From Jon Heyman, we have this news:
Nationals, Mark DeRosa Reportedly Reach Agreement
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Derosa in agreement with nats, pending physical
Usually that last part is a technicality. It's not like the Angels were going to have a doctor diagnose Albert Pujols with rickets and cancel the deal. But with DeRosa, it's a very, very important point. Don't start counting those utility innings yet, Nats fans. There's a pretty good chance that DeRosa has a family of raccoons living in his wrist.
Well, maybe not. But there's a better chance of that than a working tendon. Let's back up a bit. DeRosa had surgery on his wrist at the end of 2009, before he joined the San Francisco Giants. He missed almost all of 2010 because of complications with that wrist. And then in 2011, he hurt his wrist again by doing this:
And by “this”, I mean “tensing up before a swing.” It was a thoroughly depressing sight to see a colorful, well-liked veteran end his career like that.
Except that wasn’t the end. He actually came back. And when he came back, he hit .367/.439/.388 in 49 at-bats. You know when a player has a high BABIP at the end of the season, and you ascribe some of his success to it, even though you didn’t notice at the time? It wasn’t like that with DeRosa. It looked like every ball he made contact with was finding a hole.
But anecdotes are useless. Fancy charts are not. From FOX Sports, here is DeRosa’s hit chart for 2011:
That's the hit chart of a player who is completely incapable of pulling a baseball. He'll have the offseason to recover, and things might get better. He's a likable player, and when he's right, he's a quite valuable one. But all things being equal, the Nationals probably shouldn't expect a whole lot from their new backup first baseman.
(Though I suppose if a team really is expecting a whole lot from a backup first baseman they have all sorts of problems anyways. )
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