Nationals Baseball

Friday, March 15, 2024

Spring Breakout!

When I first heard about this I thought it was a great idea.  Spring Training holds little interest after the very first few games when we are all just happy to have baseball back so an event that will grab some interest and some air from Sports Media in a time where it's possible (after the Super Bowl and before the NCAA tournament) makes a ton of sense. But of course it's MLB so they have to do it wrong. 

Instead of a small set of games featuring guys who are either just were brought up, are going to start in the majors, or ones that have a good shot of making it up this year* they just have every team field a team of prospects.  But few teams... check that NO teams go deep enough in meaningful prospects to make a full roster interesting, even before you pull out guys that may be a little banged up or teams otherwise don't want participating. You are literally going into the 30s and 40s in terms of a teams individual prospect list which is way deep into "will never make the majors territory" 

And while it is fun to see guys like Crews and Wood and House for Nats fans, guess what? They've been seeing them all spring if they've been paying attention. So a bit of Jarlin Susana maybe? That's what you are tuning in for? Granted this won't be the same for every team. The Nats have the bulk of their best prospects in the upper minors but still I don't think this is how it should be done. 

How should it be done? My suggestion would be an set of 3 games - AL East vs NL East, etc. with rosters of 25 guys from 5/6 teams who could conceivably win the ROY this year. I don't mean that in the "are on ROY watch lists" I mean that in the "might be up this year and qualify".AL vs NL here would give a better game but would also be limiting. Maybe your guy gets in, maybe he doesn't, and if he does it might be a couple batters or one AB.  But divisional splits could be fun because it's not only your guys you might see this year but the young guys you might see the most of next year too. And because it includes guys who might have debuted late last year that includes some really good players baseball fans might not have seen much of.

Like the Futures Game the seed of the idea is good. And the mistakes of this idea aren't as egregious as the Futures Game being televised while other actual real games are going on. But MLB is still diluting national interest for no good reason as far as I can tell.  If it's a "don't want another team handling my prospect" then things can be set like a 1 inning limit pitching, or you can't put this guy in CF.  It's a true exhibition. The idea is fun. Make it as fun as possible. This is like a 6 out of 10. Slightly fun. Do better


*to differentiate it from the Futures Game which is a mish-mosh of levels and very limited number of guys per team. 

Thursday, March 14, 2024

How's Wood doing now and the No Surprise Spring

 The Nats are going into this season and it's going to be a planned dull one repeating 2023's "wait until next year" with a worse starting cast but likely a more interesting final one.  The only hope for something interesting right now is some sort of young player acting like he'll force his way in (he won't but it would be a story) or some surprise roster move. 

We started the Spring with James Wood looking like he might provide us with that story.  He came out of February hitting .500 with only 2Ks compared to 3 homers in his first 6 games.  Since then? In 10 games he's hitting .182 with 8Ks and 0 homers in 28 PAs.  Honestly that's not a bad K-ratio for him to have in the majors, but savior coming in May is no longer the storyline here.*

Hassell was hitting pretty well... but got hurt again. Trey Lipscomb has come on. Sorry not story. In other news Call was hitting becoming the poster child for "Spring Training stats are meaningless" Luckily so because Gallo is 3-20 with 12 Ks and most importantly no homers. Ignore it! 

 Jake Irvin has looked very good after a terrible start. Gray and Henry terrible.  Ignore it! Well not every part of it.  Irvin was the favorite to hold down the 5th spot and it looks like this will keep him there which means really no drama up until now.  There's always the potential Robles (doing ok) or Garcia (doing meh) replacings.  But right now this is just a boring ship blazing a boring trail straight to a forgettable 4 months.


*Meanwhile everyone's favorite prospect except for a couple holdouts on here Wyatt Langford has passed Wood in all stats in the Spring making him one of the hottest hitters. Yes, Spring means nothing but for Crews #1 fans who are looking for something, anything to hang their hat on... looks like you are going to have to drop that sucker on the floor for now.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Monday Quickie - But I bet the Nats have a Top 200 player, right? Right?

I wonder how far down you go before you hit a Nat.  I also wonder if it's better than the Rockies' or Oakland's best player.

TBF - Top 100 is pretty damn good.  Evenly distributed it would be the best three players from each team.  The lowest starting  pitcher on this list is Walker Buehler at 100.  He had an injury riddled 2023 but still threw to a 4.00 ERA and was coming off a 200IP 3.16 FIP 4th in the Cy Young year. The lowest relief pitcher on the list was Devin Williams at 99. He was a dominant closer in 2023 - 36 saves and a 1.53 ERA. The lowest position player (not a catcher) on the list was Christian Yelich who hit .278 / .370  / .447 with 19 homers. Yes Lane Thomas hit 10 more homers.  He also never walked and doesn't have a history of being anything more than he just was.

I'd imagine though Lane Thomas IS the best player on the Nats.  

Let's think... 

Relief pitching wise Finnegan and Harvey are pretty good but pretty good relievers don't make it very far in Top X player lists. You see Devin Williams was GREAT and he was 99 and on par with Yelich. We can dismiss them. 

Starting pitching wise it's either Gray or Gore depending on what you think but if Buehler and Merril Kelly are at the bottom of this list Gore and Gray would be hard pressed to get into the Top 200.  We'll leave them for a while. 

 Position player Lane is the easy choice  with the question being what do you think of Ruiz and Abrams.  I do think they are probably in that Top 200 group or at least there's an argument but without history to back them up I'm going to have to say Lane is an easy pick for being better. 

Ok Lane isn't that much worse than Yelich. Age is on his side for one, but the fielding woes aren't helping. I figure he gets into the Top 150. I'm not sure if that's 110 side or 140 side though but we can go to the A's and Rockies now to see if that matters. 

 

The Athletics do not have a lights-out reliever. Their best hitter is not clear. It could be Zak Gelof, who is a big power bat who strikes out a bunch. Not a great fielder but at 23 can still do something. It might be Brent Rooker who was a better bat than Thomas last year but a pure DH. Their best pitcher is JP Sears who is basically Gray and Gore. I like Thomas more than Sears or Rooker but T'm not convinced I'd have Thomas above Gelof who could explode this year. Even if he doesn't I'd put him at a wash with Thomas. So not definitely better top player than the A's.

The Rockies do not have a lights-out reliever. Their best hitter is Ryan McMahon. He's a solid fielder and his hitting stats are ok but that's in Coors. Taking that into account - no Lane is better.  Their best pitcher is Kyle Freeland a home town boy who up until last year always managed to pitch average in that park.  That's pretty impressive. Still that strike out rate has never been good. Not even in minors.  It's kind of like he's an ideal Coors pitcher with control and a lot of sinking pitches that avoid the homers but are hits. Anyway, I think I like Thomas better coming off of last year. Better top player than the Rockies! 

FLAGS FLY FOREVER

Wednesday, March 06, 2024

Nats sign Eddie Rosario

 Why? 

Ummm... well he's an average lefty offensive player that fields ok that has mild upside potential.The contract is reasonable so if he has a decent year you can probably flip him for a A-ball lottery ticket. The Nats also are fine with having these 1yr whatever players because they want the kids up later this year, or first thing next. 

This makes the signing ok... if they didn't already make this signing with Joey Gallo.  OK Gallo walks more and hits for lower average and is younger but otherwise pretty similar.

I guess this would solidify the situation to be Gallo or Meneses at 1B, the other at DH, Eddie in the OF? 

These are better signings than say Corey Dickerson, worse than Jeimer Candelario. Make with it as you will.  You don't project that this improves the Nats chances but you do start nudging out guys like Alex Call or Jake Alu who'd probably not be on another team's bench. Pushing out the chaff has value I guess.

 

Added: 

Oh if you can read this, read this: 

https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/88765/2024-season-preview-washington-nationals/

Eddie Rosario could make that 0.4 in LF into a 0.8 and shift some Gallo time to DH making that a 0.4.  Look at that. A 59.1 team win, thank you very much.


Monday, February 26, 2024

Monday Quickie - Wood Swings Wood

James Wood hit two homers this weekend. 

That's it. 

You know how I feel about Spring Training stats by now. But of course we'll go through the annual reminder... 

Who led the Nats in HR last Spring?  Dom Smith! (and Riley Adams)

Who was the best hitter for the Nats last Spring (with a decent number of PAs)? Alex Call! next was Garcia! then Smith! 

Who was the best pitcher for the Nats last Spring? Josiah Gray with a 0.55 ERA!  Then Hobie Harris with 0.90 over 10IP. 

Who was worst? Wily Peralta. (who was also bad in the regular season in AAA)


Spring is basically meaningless. Sometimes things match up with the regular season, sometimes they don't.  There's a bit of "maybe power showings are real" thought but no one has doubted that James Wood has power.  Yes, this showing is real. But we knew that already.  The question with James is what level of contact will he make in the majors and where does that put his floor and ceiling. And we've got years to figure that exactly out. 

So again Spring is here. Just enjoy watching some guys take some swings, but don't you take anything else from it.

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Worst Off-Season Ever?

There was some hope coming into this off-season that it would be an off-season like the one before 2011. Committing to a future that looked bright, that off-season the Nats signed Jayson Werth. The Nats had a definite hole to fill - a leader and an outfielder - and they filled it.  This season they have a definite hole to fill - starting pitcher - and they didn't fill it. 

It's disappointing and it got me thinking it was likely more like the 2010 off-season. But looking back... well let's compare

2011: Werth, Adam Laroche, Rick Ankiel, Matt Stairs, Lance Nix, Tom Gorzelanny

2010 : Pudge Rodriguez, Jason Maquis, Matt Capps, Miguel Batista 

2009 : Adam Dunn, Joe Beimel, Josh Willingham, Scott Olsen

Not all of these worked out and there are some other names I could throw in, but there's definitive moves to try to make the team better. I'd say all these years are better than this one. No you have to go back to 2008 when the signings were an aged Paul LoDuca, Aaron Boone, Willie Harris, Odalis Perez, to find an offseason clearly as inconsequential to the on field product for the upcoming year. 

Of course we've just had a set of pretty terrible off-seasons as well 

2023 : Candelario, Trevor Williams, Dom Smith 

2022: Cesar Hernandez, Maikel Franco, Carl Edwards Jr, Nelson Cruz

2021 : Brad Hand, Kyle Shwarber, Josh Bell 

I think 2021 is clearly better (not in results but in what it was attempting to do). So one question is whether this is the worst of the last 3 offseasons in terms of talent acquired. 

But we also must consider the circumstances.  2022 was a give up season and we knew it at the time.  2020 might have surprised everyone, but 2021 drove home the fact the team needed at least a couple seasons of re-tooling. In 2022 Strasburg officially broke for good and then Soto became expendable because there wasn't a quick way out of this hole without spending a ton. So into 2023 became another expected rebuild. But into 2024, I think we expected a bit more. Or at least I did. The rest of you at least hoped. 

So in talent this off-season might be the worst in what was brought in at least since the days where the Nats weren't trying. We can quibble over if say 2005 was better (it was) or 2006 (it was) or 2007 (it was) or 2008 (maybe).  In expectations of veteran talent acquired this was definitely the worst. The combination of the two make this the worst off-season the Nats fans have ever had. 

And yet... 

You can still hold out hope because the Nats have the largest group of close to major league ready talent than they ever have. Yes that speaks to a history of extremely shallow top-heavy minor leagues, but it's true. And if they work out this year and if the Nats commit to spend next year well then that's something. 

But if regardless of what happens the Nats don't commit to spend something next year well then into 2024 will have a short reign as worst off-season ever. 

Friday, February 16, 2024

Trying to make sense of this all

I replied to someone earlier that was 2024 is really about is "clarity" 

At the time I meant it to be about how the management felt about the team. They are evaluating the young players that were in hand. If they deem them to be a competitive core they will supplement in the off-season. If they don't, they will either cheap out and plod along or do a minor sell-off of some young talent OR they will commit some resources to buy the Nats into competitiveness, if only the fringes.

But now I'm thinking it's more than that. It's clarity for this organization as a whole. From 2005-2018 Ted Lerner ran the team, and although he had his penny-pinching ways, he was committed to making this team a winner. We saw when the core emerged, the Nats put money forth to maintain a level of realistic contention. The Nats were never all-in but they were willing to put forth reasonable deals in places that they needed and had the fortune of that judicious spending being complemented by a couple of generational draft picks and a lottery ticket of an international signing coming through. 

It's likely that in this juncture Ted would have run the team similar to what we've seen. That's how it was run 2005-2010. Nothing extraneous, just put a team on the field and wait. But the assumption that they'll put in money in a Werth like move - a pre-contention move to signify seriousness - we can't count on that and it didn't in fact happen. 

It could be it not working out with who's available or the money currently on the books or these kids not meriting that type of FA move. Or it could be that this management doesn't think that way anymore. 

It could be that if the players do seem to form a competitive core the Nats won't get those extra players in the off-season.   

We don't know anymore. 

We have a ownership group where at least the bulk of them seem like they want to sell. It could be the goal is keeping this team cheap for that purpose, only waiting until the MASN rights are re-aligned from the Orioles sale. 

Add to this we have a GM who's telling a beloved player who is broken to get down to Florida most likely because that's what the owners want. It was rumored it was about settling that contract. Trying not to pay him all and get it off the books. We've heard words suggesting different, but all the actions seem to say that is what it is.  What does that say about the GM? That he knows this is the last stop so don't anger the bosses? That he simply wants the money free as well? What FA is going to look at this and not at least think about it (even if $$$ win out 9 out of 10 times) 

What we are getting now is clarity. We will continue to get this clarity in all aspects of this team. Is this team a mess? Is it simply spinning wheels until a sale? Or is it all just a matter of a single bad PR move and some bad timing making things internally look worse than they really are?