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.
20 comments:
Could the Nationals trade Sims and Poche for Venus de Milo? Or would they have to throw in a sweetener?
I think the most glaring thing about Crews's performance so far is that he's getting absurdly unlucky. His batted ball profile translates to a wRC+ around 120. Yes, the results are pretty bad, but he's underperformed his xOBA by the 2nd most of 272 qualified hitters. And given his speed and how hard he hits the ball, there's just no reason to expect that continue at all. Look at his statcast page: 82nd percentile in xBA and 75th in xSLG. That's not someone who needs to go back and mash against AAA pitching.
I suppose if you're going to be completely cold blooded, and you're just evaluating his reduced chances at ROY, and deciding that you'd rather have control over his 2031 season, that would make sense, even if it would also be pretty dickish.
And, well, I guess another wrinkle might be around how he's reacting to his bad luck. If it's getting into his head, and messing with his preparation or other aspects of his game, I could get behind a reset in the minors. I haven't seen any evidence of that, but fans only see 10% of that kind of stuff, so I can admit that I don't really know.
Do Sims and/or Poche have incriminating photos or videos of Davey or Mike Rizzo? Just trying to figure out why they are still on the team. I was sure that Poche would be demoted or released after the first weekend of the season.
Sims has a 3mm contract; Rizzo doesnt want to admit that large of a mistake
I think / hope it's as simple as Law, Ribalta, Brzykcy, and Soroka all being on the IL.
House off to a good start in AAA. How much does he have to do there to get a call-up?
Hard to say but considering the team is undoubtedly not contending, probably a fair amount. Certainly not going to want to lose a year of control
Assuming he continues his above average production, I think he'll either be up in July when DeJong is traded or in September when rosters expand.
Even putting aside his batted ball profile overall, it seems odd to call for Crews to be demoted without even mentioning his 5-13, 2 HR, 2b, 2 SB performance in Colorado the last two days/three games.
Yeah I'm taking the opposite take on Crews. This year isn't about 2025, so let him play and figure it out against the big boys. Like others have pointed out, his batted ball profile isn't actually too bad, big thing he could benefit from his getting under pitches a bit more. Like his xBA is a full 80 points higher than his BA, that's extreme bad luck.
Though as SMS points out, maybe you want to keep him an extra year so sending him down gives you that, but you'd have to send him down for quite awhile to get that extra year and I don't see that happening
I too am bullish on Crews since he started the season 1-for-a-billion (.267 BA since 4/6). Dr Statcast says his main problem is fastballs: .385 SLG/.615 xSLG vs .522/.545 last year, his Whiff% and PutAway% have doubled, so yes on the bad luck but he's simply missing the ball more (maybe swinging harder in case he hits it). Mr Eye Test says he's being too aggressive because he's pressing. Maybe less pressure in the minors would help but probably working on it against MLB pitching would help more. The HRs and line drives to right-center in Colorado portend good things hopefully.
Something I really don't understand is removing James Wood for defensive purposes late in games. The Nats are not trying to win this year. If you think Wood sucks in the field (no argument there) shouldn't he be getting more reps? I thought this before Alex Call almost gave that 12-11 game away in Coors.
I was not signed into my account, there's a reason Mr. Eye Test never got his degree.
I went 3-13 with a homer.
But he's not hitting the ball particularly hard. One of the weird things is the xBA difference from exit velocity / hard-hit %. I wouldn't be surprised if that xBA xOBA is powered completely "JESUS THIS GUY IS FAST"
Bat speed fine, barrell good, but exit velo and hh% not great to me says something is off.
Less mistake more "Don't want to use options until we have to" and if you are writing off the season to start you don't have to until the team starts to rebel
You cant "let's just look at the last 2 weeks" 7 weeks into a season! They also count! Yes, the Rockies series was good. But it was also one very good game and then two singles in two games
Looking at Bell, maybe he's just a one year DH holding place. If so Wood doesn't need to be given options
Maybe. I'll certainly grant you that something is off in the sense that he has room for improvement and that some of the BA vs xBA underperformance could be a genuine consequence of his approach or swing path or something.
But his high xBA outs aren't little cheapies that's he failing to beat out. Just to pick an arbitrary cutoff, he's hit 10 balls at 103mph or harder. He's gotten one single, one double and one HR out of them. Meanwhile, the xBA on those PAs is .715 and the xSLG is 1.533.
I hear you on his avg EV and his EV50 being unremarkable, but it looks to me like his good launch angles and his good EVs are positively correlated. Like he's just average on the frequency of either component, but they overlap for him more often. His EV on balls in the air is around 80th percentile and his EV on balls on the ground is around 30th. Of course, maybe he's getting that correlation in some part due to luck, so we can't just swap in his xwOBA and assume that's the true talent.
Anyway, just something to keep an eye on. Given the sample size we're dealing with, I'm mostly only trusting the 1st order correction of "he's getting unlucky". If we're sitting here in 8 weeks, and his wOBA is like 30 points higher and xwOBA is like 50 points lower (which would still be a decently large underperformance), I could get behind giving him a reset in the minors. But I'm not close to there at this point.
Crews is now 1 for his last 2 with a 2.500 OPS. First ballot HOF selection confirmed!
That's fair.
The season is a wash so if you want to wait until Memorial Day (5 weeks more) I can get behind that. If you are looking for something new after a third of the season is gone, that starts to get into wishful thinking imo
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