The Nats went to Minnesota and got twin wins, and showed themselves to be like a real baseball team after a tough 1-6 stretch. Not a good baseball team, but a baseball team you can't simply show up and beat. You have to play the games. Not a 40 win team, more like a 60 wins team.
The nicest thing for the Nats was seeing Meneses hit a homer and a double. Sure Abrams did the same but pretty much everyone was like "a homer by CJ? That's a fluke" One of the things the Nats need to be that not impossible to watch squad is Joey to hit a little bit more like last year. These were some signs that may happen after his rough start.
Still all is not good at the plate as guys cool down and heat up we're seeing things even out and the Nats currently have two guys over .700 in OPS.
Fangraphs had a quick and dirty breakdown* that went :
- 1.000+ Excellent
- 0.900+ Great
- 0.800+ Above Average
- 0.710 Average
- 0.670- Below Average
- 0.600- Poor
- 0.570- Awful
For the Nats (PA 63+) that would mean
- 1.000+ Excellent : NONE
- 0.900+ Great : NONE
- 0.800+ Above Average : NONE
- 0.710 Average : Robles, Candelario
- 0.670- Below Average : Ruiz, Abrams
- 0.600- Poor : Thomas, Meneses, Garcia
- 0.570- Awful : Call, Smith
This is what it is. First to go has to be Call who was a question to start. You are seeing Garrett get the first crack at it. Expect to see Franklin Barreto (top prospect that didn't pan out) next, maybe Trey Harris (solid minor league numbers before COVID). As for the guys you care about Hassell is back working his way through injury, Wood and Green are cooling down after fast starts. Combined I think they are hitting like .150 for the past week. Sorry it's not going to be fast and easy.
The pitching though did look better. In G1 Williams was sharp and you saw a good performance from Harvey (3 batters, 3 Ks). In G2 Kuhl was semi-usable, which is all the Nats can hope for Kuhl to be good enough they don't have to look for someone else to go 4+IP and give up 3 runs. Thompson looked great. Edwards kept keeping on. In G3 Corbin gave them 6 somehow despite 7 hits, two walks and two homers.
Next up the Mets, a patient team that likes to steal bases and has a very good pen. This is covering for their SP issues, Max pushing the boundaries of what he could get away with and Verlander still out. Can the Nats win another series and play spoiler?
*If you are wondering why it doesn't seem to be even around the average it's because guys who do much better than the average stay in the majors. Guys that do much worse do not. There is a clump around the average but a long tail going up and a short tail going down.
4 comments:
I was delighted to see Fangraphs rank the Nats 24th in their power rankings. That's the highest in a few years and just suggests to me that despite another year of tanking, they are better than incompetent teams (rockies) and sabotage teams (Oakland).
An odd omission from the "guys that we care about" list: Brady House. At 19 (turns 20 on 6/4) he has been everything that you could want so far, posting .313/.436/.688/1.123 for the FredNats. Even repeating after an injury year he is still "young for level."
Just adding a positive note to the "emphasize the negative" blog.
OPS is probably my most referenced stat line when judging a bat. And for the MOST part you can usually live with a high 600’s, anything below that is hurting a lineup. That’s always been my rule of thumb. Granted you don’t want a lineup full 700 OPS players. But I’d wager if you had that, you’d probably be OKAY offensively.
And with a swing of his bat, Ruiz now has a 0.775 OPS. Will need more than 80 PA (more like 400 PA for OPS!)
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