Needing Morse and LaRoche

The Nationals would like to win 87/88 games this year.  This would give them an excellent chance at getting into the playoffs. Obviously to do this they need to get better.

To break it down to it's most simplistic level, baseball is about scoring and preventing runs.  To improve your record you can score more runs, prevent more runs, or preferably do both.  Last year the Nats scored 624 runs and gave up 643.   624 runs was 44 runs below the National League average, good for 12th place in the league. In other words, it was at best a mediocre offense.   643 runs was 30 runs better than the NL average, good for 7th in the league. It was a good pitching staff. Logic would say the Nats it would probably be easiest for the Nats to improve by improving the offense.  However they chose to improve the pitching. Can they improve it enough?

Let's say for the moment that the Nats offense remains the same.  624 runs, and below average.  How many runs would the Nats have to give up to win 87/88 games?  The method used by most interested in the fancy stats is the Pythagorean equation. It's not perfect, but it gives you a good general idea of where you need to be in terms of runs scored/allowed in order to get the wins you want.  Using this the Nats would need to allow about 570 runs to expect 87/88 wins. Last year only the Phillies accomplished that. In 2010, no one did.

What does that tell us? Well it tells us that even with one of the best pitching staff in the majors the Nats may not prevent enough runs to carry that mediocre offense to the playoffs. Can it happen? Sure. But should you expect it? It's hard to say that. Plus, the dirty little secret about last year was how well that starting pitching staff actually performed. Take a look at these stats :

Jason Marquis - 20 starts - 120.2 IP - 3.95 ERA
Brad Peacock - 2 starts - 10.2 IP - 0.00 ERA
Tom Milone - 5 starts - 26 IP - 3.81 ERA
Ross Detwiler - 10 starts - 56 IP - 3.21 ERA

Put them together and you have a guy that pitched 213 innings and put up a 3.54 ERA.  In other words - that's pretty much what they are hoping for from Edwin Jackson. You'll get more from ZNN, but only 5 starts more.  You have Strasburg back, but the Nats aren't going from 0 Strasburg to 30+ starts of Strasburg. He was back last year, and he won't pitch all of this one. So you can only add about 20 new Strasburg starts in there. Is Gio much better than Livan? Certainly.  Will Wang or whoever, be better than the mix of remaining Nats starts from 2010 (Wang, Gorzelanny, Maya)?  Probably.  But be realistic here. For the Nats to improve by 70 runs their starting pitching would have to see their ERA drop from a perfectly respectable 3.80 to a wow-inducing 3.12.

But that's ok right? Because the Nats are going to get better offensively too, right? Yes, I believe that is the case.  I believe a full year of Zimmerman, a better year from Werth, a healthy year of LaRoche, minor improvements from Ramos and/or Espinosa, the eventual rise of Bryce, should all make the Nats offense better enough to score more runs even considering the potential negatives in the offense (poor hitting from Desmond and the Ankiel/Bernie platoon, possible minor regressions from Ramos and/or Espinosa, Morse's minor regression).   If they can score just a handful more runs say 25, then the Nats can give up closer to 600 runs.  That's needing a top 3-5 pitching staff rather than one of the best pitching staffs in recent memory. That seems much more reasonable.

And this is where we go back to yesterday's post - you NEED a healthy Morse and LaRoche to do this.  The bench depth (right now) is simply not there to compensate from and major issues with these guys.  Remember, even if you believe it was a little bit of a fluke, Morse hit .303 / .360 / .550 last year.  In terms of pure offense that was one of the Top 10 seasons in the NL.  You can't just shrug losing something like that.

The Nats improved in the offseason, but injuries to Morse and LaRoche can potentially wipe out those improvements. If you care most about the macro picture - about the Nats as a contender in 2013 and beyond, this is a bump in the road. LaRoche was never a factor for those years and Morse was not necessarily seen as a long term piece either. The Nats still look like they are going to be able to make that jump (assuming the last few right moves are made). But if you care most about the micro picture - about the Nats as a contender in 2012, these injuries could be a very big deal.

So if the season started today...

Would 5-9 be Ankiel, Desmond, DeRosa, Bernadina?  What's that sound?  It couldn't be... but it sure does sound like... you know, I may be crazy but I swear I can hear the sound of Roy Halladay laughing.

I know you can't plan for every contingency, but Rizzo;

• wanted Bryce down in the minors,
• knew LaRoche was coming back from a major injury,
• knew Werth was coming back from his worst year ever,
• knew Zimmerman was coming back from his own injury plagued year in a career full of nicks and bumps,
• knew Morse greatly outperformed expectations last year,
• knew Ian Desmond was on his last chance,
• knew Ramos and Espinosa have potential to regress,
• knew Ankiel and Bernadina were no better than space filler

 Under these circumstances DeRosa & Lombardozzi is not an acceptable bench. Hopefully Morse and LaRoche will be healthy by Opening Day.  If not the Nats are either going to struggle mightily or Rizzo will have to make some interesting moves.  "Starting at first, Johnny Damon", anyone?

Bryce to the minors? I'm shocked. Shocked!

Bryce Harper will start the season in the minors.  This made the most sense as explained by everyone everywhere. For a few weeks, the Nats will gain an extra year of control.  For a few months, an extra year of savings. I expect the former and not the latter but that will depend on Bryce.

Once again Mike Rizzo asserted his control of this team. Davey wanted Bryce up.  Of course he did.  Davey is going to coach a couple of years. Bryce up now gives him the best chance of winning during that time. Why should he care what happens 6 years down the road?  He'll be kicking up his feet in some advisory role by that time. But Rizzo cares.

I'm not a stickler on this.  In fact usually I say bring the guy up now.  Six years is a long time.  Who's to know what will happen between now and then, and whether you'll even care about his FA status by the time it rolls around. But we're not talking about the usual player. We're talking about someone universally hailed as a can't miss prospect who has only suffered some minor road bumps on his way to AAA, and he's not yet 20.  This is special.  Special players have different rules.

Don't not trade Lannan to the Red Sox!

First Commandment - Do not trade John Lannan
Second Commandment - If you must trade John Lannan, do not trade him to the Red Sox

(I have a weak understanding of the word "commandment")

I don't want to hate John Lannan and root for his utter and complete failure. Don't make me.  Tigers? If you must.  I would at least then see how Roar of the Tigers renders his eyebrows in illustration. But to Boston? America's ear infection? No I say, no.

17 vs 1821

Not to harp on the subject but after the last rounds of cuts (which included Rendon! Shocking as it may be that the guy with the most perfect swing in the world, who makes baseballs rocket off his bat in defiance of all laws of physics, is not ready for the major leagues.)  The Nats in general, and Johnson specifically, were effusive in their praise for Corey Brown. 

You might remember Corey as the other guy in the deal for Josh Willingham. The guy fans were less enthused about.  He had hit .320 / .415 / .502 in AA in 2010 but it was only 90 games, he was admittedly old (24) for the league, and in AAA (though only 40 games) he immediately struggled with a .193 / .253 / .378 line.  Last year was supposed to tell us what kind of player he really was and he put up a .235 / .326 / .402 line.  So there you go.  But wait!  That's only because he sprained his ankle! and then put to much pressure on himself! And then had a staph infection a mere (1,2,3,4) 5 months later! And the locusts! Don't forget about the locusts! 

Corey's time in camp impressed the staff but all it was was a good week and a half of baseball. Only 17 at bats to look at.  Of course if he keeps hitting .400 the Nats won't have to look for a CF, but history tells us he won't.  Corey Brown has had a handful of seasons in the minors. 1821 at bats to be precise.  He has proven himself to be a middling average, good but not great power hitter, with ok patience. He fields well but strikes out too much. That latter is a problem because guys that strike out too much in the minors tend to strike out WAY too much in the majors. If he can control his strikeouts he might be a decent bench player or 4th OF for a couple years. But he needs to make the improvements now because over the next couple of years the adjustments will become harder and harder to make as his body starts to feel the effects of age.

There's a reason Justin Maxwell isn't anchoring the Nats outfield. It's the same reason you may not see Corey Brown back in a Nats uniform this year. They just aren't good enough.

Will you ever learn?

I'm talking to you. You know who you are. Why must we go through this every spring?  The beat guys have to write these stories because you can only pen so many Bryce Harper attitude pieces in one week. But you the reader, you need to know these reports come with mall-purchased soft pretzel sized grains of salt.

Gio Gonzalez doing real well in Spring?  Doesn't matter.
Eury Perez doing real well in Spring?  Doesn't matter.
Jayson Werth struggling in Spring?  Doesn't matter.
Ian Desmond struggling in Spring? Doesn't matter.
Chien-Ming Wang struggling in Spring? Doesn't matter.
Mark Teahan struggling in Spring? Telling. (Sorry, Mark. You're done)

Also if you could stop with the "why not have this guy play center" questions, that would be nice too.  It's bad enough Werth may be playing there and he's spent the majority of his career as an above average corner outfielder in the majors. You can't just stick someone in the outfield and expect them to play ok, this isn't Little League. As fake Ron Washington would tell Andy from Parks and Rec; "It's incredibly hard."

Still no worries about Davey

Davey Johnson is a proven manager but he has been away from the game for a long time.  There doesn't seem to be any negative effects of a long layoff on managing ability (of course assuming you think much of managing ability being impactful at all) but still it's good to kick the tires on the ol' jalopy here and there to make sure he's still running well.

This weeks minor check - Davey went out and noted that he wants Werth to be aggressive. Kilgore had a very nice blog entry noting how this could be problematic since a lot of Werth's value is being selective at the plate. But the comment got me thinking - is Davey himself too aggressive? It has been a decade since he last managed and that decade has dramatically shifted the ideas on patience, right?

Well sort of.  The real peak of walking came during the height of what most people would call the steroid era; 1998, 1999, 2000.  In other words right when Davey last managed. Then there was another peak at the end of the 2000s (Moneyball reaction?) but last year's NL walk total was the lowest since 1997.  No "strange new landscape" here.

Also Davey's teams never seemed to suffer from over-aggressiveness.  Here's the team's rank in walks for his tenures and two years before/after.

Mets :  9, 12  | 7, 5, 1, 3, 3, 9 |  6, 3
Reds :  9, 3  | 10, 4, 3 |  2, 10
Orioles :   4, 3  | 5, 6 |  5, 4
Dodgers : 11, 14  | 9, 5 |  9, 16

There's ALOT of noise here.  For starters I should be looking at walk-rate (Good teams score more runs, get more plate appearances, get more opportunities for walks) and doing it by player not whole team (you could bring in a great walking player and have him walk less but still make the team walk more. That'd be a GM improvement not a Davey one), but I don't see any reason to spend time doing that. The league is not real different from the times when Davey last coached, and there's no cursory evidence he makes his players too aggressive.  Nothing to see here, move along.