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?