Tuesday Quickie - Odorizzi not in the East or the NL

 The last of the big FA (for what it's worth) dropped over the weekend with Jake Odorizzi landing with the Astros. They had a starter break his finger and be out for the season, and a top prospect look in line for Tommy John.  Forced into it they offered Jake the three year deal he wanted but it's not quite perfect, lower in salary and laden with incentives. The important thing for the Nats is Jake didn't end up in the NL East with the Phillies.  

I mentioned this before but the Phillies were in most need of Jake, not because their rotation is terrible, it's not - it's pretty good, but because everyone else's rotation in the East is better. 

#1 Starters

Jacob DeGrom

Max Scherzer

Aaron Nola

Max Fried

Jacob deGrom is the clear number one of number ones, especially with Max on the mend. 8th, 1st, 1st, and 3rd in Cy Young voting the past 4 years. But you don't want to push Max any further down given his history of being awesome (7 straight Top 5 Cy finishes before 2020s disappointing campaign). That leaves Nola third, even though he's been a very good to great number one for a few years, including two recent years with CY votes; 3rd in 2018 and 7th last year. Fried, 5th in last years Cy Young (look I told you this was a good group), rounds out the group as someone who could have the best year but probably is not the best pitcher here. Which again is like being the 6th fastest sprinter in the Olympics.

#2 Starters

Stephen Strasburg

Carlos Carrasco

Zach Wheeler

Charlie Morton

Another great bunch, but assuming Strasburg is healthy, and all indications is that he is, then he's the best of the lot. He's consistently been very good to great for a decade even if a little fragile and he's only 32 next year. Carrasco had a health issue of his own a couple years ago but otherwise has been right there a half step behind Strasburg. Wheeler had the best 2020 and has been good but at only 3 years doesn't have the long history and that puts him third. Morton is no slouch - overall not as good but recently maybe better than anyone here. However a bad 2020 and being clearly the oldest at 37 puts him at 4.

#3 Starters

Mike Soroka (Kyle Wright / Bryse Wilson)

Patrick Corbin

Marcus Stroman

Zach Eflin

This is also dependent on health but Soroka seems likely to be back if not for the start of the season, then very soon after. He's very young (23) and has been nothing but effective so far. With a chance to get even better he's my pick here.  I put Corbin over Stroman here but I could be convinced otherwise. Both are up and down pitchers for their recent careers. Corbin had the higher peak and is generally healthier so he gets my 2, but Stroman was much better last year and is two years younger so I'm not fighting anyone who wants to switch it. Eflin is a solid #3 but has to show he can be more to match up with the rest of this group.

 

At this point the rotations are pretty close. I think the Mets separate just because deGrom is such a proven #1. And the Nats then separate because who's going to go against Max+Stras? But neither the Braves or the Phillies are far behind. But remember this is about needing one more guy. Onward!

#4 Starters

Ian Anderson

Taijuan Walker

Jon Lester

Matt Moore

This is where the Braves make up for the "issues" of the 1/2 not being as good as the others. Anderson is a legit prospect is 23 and could blossom into a top of the rotation guy. He certainly showed that potential last year. The other guys are questions. Here Lester's health isn't enough given his age and declining stats, to get past Walker. Walker - who was healthy in the brief 2020 but barely pitched in 2018 or 2019, was not as good as his ERA but better than Lester last year and the last time he was healthy (yes 2017) he looked solid. It's another one I'd accept a switch but again Lester was bad last year and is 37. At some point this matters.  Moore is a complete wild card. He looked pretty good in Japan but wasn't good in recent major league stints. I wouldn't bet on him at all and he's clearly the worst option here.

#5 Starters

David Peterson / Joey Lucchesi / Syndergaard

Drew Smyly / et al

Joe Ross / Erick Fedde / Austin Voth

Chase Anderson / Vince Velasquez / Spencer Howard

In Peterson and Lucchesi the Mets have two perfectly good 4/5 guys to bounce into this spot depending on who looks better (personally I think it'll be Lucchesi). Beyond that they have the potential of a returning Syndergaard but unlike everyone else injured mentioned here he's not close. He should be back this year but when is a question so he hangs over the spot but can't add much too it. The Mets are taking this because of the other two who are perfectly ok! Smyly is probably not going to be any better than a 5 but the Braves have yet to exhaust their seemingly endless supply of young arms with Kyle Muller, Tucker Davidson, and Jasseel De La Cruz all potentially seeing time this year. They aren't special, ranking like Rutledge and Cavalli, but quantity and readiness matters. We all know the Nats triple headed monster. This group of aging prospects has been a mixed bag and are just as likely to flame out as to be good. Still that's better than the Phillies. If they were going to give a bunch of time to Howard that'd be different but they don't want to risk his arm on a full season so expect a slow roll out for Howard meaning more time for Vince - who has one non-bad year since 2016 and Chase who has three straight bad years looking at the stats. 

You can see in these two spots how the Phillies are dragged down. The Mets are clearly the best. The Braves have the potential, the Nats have the likely dependable innings through the Top 4. The Phillies? They have a three that can hang with a couple of the best Top 3s in baseball and then prayers. Odorizzi would have given them a 4 (either him or Eflin) who was a clear #2 and a mix then at 5 with Moore plus these losers that might have nicked past the Nats. They still would have the "worst" rotation in the East, but as I said in an earlier blog post it would have been likely Top 7/8 in baseball. Worst by comparison - very good in general. Now it's like 10-15 which isn't bad but unless the bats become world beaters it's not going to be enough. 

And anything that keeps a direct competitor down is good for the Nats

JBJ signed - not a Phillie or a Met

Just a minor note of interest as both the Phillies or the Mets could have used the upgrade to Jackie Bradley Jr, but instead it looks like he's going to sign with the Brewers.  He's not much of a hitter anymore but still a solid fielder and the combo would have been an improvement for either team. Not enough to make it worth the cash outlay though given they probably could use more help elsewhere (Phillies - rotation, Mets another pen arm).   They aren't likely to do either of those but that's still on the table and more likely than this ever was. 

MLB.com had 4 questions for the Nats this year in their ongoing series. They were (and I'll answer them best I can) 

1) Is Stephen Strasburg healthy?

Not sure but all indiciations are yes so why not believe it until you are shown otherwise? 

2) Can they extend Soto?

 CAN they? Yes. WILL they? Not this year.  Ask again later.

3) Who fills in after the stars?

Someone is going to step up. Schwarber. Bell. A rejuvinated Zimm. A breakthrough Robles. A surprise Castro. There is too much decent talent to go 0 for 5 after Soto and Turner (Gomes is what he is - he's not going to carry anything in the best of circumstances).  Will it be more than one for an entire year? I doubt it. But Soto, Turner, Whoever is this year's 2019 Howie, and the rest will be good enough most of the time.

4) What happens if they fall short this year?  

 Ooooh.  Depends on what they see of their precious few pitching prospects. I think if they like what they see of Cavalli and Rutledge (and hopefully someone else) they let Scherzer walk, sign Turner (shockingly keeping a hitter I know), and keep doing their fill-in and compete thing while they try to hold onto Soto. If they DON'T like what they see, I think they sell for parts, to try to build around Soto with prospects and keep him here. The big questions is if they keep Turner or not and I think that depends on what the market will bear for him. A good haul might send him packing but it's a rarity these days. Also Nats don't sign batters long term using money on pitching. It's a tough call but I see him gone in this scenario. 

(of course what will happen is one guy will look great, the other will be mediocre, they'll have one surprise step up and like Garcia will be decent enough in AAA and really we don't get the nice "Do A or B" easy choice you like to have)

Spring Training Memories

 There's not much to talk about in Spring even though we REALLY want to talk about baseball things.  Maybe this year it's more of a just really not REALLY but still we have baseball on the brain. So how about some Spring Training Nats memories to bide the time

2005 : Happy Boz. What I remember about the first Spring Training is the Nats for some reason deciding Endy Chavez, and no one else, had to work on his patience.  Now it was true Endy didn't walk but that wasn't his game. He was a defense first guy who hoped to slap .290 to make it worthwhile playing him. This plan worked - but also broke him. He walked but didn't hit and they ended up dealing him and he hung around for much longer than anyone could have imagined in that 4th OF role.  

I bring this up because any time I get a chance to link to the greatest (ultimately meaningless) playoff catch of all time, I do it.

2006 : Battle of the Wills.  Soriano comes in and refuses to play OF.  The Nats demand he moves to the OF because he stinks at 2B. He blinks first. He plays OF the rest of the year. There was kind of a residual excitement to the incredibly weird 2005 season* for what would be the last time in a few years

2007 : Quantity over Quality. The Nats invited 36 pictures to Spring Training and not one of the starters had been healthy and on a major league roster the previous year. It got the Nats the 13th best SP group in the NL but hey in 2006 they were 15th and 2008 14th so success!

2008 : Bowden rides the Segway

2009 : Bowden rides the rail out of town as he and Jose Rijo do some shady things in latin america. At this point the team feels like a crazy embarrasment - because they were!

2010 : The Nats fans raise 10K to send Mark Zuckerman to go to Spring Training. That still amazes me. However I did get this blog post title from it : Zuckerman's Famous Gig, so it's all worth it. This was also Stras' first Spring and you know, hope again.

2011 : Bryce's Spring. Nothing much happened but Boz might have been peak Boz in a rhapsodic waxing on a Spring Training "brawl"

2012 : The Nats head into their... forever season not knowing who the CF would be and if Bryce might be it. Some people worried about Davey being too old. First time ever fans came into a spring thinking maybe there would be a playoff challenge at the end of it

2013 : World Series or Bust, can only lead in two directions. The young and talented Nats who surprised everyone in 2012 were favorites to win it all and there was a ton of excitement around the team. Full seasons of Stras and Bryce? Rendon coming? What gullible dopes we were. The minor news was Soriano being brought in kicking Storen down to set-up even though he really didn't screw up. Luckily he'd handle it like a pro.

2014 : Matty Williams' first year as the Nats jettison Davey because... well because they always planned to. Yeah not a great plan it turns out.

2015 : Scherzer is brought in and Bryce asks where's his ring. Still looking for it.

2016 : Dusty is brought in to fix the Matt Williams debacle while the Nats deal with the fact they forced themselves into a "Papelbon or Storen" corner.  They'd choose Pap.  He'd stink too. It was the first season without some major players as ZNN and Desmond both were gone.

2017 : I got nothing. At this point the Nats felt in a cycle of be great and blow it and be good but not good enough to make playoffs. Spring was about getting to the season so we could find out which one it was.

2018 : Davey gets hired and brings a camel into Spring Training to get over the hump.  A nation groans. Meanwhile Janes yells at fans because we don't buy that Zimm is really healthy but just likes to practice unseen on backfields this one year. Here's Calcaterra buying into it a month in.  Fool!  They'd admit a year later he was hurt and we were right and they were wrong. WE ARE ALWAYS RIGHT.

2019 :  All about Bryce for the last time as Bryce eventually signs with Phillies. Once Smitten, Bryce Bye?  THAT'S GOLD Jerry. Davey smashes cabbages not past his dumb college orientation bonding ideas. (luckily he'll wise up and stop that and let the clubhouse form it's own bond)

*For those too young to remember - Hey there might be a 15 year old reading this! - Nats should be awful, lead the NL East by like 5 games on July 4th weekend. But they collapsed and were 5 games out a month later. They remained in the playoff hunt until Mid September and finished a very surprising .500

Monday Quickie - Spring has Sprang

 I'm pretty sure that's the way the saying goes. 

The Nats had their first ST game. That it ended in a tie should only highlight the fact that these things don't matter. Once we get some stats for people to read too much into I'll do my annual "You know who led the Nats in ST homers last year? Wilmer Difo"* tweet. For now if you like ST baseball (which I don't really if I'm not there) sit back and enjoy some baseball stuff. Otherwise just know the season is progressing like it should and keep an ear to the ground about injuries. 

In other news - nothing has happened. We're sitting here waiting on Jake Odorizzi, JBJ JR, and maybe Shane Greene? There are a couple other guys out there that might help but these are the three that I would think WOULD help so I'm waiting to see if they end up in the NL East. But you've heard this for a couple weeks now. They should really sign! Baseball is coming!

OK let's wait on Strasburg and Max.  We should hopefully see Stras sometime this week, though that's not a given - vets start kind of when they want to.  Max appears to be a little further off, maybe this upcoming weekend if we are lucky. But health it the most important thing so everyone take your time.

*not true.  Well almost certainly not true. I'm not looking at that right now. It's a made up statement

BABIP-led ruminations from 2020

 For the most part we are ignoring last year. As a 40% of a season featuring 90% of the talent it usually does, it's just hard to take anything from it.  We wouldn't normally subscribe too much to two months worth of games.  Really it's just past the marker I use (Memorial Day) where we should pay attention to them at all. But it IS past that marker so given that what did the Nats see last year that is probably going to have some relevance. I'll use BABIP as a jumping off point

HIGH BABIP HITTERS (likely to regress) 

Andrew Stevenson .464

Jake Noll .462

Two of the Nats 2020 surprises were the old prospects Noll and Stevenson showing some life.  Some even thought about giving Stevenson a real chance in the OF.  FOOOOOOLLLLSS!  These are mirages. 

Juan Soto .363

Trea Turner .353

These are both on the high side.  Trea though is not a usual player. He utilizes his speed to get more hits than one would assume and .353 is not unusual for him.  As for Soto this is high for him and looking at his hard hit percentages and hit type percentages - I don't see a good reason for a 50 point jump so a regression is probably likely. But don't be overly concerned here. There is some reason to think combining more hard hits than 2018 and fewer FBs than 2019 would raise his BABIP and dropping his K% would also raise his average. I'm just assuming .320ish rather than .350. 

LOW BABIP HITTERS (likely to improve)

No one still on the team. But MAT (.217) could have a nice little year for KC.  I'd be ok with that. Didn't look at the underlyings here though because again - not on the team

HIGH BABIP PITCHERS (likely to improve) 

I'm not bothering talking about names like Seth Romero and Paolo Espino here. If you are going off 6IP to judge anything, I can't help you.  Alot of Nats also had high end BABIPs which might say something about the Nats defense more than the Nats pitching and note going in here the defense is not better and might be worse

Patrick Corbin .362

Max Scherzer .355

Nats fans would love to jump on this to expect bounce back years and these numbers are big reasons why the xFIP ERAs for these guys are lower. However I'll note that they both had very good LOB%s while having issues striking out as many guys.  They could get better but the chances for a complete turn around just by the coin flip going their way in 2021 is unlikely. I'm most concerned for Max who after a monster run in 2016-2018 has shown marked decreases in the stats you care about.  Age comes for everyone. 

Will Harris .353

Another one of interest who could get better BUT his xFIP was actually worse than his ERA. Why? His walk rate exploded and homer rate went up as well.  It'll be nice to see that BABIP go down but if you are walking a ton of guys you are getting a lot on with out BIP so BABIP doesn't matter.  He needs to get that control back. 

LOW BABIP PITCHERS (likely to regress)

Erick Fedde .233

Remember last post when I said Fedde has improving results but not improving stats? He arguably hasn't pitched much different since showing up in the majors and it's not that his ERA was unlucky early on. He also had a good LOB% last year too. The HR/FB is bad. The soft hit % is bad. He's walking too many and giving up too many homers while not striking out enough.  Last year he was saved by the timing and location of what was hit off him and still he had an ERA well over 4.00. That can't keep happening. Everything here screams he can't hack it.

Daniel Hudson .205

Ok the good news is Hudson probably won't actually get worse than his 6.10 ERA at least if he gets back to normal. His GB% was absurdly low, well below his usual. His HR/FB rate was higher than normal. His LOB rate was on the low end. There's more pointing right to counteract this pointing wrong. BUT know that 2019 was also a weird year for him positively.  Really he's a 4.00-4.50 ERA type and assuming things get normal this year that's what we should see. Given no big drop in FB speed and the vagaries of relief IP in a short year that would be my bet. Better but never again like 2019. Luckily the Nats have Harris and Hand and don't need Hudson to be great. 

Tanner Rainey .129

And a 96.2% LOB Rate! Last year Rainey had to roll boxcars twice in a row and did it. There are a couple things saving Rainey here though. One is that this didn't translate into the 2.00 ERA it might have. He was at 2.66 so the regression shouldn't be as noticable. Next is he improved his K rate and his BB rate, which are again things outside what BIP related stats will show. There's a sense he'll only drop a little but that's based on the idea of a normal HR rate. Rainey has always been homer prone so seeing last year is not something that should get better. I'd expect something in the 3.50 range unless he keeps improving with Ks and BBs. So expecting Rainey to be dominant is probably too much. But again Harris and Hand.  

One thing we see here is let's say Hand is very good. Deservingly with an under 3.00 ERA. Let's say Harris gets back more toward 2019 and I'm right about Rainey and Hudson. You have a great closer, two 3.50 guys (Rainey and Harris) and a 4.25 guys (Hudson).  The Nats are missing in planning that set-up guy but the vagaries of the bullpen means someone could find it for this year and fill that spot. Also you have 4 guys deep at least before you get into "oh this guy could blow up this year and be terrible"  Now that's ALWAYS true but I wouldn't say that about any of the top 4, and really that only leaves one more relief guy who will pithc major innings if the Nats can help it. Healthy, this pen is not great but it seems solid. 

Another thing - these were just guys on the team last year. We talked about how Schwarber had a low BABIP (I think we did) and should improve in general as a hitter (I know I said that) for various reasons. Bell was neutral. Lester? also pretty neutral. 

One thing I worry about is the Nats bench. Harrison was ok but is only a year older. Stevenson could be bad. Garcia is a wild card. Avila is not good. If Zimm shows rust.  It could be ugly.

5th Spot, who ya got?

The Nats rotation 1-4 is set (as long as everyone makes it out of Spring). Max, Stras, Corbin, and Lester - though probably in a different order to take advantage of the R-L flips.  The 5th spot though, is wide open and the Nats have a lot of options. From one angle - you have 3 former fringe Top 100 level prospects who are trying to break through in the age range where it's possible. That's good. From another angle - you have 3 fringe Top 100 level prospects that who have tried and failed up to this point and now, at the end of the age range you'd give them are go, are taking one last shot probably to fail.

First up is Joe Ross. He gets first shot because he actually succeeded previously, putting up what was a combined very good full season in 2015-2016. But starting in 2016 the next few years would be marred by injury; first the shoulder, then Tommy John, and a lot of bad pitching. Theoretically fully healthy in 2019 Ross was decidedly unimpressive and then he sat out 2020. The recent issues each year he's tried to pitch have been something different.  First too many homers, then striking out nobody, then loss of control.

Next is Erick Fedde.  A super high draft pick with injury questions (his last college season ended with TJ), he healed up his first year and then moved up through the system though not super impressively. Dying for relief help in 2017 they moved him to the pen but decided to move him back to a starting role again. He got a chance at the end of 2017 to show his stuff and it was all bad. Since then he's had varying sizes of cups of coffee in the majors and his results have gotten better each time. Unfortunately he hasn't gotten good and his stats suggest the improvement is more smoke and mirrors than actual progression. While not a guy that gives up a lot of hits he walks too many and gives up too many homers while striking out too few. 

Then we have Austin Voth. Voth was a guy who worked himself into the starter conversation a few years ago by being the best guy available in the upper levels of an admittedly shallow system. His time in the majors has been a roller coaster, bad then good then bad again. The good year had some real improvement all around - more Ks, fewer walks, fewer homers - but it was only 43 IP and the regression back to "normal" in 2020 suggests small sample size more than anything.

The rest is a hodgepodge of worse choices.  Rogelio Armenteros is the name most often brought up. He is a slightly more interesting guy than the ones the Nats had coming into this year actually reaching double digits in K/9 in the minors. Jefry Rodriguez is a familiar name - he's not good. There are a couple "ok AAA starters" and a couple "interesting guys in college who didn't get drafted in the short draft". But anything other than the guys already named would be a shock looking at the talent, or lack thereof. Guys like Cavalli, Rutledge, Henry, and Cate have some talent but are here for the experience not to break into the rotation.  

My take is this is one of the rare instances where you go ahead and use Spring Training to make your decision for you. Usually Spring Training is too short and weird to put any stock in what you see stat-wise. Guys playing 1/3rd games trying to work on particular stuff isn't a major league petrie dish. For every one guy whose power surge or strikeouts look great and then they show it in the majors, there are 10 that don't. But here you have 3 guys you know very well who are about the same age and haven't been particularly good when looking at the whole of the last three years. You can make a case for each;  Ross the one with major league success, Fedde the guy with improving results, and Voth the guy with the most recent actual good major league stint. You can throw in Armenteros as the 4th option - the youngest by a year with almost no major league experience to push you one way or another. But these are all weak cases overwhelmed by everything else you see. There is no good choice here and more importantly, no obvious one. In that case - throw them out there and let the Spring decide. For once that's ok.

Monday Quickie - Strasburg seems fine

 Strasburg hit the mound on Friday. Not a word about anything wrong. All the stories this weekend (here's the Post) about it were about a guy who underwent successful surgery, recovered, started conditioning again, and now is on the last lap. From here what we need to see are 

1) A second ST stint on the mound  (makes sure the "I was doing this all along" isn't all a smoke screen)

2) A first start of the season

3) A second start of the season

Is this bar a little high? Maybe, but I'll remind you that Strasburg has pitched in all or part of 11 seasons. The number of seasons he hasn't missed a bit of time to injury is 2. Two. Out of 11. Sorry, but Strasburg doesn't get the benefit of the doubt here. 

The biggest FA move of recent days is the Mets signing Taijuan Walker.  He's probably not going to become an ace for the Mets.  Remember what we said about Strasburg? Well Walker is like 0 for 7. He's a mess, a talented mess, but a mess. If he can be healthy for a good chunk of the season though that gives the Mets another option when they were already 6 deep. The Mets have been plagued with good on paper staffs ruined by multiple injuries.  The more good arms they load up on, the better. 

Odorizzi is still out there and would immediately kick the Phillies up a half a step (and at a clear #4 they need that half-step) but it appears from all indications they are done.  Another 75% done job by the Phillies management and a likely finish that will represent that effort.

Kieboom & Strasburg. Oh and Max

 Some Spring Training updates... well not really. Some quotes from Rizzo about topics of interest. 

Max is hurt! He sprained his ankle.  That isn't good!  I mean yes there's the obvious reason - he's hurt, but also two other things I like to talk about when it comes to injury.  First is injuries beget more injuries. You hurt your landing ankle and you try to adjust not to stress it too much. So now you are putting more pressure on your arm to compensate for a lack of drive stepping through. Your arm starts to hurt so you try to add more torque and suddenly your torso is... well you get the picture. It's not a given these things happen but they definitely can.  Second is the fact that Max is old! I'm old! One of the things you notice about getting old is that it takes a lot longer to heal up, even doing things right. That's without the pressure of wanting to get back on the field and the incredible stress that an athlete will subject his body to immediately.  

Anyway - take your time Max. Heal it up right. 

Strasburg should pitch today. Just a bullpen session.  It's gonna happen, since they can tailor this to what Strasburg needs exactly. The questions you should look to be answered - Is he on a mound throwing the normal amount? Does he pitch again in a couple of days.  Answer these in the positive and things are moving as they should for a healed Strasburg and that's great. 

Rizzo defended not moving on from Kieboom just yet with a "everyone thought he was good and some guys start real slow"  In another interview answer I saw him compare Kieboom to Robin Ventura. And it's true Ventura got off to a slow start.  It took him about 60 games not to suck at the plate.  Given that standard Kieboom gets another few weeks to warm up. Honestly I think you could give him half a year. Of course the problem is even if he couldn't hit Ventura was a top notch fielder.  Kieboom is not that. So he's giving you very little if he's not hitting. Ventura also would be about a year younger when he "got it".  It's not a terrible reach but it is a little one and if you are already starting to reach... well if Kieboom doesn't hit relatively soon into 2021 I don't see how you spin it. 

Speaking of defense. The Nats had some of the worst defense in baseball last year.  They did not get better. But they might not have gotten worse and if they can hit better... I guess that's better.

Fernando Tati$

 Last night Fernando Tatis signed a long term deal with the Padres for 100 years and a billion dollars.Ok it could have been closer to 14/340.  Will he be making more or much less than he could have signing this deal now? It's hard to say.  If he's very good for most of those 14 years it'll come out right. If he's great for all 14 it'll be a huge bargain. If he gets injured tomorrow and limps through 8, it'll be a huge mistake. That's the thing with long term deals.

What does this mean for Soto? Well Soto, a few months older, is probably a better hitter than Tatis, and certainly a worse fielder than Fernando who trying to fake it at SS while Soto fakes it in the corner OF. That doesn't come out in the wash. Hitting is more important. BUT I did say probably (and italicized it, you really should have noticed that) and the fact is Soto gave us that clearly better year in 40 games in a pandemic season. How meaningful is that? If Soto is more 140+ OPS+ than 180+ OPS+ that's a big difference between All-Star and having "best hitter ever" conversations for the next decade and a half. 

My guess is that he leans more toward the 180+. There's no flukiness here to his patience or his power. All that I see as a question is where those levels end up being. 40 homers and 150 walks or 30 homers and 110? His average is more up in the air. .350 was quite a bump and definitely could be a small sample size fluke. If he's more a .300 guy than .330... well really that's all finishing touches. See we're arguing .300 30 vs .330 40. It's all good news for Nats fans. 

For Soto though .300 30 means a Tatis like deal. .330 40 means something more. Next year is going to be huge as Juan tries to prove it over the long haul. 

But don't expect something now. The Padres have an ideal situation to sign Tatis long term. They only have one big deal hanging out there with Machado. They have several mid-high deals, yes, but in two seasons that 66 million for Hosmer, Darvish, and Myers becomes 31 for just Darvish and Hosmer thanks to FA and deals that get smaller on the back end. In other words there's 30 million freed up.  They have the best pitching prospect in baseball and along with Darvish have Lamet for 3 more years and Paddack for 4 at arbitration prices and lower. That's a cheap likely good rotation. Cronenworth and Grisham are under control for longer than Tatis was. The wrap up is there is a cheap base here to work with so signing Tatis doesn't hem the Padres in. 

The Nats have three big deals this year (Max, Corbin, Stras) and two of those continue into the future three more years after that. A big deal for Soto make it really hard for the Nats to make additional moves. And they need to because their next most important player, Trea Turner, comes up for FA in two years and they have no real base of good young players, still hoping for Garcia and Kieboom and some pitcher PLEASE to come through. The wrap up here is that they almost can't do it this year because of the payroll they have and it's going to be tough to do it beyond that AND sign Turner. You can finagle the money but if you do you are saying these four - Stras Corbin Turner and Soto are the guys the Nats are paying in 2023 and 2024 and you have to pray that they all are good.

What does Tatis mean for Soto? Another bar is set. This year Soto will show if he's worth more than that bar. Then the Nats will have to make some decisions

Best case? Garcia and Kieboom both develop. Stras and Corbin pitch great. The Nats can sign Soto, say best wishes to Trea and move forward continuing to challenge for division titles and playoff spots

"Worst" case? Garcia and Kieboom both don't develop. Stras and Corbin aren't great. The Nats have to trade away assets hoping to get a set of good prospects to build around Soto and Trea.

Real worst case? The "worst" case but Stras is hurt and Corbin is mediocre. The Nats have next to nothing to deal other than Trea and they can't convince Soto to stick around if they deal him, forcing a catch-22 where they aren't going to get playoff good again without getting very lucky or spending a lot of money.

The Biggest Questions

Every year you enter Spring Training with questions. You like questions like "Which one of our phenoms will win the 5th starter role?" or "Will we have to successfully platoon our OF again or will someone break out?"  Those aren't the questions the Nats have though. The Nats have the questions of a good but not great team and those questions are going to make or break the season. 

The first, and most important, set have everything to do with starting pitching

1) Is Strasburg healthy?  You remember Strasburg didn't sit out last year, it just felt like it. He pitched, got hurt, went off and had surgery. The official word is for carpal tunnel. He's supposed to be ready for ST. We shall see

2) Which Corbin is the real Corbin? Last "year" Corbin threw to a 4.66 ERA and it was mostly deserved.  His history is a guy with as many ace years as middling ones. The Nats signed him for more than one ace year. 

3) Does Jon Lester have one more good year in him?  Lester is going to eat up innings. We should expect that. But if he does it like 2019/2020 that will be 4th/5th starter material.  That's not terrible - you NEED that. But it is not what the Nats were hoping for when they signed him. 

Now we get a non SP question

4) What is Carter Kieboom? He's had a decent amount of time in the majors and has shown nothing. He's shown so little he was offered up as trade bait from a team loathe to trade anyone young and good because they don't have many of those. It's not time to give up on him but the clock is ticking. 

And back to SP 

5) Does Max have a CY year in him?  In 2019 Max got a little hurt and threw a ton of innings.  Last year he put up a good year. But for Max good is off. It was his worst year since at least 2012. The Nats need an ace. With Stras coming back from injury and Corbin a question, Max is the one they are looking to for it. 

And back away

6) Are Schwarber and Bell going to be any good? They both have generally the same profile - potential mashers who are defensive liabilities that have seen better years. If they don't hit, and they haven't in their most recent time playing, things get ugly fast. Presumably their other skill (a little patience) is based off them being able to hit. 

7) Can Trea have another year like last? This hasn't been talked about enough but a big reason the Nats weren't complete garbage last year is that Trea put up MVP type numbers. That'd be nice. A season like he normally puts up would be fine but would leave a big hole behind Soto in guys to be afraid of. 

8) Can Robles hit? Asking because they need him out there to field (we presume last year's dip was the vagaries of small samples) and he really hasn't for most of his time in the majors 

 and finally a fun one

9) Can Soto do what he did last year for a full season? Last year Soto, in about 80% of a season that itself was about 40% a real one so... about 30% a real season was AWESOME. Like "mark this year in the annals of the great ones" type of hitting. Bryce in 2015*. If he does that for a full year... you can carry a team a long way like that.  

Lesser Questions

Who wins the 5th starter role? 

Will Yan Gomes be good or below average? 

How will the bullpen shake out in terms of roles?

Castro for the full year? or will Garcia show enough to knock him out? 

*Imagine seeing two of the best hitting displays of the past generation and neither leading to a playoff spot.

Tuesday Quickie - no news is good news

The NL East has changed very little in the last big moves of FA.  Justin Turner went back to the Dodgers. Paxton back to the Mariners. Mark Melancon over to San Diego. These impactful and potentially impactful players will be doing their work elsewhere. 

The biggest name still on the list is Jackie Bradley Jr, but the teams who could use him aren't interested. The Phillies - with Adam Haseley and Roman Quinn and Scott Kingery maybe? Fighting for the last OF spot have never been in on him. The Mets - with Albert Almora - made a move signing Kevin Pillar signifying they are going with the "throw things at wall" strategy for CF. 

Trevor Rosenthal is another name that could help but once again the team that made the most sense - the Mets have defaulted to signing two AAAA depth arms in Mike Montgomery and Tommy Hunter - despite losing Lugo to injury for at least a little while. Although these are minor league deals they seem to signify the same "We're done, any place else we'll try 5 guys to see if one works out" strategy which almost never works. In theory the Mets and Phllies are still in it but I'm not sure I see it. Kela also went to Padres. Shane Greene? Jeffress? These guys can't be done

 That leaves Jake Odorizzi (and maybe Taijuan Walker if you must) and at least the Mets and Phillies are interested in these guys - however neither is the top suitor. I think it'd be fun if the Nats swooped in and grabbed Walker - who if he can stay healthy would be a great 5 but my guess is he wants a multi-year commitment and the Nats aren't doing that. 

This leaves the NL East as it was - a mess of four teams that talent wise probably sorts out Mets-Braves-Nats-Phillies but could fall any way. Let's see if either the Mets or Phillies try something*

Pitchers and catchers and an abnormal spring with things getting more normal every day.

*If the Phillies signed Odorizzi AND Rosenthal (or a good pitcher I overlooked) I'd have to see if they pass the Nats. They are a pretty solid 4th so I doubt it unless we find out Stras is not ready. The Mets are a pretty solid 1st on paper - but you just have to doubt the Mets.

Reworking "Future Hall of Famer" list

MLB.com put out a future Hall of Famer list that generated some interested conversation. Everyone felt the list was far too deep in that there aren't 40 guys with a legit shot at the Hall active today. Others felt that it was FAR FAR FAR too deep and the list ended with maybe 7-8 guys.  So as a public service I'm going to rework the list. First the no-work part

The absolute no-doubt tier

Albert Pujols, Mike Trout

These are the guys that if they retired today they are in first ballot and no one is thinking about it. There would be a couple snide remarks about Pujols' falling off a cliff and Trout's lack of post-season success but what's there is there and can't be denied 

The gonna get in but enough will vote against 

Miggy, Kershaw, Scherzer, VERLANDER

These guys all have had runs of dominance which spell HoF.  Miggy and Kershaw will probably end up with close to the numbers people like to see (3000 hits for Miggy, Kershaw at 250+ wins). Max won't get there but a 3 Cy Youngs and a Top 5 vote seven years in a row is definitely worthy. Still someone will poke holes - Miggy with the terrible back end. Kershaw with his post-season travails. Max with no career numbers. But they'll get in. Maybe first, likely first, depends on the rest of their careers. Also Verlander fits here (who I forgot to add initially)

The eventually he'll have to 

Greinke

Stats are there and he feels like the type of pitcher that could go another 7 years on guile alone. If he does that he'll move up. Otherwise it'll be a situation where anyone you compare falls short of him and you got to let him in.

 

Also two other no-thought tiers

The catcher tier 

Posey, Molina

Catchers are a different species of player. These are two guys with different skill sets, Posey more the hitter, Molina more the defender, who were arguably the most important player through multiple titles. I'd bet they both get in 

The reliever tier

Chapman, Jansen

Who knows? The voters don't seem to have a good grasp on this yet - maybe in a decade when these guys come up they will 

OK for everyone else this list misses the important point of age. WAR is nice but age at current WAR is a better indicator.  Also pitchers and hitters are different.  So what I did was create an index that lists a low end and high end WAR guess for the age and compared it to each batter and pitcher. These indexes (the Dawson-Pujols and Mussina-Kershaw indeces to be precise) give us an idea of who is on track, who is technically close and who is a joke. 

On track batters

Everyone young (up to 25): Correa, Bellinger (surprised me but he did win an MVP last year at 23), Acuna, Soto and Tatis Jr.  Correa has his own issues with the cheating - we'll find out soon if that's what puts him on here.  There are some Nats fans I know that think the Acuna to Soto comparison is a joke. Soto is a much better hitter, Acuna is a better all around player but not enough to account for the bat difference as of now.  Ultimately though think of this as a Frank vs Mays type thing going on. Acuna may not be Soto but he's no joke so far. 

Lindor - and at his position this bodes well. 

Machado, Bryce, and Betts - Bryce and Manny aren't slouches but Mookie has blown by these guys in the last few years and he has the rings.  He has a real good chance.  Bryce and Manny though are solidly in line and if they stay healthy there is no reason to think they won't have favorable career numbers that get them in. 

On track pitchers

Cole - Being on the Yankees should help him rack up Ws. Some award and some titles though will go a long way or else he's got to keep doing what he's been doing for another whole decade

Technically close batters (within a couple great years of getting into the range)

Votto, Goldschmidt, Freeman, Rendon, Altuve, Stanton, Yelich, Ramirez, Bogaerts, Bregman, Seager

Some of these surprised me - Yelich really crushed it in 18-19 and never has had a bad year. And some are closer (Stanton) than others (Goldschmidt) but all have a chance.  Obviously the older you are the worse your chance. Sorry Votto. You might be the greatest walk machine of this generation but another couple years with your weakening bat and you won't have .400/.500 to fall back on. 

Technically close pitchers

Sale, Bieber, Buehler

Anyone young (Beiber and Buehler) and Sale who was on track until his 2019 Tommy John

Joke batters

Rizzo, Bryant, Story, Arenado

Come up Trevor Story? That's INSANE.  Rizzo and Bryant are two guys who have been good to very good consistently but little more. They'd need to have surprising career changes.  Trevor Story would have to bribe the voters. Trevor Story... HAHAHAHAHAH

 Arenado may be a different case because of his defense, but his offense isn't dominant. 

Joke pitchers? 

deGrom, Strasburg

I put the question mark there because you can in your head easily make a case for these guys being amont the best pitchers in baseball over the last 5 years. The problem is not quality but quantity. deGrom, who's 2 Cy Youngs are probably one away from forcing the issue, didn't have his first full season until he was 27.  Strasburg who has been a very good to great pitcher since showing up - W totals be damned, and who's post-season success demand he stay in the conversation - has two full seasons in his entire career. The back ends are going to make or break these cases.  If they fall apart now they just don't have enough to get in. If they can throw another full half-decade there will probably be too much great pitching to offset not enough good. This is not a good omen for Stras though currently out with an injury. 

Anyone they are leaving out? 

Bumgarner is the only one that definitely should be on this list. Wins are bad but has individual stats and post season heroics

Hamels has late career compiling potential (but he's not on a roster now so that may be it). Nola has a sneaky good start to his career. Maybe he turns a corner. 

Longoria is in that 3rd base hole where positionally he'll rank well but overall the numbers aren't great. He's never been bad though in 13 years. McCutchen needs to stay healthy and rack up numbers - but also has never been bad in a dozen year (and had some great years). I don't like either really but they aren't any worse list choices than Rizzo and Bryant. So I guess I'm saying leave them out)

Matt Chapman is better than Story. Not that he should be in here but he'd be a better choice

Conclusion

This list isn't TERRIBLE.  It could be pared down by cutting out Bieber, Buehler, Tatis Jr (too early) and Story, Rizzo and Bryant at least. 

Out of the remaining, really I'd say Betts, Bryce, Machado, and Lindor are solid bets and the starts from Acuna and Soto are so impressive you have to keep him in. Pitching wise it's like four coin flips in Cole, Sale, deGrom and Stras.

Zimmermann and the unknowable long term deal

As you all know, I'm generally 100% right on everything I say. It's spooky really.  However, a signing yesterday points out that generally isn't always.  Jordan Zimmermann, his deal with the Tigers up, has signed a minor league deal with his hometown Brewers. At the same time Max hopes to rebound and have another close to Cy Young-ish type season to end his contract with the Nats. If Max were a FA while he wouldn't get a huge deal - he is going to be 36 next season - would clearly get a well paid major league deal of multiple years. My personal error in judgement? Six or so years ago when I said I would rather have Jordan Zimmermann than Max Scherzer.  

Now this wasn't based on the idea of ZNN being a better pitcher than Max.  I thought Max was (slightly) better*.  It was based on my feelings that ZNN was a better bet to be healthy for the entirity of the contract. After having Tommy John surgery, ZNN had basically not missed a game in 5 years, seemingly unbreakable in a way that the Nats other ace pitcher - Strasburg - was not. On the other side Max had also been a rock - basically not missing a start for 6 years.  But age, Max is nearly two years older than ZNN, and use, Max had an extra 350 IP on his arm, suggested the safer bet would be ZNN. 

You all know the Nats basically passed on ZNN. They offered him a low-end market deal and he walked to Detroit. You also know that he didn't amount to anything with the Tigers disappearing into the ether. But how did that happen?  Well here is his 2016. 

Up until May 22nd : A health ZNN puts up a 7-2 2.52 ERA line. His K's are down a tiny bit (6.67 K/9) but his control is lights-out (~1.5 BB/9) and he's keeping the ball in the park (0.8 HR/9)

May 22nd : Hurts groin. Misses a start, comes back to put up a series of mediocre performances in June

July 4th : Hurts neck. Put on DL. Misses a month 

Aug 6th : Comes back for a start. Is terrible. Hurts lat. Back to the DL 

Sept 10th : Comes back. Is terrible. Pitches a few more random times before end of the year.  Looking slightly better.

It's a nightmare scenario where one injury leads to another leads to another. He would power through and pitch 29 games in 2017 (bad), 25 in 2018 (ok) and 23 in 2019 (bad) but he clearly wasn't the same pitcher. That pinpoint control that led to his dominant years was gone. Walks ticked up, hits even more so, and the homers nearly doubled.

Meanwhile Max stayed injury free through 2018 and only had a minor one in 2019. It's possible that leads to a cascade like ZNN had. Max's 2020 showed that same progression in losing the strike zone and being more wild, hittable, and able to be crushed, though not as terrible. But having it come in the last year of a long contract, instead of the first year makes ALL the difference. Max's is going to the Hal of Fame. ZNN is going to be a name in a book. 

This is a warning though for the Nats who harbor two long pitching contracts. Corbin signed through 2024 and Stras through 2026.  Corbin had a 2020 more like his pre-FA year in Arizona. Strasburg in 2020 got hurt after his ultra-rare healthy year in 2019.**  The Nats are counting on both these guys being aces for the next few years. Max is aging out. There is no one in the immediate pipeline. They are eating up contract money. If one (or god forbid both) pull a Zimmermann and have 2020 be the first year in a series of years that don't measure up due to injury or whatever, the Nats are going to have a tough time being the team they have been - the consistent winner and playoff presence.

What do the Nats do then? If Stras and Corbin aren't good in 2021? A long term deal for Max is not going to happen - but he could be back for 2-3 years. He could also bolt for somewhere that will give him 3-4. Do the Nats tear down, hoping to rebuild with young pitching before the giant outlay that will likely be needed to keep Juan Soto? Or do they push on with the guys they have - hoping to puzzle things together? Well, I guess we hope there is no question, that Stras and Corbin are great in 2021 and the Nats can move on as planned.

*Say what you want to say - memory is often clouded by desire to make yourself look good - but no one had Max being the best pitcher in baseball from age 31-34. In the three years leading up to the Max signing their ERA+ were nearly identical - ZNN's control matching up nicely against Max's Ks.

** basically his second full season of his career in 10 years in the game

Monday Quickie - Bauer to the Me....Dodgers!

 A quiet weekend for once.  Although not really. The Braves did sign Ozuna on Friday. 

It's been a wild 30 days for the NL East. We have seen 

January 7th - Mets trade for Lindor/Carrasco

January 9th - Nats sign Schwarber

January 18th - Phillies sign Archie Bradley

January 26th - Nats sign Brad Hand

January 27th - Nats sign Jon Lester

January 29th - Phillies re-sign Realmuto

January 30th - Phillies re-sign Gregorious

February 5th - Braves sign Marcell Ozuna 

This isn't mentioning more minor deals. The Nats solidified their back-up catcher spot with Avila. The Mets signed Aaron Loup who will be a decent pen arm and traded for Joey Lucchesi a solid 4-5 who will give them rotation depth. The Phillies gambled on Sam Coonrod and Matt Moore. 

The end result to this is nearly all the holes in these teams are filled. I think the Mets could use one more reliable bullpen arm - after Diaz* it's a mess - and they could get one.  I think the Phillies really need a 1-2-3 type starter and they probably won't get that.

Who's left to make a difference? 

Jake Odorizzi - I can't see anyone but the Phillies making this move (and they really should) T

Justin Turner - Nats are the ones with the room for him but they'd have to deal Kieboom first. Phillies and Braves have young guys they'd like to try who have looked better than Kieboom. Mets have solid major leaguers already so the bump wouldn't be much.

Jackie Bradley Jr - an intriguing one for the Phillies. Quinn needs to be pushed out and Haseley is a question. Mets kicking the tires as currently they have settled with Almora - a bad settle.

James Paxton / Taijuan Walker - could help anyone. Tough to rely on though so would be a fun gamble for a Nats or Braves who could use a little more depth if gotten cheap - which is unlikely. Would be in rotation for Phillies which would be iffy. Mets full.

Trevor Rosenthal - everyone can use an arm but the Nats have to be gun shy and the Braves are pretty full. Mets make sense

Yadier Molina - no one needs a starter and he's not going to back-up

Cole Hamels - Phillies here too. Braves you could say "we need a great vet to teach" but they probably don't actually need that. The Nats would be fun if only because a rotation of Max Stras Corbin Lester and Hamels would sound unbeatble even though that's only true in a world where you can pick the ages of your pitchers.

Mark Melancon - Mets or Phillies should jump on this reliable arm if they can get a 1-2 yr deal (which they should) .   Not the same guy but until you stop producing... 

There's a world here where the NL East gets even better.  The Nats sign Turner (and trade Kieboom for something interesting). The Phillies sign JBJ, Odorizzi, and one of the relievers**.  The Mets sign the other one.  the Braves bring in Paxton or Walker to try to luck out into another 1-2. Make it happen guys!

*Hey I like Diaz! Everything points to 2019 being the fluke. 

 **  In this instance you have a funny situation where the Phillies probably have (1) the 8th-10th best rotation in baseball and (2) clearly the 4th best rotation in the NL East.

Better Red than Dead

Sean Doolittle is gone - signed with the Reds with his spot in the bullpen taken up by Brad Hand. I liked Doolittle. He was very very good in those first 70 games with the Nats, then not so good in the last 70 thanks in most part to injuries that have been his bugaboo throughout his career. Last year he was downright awful and Brad Hand is very very good and more importantly more reliably healthy. It's a pretty clear choice. Although at 1.5 million Doolittle could be a huge bargain.

Interestingly enough peak Doolittle is just as good, if not better than Hand 

Peak Doolittle years 

69 IP, 0.957 WHIP, 0.5 HR/9, 7.8 K/9

62.2 IP, 0.734 WHIP, 0.7 HR/9, 12.8 K/9

51.1 IP, 0.857 WHIP, 0.9 HR/9, 10.9 K/9

45.0 IP, 0.600 WHIP, 0.6 HR/9, 12.00 K/9

But you see I'm already looking at a 45 IP season and this is across 8 years from 2013-2020. Hand wasn't quite as dominant in his four years as a reliever (he was a part time starter for Miami before settling in full-time as a reliever) but pitched 89, 79, 72, innings in his first three relief seasons (2016-2018) He did have a "tired elbow" in 2019 which cost him about a month of time and reduced his IP to 57 but it didn't seem to effect his pitching and he was perfectly fine last year. If the Nats are to be competitive they need this kind of expected performance. 

Doolittle, while breaking down, was used pretty judiciously by Martinez in 2019s playoffs and he was very good in his performances throwing 10 innings of around a 2.00 ERA and he was almost perfect in 2017. 

 

The last point is of interest to me because I wonder how much Doolittle is liked by the Nats fanbase. There is certainly a bunch of online Nats fans who love him. He's an outspoken liberal in a sports world that is full of mostly quiet conservatives. He was also very fan forward in terms of interactions and getting out into the community.  Stats wise there's a lot more positive than negative. 

However that's also the case (the latter point) with Tyler Clippard. He's by far the best reliever in terms of career value that the Nats have ever had. He literally threw 450IP of 2.64 ERA ball He never had a bad season. And yet whenever I bring him up there are one or two guys (out of the few that comment here) that want to make it clear they didn't like him and didn't think he was good. If you don't think Clippard was good - can you think any non-dominant relief pitcher is good?

Good luck to Doolittle. I hope he gets healthy and if he does Cincy has a steal (which I'm sure they'll trade later in the season)

Monday Quickie - Arenado to the Cards

Monday update Nolan Arenando goes to the Cardinals? What does that mean for the Nats? For the NL? 

Arenado had a bad year last year but assuming that doesn't hold and it's COVID shenanigans he's a very good bat and a great glove. It probably doesn't give the Cardinals a good offense, but if they can get to average the defense and pitching would make them NL Central favorites. It's always worse to play better teams, but it doesn't directly effect the Nats.

The NL Central is weird.  The Pirates obviously are tanking. The Cubs had the making of a dynasty after 2016 and tried to make it happen but it didn't. They made the playoffs 3 of the next 4 years, but caught bad luck in 2019, and got edged out of a division in 2018.  Add a little playoff failure and you get a solid but unmemorable run after that magic moment. Now it seems like they want to pack it in but also realize that the division is so weak they really should put up some minimal effort.  The Brewers built up to a couple of magic seasons but really never went all in to do it and it seems like they have no intention of ever actually really trying beyond that moment. They've made almost no moves this offseason. The Reds are taking the Brewers plan a step further - building up a decent team but not even half-trying to get a couple contending seasons. It's not happening with just what they had on hand so now they are rebuilding yet again.

What does this all mean for the Nats?  One of these teams is going tank. Maybe two teams will.  Because these teams are decent and competitive in recent history that's a lot of talent that could be available as the playoff push starts. The Nats don't have a lot to offer. They might honestly have the worst minor league system in baseball and were almost shut out of every Top 100 list until Cavalli snuck in at 99 on one. But if there is a glut of teams selling and talent available? Maybe even the Nats can get something done.

The other thing this means is that The WC is probably coming down to an NL East team (or two - if expanded) and the Dodgers/Padres not division winner.* That is pretty good odds for the Nats.

 

 *Probably - you can see a way one NL Central team surprises and the other tanks and that gets them a lot of wins.

NL East - Where it stands

This is going to be a weird year. In part because COVID is going to impact at least the first half BUT also because we don't have a great idea on the quality of the teams, last year was only 60 games AND also because we don't know what the decreased (or completly missed) seasons will do for players.  Will they be rusty? Will they be rested? Will the old guys be too old to get back into the swing? Will the young guys feel the effect of missing necessary playing time? 

But we do what we can and what we can do it step back and look at the teams in the NL East, how they were the last two years and what they've done leading up to this year

Atlanta

2019: 97-65, 2020 : 35-25

Lost : Hamels, Melancon, Markakis, Ozuna, Greene, Flowers, Duvall, O'Day, Foltynewicz

Re-Signed : Tomlin

Signed : Smyly, Morton 

The Braves had a stupid deep pen last year so even though they lost three very good arms they still are probably ok there. The worst you can say is they introduced some chance of failure that wasn't there before. The rotation should be stronger (Hamels was just a one start rental, Folty a hit or miss 3-4-5 guy). Is the offense going to be an issue? Maybe. Ozuna was a beast last year and while Flowers wasn't great, he had a decent 2019 and you didn't feel too bad with him sneaking a game in there in relief for d'Arnaud. These losses could be made up by young guys stepping up : Riley, Albies, Pache but that's no guarantee. 

Better, Worse or Push : I'll say push, and I like worse more than better. 

 

Washington

2019: 93-69, 2020 : 26-34

Lost : MAT, As Cab, Doolittle, Eaton, Kendrick, Suzuki, Sanchez, Thames

Re-Signed :  Zimmerman

Signed/Traded for : Bell, Schwarber, Wellington Castillo, Lester, Hand

The prevailing thought is that Nats rotation gets a little better with Lester eating up innings and their relief group gets a lot better with Hand replacing Doolittle (sorry Doo - you weren't bad but he's very very good). I'm not sure I agree or at least there's still a lot of variability here - Stras' injury being number one, but also Max and Corbin's steps back and relying on Finnegan and Rainey who looked pretty good but also don't have a long record and aren't young guns (29 and 28 next year respectively) so they aren't likely to blossom into something special. That's a long sentence to say the pen has some of it's usual "who knows" and now that's spread to the rotation, which is not good.

The offense however should be better than last year, where 1B and the OF other than Soto were dead zones. Bell and Schwarber are guaranteed to be better, maybe good, maybe not good but definitely better. If Kieboom and Garcia aren't terrible and if Trea is 80% of what he was last year which is a good bet... well that's not a great seven man offense but guess what? Juan Soto is GREAT and can carry that to a Top 5 offense*

Better, Worse or Push : Hmmm ok I think it's better but in part that's because I think last year broke much worse for the Nats than it should have. Can they be a 90+ win team again is what people want to know and the answer is yes BUT I don't think they are better than 2019 because there's just too many question marks in that rotation. Could be? Yes. Should be? Probably one of the Top 3 is going to disappoint a little and stop that from happening

Mets

2019: 86-76, 2020 : 26-34

Lost : Strickland, Cespedes, Chrinos, Frazier, Lowrie, Porcello, Ramos, Stroman, Wacha, Justin Wilson, Cano (suspend), Shreve

Re-Signed : Stroman

Signed/Traded :Aroldys Vizcaino, James McCann, Lindor, Carrasco, Trevor May, 

The Mets are better on paper, but they always are. Then something happens. Injuries, crashes, whatever. They are better because Carrasco fills the Porcello hole (crash), Stroman the Wacha role (crash). McCann picks up from Ramos and should be no worse. Lindor immediately makes the infield better and fills a lineup hole. If Guillorme can be just average, and he was surprisingly good last year, it's a lineup with no holes. The pen is a mess but it was a mess last year. May helps but Lugo and Betances need to get their heads on straight like Diaz did for the Mets to be complete

Better, Worse or Push : sigh... better but that's somehow not going to matter. If it does - they still sit at 3rd best in the East a half step behind the Nats.

 

Phillies

2019: 81-81, 2020 : 28-32

Lost : Arrieta, Gregorius, Bruce, Tommy Hunter, Adam Morgan, Blake Parker, David Phelps, David Robertson

Re-Signed :  Realmuto

Signed/Traded : Jose Alvarado, Coonrod, Bradley

The Phillies remade their pen which given last year is understandable. Not all the guys they let go were bad but most were and the three arms they brought in and the general back and forthness of pens should help that area improve. But the pitching staff and line-up are both spinning wheels. For the line-up that's not too bad. They'll miss Didi, but Kingery shouldn't be mind-numbingly bad again and JT, Bryce, Rhys, Segura and McCutchen is a core that can put up some runs, especially if Bohm can hit again (or if he can't if Kingery or Haseley hit). But for the rotation.. the Top 3 aren't bad but Howard is a question mark and the 5 spot is a prayer.

Better, Worse or Push : Talent wise it's a push. This is still a .500ish team, more leaning toward 82/83 wins than 79/80. This is a team that needs another big move to compete in a hard division, not some tinkering. Another starter or big bat would be that (preferably the starter). It's kind of like the whole season hinges on Spencer Howard emerging as a ROY candidate in the 4th spot. That's a bit much to say but just a bit.

 

Marlins

2019: 57-105, 2020 : 31-29

Lost :Villar, Cervelli, Joyce,  Boxberger, Vincent, Kintzler, Urena

Re-Signed : 

Signed : Detwiler, Sandy Leon

This is pretty easy. The Marlins let a lot of chaff go, veteran guys in there to eat up innings and at bats if necessary but also some useful relief pieces. They didn't do much of anything to replace them.  When your pick-up are guys not good enough for the Nats to keep 8 seasons ago, the talent on the team is not getting better through moves

Better, Worse or Push : They should be worse than last year in my opinion. They got lucky in performances Rojas isn't going to put up that line again. Neither probably is Berti. The offense will be terrible. They got lucky in how the wins broke.  How not bad they may be is up to the young starting pitching. This is a team way closer to 57-105 than 31-29. Don't worry about the Marlins.

 

 

*Don't think so? Look at 2015.  Bryce dragged that squad to #3. What an awful lineup. 

Yes yes yes

 Lester and now Hand.  Very quickly in lieu of the larger posts

Lester - meh.  1 year, 5 mill basically tells you what it is. He's here to fill in the 4-5 spot with innings and not terrible pitching. The former is very likely. they guy is a horse who hasn't missed time... well ever. You want 170+ innings you'll probably not have a better bet from someone who turned 37 a few weeks ago.the latter is less so. The guys stuff is on an inexorable slide last year striking out the fewest men of his career (6.2 per 9 last year) and by far the fewest since he was a pup of 24 (6.5 per 9).  Granted 2019 was more normal so who's to say? Still if you are worried he's improved his control to counter this decline. His numbers in the past couple years better than the couple before that, BUT he's getting hit like crazy Worst and 4th worst H/9 of his career and giving up homers too (worst and 2nd worst).  

The take away is the guy is getting worse. Far more hittable.  Even if he can K more and keep his walks down it's not like he's elite in either case. When you aren't doing those two great you need to keep the hits and homers in check and he's doing the opposite of that. Best case is he struggles along with a 4.50 ERA and does the job.  Worst case is he flames out and doesn't help the Nats at all. I can't see anything much better, sorry

 

Hand on the other... hand is great!  He's not old. He's been very good to fantastic for 5 seasons. Healthy too! Last years numbers were probably an aberration BABIP low, BB/9 way low for his career, LOB% low. But even if they all regress to his normal he's still going to be very good. This is a no downside move.  With Harris, who was good last year and historically is very good in recent years. The Nats should have a very good back end of the pen.  After that they only need one of the other guys to hit to have a real formidable back end and if two do - that's a deep pen.  

Hudson probably isn't as bad as last year's gopher ball pitcher but he's probably merely ok. 2019 is a fluke year. Tanner Rainey definitely has swing and miss stuff but a .129 BABIP last year is not going to be repeated. The question is how real the decrease in his walk rate is. If so I'd bet on him.  Finnegan I'm probably rank last just because he's a guy that relies on keeping the ball in the pack and little else. Decent Ks, bad walks, normal hits... yeah if he gives up just a couple more homers he's a guy that could see his ERA jump easy. But again - only one has to hit here. Or someone out of the blue! An Albers like FA signing. Some random rookie. Whatever. 

One thing to note here - even though these guys are new to the Nats they aren't young. Rainey is 28, Finnegan 29, Suero around that. So they've got a couple years left but not like a half-decade plus

Schwarber

Just 4+ years after he was one of the hottest commodities in baseball, the Nats land Kyle Schwarber.  The contract itself isn't too important (7 million in 2021, 3 million in 2022 + a mutual option in 2022 for 11 million) as what it means. This is it. This is the decision for the OF next year.  No Springer. No Brantley. No Ozuna.  It's Schwarber. 

So what is Schwarber? He's a "three true outcome"ish player, who homers, strikes out and walks. His HR/FB is insanely consistent, not quite elite but close. His walk rate is a bit better but still not tops. What is? Well, his strikeout rate can get to "worst" levels. But still as a combo you'll take it if he's knocking enough balls over the fence and having enough other hits here and there.

That was the case in 2018 and 2019 but not the case in 2020.  What happened? Well as always with the "COVID year" caveat, he hit a bunch of balls into the ground and pulled them. There was also a little more chasing.  All these could be connected in either direction. He's not getting the hits he wants, gets frustrated and starts swinging at more pitches or he starts swinging at more pitches and his bad contact leads to bad hits.  Either way - that's what's needs to be fixed because a repeat of 2020, where he hit .188, would be disastrous, regardless of how many of those are going over the fence and how many walks he's taking. 

I kind of downplay 2020 in a way that I wouldn't normally do with recent years - especially if there are no trends leading into it (which there are none that I see here), so I'm fairly confident that he can get back to 2019 levels, at least for a year. 

Of course there's the other thing baseball players do - field, and Kyle is... ok look, he's not good. You can squint and cut his fielding data and manage to make him seem ok, but size, age, total history, recent history, eyeball test; he fails all those. He came in and was god awful, he tried really hard and got to average but time catches up to everyone and when you are roly poly it catches up with you a little earlier a lot of the time. I am very pessimistic he'll be any good in the field, playing in his first new stadium, with a CF that has to also help out on the other side*

What do I see in 2021? I see a bad fielder that's going to drive us, and especially Victor LF2/CF/RF2 Robles, crazy. This makes making sure he corrects his batting this year incredibly crucial. 

Anything else?

• Is he a righty crusher?  Ehhhh, nah. He hits them better but he also sees them more. It's probably more honest to say he shouldn't see lefties. But it's probably MOST honest to say - look he's going to hit lefties worse but he'll still walk and hit homers so just keep sending him out because that's why you have him in the line-up. 
• Last year he didn't hit FBs as well and he always could hit FBs so that's not a great sign.
• He generally hits better in Wrigley but last year that didn't hold, so that's a good sign. Though H/A splits usually aren't super indicative unless the home park is wacky like Coors
• For whatever reason Schwarber has had the fewest ABs in Nats Park than any other NL park that's been still open. Just 20. Hell he's had more PAs in Cleveland than Washington (he's been fine in DC but with 20 PAs- who knows)

I think the Nats got a bad fielder that will give the team fits. However, I think there's still a decent hitter in there. I think it will come out next year.  If he's GOOD at the plate - for one season it'll be fine and it'll be fun to watch him launch some bombs. If he's not good - even if he's ok - it probably won't be enough. He probably won't be as good as Ozuna, or Springer, or Brantley so if you are the type to dwell over that stuff (even though all of them will get multi year more expensive deals)...prepare now. 

Oh - another thing though is what is Kyle replacing? The Nats were terrible in the 3rd OF position last year. I have to believe unless it blows up Schwarber will make it better. Probably not good, but maybe average (which it was in 2019). 

The bar is kind of low for "better"  Schwarber makes the Nats better. He doesn't make them good (and neither does Bell) but they set up a situation where they could be... if the aces comes through.

*remember Juan Soto is not a good fielder. Despite how badly you want to believe it. He is good enough now to stick out there, but not good. Moving from LF to RF will be another issue

Josh Bell - Middle of the Order Bat?

Welcome back from my Holiday break. Yes all December is a holiday.  How does one expect to watch Hallmark and Lifetime Christmas movies if I'm bothering typing out posts?

The positional review will continue but first the Nats made a big move. Well maybe not a big move but a move that will be important for the 2021 season.  The Nats traded for Josh Bell to play first base.

The Nats have not had a great first base situation in a long while working around the perennially injured and rapidly petrifying Ryan Zimmerman.  Last year they had the possibly the worst situation in baseball with Zimm out, Eric Thames playing his way out of the league, and As Cab out of position having an off year. This year offered little hope of improvement from what was on the roster currently, especially after Kendrick decided to retire. Maybe you can work around a subpar 1B situation when you have an All-Star 3B but with Rendon now on the West Coast letting 1B stay fallow seemed like a luxury that the team could no longer afford.

Josh Bell is an interesting pick-up. Going though the general thoughts about him, the first thing is that he's cheap. He's still under team control for the next couple of years meaning a couple of team friendly contracts await in 2021 and 2022. That gives the Nats flexibility if they want to make a big money move. He's neither old nor young, He'll be 28 going on 29 next season. That's past the time you expect to find something new about a player but before the time you expect significant drop off. So most likely he is who he is. 

What exactly is that? 

Well if you look at 2016-2018 he's a guy who hits ok, has a good eye and doesn't strike out too much, but could use a little more pop. He doesn't offer much in the way of speed or defense. Overall, not a liability but not much of a help either. At another position this would be a plus, but he's a stop gap first baseman to cover the position for a couple years until you come up with a better plan. 

If you look at 2019 - he's got that pop and he's a good addition to the team. 

If you look at 2020 -  he's lost a lot of his eye at the plate, leaving him with far fewer walks, far more strikeouts, and not the guy you want to have at first. 

Which is the most real?  You hate to judge anything based on last years weird season, but the past two years have been a wild ride. In 2019 he suddenly started hitting everything in the air, very hard, and getting around on the ball. In 2020 the angle was suddenly reversed and he was pounding everything into the ground. It was still kind of hard and he was kind of getting around on it but the extreme change was enough to kill his offense completely. 

When you see such a change you look first to see if the pitches he's seen has changed. They have! He's gotten a few more off-speed pitches and a few fewer fastballs but that doesn't look to simply be it because the FB% dropped and off-speed% went up in 2019 when he hit much better. But that begs the question - maybe 2019 was split? A fast start followed by an adjustment by the league? 

And yep that's what you see.

First 61 games : .338 / .398 / .692

Last  games : .229 / .344 / .471

Certainly seems like the league either figured something out or something went wrong here, and whatever they figured out or went wrong continued into 2020.  

We could take this further and look at monthly pitch  percentages to be more sure that the pitches changed and yep they did, steadily fewer fastballs and more junk. But we see something similar in 2020, the league starting back up with a lot more hard stuff*

To put the nail in the coffin here we'd see a faster start for Josh in 2020 and we DON'T see that - but July was only 7 games so we kind of have to throw that out. What's more interesting is despite the decrease in fastballs and increase in breaking stuff September October was better than August. Of course those final stats were a lot more like his 2016-2018 stats, than anything else. The Ks were back down, the walks back up.

If you want to tell yourself a narrative, Josh Bell was what I described - a usable but unimpressive stop gap first baseman with not enough going for him to get that big contract when getting to FA. He tried to adjust his batting to create more power and more value and it worked great, but the league quickly figured him out making things worse than before. Before the season after the change was through Josh had resigned to hitting as he had before.

What this means for the Nats is someone not likely to be the big bat or much or a protector for Juan Soto behind him in the lineup.  However, if the Nats employ him AHEAD of Soto they might see something. They could try pitching to Bell giving him pitches to hit and he might be able to get back some of the 2019 power increase, or maybe they pitch around him and he can work a walk getting on base for Soto. This is a move that can make the Nats better than last year with some proper thought (and some luck of course). However it's not a guarantee of a better offense and in a division that's been tough and looks to stay that way the Nats need more. 

 What did the Nats give up? Wil Crowe and Eddy Yean.  Eddy is a lottery ticket. A 19 year old who keeps the ball in the park with a solid 2019 but lacking swing and miss stuff.  Wil Crowe is the key piece but that's sad because all Wil Crowe likely is is a 5th starter if the Pirates are lucky.  He's a guy with four pitches but no killer pitch. He likes his slider and his fastball has some speed but he doesn't do anything particularly well (control, Ks, GB rate) so he will put people on base and some of them will score. The hope the Pirates have is he develops that one great pitch allowing him to use everything else as a set up for that but it's getting close to the end of the time where that might happen. The Nats didn't lose anything they need here.

*Why do they do this? Throwing fastballs is easier. We've talked about this before but you try to beat players with the easiest stuff for you to throw. Can they hit major league fastballs in the zone? If they can't you've expended no effort and gotten the outcome you wanted. Most players can so you move on to different pitches and moving the ball around.