The Reason the Nationals, not the Royals, Will Win the Bryce Harper Sweepstakes

Don't feel bad Royals fans. I'd take Greinke over Harper. That guy is amazing.

Mike Rizzo and Sabermetrics

There were a lot of questions directed at Mike Rizzo in the days around his hiring about the role of statistical analysis in his new job. During his introductory news conference, he said:

It's another piece of the puzzle. I always err toward my own two eyes rather than a computation, but as we've seen with our great young staff, the guys that grind it out with me every day 24-7, is that we do utilize all facets of scouting and player information.

And in a Tom Boswell column a few weeks back, we got this:

For the last decade, baseball has had a debate between those baseball lifers with an eye for the game -- like Rizzo's dad and Boras -- and the younger, polished, generally more educated "Moneyball" types.

"I'm a hybrid," says Rizzo, who then does his ode-to-Sabermetrics riff about the value of knowing Value Over Replacement Player and WHIP. "My dad still doesn't buy it. But there's a place for it. Why not use all the tools?"

Then Mike Rizzo puts his hand over his mouth like he's about to tell you a secret. Remember, this is a man who thinks that it's nothing to drive the extra 200 miles, or figure out a 21-year-old's personality, then bet his team's future on it.

"Besides," he whispers, "it's not that tough."

Rizzo's exactly right that scouting and saber are complimentary, and the best saber folks have never argued otherwise. It's almost always people who know little or nothing about either scouting or saber who act like there's some running war between the two.

I wondered, though, about the "it's not that tough" line. Because if he really thinks good statistical analysis is easy, then I'm not sure how much he really does get it.

So on blogger day, I dropped what was admittedly a "gotcha" question, asking him to give us a couple specific examples of how he uses statistical analysis. Nats 320 has the full transcript, but the examples he cited were groundball rates for pitchers and zone ratings for fielders, specifically pointing to Nyjer Morgan as a player they evaluated with fielding stats.

These were fine answers, and they jive with his actual moves. But the red flag that was raised at least for me is that these were really pretty basic examples, and it reminded me of that "it's not so tough" line.

What I'd like to see is the Nationals front office to get on the forefront of breakthrough statistical analysis, figuring out trends and probabilities that no one else has figured out before in order to gain an upper hand.

It wasn't really all that long ago that Voros McCracken did his groundbreaking research on batted balls, or Mitchel Lichtman's work on fielding, or Rany Jazerlyi's and Tom Verducci's work on pitcher usage.

There are so many remaining areas of inquiry. Fielding metrics remain a work in progress. Reliever usage league-wide is stuck in an idea Tony LaRussa had 20 years ago. Is infield flyball rate a repeatable skill? Game theory and bluffing remains a much underexamined part of the game (e.g., how many bunts must a player drop down before the other team brings in the corner infielders, and how many additional hits are created by the repositioned fielders?). Why do some pitchers seem to consistently exceed (John Lannan) or fall short of (Javy Vazquez) their fielding-independent pitching projections. Pitch F/X alone could provide several books worth of insight and analysis.

The main point of Moneyball wasn't so much about how Billy Beane used statheads to gain an advantage. It's that he found undervalued commodities in the market to build a better team. As the game evolves, there will always be new and different undervalued commodities. The challenge is to stay ahead of the opposition. That's tough to do in every facet of the game, and the saber side is no exception.

Here's hoping that Rizzo can go beyond merely implementing established saber principles and bring in people able to do original, proprietary analysis to give the Nationals a true leg-up.

Belliard to the Dodgers? Good Idea!

I liked it a year ago, and I like it now.

Luis Garcia is a 22-year-old right-handed relief pitcher with five saves and a 2.92 ERA in 34 games in A ball. He's a little old for his level and hasn't appeared on any "top prospects" lists. But he's got a 3.67 K:BB ratio and a 54% groundball rate. Stats at this level of the minors aren't as projectable than AA or AAA, but it's better to have good numbers than bad ones!

There's also a PTBNL, and those guys aren't always useless. It just means there's an agreed-upon list. Micah Owings was the PTBNL in the Adam Dunn trade to the D'Backs last year.

Bottom line, you take whatever you can get for a five-week rental of Ronnie Belliard.

Norris Hopper Becomes Real Handy

Mike Rizzo grabbed Norris Hopper for cash in a solid bit of advance planning earlier this month. Now, with Nyjer Morgan on the DL, I expect to see that planning pay off.

Hopper has very solid OBP numbers built on excellent contact rates. For his career, he's a .367 OBP hitter, and although most of those ABs came at age 28 in 2007, he's continued to put up solid walk and contact rates in his MLB and AAA at bats since then. This year, playing at AAA for three different organizations, he has a .347 OBP and minuscule 4.4% strikeout rate. His walk rates are low at just 7.4%, but since coming to Syracuse he's walking in 10.4% of his plate appearances, and if your contact skills and speed is good, you're going to provide respectable production overall.

He's especially good against lefties, putting up a .367 / .406 / .456 line against opposite-handed pitching in his MLB career. That makes him a natural fit with Willie Harris for a centerfield platoon.

Hopper is also a solid defensive outfielder, posting a 4.2 UZR/150 in centerfield in 468.1 MLB innings, nearly identical to Super-Willie's career rate.

If Rizzo thinks that he can learn about Justin Maxwell by giving him playing time in center this fall, that's probably worth doing. But to win games now, the right choice is Hopper. He's no game-changer, but he's the kind of solid above-replacement level player that the Riggleman will be happy that his GM has on hand just about now.

Natmosphere Fantasy League Update

Going into the home stretch, my team is becoming the Mets to NNN Dave's Phillies. I've held the lead for more than a month now, but I've lost my whole starting outfield--Carlos Beltran, Corey Hart, and Jay Bruce--and my stalwart Dan Haren has fallen on hard times in the second half, making me very vulnerable. With Dave closing ground, this week we go head-to-head in the most important match-up of the year so far.

Here are the overall standings:



And through yesterday, the results so far of this week's FJB/NNN grudge match. Overall score and hitters first:



And the pitchers:

Lannan Finds Regression Is Mean

John Lannan goes today in Wrigley Field tomorrow in St. Louis, and with the way things are going for him lately I'm sure the wind will be blowing out Cards' bats will be red-hot and Ryan Zimmerman's case of the yips will flare up again.

In this last five starts, The Walrus has allowed five, two, six, four, and seven runs, posting an 8.28 ERA over that time. His overall ERA has jumped from 3.25 to 4.03. Hitters have hammered him to the tune of .349 / .415 / .566 over 28 innings. He bottomed out last Saturday with the worst start of his career, lasting just 1.2 innings, giving up seven hits and two walks without striking out anyone.

So what's happening? The bad news for Nationals fans is that this is probably just a matter of Lannan's luck evening out and the "real" Lannan showing up over the course of a full season.

Lannan has for a long time benefited from unusually good luck. For his career, his BABIP against is .280, and especially for a groundball pitcher with one of the league's worst defenses behind him, that's a number that should be around .310 or above. His xFIP has been 1.22, 0.94, and 0.71 runs higher than his ERA in his three MLB seasons.

Over this rough patch, Lannan's key "controllable" rates haven't changed all that much. His K rate over the last five starts is 9.8%. Prior to that he struck out 9.7%. Either way, he's not missing enough bats to be consistently successful as a mid-rotation starter, nevermind an ace.

Some of his rates have declined a bit. His walk rate is up a couple ticks to 9.8%, compared to 7.3% before that. His groundball rate has been 43.7%, which is a significant decline from his season-long 51.3%. But his line drive rate has been just 17.6%, really no change from his season-long 17.9% rate. So he's pitching worse, but not THAT much worse.

The real difference is that his BABIP against in these five games has been .367. Now that's much higher than we should expect, but the fact is that he'll need a couple more conflagrations like last week to get his overall BABIP back to where it will eventually land in the end.

It's another reason why I think the Zimmermann injury is so devastating. Put Jay-Z, Strasburg, and a solid veteran Randy Wolf-type in the front of the rotation, and that would allow you to move Lannan to #4, where he belongs, and you can fill the #5 hole with one of the glut of back-end guys we've stockpiled like Stammen or Balester. That's a pretty competitive rotation. But forcing Lannan into the #2 or #3 role basically guarantees a sub-.500 record.

Livan Hernandez Returns

Livan Hernandez signed with the Nationals, and besides a lot of warm and fuzzy feelings, what are we getting?

Livo this year had a bit of a bounce-back season in New York. It didn't hurt that he got out of hitters parks like Chase and Coors, but he's also pitched better.

Hernandez in his elder days has become a slight flyball pitcher who famously throws repertoire of off-speed junk. This season, his flyball rate is 38.5%, which is high but not extreme. Still, he's going to give up his share of home runs, and he's due for a little regression on that front, having allowed homers on just 9.2% of flyballs this year (11% is average).

His strikeout rate, which has never been good per se, had fallen to a J.D. Martin-esque 3.96 per 9 in 2007 and 3.35 per 9 in 2008. This year it creeped back up to 5.00, which is still bad but not so awful that he's unemployable.

On the other hand, his command hasn't been quite as good. Control has always been a key strength, as he's pounded the zone and forced hitters to hit his pitch, and his unintentional walk rate this season is a bit up from 5.3% to an 8.6%. That means he's gone from excellent to merely average, but given his flyball rate and strikeout rate, he needs to do an excellent job of not giving away baserunners.

Durability of course has always been his calling card. That's a touch overblown these days, however. He's pitched into the sixth inning in only half his starts this year and gone over 120 pitches just once. That's mostly been because he's been getting hammered, but still he's lost a lot of his ability to go deep into games.

Bottom line, Hernandez should give the team replacement-level innings for cheap and keep them from forcing another unready young arm into the rotation. John Lannan is gassed, Collin Balester pitched himself out of a job, and no one's given the team consistent innings all year. So it makes sense, given the options.

One last thing: to make room for Hernandez, Dmitri Young is finally moved to the 60-day DL. It's amazing that not only did the team blow $10 million on him over the last two years, but allowed him to fill up a 40-man roster spot for so long.

"I Never Want the First Pick Again."

This is what Stan Kasten told to the assembled members of the Natmosphere on "Blogger Day." I don't want the Nationals to have the top pick either, because that means they're once again the worst team in baseball.

But at the time, the group was asking about the Strasburg contract negotiations, and the implication of Stan's remark was that he didn't want the top pick because he didn't want to deal with the top pick's contract demands. (Let me stress that this was implied, not explicitly stated, and I'm raising it as a jumping off point for the following discussion, not to jump on Stan.)

The emerging reality however is that the 2010 top pick may be the easiest #1 to sign in a decade or more. The reason is that the owners increasingly are making noise that one of their top priorities in the negotiation of the next Collective Bargaining Agreement will be getting a hard cap on the bonuses paid to draftees under the First Year Player Draft (a.k.a. the "Rule 4 Draft").

Seeing that writing on the wall is what a lot of observers believe pushed the 16-year-old Bryce Harper to skip his senior year of high school, take the G.E.D., and enroll in junior college, thereby making himself eligible for the 2010 draft. If a new system is implemented with a hard cap or slotting system, any top pick--especially one as highly touted as Harper--is virtually guaranteed to get less money.

What that means for a team like the Nationals, currently 3.5 games "ahead" of the Royals in the Harper Sweepstakes, is that, should they get the top pick and draft Harper, they'll have a stronger negotiating hand than any team has had since the current system was created.

Currently, a drafted player had two choices: take what's offered, or go back into the draft next year. If you're Bryce Harper, the choice could be: take what's offered, or take the hard slot in 2011. The Nationals would only need to outbid the anticipated slot bonus, which could be set unilaterally by Bud Selig.

How likely is this to happen? Right now, it's pretty likely. Remember, the Player's Union doesn't represent amateurs. They represent current major leaguers. The only reason the Union has any say over the draft at all is because of the compensation picks for type A and B free agents. The compensation picks were first implemented in order to depress free agent values, and other than that the Union has no control and frankly no interest in how the draft works.

So if the owners offer the union a deal that eliminates compensation picks, the players almost surely will take it, and the owners will be left with a free hand to do whatever they want with the draft. It's possible that some aspiring lawyer would challenge a hard slotting system as illegal collusion, but aside from that, the owners could do whatever.

The owners don't want to give up those compensation picks. They'll first try to negotiate a deal that let's them have their cake and eat it too.

But if that's where things are heading, the Nationals could have the opportunity to draft Bryce Harper and sign him for peanuts. That's a negotiation that Stan Kasten would be more than happy to do.

Congratulations to Ben Bernanke, the Most Powerful Nationals Fan in the World

It's been a great week in NatsTown, and now we have the kicker. President Obama has re-appointed Nationals fan and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

How big a Nationals fan is Bernanke? There's an anecdote in David Wessel's excellent new book In Fed We Trust that late one night last fall, as our entire economic system was spiraling towards collapse, Bernanke, under more pressure than any Fed chair has faced in perhaps 60 years, had one big complaint.

He was too busy to go to the Nationals game. He wanted to go. He really wanted to go. But they wouldn't let him. What was the game he was so disappointed to miss? Nationals-Marlins. Tim Redding v. Josh Johnson. It would be the Nationals' 99th loss of the season. Bernanke desperately wanted to be there.

There are lots of DC big wigs who show up in Nationals Park from time to time, usually to root for the opposing team. Not Bernanke. He ditched the Red Sox the minute the Nationals showed up. Kinda makes sense, actually, since he's spent most of his life studying the Great Depression. He's just got a special interest in downward spirals, I guess.

Congratulations, Ben. See you at the Red Porch.

New Podcast Up at Natmoshere in your Ear

This week Brian and I discuss the September call-ups, the Nationals' "best trade ever," and Blogger Day. Check it out here and don't forget to subscribe in I-Tunes or whatever podcatcher you use.

"Friction" between Crow and his Agents?

Rany Jazayerli and Jason Anderson on Kansas City radio 810 WHB reported last week on their show "Rany on the Radio" that there's "friction" between both the Hendricks Brothers and the Royals and between the agency and their client, Aaron Crow.

It's not surprising given where things are at for Crow, still unsigned more than a year after he was drafted. But increasingly there's a buzz about the Hendricks agency trying to be "Boras Lite."

(The difference of course is that Boras guys almost always sign, and when they don't, like J.D. Drew and Luke Hochevar, things have worked out pretty darn well for the clients. Aside from Jason Varitek 15 years ago, it's tough to find an example of an unsigned Boras client who regretted his decision.)

If Crow signs for less than what the Nationals offered, it'll cost the Hendricks agency far more in future client fees than it'll cost Crow. The "sources" say that the player's long since had enough.

With Instructional and Arizona Fall League rosters to be announced in the coming weeks, expect Crow to sign very shortly.

Kerry Wood: Lessons Learned (or Not?)

On Blogger Day Part II at Nationals Park, we got a chance to interview Nationals manager Jim Riggleman. My question hearkened back to 1998, when Riggleman was the Cubs a 20-year-old rookie named Kerry Wood pitched a lot of innings, which was followed by Tommy John surgery and two full missed seasons.

In case you're unfamiliar, I recapped the basic facts of the Kerry Wood story in a post shortly after Riggleman was first named interim manager:

Wood was called up at age 20. He won the rookie of the year with a 3.40 ERA and 12.6 Ks per 9. He also walked 4.6 per 9 and was therefore prone to high pitch counts. Riggleman didn't care. He had Wood throw 166.2 innings, including pitch counts of 133, 129, 123, 123, 122 (twice), and 121 (twice). After the season, Wood had Tommy John surgery, missed two full seasons the next season, and has never become the guy he might have been.

Riggleman had just gotten done explaining how careful the team had been with Jordan Zimmerman, and I wanted to know what he'd learned over the last decade that caused him to advocate such a different approach.

Riggleman's answer fell a bit short of what I was hoping to hear.

The gist of his explanation was that the team was in the middle of a playoff race. They needed to win every game, and Wood as a strikeout pitcher tended to run up big pitch counts. The fans would go nuts every time he took Wood out of a game. And one of their weaknesses as a team was the late-inning bridge between the starter and then-closer Rod Beck.

All that is fair, as far as it goes. After all, flags fly forever. The Phillies rode Cole Hamels pretty hard last year, and it's hard to argue with it now.

Riggles was unambiguous in his philosophy at the time: "I never asked for him to come up, but once he was there we treated him like everybody else."

Looking at Wood's innings and pitch counts, that's undoubtedly true, but I expected him to say they at least tried to protect him a little.

Eventually he said, "If I had to do it over I wouldn't have pitching him that much." That's what I wanted to hear, and if he had just left it at that, I probably would have been happier.

But he went on: "[Pitchers] just get hurt. It was probably inevitable. But your conscience is more clear if you take the conservative approach."

I can understand his desire for redemption. One of the most notorious pitching injuries in recent MLB history happened on his watch. It probably cost him his job in Chicago, and I'm sure he's sick of hearing about it.

But pitcher abuse isn't just a political PR problem. You don't err on the side of caution to protect yourself from criticism as a manager. You err on the side of caution because it reduces the risk of injury.

There's a wide body of evidence that usage does matter. Big innings jumps increase risk. High pitch counts increase risk. Wood had both.

Injuries will never be totally eliminated, but when a pitcher is asked to pitch a lot--especially when asked to pitch tired--the risk level goes up. Riggleman may not want to admit it, but he screwed up.

I came away with more concern than ever before that this isn't the guy to trust with premium arms like Stephen Strasburg. I don't want a manager who will unapologetically run a young pitcher into the ground. And I don't want a manager who can experience such a monumental setback and not really reevaluate his approach.

Strasburg Roundtable

Ed at Federal Baseball organized a roundtable discussion on the Strasburg a week or so ago before the signing deadline. Though I participated, I was out to lunch and missed the actual post. So if you missed it, check it out. Part one is here, and part two is here. We had a good chat including a couple of the FB bloggers, Dave from NNN, and some non-blogging fans.

"Dubious Fielding Metrics"

In this week's chat, Tom Boswell had this to say about advanced fielding metrics while discussing Adam Dunn:

Those who think he is a terrible outfielder because of dubious fielding metrics (that, imo, are often wildly inacurate) are just wrong. Nobody gives up astronomical numbers of runs in LF -- 30-40+ runs a season. It's silly. There aren't enough at-the-margin plays out there to make that much difference. How can you possibly watch the game for years, have a sense of the range of an "average" outfielder, and think that Dunn (or anybody else) has that much negative impact?

Boz is referring to stats like Ultimate Zone Rating, Probabilistic Model of Range, John Dewan's plus/minus system, and Baseball Prospectus's Runs Above Average. I keep permanent links to most of these stats on the right hand bar of this page for reference. These stats are imperfect and have a larger margin for error than stats like OBP or SLG. But these stats have proven to have real predictive value, especially given adequate sample sizes.

Why is it so hard to believe that a left fielder can cost his team 30-40 runs? Let's look at some more familiar stats to establish a ballpark range of what's reasonable.

An outfielder can prevent runs basically three ways: range, throwing arm, and errors. Errors are the most familiar source of "lost runs," so let's start there. The left fielders league-wide in 2008 made 162 errors for an average of 5.4 per team. Detroit, the team with the most errors in LF in 2008, committed twelve. Milwaukee was the best with zero.

Tom Tango has calculated the run value of each batting event, and the average error costs .506 runs, assuming a five-run-per-game scoring environment. MLB is at just 4.64 runs per game this year, so the current run value of an error is probably closer to .475 run.

Then again, errors by left fielders tend to be more costly than errors by infielders (for obvious reasons). For instance, the run value of a double, the de facto outcome of many outfield errors, is .781 run. Let's throw a reasonable dart and call it 0.575 run per LF error. That would mean the difference between the most and fewest errors among left fielders (12 * 0.575) was worth about seven runs in 2008.

Now let's look at throwing arms. League-wide, there were 283 assists by left fielders, or 9.4 per team. The league-leader was San Francisco with 16, and the teams with the fewest were San Diego, Tampa Bay, and Pittsburgh with five.

Tango doesn't list the run value of an outfield assist, but the value of an out is .304. Outfield assists tend to be particularly valuable outs, however, so let's round up to .4. That means that the range from best to worst LF arms is about 4.5 runs.

Outfield assists are just part of the story when it comes to preventing runs with throws. Strong arms and good throws also prevent runners from even trying to advance.

The only way to track these events is to look at the play-by-play data, and The Hardball Times has done just that. By their count, almost exactly the same number of runs were prevented by holding runners as throwing them out among qualified LFs in 2008 (1510 "kills" vs. 1517 "holds"). Assuming they're right, let's double the value of LF arms to nine.

Finally, we come to range, where the biggest difference between good and bad fielders exists.

In 2008, Kansas City led baseball in LF put-outs with 368. Philly and Toronto tied for the fewest put-outs at 278. Therefore, assuming 0.575 runs per out, the gap between the best and worst teams in LF range is worth as much as 90 outs and 52 runs per season.

These rankings make sense, since David DeJesus, an excellent fielder, got the majority of the innings in LF for KC that year, while Pat Burrell and Adam Lind, neither good fielders, played the most innings for Philly and Toronto.

Of course, put-outs are also affected by the flyball rate of the pitching staff. Indeed, KC pitchers had among the higher flyball rates in the league at 38.6%. As a result, Royals outfielders saw 1573 flyballs all season, and DeJesus and the other left fielders converted 23.4% of them into outs.

Meanwhile, Toronto and Philly were towards the bottom in flyball rate at 33.5% and 33.8%, respectively. Total, Philly's OFs saw 1360 flyballs and Toronto's saw 1345. Philly LFs converted 20.4% of outfield flyballs into outs and Toronto LFs converted 20.7%.

We also know that the average team made 307 put-outs in left in 2008 in 1428 outfield flyballs with the average LF converting 21.5% into outs.

All this shows is that, yes, David DeJesus and friends got more chances than average, and Pat Burrell and Adam Lind had fewer. But even if the Phillies, Blue Jays, and Royals all had average numbers of opportunities, the Royals still would have gotten about 43 more outs from their superior range.

So let's assume then that over the course of the season, the gap from the best and worst range among left fielders is 43 outs. Further, let's assume that the run value of these additional outs is the same as an outfield error, which we pegged conservatively at .575. (This is almost surely too low, since the majority of difficult plays made in the outfield prevent extra-base hits.) That gives us a gap of about 25 range runs.

Adding together the run values of arms, range, and errors, we get a total of 41 runs. So it's certainly not, as Boz says, "silly" to think a single left fielder could cost his team 30-40 runs on defense. It seems pretty typical, in fact. And for a team like the Nationals without a single strikeout pitcher in the rotation, the stakes are even higher.

Whether Dunn is as bad as the very worst is a topic for another post. When I do my own wins above replacement projections, I try to reduce the margin for error by averaging out three years worth of fielding data from at least a couple different systems. Going into this season, using three years of UZR and Rate2, I had Dunn as a 15.71 runs below average left fielder over the course of 150 games.

Regardless, it's a mistake to just dismiss out of hand the large number of runs that a poor fielder--even a poor left fielder--can cost you. And a run allowed in the field is worth exactly the same amount on the scoreboard as a run scored with the bat.

• Update: The weekly UZR update is up at Fangraphs. With the usual caution about small sample size (UZR really isn't all that reliable on a week-by-week basis), but with a grain of salt his numbers are creeping up, as some of the commenters suggested. His UZR hasn't sunk at all from -7.5, meaning he's been average for the last week. His season-long projection (UZR/150) has risen to -28.

New Podcast Up at Natmoshere in your Ear

NFA Brian and I discuss the bumper crop of good news in NatsTown: Stephen Strasburg's contract, Mike Rizzo losing the "interim" tag, and the team's 11-6 record in August. Check out the podcast here, and while you're there, don't forget to subscribe on I-Tunes, Google, or whatever podcatcher you use.

Catching Up

While I was away, there were a few items that I missed. I lightening round format, here are my reactions to some of the events of the last two weeks.

• Jordan Zimmermann. Damn. A lot of pitchers bounce back well, but a lot never do. Bottom line, he's back to being a 50-50 proposition at best. And with guys like Josh Smoker, Jack McGeary, andRoss Detwiler disappointing to one extent or another, this really sets our young pitching back to about where the franchise was in 2004.
  
• Jason Bergmann is being used as a high-leverage set up man.
• Anderson Hernandez for Greg Veloz seems fine. We basically got a younger version of the same guy. If nothing else it opens a 40-man roster spot, and this guarantees that we won't see Hernia in the lead-off spot anymore.
• Nick Johnson is hurt. Not badly--just saying.
  
• The Chris Marrero call-up to AA is interesting. If he rakes there, he could find himself in DC as early as next season.
• Ronnie Belliard is the late innings defensive replacement at first. All the time Nick was hurt last season we had nothing close to a compentent defensive first baseman. Really, the team needs to be able to construct a roster better than that.
• Adam Dunn's cost the team 7.9 runs compared to an average first baseman in his 28 games there. Projected over the course of the season, that would wipe out nearly all the offensive value he provides, making him a very expensive, very flashy replacement-level contributor.
• Austin Kearns was claimed on waivers? And we pulled him back? I just don't believe it. Remember, Cristian Guzman was supposedly claimed too.
• Listening to and reading all the Rizzo announcement coverage, I think people are starting to go a little overboard on the Nyjer Morgan deal. I was for it, but it makes no sense to just look at what the 29-year-old Morgan and the 24-year-old Milledge are doing right now and decide we won that deal. We traded future value for current value. A few weeks later, it's looking great. I should hope so.
• Why did Kasten need to tell that story about Scott Boras cursing on the phone? Boras was all class in this situation. He gave the team access to the player when he didn't need to. And the final deal was a real bargain for the team. It's rare to make Scott Boras seem like the classy one.
• Let's imagine Jed Hoyer or Jerry Dipoto asked, "would I have complete control over baseball operations?" What would the answer have been? I don't know, but I could guess, and I wonder if Rizzo's willingness to NOT ask that question played a role in his hiring.

Baseball America Best Tools

I didn't see this on NFA or Nationals Journal, so I figured I'd pass along the Nationals listed in Baseball America's minor league best tools, a great annual feature from the house organ of baseball scouting.

BA lists the player with the best tool in each minor league class A and above. The Nationals, emblematic of their organizational talent, got a lot more mentions in the lower levels than in the upper.

Of course, this is subscription-only content, so please folks head over and subscribe so that I don't annoy our friends at BA.

International League (AAA):

• Best control: J.D. Martin
• Best defensive 2B: Seth Bynum
• Best infield arm: Ian Desmond

Eastern League (AA):

• Best infield arm: Ian Desmond

Carolina League (high A):

• Best control: Brad Meyers
• Best defensive shortstop: Danny Espinosa
• Best infield arm: Danny Espinosa

South Atlantic League (low A):

• Best hitting prospect: Derek Norris
• Best power prospect: Derek Norris

Congratulations, Mike

There will be many many days for second-guessing, nit-picking, cynical asides and GM-bashing. Today, we should all just say congratulations to Mike Rizzo for reaching the pinnacle of his profession. You've earned your shot, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Here's hoping there's never an audience for FMR.com.

Right Track / Wrong Track Poll Results... And a New Poll!

With the Nationals' record improving (and their shot at Bryce Harper slipping away), fan confidence remained over 50%. You can vote in the first post-Strasburg right track / wrong track on the right side of this page.

Are Rizzo's Days Numbered?

The report from Gordon Edes at Yahoo Sports, so far confirmed by no one, is that Mike Rizzo is about to be fired and replaced by Arizona Director of Player Personnel Jerry DiPoto.

I'm a fan of Mike Rizzo, but I'm not so wild about him that I can't imagine anyone better. The issue isn't whether Rizzo "deserves" to be fired. We're not talking about a greeter at Wal-Mart. There are exactly 30 MLB GM jobs, and if the Nationals' brass is convinced that he's one of the best 30 GMs on the planet, he should be out.

Rizzo has a lengthy body of work going back more than a decade to his time in Arizona. He had some tremendous drafts, but at least some of that was classic "checkbook scouting," getting the best players because his owner gave him the resources to do so (Justin Upton, Stephen Drew). Still, he found Brandon Webb, Mark Reynolds, Carlos Quentin, and others and built a team that nearly made the World Series almost totally on the strength of his drafts.

Rizzo apparently shined in the Strasburg negotiations, doing his part to make a great deal for the team. He attacked problems like the bullpen and defense and made the team better. He's shown a willingness to adjust, for instance correcting an excessive bias against flyball pitchers (passing over Tyler Clippard and Jason Bergmann for Kip Wells, for instance). He made the deals that had to be made at the deadline, getting something for Nick Johnson and Joe Beimel.

I've nitpicked some things, like sending useful Ryan Langerhans to Seattle and his over-emphasis on "clubhouse guys." He's not an effective media spokesperson (if you care about that sort of thing).

My biggest disappointment is that Rizzo hasn't committed to a rebuild. By not trading Josh Willingham or Adam Dunn, indeed apparently committing to them as the core that will return us to the 73-win heights of 2007, he's either massively over-evaluating his own talent (which I dooubt) or setting his goals way, way too low.

All that said, if Rizzo isn't given the permanent job, he's been treated pretty badly by the Nationals. He came to DC as the presumptive Bowden replacement-in-waiting. He didn't go shopping for the jobs that came open in the meantime. He certainly hasn't had a fair chance to show what he can do to build a team, taking over the Nationals too late in the off-season to really execute a plan.

And now, like Manny Acta, Rizzo is being left to twist in the wind week after week until finally leaks from within the organization tell us the writing is on the wall.

Maybe Edes's article is hogwash. But probably it isn't. Most likely at least two people with the Nationals talked to him. Or DiPoto talked, which would be idiotic.

Bottom line, the team needs to stop dithering and make a hire. And now is a good time to do it, as the draft signing deadline is really the time when teams out of contention turn the page on the current season and begin focusing primarily on the off-season and 2010.

Congratulations to Strasburg and the Nationals

Quick reaction is that the team got a steal, but at the same time Strasburg would have been crazy to turn it down.

There's no cheaper source of premium talent than the draft. Even if he gets hurt tomorrow, this was a tremendous bargain to bring in a talent of this caliber. The Nationals seem to have driven a hard bargain, and they probably saved money today by walking away from Aaron Crow a year ago.

From Strasburg's perspective, his stock will never be higher. Fifteen million is plenty to make a young man smile. It's not close to the market value of his talent, but again, if he gets hurt tomorrow he will have cashed in on his talent handsomely.

Congratulations to everyone involved.

Keep your Eye on the Ball

It's 7:47 in Alaska, and I just came out from three days in the backcountry in the Yukon to see that I've missed... nothing.

The clock is ticking towards Strasburgeddon. Who knows at this point what will happen. But let me say this. No matter what happens, the story will be that the Lerners either grabbed or missed the best opportunity they've had since they bought the Nationals to improve the team.

The story isn't Boras. It isn't that the draft is broken. If you, like me, are a Nationals fan, the only thing that matters is whether the team gets better tonight or not.

For the next now nine minutes, I'm clicking refresh, praying they do.

Maybe it's my Fault??

I've been in and out of the backcountry in amazing southeast Alaska for the last few days and haven't watched a Nationals game in a week or so. I'm barely able to check in, as even Internet access is a dicey proposition where I am.

So how amazed am I to click in and see that since I got on the plane at BWI last Saturday for the first leg of my trip that they haven't lost a game.

I obviously have few insights, but consider: the Scats have won seven in a row. The Pirates have lost seven in a row and the Royals have won just three of ten. And still, they are four and a half behind the next worst team in the league.

Second Basement

Last year, the Nationals left fielders combined for an overall level of production so far below the league average that it crippled their offense all year. With "contributions" from the likes of Wily Mo Pena, Felipe Lopez, Paul Lo Duca, and Kory Casto, the left field became a vortex of awfulness into which wins disappeared.

This year, the second basemen are dragging down the team in a similar fashion.

Together, the Nationals second basemen have posted a line of .228 AVG / .297 OBP / .298 SLG in 450 plate appearances.

By player, it breaks down like this:

• Alberto Gonzalez: 71 PA, .266 / .324 / .375
• Anderson Hernandez: 216 PA, .250 / .312 / .310
• Willie Harris: 29 PA, .207 / .343 / .241
• Ron Belliard: 101 PA .163 / .230 / .239
• Alex Cintron: 2 PA .000 / .000 / .000

Consider, the National League average for second basemen is .266 / .335 / .408. In all of MLB, only San Francisco is close to as bad at .232 / .285 / .328, and they of course just traded for Freddy Sanchez to upgrade.

To get a rough estimate of how much the Scats' keystone cops are costing the team in wins, we can use the very most simple formula for runs created: OBP x SLG x PA. (There are lots of much more precise calculations, factoring in base-running and all sorts of other metrics, but this is good enough to get us in the ballpark.)

This calculation gives us a total of 39.8 RC total for the season to date. If the Nationals were getting just league-average offense, they would have produced 65.1 runs to date, a difference of 25.3 runs.

Since every 10.1 or so in run differential is typically worth another win, that means the Nationals are 2.5 wins below average at second, with one-third of the season remaining.

Ultimate Zone Rating says the Nationals second basemen have been just about average overall fielding, so it could be worse.

Regardless it's terrible. And in case the comparison to an "average" second baseman doesn't hurt enough, try this. Former National Maicer Izturis, traded with Juan Rivera for Jose Guillen, is hitting .302 / .349 / .431 and playing a +7.7 runs above average defense, all while making just $1.6 million.

Give Izturis those 450 PA, and you get 68 runs of offense. Add his glove, and you're about 33 runs ahead. That's three wins in 107 games, a huge difference.

Post-Trade Deadline Podcast

The latest podcast is up over at Natmosphere in your Ear. You can get Brian's take on the prospects we got for Nick Johnson and Joe Beimel and listen to me complain a little more about how Josh Willingham wasn't traded.

Again, first prize for whoever can explain the significance of the picture.

Jhonny Nunez Gets the Call

The White Sox, in the AL Central race and in need of bullpen help, have called up Jhonny Nunez, the live-armed relief prospect the Nationals traded to the Yankees for Alberto Gonzalez last year. Nunez subsequently was part of the package New York sent to Chicago for Nick Swisher.

Nunez, 23, had a 2.45 ERA in 33 appearance at AA and AAA. More impressive are his strikeout rates, 11.07 per 9 in AA and 7.30 in AAA.

It'll be interesting to see how Nunez fares going forward.

The Johnson and Beimel Deals

Yesterday, the Nationals made two moves, and they were moves that as OMG said they absolutely had to make.

Nick Johnson and Joe Beimel are free agents at the end of this season. They’re both likely gone, although the Nationals could theoretically bring either back for 2010 if they want, like they did with Mike Stanton a few years back. (And in fact I wouldn't mind seeing them bring back Nick.)

Nick has been worth 1.2 wins over replacement so far this year. Beimel's been worth 0.2 WAR. So that's 1.4 wins in two-thirds of a season. Assuming the same rate of production over the last one-third of the season, we essentially gave up seven-tenths of a win over replacement. And since Nick’s playing time is likely going to Elijah Dukes, we’re going to get better than replacement.

We gave up two players for 57 meaningless games and maybe a fraction of a win for a terrible team. The only way what we gave up could be meaningful is if Nick and Joe pushed us ahead of San Diego and Kansas City in the Bryce Harper Sweepstakes.

Although these guys have little value to the Scats, they have some value to contenders. That's the beauty of deadline deals. You can take present value and turn it into future value, and if you're a team with no present that's hoping to have a future, that's a pretty easy trade-off.

So what did we get in return?

For Beimel, we got Robinson Fabian, a 23-year-old still in A ball. You’ll probably never hear from him again. But we also got Ryan Mattheus. Mattheus is the value. A 25-year-old right-handed relief pitcher, he’s a classic Rizzo control groundballer. He features a sinker, four-seam fastball that can touch the mid-90s, and a good slider--sort of a Luis Ayala repertoire.

The problem is that he’s not young--he's 25. And like most minor league relievers has very limited upside. Still, he was the #19 BA prospect going into the season after whiffing nearly a batter per inning in AA in 2008. This year, he had a 3.81 ERA with 27 Ks and 11 BBs in 26 innings and figured to get a look in the big leagues at some point.

Then, the elbow gave out, and Tommy John surgery followed. He’ll be out till 2011 at least, and it’s a crap shoot what he’ll be when he’s back. Some TJ survivors, like Josh Johnson come back as good or better than ever. Others, like J.D. Martin, are never close to the same guy. I’d be delighted if he became Saul Rivera or Jason Bergmann, but odds are he won’t. Fans may have expected more, but for 20 or so innings of Joe Beimel they shouldn’t have.

The Nick Johnson deal brought back lefty Aaron Thompson, BA’s #13 prospect and a C+ prospect on the John Sickels scale at the start of the season. Thompson is a former #1 draft pick, and though he hasn’t been the guy Florida had hoped for, he’s progressed and remains a legit prospect.

Thompson features a good change, a fastball that sits at 88-91, and a curve. His strikeouts and walks both regressed pretty badly in his first tour through AA last year, with his K:BB rate falling from 2.40 to 1.33. This year, back in AA, his command has improved, though he's still striking out fewer than six per nine. It's clear what Rizzo likes: the groundball rate is a healthy 49.2%.

Thompson gets thrown into the pool with the Balesters and Martises of the world, competing for a back-end starting role for a future Nationals team. It’s sound practice to stockpile arms like this, because with enough of them one or two might break out.

I’ll also say that I like this deal better than, for instance, the Manny Delcarmen rumor that went around in May. If Thompson can become even a #5 starter, going 140 innings with an ERA under 4.50, he’ll be worth more than any middle reliever.

Again, fans seem to have expected more, but they shouldn’t have.

Bottom line, it would have been criminal not to move these two players, and the Nationals got it done. That’s good. I certainly would have liked to see the team make a more aggressive effort to move veterans (especially Willingham), but had they not traded Johnson and Beimel we’d be in serious head-slapping territory.

One other note on the Johnson deal is that the Lerners signed off on us picking up the remainder of his 2009 salary. That’s the only way that a deal with the Marlins was going to get done, and it’s good to see the team giving Rizzo the resources in this case to get the most value possible for Nick.