Monday, March 31, 2008
Evil MSM coverage.
“Thanks to Zimmerman, the Nationals' overnight trip to Philadelphia was upbeat as could be. The record shows that Zimmerman hit a so-so .247 with runners in scoring position last season, but he's developing a reputation here that transcends stats.”-Jerry Crasnick
“He has since emerged as the team's No. 3 hitter, a future Gold Glove winner and most-noted clutch performer, despite his .247 batting average with runners in scoring position last season.”-Ken Rosenthal
The man has four game ending homeruns in two years. He also has a number of other walk off hits. Whatever else, BA with RISP is not a super good stat to use in this situation. A batter who did not get a hit with two on, up 10-1, in the first would be penalized by BA with RISP, even if he hit a walk off home run every game.
“He has since emerged as the team's No. 3 hitter, a future Gold Glove winner and most-noted clutch performer, despite his .247 batting average with runners in scoring position last season.”-Ken Rosenthal
The man has four game ending homeruns in two years. He also has a number of other walk off hits. Whatever else, BA with RISP is not a super good stat to use in this situation. A batter who did not get a hit with two on, up 10-1, in the first would be penalized by BA with RISP, even if he hit a walk off home run every game.
First Place!
The Prince of the Potomac , Admiral of the Anacostia, The Walk-Off Wizard of Washington!
Friday, March 28, 2008
Chris over at Capitol Punishment took part in an NL East chat over at the Baseball Analyst.
Marc Hulet writes the following sentence.
Matt Chico (91 ERA+), Hanrahan (70 ERA+) and Tim Redding (career 88 ERA+) are all probably middle relievers at best on other teams.
Notice what is sort of disingenuous about that?
Marc Hulet writes the following sentence.
Matt Chico (91 ERA+), Hanrahan (70 ERA+) and Tim Redding (career 88 ERA+) are all probably middle relievers at best on other teams.
Notice what is sort of disingenuous about that?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Opening Day Lineups
Previous years opening day lineups are from MLB.com. I think the one for 08 is accurate.*
*Look at me, I’m Joe Posnanski! No, I am not. But I love the Posteriks. Something really crazy about that opening day line up list, Pedro never started opening day in Montreal. Not once. In 1997, Pedro had an ERA+ of over two hundred, which is very good. Jim Bullinger had an ERA+ of 75. Which is not good. Pedro was coming off several good seasons, Bullinger off of several bad ones. Bullinger started opening day. I assume Pedro was injured. I cannot find anything about that, but it seems reasonable. Any other reason seems unreasonable. This probably is not very important, except if Pedro Martinez never started opening day in Montreal, then I would say opening day starts is not a stat that should be bandied about with seriousness when making hall of fame cases.
I have no interesting analysis whatsoever to go along with this. I will say I am glad Termel Sledge left the team and did not become a super star. If he had, how would I have chosen between the equally righteous “The Termelator” and “Sledgehammer” nicknames I had thought up.
I think we have the best number 8 hitter yet this year.
2005
Name/Pos/BA/OBP/Slg/AB
1. Brad Wilkerson CF .248/.351/.405/565 AB
2. Cristian Guzman 2B I will not write these numbers.
3. Jose Vidro 2B .275/.339./.424/309 AB
4. Jose Guillen RF .283/.338/.479/551 AB
5. Nick Johnson 1B .289/.408/.479/453 AB
6. Vinny Castilla 3B .253/.319/.403/494 AB
7. Terrmel Sledge LF .243/.348/.378/37 AB
8. Brian Schneider C .268/.330/.409/369 AB
9. Livan Hernandez RHP
2006
Name Pos.
1. Brandon Watson CF 28 AB does not make judgment reasonable.
2. Jose Vidro 2B .289/.348/.395/463 AB
3. Jose Guillen RF .216/.276/.398/241 AB
4. Nick Johnson 1B .290/.428/.520/500 AB
5. Alfonso Soriano LF .277/.351/.560/647 ab
6. Ryan Zimmerman 3B .287/.351/.471/614 AB
7. Royce Clayton SS .269/.315/.348/305 AB
8. Brian Schneider C .265/.329/.329/410 AB
9. Livan Hernandez RHP
2007
Name Pos.
1. Felipe Lopez 2B .245/.308/.352 608 AB
2. Cristian Guzman SS .328/.280/.466 174 AB
3. Ryan Zimmerman 3B .266/.330/.458 653 AB
4. Austin Kearns RF .266/.355/.411 587 AB
5. Dmitri Young 1B .320/.378/.491 460 AB
6. Brian Schneider C .235/.326/.336 408 AB
7. Ryan Church LF .272/.349/.464 470 AB
8. Nook Logan CF .265/.304/.345 Way too many.*
9. John Patterson RHP
2008
Maybe I will put up Pecota for these guys? I dunno.
1. Christian Guzman SS
2. Lasting Milledge, CF
3. Ryan Zimmerman 3B
4. Johnson 1B
5. Kearns RF
6. Dukes LF
7. Lo Du,C
8. Belliard 2B
9. Odalis Perez LHP
*Why couldn't we have given Watson a year in center. Just one simple year.
*Look at me, I’m Joe Posnanski! No, I am not. But I love the Posteriks. Something really crazy about that opening day line up list, Pedro never started opening day in Montreal. Not once. In 1997, Pedro had an ERA+ of over two hundred, which is very good. Jim Bullinger had an ERA+ of 75. Which is not good. Pedro was coming off several good seasons, Bullinger off of several bad ones. Bullinger started opening day. I assume Pedro was injured. I cannot find anything about that, but it seems reasonable. Any other reason seems unreasonable. This probably is not very important, except if Pedro Martinez never started opening day in Montreal, then I would say opening day starts is not a stat that should be bandied about with seriousness when making hall of fame cases.
I have no interesting analysis whatsoever to go along with this. I will say I am glad Termel Sledge left the team and did not become a super star. If he had, how would I have chosen between the equally righteous “The Termelator” and “Sledgehammer” nicknames I had thought up.
I think we have the best number 8 hitter yet this year.
2005
Name/Pos/BA/OBP/Slg/AB
1. Brad Wilkerson CF .248/.351/.405/565 AB
2. Cristian Guzman 2B I will not write these numbers.
3. Jose Vidro 2B .275/.339./.424/309 AB
4. Jose Guillen RF .283/.338/.479/551 AB
5. Nick Johnson 1B .289/.408/.479/453 AB
6. Vinny Castilla 3B .253/.319/.403/494 AB
7. Terrmel Sledge LF .243/.348/.378/37 AB
8. Brian Schneider C .268/.330/.409/369 AB
9. Livan Hernandez RHP
2006
Name Pos.
1. Brandon Watson CF 28 AB does not make judgment reasonable.
2. Jose Vidro 2B .289/.348/.395/463 AB
3. Jose Guillen RF .216/.276/.398/241 AB
4. Nick Johnson 1B .290/.428/.520/500 AB
5. Alfonso Soriano LF .277/.351/.560/647 ab
6. Ryan Zimmerman 3B .287/.351/.471/614 AB
7. Royce Clayton SS .269/.315/.348/305 AB
8. Brian Schneider C .265/.329/.329/410 AB
9. Livan Hernandez RHP
2007
Name Pos.
1. Felipe Lopez 2B .245/.308/.352 608 AB
2. Cristian Guzman SS .328/.280/.466 174 AB
3. Ryan Zimmerman 3B .266/.330/.458 653 AB
4. Austin Kearns RF .266/.355/.411 587 AB
5. Dmitri Young 1B .320/.378/.491 460 AB
6. Brian Schneider C .235/.326/.336 408 AB
7. Ryan Church LF .272/.349/.464 470 AB
8. Nook Logan CF .265/.304/.345 Way too many.*
9. John Patterson RHP
2008
Maybe I will put up Pecota for these guys? I dunno.
1. Christian Guzman SS
2. Lasting Milledge, CF
3. Ryan Zimmerman 3B
4. Johnson 1B
5. Kearns RF
6. Dukes LF
7. Lo Du,C
8. Belliard 2B
9. Odalis Perez LHP
*Why couldn't we have given Watson a year in center. Just one simple year.
Monday, March 24, 2008
A decision so monstrous!
John Patterson is gone. Let us take a peak at his 05 in relation to some other pitchers that year.
ERA+
JP 130
Livan 102
Jake Peavy 134
Brandon Web 126
Chris Carpenter 149
At this point I started looking at Pedro Martinez and got distracted from my fickle attempts at research by being amazed at how darn good he is. (He is really good!) And did you know Joba’s ERA+ this year was over 1,000? Point is, there are a lot of peoples who are better than John Patterson.So Patterson can go screw himself.
No, not really. John Patterson pitched very very well in 05. He was better the oodles of starters other teams put out there on the mound. Over the following two years, on quick breaks from his global quest for the fountain of youth, he threw 72 innings of subpar ball, while still striking out a fair number of guys. He also did not balk once over the last two years, a fact of no real or unreal importance. His velocity was way down. In short, he was a money shredder.*
(Odalis Perez is our opening day starter....hand-waving)
Many other Nats blog can explain the monetary and performance reasons much better than I. There is one angle I have not seen touched on, though. Doesnt it make us look like jack-asses to cut him now? At the moment, it looks like a money move, or some other sort of bad idea.
If John Patterson was finding a way to pitch average major league baseball around the trading deadline, or even below average, don't you think some team would give us something for him? Sure, not much, but maybe something. We gave up all sorts of potentials. That seems like bad business to me.
We will have to see what happens in Texas. But remember, for it to have been a good decision to let him go, we are not just looking for him to have a bad season. Either he has to severely fail, or he has to be a year or two away from getting back his mechanics.
Well, hopefully people when my blog has many readers someone will look back at this post and wonder how I learned not to suck as a writer.
*A money shredder is a device I plan to invent some day to efficiently dispose of money. It works based on the following principle. Shred money->?->Profit.
ERA+
JP 130
Livan 102
Jake Peavy 134
Brandon Web 126
Chris Carpenter 149
At this point I started looking at Pedro Martinez and got distracted from my fickle attempts at research by being amazed at how darn good he is. (He is really good!) And did you know Joba’s ERA+ this year was over 1,000? Point is, there are a lot of peoples who are better than John Patterson.So Patterson can go screw himself.
No, not really. John Patterson pitched very very well in 05. He was better the oodles of starters other teams put out there on the mound. Over the following two years, on quick breaks from his global quest for the fountain of youth, he threw 72 innings of subpar ball, while still striking out a fair number of guys. He also did not balk once over the last two years, a fact of no real or unreal importance. His velocity was way down. In short, he was a money shredder.*
(Odalis Perez is our opening day starter....hand-waving)
Many other Nats blog can explain the monetary and performance reasons much better than I. There is one angle I have not seen touched on, though. Doesnt it make us look like jack-asses to cut him now? At the moment, it looks like a money move, or some other sort of bad idea.
If John Patterson was finding a way to pitch average major league baseball around the trading deadline, or even below average, don't you think some team would give us something for him? Sure, not much, but maybe something. We gave up all sorts of potentials. That seems like bad business to me.
We will have to see what happens in Texas. But remember, for it to have been a good decision to let him go, we are not just looking for him to have a bad season. Either he has to severely fail, or he has to be a year or two away from getting back his mechanics.
Well, hopefully people when my blog has many readers someone will look back at this post and wonder how I learned not to suck as a writer.
*A money shredder is a device I plan to invent some day to efficiently dispose of money. It works based on the following principle. Shred money->?->Profit.
On the title.
I have long told myself I would start a Nats Blog when a name came to me. It never did, so I settled. Nationalism.blogspot.com is a Farsi website. So WashingtonNationalism it was.
Hopefully I keep this going. Also, gaining a reader or two would be nice. The great benefit of web logging, as far as I can tell, is you have to earn your readership. So here goes.
You can probably already tell I use so too much.
Hopefully I keep this going. Also, gaining a reader or two would be nice. The great benefit of web logging, as far as I can tell, is you have to earn your readership. So here goes.
You can probably already tell I use so too much.
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