I generally don't like the "except for" type of analysis because most of the time it's ignoring something important for the sake of making an argument. Like "except for the 9-25 start the 2007 Nats were a .500 team." It DOES matter what they did for 1/5th of the season!
But one odd event, ok I can exclude that and if you remove last week's errant game against the Marlins, Gray has been fairly dominant since memorial day
WITH start : 40.2 IP, 30H, 15BB, 48Ks, 6 homers 2.66 ERA
WITHOUT : 35 IP, 20H, 13BB, 42Ks, 5HR, 1.54 ERA
Now that ERA is a bit lucky - you put on 33 baserunners and give up 5 homers you expect a couple runs a game. but still that's very good. It's #1 like.
But still I hold off on saying he's an ace in the making for a couple reasons.
- It's just a stretch, not a season. Seven games is a good long while but it's also not enough to make any definitive statement, just as his first nine games pitching to a 5.54 ERA wasn't either.
- The competition has not been fierce. Colorado on the road (pitiful), Cincinnati (bad), Miami (not good) x2, Bryceless Phillies (maybe average?) x2, and Texas (they are ok). Not a team I'd call good on offense among them.
- We don't know how he'll do in the stretch run. Gray's most IP ever is 130. That was in 2019 in the minors. He's about what he threw last year and he didn't throw in 2020. So I'd expect his performance to degrade over the rest of the year. And that's perfectly fine!
What all these means isn't that Gray is bad (I've always said he's a rotation worthy guy already), or that he hasn't impressed (I myself have shifted my view of him from a 3-5 to a 2-4). What it means is that a season is long and just as a hot summer doesn't mean Kyle Schwarber is the best home run hitter of all-time, a good June doesn't make Gray and ace. But it doesn't hurt.
Take it for the good sign it is and let's let the whole season play out. If he's this good the rest of the year - watch out NL. If he's a little bit worse - that's fine, still learning, and still where the Nats want him to be. If he crashes - well on to 2023 and see if now stretched out his arm is ready for a full season.
13 comments:
Excellent analysis. I'm hoping that Gray is at least a #2. I do expect he'll fade in the second half of the season. And I don't think he'll be as effective against better teams. Regardless, he has terrific stuff, including a deadly curveball and a lively fastball. And he seems to have that right demeanor to come back after making a mistake.
Interesting that Davey went right back to Tanner Rainey last night.
What do you make of his susceptibility to surrendering so many home runs?
It's a pattern with Davey. When a reliever has a bad night he almost always puts them right back in a similar position the next day. I think it's a smart way to manage.
As I was thinking about the upcoming trade deadline, I'm reminded that if we hadn't traded Trea last year we wouldn't have Ruiz and Gray. Instead we'd be picking up a couple far less developed or less interesting prospects.
Is there analysis projecting young pitchers that differentiates between a run of success (like Gray is having) and sporadic success (like Fedde has for a game or two before turning back into a pumpkin)? Might be interesting to see if early stretches of dominance project to later success more than a good game here and there.
I think Potomac was referring to Gray's homers. Another pitcher- our old friend Max- is homer prone, but he gets away with it. To get away with it, can't have many base runners, and need to K alot of guys.
I am just glad they brought Adon back up to continue his quest for 20 losses.
I think we can hope for at least Mike Parrott, 1980 achievements from Joan "System of" Adon! Just bring him back for one more loss every few weeks
I’m skeptical, if only because Corbin has also been turning it around for this stretch and I feel like he’s cooked.
Hope I’m wrong though? A hot July for him would be a godsend if we can get rid of half the contract with a trade.
@Anon, it truly would be a payroll move. I don't think anybody in their right mind would take Corbin and any of his salary without getting somebody else as well. Maybe package him with Bell?
I think it's pretty clear that a Bell + Corbin package would have significantly negative surplus value and that I should be happy sending Bell + Corbin + $10M to some contender for a non-prospect.
But... the 2022 salary is only $120M and next year's commitment is only like $90M even counting Corbin and all the arb players.
I don't get any utility at all from the team having a healthy balance sheet. Worse than that, a losing team with a basement payroll might be more likely to attract the worst type of ownership. At least with the Lerners, I can believe they would probably spend again in the future (though I still don't believe that saving money now *helps* them spend in the future), but is that true of most owners buying in?
The absolute last thing I want this team to do is to trade our only rental of any value for salary relief.
I agree with @anonymous. Pairing Bell and Corbin in a trade is baffling. The team needs prospects--the more heralded and closer to MLB-ready the better. There will be competition for Bell's services and we should get a good return. Why diminish or eliminate Bell's trade value by addding Corbin?
Corbin isn't good and he is costing a lot of money. But the Nats are bad with or without Corbin. He is not blocking any prospects. Let him be and hope he gets better. Let''s also hope that there is 6 or 8 teams bidding on Bell.
@Anon and Steve, to be clear I wasn't advocating for it. I was simply saying that if you wanted to offload Corbin, you have to package him with somebody else. The armchair GM in me says keep him around and absolute worst case scenario you eat the salary and waive him next year
Ditto to Anonymous and Steven Grossman. Salary relief only matters to me as a fan if ownership is about to clear the decks and spend $100M+ on free agents, a Soto extension, and the like. In that case, whatever prospect half a year of Josh Bell would bring back is a worthwhile price to pay to clear $20M off the books for each of the next two years. If the only outcome is that it saves ownership $20M...
...well, I'm a fan of the Washington Nationals baseball team, not a fan of Ted Lerner's wallet (and even less so of Mystery Purchasing Owner X's wallet; at least the Lerners spent on their team so that I can say "why yes, I do remember when my favorite team won the World Series" and then ramble on annoyingly to the young'uns about Baby Shark and Rendon-Soto and Stras saying eff you to the "not clutch" narrative and the visiting team winning 7 out of 7 games to mock the concept of home field advantage until they're ready to lock me in a cellar to shut me up).
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