Nationals Arm Race

After finishing the evaluation of all 6 minor league pitching staffs, plus finally finishing (and posting yesterday) the MLB season review,  here’s an entirely too-early projection of what the staffs and rotations may look like in 2013.  This post assumes for the time being that all major and minor league FAs will opt out and we’ll be looking to fill spots.  In these cases I’ll mark FAs to be as needed, though we very well may acquire these players in trade.

Note: some of these projections are slightly different from the original reviews posted in the per-level links, to account for moves, performances and roster moves that have already happened or seem set to happen this off-season.  I’ve also made some slight adjustments in order to make the rotations and bullpens work at each level.

(notations: FA = free agent, MLFA == Minor League Free Agent)

Staff Review links: MLB is here, AAA is here, AA is here, High-A is here, Low-A is here, Short-A is here, GCL is here.

• MLB Rotation: Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Detwiler, FA or other acquisition
• MLB Bullpen: Clippard, Storen, Mattheus, Stammen, Garcia, a FA left-hander (possibly Burnett), a FA long-man (possibly Gorzelanny).
• MLB notables Out of Organization: Jackson, Burnett, Gonzalez, Lannan, Wang

MLB Narrative: 4/5ths of the rotation are no-brainers.  The 5th starter is the question mark for 2013.  Do we re-sign Jackson and pay him more as a 5th starter than our big 3 guys?  It doesn’t seem so after the team declined to give him a Qualifying Offer.  Do we trade from depth (RH relief, middle infield) and find a 5th starter that way?  Do we find a 5th starter from within?  Meanwhile the bullpen is now full of hard throwing righties, but we could lose all 3 of our lefties.  We may need to work the phones to retain these guys, or else we’re on the FA market.  I think (despite my discussion about converting Garcia to a 5th starter) that he’ll remain in the bullpen and may bump Henry Rodriguez out of a job.  One of our two closer-quality guys (Clippard and Storen) could be moved, cashing in on their value, which could open up a spot for a FA acquisition or a promotion from AAA.

Lots to be decided this off-season for Mike Rizzo, and this hasn’t even mentioned the dominos that will fall if/when the team makes a contract decision on Adam LaRoche.

• AAA Rotation: Roark, Maya, Broderick, Meyers, Perry
• AAA Bullpen: Tatusko (swingman), Arneson (swingman), Severino (loogy), Davis, Lehman, Nelo (closer), Martin,  Mandel

AAA Narrative: We have a lot of long-serving minor leaguers here; as it stands now only a few of them are even 40-man roster guys (Maya, Perry, Garcia).  The modern AAA roster construction is one of “spare parts” and prospects; do we have enough prospects to cover for injuries at the MLB level?  Which one of these AAA starters would Nats fans feel comfortable filling in were one of our starters to go down with injury?  Perhaps the Nats need to work on some starter depth via trade.  Brad Meyers was just returned from the Yankees after a season-long DL stint after being Rule-5 drafted, and seems likely to slot right back into the AAA rotation when he’s healthy.  Perry seems set to get a 4th option and should slot in here, looking to convert back to being a starter.  Broderick is a former Rule-5 pick and was claimed from St. Louis, who dumped him late last season.  I don’t think he’s anything more than a 4-A starter, but the organization seems to like him.

• AA Rotation: Rosenbaum, Holder, Gilliam, Karns, Grace, Demny (swingman?) or MLFA?  Solis if he’s healthy?
• AA Bullpen: Frias, McCoy, Selik (maybe high-A again), Holland (setup), Wort (closer), VanAllen (loogy), Demmin (maybe high-A again), an org arm or two to fill in.

AA narrative: We have a couple of interesting candidates in the AA rotation to start, but what may be more interesting is to see whether the likes of Gilliam and Demny hold onto their spots with the talent ready to rise up out of high-A.  Meanwhile, the bullpen has some interesting arms to keep an eye on.  I forgot to mention Solis in the AA write-up but remembered him here.  Two big questions for me in this AA rotation for 2013: 1) is Rosenbaum for real or is he going to sputter out before reaching MLB potential?   And, 2) Is Nathan Karns ready to make the leap?  I think Karns can quickly put his name in the mix to get promoted to AAA based on his performance in 2012.

• High-A Rotation: Swynenberg, Ray, Meyer (maybe AA?), Schwartz (maybe low-A), Rauh (maybe low-A)
• High-A Bullpen Competition: Barrett (maybe AA) , Testa, Smoker (loogy), Hill, Meza (perhaps a starter?), Holt, Hawkins, Bates, Mirowski
• High-A bullpen Release candidates: Olbrychowski, McCatty, Applebee

High-A narrative: there’s too many arms for too few slots right now in all three of the A-levels.   There’s a ton of release candidates, and some guys who could be higher or lower.   I’d love to be a fly on the wall at the organizational meetings where all this evaluation is done.  Meyer dominated High-A last year; could he start in AA?   Barrett (by virtue of his AFL appearance) may also be AA material.

The same goes for the Low-A team below: I’ve got 5 logical rotation candidates, another 4 guys who make sense to be in the low-A rotation, and a slew of guys who seem to have earned their way to the low-A bullpen.  But there’s only 7 slots to go around.

• Low-A Rotation: Turnbull, Jordan, Purke (if healthy), Monar, Mooneyham
• Low-A Rotation Competitors: Hansen, Lee (loogy if not), Encarnation, McGeary (if finally healthy)
• Low-A Bullpen Competition: Anderson, Estevez, Dupra, McKenzie, Henke, Davis, Boyden, Benincasa, Hudgins, Dicherry, Mudron

We acknowledge the folly of trying to predict short-season staffs which will mostly be populated with 2013 draftees, especially under the new CBA that shortens negotiation times, making it more likely college seniors are drafted (who sign quickly with zero leverage) and get playing.  That being said, there will definitely be guys who stay in extended spring training for a couple months and then get placed on these rosters along with new draftees.  Here’s some guesses based on 2012 performances; all blank spots filled by 2013 draftees or by some of the guys who drop down from low-A.

• Short-A Rotation: Baez, Pineyro
• Short-A Bullpen: Smith (if not released), Fischer, Medina, Pena, Mendez

GCL blank spots filled by younger 2013 draftees (HS, Juco and college juniors/seniors from smaller schools) and by rising DSL grads.

• GCL Rotation: Mieses (if not released), Barrientos, Vasquez
• GCL Bullpen: Heredes

This is the first of 6 organizational reviews of the pitching staffs of our various affiliates for the 2012 season.  Unlike in 2011, I didn’t follow nearly as closely as I would have liked, so a lot of this is “analysis in arrears.”  This is also a lot of “scouting the scoreline,” which isn’t always a fair way to evaluate pitchers, but a full year’s worth of work is also a big enough sample size to pass some judgement.  I’ll try to evaluate pitchers at the level at which they spent the most time and will offer guesses for next season.  Also, rehab appearances are not mentioned or given analysis in these posts.  After reviewing all the staffs at each level, I’ll cull the above predictions into a summarized 2013 projected staff throughout the system.

Syracuse starters.  The rotation started the season with Atkins, Roark, Maya, Lannan and Duke.  This wasn’t exactly the way these guys would have lined up 1-5 (since Lannan was dumped to the AAA roster at the end of Spring Training unexpectedly) but this is the order in which they appeared to start the season.  Lets talk about these 5 guys plus other prominent starters for the year.

• Mitch Atkins: Syracuse’s opening day starter stuck in the rotation for most of the year, posting a 5.28 ERA while going 6-9 in 20 starts.  He improved on his season numbers with a handful of relief appearances down the stretch, finishing the year with a combined ERA of 4.87 in 118 1/3 innings pitched.  This minor league Free Agent pickup from Baltimore’s organization never gave the team a reason to consider calling him up, and probably is out the door in the off-season.  Outlook for next season: Minor League Free Agent again, likely with another team.
• Tanner Roark: He posted an ugly W/L of 6-17 on the year in 28 games (26 starts).  He had a 4.39 ERA with a 1.41 whip in 147 2/3 innings on the year.  He had pretty good K/9 numbers (130 Ks in those 147 innings) but also walked a goodly number of guys (47).  He mostly got promoted after a similar season statistically in AA by virtue of the AAA depth being shredded by the Gio Gonzalez trade.  Outlook for next season: He’s Rule-5 eligible but not yet a 6-year free agent.  I guess its possible he gets picked up, but he’s not worth protecting.  I think he gets one more season starting in AAA before reaching minor league free agency.
• Yunesky Maya: After getting several shots at the major league level in 2011, Maya was buried in AAA for 2012.  There he toiled a complete season as a starter, posting an 11-10 record in 28 starts.  His era and whip were respectable (3.88 and 1.19 respectively), but his softer-tossing ways did not lead to the kind of swing and miss stuff craved by the current regime (just 89 Ks in 167 innings despite his ability to throw everything but the kitchen sink).  He improved upon a rough early start to the season with a series of gems in August … but would routinely follow up a gem with a stinker.  The big club has learned its lesson and left him off the expanded roster.  Outlook for next season: Maya has just one more year on his 4yr/$8m contract, after which he’ll be cut loose to try his wares elsewhere.  But he’ll be back toiling as AAA’s #1 starter in 2013.
• John Lannan, as most Nats fans know, was the surprise cut from 2012’s major league team and basically served as injury insurance the entire year.  He did not necessarily help his own cause in AAA, putting up mediocre lines of 9-11, 4.30 era, 1.44 whip and barely 5 k/9 despite a MLB-average pedigree.  He did however perform excellently in two spot starts in the majors, setting himself up to be the Stephen Strasburg replacement in September’s stretch run.  I’d cough up his poor performance to  a season-long disappointment over his predicament; he’s got to be the highest paid guy in the minors (now that Kei Igawa‘s contract expired).  Outlook for next season: Lannan is just about a 100% guarantee to be non-tendered at the arbitration deadline and certainly looks to sign on with another club.
• Zach Duke: Unlike Lannan, Duke took advantage of his time in AAA and DID regain some value; he posted a 15-5 record in 26 starts and 164 innings.  The rangy left-hander was cut loose by Arizona after the 2011 season and did enough with Syracuse this year to earn a September call-up.  Outlook for next season: Likely a free agent again and likely to use 2012’s performance as a springboard with another team looking for starter help.
• Jeff Mandel, a long time Nats farm hand, started the year in AA to provide some starter depth before coming back to AAA and eventually replacing Atkins in the rotation.  He was 6-3 with a 2.41 ERA in 11 Syracuse starts and filled in effectively down the stretch. Outlook for next season: He’s finishing up his 6th minor league season and didn’t get a 40-man call-up (at least not yet).  He has one more year of team control before hitting minor league free agency.  AAA rotation.
  
• Other guys who got spot starts here and there (non-rehab):
  • Erik Arneson, who continues his 2011 role of organizational swiss army knife, filling in with innings wherever possible.  Outlook for next season: probably continues to be the Nats org guy; he’s still effective in AAA.
  • Austin Bibens-Dirkx, who got a couple spot starts before getting released and eventually getting picked up by Colorado Springs (AAA affiliate of Colorado) to finish out the season.   Outlook for next season: with another organization.
  • Kevin Pucetas got called up from AA to make one spot-start.  Outlook for next season: See the AA wrap up for more details.

Syracuse Relievers: taking a look at the relief corps at the end of the season.

• Christian Garcia has turned into one of the Organization’s great stories of 2012, posting a 0.86 ERA in 52 1/3 innings between AA and AAA after being claimed off waivers from the Yankees in late 2011.  This performance earned him a well-deserved call-up to the big club as rosters expanded.  Additionally, he’ll be featured in the Arizona Fall League as one of our three pitcher representatives.  Outlook for next season: He’s got a big arm, can bring it 97-98, and should be in the mix to be a middle-relief arm for the Nats bullpen in 2013.  He likely replaces what the team sought in Brad Lidge and provides insurance against injury (or, in Cole Kimball‘s case, failure to recover from injury).
• Atahualpa Severino put in a decent season for Syracuse (2.81 ERA in 48 ip), but clearly he lost favor with the team.  Instead of considering Severino (who was on the 40-man at the time), the Nats picked up Mike Gonzalez off waivers and promoted him up to the big club.  Furthermore, Severino was DFA’d off the 40-man and passed through waivers without being claimed, never a good sign for a long-serving minor leaguer.  Outlook for next season: Minor League Free Agent, though the fact that nobody claimed him when he got DFA’d means he’s likely an Org guy from here on out.  But, LOOGYs live forever, and he can bring it, so maybe he gets a shot elsewhere.  He’s clearly been passed over in this organization.
• GWU grad Josh Wilkie was having a so-so start to his Syracuse season (his 4th year in the league) before getting suspended 50-games in June.  [Editor Note: thanks to Mark L. for pointing this out].  Wilkie was summarily released after his suspension ended.  Outlook for next season: with another organization.
• Ryan Perry failed to make the big club out of spring, pitched briefly in Syracuse’ bullpen before getting sent to Harrisburg to re-make himself as a starter.  Outlook for next season: see the AA version of this post.
• Mike MacDougal made his “triumphant return” to the organization after washing out of Chicago’s AAA affiliate in Iowa.  He struck out 14 and walked 8 in 10 innings for Syracuse (about what I expected); no word on how many WP he threw.  Outlook for next season: minor league free agent again.
• Erik Davis got 8 late season appearances after toiling mostly in AA and earning a promotion.  Outlook for next season: see the AA version of this post.
• Other Relievers who appeared in AAA of note (not including Rehabbing MLBers): Outlook for next season for all of these guys seems the same: either continued “org guy” middle reliever or minor league free agent in another organization.
  • Hassan Pena improved on his 2011 stint in AAA but still looks like a middle-of-the-road minor league reliever.  He was suspended at the end of the season for suspected “team rules violations,” a question mark for him going forward with the organization.
  • GWU grad Pat Lehman continued his march up the organization, earning a quick promotion up to AAA and posting respectable numbers there.
  • Corey VanAllen got demoted and then hurt.
  • Rafael Martin also got demoted after a crummy start.
  • 2012 Minor League free agent signings Jeff Fulchino and Waldis Joaquin didn’t throw a single inning in 2012, spending it entirely on the 7-day DL.

Summary

Syracuse should have had a better record than it ended up with (70-74) given the quality of the starters on this team (a long time MLB starter in Duke, a career sub 4.00 ERA starter in Lannan and a guy on an $8M contract in Maya).  But at the same time, a combination of trades and a “gap” in organizational development led the team to have to fill a significant portion of this staff with minor league free agents, so it may have been inevitable that the team would have struggled.

Got word this morning that the team is optioning the ineffective Ryan Perry back to AAA and bringing up veteran minor league FA signing Mike Gonzalez to take his place.  Luke Erickson notes the fact that 40-man member Atahualpa Severino was bypassed for this move, despite not requiring a subsequent 40-man roster move (the team transfered Drew Storen to the 60-day DL to make room).

This is the latest in a flurry of additions to the 40-man roster necessitated by a freak rash of injuries, and eventually will make for some rather difficult roster moves after the season is over.  As it stands right now, the team is now technically sitting at 45 guys on the 40-man roster (40 active or 15-day DL, 5 on the 60-day DL), meaning that at a minimum after the season 5 guys are going to have to make way.  Yes we have some free agents that will come off the books, but you generally need to operate your 40-man roster with some room to maneuver, especially considering some of the big prospect names that are going to be Rule-5 eligible this coming off-season (just to name a few; Danny Rosenbaum, Jeff Kobernus and Destin Hood).

Makes you wonder how the team feels about the two Major League contracts they handed out last draft?  Anthony Rendon is injured and likeout out for the season (again)  Matthew Purke only just got out of extended spring training to record his first start in Low-A.

Anyway; the real problem is the carnage that is likely to occur when the team has to designate a number of these mid-season additions.  Because as we designate them we run the risk of losing them to waiver claims.  I don’t think Carlos Maldonado is necessarily at risk, but certainly we didn’t need to expose someone like Sandy Leon or Corey Brown until absolutely necessary.

It makes you wonder if prior additions who are continually getting passed over for non 40-man candidates are either targets to get cut or were mistakes to begin with.  Why no Severino?  How about Carlos Rivera?  How long before the team summarily cuts Xavier Nady and his .500 OPS?

Is it too early to guess who starts the Home Opener? My guess is newly acquired Gonzalez. Photo Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images via cbssports.com

We’re getting reports of players getting to Viera early, and we’ve had a slew of off-season moves.  Beat reporters are starting to talk about the 25-man roster (here’s WT’s Amanda Comak‘s take).  The Nats pretty much took care of every off-season need the had:

• Top-end Starting Pitcher: Gonzalez
• Backup Outfielder: Ankiel and Cameron (though, apparently Cameron is retiring instead of competing for a spot…)
• Lower-end Starting Pitchers: Re-signed Wang, signed Jackson
• Utility Infielders to replace Cora, Bixler, Hairston: signed DeRosa, claimed Rivera
• Bullpen arm depth (to replace Coffey, Kimball): signed Lidge, traded for Perry

The notable exception to the off-season shopping list, of course, is a lack of a proven center fielder.  Perhaps one could quibble that a shortstop should have been on that list; it seems the team is giving another year to the Ian Desmond experiment, hoping he builds on the strong end of 2011 (he hit .294 in Aug and Sep of 2011).  The backup infielders and backup outfielders listed here, to go along with a slew of minor league/invite to spring training signings, should be where most of the competition for roster slots occurs.

The big question for me is; Is there any real competition for pitching spots this spring?

Starters

We all know the narrative; we now have 6 starters with multi-million dollar commitments for 5 spots, and someone has to give.  The Edwin Jackson signing has pretty much made John Lannan the odd-man out of this rotation.  Mike Rizzo likes power arms, and has gone to great lengths to acquire guys who throw more than 89-90 to replace what he inherited in 2009.   Wang and Jackson can’t be moved until June 15th without his consent by virtue of the FA signing rules (as discussed in this article here), Gonzalez just signed a long-term deal, and Strasburg/Zimmerman are our future.  To me, there’s no mystery who’s going to be in the rotation, and frankly articles that say there’s going to be a competition for the 5th starter between Wang, Lannan, Detwiler and Gorzelanny are not really paying attention to the contract realities of the situation.  Barring injury, your opening day rotation will be (in this order):

• Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Jackson and Wang.

Should someone go down with injury, Lannan steps in to take the 4th or 5th rotation spot (depending on whether Davey Johnson likes to mix up LHSP/RHSP in any fashion).  Otherwise, Lannan is trade-bait and should be moved during the spring.  There are plenty of teams that could be trade partners if we wanted to focus on a center fielder (see this article I did in November talking about the CF market for the whole of baseball for some thoughts).  Barring a trade, it seems inconceivable but Lannan does still have a minor league option left and could be sent down, but a $5M pitcher toiling in Syracuse (to go along with $2M bust Yuniesky Maya) could make the Nats AAA team the most expensive minor league rotation in the league.  (We won’t say “most expensive ever,” since the Yankees kept Kei Igawa and his $46M commitment in the minors for most of his contract).

Relievers

A recent post on option status at Nationalsprospects.com (the option status of every player is now kept on the Big Board, which is good for me since I did this work last year and its a nightmare to keep track of), as well as a question asked of Bill Ladson leads to this conclusion: there literally is no question right now who your 7 bullpen members will be.  Tyler Clippard, Sean Burnett, Henry Rodriguez, Tom Gorzelanny and Ross Detwiler ALL are out of options.  Brad Lidge can refuse a demotion based on his service time and Drew Storen is your closer.  There’s your 2012 bullpen; not much room for anyone else.

The only wiggle room may be with someone like Detwiler: he’s clearly a starter and seems set to be the first Spot starter to fill in for an injury (assuming we trade Lannan of course).  Does the team keep him in the bullpen, where he basically fills the exact same role as Gorzelanny (ex-left handed starter long man/spot starter in a pinch)?  Or does the team cash him in to fill a hole?

This configuration leaves newly acquired Ryan Perry, Ryan Mattheus and Atahualpa Severino in AAA.  Cole Kimball starts on the 60-day DL (and, frankly, probably stays there; the odds of him coming back from that shoulder injury are low).  Lastly Craig Stammen joins Maya in AAA as deep-need emergency starters.

So, here’s your bullpen:

• Closer: Storen
• Setup: Clippard
• 7th inning guys: Lidge, Rodriguez
• Loogy: Burnett
• Long Men: Gorzelanny and Detwiler

What’s nice about this bullpen is that, despite my naming players to roles, there’s lots of flexibility.  Rodriguez on a good day has 8th or even 9th inning stuff.  Lidge is a former closer and clearly can do the setup or closing roles.  Clippard excels in the 8th inning role and doesn’t seem to aspire to replace Storen.  Burnett is far more than just a one-out guy, but can serve that role in a pinch.  Lastly both Gorzelanny and Detwiler can be anything from a one-out lefty to a 3-4 inning mop-up guy, given the day.  I like the way this sets up and I think we go into 2012 with a better bullpen than in 2011 (when, if you recall, we wasted a spot on Brian Broderick, had the failure of Doug Slaten in the loogy role and watched Chad Gaudin pitch horribly).

Who starts the Home opener?

Quick guess: based on the way the schedule plays out it looks like our home opener will be thrown by our #2 starter Gonzalez.  We play two 3-game series away to Chicago and New York, then open at home with what should be the #2 rotation spot up.  There’s only one off-day in between, meaning the starters most likely stay on normal rest.

We all know how good Yu Darvish’s stats are in Japan, but how good is the competition? Photo unknown via beatofthebronx.com

Editor’s Note: this post was originally published in January of 2012: I have updated it as I have received new information several times since.  But some of the information and statements may be dated based on when it was initially written (like the Yu Darvish comment in the intro).  Over the years I’ve also added in more leagues and more details on existing leagues, including Wood bat leagues and Independent leagues.

I’ve always wondered, since we hear so much about players’ tearing up winter leagues or hear wonderful stat lines from players coming over from foreign countries (as we are now in the Yu Darvish mania).  So what is the talent-equivalent of the various leagues outside of the conventional MLB-AAA-AA-A-rookie levels?  I did a bit of digging around, asking questions and came up with the following approximations.  Feel free to debate if you think otherwise.

Foreign Pro Leagues

• Japan: the Nippon Professional Baseball League rates, by various accounts, as a mid AAA-level talent league.  Baseball Prospectus’ Clay Davenport did a stat-heavy analysis in 2002 and concluded that the NPB was at least AAA level, perhaps close to MLB level.  However, the prevalence of mediocre players from the US going to Japan and being super-stars seems to indicate that Japan is no better than AAA, and may be a bit weaker.  And, not to claim this is about talent levels per race, but there have only been a very small number of Japanese-born players who were really impact players upon arriving here.
• Cuba: per Dave Cameron (mentioned in a chat, need the link) the “general consensus” is that the Cuban pro league is about a High-A level of talent.  I wonder if it isn’t higher though, given the immediate impact that a number of Cuban ex-patriots have had immediately upon their arrival in the US (Yasiel Puig, Jose Abreu being exhibits 1 and 1-a).  I wonder if this will start rising now that the embargo has eased and the Cuban government has begun allowing its players to legally play elsewhere.
• Taiwan/China: Taiwan had its own thriving baseball league for a bit, but merged it into the main Chinese league in 2003.  Given the small numbers of Taiwanese-born players who have made it to the majors, and the fact that the league serves mostly as a feeder into the Japanese league, its safe to say that the Chinese league is no better than a high-A level of talent.
• Korea: As with the Chinese leagues, Korea mostly feeds into the Japanese league.  High-A talent levels.  Might be on the rise though, as more and more 4-A/AAA veterans decamp for Korea instead of Japan.  That may be driven more by money than by competition though.
• European Leagues: Believe it or not, there are thriving baseball leagues all throughout Europe.  They even have multiple levels of play in certain countries (the Netherlands in particular).  However, based on the levels of talent of players that typically play in Europe, its hard to put the talent levels at anything close to our own Rookie leagues.  In fact, I’d suspect that most European pro teams are no better than a low division 1 college baseball program (such as GW or Catholic U’s teams).
• Mexican Summer League: listed as a AAA-quality league in places like Baseball-Reference, but studies have shown it isn’t anywhere close.  A-level talent.
• Leagues elsewhere: there’s leagues just about every where else; wikipedia searches turn up baseball leagues in Australia, Asia, the far pacific.  I didn’t do any research here, assuming that these leagues are one slight notch above amateur leagues in the US.

Winter Leagues

Davenport also did a bit of analysis on the various winter leagues in 2004; I’ve taken his recommendations and adjusted them based roughly on observation over the past few years, since the winter leagues have been shifting in terms of talent attracted in recent years.

Most players who go to winter leagues fall into one of three categories:

1. Natives of the country looking to provide support for their home town teams and home leagues (the Nats own Ramos, Flores, Pudge, Severino and Perez being good examples)
2. Players looking to get in additional work after an injury-filled year curtailed their seasons.
3. Players looking to work on a new pitch, a new swing or some other experimental part of their game.

So, the talent levels in these various leagues are usually all over the road.

• Dominican Winter League: Seemingly the “best” winter league, having the most ex-patriots playing in the US.  Davenport’s studies from earlier in the decade showed that the talent level is roughly equivalent to AAA talent, an opinion that I still maintain.  Our own Yunesky Maya tore up the DWL last winter, but struggled to be just a serviceable pitcher in Syracuse all year.
• Puerto Rico Winter League : seems to be the 2nd strongest Winter League, but with slightly fewer MLBers than in the DWL.  So we’ll call it AAA level, but weaker.
• Venezuela Winter League: The talent levels have dropped for a while, ever since political turmoil has taken over the country.  This is highlighted especially close to home in 2011 with the Wilson Ramos kidnapping case.  However, Nats farmhand Ryan Tatusko was kind enough to provide his opinion on the talent level and calls it “AAA talent.”   I think at best its a low AAA, as the league is clearly lower quality than Puerto Rico.  This last season’s version of the VWL seemed to be more talented that past versions though; perhaps this league is looking to challenge the DWL for pre-eminence in the winter leagues.
• Mexican Winter League: Its really hard to tell; the winter leagues are quite a bit better than the summer league, at least per Davenport’s studies.  Now?  I’d guess the MWL has degraded a bit and is probably on a par with Venezuela in terms of talent.  AA-level at best.

Other US-based Professional Leagues

• Arizona Fall League: the AFL rates somewhere between a AA and AAA level by and large, though for several reasons it rates as a very heavy hitter-league (pitcher workloads and ball-parks mostly).  Most of your pro teams send their top prospects from levels below AA and a number of AA and AAA (and even some guys who have MLB experience).  All told, that equates with a “good” AA league.  And since AA leagues are morphing into being populated with a team’s best prospects while AAA leagues are becoming repositories for “spare parts” for the MLB team, more and more the lines are blurred between AAA and AA in terms of “which team could really beat the other.”  Nationals fans saw this pretty clearly during Stephen Strasburg‘s minor league career; he was hit in AA but absolutely dominated AAA teams that seemed to be populated with backup catchers and backup infielders.
• Independent Leagues: generally rates somewhere around an A-ball or slightly higher equivalent, depending on the league.  They’re usually full of guys who got cut from the MLB rosters and a collection of older veterans trying to hang on.  So, the younger players are (arguably) below rookie-league/short-A levels but the veterans are probably in the AAA level, bringing an average to somewhere in the A-ball range.  Maybe that’s overrating the talent level in these leagues: if the guys typically playing there were that good … they’d still be on affiliated low-A and/or rookie league teams.   Here’s some quick estimates by league:
  • Atlantic League: High AA
  • American Association: High A
  • Can-Am League: High A
  • Frontier League: Low A

College Leagues

• Regular NCAA Division I College Teams are probably not even as good as a Rookie league team, when balancing the entirety of the roster’s depth.  I had this debate with my father recently, noting that the best Div-1 team in one recent year (South Carolina) was led by a pitcher (Mike Roth) who was a 31st round draft pick in 2011.  College teams only have 11.7 scholarships to use to field a team.  A good chunk of college teams are guys on partial scholarships or are complete walk-ons.  Good college teams may each have a number of pro prospects, but usually only 1 or 2 legitimate prospects.  On the flip side, even a rookie-level team is ENTIRELY comprised of players who were drafted, and will include high school players who signed in lieu of going to college because they were considered good enough at the time to risk signing.  A college team may use a hot pitcher to beat a pro team in a theoretical 3-game series every once in a while, but a team full of professional hitters are eventually going to utterly dominate typical college bullpens, Sunday starters and mid-week players.
• Top end NCAA Division 1 College Teams, as in teams that are populated with a ton of future Pro talent, are likely the equivalent of the Advanced Short season Short-A leagues like the NY Penn league.  The absolute best Div-1 teams (like a friday night match-up between nationally ranked SEC teams) may broach the equivalent of low-A teams, as discussed in this 2015 Kiley McDaniel chat here.   When a college junior is highly drafted, most scouts advise that they go to at least high-A as a first stop, often saying that they’d be wasting their time in Low-A.  Does this imply that high-end Division 1 teams are more the equivalent of Low-A teams?  It seems so, at least at the upper cream of the crop level.  Consider the talent level on the 2014-2015 Vanderbilt team with multiple first round picks, or the 2018 Florida/Oregone State teams (each of which had 3 first rounders); I’d guess that team on a whole could easily compete with some short-league teams comprised mostly of 20th and 30th round college draftees and perhaps higher.  (Post publishing update May 2016: this question came up in quora.com and LA Dodger’s pitcher Brandon McCarthy provided a great answer not to terribly different from mine here.  He thinks the best Div-1 teams would have a chance in a 7-game series against a low-A team, but would probably fall short due to pitching depth.
• Juco, Division II, Division III: Generally speaking a notch below the low-end Division I teams for obvious reasons.  Perhaps you could make an exception for some of the higher-end Juco leagues out there (like the league that Bryce Harper played in for one year to establish draft eligibility) and claim they’re of a low-division I quality, but that might be a stretch in the grand scheme of things.  So if these leagues aren’t even as strong as a low Division I team, they’re not even close to a pro-level quality.  (Post-publishing update Apr 2016); read the excellent commentary from former Juco player James  Pidutti, who gives some great context for the wide variety of talent in the Juco ranks these days).

Summer Wood-Bat Leagues

We have a thriving college wood bat league industry going on, with college players scattering all over the continent to play summer league baseball with wood bats.  Some of these leagues are better than others; you can write a whole analysis just to try to rank the leagues (in fact, I have, but I’ve yet to publish it because I’m not sure I have it exactly right), so I’ll just use general groupings to try to rank these leagues.

• Cape Cod League: By far the most dominant wood bat league.  These teams are basically Division I all star teams of players, and the numbers speak for themselves.  1100 alumni have played in the majors (about one out of every seven current major leaguers).  More than  half of the first round draftees last  year were Cape Cod players.  They are the self-proclaimed “greatest amateur league in the world” and there’s no argument.  So how would a Cape Cod team fare when stacked up against a pro league?  I’d put these a step above the best division 1 teams and say these are High-A equivalent teams.
• Northwoods League: After a step down from Cape Cod is Northwoods, who just had their 141st alumni debut in the majors.  The calibre of players is significantly lower than in the Cape: a quick gander at the rosters for 2015 found just a handful of players from “power conference” teams on each roster.  So I’m putting these teams at the same level as a “run of the mill” Division I team, or below a Rookie League team.
• The next tier of collegiate leagues, including Coastal Plains, New England Collegiate, West Coast, California Collegiate and the Alaska League: less talent than in Northwoods and thus even further away from any pro level.
• There are many more college leagues not mentioned here that probably rate as having even less talent than the already named leagues.  That includes our local leagues the Cal Ripken League and the Valley League.

Semi-Pro and Amateur Teams

I’m guessing that when the old Class-B/Class-C/Class-D leagues died out in the 50s, those players then began percolating into what we now see as an improved and thriving College baseball industry, Semi-Pro leagues scattered around the country, and the (now) official Indy league designation.  I always attribute the death of these low-class leagues to the advent of Television, which replaced the (usually) one source of nightly entertainment for small towns across America, which before the mid 50s would have been baseball.

Here in the DC area, there’s a “semi pro” league that is the combination of two long-standing leagues (the “Industrial League” and the “Credit Union” league) that features very good baseball.  Ex division-1 players, ex Pros, good baseball.  Back in the 50s this probably was a class-D level league (assuming that class-B was what has become the rookie leagues and class-C has morphed into the Independent leagues).

Summary

Here’s a table summarizing the above data, along with some clarifications from the comments after-the-fact, in order of best to least quality.  (Note; the cut-n-paste below is from 2012; see the descriptions above for some updates to league talents…).

Do you agree/disagree with these ratings?  Please feel free to comment and discuss.

Is Gorzelanny going to be tendered? Find out today. Photo via Nats.

The next big date on the MLB offseason calendar happens today, Monday December 12th.  This is the “Non-Tender Deadline,” or the last day for teams to tender 2012 contracts to players under reserve.  In english, this means that all the Nats arbitration eligible players must be “tendered” a 2012 contract by this date or else they become immediate free agents.

Here’s a list of the Nationals that are arbitration eligible this off-season, their 2011 salary and an estimate of what they would cost for 2012 if offered arbitration.

Both Tyler Clippard and Jordan Zimmermann achieved “super-2” status, meaning they’ll get a 4th arbitration year down the road.  Contrary to other reports, Roger Bernadina did NOT qualify for this super-2 status, despite being right on the borderline of service days.  The above salary guesses are partly taken from mlbtraderumors.com analysis and partly adjusted to what I think the player would really earn.

Side note on the way to estimate/guess the salaries: For those with three years of arbitration, the salary achieved is usually a representation of an eventual percent of the FA salary would be for the player, based on the arbitration year.  These percentages are usually 40% of FA value for the first year of arbitration, 60% for second and 80% for third year.  Thus, using John Lannan as an example, his first year Arbitration salary was $2.75M, meaning that his 100% FA salary value would be $6.875M/year.  After his good 2011 season though, I’m estimating his 100% value to be $7.5M/year, or exactly what we paid Jason Marquis per year, which puts his 2012 arbitration figure at the $4.5M estimate.

So, what should the Nats do with these arbitration cases?

To me, five of these seven cases are straight-forward; you absolutely tender Clippard, Flores, Lannan, Morse and Zimmerman.  MASN’s Pete Kerzel posted his thoughts on this same topic over the weekend and seemed to indicate there would be a question as to whether we would tender Flores; that’s crazy talk.  In a league where quality catchers are a scarcity and with Flores tearing up the Venezeulan Winter League right now, there’s no reason to think the team would possibly lose him.  After all, we just put a journeyman AAA catcher Jhonatan Solano on the 40-man specifically to keep HIM from being poached.  Also, I hear rumblings that Lannan may be non-tendered under the theory that he’s not providing value worth what he’s going to be paid (roughly $4.8-$4.9M); again I think that’s misguided.  He’s a solid pitcher who gives good innings from the left hand side, and he’s only been improving since he earned a spot in the rotation.  He’s never missed a start due to injury, and if not for the first half of 2010 (when he lost his way and was demoted) he’d have a sub 4.00 career ERA, a rarity in this league.  Replacing him on the open market would absolutely cost more than he’s set to earn next year.  Plus, with any decent run support (the Nats averaged only 3.6 runs/game in games when he started in 2011) he’d probably have a much better W/L record.

That leaves Gorzelanny and Slaten.  Case by case.

1. Doug Slaten.  Here’s a list of pertinent stats for Slaten’s 2011 season as the primary LOOGY out of our pen:

• 4.41 era.
• 2.143 whip.  That’s so ridiculously bad as to be almost laughable.  He gave up 26 hits and 9 walks in 16 1/3 innings.
• He had a -0.1 WAR.
• He had a .356 batting average against.
• Opposing batters had a 1.036 OPS with him on the hill.
• He allowed 47% of inherited runners to SCORE.  Not advance, but score.  15 of 32 runners.
• Lastly, in lefty-lefty matchups, the whole reasons he is put into games?  Lefties hit him for this slash line: .333/.368/.639 for nifty 1.007 OPS.

He struggled with injury last year, and yes its difficult to determine how much of the above performance was due to the lingering effects of the injury.  So be it; this isn’t personal; he was awful in the role and he’s replaceable either from within (Severino, VanAllen or Smoker) or on the FA market (where there’s always an older lefty in the Ron Villone mold looking for work).  Verdict: Basically, not only should Slaten not be tendered a contract, he should have been flat out released months ago.

2. Tom Gorzelanny.  A tougher call.  The Nats traded three prospects just a year ago to acquire him (though, in fairness, none of the three guys we traded have done much to improve their prospect status; AJ Morris didn’t play any 2011 games, Graham Hicks had a 4.01 era in 14 starts while repeating low A-ball for the 3rd time, and Michael Burgess batted .225 after being demoted to high-A.  So it seems we basically got Gorzelanny for nearly nothing).  He lost his spot in our starting rotation after 15 starts in 2011, but was excellent in 15 relief appearances.  His starter/reliever splits show a 4.46 era in his 15 starts but a 2.42 era in 15 relief appearances.

I think Gorzelanny would make an excellent long-man/spot starter out of the bullpen, a role that Davey Johnson values heavily.  His flexibility to be anything from a one-out guy to a 6 inning spot starter is indeed invaluable, and his 8.2 k/9 rate from the left hand side shows that he can be a shut down pitcher,when he needs it.

So what is the problem?  His salary.  Is he set to make more than a mediocre middle reliever is worth?  He made $2.1M this year in his first arbitration year, when his salary and value was being measured as a starter.  One would have to think that he’d easily get an increase if the team tendered him (I estimated $2.8M for his 2012 salary if tendered), and it would be difficult to argue against an increase despite his failure as a starter.  So the question becomes: is $2.8M too much money for a middle reliever?   A quick glance at some of the reliever FA signings thus far gives some comparables : Jeremy Affeldt signed a 1yr/$5M contract and Javier Lopez signed a 2yr/$8.5M.   Both these guys are mostly loogies (especially Lopez) but also both had far better numbers than Gorzelanny, even just looking at his reliever splits.  Meanwhile a couple of non-closer right-handed middle relievers (Dotel, Frasor) signed deals for between $3.5 and $3.75M/year but aren’t nearly the long-man capable guys that Gorzelanny is. So perhaps a salary in the $2.8M range for Gorzelanny isn’t too bad.

Verdict: Tender him.

Signing Wang took care of one of our most important off-season tasks. Photo via Washington Nationals

(I’ve had this in draft form for weeks; might as well publish it now that the FA period has started).

Before we get too deep into the off-season, I thought it’d be good to do a level set of what exactly this team is in the market for.  Last year’s to-do list included a Center Fielder (Ankiel), a Right Fielder (Werth), a First baseman (LaRoche), a couple of Utility Infielders (Cora, Hairston), some veteran Starting Pitching (Gorzelanny), and some bullpen help (Coffey, Ramirez).

Based on how the team has played down the stretch and watching some players rise and fade in September, here’s what I think the team’s off-season to-do list may look like.

First, lets start with what we know we do NOT need.  Here’s players that seemingly have spots already locked up for 2012:

• C: With Pudge leaving, Ramos and Flores seem set to be the 2 catchers for a while here.  Flores is healthy but clearly inferior to Ramos right now both defensively and at the plate.  We just added Solano and Norris for catcher cover in case someone gets hurt.
• 1B: LaRoche should be back healthy, and Morse has shown he clearly can play first if not, though that would lead to a hole in left field.
• 2B: Should be ably filled by Espinosa, or Lombardozzi if we move Espinosa to short (see next).
• SS: Desmond‘s one of the lowest qualifying OPS hitters in the league, but the team management loves him.  I’m guessing he’s given one more season.  Rizzo has already stated he’s not after Jose Reyes, and the Marlins seem set to over-pay him.
• 3B: Zimmerman isn’t going anywhere, despite some blogger’s statements that he should be moved.
• LF: We’re assuming that Morse is the starter in left.
• RF: As with Zimmerman, Werth is set to play right field well into the next presidency.
• SPs: Strasburg, Zimmermann, and Lannan seem locks to be in the rotation.  We re-signed Wang for the #4 rotation spot.  There’s some talk here and there about non-tendering Lannan; he’s a solid mid-rotation guy who is still under arbitration control who is underrated by most people outside of this area, and I believe it would be a mistake to cut him loose at this stage.
• Setup/Closer: Clippard and Storen managed to survive silly trade rumors this season and should be the 8th/9th inning tandem for at least 2012.
• Loogy: Burnett: He struggled at times in 2011. He’s also under contract for 2012 with guaranteed money.  So he’s going to be back.  He’s more than a loogy though, so we’ll look for the team to replace Slaten.
• Middle Relief: Henry Rodriguez and Ryan Mattheus look to return in their middle relief roles.  Kimball will be on the 60-day DL until he’s proven to have regained his fastball.

That’s actually a pretty large chunk of our planned 25-man roster (17 of the 25 are already accounted for, for the most part).

So, what do we need?  In rough priority order:

• Center Field: again, we go into an off season with questions about center field.  Ankiel had a decent September but overall his 2011 offense was poorl.  He does fit Rizzo’s defensive mind, but is he the answer?  Perhaps this is the off-season Rizzo finally gets Upton or Span or someone of that ilk.  Or perhaps we re-sign Ankiel to a holding deal, waiting for wunder-kid Bryce Harper to come up and take over.  Or, perhaps the lineups that Johnson has been fielding in September featuring Morse in LF, Werth in CF and Nix in RF are telling enough that we can “get by” without investing in a center fielder for 2012.  (I’ve got a very large CF-only post coming up, with lots more detail).
• Right-handed middle relief: we may have to go digging for one-year FA Todd Coffey types again, because Kimball is on the DL til probably July and Carr was flat out released in September.  That’s it in terms of 40-man roster options for right handed relievers.  An internal option could be using Peacock as a 7th inning guy in 2012; he’s shown he can bring it 95-96 and perhaps even higher in short term situations.  The team doesn’t seem to trust either Balester or Stammen, meaning we need a one-year guy.
• Utility guys: we used Hairston, Cora, and Bixler as backup infielders.  Hairston did a great job starting at 3B in Zimmerman’s absence; the other two were awful.  So we need a couple replacements.  Lombardozzi could fit in, but he’d be better served with a full season in AAA.  Bixler was waived and claimed, so we’re almost guaranteed to go hunting on the FA pile.

• Backup Outfielder: Bernadina seems to have run out of chances with this team.  Corey Brown has been god-awful in AAA this year and was assigned off of our 40-man to the AAA team.  Nix and Gomes are FAs.  We can’t possibly offer Gomes arbitration and guarantee him a $2M salary, and Nix can’t hit lefties. In any case, we look like we may need a backup outfielder from somewhere.  Nix has been getting starts in RF (as mentioned above) down the stretch and certainly has enough power to feature 6th in a lineup.  Perhaps he’s worth another year.  The team was in preliminary talks on a 2012 contract with him but nothing official has been signed.
• Loogy: we could use a one-out guy, assuming that we need a 2nd lefty to Burnett.  I’m guessing that Severino is not the answer, based on how little use he got in September.  Or maybe he is.  Certainly I’d prefer giving him a shot versus scraping the bottom of the reliever barrel again and finding another guy who performs as badly as Slaten.

• Starting Pitcher: We re-signed our own FA Wang, and continue to be in the mix for more of a marquee name like Buehrle and Oswalt.  Do we need another starter?  Signing either of these two vets will probably indicate team flexibility to trade some of our younger starting pitching cache of Detwiler, Peacock, and Milone, but also may end up blocking a guy who could be just as good for a fraction of the price.
• Long man: I’m guessing that we assign a long man from one of  Gorzelanny (most likely), Detwiler (somewhat likely), Balester and Stammen (less likely).  The team seems down on both the latter guys, who are probably destined for DFA when they run out of options.

So, thats a somewhat big todo list.  Some spots are clearly fill-able from within, but we’re still looking at a few acquisitions.

Fare the well Cole Kimball. Photo Robb Carr/Getty Images via zimbio.com

Surprising news hit today: per story-breaker Mark Zuckerman, both Cole Kimball and Corey Brown were waived off the 40-man roster earlier this week.  We got word today that Kimball was claimed by Toronto, while Brown passed through waivers and is now assigned to our AAA squad.

Why would the team choose to expose Kimball to waivers?

Possible reasons:

1. The team figured they could gamble and slip Kimball through waivers by virtue of his surgery.  (Except that we have former employees scattered around the league who know our personnel, including one in Toronto)
2. The team figures he won’t be ready by mid-2012, so he wasn’t worth keeping on the roster (hard to believe given his pre-injury performance for the team).
3. Rizzo knows something the rest of us don’t.  Maybe Kimball’s injury is worse than we thought.  Maybe he’s assuming (a good assumption frankly) that hard throwers with shoulder surgeries don’t really come back that often.

However, what I don’t get about the move can be summarized in these points:

1. The team was already sitting with 6 open slots on the 40-man roster, more than enough to add in what I figured would be most of their off-season work (adding a few rule-5 eligible players and signing a few free agents).
2. The team could have easily shed a few more people off the 40-man by non-tendering Doug Slaten, designating Roger Bernadina or non-tendering Tom Gorzelanny.  Even Atahualpa Severino seemed to be less valuable than Kimball.
3. Kimball could be stashed on the 40-man roster til April 1st of next year, then stuffed onto the 60-day DL until you needed him, thus freeing up the roster room at that point.

A curious move.  Either Rizzo was gambling and had his bluff called, or he knows something that the rest of us don’t.

The prodigal son returns. Photo via centerfieldgate.com

After seeing last cycle’s debut of Tom Milone, this cycle will feature two interesting milestones for the team.  Livan Hernandez‘s final start of the season comes first, then the long anticipated 2011 debut of Stephen Strasburg.  Lastly, this cycle got cut short due to the Monsoon of 2011 (aka, Raingate?) and Ross Detwiler got skipped so as to keep the wunder-kid on his regular rest and home-grown schedule.  I wonder how that is playing in the clubhouse… Technically Milone took over the #5 spot in the rotation initially, but the insertion of Strasburg into the #3 hole made for one cycle of 6, that is until Detwiler got skipped.

So as of now the rotation is going Milone-Lannan-Strasburg-Wang-Detwiler.

Good

• John Lannan looked shaky at the beginning of his labor day 9/5 start (box/gamer) but settled down decently enough (aided by a 4 run, 3 homer first inning by his offense) and got the win against the Dodgers.  He only went 5 1/3, surprisingly getting yanked after giving up a 1 out single in the 6th.  He was high on the pitch count at that point (94 pitches) but it was still a quick hook in this opinion.  He gives up one run on 5 hits with 2 walks and a handful (4) of K’s on the day.  Lannan is an interesting case; he continues to be solid (3.48 era on the season) if not flashy.
• Stephen Strasburg‘s 2011 debut on 9/6 (box/gamer) may not have been the amazing 14-K performance he showed during his MLB debut in 2010, but it certainly was as good as we could possibly expect.  See here for more details.

Bad

• Livan Hernandez‘s last start of the season (and possibly his last in a Nats uniform), showed why his position on the team is really in jeopardy.  He put in yet another sub-par performance leading to an easy win for the Mets on 9/4 (box/gamer).  5 1/3 innings, 8 hits, 6 runs.  For a team that averages only 3.84 runs a game, you just can’t have a starter who gives up 6 in 5.  That being said, i’m definitely advocating the team keep him around for 2012.

Mediocre/Inconclusive

• Chien-Ming Wang put in another 6 inning start in the midst of the monsoon of 2010 on 9/8 (box/gamer), giving up 4 runs early before retiring 10 of the last 11 batters.  He was bailed out by the offense and got a no-decision.  Wang’s early troubles were chronicled by Adam Kilgore here, noting that since his surgery Wang isn’t warming up until he’s been on the mound for a couple of innings, leading to his frequent pattern of giving up early runs but finishing strong.  The team is eventually going to have to figure out which Wang they have when it comes time to decide whether to try to bring him back for 2012.

Starter Trends (2nd half only).  Livan ends on a bad note, but his up-and-down performances could have predicted it.  Lannan continues to chug along.  Strasburg was fantastic.  Wang is consistently mediocre, as noted.  Detwiler has slipped after a couple of good outings, and Milone needs to improve on his debut.

• Lhernandez    bad,good,bad,good,bad,good,bad,soso,good,bad->shelved for season
• Lannan    good,good,bad,soso,good,bad,bad,good,soso,good
• Strasburg    great
• Wang        bad,bad,great,soso,soso,good,bad,soso
• Detwiler    soso,soso,good,good,bad,bad
• Milone    bad

Relievers of Note and other News

• “Negotiations” are already being talked about with Livan and the team for next year.  WT’s Amanda Comak does some good dollar/per win or /per inning research here, and comes to the same conclusion that I have had for a while; Hernandez is a total bargain on the FA market for what he can give … if you can put up with the occasional (frequent?) blowups.
• Lots of 9/1 call-ups are came a few days after the actual September 1st date, with arms Stammen, Severino, Peacock, and Maya joining position players Lombardozzi and Brown.  Peacock and Lombardozzi require corresponding 40-man moves, and (based on past research) we may be seeing a DFA in the next couple days.  Update: I was almost correct with the required moves to make room for the new guys to the 40-man roster, with the Nats transfering Kimball to 60-day DL.  The team (finally, in the eyes of many) DFA’d Garrett Mock, a not-entirely unexpected move.  The surprise was the outright release of Adam Carr.  I thought at least the team would recall him and 60-day DL him, and the unconditional release is somewhat surprising.
• Clearly Davey Johnson has been given an edict to “play the kids.”  But his use of “the kids” in the 9/6 game was, well, a bit frustrating.  He brought a starter in (Brad Peacock) for his MLB debut in a 2-on, one out debacle left by Doug Slaten.  He brought in a hitter (Corey Brown) for his Nats debut in a pinch hitting, bases loaded situation against a Dodger fireballer.  Is he setting these guys up to fail?  I completely agree with Capitol Baseball’s assessment of the situation, published here.
• Kilgore and other beat reporters noted that Wang’s incentives are almost certain to kick in to the tune of an additional $1M by the end of 2011.

Peacock goes from 41st round flier to MLB pitcher. Photo via bleacherreport.com

Those of us who meticulously follow the Nats farmhands and pitching prospects were given multiple treats in the wake of Stephen Strasburg‘s triumphant return on 9/6 (box/gamer).  We also got to see the MLB debut of a very intriguing name in the future of this rotation, Brad Peacock.

(We also got to finally see Atahualpa Severino, but not until after a rain delay blew out my 3-hour DVR recording.  Apparently he blew away the one hitter he faced with 96mph heat.  I wonder why we slogged along with Doug Slaten for so long if we had a 96mph fireballer available in the minors all season?)

Peacock has been visible to those of us who havn’t traveled to either Harrisburg or Syracuse lately, appearing in the Futures game during the 2011 all-star break.  On 9/6 Peacock came into the game in relief despite being a starter all year, and inherited 2 runners from lefty Doug Slaten (who I thought was closer to being released than ever appearing in a game for this team again).  He features (according to a pre-game interview) a 4-seamer (95mph normally), a 2-seamer, a knuckle-curve and a change.

Peacock “only” throws 95 (click here for Pitch F/X data on the night) but its a sneaky fast 95, getting up on hitters by virtue of some slight tweaks he made to his mechanics this year to do a better job of hiding the ball before hitting his release point.  He did a good job keeping his fastball low and definitely had a couple of borderline pitches called balls (at one point showing a bit of exasperation on the mound …).  He definitely depends on the four-seamer predominantly; 15 of his 23 pitches were a 4-seam fastball.  He says he throws a 2-seamer but we didn’t see it.  We only saw a few change-ups as well (six per Pitch f/x), but one of them was a 3-2 change-up to Ethier with the bases loaded that took some guts to throw.  His 4-seamer definitely has action and movement, but I’m beginning to see why scouting pundits (Keith Law) keep saying that Peacock seems destined for the bullpen.  I’d like to have seen the 2-seamer, or more of the curve-balls (he only threw three on the night, but all 3 were for strikes).

His motion and mechanics are “effort-ful.”  He definitely puts a lot into each pitch and he doesn’t have the easy arm action of other pitchers in our arsenal.  Not a total red-flag, but I wonder if he’s a shoulder injury waiting to happen (ala Cole Kimball).

He got a grounder from Matt Kemp (his first MLB hitter) on his curve-ball that Desmond could have (should have?) had, then got touched up for a few hits.  On the night; he pitched 1 1/3, gave up 4 hits and was charged with a run.  He allowed both of Slaten’s runners to score.  He most likely would have gone longer had the skies not opened up.  A couple of the guys he faced really hit the ball on the button and he didn’t have a swinging strike all night (not a good sign).

It’d be nice to see how he fares when he gets a longer outing to see if this was just nerves, an umpire squeezing him or something else.  Perhaps he’ll take some starts from here to the end of the season (we’ll definitely need at least two spot starters because of double-headers on the schedule).  Or perhaps the team will go to a 6-man rotation.