Unwritten Rule : The Nats pen will be a shambles

 In the standings the Nats went from 2 down to 4 down in the blink of eye as Daniel Hudson imploded in the 9th. That's not a terribly big deal but they also went from 2 under .500 to 4 under .500 which matters more if you want to see Washington playing in October. My feeling is you do, but if they don't make it you'll say you don't care. It won't be true but it will be more true than any other year if that makes sense. 

Even with Soto hitting like an MVP immediately the Nats aren't able to generate a ton of offense. The starters are not carrying the team, and as we noted the bullpen is a mess.  Doolittle and Hudson were ridden hard at the end of last year as the only arms to be trusted and they are showing some of that wear now. Will Harris - also ridden hard but for abother team, has the same issue. It leaves the Nats with a real hole at the back end of games which is familiar in a way you don't want it to be.  

The Nats have played about 3 weeks worth of games so you can't definitively say anything, but there's a lot of early indications the battle will be uphill.  Last year the Nats had Rendon and a trade deadline where they were contenders to help them out. No Rendon. Likely no trades (and I think everyone is ok with that). So this season may be a punt sooner than we think. In fact this Braves series could be a huge setback if there's a sweep against the Nats. 

What happens then?  Well maybe as early as after Labor Day the Nats pack it in.  Sit anyone with minor injuries. Give young guys a lot of ABs to see what they got.  It's a different type of season and at the end you could see them saying bye to a ton of older talent Sanchez, Eaton who have options, Doolittle, Kendrick, Suzuki, AsCab who are FAs. That doesn't actually save them a ton of money either given these are all relatively bargain vets. The Nats don't have middle sized contracts. They peak out with Eaton at 9.5 before getting the the 20+ millions for their starters. So this doesn't mean a big signing could be coming (unless you want to contemplate not re-signing Max after 2021) 

Anyway a lot of rambling to say - don't get swept here. Let's keep the season going.

Monday Quickie - Soto Ascendant

 Juan Soto isn't leading the league in anything right now, but that seems to be only because he hasn't played enough games thanks to what seems to be an aberrant positive test.  Otherwise the kid is hitting like you'd hope he would - a continuation of last years performance where power, patience, and batting eye all come together.*

I'm not going to scale his stats up because that'd be silly. But for a team that looks to be in the need of a new image going forward he is putting up superstar numbers and should be it. Why a new image? Well the team was a starting pitching team first, but perennially injured Stras is as expected injured this perennial, Max is finally, maybe, showing his age getting hit a bit, homered a lot, and more wild. And Corbin is a 1A type reliant on a slider to be dominant or merely good and at 30 is unlikely to change. Within a year or two this will be a Soto team first and foremost. The question is if there is enough of a lineup around him.  Turner and Robles have both hit better recently. Kieboom and newly brought up 2B Garcia have not yet (but plenty of time).  Are these guys keys that keep the Nats from needing to sign a big bat or just pieces that save them money to maybe sign the big bat they need? A bright spot this year at the plate seems to be some decent skills getting on base Kieboom walking, Turner legging things out, and Robles getting plunked. So offensively some guys Soto can knock home at least.

The Nats are currently benefitting from ONCE A GODDAMN GAIN being in potentially the worst division in baseball, the NL East unless you love the Marlins. The Nats are in range to finish first ahead of a good, but not great Braves team; a pitching plagued Phillies team, and a Mets team where the sum is lesser than the parts. Nothing about this will change unless the Braves youngsters come together.  Hell let's do a quick review

ATL - The Braves did build a great pen, Ozuna is doing what they want, and other vets more so but their fate is tied to their youth and right now nearly all are hurt or underperforming. Acuna is hurt. Albies is hurt. Riley is struggling terribly. Dansby appears to be what he is. Soroka is hurt. Toussaint is probably better than this. Wright may not be. So who is healthy and doing well? Max Fried might be the list. That's not going to keep the Braves up in the standings.

PHI - DYK Bryce leads the NL in OBP? Realmuto is one off the NL lead in homers? Gregorious is good. Segura is hitting like Segura should. McCuthen may be showing signs of life.  Seems like freed of Kapler guys are doing what they should. OK Kingery looks DOA as a prospect**, but everyone else is doing well and they are 3rd in R/G.The starters are all ok... Wheeler isn't an ace but he does what he's supposed to. Problem is Girardi hasn't been able to piece a back of the pen together yet and the front end guys keep giving up the big hit. If he can there's a team here to challenge but there's no guarantee the pieces are here.

NYM - deGrom and the other guys continues. Wacha hurt himself. Porcello is ok but with some bad luck. Matz is just bad. Stroman opted out. Add it together and a possibly really good rotation becomes garbage. The hitting is ok, Cano has new life is especially important and the relief pitching has come back a bunch from their 2019 nightmare but without the starting pitching it's not enough. The offense isn't team carrying.

*Defense - not so much. I keep telling you this. You keep ignoring me. I guess that's just how it's going to be for a couple years. 

** Hey hows that SS doing... Crawford.... meh on Seattle. Not great but an average bat is something. But can he keep it up.

Baseball Still Lives!

 The Marlins are a taxi squad. The Cardinals are down and making up their games will be hard.  Players are still not getting it (see Plesac and Cleavinger in Cleveland) but for one more week baseball survives. 

 How are the Nats doing? Meh. With Soto grounded by a false positive the Nats offense floundered. They were 13th in runs scored in the NL and that's including last night.  The Nats pitching is better (6th) but are dealing with some worrisome injuries.  Strasburg just pitched for the first time and struggled not to deep into the game.  Scherzer has had some issues going only one inning last game. Doolittle, key 8th inning set-up guy looks injured as his FB speed is way down.  Will Harris is on the DL, Hudson and Sanchez are off to slow starts...

Ok that all sounds terrible but this is a championship caliber squad so even with all these issues they are at 5-7, two games off of my .500 needed record.  Work it out and the Nats are basically one game off the last spot in the playoffs. 

Pitching is a bit limited for stat perusing but what about hitting? The most concerning thing for the Nats is that Turner and Robles aren't hitting. These are the guys to set-up around Soto (who no one doubts) and neither seems to be the player the Nats expect them to be at the plate. Kieboom, arguably the last band member here, is slumping after an ok start and has 11Ks in only 26 PAs.  Maybe Rizzo can always piece together offenses around Soto. Right now AsCab and Castro are doing well and Howie seems still like Howie to me. But that's a lot to ask on a budget and if the pitching slips a little the hitting needs to be better than average.  Right now the pitching has slipped, the hitting is below average and the Nats aren't even in the expanded playoffs. 

But again - early! End of August will be the first real marker in the road for this short season.The big thing right now is Scherzer's start tonight.  Would love to see a standard Max start. 

The rest of the NL East... The Mets are struggling thanks to some very impt opt outs. The Phillies are hitting and not pitching as kind of expected. The Braves are good but not so good you think they can't fall back. The Marlins are a fluke - though in a short season flukes matter. It's not a bad spot for the Nats. I'd hazard to say every other division would be tougher.  Man the NL East dogfight of good team I expected before last year just really fell flat 

 Beat the Mets - keep them down and get you up and then take it from there. 

.500!

Stop the season! Right now the Nats are .500 and would they make the playoffs? They would!

MIA/ATL

CHC/CIN

COL/LAD

 then San Diego .583 then...the Nats!

See! And in the AL the last teams in would be Cleveland and Detroit - each at .500!

It's not a guarantee but it's going to be darn close. and honestly I'd more expect someone UNDER .500 to make it than someone .500 or better to be left out.

Juan Soto is back tonight so that means either 2 HRs and the story for baseball for a night (I mean if they can avoid any corona virus news) or 0-5 with 2K and the reverse lock blowout Mets win. 

Ok that's it for now.

Monday Quickie - Scratchin and Survivin

Thanks to the Merry Marlins and however they admit to having gotten Corona Virus the Nats have a long weekend off. They'll get back to playing tomorrow. So no stats for you. I won't do it before 10 games. 

In the meantime the two other active NL East teams have moved on and the Braves are handling the Mets and opening up a solid lead in the division.  Again really all you should care about* is the Nats getting to .500.  This is a crazy year so just get in seems like a decent strategy.

The NL has Atlanta, Chicago, and the Rockies on top. The Rockies are a bit of a surprise but they were in the WC hunt most of last year and the Dodgers are just a game behind them.  The worst team in baseball record wise is the Pirates at 2-7. But the Mets and the D-backs are also floundering. If those teams are really this bad .500 for the Nats is a cake walk.

In the AL there haven't been surprises at the very top. The Yankees, Twins, Astros/A's all leading their respective divisions. The one surprise at all is the Baltimore Orioles sitting at 5-3, but all that is is two games over .500. No team is worse than 3-7

What do we want this week?  Same thing as every week, keep playing. Baseball was ready to at least pause if one more team had a mass virus event after the Casino-loving Cardinals became number 2, but that hasn't materialized yet. More importantly, the Phillies, who were the Marlins on-field opponent before getting pulled, have not seen an outbreak of their own. That suggests, what we mostly thought, the game itself shouldn't be a spreading event. Now there's still time for positives to show up but that is an important piece of news for ALL sports, because if baseball spreads every sport is going to. That it hasn't means there's a chance for other sports.

So baseball NEEDS the Phillies series to go off without a hitch. It'd be fantastic if there were no more outbreaks though another team screwing up toward the end of the week is probably work around able. Three teams out seems to be the max disruption the league can handle. There's too much interplay to deal with more.
 

*beyond the season even finishing

Nats win, offense still sputters

The Nats don't have Anthony Rendon anymore. They don't have Juan Soto anymore as DC health officials clear him for playing. They don't have Ryan Zimmerman.  In effect they have an offense a lot like the beginning of last May.  If you don't remember a mix of injuries and a day off for Howie led to this lineup being trotted out byt the eventual world champs for a day:

Robles Difo Eaton Suzuki Dozier Stevenson Kieboom Noll

Things aren't that bad but they are pretty down. It's arguably to the point where any decent pitcher has a shot at shutting this team down. But whatcha gonna do? The Nats decided to let Rendon go, center the offense around the younger, better hitter in Soto and focus on keeping the SP as good as it can be.  Other teams have won with that kind of plan (see one of those Giants WS teams) so it's not terrible. It just relies on pitcher health which is totally up in the air in a normal year. This isn't even that. 

But still - championship in pocket.  Weirdo season.  Just roll with it. 

As far as the rest of the NL East is going, the Marlins are possibly dead, the Phillies are frozen, the Mets and Braves are .500.  Again just roll with it. Remember what I said. Wait did I say it here? Anyway if I didn't, .500 is basically going to get you in the playoffs this year with the new structure.  That's the low hanging fruit the Nats need to go after.  No pushing players, no crazy deals.  Just try to get to .500 with what you have and see if you can recapture that post-season magic.

We'll get to some real analysis when there are more games in pocket.  Maybe next Monday.

Nats lose, MLB also loses

The Marlins have changed the game.

Well, not really. Really they have upped the time table. In a "no bubble" scenario it was always likely that some players would get COVID. And in a lenient rule situation, eventually one of these would pass it on to a number of teammates. You get enough teammates and you get a postponed game situation. The hope was people would take it seriously enough at the start to make this a mid-season situation, but here we are.

What's the end result? I don't know and I'm pretty sure baseball, which doesn't seem to be able to plan out a rain delay doesn't know either.  The easy answer is... well there are no easy answers... but the simplest answer is a bubble. Players can't go home, can't see family, and either are stuck in hotels from city to city or stuck in hotels in one specific city.  It seemed to work for the NWSL, and the NBA and NHL have had training starts that were more promising than MLB's "police yourself" summer camp.

But what it comes down to is what players want to do, and few want to be trapped in a hotel for months even for millions.  So I don't know what's to come. Twist my arm and I think baseball keeps the Marlins out for a while, suspends the Phillies/Yanks for like another game and hopes everything works out.  I don't think it will work.

In actual baseball news the Nats lose but as I type this there is only one team even 3-1 in the NL so it's barely a blip on their chances to make whatever post-season there may be.  Onward we go

Monday Quickie - First weekend done

The season is 1/20th over!

You can't read anything from three games, performance wise, so we won't go into any of that other than to talk about starting pitching work. Max? Ok, pretty typical "bad" Max, where a couple pitches get away from him, he loses control for a batter (maybe two) and things work out in a way that matters.  Erick Fedde looked good early but almost fell apart in the 4th and I think this is sort of the best you are going to get from Fedde. Patrick Corbin looked great and this is why you go three aces deep.  Max is going to get old one day. Stras is his usual mecurial, oft-dinged, self. Corbin though can step in and be that number 1.

The pen failed to hold the Yankees in game 3, which is always a worry, but they did fine in game 2. The runs scored were a little low. Would they be better with Soto? Of course! Let's get that test back! If these are problems we'll see it throughout the next couple of series. Right now you just think about it.

Baseball as a whole sort of made it through weekend one.  An audience desperate for sport gave the Opening Day it's best ratings in a decade. I'm sure the weekend games also did much stronger than normal. I bet NBA and NHL both see similar bumps if not as extreme (you'd rather be first out of the box than third). So far... so getting by.

When is 3 = 8 but not = 8?

Just a note.  There's been some talk around that a team starting the season 0-3 is like starting the season 0-8 and that's true but also not.

You see 0-3 is like 0-8 in the impact for the season.  A shortened season means each game is more important and the impact of these shorter runs is as much as a greater one would be in a long season.

BUT

You see 0-3 is not like 0-8 for how rare it may be.  It doesn't matter how short a season is, an 0-3 run doesn't become as unlikely as an 0-8 run.  Every game still breaks in roughly the same way.  Every team will still have an 0-3 run.  Every team will probably have several 0-3 runs. Few teams will have 0-8 runs. Almost none will have multiple 0-8 runs.

An 0-3 run isn't a death sentence because a good team can make that back quickly fairly easily.  An 0-8 run though is hard to make up quickly. 

So don't get caught up in doom and gloom if the Nats get off to a slow start.  That doesn't matter as much.

Went 0-1 yesterday

So my take is - as a celebratory event sports in times of pandemic doesn't work. At least their starts. The curiousity of whether or not is going to work overshadows anything off the field that usually draws interest. The protests/demonstrations, the "We're back!" commercials, the visit from the commissioner in the booth. It was all secondary to "Juan Soto tested positive! What does that mean!?", "Are those guys getting too close?" and "Hey it's raining, shouldn't they cancel this right away? How are they distancing?"

However, as a "thing going on in the background that you can focus on" which is what baseball is from the day after Opening Day until the stretch run, it works just fine. The baseball was baseball. The lack of fans is a little weird but more so because the pumped in crowd noise can't exactly match up with what's going on.  Cut outs worked a little better but it's not like we've never seen the rich seats empty behind the plate. I think once we get to the weekend and we're looking at it as the every day foreground noise and not as the big thing to focus on it'll feel pretty normal.

The game itself was a dud (as was the Dodger / Giant game after that - but that was expected).  Max both was and wasn't sharp. At points he struck out 3 and 4 guys in a row. At others he gave up meatballs or 4 pitch walks. You can piece together yesterday in a way that has him giving up 1 run instead of 4 so I'm not too worried other than the end.  But pitchers away from the game for 7+ months getting tired a bit earlier is probably going to be a thing we see a lot for a few weeks.

Cole wasn't as dominant as the line would have you believe. There were a number of decently hard hit balls that went at 'em. But he didn't lose control like Max did and that ended up being the difference. Cole's one hit, the Eaton smash, was a solo job, and there was never anyone else on for him to worry about. 

No Nats (or Yankees) game today because even in a shortened pandemic season MLB can't help but have dumb scheduling. Plenty of other games though Mets Braves is probably the most compelling.  Also Giolito is pitching Opening Day. See you on Monday

Baseball, baseball tonight. Baseball Tonight!

A game that matters.  The first one since the Nats wrapped up the World Series, the longest we've gone without a game... ever?

We know the big question hanging over everything is the virus. Can the season last once travel begins? Is it ok that these players are being made to do these particular things for entertainment? Is it ok we are diverting some resources to this? It's up to you how you want to view these things and how it effects your season. Here we'll move past it for the time being until the sport forces it back into question (hoepfully not)

What does a 60 game season mean?  It DOES mean more variabilty. It DOESN'T mean it's likely a great team misses out of the playoffs or a terrible team makes it in. Could it happen? Sure, especially given injury/illness. But those are few and far between.  Remember the Nats run last year was historic, not typical. More likely a WC team might be knocked out in favor of another potential WC team that would have faded over 162.

The Nats I think are helped by this. They are mostly an older team and they pushed their starting pitching incredibly hard last year. A less demanding season is a help.

I personally will think of the team that comes out of it (assuming the season goes ahead without much of a hitch) as a champion. Maybe not JUST like every other season but a champion nonetheless. All that matters is the W as they say.

NL East moves - in case you forgot

Braves - Braves lost Josh Donaldson and let Dallas Keuchel walk. They signed Will Smith and Chris Martin for the pen, Ozuna, and Hamels. American hero Nick Markakis has opted out

Phillies - finally gave up on Maikel Franco, let traded for Corey Dickerson walk. Questionably brought in Zach Wheeler to be the ace. Didi Gregorious as a one year improvement on Franco. Will have McCutchen for a full year. Possibly most importantly though swapped Gabe Kapler for Joe Girardi.

Mets - Lost Wheeler and the never clicked there Todd Frazier. Brought in Betances, Rick Porcello, Michael Wacha, Marisnick

Marlins - lost Castro to the Nats. brought in Dickerson, Kintzler, Cervelli, Villar.

None of the NL teams are definitely worse. Atlanta probably has the biggest worry about sliding as Donaldson was great, but their season was always going to hinge on their ample youth. Mets and Phillies basically tread water in talent which isn't necessarily bad but most likely to end them up back where they were.  The Mets are hoping for that healthy SP season that never seems to come.  The Phillies are hoping the across the board stats depression from last year was a luck and Kapler combo more than talent settling. The Marlins are better but competitive would be surprising even over 60.

I think the Nats are slightly worse (hard to lose Rendon and not be) but I think the moves of the division work in their favor so let's toss some nonsense out there

WSN 35-25
PHI 33-27
METS 32-38
ATL 31-29
MIA 25-35

The opt-outs

The Nats right now have three opt outs and given it's about 48 hours until Opening Day that's probably going to be it.  How do these opt-outs effect the team

Ryan Zimmerman

Zimm was going to be in the DH/1B mix during his victory lap. Now Zimm's ABs will be eaten up by a mix of players. Eric Thames, who was going to be the lefty balance bat like Lind and Adams will probably have more of a chance to play if he does well. Howie is also listed in the depth charts but will spend most time at DH I imagine. If Carter Kieboom is truly the third baseman then Asdrubal could also get in some time. It's my contention we should give Soto a game or two there because that's where I see him long term but that's me. The first two games they flipped Howie and Thames DH/1B but that hardly makes sense as a plan for the season.

My guess is this plan does hurt the Nats a little because a good Zimm is an effective bat - better than AsCab, better than Thames. Plus it could force Howie into the field more than they were expecting.  But all in all it's just a little different because it's hard to project out a healthy Zimm hitting well at this point in his career.

Joe Ross 

The 5th starter spot was his to lose before walking away. Now Erick Fedde has got first crack. More "next in line" than "next big thing", Erick was passable last year in a limited role, getting better results than his stats might have suggested.  There's nothing here to suggest he'll be any good. He is still wild, still gives up too many hits and homers. There was no drop in hard hit balls last year or big changes in his GB/FB numbers. He just got a little lucky with when and where the hits came and that kept him from being terrible.

His one saving grace is basically - he's not the other guys.  Austin Voth deserves a look but there's a reason he keeps getting passed over. Kyle McGowin? Come on. Now there are guys further down that are interesting but are they ready? And if they are do you want to throw them out there in this season? With a championship in hand? Seems unlikely.

So Ross' departure hurts a lot. Not necessarily for the 5th spot, which was going to be a mess - or possibly more fairly - the same trouble spot it is for nearly every team, but in case of injury (or sickness) in another spot in the rotation. The depth is not here at all and if they need to go more than a pitcher deep into starters things get bleak quick.


Wellington Castillo

3rd catcher depth.  I think in part he was here to cover for potential trades of Gomes or Suzuki if things went in that way.  Now with him gone it's over to the guys they don't really like, Raudy Read, Tres Barrera.

Like Zimm it won't be a big deal but like Ross it cuts into the depth they have at a position that is particularly weak (again to be fair - for most teams)


So the departures set up the Nats but in a way similar to last year. A mix of the older and the guys with injury history hoping that Soto and the rotation carries them. Last year they made it through and then got the breaks they needed.  But last year they also had one more big bat in Rendon. This year the margin started even thinner and these departures cut it as thin as can be. But if you are scary thin, the season to be like that is the season that is only 60 games long.

Monday Quickie

T-minus 3 days until sort-of good enough baseball

To recap on what has happened for the Nats the past couple of months:

• They had their shortened draft and signed their guys and that's about all you need to know about that.
• The Nats released some names that might be familiar with you : Drew Ward, JB Shuck, Dante Bichette "Jr", 
• Adrian Sanchez was effectively lost for the year. 
• Joe Ross, Wellington Castillo, and Ryan Zimmerman chose not to play 
• Wander Suero and Roenis Elais got Covid and presumably got over it

And before that

• Rendon left for LA
• Parra left for Japan
• Koda Glover retired
• They didn't re-sign Dozier or Adams
• They did re-sign Stras and Howie (and Gomes and AsCab)
• They brought in Will Harris and traded for Ryne Harper to help the pen
• They signed Starlin Castro to play 2B and Eric Thames to play the memorial Adam Lind / Matt Adams spot 

And before that

They won the World Series

More tomorrow! But probably in this later in the day time frame if you are wondering.

ONE WEEK AWAY

It's gonna happen people.  Barring some terrible case explosion we are going to get at least some mostly real baseball in just one week. 

God bless our love of money

The MLB and NBA experiments are the canaries in the coal mines for team sports.  MLB - with it being an outside sport that relies on very little close contact and the NBA - with it's hardcore bubble plan - are trying to see if you can actually make it work. If these fail then other team sports - hockey, soccer, football - can't succeed.  So far - it's working.

How long will it last?  Well there are several thoughts on the matter. It might last as long as there are players willing to play. The owners and leagues want it to continue so even if it ends up a glorified AAA game they may still play it.  Or it may last until enough players get sick on a few teams to throw the whole thing out.  You quarantine 30 players a piece on 6 teams basically suspending their play for 2 weeks and the schedule falls apart.  Or it may last until a player gets extremely sick or dies.  While I'm surely liability waivers cover the leagues for this, they can't make up for the bad publicity.  If leagues push on against the wishes of most involved because players will play for the money and it happens again? That's the kind of thing that gets you a Player's Basketball Association in 2023.

We'll see.  Personally I ran the numbers and think the chance of a death/serious illness is slim for MLB/NBA.  NHL with a little less stringent bubble and bigger rosters than the NBA playing an indoor sport might be a little more likely but still I think the problem really comes when football camps start. I think with THAT many players and the different "in-shape" requirements for them you are going to get some bad results.  That may not only tip the NFL to not start but could have ramifications into other leagues.

But I'm being a downer now.  Baseball in one week. I'll take it.

Hall of Fame - Part 3

Lots of guys you can't expect Bill James to have bet on getting in from here on out.  More interesting is the guys he bet on that failed. 

2016 - McGriff, Gooden (Piazza, Griffey)

Piazza was really good young catcher but it's hard to bet on a catcher with two years under his belt.  Griffey was pretty much on his way and he played a good long while, so I imagine 2018 was just a hedging of bets.

McGriff was a guy who in 1994 had just put up 7 straight years that set him up for the Hall, but didn't quite make him a lock.  His back half of his career has mostly good with a couple of very good years but nothing like pre-1994. Honestly he was one more great year away from 500 HR and probably getting in but without that he only got to 40%.

Gooden was a long shot by James. It makes more sense if you think he put him on this earlier like some of those guys that didn't stick. At the end of 1993 Gooden was only 28, had been extremely durable and had 154 wins. 12 wins a season for another 10 years isn't crazy and that gets him to 275 wins at age 38 and a decent shot at 300. Bump it to 14 wins a year and he's there. But in 1994 he got suspended cocaine, and then again. Age, injuries and addiction took it from there.

2017 - Thomas, Sierra (Pudge, Raines, Bagwell) 

Pudge was a three year AS and GG and really young but you don't bet on a catcher that had one above average year as a hitter.  He had Raines in earlier (see first post). Raines looked pretty good for 3K hit but spent his last half-decade playing half-time based on injury. That and clearly not being Rickey (who is in a top tier HoF player) slowed his entry. Bagwell is in in 2019.  A good bet based off his great career start.

Frank Thomas I talked about last time. 

Yes, that is Ruben Sierra. Ummm... Yeah. The thing is Ruben started really young - playing 113 games as a 20 year old. Through 1993 he had played at least 151 games each season and at 27 stood at 1300 hits and 170 homers. Doubling that only takes him to age 35 and gives him 2600 hits and 340 homers. In other words he would Biggio his way to 3000.  But basically starting in 1994 he'd never really be healthy again and get no where close - out the first year.

2018 - Griffey Jr, Alomar (Hoffman, Chipper, Vlad, Thome)

By 1994  - Thome had shown he was a great slugger, but hadn't yet put up a full season. Chipper had 8 games under his belt. Hoffman was a 2 year reliever at 26 with 25 saves under his belt. Vlad hadn't played yet. No shame not picking any of these.

Griffey and Alomar I talked about before

2019 - Bagwell, Juan Gonalez (Rivera, Edgar Martinez, Mussina, Halladay).

By 1994 - Rivera and Halladay hadn't played yet.  Edgar Martinez had a great 1992 but was turning 32 with 600 hits and 60 homers to his name and was a poor fielder. He then ran off seven great offensive years but too late for James to see.  Mussina is an interesting case. If you WERE going to pick a young pitcher Moose was as good a choice as anyone. In four seasons he was durable and won 50+ games and looked to be maturing into the type of pitcher that could do that regularly. But James didn't bet on pitcher. The youngest arm he picked to make it, McDowell, started in the majors in 1987. 

Bagwell we've talked about. 

Juan Gone? By 1994 he was a premiere power hitter leading baseball twice in homers and at 140 at age 24 seemed a good bet to easily clear 300 and maybe threaten 500.  It was a gamble but a decent one. By the time he was heading into his age 32 season he was just a couple homer under 400.  500 seemed guaranteed and loftier goals not out of the question for a guy who average 36 homers a year for over a decade. He would hit only 40 more.  Given the suspicion of steroid use that was enough to make him a non-entity on the ballot, peaking at just over 5% before going off.



So how did Bill James do?  As expected he did well with players that he knew the entire or nearly the entire careers of.  But once he got to knowing only about 50% things broke down. Because of that uncertainty he probably leaned too heavy on what he did know putting in guys late like Kaat, Parker, Simmons, and Murphy. As we got even further out - heading past 20 years of voting (or 15 years of playing plus wait time) it was a little pointless as guys fit entire careers into time he didn't see. He also didn't pick much pitching, which is unrelaible, but left gaps that guys other people might have picked would fill.

Best pick - probably Eckersley who was pretty old in 1994 and a good bet but not a sure thing. At that age he could lose it immediately and it would have been a tougher call.

Worst - Al Oliver might be it because he didn't miss anything of his career and had him in in 7 years and he didn't last one round but I think Oliver was just underrated.  I'd go with Butler, a guy who James loved as a player but stats wise is a tough call.

Hall of Fame - Part 2

2011 - Bonds, Joe Carter (Alomar, Blyleven).

What he'd miss on Blyleven? Nothing really A really good pitcher for a long time, he's a close call. He got in here on his last ballot, so keeping him out isn't much of a miss.

What he miss on Alomar? James had him in a few years later. How'd he get in now? Alomar did retire a little early at 36 and in the next 7 years after 1994, Alomar had 4 years better than anything James saw before making this list. The combo pushes him ahead a few years

What he miss on Bonds? Steroids - also I assume James thought was a first ballot type but he'd play longer a couple more years than James probably thought he would.

What he miss on Carter? A bunch. He had been off the ballot for years by 2011. After 94 he'd never have another good year which James probably didn't guess because he was good right up to 1994. Given he was sort of borderline one or two more good years would have made a big difference

2012 - Butler, Cone (Larkin).

What he miss on Larkin? From 95-98 be fantastic including an MVP which set him up for a HoF career, something James couldn't have projected.

What he miss on Brett Butler? A misjudgment of the voting body. Butler was underappreciated but like Carter was bordeline and like Carter would be out on his first ballot in 2003.

What he miss on Cone? Cone was a tough one. He pitched well enough for a few years after 94 to make the case but got unlucky with wins. Then at 36 he'd fall off the cliff. Would 230-240 wins, which is what James probably had him around, have been enough?

2013 - Trammell, Whitaker (noone)

What he miss on these guys? Both these guys were done not long after 1994 and that wouldn't have surprised James given Trammell's decline and Whitaker's health. Just misjudged the voting body again. Whitaker was off the ballot immediately in 2001. Trammell hung around all 15 years but peaked only at 40%. Trammell would get in by the vet committee but Whitaker is still on the outside

2014 - Gossage, Mattingly (Maddux, Glavine, Thomas)

What he miss on Maddux? Nothing really. Knew he'd be in and rather quickly.

What he miss on Thomas? Not much here either.  Thomas would only have 4+ years under his belt by 1994 and they were all great so the call wasn't hard. Consider the later induction a hedging of bets for all that could happen.

What he miss on Glavine? Glavine was 3 time 20 game winner with a Cy Young by 1994 but James probably didn't have him hanging around long enough to get close to 300. Instead he got over and in addition to the great early pitching made him an easy in.

What he miss on Gossage? My guess is that the surprise vote on Sutter pushed Gossage earlier than everyone would have thought in the early 00s (this would have been about the end of his ballot time) Getting him in at all was a good guess in my book

What he miss on Mattingly? He probably thought Mattingly had a few more years left in him after a decent 1994, but injuries never left and he'd throw in the towel in 1995.  2700+ hits 250+ homers with the dominant mid 80s run might have been enough to eventually get him in but 2000/200 wasn't.

2015 - McDowell, Maddux (Johnson, Martinez, Smoltz, Biggio).

What he miss on McDowell? Pretty simple McDowell broke at age 30.

What he miss on Randy Johnson? Basically everything. Randy wasn't great before 1995. He was getting better sure and eating a bunch of innings but 1995 was awesome and 1997 was awesome, and oh yeah 1999-2002. There's 5 Cy Youngs in there.

What he miss on Pedro? At this point we're getting close to guys he didn't see enough of. Pedro has three seasons by 1994 and was really good but it's hard to bet on just 3 seasons unless they are transcendent. Pedro's HoF run would be 97-03

What he miss on Smoltz? Smoltz wasn't nearly as accomplished as Maddux or even Glavine by 1994 with only one really good year. He'd find himself in 95 and then pitch forever.

What he miss on Biggio? You knew what Biggio was - a just under .300 hitter with doubles power. In 1994 you'd be hard pressed to put Biggio's career from that at anything HoF worthy. But he'd play to 41 and get a TON of at bats so he'd reach 3000 hits and million doubles I think. 



I've run out of time.  more tomorrow.


2016 - McGriff, Gooden

2017 - Thomas, Sierra

2018 - Griffey Jr, Alomar

2019 - Bagwell, Juan Gonalez

Hall of Fame

Games are getting close, and I think it's going to happen one way or another (50 game might be it). But in the meantime I got bored and on Twitter ended up putting up a pic of a Bill James Hall of Fame guess list and saw that we had passed the end point.  So why not see how he did?

This was written in 1994 but as you'll see it was clearly it was started before then. So imagine he knows everyone eligible through either the 1999 or 2000. After that he starts guessing not only how increasing careers go, but also when people retire, and how many years it takes for them to get in.


1995 - Schmidt, Rice (Schmidt in).  Schmidt was obvious first ballot. I've said my piece on Rice (what you weren't reading this blog 10 years ago?).  James' idea that he was a first ballot was well off what the writers thought. He'd get 30% this year and would get in way later in 2009 on his last ballot.

1996 - Sutton, Rose (No one). Rose was a hope. James at the time thought Rose was railroaded.  Sutton got to 300 and was a definite in. The question was how long it would take. James gave him third ballot. Instead he was stuck in the 60%s at this point with Niekro and Perez. He would get in a couple years later in 1998

1997 - Garvey, Niekro (Niekro) Niekro was same boat as Sutton and James nailed this one. Garvey never got over the hump of being nothing more than a good hitter and not for a particularly long time. He was at 35.3% here and would peak at 42%

1998 - Gary Carter, Oliver (Sutton) Carter would deservedly get in as one of the best catchers but it would take a while (2003). He was at 42% here. Al Oliver was like Garvey - good hitter, longer career but less team success. His inclusion here shows that this list was made sometime in 1990/1991 and then updated poorly when it got closer to print. Oliver was undeservedly knocked out first ballot in 1991.

1999 - Ryan, Brett (Ryan, Brett, Yount) Almost nailed it. Yount also sneaked in with 77%.

2000 - Yount, Fisk (Fisk, Perez).  Tony Perez is a real weak choice and you can understand why James never had him in but last big name from the Big Red Machine got him in with 77%

Some guessing definitely starts here.

2001 - Dawson, Winfield (Puckett, Winfield)  Puckett is probably remembered as a better player than he was but he was clearly on the path to near 3000 hits, was loved, and had big postseason moments, so James had it right. It was only his shocking retirement in 1995 that puts him in at this point and not later. Dawson would ill advisedly try to play another year in 1996 so wasn't on this ballot. He'd have to fight the steroid led HR explosion to get in in 2010.

2002 - Murray, Ozzie Smith (Smith)  He got Smith right.  Murray would be first ballot but would like Dawson push a year longer

2003 - Parker, Kaat (Murray, Gary Carter)  Kaat would peak at a mere 30% and drop off the ballot here with only 26%  Dave Parker peaked in his second year 24% and would not get in and in his last year (2011) he'd be at 15%.  This may be a product of James going with two in a year but clearly his worst guess set.

2004 - Eckersly, Simmons (Eckersley, Molitor) - Eckersley right.  Simmons would actually drop off the ballot way back in 1994. The veterans committee would put him in in 2019. Not sure if he missed when Molitors would retire or how long it'd take for him to get enough votes. My guess is latter. Molitor had a weirdly great age 39 season that made his 3000 hits not feel like the death march some players end up with.

2005 - Boggs, Ripken (Boggs, Sandberg) Nails Boggs. Ripken was an obvious HOF but bouyed by a great hitting half season in 1999 (surrounded by a very mediocre second half of his career - it'd be interesting if he'd have been so guaranteed a HoF if he didn't have the consecutive games played record. He'd have made it sure - but first ballot?  Not sure) he would play a couple more blah years putting off his enshrinement. Sandberg sneaks in here at 76%
2006 - Henderson, Molitor (Sutter) - You can forgive James for not putting in Sutter, an unispired choice, who gets in with 76% on nearly his last ballot in a year filled with no one special.  Rickey, a definite first ballot guy, would play for 3 more years beyond this. (in the majors - more in other places. Rickey is a baseball player)

2007 - Gwynn, Clemens (Gwynn Ripken) - Get Gwynn right. Clemens would go SIX more seasons purely based on fancy training I've heard. People don't like excessive training so they haven't voted him in.  Jealous!

2008 - Puckett, Murphy (Gossage) - James did think Gossage would get in but much later. He was filling a gap  The early retirement of Puckett took him out of here and this was the start of a relatively slow run as a lot of 80s stars had issues having full great careers. This would have been a decade into Murphy's try at enshrinement and James took a gamble that he'd slowly gain support and get in.  Nope. Peaked in year 2 at 23% off the ballot in 2013.

2009 - Morris, Lee Smith (Henderson Rice) Rice at this point was helped by a lack of strong candidates just getting in with 76% in his last year. Morris would have to wait another decade to get in, finally doing it in 2018.  Smith got one more All-Star year after James would have made this list but it didn't really change anything about his career.  He'd peak at 50% but be the last player to go 0-15 in ballots. They now only get 10 years.  But Lee would get in the very next year on the vet committee ballot.

2010 - Raines, Sandberg (Dawson).  What an intersting trio. Dawson pegged in years ago by James, finally got in here finally cracking 75%. Sandberg, in reverse was expected to drag a little but got in several years before this. He had a mid career lull that James probably thought would have more impact given Ryne didn't have a long period of greatness. Raines would actually take until 2017 but he'd get in with a huge 86% when everyone realized not being Rickey didn't mean this guy wasn't great.

I'll break here and do the rest tomorrow. Really some solid guessing even if I think it wasn't that hard in 1994 to get to these names here. After this it gets a bit tougher as these guys on the ballot could have 10 years that James didn't see. You start judging less and less career from here on out.

The ring is the thing

The Nats gave up and gave out revealed rings in a virtual ceremony this weekend.  I can't find a link to it but if you care enough to watch it should be out there (and I say should in the - that's what the Nationals should do - put it out there).  They also played a home-made "season" documentary which you can watch on MLB.com.  

I put "season" in quotes because it's more a post-season documentary that uses the season for a little bit of set-up but hey, it's something.

Anyway here are the rings and they are... modern sports championship rings. That means they are overstuffed and overdesigned and diamonds are put in every empty spot. They are ugly but beautiful to those that matter at the same time. Some thoughts

• The encircled Curly W was obviously meant to mimic the logo, and I guess using red, instead of silver (or platinum of whatever) for the circle would have looked gaudy* but why no red gemstones on the x-axis to represent the stars in the logo? 
• The underside it the best part but I always question adding the series records on a ring.  No one cares who you beat or how you did it. IOW - bigger Baby Shark! 
• "Go 1-0 everyday"? Sure.
• Individualized DC side with name and number is nice
• The trophy logo on side with a bit of Nats park is fine, but that makes two trophies on the ring which is one too many. Fight Finished is to me the better slogan and really only one slogan on the top of the ring is enough.  Other one should have been relegated to the underside. 

But again - this is a championship ring.  Complaining about it is like complaining about a Liberace outfit 


What about all the rest? If you are spending more than $50 on something here you are a different person than I am.

I will say a championship ring copy is something I'm not into. You weren't on the team. At the very least wait for the cheap in game promotion. It's why I celebrate the 1942 Cardinals.


Baseball is taking the first baby steps to reopening with a couple of voluntary workouts. The money issues seem to be working out (with a lot of deferred cash being the final answer).  Will we have a season?  I don't know but we might have a start of one?  Honestly we sit here and watch Korea and Germany and Japan - three countries that got the virus under control and we see if they can do it. If they can't there's no way we can.  If they can, well there's a chance. I'm not enthused though. We are acting as if we've got it under control when really we don't.


*yes, as if worrying about being gaudy was part of the thought process here.

DINO POWER

1-0 baby! 

As the season went on more guys signed and some guys moved so I've updated the rosters. The most famous player on here is almost certainly Dan Straily. Still no Nats. There do see to be bunches of players from teams. Mets, Orioles. I imagine one guy goes over and then says "Hey come over it's fine" Anyway here you go.

Doosan Bears - Raul Alcantara, Chris Flexen, Jose Fernandez

Hanwha Eagles Chad Bell, Warwick Saupold, Jared Hoying

Kia Tigers Aaron Brooks, Drew Gagnon, Preston Tucker

Kiwoom Heroes Jake Brigham, Eric Jokisch,Taylor Motter

KT Wiz , William Cuevas, Odrisamer Despaigne, Mel Rojas Jr

Lotte Giants Adrian Sampson, Dan Straily, Dixon Machado

LG Twins Casey Kelly, Roberto Ramos, Tyler Wilson,

NC Dinos Aaron Altherr, Mike Wright, Drew Rucinski,

Samsung Lions David Buchanan, Tyler Saladino, Ben Lively,

SK Wyverns Nick Kingham, Ricardo Pinto, Jamie Romak,

Monday Quickie - KBO KO

A number of Asian countries have managed, using lots of testing, tracking, and an obedient citizenship, to control their spread of coronavirus. That means they get to have nice things, including baseball seasons. Japan tried and had a steback, but Taiwan has already started up with their robot and cardboard fans and next up is the Korean league. So let's pick a Korean team!

The teams are named after the companies that own them rather than their locations. You'll recognize some names Kia, LG, Samsung. What do the rest do?  Well everything is a conglomerate really meaning they own a bunch of unrelated stuff but I'll give a general idea

Doosan - Construction & Infrastructure support; they own Bobcat
Hanwha -  Started with explosives, now R&D and Manufacturing
KT - Telecom
Lotte - Started with chewing gum, now food and shopping in general (the Japan version owns a team in Japan)
NC - Maybe you recognize NCSoft. They make videogames, mostly MMORPGs that are big across the ocean.  The one you might have heard of is City of Heroes.
Kiwoom - Finance I think.  It says "securities"
SK - Energy and telecom

They can only have three foreign players per team and obviously the pandemic has cut off supply of people who might have come over this Spring as they failed to get major league jobs. Also Korea isn't the first choice of players going over seas so if you were hoping for some familiar names - well too bad. Roger Bernadina did KILL it over there from 2016-2018 but decided to come back to North America last year. Here are some current players, can't guarantee it's all, in case any of these guys excite you.

Doosan Bears - Jose Fernandez (no, not that one. the KBO isn't where baseball players go when they die to play baseball forever. Though it's a nice thought) 

Hanwha Eagles Chad Bell, Warwick Saupold, Jared Hoying

Kia Tigers Preston Tucker

Kiwoom Heroes Jake Brigham, Eric Jokisch,

KT Wiz Raul Alcantara, William Cuevas, Mel Rojas JR

Lotte Giants NONE

LG Twins Casey Kelly, Tyler Wilson,

NC Dinos Drew Rucinski,

Samsung Lions Ben Lively,

SK Wyverns Jamie Romak,

Doosan is the reigning champs and one of three teams, with Samsung and Lotte, who have been there and owned by the same group since the beginning in 1982. The Kia Tigers were an ownership change but not a name one. The Twins were both and the Heroes were a dissolution and rebirth.

Of course I've left the biggest news until last.  The Kia Tigers are managed by... Matt Williams!  There's a couple other Americans on the coaching staff. I think one is Anthony Lerew.  Sorry I don't read Korean.

First games tomorrow. I have no idea right now how to watch!

Who does the layoff hurt - player version

This layoff is bad for fans, and it's bad for teams but it's also bad for players too.  I know what you are saying - of course it is. But also it's particularly bad for certain types of players.

The Gamblers

These players took one year deals in the off-season. Some were unable to get the contract they wanted and were betting on themselves. Others were looking for a shot at playoff success. Still others were coming back off a terrible year or injury and needed to show they could still bring it.

These include Marcell Ozuna (Braves), Cole Hamels (Braves), Odorizzi (Twins), Didi (Phillies), Encarnacion (White Sox), Betances (Mets), Porcello (Mets), Treinen (Dodgers), Gausman (Giants), Teheran (Angels)

The Comeback Kids 

These players were going into a FA year on a slide. To get another big deal they needed a strong 2020. 

These include : Yoenis Cespedes (DNP in 2019), Giancarlo Stanton (18G played for the Yankees - he's actually not in a bad spot because it was his opt out choice), Jake Arrieta (24 starts - 4.64 ERA, more back of the rotation vet then the rotation leader he sees himslef), Masahiro Tanaka (4.45 ERA, isn't too bad in the AL but isn't big money pitching), Andrelton Simmons (80 OPS+, still a defensive whiz but needs to hit SOMETHING), Jose Quintana (4.63 ERA, quickly becoming just another arm)

The Old Guys

Past a certain age, employment is simply not guaranteed as GMs would rather pay young guys next to nothing than to burn a few million on someone who may hit the wall. 

Rich Hill (40), Nelson Cruz (40), Darren O'Day (38), Sergio Romo (38), J A Happ (38) Kurt Suzuki (37), Yuri Gurriel (37), Jon Lester (37), Anibal Sanchez (37),

And most importantly Nick "Marchkakis to 3000" (37)


You noticed a few Nats names on there - who else hits the FA market after this year and what do I think about the year off for them?

Doolittle - Had an off year but not far enough off the kill the value of a strong relief piece who still has 2-3 years in him minimum. Lefties age well.

Kendrick - Tougher for him because he had a great year and another one could give him a Nelson Cruz esque late career pay day.  Now not so much.  Will still get a contract though

Suzuki - tough but catchers always get signed if they aren't terrible and Kurt was still good at the plate

As Cab - I could see this being the end of major league deals for Cabrera. He's a decent player but he's in that middle ground that teams are now leaving alone.

Zimm - Up to him. Team would have him back for a cheap farewell year I bet.

Desperate, but not stupid

I want baseball back. Not baseball book recommendations. Not baseball movie arguments. Not old baseball games on the internet or TV.  I want live current baseball back as soon as possible.

But I'm not stupid.

This is stupid

If you don't feel like reading it the crux is

• potentially dramatically modified games
• played to empty stadiums
• only in Arizona
• with teams and personnel sequestered for the length of the season 

Could it work? You are talking trusting a minimum of several thousand people to not go out, and a minimum several hundred direct and indirect interactions that likely can't be controlled with sequestration (hotel staff, food deliveries to the hotel, cleaners at the stadiums between the games...) go off without a hitch for months.

So no - it can't work. Not in the sense "no one is going to get the disease over the course of a third of a year".  At least it can't work starting in May.  The possibility grows the further out we get - the more the virus is controlled and the more we know about potential therapies.

But think about this - Japan has around 40% of the US population. It is packed almost 4x as tight. They should be doing worse than the US but they only have about 4000 coronavirus cases about 250 more yesterday. (If the US was doing that successfully - just factoring in population and not density we would have about 10K cases instead of... 368K) But even there they loosened things up just a little bit - started baseball - and 3 players promptly got the disease. They are saying the end of April is not possible and are looking at May.

And MLB is supposed to be looking at the same time frame?

I want baseball back. I've made that clear. But it can't be done until it can be done safely and if we are lucky May isn't when that is going to be, May is going to be when we'll have an idea of when that date may be.

This isn't something that holds for the entire country. The country might be able to get going sometime weeks from now (I've said Memorial Day since it started) relying on lots of testing, limited travel, possible invasive tracking, and rolling quarantines to get us through the remaining months to vaccine. Sports can handle limited travel, but they can't handle rolling quarantines. You can't shut off a team, and everyone they've had contact with, for two weeks and start up again. It won't work.

Some more individualized sports may be able to get through this, with strong restrictions, when it calms down. Golf. Bowling. Possibly tennis. Anything that can be run with limited staff (sorry NASCAR) and next to no contact between distant individual players. But baseball is not that. Baseball can't start up until we get past the limited quarantine stage and right now I can tell you for sure May is not going to be the month we get past that.

Who does the "layoff" help

Baseball won't be around for a while, and for most of us that stinks. However for a couple teams they may be better off having a year with no (or little) baseball. I mean, as much as any team. This is assuming service time is awarded on a full season given no matter the outcome of 2020.


YES
Royals / Pirates / Orioles / Giants / Tigers / Marlins - 2020 was lining up to be lost seasons for these teams and a year off to simply re-stock the farm even more can't hurt. With few great young players on their rosters already a year off should be more boon than bust

NO
Blue Jays / Padres / White Sox - While none of these teams should compete, 2020 was lined up to be an important year in the development of young talent already in the majors.  A loss of a year of guys like Vlad Jr., Tatis Jr, Li'l Biggio, Eloy are big negatives for teams that are looking to be cheap as well as good. They’ll still compete in 2021 but will lose a chance to be the surprise team in2020

NO
Dodgers - They went all out to win this year in trading for Betts, meanwhile they rely on a ton of young talent in the majors right now. Those are lost years and Betts can be a FA. This doesn't end their run of contention but definitely qualifies as a lost year

MAYBE
Rays - Winning 96 games last year and looking healthy as compared to the front-running, seemingly always injured Yankees, it could have been a surprise year for Tampa. There's no good reason the Rays can't continue to be competitive in 2021 but that hasn't stopped this franchise from mini-teardowns to avoid paying larger salaries and build back up. So who knows

YES
Angels -  Their third best player was hurt, as well as a starter, reliever,  and a potential 5th starter. Another year allows them to shed Simmons contract and get some money to convince the needed ace to come to Anaheim and finish a roster that's never more than 80% of the way there, if that.

MAYBE
Phillies - On one hand JT Realmuto needs to be paid after this year, and a guy signed to be a one year boost like Didi Gregorious is now wasted. On the other this was a team whose construction was off and now can shed 70 million in salary to Realmuto and a bunch of OK guys and rebuild properly.

MAYBE
Yankees - Judge, Paxton, Severino Stanton, Hicks were already hurt so while they were set-up for 2020 with the big Cole acquisition it looked like another injury ravaged year. Sure they'll lose people to FA, some of them key, but signing replacements has never been an issue for New York. Still who wants to lose a contending year?

NO
Braves - On the other hand the Braves are a team that should be hit hard by FA Ozuna, Hamels, and especially the pen Melancon, Greene, O'Day - they seemed to balk at paying  Donaldson - there's no reason to be confident they'll go big in the future

NO
Indians - Cleveland seemed almost resigned to make another go at it and in a weak Central might have had a chance.  A year gone and Lindor another year closer to FA means a total tear down is in order

NO
Arizona - the Dbacks quietly put together a rostettjat should have been 2nd best in the West and given them a better WC shot. But no 2020 means a lot of these guys become FA and the plan to sneak in there before the Padres fully commit is likely over

YES
Astros - the further away from cheating the better. They have their title.

And the Nats?  Like most of the teams not named it’s hit or miss. The time off should help the pitching recover from a heavy use 2019. And while they lose some FA I trust their ability to rebuild... mostly. The one issue would be Doolittle who deserves more cash and may not get it here. Bullpen construction is Rizzo’s bane and without a cheap very good anchor? Meanwhile they lose a year of contention and a year of Soto. And an old pitching staff gets older. I like this for the Nats in 2021 but beyond I think they might find themselves worse off for the missing season.

Monday Quickie - Gaming the System

Whenever baseball is to come back there is a new rule in place. The "three batter minimum" is an attempt to limit the number of pitching changes and take away a bigger source of extra time in the game. A pitching change usually involves a slow trip to the mound, a run in from the bullpen, and a series of warm-up pitches, and then possibly an announced PH change to match it.  All in all it's only a few minutes per game, but without making a huge shift in how the game is played it's going to be tough to make the game immediately much quicker. Instead it's going to be picking at the margins hoping the entirity of what you do ends up hacking off 15 minutes or so.

But like any rule the trick is how to use it in your favor.  Here is the rule. (I can't find an official 2020 rule book). If you are too lazy to click - basically you pitch to three batters or until the inning is over, unless injury or illness (and I imagine extended delay though that is not written). Imagine this re-written for three batters I guess

If the pitcher is replaced, the substitute pitcher shall pitch to the batter then at bat, or any substitute batter, until such batter is put out or reaches first base, or until the offensive team is putout, unless the substitute pitcher sustains injury or illness which, in the umpire-in-chief’s judgment, incapacitates him for further play as a pitcher.

Now... let's try to break it.


Let's get the obvious out of the way - fake injuries and illnesses. It may happen here or there, but it will be very minimal.

The first thing to focus on is the end of the inning circumvents the rule. So that puts an impetus on getting relievers in mid inning as opposed to the start of an inning. This could go two ways. You could see more starters (or previous pitchers) stretched to get a batter or two more to start an inning.  You could also see more starters pulled before an inning ends rather than letting them finish the inning to save a reliever.   I'd expect the latter.  Essentially your first reliever being one-out guys who finish the starters last inning.

You will also see more walks. Since it's three batters faced, you can burn one by walking him.  Of course that puts a man on which isn't ideal but after you get to two outs putting a man on first still keeps the expected runs per game low. So if you think you have a clear advantage over the next batter you might as well walk that first guy especially with two outs.  Also we'll see more pitchers brought in to walk the guy ahead of the match-up you want. This is not a huge change but generally managers liked the leaving pitcher to issue that walk.  It would give the reliever more time to warm up and not start him off throwing balls or now - pointing for the IBB - god I hate that. In fact the IBB rule will make this something that definitely happens. You'll never see a guy purposely issue a walk to end his outing.

Will we see fewer pitching changes?  Probably so. Maybe one less. That's my guess.

Opening Day!

This sucks

AMA - Corona

So we don't want to talk about the corona virus a lot here BUT I figure I'd give you a chance to ask any questions you might have. Now you might say "Why would I ask you?" and that's a good question but first, consider it asking the entire group of people who may comment here, someone here may be an expert on what exactly your question is. Certainly a few here are going to be very well read on the subject.  As for specifically me, well my job is as a public health statistician. There are certainly people you bring in before someone like me if you want to interview, epidemiologists (who study how disease spreads), virologists (who study viruses), specific doctors or health professionals who have been through these things before. There are literally thousands of these, maybe tens of thousands, probably a couple in every minor city / major college, so there's no reason to go down to the C-Team if you are a TV or a paper. But I'm way more familiar with the topics at hand than Joe Schmo* out there, or even Dr. Jane Schmo* who has been very online during this. Given that I figured maybe I could help clear up a thing or two and if not - great. We move on to more fun stuff that doesn't involve possibly dying, unless it's Bobby Henley sending you home because then you are dead.


*Mr. Schmo got his degree in Communications with a minor in Portuguese

*Dr. Schmo (unrelated) is a Food Chemist who works in developing proper textures for crackers, chips, and other baked snacks. 

Books!

To round out the media triumvirate (sorry Fibber McGee & Molly we aren't doing ol' timey radio shows - but a trial of SiriusXM had me listening to too many of those) let's go with what you are reading. Now currently reading or reading last year will only work for voracious readers. For the rest of us just put out some of your favorite books.

I'll start - I'll note that I pretty much never read fiction. Well that's not true - sometimes I'll quickly read through some of my kids books (ask me about Diary of a Wimpy Kid) but adult fiction eh.  I keep saying I'll pick it up again but there's always a good non-fiction book right there. OK given that caveat and the caveat that I pretty much forget what I don't own. So this is pretty much limited to what I see on my shelves right now. 

Let's start with baseball

Of course there's the Nats Trilogy - Jesse's book, which I'm sure is fine. National Pastime, Barry's book on the honestly pretty crazy 2005 season, and The Grind which is an expanded verison of the collection of articles Barry wrote that year about... well the grind of the baseball season.  I'll recommend all.

The Soul of Baseball - Posnanski goes around with Buck O'Neill in exactly the type of book Joe Posnanski should be writing.

The Arm - now that you all love Daniel Hudson it's worth a read to find out how he got here. 


Not baseball

Battle Cry of Freedom - a big but not dense single volume tome on the Civil War.  I liked it so much it's the only book I've purchased multiple copies of (I have the illustrated hardcover)

Candace Millard's books are usually great - River of Doubt (Teddy Roosevelt stupidly goes dwn the Amazon), Destiny of the Republic (Dumb doctors basically kill a saveable James Garfield). Erik Larson's as well - there like a dozen here.

If you can handle tough subjects Killers of the Flower Moon and Devil in the Grove are great books and Columbine is fantasticly thorough and sensitive take on that incident.

Less harrowing - I enjoyed Rocket Men (about the flight to space before the moon landing), K Blows Top is fun (about Kruschev touring the US), Pictures of a Revolution (about the 5 best pic nods in 1969 and how they showed the end of the old guard and beginning of the 70s golden era)


Ok that's a start. 

Movies!

Hey sorry. I spent last night making a lemon blueberry loaf instead of typing a blog post.

BUt today we'll move on to movies, a subject I'm not well experienced in as I'll default to watching TV if given the choice. But occasionally I'm on a plane or want to do something different so i will pick up a movie or two. It would probably take forever to go over everyone's favorites, there's literally over 100 years of movie (for example the masterful Nosferatu is 98 years old this year) so how about we limit it to the past few years.

This way I can literally just list the movies I've seen

I've seen nothing that has come out this year

2019
I saw Harriet and Ready or Not on my last plane ride.  Ready or Not was fun. It could have been great but it was still good and that girl can scream.  Harriet was also good but with any historical story a little hard to get real drama going. I know she isn't dying.

I got kids - however the one that can watch movies isn't into them either so I've seen Frozen II (ok not better than the original) and Aladdin (eh)

ummm...  that is it. Like I said I don't watch movies


2018
Ant Man and the Wasp - It's good. This is the only series I've seen all (technically both) the movies. I pretty much have seen zero sequels. Part of it is bc I like my super hero movies to lean kiddie. They shoot beams out of their hands and fly around. I don't need that to be serious at all.
Crazy Rich Asians - also on a plane. It's really good. Not as funny as I thought it would be but nails what it is.
Halloween - not great. Part of what made the first great is ramping up the horror with a vaguely human antagonist that kills like 4 people. This is more like later horror movies with an unstoppable baddie that mows down a dozen plus.  Story is good but needed someone to tone down the killing and up the horror.
Rampage - plane movie. Honestly the best type of plane movie bc if I never saw the end it'd be ok.  But still I think this is the best Rock hero movie of the bunch.  He's overgrown in size and personality and he needs a backdrop that's similar. This gives it to him. It's not good but it's fun
The Spy who Dumped Me - look I prefer to be on my computer if I'm at home and so I want something on in the background. This was allright. Oddly violent. I mean watch it if you think you want to.
Three Identical Strangers - I also like documentaries.  This one is a trip that starts and ends in totally different places.

Kids - Ralph breaks the internet (see Frozen II)
Nutcracker and the Four Realms - there's a good movie in here somewhere but it didn't make the screen
Teen Titans GO! to the Movies - I really liked this. Sometimes I listen to the song for fun.


OK that's enough - so in the past 2+ years - give me your movies to watch. I probably won't get to them but someone here might.

Monday Quickie : What are you watching right now (or recently)

If you didn't see Friday's post go back to it and throw in your two cents.  We're all in this together (well unless you are in like rural Nevada - Contact looks nice) and if a little content everyday helps keep every a bit saner, well that's just the type of sacrifice I am willing to make.

First off something real simple for the Monday Quickie - what are you watching right now (or very recently passed) How do you spend the time when looking at your screens? It doesn't have to be good TV or movies, but if for some reason you watch things you hate don't mention those.  If it's something streaming be sure to note the service because oddly enough not everyone pays for every streaming service like some dummies (well I don't have the Apple one). 

So currently I'm watching

Better Call Saul (new episode tonight).  It's on season 5, seasons 1-4 on Netflix. 

Trapped - an Icelandic police show streaming on Amazon Prime. It's mostly in Icelandic (they speak English when talking to people from other places) so you have to read subtitles which is good if you want to put down your screens for an hour.

McMillions - HBO doc about people cheating the McDonald's Millionaire game. Like for every big prize. 

Will finish up Bletchey Circle - British mini-series about crime solving former code cracking WWII woimen - on PBS but I'm not sure it's streaming anywhere.  It wasn't before it came on here. 

Is that it? That might be it. With a baby free time is basically 9 on and it's a lot more vegging out than actively watching. Shows to veg out on

A lot of HGTV - part of the reason is when you have kids, HGTV is one of the few channels you can put the TV on and be sure you aren't going to put on something you don't want them to see or hear. But mostly because it's easy background noise when you aren't really paying attention to something. An hour to update a house? Yeah I don't need to see all that - I'll look at the beginning and then at the end.

Forged in Fire - I don't know why but even though every episode is basically the same there is something magical about turning metal into a blade then testing it against a bunch of object

Reruns of the Office - again easy background noise . And always on. Drunk History, when that is on.

I'm sure there's more.  Since I didn't get to movies, let's stick with series for now.

So now what?

No seriously. Now what?

There's little reason to keep doing what we'd normally be doing at this tim - popping in on the Nats Spring Training stats and stories, checking out the same for other teams, patiently waiting for real baseball to start.  Real baseball won't start (if we are very lucky) for another month.

So again, now what? 

I mean we'll keep our ear to the ground to monitor the baseball news, but I'm sure you'll hear about that elsewhere. And we'll keep a closer eye on the Nats health specifically and how that may effect things - though it's kind of a big mystery right now when you don't know exactly when the season will start and you REALLY don't know how bad the illness is striking people. God let's hope we're not here ever discussing the ripple effect of a death on the NL East race.

Shut it down? Deep dive into minutia for no reason? Ask Me Anythings? What would you like to see?

Thursday - No baseball?

Say it ain't so, Joe!

Well it isn't so... yet.  But with sporting events being cancelled left and right to avoid unnecessary travel, close contact, and gatherings* it is easy to see a near future with no baseball. How long? Let's think about what we could see.

Low

Probably first we will see a end to ST crowds. That seems apparent. What this effects is nothing really. Not as far as the season goes

Next we may see a pausing on Spring Training games for two weeks. This wouldn't do too much of anything either. Practices would presumably continue

After that you'd escalate to no Spring Training at all. No practice, training, intrasquad scrimmages.  This might cause a delay as players would only have less than a week to get back into ST shape but they could still push it to get it started on nearly the same day

Mid

A complete cessation of activities for more than two weeks would likely cut into the season. They could do a month now and maybe fit in 154 games (early season schedule is a bit lighter for weather make-up possibilities). I'd say that currently this is the most likely lightest situation we'll end up with as two weeks probably won't clear everything up (we'll need at least a week just to get a sense on where we are disease wise)

As you go more than a month you start to get into needing a good amount of pre-season practice now that they've been sitting a while (I'd imagine 2 weeks or so of pre-season) and more games cut. So a month pause today might lead to 154 game season but a 6 week pause now wouldn't lead to 145 games but something like 120 or lower.

High 

Once you get much more than two months you start to get to the half-season possibilities. You start with the exhibition All-Star Game and then go into the season. Understand they'll try to fit in some sort of season regardless.  Half a season and the all important playoffs is better than none

When do they bother cancelling the season fully?  Hmmm I'd say you'd have to start drifting into August for a start date. There really probably isn't a time when they can't squeeze some blood from this stone but you start to functionally get to a weather issue again. They might even be tempted to do an unofficial / official tournament thing Sept / October just to get something out of the year, but when you start drifting into playing in November you start to limit yourself geography wise and profits can't be that high to say - have a Tuscon tournament in December.


*Sports are basically the worst at this, being a job that requires close contact, asks for gatherings, and depends on travel. All for entertainment purposes.

Tuesday Quickie : Kieboom

How's Kieboom doing?  It's kind of the only question that matters this Spring and I've said earlier that unless he's complete garbage, I'd bet on him winning the 3B role to start the season.  How has he been? Not complete garbage!  .250 / .419 / .292.

Yes that's a .292 SLG (1 XBH in 30 PAs) but maybe he's working on patience?  I find working on patience in Spring a little bit odd, because the pitchers aren't necessarily concerned with throwing strikes, but hey, when are you going to work on it? To be honest his patience last year wasn't overly concerning. The big deal was the strikeout rate (37.2%!).  How is that going? 6 Ks in 30PAs... that's 20%. That's better!

Kieboom has started 7 games at 3B (Cabrera has started 5) and played twice as many inning there. All indications are as expected - Kieboom is your starter. We'll look back in another two weeks or so but don't expect it to change unless Carter strikes out 20 times in his next 30 PAs.


The other thing you might be interested in is 5th starter and Joe Ross , Erick Fedde, and Austin Voth have all looked ok.  An honest assessment of just the stats would put Voth ahead with his pinpoint control and Ross' lack of Ks, but again it's Spring and an honest assessment of the stats is like 40% of what's going on here. You might be able to pick out someone having issues (oh darn Barrett! oh no Doolittle! oh really no Hudson!) but two weeks in even those are just things to stick a pin in not to worry about. So far nothing about the 5th starter battle seems to be crazy good or crazy bad so you have to say that favors the incumbent, Joe Ross.


What to look for this week :

• Does Harris pitch a real game?  
• Let's see Strasburg back on the mound (terrible first outing, then a skipped start - pitching simulation)   
• Let's see Robles back in CF full-time for several games. 

Best Nats Pen ever?

The Nats have a history of putting together flawed bullpen. Sometimes they feel like they lack that shutdown arm, other times it's an important piece that's been overlooked, sometimes it's a 4-7 that seems more suited for a non-contender. But this year the Nats appear to have a solid bullpen to start the season. Nationals World Series hero Sean Doolittle in the closer spot has been backed by Nationals World Series hero Will Harris in the set-up role, and Nationals World Series Hero Daniel Hudson will cover other important at bats and innings. These are three relievers who were solid contributors last year and Doolittle and Harris were among the best in the game in recent years.

But is that good enough?  One way to try to figure that out is comparing it with other Nats pens of the past and seeing how those pens were structured and ended up

I took a look at the Opening Day bullpens** for the Nats from 2013 on* and here are the pens in a nutshell

2013 : Strengthening a strength: This is a pen that came about when a tired Storen ran into fate and the Nats faltered in the 2012 NLDS. Boras convinced the Lerners that they needed Soriano. This gave the Nats in theory a fantastic 1-3  and what looked like a solid pen overall with 2012 plus pitchers Stammen, Mattheus and Duke and a live arm in HROD

Result : Middling. The big thing was Storen having a mental breakdown at being replaced effectively screwing with the back-end of the pen. Mattheus had been effective but lucky, and stopped being lucky. Duke had a fluky bad start and was dropped and H-Rod didn't develop.


2014 : SaS Redux: With everyone still under contract the Nats did it again with Detwiler replacing Duke and unknown Barret replacing HROD.  Blevins came in to be a lefty specialist. There was a little more concern this season mainly because trying again with Storen seemed like more of a gamble. But it was again pretty solid top to bottom.

Result : They were great. Storen screwed his head back on and performed. Soriano faded at the end but was good far longer than not. Only Blevins disappointed.


2015 : Experience? We don't need no stinking experience:  Soriano walked, Detwiler was cast away, and the Nats traded Clippard for a needed part and Blevins for spite leaving them way short on innings. They brought in a veteran arm in Matt Thorton to help and hoped a transitioned Roark would shore it up along with newcomers Treinen, Janssen, and Xavier Cedeno.

Results : Bad at first but eventually. Janssen was terrible, Storen wasn't lights-out, Barrett broke, Xavier Cedeno failed, and Roark never gelled. But the Nats found a piece, Felipe Rivero, who did well and eventually added Papelbon who stabilized the bullpen, though not the clubhouse, at years end.


2016 :  We choose you Papelbon : The Nats were stuck with two relievers they didn't want in Papelbon and Storen and got rid of the latter. Only Treinen and Rivero survived as the overhaul included a bunch of solid but unspectacular names Matt Belisle, Yusmiero Petit, Oliver Perez and the best of the lot Shawn Kelley.

Results : Great! Even with Papelbon crapping out, Rivero being off, and Perez and Petit not contributing much Dusty worked the pen like a master, leaning on the guys that did work (Treinen and Kelley) and some young arms like Sammy Solis. Trading Rivero for Melancon in the end worked great honestly. Impressive job without impressive talent.


2017 :  Make chicken salad again Dusty : The Nats did add Joe Blanton late in the spring but otherwise were leaning on Kelley to lead a group with little experience (Treinen, Solis, Glover and Enny Romero, who replacied Belisle and Petit) or who did poorly the year before Ollie Perez. It was a bad set-up

Results : Pretty bad. Basically Rizzo would go 0-fer in the bullpen and they'd have to cobble together something workable from trades (Doolittle/Madson, Kintzler), free agents (Albers), and some young guys (Grace).


2018 : Don't peek behind the curtain : The Nats would keep Doolittle Madson and Kintzler giving them inarguably the best Top 3 going into a season since 2012... and that was it.  Treinen was gone, part of the deal for Doo & Mad. Kelley would still be around but was broken and bad in 2017. The rest repeated the issues of 2017 with Solis, Grace, and Romero leading the no experience brigade with newcomer Gott, as Perez left. It was extremely top heavy

Results : Average. Some thing worked, some didn't with Madson's failure being most important setting off a chain reaction of digging into that soft underbelly. The Nats would find Justin Miller and Wander Suero to eat innings and help not completely waste Doolittle's great year. But eventually would cut bait with effective arms in Kintzler and Kelley in an angry mid-season panic leaving a mess behind.


2019 : One and done : The Nats set up a nearly all new bullpen keeping only Doolittle from the previous Opening Day.  By Gott, Solis, Romero! Grace and Suero would make it, along with Justin Miller to fill out the back end of the pen. Tony Sipp would be thrown in there too and honestly it wasn't a terrible mix. But to make up for the loss of the 7-8 guys the Nats threw their lot in with Kyle Barraclough, who was bad in the previous year, and Trevor Rosenthal who was hurt.

Results : The completely untrustworthy back-end imploded fast repeating the chain reaction from 2018 only worse. The rest of the pen was ok, but not good enough to cover for that, leading to the throw at the wall see what stick plan for the rest of the season. What stuck for a while was Fernando Rodney and Tanner Rainey but really only Daniel Hudson stood out and when push came to shove the Nats went to a two-man pen to make the magic work.


What did we learn? Well I'd say that depth is probably the most important. You need guys in every position that are passable even if they aren't the best. Injuries and failures happen, but so do found pieces every year so you can cover some spots, you just can't cover a lot of spots and that's what happens if you lack depth. Also you can't effectively cover for back-end issues well so really you have to do your best getting those Top 3 in and set and hope for the best. 

In 2019 I'd say they did an ok job with that Top 3. Remember Doolittle's 2019 wasn't great and Hudsons was a little fluky.  It's strong (assuming Harris is ok) but I'd like 2013s or 2018s group better. The rest of the pen - Rainey, Suero, Elias likely and ?.  That's pretty dicey and looks a lot like the pens they've been having since 2018 where the rest of the pen is just a wing and a prayer. Maybe this is the year it works out but with the Top 3 having now three injury concerns, (Hudson's history, Doolittle's history and 2019, Harris being hurt now) I'm concerned. Not a terrible pen but a couple solid vet pen arms you could probably have cheap would have made it a good one.

Coming In to a Season
Best Top 3 : 2013 probably. Soriano, Storen, Clippard should have been dominant. Then the Doo, Mad, Kintzler group, then this years.

Worst Top 3 : No doubt 2017's  attempt with Treinen, Kelley, and Glover.  Doolittle saves last year's group.

Best Pen : 2013 probably, though I'll listen to arguments for 2016 given Papelbon should have been better, most everyone in it was good in 2015, and the couple that weren't had recent history of being good. I think the better Top 3 gives 2013 the edge though.

Worst Pen : 2017 without a doubt. 2019 was set-up to fail but had a great closer and a reasonable 4-7.  2017 had nothing.  YOU KILLED DUSTY DAMMIT. 



*I don't consider 2012 a planned competitive season

** Big thanks to Federal Baseball for making these things a cinch to find

Will Harris be healthy?

The Nats have put together a pretty impressive pen, or at least on paper. Sean Doolittle has been a very good pitcher out of the pen for years. Same with Will Harris. Sitting in the 7th inning spot Daniel Hudson was a key pitcher for the Nats last year and may have found himself. Roenis Elias seemed to have made the transition to reliever just fine (though with an odd split) and should be a decent middle inning pitcher if healthy. Tanner Rainey showed promise in flashes last year. Wander Suero is a decent innings filler in the last man in the pen role. To me that fills 6 of your 7 bullpen roles just fine. Yeah, ideally you'd like someone more lights out in 8/9 but those aren't easy to come by.

Compare to last year - Doolittle was in the same position, but Rosenthal was an huge question mark at 8th, Miller/Barraclough ok 7th/middle inning impt out guys you'd think. Sipp a pretty solid lefty. Grace and Suero both innings eaters which means one would be asked to do to much. That's not a bad pen on theory but by putting the question mark all the way up at set-up and not having an plus pitcher for the role anywhere else you put all the pressure on Rosenthal. He fails and the system breaks down. He failed. Also there wasn't a young arm with promise here to pin some hopes on. Bullpens have variability (see Barraclough also failing). Which is why you want to lock down as many places as possible and ideally have a bunch of 7th/impt out guys to try out to see if someone ascends or can at least fill a great role if the closer or set-up guy go down.  Someone WILL get hurt. Praying it's not at Top 3/4 bullpen guy isn't a plan.

I'd say the current pen missing that one piece inbetween Hudson and Elias*. Strickland is nominally it but stinks. Ryne Harper could be it, but then again could not be. Finnegan? Someone else? A lefty specialist would be nice but the rules make the usefulness of such a player unclear going forward. It's a hole but a hole that shouldn't be a big deal if everyone is healthy.

Everyone is not healthy. Will Harris is hurt! And if he's out and everything shifts then well... Hudson, even though he managed it last year, is an iffy set-up. Elias/Rainey iffy that both can fit the 7th inning / main middle innings firefighter guys. Suero iffy that he can have a bigger role than innings eater. And then TWO holes at the back end that is much harder to work around than last year. It's a lot like how the Nats pen ended up last year after Rosenthal failed.

Now in theory I like this years pen better. Sure it's missing a 7th/impt out guy in that bunch but Hudson is a pretty solid choice to lead that group. Rainey is probably the best young arm the Nats have had in a pen since Glover and Treinen were there in 2017.** There's more cushion here I think for things to not collapse. But there's also that caveat... if there's another Barraclough type unexpected failure you have chaos. Harris goes out and Hudson underperforms and there's big trouble. Of course saying if your 2nd and 3rd most important relievers go out it's bad isn't news but some teams can handle that better than other. Their pen is deep in solid arms. Their organization has some interesting AAA guys to try out. The Nats aren't that team. They need Harris back. If he doesn't come back then they NEED everything else to work out in the late innings of the pen.





*If I were building a pen I think the reasonable ideal would be - lights out closer, good set-up, 3 other good pitchers to fill 7th/impt out roles, one young arm with promise, one decent long relief arm 

**best doesn't mean it will work out.