Nationals Arm Race

Welcome to the Majors, Tom Milone. Photo: Tom Priddy/Four-Seam Images/Milb.com

The big news this cycle is that the Nationals will be welcoming a new starter for his MLB debut.  Tom Milone, 2010 Nats minor league pitcher of the year and owner of a rather consistent set of minor league stats as he’s progressed up the system.

• 12-5, 2.91 era in high-A in 2009
• 12-5, 2.85 era in AA in 2010
• 12-6, 3.22 era in AAA this year

So you’d think he has high hopes of continuing to pitch at that level.  What’s going against him?  The jump from AAA to the Majors is the biggest of course, and the scouting reports on him say he’s a soft-tossing lefty that relies on guile to get hitters out, and thus has a potential ceiling of #5 starter at best.  I can’t wait to see how he does.

Good

• Livan Hernandez cooly pitched his 50,000 career pitch while easily controlling the powerful Braves lineup on 8/30 (box/gamer).  7ip, 5 hits, 2 runs.  Meanwhile the team’s 3-4-5-6 hitters all went deep against the Atlanta’s best pitcher Jurrjens.  A good night for the team.

Bad

• Chien-Ming Wang had another poor outing on 9/1 (box/gamer) where his sinker wasn’t sinking, resulting in fly balls and home runs.  End result: 5 2/3, 4 runs, 7 hits and 3 base-runners for nearly a 2.00 whip on the night and a loss in Atlanta.  More concerning; 0 strikeouts.  On the season now; 38 2/3 innings, NINE strikeouts.  I’m sorry; i know the beat reporters are saying things like “well he wasn’t a big strike-out pitcher before” but he’s at 2.1 k/9, nearly 50% less than his career K/9 rate.  His walk rate is way up as well.  Yes he’s still coming off injury and likely isn’t 100%.  But i’m getting less and less inclined to recommend re-signing him as his starts pile up.
• Not the best outing for Ross Detwiler on 9/2 (box/gamer): 6 runs on 7 hits over just 3 innings, highlighted by a 3-run homer given up in the top of the 1st.
• Tom Milone‘s debut on 9/3 (box/gamer) started out well, but ended badly.  See here for an in-depth look.

Mediocre/Inconclusive

• John Lannan didn’t look that effective against the Braves early on 8/31 (box/gamer), giving up a bomb to Chipper Jones and another homer to his counterpart, but he got things back together and put in 7 solid innings.  3 runs (2 earned, the unearned run coming via Lannan’s own throwing error), 6ks and just 1 walk.  It was one of those outings that “seemed” worse than it ended up being.

Starter Trends.  Livan gets back on the good side but the rest of the rotation struggles, contributing to a 2-3 rotation cycle.

2nd half
Lhernandez    bad,good,bad,good,bad,good,bad,soso,good
Lannan    good,good,bad,soso,good,bad,bad,good,soso
Wang        bad,bad,great,soso,soso,good,bad
Detwiler    soso,soso,good,good,bad,bad
Milone    bad

Relievers of Note and other News

• (repeating this from the last post b/c of the timing) I saw a blip in the paper today about how Livan wants to stay a Washington National, and that he’s willing to become a long reliever understanding that he may be forced out of the rotation by the rise of young arms.  That’s good news for the team frankly; if he stays at or near his current salary ($1.25m base, roughly $2m with incentives) then he’s a very good, very cheap insurance policy in case one of our younger arms has a meltdown.  Livan may be finishing a frustrating on-again/off-again season, but he does put in a number of quality starts when given the chance.
• Look at our AFL roster: Harper, Rendon, Solis, Martin, Lehman and likely Purke.  Wow.  Talk about the future of this franchise.
• Twitter feeds from teammates seemed to indicate before any official press releases that both Milone and Peacock are indeed getting 9/1 callups.  Tatusko then retracted the tweets and apologized for starting rumors.  Ahhh the modern media world.
• Adam Kilgore thinks the Nats are calling up no less than 5 players in addition to Milone; Peacock, Severino, Bernadina, Lombardozzi, and Maya.  Honestly I have a hard time believing they’re going to call up Bernadina or Maya.  What is Bernadina going to do as the 6th outfielder on this team right now?  Maya is a starter; we have at least 3 too many starters on the traveling team as it is.  Severino makes some sense, to spell a tired bullpen, but he’s been up twice before and has never thrown a pitch in anger.  Its about time they figured out if he’s worth the 40-man spot he’s been occupying for 2 years.  9/2 update an injury to Nix probably means Bernadina’s call-up for cover.
• Strasburg‘s final rehab start was pretty good; he allowed just one hit through 6, pitched 5 perfect innings and departed on 70 pitches.  I guess he’s ready.  The Nats announced that he’ll only pitch at home, possibly enhancing the repeated criticisms that the team is “baby-ing” him.  Per Goessling’s article the home dates will be roughly the 6th, 11th, 16th, and 23rd.  Personally I hope its the 24th; those are my last season tickets of the season (a 105 saturday game).

Despite being in our system for years, Ross Detwiler is still “really young” for AAA. Photo: Haraz Ghanbari/AP via federalbaseball.com

Following up on a previous post discussing the “age appropriateness” of pitchers in the minor leagues, I thought it would be interesting to look at the pitching staffs at the Nationals various affiliates and take a look at the ages.  NOTE: I did most of this analysis prior to the promotions of AJ Cole and Robbie Ray to Hagerstown.  I’ll put in notes about them in the appropriate section.

To review, based on dividing the ages of every pitcher in each league into quartiles, and then naming the quartiles, here’s our starting point:

Here’s an affiliate-by-affiliate look at the pitching staffs, their ages and how that age is “ranked.”  Syracuse first:

Not surprisingly, several names (Martin, Mock) are included as being “old” for the level.  Maya is a special case of course.  Ironically, a lot of these players are young or really young for the level.  Of note would be Tommy Milone, who is the 23rd youngest pitcher in the International league (out of 193 pitchers) and is holding his own in the rotation.  Ironically, Ross Detwiler “seems” to be much older than he really is, since his name has been in the minds of Nats fans for years, but he’s still quite young even for AAA.  Brad Meyers recent promotion counts him in the younger category as well, a good sign for our continued player development.

Trivia: The youngest pitcher in the International League was (at the time of this analysis) Julio Teheran, uber-Braves prospect who turned 20 in April and is seemingly ready for his MLB debut.  The rich get richer.  In fact, he did get promoted and made a start on Saturday 5/7 for Atlanta.  Meanwhile the oldest pitcher in the International league is Mark Hendrickson, who last appeared in a minor league game in 2003.  He didn’t make the Orioles’ roster out of spring and is trying to hang on.

Here’s Harrisburg:

What is concerning here is the number of “Really Old” pitchers we have on the staff in Harrisburg.  Luckily they’re all relievers, not considered key prospects going forward.  The best starter in AA (Brad Peacock) is quite young for the level (22nd youngest of 166 hurlers in the league).  Other starters in Harrisburg are on the “right side” of the median, including Davis and Martis.  Tatusko is getting too old for the level (hence my prediction that he’d be promoted prior to the season), and probable rotation replacement member Arneson is definitely too old for the level to be considered a prospect.

Interesting trivia; the oldest pitcher in the Eastern league is one Kei Igawa, who also holds the distinction of being (in my opinion) the worst FA starting pitcher ever signed based on dollars per win for the life of his contract plus posting fee.  Meanwhile the youngest AA pitcher is Detroit Tiger’s 2009 1st round pick Jacob Turner, who is holding his own after getting drafted out of high school.

Here’s Potomac:

By virtue of the number of college pitchers we’ve drafted in the past couple of  years, we have a stockpile of these guys who now make our Potomac roster seem relatively old.  Our ace in Potomac Danny Rosenbaum is almost exactly the median age of pitchers in his league (he’s listed as “old” but missed the cutoff by a few days).  Same with newly promoted Cameron Selik, who now pitches in a league where he’s almost exactly the average age.  Potomac’s 2nd most effective starter this season has been Paul Demny, who is the 15th youngest pitcher of a 112 in the league.  Its great to see such a youngster pitching so effectively.  Meanwhile Mitchell Clegg and Trevor Holder are relatively old for the level already and are struggling this year, a sign they may be moved to the bullpen or be defined as “non-prospects” sooner or later.

Lastly, here’s Hagerstown pre Cole and Ray:

All things considered, we’re fielding a relatively young-for-the-level pitching staff in Hagerstown.  The two youngest starters (Bobby Hansen and Chris McKenzie) are right at the 25th percentile cusp (so they’re still young for the league but not amazingly so).  That being said, Hansen is probably Hagerstown’s 2nd most effective starter after Taylor Jordan, and they’re both young for the league.  Even the two oldest starters in Hagerstown (Matt Grace and Paul Applebee) are both right around the median age for pitchers in the league.  Selik was very old for the league before earning his promotion, possibly a sign that his age allowed him to dominate younger guys.  Only the bullpen guys are “old” or “really old” for the league, and even they are not “overly” old.

AJ Cole and Robbie Ray, named to the team over the weekend, become the 3rd and 6th youngest pitchers in the league.  This is all the more interesting considering Ray’s sterling 5/9 debut.

Summary

The younger guys we have in Syracause are for the most part the prospects; the older guys are mostly organizational arms not likely to feature in the majors.  We are definitely “old” in both Harrisburg and Potomac, all the more concerning since both staffs are struggling.  I like how young we are in Hagerstown, considering just how well that team is playing (19-10, 1/2 game out of first having played a ton of away games so far).

The Nats' newest #5 starter, Tom Gorzelanny. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

Love the Trade to get Tom Gorzelanny.  The three guys we gave up were all marginal prospects in the grand scheme of things.  Burgess was a Bowden toolsy draft pick who has moved slowly through the farm system and now is completely blocked for the next 7 years or so by Werth and Harper.  I really liked AJ Morris when we drafted him (he was a 4th rounder but was fantastic in college, giving Mike Leake his only loss of the 2009 season) but he’s already lost his starter status and seems like a middle relief guy at best.  Lastly Graham Hicks was probably the 2nd or 3rd best pitcher in Hagerstown this year and has some promise.

Gorzelanny’s numbers are not fantastic, but you wouldn’t expect them to be for a 5th starter from a team that lost 90 games last  year.  He had a 106 era+ for the season pitching out of a hitters park in Chicago.  He probably has the inside track on the 5th starter spot here in DC by virtue of his acquisition.  If the season started tomorrow you have to think the rotation would be going Livan, Lannan, Zimmermann, Marquis and Gorzelanny.  Maya and Detwiler are starting in AAA save an injury, and Wang has a bit more time to rehab.

Meanwhile, AAA is looking jammed.  We already had Atilano, Martin, Mock and Martis as returning rotation starters in AAA.  Chico is down there as well, having passed through waivers to be reassigned.  Maya and Detwiler are going to need places to pitch.  Plus we have some older prospects from last year’s AA team (Roark and Tatusko) who really need to be pitching in AAA to see if they’re MLB candidates.

All in all, a competent pitcher to compete for a spot in the rotation and who may help out the rotation in the short term.  And not for a lot of money (probably something close to Lannan’s $2.75M deal for 2011).

Strasburg‘s injury will change the way the Nats approach the offseason and the 2011 rotation.  Instead of having Strasburg leading the rotation, I believe this injury will result in the exploration of the FA market, the resigning of Livan Hernandez sooner than later, and the end of the “injury test cases” for Rizzo and Lerner.

Here’s what I’ve got for 2011 right now:

• Locks: Zimmermann, Marquis

• Considered: Maya, Lannan, Olsen, Detwiler, Wang

• FAs to be: Livan Hernandez

• DL for 2011: Strasburg

• Minors/relievers/Left out: Atilano, Martin, Chico, Mock, Martis, Thompson, Stammen

I think the rotation might be filled out exactly in the “considered” order, unless we resign Livan.  Right now I give Lannan the slight edge over Olsen and Detwiler based on past performances and pay.  I think Olsen is pitching his way off the team, and until Detwiler puts together 3 healthy starts he can’t be counted on.  I’m curious to see what Maya does during his call up and I think he’s a lock for the rotation next year.  Wang?  If he doesn’t show some progress why would we pay his freight next year?  IF we can get him in arbitration for a veteran minimum then he may be worth it.  $2M?  no way.

Atilano, Martin, Chico, Mock and Martis seem to be as close to your AAA rotation next year as can be.  Martin and Chico might be done; too old, too little production at the major league level, and in the way of AA promotion candidates like Peacock, Milone and the guys we got in the Guzman trade (Roark and Tatusko).

So, what does a rotation of Zimmermann, Marquis, Livan, Maya and Lannan get you in 2011?  70 wins?  more?  less?  Do we need to look into free agency?