Joey has 130 PA in the month of August and 9 homers. His splits are .312 / .354 / .590. Ok sure we don't have a second set of early months to compare to the failures of the start of this year but right now the legend of Dog Days Joey lives.
The Nats are 14-10 since the break and only a bit lucky. They are playing .500+ ball and seem to be, I don't know, relaxed? Like this is the team going forward. No wondering about trades, not imminent call-ups, everyone just play and see what happens. I'm sure they'll start losing more. I noted going into July that the period after the All-Star Game had various weak or overperforming teams. The Athletics, who are up next, are kind of the end of that. After that they'll take on Boston, Philly, and the Yankees - all of who are better than .500 teams, get a break with Miami, then get the actually good Toronto. They should lose a bunch there then get some back in a six team run that includes Miami, the Mets, the Pirates, and the White Sox. Then they'll fall flat on their face with the Atlanta, Baltimore, Atlanta finish.
I'll have to say I've found the completely balanced schedule less compelling, but as long as attendance and viewership doesn't agree they won't make that change.
Dylan Crews is looking great. He was clearly better than the rookie league (but one might argue so was the SEC this year) and has a couple homers in lower A. It's only three games though. I expect a couple weeks here and if he hits, a couple weeks in Wilmington and that to be that. Start next year in AA if he hit in Wilmington.That's kind of unfair to him. Easy enough to have a good couple weeks anywhere. But the Nats need something to get the juices back flowing in the minors. They had it with Hassell, Wood, and Green to start but as noted Hassell got hurt and we probably have to throw out the whole year of development and Green's been a disaster sent back to rookie ball for a hard reset. It now all rests on Wood. Wood looks great in AA for a guy a month from 20, but also looks like a guy who might have trouble making contact in the majors (K rate at like 33% in AA). This doesn't hurt his development really but it does kind of knock down the "OMG SUPERSTAR COMING IN 2024" talk that was floated earlier in the year. Nats are going to try to slot Crews in there now. There's nothing wrong here. The team and fans are just hungry for something special and the org is trying to find it.
There's been more positive in the majors. Ruiz, Abrams, Meneses have all been good since the break. These will all be guys here next year. We want to see good. Adams has really flourished in his lefty masher role. Gray's been a little worse, Gore a little better - both still on rotation track. Finnegan solidifying his back of the pen roles. There are some fair pieces here but they need some (re; 2-3) stars around them.
The known holes remain holes though. Poor Blake Rutherford is still looking for his first hit, now 0-11. Alex Call is continually showing why he shouldn't be in the majors. But hey! Space for the other guys! Young guys going to be stars in 2024! Like Crews!
What 2023 tells us is that this is a team that isn't for 2024. Is it for 2025? Can't say no, but some off-season moves involving starting pitching and maybe a 1B would help turn that to a yes.
5 comments:
Hi Harper, when you say this isn't a team for 2024, could you define that? To suggest a couple ifs—if we close out this season knocking at the door of 70 wins, and then closed out 2024 knocking at the door of .500 (showing similar improvement from 2023-2024 as we're seeing this year), that could put us in the wildcard convo, right? So when you say is this team for 2025, do you mean we would be firmly in the playoff convo?
Rutherford has a long way to go before he qualifies for worst start of a MLB career. Don't know what the record is for a position player....but the record for most by any player provides a blast from the past for Nats fans. From 2015:
Jon Lester was about five feet from ending a career low-light with a career highlight. The Chicago Cubs pitcher entered Wednesday night without a hit in [his first] 57 career at-bats. He almost changed that in a big way in the second inning, smacking a shot off Washington Nationals ace Max Scherzer.
Alas, Nationals outfielder Denard Span had other plans. Span’s catch at the warning track pushed Lester to 0-for-58, giving him the MLB record set by pitcher Joey Hamilton in 1995 for the most hitless at-bats to start a career.
Alex Call does not belong in the majors. Unfortunately, there is a whole lot of area in center field which needs patrolling. Who else is gonna do it until the kids are ready? Call doesn't belong in the majors, but he does belong in the Nationals' outfield.
Steve Grossman - my BlakeWagon has gotten a lot less full. Moves a lot faster now though!
Anon - Yeah... yeah.
In almost every context, the correct interpretation of 14 PAs is simply noise.
You give him a single and a walk at this point and my read would be an unambiguous "ignore the results of a tiny sample". But there's something about the straight 0-for that muddies it for me. No walks. From the at bats I've seen, not a lot of hard unlucky contact or tough 10-pitch battles either. He's just looked bad.
I still think you give him 50 PAs. But unless there's serious improvement soon, I don't see how he plays the rest of the season like we were planning. If Robles isn't healthy, maybe you bring Hill back. Maybe you give Dunn a shot. Maybe even Wood, though you'd want to make that decision entirely about development as in "yah, he's not ready, but maybe having to be ready will help him get ready" and you wouldn't want to use up his rookie eligibility, so that's probably a bad idea. But yikes, you have to do something.
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