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Trade idea: Mike Morse

So I have been thinking a lot about our need for a LF and the possible ways to solve it... Here is the best/most realistic idea i came up with...

Mike Morse, once a nice prospect in Seattle really caught my eye last year in Washington. The numbers he put up in just around 300 plate appearances were ridiculously good. He showed he could hit both righties (.287/.340/.466) and lefties (.295/.374/.625!!). He showed great pop(15 hrs in 266 abs), and good on base skills(.352 obp). He is a massive guy at 6'5 240 lbs and it seems like he has the frame to support this power outburst. I think it was 100% legit. To me, his career path resembles that of Jayson Werth.

That is the silver lining. However, the one problem with Morse could, and i stress could, be his defense. He was below average in RF last year for the nats, and coming up, was a below average SS. However, I have to think that if this guy was athletic enough to play SS in the minors, he could be adequate in LF for us. Or at least much better than Jonny Gomes. Also, his OF metrics may be skewed a bit by the small sample size. Given a little more experience in the OF at the big league level, I would like to think that he could be decent enough to the point where Stubbs could make up for his deficiencies, and be an option for us.

What about his contract you say? Well 2011 is the first year he is arbitration eligible, and he would be under team control until 2014. He made 410k last year, and although due for a raise, he shouldn't be out of our price range. Walt said he prefers a lefty, but why not a righty that can hit RHP just fine?

Why would the Nats want to trade a cheap option such as Morse? Well, their offseason moves seem to be an indication that they do not have big plans for Morse. With the Werth and Ankiel signings, as well as the prescence of Nyjer Morgan, Roger Bernadina, and Jason Maxwell, Morse does not have a clear role with the Nats. He could presumably play 1b for them, but the Nats have been intent on signing Derek Lee to man the corner, which shows they do not view him as the "answer" at first. He is also much older than you may think. He's going into his age 29 season in 2011. I'm sure the Nats would like to build a younger core to go with strasburg and harper.

What we should give them: Well its obvious Washington is a sucker for younger pitching and we have plenty of that. I would definitely not mind giving them Maloney and maybe a bullpen arm such as Fisher for Morse. If Walt wanted to go even further, he could try getting them to throw in Slaten who could help fill the void left by Rhodes signing with Texas.

Again, this is just a lot of speculation by me, but I think Morse would definitely be a nice, cheap, upside trade target for this ball club that offers breakout offensive potential as well as excellent value.

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Lastly, I wanted to just add that I think Todd Frazier should be more in the discussion for us in LF. I also think Donnie Joseph could be an excellent lefty for us in the pen, albeit as a midseason callup if he has success early on at AA/AAA. These are two internal options that I believe can succeed for us in 2011 that seem to be getting ignored a bit.

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Thanks for reading, and let me know what you guys think about this idea! Thanks!

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