Nationals Expect Chien-Ming Wang to Be Ready for Spring Training

Nationals GM Mike Rizzo expects starter Chien-Ming Wang to be ready for spring training, he told MLB.com Wednesday. Wang hasn't pitched at all since 2009 and he's only thrown a total of 137 innings since the 2007 season, in which he went 19-7 with a 3.70 ERA for the Yankees.

Since then, he's missed big chunks of time with a foot injury in 2008, which in turn caused a change in his delivery, and shoulder problems that caused him to miss most of 2009 and all of 2010. Rizzo says he's throwing off the mound, though, and will be in camp with the rest of the Nationals pitchers.

It seems like it's been a long time since Wang's sinker made him an effective starter. In 2006, he finished second in Cy Young voting and put up a 3.63 ERA despite only striking out a hitter about once every three innings thanks to that sinker, which gave him baseball's third best groundball percentage (62.8 percent).

He followed that up with a 58.4 percent groundball rate in a 2007 that was mostly similar to 2006. The big question is whether he's recovered the mechanics that made his sinker so effective for the Yankees in those two seasons.

The other big question is if the Nationals are good enough defensively to turn those groundballs into outs. The Nats were in the bottom third of baseball in turning balls in play into outs in 2010, though they obviously hope that the maturation of Ian Desmond, who had a rough rookie year defensively at shortstop, and the addition of Adam LaRoche will help Wang and the rest of the pitching staff out.

If they can't, it might not matter how healthy Wang is or how effective his sinker is, because he'll probably give up a lot of hits anyway.