Lilly Quist is out. Not sure who thought a GIRL could be a pitching coach but know we have Men's Heart leading them so we know things are going to be good.
The Nats won last night - a tight game that featured good starting pitching and the bullpen continued on it's path on showing they aren't a historically bad bunch. But someone had to take the fall for the slow start and pitching coach seemed the most obvious choice. He was brought in when the highly regarded Mike Maddux skipped town after Dusty's "firing" and the pitching nosedived. Now, I''m not going to sit here and blame him. I'm just pointing out there was justification (or excuse) for firing by the stats. Why not the hitting coach? Injuries have hampered the team recently and before that they were scoring just fine. Why not the manager? Well...
My take is it's pretty clear Davey isn't the man for this job right now. He could be a good manager at some point but he isn't right now and this team needs a good one right now because it's facing some problems and is, in theory at least, finally in a good division. But he's Rizzo's second guy and Rizzo's first guy was a failure. If Davey II is branded a failure as well... well... why would you let there be a Rizzo Guy 3?
Now some of this is salary related - but most teams are looking for a cheap guy who will do what they want and and not a money guy. So if Rizzo took a job somewhere else it would be the likely scenario that he could axe the manager and be asked to replace him with a newbie. This failure to ID a workable newbie though, that would give me pause on hiring Rizzo, despite his ability to put together a pretty solid squad for a long period of time.
So that's what I think is going on here. Guesses and conjecture, etc. etc.
The Nats went 2-5 in the homestand. I had originally, incorrectly, said they needed to go 3-3 because I missed a Cards game, but I would have said 4-3 was the goal, 5-2 great, 3-4 blah. 2-5 is "uh oh". The good news remains that the NL East is still a bunch of phonies. While the Nats currently have the 24th best record in baseball they are still only 4 games out of first. But now the Nats head on their first long road trip and face the Phillies, Milwuakee, and Dodgers over 10 games.
The Phillies are the default leaders of the NL East. There's nothing overly special about how they are playing. Just a good team playing at a good pace. We'll get back to them in a second. Milwaukee had a hot start but since has been pretty middling. The no name pitching staff of last year is in a shambles. They let Wade Miley go, Chase Anderson and Brent Suter is hurt and they made Junior Guerra a reliever. This is why they brought in Gio. The lineup is very good though and I'd bet on them outscoring an injured Nats team. The Dodgers might be the best team in baseball. Their deep bench is paying off and they don't have a particular weakness. With Rendon and Turner sill out we're going to set the bar at 4-6. This trip is not about gaining ground or making a statement. It's about surviving. A bad team gets wiped away on this trip with a 1-9 or 2-8. The Nats can't let that happen. They need to win games and stay close.
Now back to the weekend series. The Phillies are 17-13 but have played a tissue soft schedule recently. DET, MIA, NYM, COL, NYM, MIA and through that were only 10-9. This will be a test for them as much as the Nationals. Bryce is struggling terribly*, which will make Nats fans happy, but the OF replacements for Odubel are continuing to show why Bryce was needed hitting just as poorly (Nick Williams) or worse (Quinn, Altherr). Franco has also cooled down but the line-up is deep enough to cover for these issues, especially with Segura back. Realmuto and Hoskins are hitting. The Nats will fce Eickhoff - who I like as a back of the rotation guy but just that. Arrieta who had been cruising this year until suddenly he wasn't last game. It'll be interesting to see where he picks up. Eflin had a little setback but is back on form. For the most part the rotation and pen used the soft schedule to get back on track. The Nats send out Hellickson and Sanchez this series, with Corbin inbetween. That's bad news because the Phillies are a patient team and these guys are having big control issues.
I don't like the Nats chances to win the series but I don't think they need to. 1-2 then 3-4 the rest of the way. It's not pretty but it keeps them in the game until they can get right and face a weak stretch again. That's your real telling point. They should lose to these guys, and injured Nats team suffering through a 3-7 stretch against good teams on the road would be kind of expected, and maybe they fluke into a 5-5. But a healthy Nats team should go 7-3 against the bad teams. So while I watch this next set of games to make sure the Nats don't bury themselves, what I want to know is how good the base team really is. Hopefull we'll be able to find out the next time the Nats return home.
*What's up with Bryce? Likely pressing. Swinging strikes are way up. Pull numbers are way up. Has the feel of a guy swinging from his heels all the time.
13 comments:
Am I the only person who thinks they should have hired Randy Knorr instead of Dusty and should promote him now. The guy has a ton of managerial experience, knows most of the team and is well respected. Lilliquist should've never been hired, so the firing isn't a bad one. I think pitching coach might be the most important non-player outside of the GM on a team. Davey should get canned, even though this year isn't all his fault. He should get canned because he's not good.
I don't know why people would want to fire Long. He's a good coach, and has a great track record of success, but you can't make chicken salad out of chicken sh!t.
As for Bryce, this seems to be becoming typical Bryce. Great April, followed by a May swoon of sorts.
In agreement with JW, I don't mind the Lilliquist firing because he never should've been hired.
I'd be happy to see the Nats get 3 wins this road trip in all honesty. Take 1 from each series (I'd say they can't beat the dodgers, but Rendon should be back by then hopefully). As long as they get 3 wins, I'm a happy camper.
Just stay within striking distance of the rest of the division and turn it around mid-May, that should be the goal. If another injury occurs, particularly to the rotation, or if they fail to win 3 out of the next 9, I say fire Davey, audition Knorr, and sell pieces to rebuild for next year. This team can absolutely win the division, but if they dig too deep a hole then it's not worth pulling a 2.0 version of 2018.
If Rizzo is good at building a baseball team, but bad at hiring a manager, then maybe the Nats ownership should hire a "special advisor to the GM" for the purpose of identifying a manager who is cheap, pliable, and not a clubhouse cancer.
This becomes especially true if most teams really are managing from the Front Office with the field manager simply an intercom station for that direction. Hell, it'd be even cheaper to install an electronic intercom and just call down instructions from Rizzo's box.
Bote Man:
How do we know the Nats aren't already managing from the front office?
Harper, Arrieta is ... not good. He's at 6.92 K/9 and 3.46 BB/9 for the season, and these numbers have actually gotten better recently! These numbers are better than Sanchez/Hellickson numbers, but not by much.
Rizzo wanted Dusty back, so that should factor into his 'Manager Analysis' rating
@Harper. we should fairly note that Rizzo Choice 2 was Bud Black, a competent manager, and were already onto Rizzo Choice 3.
@Anon. Arrieta has always thrived off soft contact and out-performed his K/BB numbers
BxJ, Arrieta's career FIP is 3.74, a whopping .12 higher than his career ERA of 3.62, so your point is technically correct but the effect is minuscule.
Nevertheless, even if Arrieta continues to thrive off soft contact and out-perform his K/BB numbers going forward, his K/BB numbers are now so bad that it won't really matter. At this point, he's closer to a 4.50 ERA guy than a 4.00 ERA guy.
@BxJaycobb-
Wasn't Bud Black originally Rizzo's first choice? When Black walked away from the insulting offer, Dusty was the consolation prize. Am I wrong?
I keep hammering at this, so I apologize in advance. In the off-season, I advocated for signing Derek Dietrich to a two or three year contract. He would start at second with solid D and a little pop, then if Carter K took over in 2020, he would replace Howie as your super-sub or if not, he would stay at second until CK was ready. He signed with Cincy for one year, 2M. He has put up .5 WAR with plus D and okay OPS. Tonight he has two homers with six RBIs, so his numbers are only going up. We got Dozier for 1 year, 9M. With the 7M DD would have saved, you go out and get a reliever or two. Greg Holland was first on my list (3M or so to Angels, unscored on as of mid-week).
Rizzo has tried to outsmart everyone with Dozier and Rosenthal, but there's a reason they wound up here, not elsewhere. Harper very aptly noted the low floor, high ceiling aspect of these signings. I think you could have had Ottavino, Holland, AND Dietrich for the same money Rizzo blew on Dozie and Rosie. That is why, coupled with Rizzo's many TJ draft picks, many traded or released pitchers who have developed elsewhere, I think we now have to look at his record and say it is not as much in the black as it we thought it was, say, when Trea burst on the scene and we thought Rizzo was a wizard who fleeced other teams in trades and made great drafts (Harp and Stras were pretty much no-brainers).
Davey and Rizzo are both on watch. Hope the new pitching coach gets quick results.
Putting lipstick on a pig. I don't agree on the 4-6 Harper I think at worst 5-5, sure it's a tough stretch of games, but at some point they are going to have to go on a run and beat some good teams (and in case you were wondering beating the Cards backups does not count), so why not start now??
I’m starting to believe that the heart of the problem might be the coaching. I’ve always back the “players play” mantra, but I don’t think it stops there with this group. Lilliquist, DM, Long... I don’t think these guys inspire OUR group of guys to perform well. It’s such an outlandish claim to make, I know, just a theory. But I’m grasping at straws. Something is not right and it falls at the feet of the coaching staff. I think Rizzo did his job in fielding a good team (aside from dumpster diving on the pen). Our coaches need to take it the rest of the way. It’s pretty easy to crash a nice car, or beater, if you have no idea how to drive. Our team, as it lays out on paper, is not this bad - at it was the same way last year.
Last night was a good example. The decision making in the dugout, by pulling Hellickson, made sense if you believe all the stats surrounding it. I supported the move. But it didn’t work out.... like a lot of moves DM makes. They rarely seem to work out. Why is that?
An interesting note that FP brought up during the game yesterday was a quote from Charlie Manuel: “back when I was managing, it used to be that you would tell a player what to do in a given situation (lay a bunt down, etc). Now, you ask the player how he ‘feels’ about doing something. ‘How do you feel about laying a bunt down here? How do you feel about walking this guy?” In a world where that might be true, DM might be the worst manager for the job.
I wonder how easily CLE will trade Hand now that their rotation is meh. The Nats could trade for him and sign Kimbrel to go from among the worst BP to among the best. That could keep things afloat until the offense comes back/SP stabilizes at middling to good.
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