Two posts ago I pondered how the Nats could actually be playoff competitive this year. While involving luck it didn't involve anything crazy. It did however hinge on Strasburg pitching the majority of the season and being his usual self. This is unlikely.
Earlier this Spring Stras noted he'd likely take his usual time getting back into form. That would be the roughly 6 week time frame from pitchers and catcher to Opening Day. This should seemingly be unecessary. Any smart player would be winding up to pitch as if Opening Day would happen anyway, but whatever. Players could report to Spring Training as early as March 11, making 6 weeks from that April 22nd. Given the week push back of Opening Day that would mean missing only 16 games or about 3 starts. Fiddling conservatively you could say "ready last week in April" and that's right before a long road trip so if we were being VERY careful the Nats could hold him back until after that. He'd miss 30 games in that case, being ready for the second Mets homestand May 10th-12th. Worst case that should still put Stras in line for 27ish starts.
Yesterday Davey noted they were hoping to get 20-25 starts from Strasburg. That's not late April. That's not early May. Best case would carve out another 2 starts and 10 games - starting him either around the 20th of May (away series in Milwaukee) or the following home set starting with the Dodgers. Worst case and it's another 35 games out bringing him back smack dab in the middle of June in a long homestand against the Braves or Phillies.
The Nats cannot compete without Strasburg.
It looks like the Nats will be without Strasburg for 20% to 33% of the season right now.
It looks like the Nats cannot compete.
This kind of back tracking is completely in line with how the Nats have played injuries in the past. Stras will be fine for Opening Day, no a few weeks later, no a couple months in... that's par for course. What I'm wondering is how much longer will it be than that? July 4th? All-Star Break? Labor Day??
Strasburg's surgery was a big one. It was expected he would take time to recover. It was (is) possible he wouldn't recover at all. There was no reason to spin it to fans. We get it. And yet here we are. Back in the same place we've been before. Listening to the the team tell us there isn't anything wrong only learning how bad things are when it's painfully apparent. At this point we can only take say... Memorial Day as a best case deadline from a team who's looking to paint the rosiest picture possible. Given that you can also paint the Nats out of the playoffs.
11 comments:
Lordy. Things are bad.
While you're at it, can you give us your annual "Spring Training Stats Don't Matter" piece.
I want to believe that Corbin's sparkling start yesterday was real and that Juan Soto's moonshot portends big things.
On the other hand, I also want to believe that the dead bats in the lineup are simply because of players trying out different stances, grips and swings and the reason the bullpen gave up three runs is because the pitchers were testing out technique.
Please give us the annual reminder. None of this matters. At all.
ND - gotta wait until we get at least a week more stats so people can get unecessarily excited.
Dear Lord, what does the rotation look like at this point?
Corbin
Gray
Sanchez
Fedde
Espino
yeesh
luckily the pen is so stacked with arms that they can handle thaahahahahahahhahahaha
I'd love a deeper dive into what went wrong with Robles. Did pitchers start pitching him differently and he failed to adjust? Is there something in the data that explains his multi-year deterioration? It's just so puzzling after so many years of hype and strong debut.
Anon - sure. Real short answer is he's never been a good fastball hitter at the major league level and you can't really succeed like that
@Harper - I don't think that's it. The usual practice is to challenge folks with fastballs when they first break into the majors.
And Robles was a 96 wRC+ hitter for his first 710 PAs, and then a 67 wRC+ for his next 558, without a significant injury, at an age when improvement is the most likely outcome and collapse is the least.
So sure, he's always been a below average fastball hitter -- but something changed so he's no longer able to build a profile that compensates for that.
(Interestingly, by FG's pitch values, Robles was just as good at hitting fastballs last year as in 2018. The collapse has been on sliders, cutters and curveballs.)
Anyway, I'm with 9:34 Anon -- it's a mystery to me too and I'd love to see a deep dive.
The story Robles told was that gained a lot muscle and weight, lost flexibility, and didn't have the swing profile for any of that to help. This week he was quoted in the post as saying he would go back to being himself, which, whatever that means, also means he tried to overhaul his batting approach. That's basically enough for me.
But on top of that, he also seemed to give up more bats once his new big sellout power swing missed. But this second part is more narrative than I have data to support.
He did pretty well in AAA last year, whatever that means.
All our problems are solved!! Tyler Clippard is back!! And he and Drew Storen are co-owners of a whiskey business called Yield of Dreams that distill whiskey from corn grown in the actual Field of Dreams in Iowa. I guess Rizzo is an evil genius after all. It's all coming together.
The team always undersells the injuries. Conservatively, I'd say July. Maybe not at all in 2022.
This is going to be a rough season.
The over/under on the Nats this year is 71.5 wins and they had 65 wins in 2021 with Max, Trae and Schwarber over half of last year. Strasburg will probably be out at least 2 months with assorted injuries and the infield in a disaster except for Bell with the outfield only slightly better even with Soto and don't get me started on the pitching, especially the starting pitching. I would expect 60-65 wins this year unless there is some totally unexpected positive production from the current players and/or major additions before the trade deadline.
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