus pinch-hitting opportunities isn't quite the same as the role Chad Tracy had last year. 400-500 ABs is easily doable -- keep in mind, IL play means he's almost guaranteed a few extra starts each month -- and not all the dissimilar from what he's had the last few years, given all his injuries.

Yeah, but then you try explaining to Bryce Harper, Denard Span, or Adam LaRoche why they have to sit down once or twice a week. There is a personnel management element here that can't be ignored; sure, you could simply impose your will upon the players, but that's a recipe for disaster (and it also doesn't seem like the sort of thing Davey Johnson would sign on to).

Fact is, it's musical chairs and the Nationals are just so deep right now that they have more deserving players than available seats.

What I have read is that the $2 million is the buyout, not the amount of the option.

Right, I've seen conflicting reports on this too. You could be right, it's all still a bit fog-of-war right now.

I dunno. It's not like this is a strict platoon situation for any one of those players. If you face a lefty, 2 of those other guys are still starting... Plus, if there's a guy who has the confidence of the players and has them believing that someone know what's best for them, it's Davey. That's the perfect kind of thing for him, really.

If you face two lefties a week and he pinch hits, that's 400 ABs for the year, not even counting him filling in for someone getting injured.

2 starts a week is about 50 starts - 200 PA. Add in 50-75 pinch hitting appearances, and you are still nowhere close to 400 AB. Only you'd get to 400 PA is if one of the other guys was hurt and Morse took over for a while.

What should Morse go for? Orioles should be all over this.

What should Morse go for? Orioles should be all over this.

According to the beat writers for the WaPo and WaTimes, there's already an explosion of interest from teams about Morse -- the Times' beat writer mentioned 7 or 8 teams having contacted Rizzo over the last few hours alone. The thinking is that, as an affordable, proven cleanup hitter, Morse ought to be able to bring back a solid bullpen arm plus a prospect or two. (Ideally SP prospects, but who knows.)

The Nationals have literally no more needs on the MLB team to fill at this point (except, as mentioned above, a lefty reliever), so the goal here is to try and do some restocking of the shelves on the farm. The Gio trade with Oakland emptied the cupboard.

The Orioles and Mariners both seem like plausible destinations, and the Rays and Yanks are also connected to trade talks right now. Morse is a fit with all of them (and it's no accident they're all AL teams).

It's a bit of rosterbation, I know, but I think Morse to the O's for Brian Matusz plus prospects makes a fair bit of sense.

Morse needs to be the DH of a softball league somewhere. The man is an absolute butcher in the field and I doubt his bat will be good enough to carry his glove in 2013 and beyond. Who does Seattle have as DH? Either that or somebody like the A's or Rays picking him up on his last year of pre-FA service time.

@15 You have 3 players he could replace. The odds that all three of them (particularly given those particular players' injury histories) are pretty good. 400 ABs is easily doable. How many Interleague games are there this year? He'll DH in half of them. There's another 50 or so ABs.

Morse is the DH's DH. He should go to the AL.

What should Morse go for? Orioles should be all over this.

Think the Nationals would really deal with the Orioles? That would be like dealing with the Phillies.

I sort of agree with Chris here. The Nationals really don't have to trade Morse. There is a role he can fill on this team, even if it's not the high-profile role he might want - and their areas of need (bullpen depth, maybe a backup 2B/3B type better than Lombardozzi, assuming there's one out there) aren't the kind of thing that you need to trade someone like Morse to acquire. Washington's best approach at this point might just be to stand pat and wait to see what happens come March.

-- MWE

Just looked up Michael Morse and this entire time I assumed he was a dorky looking white guy. I don't know why I thought that.

In an ideal world LaRoche and Morse would just platoon at first, but realistically they're getting paid too much for that.

#22 - So your view hasn't changed then?

BB/K in 2012:

Morse: 16/97
Chris Davis: 37/169
Adam Jones: 34/126


He'd fit right in.

Just looked up Michael Morse and this entire time I assumed he was a dorky looking white guy. I don't know why I thought that.

i believe he used to be a middle infielder who wore rec-spec glasses.

The Nats are looking like an OOTP team where even the reserves are 4 or 5-star players.

Any reason for the Sox not to jump on Morse and just not sign Napoli? Sub-par D at 1st until Ortiz finally can't hit and then move him to DH. Is Napoli all that better?

Any reason for the Sox not to jump on Morse and just not sign Napoli?

It would cost talent to acquire him. He would only be on the team 1 year, versus 3 years for Napoli.

It still might make sense to get Morse, but those are the reaons against it.

2 starts a week is about 50 starts - 200 PA. Add in 50-75 pinch hitting appearances, and you are still nowhere close to 400 AB. Only you'd get to 400 PA is if one of the other guys was hurt and Morse took over for a while.

A search on 2012 NL, guys with 350 to 450 PA, played at least 30% of games at 1B, LF, or RF turns up 17 names. One of those is Mike Morse. A few of these don't fit the role -- e.g. they had starting roles but sucked -- but it still looks like 12-14 or so, nearly one per team.

Remember, there really aren't very many true full-time players. In the 2012 NL, at least 30% of games at 1B/LF/RF, there were only 26 qualifying players, only 16 of them with 600+ PA. Across those three positions and the handful of DH games, the Nats have to fill up about 2100 PA. The chances that their three starters will amass substantially more than 1700 are fairly small, very unlikely they'd amass more than 1800. As noted, add in that Harper can cover CF and Morse is also eligible for the backup CF PAs. Of course that includes another unlikely assumption that Morse gets every one of those extra PAs, is always healthy himself, etc.

Anyway, you couldn't guarantee him more than maybe about 60 starts but chances are he'd get more than that. (And isn't it more like 4.5 PA per game average?)

Atlanta won the 1B/LF/RF health sweepstakes last year with Prado at 690, Heyward at 651 and Freeman at 620. Uggla also had over 600. Nobody on Atlanta's bench had more than 205 PA and that was Francisco who was always intended to give Chipper lots of time off. Milwaukee also did well with Braun, Hart and Aoki. 7 NL teams (inc the Astros) had no player reach 600 PA at 1B/LF/RF. The Nats had LaRoche and Harper just missed.

The Rays look like an obvious trade fit. Jake McGee would be a perfect replacement for Sean Burnett in the Nats' bullpen.

Yankees are reported to be interested in Morse. Could be a good fit if the cost isn't too high.

Unless the Yanks give up David Robertson (unlikely), I don't see much major-league talent that fits for the Nats there. They could sell off Morse for multiple prospects, but given that they're almost certainly a playoff team, I think they'd rather have help now or keep Morse for depth.

The Yanks could trade Robertson and re-sign Soriano, but Robertson's the heir apparent to Mariano's throne. If Mariano were clearly healthy, I could see it, but not now.

Blevins + SP from Oakland?

Blevins is arbitration-eligible for the first time this year, so he's about to start getting more expensive. I suspect they'd rather have a pre-arb guy like McGee or Brian Matusz.

Does this mean Anthony Rendon is also available?

LaRoche's 2-year deal lets them bring Rendon along one level at a time with a 2015 ETA. That's another reason why LaRoche is a better fit than extending Morse beyond this year.

Has the "bad" LaRoche LaLatched onto any team yet? He was lurking around the International league last year.

He was in Pawtucket last year, after being released by the Indians. 264/338/462 in 204 PA. He's now a free agent and someone will sign him as minor league depth.

So, everyone's okay with 2/24 to LaRoche? He doesn't have the most robust history, and could be out of the league at 34. He's exactly the kind of guy who is done by that age.

I don't know what the Nats options were, but signing an old player who just had his first year with a bWAR over 2.0 doesn't strike as the finest move one might make.

LaRoche, bWAR, career, 2004-2012:

1.0, -1.0, 1.4, 1.2, 1.1, 2.0, 0.9, -0.3, 4.0

Who does Seattle have at DH? Morales, Montero, Jaso, Ibanez, Bay,....

Who doesn't Seattle have at DH?

So, everyone's okay with 2/24 to LaRoche? He doesn't have the most robust history, and could be out of the league at 34. He's exactly the kind of guy who is done by that age.

It's not a crazy amount of money, and it's not a long deal. Even if he completely craters, it's not like this deal ends up crippling the team. It's not a great signing, but it's not one worth getting all that worked up about either.

Morse, bWAR, 2010-2012:

0.7, 2.2, -0.1

Morse posted 6.2 oWAR during that span, but coughed up more than half of that on defense (-3.4 dWAR). He needs to get to the AL as quickly as possible.

My theory on free agents is that it usually takes one year too many and 20% too much AAV to land a guy. That would put an appropriate deal for LaRoche at 1 year/$9.6M, which sounds about right to me. The Nats have Tyler Moore to help if LaRoche craters early, so they'll manage. I also wouldn't be surprised to see Wilson Ramos taking grounders occasionally at 1B this spring, since Davey Johnson seems enamored with Kurt Suzuki behind the plate.

He was in Pawtucket last year, after being released by the Indians. 264/338/462 in 204 PA. He's now a free agent and someone will sign him as minor league depth.

I'm relatively surprised that the Cubs haven't yet signed him as major league depth, given that Ian Stewart would appear to be the fallback plan if Vitters posts another 123/193/203 line...

So, everyone's okay with 2/24 to LaRoche? He doesn't have the most robust history, and could be out of the league at 34. He's exactly the kind of guy who is done by that age.

Yeah, it's OK. Ignore his injured 2011 -- and he was so horrible when he did play that I'm pretty comfy ignoring the whole thing given he's shown he's healthy -- then he's a league-average 1B and those cost about $12. It's a short contract and if a better option comes along, he'll be movable or if he collapses then you're not out much money. I'll grant that it's not obvious LaRoche at 2/$24 is better than one year of Morse then figure out something for 2014 but it's a low-risk move. And Morse doesn't have a sterling track record either and brings the same negatives as LaRoche. Uninspiring signing, probably unimportant signing but a perfectly meh signing.

The team raved, RAVED about ALR's defense. And he really was pretty sweet over there in a way that doesn't necessarily jive with some of the WAR components I've seen for him in previous years. Given the problems that often has with fairly evaluating 1B, it's hard to take some of the WAR numbers seriously. He's a solid bat (left-handed to help balance out the middle of the order) with a plus glove. Whatever numbers you want to assign to that, he's an asset at that price. Two years... who cares? It's a win-now team. He's a win-now player.

The Rays look like an obvious trade fit. Jake McGee would be a perfect replacement for Sean Burnett in the Nats' bullpen.

This is what I thought of right away. I'd be thrilled with this return, and it would be a good fit for Tampa as well.

Laroche was huge for the Nats last year- the most consistent offensive player, if not the best, and a great glove as well. Happy to have him back, particularly on this time frame where it is easy to shift Zim to 1B in two years.

Last year I kept waiting for Adam to turn back into a pumpkin. In the summer he did but he ended with a bang which really helps his image. Start off hot and end hot and the rest doesn't really matter. Next year I predict something like an .800 to .820 OPS out of him.

Ah, the classic "pumpkin interval".

I'm sure I'm not the only one reminded of Nick Johnson. But the similarities are highly superficial. They both are sort of goofy-looking, that's one.

Just looked up Michael Morse and this entire time I assumed he was a dorky looking white guy. I don't know why I thought that.

I always envisioned a fat David Morse.