{"id":15594,"date":"2018-12-25T18:48:57","date_gmt":"2018-12-25T23:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=15594"},"modified":"2018-12-25T18:48:57","modified_gmt":"2018-12-25T23:48:57","slug":"happy-holidays-from-nar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=15594","title":{"rendered":"Happy Holidays from NAR"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_14734\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/SotoJuan-Hagerstown2018-via-minorleagueball.com_.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-14734\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-14734\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-14734\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/SotoJuan-Hagerstown2018-via-minorleagueball.com_-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Soto in his younger years.  Like the beginning of 2018.,   Photo via minorleagueball.com\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/SotoJuan-Hagerstown2018-via-minorleagueball.com_-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/SotoJuan-Hagerstown2018-via-minorleagueball.com_-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/SotoJuan-Hagerstown2018-via-minorleagueball.com_-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/SotoJuan-Hagerstown2018-via-minorleagueball.com_.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-14734\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Soto in his younger years. Like the beginning of 2018.<br \/>Photo via minorleagueball.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Quick post to say thanks to everyone who contributes here and makes for a nice place to have a conversation about our favorite team that often drives us nuts.<\/p>\n<p>As a Nats fan, i&#8217;m grateful this season for the furious work our GM has done to shore up the team for 2019.\u00a0 Just thinking about his moves from a bWAR perspective:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Replacing 90+ innings from\u00a0<strong>Ryan Madsen<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Sammy Solis\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<strong>A.J. Cole\u00a0<\/strong>(combined 2018 bWAR: -1.7) with comparable innings from\u00a0<strong>Trevor Rosenthal<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Kyle Barraclough<\/strong> (combined bWAR for 2018: 0.4) is addition by subtraction, but we&#8217;ll call it 1 full win.<\/li>\n<li>Replacing the black hole of production on both sides of the ball from our Catcher spot (combined 2018 bWAR: -0.1) with the production of our two new C signings\u00a0<strong>Yan Gomes<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Kurt Suzuki<\/strong> (combined 2018 bWAR: 4.7).\u00a0 Call it 4 additional wins, since both catchers can&#8217;t play at the same time.<\/li>\n<li>Replacing\u00a0<strong>Tanner Roark<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Gio Gonzalez<\/strong> in the rotation (combined 2018 bWAR: 4.5) with\u00a0<strong>Patrick Corbin<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Anibal Sanchez<\/strong> (combined 2018 bWAR: 7.6).\u00a0 \u00a0Call it 3 more wins.<\/li>\n<li>Replacing\u00a0<strong>Bryce Harper<\/strong>&#8216;s abhorrent defense in the outfield this season (dWAR component of an astoundingly low -3.2 in 2018) with someone who actually plays the outfield competently in\u00a0<strong>Victor Robles<\/strong> (a plus plus defender in center, allowing\u00a0<strong>Adam Eaton<\/strong> to slide to RF, where he has posted dWARs in the 1.5 to 1.8 range.\u00a0 I&#8217;ll call this at least 4 more wins.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s 1+4+3+4 more wins just based on the moves we&#8217;ve already made.\u00a0 That&#8217;s 12 wins on last year&#8217;s 82-80 season.<\/p>\n<p>And then there&#8217;s this: first year rookie manager\u00a0<strong>Dave Martinez<\/strong>&#8216;s learning on the job season contributed to an astounding -8 on the Nats pythagorean record, which just isn&#8217;t sustainable.\u00a0 Between a better bullpen and better luck, the team should improve by this factor going forward.\u00a0 Lets call it 4 additional wins.<\/p>\n<p>Voila.\u00a0 that&#8217;s 16 wins over last year&#8217;s 82-80 season, which equates to a 98 win season.\u00a0 And that&#8217;s before we find out if Robles can put up a\u00a0<strong>Juan Soto<\/strong> season, or if Soto improves on his 2018, or if we find a competent 2nd baseman to add more value, or if\u00a0<strong>Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong> doesn&#8217;t blow off an entire season and puts up 2017-esque numbers, or if we find out that\u00a0<strong>Joe Ross<\/strong> can return to his 2016 form (2 bWAR season in half a season starting).<\/p>\n<p>So that&#8217;s some optimism heading into the new year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quick post to say thanks to everyone who contributes here and makes for a nice place to have a conversation about our favorite team that often drives us nuts. As a Nats fan, i&#8217;m grateful this season for the furious work our GM has done to shore up the team for 2019.\u00a0 Just thinking about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","category-natsgeneral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15594"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15598,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15594\/revisions\/15598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}