What's Wrong with the 2009 Nationals?
April 11, 2009
After watching the first five games this season, I'm encouraged by
the Washington Nationals' potential to contend this year (or at least
be
respectable). I said back in the winter that this team
was capable of contending in the NL East and I still believe it.
They'll obviously need better starting pitching to do so, but the
pieces of the offense are there to make this team a nightmare for
opposing pitching staffs to face. Unfortunately, manager Manny
Acta has not yet found the right run-generating combination for his
line-up. Allow me to make a suggestion:
Lastings Milledge is not a major
league regular.
Maybe it's his youth or maybe he's just not the kind of player
who understands that he needs to have a gameplan at the plate, but he
is killing the
Nationals with terrible at bats. Twice on Friday he came up with
the bases loaded, and had Mike Gonzalez not played jai lai with his
comebacker he would have left all 6 men on base. I understand
that the pitcher sometimes makes really good pitches or that a guy hits
the ball hard somewhere but gets unlucky when it finds a fielder's
glove. This was not the case with Milledge, and in the two years
I've been watching him it rarely has been.
Friday, against Jeff Bennett in the 7th inning, Milledge grounded into
an inning ending double play by swinging at a pitch he had no business
swinging at. Bennett had already hit Willie Harris after
surrendering a hard hit single from Elijah Dukes, and had walked Austin
Kearns on six pitches outside the strikezone (Kearns had swung at two
of them). Milledge was
up 3-0 in the count when he tried to pull a low pitch but ended up
grounding into a textbook 5-4-3 double play. This is as
elementary as it gets: who swings at a 3-0 pitch when the bases are
loaded, especially when the pitcher is as wild as Bennett was? A
walk drives in a run that would give the Nat's the lead, keeps the
line-up rolling and brings up Cristian Guzman, who was hitting over
.400 this season at the time. The situation was similar in the
ninth inning against Gonzalez, who was clinging to a one-run lead and
mightily struggling with his control as he had all spring.
This was nothing but a failed ego trip for Milledge, something that has
been an issue ever since he made his first appearance in the
majors. Having confidence that one can produce against major
league pitching is one thing; putting one's own individual stats ahead
of the welfare of the team is quite another. Until Milledge shows
that kind of maturity or at least some semblence of a plan at the
plate, he doesn't deserve to be starting everyday in the
line-up. He has and will continue to cost the Nats too many run
scoring opportunities but with only limited upside.
I probably shouldn't be too harsh on Milledge because he is not the
only Nats' hitter with no discernable gameplan at the plate through the
first week. I can't remember when so many batters were getting
themselves out so often, swinging at ridiculous pitches.
Anyway, part of the problem is the way Manny Acta has the line-up
set. He appears to want to go with this for the season:
Lastings
Milledge
Cristian
Guzman
Ryan Zimmerman
Adam Dunn
Nick Johnson
Elijah Dukes/Austin Kearns
Jesus Flores
second baseman
Pitcher
Here's my problem with that: most of the guys are being asked to do
things they have never shown the ability to do. Milledge has a
career
.326 on base percentage and never had a great eye at the plate even in
the minors. He got by because he could make contact and scouts
liked him some because he projected to have some power, but that's not
what a lead-off guy does. Lead-off hitters must get on base and
Milledge simply doesn't do that. Cristian Guzman doesn't get on
base very much either but at least with Guzman there aren't three other
guys on the team that can do his job better; Dunn, Dukes and apparently
this spring Austin Kearns can do better than Milledge.
Furthermore Ryan Zimmerman is not a #3
hitter. Ideally the number three hitter is the team's best
hitter, or at least someone who can hit for some average, hit for some
power and perhaps most importantly, get on base for the boppers in the
line-up, the #4-#6 hitters. Zimmerman's career on base is .339
and for his career it's .338 when he bats third. The right guy
for the #3 spot is Nick Johsnon, who is a .294 career hitter with
similar power to Zimmerman, but has a career on base percentage almost
sixty points higher (.396). In the #5 spot after Dunn should be
Elijah Dukes, who also gets on base at a pretty good clip (.359 career)
and has good power and the added dimension of speed that could provide
RBI opportunities for the bottom of the order. It is here, right
after Dukes where
Zimmerman should bat, where the benefit of his
ability to hit for average and power will be
maximized but the cost of his inability to get on base and the pressure
to be the
face of the franchise will be minimized. His career numbers give
credence to this idea as he's hit .328/.373/.527 from the #6 spot in
the line-up.
After Zimmerman, Kearns should bat 7th. Perhaps no player has
been more of a mystery with the Nats, or his career in
general. Compared favorably to Adam Dunn by many observers when
they first made their debuts, to this point he has been a monumental
disappointment, having topped 20 homers in a season just once and
having accumulated more than 500 at bats in just two out of his seven
major league seasons. But maybe the arrival of Adam Dunn breathed
new life into his passion for the game, so much so that we will finally
get to see the player Kearns was supposed to be. Whatever the
reason for his solid start to the season, Kearns has historically tore
it up as a 7th place hitter and would fit nicely behind
Zimmerman.
So here is what the line-up has been (using the career numbers of each
player at their place in the line-up) compared to the one that appears
to be far more optimal:
What it
is:
What it should be:
CF Lastings Milledge
(R)
.118/.211/.118
SS Guzman
(S)
.291/.326/.441
SS Cristian
Guzman
(S)
.271/.304/.389
2B second
base (S)
3B Ryan
Zimmerman
(R)
.277/.338/.458
1B Johnson
(L)
.278/.404/.510
LF Adam
Dunn
(L) .257/.383/.515
LF Dunn
(L)
.257/.383/.515
1B Nick
Johnson
(L)
.299/.395/.452
CF Dukes
(R)
.276/.425/.603
RF Elijah Dukes(Austin Kearns)
(R) .351/.478/.676 (.244/.339/.444) 3B Zimmerman
(R) .328/.373/.527
C Jesus
Flores
(R) .205/.250/.286
RF Kearns
(R)
.337/.414/.583
2B second
baseman
(S)
C Flores (R)
.357/.415/.550
P
Pitcher
P
On days when Nick
Johnson is not available, the Nats could switch Dukes to batting third,
where he has a career .323/.382/.710 line and put Willingham in left,
batting in Dukes' regular 5th spot. Willingham is a
.269/.358/.476 hitter there. Dukes is not a natural
centerfielder, but he is not significantly worse than Milledge and
could develop into a decent one if given the playing time. I
didn't put anyone in the second baseman's spot because the Nats'
primary options at second base (Willie Harris and Anderson Hernandez)
are similar hitters: high contact speedsters with little power.
Either way, whether they hit 2nd or 8th their approach doesn't change
significantly. Ronnie Belliard is the third option but his range
is so limited at second I can't see him playing anything but a reserve
role.
Granted, there are three minor flaws with this proposal. The
first
and most
obvious is that the sample sizes for these performances vary greatly
and in some cases are taken from very little data. So there could
be some wild fluctuation in the performance before a career pattern is
established. However, I would counter that by saying that 1) all
but Elijah Dukes and Lastings Milledge's leadoff samples were at least
100 at bats, 2) what they are using now isn't working and at least
there is some evidence that the new line-up could be better, perhaps
significantly so (six hitters with a .900+ OPS!), and 3) players are
people, and people - whatever the circumstances - have comfort zones
where they work more efficiently. When they find that zone, it
should be exploited as much as possible until it is proven that they
are no longer working efficiently. That's how smart businesses
are run.
The second is that it doesn't do much to stir up the lefty-righty mix
and so opposing managers have an easier time of matching up relievers
late in games. I'd counter by saying they haven't done much to
make it an issue yet as they've been blown out in more than half of
their games so far. Maybe if they score a few more runs and play
a few more close games, they can start worrying about the late inning
match-ups.
The third flaw is that it doesn't give Milledge much opportunity to
prove what kind of hitter he could potentially become. However,
if one is imagining that Milledge could be the next great power/speed
combo, I'd hold off buying the reservations for that bandwagon.
The
closest comparables to Milledge's performance so far are:
RUNS CREATED/GAME
RC/G AB HR SB OBA
1 Corey
Hart
5.84 799 35 30 .340
2 Dale
Murphy
5.45 938 46 23 .339
3 Kirk
Gibson
5.30 769 27 33 .339
4 Nate
McLouth
5.08 708 25 34 .322
5 Deion
Sanders
4.62 865 23 65 .307
6 Tony
Tarasco
4.59 689 20 34 .318
7 Bo
Jackson
4.46 917 49 40 .291
8 Lastings
Milledge 4.33
873 25 28 .329
9 Ruben
Rivera
4.26 692 31 31 .314
10 Mike
Cameron
4.23 824 23 50 .315
11 Larry
Hisle
4.20 974 30 24 .316
12 Joe
Carter
4.15 784 28 27 .293
No one would suggest that he's in Cameron's class as a defender
or in Murphy's or Jackson's class as a power hitter or in Sanders'
class as a speedster. So that leaves on the upper end he becomes
Corey Hart or possibly even Kirk Gibson but more likely somewhere
between Nate McLouth and Tony Tarasco. The Nats will survive if
that guy doesn't get 550 at bats, especially considering the other
hitters they have.
Part 1 - National Treasure
Part 3 - That Good?