{"id":398,"date":"2010-11-28T13:37:22","date_gmt":"2010-11-28T18:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=398"},"modified":"2013-02-07T11:22:30","modified_gmt":"2013-02-07T16:22:30","slug":"vazquez-and-webb-do-we-really-want-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=398","title":{"rendered":"Vazquez and Webb: Do we really want them?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A younger, thinner, harder throwing version of Javier Vazquez. Photo courtesy of baseball.dailyskew.com<\/p><\/div>\n

11\/28\/10 update<\/strong>: possibly obsoleting much of this, the Marlins have reportedly signed<\/a> Vazquez to a one year deal.<\/p>\n

As the FA hot stove gets hotter, more and more players have the “Nationals” name attached to them as intereted parties.\u00a0 None more so than Javier Vazquez<\/strong> and Brandon Webb<\/strong>.\u00a0 The question we as Nats fans should have is the following: Are Vazquez and Webb really worth going after?<\/p>\n

Javier Vazquez<\/a>, despite being the answer to one of my favorite trivia questions ever (what major league player has the highest scoring Scrabble last name?) seems to be more famous for the players he’s been traded for over the years (he was the primary chip in trades involving Nick Johnson<\/strong>, Randy Johnson<\/strong>, Chris Young<\/strong>, and Melky Cabrera<\/strong>) than he has been for his pitching.\u00a0 At age 34 he’s 152-149 for his career for a barely-better than average 105 era+ value.<\/p>\n

He has shown that he can be great (2009 for Atlanta) and he can be mediocre (his two seasons in NY and two other seasons in Chicago).\u00a0 He’s never missed a start in the majors, though the Yankees took him out of their starting rotation towards the end of last season for a bit after a series of poor outings.<\/p>\n

Question is: rumors abound that he’s lost his velocity.\u00a0 Is this true?\u00a0 Lets take a look at Pitch F\/X.\u00a0 Here’s samples from three games last year (the box score is linked to the date and the Pitch FX data is linked to a mentioning of speed):<\/p>\n

1. June 6th<\/a>: probably his best game of the year.\u00a0 7 innings, 1 hit, 9ks (though 4 walks).\u00a0 Again his avg fastball<\/a> is around 89 but he maxed out at 91.7.<\/p>\n

2. July 26<\/a>: a decent performance middle of the season.\u00a0 About the exact same figures as on 6\/6; 89.22 average<\/a>, 91.6 max.<\/p>\n

3. Sept 29<\/a>: his final appearance of the year, a loss against Toronto where he got shelled.\u00a0 Here he was averaging <\/a>
\n89, max of barely 90 on his fastball.\u00a0 Hmm.\u00a0 not good.<\/p>\n

Now Lets look at 2009, when he finished 4th in Cy Young voting (which really means, he received one vote from one of the stat nerd voters who decided NOT to vote for Carpenter because he missed a few starts).\u00a0 Here’s a random game from the middle of the season.<\/p>\n

1. June 11<\/a>: Vazquez goes 8 innings, gives up 2 hits and strikes out 12 hapless Pirates.\u00a0 Interesting: he was
\nthrowing an average <\/a>of 91.43, max of 93.5.<\/p>\n

So, his average fastball MPH has dropped nearly 3.5 mph between mid 2009 and the end of 2010.\u00a0 Not good.\u00a0 This did not go without notice in the NY <\/a>press and blogs<\/a>.\u00a0 Federal Baseball <\/a>pulled out some great links and wrote a similar article to this a few days ago.<\/p>\n

Here’s one last visual aid; Fangraphs historical pitch velocity maps<\/a>. In the mid-late 2007 he was averaging 93-94 with peaks of 97-98.\u00a0 Now, he’s spent an entire year averaging 88-89 with peaks of no more than 92-93.\u00a0 That’s a significant drop off and may be indicative of Vazquez’s utility as a power pitcher coming to an end.\u00a0 The same thing happened to Livan Hernandez <\/strong>and he adjusted, but clearly Livan isn’t the ace starter that the Nats really kinda need.<\/p>\n

—————————–<\/p>\n

So, how about Brandon Webb<\/a>?\u00a0 We’re already reading how Rizzo likes Webb dating to his AZ days and we’re seeing pundit predictions<\/a> and beat writer <\/a>stories that Webb <\/a>is coming to the Nats on a one-year reclamation project.<\/p>\n

Webb’s history over the last 2 years:
\n– Made opening day start 2009, shoulder hurt, went on DL with Bursitis, surgery in august.
\n– Tried comeback 2010, never got off DL.\u00a0 Pitched in the instructional league after the end of the season.\u00a0 In those three instructional league games, here’s his performance summary:<\/p>\n