That Good?
April 18, 2009


I wanted to get down a few notes before moving on to a look at the Nationals' future.  First, and this has nothing to do with the Nationals as far as I know, I was watching the Giants/D-backs game last night and Andres Torres hit a home run to dead center off a Scott Schoenweis fastball.  The ball was such a bomb that centerfielder Chris Young took one step and stopped.  It cleared dead center by at least 10 feet and that ballpark is notoriously large.  The reason I bring this up is that a) Torres is a little guy by baseball standards, and b) he was busted for steroid use a couple years ago.  I'm not going to say anything more other than suggest that maybe Bud Selig hanged his "Mission Accomplished" banner a little too early.

Anyway, the Nats continue to struggle but it's not because they lack talent.  As John Lannan and Shairon Martis showed the last two nights, they have some starters who can pitch.  Scott Olsen should do better, Daniel Cabrera appears to be improving and a prospect we'll see on Monday which I'll talk about in a few paragraphs, Jordan Zimmerman, might be the best guy they have.  On the hitting side, they have tallied at least 9 hits in every game this season, so it's not like the bats are anemic.  What's killing them are little things that don't necessarily show up in the box score.

For example, I'm beginning to question how good of a manager Manny Acta really is.  Last night Manny Acta got tossed out of the game between the 3rd and 4th innings for arguing with the home plate umpire over the strikezone, which would be understandable if the game were getting out of hand.  But his starting pitcher, John Lannan, had not allowed a hit or a walk and had struck out 5 already.  Why on earth would you argue about the strikezone if your pitcher is practically perfect through three innings, especially at that juncture in the game when your pitcher is taking the mound to start the fourth inning.  By doing so, you annoyed the umpire and probably just shrunk the strikezone for your own pitcher.  Perhaps not coincidentally, the Marlins got their first hit and first run that inning. 

Another thing he does that bugs me is use relievers to get one out.  I can understand this if the game is close in the later innings, but he's doing this in the 5th and 6th innings, using two and three relievers to get through one inning.  Not only does this leave him short-handed on options if the game goes to extras - as it did last night - but it also wears out the relievers for the season.  Sure, they only throw 5-10 pitches in the game (if they get the guy out they were supposed to), but they also had to get warmed up and were not able to take the night off to rest and recover from the previous night's work.  All those pitches, even the ones that don't take place in the game, and the lack of rest eventually tires their arms.  If he keeps this up, the Nationals' bullpen, as thin as it appears to be, will be completely worn out by mid-July.  That's just wasting resources; good managers don't do that. 

Another thing that is killing this team is poor game plans at the plate by several of the hitters.  I already talked about Milledge's problem in this regard and hopefully he'll get a clue from a few months in the minors.  But Jesus Flores is also taking a very puzzling approach.  He used to be a grip-it-and-rip-it kind of batter, looking for any pitch he can drive and swinging at the first one he got.  Now he just looks like a spectator half the time.  After being up 3-0 on Matt Lindstrom in the 10th inning, only needing a single to tie the game, he watched three fastballs right down Main Street without taking the bat off his shoulder.  Lindstrom is not a pitcher who gets by on guile.  He throws an upper 90s fastball and that's about it.  He has a breaking pitch that occasionally finds the strikezone but if he gets you out with that, then he just had a very lucky night.  Every Nationals hitter should be gearing up for his fastball, swinging when he starts his wind-up if necessary to catch up with it, but swinging at it nonetheless if it looks like it's going to be over the plate.  Flores didn't - surprising because he's a pretty good fastball hitter - and the Nats let a winnable game slip away without even a perfunctory effort.

OK, so enough about the present.  Let's look at the Nats' future.

One of the drawbacks of finishing last in the majors is that people not familiar with the situation tend to think that you are doomed to be dismal in perpetuity.  For example, I got a chuckle from the guys at Fangraphs who, in their "appraisal" of organizations and their prospects of winning a World Series in the near future, ranked the Nationals 31st, behind the UNC Tarheels.  The punchline was that they thought the Seattle Mariners and the Baltimore Orioles were in a position to do much better, despite the fact that they were only a few winning percentage points better than the Nationals last year yet suffered no where near as many injuries as the Nationals did.  Talent-wise at the major league level, the Nationals are already better than either of those teams.  They even ranked those two teams ahead of teams that have recently won the World Series like the White Sox and Cardinals.  Why?  Because the Orioles have Matt Weiters and three good pitching propects, and because the Mariners put a greater emphasis on defense despite the fact that they sacrificed offense to do so. 

The Mariners currently have nothing in their farm system worth talking about other than Josh Fields, who will emerge as their 2nd or 3rd closing option sometime in the next year or so.  Greg Halman, the guy most prospect hounds point to as the most talented the Mariners have, is completely overmatched in Double-A, hitting about .200 and striking out literally in half his at bats while walking slightly less often than the dead, a talent he capably demonstrated in last year's Arizona Fall League.  Neither guy is going to help the back end of a rotation that is pretty awful, or an offense that will struggle to score 750 runs.  They crow about the Mariners new front office personnel because they were some of the same evaluators who built the Brewers impressive farm system.  Correct me if I'm wrong here but a) the Brewers are a below average defensive team and many of their best hitting prospects don't have a position other than DH, and b) the Brewers still haven't won anything.  In fact, had they not traded for CC Sabathia last season, they still would be on a playoff drought that's lasted nearly 20 years, all the while playing in the weakest division in baseball.  Now those same front office guys will be competing in a division against two organizations that already have two of the top three farm systems in the game and a third that had the best farm system until all their guys graduated to the majors.  Seattle won't be seeing a World Series for a long time, fast start in 2009 or not. 

As for the Orioles, basing a long term projection of success on a catcher, regardless of how good, and three pitching prospects is like betting the mortgage on roulette.  With catchers, the learning curve is the steepest of any position, most of the time requiring several years of major league exposure before all the moving parts come together.   By that time, the probability is that at least one of those pitchers will have lost a season to an arm injury and that another will have failed to develop an effective third pitch and thus will be relegated to the bullpen for a good part of his career.  I'm not being pessimistic, that's just the attrition rate for pitchers.  Look at the Mets big trio during the 90s of Paul Wilson, Bill Pulsipher and Jason Isringhausen, or the Giants' herd of arms earlier this decade with Jesse Foppert, Kury Ainsworth, Jerome Williams, Francisco Liriano, Boof Bonser, Matt Cain and Merkin Valdez?  How's that working out for the Giants?  They had seven good pitching prospects yet the best one is playing for another team and only one other is a regular starter.   Nevermind the fact that the Orioles play in the same division as the Yankees, Red Sox and Rays, three very well run organizations that are knee deep in talent (and in the former two cases, money) and have combined to win the American League pennant nine times since 1996.  Orioles in the Series?  That ain't happening any time soon, brother.

OK, so what about the Nats?  I'm not going to suggest that they have a great farm system because they don't.  But they aren't nearly as devoid of talent as many make them out to be.  Last year was a tough year for the organization because of freak injuries and bad breaks.  They have a few hitters who have the potential to develop into impact players and several pitchers who should see significant innings over the next decade. 

Chris Marrero is probably their best hope for a real game-changing type hitter.  He has very good power to all fields and a decent enough eye at the plate to make it count.  He's still only 20 years old, playing in the Carolina League which means with a strong spring he should advance to Double-A this summer and make his major league debut sometime next year.  Hitters who make the majors before they turn 22 usually turn out to be very good.  How good will depend on how well he makes adjustments to the way pitchers work him.  But if he can maintain his decent eye for hittable pitches, the upside is a hitter like Ryan Ludwick, hopefully without all the injuries that delayed his development.

The next best hope is catcher Derek Norris.  I'm not sure why Baseball America left him off their top 100 list.  Maybe he's still too raw for them to feel assured that he'll refine all his tools.  But even raw, he hit for more power and average, got on base more, had a better eye at the plate and stole more bases while playing in the same league as their #53 best prospect, Astros catcher Jason Castro, despite the fact that Norris is a year and a half younger.  Toss in the fact that Norris threw out nearly 50% of opposing baserunners and one has to wonder why they overlooked him.  I'm pretty sure that Norris will make their list next year.  I'll take it a step further: by next year with the possible exceptions of Jesus Montero and Buster Posey, Derek Norris will be the best catching prospect in the minors.  The flaws in his game are ones that can be coached away and his physical tools surpass any of the others.  Wieters and Carlos Santana will no longer be prospects because they'll be regulars in the majors.  Lou Marson, Angel Salome, Kyle Skipworth, Jason Castro, Hank Conger, Brett Lawrie, Tyler Flowers and JP Arencibia all fall short of Norris in either power, eye at the plate and/or physical tools on defense. 

One of the things that Jim Bowden loved to do when he was GM was acquire toolsy outfielders.  The last one he drafted was Destin Hood, a raw five-tool player who is still not advanced enough to really get a handle on what kind of talent he is.  His physical ability reminds me a lot of Gary Sheffield - lightning fast bat speed, a swing that stays in the zone a long time and above average footspeed.  Whether or not be becomes the next Sheffield depends almost entirely on how well his pitch recognition skills develop.  He's still a long way away yet he's already 19 years old.  When Sheffield was 19, he was rocketing through Double-A and Triple-A on his way to making his major league debut, so Hood is probably at least two years, maybe as many as three behind that career track.  If all goes well, he could conceivably make his debut by the time he's 21 or 22 which still puts him in decent company.  I think the Nats like his potential - they invited him to spring training where he got three plate appearances - so I doubt they'll be afraid to advance him as quickly as he proves ready. 

The last hitter I'd like to note is Michael Burgess.  He came from the same area of Tampa that produced Sheffield and he possesses similar power.  His problem is making contact, which has slowed his ascent significantly.  The word is that his swing is a little long and he's still a bit too much in love with hitting the ball a country mile.  If he learns to shorten his swing so he can make contact more often, he could shoot up the chain pretty quickly.  He'll never hit for high average, but he has a gun for an arm and his range in the outfield is good enough that he can stay there without much worry.  He'll turn 21 this fall, so unless he makes it to Double A this year, which seems a bit of a stretch considering how much certain parts of his game need to improve, he's likely looking at a major league debut around 22 or 23 years old.  That still probably makes him a major league regular but perhaps not an All-Star that the other three might become. 

OK, so what about the pitchers?  The Nats have pushed a lot of names that could develop but the four I like to be the core of the rotation no later than 2011 are Jordan Zimmerman, Jake McGeary, Shairon Martis and of course, their likely #1 pick this June, Stephen Strasburg. Ross Detwiler could probably be in that mix but from what I've seen in albeit limited exposure, he seems destined for a relief role.  Colin Balester has shown flashes of potential and John Lannan is doing a pretty solid job in the majors already, but the first four are the ones I think will push Scott Olsen and, if he finally realizes his enormous potential, Daniel Cabrera. 

Young pitchers have gotten an awful lot of attention this spring.  David Price and Thomas Hanson have gotten the most.  It wasn't until Jordan Zimmerman blew away hitters this spring that people started taking notice of him.  But many are attributing his performance to yet another spring wonder - someone who has a great spring but fizzles when the regular season begins.  I don't share that view.  This winter I compiled a fairly large database of pitching performances from some of the best pitchers of the last 30 years and included a number of the more highly regarded prospects of the last decade.  Then I compared them all by age, using a metric that incorporates the number of innings they pitched, their strikeout, walk and home run rates, as well as their baserunners allowed, all park and level adjusted.  What I found was that Jordan Zimmerman was every bit as good as Price and Hanson from his age 20 year to his age 22 year (although Hanson didn't qualify for 22 as he just turned that this year).  The difference in performance was minimal, which probably comes as much of a shock to many as Zimmerman's spring performance, given that Baseball America had Price and Hanson among their top 5 prospects in all of baseball, whereas they had Zimmerman down at #61.  There won't be that much seperation between them after this year.  In the long run, I give the edge to Hanson due to his age but Zimmerman will be plenty good.  The comparison for Zimm that gets bandied about most is Curt Schilling.

Shairon Martis didn't get any attention from the big prospect peddlers, which again is puzzling.  He should have been on everyone's radar after throwing a no-hitter in the 2006 WBC as a 19-year old, but I guess that wasn't enough to impress people.  His strike-out numbers haven't been all that exciting in the minors but he's done a pretty serviceable job throughout his rise given that he's always been one of the younger players in his league at each level.  And other than in his major league debut last September he's done an excellent job of keeping the ball in the park.  He might not have the upside of the others here, but he's certainly good enough to give the Nats quality innings for 35 starts a season for a few years.  He's still only 22 and started to show some pretty impressive strikeout rates last year so there's some upside that might not be evidenced in his minor league numbers. 

Jake McGeary is an interesting case in that he agreed to sign with the Nats only if they let him go to Stanford and finish school in the fall and spring and let him pitch only in the summer months.  This after also giving him a pretty hefty signing bonus.  The reason the Nats accepted the deal is because McGeary was regarded as highly as Madison Bumgarner coming out of high school.  Scouts didn't think Bumgarner would develop his secondary offerings as quickly as he did so he's put some distance between himself and McGeary, but the Nats' lefty is still plenty good, showing great control and a pretty solid feel for pitching.  This year he decided to pitch for the full season, which should result in a pretty quick ascent, maybe to the majors by the end of next year.  Like Martis and Zimmerman, he does a phenomenal job of keeping the ball in the park and racked up some impressive strikeout rates last year. 

But the guy everyone is waiting for, and with good reason, is Stephen Strasburg.  According to the database I mentioned earlier, Strasburg's age 19 season (last year) was the fourth best in the last 30 years.  The only ones that rated higher were Doc Gooden's (who also had the best for an 18-year old, largely because he was already pitching in the majors), Rick Ankiel's and Salomon Torres'.  Ankiel was a phenomenal pitching prospect and was well on his way to a Hall of Fame career as a pitcher before he developed an incurable bout of wildness on the mound.  Fortunately for us all, his big league career was not ruined as he's become a very good outfielder and hitter.  Torres' age 19 season ranked highly in large part because he threw so many innings that season - 210.1 to be exact.  The craziest part about that was it all took place in Single-A ball.  I have no clue why the Giants kept him there all season, but it does seem clear by the way they used him that year and subsequently that they had no clue how to handle young pitchers.  But I digress... at the rate Strasburg is currently going, his age 20 season (this year) will rank fourth, possibly as high as second behind only Gooden's phenomenal 1985 campaign.  The other two pitchers in that neighborhood are Roger Clemens and Yu Darvish. 

So all the talk about Strasburg being the best pitching prospect ever is not just breathless hype.  Pitchers who throw 100 mph and have the kind of control he does tend to become superstars.  The question whether or not he becomes the greatest pitcher ever depends on how good his offspeed pitches become and how well he manages to stay healthy.  A lot has been made of his mechanics but frankly I don't see much worry in them.  His delivery is pretty smooth, relaxed and easy and he doesn't appear to be pressing or straining to throw any of his pitches.  The very action of pitching is stressful on the shoulder, elbow and wrist so anyone can break down regardless of how perfect their mechanics are.  Still, in my mind the key to keeping him healthy will be his workload - pitchcounts and innings.  Currently, the Aztecs have him on a pretty strict pitch limit and I imagine the Nationals will be just as careful.  Then it's a matter of not overburdening him with too many innings his first year or two.  That doesn't mean he has to be limited to 120 innings his first year.  CC Sabathia hasn't had any physical problems yet he was pitching 180+ innings at age 20.   Depending on how many innings he finishes with this year - I imagine somewhere in the neighborhood of 110 with the Aztecs and maybe another 20 in the minors, that Strasburg should be strong enough to throw 150-160 innings next year without much risk. 

The scary part for future hitters is that his slider is already a pretty good pitch, yet there are still some subtle variances when he delivers it.  His arm speed is inconsistent when he throws it which means he's enjoying incredible success despite tipping his slider.  Once he gets that worked out and gets more familiar with his change-up, he will be something special to watch. 

Unlike the Orioles, the Nationals already have some quality depth in the major league rotation with Scott Olsen, John Lannan and Daniel Cabrera.  Detwiler and Balester offer additional potential depth albeit with less upside so even if only one of McGeary, Zimmerman or Martis work out long term, the Nats will still have a decent rotation in the coming years.  The same is true for them at the catching position as Jesus Flores, as bad as he has looked early this season, is still only a year and a half older than Wieters, yet has been playing in the majors now for going on his third year.  The Orioles have no such upside at catcher on the major league roster and the burden of the franchise's success, in addition to the considerable task of learning to catch and hit in the majors, will fall of Wieters the day he makes his debut.  For Norris, there won't any such expectations while he gets acclimated.  

And while the National League East has had it's share of pennant winners since 1995 - seven, of which four became World champions - the Nats don't face the kind of revenue stream disadvantage that the Orioles are up against.  Nor do they face the current quality and depth of farm system strength the Mariners do.  In addition to Strasburg, this year's draft doesn't have any clear top guys behind him.  The consensus is that any player picked from #2 to about #20 will be pretty solid, which makes for great news for the Nats because in addition to the # 1 overall, they also have the #10 pick, which should yield either a pretty good college arm or a pretty good high school hitter.  Either way, their farm system will deservedly gain considerably more acclaim this June. 

They say it's always darkest before the dawn and it doesn't get much darker for a franchise than what the Nats went through over the last 365 days.  However, the future of baseball in the Nation's Capital is about to get considerably brighter.