Via Bay Area Sports Guy, Here’s ex-Phillie, now-Giant Hunter Pence with the most succinct answer ever to the question What makes the Nationals a good team?:
REPORTER: Hunter, you’re familiar with the, um, Nationals, obviously, from being with the Phillies. What makes the Nationals such a good team?
HUNTER PENCE: Um…Pitching. And hitting. They’re good at those. [Reporters giggle] I’m sorry, that’s true. They’ve got great pitching and they can swing it, so that makes ‘em good.
Remember how I said almost a month ago that I was done talking about the Strasburg Limit?
As I reported three weeks ago, Stephen Strasburg will not pitch past 180 innings this year. #Nats #MLB—
William Ladson (@washingnats) August 10, 2012
That tweet from the inimitable Bill Ladson settled it. Now we know: the Strasburg Limit will be no greater than 180 innings. For most of the baseball commentariat outside the Beltway, this carries far more significance than the possible detection of the Higgs boson.
But what does this mean?
As I write this, Strasburg has pitched 127.1 innings. That means he has 52.2 innings left to pitch. So far, Strasburg has averaged just about 5.2 innings per start. At that rate, Strasburg will have 9 more starts. That means he will be permitted to pitch out the entire regular season, and shut down for any post-season play. Like Moses atop Mount Nebo, Strasburg will be permitted to see the Promised Land, but he will not be allowed to enter into it himself. At least not this year.
There is still work to be done, though. By my count of the rotation, Strasburg will face the Braves once (on August 21 at Nats Park), the Marlins twice (August 28 at Miami and Sept. 7 at home), and the Mets once (at home on Sept. 12)
Additionally, he’ll face the Giants on August 15, the Cardinals twice (Sept. 2 and Sept. 29), and the Dodgers once (Sept. 19).
That’s a lot of games against divisional opponents and winning baseball teams. The Nats need Strasburg to do well in each of these last several starts to keep their lead over the Braves in the National League East.
After the Limit is reached, I remain confident that a rotation of Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Jackson and Detwiler will be enough to get the Nats through a 5 or 7 game series. But until that day, I will be watching nervously.
Called strikes: Angel Hernandez on Bryce Harper, Aug. 8, 2012. Note the red dots outside the box.
All of Nats town is about ready to kill umpire Angel Hernandez for his lousy officiating of last night’s Nats v. Astros game.
Thanks to the magic of Pitch/FX and the most excellent Texasleaguers Pitch/FX Database, I present to you, without further comment, a plot of pitches that Angel Hernandez called strikes on Bryce Harper.
This is all I am going to say about the Strasburg innings limit.
The Nats have a policy–and a remarkably enlightened one, at that–of limiting starting-pitcher workloads to 120% of the innings a pitcher had pitched the previous year, wherever those innings happened (whether as an amateur, the minor leagues, or the majors). For pitchers returning from major injuries, the innings limit seems to be about 120% of the pitcher’s previous single-season career high total innings pitched.
The entire baseball commentariat outside the Beltway seems to think that this policy of limiting innings amounts to nothing more than a bluff on the part of the Nationals. But the Nationals’ recent misfortunes with pitcher injuries offer us a number of opportunities to see the organization’s pitch-limiting policy in action.
Take, for instance, Jordan Zimmermann. He underwent Tommy John surgery to repair his ulnar collateral ligament in August 2009. He spent 2010 in rehabilitation, pitching 5.0 innings in low-A Hagerstown, 13.0 innings in High-A Potomac, 4.2 innings in AA Harrisburg, 17.0 innings in AAA Syracuse, as well as 31.0 innings for the big league club, for a total of 70.2 innings on the year. In 2011, he returned to the starting rotation, and everybody in Nats town knew his innings would be limited. He ended up pitching 161.1 innings.
How did they reach that number? Well, Zimmermann’s previous single-season high for innings pitched was 2008. He hadn’t cracked the major leagues yet, but he pitched 27.1 innings for high-A Potomac and 106.2 innings for AA Harrisburg, for a career-high 134 innings pitched in a single season. Increasing his workload by an additional 20% in accordance with the organization’s inning-limit policy would have meant limiting him to…yes, 161 innings pitched, which is only one out less than what he actually pitched in 2011.
Zimmermann isn’t the only other Bionic Man in the Nats pitching staff, either. Reliever Ryan Mattheus also underwent Tommy John surgery to repair his ulnar collateral ligament in 2009. He spent 2010 in the minors, rehabilitating, pitching a total of 36 innings. He joined the Nats bullpen in 2011 and pitched only 32 innings. His previous career high single-season innings pitched? 2007, when he pitched 158.2 innings for the Rockies’ AA affiliate. In Mattheus’ case, it appears that the move from starter to reliever was enough of an innings limit in itself. But in 2012, three years removed from surgery, Mattheus has already pitched a total of 32.2 innings (29.2 with the big-league club, the balance on minor-league rehab assignments). The limit, it would appear, is gone.
What does this mean for Strasburg? Well, before his surgery, his previous single-season maximum innings pitched was 123.1 innings in 2010: 68.0 IP with the big league club, 33.1 at AAA Syracuse, and 22.0 at AA Harrisburg. If the Nationals apply their stated policy (no increases greater than 20%), Strasburg’s innings limit would be set at 148 innings.
The number generally bandied about, however, is the 160-inning limit that we saw from Jordan Zimmermann. Will the Nats shut down Strasburg sooner than they shut down Zimmermann? Tough to say. Increasing Strasburg’s workload to 125% of his previous single-season innings maximum leaves us at 154 innings. 160 innings would represent still another increase, to 130% of Strasburg’s previous single-season career maximum. For an organization that values its starting pitchers’ health as highly as the Nationals must, a 160-pitch limit must already represent the outer limits of the organization’s risk tolerance.
Think, also, that Jordan Zimmermann in his “rehabilitation” year of 2010 pitched 70.2 innings at all levels in the organization, so his 161.1 inning 2011 represented a year-on-year increase of 228% in workload–that’s a staggering increase in the amount of stress to put on a joint from one year to the next! Strasburg, on the other hand, pitched only 44.1 innings at all levels of the organization during his “rehabilitation” year of 2011. A 228% increase from that workload would leave us with 101 innings–merely two innings more than the total number of innings Strasburg has pitched to date in 2012. To get Strasburg to the 160-inning mark this season would represent an increase in workload of 361% over 2011!
If the organization opts not to try to “rip the ball out of [Strasburg's] hands,” what would an “unlimited” Strasburg look like? Let’s say the Nats win the pennant. Strasburg’s workload might look a lot like the Rangers’ Derek Holland, who pitched 198 innings in the regular season, and an additional 24.0 innings in the post-season, for a total of 222 innings pitched in 2011. For Strasburg, that would represent an unbelievable increase of 180% from his career single-season maximum innings and an increase of 500% over his workload from last year.
Strasburg is one of the fiercest competitors in baseball today. But even if his will is made of steel, his arm is made of muscle and sinew and surgically-repaired ligaments. Not limiting Strasburg’s innings in 2012 means asking that arm of mortal flesh to bear a load nearly twice as large as the largest it has ever borne, and potentially five times greater than it was expected to bear only a short year ago. I am not an orthopaedic surgeon–but it seems to me that not limiting Strasburg is to ask a very talented, very game young man to risk the total destruction of his only means of winning a livelihood to chase a goal that is, at best, uncertain.
If you’ve read this far and you’re still calling for the Nats to let Strasburg pitch past his “limit,” then you deserve to be called the nincompoop that you are.
OK, Nats town. Drew Storen is hurt. Brad Lidge is hurt. You need a relief pitcher for the 9th inning.
Imagine, then, that you had a pitcher in your bullpen who has a higher strikeout rate (10.19 K/9) than Gio Gonzalez (8.75 K/9). When batters do put the ball in play against him, he they bat .293 [BABIP], at about he same rate as against Jordan Zimmermann. He gives up about as many ground balls (42.5%) as Brad Lidge (42.9%) and fewer (36.1%) fly balls than Drew Storen (37.5%). And, unlike Storen (8.3% HR/FB), his fly balls very seldom (4.7%) go for home runs. Indeed, the remarkable thing about this pitcher is that he hardly gives up any home runs at all–he has the second-lowest HR/9 rate on the staff at 0.18 HR/9.
So, given that sort of track record, it might not be wholly unreasonable to assume that such a pitcher, entering any given 9th inning with the bases empty, should be a viable option. High strikeout numbers, decent ground ball percentage, and fly-ball numbers that indicate weak contact should add up to three outs, game over.
That pitcher, Nats town, is Henry Rodriguez since 2008.
Yes, his BB/9 rate (5.73) and wild pitch rates are very high–he leads the staff, and last year led the league in wild pitches. But, again, remember: he’s entering with the bases empty. On average, then, he should be able to strike batters out, or cause them to pop up.
Most of Nats town wants Henry’s head on a pike. He’s had a very bad week, giving up soul-crushing walk-offs in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Those sucked. But it cannot be stressed enough that, given Henry’s profile as a strikeout pitcher that does not give up too many home runs, those were the least probable outcomes.
Personally, I was shocked by the walk-offs not because the Nats lost–this is a ballclub that lives by the walk-off, after all, and it stands to reason that over time the club would die by the walk-off. I was shocked because Hot Rod gave up home runs, which he almost never does.
Should Henry be a closer? Probably not. Since ’08, his Shutdown/Meltdown ratio is 1.222 (22 shutdowns/ 18 meltdowns). In a high-leverage situation, you want to go with a reliever that has, generally, been more effective in putting his ballclub in a position to win than not. That’s why you want someone like Drew Storen (59 SD, 22 MD, 2.68 SD/MD) or Brad Lidge (96 SD, 30 MD, 3.2 SD/MD).
Except neither Storen nor Lidge are available. Henry Rodriguez is far from a perfect solution at closer for the Nats, but until Storen or Lidge gets back, Henry’s past form as a high-strikeout/low-home-run pitcher put him in the picture for at least some save situations.
Postscript: Psychology/Mentality. I try not to get into players’ mentality or psychology in this blog. I’ve known some of my friends and family for years, and at very close quarters, and I’ve found it pretty hard to get inside their heads sometimes to figure out what they’re thinking or feeling at any given moment. It would stand to reason that it is idiotic for me to think that I could form a decent opinion of a ballplayer’s mentality. I don’t talk to Henry. I only see him from the upper deck of the ballpark, or on TV, or as described by Charlie Slowes & Dave Jaegler on the radio, or as reported to me by the press corps following the Nats.
What I see, given the aggregated data, is a pitcher who’s had a very bad week. Nothing more.
I have been too upset about the continuing ugliness between the Nats and the Phillies to weigh on the beanball war that Cole Hamels started on Sunday. (I have tweeted about it, though). But it seems that many people in the City of Brotherly Love are upset at the slap-on-the-wrist five-game suspension Hamels must serve. Of course, the Phillies won’t be too hurt by the suspension–Hamels won’t even miss a start–so why are the Phans so upset?
Apparently, they cry fraud because John Lannan was not suspended for allegedly beaning Chase Utley and Ryan Howard on July 26, 2007–earning the Syracuse Chiefs lefty the dubious distinction for having been the first pitcher to have been ejected during his major league debut.
Let’s set aside the fact that Hamels freely admitted that he beaned Bryce Harper on purpose–supposedly in the service of “old-school” prestige. Even without Hamels’ boasting, we could have easily surmised that Hamels beaned Harper intentionally. Lannan was not suspended because, in all probablity, he had no idea where those balls were going when they left his hand.
Indulge me in a little statistical thought experiment. Let’s assume we can use a pitchers’ walks-per-9-innings-pitched rate (BB/9) and his number of wild pitches as very rough proxies of that pitcher’s ability to control where the baseball is going. If that’s true, then a pitcher with poor control will issue, on average, more walks and more wild pitches. A pitcher with excellent control will issue fewer walks, and fewer wild pitches.
OK, fine. According to Fangraphs John Lannan has a career BB/9 of 3.38 and recorded 15 wild pitches over 751 innings pitched.
It should come as absolutely no surprise that Cole Hamels has better command: his career BB/9 stands at an impressive 2.23. He has issued a scant 15 wild pitches over 1,201.2 innings pitched.
It should be blindingly obvious to anyone now that 2012 Syracuse Chief John Lannan is not as good at putting the baseball where he wants it as 2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels is. It gets even more obvious when you consider that 2007 John Lannan–whose specter has now returned to whip up the Phans’ warped persecution complexes–was even wilder than his career figures. In 2007 alone, Lannan’s BB/9 was an astonishing 4.41–and he issued 1 wild pitch in a scant 34.2 innings of work!
So, on that fateful day in 2007, when John Lannan hit two helpless Philadelphia batsmen in quick succession, it’s pretty safe to say that he had no idea where the baseball was going.
Conversely, on a cool May evening in DC, when Cole Hamels appointed himself the guardian of the old school, there can be absolutely no doubt that Hamels intended to harm his target. Like Elvis Costello, his aim is true.
And what about the other protagonist in Sunday’s beanbag war–Jordan Zimmermann? He hit Hamels in the shin, but has continued to maintain his innocence. The stat sheet should make us doubt that claim, as well. He has a career BB/9 that rivals Hamels at 2.15, and only 3 wild pitches in 323 innings of work. I don’t think anybody can doubt that he knew where he put that fastball.
So, in sum: Hamels, by his own confession, is guilty of an intentional beaning. Zimmermann, in all probability, is guilty of intentionally retaliating.
John Lannan is guilty of nothing more than being a mediocre pitcher at best–a crime for which Nationals fans have suffered on many occasions.
Quit whining, Phans.
12-4.
12-4.
Twelve and four!
If you had told me in January that today, with ten percent of the baseball season behind them, the Nats would have lost only four games and won twelve–I would have laughed at you.
But as I type these words, I’m watching the last-place Phillies founder against the Diamondbacks. I never thought I’d see the day.
The Nats continue to outperform my pre-season projections. According to my calculations, the Nats should be about 9-7 (I actually had them projected .543). They should have scored 61 runs and allowed 59 runs.
As I predicted last post, the offense has cooled somewhat. To date, the Nats have scored 58 runs, marginally fewer than my preseason predictions would have suggested. What should really amaze us, though is this: to date, the Nationals have allowed only 45 runs. Look again: that’s a whopping fourteen fewer runs than the preseason prediction.
That means that the Nats success is largely attributable to dominant pitching–especially the K Street rotation.
You know the statistics. As I write this, the Nats pitching staff leads all baseball in staff ERA (2.34), FIP (2.30), xFIP (3.16), and strikeouts (144). The Nats’ pitching staff, collectively, has the lowest opponents’ batting average (.199). Of the top fifteen pitchers in all baseball in xFIP, four are Nationals: Gio Gonzalez (no. 2), Ross Detwiler (no. 9), Edwin Jackson (no. 13), and Stephen Strasburg (no. 14).
Add all of that up, and that’s worth three wins, I suppose.
It all makes for thrilling baseball. But the Nats are scoring only 3.63 runs per game so far. Again, that’s less than the Natstradamus-predicted rate of 3.80 runs per game. The National League average so far is 3.90. This does not bode well for the long term.
Then again, the Nats have the fewest runs allowed per game so far (2.80)–vastly outperforming the Natstradamus-projected 3.5 runs allowed per game.
If the Nats are going to stay hot, they are going to need to find offense somewhere. With Michael Morse hurt, all eyes will turn to Tyler Moore, whose arrival in Nats Town seems imminent. Until then, the Nats are going to balance on the razor’s edge–and Nats town is going to watch their every move breathlessly.
Via Chad Moriyama: Stephen Strasburg is pretty good at baseball.
Oh, OK. I’ll gank one GIF. Behold: 
Not even in my most optimistic moments would have said that the Nats would win two in a row out of the gate! As I write this on Easter Sunday morning, the Nats are sitting pretty, sharing first place atop the National League’s Eastern Division with the Mets (the Mets!).
And all this despite a lackluster debut for Gio “the Motown Kid” Gonzalez. The Nats won yesterday behind the unexpected heroics of former Hiroshima Carp Chad Tracy, and some absolutely phenomenal pitching from the “B” bullpen, with Craig “Matinee Idol” Stammen in long relief, followed by Ryan “Firework” Mattheus, Tyler Clippard, and some pitching from Hot Rod that was pretty frickin’ bueno.
The Nats’ late-inning heroics aren’t great to my stomach lining, though. I’ve been wondering how I could better quantify the feeling I have when relievers come in. I attempted this earlier, of course, when I introduced my heartburn index–but I’m now convinced that the heartburn index doesn’t give a complete picture.
Fortunately, FanGraphs has ridden to the rescue again, with a new, and, I think, extremely helpful, pair of statistics for measuring relief pitcher performance: Shutdowns and Meltdowns. As the proponent of the new stats explains them:
Shutdowns (SD) and Meltdowns (MD) are two relatively new statistics, created as an alternative to Saves in an effort to better represent a relief pitcher’s value. While there are some odd, complicated rules surrounding when a pitcher gets a save, Shutdowns and Meltdowns strip away these complications and answer a simple question: did a relief pitcher help or hinder his team’s chances of winning a game? If they improved their team’s chances of winning, they get a Shutdown. If they instead made their team more likely to lose, they get a Meltdown. Intuitive, no?
Using Win Probability Added (WPA), it’s easy to tell exactly how much a specific player contributed to their team’s odds of winning on a game-by-game basis. In short, if a player increased his team’s win probability by 6% (0.06 WPA), then they get a Shutdown. If a player made his team 6% more likely to lose (-0.06), they get a Meltdown.
Shutdowns and meltdowns correlate very well with saves and blown saves; in other words, dominant relievers are going to rack up both saves and shutdowns, while bad relievers will accrue meltdowns and blown saves. But shutdowns and meltdowns improve upon SVs/BSVs by giving equal weight to middle relievers, showing how they can affect a game just as much as a closer can, and by capturing more negative reliever performances.
Nats fans are by now intimately familiar with WPA, thanks to the hard work of Federal Baseball. The squiggly-lined graphs he pots after every game show the ebb & flow of the game as measured by WPA. A “Shutdown” happens when a reliever bends the line towards the Nats’ favor. A “Meltdown” happens when a reliever bends the line in favor of the opponent. The Shutdown/Meltdown stat pair thus give us a good indication of whether a reliever is helping or hurting his ballclub–which is kind of neat!
So what does that mean for the Nats bullpen in 2012? Using my standard measuring interval (2008-2011 seasons), here’s how the pitching staff looks:
| Name | Holds | Saves | Blown Saves | Shutdowns | Meltdowns | Heartburn |
| Brad Lidge | 9 | 100 | 16 | 92 | 28 | 6.85 |
| Tyler Clippard | 64 | 1 | 18 | 77 | 35 | 5.22 |
| Sean Burnett | 54 | 8 | 9 | 63 | 42 | 5.62 |
| Drew Storen | 13 | 48 | 7 | 59 | 22 | 4.34 |
| Henry Rodriguez | 13 | 2 | 4 | 13 | 13 | 8.51 |
| Tom Gorzelanny | 7 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 5 | 6.01 |
| Ryan Mattheus | 8 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 5.63 |
| Craig Stammen | 2 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 4.09 |
A few things jump out at me at once:
If the Nats’ starting rotation can routinely get through 6 or 7 innings, there are enough high-shutdown arms in the bullpen to keep the game in hand. This is very encouraging news for the rest of 2012.
Here’s the pitching coach of the South Georgia Peanuts of the independent South Coast League melting down at his pitching staff. Guess the peanuts got shelled that night.
I wonder if Steve McCatty or Davey Johnson’s ever gone ballistic like this?
