"… the reason you win or lose is darn near always the same – pitching.” — Earl Weaver
I think this is just the 2nd or 3rd game at the park for me this year … and we picked a great day and a great game. We got there early and caught the pre-game ceremony. Here’s a couple of pictures from the day.
Pre-game Ceremony at Nats Park 9/11/16. Photo Todd Boss
Here’s a view using IPhone’s panoramic view.
Panorama of 9/11/16 pre-game. Photo Todd Boss
No other analysis/comment here; just wanted to put these two cool pictures up. I wasn’t fast enough to get the fly-over.
It could have been worse; it could have been this. Photo credit unknown.
Its been a greek tragedy the last few days in Nats town. Stephen Strasburg (you know, that guy who we just paid $175M for the next 30 years with deferred payments) clutches his elbow in his first game back after hitting the D/L for a different “elbow soreness” issue. Nats town fears the worst. MRI comes back and its “just” a Flexor Mass Strain. They say it isn’t going to be season ending but…
But we have some rather recent and close-to-home examples to use to gauge his D/L time out:
So, best case he takes a couple of week off, it magically feels better, we shoot him up with cortisone and toradol (Hey they’re both legal!) and run merrily into the NLDS (not likely).
Worst case, he has to have a surgical procedure to clean stuff up and he’s ready for April 2017.
Most likely case, the conservative Nats management team shuts him down for the season (he is after all due $175M … and it’d be kind of foolish to risk that kind of investment for one playoff appearance) since it seems like its at least a month of rest.
In the mean time, the Nats have a playoff series to plan for. Now what do we do?
Who is the 4th starter? Instead of arguing about whether we take Joe Ross or Gio Gonzalez, are we now asking ourselves who makes that 4th start? Do we think Joe Ross is going to be ready? I dunno; I certainly hope so but we’re out of minor league games for him to rehab in and I havn’t heard much about his progress. Assuming Ross isn’t ready to go either … Are we to the point where we’re wondering who is better, Yusmeiro Petit, A.J. Cole, Reynaldo Lopez or Lucas Giolito?
Pros/Cons of these options:
I dunno; who among that list are you thinking is best suited for it?
Are you thinking outside the box instead? Mat Latos? I dunno; do you think he’s ready to go? Would you think that to be a slap in the face of all the guys who busted their butts with this organization for years to have a post-season start opportunity given to a guy they signed off the street two months ago?
Me? I think you give the start to Lopez. I don’t trust Petit, Cole seems too hittable, and Giolito needs an off-season to get his mechanics (and his head) straight.
(post-publishing update; just saw this at NJ: we know it isn’t going to be Bronson Arroyo… who just couldn’t come back and likely faces the end of his career).
Is Burnett coming back to Washington? Photo: masnsports.com
September 1st; Roster expansion day. I’ll get this post in before the inevitable call-ups occur so we can argue for a bit. Not all 9/1 callups happen on 9/1; we do have to finish out AAA season so some guys will hang out there through the weekend before getting called up.
Here’s the canonical list of 40-man players currently in the minors on optional assignment:
We also know that Mat Latos is going to be added, and will come at the expense of someone. And we’re assuming that Sean Burnett is going to come on board as well. So it sounds like we’ll either be shifting someone to the 60-day D/L or DFAing some guys to make room.
So, predictions on what you think will happen, and what you would like to see happen?
My predictions, by position:
Bryan Harper may have merited a look but he’s still on the D/L. Both Espino and Voth had solid AAA seasons starting but there’s little reason to add them with the surplus of starters we already have. Some have mentioned Matt Skole or maybe even a return for Steve Lombardozzi but neither guy really excelled in AAA this year. Skole has 24 homers …but a sub .800 OPS even given all that power.
Anyone else you want to see head to Washington? How about Max Schrock? (oh, sorry, too soon?)
ps: someone in the Nats blogosphere asked Keith Law in his chat yesterday about Giolito’s “80 fastball” and he had an interesting response. I feel like he’s hedging a little bit; if Giolito had a 100mph fastball that by definition is a 80 fastball. He was at 98 in High School, which is a heck of a number and merits at least a 70 or 75 grade … at age 18. But he also notes what we’ve noted; he’s showed significantly less velocity in pro ball and is sitting 93.4 (average 4-seam velocity) with a max of “just” 95.8. Where is 98? And more importantly … where’s the command of said 4-seamer?
Post-publishing update: Mr. Law himself DM’d me on twitter about the above paragraph and wrote the following: “I don’t think you misrepresented [what I said in the chat], but I did want to correct something. A guy who hits 100 once, pitching on a week of rest, wouldn’t automatically get an 80 fastball grade (or 75, a grade I’ve never used or heard a real scout use). So I wasn’t hedging, but would make a clear distinction between a Riley Pint, who hits 100 regularly as a starter, and a Giolito, who was 94-98 in HS and happened to hit 100 that one time. That’s all.”
Giolito’s latest start does not inspire confidence. (Photo by John McDonnell / The Washington Post)
(note; i’m at the beach this week … so i’m putting this in as a placeholder for arguing, er I mean discussing).
From the comments section on last week’s post, clearly we’re not happy with the bullpen. And neither is Mike Rizzo, who caused an uproar amongst the 25 or so people on the planet who knew who Max Schrock was by flipping him for a guy whose name I won’t even try to spell. Our long man blew a comeback effort last weekend that i’m sure was not well appreciated amongst the vets on the team.
But this post is about the rotation. Are you worried yet? Scherzer and Roark might have hiccups here and there but they’ll be solid for the playoffs (and yes, at this point i’m assuming we’re in the playoffs). But is Strasburg going to make it back? Is Ross? Do we trust Gonzalez in a post-season rotation? Is the performance thus far of Giolito and Lopez just more cause for concern?
Can we count on this guy in October? Photo via getty images
We’ve clearly seen some middle relief issues lately, despite nearly sweeping a 4-game set in Atlanta this past weekend. And one of the issues we’ve been continually discussing is our left-handed relief options.
We traded Felipe Rivero. Oliver Perez has a 5.61 ERA. Sammy Solis just had an MRI on his left shoulder. Matt Grace has nice looking AAA numbers, but got shellacked last year (2.00 whip in 26 innings) during a brief call-up. Nick Lee was so ineffective this year that he passed completely through waivers when we DFA’d him off the 40-man. We just paid cash for twice-TJ survivor and ex Nat Sean Burnett, whose AAA numbers look good but is now on his fourth organization of 2016.
Do we have a LOOGY problem?
Well, maybe.
I constantly have to remind myself of this sentence: “You don’t have to be left-handed in order to get lefties out.” That and this sentence: “If your lefty splits are good … then you’re still a good LOOGY option.”
Here’s the 2016 versus lefty splits for every reliever on our 40-man, RHP or LHP. And then lets add in some of the call-up candidates just for fun… (all numbers as of 8/21/16’s Atlanta game via baseball-reference.com):
Right Handed reliever options
Left Handed reliever options
Rivero, by the way, has this for a lefty split in 2016: .325/.424/.429 for an .852 OPS. A .325 BAA; no wonder they were willing to part with him. He was a lefty who couldn’t get lefties out.
What if we thought outside the box a bit?
So, we need Solis back; he’s the closest thing we have to a matchup lefty who we can count on. But clearly Belisle’s numbers make him a matchup option too, despite his being a rightly. It reminds me of when we had Tyler Clippard, who always had stellar lefty splits. Perez’s split line isn’t great; I feel like we should be pushing him almost all the way to the mop-up/Petit role right now.
Are you concerned though? On a whole, the Nats bullpen has been one of the best in all of baseball. Are the falterings lately just due to a too many innings thanks to a couple of bad starter outings?
Clearly the team is trusting Lopez more than Giolito; are all the pundits wrong? Photo via wp.com/Mitchell Layton getty images
So, I’ll start off by saying this is absolutely a “short sample size” post. Reynaldo Lopez now has a grand total of four MLB starts (and just 4 AAA starts) and uber prospect Lucas Giolito himself now has the same number of total starts above AA as Lopez (3 in MLB, 5 for Syracuse). But after last night’s dominant performance in Atlanta (7ip, 4 hits, 11 Ks and 1 walk in 101 pitches), I’ll ask the question that a lot of commenters have already been saying here: are we looking at the wrong guy as the next Ace in waiting from our farm system?
Here’s what’s striking me about Lopez; check out his Pitch FX data from last night’s start. He threw 68 fastballs with an *average* velocity of 97.6mph, peaking at 99.5mph. Yes he tired a bit in the last couple of innings, but (per the graph of his pitch velocity at the BrooksBaseball link) he only “slowed” to the 96-97 range … his overall heat earlier in the game kept his average well into the 97mph range. That’s a very, very impressive velocity neighborhood, one where only two or three starters are living right now (amongst qualified starters … only Noah Snydergaard has kept a higher average fastball velocity this year than 97.6). But I also watched him absolutely blow balls by hitters; the most impressive of which was a 98mph fastball right by Atlanta’s best hitter Freddie Freeman to get a punch-out.
We’re not seeing that kind of velocity out of Giolito. And we didn’t see this kind of performance either.
Literally every scouting analyst out there thinks Giolito is “the best pitching prospect in the game.” Now, they’re not exactly light on Lopez; Lopez is routinely in the top 50 of all prospects in the minors, and generally listed #2 behind Giolito and Trea Turner on the 2016 lists. So it isn’t as if nobody knows who Lopez is. But results on the field at the MLB level in 2016 are hard to beat when it comes to doing comparisons.
Yes Atlanta is an awful team so perhaps over-reacting to 11 Ks is something to temper. And both guys are clearly up-and-down (Lopez’ last AAA start was 5 runs in 6ip; Giolito’s last AAA start was 10Ks and 1 run in 7ip). Two of Giolito’s three MLB starts were against the defending NL champ Mets (not exactly a pushover team offensively) while two of Lopez’s four MLB starts were against the trying-to-lose Mets (who might be starting one out-field player who would start on most other teams right now).
But what are you guys thinking? I mean, clearly to me Lopez is staying in the rotation until he falters, so it may be a moot point for Giolito anyway (who is quickly running out of innings in 2016; he’s sitting at 117 1/3 right now, which is almost precisely what he threw in 2015, so factoring in a 20% increase he may only have 4 more starts in him). Does Lopez have innings limit concerns too? He’s never even thrown 100 innings and is already well past that in 2016…). In fact, are we looking at an imminent shutdown of *both* prospects in the next couple of weeks?
I know how some of you are going to react to this post … cough cough MartyC and forensicane cough cough. But how about the rest of you? Is this heresy? Is this a changing of the guard-type opinion? Or is this just all SSS-driven nonsense that’ll be thrown out the window when Lopez gets pounded the next time he faces a half-way decent offensive lineup?
Papelbon can do this for any team. Photo via usatoday.com
Rumors started getting published early saturday morning: embattled, demoted and struggling former Nats closer Jonathan Papelbon has reportedly asked for his release.
He’s appeared in precisely two games since he was replaced as closer by the newly acquired Mark Melancon. Both appearances can be generously characterized as “mop up duty.” He’s gone from highest leverage closer to 8th guy in an 8-man pen in less than two weeks, and it seems he’s reading the tea leaves.
The Nats need a move today to call up their starter Reynaldo Lopez; could a DFA or release of Papelbon be the solution?
We’ve talked in this space about playoff rosters a bit, about how we all are kind of thinking we could use Koda Glover on that roster. Well, when we dump the 5th starter and expand the bullpen to 8 … not having to worry about Papelbon’s reaction could be a benefit. I’d gladly take this bullpen construction into a short series:
That looks strong enough to me. If Papelbon was still in the picture, you’d face a tough decision on who to drop. Belisle has more than earned his spot, and there’s nobody else in that list who can really make way thanks to the trade of Rivero.
Thoughts? Is this a blessing in disguise (if its true?) Or do you think we should hang on to him and give him a Qualifying Offer? (sarcasm).
Melancon takes over for the beleagured Papelbon. Photo via bucsdugout.com
At the trade deadline, we saw three significant closer-quality arms moved.
Chapman fetches the Cubs #1 prospect in Torres (he immediately becomes the Yankees’ #1 prospect) in addition to a more marginal (but still ranked) prospect in McKinney, a lottery ticket in Crawford AND the return of their former 8th inning guy Warren. This in return for perhaps the premier closer in the game for a 2 month rental.
Melancon fetched a solid, young lefty reliever in Rivero (whose peripherals counter his currently poor-looking 2016 ERA) plus a 2nd tier ranked prospect in Hearn who is probably 3 years away. This in return for 2 months of an elite but not quite as dominant closer.
Miller fetched the Indians #1, #5, #30th ranked prospects in the Cleveland organization (including two 1st round picks) plus an org-arm. This in return for one of the best relievers in the game for this year plus two more years at a relatively reasonable price ($9M/per).
Projected WAR for these three guys (using opportunistic estimates based on historical performance);
And then there’s the money factors and the intangibles:
Which deal do you like the most? Miller clearly got the most in terms of value, but he also was the best positioned for the long haul. But even at best case, Miller’s only going to return 5 and a half war over the next 3 years for Cleveland; that’s about as much bWAR as Anthony Rendon provided in his first big breakout season. Chapman cost much, much more than Melancon; is he worth that much more?
I hate to sound like a homer, but for what they sought and what they gave up, I completely prefer the Nats deal here. We gave up none of our top tier of prospects, we didn’t take on cash, and we got precisely what we wanted (closer coverage for 2016) and nothing more. Keith Law hated the deal of course, but he covets prospects and hates closers so it is no surprise. I also kind of thought that Mike Rizzo would have learned his lesson after the Papelbon-Drew Storen nightmare (remember; he’s the same GM who flipped 2 months of a FA acquisition Matt Capps for years of Wilson Ramos.
This is the only photo I have of Papelbon where he’s not grabbing his nuts or Harper’s throat. Photo Keith Allison via wikipedia/flickr
Look, I get it. We’ve watched Jonathan Papelbon blow two saves rather egregiously in the last week. We know his fastball is down (average of 90.9 this season versus 91.4 last year and 93.8 in 2012). We know his “stuff” is down (K/9 is “just” 8.35 this year versus career peaks north of 10 K/9) and his walks are up (3.34 BB/9 this year, a stark increase over last year’s 1.71 BB/9).
But did you know that the Nats bullpen is still one of the best in all of baseball? Here’s some quick team stats for you from fangraphs; the Nats bullpen is:
So, optically yes we would like to have a better arm throwing in the 9th. But overall, we have (against all odds) crafted a brand new bullpen from 2015’s dumpster fire version that has been pretty darn effective.
So what do we do with our embattled “closer?” Well, I think Fangraph’s August Fagerstrom has put it best. I think its time to flip-flop the roles of Papelbon with Shawn Kelley. Kelley’s peripherals are ridiculous: 13.9 K/9, a 58/7 K/BB ratio. By way of comparison, Aroldis Chapman has “only” a 12.6 K/9 rate this year (though to be fair, its a down year for a guy who has a career 15.2 rate … yes i’m cherry picking stats a bit).
I do think its promising (at least from a player management perspective), that we’re hearing Dusty Baker addressing these questions with what seem like real quotes from Papelbon that show him to be a team player and cognizant of his struggles, as opposed to the defiant petulant bastard that he has appeared to be elsewhere in his career. Numbers don’t lie; if he’s not getting it done, and he knows it, then its time to step aside. There’s no shame in getting old (he’s in his age 35 season and he’s got nearly 700 high-leverage “I’m the guy” appearances on his C.V.).
No, I wouldn’t have wanted to trade my #1 system prospect for Chapman like the Cubs did. In fact, I wouldn’t trade a starter or a position player for a reliever, ever, unless it was a lesser guy completely blocked by someone that I had signed to a long-term deal. The value trade-off is just not there. As Fagerstrom points out, we can shuffle roles and then perhaps find a bullpen spot for the electric arms of Lucas Giolito and/or Reynaldo Lopez for the stretch run if we run into injuries.
Mike Rizzo; please, please resist the temptation to trade valuable assets for the “proven closer” (insert trademark here). Please. If you’re tempted … I hear Drew Storen is available. Or at the very least trade someone from our logjam of 4-A starters instead of a valuable piece that we’ll need a few years time.
PS readers; apologies for 2 weeks of radio silence; was OOO visiting family and going through a stretch of business at work that prevented such fun things as spitting out opinion pieces about relievers who will contribute a fraction of a WAR over the rest of the year. Thanks for sticking in there. MartyC; next post I’m teeing up a glowing review of Giolito just for you 😉
This photo is an oldie but a goodie, and one we’ll probably see year over year for the next decade at least. Photo unk
Here’s my annual Nationals All Star selection post.
(* == All-Star game starter. The Nats now have four ASG starters in their history, dating to 2005. Soriano once, Harper thrice).
Here’s past year’s information, mostly recycled information from past posts on the topic but fun to read nonetheless, especially the early years.
As a side note, the 2015 All-Star game will go down as the “Ballot-Gate” game thanks to MLB’s short-sighted plan to allow 30+ online ballots per email address. This led to severe “ballot stuffing” by the Kansas City Royals fans, led to MLB having to eliminate 60 million+ fraudulent ballots, but still led to several Royals being elected starters over more deserving candidates.