"Teams are feasting on the soft underbelly of the Nats pen"
I'm not even sure that's fair.
"Societies are sustaining themselves on the nutritious ambrosia that makes up the exposed Nats flank."
That's a little better.
The reliever ERA sits at 12.55 since the break and it's been 8.90 in July. Batters are hitting .339 / .416 / .574 against them in July! The Nats middle relief has been an ongoing issue
NL opponent OPS Rank by inning
- 8th
- 13th
- 4th
- 14th
- 14th
- 14th
- 15th
- 9th
- 13th
The 13th in the 2nd is probably a bit of a fluke, just like the 4th place in the 3rd inning. But the consistent second to last from the 4th to the 7th? That's no fluke.
The Nats bullpen in shambles. Harvey who was good, is hurt. Edwards who was first lucky, then good, is hurt. Guys like Erasmo Ramirez, Andres Machado, and Paolo Espino didn't click this year and guys like Cory Abbott, Anthony Banda, and Thaddeus Ward didn't step up. It's the perfect storm for a bullpen. The guys you can count on get hurt. The guys who did ok last year fall off. The guys you hoped might step up don't.
I don't know if there's a good solution for the perfect storm at this point. You could have brought in more guys you felt you could count on or had more guys you reasonably hoped might step up but those are plans for the beginning of the year. Right now for a normal team you'd have hoped (and honestly sort of expected) someone even lower might have surprised and you have a couple more bullets in the gun than you started the year with.
The Nats really didn't have that happen. The closest thing to a new bullet was Amos Willingham, who shined in 10 outings in AA, but took a clear step back in AAA. He was still effective but he seemed to be riding a fine line with AAA talent who better ID'd his pitches, striking out far less and walking far more. He's not a bad prospect to click at some point, but he's a reach right now as you can see from his results, or lack there of.
Of course it would help if they called up their better talent. Looking at minor league stats Gerson Moreno would be a decent arm to throw into the fray. But they called up Corey Abbott? He's not good. Jose Ferrer, for being lefty? Suddenly after acting like you don't need any lefties you have to have two for this guy?
Looking at the pen Weems has been solid in AAA over the course of two seasons. The time there hasn't been long (40 IP last year, 24 this) but beggars can't be choosers. If you are going to bring in a lefty LaSorsa is the best choice the Nats have. He's not a good choice, mind you. After looking good in A and AA against kids younger than him, LaSorsa's stuff wasn't playing well in AAA for Tampa so they dropped him. The Nats are taking a flier on him but he's a better choice than Ferrer. I noted Willingham is probably your best reach. But I don't know what to do about Abbott and Ferrer. Is Moreno a better choice right now? Yes. But Moreno isn't two arms.
The Nats AA/AAA pen depth is not there. This is the reality. You are going with the best of not good choices and even after that pulling in guys just to fill out the pen. That's not where you should be. Good luck and more often than not, good night.
10 comments:
A bracing, if sobering, reminder--despite the Nats on MLB's Top 100 Prospects; the outline of the makings of a starting rotation with Gray and Gore; and the optimism of the potential of recent draft picks--of how far the Nats are from being good, let alone a contender.
The 2017 and '18 drafts were like 85% arms in the first 10 rounds. Not being able to mold at least a couple bullpen arms from that is embarrassing.
I truly do not understand why Rizzo hasn't dumped more into player development. Most teams manage to find a diamond in the rough where a 12th rounder becomes an every day player, last guy I can remember the Nats pulling that off with was Roark. Why is it that the org can't convert raw talent into actual skill like other teams manage to? I know a bunch was invested this last year...but that was at least 5 years too late. It's just so painful to watch
Case in point, Giolito. The Nats tried to "fix" his mechanics, broke him, sent him off to the White Sox, and he becomes one of the best pitchers in the AL after un-breaking him. One has to wonder where Kieboom might be if he was drafted by another team. Or Robles. Hell even Cole or Goodwin or Fedde.
I recently saw an analysis measuring the production of each MLB team's draft picks measured against the expected WAR of each pick where that team drafted. The top teams and the bottom teams were pretty much exactly who you would think they would be. But the Nationals were firmly in the middle of the pack, #15 out of the 30 teams. This tracks with my impression of the team - that they traditionally have been neither great nor terrible. But mediocre isn't good enough, and I will note that the Nationals have invested a lot more into analytics and player development over the past two years, expanding their staff and investing in more equipment to generate the data that the development folks use. It's possible that Jake Irvin's emergence as a solid #5 starter from a 4th round pick is a hopeful sign.
Thanks for the comparative data. With few exceptions, fans think their owners are cheap and their front office is a bunch of sightless knuckleheads. But all 30 teams can't be in the bottom half!
Trader Mike is a whiz. Player development Mike turns out to be the middle of the pack. Wins/losses Mike still has a way to go before he is no longer near=bottom of the bottom half.
@John C: Would you be able to share that analysis? I’ve scanned the picks of all teams (not in detail) since Rizzo took the helm and we all know the results. The general sentiment is that the Nats have not drafted well, and I agree. But most analysis reveals a result such as the one you noted. How could this be? I’m curious if the Strasburg, Harper, and Rendon picks skew any WAR studies. Three hits in consecutive drafts that produced a ton of WAR.
I feel that the only “gamble” of the three was Rendon given his college injury history, and it worked out. Strasburg and Harper we generational/can’t miss prospects that no one would have faulted the Nats for picking. Similarly for Crews in this years draft, regardless whether he’s successful, it was the right pick in that spot for Rizzo. But having the #1 overall pick in back-to-back years when there’s the best pitching prospect of all time and a kid who was on the cover of S.I. at 16 is… very rare. It’s lucky. And while I’m happy it happened to my favorite team, that doesn’t give credence to their success in the draft.
@PBN: The draft analysis that I referred to above is at https://downonthefarm.substack.com/p/the-most-successful-drafting-organizations. Note that it goes from 2014-2021, so it doesn't include the Strasburg, Harper, or Rendon picks. Which probably wouldn't have raised the Nats' standing that much, because the analysis weights the picks by expected WAR.
The top four teams are pretty much who you would think they are (Cardinals; Dodgers; Astros; Guardians) with the Barves and the Rays in the next two slots. The bottom teams are also the ones that you would expect (Rockies; Tigers; White Sox; Reds; Pirates). With the sudden emergence of the Reds this year it would be interesting to see how these rankings change if the analysis is run again in a couple of years.
I suspect that the reason that it feels like the Nats are turrible at drafting and developing is that we are keenly aware of the Nats failures, but don't notice how common those failures are. We simply don't care when another team's draft picks don't work out. We only notice the draftees from other teams when they make it.
That said, we can still grumble about the Nats' drafting/development. Like I said above, being mediocre isn't good enough, the team should aim higher. I think that the team's significantly increased investment in analytics and technology is a sign that they are aware of this and moving to improve.
Thanks for the analysis and the link, John C. Also, thanks for the perspective you bring to the comment section. I appreciate it!
@John C. et alia:
I wonder if there is a corollary (unless it's there and I didn't see it) to the rankings.
It's namely this: accounting for cumulative WAR after a team's original draft pick is traded to another team: Nolan Arenado's WAR in St.Louis, for instance, or Giolito's in Chicago, or Soto's in San Diego.
One thing Mike Rizzo has never been particularly good at is constructing a bullpen. Whether it was 2017 where Matt Albers came out of nowhere to in Spring Training to be the only reliable reliever in the 'pen until the trade for Doolittle, Madson, and Kintzler, to 2019 where it was a good thing we had three starters reliably going seven innings because the bullpen was Doolittle, Hudson, and the power of prayer. (I'm starting to think that Patrick Corbin did some Cardinals-esque devil magic and swapped his future pitching ability for three innings of flawless relief right when we needed it in Game 7) to 2021 where even after the trades of Scherzer, Turner, Schwarber, etc. the offense and the starters were still somehow mid-pack but the bullpen was historically bad. By fWAR our bullpen has been 27th (2023), 30th, 26th, 22nd, 24th (that was 2019), 24th, and 16th (2017, where all three new acquisitions pitched well).
Our bullpen isn't just bad; it's been scraping the bottom of the league since 2018. Mind you, part of it's the rebuild ("ace reliever" isn't a development goal of rebuilding teams; most of the time if they luck into one they'd trade them for position or SP prospects as the Nats would probably have traded a healthy Harvey), but it's not just that; there's definitely a process issue going on.
Post a Comment