Rizzo
and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year
December 10, 2015
It has not been a good
year for the Nationals; I would argue that 2015 will go down as the worst in
team history. No, they didn’t finish with the worst record ever but there were such
high - and entirely justified - expectations going into the season and what
ensued was a disastrous-to-the-point-of-almost-comical trainwreck.
Much of the blame rightly fell squarely on the shoulders of
manager – now ex-manager – Matt Williams. He lost the confidence of his
players and was a brutally inept in-game strategist. Career years from great players like the one
from Bryce Harper last year are credited with 9-10 extra wins above what
another player might have produced; Williams’ performance as a manager probably
generated an extra 10-12 losses.
So GM Mike Rizzo has a lot
of ground to make up this offseason to make sure that
2016 does not end the same way 2015 did. However, we’re halfway through the
critical GM meetings – where much of the offseason
player movement finds its genesis – and it is not looking optimistic.
Mike Rizzo’s checklist:
New manager: He had an agreement to bring on Bud Black as the new manager, but
that process was undercut when either Rizzo or ownership not only low-balled
the salary but would not guarantee more than a year initially and drew the line
at two years guaranteed. Black rightly withdrew from the negotiation and the Nats went with Plan B, Dusty Baker.
Baker is a somewhat
controversial pick because he’s had some success but his teams have
underachieved for the talent they’ve had. Baker likes to point out that the
teams he inherited in previous stops had finished low in the standings the year
before he arrived, only to be turned around under his guidance. What he
conveniently forgets is that the year he took over the Giants, they also signed
Barry Bonds. The year he took over the Cubs was Mark Prior's first full season
in the bigs. The year he took over the Reds was Joey Votto's first full season. Maybe Dusty had a hand in each
team's improvement but there were some unquestionably significant player
additions to the roster.
What he also doesn’t talk
about is the number of stellar pitching talents that have either flamed out or
never got on track under his care. The most notable names are Kerry Wood and
Mark Prior, but Salomon Torres and Kurt Ainsworth both failed to materialize
under Baker, and Joe Nathan might have been added to that list had he not been
traded to the Twins and converted to relief. In addition, Shawn Estes, Russ
Ortiz, Edinson Volquez,
Carlos Zambrano were routinely allowed to walk half
the park in their starts. Baker-managed pitchers have five of the 25 highest
totals for walks in a season since 1993 (when Baker got his first chance at
managing). Is that a function of his managing or of the player? Perhaps a bit
of both but it is notable that after Baker and each of these pitchers parted
ways, all but one of them improved his walk rate the next year.
It is indisputable fact
that Baker routinely left his starters on the mound longer than he probably
should have. According to a Washington
Post defense of Baker’s record, “Early in his tenure as manager, Baker’s
starters were used in a large number of starts in which they saw their
pitch count soar upwards of 120 pitches. For example, in 1999, the average NL
team had 13 starting pitchers throw at least 120 pitches. Baker’s Giants
had 30 such starts. The following year, Baker’s staff had nearly double the
league average, 29 vs. 15. And that trend continued through his stint with the
Cubs. However, beginning in 2008 with the Reds, Baker started to change his
ways, falling in line with what we would expect from the league’s other
starting pitchers.”
And yet despite keeping
his starters on the mound longer than anyone, they were among the worst in
completing games. In 20 seasons of managing, his teams have finished in the
bottom 10 in the majors for complete games ten times. Had he been managing in
the American League with line-ups featuring a DH that might not have been a big
deal. Or if he had a reputation like Sparky “Captain
Hook” Anderson, who yanked his starters routinely, it would make sense. But
Baker left his guys on the mound longer than anyone yet was unable to give his
bullpen a day off more often than anyone. For me, that reveals a manager who
either is not watching what’s happening on the mound or doesn’t understand what
he’s seeing.
In the interest of
accuracy, Baker was still above league average in leaving his starters on the
mound for 120+ pitches even after 2008; he just was not double the league
average anymore. So what changed? The addition of Aroldis
Chapman to the bullpen gave Baker perhaps the most powerful relief arm in
history to pitch a couple of innings. So we don’t really know if Baker has
learned the lesson or not. And for a team with potentially great young arms
like Lucas Giolito (21) and Joe Ross (22), that is
quite disconcerting, especially since the Nats don’t
have Chapman or even a very close approximation.
It is encouraging that
that shortly after hiring Baker the Nats also hired
premier pitching coach Mike Maddux, so there’s some
hope that Baker’s bad trend with pitching will at least be mitigated. But
that’s not the only concern. Baker also has a well-deserved reputation for
being out-managed in big games, so it looks like the Nats
will also have to bring in a premier bench coach to possibly mitigate that
issue as well. Perhaps it would have been simpler (and less expensive) to find
a better manager in the first place. Time will tell.
What is particularly
critical about bringing Baker on board is the fact that Stephen Strasburg will
be a free agent after this season and Bryce Harper will be eligible after next
season. If Baker has not developed a winning culture in
Bullpen:
This is absolutely the Nats greatest need, partly because it was the greatest
source of failure last season and partly because this team will need a great
one to overcome Baker’s frequent late-game
missteps. Papelbon and Storen
were disasters both on and off the field for the final two months of last
season. Papelbon has proved particularly problematic
because of his demand to close and high salary for someone at his position,
which makes him nearly impossible to trade. Making it even more difficult is
his reputation as a clubhouse disruption, which he clearly earned in just the
short time he’s had with the team. This is looking more like a bitter pill in which
the Nats simply have to swallow his salary and
release him. As for Storen, he has the talent to be
an excellent reliever but his time in
So far, the only bullpen
arm Rizzo has added this off-season is Oliver Perez, who can be very good but
has also had stretches of being absolutely brutal. He is basically a
left-handed specialist at $3+ million a year for a team that is looking very
much like it will need many innings out of their bullpen.
What is surprising is that
there are some high quality bullpen arms (some with closing experience)
available - Steve Cishek, Jonathan Broxton, Fernando
Rodney, Shawn Kelley, Juan Nicasio, Joel Peralta,
etc. – yet Rizzo has been unable or unwilling to roster any of them. John Axford, Darren O’Day and David
Hernandez were also available but the Nats whiffed on
them already. This situation is bordering on dire.
Rotation:
The top of the rotation is
fine with Scherzer and Strasburg, but Gio Gonzales probably should be a 4th starter.
The Nats will definitely feel the departure of Jordan
Zimmermann, whose hallmark was an indomitable will. When the team needed 7-8
innings from a starter in order to rest the bullpen, or a quality start in a
big game, Zimmermann always seemed to post up. Gonzales, on the other hand, is
wildly inconsistent. He has great talent but not the determination to fully
realize his potential, and in the post-season he has been profoundly
disappointing.
Tanner Roark is
serviceable but not the kind of pitcher that is featured in a championship
rotation. He looked great in 2013 and 2014 but that’s not who he is. That year
and a half he was very lucky on balls in play, reasonably lucky on strand rates
and extremely lucky on keeping flyballs in the park.
Last year was much more who he really is. He’s more of a 5th starter
than the linchpin of a great rotation.
Which leaves Joe Ross, who
will be a very good starter eventually but he’s still young enough that
workload is a concern. This means the Nats will need
at least one more quality starter for innings. Perhaps Rizzo will be able to
find what he needs from the bargain bin, but if he waits too much longer,
that’s all that will be available. That is a bit worrisome given his checkered
track record for finding mid-range starters. Dan Haren,
Chien-Ming Wang and Edwin Jackson ranged from
underwhelming to outright flops. Doug Fister was great for one year but was
terrible the next.
The current rumor is that
he is trying to sign Mike Leake, who’s a solid
pitcher and would certainly give the team innings. He’s an intriguing choice
because his fastball’s average velocity has been increasing for five straight
years and he doesn’t walk many batters, but his results so far have been league
average. There’s some debate over whether he will ever be more than an average
starter. What will help is having a
great infield defense behind him if he does sign, as he is very
groundball-heavy.
Infield:
The current options at
shortstop/second base are Trea Turner, Wilmer Difo, Danny Espinosa and Yunel
Escobar. There’s some talent there for sure but Turner and Difo
will both be rookies. If they prove to be overmatched at the plate then the
keystone becomes Espinosa, who is better defensively than Ian Desmond was but
has a lot more swing and miss in his game, and Yunel
Escobar, who makes contact but doesn’t bring much else to the game. Third base is
in excellent hands with Anthony Rendon back; he just
needs to stay off the disabled list. Similarly, Ryan Zimmerman is an excellent
hitter but has not played more than 100 games since 2013. The Nats definitely have depth issues and if Escobar ends up at
shortstop, then they also have some defensive limitations as well. Tyler Moore
and Clint Robinson are both capable of playing first base and the outfield but
the Nats still need someone who can play high quality
defense at the other infield spots if the rookies don’t pan out.
Outfield:
Jayson Werth is getting older
and has played 130 games in a season just once since 2011. Michael Taylor is
talented but is probably best suited to be a 4th outfielder until he
learns to tame his urge to swing at everything.
So the Nationals should be in the market for another outfielder. They
could also use another hitter from the left side to help Harper balance the
line-up. And it just so happens that
there are several left-side hitting outfielders
available. Alex Gordon and Jason Heyward are the
premier free-agents and Carlos Gonzalez is being shopped. On the next level
down are Dexter Fowler and Gerardo Parra. So far that Nationals have not seriously looked at any of them.
Conclusion:
On the surface the
Nationals appear to be a team with few needs. But the reality is that they have
vital needs in the bullpen, rotation, infield and outfield, as well as the
coaching staff. There should be a real sense of urgency to fix so many
weaknesses and at least from the public’s perspective, there has been none. If
Rizzo does not start to address these needs in short order, he could very well
be looking for work next winter.