Saturday, May 14, 2011

Nats Pull Plug on Broderick, Recall Kimball

What started as a fantastic spring training devolved into a miserable regular season for Rule 5 pick, Brian Broderick. Early Saturday morning the Nats decided to finally cut bait with the big right-hander. Being a Rule 5 pick, if Broderick clears waivers the Nats will have to offer Broderick back to his original team, the Cardinals. After that happens the Cards can either take him back or choose to make a trade with the Nats so that Broderick would be assigned to the minors.

Coming up into his place is going to be 6' 3" righty and 2006, 12th round draft pick, Cole Kimball. Who has put up fantastic numbers at AAA Syracuse this year.

Kimball started his professional career as a starter, but after two years of struggles someone decided to make him a reliever. And after getting the kinks out in 2009, Cole really made the leap to excellence in 2010. His ERA dropped from 6.36 to 2.17, WHIP from 1.65 to 1.13, and strikeout totals nearly doubled from 52 to 101. It seemed that Kimball, at age 25, was ready to take the next step into the majors.

So far this season, Kimball has appeared in 12 games, is a perfect 5 for 5 in save opportunities and has yet to allow a run. His 9.2 K/9 ratio and 1.17 WHIP against AAA opposition should fare him well in the Majors.

At the very least, it offers the Nats some confidence in the bullpen that they lacked with Broderick.

4 comments:

  1. Finally, our long Nationals bullpen nightmare is over. I've been saying since he had that big blowup in his first appearance of the season that trying to keep Broderick on the roster all year was a FAIL, especially given that his stuff did not appear to be anything special. The Nats' margin for error is way too thin to be carrying a guy who has no business being there.

    Too bad it took two consecutive blown games for Rizzo to agree.

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  2. Pitching with 4 guys and putting the pressure on them (Storen, Burnett, Clippard, Coffey) and watching Slaten implode while protecting HenRod and Broderick is a recipe for disaster.

    They need to bite the bullet for this season and have Detwiler replace Slaten.

    Still not sure what you do with HenRod.

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  3. Rodriguez had a great appearance today, and Detwiler should not replace Slaten. Detwiler will eventually be a valuable starter for the Nats, and I don't like putting him in the bullpen after he's already been stretched out and having a good year starting. You are right, though, that Slaten might need to go elsewhere.

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  4. Detwiler has been getting hit HARD lately. He might end up being the lefty version of Clippard, a guy with good stuff just so long as he only faces hitters one time per game. It's still too early to give up on him being a starter, but a couple of months' more futility might just do it.

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