Nationals Arm Race

"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver

Archive for July, 2014

Minor League Age Appropriateness for Nats Short Season Squads for 2014

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Mooneyham is a senior citizen in the NY Penn League.  Photo via mlbdraftcountdown.wordpress.com

Mooneyham is a senior citizen in the NY Penn League. Photo via mlbdraftcountdown.wordpress.com

In early April we looked at the ages of our pitchers on all four full-season squads in comparison to the median ages of all pitchers in their leagues.  Now that the short-seasons have started, here’s similar analysis.  (Full xls of the raw data is available at this Google XLS link here).

(Note: if you want some thoughts on why I do this, data taxonomy or how I collect the data, see the April 2014 post).

In April, we found (generally speaking) that our full season squads in AAA, AA and High-A were all on average older than their leagues, while Hagerstown in Low-A seemed to have a good spread of youngsters and players who were quite old for the level (Hagerstown’s overall average age was still slightly above the median age of the league for pitchers though).  These findings are consistent with the fact that the Nats have tended to draft college pitchers over the past few years, and if a college pitcher doesn’t matriculate a level at a time in his first 2-3 seasons, he’s going to be “old” for the level.

How do our short season squads look?   The Short-A team is as of 6/23/14 or about 10 games into the season, while the Rookie data is as of 6/23/14 as well, which was just two games into their season.    This means that the rotations will grow likely younger in both leagues as 2014 draftees are added; the median age in the NY Penn league is 22.39, while it is 21.17 in the rookie league; both of those age averages should be above even a typical college junior, were he to be added to the Rookie league roster instead of the Short-A.

Short-A/New  York Penn League

Team First Name Last Name DOB Age as of 9/1/14 Age Status
Auburn (wash) Cory Bafidis 8/22/1990 24.03 Really Old
Auburn (wash) Matthew Derosier 7/13/1994 20.14 Really Young
Auburn (wash) Jake Joyce 8/19/1991 23.04 Old
Auburn (wash) Reynaldo Lopez 1/4/1994 20.66 Really Young
Auburn (wash) Anderson Martinez 2/22/1993 21.52 Young
Auburn (wash) Brett Mooneyham 1/24/1990 24.60 Really Old
Auburn (wash) David Napoli 10/3/1990 23.91 Really Old
Auburn (wash) Robert Orlan 9/28/1990 23.93 Really Old
Auburn (wash) Travis Ott 6/29/1995 19.18 Really Young
Auburn (wash) Luis Reyes 9/26/1994 19.93 Really Young
Auburn (wash) Jefry Rodriguez 7/26/1993 21.10 Really Young
Auburn (wash) Mario Sanchez 10/31/1994 19.84 Really Young
Auburn (wash) Luis Torres 6/4/1994 20.24 Really Young
Auburn (wash) Phillips Valdez 11/16/1991 22.79 Old
Auburn (wash) Deion Williams 11/11/1992 21.80 Young
Auburn (wash) Deibi Yrizarri 10/3/1994 19.91 Really Young

Discussion: Unlike the Nats full season squads, its Short-A squad right now is quite young.  The average age of this squad is 21.49, well below the league median age of 22.39.   Travis Ott is the 2nd youngest pitcher in the entire league, and the Nats team features 5 of the youngest 20 players in the league.  I think this is a great sign for the state of the Nats pipeline from the international market, and if these really young arms succeed here they’ll make Hagerstown and Potomac trend younger for next year.

Oldest Guy in the New York Penn League: Mets’ A.J. Pinera, at age 27+, but he’s weird.  He’s on their restricted list, and he doesn’t have any stats since 2010.   I wonder if he’s beign converted to a coach or something.  Our own Brett Mooneyham is among the 10 oldest guys in the league, a clear sign of his troubles thus far in his pro career.

Youngest Guy in the New York Penn League: Boston’s Enfember Martinez, two months younger than our own Ott.  He’s a Venezuelan middle reliever who was decent in the GCL last year and is treading water thus far in Short-A.

Percentage of New York Penn League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: just 1 of 229 players; Dylan Bundy doing rehab for Baltimore post Tommy John Surgery.

 


Rookie/Gulf Coast League

Team First Name Last Name DOB Age as of 9/1/14 Age Status
GCL Nationals Connor Bach 6/24/1992 22.19 Old
GCL Nationals James Bourque 7/9/1993 21.15 Young
GCL Nationals John Costa 5/1/1993 21.34 Old
GCL Nationals Weston Davis 7/6/1996 18.15 Really Young
GCL Nationals Kida De La Cruz 8/10/1994 20.06 Young
GCL Nationals John Feliz 10/28/1993 20.84 Young
GCL Nationals David Fischer 4/10/1990 24.39 Really Old
GCL Nationals Elisaul Gomez 3/26/1992 22.43 Really Old
GCL Nationals DJ Jauss 9/5/1990 23.99 Really Old
GCL Nationals Samuel Johns 7/12/1991 23.14 Really Old
GCL Nationals Domenick Mancini 9/28/1993 20.93 Young
GCL Nationals Tyler Mapes 7/18/1991 23.12 Really Old
GCL Nationals Chase McDowell 12/14/1990 23.72 Really Old
GCL Nationals Jose Morales 2/12/1995 19.55 Really Young
GCL Nationals Cole Plouck 4/25/1994 20.35 Young
GCL Nationals Jean Ramirez 10/24/1994 19.85 Young
GCL Nationals Yorlin Reynoso 11/20/1995 18.78 Really Young
GCL Nationals Melvi Salazar 12/17/1994 19.71 Really Young
GCL Nationals Kyle Simmons 9/25/1991 22.93 Really Old
GCL Nationals Maximo Valerio 7/22/1995 19.11 Really Young
GCL Nationals Drew Van Orden 1/19/1992 22.62 Really Old
GCL Nationals Daury Vasquez 11/21/1992 21.78 Old
GCL Nationals Austen Williams 12/19/1992 21.70 Old

Discussion: The Nats GCL team is about average for the league: its average squad age is 21.38, slightly more than the league median age of 21.17.

Oldest Guy in the Gulf Coast Rookie League: one Jason Marquis, ex Nats starter, now Philadelphia farm  hand.  He’s in Florida on a rehab assignment, presumably before heading to Lehigh Valley to toil in their AAA squad for a while.  In fact, the bottom of the age list is mostly players doing rehab assignments in their team’s spring training facilities and can mostly be lopped off the discussion (hence why I like using medians instead of averages in this analysis).

Youngest Guy in the Gulf Coast Rookie League: Toronto’s Hansel Rodriguez, who turned 17 in Feburary.   He’s the youngest player in this league by half a year.  And he may not be long for the league; he’s been hit pretty hard so far.  Understandable.

Percentage of Gulf Coast Rookie League pitchers on MLB 40-man rosters: just one of 294; Carlos Perez of Atlanta doing rehab.

 

Written by Todd Boss

July 7th, 2014 at 1:43 pm

State of the Nats at the halfway point

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Harper's run production in the middle of the order should spark this team now that he's back.  Photo via fansided.com

Harper’s run production in the middle of the order should spark this team now that he’s back. Photo via fansided.com

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.