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Jose Fernandez is (arguably) the biggest name to go down to TJ surgery yet. Photo via thestar.com

Its the biggest story in baseball so far in 2014. We’ve had nearly 20 MLB pitchers get diagnosed with torn elbow ligaments so far this calendar year. All of them have or are set to undergo “Tommy John” surgery (also known as ulnar collateral ligament/UCL replacement surgery). That’s nearly as many as who got the surgery ALL of 2013 and we’re just 6 weeks into the season. There’s an alarming trend upwards over just the past few seasons of pitchers getting this surgery. There’s been plenty more minor leaguers (two Nats farmhands in Erik Davis and Danny Rosenbaum have already gotten it in 2014) and already a couple of very high-profile draft prospects as well (including as discussed in this space potential 1st rounders Jeff Hoffman and Erick Fedde just in the last week).

Lots of people are talking about this story, especially some heavy-weights in the baseball world. A sampling:

Dr. James Andrews, perhaps the most famous sports doctor in the world, attributes the growing trend to the rise in year-round baseball competition in the US.
SI.com’s Jay Jaffe reviews Dr. Andrews comments and had other excellent stats about the trend in this April 2014 piece.
The Washington Post’s Dave Sheinin did an excellent piece in the paper a few weeks ago about the injury, which he attributes to youth usage.
Tom Verducci (he of the “Verducci effect”) proposed a solution in a column this week after the Jose Fernandez announcement. His idea? Lowering the mound across all levels of the sport. He draws this conclusion after hosting a very interesting round-table on MLB Network.
Jayson Stark teamed up with ESPN injury analyst Stephania Bell and former player Alex Cora to discuss the rise in arm injuries in this ESPN.com video, and they follow Andrews’ theory of year-round pitching.
Chris O’Leary, king of the Inverted-W (whether you believe his theories or not, I’ve included this link here) has his own theories as discussed here. He doesn’t really have much in the way of explanation, just more whining about how every pitcher’s mechanics has something you can complain about.
Jeff Passan basically calls out baseball executives for not having any answers.
If you want an index of all of ESPN.com’s stories on the topic, click here. It will have columns, analysis and press releases for individuals getting the surgery.

Some interesting stats about Tommy John surgery:

Per a Will Carroll 2013 study, roughly 1/3 of current MLB pitchers in the majors have had the surgery.
Per a study by the American Journal of Sports Medicine, of those pitchers who have the surgery, about 83% make it back to the majors and 97% returned to pro pitching. Only five of 179 pitchers in the study failed to return to their craft.
The number of pitchers getting TJ surgery has risen dramatically in just the past few years, from a couple dozen in the early part of last decade to nearly 70 a couple of years ago.

So what the heck is going on?? Lets talk about some theories. I’ll highlight them in Blue.

The new “hot theory” is essentially this: Over-throwing at Showcase events, which have become crucial scouting events for kids raised in the United States, are to blame. Thanks to the rise in travel leagues and select teams, scouts spend less time sitting at high school games and more time at these all-star events. To prescribers of this theory, it isn’t so much about the amount of innings or pitches that kids throw … its the nature of the “showcase” events and the high pressure situations that those events put kids under. Kids are throwing year-round, and they’re ramping up max-effort pitches at national competitions multiple times per year, and in some cases out of “season.” This leads to serious damage to kids’ arms done as 16 and 17 yr olds, which then manifests itself over the years and results in blown ligaments in pro ball.

Do you buy this explanation? It certainly makes sense to me, but how do you prove this? And, it doesn’t explain the similar rise in elbow injuries to non-American pitchers.

Is it less about the showcase events and more about the Larger Increase in Youth pitched innings thanks to the rise in Travel Leagues? This theory also makes some sense to me: thirty years ago kids played an 18-20 game spring Little League season, at best would pitch half those games and that was it. Maybe they played in the fall too, but there were specific innings limits in place that protected kids. Now instead of playing limited spring and fall seasons, kids are playing AAU travel teams that play 40-50 games a summer, plus weekend tournaments, plus (eventually) the above showcase events as they get closer to matriculation. This theory certainly is supported by a startling rise in youth arm injuries, as noted in this 2010 study by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

But, if its “bad” to play more baseball … then shouldn’t we be seeing even MORE injuries from players who grew up in third-world baseball hot beds like the Dominican Republic or Venezuela, where by all accounts kids play baseball from sun-up to sun-down 12 months out of the year in tropical climates?

Interestingly, of the list of 19 MLB players so far who have been diagnosed with a torn UCL (see next section), there’s 4 non-American developed pitchers (Rondo, Nova, Figueora, Cisnero). 4 of 19 = 21%, whereas about 22% of MLB pitchers are non-American developed (my 22% figure comes from this quick study that I did; I grabbed every active MLB pitcher as of early May 2014 and did a quick-and-dirty player upbringing analysis to determine that about 78% of players “grew up” in the current American system of player development). It is small sample size … but the percentage of american versus foreign developed players are so far exactly in line with the total percentage of each type of player in the larger pool of MLB pitchers. This doesn’t seem to support either of the two above theories.

We’ve all heard horror stories about pitch counts and pitcher abuse at high school events in Japan (this came to light over the winter as we looked at Masahiro Tanaka and learned about these Japanese showcase events; this article here at thebiglead.com talks about one Japanese prospect’s 772 pitches thrown over 9 days, and Jeff Passan talked about Tanaka’s own pitch count abuse stories and his average pitch counts as a Japanese-league pro). Unfortunately there’s not a ton of data available about this TJ theory and Japanese pitchers. I can find a couple of instances of Asian pitchers getting the surgery (Kyuji Fujikawa in 2012 being the most recent example), but not enough to establish any trends.

But lets state it this way: you can’t have things both ways. Both these stereotypes about player upbringing cannot be true:

Latin American poor youth plays baseball from sun up to sun down 12 months a year, building arm strength constantly, therefore his arm is “stronger” and he’s less suceptible to injury
American little leaguer plays limited schedules (18 games in the spring, perhaps fewer in the fall), has closely monitored pitch counts, therefore does not abuse his arm as a youth and thus his arm is “stronger” later in life as a result.

Here’s a list of the 19 MLB pitchers who have already gone under the TJ knife so far in 2014 (data from baseballheatmaps.com, which has detailed Disabled List data).

Jose Cisnero: diagnosed 5/14/14.
Jose Fernandez: diagnosed 5/13/14. Wow, biggest name to fall yet.
AJ Griffin: getting the surgery 4/27/14
Pedro Figueroa: diagnosed 4/24/14 (his 2nd, first in 2010)
Ivan Nova: diagnosed 4/25/14
Josh Johnson: diagnosed/announced 4/23/14, surgery 4/24/14. His 2nd (first in 2007).
Matt Moore: surgery 4/22/14
Cory Gearrin: diagnosed 4/8/14
Bobby Parnell: diagnosed 4/2/14
Erik Davis: diagnosed 4/2/14
David Hernandez: diagnosed 3/31/14
Peter Moylan: diagnosed 3/22/14 (his 2nd)
Bruce Rondon: diagnosed 3/21/14
Patrick Corbin: diagnosed 3/17/14
Jarrod Parker: diagnosed 3/17/14. (his 2nd)
Brandon Beachy: diagnosed 3/17/14 (his 2nd)
Kris Medlen: diagnosed 3/9/14. (his 2nd)
Luke Hochevar: announced 3/7/14
Cory Luebke: surgery in 2/4/14 (his 2nd)

Of these 19 pitchers, they are evenly split between being starters (10) and relievers (9). So that doesn’t seem to lend itself to any Starter vs Reliever usage conclusion.

How about Pitching Mechanics? We’ve all heard ad-naseum about the “Inverted W” and people talking about pronation and timing and elbow lift and etc etc. Here’s a quick attempt to analyize the mechanics of each of these 19 guys (all photos grabbed as thumbnails from google images for the purposes of demonstration; no copyright infringement intended).

Quick and Dirty Mechanics analysis (images in same order as list of pitchers above, which is choronological in order of diagnosis in 2014):

Inverted W: Griffin, Nova, Gearrin, Beachy, Hochevar
Sideways M: Fernandez, Johnson, Davis, Moylan, Rondon, Parker, Medlen
Inverted L: Cisnero, Figueroa, Moore, Parnell, Hernandez, Corbin, Luebke

But I’ll immediately add a caveat to these classifications; at various stop-points in a guy’s delivery, he may exhibit “good” or “bad” trends. Maybe some of these “sideways-M” guys are actually “inverted-W” guys. Maybe some of these inverted-W guys are ok and the stills make their mechanics seem worse than they are.

Nonetheless; there’s no trend among the 19 guys in terms of their mechanics. In some cases they’re “bad” (Griffin and Gearrin’s look awful) but in some cases excellent (nobody should look at Moore’s mechanics and say they’re anything but clean, nor with Parnell or Corbin). These pitchers are overhanders, 3/4-slot guys and even side-armers/submarine guys (Gearrin and Moylan). These guys include hard throwers (Rondon had the 3rd highest velocity of *any* pitcher in 2013) and softer-throwing guys (Medlen had one of the lowest fastball velocities in the majors in 2013). There’s starters and relievers almost equally represented in this list.

Conclusion; there’s no conclusions to draw from pitching mechanics analysis. I think all attempts to look at guys’ mechanics and make judgements are useless. I think (as does Keith Law and other pundits in the field) that the “Inverted W” is nonesense and that “research” posted online by concerned-fathers-turned-self-appointed-mechanics-experts is not exactly trustworthy. The fact of the matter is this: throwing a baseball over and over is hard on the body. Throwing a ball is an unnatural motion, and throwing a ball at max-effort will eventually lead to pitching injuries, no matter what your mechanics. They can be “good” or “bad” according to someone’s pet theory on bio-mechanics and it has nothing to do about whether a pitcher is going to throw 10 seasons without injury or have two tommy johns before they’re 25.

Some historical context for pitching mechanics arguments: the pitcher who has the 2nd most innings thrown in the non-knuckleballer modern era (behind Nolan Ryan) was Don Sutton. Sutton displayed absolutely *classic* inverted-W mechanics, never hit the D/L in his career and threw nearly 5,300 innings over the course of 23 seasons. Walter Johnson‘s mechanics were awful; he slung the ball sideways as he literally pushed backwards away from the hitter at the end of his delivery. If someone saw Johnson’s mechanics today they’d talk about how over-compensated he was on his shoulder and how he lost velocity thanks to landing stiff and having zero follow through. Johnson only threw 5,900 innings in his pro career; yeah those mechanics really held him back. Nolan Ryan was a freak of nature, throwing at that velocity for as long as he did. The point? You just don’t know.

Maybe there’s something to the “showcase abuse” theory for some players. Maybe there’s something to the travel-ball overuse theory for some kids. But I think the answer may be a bit more simple. We all know there’s been a rise in the average MPH of fastballs in the majors, both on starters and especially with relievers. My theory is simply this: kids who “can” throw upper 90s spend all their time trying to throw upper 90s/max effort fastballs 100% of the time, and human arms just cannot withstand that kind of abuse over and over. In prior generations, kids who “could” throw that hard wouldn’t, or would rarely try to throw that hard, and thus suffered fewer elbow injuries.

Side note: I also firmly believe that we’re “victims of our own success” to a certain extent with respect to modern medicine; 30 years ago would someone have just “blown out their arm” instead of being diagnosed specifically with a “torn ulnar collateral ligament?” Would some kid in the low minors who hurt his harm even bother to get an MRI? How much of the rise in these injuries is simply the fact that we’re better at diagnosing injuries in the modern sports world?

Why are these kids trying to throw so hard these days? Because velocity is king, and that’s what scouts look for. A kid who “only” throws mid 80s as a 17-yr old is dismissed, while the kid who can throw mid 90s at the same age is fawned over. Guys like Greg Maddox, Mark Buehrle, and Tom Glavine probably don’t even get drafted in the modern baseball climate thanks to the over-focus on pure velocity.

You can talk about upbringing and showcase events and pitch counts and mechanics all you want, but I think it comes down to Pitcher over-exertion thanks to the rising trend of fastball velocity and the human nature urge of prospects and farm-hands to show more and more velocity so they can advance their careers.

What do you guys think? Do you dismiss the “inverted-W” arguments like I do? Do you think its all about showcase events?

Written by Todd Boss

May 14th, 2014 at 1:07 pm

Nats Major & Minor League Pitching Staffs vs Predicted 2014 edition

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At the end of the 2013 season, I put out a slew of season rotational reviews and then predicted where everyone would start in 2014.

We’re a month into the minor league full-seasons and the rotations are already mostly established (with D/L trips and slight movement as noted here). So lets do a little navel gazing and take a look at my predictions versus the actuals before we lose too much identity with the makeup of these four full-season pitching staffs from opening day.

As always, Luke Erickson and nationalsprospects.com, the Nats Big Board and the tireless work by “SpringfieldFan” is much appreciated here.

MLB Dec 2013 Prediction

MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez (L), Zimmermann, Fister, Detwiler (L)
MLB Bullpen: Soriano, Storen, Clippard, Stammen, Blevens (L), Ohlendorf, Roark
MLB out of Org: Haren, Duke (L), Abad (L), Krol (L), HRodriguez

MLB April 2014 Actual Opening Day Staff

MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez (L), Zimmermann, Roark, Jordan
MLB Bullpen: Soriano, Clippard, Storen, Stammen, Blevens (L), Detwiler, Barrett
MLB D/L: Fister, Ohlendorf, Davis
MLB notables Out of Organization: Haren, Duke (L), Abad (L), Krol (L), HRodriguez

MLB Discussion: A late spring injury to Doug Fister obsoleted the 5th starter competition, giving both Tanner Roark and Taylor Jordan spots (for now; Roark has “won” the 5th spot thanks to a better April now that Fister is ready to come back). The biggest news during spring training was the Ross Detwiler “demotion” to the bullpen, but the Aaron Barrett victory over the likes of Christian Garcia and Ryan Mattheus was also notable. Injuries to Ross Ohlendorf and Erik Davis cleared out bullpen competition, and an early spring training chest injury to Mattheus also made it difficult for him to break camp with the big league club.

Nothing new here: we’ve talked this to death already 🙂 Lets move onto the four full-season minor league squads.

AAA Dec 2013 Prediction

AAA Rotation: Rosenbaum (L), Jordan, Karns, Young, MLFA or two
AAA Bullpen: Barrett, Mattheus, Garcia, Davis, Cedeno (L), Robertson (L), Delcarmen, Alfaro, Stange, Herron (AA?)
AAA Release candidates: Meyers, Lehman
AAA out of Org: Maya, Tatusko, Clay, Mandel, Torra, Broadway, Crotta, Lowe, Kimball, Accardo, Bramhall, Romero (L)

AAA Apr 2014 Actual opening day

AAA Rotation: Rosenbaum (L), Tatusko, Treinen, Hill, Poveda
AAA Bullpen: Mattheus, Garcia, Cedeno (L), Robertson (L), Delcarmen, Madrigal, Roenicke, Stange
AAA D/L: Meyers, Davis (mlb 60 day d/l)
AAA cut/released/FA:Young, Broadway, Maya, Mandel, Clay, Kimball, Crotta, Torra, Lowe, Crotta, Accardo, Bramhall, Romero (L)
AAA Missing: MGonzalez (L), Laffey

AAA Discussion

Technically I got 2/5ths of the AAA rotation right to start the year: Rosenbaum and a MLFA in the form of Omar Poveda (technically an acquisition but still…). Karns was traded to obtain our (now) starting catcher Jose Lobaton. Jordan of course started the year in the majors, but I think he’ll end up back here for a good portion of the season. Young was granted his release and immediately signed in Seattle to fill one of their rotation spots. The team resigned its own MLFA in Ryan Tatusko to return and he seems set to be in the rotation for now, but he’s more of a swing-man/org arm and he likely makes way for a starter when needed. The big surprise is the unexpected promotion of Taylor Hill; he featured in AA but I thought he’d start out there. Brad Meyers stays in the organization but is “missing” for the time being: he may be headed for the D/L but as of this writing has no assignment.

In the month since opening day, we’ve seen both Mike Gonzalez and Aaron Laffey make their way to Syracuse to cover for the subsequently injured Rosenbaum and promoted MLB-bullpen-covering reliever of the day (Cedeno, Treinen, Barrett and Mattheus have all already spent time on the shuttle between Washington and Syracuse).

In the bullpen; our prediction looks decently correct; 6 of the 8 Syracuse opening day members were called. The outliers: MLFA signings Warner Madrigal and Josh Roenicke. Predicted members Erik Davis instead sits on the mlb 60-day D/L, and Alfaro is in the AA squad. Pat Lehman sits on the AA D/L for now.

AAA “Star Power” summary: So, as has become typical AAA isn’t so much about finishing off prospects as it is about holding spare parts. In the rotation we had zero 40-man roster players at this point, and really just Blake Treinen features as a potential up-and-comer (with possible future apologies to Taylor Hill of course …). The bullpen has just three 40-man roster arms (a loogy in Xavier Cedeno, and two injury reclamation projects in Christian Garcia and Ryan Mattheus). Eventually we should see some culling of this roster when the team needs to find spots for Gonzalez and Laffey in particular. Syracuse fans may not be getting the best pitching staff out there to cheer on.

AA Dec 2013 Prediction

AA Rotation: Cole, Hill, Solis (L), Schwartz, Treinen (AAA?)
AA Swingmen: Gilliam (swingman)
AA Bullpen: Benincasa, Mirowski, Holland, Swynenberg, Grace (L), Bates, KPerez, Spann (L)
AA release candidates: Perry, Selik, Demny, RMartin
AA out of Org: Broderick, Ray, McCoy, Frias, Holder, Bray

AA Apr 2014 Actual

AA Rotation: Cole, Schwartz, Rivero (L), Gilliam, Purke (L)
AA spot starts/swingman: Dupra
AA bullpen: Herron, Holland, Grace (L), Mirowski, Alfaro, Bates, Espino
AA dl: Demny, RMartin, Solis (L), Lehman, Perry
AA cut/released/FAs: Broderick, Ray (traded), Bray (L), McCoy (L), Karns (traded), Frias, Holder, Selik, Swynenberg (ret)
AA missing: KPerez

AA Discussion

We got some of the rotation correct; A.J. Cole and Blake Schwartz. We technically got Hill and Treinen correct … just under-valued where the organization would put them. And lastly Sammy Solis would be in this group had he not suffered a late-spring back injury; for the time being he’s in XST but is on the “missing” list here. I had Rob Gilliam as the AA swing man anyway; he would likely make way for Solis once he comes back. The two additional names are Matthew Purke (who surprisingly to me starts the year in AA) and newly acquired Felipe Rivero.

We got most of the bullpen right: 5 of 8 predicted. The outliers: Ryan Perry remains in the organization but sits on the D/L; personally I thought he may get released. Gabriel Alfaro was a MLFA who slots into the bullpen, as was Zach Jackson (who should have been in AAA to begin with and has already been promoted). Benincasa starts in high-A again and Gilliam is pushed into the rotation. Recent acquisition KPerez remain missing, along with several other middle relief arms. Spann started the year two levels lower than I thought he should have in Low-A but currently sits in Potomac.

A couple of long-serving names are now out of the organization; I was surprised to see Cameron Selik in particular being released; I always liked him for some reason. Its tough being a middle relief RHP with so many of them getting drafted year after year.

AA Star Power summary: A few very important names to the organization sit in AA: top pitching prospect A.J. Cole sits here and will be looking to push for a AAA promotion. Sammy Solis had rumblings of being turned into a Loogy in Spring Training; now he just needs to get healthy. Matthew Purke’s destiny remains at a cross-roads thanks to a horrible start to his 2014 AA campaign. And newly acquired/40-man member Felipe Rivero sits here, hoping to show as a decent bounty for the Nathan Karns trade. These three guys all sit on the Nats fast-depleting 40-man roster … and they represent 33% of ALL the 40-man rostered players in the Eastern League.

High-A Dec 2013 Prediction

High-A rotation: Purke (L), Anderson, Mooneyham (L), Encarnacion, Bacus, Turnbull (bullpen?) (L)
High-A swingmen: RPena (swingman), Dickson (swingman)
High-A bullpen: Wort (AA?), Holt (AA?), Fischer, Henke, Mendez, Harper (L), Davis, Thomas (L)
High-A release candidates: Dupra, Rauh (starter?), Meza (L)
High-A out of org: Pineyro, Hawkins

High-A Apr 2014 Actuals

High-A Rotation: Rauh, Rpena, Mooneyham (L), Encarnacion, Lee
High-A spot starts/swingman: Dickson, Simms, Spann (L)
High-A bullpen: Benincasa, Henke, Harper (L), Mendez, Self,
High-A cut/released/FA: Smoker (L), Broderick, Ray (traded), Holt, Wort, Applebee (ret)
High-A missing: Fischer

High-A Discussion

I thought the team would start Purke in high-A again; instead he is struggling in AA. I thought Dixon Anderson was old enough to merit the move to high-A; instead he still sits in Hagerstown repeating the level. And Kyle Turnbull remains on the low-A D/L for now. Otherwise the High-A rotation prediction looks pretty good: we hit on Mooneyham and Encarnacion, we hit on RPena and Dickson and Bacus as swingmen or starters (they all now sit in those roles in some capacity or another thanks to injuries).

The bullpen predictions are all over the place; both Wort and Holt were released, not pushed higher. Fischer remains missing. Benincasa is lower than I thought he’d be. Dupra and Rauh (who I thought were in jeopardy of getting cut) not only have kept their spots but have been pushing for promotion, which is great to see. It does go to show that its kind of difficult to do these predictions the lower you go.

High-A Star Power summary: Honestly there’s not a ton of big-time prospect names on the High-A staff. Mooneyham was a high draft pick but has more or less struggled thus far in his pro career. Encarnacion could be an up-and-comer in an organization that has struggled to develop its DSL graduate talent lately. Otherwise the Potomac staff is filled with mid- to late-round college draft arms, older for the level at this point, and likely playing for their careers this year thanks to the higher-end talent sitting in the Hagerstown rotation right now (read further).

Low-A Dec 2013 Prediction

Low-A rotation: Giolito, Johansen, Voth, Lee (high-A?) (L), Orlan (L)
Low-A swingmen: Suero (swingman), Selsor (swingman),
Low-A bullpen: Self (high-A?), Ullmann, Pivetta, Simms, Hollins, Napoli (L), Bafidis (L), Valdez, Walsh (L), Aries
Low-A release candidates: Joyce, Waterman, Boyden
Low-A out of org: McKenzie, Smith

Low-A Apr 2014 Actuals

Low A Rotation: Giolito, Johansen, Voth, Pivetta, Anderson,
Low A spot starts/swingman: Suero, Anderson,
Low A bullpen: JThomas (L), Walsh (L), Cooper, Hollins, Ullmann, Silvestre (L), Sylvestri, Simms, Spann
Low A dl: Turnbull, CDavis, Estevez,
Low A cut/released/FA: Meza (L), Pineyro (traded), Selsor, Boyden, Waterman, Aries
Low A missing: Orlan, Napoli, Bafidis, Aries, Joyce, Valdez

Discussion

The big three starters in Hagerstown were easily predicted (Giolito, Johansen and Voth). Lee and Anderson switched places in my predictions (both starters, wrong teams) and Orlan is stuck in XST. Pivetta was pushed to the rotation after pitching in relief last year. And then a slew of the Hagerstown arms are participating in a “dual starter” system where by the starters generally have been going 5 and the relievers/spot starters going the other 4 each night. So the team is getting lots of looks at these pitchers on an extended basis.

This system means there’s really not a “bullpen” being developed in Low-A, which is just as well; I’d rather have 8-10 starter candidates to choose from for higher levels than just 4-5 with guys already being pushed to being short-inning relievers in Low-A.

Unfortunately, we see that a slew of guys have already been cut here who appeared on last year’s rosters. And, there’s a ton more players currently sitting in XST waiting to compete with June 2014 draft picks in the short-season squads. Lots of churn here.

Low-A Star Power summary: look no further than the big three starters: they represent 1st, 2nd and 5th round draft picks. Throw in Pivetta (a 4th rounder) and the team has a ton of vested interest in this rotation.

Phew; that’s a lot of players. I can’t wait to see how the staffs work out this year. I don’t expect much in the way of commenting on this post; it was one of those drafts sitting in my admin screen that I thought i’d finish off and publish to get it out of the way 🙂

Written by Todd Boss

May 7th, 2014 at 10:20 am

From Nats to Oblivion; Updated for 2013 season

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Is Maya going to be the latest Nats to Oblivion poster child? Photo Al Bello/Getty Images

Several years ago (November 2010) Mark Zuckerman posted a fascinating analysis he titled “From Nats to Oblivion.” It chronicled the astoundingly high number of players that the early incarnations of the Nats were using who, once the Nats released them, never again appeared on a MLB roster. I thought the analysis was so interesting that I kept up the same data and have been keeping it up-to-date with the whereabouts of Nats-to-Oblivion candidates ever since. So with apologies to Zuckerman for stealing his idea, here’s an interesting visit to the Nats darker past.

A large part of this post is borrowed from previous versions; click here for 2012’s version of this post. A few players from our near past have re-surfaced in the majors as of late and have been removed from this list where noted; if you see any others listed here in error please let me know. But this entire list is updated post 2013 season, with the minor league/foreign league/independent league movements of oblivion candidates chronicled.

It is nearly impossible for a team to field an entire year’s worth of players who will not fall into this “Oblivion” category. Every MLB team has guys playing out the string or near retirement, and every MLB team calls up guys through out the season from the minors who eventually show themselves as unable to compete on the MLB level and who never make it back. So a 0% oblivion measure isn’t a goal.

For your reminiscing pleasure, here is the summary data updated to the 2013 team:

2012: 24 position, 19 pitchers, 43 total. 5/43 = 11.6% candidate ratio
2011: 20 position, 24 pitchers, 44 total. 6/44 = 13.6% candidate ratio
2010: 20 position, 26 pitchers, 46 total. 12/46 = 26.0% never appeared again
2009: 25 position, 30 pitchers, 55 total. 9/55 = 16.3% never appeared again
2008: 25 position, 25 pitchers, 50 total. 8/50 = 16% never appeared again
2007: 21 position, 26 pitchers, 47 total. 12/47 = 25.5% never appeared again
2006: 28 position, 29 pitchers, 57 total. 20/57 = 35% never appeared again
2005: 30 position, 25 pitchers, 55 total. 16/55 = 29% never appeared again

Look at the 2006 season; 35% of the players who played for the team that year never played another Major League game. That’s still astounding to me. Read on for a detailed look back at some of the very bad players that have put in significant time for this team.

2013 (13 Candidates):

Total Players used: 23 position, 21 pitchers, 44 total. 13/44 = 29.5% candidate ratio right now. Real candidates list is just the top 5, so 5/44 = 11.36%.

Candidates

Yunesky Maya; ML deal with Atlanta for 2014
Chris Marrrero: ML deal with Baltimore for 2014
Chad Tracy: still a FA; highly unlikely to get a major league deal after his awful 2013.
Corey Brown: DFA’d, traded to Oakland
Fernando Abad; DFA’d, traded to Oakland

Less likely “candidates” from the 2013 team:

Danny Espinosa
Jhonatan Solano
Jeff Kobernus
Zach Walters
Eury Perez
Sandy Leon
Nathan Karns
Erik Davis

The top 5 players are really the “candidates” out of the 2013 team. Every one of the guys in the lower section is on our 40-man roster, meaning they all likely see time this coming season. In fact, right now the odds are that at least a couple of these guys will make the opening day roster. So really the oblivion candidates here are just the top 5 guys, but we’ll track all 13 until they’re cleared off this list. Both the guys we traded to Oakland sit on their 40-man roster, but both seem in serious jeopardy of being DFA’d again at some point in the spring (especially Corey Brown, who is out of options).

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Yunesky Maya, who was Mike Rizzo‘s first foray into the Cuban exile market. Signed to a 4yr/$8M deal, he was given several shots at the majors and never could capitalize. He arrived in the US with a wide arsenal of pitches but not a lot of swing-and-miss talent, and he ended up basically being a AAA starter. He spent the last three seasons as Syracuse’s lead starter (getting 22, 28 and 24 starts there inbetween infrequent call-ups) and ended up with just one career MLB win for his $8M salary (making his one of the worst dollars-per-win contracts ever … even if it was “just” $8M). This whole paragraph is assuming that Maya never makes it back to the majors … but based on what he’s shown thus far combined with his advancing age, that seems like a likely end-result for the Cuban starter.

2012 (5 candidates)

Total Players used: 24 position, 19 pitchers, 43 total. 5/43 = 11.6% candidate ratio right now

Candidates

Brad Lidge: Retired post 2012
Jesus Flores; signed ML deal with Los Angeles Dodgers for 2013, no MLB appearances
Brett Carroll: signed ML deal w/ Pittsburgh for 2013, no MLB appearances
Ryan Perry: Wash AAA and AA 2013
Carlos Maldonado: Wash AAA 2013

In the past 12 months, we’ve removed 3 players from this list (Izturas, Wang and Brown) who re-appeared on MLB rosters either here or elsewhere. I still think its possible that Flores could re-appear on an MLB roster at some point; catchers have a way of getting hurt and causing organizations to scramble. The rest face pretty long odds.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Brad Lidge, who gave it one last shot and failed spectacularly. When you lose your stuff, its gone and gone fast. I’ll readily admit I thought the signing was a great one when it occurred but it just didn’t work out. I really hoped that Lidge would be a serviceable 7th inning guy and mentor to Drew Storen and Tyler Clippard, being one of the great closers of his day. It didn’t work out that way.

2011 (6 candidates)

Total Players used: 20 position, 24 pitchers, 44 total. 6/44 = 13.6% candidate ratio right now…

Candidates

Ivan Rodriguez – retired after 2011
Matt Stairs — retired after 2011
Alex Cora — retired after 2011, now the General Manager of a Puerto Rican Winter League team.
Cole Kimball — Nats 60-day DL in 2012, XST in 2013, DFA’d off 40-man roster.
Brian Broderick — Stl AAA, waived now Nats AAA in 2012, AA in 2013
Atahualpa Severino — Nats AAA, DFA’d off 40-man in 2012, KC AAA for 2013, signed ML deal with Atlanta for 2014 (thanks John C).

Changes in the last 12 months: none.

As with the 2012 candidates, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this list get lowered by one eventually; Severino seems like he could work his way back into a loogy situation for a club. Kimball’s DFA and Broderick’s pending MLFA status both make it seem like their chances of returning to the majors are slim.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Matt Stairs: He made the 2011 roster despite having almost no defensive capabilities and, as it soon became evident, almost no remaining abilities at the plate. He somehow hung onto his roster spot until August 1st despite having just one extra base hit in 74 at-bats on the year. I remember one game in particular; we were at the stadium going against the hated Phillies and they left Roy Halladay in to attempt to finish a shutout with a 3-0 lead (Game was on 4/13/11). Nats rally, score 2 runs to make it 3-2. Stairs comes up pinch hitting for Jerry Hairston with guys on 1st and 2nd with one out; he promptly watches three straight fastballs go right down the middle of the plate without moving his bat. I’ve never been so p*ssed at a player at the ball-park. Ivan Rodriguez then promptly struck out on 3 pitches as well, looking strike 3 into the mitt and then arguing vehimently with the ump over the game-ending call which gave Halladay the complete game victory.

2010 (12 players)

Total Players used: 20 position, 26 pitchers, 46 total. 12/46 = 26.0% never appeared again

Players:

Willy Taveras; played AAA for Col in 2011, retired prior to 2012, back with KC AAA 2013
Kevin Mench; retired after 2010
Jamie Burke; retired after 2010
Luis Atilano: in CIN org, AAA in 2012, never signed for 2013
Scott Olsen; in CWS org, AAA 2012, never signed for 2013
JD Martin; in MIA org AAA 2012, in TB AAA 2013
Tyler Walker; indy league 2011, never signed for 2012
Jesse English; indy league 2011, 2012. Mexican League 2013
Matt Chico; indy league 2012, never signed for 2013
Joe Bisenius; in Mexico 2011-12, Atlanta AA/AAA for 2013
Garrett Mock: Houston AAA 2012, AZ AAA for 2013
Jason Bergmann: indy 2011, Col AAA 2012, Indy again in 2013, KC AA team.

Changes in last 12 months: none.

There’s more than a few guys here who are still hanging on to AAA jobs but not many of them are looking promising to break onto 40-man rosters and earn call-ups.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Jamie Burke: The 2009 Nats were so thin at Catcher by the end of the season that we literally bought a spare catcher in Burke from Seattle so we could have some coverage at the end of the season. Burke re-signed on for 2010 and appeared in exactly one MLB game. He was released after the season and retired.

2009 (9 players)

Total Players used: 25 position, 30 pitchers, 55 total. 9/55 = 16.3% never appeared again

Players:

Elijah Dukes: released and never picked up for 2010. Arrested in 2011, 2012, out of baseball.
Alex Cintron; playing in Mexico 2012, nothing in 2013
Jorge Padilla; in SD org, AAA in 2012, nothing in 2013
Ron Villone, AAA all of 2010, 2011 playing indy ball, retired prior to 2012. He will appear on the 2015 Hall of Fame ballot and is currently the pitching coach of the High-A Chicago affilliate.
Julian Tavarez; retired after getting DFA’d in July 2009
Zack Segovia; in Det org AA in 2012, Mexican league/Indy ball 2013
Mike Hinckley: Tor org in 2011, retired prior to 2012
Steven Shell; KC org in 2011, retired prior to 2012
Victor Garate; MIL org and Indy ball in 2012, Mexican league 2013

Changes in last 12 months: removed Kensing and Martis after they both resurfaced on MLB teams, meaning that they both went three full seasons inbetween MLB appearances. That’s why we track these guys for so long.

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Ron Villone, who proved that a crafty lefty with a halfway decent fastball can have a long career in this game. He had 63 appearances at age 39 for the 2009 Nats and got re-signed for 2010. He didn’t make the team though, labored in Syracuse the whole season and was released. Despite being 41 years old, he headed to Indy ball for one last shot but washed out after just a few outings in 2011.

It wouldn’t be a retrospective on poor Nats players if we didn’t briefly talk about Elijah Dukes though. I think its safe to assume that he’s the only guy on this list that has served more time in jail than has played in the minor leagues, attempting to get back to the show.

2008 (8 players)

Total Players used: 25 position, 25 pitchers, 50 total. 8/50 = 16% never appeared again

Players:

Kory Casto; 2009 AAA, 2010 in Ariz AA, retired.
Dmitri Young: some rehab in low minors 2009, retired.
Rob Mackowiak: 2009: some indy, bounced around AAA, that’s it.
Johnny Estrada; flat out quit after 2008
Odalis Perez; refused his 2009 contract, never resigned
Levale Speigner; 2009 in Florida’s AA/AAA, then 2010 in Seattle AAA. done.
Ray King; retired after 2008
Chris Schroder; 2009, 2010 bounced around AAA with Oakland, Fla.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Odalis Perez, though I’m tempted to say either Mackowiak or Estrada, possibly the two worst FA signings of the whole Jim Bowden era (and that’s saying something). But nothing beats the Perez story. He was the Nats Opening Day Starter in 2008; hell he was the first guy to get a start in the Nationals Stadium. He pitched well; in 30 starts he was 7-12 with a 4.34 ERA and a 99 ERA+ for a god-awful team. But apparently he got really pissed when the team only offered him a non-guaranteed Minor League deal for 2009. So he held out, the Nats said “fine with us” and released him, and nobody else picked him up. And he never played another game. I’m not sure if that was a sign that he was just that bad (not one team wanted to even give an opening day starter a look the subsequent year?), or if there was some sort of MLB general manager omerta that conspired against him. Either way, Perez played again, not even in Winter Leagues as far as I could find. Sometimes a player has to swallow his pride, and Perez apparently could not.

2007 (12 players)

Total Players used: 21 position, 26 pitchers, 47 total. 12/47 = 25.5% never appeared again

Players:

Nook Logan; indy league 2008, 2010.
Robert Fick: Cut from the Padres in ST 2008, full year indy league 2009, retired.
D’Angelo Jimenez: AAA all of 2008, 2009. Mexican league and Indy league 2010-2012
Tony Batista: Wash AAA 2008, then released
Michael Restovich: 2008 in Japan, AAA 2009-2011, retired
Brandon Watson: AAA 2008-9, indy league 2011, retired.
Mike Bacsik: 2008 AAA, 2011 indy league, now a broadcaster.
Jason Simontacchi; 2008 indy league, 2010 again.
John Patterson; cut in ST 2008, immediately signed w/ Texas but never played again.
Ryan Wagner: AAA 2008-9, released and presumably retired.
Arnie Munoz; went to mexican league, retired > 2010
Chris Booker: AAA in 2008, then retired/released.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Mike Bacsik, who was destined to be a career 4-A guy before Washington picked him up and gave him 20 starts in 2007. Bacsik was on his 6th minor league organization when he arrived in Syracuse and pitched his way up to the major leagues. He was overmatched badly; he had a 5.11 ERA and just a 3.4 K/9 rate. But he did get his moment in the headlines by giving up Barry Bonds‘ 756th career homer one night in San Francisco in August. Contrary to accusations on the topic, I do not believe Bacsik “served up” the homer. If you check the play index, Bonds hit the 7th pitch of the at-bat in a 3-2 count for that homer. Bacsik didn’t purposely give up a homer on the 7th pitch of an at-bat; he just ran out of pitches to show Bonds that weren’t going to get pulverized.

A quick comment though on John Patterson: I remember being absolutely shocked at his release in 2008’s spring training. He was cut on 3/20/08, right in the middle of Spring Training with no warning and having just thrown his Grapefruit innings. He was healthy, recovered from surgery, ready to be the ace of that staff and start showing off the potential that he showed in 2005 (you know, when he 4-hit the Dodgers with 13 punch outs and posted the best Game-Score performance in Nats history). He signed a ML deal with Texas after his release by the Nats, but he couldn’t answer the call and never appeared again, getting released in mid May. I guess his third arm surgery in 7 years just left him unable to compete at any level and he hung ’em up.

2006 (20 players)

Total Players used: 28 position, 29 pitchers, 57 total. 20/57 = 35% never appeared again

Damian Jackson; dnp 2007, indy league 2008-9
Bernie Castro: AAA all of 2007, 8 then retired.
Alex Escobar: Wash minors 2007-8, then retired.
Brandon Harper: Wash AAA all of 2007, then released/retired.
Wiki Gonzalez: CWS AAA all of 2007, indy league 2008, retired.
Henry Mateo: AAA or Indy league 2007-2009, mexican league from 2010-current 2013
George Lombard: AAA 2007-9, some indy league, retired.
Mike Vento: 2007 Wash AAA, indy league 2008, back with Syracuse 2009, retired.
Melvin Dorta; various minor leagues 2007-2010, indy league 2011, retired.
Luis Matos: AAA 2007, Mexican League 2008-2012. ? 2013
Pedro Astacio; retired after 2006
Felix Rodriguez: dnp 2007, indy league 2008-9, retired.
Zach Day: AAA 2007, briefly A+ 2008, retired.
Beltran Perez; wash minors AA/AAA 2007-8, released and never played again.
Joey Eischen; released off of Washington and retired.
Travis Hughes; AAA in 2007, played in Japan 2008, indy leagues 2009, 2011.
Ryan Drese: various minor leagues 2007-8, indy league 2009-2010, Baltimore AAA 2011, released/retired.
Kevin Gryboski: AAA 2007-2008, retired/released.
Brett Campbell: Wash AA 2007, released/retired.
Santiago Ramirez: Japan in 2007, Mexican league 2008, indy 2009, retired.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Joey Eischen, who bounced around the league in his 20s before settling in Montreal and moving south with the team. He was known to be a “character” in the clubhouse and to give good quotes to reporters (google “Joey eischen quotes” and you’ll find some of his classics). By 2006 though the years had taken their toll on his shoulder; he had 19 walks in 14 2/3 innings through the end of May had blown his rotator cuff. The team put him on the 60 day D/L and called up one Bill Bray. Eischen never got off that D/L; he was released in the off-season and never played again. For 2013, he’s listed as the pitching coach of Colorado’s high-A Affiliate in Asheville.

2005 (16 players)

Total Players used: 30 position, 25 pitchers, 55 total. 16/55 = 29% never appeared again

Players:

Carlos Baerga; retired after 2005
Junior Spivey: bounced around AAA 2006-7, indy ball in 2009, retired.
Tony Blanco; Nats minor leagues 2006-7, Colorado AA in 2008, in Japan from 2009-present.
Wil Cordero; released mid 2005, signed on with the NY Mets but never made it out of AAA. Retired after 2005.
Deivi Cruz; released after 2005, cut from St. Louis 2006 ST, played indy ball, retired.
Jeffrey Hammonds; retired in June 2005 mid-season.
J.J. Davis: Traded to Colorado as part of the Preston Wilson deal, sent to Colorado’s AAA, then released after the season and never played again.
Rick Short; Granted FA after the 2005 season to play in Japan, played there til 2009.
Kenny Kelly; AAA in 2006 and 2007, released and retired.
Keith Osik; a backup catcher, got 4 ABs in 2005, released and retired.
Tyrell Godwin; after just THREE MLB at-bats in 2005, spent all of 2006 and 2007 in AAA, released and retired.
T.J. Tucker; released after 2005, tried one year of indy ball in 2008, retired.
Joe Horgan; released after 2005, played one year of AAA with Florida, released, retired.
Matt White; AAA in 2006-7, Japan 2007-8, tried indy ball in 2010, hung ’em up.
C.J. Nitkowski; AAA in 2006, then went to Japan 2007-8, Korea 2009-10, back with the Mets AAA team in July 2012. Not signed for 2013
Antonio Osuna: dnp in 2006, Mexican league 2007-9.

Changes in last 12 months: none

Favorite Nats-to-Oblivion story: Rick Short, who got his MLB debut at the age of 32, after 11 very long seasons in the minors with many different teams. He got a couple of call-ups in June and July to provide cover, and then played out the string after a Sept 1 roster expansion call-up. In that off-season, he returned to Japan (where he’d played one full season prior), and played four more years in the Japanese League and retired in 2009.

Though it merits talking about a couple other guys here. Tony Blanco; he was a rule-5 draftee who the Nats carried the whole of 2005 so they could keep his rights. He was awful; he had a .177 batting average as the 25th guy off the bench. In 2006 he couldn’t even cut it in AA and played most of the year in High-A. After 2007 the Nats summarily released him from their minor league organization altogether. He found his calling though; he signed on in Japan in 2009 at age 27 and continues to play there today. You have to wonder if he may very well earn another MLB shot.

Jeffrey Hammonds was well known to Washington baseball fans by virtue of his pedigree with our northern neighbors in Baltimore; he was a 1st round draft pick in 1992 out of Stanford, broke in with the MLB team the following year and was a role player on the powerhouse Baltimore teams of the mid 1990s. He bounced around the league afterwards though, signing on with the newly relocated Washington franchise for the 2005 debut season but he hung ’em up after a slow start here. He was only 34 when he retired.

Written by Todd Boss

January 16th, 2014 at 9:01 am

Posted in Nats in General

Tagged with alex cintron, alex cora, alex escobar, antonio osuna, arnie munoz, atahualpa severino, barry bonds, beltran perez, bernie castro, bill bray, brad lidge, brandon harper, brandon watson, brett campbell, brett carroll, brian broderick, carlos baerga, carlos maldonado, chad tracy, chris booker, chris marrero, chris schroder, cj nitkowski, cole kimball, corey brown, damian jackson, dangelo jimenez, danny espinosa, deivi cruz, dmitri young, drew storen, elijah dukes, erik davis, eury perez, felix rodriguez, fernando abad, garrett mock, george lombard, henry mateo, ivan rodriguez, jamie burke, jasom simontacchi, jason bergmann, jd martin, jeff kobernus, jeffrey hammonds, jerry hairston, jesse english, jesus flores, jhonatan solano, jim bowden, jj davis, joe bisenius, joe horgan, joey eischen, john patterson, johnny estrada, jorge padilla, julian tavarez, junior spivey, keith osik, kenny kelly, kevin gryboski, kevin mench, kory casto, levale speigner, logan kensing, luis atilano, luis matos, mark zuckerman, matt chico, matt stairs, matt white, melvin dorta, michael restovich, mike bacsik, mike hinckley, mike rizzo, mike vento, nathan karns, nook logan, odalis perez, pedro astacio, ray king, rick short, rob mackowiak, robert fick, ron villone, roy halladay, ryan drese, ryan perry, ryan wagner, sandy leon, santiago ramirez, scott olsen, shairon martis, steven shell, tj tucker, tony batista, tony blanco, travis hughes, tyler clippard, tyler walker, tyrell godwin, wiki gonzalez, wil cordero, willy taveras, yunesky maya, zach day, zach walters, zack segovia

2014 Projected Pitching Staffs and Rotations; entire Nats system

22 comments

Mr. Detwiler's 2014 assignment will have cascading effects for MLB and AAA. Photo Haraz Ghanbari/AP via federalbaseball.com

Mr. Detwiler’s 2014 role will have serious cascading effects for MLB and AAA. Photo Haraz Ghanbari/AP via federalbaseball.com

OK here we are. We did seven comprehensive pitching staff reviews (the GCL review is here, which has links to the other 6 reviews) in order to arrive at this post.

So, without further ado, here’s what I’m predicting for all seven systems right now, absent any more deals (like say for a MLB lefty or another starter or trading a closer to Chicago):

MLB Level

MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez (L), Zimmermann, Fister, Detwiler (L)
MLB Bullpen: Soriano, Storen, Clippard, Stammen, Blevens (L), Ohlendorf, Roark
MLB out of Org: Haren, Duke (L), Abad (L), Krol (L), HRodriguez

Discussion: the 5th starter competition could shake out so many different ways, that it almost is not worth predicting. I can see any of the following scenarios playing out:

Detwiler gets one last shot at the 5th starter as the incumbent, pushing Jordan to AAA and Ohlendorf/Roark to the bullpen (my current prediction).
Jordan wins the 5th starter, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen as a power lefty by virtue of his lack of options. This would push (likely) Roark to AAA.
Roark wins the 5th starter, continuing his blistering sub 2.00 ERA pace from September, pushing Detwiler to the bullpen and Jordan to AAA.
Less likely, Karns wins the 5th spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen and Roark & Jordan to AAA.
Even more less likely, Ohlendorf wins the spot, which pushes Detwiler to the bullpen but lets Roark stay as the long man/spot-starter.
Mike Rizzo shocks us again with another starter acquisition; Detwiler goes to the bullpen, Ohlendorf stays as long man, and Roark & Jordan are in AAA.

Why am I predicting Detwiler will win the rotation spot? Partly because of options, but partly because I’ve sort of come back around on him after looking more closely at his 2013 season. He had a decent to good 2012; he posted a 118 ERA+ and even if his advanced FIP/SIERA didn’t indicate he was quite that good, he was still more than a servicable 5th starter. Then in his first seven 2013 starts he was also very good (he had a 2.53 ERA in his first 7 starts and 42 2/3 innings … he got hurt in his 8th start). The rest of his season was a mess, with him fighting injury and ballooning his seasonal ERA from 2.53 to more than 4.00 in five more starts. If he comes back healthy to start 2014, why wouldn’t we expect more of the same performance that he had at the start of 2013? For these two reasons, I think Detwiler breaks camp as the 5th starter. Now …. I have zero confidence that he’ll remain healthy enough to keep his spot in the rotation, but that’s a problem for another day. And a problem for which this team has plenty of coverage.

Another scenario that could affect this predition: Rizzo acquires yet another lefty reliever (latest rumors were about Scott Downs before he signed elsewhere, but I’m sure a trade could be arranged), which complicates any of these predictions because it means one less spot for either Ohlendorf or Roark. For a team that seems so obsessed with left-handed relievers, we sure have let a bunch of them go in recent years (Duke, Abad, Krol this year, Gorzelanny, Lannan, Burnett and Gonzalez last year). Maybe we should just hang on to one or two of these guys? I will say this: I do NOT believe that the Nats will choose Xavier Cedeno and his 6 2013 MLB innings for the Nats over Roark just because he’s left handed at this point.

Personally, I think Roark and Ohlendorf pitched like big leagers last year and deserve to stay in the majors until they prove otherwise. Ohlendorf’s recent $1.25M deal seems to indicate he’s more likely to stick than Roark, but perhaps the long-man/spot starter competition is open as well. This pushes previous stalwards in the bullpen (specifically Ryan Mattheus ) to AAA. I will say this though: if you expect to win, you have to go north with your 25 best guys no matter how much they make or their option status. And at the end of last year, that undoubtedly included Tanner Roark. So thats why I’m going with Roark in the pen to start the season.

One other wrinkle; does Rizzo trade one of Storen or Clippard to Chicago, who desperately needs a closer? This seems less likely, especially for a team that has World Series aspirations, but the truth is this team is paying a LOT of money into its bullpen ($25M and counting), has three closer-quality guys, and potentially a log jam of righties (see the AAA bullpen prediction for more). I see this as less likely unless Chicago sends back pieces that we really need, but rumors get started because GMs are talking, so maybe this still happens. But if a guy like that is traded, then that re-opens a slot for the deposed Mattheus or possibly the newly healthy an electric Garcia. I think these are lesser possibilities and both those guys are pushed to AAA to begin the season.

I’m sure this section garners plenty of discussion; have at it in the comments 🙂

AAA Level

AAA Rotation: Jordan, Karns, Rosenbaum (L), Young, MLFA or two?
AAA Bullpen: Barrett, Mattheus, Garcia, Davis, Cedeno (L), Robertson (L), Herron (AA?), Alfaro, Stange, Delcarmen
AAA Release candidates: Meyers, Lehman
AAA out of Org: Maya, Tatusko, Clay, Mandel, Torra, Broadway, Crotta, Lowe, Kimball, Accardo, Bramhall, Romero (L)

Discussion

So, the projected AAA rotation has one hold over in Rosenbaum, two “promotions” in Jordan and Karns, and then a whole bunch of question marks. Is Chris Young healthy enough to pitch this year? Is Brad Meyers? Right now i’ve got Meyers as a release candidate, figuring that he hasn’t been healthy in two years and may be finished. I have to think that the team will give a couple of lower-level free agents minor league contracts to try to pitch their way back into the league, much as they have done with the likes of Zach Duke, Ross Ohlendorf and Young in the last couple of off-seasons. There’s plenty of guys out there who may make sense; a quick glance at the current list of free agents offers intriguing names (think of someone like a Joe Saunders or a Barry Zito or an Aaron Harang; do you think these guys are getting guaranteed contracts for 2014?). I’m predicting that at least one or two of these types of guys get MLFA deals and end up in the AAA rotation, though I suppose at least one guy i’m projecting from the AA rotation could start in AAA.

The AAA bullpen has a couple of MLB-quality arms in Ryan Mattheus and Christian Garcia who we know can contribute at the MLB level but who end up here because of a numbers game at the big club. The AAA closer likely is Aaron Barrett, newly added to the 40-man and looking to make his mark. Erik Davis is here, who I kind of soured on last season but his numbers in small MLB samples were good and I think he can contribute in a Craig Stammen sort of way going forward. We have a couple of hold-over loogies in Xavier Cedeno and Tyler Robertson, the latter of which successfully passed through waivers and was outrighted to Syracuse last month. We already have three off-season MLFA signings (Gabriel Alfaro, Daniel Stange, Manny Delcarmen) who all project as righty middle relievers, making it seemingly less likely that the team will retain some of its own MLFAs (the likes of Ryan Tatusko and Jeff Mandel being longer serving Nats minor leaguers who pitched decently in 2013).

But as you can see there’s more candidates here than there is room on the Syracuse roster (10 for 7 spots, and that’s assuming that Pat Lehman doesn’t make the cut either). There will be injuries and D/L stints among these guys, but there may also be some releases next March.

Still, a AAA rotation led by Jordan and Karns (and possibly Ohlendorf and/or Roark if another move is made at the MLB level) leaves Syracuse with a pretty good staff to start the season. And I like the fact that we have one reasonably accomplished MLB starter (Jordan) waiting in the wings to go along with a guy who might get there soon (Karns), to go with potentially a couple other former major league guys who are working their way back.

AA Level

AA Rotation: Cole, Hill, Solis (L), Schwartz, Treinen (AAA?)
AA Bullpen: Benincasa, Mirowski, Holland, Swynenberg, Grace (L), Bates, KPerez, Gilliam (swingman), Spann (L)
AA release candidates: Perry, Selik, Demny, RMartin
AA out of Org: Broderick, Ray, McCoy, Frias, Holder, Bray

Discussion

We’ll see this trend again and again; despite the fact that the likes of A.J. Cole and Taylor Hill reached AA last year, the organization seems to like seeing these guys “beat the level” a second season in a row before moving guys up. And so I see these guys in AA again. Sammy Solis here is no surprise; he’s nearly 26 and has been mentioned as a MLB bullpen candidate already. Meanwhile for the time being i’ve got Blake Treinen here, repeating the level, but can also see him moving up to AAA. His numbers were good but not *that* good last year, and I left him in AA assuming that the team will try out some re-treads in the AAA rotation. Lastly Blake Schwartz gets a deserved promotion after leading Potomac in IP, wins and starts last year.

In the bullpen I think Robert Benincasa is your closer to start, with Richie Mirowski and Neil Holland continuing to put up dominating late-innings relief. All three guys should be pushing for promotions to AAA. We’re a little light on lefties here admittedly. A couple of injury-prone guys in Ryan Perry and Cameron Selik are listed as release candidates in the face of a number of guys meriting placement here. Paul Demny and Rafael Martin have been around forever and may also be release candidates at this point, but they also could (at least in Demny’s case) convert to relief and try to rekindle their careers. Lastly, there’s newly acquired Matthew Spann, the bounty for the Nats gambit on David Dejesus near the end of last season. He’s a lefty who looks like he could start but i’ve got him in the bullpen for now.

High-A Level

High-A rotation: Purke (L), Anderson, Mooneyham (L), Encarnacion, Bacus, Turnbull (bullpen?) (L)
High-A bullpen: Wort (AA?), Holt (AA?), Fischer, Henke, Mendez, Harper (L), Davis, Thomas (L), RPena (swingman), Dickson (swingman)
High-A release candidates: Dupra, Rauh (starter?), Meza (L)
High-A out of org: Pineyro, Hawkins

Discussion

I don’t think there’s too many surprises in this rotation: Matthew Purke leads the line and should push for a promotion mid-season. If he doesn’t dominate High-A at this point it may be time to think about moving him to the pen. The same can be said about Brett Mooneyham and especially Kylin Turnbull, two guys who (by now) should have accomplished this level. Otherwise the rest of this projected rotation are three guys who succeeded in Low-A in 2013: Dixon Anderson, Pedro Encarnacion and Dakoda Bacus.

In the bullpen, at this point i’m not sure who the closer candidates are to start the season. Perhaps Greg Holt starts in the role. Perhaps low-A phenom Gilberto Mendez gets a shot at closing. Both Holt and Rob Wort may belong in AA at this point; Wort began 2013 there but there’s a lot of relievers in that AA section who would have to get hurt/be released to make room for these two guys right now. There’s a couple of decent swingmen candidates here in Ronald Pena and Ian Dickson both started for long stretches in Hagerstown and could be useful guys in Potomac. There’s a lot of names in the mix here for this bullpen; from here on down there could be plenty of releases come the end of spring.

Low-A Level

Low-A rotation: Giolito, Johansen, Voth, Lee (high-A?) (L), Orlan (L)
Low-A bullpen: Self (high-A?), Selsor (swingman), Ullmann, Pivetta, Simms, Hollins, Napoli (L), Bafidis (L), Suero (swingman), Valdez, Walsh (L), Aries
Low-A release candidates: Joyce, Waterman, Boyden
Low-A out of org: McKenzie, Smith

Discussion

I like this rotation, a lot. Two of our best prospects, a third guy in Austin Voth who impressed last year, a guy in Nick Lee who probably deserves a high-A rotation spot and then Auburn’s staff leader in Robert Orlan. Jake Johansen may find himself needing a promotion quickly, if he’s all that he’s cracked up to be.

The bullpen is going to be tough; basically every college aged short-season guy who pitched well in 2013 is named in this bullpen competition. There’s a couple of interesting DSL graduates in Wander Suero and Phillips Valdez, some big arms in Ryan Ullmann and Nick Pivetta, and some polished college-aged lefties in David Napoli, Cory Bafidis and Jake Walsh. I have 15 names here for 7-8 spots; Viera’s extended spring training could be busy this year.

Short-A Level

Short-A rotation: Barrientos, JRodriguez, Silvestre (high-A?) (L), and then 2013 draftees and/or drop-downs from Low-A
Short-A bullpen: DWilliams, Cooper, KRodriguez, Derosier, Webb (L), Spezial (L), 2013 draftees and drop-downs from Low-A
Short-A release candidates: Sylvestri, Grisz
Short-A out of org: Hudgins, Simko, Dicharry

GCL Level

Rookie Rotation: Ott (L), 2013 draftees and DSL graduates
Rookie bullpen: RLopez, 2013 draftees and DSL graduates
Rookie release candidates: DRamos, MRodriguez

Discussion

Its frankly impossible to predict the short-season squads, since (especially Auburn) they exist to park newly signed draftees. However, I do see a ton of guys who competed and succeeded in the GCL this year who won’t necessarily make the Hagerstown squad, and I see them forming a good chunk of the Auburn squad. The rest of the Auburn squad will be populated with upper-end 2014 draftees and losers from the Hagerstown pitching staff competition. More of the same with the 2014 GCL squad, which was heavily tilted with DSL graduates this year. The Nats tend to focus on college arms and thus only small college guys are generally put in the GCL in their draft year.

Written by Todd Boss

December 23rd, 2013 at 7:41 am

Posted in Majors Pitching,Minor League Pitching

Tagged with aaron barrett, aaron harang, aj cole, austin voth, barry zito, blake schwartz, blake treinen, brad meyers, brett mooneyham, cameron selik, chris young, christian garcia, cory bafidis, craig stammen, dakoda bacus, dan haren, daniel stange, danny rosenbaum, david dejesus, david napoli, dixon anderson, doug fister, drew storen, erik davis, fernando abad, gabriel alfaro, gilberto mendez, gio gonzalez, greg holt, hector silvestre, henry rodriguez, ian dickson, ian krol, jake johansen, jake walsh, jeff mandel, jefry rodriguez, jeremy blevens, joe saunders, joel barrientos, john lannan, jordan zimmermann, kylin turnbull, lucas giolito, manny delcarmen, mathew spann, matthew purke, mike gonzalez, nathan karns, neil holland, nick lee, nick pivetta, pat lehman, paul demny, pedro encarnacion, phillips valdez, rafael martin, rafael soriano, richie mirowski, rob wort, robert benincasa, robert orlan, ronald pena, ross detwiler, ross ohlendorf, ryan mattheus, ryan perry, ryan tatusko, ryan ullmann, sammy solis, scott downs, sean burnett, stephen strasburg, tanner roark, taylor hill, taylor jordan, tom gorzelanny, travis ott, tyler clippard, tyler herron, tyler robertson, wander suero, xavier cedeno, zach duke

Syracuse/AAA Pitching Staff Year in Review; 2013

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Roark was the story of the year from Syracuse. Photo via milb.com

2nd in a series: here’s the opener, reviewing the Major league squad.

For some historical perspective, here’s 2012’s version (featuring John Lannan) and 2011’s version (featuring Tommy Milone) of this post for AAA Syracuse.

All stats are courtesy of either milb.com’s Syracuse Stats page or via Fangraph’s Syracuse Stats page. Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker.

Syracuse starters. The rotation started the season with Ohlendorf, Roark, Maya, Perry and Rosenbaum. It finished the year with Maya, Tatusko, Rosembaum, Mandel and Clay. Here’s an overview of the starters Syracuse used, starting with the original 5.

Ross Ohlendorf took a minor league gig with the Nationals to try to revitalize his career and went a somewhat pedestrian looking 4-6 in 13 starts. His FIP (3.49) was better than his ERA (4.22) and his K/9 was good as he revamped his windup. A streak of good starts led to his June call-up, where he basically spent the rest of the season as the Nats’ long-man/spot starter. He tired as a starter, only going past the 5th inning three times, and Davey Johnson seemed hesitant to use him because of it. Outlook for next season: he did enough to get tendered a contract (which he quickly signed; 1yr/$1.25M), and seemingly he will slot back in as the long-man/spot-starter role for the MLB team. He doesn’t seem to have enough to compete and win the 5th starter competition. Will the team dump him to AAA as an inexpensive starter insurance policy? I doubt it for now; they probably opt to keep Ohlendorf as the last guy out of the pen.
Tanner Roark started in the rotation, got shelled in his 2nd and (especially) his 3rd starts, and got dumped to the bullpen. He toiled there for weeks before getting another shot in the rotation, and when he did he did very well. By the time he got called up in August he had recovered from his 3 2/3 inning 10-run debacle in early April to post a 9-3 record with a 3.15 ERA and a 0.99 whip in AAA. All he did upon arriving in the majors is pitch lights-out (a 252 ERA+) in 50 innings mixed with starts and relief appearances. Outlook for next season: he’ll compete for the 5th starter job in spring but may not win it. Its hard to imagine a guy who threw 50+ innings of 1.50 ERA ball to NOT make the team the following spring; he could end up replacing Ohlendorf as the long-man/spot starter for the MLB team.
Yunesky Maya made nearly a complete season worth of starts for Syracuse, going 8-8 with a 3.87 ERA. However in his third (and last) opportunity to pitch for the major league club he got hammered, which led to a DFA in late May and an outright to Syracuse. Maya pitched out the string, was not called up in September and was released in late November. Outlook for next season: he has signed a minor league contract with Atlanta, closing the book on an unsatisfying tenure with the Nationals organization.
Ryan Perry started the year in the rotation under the National’s grand plan to make him a starter, and the experiment failed. 8 starts later, he boasted a 7.93 ERA. He hit the D/L, then was demoted to Harrisburg. There, he was outrighted off the 40-man roster and returned to the bullpen, where he was mediocre (4.43 ERA). How odd; last year we were worried about Perry getting that needed 4th option; now he’s an org arm in AA. This guy was pitching in a playoff team’s bullpen at 22, now he’s turning 27 and banished in the mid-minors. Amazing. Outlook for next season: he has to show he can get AA hitters out; you have to think he’s starting in the AA bullpen again, unless a numbers dearth pushes him by attrition to the AAA bullpen.
Danny Rosenbaum had a whirlwind spring, getting rule-5 drafted by Colorado and then subsequently returned in late March, just in time to pack his bags for upstate New York and take his spot in the back end of the Syracuse Rotation. Rosenbaum led the 2013 rotation in starts and innings, going 7-11 with a 3.87 ERA. He did not earn a September call-up, nor was he selected in 2013’s Rule-5 draft. Unfortunately, Rosenbaum seems to have found his ceiling and may need a change of scenery to see if he can move forward. Outlook for next season: one more season as Syracuse’s innings eating lefty, then a minor league free agent at the end of 2014.
Ryan Tatusko gave Syracuse a full season of swing-man production, starting in the pen and then ending in the rotation. Final season stats: 5-8 with a 4.33 ERA in 28 appearances (18 starts). Nothing special here: I just wish I knew what happened to the guy who was a lights-out starter for Texas’ AA franchise when we acquired him in 2010. Outlook for next season: Minor League Free Agent, likely pitching in another organization.
Caleb Clay gave both AA and AAA 13 starts a-piece, finishing the year in Syracuse with excellent numbers (5-2, 2.49 ERA in 13 starts in AAA). He turned out to be an excellent minor league FA signing for the organization; too bad they couldn’t keep him for 2014. I was somewhat disappointed to see him signing elsewhere, thinking that he could be a sneaky good pitcher for the Nats someday. Outlook for next season: signed with San Francisco as a minor league free agent for 2014, where he stands a halfway decent chance of contributing at the MLB level, considering how bad Ryan Vogelsong and Tim Lincecum were in 2013.
Jeff Mandel continued to serve as the rubber arm swing man for Syracuse, a role that he’s essentially played for the Nats AAA affiliate in one way or another since 2010. This year he got 10 starts and 100+ innings and continued to show unfortunately that his peak is as an organizational/innings eating arm. Outlook for next season: Minor League Free Agent; he could sign on again with Washington as he did last off-season but he has to think that his path to the majors is easier with another team.
Chris Young was signed to a combo deal last off-season to give the team some starter insurance. Instead he started hurt, pitched horribly in 7 starts, then went back on the D/L for essentially the rest of the season. He gave up 50 hits in 32 AAA innings and was smoked for a 7.88 ERA. Outlook for next season: the Nats must have seen something they liked during his rehab assignments, because they’ve already signed him to a minor league contract for 2014. AAA rotation, hopefully healthy this time.
Brad Meyers was rule-5 drafted by the Yankees in 2012, got hurt for them, and was eventually returned in time for the 2013 season, but spent the entire year on the D/L. He’s got enough time to be a MLFA but isn’t on BA’s list so I presume he’s still in the organization. Outlook for next season: competing for a rotation spot in AAA; likely to be released if he doesn’t make the team.

Other guys who got spot starts here and there:
- Matt Torra had 5 starts in June/July then got released.
- Taylor Hill got a couple of spot starts in August and was sent back to AA; see Harrisburg’s writeup for more on him.
- Christian Garcia got a couple of “starts” doing re-hab assignments; see the reliever section.
- Tyler Robinson had a spot start and an extended outing; see the reliever section.
- Paul Demny got a spot start call-up and was sent back down; see Harrisburg’s writeup for more.

Syracuse Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps. We’ll organize relievers by looking at closers first, then by innings pitched.

Erik Davis was Syracuse’s closer in name for a bulk of the season, earning 15 saves while posting a 3.10 ERA in 52+ innings. He was a Sept 2012 pre-rule5 40-man addition and spent a week in the MLB pen in June before getting recalled for September. Out of his 10 MLB appearances he gave up zero runs in 9 of them and showed excellent middle-reliever stuff (12/1 K/BB ratio in 8 2/3 innings). Outlook for next season: I don’t think he can crack the 7-man MLB bullpen so he’ll be in Syracuse again, but there’s a reason he got added to the 40-man and I think he features as MLB bullpen insurance throughout the year.
Michael Broadway was a MLFA signing who gave the organization excellent back-of-the-bullpen production the whole year, starting with Harrisburg and ending with Syracuse. Outlook for next season: he has already signed a MLFA deal with Toronto for 2014, somewhat of a disappointment. Like Clay, I would have liked to have kept this guy around if possible.
Michael Crotta was another organizational-filling MLFA signing in 2013 who, like Broadway, toiled well and ate innings in Syracuse. Outlook for next season: MLFA again, likely signing elsewhere.
Tyler Robertson was a June 2013 waiver claim off of Minnesota, grabbed to help address the team’s lack of left-handed relievers. Robertson pitched decently for Syracuse but was passed on the Loogy depth chart by several others. He was outrighted in November ahead of the Rule-5 draft. Outlook for next season: Syracuse bullpen, though if i’m not mistaken he’s got enough service time to be a MLFA. I wonder if his outright and acceptance of assignment to Syracuse was effectively the Nats signing him to a 2014 ML contract? This is a frequent question and I’m not enough of an expert on baseball transactions to know the answer.
Xavier Cedeno was an April 2013 waiver claim off of Houston (of all teams), who spent most of the season in Syracuse (save for a quick June call-up). In September, he pitched pretty effectively, giving up just one run in 9 outings and 11+ innings for the big team. He clearly hasn’t shown the team enough to be counted on as the go-to loogy, considering the Nats off-season trade for Jeremy Blevens and their talk of using the likes of Ross Detwiler and/or Sammy Solis as lefty reliever help in 2014. And I know that many here think Cedeno is making the MLB roster; I just don’t see it right now. Outlook for next season: Syracuse bullpen.
Mark Lowe was a mid-season MLFA pickup after getting released by the Angels. He opted out of his contract at the end of the minor league season when he wasn’t getting added to the 40-man or called-up. Outlook for next season: MLFA
Cole Kimball just never made it back from shoulder surgery and was outrighted in July. He had an 8.06 ERA this year in 25 2/3 innings. Outlook for next season: MLFA, likely out of baseball unfortunately. Shoulder surgeries are just a killer.
Fernando Abad was a MLFA signing last off-season who pitched great for Syracuse and earned a call-up in May. He toiled in the pen decently most of the year for the big-club but wasn’t considered valuable enough to keep. The team DFA’d him ahead of this year’s rule-5 draft and then worked out a trade with our favorite GM Billy Beane. Outlook for next season: in Oakland’s organization.
Christian Garcia got just 8 1/3 AAA innings this year (and 13 1/3 total in the minors on all rehab assignments) after getting hurt in spring training as the team tried to stretch him out as a starter. I think the team now sees the error of its ways with Garcia, a fragile guy who has survived multiple surgeries to this point. His stuff is so good, he’s a shoe-in for a MLB job if he’s healthy, but who can count on him to be healthy at this point? Outlook for next season: if healthy, he’s competing for a 6th/7th inning role in the MLB bullpen. He’s got plenty of options left though, so its likely he starts in the AAA bullpen given the crowded nature of the MLB pen right now.
Other Relievers who appeared in AAA of note (not including Rehabbing MLBers): Outlook for next season for all of these guys seems the same: either continued “org guy” middle reliever or minor league free agent in another organization.
- Jeremy Accardo: signed in February, released in June after a 5.56 ERA in 22+ innings. He did not resign anywhere and may be done.
- Bobby Bramhall was signed in November, and released 3 weeks into the season after posting a 6.75 ERA in 16 innings to make room for Cedeno & Young on the roster. He was picked up by Philadelphia and ended the season demoted to their AA team.
- J.C. Romero opted out of his contract after 2 months despite 15 decent apperances; it was clear the Nats weren’t calling him up and were favoring other loogy candidate acquisitions. He was picked up by Cleveland, threw two innings and apparently went on the D/L.
- Pat McCoy failed to make the jump from AA to AAA and was demoted back after 7 ineffective appearances; see the Harrisburg write-up for more.
- Brian Dupra was called up for one game oddly; he spent most of the season in low- and high-A. See Potomac’s write-up for more.

Summary

Despite the nature of AAA these days as being a “spare parts” storage team, Syracuse produced a couple of very pleasant surprises for this team. Ohlendorf went from being a throw-away MLFA signing to a productive MLB long man. Roark was one step from the dreaded “org guy/MLFA” category, and when given a chance pitched fantastically at the MLB level. Plus, the development of loogy depth in the form of Robertson and Cedeno will serve the organization well.

Written by Todd Boss

December 16th, 2013 at 7:41 am

Nationals/MLB Pitching Staff Year in Review; 2013

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Jordan Zimmermann was the real “ace” of the 2013 Nats. Photo Unk.

I began thinking about system-wide predictions for the pitching staffs for the 2014 teams and realized that I heavily depend on doing staff-by-staff analysis to do the predictions. I wasn’t going to do these review posts this year (mostly because they’re incredibly time consuming) but I also realize they’re a) the best way to do predictions for the coming year and b) the best way to becoming more vigilant in really forming an opinion on all the short-season guys.

So, without further ado, and despite the fact that its mid December and this post should have been done two months ago, here’s the first of many organizational reviews of the pitching staffs of our various affiliates for the 2013 season. We’ll start with the Majors and move downwards.

Here’s the same version of 2012’s post for a historical review.

I think we all know how the major league squad did, so I’ll try to be brief here for the stalwarts we know are going to be with the team in 2014. (Editor’s note: “brief” has turned into nearly 3,000 words. oh well). A lot of this analysis is for the “Outlook for next season” sections, which help me drive the predictions for all the pitching staffs next year. All stats are courtesy of either Baseball-Reference’s Washington 2013 page or via Fangraph’s Washington 2013 page. Also useful here are the Big Board and the Nats Draft Tracker.

Washington starters. The rotation started the season with Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Detwiler and Haren. At season’s end it was Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Haren and Roark, though not necessarily in that exact order thanks to skipped starts, ejections/washed out outings and some re-ordering at the all-star break.

Stephen Strasburg had a down year for a supposed “Ace” in this league by conventional stats (8-9, 3.00 ERA) but by most advanced measures Strasburg was still in the top 10-15 pitchers in the league. He still averaged more than a K/inning, he had the 2nd highest fastball velocity for any starter in the majors (only behind Matt Harvey). He suffered from incredibly bad run support all year; the Nats scored 2 runs or less in 16 of his 30 starts and he got Losses or No-Decisions no less than 13 times when he allowed two or fewer earned runs and pitched enough to qualify for the decision. That’s crazy. With normal run support of 3-4 runs a game Strasburg easily could have had a record like 17-6 with a 3.00 era and been in the running for Cy Young votes. On the bright side; he made 30 starts in year two post Tommy John surgery, and he should be in full force for 2014. Outlook for next season: 2014’s opening day starter.
Gio Gonzalez took a step back from his magical 2012 season and more closely resembled the starter that he was for Oakland in 2010-2011. Which isn’t a bad thing; he still posted a 3-war season, he was still a 113 ERA+ guy, and he answered the bell every time his spot was up for the 4th year running. He was a bit more hittable this year, gave up nearly twice as many homers as in 2012 (but in line with his years prior) and we got a glance of what we can probably expect from him going forward. On the year he was 11-8 with a 3.36 ERA, and like Strasburg he had a number of no-decisions where the team just didn’t score him any runs. Outlook for next season: 2014’s #2 starter.
Jordan Zimmermann had his best season as a pro, posting a 19-9 record with a 3.25 ERA and a 1.088 whip. This earned him a 7th place Cy Young award finish and likely earned him tens of millions of dollars on his eventual contract extension. Zimmermann maintained a 4/1 K/BB rate, good for 13th among all qualified starters and even better considering the velocity at which he pitches (9th in the league in vFA at 93.9mph). A side note on just how amazing Matt Harvey is: he was 2nd in the league in K/BB and FIRST in vFA; that’s a pretty special combination. Zimmermann seems set to broach 8 figures in arbitration and it may behoove the team to try to work out a contract extension before he hits the open market. Outlook for next season: 2014’s #3 starter.
Ross Detwiler made 8 decent starts in April and May before missing a month thanks to an oblique strain, then made 5 mostly mediocre starts in June before being lost for the season thanks to a herniated disc in his back. Detwiler’s injury exposed the one glaring weakness in the construction of the 2013 Nationals; absolutely no starting pitching depth. Much ink has been spilled here and elsewhere on Detwiler’s status for 2014, but I will say this: look at his game logs from the early part of the season and you’ll find that his performance was north of expectations for a #5 starter. Because of this (and his option-less status frankly), I am predicting for now that he’ll win the 5th starter battle in the spring (more on this after all the organization reviews are done and we talk about 2014 predictions). The question will be; can he stay healthy and can he keep the job? Outlook for next season: 2014’s #5 starter.
Dan Haren was, as we all know, awful in April, mostly awful in May and god-awful in June. He hit the D/L for a brief stint in what was an obvious “forced” trip, for when he was asked he didn’t even know for what injury he was being shelved for. At the time of his D/L trip he literally was the worst or close to the worst starting pitcher in the game by nearly any statistical measure. Yes he picked up his performance after the D/L trip, but by that point the damage had been done. He had game after game where suddenly the offense was down 5-6 runs and the game was basically over. For the year the team was 11-19 in his starts. Not a great return for the $13M contract he signed. The Nats didn’t dare to offer him a qualifying offer and his tenure ended with an ironic slap in the face as he pitched one of his best games in his final Washington appearance. Outlook for next season: signed with Los Angeles Dodgers for 1yr/$10m to be their 4th or 5th starter.
Nathan Karns was the first minor league reinforcement starter to get the call (here’s my “first look” post at his 5/28/13 debut). In three starts he got hit hard: 17 hits and 5 homers that resulted in a 7.50 ERA and a return to AA. We’ll talk more about Karns in the Harrisburg review. Based on what I saw, it may be that he’s eventually bound for the bullpen, where he can throw harder for shorter bursts. But his value as a starter is obvious if he can corral all of his pitches. Outlook for next season: AAA rotation.
Taylor Jordan got the call-up when the team finally lost patience with Haren and sent him to the D/L in June (here’s my “first look” post at his 6/28/13 debut). Jordan looked pretty good in his 9 starts, posting a 3.66 ERA and a 3.49 FIP. Not bad considering where he started the year (in Potomac’s rotation). Jordan was shut down in Mid-August thanks to the organizational innings limit for post-Tommy John surgery pitchers (he threw a total of 142 across 3 levels on the year). Now the big question; what to do with him for 2014? Unfortunately for Jordan (and as we’ll talk about in a moment), his departure opened the door for other opportunistic pitchers and he may have been passed on the organizational depth chart. For now, I’m predicting that Jordan won’t win the 5th starter job over Detwiler and will be sent to Syracuse to get starts and serve as the organizational starter depth that we struggled with in 2013. Outlook for next season: AAA rotation.
Ross Ohlendorf took a minor league gig with the Nationals to try to revitalize his career and went a somewhat pedestrian looking 4-6 in 13 starts at AAA. He re-vamped his wind-up and mechanics, threw with some good pace and eventually a streak of good starts led to his June call-up. He spent the rest of the season as the Nats’ long-man/spot starter, getting 16 apperances and 7 starts in posting a servicable 3.28 ERA. He seemed to tire when featured as a starter, only going past the 5th inning three times, and Davey Johnson eventually seemed hesitatant to use him because of it. Eventually, a shoulder strain 15 day D/L trip and a poor spot-start in early September opened the door for others to grab starts (see below), but Ohlendorf remained the emergency starter for the rest of the season. Outlook for next season: he did enough to get tendered a contract (which he quickly signed; 1yr/$1.25M), and seemingly he will slot back in as the long-man/spot-starter role for the MLB team. He doesn’t seem to have enough to compete and win the 5th starter competition. Will the team dump him to AAA as an inexpensive starter insurance policy? I doubt it for now; they probably opt to keep Ohlendorf as the last guy out of the pen and keep Jordan on regular starts in AAA.
Tanner Roark toiled in AAA most of the season, and seemingly was set to exit the organization as a MLFA before earning a call-up in August. Roark’s body of work both in 2013 and over the past few seasons warranted his call-up, and his mixture of success both in the starter role and in a long-relief role in AAA made him the perfect candidate to replace Ohlendorf when he hit the D/L. All Roark did upon arriving in the majors is pitch lights-out (a 252 ERA+) in 50 innings mixed with starts and relief apperances. Here was my “first look” post on his relief debut, and by the end of the season he was putting in a series of effective starts in the rotation. Outlook for next season: he’ll compete for the 5th starter job in spring but may not win it. Its hard to imagine a guy who threw 50+ innings of 1.50 ERA ball to NOT make the team the following spring; I see him as the 6th guy in the bullpen and the first emergency starter in case someone gets hurt.
Zach Duke got one spot-start but was mostly a reliever; see the next section.

Washington relievers. We’ll work the relievers backwards from the closer down the pen, starting with the original 7 guys in the pen to start the season and work from there.

Rafael Soriano was a surprise FA signing late in the 2012-2013 off-season, seemingly a Scott Boras special for the Nats. His signing unsettled the bullpen, brought in a veteran with a history of malcontentness and under-performance when he wasn’t closing (just look at his stats in closer and non-closer seasons), cost a ton of money, and cost the team their 1st round draft pick (which could have netted them quite a prospect, as discussed in my draft review post here). Other than that, I thought it was a fantastic signing (sarcasm). For the year he went 43 for 49 in save opportunities, finished 58 games (important b/c his 2015 option vests if he “finishes” more than 120 games), and pitched relatively pedestrian stats for a highly paid closer: 3.11 era, 122 ERA+, 1.230 whip. Certainly he wasn’t putting up the kind of lights out numbers we saw from other such highly paid closers. Outlook for next season: back in the closer role, hopefully finishing fewer than 62 games so we can jettison him and his $11M salary.
Tyler Clippard returned to his dominant ways of 2011, throwing 71 innings of 2.42 ERA/158 ERA+ ball. He showed why he’s best suited to keep in the 8th inning role even if it costs him money in arbitration. He remains the most effective reliever in the pen and is well worth the $6M he seems set to attain in arbitration. A more interesting question eventually awaits the team; is Clippard going to price himself out of our bullpen? Perhaps not this off-season but maybe next, he should be moved to a team to assume their closer role and provide value commensurate with his rising salary. Outlook for next season: back in the 8th inning role.
Drew Storen seemed to be the most unsettled by the Soriano acquisition, perhaps coupled with PTSD from his meltdown in the 2012 NLCS game 5. He was ineffective in April, got it together for a while but then just blew up in July, giving up 14 runs in 9 innings and earning a demotion to work on his (admittedly) inconsistent mechanics. To his credit, when he returned he was back to normal, giving up just 3 runs in 20 innings to finish out the season. Lets hope he’s back to normal and can contribute for 2014. Thanks to his inconsistent 2013, his name isn’t being mentioned as much in trade rumors, so hopefully that gives him some peace of mind this off-season. Outlook for next season: back in the 7th/8th inning role.
Craig Stammen continued his excellent workhorse performance as the classic right-handed middle reliever. He put up a 2.76 ERA in 81 innings over 55 appearances. Nothing much to say here; the biggest question with Stammen may be what happens NEXT off-season, when he faces the third and fourth arbitration years. What kind of contract would you pay for him? Is he going to price himself out of our bullpen? We’ll see. Outlook for next season: back in the 6th/7th inning middle relief role.
Ryan Mattheus was putting up the expected decent middle relief numbers when he imploded in San Diego in late May, giving up 5 runs in an inning. In a fit of pique he punched a wall, broke his pitching hand (didn’t he ever see Bull Durham? Never swing with your pitching hand!) and was sent to the D/L. More importantly, I think the organization lost quite a bit of respect for him. He returned two months later but pitched relatively poorly the rest of the season, finishing with a 6.27 ERA. That’s just not going to cut it, not with the kind of arms who are pushing for spots lower down in the organization. I think Mattheus will lose the competition for middle relief coming out of spring and will be sent to AAA as reliever depth. Outlook for next season: AAA bullpen.
Henry Rodriguez was his typical self for the Nats early in the season; wild, ineffective and out of options, limiting the team’s flexibility. Somewhere along the line the team finally gave up; DFA’ing Rodriguez and somehow working out a trade to get something back (Ian Dickson from the Cubs). Thus ends a long, frustrating tenure with the team. The Cubs, for what its worth, DFA’d Rodriguez just 6 weeks after acquiring him, outrighted him to AAA Iowa, where apparently he got hurt after just 3 games and finished the season on the D/L. He’s pitching in winter ball now so it must have been a minor injury. Outlook for next season: on Chicago’s AAA team presumably.
Zach Duke was inexplicably ineffective for the team in the early parts of 2013, and was subsequently released in early June after the team presumably lost patience with him after an awful spot start and an even more unnerving 4 walk relief outing. It goes to show you; sometimes you cannot trust small sample sizes. Duke pitched great in September 2012, awful in April 2013 … but then was absolutely fantastic for Cincinnati down the stretch working primarily as a loogy. Go figure; maybe our loogy solution was in the pen the whole time. Outlook for next season: he’s not listed as a FA, so presumably he’s still under contract to Cincinnati right now.
Fernando Abad was a MLFA signing last off-season who pitched great for Syracuse and earned a call-up in May. He toiled in the pen decently most of the year for the big-club but wasn’t considered valuable enough to keep. The team DFA’d him ahead of this year’s rule-5 draft and then worked out a trade with our favorite GM Billy Beane. This somewhat surprised me given Abad’s macro numbers for 2013 (3.35 ERA in 37 innings) but not when considering his lefty splits (a .306/.338/.452 lefty-lefty split for the year). Outlook for next season: in Oakland’s organization.
Ian Krol exploded onto the scene for this team, getting a surprise call-up in June from AA that coincided with the Duke and Rodriguez DFAs. Here’s my “first look” post on him, pointing out the issue (he really has just one pitch) that would eventually drive him back to the minors. Still, for a 22-yr old who had no experience above AA, he pitched pretty well; he maintained a sub 3.00 ERA until mid August and finished the year with a 3.95 ERA in 27 innings. His lefty split numbers: .220/.273/.320. This was good enough to intrigue Detroit, and Krol was included in the package that acquired Doug Fister. Outlook for next season: in Detroit’s organization.
Erik Davis was Syracuse’s closer in name for a bulk of the season, earning 15 saves while posting a 3.10 ERA in 52+ innings. He was a Sept 2012 pre-rule5 40-man addition and spent a week in the MLB pen in June before getting recalled for September. In 10 MLB appearances he gave up zero runs in 9 of them and showed excellent middle-reliever stuff (12/1 K/BB ratio in 8 2/3 innings). Outlook for next season: AAA bullpen again; he won’t beat out the names above him for the MLB bullpen.
Xavier Cedeno was an April 2013 waiver claim off of Houston (of all teams), who spent most of the season in Syracuse (save for a quick June call-up). In September, he pitched pretty effectively, giving up just one run in 9 outings and 12+ innings for the Nats. He clearly hasn’t shown the team enough to be counted on as the go-to loogy, considering the Nats off-season trade for Jeremy Blevens and their talk of using the likes of Detwiler and/or Sammy Solis as lefty reliever help in 2014. Outlook for next season: Syracuse bullpen.
Lastly, Yunesky Maya got a call-up to provide bullpen relief, got blitzed, DFA’d and outrighted. See the Syracuse writeup for more.

Summary

Washington’s rotation was by most measures a top 5-6 rotation in the majors (7th in starter ERA, 6th in starter FIP and 3rd in starter xFIP/SIERA). Clearly we look to be improved on the rotation side, with Haren’s starts being replaced by the underrated Doug Fister, with a healthy Detwiler and with plenty of reinforcements to back the starters up. Look for this to continue to be a source of strength in 2014.

The bullpen however was not a source of strength last year, ranking between 17th and 19th in the macro pitching categories (17th bullpen ERA, 19th bullpen xFIP and 18th in bullpen SIERA). Has the team done enough to improve the bullpen for 2014 by just replacing the under-performers with call-ups and signings?

Written by Todd Boss

December 13th, 2013 at 2:18 pm

One lesson learned from 2013: you can never have enough starting pitching

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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).

Written by Todd Boss

August 5th, 2013 at 8:38 am

So, while I was out…

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Rodriguez DFA long overdue. Photo via humorfeast.blogspot.com

What a great time to have a 30-hour server outage. Just as soon as the hammer drops on the Nationals Roster my site went kaplunk and I couldn’t post or host comments. Grrr. Moving the site next month to some place more stable.

So, focusing on the obvious, the Nats made a series of moves that some argue were overdue by about a couple years. Some quick thoughts (since by now everyone’s weighed in so my comments are nothing obvious):

1. Henry Rodriguez DFA 16 walks in 18 innings this year in almost entirely low-leverage situations. Long overdue move; if you can’t rely on a reliever, you need someone else. I think the team hung on to him for far too long, and I struggled with the acquisition to begin with as has often been repeated here. Will he catch on with another team? Probably; 100mph fastballs don’t grow on trees. He can go be someone else’s Steve Dalkowski.

2. Zach Duke DFA: you had to see this coming; the Nats are paying the price for not tendering Tom Gorzelanny and thinking they could get by with Duke in that spot. I did too; he was decent in AAA and great in September 2012. But he’s been god-awful this year, and it looks like Rizzo is going to start spinning arms through the bullpen to find someone that can stick. Unlike Davey Johnson, I don’t believe he’s going to get picked up off waivers and he’ll likely take his AAA assignment.

3. Danny Espinosa to the D/L and then (by assumption of his locker being cleaned out) banished to the minors: it was a-coming. If he was hitting .230 with power and walks, he could have stuck on. But you just cannot cost a struggling offense the kind of at-bats he was. He’s got more than 1500 MLB plate appearances now; is this who he is? I think Espinosa’s 2013 season may end up with him spending the rest of the year in AAA relearning how to hit before the team has to make a hard decision next year.

4. Anthony Rendon back up and at 2b: had to happen. He’s ready for the MLB. He had nothing left to prove by slicing up AA. Can he play second? Yeah I think he can; it isn’t rocket science. If Rendon played shortstop in HS, he can make that transition. Stick him at 6th or 7th in the order and let him play.

5. Ian Krol: this move came out of nowhere for me. Suddenly mr “we don’t need a left handed reliever” Mike Rizzo has two of them in his bullpen. He’s also managed to already call up both guys added to the 40-man roster last fall ahead of the rule-5 draft. I’m sure both Krol and Erik Davis will struggle here and there, but should hold their own in short stints.

Summary: like the moves. It is almost as if the Nats fanboy blogosphere got to play GM for a day and rid the team of all its issues in one fell swoop. The timing couldn’t be better; 6 games against non-descript teams and even more non-descript starters. Lets hope the combination of new blood and bad opponents sparks this team.

Written by Todd Boss

June 5th, 2013 at 4:42 pm

Posted in Majors Pitching,Nats in General,Rule-5

Tagged with anthony rendon, danny espinosa, davey johnson, erik davis, henry rodriguez, ian krol, mike rizzo, steve dalkowski, tom gorzelanny, zach duke

Injuries and Idiocy lead to interesting Call-ups

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Unbelievably, Maya gets another MLB shot. Photo Al Bello/Getty Images

Hey, we’ve all been there Ryan Mattheus.

But clearly Mattheus never watched Bull Durham; Crash Davis‘ last lesson to Ebby Calvin ‘Nuke’ LaLoosh involved exactly what Mattheus just did to himself. If you’re going to punch something … NEVER punch with your pitching hand.

And then in an even worse move, Mattheus hid the injury from his manager until it was too late to call up someone, meaning the team was short a reliever for last night’s SF game (a predictable 8-0 loss as Zach Duke even more predictably got hammered for 7 hits and 4 earned runs in just 3 1/3 innings).

We may even have an issue with Henry Rodriguez, who apparently “grimaced” as he was throwing one of his FOURTY SEVEN pitches last night, a ridiculous amount of pitches for a max-effort guy who should normally be throwing half that in an outing. Don’t be surprised to see news of him hitting the D/L either.

So, with the bullpen shredded and now devoid of basically anyone who can throw significant long innings for the next couple of days, the team called up Yunesky Maya to provide some cover. Maya has been awful in AAA so far this year (1-4 with a 5.07 era) but he’s the best option on the 40-man roster for what they need right now. They’re also planning on calling up lefty Fernando Abad, one of their slew of lefty minor league free agents who has been excellent in AAA this year. Abad will likely be a one-for-one replacement for Mattheus when he hits the D/L and has earned his way back to the majors. Abad will require a 40-man move; he will be the 40th guy on the roster. Maya likely switches places again with Eury Perez once the bullpen can catch its breath.

A better more interesting question may involve the fate of Duke. He’s been awful this year, barely appears because of it, and when he is called upon to provide the one thing the team needs from him (an effective spot start) he fell on his face. He’s not given this team anything close to what Tom Gorzelanny gave us for the past few years, and I’m beginning to wonder if the team really made the right decision keeping Duke over Gorzelanny. Duke only makes $700k a year (versus the 2yr/$5.7M deal that Gorzelanny got from Milwaukee) but with the marginal value of a “Win” on the open market being in excess of $5M these days, have the Nats ended up being penny wise but a pound foolish?

Regardless of the “hindsight is 20/20” analysis with Duke versus Gorzelanny, I have a feeling we may be seeing another move in the near future; the DFA of Duke and the call up of either J.C. Romero or newly acquired Xavier Cedeno. Both are lefties, both are veterans, both are pitching really well in Syracuse, and both seemingly can do no worse than Duke has done. This isn’t as exciting as seeing a prospect get called up (for example; Danny Rosenbaum or Erik Davis), but with any more injuries we may get there.

Written by Todd Boss

May 21st, 2013 at 8:41 am

Posted in Majors Pitching

Tagged with crash davis, danny rosenbaum, ebby calvin laloosh, erik davis, eury perez, fernando abad, henry rodriguez, jc romero, nuke laloosh, ryan mattheus, tom gorzelanny, xavier cedeno, yunesky maya, zach duke

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One lesson learned from 2013: you can never have enough starting pitching

So, while I was out…

Injuries and Idiocy lead to interesting Call-ups

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