Nationals Arm Race

Tanner Roark is making a case to stick with the big club. Photo via milb.com

So, after yet another excellent outing Friday night in Kansas City, Tanner Roark now has 4 wins, a miniscule 1.10 ERA, a ridiculous 349 ERA+ and has pitched 16 innings and only given up 10 hits.  By way of comparison, in 12 MLB innings Nathan Karns gave up 17 hits, 6 walks and 10 earned runs.  On Friday night he stranded two runners he inherited from the wholly ineffective Gio Gonzalez and then pitched through the 8th inning giving up just one hit against a hot offense who had pounded our 2012 Cy Young candidate.

Tanner Roark, where have you been all my life??

Small sample sizes, yes.  But Roark has been effective in 5 of his 6 of his appearances thus far (his worst outing was in his hometown; understandable as his family looked on).  He hits corners, he doesn’t walk guys, he works inside, he gets a ton of jams and flairs.  He has decent enough velocity and stuff, which is less important than being able to command your pitches.  90mph at the knees on the black is better than 96mph over the middle of the plate (ask Greg Maddux what he thinks of command versus velocity).

Are we looking at a potential 5th starter for 2014?  At some point in the off-season we’re going to have this discussion.  Clearly the team has more than one viable candidate for a 5th starter.  The days of paying Edwin Jackson and Dan Haren tens of millions of dollars to be mediocre-to-ineffective 4th starters looks like it may be over.   Ross Detwiler‘s up and down career may put him in jeopardy of losing his rotation spot next spring.  At the very least Roark seems to have an inside track on the long-man/spot starter role that just a few weeks ago we thought was Ross Ohlendorf‘s to lose.

Stay tuned; with the Nats out of it September is going to be a great time to feature Roark in a starting role (along with perhaps Karns and maybe even someone like Danny Rosenbaum or even the surprising Caleb Clay) as an audition for 2014.

By way of comparison, in 12 MLB innings Nathan Karns gave up 17 hits, 6 walks and 10 earned runs.

At the beginning of the season, Houston’s MLB rotation looked so weak that I asked in this space whether you would prefer to have the Houston Astros MLB rotation or the Durham Bulls (AAA affiliate of Tampa) Opening Day rotation?

Now, more than 2/3’s the way through the season, lets take another look.  Here’s some quick links for reference: Houston’s B-R stats, Tampa’s B-R stats, Houston’s Fangraphs Stats, Tampa’s Fangraphs stats and MILB’s Durham stats.

All stats as of 8/6/13.

So, here’s how Houston’s opening day rotation has performed thus far:

Here I see one #4 starter (Norris), one #5 starter (Bedard), one guy who wouldn’t make any other team’s rotations (Harrell) and two abject failures in Humber and our own former farmhand Peacock (though it should be noted, Peacock just got recalled, threw 7 innings of 3-run ball, struck out 10 guys and lowered his ERA nearly a full point).

Now, here’s the same stats for Durham’s opening day rotation, showing MLB stats where I could:

Durham’s opening day rotation has matriculated one mainstay to the Tampa rotation in Chris Archer (he has the best adjusted ERA+ of any of Tampa’s rotation right now) and a second guy in Alex Torres who has given up exactly one run in 34 mlb innings this year.  Alex Colome had three effective spot starts, Jake Odorizzi had 3 relatively ineffective MLB spot starts, and Mike Montgomery missed some time with an injury and has not yet debuted.  It should be noted that both Odorizzi and Montgomery are just 23 and still a bit young for the big stage.

So, which rotation would you rather have now?  It isn’t like the Ray’s AAA guys Montgomery or Odorizzi could do any worse than what Houston’s 4th and 5th starters did this season.  And you can clearly see that Archer’s performance trumps Norris’, and Torres’ amazing bullpen work is better than Bedard’s 96 ERA+ work.

The Rays continue to have the best pitching development system in the majors, even ahead of St. Louis, who turns out mid-90s hurler after mid-90s hurler.

Tanner Roark living the dream. Photo via milb.com

A few days ago I was playing amateur GM and ended up predicting the 8/6/13 roster moves, where Ross Detwiler was transfered to the 60-day DL and Tanner Roark was called up to provide some bullpen cover while Ross Ohlendorf is on the mend.  Roark’s body of work both this season and over the past few warranted his call-up, and his mixture of success both in the starter role and in a long-relief role in AAA make him the perfect candidate to replace Ohlendorf for the time being.

A quick side note: whenever I see someone, after years and years of toiling in the minors, finally get the call-up I’m reminded of the storytelling of Dirk Hayhurst in his 2nd book Out of My League, where he described all the logistics and feelings of getting his first callup.  Of particular interest; the pay.  I’m sure Roark was compensated like a typical minor league veteran in AAA; probably making $1,500 a month or so (which was about what Hayhurst said he made).  Upon signing a MLB contract, you immediately start getting paid a pro-rated amount of a minimum MLB salary, which is $490,000 a season.  Well, you can quickly see that a guy getting called up immediately starts making significantly more money.   30-40 TIMES more money.  More money per day in the majors than he was making in a month in the minors.   So I say good for Roark and good for every guy who finally gets a shot at the bigs.

Lets take a look at Roark’s first appearance… which came last night on 8/7/13 in relief of a curiously ineffective Jordan Zimmermann, who needed 88 pitches to complete 4 innings as the Nats officially waved the white flag on the season, getting swept at home by the team they’re chasing for the division lead and falling to 15 1/2 games out of first.

Roark had a great MLB debut.  He came in to face Atlanta’s 4-5-6 hitters and pitched a 1-2-3 inning.  He got a Brian McCann to fly out on a relatively well struck ball, then badly jammed Chris Johnson to get a simple grounder to short, and then got Dan Uggla to reach for a first pitch fastball for an equally weak grounder to second.  Coming back out to face the bottom of the order he effectively jammed BJ Upton, who flared a flyball into shallow center field that Denard Span couldn’t quite come up with in a sliding catch attempt, then  he jammed Andrelton Simmons to get a simple pop-up to first.  Lastly for his coup-de-gras, he induced a popped-up bunt attempt from his opposite number Kris Medlen, made a diving catch and then doubled off Upton, who was (I guess) running on the play.

Not a bad debut, at all.

The scouting reports on Roark said that he’d work mid 90s in relief, low 90s as a starter, and that’s exactly what we saw.  Per the pitch f/x data, He threw 12 fastballs on the night which averaged 94.46, peaking at 95.52.  He only threw three sliders, bouncing the first and probably ruining his confidence in the pitch.  10 of 15 pitches were for strikes, and that ratio should have been higher; his first batter he didn’t get a borderline call on the outside corner and the ump flat out missed a low strike.  He seemed to have pretty good movement on the 4-seamer (-7.10″ average horizontal movement, which for comparison purposes almost as much as Medlen, a guy who relies almost exclusively on his movement, got on his 2-seamer last night).  He certainly worked the corners effectively, only really giving up one well hit ball (that to McCann, who benefitted from being way ahead in the count thanks to the ump’s missed strike calls).  You don’t have to throw 100mph if you can effectively work the ball inside and out.

He was almost too effective; 15 pitches to get through 2 innings meant he didn’t really work much of his repertoire.  I’m sure he has at least a third pitch, but we never got to see it.  Roark’s spot in the order was up, and he was out (as he was being pinch hit for, I wondered internally when the last time Roark got an at-bat was.  Turns out he has 18PAs for Syracuse this summer; I didn’t realize the minor league pitchers got any at-bats).

It was hard not to like what we saw from him last night.  Is he going to continue to be effective, can he stick in the majors?  Hard to tell.  Ian Krol giving up two hits and a walk in a third of an inning didn’t help his cause much, a similiarly ineffective appearance to his 7/31 outing.  Fernando Abad has basically blown the last two games in which he’s appeared.  But these two guys are blessed as being left-handers, so they possess value that a righty does not, and may not really be candidates to make way once Ohlendorf comes off the D/L.  So we’ll see.

Meanwhile Tanner, use some of that MLB meal money to go get a haircut!  🙂

PS.  One more thought on this series since i’ve got nowhere else to put it; I’m disappointed we didn’t see retaliation of some sort last night for the BS of the night before.  I’m sorry; you HAVE to protect your best player out there, and i’m not surprised to hear reports and see evidence that Bryce Harper was on edge last night with his own manager.  As J.P. Santangelo succinctly pointed out; not protecting one of your own players can and does blow up clubhouses.  I think somebody on Atlanta needed to get hit last night (likely McCann).  I’m more than a little worried right now about the state of the clubhouse, given this lack of reaction.

A.J. Cole is having a rebound 2013 for sure. Photo: AP Stock

Here’s this month’s Minor League Rotation Review post.  Here’s April 2013, May 2013, and June 2013‘s posts for history.

For each level, I’ll put out the rotation members, their “letter grades” per start for this month only, and then throw in a quick link to show their seasonal stats for context.  For each team there are 3 distinct groups of starters: the top group of 5-6 Starters per level is the “current rotation” as best as I can figure it, then the next section of pitchers are swing-men or spot-starters or guys who had “2nd start” or longer outings worthy of grading, followed by a 3rd group of guys who are generally no longer with the team (either by D/L, promotion, demotion or release).  I’ve only listed the third category if something transactionally has happened to the player this particular month.

All stats mentioned (ERAs, Whips, K/9 rates, etc) are as of 8/1/13 and may have slightly changed by the time of this posting.

AAA Rotation: click here for Syracuse Milb.com stats

• Maya: B+,D,D-,A-,B+,A
• Tatusko: D,A,B,C+,B,B
• Rosenbaum: B,C-,A,D,D
• Roark: B+,C+,C-,A-,A
• Clay: A,A,D+/inc (rain),B,C

• Mandel: D->back to bullpen
• Robertson: F

Discussion: Syracuse has had the most stable rotation of the whole system.   Which is ironic because (if I’m interpreting their service time correctly) 4/5ths of this rotation are minor league free agents this coming off season.   Only Danny Rosenbaum is tied to the organization past this year, having already “survived” one rule-5 draft, but I think we can read the tea-leaves in terms of his future with the organization.  The bright side of this turnover will be the rightful promotion and challenging of several AA pitchers right now, to start grooming the true MLB injury replacements that we just did not have in-house this year (with apologies to Chris Young who really did not work out and Ross Ohlendorf, who has but in a non-starting role thus far).

Yunesky Maya has shown signs of life lately, putting up a few good performances in the latter part of the month.  Tanner Roark seems like he could be a useful swing-man on the MLB roster if called into action; he’s performed ably since returning to the rotation.  Caleb Clay continues to impress; how did he not success in Boston’s organization?

In the bullpen, Xavier Cedeno has excelled since his waiver claim from Houston but suffered from bad timing and bad luck; the two loogies called up (Abad and Krol) have both excelled.   Cedeno is likely another 6-year MLFA heading elsewhere this coming off-season.  (Note: Cedeno has just been called up to cover for Ohlendorf’s “dead arm” D/L trip).

AA: click here for Harrisburg Milb.com stats

• Karns: A,A (inc),A,A,B-,B-
• Gilliam: A-,A+,D+,B,B,C-
• Cole: A+,A
• Ray: B+,A++,D,D,B-
• Hill: A,B,A-,B,B,D+

• Herron: D
• Swynenberg: A-
• Grace: B

• Demny: -> D/L, to bullpen, demoted
• Treinen: D->d/l,C+,B+ -> D/L

Discussion: Harrisburg’s rotation is now down to just one of the 5 guys who opened the year there; Nathan Karns has recovered from his MLB stint and long layoff and is back to dominating; if it weren’t for the full-deck in AAA Karns may have been promoted by now.   Blake Treinen (another original rotation guy) is on his second D/L stint of the month but has kept his numbers respectable.  Robert Gilliam continues his up-and-down season, moving between stellar and sub-par starts (which is reflected in his 4.09 ERA in AA).

The next generation though seems upon us: A.J. Cole, Robbie Ray and Taylor Hill are all on the same path this year: succeeded in High-A, pushed to AA and are now succeeding there.  Cole’s first two starts in Harrisburg could not have gone better, and Ray’s numbers are still good despite a couple of rough starts.  Remember; both Ray and Cole were “really young” at the season’s onset for High-A; now they’re among the youngest guys in all of AA and still producing.  This is great news going forward for this farm system, especially considering that another of the opening day Potomac starters (Taylor Jordan) is now effectively pitching in the majors.  I know this is the Harrisburg section, but think about the success of Potomac’s original 5 this year.

High-A:  click here for Potomac Milb.com stats

• Purke: A-,F-,C-,D-,D,B+
• Demny: D,D/inc (2 innings)
• Solis: A-,D,A-
• Schwartz: A,D,C-,B+,C+,B+
• Rauh C,A,D,B+,A,D/inc (2/3 inning)

• Fischer: A,B
• Holt: A

• Ray: -> promoted
• Pineyro: A -> traded
• Cole: D,B+/inc,A- -> promoted
• Frias: B,F -> bullpen -> released 7/24/13

Discussion: The churn in the Potomac rotation continues.   They’ve not gotten starts from 15 different non-rehab assignment players.   And they keep on chugging, holding an 8 game lead in the division on August 1st after winning the first half.  Potomac’s two significant/important names of course are Matthew Purke and Sammy Solis.   Purke has looked hittable in High-A, his ERA skewed by one really bad outing but still not as dominant as you’d like someone with his pedigree to be.  Meanwhile Solis’ latest “return” seems to be going pretty well; he maintains a 2.65 ERA in Potomac while trying to build up arm strength.   Blake Schwartz is now the longest tenured rotation member and has pitched excellently so far in 2013.  He could be quite a find if he continues to develop (he was a 17th round pick who mostly pitched in Division II in college).

Meanwhile, Paul Demny‘s career faced a significant setback upon his demotion from Harrisburg.  He now sits back in High-A, a level at which he pitched a full season in 2011.  It may be time for Demny to try a conversion to relief, as it seems that he may be stalled as a starter.  He had great K/9 rates as a starter; it seems he may make a very effective reliever.

Low-A: click here for Hagerstown Milb.com stats

• Turnbull: F,D,A,C-,A,D
• Encarnation: A+,C,A,D,A-,B+
• Mooneyham: B+,B-,D,B,A+
• Dickson: A,F,C+,B+
• Lee: A,B+,C-,B+,A-,B+

• RPena: B,B+
• Harper: | | | B,B+
• Meza: B

• Purke: -> promoted
• Anderson: -> d/l

Discussion: with Dixon Anderson‘s D/L trip, Pedro Encarnacion now becomes the senior statesman of Hagerstown.   Both guys have pretty similar numbers; good ERAs (3.20-3.30) and good whips (1.17-1.19).   Encarnaction continues his slow march up the farm system, having gotten further along than most every DSL graduate in recent  years.   Brett Mooneyham continues to dominate a league that he’s over-qualified for.    Kylin Turnbull continues to get pounded in a league that he should be handling.  Ian Dickson (who we got in trade for Henry Rodriguez) has done decently well since being added to the rotation; outside of one blow-up he’s given up just 4 runs in 20 innings over 5 starts.  Not a bad return so far for a guy we were going to cut anyway (and who the Cubs took about 5 weeks to DFA themselves).

Short-A: click here for Auburn Milb.com stats

• Johansen: A,A,B+,B+,A
• Barrientos: D,C+,C- -> D/L,F
• Orlan: F-,B-,A,A,F
• DWilliams: B-,F,D,C-
• Voth: A,C+,B/inc (1ip),A-
• Ullmann: | | | F,B+

• Hollins: B,B+
• Bafidis: D+
• Medina: A-
• Selsor: B,D,D -> demoted to bullpen

• Hudgins: D+,A- -> retired !?
• Turnbull: C -> promoted

We’re seeing some big ERAs in Auburn so far.  Robert Orlan; 5.19 ERA.  Joel Barrientos: 4.66.  Deion Williams: 9.42.  Ugh.  More interesting to me are the 2013 draftee performances thus far.  2nd rounder Jake Johansen has been good; sub 1.00 ERA, sub 1.00 whip and about a K an inning so far.  He’s been a bit wild (28/14 K/BB ratio but has been consistently stingy when it comes to runs.  5th rounder Austin Voth has been sharp; 17/1 K/BB ratio in 14 innings so far in Short-A.  Lastly Ryan Ullman, a 30th round pick has had up and down starts so far in his 13 short-A innings.

I remain baffled with Will Hudgins abrupt retirement; he had 12 innings of relatively decent relief in 2013 and then tweeted out his retirement.   He hasn’t tweeted since, and when I mentioned it in the daily NationalsProspect.com post I didn’t get anyone who knew anything else.  Hopefully the retirement was not injury or illness related.

GCL: click here for GCL-Nationals Stats on MiLB.com

• JRodriguez: F,A,A,B,B+
• Silvestre: C-,A,F,A
• Giolito: D/inc (only 1/3 inning),B,A-,D/inc (2/3 inings),D
• Suero: B,B+,A
• Valdez: A

• Ott: B,B,C
• DeRosier: B,B-
• KRodriguez: B,B+,B+,C+
• Pivetta: B-,B+,A
• Spezial: A
• Webb: A

• Voth: A -> promoted
• Ullmann: A,D+ -> promoted

It almost isn’t worth trying to grade out these GCL pitchers; most of the time they’re going 2-3 innings per “start” or per long relief stint.  If you pitch 3 scoreless innings, is that an “A?”   Lucas Giolito now has 6 “starts” but only a total of 12 combined innings thrown.   DSL grads Wander Suero and Jefry Rodriguez have looked promising.  Kelvin Rodriguez has good numbers in his combined mid-relief stints but relatively few strike outs (only 9 in 21 1/3 innings).

If Detwiler is out for the year, the Nats have a problem. Photo: Haraz Ghanbari/AP via federalbaseball.com

We all knew the Nationals had a glaring, acknowledged weakness heading into the 2013 season; almost no quality starting pitching depth in the high minors.  We non-tendered former opening day starter John Lannan in lieu of paying him somewhere between $5M-$6M dollars to toil in Syracuse again.  We non-tendered former starter Tom Gorzelanny despite his excellent 2012 season for us instead of paying him a few millions dollars a year to continue to be the 7th guy out of the pen.  We traded away top starting pitching prospect Alex Meyer to acquire a center-fielder that (in my oft-stated opinion) we didn’t need.  We were blinded by the excellent but short-sample-sized performance of Zach Duke upon his call-up last September and chose to make him not only the sole lefty in our 2013 pen, but the long-man/spot starter as well.

And we talked ourselves into it.

In 2012 our primary rotation made 150 of 162 starts.  Those 12 missed starts were made by Chien-Ming Wang (five starts) in a quickly-aborted glimpse to see if the many millions of dollars invested in his recovery over the past few years were going to pay off (they did not), by Lannan (six) for a couple of mid-season spot starts and his Stephen Strasburg replacement plan in September, and one by Gorzelanny the day after the team clinched the division (editor note: mistakely originally put “pennant.”  Duh).  That’s it; otherwise the rotation was solid, consistent, and one of the best in the majors by any statistical measure.

Was it just hubris that led us to believe that the same thing would happen in 2013?  That our vaunted rotation (which I certainly thought was the best in the majors before the season started) would steamroll through another 150+ starts in 2013 as we marched to the inevitable World Series title?  Maybe so.

The latest blow is the news that Ross Detwiler‘s herniated disk may very well keep him out for the rest of 2013.  Taylor Jordan has been more than ably filling in for Detwiler … but in a familiar twist Jordan is facing an innings restriction limit.  After August 4th’s start he’s got 40 2/3 major league innings in 2013 to go with 90 1/3 in the minors for 131 total on the year.  He only threw 54 1/3 all of 2012 coming back from Tommy John surgery, and this year easily marks a professional career high (he’s never thrown more than 100 professional innings).  He’s going to get shut down, soon (in about four more starts per the Washington Times’ Amanda Comak, which would put him just about at the same 160ip limit that both Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann pitched to the year after their own TJ surgeries).  This leaves the team right back where they were on May 20th, when the whole “find a competent 5th starter” charade started.

Duke failed and was released.  Yunesky Maya got his last attempt at pitching in the majors and was outrighted (a move long overdue in the opinion of many Nats followers).  Nathan Karns got three bites at the apple and returned to AA with a 7.50 ERA.  Ross Ohlendorf gave us a fantastic spot start in a double header last week… and just went on the D/L after not being able to dial it up more than 85mph in his last appearance.  The only other 40-man starter in the whole of the minors is Matthew Purke, currently posting a 6.35 ERA in high-A.

Hey, at least Dan Haren suddenly resembles the 2009 version of himself, having tossed 14 innings oof one-run ball en route to winning his last two starts.  A month ago we were talking about releasing him.

So, what should the team do when Jordan is shutdown?  It sounds to me like in the short term we’ll go back to Ohlendorf as the 5th starter (assuming of course his recent “dead arm” injury doesn’t turn into much more than a quick D/L trip).   However, despite Ohlendorf’s excellent work for us thus far, lets not forget why he was available on a minor league deal in the first place; his ERAs in 2011 and 2012 were 8.15 and 7.77 respectively.  Odds are that he’s not likely to be that effective going forward.

Plus, Ohlendorf’s time in the rotation means the bullpen will need another guy … presumably one that can pitch long relief to replace Ohlendorf.  I’m not entirely sure any of the other relievers on the 40-man but in the minors (Drew Storen, Erik Davis or Tyler Robertson) fits the bill.  Craig Stammen has absolutely done that role in the past, but I think Stammen’s value to this team now lies in his 7th inning “bridge reliever” role, getting the team from a short start to the 8th/9th inning guys.

If Detwiler is indeed out for the year I think he should be immediately transferred to the 60-day D/L (opening up a spot on the 40-man roster) and I’d like to see Tanner Roark  get a look-see as the long man in the bullpen.  He’s put up very good numbers in AAA this season in a swing-man role and faces minor league free agency this off-season.  Or, I wouldn’t be opposed to keeping Ohlendorf in the pen and giving Danny Rosenbaum a shot at the 5th starter.  He’s been the most effective AAA starter all year and, despite not being that overpowering, could turn into another Tommy Milone-esque lefty starter that we could leverage in trade.  We may not have fantastic depth in the upper minors, but you never know who may suddenly be an effective MLB pitcher (see Krol, Ian).

(Editor’s note: after I wrote this mid-weekend MASN’s Byron Kerr wrote and posted almost identical analysis).

Taylor Jordan is the big name in the Minor League Rotations this month. Photo via wffn.net/hueytaxi on flikr.com

Here’s this month’s Minor League Rotation Review post.  Here’s April 2013 and May 2013‘s post for history.

For each level, I’ll put out the Rotation members, their “letter grades” per start for this month only, and then throw in a quick link to show their seasonal stats for context.  For each team there are 3 distinct groups of starters: the top group of 5-6 Starters per level is the “current rotation” as best as I can figure it, then the next section of pitchers are swing-men or spot-starters or guys who had “2nd start” or longer outings worthy of grading, followed by a 3rd group of guys who are generally no longer with the team (either by D/L, promotion, demotion or release).

All stats were as of 7/1/13 and may be slightly changed now with additional starts.

AAA Rotation: click here for Syracuse Milb.com stats

• Maya: B+,D+,C+
• Tatusko: C -> hburg spot start and back,B+,D-,D
• Rosenbaum: B,B+,D,C-,B-,D
• Roark: A-,A
• Clay: B,C,A

• Mandel: D-,A-,D,D-

• Perry:  demoted
• Young: still on the D/L; no starts in June
• Demny: D- -> back down
• Ohlendorf: B+ -> promoted
• Torra: D,D-,C+->released

Discussion: The AAA rotation was rather tumultuous to follow in June.  Only Danny Rosenbaum made all of his expected starts.   Yunesky Maya nursed an injury and recognition of the looming ignomious end to his Nats career after his outright off the 40-man.  Ryan Tatusko continues to struggle in a starting role.  Tanner Roark always seems to do well in his spot-starts and may keep his gig in the rotation starting in July with the struggles of fellow swingman Jeff Mandel.   Caleb Clay has done very well since his promotion; he holds a 2.21 ERA in AAA and looks like quite a MLFA find so far.  Paul Demny wasn’t ready for AAA and got hammered in his one spot-start.  The team ran out of patience with Matt Torra and released him with a 5.53 ERA through 5 starts in April and May.  Ryan Perry‘s future in the organization is in question after being demoted to AA and successfully being outrighted off the 40-man roster.  Chris Young remains in organizational limbo, having not pitched in nearly 6 weeks.  Lastly the one success story: Ross Ohlendorf‘s patience has paid off with his promotion and his continued presence in the Nats bullpen.

AA: click here for Harrisburg Milb.com stats

• Gilliam: D,A+,D,D,D-
• Treinen: B+,B,B,A,C-
• Demny: -> up/back,A-,A+,D,F-
• Karns: returned/11 day layoff,C,A
• Hill: A

• Broderick: still on the D/L: no June Starts
• Tatusko A (rain driven spot start->back to AAA)
• Clay: A+,B,A -> promoted
• Rauh: demoted
• Jordan: A,A+,A+,A+,A- (pitch limit) -> promoted

Harrisburg’s rotation has now been picked twice by the Nats for a starter to promote; Nathan Karns struggled in 3 spot starts before being returned and looked rusty in his return, while Taylor Jordan‘s 2013 continues to be magical as he holds a sub 3.00 ERA through his two MLB starts (though he’s likely to be returned once all the Nats regular rotation guys return from D/L stints).  As for the rest of the Harrisburg Rotation in June: Rob Gilliam has mostly struggled since his promotion.  Blake Treinen continues to be the staff work-horse, leading the team in starts and innings.  Paul Demny got a spot start in AAA that seemed more due to schedule availability than performance; Demny continues to sport the same mid 4.00 ERA that he’s had essentially for his whole career in the Nats farm system.  Taylor Hill has had a couple of very nice debut starts on the heels of a sterling run of starts in Potomac.

High-A:  click here for Potomac Milb.com stats

• Ray: A,A,F,D-,C+
• Cole: B-,A+,A,B-,C+
• Pineyro: D
• Schwartz: A,F,D+,C-

• Rauh F,A
• Detwiler: C- rehab
• Solis: C-,C- -> shelved for weeks

• Sylvestre: D->demoted back to short/A spot start
• Hill: A+,A,A+,A- -> promoted

Robbie Ray and A.J Cole continue to be the Potomac workhorses, both being high over-slot 2010 high school pitcher draftees and both with highly varying degrees of expectations both from Nats prospect followers and from the organization.  Both guys pitched in a double header that new Delaware resident Keith Law took in and he posted his 6/30/13 blog review of all the starters involved.   The link is insider-only (which everyone should be who wants to read ESPN’s premier content) but Law’s consensus seems to be this: Cole’s taken a step back since his last (2011) opinion and Ray is only projecting as a 5th starter at best.  You’d hope for more out of these two guys, given their draft pedigree and bonus money paid.  Sammy Solis threw 2 early June starts and hasn’t appeared since in a concerning development for the 2010 2nd rounder coming back from TJ surgery.   Ivan Pineyro‘s high-A debut went roughly, but he’ll presumably get a few more chances with few other viable candiates right now.  Despite a couple of up-and-down June starts Blake Schwartz maintains the best season-long numbers of any of Potomac starter right now.  And i’ll make mention of it here; its amazing to think that Taylor Jordan started 2013 as the #2 starter in Potomac and is now making (near) quality starts in the majors.

Low-A: click here for Hagerstown Milb.com stats

• Anderson: D,A+,D+,D-
• Mooneyham: D-/short,A-,B,D,A-
• Lee: B-,A-,C,F,C+
• Encarnation: B,F,D (took one for the team),C
• Purke: A,D,B-,A-,A+

• Rauh: C

• Lopez: D+->back down from spot-start
• RPena:  ->demoted to bullpen?->7 day d/l
• Hudgins: -> demoted to short/A

Dixon Anderson and Pedro Encarnacion‘s monthly grade lines look poor, but their season-long stats are still decent (ERAs of right around 3.20, WHIPs of right around 1.2, about 2-1 K/BB ratios).   Brett Mooneyham‘s starts are looking dominant as they should be, repeating the level as a college draftee.  Matthew Purke‘s performances were a highlight for Nats farm system fans everywhere; after the month ended he was promoted to Potomac.   As for the rest of the starters, there’s room for concern.  Nick Lee and Ronald Pena both sport 1.50 WHIPs.   Hagerstown has already graduated a number of arms this season and may struggle to re-stock.

Short-A: click here for Auburn Milb.com stats

• Turnbull: A,C-
• Johansen: B+,C
• Orlan: C+,A,C-
• DWilliams: B,D,F
• Barrientos: A-

• Selsor: | | B-,F,C+
• Hudgins: | | B-

• Lopez: | | F- -> demoted

Auburn’s season kicked off June 17th, so we’ve only gotten a brief glimpse of the “Rotation.”  So far, some up and down.  Kyle Turnbull has looked good (as he very well should, having been demoted from full-season ball).  Robert Orlan‘s ERA looks great (1.38) but his walks are too high (9 in 13 innings).  Speaking of walks, Joel Barrientos has 12 walks against 3 strikeouts in his 11 2/3 innings so far; that’s not going to be sustainable.  Deion Williams has been hit hard thus far.  And 2013 2nd round (our first pick) Jake Johansen has three relatively wild outings under his belt; 8 innings, 8 walks, 8 strikeouts.  Of note; Reynaldo Lopez‘s “F-” outing was a 1 1/3, 7 run debacle giving him a nifty 47.25 ERA.

GCL: click here for GCL-Nationals Stats on MiLB.com

• Suero: A,D
• JRodriguez: B-,A
• Silvestre: A,C
• Valdez: C+
• Voth: B-

• DRamos: A

As with Auburn, the GCL season didn’t start until mid June (June 21st to be exact) so the “rotation” is still shaking out.  And frankly, those who get “starts” aren’t exactly pitching “starter” outings.  For example: the IP leader at the time of this writing is Jefry Rodriguez with 10 2/3 thrown over 3 starts.  So the letter grades here are mostly  misleading, given that they’re for 2-3 inning stints.  Nonetheless, Wander Suero, Ryan Ulliman, and Austin Voth look good in the early goings.

Purke is finally showing signs of life. Photo AP/Nati Harnik

I’ll freely admit it: after two straight injury plagued seasons, I thought the Nats had made a mistake with the Matthew Purke pick.  I’ve even used the “B” word from time to time (“B” as in “Bust”).  Yes he was “only” a third round pick, and yes it isn’t my money that paid him.  But giving him a Major League Deal and a 40-man slot was a roster limiting move at the time and still remains so (Purke was the sole 40-man roster member in the South Atlantic League at the season’s start).

However, what Purke is doing so far in Hagerstown has been, well, impressive.  His latest start on 6/28 probably was his most dominant of the year, going 6 innings, giving up just 1 hit and zero walks while striking out 8.  On the year in Low-A he now has 6 starts, has thrown 29 innings and has 41 strikeouts to just 7 walks in that time.  Those numbers are good for a 2.48 ERA and a 1.10 whip.

Yes, he’s “old” for the level (at the season’s start he was about in the 75% percentile in terms of age for the level).  And yes he’s “experienced” for the level, being now a third year pro and having two college years under his belt when drafted.  But (as we all know) he’s been plagued with injuries and has now missed parts of four straight seasons with various ailments (his 2nd college season, his draft year, most of 2012).   In fact, June 28th was just his 9th professional start.

Nonetheless, its great to see him finally healthy and finally putting together the kind of dominant starts that one would expect from a guy who signed a $4M deal.  I look forward to him getting promoted up to High-A (perhaps after the all-star break) and continuing his trek back to the majors.  If the Nats could count on him to continue being a high-end prospect and a potential future starter for this team, that would go a long way towards roster stability in the coming years.

Haren’s struggles earn a well-deserved D/L trip. Photo via Zimbio.com

Little surprise that the Major’s worst starting pitcher Dan Haren was sent to the D/L.  As of 6/24/13, out of 99 qualified Starting Pitchers he currently ranks 99th in ERA, 95th in FIP, 72nd in xFIP (so there’s that) and (interestingly, since it purportedly is the best of the analytical evaluator advanced pitching stats) 48th in SIERA.  As has been noted elsewhere, he’s tied for the league lead in HRs conceded.  The team has lost his last nine starts, and his latest meltdown clearly has forced the team’s hand.  Haren may not be the reason this team is mired at .500 (offense, offense, offense), but he’s clearly not helping either.

So the Nats have found a “soft tissue” issue with Haren (this time?  a “Shoulder Strain”) and have sent him to the D/L.  This isn’t the first time the Nats have used a dubious soft-tissue injury to “stash” an inflexible contract (see Rodriguez, Henry and Wang, Chien-Ming repeated D/L trips over the past two years), and while I kind of laugh at the blatant manipulation of the rules, it benefits the team to be able to remove him from the active roster but not lose him to the open market, so we’ll let it slide.  (btw, how do I know that the team is playing shenanigans with the D/L trip?  Read CSN Chase Hughes‘ tweet about what Haren said when informed he was going on the D/L.   Haren didn’t even know what injury he was supposed to have!).

So what happens next?  Adam Kilgore‘s WP article on the topic seemed to indicate that the Nats and Davey Johnson are not considering either Ross Ohlendorf or Craig Stammen for spot starts.  Which I have a hard time believing frankly; both guys demonstrated their ability to pitch longer outings in the last two days in relief of failed starters.  Ohlendorf has been starting all year and is exactly the kind of 4-A/6th starter that the Nats envisioned him to be when they signed him in the off-season.  Why would the team do something rash like call up Taylor Jordan (as Kilgore suggested and as others are reporting) when we’ve already seen what a more polished and experienced AA-pitcher (Nathan Karns) can do when jumped far above his head too soon?  Yeah, I’m excited about Jordan and what he’s done this year; but I think Ohlendorf or Stammen are better options.  I’d start Ohlendorf on Saturday and see what happens.

Of course, perhaps the Nats talent evaluators are convinced that a guy (Jordan) with exactly 49 innings above A-ball is ready to replace a $13M veteran.   If so, I can’t wait to see him pitch live.  Even if it starts his service time clock too soon, he was a guaranteed 40-man addition ahead of the coming Rule-5 draft anyway based on his domination so far in 2013.  What’s a few extra months at this point?  He’s already past Super-2 status so the team has guaranteed all the control they could get over him.

As for Haren, here’s what we’re likely going to see:  he’ll pay lip service to his “injury,” get an MRI, see a couple of specialists, get a shot.  That’ll take a week or so.  By that time we’ll know whether or not whoever gets his Saturday 6/29/13 start is worth giving another start to.  If Ohlendorf or somebody pitches 6 shutout innings in Haren’s place … then Haren’s going on a long “rehab” assignment in Syracuse.  And frankly, even though he’s making $13M and was supposed to be our former ace acting as a 4th starter FA acquisition, he may struggle to get his starting gig back.

Is it time to pull the plug?  Well, baseball is a performance-based industry.  Haren has just not performed.  Is it truly because he’s pitching through injuries?  Somehow I don’t think so; he was ineffective last year, he’s yet to really have a truly dominant outing this year, and the question is out there as to whether Haren is officially washed up.  For as much as I looked forward to Haren’s time here when we signed him, I now feel like we can’t give him more starts unless he starts throwing shut-down outings in AAA.

PS: read this interesting nugget too: Danny Espinosa is playing short-stop in Syracuse.  You know what this tells me?  The same thing that Kilgore concludes: Espinosa is being showcased so that he can be shopped as a Shortstop on the trade market.  Read the link; I can’t disagree with any of his analysis.  Well, either that or the team is looking to move Ian Desmond and replace him w/ Espinosa.  Ha.

PPS: Also reading reports on NBCSports that Mike Rizzo is burning up the pre-trade market phone lines.  That’s a clear indication that this team is not ready to wave the middling .500 team flag.

How much longer is Haren going to be wearing this hat? Photo nats official via espn.com

The Nats management waited and waited, but finally gave in and dealt with season-long performance issues in Henry Rodriguez, Zach Duke, Danny Espinosa and Tyler Moore in the first two weeks of June, DFA-ing or demoting as needed and bringing in replacements to try to do a better job and turn this season around.

So, when will it be time to talk about the train-wreck season that Dan Haren is having?  For $13M, here’s what the team has gotten in his first 12 starts, including June 12th’s meltdown:

• a 4-8 Record with a 5.70 ERA and a 67 ERA+ (his ERA is 6th worst in baseball for qualified pitchers).
• A 6-10 team record in games in which he’s started
• a league leading 17 home runs allowed

A quick glance at his advanced stats doesn’t give much credence to any apologists that may try to excuse his line either; his BABIP is slightly elevated but not overly so (.320) and his FIP is still an unsightly 5.06 (5th worst among qualified starters).  Only his expected xFIP and SIERA numbers are relatively respectable, but xFip is just an estimator stat and often times never comes to pass, since it assumes silly things like the fact that Haren can’t possibly keep giving up this many home runs… an assumption that continued to be disproven as he gave up two more in his most recent loss in Colorado.

Game-Log analysis: Haren has yet to have a start where he shut out the opponent.  He’s only got 5 quality starts out of 12.  In half his starts he’s allowed 4 or more runs (not good when your team’s offense is only scoring 3.4 runs a game).  Haren’s only really had a couple of starts that were “grade A” in my book (his best start of the year was an 8 inning 4 hit performance in Atlanta of all places).  In his defense, he has gotten awful run support (2.84 runs per start), heavily indicating team losses every time he pitches.

I’ll admit it; I talked myself into the Haren deal big time after it was announced.  I ignored his 2012 struggles, looked back to the near Cy Young guy he was in 2009 and thought this was the move that could push the Nats to a 105 win team.  Now clearly whatever excuses we made for his performance in 2012 (back injury leading to diminished velocity leading to loss of his sinker leading to crummy numbers) seem like they’re covering up for an aging sinkerballer who never had lights out velocity and who now looks dangerously close to extinct as his very-hittable fastball flattens out and gets hit harder and harder.

So what’s the answer here?

Don’t talk to me about his salary; that $13M is out the door already.  Kaput.  Gone.  Look up the definition of a “Sunk Cost” in economic terms.  If you were worried about $13M in annual salary then you shouldn’t have bought a $15M a year closer who isn’t exactly a complete shutdown guy (Tyler Clippard has almost identical stats this year to Rafael Soriano for a third of the price and he didn’t cost us a 1st round draft pick, which as it turned out could have been spent on one of two pre-draft top-10 talents).  The decision needs to be made; do you still want to try to “win now” in 2013 as all the other off-season moves seemed to indicate?  Because the solution likely is going to be a bit more money and a few more prospects.

Short term (as in, the next week): see how Ross Ohlendorf does in his spot start (Answer: uh, he did awesome, holding a good hitting team to two hits through 6 in the best hitters park in the league).  If he’s anything remotely close to effective, I think you look at an invented D/L trip for Haren and send him on a rehab assignment tour of the minors.

Mid-term (as in, for the next couple weeks): do we have anyone else in the minors worth checking out?  Not on the 40-man and not with enough experience.  Maybe we give Danny Rosenbaum a shot if another spot-start is needed after Detwiler and Strasburg come back.

Longer term (as in, the next two months); Look at the trade market and look at who may be available leading up to the trade deadline.  We’re already seeing some teams completely out of it and clearly some guys will be available:

• The Cubs probably will look to move Scott Feldman and especially Matt Garza.
• The Astros probably will cash in on Lucas Harrell and Bud Norris (nobody’s likely interested in Erik Bedard at this point).
• The Marlins would listen for offers for Ricky Nolasco, though perhaps not intra-division.
• The Mets aren’t winning this year and could be moving Shawn Marcum (though perhaps not intra-division).
• I think eventually Seattle becomes a seller: Joe Saunders and Aaron Harang should be dangled.
• I also think San Diego eventually realizes they’re not going to win the NL West: Edinson Volquez, waiver pickup Eric Stults, Clayton Richards and our old friend Jason Marquis all make for possible trade candidates.

A few other poorly performing teams are probably going to be too stubborn to wave the white flag, which cuts down on the number of guys that will be available (see the Los Angeles Angels, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Toronto specifically).

The only problem with a trade market move is this: all these teams are going to want prospects back.  And the Nats prospect cupboard has been cleaned out recently to acquire all these fools who are underperforming so far in 2013.  I’m not an opposing GM, so I can’t say for sure, but from a quick look at the Nats best prospects in the minors right now (basically in order: Giolito, Goodwin, Cole, Karns, Garcia, Skole, Purke, Solis, Perez, then guys like Hood, Taylor, Walters, Ray and Jordan round out the list) and I see a lot of injured guys or players on injury rehab, backups or guys barely above or still in A-ball.  I’m not trading a valued asset for an injury-risk guy who has never gotten above AA.  Who on this list is going to fetch us a quality major league starter?

Maybe we trade Haren along with a huge chunk of his remaining salary and multiple prospects to one of these teams in order to get one of these 5th starters back.  But that’d be an awful trade when it was all said and done (about as awful as, say, the Giants trading Zack Wheeler to the Mets for 2 months of Carlos Beltran in a failed effort to make the playoffs in 2012; with all the Giants 2013 pitching issues do you think they wish they had Wheeler back right now??)

Or, it very well may be that the Nats are stuck; we knew going into the season we had no starter depth and those MLFAs we did acquire (Ohlendorf and Chris Young basically) probably aren’t the answer.  But something has to give; we can’t give away every 5th start like we seem to be doing now and claw back into the NL East race.