9 games is still nothing. It's not even the "way too early 1/10th of the season" talk I like to do. It's a stretch and we all know teams go 8-2 and 2-8 over these all the time. So there isn't too much to glean about it. It's the second stretch that starts making a team what they could be.The Nats are 3-6. Where will they be after a West Coast swing that takes them to the middling Giants, terrible A's and terrific Dodgers? 6-12 is probably expected for a worse than average team. Lower and you start to worry. Higher and it's a pleasant surprise. Yes 7-11 is a pleasant surprise. 4-5 on a nine game road swing is pretty good!
I liked Gore's outing but I really want to see him dominate the As next before I think about him taking a step forward.
Anything so far warrant your first side-eye glances at being "huh, is something going on here?"
NO!
Well not totally "No" but be cautious because it's just 10 games and anyone can get hot for 10 games. You don't care too much about the stats in the good/bad sense but maybe in the OMG!/OMG! or if they are showing you something unexpected. Anything like that?
- Two homers for CJ Abrams is interesting. If he can be a 25+ homer guy that's a big thing with his other general skills.
- Eddie Rosario's 35% K rate and 0 walks is concerning in as much as you care about Eddie Rosario.
- Generally 2 starts is too soon to worry about pitchers but Gray has been so off and not because of bad luck that I'll definitely be watching his next start closely.
- I liked the Floro/Barnes gambits. Barnes hasn't been good so far, but Floro looks like his pre-2023 self. A little wild but rein that in and you probably have a top notch arm to go along with Harvey who had one bad outing but has been near perfect (3.2 IP 7Ks 0BB 1 hit) since. I think Finnegan is fine too but hard to shake his one game-killing showing.
On to the West Coast and some late night baseball.
As you note, it's too early for anything to mean anything yet. Even low-variance peripherals haven't stabilized. These are just things to keep an eye on. That said:
ReplyDeleteI've also been encouraged by Gore and discouraged by Gray. Not a lot more to say there, but those two are so important to the team's future, that we have to note it.
Ruiz's defense is better than it was. Hopefully he's continuing to work on it, especially his framing, but we're already seeing evidence that it's improvable and that's great news.
We're leading the league in BSR. We've had few attempted tootblans get bailed out by bad defense, so that's likely inflated. But I still think it's true that the team is generally fast and that the base-running coaching/development has improved from the disaster it was just a couple of years ago.
And I'm not sure I'm a believer yet, but Garcia is playing very well. wRC+ of 144, with expected stats even higher. Leads the league in barrel rate. EV50 of 103.5 (30th of 271 hitters w/ 10+ batted balls). And his defense has been grading out to middling, instead of terrible (16th among 2B in OAA). He has so much talent and is still young; it's easy to dream on him being a 2-3 WAR player over the next few years. But I want to see at least another month or two before I'd bet on it.
Abrams with power is another encouraging and plausible development that I don't think we can really believe just yet. His two HRs weren't cheapies, HRs are so fluky anyway. Even if he puts up 25 this season, I'm not sure I'd be fully convinced to expect them in 2025.
But preseason, if you ranked the ML players we most hoped to see take a step forward, the top five would have been Gore, Abrams, Ruiz, Gray, Garcia. Of those, four looking encouraging and one floundering is not that bad a start to the season.
If I was preaching patience on Ruiz's defense after a full 2023 I can't let 9 games into 2024 influence anything but better this than the alternative
ReplyDeleteI thought about mentioning Garcia but it seems like he's both hitting better and getting lucky so I want to see where that stabilizes.
Fair enough on Ruiz.
ReplyDeleteAnd at this point every observation is mostly noise. It's just harder to be patient than during ST because the games count.
After 10 games: 4-6 and tied with Phillies and Mets and 2.5 games ahead of Marlins. Playing .400 ball is no great shakes = 64-66 wins BUT we haven't looked awful, we aren't dull, and we may escape the basement given the Marlins' woes. Also, given Lipscomb, Vargas, Garcia, and Abrahms are doing welll, I suspect that Senzel is going to be a very slow healer.
ReplyDeleteI'll be at the game tonight, looking forward to watching Gray give up a splash homer or two. At least with two young daughters I'll be spending most of my time watching them go down the slides in the Coke bottle and not crying into my beer
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, though, the Nats offense is looking pretty solid. I just really wish there was an ace on this team, this pitching staff will need a major overhaul if they ever want to do anything in the playoffs
well Gray's been scratched due to an elbow injury...that could explain his performance so far this season
ReplyDeleteNats tied for the league lead in stolen bases. Their opponents (at the time of this comment) have zero
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