ok yes everything but nothing has gone right for this squad since early June. At one point they were 30-33, then went on a 20-53 stretch. The last 5-1 brings it up to 25-54 which is just over a 50 win pace for a season. Yikes.
You can't blame the firings - Davey and Rizzo were gone in the middle of this. You can't blame the trade deadline. Yeah it made the team weaker but they aren't losing squeakers because of a weakened pen. Here are some 2nd half splits
Brady House .225 / .224 / .292 (1 walk!)
Jacob Young .223 / .284 / .287
Dylan Crews .206 / .299 / .294
James Wood .207 / .289 / .328
CJ Abrams .225 / .281 / .376
Jake Irvin 8.86 ERA 1.848 WHIP
Mitchell Parker 7.63 ERA 1.603 WHIP
MacKenzie Gore 7.54 ERA 1.757 WHIP
This is your goddamn core and it's a group looking like it would have trouble winning in AAA as opposed to be what you build around.
You can blame Gore's pitching on injury and Young / Parker / Irvin on never really being good (and thus not being an overly critical part of the future) but the rest is very worrisome.
James Wood is striking out at an alarming rate up from 28% to 40%.
Dylan Crews remains unable to lift anything hitting over 50% of his balls into the ground.
Brady House is not walking and not making enough contact in general.
I'm not sure what you do here but I think you have to clear out the remaining staff that Davey and Rizzo put here. It's not working. It's actively HURTING.
That is…. Brutal.
ReplyDeleteOn the positive, Lile looks like a legit MLB hitter in his small sample size.
Now just to get his defense up to par
Agree completely. Lile and Lord have been the only bright spots this year (after Wood’s hot start). I guess Cavalli touching 100 and getting whiffs as well.
DeleteI do hope they continue with this 5-man OF rotation next year. They’re all so young with room to improve (except maybe Young who is at least GG level defense), one or more will get injured at some point. Let the kids play.
The real measure of success this year was not going to be win/loss record but the development of the young upcoming roster core. By that measure, this season has been an unadulterated failure.
ReplyDeleteRizzo was given some slack upon his termination with that thought that the Lerner's were not budgeting enough resources to player development. But with this level of failure, I am glad that to know that new eyes will be accessing the situation... that is presuming that new eyes will be accessing the situation and not DeBartolo.
Indeed. At this point, I desperately hope that the Lerners loot someone from the Brewers or Rays organization (I'm assuming here that ownership wants to hold tight to a budget) and gives them carte blanche to clean house from the top down.
ReplyDeleteThey're called rookies for a reason.
ReplyDeleteTrying to look at this optimistically, which is hard. We have now won 6 of our last 7 games. How many of the 19 remaining games do they have to win to feel like there is some hope?
ReplyDeleteMaybe it doesn't mean much because it coincides with Josh Bell finally getting hot and he isn't the future. The alternate view is that everyone gets better pitches if there is a feared hitter in the line-up...and that should be our off-season priority versus multiple players who are slightly better than what we have.
Thoughts?
Agreed! Josh Bell is not the future of the Nats...I did expect the kids to play and struggle a bit, but not all at once lol
ReplyDeleteJosh Bell is certainly not the future. But he might make sense in 2026. He seems to be good for the very young clubhouse; the fans like him; he generates a positive-if-small WAR; and might turn into a promising reliever at the trade deadline.
ReplyDeleteThe Nationals are the Chicago Bears of MLB. Hopelessly dysfunctional from top to bottom.
ReplyDelete