We'll do one more update on Monday perhaps but even the dreamers have to stop dreaming now. With three straight losses and a 2-6 record in their last 8 games the Nats have finally managed to "out bad" the rest of the NL which had been either stumbling along (NL East) or trading hot and cold streaks (WC teams). They are now 8.5 games out of first, 9.5 out of the second wild card and officially in "double miracle" time.
Still want to dream just for fun? Sorry.
The Wild Card is probably just a week a way from a legitimate mathematical impossibility. With so many teams ahead of them there are too many match-ups that give wins to someone fighting for the 2nd Wild Card. ARI plays LAD, STL plays LAD, STL plays PIT, COL plays PHI, etc.. Losses for one team are wins for another, which means the Nats not gaining ground on someone ahead of them. Technically if you like I can piece together a way it would work but it's nothing that should be considered even in fun. It's a "what if the Nats ride unicorns around the bases?" scenario. It's not going to happen.
The NL East will hold out longer because there are only two teams ahead of the Nats and the Phillies have been among the worst teams in baseball over the past 3 weeks (5-12). Unfortunately the Phillies and Braves do play each other 7 times over the last 11 games so the magic number will slam up on the Nats pretty fast. How bad is it though? Well if the Braves go .500 (11-11) to finish a measly 88-75, the Nats would have to go 20-2 to beat them out. That's why it's double miracle time. The Nats need to go on an incredible run say... 17-5 AND the Braves need to suddenly be terrible, say... 8-14 (and that has to happen in a way where they aren't giving too many wins to the Phillies if the Phillies aren't just losing 2 out of every 3 games still). Have double miracles happened in the history of baseball? Ok, yes. I'll admit they have. But when you have like 400 races over the history of baseball you are going to find an example of everything. One or two times it did happen mean it didn't happen 398 or 399 times.
The Nats are now spoilers. Who could they spoil? Lots of teams. They could hurt Chicago, who has a nice but not insurmountable lead over the Brewers, if they can win the rest of these games. (and who doesn't want to see the Brewers instead of the Cubs?). They could knock the Phillies out of contention with a sweep of the three games following that. If you prefer the Phillies over ATL they could get swept by the Phillies then sweep the Braves. They end with a series in Colorado where they could swing the NL West. A lot of opportunity to play an important role.
But Harper what if I just want to watch good, no-spoiler version, playoff relevant baseball? Well there are other teams to watch and baseball will be gone sooner than you think so I suggest tuning into those games. I'll be offering up suggestions for each series time frame. For this weekend, your best bet is the Dodgers at the Rockies. The Rockies hold a 1.5 game lead over the Dodgers in an NL West 3-way race that has stayed tight for a while. The other team in that trio, the Dbacks, are hosting the Braves. Arizona needs those wins but Atlanta has no interest in letting Philly back into the race. Plus you can keep an eye on Acuna in the ROY race. If you want good baseball or just earlier games the Red Sox and Astros are playing in a possible playoff preview. And if you are a late game person, the Yankees are in Seattle, with the Mariners clinging to playoff hopes while the clubhouse brawls eachother. And who doesn't like to see the team 9 out of 10 SABR guys seem to like fail? As a last choice you can watch Max's Cy Young rivals go at it in the Phillies Mets series; Nola tonight, deGrom on Sunday. (and Max on Saturday)
So watch some baseball - even if it's not Nats.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
29 comments:
OMG this team (specifically the pen) is just terrible.
Hard to get motivated when the ownership / GM have already bagged the season.
I haven't focused on football in September or early October for years. Do I have to watch Redskins games now? Maybe I'll just play golf or go hiking every weekend (if it doesn't keep raining).
I'll be looking forward to the beginning of the hockey season.
My biggest fear is that it is going to be the same way next year. They have been mostly healthy for a while now. They still stink. .500 at best with poor fundamentals and zero heart. SI pretty much ripped em apart a few days ago. They paint the Lerner family in a very bad light. Plus, if they weren't trying to get under the luxury tax then why were they trading people. Really over saving $17 million. The Lerner family is the wealthiest ownership group in baseball. You need to trade people away over $17 million???
Did anyone watch the new Jack Ryan series from Amazon? No spoilers, but Nats Park is shown in a pivotal scene, with Nats fans celebrating a win as they board the metro.
This was the highlight of this year's Nats experience for me.
"I can't believe we let it fall into the hands of insurgents! That's the second biggest mistake I've seen made"
"What's the first?"
JACK RYAN SLOWLY TURNS HIS HEAD TOWARD THE TV WHERE A BANNER READS "BREAKING: BAKER NOT TO RETURN AS NATS MANAGER"
Regarding the Nats and underperformance,I put a table together of key Nats hitters and pitchers. The first number in each row contains the 2018 projections (avg. of Steamer, Depth Charts, and Zips), the second number contains the actual fWAR as a Nat (plus the av. of projected rest of season for current Nats) and the third number is the difference:
Bryce 5.4 3.9 1.5
Rendon 4.4 5.1 -0.7
Eaton 2.4 1.5 0.9
Zimm 0.7 1.5 -0.8
Trea 3.6 4.4 -0.8
Reynolds -.1 0.6 -0.7
Kendrick 0.5 0.4 0.1
Robles 0.8 -.1 0.9
MAT 1.1 1.0 0.1
Wieters 1.0 0.6 0.4
Difo 0.4 0.9 -0.5
Adams 0.6 1.0 -0.4
Murphy 2.5 -0.1 2.6
Soto 0.0 3.7 -3.7
Stras 4.7 2.5 2.2
Scherzer 5.2 7.0 -1.8
Doo 1.0 1.7 -0.7
Madson 1.1 0.0 1.1
Kintzler 0.4 0.5 -0.1
Roark 2.2 1.7 0.5
Hellick 0.6 1.1 -0.5
Gio 2.8 1.5 1.3
These players can then be broken up into groups:
Guys who roughly performed to projections (defined as within 0.5 WAR of projection):
Kendrick, MAT, Wieters, Difo, Adams, Kintzler, Roark
Guys who overperformed (defined as at least 0.6 WAR greater than projection):
Rendon, Zimm, Trea, Reynolds, Soto, Scherzer, Doolittle
Guys who underperformed, non-injury related (defined as at least 0.6 WAR less than projection): Gio, Harper
Guys who underperformed, injury-related (at least 0.6 WAR less than projection, and significant time missed due to injury/performance suffers upon return): Eaton, Robles, Murphy, Stras, Madson
So we have 7 players who either slightly over or underperformed, 7 players who clearly overperformed, 5 players whose injuries clearly contributed to their underperformance, and 2 players who clearly underperformed without injury.
Conclusion: The Nats clearly underperformed their pre-season projections, but the most significant cause of this is injury. For every non-injury underperformer, it was balanced out by an overperformer (Soto for Harper, Scherzer for Gio). But what the Nats couldn't compensate for this season was the injury-related underperformance, combined with the variance (8 games under Pythag entering Friday's game, 16-22 in 1-run games, 3-8 in extra inning games).
The Nats have been out of it since the All Star break. Anyone could see then that this team was listless and drifting and that the pitching with only a few exceptions was atrocious. I actually bet another member of my season ticket group $20 that they would not make the postseason while we were waiting for the game to start, and I haven't once since then thought I was in any danger of losing the bet, much as I would like to have.
Those who have been saying that Harper and/or Martinez will be back next year better hope they're wrong, or its just going to be more of the same mediocrity next year.
Harper and others:
The Wildcard has been unofficially done for a while now I'd say almost a month since that dreadful Chicago/St. Louis trip was probably the proverbial nail in the coffin for that. Even though some teams were playing bad (LA, Phillies & D'Backs now, Rockies & Phillies a couple weeks prior, Brewers before then) there were just too many teams with too many head-to-head games left to have the Nats catch up in the WC race unless they went on a Red Sox like pace which they certainly weren't doing....
….The division however was another story, though last night may have been the last gasp. They got lucky with Philly & Atlanta blowing a bunch of winnable games, but they weren't able to capitalize on that advantage, and it looked like they might have lucked out again last night even by losing, as the Braves blew ANOTHER 9th inning lead, this time 6-4 as the D'Backs forced extra, but this time the Braves won as they scored the game winner on a 2 out Wild Pitch, than the Phillies won at the Mets last night to break there streak at least for a day, so even if they beat the Cubs today and the Braves lose, that's still a game not gained on the Phillies with 1 game knocked off the calendar. They still have 6 games left against the Phillies & Braves, but now it looks like they have to go minimum 5-1, more likely 6-0 in those 6 games, still a chance, but the light is getting dimmer and dimmer. My 2 numbers for this season, for why we are here:
0: The number of sweeps of 3 games or longer since the month of June started. Only the Padres, and Mets in the NL are in that department of futility while even the Royals & Orioles, two of the worst teams in the last decade have managed 3 game sweeps in that time frame. IF they want to run down, catch, and ultimately surpass the Phillies & Braves they are going to have to start sweeping series (we are now long past the point of just winning series we are in sweep territory), and they haven't done that in over 3 months!
3: The number of games closer to the 4th place Mets (5.5) than to the first place Braves (8.5). Until they are actually closer to the first place team than the 4th place team, we should worry about the 4th place team more.
I said yesterday they could lose 3 more games, assuming the division winner doesn't get above 88. They already got 1 Thursday, can't get anymore than 1 more in this Cubs series, and can get at most 1 in the Phillies/Braves week. IMO don't stick the fork in quite yet because if they go 7-2 in their next 9 (conclusion of the Braves series) they give themselves a shot at least, but have the fork at the ready because that could come as early as Saturday. Of course and that's assuming Braves lose, so every other Braves win this weekend knock down 1 Nats loss since I only penciled them in for 1/4 in AZ this week and they already got the 1.
...and to add insult to injury, the Nationals are not honoring last night's tickets for the continuation game in today's double-header.
Yet another class move by the Millennial management team.
Harper
You are just getting around to calling the season? Really? Mom said you always had a problem facing reality.
Personally, I'm not giving up hope until Max David gives up the ghost. I like reading fiction so I devour every word he writes. Win the next nineteen and we still have a chance.
I hear that there is a possibility they are going to turn Nats Park into a water reservoir. I'm not sure if that is because the team has been underwater all year or because of the current weather forecast but either one works for me.
You have 20 comments and ten of them have been deleted. That is not a good ratio, bro.
Maybe, we should be thinking of a tear down and rebuild here. You know, turn it into a Redskin site for a month before they blow up their season.
Too bad they couldn’t have been playing like this oh say 3 weeks ago, or in the Brewers series just last weekend when they folded early. Oh well 🤷🏻♂️.
I’ll give them 1 last and final stretch (and for real) this time: finish these next 7 games no worse than 6-1 (if they ever get the Sunday game in vs the Cubs) and they are still breathing. Anything less and yah. And really outside of Max who only makes 1 start this week I don’t trust any of the other starters or the bullpen to win 5 more of those games. But if Braves win today and don’t get swept in SF, then knock down that 6-1 stretch to 7-0. I’ll take 1.5, maybe even 2.5 down into the final 2 weeks of the season, but nothing else
ss1n - I called it on Aug 16th. This is more a "you can't even pretend for fun cut off". It's a point in time between "This is over" and "This is mathematically over'
Yup it’s likely over. I had the Braves penciled in for losing 3/4 in Arizona the way after that last Boston game ended and looks like they will 3/4, so that means the absolute best case scenario for the Nats, and that is sweeping the Braves, Phillies and tbat rain out against the Cubs and the Braves getting swept in San Francisco still leaves the Nats a game and a half behind the Braves. I still give them this week because 1.5 games in 2 weeks you can make up but 1 more Braves win or 1 more Nats loss I’ll throw in the towel
Just trying to enjoy the games and not look at the standings. Pretty cool to see a bona fide doubleheader in person Saturday, even if it did take ten and a half hours from when it was supposed to start. First one for me since 1971. That time it was the Senators vs the expansion KC Royals.
That is very cool, Sammy. I'm a little jealous, even considering the rain. If I remember right, my first MLB games were a 1999 Cardinals/Pirates doubleheader with my grandpa, and it was a formative experience for Josh the baseball fan. I haven't been to a doubleheader since.
Quitters. If the Nats go on a 19-0 run and Atlanta and Philly play just below .500 ball, the season is in the bag.
I should point out that there hasn't been a 19-0 run yet this season, so they're due.
"Yet another class move by the Millennial management team."
Ted Lerner is in his 90s. I presume you are talking about the last millennium.
I agree with Robot.
Post a Comment