What do you do when the most consistent man on your team suddenly stops doing all the things that made him the most consistent man on your team? Assuming the Nationals have tried the old “turning him off and back on” already, they might want to try something else. Of course, the player in need of a full CTRL-ALT-DELETE is one Daniel Murphy.
Tag Archives: Daniel Murphy
Nats vs. Cubs: Who’s Got the Advantage?
With about two more months to go until the regular season ends, and with the postseason picture becoming more clear, it’s become obvious that unless something changes drastically, the Nats are going to play the winner of the NL Central in the playoffs. And right now, it’s looking like that team is going to be the Cubs (unless the Brewers can fulfill my chaos-fueled wishes and unseat the Cubs).
The Biggest Over- and Under-Performers of the First Half
The Nationals kick off the second half of the 2017 season tonight on the road against the Reds sitting 9.5 games up in the NL East. While the squad has sat in first place for practically the entire season, it hasn’t been an easy road getting there. Some players have outplayed their expectations while others have been disappointing so far this season.
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Daniel Murphy is the Best Deal in Baseball
What is the best free agent signing the #Nats have made to date?
— My name is Jo(e)nas📎 (@TheNatsBlogJoe) June 21, 2017
What’s the best free agent signing the Nats have ever made? That’s the question @TheNatsBlogJoe asked on Twitter a couple of weeks ago and the resounding answer he received was Max Scherzer. But those respondents are wrong. Lots of folks argued that the Jayson Werth signing was more important because of the culture change his addition brought. They are wrong too. In third place on the Twitter poll was the correct answer — Daniel Murphy. It’s hard to argue too vehemently against Max, who’s already rung up 16.4 WAR in 2 1/2 seasons, equaling $131.7M (of his $210M 7-year contract) in value according to Fangraphs, and a Cy Young Award. And while Werth hasn’t quite earned all of his $126M contract, he’s come close enough to justify his signing when you consider the Nats haven’t had a losing season since they signed him. But Daniel Murphy has been one of, if not the best, free agent bargains in all of baseball.
First Half NL MVP Candidates
We’ve reached the All Star break, meaning we’ve hit the “halfway” point of the season. At this point, we can typically take a step back and get a good look at baseball thus far this season and maybe get a good prediction of how it’s going to end. Of course, anything can happen between now and October, and I am neither an expert nor am I clairvoyant. But I’m going to give a go at predicting some of the likely candidates to win the National League MVP at the end of the season. Last August I did the exact same thing (albeit with a month and a half more playing time to consider), and I correctly predicted the top five MVP finalists. So here is my early insight into potential 2017 MVP candidates.
Who Should You Expect to Represent the Nationals in the All Star Game (Plus One Guy You Should Want To Be There)
Ah, the 2017 All-Star weekend: when you’ll watch the likes of Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge try to destroy the Marlins’ hideous statue in left center with homers before baseball fans everywhere can finally enjoy watching the game’s best players without the exhibition deciding home field advantage.
But you, wise and curious Nationals fan, want to know exactly who will be suiting up to play in front of the league’s most consistent fan base. Herein lies this week’s looming question: Which curly-w-clad gentlemen will head to Miami for the Midsummer Classic? The starters will be revealed on the evening of 2 June, with the following all but guaranteed, and thus, not altogether interesting to discuss.
The Nats Best Free Agent Signing
The Washington Nationals aren’t known for making big free agent signings. Most of their big acquisitions are made via trade or extensions to internal players, with a few notable exceptions. After the latest outstanding start by Max Scherzer, I started to think about the Nats’ best free agent signing to date. There were three obvious candidates: Scherzer, Jayson Werth, and Daniel Murphy. So, I put a poll in the (Twitter) field, and Scherzer was the landslide winner.
I wanted to take some time to breakdown the arguments for and the (few) arguments against each, and then I’ll share my pick for the team’s best free agent signing.
Who Would the Nationals Protect in an Expansion Draft?
Today is the NHL’s expansion draft. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a quick primer of the NHL expansion rules: each team is allowed to select a certain number of its players to protect. Any others are eligible to be selected by the expansion team, which must select exactly one player from each team.
So, in the spirit of keeping things topical, I decided to take a crack at seeing who the Nationals would protect in an expansion draft. MLB had its own expansion draft 20 years ago when the Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays joined, and therefore has its own set of rules.
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Nats Power Rankings: June 19
Welcome back to the latest in a series, in which we review the previous week in Nationals baseball and power rank the players according to their performance. This is an extremely unserious exercise; at no point should it ever be confused with actual baseball analysis. Don’t worry, I will do my best to make sure that is obvious. Without further ado: your Washington Nationals, ranked according to power.
The Forgotten Star: Daniel Murphy’s Continued Success
Last year, the biggest stories with the Washington Nationals were the relative disappearance of Bryce Harper and the incredible results from the former Met and present Met killer Daniel Murphy. Today, Murphy and his infectious grin and amusing on-field screams are seemingly forgotten among the many other interesting narratives surrounding the NL East leader. Still, Murphy deserves the proper attention as he continues to showcase that he is one of baseball’s most consistent and effective hitters. In preparation of the impending series with the Mets, allow me to rave about him for a few minutes.
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