Wang Poised to Return to Washington
Quick. Name a starting pitcher on the New York Yankees from the mid-2000’s.
Randy Johnson and Mike Mussina are the gimmes. Andy Pettitte. Javier Vazquez. Carl Pavano. Kevin Brown. Orlando Hernandez. Chien-Ming Wang.
Chien-Ming Wang. The Taiwanese sensation is famous enough in his home country to incite a murder, but is routinely overlooked when reminiscing over quality starters throughout the past decade.
Between his big-league debut in 2005 and his injury in 2008, no single Yankees starter (minimum 100 innings) compiled a better ERA than Wang. Not Pettitte. Not Johnson. Not even Mussina. Furthermore, over that time frame, his 3.80 ERA over 623.1 innings rank as the 11th-best earned run average in the American League.
That string of success snapped in 2009. Wang needed shoulder surgery to repair his rotator cuff and shoulder capsule, which ignited his precipitous downfall. It also earmarked the beginning of an arduous, two-year rehabilitation journey that ended with the Washington Nationals in 2011.
Wang finally got back on the mound, throwing 62.1 innings. He never showed flashes of brilliance, but was certainly effective at times — as is evidenced by a 4.04 ERA and 4.17 xFIP.
The marriage between the Nationals and Chien-Ming Wang appears destined to last for at least one more season. Manager Davey Johnson seems particularly interested in keeping the right-hander — even offering his own salary as compensation — to add to a young Nats rotation that could feature the likes Stephen Strasburg, John Lannan, Jordan Zimmerman, Ross Detwiler, and Tom Gorzelanny in 2012.
As one would expect in a pitcher coming off a significant shoulder injury, Wang saw his fastball velocity drop from 91.8 MPH in 2008 to 90.6 MPH this year. That could rebound after another winter of rehab and rest, but it’s comforting for the Nationals to know he was still effective despite that velocity drop.
Chien-Ming Wang thrives on generating a myriad of ground balls. He owned a 53.4% ground ball rate (ranked 19 out of 169 pitchers) in his two months of work in 2011 and also had the lowest walk rate of his career with only 1.88 walks per nine innings. That combination should help him be quite useful for the Washington Nationals next year, especially if his offspeed stuff can continue to improve after the long layoff.
One big red flag is that left-handed batters once again raked against Wang at the plate. He handcuffed righties, holding them to a .183 AVG in his eleven starts, but lefties hit .361. That type of platoon split is incredibly common for a sinker-slider specialist, and Wang must either BABIP lefties to death with throwing that sinker on the outside part of the plate or better develop his sparingly-used changeup. He also threw a few curveballs for the first time in his career, which could also help neutralize lefties depending on the effectiveness.
Overall, resigning Chien-Ming Wang should prove to be beneficial for the Washington Nationals. The 31-year-old should bring veteran leadership to a young rotation and produce right around his career 4.19 xFIP, but he could become much more than that. He is only four years removed from being one of the top-tier starters in the American League. While one cannot expect Wang to revert to career norms after such a major injury, that chance does exist.
And for a guy who says signing for a lot of money is not important, who doesn’t want to take that chance?
J.P. Breen is a graduate student at the University of Chicago. For analysis on the Brewers and fantasy baseball, you can follow him on Twitter (@JP_Breen).
What kind of veteran leadership can you really expect from a player who cannot even communicate with his teammates?
Verbal communication is not the only vehicle for leadership.
Is this Fangraphs? I wonder if Wang’s non-verbal leadership (bringing in cupcakes for the bullpen?) will lead to more strikeouts for everyone.
Wang’s strikeout numbers are always so low because he gives his strikeouts to his teammates. He’s that selfless.
I would go as far to say that verbal leadership is a misnomer. I’ve never once been inspired by something a teammate or coach had to say, but I certainly imitated the routines of my best teammates. Leadership is achieved by example.
Words can teach but rarely inspire.
As a Nats fan, I’ve heard about this veteran leadership before. It was the same justification when they overpaid for two years of Ivan Rodriguez. Since then, there have been stories of Pudge instructing Wilson Ramos on techniques to improve his throw to second on SB attempts. While I haven’t seen any mention of it, I’d assume he’s also been assisting Ramos on game-calling and other facets of a catcher’s game. This is what I always thought was meant by “veteran leadership”: an experienced player imparting his knowledge onto younger, inexperienced players, which is I think what you were getting at referencing the youth of the Nats pitching staff. However, if the player can’t communicate with his teammates, then how does he impart this knowledge? Wang’s interpreter can’t be there all the time, and I’m not sure how much can be conveyed only through gestures.
If what you meant was more of an abstract attitude, of going out there every fifth game and showing the boys how its done, then Zimmermann, Strasburg, and the other youngsters would be just as well off watching every Halladay or Verlander start, if something can indeed be gained through mere observation.
I guess I just don’t see how “veteran leadership” is any different from other hollow terms like “scrappiness” “heart” or “grit”.
All really nice points.
Veteran leadership is more than just imparting knowledge on the younger players. That is more observable, and thus, more generally accepted as valuable. But young players also need to be taught how to prepare for a game, how to treat bullpen sessions, how to warm up, how to utilize video, etc. That type of “lead by example” attitude is valuable, too.
Hence the abundance of 30+ year old players in the minors.
I am not attempting to proclaim that Chien-Ming Wang’s main value will stem in his “veteran leadership.” If that were the case, they should simply resign (or re-sign) Livan Hernandez to a perpetual deal. The Nationals are clearly hoping for quality work on the mound from Wang next year, otherwise he will be considered a bust — both inside and outside the organization.
But the idea that younger starters cannot learn something from how a veteran pitcher goes about his work day-in and day-out is a little ridiculous.
Ah, that’s actually a misconception. As a Nats fan, I’ve MET Wang. He speaks English just fine. He just doesn’t THINK in English, so his syntax is a little weird. In such a way that while he only sounds a little off verbally, in print it looks ridiculous. Which is why he uses a translator for communications with the media.
But he speaks English well enough, especially well enough to talk baseball. It’s just…imagine veteran leadership using Yoda’s grammar and a Chinese accent.