The Collapse of the Nationals
A month ago, as baseball was just finishing up the All-Star break, the Nationals looked to be in a pretty good position. They were 48-39, sitting atop the NL East, and were expecting a host of quality reinforcements from the disabled list. The team hadn’t quite lived up to pre-season expectations, but a lot of that could be chalked up to health issues, and even their somewhat disappointing first half had them in first place; with some of their best players rejoining the club, the second half looked promising.
At that point, our projections gave the Nationals an 85% chance of winning the division. In the first 30 games of the second half, however, well, just take a look for yourself.
Since the break, they’re just 10-20, and they now find themselves 4 1/2 games behind the Mets in the NL East; their chances of making the postseason are down to 31%. They’ve lost six straight on their current west coast road trip, and now sitting at a game under .500, questions are starting to get raised about whether Matt Williams even makes it to the end of the season as the team’s manager.
So, how has this second half, and potentially the entire season, gone so wrong?
Here’s one starting point.
| Player | 2014 WAR | 2015 WAR |
|---|---|---|
| Anthony Rendon | 6.6 | 0.0 |
| Jayson Werth | 5.0 | -1.2 |
| Doug Fister | 4.3 | -0.1 |
| Ian Desmond | 4.0 | 0.3 |
| Stephen Strasburg | 3.4 | -0.2 |
| Gio Gonzalez | 2.2 | 1.4 |
| Wilson Ramos | 1.6 | 0.4 |
| Ryan Zimmerman | 1.2 | -0.2 |
| Total | 28.3 | 0.4 |
Aside from Bryce Harper, Jordan Zimmermann, and Denard Span, these eight guys essentially represent the core of the Nationals roster the last few years, and last year, the team got a whopping +28 WAR (using the RA9 version for the pitchers for this exercise) out of those eight players. This year, those same eight players have combined for replacement level performance, and while injuries have certainly dragged down this group, they’ve mostly been terrible even when on the field.
Werth has a wRC+ of 48 in nearly 200 plate appearances. Ramos is at 67, even though he’s been healthy. Desmond is at 81, Zimmerman at 82, and Rendon at 85, turning what looked like maybe the league’s best infield into a group that has hit about as well as you’d expect from a group of utility infielders. That’s how, despite having the best hitter in baseball this year, the team still has a wRC+ of 93. If you remove Harper’s +6.9 WAR from the team’s position player total, the remaining Nationals hitters have combined for just +5.4 WAR, which would rank 29th in baseball this year.
Of course, every team would look worse if you took away their best player, but the degree to which Harper has carried a sad sack of underachievers cannot be understated. And that’s been one of the primary problems in the second half, because Harper’s power has waned a bit since the All-Star break, and his post-break 143 wRC+ isn’t enough to offset the miserable performances of his teammates. Harper single-handedly kept this offense afloat for the first three months of the season, but you can’t expect a guy to run a 210 wRC+ all year long, and Harper’s inevitable cooling off has made it all too obvious that no one else on the team is hitting their weight.
But the Nationals weren’t supposed to be an offensive juggernaut. This roster was built to score enough runs to win a bunch of games behind an elite pitching staff, only they haven’t really had that either, at least not in terms of results so far. With a 90 FIP- that is tied for fifth best in baseball — and not that far off the Cardinals, Cubs, and Astros, all tied for the top spot at 88 — they have still flashed the traits of a very good group of pitchers, but their 100 ERA- is tied for 15th. When you combine average run prevention with a struggling offense, you get a team trying to claw their way back over .500 in August.
The primary underachievers, relative to their own fielding independent numbers, have been Strasburg and Gonzalez; their 4.14 combined ERA is over a run higher than their 3.11 FIP, as they’ve collectively given up a .347 BABIP in their 200 innings pitched. Both pitchers have historically produced results a bit worse than their peripherals, but nothing to this extreme, and if you’re looking for good news, this is probably the team’s best chance for significantly improved performances down the stretch. It’s unlikely that Strasburg and Gonzalez really are lousy pitchers, and if their results start to line up with their track records, and their own underlying peripherals, the team’s pitching staff should improve down the stretch.
With Max Scherzer and Jordan Zimmermann throwing well, and Strasburg and Gonzalez having the potential to throw well, this still looks like one of the best rotations in baseball, even with Doug Fister apparently broken and banished to the bullpen. Joe Ross has filled in pretty well in the fifth spot, and should be able to give the team a solid option to fill out the rotation before he reaches his innings limit. Overall, the team’s pitching staff still looks like a group you’d want to bet on going forward, and patience may prove to be a virtue while waiting for these guys to turn it around.
On the offensive side of things, though, there are more legitimate reasons for concern. Werth’s collapse has likely been driven by his wrist injury, and those tend to both linger and make it extremely difficult to hit for any kind of power, which is likely why he’s running an .086 ISO and a .216 BABIP this year. When Denard Span comes back from the DL, it isn’t clear that Werth should keep his starting job over Michael Taylor, who isn’t a great hitter either, but at least provides elite defense to justify his spot on the field.
Benching a high-paid veteran like Werth for a rookie like Taylor — whose defensive value would probably be ascribed to his pitchers anyway, since the results would show up in their ERA and not in his batting line — is an unlikely move, especially for a manager on the hot seat. But while the Nationals don’t have a lot of options for upgrading their roster beyond just hoping that previously good players remember how to play well, the front office could decide to make a managerial change.
While I continue to believe that we don’t really know how to evaluate managerial performance that well, there isn’t a lot of evidence that Williams is bringing strong positive contributions to the club. He’s a poor in-game strategist, his players are almost universally underachieving, and through his nearly two years at the helm, there have been a lot of rumors of clubhouse dissent. While no manager can snap his fingers and make guys like Rendon or Werth play well by sheer force of will, Williams might be the most replaceable in the organization, and if the team doesn’t turn things around quickly, pressure to “do something” will only grow.
Firing Williams isn’t going to be a cure-all, and the track record of the players on the team suggest that these guys are capable of playing well even if a change isn’t made, but it’s starting to get to the point where you wonder if making a change that isn’t clearly harmful is worth doing just to try something different. I don’t think changing managers is a panacea, but with the Nationals 2015 season unraveling before their eyes, it shouldn’t be immediately dismissed, especially since Williams isn’t helping the team in any obvious way.
Washington’s season isn’t over yet; there’s still six weeks to play, and as the last month has shown, performances can swing wildly over any small sample. The Mets could still collapse. The Nationals underachievers could all catch fire and the team could surge back into the division lead. There’s still the core of a good team here, and with a little bit of positive regression from some of their still-talented players, the Nationals should could still make a run at a 90 win finish.
But the last few weeks have made that the unlikely outcome now. A disastrous month of August has put them in a hole, and they can’t afford to dig it too much deeper. If the Nationals don’t turn things around in the next week — their next six games are against the Rockies and Brewers, two of the worst teams in baseball — it might be too late, for both this season and for Williams managerial career.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Is it only the hitting? I also found that the bullpen is highly suspect now. Especially since they made the trade for Papelbon. Before then, the team was 6-7. Not great. Since the trade they are 4-13. Have to wonder if the Papelbon trade was actually a horrible deal not in relation to performance but also in relation to clubhouse morale.
By all account, Paps was well-liked by the members of the Phillies bullpen. He even mentored some of the younger guys. Paps might be a jerk to the media, and even the fans, but in Philadelphia, there was never a word of him creating clubhouse trouble.
I don’t even think that Satan himself could be such a negative clubhouse presence that it would instantly cause his team to struggle.
Are you sure you aren’t Skip Bayless with that senseless hot take?
To be fair, Papelbon has a significant advantage over Satan in terms of clubhouse chemistry: existence.
Or the Devil has a significant advantage in convincing you he doesn’t exist.
Hey, Werth has that ability too!
Nats need to bring in Tebow to balance out Papelbon’s negative vibe
Paps has appeared in just five games since being traded to the Nats. He’s not the problem. And, while this is just one small part, the problem with the post-Papelbon-trade Nationals is their inability to get the game to Papelbon.
But hasn’t Drew Storen been ineffective since his “demotion”? People are people, and though of course he shouldn’t, maybe Storen has let that disappointment filter into his performance.
I saw Keith Law on Baseball Tonight about a week back, and he was lamenting the whole “closer mentality” thing — while humbly conceding that, no, he never played the game, or at least never at the MLB level. Eduardo Perez then told him, it’s all about the adrenal rush of the role. Take the closer away from the 9th inning, and he may hot have that same oomph in his arm.
Again, of course it shouldn’t be that way, but sometimes human competitive nature trumps what rationally oughtta be.
It would seem pretty easy to measure oomph in the arm.
I just have trouble believing that an adrenaline rush wouldn’t also come from the role of “get the three hardest outs last time through”, even if that comes in the seventh, eighth, or extras.
To be fair, plenty of managers screw this up. But the idea of using a worse player in the high leverage situation so that a better player might be able to play later in a lower leverage situation because of arbitrary inning defined roles is unprecedented in other sports and demonstrably suboptimal.
On one hand, we don’t have enough data to prove it, only predict it, because managers are too chicken to try it except in elimination series (where, surprise, it works!). On the other hand, that means jumping on it early provides a competitive advantage.
In chess, ” you don’t bring your queen out early”, but if you can set up mate by doing so, bring that bitch out! And certainly don’t fight an opposing queen with your bishop.
We all know about Matt Williams and last year’s NLDS management disaster, but earlier this season I saw another Williams Moment that was just as troubling to me.
The other team – I forget which – had runners on first and second, and I believe there was only one out. The batter due up was low in the lineup, but certainly not 8th or 9th. Williams played the infield in, on the grass. I was already howling – why is the infield in? With runners on and a real hitter at the plate? The batter popped up, a routine pop fly behind the second-base bag, but because it was behind the base, Desmond and Espinosa nearly collided making full-throttle running diving attempts to catch.
Then, for the next batter, Williams ordered the infield in on the grass AGAIN. This guy hit a hard ground ball past the bunt defense and drove in the run.
Why would you demand the infield in against two consecutive non-bunting batters?
With 1 out, why would you have the IF in at all? Gotta be playing for the double play at least up the middle. What was the score?
To try and prevent any runs from scoring.
A sharp ground ball gets to the dirt, a run scores – which in fact happened.
But if the infield is back than even an out scores a run. I’ not saying it was the right decision, But it makes sense.
He said runners on 1st and 2nd though.
Late in the game, without a lead, it makes sense to risk a big inning by bringing the infield in in order to increase the chance of a zero.
So what was the score?
Hold on. Are you saying that there wasn’t even a runner on third? If not, that’s kinda absurd unless the guys are real bunt threats. Even then it’s a little strange
There might be a typo in your original post, but why would the infield ever be in with no one on third base? It the bases were loaded then having first and third in perhaps makes sense but not the middle infielders.
To both you and vivalajeter below – I would have to go find the game in question and play in question in order to determine this. Whatever the situation was, it struck me as flagrantly dumb.
I think that was a game against the Mets; don’t remember the specifics either, but I do seem to recall the play, and as a Mets fan, I was delighted with Williams’ strategy and of course with the outcome.
Did you mean there were runners on first and third? It seems hard to fathom that any manager would have the infield in with third base open.
It was opening day against the Mets.
ALL READERS OF THIS THREAD:
Mea culpa and apologies are in order!
I have found the play in question, on July 21, 2015 in the 7th inning.
The situation was SECOND and THIRD, NO out. Not first and second, one out, as I stated above. The first batter was Kevin Plawecki, batting 7th, followed by Eric Campbell, pinch-hitting for Jacob deGrom.
Video of the RBI single, with Mets commentary on the infield in:
http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/19005548/v278148583/nymwsh-campbell-singles-in-two-for-the-lead-in-7th/?game_pk=415051
Have to have the infield in for that
Upvoted for the mea culpa.
I doubt this situation as described actually happened.
All together now kids,can everyone say OVER-RATED.
the funny thing is opposing fans still chant this when Harper is batting
And it will continue since it’s so easy to get him riled up. He plays much worse when he’s angry.
you can see the evidence of that clearly in his near 200 wRC+ and 7 WAR, right?
His true talent is 300 wRC+, though, see. The 200 is all he can muster when we are in his head like this!
Because he’s so overrated.
He plays worse when he’s angry? I think the opposite is more likely. The rowdy crowds in San Francisco during the NLDS certainly didn’t slow him down.
In the article you claim that Williams is a “poor in-game strategist.” I’ve seen these claims about a few managers but I haven’t seen any proof.
How about an article of top 10 worst in-game decisions this year or something like top 5 worst in-game managers in mlb today and why. Something along these lines would be a fun read.
Watch any Nationals game and you’ll see the proof. I was calling Matt Williams the worst manager in baseball LAST season when the Nationals were winning 96 games in spite of Williams and his poor decisions to hand him the most undeserving MOY award ever.
Matt Williams is as dumb as a stalk of broccoli and I applaud Keith Law who as at least recognized this and has been calling for his head for months now.
Hey!
A vegetable that gives me calcium? You’re ok in my book.
A vegetable that provides 4 grams of protein person serving *and* gave George HW Bush fits? You’re the best! Don’t ever change.
Agree. I was one of the lone folks on the Nats sites suggesting Williams be fired last year. The guy resembles Jimmy Dugan’s managerial prowess. He’s a moron.
I don’t think it is fair to equate poor managing skills with a lack of intellectual ability. For instance, while you inferring that dubious connection might make you presumptuous or a jerk, it does not necessarily make you a moron. Right?
Matt Williams was a good ball player which seems to reflect a least a fair level of cognitive ability so it might make more sense to lay off the snark eh?
“Matt Williams was a good ball player which seems to reflect a least a fair level of cognitive ability”
I watch every Nats game. I stand by my insults. Plus, he took PEDs as a player, so that adds to my assertion that he is a moron.
*sheds a single tear*
\steals 2nd
\\advances to third on sac bunt
\\\scores on sac fly
\\\\gets vigorous high five from Eric Hosmer
I’d like to see that, too (especially being not close enough to Nats source materials to do it myself).
What I think about Matt Williams comes from having watched him manage just over 60 Nats games and heard him speak on baseball about half that many time, mostly on radio interviews, split roughly equally but I expect a bit in favor of his playing days over his managing career.
Maybe against the grain for those taken with his bland appearance and blurry soft speaking style, I’ve come to think of Williams as a total space cadet.
I think most of us involved in group creative work, or on boards or standing committees, will recognize the sort of person who brings up things that others say shows “thinking outside the box”. To be able to do that requires a ready strong familiarity with most if not all possibly relevant subjects, and otherwise denotes one of two things – tho it’s extremely important to identify which:
1. a openness towards flexibility and pragmatism in decision-making, or
2. a totally free-floating airhead whose accumulated experience and knowledge can often be amusing and even useful when deployed in discussions on identifying & framing problems & possible solutions, but inevitably will prove disastrous in actually making decisions.
To those familiar if only just in general terms with management style and theory, IMO Williams constitutes a variation on a combination of not just the Out of the Box Employee, but the Star Second Banana and the Peter Principle. Invariably these sorts of folks get favored out of the playing ranks for management positions based on a combination of factors none of which have any particular meaning but that collectively leave a certain impression with the almost invariably older white male ownership and senior management of MLB clubs:
a) white,
b) no known overtly repugnant vices or actually criminal record,
c) a long successful playing career leaving an impression of consistency,
a high percentage of superficially “smart” baseball that’s actually ambivalent beyond the individual player’s point of view, and
d) a record of saying things that may be insightful or incite-full or both, yet in a such a flat, soft, reasonable, sane-sounding voice that the benefit of the doubt’s usually gone to the former.
Bureaucratic settings in business and government are plagued with this type, but at least there are opportunities in those settings to see the management style in action below full operational effects. In business, this type might get given a division or a medium-term project to run, and if they fail there, often that has the effect of causing the scales to fall from the eyes of ownership or senior management [not always, tho – there have been enough eccentrics to succeed in business (or at least so many people assume this to be so) that Matt Williams types will always gain at least one big chance to show their stuff].
But it’s even more the case in MLB with former star players like Williams, because they don’t have to prove anything at all on the ‘way up’; it’s just assumed their past playing success and the credibility from that with current players will somehow magically just show up.
(In actuality, that’s almost entirely an illusion created by the long history of MLB ownership hiring a very large percentage of its managers from the relatively small pool of former star players.)
I hadn’t seen you post in quite a while, and my first thought was “uh-oh, not another tough to follow TLDR discourse”.
But this post just plain NAILS it. I hope others take the time to read while pretending to work through lunch.
I’ll do it while I pretend to work during work.
That sounds like Dick Cheney, whose voice was described as “a colorless, odorless gas that inspires confidence.”
Say that again, you’ll get a faceful of buckshot.
This explains why Barry Bonds was never given a shot
It’s not just former stars who become managers. For example, Tony La Russa had a very short, mediocre career as a bench player. These kinds of guys are actually often seen as preferable, since they have a more intuitive understanding of how to properly manage the bench to keep them sharp while giving the starters a proper amount of rest without overdoing it.
I wanted to thank you for this response. Maybe I’m the only that feels so, but this post merit further examination of the hired as managers and reflections on ho they “succeed” or “fail”. I would be very interested in this and I hope others feel the same.
Here’s an example from the Mets series. The Nationals and the Mets were tied into the bottom of the 8th inning in the first 2 games. Somehow neither Storen nor Papelbon ever pitched in either game. It was especially egregious in the first game that went 12 innings, with Rivero losing the game in his 3rd inning of work.
Papelborn and Storen are there to pitch the 8th and 9th innings and get holds and saves…not pitch in high leverage situations in tie games!
Assuming it was a road game for Washington, you could make the argument of holding back your closer for a while in anticipation of a save situation, but there’s no reason to hold back both of your best relievers. Once the game lasts long enough, though, you should eventually bite the bullet and use the closer if you’re running out of good options, which would certainly apply in a situation where you’re using a rookie middle reliever (who’s not even a long man) for three innings.
If it was a home game, then it makes absolutely no sense unless they both needed rest from recent heavy workloads.
Here’s one example, and I am not a Nats fan. Just heard it on MLB radio, and almost died when my pitcher Joe Ross almost lost out on a game he should have won.
Ross twirled 6 fine innings and left with a 3-run lead. In comes Janssen, not a bad call, but trouble developed immediately. First, he issues his first (and a lead-off) walk in over a month – to the light-hitting Saltalamacchia. Then, a sharp single from Y Tomas. It’s clear Janssen is struggling, the announcers’ voices were going up an octave. Castillo pinch-hits: another single, and the immobile Jerrod Salty has to hold at third. So, that’s one walk, two singles, and clearly Janssen doesn’t have it. Now Owings pinch-hits for the pitcher, and he pops one up out in no-man’s land, but Rendon makes a good catch running away from the infield. Salty, being immobile, doesn’t score.
Next, the lefty Inciarte, the lead-off hitter, comes up. He promptly doubles, only one scores, leaving runners on 2d and 3d, score 4-3, one out and Cliff Pennington coming up. Finally, Williams pulls Janssen and subs Thornton, who gets Peralta out and then the third out, leaving the score at 4-3.
Matt Williams may have been a great player, and he may be a good handler of people, but I had no idea what he was thinking that day.
JJP
I’m confused. Bases were loaded, player hits a double with no outs being made and only 1 run scores?
Told you he was a terrible manager.
Not to mention that the one run that scored cut the 3-run lead down to a 1-run lead.
It depends to whom you’re comparing Williams to as a strategist. Compared to some equally bad strategists like Ausmus, I guess Williams is okay. Compared to the best, he’s lacking in imagination.
Let’s review the 2014 NLDS series vs. the Giants. Game 2: Nats holding on to a one run lead in the 9th against the Giants. Zimmermann walks Panik. Okay, time to take him out; Posey,the next batter, struck a sharply hit ball 3rd time up against Zimmy. Bring in Storen.
But Posey singles. Now you have Sandoval coming up batting LH. For the season, Sandoval hit 117 points higher vs. RHPs (.317 vs. .200). His inability to hit lefties means one of two things: pull a double switch, moving Storen to a position (LF?)for one batter, or just simply making a switch to a LHP. He had two in the bullpen.
But Williams keeps Storen in to face Sandoval, trying to defy the percentages. Sandoval doubles, tying the game. Posey almost scores but is cut down at the plate. The Giants go on to win a marathon game.
Game Four: the Nationals are back in the series after banging Bumgarner around in Game Three. 7th inning. Game tied. Thornton gives up two singles with one out. You have Clippard and Soriano in the bullpen. But no: Williams decides to bring in Barrett instead, a pitcher who had already uncorked 6 wild pitches during the season in 36 innings pitched.
Of course, after walking a batter, he uncorks a wild pitch, that allows the go ahead run to score. He tries to do further damage by throwing a wild pitch during an attempt to intentionally walk a batter but the Nats catch a break when the ball hits the back wall and caroms nicely right back to the catcher. But the Giants score another run to take a 3-1 lead; despite Harper’s heroics in that game, the Giants hold on to win and eliminate the Nats.
Dan Szymborski had a good piece on this after the playoffs. If you think rigidly and don’t bring in your best set up guys in a critical situation, you never get to your closer. Clippard, the 8th inning guy, should’ve been brought in to try and extinguish the fire in the 7th, but apparently Williams couldn’t think outside of his own box.
I call that being a “poor in-game strategist.”
Bryce Harper hitting 4th behind some combination of Yunel Escobar, Michael Taylor, Danny Espinosa and Ian Desmond for well over half the season should be at or near the top of any Top 10 Matt Williams Screw-Ups List. Then again, this is the same genius who hit Bryce Harper 6th nearly all of last year.
Hitting Harper 4th behind 3 miserable hitters all but assured Harper wouldn’t hit until the second inning most games. How absurd is that? Even if you’re not into sabermetrics or any sort of advanced statistics, wouldn’t common sense tell you to maximize that at-bats of your best player? It took until nearly halfway through the season for Harper to begin hitting 3rd.
Again, I’d be baffled if we weren’t talking about the same tactical genius who hit Harper 6th all of last season. The Nationals have many, many problems but Matt Williams is at or near the top of the list.
I’d rather him hit fourth than third though. If he hits third then he’s coming up a lot with no one on and two outs in the first inning. If he hits fourth hes always coming up with someone on base in the first inning or he’s leading off the second inning. Your best hitter should never hit 3rd in the lineup in my opinion.
The idea is to maximize at-bats of your best hitters. There should never be a situation where there is a chance your best hitter doesn’t hit in the first inning. Not on a team as offensively challenged as the Nationals. You need your best hitter hitting as many times as possible. The idea of a “clean-up” hitter batting 4th to drive guys in is sound in theory, but if you are putting a line of sub-.300 OBP players in front of the clean-up hitter, how often is he really going to get the chance to hit with runners on?
I came back to this because Matt Williams, in all his wisdom, is hitting Jayson Werth lead-off tonight and it just reminded me at the absurdity of some of his strategic decisions. That said, he can’t make these guys hit and unfortunately he can’t bat Bryce Harper before and after himself in the lineup.
I’d just rather have him bat first, second, or fourth over batting third. Your best hitter shouldn’t hit third for the reasons I gave. The last thing you want is a guy with a 450 on base percentage up with 2 outs and noone on. He should hit 1st, 2nd, or 4th. I personally would bat him 4th. He’s either up in the first inning with people on or he’s leading off the second inning with his 450 on base percentage. That’s the way to go
Batting him 3rd over 4th would get him like 1 extra at bat every nine games. That’s not worth it to me
The chief solace in a terrible season for the Braves. May the Nationals crumble into ashes and dust; may they miss the postseason from now until their miserable franchise is contracted out of existence.
Love it, totally agree. I find myself rooting for the Mets these days which causes a lot of self-hate.
Winning seasons of baseball in Atlanta since 1970: 26
Winning seasons of baseball in Washington since 1970: 3
What exactly are you jealous of?
Not jealous, hateful.
Why though?
Because they have been anointed World Series champions by ESPN before the season started for the past three seasons and have yet to get past the NLDS. Because Harper and Strasburg are whiney dong-sniffers. Because they have accomplished nothing in their entire stay in Washington but are treated like the Yankees.
Braves fans used to love to play the nationals. For years the braves won the division by beating up on the lowly Nationals/Expos. Since they can’t do it any more, they are clearly resentful! Sorry boys! The Nats may not be as good as expected, but the beat you lousey Braves fairly well…. Get over it!
And the one season the Expos did outperform the Braves in the same division, the playoffs were cancelled.
Congratulations on the first known use of the phrase “whiney dong-sniffers” on this site!
The universe is constantly expnding. Only baseball tries to contract.
You are my favorite subsistence farmer, Spaceman. Keep up the good work.
Or you’ll get a faceful of buckshot.
It’s amazing that even though they have one of the best young hitters in the world, it feels like their window is nearly closed for the next couple years.
Oh, I certainly wouldn’t go that far. They’ve got all those great starting arms, plus a good base for a properly functioning bullpen, one superstar, two terrific players in Rendon and Span – all that’s more than enough to return to contention under proper management after the sound judicious expenditure of free agent bucks this next winter.
Yeah, but most of those free agent bucks are going to have to spent to retain guys like Span, Rendon, Desmond. And how long is Harper going to stay? I think his contract is up after next year and if they fail to make the postseason this year, and if they can’t hold on to their impending free agents, is he going to want to stick around when other teams come calling with stronger rosters.
I think Stras and Gio will rebound fine next year, but I don’t know if J. Zimmerman will be there, or if Max can continue is excellence.
3 years left after this one for Harper, and Rendon is longer.
Span, Desi, J-Zimm, and Fister are gone to FA. In their place is Taylor, Turner, Ross, and Giolito. The challenges are what will happen with vets like Werth, R-Zimm, and Ramos, who are core guys and have underperformed.
I deliberately omitted Werth, as with all players born before the age of electrical utilities and motorized transport.
R-Z’s only 30, but his body type, his performance pattern, his injury history particularly the one he’s still struggling back from, all those amount to his currently projecting as a clog at IB, something like what the Cardinals had in Craig most recently. He COULD come back; I just don’t like the bet.
Ramos, tho, is categorically different from the total disregard Werth merits and the skepticism R-Z deserves. He’s a meh-glove, meh-framing, sub-optimally-armed offensive black hole of a catcher, but: ONLY 27! Plus he’s hit some in the not to distant past. It’s possible he could have something a Ray Fosse career: it really comes down to whether the Nats want to play that bet or trade him a team more willing to.
In sum, if your hopes for the Nats are truly pinned on these 3, I think you’d be wise find a different local sportsball team to follow.
The only one I’d personally bet on is R-Zimm. He’s a fantastic 1st baseman and I think he has a few years left hitting. However, I would consider using him in LF if needed for a game here or there to increase lineup flexibility. He played well there last year.
It’s on Rizzo to figure out a way to replace Ramos and Werth. We don’t have a catcher in the minors that I’d feel comfortable with (all glove, no bat Severino is the best bet) and we have nobody next year to replace Werth unless Span gets re-signed (which I doubt).
I feel the pitching will rebound and I’d look to trade Stras for a LF this offseason. We can survive on Scherzer, Gio, Roark, Ross, Giolito and another pickup for 2016. The bullpen will be fine as well with the young arms we have.
For the Nats, it’s all about the bats. The arms have had to be too fine with the lack of support and I think they will improve greatly if the bats improve.
I grew up with the 1950’s Senators, who left for Minnesota, then the expansion Senators, who left for Texas. There is something about DC which pollutes all comers.
Congress?
the nats are probably going to be in 1st again once the weekend ends, the same as at the end of the 2 of the last 3 seasons — the only seasons the overwhelming majority of them have even cared about baseball — and they are still playing the poor victim card, no one else can possibly ever suffer as much as them
I cant wait to watch the Bryce Harper freak out as they watch the Cubs win a game to clinch the second wild card.
That’s goofy: if the Cubs take that spot, it’ll be over either the Dodgers or Giants, both of which are bound to end up with much better seasonal records than the Nats.
Yeah, it’s very likely the East or nothing for the Mets and Nationals.
Alright
Why does a 22-year-old who is as talented as anyone in the game cause you such animus ?
Maybe I’m just more sensitive to it as a fan (sadface emoji), but it seems like Nats articles here attract comment trolls like no other team, except for the Red Sox and maybe Cardinals. Why don’t people hate, like, the Dodgers this much?
too much #Nattitude
well it helps that other teams dont declare themselves to be the best team in baseball and ask for rings before the season starts. The gnats have this cocky attitude but have nothing to show for it in terms of on the field production. Fans wouldnt hate them if they just shut up and played.
The Cardinals generally shut up and play but everyone hates them.
shut up
If you think that’s why everyone hates them, that may be symptomatic of the cluelessness (haughtiness?) of the fan base.
The Cardinals don’t ever shut up about how they always shut up.
You can barely watch a nationally broadcast game without hearing about the Cardinals’ farm system.
So you’re saying it’s not the Cardinals themselves but media coverage? Shocking
Nationals did not “declare” themselves to be the “best” team by any means. The media did. The baseball “experts” did. ESPN did.
All Nationals have ever said is we have a solid team, we don’t feel like there’s any obvious holes that need to be filled, etc. Which is true.
As far as Harper saying “where’s my ring bro?” If you read the whole article or listen to the interview is nothing more then excitement from a player who’s clearly happy with MadMax being signed and the commitment his team is showing to winning baseball games.
Nothing is obviously ever a lock or automatic, specially in baseball. You win some and you lose some. All you can really do it try to put your best effort into the games every single day.
I don’t use injuries as excuses. We have had some of the worst luck with those. We have got to keep fighting. Both winning and losing streaks happen to every single team. It’s inevitable. All that matters at the end of the day is who it celebrating win 4 in the world series.
All the teams try but only one wins. There’s a mix of pressure, skills, expectations, drive, hunger, luck, and most importantly the chance. But hey that’s baseball for you.
after the non-devastating playoff loss. who even trolled? chil/286/stro? you guys got off easy
You stole the Expos! Eternal hatred shall be extolled DC until their return
From Puerto Rico?
Word.
Youp, Youp and Away.
For me, it comes both from them being extremely lucky (the get the #1 pick with two no-doubt prospects in back to back years) and the whole Rizzo/Strasburg/shut-him-down debacle, which reeked of hubris.
Has Strasburg really been more of a no-doubter/better than David Price (’07), Gerrit Cole (’11) or Carlos Correa (’12) were in their drafts? Sure, Tim Beckham was a bust in ’08 and so far Appel for ’13 hasn’t been good. Harper’s a generational talent, but imagine if the Nationals had, say, taken Mike Trout with their #1 ’09 pick and Bryce Harper in ’10? Imagine that outfield? It’s also not as if their other draftees (Zimmerman, Zimmermann, Desmond, Rendon, for example) have turned out poorly either. The only reason I don’t want Washington to win is because I’m a Mets fan. I’ve got nothing against the Washington players..
He was considered one of the best college pitching prospects in a generation, he was closer to Harper than the other guys you mentioned on the ‘no-doubter’ scale.
Yes; Correa was drafted in a year where Buxton was the consensus best player available. It was commonly thought that Correa over Buxton was just a way to save slot money. Many people thought Gerrit Cole was the 2nd best pitcher on UCLA (behind Trevor Bauer). While Price was a pretty clear 1-1 pick, I think most would see Strasburg/Harper as the two most obvious top picks in recent. We can’t just use hindsight to pick the best players from each draft; very few teams would have seriously considered taking Trout first overall (this is beyond doubt, since most teams passed on him straight-up).
Yeah, I hate them for the whole Strasburg business. Hubris indeed. Who does Mike Rizzo think he is? I hope they never win anything, at least not until after Strasburg leaves for the Yankees or Dodgers.
Just to clarify, this is for shutting him down early? So you think they should have run him out there until his arm fell of, sort of like how the other Washington ball team ran their QB out there until his legs were broken? I don’t get why that was a wrong decision: if you have an asset, it’s dumb to trash it.
“So you think they should have run him out there until his arm fell of, sort of like how the other Washington ball team ran their QB out there until his legs were broken?”
They should have…and this is a crazy thought, I realize…let him do his job. Pitch the baseball, which is what he was drafted and paid to do and what baseball pitchers are supposed to do. And if you MUST set an innings limit for him–and of course you never HAVE TO set an innings limit, but if you are an idiot like Mike Rizzo and feel like you must, then do it some other way. Skip his starts sometimes. Always pull him after six innings. Call up a couple of relief pitchers in September to piggyback his starts and pull him after three innings for the last month.
Don’t do what Rizzo did, which was bench your ace, for absolutely no reason, when he was perfectly fine. And even if you can’t trace the Nationals’ defeat that year directly to Strasburg, I’m glad they did lose, and I hope they loom for decades as a cautionary tale of the dangers of being a slave to arbitrary setpoints.
They shut down Stras on medical advice. There was no mechanism by which he could have been available for the postseason — unless they’d delayed his first start until late May, something like that. And why would they do that, when the club was supposed to be around .500 or so?
There was a full story, the real story, a long story on the MLB Network back in mid-late summer, 2012. Summary:
The surgeon told Nationals management very explicitly NOT to give Stras an in-season “vacation” of multiple weeks’ duration. The doctor(s) said that the only reasonable course, the safest course of action by far, was to simply keep SS on his *regular* rotation turn until he reached his innings limit. The baseball press since then has done an awful, incompetent, irresponsible job of relating (i.e., not relating) these facts.
It was a detailed medical recommendation from, you know, doctors. For all their errors in judgment (like hiring Matt Williams) Washington’s management cannot be reasonably criticized for the Strasburg shutdown.
I’m afraid I can’t believe this. A doctor said “Strasburg will get hurt if he throws more than X amount of innings? Do not allow him to throw more than X?” Really? If that’s the case, which is hard to believe, the words “second opinion” spring to mind, especially since Strasburg was perfectly healthy and pitching well, right up until he was benched.
Hivementality, that makes zero sense. Do you have a link?
A doctor actually said he’ll get hurt if he throws more than some arbitrary set number of innings?
First, just to explode one tiny myth, Stras was NOT “perfectly healthy & pitching well” right up to the moment of shutdown. Two of his final three starts were shellackings, as over those two starts he allowed a combined 12 runs (10 earned) over just 8 innings, with 18 baserunners permitted. His final outing was in fact the season’s worst, at 5 runs in just 3 innings requiring 67 pitches, as he allowed 9 baserunners and a pair of homers.
As for the medical matters, again I can only repeat what I watched on the MLB Network. Don’t know what they do or don’t archive at their website, but I wouldn’t bet on their saving a three-year-old midday program. (I worked nights back then, and can at least be sure the show was mid-afternoon. I remember it VERY vividly.)
Maybe there’s an old archived comments thread at HB Times, or Baseball Analysts, or B-Pro, or some other such analytical site that mentions it. (But even then it would only represent 2nd-hand reportage, like my own.) I’ll say this, may God strike me blind if any aspect of what I’ve told you here is untrue or even inaccurate in any way.
And I like my eyes.
“There was no mechanism by which he could have been available for the postseason”
False. Waaaay, way false.
I hate the Nationals just on general principle because I was/am an Expos fan.
every time i see your name my brain sees “sh*tless george brett” and it makes me think of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PseNrUeSmXk
Because the Dodgers have Vin Scully and Jackie Robinson. The Nationals stole the Expos and employ FP Santangelo to talk about whatever it is he talks about.
You might be mistaking good-natured ribbing from fans of other NL East teams for trolling.
1. Bryce Harper ticks a lot of people off, first because of the hype (not his fault) and some of his antics (which would have been unknown for most prospects) and then now also because he’s really good and he still has an attitude that makes him someone you’d love on your team but easy to hate on another team.
2. Their fans, and there are number of different factors that make this a bigger deal:
a. Many, many fans of other teams, especially other NL East teams, live in Washington. Washington is perhaps the most transient city in the country and tons of people who live here maintain their allegiances to other teams. So basically they have more contact with Nats fans.
b. Building on (a), the fact that this area had a baseball team for a 40 years before (the Orioles) and that most older die-hard fans stuck with that team (or other teams from their youth) means that Nats fans skew younger and less serious than other fanbases, which I think contributes to their annoyance. I mean, these are many of the same people who are Redskins fans, objectively the worst fans in professional sports)
c. Again, people in DC can be pretty annoying, especially to people outside of DC, and I say that as someone who I think is probably very guilty of this frequently.
3. Announcers. All announcers are homers to a certain degree, and that is fine, but theirs are some of the worst. You add in the fact again that many people who root for other teams live here (and MLB.tv won’t let you avoid the Nats announcers when they play your team).
4. They’ve been good. Yeah, they were a joke for the first 8 years or so, but 3.5 years of either being the best team (2012), supposed to be the best (2013, 2015) or both (2014) in the division is going to get you some hate.
This is ridiculous. First all of the transient people into DC are not Nationals fans. They remain fans of whatever there home team is. Second look around the NL East. The Braves literally throw garbage on the field when they lose a wildcard game. Philly fans consistently boo their own players and generally seem to pride themselves of rude behavior. Miami has no fans.
By virtue of being a transient town, many Nationals games have a fair number of fans cheering for the opposing team. No one threatens these fans or gets into fights with them.
The core group of Nats fans who watch each game and follow the team closely are as serious baseball fans as any other team’s.
And we still throw garbage out there now!
“No one threatens these fans or gets into fights with them.”
not true! i’ve seen philly fans fighting each other at a nats game.
Many transient people are Nationals fans, but they are more likely to just be front-runners (this is the vast majority of Nats fans I know). I’m sure there are a lot of serious, die-hard Nationals fans, but in addition to fans of opposing teams, Nats Park has a ton of people who are just there to be there, except many of them might still talk shit if you root for the other team, of course without having a clue of what they are talking about.
They almost never fight, though, I’ll give you that.
I’m a serious Nats fan – grew up a hardcore Yankee fan, but have been living here for 15+ years and with a young kid who also loves baseball, it’s great to root for our local team.
I think we have some very knowledgeable fans, but every fan base has a significant amount of fair-weather fans. I was at Citi Field the other day and Met fans were so into the wave – reminded me of when people used to try to do the wave at Yankee Stadium and folks would yell “Send the wave to Shea!” Nothing worse than at a ballgame where 99% of the fans are focused on the wave and virtually nobody is watching a good, close game.
I was in Toronto for the Royals series and they were doing the wave in the 9th inning while behind 7-6. -_-
Um, he already said the transients weren’t Nats fans. They’re fans of other teams that get overexposed to the Nats and their fans and therefore find them annoying.
come on. nothing comes remotely close to Red Sox trolling.
The Dodgers didn’t steal Walgreens’s logo.
I would not count them out. There’s no reason why the Nats can’t reel off ten of twelve at any time ( even the Phillies had a similar stretch).
Remember, they are still without Span and Rendon, Worth and Zimmerman are still recovering. I still see them winning 88 games.
The Mets might be able to hold on, but only if they shore up their bullpen. It’s really the same story for the Mets every year: tired bullpen arms gove out down the stretch. Clippard was a great get, but after Mejia, it is not enough.
Black looks like he has recovered based on his last 10 or so minor league appearances, time to call him up.
More controversial but necessary would be to have Matz work relief for the rest of the year. No need to over load him, and there’s a need for him in spots like those against the Bucs.
The third piece is Montero, if he can pitch to 2014 form out of the pen, that would be a big boost.
I don’t think putting Matz in the bullpen makes the most sense. A lot of teams are hesitant to have a big year-over-year innings increase. After throwing about 140 innings last year, he’s thrown just over 100 this year. By putting him in the bullpen, you limit his innings this year – which might limit them next year as well. Their best bet is to let him start, and if he does well and pitches deep enough into games, then he can get to 140-150 innings this year. He’ll have few restrictions next year.
Add in that Harvey/Syndergaard have their own limits this year, and Matz seems like the obvious fill-in candidate in September.
Maybe. I just see the Mets as really weak in the pen outside of Familia and Clippard. I like Montero and Black, but they are both coming off injuries, so they are a bit of a coin flip.
Maybe they can make a waiver wire deal for a Benoit, but with the Nats in front of them in the waiver line, I doubt that would happen.
So basically they have this hole that existed all year, but was really exposed this weekend, and not much to fill it with.
The Mets pen is probably not any weaker than the Gnats tho.
Tru but their lineup is.
Better not to bother arguing with the vocal Eeyore contingent among Mets fans, I think
Since they are 4 up something have to be better. I think pen sans parnell and starting pitching
They’ve had Rendon back for a while now.
I was af the Giant vs. Nationals game yesterday. The bats were down 4-0, and had just gotten three outs from Treinen to end the 5th. Williams decided to lead off with the relief pitcher to start the 6th. Down four runs. Treinen pitched one more inning.
silly Nats. One player can’t carry a team!
Hey, Bryce! Where’s your ring now!?
This is so tired and overblown. If you actually were provided with the entire quote of what Harper said, he singled out every team in the NL East for praise – he singled out the Mets’ rotation in particular – and even said nice things about the Phillies. he said the Nationals would have to earn anything they got, that it wasn’t going to be easy, etc.
But it’s just the one tossaway phrase that gets reported, so that’s the story. No context, nothing that disturbs the narrative of entitled. And THEN, after jumping all over a quote taken out of context, people bitch because players never say anything but the same hackneyed clichés over and over again.
Just wait for the articles to come out saying that this is all his fault.
It didn’t seem like a tossaway phrase. I came across a few articles with an expanded quote, and none of them mentioned the rest of the NL East. Maybe he said it at a different point in the interview – I don’t know – but it wasn’t part of the quote. He spent the rest of his quote acting like his pitching staff had Harvey, deGrom and Syndergaard in it.
http://natsinsider.com/2015/02/25/harper-oozes-confidence-on-first-day-in-camp/
“To be able to have a guy like Scherzer come in? I just started laughing,” Harper said. “I was like, ‘Where’s my ring?’ You know what I mean? It’s stupid. It’s absolutely stupid how good our staff is.
“I mean, to add a Cy Young, to add a guy that’s unbelievable in the postseason … If you have to go into a five-game set in the postseason — looking ahead, like I told you I wouldn’t — but if you have to go into a five-game set against a team, you’re going to have to face Zimmermann, Fister, Scherzer and Stras. I mean, good luck. Because that’s insane.
“Going into that, it’s just, I’m crying because it’s hilarious having to go in there and face them. It’s absolutely stupid. We have the best staff in all of baseball, I don’t care what nobody says.”
Harper, who is swapping positions with Jayson Werth and will now man right field on a regular basis, joked that he and his mates won’t have much defensively to do this season.
“I think our team in the outfield is going to do a lot of watching, because [the rotation is] going to be carving it up,” he said. “I can just worry about hitting. I don’t really have to worry about playing right. It’s all good.”
Oh to be 22, with all that talent and money, and enough time to live down the most inane and idiotic things one cannot help doing and saying in those circumstances.
I don’t quite understand the problem. Why is confidence with a dash of cockiness a bad thing?
Agree with Walter: what’s wrong with saying that your team has a great rotation? They do have a great rotation. His comment makes sense: he’s not saying that he deserves anything, he’s just saying (via hyperbole) that it’s great to be on a team with so many really amazing pitchers.
As long as you back it up, confidence with a dash of cockiness can be a good thing. If they turn things around and go deep into the playoffs, then people will need to give Harper his props. But when you don’t back it up, you have to know that people will bring up the quotes. Like a few years ago when the Philadelphia Eagles brought in some highly paid talent, deemed themselves the ‘Dream Team’, and went 8-8 to miss the playoffs.
Honestly, when I searched for Harper’s quote after reading John C’s post, I thought it would be a tossaway phrase like he said. I figured it was just a partial sentence taken out of context. But when I saw the full quote in several articles, it didn’t seem like “where’s my ring?” was taken out of context.
Here’s more of what Bryce Harper said during that same media session:
“But if you look at all the staffs that we’re about to face, the Mets have one of the best staffs in all of baseball, I don’t care what nobody says. Their one through four is pretty impressive. Miami’s one through four, they’re one of the toughest teams, I think, in all of baseball myself. I think the lineup they have, the manager that they’ve got, the way they play, the bullpen they have, I think they’re going to be a very good team. The Phillies are young, but they’ve still got Cole Hamels, they’ve still got Cliff Lee, they’ve still got Utley, they’ve still got some guys that are pretty dang good. And then you look at the Braves, they’ve got Shelby Miller, Julio Teheran. I mean, you just look at our division and it’s unbelievable how good the division is. Not just our division, but all of the NL. Not taking anything away from the AL and how they play and stuff, but the NL is just so good with the pitching we’ve got and the divisions we have. It’s going to be tough. We think we’re a good team and we want to go into every game thinking we’re going to win and do the things we need to do. But it’s going to be tough. It’s not sure shot. So we’ve got to keep going out here, working hard and hit on all cylinders, get to work.”
So in actual summary of what Harper said during that media session, which was the first day of Spring Training: he is amazed by the talent on the Nationals. He wants to win a WS for DC, and doesn’t care how long it takes to do it (i.e., he knows it may not happen this year). He knows the rest of the division and league will be a tough obstacle, and he wants to get to work. Wow, that’s really controversial! OK, not really. But you wouldn’t know it from the way his remarks were being cut, pasted and spun around the media.
And yes, Zuckerman in the Nationals Insider ignored the non-controversial parts of Harper’s remarks as well. The only place where the full remarks were reported were by Chris Johnson at MASN:
http://www.masnsports.com/nationals-pastime/2015/02/confident-is-an-understatement-for-harper.html
Because Harper praising his opponents and showing respect for the long baseball season – that doesn’t generate clicks. “Harper is a [jerk]” – THAT generates clicks.
All that says to me is a kid is happy and excited about the signing of MadMax. He’s excited about the commitment his team has to winning. That’s all there is to it.
The Nationals haven’t played the Phillies or the Braves yet in the second half. From this point forward, they play 5 more games against the Phils, 6 against the Braves, and 9 against the Marlins. So they should be in a favorable position to gain some ground in at least the WC race if they can snap out of this team-wide slump.
They are further behind in the WC race (-9.5) than they are in the division (-4.5). It’s either win the division or go home.
Agreed. At this point they need to dominate the Mets head to head like they did over the last couple years, because the Wild Card is extremely unlikely. Unfortunately for them, the Mets’ schedule seems just as easy as the Nats’, so the head to head games are crucial.
“From this point forward, they play 5 more games against the Phils, 6 against the Braves, and 9 against the Marlins. ”
The Mets have 23 games remaining vs that trio, so the Nationals and Mets are pretty even in that regard as far as winning the NLE division is concerned
The Mets also still have a combined 20 games against the Phillies, Braves and Marlins on their schedule, so there’s no scheduling advantage within the division. The Cubs, a team that the Nats trail by 9.5 games are done with the Marlins and only have 4 games with the Phillies and 4 with the Braves, but they also have 6 each with Cincy and Milwaukee, two teams that are comparable to the NL East teams.
This is why I told you guys to give me my ring in January…
They just have a Bad Nat-itude.
“the Nationals should could still make a run at a 90 win finish.”
WHICH IS IT?!?!
What’s scary is that several players that could have been labelled “replacement level” (Ross, Taylor, Espinosa, perhaps even Escobar) have contributed significantly. Without their mostly unexpected positive contributions, the Nats would be even further back.
Re: the Harper-carrying-the-Nats point, I’d be interested in seeing a chart of MLB offenses minus each team’s top batting WAR contributor.
span, espinosa and escobar have all been above average hitters. i think the halos without trout and pujols would be more fun. its kole calhoun and some guys.
Nice article idea.
Sullivan!! Get on that!
And for your graph
http://i.imgur.com/poRbotO.png
lmao the white sox. oof
Awesome work. This is the best Yosting I’ve ever been a part of
For your comma delimited pleasure. Of particular note, check out the White Sox
Team, Team WAR, Player, Player WAR, % of total
Angels, 14, Mike Trout, 6.5, 46%
Astros, 15, Carlos Correa, 3, 20%
Athletics, 8.9, Josh Reddick, 2.5, 28%
Blue Jays, 21.5, Josh Donaldson, 6.1, 28%
Braves, 8.7, Andrelton Simmons, 2.3, 26%
Brewers, 6.5, Adam Lind, 1.9, 29%
Cardinals, 16.6, Matt Carpenter, 3.8, 23%
Cubs, 15.8, Anthony Rizzo, 4.9, 31%
Diamondbacks, 18.6, Paul Goldschmidt, 5.6, 30%
Dodgers, 22.7, Justin Turner, 3.6, 16%
Giants, 25, Buster Posey, 5.2, 21%
Indians, 13.1, Jason Kipnis, 5, 38%
Mariners, 11.5, Nelson Cruz, 4.5, 39%
Marlins, 11.3, Giancarlo Stanton, 3.8, 34%
Mets, 12.3, Curtis Granderson, 3.4, 28%
Nationals, 12.3, Bryce Harper, 6.9, 56%
Orioles, 16.7, Manny Machado, 5.5, 33%
Padres, 8.4, Justin Upton, 2.7, 32%
Phillies, 5.6, Maikel Franco, 1.5, 27%
Pirates, 15.4, Andrew McCutchen, 4.4, 29%
Rangers, 13.2, Mitch Moreland, 2.2, 17%
Rays, 15.3, Kevin Kiermaier, 3.8, 25%
Red Sox, 13, Xander Bogaerts, 3.1, 24%
Reds, 15.8, Joey Votto, 5.3, 34%
Rockies, 11.1, Nolan Arenado, 3.7, 33%
Royals, 20.1, Lorenzo Cain, 5.2, 26%
Tigers, 16.4, J.D. Martinez, 4.5, 27%
Twins, 8.5, Brian Dozier, 3.5, 41%
White Sox, 2.2, Jose Abreu, 2.6, 118%
Yankees, 16.2, Mark Teixeira, 3.1, 19%
Wow.
Coincidentally, I’m reading the excellent book The Bronx is Burning right now, and it strikes me that if people who cheer for other teams hate Bryce Harper’s confidence/cockiness, they must have really, REALLY hated Reggie Jackson.
Reading the book – I just got to the chapter where Billy Martin tries to beat up Jackson in the dugout – really reinforced just how sanitized and dry and personality-free the game is today. Put Harper and Werth in a time capsule, send them to 1977, and they might not crack the top 10 of flamboyant, attention-grabbing weirdos in baseball.
I kind of feel a nostalgia for that. It’s no fun having hundreds of baseball players who are only distinguished from each other by their abilities, stats, and maybe if you’re lucky their facial hair.
Rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, maybe, since I was a kid at the time, but as far as I recall everybody (fans, that is) pretty much loved Reggie, whether he was playing for or against their team at the time. He was one of those guys who was so much fun to watch that you end up pulling for him even if you want his team to lose.
I’m still at the part of the book which treats early 1977, when Reggie was struggling, Billy Martin was batting him sixth, and teammates were giving him the cold shoulder. At this point in the season, Reggie’s only friends in New York are Fran Healy and various non-sports celebrities.
I think his closest friend was probably the guy who sold him all those $100k+ cars he had collected.
There’s a pretty big contrast to today’s sports coverage though too. Back then, people didn’t have to worry about being followed 24/7 by national media, social media, the internet… you name it. You basically had the city newspaper guys, city TV guys and yes there was national media but it didn’t come close to what it is now, and they would never bite the hand that fed them.
It’s somewhat of a different media culture today, where every transgression that happens with any athlete of any sport gets magnified to the Nth degree because everyone in the world knows about it within 30 seconds of it happening. These players today probably go out of there way to be as boring as possible, not wanting to make negative headlines that will get them dragged through the mud for months/years.
Before you decide Scherzer is throwing “well”, Dave, maybe you should look at his last month of starts. Giving up 19 runs and 8 homers in 33 innings is getting rocked despite keeping the lofty K rate. He’s challenging guys and losing a few too many of those duels. If we assume he will start getting some better results with some new command and pitch selection improvement, and that Gio won’t have lesser teams bothering to steal signs against him, then the next guy who’s probably going to be really important is Treinen. He featured a decent 4-seamer the other day, and he really needs to have something like to face lefties as they’ve been really killing him to the point of where he really should have been a RH matchup guy rather than a candidate to be the new Stammen.
Clown season, bro.
Wait, what is that a reference to? I don’t get it.
Well, at least you have Redskins football to look forward to.
Oh wait.
or Capitals hockey, oh wait…
Wtf why wouldn’t we look forward to the Capitals season? Once bad luck bounce from the Conference final, Ovi and Backstrom still in their primes, Trotz and Oshie and Kuznetsov and Burakovsky and Holtby all hitting their stride? Baseball is my religion and all, but the Capitals are tons and tons of fun
Or Wizards basketball……oh wait.
And this is why I still think you can easily argue that they made a mistake shutting down Strasburg in ’12.
You just never know what happens. It can all fall apart very quickly, and while it hasn’t fallen apart completely, Strasburg himself is adding to the issues with an injury marred season.
Give it up. You were wrong then. And with hindsight we can look back and point out that Strasburg being available would have made no difference in the series the Nats lost.
Just give it up.
“Strasburg being available would have made no difference in the series the Nats lost.”
Now, your mileage may vary, but I doubt the universe (and especially baseball) is predestined in the way you’re saying here
It’s impossible to know how things would have shaken out, but it must be said that the only well-pitched game from a Nats starter in that series was by the guy who replaced Strasburg in the rotation. Also, Stras did not pitch well in his final few starts before the shutdown.
Bring back Davey Johnson!
Please don’t. That guy has the most repellent collection of affectations, habits, mannerisms, odors, projectiles, and vices around, surpassing even those of Madison “Snotrocket” Bumgarner and his constant fixation with getting everything out of his nostrils and an onto his glove.
Jack McKeon still alive? Give him a jingle
I guess that’s why I was sold for .50 by the Tigers
CORRECTIONS:
Strasburg’s 2015 WAR is 1.5, not -0.2.
Gonzalez’s 2015 WAR is 2.4, not 1.4.
He was using RA9 wins, which is based on runs allowed rather than FIP.
…good input
Another Williams strategic masterpiece: 8/5 vs AZ. Gio isn’t pitching great but through 5 he’s given up 1 run on 7 (mostly groundball) hits, 1 BB and 7 K. A lot of hits but that’s going to happen when you keep the other team on the ground and he had kept them off the board and the Nats are up 2-1. Williams lets Gio hit for himself with 1 out and bases empty in the 5th and then GIo gives up another groundball single. . . .and Williams pulls him. With only 95 pitches. I guess I’m trying to figure out: if he was on that short of a leash, why did you even let him hit for himself? It’s not like he left him in to face a lefty because the 1st hitter next inning was a RH hitter (Tomas). Seven hitters later it’s a 6-2 game and it’s over.
Williams just doesn’t seem like he really has any sort of plan out there
Ah, the anti-Nats trolls. Can’t beat folks who think they can score points by dissing a team that’s been around for 10 whole years. Nice work, boys. Next, why don’t you take the Oklahoma City Thunder down a peg? Jerks, thinking they have any right to even exist. Pfaw!
As for Matt Williams, he was a dead man walking the second he let escape his lips that he makes up his mind before the game which pitchers he is going to use in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings. No, Matt. Just no. You are not psychic and that is an insane plan that denies the possibility that things may unfold in ways other than what you daydreamed in the bathtub this morning. Nats ownership: please fire this man.
They’ve been a team for much longer than 10 years. Not like they were an expansion team.
I love the passage that begins: “Washington’s season isn’t over yet; there’s still six weeks to play…” Four-and-a-half games behind in mid-August and this even needs to be said? This is what used to be called a pennant race!
There seems to be an odd disconnect in this piece, or at least something that the writer is ignoring. The writer says this:
“Strasburg and Gonzalez; their 4.14 combined ERA is over a run higher than their 3.11 FIP”
then just cruises on to assume that, you know, their ERAs (a measure, however imperfect, of what actually happened) will return closer to their FIP. However, maybe there’s an underlying reason why their ERA is worse than their FIP. Maybe…
…wait for it…
…they’re bad at defense. And there’s no reason to simply assume that a team that is bad and catching and throwing the baseball will suddenly start doing it better.
I am surprised that the writer commented on the above fact and then did not address defense at all in the article. Is this the TTO sabermetric mindset? Ignoring everything that doesn’t have to do with the pitcher and the batter? Hasn’t Ian Desmond been an awful shortstop this year?
Just going by Fangraph’s WAR, the teams are fairly even matched season to date in position player WAR, ranked 19 and 20 with 12.3 WAR each (with the Nats having a slight hitting edge of 93 wRC+ to 89, but the Mets have added some bats, although the Nats have guys back too), starting pitching (Mets 12.9 WAR Nats 12.7) and relief pitching (Mets 3.0 Nats 2.9). The Met’s advantage has mainly been fielding. The Mets are ranked 11th with 8.6 DEF score, Nats 20th at -6. The Nats UZR per 150 is -3, mets +2. Not sure how accurate that is, but it’s the one clear advantage going be team wide stats on this site.
There you go. The Mets are good at catching the baseball and the Nats are bad at, and that’s part of the reason for what’s happening in the NL East.
Which Mets are those ?
The defensive difference between the two teams is pretty stark. The Nats rank #26 (of 30 MLB teams) in defensive efficiency, the Mets #6. When the defensive efficiency is ballpark adjusted, the difference is even more stark with the Mets ranking #1 in MLB, the Nats #23.
Harper has actually become a good RF, and Michael Taylor and Danny Espinosa are also excellent defenders. Ramos, for all of his battles with one hop throws from the outfield, is a good defensive catcher. But elsewhere it’s not pretty. Desmond was brutally awful early in the season, and while he’s gotten much better LF, 3b and 1b have continued to be real problems. Escobar is miscast as a third baseman, and plays too close to the plate. He makes few errors, but he makes few plays because of his limited range. Robinson has hit, but he is a very bad first baseman and a horrific outfielder.
Why are you picking an choosing the lower of either bWAR of fWAR for the WAR table? There’s enough difference within fWAR to prove the same point.
Dave Cameron clearly said he was using RA9 WAR from FanGraphs and explained why he did so.
Who still uses bWAR? And for what?
DRS stabilizes a bit quicker than UZR and is probably a better metric to begin with.
No defensive metrics are good in the shift era
See, I knew that getting rid of Max and Dougie was the right call….
I wonder whether Bud Black might be the right call here. Or Dusty Baker.
Dusty Baker? If you want to break all the young pitchers, perhaps.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer group. This is what happens when teams with huge egos think they should just be guaranteed an automatic win every time instead of actually playing the games. Reminds me of the 2006 Mets, whose post season tended by the 82 win St Louis Cardinals because they didn’t think they had to take the series seriously. Strike 3 to Beltran looking by Wainwright to end the game! Priceless! And I don’t care about Harper’s stats, the guy is a doucebag and will eventually play for the Yankees the epitime of douchbags! Go Mets!!!!
You must’ve meant to dial 877-337-6666 and just typed fangraphs dot com by mistake
The Nats can go on a run and take the division – especially with so many games against the Mets – but it’s getting less and less likely. One thing I noticed about the Playoff Odds page is that the Nats, who are currently a .500 team, have a Rest-of-season projected winning % of .596. That’s even better than their pre-season projection of .580!
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/division-preview-nl-east/
They do have an easy schedule for the rest of the year, but it seems like the projections are being a little bit stubborn and they’re anchoring to the pre-season projection too much. I have no idea what method Fangraphs uses compared to Baseball Prospectus, but BP expects the Nats to win about 54% of their games going forward. Based on what we’ve seen, that might be more realistic. At some point we have to say that Werth and Rendon might not flip on the switch and turn into the 2014 version of themselves. Strasburg isn’t going to pitch like a CY Young winner through the end of the year. When Span comes back, he most likely won’t be a gamechanger from day 1.
4.5 games is certainly surmountable with several head to head games, but barring a Mets collapse, I don’t know that the Nats have even a 30% chance of making the playoffs. If they take 5 out of 6 against NY then they’re in business. Otherwise, it’ll be tough when you factor in the Mets’ schedule.
They both have pretty cake schedules – the major difference entering this week was that outside of the head-to-head games the Nats play six games against teams over .500 (Cardinals, Orioles) and the Mets play five (Orioles, Yankees). That’s not a huge difference. The Mets have now played the first two of those five games – and lost one game in the standings.
Making up 4.5 games (now 3.5 games) in 43 games is difficult, which is why the Nats’ odds are so low. It may be that the thing that keeps the odds from completely cratering is that the Nats play almost all of their remaining games at home. After today’s game the Nats play 16 of their next 19 at home, and 27 of their final 42 overall – and they’ve been a solid home team (31-23). The Mets play 25 of their last 42 on the road, where they’ve been pretty bad (22-35).
All of which doesn’t make it likely that the Nats catch the Mets. But it does give them a real chance.