Nationals Baseball: Tuesday Quickie : Kieboom

Tuesday, March 10, 2020

Tuesday Quickie : Kieboom

How's Kieboom doing?  It's kind of the only question that matters this Spring and I've said earlier that unless he's complete garbage, I'd bet on him winning the 3B role to start the season.  How has he been? Not complete garbage!  .250 / .419 / .292.

Yes that's a .292 SLG (1 XBH in 30 PAs) but maybe he's working on patience?  I find working on patience in Spring a little bit odd, because the pitchers aren't necessarily concerned with throwing strikes, but hey, when are you going to work on it? To be honest his patience last year wasn't overly concerning. The big deal was the strikeout rate (37.2%!).  How is that going? 6 Ks in 30PAs... that's 20%. That's better!

Kieboom has started 7 games at 3B (Cabrera has started 5) and played twice as many inning there. All indications are as expected - Kieboom is your starter. We'll look back in another two weeks or so but don't expect it to change unless Carter strikes out 20 times in his next 30 PAs.


The other thing you might be interested in is 5th starter and Joe Ross , Erick Fedde, and Austin Voth have all looked ok.  An honest assessment of just the stats would put Voth ahead with his pinpoint control and Ross' lack of Ks, but again it's Spring and an honest assessment of the stats is like 40% of what's going on here. You might be able to pick out someone having issues (oh darn Barrett! oh no Doolittle! oh really no Hudson!) but two weeks in even those are just things to stick a pin in not to worry about. So far nothing about the 5th starter battle seems to be crazy good or crazy bad so you have to say that favors the incumbent, Joe Ross.


What to look for this week :
  • Does Harris pitch a real game?  
  • Let's see Strasburg back on the mound (terrible first outing, then a skipped start - pitching simulation)   
  • Let's see Robles back in CF full-time for several games. 

4 comments:

G Cracka X said...

No comments yet??

What's the over/under on Harris being available for Game 1 of the regular season?

Jimmy said...

No coronavirus post Harper? the season is already over.

Harper said...

GCX - Over Under? I'd say 90%. He seems to be progressing and I think they won't push anything.

Jimmy - That's for my other blog NatsVirology

Anonymous said...

Strasburg appears to have passed the test.