Friday, February 18, 2011

The One Where Mac Eats Crow

Sometimes I make predictions and they come true (mere hours after its made), and other times, not so much. This is one of the times where, well, lets just say I was a wee bit wrong...

In my post on January 20th, I went through the entire 40-man roster and non-roster invitees to give my guesses on who was going to make the team out of Spring Training. Once finished I had taken a few chances on pitching staff members, basically trying to figure out what was going on with our rotation. We had just made the Tom Gorzelanny trade and it was widely assumed that he would be placed in the rotation. I wasn't so sure, so I took a chance and said that Chien-Ming Wang was going to be the 5th starter...

By now you probably have see the news posted by the beat writers about the drastic nature of his bullpen session. Recovering from an unheard of surgery for pitchers, Wang's velocity was distinctively slow compared to the others doing bullpen sessions. Now, its widely assumed that he will be starting the year in the Minor Leagues. Not what the Nationals hoped when re-signing him to a $1 million dollar MLB contract.

Here are a few of the words of our beat writers...

Zuckerman - "Now, I'm by no means a pitching expert, and my eye for these things isn't anywhere in the same area code as Steve McCatty and the rest of the coaching staff. But Wang sure wasn't throwing the ball with much oomph. He's got a very slow, deliberate motion, so that can make things look a little deceptive. But the ball wasn't coming out of his hand with nearly as much velocity as the other guys pitching alongside him."

Kilgore - "Today, he looked to be as far from away from a big league mound as he believes he is, not as close as the Nationals had hoped."

Goessling - "Most of the other pitchers looked fine, but Wang's arm strength just isn't there yet."

Sometimes you go out on a limb and it works. Sometimes you go out on a limb and Wang just never gets there... Wait... Thats not right...

3 comments:

  1. Yeah, I tried to tell you dude. Its fine to dream but to say Wang would be better than Gorzelanny in this team's rotation was downright delusional.

    If you are going to have a blog at least try to stick a bit closer to the facts at hand.

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  2. Really giving up on your prediction after a single bullpen session? I'm pretty sure every pitcher there was just trying to loosen up the first day, including Wang.

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  3. The facts at hand were that the Nats front office found him to be in such good shape they offered him a major league deal, announcing him fit for duty to try and win a job in spring training. Obviously thats not the case now, and yes I am giving up on him because Wang himself said that he wasnt expecting to make it to the Majors until the end of May. That doesn't sound like someone who is ready to compete for a spot in the starting 5.

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