With their trade for Gio Gonzalez and continuing rumors of an effort to sign Prince Fielder, the Nats appear to be aiming for the post-season in 2012. This places them, however, in an unusual situation. Stephen Strasburg, clearly the Nats’ best pitcher, will be facing a projected innings limit of about 160 to 170 innings as part of his recovery from Tommy John surgery. If his workload is managed the same way as Jordan Zimmermann‘s, who was at the same point in his own recovery in 2011, Strasburg would be pulled from the rotation in mid-to-late August and would not be available for the post-season.
Most Nats observers are convinced that the Nats are resigned to losing Strasburg in September and (possibly) October. Pete Kerzel of MASN writes:
One thing you won’t see is Strasburg pitching deep into September – or, if things break just right, in the playoffs. Rizzo and Johnson want to win, but they’re big-picture guys and realize that the promise of another dominating decade or so from Strasburg is much more enticing than the immediate gratification of seeing him in a pennant drive or the postseason now.
A few observers have suggested delaying his first start until mid-May, or possibly shutting him down for a few weeks in mid-summer. But starting Strasburg in May would mean he’d lose the benefits of spring training and have to prepare for the season in instructional league or the minors. Furthermore, without their ace early in the season, the Nats risk losing momentum and slipping behind in the race.
I’d like to suggest another approach that harks back to baseball of the 1930s and 40s—assign Strasburg to pitch just once a week on six days rest. Seventy years ago a few teams used “Sunday pitchers” with great success. The premier example was Hall-of-Famer Ted Lyons. From 1939–42 (ages 38 to 41), Lyons made 61 of his 85 starts on Sundays, producing a 52–30 record and a 2.96 ERA. Other prominent pitchers who were used as Sunday pitchers included Red Ruffing and Tommy Bridges. This type of usage was mostly reserved for older pitchers.
Why do I think that a once-a-week pattern would work for Strasburg? First, that’s the usage pattern in college baseball, so it’s a frequency that Strasburg is accustomed to. Japanese baseball also uses a pattern of weekly starts with considerable success. The Book by Tango, Lichtman, and Dolphin finds that five days rest is optimal, so six days rest is a bit longer than the optimum, but it does have the advantage of stretching Strasburg’s work throughout the entire season. Pitching once a week would give Strasburg 26 starts, the same number of games that Zimmermann started last season.
Another advantage of starting Strasburg on a weekly schedule is that it would boost ticket sales, by making it easier for casual fans who want to see Strasburg pitch to plan their ticket purchases.
Now I’ll mention that I wouldn’t actually recommend starting Strasburg on Sundays. The reason that Lyons and others pitched on Sundays is because there were many Sunday doubleheaders scheduled in the 1930s and 40s, a reason that is now irrelevant. A disadvantage of Sundays is that they are mostly day games, and the afternoon sun in Washington in July and August can be brutal. Since the purpose of the innings limit is to avoid placing stress on Strasburg, I’d rather not add the stress of lots of day games. Furthermore, I remember some research by Bill James in one of his Baseball Abstracts that found that power pitchers did better at night.* Instead of Sundays, I’ll suggest scheduling most of Strasburg’s starts on Fridays. Most Friday games are played at night and it’s the start of the weekend, when I think there would be an especially significant impact on ticket sales.
*I wonder if anyone has ever tried replicating James’s study on power pitchers in night games with more recent and comprehensive data.
The objection to my argument is going to be, wouldn’t such a plan play havoc with the rest of the rotation? How can the other pitchers’ schedules work when one of their battery mates is not rotating at the same rate? I think these problems could be worked around by bringing in a sixth pitcher as a spot starter or “swing man”—a role that used to be common in most pitching staffs until teams adopted strict rotations in the 1960s. Fortunately, the Nats have a natural candidate for this position in Ross Detwiler, who will probably be used to fill in for Strasburg’s missing starts regardless of when they occur. Furthermore, since he’s out of options, he should be available to fill this role throughout the year, and also would be available for long relief when he isn’t needed to start. Basically what I’m proposing could be thought of as a “5-and-a-half man rotation,” where Detwiler would play the role of half starter/half reliever.
Let me illustrate how such a rotation might work, looking at the schedule for April 2012. For each week, I’ll list the scheduled games by day of the week, starter(“St”=Strasburg, “Go”=Gonzalez, “Zi”=Zimmermann, “La”=John Lannan, “Wa”=Chien-Ming Wang, and “De”=Detwiler), and number of days rest for that starter. The season is scheduled to open with a game on Thursday April 5, followed by an off day on Friday.
Week of April 1:
Th-St; Sa-Go
Week of April 8:
Su-Zi; M-La; Tu-Wa; W-De; Th-Go(4); F-St(7); Sa-Zi(5)
Week of April 15:
Su-La(5); M-Wa(5); Tu-De(5); W-Go(5); Th-Zi(4); F-St(6); Sa-La(5)
Week of April 22:
Su-Wa(5); Tu-Go(5); W-Zi(5); Th-La(4); F-St(6); Sa-Wa(5)
Week of April 29:
Su-Go(4); Tu-Zi(5); W-La(5); Th-Wa(4); F-St(6); Sa-Go(5)
You can see that the four regular starters other than Strasburg all pitch on four or five days rest, and their schedule is quite similar to a traditional five-man rotation. Detwiler, as the swing man, would pitch only twice during the first month, and would move to the bullpen when he isn’t scheduled to pitch.
During the season, I’d also try to conserve Strasburg’s innings by pulling him out early in low leverage situations. For example, after five innings, if the Nats are ahead by three or more runs (or behind by two or more), I’d recommend pulling him early even if he hasn’t reached his full pitch count. That way, I’d save a few innings and allow him to pitch into the post-season if the Nats make it. If the Nats are careful with Strasburg’s innings during his 25 or 26 regular season starts, he should be have enough innings saved to make at least two or three post-season starts.
If the Nats remain in the race in September, I’d start modifying his schedule to line him up to pitch in the most important single game of the post-season—the new wild card game (assuming the Nats reach the post-season as a wild card team). Since this will be a one-game series, it will be critical for the Nats to arrange for their best pitcher to pitch this game. He would then be in position, if the Nats win, to pitch game five of the divisional series, and potentially even a game or two in the league championship series or the World Series.
If the Nats are really serious about going for it all this year, I encourage them to consider a plan like this that would protect Strasburg’s arm while still making him available for the full season and post-season.
It’s year-end summary time, when publishers retread their favorite material from the past year. In that spirit, here’s a look back at this blog’s top 10 posts as determined by you, my dear readers. (I’ll note that a list of my own top 10 favorites would comprise most of the same posts, albeit in different order.)
- A look at 2012 player projections (November 14). It appears that readers love looking at projections.
- Bryce Harper’s eyesight (May 15). For once, I wrote a post that shows up near the top of the search engine results. If I could do that more often, I might have a future for myself in this world-wide-web business.
- Envisioning the 2013 Nationals (Part one – the pitchers) (July 11). With last week’s trade, I guess I need to update the part about Brad Peacock and Tommy Milone being regulars in the 2013 rotation.
- Washington’s last, forgotten World Series championship (October 5). This post, about the 1948 Negro League World Series championship won by Washington’s Homestead Grays, was my favorite post of the year to research and write. I hope that some of you enjoyed reading it.
- Erik Komatsu major league equivalencies (July 30). I did other short pieces on major league equivalencies, so I’m not sure why this one drew the most readers. Maybe because it was read by both Nats and Cardinals fans.
- Fireman extraordinaire (October 2). A statistical tribute to Tyler Clippard‘s excellent performance in 2011.
- What’s the Nationals’ plan for Bryce Harper? (June 19). A bit of speculation.
- My new favorite stat (September 25). I explore the interpretation and uses of “RE24.”
- I’m no lawyer, but something about the new CBA… (November 26). I react to the new collective bargaining agreement’s slotting system for draft picks and restrictions on pay and bonuses going to international players.
- Envisioning the 2013 Nationals (Part two – the position players) (July 15). This post has held up better over time than has the post on pitchers. We still need a center fielder.
I’ll also take this opportunity acknowledge my worst post of the year—the one I’d most like to retract. On May 24, John Lannan was off to a slow start and I wrote, “Is John Lannan getting close to the end of the line?” How was I to know that over his next 14 starts, Lannan would go 6–2, giving up only 2.85 R/9 with an average game score of 55? Fortunately, it looks like only about eight readers actually read the post. Unfortunately, during the last six weeks of the season John seemed to have returned to his early-season funk, giving me some concern for his projected performance going into next season.
Finally, I close this post by wishing the Nationals a successful 2012 season and all of you a happy new year!
I periodically post links to items that, in my opinion, have lasting significance, or that I’d like “to remember.” I haven’t added one of these posts since early September, so some of these links are going to be dated. Here are links from the last few months that I’d like to remember:
- Dave Cameron of Fangraphs did a really nice analysis of the Nats’ newest pitcher, Gio Gonzalez. Although I still don’t like the deal, I’m encouraged to see that several comparable young pitchers have been able to tame their wildness and transform themselves into outstanding pitchers.
- Tom Boswell of The Washington Post takes the Lerners to task for not investing in the team.
- John Sickels of Minor League Ball selects and discusses the Nats’ top
2016 prospects. - Although not written about the Nats per se, this research article by Matt Swartz of The Hardball Times finds that fastball velocity is an important independent factor in projecting pitcher performance, a point with obvious implications for Nats flamethrowers like Henry Rodríguez, Stephen Strasburg, and Drew Storen.
- The most memorable event this off-season, of course, was the kidnapping and dramatic rescue of Wilson Ramos. We’re all grateful that he came out of this safely.
Finally, I usually like to include links to a few video highlights. There are several memorable videos from the last few weeks of the season:
- On September 3 against the Mets, Tommy Milone crushed the first pitch he saw in the majors into the bullpen. It’s too bad that he won’t get to show off his bat in the other league.
- On September 14, again playing the Mets, Rick Ankiel‘s diving catch saved the win and ended the game.
- Here’s another nice Ankiel catch on September 24 against the Braves.
- The next day, the Nats’ home closer, featured several memorable highlights. In the top of the seventh, the Nats ahead 1–0, Henry Rodríguez struck out the side. In the bottom of the inning, Michael Morse hit his 29th home run to give the Nats a 3–0 lead. Then, in the ninth inning Ryan Zimmerman made an amazing play.
This morning I was thinking about doing a post about how boring this off-season had been so far–nothing more interesting going on for the Nats than signing minor league free agents, Rule V draft picks, and claiming guys off waivers (yawn). Then I read Tom Boswell’s stunning column in the Washington Post (more about that later), followed by breaking news of the trade with the Oakland A’s for Gio Gonzalez.
In exchange for Gonzalez, the Nats gave up four of their top prospects, righties Brad Peacock and A.J. Cole, lefty Tommy Milone, and catcher Derek Norris. The A’s also threw in Robert Gilliam, a single-A right-hander who’s apparently no prospect.
I don’t like the deal:
- Gonzalez is not really a top-of-the-rotation pitcher. Probably the best way to assess a player’s abilities right now is to look at his projections for next season. That’s because most projections have already averaged a player’s statistics over recent seasons and taken account of aging, etc. The Bill James projections are currently available at Fangraphs. (I’d prefer to look at two or three sets of projections, but since others like Zips and Marcel aren’t available yet, I’ll stick with the Bill James numbers.) For Gonzalez, James projects the following:
. K/9 BB/9 ERA FIP
Gonzalez 9.0 4.2 3.83 3.94
Compare that projection with those for some true top-of-the-rotation pitchers on our divisional rivals:
Halladay 7.3 1.2 3.03 2.96
Lee 7.5 1.4 3.18 2.99
Hamels 8.4 2.1 3.22 3.50
Hanson 9.0 2.9 3.18 3.39
Beachy 10.6 2.8 3.14 2.83
Johnson 8.2 2.6 3.09 2.92
As they used to say on Sesame Street, one of these lines is not like the others.
- The Nats gave up too much talent. Beyond the Boxscore has a nice graphic showing how the projected WAR over the next three years for the prospects the Nats traded was nearly twice as large as Gonzalez’s projected WAR over the same interval. Yet that actually understates the lopsidedness of this trade, since the Nats are buying four years of control of Gonzalez in exchange for six years of control for each of the four prospects. I think there’s a high probability that either Peacock or Cole will actually prove to be a better pitcher over their six-year period of team control than Gonzalez will be over his remaining four years (and that’s ignoring the additional value provided by Norris and Milone). I think that Norris, Milone, and one of Peacock or Cole would have been a fair exchange, but not both right-handers.
- Even if the exchange of talent were more balanced, it doesn’t make sense for the Nats because the value they’re getting is concentrated in 2012, when the Nats aren’t so likely to contend, whereas the value they’re giving up is concentrated in 2013 and later, when the Nats’ chances are much better. I see two reasons for thinking their odds are better in 2013 or later: first, much of the Nats’ own talent is not fully developed—Rendon will be in the minors next season, and if Harper arrives, it may be later in the season and he’ll be making adjustments to major league pitching. On the other hand, two of their divisional rivals—the Phillies and the Marlins—seem likely to peak in 2012 and face aging rosters thereafter. So while I think the Nats have finally reached the point where they can think about contending in 2012, I think it’s foolish to weaken the team in 2013-15 in order to strengthen the team in 2012.
- The trade removes a lot of talent—especially pitching talent— from our system and doesn’t leave us with many good prospects available for future trades. While it looks like the center field trade isn’t working out this winter, I’d like us to have the flexibility of making a move if a good player becomes available in July. Without the trading chips on board, it makes future trades more difficult.
I said I’d come back to Boswell’s column. First, I’d like to apologize for a comment I made about Boswell in my last post. I really respect the way he took on the Lerners, arguing that ownership’s penurious ways are hurting the team. While we can debate the specific transactions he discussed in his column, I think the broader point is correct. The Nats have consistently spent less on salaries than would be expected for a team serving a market with Washington’s population and income. Other than Jayson Werth, they have never spent big on a free agent.
I’m not asking the Lerners to spend money just to be spending it. If they can emulate the Tampa Bay Rays and win without spending on salaries, more power to them. But Washington isn’t Tampa Bay. If we could consistently field a winning team, there’s no reason Washington’s ticket sales and revenues couldn’t match a team like the Phillies, which lags behind only the Yankees and Red Sox in income. The Lerners lack of spending has been matched by a notable lack of winning. I’d really like to see the owners make the investments that they’re capable of making and that most winning teams need to make.
And the Gonzalez trade really confirms the broad point that Boswell was making. Gonzalez almost certainly isn’t a better pitcher than C.J. Wilson, Yu Darvish, or maybe even Roy Oswalt, but he is cost controlled for the next four years. To acquire Gonzalez, ownership didn’t have to give up much money, but they did give up talent. I’m afraid that decision will come back to bite us in a couple of years.
I’m no lawyer, but something about the new CBA (collective bargaining agreement) seems like it really shouldn’t be legal.
Like I said, I don’t know what the law actually says, so I’m just going by my intuition.
Let me try to explain my concern using an example from another industry. Let’s suppose all the U.S. airlines got together and unilaterally decided they wouldn’t pay any of their pilots more than $100 per hour. I’m pretty sure that would be illegal, though I admit I don’t know which specific law it violates–maybe it’s labor law or antitrust, but I’m pretty sure that companies can’t do that.
On the other, if the airlines got together and bargained with the pilots union and the outcome of the negotiation was an agreement that says no pilot would be paid more than $100 per hour, that seems like it should be legal.* That is, because representatives of the pilots are at the negotiating table and the pilots’ union gives its assent, we would recognize it as a valid agreement. The key idea is that it’s not unilateral, and the pilots have a say in what the limits on wages are going to be.
* I’m aware that in practice in the United States, each airline generally negotiates a separate agreement, and that some airlines are not unionized. But in some industries, union agreements are made collectively with multiple employers, so the basic point remains.
Next suppose the airlines and the pilots get together and they decide that not only should the limit on pilots’ pay be $100 per hour, but also that the flight attendants pay should be no more than $25 per hour and the baggage handlers should be limited to $10 per hour. Furthermore, assume that no flight attendants or baggage handlers were present at the bargaining table. Would this agreement be legal? It seems to me that it wouldn’t be, for the same reasons that the unilateral limit agreement by the airlines wouldn’t have been. The fact that the pilots may have agreed to it would seem to be irrelevant if we’re talking about the pay of flight attendants and baggage handlers.
Now isn’t the CBA essentially the same thing? The teams and the Major League Baseball Players’ Association get together and not only agree on the rules under which MLB players’ salaries will be set, but also on the rules and limits governing the pay and bonuses of U.S. and international minor leaguers. The new rules for the amateur draft are expected essentially to function like a hard slotting system, with very little flexibility to pay more than the recommended amount for each draft slot. Furthermore, the minor leaguers are not represented at the bargaining table–the Players’ Association membership is limited to the 1,200 players who appear on the major league teams’ 40-man rosters. Like I said, I’m not lawyer, but it’s hard for me to believe that such an agreement could be legal.
Now maybe baseball gets away with this because of its antitrust exemption. To tell the truth, I’m not sure what the antitrust exemption does for baseball. In most respects, it seems to operate about the same as the other major professional sports that don’t claim such an exemption—maybe it’s its operations with the minor leagues that are protected by the exemption.
Or maybe MLB just figures that no one is going to challenge them in the courts. Who would? Certainly not some 17-year Dominican kid who sees baseball as his only ticket out of poverty. Probably not the 19-to-22 year-old draft-eligible American kid who dreams of major league glory either. None of them would want to rock the boat. And even though most minor league players are terribly exploited, they aren’t the type of workers who are likely to organize a union. So maybe the CBA is illegal, but MLB has decided that it can get away with it because no one will challenge it.
How much difference will the CBA really make? The reactions are all over the map. Brien at It’s About the Money describes it as
“a truly terrible deal, basically the worst case scenario and then some. It’s a horrible deal for amateur players, and will certainly push a large amount of them to college, and a fairly substantial number of young athletes to other sports altogether.”
At the other extreme is Tom Boswell of The Washington Post (have you noticed how he’s seeming more and more like a PR flak for the Nationals and MLB lately?), who writes that the CBA
“is so monumentally symbolic for the sport, and such a shock to our cynical systems, that millions of fans, accustomed to 35 years of labor warfare or steroid disgrace, may suffer from the same delighted whiplash. We hardly know how to cope with optimism in such unaccustomed quantities.”
For a more balanced discussion, we can read Rob Neyer of Baseball Nation:
” I think it’s far too early for say exactly what effect the new rules about amateurs will have on competitive balance and quality of play, generally.
My guess, though? Whether positive or negative, the overall impact will be small enough that it’s difficult to measure.”
My view is similar. Looking specifically at the Nationals’ last couple of drafts, what players were we able to sign that we probably wouldn’t have signed with the new rules? My guess is that there were really only two—A.J. Cole in 2010 and Matt Purke this year—who wouldn’t have signed without extra money. Yes, the Nats have signed a lot of other players over slot—Stephen Strasburg, Bryce Harper, Sammy Solis, Robbie Ray, Anthony Rendon, Alex Meyer, and Brian Goodwin—but my sense is that if the new rules had been in effect, most of those guys would have gone ahead and signed and taken less money. So, while there’s some effect on the team, it’s mixed (the team loses out on a couple of prospects, but also saves quite a bit of money). Furthermore, because the new rules create hard expectations about bonuses for each draft slot, disasters like the failure to sign Aaron Crow in 2008 become much less likely.
The other thing to think about with the new rules is that, like other restrictions on mutually beneficial contracts, there will be efforts to evade the restrictions that will lead to unintended consequences. We can sort of guess what they might be. Will teams start buying cars and condos for their prized prospects? Will the kid (or the kid’s parents) get cushy off-season “jobs” with partners of the team? We can look at some of the shenanigans that go in the NCAA and get a sense of what happens when an external authority tries to prohibit payments for talent.
So I don’t like the new CBA limits on amateur and international contracts—they basically are intended to transfer income from relatively poor minor leaguers to rich owners and MLB players—but I think they will be evaded and have a relatively small effect on the talent available to baseball as a whole or to the Nationals, specifically, as a team.
Other parts of the agreement are also a mixed bag. There will be more interleague play (probably inevitable) and another pair of wild card teams. Contrary to some suggestions, it will not reduce the probability of a wild card team winning the World Series—yes, the probability of any individual wild card team winning will be only half as large, but there will be twice as many wild card teams competing, so the probability of one of them winning the championship won’t be perceptibly different. There will be expanded drug testing and a ban on smokeless tobacco, which I count as pluses. But on the whole, the changes seem fairly modest and unlikely to upset the fortunes of the rich and powerful who run the game.
It’s always fun to look at projections for how players will do next season. Any individual projection is, of course, very likely to be wrong, but a group of player projections will often get the story generally right. Fangraphs has posted the 2012 Bill James Handbook Projections.* I’m going to run through them for the Nats players, adding a little commentary where appropriate. I think they provide an interesting view of the potential strengths of our current roster, along with warnings about potential risks ahead.
For position players, I’ll give the following lines of actual or projected statistics:
Games/Plate appearances — Average / On-base percentage / Slugging — wOBA (weighted on-base average)
For pitchers, I’ll just report the actual and projected:
Innings Pitched — ERA / FIP (fielding-independent pitching)
* While I used to faithfully buy the Bill James Handbook every winter, I have to admit I quit buying them two or three seasons ago. When my better half asked me to clean out the overcrowded bookshelf, I decided that books filled with statistics that I can mostly find online were among the easier choices to dispose of.
I’ll start with the players who are projected to decline relative to 2011, then move on to players who are projected to improve. In each case I’ll report the player’s 2011 actual line, the Bill James 2012 projection, and then add a brief comment.
Projected declines
Michael Morse
2011 Actual: 146/575 — .303/.360/.550 — .387
2012 Bill James: 140/553 — .291/.347/.505 — .369
Following a career year at age 29, a drop-off in performance shouldn’t be surprise anyone. My own guess is that he’ll lose a little more than projected in average, but do a little better in isolated power.
Wilson Ramos
2011 Actual: 113/435 — .267/.334/.445 — .332
2012 Bill James: 113/425 — .267/.317/.431 — .321
This season, Ramos exceeded his minor league projections, so I assume that’s the reason for projecting a slight sophomore slump.
John Lannan
2011 Actual: 184.2 — 3.70/4.28
2012 Bill James: 180 — 4.40/4.49
Ouch! I’ll admit that I’m part of the camp that’s been skeptical about Lannan’s future as a pitcher, and this projection is certainly consistent with that view. I’ll also point out that while Lannan was overall a league-average pitcher for this season, his performance was quite inconsistent. From May 27 to August 17, he pitched 14 games, going 6–2 with an average game score of 55 and allowing 2.85 R/9. But during the periods before May 27 and after August 17, he performed pretty poorly, pitching 19 games with a 4–11 record and allowing 5.71 R/9.
Ross Detwiler
2011 Actual: 66 — 3.00/4.21
2012 Bill James: 109 — 4.46/3.87
Ouch again! I guess his relatively unimpressive AAA stats from last season affected this projection.
Jordan Zimmermann
2011 Actual: 161.1 — 3.18/3.16
2012 Bill James: 175 — 3.39/3.51
As I’ve pointed out a couple of times, JZimm has had some good luck this season with his home run rates and some regression is appropriate.
Projected improvements
Ryan Zimmerman
2011 Actual: 101/440 — .289/.355/.443 — .347
2012 Bill James: 139/596 — .291/.363/.486 — .366
This projection has his power returning, but not quite to the level it had reached in 2009/2010 (though that’s probably mainly a reflection of the league-wide drop in offense).
Jayson Werth
2011 Actual: 150/649 — .232/.330/.389 — .323
2012 Bill James: 146/579 — .259/.360/.451 — .354
Again, a nice bounce back, though not a return to the levels he reached in 2008/2010. In addition to the league-wide decline in offense, he’s also dealing with a less hitter-friendly ball park and the effects of age.
Adam LaRoche
2011 Actual: 43/177 — .172/.288/.258 — .258
2012 Bill James: 87/293 — .255/.333/.445 — .341
The uncertainty in his return from injury seems to be exhibited more by reduced projected playing time than by a reduction in his rate statistics.
Danny Espinosa
2011 Actual: 158/658 — .236/.323/.414 — .325
2012 Bill James: 158/623 — .248/.329/.445 — .330
Since his 2011 statistics were generally consistent with his previous minor league stats, his 2012 projection shows a modest improvement.
Ian Desmond
2011 Actual: 154/639 — .253/.298/.358 — .290
2012 Bill James: 143/561 — .268/.317/.394 — .312
If he can hit this projection, that should be enough for him to retain his roster spot.
Roger Bernadina
2011 Actual: 91/337 — .243/.301/.362 — .303
2012 Bill James: 96/292 — .261/.327/.399 — .323
It would be an improvement, but not enough to justify a promotion to a regular.
Chien-Ming Wang
2011 Actual: 62.1 — 4.04/4.57
2012 Bill James: 119 — 3.78/3.80
Obviously, a risky projection.
Fangraphs didn’t show a projection for Stephen Strasburg (I’m not sure whether the Bill James Handbook did one), and I’ll skip the projections for relief pitchers, who are notoriously hard to project. Overall, the message seems to be that while Nationals’ hitting is likely to improve, the starting pitching (other than Strasburg and possibly Wang) is likely to drop off. So Mike Rizzo’s search for a starting pitcher seems justified.
I’ll end by presenting, without comment, the projections for a few players who have been mentioned as possible targets in free agency or trades:
Potential free agent or trade acquisitions
B.J. Upton – 2012 Bill James: 153/637 — .251/.344/.424 — .340
C.J. Wilson – 2012 Bill James: 215 — 3.31/3.41
Roy Oswalt – 2012 Bill James: 171 — 3.47/3.52
Mark Buehrle – 2012 Bill James: 208 — 3.98/4.08
Update: November 15, 2011
It turns out I missed the most remarkable of the Nats’ Bill James Handbook projections (hat tip: Carson Cistulli of fangraphs.com). When I saw that projections weren’t available for either Strasburg or Brad Peacock, I didn’t bother checking projections for other players who didn’t have much major league experience, so I missed this shocker:
Tom Milone
2011 Actual: 26 — 3.81/3.56
2012 Bill James: 52 — 3.29/2.70
The FIP is based on a projection of 8.3 K/9 and 1.2 BB/9. Cistulli wrote, “Whatever methodology James’s projections use, it appears convinced that Milone is more than a soft-tossing left-hander.” I can sort of understand how James and his staff came up with those numbers based on his AAA stats, but after watching Milone pitch in September, I’d be shocked if he met these projections.
The hot stove league kicked off this week with the Nats signing Chien-Ming Wang to a one-year, $4 million contract. While the signing was widely anticipated, it is likely to have effects in both short-term, impacting the plans for the Nats’ 2012 starting rotation, and in the longer-term, where it may enhance the team’s ability to recruit international talent.
Mike Axisa of FanGraphs views the contract as a bit of an overpay. I, on the other hand, think the price was reasonable. Wang’s projected performance for next season obviously has a large variance. At the high end, the Nats are hoping for a 2.5 to 3.0 WAR performance, which would be consistent with his performance over eight of his last nine starts in 2011. At the low end, however, he is reinjured or fails to establish consistent command and doesn’t make it through the season. A mean projection for 2012 is probably about one WAR, for which $4 million isn’t unreasonable in view of the potential upside.
How will Wang’s signing affect the plans for the Nats’ starting rotation? At the moment, the opening day rotation appears to be shaping up as Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, John Lannan, Wang, and Ross Detwiler, with Tom Milone and Brad Peacock (who have options) returning to the minors. At least in Peacock’s case, I think the time in the minors can be helpful, since he needs to work on developing another pitch.
Of course, as Mike Rizzo has emphasized, the team really needs to have eight or nine starting pitchers available (especially with Strasburg facing an innings limit), so it’s quite likely that we’ll see Milone and Peacock later in the season. Furthermore, Rizzo continues to pursue a top-of-the-rotation starter. On this point, I fully agree with Rizzo. While our pitching prospects have impressive potential, our current rotation remains weak in comparison with those of our main competitors—Philadelphia and Atlanta.
After earlier speculation about the Nats pursuing C.J. Wilson and Yu Darvish, the talk now seems to be focusing on Mark Buerhle. Rob Neyer of Baseball Nation concludes that Buerhle is the second best free agent pitcher on the market. I think pursuing Buerhle rather than Wilson makes sense—Buerhle will probably require a three-year commitment, while Wilson will probably demand at least a five-year contract, which just seems too risky. I’d still like to see the Nats take a run at Darvish, but Buerhle would be a good acquisition who would make the Nats’ rotation competitive with any team except for Philadelphia.
Of course, if Rizzo succeeds in signing a top-of-the-rotation starter, Detwiler, who is out of options, will likely be pushed into a long-relief role. I think that’s somewhat unfortunate, since I view Detwiler as likely to have a better season than either Lannan or Wang. And if Detwiler is destined for the bullpen, that probably implies that Tom Gorzelanny would be non-tendered. I’d sort of hate to see Gorzelanny go, since I thought he pitched pretty well overall with the exception of some bad luck on his home runs per fly ball rate. Another possibility, of course, is that Detwiler would be used as trade bait in Rizzo’s effort to land a center fielder. That could be a sensible strategy for the Nats, since Detwiler has established some trade value and seems replaceable by other prospects in the pipeline, like Milone and Sammy Solis.
Another aspect of Wang’s signing perhaps hasn’t received as much attention. Watching the Taiwan All-Star series, I’ve been impressed by what a major celebrity Wang is in his home country. I learned that the Nats games he pitches are broadcast there, which has the side effect of turning Nats players like Michael Morse into Taiwanese celebrities.
I hope that the Nationals take advantage of Wang’s celebrity to expand their scouting and recruitment efforts in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. I can foresee such an effort yielding dividends long after Wang’s contract is over. In addition, an expanded the scouting operation in Taiwan would position the Nats to eventually move into China as that country’s baseball program advances. At some point in the next 25 years, I expect China to embrace baseball, and when they do so, it will have a huge impact on international baseball. If our team can develop a scouting and recruitment system that’s comfortable with Chinese culture, we could have a leg up on an enormous source of talent.
The Nationals lost utility player Brian Bixler after the Houston Astros claimed him off waivers, the Astros announced this afternoon.Bixler, 29, started the season with Class AAA Syracuse. He appeared in 79 games for the Nationals and hit .205/.267/.265 in 94 plate appearances. The Nationals valued him for his blazing speed and versatility, as he played every position this season except catcher, pitcher and second base.
One of the great things about the old Bill James Baseball Abstracts was seeing how he developed sophisticatedly simple methods for organizing data. For example, for a study of rookies, he organized players into six buckets. “Fives” were the all-time greats, players like Aaron and Cobb. “Fours” were the major stars, players like Whitey Ford and Bob Gibson. “Threes” were players who could be described as marginal Hall of Fame candidates, players like Ron Guidry, Dick Groat, and Chick Hafey. “Twos” were the “very good ballplayers/minor stars,” and “Ones” were merely “good ballplayers.” Of course James set statistical criteria for each bucket – to qualify as a “One,” for example, a player had to play 1100 games or have at least one big season, scoring or driving in 100 runs or hitting 30 home runs. A pitcher might qualify by winning 90 games or saving 140.
Of course the great majority of major league players in history, more than 80%, were in his final bucket—the players who didn’t even qualify as “Ones.” James described them:
Though some of them do turn in two or three good seasons… these are players who either have limited ability or “fail to reach their potential,” passing out of the game leaving only a scattered memory. Their personal accomplishments, though significant in isolation, are of such a magnitude that their exclusion is not deemed to damage an evaluation of the rookie crop of which they are a part.
Brian Bixler is, of course, a member of this large group. I’m not a person who especially enjoys memorizing trivia, and I tend to forget most players of this type. In Brian’s case, however, I think I’d like to remember this catch.
On October 5, 1948—63 years ago—Washington won its last World Series. The championship was not won by the Senators, who lost 97 games and finished seventh in the American League. It was Washington’s other baseball team, the Homestead Grays, who won their third Negro League World Series championship in six years in what turned out to be the last such Series ever played. The Grays won four games to one, clinching the victory with with a dramatic extra-inning win that remains shrouded in mystery.
Both the Grays and their opponents, the Birmingham Black Barons, featured future Hall of Famers, but they couldn’t have been more different. The Grays’ star was their 41-year old veteran first baseman, Buck Leonard, then in his 15th season with the Grays and one of the most respected hitters in Negro league history. In contrast, the Black Barons’ future Hall of Famer was a teenager who dazzled observers with his hitting, fielding, running and throwing and who would ultimately be recognized as one of the greatest players of all time, Willie Mays.
In an earlier article I described how the Grays won the Negro National League pennant, beating Baltimore in the championship series with the deciding game tainted by controversy. The Negro leagues were in deep distress, as both the black fans and press had shifted their attention to the newly integrated major leagues. Attendance at Grays home games at Griffith Stadium, which had averaged nearly 11,000 per game before integration, dropped to 2,000 per game by the late summer of 1948.
The first game of the World Series was played in Kansas City on Sunday, September 26, where the Black Barons had just won the Negro American League championship over the Kansas City Monarchs.* The Grays took a 3–1 lead in the bottom of the second when Willie Pope tripled to score two runs and was then driven home on a double by Luis Márquez. The Black Barons narrowed the score to 3–2 in the top of the eighth when Piper Davis doubled with two on. The first runner scored, but when Pepper Bassett tried to score from first, Grays right fielder Bob Thurman’s throw nailed him at the plate. The Grays didn’t allow any additional runs and took a 1–0 lead.
* It wasn’t unusual for Negro League World Series games to be played in other cities; most teams did not control their own ballparks and leased their parks, when they were available, from white major or minor league teams.
Game 2 took place Wednesday in Birmingham. The Black Barons took a 2–0 lead into the sixth, when the Grays loaded the bases with one out. Wilmer Fields hit a ground ball forcing the runner at second, but Birmingham shortstop Artie Wilson wasn’t able to turn the double play, allowing Márquez to score from third. Then Eudie Napier singled, scoring Luke Easter and tying the game. Pope was the next batter and he hit a three-run homer, giving the Grays a 5–2 lead. The Black Barons were able to score only one more run in the ninth and fell behind two games to none.
Game 3 was played the next day, and those in attendance got a glimpse of the future of Willie Mays. In the fourth inning Thurman launched a long fly to center, which Mays was able to chase down at the wall. In the sixth, Mays threw out Leonard attempting to go from first to third on a single. Then, in the ninth with the score tied 3–3 and a runner on second, Mays smoked a ball up the middle for a walk-off single and narrowed the Grays’ lead to one game.
Game 4 was played on Sunday, October 3, in New Orleans. The Grays rolled over the Black Barons 14–1 behind the pitching of Fields and a grand slam hit by Easter.
The teams returned to Birmingham for Game 5 on October 5. From a line score, it looks like it must have been an exciting game. Homestead scored two in the first; Birmingham tied it in the fourth and took a 4–2 lead in the fifth; Homestead came back with three runs in the sixth; Birmingham scored two in the eighth to retake the lead 6–5; and Homestead tied it 6–6 in the top of the ninth. The Grays finally put the game away with four runs in the tenth inning, ending the final Negro League World Series game ever played.
Unfortunately, I really can’t say very much about what happened other than the scoring because it appears all of the reporters were in Boston preparing to cover the major league World Series between the Boston Braves and the Cleveland Indians. The Indians featured Larry Doby and Satchel Paige, two of only four black players then playing in the majors (along with Jackie Robinson and Roy Campanella of the Brooklyn Dodgers), so the appearance of Doby and Paige in the World Series caught the full attention of the black press.
The article in the Baltimore Afro American is only seven sentences and appears to have been written by someone who hadn’t actually seen the game. John Klima wrote a book, Willie’s Boys, on Mays and the Black Barons, and it appears he wasn’t successful in finding a newspaper account either. He writes, “Detailed were scant in papers around the country, as black newspapers dedicated their space to the major league World Series…”
While the Washington Homestead Grays were the last Negro League World Series champions, the victory was bittersweet. After the season ended, the Negro National League folded. Several of the teams also folded, though three teams were absorbed into the Negro American League, which soldiered on as an unofficial “minor” league for another decade. The Grays decided to become independent and go back to barnstorming, lasting two more seasons before folding in late 1950.
Three of the Grays players eventually made it to the majors: Luke Easter, Bob Thurman, and Luis Márquez. Wilmer Fields received offers from major league teams but preferred to play in Latin America. Buck Leonard was too old to draw interest from major league teams, but he could still hit and continued to play for the Grays through 1950, and then in the Mexican League from 1951 to 1953 (ages 43 to 45), where he averaged .326 and slugged .515.
Addendum – August 3, 2017.
I’m happy to report that there’s a lot more information available about this series, thanks to a new book from SABR (Society for American Baseball Research), Bittersweet Goodbye: The Black Barons, the Grays, and the 1948 Negro League World Series. The E-book is free for SABR members and inexpensive for non-members, and even the hardcopy is quite affordable. The book includes not only more detailed information than I was able to find about the series and the league championship series leading up to it, but also detailed biographies of the members of both teams. Many researchers contributed to this fine book. So if you’re interested in this relatively obscure part of American baseball history, I recommend that you get the book
References
I relied heavily on the account of the World Series provided by John Klima, Willie’s Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, the Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball Legend, John Wiley & Sons, 2009, supplemented by contemporary newspaper articles from the Baltimore Afro American, which are available from Google News Archives.
For general background on the Homestead Grays during their Washington years, see Brad Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators: The Untold Story of the Homestead Grays and the Integration of Baseball, Contemporary Books, 2003.
Just one Nationals player appears among the major league leaders for most of the major statistical categories for his position, and his initials aren’t MM, RZ, JZ, or DE. Looking over the leaderboards for relievers at Fangraphs helped me appreciate what an extraordinary season Tyler Clippard has had:
- He ranked third among major league relievers in innings pitched with 88-1/3.
- Ranked seventh in ERA with 1.83 (the leader was Eric O’Flaherty).
- Led the majors in holds with 38.
- Ranked second in strikeouts with 104 (the leader was Craig Kimbrel with 127).
- Ranked third in WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) with .84 (the leader was Koji Uehara).
- Ranked fourth in opponents’ batting average with .158 (the leader was Antonio Bastardo).
- Ranked tenth in K% with 31.6%.
- Ranked fifth in infield fly balls induced with 19.0%.
- Led the majors in win probability added with 5.01.
- Ranked third in RE24, a measure of contribution to runs prevented that is superior in many ways to ERA, with 26.56 (the leader was David Robertson).
- Ranked second in REW, a measure of wins above average based on expected runs, with 2.90 (the leader was David Robertson).
- Ranked third in shutdowns with 40 (the leader was Jonny Venters).
- Ranked third in “Clutch” (a measure of how much better or worse than normal a player does in high leverage situations) with 1.58.
- The value of his changeup was rated third in the majors (the leader was Ryan Madson), and the value of his fastball was rated 11th (the leader was David Robertson).
- He ranked fifth in percentage of strikes that were swung at and missed with 16.1% (the leader was Jonathan Papelbon).
Because he isn’t a closer, Clippard’s name seldom comes up in discussions of the game’s best relievers. However, we Nats fans can appreciate what a valuable pitcher he’s been this season.
Nats Noodles 