While most of the baseball world was focused on the playoff race, the Nationals got an early start to their offseason on Wednesday, avoiding arbitration with veteran utility man Ildemaro Vargas. The terms of the contract have not yet been announced, but it’s safe to presume the journeyman will earn a raise over his $975,000 salary from the current season. He set a new career high in plate appearances this year, playing in 84 games at five different positions. What’s more, the 2023 campaign marked the first of his career in which he wasn’t optioned, traded, or designated for assignment; apart from a three-week stint on the injured list and a few rehab games at Triple-A, he spent the entire season on Washington’s big league roster.
I’ll be honest: when the Nationals first broke the news about Vargas, I didn’t think it warranted a full write-up. Still, I wanted to do my due diligence, so I began my typical process of cursory player research. First, I checked his FanGraphs page. A 77 wRC+ and -0.1 WAR? Sure, sounds about right. Next, I went to Baseball Savant. 16th-percentile xwOBA? Yeah, that tracks. Then, I looked on Baseball Prospectus. A 144 DRC+ and 2.0 WARP? Okay, nothing out of the… wait, what?
After refreshing the page a couple dozen times and checking to make sure there isn’t a second Ildemaro Vargas out there, I realized this guy might be just a little more interesting than I initially thought. DRC+ is only one metric, and like any metric, it’s vulnerable to small sample size trickery. Be that as it may, I can’t ignore the fact that DRC+ ranks Vargas as the fourth-best hitter in the National League; it goes Ronald Acuña Jr., Mookie Betts, Juan Soto, and Vargas. He’s ahead of names like Matt Olson, Luis Arraez, and Freddie Freeman. Small sample size or no, this is a player who deserves our attention: Read the rest of this entry »
Full Stack Web Developer, Baseball Research & Development
Summary:
The Washington Nationals are seeking a full stack web developer to join our Baseball Research & Development team. We are looking for candidates who are both passionate about building web applications and enthusiastic about the opportunity to work on software that has a significant impact within a baseball organization.
The developer will work on a small team to build and maintain an internal web application used by scouts, coaches, player development staff, and the baseball operations front office. Some key features of the site include scouting reports, video, player projections, custom reports and tools, and the display of both public and proprietary metrics related to player performance and evaluation.
We prefer candidates who are willing to relocate to Washington, DC area for in person/hybrid work at Nationals Park but are willing to consider a fully remote option for exceptional candidates.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
Design and build interactive data-driven pages, which may include filterable and sortable tables, plots, heatmaps, video, and other interactive components
Build API’s for connecting internal microservices
Develop data imports and other background processing jobs
Collaborate with software engineers, data engineers, and analysts in the R&D group
Participate in code reviews
Requirements:
Minimum Education and Experience Requirements
Bachelor’s degree in computer science, computer engineering, information science, or related experiences
4+ years of full-time web development experience
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities necessary to perform essential functions
Ability to communicate clearly and effectively
Ability to write clean, concise, and maintainable code
Ability to work both collaboratively and independently
Experience with modern programming languages (e.g. Ruby, Python, JavaScript) and frameworks (e.g. Rails, Django, Flask, FastAPI, Node/Express). Experience with Rails is preferred.
Experience with frontend JavaScript frameworks, such as Vue 3, React, or jQuery.
Understanding of relational database schema design, experience using MySQL & PostgreSQL, and comfort writing direct SQL statements.
Experience with data visualization.
Experience with Linux and using command line tools.
Experience working with a large inherited codebase is a plus.
Authorized to work in the United States
Physical/Environmental Requirements
Office: Working conditions are normal for an office environment. Work may require occasional weekend and/or evening work.
Throughout the 2019 postseason, the Washington Nationals made a habit of using their entire margin of error. They needed a three-run, last-ditch rally to get out of the Wild Card game, then another 11th-hour comeback to get past the Dodgers in Game 5 of the NLDS. Dave Martinez tried to shorten his pitching staff as much as possible, a desperation move that’s backfired on manager after manager as long as there have been playoffs.
By the time Game 6 of the World Series rolled around, the Nationals were facing elimination once again. They’d lost three straight to the 107-win Astros and needed to beat Justin Verlander on the road to stay alive. Patrick Corbin had been run ragged. Max Scherzer’s body had locked up to the point where he couldn’t dress himself. Martinez had already gambled with the likes of Tanner Rainey and Wander Suero more than anyone was comfortable with.
Then Stephen Strasburg stepped up and did something you don’t see pitchers do much anymore. He handled it.
After a rocky first inning, Strasburg kept the irrepressible Astros offense off the board into the ninth. The Nats once again scored bunches of runs late, and the next evening they were hoisting the proverbial piece of metal. Read the rest of this entry »
In 2020, the Washington Nationals succumbed to one of the worst championship hangovers of all time. They’re on course to finish in last place in the NL East for the fourth year running (though by God, the Mets are going to make them earn it this year!), and while signs of rejuvenation are on the horizon, they are only signs at this point. Since that pandemic-shortened season, Patrick Corbin has existed mostly as a study in contrast, a reminder that the ruins of now used to be the enviable bastion of then. In 2019, Corbin was one of three bona fide front-of-the-rotation starters in Washington, along with Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg. Now, Strasburg is on the IL indefinitely as he recovers from thoracic outlet syndrome. Scherzer is gone. So are Juan Soto, Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, Ryan Zimmerman, Daniel Hudson, and Sean Doolittle. Victor Robles has been limited to just 36 games this season due to injury. For all intents and purposes, Corbin is the only championship National left.
Last year, Corbin pitched as an act of self-abnegation, posting a 6.31 ERA and leading all of baseball in losses, hits, and earned runs allowed. His name was a metonym for futility.
CJ Abrams befuddles me. There’s no question that he has plus raw power in his bat. Look at this year’s statistics; he’s sitting in the 81st percentile for maximum exit velocity. But despite that fact, he’s in the 10th percentile for average exit velocity, and the 17th for hard-hit rate. He’s a power hitter! He’s a slap hitter! Both are true.
Likewise, I’m not quite sure what to make of the rest of his game. He has blazing straight line speed, and he uses that to his advantage on the basepaths. We have him down as the third-most valuable baserunner in the majors this year, behind only Esteury Ruiz and Corbin Carroll. But almost all of that value comes on stolen bases – he’s 25th in UBR, which measures non-steal advancement. And on defense, he has tremendous range and an average throwing arm, but grades out somewhere between average (DRS) and poor (OAA) anyway. His profile is a series of contradictions.
The thing is, all of these have been true about Abrams since the Padres drafted him in the first round in 2019. He was a divisive prospect from the start; it was never clear whether he’d end up as a slugging second baseman or a rangy, leadoff-hitting shortstop. Then the pandemic canceled the 2020 minor league season, and he missed most of 2021 with injury even as the Padres aggressively promoted him. Suddenly he was debuting in the big leagues at 21 as an injury replacement for, gulp, Fernando Tatis Jr. Life comes at you fast. Read the rest of this entry »
The Cubs made it clear that they’re buyers on Monday afternoon, acquiring third baseman Jeimer Candelario from the Nationals for shortstop Kevin Made and pitcher DJ Herz.
What a difference a week makes! After losing the opener of a four-game series to the Cardinals just over a week ago, the Cubs stood at 45–51, and it seemed more likely that they would be sellers than buyers come deadline time. An eight-game winning streak later, off the backs of the hated Cardinals and the moribund White Sox, changed that calculus; even a Sunday loss to break the streak wasn’t enough to banish the idea that the NL Central was there for the taking. After all, four games in the standings isn’t that wide a chasm, and with the fourth-best run differential in the National League, there’s at least one legitimate reason to think the Cubs have deserved better than their .500 record this year. The Pirates have faded, the Cardinals wouldn’t be trading off talent if even they thought they had a miracle in them, and neither of the Reds or Brewers are likely to take big steps forward. Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t want to be rude, but here’s a fact of life: I pay less attention to the Nationals than the average team in Major League Baseball. It’s not because I have a grudge against them or anything; I went to college in Virginia and have a ton of family in the D.C. area, so I know an absolute ton of Nats fans. They’re just not that interesting at the moment, and there’s a lot of baseball to watch, so someone has to slide down the priority queue.
When I have paid attention to the Nationals, though, I’ve liked what I’ve seen. I thought they made some smart signings this offseason. They’ve done a good job of giving plenty of playing time to interesting players. Lane Thomas might never have found a regular home if the Nats hadn’t come calling, Joey Meneses is being given every chance to play out of a season-starting slump, and Hunter Harvey looks like a nice bullpen arm for the trade deadline.
In my chat this week, someone mentioned that the Tigers would be in the thick of the AL Central race if they’d merely held onto Jeimer Candelario and Isaac Paredes. And that drove a realization for me: Candelario looks good again. Is he the real deal? Can some contending team plug him in at third base and have an All-Star–level contributor? Let’s find out. Read the rest of this entry »
If not as momentous as the rediscovery of the coelacanth after a 65-million-year absence, the return of the knuckleball to Major League Baseball was still an occasion worth noting. On Saturday, the Padres recalled Matt Waldron to make a spot start, and the 26-year-old righty became the first pitcher to throw a knuckleball in a regular season game since the Orioles’ Mickey Jannis in 2021.
Waldron threw only 13 knucklers from among his 62 pitches, mixing the fluttering pitch into a more standard arsenal, but he got good results with the offering. All told, he performed respectably, allowing just two runs — both via solo homers off his four-seam fastball — in 4.2 innings to the Nationals. Unfortunately, the Padres didn’t score at all, and fell 2–0.
Where the knuckleball generally had at least one or two standard-bearers with secure spots in the majors at any time from the mid-1960s up through 2017, the pitch has become an endangered species in recent years, as I’ve noted a few times in this space. Brothers Phil Niekro (who pitched in the majors from 1964 to ’87) and Joe Niekro (1967–88), Wilbur Wood (1961–78), and reliever Hoyt Wilhelm (1952–72) all thrived with the pitch (some for longer than others), with the elder Niekro and Wilhelm both making the Hall of Fame. Charlie Hough (1970–94), Tom Candiotti (1983–99), and Tim Wakefield (1992–93, ’95–2011) became staples of the rotation if not stars, and Steve Sparks (1995–96, ’98–2004) and Dennis Springer (1995–2002) found sporadic success. R.A. Dickey took the baton from Wakefield and gave the knuckleball its last burst of prominence. He turned to the pitch in 2008 after finding little success during his sporadic appearances in the majors from ’01 to ’06, finally solidified a spot in the majors in 2010, and two years later became the first knuckleballer to win a Cy Young Award; that year, he was the only true pitcher to throw a single knuckleball in the majors according to either PITCHf/x or Pitch Info.
Dickey lasted until 2017, when he was 42 years old, but aside from him, every knuckleballer who came and went more or less hung around on the major league margins. Steven Wright, who debuted for the Red Sox in 2013, spent parts of seven seasons in the majors, but a knee injury and a suspension for domestic violence limited him to 60 innings in 2018–19, the first years of the post-Dickey era. Since then, the pitch has become the province of position players pressed into mop-up duty, with Ryan Feierabend (2019 with the Blue Jays) and Jannis the only true pitchers to try it at the major league level. That they combined for just three appearances, allowing 14 runs in nine innings, only underscored the pitch’s decline in popularity.
Hence the interest in Waldron, whom Cleveland drafted out of the University of Nebraska in the 18th round in 2019, then sent to San Diego as the player to be named later in the Mike Clevinger blockbuster in November 2020. Waldron taught himself a knuckleball way back in Little League, figuring it out with twin brother Mike, who had this to say about it when interviewed on MLB’s broadcast:
“[It started] just out of curiosity… It was one of those things that you’re like, ‘Hey, that’s pretty cool. We’ll go ahead and see what we can do, throw it around.’
“It kind of became one of those fun pitches we’d throw around when we were at practice or something, just something to mess around with. To see it work at this level … it’s unbelievable, really.”
Waldron turned some heads in Padres camp throwing the knuckleball in warm-ups in 2021, and so the team encouraged him to feature the pitch, which sat in the low 80s and contrasted well with his 92–94 mph fastball, slider, and changeup. Exactly how much he threw it is unclear, but according to Baseball America, “As Waldron got more comfortable with the pitch, he pushed its usage over 70%.” He pitched to a 4.25 ERA, walking 35 and striking out 103, in 103.2 innings split between High-A Fort Wayne and Double-A San Antonio.
Unfortunately minor league pitch usage data for Waldron isn’t easy to come by, as the pitch is so rare that auto-tagging systems usually label it as a slider or changeup; check out his spin rates for the pitch, and occasionally you’d see one that’s 2,900 RPM or so instead of sitting in the 100–400 range, where he was in his most recent start for Triple-A El Paso on June 16. According to Synergy Sports, which manually tags each pitch, Waldron threw knuckleballs just 9% of the time last year while getting smoked for a 6.26 ERA in 113.2 innings split between San Antonio and El Paso. He walked 39 and struck out 96 but served up 14 homers, including 12 in just 69.1 innings for El Paso. This year, he was up to 22% in his knuckleball usage; based on various reports and his own comments, he was throwing it more often to lefties than righties. “I use it coming out that same tunnel [as the fastball],” he told reporters.
For as sound as his plan may be, Waldron had been rocked for a 7.02 ERA, 5.34 FIP and 11 homers in 66.2 innings when the call came. Those numbers obviously aren’t impressive, but it’s worth remembering that altitude is a significant factor in the Pacific Coast League. The Chihuahuas’ Southwest University Park sits 3,750 feet above sea level; the circuit also includes high-altitude parks in Albuquerque (5,100 feet), Reno (4,500 feet), Salt Lake City (4,230 feet), and Las Vegas (3,000 feet). Not only do batted balls carry further at such altitudes than at sea level, but knuckleballs also move less. Dickey never pitched at Coors Field (and only faced the Rockies twice) but did throw bullpens there and pitched against Triple-A Colorado Springs during his minor league years. In 2012, he explained the hazards of the knuckleball at altitude to sportswriter Dave Krieger:
“It is tougher to throw at those high altitudes because there’s not much humidity for the ball to kind of resist against. At sea level… if I throw a mediocre knuckleball, well, it’s still going to move, it just might not move as sharply or as much. If I throw a mediocre knuckleball in Colorado, it’s going to be a b.p. (batting practice) fastball right down the middle that I’m going to have to either dodge or I’m going to just put my glove up for the umpire to throw me another ball because that one just went 450 feet.
Thus the conditions make it tough to take Waldron’s numbers at face value, which the Padres surely understand when they turned to him for a spot start in place of Michael Wacha; he’s been the team’s best pitcher this year, with a 2.90 ERA and 3.78 FIP, but has also been notoriously fragile throughout his career and is currently dealing with a bout of shoulder fatigue. Waldron’s stay wasn’t expected to be a long one — and in fact, he was optioned back to El Paso on Sunday — but his outing did open some eyes.
Facing the Nationals, who rank 12th in the NL in both scoring (4.13 runs per game) and wRC+ (93), Waldron got ahead of leadoff hitter Lane Thomas using his four-seam fastball, then unveiled the knuckleball on a 1–2 pitch that Thomas fouled off; as it turned out, Thomas would be the only righty-swinger to see any of Waldron’s knucklers. Two pitches later, Waldron struck out Thomas swinging at a 93.8 mph four-seamer right down the middle. After getting Luis Garcia on a first-pitch grounder, he got ahead of switch-hitting Jeimer Candelario (who batted lefty) 0–1, then threw another knuckler, this one too low. Candelario took it for a ball, then crushed a 92.9-mph middle-middle fastball for a towering 395-foot solo homer, 107 mph off the bat, the hardest-hit ball Waldron would allow all evening. Here’s a look at the two knucklers, contrasted with the two payoff pitches:
Ouch. After the homer, Waldron recovered to strike out Joey Meneses to end the inning, using three four-seamers as well as a cutter and a slider, both of which were way outside the strike zone. He kept the knuckleball on ice until the fourth inning, after working around a leadoff single by Corey Dickerson (a lefty) in the second and serving up a solo homer to Thomas on a 92.4-mph first-pitch fastball in the third; he also issued a one-out walk to Garcia but stranded him.
In the fourth, Waldron threw back-to-back knuckleballs to Dickerson, who had fallen behind 0–1; he fouled off both, took a fastball for a ball, then grounded to shortstop on yet another knuckler. Waldron went back to the pitch for three out of the four offerings to the next batter, switch-hitter Keibert Ruiz (batting lefty), who finally grounded one to second base. Here are the floaters from that two-hitter sequence:
While it would have figured that Waldron might throw a knuckleball to lefty Dominic Smith, he didn’t need to, as Smith grounded out on an 0–2 fastball. In the fifth, righty Derek Hill grounded to short on a fastball after laying off two cutters well outside the zone. Lefty CJ Abrams, on the other hand, saw nothing but knuckleballs, flying out to right field on the fourth one.
That swinging strike had 20 inches of horizontal movement, Waldron’s highest measure of the game and one of four in double digits. Here’s a slow-motion view:
Thomas took Waldron’s final knuckler for ball one before singling off a slider, at which point manager Bob Melvin pulled the rookie in favor of veteran lefty Tim Hill, who struck out Garcia. The Padres bullpen didn’t allow another run, but the lineup couldn’t muster any kind of heat, managing just four hits, all singles, and failing to take advantage of an additional four walks against starter Josiah Gray. The Nationals bullpen retired all 11 batters it faced, six by strikeouts.
All told, Waldron threw 27 four-seamers, 14 sliders, seven cutters and a sinker to go with his 13 knuckleballs. He got five whiffs and 10 called strikes with the four-seamer, which averaged 92.3 mph and topped out at 94.4. He got just one whiff out of seven swings via the knuckler, whose velocity ranged from 76.3 mph to 84.2 mph, as well as two called strikes; he had a 23% CSW for that pitch, compared to 37% for the fastball and 29% overall. Batters did chase three of the eight floaters he threw outside the strike zone (37.5%, and it’s worth noting that none of them escaped the reach of catcher Gary Sánchez, who was handling the pitch for the first time), but they also made contact with all five in the zone, though the only ones they put into play were the outs of Dickerson, Ruiz, and Abrams. Those three had an average exit velocity of 89.7 mph, an xBA of .137, an xSLG of .160, and an xwOBA of .125, though his overall marks — 92.2 mph exit velo, .294 xBA, .574 xSLG, .383 xwOBA — obviously weren’t as good. As his 50% hard-hit rate and 6.35 xERA attests, Waldron needs to do a better job of limiting hard contact if he’s to survive.
As for the knuckleball itself, the total of 13 that he threw on Saturday was fewer than those of seven position players who have broken it out for their mound cameos during the pitch-tracking era (2008 onward), not to mention all nine of the other pitchers who did so. Excluding the bastard sons of Wade Boggs, here’s how they stack up:
Waldron’s knuckler rates as the fastest in terms of average velocity, faster even than Dickey’s “angry knuckleball.” It’s mid-pack in terms of vertical movement, but tops in terms of horizontal movement. Unfortunately, I don’t have much in the way of direct comparisons for spin rate, since it wasn’t until Statcast switched to the Hawkeye cameras in 2020 that spin could be measured directly; Waldron’s knucklers averaged 295 RPM, which is lower than Jannis’ average of 407 but about double the ideal of 150, which translates into about one to one and half rotations from the mound to the plate. Neither Stuff+ nor PitchingBot even scored Waldron’s knuckleball, though both models really liked his slider (whose usage rate matches up with Gameday, which is to say the pitches aren’t being conflated), and PitchingBot found his other pitches to be at least average, though it didn’t score the cutter. Stuff+ saw his other pitches as pedestrian, which I believe better matches up with the general scouting perception. Small-sample caveats abound:
Matt Waldron Pitch Breakdown
Model
FA
SI
FC
SL
KN
Stuff+
Location+
Pitching+
Gameday (# pitch)
27
1
7
14
13
n/a
n/a
n/a
Stuff+
81
30
84
109
n/a
89
99
106
Model
FA
SI
FC
SL
botStf
botCmd
botOvr
PitchingBot
54
80
n/a
64
n/a
49
63
61
Stuff+ scores normalize to 100 equaling major league average, PitchingBot scores use 20–80 scouting scale with 50 equaling average. Neither model scored Waldron’s knuckleball.
All told, I think it’s fair to say that Waldron demonstrated some promise with the way he used the knuckleball to keep hitters off balance, but that unless he can hone his arsenal and find a way to miss more bats, he’s likely destined to remain on the fringe of the majors rather than securing a regular job. I would absolutely love to be wrong about that, because even in his one-night cameo, Waldron’s knuckleball was a most welcome sight.
Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Washington Nationals. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but I use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »
When Luis García first debuted back in 2020, he was the youngest player in the majors at just 20 years old. He’s split the past two seasons between Triple-A and the big leagues, and turned 23 just yesterday. Players who make it to the show at such a young age are almost exclusively highly regarded prospects; García was ranked 87th overall on our 2020 top prospect list. Of the 12 players who’ve made it to the majors at age 20 or younger over the last decade, García’s -0.5 WAR in his debut season was the second-worst mark and his total WAR ranks dead last. Despite getting called up at such a young age, he’s really struggled to make an impact at the highest level. But after playing in over 200 games in the majors, it finally looks like he’s taken a step forward in his development.
As a prospect, the biggest knock against García was his extremely aggressive approach at the plate. He has excellent bat-to-ball skills, but he would chase bad pitches so often that when he wasn’t swinging and missing, he was making really poor contact. During his first three years in the league, he ran a 20.4% strikeout rate with a minuscule 3.5% walk rate, the lowest in the majors during that period. After posting identical wRC+ marks of 79 during his first two years in the big leagues, he improved to a 93 last year, driven almost entirely by better results when putting the ball in play. Read the rest of this entry »
