A Few Good Men: 30 - Stammen

Craig Stammen - Age 27 - MLB Service Time - just over 1 year

How He Became A Nat: Taken by the Nationals in the 12th round of the 2005 Draft

The Raw Numbers:
IP - 10
Batters Faced - 38
Batters Retired - 31
WHIP - 0.68
K- 12
WAR - 0.4

Key Stat: 2016 - The year Craig Stammen will become eligible for Free Agency. That's another 4 seasons of club control for a decent young arm who is still learning how to pitch out of the bullpen. He looked very good in a limited sample size in 2011, but 2012 will be a make or break spring training and he could become a legitimate option for the 2012 Nationals middle relief corps.

Best Game: September 26th against the Marlins. Stammen relieved rookie Tom Milone in the 5th inning with 1 out and the bases loaded. He did allow a runner to score on a wild pitch, but escaped without further damage. He then struck out the side in the 6th.

Worst Game: Easily his first game of the year, June 6th against the Giants. He started the 13th inning of a 4-4 game and proceeded to allow 2 hits, a base on balls en route to giving the Giants a walk-off 5-4 win.

Capball Grade: B+ Such a limited sample size is tough to grade. An incomplete might be more appropriate, but that feels like laziness. His stats were fairly good despite his outings being few and far between. He also had a Win Probability Added above 0.000 for all his appearances, save for one, the June 6th game.

2012 Nats Status: He will be right there in Spring Training as a candidate for the middle innings and a spot starter. I guess it all comes down to the question of "will Davey become enamored with him?" Who really knows at this point?

Do you know? Please share!

25 in 25: Chad Gaudin (#15)

In 11 days, all the Nationals diehards will be preparing to head to Nationals Park on Opening Day. Until then, we're going to predict the 25 man roster. With one catch. We're going to do it one day at a time. This way, we can provide more in depth thoughts on who we think is going to make the roster, why we think so, and what to expect from them in 2011. On the morning of Opening Day, we'll post the real 25-man compared with what we predicted.

After today, there are just 10 slots left and many more than 10 qualified candidates. It's refreshing to see so many qualified veterans (and young guys for that matter) in Nats camp this year. But today, the honors go to Chad Gaudin.

Why?: Gaudin was a big addition to camp for Mike Rizzo this offseason, because it provided competition to the Nats on two fronts. Many (me included) considered Craig Stammen to be basically a lock on the long reliever role for this season. However, the addition of Gaudin to the equation added real competition to the process. Gaudin has also started a number of games in his career, 75 starts over the course of 8 seasons to be exact. So with Gaudin in camp, he realistically had the opportunity to compete for multiple pitching roles.

Gaudin pitched enough innings this spring to be in the same conversation as Marquis, Detwiler, Maya, and Zimmermann. Not bad company as far as the starting rotation conversation goes. In his 11 innings pitched this spring, he's given up 12 hits and 5 earned runs, and has the worst ERA among that same competition.

What to expect?: Gaudin has been great in small doses this season, and certainly has the stamina to be an emergency starter.

After the Nats lost Miguel Batista last year to free agency, we think that Chad Gaudin will fill Batista's old role as a long reliever and spot starter. Craig Stammen has remaining options, and we think he'll start the season in AAA Syracuse.

Here's hoping that Gaudin can have a Mr. Iowa moment this year.