2008 Projection: Joe Nathan March 19th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Finally, we reach the final of the pitchers for the 2008 projectsions—Joe Nathan. It should come as no surprise that he’s projected to be great again in 2008.
| Year | Age | ERA | W | L | INN | HR | BB | K |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 ZiPS | 33 | 2.19 | 6 | 1 | 70.0 | 4 | 20 | 82 |
| 2007 | 32 | 1.88 | 4 | 2 | 71.7 | 4 | 19 | 77 |
| 2006 | 31 | 1.58 | 7 | 0 | 68.3 | 3 | 16 | 95 |
Joe Nathan has, no doubt, been one of the top closers in the game since he came over from San Francisco in the A.J. Pierzynski trade prior to 2004. He has twice finished top-5 in the AL Cy Young voting—not bad for a closer.
Nathan is in the final year of his contract after the Twins picked up his $6 million option for 2008 this past October. Many rumors swirled in the offseason that the Twins would seek to trade Nathan, but the talk all spring has been that the Twins are negotiating with Nathan’s agent. Of course, there were recently contract negotiations with Johan Santana and Torii Hunter.
I don’t think the Twins will re-sign Nathan, mainly because it doesn’t make much sense for a team that’s limiting its budget like the Twins. He’s expected to get a contract offering in the area of $10 million/year and it doesn’t make sense for the Twins to offer that kind of money to a closer who will be 34 years old at that time. The Twins could try to offer up Nathan at the trade deadline this year, a time when several teams are desperate for bullpen help.
Other 2008 projections
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