Desmond Downer

Congratulations on the birth of your son, Ian. Hope you have enough joy to carry you through the long bus rides up in Syracuse.

As I've written before, Desmond's 2010 was really disappointing from a developmental perspective. He was every bit as error-prone as he'd been in the minors, and his strikeout rate rose while his walk rate fell, compared to his 21-game audition in 2009.

This year, he's gotten worse. Much worse, actually, putting up a blech .205 / .253 / .333 line while committing 7 (!) errors already, tied for the most in baseball with Starlin Castro, who is hitting .357 / .382 / .480, thank you very much.

It's not hard to see what pitchers are doing to him. In that white-hot September 2009, he saw 77.1% fastballs. Then last year he saw just 56.8% fastballs, a really low number. This year, pitchers have continued to feed him a diet of breaking pitches and off-speed stuff, and he hasn't been able to adjust and show he can hit or lay off enough of them to make the pitchers pay.

While he's not walking much--just 6.0% of the time this year, which is actually an improvement from the awful 4.9% walk rate last year--he's taking a lot of pitches. He's swinging at just 44.4% of the pitches he sees, and 59.5% in the zone, making him one of the more passive hitters in the game against pitches in the zone. He's also swinging at just 22% of first pitches, down from 32% last year and 29% in 2009. All this adds up to a lot of pitchers' counts. He's seen just three 3-1 counts, five 2-0 counts, and one 3-0 count all year. And it means he's not getting a lot of pitches to hit.

Maybe it'll help him to get out of the leadoff spot. If that caused him to change his approach, when he was already struggling, then that probably wasn't helpful.

But I don't think the problem is his spot in the batting order. I think Desmond just hasn't taken the developmental steps needed to show he can be a starting major league shortstop. And with the errors continuing to pile up, he's just not doing enough to justify letting him work out the kinks in the majors. I'm not saying they should give up on him forever. But he should be in the minors now.

Of course they don't have anyone else to play the position. I guess their best option would be to slid Espinosa over and play Cora or Hairston every day at second. But that shouldn't be a reason to keep Ian in DC.

Oh well, look on the bright side, Ian. You won't have too much trouble getting playing time from this guy.

Home Run Kazoo!

Who knew that the U.S. Navy, with that enormously bloated Pentagon budget, could only afford a cheap disposable party favor as a signal for their submarines?

OK, you didn't think there was any chance that the reax from the Natmosphere would be anything but snark when Dan Steinberg posted the news that the team was saving a couple thousand dollars a year by dumping the fireworks home run celebration and switching to a pre-recorded submarine horn sound effect.

Actually, I do kind of like the effort to come up with something distinctive. My biggest complaint about the fan experience at Nationals Park when it opened is how generic it felt. Everything is nice, but it felt like an MLB stadium first and a Nationals stadium second. Yeah, you had the racing Presidents, but you also had Sweet Caroline and at least as many monuments to New York Yankees as Washington sports figures.

Still, the sub horn sounds like a one of those party blow-out horns. Click over to The Bog to hear it. Then compare to the NHL goal horns compiled by The Awl. Here's the Red Wings horn:



Now if a submarine made that sound, I'd get my butt out of the way.

Slow Starts for Nationals Prospects

The Nationals are still a long way from having enough talent to field a contender. So fans hoping for more than an early season flirtation with mediocrity spend a lot of time checking MiLB box scores. A week or so into the minor league season, an awful lot of Nationals prospects not named Harper are off to a slow start.

Here are the minor league stat lines of the position players in Baseball America's top 30:

Bryce Harper (Class A Hagerstown): .306 / .414 / .551
Barring injury, Harper will be a stud. The question for the organization is whether there will be any other good players on the team, or will Harper and Strasburg be the only good players on the team, like Zack Greinke with the 2008 Royals or Adrian Gonzalez on the 2009 Padres.

Derek Norris (AA Harrisburg): .133 / .263 / .200
Norris was hurt a bunch in 2010 but looked healthy and played well against top competition in the Arizona Fall League. The promotion to Double A is a big test for Norris, and it's not shocking or fatal that he's struggled so much out of the gate. But if he doesn't make adjustments and start performing well soon, that would be worrisome--especially since he's the only position player in the organization other than Harper with anything close to all-star potential.

Eury Perez (A+ Potomac): .222 / .263 / .222

The Nationals hope Perez can be a speedy, plus defender and their long-term answer in center field someday. He had something of a breakout in low-A Hagerstown last year, putting up a .345 OBP at age 20. Like Norris, he has time to make adjustments.

Chris Marrero (AAA Syracuse) .250 / .333 / .404
Another year, another level, same story. Marrero isn't completely failing, but he isn't showing enough offense to profile as a major league regular at first base.

Destin Hood (Potomac): .316 / .480 / .447
At last, some good news! Twelve walks in 50 PAs! OK, 12 strikeouts too, but it's good to see continued development from a player who took some big steps last season. Could this finally be the toolsy outfielder JimBo whiffed on ever since Ron Gant?

Steve Lombardozzi (Harrisburg): .235 / .291 / .392
Lombardozzi played in 27 games at Harrisburg last season and put up a .295 / .373 / .524 line. I don't think the team expected him to maintain that pace, but you don't want to see big steps back either.

Rick Hague (Potomac): .357 / .438 / .714
Hague is the college shortstop the Nationals took in the third round last year, though he won't stick there long term, so his bat needs to develop for him to make it at third base. He's only played four games so far, and he ought to do well against this level of competition. One problem is that he made 20 errors in 38 games last year, and he already has 2 this year.

Adrian Sanchez (Hagerstown): .240 / .333 / .260
Sanchez is a glove-first shortstop returning to the level he finished at last season, and like Lombardozzi isn't doing as well the second time around. But Sanchez is only 20. He's got plenty of time.

Jeff Kobernus (Potomac): .255 / .283 / .392

Kobernus was a second round pick in 2009 but hasn't been able to stay healthy enough to do much. Apparently he's healthy this year, but two walks in 54 PAs isn't what the team is looking for, especially against mostly younger competition.

Jason Martinson (Hagerstown): .225 / .436 / .325
This is a promising start for Martinson, a college shortstop drafted in the fifth round last year. He's drawing almost a walk per game. It would be great to see him advance to Potomac this year.

Tyler Moore (Harrisburg): .218 / .232 / .291

Moore bashed against younger competition last year in Potomac, but he's getting blown away by the jump to AA this year. A 16:1 K:BB ratio would be great if he was a pitcher. Maybe the whole H-Burg crew just ran into a run of great pitching. We'll see.

J.P. Ramirez (Potomac): .196 / .212 / .333

Ramirez is the guy the Nationals paid over slot to sign with the money "left over" from the failure to sign Aaron Crow. Ten Ks and one walk for the guy who was supposed to be one of the best pure hitters in the 2008 draft? Color me skeptical.

Jim Riggleman: The King of April

Watching the Nationals zoom past .500 the last couple days, it's hard not to have a sense of deja vu. Last year, the Nationals were 13-10 in April and still at .500 when the calendar turned to June. If you were lucky, you scheduled a six-month around-the-world vacation starting in June and missed the rest.

It was a nice change of pace. During the Manny Acta era, the team was perpetually doomed by disastrous Aprils, and all things equal, it's a lot more fun for fans to experience some winning early, give people some reason to hope, and then go in the tank later, rather than squash all hopes with a losing streak right out of the gate.

But it makes you wonder if maybe it's not a coincidence. And should we be giving Jim credit for the fast starts, or is he doing something early in the season that hurts his team in the long run?

I took a look at Jim's record in Chicago, and indeed his last season there the Cubs started 27-20 and went 40-75 the rest of the way to finish 67-95. The pattern appears to end there, however.

Personally, I'm still skeptical that the manager make more than a few wins difference one way or another for 90% of teams. If a manager completely loses the respect of his players, you can see things go completely over the edge. But for the vast majority of managers the best they can do most of the time is stay out of the way.

The possible issue I'm watching is the bullpen usage. He's got a very quick hook with his starters, and he's leaned heavily on Drew Storen (11.2 IP) and Tyler Clippard (12.1 IP) especially. Both are among the league leaders in innings pitched by a reliever this year, and both have been excellent.

But last year Clippard was great early on as well, posting a 0.50 ERA in April and 3.24 and 3.14 in May and June, respectively. Then, in July, his ERA ballooned to 7.90 before settling down for the final two months. Was fatigue a factor, or was it sample-size randomness?

We don't have enough information to say one way or another, but it's one of the key questions that will determine whether 2011 is merely a replay of 2010 or if the Nationals have some season-long staying power.

Is Ron Roenicke a Moron?

That's what Bob and F.P. would have us believe, the way they went on and on about Ron Roenicke's aggressive infield shifting against the Nationals Friday. (Though before I go on with this, lemme credit the MASN team for doing a good job showing us all the defensive shifting with every hitter. The camera work was great.)

I'm not sure whether Roenicke's approach is a good idea or not, but if it's a bad idea, it's not for the reason F.P. gave--that this isn't how it's been done for 100 years, ergo it must be wrong.

Here are a couple facts Bob and F.P. either don't know or ignored. First, the Brewers are second in the NL in ERA. That's with Zack Greinke on the DL and a back-end of the rotation that no one wil confuse with the Phillies. And as Bob himself noted, no team in baseball has improved their team ERA from last year to this year more than the Brewers have.

Now, it's too early in the season to read too much into those numbers, though it's more valid than Bob and F.P. junking the idea based on a 1 AB sample--Mike Morse's lucky hit against the shift in the second inning. But at the very least we can say that so far Roenicke's strategy hasn't killed his team yet.

Here's the more important thing to keep in mind. The Brewers have a horrible fielding infield, with career UZR/150s of -6.7 (Fielder), -8.3 (Betancourt), -7.7 (McGehee), and -6.4 (Weeks). I almost spit out my drink when F.P. claimed that Rickie Weeks has "fantastic range."

Knowing that this infield is going to have massive gaps regardless of where he positions his players, why not try to aggressively position players where the spray charts say batters are most likely to hit the ball?

I'm most skeptical of the shift when there are runners on base, which did in fact come into play in both the 2nd inning, when the shift cost the Brewers a possible inning-ending DP, and in the 10th, when Werth was able to score easily on an infield grounder because no one had been holding him on 3rd.

But I like to see managers challenging conventional wisdom and experimenting with different ways to hide their players' weaknesses. I'll be interested in seeing how the Brewers' fielding metrics stack up as the season moves along, and I hope Roenicke doesn't back off when he faces the inevitable hindsight criticism every time a seeing-eye grounder sneaks through.

Gene Wang, Step Slowly Away from the BA and RBI

The headline from yesterday's Washington Post Morning Brushback blog post by Gene Wang told us "Jayson Werth, Adam LaRoche underscore Nationals’ offensive woes."

I read that and thought, "really?" LaRoche is off to his typical weak start, but I never expected much from him anyway. But Werth?

I clicked over to Baseball Reference before even reading the article thinking I'd somehow missed something. But nope--entering yesterday's action, Werth had a .333 OBP and .435 SLG--both a tick below what the Nationals are expecting but certainly nothing to get worked up over, especially in such a tiny sample. Meanwhile, his walk rate is actually up a bit from 12.6% last year to 13.6% and his K rate is down a bit from 26.5% to 23.5%, and other than Ryan Zimmerman, he'd been the Nationals best every day offensive player by wOBA.

So I went back to Wang's article. His evidence that Werth is struggling? "Werth is hitting .217 with two homers and two RBI in 46 at-bats."

Oy. So, the problem with the Nationals offense isn't that their starting lineup regularly includes guys with OBPs of .154 (Hairston), .174 (Rodriguez), .232 (Desmond), .255 (Ankiel), .282 (Morse), and a pitcher. No, the problem is Jayson Werth's RBIs.

When Adam Kilgore started as the beat writer for the Post, I wrote up a wish list of what I wanted in a beat writer, and mostly he's come through. Good for Kilgore.

But now maybe he'll forward this bit from my wish list to his friend Gene Wang to save us from such saber-stupidity in the future:

4. Familiarize yourself with the basics of statistical analysis. If you haven't already, read Baseball between the Numbers and The Book. I don't want you to write like Tom Tango or Nate Silver, but I do think that a good beat writer can cover the team with an awareness of the most important sabermetric concepts. Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times is a great example of a reporter who doesn't do sabermetrics, but he doesn't write as if he's ignorant of it either.

5. Corollary to #4: At all costs, avoid using the very least meaningful stats. Most taboo would be: pitchers' W-L records, batting average, and RBIs.

What Have We Learned So Far?

I started this post on Tuesday...

With 10 games in the books, the Nationals are 5-5, putting them on pace for 81 wins for the first time since the Vinny Castilla era.

Rats. Gotta start over.

With 11 games in the books, the Nationals are 5-6, giving them a .454 winning percentage that extended for a full season would give them 74 wins, easily their best win total since Alfonso Soriano was hitting bombs into the Anacostia River over at RFK.

Dang! I keep trying to write a post about how the Nationals are doing better than expected, but I guess I forgot during my hiatus that you can't sleep on these moments. They go by fast!

OK, so the Nationals are now 5-7, giving them a .416 winning percentage, which would give them 68 wins--about the same as last year, but still better than the serious backsliding I was predicting.

Of course, Manny Acta's Indians look like locks for the AL Central championship, and the Red Sox are on pace to challenge the Cleveland Spiders for the all-time worst record in MLB history. Shoot, if the season had ended yesterday, the AL playoff teams would have been the Orioles, Indians, Rangers, and Royals. So let's not get too carried away with a 12-game sample.

Still, here are a few developments that might actually mean something--and shed some light on whether we're looking at another run-of-the-mill bad team or another 100-game loser.

Hands down, the most important event of the young season is that Ryan Zimmerman got hurt. An abdominal strain sounds minor, and he might miss just the two weeks. But muscle strains like this can sometimes linger--or lead to worse injuries. This is the second time Zimmerman has strained an ab this year, so it's not crazy to worry about this becoming a nagging issue all year.

The big picture here is that Zimmerman is so good--a near-MVP player the last two years, even if the voters don't notice because the Nationals are so bad--and that their replacement options are so horrendous. Losing Zimmerman's 7 wins above replacement is one thing. But you're going to lose another WAR or 2 by playing Jerry Hairston or Alex Cora every day. Bottom line, losing Zimmerman for an extended period is the biggest single event that could put the Nationals in line for yet another #1 overall pick.

The second thing I'm seeing that matters is that Mike Morse appears once again to be Mike Morse. No, we don't want to make too much of a 12-game sample. But when you have a guy with a long-term track record like Morse's, it's his brief run of success in 2010 that quickly starts to look like the aberration.

For years, Morse's problem was that he just couldn't make enough contact for his raw power to materialize. Last year, he got his K rate down to a reasonable 24.1%, and as a result he put together the first extended period of major league productivity of his life. This year he's back to a Wily Mo-esque 33.3%. Don't hold your breath, Morse fans. He might go on another hot streak, but it's far more likely that pitchers have adjusted, and he has no ability to make a counter-adjustment, and this is just who he is.

Really, the Wily Mo comp is a pretty good one. Look at Pena's hot streak with the 2007 Nationals, followed by his 2008 cratering, and you have more or less a mirror image in Mike Morse today.

We've also learned that Jayson Werth is still a pretty fantastic player. Of course, Alfonso Soriano was pretty good his first year in Chicago too. Enjoy it now, and don't say you weren't warned.

Since people say I'm too negative: here's something cheery: Tyler Clippard is a beast, striking out 32% of the batters he's faced. And as I've written before, Jim Riggleman is doing a brilliant job using him in max leverage situations and refusing to allow the save stat to dictate his reliever usage. Of course, Clippard is on pace for 95 appearances and 126 innings pitched. Sooner or later the Nationals starters need to start going at least 7 innings with some regularity. Don't get distracted by the shiny ERAs in the mid-3s for most of the Nationals starters. They can thank Clippard for stranding all their runners.

Alas, Ian Desmond has picked up right where he left off last season--striking out five times more often than he walks and making errors by the bushel. Actually, things have gotten worse so far this year, if that's possible. He's whiffing even more often, and his three errors put him on pace to go from 34 to 39 errors, if he plays as many innings this year as he did last year. It's way too early to give up on Ian, but the trend-line here ain't good. Don't be shocked if he's in Syracuse and Danny Espinosa is playing short at this time next month.

And then fwiw here are a few small sample size things that probably don't matter:

Wilson Ramos has walked 4 times already. He's always been a Guzman-esque hacker, so this is a big change. Last year he walked twice in 82 MLB PAs. He walked only 12 times in 295 PAs against AAA. At 23 years old, he's certainly young enough to develop a more advanced approach. I don't expect him to become the second coming of Nick Johnson, but if he could go from being a guy who walks 3% of the time to a guy who walks 8-9% of the time, that would really change his long-term offensive profile.

Danny Espinosa's been impressive. His fielding range is fantastic, and he's already drawn 7 walks on the season. He even got a double off Cliff Lee last tonight.

Jason Marquis is getting 46% groundball outs and he's whiffing 21% of batters faced. The second stat certainly won't continue (his career rate is 13.4%), but first one might, and if it does and he stays healthy, he'll help.

Great Job, Jim!

People say I'm a Jim Riggleman hater. I'll prove you wrong. Here's a heaping helping of praise for Jim's bullpen management last night.

Picking things up in the 6th inning, the Nationals were up one lonely run with one out and no one on when Jordan Zimmermann gave up a double to Carlos Beltran on his 99th pitch of the game. With left-handed hitters Ike Davis and Willie Harris coming up, Riggles decided to pull his starter and go to lefty specialist Doug Slaten. (Now, I might have stayed with Znn a little longer, but that's a small quibble.) Slaten did his job and strikes out Davis.

With two outs, Mets manager Terry Collins pinch-hit right-handed Scott Hairston for Harris, and Riggleman went to RHP Chad Gaudin. Gaudin got the K to end the threat.

In the seventh, Riggleman let Gaudin stay in to face the bottom of the Mets order--Eamus/Thole/Hu. These seem like reasonable match-ups, but Gaudin walked the first two guys anyway. Collins used Hu to sac bunt, giving away an out and moving the runners to second and third.

Then, Riggleman pulled a trick that he's used several times in the first week. He called on Tyler Clippard to get the team out of a big jam in a middle inning. Clippard is probably the team's best reliever and clearly the guy with the best strikeout ability (11.1 Ks/9 last year). Most managers reserve such a pitcher only for one-inning outings in the 9th in games where the team has a lead of three runs or less, even if that means using the ace reliever for fewer and less important innings.

Clippard again came through, striking out Jose Reyes and getting a groundball out to end the inning from Angel Pagan. Because he's being used so intelligently, Clippard has already stranded 7 of 9 inherited runners this year and racked up a win probability added of almost a full game (0.92)--easily the best in MLB.

In the top of the 8th, the Nationals got three insurance runs to go ahead 6-2. But with the heart of the Mets order (Wright/Beltran/Davis) coming up, it wasn't quite mop-up time. So Riggleman went to Drew Storen (as part of a double-switch to avoid having the pitcher's spot come up again, just in case the Mets rallied). Storen was probably his best available reliever and a good match-up for the right-handed Wright, and he worked a 1-2-3 inning.

Finally, in the 9th, with the bottom of the Mets order (Hairston/Eamus/Thole) due up, Riggleman went to Todd Coffey to finish things up. Coffey did allow a runner with two outs, which would have created a save opportunity had Riggleman decided to change up again and go to "closer" Sean Burnett. A lot of managers would have done just that, allowing the dumb save stat to dictate the decision. Riggleman didn't do that.

There isn't anything here that's amazingly brilliant here. Riggleman used his pitchers in a way that was dictated by the situation, not by some misguided fealty to the save stat or by what inning it happened to be.

What's amazing is that so few managers do this--and that Riggleman himself says he plans to move away from this approach as soon as he can decide which pitcher should be blindly assigned to which inning, regardless of match-up or situation. Let's hope he doesn't do that, because we've seen in this first week of the season that when Interim Jim chooses to use his brain, he can make some decently smart decisions.

Just When I Was Going to Say Something Nice about Riggles...

For the last few days I've been meaning to write a blog complimenting Riggleman on his bullpen management so far this season. He's been doing a pretty nice job optimizing the performance of his bullpen by finding favorable match-ups, using his best relievers in the highest leverage situations, not just in the 9th inning when the team is up by 3 or fewer runs.

Almost without exception, major league managers follow the same idiotic bullpen 'strategy' of using every reliever for one inning only and using the best reliever in the 9th, the 2nd best in the 8th, and the rest for mop-ups or to patch the 6th and 7th when needed.

The reason this is stupid, if it's not obvious, is that there's nothing unique about pitching in the 7th, 8th, or 9th innings. The mound is the same height. The field is the same shape... this isn't basketball or football where at the end of the game you enter a two-minute drill, requiring a unique skill set.

It would be far smarter for managers to use their relievers to maximize platoon split advantages, or to match up their best reliever with the other team's best hitters--even if the middle of the order is due up in the 7th or 8th. And let your best pitchers throw more than one inning once if they're cruising along nicely.

You would think at least that managers would understand that it's best to have the best pitchers throw the most innings--but even that has eluded them. Look at the list of pitchers who threw the most relief innings last year. Are these the best relievers in the league? Matt Belisle (92 IP)? Tyler Clippard (91)? Tony Pena (81.2)? You gotta go pretty far down the list to find guys like Mariano Rivera (60), Health Bell (70), and Joakim Soria (65.2). What possible rationale could managers have for consciously deciding to give more innings to inferior pitchers?

(I'll pause now to allow you to make the case for the "closer mentality," and why only a select few relievers with the special closer mentality gene can successfully pitch in the 9th inning of games with a 3-run lead. Ok, are you done talking? Great. You're wrong. Let's move on.)

Riggleman seemed like an unlikely candidate to break out of this pernicious trend. But alas that's exactly what's been happening in the early going of the season. He's used Clippard, arguably the best pitcher in the bullpen, to put out fires in the middle innings. He's spotted Drew Storen against right-handers. And while Burnett has gotten the only two save opportunities, it has seemed more dictated by match-ups than a commitment to Burnett as "my 9th inning guy."

OK, but then, just when we think maybe our little blind squirrel found a nut, we get this from Ben Goessling today:

Riggleman said the Nationals will continue to pick their relievers early in the season based on matchups, though Burnett has saved both of the Nationals' wins and has finished all four games he's pitched. Had the Nationals taken the lead in the ninth inning of last night's 11-inning win against the Marlins, Riggleman said he would have stuck with Drew Storen for the bottom of the ninth instead of using Burnett in a save situation, adding he'd still lean toward Storen if the ninth inning meant a run of right-handed hitters.

Eventually, the Nationals would like to have relievers assigned to the last three innings of the game - Clippard in the seventh, Storen in the eighth and Burnett in the ninth, for example. That would cut down on the double switches that occasionally sap the Nationals' bench, but more than that, it would have each of Washington's three best relievers knowing what to expect.

"I always use San Diego as an example - backwards, 9-8-7, (they have Heath) Bell, (Mike) Adams, (Luke) Gregerson," Riggleman said. "(We want to) just turn an inning over to one of those guys - whether it's Clippard or (Todd) Coffey, Storen or Clippard, Burnett or Storen, turn it over to them so we don't have to be doing the double switching, have somebody finish an inning and make sure he can pitch the next one. We don't want to be doing that."

OK, you can shoot me now.

Responding on Rizzo's Bench

I like Mike Rizzo. I root for him. So before anyone starts saying I'm turning this blog into FMR, we should get that out of the way.

That said, the Nationals' bench stinks, and Mike's defense of his bench on sports talk wasn't very convincing. His argument basically boils down to the idea that to have a good bench, you need players who have experience as bench players, who have demonstrated the ability to come off the bench and perform well, as opposed to players who can only perform well as regulars.

Now, it may be kind of a skill to be able to come in without regular playing time and pinch hit or be a defensive replacement. You need to figure out a routine that allows you to stay sharp, and I'm sure that in the history of MLB there have been some guys who just couldn't handle it and went from solid starter to useless bench player.

But, really, aren't there a lot more guys who can't handle playing every day, but can get by going all-out less often, or playing just in favorable match-up situations? And isn't this nebulous "bench" skill far less important than skills like the ability to hit and field?

I'm not really buying the idea that you have to have a bench entirely made up of bench "specialists," as if you'd rather have a really good bench guy than someone who is talented enough to start on hand if necessary (which of course is what good teams have).

Rizzo also talks about the importance of guys who "know their role" and are willing to be bench players. This part is 100% nonsense. Bench players don't have to be bench players. They can go get a real job. But the reason Laynce Nix isn't a starter is because he stinks. He doesn't have a choice. And no player would rather play every day in the minors than be a back-up in the big leagues.

Finally, Mike talks about how the veteran bench can act as mentors to the young players. Here's the problem with that--most of the starters are veterans too. Aside from the middle infielders and Ryan Zimmerman, the whole opening day lineup was 29 or older. Wilson Ramos is the only other guy on the team who remotely qualifies as a young player. If you really have four 30-somethings in the starting line-up, do you really need another three (and a 40-something in Matt Stairs) on the bench? That's a lot of mentors, and not very many good players. (And by the way, isn't this what coaches are for?)

The sad thing is that the Nationals did kind of have the makings of a good bench. Mike Morse is a nice corner bench guy. Roger Bernadina is the textbook definition of a fourth outfielder. Ivan Rodriguez would be a fine back-up starting 30 games a year. Alas, they had to make Morse a starter. The team is dead-set on making Bernadina a starter because they don't have anyone else. And Interim Jim has too much respect for Pudge to staple his ass to the bench where it belongs.

Ultimately the problem with the Nationals bench isn't so much who they picked up off the trash heap. It's that the player development system hasn't produced players who can fill these bench roles cheaply and effectively. That's only partly Rizzo's fault, but he's been in charge of the draft since 2007, and he's been the GM for more than a year. The excuses are running out--pretty soon, if the talent level on the major league roster doesn't get better, he won't be able to pass the buck to ol' what's his name any longer.

Required Reading for Nationals Fans

J.J. Cooper has a fantastic article in the latest Baseball America on the challenge of turning a good farm system into a contending Major League squad. You can check it out here--in a cool new digital magazine format that BA rolled out this month as well.

As thoughtful and well-researched as the piece is, it's also a sobering reminder for Nationals fans of how far we are from winning. The "wave," such as it is, of minor league talent coming to Washington now just isn't very impressive, when you compare it to the past teams examined in the article.

Also, the article reinforces how the window of opportunity for the Strasburg-Zimmerman-Werth group may be only one or two years at most. And the team's premature shift to Phase 2® and massive commitment to Werth could make it that much harder to develop the next core of young talent after this window closes (assuming there's ever enough talent for a window to really open).

Anyway, it's a great read. And as an added bonus there some good old Expos stuff in there. People should check it out.

Expectations for Espinosa

Danny Espinosa is a promising player. He's an above-average fielder now, and could emerge as a league-average hitter at a scarce position. There's a lot of value in that.

And the Nationals are clearly doing the right thing handing him the starting job at second base to open the season. They have no chance of contending, and now's the time to find out what the 24-year-old can do.

But fans who are expecting Espinosa to make a major contribution this year are expecting far too much. In the Expansion Era, there have been 38 second basemen to get 400 or more at bats in their first season, and only 4 of them had an OPS+ over 110 (or, offensive production 10% better than average): Rod Carew, Dan Uggla, Dave Stapleton, and Delino DeShields. That's a hall-of-famer, a perennial all-star, and two famously fluky rookie seasons.

It's just really really hard to come to the majors and play that well, especially at a difficult defensive position like 2B. Paul Molitor started at second and had an OPS+ of 89 in his first season. Pete Rose? 101.

Now, it's true that Espinosa got into 28 games last year at the end of last season, so it's not quite his first season. But the basic point stands.

So it's not a big knock on Espinosa to say that he's not going to be a world-beater this year. It just means that people shouldn't be expecting that much. Will he be better than Adam Kennedy and his OPS+ of 79? I'd probably bet the over on that, but not by much.

Interim Jim Risks John Lannan's Arm for a Dumb Stat that Even BBWA Writers Don't Care About Anymore

Despite the fact that he plans to skip Tom Gorzelanny's turn in the rotation and therefore has a starting pitcher ready to use on full rest, Jim Riggleman sent John Lannan out to pitch the fifth inning today after an hour-long rain delay. Why? Apparently to qualify him for a win.

It's a dangerous move--fans might remember who Joe Girardi doomed Josh Johnson to Tommy John with a similar move a few years ago.

Will Lannan get hurt? Who knows. But it's an unnecessary risk, and the manager's whole job is to play the percentages to optimize the outcomes from the team he has. To expose a key piece of his already weak rotation to injury is reckless.

But Riggleman will tell anyone who asks that he knows nothing about pitcher mechanics. And when asked about Kerry Wood, who he notoriously overworked as a 20-year-old rookie, he insists that there's nothing to learn from any pitcher who gets hurt--pitcher injuries according to Jim are entirely random events that can never be prevented by workload management, long toss, or anything else.

The Worst Nationals Team Ever?

I know what you're thinking. One game and I'm in a fetal position. (Actually, you probably aren't thinking anything because you aren't reading this because this blog has been dormant for almost a year....)

But I'm not reacting to one game. I'm looking at a team that has far too many holes and too few Plans B in case (or when) things go wrong.

Let's first look at the line-up. Last year, only two teams in the National League scored fewer runs per game than the Nationals (the Pirates and the Astros). On that team, just three players gave the team more than 300 PAs (roughly half a season) with a wOBA over .325, the league average: Adam Dunn (.379), Josh Willingham (.378), and Ryan Zimmerman (.389).

Those are really high levels of production from three players that made sure the Nationals were bad, but not totally awful. And as you know, two of those guys are gone.

In their place we get Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche. Let's take LaRoche first. He has no chance of replacing the kind of production the team got from Dunn and Willingham. His career-high wOBA is .379--in 2006. Last year he fell all the way to .339--barely average for a position player and way below what he's replacing.

Werth is a fine player--I always liked him in Philly, and I think the combined losses of Utley and Werth are devastating to their offense. The Phillies might not even make the playoffs, even with that rotation. He's not quite the hitter Dunn was last year, but he's a far better defender and should provide better overall production.

But, still I'm worried about Werth. He's only really played a full season twice, because of injuries. He's never played for a bad team. And he's never played with $126 million guaranteed in his pocket. How will he respond to playing in front of hostile or indifferent crowds at all his home games? I'm not saying he's going to stop working out, gain 50 pounds, and go in the tank on purpose. But be honest--if you knew you had $127 million coming to you no matter what you did, would you bring the same level of determination to your job? Would you have the same edge as you would if you were fighting for your job every day?

Those are the bright spots. Now for the rest of the team. Rick Ankiel is just an insult to the people paying good money to see Major League Baseball. You know the joke--Rick Ankiel the hitter swings at so much junk even Rick Ankiel the pitcher could have struck him out. At least he's not a bad left fielder. Oh, he's playing center? Dang.

I don't have a big problem starting Danny Espinosa--may as well find out what you have. But given his youth and inexperience, if he's not one of the worst hitting second basemen in the league this year, we should count ourselves lucky.

There seems to be a lot of optimism around Ian Desmond these days, but I don't know why. If you asked me at the beginning of 2010 what a really bad season for Desmond would be, I would have said, "regression in BB:K rate and an ungodly number of errors." Check and check. He didn't quite do enough to get the team to give up on him as the long-term answer at the position, but most organizations would have by now.

Ivan Rodriguez, like Ankiel, is a flat-out embarrassment who has no business drawing a salary as a full-time major leaguer. He had a few weeks of BABIP luck at the beginning of 2010 and spent the next four months being the worst starting catcher in baseball. Wil Nieves is gone, so they can't help but get a little better, but even if Wilson Ramos gives the team best-case production, he'll be stuck to the bench by Jim Riggleman too much to make a difference.

Which brings us to Michael Morse. Morse is undoubtedly the worst case of a GM doubling down on his own good fortune since Jim Bowden handed $10 million to Dmitri Young. Sample size, people. Sample size. -.. --- -. .----. - / ... .- -.-- / -.-- --- ..- / .-- . .-. . -. .----. - / .-- .- .-. -. . -.. .-.-.-

Then there's the starting rotation. Jordan Zimmermann will be exciting to watch, and I think Tom Gorzelanny was a savvy little pick-up. They could have gotten more for Mike Burgess two years ago if they had tried to move him then, but oh well.

Livan and Marquis might avoid embarrassing themselves long enough to rack up a lot of innings. John Lannan will keep giving us warm fuzzies. But none of these guys, except maybe Zimermann, is likely to be one of the top 100 starting pitchers in baseball. It's one talented kid trying to establish himself, plus four guys who could be adequate at the back of an otherwise very good rotation. As a group, they stink.

And after learning the hard way in 2009 what happens when you just ignore the bullpen and patch with free talent, things can get ugly fast. Tyler Clippard is well down the Saul Rivera path of death by overuse. Sean Burnett will get exposed if he's asked to pitch too many high-leverage innings without playing any match-ups. Drew Storen could establish himself as a solid late-innings reliever, but that will only serve to remind everyone that even in the best-case scenario a relief pitcher gives you limited return for the #9 overall pick in the draft (yes, I said #9). otherwise this is a soft group that will suffer from being asked to pitch too many innings because the starters can't hold up their end.

And then as weak as the Nationals' starters are, their depth is just grotesque. Bowden was renowned for the awful benches he would build, but this group, featuring the likes of Laynce Nix, Matt Stairs, and Jerry Hairston could match up very well with the Baerga-Blanco-Cordero benches of the Bowden era.

And if the Nationals suffer any injuries? If Werth loses time you're looking at a starting outfield of what, Morse, Ankiel, and Laynce Nix? If Zimmerman gets hurt, and let's say one of the two middle infielders needs some time back in Syracuse at some point, you're looking at an infield with Alex Cora and Jerry Hairston?

There isn't any more top-level talent in the minors coming anytime soon. I guess Derek Norris could get a look late in the season, or A.J. Cole, if everything goes swimmingly well. But Bryce Harper is a long way off, and that's about it when it comes to potential impact players in the system.

So could this be the worst Nationals team ever? Could they be worse than the 103-loss team of 2009? Probably not, but it could happen. And there's a much, much better chance that the team is drafting first overall for the third time in four years next June than that they're battling for .500 in September.

P.S. If you think I'm too pessimistic, just think--I didn't even mention Oliver Perez.