PECOTA or Peyote?

What are these guys smoking? Eighty-two wins for our Scats? Clearly, Clay Davenport's abacus is broken. It's almost 1 am, and I'm fading, but I gotta look closer at this in the am and figure out what they could possibly be expecting.

Update: Looking closer at the PECOTA projections, there are a few things that are so far off the mark that I really am expecting them to post a set of corrections, which they do every year when they first put out PECOTA anyway.

First, my wins above replacement projection have the Nationals at a 74-win team. But you have to think of that like a bell-curve of likely outcomes with 74-wins at the top. There's probably a 2-3% chance that randomness and luck would allow a team with 74-win ability to win 82. But then again there's an equal chance that such a team would win 66.

Nevermind that part. The key question here is what's the most likely outcome, assuming no changes to the current roster. There's just no way one can defend the idea that this team has 82-win ability.

Why? Same as last year: pitching and defense. They're projecting 23 starts and a 4.03 ERA for J.D. Martin. Eighteen starts each for Garrett Mock and Scott Olsen with a 4.28 and 4.37 ERA, respectively. They have what can only be considered best case scenarios for Lannan, Marquis, Capps, and Bruney. Not all those things will work out, and all the plan Bs are 100-loss caliber players.

The hitting might be good enough to win 82 games, although it wasn't last year, when they scored an average of 4.38 runs per game, compared to an NL average of 4.43. Will it be better? Maybe, but I think most people are expecting too much of Nyjer Morgan, Ryan Zimmerman, Josh Willingham, Jesus Flores, and Ian Desmond.

I think Ryan Zimmerman is smart to express confidence that the team won't lose 100. They could even win 70 or 75. That's not crazy to root for. But there's no chance 82 wins is the mid-point projection for this team. None.

Tyler Walker for Closer!

OK that's a provocative title intended to get your attention. But the reality is that Walker isn't really any worse than Capps--and that's not an endorsement of Walker. It's just that folks in NatsTown are vastly overrating Capps (and don't even get me started on Brian Bruney).

To the numbers. There are a lot of fancy pitching stats out there, but the three most important pitcher stats when measuring repeatable skill are strikeout rate, walk rate, and groundball rate. If you can miss bats, keep the ball on the ground, avoid walks, or better yet all three, you're going to be ok.

Here's how Walker and Capps measure up:

Groundball rate (MLB avg: 42%)
Walker '09: 37.6%
Capps '09: 40.7%
Walker career: 40.7%
Capps career: 36.0%

Walk rate (MLB avg: 9%)
Walker '09: 6.0%
Walker career: 8.9%
Capps '09: 6.8%
Capps career: 4.5%

Strikeout rate (MLB avg: 18%)
Walker '09: 18.0%
Walker career: 18.7%
Capps '09: 18.3%
Capps career: 18.6%

So what does this show us? These guys are both flyball pitchers who get average numbers of strikeouts. Right there, that's a bad combination (lots of balls in play + lots of them in the air = lots of homers). Neither of these guys is a true ace reliever.

The place where Capps may separate himself if he's pitching well is in the walks. When he's on, he's got exceptional control, though, importantly, that was not so much the case in 2009.

The other key for a closer though is how well they pitch under pressure. Both pitchers have a lot of experience in high-leverage situations, and neither has done very well.

Career, Capps has allowed a .232 / .260 / .380 batter line in low-leverage situations, but a .274 / .311 / .458 line in high-leverage situations. Walker meanwhile has allowed a line in .252 / .311 / .409 line low-leverage situations, but a .280 / .361 / .461 line in high-leverage situations.

Again, bottom line, neither of these guys is a closer. But if you aren't excited at the prospect of Tyler Walker closing out games, you shouldn't feel any better about Matt Capps.

Bookmark for the Season

I know a lot of you are feeling really good about how this off-season is going, but this would be a good site to bookmark for when they actually start playing games again.

Time to Make Stuff Up!

Since Bill Ladson keeps writing about the Nationals' "interest" in players based apparently on nothing but his imagination, I thought I'd share what the little birdies in my head are saying to me. My gut says the Nationals are going to sign Johnny Damon. I don't think they should, but it's feeling like it'll happen.

I keep hearing talk about trading Josh Willingham, but if the team was going to do that, they would have done it last July when he was in the top 5 in OPS in the NL and splitting time with three other starting corner outfielders and first basemen. No, I think Elijah Dukes, the most obvious remaining Bowden-holdover who doesn't fit the Rizzo mold of "good clubhouse guys," will either be moved down the depth chart or sent packing.

Damon will get a two-year deal worth somewhere around $13-15 million. And the team will have yet another "winner" Tom Boswell has heard of. Keep your eye on the transaction wire and see if I'm any better at making stuff up than Ladson.

Mike Jacobs

I guess MLB.com is trying to increase the number of hits. But to put the headline "Nats interested in free agent Jacobs" on this interview is as absurd as the idea that a naked man with a pick-up truck would destroy the results of two consecutive national elections in America. Well, chances are Scott Brown will be a better senator than Mike Jacobs is a baseball player. (That means, don't sign that bum Mike.)

No Comment (in itself a comment)

I thought about ripping the Nationals over the Aroldis Chapman non-signing. But I'm deciding to give them the benefit of the doubt. I would have loved to see the Nationals make a splash in international free agency, but Rizzo's argument seems reasonable: "At a certain price point, the risk-reward wasn't worth it," Rizzo said. "We went up to a price point I was comfortable with, and at the end of the day we fell a bit short."

Rating the Managers by Intentional Walks

The intentional walk is one of the more more overused moves in MLB. The goal of this post is to identify which managers most frequently overuse the free pass. (I did a similar post last season that you can view by clicking here.)

The reason why IBBs are usually a bad idea is because putting a runner on increases the opposing team's chances of scoring in every base-out combination possible. Of course, despite that, intentional walks can still help a team's chances of winning in specific, strategic situations, like late in close games, two outs, a star hitter at the plate, and a much less dangerous hitter on deck. But you have to be judicious, and most managers are not.

In Chapter 10 of The Book, Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andy Dolphin analyze when issuing a free pass does and doesn't increase a team's odds of victory and provide a very helpful table listing all the different base-out-score situations when an IBB might be beneficial, depending on the relative strength of the hitters due up.

Determining the relative strength of the hitter at the plate and those due up is more than a bit subjective, including the hitter-pitcher match-up, the health and recent performance of the hitter, and a host of other factors. So I'm (very generously) giving managers the benefit of the doubt there. Instead, I'm just pulling together all the instances in which a free pass was issued in which there's no statistical chance that the walk improved the pitching team's odds of winning.

Here's the list of managers in 2009, ranked in order from most to least frequent "bad" intentional walks (noted as "BIBBs" in the chart):

Manager	Team	League	IBBs	BIBBs	BIBBs/G
Washington	TEX	AL	14	2	0.012
Maddon	TBR	AL	22	2	0.012
Geren	OAK	AL	30	3	0.019
Gardenhire	MIN	AL	20	3	0.019
Wakamatsu	SEA	AL	13	3	0.019
LaRussa	STL	NL	23	3	0.019
Acta	WAS	NL	26	2	0.023
Girardi	NYY	AL	28	4	0.025
Hillman	KCR	AL	28	4	0.025
Gaston	TOR	AL	26	4	0.025
Russell	PIT	NL	37	5	0.031
Hinch	ARI	NL	24	5	0.034
C. Manuel	PHI	NL	31	6	0.037
Wedge	CLE	AL	31	6	0.037
Francona	BOS	AL	24	6	0.037
Baker	CIN	NL	36	7	0.043
Leyland	DET	AL	42	8	0.049
Scioscia	LAA	AL	35	8	0.049
Trembley	BAL	AL	45	9	0.056
Guillen	CHW	AL	41	9	0.056
J. Manuel	NYM	NL	60	9	0.056
Cooper	HOU	NL	56	10	0.062
Piniella	CHC	NL	46	10	0.062
Hurdle	COL	NL	11	3	0.065
Melvin	ARI	NL	3	2	0.069
Cox	ATL	NL	59	12	0.074
Black	SDP	NL	58	12	0.074
Bochy	SFG	NL	49	13	0.080
Gonzalez	FLA	NL	60	14	0.086
Torre	LAD	NL	68	17	0.105
Tracy	COL	NL	40	13	0.112
Riggleman	WAS	NL	33	9	0.120
Macha	MIL	NL	60	23	0.142

Since my teachers taught me to show my work, you can look at all 1179 walks here.

A few observations here:

• As he did throughout his tenure, Manny Acta did a better job than most avoiding bad IBBs. Like him or hate him, this is a part of the game that Manny understood well.
• Riggleman, on the other hand, was quite generous when it came to giving away bases. Three times he ordered an intentional walk with no outs and a tie score or down by one. Probably his worst free pass of the season came on September 22, when he ordered Livan Hernandez to walk the season-long-slumping Russell Martin (.256 / .354 / .333) with no outs, runners on second and third, and the score tied 2-2 in the top of the fourth with Hiroki Kuroda, Rafael Furcal, Andre Ethier, and Manny Ramirez due up. The Dodgers would eventually score seven runs in the inning and win the game 14-2.
• Jim Leyland was second in all of baseball last year with 17 "bad IBBs." This year, he cut that number in half, but the difference between his eight bad walks and Gardy's three could very well have been the difference in the division.
  
• The Brewers' Ken Macha ran away from the field issuing by far the most "bad" IBBs in baseball. Some of his gaffes were real head-slappers. On June 16, Macha walked Travis Hafner in the bottom of the seventh with one out and a runner on second and his team ahead by a run--the team survived that one, but they were less lucky on August 11. On that day, facing the Padres and down 2-4 in the top of the sixth with runners on second and third and no one out, Macha walked light-hitting but fast Everth Cabrera with David Eckstein, Adrian Gonzalez (!), and Chase Headley due up; eventually six runs would score in the inning, blowing the game wide open. Two days later, with one out and runners on second and third in the top of the second inning of a tie game, Macha intentionally walked the apparently terrifying Cabrera again, this time to face the pitcher and then the top of the order. Other terrible hitters Macha chose to put on base included Ramon Vazquez, Joe Thurston, and Matt Tolbert.
  
• Worst intentional walk of the year goes to Bud Black. On June 7th, in the top of the 17th inning, score tied 6-6 and no one on, Black had Chad Gaudin intentionally walk Josh Whitesell, who at the time was hitting .150 / .292 / .250. Arizona Pitcher Leo Rosales was due up next and grounded out to short, but in the next inning, Black, out of pitchers, brought in former Nationals shortstop Josh Wilson to pitch. Wilson got two outs, which, if he had been able to pitch to Rosales, probably would have gotten him out of the inning. But the fifth batter Wilson faced, Mark Reynolds, took him deep to win the game. Black basically chose to have Gaudin walk Whitesell in order to have a position player pitch to one of the most dangerous home run hitters in the game. He should have been fired on the spot.
  

Everyone Wants to Close... So Let's Have Everyone Close!

The last week or so we've heard about how Matt Capps, Brian Bruney, and even Once-a-Week Eddie all want to be the Nationals' closer. So what do we do with this bounty of unqualified aspirants? I say, let them all close. Yes, I said it. Go for the dreaded "closer-by-committee."

Before we go on, let's be clear. None of these guys should be counted on to perform in high-leverage situations.

First, Capps, who I think many fans are wrongly thinking is a bounce-back all-star ready to happen. But there's a reason no one else wanted him to close (including the Pirates). As I mentioned before, he's been pounded by lefties, but I probably understated the case. Last year, lefties hit .342 / .373 / .641 off of him. No, that's not a typo. There have only been 118 seasons in all of MLB history in which hitters slugged .641 or better. Yeah, sample size, bad luck with BABIP, all that, but that's godawful however you slice it.

The main problem is that he's become essentially a two-pitch pitcher--four-seam fastball and a slider. He also throws a change, but it's only about five miles per hour slower than his fastball, and that's not enough to fool anyone. Sliders don't work against opposite-handed hitters, and his fastball doesn't have enough velocity or movement to overpower guys. So lefties work the count, lay off the sliders in the dirt (or hit them if they're in the zone), and wait for a belt-high fastball when Capps needs a get-me-over pitch. At his worst, think latter-day Luis Ayala.

There are also real questions about his make-up. People in Pittsburgh say he went into a year-long pout when the team didn't offer him a long-term deal last year. And throughout his career he's struggled in higher pressure situations. In mop-up situations, he's given up a .260 OBP and .380 SLG. In high-pressure situations, those numbers jump to .311 and .458. Last year, in high-leverage situations he gave up a .377 OBP and .594 SLG. Just 'cuz he's built like a linebacker doesn't mean he's "fearless."

Bottom line, if Capps is handed the ninth inning, get ready for lots of this.

Brian Bruney throws pretty hard, but his command is Cabrera-esque--he's walked 15.4% of hitters faced over his career, while Cabrera's walked "just" 12.9%. Even last year, D-Cab's worst, he walked "only" 16.3%--more than Bruney, but not much more. He'll have his moments, but overall, think Joel Hanrahan.

And Guardado's just old and tired. He hasn't averaged more than an inning per appearance since 2005, and he threw just 38.1 innings last year. That, and he can't miss bats anymore and gives up too many homers. He's kind of like a left-handed Livan Hernandez with a burned out arm.

For the Nationals, you have you have two guys in Matt Capps and Jason Bergmann who are reasonably effective against righties, and Sean Burnett and Tyler Clippard who are pretty good against lefties. Bruney's also better against righties, but frankly I'd want to see him hit the strike-zone with some regularity before letting him do anything but mop up.

Especially given that the Nationals aren't going have very many late leads to protect anyway, why not plan on using all four of these guys to get through the eighth and ninth innings and play match-ups? If Werth, Ibanez, Feliz, and Ruiz are due up in the eighth, use Capps there, and let Burnett pitch to Howard and Utley in the ninth. If this is the group we bring to opening day, I certainly think that's the best bet.

I still would like to see them bring in a couple more arms, maybe bring back Joe Beimel and also add a guy like Joe Nelson or even let's say Tim Redding as a reliever. (I kind of like that idea, come to think of it.) I also think it might make sense to carry a 13th pitcher at times, taking advantage of the flexibility that Willie Harris and Eric Bruntlett provide.

Regardless, barring the emergence of Juan Jaime, Marco Estrada, and Victor Garate as the second coming of Gary Majewski, Saul Rivera, and Jon Rauch, the Nationals' bullpen will still would be among if not the worst in the National League, and Riggleman will need to think outside the box to get by.

Projected 2010 Wins Above Replacement

As I did last off-season, I will begin tracking the Nationals' projected wins above replacement (WAR) as the roster evolves.

I'm using Tom Tango's calculations for WAR, Bill James's projections for hitting, and CHONE for pitchers. Why these projections? Because I like them (and they're free and handy). The playing time projections are my own. For fielding, I used each player's UZR runs above average for the last three seasons, regressed to the mean.

A replacement level team would win about 47 games, so by adding the individual WAR of each player, I project the current team would win about 74 games.

For comparison, the Nationals were a 66-win team last season based on run-differential, so my projection says they're about eight wins better than that. You shouldn't compare the 74 wins to the team's actual win total of 59, since WAR projects wins based on pure run differential--the bad luck, lack of clutchness, bad managing, or whatever it was that accounted for the seven game gap in the Nationals' 2009 actual win total and Pythagorean win total will not be captured here.

Most of that is improvement in the bullpen, less because the new guys are so good, but because last year's group was so bad that it's statistically unlikely that any group of major league pitchers will repeat that performance.

Here are the detailed individual projections:

Position players

		PT	wOBA*	FRAA**	WAR
C	Jesus Flores	60%	.323	0	1.66
C	Ivan Rodriguez	40%	.304	0	0.65
1B	Adam Dunn	65%	.391	-8.43	2.30
1B	Mike Morse	35%	.342	0.34	0.51
2B	Cristian Guzman	50%	.305	0	0.34
2B	Willie Harris	50%	.318	-1.06	0.68
SS	Ian Desmond	65%	.341	-4.51	1.89
SS	Cristian Guzman	35%	.305	-1.95	0.35
3B	Ryan Zimmerman	85%	.374	10.09	4.96
3B	Willie Harris	15%	.318	0.52	0.23
RF	Elijah Dukes	80%	.348	1.15	1.91
RF	Mike Morse	20%	.342	-0.29	0.38
CF	Nyjer Morgan	85%	.327	8.48	2.42
CF	Willie Harris	15%	.318	-0.56	0.21
LF	Josh Willingham	80%	.361	-6	2.77
LF	Adam Dunn	20%	.391	-10.79	0.76

Pitchers

		IP	ERA	WAR
SP	Jason Marquis	200	4.60	1.98
SP	John Lannan	180	4.53	1.92
SP	Craig Stammen	130	5.00	0.72
SP	Garrett Mock	130	4.47	1.47
SP	Ross Detwiler	130	4.71	1.13
SP	J.D. Martin	100	4.54	1.06
SP	Scott Olsen	90	5.18	0.32
RP	Matt Capps	70	3.63	0.67
RP	Brian Bruney	65	3.92	0.41
RP	Sean Burnett	65	4.18	0.23
RP	Jason Bergmann	65	4.17	0.24
RP	Tyler Clippard	65	3.88	0.44
RP	Collin Balester	50	4.99	-0.27
RP	Eddie Guardado	40	4.26	0.11
RP	Victor Garate	40	4.85	-0.15
RP	Drew Storen	20	5.88	-0.30

*If you're not familiar with wOBA, it's a composite offensive value metric similar to eQA. That doesn't help you? Sorry. Here's how to think about it: wOBA adds together all a players offensive contributions and then translates it to a 0-1.000 scale weighted like OBP. So about .330 is average, .365 or above is good, and .300 or below is bad. If you scan the Nationals team page on Fangraphs you can get a pretty good feel for what the scale is like or read more here.

**FRAA=Fielding Runs Above Replacement. There's actually a Baseball Prospectus stat called this, but since I like to be confusing, that's not what this is. As explained above, this is my own calculation of the three-year average of the player's UZR runs above average, regressed to the mean to correct for statistical noise.