Nationals Arm Race

If you let Gorzelanny bat in the 7th .. then why don't you let him finish the game? Photo: AP

I was lucky enough to be in attendance at Monday, 5/1’s Nats win over the Giants and saw Tom Gorzelanny‘s best performance of the year.

However, once again I had to question the in-game management from Jim Riggleman.  Gorzelanny was cruising along and sat at somewhere around 78 pitches through 7 innings, having only given up 2 hits.  Meanwhile Madison Bumgarner had absolutely shut down the Nationals, perfect through four and having only given up one hit through 6.  In the bottom of the 7th, Miguel Tejada blows a simple 2-out grounder that opened the floodgates and allowed 2 runs to score (I was there; it was a blatant error and the crowd actually boo’d the official scorer giving the play a hit).

Suddenly, the Nats have the bases loaded situation against a pitcher clearly on the ropes … only the pitcher’s spot is coming up.  What does Riggleman do?  He lets Gorzelanny bat, lefty-against-lefty, with the bases loaded and 2 outs.  Predictably he weakly grounds out to the pitcher to end the rally.

So, old-school types would say, “ok well Riggleman thinks Gorzelanny is going to finish the game, if you’re leaving him in to clearly end a big rally.”

But here’s what I didn’t get: Gorzelanny starts the 8th inning and ONLY THEN does the bullpen get working.  Coffey is up, Burnett is up.  Gorzelanny gets into some trouble in the 8th, giving up a hit and a walk, but gets through the inning and is sitting at 95 pitches.  You look out into the bullpen now, and Storen is warming up.  The Nats go down in the eight inning, and suddenly you see Storen trotting to the mound.

What the heck is going on?  If you were NOT going to let Gorzelanny finish the game, then why did you let him bat in the 7th?   But, by letting him bat you were tacitly telling your pitcher, ” you did a great job tonight, go get the complete game.”  Only you yank him with 95 pitches and without even going back out to start the 9th inning.

Something’s inconsistent here.  As far as I could tell, one of 3 things was going on:

1. Riggleman just forgot to get someone warmed up and was caught off guard by the Nats rally in the 7th.  Suddenly Gorzelanny was at the plate but nobody was warmed up and he had to bat.
2. Riggleman has no right-handed pinch-hitting options, only Stairs and Nix on the bench (he couldn’t burn Pudge as the 2nd catcher), so he figured neither of them would give a good at-bat against Bumgarner, so why not go with Gorzelanny.
3. He fully intended to allow Gorzelanny to go for the complete game, only he saw something during the 8th inning that told him, “hey, Gorzelanny is spent and we need to get him out of there.”

As it turned out, the team won the game.  But in my opinion you trade an inning of your starter in that situation for a chance to blow open the game.  Why else do we have a highly paid pinch hitting specialist sitting on the bench all game??  If the Nats had blown that game by not trying to get a hit in that bases-loaded situation, I would have been pretty irritatated.

At the same time … I understand the veteran mentality mentality of letting guys finish games, or letting them try to get complete games.  Its shows a level of respect and professionalism to your players.  But if that’s what you’re doing … then do it!  Don’t yank the guy after one more inning like its just another ball game.

What do you guys think?

Manno-maniacs are excited about his great start. Photo Mark Brisco via flickr.com

Here are the daily links from NationalsProspects, for reference below:

• Wednesday 4/27 game reviews (DH for Syracuse, Potomac)
• Thursday 4/28 game reviews
• Friday 4/29 game reviews
• Saturday 4/30 game reviews
• Sunday 5/1 game reviews

Good

• Brad Peacock continues his strong start to the season, going for 7IP 5H 1R 1ER 1BB 7K 1HR on 4/28.   His and Meyer’s continued performances are drawing the interest of the big club’s beat reporters, as Adam Kilgore posted this story over the weekend.
• Brad Meyers didn’t have an overpowering strike out night, but did have an excellent effort on 4/29: 8IP 6H 1R 1ER 0BB 4K.  As noted in Kilgore’s article, he now has 31Ks and 0BBs on the season.  That’s pretty durn good.
• Taylor Jordan improved to 5-0 on the season with a clean outing on 4/28: 5IP 5H 1R 1ER 2BB 4K.  Not the greatest outing but enough to get the win for Hagerstown.
• Bobby Hansen rebounded nicely from a crummy outing to have a very good one on 4/29: 6IP 2H 1R 1ER 1BB 6K.  If you take out his 4/23 start he’s given up 3 earned runs in 17 innings on the season.  He could be one to watch, absolutely.
• Yunesky Maya finally broke out in Syracuse, throwing 8 scoreless innings and giving up just 3  hits in 4/30’s victory.  It was clearly the most dominant he’s looked in a Nats affiliate uniform.  71 of 104 pitches for strikes, 11 ground ball outs.  I would have liked to have seen this game because it sounds like he finally had it going.
• Paul Demny had an odd outing on 4/30: he pitched 5 scoreless but he seemed less than dominant.  He gave up 3 hits and 3 walks, but had only 1 strike out and gave up a number of fly ball outs.  This may be one of those games you had to see in order to properly judge it.  I’ll give him a “good” outing though by virtue of no runs and so few hits.
• Cameron Selik continues to put his name in the mix for organizational pitcher of the month by getting his third victory and his 5th straight good-to-great outing.  Line on 4/30: 6IP 8H 1R 1ER 0BB 7K.  His numbers through 5 starts are ridiculous: 29ip, 1 run, 30 ks and 3 walks.
• Evan Bronson had a nice little outing on Sunday for Potomac: 5IP 2H 1R 1ER 2BB 4K.  This was Bronson’s first start of the season and it seemed to be a spot-start (because of the 4/27 double-header).  He may be a candidate to replace the struggling Holder though, in Potomac’s rotation.
• Matt Grace had a similarly good outing on sunday for Hagerstown: 6IP 2H 0R 3BB 3K.  It is nice to see Grace rebounding from 3 sub-par outings.

Bad

• JD Martin did himself no favors and got hammered again on 4/27, giving up 6 runs (on 3 homers) in less than 5 innings.
• Chris McKenzie‘s awful outing on 4/27 was delayed after he gave up 7 runs in the first inning and a third he pitched.  Oddly the game isn’t to be completely replayed; they resumed it the next day.
• Paul Applebee may not have gotten an official “start” in 4/28’s rain-resumed game, but it was essentially a spot start situation.  He did not do well; 4 runs on 5 hits and a walk in 4 2/3s.
• Lefty Tom Milone got bliztzed on 4/28, failing to get out of the 3rd.  Line; 3⅔ IP 10H 7R 7ER 1BB 2K.  Ugly.
• Craig Stammen got beat around by the long ball on 4/29: 6⅔ IP 6H 5R 5ER 1BB 6K 2HR.
• Shairon Martis put in his second disappointing start in a row on 4/30: 4⅓ IP 8H 3R 0ER 3BB 5K.  For a guy who was in Washington’s 2009 rotation, its amazing that he cannot get guys out now in AA.  Is he hurt?
• Wow, what happened to Ross Detwiler on sunday 5/1?  2⅔ IP 9H 7R 7ER?!  That’s so out of character for a guy who was in serious contention for a MLB rotation slot that you almost have to believe he was hurt or sick or something.  He’s trending the wrong way for sure (see trends section below).
• Erik Davis struggled on sunday, getting knocked around for 5IP 10H 6R 5ER 1BB 5K in Harrisburg.

Mediocre/Inconclusive

• Erik Arneson‘s spot start in AAA on 4/27 (to provide cover in a DH) wasn’t half bad: 5 innings pitched, 8 hits and 3 runs.
• Ryan Tatusko improved from his last outing, but still put in a mediocre appearance on 4/27 (9 hits and 4 runs in less than 6 innings).  Where has last year’s 1.72 era-throwing pitcher gone?
• Mitchell Clegg held the fort down for 4 innings, but couldn’t finish the 5th, getting battered around for the loss on 4/27.
• Danny Rosenbaum put in a decent performance in the 2nd half of 4/27’s double-header, getting some unlucky hits and giving up 3 runs (2 earned) on 4 hits and 6ks in 5 innings.
• Trevor Holder put in a mediocre outing on 4/28: 6IP 8H 4R 3ER 2BB 3K.  I feel like his time in the high-A rotation is ticking.
• Marcos Frias had a meltdown on 4/29, going for 5⅔ 8H 5R 4ER 2BB 6K 1HR.  He improves from a “bad” rating by virtue of the strikeouts, barely.
• Potomac’s Ryan Demmin may be holding on to his job by a thread after a second meltdown within a week.  He got torched for 3 homers and gave up 5 runs in an inning of work on 4/30, the second time in a week he put up a comparable line.  He’s young and a lefty, but he’ll have to throw scoreless outings for the rest of the season to get his ERA back to respectability.

Relievers of Note and other Thoughts

• Arneson’s promotion was rather odd to me: why promote a middle reliever to AAA to make a spot start?  Perhaps the organization didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the AA rotation right now.  Or perhaps they knew Arneson had AAA experience from last year and plan to use him in the AAA bullpen regardless.  Or perhaps he’s coming right back down to AA at some point.  Update: he was returned right back to AA when Bernadina came back from the majors.  Arneson may end up being this year’s version of Jason Jones, a minor league veteran at 28 who pitched at 3 different levels for the team last year.
• Josh Smoker continues to show improvement in his new role.  He had 3Ks in an inning and a third on 4/29 and has given up just one run in 7 appearances on the season.  It is still disappointing that the supplemental-first rounder is now a loogy in high-A, but at least he’s showing more value than in years past.
• Christopher Manno keeps on mowing them down in Hagerstown: his line for the season now stands at 11 1/3 ip, 6 hits, 2 runs both unearned, 19ks and 2bbs.  That’s a pretty good line.

Trends

AAA trends:
Maya        bad,soso,soso,good,great
Detwiler    good,good,soso,soso,bad
Martin     bad,bad
Milone    good,soso,soso,bad
Stammen    good,soso,great,bad
(Arneson    soso)
(Mock        good,bad,really bad->DL)

AA Trends:
Meyers    good,bad,good,great,good
Martis     bad,bad
EDavis    good,soso,good,bad
Tatusko    soso,bad,bad,soso
Peacock    soso,good,great,good
(Barthmaier    bad)
(Atilano    soso,bad->DL)

High-A Trends:
Rosenbaum    soso,good,good,soso
Holder    soso,bad,bad,soso
Frias        good,good,bad,soso
Demny        good,bad,good,good
Clegg        soso,soso,soso
(Bronson    good)
(Caldera bad,bad->released)

Low-A Trends:
Selik        good,good,good,great,good
Grace        good,bad,bad,bad,good
McKenzie    good,bad,bad,bad
Jordan    good,soso,good,good
Hansen    soso,good,very bad,very good
(Applebee    bad,soso,bad)

3 pitchers who are earning a promotion: Meyers, Peacock, Selik

3 pitchers who need to be worried about their jobs: Martin, Martis, Holder

Marquis is putting himself in a very enviable position with his great start to 2011. Photo Al Bello/Getty images via bleacherreport.com

As Jason Marquis was putting the finishing touches on his 5-hit shutout last Friday, I got a hypothetical question from Jason, a buddy of mine: If Marquis continues this great start, what should the team do with him?

To review the facts at hand:

• Through 5 starts, he’s 3-0 with a 2.62 era and 1.165 whip.  That’s good for a 149 ERA+.
• More importantly,this performance does not seem to be the product of luck or chance; his FIP and xFIP are excellent (2.47 and 3.13 respectively).  By way of comparison, the MLB best FIP last year was 2.41 (Josh Johnson), and the best xFIP was 2.92 (Roy Halladay).  Lastly his BABIP is .306, so if anything he’s been slightly unlucky on batted balls.  So he’s definitely pitching at a very elite level.
• He’s in the 2nd year of a 2yr/$15M deal ($7.5M each year).
• He’s 32, and turns 33 in August.

I think the answer is, “trade him for prospects” and here’s why.

1. I don’t think he’s part of the long term solution for this team.  We’ve got too many up-and-coming arms in the minors to block them with a veteran.
2. He’ll be 33 at the end of the season, and may be looking for a 3 year deal if he pitches well enough.  I’m not sure the team wants to commit to a career 98 ERA+ guy for 3 years.
3. Despite his fantastic start, and even if he continues, I just don’t think he’s that good of a pitcher.  He’s got a career ERA in the 4.50 range.  He’s generally been considered a durable, low K/9 but high K/BB innings eater, the kind of guy you make your 4th or 5th starter.
4. He’s in a contract year, and he’s shown some tendencies to pitch better when he’s playing for his next contract.  The best season of his previous 3year deal was in the final year of that deal in Colorado.
5. The Nats are not going to compete in 2011.  We’re struggling to stay at .500, have very little offense right now, and are certain to trade their veteran/one-year contract guys at the deadline.  This is one of the main reasons we made room and retained guys like Chad Gaudin and Laynce Nix at the expense of Balester and Bernadina.

The counter arguments?  If Marquis’ 2011 performance is really more in line with what he’s capable of, then he could be a really valuable addition to a 2012 rotation that (at this point) seems to include Strasburg, Zimmermann, Lannan, and Gorzelanny.   He’s throwing 91-92 with serious downward movement (sink) right now and he’s really difficult to hit against.  Perhaps he’s turned a corner and escaping the altitude in Colorado really has enabled his sinker to become closer to unhittable.

He’s pitching at a higher level than his $7.5M AAV contract (seemingly on pace for another 14-15 win season), and could be considered a real bargain if we could sign him to a comparable number for 3 more years.

But, if Marquis is retained it leaves little room for advancement for any of a slew of AAA and AA prospects we have overachieving right now in the organization.  The question becomes this; would you rather pay for the proven starter or roll the dice with rising prospects who cost one-twentieth the salary?  Honestly, the most valuable commodity in baseball is the pre-arbitration ace starter (think Clay Buchholz going 17-7 in 2010 and getting paid $443k) and it may be worth the gamble.  But these AA arms are just prospects; despite having sparkling k/9 numbers in AA, there’s no guarantee that translates to the majors.  Some GMs want the known quantity versus the unknown gamble, and there’s a very legitimate argument that keeping Marquis gives us the “known quantity.”

I think the move is to flip Marquis to a contender at or before the trade deadline.  Honestly, wouldn’t the New York Yankees LOVE to have him to shore up their rotation?  And wouldn’t he love to go to New York, since he hails from New Jersey and reportedly still lives there in the off season?  Trade him, get some higher-end prospects that are quick to the majors (think the Wilson Ramos–Matt Capps deal last year) and prepare for 2012.