Word came down today that Fizzleman is losing the interim tag and has been named the permanent manager of the Nationals.
I was just about to post a comparison between Riggleman and Bobby Valentine, the reported "other" final candidate. (Kind of rude for Rizzo to scoop me--where's the love for a fellow Illini, Mike?). But I thought I'd share what I got anyway.
One of my bigger gripes with Riggleman was the Nationals' miserable performance in the running game. The team had a 70% success rate on steal attempts under Interim Jim, the second worst of any manager in baseball this year. That's bad, but compared to Valentine, Riggleman was practically clairvoyant when it came to sending runners. In his time in with the Mets, Valentine's teams had stolen base success rates of 56.7%, 57.4%, 71.1%, 58.9%, 57.9%, and 67.4%. Blech.
Then there were the sacrifices, bunts, and suicide squeezes. Riggleman called 50 sac attempts in 75 games, a 108-sac pace that made him the third most frequent spoiler of outs in baseball. In New York Valentine, ranked #14, 4, 12, 8, 16, and 6 in sac bunt rate from '97-'02. For an NL team, that's hardly makes him a sac bunt addict, but he also didn't exactly eschew the bunt either.
Riggleman also gives away far too many baserunners. In 75 games, he issued 33 intentional walks. Projected over a full season, that would give him 71.3, three more than Joe Torre's MLB-leading 68. Valentine wasn't much better though, averaging 53.3 IBBs per year and ranking #11, 3, 5, 13, 5, and 5 in the league from '97-'02. Again, for an NL manager he wasn't the worst offender imaginable, but that's still far too many.
Of course, any list of complaints about Jim Riggleman starts with his inability to keep young pitchers out of Birmingham. From Kerry Wood to Jeremi Gonzalez to Jordan Zimmermann to Craig Stammen, young pitchers in Riggleman's care sooner or later find their way to the DL. He hasn't successfully transitioned any prospect--pitcher or position player--from the minors to the big leagues since Joey Hamilton in San Diego in 1994, and he's shown precious few signs of lessons learned.
While in New York, Valentine rarely had a pitcher among the league leaders in pitcher abuse points. He put a swift end to the meat-grinder treatment that ruined the "Generation K" trio of Jason Isringhausen, Paul Wilson, and Bill Pulsipher under Dallas Green. For that reason alone, I was rooting for Valentine to get the job over Riggleman.
But that's probably not what the team had in mind when considering him. What Valentine--and Mattingly, for that matter--would have brought is some splash, a bit of name recognition and box-office appeal. But the team wasn't about to make an offer Valentine or Mattingly couldn't refuse--that's not the Nationals' way. And let's face it, neither of these guys were coming to DC unless they got Godfather money.
So for all practical purposes, it was Fizzleman from the start. Oh well. At least we don't have to feel conflicted when it comes time to call for his head. And I give him a year. If he survives in this death march of a job longer than Manny did, then he'll really have achieved something.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
New Podcast at "Natmoshere in your Ear"
Brian and Steven discuss the off-season outlook for Nationals starting pitching, including our picks among the (underwhelming) free agent class. Download the podcast here, and while you're there, subscribe on I-Tunes or whatever podcatcher you use.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Clash of the Cretins
As soon as the World Series is over, the real off-season starts for teams like the Scats, and I'll start posting again. For now, enjoy this from the Daily Show if you haven't seen it. The reason why we so loathe the invaders at Scats Park from NY and Philly.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Manny Acta: Everyone's First Choice
Manny Acta not only landed the Cleveland Indians job today--he had his pick of jobs between Cleveland and the Houston Astros.
It should come as no surprise that Manny didn't have a hard time getting another shot to manage. Outside of DC, Manny's been compared to Terry Francona for years--a very talented young manager who never had a chance in his first job because his team was so dreadfully overmatched in terms of talent night-in and night-out.
But it's impressive that Manny's services were not only sought after, but apparently sparked an full-fledged bidding war. The Indians signed him for three years with a team option for a fourth, beating out the Astros' two-year offer.
Cleveland was clearly the more desirable option in terms of organizational strength and talent. The Indians really cratered in 2009, but with a core of Grady Sizemore, Asdrubal Cabrera, Jhonny Peralta, and Shin-Soo Choo, plus up-and-coming blue-chippers Carlos Santana and Matt LaPorta, Manny has far, far more to work with in Cleveland than he ever did in DC.
The pitching staff is a mess, after shipping off CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee in consecutive seasons and watching Fausto Carmona fall apart totally. I worry that they massively overrated Carlos Carrasco in the Cliff Lee trade. But in the soft AL Central, it's not hard to imagine Cleveland jumping up and making a run as soon as next season.
Regardless, in terms of contract and talent, Manny has a much better job now than the one he was fired from. It's a very good bet that he'll have a better record than whoever takes over the Nationals in 2010.
It kinda makes you think that with Manny's contract coming up at the end of this year, he just might have quit if he hadn't been fired. He obviously had no shortage of options.
It should come as no surprise that Manny didn't have a hard time getting another shot to manage. Outside of DC, Manny's been compared to Terry Francona for years--a very talented young manager who never had a chance in his first job because his team was so dreadfully overmatched in terms of talent night-in and night-out.
But it's impressive that Manny's services were not only sought after, but apparently sparked an full-fledged bidding war. The Indians signed him for three years with a team option for a fourth, beating out the Astros' two-year offer.
Cleveland was clearly the more desirable option in terms of organizational strength and talent. The Indians really cratered in 2009, but with a core of Grady Sizemore, Asdrubal Cabrera, Jhonny Peralta, and Shin-Soo Choo, plus up-and-coming blue-chippers Carlos Santana and Matt LaPorta, Manny has far, far more to work with in Cleveland than he ever did in DC.
The pitching staff is a mess, after shipping off CC Sabathia and Cliff Lee in consecutive seasons and watching Fausto Carmona fall apart totally. I worry that they massively overrated Carlos Carrasco in the Cliff Lee trade. But in the soft AL Central, it's not hard to imagine Cleveland jumping up and making a run as soon as next season.
Regardless, in terms of contract and talent, Manny has a much better job now than the one he was fired from. It's a very good bet that he'll have a better record than whoever takes over the Nationals in 2010.
It kinda makes you think that with Manny's contract coming up at the end of this year, he just might have quit if he hadn't been fired. He obviously had no shortage of options.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Right Track / Wrong Track Poll Results... And a New Poll!
Fan confidence slipped just a very little bit this month from the post-Strasburg signing glee of August and September. It seems we're set up for an off-season of hope and dreams. Till they actually start to play again, why not?
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
New Podcast at "Natmosphere in your Ear"
Brian and I just finished discussing the recent changes in the Nationals front office. You can get the download here: http://natmosphere.mypodcast.com/2009/10/Natmosphere_in_your_Ear_October_14_2009-248048.html
News has been coming so fast that the discussion of the international scouting situation is already out of date with the announcement mentioned in the last post.
But we also discuss Dana Brown's and John Stearns's departures, Roy Clark's hiring, Kris Kline's promotion, the future of Bob Boone.
Also, for folks who wish to subscribe at I-Tunes, there seems to be a problem with that link on mypodcast.com. No worries, you can still subscribe.
Here's what you do. In I-Tunes, click on Advanced, then Subscribe to Podcast. Paste this address into the box: http://natmosphere.mypodcast.com/rss.xml and click OK. Voila. Natmosphere in your Ear will download weekly.
News has been coming so fast that the discussion of the international scouting situation is already out of date with the announcement mentioned in the last post.
But we also discuss Dana Brown's and John Stearns's departures, Roy Clark's hiring, Kris Kline's promotion, the future of Bob Boone.
Also, for folks who wish to subscribe at I-Tunes, there seems to be a problem with that link on mypodcast.com. No worries, you can still subscribe.
Here's what you do. In I-Tunes, click on Advanced, then Subscribe to Podcast. Paste this address into the box: http://natmosphere.mypodcast.com/rss.xml and click OK. Voila. Natmosphere in your Ear will download weekly.
Nationals Hire International Scouting Director
Filling a hole that's existed in the Nationals front office since basically forever, the Nationals have hired Red Sox Latin American Coordinator Johnny DiPuglia as their International Scouting Director. So reports Melissa Segura at Sports Illustrated.
The Nationals have been pretty much completely absent from the international talent market forever, and no team's been more aggressive and successful than the Red Sox. DiPuglia has a great pedigree and an impressive track record of signings:
This is a very good step in the right direction. Hopefully DiPuglia will have budget to hire a robust staff of scouts to cover the enormous pool of talent that exists outside U.S. borders.
The Nationals have been pretty much completely absent from the international talent market forever, and no team's been more aggressive and successful than the Red Sox. DiPuglia has a great pedigree and an impressive track record of signings:
DiPuglia, of Dominican descent, was raised in Miami and started his professional baseball career in 1990 as an area scout for the St. Louis Cardinals. He moved on to the San Francisco Giants as the assistant international director in 1998. During his tenure with the Red Sox, he was instrumental in the team's signing of All-Star shortstop Hanley Ramirez. He also can count Cardinals outfielder Rick Ankiel, Tigers second baseman Placido Polanco, Marlins hurler Anibal Sanchez (he of a no-hitter in 2006), Rockies pitcher Jorge De La Rosa, and former longtime utilityman Eli Marerro among his 19 signees who have made it to the majors.When the Lerners first bought the team, there was a lot of talk about making this team the Washington InterNationals. But so far those promises have been totally unfulfilled.
This is a very good step in the right direction. Hopefully DiPuglia will have budget to hire a robust staff of scouts to cover the enormous pool of talent that exists outside U.S. borders.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Just Say No, Manny
Is Manny Acta about to be hired by the only team in baseball that's been run almost as badly as the Nationals over the last few years. OK, it's not the Royals. Or the Pirates. It's the Astros.
The Astros are bad. They won just 74 games this year, and in fact they were lucky. By run differential, they were a 68-win team.
The Astros are old. Six of their starting eight position players in 2009 were 33 or older. Five of their top six starting pitchers by games started this year were 30 or older.
The Astros minor league system is a wreck. They were rated the absolute worst in baseball going into 2009 by Baseball America, and their comments on the ranking didn't offer much hope for the future either:
Drafting catcher Jason Castro with the #10 overall pick in 2008 ahead of higher upside guys like Justin Smoak and Brett Wallace was rightly questioned at the time, but Castro played well enough this year to quiet some of that criticism for a while at least.
Bottom line, whoever takes this job is doomed. Just like Manny was doomed here in DC. I know managerial jobs don't come along very often, but, really Manny, you don't want this job.
The Astros are bad. They won just 74 games this year, and in fact they were lucky. By run differential, they were a 68-win team.
The Astros are old. Six of their starting eight position players in 2009 were 33 or older. Five of their top six starting pitchers by games started this year were 30 or older.
The Astros minor league system is a wreck. They were rated the absolute worst in baseball going into 2009 by Baseball America, and their comments on the ranking didn't offer much hope for the future either:
State of the System: The Astros come off an 86-win season, but leaner times may be ahead for the franchise, which has an older lineup and is No. 30 on our talent rankings by a fairly wide margin. The organization has drafted cheaply and poorly for most of the last four years, culminating with an '07 class that already ranks as one of the worst in draft history. Houston's historic forays into Venezuela are mostly a thing of the past as well; the organization that once dominated talent acquisition in that country now doesn't even have an academy there and makes little impact internationally anymore.And they have one of the few GMs left who might have competed with Jim Bowden for the title "Worst GM in MLB," Ed Wade. The last couple years of roster management have been just awful down in Houston. When he wasn't getting choked by one of his own players (yes, Chacon is crazy, but who signed him?), he committed these general managerial sins:
- Signed Kaz Matsui for 3 years, $16.5 million.
- Signed--and actually gave starts to--Brian Moehler ($2.3m), Mike Hampton ($2m), Shawn Chacon ($2m), Jack Cassel ($400k), Russ Ortiz (minor league contract), and my favorite, Runelvys Hernandez (minor league contract).
- Picked up the option year on Brian Moehler for another $3 million.
- Passed on re-signing Randy Wolf, who went to the Dodgers for $5m.
- Traded #8 prospect Drew Sutton for Jeff Keppinger.
- Signed old, terrible Geoff Blum to be his starting third baseman for one year and $1.2 million.
- Picked up the $1.2 million club option for older, terribler Blum to be his starting third baseman again.
- Signed the decaying corpse of Brad Ausmus for $2 million to be his starting catcher in 2008.
- Signed the decaying corpse of Pudge Rodriguez for $1.5 million to be his starting catcher in 2009.
- Signed Chris Coste. To start. At first base. (For just a couple weeks while Lance Berkman was hurt, but still.)
- Waited almost two whole years to fire Cecil Cooper.
- Has shown a troubling interest in ex-Nationals, including Ray King, Aaron Boone, and Micah Bowie.
Drafting catcher Jason Castro with the #10 overall pick in 2008 ahead of higher upside guys like Justin Smoak and Brett Wallace was rightly questioned at the time, but Castro played well enough this year to quiet some of that criticism for a while at least.
Bottom line, whoever takes this job is doomed. Just like Manny was doomed here in DC. I know managerial jobs don't come along very often, but, really Manny, you don't want this job.
Friday, October 9, 2009
New Podcast Up at "Natmoshere in your Ear"
This week's edition of Natmosphere in your Ear is up. Brian from Nationals Farm Authority and I discuss the 2009 season in review and even find some silver linings.
As always, you can subscribe to the podcast via I-Tunes (or whatever podcatcher you use) from the Natmosphere.MyPodcast.com page.
As always, you can subscribe to the podcast via I-Tunes (or whatever podcatcher you use) from the Natmosphere.MyPodcast.com page.
Non-Tender this Meat
Major league players with more than three but fewer than six years of service time are eligible for salary arbitration. The quick skinny is that arbitration-eligible guys generally get less than free agents, but a lot more than guys in their first three years. And you basically never take a pay cut in arb.
The Nationals have eight players who are arbitration-eligible: Jason Bergmann, Sean Burnett, Logan Kensing, Wil Nieves, Mike MacDougal, Scott Olsen, Pete Orr, and Josh Willingham.
Other than Josh Willingham and Sean Burnett, they should non-tender all of them.
Guys like Bergmann and Kensing would all probably get around $750k to $1 million. If Rizzo really wants to bring back Kensing on a minor league deal, fine. But that's it. Bergmann could certainly provide $1 million in value, but not the way he's being used. If no one else is interested, then they could bring him back for a little more than he's getting now.
But the team would probably be doing Bergmann a favor by making him a free agent. He could throw 100 scoreless innings to start the season, and he'd never get a shot at starting here. If he went to San Diego, he could be next year's Kevin Correia. Seattle's outfield defense would do him a world of good. Kansas City, Oakland, or Cleveland might be interested. No one's going to sign him to start on opening day 2010, but he should be in an organization that hasn't decided he can't ever start ever.
Tendering MacDougal a contract would be a disaster. He made $2.65 million in 2009 (paid by the White Sox) and has a $3.75 million club option with a $365k buyout for 2010. So he stands to make over $3 million next year in arbitration. He's not worth half that. Yeah, he saved a lot of games, but the guy can't find the strikezone with both hands. We're talking about a guy with 34 strikeouts and 38 unintentional walks in 54.1 innings. He's got a giant blinking light on his head that says "stay away." Over his last 12 appearances, he had a 9.28 ERA. That, my friends, is the real Mac. If they want to bring him back on a bargain-basement deal (ideally a minor league deal) as an "in case of emergency pull glass" option for the set-up man, fine. But that's it.
Tendering Scott Olsen a contract would be no better. He also stands to get around $3 million in arb, and chances are his days as a useful major league starter are over. His velocity this year was 88.0, basically the same as the 87.8 last year, and light years from the 90.9 he averaged in his one good season. Again, if you want to pay him the minimum or sign him to a minor league deal, fine. But that's all.
If someone wants to argue that Pete Orr should get $750k or more, feel free. Ditto Wil Nieves. These are totally fungible, not even replacement level guys. And they aren't even young. I'd be shocked if the team doesn't non-tender these guys.
Sean Burnett is actually a debatable case as well. I would go ahead and tender him a contract, mainly because the team's relief pitching is so dire. But really he's barely more than a LOOGY. He had a 3.12 ERA with a silly .201 BABIP. Once that regresses, his 4.37 walks per 9 will turn into a lot of runs. He can cut that number, but still he's not the kind of guy you really want to go to arb with unless you really have to. Sadly, the Nationals really have to.
The Nationals have eight players who are arbitration-eligible: Jason Bergmann, Sean Burnett, Logan Kensing, Wil Nieves, Mike MacDougal, Scott Olsen, Pete Orr, and Josh Willingham.
Other than Josh Willingham and Sean Burnett, they should non-tender all of them.
Guys like Bergmann and Kensing would all probably get around $750k to $1 million. If Rizzo really wants to bring back Kensing on a minor league deal, fine. But that's it. Bergmann could certainly provide $1 million in value, but not the way he's being used. If no one else is interested, then they could bring him back for a little more than he's getting now.
But the team would probably be doing Bergmann a favor by making him a free agent. He could throw 100 scoreless innings to start the season, and he'd never get a shot at starting here. If he went to San Diego, he could be next year's Kevin Correia. Seattle's outfield defense would do him a world of good. Kansas City, Oakland, or Cleveland might be interested. No one's going to sign him to start on opening day 2010, but he should be in an organization that hasn't decided he can't ever start ever.
Tendering MacDougal a contract would be a disaster. He made $2.65 million in 2009 (paid by the White Sox) and has a $3.75 million club option with a $365k buyout for 2010. So he stands to make over $3 million next year in arbitration. He's not worth half that. Yeah, he saved a lot of games, but the guy can't find the strikezone with both hands. We're talking about a guy with 34 strikeouts and 38 unintentional walks in 54.1 innings. He's got a giant blinking light on his head that says "stay away." Over his last 12 appearances, he had a 9.28 ERA. That, my friends, is the real Mac. If they want to bring him back on a bargain-basement deal (ideally a minor league deal) as an "in case of emergency pull glass" option for the set-up man, fine. But that's it.
Tendering Scott Olsen a contract would be no better. He also stands to get around $3 million in arb, and chances are his days as a useful major league starter are over. His velocity this year was 88.0, basically the same as the 87.8 last year, and light years from the 90.9 he averaged in his one good season. Again, if you want to pay him the minimum or sign him to a minor league deal, fine. But that's all.
If someone wants to argue that Pete Orr should get $750k or more, feel free. Ditto Wil Nieves. These are totally fungible, not even replacement level guys. And they aren't even young. I'd be shocked if the team doesn't non-tender these guys.
Sean Burnett is actually a debatable case as well. I would go ahead and tender him a contract, mainly because the team's relief pitching is so dire. But really he's barely more than a LOOGY. He had a 3.12 ERA with a silly .201 BABIP. Once that regresses, his 4.37 walks per 9 will turn into a lot of runs. He can cut that number, but still he's not the kind of guy you really want to go to arb with unless you really have to. Sadly, the Nationals really have to.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
J.J. Hardy: Make it Happen, Rizzo
Yesterday, Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin said this about 2007 All-Star shortstop J.J. Hardy:
No doubt, he had a really down year in 2009. In large part, that was a matter of bad luck as his BABIP fell to .264, well below his career .280 rate (including 2009) and way below the 2009 NL average of .299.
He also saw his ISO power fall to .128, compared to his career rate of .166. That's a big drop in raw power. And his strikeout rate jumped to 20.5%, compared to 15.8% career. If a 26-year-old's power and contact rates are both slipping, that means there's a real problem with the hitter's approach (or an injury). His walk rate actually rose to 9.4% from 8.3%, but regardless, he didn't hit very well this year.
On the other hand, in his worst year, he was still a 1.4 wins above replacement player (Guzman's '09 WAR was 0.9 for comparison). His minor league stint was an act of brazen service time manipulation by the Brewers, but whoever acquires him will be the beneficiary, as he spent just enough time in Indianapolis to push back his eligibility for free agency until after the 2011 season.
He had little nagging back and shoulder issues that couldn't have helped. And he's going into his age 27 season, historically the age when a player peaks. In '07 and '08, he was worth 4.5 and 4.9 wins above replacement, a good bit better than anyone on the Nationals not named Zimmerman.
At worst, he'll give Rizzo the ace fielder he's looking for. And surely he's a better option than Jack Wilson or Adam Everett.
So what are the Brewers looking for? Pitching, of course. They have at least two big holes in their rotation, and they can't afford to go after the John Lackeys or Randy Wolfs of this off-season's free agent market.
The Nationals have one guy who could be a good fit for the Brewers, both in terms of need and means: John Lannan. I'm going to get a reputation for hating Lannan, and I don't, but if you could trade straight-up a guy who's been worth 2.8 WAR over the last two seasons for a guy who's been worth 10.8 over the last three, you do it. Forget whether you think Lannan's been pitching over his head or not.
That might not be enough, but if this deal could be made it would be the best buy-low, sell-high deal the Nationals ever made.
Beyond that, the Brewers could use a center fielder, because Mike Cameron is a free agent. Second base is an issue, since Felipe Lopez is a free agent, and do you really go with Rickie Weeks again? They also need a catcher--Jason Kendall's a free agent, and he stinks anyway.
J.J. Hardy for Jesus Flores? Yes. J.J. Hardy for Cristian Guzman? Hell, yes, although Guzman's price isn't right, and no team is likely to trade for him without ever even seeing him play second base. Maybe Flores and Justin Maxwell? Or Flores and Roger Bernadina or Ian Desmond or Danny Espinosa? All those would be good deals for the Nationals.
We also have a plethora of C-level pitching prospects we could offer: Brad Meyers, Aaron Thompson, Ross Detwiler, Craig Stammen, Marco Estrada... All these guys should be on the table and of at least some interest to the Brewers.
Finally, we could take a bad contract off their hands, and the $12.5 million they owe Jeff Suppan for 2010 is pretty bad. I don't care if Suppan never even shows up in DC. If that's the price we pay to get Hardy, that's the kind of deal we should be happy to make, leveraging our big market resources to pluck value from small market teams. And heck, since it appears we're in the market for a crappy veteran anyway, Suppan's no worse than, oh, Livan Hernandez.
Make it happen, Rizzo.
Asked if there was any way to keep both rookie shortstop Alcides Escobar and former starter J.J. Hardy on the roster, Melvin said, "That would be very difficult."Hardy in 2007 and 2008 was one of the top five shortstops in all of baseball. His fielding is excellent, and with 50 homers in two years, he showed exceptional power for a middle infielder.
In other words, bye-bye Hardy. Melvin told me that Hardy's trade value did diminish somewhat with his poor season but added, "There are still teams looking for a shortstop. He's a good player who just had a bad year. J.J. will bounce back."
No doubt, he had a really down year in 2009. In large part, that was a matter of bad luck as his BABIP fell to .264, well below his career .280 rate (including 2009) and way below the 2009 NL average of .299.
He also saw his ISO power fall to .128, compared to his career rate of .166. That's a big drop in raw power. And his strikeout rate jumped to 20.5%, compared to 15.8% career. If a 26-year-old's power and contact rates are both slipping, that means there's a real problem with the hitter's approach (or an injury). His walk rate actually rose to 9.4% from 8.3%, but regardless, he didn't hit very well this year.
On the other hand, in his worst year, he was still a 1.4 wins above replacement player (Guzman's '09 WAR was 0.9 for comparison). His minor league stint was an act of brazen service time manipulation by the Brewers, but whoever acquires him will be the beneficiary, as he spent just enough time in Indianapolis to push back his eligibility for free agency until after the 2011 season.
He had little nagging back and shoulder issues that couldn't have helped. And he's going into his age 27 season, historically the age when a player peaks. In '07 and '08, he was worth 4.5 and 4.9 wins above replacement, a good bit better than anyone on the Nationals not named Zimmerman.
At worst, he'll give Rizzo the ace fielder he's looking for. And surely he's a better option than Jack Wilson or Adam Everett.
So what are the Brewers looking for? Pitching, of course. They have at least two big holes in their rotation, and they can't afford to go after the John Lackeys or Randy Wolfs of this off-season's free agent market.
The Nationals have one guy who could be a good fit for the Brewers, both in terms of need and means: John Lannan. I'm going to get a reputation for hating Lannan, and I don't, but if you could trade straight-up a guy who's been worth 2.8 WAR over the last two seasons for a guy who's been worth 10.8 over the last three, you do it. Forget whether you think Lannan's been pitching over his head or not.
That might not be enough, but if this deal could be made it would be the best buy-low, sell-high deal the Nationals ever made.
Beyond that, the Brewers could use a center fielder, because Mike Cameron is a free agent. Second base is an issue, since Felipe Lopez is a free agent, and do you really go with Rickie Weeks again? They also need a catcher--Jason Kendall's a free agent, and he stinks anyway.
J.J. Hardy for Jesus Flores? Yes. J.J. Hardy for Cristian Guzman? Hell, yes, although Guzman's price isn't right, and no team is likely to trade for him without ever even seeing him play second base. Maybe Flores and Justin Maxwell? Or Flores and Roger Bernadina or Ian Desmond or Danny Espinosa? All those would be good deals for the Nationals.
We also have a plethora of C-level pitching prospects we could offer: Brad Meyers, Aaron Thompson, Ross Detwiler, Craig Stammen, Marco Estrada... All these guys should be on the table and of at least some interest to the Brewers.
Finally, we could take a bad contract off their hands, and the $12.5 million they owe Jeff Suppan for 2010 is pretty bad. I don't care if Suppan never even shows up in DC. If that's the price we pay to get Hardy, that's the kind of deal we should be happy to make, leveraging our big market resources to pluck value from small market teams. And heck, since it appears we're in the market for a crappy veteran anyway, Suppan's no worse than, oh, Livan Hernandez.
Make it happen, Rizzo.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
More Bad Injury News
NFA Brian broke the news that the top-prospect-not-named-Strasburg Derek Norris has broken his left hamate bone. Brian also gives the obligatory Will Carroll breakdown on the injury.
Wrist injuries are terrible for hitters (and can't make catching any easier either), and a hamate can take a long time to heal. Long-term, there should be no ill effects, but it'll be at least a year of slowed development. For an almost-21 catching prospect, it's a bad injury. Those of us hoping for a Norris promotion in 2011 or even a little audition in late 2010 will have to wait.
Wrist injuries are terrible for hitters (and can't make catching any easier either), and a hamate can take a long time to heal. Long-term, there should be no ill effects, but it'll be at least a year of slowed development. For an almost-21 catching prospect, it's a bad injury. Those of us hoping for a Norris promotion in 2011 or even a little audition in late 2010 will have to wait.
The Big Awards Post
Here are the second annual FJB awards for the best performances of the year by Washington Nationals.
My choice of Willingham might surprise some. Morgan has been getting mentioned as a team MVP, but I just can't give that to a guy who got here, immediately had the hottest hot streak of his career, and then get hurt. Dunn gets bonus points for moving around the diamond without complaint (wonder if Guzman noticed), but Willingham noses him out. Hammer slumped at the end, but for a couple months he was one of the best hitters in the National League, bar none. Also, he's become a below-average but not terrible fielder and handled right field as well as left. He and Dunn are close, but I'll give it to Willingham.
Compared to the rest of the league's best, Dunn's still a notch below the true elites. He ranked 20th in wOBA in MLB. He's great if he's your second-best hitter, but he's not good enough to carry a contender.
Say what you want about Dunn's glove and the fact that he belongs in the AL (I sure do), but that doesn't change the fact that he was hands down the Nationals' best hitter in 2009.
Zimmermann on the other hand was no less than the best pitcher to take the mound for Washington this year. His 23% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate are All-Star-worthy. He had some bad luck on balls in play (.339), strand rate (67.5%), and home run per flyball rate (12.2%) which made his ERA (4.63) look worse than his skill level. His injury could be devastating to the franchise, and could be nearly as consequential long-term as the Zimmerman and Strasburg signings.
MacDougal was basically terrible with 38 unintentional walks against 34 strikeouts. But, in the great tradition of Rocky Biddle, MacDougal reminds us that from time to time awful pitchers can rack up saves. He closed out 20 of 21, and lucky or not, we took it. I know it's the awards post, but still.
Jason Bergmann and Sean Burnett both deserve honorable mention for ranking #1 and #2 in all of baseball in percentage of inherited runners stranded, among pitchers that inherited at least 50 runners.
Overall, Detwiler didn't miss nearly enough bats, striking out just 12.6% of batters faced. And his 42.7% groundball rate is just ok. He still has a ways to go to be a solid big league starter, much less justify his draft spot. But a year ago at this time he was looking like a potential total bust, and barring injury that now seems very unlikely.
Desmond is a similar story. Formerly a highly touted prospect, his stock fell as he failed to advance as expected and showed little ability to command the strike zone. This year, he finally took the next step. His OBP jumped from .318 in AA in 2008 to .401 across AA and AAA his year. And when he got the call in September, he blew everyone away with a .561 slugging percentage. Still, during his September call-up, his 5.7% walk rate was the more important metric, and his inability to avoid bad errors in the field raises flags. Like Detwiler, Desmond hasn't yet shown he can be a Major League contributor, but he's no longer a candidate to wash out completely.
Morgan provided outstanding range and excellent instincts in his first chance to play every day in center. He could very well deserve his own gold glove next year.
Stammen was hard to pass over for most improved. His 47.1% groundball rate and 2.02 walks per 9 should make him a solid back-end starter for a long time to come, if he can stay healthy.
- MVP: Ryan Zimmerman (Runner Up: Josh Willingham)
My choice of Willingham might surprise some. Morgan has been getting mentioned as a team MVP, but I just can't give that to a guy who got here, immediately had the hottest hot streak of his career, and then get hurt. Dunn gets bonus points for moving around the diamond without complaint (wonder if Guzman noticed), but Willingham noses him out. Hammer slumped at the end, but for a couple months he was one of the best hitters in the National League, bar none. Also, he's become a below-average but not terrible fielder and handled right field as well as left. He and Dunn are close, but I'll give it to Willingham.
- Silver Slugger: Adam Dunn (Runner up: Ryan Zimmerman)
Compared to the rest of the league's best, Dunn's still a notch below the true elites. He ranked 20th in wOBA in MLB. He's great if he's your second-best hitter, but he's not good enough to carry a contender.
Say what you want about Dunn's glove and the fact that he belongs in the AL (I sure do), but that doesn't change the fact that he was hands down the Nationals' best hitter in 2009.
- Cy Young: John Lannan (Runner Up: Jordan Zimmermann)
Zimmermann on the other hand was no less than the best pitcher to take the mound for Washington this year. His 23% strikeout rate and 7.4% walk rate are All-Star-worthy. He had some bad luck on balls in play (.339), strand rate (67.5%), and home run per flyball rate (12.2%) which made his ERA (4.63) look worse than his skill level. His injury could be devastating to the franchise, and could be nearly as consequential long-term as the Zimmerman and Strasburg signings.
- Fireman of the Year: Tyler Clippard (Runner Up: Mike MacDougal)
MacDougal was basically terrible with 38 unintentional walks against 34 strikeouts. But, in the great tradition of Rocky Biddle, MacDougal reminds us that from time to time awful pitchers can rack up saves. He closed out 20 of 21, and lucky or not, we took it. I know it's the awards post, but still.
Jason Bergmann and Sean Burnett both deserve honorable mention for ranking #1 and #2 in all of baseball in percentage of inherited runners stranded, among pitchers that inherited at least 50 runners.
- Most Improved Player: Ross Detwiler (Runner Up: Ian Desmond)
Overall, Detwiler didn't miss nearly enough bats, striking out just 12.6% of batters faced. And his 42.7% groundball rate is just ok. He still has a ways to go to be a solid big league starter, much less justify his draft spot. But a year ago at this time he was looking like a potential total bust, and barring injury that now seems very unlikely.
Desmond is a similar story. Formerly a highly touted prospect, his stock fell as he failed to advance as expected and showed little ability to command the strike zone. This year, he finally took the next step. His OBP jumped from .318 in AA in 2008 to .401 across AA and AAA his year. And when he got the call in September, he blew everyone away with a .561 slugging percentage. Still, during his September call-up, his 5.7% walk rate was the more important metric, and his inability to avoid bad errors in the field raises flags. Like Detwiler, Desmond hasn't yet shown he can be a Major League contributor, but he's no longer a candidate to wash out completely.
- Gold Glove: Ryan Zimmerman (Runner Up: Nyjer Morgan)
Morgan provided outstanding range and excellent instincts in his first chance to play every day in center. He could very well deserve his own gold glove next year.
- Rookie of the Year: Jordan Zimmermann (Runner Up: Craig Stammen)
Stammen was hard to pass over for most improved. His 47.1% groundball rate and 2.02 walks per 9 should make him a solid back-end starter for a long time to come, if he can stay healthy.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Revisiting the FJB 2009 Predictions
As everyone knows by now, I missed the mark on John Lannan over the last month of the season, but that's not the only thing I got wrong this year. Let's look back at my pre-season predictions and see how many other predictions I got wrong.
Nick Johnson, Ryan Zimmerman, Lastings Milledge, Jason Bergmann, and Austin Kearns will be better in 2009 than they were in 2008.
Johnson and Zimmerman, check. I clearly missed on Milledge and Kearns. Bergmann's the hardest one to say. His ERA went down by half a run, but he threw fewer innings and was mainly used as a reliever. All things equal, a pitcher's ERA should improve by about a run moving from the rotation to the bullpen, so while he was in DC, he really he wasn't better. Then again, he had a 1.16 ERA in AAA, so maybe he just got unlucky on when he was pitching his best? Call that one a wash, and 50-50 overall on these guesses.
Cristian Guzman, John Lannan, Joe Beimel, Joel Hanrahan, Anderson Hernandez, Ronnie Belliard, and Scott Olsen will be worse.
I nailed all these other than Lannan, who had a bit better season.
Ryan Zimmerman will finally take the next step forward, finishing the season with a slash line over .280 / .350 / .480. But he will not make the all-star team.
He finished the year at .292 / .364 / .525. Good on me. But he made the All-Star Game, so another split.
Josh Bard will get more than one-third of the starts at catcher.
Check.
Nationals Park will emerge as a very slight hitters park as measured by park factor.
Bingo.
The Nationals will draw fewer than two million fans.
Yes.
Jason Bergmann will have a better ERA than any of the Nationals' top five starters by games started.
At 4.50, he beat everyone but Lannan, though J.D. Martin tied both Shairon Martis and Garrett Mock for fifth in games started and finished at 4.44. It's wrong, but it's close, and most people thought this was crazy talk at the time.
Mike Rizzo will find room for Alberto Gonzalez on the 25-man roster by the end of May at the latest.
Yes.
Cristian Guzman, Wily Mo Pena, Dmitri Young, and Ron Belliard will be former Nationals by the end of the season.
Three out of four ain't bad.
Austin Kearns will have a solid bounce-back season and find himself a starting job with another team by opening day 2010.
My wrongest prediction.
Adam Dunn's streak of 40-HR seasons will end.
Correct. Park factor does exist.
Jordan Zimmermann's ERA will be below the 2008 starting pitcher NL average of 4.40.
He finished at 4.63, but he had a 3.77 ERA in his last five starts. I think he would have made it.
Despite recent additions, the bullpen will be in the bottom third in the NL by ERA.
Yes.
Nationals starting pitchers will throw the fewest innings of any team in the NL.
At 5.6, the Nationals were bad, but Milwaukee, San Diego, and Houston were all worse.
Scott Olsen will not finish the year in the Nationals rotation.
Check.
The Nationals' top five starting pitchers by IP as a starter will include at least one pitcher not currently with the organization.
For all the turnover, this didn't happen. I figured they would fill in a Livan Hernandez-type sooner, but credit J.D. Martin, Ross Detwiler, and Craig Stammen for making that not necessary.
Strasburg will be the pick, and he will sign.
Check.
Aaron Crow will get the $4.4 million he wanted last year.
Well, yes and no. They negotiated a deal that lets Crow claim he did this. They're using fuzzy math, but it's close enough to say I was part right.
Shawn Hill will finish the season with more win shares than the Nationals' fifth starter.
Win shares isn't available yet, but Livan Hernandez and Ross Detwiler's good September will make this not true.
Nick Johnson will get 500 at bats and finish the season with an OPS+ over 140.
Wrong on both counts.
Mike Rizzo will lose the "acting" and be named the new Nationals GM.
Check.
Manny Acta will get another year.
Wrong.
NL playoff teams: Mets, Dodgers, Cubs, D'Backs.
Ouch.
AL playoff teams: Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Angels.
Go Tigers!
The Dodgers will beat the Yankees in the Series.
We'll see.
The Nationals' record will be 74-88, their fourth last place finish in five years.
At the time, I thought I was being pessimistic.
Nick Johnson, Ryan Zimmerman, Lastings Milledge, Jason Bergmann, and Austin Kearns will be better in 2009 than they were in 2008.
Johnson and Zimmerman, check. I clearly missed on Milledge and Kearns. Bergmann's the hardest one to say. His ERA went down by half a run, but he threw fewer innings and was mainly used as a reliever. All things equal, a pitcher's ERA should improve by about a run moving from the rotation to the bullpen, so while he was in DC, he really he wasn't better. Then again, he had a 1.16 ERA in AAA, so maybe he just got unlucky on when he was pitching his best? Call that one a wash, and 50-50 overall on these guesses.
Cristian Guzman, John Lannan, Joe Beimel, Joel Hanrahan, Anderson Hernandez, Ronnie Belliard, and Scott Olsen will be worse.
I nailed all these other than Lannan, who had a bit better season.
Ryan Zimmerman will finally take the next step forward, finishing the season with a slash line over .280 / .350 / .480. But he will not make the all-star team.
He finished the year at .292 / .364 / .525. Good on me. But he made the All-Star Game, so another split.
Josh Bard will get more than one-third of the starts at catcher.
Check.
Nationals Park will emerge as a very slight hitters park as measured by park factor.
Bingo.
The Nationals will draw fewer than two million fans.
Yes.
Jason Bergmann will have a better ERA than any of the Nationals' top five starters by games started.
At 4.50, he beat everyone but Lannan, though J.D. Martin tied both Shairon Martis and Garrett Mock for fifth in games started and finished at 4.44. It's wrong, but it's close, and most people thought this was crazy talk at the time.
Mike Rizzo will find room for Alberto Gonzalez on the 25-man roster by the end of May at the latest.
Yes.
Cristian Guzman, Wily Mo Pena, Dmitri Young, and Ron Belliard will be former Nationals by the end of the season.
Three out of four ain't bad.
Austin Kearns will have a solid bounce-back season and find himself a starting job with another team by opening day 2010.
My wrongest prediction.
Adam Dunn's streak of 40-HR seasons will end.
Correct. Park factor does exist.
Jordan Zimmermann's ERA will be below the 2008 starting pitcher NL average of 4.40.
He finished at 4.63, but he had a 3.77 ERA in his last five starts. I think he would have made it.
Despite recent additions, the bullpen will be in the bottom third in the NL by ERA.
Yes.
Nationals starting pitchers will throw the fewest innings of any team in the NL.
At 5.6, the Nationals were bad, but Milwaukee, San Diego, and Houston were all worse.
Scott Olsen will not finish the year in the Nationals rotation.
Check.
The Nationals' top five starting pitchers by IP as a starter will include at least one pitcher not currently with the organization.
For all the turnover, this didn't happen. I figured they would fill in a Livan Hernandez-type sooner, but credit J.D. Martin, Ross Detwiler, and Craig Stammen for making that not necessary.
Strasburg will be the pick, and he will sign.
Check.
Aaron Crow will get the $4.4 million he wanted last year.
Well, yes and no. They negotiated a deal that lets Crow claim he did this. They're using fuzzy math, but it's close enough to say I was part right.
Shawn Hill will finish the season with more win shares than the Nationals' fifth starter.
Win shares isn't available yet, but Livan Hernandez and Ross Detwiler's good September will make this not true.
Nick Johnson will get 500 at bats and finish the season with an OPS+ over 140.
Wrong on both counts.
Mike Rizzo will lose the "acting" and be named the new Nationals GM.
Check.
Manny Acta will get another year.
Wrong.
NL playoff teams: Mets, Dodgers, Cubs, D'Backs.
Ouch.
AL playoff teams: Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Angels.
Go Tigers!
The Dodgers will beat the Yankees in the Series.
We'll see.
The Nationals' record will be 74-88, their fourth last place finish in five years.
At the time, I thought I was being pessimistic.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Nationals' MVP: Most Valuable Pitches
Using linear weights, Dave Appelman has been tracking the run value of every pitch thrown in MLB this year. Over at Fangraphs, they've been divvying up the pitches by pitcher and pitch type to measure, for instance, how many runs Derek Lowe's sinker allowed this year, compared to the average pitch thrown by the average pitcher.
(Read this brief explanation if the paragraph above doesn't make sense to you.)
With a full season in the books, we can start to get a sense of what are toughest (and easiest) pitches to hit on the Nationals' staff. These data also allow us to start to identify pitches that perhaps should be thrown more or less often by certain pitchers.
Caution: there are definite sample-size issues here, and readers should put more stock in the numbers derived from pitchers who have thrown more innings and pitches that have been thrown more often. There aren't hard conclusions to be drawn here, but valuable tendencies worth discussion.
You can click here and noodle around with the data any way you want, but I filtered out only pitchers with 50 or more innings pitched (counting innings and results thrown for other teams) and only looked at pitches thrown 10% of the time or more.
First, the starters. These are the team's top five pitches measured by the number of runs allowed above average per 100 pitches thrown:
The second thing I notice is that if the fifth best pitch in the rotation is only a 0.61 value pitch, that's not good at all.
It's no shock to see Lannan's groundball-inducing change at the top of the list (though probably there are some fastballs miscategorized as change-ups in there).
But it's surprising to see guys like Mock and Detwiler with pitches that rank so high. Some of that is probably a matter of the league getting a first look at some young pitchers. It's also a reminder that Mock really does have some good stuff (if he can stop grooving his fastball, which is a -1.94 pitch thrown 60% of the time). Detwiler's big bender is a plus pitch, despite recent talk that it's not.
Zimmermann's has a 1.34 pitch value change, but he only threw it 6.4% of the time, and his 1.34, suggesting he should throw it more.
Craig Stammen, Livan Hernandez, Scott Olsen, J.D. Martin, and Martis didn't have any pitches that rated. No other starter had enough innings to qualify.
Next let's look at relievers:
Again, overal it's crazy how few real plus pitches the team has. Breaking it down at this level, you can see how far this staff has to go to be competitive with contenders.
(Read this brief explanation if the paragraph above doesn't make sense to you.)
With a full season in the books, we can start to get a sense of what are toughest (and easiest) pitches to hit on the Nationals' staff. These data also allow us to start to identify pitches that perhaps should be thrown more or less often by certain pitchers.
Caution: there are definite sample-size issues here, and readers should put more stock in the numbers derived from pitchers who have thrown more innings and pitches that have been thrown more often. There aren't hard conclusions to be drawn here, but valuable tendencies worth discussion.
You can click here and noodle around with the data any way you want, but I filtered out only pitchers with 50 or more innings pitched (counting innings and results thrown for other teams) and only looked at pitches thrown 10% of the time or more.
First, the starters. These are the team's top five pitches measured by the number of runs allowed above average per 100 pitches thrown:
- John Lannan's change-up: 2.04
- Garrett Mock's change-up: 1.88
- Ross Detwiler's curve: 1.73
- Mock's curve: 0.99 (actually thrown 9.8% of the time, but I'm rounding)
- Jordan Zimmermann's slider: 0.61
The second thing I notice is that if the fifth best pitch in the rotation is only a 0.61 value pitch, that's not good at all.
It's no shock to see Lannan's groundball-inducing change at the top of the list (though probably there are some fastballs miscategorized as change-ups in there).
But it's surprising to see guys like Mock and Detwiler with pitches that rank so high. Some of that is probably a matter of the league getting a first look at some young pitchers. It's also a reminder that Mock really does have some good stuff (if he can stop grooving his fastball, which is a -1.94 pitch thrown 60% of the time). Detwiler's big bender is a plus pitch, despite recent talk that it's not.
Zimmermann's has a 1.34 pitch value change, but he only threw it 6.4% of the time, and his 1.34, suggesting he should throw it more.
Craig Stammen, Livan Hernandez, Scott Olsen, J.D. Martin, and Martis didn't have any pitches that rated. No other starter had enough innings to qualify.
Next let's look at relievers:
- Joe Beimel's curveball: 2.67
- Jason Bergmann's curveball: 2.60
- Sean Burnett's fastball: 1.68
- Tyler Clippard's fastball: 1.51
- Mike MacDougal's fastball: 0.60
Again, overal it's crazy how few real plus pitches the team has. Breaking it down at this level, you can see how far this staff has to go to be competitive with contenders.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Now that's what I Call a Lame Fan Base
I turned on the game last night mid-way through the first inning, and, judging by the empty seats behind home plate, my first thought was, "wait, they can't be in DC. They were just here." Nope, they were in Atlanta. And the attendance was just that pitiful.
Tell you what. If the Nationals ever stick around long enough to be eliminated from the playoffs in the final days of the season, let's be there cheering loudly. Especially if one of the best young pitching prospect in the game is the starter.
It wasn't just late arrivals either. Check out the sparse crowd in the background after Brian McCann's 8th inning strikeout in a 1-1 game:
And this is the most enthusiastic shot that Fox Sports South could find after Garret Anderson's 2,500th career hit. The golf applause was pathetic. Yeah, he hasn't been a Brave that long, but an away crowd would do better than that.
As if the annoying tomahawk cheer wasn't bad enough, now we know they're all a bunch of quitters.
Tell you what. If the Nationals ever stick around long enough to be eliminated from the playoffs in the final days of the season, let's be there cheering loudly. Especially if one of the best young pitching prospect in the game is the starter.
It wasn't just late arrivals either. Check out the sparse crowd in the background after Brian McCann's 8th inning strikeout in a 1-1 game:
And this is the most enthusiastic shot that Fox Sports South could find after Garret Anderson's 2,500th career hit. The golf applause was pathetic. Yeah, he hasn't been a Brave that long, but an away crowd would do better than that.
As if the annoying tomahawk cheer wasn't bad enough, now we know they're all a bunch of quitters.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Fielding Improvement from SS to 2B
As I pointed out a couple weeks ago, Cristian Guzman's fielding at shortstop hasn't really been any worse this year than it's been in the past. And, in fact, it's never been that bad. He's never been that good either, but he's been consistently a touch below average pretty much since the day Jim Bowden overpaid for him back in November 2004.
In addition to the stats presented in the post linked above, consider these numbers by year for Guzman since he came to DC:
Especially in the middle infield, Mike Rizzo doesn't want adequate or average defense. He wants superior defense. He wants a middle infield that will do what Nyjer Morgan did for the outfield. He's never going to get that from Guzman at shortstop. Might he get it from him at second base?
It's a good bet that any player moving from shortstop to second will play better defense. Second base is easier to play, a step easier on the Bill James defensive spectrum. Of course, he'll have to learn a new position, but all things equal, the plays are easier to make, and Guzman's defense should be better there.
How much better? To get a solid estimate, I pulled the UZR numbers for the 70 players played at least 80 innings at both shortstop and second base in the same season since 2002, the first year that UZR is available.
In just under 25,138 innings at second, these 70 players were a total 72.6 runs above average. In 27,217 innings at short, they were a total 8.3 runs below average. That probably sounds like a bigger difference than it is, since players don't play 27,000 innings per year. But in the 1350 innings a full-time player will log over 150 games or so, that's still a 4.31 run difference, a little less than half a win's worth.
Certainly not every player improved by the same amount. Maybe a third of them played better at short than second. And Guzman will be a year older. Still, it's reasonable to assume that the move from short to second is worth a little more than four runs, all things equal. If Guzman is a two to four runs below average second basemen, he won't become a top-tier second baseman, but he could improve to average or slightly above.
If you're interested, here's the full list of 70 players and their numbers (forgive the awkward formatting--lately I can't get blogger to agree with Excel very well):
In addition to the stats presented in the post linked above, consider these numbers by year for Guzman since he came to DC:
- UZR/150 ('05, '07-'09): -2.7, -5.9. -3.7, -2.1
- Rate2 ('05, '07-'09): 84, 91, 101, 88
- Plus/Minus (I only have the '05 and '08 Fielding Bibles handy): -6, +15
Especially in the middle infield, Mike Rizzo doesn't want adequate or average defense. He wants superior defense. He wants a middle infield that will do what Nyjer Morgan did for the outfield. He's never going to get that from Guzman at shortstop. Might he get it from him at second base?
It's a good bet that any player moving from shortstop to second will play better defense. Second base is easier to play, a step easier on the Bill James defensive spectrum. Of course, he'll have to learn a new position, but all things equal, the plays are easier to make, and Guzman's defense should be better there.
How much better? To get a solid estimate, I pulled the UZR numbers for the 70 players played at least 80 innings at both shortstop and second base in the same season since 2002, the first year that UZR is available.
In just under 25,138 innings at second, these 70 players were a total 72.6 runs above average. In 27,217 innings at short, they were a total 8.3 runs below average. That probably sounds like a bigger difference than it is, since players don't play 27,000 innings per year. But in the 1350 innings a full-time player will log over 150 games or so, that's still a 4.31 run difference, a little less than half a win's worth.
Certainly not every player improved by the same amount. Maybe a third of them played better at short than second. And Guzman will be a year older. Still, it's reasonable to assume that the move from short to second is worth a little more than four runs, all things equal. If Guzman is a two to four runs below average second basemen, he won't become a top-tier second baseman, but he could improve to average or slightly above.
If you're interested, here's the full list of 70 players and their numbers (forgive the awkward formatting--lately I can't get blogger to agree with Excel very well):
| First | Last | Year | 2B Inn | 2B UZR | SS Inn | SS UZR |
| Rich | Aurilia | 2005 | 547.3 | 5.1 | 237.66 | -1.6 |
| Mike | Aviles | 2008 | 114.3 | 0 | 747.66 | 15.6 |
| Clint | Barmes | 2008 | 486 | 5.1 | 285 | -2.2 |
| Clint | Barmes | 2009 | 997.333 | 4 | 102.33 | 2.7 |
| Willie | Bloomquist | 2006 | 254 | 1.9 | 180 | 1.1 |
| Geoff | Blum | 2005 | 180 | -3.9 | 122.33 | 2.9 |
| Asdrubal | Cabrera | 2008 | 776.66 | 5.1 | 154.66 | -1.8 |
| Asdrubal | Cabrera | 2009 | 244 | -2.9 | 748 | -2.6 |
| Jamey | Carroll | 2005 | 427.66 | 3.4 | 241 | -0.9 |
| Juan | Castro | 2003 | 421.33 | 5.3 | 154 | 2 |
| Ronny | Cedeno | 2006 | 126.2 | 0.7 | 1129.66 | -1.7 |
| Alex | Cintron | 2004 | 147 | -1.2 | 1099 | -4.8 |
| Alex | Cintron | 2005 | 144.2 | -2.2 | 271 | 1.2 |
| Alex | Cora | 2002 | 153 | 0.8 | 453 | 2.9 |
| Craig | Counsell | 2007 | 195 | 2.9 | 140.66 | -0.5 |
| Craig | Counsell | 2008 | 112 | 0.6 | 185.33 | 1.9 |
| Craig | Counsell | 2009 | 369.33 | 3.7 | 177.66 | -0.4 |
| Mark | DeRosa | 2003 | 229.33 | -2.2 | 100 | 0.5 |
| Damion | Easley | 2005 | 324 | -0.8 | 215.66 | -2.4 |
| Kevin | Frandsen | 2007 | 343.33 | 2.6 | 138.33 | -1.9 |
| Luis | Gonzalez | 2005 | 579.33 | -1.1 | 132 | -2.9 |
| Bill | Hall | 2004 | 418.1 | -0.1 | 303.66 | 1.3 |
| Bill | Hall | 2005 | 185 | 0.2 | 500.33 | 1 |
| Shane | Halter | 2003 | 196 | 1.7 | 171 | 0.9 |
| Brendan | Harris | 2007 | 319.66 | -0.4 | 751.66 | -6.9 |
| Brendan | Harris | 2008 | 85.33 | -1.5 | 464.33 | -3.6 |
| Anderson | Hernandez | 2009 | 542 | 2.6 | 254.66 | -1.5 |
| Aaron | Hill | 2005 | 177.66 | 1.7 | 121 | 1.3 |
| Aaron | Hill | 2006 | 914.33 | 18.1 | 428.33 | -9.3 |
| Denny | Hocking | 2002 | 393.66 | -2.1 | 172 | -2 |
| Omar | Infante | 2004 | 871.66 | -1.5 | 188.66 | -0.9 |
| Omar | Infante | 2005 | 591.66 | -4 | 389.33 | 3.4 |
| Damian | Jackson | 2003 | 147.33 | -3.4 | 82 | -2 |
| Damian | Jackson | 2005 | 265 | 3.9 | 189.33 | -7.1 |
| Felipe | Lopez | 2007 | 373.33 | 2.4 | 927 | -9 |
| Mark | Loretta | 2007 | 201 | 2.2 | 486.66 | -5.9 |
| Julio | Lugo | 2006 | 159.33 | 0.9 | 1228.1 | -4.1 |
| Hector | Luna | 2006 | 469.66 | -5.9 | 155 | -1.9 |
| Joe | McEwing | 2003 | 357.33 | -3.6 | 242.2 | 3.5 |
| Aaron | Miles | 2006 | 649.66 | 1.6 | 298 | -3.8 |
| Aaron | Miles | 2007 | 590.66 | 0.7 | 301 | -7.7 |
| Aaron | Miles | 2008 | 499.66 | 0.7 | 172.33 | 1.6 |
| Abraham | Nunez | 2002 | 336 | 0.7 | 143.66 | 0.1 |
| Abraham | Nunez | 2003 | 526.66 | 5.7 | 149.66 | -2.1 |
| Abraham | Nunez | 2005 | 132 | 0.3 | 91 | -1.7 |
| Augie | Ojeda | 2008 | 286 | 4.5 | 126.66 | 2.1 |
| Neifi | Perez | 2003 | 371.66 | 6.6 | 311 | 5.8 |
| Neifi | Perez | 2004 | 302.66 | 5.3 | 560.33 | 3.7 |
| Neifi | Perez | 2005 | 160 | -2.6 | 1063.33 | 10.5 |
| Neifi | Perez | 2006 | 446 | 4 | 171.2 | 0.6 |
| Nick | Punto | 2005 | 114.66 | -0.9 | 146.66 | 4.3 |
| Nick | Punto | 2006 | 172.33 | -1.5 | 210.66 | 5.7 |
| Nick | Punto | 2007 | 215.66 | 1.7 | 530.66 | 7.5 |
| Nick | Punto | 2009 | 436.33 | 2.7 | 491 | 1.6 |
| Alexei | Ramirez | 2008 | 1017.33 | -8.3 | 1258.66 | 4.1 |
| Brendan | Ryan | 2009 | 95.2 | 1.7 | 793.66 | 12.4 |
| Freddy | Sanchez | 2006 | 165.33 | 0.4 | 240 | -2.5 |
| Ramon | Santiago | 2003 | 461 | -6.8 | 724 | -4.3 |
| Marco | Scutaro | 2004 | 986.66 | -6.2 | 113.33 | -2.5 |
| Marco | Scutaro | 2005 | 267.66 | 5.6 | 663 | -2.4 |
| Marco | Scutaro | 2006 | 301.66 | 3.2 | 542.66 | -12.8 |
| Marco | Scutaro | 2008 | 354.33 | -1.4 | 472.33 | 7.6 |
| Ryan | Theriot | 2007 | 236 | 4.3 | 859 | 4.1 |
| Juan | Uribe | 2004 | 625.66 | 4.6 | 287.33 | -0.9 |
| Juan | Uribe | 2009 | 299.33 | 3.4 | 273.66 | -2 |
| Ramon | Vazquez | 2002 | 574 | -0.4 | 256 | 2.3 |
| Jose | Vizcaino | 2002 | 181.33 | 1.2 | 429.33 | 5 |
| Jose | Vizcaino | 2004 | 173.66 | 1.2 | 455.33 | 2.6 |
| Josh | Wilson | 2007 | 182 | 0.4 | 453.66 | -7.1 |
| Tony | Womack | 2003 | 137.33 | 2.1 | 557.33 | -4.4 |
Monday, September 28, 2009
Nationals Win! (The Bryce Harper Sweepstakes)
What, you thought I meant the game against the Mets?
Thanks to NFA Brian for keeping us posted on the countdown to the #1 pick, and kudos for keeping up from Hawaii!
Thanks to NFA Brian for keeping us posted on the countdown to the #1 pick, and kudos for keeping up from Hawaii!
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The Anti-Spoilers
This time of year, fan of bad teams (not to mention the completely heinous), sometimes try to stay interested via schadenfreude. You want to play the spoiler, make someone else feel a bit of the pain you've been suffering all year.
It's not the most attractive impulse in humanity, but when you've been getting your head beaten in all year, it can make you feel a little better to take out some revenge on your tormentors. It's especially satisfying if you can win games that your rivals need.
The Nationals seem to have sunk into a different psychological tendency: Stockholm Syndrome. Because I'll be darned if they aren't trying to help the other guys win. The Nationals are the anti-spoilers of Major League Baseball, the team every contender desperately wants to play. If you're sinking out of the race, Nationals Park is where you go to get well.
Here are the Nationals records against the contenders since they took two of three from the Braves July 4 weekend:
(I was at both of those wins, by the way. Enough about me being the bad luck charm!)
Why is San Francisco fading? They haven't seen the Nationals since the first week of June! If Colorado gets bounced from the playoffs over the final week while Atlanta plays seven of their last ten against the Scats, Rockies fans will have a reason to gripe.
This weekend I really started to wonder if the fix was in. On Friday, Pete Orr, Willie Harris, Justin Maxwell, and Josh Willingham combined to hand the Braves three runs in the first inning. Saturday, Elijah Dukes and Orr again committed two errors in the first three innings which, combined with two walks by Garrett Mock gifted Atlanta a four-spot. Dukes added another error later for good measure.
But, alas, I don't actually think the Nationals are tanking. They're doing their best. Nothing shows how far the Nationals are from contending than the way they've been abused by the better teams in the NL this year.
It's not the most attractive impulse in humanity, but when you've been getting your head beaten in all year, it can make you feel a little better to take out some revenge on your tormentors. It's especially satisfying if you can win games that your rivals need.
The Nationals seem to have sunk into a different psychological tendency: Stockholm Syndrome. Because I'll be darned if they aren't trying to help the other guys win. The Nationals are the anti-spoilers of Major League Baseball, the team every contender desperately wants to play. If you're sinking out of the race, Nationals Park is where you go to get well.
Here are the Nationals records against the contenders since they took two of three from the Braves July 4 weekend:
- Atlanta: 0-5
- Philly: 1-5
- Colorado: 0-6
- Los Angeles: 1-2
- St. Louis: 0-4
(I was at both of those wins, by the way. Enough about me being the bad luck charm!)
Why is San Francisco fading? They haven't seen the Nationals since the first week of June! If Colorado gets bounced from the playoffs over the final week while Atlanta plays seven of their last ten against the Scats, Rockies fans will have a reason to gripe.
This weekend I really started to wonder if the fix was in. On Friday, Pete Orr, Willie Harris, Justin Maxwell, and Josh Willingham combined to hand the Braves three runs in the first inning. Saturday, Elijah Dukes and Orr again committed two errors in the first three innings which, combined with two walks by Garrett Mock gifted Atlanta a four-spot. Dukes added another error later for good measure.
But, alas, I don't actually think the Nationals are tanking. They're doing their best. Nothing shows how far the Nationals are from contending than the way they've been abused by the better teams in the NL this year.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Congratulations to the Natmosphere Fantasy Baseball Champ!
Dave Nichols from Nationals News Network this week locked up the championship of the first-ever Natmosphere fantasy baseball league.
In a final-round playoff match-up with my badly fading squad, Dave cleaned up nine categories to five. Here are the results of the championship match-up. First the hitting categories, which Dave swept:
And then the pitchers:
Congratulations to Dave, and thanks to everyone else who played for a fun summer!
In a final-round playoff match-up with my badly fading squad, Dave cleaned up nine categories to five. Here are the results of the championship match-up. First the hitting categories, which Dave swept:
And then the pitchers:
Congratulations to Dave, and thanks to everyone else who played for a fun summer!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Mike MacDougal and the Multi-Inning Save
One of the things I hope the next manager keeps doing just like Jim Riggleman is his willingness to use his ace reliever in multi-inning situations.
Last night against the Dodgers, for the seventh time this year, MacDougal was called upon to protect a lead or tie for more than one inning. He blew it, as he did in his one other blown save chance back on July 26, but Riggleman has the right idea using his designated ace reliever to do more than just get three outs in the ninth inning.
One could gripe that MacDougal, he of the 13.6% strikeout rate (NL average is 18.2%), 15.1% walk rate (NL average is 9.1%), and 4.76 xFIP, doesn't merit such usage. But given the alternatives available, that wouldn't be totally fair. Lucky or not, MacDougal's been the closest thing the Nationals have had to a guy who can come in and get outs in key situations with some regularity, and Riggleman's been getting as much as possible from him.
Manny Acta, on the other hand, used his closers for more than three outs just five times in two-plus years. Chad Cordero never did it, and Jon Rauch just once.
Manny's more the rule than the exception. Across the league, managers continue to hew to a pattern of closer usage driven more by convention and the flawed "save" stat than what will actually help them win more games. Since the year 2000, there have been just 1,501 saves of more than one inning in all of MLB (that's excluding the 3+ inning save variety, which are almost exclusively blow-out mop-up innings).
Meanwhile there have been 9,594 saves of one inning or less. Just 13.5% of the time are managers asking their very best, most well-paid relievers to get more than three outs to win a game.
I'm certainly a proponent of monitoring innings and pitch counts, because there's a lot of at least circumstantial evidence that certain usage patterns significantly increase the risk of injury, especially for young pitchers. But I haven't seen anyone present evidence that closers need to be kept to three outs or less 87% of the time to be kept healthy.
So a hat-tip to Jim Riggleman. In this case, he's getting it right.
Last night against the Dodgers, for the seventh time this year, MacDougal was called upon to protect a lead or tie for more than one inning. He blew it, as he did in his one other blown save chance back on July 26, but Riggleman has the right idea using his designated ace reliever to do more than just get three outs in the ninth inning.
One could gripe that MacDougal, he of the 13.6% strikeout rate (NL average is 18.2%), 15.1% walk rate (NL average is 9.1%), and 4.76 xFIP, doesn't merit such usage. But given the alternatives available, that wouldn't be totally fair. Lucky or not, MacDougal's been the closest thing the Nationals have had to a guy who can come in and get outs in key situations with some regularity, and Riggleman's been getting as much as possible from him.
Manny Acta, on the other hand, used his closers for more than three outs just five times in two-plus years. Chad Cordero never did it, and Jon Rauch just once.
Manny's more the rule than the exception. Across the league, managers continue to hew to a pattern of closer usage driven more by convention and the flawed "save" stat than what will actually help them win more games. Since the year 2000, there have been just 1,501 saves of more than one inning in all of MLB (that's excluding the 3+ inning save variety, which are almost exclusively blow-out mop-up innings).
Meanwhile there have been 9,594 saves of one inning or less. Just 13.5% of the time are managers asking their very best, most well-paid relievers to get more than three outs to win a game.
I'm certainly a proponent of monitoring innings and pitch counts, because there's a lot of at least circumstantial evidence that certain usage patterns significantly increase the risk of injury, especially for young pitchers. But I haven't seen anyone present evidence that closers need to be kept to three outs or less 87% of the time to be kept healthy.
So a hat-tip to Jim Riggleman. In this case, he's getting it right.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Things to Watch in the Final Weeks
As always this time of year, we Scats fans tend to focus on the young players and not care so much about the scoreboard. The Bryce Harper watch is long finished. Everyone's watching Dunn lumber towards 40. But here are some other subplots you might not be aware of in these final few laps on this death march:
- Cristian Guzman v. Bengie Molina: currently, they are tied for last among qualified hitters with 16 walks each. The tiebreaker goes to Molina, since three of his are intentional, but Guzman still has a shot to be the least patient hitter in baseball.
- John Lannan v. Jordan Zimmermann: Will Lannan catch Jordan Zimmermann in strikeouts? Young Hova finished his year at 92 Ks in 91.2 innings. Lannan is second on the team with 79 in 192.3.
- Nationals offense v. average: The Scats' bats are the strength of the team, by far, but they're not quite good as good as average. Through Tuesday, the average National League offense 4.44 runs a game, and the Nationals are at 4.41.
- John Lannan v. Trevor Cahill: Who will end the season with the worst K:BB ratio among qualified MLB starting pitchers? Right now, Lannan is the caboose at 1.25, with Cahill just ahead at 1.27.
- All-time 9.50+ ERA champs: The Nationals currently have five pitchers (Ledezma, Estrada, Garate, Segovia, Kensing) who have or finished their time in DC with ERAs over 9.50. That ties them for ninth for the most ever since 1901. (Four of them pitched last night. Have four pitchers with an ERA over 9.50 ever appeared in the same game?) If someone else blows up (Saul?), we would join just five teams with six. (What's the significance of 9.50? It's a little below Wil Ledezma's final ERA. Yeah, I'm cherry-picking, but Boz does it constantly, and he has a Pulitzer or something.)
- Riggleman/Acta v. Frank Robinson: This year, the Nationals have a 65% success rate stealing. In 2006, Frank's Scats were successful stealing just 66% of the time (though that team was caught a stunning 62 times... but Soriano was a 40/40 man!!). Can the Scats of 2009 beat Frank's abysmal success rate in '06? Maybe. They'll never catch Frank's unbelievable 50% success rate from 2005 though. Ah, those were the days...
Monday, September 21, 2009
Right Track / Wrong Track Poll Results... And a New Poll!
With the Strasburg signing and Rizzo's hire as permanent GM, Nationals fan optimism has never been higher. Hey, they even had a little stretch of modestly good baseball in there. Well, we shall see how people are feeling now... A new poll is up on the top right corner above the MASN ad, and it will be up until mid-October.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Famous Last Words
"Just one more drink--then I'll drive home."OK, before we get to the whole issue of how Ian Desmond, who never played the outfield at any professional level ever, had no business being in right field in the first place, let's go to the top of the seventh.
"I'm pretty sure it's safe this time of the month."
"Afghanistan is no match for a superpower."
"I didn't want to take Pete Orr's bat out of the lineup."
The Scats were down 1-0. Tim Redding--he of the 5.52 ERA at the start of the day--had allowed just two hits over six. (Both pitchers benefited greatly from Mark Wegner's enormous "let's get this over with" strike zone.) But it was Redding's third time through the order. He had walked the completely punchless John Lannan the prior inning. And due up were Cristian Guzman, Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn, and, if anyone got on, Josh Willingham. This was the inning to take the lead and win the game.
Guzman led off with a swinging bunt for an infield hit. Zimmerman came to the plate, carrying with him 30 dingers, 96 RBI, and a .374 wOBA.
And Fizzleman called a hit-and-run. Sigh. He basically sacrifices his best hitter and opens first base with Dunn coming up. Just a terrible, terrible decision. Redding threw a slider way down out of the zone, and Zimm did well just to put a bat on this ball:
It would have been a double-play if Redding hadn't bobbled it, and Zimmerman let Riggleman know about it when he got to the dugout. Ever remember Zimmerman arguing with a manager, even a little? Me neither.
After a wild pitch, Dunn got a base hit to drive in Guzman (who would have scored even without sacrificing Zimmerman). Then, Willingham, really the last good hitter left in the line-up, came to the plate, and Riggleman called a hit-and-run again! With Adam Dunn running!! Can you imagine what kind of ball Willingham would have to hit to score Dunn from first?
Willingham thankfully fouled it off. Riggleman sent Dunn again on what turned out to be ball four, but with the weak bottom of the Nationals order coming up the threat was pretty much over. Orr struck out on three pitches, and Desmond popped out to end the inning.
So that brings us to the bottom of the inning. Late and close, it was way past time to end the little Ian Desmond outfield experiment and get a real defense out there. Elijah Dukes, after all, was on the bench, as were Justin Maxwell, Jorge Padilla, and Mike Morse. There were plenty of options.
Instead, Fizzleman said, "I hesitated to take the left-handed bat out of the lineup, Orr, if we were still tied."
Sometimes I just feel silly presenting statistical evidence to make a point. Is it really necessary to prove that Pete Orr's isn't a very good hitter?
Look, I'm all for optimizing the hitter/pitcher match-ups, but here are Orr's career numbers against right-handed pitching: .271 / .295 / .354. Here are Dukes's career numbers against righties: .247 / .353 / .429. Heck, even right-handed Mike Morse (.274 / .341 / .347) is better against right-handed pitching than Orr.
Yeah, I know, the handful of you still paying attention will say Orr has 15 hits in 52 at bats since getting called up. Four of those hits even went for extra bases. But c'mon. This guy is a 30-year-old with 452 career at bats. He is who he is. He hit .245 / .305 / .367 in AAA this year. He wasn't even guaranteed to get another at bat in the game with only two innings to go anyway.
By all accounts, Pete Orr is a nice guy, and I don't have any problem with him making a living in AAA for some team that thinks it might need him as a spare part some time. But if you ever find yourself managing a Major League Baseball team, and you're considering the downside of taking Orr's bat out of the line-up, please, give yourself a hard slap in the face.
You know the rest. Wright hit a screaming liner right at Desmond. He took one step in, and that was that. Francoeur doubled home Wright, and later in the inning Francoeur scored on what should have been the third out of the inning. The Mets led 3-1 before Lannan could get the fifth out of the inning.
All of this is on top of the fundamental blunder, which was playing Desmond in right field in the first place? CitiField is a notoriously difficult right field, and the sun was tough for even experienced outfielders. Is this any way to help transition a young player to the big leagues? Really, this is setting him up for failure.
And just for the sake of thoroughness, in the eighth with one out Fizzleman pinch-ran for Josh Bard with Jorge Padilla. Bard was not the tying run, and they were going to need a hit to score him anyway. The upside of the situation just didn't justify burning one of his only two catchers and putting the team one hammy away from seeing Pete Orr catch.
It was not a good day for the Nationals' manager.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Questions for Willingham
I'm heading over to the Josh Willingham event at ESPN Zone. Post any questions you have for Willingham in the comments, and I promise I will ask them and report back.
Dude, Who Stole my Offense?
Yeah, that's a terrible headline. It was either that or "Honey I Shrunk the Offense." I'm just not feeling the headline-writing.
Anyway, as of this minute, the Nationals have scored 649 runs in 146 games. The NL average is 648. If they don't score at least 4 tonight against Mike Pelfrey, they'll slip below average for the first time in months. Doesn't sound too tough, except that's more runs than they scored in the whole Philadelphia series.
Since Nyjer Morgan went down, they've scored 59 runs in 18 games, an average of 3.28. The biggest culprits over the last month:
Anyway, as of this minute, the Nationals have scored 649 runs in 146 games. The NL average is 648. If they don't score at least 4 tonight against Mike Pelfrey, they'll slip below average for the first time in months. Doesn't sound too tough, except that's more runs than they scored in the whole Philadelphia series.
Since Nyjer Morgan went down, they've scored 59 runs in 18 games, an average of 3.28. The biggest culprits over the last month:
- Guzman: .200 BA, 3 BB, 3 XBH (more errors than BB or XBH)
- Willingham: .157 BA, 6 XBH, 9 RBI, 27 K
- Nieves: 0 XBH (the same number of balks and outfield assists)
- Gonzalez: .203 BA, 1 BB (more GDP than walks)
- Bard: .234 BA, 11 K 0 BB (the same number of walks as touchdown passes, slam dunks, and double salchows)
Perrotto's Scuttlebutt
BP reporter John Perrotto includes anonymous quotes from scouts in his weekly "On the Beat" article. This week's piece included these two Nationals-related items:
- Dodgers infielder Ronnie Belliard: "It's amazing what a guy can do when he actually cares. He sleepwalked all season in Washington, then flipped the switch when he got to Los Angeles and in a pennant race." (Aren't you glad the Nationals are still paying his salary?)
- Nationals shortstop Ian Desmond: "This kid can hit and really play some defense. If I'm the Nationals, he's my shortstop on Opening Day next year instead of Cristian Guzman." (Ah, but you're not the Nationals, are you, whoever you are?)
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Day the Universe Changed
Sweet! The Nationals got James Burke!! I love that guy. Especially when an episode would start and you'd get a shot of the Sistine Chapel or Versailles or something, and then he'd just pop in from the side and say, "hello, I'm James Burke." That was fun-nee. I would have thought he'd be dead by now, but I guess not. I wonder if it's hard to catch with those Coke-bottle glasses.
In honor of the newest National, I bring you "The Trigger Effect." Why? Well, you see, watching James Burke is a lot like being a Nationals fan. You start watching, and you can't quite figure out what the hell is going on because it's such a jumbled mess. But you figure if you keep watching, sooner or later things will start to make a little sense. And the longer you watch, the more you feel like you have to keep watching, or else the whole thing was a waste of time. Next thing you know, you're looking at Livan Hernandez's second tour and, despite all logic, you're thinking, "Hey, this guy's pretty good. Maybe things are making sense after all." And that's when it all starts again.
Don't say you weren't warned.
In honor of the newest National, I bring you "The Trigger Effect." Why? Well, you see, watching James Burke is a lot like being a Nationals fan. You start watching, and you can't quite figure out what the hell is going on because it's such a jumbled mess. But you figure if you keep watching, sooner or later things will start to make a little sense. And the longer you watch, the more you feel like you have to keep watching, or else the whole thing was a waste of time. Next thing you know, you're looking at Livan Hernandez's second tour and, despite all logic, you're thinking, "Hey, this guy's pretty good. Maybe things are making sense after all." And that's when it all starts again.
Don't say you weren't warned.
Is Aaron Crow about to Be Vindicated?
From Buster Olney:
Olney's report suggests that might not be the case. There's a big gap between $3 million and $4.5 million, but if he gets something on the high end of that range and ends up close to home, he'll feel ok about the whole thing I bet.
As I've said before, whatever happens with Crow, it's not a win for the Nationals unless Drew Storen's turns out to be as good or better than Crow.
Sources: Crow to sign with RoyalsIt's been looking like Crow and his agents at the Hendricks Agency really botched things last year and that he was going to end up with less money and a lost year.
The Kansas City Royals are on the verge of an agreement with their No. 1 draft pick, pitcher Aaron Crow, for a major league deal that will pay him between $3 million and $4.5 million, sources said.
Crow, a right-hander from the University of Missouri, was picked in the first round by the Washington Nationals in 2008, but did not reach an agreement. He re-entered the draft this year, and was selected 12th overall by the Royals.
Crow grew up in Kansas, about 60 miles west of Kansas City. For him, the fact that he could sign with the team closest to his hometown was a pivotal factor.
Crow will start playing in the instructional league.
Olney's report suggests that might not be the case. There's a big gap between $3 million and $4.5 million, but if he gets something on the high end of that range and ends up close to home, he'll feel ok about the whole thing I bet.
As I've said before, whatever happens with Crow, it's not a win for the Nationals unless Drew Storen's turns out to be as good or better than Crow.
- Update: Here's the scoop. Basically, he's getting about half a mil less than the Nationals' final offer, though it's a major league contract, which, well, you know that whole story. Anyway, it's structured in a way that makes it seem like he's getting $3 mil plus another $1.5 million in incentives, but really that's about what he'd get earning a minimum wage. I guess this is supposed to be face-saving, but it's not really. Aaron ate crow. Nationals fans can now feel good about someone else's pain, I guess, since there's nothing else for us to celebrate.
Guzman's Range Isn't Declining (It Just Was Never Very Good in the First Place)
There's a funny thing about the team's plan to move Cristian Guzman to second base because of his declining range. His range isn't really declining.
Check it out. Here are some stats to chew on. Revised Zone Rating (RZR) and Out of Zone plays (OOZ) are John Dewan stats. RZR tells us the percentage of plays within the player's zone that are made. RZR is primarily a measure of how well a fielder does on the routine plays, but if a fielder has really bad range that'll show up. OOZ is the number of plays out of the zone made. Range Runs (RngR) is a Mitchel Lichtman stat that tells us the number of runs a fielder prevents compared to an average fielder, just based on range (excluding arm, errors, and double plays turned):
If you aren't interested in the detaily mumbo-jumbo, just observe that his stats really haven't declined at all since he came to DC. Nor was he ever all that impressive to begin with, but he's basically the same below-average, basically adequate fielder that he's always been.
Guzzy's problem is that Rizzo doesn't want below-average adequate at shortstop. He want defensive whizzes who will help his army of groundball pitchers. If the infield is good enough, he thinks, maybe, just maybe, Trevor Holder won't be a total waste of time and money.
Yeah, it's possible that the Nationals see something that the stats don't. Guzman IS at the age that you start to think that his range might decline next year. But I've obsessed over Guzman's defense an awful lot over the last five years, and I don't see it. And like Rizzo says, you really feel confident when the stats confirm what your own eyes tell you.
Some of you are probably thinking, "what?? Guzman is terrible!! And you hate him!!!" Well, I don't think Guzman is terrible. He's just not nearly good enough to justify $32 million in six years and Brian Duensing. And I get annoyed at how his batting average gets too much attention (and OBP not enough) from some in the media. (And I find his approach at the plate aesthetically unpleasing, but that's just me.)
But I kind of doubt that the "Guzman is declining" line is the real story. The reality, I bet, is that last GM didn't care about fielding, and Rizzo does. But it's hard to say, "yeah, we negotiated a contract with you, and you've been exactly the guy we expected you to be, but we're just changing our minds. Now you need to play a different position.
Sure, they could say that. Meet the new boss. Not the same as the old boss. Tough luck, buddy. Wipe your tears with one of your $32 million undeserved bucks.
But most likely Guzman's gonna pout, thinking, "dang, I never would have resigned here if I knew you were going to make me play a new position." And if he's a malcontent, that's probably not good for the Nationals.
Personally, I think it would make the team (marginally) better to move him to second, so I'm ok with it. But I don't quite buy what they're selling, and I wonder how Guzman is reacting in the clubhouse. It might be better to just trade him this winter before he becomes the next Felipe Lopez.
Check it out. Here are some stats to chew on. Revised Zone Rating (RZR) and Out of Zone plays (OOZ) are John Dewan stats. RZR tells us the percentage of plays within the player's zone that are made. RZR is primarily a measure of how well a fielder does on the routine plays, but if a fielder has really bad range that'll show up. OOZ is the number of plays out of the zone made. Range Runs (RngR) is a Mitchel Lichtman stat that tells us the number of runs a fielder prevents compared to an average fielder, just based on range (excluding arm, errors, and double plays turned):
| Year | Age | Inn | RZR | OOZ | RngR |
| 2005 | 28 | 1161 | 0.806 | 47 | -1 |
| 2007 | 29 | 376 | 0.786 | 11 | 0.2 |
| 2008 | 30 | 1174 | 0.838 | 50 | -1.6 |
| 2009 | 31 | 946 | 0.785 | 41 | 1.6 |
If you aren't interested in the detaily mumbo-jumbo, just observe that his stats really haven't declined at all since he came to DC. Nor was he ever all that impressive to begin with, but he's basically the same below-average, basically adequate fielder that he's always been.
Guzzy's problem is that Rizzo doesn't want below-average adequate at shortstop. He want defensive whizzes who will help his army of groundball pitchers. If the infield is good enough, he thinks, maybe, just maybe, Trevor Holder won't be a total waste of time and money.
Yeah, it's possible that the Nationals see something that the stats don't. Guzman IS at the age that you start to think that his range might decline next year. But I've obsessed over Guzman's defense an awful lot over the last five years, and I don't see it. And like Rizzo says, you really feel confident when the stats confirm what your own eyes tell you.
Some of you are probably thinking, "what?? Guzman is terrible!! And you hate him!!!" Well, I don't think Guzman is terrible. He's just not nearly good enough to justify $32 million in six years and Brian Duensing. And I get annoyed at how his batting average gets too much attention (and OBP not enough) from some in the media. (And I find his approach at the plate aesthetically unpleasing, but that's just me.)
But I kind of doubt that the "Guzman is declining" line is the real story. The reality, I bet, is that last GM didn't care about fielding, and Rizzo does. But it's hard to say, "yeah, we negotiated a contract with you, and you've been exactly the guy we expected you to be, but we're just changing our minds. Now you need to play a different position.
Sure, they could say that. Meet the new boss. Not the same as the old boss. Tough luck, buddy. Wipe your tears with one of your $32 million undeserved bucks.
But most likely Guzman's gonna pout, thinking, "dang, I never would have resigned here if I knew you were going to make me play a new position." And if he's a malcontent, that's probably not good for the Nationals.
Personally, I think it would make the team (marginally) better to move him to second, so I'm ok with it. But I don't quite buy what they're selling, and I wonder how Guzman is reacting in the clubhouse. It might be better to just trade him this winter before he becomes the next Felipe Lopez.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
New Podcast on Flores, Guzman, Desmond, and More
Check out the latest chat between myself and Brian Oliver from Nationals Farm Authority. As always, feel free to comment on the podcast page or here or over at NFA, and be sure to subscribe to the podcast on I-Tunes or whatever podcatcher you use.
- Correction: I erroneously referred to Gerald Laird as a member of the Texas Rangers, and of course he signed with the Tigers last year. As they say, good journalism requires a corrections page!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Things I Like Better about Baseball than Football
Just a few things that occurred to me watching the Packers-Bears game last night.
- Over the course of a 162-game season, you really find out who the best teams are.
- When a runner is on third base, you just say he's "on third base." You don't say he's "in the red zone."
- No penalties.
- Mascots, not cheerleaders.
- People care when baseball players use performance-enhancing drugs. (Rodney Harrison is an NBC commentator? Seriously?)
- No instant replay (almost).
- Less awful music.
- In baseball, a little guy like Tim Lincecum can routinely make a big guy like Wily Mo Pena look silly.
- Fewer shots of wives in skyboxes.
- Fewer shots of owners in skyboxes.
- You rarely, if ever, hear a baseball manager described as a "genius."
- No wristbands around biceps.
- No war metaphors (blitz, shotgun, bomb...).
- You can see the players' faces.
- No Terry Bradshaw or Boomer Esiason.
- You can't run out the clock in baseball.
- On almost every play in the NFL, someone celebrates in a way that makes K-Rod seem restrained.
- Brett Favre's never retired from baseball.
- And, of course, baseball has much, much better stats.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Ian Desmond's Power
When MASN posted the line-ups for last Thursday night and Ian Desmond was listed as the starting SS, it was enough to get me back out to Nationals Park for the first time in a few weeks. As others have noted, he showed surprisingly impressive power with his double, two warning-track fly-outs, and especially this shot, hit almost to the last row of the Red Porch. Since then, Desmond has two more extra-base hits in a grand total of 9 plate appearances going into Sunday (I'm writing this during the Sunday game, and in two at bats so far he has a single and an ROE.)
On that Red Porch shot, Joe Blanton threw Desmond a cookie, no doubt. It's tough to hang a curveball better than this 74-mph meatball:
Still, scouts will tell you that a homer like that isn't a fluke. A lot of scouts will use a stop-watch to measure flyball hangtime, even on pop-ups, to measure a hitter's raw power. Even when they miss, powerful hitters put juice into the ball.
The Desmond homer was a bomb. Hit Tracker, which estimates the distance every homer would have traveled if you could eliminate the effects of wind, altitude, temperature, etc., says that Desmond's homer is the third longest homer hit by the Nationals in Nationals Park all year.
That homer doesn't tell us that Desmond is going to hit a lot of home runs. That requires strike zone command, pitch recognition, mechanical consistency, etc. But it shows that he has more raw power than the scouting reports had indicated.
Here are Desmond's ISO power numbers over his minor league career. ISO is slugging minus batting average, and it's a good measure of a hitter's true power:
The first thing you notice is the how his power jumped in 2007. One theory is that he was repeating high-A ball, which gave him a leg-up. That's a valid point. On the other hand, you still expect power to develop through these years. He could be making less contact as he moves up, but when he connects, the power should be there. So it's a little odd that his ISO number dropped so much from '07 go '08, and even stranger that it slipped a bit again in '09.
That made me think about another thing that some may have forgotten about Desmond, which was the stress fracture of his hamate bone suffered sometime in 2008. The hamate is a key bone in your wrist, and hamate injuries are notorious for lingering and sapping power.
A stress fracture in particular can be a stealthy injury. Stress fractures are caused by repeated motion, not a single violent blow. Often, an athlete can compete with a stress fracture for a long time until the pain becomes too great. He probably has no idea when it first happened, and the only real treatment for a stress fracture is rest.
So you have to wonder, how much did the hamate affect him in 2008? And was he really 100% on opening day in 2009?
Short of going back in time and giving him weekly MRIs, we can't know the answers here. Even he probably doesn't know. But, if in fact Desmond has a big additional level of power in him, this could be part of the reason why. That, and the fact that hitters can frequently keep developing power through their age-28 season.
Desmond's approach at the plate is still the most important factor in whether he can be a success at the major-league level. His very early success is in no small part due to the fact that he has yet to swing at a pitch out of the strike zone (in 11 PAs though 2:14 pm Sunday).
But based on the little bit I've seen so far, I think his ceiling may be a good bit higher than I thought a week ago.
On that Red Porch shot, Joe Blanton threw Desmond a cookie, no doubt. It's tough to hang a curveball better than this 74-mph meatball:
Still, scouts will tell you that a homer like that isn't a fluke. A lot of scouts will use a stop-watch to measure flyball hangtime, even on pop-ups, to measure a hitter's raw power. Even when they miss, powerful hitters put juice into the ball.
The Desmond homer was a bomb. Hit Tracker, which estimates the distance every homer would have traveled if you could eliminate the effects of wind, altitude, temperature, etc., says that Desmond's homer is the third longest homer hit by the Nationals in Nationals Park all year.
That homer doesn't tell us that Desmond is going to hit a lot of home runs. That requires strike zone command, pitch recognition, mechanical consistency, etc. But it shows that he has more raw power than the scouting reports had indicated.
Here are Desmond's ISO power numbers over his minor league career. ISO is slugging minus batting average, and it's a good measure of a hitter's true power:
| Year | Age | Lev | ISO |
| 2004 | 18 | Rook/A-SS | 0.075 |
| 2005 | 19 | A/A+ | 0.105 |
| 2006 | 20 | A+/AA | 0.118 |
| 2007 | 21 | A+ | 0.168 |
| 2008 | 22 | AA/Rook | 0.152 |
| 2009 | 23 | AAA/AA | 0.147 |
The first thing you notice is the how his power jumped in 2007. One theory is that he was repeating high-A ball, which gave him a leg-up. That's a valid point. On the other hand, you still expect power to develop through these years. He could be making less contact as he moves up, but when he connects, the power should be there. So it's a little odd that his ISO number dropped so much from '07 go '08, and even stranger that it slipped a bit again in '09.
That made me think about another thing that some may have forgotten about Desmond, which was the stress fracture of his hamate bone suffered sometime in 2008. The hamate is a key bone in your wrist, and hamate injuries are notorious for lingering and sapping power.
A stress fracture in particular can be a stealthy injury. Stress fractures are caused by repeated motion, not a single violent blow. Often, an athlete can compete with a stress fracture for a long time until the pain becomes too great. He probably has no idea when it first happened, and the only real treatment for a stress fracture is rest.
So you have to wonder, how much did the hamate affect him in 2008? And was he really 100% on opening day in 2009?
Short of going back in time and giving him weekly MRIs, we can't know the answers here. Even he probably doesn't know. But, if in fact Desmond has a big additional level of power in him, this could be part of the reason why. That, and the fact that hitters can frequently keep developing power through their age-28 season.
Desmond's approach at the plate is still the most important factor in whether he can be a success at the major-league level. His very early success is in no small part due to the fact that he has yet to swing at a pitch out of the strike zone (in 11 PAs though 2:14 pm Sunday).
But based on the little bit I've seen so far, I think his ceiling may be a good bit higher than I thought a week ago.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Great Call by the Ump
We complain when they get it wrong, so we should give props on great calls like this. With two outs, Ian Desmond took a heads-up, worthwhile risk. But we can see here that he was clearly out.
One other thing--this is exciting, aggressive but clean baseball. Some guys might have blind-sided the defenseless pitcher covering home plate, likely resulting in an injury for Joe Blanton and perhaps Desmond, but the hook slide gave Desmond a better chance to score and was a safer, cleaner way to play.
Fizzleman No Longer Cares about Winning; Desmond Starts
Ian Desmond gets his first start tonight, reports Chico Harlan.
Ah, nevermind. Weather.com says tonight's probably going to be a rain-out.
Maybe Fizzleman wrote this line-up card just to get people off his back? Like he wishes he'd have rested Kerry Wood a bit, just to get people off his back (not that he was wrong about Wood's usage of course; screw the kids--you try to win the games!).
Ah, nevermind. Weather.com says tonight's probably going to be a rain-out.
Maybe Fizzleman wrote this line-up card just to get people off his back? Like he wishes he'd have rested Kerry Wood a bit, just to get people off his back (not that he was wrong about Wood's usage of course; screw the kids--you try to win the games!).
- Update: SUCK IT FIZZLEMAN!!!!
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Thin-Skinned Jim Goes Off
Jim Riggleman was asked a couple times today why he's not playing his young, improving players and benching the declining veterans. He didn't take too kindly to it, lecturing the assembled media that "When we play baseball, we're supposed to try to win."
I agree with that, though of course it's a false choice.
No one's advocating that the Nationals don't try to win. The point that I and other are making is that we should, whenever possible, invest playing time in improving young players so that the team can actually get better. We might win fewer games in the short term but we'll more games in the medium term and long term.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with Cristian Guzman and Ian Desmond. Guzman over the last 21 games going into tonight is hitting .183 / .212 / .268. He's on an extended skid and should sit regardless. And yeah, he's had a hot streak here or there, but since May 9, he's hitting .277 / .304 / .387. That's bad.
And he's a just plain rotten fielder.
So what exactly does "trying to win" have to do with playing Cristian Guzman?
Get off your high horse, Fizzleman. Bench Guzman. Play Desmond.
I agree with that, though of course it's a false choice.
No one's advocating that the Nationals don't try to win. The point that I and other are making is that we should, whenever possible, invest playing time in improving young players so that the team can actually get better. We might win fewer games in the short term but we'll more games in the medium term and long term.
Of course, none of that has anything to do with Cristian Guzman and Ian Desmond. Guzman over the last 21 games going into tonight is hitting .183 / .212 / .268. He's on an extended skid and should sit regardless. And yeah, he's had a hot streak here or there, but since May 9, he's hitting .277 / .304 / .387. That's bad.
And he's a just plain rotten fielder.
So what exactly does "trying to win" have to do with playing Cristian Guzman?
Get off your high horse, Fizzleman. Bench Guzman. Play Desmond.
Not Seein' Desmond
Yesterday, the Nationals called up Ian Desmond, possibly the only MLB-ready prospect among position players in the entire organization. With the 2009 season and Cristian Guzman's days as an adequate defensive shortstop both fading fast, the Nationals have an opportunity to at least start to find out whether Ian Desmond could be a solution at shortstop in 2010.
A successful Desmond audition would have important ramifications for the team as soon as this off-season. They could commit to shifting Guzman to second base, giving him all of spring training to adjust to the new position. They could find out that they don't need to spend on a middle-infielder like Orlando Hudson. They could try to move Guzman, freeing up the $8 million in bad contract still on the books and still go after a free agent.
It seems like Desmond has been around a long time, mainly because he was unfairly overhyped as far back as 2005 by the previous regime as the next Derek Jeter. Beyond a passing facial resemblance, it was a ridiculous comp, and the pressure seemed to weigh heavily on him. He was also pushed hard, playing at high-A Potomac at age 19 and AA at age 20, getting both promotions before he'd really mastered lower levels.
But he's still just 23 (24 this month), and the tools are there. He was named the best infield arm in the AAA International League in Baseball America. And while his error totals have been a concern (28 this year), scouts have consistently raved about his range and arm.
The bat has been the big question, as he's been consistently undone by a bad approach at the plate, chasing too many balls out of the zone. This year, the light seems to have gone on. In 205 plate appearances at Syracuse, his walk rate is 10.1%, up from 8.8% in AA last year, and his strikeout rate has fallen to 17.4% from 24.1%.
He doesn't have much pop, so those numbers still say he'll be a below-average hitter, but if the glove is there, he can be a 2.5-win player right now, maybe a cheap Jack Wilson with more upside.
So I was pretty excited to flip on the game yesterday and see the kid play, maybe even get a look at Guzman at second. Instead, it was Guzman at short and Riggleman's pet, Pete Orr, at second.
Here's what Riggleman said:
Play Desmond, please. Every day.
A successful Desmond audition would have important ramifications for the team as soon as this off-season. They could commit to shifting Guzman to second base, giving him all of spring training to adjust to the new position. They could find out that they don't need to spend on a middle-infielder like Orlando Hudson. They could try to move Guzman, freeing up the $8 million in bad contract still on the books and still go after a free agent.
It seems like Desmond has been around a long time, mainly because he was unfairly overhyped as far back as 2005 by the previous regime as the next Derek Jeter. Beyond a passing facial resemblance, it was a ridiculous comp, and the pressure seemed to weigh heavily on him. He was also pushed hard, playing at high-A Potomac at age 19 and AA at age 20, getting both promotions before he'd really mastered lower levels.
But he's still just 23 (24 this month), and the tools are there. He was named the best infield arm in the AAA International League in Baseball America. And while his error totals have been a concern (28 this year), scouts have consistently raved about his range and arm.
The bat has been the big question, as he's been consistently undone by a bad approach at the plate, chasing too many balls out of the zone. This year, the light seems to have gone on. In 205 plate appearances at Syracuse, his walk rate is 10.1%, up from 8.8% in AA last year, and his strikeout rate has fallen to 17.4% from 24.1%.
He doesn't have much pop, so those numbers still say he'll be a below-average hitter, but if the glove is there, he can be a 2.5-win player right now, maybe a cheap Jack Wilson with more upside.
So I was pretty excited to flip on the game yesterday and see the kid play, maybe even get a look at Guzman at second. Instead, it was Guzman at short and Riggleman's pet, Pete Orr, at second.
Here's what Riggleman said:
"I'll get him some games, but as long as Guzman is healthy he'll be playing. If his foot flares up on him that will be an opportunity to get Desmond in there, but we also have Gonzalez and Orr who will be playing up the middle. I love to see young players play, but I don't ever want to take away the opportunity from the veterans who have been here all year... and disregard their efforts all year by planting them on the bench. Like I said, the at bats might be inconsistent."What's the point? Cristian Guzman shouldn't have a future at short, and Pete Orr has no future anywhere in MLB. And since when has Pete Orr been here all here? This is just a short-sighted, wasted opportunity, and shows the kind of dumb deference to declining veteran players that will keep bad teams from getting better.
Play Desmond, please. Every day.
- Update: Desmond sits again.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Fire Jim Riggleman
No, I'm not changing the name of the blog, and I'm not starting a new petition or printing new t-shirts, but I have come to the conclusion that Jim Riggleman should not be retained as manager of the Washington Nationals.
I have gripes about his over-managing in the running game and other relatively minor issues, but the big problem that could be deadly to the team and should be fatal to his prospects as manager is his dangerous abuse of young pitchers.
Let's review the track record. In Chicago, he had more or less two young pitchers who could be considered prospects, Geremi Gonzalez and Kerry Wood.
Riggleman, managing a last-place team going nowhere, whipped the 22-year-old Gonzalez for 206 total innings in 1997 (combined major and minor league IP), a 113-inning jump over the previous season. He broke down the next year, three surgeries followed, and he didn't pitch again in the majors until 2003, at a shadow his previous self.
A year later, Riggleman threw the 20-year-old Wood 166.2 innings, including pitch counts of 133, 129, 123 (twice), 122 (twice), and 121 (twice). It came in a pennant race, but regardless the team paid a steep price for a first-round Wild Card exit, as Wood had Tommy John and missed all of 1999.
This season, two young pitchers have gone down on Riggleman's watch, Jordan Zimmermann and Craig Stammen. Both pitchers pitched through pain before finally giving in to surgery.
Zimmermann only had one major-league start on Riggleman's watch. It's tough to blame him entirely (or even mostly), but we do know that Zimmermann had pain for a least a couple weeks prior to getting shut down, and Riggleman hasn't given us any indication that the team was or should have been more proactive.
Stammen on the other hand says he had elbow pain for months--months!--before finally getting shut down, and most of those risky innings did happen on Riggleman's watch.
While this track record raises flags, Riggleman's comments are giant blinking lights. His comments about pitching injuries are mostly a study in stubbornness.
A few weeks back, I asked him about Kerry Wood, and though he did say he would do things differently in hindsight, is reasoning basically broke down as: 1. I did the right thing; 2. My usage had nothing to do with Wood's injury; 3. I would have used him less just to protect myself from public criticism after the fact, even though it would have been the wrong thing to do.
Then this week Chico Harlan gave us this Q&A:
Riggleman's lip service to wanting pitchers to "speak up" doesn't hold up when he puts the entire onus for monitoring the situation on the player. That's not encouraging communication--it's deferring responsibility.
And he simply can't expect players to speak up about pain at the same time that he's praising the toughness of an injured 25-year-old who pitched for months with "something wrong" before surgery.
If you talk to experts in this area, they'll tell you that pitching injury risk goes up not so much from pitching a lot, but from pitching tired. That's why pitch counts and innings counts matter. So when you're creating a clubhouse culture where caution equals lack of toughness or competitive fire, you're just asking for pitchers to keep quiet and hurt themselves.
But preparation also matters. Spending time in the weight room, building up leg strength, cardiovascular fitness... these things matter tremendously. Praise toughness and endurance in off-season workouts, not pitching through pain and getting yourself hurt.
The list of good young pitchers who have been cut down by overuse is almost endless: Steve McCatty, Mike Norris, Mark Fidrych, Mark Prior, Don Gullett, Gary Nolan... the list could go on for days. Because to make sure the Nationals do everything possible to keep Steven Strasburg (and Drew Storen, etc...), Riggleman needs to go.
I have gripes about his over-managing in the running game and other relatively minor issues, but the big problem that could be deadly to the team and should be fatal to his prospects as manager is his dangerous abuse of young pitchers.
Let's review the track record. In Chicago, he had more or less two young pitchers who could be considered prospects, Geremi Gonzalez and Kerry Wood.
Riggleman, managing a last-place team going nowhere, whipped the 22-year-old Gonzalez for 206 total innings in 1997 (combined major and minor league IP), a 113-inning jump over the previous season. He broke down the next year, three surgeries followed, and he didn't pitch again in the majors until 2003, at a shadow his previous self.
A year later, Riggleman threw the 20-year-old Wood 166.2 innings, including pitch counts of 133, 129, 123 (twice), 122 (twice), and 121 (twice). It came in a pennant race, but regardless the team paid a steep price for a first-round Wild Card exit, as Wood had Tommy John and missed all of 1999.
This season, two young pitchers have gone down on Riggleman's watch, Jordan Zimmermann and Craig Stammen. Both pitchers pitched through pain before finally giving in to surgery.
Zimmermann only had one major-league start on Riggleman's watch. It's tough to blame him entirely (or even mostly), but we do know that Zimmermann had pain for a least a couple weeks prior to getting shut down, and Riggleman hasn't given us any indication that the team was or should have been more proactive.
Stammen on the other hand says he had elbow pain for months--months!--before finally getting shut down, and most of those risky innings did happen on Riggleman's watch.
While this track record raises flags, Riggleman's comments are giant blinking lights. His comments about pitching injuries are mostly a study in stubbornness.
A few weeks back, I asked him about Kerry Wood, and though he did say he would do things differently in hindsight, is reasoning basically broke down as: 1. I did the right thing; 2. My usage had nothing to do with Wood's injury; 3. I would have used him less just to protect myself from public criticism after the fact, even though it would have been the wrong thing to do.
Then this week Chico Harlan gave us this Q&A:
Sunday, interim manager Jim Riggleman was asked about Stammen's arthroscopic surgery (it was successful!) when he added, unprompted, that the rookie this season "exhibited a toughness that you like to see in pitchers. You know, the attitude -- if something's wrong here, I'm still going to pitch."The problem is that the line between pain and injury often isn't that clear. Pitchers can "gut it out" through all kinds of bad injuries. That's how "cascading" injuries happen. Start with a lat strain, overcompensate with other muscles, and end up with a torn labrum. And "normal soreness" can feel an awful lot what you or I would consider a real injury.
Hmm, I thought.
So I followed up with this question.
Q: I'd imagine there's a fine balance where maybe a team wants its pitchers to tough it out, maybe you want to know every ache and pain. As a manager, what would you tell a young pitcher about when to speak up about arm pain?
RIGGLEMAN: That's a tough question. It's very pertinent. What I have tried to tell guys, the earliest in your career that you can figure out the difference between pain and injury, the better off you're going to be. Normal soreness that you get from pitching, you've got to [determine], Is this just something that is normal from pitching? It's an exhausting thing to your body to throw a baseball that violently for six to nine innings. So when you recover from that through the week, you've got to know what that feels like. You've got to know your body. And when you get to a point where something is more than normal soreness, you've got to speak up. Because that might be the indication of something that could blow up on you.
Riggleman's lip service to wanting pitchers to "speak up" doesn't hold up when he puts the entire onus for monitoring the situation on the player. That's not encouraging communication--it's deferring responsibility.
And he simply can't expect players to speak up about pain at the same time that he's praising the toughness of an injured 25-year-old who pitched for months with "something wrong" before surgery.
If you talk to experts in this area, they'll tell you that pitching injury risk goes up not so much from pitching a lot, but from pitching tired. That's why pitch counts and innings counts matter. So when you're creating a clubhouse culture where caution equals lack of toughness or competitive fire, you're just asking for pitchers to keep quiet and hurt themselves.
But preparation also matters. Spending time in the weight room, building up leg strength, cardiovascular fitness... these things matter tremendously. Praise toughness and endurance in off-season workouts, not pitching through pain and getting yourself hurt.
The list of good young pitchers who have been cut down by overuse is almost endless: Steve McCatty, Mike Norris, Mark Fidrych, Mark Prior, Don Gullett, Gary Nolan... the list could go on for days. Because to make sure the Nationals do everything possible to keep Steven Strasburg (and Drew Storen, etc...), Riggleman needs to go.
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