The Natinals are here.
Well, sort of.
He's been a little quiet here at the start, and when given the chance to talk about his great expansion draft and really good March draft, he was rather terse.
I’m sure the excitement of joining the JLB is just overwhelming.
“Ready to finally get a feel for the league,” Bremmer said. “Had many trade requests, but I didn’t want to entertain any until I know what positions matter most in the league.”
First place is the position that matters the most.
OK, I know what Bremmer meant, and as his playoff nightmare, Jason McGuirk, said yesterday, the position that matter the most is pitching.
Those pitchers can come in many ways — trades, smart free-agent moves and the draft — but however you acquire them, the key is that you do so.
And Bremmer is in good shape. He addressed pitching right away in the expansion draft, skipping over a great franchise shortstop in Carlos Correa to grab Corey Kluber.
Long term, that may not have been the best move, but for the short term, Kluber was a key piece to build around.
Adding Kyle Hendricks, Jacob deGrom, Michael Fulmer and Mike Klevinger in the expansion draft were great moves for the Natinals as well.
In the March draft, he added some more starters, but my goodness did he attack the bullpen.
He has the nearly as many closers now as Cheese Steaks has Opening Day starters.
“Love a lot of good bullpen arms,” he said. “Gotta keep the pen full.”
Full may be an understatement.
He had five closers slated to get 30 or more saves after the draft ended, and then the lucky guy got great news when Dominic Leone was named the Cardinals’ closer and Brad Boxberger was named the DBacks' closer.
If he holds on to all seven, he’ll blow away the saves record for sure, and he should be in line for 21 wins automatically. He's also going to lose holds 21 times. So .500 at the end of the day with this strategy. ... And it will get worse because having seven closers means you have seven pitchers who can give you blown saves.
Considering there is only one other team to have four closers, and most have three or less, this may be overkill.
That’s not the only area where the Natinals have some excess roster fat.
For third base, first base and the two utility spots, he has a bit of a logjam that will force him to bench one of the following almost daily: Freddie Freeman, Kris Bryant, Josh Donaldson, Justin Smoak and Matt Olson. You can make that “two of the following” if you include Albert Pujols who is still projected to his 24 bombs with 87 RBIs.
“Yes, the corner infield looks pretty good,” he said. “Might be an opportunity to make a trade there.”
There definitely will be with both the corners and the closers.
But how will he ever trade if he can’t access the League on his phone?
“Disappointed this site doesn’t have an app for my phone,” he said.
But it does.
“I work with attorneys all day,” he said. “I live in the world of technicalities.”
Great. Maybe I should have you comb through the rulebook and explain the real difficult paragraphs to Choo. He struggles with compound sentences.
Once you’re done clearing things up for him, you two can sit down and iron out a deal that gets him another top-notch infielder.
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