Why the Nationals Will NEVER Win
September
9, 2015
With
every team there are many obstacles to overcome for them to win the
championship. However, there are two obstacles that weigh most heavily against a
team’s chances and unfortunately for the Nationals, they have both of them.
Wilson Ramos work
behind the plate:
The
first is the ability of the catcher behind the plate. Guys like Buster Posey, Yadier and Bengie Molina, David
Ross, Jason Varitek, AJ Pierzinski
and Ivan Rodriguez have dominated the game from behind the plate with their
pitch calling, framing and blocking skills. The fact that they’ve been pretty
good with a bat in their hands has been a pleasant bonus. Unfortunately for the
Nats, they don’t have such a guy.
One
at bat encapsulates my frustration with Ramos. It happened versus the Cardinals
with Matt Holliday at the plate. It’s been pretty well established that
Holliday doesn’t handle good fastball’s low and inside. And for two strikes
that is what Ramos called. But in the deciding pitch, he set up right in the
middle of the plate and called for a change-up. Of course, Holliday rifled a
hit to left field on the next pitch. Ramos either outsmarted himself or was
utterly clueless about Holliday’s tendencies, but the result was the same.
Since this was not an isolated incident – in fact, it seems to happen with
alarming frequency – one must begin to make the case that it is a function of
the latter. The Nationals pitchers get hit way too hard for the talent they
have. The team would be much better off with a better receiver – a Henry
Blanco-type - even if he couldn’t hit worth a lick.
Another
example: in a critical game against the Mets, Matt Williams brought
hard-throwing rookie Felipe Rivero in with men on
base but only needing one out to get out of the inning. But instead of setting
up over the heart of the plate and giving the rookie an easy target, Ramos set
up on the outside edge increasing the difficulty of throwing a strike in an already
difficult situation. The result was predictable: two walks and another visit
from Williams to bring in another reliever.
Another
example: when Strasburg pitches, Ramos starts 80% of the hitters off with a
fastball. Strasburg has four pitches, three of which grade as plus offerings.
Only his slider is average or below. With that kind of selection there is
simply no excuse to limit the pitcher to one pitch to start off each batter.
Even with the rest of the staff he doubles up on pitches more than 50% of the
time, allowing batters to look for a pitch. A smart catcher, a good catcher,
would force hitters to guess what is coming rather than allow him to know
what’s coming and simply select where he’s going to look for it.
Ramos
is also one of the worst in MLB at blocking errant pitches. Even though his
passed ball numbers look very good, he receives for one of the best control
staffs in the majors. The Nats walk the fewest
batters in the majors by a significant margin. They have led the majors in
fewest walks the last three seasons and the last two by more than 30 walks,
despite the fact that they are routinely among the leaders in strikeouts as
well. They have also thrown the fewest wild pitches of any team over the last
three seasons. So they don’t throw many pitches off-the-mark. Yet when they do,
they can almost rest assured that it will go to the back-stop because of Ramos’
poor technique.
Even
framing he’s average at best for his career and over the last two seasons he’s
actually cost the Nationals runs. One possible reason is that he tries to
finesse every pitch instead of only the closest ones, so the umpire no longer
gives him the benefit of the doubt, or worse, gets annoyed by his attempted
manipulation and goes the other way with the call. Either way, it means his
pitcher loses an advantage and has to throw an extra pitch during the plate
appearance.
So
it really doesn’t matter what he does with his 450+ plate appearances at the
plate because it is far outweighed by negative impact he’s responsible for
during the other 4500+ times he
has a play on defense.
Matt Williams’ dreadful
management:
But
the biggest obstacle to October success is Matt Williams. We see him looking
out at the field during games but it’s unclear what he’s seeing because far too
often his decisions certainly don’t fit the situation. There are numerous
examples of this, the most famous of which happened during last year’s playoff
against the Giants.
Jordan
Zimmerman had held the Giants to three hits and had thrown 102 pitches through
8 2/3 innings in Game 2 of the NLDS. Even after a walk to Joe Panik that should have been called strike three on two
separate pitches, he still looked fresh and dominant. In his previous outing he
had thrown a no-hitter against the Marlins. This was a pitcher peaking at the
right time and the Nationals had no one in the bullpen nearly as effective. Yet
Matt Williams strode out to the mound and with only one out to get, removed his
ace to bring in Drew Storen, a pitcher with a
much-chronicled history of troubles in the post-season. Of course, the result
was the Giants tied the game with two hits in the next two batters and
eventually won the game in extras, leaving the Nats
0-2 at home to begin a short series.
Over
the next two games, Williams continued to mismanage the bullpen, bringing in
inexperienced relievers into critical situations, leaving playoff veterans
twiddling in the bullpen until games were out of hand, forgetting to warm-up
match-up pitchers and not pinch-hitting in big late-inning situations.
Earlier
in the season he had benched Bryce Harper for not running out a come-backer to
the pitcher. This for a guy who had injured himself in each of
the previous two seasons while hustling too much. You show me a major
league player who runs out every come-backer to the pitcher and I will show you
the first to do it in 50 years. It doesn’t even make sense to run those out
because the baserunner could pull a hamstring trying
to beat out a .01% chance to being safe. Sure enough, within a week after his
benching, Harper injured himself over-hustling.
There
are plenty of examples this year as well.
Some of the more memorable are:
In
the fourth inning of a game in which the Nationals were trailing 1-0 to Tom
Koehler and the Marlins, with runners on base Williams decided to bring the
infield in. In the fourth inning? Against
the Marlins 4th starter? Did he actually think his team could
not score more than 2 runs against the Marlins 4th starter? The
Marlin’s hitter had an easy time pushing a ball past the drawn-in infield to
score the runs and they went on to win the game.
In
the aforementioned Mets game, with a lead of 7-1, Williams let Blake Treinen start the 7th inning. Treinen struggled with his command but had gotten two outs
while giving up a run. Instead of letting him finish the inning – even dumb
luck likely would have gotten him out of trouble with a healthy lead in tact –
Williams used two more relievers, none of whom could throw strikes
consistently. The result was that the lead vanished by the end of the frame.
There’s no guarantee that the same would not have happened using Treinen alone, but at least in that case the Nats would have come away with only one reliever in need of
therapy rather than three. And in using three relievers, not only are those
pitchers limited in how they can be used over the next few days, but now they
must question whether Williams has confidence in any of them. Ironically, a
similar situation occurred in
In
another instance, he announced Jayson Werth as the potential pinch hitter in the 7th
inning of a game with 2 men on base. When it came time for that spot in the
line-up to bat, he changed Werth for Clint Robinson.
It makes absolutely no sense to send Werth up unless
you’re going to use him. First of all, Werth doesn’t
have any significant splits; he hits righties and
lefties. Either way he’s not going to force the opposing manager to make a
pitching change. Second, there’s no guarantee that there will be a better
opportunity later to score the tying and winning runs. Werth
represented the best bat off the bench and this represented the Nats best chance to score in the game. If the purpose was
to force the opposing manager to use his bullpen, then he should have used a
decoy who had a pronounced split against one side; Werth isn’t that guy.
Was Williams assuming that the opposing manager was as clueless as he
was? The result was a wasted bench player and another loss.
On
August 1st in a 2-1 game with Joe Ross on the mound against the
Mets, he had him pitch to Lucas Duda, who had been on
a bit of a tear lately. He had already homered off
Ross and had homered in 5 of his previous 20 at bats.
Yeah, all of his hits during that span were homers but why take the chance with
Wilmer Flores hitting behind him? Of course, the result was a home run. Later
in the game he walked Yoennis Cespedes,
who was new to the league but had faced Matt Thornton before (0-2) with Granderson on second, in order to face Duda
again. Maybe Cespedes gets a base hit but you know Duda has been hot. Why increase his focus by intentionally
walking the guy in front of him? Of course, Duda got
a hit and drove in the winning run.
Perhaps
the most embarrassing proof that Williams really isn’t paying attention to
what’s going on the field was Joey Votto’s 3-ball
walk in a game against the Reds. It’s true, the pitcher or the catcher should
have said something about Votto trotting to first
base after only three balls outside the strikezone,
but the manager should definitely be in the game enough to know that something
was wrong. Williams didn’t even raise an eyebrow, much less an argument.
He
also doesn’t seem to pay much attention to his line-up either. When lead-off
man and center fielder Denard Span went down with an
injury, he placed his defensive replacement Michael Taylor at lead-off for the
next 28 games. That’s a convenient switch to keep players in their regular spot
in the order but in the grand scheme of things not the best idea to foment run
scoring when your lead-off man has a career OBP under
.300 and at times this season has been as low as .265. That’s his on base
percentage, not his batting average. Even in 1968 when the league average on
base was just a hair under .300 (.2985), he would have been a terrible choice
for a lead-off hitter.
Last
year Anthony Rendon was about as good a defensive
third baseman as there was in the majors. This year, he injured himself on a
play in spring training and spent much of the first four months on the DL due
to that and an abdominal injury. I don’t know if Williams should shoulder the
blame for this or whether the decision came from GM Mike Rizzo, but when he
returned he was placed at second base and career shortstop Yunel Escobar was
kept at third despite having played on 22 games in his career at third before
this year. So presumably in an effort to keep Rendon
healthy - which it did not do – he moved his best defensive infielder to a
position where he was merely average and kept an inexperienced third baseman at
the position where is at best
average. Escobar had played about as much second base as third before this
season but the difference is that he was actually a good defensive second
baseman. In the end it does not matter if sabotaging the infield defense was
Williams’ decision or Rizzo’s; at some point, someone has to realize there’s a
better way and it should be the guy who watches every play from field level.
Needless
to say, this team is very mistake prone when it comes to fundamental play and
even five months into the season they make mental errors that should have been
corrected in spring training and the first month of the season.
In
another stupefying example, Williams made a double switch late in a game that
brought the pitcher’s spot up sooner. The main advantage of making a double
switch is that you can place the pitcher’s spot in the line-up as far from
coming up as possible. To fumble this is beyond basic managerial strategy; this
suggests someone who hasn’t watched baseball before.
And
unlike the fiery competitor he was as a player, Williams rarely gets agitated
with the calls and never with anything that can’t be overturned with replay.
It’s as if he’s expecting someone else to call attention to ongoing
misjudgments against his team. Manny Acta behaved the
same way and not coincidentally, the Nats
underperformed for him as well.
It’s
not just his understanding of what is happening on the field. His
decision-making process is incredibly flawed as well. He stated after a loss
that he
pinch hit Tyler Moore in the
ninth against Steve Cishek because he was 1-for-1
career against him. So one at bat qualifies as a large enough sample to use? He went to say that Jayson Werth was unavailable in that situation
except in an emergency, but I guess being down one run in the ninth inning
didn't qualify.
As
talented as the Nationals are, with Williams pulling the on-field strings they
will always find a way to lose to the smarter-managed teams like the Giants and
the Cardinals. Until that changes, they will never win the three series in a
row necessary to bring home a championship no matter how many “great personnel
moves” GM Mike Rizzo is credited with by the sabermetricia.
Rizzo has had a long relationship with Williams dating back to his days in