Happy Baseball! Now don't blow it Nats.
Bryce Harper has hit .350 /. 455 / .650 since May 29th. Why is that random fact of interest to me? Because May 28th marked the end of his remarkable 3 week run where Bryce hit .460 / . 570 / 1.175. So since he's "cooled off" he has a line that would put him t1st in batting average (w/ Cabrera), maybe t2nd in OBP (Cabrera, Goldschmidt), and 1st in slugging in the major leagues. Bryce is awesome.
I got in a little Twitter discussion yesterday about the state of the team in the future. I'll admit I'm a pessimist. I see the Nats offense led by Bryce, yes. But I also see the 2nd-5th most valuable bats this year being gone in 2016 (Span), connected to an unsustainable BABIP (Escobar), with a guy Nats fans were ready to run out of town a year ago he was so bad (Espinosa), and a 30 yr old career minor leaguer (Robinson). That's the thread holding this offense together. I'll give you it could continue in 2015, there's less than half a season left. But come 2016 there has to be an expectation of this motley crew not carrying the team again. So who does? Rendon, ok, I'll buy that. But who else? 37 yr old Werth? Zimmerman, 2 years removed from a full season? If they don't come through. That puts a lot of pressure on MAT and Turner to be good next year. Not to mention the Nats losing ZNN and Fister and Thornton. Anyway the Nats will have money freed so there is room to spend/trade to fix these issues. But if they don't do anything there is potential here for a crash that hasn't existed since the window opened.
Will they do it through FA (The "Greinke" scenario)? Reason to be optimistic - the Lerners have cleared, however painfully slowly, all money hurdles so far. They signed someone to a big deal (Werth). They showed they'd do it again and for homegrown talent (Zimm). They showed they'd do it for a pitcher and raise their payroll to that "below the biggest spenders" range for a year (Max). The next question is will they remain in that 170 mill range? Reason to be pessimistic - the Lerners were bitching at 130 million about being "topped out" and although they did sign Max it was a funny contract that pushed money out over the next century. It also seemed like the issues with the pen (trading Clippard, Blevins) were money related.
OK enough about next year. I talked about the potential contenders yesterday. When you get down to the last few month SoS is important to consider. How does that break down? The NL East means that the Nats and Mets should both cruise for the rest of the year (12th and 11th easiest). That's also why I give the Mets an edge over the Cubs for the 2nd WC. Meanwhile the Pirates have a little rougher road than the Cards, the Giants a rougher road than the Dodgers which makes catching them a bit tough. The Giants in particular must survive this stretch (@TEX, @ATL, @CHC, HOU, WAS, @STL, @PIT, CHC, STL, @LA) That's a month with no patsies. Twist my arm and I'll say Cards, Nats, Dodgers, Pirates, Mets. so Nats play Dodgers first round. That'd be my guess today, but injuries and trades can change everything.
We're on the last legs of "Wilson Ramos can be a star" aren't we? Wilson gets to hide behind all the bigger problems and surprise solid players but it's been a disappointing year for him. Finally healthy we hoped for a decent bounce back and we haven't gotten it. His walk rate has dwindled over time to a terrible 4.3%. His K-rate is going up each year. But the Nats don't have anyone close to ready to replace Wilson (Lobaton really isn't an improvement, Keiboom is middling in High-A). So Wilson it is.
I expressed my concerns with a Yuney/Danny/Clint led offense but in all honesty, I kind of like Clint's chances to stay productive for a few years. He never failed in the majors previously, just didn't get the chance, so we can't say that what we're seeing now is odd. He doesn't have crazy K numbers in the minors that suggest he'll be overwhelmed by major league stuff (see: Moore, Tyler). There's no unsustainable numbers helping him out. He isn't death against lefties (he's hit them quite well this year actually). With regular at bats in June and July his numbers have been relatively consistent. I just don't see any warning signs. I don't know where exactly he'll fall (above average or below are both reasonable) but I don't see him being so bad he couldn't sit on a bench for another couple years and he may actaully be a good bat there.
I'm also very curious to see Felipe Rivero more. His issue in the minors, which he arguably never solved, was he was too wild. And yet he's walking no one in the majors. His zone numbers suggest more pitches thrown in the zone (not a good or bad thing pitching wise if you are wondering - there are great pitchers on either end) so I'd guess it is an improvement that can be kept up, but I want to see more. I don't know if a trust that it just clicked when he hit the majors after not getting it in the minors since 2012 - including in Nats org.
xFIP suggests* that the Carpenter, Janssen, and Thornton all should get worse. It does however like Treinen and Barrett. So trade for someone I guess, I'm tired of these guys.
BABIP suggests Escobar will dip (Bryce is up there but he's doing something special, Taylor is up there but we don't know his level). Zimm and Werth would both be candidates for improvement if we didn't think that the BABIP issues could be injury related. So the best hope for a rebound 2nd half? Desmond. Nothing huge though - he is hitting the ball weaker.
Also read this on Desmond. It's a lot of what we were saying over time but put together nicely.
*Why do I say suggest? Relievers pitch so infrequently these things can last the 30 IP or whatever they have left. xFIP is more of a year to year thing to look at, but a glance now isn't completely without value.
Friday, July 17, 2015
Thursday, July 16, 2015
Stacking Up - Part 2
Offense
Nats : BRYCE
As constructed now can you really rely on Clint Robinson, Yunel Escovar and Danny Espinosa to perform to the levels they have been? If not the current line-up, which is passable with only one true hole, collapses. Note that they've not only overachieved based on the bats in the lineup, they've scored more runs than expected based on those overachieving stats. There's double the room to fail. Yet, like a reverse Damocles' sword, Span, Rendon, Werth, Zimmerman all could come back and be impact bats. Despite the above questions, we have to put a lot of weight on where we stand today. One thing that is sure is that they have arguably the best hitter in the majors in Bryce and he's already proven he can carry the offense by himself when hot.
Mets: DUDA
The Mets offense is hideous. There's not a true star or even very good bat in the line-up right now. There are at least two holes, and Lagares is close to that as well. If D'Arnaud can ever stay healthy it might not be embarrassing but right now this line-up is undeniably a huge problem.
Cardinals : HOLLIDAY
The Cardinals have no holes. Molina may finally be wearing down and Reynolds replacing Adams is a downgrade but both are simply below average. The Cardinals have no stars. Holliday is very good and bats like Peralta, Heyward, and maybe the kid Grichuk have the same potential but there is no singular player you worry about containing.
Pirates : MCCUTCHEN
It's a line-up similar to the Nats with a star that can carry the team, a number of solid bats in the line-up, and maybe a hole or two. The difference is McCutchen, as good as he is, is not '15 Bryce at the plate, and the bench is not very good. So the Pirates match-up with the Nats now, but a few healthy returns and they won't anymore.
Cubs : RIZZO
I's not terrible but the lineup is a problem. Rizzo is an underrated star bat, but only Bryant of the kids (Soler and Russell being the others) are hitting right now. Castro has devolved much like Ian Desmond. With no help from the bench, and a mix of average bats elsewhere the Cubs are kind of stuck relying on hope that that at least one of these guys, if not all 3 come through.
Dodgers : GRANDAL? TURNER?
The Dodgers offense is really good. Everyone but Rollins (who's a hole - what is it with these SSs this year?) is at least good with Grandal and Turner carrying the team. You may think that this is just as precarious a situation as the Nats Yuney/Danny/Clint thing, but people have been thinking Grandal could do something like this for years and Turner was this good last year too. There's more reason for faith here. Also, the bench is deep and Puig and Pederson have strong potential to perform better. I really like this offense
Giants : POSEY
The Giants offense is rock solid. They don't have a lot of punch, but much like the Royals of last year, they put the ball in play really well. Plus Hunter Pence is finally back and at least in the week he played he looked like his old self. That would reduce the below average bats in the lineup to simply CF Pagan. There's a little bit of overachieving in the IF but Duffy and Panik are both young enough that it could continue.
My Ranking as of today (in series):
Dodgers, Giants, Nats, Pirates, Cardinals, Cubs, Mets
To me, offensively the difference between the Dodgers and the Cardinals is equal to the difference between the Cardinals and the Cubs.
Overall Rankings :
Cardinals, Pirates, Nats, Dodgers, Cubs, Giants, Mets
No one wants to hear this but really the Cardinals are a team with no weakness. The worst thing I can think of to say about them as a team is that they lack a dominant presence on the mound or at the plate, so if any of the teams in the playoffs get hot, they can take the Cardinals. They aren't unbeatable. Of course if the Cardinals get hot, or if no one does, they have to be the favorite.
I like the Pirates a lot, maybe even more than the Cardinals in a series. There's no real series weakness and that pen is a game changer. But they are very McCutchen reliant (offense spun its wheels early when Andrew did), and it's AJ Burnett and Francisco Liriano you are saying are very good. They have been but still it's hard to get 100% behind that.
The Nats are the wild card of the bunch. Good enough to be better than the Cardinals, injured enough to be down with the Mets. However it breaks though I've seen enough of Max and ZNN to feel really good about those two in the playoffs and BRYCE! means I'll never count the Nats offense completely out. Plus the Nats should walk to the division title if they get even a little healthier.
The Nats over the Dodgers was a tough call for me but in the end Kershaw's injury issues/playoff issues give me enough pause. LA was already going to have an iffy #3 and a shallow pen. If I can't feel like I can be sure about him then the team takes a hit despite the offense. They are in kind of the same boat as the Nats. The pieces could fall into place to make them incredibly formidable. But right now I'd like the Nats just a touch more, though that could easily change in 2 weeks.
Now we get to the flawed teams. The Cubs are all about potential. Lester could revert to form. Those hitters could get it. There's worry that these things could happen if you face them in a series. But I can't deny that right now it isn't there. Not the pitching, not the hitting. On the cusp but not there.
The Giants, I just don't like their starting pitching. Sure Bumgarner was great last year. But that doesn't guarantee future success. Lester was awesome... until he wasn't with the A's. Morris had the greatest World Series, then was garbage in the series the next year. 2014 gives you pause about facing him but I'm not quaking if it comes to pass. Vogelsong, Lincecum, Peavy are all working on multiple blah years. Hudson is 39. So it all comes down to Heston who was never a great prospect. I just don't see them keeping an offense down and the offense isn't dominant enough to count on them beating a pitcher on his game.
The Mets don't have a flaw they have a death wish. That offense is easily dominated and unless it gets hot the pitching will have to be perfect. Either is possible (the offense is hot or the pitching is perfect) but those are big things that would have to go right for the Mets to take a series.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Stacking Up
It may be premature but it was asked for. How do the Nats stack up versus other contenders? Pitching today.
1-2-3 Starters
In the playoffs the depth of your rotation no longer matters. Do you have a killer Top 3? Then you're good with the 4th slot there if you choose to use it or not. The #1 spot matters too if you end up in the Wild Card
Nats : MAX, ZNN, Stras? (Gio?)
The Nats have arguably the best pitcher in the NL, and while ZNN isn't quite having the year we expected I think we all trust him. The 3rd spot has all the potential in the world but who's it going to be? Strasburg is the first choice but he's been injured. Gio has been a little off, Fister both injured and off. Right now 1-4 could be a powerhouse or the Nats fans could be complaining why Roark isn't #3.
Mets: DEGROM, Harvey, Sydergaard (Niese)
That's better than the Nats right now. Sorry, but completely verifiable by facts. It's never been playoff tested is about all you can hang onto. As for #1 DeGrom is right there with Max. You like Max better (or I do) but there's no obvious advantage.
Cardinals : LACKEY?, Martinez, Wacha, (Lynn?)
The Cardinals are 5 deep right now. Every one of their preferred rotation guys has an ERA under 3.00. On the flipside, three of them have an ERA over 2.90. I put Lackey (worst at 2.99) in the #1 hole only because of "veteran presence". What this gives the Cardinals is a lot of leeway with injuries and drops in performance to figure out who slots where. What this doesn't give the Cardinals is a guy you feel 100% sure of in a 1-gamer
Pirates : COLE, Burnett, Liriano (Locke?)
The Pirates are top heavy with a great 3 and a blah back of the rotation. They're very likely to pull the 3-day rest thing if they do make it. Cole is only a half-step behind the very best in the league and could rise.
Cubs : ARRIETA, Lester, Hammel, (Wada?)
The Cubs rotation is not as impressive. Arrieta is really good but Lester is still trying to find himself and there's no good reason to trust Hammel to continue to be this good. Both Wada and Hendricks are fine but just that. Rotation wise the Cubs have a distinct disadvantage in a series, and a small one in a one-game.
Dodgers : KERSHAW, Greinke, Bolsinger? (Anderson?)
The Dodgers are even more top heavy than the Pirates. With Kershaw rounding back into form they have arguably the best 1-2 in the majors. But beyond that they have a couple decent arms and then a morass. This makes for an interesting series match-up putting a lot of pressure on Greinke and Kershaw who has a history of underperforming in the playoffs. Still wouldn't want to face them in a one-game though.
Giants : BUMGARNER, Heston, Hudson? (Vogelsong?)
The Giants' rotation is scary only on history. Bumgarner is a bit down this year. Heston is good but a rookie. The rest are just trying to hang on. If Cain gets it right you figure they can put up a fight, if not you are hoping for more Bumgarner magic.
My Ranking as of today (in series):
Cardinals, Mets, Nats, Pirates, Dodgers, Cubs, Giants
Relief Pitching
Nats : STOREN
The Nats closer has been excellent this year, as you well know. As you also well know, he's faltered in the playoffs. Outside of that they haven't zeroed in on reliable arms yet, getting decent performances but some terrible ones in key moments.
Mets: FAMILIA
Familia has become as reliable a closer as anyone in the league. However, the Mets have had issues getting to him. They might be able to cobble it together though. Gilmartin is good and Parnell is back and doing well in the set-up slot. If Blevins returns and keeps killing lefties, you start to like this pen more. Right now though, I'd say it's passable, but iffy in a series where you'll have to use someone else and everyone else is not trustworthy. How much can they lean on just 3-4 guys?
Cardinals : ROSENTHAL
Rosenthal is good. Siegrist setting up is good. Beyond that they have some ok arms having good years and better arms trying to put things together. What they don't have though is a guy they are currently using that you hate to see enter a game. This isn't a pen that wows you, but there's no real weakness here.
Pirates : MELANCON
Melancon is great. Watson might be better. Hughes is just a step behind. All were this good last year too so it's not a fluke. Caminero and Bastardo are both fantastic arms that are probably a bit better than their ERAs suggest. Best pen in the NL.
Cubs : RONDON
Deep pen with the Top 5 arms all doing well. The biggest plus is that their best arm has no defined role so you can see Justin Grimm at any time. He can be wild but he's unhittable now that he's in relief. The rest of the pen is solid.
Dodgers : JANSEN
Jansen was out for a while but picked up exactly where he left off. He might be the best closer. Unfortunately beyond that things aren't clear. Yimi Garcia has all the talent in the world but hasn't harnessed it yet. JP Howell is as good as anyone but is often regulated to outings of less than an inning. After that you have a couple good arms and a lot of not good ones. If Garcia settles that 8-9 will be untouchable. If he doesn't the Dodgers are in trouble anytime a starter doesn't go deep.
Giants : CASTILLA
The pen is ok. Romo has the best stuff but doesn't seem right this year. Kontos is effective but a "get yourself out" reliever. Castilla is fine. We all know about Strickland. There's nothing really wrong with this pen. It's ERA is the worst of the playoff teams but not that far off. But it inspires no fear at any point that "oh the game is over now"
My Ranking :
Pirates, Cardinals, Cubs, Mets, Nats, Dodgers, Giants
Overall Pitching Ranking :
Cardinals, Mets, Pirates, Nats, Dodgers, Cubs, Giants
The ranking may surprise you but as we'll see tomorrow where the (healthy) Nats have the advantage is not on the mound. It's at the plate.
1-2-3 Starters
In the playoffs the depth of your rotation no longer matters. Do you have a killer Top 3? Then you're good with the 4th slot there if you choose to use it or not. The #1 spot matters too if you end up in the Wild Card
Nats : MAX, ZNN, Stras? (Gio?)
The Nats have arguably the best pitcher in the NL, and while ZNN isn't quite having the year we expected I think we all trust him. The 3rd spot has all the potential in the world but who's it going to be? Strasburg is the first choice but he's been injured. Gio has been a little off, Fister both injured and off. Right now 1-4 could be a powerhouse or the Nats fans could be complaining why Roark isn't #3.
Mets: DEGROM, Harvey, Sydergaard (Niese)
That's better than the Nats right now. Sorry, but completely verifiable by facts. It's never been playoff tested is about all you can hang onto. As for #1 DeGrom is right there with Max. You like Max better (or I do) but there's no obvious advantage.
Cardinals : LACKEY?, Martinez, Wacha, (Lynn?)
The Cardinals are 5 deep right now. Every one of their preferred rotation guys has an ERA under 3.00. On the flipside, three of them have an ERA over 2.90. I put Lackey (worst at 2.99) in the #1 hole only because of "veteran presence". What this gives the Cardinals is a lot of leeway with injuries and drops in performance to figure out who slots where. What this doesn't give the Cardinals is a guy you feel 100% sure of in a 1-gamer
Pirates : COLE, Burnett, Liriano (Locke?)
The Pirates are top heavy with a great 3 and a blah back of the rotation. They're very likely to pull the 3-day rest thing if they do make it. Cole is only a half-step behind the very best in the league and could rise.
Cubs : ARRIETA, Lester, Hammel, (Wada?)
The Cubs rotation is not as impressive. Arrieta is really good but Lester is still trying to find himself and there's no good reason to trust Hammel to continue to be this good. Both Wada and Hendricks are fine but just that. Rotation wise the Cubs have a distinct disadvantage in a series, and a small one in a one-game.
Dodgers : KERSHAW, Greinke, Bolsinger? (Anderson?)
The Dodgers are even more top heavy than the Pirates. With Kershaw rounding back into form they have arguably the best 1-2 in the majors. But beyond that they have a couple decent arms and then a morass. This makes for an interesting series match-up putting a lot of pressure on Greinke and Kershaw who has a history of underperforming in the playoffs. Still wouldn't want to face them in a one-game though.
Giants : BUMGARNER, Heston, Hudson? (Vogelsong?)
The Giants' rotation is scary only on history. Bumgarner is a bit down this year. Heston is good but a rookie. The rest are just trying to hang on. If Cain gets it right you figure they can put up a fight, if not you are hoping for more Bumgarner magic.
My Ranking as of today (in series):
Cardinals, Mets, Nats, Pirates, Dodgers, Cubs, Giants
Relief Pitching
Nats : STOREN
The Nats closer has been excellent this year, as you well know. As you also well know, he's faltered in the playoffs. Outside of that they haven't zeroed in on reliable arms yet, getting decent performances but some terrible ones in key moments.
Mets: FAMILIA
Familia has become as reliable a closer as anyone in the league. However, the Mets have had issues getting to him. They might be able to cobble it together though. Gilmartin is good and Parnell is back and doing well in the set-up slot. If Blevins returns and keeps killing lefties, you start to like this pen more. Right now though, I'd say it's passable, but iffy in a series where you'll have to use someone else and everyone else is not trustworthy. How much can they lean on just 3-4 guys?
Cardinals : ROSENTHAL
Rosenthal is good. Siegrist setting up is good. Beyond that they have some ok arms having good years and better arms trying to put things together. What they don't have though is a guy they are currently using that you hate to see enter a game. This isn't a pen that wows you, but there's no real weakness here.
Pirates : MELANCON
Melancon is great. Watson might be better. Hughes is just a step behind. All were this good last year too so it's not a fluke. Caminero and Bastardo are both fantastic arms that are probably a bit better than their ERAs suggest. Best pen in the NL.
Cubs : RONDON
Deep pen with the Top 5 arms all doing well. The biggest plus is that their best arm has no defined role so you can see Justin Grimm at any time. He can be wild but he's unhittable now that he's in relief. The rest of the pen is solid.
Dodgers : JANSEN
Jansen was out for a while but picked up exactly where he left off. He might be the best closer. Unfortunately beyond that things aren't clear. Yimi Garcia has all the talent in the world but hasn't harnessed it yet. JP Howell is as good as anyone but is often regulated to outings of less than an inning. After that you have a couple good arms and a lot of not good ones. If Garcia settles that 8-9 will be untouchable. If he doesn't the Dodgers are in trouble anytime a starter doesn't go deep.
Giants : CASTILLA
The pen is ok. Romo has the best stuff but doesn't seem right this year. Kontos is effective but a "get yourself out" reliever. Castilla is fine. We all know about Strickland. There's nothing really wrong with this pen. It's ERA is the worst of the playoff teams but not that far off. But it inspires no fear at any point that "oh the game is over now"
My Ranking :
Pirates, Cardinals, Cubs, Mets, Nats, Dodgers, Giants
Overall Pitching Ranking :
Cardinals, Mets, Pirates, Nats, Dodgers, Cubs, Giants
The ranking may surprise you but as we'll see tomorrow where the (healthy) Nats have the advantage is not on the mound. It's at the plate.
Tuesday, July 14, 2015
Tuesday review
1) When will all the guys come back from injury and is that even a good thing?
I think I agree completely with you guys. Span Strasburg and Rendon? Yes good. Zimm & Werth? ehhhh. But we are completely being led by what we've seen so far this year. The guys who did good will keep doing good! The guys who didn't won't! I think we all understand too, that if these guys are healthy enough to play they are playing everyday, damn the results.
One by one, if I want to be more soulless I'd say this:
Werth's injury is the most likely to keep affecting him into the season. We saw what happened to him and what happens to others with wrist injuries. They have no power. So the best we can hope for is a rehash of the 2nd half of 2012 where he hit .300 but had no pop. Of course that Werth was a 33 yr old, not a 36 yr old coming off of shoulder surgery so even an empty .300 might be too much to ask for. .270 with a lot of walks? I worry about his comeback most of all.
With Zimm's injury it usually is an issue or it isn't. It's a light switch. As long as the Nats don't force Zimm back he'll probably be a useful bat. Thing is I think Zimm and the Nats both want him back sooner rather than later so a forcing back is completely possible. We have to wait to see how he's hitting when he's rehabbing. If he looks good I'm enthused. If not, I put him in the Werth category.
Rendon may have issues with pop all year long. There's just too many separate issues (knee, oblique, quad) that he's trying to overcome. That's ok, he's young and showed he can still be a useful bat and I don't see the quad making things any different than they were at the plate. What I do worry about with the quad is re-injury. Unlike the knee or oblique the quad is tested every time he sprints or quickly changes direction. Given that he can't compensate for the quad by putting stress on other places because everything is recovering, I'm going to be on pins and needles from the moment he comes back. But I don't worry about his usefulness
Span is a bit less concerning than Rendon because the long-term injury history isn't there but in the past 7 months the guy had a sports hernia, hurt his abdomen, his knee, and his back. I think he needs extended time off. I think he should be fine when coming back though. I do note the power loss because while you can have low power, you can't have no power, or else you are putting a lot in the hands of BABIP luck. But I think it's injury related so I think he'll be back to normal. I think.
Strasburg - I think both sides are being overly careful. I think he'll come back and be fine and if it was late September he'd be pitching.
2) In the meantime, and after that, what to do about Desmond?
In the meantime nothing. He plays straight through September if that's what injuries dictate. Does Turner come up September 1st? If Ian is still this bad and Rendon is still out and Turner is killing AAA then yes. Any of those not taking place then no, sorry. I think both Turner and Giolito are May next year guys for the sake of the extra year of control. I think Difo, Cole and Ross all got calls because Rizzo saw them coming up this year anyway.
Ok now what if Rendon comes back in a week or two? I'd hate to be the one to make that decision. I feel like he has to sit but a lot of that is based on how Danny and Yuney are doing and how Danny and Yuney are doing is a bit of a mirage. We've talked about Yuney's BABIP luck but if he were simply having the best BABIP he ever had outside his rookie year his line would be more like .285 / .333 / .390. Better than Ian, yes but not a guy you have to have in the line-up. Not to mention his 3B defense has been nothing special. Danny on the other hand has spent the past month quietly reverting to more typical Danny. Lot more K's. Average around .220. If not for that timely 3 run homer vs Baltimore I think we'd be looking at him a lot more critically right now.
So I don't like Danny and Yuney in the long run, but Ian is really forcing our hands. There isn't a good decision but if Rendon is ready early and Ian isn't hitting, he kind of has to sit.
3) Any improvement to the bench?
I don't see it. Though let me tell you how god-awful Dan Uggla is. In the last month we're all crazy about how bad Ian is. Ian has hit .169 / .218 / .282. Uggla has hit .174 / .296 / .174. Since hitting that homer against the Braves, Dan Uggla, a guy brought in to perhaps provide pop off the bench has had 2 XBH. TWO! No homers! He can't field! He doesn't run! He's kept his head above water by taking a few walks but come on.
Anyway, I don't see Rizzo doing something here because of what I said. Guys will get healthy and when that happens the bench improves. Also he probably can't get anything he wants cheap or with control.
4) What about the pen?
OK I do see something done about the pen, which I guess is good since most of you want the pen addressed and not the bench. But I don't see a Chapman type that'll cost an arm and a leg. Instead I see them trying to get a Carson Smith or Brandon Maurer type. Someone under control for a few years, who might not cost as much (in dollars or prospects) but could easily slide into the closer role in a post-Storen world.
Not happy about my bench/pen predictions? Sorry. I don't think the Lerners want to add salary and I don't think Rizzo wants to trade prospects for rentals. If Rizzo can't get a guy he likes long term or if he can't just pick up someone he might like for next to nothing (say... Aaron Hill if the D-backs eat almost all his salary) then I don't see any movement. Not with the team in leading the division. Talk to me again if the Mets blow them out 5 of 6.
5) Can the rotation keep it up?
Depends what you mean. If you are asking if they can still be really good, yes. Definitely. I'll admit I like Scherzer to slow down a bit. I think he's overly control focused now, if that's a thing and as the season wears on him, his goal of not missing the strike zone is going to turn into not missing bats... on a very minor level. You've seen it recently in late innings. That'll expand as he gets tired. Nothing crazy here. He'll still be really, really good. I'm just thinking he might fall to like 3rd or 4th in the Cy Young race. ZNN I trust in. I already said I like Stras to be fine. Gio or Fister might falter down the stretch but not both.
Now can it carry the team... I don't think so. Not carry. Maybe they have one more two rotation turn go around like they had earlier but putting in a month or more like that? I'm not going to bet on that. They'll be the strength, the rock the team relies on. Alone they can keep them around .500 and if the Mets don't push that'll be enough. But alone make the Nats special? I don't see it.
6) Are the Mets legit threat or not?
If they get a bat, yes. If not, no. That's my opinion. While I said I don't think the Nats rotation can carry them, I do think DeGrom, Harvey and Syndergaard could carry a Mets team with an average-ish offense. They don't have that. They have two injured arms in Wheeler and Matz that could be dealt but they questions are the same one the Nats face - Will they take on salary? Will they trade the future for now? It's getting late in the year so if they don't do it soon, I don't see them doing it at all. There's only so much even the right trade can bring you with only 60 games left.
I think I agree completely with you guys. Span Strasburg and Rendon? Yes good. Zimm & Werth? ehhhh. But we are completely being led by what we've seen so far this year. The guys who did good will keep doing good! The guys who didn't won't! I think we all understand too, that if these guys are healthy enough to play they are playing everyday, damn the results.
One by one, if I want to be more soulless I'd say this:
Werth's injury is the most likely to keep affecting him into the season. We saw what happened to him and what happens to others with wrist injuries. They have no power. So the best we can hope for is a rehash of the 2nd half of 2012 where he hit .300 but had no pop. Of course that Werth was a 33 yr old, not a 36 yr old coming off of shoulder surgery so even an empty .300 might be too much to ask for. .270 with a lot of walks? I worry about his comeback most of all.
With Zimm's injury it usually is an issue or it isn't. It's a light switch. As long as the Nats don't force Zimm back he'll probably be a useful bat. Thing is I think Zimm and the Nats both want him back sooner rather than later so a forcing back is completely possible. We have to wait to see how he's hitting when he's rehabbing. If he looks good I'm enthused. If not, I put him in the Werth category.
Rendon may have issues with pop all year long. There's just too many separate issues (knee, oblique, quad) that he's trying to overcome. That's ok, he's young and showed he can still be a useful bat and I don't see the quad making things any different than they were at the plate. What I do worry about with the quad is re-injury. Unlike the knee or oblique the quad is tested every time he sprints or quickly changes direction. Given that he can't compensate for the quad by putting stress on other places because everything is recovering, I'm going to be on pins and needles from the moment he comes back. But I don't worry about his usefulness
Span is a bit less concerning than Rendon because the long-term injury history isn't there but in the past 7 months the guy had a sports hernia, hurt his abdomen, his knee, and his back. I think he needs extended time off. I think he should be fine when coming back though. I do note the power loss because while you can have low power, you can't have no power, or else you are putting a lot in the hands of BABIP luck. But I think it's injury related so I think he'll be back to normal. I think.
Strasburg - I think both sides are being overly careful. I think he'll come back and be fine and if it was late September he'd be pitching.
2) In the meantime, and after that, what to do about Desmond?
In the meantime nothing. He plays straight through September if that's what injuries dictate. Does Turner come up September 1st? If Ian is still this bad and Rendon is still out and Turner is killing AAA then yes. Any of those not taking place then no, sorry. I think both Turner and Giolito are May next year guys for the sake of the extra year of control. I think Difo, Cole and Ross all got calls because Rizzo saw them coming up this year anyway.
Ok now what if Rendon comes back in a week or two? I'd hate to be the one to make that decision. I feel like he has to sit but a lot of that is based on how Danny and Yuney are doing and how Danny and Yuney are doing is a bit of a mirage. We've talked about Yuney's BABIP luck but if he were simply having the best BABIP he ever had outside his rookie year his line would be more like .285 / .333 / .390. Better than Ian, yes but not a guy you have to have in the line-up. Not to mention his 3B defense has been nothing special. Danny on the other hand has spent the past month quietly reverting to more typical Danny. Lot more K's. Average around .220. If not for that timely 3 run homer vs Baltimore I think we'd be looking at him a lot more critically right now.
So I don't like Danny and Yuney in the long run, but Ian is really forcing our hands. There isn't a good decision but if Rendon is ready early and Ian isn't hitting, he kind of has to sit.
3) Any improvement to the bench?
I don't see it. Though let me tell you how god-awful Dan Uggla is. In the last month we're all crazy about how bad Ian is. Ian has hit .169 / .218 / .282. Uggla has hit .174 / .296 / .174. Since hitting that homer against the Braves, Dan Uggla, a guy brought in to perhaps provide pop off the bench has had 2 XBH. TWO! No homers! He can't field! He doesn't run! He's kept his head above water by taking a few walks but come on.
Anyway, I don't see Rizzo doing something here because of what I said. Guys will get healthy and when that happens the bench improves. Also he probably can't get anything he wants cheap or with control.
4) What about the pen?
OK I do see something done about the pen, which I guess is good since most of you want the pen addressed and not the bench. But I don't see a Chapman type that'll cost an arm and a leg. Instead I see them trying to get a Carson Smith or Brandon Maurer type. Someone under control for a few years, who might not cost as much (in dollars or prospects) but could easily slide into the closer role in a post-Storen world.
Not happy about my bench/pen predictions? Sorry. I don't think the Lerners want to add salary and I don't think Rizzo wants to trade prospects for rentals. If Rizzo can't get a guy he likes long term or if he can't just pick up someone he might like for next to nothing (say... Aaron Hill if the D-backs eat almost all his salary) then I don't see any movement. Not with the team in leading the division. Talk to me again if the Mets blow them out 5 of 6.
5) Can the rotation keep it up?
Depends what you mean. If you are asking if they can still be really good, yes. Definitely. I'll admit I like Scherzer to slow down a bit. I think he's overly control focused now, if that's a thing and as the season wears on him, his goal of not missing the strike zone is going to turn into not missing bats... on a very minor level. You've seen it recently in late innings. That'll expand as he gets tired. Nothing crazy here. He'll still be really, really good. I'm just thinking he might fall to like 3rd or 4th in the Cy Young race. ZNN I trust in. I already said I like Stras to be fine. Gio or Fister might falter down the stretch but not both.
Now can it carry the team... I don't think so. Not carry. Maybe they have one more two rotation turn go around like they had earlier but putting in a month or more like that? I'm not going to bet on that. They'll be the strength, the rock the team relies on. Alone they can keep them around .500 and if the Mets don't push that'll be enough. But alone make the Nats special? I don't see it.
6) Are the Mets legit threat or not?
If they get a bat, yes. If not, no. That's my opinion. While I said I don't think the Nats rotation can carry them, I do think DeGrom, Harvey and Syndergaard could carry a Mets team with an average-ish offense. They don't have that. They have two injured arms in Wheeler and Matz that could be dealt but they questions are the same one the Nats face - Will they take on salary? Will they trade the future for now? It's getting late in the year so if they don't do it soon, I don't see them doing it at all. There's only so much even the right trade can bring you with only 60 games left.
Monday, July 13, 2015
Monday Quickie - Questions
Back at work and only a couple hundred of email to sort through. So while I do that you ponder the questions facing the Nats over the 2nd half of the year and we can meet back tomorrow to talk more about it.
1) When will all the guys come back from injury and is that even a good thing?
The Nats have five key players out right now in Stras, Werth, Zimm, Span and Rendon. They could all be back by the beginning of August, though there isn't a set timetable for anyone just yet. In theory that would be great but anyone that saw Werth and Zimm hit while they were "healthy" has to have reservations. After a strong start Span had hit an slappy .279 (.315 SLG) in his last 29 games. Rendon looked ok, but was failing to generate power. Strasburg looked good in his brief return but was really bad before that and the Nats have options at SP.
It's not hard to argue that having all these guys back may not actually help the team.
2) In the meantime, and after that, what to do about Desmond?
I like Ian and I don't think this is all about his skills eroding, so I think there will be bounce back, but there is no denying that he's been one of the worst offensive players in baseball for the past month and a half hitting .137 / .179 / .229 since May 29th. That's a bat that is nearly impossible to keep in the lineup. There's an easy out if Rendon can ever come back healthy. As painful as it may be, sitting Ian for a Espinosa, Yuney, Rendon IF makes the most sense. But what if Rendon doesn't come back soon?
As long as the pitching remains strong, the Nats can carry Ian and that seems the likely scenario, but fans will be tempted by the do-it-all promise of Trea Turner sitting in AAA.
3) Any improvement to the bench?
If everyone comes back healthy and hits the Nats have a nice little bench there with Espinosa (let's say Ian is hitting in this scenario), Taylor, and Robinson along with the perfectly usable Lobaton. There's no need for another bat. But the opening phrase "if everyone comes back healthy and hits" is a pipe dream. So do they grab another bat in case everything stops falling in for Yuney and Danny cools and Robinson cools and they are left grasping at straws?
It's a difficult position for Rizzo, because you could be bringing in a guy that plays a couple weeks then rides the pine the rest of the year or he could be asked to bat 5th through the playoffs. The injury and play situations as it is right now leave both as distinct possibilities. Trade big and you could waste a propsect. Trade little and you could waste a season.
4) What about the pen?
The Nats are having a devil of a time finding a bridge from starter to Storen. Going into July it looked like they were settling in on Janssen and Roark having major roles. Which two relievers had the worst July? Roark (ok maybe not fair but true!) and Janssen. Every button Williams pushing ends up not working out. Perhaps that turns itself around by why not just give him a button that only ends up with success when you push it?
5) Can the rotation keep it up?
It was supposed to be potentially the best rotation ever, but it had a terrible time getting out of the gates. From Mid June through the holiday, however, the rotation put together a remarkable stretch that carried an offense that would start to falter again. It had a iffy last week before the break but if you ask baseball followers what they think they'd probably say that that run you saw was something that could easily be repeated. Will it though with Strasburg out and Fister yet to return to form (He and Roark put up the only non-good outings from the 19th of June to July 5th)?
6) Are the Mets legit threat or not?
This will be answered real soon as the Mets and Nats meet six times in the next 16 games. Just when you thought the Nats were pulling away, sweeping SF and putting 4+ games between them and the Mets with only unimpressive Cincy and Baltimore left before the break, they stumble and the Mets streak. The Nats have a dsitinct schedule advantage in the past two months. Outside of a 6 game LA/SF stretch in mid August and a STL series it's nothing but patsies and Mets from August on. Step on the Mets now and they should cruise. Let the Mets in and things may get interesting.
Yes, I will note at this point the Nats have improved to the point they could make the 2nd WC not winning the division, but who wants that?
1) When will all the guys come back from injury and is that even a good thing?
The Nats have five key players out right now in Stras, Werth, Zimm, Span and Rendon. They could all be back by the beginning of August, though there isn't a set timetable for anyone just yet. In theory that would be great but anyone that saw Werth and Zimm hit while they were "healthy" has to have reservations. After a strong start Span had hit an slappy .279 (.315 SLG) in his last 29 games. Rendon looked ok, but was failing to generate power. Strasburg looked good in his brief return but was really bad before that and the Nats have options at SP.
It's not hard to argue that having all these guys back may not actually help the team.
2) In the meantime, and after that, what to do about Desmond?
I like Ian and I don't think this is all about his skills eroding, so I think there will be bounce back, but there is no denying that he's been one of the worst offensive players in baseball for the past month and a half hitting .137 / .179 / .229 since May 29th. That's a bat that is nearly impossible to keep in the lineup. There's an easy out if Rendon can ever come back healthy. As painful as it may be, sitting Ian for a Espinosa, Yuney, Rendon IF makes the most sense. But what if Rendon doesn't come back soon?
As long as the pitching remains strong, the Nats can carry Ian and that seems the likely scenario, but fans will be tempted by the do-it-all promise of Trea Turner sitting in AAA.
3) Any improvement to the bench?
If everyone comes back healthy and hits the Nats have a nice little bench there with Espinosa (let's say Ian is hitting in this scenario), Taylor, and Robinson along with the perfectly usable Lobaton. There's no need for another bat. But the opening phrase "if everyone comes back healthy and hits" is a pipe dream. So do they grab another bat in case everything stops falling in for Yuney and Danny cools and Robinson cools and they are left grasping at straws?
It's a difficult position for Rizzo, because you could be bringing in a guy that plays a couple weeks then rides the pine the rest of the year or he could be asked to bat 5th through the playoffs. The injury and play situations as it is right now leave both as distinct possibilities. Trade big and you could waste a propsect. Trade little and you could waste a season.
4) What about the pen?
The Nats are having a devil of a time finding a bridge from starter to Storen. Going into July it looked like they were settling in on Janssen and Roark having major roles. Which two relievers had the worst July? Roark (ok maybe not fair but true!) and Janssen. Every button Williams pushing ends up not working out. Perhaps that turns itself around by why not just give him a button that only ends up with success when you push it?
5) Can the rotation keep it up?
It was supposed to be potentially the best rotation ever, but it had a terrible time getting out of the gates. From Mid June through the holiday, however, the rotation put together a remarkable stretch that carried an offense that would start to falter again. It had a iffy last week before the break but if you ask baseball followers what they think they'd probably say that that run you saw was something that could easily be repeated. Will it though with Strasburg out and Fister yet to return to form (He and Roark put up the only non-good outings from the 19th of June to July 5th)?
6) Are the Mets legit threat or not?
This will be answered real soon as the Mets and Nats meet six times in the next 16 games. Just when you thought the Nats were pulling away, sweeping SF and putting 4+ games between them and the Mets with only unimpressive Cincy and Baltimore left before the break, they stumble and the Mets streak. The Nats have a dsitinct schedule advantage in the past two months. Outside of a 6 game LA/SF stretch in mid August and a STL series it's nothing but patsies and Mets from August on. Step on the Mets now and they should cruise. Let the Mets in and things may get interesting.
Yes, I will note at this point the Nats have improved to the point they could make the 2nd WC not winning the division, but who wants that?
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Rizzo's roster was imperfect but more than good enough, how will Rizzo's dealing be?
At this point in the injury train we have to stop blaming Rizzo for one thing and start questioning him about another.
It's time to stop blaming Rizzo for the roster construction. It's tempting to say the Nats should have players that are good enough to sub in for injured players over a long time but five injured players? Werth and Span in the OF, Zimm, Escobar and Rendon in the infield? I think it's completely fair to have one guy in the holster for each broad location, someone that can play a month or two. And the Nats had general plans in those cases (Espinosa and Taylor) that were passable. I think a team with injury risks (which the Nats arguably had at every position but shortstop) should also have a 2nd guy on the bench you don't feel bad about playing in shorter bursts. I didn't like the Nats make-up there initially (Moore? Uggla? denDekker?) but Clint Robinson has made himself decent player of this type.
In the pen - well it hasn't really cleared up. I don't like it but it's clear that a decision was made to see if Treinen, Barrett, Grace, etc. can become cheap decent long-term fill ins at the end of games, or maybe the injury returning Casey Janssen can be a steal of a pick-up and they were going to run with that basic idea. They ran through other cheap young options from the minors, picked up Carpenter as another steal attempt. You don't love it but the Thornton, Carpenter, Janssen, Rivero they've landed at is currently fine.
So maybe Rizzo could have used one more reliable bat, and definitely the team needed that 2nd dependable arm in the pen rather than going with Storen and the pen of crossed fingers. Great we can get on Rizzo about that next year if we want. But the Nats are in first and could cruise to the East division titile... as long as they don't screw it up. The "should have built a better X" time is passed. Now we come to the "Fix in trade" part of the season. And will Rizzo do anything?
What do I feel needs to be done? Get that bat needed, get that arm needed, of course. There are two goals for the next few months. One is trying to get the team into the playoffs. These moves may not be necessary to do that. Obviously the team that played last game may not make it but surely more good players will come back from injury than go away... right? Right? I still feel good about winning the division and hope you do to.
The other goal is to get the best possible team into the playoffs. To maximize your chances of winning, however small that maximization would be. It's here where I really think the Nats should get those players. The last two times in the playoffs the Nats went with the "damn the flaws, if we're good enough to get in then we're good enough to win" game plan. They didn't get out of the first round. As I've said before if they want the players to give 100% toward winning, I want to see the team give 100% to winning. Fix the flaws as best you can.
People will say these fixes don't guarantee anything and they are right. They don't. Increasing your chance of winning a series from 35% to 40% is far from a guarantee. But dammit it's time to do this. To try as hard as you can across the board. If not now, when?
It's time to stop blaming Rizzo for the roster construction. It's tempting to say the Nats should have players that are good enough to sub in for injured players over a long time but five injured players? Werth and Span in the OF, Zimm, Escobar and Rendon in the infield? I think it's completely fair to have one guy in the holster for each broad location, someone that can play a month or two. And the Nats had general plans in those cases (Espinosa and Taylor) that were passable. I think a team with injury risks (which the Nats arguably had at every position but shortstop) should also have a 2nd guy on the bench you don't feel bad about playing in shorter bursts. I didn't like the Nats make-up there initially (Moore? Uggla? denDekker?) but Clint Robinson has made himself decent player of this type.
In the pen - well it hasn't really cleared up. I don't like it but it's clear that a decision was made to see if Treinen, Barrett, Grace, etc. can become cheap decent long-term fill ins at the end of games, or maybe the injury returning Casey Janssen can be a steal of a pick-up and they were going to run with that basic idea. They ran through other cheap young options from the minors, picked up Carpenter as another steal attempt. You don't love it but the Thornton, Carpenter, Janssen, Rivero they've landed at is currently fine.
So maybe Rizzo could have used one more reliable bat, and definitely the team needed that 2nd dependable arm in the pen rather than going with Storen and the pen of crossed fingers. Great we can get on Rizzo about that next year if we want. But the Nats are in first and could cruise to the East division titile... as long as they don't screw it up. The "should have built a better X" time is passed. Now we come to the "Fix in trade" part of the season. And will Rizzo do anything?
What do I feel needs to be done? Get that bat needed, get that arm needed, of course. There are two goals for the next few months. One is trying to get the team into the playoffs. These moves may not be necessary to do that. Obviously the team that played last game may not make it but surely more good players will come back from injury than go away... right? Right? I still feel good about winning the division and hope you do to.
The other goal is to get the best possible team into the playoffs. To maximize your chances of winning, however small that maximization would be. It's here where I really think the Nats should get those players. The last two times in the playoffs the Nats went with the "damn the flaws, if we're good enough to get in then we're good enough to win" game plan. They didn't get out of the first round. As I've said before if they want the players to give 100% toward winning, I want to see the team give 100% to winning. Fix the flaws as best you can.
People will say these fixes don't guarantee anything and they are right. They don't. Increasing your chance of winning a series from 35% to 40% is far from a guarantee. But dammit it's time to do this. To try as hard as you can across the board. If not now, when?
Monday, July 06, 2015
Monday Quickie
I'm in and out this week so forgive any short post you may see.
Nats are good. The rest of the east is bad. The only question right now is if the Mets can hold on over the next few weeks (thanks All-Star break) so those series of 6 games between the 20th of July and the 2nd of August matter (for the Nats - they'll likely matter for the Mets in some way). Strasburg's injury doesn't help (he looked fairly strong before it) but the Nats can cover one SP injury. It's two that kind of sets the mouse trap of losing in motion. I'd rather see Ross than Roark if Stras isn't expected to be gone long but either will work.
The offense still isn't together, nor should it be with Werth, Zimm and Rendon out. This is just a waiting game and then a watching game to see if those guys are any good after coming back. I'm not enthused based on how they were playing before but at least there is hope as opposed to a "maybe people who aren't good will get magically good" that other teams might have to rely on.
I could still see a move for a relief pitcher (won't happen because they aren't crashing and burning right now, Rizzo can't take on salary, won't part with pieces for a rental, sees RP as fungible) or a bat (won't happen because it's too expensive piece wise). The Nats are winning and can take the East will little help so I don't expect them to bother. Instead the injury returns will serve as the added pieces. Will that be smart? Don't know.
Nats are good. The rest of the east is bad. The only question right now is if the Mets can hold on over the next few weeks (thanks All-Star break) so those series of 6 games between the 20th of July and the 2nd of August matter (for the Nats - they'll likely matter for the Mets in some way). Strasburg's injury doesn't help (he looked fairly strong before it) but the Nats can cover one SP injury. It's two that kind of sets the mouse trap of losing in motion. I'd rather see Ross than Roark if Stras isn't expected to be gone long but either will work.
The offense still isn't together, nor should it be with Werth, Zimm and Rendon out. This is just a waiting game and then a watching game to see if those guys are any good after coming back. I'm not enthused based on how they were playing before but at least there is hope as opposed to a "maybe people who aren't good will get magically good" that other teams might have to rely on.
I could still see a move for a relief pitcher (won't happen because they aren't crashing and burning right now, Rizzo can't take on salary, won't part with pieces for a rental, sees RP as fungible) or a bat (won't happen because it's too expensive piece wise). The Nats are winning and can take the East will little help so I don't expect them to bother. Instead the injury returns will serve as the added pieces. Will that be smart? Don't know.
Thursday, July 02, 2015
Doug Fister
Fister was important to last year's Nats team, pitching very well. Fister is a free agent after this year and all indications are that he is going.
No one seems to care.
Other than the "and Fister is really good" tag lines that follow discussions with anyone that half-follows the Nats, there is rarely any one talking about him. Why is that? Is it because he has only been here a year? Is it because he didn't turn down the Nats, they turned down him (or at least stopped talking to him)? I just find it curious that's all.
But really it's helpful because the Nats should not resign Doug Fister. He'll be 32 next year. He's pitched one full season in the last three. His FB speed and strike out rates have been on a steady decline since 2012. Coming into this year he was a bad bet for anything more than a 2 year contract in my opinion.
Of course the question then for Nats fans is not is he going to be ok the next couple of years, it's is he going to be ok in 2015. And... well I don't know.
Those concerning things coming into this year have all reared their ugly heads. He's been injured again. His FB speed is way down. His K rate is down again among the lowest of starters. Along with that his HR rate is up, his walk rate is up and his bread and butter, getting guys to hit ground balls, yeah that's not happening as much this year. 54.3% GBs in 2013, 48.9% GBs in 2014, 41.4% so far this year.
Of course it's only been 10 starts and this is only his third post injury return. He could just be revving up. Or he could have gone over the cliff we've mentioned occasionally with him.
What else can we say...
He's getting hit harder (Hard% 25.7% last year, 30.8% this year), they are pulling the ball more (40.9% -> 46.6%), he's relying on his FB was more than he used to (50.7% -> 63.7% -> 70.3%) , guys are making more contact (86.8% -> 88.8%) and missing the ball less in general (8.2% -> 6.1% -> 5.3%).
Basically it's mostly explainable by the lack of FB speed. He's throwing an easier to hit ball and guys are hitting it, harder. However some of these trends are more than just last year to this year. Why didn't we see more problems last year? Well he got guys to hit balls weaker, on the ground more, and had a better defense behind him. He may not have missed bats but he made their contact bad. Whether that was movement or pitch sequence, I don't know.
One thing I can tell you is that he's not leaving the ball up more often. He is more down in the zone than he might have ever been. Is he being too consistent and not spreading the ball around? Is he not being as good at pounding certain spots that worked before (outside to lefties, insider or low and away to righties)? That's possible but why fewer groundballs? I'm still thinking it's a speed thing, not a location one.
No one seems to care.
Other than the "and Fister is really good" tag lines that follow discussions with anyone that half-follows the Nats, there is rarely any one talking about him. Why is that? Is it because he has only been here a year? Is it because he didn't turn down the Nats, they turned down him (or at least stopped talking to him)? I just find it curious that's all.
But really it's helpful because the Nats should not resign Doug Fister. He'll be 32 next year. He's pitched one full season in the last three. His FB speed and strike out rates have been on a steady decline since 2012. Coming into this year he was a bad bet for anything more than a 2 year contract in my opinion.
Of course the question then for Nats fans is not is he going to be ok the next couple of years, it's is he going to be ok in 2015. And... well I don't know.
Those concerning things coming into this year have all reared their ugly heads. He's been injured again. His FB speed is way down. His K rate is down again among the lowest of starters. Along with that his HR rate is up, his walk rate is up and his bread and butter, getting guys to hit ground balls, yeah that's not happening as much this year. 54.3% GBs in 2013, 48.9% GBs in 2014, 41.4% so far this year.
Of course it's only been 10 starts and this is only his third post injury return. He could just be revving up. Or he could have gone over the cliff we've mentioned occasionally with him.
What else can we say...
He's getting hit harder (Hard% 25.7% last year, 30.8% this year), they are pulling the ball more (40.9% -> 46.6%), he's relying on his FB was more than he used to (50.7% -> 63.7% -> 70.3%) , guys are making more contact (86.8% -> 88.8%) and missing the ball less in general (8.2% -> 6.1% -> 5.3%).
Basically it's mostly explainable by the lack of FB speed. He's throwing an easier to hit ball and guys are hitting it, harder. However some of these trends are more than just last year to this year. Why didn't we see more problems last year? Well he got guys to hit balls weaker, on the ground more, and had a better defense behind him. He may not have missed bats but he made their contact bad. Whether that was movement or pitch sequence, I don't know.
One thing I can tell you is that he's not leaving the ball up more often. He is more down in the zone than he might have ever been. Is he being too consistent and not spreading the ball around? Is he not being as good at pounding certain spots that worked before (outside to lefties, insider or low and away to righties)? That's possible but why fewer groundballs? I'm still thinking it's a speed thing, not a location one.
Wednesday, July 01, 2015
A tale of two FAs
We're getting dreadfully close to entering the dog days of summer early, aren't we? That's not really a complaint. The Nats' pitching rotation has come back to life carrying the rest of the uneven injury prone talent to first place and slowly pulling away from the rest of the maybe completely not good NL East. If the Nats don't stumble soon, I just don't see how the season can break any other way than winning the division.
That NL East sucking might be a topic you are tired of but it is probably going to be a sticking point for the rest of the year. The Nats are clearly good, dozens of prognosticators aren't wrong, but how good are they? Are they very good or are they just very good in comparison? Unless the Nats start dominating the non NL East competition (they are below .500 against them right now) this is going to hang over their heads until the playoffs. (And it'll be decided by the playoffs even though that's completely not a fair way to do it, win or lose)
But what are you going to do? The Nats have to deal with the hand that has been dealt to them so if they win the pot, we can't worry too much about whether they won it with a pair of 10s or with a flush. At least we can't worry about it in early July. We'll look at the team come the All-Star break, see where they could improve through moves (even though none will probably take place). We'll look at the team come September and see how they are setting up for the playoffs. Until then we wait. (Hopefully - injuries can derail the best of trains)
Last night was a microcosm of the season for Jordan Zimmermann (7.2IP, 6 H 6K, 0BB last night) and Ian Desmond (0-4 4Ks), who both refused big, but below market, deals from the Nats in order to cash in on upcoming free agency. We should bear them no ill-will for these decisions as they both did what anyone would do. Not "trying to get paid!" but "trying to get paid fairly". However, things have fallen apart for Ian, while ZNN seems in line to get a big deal
Ian Desmond had a bad start to the season hitting .211 / .279 / .316 in his first 24 games. Really that isn't far off the typical off month for Ian but it was coupled with a crazy 9 errors in his first 20 games. It's harder to ignore an poor hitting month when you hurt the team in other ways too. The next 24 games were actually really good for Ian (.309 / .337 / .495 with 4 errors) but hardly anyone noticed for several reasons. As far as the middle infield was concerned, Yunel Escobar had a fast start and continued to hit, while Danny was surprising everyone with his comeback. Mostly though Bryce turned into a monster and overshadowed everyone. So the "oh ok Ian is back to being normal" that should have happened never did. As soon as Bryce returned to mere mortal status, and we could pay attention to everyone else, Ian floundered again. That's actually putting it lightly. Ian started the worst slump of his career. He's hit .149 / .187 / .248 in the past 27 games. He may be righting the ship (he hit .123 / .163 / .173 for the first 22, .250 / .286 /.550 in the past 5), and his error clip has been normal the past 50+ games. but at this point as far as Nats fans are concerned he stunk, they looked away, and when they looked back he still stunk. They are ready for a replacement. Difo and Turner are theoretical replacements and Rendon being healthy looms over the MI.
It's a difficult spot for Ian. I don't see any reason why he shouldn't get to play through it. His bat, if right, would be more influential than Danny (who's been slumping) or Yuney (who's been lucky) and the team should be comfortably ahead. But if the Nats want to prepare for a post-Ian world, why not sit him? Because it would show all your FAs to be and possibly coming in how you treat players? Possibly, but FAs are 99% motivated by money, so it's a small worry. Short of it - Ian better right himself before Rendon is back or he may not get that chance. He'll still make money, but the huge deal we thought he might get will have faded away.
As for ZNN everyone talked about his FB speed to begin the year. I wasn't sure why everyone cared that much. Sure it was slow, but outside a disastrous outing in Boston he still pitched well. Isn't that what matters most? Well, as far as that's concerned it's been climbing ever since. Is it still down on the past few years? Yes. But it was almost 2 MPH slower in April, to a mile and a half slower in May, to less than a mile slower in June. Consequently we see the one worry area of his pitching (the K/9 numbers being low) getting better each month. Maybe this tells Jordan something about his Spring Training approach that needs to change as he ages but I have few worries about his arm. I have no worries about his ability to pitch. His control is as good as ever. His ability to keep the ball in the park is still great. The K's give him ace potential but even without it he's still a top of the rotation type pitcher. (Even shaking off rust he's 28th in the NL in ERA).
Short of it - Jordan is going to get paid. Of the deep FA class Samardzjia, Fister, and Latos are all having off years so far. Fister, Latos, and Cueto all have injury questions hanging over them. Cueto and Samardzjia could be dealt and in this day and age teams are more likely to wrap up acquisitions than go for 1 year rentals. This leaves Price, Greinke and ZNN as the likely top of the class. You really never know what Greinke will do but personally I'd be surprised if he leaves LA. He's pitched very well there after a mildly disappointing stint in Milwaukee. Price has a decent chance to stay in Detroit. Worst case ZNN ends up 4th on a list of FA guys, but the way I see it he'll likely be one of the top 2 available. That's a dump truck full of money situation.
That NL East sucking might be a topic you are tired of but it is probably going to be a sticking point for the rest of the year. The Nats are clearly good, dozens of prognosticators aren't wrong, but how good are they? Are they very good or are they just very good in comparison? Unless the Nats start dominating the non NL East competition (they are below .500 against them right now) this is going to hang over their heads until the playoffs. (And it'll be decided by the playoffs even though that's completely not a fair way to do it, win or lose)
But what are you going to do? The Nats have to deal with the hand that has been dealt to them so if they win the pot, we can't worry too much about whether they won it with a pair of 10s or with a flush. At least we can't worry about it in early July. We'll look at the team come the All-Star break, see where they could improve through moves (even though none will probably take place). We'll look at the team come September and see how they are setting up for the playoffs. Until then we wait. (Hopefully - injuries can derail the best of trains)
Last night was a microcosm of the season for Jordan Zimmermann (7.2IP, 6 H 6K, 0BB last night) and Ian Desmond (0-4 4Ks), who both refused big, but below market, deals from the Nats in order to cash in on upcoming free agency. We should bear them no ill-will for these decisions as they both did what anyone would do. Not "trying to get paid!" but "trying to get paid fairly". However, things have fallen apart for Ian, while ZNN seems in line to get a big deal
Ian Desmond had a bad start to the season hitting .211 / .279 / .316 in his first 24 games. Really that isn't far off the typical off month for Ian but it was coupled with a crazy 9 errors in his first 20 games. It's harder to ignore an poor hitting month when you hurt the team in other ways too. The next 24 games were actually really good for Ian (.309 / .337 / .495 with 4 errors) but hardly anyone noticed for several reasons. As far as the middle infield was concerned, Yunel Escobar had a fast start and continued to hit, while Danny was surprising everyone with his comeback. Mostly though Bryce turned into a monster and overshadowed everyone. So the "oh ok Ian is back to being normal" that should have happened never did. As soon as Bryce returned to mere mortal status, and we could pay attention to everyone else, Ian floundered again. That's actually putting it lightly. Ian started the worst slump of his career. He's hit .149 / .187 / .248 in the past 27 games. He may be righting the ship (he hit .123 / .163 / .173 for the first 22, .250 / .286 /.550 in the past 5), and his error clip has been normal the past 50+ games. but at this point as far as Nats fans are concerned he stunk, they looked away, and when they looked back he still stunk. They are ready for a replacement. Difo and Turner are theoretical replacements and Rendon being healthy looms over the MI.
It's a difficult spot for Ian. I don't see any reason why he shouldn't get to play through it. His bat, if right, would be more influential than Danny (who's been slumping) or Yuney (who's been lucky) and the team should be comfortably ahead. But if the Nats want to prepare for a post-Ian world, why not sit him? Because it would show all your FAs to be and possibly coming in how you treat players? Possibly, but FAs are 99% motivated by money, so it's a small worry. Short of it - Ian better right himself before Rendon is back or he may not get that chance. He'll still make money, but the huge deal we thought he might get will have faded away.
As for ZNN everyone talked about his FB speed to begin the year. I wasn't sure why everyone cared that much. Sure it was slow, but outside a disastrous outing in Boston he still pitched well. Isn't that what matters most? Well, as far as that's concerned it's been climbing ever since. Is it still down on the past few years? Yes. But it was almost 2 MPH slower in April, to a mile and a half slower in May, to less than a mile slower in June. Consequently we see the one worry area of his pitching (the K/9 numbers being low) getting better each month. Maybe this tells Jordan something about his Spring Training approach that needs to change as he ages but I have few worries about his arm. I have no worries about his ability to pitch. His control is as good as ever. His ability to keep the ball in the park is still great. The K's give him ace potential but even without it he's still a top of the rotation type pitcher. (Even shaking off rust he's 28th in the NL in ERA).
Short of it - Jordan is going to get paid. Of the deep FA class Samardzjia, Fister, and Latos are all having off years so far. Fister, Latos, and Cueto all have injury questions hanging over them. Cueto and Samardzjia could be dealt and in this day and age teams are more likely to wrap up acquisitions than go for 1 year rentals. This leaves Price, Greinke and ZNN as the likely top of the class. You really never know what Greinke will do but personally I'd be surprised if he leaves LA. He's pitched very well there after a mildly disappointing stint in Milwaukee. Price has a decent chance to stay in Detroit. Worst case ZNN ends up 4th on a list of FA guys, but the way I see it he'll likely be one of the top 2 available. That's a dump truck full of money situation.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
What happened in June
It was the worst of times, it was the best of time. June was a schizophrenic month in a schizophrenic year for the Nats. The first part of the month continued a losing streak that started a few days into May. They would go 3-8 those first 12 days of June (3-11 overall on the streak) to drop them from up a 1.5 to down the same (yes that means the Mets went 6-5 ish during this time - again hooray for this division). Then the Nats turned it on and before the 2nd double header loss they go 11-3 to get right back to the 9 games over they were a month ago. Ah symmetry
Offensively we've talkd before about the odd distribution of scores and how their standing (currently 2nd in the NL in runs scored) isn't quite reflective of the performance on the field. I think it comes down to Werth and Zimmerman being hurt then out, and Rendon being out then hurt. Without these guys in the line-up the Nats become a very free-swinging team. Moore, Ramos, Taylor, Yuney, Ian all have walk-rates in the lower half of the majors. Espinosa is seeing his walk-rate drop like a rock. This leaves Bryce and Span as the only two players right now who can work their way on base. Also without these guys hitting like they should when healthy, the team loses a lot of power. Moore, Taylor*, Yuney, Ian (hey that sounds familiar) aren't hitting for much pop. Again Danny, who had been good before, is dropping here too. Ramos here takes the place of Span (who is having exactly the type of power month you'd be afraid he'd have after he started out with so much pop in the bat - 4 doubles and nothing else closing in on 100 PA)
What this all means is that the Nats offense right now is dependent on a lot of base hits strung together and Bryce Harper. That's not terrible because these guys are hitting for average Yuney is at .324, Span at .305, Rendon at .290, Robnison at .272 in limited play, but you can see why the offense will bounce around a lot. Walks provide stability in base-runners when luck (or great fielding) is working against you. Power provides stability in run driving in the same situations. Without those working for the Nats we're going to keep seeing peaks and valleys, depending on how many guys are hot/lucky or cold/unlucky at the same time. Now if we can get Rendon healthy again and Werth and/or Zimm back and hitting...
Pitching wise - hopefully June is the month where the Nats rotation turnes the corner. I don't think I have to tell you anything more here, but what the hell. One of the hallmarks of the Nats last year was control. Remember they had that long stretch without giving up a walk or something like that. In June we saw that again, Fister (0.73 BB/9), Ross in 3 starts (0.89), Max (0.93), ZNN (1.44), Stras in 2 (1.50) all had superior numbers. When you couple that with either low HR/FB rates or high K/9 rates (or both) you get superior pitching. Will it last? I have no issues with Max or ZNN. Strasburg and Fister warrant closer attention, as would anyone coming back from injury but so far so good. I worry most about Gio, as his K-rate has dropped significantly and his BB-rate hasn't fallen with it. His saving grace is that he's become a complete Derek Lowe type GB pitcher all of a sudden. In theory, he'll give up runs, that'll happen with baserunners and a lot of balls in play, but won't get killed that often. It's working now but such a total change strikes me as odd. I hope he can pull it off but I'm not buying it just yet.
Bullpen? Work in progress. Let's see if Matt can settle into a rhythm by the All-Star break. At least we can rely on Storen
*OK Moore sucks, but where did Taylor's power go?
Offensively we've talkd before about the odd distribution of scores and how their standing (currently 2nd in the NL in runs scored) isn't quite reflective of the performance on the field. I think it comes down to Werth and Zimmerman being hurt then out, and Rendon being out then hurt. Without these guys in the line-up the Nats become a very free-swinging team. Moore, Ramos, Taylor, Yuney, Ian all have walk-rates in the lower half of the majors. Espinosa is seeing his walk-rate drop like a rock. This leaves Bryce and Span as the only two players right now who can work their way on base. Also without these guys hitting like they should when healthy, the team loses a lot of power. Moore, Taylor*, Yuney, Ian (hey that sounds familiar) aren't hitting for much pop. Again Danny, who had been good before, is dropping here too. Ramos here takes the place of Span (who is having exactly the type of power month you'd be afraid he'd have after he started out with so much pop in the bat - 4 doubles and nothing else closing in on 100 PA)
What this all means is that the Nats offense right now is dependent on a lot of base hits strung together and Bryce Harper. That's not terrible because these guys are hitting for average Yuney is at .324, Span at .305, Rendon at .290, Robnison at .272 in limited play, but you can see why the offense will bounce around a lot. Walks provide stability in base-runners when luck (or great fielding) is working against you. Power provides stability in run driving in the same situations. Without those working for the Nats we're going to keep seeing peaks and valleys, depending on how many guys are hot/lucky or cold/unlucky at the same time. Now if we can get Rendon healthy again and Werth and/or Zimm back and hitting...
Pitching wise - hopefully June is the month where the Nats rotation turnes the corner. I don't think I have to tell you anything more here, but what the hell. One of the hallmarks of the Nats last year was control. Remember they had that long stretch without giving up a walk or something like that. In June we saw that again, Fister (0.73 BB/9), Ross in 3 starts (0.89), Max (0.93), ZNN (1.44), Stras in 2 (1.50) all had superior numbers. When you couple that with either low HR/FB rates or high K/9 rates (or both) you get superior pitching. Will it last? I have no issues with Max or ZNN. Strasburg and Fister warrant closer attention, as would anyone coming back from injury but so far so good. I worry most about Gio, as his K-rate has dropped significantly and his BB-rate hasn't fallen with it. His saving grace is that he's become a complete Derek Lowe type GB pitcher all of a sudden. In theory, he'll give up runs, that'll happen with baserunners and a lot of balls in play, but won't get killed that often. It's working now but such a total change strikes me as odd. I hope he can pull it off but I'm not buying it just yet.
Bullpen? Work in progress. Let's see if Matt can settle into a rhythm by the All-Star break. At least we can rely on Storen
*OK Moore sucks, but where did Taylor's power go?
Monday, June 29, 2015
Monday Quickie - hanging around
1 0 2 1 1 0 2 2
Those were the runs given up by the Nats during their 8 game win streak.
1 0 0 0 0 0 2 2
Those were the runs given up by the Nats' starters during the same stretch
Gonna win a lot of games when you pitch like that.
The only real complaint I have about the weekend was the use of Roark as the spot starter. Roark started the year and the "emergency - break glass" guy who could take over if a starter went down for a few weeks. Right now though that spot has to go to Joe Ross. Not because Ross is guaranteed that much better a pitcher, but because Roark is being used and is needed elsewhere. What if you need an arm just for one day and you don't want to through Ross off kilter? Use whoever. Just don't start Roark and effectively make him unusable for 3-4 games.
I can see stretching him out again if, god forbid, two starters are out again for extended periods of time. He's better than the AAAA Jordan or the not quite ready Cole. But otherwise? Roll the dice with anyone else.
Meanwhile the Mets are hanging around, taking four in a row. It doesn't concern me in a "Look out! Here comes the Mets!" way. It's more of a way to keep the Nats on their toes and a reminder that this year's Mets are better than last year's Braves. A healthy Nats team should still win the division easily, but a banged up Nats team with the healthy guys playing below expectations? That team at least has to worry about luck and timing working against them - as you saw over the first 60 games or so. If the Mets make a move and the Nats take another big injury? Things change. But just as easily it could work in reverse and the Nats would be on cruise control.
Starting tomorrow the Nats can pretty much end Atlanta's division hopes before they hita series of tougher games heading into and then out of the All-Star break. San Fran, Cincy (not a good team but did sweep the Nats earlier), Baltimore, BREAK, Dodgers, Mets, Pittsburgh, Miami, Mets. I don't get the sense that this team will put the pedal down, but I expect this week as they play Atlanta, SF, and Cincy that they'll put more room between them and the Mets (Cubs, Dodgers, Giants) and then it'll just be a matter of slowly pulling away from the Mets. We'll see how large those two Mets series loom when we get closer to them, tiny chance they are huge, better chance the first one is the Mets last gasp, small chance they barely matter at all.
Those were the runs given up by the Nats during their 8 game win streak.
1 0 0 0 0 0 2 2
Those were the runs given up by the Nats' starters during the same stretch
Gonna win a lot of games when you pitch like that.
The only real complaint I have about the weekend was the use of Roark as the spot starter. Roark started the year and the "emergency - break glass" guy who could take over if a starter went down for a few weeks. Right now though that spot has to go to Joe Ross. Not because Ross is guaranteed that much better a pitcher, but because Roark is being used and is needed elsewhere. What if you need an arm just for one day and you don't want to through Ross off kilter? Use whoever. Just don't start Roark and effectively make him unusable for 3-4 games.
I can see stretching him out again if, god forbid, two starters are out again for extended periods of time. He's better than the AAAA Jordan or the not quite ready Cole. But otherwise? Roll the dice with anyone else.
Meanwhile the Mets are hanging around, taking four in a row. It doesn't concern me in a "Look out! Here comes the Mets!" way. It's more of a way to keep the Nats on their toes and a reminder that this year's Mets are better than last year's Braves. A healthy Nats team should still win the division easily, but a banged up Nats team with the healthy guys playing below expectations? That team at least has to worry about luck and timing working against them - as you saw over the first 60 games or so. If the Mets make a move and the Nats take another big injury? Things change. But just as easily it could work in reverse and the Nats would be on cruise control.
Starting tomorrow the Nats can pretty much end Atlanta's division hopes before they hita series of tougher games heading into and then out of the All-Star break. San Fran, Cincy (not a good team but did sweep the Nats earlier), Baltimore, BREAK, Dodgers, Mets, Pittsburgh, Miami, Mets. I don't get the sense that this team will put the pedal down, but I expect this week as they play Atlanta, SF, and Cincy that they'll put more room between them and the Mets (Cubs, Dodgers, Giants) and then it'll just be a matter of slowly pulling away from the Mets. We'll see how large those two Mets series loom when we get closer to them, tiny chance they are huge, better chance the first one is the Mets last gasp, small chance they barely matter at all.
Friday, June 26, 2015
It's still the pitching
Hot potato goes over to Scherzer again who has allowed 1 hit in 18 innings.
There isn't a good reason why this pitching dominance can't keep going on a little longer. The Nats are on a streak where they haven't faced a decent offense in a while. Milwaukee is bad, Tampa is bad, Pittsburgh is below average, Atlanta without Freeman is not good, and now Philadelphia, worst in either league.
Did I hear "Johnny VanderMeer"? (hopefully not because even no-hitting a bad team is extremely hard)
Six win in 7 days, it can't all be the starting pitching though, can it? Well, yeah it sort of can. The relief pitching has merely been ok, preserving Ross' game and a couple of blowouts, but giving up runs in three straight games including the two close ones with Atlanta. The offense managed some runs during this time but that included some error filled rallies. You may be surprised there are as many Nats struggling at the plate over the last week (Desmond, Escobar, Espinosa, Span) and doing well (Rendon, Bryce, Taylor, Ramos).
The Rendon thing is the most exciting on the surface and the least believable when you dig in. Rendon has the ability to help Bryce put the team on their shoulders and carry the offense through dry spells. So seeing Rendon hit .583 in the past week is exciting. But he has only 1 XBH and is carrying a .700 BABIP, meaning this is more a function of balls finding holes than Rendon turning things on. In fact Rendon has been back 3 weeks now and has only 5 XBH all doubles. Bryce is Bryce - it curious that he hasn't walked in the past week (even forcibly) but let's give that more time before reading into it. Ramos is having some luck as well but really why I'm not getting excited over Wilson is that I want to see power from him and that switch hasn't been flipped yet.
So who am I excited by? Taylor. The kid is hitting but more importantly, the kid isn't striking out. Only twice in the past week, none in the past 4 games. Michael Taylor may or may not be a good player. I can't tell you that. But what could keep him from being a useful player are the Ks. Strikeout too often and the average drops too low and it doesn't matter how decent his pop is or his speed on the basepaths. If he can keep putting the ball in play, I like his chances to be at the very least a useful replacement, if not probably more.
So I looked at the good hitters and tore them apart, can I build up the bad ones? Yeah sure. Ian, Yuney and Span are all suffering from various BABIP luck issues. In a week a single game can change a view (Ian went from terrible to just bad after yesterday's HR) but Span is working some walks which is good in his position ahead of the big hitters. Only Danny is truly doing badly and completely earning it but right before that - like really just the game before this past 7 day period, he was doing quite well, so worrying about him suddenly reverting to old Danny is an overreaction.
Hmm talked alot about that offense didn't I? With the pitching this good the offense just has to be ok and I don't have any fears that it can jump that modest hurdle, either instinctively or looking at how these guys are performing. So sweep the Phillies and let's get on with it.
There isn't a good reason why this pitching dominance can't keep going on a little longer. The Nats are on a streak where they haven't faced a decent offense in a while. Milwaukee is bad, Tampa is bad, Pittsburgh is below average, Atlanta without Freeman is not good, and now Philadelphia, worst in either league.
Did I hear "Johnny VanderMeer"? (hopefully not because even no-hitting a bad team is extremely hard)
Six win in 7 days, it can't all be the starting pitching though, can it? Well, yeah it sort of can. The relief pitching has merely been ok, preserving Ross' game and a couple of blowouts, but giving up runs in three straight games including the two close ones with Atlanta. The offense managed some runs during this time but that included some error filled rallies. You may be surprised there are as many Nats struggling at the plate over the last week (Desmond, Escobar, Espinosa, Span) and doing well (Rendon, Bryce, Taylor, Ramos).
The Rendon thing is the most exciting on the surface and the least believable when you dig in. Rendon has the ability to help Bryce put the team on their shoulders and carry the offense through dry spells. So seeing Rendon hit .583 in the past week is exciting. But he has only 1 XBH and is carrying a .700 BABIP, meaning this is more a function of balls finding holes than Rendon turning things on. In fact Rendon has been back 3 weeks now and has only 5 XBH all doubles. Bryce is Bryce - it curious that he hasn't walked in the past week (even forcibly) but let's give that more time before reading into it. Ramos is having some luck as well but really why I'm not getting excited over Wilson is that I want to see power from him and that switch hasn't been flipped yet.
So who am I excited by? Taylor. The kid is hitting but more importantly, the kid isn't striking out. Only twice in the past week, none in the past 4 games. Michael Taylor may or may not be a good player. I can't tell you that. But what could keep him from being a useful player are the Ks. Strikeout too often and the average drops too low and it doesn't matter how decent his pop is or his speed on the basepaths. If he can keep putting the ball in play, I like his chances to be at the very least a useful replacement, if not probably more.
So I looked at the good hitters and tore them apart, can I build up the bad ones? Yeah sure. Ian, Yuney and Span are all suffering from various BABIP luck issues. In a week a single game can change a view (Ian went from terrible to just bad after yesterday's HR) but Span is working some walks which is good in his position ahead of the big hitters. Only Danny is truly doing badly and completely earning it but right before that - like really just the game before this past 7 day period, he was doing quite well, so worrying about him suddenly reverting to old Danny is an overreaction.
Hmm talked alot about that offense didn't I? With the pitching this good the offense just has to be ok and I don't have any fears that it can jump that modest hurdle, either instinctively or looking at how these guys are performing. So sweep the Phillies and let's get on with it.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
It's the pitching, stupid
Let's recap
Zimmermann 8 IP, 6 H, 0 BB, 3 K
Strasbrug 5 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 6 K
Gonzalez 7 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 4 K
Scherzer 9 IP, 0 H, 0BB, 10K
Ross 7.1 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 11K
Combined 36.1 IP, 20H, 4BB, 34K and oh yeah 1 ER
That's an ERA of 0.25, a WHIP of 0.66, a BB/9 of 0.99, and a K/9 of 8.42
This is why the Nats were pre-season favorites.
We talked about it Monday but it's worth going over again. We figured the offense could struggle. We figured the bullpen could struggle. These things though, weren't the difference between a good team and a mediocre one. They were the difference between a great team and a good one. The reason "good" was the base (and I take that to be high 80s/ low 90s) was because of that pitching staff because let's just say you quasi-averaged the last two seasons for these guys
Max : 3.02 ERA, 1.074 WHIP (in AL)
ZNN : 2.96, 1.08
Stras : 3.08, 1.09
Gio : 3.45, 1.23
Fister : 3.12, 1.21
and let's say you tweak Max down a little for the shift and the rest up a little because you are a pessimist
Max : 2.90 ERA, 1.00 WHIP
ZNN : 3.10, 1.15
Stras : 3.20, 1.15
Gio : 3.60, 1.30
Fister : 3.50, 1.25
Outside of assuming perfect health, you've done nothing crazy here. There is no magical improvements or bounce backs to best years ever. Just their recent typical year, even downgraded a bit because you tend to do that as you age.
Here's where those numbers would rank now in NL ERA
Max : 9th
ZNN : 14th
Stras : 16th
Gio : 26th
Fister : 25th
and this is now where you have some oddly low ERAs that should rise. Even if you expand past qualified and let in some more ERAs based on like 40IP you get 11th, 17th, 19th, 33rd, and 30th. You felt good about the Nats because if you were an optimist you had 3 #1 types and 2 #2s in your rotation. If you were a pessimist you broke it down as a #1, 2 #2s, and 2 #3s. Either way what you had was much better than what they had.
The Nats were baseline good because of this. But when this went didn't materialize for various reasons - that assumed baseline dropped and if the hitting failed (like it kinda has) and the bullpen failed (like it kinda has) you were looking at a .500 team. Now though it looks like the baseline has re-established itself. They aren't perfect, they are coming back from injury, but there is an energy I'm feeling now, a "you can't stop us because if you happen to beat us tonight we'll shut you down tomorrow" that's building. If the Nats can get a 3-4 more very good to great performances in the next rotation turn I think the attitude takes a definitive shift.
The early season run was because Bryce had become a monster for a month. The team was carried by him but that carried with it the knowledge that if this one guy slowed down merely to very very good (like he did) the train would roll to a stop (like it did). This run that maybe starting is different. If one guy struggles the next guy in line is there to pick him up. It's time to put these jokers in the rear view permanently. Sweep.
Notes
Why did I mock the NL East yesterday? Because two reasons (1) the NL East really does stinks. Sorry if that offends you, but it's true. There's no way to look at the records or numbers and come across with any other conclusion. If the Braves or Mets collapse we'll start the "worst division ever" discussions. This doesn't mean the Nats stink. It means they could get away with playing mediocre ball for almost 3 months and still find themselves in first. The Nats are a good to very good team, (I think we can agree that right now various issues keep them from having great potential) trying to find their way. Once they do (and I think they are right there) they'll trounce these clowns, and (2) I didn't want to right about what I was thinking which was - Strasburg comes back from injury, throws shutout ball and a chunk of Nats fans are talking about how the Braves offense stinks or how his off-speed was worrying. I honestly think there is a group out there who want to see Strasburg fail, if he can't be the awesome generation defining pitcher they thought he would be. And I hate that. (Strasburg did what we all want to see pitchers do - find out what's working that night and work it as well as you can.)
Also - yeah the Yankees lost 2 in a row to the Phillies. It happens. The Nats got swept by the Reds. The Reds aren't better than the Nats. Hell, the Yankees aren't better than the Nats. I can admit that. If the Yankees finish with a better record than the Nats I'd be shocked. Now granted a big part of that is NL East. But I'd say that if they were tossed today into a neutral division.
Next time I'll warn you that I may offend your NL East loving sensibilities.
Zimmermann 8 IP, 6 H, 0 BB, 3 K
Strasbrug 5 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 6 K
Gonzalez 7 IP, 4 H, 2 BB, 4 K
Scherzer 9 IP, 0 H, 0BB, 10K
Ross 7.1 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 11K
Combined 36.1 IP, 20H, 4BB, 34K and oh yeah 1 ER
That's an ERA of 0.25, a WHIP of 0.66, a BB/9 of 0.99, and a K/9 of 8.42
This is why the Nats were pre-season favorites.
We talked about it Monday but it's worth going over again. We figured the offense could struggle. We figured the bullpen could struggle. These things though, weren't the difference between a good team and a mediocre one. They were the difference between a great team and a good one. The reason "good" was the base (and I take that to be high 80s/ low 90s) was because of that pitching staff because let's just say you quasi-averaged the last two seasons for these guys
Max : 3.02 ERA, 1.074 WHIP (in AL)
ZNN : 2.96, 1.08
Stras : 3.08, 1.09
Gio : 3.45, 1.23
Fister : 3.12, 1.21
and let's say you tweak Max down a little for the shift and the rest up a little because you are a pessimist
Max : 2.90 ERA, 1.00 WHIP
ZNN : 3.10, 1.15
Stras : 3.20, 1.15
Gio : 3.60, 1.30
Fister : 3.50, 1.25
Outside of assuming perfect health, you've done nothing crazy here. There is no magical improvements or bounce backs to best years ever. Just their recent typical year, even downgraded a bit because you tend to do that as you age.
Here's where those numbers would rank now in NL ERA
Max : 9th
ZNN : 14th
Stras : 16th
Gio : 26th
Fister : 25th
and this is now where you have some oddly low ERAs that should rise. Even if you expand past qualified and let in some more ERAs based on like 40IP you get 11th, 17th, 19th, 33rd, and 30th. You felt good about the Nats because if you were an optimist you had 3 #1 types and 2 #2s in your rotation. If you were a pessimist you broke it down as a #1, 2 #2s, and 2 #3s. Either way what you had was much better than what they had.
The Nats were baseline good because of this. But when this went didn't materialize for various reasons - that assumed baseline dropped and if the hitting failed (like it kinda has) and the bullpen failed (like it kinda has) you were looking at a .500 team. Now though it looks like the baseline has re-established itself. They aren't perfect, they are coming back from injury, but there is an energy I'm feeling now, a "you can't stop us because if you happen to beat us tonight we'll shut you down tomorrow" that's building. If the Nats can get a 3-4 more very good to great performances in the next rotation turn I think the attitude takes a definitive shift.
The early season run was because Bryce had become a monster for a month. The team was carried by him but that carried with it the knowledge that if this one guy slowed down merely to very very good (like he did) the train would roll to a stop (like it did). This run that maybe starting is different. If one guy struggles the next guy in line is there to pick him up. It's time to put these jokers in the rear view permanently. Sweep.
Notes
Why did I mock the NL East yesterday? Because two reasons (1) the NL East really does stinks. Sorry if that offends you, but it's true. There's no way to look at the records or numbers and come across with any other conclusion. If the Braves or Mets collapse we'll start the "worst division ever" discussions. This doesn't mean the Nats stink. It means they could get away with playing mediocre ball for almost 3 months and still find themselves in first. The Nats are a good to very good team, (I think we can agree that right now various issues keep them from having great potential) trying to find their way. Once they do (and I think they are right there) they'll trounce these clowns, and (2) I didn't want to right about what I was thinking which was - Strasburg comes back from injury, throws shutout ball and a chunk of Nats fans are talking about how the Braves offense stinks or how his off-speed was worrying. I honestly think there is a group out there who want to see Strasburg fail, if he can't be the awesome generation defining pitcher they thought he would be. And I hate that. (Strasburg did what we all want to see pitchers do - find out what's working that night and work it as well as you can.)
Also - yeah the Yankees lost 2 in a row to the Phillies. It happens. The Nats got swept by the Reds. The Reds aren't better than the Nats. Hell, the Yankees aren't better than the Nats. I can admit that. If the Yankees finish with a better record than the Nats I'd be shocked. Now granted a big part of that is NL East. But I'd say that if they were tossed today into a neutral division.
Next time I'll warn you that I may offend your NL East loving sensibilities.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
NL Least
Some fun facts about the rest of the division the Nats will win
The Nats have gotten a little distance between themselves and the competitors in the NL East and if the season ended today they would take the division. Also if the season ended today they would be 2 games out of the final Wild Card spot.
The Mets are currently in 2nd place with a .500 record. They would be in 3rd place in the NL West. They would be no better than t4th in any other division.
The Marlins are entrenched in 4th place in the NL East, 5.5 games behind the Braves but 4.5 ahead of the Phillies. The Marlins would be in last place in every division but the NL Central where the Brewers sit as the 2nd worst team in baseball.
The Reds at 32-37 are further to first in their own division than the 26-47 Phillies. (This is an NL East fact and a "man, the Cardinals are having a great season" fact)
The NL East has one other above average offensive team, the Braves who clock in at 4.15 R/G. However the Braves are not actually that far off the league average of 4.04 and are clumped with a mess of teams between 4.04 and 4.22 R/G. If that's where the clump is why isn't the average in there? Because there are more teams dragging the average down than pulling it up. Who are the anchors? Why the Marlins 3.81, the Mets 3.64, and the Phillies 3.32 are three of them.
The Mets are last in the NL in hits and total bases.
The Braves are last in home runs. If you removed Freddie Freeman from the team the Braves have 6 more home runs than Bryce Harper.
The Phillies are last in runs (obviously) and slugging.
The Marlins are last in doubles (not as interesting but I was on a roll)
The Phillies have also given up the most hits, runs, home runs and walks in the National League. Hamels has an ERA of 2.96. Harang 3.41. Here are the rest of the ERAs for guys who have started more than 1 game. 4.30, 5.34, 6.43, 6.75, 8.69, 8.76. If we throw in 1 start wonders we alos get a 6.94 and a 13.50 but a 1.59 too. Adam Morgan to the rescue.
Atlanta doesn't look that bad in all this - decent O, decent P? Their relief pitching has an ERA of 4.45, 14th in the NL and almost a half-run worse than 13th. (almost a run worse than the Nats)
Jeff Baker is hitting .256 / .356 / .564 vs LHP. I say this for no reason other than IT MADE SO MUCH SENSE TO SIGN HIM LAST YEAR
Amazingly, despite the cross game effect, right now the Nationals, Mets, Braves and Marlins would all have worse records if you took away their games versus the NL East. It's less "beating eachother up" than "falling over eachother". And lest you think it's a "they are all beating up on the Phillies" thing. It isn't. Only the Mets are (8-1) and even taking away those games this holds for the Mets.
In conclusion, the NL East is a hideous garbage division. How are the Nats not winning this division by 10 games already? Despite jerking around the first 70 games of the year or so, the Nats should win this division with ease. If they don't, that's a huge failure injuries or no injuries.
Let's get on with it. Sweep the Braves. End their dreams.
The Nats have gotten a little distance between themselves and the competitors in the NL East and if the season ended today they would take the division. Also if the season ended today they would be 2 games out of the final Wild Card spot.
The Mets are currently in 2nd place with a .500 record. They would be in 3rd place in the NL West. They would be no better than t4th in any other division.
The Marlins are entrenched in 4th place in the NL East, 5.5 games behind the Braves but 4.5 ahead of the Phillies. The Marlins would be in last place in every division but the NL Central where the Brewers sit as the 2nd worst team in baseball.
The Reds at 32-37 are further to first in their own division than the 26-47 Phillies. (This is an NL East fact and a "man, the Cardinals are having a great season" fact)
The NL East has one other above average offensive team, the Braves who clock in at 4.15 R/G. However the Braves are not actually that far off the league average of 4.04 and are clumped with a mess of teams between 4.04 and 4.22 R/G. If that's where the clump is why isn't the average in there? Because there are more teams dragging the average down than pulling it up. Who are the anchors? Why the Marlins 3.81, the Mets 3.64, and the Phillies 3.32 are three of them.
The Mets are last in the NL in hits and total bases.
The Braves are last in home runs. If you removed Freddie Freeman from the team the Braves have 6 more home runs than Bryce Harper.
The Phillies are last in runs (obviously) and slugging.
The Marlins are last in doubles (not as interesting but I was on a roll)
The Phillies have also given up the most hits, runs, home runs and walks in the National League. Hamels has an ERA of 2.96. Harang 3.41. Here are the rest of the ERAs for guys who have started more than 1 game. 4.30, 5.34, 6.43, 6.75, 8.69, 8.76. If we throw in 1 start wonders we alos get a 6.94 and a 13.50 but a 1.59 too. Adam Morgan to the rescue.
Atlanta doesn't look that bad in all this - decent O, decent P? Their relief pitching has an ERA of 4.45, 14th in the NL and almost a half-run worse than 13th. (almost a run worse than the Nats)
Jeff Baker is hitting .256 / .356 / .564 vs LHP. I say this for no reason other than IT MADE SO MUCH SENSE TO SIGN HIM LAST YEAR
Amazingly, despite the cross game effect, right now the Nationals, Mets, Braves and Marlins would all have worse records if you took away their games versus the NL East. It's less "beating eachother up" than "falling over eachother". And lest you think it's a "they are all beating up on the Phillies" thing. It isn't. Only the Mets are (8-1) and even taking away those games this holds for the Mets.
In conclusion, the NL East is a hideous garbage division. How are the Nats not winning this division by 10 games already? Despite jerking around the first 70 games of the year or so, the Nats should win this division with ease. If they don't, that's a huge failure injuries or no injuries.
Let's get on with it. Sweep the Braves. End their dreams.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Monday Quickie - Panic? What are you talking about?
72 hours ago things looked as grim as they had all season for the Nats. Bryce had hurt himself and was going to be out an unknown amount of time. The team just went 6-14 in their last 20 and found themselves in a 1.5 game hole and were about to play a series against a legit contender. If things didn't go the Nats way fans could wake up Monday morning to find the Nats more than a series back and with no Bryce Harper to help lead the come back.
Everything did go the Nats way.
Bryce missed just a single day, in a rare instance where the Nats medical staff's dart hit the right diagnosis on the dart board. The offense scored a bunch of runs against a pitching staff that had been cruising and the Nats own starters threw 23 innings on 1 run ball. The Mets meanwhile got swept by the Braves meaning the Nats were now 1.5 games in front.
The starting pitching thing is huge because that was the given that turned out not to be. We did know that the offense wasn't great and was injury prone. We did know the bullpen was a weakness. But we still thought the NL East was winnable because of two facts. The NL East is a horrible division. The Nats starting pitching was too good to fail. Well, the NL East is a horrible division, but the Nats starting pitching wasn't too good to fail, or at least flail.
Scherzer, ZNN, Stras, Gio & Fister...if they all pitched to their max expectation, to meet the better of their past 2 seasons, they could all be #1 on a major league team. Even those down on Gio (in decline?) and Fister (lucky?) didn't see those guys as worse than a #3, and they were the Nats #4 and #5. Plus Tanner Roark sat in the pen as a potential replacement and he'd been great in 2014, and they had AJ Cole, a good prospect waiting for his turn. But things didn't work out. Fister pitched poorly, went out for injury. Strasburg pitched poorly, went out for injury. Gio pitched poorly. ZNN took a step back. Cole failed in his audition. Suddenly the strength, the rock the Nats could rely on in any storm, was gone.
But now it could be back. Scherzer is a clear #1, possibly in all the majors. (AL to NL never fails). Joe Ross has stepped up. If he keeps it up and Gio or ZNN or Fister or Stras, just one, pitches to max expectations, or if he goes down and two of them step up then the "best staff ever" might just happen for the last 90+ games of the year. Seems a lot to ask but the Nats are finally, presumably, 100% healthy as a staff. And regardless of whether the pen issues are solved, or the offense ever gets settled into a spot that you can count on production, that would be enough to take the East with ease.
What to do with the rotation if Strasburg is ready? You can't not start Strasburg, at least for a couple times around the rotation. Even if you don't like him, he was one of the Top 5-10 pitchers in the game the past three seasons. You can't pull Ross though after pitching like that. I suppose you kind of hoped Gio would put up a stinker so you could "DL" him but he just tossed a gem. I guess we'll see how Fister and ZNN perform. ZNN has had a rough June (7.63 ERA in his last 3 starts) but was his old reliable self in the last one versus Tampa Bay. Fister didn't have his best stuff but it was only his first game back from injury. If either just blows up in their next start, you could probably "DL" them again but just a moderate fail probably wouldn't allow for such a move. No, it looks like Ross will have to go back down. Which will only make the Nats fans dislike Strasburg even more as nothing is as loved by fans as the new hotness (think about how Tyler Moore's fast start in 2012 basically gave him 3 seasons of fan love), and that's Joe Ross right now.
For those saying "deal a starter", no. You just had two guys on the DL and struggled to find a 5th and keep your pen going ok. You can't deal anyone, not during the season. What's the best solution? I don't know. But I don know "too much good starting pitching"... that's a first world baseball problem. Glad to be back there.
Everything did go the Nats way.
Bryce missed just a single day, in a rare instance where the Nats medical staff's dart hit the right diagnosis on the dart board. The offense scored a bunch of runs against a pitching staff that had been cruising and the Nats own starters threw 23 innings on 1 run ball. The Mets meanwhile got swept by the Braves meaning the Nats were now 1.5 games in front.
The starting pitching thing is huge because that was the given that turned out not to be. We did know that the offense wasn't great and was injury prone. We did know the bullpen was a weakness. But we still thought the NL East was winnable because of two facts. The NL East is a horrible division. The Nats starting pitching was too good to fail. Well, the NL East is a horrible division, but the Nats starting pitching wasn't too good to fail, or at least flail.
Scherzer, ZNN, Stras, Gio & Fister...if they all pitched to their max expectation, to meet the better of their past 2 seasons, they could all be #1 on a major league team. Even those down on Gio (in decline?) and Fister (lucky?) didn't see those guys as worse than a #3, and they were the Nats #4 and #5. Plus Tanner Roark sat in the pen as a potential replacement and he'd been great in 2014, and they had AJ Cole, a good prospect waiting for his turn. But things didn't work out. Fister pitched poorly, went out for injury. Strasburg pitched poorly, went out for injury. Gio pitched poorly. ZNN took a step back. Cole failed in his audition. Suddenly the strength, the rock the Nats could rely on in any storm, was gone.
But now it could be back. Scherzer is a clear #1, possibly in all the majors. (AL to NL never fails). Joe Ross has stepped up. If he keeps it up and Gio or ZNN or Fister or Stras, just one, pitches to max expectations, or if he goes down and two of them step up then the "best staff ever" might just happen for the last 90+ games of the year. Seems a lot to ask but the Nats are finally, presumably, 100% healthy as a staff. And regardless of whether the pen issues are solved, or the offense ever gets settled into a spot that you can count on production, that would be enough to take the East with ease.
What to do with the rotation if Strasburg is ready? You can't not start Strasburg, at least for a couple times around the rotation. Even if you don't like him, he was one of the Top 5-10 pitchers in the game the past three seasons. You can't pull Ross though after pitching like that. I suppose you kind of hoped Gio would put up a stinker so you could "DL" him but he just tossed a gem. I guess we'll see how Fister and ZNN perform. ZNN has had a rough June (7.63 ERA in his last 3 starts) but was his old reliable self in the last one versus Tampa Bay. Fister didn't have his best stuff but it was only his first game back from injury. If either just blows up in their next start, you could probably "DL" them again but just a moderate fail probably wouldn't allow for such a move. No, it looks like Ross will have to go back down. Which will only make the Nats fans dislike Strasburg even more as nothing is as loved by fans as the new hotness (think about how Tyler Moore's fast start in 2012 basically gave him 3 seasons of fan love), and that's Joe Ross right now.
For those saying "deal a starter", no. You just had two guys on the DL and struggled to find a 5th and keep your pen going ok. You can't deal anyone, not during the season. What's the best solution? I don't know. But I don know "too much good starting pitching"... that's a first world baseball problem. Glad to be back there.
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Prepare to Panic
All hands on the deck of the SS Panic.
Everyone assume panic positions.
P-Minus 10, 9, 8...
We're almost out of reason. We're gonna try insanity. Brace for Panic
Everyone assume panic positions.
P-Minus 10, 9, 8...
We're almost out of reason. We're gonna try insanity. Brace for Panic
Hey they proved my point
1 run - almost certain loss
16 runs - has to be considered a certain win
0 runs - certain loss
Expectation 1-2.
3 game average = 17/3 = 5.67 R/G! Probably 2 wins (given average pitching), maybe 3!
Expectation 3-0!
Reality? 1-2.
See! Distribution matters! Now over the course of a season it's supposed to even out but occasionally it doesn't. Now you might say "Hey Harper - if the runs they score shouldn't match up with the wins they get - why is the Pythag Expectation (33-33) so close to the reality (34-32)?" Well glad you asked. The answer is that the Nats are hanging with expectations in large part because of luck in 1 and 2 run games.
We've talked about this before but 1 run games are basically toss-ups. Good relief doesn't matter. Year after year teams tend to win about 50% of these games, with minor variation based on talent. In other words good teams tend to win more close games, they ARE good, but less often than they win games with larger margins of victory. Good teams correlate much better with blowout wins, not close ones.
Anyway I'm digressing. The Nats have the best record when it comes to their record in 1 or 2 run games (I like to expand it out to 2 games which are less of a coin flip but still not strongly correlated) at 17-11. In games decided by 3 or more they are a sad 17-21. The true team talent is a combination of both, but give more weight to those 3+ games.
That luck is balancing out the run scoring issues. If they were say a more reasonable 13-15 (based on their 3+ standings) They'd be 30-36 and fighting off the Marlins.
Am I saying the Nats have been lucky at least with what has happened on the field? Yep. They've had Bryce develop into the best offensive player in the NL. They've had Max be the best starter in the NL. They've gotten more breaks than any team in close games. And the end result is a team 1.5 games out of first. That shows you the underlying issues with the team up to this point. Injuries leading to some terrible offensive performances, leading to very deep reliance on a standardly deep bench (for a team that should have expected more than a standard number of injuries), bad starting pitching performances from three of the five rotation guys for whatever reason, bad late inning performances of the pen, mediocre at best defense, no help from baserunning.
"Up to this point" is key because perhaps Rendon and Strasburg and Fister returning to form after injury and Roark heading back to the pen fixes a good deal those underlying issues. But man, that's a list isn't it? That's Tyler Moore esque in things the team isn't good at.
The reason to be optimistic about the team hasn't changed. The team is better than the rest of the NL East. But we're more than a third of the season through the year. We're getting to the point we can stop believing these are things the team can overcome with a fast finish. June 27th was the date last year's team started playing better (they were a middling 41-38 before that) and that team was helped out by a scorching August and September (They finished 33-13 which is a 116 win pace) and a complete Braves collapse (at one point the Nats would go 7-7 and pick up 4.5 games). This team isn't going to get the former and well.. ok.. I can see the Mets doing the latter. Hooray terrible division!
16 runs - has to be considered a certain win
0 runs - certain loss
Expectation 1-2.
3 game average = 17/3 = 5.67 R/G! Probably 2 wins (given average pitching), maybe 3!
Expectation 3-0!
Reality? 1-2.
See! Distribution matters! Now over the course of a season it's supposed to even out but occasionally it doesn't. Now you might say "Hey Harper - if the runs they score shouldn't match up with the wins they get - why is the Pythag Expectation (33-33) so close to the reality (34-32)?" Well glad you asked. The answer is that the Nats are hanging with expectations in large part because of luck in 1 and 2 run games.
We've talked about this before but 1 run games are basically toss-ups. Good relief doesn't matter. Year after year teams tend to win about 50% of these games, with minor variation based on talent. In other words good teams tend to win more close games, they ARE good, but less often than they win games with larger margins of victory. Good teams correlate much better with blowout wins, not close ones.
Anyway I'm digressing. The Nats have the best record when it comes to their record in 1 or 2 run games (I like to expand it out to 2 games which are less of a coin flip but still not strongly correlated) at 17-11. In games decided by 3 or more they are a sad 17-21. The true team talent is a combination of both, but give more weight to those 3+ games.
That luck is balancing out the run scoring issues. If they were say a more reasonable 13-15 (based on their 3+ standings) They'd be 30-36 and fighting off the Marlins.
Am I saying the Nats have been lucky at least with what has happened on the field? Yep. They've had Bryce develop into the best offensive player in the NL. They've had Max be the best starter in the NL. They've gotten more breaks than any team in close games. And the end result is a team 1.5 games out of first. That shows you the underlying issues with the team up to this point. Injuries leading to some terrible offensive performances, leading to very deep reliance on a standardly deep bench (for a team that should have expected more than a standard number of injuries), bad starting pitching performances from three of the five rotation guys for whatever reason, bad late inning performances of the pen, mediocre at best defense, no help from baserunning.
"Up to this point" is key because perhaps Rendon and Strasburg and Fister returning to form after injury and Roark heading back to the pen fixes a good deal those underlying issues. But man, that's a list isn't it? That's Tyler Moore esque in things the team isn't good at.
The reason to be optimistic about the team hasn't changed. The team is better than the rest of the NL East. But we're more than a third of the season through the year. We're getting to the point we can stop believing these are things the team can overcome with a fast finish. June 27th was the date last year's team started playing better (they were a middling 41-38 before that) and that team was helped out by a scorching August and September (They finished 33-13 which is a 116 win pace) and a complete Braves collapse (at one point the Nats would go 7-7 and pick up 4.5 games). This team isn't going to get the former and well.. ok.. I can see the Mets doing the latter. Hooray terrible division!
Wednesday, June 17, 2015
Per Game Explosion!
I have nothing to say about last night other than that was fun. Some games just everything goes right and you get to enjoy the ride. As to the question whether the offense is started another 20 game run of greatness or not, we'll still don't know. We have to see over the next few games. Let's hope the Brewers pitching sparked something.
It certainly will skew any "Nats averaged X R/G since..." numbers so be aware of that. That's something that we need to understand. The Nats offense looks great in comparison to the league. The 4.45 R/G it averages is 2nd in the NL and even before last night they were in 5th. But we've all watched the team all year and we wouldn't say they have a great or even very good offense. So what gives? It's a distribution thing.
We talked about this some other year - I forget which - when the Nats never seemed to score either 3 or 4 runs in a game, I forget which. It was a weird quirk. We see something similar this year, a team that either is great or terrible.
Scoring 2 or fewer games is pretty much a losing proposition. You win about 17% of your NL games this year when you do this. The Nats have done this 25 times in 2015 tied for third most in the NL only behind Milwaukee and Philadelphia. You might have heard of them. They are the worst and 2nd worst teams in the NL, but not in that order.
On the other hand scoring 7 or more runs in a game is close to a guaranteed win this year. NL teams win about 91% of their games when they manage this many runs. Who is best in the NL? The Nationals of course, tied for first doing it 17 times. (The also have 2 more games than any other NL team scoring 10 or more)
For the games of 3-6 runs, the Nats are dead last in the majors only doing it 23 times. The Nats are essentially all or nothing this year, with more nothing than all. However, this type of team will always look good in R/G because you can score a lot more over the average where as you are stuck at around 3-5 runs under the average because you can't score less than zero.
Here's their rankings of number of times they've scored this many runs in a game.
Shutout : 15th in NL
1 run : 1st
2 runs : 2nd
3 runs : 10th
4 runs : 10th
5 runs : t10th
6 runs : 15th
7 runs : t4th
8 runs : t5th
9+ runs : 1st
What's the take-away? Runs per game is fine to get a general sense of how a team scores or allows runs but not always the best at tying that to a teams fortune. If they don't have an even distribution then it can skew away from what your expectations may be. The Nats so far this year are that type of expectations skewing team.
It certainly will skew any "Nats averaged X R/G since..." numbers so be aware of that. That's something that we need to understand. The Nats offense looks great in comparison to the league. The 4.45 R/G it averages is 2nd in the NL and even before last night they were in 5th. But we've all watched the team all year and we wouldn't say they have a great or even very good offense. So what gives? It's a distribution thing.
We talked about this some other year - I forget which - when the Nats never seemed to score either 3 or 4 runs in a game, I forget which. It was a weird quirk. We see something similar this year, a team that either is great or terrible.
Scoring 2 or fewer games is pretty much a losing proposition. You win about 17% of your NL games this year when you do this. The Nats have done this 25 times in 2015 tied for third most in the NL only behind Milwaukee and Philadelphia. You might have heard of them. They are the worst and 2nd worst teams in the NL, but not in that order.
On the other hand scoring 7 or more runs in a game is close to a guaranteed win this year. NL teams win about 91% of their games when they manage this many runs. Who is best in the NL? The Nationals of course, tied for first doing it 17 times. (The also have 2 more games than any other NL team scoring 10 or more)
For the games of 3-6 runs, the Nats are dead last in the majors only doing it 23 times. The Nats are essentially all or nothing this year, with more nothing than all. However, this type of team will always look good in R/G because you can score a lot more over the average where as you are stuck at around 3-5 runs under the average because you can't score less than zero.
Here's their rankings of number of times they've scored this many runs in a game.
Shutout : 15th in NL
1 run : 1st
2 runs : 2nd
3 runs : 10th
4 runs : 10th
5 runs : t10th
6 runs : 15th
7 runs : t4th
8 runs : t5th
9+ runs : 1st
What's the take-away? Runs per game is fine to get a general sense of how a team scores or allows runs but not always the best at tying that to a teams fortune. If they don't have an even distribution then it can skew away from what your expectations may be. The Nats so far this year are that type of expectations skewing team.
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Ian Desmond - not what I thought
Since hating on Ian is the in thing to do (and completely rightfully so, he's been awful) I went back to see what I was worried about when I evaluated Ian this offseason. Contact rate dropping, swinging strike rate going up, unable to turn on pitches down the middle... OK well I guess things have continued on their unmerry way.
Except they haven't.
Looking at the fancy numbers he isn't making less contact, or swinging and missing more. You could argue a tweak here looks worse with his approach, but you could actually argue a tweak here looks better. If he's not getting worse at the plate in what he's swinging at and if he's making contact, why then is he getting worse results? It's not just bad luck (BABIP is fine).
One thing is his HR/FB rate is way down from 18.2% to 9.3%. Now that could be luck or it could not be. What do the charts tell me? Well without taking up all that space - he's turning pitches up and in (in the zone) that he used to hit for FBs into GBs. I don't have to tell you that you don't hit many GB homeruns. The pitches that he is hitting for flyballs on the inside of the plate are no longer going out.
It could be his bat speed is going (he is hitting more soft hits and fewer hard ones) It could. It could also be his bat is just a little off, balls are hit softer when you don't hit them square. Either way that drop in power is the difference between a .222 guy with 5 homeruns you are wanting to see benched and a .242, 10 homer guy you say "there are bigger issues right now" about.
However that's not the only issue. His walk rate is down significantly. This is a bit of a conundrum. How do you manage to take half as many walks without making less contract or seeing more pitches in the zone (that could be taken for strikes)? The answer is potentially in bad contact. Although he's not swinging and missing more, he's swinging a bit more, and doing this more outside the zone than inside. He's making more contact outside the zone so potentially that would mean more foul balls. And yes - that's what we see. A bump in foul balls by over a percent from last year.
Other numbers that have changed - his 3-0, 2-0, 3-1 counts seen are down... his strikes looking hasn't changed.... his P/PA is way down... ok a clearer picture is coming into view.
Despite all the K's Ian isn't wildly flailing at pitches trying for homers, at least it doesn't appear that way. It appears he is being increasingly aggressive (he's swung at neatly 45% of first pitches) and making contact but not good contact. He's fouling away more balls and putting more weak balls into play. He's ending up with a ton of K's again because he's putting himself in a lot of bad counts when he isn't grounding out, but not because he's losing his ability to tell strikes from balls. (He was never all that good at that).
This gives me some hope that it could be an approach issue. If he's trying toget more base hits, either under pressure of free agency or to combat the dropping batting average (or both), then we can see a better Ian the rest of the year. In this case he's just not playing to his strengths, which is crushing mistakes and "his pitches", while lucking into a few walks, and maybe someone can get him back to doing that. He may be a .250-.260 20-25HR guy, crashing because he's trying to put balls in play he normally wouldn't trying to be a .290 guy that he was that one year.
The other possibility is that he's just not able to make good contact anymore. He's just missing on pitches he should be hitting hard and it's bringing down his biggest skill set, his power. Everything else doesn't necessarily have to be this bad. Because we don't see other stats falling, it's likely the extras swings we see are compensation for the lack of power. Frustration swings, let's call them. Calm him down and he could hit .235+ and walk a bit more. Of course this is just a band-aid. Without the power he's not going to be a worthwhile offensive player.
Except they haven't.
Looking at the fancy numbers he isn't making less contact, or swinging and missing more. You could argue a tweak here looks worse with his approach, but you could actually argue a tweak here looks better. If he's not getting worse at the plate in what he's swinging at and if he's making contact, why then is he getting worse results? It's not just bad luck (BABIP is fine).
One thing is his HR/FB rate is way down from 18.2% to 9.3%. Now that could be luck or it could not be. What do the charts tell me? Well without taking up all that space - he's turning pitches up and in (in the zone) that he used to hit for FBs into GBs. I don't have to tell you that you don't hit many GB homeruns. The pitches that he is hitting for flyballs on the inside of the plate are no longer going out.
It could be his bat speed is going (he is hitting more soft hits and fewer hard ones) It could. It could also be his bat is just a little off, balls are hit softer when you don't hit them square. Either way that drop in power is the difference between a .222 guy with 5 homeruns you are wanting to see benched and a .242, 10 homer guy you say "there are bigger issues right now" about.
However that's not the only issue. His walk rate is down significantly. This is a bit of a conundrum. How do you manage to take half as many walks without making less contract or seeing more pitches in the zone (that could be taken for strikes)? The answer is potentially in bad contact. Although he's not swinging and missing more, he's swinging a bit more, and doing this more outside the zone than inside. He's making more contact outside the zone so potentially that would mean more foul balls. And yes - that's what we see. A bump in foul balls by over a percent from last year.
Other numbers that have changed - his 3-0, 2-0, 3-1 counts seen are down... his strikes looking hasn't changed.... his P/PA is way down... ok a clearer picture is coming into view.
Despite all the K's Ian isn't wildly flailing at pitches trying for homers, at least it doesn't appear that way. It appears he is being increasingly aggressive (he's swung at neatly 45% of first pitches) and making contact but not good contact. He's fouling away more balls and putting more weak balls into play. He's ending up with a ton of K's again because he's putting himself in a lot of bad counts when he isn't grounding out, but not because he's losing his ability to tell strikes from balls. (He was never all that good at that).
This gives me some hope that it could be an approach issue. If he's trying toget more base hits, either under pressure of free agency or to combat the dropping batting average (or both), then we can see a better Ian the rest of the year. In this case he's just not playing to his strengths, which is crushing mistakes and "his pitches", while lucking into a few walks, and maybe someone can get him back to doing that. He may be a .250-.260 20-25HR guy, crashing because he's trying to put balls in play he normally wouldn't trying to be a .290 guy that he was that one year.
The other possibility is that he's just not able to make good contact anymore. He's just missing on pitches he should be hitting hard and it's bringing down his biggest skill set, his power. Everything else doesn't necessarily have to be this bad. Because we don't see other stats falling, it's likely the extras swings we see are compensation for the lack of power. Frustration swings, let's call them. Calm him down and he could hit .235+ and walk a bit more. Of course this is just a band-aid. Without the power he's not going to be a worthwhile offensive player.
Monday, June 15, 2015
Monday Quickie - Super Max
First impressions are huge. Max Scherzer is making a great one. He's arguably the best pitcher in the NL right now and along with Bryce Harper, he's a huge reason why the Nats are fighting for first and not fighting for .500 (though it's the NL East so that's a marginal difference)
While I'm not as big a fan of the Max contract as most, I was really glad he got an impressive win yesterday instead of another hard-luck loss because we were a couple of those away from "He's just another Strasburg!" "All we does it pitch well but doesn't win!" "Blah blah blah stupidity" We're still not definitely clear of that, especially if he ends up like 12-12 and the Nats miss the playoffs, but the further we can get away from that now, the less I have to worry about it. Let's focus on important things.
Game 60 ended the Nats 3rd 20 game stretch with an offense that was pitiful it made game 1-20 offense look like Murderer's Row. Ended up averaging 2.95 runs a game. But it seems to be turning around, after scoring 4 or more only 3 times in 18 games, they've done it the last 5. Now of course the Brewer's pitching is garbage (worst non Rockies NL team) but hey, again, at least they are doing it. We'll really see with the next two opponents though. Tampa and Pittsburgh have staffs that have been very very good this year. Doesn't mean they should beat the Nats (they have some offensive issues) but can the Nats score or was this a Milwaukee reprieve?
While I'm not as big a fan of the Max contract as most, I was really glad he got an impressive win yesterday instead of another hard-luck loss because we were a couple of those away from "He's just another Strasburg!" "All we does it pitch well but doesn't win!" "Blah blah blah stupidity" We're still not definitely clear of that, especially if he ends up like 12-12 and the Nats miss the playoffs, but the further we can get away from that now, the less I have to worry about it. Let's focus on important things.
Game 60 ended the Nats 3rd 20 game stretch with an offense that was pitiful it made game 1-20 offense look like Murderer's Row. Ended up averaging 2.95 runs a game. But it seems to be turning around, after scoring 4 or more only 3 times in 18 games, they've done it the last 5. Now of course the Brewer's pitching is garbage (worst non Rockies NL team) but hey, again, at least they are doing it. We'll really see with the next two opponents though. Tampa and Pittsburgh have staffs that have been very very good this year. Doesn't mean they should beat the Nats (they have some offensive issues) but can the Nats score or was this a Milwaukee reprieve?
Friday, June 12, 2015
Barrett & Treinen
Someone asked me how many times Treinen and Barrett took the Nats from not losing to losing. The answer was 8 times, but it didn't really nail how bad these guys had been in close games. So here's a pitcher specific update for "Close and Late"
Blake "Not only a fastball but a fastball with sink!" Treinen
Entered 1 game when Nats were down 2 : Made it worse
Entered 8 games when Nats were down 1 : Made it worse 5 times
Aaron "Storen blows a playoff game and we get Soriano. I do it and guys are dealt to make me a set late inning guy!" Barrett
Entered 1 game when Nats were down 2 : Didn't make it worse!
Entered 5 game when Nats were down 1 : Made it worse 2 times
Blake "Not only a fastball but a fastball with sink!" Treinen
Entered 1 game when Nats were down 2 : Made it worse
Entered 8 games when Nats were down 1 : Made it worse 5 times
Entered 3 games when Nats were tied : Made it worse 1 times
Entered 3 games when Nats were up 1 : Never made it worse!
Entered 3 games when Nats were up 2 : Made it worse 2 times
Combined close game appearances : 18.
Made it worse : 9 times
50% soul crushing average
Combined close game appearances : 18.
Made it worse : 9 times
50% soul crushing average
Aaron "Storen blows a playoff game and we get Soriano. I do it and guys are dealt to make me a set late inning guy!" Barrett
Entered 1 game when Nats were down 2 : Didn't make it worse!
Entered 5 game when Nats were down 1 : Made it worse 2 times
Entered 8 games when Nats were tied : Made it worse 5 times.
Entered 6 games when Nats were up 1 : Made it worse once.
Entered 0 games when Nats were up 2 :
Combined close game appearances : 20.
Made it worse : 8 times
40% soul crushing average
These aren't necessary games blown for the Nats but when you give up runs in close games you dramatically effect the chances of the Nats winning. When you hold your ground you help the Nats a little bit. I don't care how good their stuff is but killing the Nats every other close game appearance is not good enough.
I didn't look closely at anyone else but I think Grace is next at like 33% SCA and Hill/Rivero/Martin combined for like 80% or 75% or something. What's a great reliever look like? Storen's done it twice in 15 times, (13.3%) and not since mid April.
David Carpenter saves the day? Probably not but worth a try. Anything is worth a try really.
Combined close game appearances : 20.
Made it worse : 8 times
40% soul crushing average
These aren't necessary games blown for the Nats but when you give up runs in close games you dramatically effect the chances of the Nats winning. When you hold your ground you help the Nats a little bit. I don't care how good their stuff is but killing the Nats every other close game appearance is not good enough.
I didn't look closely at anyone else but I think Grace is next at like 33% SCA and Hill/Rivero/Martin combined for like 80% or 75% or something. What's a great reliever look like? Storen's done it twice in 15 times, (13.3%) and not since mid April.
David Carpenter saves the day? Probably not but worth a try. Anything is worth a try really.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Turning it around
The Nats won! Sure they scored only 5 runs, versus arguably the Yankees worst starter and B-Team relievers, and they needed 11 innings to do it but scoring only 5 runs, versus arguably the Yankees worst starter and B-Team relivers, and needing 11 innings to do it is better than NOT scoring 5 runs, etc, etc.
It may seem that I'm damning with faint praise but there's an important point here. If the Nats are a great or very good team they'll win these games, games where in theory they have a clear advantage. They won this game. Sure they should also win other games as a great or very good team but let's worry about the "shoulds" first because they have 4 shoulds sitting right in front of them. Four games versus possibly the worst team in the league (but I believe in you Phillies!).
They need to take 3 of 4.
As for yesterday's doom and gloom - when I say it won't right itself I mean the whole thing won't get back to a point where they will be a contender for best team in the league. At least I don't see it. The thought was a great pitching staff would combine with a good/very good offense to win ~95 games. Maybe if the offense clicked they could challenge 100. I don't see that coming back. The rotation's injury concerns and bullpens extended "figuring it out" period means that in order to be that team that gets the division handed to them that offense needs to click to be a mid 90s win team. If you want the Nats to be that team, they'll need to do some work.
Why do I feel that way? Because where the Nats are right now. We set our current expectations not from March but from June. You can't say "When Rendon and Span get healthy and hit and play everyday and when Desi and Ramos and Zimm start hitting again and when Werth is back and hitting" and add "with Bryce keep hitting like he has, same with Yuney and Danny" That's basically asking for everything to go right. That's a tough sell three months ago. It's impossible now. Will Rendon and/or Span hit? Probably. Will one of Desi/Ramos/Zimm hit? Probably. But not everything will go right. The reality for the Nats is what's in front of them. Injured guys hitting like it. Guys who we thought it was possible may not hit well, not hitting well. We have to give that more weight.
Can the Nats win 90 games and the division doing nothing? Yeah probably. Enough of the hitters should come around and Bryce, the most important bat, doesn't look like he'll flop. The pitching should settle with time to heal and find decent reliable arms in the pen. And look at this division of ragamuffins. If that's righting itself for you then ok, it could and probably will right itself. If you are looking for something more, for the Nats to hit a goal closer to pre-season expectations, to have no worry about winning the division, like I am, then they'll need a something else.
It may seem that I'm damning with faint praise but there's an important point here. If the Nats are a great or very good team they'll win these games, games where in theory they have a clear advantage. They won this game. Sure they should also win other games as a great or very good team but let's worry about the "shoulds" first because they have 4 shoulds sitting right in front of them. Four games versus possibly the worst team in the league (but I believe in you Phillies!).
They need to take 3 of 4.
As for yesterday's doom and gloom - when I say it won't right itself I mean the whole thing won't get back to a point where they will be a contender for best team in the league. At least I don't see it. The thought was a great pitching staff would combine with a good/very good offense to win ~95 games. Maybe if the offense clicked they could challenge 100. I don't see that coming back. The rotation's injury concerns and bullpens extended "figuring it out" period means that in order to be that team that gets the division handed to them that offense needs to click to be a mid 90s win team. If you want the Nats to be that team, they'll need to do some work.
Why do I feel that way? Because where the Nats are right now. We set our current expectations not from March but from June. You can't say "When Rendon and Span get healthy and hit and play everyday and when Desi and Ramos and Zimm start hitting again and when Werth is back and hitting" and add "with Bryce keep hitting like he has, same with Yuney and Danny" That's basically asking for everything to go right. That's a tough sell three months ago. It's impossible now. Will Rendon and/or Span hit? Probably. Will one of Desi/Ramos/Zimm hit? Probably. But not everything will go right. The reality for the Nats is what's in front of them. Injured guys hitting like it. Guys who we thought it was possible may not hit well, not hitting well. We have to give that more weight.
Can the Nats win 90 games and the division doing nothing? Yeah probably. Enough of the hitters should come around and Bryce, the most important bat, doesn't look like he'll flop. The pitching should settle with time to heal and find decent reliable arms in the pen. And look at this division of ragamuffins. If that's righting itself for you then ok, it could and probably will right itself. If you are looking for something more, for the Nats to hit a goal closer to pre-season expectations, to have no worry about winning the division, like I am, then they'll need a something else.
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
The offense is dead. Long live... wait what replaces offense?
The Nats are in free fall 2-9, 3-10, 5-11 it's been now a solid three weeks since Bryce Harper carried the team on his shoulders and put them on the top of the mountain, said "Stay here, while I look for food", only to have the Nats go "Wheeeeeeee!" and roll back down.
June, while not encompassing all the crash, makes an easy to look up split to see what's going on. The team is hitting a pathetic .231 / .275 / .342. Bryce, of course, is not the problem (.357 / .438 / .714 - which is scary to think that has been factored in.) And Yuney is still on a magical mystery ride of crazy BABIP (.529 in June). Other than that it is... well it's everyone else.
Danny is back to being classic Danny (Low ave, walks, hits for pop) which creates an average hitter. Lobaton and Robinson are being perfectly reasonable bench replacements - not good but not bad. These guys aren't helping the team but they aren't really hurting the team either.
Who is hurting the team?
Wilson Ramos : .217 / .217 / .391 - power is nice but a .217 OBP is death
Michael Taylor : .227 / .250 / .273 - failing in his 2016 CF preview
Ian Desmond : .167 / .167 / .300 - see Ramos
Anthony Rendon : .158 / .200 / .211 - may be healthy but certainly not ready
Denard Span : .143 / .182 / .143 - battling injuries
Ryan Zimmerman : .045 / .083 / .045 - what Ramos/Desmond are doing is slumping. What Ryan is doing is playing when he shouldn't.
Six regulars are hitting like garbage all at the same time. The problem is - who here do you like to come back and hit a lot better? Rendon yes. And.... Span if healthy but will he be? Ramos and Desmond I can see hitting a little better but not necessarily a lot. "Lower" could be their new level. Zimm's injury isn't going away. Taylor who knows?
You could argue the Nats need to solve the problem in the OF (a true contender may have a hard time carrying a player like Taylor), at catcher (Ramos might be age/injured into the player we see), at shortstop(see Ramos again), and at first (your first baseman can't hit like this). That's a lot of problems to solve and that's if Rendon and Span aren't too injured that they should be out. Right now it feels like the team is paralyzed, unable to find a place to start to fix this, hoping that it just all rights itself.
The truth is it won't. The pitching can't carry the team with the rotation hurt and the pen in bad shape. The only reason the Nats aren't in 3rd looking up at the Braves is that Bryce Harper had one of the best months in the history of baseball. If you are hoping for a resurgance you are hoping for a repeat of that, which means you are hoping for Bryce to have one of the best seasons ever. It could happen... but that's not something to bet on.
Where do I start? I probably start in the OF - where the options are more plentiful and there is potential for a big problem if Span has to go out. Then 1B maybe? A better back-up for Ryan who can play and give him rest? I don't know, but the time for waiting and seeing as a good plan is closing. Do the Nats throw up their hands and just expect to beat a bad division? Or do they do something?
June, while not encompassing all the crash, makes an easy to look up split to see what's going on. The team is hitting a pathetic .231 / .275 / .342. Bryce, of course, is not the problem (.357 / .438 / .714 - which is scary to think that has been factored in.) And Yuney is still on a magical mystery ride of crazy BABIP (.529 in June). Other than that it is... well it's everyone else.
Danny is back to being classic Danny (Low ave, walks, hits for pop) which creates an average hitter. Lobaton and Robinson are being perfectly reasonable bench replacements - not good but not bad. These guys aren't helping the team but they aren't really hurting the team either.
Who is hurting the team?
Wilson Ramos : .217 / .217 / .391 - power is nice but a .217 OBP is death
Michael Taylor : .227 / .250 / .273 - failing in his 2016 CF preview
Ian Desmond : .167 / .167 / .300 - see Ramos
Anthony Rendon : .158 / .200 / .211 - may be healthy but certainly not ready
Denard Span : .143 / .182 / .143 - battling injuries
Ryan Zimmerman : .045 / .083 / .045 - what Ramos/Desmond are doing is slumping. What Ryan is doing is playing when he shouldn't.
Six regulars are hitting like garbage all at the same time. The problem is - who here do you like to come back and hit a lot better? Rendon yes. And.... Span if healthy but will he be? Ramos and Desmond I can see hitting a little better but not necessarily a lot. "Lower" could be their new level. Zimm's injury isn't going away. Taylor who knows?
You could argue the Nats need to solve the problem in the OF (a true contender may have a hard time carrying a player like Taylor), at catcher (Ramos might be age/injured into the player we see), at shortstop(see Ramos again), and at first (your first baseman can't hit like this). That's a lot of problems to solve and that's if Rendon and Span aren't too injured that they should be out. Right now it feels like the team is paralyzed, unable to find a place to start to fix this, hoping that it just all rights itself.
The truth is it won't. The pitching can't carry the team with the rotation hurt and the pen in bad shape. The only reason the Nats aren't in 3rd looking up at the Braves is that Bryce Harper had one of the best months in the history of baseball. If you are hoping for a resurgance you are hoping for a repeat of that, which means you are hoping for Bryce to have one of the best seasons ever. It could happen... but that's not something to bet on.
Where do I start? I probably start in the OF - where the options are more plentiful and there is potential for a big problem if Span has to go out. Then 1B maybe? A better back-up for Ryan who can play and give him rest? I don't know, but the time for waiting and seeing as a good plan is closing. Do the Nats throw up their hands and just expect to beat a bad division? Or do they do something?
Tuesday, June 09, 2015
Fine. Here's your CHuBOUVs. Happy?
You know I’ve often thought of doing additional things to go along with this little blog. A podcast is the most common thing I’ve bandied about, but live chats, presentations-type videos, back and forth page long discussions, have all been considered and re-considered. The problem with all of them is the same thing. Baseball is a daily game. It demands daily coverage (ok ignore the past week - I’m literally barely home right now). Who wants to listen to a podcast that’s a day old, talking about a guy who you say is cold, who just went 3 for 4? Given the short shelf life and the effort involved, well, let’s just say any of this is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
What’s this got to do with Werth and his CHuBOUVs? Well what felt like a fine idea 7+ days ago now to me is old and stale. For god sakes the team is crashing and burning like pretty much everything in San Andreas (my review : if you think you’d like it - you will. if you think you wouldn’t like it - you won’t). So let’s quickly run through Jayson Werth’s
Commonly Held Beliefs Of Uncertain Veracity
and get to more relevant and timely stuff. These things come up anytime Werth hits the news and dammit if I always love talking about them. Mainly because these aren’t things I can say for certain are one way or another. Certain things aren’t always fun to discuss. These are things that are.
The Nats needed to overpay to get Jayson Werth, hence the 7/126 million dollar deal
Honestly I think I’ve put more time into going over the articles and reporting on contracts during this time than anyone and every time I’ve looked at it I come to the same conclusion. The Nats overpaid in years and dollars per year. They outbid themselves. It’s true bad teams sometimes can’t just give the biggest contract. (though sometimes, I'd argue usually, they can) Sometimes there has to be clear separation. But from what I’ve seen it’s years or dollars, not years and dollars.
Now is it possible I’m wrong? Totally. Hence “Commonly Held Beliefs Of Uncertain Veracity” rather than “Commonly Held Beliefs That Are Totally And Completely Wrong” I don’t know exactly what was going on behind the scenes. Neither do you. Only Rizzo, Boras and a few others really do. But when guys in the know are putting out Jason Bay deals (4/66) as floors, when someone who hit pretty much the same as Werth over the two pre-contract years while stealing a ton of bases, fielding much better, and being two years younger, only got a couple million more for the same amount of years… it should tell you the Nats overpaid. They probably could have gotten Werth for 7/102 or 6/108.
Jayson Werth changed the perception of the team, making them winners
This one is a hard one to wrap around because it did and it didn’t, but it didn’t in the way people talk about most. It didn’t really change the perception for free agents looking to sign with the Nats. How do we know? Because no free agents came to the Nats after Werth was signed. Derek Lee balked. Zach Grienke thought the team couldn’t win. Carl Pavano wouldn’t lower his price. Brandon Webb didn’t jump at the chance. Willie Harris wouldn’t come back. And that was just that same offseason!
No the players who came to the Nats did so either because it was the best deal offered (LaRoche - possibly the Nats 3rd choice) or after the Nats started to clearly get better. Werth alone changed nothing for no one in the game outside of GMs thinking “OK these guys might sign someone else now” Now again I don’t know but “Uh oh, look out for these guys who signed one guy one time on the FA market!” doesn’t seem a likely scenario. In fact they wouldn’t make a big FA splash again for four years.
Outside of the game though it changed the media perception of the Nats, making a nice story for reporters looking to hang their hat on something after a couple years of terrible play. He was also a way to market the team and frankly he still is because it did change the fans perception of the Nats. That’s not being dismissive. Getting the fans interested and following it up with an improving team? That’s worth something.
So is this commonly held belief true? Depends on how you look at it.
Despite the cost at the time, Jayson Werth has been worth his contract
This was a clear no, that amazingly became a maybe yes, that is now dropping back to clear no. His first 18 months as a Nat was practically worthless and you could see the 2020 stories written on the worst contracts in baseball history including this one near the top. Then something amazing happened. An injured mid 30s player not only got healthy, he hit at his peak for two more seasons. That just doesn’t happen. This miracle now made it possible that the Nats would get value back if he could pull off a couple of good years and he just had a very good one so they could even “win the contract” so to speak. But alas and alack he got injured again as old players do and he’s far less likely to pull of two good years in the time he has left.
What about the playoffs? What about them? Outside of one HR that won a non-deciding game the guy has been non-existant. 4 for 23 in 2012 with 2R and no RBI, 1 for 20 with 0 and 0 last year. He’s a one swing pony, which can be fine if that one swing ends up mattering. Outside of some fun photoshops it didn’t.
Of course this is being a bit harsh. The Nats won’t “win” the contract but given what he’s done so far - two more usable years, or one good one, makes it a soft loss. The HR might have been eventually meaningless but it was a lot of fun. So it’s not like he’s been worth nothing. Could things like leadership and entertainment and the perception I mentioned earlier put it over the top? Depends on what you think and feel. I can tell you purely on the field it’ll be a loser barring a second miracle. As a troll-doll selling package? Maybe not.
None of these things are provable to the point there can be no dissent, but that really isn’t what I’m trying to argue. In fact what I’m trying to argue is that these things are arguable but as commonly held beliefs they are often trotted out there as facts when they are far from it. I don’t like that.
Tomorrow we talk about the crashing offense or maybe the Nats win and we find something positive to talk about
Monday, June 08, 2015
Friday, June 05, 2015
Friday Thoughts
Since I was gone all week (Salt Lake City for work if you must know) I've accumulated some thoughts that I wasn't able to talk about. Why not force all those thoughts down at once? A thought buffet to pick at over the entire weekend?
Nats falling to 2nd - Like erasing the correct answer and putting down the wrong one, I called it and then I didn't. On May 18th I wrote "the Nats taking the lead soon, losing it again, then having a back and forth before finally pulling away around the 4th (of July)". But then when they Nats went ahead and took the lead when I thought they should be slower to do so I went ahead and called the season.
Of course I can see an obvious reason I was wrong; injuries but hey that's the risk you take making any sports prediction.
Are the injuries/falling to 2nd a big deal? I don't think so, I just think it reverts back to my original thoughts. The Nats should bounce around with the Mets for a while but their easier schedule going into the All-Star break on should provide the break they need to put distance between them and the Mets.
But the Nats last year... - Someone, I think it was Wagner tweeted that you should basically not worry about the Nats because last year they were worse at this time and they were fine. I noted that the year before that they were better than in 2014 and things didn't turn out right. The point wasn't "you should be worried this could be 2013 all over again" but "take each year individually". 2015 isn't 2014 but it isn't 2013 either. They lack the bats they had last year to put up that half of the season long streak they put up last year. LaRoche is gone. Zimm isn't Zimm last year. Werth isn't Werth last year. BUT at the same time there are no 2013 Braves lurking to take the division and they have, with Max, an ace pitching like one which they didn't in 2013 (Stras, ZNN, and Gio all took steps back from great years to very good that year). BUT this year finally SP injuries are happening to a team that had been cannily and luckily avoiding them since 2012.
Take each year as it is. This one so far has seen a hobbled and bumbling Nats team unable to get themselves away from the WC-ish area of the league where it happens that the Mets reside.
Bryce v Trout - Just to follow up Bryce finish May .360 / .495 / .884 which bests any month Trout has had but doesn't quite top his .500 OBP for a month.
If you think he's slumping, he's not. He's hitting .357 / .438 / .500 in June which is great. It's just not team carrying like his May was.
Offense slowing - Told ya. Even with this terrible slump the Nats overall for the season are 4th in RS in the NL and the rank is a fair indicator of their overall success. Yes, Bryce got so hot that even with just one or two other Nats hitting well (Span and Espy with Yuney providing some singles and Ian providing some pop) that the May numbers were crazy. But you can't just write it off. Perhaps that can happen again. But in general beware rankings talk. Or at least look into it. A favorite of some people is to note the Nats were 3rd in RS in the NL last year. True! But the use of rankings makes us assume equadistance between steps. In other words, they should be as close to 2nd as 4th, as close to 1st as 5th. It's just the way the mind works. But it isn't like that usually and in fact in 2014 the Nats were as close to 2nd as they were to 6th. As close to 1st as they were to 8th. They were far more "second tier" than "top". 2013 was similar. 6th in the NL but as close to 5th as 10th. They've been deceptively ending up at the top of bunches such that rankings make them seem better than if you look at the raw numbers.
This year numbers are fair (right now). about as close to 3rd as 5th, 2nd as 6th. So 4th is about right. Now is that fair to expect for a season? For every 35 games that are cold are the Nats going to have 20 games that are blistering hot? Maybe? But I'm guessing it won't play out that way.
Rendon back - Yay! If you are curious Rendon was out 85 days after the initial diagnosis of "day to day" I like what I saw of Rendon last night. Line drives, good at bats, so I don't have any real worry he'll perform ok. My real worries are all about re-injury. If he's ok and Bryce keeps being 2015 Bryce the offense will be ok enough regardless of if Zimm/Werth are never going to be right this season and if Yuney's magic singly tour comes to an end (BABIP some GB% increase, but mostly luck)
Bullpen thoughts - Get someone else. Forget the fact no one has succeeded enough to set roles. The facts are that no one has been good enough (outside of Storen and Thornton) so far this year to do so. The team and fans have tried to spin it but you can't say things like "it's ok that he was crappy this game because he was good for 3 games before that". A 25% failure rate for a reliever is a no go because bad leads to loss with far more certainty than good leads to win with relievers. You have one inning. You do your job you help out the team a little, you don't you hurt it a lot.
Strasburg - It's ok to say Stras is unlikable and not living up to his potential therefore I don't want him pitching for the Nats. Sports is entertainment and if someone is not entertaining you because of the way he comes across it's fine to want to watch something else. But please please please don't go from "He's bad at entertaining me" to "He's bad at pitching" because before this injury he most certainly was not bad at pitching.
If he actually couldn't handle pressure, or let things effect him than sure that would matter, but the fact is there is no data that backs it up. For example, there isn't data that backs up he pitches noticeably worse after errors (though a cluster at the beginning of ... was it last year? is what sticks in your head). Don't be fooled by appearances into thinking he's bad, but also don't let someone tell you that you have to like him either.
Anything else I'm missing?
Nats falling to 2nd - Like erasing the correct answer and putting down the wrong one, I called it and then I didn't. On May 18th I wrote "the Nats taking the lead soon, losing it again, then having a back and forth before finally pulling away around the 4th (of July)". But then when they Nats went ahead and took the lead when I thought they should be slower to do so I went ahead and called the season.
Of course I can see an obvious reason I was wrong; injuries but hey that's the risk you take making any sports prediction.
Are the injuries/falling to 2nd a big deal? I don't think so, I just think it reverts back to my original thoughts. The Nats should bounce around with the Mets for a while but their easier schedule going into the All-Star break on should provide the break they need to put distance between them and the Mets.
But the Nats last year... - Someone, I think it was Wagner tweeted that you should basically not worry about the Nats because last year they were worse at this time and they were fine. I noted that the year before that they were better than in 2014 and things didn't turn out right. The point wasn't "you should be worried this could be 2013 all over again" but "take each year individually". 2015 isn't 2014 but it isn't 2013 either. They lack the bats they had last year to put up that half of the season long streak they put up last year. LaRoche is gone. Zimm isn't Zimm last year. Werth isn't Werth last year. BUT at the same time there are no 2013 Braves lurking to take the division and they have, with Max, an ace pitching like one which they didn't in 2013 (Stras, ZNN, and Gio all took steps back from great years to very good that year). BUT this year finally SP injuries are happening to a team that had been cannily and luckily avoiding them since 2012.
Take each year as it is. This one so far has seen a hobbled and bumbling Nats team unable to get themselves away from the WC-ish area of the league where it happens that the Mets reside.
Bryce v Trout - Just to follow up Bryce finish May .360 / .495 / .884 which bests any month Trout has had but doesn't quite top his .500 OBP for a month.
If you think he's slumping, he's not. He's hitting .357 / .438 / .500 in June which is great. It's just not team carrying like his May was.
Offense slowing - Told ya. Even with this terrible slump the Nats overall for the season are 4th in RS in the NL and the rank is a fair indicator of their overall success. Yes, Bryce got so hot that even with just one or two other Nats hitting well (Span and Espy with Yuney providing some singles and Ian providing some pop) that the May numbers were crazy. But you can't just write it off. Perhaps that can happen again. But in general beware rankings talk. Or at least look into it. A favorite of some people is to note the Nats were 3rd in RS in the NL last year. True! But the use of rankings makes us assume equadistance between steps. In other words, they should be as close to 2nd as 4th, as close to 1st as 5th. It's just the way the mind works. But it isn't like that usually and in fact in 2014 the Nats were as close to 2nd as they were to 6th. As close to 1st as they were to 8th. They were far more "second tier" than "top". 2013 was similar. 6th in the NL but as close to 5th as 10th. They've been deceptively ending up at the top of bunches such that rankings make them seem better than if you look at the raw numbers.
This year numbers are fair (right now). about as close to 3rd as 5th, 2nd as 6th. So 4th is about right. Now is that fair to expect for a season? For every 35 games that are cold are the Nats going to have 20 games that are blistering hot? Maybe? But I'm guessing it won't play out that way.
Rendon back - Yay! If you are curious Rendon was out 85 days after the initial diagnosis of "day to day" I like what I saw of Rendon last night. Line drives, good at bats, so I don't have any real worry he'll perform ok. My real worries are all about re-injury. If he's ok and Bryce keeps being 2015 Bryce the offense will be ok enough regardless of if Zimm/Werth are never going to be right this season and if Yuney's magic singly tour comes to an end (BABIP some GB% increase, but mostly luck)
Bullpen thoughts - Get someone else. Forget the fact no one has succeeded enough to set roles. The facts are that no one has been good enough (outside of Storen and Thornton) so far this year to do so. The team and fans have tried to spin it but you can't say things like "it's ok that he was crappy this game because he was good for 3 games before that". A 25% failure rate for a reliever is a no go because bad leads to loss with far more certainty than good leads to win with relievers. You have one inning. You do your job you help out the team a little, you don't you hurt it a lot.
Strasburg - It's ok to say Stras is unlikable and not living up to his potential therefore I don't want him pitching for the Nats. Sports is entertainment and if someone is not entertaining you because of the way he comes across it's fine to want to watch something else. But please please please don't go from "He's bad at entertaining me" to "He's bad at pitching" because before this injury he most certainly was not bad at pitching.
If he actually couldn't handle pressure, or let things effect him than sure that would matter, but the fact is there is no data that backs it up. For example, there isn't data that backs up he pitches noticeably worse after errors (though a cluster at the beginning of ... was it last year? is what sticks in your head). Don't be fooled by appearances into thinking he's bad, but also don't let someone tell you that you have to like him either.
Anything else I'm missing?
Thursday, June 04, 2015
I'm not back!
But there will be something tomorrow. In the meantime let's clear the palate. Rendon's back. Game's gonna run until midnight. Fun times.
Monday, June 01, 2015
Monday Super Quickie
I had a column in my head about the CHuBOUVs associated with Jayson Werth but you'll have to wait for that. Instead the Nats get swept and PANIC!
Ok nobody's panicking which is good because there's no reason to right now. Granted the team on last Monday that I liked to go wire to wire now has lost Werth and Strasburg for a lot and a little time respectively, but they are still better than the Mets. Yes. Still are. But the gap is shrinking.
Which is why Anthony Rendon's return becomes utterly important. Will it be this week? He played Friday and Saturday but not Sunday both at second base. Seems likely we'll see him.
Anyway WORK! Out
Ok nobody's panicking which is good because there's no reason to right now. Granted the team on last Monday that I liked to go wire to wire now has lost Werth and Strasburg for a lot and a little time respectively, but they are still better than the Mets. Yes. Still are. But the gap is shrinking.
Which is why Anthony Rendon's return becomes utterly important. Will it be this week? He played Friday and Saturday but not Sunday both at second base. Seems likely we'll see him.
Anyway WORK! Out
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