So the offensive exercise is over and let's recap. The Nats plan as far as starters go is hard to argue with. You can quibble in two places, first and center, but its hard to be sure that the Nats could improve those places significantly with what's available on the market. Can they gamble on improving a lot? That's possible. Can they be very sure they'd improve a little? Yep can do that too. But either way the Nats would be paying top dollar for those things. Unless you think the Nats are going to be salary cap busters, I don't see a reason to make such moves.*
So the improvement for 2014 isn't to be had in the starting line-up. It's to be had in the bench. The "disaster prep" portion of roster management. I think money should be spent to get someone to platoon for LaRoche, a legitimate back-up catcher as opposed to a cheap minor league option, and a traditional speedy, good D OF to round out the roster. I want these guys all to be players who if someone goes down with a couple month long injury, they could step in and start. They might not be perfect, but they likely could hold down the fort, and in a small time frame they might surprise you. In particular I want Jeff Baker, Geovany Soto, and Franklin Gutierrez.
It won't be cheap. These guys might cost you 5+ million over 2 years each. It won't be guaranteed success. There are reasons these guys aren't starting. But we saw what happened when the plan was hoping and wishing that rookies and castoffs could do the job. This may be even more imperative for the Nats to do as Rizzo has shown some inability/inflexibility to make in-season moves. If you aren't going to damage control like you should, you better make sure your disaster prep is done as well as you possibly can.
On to the comments/questions from the last two (and remember we're concentrating on 2014 here):
(If you think I've been too negative with these players understand that I am looking for problems. When you look for them, you are going to find them in nearly every case. Like Miggy? Can't field should be at first or DH. Verlander? 30 and off a decent, but not great year. You know what's a no-negative start? Mike Trout. You know what's another one? Because I don't off the top of my head.)
What about Matt Skole at 3rd (or 1st)?
Nah. Moved to first for a reason. Even ignoring the glove, he still hasn't hit in AA, carrying a .200 average in AFL (albiet with power and patience). Possibly down the road but needs more evaluation time.
Rendon would replace Zimm at third not Lombo, right?
Not the way I see it. Maybe if Zimm was sure to be out for the year they'd do the shift, but if Zimm is coming back I think that they'd want Rendon to keep playing 2nd and getting reps there. Hard to tell from last year because when Zimm missed a chunk of time Espy was still at 2nd. Tracy got most of the day-off replacement reps, so really it'll probably be someone not on the team now (like Baker, Youk, etc.), but I'd bet Lombo over Rendon if they somehow don't get someone that can play 3rd.
How about Peralta at SS, Desmond at 3rd (PEDs be damned)?
It's not a terrible idea, but why that over Desmond at SS and Peralta at 3rd? Peralta might be a step better but he's older. Anyway the real problem is Peralta is up and down and can't be counted on to hit better than LaRoche. I assume that's the goal right? I guess the fielding would be excellent though. I don't think that would be enough.
Infante at SS and Desmond at 3rd?
What? Infante hasn't played SS in like 3 years. He's a 2nd baseman, maybe 3rd. But no - same thing as Peralta. Can't be counted on to hit better than LaRoche, in my opinon.
Can the Nats trade LaRoche and....?
No. Well they could if they wanted to eat a bunch of money, but they'd be selling low. Plus the projections will probaby have Adam in the .240-.250 range with 25 homers, a slight improvement on this year at the plate.You better love Choo, whoever if you do this for the amount you are going pay them and the fact that Adam might have 1-2 years in the next 3 better than these guys.
You think Werth will get some time at 1st?
Depends. If they sign someone to sorta platoon with LaRoche then no. If they go with Hairston or Moore as the "platoon" guy I'd expect to see Werth there at least a couple times.
Hart or Choo better option in the OF? Beltran?
I like all of these guys better at 1st than OF. Hart's knees are done. Choo is bad in CF. Beltran has aged out of the OF. I guess you could give Choo or Beltran a corner and Bryce CF? Defense takes a big hit though and Rizzo likes his D.
Well Bryce looked better in CF, so it's a good plan right?
He did but I think that was the vagaries of defense. I think Bryce is an ok, maybe even good fielder right now... in left. I think if he spent the next 3 years in CF he'd look below average.
Vagaries of defense?
Dezo did a good job explaining in the comments, but basically for you to see someone's defensive worth balls need to be hit in an area where (1) they can get to it, (2) someone else could not, and (3) another OF does not get it. How many of those types of balls are hit a year? Usually enough but not always, which is why they say to look at 3 years of D stats to get the best idea. You can have a year where the balls just aren't hit in these areas enough for someone who's primary impact is on D to be able to help the team with his skill.
What about Stanton? Kemp? Braun?
Stanton - I'd do it. Such promise and value I'd totally throw the minor leagues at him. But I can't see Miami trading in division. Kemp, god no. That contract and that injury history spell trouble, and that's starts with "t" and that rhymes with "p" and that stands for "perpetually on DL earning a 125K a game" Braun? Also a terrible contract plus PED issues but I like him better than Kemp. But no. Look at the contract again.
Dejesus?
Nice little player who's not going to improve the Nats enough as a starter. On the bench? I guess but doesn't fit well with Hairston here. Maybe if Hairston plays 1st.
Souza, Brown etc?
Brown's age and peripheral stats (K's too much - but so do nearly all of the Nats OF prospects) mean he's organizational depth now. Souza's far more interesting, will be in the mix for a call-up but given his limited high minors ABs I expect they want to see more of him down there, not watch him sit on the Nats bench. They are highest on Goodwin but I wouldn't expect him to start with Nats - again don't want him on the bench, want him playing. Him and Souza are potential call-ups and down the road Span replacements but not for 2014. As for 5th OF I'd bet on Kobernus or Perez if they go in house and can get over their Tyler Moore love.
Can at least Span stay out of leadoff?
One would hope but as a speedy CF he'll be there. I'd like the see Bryce first. Really the Nats don't have the easiest call for a guy there (high OBP, low SLG).
*Although I'm fine with busting the salary cap. I think the Nats SHOULD do it. Sign Cano, Ellsbury, & Choo for first. Span 4th OF. LaRoche given away while you eat his contract. Why the hell not? The Lerners have the money. But analysis wise I've got to be thinking of what will likely be the scenarion. Not what I think it should be.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Offseason Position Discussion : Outfield
Presumed Plan : Bryce Harper, Denard Span and Jayson Werth will retain their starting roles. Scott Hairston will likely be the 4th OF filling in with tough lefties (for Bryce or Span) or for injury sit outs. The 5th OF is yet to be determined. Could be Tyler Moore if another 1B is gotten for the bench.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : Bryce Harper is set in left as the next big thing. He's a supreme talent who put up one of the best seasons for a 20 year old in baseball history. Again he hit .274 with 20 homers in 118 games a year before most college players will even be drafted let alone play in the minors. Jayson Werth has a huge contract and will play in right because that's how things work. Thankfully last season, he put himself on the outskirts of the MVP discussion finishing with a .318 / .398 / .532 line over 129 games. Denard Span was brought over for his defense and he was impressive.
Scott Hairston was traded for to help with the failing outfield bench but wasn't able to provide much of a boost. Still history suggests he can hit lefties well enough to be a 4th. As I said in the 1st base review, Tyler Moore has done all he can in AAA, and the Nats seem to like him more than the other B-level prospects that are in the high minors right now.
Problems with Presumed Plan :
Both Bryce and Werth could be seen as injury risks. Bryce spent most of 2013 dinged up in one way or another. Werth has barely played 200 games in the past 2 years. In the field both are falling short of what Rizzo probably expected. Bryce's poor instincts make him average in the field. Werth is aging out of being passable in the outfield. Span on the other hand failed at the plate. When three out of the last four years saying one thing, you listen to them. He's a below average hitter.Scott Hairston was traded for to help with the failing outfield bench but wasn't able to provide much of a boost. Still history suggests he can hit lefties well enough to be a 4th. As I said in the 1st base review, Tyler Moore has done all he can in AAA, and the Nats seem to like him more than the other B-level prospects that are in the high minors right now.
Scott Hairston might be aging out of usefulness as well. He struck out at his highest rate (25.3%) in any season where he played a decent number of games and he hit everything in the air (59.3% FB). He probably can't handle the outfield in any long-term situation. Tyler Moore, we talked about before. Plenty of at bats to prove he belongs in the majors and hasn't done it.
What you should obviously see here though is a lack of the traditional 5th OF. Speedy good fielder who can play late in the games and serve as a pinch runner. The Nats saw with the whole LH relief pitcher situation, what can happen when you take away options from a manager.
My take : Despite the fielding issues and injury risks you'd be stupid not to put Bryce and Werth in starting roles next season. Bryce may not be the best fielder but he probably has a half-decade at least of being good enough and he has a hell of an arm. It be stupid to move him anywhere. Werth on the other hand might benefit from a move, but given that his 1B play is limited, it makes more sense to give him a last chance in RF and start him spot starting at 1B here and there. Anyway you hit like that, you play. No questions.
Denard Span is a harder call. His defense does make him an easy start, but defense can be very variable. He might not be any worse but given balls hit to the right places his defensive contribution could be muted to the point where he's not helping the team much in a specific season. Still I think if you are going to have Bryce and Werth at the corners you need a plus OF in CF. He may not last past this year (if Goodwin can breakout). But Span's the best choice right now.
I also like Hairston in the 4th role. I think he's on the way out but not there just yet. Should hit in the low .200s but against lefties I'd bet on something in the .250s with good power. (even hitting .214 vs LH he still slugged .484 - which is basically better overall than everyone but Werth last year) The 5th spot... well this gets confusing because of what's going on with 1B. If Moore (or Hairston or Werth for that matter) start spelling LaRoche, well then maybe you have a spot to bring in a real "5th" OF. Then again you'd then have to default to Lombo as the 3rd base back-up. If you bring in a Jeff Baker type then you have to cut someone. Of course that's my take. I say bring in a Jeff Baker type and let Tyler Moore go.
With Tyler Moore out you have a couple choices. You could let Eury Perez take that 5th spot. He probably won't be a good hitter at the major league level (no patience with no power) but he can play D and run. Since the 5th guy is not expected to start, I don't mind his flaws as much as if he was a #4. Still we ran into the "well what if our #4 crashes and burns" situation last year and Eury is far from a safe bet on playing big minutes. Instead you could go for perennial DL star Franklin Gutierrez. Pairing with Scott Hairston as 4th OFs depending on the situation, he was amazing defensively just a few years ago and showed some ability at the plate. His power was back in his short stint last year. I know he's fragile but this is not even your first back-up. It's your emergency starter. The point is if you told me the Nats need someone to start in CF for 3 weeks I'd feel better if it was a (at least starting) healthy Gutierrez than Perez. If he does get injured then Eury is still around, right?
Outside the Box Suggestion
You know who's a speedy guy who can play D who might fit in as a 4th/5th OF? Denard Span. So go big and bring in Jacoby Ellsbury who can play that stellar D you need in CF and also provide you with a potentially well above average bat in CF. Also he's a Boras client. Perfect, right? Sure it'll cost you down the road (given his injury history I wouldn't trust him playing anything close to a full season past age 34) but as a win now strategy it's hard to beat. It covers what I consider a lurking problem. Span is fine as the worst hitting guy on your team, but one injury that puts in Lombo, or a back-up C, or someone else and the Nats could find themselves in a situation where 7-8-9 are a rest period for pitchers.
This would show a team committed more to "winning now". Honestly they've made only one such deal (the Zimmerman extension) that shows they might sacrifice some winning later for winning now. The Werth signing, when it was made, wasn't about winning now. The Gio extension was about value. The Soriano deal, like any 1-2 year deal, doesn't sacrifice the later. No only Zimm's new deal showed that the team wasn't happy with just winning 85-90 games now and would either pay AND sacrifice to make it more. You can't make too many of these deals, but its easier to make a few of these than cross your fingers and hope for prospect development from a middling system.
Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Offseason Position Discussion : Third Base
Presumed Plan : Ryan Zimmerman will play 3rd. Some combination of Lombardozzi and a signee or rookie will back him up as the Nats say bye to Chad Tracy.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : Next year will be the 9th year Ryan Zimmerman will be the Nats 3rd baseman. (9th! I'm so old!) That's a long time at a position that is hard to fill. Offensively, the days of dreaming that Ryan would be an elite hitter are probably over but his current level (.281 / .348 / .464 ~ 25 homers a year) is more than acceptable. It's a clear step behind the best offensive 3rd basemen (Wright, Beltre, Longoria, Cabrera... ok several large steps behind him) but its a clear step ahead of the rest of the pack. He's a top 5 guy with little chance to be top 3, but little chance to fall out of the top 10. Defensively he spent the better part of 2013 getting over a yips problem which ended up hurting his range as he tried to compensate by playing shallower. This seemingly resolved over the last couple of months
Lombo - because see last few of these.
Problems with Presumed Plan : Ryan is trending down a bit average wise. His fielding issues seem to come and go, so I doubt we've seen the last of them. His injury past is worrisome as he hasn't played a full season in 5 years. Rendon is better suited for 3rd and might have more of a chance to blossom in his natural position.
Lombo :I like Lombo least of all at 3rd base back-up because I think we can get more of an offensive threat here to back up Zimm. Plus he's busy filling in at 2nd and SS so we'll need someone else just in case the Nats get two injuries at the same time
My take : The Ryan plan is good. The average issue is something to look at but the the league is trending down so it's not as bad as it seems. His injury history is some concern but in 3 of the last 4 years he's missed 15-20 games. It's more than you'd like but it's not going to derail a season. One major injury since 2008? I can take that chance. As for the fielding, you just got to take it as it comes. He's a Top 3rd baseman. Sure maybe not in the discussion of the best overall anymore but still tons better than what you can find on the street these days. Rendon can get used to 2nd. If he can hack it the Nats need him more there.
Who for a back-up? You're going to have to lean one way with these 3B/1B guys and I think LaRoche will need the platoon guy, so I still advocate the Jeff Baker idea from 1B. He'd be a pretty bad 3B though. If you are looking more at 3rd base guys who can hack it at first, Chavez would be ideal but he hits too well to be looking for a pure back-up role and this ain't gonna be a platoon (also as a lefty doesn't help out LaRoche). Youkilis would be an interesting long shot grab. A good PH possibility with nice patience, and the bench role might keep him healthy. Mark Reynolds would provide righty pop which would allow you to keep Tyler Moore off the roster.
Outside the Box Suggestion : For the sake of getting it done with, the hanging mostly in the box idea of Zimm to 1st, Rendon to 3rd, and sign Cano gets the play here. The reasoning in obvious. Cano is an huge offensive talent that gives the Nat the superstar bat they may be lacking (we'll see if Bryce explodes or Werth keeps it up). That also provides the Nats with a true upgrade from LaRoche as opposed to the "maybe we'll get more offense" other options floated around in LaRoche sits scenarios. And Cano is a good defender, right now. Of course the contract Cano will eventually sign is the sticking point but if money's no object, luxury tax be damned, this plan is the clearest path to success in 2014 and the few years after that.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : Next year will be the 9th year Ryan Zimmerman will be the Nats 3rd baseman. (9th! I'm so old!) That's a long time at a position that is hard to fill. Offensively, the days of dreaming that Ryan would be an elite hitter are probably over but his current level (.281 / .348 / .464 ~ 25 homers a year) is more than acceptable. It's a clear step behind the best offensive 3rd basemen (Wright, Beltre, Longoria, Cabrera... ok several large steps behind him) but its a clear step ahead of the rest of the pack. He's a top 5 guy with little chance to be top 3, but little chance to fall out of the top 10. Defensively he spent the better part of 2013 getting over a yips problem which ended up hurting his range as he tried to compensate by playing shallower. This seemingly resolved over the last couple of months
Lombo - because see last few of these.
Problems with Presumed Plan : Ryan is trending down a bit average wise. His fielding issues seem to come and go, so I doubt we've seen the last of them. His injury past is worrisome as he hasn't played a full season in 5 years. Rendon is better suited for 3rd and might have more of a chance to blossom in his natural position.
Lombo :I like Lombo least of all at 3rd base back-up because I think we can get more of an offensive threat here to back up Zimm. Plus he's busy filling in at 2nd and SS so we'll need someone else just in case the Nats get two injuries at the same time
My take : The Ryan plan is good. The average issue is something to look at but the the league is trending down so it's not as bad as it seems. His injury history is some concern but in 3 of the last 4 years he's missed 15-20 games. It's more than you'd like but it's not going to derail a season. One major injury since 2008? I can take that chance. As for the fielding, you just got to take it as it comes. He's a Top 3rd baseman. Sure maybe not in the discussion of the best overall anymore but still tons better than what you can find on the street these days. Rendon can get used to 2nd. If he can hack it the Nats need him more there.
Who for a back-up? You're going to have to lean one way with these 3B/1B guys and I think LaRoche will need the platoon guy, so I still advocate the Jeff Baker idea from 1B. He'd be a pretty bad 3B though. If you are looking more at 3rd base guys who can hack it at first, Chavez would be ideal but he hits too well to be looking for a pure back-up role and this ain't gonna be a platoon (also as a lefty doesn't help out LaRoche). Youkilis would be an interesting long shot grab. A good PH possibility with nice patience, and the bench role might keep him healthy. Mark Reynolds would provide righty pop which would allow you to keep Tyler Moore off the roster.
Outside the Box Suggestion : For the sake of getting it done with, the hanging mostly in the box idea of Zimm to 1st, Rendon to 3rd, and sign Cano gets the play here. The reasoning in obvious. Cano is an huge offensive talent that gives the Nat the superstar bat they may be lacking (we'll see if Bryce explodes or Werth keeps it up). That also provides the Nats with a true upgrade from LaRoche as opposed to the "maybe we'll get more offense" other options floated around in LaRoche sits scenarios. And Cano is a good defender, right now. Of course the contract Cano will eventually sign is the sticking point but if money's no object, luxury tax be damned, this plan is the clearest path to success in 2014 and the few years after that.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Abreuuuuuuu
The Nats will need a 1st baseman in 2013. Hell, if LaRoche is crashing out they could need one next year. Why did they seemingly have no interest in Abreu? Should they have?
What we know of Abreu
Supposedly 26. Hit .453/.597/.986 33 HRs, 93 RBI in 2010-2011. .394, 35 homers following year. .382 with 13 homers (much shorter seasons - still led league) last season. Has acquitted himself well ( 9 for 25 with a walk, double, 3 HRs, 9 RBI) in the WBC. Fielding is considered a minus. No speed to speak of.
Why no interest
The cost was going to be high - As international scouting gets better the costs for these guys go up because they aren't seen as much of a gamble. Cespedes was 4/36. A few months later Puig was 7/42. Darvish got 5/56. Chances looked good Abreu would top that, which would set the Nats up for having 60 mill for 4 players (Zimm, Werth, Gio being other 3) going through 2016, which may hurt resigning ability for players such as Desmond and ZNN (let alone nailing down Stras, Bryce, Ramos)
Counterpoint : So? Money shouldn't be an object if you really want to win. Remember - THERE IS NO MONEY BUCKET. Teams can spend what they want. Owners are generally incredibly wealthy (the Lerners are) Therefore money should not be a concern, in my opinion. That doesn't mean you sign stupid deals, but pay a little more? Sure.
Might Need 1B free to move Zimmerman there if throwing problems continue.- Zimm seemingly cleared up his issues by years end but he's seemingly done that before too. If he gets another bout of the yips, they may want to move him to a spot where his throwing won't be an issue. No DH means that's 1B
Counterpoint : I hate the yips too but I can swallow them if it means having a good hitting first baseman. Good hitting 1B are harder to find that good hitting 3B. Overall I don't see how moving Zimm off 3rd makes the team stronger. Can the Nats find a 3B or 2B (if they domino Rendon to 3B) that can hit better than LaRoche has (let's say .260 with 25 homers)? I doubt it.
They like the prospects coming up - Tyler Moore has seemingly done all he can in AAA and there's a feeling he still might "get it" at the major league level. They were enthused with the development of Matt Skole prior to his injury. Someone currently in a different position like Zach Walters might also get a shift over. Or maybe a Goodwin or Souza will develop and push the aging in the field Werth over to first.
Counterpoint : The door is closing on Moore and most of the Nats hitting "prospects" are guys that should be coming into their own at the majors right now. Souza (early April), Skole (late July) and Walters (early Sept) all turn 25 next year. Their chance to surprise and make an impact is currently on the clock. Goodwin at 23 all next year, is a better bet to have big impact but also not ready yet. In other words, I don't like the prospects coming up.
You can always get a shorter term bargain like with LaRoche - why sign someone for 6 years when you can sign someone for 2. First base is generally considered the easiest position to play. (Movie Ron Washington : "It's incredibly hard") Why not take a chance and stick a Victor Martinez or Aramis Ramirez there in 2015? Or a Chase Headley?
Counterpoint : See LaRoche. You get what you pay for. These guys could be fine or could drop off the cliff with injury or age. If they do well next year they'll be costly. If they don't they'll be cheap but you'll be betting on a bounce back from a 35+ player. Or in Headley's case a guy coming off 2 sub-optimal years.
They have another plan - Trade? Bryce at first? Who knows.
Counterpoint : None
What do I think
I don't know. If this were a year later I'd possibly do it. We don't really see power dropoffs so he's going to hit ~30 homers a year. Even if you take Cespedes' average in 2013 to be a fair representation (I kind of do), Abreu was a better hitter and would hit a little better. Even if that's .250 and 25 you are essentially getting LaRoche again for LaRoche money, with mostly upside potential on those numbers. The question of course is the fielding. Is he bad or is he terrible? I can't answer that. If it's the latter than he really belongs in the AL where he can just hit. He's Adam Dunn esque which means he likely won't age well. Done at 30, halfway through the contract is a distinct possibility.
Still the Nats want to WIN NOW so who cares about down the road. Why not this year? Well because I don't think they can unload LaRoche and I don't think they want to just not play LaRoche. Since Abreu bats right I can see a platoon like situation which wouldn't work well for anyone... I just see a mess honestly. Also I still don't trust the Lerner's to aim for that Top 5 payroll like I feel they should. (#2, #4, and #5 are still in the playoffs right now). I think they'll be content to say "Top 10" and have that be enough. That means they'd use Abreu as an excuse to not re-sign ZNN or Desmond both of which I think they should.
I don't know. I see how it could work, but I'd only be in for it if I thought we'd see that scraping 200 mill payroll, and I don't think that will happen.
What we know of Abreu
Supposedly 26. Hit .453/.597/.986 33 HRs, 93 RBI in 2010-2011. .394, 35 homers following year. .382 with 13 homers (much shorter seasons - still led league) last season. Has acquitted himself well ( 9 for 25 with a walk, double, 3 HRs, 9 RBI) in the WBC. Fielding is considered a minus. No speed to speak of.
Why no interest
The cost was going to be high - As international scouting gets better the costs for these guys go up because they aren't seen as much of a gamble. Cespedes was 4/36. A few months later Puig was 7/42. Darvish got 5/56. Chances looked good Abreu would top that, which would set the Nats up for having 60 mill for 4 players (Zimm, Werth, Gio being other 3) going through 2016, which may hurt resigning ability for players such as Desmond and ZNN (let alone nailing down Stras, Bryce, Ramos)
Counterpoint : So? Money shouldn't be an object if you really want to win. Remember - THERE IS NO MONEY BUCKET. Teams can spend what they want. Owners are generally incredibly wealthy (the Lerners are) Therefore money should not be a concern, in my opinion. That doesn't mean you sign stupid deals, but pay a little more? Sure.
Might Need 1B free to move Zimmerman there if throwing problems continue.- Zimm seemingly cleared up his issues by years end but he's seemingly done that before too. If he gets another bout of the yips, they may want to move him to a spot where his throwing won't be an issue. No DH means that's 1B
Counterpoint : I hate the yips too but I can swallow them if it means having a good hitting first baseman. Good hitting 1B are harder to find that good hitting 3B. Overall I don't see how moving Zimm off 3rd makes the team stronger. Can the Nats find a 3B or 2B (if they domino Rendon to 3B) that can hit better than LaRoche has (let's say .260 with 25 homers)? I doubt it.
They like the prospects coming up - Tyler Moore has seemingly done all he can in AAA and there's a feeling he still might "get it" at the major league level. They were enthused with the development of Matt Skole prior to his injury. Someone currently in a different position like Zach Walters might also get a shift over. Or maybe a Goodwin or Souza will develop and push the aging in the field Werth over to first.
Counterpoint : The door is closing on Moore and most of the Nats hitting "prospects" are guys that should be coming into their own at the majors right now. Souza (early April), Skole (late July) and Walters (early Sept) all turn 25 next year. Their chance to surprise and make an impact is currently on the clock. Goodwin at 23 all next year, is a better bet to have big impact but also not ready yet. In other words, I don't like the prospects coming up.
You can always get a shorter term bargain like with LaRoche - why sign someone for 6 years when you can sign someone for 2. First base is generally considered the easiest position to play. (Movie Ron Washington : "It's incredibly hard") Why not take a chance and stick a Victor Martinez or Aramis Ramirez there in 2015? Or a Chase Headley?
Counterpoint : See LaRoche. You get what you pay for. These guys could be fine or could drop off the cliff with injury or age. If they do well next year they'll be costly. If they don't they'll be cheap but you'll be betting on a bounce back from a 35+ player. Or in Headley's case a guy coming off 2 sub-optimal years.
They have another plan - Trade? Bryce at first? Who knows.
Counterpoint : None
What do I think
I don't know. If this were a year later I'd possibly do it. We don't really see power dropoffs so he's going to hit ~30 homers a year. Even if you take Cespedes' average in 2013 to be a fair representation (I kind of do), Abreu was a better hitter and would hit a little better. Even if that's .250 and 25 you are essentially getting LaRoche again for LaRoche money, with mostly upside potential on those numbers. The question of course is the fielding. Is he bad or is he terrible? I can't answer that. If it's the latter than he really belongs in the AL where he can just hit. He's Adam Dunn esque which means he likely won't age well. Done at 30, halfway through the contract is a distinct possibility.
Still the Nats want to WIN NOW so who cares about down the road. Why not this year? Well because I don't think they can unload LaRoche and I don't think they want to just not play LaRoche. Since Abreu bats right I can see a platoon like situation which wouldn't work well for anyone... I just see a mess honestly. Also I still don't trust the Lerner's to aim for that Top 5 payroll like I feel they should. (#2, #4, and #5 are still in the playoffs right now). I think they'll be content to say "Top 10" and have that be enough. That means they'd use Abreu as an excuse to not re-sign ZNN or Desmond both of which I think they should.
I don't know. I see how it could work, but I'd only be in for it if I thought we'd see that scraping 200 mill payroll, and I don't think that will happen.
Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Wednesday Quickie - 2b SS questions
Hey you ever have your electrician cut both your cable and your phone lines? Nope. Just wondering.
Well knowing TWC I should have my cable fixed sometime around Thanksgiving, so my posts should be sporadic for a while, just letting you know.
Onto the 2nd base and Shortstop Comments :
How about Omar Infante?
Omar Infante would be great! Imagine if Steve Lombardozzi hit for higher average, more power, fielded better and ran better and that's Infante. (maybe a walk or two more, too but just a few)
There are a couple problems with him though. He could cost the team a first round draft pick if the Tigers offer him a qualifying offer (probably won't). Usually I don't care about that but for a bench player it's something to think about. The second is that if I were coming off his season I'd be looking to start somewhere and the buzz is that's the plan. It seems likely he'll get a multi-year deal at 5+ a year to do just that. What would the Nats have to do to get him to come here where is his playing time is not guaranteed? The Nats need to spend on the bench but not say 20+ million for three years.
Is there anything more confusing than the question "once Espinosa was terrible and demoted why didn't he get his shoulder fixed?
Nope.
Should Espy get the surgery, at the very least to use it as an excuse?
I'd have to think so. Right now he's basically playing himself into the independent leagues. OK that might be a stretch., if the Nats cut him today someone would pick him up and try him out in AAA, but it's not far from the truth. I don't care how good your D is, a 28 year old punchlessly hitting .210 in AAA is going to be in St. Paul by August. Basically he's got 1 1/2 years on the path he's taking. Go the surgery route though, and you might buy yourself another year as teams hope you just need to recover. Maybe he's one of those guys that faints when he sees a needle?
Is is possible Espy ruined his swing because of the injury, it healed, and now it just needs to be fixed?
I suppose. I will say that his time hitting last September immediately after the injury produced similar stats to this year so he'd have had to immediately have changed his swing for the injury and it effected him in the same way then as swinging that way healed does now. Seems doubtful. The other option is that he changed it in the offseason. But wasn't that when he was healing? I just don't see it, but I won't rule it out. That certainly explains the whole "no surgery" angle better than anything else.
WRITE BETTER
Sorry, not going to happen. I know I leave a lot to be desired grammar-wise with these posts. I can't claim to be an interesting writer, but I do know my punctuation and proper word choice. The thing is that these posts are basically first drafts given a once over for obvious errors or hard to read spots. They are C- work at best.
Why would I put out such a poor representation of what I feel I can do? Time. I don't have the time to conceive, write, check, edit, check again, edit again, final read with minor changes, that I would like to do. I have time to conceive/write, edit while sort of checking. If this were my ultimate goal, to be a writer about sports, I'd probably put more time into it. But this is my hobby so I'm ok with it
Why not trade Zack Walters if we don't need him at short?
Walters just made himself into a fringe prospect. He strikes out way too much and he'd be much better at 3rd than SS. Value isn't exactly there yet to get back something usable now by himself, even with the power numbers. Lots of guys can hit AAA homers but can't make enough contact to do it in the majors (see : Moore, Tyler).
What age is too old for a shortstop?
32/33 or so, but it varies a lot. That's just when fielding is likely to start to diminish at a faster rate. If you are a good fielder to begin with you should be able to eek out a few more decent years than if you were a bad one. Also if you can still hit your team might be able to ignore the fielding for a little while.
For Desmond, if he declines offensively again this year, then I'd say around 32 (won't be hitting by that time so if he's not fielding well he's not of much use). If he stabilizes or goes back up he could probably hack it until 35 or so. A million caveats of course. So I'd wait a year to see if he's trending down then make your long-term decision. Be prepared to pay either way though. Either a slight overpay for a couple more years past his FA or a dumptruck full of cash for his useful career.
Walters for Loney?
Loney's a FA.
Well knowing TWC I should have my cable fixed sometime around Thanksgiving, so my posts should be sporadic for a while, just letting you know.
Onto the 2nd base and Shortstop Comments :
How about Omar Infante?
Omar Infante would be great! Imagine if Steve Lombardozzi hit for higher average, more power, fielded better and ran better and that's Infante. (maybe a walk or two more, too but just a few)
There are a couple problems with him though. He could cost the team a first round draft pick if the Tigers offer him a qualifying offer (probably won't). Usually I don't care about that but for a bench player it's something to think about. The second is that if I were coming off his season I'd be looking to start somewhere and the buzz is that's the plan. It seems likely he'll get a multi-year deal at 5+ a year to do just that. What would the Nats have to do to get him to come here where is his playing time is not guaranteed? The Nats need to spend on the bench but not say 20+ million for three years.
Is there anything more confusing than the question "once Espinosa was terrible and demoted why didn't he get his shoulder fixed?
Nope.
Should Espy get the surgery, at the very least to use it as an excuse?
I'd have to think so. Right now he's basically playing himself into the independent leagues. OK that might be a stretch., if the Nats cut him today someone would pick him up and try him out in AAA, but it's not far from the truth. I don't care how good your D is, a 28 year old punchlessly hitting .210 in AAA is going to be in St. Paul by August. Basically he's got 1 1/2 years on the path he's taking. Go the surgery route though, and you might buy yourself another year as teams hope you just need to recover. Maybe he's one of those guys that faints when he sees a needle?
Is is possible Espy ruined his swing because of the injury, it healed, and now it just needs to be fixed?
I suppose. I will say that his time hitting last September immediately after the injury produced similar stats to this year so he'd have had to immediately have changed his swing for the injury and it effected him in the same way then as swinging that way healed does now. Seems doubtful. The other option is that he changed it in the offseason. But wasn't that when he was healing? I just don't see it, but I won't rule it out. That certainly explains the whole "no surgery" angle better than anything else.
WRITE BETTER
Sorry, not going to happen. I know I leave a lot to be desired grammar-wise with these posts. I can't claim to be an interesting writer, but I do know my punctuation and proper word choice. The thing is that these posts are basically first drafts given a once over for obvious errors or hard to read spots. They are C- work at best.
Why would I put out such a poor representation of what I feel I can do? Time. I don't have the time to conceive, write, check, edit, check again, edit again, final read with minor changes, that I would like to do. I have time to conceive/write, edit while sort of checking. If this were my ultimate goal, to be a writer about sports, I'd probably put more time into it. But this is my hobby so I'm ok with it
Why not trade Zack Walters if we don't need him at short?
Walters just made himself into a fringe prospect. He strikes out way too much and he'd be much better at 3rd than SS. Value isn't exactly there yet to get back something usable now by himself, even with the power numbers. Lots of guys can hit AAA homers but can't make enough contact to do it in the majors (see : Moore, Tyler).
What age is too old for a shortstop?
32/33 or so, but it varies a lot. That's just when fielding is likely to start to diminish at a faster rate. If you are a good fielder to begin with you should be able to eek out a few more decent years than if you were a bad one. Also if you can still hit your team might be able to ignore the fielding for a little while.
For Desmond, if he declines offensively again this year, then I'd say around 32 (won't be hitting by that time so if he's not fielding well he's not of much use). If he stabilizes or goes back up he could probably hack it until 35 or so. A million caveats of course. So I'd wait a year to see if he's trending down then make your long-term decision. Be prepared to pay either way though. Either a slight overpay for a couple more years past his FA or a dumptruck full of cash for his useful career.
Walters for Loney?
Loney's a FA.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Offseason Position Discussion : Shortstop
Presumed Plan : Ian Desmond will play shortstop. As noted in the 2nd base analysis, Lombo will likely back-up the MI positions.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : After two seasons of disappointing both at the plate and the field Ian Desmond put everything together in 2012. His .292 / .335 / .511 line and superior defense made him an All-Star. While last season wasn't quite as good, it was still and elite year for a shortstop. He's put himself in the conversation for best shortstop in the majors. True the conversation begins with "Are there any challengers to Tulowitzki's spot at best SS in baseball?" but that's still very very good. At 28 and cheap there is really no reason to look elsewhere.
We talked about Lombo when we discussed 2nd. Same things apply. Good enough to be back-up given that he does a bunch of stuff at an average major league level.
Problems with Presumed Plan : I suppose that Desmond could regress a bit more. He did run hot and cold last year. He also packed a lot of pop into one month. (9 homers of 20 in July). He's not immune to injury, playing only 130 games in 2012.
Lombo : Again imperfect back-up if he needs to play more than a fill-in roll. I suspect it would be even worse at SS than 2B, because I think Lombo's range might be exposed. No power or patience.
My take : This was really easy wasn't it? You could be afraid Ian would regress but two straight years of good offensive and defensive production and an optimal age for 2014 make it silly to worry about. Injuries are always a concern but outside of 2012 he has played 3 full seasons as a starter. Not quite an iron man as he gets nicked and bruised here and there but close enough.
Lombo is fine if his role is limited to last guy off the bench. Basically, the CI, OF and maybe even C back-ups need to provide power and have at least one guy that would be ok playing full time, if not 2. It's probably easier to find that type of player in those positions (maybe not C) than in MI, thus why it's ok to keep the Nationals unofficial mascot.
Outside the Box Suggestion : Like we talked about with Ramos, you don't move young, cheap and good off a premium position. So the only outside the box idea is to trade. Like to the Cardinals. What!?! Make your enemy stronger? Listen, you all might hate the Cards but the truth is they are LOADED. Not just this year but in the minors. They have OFs, Ps, CIs out the wazoo who could be impact players BUT they don't have a SS. Daniel Descalso hasn't been able to get over the hump and recreate his minor leagues success. Pete Kozma makes Lombardozzi look like Eckstein at the plate. So they actually could use Desmond. And in return the Nats could get young players but players ready to contribute now. Prospects are fine, but trading Desmond for prospects 2-3 years down the road only creates a "not quite good enough team in this way" that will morph into a "not quite good enough team in that way" down the line.
So how about Desmond and junk for Matt Adams, Carlos Martinez, and Descalso? Adams gives the Nats the masher at 1st they are dying for to replace LaRoche (the Cards don't need him with Craig at 1st and options behind that). Martinez gives them a fantastic arm for the pen and possibly a future closer to help replace the will be gone Soriano, the aging Clippard (29 and closing in on FA) and the headcase Storen. (Cards smart enough to know relievers are fungible. Have Rosenthal in late innings for youth. Plenty of arms to replace). Descalso is merely a throw in that the Cards don't need anymore to give the Nats someone to play SS. No he's not very good, but he's had suspiciously low BABIP years that make me think there's a league average hitter in there. I guess if you like Greg Garcia better he could fit here.
Any other plan won't work. If the Nats try to work a three team trade and get a decent SS back, why wouldn't the Cards just kick the Nats out of the deal and get that SS for themselves for a lot cheaper? The Cardinals have a lot of SP arms but I have a hard time seeing a team trade a major league ready power hitter and a major league ready starter, even if they can afford to do it. And the Nats, like I said, don't want help later. They want help now. Plus, in a crazy lucky world, Espy could get surgery now, be back for the start of the season, hitting like he always has and playing SS as good or better than Desmond.
No, I don't endorse this plan, but you come up with a better one. No one else needs a SS and has enough decent young players to give back immediately to the Nats.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : After two seasons of disappointing both at the plate and the field Ian Desmond put everything together in 2012. His .292 / .335 / .511 line and superior defense made him an All-Star. While last season wasn't quite as good, it was still and elite year for a shortstop. He's put himself in the conversation for best shortstop in the majors. True the conversation begins with "Are there any challengers to Tulowitzki's spot at best SS in baseball?" but that's still very very good. At 28 and cheap there is really no reason to look elsewhere.
We talked about Lombo when we discussed 2nd. Same things apply. Good enough to be back-up given that he does a bunch of stuff at an average major league level.
Problems with Presumed Plan : I suppose that Desmond could regress a bit more. He did run hot and cold last year. He also packed a lot of pop into one month. (9 homers of 20 in July). He's not immune to injury, playing only 130 games in 2012.
Lombo : Again imperfect back-up if he needs to play more than a fill-in roll. I suspect it would be even worse at SS than 2B, because I think Lombo's range might be exposed. No power or patience.
My take : This was really easy wasn't it? You could be afraid Ian would regress but two straight years of good offensive and defensive production and an optimal age for 2014 make it silly to worry about. Injuries are always a concern but outside of 2012 he has played 3 full seasons as a starter. Not quite an iron man as he gets nicked and bruised here and there but close enough.
Lombo is fine if his role is limited to last guy off the bench. Basically, the CI, OF and maybe even C back-ups need to provide power and have at least one guy that would be ok playing full time, if not 2. It's probably easier to find that type of player in those positions (maybe not C) than in MI, thus why it's ok to keep the Nationals unofficial mascot.
Outside the Box Suggestion : Like we talked about with Ramos, you don't move young, cheap and good off a premium position. So the only outside the box idea is to trade. Like to the Cardinals. What!?! Make your enemy stronger? Listen, you all might hate the Cards but the truth is they are LOADED. Not just this year but in the minors. They have OFs, Ps, CIs out the wazoo who could be impact players BUT they don't have a SS. Daniel Descalso hasn't been able to get over the hump and recreate his minor leagues success. Pete Kozma makes Lombardozzi look like Eckstein at the plate. So they actually could use Desmond. And in return the Nats could get young players but players ready to contribute now. Prospects are fine, but trading Desmond for prospects 2-3 years down the road only creates a "not quite good enough team in this way" that will morph into a "not quite good enough team in that way" down the line.
So how about Desmond and junk for Matt Adams, Carlos Martinez, and Descalso? Adams gives the Nats the masher at 1st they are dying for to replace LaRoche (the Cards don't need him with Craig at 1st and options behind that). Martinez gives them a fantastic arm for the pen and possibly a future closer to help replace the will be gone Soriano, the aging Clippard (29 and closing in on FA) and the headcase Storen. (Cards smart enough to know relievers are fungible. Have Rosenthal in late innings for youth. Plenty of arms to replace). Descalso is merely a throw in that the Cards don't need anymore to give the Nats someone to play SS. No he's not very good, but he's had suspiciously low BABIP years that make me think there's a league average hitter in there. I guess if you like Greg Garcia better he could fit here.
Any other plan won't work. If the Nats try to work a three team trade and get a decent SS back, why wouldn't the Cards just kick the Nats out of the deal and get that SS for themselves for a lot cheaper? The Cardinals have a lot of SP arms but I have a hard time seeing a team trade a major league ready power hitter and a major league ready starter, even if they can afford to do it. And the Nats, like I said, don't want help later. They want help now. Plus, in a crazy lucky world, Espy could get surgery now, be back for the start of the season, hitting like he always has and playing SS as good or better than Desmond.
No, I don't endorse this plan, but you come up with a better one. No one else needs a SS and has enough decent young players to give back immediately to the Nats.
Wednesday, October 09, 2013
Offseason Position Discussion : Second Base
Presumed Plan : Anthony Rendon will continue to serve as the Nats second baseman. Seems likely at this juncture that Steve Lombardozzi will be kept and serve as the MI back-up.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : Anthony Rendon performed adequately at second base (.265 / .329 / .396) after taking the reins. While that's not a great line it would put him squarely in the middle for 2nd base production. He's also a decent to good fielder, whose current issues lie with errors, something potentially correctable. He was a top prospect putting up a .319 / .461 / .603 line in AA this year. Everything seems to suggest that he has upside to grow into a star at the position.
There aren't really any good alternatives. The former second baseman Danny Espinosa, along with the Nationals organization, is having a problem perceiving reality. While common sense tells even the dullest of dullards that a player who put up remarkably consistent numbers for almost 4 years, through minors and majors, who suddenly became a different hitter right after he got injured is probably suffering from injury related issues, the Nats and/or Danny refuse to admit it. Instead he gets his swing tinkered with and continues to not hit in AAA. What a surprise. Great. I mean we should all be REALLY REALLY mad at this. Even if you didn't like Danny because you take offense to be 99% of a player's value, and take batting average and strikeouts to be 99% of offensive value*, he was still a commodity. He was something somebody would have given the Nats something for. The Nats basically burnt a $20 bill in front of your eyes.
Steve Lombardozzi has his moments. But moments are like fish in the sea. There is a lot more water out there and the water says no patience, no power, not all that fast, average at best in the field. That's not a starter. But he can do other things. He plays adequately at SS and 3B, hits for .265 or so, and rarely strikes out. He's not all that slow so he can pinch run and he can bunt. Not quite a "jack of all trades", maybe an "8 of clubs of all trades", a smart manager can use a player like Lombo.
Problems with Presumed Plan : A potential issue is that Rendon didn't really perform adequately. He performed great (.330 in June) then terrible (.187 in July) then ok (~.280 from then on out). So if the real Rendon is closer to July than anything else, the Nats will have a problem. He didn't hit all that well in AAA remember.
The real problem though is that Rendon isn't Danny in the field. He can't run like Danny which is a small minus and he can't field like Danny which is a bigger one. Danny helped out the defense as a whole, especially, it seems, the aging LaRoche. Of course you can't bring Danny back if he's not hitting so it's something you just have to swallow.
Another issue is that Rendon is a known injury risk. Bad ankles cost him time in college then most of his first year in the pros. Lombardozzi isn't a full-time player so do the Nats need someone better as a back-up?
My take : Rendon is an easy call. His prospect status and his performance, especially the good enough last couple months, earned him a long leash for 2014. Maybe he can't be put in pen as the starter all year, but he'd have to slump all the way to the All-Star break to make me suggest a change. I don't think July Rendon is the real one (any more than I think June Rendon is) that's just something you have to accept when starting someone with little major league experience. The fielding issue? If he's good enough and LaRoche isn't the problem really isn't with Rendon, now is it?As for the injury risk, he's young enough I'm willing to take that chance.
I really do like Lombo as the last guy on the bench. He can make contact and you need that kind of bat sometimes just like you need one that can put it over the fence. Granted you need the latter far more than the former, and you hope the former can be done by someone that can do the latter but you still need the former.
Cano? It's an interesting idea in theory but I'm not sure how to make it work in practice. He's not going to get 10 years or 30 million per. We all saw what happened since Pujols, at about the same age, got a 10 year 24 million dollar deal. No one is doing that for Cano. But the Yanks need him back and if the Dodgers don't win it all they might be clamoring for that one more player to put them over the top. He'll get a lot. 8 years 200 mill? Do you want the Nats to do that?
It's a dilemma. They need an offensive bump and because they don't have obvious holes they need a really good player to do that. But really good players cost money. Right now I'm saying this is a non-starter. With ZNN, Desmond need contract extensions soon (not to mention Clippard). Ramos and Strasburg right after that at a point where they will still have almost 50 mill committed to Werth, Zimm, and Gio (probably), I just don't think the money is there to do something like this.Or more accurately, the money is there, I just don't trust the Lerners to spend it. Sign Cano and sign all these guys is Plan A1. Plan A2 is just sign all these guys.
Outside the Box Suggestion :
Move Rendon to 3rd, put Zimmerman at second. Hey! I said "outside the box". Zimm's issues are routine plays where he has to think about it. Shorter time frame to throw it means less time to think about it. Problem solved! As Zimm's offensive skills diminish it won't be as problematic since his comparitives are 2nd baseman rather than slugging 3rd basemen. If he keeps hitting maybe he goes to 1st next year. Meanwhile Rendon gets to be as comfortable as possible in a position with a lot less running (save those ankles), as he tries to become a star hitter in the majors.
*99% chance you have brain damage.
Monday, October 07, 2013
Monday Quickie - Quick Shots
FYI I'll be trying to do a Monday - Tuesday - Thursday schedule in the offseason with news dictating if I break that. I'll still tweet when new ones are up though if you don't like being on schedule.
Quick replies to C/1B comments
How about Ryan Doumit?
Not a bad idea. They guy can play 1B and C (though not well) and can sit in the OF as well as say, Tyler Moore can. He can also hit lefty to complement Ramos and righty to complement LaRoche (though historically he's not a good right handed hitter). He's not meant to be an everyday player but as a bench player on a good team he's a good choice. Of course he was concussed last year, but he still plans on playing C in 2014. Do the Nats have what it takes to get him? Not sure. The Nats don't have a deep system and can't afford to trade anything worthwhile. Are the Twins going to deal him? They'd love to move Mauer out of the position and Doumit gives them some flexibility to do it. Again not a bad idea in theory, not sure it can work out in practice.
Will Geovany Soto seek out starters money and time?
Maybe but he hasn't been a full-time starter since 2008 and hit under .200 in 2012, so I'm not sure who's betting on this guy being a starter. I'd expect him to end up a back-up somewhere.
How about Jose Abreu?
It's a gamble. One that paid off so far for the A's with Cespedes (just barely though - his 2013 left a lot to be desired), but these things can get out of hand quickly. Kei Igawa anyone? Still hitters are more projectable than pitchers and 1B is weak for FAs over the next few years. Seems though that the Nats aren't really in for him. As has been noted by others, signing Desmond, ZNN long term might be better use of money right now.
Why not move Bryce to first to keep him healthy?
It'd be a waste of an arm and even if he's only ever going to be average out there he's still average out there. Zimm's troubles might pop up again. Werth might need a resting place. You can always try to move FA boppers there. There are better 1B options than Bryce for the next few years.
Maybe Moore will "get it" and flourish. It happens.
Yep it does. It also doesn't happen more often than it does. But his age and inability to offer anything else to the team makes it a fair gamble to let Moore go if needed, in my opinion. It's safer to deal him than say, the younger, more athletic Zach Walters, who also K's a bunch.
What about Walters at first? Or Skole?
My opinion on both is the same. Wait and see. Let's see what Skole does in the AFL and how both do next year. They are probably Moore-like players, but maybe one breaks out. I won't depend on either right now though.
What about sliding Zimm over to First?
Not next year (unless it's a Cano thing, which we'll talk about tomorrow). The FA market just isn't good enough to definitely get someone better than LaRoche without paying through the nose.
Why do you want Jeff Baker? That guy had one good fluke year!
Yeah, you're buying high off a year that won't be repeated but here's the thing. Baker vs LHP :
2013: .314 / .407 / .667
2012: .240 / .277 / .388
2011: .314 / .349 / .463
2010: .350 / .395 / .550
He's not an everyday replacement for LaRoche, but the guy can hit lefties or at least he's a good bet to next season. Building a bench is about making good bets. The Nats made a lot of bad ones last year.
The fielding wasn't bad, it was a fluke of looking at one year of fielding data.
Maybe. I completely agree with the fact you can't look at one year of fielding data. I also think the Nats D peaked in 2012. Werth is trending down. LaRoche wasn't very good before so him not being very good now is not a surprise. Bryce doesn't look to be improving to me. Zimm is a question mark. I think it's fair to say the Nats aren't a bad fielding team, but I think they are only in the average to slightly above average range. I don't think they'll be back near elite like they were in 2012.
Quick replies to C/1B comments
How about Ryan Doumit?
Not a bad idea. They guy can play 1B and C (though not well) and can sit in the OF as well as say, Tyler Moore can. He can also hit lefty to complement Ramos and righty to complement LaRoche (though historically he's not a good right handed hitter). He's not meant to be an everyday player but as a bench player on a good team he's a good choice. Of course he was concussed last year, but he still plans on playing C in 2014. Do the Nats have what it takes to get him? Not sure. The Nats don't have a deep system and can't afford to trade anything worthwhile. Are the Twins going to deal him? They'd love to move Mauer out of the position and Doumit gives them some flexibility to do it. Again not a bad idea in theory, not sure it can work out in practice.
Will Geovany Soto seek out starters money and time?
Maybe but he hasn't been a full-time starter since 2008 and hit under .200 in 2012, so I'm not sure who's betting on this guy being a starter. I'd expect him to end up a back-up somewhere.
How about Jose Abreu?
It's a gamble. One that paid off so far for the A's with Cespedes (just barely though - his 2013 left a lot to be desired), but these things can get out of hand quickly. Kei Igawa anyone? Still hitters are more projectable than pitchers and 1B is weak for FAs over the next few years. Seems though that the Nats aren't really in for him. As has been noted by others, signing Desmond, ZNN long term might be better use of money right now.
Why not move Bryce to first to keep him healthy?
It'd be a waste of an arm and even if he's only ever going to be average out there he's still average out there. Zimm's troubles might pop up again. Werth might need a resting place. You can always try to move FA boppers there. There are better 1B options than Bryce for the next few years.
Maybe Moore will "get it" and flourish. It happens.
Yep it does. It also doesn't happen more often than it does. But his age and inability to offer anything else to the team makes it a fair gamble to let Moore go if needed, in my opinion. It's safer to deal him than say, the younger, more athletic Zach Walters, who also K's a bunch.
What about Walters at first? Or Skole?
My opinion on both is the same. Wait and see. Let's see what Skole does in the AFL and how both do next year. They are probably Moore-like players, but maybe one breaks out. I won't depend on either right now though.
What about sliding Zimm over to First?
Not next year (unless it's a Cano thing, which we'll talk about tomorrow). The FA market just isn't good enough to definitely get someone better than LaRoche without paying through the nose.
Why do you want Jeff Baker? That guy had one good fluke year!
Yeah, you're buying high off a year that won't be repeated but here's the thing. Baker vs LHP :
2013: .314 / .407 / .667
2012: .240 / .277 / .388
2011: .314 / .349 / .463
2010: .350 / .395 / .550
He's not an everyday replacement for LaRoche, but the guy can hit lefties or at least he's a good bet to next season. Building a bench is about making good bets. The Nats made a lot of bad ones last year.
The fielding wasn't bad, it was a fluke of looking at one year of fielding data.
Maybe. I completely agree with the fact you can't look at one year of fielding data. I also think the Nats D peaked in 2012. Werth is trending down. LaRoche wasn't very good before so him not being very good now is not a surprise. Bryce doesn't look to be improving to me. Zimm is a question mark. I think it's fair to say the Nats aren't a bad fielding team, but I think they are only in the average to slightly above average range. I don't think they'll be back near elite like they were in 2012.
Thursday, October 03, 2013
Offseason Position Discussion : First Base
Presumed Plan : Adam LaRoche will continue to be the starter at first base. Tyler Moore will likely take up the primary back-up role, fitting in somewhere between a true back-up and a platoon.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : Adam Laroche had an off year but offensively it wasn't as horrible as it seemed. A marked increase in OBP (.095 isoOBP) helped offset a big drop in SLG (isoSLG .239 to .166). He still hit righties for ok pop and with a return to career level BABIP he should put up a more typical unimpressive LaRochesque year in 2014, which not coincidentally he is being paid 12 million for.
Tyler Moore has proven over the last 2 years that he does not belong in AAA, putting up a .315 / .390 / .620 line over the course of two seasons. His right handedness complements LaRoche well and he can provide cheap late inning pop off the bench.
Problems with Presumed Plan : Adam LaRoche overall did have a horrible year. His mid career defensive renaissance has passed and once again he's a statue, albeit one with soft hands*. He continues to be surprisingly slow in general. Offensively there are problems too. His slumps seem to be getting longer, not only did he open with his typical slow start (.159 / .227 / .284) but his July (.136 / .213 / .259) was a big reason the complete team took a month to get going. His power drop is concerning as he was well below his career isoSLG of .210. He's almost a punch and judy hitter versus lefties now, "slugging" at a .336 rate.
Of course the alternative, Tyler Moore, has bigger issues. Those impressive AAA line have come in fairly limited play (29 games last year, 45 this year) and his major league performances have been less than impressive. After June of last year he's hit all of .220 with an unacceptable .265 OBP. While he has shown some pop in the past, this season he has not. Even in his hot stretch at the end he only hit 1 home run and a few doubles. And as you probably know, he doesn't offer anything else to a ball club outside of what he does at the plate.
My take : Basically the Nats are stuck as there is a dearth of first basemen on the market. I look at it and throw up my hands. Adam LaRoche is the starter. Hope he bounces back next year rather than crashes out. Honestly though he should be just ok and we should all just be happy we get that.
Is Tyler Moore the back-up? Not in my world. I've never liked what I've seen from the kid as he has no strike zone recognition. Now, I will note that he does seem to hit a lot better when he starts. I think he is a type that responds to playing time. So a platoon then? Well, if we're doing a strict platoon I would want Jeff Baker first. That guy kills lefties and plays a decent first. Failing that then I suppose you can TRY Moore, but with the very short leash that should have existed in 2013. I wouldn't be happy about that though. If you aren't platooning than Moore doesn't have much use on the bench, other than the fact that he indeed hits RH. I guess I might try a Lyle Overbay to back-up and provide some defensive help at the position. (but honestly can the Nats be convinced LaRoche hasn't got range and would need a late inning D replacement?)
Outside the Box Suggestion :
I toyed with moving someone to first but LaRoche shouldn't be terrible next year so moving him to the bench rather than a dominant platoon position would only be worth it if you could sign someone really good in this move. I'm not sure there's anyone available that I'd think of like that. Maybe if you could get Hart or Choo for cheaper/fewer years than we think they'd go for you could try Werth at first (or Hart for that matter) but that's gonna have to wait until the market plays out (and how often do you see guys go for less than you think they will?) So platoon idea it is.
Platoon yes, but bring back Mike Morse to do it. Now hear me out. He might be terrible at the plate and he will almost certainly be terrible in the field but you are buying super low right now. We're talking near minor league contract levels after the crappy season he put up in 2013. Sign him for peanuts, for one year, and give it a go with him as LaRoche's platoon partner. Something about Morse and the Nats worked, maybe moving back here to a league he grew familiar with would help him find a spark. If it doesn't work out you cut him and whatever. As for Moore, see if he can put up those great AAA numbers in... you know... at least half a AAA season. If he does that than maybe he warrants a closer look.
*Danny Espinosa where are you! It's funny that Span came in, and played great defense but the team as a whole crashed. Zimm played in and lost his range. LaRoche and Werth are aging out. Bryce looks more and more average the more time he spends out there. It was a team built with defense in mind but right now might only have two good defensive players. Luckily they are up the middle but still.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : Adam Laroche had an off year but offensively it wasn't as horrible as it seemed. A marked increase in OBP (.095 isoOBP) helped offset a big drop in SLG (isoSLG .239 to .166). He still hit righties for ok pop and with a return to career level BABIP he should put up a more typical unimpressive LaRochesque year in 2014, which not coincidentally he is being paid 12 million for.
Tyler Moore has proven over the last 2 years that he does not belong in AAA, putting up a .315 / .390 / .620 line over the course of two seasons. His right handedness complements LaRoche well and he can provide cheap late inning pop off the bench.
Problems with Presumed Plan : Adam LaRoche overall did have a horrible year. His mid career defensive renaissance has passed and once again he's a statue, albeit one with soft hands*. He continues to be surprisingly slow in general. Offensively there are problems too. His slumps seem to be getting longer, not only did he open with his typical slow start (.159 / .227 / .284) but his July (.136 / .213 / .259) was a big reason the complete team took a month to get going. His power drop is concerning as he was well below his career isoSLG of .210. He's almost a punch and judy hitter versus lefties now, "slugging" at a .336 rate.
Of course the alternative, Tyler Moore, has bigger issues. Those impressive AAA line have come in fairly limited play (29 games last year, 45 this year) and his major league performances have been less than impressive. After June of last year he's hit all of .220 with an unacceptable .265 OBP. While he has shown some pop in the past, this season he has not. Even in his hot stretch at the end he only hit 1 home run and a few doubles. And as you probably know, he doesn't offer anything else to a ball club outside of what he does at the plate.
My take : Basically the Nats are stuck as there is a dearth of first basemen on the market. I look at it and throw up my hands. Adam LaRoche is the starter. Hope he bounces back next year rather than crashes out. Honestly though he should be just ok and we should all just be happy we get that.
Is Tyler Moore the back-up? Not in my world. I've never liked what I've seen from the kid as he has no strike zone recognition. Now, I will note that he does seem to hit a lot better when he starts. I think he is a type that responds to playing time. So a platoon then? Well, if we're doing a strict platoon I would want Jeff Baker first. That guy kills lefties and plays a decent first. Failing that then I suppose you can TRY Moore, but with the very short leash that should have existed in 2013. I wouldn't be happy about that though. If you aren't platooning than Moore doesn't have much use on the bench, other than the fact that he indeed hits RH. I guess I might try a Lyle Overbay to back-up and provide some defensive help at the position. (but honestly can the Nats be convinced LaRoche hasn't got range and would need a late inning D replacement?)
Outside the Box Suggestion :
I toyed with moving someone to first but LaRoche shouldn't be terrible next year so moving him to the bench rather than a dominant platoon position would only be worth it if you could sign someone really good in this move. I'm not sure there's anyone available that I'd think of like that. Maybe if you could get Hart or Choo for cheaper/fewer years than we think they'd go for you could try Werth at first (or Hart for that matter) but that's gonna have to wait until the market plays out (and how often do you see guys go for less than you think they will?) So platoon idea it is.
Platoon yes, but bring back Mike Morse to do it. Now hear me out. He might be terrible at the plate and he will almost certainly be terrible in the field but you are buying super low right now. We're talking near minor league contract levels after the crappy season he put up in 2013. Sign him for peanuts, for one year, and give it a go with him as LaRoche's platoon partner. Something about Morse and the Nats worked, maybe moving back here to a league he grew familiar with would help him find a spark. If it doesn't work out you cut him and whatever. As for Moore, see if he can put up those great AAA numbers in... you know... at least half a AAA season. If he does that than maybe he warrants a closer look.
*Danny Espinosa where are you! It's funny that Span came in, and played great defense but the team as a whole crashed. Zimm played in and lost his range. LaRoche and Werth are aging out. Bryce looks more and more average the more time he spends out there. It was a team built with defense in mind but right now might only have two good defensive players. Luckily they are up the middle but still.
Tuesday, October 01, 2013
Offseason Position Discussion : Catcher
Presumed Plan : The Nats will once again pencil Wilson Ramos in as the full-time starter. They will fill in the back-up role with whatever junk they can find.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : Wilson Ramos has been the "next" starter since the year after being acquired. However a rash of injuries (torn ACL in 2012, hamstring issues in 2013) has limited him to just over 100 games in the past two years. When he has been healthy he has performed well enough offensively (.269 / .327 / .449 over past 3 seasons) to put himself in mix of the Top 10 hitting catchers. There's also potential there (.354 OBP last year, .470 SLG this year) for something special if it all comes together in the same year. His defense can be erratic but is generally viewed favorably. He is entering arbitation this year which will put him in line for a raise but he will still be cheap in relation to how much he should be paid. All in all, if you can look past the injury issue, it's a no-brainer to make Wilson the starter.
As for the back-up decision, finding a good back-up catcher is hard. Here are some of the lines put up by guys that got over 150 ABs this year. Hanigan .198 / .306 / .261, Mathis .181 / .251 / .284, Phegly .206 / .223 / .299, Maldanado .169 / .236 / .284. Given how little production you get, the difference between spending a little and spending nothing is virtually non-existant. So why spend anything? If you can find a lefty bat to complement Ramos who's a good defender well that's good enough right?
Problems with Presumed Plan : Wilson Ramos has played just over 100 games the past 2 years. As injury risks go, he's near the top. If he remains healthy, things work; if he doesn't, things fall apart fast. You see those terrible lines up there? Jhonaton Solano, the most likely internal solution, would kill to hit that well. .146 / .180 / .188 this year. Outside of last years minor bench role (EVERYONE hit last year) he's shown no proclivity to hit well even in the minors. Sandy Leon is a bit more promising, if only because of his age (25 next year - Solano will turn 29 in August of next season) but last year's performance at the plate makes 2012's look like a fluke rather than a revelation. If the Nats go with the usual plan and Ramos goes down they could be looking at a huge gaping hole in the lineup.
My take : I think the presumed plan can work, if Rizzo is willing to act quickly if Ramos goes down. Why spend money on a guy that may never play? Of course, Rizzo has shown no such ability to make these kinds of in-season moves. Therefore I think it's worthwhile to spend money on the best possible back-up the Nats can get.
Who is that exactly? Probably Geovany Soto (.245 / .328 / .466 - 31). The better ones (Salty, McCann, Navarro, Pierzynski) are likely to get starting gigs. Carlos Ruiz would like to return to Philly and they'd like to have him. That leaves us in an area with John Buck (older, not as good a hitter), Humberto Quintero (older, really not as good a hitter), and Ramon Hernandez (really older, might be done). I suppose you could look at Brayan Pena, as he switch hits with some level of skill, but he might be turning into a mess behind the plate after years of average play. And of course there is always bringing Suzuki back, but I see a guy on the way out.
So that's what I would do. Ramos starter, Soto back-up, if possible.
Outside the Box Suggestion : There really isn't a good outside the box suggestion here that keeps Ramos on the team. You don't move young cheap catchers to other positions. However how about this : Trade Ramos. As a young cheap catcher he is a fairly wanted commodity. Put him in a package for David Price and then sign Brain McCann weaking your main rival and bringing in the best choice for production the next couple of years. Sure he's an injury risk but you were willing to start Ramos who's a bigger one, right? Win now. Let the team disintegrate in 2016.
Reasoning on Presumed Plan : Wilson Ramos has been the "next" starter since the year after being acquired. However a rash of injuries (torn ACL in 2012, hamstring issues in 2013) has limited him to just over 100 games in the past two years. When he has been healthy he has performed well enough offensively (.269 / .327 / .449 over past 3 seasons) to put himself in mix of the Top 10 hitting catchers. There's also potential there (.354 OBP last year, .470 SLG this year) for something special if it all comes together in the same year. His defense can be erratic but is generally viewed favorably. He is entering arbitation this year which will put him in line for a raise but he will still be cheap in relation to how much he should be paid. All in all, if you can look past the injury issue, it's a no-brainer to make Wilson the starter.
As for the back-up decision, finding a good back-up catcher is hard. Here are some of the lines put up by guys that got over 150 ABs this year. Hanigan .198 / .306 / .261, Mathis .181 / .251 / .284, Phegly .206 / .223 / .299, Maldanado .169 / .236 / .284. Given how little production you get, the difference between spending a little and spending nothing is virtually non-existant. So why spend anything? If you can find a lefty bat to complement Ramos who's a good defender well that's good enough right?
Problems with Presumed Plan : Wilson Ramos has played just over 100 games the past 2 years. As injury risks go, he's near the top. If he remains healthy, things work; if he doesn't, things fall apart fast. You see those terrible lines up there? Jhonaton Solano, the most likely internal solution, would kill to hit that well. .146 / .180 / .188 this year. Outside of last years minor bench role (EVERYONE hit last year) he's shown no proclivity to hit well even in the minors. Sandy Leon is a bit more promising, if only because of his age (25 next year - Solano will turn 29 in August of next season) but last year's performance at the plate makes 2012's look like a fluke rather than a revelation. If the Nats go with the usual plan and Ramos goes down they could be looking at a huge gaping hole in the lineup.
My take : I think the presumed plan can work, if Rizzo is willing to act quickly if Ramos goes down. Why spend money on a guy that may never play? Of course, Rizzo has shown no such ability to make these kinds of in-season moves. Therefore I think it's worthwhile to spend money on the best possible back-up the Nats can get.
Who is that exactly? Probably Geovany Soto (.245 / .328 / .466 - 31). The better ones (Salty, McCann, Navarro, Pierzynski) are likely to get starting gigs. Carlos Ruiz would like to return to Philly and they'd like to have him. That leaves us in an area with John Buck (older, not as good a hitter), Humberto Quintero (older, really not as good a hitter), and Ramon Hernandez (really older, might be done). I suppose you could look at Brayan Pena, as he switch hits with some level of skill, but he might be turning into a mess behind the plate after years of average play. And of course there is always bringing Suzuki back, but I see a guy on the way out.
So that's what I would do. Ramos starter, Soto back-up, if possible.
Outside the Box Suggestion : There really isn't a good outside the box suggestion here that keeps Ramos on the team. You don't move young cheap catchers to other positions. However how about this : Trade Ramos. As a young cheap catcher he is a fairly wanted commodity. Put him in a package for David Price and then sign Brain McCann weaking your main rival and bringing in the best choice for production the next couple of years. Sure he's an injury risk but you were willing to start Ramos who's a bigger one, right? Win now. Let the team disintegrate in 2016.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Monday Quickie : Random Notes and offseason blog plan
The season is over!
Let's face it, that kind of sucked. If the Nats' season was a meal the salad would have been just iceberg lettuce, the soup would have been lukewarm, the entree would have been chewy, and the beer would have been flat. The dessert though, that was pretty good. You can walk out of the restaurant feeling pretty good, or you can be pissed you spent $30 on a decent piece of cake.
Davey got his 300 wins over .500, which has got to be the most useless stat to hang a hat on. Congrats on that.
I said somewhere in a comments that the biggest numbers for the 2013 Nats were 78, 118, and 129 or the number of games Ramos, Bryce, and Werth played this year. The Nats did get bit by the injury bug this year, so did other teams sure but when you take a look at quality of the player down and length of time, few teams compare to the Nats. Does this mean that the Nats are due for a bounce back? Probably, but let's not think that everything went wrong for the Nats this year. Jayson Werth hit better than anyone could possibly expect in those 129 games. No offensive starter, when healthy, crashed well below what the numbers would expect. None of their arguably five most important pitchers (Gio, Stras, ZNN, Soriano, Clippard) got hurt. Where in 2012 almost everything went right, this was more of a mixed bag year. Mostly bad, but some good.
Over the next few weeks I'm going to look at the Nats plans position by position. Tomorrow I'll look at catcher, etc. etc. That'll pass the time ok. I'll also have a mailbag or two. If anyone has any offseason ideas, go ahead and shoot them into the comments.
RANDOM NOTES:
About that "no offensive starter" line above, you may doubt that but look at the numbers. Bryce Harper took a step up from last year, with a very minor tick in SLG (.477 to .486 with 4 of those points being BA) and a big jump in OBP (.340 to .368) . Zimmerman finished with a OPS+ of 121, exactly what he had last year. Denard Span (.279 / .327 / .380) didn't hit as well as he did in 2012 (.283 / .342 / .395) but he hit better than he did 2011 (.264 / .328 / .359). Even Adam LaRoche ending up with a OPS+ of 102 wasn't surprising given that healthy three years ago he put up a 106.
You know how it felt like Zimm really poured it on late? First half stats - .270 / .351 / .453. Second half stats - .280 / .337 / .478. Honestly it's pretty close production wise.
Tyler Moore's nickname should be Copperfield because he is the master of illusion. In his first 6 games back (26 PA) he hit .480. .480! In the remaining 15 games he played in (39 PA) hit hit .250 / .308 / .417. This was against lefties & mediocre righties. Given his terrible defense, the argument for platooning is weak. The argument for starting is non-existent.
Dan Haren started 30 games this year. It's nice that he finished strong so he might get a job elsewhere but remember he didn't pitch well overall and he didn't eat innings.
Let's face it, that kind of sucked. If the Nats' season was a meal the salad would have been just iceberg lettuce, the soup would have been lukewarm, the entree would have been chewy, and the beer would have been flat. The dessert though, that was pretty good. You can walk out of the restaurant feeling pretty good, or you can be pissed you spent $30 on a decent piece of cake.
Davey got his 300 wins over .500, which has got to be the most useless stat to hang a hat on. Congrats on that.
I said somewhere in a comments that the biggest numbers for the 2013 Nats were 78, 118, and 129 or the number of games Ramos, Bryce, and Werth played this year. The Nats did get bit by the injury bug this year, so did other teams sure but when you take a look at quality of the player down and length of time, few teams compare to the Nats. Does this mean that the Nats are due for a bounce back? Probably, but let's not think that everything went wrong for the Nats this year. Jayson Werth hit better than anyone could possibly expect in those 129 games. No offensive starter, when healthy, crashed well below what the numbers would expect. None of their arguably five most important pitchers (Gio, Stras, ZNN, Soriano, Clippard) got hurt. Where in 2012 almost everything went right, this was more of a mixed bag year. Mostly bad, but some good.
Over the next few weeks I'm going to look at the Nats plans position by position. Tomorrow I'll look at catcher, etc. etc. That'll pass the time ok. I'll also have a mailbag or two. If anyone has any offseason ideas, go ahead and shoot them into the comments.
RANDOM NOTES:
About that "no offensive starter" line above, you may doubt that but look at the numbers. Bryce Harper took a step up from last year, with a very minor tick in SLG (.477 to .486 with 4 of those points being BA) and a big jump in OBP (.340 to .368) . Zimmerman finished with a OPS+ of 121, exactly what he had last year. Denard Span (.279 / .327 / .380) didn't hit as well as he did in 2012 (.283 / .342 / .395) but he hit better than he did 2011 (.264 / .328 / .359). Even Adam LaRoche ending up with a OPS+ of 102 wasn't surprising given that healthy three years ago he put up a 106.
You know how it felt like Zimm really poured it on late? First half stats - .270 / .351 / .453. Second half stats - .280 / .337 / .478. Honestly it's pretty close production wise.
Tyler Moore's nickname should be Copperfield because he is the master of illusion. In his first 6 games back (26 PA) he hit .480. .480! In the remaining 15 games he played in (39 PA) hit hit .250 / .308 / .417. This was against lefties & mediocre righties. Given his terrible defense, the argument for platooning is weak. The argument for starting is non-existent.
Dan Haren started 30 games this year. It's nice that he finished strong so he might get a job elsewhere but remember he didn't pitch well overall and he didn't eat innings.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Dead Team Walking
It's a hard end to the season for this Nats team. I really think even if the fans, the media, and the numbers didn't believe they could come back (in decreasing order of willingness to believe) the team did believe and being out of the playoffs is a shock to their system. You get over that but it takes a few games and dammit if there isn't just a few games left in the year. I can really see them losing out in Arizona, or at least the first two before thinking finally "We don't want to go out like this". Shame.
Just a note that someone mentioned in the comments and it had been on my mind before. Prior to the introduction of the 2nd Wild Card we looked at the "last in, first out" for the single Wild Card and found that for the most part about 92 wins was where your WC chances went up a bunch, and the first out was often a little below 90. The thought was then that winning 89 games could get you in the playoffs more often than not. Well in the past two years we've seen that that may not be the case.
Last year the 2nd WCs won 88 and 93 games respectively. This year it'll likely be 92 and 90. I'll have to do some AL checks (I've only looked at the NL during the single WC period for this analysis) but doing some extrapolation the average last team has gone up about a win, maybe close to 2. I'm gonna do some more digging but if this holds it means the work is that much harder. Each successive win is harder to come by, forcing teams to win one more is a big deal.
What's happening? It's probably a chain reaction. Teams are trying harder to win the division to avoid the WC game which pushes the bar higher. Other teams interested in just making it have to do better just to keep up with teams in this first group that don't win the division. This increase in play didn't necessarily happen back in 1995* when the divisions split into 3 and the WC was added. Each playoff spot held the same allure. But now that it's a one game playoff teams have good reasons to go for the division titles. Anything can happen in one game and you do not want you're season to go down like that.
*ALMOST 20 YEARS AGO!!!
Just a note that someone mentioned in the comments and it had been on my mind before. Prior to the introduction of the 2nd Wild Card we looked at the "last in, first out" for the single Wild Card and found that for the most part about 92 wins was where your WC chances went up a bunch, and the first out was often a little below 90. The thought was then that winning 89 games could get you in the playoffs more often than not. Well in the past two years we've seen that that may not be the case.
Last year the 2nd WCs won 88 and 93 games respectively. This year it'll likely be 92 and 90. I'll have to do some AL checks (I've only looked at the NL during the single WC period for this analysis) but doing some extrapolation the average last team has gone up about a win, maybe close to 2. I'm gonna do some more digging but if this holds it means the work is that much harder. Each successive win is harder to come by, forcing teams to win one more is a big deal.
What's happening? It's probably a chain reaction. Teams are trying harder to win the division to avoid the WC game which pushes the bar higher. Other teams interested in just making it have to do better just to keep up with teams in this first group that don't win the division. This increase in play didn't necessarily happen back in 1995* when the divisions split into 3 and the WC was added. Each playoff spot held the same allure. But now that it's a one game playoff teams have good reasons to go for the division titles. Anything can happen in one game and you do not want you're season to go down like that.
*ALMOST 20 YEARS AGO!!!
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Patience vs Paralysis
The Nats are now officially out of the playoffs. The question that we're going to try to see answered over and over again over the next couple weeks is "Why?", but that question had been answered long ago. The bench, back of the rotation, and bullpen had flaws that were exposed by injury. These flaws were not addressed in a timely fashion. A few months ago this was not apparent to everyone. It was hard to imagine that the Nats, a 98 win powerhouse, could be dropped to a below .500 team simply because their play at the margins was so bad. This past few months clears that up though. They are not a below .500 team. They are only going to miss the playoffs by a few games. Now you can clearly see why a few games lost when they didn't have to be 3 months ago matters.
The margins are not the only reason the Nats are on the outside looking in as September ends. Every good team has an off month. It's a long season and you can't be several games over every month (well you CAN, that's what 100+ win teams do, but I digress) The Nats were only together for 3 months this year but they still managed to have that off month. July's 11-16 record, with Bryce back and Ramos back and Werth back, is close to unforgivable. That's the type of month that could cost you a division title. You can't blame that on Espinosa or Tyler Moore or 1st half Haren.
There will be people looking to blame someone for the failure. A departing Davey makes an easy target, but really the issue lies with Rizzo. Rizzo did his job as if he was still overseeing a rebuilding team, rather than one that was already built. Boswell notes that the team has patience and needs that consistent tone. I couldn't disagree more. Patience is for the team on the rise, the team ascending. The team ascendant needs urgency.
If you look at the job Rizzo did this year overall it can be hard to pick out the failure exactly. This team should have been very good. Like I've said before, all these baseball analysts picking the Nats are not morons. The talent was there. But Rizzo did fail and it's easier to see if you look at Rizzo's job a little differently than just putting the best 25/40 guys out on the field. Instead break the roster construction into three parts. There's the assembly of your "base team", the guys you play everyday, the rotation spots, and your main relief arms. Then there is what I like to call "disaster prep". This is putting together your bench and remaining pitching staff trying to account for where obvious issues may occur. (For example, if the Yankees start Jeter at SS next year Cashman better have a SS worthy of starting in the majors on hand. If not he's failed at his job even though he made a fine base team decision.) The third part is "damage control". This is dealing with the issues that were not obvious that pop up during the season.
Rizzo excelled at assembling the base team. While some things didn't work out exactly, it is hard to find fault in his logic at the time. Span for Morse made sense for an offense that looked like it might bust out with Bryce Harper entering superstardom and getting full years from Werth and Ramos. You could carry the average Span at the plate and he could help fix the OF defense situation. Haren and Detwiler at the end of the rotation? The Top 3 are so strong that gambles at the back end make sense. Detwiler looked really good at the end of last year. Haren could give the Nats one of the best rotations in recent memory if he bounced back. Adding Soriano looked like it was strengthening a strength. The one flaw is that their long relief man was weakened by going from Gorzelanny to Duke, but that's like the last man in the base team.
Rizzo struggled with disaster prep. The Nats had a few areas that needed shoring up. Their OF, C, CI, and back of the rotation were all injury risks. I can't really fault the choices Rizzo made in the OF or with C. Bernadina had been an adequate #4 for a few years now, was not old, and was coming off his best year. Tyler Moore at least deserved a shot at the #5 spot, albeit with a short leash given his late season failings. Kurt Suzuki is about the best you are going to do for a back-up C. Rizzo failed to do anything at the corners leaving fan-favorite but not a good player Lombardozzi and too-old to trust Chad Tracy in place. This didn't come into play really but I wanted to note it. You prepare for disasters but you hope they never come. Rizzo also blew it when it came to pitching depth. With Haren and Detwiler coming off seasons where they were injured (not to mention having two post-TJ pitchers at the top of your rotation) a good 6th starter, even maybe a reliable 7th would be crucial. Instead Rizzo looked to rely on guys like Chirs Young and Yuneksy Maya. Big mistake.
Rizzo failed miserably with damage control. During the season things happened that nobody would reasonably plan for. Espinosa's injury turned him into a AAA hitter (if that). Rizzo's reaction? No deals. Wait and see if we can't get Rendon to play 2nd. Ramos got injured again real early in the season leaving Suzuki as the everyday catcher with no solid back-ups. Rizzo's reaction? No deals. Wait it out. When the inevitable OF injuries did occur the disaster prep failed as well. Not only did Tyler Moore's bad play continue, but Bernadina crashed out - having the worst season of his career. Rizzo's reaction? No deals until July 7th (at which point everyone was back). Pitching failures and injuries lead to a chain reaction exposing not only the failure to prepare adequately for this obvious disaster, but the issues with long relief and bullpen depth. Rizzo's reaction? No deals. See if we can scrape by with that's on hand.
Mike Rizzo sat on his hands for 3 months waiting for the team he assembled to come back together and play like we all knew they could. That was far too long and it cost the Nats the playoffs. Why did he do that? I could hypothesize several reasons; money issues, may present difficult roster issues upon returns, didn't want to deplete an already weak farm system, but I think it was far simpler than that. I think Rizzo didn't do anything this year because not doing anything worked last year. In 2012 disasters happened and the preparations were weak. Morse went down. Ramos went down. Werth went down. Storen went down. To fill their roles he had Ankiel, Nady, Flores, Lidge and H-Rod. Rizzo stood around and did nothing. He watched them fail. Then he watched Bernadina and Tracy and Bryce and Moore and the guys in the pen show up and carry the team in the absence of the base guys. Other than a trade for Suzuki he did very little.
It's important to look at that Suzuki deal. Wilson Ramos, the planned starter, went down for the year in mid May. Mike Rizzo let Jesus Flores and the collection of nobodies the Nats had in the minors hold down that position for over 2 and a half months before bringing in a replacement. That's crazy. You had to know by mid-June that Flores wasn't going to cut it. But Rizzo didn't do anything.
Mike Rizzo has spent the past 2 seasons on autopilot while games are being played. Here is the team I assembled, let's see what happens. That worked in 2012 but it didn't in 2013 and I'm telling you it's going to fail more often than not if your goals are lofty. The Nats may make the playoffs a few times, but if their goals are winning pennants and World Serieseses, Mike Rizzo needs to adjust his approach. His base roster construction is great. His disaster prep is serviceable. His damage control simply does not exist. It needs to.
We'll see the team do this, that, and the other in the offseason trying to shore up the pen and the back of the rotation and the bench. All this is good and honestly I think we can trust Rizzo with this work. The real test for him and therefore for this team, comes in mid-June next year. When Desmond is out and Gio is out and the team's 3 game lead on the Braves is now a 2 game deficit. What does Rizzo do then? Does he continue to fiddle while the team burns? Or does he learn to be urgent and make the deals that might hurt tomorrow to help today?
The margins are not the only reason the Nats are on the outside looking in as September ends. Every good team has an off month. It's a long season and you can't be several games over every month (well you CAN, that's what 100+ win teams do, but I digress) The Nats were only together for 3 months this year but they still managed to have that off month. July's 11-16 record, with Bryce back and Ramos back and Werth back, is close to unforgivable. That's the type of month that could cost you a division title. You can't blame that on Espinosa or Tyler Moore or 1st half Haren.
There will be people looking to blame someone for the failure. A departing Davey makes an easy target, but really the issue lies with Rizzo. Rizzo did his job as if he was still overseeing a rebuilding team, rather than one that was already built. Boswell notes that the team has patience and needs that consistent tone. I couldn't disagree more. Patience is for the team on the rise, the team ascending. The team ascendant needs urgency.
If you look at the job Rizzo did this year overall it can be hard to pick out the failure exactly. This team should have been very good. Like I've said before, all these baseball analysts picking the Nats are not morons. The talent was there. But Rizzo did fail and it's easier to see if you look at Rizzo's job a little differently than just putting the best 25/40 guys out on the field. Instead break the roster construction into three parts. There's the assembly of your "base team", the guys you play everyday, the rotation spots, and your main relief arms. Then there is what I like to call "disaster prep". This is putting together your bench and remaining pitching staff trying to account for where obvious issues may occur. (For example, if the Yankees start Jeter at SS next year Cashman better have a SS worthy of starting in the majors on hand. If not he's failed at his job even though he made a fine base team decision.) The third part is "damage control". This is dealing with the issues that were not obvious that pop up during the season.
Rizzo excelled at assembling the base team. While some things didn't work out exactly, it is hard to find fault in his logic at the time. Span for Morse made sense for an offense that looked like it might bust out with Bryce Harper entering superstardom and getting full years from Werth and Ramos. You could carry the average Span at the plate and he could help fix the OF defense situation. Haren and Detwiler at the end of the rotation? The Top 3 are so strong that gambles at the back end make sense. Detwiler looked really good at the end of last year. Haren could give the Nats one of the best rotations in recent memory if he bounced back. Adding Soriano looked like it was strengthening a strength. The one flaw is that their long relief man was weakened by going from Gorzelanny to Duke, but that's like the last man in the base team.
Rizzo struggled with disaster prep. The Nats had a few areas that needed shoring up. Their OF, C, CI, and back of the rotation were all injury risks. I can't really fault the choices Rizzo made in the OF or with C. Bernadina had been an adequate #4 for a few years now, was not old, and was coming off his best year. Tyler Moore at least deserved a shot at the #5 spot, albeit with a short leash given his late season failings. Kurt Suzuki is about the best you are going to do for a back-up C. Rizzo failed to do anything at the corners leaving fan-favorite but not a good player Lombardozzi and too-old to trust Chad Tracy in place. This didn't come into play really but I wanted to note it. You prepare for disasters but you hope they never come. Rizzo also blew it when it came to pitching depth. With Haren and Detwiler coming off seasons where they were injured (not to mention having two post-TJ pitchers at the top of your rotation) a good 6th starter, even maybe a reliable 7th would be crucial. Instead Rizzo looked to rely on guys like Chirs Young and Yuneksy Maya. Big mistake.
Rizzo failed miserably with damage control. During the season things happened that nobody would reasonably plan for. Espinosa's injury turned him into a AAA hitter (if that). Rizzo's reaction? No deals. Wait and see if we can't get Rendon to play 2nd. Ramos got injured again real early in the season leaving Suzuki as the everyday catcher with no solid back-ups. Rizzo's reaction? No deals. Wait it out. When the inevitable OF injuries did occur the disaster prep failed as well. Not only did Tyler Moore's bad play continue, but Bernadina crashed out - having the worst season of his career. Rizzo's reaction? No deals until July 7th (at which point everyone was back). Pitching failures and injuries lead to a chain reaction exposing not only the failure to prepare adequately for this obvious disaster, but the issues with long relief and bullpen depth. Rizzo's reaction? No deals. See if we can scrape by with that's on hand.
Mike Rizzo sat on his hands for 3 months waiting for the team he assembled to come back together and play like we all knew they could. That was far too long and it cost the Nats the playoffs. Why did he do that? I could hypothesize several reasons; money issues, may present difficult roster issues upon returns, didn't want to deplete an already weak farm system, but I think it was far simpler than that. I think Rizzo didn't do anything this year because not doing anything worked last year. In 2012 disasters happened and the preparations were weak. Morse went down. Ramos went down. Werth went down. Storen went down. To fill their roles he had Ankiel, Nady, Flores, Lidge and H-Rod. Rizzo stood around and did nothing. He watched them fail. Then he watched Bernadina and Tracy and Bryce and Moore and the guys in the pen show up and carry the team in the absence of the base guys. Other than a trade for Suzuki he did very little.
It's important to look at that Suzuki deal. Wilson Ramos, the planned starter, went down for the year in mid May. Mike Rizzo let Jesus Flores and the collection of nobodies the Nats had in the minors hold down that position for over 2 and a half months before bringing in a replacement. That's crazy. You had to know by mid-June that Flores wasn't going to cut it. But Rizzo didn't do anything.
Mike Rizzo has spent the past 2 seasons on autopilot while games are being played. Here is the team I assembled, let's see what happens. That worked in 2012 but it didn't in 2013 and I'm telling you it's going to fail more often than not if your goals are lofty. The Nats may make the playoffs a few times, but if their goals are winning pennants and World Serieseses, Mike Rizzo needs to adjust his approach. His base roster construction is great. His disaster prep is serviceable. His damage control simply does not exist. It needs to.
We'll see the team do this, that, and the other in the offseason trying to shore up the pen and the back of the rotation and the bench. All this is good and honestly I think we can trust Rizzo with this work. The real test for him and therefore for this team, comes in mid-June next year. When Desmond is out and Gio is out and the team's 3 game lead on the Braves is now a 2 game deficit. What does Rizzo do then? Does he continue to fiddle while the team burns? Or does he learn to be urgent and make the deals that might hurt tomorrow to help today?
Monday, September 23, 2013
Monday Quickie - It's wasn't the Nats fault. It was the Nats fault.
It wasn't the Nats fault.
A few weeks ago, Needham at his tumbler page posted a crazy scenario that would allow the Nats to reach the playoffs over the Reds. Despite it being crazy, it was probably the most likely way things could unfold in the Nats favor.
The Nats would have to go 5-1 playing the Marlins and Mets at home, 8-2 vs the Phillies, Mets and Marlins away, then 7-3 against the Phillies, Braves and Marlins. How did they do? 4-2, 8-2, 7-3, one game off what was a ridiculously hopeful finish.
At the same time the Reds would do the following; finish the road trip at St. Louis and Colorado 1-4, slip at home against the Cards, Dodgers and Cubs to the tune of 4-6, and underperform on the road playing the Brewers, Astros and Pirates going 5-4. How did they do? 2-3, 7-3, 6-3, five games better than what Needham put out there.
Up to this point the Nats needed to go 20-6. They went 19-7. Close enough. The Reds needed to go 10-14. They went 15-9. There's the season.
It was the Nats fault
One of the things we like to say is "baseball is a marathon not a sprint". It's meant to highlight the fact that the season is so long that having a bad few weeks or even couple months can be overcome. Just keep your head down, play hard and play right, and things can turn around for you. This has a certain amount of truth to it, but let me tell you a little secret about marathoners. They don't run nine minute miles for the first half of the race and expect to catch up with a fantastic finish over the last 5 miles.
A little stumble is allowed, but great teams play well all year long. The Nats were mediocre in April, May and June, playing .500 baseball for half the year. They were terrible in July (11-16), when everyone was back and playing. Their 3rd best month is going to end up being a 15-13 May. That's equivalent to the Braves 2nd worst month. The gap between the Nats and the good teams is undeniable.
The Nats had 162 games to prove that this team belonged in the playoffs. That should be enough time for a good team to overcome bad play, a few bad management decisions, or failures by the front office. And yet here we are.
Technically there is still life in the Nats, and one single decision of leeway still exists, but no. The season can officially end any day now as any combination of a Nats loss and a Pirates win and Reds win will do it. Could happen tonight. I'd be surprised if it wasn't officially over by Wednesday.
A few weeks ago, Needham at his tumbler page posted a crazy scenario that would allow the Nats to reach the playoffs over the Reds. Despite it being crazy, it was probably the most likely way things could unfold in the Nats favor.
The Nats would have to go 5-1 playing the Marlins and Mets at home, 8-2 vs the Phillies, Mets and Marlins away, then 7-3 against the Phillies, Braves and Marlins. How did they do? 4-2, 8-2, 7-3, one game off what was a ridiculously hopeful finish.
At the same time the Reds would do the following; finish the road trip at St. Louis and Colorado 1-4, slip at home against the Cards, Dodgers and Cubs to the tune of 4-6, and underperform on the road playing the Brewers, Astros and Pirates going 5-4. How did they do? 2-3, 7-3, 6-3, five games better than what Needham put out there.
Up to this point the Nats needed to go 20-6. They went 19-7. Close enough. The Reds needed to go 10-14. They went 15-9. There's the season.
It was the Nats fault
One of the things we like to say is "baseball is a marathon not a sprint". It's meant to highlight the fact that the season is so long that having a bad few weeks or even couple months can be overcome. Just keep your head down, play hard and play right, and things can turn around for you. This has a certain amount of truth to it, but let me tell you a little secret about marathoners. They don't run nine minute miles for the first half of the race and expect to catch up with a fantastic finish over the last 5 miles.
A little stumble is allowed, but great teams play well all year long. The Nats were mediocre in April, May and June, playing .500 baseball for half the year. They were terrible in July (11-16), when everyone was back and playing. Their 3rd best month is going to end up being a 15-13 May. That's equivalent to the Braves 2nd worst month. The gap between the Nats and the good teams is undeniable.
The Nats had 162 games to prove that this team belonged in the playoffs. That should be enough time for a good team to overcome bad play, a few bad management decisions, or failures by the front office. And yet here we are.
Technically there is still life in the Nats, and one single decision of leeway still exists, but no. The season can officially end any day now as any combination of a Nats loss and a Pirates win and Reds win will do it. Could happen tonight. I'd be surprised if it wasn't officially over by Wednesday.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Hot streaks + ? = 2014 WS Champs
Did you know that in this recent 22-7 run the Nats are 8-3 in 1 run games? Grit, Talent and Luck all have to collide to make runs like this happen (note: contains trace amounts of grit).
While we all don our Pirates hats for at least one day, let's take a moment to remind ourselves of something.
The period of time before the Nats got hot counts too.
This means you can't assume Span is going to hit over .300, that Werth is going to be an MVP candidate, or that Tanner Roark is the next great pitcher just because it looked that way for a month and a half. Wait till the season is over review the whole thing and then make conclusions. Don't stop there. Look at the last few seasons. Make smart comments based on all the data you have, not gut reactions based on what you've seen in front of you recently.
When Span hit .235 / .279 /.337 in June? Counts. When Zimm hit 4 homeruns in over a quarter of the season? Counts. The fact that Werth and Ramos will have played about 200 and 100 games over the past 2 years? Counts. That Roark put up an over 4.00 ERA in 2011&2012? Counts.
Those aren't the only things that matter. They might not even be the most important things in evaluating these guys, but these things can't be dismissed. If everything followed on even the whole year before the Nats would be drinking champagne right now. But LaRoche did collapse a bit as his lifetime stats would have suggested. And Gio and ZNN did drift back toward more expected performances after Cy Young caliber 2012s. And Stammen and Mattheus did have off years as one might expect from guys pitching relatively small amounts of innings with only a couple of years in the majors to look at. And injury risks like Werth and Ramos and Detwiler and Haren did have issues as you might expect.
There are reasons to feel good that the Nats can be back in the playoffs next year, but the sense of giddy optimism because they went on a hot streak for 40 games? Let's control ourselves
Anyway back to your regularly scheduled desperate figuring out how the Nats could still make the playoffs this year. Tonight : Continue beating Marlins. Hope Pirates beat Reds.
While we all don our Pirates hats for at least one day, let's take a moment to remind ourselves of something.
The period of time before the Nats got hot counts too.
This means you can't assume Span is going to hit over .300, that Werth is going to be an MVP candidate, or that Tanner Roark is the next great pitcher just because it looked that way for a month and a half. Wait till the season is over review the whole thing and then make conclusions. Don't stop there. Look at the last few seasons. Make smart comments based on all the data you have, not gut reactions based on what you've seen in front of you recently.
When Span hit .235 / .279 /.337 in June? Counts. When Zimm hit 4 homeruns in over a quarter of the season? Counts. The fact that Werth and Ramos will have played about 200 and 100 games over the past 2 years? Counts. That Roark put up an over 4.00 ERA in 2011&2012? Counts.
Those aren't the only things that matter. They might not even be the most important things in evaluating these guys, but these things can't be dismissed. If everything followed on even the whole year before the Nats would be drinking champagne right now. But LaRoche did collapse a bit as his lifetime stats would have suggested. And Gio and ZNN did drift back toward more expected performances after Cy Young caliber 2012s. And Stammen and Mattheus did have off years as one might expect from guys pitching relatively small amounts of innings with only a couple of years in the majors to look at. And injury risks like Werth and Ramos and Detwiler and Haren did have issues as you might expect.
There are reasons to feel good that the Nats can be back in the playoffs next year, but the sense of giddy optimism because they went on a hot streak for 40 games? Let's control ourselves
Anyway back to your regularly scheduled desperate figuring out how the Nats could still make the playoffs this year. Tonight : Continue beating Marlins. Hope Pirates beat Reds.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Remember, I did say miracle
Yesterday, for a brief moment I heard the same thing from several directions. "The Nats odds seem way too low" The odds at the time were hovering in the 2-4% range and were in fact completely reasonable. If you want to see the math behind it yesterday's comments have a couple good entries into that. But I can boil down the macro-level reasons down to two.
1) Cold hearted analysis cares nothing about your momentum. Going into yesterday's game you might have felt the Nats were playing so well that winning 8 of their last 11 was almost a given, and winning 5 or less was pretty much impossible. That's nice and human, but here's the thing about "momentum" and "playing well" and the like. If these things do exist (and let's assume they do because it doesn't effect what I'm going to say anyway) we still have no way of figuring out when they start and end. Teams win 5 games in a row then lose 5 games in a row. Why? What happened? What changed? We don't know. If we can't know we can't rightfully include it in analysis. There's simply no way of doing it.
The machines and soulless automatons look at the Nats and see a mid-high 80s win team playing a decently hard schedule to end the season. Just looking at that and with 11 games left that maybe means 6 wins. You've seen the scenarios. That isn't going to cut it.
2) The power of math compels you. Let's say you ignore the above. You LOVE the Nats. "Nuts about the Nats" is your ringtone. You wear warrior eye black to work. You polish your multiple signed bats tenderly with Pledge and a game worn Kory Casto jersey (about all it is good for). You think the chances they win 8 or more games in these last 10 are 75%. (That's SO high. What is WRONG with you?!). At the same time you hate the Reds. You think the chances they win 2 or fewer in their last 10 is 25%. Congratulations you just gave the Nats less than a 19% chance at making the playoffs.
0.75*0.25=0.1875
And you are an insane person. Go with 50% and 10% (still crazy but at least not carve your own feces into little boat insane) and the chance plummets to 5%. No way out to escape the truth in the numbers.
What's left to root for?
Again, all offseason to talk about the mistakes of this year so we'll keep dancing this playoff dance until the cotillion organizer realizes that we're the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who snuck in here to try to talk to that rich handsome boy who gave us a lift when our car broke down and kicks us out. I don't want to say I told you so, because I never really told anyone anything, but I have strongly hinted several times that the Pirates could be the more reasonable option for the Nats to catch, since they have been overplaying their hand. Is it time to change rooting interests?
We've run into the weekend the Nats fans had been waiting for. The Nats play the Marlins for 4 games, while the Pirates and Reds play eachother. The Nats win and they'll gain on someone. What should you root for? Pretty simple on the Nats side (sweep!). On the Pirates Reds side? Here you go:
If the Pirates win tonight, root for them to sweep the Reds.
If the Pirates lose tonight, root for whoever wins game #1 in the Reds/Pirates series to sweep.
There you go. Worst case scenario is the Pirates win tonight and the Reds win 2 out of 3.
1) Cold hearted analysis cares nothing about your momentum. Going into yesterday's game you might have felt the Nats were playing so well that winning 8 of their last 11 was almost a given, and winning 5 or less was pretty much impossible. That's nice and human, but here's the thing about "momentum" and "playing well" and the like. If these things do exist (and let's assume they do because it doesn't effect what I'm going to say anyway) we still have no way of figuring out when they start and end. Teams win 5 games in a row then lose 5 games in a row. Why? What happened? What changed? We don't know. If we can't know we can't rightfully include it in analysis. There's simply no way of doing it.
The machines and soulless automatons look at the Nats and see a mid-high 80s win team playing a decently hard schedule to end the season. Just looking at that and with 11 games left that maybe means 6 wins. You've seen the scenarios. That isn't going to cut it.
2) The power of math compels you. Let's say you ignore the above. You LOVE the Nats. "Nuts about the Nats" is your ringtone. You wear warrior eye black to work. You polish your multiple signed bats tenderly with Pledge and a game worn Kory Casto jersey (about all it is good for). You think the chances they win 8 or more games in these last 10 are 75%. (That's SO high. What is WRONG with you?!). At the same time you hate the Reds. You think the chances they win 2 or fewer in their last 10 is 25%. Congratulations you just gave the Nats less than a 19% chance at making the playoffs.
0.75*0.25=0.1875
And you are an insane person. Go with 50% and 10% (still crazy but at least not carve your own feces into little boat insane) and the chance plummets to 5%. No way out to escape the truth in the numbers.
What's left to root for?
Again, all offseason to talk about the mistakes of this year so we'll keep dancing this playoff dance until the cotillion organizer realizes that we're the girl from the wrong side of the tracks who snuck in here to try to talk to that rich handsome boy who gave us a lift when our car broke down and kicks us out. I don't want to say I told you so, because I never really told anyone anything, but I have strongly hinted several times that the Pirates could be the more reasonable option for the Nats to catch, since they have been overplaying their hand. Is it time to change rooting interests?
We've run into the weekend the Nats fans had been waiting for. The Nats play the Marlins for 4 games, while the Pirates and Reds play eachother. The Nats win and they'll gain on someone. What should you root for? Pretty simple on the Nats side (sweep!). On the Pirates Reds side? Here you go:
If the Pirates win tonight, root for them to sweep the Reds.
If the Pirates lose tonight, root for whoever wins game #1 in the Reds/Pirates series to sweep.
There you go. Worst case scenario is the Pirates win tonight and the Reds win 2 out of 3.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
No double miracle needed
Single miracle sure. Double? Nope. The Nats have played well enough for long enough* that the need for the Nats to play like the best team in baseball and someone in front of them to play suddenly terrible is pretty much gone. Now either should do the trick.
Unfortunately for the Nats what this really means is that no one has collapsed in front of them. Since going 27-10 the Pirates have played under .500 ball and the Braves have been pretty mediocre. Thing is they were clearly the best teams in the National League at the time (16 and 15.5 games ahead of the Nats) so they could afford a little slip-up. The Cardinals and the Reds have both played very well, so while they've lost some ground to the Nats it wasn't enough to pull even with them.
The double header was a nice pick-up but the Reds did what the Reds should do and beat up on the Astros. The Nats have simply held their ground. Which in all honestly is all I was hoping for. At this point the comeback is predicated on two things - Nats sweeping the Marlins and playing .500 ball vs the rest, the Pirates taking care of the Reds winning at least 5 of the 6 and the Reds playing .500 ball vs the rest.
Under that combination - Nats go 8-3, Reds go 3-7 there would be a tiebreaker final game of the season.
You see though that that IS pretty much a Reds collapse. If you give the Reds some leeway not to collapse, 4-6 or 5-5, then the Nats have to be close to perfect 9-2 or 10-1. Either way another 11 "miracle" is needed. But at least it's only 1.
(The Pirates, Cardinals and Braves all still require some version of the double miracle)
What's the most likely scenario? I'll say this
Nats win 3 of 4 vs Marlins, win 4 of the 7 other games to finish with 88 wins.
Reds beat Astros tonight, take 2 of 3 from the Mets, split with the Pirates to finish with 92 wins
Pirates take 3 of 5 vs Pads and Cubs, split with Reds, win 93 games
Of course if we were dealing with most likely scenarios we wouldn't be where we are now.
Beat the Braves, Sweep the Marlins. See where you are.
*Depending on how far back you want to go 10-1, 21-6, or 27-10.
Unfortunately for the Nats what this really means is that no one has collapsed in front of them. Since going 27-10 the Pirates have played under .500 ball and the Braves have been pretty mediocre. Thing is they were clearly the best teams in the National League at the time (16 and 15.5 games ahead of the Nats) so they could afford a little slip-up. The Cardinals and the Reds have both played very well, so while they've lost some ground to the Nats it wasn't enough to pull even with them.
The double header was a nice pick-up but the Reds did what the Reds should do and beat up on the Astros. The Nats have simply held their ground. Which in all honestly is all I was hoping for. At this point the comeback is predicated on two things - Nats sweeping the Marlins and playing .500 ball vs the rest, the Pirates taking care of the Reds winning at least 5 of the 6 and the Reds playing .500 ball vs the rest.
Under that combination - Nats go 8-3, Reds go 3-7 there would be a tiebreaker final game of the season.
You see though that that IS pretty much a Reds collapse. If you give the Reds some leeway not to collapse, 4-6 or 5-5, then the Nats have to be close to perfect 9-2 or 10-1. Either way another 11 "miracle" is needed. But at least it's only 1.
(The Pirates, Cardinals and Braves all still require some version of the double miracle)
What's the most likely scenario? I'll say this
Nats win 3 of 4 vs Marlins, win 4 of the 7 other games to finish with 88 wins.
Reds beat Astros tonight, take 2 of 3 from the Mets, split with the Pirates to finish with 92 wins
Pirates take 3 of 5 vs Pads and Cubs, split with Reds, win 93 games
Of course if we were dealing with most likely scenarios we wouldn't be where we are now.
Beat the Braves, Sweep the Marlins. See where you are.
*Depending on how far back you want to go 10-1, 21-6, or 27-10.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Win 1, Have a starter go Deep
Modest goals? For sure. But we're looking at the Nats to make their move with a Marlins sweep while the Reds battle the Bucs and that simply means keeping the Nats in it. 2 wins in 3 games should do that. Win 1 here and have a starter go deep so you are not killing your bullpen for the must-win finale tomorrow.
While I say only win 1, a sweep is certainly not out of the question. There's a feeling in baseball that most DHs end in splits, but that's not true. While "you win one, I win one" might be the singular most likely outcome, history tells us that the combination of "you win two" or "I win two" happens more often. Just barely but it does. (we can go over the math if you like) In fact this year 15 of 23 doubleheaders have ended in sweeps. So there's that.
The Reds won again last night but all that means is the Nats job didn't get easier. What's in their control remains the same. Right now I see the upcoming week as this : Win 2 of 3 vs the Braves, Sweep the Marlins, see where you lie. Ideally it would be 2-3 games out. We'll see.
While I say only win 1, a sweep is certainly not out of the question. There's a feeling in baseball that most DHs end in splits, but that's not true. While "you win one, I win one" might be the singular most likely outcome, history tells us that the combination of "you win two" or "I win two" happens more often. Just barely but it does. (we can go over the math if you like) In fact this year 15 of 23 doubleheaders have ended in sweeps. So there's that.
The Reds won again last night but all that means is the Nats job didn't get easier. What's in their control remains the same. Right now I see the upcoming week as this : Win 2 of 3 vs the Braves, Sweep the Marlins, see where you lie. Ideally it would be 2-3 games out. We'll see.
Monday, September 16, 2013
Monday Quickie - the true test begins
It's very hard to be the chaser. While a loss will always be bad, how good a win is is dependent on the team you are chasing. If they lose it's great step forward. If they win as well, then your win is just a frustrating holding of ground. How am you supposed to feel? Hold on, let me check the Reds' score first.
Anyway here is the big moment for the Nats. They've beaten up the little guys. Nine of their next 13 are against quality teams. These first three are against an Atlanta team that has dominated the Nats this season. 4-12 over the first 16 contests. Meanwhile the Reds (the Pirates and Cardinals at 8 games out almost certainly uncatchable at this point) get to play the Astros. They should handle them. Then again, they should have handled the Brewers.
Let's go to the internets!
Minor v Haren
Garcia v Roark
Wood v Ohlendorf
That's right the Nats roll into a series where they need to beat possibly the best team in the National League and throw out Haren, Roark, and Ohlendorf. All three have been decent or good recently but still its not what you want to see. There are a couple things working in the Nats favor, though. They miss the bulk of the Braves better arms, getting the fill-in Freddy Garcia and the rookie Alex Wood. Also, the Braves bats have been pretty cold recently. .229 / .318 / .370 over the past week, worse than that the week before.
Whether or not the Reds cooperate, this is where the Nats can prove they belonged in the playoff picture. They could show that if circumstances (and management choices) had been different from the get go then they wouldn't have been fighting for the last WC spot but rather securely in the playoffs. However, lose 2 of 3 or get swept and it exposes the Nats as something less. They are the best of the rest, rather than a true contender. That is the story so far. 1-3 v Baltimore, 1-2 v Cleveland, 2-2 v Detroit, 1-5 v LA, 3-4 v Pittsburgh, 0-3 v St. Louis. This is their chance, if not to make it in the playoffs, at least to rewrite that narrative.
Anyway here is the big moment for the Nats. They've beaten up the little guys. Nine of their next 13 are against quality teams. These first three are against an Atlanta team that has dominated the Nats this season. 4-12 over the first 16 contests. Meanwhile the Reds (the Pirates and Cardinals at 8 games out almost certainly uncatchable at this point) get to play the Astros. They should handle them. Then again, they should have handled the Brewers.
Let's go to the internets!
Minor v Haren
Garcia v Roark
Wood v Ohlendorf
That's right the Nats roll into a series where they need to beat possibly the best team in the National League and throw out Haren, Roark, and Ohlendorf. All three have been decent or good recently but still its not what you want to see. There are a couple things working in the Nats favor, though. They miss the bulk of the Braves better arms, getting the fill-in Freddy Garcia and the rookie Alex Wood. Also, the Braves bats have been pretty cold recently. .229 / .318 / .370 over the past week, worse than that the week before.
Whether or not the Reds cooperate, this is where the Nats can prove they belonged in the playoff picture. They could show that if circumstances (and management choices) had been different from the get go then they wouldn't have been fighting for the last WC spot but rather securely in the playoffs. However, lose 2 of 3 or get swept and it exposes the Nats as something less. They are the best of the rest, rather than a true contender. That is the story so far. 1-3 v Baltimore, 1-2 v Cleveland, 2-2 v Detroit, 1-5 v LA, 3-4 v Pittsburgh, 0-3 v St. Louis. This is their chance, if not to make it in the playoffs, at least to rewrite that narrative.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Sweep the Phillies!
Here are the matchups
Phillies @ Nats
Kendrick v Strasburg
Hamels v Gonzalez
Cloyd v Zimmermann
Nats have the edge in every match-up, though it's not like Hamels is a pushover, or Kendrick isn't good. Strasburg though, has been Strasburg, and Gio has been one of the hottest pitchers in the league. Potential for the sweep is there, but 2-1 for the Nats is a must.
Prediction : Nats sweep. Phillies are dead in the water. The one guy that has been on and off, ZNN pitches against a guy the Nats should pound. Hamels gem is the biggest threat.
Mariners @ Cardinals
Iwakuma v Wainwright
Paxton v Wacha
Ramirez v Miller
The Mariners three have actually all settled into a nice groove. Wainwright finally pitched a great game after a couple shaky outings. Other Cardinal youngsters are doing well.
Prediction : Cards Sweep. Nats aren't catching the Cardinals.
Cubs @ Pirates
Arrieta v Morton
Baker v Cole
Wood v Liriano
Pirates have the edge in the first two (Baker has a 0.00 ERA but one start total) Liriano has been not up to snuff recently while Wood has looked pretty good.
Prediction : Pirates 2 of 3. Fall a game out of the NL Central lead, but Nats chances of catching them for WC moves close to the "not going to happen" realm as they'd have 13 games to make up 7.
Reds @ Brewers
Latos v Lohse
Bailey v Hellweg
Arroyo v Gallardo
Normally you'd like the Lohse matchup but he has not been pitching well. Bailey has been as hot as Gio vs someone who may never start 20 games in the majors.. The Arroyo Gallardo matchup though, that tilts to the Brew Crew.
Prediction : Reds 2 of 3. 4.5 back as Reds fans begin to panic as they realize they are almost as close to the NL Central lead (3.5 games) they've been focused on, as they are to being out of the playoffs entirely.
Then the real test for the Nats begins. Four series left. Two against two of the best teams in the NL (Braves and Cards) one against the pretty good D-Backs who have a decent chance at a sweep this weekend themselves vs the Rockies to keep their even crazier dream alive. To get back into this the Nats needed to dominate the bad teams and be .500 versus the good ones and get a little luck. A sweep vs the Phillies would complete the first requirement (even a 2-1 would still be ok if they can make up a game on the Reds). The last one is out of their hands. The second requirement is going to make or break this miracle run.
Phillies @ Nats
Kendrick v Strasburg
Hamels v Gonzalez
Cloyd v Zimmermann
Nats have the edge in every match-up, though it's not like Hamels is a pushover, or Kendrick isn't good. Strasburg though, has been Strasburg, and Gio has been one of the hottest pitchers in the league. Potential for the sweep is there, but 2-1 for the Nats is a must.
Prediction : Nats sweep. Phillies are dead in the water. The one guy that has been on and off, ZNN pitches against a guy the Nats should pound. Hamels gem is the biggest threat.
Mariners @ Cardinals
Iwakuma v Wainwright
Paxton v Wacha
Ramirez v Miller
The Mariners three have actually all settled into a nice groove. Wainwright finally pitched a great game after a couple shaky outings. Other Cardinal youngsters are doing well.
Prediction : Cards Sweep. Nats aren't catching the Cardinals.
Cubs @ Pirates
Arrieta v Morton
Baker v Cole
Wood v Liriano
Pirates have the edge in the first two (Baker has a 0.00 ERA but one start total) Liriano has been not up to snuff recently while Wood has looked pretty good.
Prediction : Pirates 2 of 3. Fall a game out of the NL Central lead, but Nats chances of catching them for WC moves close to the "not going to happen" realm as they'd have 13 games to make up 7.
Reds @ Brewers
Latos v Lohse
Bailey v Hellweg
Arroyo v Gallardo
Normally you'd like the Lohse matchup but he has not been pitching well. Bailey has been as hot as Gio vs someone who may never start 20 games in the majors.. The Arroyo Gallardo matchup though, that tilts to the Brew Crew.
Prediction : Reds 2 of 3. 4.5 back as Reds fans begin to panic as they realize they are almost as close to the NL Central lead (3.5 games) they've been focused on, as they are to being out of the playoffs entirely.
Then the real test for the Nats begins. Four series left. Two against two of the best teams in the NL (Braves and Cards) one against the pretty good D-Backs who have a decent chance at a sweep this weekend themselves vs the Rockies to keep their even crazier dream alive. To get back into this the Nats needed to dominate the bad teams and be .500 versus the good ones and get a little luck. A sweep vs the Phillies would complete the first requirement (even a 2-1 would still be ok if they can make up a game on the Reds). The last one is out of their hands. The second requirement is going to make or break this miracle run.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Make or Break Time #16
Haren won! Granted have you looked at the Mets lineup? It's Danny Murphy and I can't believe the other guys are so bad that I've had to single out Danny Murphy. But still, these are major league (organizational) ballplayers. You have to go out there and throw the ball over the plate in a way that isn't extremely easy to hit and Haren did that. I couldn't.
The Nats should certainly finish off the Mets and Aaron "playing out my career" Harang today. A sweep was a lot to ask when it meant 4 wins in a row. Now it means win today, so no excuses. These next 5-10 games are a critical time when it comes to making up ground. Remember those teams we talked about earlier, the '07 Phillies and the '11 Cardinals? After 145 games they were in similar situations as the Nats are now. The Phillies were 7 games behind the Mets, the Cardinals 5.5 out of the Wild Card. They both used the next week and a half to make up the majority of the ground they would need to. By game 150 The Cardinals would be 3.5 games out and by game 155 only a game and a half out. The Phillies would do even better pulling to that game and a half mark by game 151. This made the end of the season catch-up possible.
And for me they better make the playoffs, or else this season is a lost one. I have a fear that a nice finish, regardless of whether the Nats make the playoffs or not, will provide the season with a good feeling that it doesn't deserve. That would harken back to the earlier days of the team. In 2006, when a 15-13 finish made some believe the Nats were a .500 team in disguise, rather than a team in decline. The mind-numbing "since May 9th" comments that permeated the 2007 season, as if the first 35 games of a season could be dismissed. The 27-32 finish to 2009 supposedly showing that the Nats were better than the 59 win season would have you believe and that Jim Riggleman was the right manager to lead them forward.
Even if this wasn't a 98 win team it was a 95 win team and some foresight or simple mid course corrections could have kept the team closer to that path. The fact that they are sprinting toward the finish is great. The fact that they have to be sprinting toward the finish to be even relevant to the playoff discussion is a joke.
The easiest thing would be for the Nats to just win and make the anger moot. So let's move forward with that plan.
The Nats should certainly finish off the Mets and Aaron "playing out my career" Harang today. A sweep was a lot to ask when it meant 4 wins in a row. Now it means win today, so no excuses. These next 5-10 games are a critical time when it comes to making up ground. Remember those teams we talked about earlier, the '07 Phillies and the '11 Cardinals? After 145 games they were in similar situations as the Nats are now. The Phillies were 7 games behind the Mets, the Cardinals 5.5 out of the Wild Card. They both used the next week and a half to make up the majority of the ground they would need to. By game 150 The Cardinals would be 3.5 games out and by game 155 only a game and a half out. The Phillies would do even better pulling to that game and a half mark by game 151. This made the end of the season catch-up possible.
And for me they better make the playoffs, or else this season is a lost one. I have a fear that a nice finish, regardless of whether the Nats make the playoffs or not, will provide the season with a good feeling that it doesn't deserve. That would harken back to the earlier days of the team. In 2006, when a 15-13 finish made some believe the Nats were a .500 team in disguise, rather than a team in decline. The mind-numbing "since May 9th" comments that permeated the 2007 season, as if the first 35 games of a season could be dismissed. The 27-32 finish to 2009 supposedly showing that the Nats were better than the 59 win season would have you believe and that Jim Riggleman was the right manager to lead them forward.
Even if this wasn't a 98 win team it was a 95 win team and some foresight or simple mid course corrections could have kept the team closer to that path. The fact that they are sprinting toward the finish is great. The fact that they have to be sprinting toward the finish to be even relevant to the playoff discussion is a joke.
The easiest thing would be for the Nats to just win and make the anger moot. So let's move forward with that plan.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
What the hell. Let's suit back up.
OK, not really. I stand by my "season over" call, much like I stood by my call of the Nats taking the NL East on September 5th of last year. As any reasoned mind will tell you it's still a super long shot that the Nats will make the playoffs* The thing is, if you're like me and think the Nats will finish in the 85-86 win range (I've upped it from 84-85 given the recent good play) they were bound to pick up games on whoever WC#2 would be. They'd probably only finish 2-3-4 games out. But like I said before, we have all offseason to talk about what the hell went wrong this year. If we can delay that for another few days with talk of magical playoff runs, why not? It's fun, right?
*Cool Standings likes the Nats the best at a super high 2.8%. Fangraphs, which everyone was pointing at before shouting "They like us! They're the smartest! They understand upcoming strength of schedule!" proves it understands SOS all right by keeping the Nats down at 1.8% as the Nats play half their remaning games against good to very good teams
Jayson Werth mentions that he did it in 2007 and he's right. In 2007, the Phillies erased a 7 game lead in the final 17 games to win the NL East. The double miracle, where the Phils went 13-4 and the Mets went 5-12, happened. So what was the circumstances behind that?
First off you had an exceedingly mediocre NL that year. The best team in the NL won a mere 90 games that year. With that being the way it was the Phillies didn't have any big obstacles to going on a winning streak. They got to play the Nats 7 times, along with a mediocre Cardinals team (78 wins) and an average Braves team (78). The Mets would also play an easy schedule but couldn't take advantage of it, losing 5 of 6 to the Nationals. Second, they did play eachother to end the year and yes, the Phillies swept the Mets. Third, at the time the Phillies were slightly underperforming according to their Pythag expecations and the Mets were WAY overperforming (even with the crash the Mets would still overperform for the year). Specifically the Mets starting pitching imploded as Glavine gave up 25 H and 17 runs in his last 3 starts (10.1 IP), while names like Oliver Perez, Phil Humber, Brian Lawrence (not good enough for the Nats!) and Mike Pelfrey had to start and mostly failed.
Do we see any parallels? Unfortunately not. The Nats have a tougher schedule than the Reds and they do not play head to head. This makes catching up much harder. The Reds may fall but can the Nats win 13 games or so against what they have coming up? Go 8-1 versus the easy teams and you still need to go 5-4 versus the Braves, Cards, & D-Backs. The Reds and Nats are for all intents and purposes where they should be, with possibly the Nats slightly overperforming. If anything the Pirates are the team that could come crashing down, but unfortunately have even more of a lead. The Reds pitching staff is also pretty solid and a total implosion would be pretty shocking.
What that all mean? That the odds given the Nats are 2% for a reason. They have a very tough situation in front of them. But hey, if the Nats can win the Haren game tonight, I think I can believe anything can happen.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
To Tweak or To Go Big
It's easy to fix a bad team. That isn't meant to dismiss the job Rizzo has done, but it's the truth. If you are given the right resources ($$$ for FA and draft picks) you should be able to turn a losing team into a .500 one in just a few years. The holes are often obvious and more importantly deep. Take a look at the Astros right now. You could sign a couple FA at SS and OF, they don't even have to be particularly good ones, just league average, and you'd perk up the offense. The rotation is so bad nearly anyone you can sign would improve it. Outside of picking up a catcher, you could literally do anything and this team might get better. Down this low the cost of each win is low and the answers are easy.
Where the Nats are the answers are harder to come by. You can't get better simply by signing "anyone". You usually don't have big gaping obvious holes. Instead you have good players that need to be replaced by very good or great ones if any sort of strides are to be made. The question is, are the Nats going to do that or are they going to be content to bring in one starting pitcher (the only easy fix) and make another go at it?
Here are some of the hard questions awaiting the Nats
Adam LaRoche (101 OPS+) Adam is basically an average hitter now and his fielding slipped. He's going to turn 34 in November an age where collapsing is more likely than rebirth. Do you go with Adam at a position where you normally look for great offensive production?
Anthony Rendon (96+) After a blistering start Anthony has settled down into a punch and judy place with an unimpressive average. (Whoever it was that mocked me for saying Rendon could finish hitting .250 with a little bad luck... SUCK IT) Obviously he's a rookie so expectations are he'll improve a bit next year, but what if he doesn't? His overall value is already questionable as he's not a good fielder at 2nd where he currently plays out of position.
Denard Span (98+) Unlike Rendon, Span is meant to be a fielding first type of guy, and he's coming through where that's concerned. But we've all seen what a slumping Span offers the team at the plate, a big squadoosh. He doesn't get on base or hit for any power so if he's not singling, he's not doing anything. The Nats thought they could carry a defensive guy in the lineup back when they thought they were a Top 5ish offense. Do they think the same thing now?
Do they need another pitcher or do they need another ace? Both ZNN and Gio have pitched well this year, but not to the expectations set by last year. They were at 133 and 136 ERA+ last year, respectively which is like having two #1s, to go along with the other #1 Strasburg. They are both at 114 now, which is very good #2/#3 territory, but it's not the same "you can't beat us, THIS guy is starting" pitching as the Nats had last year. Also, you're looking at a top 3 that's been remarkably healthy recently. Strasburg & ZNN haven't missed significant time since their respective comebacks and Gio has been the same way since 2009. It's not to say it will happen. Maybe this is the one thing the Nats do right. But odds are sooner or later it won't be a Detwiler that needs half a season off. With all this being the case, is it enough to simply grab a pretty good #4 type (for example AJ Burnett - not that anyone wants him just an example) or do you try to go out and get someone special?
The Nats can just tweak the roster and go into 2014 with playoff expectations. A competent #4, plus a complete overhaul of the bench would still seemingly leave the Nats, young and healthy, as a strong WC and possible division contender. But it also is asking for several things to go right instead of wrong and offers the Nats no cushion on those expectations. Failure to go big, might just have the Nats going nowhere again.
Where the Nats are the answers are harder to come by. You can't get better simply by signing "anyone". You usually don't have big gaping obvious holes. Instead you have good players that need to be replaced by very good or great ones if any sort of strides are to be made. The question is, are the Nats going to do that or are they going to be content to bring in one starting pitcher (the only easy fix) and make another go at it?
Here are some of the hard questions awaiting the Nats
Adam LaRoche (101 OPS+) Adam is basically an average hitter now and his fielding slipped. He's going to turn 34 in November an age where collapsing is more likely than rebirth. Do you go with Adam at a position where you normally look for great offensive production?
Anthony Rendon (96+) After a blistering start Anthony has settled down into a punch and judy place with an unimpressive average. (Whoever it was that mocked me for saying Rendon could finish hitting .250 with a little bad luck... SUCK IT) Obviously he's a rookie so expectations are he'll improve a bit next year, but what if he doesn't? His overall value is already questionable as he's not a good fielder at 2nd where he currently plays out of position.
Denard Span (98+) Unlike Rendon, Span is meant to be a fielding first type of guy, and he's coming through where that's concerned. But we've all seen what a slumping Span offers the team at the plate, a big squadoosh. He doesn't get on base or hit for any power so if he's not singling, he's not doing anything. The Nats thought they could carry a defensive guy in the lineup back when they thought they were a Top 5ish offense. Do they think the same thing now?
Do they need another pitcher or do they need another ace? Both ZNN and Gio have pitched well this year, but not to the expectations set by last year. They were at 133 and 136 ERA+ last year, respectively which is like having two #1s, to go along with the other #1 Strasburg. They are both at 114 now, which is very good #2/#3 territory, but it's not the same "you can't beat us, THIS guy is starting" pitching as the Nats had last year. Also, you're looking at a top 3 that's been remarkably healthy recently. Strasburg & ZNN haven't missed significant time since their respective comebacks and Gio has been the same way since 2009. It's not to say it will happen. Maybe this is the one thing the Nats do right. But odds are sooner or later it won't be a Detwiler that needs half a season off. With all this being the case, is it enough to simply grab a pretty good #4 type (for example AJ Burnett - not that anyone wants him just an example) or do you try to go out and get someone special?
The Nats can just tweak the roster and go into 2014 with playoff expectations. A competent #4, plus a complete overhaul of the bench would still seemingly leave the Nats, young and healthy, as a strong WC and possible division contender. But it also is asking for several things to go right instead of wrong and offers the Nats no cushion on those expectations. Failure to go big, might just have the Nats going nowhere again.
Monday, September 09, 2013
Monday Quickie - The Party's Over.
At least we can class this ending up a bit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8BGHt18JTI
It's done. Over. Finit.
After a minor stumble, the Reds didn't fold. (In fact they played really, really well) And with their back against the wall, against subpar competition, the Nats are playing very well, but not the best any team has played this year.
Eight games out. 20 to play. You not only need an epic historic surge or meltdown but you need a bit of unexpectedly good or poor play as well. At the same time as the Nats schedule advantage ends? Sorry, no dice.
Catch the Reds? Nope - easy schedule from here on out. Catch the Cardinals? 9.5 games out? Are you serious? Catch the Pirates? First off, SHAME ON YOU. No one wants to do that. It'd be like getting the promotion you wanted because the good samaritan father of five in line for it was diagnosed ALS. But no, they have 10 games up vs Cubs and Padres. Also - Haren vs Wheeler is something that will happen for a team supposedly fighting for a playoff spot so no. It's over. It's over when we say it's over and dammit I hope to god you join me in saying it's over.
What happens now? A slow death march as the team realizes what we know. Then comes the excuses (we were hurt!) and blaming of easy targets (it was Espy! it was Davey! it was Storen!) and empty responsibility taking which never exceeds saying "I'm the boss so I have to do a better job" whilst lighting a cigar with a $100 bill and booking a flight to see if Mark Grace can possibly be wooed over.
Tomorrow we come to bury the Nats, not to praise them. Really, really, not to praise them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8BGHt18JTI
It's done. Over. Finit.
After a minor stumble, the Reds didn't fold. (In fact they played really, really well) And with their back against the wall, against subpar competition, the Nats are playing very well, but not the best any team has played this year.
Eight games out. 20 to play. You not only need an epic historic surge or meltdown but you need a bit of unexpectedly good or poor play as well. At the same time as the Nats schedule advantage ends? Sorry, no dice.
Catch the Reds? Nope - easy schedule from here on out. Catch the Cardinals? 9.5 games out? Are you serious? Catch the Pirates? First off, SHAME ON YOU. No one wants to do that. It'd be like getting the promotion you wanted because the good samaritan father of five in line for it was diagnosed ALS. But no, they have 10 games up vs Cubs and Padres. Also - Haren vs Wheeler is something that will happen for a team supposedly fighting for a playoff spot so no. It's over. It's over when we say it's over and dammit I hope to god you join me in saying it's over.
What happens now? A slow death march as the team realizes what we know. Then comes the excuses (we were hurt!) and blaming of easy targets (it was Espy! it was Davey! it was Storen!) and empty responsibility taking which never exceeds saying "I'm the boss so I have to do a better job" whilst lighting a cigar with a $100 bill and booking a flight to see if Mark Grace can possibly be wooed over.
Tomorrow we come to bury the Nats, not to praise them. Really, really, not to praise them.
Friday, September 06, 2013
Perhaps now we probably enter endgame... maybe
The idea of a Nats comeback has always been based on the duel idea that the Nats would surge and the Reds would fold. Any other scenario you could think of would require one of these two teams to put up a historically bad/good month, like one for the ages. A week into September and the Nats aren't quite surging, but they're right there. 17-8 in their last 25, 11-4 in their last 15 (ok that's pretty surge-y). The problem is the Reds aren't folding. They went 16-11 and 8-8 in the same time frames as the records I mentioned for the Nats. They are losing ground to the Nats but not nearly fast enough.
The Reds were supposed to get beat up by the Cardinals. Instead they did the beating and it killed the Nats chances. The 3-1 series versus the Cardinals was the worst possible outcome. Even a Reds sweep would have been better for the Nats as it would have brought the Cardinals down low and the Nats have their own shot at the Cardinals before the season ends.Earlier I said a 6-4 record could suffice on this road trip. The world has changed. Now I think 8-2 will be necessary.
I said before we'd have a better understanding of where we stand after Labor Day. Well here we are. The Reds face the Dodgers (Kershaw and Greinke) for 3 games, in Cincinnati, while the Nats go out and play the Marlins in Miami. If the Nats can't get out of this weekend at least two games closer to the Reds, I'm not sure we should bother to figure out the rest of the season. The Dodgers need to sweep the Reds and/or the Nats need to sweep the Marlins (preferably both).
Why so glum? The Nats schedule advantage will have gone by the end of this weekend. The Reds follow the Dodgers with the Cubs at home, then away at Milwaukee and Houston. They will play the Pirates twice after that, sandwiching a Mets series. The Nats will play the Marlins, Phillies, and Mets again, but they'll also tangle with the Braves, Cardinals, and D-Backs. I give the Reds the upper hand here.
The Nats have played great, but if they can't find themselves on the morning of Sept 9th 5 games or closer the finish for the ages scenarios start to apply. Reds go 9-9 versus that weak remaining schedule? Nats need to go 16-4 to close out the year, even better than they've played so far. The Nats finish strong against some pretty decent competition and go 13-7? The Reds have to go 6-12 against a lot of beatable teams. We're almost in win 'em all territory.
Of course nothing is absolute. As long as the Nats don't lose 3 games of ground I'm sure someone will still believe in the comeback, because it isn't mathematically impossible ("All the Nats have to do is go 19-1 and have the Reds go under .500 and blammo! Playoff City!") But this is where I'm setting the bar on calling the season. 5 games out or less by Monday. It's not only in the Nats hands, which is frustrating, but it's the cold hard reality of a season that went astray a long time ago.
The Reds were supposed to get beat up by the Cardinals. Instead they did the beating and it killed the Nats chances. The 3-1 series versus the Cardinals was the worst possible outcome. Even a Reds sweep would have been better for the Nats as it would have brought the Cardinals down low and the Nats have their own shot at the Cardinals before the season ends.Earlier I said a 6-4 record could suffice on this road trip. The world has changed. Now I think 8-2 will be necessary.
I said before we'd have a better understanding of where we stand after Labor Day. Well here we are. The Reds face the Dodgers (Kershaw and Greinke) for 3 games, in Cincinnati, while the Nats go out and play the Marlins in Miami. If the Nats can't get out of this weekend at least two games closer to the Reds, I'm not sure we should bother to figure out the rest of the season. The Dodgers need to sweep the Reds and/or the Nats need to sweep the Marlins (preferably both).
Why so glum? The Nats schedule advantage will have gone by the end of this weekend. The Reds follow the Dodgers with the Cubs at home, then away at Milwaukee and Houston. They will play the Pirates twice after that, sandwiching a Mets series. The Nats will play the Marlins, Phillies, and Mets again, but they'll also tangle with the Braves, Cardinals, and D-Backs. I give the Reds the upper hand here.
The Nats have played great, but if they can't find themselves on the morning of Sept 9th 5 games or closer the finish for the ages scenarios start to apply. Reds go 9-9 versus that weak remaining schedule? Nats need to go 16-4 to close out the year, even better than they've played so far. The Nats finish strong against some pretty decent competition and go 13-7? The Reds have to go 6-12 against a lot of beatable teams. We're almost in win 'em all territory.
Of course nothing is absolute. As long as the Nats don't lose 3 games of ground I'm sure someone will still believe in the comeback, because it isn't mathematically impossible ("All the Nats have to do is go 19-1 and have the Reds go under .500 and blammo! Playoff City!") But this is where I'm setting the bar on calling the season. 5 games out or less by Monday. It's not only in the Nats hands, which is frustrating, but it's the cold hard reality of a season that went astray a long time ago.
Wednesday, September 04, 2013
Good News - Bad News
Good News: The Nats have passed the Diamondbacks and now only have to worry about what's in front of them if they keep winning.
Bad News: What's in front of them is still 7.5 games away, thanks to the Cardinals choking against the Reds. It's almost to the point where you'd root for the Reds to sweep the Cardinals because the Nats have their own last shot at St. Louis coming up. But at this point the difference between 9 games and 7.5 games is meaningful so still root for the Cards to win. We'll think about it again tomorrow.
Good News: ZNN's July is in the rearview. It looked for a while like Jordan was losing it posting a 7.18 ERA in July with a WHIP just under 1.60. When you thought he might be back in form he gives up an 8-spot to the Cubs. The Cubs! But it turns out that was the exception. August ends with a 3.86 ERA overall, and that's with the Cubs debacle. In his last 3 non-Cubs starts his WHIP is back down to 1.07.
Bad News: Dan Haren is back to his old tricks. For a month he tried to tell you that things were back to normal and he put up a string of 6 good appearances over 7 games. The last two have been poor though. He tried to play off the Royals game as one bad inning (Why "My shirt was uncomfortable!" didn't get more play as a whiny excuse I do not know), but you know what? Those innings count, too. Last game was just terrible. You probably give him the next start to see if he's truly lost it, but another bad start and its back to "pull him from the rotation" time. You can't afford a loss and Haren looks to be reverting back to the Haren that already cost the Nats too many games.
Good News: It's call-up time! Extra arms and extra bats never hurt.
Bad News: Slim Pickens' ghost came by yesterday thinking the Nats were summoning him by how people were talking about these call-ups.
Erik Davis : A fair relief arm but older, gets hit and walks too many. A mop-up guy right now.
Ian Krol : You've seen him. Got sent down and got hit in AAA as well. There might be something there especially as a lefty specialist but probably a year or two away from dependability.
Sandy Leon : Good glove who broke out in 2012 and broke back in this year. Emergency3rd catcher.
Zach Walters : Early fan fav because of the home runs. Strikes out WAY too much, never walks, can't hit for average. Makes Tyler Moore look like Bryce Harper. Don't expect much and if you do get much, think Kevin Maas. (kids, look up the Baby Bomber.)
Corey Brown : Not quite able to get over the last hump in the minors, because of his contact issues (Ks too much) could be Bernadina II for a couple years. Also, probably a terrible person
Jeff Kobernus : Kind of an outfield Lombardozzi. So sneakily useless.
Eury Perez : He's... actually a pretty interesting prospect. Still kind of young, adapted well to AAA. Ks reasonable which hint at being able to keep up with major league pitching. Let's see this guy play! (which of course means Corey Bown will play more)
Xavier Cedeno : Converted starters with a live arm but no control. H-Rod re-visited. Still useful if used correctly (spots where you need a K but a walk doesn't kill you).
Bad News: What's in front of them is still 7.5 games away, thanks to the Cardinals choking against the Reds. It's almost to the point where you'd root for the Reds to sweep the Cardinals because the Nats have their own last shot at St. Louis coming up. But at this point the difference between 9 games and 7.5 games is meaningful so still root for the Cards to win. We'll think about it again tomorrow.
Good News: ZNN's July is in the rearview. It looked for a while like Jordan was losing it posting a 7.18 ERA in July with a WHIP just under 1.60. When you thought he might be back in form he gives up an 8-spot to the Cubs. The Cubs! But it turns out that was the exception. August ends with a 3.86 ERA overall, and that's with the Cubs debacle. In his last 3 non-Cubs starts his WHIP is back down to 1.07.
Bad News: Dan Haren is back to his old tricks. For a month he tried to tell you that things were back to normal and he put up a string of 6 good appearances over 7 games. The last two have been poor though. He tried to play off the Royals game as one bad inning (Why "My shirt was uncomfortable!" didn't get more play as a whiny excuse I do not know), but you know what? Those innings count, too. Last game was just terrible. You probably give him the next start to see if he's truly lost it, but another bad start and its back to "pull him from the rotation" time. You can't afford a loss and Haren looks to be reverting back to the Haren that already cost the Nats too many games.
Good News: It's call-up time! Extra arms and extra bats never hurt.
Bad News: Slim Pickens' ghost came by yesterday thinking the Nats were summoning him by how people were talking about these call-ups.
Erik Davis : A fair relief arm but older, gets hit and walks too many. A mop-up guy right now.
Ian Krol : You've seen him. Got sent down and got hit in AAA as well. There might be something there especially as a lefty specialist but probably a year or two away from dependability.
Sandy Leon : Good glove who broke out in 2012 and broke back in this year. Emergency3rd catcher.
Zach Walters : Early fan fav because of the home runs. Strikes out WAY too much, never walks, can't hit for average. Makes Tyler Moore look like Bryce Harper. Don't expect much and if you do get much, think Kevin Maas. (kids, look up the Baby Bomber.)
Corey Brown : Not quite able to get over the last hump in the minors, because of his contact issues (Ks too much) could be Bernadina II for a couple years. Also, probably a terrible person
Jeff Kobernus : Kind of an outfield Lombardozzi. So sneakily useless.
Eury Perez : He's... actually a pretty interesting prospect. Still kind of young, adapted well to AAA. Ks reasonable which hint at being able to keep up with major league pitching. Let's see this guy play! (which of course means Corey Bown will play more)
Xavier Cedeno : Converted starters with a live arm but no control. H-Rod re-visited. Still useful if used correctly (spots where you need a K but a walk doesn't kill you).
Tuesday, September 03, 2013
Tuesday Quickie - not too little but...
I know you don't want to hear about how the Nats can't make the playoffs. Ok, then tell the Nats to stop losing two at home to the Mets. Your anger is misdirected.
Most of the time 4-2 is a completely acceptable home stand. It seems bad because it started with a 3-0 sweep, but if you go .500 on the road, and win 2 out of 3 at home you're looking at a 94-95 win season. If this were May you'd say "keep on keeping on" and gently glide into the playoffs, maybe even as a #1 seed.
It's not May. It's September, the Nats backs are against the wall and being " generically 95 win good" is not even good enough. They need to be the best team in baseball this month. Simple as that.
Playoff Odds :
BP: 1.2%
CS: 2.3%
FG: 4.1%
Ten game road trip, the absolute minimum they can go is 6-4, but that's probably just treading water or gaining a single game. It would also likely force the Nats into a homestand where they need to lose a game maybe two or find themselves in an impossible situation. 7-3 or 8-2 would at least keep the "win 'em all" calls at bay for another week. They've already lost game one here though so it's going to be very very tough.
One note :
By now you must know that Jayson Werth has been the best hitter in the NL since the All-Star break with a .357 / .444 / .629 line. (just to note how capricious these things can be so you don't expect "Super-Werth" next season, I'll note that the 2nd best hitter in the NL in the same time frame is Wil Venable). Did you know that Anthony Rendon is among the worst? .209 / .286 / .299. Forget having Espinosa around for his D. Maybe these guys should platoon.
Most of the time 4-2 is a completely acceptable home stand. It seems bad because it started with a 3-0 sweep, but if you go .500 on the road, and win 2 out of 3 at home you're looking at a 94-95 win season. If this were May you'd say "keep on keeping on" and gently glide into the playoffs, maybe even as a #1 seed.
It's not May. It's September, the Nats backs are against the wall and being " generically 95 win good" is not even good enough. They need to be the best team in baseball this month. Simple as that.
Playoff Odds :
BP: 1.2%
CS: 2.3%
FG: 4.1%
Ten game road trip, the absolute minimum they can go is 6-4, but that's probably just treading water or gaining a single game. It would also likely force the Nats into a homestand where they need to lose a game maybe two or find themselves in an impossible situation. 7-3 or 8-2 would at least keep the "win 'em all" calls at bay for another week. They've already lost game one here though so it's going to be very very tough.
One note :
By now you must know that Jayson Werth has been the best hitter in the NL since the All-Star break with a .357 / .444 / .629 line. (just to note how capricious these things can be so you don't expect "Super-Werth" next season, I'll note that the 2nd best hitter in the NL in the same time frame is Wil Venable). Did you know that Anthony Rendon is among the worst? .209 / .286 / .299. Forget having Espinosa around for his D. Maybe these guys should platoon.
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