It's Review the Team Memorial Day Week (tm)(r) (c) and after 53 games (1 game under 1/3 of the season) there are bright spots in the Nats "Still rebuilding?" season.
James Wood has got to be first and foremost. We won't reiterate every point we've made so far this year about the budding superstar but he's gotten a tiny bit less selective in order to smash the ball more and that has worked out well. Not that he was ever too selective. He grips and rips. But he also has a good sense of the strike zone so he grips and rips at pitches he can usually hit. If pitchers beat him, good for them, but they are going to have to do just that.
He still could get better. I don't think it has to do with plate approach. This is working for him. However if he could hit a few fewer ground balls (52.8%) we're talking more screeching line drives and balls over the fence. The BA might drop a little, or honestly it might not, but if it does the trade off in extra XBHs would likely be worth it.
He still needs to field better or the Nats need to look at him as a DH. Let's not make the Soto mistake again trying to convince ourselves someone bad is ok out there because they are young. Yes, Wood is more athletic, truly fast, but he's not a good fielder. Being strong doesn't make you a good hitter. Its skills and he doesn't have it at this level. I mean keep him out there if he wants to be. The hits matter more. But if he's agreeable to it, it's probably the right idea.
We recently talked about CJ Abrams but he's improved every year he's been in the majors across two teams and he's hitting his stride now with a stretch to start the year as good as any that he has put up. He has cooled down in the past week so he didn't get to "best stretch ever" but if this isn't the introduction to a cold stretch he's going to end up with his best season ever. Like Wood he's swinging harder and it's paying off, though unlike Wood he's not every selective and that probably will keep him a step behind Wood as maybe a star but not a superstar. I suppose he could learn that once he sustains strong hitting without going into long droughts.
Fielding wise Abrams is like Wood in that he stinks and probably shouldn't be playing his position. Unlike Wood though DH doesn't feel right for him. His arm is fine for 3B but his reaction time is slow. If it wasn't his speed would be making him have elite range instead of terrible range. This has been very consistent over his career. You have to keep his bat and legs in the line-up so... second base in his future?
It's early in both the transition and season to judge a relief pitcher but Cole Henry seems to have taken to the role like a fish to water. If not for one horrendous outing against the Mets he'd be sporting a 0.00 ERA. He's not the traditional reliever though blowing guys away or getting them to jam the ball into the ground. No, he's a flyball guy but guys at the plate don't read his stuff well and can't hit him hard. It's not necessarily the standard recipe for success so the fancy stats don't love him but until he stops inducing that type of contact you kind of gotta assume he can keep it up. Given he's not stressing his arm trying to throw 100MPH screwballs if he simply keeps up what he's doing it seems like he could have a long successful career in the pen.
In a similar but lesser vein Jackson Rutledge has done well converting to the pen as well. He's more in line with the throwing smoke get grounders reliever types though not quite fast enough while still being prone to fits of wildness. There's room for improvement but he's under 20 games into his relief career on any level. Chances are he can improve a bit and he's already sitting at a level that would be a good pen piece. The fancy stats don't love him and given his limited time here he's probably more likely for a fallback but why not be optimistic? Like I said he can get better.
Mackenzie Gore should be great. He really should be. He's leading the league in K/9 right now, and has perfectly reasonable number for hits, homers, and walks. Everything is showing a marked improvement from last year. And yes he is better but he should still be even better than what he's showing and should be showing even more improvement. What's up? It seems like batters don't usually hit Gore but when they do they REALLY do. Mostly they can't hit his pitches but when they can they can easily squared up. That seems to suggest his mistakes are big ones. The bad curves don't miss they hang. The bad fastballs aren't off the plate they are meatballs. If he can fix that and he's an ace. But all this complaining is about a guy who's a 1/2 right now and that's good!
Jake Irvin is fine. I know we want more and the ERA sort of suggests more but he's a 4.25-4.50 ERA pitcher and you know what? That's ok. He has good control of the strike zone, and controls the running game so the hits and homers he will give up, and he will, aren't game losing. Sit at the back of the rotation for the next 2-3 years and let the Nats not worry about one spot. Who can complain about that?
Mitchell Parker is basically Jake Irvin, with a couple big exceptions. First he seems to have a skill in keeping the ball in the park. I can hazard to guess it's mostly because he's left-handed. All the things that make Irvin ok - a couple pitches that look the same and a great extension giving the batter a few micro-seconds fewer to react - Parker has something similar but you see a lot fewer LHP. Given that, the batters have a slightly more difficult time reading Parker, swing at more pitches out of the zone and hit more balls to the opposite field. This doesn't really limit hits but homers are about hitting the right pitch perfectly and it just seems harder to do that against Mitchell. The other thing would be he's 2 1/2 years younger and while Jake is Jake, Mitchell could get better. I'm not sold that he will but he could. If he doesn't, he should join Jake in the back of the rotation for several years and maybe you don't need two of those types in theory but in practice the more rotation worthy pitchers you have the better.
14 comments:
There's the core of a really good team, and most of a competent team. I think their ceiling is 80 wins if the Lerners are too poor to hire a DH or some more relievers. If that's the case, they might as well trade Wood, Gore, and Abrams now while they can get something for them.
I fought against the "Lerners are cheap" thing for ~15 years. But they should have known that the young/cheap core was close to being good, and a few bucks towards the pieces they didn't have were required. But nope, they just blame MASN and keep rolling out a bad product. Why bother.
Pretty solid takes here, Harper.
One thing I'd add, though, is that Wood's defense has improved. It's not good enough yet, but it's better than it was. As long as that's happening, I think you want to give him 1000 innings this year to see where it goes.
(On the other hand, super small sample size of course, but not much of a DH-penalty for Wood so far! He's been goddamn Aaron Judge when he doesn't have to tire himself out in the field.)
I find the "Lerners are cheap" narrative to be tiresome. No one has to buy-in to the theory, but there is one: you don't spend big money on big free agent contracts until your nucleus is coming into shape and you have a better sense of your priorities. It doesn't apply to all teams and all situations.
It does apply to a team that won the WS in 2019, but had the oldest (nearly oldest?) roster that year and a very weak farm system (partially because of trades that stocked the team for multiple post=season runs). You spend 2020 and the early part of 2021 discovering that you can't stay near the top with just a couple of fixes. You trade stars for prospects--incrementally each year. A few of the kids start to come into their own (never guaranteed) but nothing is solid either (2024).
Then you have a would have/could have season (2025), where your kids start producing AND IN RETROSPECT, you might have had a shot at the play-offs if you had spent on a couple of fixes. The next winter (the one coming) is when you have enough success from controlled players that the investments start flowing.
I am okay if you think other narratives are more likely or more pleasing....but please acknowledge the one I have described is not crazy and does seem to be the Lerner/Rizzo approach to the current circumstances.
Really, the drafts have been bad, I'll go with that -- Rizzo's fault (we'll see how Haas does). Incidentally, Garcia didn't get any credit in your commentary. He's above average and could be traded. Cruise could be good. Now Rizzo faces a conundrum, because he likes his minor league/rookie talent. Would you sign big FA pitchers next year, what with the kids we have coming up, or back from TJ? Sure, maybe. (Refresh our memories: who did you think we should have signed last offseason?) You've got a lot of guys hitting their productive years at the same time. Rizzo is trying our patience. But, then, the music press were famously certain the Beatles had face-planted by going into the studio. Sometimes it is darkest before the dawn. For now, the die has been cast. We'll know pretty soon whether Rosenthal is right.
Yesterday's MLBTR had Tim Dierkes providing a lengthy comment on the Rosenthal piece. Here is the most interesting part:
My first question is what prompted Rosenthal to write this article. He wrote at one point, “But since 2013, the Nationals have drafted and developed only three players with career bWARs above 5.0.”
Could I see similar assessments of the drafting and development results of Mike Hazen, Derek Falvey, Ross Atkins, Jerry Dipoto, Andrew Friedman, AJ Preller, Chris Antonetti, John Mozeliak, and Brian Cashman? All have been in the top baseball operations chair for eight-plus years, though Mozeliak is part of an odd transition plan. And why is 2013 the cutoff – is it to exclude Bryce Harper, Robbie Ray, Anthony Rendon, and Lucas Giolito? Why is 5.0 the WAR cutoff – is it fair to exclude Dane Dunning at 4.1 or Jake Irvin at 4.8?
We can use Antonetti as a spot-check, as he’s been in the top spot in Cleveland for over 14.5 years. Since 2013, Antonetti has drafted four players with career bWARs above 5.0: Shane Bieber, Aaron Civale, Steven Kwan, and Tanner Bibee.
How about Cashman? He’s got four also: Aaron Judge, Jordan Montgomery, Garrett Whitlock (famously lost in the 2020 Rule 5 draft), and Anthony Volpe.
This is kind of fun, so let’s do Mo as well. He’s got a whopping 11 since 2013: Marco Gonzales, Luke Voit, Jack Flaherty, Harrison Bader, Paul DeJong, Ryan Helsley, Zac Gallen, Tommy Edman, Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, and Masyn Winn. Interesting.
I don’t want to get too far afield but without context I don’t really know how bad the Nationals are at drafting and developing relative to other teams. It appears that all long-term GMs have plenty of drafts that basically turn up nothing. I’m not sure whether Rizzo has had too many of those. The club currently has more than a dozen 50-grade prospects and it will take another several years to see what comes of them.
Yeah Strasburg and Harper were no-brainers, but Rendon was a bit of a gamble that paid off massively, and Ray and Giolito were super useful in team construction for 2019 (though it might not be totally unfair to ding them for player development on Giolito, but he also was a gamble as a pick).
If Rizzo *hadn't* overhauled scouting and player development in 2022-23 then that piece would make more sense. That was probably a couple years overdue (also, Soto is a massive, massive hit on international scouting and development, and they clearly have always scouted other teams' systems well).
Rizzo's clearly a top five GM in this sport. He has flaws but people are seeing too glass half-empty as a shorthand for wisdom, when in reality his track record's way better than almost every other GM (especially since the Dodgers and Yankees are in a completely different tier in terms of resources).
As frustrating as the rebuild and lack of carryover from the 2019 WS win was, the Nats have been by far the most competently run D.C. team over the last 15 years (since Rizzo's tenure started).
A central part of Rosenthal's thesis -- Gore and company might not be around much longer because of who their agent is -- really comes down to the Lerners not spending to retain talent. That's their prerogative but it's not a criticism of Rizzo.
I'm fully pro-Rizzo, so long as the development overhaul continues. And I would have loved for the Nats to try to sign some people this past offseason to set this year up as a 2011/2012 type season. But unfortunately this past offseason's FA class wasn't great, so I can understand not overspending on someone mediocre.
The problem now, though, is that the upcoming FA class doesn't look all that great either. So if the Nats really want to compete with this young core, they're going to have to move some of the farm for "win now" type players. That means players like Hassell, Herz, Susana, etc need to be packaged for an ace, for example, if the Nats are serious about contending next year
Yeah I've read the same about last year and this year's FA class. Money might be better spent *trying* to extend Wood, Gore, and Abrams (they need one for him too, right?). Hassell needs to prove more to be trade bait.
Irvin weirdly might one of their most likely trade candidates because he's a bit on the older side for this window.
This may be an unpopular opinion. It feels like DC sports fan are more accepting of mediocrity than other fan bases. The 2011 - 2019 run was fun (despite all the playoff failures) and the Championship now 6 years ago feels like still "good enough". I'm not so sure other fan bases would be so supportive of Rizzo and simply blame ownership- not that the Lerners clearly don't have their share of responsibility. Rizzo promised a quick reset and no lengthy rebuild. That was clearly not what happened and what we are experiencing. I think we were all disappointed by the lack of substantial moves this year. Next year will be the big test as to whether the organization wants to win or simple be "ok"
@ChasR We are agreed that--given current maturing of the kids--this winter will be the time to invest. That will be a measure of commitment. But the Wizards notwithstanding, I see no support for your claim that this town accepts (and supports) mediocrity more than other cities. I am reminded of the Cleveland Browns fan who asked for Browns players to be his pallbearers so that....the team "could let him down one last time." In the five years or so since that happened, the Browns are still not a good team.
Also, if you tote up the last 20 years of baseball in DC compared to the last 20 years in other baseball cities, I would guess we are middle of the pack in results. Lots to complain about if you want, but DC baseball is highs and lows not sustained mediocrity.
With Young ready for his rehab assignment, I’m assuming Lile would be the one optioned back to AAA? That would mean Hassell moves to RF? And then what happens when Crews returns? Has Hassell played well enough to challenge Young for a spot?
Let's see: we have Wood (2030), Young (2029), Call (2029), Hassell (2030+?), Lile (2030+?), and Crews (2030). Nats fans are so unused to an abundance that we forget these are the challenges/strengths/fun of having an increasingly good team and a good farm system. FO will probably decide on who gets sent down based on individual performance and individual health at the point Young returns, and then Crews returns. Young may find himself with an extended rehab to put off the need for a decision.
Eventually, Call will be traded because he is much older than the others. FO will be happy for the situation of multiple years of control of 5 outfielders that can play in the majors. Cautiously optimistic that things really are on an upswing for the long turn.
Trading Call would make things easier, though I’m not sure he’d bring back anything as a fourth outfielder. These may be good problems but they aren’t necessarily easy ones.
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