The Nationals have an excess of starting pitching and other teams are calling about left-hander John Lannan, but GM Mike Rizzo told Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post that he is not actively shopping the club's two-time Opening Day starter…
"I wouldn’t say there’s a lot of interest," said the GM. "I haven’t made any calls. I’ve fielded several calls. … But, again, this is way too early to say we have too much starting pitching."
"I am not actively shopping him," Rizzo added. "I haven’t actively shopped him all year, all winter."
Kilgore says the team is adamant about not trading Lannan for anything less than what they consider fair value, and they're fully prepared to option him to Triple-A if necessary. The 27-year-old southpaw will earn $5MM in 2012 after losing his arbitration hearing, and a competing GM told Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com that the Nats should expect little in return if a new team absorbs his entire salary (Twitter link). Lannan can remain under team control as a arbitration-eligible player in 2013 before hitting the free agent market.
The Nationals added Gio Gonzalez and Edwin Jackson to holdovers Jordan Zimmermann and Stephen Strasburg this offseason. They also re-signed Chien-Ming Wang and have the out-of-options Ross Detwiler available as well. The Red Sox, Tigers, and Astros are said to be among the clubs with an eye on Lannan, who Tim Dierkes profiled as a trade candidate earlier this month.
Rizzo didn’t activey shop Adam Dunn at the break in his walk year. He’s about as passive a GM as there is, but for hte big Gio trade (if that is possible to say). He tends to think that every guy he has is worth much more than what the other clubs may be offering. Lannan’s got skills and value but not to the Nats and not to other clubs to the point where they are going to throw Rizzo a great return to get him. At $7.5M in 2013 he’s a non-tender guy, so a $5M rental of an innings eater with limited upside?? Not so shiny.
He’s a LH version of Jason Marquis, who signed for 3m with the Twins, but other than Lannan being a lefty? they both are innings eaters.
Rizzo should hold onto him and wait for some team that has in injury to a SP later on i the season if he expects to unload that salary, along with him. otherwise? The marquis deal proves there is almost no chance he gets anything worthwhile, or any salary relief in a move of Lannan at the present time.
Once the pennant races start to jell now, things change as everyone knows and even the kevin Millwoods of the world have been known to draw prospects.
Is that a bad thing that Rizzo trys to get more than what his players are worth? I think thats the best way to do it.
It’s a bad thing if you can’t make a deal, because you never think that the return is good enough. (How Rizzo did not trade Dunn in 2010 is beyond me — the Nats got lucky that he went Type A — it was close — AND that Dunn managed not to get inked by a bottom rung club.)
I think what he means is that Rizzo overvalues his players to the point where he doesn’t trade them and thus getting no value out of them. But I see your point.
The reason why Rizzo didn’t trade Dunn was because the Nats had interest in retaining him past the 2010 season and believed that he could be a huge piece of the puzzle for when they were ready to contend. Plus, even if they weren’t able to sign him, they could still get 2 first round picks out of him, and more draft picks is a huge plus for a rebuilding club such as the Nats at the time. The same scenario occurred with Reyes and the Mets at the last trade deadline. Plus, its hard to imagine whether or not trading a player with only half a season on his contract left would get more value than 2 additional first round picks. It usually depends on how desperate the team is in trading for him and whether they’re willing to overpay.
He shopped him, just not at a price that many teams were interested in, besides the Nationals got two solid picks with Meyer and Goodwin in last year’s draft. Nationals had the farm to be able to make a move for a young top of the rotation starter moving into his prime and under control for awhile. With the scouting the Nationals have, it won’t be long till it’s back to where it was, especially with prospects like Harper, Rendon, Meyer, Taylor, and Purke.
Rizzo has no reason to give Lannan away for pennies and nickels, you never know when a starter is going to go down and with Strasburg’s inning limit it can’t hurt to have depth, especially considering he has a minor league option.
I wish the Nats and Dbacks would just trade Lannan for Parra already. I think the Nats would have to throw in another mid-level prospect though.
This trade would not benefit the D-Backs as they already have a set rotation of Kennedy, Hudson, Cahill, Collmenter, and Saunders. Lannan would not be an upgrade over any of those guys. Plus Parra would provide more value to them if Kubel ever goes down and would be a left handed option behind Young and Upton. If they wanted to trade Parra, they could get a better return than Lannan.
Rizzo destroyed the market for Lannan himself by labeling him excess baggage for the Nats. He should have kept his mouth shut, said he was penciled into the rotation, and kept his value up for a trade. Mr. Rizzo is no more a genius than his surnamesake, Frank Rizzo, a deservedly maligned former mayor of Philly.
I have to reevaluate my definition of an innings eater because, sure he goes out there every day, but he cant pitch past the 5th inning
May as well keep the guy. He’s a better option than Wang, in all honesty and with Strasburg on an innings limit……….well, they just might need the guy. You’re not going to get much of a return anyway and you can never have enough starting pitching depth. They feel they can contend this year, so just hang onto him instead of shipping him off for a couple of fringe prospects.
ehh, unless someone throws a good deal together, i figure you might as well send him down to syracuse for a while. sorry lannan, but we don’t need ya at the moment. but hey, in a few months we’ll give you a ring when stras takes a seat and/or somebody gets hurt.