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Jim Bowden has been a busy man this offseason. Since we last left the Nationals, they have acquired outfielder Elijah Dukes, infielder Aaron Boone, pitcher Tyler Clippard, and catcher Paul Lo Duca. They have also signed outfielder Wily Mo Pena to a one year deal. Betting that he can't possibly have two horrible years in a row, the Nats have also signed outfielder Ryan "more strikeouts than total bases" Langerhans to a one year deal. Finally, the team has also picked up outfielder Garrett Guzman and infielder Matt Whitney in the Rule 5 draft.
The two big signings are Elijah Dukes and Paul Lo Duca. Dukes is a 23 year old prospect who has been suspended at least once in each of his professional seasons. In addition to a slew of other problems, his most notorious act was threatening his wife by voice mail and then sending a picture of a gun to her cell phone. Despite these problems, he is considered an exciting prospect. After winning "Comeback Player of the Year" last year, the Nationals are counting on Dmitri Young to mentor Dukes and to help him turn his life around.
Paul Lo Duca was the catcher for the Mets last year, and has been brought in help develop Jesus Flores. The team lost a lot of experience when they traded Brian Schneider to the Mets earlier. While Lo Duca is not as good a defensive catcher as Schneider, he is a marked improvement on offense, batting .288 for his career with a .338 OBP and .414 slugging compared to Schneider's .323 OBP, .377 slugging, and .252 AVG. Lo Duca is also known as a gamer who wants to play every day, and is expected to be a strong leader in the clubhouse.
Aaron Boone, most famous for knocking the Red Sox out of 2003 ALCS, is expected to be the first player off the bench for Manny Acta. He can play every infield position and also adds experience to the young team. Pitcher Tyler Clippard made his major league debut with the Yankees last year, going 3-1 with a 6.33 ERA in 6 starts. Infielder Matt Whitney was named the 10th best prospect in the Carolina League by Baseball America. Outfielder Garrett Guzman was named to the Eastern League postseason All-Star team in 2007, and will be competing with Ryan Langerhans for the 5th outfield spot. We wish him the best of luck.
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Um, what about Lastings Milledge? He's actually a bigger acquisition than Dukes. He'll likely be the starting CF in 08. Plus the trade the Nats made for him is the reason they needed to sign Lo Duca.
Way to stay classy Nats: Everyone lock up your teenage duaghters and sisters.
"A 17-year-old foster girl living with a relative of Elijah Dukes told police the Devil Rays outfielder got her pregnant.
Detectives believe the sex was consensual and no crime was commited, but the incident has sparked a state investigation into the foster home."
But there is more:
"Mets catcher Paul Lo Duca’s troubles increased Wednesday when a 19-year-old Long Island girl told a New York paper she had been having an affair with the catcher, one day after the team said it would look into allegations of gambling problems."
We covered the Lastings Milledge trade here, but you are right, acquiring him is the biggest trade for the Nats so far.
As for Dukes and Lo Duca, the Nats seem awfully convinced that they can turn around bad players. Personally, I agree with Boswell in this article, that they should give Dukes a very short leash.
Having Lastings Milledge and Elijah Dukes around each other isn't going to be good for anyone. There's a very good reason the Mets dumped L-Millz for 75 cents on the dollar.
The Peña-Dukes-Milledge outfield is going to be fun to watch next season, both on the field and at the plate.
But how about we get some decent pitching? Unless JimBo has something up his sleeve, this need has been almost completely ignored this offseason.
Pena wasn't horrible for us. Was actually very good. He hit .293 with 8 HRs in the month+ he was here.
even better than the pena-dukes-milledge outfield will be the pena-dukes-milledge mug shots.
bowden is doing the same shit he pulled during his last gig in cinci... stockpile outfielders and never get any pitching. the nats definitely need to make a trade or three before spring training.
Ahhh Nook, Lo Duca, are jucied.
The handwritten note shown below on Dodger Stadium stationary from Lo Duca to Radomski was seized from Radomski’s house during a search by federal agents. Radomski said that this note was included with a check Lo Duca sent Radomski as payment for human growth hormone.
Rondell White, a Tigers teammate, referred Logan to Radomski. Radomski stated that he sold Logan one kit of human growth hormone just before federal agents searched Radomski’s house in December 2005. Radomski mailed the package to Logan, who paid by money order. Radomski recalled having between six and eight conversations with Logan about the use of performance enhancing substances. In the course of one of these conversations, Logan confirmed that he had received the shipment from Radomski. Radomski still had Logan’s phone number in his cell phone directory at the time of his final interview with me and provided me
with the phone number.
Well, after last year, the Nats need offense above all else. Check out these '07 team stats:
BA: .256, 13th in NL
Runs: 673, 16th
OBP: .325, 12th
SLG: .390, 15th
OPS: .715, 15th
ERA: 4.58, 10th
WHIP: 1.44, 12th
BAA: .269, 9th
OPS: .772, 11th
Quality starts: 69, 15th
Granted, the starting pitching only ranks marginally better, but with all the injuries to their staff, they held together more than I certainly would've expected. They had Jason Simontacchi starting fer crissakes. My guess is they'll try to get their young guys all the way healthy rather than trying to land any expensive starters.