Nationals Arm Race

When Bryce Harper was reinstated from the D/L on 6/30/14, an interesting situation occurred:  The Nationals were at full strength for the first time, all year.

That’s right.  With Doug Fister starting the season on the D/L, even those who think that the team was at “full strength” for the first 7 innings of the first game (that’s how long it took before a Nationals offensive starter got hurt) aren’t quite right.  This team has been hampered and has been covering for injuries to its best available squad since the first day of the season.  Here’s a review of the tale of the injury tape for the ideal 25-man roster of this team so far in 2014:

• Doug Fister; strained shoulder 3/23/14, missed 34 games
• Wilson Ramos: broken hand on 4/1/14, missed 32 games
• Scott Hairston; oblique strain on 4/6/14, missed 26 games
• Denard Span, concussion on 4/12/14, missed 7 games
• Ryan Zimmerman, broken thumb on 4/13/14, missed 44 games
• Bryce Harper: torn thumb tendon on 4/27/14, missed 56 games
• Adam LaRoche: strained quad on 5/11/14, missed 14 games
• Gio Gonzalez, shoulder strain on 5/18/14, missed 27 games
• Ramos again, this time a hamstring strain on 6/11/14, missed 14 games

2/5ths of the rotation and 5/8ths of the starting offense have at one time or another been on the shelf so far this year.  More than 250 games lost.  Ironically the oldest player on the team (Jayson Werth) has been one if its healthiest (he’s only missed 4 games this year).  And (knock on wood) there hasn’t been a single bullpen injury, likely one of the main reasons the Nats bullpen is among the best in the game this year.

The Nats (at the time of this writing) sit 1/2 a game out of first behind nemesis Atlanta, but have several reasons to be optimistic about catching them:

• The Nats have a +39 run differential right now, while the Braves have a zero run differential.  That means that the Nats should be 9 games above .500 (according to pythagorean records) while the Braves should be a .500 team.  The Nats have been unlucky while the Braves have been quite lucky.  You could expect these situations to reverse themselves over the rest of the season.
• The Nats are just 2-7 in extra inning games and 9-13 in one-run games.  You’d normally expect both of these W/L records to be near .500 and is likely the real reason behind the above run differential issue.
• Despite the heart of their batting order missing dozens and dozens of games, the offense is not doing half bad: the Nats as a team are 8th out of 15 in the NL in WRC+, 8th in runs scored, 8th in wOBA, 10th in batting average, and are 10th in homers despite Zimmerman having just THREE on the year.
• While the Offense treads water, the Pitching has been fantastic.  Our starters are 5th in the NL in ERA, 1st in FIP, 2nd in xFIP, 2nd in SIERA.  The bullpen has been equally as good (a huge improvement over last year):  2nd in NL ERA, 1st in FIP, 6th in SIERA.
• The starters lead the NL in FIP despite Stephen Strasburg‘s “struggles;” ironically despite his having a .500 record an a 3.70 ERA he has the best FIP of any Nats starter.   He’s just been victim of circumstance while he pitches.   Blake Treinen has been fantastic covering in the rotation, and the team has found an excellent 5th starter in Tanner Roark.  Games that were “thrown away” time and again last year by Dan Haren and a litany of poor-performing minor league call-ups have been handled with aplumb this year.

Where do we go from here?

The Nats schedule from here on out eases significantly; as of the time of this writing the last three months look like this:

• July: 10 of 25 games against teams with winning records right now
• August: 12 of 28 games against teams with winning records right now … and that includes teams that very well may have losing records by the time we get to them.
• September: Just 9 of 27 games against teams with winning records right now, including the final 11 against Marlins and Mets teams likely to be playing out the string with 40-man call-ups from AAA and key young arms sitting due to inning limits.

For this Nats fan, its hard to see the same struggles we saw last year; I see a team finally getting their squad back together, having a solid July and perhaps a dominant closing to the season to fulfil its promise.  I like where this team stands right now (even with the tepid split in Chicago last weekend) and look forward to the next few months.

… do you just go ahead and start fielding the lineup that we’ll be trotting out in 2015 anyway?

Leave Rendon at 3rd, leave Espinosa at 2nd, install Zimmerman at 1st and trade Adam LaRoche to a team that needs a first baseman?

Perhaps a couple weeks into the season you could have made that argument.  But there’s a few problems with this scenario:

1. LaRoche is easily the team’s best hitter right now with a slash line better than the coveted .300/.400/.500.  You don’t trade the best hitter off of your offensively struggling team.
2. Nobody makes trades 8 weeks into the season.  And most of the possible trade candidates for LaRoche (Baltimore, New York, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh) don’t make as much sense now as they may have a few weeks ago.
3. Espinosa is starting to remind the team again why they demoted him last year, with his average now slipping towards Mendoza line territory.
4. Despite the Nats awful stretch, they’re only 2.5 games out of first in the NL East, and that’s during a stretch when the meat of their order has been missing.  Its far too early to wave any white flags and/or start dismantling the team.

I’m sure part of LaRoche would love to get traded; it frees him of any qualifying offer complication this coming off-season, where at age 34 he’s likely looking at his last final grasp at a multi-year deal.  But the other part of LaRoche wants to stick with a winner, a team that gives him the best shot at getting back to the post-season (he’s only got a handful of games in his 11 year career playing in October).  On the other hand … the Nats would be crazy to give LaRoche a Q.O., so maybe the team is thinking, “hey, we need to move LaRoche and get *something* for him before we let him walk and get nothing for him.”

More likely the team is actually thinking this: “We were good enough to win last year, we’re good enough to win this year … so we’re keeping the band together until the bitter end, division title or not.”

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Or, do you take interest in the fact that Zimmerman has been taking a ton of fly-balls and stick him in left?  I like this move: Zimmerman comes back, and you leave the infield as-is, stick him in left field and you’re a stronger lineup.  Zimmerman’s “yips” will disappear in Left Field; every throw he’ll make will either be a lob back into the infield after a single, or a max-effort peg to either 2nd or home that won’t allow him time to “think” about the throw.  Jon Heyman is now reporting that Zimmerman is being set-up to be a multi-positional player and his fly ball workouts were not (as Zimmerman claimed multiple times) just a “workout” routine.

(side note: I now exactly what Zimmerman is going through; as a 15-yr old middle infielder I tore my rotator cuff.  After rehab, I returned and found that I struggled to make simple throws from second base or short stop.  I had the yips myself.  I eventually moved into the outfield to finish off my career in a rather frustrating fashion.  After years of playing softball in my 20s, where nearly every infield throw is max-effort, I had regained a ton of my confidence and could return to playing middle infield on the diamond … but I still struggle on specific plays.  When I first came back I caught … and (like Sasser) struggled making the throw back to the pitcher sometimes.  Making a double-play turning toss from ss->2nd?  I sieze up every time and have resorted to flipping the ball under-handed.  It is a very frustrating situation to deal with.  Zimmerman acknowleding his issue and trying to do what’s best for the team by limiting his arm exposure shows great character).

Of course, then, when Harper comes back … what do you do?

Maybe you frigging finally sit Denard Span and his middling OBP (which was raised 40 points by his recent outburst and 4-4 game) and stick Harper in center.   I’ve had it with our lead-off hitter making outs nearly 8 out of 10 times up.  Yes Span is a plus defender in center and inarguably saves runs.  No, Harper would not be as good as Span in the field.   But at this point, replacing Harper’s production for Span’s in the lineup makes this a better team.

In reality, if Espinosa is still hitting in the low .200s and everyone’s coming back, then he’ll be the one that makes way.  I don’t think I like Zimmerman for 2nd base like other pundits do. For one, the guy’s too big for 2nd and I don’t think he’s mobile enough to play that position at this point in his career.  But mainly, if he’s got a hitch in his throw from 3rd, he’ll have it even worse from 2nd, where a ton of throws are very casual/toss it over throws and you can go completely mental.   There’s a reason that the famous cases of “baseball yips” are either 2nd basemen (Steve Sax, Chuck Knoblock) and catchers (Mackey Sasser).  These two positions make a lot of unpressured throws, and guys can get “yippy.”

So that means Rendon back to 2nd, Zimmerman back to 3rd, and the fanbase back to holding its collective breath everytime he gets a grounder.  At least until spring training 2015, when this all goes away by itself when LaRoche hits free agency and Zimmerman permanently attaches a 1st basemen’s glove to his left hand.

I’ll give credit where credit is due though on Zimmerman taking fly-balls and apparently being amenable to trying out the outfield: seeing a gold-glove winning veteran on a 9-figure deal trying a new position mid-career, perhaps acknowledging that he has a problem is refreshing.  Remember the nightmare we had with Alfonso Soriano moving to left field?  And word came out recently that Rickie Weeks “refused to consider” a position switch from 2nd to left, a rather disappointing turn of events for his team, who are paying the underperforming infielder $11M to ride the pine this year.  Instead Zimmerman looks to be doing the team-first thing, working out at a new position where he can get back into the lineup AND not hurt the team anymore.  It isn’t unheard of for hall-of-fame calibre players to move positions (see Yount, Robin), nor is it unheard of to see plus-defenders try alternate positions for the betterment of the team (see the likes of Manny Machado and Jurickson Profar, both fantastic fielding shortstops who are playing other positions to allow entrenched veterans who may not necessarily be better fielders stay at short).  Heck, look at what Rendon did; he was a third baseman all the way … and he made the move to 2nd and has done reasonably well there.

We’ll see what happens when Zimmerman gets off the d/l.

 

 

 

Ok people, how about getting back to talking some baseball, not arging whether or not we need to fire the manager after 28 games.  :-)

Here’s a monthly feature that I like to do, breaking down the Nats rotation performance and analyzing matchups for the previous month.

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Starter “Grades” for the MLB Rotation:

Grade Taxonomy; these are just quick and dirty short hand judgements on the starting stat line for each starter’s performance.   Here’s a rough starting point  for how grades are assigned:

• Grade A: 6-7+ innings, zero earned runs.
• Grade B: 6-7 innings, 1-2 earned runs.
• Grade C: 6 innings, 3 earned runs and run-of-the-mill numbers of walks/hits and strikeouts.
• Grade D: 4-5  innings, 3-4 earned runs
• Grade F: 4 or fewer innings, more earned runs than innings pitched.

In each letter grade case, adjustments slightly up or down are made based usually on hits+walks and/or Ks (or lack thereof).   More Ks may push the grade to an N+, a slew of extra hits/walks may drop the grade to an N-, where N is the letter grade division.

(Note: I won’t repeat this each month; it is just for explanatory purposes for the first post of the year in this series).

By way of example; the team had three “A+” outings in April:

• Strasburg’s 4/10 win over the Marlins.  Line: 6 2/3s, 1 run on 3 hits, 1 walk and 12 Ks.   He gave up the run but 12 K’s pushed him to the A+ rating.
• Strasburg’s 4/25 win over San Diego: 7 shut-out innings giving up 7 hits and a walk with 11 K’s.
• Roark’s 4/26 shutout over San Diego: 9 innings, 3 hits, 1 walk, 8 K’s.

Here’s the Letter grades for our Rotation in April: (here’s a quick link to the schedule to see each individual game) along with Key Stats lines for the month:

• Strasburg: C,D,A+,F,B+,A+.  2-2, 4.24 ERA, 1.412 whip, 2.30 fip, 53/12 K/BB ratio in 34 innings.
• Roark: C+,D-,C,A-,A+.  2-0, 2.76 ERA, 1.163 whip, 3.43 fip, 26/9 K/BB in 32 2/3 innings.
• Jordan: A-,D-,F,D,B-/inc: 0-3, 5.61 ERA, 1.636 whip, 4.48 fip, 17/8 in 25 2/3 innings.
• Gonzalez: A,A,D-,A,C-,C+: 3-1, 3.25 ERA, 1.139 whip, 2.90 fip, 38/13 in 36 innings.
• Zimmermann: A,F,A-,B,C+,A: 2-1, 3.27 ERA, 1.333 whip, 3.09 fip, 35/8 in 33 innings.

Tanner Roark turned around his slower start and has “won” the 5th starter competition, which extended a month into the season thanks to Doug Fister‘s spring training injuries.  Taylor Jordan’s letter grades bely his crummy overall stats; 0-3 with a 5.61 ERA, a 1.63 whip and a 4.49 FIP.  Lets hope Jordan can get it turned around in Syracuse and provide cover for the next injury.  Gonzalez leads the staff in ERA while Strasburg leads the staff in FIP on the back of his amazing K/9 rate (53 K’s in 34 innings for an astounding 14 K/9 rate, which leads the league right now for qualified pitchers).  Zimmerman keeps on plugging away, mixing in good outings with bad ones; lets look for more consistency from him in May.

I think its rather interesting that our three power arms are all seemingly abandoning the whole “pitch to contact” mantra so far; all of their K/9s are above a K per inning.  And Strasburg’s is just ridiculous.  Do you think maybe Strasburg is tired of his defense throwing away outs and he’s just saying, “I’ll do it myself” to some degree?  I think if I had to rank our own rotation in terms of effectiveness I’d go Gonzalez, Strasburg, Zimmerman, Roark and Jordan.  In other words, almost identically to our rotation order.

The team finishes the month 16-12, on pace for 93 wins, despite the injuries to the offense and the generally awful defense so far this year.

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Now here’s some Starting Pitcher Matchup analysis.  I track of the opposing starter the team faces each night and ranked them three different ways:

• Their Rotation Order intra team: the opening day starter for a team is their “#1″ and the other four guys are ranked 2-5 as they appear in the opposing rotation.
• Their Ranked Performance intra-team: at the time of their series with the Nats, the 5 starters on a team are ranked 1-5 on pure in-season performance.  The guy with the best season stats at that time is ranked #1, the guy with the worst #5.
• Their Subjective League-Wide “Rank” as a pitcher: a subjective look at whether the opposing starter is a league wide “Ace,” a near-Ace or #2, and the like.

I also kept track on a night-to-night basis a quick opinion on whether I felt the Nats had the Starting Pitching Advantage (or if it was an even-matchup, or if I felt the opposing team had the pitching advantage) and tracked how we did.

Opponent Rotation Order Stats

Starter #	Record	Opposing Starter in Wins	Opposing Starter in Losses
1	4-3	Gee, Fernandez, Weaver, Cashner	Teheran (2x), Wainwright
2	4-2	Colon, Wood, Wacha, Cosart	Wood, Kennedy
3	3-2	Wheeler, Alvarez, Oberholzer	Harang, Lynn
4	1-3	Miller	Hale, Richards, Stults
5	2-2	Koehler, Erlin	Koehler, Skaggs
5+	2-0	Hand (2x)

(Note: a “5+” pitcher means a starter who was not on the opening day roster for a team.  We’ll see a ton more 5+’s as more starters go down with injury and are replaced by minor league call-ups).

Not all #1 starters are made the same, nor are #5 starters.  The team actually holds a winning record against opposing team’s #1s and #2s (which you normally do not see), but scuffled against other team’s #4 starters.  Of course, Shelby Miller and David Hale are not ordinary #4 starters, but you’d have liked to have seen wins against the likes of Clayton Richardson and/or Eric Stults.

The team got a great win over Jose Fernandez but lost twice to Atlanta’s ace Julio Teheran.  Not the end of the world, but they need to do better (obviously) against Atlanta pitching.

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Opponent intra-Rotation Ranking Stats

Starter #	Record	Opposing Starter in Wins	Opposing Starter in Losses
1	2-4	Fernandez, Cashner	Teheran (2x), Wainwright, Richards
2	2-4	Gee, Wood	Wood, Harang, Koehler, Skaggs
3	4-1	Colon, Wacha, Koehler, Hand	Kennedy
4	4-1	Wheeler, Oberholzer, Miller, Erlin	Hale
5	3-2	Weaver, Cosart, Alvarez	Lynn, Stults
5+	1-0	Hand

In other words, the Nats are 2-4 against opposing teams’ best pitcher at the time of the series, 2-4 against the opposing team’s 2nd best performing pitcher at the time of the series, etc.   This is a slightly better way of seeing how the Nats perform against the opponent’s hottest hand at the time.  Notice here that Aaron Harang is given much higher credit for his 2014 performance than his rotation order rank may merit him.

The team (as one would expect) is struggling against the best and 2nd best guys on opponent’s teams, but are beating up on the rest of the rotation.  This is a good sign frankly; you need to win when you go against the other team’s struggling starters.  As the season goes along the team should stabilize and be able to hold its own against the best guys on other teams.

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Opponent League-Wide “Rank”

Starter #	Record	Opposing Starter in Wins	Opposing Starter in Losses
1	2-1	Fernandez, Wacha	Wainwright
2	1-2	Weaver	Teheran (2x)
3	5-2	Cashner, Wood, Colon, Wheeler, Miller	Wood, Kennedy
4	3-2	Gee, Oberholzer, Cosart	Hale, Lynn
5	2-4	Erlin, Alvarez	Richards, Harang, Skaggs, Stults
5+	3-1	Hand (2x), Koehler	Koehler

In other words, the Nats are 2-1 against MLB “Aces,” 2-1 against MLB “near aces” or #2′s, etc.

This table really shows how the team has truly done against the elite pitchers in this league.  We can argue in the comments section about my subjective ranking of pitchers as being #1s, #2s, or whatever.   For comparison purposes with our own team talent-wise, I have Strasburg as a league-wide #1, Gonzalez and Zimmermann as #2s, Fister as a #3, Roark and Jordan as #5s.  Aces are few and far between; you’re far more likely to see a bunch of #4s and #5s on opposing teams.  It is of note that a 5+ starter can be a complete crapshoot; he could be a 4-A pitcher just giving the team innings or he could be the team’s #1 starter prospect and can be as effective as a #2 starter right off the bat.

So far, the team has beaten a couple of aces and had expected losses versus the likes of Adam Wainwright and Teheran.  Slightly concerning is the record against what I consider #5 pitchers in this league, though to be fair Harang and Tyler Skaggs certainly are not pitching like #5s right now.

 

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Performace against Expectations by Advantage

By “Advantage”	Record	Matchups in Wins	Matchups resulting in Losses
Wash	10-6	Gio-Colon, Stras-Gee, Stras-Miller, Zim-Oberholtzer, Gio-Cosart, Stras-Erlin, Gio-Alvarez, Stras-Koehler, Zimm-Hand (2x)	Stras-Teheran, Zimm-Hale, Zimm-Lynn, Gio-Harang, Zimm-Stults, Stras-Koehler
Even	3-1	Gio-Weaver, Jordan-Wood, Roark-Wheeler	Jordan-Skaggs
Opp	3-5	Roark-Fernandez, Roark-Cashner, Gio-Wacha	Roark-Teheran, Jordan-Wood, Roark-Richards, Jordan-Kennedy, Jordan-Wainwright

In games where I thought Washington had the clear starting pitching advantage head-to-head, the team went 10-6.   I’ve listed the match ups for each case so you can decide whether we really had the advantage.

In games where I thought the pitching matchup was even, the team went 3-1; this is a good sign.  Three of these four matchups involved Roark or Jordan.

In games where I thought our opponent had the clear advantage heading into the game, the team went an expected 3-5.  Most of these matchup involved either Roark or Jordan.

It is interesting to note that Jordan struggled .. but he also had a number of very tough matchups in April.  He had to go against Alex Wood twice, Ian Kennedy, Adam Wainwright and Tyler Skaggs.   For a guy with just a handful of starts, that was a tough slate of matchups.

 

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Per-Starter Matchup Listing:

Nats Starter	Opponent Makeup	Nats Record under starter
Strasburg	two Aces, a #4 and three #5s	4-2
Gonzalez	an Ace, three #2s, two #3s	5-1
Jordan	an Ace, three #2s and a #5	1-4
Roark	three Aces, a #3, a #4	3-2
Zimmermann	two #3s, two #4s, two #5+s	3-3
	ttl for month:	16-12

So, as discussed above, Jordan has had some tough matchups.  But Roark had to go against three staff Aces in April and still came out with a winning record.  Despite a couple of shaky outings the team was 5-1 when Gio pitched.  Lastly we can see that Jordan needs to be replaced; the team was just 1-4 in his outings and you’d have to think that they wouldn’t have a losing record when Fister throws.

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April Conclusion

The Nats have beaten up on weak teams and faltered against good teams.  And it only gets tougher from here; they’ll face Philadelphia’s 1-2-3 in order in early May, then entertain Los Angeles and their two Cy Young winners.  Later on this month they visit the cavernous Oakland stadiums and go up against three different playoff calibre teams in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Texas.  Lots of good pitching matchups to be seen.

http://insider.espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/post/_/id/2286/the-mishandling-of-bryce-harper

(Yes the post is ESPN Insider only; if you don’t get ESPN insider then ask yourself why you’re not willing to spend $3 a month for access to quality baseball writers like Dave Symborski, Keith Law, or Buster Olney, as well as access to the whole slew of scouting content from Law’s staff… and that’s just their baseball stuff.  $3/month; I spent more than that on my bagel this morning.   And if you’re in that whole “anti paywall camp” and believe that God intended that everything on the internet be for free … well I guess I’d just say sometimes you get what you pay for.   And to me, ESPN’s insider content is worth the 10 or 11 cents a day that I pay for it.  Rant off).

Basically, Law questions whether Matt Williams is in over his head as a major league manager right now.  Law questions his  lineup choices (as others have repeatedly, especially when the team’s best power hitter his batting 7th.  Which to be fair he only did once, but Harper’s been batting 6th for a good portion of the season too, only really moving up when Ryan Zimmerman went out with injury).   I too question his lineup choices; why the h*ll is Denard Span still batting leadoff?  If Williams felt the need to move Harper to 7th because he was struggling, why hasn’t Span been dropped either?  Isn’t Span “struggling” too?  Yeah; he’s got a .282 OBP right now and has fewer stolen bases than the 35-year old Jayson Werth; why exactly is he still batting leadoff??

Law also questions Williams’ public bashing of Harper’s hustle.  Which led, among other things, to Tom Boswell‘s outlandish claims in a chat two weeks ago that Harper was purposely asking out against tough hitters to maintain a meaningless 9-game hitting streak.  Did anyone actually watch the games surrounding the hustle incident?   To me Harper was clearly favoring his leg, and he had been frustrated at the plate, and by multiple reports was also struggling with the flu.  Maybe everyone would have been happier if Harper had just frigging sat out a couple of games instead?   So he didn’t run out a come-backer; that’s human nature.  Law correctly points out that only Harper has been bashed openly in the press by Williams; other team issues were handled internally.

Why is that?  Is Williams “old school” mentality coming through here?  Is he singling out the young Harper in a “youngster hazing” way?  Remember where Williams came from; the “grit is the way to win” Arizona Diamondbacks, who now have the worst record in the majors after a slew of trades and moves that were designed essentially to rid the team of players who couldn’t or didn’t get along with either the manager or the staff for some reason or another.  I’ve touched on the topic of the Arizona methodology before; you just don’t trade away top 3 draft picks for 50 cents on the dollar because of a personality conflict and expect there to be no consequences.  I believe the consequences are going to be a new manager and a new GM this coming off-season after Arizona loses 90+ games.

Law correctly points out that you can’t have the “hustle” narrative both ways either: Harper cannot be simaultaneously a “lazy” player (as Williams went out of his way to state to the media) but then also be the same player who people thought needed to “slow down” and “play within himself” (as was oft-repeated all last year after he bashed his head in running into outfield walls).   For me; I tend to believe that Harper is human; he was frustrated after an o-fer day, and didn’t run out a come-backer in a meaningless situation late in a game (like a thousand other major leaguers before him).

I’m not sure if I’d lay the play that ended up with Harper’s injury on the manager (Law seems to intimate that Harper’s “over hustle” on that play was in reaction to his press bashing over the lack of hustle the week before), but many, many other players in this game would have just slowed up at 2nd, knowing they had cleared the bases, and not gone for the triple.  Which player would you rather have?   For better or worse, the team will now have plenty of time to think about it; Harper’s out for 2 frigging months.  For those keeping score at home, we’re not even to May yet and we’ve seen the guys hitting 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th from our opening day lineup now hit the D/L for various lengths.

It bears repeating: Harper, despite being in his 3rd pro season, was STILL the youngest player in the majors on opening day.   If he was sitting on Potomac’s roster right now, he’d be one of the youngest players in the league.  I guess we all need to take a deep breath sometimes and be thankful for what Bryce Harper is, not what he isn’t.  And get well soon…. this team’s offense is going to miss him badly.

Age Appropriateness by minor league level is a topic I come back to year after year.  Click here for this analysis in 2011, and then here for the same analysis for 2013 (I must have been really busy in April of 2012 to have missed out on such fun analysis).

I won’t repeat a ton of the build-up to this topic; see last year’s post for a ton of rule-of-thumb discussions and what not.  Basically the point of this post is to talk about the average/median ages of pitchers in the various full season minor league levels, then take a look at our four full-season affiliate rosters to see how our guys rank.  I’m very much of the belief that age matters in prospects, and that it should be taken into consideration when looking at a guy’s performance.

Data Taxonomy: I’ve taken every pitcher on every team’s roster in each of the four leagues that the Nats have farm teams in (AAA = International, AA = Eastern, High-A = Carolina, Low-A = South Atlantic), put them into a spreadsheet, calculated their ages at the end of this season (9/1/14) and then calculated the four quartile figures in terms of age.  I only used pitchers in our leagues as opposed to the entire level across all of baseball thinking that different leagues may have different needs (I’m thinking how the California League and the Pacific Coast League has so many hitters parks and thus the pitchers may linger there longer, skewing the numbers).  I also standardized the numbers to be at the end of the season as opposed to the beginning, so that people can talk about a player’s “Age 25 season” for example.   I’ve labeled the four quartiles as follows: “Really Young” means the lowest quartile or youngest 25% of players, “Young” means the 2nd quartile or 25-50%, “Old” means the 3rd quartile or 50-75% range, and “Really Old” means anyone in the 75th quartile or above for the league.

(Click here for the whole worksheet of player data I used to do this post on Google Docs).

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First, a look at how these age rankings have fared over the past few years:

Age Appropriate Matrix 2011-2014

2011	AAA	AA	High-A	Low-A
Really Young	25.54 or younger	24.44 or  younger	22.65 or younger	21.88 or younger
Young	25.54 – 26.93	24.44 – 25.37	22.65 – 23.83	21.88 – 22.84
Old	26.93 – 28.79	25.37 – 26.65	23.83 – 24.77	22.84 – 23.65
Really Old	28.79 or older	26.65 or older	24.77 or older	23.65 or older
2013	AAA	AA	High-A	Low-A
Really Young	25.91 or younger	24.02 or younger	23.08 or younger	21.69 or younger
Young	25.92 – 27.75	24.02 – 25.17	23.08 – 24.00	21.69 – 22.66
Old	27.75 – 30.35	25.17 – 26.84	24.00 – 24.91	22.66 – 23.39
Really Old	30.35 or older	26.84 or older	24.91 or older	23.39 or older
2014	AAA	AA	High-A	Low-A
Really Young	25.85 or younger	24.13 or younger	22.74 or younger	21.84 or younger
Young	25.86 – 27.47	24.14 – 25.27	22-74 – 23.63	21.84 – 22.65
Old	27.47 – 29.58	25.27 – 26.77	23.63 – 24.53	22.65 – 23.69
Really Old	29.58 or older	26.78 or older	24.53 or older	23.70  or older

At a  high level:

• AAA’s median age has risen from 2011, but 2014′s teams are getting slightly younger; all these threshold ages are slightly below 2013′s numbers.
• AA is more or less the same; the median age only differs by 1/10th of a year from last year
• High A: is getting younger; its threshold ages are all about a half a year or more younger this year
• Low A seems about the same; its median age is identical to last year’s.

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Here’s a look at the Nationals’ four full season minor league pitching staffs, with the ages listed and the “age appropriate” label given.   All rosters are as of 4/18/14.

AAA Syracuse

Team	First Name	Last Name	DOB	Age as of 9/1/14	Age Status
Syracuse (Wash)	Aaron	Barrett	1/2/1988	26.66	Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Xavier	Cedeno	8/26/1986	28.02	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Manny	Delcarmen	2/16/1982	32.54	Really Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Christian	Garcia	8/24/1985	29.02	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Taylor	Hill	3/12/1989	25.47	Really Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Aaron	Laffey	4/15/1985	29.38	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Warner	Madrigal	3/21/1984	30.45	Really Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Ryan	Mattheus	11/10/1983	30.81	Really Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Brad	Meyers	9/13/1985	28.97	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Omar	Poveda	9/28/1987	26.93	Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Tyler	Robertson	12/23/1987	26.69	Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Josh	Roenicke	8/4/1982	32.08	Really Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Danny	Rosenbaum	10/10/1987	26.89	Young
Syracuse (Wash)	Daniel	Stange	12/22/1985	28.69	Old
Syracuse (Wash)	Ryan	Tatusko	3/27/1985	29.43	Old

Discussion: Even by AAA standards as a “spare parts” league, our AAA squad is pretty old.  We have four guys in their 30s, only one of which is on our 40-man roster (Ryan Mattheus).  Our youngest guy in AAA may also be the most surprising pitcher to make this squad; Taylor Hill.  This squad will just get older once Michael Gonzalez makes his way to upstate New York (which has already happened inbetween the time of this data capture and the time of this post).

Oldest Guy in the International League: Fairfax’s own Shawn Camp, a 10 year MLB veteran who signed on with Philly as a MLFA last off-season and looks like he may be back and forth between Lehigh Valley and Philadelphia all year.  Also amongst the old crowd in the International league are interesting names from the past, including Johan Santana, and a few former Nats in Luis Ayala, Chien-Ming Wang and Yunesky Maya (who signed on with Atlanta for 2014).

Youngest Guy in the International League: Former Nat Robbie Ray, who will not turn 23 until after season’s end.  Side note on Ray: i was listening to a Jonah Keri podcast where a guest was openly questioning the Doug Fister trade, now that Fister’s out with an injury and Ray’s fast tracking his way to a very early majors appointment.  Nothing nefarious suggested (as in, the Tigers knew that Fister was damaged goods), but he also said he was at about a “0%” surprise factor when Fister got hurt this spring.  Interesting.  

A couple of other very young guys in this league include some big-time pitching prospects: Marcus Strohman for Toronto, Trevor Bauer for Cleveland and Kevin Gausman for Baltimore.

Percentage of International League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: 36.95%, quite a bit higher than last year.  Four of Syracuse’ 15 pitchers are on the 40-man and two of them (Aaron Barrett and Xavier Cedeno) have already made the trips up and back to and from the majors this month.  Of course, the Nats have already shuffled around these two and Blake Treinen quite a bit and its just a few weeks into the season.

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AA Harrisburg

Team	First Name	Last Name	DOB	Age as of 9/1/14	Age Status
Harrisburg (Wash)	Gabriel	Alfaro	6/14/1983	31.22	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Colin	Bates	3/10/1988	26.48	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	A.J.	Cole	1/5/1992	22.66	Really Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Paul	Demny	8/3/1989	25.08	Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Robert	Gilliam	11/29/1987	26.76	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Matt	Grace	12/14/1988	25.71	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Tyler	Herron	8/5/1986	28.07	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Neil	Holland	8/14/1988	26.05	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Zach	Jackson	5/13/1983	31.30	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Pat	Lehman	10/18/1986	27.87	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Rafael	Martin	5/16/1984	30.29	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Richie	Mirowski	4/30/1989	25.34	Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Ryan	Perry	2/13/1987	27.55	Really Old
Harrisburg (Wash)	Matt	Purke	7/17/1990	24.13	Really Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Felipe	Rivero	7/5/1991	23.16	Really Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Blake	Schwartz	10/9/1989	24.90	Young
Harrisburg (Wash)	Sammy	Solis	8/10/1988	26.06	Old

Discussion: As with Syracuse, our Harrisburg squad is very old; 12 of the 17 pitchers on the squad are above the median age for the league, and 6 of them are in the oldest quartile.  Our three youngest hurlers are (arguably) our three most important arms in AA: A.J. Cole, Felipe Rivero and Matt Purke (with apologies to Sammy Solis, who lists as an “older” guy thanks to his losing a year to TJ surgery).  It seems to me like Harrisburg is populated with hangers-on; that the bullpen is filled with org arms.

Oldest Guy in the Eastern League: Minnesota’s Matt Guerrier, who was traded in the final year of his contract last summer but couldn’t find a 40-man job and signed back on with the team he spent the early part of his career with.  His placement in AA was temporary; he’s already back with AAA.  Ironically the 2nd oldest player in the Eastern league is also on Minnesota’s team: Virgil Vasquez, who is in his 12th pro season with just a handful of major league appearances over that time and who came back into affiliated ball after two seasons of indy league.

Youngest Guy in the Eastern League: San Francisco’s Adalberto Mejia, a lefty starter prospect who jumped straight from the DSL to low-A and has climbed steadily since.  Interestingly, the six youngest players in the league all play for either the San Francisco or Baltimore franchises, including Zach Davies and Dylan Bundy for Bowie.

Percentage of Eastern League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: just 5.33% (9 of 169), down from last year’s 8.24%.  Interestingly 3 of those total of 9 are Nats farmhands, including one of the last remnants of the now-extinct draft-day MLB deal in Purke.

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High-A Potomac

Team	First Name	Last Name	DOB	Age as of 9/1/14	Age Status
Potomac (Wash)	Dakota	Bacus	4/2/1991	23.42	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Robert	Benincasa	9/5/1990	23.99	Old
Potomac (Wash)	Ian	Dickson	9/16/1990	23.96	Old
Potomac (Wash)	Brian	Dupra	12/15/1988	25.71	Really Old
Potomac (Wash)	Pedro	Encarnacion	6/26/1991	23.18	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Bryan	Harper	12/29/1989	24.67	Really Old
Potomac (Wash)	Travis	Henke	7/9/1988	26.15	Really Old
Potomac (Wash)	Nick	Lee	1/13/1991	23.63	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Gilberto	Mendez	11/17/1992	21.79	Really Young
Potomac (Wash)	Brett	Mooneyham	1/24/1990	24.60	Really Old
Potomac (Wash)	Ronald	Pena	9/19/1991	22.95	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Brian	Rauh	7/23/1991	23.11	Young
Potomac (Wash)	Derek	Self	1/14/1990	24.63	Really Old

Discussion: Do you sense a trend?  Five of Potomac’s 13 arms are “Really Old” for the league.  Thankfully four of our 5 starters here are “young” for the league right now.  The only exception is Brett Mooneyham, who is now “really old” for high-A and yet is still scuffling along.

Oldest Guy in the Carolina League: Baltimore’s Eunchul Choi, a 30-yr old South Korean pitcher who Baltimore signed as a MLFA three off-seasons ago and who apparently has yet to throw a professional inning.

Youngest Guy in the Carolina League: Atlanta’s Lucas Sims, who (no surprise) was the youngest player in the South Atlantic league when we did this analysis last year.  All he did in 2013 was go 12-4 with 134 K’s in 116 innings as the youngest guy in the league.  It looks like Atlanta may have yet another young, big-time arm in its rotation in a couple of years.

Percentage of Carolina League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: 0%.  Now that teams are prevented from signing draftees to MLB deals, the odds of ever seeing a non-rehabbing 40-man player below AA seem to be slim.

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Low-A Hagerstown

Team	First Name	Last Name	DOB	Age as of 9/1/14	Age Status
Hagerstown (Wash)	Dixon	Anderson	7/2/1989	25.17	Really Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Andrew	Cooper	6/27/1992	22.18	Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Cody	Davis	7/21/1990	24.11	Really Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Wirkin	Estevez	3/15/1992	22.46	Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Lucas	Giolito	7/14/1994	20.13	Really Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	L.J.	Hollins	7/31/1991	23.09	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Jake	Johansen	1/23/1991	23.61	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Nick	Pivetta	2/14/1993	21.54	Really Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Hector	Silvestre	12/14/1992	21.71	Really Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	John	Simms	1/17/1992	22.62	Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Matthew	Spann	2/17/1991	23.54	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Wander	Suero	9/15/1991	22.96	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Justin	Thomas	10/21/1990	23.86	Really Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Kylin	Turnbull	9/12/1989	24.97	Really Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Ryan	Ullmann	8/12/1991	23.06	Old
Hagerstown (Wash)	Austin	Voth	6/26/1992	22.18	Young
Hagerstown (Wash)	Jake	Walsh	1/1/1991	23.67	Old

Discussion: Hagerstown’s squad isn’t quite as “old” as I thought it’d be, thanks to a couple of really young starters being on the squad (Lucas Giolito and  Nick Pivetta).  But, the team also has two of the 10 oldest players in the league in Dixon Anderson and Kylin Turnbull.  Anderson can be excused somewhat, since he lost time to injury, but he also is repeating low-A and should have been on Potomac’s squad (in this humble opinion).  Maybe he will be soon thanks to the spate of injuries in Potomac.  Meanwhile Turnbull looks like he may be a draft bust; he hasn’t been able to perform above low-A despite his draft-day pedigree.

Oldest Guy in the South Atlantic League: New  York’s Conor Mullee, who hails from Ashburn, attended Broad Run HS and was plucked out of a small college (St. Peters University).  But interesting he was a hitter in college and then immediately switched to pitching.  He blew out his arm and missed all of 2011 after TJ surgery … then missed all of 2013 as well.  He currently sits on Charleston’s 7-day D/L as the oldest guy in the league by 6 months.

Youngest Guy in the South Atlantic League: Texas’ Akeem Bostick, a 2nd round pick in 2013 out of a South Carolina high school who more than held his own in the Arizona rookie league.  Also amongst the youngsters in the Sally league are Baltimore’s big-time prospect Hunter Harvey and our own Giolito.

Percentage of South Atlantic League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: 0%.

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Conclusion:

I think its safe to say that the Nats draft strategy of focusing primarily on college-age arms is starting to be seen; our pitching squads are filled with “older” guys.  But interestingly these older arms seem to mostly be in the bullpens, while our starting corps are by and large filled with “younger” arms relative to their league-wide colleagues.

 

Part 1 was the Hitters.  Here’s the pitchers.

Note: I’m going solely on the research of others here; I’ve only been to one game so I cannot personally confirm the walk-up music of all these players.  Here’s the team official list of each player’s 2014 walk-up music, and here’s Cheryl Nichols/DistrictSportsPage’s research on this year’s walk-up songs.

Relievers have historically had some memorable walk-up songs; Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera both came to be known for their music and the songs became anthems for the players even before they emerged from the bullpens.  Somehow I don’t think any of our current relievers are headed that way; our closer has a rather “unique” song (story below) and isn’t nearly as dominant as these two hall-of-fame bound guys.

Here we go.  As with part 1, my non-scientific/tongue-in-cheek opinion of each guy’s song is listed.

Starters

• Stephen Strasburg – Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes.  Great choice; this song was the unofficial anthem of a recent European Championships soccer tournament and its somewhat chilling to hear an entire crowd hum the intro notes.  Lets hope this happens with Stras.  Grade: A
• Gio Gonzalez: unknown?  Nichols only has his batting music (Trophies by Young Money & Drake).  Last year he was  House Party (feat. Young Chris) by Meek Mill, which I’m ambivalent over.  Grade: Inc
• Jordan Zimmermann – Hell On Wheels by Brantley Gilbert.  Country, blech.  Plus how am I inspired to cheer after hearing this song?  Grade: C
• Taylor Jordan – Collide by Skillet.  Good sound, kind of like a newer Linkin Park.   But, not very obvious to the masses.  Grade: C+
• Tanner Roark – Kickstart My Heart by Motley Crue.  Like it; old school, not an obvious Crue selection either.  Grade: A-

Relievers

• Rafael Soriano – El Rey de Monticulo —”The King of the Mound” by Ediseuri Concepcion Mejia (Story behind song).  Nichols links to a WSJ article explaining this song, which has custom lyrics just for Soriano.  Understandable why he uses it.   Grade: B
• Tyler Clippard – Ready or Not by The Fugees.  Eh.  Sorry, he’ll never beat  ”Peaches” by the Presidents of the United States of America.  Never should have gone away from it.  Grade: D
• Drew Storen – When the Lights Go Out by The Black Keys.  This as opposed to what the official team site believes he’s playing for himself (“Bad Company” by Five Finger Death Punch).  I’m not as big of a fan of the Black Keys song, but I like the Bad Company remake by FFDP.  Grade: C
• Craig Stammen – Eye of the Tiger by Survivor.  Classic sports anthem, how can you beat it?  Grade: A
• Aaron Barrett – This Is What It Feels Like (W&w Radio Edit) by Armin van Buuren Feat. Trevor Guthrie.  Wow, never thought I’d see a major leaguer going deep into techno/trance and pulling AVB out.  Excellent.  Grade: A
• Jerry Blevins – Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones.  Another great, classic song, appealing to the older crowd.  Grade: A-
• Ross Detwiler – Wherever I May Roam by Metallica.   My kind of music; he had to stay away from songs from the same artist made more popular by other guys.  This is kind of a unique Metallica offering, a deeper cut but still has recognition.  Grade: B+
• Blake Treinen – unknown; he hasn’t returned home yet.  Can’t wait to see this guy throw .. and hear what song he’s listening to.  Grade: Inc

I seem to be a bigger fan of the pitcher’s walk-up music than our hitters.  Biased?  Probably.

I’m inspired by the AVB choice from Barrett.  If I was doing a song right now i’d probably pull from the same genre.  Check out:

• “Ready, Steady, Go“ from Paul Oakenfold; try not to be thrown off by the incredibly weird video; this song was used in one of the Bourne movies (played during a car chanse scene) and the beginning of the song would be perfect for a walk-out.
• “Where’s your Head At“ from Basement Jaxx: you may have heard this before; it did get some play domestically.  Basement Jaxx is a UK-based band that almost never comes to the states: my brother and I once flew to London for a weekend to see them play at Wembley arena.  Ah, the days of being single
• “Superstylin“ from Groove Armada; a band you’ve probably never heard of but they rock.  Saw them at 9:30 club a decade ago and I don’t think they’ve been back to the states since.  You’ll recognize another of their hits, “I See You Baby,” a remix done by Fat Boy Slim that was sampled by the inveterate show MTV Cribs for years and years.  I could pull this song off too.
• Lastly, perhaps i’d figure out something to play from DC-based Thievery Corporation to get the home-town angle, but their stuff is mostly so down-tempo that it’d be hard to find a sample that made sense for walk-up music.   Click here for an example; “Lebanese Blonde“ from their 2000 album The Mirror Conspiracy.

Ok, that was a serious tangent from baseball.  :-)  Maybe i’m trying not to think about some looming storm clouds for the team right now.  You know, a 5.00 ERA for our starters, a ton of injuries, the most errors in the league, getting our hats handed to us by Atlanta so far … and the Cards and their rotation coming into town for a potential 4-game beat-down unless our guys can figure out how to keep runners off-base.  Last night’s win over Jose Fernandez and his sick stuff was a great help though; if they can get to Fernandez for 3 runs, they should be able to hang with St. Louis’ hurlers.  Lets see.

 

 

At the home opener, when Nate McLouth came to bat we were stopped in our tracks by his walk-up music: “Kyrie” by 80′s band Mister Mister.  My wife and I immediately thought this was a rather odd choice.

It made me wonder: should we critique every one of the Nats’ batter’s walk-up songs?  Of course we should!

Thankfully, the team lists each player’s 2014 walk-up music for us on their official MLB.com page.  And, here’s some research by fellow blog DistrictSportsPage on this year’s walk-up songs (and 2013′s walk-up songs) for comparison purposes (note; the official website list isn’t accurate according to those actually listening to and Soundhounding the songs).

Here’s some thoughts on each player’s selection (we’re only going on their primary/1st at bat selection).  We’ll list this in the rough batting order and then tack on the bench guys.  And I’ll give my personal, baseless, unscientific “grade” for the song from a crowd-involvement and song-selection standpoint.

Starters

1. Denard Span: “Gotta Have It” by Kanye West/Jay-Z.  Fitting song to start; last year he used a selection of hip-hop songs, but not really a big crowd involver.  Grade: D
2. Bryce Harper: “Flower” by Moby.  A repeat from last year.   Interesting selection for the young Harper; he doesn’t seem to be the typical Moby fan, but the song is catchy and unique.  He also uses a slew of different songs from many other genres for subsequent at-batss.  Grade: B-
3. Ryan Zimmerman: “This Is How We Do It” by Montell Jordan.  His 2014 actual song differs from the official website; I like this pick.  A familar song, if not a big sing-along song.  Grade: B-
4. Adam LaRoche: “The Only Way I Know“ by Jason Aldean and Eric Church.  Also fitting; LaRoche is a ranch-owning, game-hunting good ole-boy.  And he’s buddies with the singer Aldean.  So he continues to use his songs as he did in 2013.  Grade C+
5. Jayson Werth: “Warehouse“ by Dave Matthews Band.  This is the crowd-favorite where everyone calls out, “Wooh!” after each interlude.  Of course, I can’t figure out where in the song that occurs from the video.  Werth also uses “Werewolves of London” periodically (of course).  Brilliant.  Grade: B+
6. Ian Desmond: “One Sixteen“ by Trip Lee (feat. KB & Andy Mineo).  Does not seem fitting for him, but clearly he likes this genre of hip-hop/rap since his alternates from last year are by and large the same kinds of songs.  Unfortunately for Desmond I’m a middle-aged white guy and can’t stand modern hip-hop.  Grade: D
7. Anthony Rendon: “No Competition“ by Bun B. Feat. Raekwon & Kobe.  Eh.  Don’t like it, don’t get it.  I will say this: I liked his song from last year moreso (“Still D.R.E.“ by Dr. Dre/Snoop Dogg, which you’d recognize if you ever saw the movie Training Day).   Grade: D
8. Wilson Ramos: “Wepa“ by Gloria Estefan.  I’m not sure if he’s still using this (its a holdover from 2013) since he got hurt so quickly, but its got a good dance beat and latino flavor.   No offense to Lobaton’s selections, but lets hope we’re hearing more Gloria Estefan sooner than later.  Grade: B.

Bench Guys

• Nate McClouth: “Kyrie” by Mister Mister.  Man, I’m sorry. I know Michael Morse made retro 80′s songs hip with his selection of “Take On Me” (by the way, being in the stadium when 40,000 people were “singing” gave me goose-bumps that I still get thinking about it to this day), but this song is awful.  You gotta find something else.  How about some Kenny Loggins or the Top Gun theme, if we’re stuck in the 80s?  Grade: F
• Danny Espinosa: “Outside“ by Staind.  Big fan, especially after his 2013 choice as well (from Cage the Elephant).  Grade: B
• Jose Lobaton: “Mi Chica Ideal“ by Chico & Nacho.  Fast, catchy.  Can’t argue with it.  Grade: B
• Kevin Frandsen: “Snow (Hey Oh)” by Red Hot Chili Peppers.   You’ve heard this song, even if you have no idea who RHCP is (hint: they were a serious underground 80s sensation but are now totoally mainstream and played the Superbowl Halftime show this year and actually wore clothes!)   I like it; even if it seems a bit slow-paced.  Grade: B-
• Tyler Moore: “Drivin’ Around Song“ by Colt Ford feat. Jason Aldean (at least according to the Nats website; he hasn’t had a home AB yet).  We see Moore’s heritage here; Mississippi born and bread.  Loves his country music.  Grade: C
• Scott Hairston: “Blue Sky“ by Common.  Not my cup of tea; not really a crowd-engager either.  Grade: D
• Sandy Leon: I have no idea; has anyone seen an at-bat by him yet?  They never got his song from last year either.  Grade: Inc

What would I use as walk-up music?

Not that I’ve ever thought about this in my life or anything.  But i’d definitely go with something from my head-banging days in high school.  I (fortunatley or unfortunately depending on your point of view) grew up in the 80s, so we listened to glam rock, heavy metal and the like.  I’d probably go with one of these three options:

• “Home Sweet Home” by Motley Crue (who is on their farewell tour this summer; tickets going fast!)
• “The Final Countdown” by Europe (simply because this is a huge running joke amongst my friends and my wife and I)
• Something harsh from Metallica.  I’d have to do some digging for a good riff that wasn’t already taken by someone more famous like Mariano Rivera.  :-)

 

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I’m tempted to do this same analysis for the pitchers … and maybe I will.  But for some reason “walk on” music for pitchers isn’t as meaning ful.  Well, except for Tyler Clippard‘s epic “Peaches” walk-up song by the Presidents of the United States a few years back.  Ok, we’ll do a part-2 of this post for the pitchers…. stay tuned.

 

Here’s some useless trivia related to the Nats home openers, now that we have the Nats 10th home opener in the books.

Nats Trivia: capacity of Nats park? 

• 41,888 at opening
• 41,546 in 2010
• 41,506 in 2011
• 41,487 in 2012
• 41,418 in 2013
• 41,506 for 2014

Interesting how the capacity has slightly decreased each year but jumped for this year.  Do we know where they’re adding/removing seats?   By the way, RFK capacity: 45,596 per wikipedia/ballparks.com.

Nats All-time Record attendance?

• 45,966 10/12/12 game 5 2012 NLDS

Other/Previous Attendance Records

• 45,274 Opening Day 2013 (new and current Regular Season record for Nats park)
• 45,017 10/10/12 first home playoff game
• 44,685 8/20/11 vs Phillies (longer standing Nats park record)
• 41,985 6/24/09 vs Boston. (Nats reg-season record standard bearer for a while in the new stadium)
• 45,157 Fathers day 2006 vs Yankees (long standing Regular season Record)
• 45,596 RFK franchise opener (long standing franchise attendance record)

Opening Day Attendances and weather through the years

• 2014: 42,834 (1:05 Friday game, 50s and overcast)
• 2013: 45,274 (1:05 Monday game, 60 and beautiful)
• 2012: 40,907 (1:05 Thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
• 2011: 39,055 (1:05 Thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
• 2010: 41,290 (1pm game Monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): this was the “Phillies invasion” game.
• 2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a Monday, chilly 53degr and overcast).
• 2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm Sunday night, nat’l tv, clear but very cold.
• 2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72degrees)
• 2006: 40,516 (in rfk, Tuesday day game vs Mets, 72degr and sunny)
• 2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62degr and clear, evening game)

Opening Day Box Scores and Results

Nats are 4-6 in their home openers now since moving to Washington, and they’re just 2-6 in non-stadium openers.  Just one starter has thrown more than one home opener for the Nats: Livan Hernandez.  When Livan gets elected to Cooperstown, I hope he’s wearing the curly W.  :-)

• 2014: mlb.com or b-r.com.  Braves d Nats 2-1.  WP: Luis Avilan.  LP: Tyler Clippard.  (Starters: Jordan Zimmermann and David Hale).
• 2013: mlb.com or b-r.com.  Nats d Marlins 2-0.  WP: Stephen Strasburg.  LP: Rickey Nolasco
• 2012: mlb.com.  Nats d Reds 3-2.  WP: Craig Stammen. LP: Alfredo Simon (Starters: Gio Gonzalez and Mat Latos)
• 2011: mlb.com.  Braves d Nats 2-0.  WP: Derek Lowe.  LP: Livan Hernandez
• 2010: mlb.com.  Phillies d Nats 11-1.  WP: Roy Halladay.  LP: John Lannan
• 2009: mlb.com.  Phillies d Nats 9-8.  WP: Jamie Moyer.  LP: Saul Rivera (Nats Starter: Daniel Cabrera)
• 2008: mlb.com.  Nats d Braves 3-2.  WP: Jon Rauch.  LP: Peter Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez)
• 2007: mlb.com.  Marlins d Nats 9-2.  WP: Dontrelle Willis.  LP: John Patterson
• 2006: mlb.com.  Mets d Nats 7-1.  WP: Brian Bannister.  LP: Ramon Ortiz
• 2005: mlb.com.  Nats beat Arizona 5-3. WP: Livan Hernandez. LP: Javier Vazquez

I like Matt Williams.  I thought he was the obvious choice for manager of this team, and I thought he made a great change of pace from Davey Johnson‘s laissez-faire approach.

But, man, I’m seeing some warning signs thus far through four games in some of his decisions.   Base running and lineup construction specifically.

The Nats made not one, not two, but THREE critical base-running errors in Friday’s home opener 2-1 loss to Atlanta.  Lets see if we can correctly second-guess these moves:

1. Gee, I wonder what would happen if I sent a guy with 20 speed (Adam LaRoche) home when a guy with an 80 arm (Andrelton Simmons) is getting ready to make the relay?    Oh, you think the 20-runner gets thrown out by 15 feet?  Check.  This isn’t on Williams of course … but if he holds LaRoche the team has 2nd and 3rd with one out (run expectancy: 1.44) versus just Zimmerman on third with two outs (RE: .385).  That’s huge.  If LaRoche stays put the team is almost guaranteed a run and perhaps more (a single scores two).  What happens?  Bryce Harper strikes out to end the inning.

2. One on, one out, and Harper gets thrown out trying to steal second on such an obvious steal attempt that the Braves pitched out and one of the lesser defensive catchers in the game (Evan Gattis) had Harper so dead to rights that he stopped running to second.  He was out by 20 feet.   This wouldn’t have led to much of anything likely .. but come on.  Maybe Harper gets to third on Ian Desmond‘s subsequent single up the middle.

3. The most egregious, the most obvious bone-headed running error though was the one that changed the game most.  After Desmond’s ground rule double (an opinion here: why was this call missed in the first place?  Every frigging little leaguer in the country knows the universal thing to do when a ball gets stuck in the fence; you raise your hands and its an automatic ground rule double.  Have MLB umpires just forgotten this?  Why did we need a 5-minute replay, arguments from both managers and a complete waste of time to determine this??), Desmond INEXPLICABLY tried to steal third and was again thrown out by 15 feet.   Why would you possibly try to steal third there?   You’re on second base with none out; RE of 1.1.  Your hitters have three shots to get a single to drive you in from there.

This steal completely changed the course of the game; instead of having a guy on second with none out, who you could bunt to third with Lobaton and then sac fly with Nate McCloud and voila; game tied.  Nope; instead Lobaton walks, McClouth feebly flies out (also removing the starter Jordan Zimmermann in the process) and opportunity wasted.

Just dumb, all around.

One last thing: why the F is Harper batting 6th??   He’s got the most power on the team, in arguably.  He’s one of the better hitters on the team.  The 6-hole bats approximately 30 times less per season than each subsequent position above it.  It just doesn’t make sense to be batting him behind guys who hit .220 last year.  I just don’t get it, and i’m not the only one out there who’s noticing this as well.  There’s a ton of science behind lineup construction that goes against conventional thinking, and hitting Harper 6th just invites criticism needlessly.  Hit the guy 4th and leave him there.

I won’t bother to comment on Harper taking strike-3 down the frigging middle of the plate in the 8th; that was pretty inexplicable to me too.  And I’ll give Williams a pass for yanking the effective Zimmermann after just 81 pitches; he was sick yesterday and the Desmond CS basically forced the move.

Nats have to play smarter.

Grr.  Great day at the ballpark wasted.

Some of my favorite trivia questions  revolves around Opening Day Starters.  With another Opening Day in the books, here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day starters.  I’ve updated my Opening Day Starters spreadsheet to Google Docs and created a link in the “Nationals Arm Race creation” section along the right.  Fyi, on a team-by-team basis you can query Baseball-Reference.com for the opening day lineups (here’s the Washington/Montreal franchise’ opening day lineup history as an example).

Current Active Leaders in Opening Day Starts

11	CC Sabathia
9	Mark Buehrle
7	Felix Hernandez
7	Justin Verlander
6	Bartolo Colon
6	Tim Hudson
6	Jered Weaver
6	James Shields
5	Josh Beckett
5	Yovanni Gallardo
4	Jake Peavy
4	Tim Lincecum
4	Clayton Kershaw
4	Jon Lester
3	Strasburg, Cueto, Wainwright, Price, Masterson, Nolasco
2	Lee, Samardzija, Liriano, Dickey, Sale, Feldman

Those players bolded in the list above had 2014 opening day starts and added to their totals.   (Note; there’s plenty of guys out there with 2 or 3 opening day starts but who did not extend their count in 2014; they are not included here).  With the retirement of Roy Halladay, CC Sabathia extends his active lead in this category.  Mark Buehrle has given over the reigns of opening day starter possibly for good, based on his standing in the Toronto rotation.  Meanwhile the next closest competitors (Justin Vernalder and Felix Hernandez) could eventually supplant Sabathia, especially if he continues to struggle and gets replaced as the Yankees’ ace.

Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander continue to be the best bets to broach the all-time records (see below) based on their ages, their current counts and their new long-term contracts.

Answers to other Opening Day start trivia:

Current Active Leader in consecutive Opening Day Starts: Sabathia with 9 consecutive, split among two teams.  Second is Verlander with 7 straight, albeit all with the same team.  There was talk about how his Cy Young-winning rotation mate Max Scherzer should have gotten the ball this year, given Verlander’s 2013 struggles.

Most ever Opening Day Starts all-time: Tom Seaver with 16 in his career.

Most ever Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Hall of Fame lightning rod Jack Morris, who made 14 straight such starts.

Number of first-time opening day starters in 2014: Ten (10) guys got the ball on opening day for the first time, slightly down from last year’s 13.  Injuries gave some pitchers the ball on opening day over other expected rotation mates (this is definitely the case with the likes of Julio Teheran, Tanner Scheppers, Sonny Gray, Dillon Gee, Jorge De La Rosa), and its probably the case that others got the ball on opening day thanks to their own personal ascention to the “lead-dog” spot on their teams (Jose Fernandez, Madison Bumgarner).  The other three newbies (Andrew Cashner, Wade Miley, and Chris Tillman) probably fall somewhere inbetween these categories.

Who seems most likely to break Seaver or Morris’ Records at this point? Still Sabathia, who already has 11 opening day starts (and 9 straight), is the #1 in New York, is only 32 and still has four years on his current deal. However, he took a big step backwards in 2013 performance-wise, and the Yankees spent a ton of money on Masahiro Tanaka, and there could be a passing of the torch if Tanaka blows it out in 2014.  Meanwhile Hernandez already has 7 opening day starts, just signed a deal that takes him through 2019 with a relatively easy option for 2020.   That’s many more seasons under contract and he’d only be 34 years of age by its end.   He could be the standard holder if he stays healthy and continues to pitch like an ace.

Most Inconsisent team using Opening Day Pitchers: Oakland.  They’ve used 9 different opening day starters in the last 9 seasons, and that’s likely to continue since both the candidates for this year had injuries that forced them to go to a rookie for 2014.  Pittsburgh is right behind them;  they have used 7 different opening day starters in the last 7 seasons, and 13 different starters in the last 15 seasons. The Nats have at some point employed no less than three former Pittsburgh opening day starters: Ron Villone, Oliver Perez and Zach Duke.   Colorado, Baltimore and Minnesota have also struggled for most of the past decade to find a dominant, reliable “Ace” and constantly cycle through new opening day starters, and once again each is using a different guy in 2014.