FJB

Feeling Bad about Nyjer Morgan? Blame Riggleman

2011-10-07T22:09:00.002-04:00

It's the manager's job to manage the players. Things got so out of control with Morgan that Mike Rizzo had to get rid of him. That didn't happen in Pittsburgh and it obviously hasn't happened in Milwaukee.

Is Morgan insane? Sure. But he has ability. The Nationals would have been a better team with him in 2011. Good managers/coaches get the best out of guys like this. If Phil Jackson could get hall of fame performances from Dennis Rodman, then Jim Riggleman should have been able to keep things from completely spinning out of control with Nyjer Morgan.

Top 1B Prospect: Not Chris Marrero

2011-10-06T06:34:00.003-04:00

On August 27, Chris Marrero made his major league debut. Marrero's debut got a lot of people excited because he was the 15th overall pick in the 2006 draft and the #1 prospect in the organization going into the 2008 season according to Baseball America.

Fans should have saved their excitement. In 117 plate appearances, Marrero whiffed 27 times and drew just 4 walks. He had 27 hits, but just 5 of them went for extra bases--all doubles.

Marrero's .248 / .274 / .294 line was good for a 53 wRC+--meaning that adjusting for park effects and run environment, Marrero was 53% as good as the average hitter, and that's including pitchers and premium fielders, which Marrero clearly is not.

Now, I don't mean to beat up on a 23-year-old getting his first cup of coffee. It's a small sample size. He's young enough that he still has time to get better.

But because of his pedigree as a heralded high-round pick, fans and media tend to vastly overrate his potential. And for a guy who talks a lot about meritocracy, GM Mike Rizzo gave Marrero a pretty much completely undeserved promotion.

In fact, Marrero might not even be the top first base prospect in the Nationals organization anymore. That's because while Marrero has been doing just barely enough to keep getting promoted, a late-round pick who lots of fans haven't even heard of has been earning every chance he's gotten. That guy is Tyler Moore.

Granted, Moore is about 18 months older than Marrero, and he was a level behind him each of the last two years. But still, Moore clubbed 62 homers in 2010-2011, while Marrero hit just 32. Even accounting for age differences, what Moore did this year in AA is more impressive than what Marrero did with AAA Syracuse. Plus, Moore isn't anyone's idea of a great fielder, but he's got a good arm and he's more agile than Marrero, which isn't saying a lot.

Scouts and stats guys alike doubt that Moore can overcome his lack of plate discipline to continue his success against the highest levels. This year, he struck out 139 times against just 30 walks in 546 plate appearances. If he can't improve his command of the strike zone, he'll have a hard time finding his way into hitters' counts and major league pitching will expose the holes in his swing. And while the homers are sexy, his .314 OBP means he's simply making too many outs.

Then again, a lot of people thought he'd get exposed in AA, and he handled that just fine thank you very much.

I don't think either Moore or Marrero is likely to ever be a productive major league starter. The right-right profile is tough to overcome, and the offensive standards are just so absurdly high at first base. If they want a championship caliber first baseman (Adam LaRoche ain't it), they're probably going to have to go after a free agent like Prince Fielder or Albert Pujols (why not?) or trade for someone like Kevin Youkilis.

But if these guys continue on their current paths in 2012, the next guy I'd like to see get a look in Nationals Park would be Tyler Moore, not Chris Marrero.

A.J. Burnett, John Lackey, C.J. Wilson

2011-10-04T04:52:00.000-04:00

After the 2008 season, A.J. Burnett, a good but not great pitcher, was the second best free agent starting pitcher available after CC Sabathia. The Yankees gave him five years and $82 million. After the 2009 season, John Lackey was the best of a lackluster group of free agent starting pitchers. He got five years and $82 million.

We know both the Yankees and especially the Red Sox would love a second chance at those decisions.

Fast forward to today. There again aren't any elite starting pitchers in the free agent class (though Sabathia is likely to opt out of his deal in New York, he surely isn't going anywhere). Available are guys like Mark Buerhle, Edwin Jackson, and, the guy who is showing up at the top of a lot of teams' lists, C.J. Wilson.

Wilson has emerged over the last two seasons as a very good starting pitcher. In 427.1 innings since Texas converted him to the rotation, he's given them 427+ innings in two seasons and a shiny 3.14 ERA while pitching in arguably the AL's worst ballpark for pitchers.

Wilson's peripherals indicate that he's been a bit lucky, with xFIPs of 4.06 and 3.41. But he's got excellent ground ball rates (49%) and this year he improved both his K rate and BB rate and put up a K:BB ratio just a hair under 3. That's fantastic. Plus, he's 30 years old and doesn't have ton of mileage on his arm given his history as a reliever. And he's left-handed.

All this is to say that especially with so few options available, some team will again convince themselves to massively overpay for a good, not great, starting pitcher.

Let's hope it's not the Nationals. They should let the Red Sox or Yankees make this mistake again. Pitchers are incredibly volatile commodities, and it's almost always a bad gamble to commit the kind of money that Burnett and Lackey got, unless you're talking about a truly elite pitcher like Sabathia (or last season's top free agent Cliff Lee).

Fans in Washington suffered through so many years of skinflint ownership that it's almost impossible to imagine worrying about overspending. But it's really easy to end up in a box like the Cubs are in now--old, bad teams, locked into huge contracts that are impossible to move, and a bad farm system undercut by years of lost free agent compensation picks.

Jayson Werth is essentially the Nationals' version of Alfonso Soriano. Wilson could easily become their Carlos Zambrano.

To make the playoffs next year, the Nationals need to add a starting pitcher or two in free agency, but they'd be much better off throwing two-year deals at guys like Buerhle or Jackson or a one-year deal for Hiroki Kuroda or even Jason Marquis.

Even if they have to overpay on a per-year basis to get one of those guys, they'd be better off than getting into a bidding war for the best pitcher available who isn't really that good.

Terry Francona: Why Bother?

2011-10-03T04:48:00.001-04:00

When Terry Francona resigned as manager of the Boston Red Sox, some folks started talking about whether he'd be a good fit for the Nationals. I say why bother? Unless Davey Johnson if flat-out refusing to take the job long-term, he's clearly the guy for the job.

First, I don't really understand people saying that it's ridiculous for Francona to lose his job in Boston. He missed the playoffs two years in a row with massive payrolls. Last season, you could blame injuries. Although personally I think that was a bit overdone--I hear the world's smallest violin playing for a guy who gets to roll out a line-up with Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Victor Martinez, Kevin Youkilis, and Adrian Betre for most of the season.

But this year Boston was loaded. MVP candidates all over the line-up. They had a massive lead going into September. Yes, the injuries in the rotation hurt, but the guy had a month to figure out how to muddle through a few competent starts, and he couldn't do it. He didn't need to find 5 outstanding starters. He just needed to make sure they didn't have a total meltdown in all five spots in the rotation, and he couldn't do it. And as long as Afredo Aceves was sitting in the bullpen, you can't say he tried everything.

And all that wouldn't have mattered if it wasn't for the horrible start to the season. That happened on his watch. Add to that the public criticism by players like Lackey and David Ortiz--I think it's fair to say Francona wasn't commanding respect in the clubhouse.

Hey, Francona won two World Series. He buried the Curse of the Bambino. He's probably one of the better managers in the game. But is he a guy the Nationals should want so badly that they'd be willing to toss aside Davey Johnson? No way.

When Jim Riggleman left, the Nationals either lucked out or had done a brilliant job of contingency planning by having one of the best managers in baseball waiting in the wings. The Lerners should put a boatload of money on the table, lock up Davey, and move on to more difficult decisions, like filling the gaping holes in the lineup and starting rotation.

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

2011-10-02T04:13:00.000-04:00

Nothing new under the sun. Nationals fan optimism remains sky-high, and it's pretty hard to argue otherwise. Be sure to vote on this month's poll in the upper right corner of the blog.

The Next Step Is A Lot Harder

2011-10-01T08:52:00.011-04:00

Watching these final weeks of the season tick down, I've been digesting the meaning of the 2011 season. Certainly, this year marked the end of the cellar-dwelling, laughingstock "Natinals" era in Washington. Thank gawd.

I took a Murphy's Law approach to my own Nationals predictions before the 2011 season, guessing for instance that Jordan Zimmermann would struggle with command in his first season back from Tommy John. I (and plenty of others) saw Michael Morse as the second coming of Wily Mo Pena, a career part-time player with massive holes in his swing who would be exposed in full-time duty. Relief pitcher performance tends to fluctuate wildly from year to year, and I guessed that the Nationals might be due for a run of bad outings. I figured Wilson Ramos and Danny Espinosa would struggle more in their first years of full-time duty. I didn't see Davey Johnson coming.

(I also guessed that Ryan Zimmerman would miss time, Jim Riggleman would be gone, and Jayson Werth wouldn't adjust well to playing with a huge contract for a non-contender. So I got a few things right.)

Those were all reasonable concerns, but to guess that everything that could go wrong would go wrong--that was pretty unlikely. But hey! It's the Nationals!

Not anymore. They spend like a normal team now (if not more). They've been picking at the top of the draft for a decade. Jim Bowden is gone. So is Stan Kasten and his multiple, conflicting lines of authority.

But the even bigger factor is the simple fact that it's really hard to be--and stay--as bad as the Nationals were. And in the reduced run-scoring environment of the last two seasons, plus the overall mediocrity of the National League, it's even harder.

Not to take anything away from the progress the Nationals have made upgrading the talent in the franchise, but Philadelphia is probably the only really good team the Nationals played all season--and even they're not a great team because of their problems scoring runs. The Brewers and D'Backs are solid, but no one is going to mistake them for juggernauts. The Braves and Cardinals are both deeply flawed. And everyone else in the National League really truly stinks.

In interleague, the Nationals got 6 games against Baltimore (pretty soon people are going to notice that it's really unfair that the Nationals get two series against the Orioles while the Mets have to play the Yankees.) And then they got 9 games against the White Sox, Mariners, and Angels. That's 12 interleague games against truly rotten teams, plus 6 more against the just-OK Angels and White Sox. Not many NL teams got off so easy.

Again, I'm not dissing the Nationals because of who they played. They can't control that--and all you can do is beat the teams you're scheduled to play. But it's pretty hard to lose more than 90 games in the NL right now. Look at the lengths Houston had to go to.

Now, Mike Rizzo says the Nationals are a frontline starting pitcher and an top-of-the-order centerfielder away from contending in the NL. Is he right?

Maybe, although remember that those are two of the hardest things to find in all of baseball. It's a little like saying all the economy needs is an increase in consumer demand and a solution to the European debt crisis.

And even then, if Michael Morse regresses, or Zimmermann and/or Stephen Strasburg don't do what we expect, or this, that, and the other... There are plenty of ways the Nationals could upgrade at a couple key spots and remain stuck right around .500.

The league is shaped like a bell curve. Not a ton of teams finish with 90 or more losses, while not very many teams finish with 90 or more wins. Lots of teams finish clustered around 81-81. It took a lot of work to get from consecutive 59-win seasons to this year's quasi-.500, 80-81 team. But getting from 80 wins to 90 wins is way, way harder. The low-hanging fruit has been plucked. Now the hard part--and the fun part--begins.

Boz Bugs Me

2011-09-28T16:08:00.007-04:00

I haven't read a Tom Boswell chat in months, but I clicked on one today and instantly got annoyed. Good to see he hasn't lost that affect on me.

Here's what set me off:

The stat guys, among other things, still don't grasp the inherent advanatages of groundball pitchers. They get far more GIDPs. Lannan's very high in that. Few stats even touch GIDP. Anbd batting average on balls in play is almost always lower for sinkerballers.

So, yes, Lannan is better than his FIP __every year. His biggest liability is that, even pitching vastly better against lefties, he still has big trouble against the Phils and the big RH bats of the Marlins. When you play 72 games inside your division, you have to look at matchups. Lannan got stuck facing the Phils six times this year. Davey loves the idea of three LH starters in '12, if that's how the competition falls out. But Peacock's stuff and Wang's pedigree as a penant-race Yankee certainly put them in the picture.

The value of groundballs has been sabermetric conventional wisdom for decades. Take this 2006 post from U.S.S. Mariner. Or this 2004 Nate Silver piece on Baseball Prospectus. That's just what I found in a couple minutes of Googling.

Saying statistical analysts don't appreciate the value of the groundball is like saying stat guys don't sufficiently despise the bunt. (Come to think of it, it's exactly the same.)

And then he adds embarrassment to insult by claiming that groundball pitchers have lower BABIPs. It's just the opposite, and that's another basic sabermetric observation established long ago. Groundballs become hits more often. But they're better for pitchers because they never become home runs. That's all there is to it.

But what really bugs me isn't so much how Boz is wrong--I got over that a long time ago. It's how smug he his, how completely oblivious to the possibility that he may not have mastered everything there was to know about baseball by 1980.

If he's not going to even try to keep up with the times (as is so painfully obvious), he should at least offer a touch of humility when dismissing the people who are still working hard to advance our understanding of the game.

Ivan Rodriguez Has a Good Face

2011-09-24T14:11:00.009-04:00

Yesterday, I saw Moneyball. Much of the movie is spent showing "old school baseball men" saying dumb things, grossly misevaluating players based on faulty assumptions, putting way too much weight on intangibles, and fundamentally failing to understand how baseball games are won and how to measure player value.

A lot of folks (and I mostly agree) have commented that the movie isn't really fair to the scouts and broadcasters, reducing them to caricatures and stereotypes. If you're a frustrated stathead, it's kind of fun, but who really believes that Grady Fuson and his scouts really evaluated players based on how attractive their girlfriends are or whether they had a "good face" or not?

Then, I came home, flipped on the Nationals game and saw Ivan Rodriguez come to the plate as a pinch hitter in the 6th inning. He was greeted by a standing ovation at Nationals Park, with Bob and F.P. gushing about how much Rodriguez has "meant to the team."

It could have been one of those scenes in Moneyball about idiot baseball men who don't have a clue. In fact, if Aaron Sorkin had written a scene like that for the movie, it would have been attacked as an unfair cheap shot.

Consider: over the last two seasons, Rodriguez has played in 153 games. He's hit .253 / .288 / .340. Yeah, it's the "year of the pitcher," but that's awful.

As a National, Rodriguez has a combined wRC+ of 66--meaning that his offense is about 66% as good as an average major league hitter. Fifty-one other catchers had at least 200 plate appearances and a better wRC+ over that two-year span. Guys like Josh Bard. Matt Treanor. Eli Whiteside. All basically equal or better hitters over the last two years than Ivan Rodriguez.

Granted, Rodriguez is still a good defensive catcher, and he's thrown out a high percentage of baserunners for the Nationals. A lot of catcher value is in their defense. I'm not underestimating that. But his hitting is so awful, that no amount of excellent fielding could justify having his bat in the lineup as often as the Nationals have the last two years.

And of course the biggest difference between Rodriguez and those players is salary. Pudge was paid the handsome sum of $6 million to make outs for two years. Those other guys mostly played on minor league contracts and got paid the major league minimum.

Rodriguez got the biggest contract of any catcher available during the 2009-2010 off season. Rod Barajas (92 wRC+) got a one-year deal worth $500,000. Yorvit Torrealba (93) got one year and $1.25 million. John Buck (100) got one year and $2 million. Miguel Olivo (80) got a one-year deal and $2.5 million. Even the 40-year-old, career fall-back option Henry Blanco would have been a better choice, with his one-year, $775k contract and 76 wRC+.

Colby Lewis, Coco Crisp, Aubrey Huff, and Brett Myers all signed one-year deals that off season worth less than Rodriguez's $6 million deal.

And you can't accuse me of 20-20 hindsight. At the time I wanted Torrealba. My second choices were Olivo and Greg Zaun, who was ok for Milwaukee before his shoulder finally gave out and forced him to retire. (And I suggested trading for Wilson Ramos! Man, that was a pretty smart post!)

Rodriguez hasn't played a ton this year, and the biggest potential downside to his signing was that he may have ended up blocking better young players like Ramos, Jesus Flores, or Derek Norris. That hasn't been an issue, since Ramos got his playing time, Flores hasn't been healthy, and Norris hasn't earned the opportunity.

Still, despite the overwhelming hard evidence that Ivan Rodriguez has been one of the least valuable players in baseball over the last two seasons and an awful $6 million signing, we hear every time he plays about his mystical "intangible value." I guess his wife must be really, really hot.

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

2011-09-04T10:56:00.002-04:00

Holy cow! You people have been reading your Charles Krauthammer! It's an all-time high for Nationals fan optimism, as 93% of the 113 people who voted last month say the team is on the right track.

As we detected 2 years ago (I was on hiatus at this point last summer), it helps the mood when the Nationals spend a lot at the draft signing deadline. Losing 9 out of 10 might temper things in September, but then maybe not. Fans have been pretty darn bullish for two solid years now.

Be sure to vote on this month's poll in the upper right corner of the blog.

Two More Wins to Prove Me Wrong

2011-09-03T09:59:00.006-04:00

My preseason prediction for the Nationals: 64 wins. Right now they're at 63-73.

Obviously I was overly pessimistic on this team. In my defense, I've done pretty well over the years betting the under on the Nationals. And of course, they've now lost nine of ten.

Anyone care to make a prediction on when they get to finally break out the bubbly for the 65th win and say "screw you" to FJB?

What to Expect from Chris Marrero

2011-08-27T15:36:00.006-04:00

Chris Marrero makes his major league debut tonight. It's been a long time coming for the 2006 first round pick, who Jim Bowden at the time comped to Miguel Cabrera.

Moreover, it's been a long time coming for the entire draft class of 2006, which was stacked with high school players who didn't pan out. In fact, as NFA Brian points out on Twitter, Marrero is the first high school player from that entire draft to appear in the majors, and Cole Kimball is the only player of any pedigree from that draft to make the bigs (although they did turn fourth round pick Glenn Gibson into Elijah Dukes).

Brad Peacock, the 41st round pick from 2006, probably won't be far behind, and he's suddenly looking like the guy who could salvage an otherwise miserable draft conducted by a scouting department gutted by MLB ownership of the franchise.

But after that the cupboard is pretty bare. It's possible that a couple relievers like Hassan Pena, Cory Van Allen, or Zech Zinicola will some day throw some mop-up innings in the majors, and "Don't call me Mary" Tyler Moore has followed up his breakout 2010 enough that he'll probably be a bench guy at some point.

But Chris Marrero is the man of the hour, and the question is, what can Nationals fans expect from him?

The short answer is that you should keep your expectations in check. He's a former #1 prospect, and you've been hearing about him for a long time, but he's really not a top prospect anymore.

First, you gotta have a really premium bat to be an even average MLB first baseman, and Marrero has yet to demonstrate that he can be that kind of hitter. First basemen who hit and throw right-handed have an even steeper mountain to climb. He hasn't appeared in the Baseball America top 100 list since 2007, and he fell all the way to #9 among Nationals prospects coming into this season.

He has a long swing, and he's very slow, which means he's going to struggle with batting average at the major league level. And while he has some raw power, his hit tool hasn't allowed the power to materialize in game situations. He's a bad fielder.

This year he's hitting .300 / .375 / .449 at AAA, which sounds ok, but there's a huge gap between AAA and the majors. A decent rule of thumb is to shave 20% off the top of whatever a guy is doing at AAA (though in fairness the International League is a pretty pitcher-friendly place).

Recently Marrero's been slumping, going 8 for his last 39 with 8 Ks, 3 walks, and just one XBP in his last ten games. He gets to debut in Great American Small Park against RHP Mike Leake.

Now I Can Die Happy

2011-08-23T13:44:00.002-04:00

I've been paid tribute in a Hitler meme (I think). This may be the pinnacle of my blogging life.

I will admit that I was a little irritated when with no outs and a runner on first with the Sea Dogs up 1-0 in the 8th inning, Derek Norris sac bunted. Yeah, that's what we came to see. But I didn't go execute any generals.

And there were lots of good things about game one at Hadlock Field. Yes, Bryce Harper signed autographs before and after the game (I didn't get one--hands were full with a fourth-month-old and three-year-old). Tanner Roark, a pitcher who came to the Nationals with Ryan Tatusko from Texas for Cristian Guzman, took a no-hitter into the seventh. Cory Van Allen and Rafael Martin looked good in relief. I got to see possible future MLB bench guys Tyler Moore and Erik Komatsu. They have Baxter's on tap. And yes, I got my Ryan Kalish bobblehead.

Tonight it's Danny Rosenbaum and his 1.40 ERA. I'll be the one in the general admission section plotting revenge.

The Mike Morse Post

2011-08-22T05:31:00.001-04:00

Let's get this out of the way first: Mike Rizzo deserves mad props for uncovering the beast that has become Mike Morse in 2011.

I had no idea that Morse had this kind of season in him--though in my defense, I don't know anyone else who did either. Baseball Reference has Jason Michaels as the most comparable player in league history to Morse through age 28, and PECOTA's 90th percentile projection for Morse this season (i.e. the outcome with a 10% likelihood of occurring) was .312 / .374 / .505--a peg below what he's actually done.

I considered the Morse for Ryan Langerhans deal a junk-for-junk non-move, the kind of deal where two teams trade players they've both gotten tired of, only to later learn why the other organization wasn't interested in holding onto their guy in the first place. If anything I figured Langerhans had a better chance at giving the Nationals at least some value in the future because of his glove.

And then at the start of this season I criticized Rizzo for taking a really good bench player and pressing him into full-time duty where I expected him to get exposed.

Now we know that Rizzo absolutely picked Jack Zduriencik's pocket. (Geez, the Mariners could use Mike Morse's bat right now, eh?) If Mike Morse never gets another hit for the Nationals, this will be one of the most lopsided deals we've seen since 2005.

It's really hard to underestimate how good Morse has been. His .319 / .369 / .557 line puts him just shade below the MVP contenders. His .395 wOBA is third best among all first basemen in the NL, and if you wanted to play some arbitrary end-points games and chop off his slump at the start of the season, you could probably pull some numbers that look positively Pujols-like

Put it this way: if the season ended today he'd have the second highest single-season wOBA of any Nationals player since the team came to Washington (trailing only Nick Johnson's massively under-appreciated 2006). That's right--Morse has been a more valuable all-around hitter for the Nationals than Alfonso Soriano, Adam Dunn, or Ryan Zimmerman ever were. And we're talking about an essentially free talent acquisition, the biggest out-of-nowhere season by any player not named Bautista in years.

(Speaking of Jose Bautista, how come people wanna speculate about him being on the juice but we never ever hear that about Morse? I mean, Joey Bats has never been linked to steroids ever, which is more than we can say about Morse. I don't have any evidence, but since I keep waiting for someone to be irresponsible enough to bring it up, why not me?)

Now it's time for me to do what I do and splash some cold water. First, let's remember that Morse is not young. He's 29 years old, which is usually at or just a bit past most players' peak years.

Second, we need to remember why this guy toiled around mostly in the minor leagues in three organizations for basically a decade having the career of Jason Michaels. He's been injury prone for his entire career. He's not a very good defender, even playing on the extreme end of the defensive spectrum (errorless streak and comps to Adam Dunn notwithstanding).

And most of all, he rarely if ever takes a walk, which until this season has prevented his 5 o'clock power from ever actualizing in game situations. And that's a part of his game hasn't improved at all this season--his unintentional walk rate is a Guzman-esque 4.7%. It's just incredibly rare for any player to be able to be as productive as Morse has been this year while drawing so few walks.

How rare? Well, let's see. Morse is at 23 walks so far this season, about 0.2 per game played, and there are 39 games to play. So that would mean he's in line for about 8 more walks for the year if he plays more or less every game.

Let's be a bit generous and say that Morse will finish the season with 35 walks. Here's the list of every player in the expansion era since 1961 who has had a 153 OPS+ (same as Morse's this year) while drawing 35 or fewer walks: Tony Oliva in 1971 and Andre Dawson, Chet Lemon, and Bill Madlock (oddly) all in 1981.

So you're talking about a player who at age 29 is displaying a skill set that not only has he personally never displayed, very few players in the last 50 years of baseball have ever displayed.

Does that mean the Morse's season is just a giant fluke? Well, to an extent, yes, it probably does. But Morse might continue to be a useful, even quite good player for another year or two (beyond that is probably expecting too much).

He's really cut down on his strikeout rate since coming to Washington, and that should continue to help him. And he can be equally below average defensively at a couple different positions, which gives the team some flexibility in finding places for him to play.

But I don't think the team should stop trying to replace him. I'm interested in seeing Derek Norris at first base, and if they want to make a run at Prince Fielder (or I guess Pujols) this off-season, Morse shouldn't stop them.

One good thing is that Morse is still under team control for another year, so there shouldn't be any risk of giving him some big contract, at least not yet.

Bottom line, Nationals fans should really enjoy this season, take it for what it is, but don't start raising your hopes too much. Things that have virtually never happened before are pretty unlikely to ever happen again.

For the Record, the Nationals Overpaid on their Draft Picks

2011-08-20T08:25:00.011-04:00

In the last few days, I've started to feel a little guilty about writing this the day after the signing deadline: "the team isn't just spending big--they're spending smart."

I still believe 100% in the main point I was making, that the draft is an incredible buyer's market, because the price teams pay for talent in the draft is massively suppressed by the collective bargaining agreement. Just look at the $30 million contract that Aroldis Chapman got compared to the $8 million that Garrett Cole got.

But if you look at the Nationals' signings purely in the context of draft dollars, they clearly overpaid. A couple days before the draft, Baseball America's Jim Callis put the "over-under" for the combined cost of signing the Nationals top three picks at $9 million, and the Nationals spent $11 million--and then threw another $4.15 million at Matt Purke. Scoring the negotiations, it was a blowout for Boras on every card.

Let's start with Brian Goodwin. Taken with the 34th overall pick in the supplemental first round, Goodwin got $3 million, the ninth biggest bonus paid to any player in the draft. It tied for the third-highest bonus ever outside of the first round and almost $2 million more than Corey Spangenberg, the only junior college position player taken higher than Goodwin at #10 overall.

I and most other fans I know have (appropriately) focused on the fact that Goodwin was generally considered better than the 34th best talent in the draft, so if you only look at draft order the Nationals got good value. But if you had told anyone in the industry prior to draft that Goodwin would get that kind of money, they would have laughed. Scott Boras scored an incredible deal for his client, probably double what he had any right to expect.

Matt Purke was the real eyebrow-raiser. Everyone knows the story by now. Drafted out of high school, Purke was ready to take a $6 million offer from Texas, but MLB, in control of the Rangers' finances at the time, blocked it. Then, just eight months ago, the TCU lefty was rated alongside Anthony Rendon and Garrett Cole as the potential top pick in a strong draft. But then he had shoulder problems, which some scouts think might be related to his slingy, low-three-quarters arm slot.

If healthy, Purke has potential frontline stuff. But health is a huge factor in how you have to value any pick, especially pitchers. And shoulders aren't like elbows--you don't just give a guy a new ligament and wait 18 monts for him to return to normal.

That's why most folks thought Purke and the Nationals probably wouldn't (shouldn't, even) make a deal. The established market value for a fourth-round pick with at best iffy medicals--even one with Purke's upside--probably isn't much more than a million dollars or so. And Purke, observers figured, could get closer to the $6 million that Texas wanted to pay him if he could just go out next year and show that his shoulder was ok.

But the Nationals made all that moot by simply offering him a contract that basically assumes that his health is not an issue. Which it clearly is.

All this was even more surprising because when the Nationals drafted him, Mike Rizzo (wisely, I thought) said the team would follow his performance in summer leagues and make their decision accordingly. Well, Purke didn't play summer ball. He hasn't pitched a single inning anywhere since the draft. The team says they were convinced by Purke's workouts and bullpen sessions, but scouts will tell you there's a big difference between side sessions and facing live batters.

I'm really nitpicking now, but even the Alex Meyer deal is a bit of an overpay. Now, because Meyer turned down $2 million from the Red Sox out of high school--and Scott Boras doesn't like to give back money--it's long been assumed that Meyer's price tag would begin with a 2. But still, that's still more than the bonuses paid to Tyler Anderson, Matt Barnes, Sonny Gray, or Chris Reed, four college pitchers picked ahead of him.

Don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled by what the Nationals did in the draft. I've been arguing for years that the draft is by far the cheapest source of premium talent, and that with a $68 million payroll in a large, wealthy market, the Nationals have plenty of resources to load up the farm system with high-upside gambles. And besides, it's fun.

But the nagging question in my mind is this: Are the Nationals aggressively exploiting market inefficiencies in a way that will lead to long term success? Or are they just throwing money at anyone who will take it?

Flushing $4 million down the toilet on one damaged goods pitcher isn't going to break any MLB team. But it won't take many Jayson Werth-type mistakes to put this franchise an a real financial straight-jacket, as opposed to the self-imposed limits of the Stan Kasten era.

It's just so hard for Nationals fans to worry about profligate spending after years of skinflint ownership. Can you even imagine the Nationals failing the way Jim Hendry failed in Chicago, saddling his team with massive contracts for a roster full of replacement level players or worse?

Then again, maybe I'm just an extreme pessimist who doesn't know how to respond to good news. After all, I worked my guts out to get Obama elected, and on election night in 2008, when everyone else was partying, all I could think about what what a nightmare the midterms would be in 2010. Here's hoping the Nationals aren't quite as perennially deflating as those other guys in Washington.

Washington Nationals: Large Market Spenders?

2011-08-16T09:23:00.006-04:00

No team in baseball spent more on the draft in 2009 ($11.5 mil) and 2010 ($11.9 mil) than the Washington Nationals. This year's draft makes those look cheap by comparison

Remember, in those two drafts the Nationals had the #1 overall pick, and with generational talents Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper available, the Nationals were guaranteed to be the top spenders in the draft if they got their top picks signed.

This year, the Nationals blew away their own records without the benefit of the #1 overall pick, though with the #6 pick in a deep draft they got a #1 type talent in Anthony Rendon.

The big news from last night is that the Nationals not only spent $6 million on Rendon--they spent a total of nearly $12 million on their top four picks combined, including $2.75 million on fourth round pick Matt Purke, a #1 overall talent who slid because of medical and signability issues.

Turn back the clock three years, and this kind of spending is nearly unthinkable. This is a team that walked away from the #9 pick the draft in 2008 over a difference of a couple hundred thousand dollars. They took Ross Detwiler, not a huge reach, but a guy with low bonus demands, with the #6 pick in 2007. They let their second round pick in 2006 walk.

The Nationals of that era never would have drafted Purke, much less signed him. They probably would have walked away from Brian Goodwin and/or Alex Meyer before spending what they did last night.

This year, the Nationals drafted and spent like a large market team looking to leverage their financial clout to maximum advantage. (Of course, one of the curious things about MLB is that in fact it's the small market teams like the Pirates, Rays, and Royals that have been most aggressive in their draft spending, while teams like the Astros and Mets have played it cheap. But that's a whole other post.)

Even more exciting, the team isn't just spending big--they're spending smart. As OMG points out, even teams that spend "big" in the draft don't spend much in the context of MLB economics. That's because the amateurs are screwed by the CBA, and will probably be screwed even worse in the next agreement.

And this draft is one of the deepest, strongest drafts in recent memory, while next year's draft is expected to be one of the weakest. If there was ever a year to draft and spend aggressively, this was it.

That's why, combined with their aggressive moves in free agency over the last two years (Werth, Teixeira, and various other smaller deals) and their willingness to pick up contracts in trades (Willingham, Gomes), I have to wonder--have the Nationals, over the last 2-3 years, evolved into a large market spender?

Other than Yuniesky Maya, they still haven't done a lot internationally, and their MLB payroll is still pretty low. But let's face it there's only so much you can spend on.

The question on my mind is what exactly changed? How did the Lerners go from one of the league's biggest skinflints to one a team that's regularly getting blasted by other teams for "irresponsible" spending?

More and more, the Aaron Crow meltdown feels like the turning point. The front office was split there, with Kasten and Bowden defending the team's decision to walk away, and Mike Rizzo openly disagreeing. Since then, Kasten and Bowden are gone, and it's now Rizzo's team.

But what changed in the owners' box? The conspiracy part of my brain thinks that maybe part of Bud Selig's deal to award the franchise to the Lerners was a gentleman's agreement to hold down spending, with Stan Kasten as the babysitter to make sure that happened.

That would be illegal collusion (which we know the owners aren't above), so no one's going to come out and say it, but I would love it if Mark Lerner would make himself available for an honest in-depth interview in which he admitted his change in thinking and discuss why.

See me (and Bryce Harper) at Hadlock Field!

2011-08-16T08:35:00.002-04:00

The Harpersburg Senators will be visiting my new hometown of Portland, Maine next week to take on the Portland Sea Dogs at Hadlock Field, which Keith Law recently cited as his favorite minor league field in the country.

If you're going to be in the area, lemme know. Maybe we can meet up, or at least I can give you food recommendations.

And if anyone with the team happens to see this and wants to throw me a press credential, don't be shy. I'll behave, I promise.

What to Watch For: Signing Deadline

2011-08-14T21:30:00.008-04:00

Tomorrow is the signing deadline for players drafted in June, an event which gives every hard-core Nationals fan the willies since the Aaron Crow fiasco of 2008.* Here are some things to watch for as the clock ticks towards midnight.

First, the Nationals go into the last 24 hours with their top five picks all still unsigned. Lots of teams are in this situation, and for that, you can thank Bud Selig and his laughably ham-handed efforts to suppress signing bonuses.

I don't want to make this an entire post about why, when it comes to draft bonuses, MLB is (take your pick) incompetent, greedy, insane, maddening, self-defeating... But the upshot is that MLB tells teams and players that picks should be signed for their arbitrary, unilateral bonus recommendations, or "slots." Neither players nor teams think these slot recommendations are realistic, and they've been shown to be completely out of touch with reality over and over again.

The Nationals aren't going to sign any of these top picks for slot, and everyone knows that. But MLB won't allow teams to ink players for over-slot deals until the last minute, based on the illusion that players, agents, and teams don't already know that the slot recommendations are absurd bluffs.

For the Nationals that means there is a lot of work to get done in the final hours, which creates the potential for another Crow-like debacle with everyone wondering, "how did that happen?"

That said, I'd be stunned if the Nationals failed to sign any of their first three picks, Anthony Rendon, Alex Meyer, and Brian Goodwin--though it could cost the team a combined eight figures to get them all done. All three are Boras clients (remember when we didn't like that guy?), and reports that Rizzo spent the weekend talking to third-round pick Matt Purke increases the sense that these deals are done or close to it.

Rendon is the top college pick in the draft, and two years ago that distinction brought Dustin Ackley $7.5 million. Ackley was the #2 overall pick, while Rendon went #6, but it's still unlikely that Rendon goes for less than $6-7 million. Meyer turned down $2 million from the Red Sox out of high school in 2008, so don't count on him taking less than that. And Goodwin is a high-upside guy who could easily go back to school and try to increase his draft standing.

In each of these negotiations, a major factor will be the fact that this year's draft was considered very strong while next year's draft (especially the college class) is considered very weak. So if you're the Nationals, there's no way you can expect to get similar value with compensation picks next year, especially if they fail to sign Rendon or Meyer. And the players know they have a good chance of getting drafted in the same spot or higher if they wait.

The conventional wisdom is that the Nationals will not be able to sign their fourth pick, Matt Purke. If they don't, I wouldn't be too upset. The Rangers wanted to give Purke $6 million when they drafted him in 2009, but MLB blocked them (cuz clearly Selig knows more about scouting than Jon Daniels and his team, and screw the player--according to Bud, he should only get to negotiate with one team and Bud gets to veto the deal he strikes with that team too, but whatever). Purke was considered a potential 1-1 pick going into this season, but he had shoulder troubles that scared away most teams, for good reason.

So especially considering the weak 2012 draft class, Purke has a really good chance of getting his $6 million if he can go out next season and show people that he's ok. The question is how close the Nationals are willing to come to that figure, and how much Purke values security over opportunity. If Rizzo's final offer is around $2 million and Purke walks, it's kind of hard to blame either side.

Here's where you might be thinking, "Screw that kid! Two million in today's economy? Who does he think he is." And you'd be wrong. Remember, the collective bargaining agreement allows teams to pay players the league minimum for three full seasons. And the teams can and do blatantly manipulate players' service time by keeping top prospects in the minor far longer than they need to be. So bottom line, Purke and any other player drafted is at least 4-5 years away from another really big payday, and especially given the injury risk that pitchers face, their draft bonus is likely to be the only really big money they ever see. They'd be crazy not to leverage these negotiations to the max--especially in today's economy.

The fifth unsigned pick is fourth-rounder Kylin Turnbull. He's a 6'5", 21-year-old lefty with a lot of projection and a commitment to Oregon. In other words, he's not signing for slot either.

If the Nationals fail to sign any of these players (or even if they do), keep an eye on rounds 19 and 20 picks Hawtin Buchanan and Josh Laxer. These are two elite high school pitchers out of Mississippi who are both committed to Ole Miss. You assume these guys won't get signed, but teams sometimes throw first round money at guys like this as a Plan B when their top picks fail to sign.

*No, just because Drew Storen seems to be turning out to be a roughly similar player to Crow doesn't justify what the Nationals did. Good luck does not justify bad process, and this was probably the worst meltdown in the five-year history of the August 15 signing deadline. If you want you relive my many rants on the topic, you can search the blog for past articles on Aaron Crow. But one thing I'll add now is that the further we get from that era the more it seems that Stan Kasten was acting during that negotiation in particular and perhaps during his entire tenure in DC as a mole from the commissioner's office, keeping payroll and draft bonuses artificially suppressed in the (misguided) perceived interests of MLB and against the interests of the Nationals.

OMG! He Threw His Helmet!!

2011-08-12T12:44:00.003-04:00

Bryce Harper was ejected from a game this week for throwing his helmet. Based on the media response, someone who dropped in from another planet knowing nothing about baseball would probably think this was quite an unusual event.

Here are a few other famously bad make-up players and managers. Boy, I hope Bryce doesn't turn out like any of these bums:

Just another stupid non-story from a sports media unwilling to let a little thing like journalistic integrity stand in the way of attracting cheap clicks and eyeballs. Maybe next we'll find out that Harper plays poker! GASPS!!!!

The Trade Never Considered

2011-08-04T09:21:00.012-04:00

In a recent post about the Nationals' failure to nab any of the talented young center fielders that have come available in the last few seasons, I tossed off a remark at the end that I wouldn't do a Drew Storen for Denard Span

I was taken to task in the comments and realized pretty quickly that I was wrong there. As NTP Nate asked, "You don't trade a right-handed reliever for a 27-year old with a .366 career OBP and plus defense in CF who's on a reasonable (5 yr/$16.5M) contract through 2014? Where are these type of guys growing on trees?"

In part, my error was that I hadn't really paid that much attention to Span this year. I remembered his down year in 2010 and assumed he wasn't doing much better this year given how the Twins are doing as a team. But he's actually having a nice bounce-back year, and it's looking like his down 2010 is the aberration.

After that, the argument for the deal is simple: every day players--especially up-the-middle players--are harder to find and worth more than relievers. If the reporting is accurate and the Twins were asking for Storen and a so-so prospect like Steve Lombardozzi, then I would have made that deal. (Of course, we don't really know whether it was Mike Rizzo or the Twins GM Bill Bill Smith who walked away, so I'm not going to get too worked up about this one rumor.)

But here's the real reason my knee-jerk reaction was to say no to Storen for Span: I was reacting as a fan. I like Drew Storen, and it's been exciting to see him come up and perform right away. It's really hard to say goodbye to your team's home grown players, and my heart said no before my head got a vote.

Which brings me to the real topic of this post: Setting aside my feelings as a fan, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that the player the Nationals should have traded last week was Ryan Zimmerman.

First, even despite losing a bunch of time (again) with an injury, Zimmerman's trade value is sky-high. Dave Cameron argued on Fangraphs that Zimmerman has the 10th highest trade value of any player in baseball, which may be a little high but is close. We all know he's one of the game's elite all-around players, and he's signed to a really team-friendly contract through next season.

But let's look at where the Nationals are at as a franchise. This year, they have met or exceeded any fan's highest expectations, and they are sitting in last place at 53-57 on pace for 78 wins. And while a few key things have gone wrong for the team this year (Zimmerman, Adam LaRoche, Jayson Werth), look at the things that have gone right.

Mike Morse has made it impossible to miss Adam LaRoche. Danny Espinosa and Wilson Ramos have done very well in their first full seasons. The bullpen has been very good. Laynce Nix? And really every single starting pitcher other than maybe Tom Gorzelanny has given the team a best-case-scenario performance.

The reality is that the window of opportunity to win with Ryan Zimmerman could very well be next year and the year after, as his contract expires in 2013. He's going to be a free agent going into his age 29 season and will command a huge contract, assuming nothing goes wrong for him over the next 2 years.

And let's face it, even if you project a healthy Strasburg, continued development from the young players, and a bounce-back year from Werth, the team still doesn't have enough to make the playoffs next season, barring some massive spending spree that starts but doesn't end with Albert Pujols.

Now, I'll admit that there's been a lot of progress for this team. It's damn hard to go from 59 wins to 69 wins to 78 wins in three consecutive seasons. I can see how some fans might feel like the team is getting close. But it's really not. Look at the Nationals rotation. Now look at the Phillies' rotation. Back to the Nationals. Now back to the Phillies. Sadly, they aren't them, though in all fairness they probably smell about the same.

And here's the best news of all for the Nationals: they've had a nice little year on the farm. Brad Peacock is getting a lot of ink as the big breakthrough of 2011, but other guys like Sammy Solis, Robbie Ray, Tom Milone, and A.J. Cole are having very nice developmental seasons as well. That's a lot of arms coming together all at once, and draft picks Alex Meyer and Matt Purke are two more potential impact arms to add if they sign.

They still don't have impact bats in the system, and Derek Norris still hasn't really been able to follow up on his breakthrough in 2009, but Anthony Rendon will change that as soon as he signs (and oh by the way, you know what position he plays).

Bottom line, the Nationals have the best farm system they've had since coming to DC. And a lot of these guys aren't that far off. You can really see the makings of a contending group taking shape around Strasburg and Harper--a rising core of talent that can get good together at the same time from from 2013-2016.

Now, let's imagine the kind of prospect haul the team could get for Zimmerman and add that group to what they already have. If the Nationals had put Zimmerman on the market last week, he easily would have been the most valuable player on the market--far and away more valuable than Hunter Pence, Carlos Beltran, or even Ubaldo Jimenez. And all those guys fetched top-shelf prospects. And with third base so thin around the league, there would be no shortage of suitors.

With the internal development they've had, plus the 2011 draft, plus a blockbuster package of prospects, their under-25 organizational talent would suddenly be right up there with Kansas City and Texas as the best in baseball. And with that you really could be looking at a sustained run of playoff appearances and a World Series.

The first alternative is to resign Zimmerman to another long-term deal, which may or may not even be possible and will likely cost over $170 million, and keep trying to win now with a team built around him, Werth, Strasburg, maybe Harper, and whatever else you're willing to pay for in free agency. In this scenario, I think the Nationals can expect a sustained run of respectability, but it's hard to imagine how a true contender comes together.

Of course the other possibility is that they lose Zimmerman in free agency after 2013 and get a couple draft picks as compensation (and please Nationals fans stop cherry-picking Jordan Zimmermann to overstate the value of a second round draft pick, ok? Good luck does not make good process.)

Add all this together, and it's kind of surprising to me that there hasn't been any discussion of moving Zimmerman. It just makes a lot of sense if you can stop and think about it without getting emotional about The Face. And it's certainly not too late--they should be able to put him out on the market next year at the deadline and get as much or more in return assuming nothing else changes.

Of course, there's one other complicating factor here: Jayson Werth and his $126 million contract. Could the team really sell off a piece like Zimmerman while sitting on a contract like that for a 32-year-old? Most teams wouldn't, but that doesn't mean it's not the right move. It would just make one more way in which the Werth signing will likely be more of a hindrance than a help for this team.

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

2011-08-03T23:07:00.004-04:00

Nationals fan confidence dipped a bit to 80% as the team followed a .630 June with a .423 July. But that's still a very high degree of optimism and basically where the fan base has been since Strasburg signed back in 2009.

Time to vote on the August poll in the upper right hand corner of the page.

Marquis & Hairston Traded

2011-07-30T22:03:00.005-04:00

The Nationals traded away Jason Marquis today and appear to have gotten more value in return than I expected would be possible.

Dumping Marquis is a no-brainer. He's a free agent at the end of the season, and he hasn't done enough to return any draft picks for the Nationals if they lose him at the end of the season. So literally the guy is worth nothing to the tail-spinning Nationals. Plus, he's got over $2 million more dollars coming to him.

Worse yet, he's blocking prospects. Brad Peacock is definitely ready for a look against big league competition but someone had to go to make room. (Tom Milone is getting lots of love from Davey Johnson too, but I'm less convinced on him.)

My biggest question about trading Marquis is if there's anyone out there who would want him--or would be willing to give anything up and take the remainder of his contract anyway. We're talking about a pitcher who has a 3.95 ERA, which sounds good, but is actually a tick worse than the average performance by starting pitchers in the NL this season.

But Arizona came calling, and in return the Nationals got Zack Walters. He's a 21-year-old infielder hitting .302 / .377 / .485 in his second season of pro ball. Baseball America mentioned a comp to Geoff Blum in the 2011 Prospect Handbook, where Walters was ranked #29, though his stock has risen and he should rank higher with the Nationals next time around. He's a shortstop now but projects better as a utility man best suited for second base or third. He's also a switch hitter, which adds to his stock as a future bench option.

Overall, the Nationals would have been better off just dumping Marquis and his contract for nothing, and they did well to get anything of potential major league value here.

The Jerry Hairston trade is a similar story. The Brewers were desperate to get a second baseman after Rickie Weeks got hurt (and they've been hurting for anyone, anyone at all to play shortstop and third base).

Rizzo spotted the opportunity to get the Brewers to overpay. You might never hear of Erik Komatsu again, but he's got a chance to have a career as a fourth or fifth outfielder. He doesn't have much power, but he's hitting got a .393 OBP in AA, which is impressive, and he's 23 years old, so it's not like he's old for the league

If you're a Brewers fan, you've gotta be pulling your hair out that you have to trade any kind of prospect for a guy like Jerry Hairston. It's absolutely embarrassing not to have someone you can call up or plug in to do what he does. But Rizzo spotted the need and got something for basically nothing.

Danny Espinosa, Shortstop

2011-07-29T20:55:00.003-04:00

When Davey Johnson was hired, he made comments about how important it is to use the rest of the season to find out what the team has going into next season. That's in part why Roger Bernadina has been getting so much playing time--to make sure that the team knew whether he could be the starter next year, or more likely not.

In that spirit, it's time to find out if Danny Espinosa can be an everyday shortstop. Because we know that, at least at this point, Ian Desmond cannot.

First let's focus on the good news. Espinosa was seen as a good prospect going into the season--a guy who someday would become a solid regular in the majors even. Well, he's already become that, and at age 24 he now has a chance--not a likelihood, but a chance--to become a perennial first division starter.

He's slumping a bit lately, but his power has exceeded scouts' expectations, and his approach has continued to mature. He's also stealing bases with an 86% success rate and doesn't make errors in the field (tonight was just his eighth). He's been a fantastic second basemen, and he's shown plenty of arm to make the transition to shortstop.

Long-term, Espinosa is more valuable to the Nationals as a shortstop for the simple reason that it's harder to find offensive-minded shortstops than second basemen. Also, you gotta figure that Anthony Rendon's fastest path to the majors is to transition to second, if not just hang around and wait for Ryan Zimmerman to hit free agency.

Regardless, the Nationals need to know going into next season whether they need to add a shortstop in the off-season or if the Espinosa is the answer. They have 58 games to figure that out, and time's a-wastin'.

That leaves the question of what to do with Desmond. He's been prominent in trade talks, which I guess makes sense. If someone sees Desmond as a 25-year-old starting shortstop and wants to give up that kind of value, then fine. But there's no reason to get frustrated and dump him.

Desmond was red-hot in his September call-up two years ago, and has done nothing but get worse and worse. Pitchers have adjusted, and Desmond hasn't responded. He's not getting in very many hitters' counts, and he isn't making nearly enough hard contact. But the tools are still there. He could still have a good career as a utility man. He could also improve his plate discipline, allowing his power to reemerge.

Teams way too often get tired of their own prospects when their development stalls. The Nationals should try to avoid that mistake, send Desmond down to Syracuse, start working him at second, third, and the corner outfield spots, and let him hit his way back.

But at the very least, Desmond shouldn't be blocking Danny Espinosa from proving himself as the team's true shortstop of the future.

The Center Fielders Who Got Away

2011-07-28T20:57:00.005-04:00

All the talk around the Nationals these days is how they are "feverishly" looking for a long-term answer in center field.

Over the past eight months, two of the most talented young center fielders in baseball have changed teams. Both are 24 years old. One is under team control for the next three and a half years, and the other for four and a half. And both were traded for at most 60 cents on the dollar.

Still, despite the fact that the Nationals are "feverishly" looking for a long-term answer in center field (and have been for pretty much time immemorial, aside from brief, ill-fated love affair with Nyjer Morgan a couple years ago), neither Colby Rasmus nor Cameron Maybin are on the Washington Nationals.

Why? It can't be said that they didn't have the inventory to make deals. Especially in Maybin's case, anyone could have had him. He went to San Diego in exchange for a couple middle relievers. Maybin's been around for a long time, but he's still at an age that a lot of very good major leaguers are just getting their first taste of the majors. He hadn't put it together yet, but he's full of tools and the Marlins gave up on him way too soon.

Rasmus may have been a little tougher for the Nationals to pull off. Let's face it, Alex Anthopolous is proving himself to be one of the very best GMs in the game, and just being able to sniff out the opportunity to swing the complicated three-way deal that he made is impressive.

But even setting aside that part, do the Nationals have the pieces to make a deal like Anthopolous did? Maybe not. He gave up Zach Stewart, Jason Frasor, Octavio Dotel, Marc Rzepczynski, and Corey Patterson. Most teams including the Nationals could match the last four names on the list. Probably it would have cost Tyler Clippard and someone else out of the pen, but that's ok.

Stewart would have been the chip the Nationals would have had a hard time matching--a 24-year-old pitching prospect who some think could be a #2 but others think might end up in the bullpen. The Nationals probably would have had to offer A.J. Cole or Brad Peacock, and it's possible Williams would have preferred Stewart anyway, since he's closer than Cole and has better stuff than Peacock.

Still, everyone and their father knew that Tony LaRussa wanted Rasmus out of St. Louis, and that there was a deal to be made. Bottom line, Anthopolous made the deal, and Rizzo didn't.

The conventional wisdom is that the Nationals are hot on B.J. Upton, and maybe that's the deal that will get made. Upton is probably the most talented of them all, but he's also a free agent after next season and there are lots of questions about his work ethic.

From what I've read, it seems like the Nationals are offering something like Clippard, Ian Desmond, and maybe someone else, and the Rays are demanding at least Drew Storen. If that's true, I'm not sure it's a deal I want to make. I much rather would have gotten Cameron Maybin on the dirt-cheap.

We'll see what happens when the music stops, but right now it's hard not to look at Toronto and San Diego and wonder why we couldn't do what they did.

Oh and I almost forgot. Denard Span for Drew Storen? No thanks. Span's a fine player, but you don't trade away cost-controlled assets like Storen for guys like this. You should be able to find them easier ways.

Nats Get a DH

2011-07-26T23:03:00.005-04:00

The Nationals traded two not-prospects for Jonny Gomes in a Bowden-esque junk-for-junk deal that fans usually like because they get a guy they've heard of for a couple guys they haven't.

Gomes probably becomes the short-side platoon partner for Laynce Nix, which I guess is fine. Neither guy can hit same-handed pitching, and presumably Davey Johnson will do a good job optimizing. But Gomes is a dreadful fielder and 30 years old. And he's earning $1.75 million, so as pointless moves go, it's not a cheap one, unless the Reds are picking up the contract for some reason.

Kilgore says Gomes is likely to be a type-B free agent, which I haven't checked but seems probably right. That means that this could be an example of the Nationals more or less buying a second or third round draft pick, which would be fine. Then again, they'd have to tender Gomes a contract if they want the pick, and if I was Gomes I'd accept arbitration in a heartbeat. I wouldn't expect him to get what he's getting now as a free agent, and players don't usually take pay cuts from arbitrators.

There's nothing much to fret about in what the Nationals gave up. Bill Rhinehart was a fringey prospect a few years ago, but then he regressed badly and more or less missed his window. He's had a nice season this year at AA, but he's 26 playing against much younger competition. The offensive standards for first basemen are so high that he's really not a guy with any kind of future in MLB anymore.

Christopher Manno is a 22-year-old lefty reliever drafted by the Nationals in the 26th round out of ~~high school~~ Duke in 2010. He's been striking out hitters by the bushel in A ball, but he's never been on John Sickels' top 20 or BA's top 31. That's all I know about him. Minor league relief pitcher, whatever.

Mostly this is the kind of deal that annoys me, because it suggests that Rizzo is focused on the wrong things. But probably it won't matter, and at least we don't have to hear Bowden talk about "light tower power" in the news conference.

Hating Jayson Werth

2011-07-23T11:58:00.004-04:00

Nationals fans have started to turn on the $126 million man, and it's utterly predictable, given his .218 batting average and unimpressive 11 HR. Fans were expecting a near-MVP caliber player, and they've gotten something like the second coming of Austin Kearns.

But before the boo-birds get too worked up, let's stop and consider whether he really deserves the ire.

First, Werth hasn't actually been that bad. He's clearly been unlucky; he has a .263 BABIP, 61 points below his career average. That's a huge aberration.

And despite that, he still has a 93 OPS+, which means he's about 93% as good as the average major league hitter. Now, that's not what you want from your right fielder, but if you normalize the balls in play numbers, his on-base percentage would be right in line with his .361 career average.

The low BABIP doesn't explain his power decline--his ISO power (SLG minus BA) is down to .152 from .236 last year. A ten-point decline could probably explained by leaving the hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Park, but not this. It's still possible that Werth could bounce back this year or next--a 350-AB power drought isn't that usual over the course of a players career. But if Werth finishes the season without ever getting hot, it'll be reasonable to worry.

But the real reason fans feel like Werth isn't meeting expectations is that expectations were unduly raised by his outrageous contract.

Werth had been a good player for about three and a half years in his ages 28-31 seasons. But really he'd only been a quality every day player for the last two full seasons, and it's not unusual for late bloomers like this to fade early. Werth also had big home-away splits in Philadelphia and a long track record of injuries.

Sure, most people figured that Werth would be good for at least a couple seasons and only really become a problem in the out-years of his seven year contract. And some looked at Werth's mix of athleticism, speed, power, defense, and contact ability and saw a guy who could age well.

The point is that casual fans wouldn't be nearly as frustrated with Werth if they hadn't been led to believe that the team was acquiring a perennial superstar. So if you want to boo anyone for Werth's contract, boo Mike Rizzo.

Although I'm not even sure I'd do that yet. Don't get me wrong--I think the Werth contract is one of the worst in baseball. But if he has a bounce-back year next season, and the Strasburg-led Nationals make the playoffs, then it'll be at least in part justified. And we're told that part of the reason that the Nationals made the move was to send a message and change perceptions.

The key question is whether the team is planning on expanding it's payroll over the next 3-4 years and by how much. If the Lerners are prepared to expand payroll to $150 million or more a year like the Phillies and Mets, then the Werth contract won't be crippling. If they intend to stay in the $70-90 range like the Indians or Rockies, then the Werth contract will make it nearly impossible to retain cornerstones like Ryan Zimmerman or compete for free agents in the future.

The true mark of a large-market team isn't so much giving out contracts like Werth's. It's the willingness to eat contracts like Werth's and keep on chugging. It's the ability to make mistakes and move on. The Yankees and Red Sox are full of bad contracts like this. John Lackey. Carl Pavano. J.D. Drew. Kei Igawa. A.J. Burnett. Rafael Soriano. Javy Vazquez. Derek Jeter. Julio Lugo. They survive these deals because they budget for a certain percentage of free agents to become busts, which is what you have to do if you want to play in the free agent market because free agents are by definition older, declining players who cost much more than they can be counted on to produce.

The average NL right fielder this season is hitting .267 / .340 / .438. If you normalized Werth's BABIP, that's basically what his stat line would be now. That's not what the team is paying for, but you can definitely win with that--if you can surround that guy with better players elsewhere. The key question is whether the Nationals are prepared to spend enough to do that. Either way, smart fans won't boo Werth. Blame Rizzo, or don't, but don't blame Jayson Werth for being Jayson Werth.

Tyler Clippard: Least Deserving Nationals All-Star Ever?

2011-07-14T11:51:00.002-04:00

Over the years the Nationals have had some pretty sad representatives in the All-Star Game.

Dmitri Young in 2007 was probably the worst--an average offensive first baseman and an embarrassingly bad fielder who in total posted 1.5 wins above replacement for the season, or half what Danny Espinosa's already done this year.

A case could also be made for Cristian Guzman in 2008. He made it because he had a fluky .337 BABIP that put him among the league leaders in hits, but he was a below-average fielder and the 5th best shortstop in his own division that year, behind Jose Reyes, Jimmy Rollins, Hanley Ramirez, and Yunel Escobar.

But Tyler Clippard really might be the weakest Nationals all-star ever, and the shame of it is that the team has played legitimate .500 ball over the first 60% or so of the year and really truly had a couple deserving choices.

I don't mean this as a big knock on Clippard. He's a very, very nice relief pitcher. Jim Bowden deserves almost as much credit as he gives himself for acquiring him in exchange for Jonathan Albaladejo.

Still, the reason he's a relief pitcher is because he wasn't good enough to start. So even though Clippard has been very good out of the bullpen over the last season and a half, and we as Nationals fans love our begoggled vulture, we still kinda gotta admit that he's at least not as good as the 50-60 or so solid starting pitchers in the NL. Wanna say he's one of the ten best relievers in the NL? Fine, I could probably go along with that. But that doesn't qualify for the all-star game.

Just looking at the Nationals roster, does anyone really believe that Clippard is better than Jordan Zimmermann? What would Zimmermann's K:BB rate be if he could go all-out and unload his fastball one inning at a time and benefit from favorable match-ups?

Or consider Espinosa, who has been the best second baseman in the NL not named Rickie Weeks. Both Espinosa or Zimmermann would have been solid choices on the merits, without any one-per-team quota.

(And I know some folks wanna make the case for Mike Morse, and he's clearly had a smoking-hot couple months, but his season is just a bit too fluky to really get too riled up about.)

Even the other starting pitchers, none of whom obviously belong in the All-Star Game either, might have a better case than Clippard. Has Clippard been more valuable in his 51 innings than Livan Hernandez has been in 121? Or John Lannan in 108 or Jason Marquis in 106? Or consider this: what would Clippard's numbers look like if he was asked to throw that many innings?

Anyway, it's nice for Tyler Clippard to get the recognition, but it's too bad that in a season when the Nationals really do have some stars to showcase and a good team story to highlight, that the goofy all-star selection process turned the Nationals once again into a punch-line, this time about the no-name reliever who got the win without retiring a single hitter.

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

2011-07-13T23:36:00.002-04:00

Fizzleman out, Davey in, and the Nationals make it to the break at .500. All that is enough for fan confidence in June to skyrocket to 88%, nearly matching the all-time high of 89% from May, 2010, in the heady days approaching Strasburg's debut.

Voting is open on this month's poll on the right hand side of this page, and to make your voice heard you'll have to hurry up since I was off the grid in Alaska for the last two weeks and didn't get the July post up till the month was nearly half over.

Coming Up Smelling Like Roses

2011-06-25T00:20:00.002-04:00

Not much time to write, but if the news is correct that the Nationals have inked Davey Johnson to manage the Nationals, not just as an interim basis but through 2013, then Mike Rizzo has just turned a sow's ear into a silk purse.

Makes you think maybe this was in the works all along--that Davey was on board to run the team once they had accumulated enough talent to compete. He probably had his eye on Opening Day 2012, but why not start now?

Davey Johnson would be at or near the top of any GM's wishlist, and Nationals fans can stop fretting about ol' what's his name right now.

Riggleman Goes Postal

2011-06-23T20:50:00.005-04:00

Here's the one thing we can say with confidence after a few hours to digest the news that Jim Riggleman has quit as Nationals manager: Riggleman has thrown away any chance he'll probably ever have at managing again in MLB. Frankly, he'll probably never even be a bench coach or minor league manager.

When the Nationals came calling, Riggleman had been rotting on the vine for for a decade after getting fired as manager of the Chicago Cubs in 1999. He has a .445 career winning percentage. And just as he was proving some worth by getting the Nationals over .500 (just the 3rd time in 12 seasons he had a team win more than half their games), he decided it was time to burn down the building.

Jim seems to believe that he was terribly mistreated because it's June 12, and he didn't have a contract for next season. But here's the list of MLB managers who do not have a guaranteed contract for next year: Brad Mills, Tony LaRussa, Bruce Bochy, Terry Francona, and Jim Leyland. Add to that list interim hires Jack McKeon and Bob Melvin, and that's more than one out of every four managers in baseball.

Riggleman complained today that he didn't have the freedom to think outside the box, but what's that based on? He's been making a bunch of outside the box decisions lately, and to his credit a bunch of them were based on good process and have paid dividends, like leading off Jayson Werth or his early season eschewing of a traditional closer.

Now, it's true that it's pretty unusual for a manager to get consecutive one-year contracts like Jim did in 2010 and 2011. But he didn't have to agree to be the Nationals manager this year. No one put a gun to his head. No one ever said, "if you sign this deal and have the team over .500 at the end of June, we'll definitely pick up your option." To sign the contract and then quit on his team in mid-season is just completely beyond the pale.

We might never know the whole story. Maybe Mike Rizzo really said some things he should have, or implied assurances and didn't follow through. More likely, it appears that Riggleman just massively overplayed his hand, thought he had sufficient leverage after getting the team over .500 to give his boss an ultimatum. In fact, he had no real leverage. Riggleman wasn't being discussed as a manager of the year. He was never on anyone's list of top managers in the game. And only a fool would change that assessment based on one hot week of baseball.

So the Riggleman era is over. We can stop debating small ball vs. smart ball. The pitchers I'm sure can go back to hitting ninth. The team will probably start losing again, but not because of the manager--it'll be because the team doesn't actually have .500 talent.

And now we get to wait and see if Mike Rizzo has enough guts or imagination not to hire another pointless retread in his second chance. In the meantime, we can just sit back and enjoy the ripping Riggleman is getting on Twitter. Here are a few of my favorites:

@Buster_ESPN A rival official on Riggleman: "I wouldn't hire him for AA or AAA job. You can't walk away..when you're under contract."
@ngreenberg If Riggleman believed in the stats, he'd have known his stunt had about a 3% chance of working.
@crashburnalley Quick Jim Riggleman meme I threw together... http://t.co/sWdYwBh
@jposnanski Note to Jim Riggleman: When you tell your boss you will step down if your contract isn't fixed, it's usually called a "bluff."
@JohnMarecek: Wonder what Riggleman would say to a player, bitching about his option not picked up in June?
@BizballMaury I have determined that only karmatic location that would serve Jim Riggleman is the Marlins. They deserve each other #Riggleman #FAIL
@keithlaw I would be very impressed by Riggleman's move if he wasn't thoroughly replaceable as a manager.
@chrisneedham I'm sure Mrs. Riggleman is used to Jim giving up halfway through the job

John Lannan: He Is What He Is, But He Wasn't What He Was

2011-06-13T11:02:00.005-04:00

I have a confession. I picked up John Lannan in my fantasy baseball league. Now, this is an unusually deep 20-team league, and I had Brett Anderson, Jake Peavy, and Brandon McCarthy all on the DL, Colby Lewis in the tank, and the best other options available were Jason Marquis, Chris Narveson, and Tom Gorzelanny. Still, I feel I owe an explanation.

You see, as some may recall, in 2009, I confidently predicted with a couple months left in the season that there was no way that John Lannan would finish with 200 innings pitched an an ERA under 4.00.

Obviously, I was wrong, and Lannan's continued success has made my skepticism seem even less well founded. But the fact is that I was right to doubt Lannan back in 2009, because he was succeeding then in a spectacularly unsustainable way.

Check it out. That year, Lannan threw 206.1 innings with a 3.88 ERA and coincidentally also a 3.88 K/9 rate. Here's the list of pitchers who have thrown that many innings with an ERA and K-rate that low since 1993, the unofficial start of the juiced ball era (or whatever you call it), year baseball baseball expanded and runs per game jumped from 4.12 to 4.60: Lannan, Mark Gubicza (1995), and Chien Ming Wang (2006).

That's three pitchers. Obviously none of them ever repeated the feat. But that doesn't really show how unusual this was in this era. Consider that there were a total of 356 seasons from 1993 through last year that a pitcher threw that many innings with an ERA of 3.88 or better--this extremely low strikeout group represents just .08% of these seasons.

Also consider this: there were only 3 other seasons in this period in which a pitcher threw 206 innings with a K/9 rate of 3.88 or lower: Jimmy Anderson in 2001 with an ERA of 5.10, Mike Moore in 1993 with an ERA of 5.22, and Jamey Wright in 1998 with an ERA of 5.67.

There's a word statisticians use for an event that occurs this infrequently: it's an outlier. It's also known as an aberration, a fluke. Unless John Lannan had discovered some heretofore completely unknown skill, there was no way he would be able to sustain the favorable outcomes he was getting with the skill set he was demonstrating at the time.

Here's the good news: Lannan's skills have gotten better. Back in 2006, he whiffed just 10.2% of batters faced--an unbelievably low number. The NL average that year was 18.4%. This year he's striking out 12.6%. That's still very low, and may not seem like a big difference, but it's meaningful.

(Pause for a statistical public annoyance announcement. I'm delighted to see how strikeout and walk rates are becoming more prominently noticed by average fans and mainstream baseball media. However, why oh why has the standard rate stat become K/9? I used it here only because Baseball Reference's Play Index only offers K/9 as a search function, and I'm still too lazy to install the raw SQL database on my own computer. When looking at strikeout rate, we want to know how often a pitcher misses bats. That's the skill we're trying to measure. Strikeouts per inning essentially tells us what percentage of a pitcher's outs are strikeouts, but totally ignores all the other outcomes a pitcher gets. Hits, walks, HBPs... these are all tossed out because those events aren't counted as parts of an inning. Only outs count towards the accumulation of innings. In effect, by using K/9, we diminish the difference between the best pitchers and the worst pitchers, making it harder for analysts and observers to notice the gap. So memo to Fangraphs, Play Index, etc. etc.: kill K/9. Just give us SO/TBF.)

Translating back to K/9 so we can search the Baseball Reference Pitcher Season Finder, we find that here were 23 pitchers from 1993 to 2010 who went 206 innings with an ERA of 3.88 and 4.86 K/9, Lannan's rate this year. That's still just 6.5% of these seasons, but we're getting into a range that's at least has some precedent for being repeatable. Carlos Perez did it twice. Tom Glavine did it four times.

And the other key skills these pitchers all possess are low walk rates and high groundball rates, and Lannan's 52.7% groundball rate is 11th among qualified NL starters.

If there's an area to be concerned about, it's Lannan's walks. His rate this season has risen from a good, not great 7.6% to a potentially troublesome 9.4%. Only 87 innings into the season, I think it's reasonably likely that he shaves that walk rate back down to where he's been the last two seasons and can maintain the groundball and strikeout rates where they are.

If that's the case, then he's a guy you can reasonably project for 200 innings with an ERA usually in the 4s, and once in a while, when luck and defense are on his side, an ERA in the 3s.

His current 3.52 ERA still strikes me as better than his skills justify, but it's possible that we've entered a new, post juicing era where this is what guys like Lannan can do. After all, from the start of the expansion era in 1961 to 1992, 118 pitchers went 206 IP with ERAs and K/9s of 3.88 or under. The game was different in many ways back then, but with scoring down two years running, we may be in a new era where guys like John Lannan survive and even thrive.

My battered fantasy team at least is hoping that's the case.

Chalk One Up for Riggleman's Super-Saber Lineup

2011-06-12T19:38:00.007-04:00

I've usually insisted that batting order is an overrated strategic decision by the manager, so I don't want to go overboard on this topic. But today's win over San Diego was a pretty clear example of why it's smarter to put your best hitters in the 1-2 hole rather than the 3-4-5 spots in the order.

In the top of the ninth, the score was tied 0-0. The 7-8-9 hitters were due up--Jerry Hairston, the pitcher in the 8 hole, and ~~Brian Bixler~~ Alex Cora, the position player unconventionally hitting ninth.

Hairston popped out, and then pinch-hitter Matt Stairs and ~~Bixler~~ Cora got base hits. If the Nationals were using their most common line-up, it would have been Roger Bernadina (.308 OBP) and Ian Desmond (.271 OBP) due up. The Nationals best hitters--Jayson Werth, Danny Espinosa, Laynce Nix, Mike Morse (oy, is that an ugly list of "best hitters, but I digress)--probably would not have gotten a chance to hit in the inning at all.

But since Werth was hitting first, he came up and drew a key walk, loading the bases and advancing the lead runner to third. Espinosa, hitting second, drove in the go-ahead and eventual winning run with a sac fly, and Nix, hitting third, drove in another run with a base-hit. Drew Storen was able to close it out in the ninth, and the Nationals went home winners.

Sure, it's possible that the Nationals still would have scored in the ninth with a traditional lineup--putting a fast guy who isn't among your top 3 hitters in the lead-off spot, followed by maybe the 5th or 6th best hitter in the 2nd spot. But it's less likely. And it's possible that they still might have scored in the tenth inning, but then that would have forced the relievers to get three more outs.

The point is that by putting your best hitters at the top, they get more chances to hit, and you increase your odds of scoring and winning (by an infinitesimal margin in any given game, but still). Pretty much every softball team playing on the National Mall gets it, and it's nice for once to see a major league manager get it too--and get rewarded.

Riggleman's Sabermetric Lineup

2011-06-11T17:39:00.003-04:00

Jim Riggleman's lineup card today is sure to get a lot of attention and criticism, with Jayson Werth batting lead-off, John Lannan hitting eighth, and Roger Bernadina ninth.

It's unconventional, but sabermetrically sound. First, we know that the additional at bats you get by hitting lead-off are worth more than the additional RBI opportunities you get hitting clean-up. And the most important skill for a lead-off hitter is on-base percentage.

And by hitting Bernadina 9th, Riggleman reduces the extent to which Werth will lose RBI chances hitting lead-off. He'll come up with the bases empty in the first inning, but he won't have an automatic out hitting immediately before him.

Now, Riggleman messes it up a little by hitting Ian Desmond and his .271 OBP in the #2 hole, which is actually the most important spot in the line-up. If he put Mike Morse or Danny Espinosa in the #2 hole and the other in the #4 hole, with maybe Wilson Ramos in the #3 hole, that would be pretty close to perfect.

Jordan Zimmermann: Total Control

2011-06-10T22:35:00.003-04:00

They say that after Tommy John surgery, the velocity comes back first, and then the command. If that's true, then it's safe to say that Jordan Zimmermann is all the way back--and better than ever.

Zimmermann has always had good control. In his 2009 rookie season, he walked just 7.4%. Prior to his call-up that year, his career minor league walk rate was 8.4%. Anything under 8% is very good, and given Zimmermann's raw stuff, it was even more impressive.

But this year he's been truly elite, facing 302 batters so far and unintentionally walking just 15 of them--a minuscule rate of 4.97%.

How good is that? Put it this way: Remember what a hacker Cristian Guzman was? His career walk rate is 4.6%. (BTW--it's weird how Guzman has vanished from the face of the Earth this year. His agent says he's sitting out the season with "family issues." I'm glad I don't have to worry about it as a Nationals fan, but I am kinda curious.)

His strikeouts are also a bit down, from 23.5% to 16.9%, likely the result of an intentional shift in approach to try to throw more strikes and get quicker outs. But that's still a very good rate of missing bats. His velocity is steady, and his breaking balls, especially his slider, are getting better results than ever. Hitters are batting .237 against him this year, compared to .265 in 2009. There's no indication that he's sacrificing anything in terms of stuff.

You're going to prevent runs about as effectively on a per-inning basis with his 2011 rates as he did in 2009. The reason it's a favorable trade-off is that you're also going to be able to pitch deeper in games. He's gone from 5.7 innings per start in his rookie year to 6.2 innings per start this year. And at the same time, his pitches per game started has actually declined from 98 to 93.

These are pretty obvious, ho-hum observations--you walk and strike out fewer batters, you're going to be more efficient and go deeper into games.

But from a developmental perspective, something really exciting is happening. We're seeing a guy who was already pretty damn good develop an even more elite skill set that we didn't know was there. The ability to get hitters out while pounding the strike zone like this is something only a very few pitchers can do consistently. Guys either lack the command or don't have the stuff to throw this many strikes and not get killed.

In the end, Zimmermann's ideal approach might be somewhere in between--a few more walks and a few more Ks. But if he has the ability maintain this degree of extreme command, that means the ceiling for Jordan Zimmermann, already very high, just went even higher.

When the Nationals Outsmarted Everyone

2011-06-10T10:41:00.005-04:00

Over the years, the Nationals have made some good decisions, more bad decisions, and they are on the upswing as a franchise because they've managed not to mess up the no-brainers in three straight drafts.

But the Nationals' handling of Adam Dunn--both acquiring him and deciding to let him go--is probably the savviest sequence of personnel moves the Nationals have made since 2005.

When Jim Bowden signed him in February 2009, Dunn had been sitting on the free agent market longer than anyone (especially him) ever expected. That was a weird off-season when, following the financial meltdown, the economy went into decline and MLB teams really retreated in their free agent spending.

Dunn seemed a great fit for an AL team looking for left-handed power, but the market for him just never developed, and with spring training around the corner, the Nationals were waiting with a 2-year, $20 million contract that ended up being a perfectly reasonable price to pay.

Even factoring Dunn's awful glove (and UZR hated his glove, especially as an outfielder 2009), he gave the Nationals almost 5 wins above replacement because of his .378 OBP and .533 SLG over his two seasons in DC. That didn't make him an all-star, but he was a major upgrade over the collection of yuck the team would have played in LF and 1B without him.

But wait? Am I really gushing over a Jim Bowden move? Yeah, I am. Jim did some things well, and one of his strengths was evaluating hitters. (And recruiting former Cincinnati Reds.)

And here's the best part. Because he was fired (yes he was) shortly after signing Dunn, he never had the chance to extend him, which we know he would have wanted to do. If finding undervalued bats was one of Jim's best strengths, one of his greatest weaknesses was falling in love with his own brilliant discoveries and overpaying to keep them (see: Young, Dmitri).

When Dunn's contract came up after last season, Mike Rizzo was all too happy to take the draft picks he would get in free agent compensation and let someone else overpay.

And looking at Dunn now, it looks like the Nationals let him walk just in time. I wrote a post last year about this time speculating that Dunn could be close to a Richie Sexson-like rapid decline.

The insight was nothing radically new. Dunn is a classic example of a guy with "old player skills"--i.e., a relatively narrow set of skills, usually power and patience, not speed or defense. When guys like this start lose just a bit of bat speed, they often fall apart fast.

At the time, he didn't seem to be showing signs of hitting the wall. But the statistical signs I warned about were an increase in strikeout and/or flyball rate, pitchers attacking him with more fastballs and a decline in his success off the fastball, and a drop in batting average.

This year, that's exactly what we're seeing. Dunn's K rate has spiked from 32.4% in 2009 to 35.7% last year to a horrid 42.6% this year. His career rate is 33.2%.

Pitchers are attacking him with fastballs 65% of the time, up from 59% in his career, which may seem like a small difference, but isn't. And the linear weights over on Fangraphs finds that Dunn is -0.91 runs below average per 100 fastballs seen this year, compared to 2.10 last year and 1.63 for his career. Again, those may seem like small, esoteric numbers, but the upshot is that pitchers are blowing him away with heat.

All that has added up to the tell-tale cratering of Dunn's batting average, which sits at .176 on Thursday.

Of course, everyone sees Dunn falling apart now. The hard part is knowing when it would happen. Maybe Mike Rizzo lucked out, or the White Sox just outbid him, but it's possible Rizzo and the team's scouts saw the decline in bat speed. Whatever, Rizzo stayed away, while the White Sox are in the first year of what looks like a miserable 4-year commitment to the second coming of Mo Vaughn.

And perhaps the biggest payoff of all came in this week's draft, when the Nationals were able to grab two high-upside, value picks in Alex Meyer and Brian Goodwin with the Dunn compensation picks.

And because they had these extra picks, it made it a lot easier for them to take a high-risk shot in the third round on Matt Purke, a pitcher considered a potential top-5 pick not long ago, before a shoulder injury derailed him. Purke isn't likely to work out, but his ceiling is that of an ace, and you gotta love the aggressiveness.

The Nationals organization hasn't done a lot of things well over the past few years, but when it came to Adam Dunn, they truly made all the right moves.

The Kiss Heard Round the World

2011-06-09T22:03:00.007-04:00

Bryce Harper is an asshole. He's a big, fat, awesomely talented, ass-kicking, sonofabitch asshole. And we got him. The Phillies don't. The Yankees don't. The Nationals do. And that's why I love him.

OK, so backing up a bit. We've been hearing for over a year that Harper has "makeup issues." People say he's cocky and too often shows up opponents.

But there are makeup issues, and then there are makeup issues. And sometimes, as Elijah Dukes once said, "makeup is the stuff they make up about you."

The question in Harper's case isn't whether he's cocky or not. Obviously he is. But so were Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, Bob Gibson, Babe Ruth... heck, how can you perform at the level these guys perform if you aren't supremely confident in a way that most of us would consider kind of off-putting if we had them over for dinner?

The question is whether his arrogance translates to laziness and/or an inability to deal with adversity. Ryan Leaf was arrogant--and as a result, he didn't work and he couldn't deal with failure.

We don't really know yet whether Harper will be able to handle failure. But we do know that he's far from lazy. Every indication is that he not only believes he's the best--he's also driven to do what it takes to prove it. That's the kind of asshole you win championships with.

Now, as for the blown kiss. We don't know the real story here. The camera shots we've seen have only shown Harper rounding the bases Wilson Ramos-speed and blowing the smooch. We don't know whether the pitcher was talking shit or how much went down before that moment. @bharpsis4534 says there were two sides of the story, and I suspect that's probably true.

But here's what I liked about it. First, the kiss felt to me like it was Harper first and foremost having fun. He loves the game, loves to compete, and loves to win. Was it polite? Ideal sportsmanship? No. But it also didn't seem mean-spirited. It seemed playful, not angry or petulant. I kinda thought it was charming.

Second, I like that he talked shit after he hit a home run. Muhammed Ali said, "it ain't braggin' if it's true." Yes, I know, Ali was a boxer, not a baseball player, but I think MLB would be better off if it had more Alis and a fewer milquetoast, corporate-packaged Derek Jeter types.

Finally, I like that he plays for my team. And if he's going to kick as many butts in his career as it seems like he will, doggone I kinda hope we get to rub some noses in it. For all the Phillies fan takeovers of Nationals Park and all the losing, we're due to enjoy our wins a little more openly than Miss Manners might approve of.

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

2011-06-08T21:27:00.003-04:00

May's right track / wrong track poll held steady at 69%. Voting is open on this month's poll on the right hand side of this page. Will the glow of the draft overcome the team's play on the field?

Nationals Charmed Life in the Draft

2011-06-06T20:28:00.003-04:00

In 2008, the Nationals were the worst team in baseball, and their reward was Stephen Strasburg, probably the best college pitching prospect ever. In 2009, the Nationals repeated as the worst team in the league, and wound up with Bryce Harper, considered by many to be the best power-hitting prospect ever.

In both drafts, the Nationals got to pick a consensus #1 overall pick--both can't-miss, once-in-a-generation type talents.

This year, the Nationals drafted #6 overall, and wouldn't you know it, there really wasn't any consensus #1 pick. There was a group of exactly six picks clustered at the top, and any one of them could have easily been the top pick.

As you know by now, the Nationals ended up getting Anthony Rendon, the third baseman from Rice who just a few short weeks ago was considered the top overall prospect in the draft. He's a big-time hitter and excellent fielder, drawing comparisons to David Wright, Evan Longoria, and, yes, Ryan Zimmerman. Even as of today, few predicted Rendon would slip all the way to the Nationals.

Now, there are some things we don't know about Rendon's health. He suffered a shoulder injury and has had a disappointing college season. But on the other hand, college bats tend to be the safest of all possible bets in the draft, and Rendon is closer to helping the Nationals than anyone else in the whole draft.

Some are wondering about where Rendon fits. Can he play second with Zimmerman at third? A cynic would say that Rendon is probably Zimmerman's replacement after he leaves in free agency in a couple years. If not, maybe he can play second base or first base or becomes trade bait.

At this point it doesn't matter. The important point is that for the third year in a row, the Nationals got absolute max value with their top pick. It's a historic streak that may, finally, help make the Nationals a winning team.

Is Jim Riggleman a Small Ball Manager?

2011-06-01T21:41:00.015-04:00

I get credit for resisting the temptation to write "Jim Riggleman's Small Balls," don't I? Oops, I guess I don't.

Anyway, Jim Riggleman vented on Charlie Slowes today about how unfair it is that anyone would ever call him a "small ball manager." Nevermind the MASN commercials that prompted Joe Posnanski to tear into Riggles as if he's the patron saint of small ball. Those ads are just PR, I'm sure Riggleman didn't write the script, and regardless he should be judged on what he does, not what he says in an ad.

So does Riggleman attempt sac bunts and/or stolen bases more than the average manager? Let's look at last year to try to get a bigger sample.

First, we can't just look at the raw number of sac bunts and steals. The Nationals had a .318 OBP, 13th in the NL. This year they are second to worst. That means more outs, fewer base runners and fewer opportunities to steal and sac bunt.

Here are all the teams in the NL sorted by the percentage of time they attempted a stolen base (SBA) in stolen base opportunities (SBO)--situations when there was a runner on first or second base with the next base open (I'm told these tables are not displaying right on Internet Explorer. You can try with another browser or click here.):

Tm SBO SBA SBA%

NYM 2219 174 7.84%

SDP 2227 174 7.81%

WSN 2205 151 6.85%

HOU 2166 136 6.28%

LAD 2283 142 6.22%

COL 2290 141 6.16%

CIN 2344 136 5.80%

PIT 2138 123 5.75%

LgAvg 2272 128 5.63%

PHI 2311 129 5.58%

ARI 2314 127 5.49%

FLA 2278 118 5.18%

STL 2328 120 5.15%

MIL 2396 107 4.47%

SFG 2211 87 3.93%

CHC 2246 86 3.83%

ATL 2403 92 3.83%

So Jim ran quite a bit more than average. But he can still make the argument that he ran more because he had players who ran well. That's fair to an extent. Here's the success rate of those same NL teams in 2010:

Tm SB%

PHI 84%

FLA 78%

MIL 76%

NYM 75%

HOU 74%

WSN 73%

SDP 71%

PIT 71%

LgAvg 71%

COL 70%

CIN 68%

ARI 68%

ATL 68%

STL 66%

LAD 65%

CHC 64%

SFG 63%

The Nationals were in fact a bit better than average, and considering they ran so much, that's reasonable evidence that Jim was in fact playing to his team's strengths.

My quibble would be that so many of the steal attempts were Nyjer Morgan batting lead-off and attempting to steal with power hitters like Adam Dunn, Ryan Zimmerman, and Josh Willingham due up. First base is scoring position if Dunn hits it in the upper deck, and yet Morgan led the league with 17 caught stealings. That's the opposite of playing to a team's strength.

What about sac bunts? Again, looking at the raw number of sacs doesn't tell us much. We need to look at how often Riggleman bunted given the situations. Unfortunately, I don't have the raw data to run my own SQL queries, and I don't know of anywhere to get that info publicly, so I'm going to do a little workaround to try to get close by simply taking the stolen base opportunities referenced above (from Baseball Reference) and assume that 2/3 of these opportunities occurred with fewer than two outs. That's obviously introducing a margin of error, but so be it.

Running those numbers, here's what we get:

Tm Sac Opps Sacs Sac Att %

WSN 1470 118 8.03%

LAD 1522 122 8.02%

SDP 1485 111 7.48%

NYM 1479 109 7.37%

SFG 1474 106 7.19%

HOU 1444 101 7.00%

CIN 1563 100 6.40%

PIT 1425 91 6.39%

LgAvg 1515 93 6.14%

STL 1552 95 6.12%

ATL 1602 98 6.12%

CHC 1497 87 5.81%

COL 1527 83 5.44%

FLA 1519 75 4.94%

PHI 1541 70 4.54%

MIL 1597 62 3.88%

ARI 1543 53 3.44%

Lo and behold, no manager in the NL jumped on sac bunt opportunities more often than Riggleman. What about the "playing to my players' strengths" argument? Is it possible that Jim was simply asking his players to do something they were particularly good at? Here's the sac bunt success rate of each NL team last year:

Tm Success %

ARI 77%

HOU 74%

SFG 72%

SDP 71%

LAD 70%

ATL 70%

STL 69%

CHC 69%

NYM 68%

LgAvg 68%

FLA 68%

COL 67%

CIN 66%

PIT 64%

PHI 63%

WSN 60%

MIL 56%

Ruh-roh. That's not good, though in fairness if his guys couldn't bunt they probably couldn't hit away either, so we probably shouldn't make too much of this number.

Playing small ball doesn't make you a bad manager. The sacrifice isn't always a bad play, and we'd have to dig a lot deeper into the numbers to decide whether Riggleman is using the tactic well or not. The stolen base is a good play if you are successful about 72% of the time or more, and the Nationals were (barely). But the evidence shows that at least in 2010, Jim Riggleman was absolutely a small ball manager, and to argue otherwise is kinda silly.

Peacock Still Tearing Up Double-A

2011-05-31T21:32:00.004-04:00

One of the things an organization needs to take a step forward in the overall talent rankings is for fringe guys to turn into prospects and for deep prospects to emerge as top prospects. It's not enough to just have the first round picks work out--you need to find breakthroughs elsewhere.

This is especially true for a team like the Nationals, who haven't won in years and even after drafting first overall two years in a row are still in the bottom half of baseball in most of the organizational talent rankings

Thing is, it's hard to find top talent even with those first round picks. The out-of-the-blue type breakthroughs just don't happen very often, and often it comes down to luck.

The Nationals had one big breakthrough a couple years ago with Derek Norris, who was drafted in the 4th round back in 2007 but emerged as a top 50 prospect with big seasons in 2008-2009. They may have another such pleasant surprise in Brad Peacock.

As a converted shortstop drafted out of high school in 2006, Peacock has been a bit of a project. But his velocity has steadily improved as well as his secondary offerings. Last year he took a big step forward and earned a mid-season promotion to AA.

This year he's really putting it together. Tonight, Peacock went 7 innings against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, allowing 1 run on 2 hits to go with 7 Ks and 3 BBs. He lowered his ERA to 2.03, and for the season he now has 82 strikeouts and 13 walks in 62 innings.

Going into this season, there were concerns about his ability to retire lefties and talk of moving him to the bullpen, where he pitched in the Arizona Fall League. But so far this year lefties were doing even worse than righties, hitting just .133 against Peacock.

Soon, Peacock should earn another promotion, maybe even to DC at some point this season. He's passed just about everyone not named Strasburg or Zimmermann as the top pitching talent in the organization. And looking down the road, it's not hard to see him as a #2 starter by 2014.

I might be getting a little ahead of myself, but the Nationals desperately need some big wins in the player development side, and the emergence of Peacock is one of the very best things that could have happened for the Nationals so far this season.

Maybe They'll Finally Protect Catchers

2011-05-26T20:14:00.004-04:00

After Buster Posey became the latest victim of a collision at home plate, we're suddenly hearing an outcry that the rules need to change to protect catchers. Buster Posey's agent called for the rule change today, and Buster Olney (showing his infamous Buster favoritism) led the way with a post on ESPN.com.

Nationals fans will remember Jesus Flores being taken out by Chase Utley, who launched himself into Flores's knee in a move more appropriate for a pro wrestler than a baseball player. There wasn't much outcry then.

Carlos Santana suffered a season-ending injury last year on a similar play--that's arguably the two best catchers in baseball going down in consecutive seasons in completely preventable injuries.

It's irritating to me that a star athlete has to get hurt to put this issue on the radar, but if this finally prompts a revision of the rules (or more accurately enforcement of the runner interference rules already on the books), that will be a good thing.

There was a time, early in the last century, when baseball was truly a contact sport. Pitchers threw at hitters. Baserunners would sucker-punch shortstops rounding second base. What we call "breaking up a double play" today would have been considered pansy stuff back then.

Today's game has changed, but one artifact of the old days remains. It's still perfectly acceptable for a catcher to block home plate and for a baserunner to plow into him head first.

First basemen can't block the bag on a close play, and runners can't try to block the first baseman from catching a throw. But for some reason when it's a close play at home, baseball turns into ultimate fighting.

The rule should have been changed a long time ago, and hopefully now it finally will.

Fire Lee Kuntz

2011-05-24T21:45:00.006-04:00

Once is a mistake. Twice is red flag. Three times is a serious problem. I don't know what to call this, because I lost track long ago of how many times a Nationals player has suffered cascading, preventable injuries while playing through pain.

We all know the pattern so well that the joke tells itself. When team says a player is day-to-day, it's just a matter of time before they hit the DL. When they go to the 15-day DL, it's as predictable as the sun rising in the east that sooner or later we'll learn the recovery is taking longer than expected.

The latest is incident is Adam LaRoche, who was told that he could play the whole season with his sore shoulder, originally diagnosed as a slight labrum tear. Then he personally insisted on a second opinion only to learn that the torn labrum was much worse and that his rotator cuff was torn to boot.

What role did LaRoche playing through pain cause in the injury? When did the rotator cuff tear? Is it possible that he could have avoided surgery and shortened his DL time with rest and therapy if the injury had been diagnosed earlier? (We're told he might still avoid surgery, but who believes that?)

Who knows. But at this point it shouldn't matter. The point is that the docs got it wrong. Again.

Ryan Zimmerman. Chad Cordero. Jordan Zimmermann. Craig Stammen. Garrett Mock. Jason Marquis. Ross Detwiler. Jesus Flores. Now Adam LaRoche.

No trainer can prevent all injuries. But when players lose consistently lose extra time to injury because of late or wrong diagnoses, that's not ok. Someone should be held accountable, and Lee Kuntz is the most obvious fall guy.

Nationals and the Year of the Pitcher Redux

2011-05-23T21:41:00.004-04:00

It's well documented that the Nationals can thank their pitching for keeping them within spitting distance of .500 for much of the first third of the season. And indeed, they've come a very long way since last season.

In 2010, the Nationals were last 12th in the NL in overall runs allowed per game at 4.58 (league average was 4.35). The starters were 14th in the league with an ERA of 4.61, while the relievers were 4th at 3.35--even though they pitched more innings than any bullpen in the league.

This season, the Nationals' runs allowed per game are down to 4.07 (before tonight's game against Milwaukee). The bullpen has improved on their excellent 2010 performance, lowering their collective ERA to 2.97. But the really big improvement has been with the starting pitchers--they've cut their ERA by more than half a run to 4.05 while pitching 6.07 innings per game, a huge and very much needed improvement from the awful 5.49 innings per start last season.

But the reality is that a lot of that improvement is a function of the dramatic drop in scoring league-wide--NL runs per game have fallen from 4.35 to 4.13--the lowest since 1992.

That's not to take anything away from the team's accomplishment rebuilding the pitching staff. Remember what a disaster the bullpen was when Mike Rizzo took over. And he's made some savvy moves to upgrade the rotation--in particular flipping 5 o'clock slugger Mike Burgess for Tom Gorzelanny and signing Jason Marquis to a reasonable two-year deal that is finally paying dividends.

Still, allowing 4.07 runs per game just isn't what it used to be. In 2009, that would have been good for 5th best in all of baseball, just .01 behind the San Francisco Giants staff led by Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum. As good as the starters have been, they don't have anyone in the top 50 qualified starting pitchers for xFIP--Jordan Zimmermann is the best at #57.

That's a big part of why, for all their seeming progress, the Nationals after tonight's loss to the Brewers are 21-26, a .447 winning percentage that puts them on pace for just 72 wins, and for that matter why things are very unlikely to get better any time soon.

Welcome Cole Kimball

2011-05-14T15:26:00.004-04:00

The Nationals' #7 BA prospect Cole Kimball made his MLB debut a minute ago, and he looked every bit the part. Jim Riggleman wasn't afraid to use Kimball in a one-run game, and you could see why.

Kimball sits at 93 and touches 95 with his fastball. He has a curveball and a real knockout of a splitter. He struck out 31% of batters faced in AA last year, and 24.5% in 13.2 innings at AAA this year.

Bob Carpenter credited the Lerners' spending for Kimball, but he must have been thinking of someone else. Kimball was drafted in the 12th round back in 2006--one of Dana Brown's patented New Jersey/New York pitching finds (see: Lannan, John; Bergmann, Jason), and the Lerners had nothing to do with it.

There's only so much a relief pitcher can do to help your team, but if the Nationals can count on two cost-controlled plus-relievers in Drew Storen and Cole Kimball for the next 5-6 years, that would go a long way to stabilizing their bullpen for the long-haul.

And with Brad Peacock absolutely tearing up opponents in Harrisburg (8:1 strikeout to walk ratio isn't too shabby), we could see yet another pitcher from that 2006 draft debut pretty soon as well.

Most Nationals fans wrote off the 2006 draft a long time ago as a total wash, with Chris Marrero and Colton Willems fizzling and second-round pick Sean Black (also from NJ, by the way) going unsigned after the draft. If they get a solid reliever and a back-end starter out of it, that would at least save some face.

Gregor Blanco, Rick Ankiel, or a Red-Hot Poker?

2011-05-09T11:51:00.003-04:00

First question: When did the Nationals become the landing pad for washed out Kansas City Royals? Isn't that what Pittsburgh is for?

As replacement-level free talent goes, you could do worse than Gregor Blanco. The advanced metrics say he's below average in the field but can handle LF and CF without hurting you too badly. I only saw him play left when he was with Atlanta, but I don't remember anything to contradict those numbers. At the plate, he takes a lot of walks but has no power at all. If he's plan B for the failed Mike Morse experiment, you can think of him as a poor-man's Ryan Langerhans. (Zing! I really burned Rizzo there didn't I!)

It's a tough question now--at this point what should the Nationals do in the outfield? After deciding to trade Josh Willingham for whatever they could get (a move that I supported), failing to sign any kind of starting-caliber stop-gap free agent (Ankiel doesn't count), and dumping Nyjer Morgan (a move that I guess had to happen), the Nationals were left with the motley group of Morse, Ankiel, Laynce Nix, Jerry Hairston, and Roger Bernadina to cover two-thirds of the outfield. None of those guys have been any better than you'd expect.

One decision seems pretty easy: give Bernadina regular playing time. He's at least kind of young-ish, and he was better last year than Ankiel and Morse have been.

After that? Going into the season I'd kind of hoped that Corey Brown might work his way into the picture, but he's whiffed 37 times in 87 ABs for Syracuse. There isn't anyone else in the system anywhere near ready or good.

I suppose it'll be Ankiel as soon as he's healthy, since he's the guy making $1.5 million. But why not Blanco? The Nationals have a huge OBP problem. Today they ran out a line-up that had five guys with OBPs under .300. That's more than half the line-up my friends. And the rest of the lineup included Adam LaRoche and Jerry Hairston at .310 and Danny Espinosa at .313. The other guy was Bernadina, who'd only had 8 plate appearances at the start of the day and went 0-4. He'll catch up to the rest by the end of the Atlanta series.

Bottom line, this is another one of those situations where the problem isn't really the moves the team is making now to fill their holes. It's that the player development system hasn't produced a single starting-caliber option in the outfield since Ryan Church. Now they're left scrambling for other team's cast-offs to fill two key spots, and the results are unlikely to be anything but ugly.

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

2011-05-09T06:42:00.001-04:00

In April, my first month running the poll in about 8 months, 68% of Nationals fans say the team is on the right track. That's not awful, but it's down from the 80+% levels of optimism that the team maintained for the entire period after Stephen Strasburg signed. Here are the results over time (the section in red is the period no polling was done):

A new poll is live on the right hand side of the page. Lemme know how you're feeling this month!

Steve McCatty's Package

2011-05-08T21:32:00.003-04:00

Steve McCatty on Henry Rodriguez:

“I’m not discouraged by it,” pitching coach Steve McCatty said. “It’s part of the package you get with a guy who can throw 100 miles per hour.”

Wrong. It's part of the package when you have a guy with lousy command. Ask Michael Pineda, Stephen Strasburg, Aroldis Chapman, or Justin Verlander whether throwing 100 mph means you can't have any clue where the ball is going.

Moreover, if 100 mph means Rodriguez loses all command, then he needs to learn to dial back. Throwing 92 with command is far better than 100 without.

I sure hope this isn't the advice McCatty is giving Rodriguez as a coach. And I hope Rodriguez doesn't read the paper.

Brad Peacock Makes the Hot Sheet

2011-05-06T16:14:00.004-04:00

Baseball America's Hot Sheet--their weekly report on the hottest prospects in the minor leagues--includes Harrisburg's Brad Peacock. Here's what they said:

Team: Double-A Harrisburg (Eastern)
Age: 23
Why He's Here: 1-0, 0.00, 7 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 SO
The Scoop: The Nationals spent a combined $3 million in the 2010 draft to secure righthander A.J. Cole and lefthander Sammy Solis. While Cole and Solid are young, low-minors arms with upside, Peacock has the stuff and control to be a mid-rotation starter. Plus he's far closer to realizing that potential. A 2006 draft-and-follow from the 41st round, Peacock's stuff has gotten better since signing out of Palm Beach (Fla.) CC. He now sits at 92-94 mph and touches 96 with a hard downer curve. His location has also been superlative, as he owns a 1.16 ERA, 36 strikeouts and four walks in 31 innings this season.

Bryce Harper is on there too, but that's nothing new.

Jim Bowden Joins Harper on the Sweet Spot Network

2011-05-05T16:21:00.005-04:00

JimBo is officially a blogger. Who wants to tell Jim that Rob Neyer asked me to be a Sweet Spot blogger a couple years ago, and I declined?

I'll start the game: every time he name drops a player he is connected to, gotta drink. In this post, we get to take only one shot (don't worry, there will be many, many more). On Alfonso Soriano:

He has an NL-leading 11 home runs and is presently on pace to hit more than the 46 home runs he hit for me in Washington back in 2006.

Zimmerman's Surgery: Why Now?

2011-05-03T12:18:00.004-04:00

I wasn't surprised to learn that Ryan Zimmerman's injury was lingering. Core muscle injuries (abs, obliques, etc.) tend to linger, and it's tough for a baseball player to do all the twisting motions involved in hitting and fielding until an injury like this is completely healed.

I wasn't, however, expecting to hear that Zimmerman needed surgery--not after three weeks on the DL and two months since the injury was first reported. (I won't repeat the details--Mark Zuckerman does a good job recounting the sequence of Zimmerman's injury here.)

I'm not a sports medicine expert, but the question has to be asked: why didn't Zimmerman get surgery immediately after the ab tear on April 9, which may have saved four weeks of missed time? And why wasn't he ordered to fully rest the injury when it first occurred during spring training, which might have prevented any DL stint at all?

Will Carroll--previously known as the injuries guy at Baseball Prospectus, now better knows as SI's less-attractive version of Stephania Bell--says the team is annoyed at Zimmerman for not being forthright with the team about the extent of the injury. And if Zimmerman hid the injury, they should be annoyed.

But this pattern--playing through pain, leading to a cascading injury, followed by a longer-than-expected DL stint, followed by surgery--isn't new for the Nationals (see: Cordero, Chad; Stammen, Craig; Zimmermann, Jordan).

I haven't seen anyone ask head trainer Lee Kunz, who has been with the team since 2007, why this injury was allowed to linger so long and why the surgery prognosis came so late. But it's a question that should be asked. Because if the botched handling of the Zimmerman injury turned a 2-week DL stint into three months, that's a big, big mistake.

Zimmerman's been a 7-WAR player over the last two seasons, and so this could be a 3-win error by the training staff. Since 3 wins above replacement costs about $12 million on the free agent market, that's a pretty expensive mis-diagnosis.

Riggleman's Awful Inning

2011-05-02T12:55:00.006-04:00

I realize that it's been a couple days and this is kinda old news, but Jim Riggleman on Saturday made some of the worst decisions I can remember any manager making in a long, long time.

The situation was tie score, top of the seventh, two outs, runners on second and third, John Lannan pitching, Giants' backup catcher Eli Whiteside due up, and Aubrey Huff on deck. And Jim Riggleman chose to intentionally walk Whiteside.

Walking Whiteside decreased the Nationals' win expectancy from 48.5% to 46.5%. It almost tripled the Giants' run expectancy from 0.22 to 0.57. This isn't a close call--the intentional walk clearly made a Giants victory more likely.

Maybe I'm making this too obvious, but lemme try to really break this down simply. With first base open and two outs, the Giants had to get a hit to score a run (barring a balk or wild pitch). With the bases loaded, a walk or HBP gets the go-ahead run home.

Across baseball last year, hits occurred in 22.3% of plate appearances. Walks and HBPs occurred in about 9.4% of plate appearances. So after the walk, about 32% of the likely outcomes of any given at bat get the run home, as opposed to just 22%. If you look at the rates of these events in the National League and in 2011, when offense is sharply down, these numbers are even more skewed against issuing the walk.

But this only scratches the surface of Riggleman's stupidity. Consider that Whiteside is a career back-up catcher with a career .233 / .284 / .366 line. He's 31 years old, and he's never gotten more than 140 plate appearances in a season ever. The reason is because he's a bad hitter, so his own team goes out of their way to make sure he hits as rarely as possible.

Aubrey Huff on the other hand ranked 7th in the MVP voting last season with a .290 / .385 / .506 line. He was the best hitter on the team that won the World Series. It's true Huff is scuffling in the early going this season, but if Jim Riggleman is deciding based on a 27-game sample size that Eli Whiteside is a superior hitter to Aubrey Huff, he's gone stark raving mad. This is like walking Wil Nieves to get to Ryan Zimmerman.

But FJB, you say, by walking Whiteside, Riggleman gained the platoon advantage! Alas, as bad as Whiteside has been against righties, here's his career line against lefties: .167 / .219 / .267. No, that's not a misprint. Jim Riggleman intentionally walked a .167 hitter in a situation where only a hit would get a run home. And in case you were wondering, Huff has basically no platoon split. He hit .296 / .378 / .506 against lefties last season. And I could pull John Lannan's relatively small platoon splits, but my head is starting to hurt.

Riggleman is so wrong here, that you almost think maybe he got confused and thought he was walking Aubrey Huff to get to Eli Whiteside. Now THAT would have been a justifiable move.

Finally, after all that, we find out during the post-game press conference that Riggleman would have pulled Lannan, except that Lannan might have gotten the win(!) if he got out of the jam and if the Nationals managed to score a run in the bottom of the seventh and if the bullpen managed to hold that lead:

The right thing probably to do was just bring (Tyler) Clippard in to face Whiteside," Riggleman said. "Every now and then, you make a decision for your starting pitcher. If I pull John there, he's got a no-decision or a loss. If I let him try to work through it, he's got a no-decision or a win. It didn't work. The right decision to make was to just bring Clippard in, and whether Clip gets him or not, that's the way we go with that. I should have done that. That's one that's on me.

I'm just speechless. Maybe I shouldn't be. Managers manage to the stats all the time. Pretty much every manager in the league puts a higher premium on getting saves for their anointed closer than winning baseball games. But to admit openly that he believed that changing pitchers would have given the Nationals the best chance to win, but that he instead chose to hurt his team's chances of winning in favor of the infinitesimal chance that John Lannan would pick up a stat that even the BBWA Cy Young voters don't think matters anymore?

Personally, I think Riggleman's quick hook is a problem for this team, and I would have left Lannan in regardless. He only threw 93 pitches, and yeah he was struggling with his command a bit, but hell pitchers struggle with their command sometimes.

But this is a case where it doesn't matter whether he made the right decision or not. The REASON he made the decision was so bad, so completely misplaced, that this decision alone is nearly a firing offense.

And while this is a particularly egregious situation, this isn't the first time we've seen Riggleman manage to the win stat. Don't forget--the manager works for the GM, and it's up to Mike Rizzo to call Riggleman into his office and tell him to cut the crap. The fact that this keeps happening doesn't just reflect poorly on Interim Jim. Ultimately the buck stops with Rizzo.

Will the Starting Pitching Save the Nationals?

2011-05-01T10:07:00.004-04:00

As I've written a number of times, the one thing this Nationals team absolutely can't withstand if they want to avoid another top-5 draft pick is a prolonged injury to Ryan Zimmerman. But it's looking like that's exactly what's happening.

The good news is that since Ryan Zimmerman went down April 9, the Nationals have not fallen apart. In fact, they've managed 9 wins in 19 games, a better winning percentage than I or most other people predicted for them even with Zimmerman. At the same time, they went 2-4 against the lowly Pirates and Mets and have scored just 3.84 runs a game (in 2009, when they lost 103 games, they managed 4.38 runs per game).

So what is it, exactly, that Nationals fans should expect from here on out?

There's one reason why losing Zimmerman might not mean a return to the dark days of 07-08: starting pitching. It's starting to look like they may get best-case (or near best-case) seasons from Jason Marquis, Livan Hernandez (again), John Lannan, and Tom Gorzelanny.

Now, all four of these guys are due for some regression--they all have xFIPs at least half a run higher than their ERA. Hernandez continues to enjoy the good luck of an unsustainably low HR/FB rate, which for a flyball pitcher like Livan creates an especially large distortion. This year he's allowed homers on just 3.4% of flyballs, while 44% of his balls in play have been flyballs. No pitcher can maintain a HR/FB rate much below 11% without the benefit of extreme park effects, so once that number starts to catch up, things will get ugly fast.

That said, Hernandez his only walking 2.31 batters per 9 innings, which is an exceptionally low number but not out of line with his career performance. If you're not handing out free passes, you can get away with a few more homers. Still, we're talking about a profile that will produce an ERA around 5, not in the mid-to-low 3s.

Marquis and Gorzelanny's performances are more easily attributed to repeatable skill. Gorzelanny is whiffing 7.54 batters per 9 while walking about half as many. He's never going to be a great pitcher, but an ERA in the mid-4s is totally reasonable. I liked that trade at the time (and Michael Burgess has only continued to prove his doubters right), and I'm glad to see it work out for Rizzo.

Marquis' numbers give us even more reason for optimism. He's getting the 56% groundball rate that has always been his bread-and-butter, but he's elevated his K-rate to over 6 per nine innings (which he hasn't done since 2004) and dropped his walk rate to 1.31, which would make him one of the best command pitchers in baseball.

I don't expect the K and BB rates to continue, but he can give up quite a bit of ground on those rates and still be worth more what the Nationals are paying. And if those rates did continue--if he somehow has figured out some new skill set--he'd be on track for easily the best season of his career. Again, I liked the Marquis free agent signing at the time, and it's good to see the team rewarded for good decision-making.

And John Lannan is basically the same guy he's been for the last four years. Lots of groundballs, not too many walks. Barring a return to the lucky BABIPs he got in '08 and '09, he'll finish the season with an ERA in the mid to high-4s.

I haven't mentioned Jordan Zimmermann, because he's the one guy who's actually underperforming. I'd like to look a little closer at him, but he obviously is the most talented pitcher on the team and could also provide a boost.

The odds of all five of these pitchers coming through for the Nationals in this way is extremely unlikely. But so far, there are good reasons to think that's what's happening. Losing Zimmerman is still the biggest blow this team can take. But if they can survive this without a prolonged jag of losing, this will be the reason.

Desmond Downer

2011-04-27T08:08:00.001-04:00

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!

2011-04-26T20:07:00.003-04:00

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

2011-04-23T07:26:00.007-04:00

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

2011-04-20T22:18:00.004-04:00

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?

2011-04-17T05:43:00.004-04:00

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

2011-04-16T08:26:00.005-04:00

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?

2011-04-14T11:20:00.005-04:00

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!

2011-04-09T13:47:00.003-04:00

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...

2011-04-08T15:16:00.007-04:00

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

2011-04-05T23:53:00.010-04:00

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

2011-04-04T04:20:00.002-04:00

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

2011-04-03T03:04:00.004-04:00

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

2011-04-02T16:07:00.003-04:00

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?

2011-04-01T20:42:00.010-04:00

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.

If you're interested in my reaction

2010-12-05T17:34:00.001-05:00

To the big Jayson Werth signing, I'm sharing my thoughts in short form on Twitter. Follow me at @sbiel2.

See Ya Later

2010-11-07T14:04:00.003-05:00

After a few months of silence, I think I'm probably done as a Nationals blogger.

Since about April, my blogging time has been eaten up by all sorts of other things, mainly related to moving from the DC area to Portland, Maine. Then I was working day and night for the last month or so on the election. But now that I have a little more time, I'm still just not feeling the vibe.

I always said I would keep doing this only as long as it was fun, and I haven't been able to think of anything that would be fun to write about for a while.

I will still root for the Nationals--I sure as shootin' will never root for the Red Sox. I'll actually have an easier time seeing games now that I don't have to deal with the stupid MLB.tv blackouts.

For the record, I think the Nationals are in better shape organizationally than at anytime since they came to DC. There's the influx of premium talent from the #1 picks. Since Aaron Crow, the Lerners have basically spent like normal MLB owners. Mike Rizzo's been competent, and getting Stan Kasten out of the way I think helps, because now you FINALLY have a clear top-down structure with a baseball person reporting to the owners.

Other than Jim Bowden, the team and MASN have always been incredibly gracious to me. I really appreciate all they've done with the blogger days and the responsiveness to inquiries.

Anyway, thanks for the eyeballs and the comments and the links. It's been fun. If I feel the bug again, maybe I'll come back. But for now, the blog is closed. See ya.

Adam Dunn: #2 Most Games Played without a Post-Season Appearance

2010-10-16T13:03:00.004-04:00

Before this year's playoff, the list of active players with the most games played without a post-season appearance was:

1717 Randy Winn, St. Louis

1508 Michael Young,Texas

1479 Aubrey Huff, San Francisco

1454 Mike Sweeney, Seattle-Philadelphia

1448 Adam Dunn, Washington

Dunn is now #2 on the list, behind Randy Winn. It'll be an interesting subplot this off-season to watch where Winn and Dunn land and see if either of them will have a chance to shed this ignominious distinction.

Rooting for Shawn Hill

2010-10-01T09:58:00.004-04:00

Former National sinker-baller, frequent James Andrews patient, and all-around good guy Shawn Hill made a brief return to the major leagues over the last few weeks, and fans of Hill will be glad to know he did very well.

Hill is pitching for the Toronto Blue Jays, where new GM Alex Anthopoulos and AGM Dana Brown, both formerly of the Nationals/Expos organization, happily scooped Hill up off the scrap heap for a minor league deal back in January.

In four starts and 20 and 2/3 innings, Hill displayed the impressive skill set that made him a legitimate #2 starter in 2007. He pounded the strike zone, allowing just 4 walks, and generated ground balls on 49.3% of balls in play. He's mixing in a change-up more and throwing the sinker a bit less, but the results are similar.

I'll always be rooting for Hill because he was such a happy surprise in 2007, and also because he was hosed so badly by the team after he won in arbitration and the team cut him just to save a couple hundred thousand, despite the fact that Hill is exactly the kind of low-risk, high-reward veteran a team like the Nationals should be targeting.

Need a Sweep

2010-09-30T14:25:00.002-04:00

At the beginning of the season, Brian Oliver, Mark Zuckerman, and I did a podcast announcing our predictions for the Nationals' win total this year, and somehow we all came to the same number: 68 wins. Should the Nationals get swept at the hands of the New York Mets this weekend, we'll all be right.

New Right Track-Wrong Track Poll

2010-09-23T19:41:00.001-04:00

I fell behind in the monthly right track-wrong track polling, but I'm curious about the fan reaction to Stan Kasten's departure. So there's a new poll up, and it'll be up through the end of October.

Stan Kasten Failed

2010-09-23T15:31:00.004-04:00

Not to put too fine a point on it, but is there any other conclusion that can be reached?

On Monday, the Nationals drew an announced paid attendance of 10,999 to Nationals Park, the team's smallest since baseball returned to DC in 2005. Then, fewer than 12,000 showed up Tuesday, and fewer than 13,000 were at Wednesday's game. That's the end result of the Kasten era, and there's no other way around it.

Make excuses if you like. I am certainly on record that Jim Bowden was a bigger problem for this team than Stan Kasten. The team was in bad shape when he got here. Tom Boswell would have us believe that Kasten had the answers all along, but the Lerners just wouldn't listen.

Whatever. The Nationals also had some great opportunities when he got here. A brand-new stadium. High draft picks. A near-MVP caliber third baseman. The most recession-proof market in baseball. Tremendous enthusiasm for the return to baseball, at least back when he first came in (dang, does that seem like a long time ago).

In fairness, if we could get a look at the Nationals' books, we would probably see a team that's doing just fine in terms of short-term profit. But cashing in on a new stadium and revenue sharing while fielding a crappy team and squandering the fan base isn't a recipe for long-term success. That's called strip-mining.

This franchise has dark days ahead. Nevermind Stan's happy talk and MLB.com's silly cheerleading. The decisions made under Kasten's watch will keep the team in the cellar for the foreseeable future. And for that reason Stan Kasten's regime in Washington should be regarded as nothing but a failure. It's time for new blood, and Nationals fans shouldn't be sad to see him go.

As for what Stan does next, I'd guess he's going to be working for MLB, probably working on the CBA in some capacity. He always seemed to be running the Nationals as if he was applying for a job in Selig's office, rather than helping the Nationals win.

John Manuel Wants to Hear from Nationals Fans

2010-09-23T08:35:00.002-04:00

In the latest Baseball America podcast, BA editor John Manuel went on a brief rant about how Manny Acta is overrated as a young, up-and-coming manager (if you click the link and listen, it's right at the end):

I would love for an Indians fan to email in and tell us, or a Nationals fan, what is it about Manny Acta that makes him thought of as this young, up and coming manager, this potentially really good manager. I don't get it. I don't see it. I don't see it in the track record. I don't see it from what he did in the minor leagues. Besides the fact that Manny Acta wears cool hats at the Winter Meetings and dresses sharp and is bilingual. What is the deal with that guy? I honestly don't get it. Someone has to explain that to me. I never quite got it with Eric Wedge. But at least Eric Wedge took them to the 2007--they won the division. They were competitive a few years. They had the one year in '05 with the massive finish and just missed the playoffs. What has Manny Acta done. Did players get better under him in Washington? Did players get better under him in Cleveland?

I know there are lots of opinions out there. So let him know what you think. The email is podcast@baseballamerica.com or you can post on the BA Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Baseball-America/247155898718.

Another Shot for Ross Detwiler

2010-09-20T21:53:00.002-04:00

Ross Detwiler was the #6 overall pick in 2007, one pick after Matt Wieters and eight picks before Jason Heyward. Number six isn't nearly as valuable as the #1 or even the #2 pick, but it's a premium draft pick; other #6 picks in recent years have included Zack Greinke, Rocco Baldelli, and Ricky Romero.

Moreover, a team like the Nationals needs high picks like this to contribute if they're ever going to turn things around. And Detwiler, considered the #2 college arm in that draft, simply hasn't delivered.

Detwiler was given probably more chances to start last season than he deserved, and he didn't do much with it. He finished 2009, his age 23 season, with a 5.00 ERA and poor 12.6% strikeout rate. He then lost most of this season to a torn hip flexor, which ruined what would have been a wide open shot at redemption.

But it looks like Detwiler, who has been pitching in the bullpen since he was recalled a couple weeks ago, will get another chance to start this Thursday against the Astros. The team is surely hoping that he can finally break through next year, giving them a cost-controlled power lefty in the back of the rotation. And if he does well against Houston, get ready for an entire off-season of hype about how Strasburg, Zimmermann, and Detwiler look to Stan a lot like a young (all together now) Smoltz, Avery, and Glavine.

But until Detwiler shows he can miss bats at the major league level, fans should remain skeptical. He's done fairly well this season while working his way back from surgery, posting a 2.27 ERA while pitching mostly at AA. He's produced solid groundball rates (51.4%) and strikeout rates (21.1%) in the minors, but now at age 24, he's not doing anything that makes you stop and think he's going to be anything special. It's a painful missed opportunity that, barring a major turnaround, will continue to dog the franchise for years.

How Is this Not Marketing Alcohol to Kids?

2010-09-13T15:03:00.002-04:00

It's clearly an MLB issue, not a Nationals issue, but is this really appropriate? Especially at a day game, this seems like a pretty textbook example of marketing to children. Would MLB be ok with doing this promo with Joe Camel? Seems like really questionable judgment from the league office.

Looking for a Free Agent Ace

2010-09-09T22:39:00.002-04:00

In his latest regular interview with MASN.com, Mike Rizzo said this:

I certainly would like to get a guy to lead that rotation and be a front-of-the-rotation guy, via free agency or trades or that type of thing. Those, as you know, are few and far between. They're tough to get and often expensive to get. But I feel comfortable with the depth. I do think we need a leader of that rotation. That would be one of our needs in the offseason.

I took a quick glance at the free agents available for 2011, and Javier Vazquez jumped out at me. He's struggled again in New York this season, but he was one of the very best pitchers in baseball last year in Atlanta.

More interestingly, he's right on the cusp of slipping to Type B free agency. Keep an eye on the Elias Rankings updates on MLB Trade Rumors, and if Vazquez slips out of Type A free agency in the last couple weeks of the season, which is certainly possible, look for him to become a top target for a bounce-back year with the franchise that drafted him 16 years ago.

Why Riggles Isn't Quite 100% Off the Hook for Strasburg in my Book

2010-09-07T23:11:00.005-04:00

Maybe the DCCC is invading my subconscious, but I suddenly find myself recalling dark episodes from the Bush administration. Like Donald Rumsfeld:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know.

Which brings me to Stephen Strasburg's elbow. Did the Nationals "do everything they could to protect him and keep him from placing unusual stress on his arm" as Buster Olney and all right-thinking baseball insiders have said again and again?

The truth is, we don't have any idea. Pitching is one of the least understood areas of sports medicine. Talk to one pitching coach, and he'll tell you that Strasburg's problem was the "upside-down W." Talk to another and he'll say it was that he short-stepped on the front end. Talk to another and he'll tell you he didn't do enough long-toss, or that he threw too much in college, or that he didn't throw enough, or that his mechanics are perfect and just had bad genes.

After listening to all that, you realize that there are really only two camps when it comes to pitching injuries. People who don't know and know they don't know (see, me), and people who don't know but think they know (see Olney, Buster).

My problem is that Jim Riggleman could be the poster boy for the school of unknown unknowns. On blogger day last year, I asked him if he'd learned anything from Kerry Wood, and would he do anything differently. He said, "I never asked for him to come up, but once he was there we treated him like everybody else. [Pitchers] just get hurt. It was probably inevitable."

Then, during spring training, Mark Zuckerman captured this moment of clarity from Riggleman:

You know, anything that has to do with the mechanics of pitching, you know, I just, I'd be bluffing if I tried to tell you I knew what I was talking about. You know, the mechanics of pitching, you know, it makes sense to me when McCatty and pitchers explain what they're doing, but you know, I want him to be healthy, and I'm looking for results, so, you know, that's the main thing, and I'm sure if he feels there was a mechanical thing there that he was doing that he'll make the adjustment, and he'll do it otherwise next time he pitches.

There are gobs of quotes like this from Riggleman, and they all basically come back to the same points: he doesn't know what he's talking about, but he's 100% sure it doesn't make any difference.

Now, again, based on what we could see from the outside, it seemed like they were careful. We know about pitch counts, they waited to bring him up... generally it looks like they were taking obvious steps to limit his workload and the stress on his arm.

That's all well and good. But pitch counts and innings limits are only two pieces of a big puzzle, and I just don't believe that a team run by a guy who says he knows bupkis about pitching mechanics (and doesn't seem to be aware why that's a problem) can be said to be doing "everything they could."

Going back to the "two camps of pitching theory," there's really a third camp. Those are the people who know they don't know, but they have ideas and they are trying to learn. Guys like Don Cooper of the Chicago White Sox (who has been widely misreported as having "predicted" Strasburg's injury--Cooper saw what he considered a red flag in Strasburg's "upside-down" arm action, but expressed worry, not a concrete prediction).

Cooper doesn't have the magic 8 ball or anything. But he was the pitching coach for this group, which says something. He and a lot of other thoughtful, smart baseball and medical people are working to advance the body of knowledge about pitching injuries, even if all they can do is reduce risk or delay injuries, rather than eliminate them altogether.

I just with the guy running my team was one of those smart, thoughtful people trying to learn.

Jim Callis Updates his Nationals Top Ten

2010-09-06T13:04:00.003-04:00

Jim Callis over at Baseball America offered his updated Nationals Top Ten prospects in a chat today.

Click over and check out the full list and comments, but a few observations. Three of the top five prospects are 2010 draftees. That's usually a bad sign for a system. They graduated four of last year's top ten to the majors (Stephen Strasburg, Drew Storen, Ian Desmond, and Justin Maxwell), while the 2009 #7 (Jeff Kobernus) and #10 (Destin Hood) dropped off the list. Callis is either really high on Wilson Ramos or really low on the rest of the system, as Ramos checks in way up at #2.

Nyjer Morgan Needs to Go

2010-09-01T21:20:00.008-04:00

That guy is just out of control. First the cheap shot on Bryan Anderson, then he throws a ball at a fan, then he takes out another catcher, tells another fan to "shut up fat b****," then steals second and third down 11 runs (barreling into the second and third basemen, even when there was no throw at third), then charges the mound and jaws with the fans again on the way off the field.

Seriously, this guy is totally out of control. He shouldn't be playing baseball, and honestly the guy probably needs to be in therapy. He definitely shouldn't play the rest of the year for the Nationals.

By the way--remember the Nationals traded "bad apple" Lastings Milledge for Morgan. I don't remember Milledge ever doing anything remotely similar to this. Or Elijah Dukes for that matter.

Also, this really reflects badly on Jim Riggleman. He's the guy who let this situation get out of control, and it doesn't help him that his third base coach Pat Listach jumped right in the middle of the bench-clearing brawl and had to be pulled out by a player. Looked like John McLaren was right in there too.

Oh, and in all this craziness, let's not forget that Scott Olsen raised his ERA to 5.88. Can anyone explain why he's still here?
Now Riggleman orders Doug Slaten to hit Gaby Sanchez with a pitch, warming up Drew Storen to replace Doug Slaten just in case it wasn't totally clear what was going on. This is not the way to help the young guys transition to the bigs.

Dibble's Toast

2010-09-01T17:27:00.002-04:00

If I'm not mistaken, Mark Zuckerman had it first. I did the honors on Wikipedia.

Dibble's tenure with MASN over

MIAMI — Rob Dibble will no longer be broadcasting Nationals games on MASN, a club spokesman said this afternoon.

The former Reds reliever, who signed a three-year contract with MASN in 2009, has not called any games since last week, when comments he made on his Sirius XM radio show about Stephen Strasburg generated controversy. According to a MASN spokesman at the time, Dibble requested time off. He hasn't returned to the booth since, with Ray Knight filling as as analyst alongside play-by-play announcer Bob Carpenter.

The Nationals spokesman said the club wouldn't have any other comment on Dibble's permanent departure.

More to come...

First Strasburg, Now Brian?

2010-09-01T12:38:00.002-04:00

Nationals Farm Authority is moving on to greener pastures. I can certainly understand the struggle to maintain a blog presence in the middle of a major professional or life change. And lord knows this franchise doesn't give much reason to stay engaged 24/7/365.

But Brian had a great run and definitely filled a major gap in coverage that won't be filled anytime soon. Around the league, there aren't many prospect blogs that were as thorough as NFA, and unlike most of the Natmosphere bloggers, Brian actually did some reporting, cultivating relationships with minor league affiliates and from time to time breaking news before anyone else.

I'm sure we'll still hear from Brian from time to time, but for now it's a bad day to be a Nationals prospect hound.

Dibble Still in the Penalty Box

2010-08-28T17:29:00.003-04:00

Bill Ladson just tweeted that Rob Dibble will not be in the booth for the Nationals today or Sunday. Two things to take from this:

Dibble is clearly in danger of losing his job. If you haven't already, send the good people at MASN a note (and really, in my experience outside of Dibble, they're all pretty good people) encouraging them to keep doing what they're doing and move on from Dibble now. Or Tweet you can tweet it at @MASNSports.
This team really likes to let people twist in the wind before firing them! Jim Bowden, Manny Acta, now Dibs... (and make no mistake, the team is making the call here). I don't know if this is a pattern that Stan Kasten has demonstrated in other jobs, but it's not the cleanest way to do business.

Anyway, I think they're on the right track, so let's not be too critical. Just take a moment and let MASN and the team know that you prefer the Dibble-free broadcasts.

Turn Off MASN (or at least hit mute)

2010-08-27T17:59:00.005-04:00

With apologies to the many great people who work at MASN, it's time for all Nationals fans to pledge to go 100% Charlie and Dave until MASN gets rid of Rob Dibble and his insufferable act.

Today, in what I guess is his first public appearance since we learned that he'd been taunting the best pitcher on the planet to "suck it up" and pitch with a torn ulnar collateral ligament, Dibble went on Jim Bowden's XM show to attack the people foolish enough to actually listen to what he had to say. (Somehow the combined amount of assholery in that broadcast didn't spontaneously tear a hole in the universe and plunge us all into a different dimension of time and space).

What his comments (summarized on the Bog) show is that Dibble has learned nothing from this episode, and the only solution is to take him off the air.

But since all indications are that Dibble will be back tonight, it seems the only way this is going to happen is for fans to shut him off ourselves.

Look people, we have a great radio team in Charlie and Dave. Just hit mute, go to 1500 AM, and enjoy a lovely broadcast without the non-stop obnoxious self-aggrandizement. Shoot, even on MLB.tv the radio broadcast is now synchronized.

Now, if you're one of the poor souls who can't get the game on the radio, you don't have only that options. You can turn off the sound and put on some music. Or you could try closed captioning and only look when there's some bit of information you want to find out. Or you could just "suck it up" and try to enjoy the broadcast despite Dibble.

But for everyone else, do yourself a favor and go with Charlie and Dave. You won't be sorry, and maybe by the time Strasburg comes back, Dibble will be gone for good.

@kevinreiss also reminds us that you can click here and tell MASN what you think of Dibble directly.

Enough Mourning... Now Back to Rebuilding

2010-08-27T15:48:00.004-04:00

Almost exactly a year ago, Nationals fans got the worst possible news: Tommy John surgery for Jordan Zimmermann, then emerging as one of the top 25-30 pitchers in baseball. Today, it's deja vu all over again.

But guess what? (Here comes the positive spin--you know I'm always here to find the silver lining.) A year goes by pretty fast. And you just don't lose that much sleep when there's nothing to play for and your team is in no position to compete anyway, as the Nationals were in 2010 and will be again in 2011.

Seriously, how much time did you spend this season fretting over the games the Zimmermann didn't start? If you're a prospect hound or a season-ticket holder, you probably noticed the difference. But if you're like the vast majority of Nationals fans, you're thinking, "well, they weren't going anywhere anyway..." (And that's before you even think about how the guy who filled Zimmermann's spot in the rotation is sporting a fine 3.36 ERA in 169 innings pitched.)

So Strasburg won't pitch in 2011, and there's a new risk factor increasing the likelihood that he doesn't fulfill the otherworldly expectations we all had after watching him blow away 14 Pirates in his debut.

But assuming that Strasburg, like most Tommy John survivors these days, comes back as good as new, the Nationals are no further from contention today than they were two days ago. The year 2012 now becomes the optimist's target date for a breakthrough, with 2013 more realistic still.

In fact, that season--the final year of Ryan Zimmerman's contract and Bryce Harper's age 20 season--is really the year the team has to be gunning for, and all their assets should be managed with that season in mind.

That means the most important question when it comes to Adam Dunn is whether you believe he can maintain his current level of solid, sub-all star value through his age 33 season. It's possible, but it's a bad bet.

It also means that Mike Rizzo should be building the team with a close eye on the anticipated free agent classes of 2010 and 2011. First base is loaded over the next two years, so there's an easy back-up plan in case Dunn flops or the team decides to trade him or let him go for the draft picks.

The draft is another area that again becomes relevant to the team's strategy for building a contender. Since the team is headed for likely another top five draft pick in 2011, maybe the #3 overall, they have another great chance to land a premium talent through the draft. And the early scouting of the 2011 draft says it's a class stacked with college bats--exactly the class of players most likely to be able to contribute quickly.

The Nationals have a lot of problems to solve. But now, they have a clear timeline for addressing them. By opening day 2013, the team must solve the following list of problems. They have plenty of tools to do it, but it's going to require a very strong run of player management decisions--the very list of decisions that will define Rizzo's tenure as GM:

Find out if Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa can be the double-play combo for a contender
Find at least two more top-40 starting pitchers, either through trades, player development, or free agency, to go with Zimmermann and Strasburg. No one else in the organization--not Lannan, Detwiler, whoever--should be counted on for more than one rotation spot at most.
Identify the catcher of the future from among Wilson Ramos, Derek Norris, and Jesus Flores.
Find an outfield. Gotta pencil in Harper for one of those spots, but Josh Willingham is running out of team-controlled years, and Nyjer Morgan won't be any better at age 32 than he is now.

Flags at Half-Mast

2010-08-27T11:06:00.006-04:00

Nothing can make me feel better today. Or tomorrow. I'm so depressed, I'm ready to vote for someone I've never heard of. Still, firing Dibble might be a good start to rebuilding morale. Dude better never set foot in Nationals Park again. Suck it up, he says. Unbelievable.

Chicken Shit Rob Dibble Hides in the Face of Criticism

2010-08-25T21:18:00.005-04:00

Remember the last time a loud-mouth no-talent jackass from Cincinnati decided to make scarce from this franchise? When Dibble "resigns" do you think he'll blame the media? Either way, Zuckerman might have to update that list of the best days in franchise history:

Nats announcer Dibble requested time off

WASHINGTON (AP)

Washington Nationals announcer Rob Dibble will take some time off two days after making comments critical of rookie pitcher Stephen Strasburg.

MASN spokesman Todd Webster said Dibble would not work Wednesday night's game against the Chicago Cubs and is ''taking a few days off.'' Webster said Dibble requested the time off but did not say whether the absence was related to the comments about Strasburg.

Dibble on Monday lashed out at the young pitcher, who has been placed on the disabled list twice in the last month. Dibble said on Sirius XM Radio that ''You can't have the cavalry come in and save your butt every time you feel a little stiff shoulder, sore elbow.''

What Brings Nationals Fans Together?

2010-08-24T10:08:00.004-04:00

When you're the fan of a team that never wins and has no real chance to win, it's hard to get real excited. There's no real point in hoping for a winner, so there are other things you have to get riled up about. And it's doubly hard as a fan base to find things other than wins and losses to really be passionate about as a united group. Everyone has their own opinions about what the team should do and what brand of beer they should sell at the park.

But from time to time, we as Nationals fans have been able to come together passionately around certain causes. Firing Jim Bowden. Loving Ryan Zimmerman. Spoiling the Mets. Hating the Phillies. Clint.

Now, we have another: Rob Dibble. Dibble has for a long time been a polarizing figure. Some love him, some hate him. Charitably, I'd say he's a big personality and inspires strong opinions. That's not a bad thing.

But now that Dibble has put himself squarely on the side of hating Stephen Strasburg--he started by bad-mouthing him last summer during his contract negotiation and amped it way up this week by criticizing his toughness--I predict that Dibble will be the next cause celebre to bring Nationals fans together.

You didn't hear it here first, and this won't be the last, but for the love of god, Stan Kasten: fire Dibble.

Boz, Meet Context. Context, Meet Boz.

2010-08-19T15:54:00.003-04:00

For chrissake, a home run in 1968 is not the same as a home run in 2003. A home run (or an RBI) in the Great American Small Park in 2003 is absolutely not the same thing as a home run in Candlestick Park in 1968 or Yankee Stadium in 1960 when runs per game were three runs lower than they are today. This is self-evident to any half-wit paying the slightest bit of attention.

So I ask, will we ever stop getting garbage like this from the Washington Post's supposedly expert baseball columnist?:

For example, Dunn averages 1.61 RBI-per-home run in his career (and 1.5 this season). This measures whether he tends to hit bases-empty homers or when men are on base. This places him above Barry Bonds, Willie Mays, Mickey Mantle, Frank Robinson and Palemiro (among others) who hit 500 homers. He's also well ahead of current stars like Chipper Jones, Vlad Guerrero and slightly ahead of Ryan Zimmerman.

Just retire, please. You're hurting me.

Nationals Break their own Record for Draft Bonuses

2010-08-17T07:39:00.002-04:00

We won't have bonus information for all 50 rounds for a while, but we do know that the Nationals spent enough yesterday to break their own record for the most money ever spent on bonuses in a single draft.

Last year, in a draft headlined by Stephen Strasburg, the team spent $10,869,500 on bonuses. This year, we know they've already spent at least $11,178,200. (This doesn't count the full value of the major league contracts given to Harper or Strasburg--just bonuses.)

Here's the run down of where the money went:

Rd	Name	Bonus
1	Bryce Harper	$6,250,000
2	Sammy Solis	$1,000,000
3	Rick Hague	$430,200
4	A.J. Cole	$2,000,000
5	Jason Martinson	$174,000
6	Cole Leonida	$125,000
7	Kevin Keyes	$125,000
8	Matt Grace	$125,000
9	Aaron Barrett	$35,000
10	Blake Kelso	$115,000
12	Robbie Ray	$799,000
	Total	$11,178,200

A.J. Cole, Against the Odds

2010-08-15T08:38:00.004-04:00

The Nationals just signed fourth round pick A.J. Cole, who was not only the least likely top ten pick in their own draft to sign, but one of the least likely to sign picks in the whole 2010 draft.

Cole, a 6'5" right-hander, is a high school pitcher with first-round ability. He slid after making a commitment to the University of Miami and showing some inconsistency. Guys like this have a lot of incentive to go to school and improve their stock, so the Nationals probably weren't going to get him without paying him first-round money.

That they did, setting a fourth round record by signing Cole for $2 million. The MLB recommendation for that pick was $258,300.

The team also announced the above-slot signing of Sammy Solis. This is less of a surprise, but also good news. Solis is a left-handed college pitcher and signed for $1 million.

With Bryce Harper still to sign, these deals mean that the Nationals are very likely to be the highest-spending team in the draft for the second year in a row.

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

2010-08-06T09:23:00.004-04:00

Last month, fan confidence slipped lower than it has at any time since Stephen Strasburg signed. A temporary blip? Or the mark of a long-term slide, as fans realize that 72 wins isn't quite what it was cracked up to be? We'll see. Voting is open for the August poll in the upper right-hand corner of this page.

Dunn and Waivers

2010-08-03T16:22:00.004-04:00

Buster Olney tweets that Adam Dunn has been placed on revocable waivers. He also says that Dunn won't clear waivers because numerous NL teams plan to put claims on him, and if any team does claim him, the Nationals can pull him back.

As folks probably know by now, the significance of this is that if he clears waivers he can be traded. Saturday's trade deadline was the "non-waiver" deadline, and any player can still be traded if he passes waivers first at any time this season. Also, any player not on a 40-man roster can be traded, so any minor league prospects the Nationals wanted back for Dunn could still come over.

So basically this means the Nationals are doing their due diligence to be able to trade Dunn, in the event that they get an offer they like. And it doesn't really even imply that the Nationals want to trade him, since players get put out on waivers so often. Jim Bowden used to try to send Ken Griffey through waivers every year, even in his prime.

The one thing about this that's somewhat notable, if it's true (and it might not be, since teams don't have to report waiver moves), is that it means Dunn wasn't sent through waivers earlier in the season. If I understand the rules right (and I might not--if anyone knows for sure, I know you'll tell me in the comments), a player can be traded if he'd passed through waivers at any time in the season. And since they would have presumably had an easier time getting him through waivers earlier in the season, they may have foreclosed some options to make themselves better. (Note--NFA Brian answered my question below, so if you've made it this far, keep reading.)

Guzman! Traded! Hoo-Ray!!!!!!

2010-07-30T15:15:00.003-04:00

That's what Ladson says. If true, this is the best day to be a Nationals fan since the day JimBo resigned, no matter who they got. The Rangers' farm system is the best in baseball, so if they get anyone in their top 20, rejoice. If this is true, Rizzo is definitely earning some love around the Natmosphere.

Matt Capps for Wilson Ramos?

2010-07-29T22:08:00.003-04:00

That's what Aaron Gleeman is saying is about to happen. If true, this is fantastic news.

Out Rate: a Simple New Upgrade on OBP

2010-07-25T21:48:00.015-04:00

On-base percentage is an extremely valuable stat because it shows the percentage of the time that a hitter avoids making an out at the plate.

However, as Nationals fans in particular have learned with Nyjer Morgan, there are more ways to make an out than to strike out, ground out, or fly out. You can get picked off, caught stealing, thrown out trying to advance on a flyball, and more.

And especially for lead-off hitters, the most important thing they need to achieve is to avoid creating outs so that there are base-runners for the heart of the order. A lead-off man who reaches base and then gets picked off or caught stealing hasn't really contributed any more than if they had made an out in the first place.

So I created a stat that I call out rate. Out rate is the percentage of all plate appearances that end in the hitter creating an out, either at the plate or on the bases. The stat also counts the extra outs created by GDPs. Here's the formula: Out rate = (H+BB+HBP-CS-GDP-POCS-OOB)/PA.

Some explanation on unfamiliar stats here. POCS stands for pick-off caught stealing. In the dataset that Baseball Reference uses, runners are charged with both a CS and a PO if he is judged to have been making a motion towards the next base before getting picked off. But BRef also tracks those "double counted" events as POCS, so by subtracting that number, we're able eliminate the overlap.

OOB is "outs on base"--other events when a runner is called out on the bases. Example plays are out advancing on a flyball, trying to "take the extra base" on a hit, or attempting to advance on a wild pitch.

The reason I think this represents an upgrade over OBP is because it represents a more complete view of the key thing OBP measures--how often a hitter does or doesn't create an out.

Some will object that I'm mixing base-running and hitting, two very different skill sets. Indeed I am. But when measuring the offensive output of a player (as opposed to their skills), it doesn't really matter how they are creating outs. Outs are outs. Indeed, OBP itself is a stat that is derived by looking at the outcomes of some very different skill sets--mainly strike zone discipline and contact ability. To really drill down to measure one skill at a time, we should be looking at more granular data still, like contact rate, walk rate, swing rates, etc.

I like out rate because it presents the data in the way it's more intuitively useful--i.e., how often a player creates an out, as opposed to measuring a negative, how often a player avoids making an out.

Here are the league-wide numbers, updated through the end of the weekend: http://bit.ly/bDBjhs.

And here are the rates for all the players in MLB who have started at least 30 games this season in the lead-off spot, ranked from best to worst, with OBP also listed for reference.

Nationals fans--take note. The only lead-off hitters worse than are guy aren't lead-off hitters anymore. A real good way to kill an offense is to create a league-leading number of outs from the lead-off spot.

Name	Tm	OBP	Out %
Rickie Weeks	MIL	.377	.638
Rafael Furcal	LAD	.386	.645
Martin Prado	ATL	.363	.664
Kelly Johnson	ARI	.373	.673
Ichiro Suzuki	SEA	.369	.675
Austin Jackson	DET	.360	.676
Andres Torres	SFG	.367	.676
Angel Pagan	NYM	.362	.685
Felipe Lopez	STL	.338	.689
Marco Scutaro	BOS	.341	.696
David DeJesus	KCR	.331	.697
Chris Coghlan	FLA	.331	.697
Fred Lewis	TOR	.344	.698
Jimmy Rollins	PHI	.333	.700
Carlos Gonzalez	COL	.335	.700
Derek Jeter	NYY	.334	.703
Elvis Andrus	TEX	.357	.706
Shane Victorino	PHI	.314	.708
Denard Span	MIN	.341	.710
Scott Podsednik	KCR	.347	.710
Brandon Phillips	CIN	.342	.711
Erick Aybar	LAA	.339	.712
Jose Tabata	PIT	.335	.713
Corey Patterson	BAL	.328	.714
Jason Bartlett	TBR	.319	.715
Michael Bourn	HOU	.326	.718
Skip Schumaker	STL	.315	.723
Jose Reyes	NYM	.318	.724
Tony Gwynn	SDP	.330	.729
Ryan Theriot	CHC	.315	.730
Asdrubal Cabrera	CLE	.327	.735
Orlando Cabrera	CIN	.298	.738
Juan Pierre	CHW	.324	.739
Nyjer Morgan	WSN	.316	.743
Akinori Iwamura	PIT	.292	.751
Rajai Davis	OAK	.311	.752
Aaron Rowand	SFG	.288	.761

E-5 My Foot

2010-07-21T09:36:00.005-04:00

Wanna know why Adam Dunn doesn't command a king's ransom on the trade market (or free agency)? Here's a play any MLB first baseman should make, and it cost the Nationals the game.

And yes I realize that it's always counted as a throwing error if the infielder bounces the throw, but that doesn't make it right.

Take Yes for an Answer, Rizzo

2010-07-20T09:18:00.005-04:00

Joe Cowley of the Chicago Sun-Times reports that the White Sox have offered the Nationals anyone in their minor league system for Adam Dunn, and that Rizzo is holding out for Gordon Beckham or Carlos Quentin.

All caveats about unnamed sources apply. Always take this kind of report with a grain of salt--the sources more often than not are player agents or third-party GMs trying to advance their own interests, not share info.

But, then again, these reports aren't always bogus, and Kenny Williams certainly has a track record of bold strokes to win now. So, let's assume for the sake of argument that the report is true, and that Sox have offered anyone in their farm system, plus Daniel Hudson and Dayan Viciedo. Is there a deal here?

First, let's measure the value of what the Nationals would be giving up. Dunn is under contract for the rest of this season at a salary of $12 million. Using wOBA to measure offense and UZR to measure defense, Dunn has been worth 3.0 wins above replacement this year, putting him on pace for 5.1 WAR for the season. For context, 2-3 WAR is typically a starting caliber player, 5 WAR usually is an all-star, and 8 WAR is typically MVP.

This is a pretty solid measure of his value, although one caveat is that one of UZR's shortcomings is that it doesn't measure the value of runs prevented by first baseman catching errant throws, or "scoops." Dunn's height allows him to catch some balls other first basemen wouldn't get too, but he comes off the bag way way way too much and generally doesn't do his fellow infielders many favors. So we should shave maybe half a win off for that.

Also, you lose another half win for the positional adjustment from first base to DH (more players can "play" DH than first base).

Regardless, for a team in the hunt, adding even a 4.0 WAR guy like this with 70-ish games to go is a big addition. And since the White Sox are in a race that will go down to the wire and have used Mark Kotsay at DH more than any other player this year, and Juan Pierre is a giant sucking sound (ask your grandparents) in left, Dunn could easily be the guy who makes their year.

Now, on the Nationals' side, they are obviously going nowhere this year. They are 40-53, putting them on pace for 70 wins. And of course the trendline is not good, so they're probably on track to narrowly beat the pre-season over-under of 67 wins. If they trade Dunn, they probably replace him with a combination of Mike Morse, Willie Harris (and move Willingham to first), and Justin Maxwell. Those guys should provide replacement level value--not much more, but probably not less.

So trading Dunn might push them down to 67 or 66 wins. And any way you measure it--financially, emotionally, whatever--the difference between 69 wins and 67 wins is basically nil. Even y'all who sit and watch every game in the front row, I'm sorry, you don't really care about 2 more wins.

Then there's the potential opportunity cost of the draft picks that the Nationals would get if they kept him and offered him arbitration, assuming Dunn would decline and become a free agent. It's not totally clear to me that the Nationals would offer him arbitration or that he wouldn't accept it if offered. Still, you have to factor in that value.

Since Dunn's contract is up at the end of the season, that's really all that's at stake here. If the Nationals traded him to Chicago, Dunn would probably be back on the market this winter. That's because the Sox are pretty unlikely to give him a long-term contract given their $103 million payroll, Paul Konerko becoming a free agent, and long-term commitments to Jake Peavy, Alex Rios, and Mark Buehrle.

If the Nationals think Dunn is the key to their playoff hopes in 2011 or 2012 (it's gonna take way more than that--more on that another time), then they can pony up another $20 million or so and get him back.

Now, let's take a quick look at the White Sox prospects:

Daniel Hudson: at age 23, he put up a 108:31 strikeout to walk ratio in 93.1 innings at AAA Charlotte. He was the #66 prospect on the Baseball America top 100 at the start of the year, and his stock has only gone up. If Hudson is offered, it's an absolute no-brainer, even if the Nationals have to eat salary and throw in Craig Stammen.
Jared Mitchell: Mitchell, a super-fast centerfielder and lead-off man who showed advanced OBP skills as a 20-year-old in A-ball in 2009, was actually the top prospect in the White Sox system going into the year. Then, he tore a tendon in his ankle. Given the importance of the speed tool for Mitchell, you'd rather wait till he's fully rehabbed. Then again, you'll never get him for a 2-month rental of Adam Dunn after he's fully rehabbed. I'd rather have Hudson, but this is still an easy "yes," unless there's some bad medical news we don't know about.
Tyler Flowers: Flowers is a major league-ready bat with good OBP skills and decent pop for a catcher. He came to the Sox in the Javier Vazquez trade. The report is that the White Sox offered "anyone in the minors," but it would be hard to trade the heir apparent to free agent A.J. Pierzynski. But, if they do, again, this is a trade the Nationals should do in a heartbeat. Derek Norris is taking a step back, who knows about Jesus Flores, and you can never have too many catchers.
Dayan Viciedo: You've probably heard of him since he's playing third base now. The Nationals could bring him in and make him a first baseman, which is probably a better long-term fit anyway. I'm not much of a fan. He's a fat hacker with a four-year, $10 million major league deal. I wouldn't be super excited about this, though it's still a good value.
Jordan Danks: Danks is also close to breaking through at the big league level. He hasn't set the world on fire at AAA, putting up a .243 / .314 / .377 line. But he's a plus defender, and the Sox say he's battled injuries this year and remain high on him. Again, this would be a fair value, but you'd choose others ahead of him.
Brent Morel: BA's #3 prospect going into the year, he's a very good all-around player and a pretty safe bet as a quality major league regular. But, he's a third baseman. In a vacuum, it's a great value, but not for the Nationals.

Tm	SBO	SBA	SBA%
NYM	2219	174	7.84%
SDP	2227	174	7.81%
WSN	2205	151	6.85%
HOU	2166	136	6.28%
LAD	2283	142	6.22%
COL	2290	141	6.16%
CIN	2344	136	5.80%
PIT	2138	123	5.75%
LgAvg	2272	128	5.63%
PHI	2311	129	5.58%
ARI	2314	127	5.49%
FLA	2278	118	5.18%
STL	2328	120	5.15%
MIL	2396	107	4.47%
SFG	2211	87	3.93%
CHC	2246	86	3.83%
ATL	2403	92	3.83%

Tm	Sac Opps	Sacs	Sac Att %
WSN	1470	118	8.03%
LAD	1522	122	8.02%
SDP	1485	111	7.48%
NYM	1479	109	7.37%
SFG	1474	106	7.19%
HOU	1444	101	7.00%
CIN	1563	100	6.40%
PIT	1425	91	6.39%
LgAvg	1515	93	6.14%
STL	1552	95	6.12%
ATL	1602	98	6.12%
CHC	1497	87	5.81%
COL	1527	83	5.44%
FLA	1519	75	4.94%
PHI	1541	70	4.54%
MIL	1597	62	3.88%
ARI	1543	53	3.44%

Tm	Success %
ARI	77%
HOU	74%
SFG	72%
SDP	71%
LAD	70%
ATL	70%
STL	69%
CHC	69%
NYM	68%
LgAvg	68%
FLA	68%
COL	67%
CIN	66%
PIT	64%
PHI	63%
WSN	60%
MIL	56%