How should a sporting event that's tied at the end of regulation be decided? Just make the two teams keep playing until someone scores? Give both teams an opportunity before it's over? Create a whole new set of rules in an attempt to get a final result sooner?
If you watched yesterday's NFL conference championships, surely you found yourself contemplating this very question. Was it fair that the Patriots, by virtue of winning a coin toss, were able to march down the field and score the...
For all the attention lavished upon Bryce Harper and Manny Machado and their long, slow quest to sign with somebody before the start of spring training, there are a ton of other free agents still unemployed as we reach late January.
And that includes a whole bunch of guys who played for the Nationals in 2018.
Let's look at those still-unsigned free agents and figure out what it might take to get them in a uniform before pitchers and catchers report ...
MATT WIETERS Wieters had to know he was...
Joel Hanrahan and Micah Bowie were teammates on the 2007 Nationals pitching staff, after which their respective careers took very different paths. Hanrahan, after crashing and burning when the Nats tried to make him their closer in 2009, wound up a two-time All-Star with the Pirates. Bowie, the consummate journeyman left-hander, appeared in only 10 big league games after leaving the Nats following that 2007 season.
Both wound up in the news on Friday, for very different reasons.
Hanrahan was...
Seeking for some more experienced left-handed options in their bullpen, the Nationals have signed veteran Vidal Nuño to a minor-league contract with an invitation to compete for a job in big-league camp this spring.
The deal, confirmed by a club source, will pay Nuño $1.3 million if he makes the major league roster, according to Fancred's Jon Heyman. It includes an opt-out clause if Nuño doesn't make the team.
Nuño, 31, posted a 1.64 ERA and 1.030 WHIP in 17 appearances for the...
Yesterday we looked at each of the Nationals' position players and asked if they are likely to be better, worse or the same in 2019. Today we'll do the same exercise with the club's pitching staff.
In some cases, this is simply about one player and examining his chances for improvement or regression from last year. But in some cases, this is about a specific role on the staff and whether or not the club has adequately improved the position so far this winter.
Again, there's still time for...
At this point, we have a pretty good idea what the 2019 Nationals are going to look like (with one obvious unknown still lingering out there). We can't wait forever for Bryce Harper to make his decision, though, so we're going to have to proceed around here as though the big guy isn't coming back to Washington. (If he does, well, we'll deal with that when it happens.)
So the real question that must be asked is this: Are the 2019 Nationals going to be better than the 2018 Nationals?
There...
Have the Nationals had a good offseason? It's easy to look at the eight major leaguers they've acquired since the 2018 season ended and declare they've enjoyed a successful winter.
Patrick Corbin and AnÃbal Sánchez filled obvious needs. Yan Gomes and Kurt Suzuki provide a clear upgrade at catcher. Brian Dozier is a solid pickup at second base. Trevor Rosenthal and Kyle Barraclough have the potential to reshape an ever-changing bullpen. Matt Adams was an important re-sign.
The Nationals...
Even on the heels of a subpar 2018 season in which he played through a knee injury and saw his production decrease, Brian Dozier said he had multi-year offers from other clubs this winter.
How, then, did it come to be that the veteran second baseman found himself on a conference call with Washington reporters this afternoon, discussing the one-year, $9 million contract he just signed with the Nationals?
"Basically, what it came down to was just where my wife and I wanted to be," he said....
There are still four weeks to go until pitchers and catchers report, 10 weeks to go until opening day against the Mets. There's plenty of time for things to change, and they probably will.
Yet if the Nationals needed to assemble a 25-man roster today, they could easily do it. And there's a decent chance that roster would look the exact same for Game 1 on March 28.
Such is the case when your front office has been among the most aggressive in the majors through the first three months of the...
A few thoughts as everyone wakes up this Monday morning and digs out from the weekend snowstorm ...
* We should be hearing from Brian Dozier soon, perhaps as soon as today, now that the veteran second baseman's one-year, $9 million contract with the Nationals has officially been announced. Dozier, who agreed to terms of the deal Thursday, passed his physical Sunday to finalize the process.
There will be plenty of topics to discuss with Dozier, but perhaps most interesting will be his...
Will the Nationals really go to arbitration with Michael A. Taylor and Kyle Barraclough over a combined $525,000? For now, yes, but the chances of the club and the two players settling salary figures on their own before engaging in a hearing next month would seem to be pretty strong, given the lack of difference in their dueling offers.
Cases that go to arbitration typically involve a sizeable disparity between sides, almost always at least $1 million. The Nationals, Taylor and Barraclough...
Brian Dozier has passed his physical, making his $9 million contract with the Nationals official, so the club formally announced it has signed the veteran second baseman in the latest move of a busy offseason.
Dozier, a former All-Star and Gold Glove Award winner with the Twins, agreed to terms of the deal Thursday but still needed to pass a physical before it could be finalized. With that process now complete, the Nationals have themselves their new starting second baseman for the 2019...
The long, slow, often behind-the-scenes dance Bryce Harper has been playing all winter has to come to an end eventually, right? I mean, he's going to be playing for some team in 2019, and pitchers and catchers report for spring training in 4 1/2 weeks.
Few are surprised the Harper saga has stretched into January, but most observers around the sport don't expect it to stretch much longer. Harper and agent Scott Boras have a pretty good sense of the market at this point, and this weekend...
The Nationals were able to agree to terms on 2019 contracts with Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner before today's 1 p.m. Eastern time deadline, but couldn't complete negotiations with Michael A. Taylor and Kyle Barraclough, who now must file for arbitration, according to a source familiar with the decisions.
Players across baseball with three to six years of big league service time were engaged in down-to-the-wire talks today, and there were so many submissions to Major League Baseball...
It's arbitration deadline day across Major League Baseball, which sounds like one of those really important days of the offseason with lots of dramatic news. But, to be honest, it isn't nearly as interesting as some might think.
The gist of what happens today: Players who are eligible for arbitration (more than three years' big league service time but fewer than six, plus those pesky "Super Two" players) must either come to terms with teams on their 2019 salaries or else file competing...
The Nationals got a jump on Friday's arbitration deadline, agreeing to terms tonight with Joe Ross on a one-year contract that reportedly will pay him $1 million.
Ross, who was eligible for arbitration for the first time, gets a raise from his 2018 salary of $567,900, though not nearly as much as some others with comparable big league service time will receive because he missed more than a calendar year while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
The 25-year-old right-hander is 17-15 with a 4.01...
The Nationals have agreed to terms with veteran second baseman Brian Dozier on a one-year contract, perhaps helping offset somewhat the power they would lose if Bryce Harper ends up signing elsewhere while also filling the one remaining vacancy in their projected 2019 lineup.
Dozier's deal, which is pending a physical, is worth a total of $9 million, with $2 million of that deferred, according to a source familiar with the terms. ESPN's Jeff Passan was first to report the agreement.
It's a...
OK, you've made the decision to head to spring training in West Palm Beach. You've picked out your dates to watch the Nationals, whether for the mid-February morning workouts or the late March Grapefruit League final tune-ups. You know where to best position yourself to get autographs.
But you don't know how to get to West Palm Beach yet. Or where to stay. Or what to eat or do when you're not at the ballpark.
You're in luck, because you're reading Part 2 of our annual Fans' Guide to...
We don't know yet where Bryce Harper will be reporting for spring training, but we do know when the Nationals will be reporting for spring training, with or without their longtime slugger.
The club officially announced key spring dates Tuesday, with pitchers and catchers set to report to West Palm Beach on Feb. 13 (with their first workout the following day) and position players set to report on Feb. 18 (with the first full-squad workout the day after that). The Grapefruit League opener...
There is no more volatile position in baseball than relief pitcher, no more volatile position group than the bullpen. Only a handful of the very best relievers can consistently be counted upon year after year, so that always makes this aspect of the roster tougher to predict than others.
Which also makes the Nationals bullpen both intriguing and nerve-wracking here as the 2019 season looms in the not-so-distant future.
This is nothing new, of course. Rarely have the Nats entered a season with...