A great former Nat is on his way home

Of course I mean Jesse Winker.  Who did you think?

The Mets come to town this weekend and in with them comes Juan Soto as well as the best record in baseball, a 5 game lead over Philly, and a 7 game winning streak following sweeps of the Cardinals and Phillies. Since the opening 3-game away set loss to the Astros the Mets have lost one series, amazingly to the Twins. Their pitching is great and the offense is doing enough.

At the plate we have to talk about Soto. He is starting slow, and by that he is only above average, an off month for him. He is walking a ton like always with solid power but his contact is a little off.  This has never been a problem for him so let's assume he gets that straightened out, just hopefully for you guys not this weekend. Soto isn't the problem though - none of the stars are. Alonso has been MVP-worthy and Lindor All-Star worthy. It's just what's around them that isn't working, Francisco Alvarez has been out, Baty and Vientos have been bad. Marte is old. Nimmo looks like an early career downslider. Winker is good but a platoon guy.

For the Mets though it comes down to pitching and here everything is working out.  David Peterson is as forgettable as his name but that just means you don't realize what a solid pitcher he's been for two of the last three seasons. Griffin Canning seems happy to be out of Anaheim. Clay Holems IS working as a starter, if only a 5 inning one it is a very effective 5 innings. Kodai Senga is pitching a bit over his head and Tylor Megill is having his best year every continuing the improvement from 2024. It doesn't seem like a lights out rotation but it was one that if everything worked out it could be 5 2/3 types and like I said everything is working out.

Same with the relief core where Edwin Diaz is the weak link.  Everyone brought in and everyone kept is hitting all their targets and then some.  It's one of THOSE starts. 

It'll be a good test for the Nats. Is the Nats relief pitching bad enough that it can't hold the Mets back from late season rallies?  Are the Nats bats good enough that they can score runs against a hot rotation? Weakness vs weakness, strength vs strength, we get an idea of how weak and how strong these things are this weekend.

Things just keep getting worse

 No, no. Just kidding. Maybe for the Orioles. 

Since we're on a lucky/unlucky kick let's see which Nats are due to see things turn around... in any direction. 

HIGH BABIP - (BA should get lower) 

No surprise that Keibert in on here though he's not super crazy high. It should also not surprise you to see Nathaniel Lowe here as well.  A career .260s hitter hitting .290 to start is likely getting some bounces. But what should surprise, shock, and dismay you that Paul DeJong is among the lucky ones. Yikes! Nice knowing you Paul! 

LOW BABIP (BA should get higher) 

The oft-mentioned Dylan Crews and the below expectations Luis Garcia both should see a rise in BA. Josh Bell may be cooked but he's not THIS cooked. 

HIGH HR/FB RATE (should see fewer homers) 

James Wood might be the best HR hitter in baseball by far. But if he's not, expect a few fewer over the fence.

LOW HR/FB RATE

Luis Garcia should get something over the fence soon. 

PITCHING BABIP/LOB/HR/FB

 Mitchell Parker is basically rolling straight 7s, lucky in all aspects. Jake Irvin is also getting fewer hits and letting in fewer runs than you'd expect. The highlights of the pen, Finnegan and what we've seen of Henry should be letting in more runs, though in neither case does this mean the guy should be bad.

PITCHING BABIP/LOB/HR/FB

As you can imagine Sims and Poche are getting unlucky and when you combine that with bad pitching you see horrendous results. Brad Lord and Jose Ferrer are more in line for having improvements that actually should make them usable.  Can you believe Gore could have a bit more luck? His BABIP suggests so and his other numbers are very regular. 

Expect Garcia to get right soon. Expect Paul DeJong to be gone. The starting pitching should get a bit worse and the bullpen should see some competing improvements and scale backs. However replacing Sims and Poche would likely improve it for no cost but Rizzo's pride.   Where they stand now in general (74/75 win team) seems very much what they are.

Mitchell Parker - ace?

 No. 

For all the talk yesterday in the comments about "Crews should be doing better by his fancy stats" (true!) Parker is the opposite. A .191 BABIP? 85% LOB? 2.8% HR/FB rate? 

These are all stats that sort of measure luck. There's skill involved to be sure, and we'll get to it but these also are pulling out luck.  Last year the lowest BABIP was .220, .250 being very low.  The highest LOB% was 83.6%, 79% being very high.  The lowest HR/FB rate was 6.3%, 9.0% being very low. That gives you an idea where things normally sit.  He's clearly abnormal and without a compelling reason to say "he's awesome now!" you say it's luck. But luck is magnified early in the season. Is he just normal and it's the vagaries of a handful of starts? Nah ah.  

BABIP - 5th luckiest

LOB% - 14th luckiest

HR/FB Rate -  5th luckiest

He's lucky among the lucky. His xFIP is 4.60. 

 He does induce soft contact and does not get many barrels. Guys don't square up on him well. But that doesn't account for all of this, or even most of it, and with all his walks (so many!) and so few strike-outs (so few!) this can't possibly continue.  

But as I often say early in the year though - he doesn't have to give this back.  He doesn't have to have a 7.00 ERA over the next 4 games to even it out.  Return to form means pitching like he's earned (mid 4.00s ERA) not cosmic balance. He's still a perfectly decent arm in the rotation, especially for this team. 

In other news Crews hit a homer bc that's what happens when I say bad things about a guy.  Ruiz keeps hitting. Wood keeps hitting for power. Good good. And they beat the Os and that makes me and you happy! 

Monday Quickie - Disappointment Vibes

The Nats went 4-6 for the road trip against the dregs of the National League. What does that tell us? Well, depends.  If you want to be completely honest - nothing - because no particular 10 game stretch in baseball tells you anything definitive. It's 1/16th of a season.  6%.  It's not telling and why we often use Memorial Day - or about 1/3rd of the way into the season as an actual "ok what is this team really like" point. 

BUT

It is long enough to get ideas. Ideas that you stick in your mind to see if the season continues to validate them and a 4-6 road stretch against the dregs of the NL gives you the idea that the Nats aren't too far ahead of the dregs. That this isn't a .500 team looking to surprise but a 70 win team looking to avoid the cellar in their division. The Nats aren't the worst team in baseball. There's simply no catching the embarrassment that is the White Sox or Rockies. But could they end up the 3rd worst team? Well I'd still put my money there on the A's. But 4th worst? Sure.

The main problem remains the pen with Lucas Sims, with his 15.2 ERA (sorry that's not fair. Only a 9.42 FIP and a 2.6 WHIP!) and Colin Poche (15.88 ERA but yes 5.50 FIP but oh no 3.2 WHIP!) still occupying spots as if trying to prove to the Nats decision makers they weren't wrong making these moves that even nobodies like me could see shouldn't be made.  

Fix that though and there is a lingering question about the offense, which in the last 8 games has scored 4, 3, 3, 1, 0, 12!, 3, and 1 runs. The Nats starters are decent but they aren't made to win games where the Nats score 3 runs. We'll get to it tomorrow but the one thing they should do today is demote Crews. Dylan didn't knock the door down to get his major league shot. He simply performed competently enough in AA to get a look in AAA and performed competently enough there to get a cup of coffee to see if he's ready.  He's obviously not. This isn't an indictment on the Nats development, drafting, or Crews' skill.  Great players don't always catch on right away and good players often don't. There's no reason to believe he can't be productive in the majors, even this year. But he isn't that right now and they need to let him get his head on straight. This year is CLEARLY not about 2025 so don't force it.

Shinny to the IL

 Just since we were talking about him yesterday

  https://x.com/MarkZuckerman/status/1912876174654439920

What they needed

They needed a win. Obviously so, as I noted yesterday they were quickly sliding into "uh... what are we doing here guys" territory against some bad competition and if they don't want to BE the bad competition they needed to show something. 

They needed a good Jake Irvin performance. It has been a middling start to 2025 for Jake, who's main role is probably "be good enough to go 6+ innings so the bullpen can get some rest".  He hasn't been and it's mattered especially lacking a 5th starter (Brad Lord ain't it) and Trevor Williams scuffling a bit. The Nats rotation wasn't deep to start the year, now it needs everyone to do what they can do. Yesterday Irvin did just that. In control, lots of ground balls, some swing and miss stuff. Yeah the Pirates stink but as we've said many times - you gotta do it against the bad teams. 

They needed the bullpen not to blow it. They didn't. Jose Ferrer, probably the most "we're going to use this guy in the future" arm and Kyle Finnegan held down the 8th and 9th with one extra base-runner.  Exactly the break and performance the pen needed. 

So the Nats are now reset.  They are rolling out their best results pitcher so far in Mitchell Parker (though really that's more sequencing luck.  Still he has been good, just not under 2.00 ERA good) against Bailey Falter who is just a guy and a guy in 2025 off to a bad start. Win again, get a streak going and momentum to roll the next bad team. 

 

Speaking of no 5th starter - how's it looking in the high minors early on that front?  In AAA Shinnosuke has had a couple of good starts sandwiched around a terrible one.  It was the same team looking at him from 5 days earlier, for whatever you want to make of that. Andry Lara, an actual prospect (22+), has a similar early profile without the "re-seen" and with much fewer innings pitched. Given his tight leash I don't expect him up in 2025 and possibly could end up back in AA a league he handled but didn't dominate last year. That wouldn't be a knock against him though, just a statement of where he is in his development. He's good enough to want to take care of. Minor League Rule V pick-up Hyun-il Choi has been mediocre and oddly pitched just 2 innings last game, but I don't see any injury notes. Chase Solesky, a guy grabbed for org depth, seems to have a AA limit and is not doing well.  That leaves Andrew Alvarez, a 2021 Nats draftee and running a similar skillset as recent Nats call-ups. Re: Can't strike anyone out but doesn't get hit or give up homers.  A bit more wild than others but he might be first up.   The short of it though is - nothing really here. 

How about AA? Any older guys and/or guys doing real well? Jarlin Susana is the guy here with a couple of impressive starts.  He wasn't in AA last year though so the idea of jumping straight to the majors is a stretch given he threw 100 IP last year and that's his most ever. Maybe if he was dominating but he's a step or two from that. Really good, what you want to see as a prospect, but if you were hoping for help tomorrow, not there. 

I'd expect Lord to get another couple shots as they let the AAA guys get a couple more starts in themselves to really get a feel for how these guys are doing.  If it were today Alvarez would get the call but you have to believe they want to call Shinnosuke up and with only one bad start out of three, a couple more ok ones is probably all it takes to get him back in the show. 

Ok well you can lose to Skenes

This game isn't "have to have". Nothing in April will ever be that. But if the Nats want to come out of this road trip feeling good it's hard to imagine it without this win. Losing that they have to go 4-1 in the last five to salvage it. Certainly possible but when you start a road trip 1-4 and sit at 6-11 overall, 4-1 looks a little unlikely in general.

 Worse is just how bad the bullpen looks top to bottom. I understand the variability issue - you can make a good faith effort to build a pen and fail but this didn't feel like a good faith effort.  Especially when you are like "this guy isn't good. We aren't going to spend money on him... oh he's much cheaper. Well then it's ok he's not good" seemed like the way the Finnegan return went. It also doesn't bode well that Finnegan the only guy they were like "no we really are ok without you" is the current best arm (only good arm?) in the pen.  And we've talked about how Poche and Sims were kind of bad bets that showed poorly and yet here they are doing bad... 

sigh. 

Ok. Everyday in baseball is a new day. Get the win.