Archive for Nationals

Every year around this time fans, broadcasters, and baseball people get into the whole expanded rosters debate. Some don’t like that the final month of the season is played under a different set of rules while others don’t mind the extra players. What always seems to get lost in the shuffle is that very few September call-ups actually have an impact when they’re brought up. Most are relegated to mop-up relief innings or pinch-running duties, minor roles like that, but every once in a while someone will come up and become an instant difference maker.

Perhaps the greatest September call-up in recent memory is Francisco Rodriguez, who went from dominating the minor leagues — 13.0 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 with a 2.27 ERA in 83.1 innings between Double-A and Triple-A — to a key setup cog for the World Champion Angels in 2002. K-Rod pitched so well in his 5.2-inning trial (13 strikeouts and one unintentional walk) that the Halos squeezed him onto the playoff roster, where he threw another great 18.2 innings (28 strikeouts and five walks). The Angels struck September call-up gold that season.

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There are rate stats for just about every kind of opportunity a hitter faces in a game. Batting average tells you how often a player reaches base via a hit. On-base percentage tells you how often a player avoids making an out per plate appearance. But what about swings as opportunities?

Last year, I played around with the idea of production per swing. The idea was to examine what hitters gave the most value when they took a swing. The methodology was pretty simple: calculate the Weighted On-base Average (wOBA) each hitter generated using their swings — instead of plate appearances — as the denominator*.

Of course, there is a healthy correlation between actual wOBA and wOBA per swing (.83 in 2012), but less so Isolated Power (ISO). (wOBA/swing and ISO share only a .53 correlation.) Some of the results may not be all that surprising, but many certainly are.

Let’s first look at the top-25 so far this year:

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Nationals Ballpark sits in the southeast quadrant of Washington, D.C. Take a look at this map of the District and its environs. More than half way down, right of center, is a marker for Washington Navy Yard. That’s approximately where the  ballpark is. As you can see, the area is accessible by highways connecting the District to Virginia and Maryland. There is also a Metro stop at the ballpark. Metro is the subway run by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). Here’s the Metro map. Notice the stop on the Green Line for Navy Yard-Ballpark.

The Nationals encourage fans to take public transportation to the ballpark, but also provide plenty of options and information for driving to — and parking near — the ballpark. The Nationals may keep track of how many fans drive to games, versus take public transportation, but that information isn’t publicly available.

The Metro stops running at midnight Sundays through Thursdays.. Typically, that’s not a problem for Nationals fans traveling to and from the ballpark on the Metro, as the night games start at 7:05 p.m. local time. Unless a game extends well into extra innings, fans usually have plenty of time to take a Metro train home.

But some games have gone well into extra innings, and that’s been a problem for fans who took Metro to the game and expected to take it home. This issue first arose in June, when the Nationals played the Mets on June 5, and the game lasted into the 12th inning. As the game moved toward 11 p.m., ballpark officials announced the Metro would stop running at midnight. That meant that fans had to leave the ballpark with enough time to catch a train at the Navy Yards/Green Line station and get to their destination by midnight. Some fans left, and missed the Nationals’ walk-off victory on a Bryce Harper single in the bottom of the 12th, at 11:20 p.m.

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On Friday night, Stephen Strasburg took the mound in Nationals Park for the last time in 2012. Since I live about six hours from DC and I hadn’t seen him pitch in person yet, I figured I shouldn’t pass up on the opportunity to see him for myself, so I made the drive up on Friday afternoon. As you’ve undoubtedly heard, Strasburg wasn’t particularly sharp on Friday, getting removed after throwing just three innings, and so the Nationals decided that Friday was his final start of the year, moving his shutdown up one start and ending his season at 159 1/3 innings.

It’s obviously a rather controversial decision, and I’ve advocated for the position of more aggressive usage, skipping starts and manipulating the off days to try and make him available for the postseason. Watching him struggle in his final start didn’t disuade me from believing in the merits of that kind of approach, and I do think that perhaps there were alternative ways of handling his workload that might have allowed him for pitch deeper into the season. However, the unavoidable reality of this situation is that everyone is dealing with a great quantity of unknown variables, and for any of us to say that one decision is distinctly better or worse than another is probably an on overestimation of our own knowledge.

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Pretty much every player in the Majors goes on waivers at some point in August, so the fact that Josh Beckett was placed on waivers isn’t really news. However, unlike most players in baseball, Beckett will almost certainly clear waivers, since he’s due approximately $4 million over the remainder of the 2012 season and $15.75 million in each of the next two seasons. Any team claiming Beckett would be on the hook for $36 million, and he’s clearly not worth that kind of investment at this point, so he’ll sail through waivers without any blinking.

Once he clears, the Red Sox will be able to trade him to any team that’s interested, and they can create additional interest by picking up a significant chunk of his salary in order to move him. At that point, the question becomes how much cash Boston should be willing to eat to move on from their struggling former ace.

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Prior to this past offseason, five of Dave Cameron’s top ten free agents were starting pitchers. Both CC Sabathia (#3) and C.J. Wilson (#5) landed mega-contracts while Roy Oswalt (#9) decided to take the Pedro Martinez/Roger Clemens route and sign midseason. The other two guys — Hiroki Kuroda (#8) and Edwin Jackson (#10) — signed nearly identical one-year contracts. Eight months later, they share another thing in common: they’re pitching for the team with the best record in their respective league.

Kuroda, 37, landed a $10 million salary from the Yankees. At 3.3 WAR, he’s already had the third-best season of his five-year MLB career and appears poised to zoom past his career-high 4.1 WAR from 2010. Jackson, 28, signed with the Nationals for $11 million, but is having a slightly down year by his standards. He’s at 1.6 WAR and seems likely to a) fall short of the 3.6-3.8 WAR level he’s established these last three years, and b) still provide the Nationals plenty of surplus value.

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Via Yahooo’s Jeff Passan:

While Mike Rizzo wouldn’t pin down a number, he said Stephen Strasburg will not exceed 180 innings.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) August 10, 2012

While the Nationals have been saying publicly for a while that they were going to take precautions with Stephen Strasburg, this is the firmest comment yet on just where the line is going to be drawn. The team shut down Jordan Zimmermann after 160 innings last year, so that had been where most guesses were falling, but it sounds like Strasburg will get to make two or three more starts than his teammate did a year ago.

Just doing the basic math, Strasburg is at 127 innings right now, leaving him 53 innings before he gets to 180. Strasburg is averaging 5.8 innings per start, so on his current trajectory, that would leave him with nine more starts this season. The Nationals have 50 games remaining on their schedule, so sticking with a five man rotation and not skipping the 5th starter would leave each member of the rotation with 10 more turns. Without alteration, this limit would essentially take Strasburg to the final week of the regular season, and he’d simply skip his final regular season start and watch the playoffs as a spectator.

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Ian Desmond has become a legitimate threat in the lineup. This may come as a big surprise to fans of sabermetrics, as Desmond’s swing-happy approach, led to him being one of the worst regulars in baseball. Last season, Desmond finished ahead of only Yuniesky Betancourt and Alex Gonzalez in WAR at the shortstop position. This year, he trails Elvis Andrus 3.8 to 3.7. If not for a recent oblique injury, Desmond would likely be the most valuable shortstop in baseball this season. While his approach hasn’t changed much, there are some signs that he’s become a better player.

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With the trade deadline behind us, it’s worth looking back at which teams improved themselves the most with mid-season acquisitions, which clubs found value without surrendering much of their future, and which organizations may regret missing an opportunity to upgrade their talent base. Each club had different goals and different needs, so any review of this sort is going to be subjective in nature, but there are some clubs that made moves that certainly have the appearance of improving their overall organization either in the short term or in the long term.

The Winners

Los Angeles Dodgers — added Hanley Ramirez, Shane Victorino, Brandon League, and Randy Choate

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After a lot of banter about what Cole Hamels might fetch in trade, it was reported earlier today that the Phillies are preparing a “major offer” in an attempt to retain him past this season. It was also reported that the Nationals might be relatively quiet at the trade deadline, given that they have few holes to fill. And that’s true, if Stephen Strasburg doesn’t get shut down. But, if he does get shut down, there is one person who could instantly fill his shoes and keep the Nationals in pursuit of a World Series crown — Cole Hamels.

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