Billy Beane and Mike Rizzo are up to making trades again, and this is their 10th trade between the Oakland A’s and Washington Nationals. This time the Nats traded for lefty reliever Marc Rzepczynski who is affectionately known as “Alphabet Soup” and “Scrabble”. The Nats give up Max Schrock who was a stand-out in A-Ball this year going from a Hagerstown Suns All-Star to one of the best hitters for the High-A Potomac Nationals.
Time always tells with these trades and this trade will remind many of the Billy Burns trade to the Athletics for Jerry Blevins. Giving up Schrock could not have been easy as he was hitting .333 in his 121 Minor League games, and we had comp’d him to Jamey Carroll in the past which is high praise.
His lefty on lefty splits are worse than his righty splits for this season.
As we pointed out with Papelbon and Shawn Kelley and Oliver Perez, each reliever has usage issues and if you use them properly to their strengths you get better results. Marc Rzepczynski has shocking splits when used in consecutive games versus 1 day’s rest. Rzepczynski turns 31 years old on Monday (Happy early birthday) which is not old for a reliever but the charts tell a story and either Dusty and Maddux embrace it or face the results.
When Jonathan Papelbon was released the Nationals had one open spot on the 40-man roster that Marc Rzepczynski will take and now a corresponding move will happen on the active roster which we are waiting to hear. It could possibly be Perez to the DL with his aching back and neck.
This was tweeted pre-game by Bill Ladson:
I'm not going to lie: I wonder if the #Nats have a strong enough bullpen to go deep into the postseason. As of now, I have to say no.
— William Ladson (@ladsonbill24) August 24, 2016
Truth spoken by Ladson, and this new acquisition probably won’t change Ladson’s mind but what about adding Joe Ross and Reynaldo Lopez? That could make a lot of sense as they both handle Hi Lev situations well. Adding Lucas Giolito would be more of a test case and that could also work.
The bullpen has been over-worked giving off signals that it’s broken, but mainly it has been relievers used out of the spots they are best accustomed to along with some blips like Blake Treinen yesterday as he has been one of the Nats best relievers this season.
The Nationals got to Zach Britton yesterday, it happens.
