The Nats have had a good start. They continue to be fed by close wins (yesterday was only the second time they've won a game by more than 2 runs) and a relatively weak schedule* but if they are beating the worst that likely means they aren't the worst themselves, which was an honest question to start the year. But of course we only have the start of the year to go on and that's not much. If you look at all the worst teams last year they all had longer stretches of better baseball at various points. The A's went 13-12 at one point. The Royals finished they year 15-12. The White Sox pulled off a 22-15 stretch, which is actually really good. And the Rockies went 13-8.
So bad teams do have good stretches. But all of these teams started badly. Some had good Mays, other good Augusts, but no good Aprils. But you don't have to go back too far to find a 100 loss team that started 10-11. The 2022 A's did. The short of it is you don't really know until you get well into a season, like Memorial Day if they Nats are around .500 you can feel pretty good they aren't going end the year with triple digit losses.
That's a long way away! Well it's a long season. But let's work in reverse. Let's say the Nats finish April one game around .500. In the past 2 seasons what teams have done that.
In 2023 no one finished the month .500 or one game under. A bunch of teams were one over.
- NYY - finished 82-80
- LAA - 73-89
- PHI - 90-72
- SDP - 82-80
- BOS - 78-84
- CHC - 83-79
In 2022 four teams were around .500
- SEA (+) 90-72
- HOU (+) 106-56
- PHI (E) 87-75
- OAK (-) 60-102
Huh. Well that didn't help. In 2023 we saw kind of what we'd expect. If your April was around .500 you are probably a .500ish team. You might push a bit higher like the Phillies getting 9 over or fall a little lower like the Angels falling 9 under but the window was there. In 2022 we saw one team play amazing the rest of the way*** and another team play terribly****. So I guess anything CAN happen.
Ok well we don't know much, other than this is a nice surprise that they team is not starting slow. Whether it is really real and they might be .500, sort of real and they are going to be not good but competitive, or not real at all, well I guess that doesn't matter right now. But the longer they keep it up the more likely it is this is who they are. That is a fact.
*You wouldn't have thought it to be going into the year but that is what it looks like now. The Astros are among the worst teams in baseball. The Dodgers are barely over .500. There is a big mish mosh in the middle of baseball right now with a handful of actually good teams** and the Nats haven't played any of them, except maybe the Philles or Reds (but not both). Meanwhile they've played the A's, Astros, Rockies, and Giants, half of the worst 8ish teams in the league.
** By record - Yankees, Orioles, Cleveland, Atlanta, Philly, Milwaukee, Cubs. By stats - Orioles, Red Sox, Guardians, Royals, Atlanta, Mets, Milwaukee, Reds.
*** The Astros after starting 7-9 would have runs of 15-2, 20-5, and 22-6 during the year. They'd only lose back to back games 8 times the rest of the year and three in a row once.
**** The A's after starting 10-9 would have
runs of 7-25, 3-12, and 7-21 during the year.
13 comments:
Agree with your post.
Is Mitchell Parker real? Haven't seen a National throw nasty strikes like that over two games since Max.
That's what I clicked in here to ask as well.
“ Meanwhile they've played the A's, Astros, Rockies, and Giants, half of the worst 8ish teams in the league.”
Nats haven’t played the Rockies yet…
On a side note I don’t expect to end with this win percentage, but I’m thinking 70+ wins is certainly doable and should be expected all things considered. A lot of guys seem to have made legit steps forward.
Honestly couldn't care less how good we are this year. I started the year watching all the Gore/Grey starts. Might have to add Parker starts to that list. The young bats are looking better than they did a year ago, hopefully Wood Crews and one more prospect (House?) pop enough to come up this year and we're starting to look toward 2025 and our first real offseason since 2020.
They may not be good. (Probably aren't, really.) But they're not BAD. I mean, I think Ildemaro Vargas is having a hot streak, but he's still a very versatile defender with a "won't hurt you" bat. A real plus for a so-so team.
CJ Abrams is picking up where he left off last year, which is pretty darn good.
Luis Garcia may have really learned he needs to try hard, and has improved from "he'll do" to "starter on a good team."
4 good starts out of 4 for Williams - if you can repeat getting good performances by keeping them short, then that's one less glaring weakness. (Pair him with an opener to face the top of the opponents' lineup once. Then he faces the bottom of it 3 times and the top twice. That'd squeeze another inning out of him, which means one less bad reliever to use in the 6th).
Let's see if Parker can keep this up for another 2 starts. If so, then we can figure he's at least as good as Irvin.
Plus, remember the cavalry's coming -- Wood, Stone Garrett, Cavalli et al will be here in the next couple months.
It's way too early to tell on any of these guys. I mean, Irvin and Williams have only had four starts, and Parker only two. But if they continue to be better than average into the season it's going to really test our previously unshakeable commitment to trashing the Nats' player development.
On the bright side, they hired Doolittle. So if we do have to give the team some credit we have someone to credit other than Hickey or Davey
I think Kevin is right on this -- they aren't good, but they aren't awful. A below average team with some improving pieces and looking to contend next year. That was the realistic hope (especially given how Rizzo handled the offseason) and the balance of what we've seen in the first 20 games supports the case that the rebuild is on track. I know part of it is expectation setting, but it has actually felt pretty good so far.
As for whether Parker is real, I think it's very unlikely that Parker is this good. I mean, assuming he's limited to 150 IP this year, his current pace works out to about 7 WAR, which would be around the 20th best season by a pitcher since 2010 and the second best season by a Nats pitcher ever. That likely wins a Cy Young, definitely top 2-3, and is an unrealistic expectation for Parker.
But he can be a lot worse than this and still be a strong starter in a playoff rotation, which is the bar he needs to clear to be a core piece of our next window. We need 4 playoff starters, and right now we have 1 (and even that is projecting a bit on Gore, but I think he's developing in the right direction and it's not a very big leap to get him there, so I count him). Then we have a bunch of folks at varying levels of maybe. Parker was in that group and is pushing his way to the front of the line. The important question is whether Parker is or can be a 3+ WAR pitcher by true talent and I'm weirdly optimistic.
If you include ST relief appearances and his AAA start, his season has been 22 IP over 7 games with 1 walk, 20 Ks and no home runs. The story is that he worked on his mechanics in a lab last offseason with the specific goal of improving command (instead of velo, spin etc), and nothing in his starts has looked particularly fluky other than the name on his back. He'll have plenty of games with worse luck in terms of HR/FB and BABIP, but if you can throw multiple pitches for quality strikes, you just don't need blistering stuff to be a frontline starter. Decent stuff, which is what Parker has, suffices. I'm in.
I would agree. Parker is almost certainly not historically good. I don’t think anyone is arguing that. But legit big league pitcher? That doesn’t seem impossible and would be huge for the franchise. It was fun to watch him pitch yesterday — which as a fan is a great feeling because I don’t get that with Gray, Irvin, Williams, or Corbin. Even when they are doing ok.
@Anon 902 - I'm just trying to get out ahead of folks saying "oh well, it was fun while it lasted" the first time he lets in 4 runs over 4 innings, with 3 walks and homer.
No, it would still be amazing. Starts like that happen to good pitchers. He doesn't need to be the best pitcher in the league to be an incredible success.
There's a lot to be said for strengthening the farm system in advance of a multi-year pennant run. Candelario brought in a decent prospect haul last year. With luck, Williams and Winker, and maybe Gallo and Floro, will net more talent come July. Rizzo and a well-stocked farm system are a sight to behold.
Crossing fingers.
Look at it this way -- it's a lot more fun watching Irvin and Parker and saying "ok, they're probably not as good as this sample looks, but that's encouraging" than it was looking at Voth and Fedde and saying "well, they'll probably get a little less bad with time."
We don’t know for sure how bad or good the Nats are, but projection systems will give you the best guess (both for the team and for individual players). Right now, FG has the Nats at 69 wins. That seems about right. I’m guessing other projections are similar. You can also look at Rest of Season projections and see what the educated guess is per player. It helps calibrate expectations (though of course players routinely overperform or underperform their projections)
The team isn’t good, but we will see if they are super bad, kinda bad, or “meh” by mid season. They certainly feel more exciting than they have in the past
That CJ Abrams fella is looking pretty decent
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