First real disappointment of the season?

Probably not. Starting 2-6 and having Gray go down to injury was a low point.  But since then, 40 days ago, the Nats have been playing good ball against bad teams. They did lose a series to Oakland, but beat the Giants, Houston, swept Miami, and beat Toronto. All this setting up the Nats as firmly a middle of the pack team. 

But now they lose a series to the White Sox, scoring 0 runs in their last 19 innings of baseball (and 10 in their last 5 games). Philly, Minnesota, Seattle, Atlanta, Cleveland.  There are no breaks here. These are all teams better than the Nats. 5-10 is the simple goal. Lose ground, watch .500 drift away, but don't spiral out of control. 

Why is the offense so bad recently? It actually hasn't been good all season and had been getting runs above expectation. Now it's scoring to it's level.

 After his fast start Jesse Winker has put up a .136 / .245 / .235 line in the past month. Keibert Ruiz has regressed to the point where you wonder if another team would have better luck. CJ Abrams has cooled down alot .208 /.235 / .250 in the past 2 weeks. As has YOUR boy (because he's not mine) Nick Senzel .156 / .325 / .188.  Jacob Young and Alex Call (fools!) started to look like decent replacements in hand for the hurt (and bad this year) Lane Thomas and Joey Gallo. Both are now OPSing around .500  (that's very bad). Only the maligned Eddie Rosario is hitting right now though Luis Garcia is doing ok and if the next week holds like the last few will be the best regular offensive player on the team. 

Without Abrams looking like a star and the weirdly great offense of Winker and Senzel the team just doesn't have the bats to score runs. The pitching will have to carry the team. They have looked like they might be able to but only the Mariners lack a potent line-up. The Phillies (2nd), Twins (10th), Braves (6th) and Guardians (8th) all are well above average. If the pitching staff gets through this still looking good, that's really something. They did hold back the Orioles (though they have had a much quieter May).

 Ok let's go! Don't get swept. Maybe steal a series and go 6-9

Monday quickie - A break in the action

The stretch from Hell started about as it should have.  2-3 was the most likely record but they had real shots at making in 3-2 which would have been impressive. Of course it's baseball and we don't count the "could haves". Every game is it's own little thing and it's only in the aggregate of what has happened in total that we get a true picture.

Now comes the only "should win" series between now and June. The Nats travel to Chicago to play the woeful White Sox. But hold on! The White Sox had recently won 4 in a row before losing yesterday. You can't take anything for granted in baseball. Tonight we get Trevor Williams, fresh off easily his best game of the year. Why couldn't he had done this last year when the Nats could have dealt him and his extra year of control for something good? Oh well.  Tomorrow we get the Erick Fedde match up vs Mitchell Parker who was perfectly fine against the Orioles. Then Patrick Corbin off a solid performance. 

None of these guys is throwing deep into games. The Nats only have two starts of 7 innings, and only 12 of at least 6 innings. That's only 30% of their games and ranks tied for 25th in baseball. Normally that would be a big flashing red warning sign of things to come BUT the Nats have had only one start of 3 innings or less (tied with 4 other teams for the best).  The combination means the Nats bullpen has pitched a reasonable amount of innings so far. 

Of course that's overall. Specific to the Nats individual relivers it does get a little dicey.  30 pitchers have been in at least 19 games, should be about 1 a team. The Nats have 3 (Law, Floro, and Harvey) and they among the teams who have played the fewest games this year. So that might be something to keep an eye on.

Things you can do. Things you can't do.

Things you can do :

Say Nick Senzel is a player with some pedigree and talent so perhaps he can be a useful major leaguer. Let's see how his current limited run holds up for another month and look at it closely then. 

Things you can't do : 

SEE!  THESE GAMES PROVE NICK SENZEL IS A STAR!!!! 

Not that anyone was doing that BUT there was some "SEE! DAVEY IS A GOOD MANAGER!" which... I mean do we have to go over 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022 again? It's possible he's a good playoff manager. Even if I think the 2019 was far more luck (Counsel making a bad choice with Hader, coming about 3 feet from losing to the Dodgers or the Astros) I'll concdede that it's possible. Now, IT WOULD BE HARD TO KNOW BECAUSE HE NEVER LED A STAR LADEN TEAM TO THE PLAYOFFS AGAIN, but again possible he has that knack. But he's been secretly good and I don't know, sandbagging nearly every other season in his career so the Nats would lose more for fun and profit, I guess. No. That's being oblivious

You can say managers don't matter. You can say Davey might be learning and maybe is improving from terrible. But you can't look at .500 ball in less than 40 games in a down NL season and say he's good. I'm drawing lines here.

Look i don't know

The Nats probably aren't a playoff team but it seems clear that they are better than we thought (for currently some clearly insane reasons - we'll come back to that) and the NL is 5 teams deep but take 6 into the playoffs. So go ahead and dream for now, especially after beating the Orioles. Thanks for that by the way.  Keep doing that. Some how beat them after this series too. 

CJ Abrams being a star is surprising but an optimist might have believed in it.  He is young, looked good to end last year, and was a top prospect. 

Luis Garcia Jr being a star is surprising and no one would have believed in it. He IS young, but spent last year getting dragged to the minors, and was never that highly thought of. Is it real? I don't know.  His BABIP of .390 is unsustainable and he isn't hitting the ball any better but he IS hitting the ball harder than ever. So some of this is real and the highest HR rate of his career is probably real too.

Jesse Winker having a great bounce back is surprising but that optimist from before could have convinced himself of it. Winker had good years in Cincy and in 2021 put up a .305 / .394 / .555 line with 24 homers in only 110 games. If it was about injury and not age or skill then maybe he could do something like that again. 

Nick Senzel having a great bounce back is surprising and again no one would have responsibly thought it possible. Is it real? I don't know. In 5 years at Cincy he never put up a year close to having positive results at the plate. Yes, it's probably small sample size and the real Nick is probably more the guy that has struck out 10 times in his last 23 ABs because he's just swinging for the fences now. But he is accomplishing his goal of pulling the ball harder and in the air so maybe he can be the Gallo that Gallo isn't? 

MacKenzie Gore rounding into a #2 type is not really surprising, but a nice development. He's keeping the ball down avoiding hard hit balls in the air, that's fewer homers. But he's also making sure it's in the strike zone keeping his K-rate up and BB-rate down. Hits are coming but let them. Teams can only single and double their way to so many runs in a game where you get out 70% of the time. 

Trevor Williams becoming an ace is shocking.  Is it real? I want to say I don't know but everything is screaming NO. Ok he is getting a bunch more ground balls, but he did that in the past and the results weren't like this. Batters aren't hitting him softer, in fact the opposite compared to last year. This is all predicated on a weirdly low BABIP and an insane no homer rate for someone letting guys hit pretty normally in terms of flyballs and how hard they hit it.  But baseball is weird sometimes I guess.

I don't know

Last weekend before THE TEST

The Nats are a .500-ish team but as I've noted they've managed that in part by luck and part by schedule. The former is up to the baseball gods but the latter shifts like sand and there is a sandstorm coming. After facing the sort of in trouble Blue Jays the Nats have the following schedule 

• Orioles - Great!
• Red Sox - Surprisingly good!
• White Sox - probably the worst team in baseball, them or the Rockies
• Phillies - good
• Twins - good
• Mariners - good
• Braves - great
• Guardians - great
• Mets - good
• Braves - great
• Tigers - maybe good, we'll see when the Nats get there
  

YIKES! 

That's a LOOOONG stretch of playing teams that are good. 34 games to be precise.  If how they have played holds they'll enter that stretch maybe at 17-17 and exit like 28-40. 

The rest of the season sets up as mildly favorable but only very mildly so. Part of that is because the NL East is pretty good and they've only played two series against teams, one being a Marlins series. Part of that is because in this stretch the two bad teams they do face are AL teams they only play once, leaving only two more for the last ~100 games. And part of it is it being mildly favorable assumes the D-backs don't get out of their funk being probably the unluckiest team by record this year. So it's not like if they stumble here they are likely to rocket back out.

We've determined the Nats are better than the Marlins. That was good. Now we dig in and determine if the Nats really are better than last year. A good start would be beating up on the Blue Jays while they can

One month in - what should your focus be on?

The Nats did not get out of the month with Davey's first winning April. But 14-15 is a pleasant surprise. Of course it is early and a mere 13-16 probably fits with most projections, if not that 12-17 certainly does so small sample size caveats hold. 

We (we being me and most people) often say Memorial Day weekend is the time when you look at things and can think "oh this might be real". It's a full third of the season in and gives plenty of time for the hot or cold week-10days-two weeks to balance out. That being said this first month is the information we have and sets us up for what to try to follow in the next 30 days to see if it is real or not. 

Note guys like Ruiz, Senzel, Ildemaro Vargas, Mitchell Parker, Jacob Barnes have the equivalent of 2+ weeks of play and so even by Memorial Day it'd be fair to still have lingering questions. We'll leave them off this list.  

1) CJ Abrams superstar?  The guy is on pace for a season hitting .295 approaching 40/40. If that's not a fluke the Nats have gotten a huge lift into being contenders again. His average is consistent and the speed is undeniable so what we're really watching is the homers (only 1 in past 9 games) is he THAT guy or is he a 20-25 homer type that had his best month? Either way he's still great*

2) Can Jesse Winker stay healthy? Winker has been good in the past but has been unable to ever stay healthy, which can account for various terrible outcomes all over the place. It's clear the guy has talent but also clear the first injury might derail his whole season. I guess staying healthy until May doesn't guarantee anything but it'd be nice to get as much "good Winker" as the Nats can. Especially since Gallo looks like a huge swing and miss. Joke Intended. 47.3% K-rate!

3) Is the Joey Meneses Era over? Joey burst onto the scene two years ago, but given a full-time position last year basically broke even, which wouldn't normally be enough given he brings nothing else to a team but his bat but the Nats were very bad. His BABIP doesn't suggest bad luck and while he should have A homer or two, if he's hitting mostly not hard balls on the ground, which he is, well this is the end of Meneses the major leaguer.

4) MacKenzie Gore #1 Starter? K-rate is up, BB-rate is down, HR-rate is down. It seems like the sacrifice to that is a few more hits but guess what? That's the least important thing unless you are giving up 15 line drive singles a game. He's getting a bit lucky with those homers but otherwise pitched to this stat line. It's bordering on a #1. Much like Abrams if he hits on this the Nats have a huge lift in their plan giving them an arm to build around. 

5) How good (or not good) is Trevor Williams? I mean he wasn't terrible during his career, he just couldn't make it work as a starter before this month. The stats say he can't keep this up. He is inducing more ground balls and walking fewer (good!), but his homer rate and BABIP rate all are saying he's getting lucky. Assuming they all swing back well it could leave him as average with moderate swings or terrible with strong ones. Williams has provided a nice steady presence in the rotation around which you can evaluate guys like Irvin and Parker. If he can at least stay average that can continue but if he busts that's more strain on the pen. 

6) Is the pen really good? Harvey continues to show the makings of a star reliever, even if he has yet to get the results, but guys like Law and Floro, have done well focusing mostly on keeping the ball in the park. With Finnegan, probably the 4th or 5th best pitcher, in the save spot like a modern-day Todd Jones that leaves the better pitchers available to face the best hitters in the toughest situations. If one more guy can come around the pen could really be something special I think.  Rainey unfortunately looks broken but I liked the bet on Matt Barnes. I'd say go the the minors but Rochester's pen is complete trash. Go to AA? A lot of guys there look interesting.  They need to start pushing them into AAA. But that's off-topic.  For May I guess it's watching Law and Floro to see if they hold and Matt Barnes to see if he can step up

*at the plate - he's secretly a really bad SS! But shhhh.

Monday Quickie - Better than the Marlins

So that answers that. At least as far as I think.  Yes, the Nats have played a relatively easy schedule and yes, they've gotten a bit lucky by the metrics, but I think checking out the first three games of this series, there's no doubt they are the better team. They have what looks like a complete offensive player in Abrams, a young pitcher rounding into form in Gore and a bullpen full of fairly good bets that turned into a solid pen. Add in a few FA and returning surprises and it's a competitive team. Are they really .500 ish? Nah. but let's see how long they can pretend to be because if it gets into June some kids might come up and then they may not need to pretend.  Fake it till you make it. 

Let's take a look around the league! 

NL East

The Braves are good. The Phillies are good. The Mets are ok.

To get into it more - the Braves' offense is deep mixing guys likely to cool down (D'Arnaud) and guys likely to heat up (Acuna) They had SP injury worry but the minor league depth of a few years ago finally is paying off as Bryce Elder has stepped in nicely. In the meantime Reynaldo Lopez has looked very good? 

The Phillies are more a hot and cold offense (Castellanos is currently dead) but their pitching as been great. Ranger Suarez got his control under control and the gamble on the injured Spencer Turnball paid off. Caleb Cotham, who came in when Zach Wheeler did seems like an excellent pitching coach.

The Mets pitching, especially the pen has been a strong suit but their hitting is a bunch of below average bats. Neither Alvarez or Baty have become anything yet. Feels like they could get better but they are the Mets so...

NL Central

There isn't a really good team here. The Brewers can hit. The only guys not are their prospects Frelick and Chourio. But their SP and RP are both super shallow. The Cubs basically the same on the mound, but aren't hitting as well. The Reds are more consistent throwers but good or bad at the plate. De La Cruz though is a stud. The Pirates can pitch and might be interesting next year with Skenes if they add some bats. The Cardinals can't hit. Turns out they bet wrong and sent the better OFs (Thomas, O'Neill) away

NL West

The Dodgers finally turned on the jets and have begun separation. They are great they just have to figure out what pieces aren't working anymore (Chris Taylor) and replace those parts with what they have in house which will work. The D-backs should climb out of their hole. They can hit and the pitching is ok. The Padres don't have enough arms. The Giants don't have enough relief pitching. The Rockies don't have enough anything.

AL East

Yankees are holding off the Orioles. Soto is the engine that lineup needed but the young guys are coming through and the pitching all turned around from last years "everyone's worst year" issue. But the Orioles, once they get the pitching in order (it's ok) will be hard to hold off. Have you seen that lineup? 8 players deep with one guy at 30 and everyone younger. Scary. Red Sox are surprising thanks to several "Why is that guy playing like THAT" performances. The Blue Jays are depressing because they aren't old but the young guys at the plate all seem to have regressed already and they were supposed to carry an averageish staff. The Rays are lost at the plate without their rapist of the future, and the pen feels like it's finally run out of young arms to break.

AL Central 

The best division or the division that gets to play the White Sox? Hard to tell. Indians line-up is solid and bullpen is great, which cover their minor rotation woes. I have no idea how the Royals are scoring runs but the pitching is mostly good. The Tigers are basically the Royals without the runs scoring luck. If their kids ever hit they could turn a corner. The Twins are America's average team who could use another starter or two (like your average team!). The White Sox are trash but Erick Fedde is good?

AL West

Like the NL Central if it has two Cardinals teams and the White Sox. The Mariners have a fantastic pen and don't really have a rotation hole, but are a bat off. The Rangers are fine at the plate, but need one more reliable starter, or more likely for some sleeping bats like Seager to wake up. The A's stink but have cobbled together a workable staff and the pen is actually good. For the 99th year in a row the Angels have no pitching.* The Astros have caught some bad luck scoring runs but their pitching has absolutely imploded.

 

 

*For former Nats prospect Alex Meyer to go from the Nats, who looking back didn't show much skill at developing pitchers, to the Twins, possibly the worst SP developers of the 00s and 10s, to the Angels, who have turned out very few pitchers despite overloading on them, was a pretty cruel turn of fate.