On June 22, the Nats reached .500. The next morning I posted an item on their odds of reaching the playoffs.* According to coolstandings.com, their odds of reaching the playoffs then stood at 18.5%.
* With a bigger story breaking later that day, it’s not surprising that my post didn’t get much attention.
Since then, the team has maintained its .500 pace, going 8–8. One might think that their playoff odds should be about the same. In fact, according to the same site, they’ve plummeted to 5.3%.
It’s not hard to see what happened. The morning of June 23, Washington was 37–37, five games behind Atlanta (43–33) in the wild-card race. Since then, the Nats continued to play .500 ball, while the Braves have gone 10–4, with their lead over the Nats in the wild-card race widening to eight games.
Looking ahead, if the Braves were to cool off, the Nats would still have to hope that none of the other teams that are currently ahead of them (the D’backs, Pirates, Cardinals and Mets) get hot in their place. Over the last three seasons, the NL wild-card winner has averaged 91 wins. For the Nats, reaching that target would require them to go 46–26 the rest of the way—not impossible, but obviously very unlikely.
For a team that’s behind in a wild-card race, staying in the race doesn’t mean staying the same, it means getting a lot better. Staying the same means falling further behind.
What’s true for a pennant race is even more true for the more important, longer run race that the Nationals are engaged in—the race to become a truly competitive franchise in the National League East. The Nationals have some great prospects, but so do the Phillies and, especially, the Braves. Improving the franchise means continuing to sign and develop great prospects, making good trades, and making smart decisions about signing free agents.
As we approach the trading season, it’s important that Mike Rizzo and company not be distracted by the small chance of a wild-card run this season. They instead should be focused on the more important goal of making this a truly competitive franchise within the next two or three years. Where worthwhile value can be obtained in return, we should be trading the players who aren’t necessarily part of that future, players like Jason Marquis, Laynce Nix, and Sean Burnett. We want to build a team that can not only be competitive, but can sustain that status for multiple seasons. That requires adding good prospects. While our farm system has improved, it’s not yet an elite one.
In my next post, I’ll share some thoughts about my vision for the team’s future.
I spent some time at baseball-reference.com looking at the Nationals’ team batting and pitching splits. Trying to focus on the splits that are relevant to evaluating the team’s strengths and weaknesses, here are ten things that I learned:
1. The Nats have hit better than average at two positions—second base and left field.
Nats second basemen (96% Danny Espinosa) rank fifth among major league teams and second in the NL (behind only Milwaukee) with an OPS of .777, which compares to the major league average for second basemen of .688.
Nats left fielders rank fourth in the majors and third in the NL (behind St. Louis and Milwaukee) with an OPS of .803, which compares to the Major League Baseball average for left fielders of .721. Obviously, this mostly comes from Laynce Nix, with his OPS of .928 while playing LF. Somewhat surprisingly, Jerry Hairston, Jr. also contributed to this split with an OPS of 1.055 in his 40 plate appearances as a left fielder.
2. The Nats first basemen have been average in hitting. The team has had below-average hitting at the other positions, with their worst performance coming at shortstop.
Nationals shortstops (90% Ian Desmond) rank 28th of the 30 teams in MLB and 15th in the NL (ahead of only Cincinnati) with an OPS of .576, which compares to the MLB average for shortstops of .693. Our catchers rank 18th, first basemen 14th, third basemen 24th, center fielders 27th, and right fielders 23rd.
3. Nats pitchers, when hitting, have been below average.
Our pitchers rank 13th in the NL in hitting with an OPS of .278, which compares to the MLB average for pitchers of .334. This one actually surprised me, since three of our starters—Liván Hernández, Jason Marquis, and Jordan Zimmermann—are pretty good hitters. The problem is that our southpaw pitchers—John Lannan and Tom Gorzelanny—have been awful; they are hitless in 51 combined at bats.
4. Our leadoff hitters have been atrocious.
Nats leadoff hitters have been by far the worst in MLB, with an OBP of .267 (the next worst is Oakland with .297) and an OPS of .570 (the next worst are the White Sox with .612). In comparison, the average MLB leadoff hitter has an OBP of .328 and OPS of .718. Literally everyone that the Nats have tried leading off has been awful there—Jayson Werth’s OPS in the leadoff spot is .587, Roger Bernadina’s is .585, Espinosa’s is .579, and Desmond’s is .512.
A perhaps even more amazingly awful split is that the Nats’ first batter in the game has an OBP of .188 and an OPS of .405—both statistics easily the worst in baseball, far below the MLB averages of .317 and .699. Given the Nats’ leadoff woes, it’s not surprising that they have scored only 28 runs in the first inning (tied for 26th among MLB teams).
5. The Nats have also been below average in production from the # 2, 3, and 4 spots in the batting order.
Our # 2 hitters (most often, Desmond) have an OPS of .620, ranking 25th. Our # 3 hitters (most often, Werth) have an OPS of .716, ranking 21st. Our # 4 cleanup hitters (a mix of Adam LaRoche, Nix, and Michael Morse) have an OPS of .705, ranking 24th.
6. The Nats have gotten above-average production from their # 5, 6, and 7 hitters.
Our # 5 hitters (mostly Morse and Wilson Ramos) have an OPS of .777, which ranks 11th. Our # 6 hitters (most often Espinosa) have an OPS of .798, ranking sixth. Our # 7 hitters (a mix of Hairston, Iván Rodríguez, Ramos and Espinosa) have an OPS of .759, ranking third. The Nats have scored 42 runs in the second inning, ranking ninth.
7. Nats batters have hit well in high leverage situations.
In situations with a leverage index above 1.5 (these represent about 20% of all plate appearances and generally occur in the late innings of close games, especially with runners on base) the Nats’ OPS is .742, well above the MLB average of .711 and ranking seventh among MLB teams. The Nats have especially raked in extra innings, where they have an OPS .984 (ranking second, behind only the Dodgers).
8. The Nats have hit well against power pitchers.
Their OPS against power pitchers (pitchers who are among the top third in strikeouts plus walks) is .696, which ranks ninth and compares to the MLB average of .667. In view of the Nats’ proclivity to strike out, I found this split to be a bit surprising, but the extra Ks seem to have been counterbalanced by their home run abilities.
9. If the other team hits it on the ground, they’re probably out.
The Nats infielders have converted 79.0% of ground balls to outs—second best in the majors (behind only Seattle)—which compares to 76.8% for the average major league team. Their opponents’ OPS on ground balls in play is just .434, compared to the MLB average of .484.
10. Nats pitching in high leverage situations has been exceptional.
The Nats have held opposing hitters to a .640 OPS in high leverage plate appearances, which ranks seventh best in the majors and compares to an MLB average of .711. The Nats pitchers have held opposing hitters to a .579 OPS in the ninth inning, compared to an MLB average of .667, and to a .656 OPS in extra-inning games, compared to an MLB average of .741.
Except where noted, all statistics are for the month of June only.
Record:
17–10 (.630) for June – ending the month at 40–41 (.494) for the season.
Pythagorean Record:
16–11 (3.78 R/G – 3.11 RA/G). The Nats’ record in one-run games this month was 8-3.
MVP for June:
Jordan Zimmermann (3-1, 0.85 ERA, 6 G, 42-1/3 IP, 5.7 K/9, 1.5 BB/9, 0.2 HR/9, 2.61 FIP, 3.61 xFIP, 6 of 6 quality starts, 2.1 rWAR, 1.2 fWAR).
Most valuable position player:
Danny Espinosa (.274/.345/.472, 27 G, 119 PA, 5 HR, 13 R, 15 RBI, 129 wRC+, 1.2 fWAR). As was the case in May, there’s strong competition from Michael Morse (.299/.375/.607, 170 wRC+, 1.2 fWAR), but as was the case last month, I’ll give the nod to Danny’s defense, baserunning, and clutch hitting.
Most valuable relief pitcher:
Tyler Clippard (1–0, 1.84 ERA, 12 G, 14-2/3 IP, 12.9 SO/9, 2.45 BB/9, 1.8 HR/9, 0.61 WHIP, 3.56 FIP, 2.55 xFIP, 8 shutdowns, 1 meltdown).
Best start this month:
Liván Hernández (June 15, 10–0 win over St. Louis at home, 9 inning complete game shutout, 3 H, 0 BB, 6 SO, Game score of 87). As measured by the game score metric, Livo’s masterpiece was the best start by a Nats pitcher in the last five years.
Worst start:
Yunesky Maya (June 14, 8–6 win over St. Louis at home, 4-2/3 IP, 9 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 2 BB, 2 SO, 2 HR, Game score of 22). Although Maya was battered in his last start before being sent back down to Syracuse, the Nats’ bats and bullpen were still able to salvage a win.
Best shutdown:
Tyler Clippard (June 5, 9–4 win over Diamondbacks in Arizona). Clip came into the game after Jason Marquis had been ejected for hitting Justin Upton with a pitch. It was the bottom of the sixth, the Nats held a 1–0 lead, and there were runners on first and second with one out. Clippard proceeded to retire seven batters in a row, six of them by strikeouts, before giving up a one-run home run to Kelly Johnson and leaving with a 4–1 lead and two outs in the bottom of the eighth (WPA of .269).
Worst meltdown:
Drew Storen (June 5, 9–4 win over Diamondbacks in Arizona). Yes, it’s the same game! Storen relieved Clippard in the bottom of the eighth with a 4–1 lead, two outs, and the bases empty. He got the final out, but then came back in the bottom of the ninth and couldn’t get anyone out. After giving up two singles and two walks, he was pulled with the bases loaded, no outs, and a score of 4–2 (WPA of –.457). Todd Coffey allowed a sacrifice fly and Sean Burnett allowed the tying run to score on a fielder’s choice before getting the third out and sending the game to extra innings. The Nats came back with a big 11th inning that culminated with a Morse grand slam.
Clutch hit:
Wilson Ramos (June 21, 6–5 win over Seattle at home). They don’t get more clutch than this one. Bottom of the ninth, two outs, runners on first and second, the Nats down 5–3, and Ramos belted a walk-off homer (WPA of .913).
Choke:
Wilson Ramos (June 28, 11–5 loss to the Angels in Anaheim). With the bases loaded and one out in the top of the seventh, the Nats trailing 6 to 5, Ramos grounded into a double play (WPA of –.289).
Likely to cool off:
Jordan Zimmermann – While he’s been legitimately outstanding, his batting average on balls in play of .253 and 0.21 HR/9 during June suggest he’s also been a bit lucky.
Likely to warm up:
Jayson Werth – Batting average on balls in play of .185 for June won’t persist.
Bryce Harper watch:
Bothered by a thumb injury, in 19 games for the Class A Hagerstown Suns, Bryce Harper hit .258/.402/.439 with 3 home runs.
This date will live in Nationals infamy:
June 23 – With the Nats moving above .500 for the first time in six years, winning their 11th of 12 games with a walk-off sacrifice fly, manager Jim Riggleman stunned the baseball community with his announcement that he was “too old to be disrepected.” Mike Rizzo respectfully accepted his resignation.
For Jim Riggleman, yesterday’s decision to resign as manager was life changing. He certainly will never manage again, and any future employment in Major League Baseball is doubtful. But my attitude is that it’s his life, he has the right to choose how to live it, and he will bear the consequences of his own decisions.
For the Nationals, on the other hand, I think much of the angst and even anger is misplaced. There are few jobs on a baseball team with as many qualified candidates waiting in the wings as manager. And there’s little evidence that a manager makes that much difference to a team. An analogy is a utility infielder—sure, they sometimes can make a difference. A good utility infielder may add a win, while a bad one may cost you a win. But if you need to replace one, there’s always an ample supply. And it’s well nigh impossible to figure out ahead of time which ones will be good and which ones won’t work out.
My bigger concern is what this episode may be telling us about Mike Rizzo. There’s a lot I like about Rizzo. He’s a builder. He’s developed a plan for the team, and he appears to be sticking with it tenaciously. If a trade or a free agent signing doesn’t fit into his plan, he’s not going to bite and doesn’t get distracted.
The flip side is that while tenacity can be a virtue in executing a plan, it can turn into stubbornness when circumstances change and the plan needs to be modified. In history, great builders have sometimes also presided over great disasters that occurred when they were unable to adapt their plans.
A more immediate concern is that yesterday’s events suggest that Rizzo has problems with communication, and especially with listening to others. Even before yesterday’s events, I’d seen news stories in which executives from other teams have complained that Rizzo isn’t good at the give-and-take that comes with trade negotiations—that he tends to come in with take-it-or-leave-it offers and not listen to counteroffers.
For someone like Riggleman to depart in such a confrontational manner expresses a great deal of frustration. Riggleman says he wanted a meeting with Rizzo to discuss his contract status and Rizzo refused. I can understand how frustrating it must have been for Riggleman to want to be heard by his boss and not to be given the opportunity. Rizzo should have been willing to meet with him and hear his case. If Rizzo’s hesitancy to renew the contract was based on concerns about Riggleman’s performance, he should have been upfront about it. Somehow, I think Jim would have been less frustrated if he’d at least been given a chance to be heard.
Looking forward, Rizzo will need to engage in other negotiations that will be hold much more significance to the future of the franchise. Will he be willing to listen to Stephen Strasburg’s concerns? Will he be willing to modify his timetable for negotiations if Ryan Zimmerman doesn’t want to wait for Rizzo’s timetable? Will he have the patience to deal with Bryce Harper’s ego? Unfortunately, Rizzo’s inability to handle Riggleman’s contract issues without offending his manager doesn’t augur well for his future negotiations with star players like Zimmerman, Strasburg, and Harper.
With the Nationals reaching .500 last night, several writers have noted that we’re only five games behind in the wild card race. (Of course, at this point in the season, being within five games in the wild card race is hardly a mark of distinction—10 of the 16 NL teams are within five games of the lead in either their divisional or the wild card race.)
I thought I’d take a peak at the playoff odds. First, I checked out coolstandings.com. The site reports that the Nats have an 18.5% chance of making the playoffs—a 5.5% chance of winning the division and 13.0% chance of winning the wild card. Those odds sound mighty good.
Then I remembered that Baseball Prospectus also posts playoff odds. The story is dramatically different on that site—the Nats’ chances of reaching the playoffs are only 0.6%—0.1% for the divisional title and 0.4% for the wild card.
How could the odds of the same event be so different on these two sites? Obviously, the two sites make very different projections for the rest of the season. On coolstandings.com, the team’s expected W-L record was 83.6–78.4, while on Baseball Prospectus it was 75.8–86.2. coolstandings.com expects the Nats to win at a .530 clip for the rest of the season, while Baseball Prospectus expects a .441 winning percentage.
Details on how the two sites construct their forecasts are sketchy, but coolstandings appears to rely mostly on the team’s year-to-date runs scored and runs allowed, whereas Baseball Prospectus says that its odds are based on depth charts at the beginning of the season, which are supplemented by the team’s actual performance as the season goes along. Apparently, the BP depth charts really don’t like the Nationals.
It’s disconcerting to see two such sophisticated sites presenting such disparate odds. It really isn’t clear to me which one is more nearly correct. I imagine that the truth is somewhere in the middle, but with such a wide range, that isn’t much help.
- Steven of FJB on the Nationals’ excellent timing on signing Adam Dunn, then letting him go.
- Derek Carty of Baseball Prospectus tells us how many observations it takes for a baseball statistic’s signal to outweigh its noise.
- Reed MacPhail of FanGraphs on how the NL East is emerging as a dominant division and its teams could benefit from a proposal to realign and do away with divisions.
- Josh Weinstock of The Hardball Times on Tyler Clippard‘s amazing fastball.
- Wilson Ramos hits a three-run walk-off homer for the Nationals’ greatest come-from-behind victory ever.
This weekend, the Hagerstown Suns are finishing the first half of their season while Bryce Harper continues to nurse a sore thumb. He’s scheduled to participate in Tuesday’s Sally League All-Star Game (including the home run derby). After that? There are rumors he’ll be promoted.
When Harper was assigned to Hagerstown in March, Mike Rizzo made it clear that he “has a specific plan in place for Harper’s ascension through the minor leagues, but he declined to share it with reporters.” In a May interview, Rizzo revealed some aspects of his plan. Harper would not play for the Nationals in 2011, and Rizzo believes that Harper “needs to touch every level of the minor league system – A-ball, Double-A, Triple-A and the big leagues. He’s going to do some Arizona Fall League action.”
From what I can tell, Rizzo’s approach to management is methodical; he tends to make plans and stick with them (in contrast to Jim Bowden, who took much more of a fly-by-the seat-of-your-leather-pants approach). When Harper’s bat got hot in early May, sources close to the team (like Bob Carpenter—presumably using information that team officials provided on background) began mentioning the Sally League All-Star game as the target date for Harper’s next move.
The interesting question is whether Harper next move will be to Potomac, or if he’ll be promoted directly to Class AA Harrisburg. Byron Kerr mentioned rumors that Harper might skip Potomac “because the Woodbridge field is not in good shape.” Tom Boswell and Jim Bowden have also suggested that Harper might be advanced directly to AA. On the other hand, Rizzo’s statement that Harper “needs to touch every level” would appear to rule out skipping High A (though some commenters have noted that when he listed the levels, he just said “A-ball” without separately mentioning High Class A).
If Harper doesn’t skip Potomac, I think it’s difficult to see him advancing to the Nationals during 2012. The most likely scenario would have him spend most of the remainder of this season in Potomac, followed by a brief promotion to Harrisburg to ensure eligibility for the Arizona Fall League. In 2012 (assuming he avoids injury and plays well), he would spend the first half in Harrisburg and the second half in Syracuse. In 2013, he could be brought up to Washington in late April, giving the Nationals control of his contract through 2019.
A promotion to Harrisburg next week, on the other hand, would appear to be consistent with a plan to bring him up to the Nationals by June of 2012. The team, however, would retain control of his contract only through 2018. Would it really make sense to give up Harper’s age 26 season to get half of his age 19 season? No, it wouldn’t, which is why I think that Harper won’t skip Potomac and won’t join the Nationals until late April of 2013.
Update: Mark Zuckerman of Nats Insider and Adam Kilgore of The Washington Post provide some more information on the outfield drainage problems affecting Potomac’s Pfitzner Stadium in Woodbridge, Virginia. If the Nationals are reluctant to have Harper play in Potomac due to field conditions, it’s possible that they could leave him in Hagerstown for a few more weeks, then bypass Potomac and promote him directly to Harrisburg in early August.
Which is the better predictor of team’s future wins—its win-loss record or its run differential? Everyone who is familiar with the stats-centric sites knows that it’s the latter. The Nats’ run differential has been better than their W–L record for a while, and after tonight’s 10–0 pounding of the Cardinals it has gone positive—263 runs scored versus 262 runs allowed. On that basis alone, we might expect the Nats to play .500 ball going forward.
The thing is, the Nats team that’s playing right now is better than the team that put up the +1 run differential in its first 68 games. Playing Ryan Zimmerman instead of Jerry Hairston, by itself, is probably worth at least +3 wins over the remainder of the season. The injured Adam LaRoche ineffectually used up 177 plate appearances; giving those PAs instead to Michael Morse and Laynce Nix, even assuming that these two red-hot hitters cool off some, should be worth another one or two wins.
Has the team been playing over its head? (I’m talking about the first 68 games, not just tonight’s game, where of course we were playing over our heads.) My sense is that the starting pitchers have been a bit over their heads and are likely to revert some. The Nats’ starters rank 10th in the National League in both ERA and FIP, but 16th (last) in xFIP, suggesting that they may have been somewhat lucky in issuing fewer home runs than expected.
For the batters it’s more of a mixed bag. The team’s batting average on balls in play was only .278 before tonight’s game, last in the league. I wouldn’t attribute that all to bad luck—the struggles of LaRoche and Iván Rodríguez have doubtless been more attributable to declining skill than to luck—but I think that several players—especially Jayson Werth and Danny Espinosa (at least batting from the left side) have been somewhat unlucky. On the other hand, Morse and Nix have been somewhat lucky.
Of course, we can’t expect to go the rest of the season without any injuries. Nix and Jason Marquis probably will be (and should be) traded. Jordan Zimmermann will be shut down after he reaches his innings limit. Nevertheless, I think the Nats really do have a realistic shot to play +4 wins over the rest of the season and end up .500 or higher. The improvements are starting to show.
I know I’m probably just caught up in the euphoria of our fifth consecutive win, but this is the best I’ve felt about this team since that fluke first-place run in 2005 (and we all knew that was a fluke, whereas now we seem to be progressing toward the real thing). Finishing above .500 is a worthy and reasonable goal for the remainder of this season.
This is just for fun. I ran across a site (http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/mlecalc.html by Jeff Sackmann) that features a calculator for major league equivalencies. I recommend treating these with caution—with essentially no players transitioning directly from low Class A to MLB, we really can’t test whether the translations are accurate. Also, the site doesn’t include any 2011 data, so it’s probably out of date. Nevertheless, I love looking at MLEs, so this still seemed like a fun calculation.
I fed the calculator the following actual data for Bryce Harper from his play with Hagerstown (South Atlantic League) through June 9:
206 AB, 40 R, 70 H, 14 2B, 0 3B, 14 HR, 43 RBI, 33 BB, 49 K, .340, .433, .612, 12 SB, 5 CS
Here’s what the calculator says his stats would be if he were with the Nats:
221 AB, 21 R, 50 H, 9 2B, 0 3B, 7 HR, 23 RBI, 18 BB, 58 K, .226, .283, .368, 8 SB, 6 CS
For the fans who are calling on the Nats to bring up Harper right away, these numbers should be sobering. There’s a huge talent gulf between low-A ball and the big leagues.
I think the MLEs will get to be more interesting when Harper makes it to Double A. In the meantime, though, I’ll try to update these occasionally as he progresses through the low minors.
- Tom Boswell of The Washington Post on the emergence of Danny Espinosa.
- Dave Cameron of fangraphs.com on how underrated Ryan Zimmerman is.
- Rob Neyer of Baseball Nation on the Nats drafting Anthony Rendon.
- Laynce Nix saves a June 1 win over the Phillies with his diving catch of Domonic Brown’s bases loaded drive.
- Life presents a slideshow of the ugliest uniforms ever.
- An old, but still relevant, article by Aaron Gleeman of The Hardball Times on Liván Hernández‘s incredible pitch counts.
Nats Noodles 