The Nationals Have Lost Almost All of Their Edge

A fun question from last Friday’s chat:

Comment From Zob Lerblaw
How many games do the Mets have to get ahead of the Nationals and by what date to believe they may win the east? 15 games by June 1?

Since the question was asked, the Mets lost two of three over the weekend against the Yankees. So, if you’re a believer in momentum, the Mets have a little less than they used to. On the other hand, since the question was asked, the Nationals lost three of three against the Marlins. So while the Mets lost ground to Miami, they gained on Washington, which is the team they’d be most concerned about. At this writing, with the season almost 12% over, the Mets lead the Nationals by a full seven games.

The Mets are a worse baseball team than the Nationals are. I’m not 100% certain that’s true, but I’m definitely more than half certain that’s true. There is some point at which the season record becomes more meaningful than the projected numbers, but that point comes nowhere close to as early as April, and just last year the Nationals won almost 100 games. Any system that overreacts to the early start is a bad system; from this point forward, the Nationals should realistically be expected to be terrific.

Yet, the season still feels new. It feels like just yesterday that the Nationals seemed to have the biggest division edge in baseball. Already, that edge is almost all gone. The NL East is on the verge of becoming a coin flip.

This goes to show you how quickly baseball can diverge from what seems to be totally predictable. The Nationals were the favorites and no one disagreed. No other team had a stronger preseason grip on its own division. You’ve already read about the Mets’ hot start. You might’ve already read about the Nationals’ slow start. But all these early results matter, because the 162 games all count the same. It matters that the Astros lead their division, and it matters that the Mets lead their division.

These are our preseason playoff odds, as of the day before the start. All they’re missing is the Craig Kimbrel trade at the offseason’s 11th hour. The Nationals had the highest playoff odds, at 95%. They had the highest division odds, at 87%. Only one other team was above 50%. The projected win totals for the NL East:

• Nationals, 94.5
• Mets, 81.3
• Marlins, 80.6
• Braves, 73.5
• Phillies, 66.3

That’s more or less what a lot of us figured. Maybe the Mets would be all right. Maybe the Marlins would stay sufficiently healthy. But the division was going to go to the Nationals, barring way too many major injuries. It was and remains tough to see anything else.

These are our current playoff odds. They project out the rest of the season, and combine that with what’s already happened. The Nationals are still in a strong position. Their division odds are behind only those of the Dodgers. But now, here are the updated projected win totals for the NL East:

• Nationals, 89.1
• Mets, 85.0
• Marlins, 80.3
• Braves, 72.9
• Phillies, 65.5

The Marlins look the same, the Braves look the same, and the Phillies look the same. But look at the difference between first and second. What used to be a gap of 13.2 wins is now a gap of 4.1 wins, a 69% reduction. And, hey, more information is better than less information, right? Baseball Prospectus does its own projections. Their expected win totals:

• Nationals, 86.1
• Mets, 86.1

At the least, the Nationals’ advantage has been considerably reduced. At the most, it’s disappeared, and the Mets have caught up. Even though the Mets still presumably aren’t as good as the Nationals are, an inferior runner can win a marathon if he’s given a substantial head start. That’s kind of one of the functions of these early games: even though there’s mostly been too little to adjust the projections, some of the starting points have effectively been shuffled around. If I understand golf terminology, the Nationals have allowed the Mets a handicap.

What’s the deal with the Nationals, the team that’s too good to fail? If you listen to Jon Heyman, players in the clubhouse seem miserable, and players on the field seem flat. Most players respond poorly to losing, and most players and teams look flat when they lose. So that can mostly be dismissed. Last May 29, when the Nationals were 25-27, Thomas Boswell asked about the Nationals’ identity. From that point forward the Nationals played as the best team in the NL by five games. They turned it on almost overnight, as the results finally matched the ability.

The ability should still be there. That’s what the projections are there for — to remind you that this team should be really good. It’s still probably better this soon to just ignore a team’s record entirely, if you want to know how good it is. The older data still overwhelms the 2015 data. It’s going to be like that for some time.

The Nationals are going to hit more. And they’re going to play better defense. Ian Desmond seems like he’s coming out of his defensive slump. Jayson Werth and Denard Span have returned. Anthony Rendon comes soon. The Nationals are almost complete again, and they can be forgiven for some early sputtering.

The main issue, probably, is this: depth. Or, put another way, injuries. The key to sinking the 2015 Nationals is injuries. They’ve already been through some, and they were forced into the position of literally playing Dan Uggla. The group of regulars is terrific — enviably terrific. The support is pretty lousy. And though important players are on the mend, look at the situation.

Rendon is one of the better players in baseball, but he’s established a history of lower-body problems. He’s working back from another, and his durability will be a question until he definitively answers it. Ryan Zimmerman? He’s been limping around, due to “a little plantar fascia issue.” That’s typically not a problem that resolves itself overnight. And then there’s this: 135 starting pitchers from last year have thrown at least 10 innings this year, and on average their fastballs are down half of one mile per hour. That’s typical, for April. Two Nationals starters, and their fastball velocity declines:

• Jordan Zimmermann, -1.7 mph
• Doug Fister, -1.6

They’re not the biggest declines in the league, but they’re close, and Zimmermann has lost almost half of his strikeouts. Fister’s started just three times, but he has eight strikeouts and seven walks. It’s too early to know how major these problems are, but pitchers generally aren’t better when they’re throwing slower, and declining velocity can be indicative of other things. We might not want to expect as much from Zimmermann. We might not want to expect as much from Fister. And then the Nationals are weakened. They have the advantage of having an available Tanner Roark, but Roark himself is still searching for his season’s first strikeout. The Nationals’ rotation might not be completely bulletproof.

So the Nationals aren’t completely bulletproof. Objectively speaking, they should still be an excellent team, moving ahead. That should be true even if there’s something wrong with Zimmermann or Fister or both. But because of the Nationals’ slow start, and because of the Mets’ hot start, the Nationals have lost a lot of their margin of error. You could kind of think of it as a three-run save situation. The advantage of being up three is you need win only by one. Your closer’s allowed to get in some trouble. The Nationals are in about enough trouble. Now they’re going to need those good pitches.