Nationals Arm Race

Jimmy Rollins steals lots of bases: did he steal one too many vs the Giants friday night? Photo: Thearon Henderson/Getty Images

(editor’s note: this post started with an email conversation amongst friends, where the Phillies fan amongst us didn’t think Rollin’s steal was “bad baseball.”)

The Giants and Phillies mixed it up in Friday 8/5’s game, a 9-2 victory (box/gamer) for Philadelphia that featured some “unwritten rule” discussion over the actions of Jimmy Rollins and subsequently Giant’s reliever Ramon Ramirez.

Here was the situation: the Phillies had just scored 2 runs to extend their lead to 8-2 in the top of the 6th inning.  The Giant’s starter Jonathan Sanchez had been knocked out of the game, and reliever Ramirez gave up a 2-run scoring single to Rollins.  Rollins promptly stole second base, and the next pitch plunked batter Shane Victorino.

Honestly, I believe it was a deserving retaliation by Ramirez and/or the Giants.  Stealing with a lead is a sliding scale; had Rollins done it in the 2nd inning with a 3-run lead it wouldn’t have gone punished, but the 6th is iffy with a 6 run lead.  Essentially, when the game appears to be out of reach, major leaguers have a tendency to just “play out the string” and expect this “conceding behavior” to be matched by the winning team.  Having been on both sides of many blowouts, there’s definitively a list of things you don’t do with a massive lead.  Steals and bunts are definitely out.  Curtailing aggressive play (taking extra bases, take-out slides, etc), swinging at 3-0 pitches and swinging out of your ass trying to hit homers are all examples of no-nos.  Certainly admiring homers and showing up a pitcher is a no-no, at nearly any point in the game (the Weaver incident earlier this week).

My Phillies friend apologist countered that the game was still close enough, that the Giants still had 4 at-bats, and the steal (though borderline) was justified.

Here’s some stats on the Giant’s offense and their capabilities of coming back, courtesy of baseball-reference.com:

• The Giants are 0-8 when giving up 8 or more runs in a game.
• They’re 12-26 when trailing after the 5th, no matter how many runs they’re down.  And,
• The largest comeback they’ve had all season in being behind 4 runs.

I’d like to find some stats on how often baseball teams make up X-run leads, but my google skills are failing me.  I’m pretty certain though that the likelihood of making up 6 run deficits is pretty slim.  Tom Boswell has done research that shows that about half of all baseball victories feature more runs scored by the winning team in ONE inning than the loser scores the entire game (his “Big Bang” theory, based on his own research).  Sure enough, the Phillies scored more runs in the 5th inning (four) than the Giants did the entire game (two).

For me, the play was bush league, broke the unwritten rules of showing up your competitors and/or running up the score, and the retaliation was not only deserved but expected.

What do you think?

Detwiler looked rather effective in his thursday start. Photo Haraz Ghanbari/AP via federalbaseball.com

For fans, the decline of the team over the past month has opened up opportunities to see glimpses of the future.  The trade of Jason Marquis opened up an immediate roster spot and it filled for the night rather ably by Yunesky Maya.  Unfortunately for Maya, his excellent start was shortened by a slight injury, which led to his demotion and subsequently he got rocked in his next AAA start.  Despite having former starter Tom Gorzelanny in the bullpen, manager Davey Johnson seems to have inserted 2007 first rounder and relative disappointment-thus-far-in-his-career Ross Detwiler into Marquis’ spot.  His first start upon his return was on Thursday August 4th against the Rockies in Denver (box/gamer).  How’d he look?

Detwiler took the loss, pitching 5 complete innings.  He gave up 5 hits, 3 walks, threw 68 pitches (only 38 of which were for strikes) with one strikeout.  Interestingly, he got 9 ground-ball outs versus just two fly-ball outs (both of which happened in the 5th, his last inning) and it took the Rockies until the fourth inning to even get a hit.   Detwiler didn’t necessarily seem to be keeping the ball down, but the Rockies were continually driving the ball into the ground.  This is definitely a good sign.  Has the team convinced him to pitch to contact more, and try to strike out fewer batters?  Because that seems to be his strategy.

So, after starting so well, what happened?  The Rockies hitters started squaring up his fastballs, most of which he was missing and hitting too much of the plate, and hit a series of solid line drives towards the end of the 4th and throughout the 5th.  Troy Tulowitzki had an excellent piece of hitting, driving an outside fastball to right field to give the Rockies two baserunners, and Ty Wiggington nailed a liner up the middle to score the first run.  Jayson Werth threw out a runner at the plate on the next single, saving Detwiler another run.  Desmond caught a screamer for the 3rd out of the inning, but the Rockies had hit the last 4 balls on the nose.  This trend continued into the 5th with Iannetta‘s leadoff double, a gapper to left center, followed (after a sac bunt) by another line-drive up the middle to eventually score him.  Detwiler got the last two outs on his only two fly balls (including a 410-foot drive to center from Todd Helton chased down by Ankiel), but Johnson had clearly seen enough.  The third time through the lineup is always tough to get through, even for good pitchers, but clearly the Rockies leading hitters were getting to Detwiler.  Johnson pinch hit for him in the top of the 6th and his night was done, despite only sitting on 68 pitches.

Relievers Balester and Mattheus each leaked in runs to allow Colorado to maintain its lead, the Nats were never really able to get to opposing starter Rogers (despite making him throw 30 pitches in the first), and Detwiler got tagged with the loss.

His arm-action has always seemed easy, and this night was no different.  He seems to be throwing effortlessly, and his release point seems to be a bit higher than the last time he featured in the majors.  This is a good thing; too much side-arm action means his curves move too horizontally to be effective.  On the night he wasn’t quite throwing as hard as we’ve come to expect: he averaged 91.9 on his fastball and humped it up to the 94.4 range on three different occasions (he can hit 95, as evidenced in his 7/5 start), more evidence that he’s working on command instead of power.  He only seems to have 3 pitches; slightly concerning for a “prospect” with his experience.  Fastballs that don’t seem to move much (pitch f/x calls them sinkers, but I don’t see a lot of sink), plus a change-up that he commands pretty well, and a curve that he clearly doesn’t trust (only throwing it twice all night).  In my opinion, major league starters need 4 pitches to survive, unless one of your pitches is such a lights out pitch with movement that you don’t need to develop secondary pitches).  Why doesn’t Detwiler have a cutter or a slider at this stage of his career?  In his only other start this season (July 5th against the Cubs), pitch f/x reveals similar pitch classifications.

Caveat: Colorado is a tough place to throw, so we need more starts to see what he really has.  Curves don’t move as much in the thin air and pitchers have a hard time keeping their hands moist enough to maintain their grips.  Plus conditioning really comes into play.

Conclusions: given the caveat, there is reason to be concerned about Detwiler’s future as a starter.  Is he really a two-pitch starter without a fastball with good movement?  If so, he’s destined for a reliever role.  The Nats clearly have a lot invested in the guy (first rounder, lots of bonus money) and he’s gotten a lot of chances and a lot of looks.  But I wonder where his long-term place is for this team.  Facing an options issue in the spring of 2012 (he’s out of them, thanks in part to Bowden’s ill-advised 2007 call-up), I’m guessing he may be eventually converted to relief.

Previously I posted that I thought the Nats should trade pretty much everyone they could, given their current spot in the standings.  How’d they do?

Here’s the moves.

• Acquiring Jonny Gomes: reviewed here.   We picked up Gomes for two minor leaguers that were either blocked (Rhinehart) or long shots (Manno).
• Trading Jerry Hairston for a decent AA outfielder in Erik Komatsu.  Honestly I was a bit surprised Hairston was moved, given his valuable multi-position coverage for this team this year.  Komatsu wasn’t a BA top10 prospect for Milwaukee, but they did rate him as being the Brewer’s best hitting-for-average prospect in the pre-season.  He has a good pedigree (Cal State Fullerton product) and is doing well in AA this year.  He seems to be another attempt to build the outfielder pipeline that has been pretty poor, and has left the team continually struggling for a quality center fielder.
• Trading Jason Marquis for a low-minors shortstop in Zach Walters.  Walters was spoken well of by his former U  San Diego teammate Sammy Solis, and has been hitting well this season (albeit he’s playing in low-A as a college draftee).  Some advocated against trading Marquis; not I though, figuring that Marquis was going to draw a decent prospect from somewhere.

In my “what I’d like to see the Nats do” post a few days ago, I basically advocated trading everybody we could.  Clearly having Laynce Nix and Ivan Rodriguez on the DL (either current or recently) prevented them from being trade candidates, and moving Livan Hernandez probably would have left a massive veteran leadership hole in the pitching corps.  We DFA’d Matt Stairs (not that he was ever going to be a trade candidate), and I’d guess that both Rick Ankiel and Alex Cora could still be waiver-wire trades made closer to the post season.  The one move that remains a surprise is not trading Todd Coffey, a decent right hander out of the pen that surely could have shorn up someone’s bullpen for a low-level prospect.

In the “non-move” category, I’m glad we didn’t move Drew Storen for Denard Span as was frequently mentioned in trade rumors leading up to the 7/31 deadline.  Honestly i’d rather pursue BJ Upton in the off season for a higher-ceiling guy.  Clippard is valuable but is a reliever, and despite the tendency of fans to overvalue their own relievers, the return didn’t seem to be worth the disruption to the bullpen.

I’m guessing a few of these expiring contract guys may be post waiver-wire trade possibilities, but all in all I’m happy with the moves and non-moves.  I certainly don’t agree with the pundits who are labeling the team “losers” in the trade market.