Two games, two solid performances, but two wildly different circumstances.
Jake Irvin, a guy who you weren't even sure would see the majors in 2023 shut down the Giants over 6+ in his second start ever while Patrick Corbin, a guy you have been kind of forced to see over the past few years because of a giant contract, kept the Nats in the game despite some untimely errors. Doing well matters, but where you are coming from matters too.
For Jake the question is now raised - is he any good? Is he a piece to the puzzle? A Roark type?
There isn't much in the minors to suggest that. His H/9 HR/9 are fine at 8.2 and 0.9 but don't suggest he's unhittable or a homer stopper. His BB/9 at 2.8 is a little high and when paired with a K/9 of 8.4 which is a little low you'd guess he's a guy that will survive in the minors but lacks the stuff to stick in the majors. The most compelling counter arguments are "He was actually good High A to start last year with all these numbers ticking in the right direction", to which the response would be "I hope he would be he was 25" and "actually those numbers would play in the majors", to which the response would be "Sure, but you don't usually hold steady in the majors, especially as a 26 year old non-heralded rookie"
He was a decent K guy in college, and survived a Tommy John, so maybe he's working back to something, but at 26 there's only so much time before you lose what it was you were working back to. The short of it is that there was a reason Jake Irvin wasn't a prospect (20th in Nats system on MLB, 11th by Keith Law) and that most had him pegged for a conversion to the pen to see what that did.
The good news for Jake though, on a team like the Nats he doesn't have to be a good pitcher to stay in the rotation, merely a good enough one. With no prospects banging on the door, each ok start buys Jake more time to figure things out at the major league level, something guys in the minors don't always get. Chances are slim he is in the rotation in 2025 or even the end of 2023 for that matter but it's not going to be circumstance that keeps him from it. He's gotten his chance.
For Patrick the question isn't can he keep this up - maybe he can. His last two years were really rough but up through 2020 he pitched well enough to think that a 4.00 ERA was certainly doable for him. He's making it work by keeping the ball in the zone and letting the chips fall where they may. With the better team defense it's working out as one would think. It's enough to throw 5-6 innings and give up 3-4 runs. Maybe you shut down a team with no power and get rocked by a team who hits homers. There isn't a reason to think, given everything, he will be an ace but this? He could do this.
Of course there's a difference between expectations and standards and that takes me to a quote from Mark Zuckerman - the only man in the business covering the Nats as long as I have (note : I am not in the business). He said
"That's 4 quality starts in Patrick Corbin's last 5 outings. Far from dominant, but he's giving them a chance, which at this point is all the Nats can ask from him."
No. That's all you can EXPECT from Corbin but it's not all you can ask from him. He's getting paid as a star pitcher would (11th in SP salary this season). He's not hurt. He's not old. What you can ask for him is to pitch up to what you are paying him. Maybe guessing he was an ace was a bad one, but the Nats should want him to pitch like a 1-2 type. That's a fair ask. This above? That's moving the bar for him because he stunk so badly. You don't get to do that. You don't get to be so bad that your team says "All we can ask of you is that you don't stink anymore". No. That's silly.
Corbin should be better than this. The fact he isn't is a mark on him and hurts the team. The fact that he's been usable is better than being the worst SP in baseball but it doesn't make it ok. Simple as that.
8 comments:
Good post, Harper. Basically agree 100% with both points. The Corbin point especially illustrates that expectations matter (as does the timing of expectations). Corbin is exceeding the expectations we had for him at the beginning of the 2023 season. He is definitely not exceeding the expectations we had for his 2023 season at the beginning of the 2020 season (or when he signed his contract in the fall of 2018).
So true about Corbin. 100%
what helps me sleep at night is constantly telling myself that without Corbin, the Nats wouldn't have won the WS. But I was at the game last night joking with my father-in-law, a Giants fan, that I knew before I walked into the stadium that the Nats would lose because the Nats "ace" and the Giants ace are on very different tiers.
Fretting about what Corbin is making isn't really a productive way to spend one's time or one's fandom. In addition to the fact that you can't turn back time and unsign Corbin, he was good in 2019 and brilliant in Game 7 of the WS. Without him the Nats likely don't win the WS, and I'm not interested in giving that back. Being mad at the guy for not refusing the money in the contract is also kind of silly. I mean, would you?
Being angry is really what the internet is best at (and that may kill all of us one day, but that's off topic). But the question here is whether Corbin is helping the team. Yeah, he's just a guy at this point, but SOMEONE has to pitch those innings. He's not blocking anyone in the minors and he's eating innings so that they don't have to rush someone when they're not ready. Would I like him to be better? Sure! But I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
Sunk cost fallacy. Corbin's salary was negotiated a few eons ago. It is only relevant to the sale value of the team: the Lerners' problem, not the fans'. His current performance is what it currently is. As of now, he's good enough to hold down a rotation spot: probably a #3-4 on a decent team. And that's all that counts over the next two years.
Agree Corbin is a sunk cost, and you take what you can get. On the other side of the ledger, Corbin can't act like a sunk cost. He needs to do everything he can (being responsive to coaching to update his approach), and I don't see anyone thinking that's happening.
Since the middle of last season his results have certainly been better (note: not particularly good, just not worst-in-MLB awful), and I have no reason to believe that the improvement is not from being responsive to coaches and updating his approach.
There were articles about his resistance to change including in fangraphs and in WaPo, but they couldn't keep writing the same obvious story year after year. Regardless, something happened, and he hasn't said publicly what it was. Maybe he doesn't know?
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