Livan Hernandez struggled against the Mets on Sunday, giving up six runs on eight hits over 5 1/3 innings. As he exited the field in the top of the sixth, his 2011 season had officially come to an end.

Hernandez isn’t injured. He isn’t on a strict innings limit either. The Nationals simply decided to shut Hernandez down for the season’s final month. Removing him from the rotation enables the team to test out various youngsters in preparation for next season. Livan didn’t put up a fight. He understood the decision and accepted it, and will embrace his new role as mentor and de facto second pitching coach.

This type of decision isn’t made every day, especially with a pitcher still as productive as Hernandez. Then again, Hernandez isn’t your every day type of pitcher, and this story will only add to his legend as one of the best characters and people in the game.

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Four great men from Philadelphia once said, “You don’t know what you’ve got, til’ it’s gone.” In the case of Stephen Strasburg, at least in my case, I think we didn’t know what he had until he returned. Last night, Strasburg turned in a very pedestrian performance by his standards, striking out only four batters while allowing only two hits and zero walks.

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I suggest that should Strasburg stay healthy and avoid the problems that ended his first season, he could be the best pitcher I’ve ever seen, and perhaps the best pitcher to ever play the game. He is only 73 innings into his young career, and already we’ve seen more excitement and amazement than many pitchers provide in a career. He already has a 14 strikeout game, a 10 strikeout game, a nine strikeout game, and two eight strikeout games. He’s thrown 100 MPH fastballs and 92 MPH changeups. He’s thrown freezing curveballs and now, Pitch F/X suggests he may have even found a fourth pitch.

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Tonight, Stephen Strasburg returned from Tommy John surgery to make his season debut for the Nationals. Here is a look at his Pitch FX speeds from tonight compared to one of his starts from last season. Read the rest of this entry »

Two years ago, the top two picks in the June draft were pretty obvious – Stephen Strasburg was going to go #1 and Dustin Ackley was going to go #2. Strasburg was the best pitching prospect in the draft’s history, while Ackley had comfortably settled in as the low-risk college position player option. Because of the enormous difference in perceived potential, there was no real question that the Nationals would take Strasburg #1, even with the greater chance of risk associated with drafting a pitcher. I made the case for Ackley at the time, but even I admitted that, given the #1 pick, I’d take Strasburg too.

Now, though, a lot has changed. Strasburg had a remarkable ascent and debut in the big leagues, but then also had to go under the knife and has spent the last year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Ackley, meanwhile, had some pedestrian numbers in the minor leagues, took longer to get to the show, but has made a pretty nifty little splash since he got there.

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The Nationals made a pair of moves Saturday, sending utility-man Jerry Hairston Jr to the Brewers and starting pitcher Jason Marquis to the Diamondbacks. Both were marginal moves that weren’t all that exciting, but the Nats turned two players who didn’t factor into their plans into prospects who might. In exchange for Hairston, the Brewers sent back outfielder Erik Komatsu. For Marquis, the Diamondbacks traded away shortstop Zach Walters. Neither prospect is what we might label “can’t-miss” but both have the upside to help the Nationals as their rebuilding blossoms into contention.

Hairston signed a one year, $2 million deal in the offseason with the Nats, leading some to question why a team in their position even needed someone like him. Well, this is why. As the trade deadline approaches, some fringe contender is going to need middle infield help, either to replace a failed starter or to bide time due to an injury, and will make a trade for a player of that ilk. Hairston accomplishes both of those goals for the Brewers, who are not only dealing with the offensive impotence of Casey McGehee and Yuniesky Betancourt, but also injuries to Rickie Weeks and Carlos Gomez.

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The opening salvo of the last week of trading season has been fired… and by the Washington Nationals, who sit 15 games back of the Phillies for the NL East race and nine games back of the Braves for the NL Wild Card. The Nationals pulled the trigger on a deal with the Cincinnati Reds acquiring left fielder Jonny Gomes for minor league pitcher Chris Manno and outfielder Bill Rhinehart.

Wait, what?

The impetus of this deal for the Reds is simple. Chris Heisey has been an above average hitter and has earned time in the left field hole for Cincinnati. With Gomes’s usefulness limited to his performance against left-handed pitching, Heisey has made him redundant. The movement of Gomes makes room for Yonder Alonso to come up and add another left-handed bat to the outfield mix and to the bench.

The thought process for the Nationals, however, is not so clear. The reward for the Nationals appears to be a right-handed platoon partner for Laynce Nix. Gomes does crush left-handers to the tune of a .382 wOBA for his career and a whopping .426 wOBA so far this season. He’s effectively worthless against righties — a .319 wOBA career and .296 this year — and in the field, where he carries a -38 career UZR in about four seasons’ worth of plate appearances in the corner outfield positions.

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Whence we last examined yonder batting orders, we came away with several expected observations (Jose Bautista plays baseball like a video game, the Oakland Athletics do not care much for scoring runs, Rick Ankiel and Ian Desmond are not feared hitters, and so forth) as well as a number of curious findings (the Cubs lead-off combo was tops in the majors, the 7th hitters on AL teams were worse than the 9th hitters, NL managers effectively managed the bottoms of their lineups, and such).

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On Sunday, Jordan Zimmermann continued his excellent season with six and a third shutout innings at home against the Rockies. He struck out six, walked none, and it was the 17th time in his 18 starts that he walked fewer than two batters. Though he doesn’t have an above-average whiff rate or strikeout rate, his excellent control has proven that he should remain a good major league starter for the forseeable future.

Or, at least for another seven starts or so this year. If Bill Ladson’s reporting is correct, the team will be limiting the 25-year-old right-hander to 160 innings this year. Though the pitcher hasn’t mentioned any health issues, the Nationals would like to be cautious and will make Zimmermann the fifth starter so they can skip the occasional start and limit the innings. After all, he’s still coming off Tommy John surgery and hasn’t ever pitched more than 134 innings combined in one calendar year.

But, as you might have noticed from the titular hint, this is not a post about Jordan Zimmermann and innings limits. Instead, it’s about some comments that Nationals manager Davey Johnson made about the plan to limit the innings.

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NOTE: This data may not include every player, only those with recorded heights.

In my two recent articles, concerning little people in baseball and east Asians in baseball, many commentors got hung up on the height issues.

“What about just short people?” said some. “Maybe they are a present inefficiency? Why do you keep ignoring short people!?”

Others asked: “How do you expect China to produce legitimate talent? I watch Southpark. I know that Chinese people are too short for baseball.”

Well, okay, let’s explore these issues.

Chinese People Are Too Short to Play Baseball
This is wrong. And not just racistly, but legitimately too.

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Former Milwaukee, Colorado, Cleveland, St. Louis, Washington, and Los Angeles infielder Ronnie Belliard announced his retirement yesterday. This probably won’t garner too much attention. That is understandable, as Belliard was mostly an unspectacular player at a position that is perhaps the most frequently overlooked. This isn’t a “Belliard was a hidden superstar” post, but he was somewhat underrated, and he certainly had his moments.

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