Nationals Arm Race

Sabathia hits 250 wins.
Hall of Famer? Photo wiki/flickr chris.ptacek

Earlier this season, when Stephen Strasburg hit 1,500 career strikeouts I posted a thought piece speculating on his Hall of Fame chances.  That conversation kind of got derailed in a projection discussion versus a theoretical discussion on what we could reasonable expect from Strasburg going forward.  Which is fine; its awfully hard to project a guy already on his second UCL for the next decade.

So, lets talk about four guys who have now hit much more impressive career mile-stones and talk about them individually.

Before we do, you may wonder why I care or why I think this is worth discussing.  And here it is: Starting Pitching usage in our sport has drastically changed in the last decade.  The odds of ever seeing a 300-win pitcher again seem remote, given 5-man rotations, openers, and the general downgrading of the “Win” statistic.  Meanwhile, Strikeouts are skyrocketing, as teams no longer care if a guy strikes out 180 times as long as he hits 45 bombs.  As we speak, Seven of the top 10 pitchers in the history of the sport in terms of K/9 are active starters as we speak.

So my overarching question basically is this: do we need to drastically change the way we evaluate the careers of (especially) starting pitchers given where the game has gone as of late?

And pitchers like Strasburg, Hamels, Sabathia, and Greinke are pretty good test cases.  Here’s why.

Historically, 3,000 career strikeouts was nearly a lock to get a guy to Cooperstown.   As we speak, there’d just 17 guys in the history of the sport who have hit that threshold.  Of those 17 starters, 14 are in the hall, 1 is still active (Sabathia), and two are named Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling (who have externalities unrelated to their performance on the field that are holding them out of the hall).  But going forward, it really seems like we’re going to start seeing a glut of guys hit that 3,000 threshold, and I wonder if we’re going to have to re-think what it means to be a Hall of Fame starter.

With respect to Wins … we’re also seeing a drastic change in expectations for career totals.  Sabathia just hit 250 wins, which now seems like the “new 300” given pitcher usage.  Heck, it now seems like even hitting 200 career wins may be a pretty significant accomplishment, which is amazing considering the lofty career totals achieved by Clemens, Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson just a half a generation ago.

We’re kind of already seeing the effects of this change in evaluation; thanks to evolving usage starting in the 1980s and then the PED effects lengthening careers and thus inflating numbers in the 90s, there’s a severe lack of starting pitchers from the 1980s enshrined in the hall, guys with the kind of career numbers that, if they were pitching today, we’d be having a different conversation.  I wrote about this back in 2013 and did a ton of research at the time, and there’s a slew of starters from the 1980s who really deserved a better consideration than they received from the voters at the time.

Are we going to see something similar with pitchers from today?

Anyway, lets talk about these three guys who hit career milestones within the past few weeks:

1. CC Sabathia: this year has hit both 3,000 career Ks and just got his 250th win.  He has a Cy Young, had a 5-year stretch where he was a top-5 vote-getter, but is slightly below the average HoFamer in terms of JAWS and the Hall metrics available at his baseball-reference.com page.  He’s already announced that he’s retiring after 2019.  Is he a Hall of Famer?
2. Zack Greinke: just hit 2,500 career Ks, is just 5 wins away from 200 career wins.  He’s signed through 2021, is in his age 35 season and has shown pretty good durability throughout his career (I mention this to try to project how long he can stay effective).  He’s having an excellent 2019 despite pitching in Arizona’s hitter’s park and should be an All Star.  He’s averaged 16 wins a season after his age 30 season, meaning he could possibly be in position to challenge 250 career wins himself.  Just one Cy Young award (in an amazing Kansas City season), and came in 2nd in a year when he had a 1.66 ERA in a full season in 2015.   Statistically, his JAWs looks a lot better than Sabathia’s, and he seems to have several more years to tack on WAR and put himself in the upper echelon of SPs historically.  Is he a Hall of Famer?
3. Cole Hamels: just hit 2,500 career Ks himself.  But he’s no where near the 200 win totals that Sabathia and Greinke have already hit (he’s 162-116 as of this writing) while also being in his age 35 season.   He’s been almost exactly averaging 9 K/9 for the past few years.  He’s in his contract year this year, and he’s been amazingly durable (missing just a few weeks in 2017 in the last decade).  I think he’s a shoe-in to get a 3 year contract, which should give him a shot at at least 600 more innings and probably 600 more strikeouts on top of what ever he ends up with this year.  He’s never really come close to a Cy Young, and his JAWS/black ink figures are wanting.  Is he a Hall of Famer?
4. Felix Hernandez also just hit 2,500 career Ks in his last start.  His 5-year peak from 2009-2014 included one Cy Young, two 2nd place finishes and a perfect game in 2012.   Through his age 30 season he sat at 154 wins, 2264 Ks and had people thinking perhaps he had a shot at 300 wins and 4,000 Ks.  But like a light switch, he fell apart upon hitting 31, to the point now at age 33 that the team is considering removing him from the rotation.  Furthermore, he’s falling apart at the end of a long, expensive contract and (as we’ve now seen in the FA market for starters > 30) he may be in trouble of even getting a guaranteed contract for 2020 and beyond.   As of today, he’s got just 15 combined wins in the last three seasons (including this one) and seems influx going forward.    His peak helps him from a JAWs/WAR perspective, but he still sits well behind what a typical Hall of famer sits.  Right now, is he projecting as a Hall of Famer?

There’s other interesting use cases out there in terms of active pitchers.  I don’t think there’s any doubt at this point that the likes of Clayton Kershaw (3 Cy Youngs already), Justin Verlander  (who probably hits 3,000 Ks this season) or Max Scherzer (also 3 career Cy Youngs already) are headed for enshrinement.  But what do you do with someone like Felix Hernandez, who was dominant early and has fallen off a cliff?  What about John Lester?  At age 35 (same as Grienke and Hamels) he’s 4th actively in Wins and led the league in them last year with 18.  What if Lester hits 200 wins and gets close to 3,000 Ks.

So, i’ve thrown these names out there.   If I was a voter, what would I say?

• Sabathia: yes
• Greinke: projecting to Yes
• Hamels; projecting to No, even if he hits 3,000 strikeouts career
• Hernandez: projecting to No
• Lester: projecting to No

What do you guys think?  Is it time to re-think career milestones for Starters?

Photo via allansgraphics.com via free-extras.com

Earlier this month, some breathless headlines pointed out that Stephen Strasburg reached a surprising career milestone; he’s now eclipsed 1,500 career strikeouts.  Strasburg is the fastest to 1,500 career strike-outs by IPs than anyone in the history of the game.

He’s likely to add at least 100 more punch-outs this season (his average is about 150 Ks/season and is in his 10th pro season), but may add even more since we’re only about 1/6th of the way through the season.  So lets say he finishes the season with 1,650 strike outs.

So it occurred to me … is Strasburg really halfway to becoming a hall of fame pitcher?

We’ve generally in the history of the sport basically annointed anyone who hits that threshold a Hall of Famer.   Of the 17 pitchers who have hit 3,000 career punchouts, 14 are in the Hall of Fame, one is Roger Clemens, one is Curt Schilling and one is newly minted 3,000 club member CC Sabathia (another interesting test case for Cooperstown coming up in the next 5-6 years presumably … we’ll come back to him in a moment).

But nothing about Strasburg’s career so far screams “Cooperstown.”  He’s made a couple of all star games, finished 3rd in Cy Young voting in his best season, and for most of his career has not been the best pitcher on his own staff.   He’s been a very good pitcher, but injury prone with just one season out of his career 10 that didn’t feature at least a few weeks of D/L time.  He has one stellar season: 2017’s 6.4 bWAR season (also his peak Cy Young voting) but otherwise has a handful of 3-war seasons throughout his career.  He’s nowhere close to Hall standards by JAWS or any of the baseball-reference.com metrics.

Lets say for the sake of argument that Strasburg pitches another 9 seasons after this one, averages 150 K/s a year and is sitting basically where Sabathia is this season: upper 30s, in his 19th pro season and right on the cusp of 3,000 strikeouts.  Does that sound like a hall of fame resume to you?

(yes i know this is a huge leap of faith; you can’t project pitchers, he may blow his arm out again, yadda, yadda.  For sake of argument, assume Strasburg goes 10 more  years, averages 14-11 with 150 Ks/season).

Coming back to Sabathia: he won a Cy Young, finished in the top 5 four years out of five (missing one  year b/c he got traded between leagues) and was absolutely one of the top pitchers in baseball during his peak JAWs period.  He also will eclipse 250 wins (perhaps the new 300 wins of our era of the sport) and has had a nice late 30s rebound.  Is Sabathia a Hall of Famer?   Strasburg doesn’t even have 100 wins yet at age 30 (but will pass it by the all star break this year), and seems unlikely to even get to 200 wins based on his average/season.

I wonder if Strasburg is really this generation’s version of Kevin Brown, who was more remembered for his contract (he was baseball’s first 9-figure $100M deal) than his production.  Brown was a very good pitcher, but never won a Cy Young, never got to marquee career thresholds (300 wins, 3,000 strikeouts), but interestingly had a significant 5-year stretch in his late 20s/early 30s that has him ranked 49th by JAWS, ahead of 16 other Hall of Fame pitchers and perhaps leaving him as one of the most under-rated Cooperstown snubs of all time.  Strasburg isn’t even this right now: he’s a good #2 starter who can’t stay healthy for more than a few months at a time.  And I say this as a Strasburg defender.

What do you think?  Is the sport about to really start re-evaluating its pitcher career landmarks as the K rates skyrocket and the starter disappears.   And a guy like Strasburg has a chance to really demonstrate the issue if he can achieve some important career thresholds over the next 10 years.

Verlander makes his 11th career opening day start, tying him for the active lead. Photo via sporting News.

Every year I update this long-running XLS for this increasingly anachronistic relic of tracking Opening Day Starter honors for teams.  But it does make for some good trivia questions.

After this year’s opening day (including the two-day series in Japan), here’s some interesting stats related to Opening Day Starts from around the league:

• Most Opening Day Starts, Active Leaders:
  • Justin Verlander makes his 11th and he seems well suited to increase that total given current form and new contract.
  • 11 ties him with both CC Sabathia and Felix Hernandez for the most active, neither of whom seem like they’ll get another shot to extend their totals.
  • Next closest are three tied with 8 each: Jon Lester, Clayton Kershaw and James Shields.  Lester’s is active, Kershaw’s should continue, while Shields remains unsigned for 2019 and seems unlikely to get another shot.
• Current Leading Consecutive streak:
  • Julio Teheran with 6, which is pretty amazing because there was talk of him not even making the team with all the pitching depth Atlanta has.
  • Next closest is Corey Kluber with 5.
  • Nobody else really is close.  Lester has 3 straight for the Cubs, to add to his total of 8 between Boston and Chicago.
• Consecutive streaks ended in 2019:
  • Felix Hernandez has his streak of 10 starts broken, and he wasn’t happy about it.
  • Kershaw had his streak of 8 broken thanks to the spring training injury.
  • Chris Archer has his streak of 4 broken thanks to a mid-season 2018 trade.
• Number of first-time Opening Day Starters in 2019: 14.
  • deGrom, Castillo, Taillon, Mikolas, Freeland, Ryu, Lauer, Snell, Rodon, Keller, Berrios, Fiers, Gonzales, Minor
  • I’d say half of these are rewards for excellent 2018 seasons (deGrom, Taillon, Mikolas, Freelan, Snell for sure, perhaps also Berrios), some are covering for obvious candidates who are injured (Ryu), while the rest mostly play for tanking teams who have little better choice than to name a starter for opening day (Castillo, Lauer, Rodon, Keller, Fiers, Gonzales and Minor).
  • This is the highest number of first-time opening day starters in my decade of tracking this.

Historically, here’s the all-time record holders:

• Most Ever Opening day Starts: Tom Seaver with 16.  Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton
• Most Consecutive Opening Day Starts: Jack Morris, all of whom’s 14 opening day starts were in a row.

Hope you enjoy this useless trivia!

Roark is the big decision the team faces. Photo Alex Brandon/AP via wp.com

Its that time of the year as noted.  Lets get right to it.

Nats have 7 arbitration-eligible players.   Four of them are no-brainers to tender and negotiate with in Arbitration.  2019 salary guesses are MLBtraderumor estimates that are now pretty well accepted as the best analysis estimates out there.  I feel like the Nats are a bit generous and usually end up paying slightly more than their estimates, but these will work for now.

Joe Ross at $1.5M could be an absolute steal and could be a factor in consideration for Tanner Roark‘s decision later on.  If Ross returns to his 2016 form for this salary we’ll be in great shape for next year’s playoff race.  Rendon and Turner are obvious players to continue with, and/or to consider some longer term contract negotiations with.  Lastly, the team just traded for Barraclough, he’s relatively affordable, and will be a key arm in the 2019 bullpen, so he’s not going anywhere.

Lets talk about the more iffy candidates:

First, i’ll just say this: I feel like the team is going to tender Michael A Taylor  He’s got too much value  as a defender, his projected salary in the $3.2M range is going to be better than projections for similar outfielders on the market … but he’s 27 not 33, plays Gold Glove-calibre defense and has shown some flashes of capability at the plate.  I think he makes perfect sense as a 4th outfielder.

I also don’t think i’m going out on a limb saying that its likey that Sammy Solis has thrown his last pitch for the team.  He was patently awful in 2018, couldn’t get lefties out at all, and even though his projected salary is a pittance ($900k), his big limiting factor is his lack of options.  He burned his last minor league option in 2018, so if he can’t make the team he’s gonna get DFA’d anyway.  Might as well get it out of the way now and clear the roster spot.

So, lets get to the main discussion item.  What to do with Tanner Roark?  He’s projecting to a $9.8M salary in his last year of Arbitration.  That’s a hefty sum.  He was fantastic as a starter for this team in 2014 and 2016.  He struggled when the team jerked around his role in 2015.  And the last two seasons he’s essentially been a just-slightly-worse-than-average MLB starter.  Sounds like a classic 4th starter type.  So is a 4th starter worth $9.8M?

He’s not getting any younger; he’ll be playing in his age 32 season next year.  He’s trending the wrong way; you can easily make the argument that the odds of him being more 2018 next year than 2016 are high.

So the real question is this: can you replace him in the trade market or in Free Agency and find someone comparable?   There havn’t been many signings thus far to use as a barometer for this off-season, but one stuck out in my mind; CC Sabathia.  Sabathia is older, fatter, and better.  And he signed for $8M.  All the projections for 4th/5th starter types seem to be falling in the $6M AAV range.

Unfortunately for the team; they’ve basically shredded the top of their starting pitcher prospect ranks in trades lately so they have no real options for internal replacement here.  If you non-tender Roark, then w/o additional acquisitions your 2019 Rotation is:

• Scherzer, Strasburg, Joe Ross, Erick Fedde, and Jefry Rodriguez with Austin Voth and Kyle McGowin in AAA.

That’s two aces and 5 question marks.  TJ surgery recovery rates are now in the 80% I believe … but Ross won’t be throwing more than 160 innings or so in 2019.  Does anyone here Fedde is ready to be anything other than a spot-starter?  Same with the others.  The Nats are already looking at buying at least 2 starters on the open market (to replace Gio Gonzalez and to compete for 5th starter in a Jeremy Hellickson– type signing).  If you cut Roark loose … you have to buy another starter.  (or trade for one of course … but at this point does anyone have the stomach to part with any more top prospects?)

So if you non-tender Roark, you lose a guy who has never gotten hurt, answers the bell, eats innings and can be pretty dominant.  Isn’t that what you want in a solid 4th starter?   What are you going to get on the FA market for that price that’s better?

If it were me, i’d tender him.

Prediction: only Solis is non-tendered.

Actual tender results for 2018:  all arb-eligible players tendered.  Solis (the one we thought was in most jeopardy) negotiated a contract ahead of time.  1 yr, $850k so just slightly below MLBtraderumor’s estimate.  If he flails in spring training the Nats can cut him in mid March for just 1/6th of $850k or just $141k guaranteed.  Not a bad deal.

Here’s a great history of the Nats non-tender deadline decisions over the years, research I first did for last year’s post and which I’ll keep carrying forward.

• 2018: no-one non-tendered (Roark, Taylor, Solis all candidates in one form or another).  Solis negotiated a contract pre-deadline leading to his tender.
• 2017: No non-tender candidates; all arb-eligible players tendered contracts at the deadline.
• 2016: we non-tendered Ben Revere, waived Aaron Barrett before having to make the NT decision, and declined Yusmeiro Petit‘s option as a way of “non-tendering” him.
• 2015: we non-tendered Craig Stammen, but kept NT candidates Jose Lobaton and Tyler Moore (eventually trading Moore after waiving him at the end of spring training).
• 2014: we did not non-tender anyone, though a couple weeks later traded NT candidate Ross Detwiler to Texas for two guys who never really panned out for us (Chris Bostick and Abel de los Santos).
• 2013: we did not non-tender anyone, only Ross Ohlendorf was a candidate, and in retrospect he probably should have been NT’d since he didn’t throw a pitch for the Nationals in 2014.
• 2012: we non-tendered three guys (Jesus Flores, Tom Gorzelanny, John Lannan) in the face of a huge amount of arbitration players (10).
• 2011: we non-tendered Doug Slaten deservedly, but tendered candidate Gorzellany.
• 2010: we non-tendered Chien-Ming Wang, Wil Nieves, Joel Peralta.  We also outrighted 5 guys prior to the NT deadline, DFA’d two more in December, and DFA/dreleased four more guys prior to Spring training in a very busy off-season.
• 2009: we non-tendered Scott Olsen, Mike MacDougal
• 2008: we non-tendered Tim Redding, now the Pitching coach for our Auburn Short-A team, so I guess there was no hard feelings there 🙂
• 2007: we non-tendered Nook Logan, Mike O’Conner.
• 2006: we non-tendered or declined options for Ryan Drese, Brian Lawrence, Zach Day (it might have only been Day who was officially non-tendered)
• 2005: we non-tendered Carlos Baerga, Preston Wilson, Junior Spivey.

Felix Hernandez made his leading 11th opening day start.
Photo Keith Allison via flickr/CCL

Every year I capture the Opening Day Starters into an XLS and then capture some useless trivia on it.  This is that post.

Google Doc XLS link: (the data is too big to make an HTML table): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Mv8gLgJOuJHEAf_pXNwPWGCNRL4RnYEyulH6rxMuudA/edit?usp=sharing

Max Scherzer made his 3rd  career opening day start, all in a Nat’s uniform (he never  got an Opening day start while pitching behind Justin Verlander in Detroit).   Stephen Strasburg has himself made four opening day starts, with these two guys covering every Nats opening day start dating to 2011.

The Nats have one other player with Opening day starts on their resume: Jeremy Hellickson made the 2016 and 2017 opening day starts for Philadelphia.  He currently sits in XST building up arm strength so he can take over for A.J. Cole as our fifth starter after he blows up a couple more times.  And its worth noting that former Nat Jordan Zimmermann earned his first ever such start for Detroit this year, shortly before getting hit in the head with a come-backer.

Here’s some useless trivia related to Opening Day Starts:

• Active Leader: Tie at the top: Seattle’s Felix Hernandez with 11.  CC Sabathia also has 11, but hasn’t made the Yankee’s start since 2014.
• Active Consecutive Leader: Also Hernandez, who has made 10 straight, missing one in 2008 when Erik Bedard took the mound in Game 1 as the new shiny FA signing that spring.  The next closest is Clayton Kershaw, who has made 8 straight for LA.
• Other longish conseutive starts streak: Atlanta’s Julio Teheran with 5, Corey Kluber with 4, and Chris Archer with 4.
• Madison Bumgarner, Masahiro Tanaka and Dallas Keuchel all had 3-4 start streaks broken thanks to injury or being passed over for a different guy.
• 13 of the 30 games were started by first time Opening Day starters this year, continuing a trend of new,  younger guys getting these starts.  In fact, I’d say that a couple of the opening day starters you’d be hard pressed to pull out of a lineup: Miami’s Jose Urena, Milwaukee’s Chase Anderson, and SF’s Ty Blach in particular.

All-time records:

• Most Ever: Tom Seaver (16).  Tied for 2nd place with 14 is Jack Morris, Randy Johnson and Steve Carlton
• Most Consecutive: Jack Morris (14)

Can Felix get 5 more starts to break Morris’ record?   He’s only signed through 2019 with an option for 2020, so he’d need to get an extension … something that’s more and more rare in today’s Baseball climate.

Thanks to that same trend against aging pitchers, a slew of former leaders of Opening Day starts may be permanently retired out of the game.  Guys like Jered Weaver, Tim Lincecum, Edison Volquez, Yovanni Gallardo (who was just DFA’d), Ricky Nolasco, Jake Peavy and perhaps a few others, all of whom have at least 4-5 opening day starts to their name are struggling to find work right now or may be done.   Its turning into a young man’s game.

Quick look at projected SP match-ups for the LCS and predictions:

Here’s the broadcast schedule with probables listed where known: http://m.mlb.com/postseason-schedule .  I’m assuming the Game 5-7 match-ups would be the same as 1-4

ALCS:

• Game 1: NYY@Houston: Tanaka vs Keuchel. Both guys were solid in their ALDS appearances, may be a run prevention effort.
• Game 2: NYY@Houston: Severino vs Verlander: Verlander has been great since moving over, but Severino was no slouch in his ALDS start.
• Game 3: Houston@NYY: Peacock vs Sabathia: Sabathia’s career renaissance continues; he was dominant in the ALDS.  Peacock is an enigma; advantage NYY here.
• Game 4: Houston@NYY: Morton vs Gray: you’d have to say advantage NYY here; Morton struggled, as did Gray, but Gray’s ceiling is higher.

I like Houston in 6 here.  I think they win first two games at home, get one game in NYY then win game 6 behind Verlander.

NLDS:

• Game 1: Chicago@LA: Quintana vs Kershaw: Kershaw should dominate … of course his post-season stats are awful, but Lackey is Chicago’s 5th starter for a reason.
• Game 2: Chicago@LA: Lester vs Hill: tough match-up of lefties; if Chicago were to steal a game, it’d happen here.  But Hill puts several big Chicago bats into neutral, and if he’s on he’s nearly unhittable.
• Game 3: LA@Chicago: Hendricks vs Darvish: I don’t see Hendricks taming the Chicago bats, fired up for their first home games of the NLCS.
• Game 4: LA@Chicago: Arrieta vs Wood: Is Arrieta healthy?  who knows.  I think LA gets to him and steals this game.

The Cubs had to empty the bullpen to get through the NLDS.  And i’m not entirely sure Wood is the LA 4th starter; it could be Kenta Maeda, who threw two relief innings in the NLDS.   I also like LA in 6 here, maybe even 5.  I could see LA winning both LA games, then dropping game 3, getting to Arrieta in game 4 and then having Kershaw shut them down in game 5.  And as we saw in the Washington series … the Chicago bullpen getting from the starter to the closer is … suspect.

Predictions: Houston in 6, LA in 5.

Happy Opening day!

Here’s my recurring “Opening Day” trivia/useless information post.  Here was 2016’s version,  2015, 2014 and 2013.  I also reference many Google XLS/Google Doc creations with historical data below, all of which have been updated for 2017.

Nats 2017 Opening day Payroll:

• $164,335,555 according to Cots
• $162,742,157 per USA Today and
• $146,922,929 per my personal calculations.

Why are these values different?   Cots and USA today disagree on Strasburg’s 2017 salary to the tune of about $2M, and that’s about the difference between their two figures.   My XLS counts all salaries in *current dollars* only, as opposed to the salary cap figures that USA Today and Cots do (Cots also splits out the signing bonuses prorated to each year of the contract).  Plus I count in payments to former players (in our case, Petit and Norris).  I believe this is a better representation of how the team and the Lerners see their payroll.  Teams that have huge payments to former players (like the Dodgers and Padres) should absolutely have those “dead money” payments included.  Roughly speaking, Strasburg and Scherzer both are getting $15M in current dollars but more than $40M combined in these claculations, which is a huge part of the delta between my XLS and Cots’.

Oh, by the way, the Nats now have $199 MILLION dollars of deferred payments on the books when adding in Blanton’s (mostly) deferred salary.

Opening Day Payroll; MLB wide

See this link for the list of all team payrolls at USA Today.  And Here’s Cot’s/Baseball Prospectus’ compensation home page.

I’ve put both of these lists side by side into this little handy Payroll XLS to demonstrate how ridiculously bad the USA Today figures are.  They’re off by $35M for the Padres and by $53M for the Los Angeles Dodgers.  Thats because the USA Today figures don’t account for any salaries being paid for former players, which in the modern game has more and more become a standard.  So, basically I ignore USA Today’s figures and always use Cot’s.

The Dodgers continue to lead the way (by either measure).  The Brewers are now dead last, just ahead of the purposely tanking Padres.  You may have seen posts that noted that Clayton Kershaw gets paid more this year than the Padres entire 25-man roster, and that’s true, but it ignores the $30M+ of dead money on their payroll.

The Nats are 9th on both lists.  Imagine what we could spend with a market value RSN!!

Home Openers Information

Opening Day 2017 attendance was announced at 42,744 .  That’s up more than a thousand from last year.  Here’s all our home openers in order with attendance, time of game, weather:

• 2017: 42,744 (1:05 monday game, 66 and cloudy)
• 2016: 41,650 (4:05 thursday game, 60 and 1.5hr rain delay)
• 2015: 42,295 (4:05 monday game, 75 and gorgeous)
• 2014: 42,834 (1:05 friday game, 50s and overcast)
• 2013: 45,274 (1:05 monday game, 60 and beautiful)
• 2012: 40,907 (1:05 thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
• 2011: 39,055 (1:05 thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
• 2010: 41,290 (1pm game monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): Phillies invasion
• 2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a monday, chilly 53degr and overcast)
• 2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm sunday night, Braves, nat’l tv clear but cold.
• 2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72degrees
• 2006: 40,516 (in rfk, tuesday day game vs Mets, 72degr and sunny)
• 2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62degr and clear, evening game).

Here’s some attendance milestones for the franchise:

• Nats park capacity for 2017 somewhere between 41,506 and 41,546 depending on your source.
• 2013’s opening day attendance of 45,274 remains the regular season record attendance.
• All time record attendance?  The ill-fated 2012 NLDS game 5: 45,966.  No playoff games in 2014 or 2016 came close.
• The first game in franchise history; 2005 in RFK: 45,596, which stood until the 2012 NLDS record-setting game.
• The long-running regular season attendance record was the great Fathers day 2006 game in RFK against the Yankees: 45,157.  That record stood for more than 6 years.

Home Openers Box Scores and Results

Nats are 5-8 in their home openers now since moving to Washington.  Stephen Strasburg‘s 2017 start joins him with Livan Hernandez as the only two pitchers to throw more than one home opener for this team.  When Livan gets elected to Cooperstown, I hope he’s wearing the curly W.  🙂

• 2017; mlb.com: Nats d Marlins 4-2.  WP: Strasburg, LP Phelps (Starters: Strasburg and Volquez)
• 2016: mlb.com: Marlins d Nats 6-4.  WP: David Phelps, LP Tanner Roark (Starters: Brian Conley and Roark).
• 2015: mlb.com: Mets d Nats 3-1.  WP: Bartolo Colon.  LP: Max Scherzer
• 2014: mlb.com or b-r.com.  Braves d Nats 2-1.  WP: Luis Avilan.  LP: Tyler Clippard.  (Starters: Jordan Zimmermann and David Hale).
• 2013: mlb.com or b-r.com.  Nats d Marlins 2-0.  WP: Stephen Strasburg.  LP: Ricky Nolasco
• 2012: mlb.com.  Nats d Reds 3-2.  WP: Craig Stammen. LP: Alfredo Simon (Starters: Gio Gonzalez and Mat Latos)
• 2011: mlb.com.  Braves d Nats 2-0.  WP: Derek Lowe.  LP: Livan Hernandez
• 2010: mlb.com.  Phillies d Nats 11-1.  WP: Roy Halladay.  LP: John Lannan
• 2009: mlb.com.  Phillies d Nats 9-8.  WP: Jamie Moyer.  LP: Saul Rivera (Nats Starter: Daniel Cabrera)
• 2008: mlb.com.  Nats d Braves 3-2.  WP: Jon Rauch.  LP: Peter Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez)
• 2007: mlb.com.  Marlins d Nats 9-2.  WP: Dontrelle Willis.  LP: John Patterson
• 2006: mlb.com.  Mets d Nats 7-1.  WP: Brian Bannister.  LP: Ramon Ortiz
• 2005: mlb.com.  Nats beat Arizona 5-3. WP: Livan Hernandez. LP: Javier Vazquez

How about Season openers?

Record: 6-7.  # times home/away: 7 home, 6 away.

The Nats managed to lose 6 of their first 7 season openers … only winning in 2008 when debuting their new stadium.  And Jon Rauch did his darndest to blow that opener too, coughing up the lead in the 9th to give Ryan Zimmerman a chance at glory.

• 2017 home: Nats d Marlins 4-2.  WP Strasburg, LP Phelps (starters Strasburg, Volquez)
• 2016: away: Nats d Braves 4-3.  WP Treinen, LP O’Flarity (starters Scherzer, Teheran)
• 2015: home: Mets d Nats 3-1.  WP: Bartolo Colon.  LP: Max Scherzer
• 2014: away: Nats d Mets 9-7.  WP Aaron Barrett, LP Familia (starters Strasburg, Dillon Gee)
• 2013: home: Nats d Marlins 2-0.  WP: Stephen Strasburg.  LP: Ricky Nolasco
• 2012: away: Nats d Cubs 2-1.  WP Clippard, LP Marmol (starters: Strasburg and Ryan Dempster)
• 2011: home: Braves d Nats 2-0.  WP: Derek Lowe.  LP: Livan Hernandez
• 2010: home: Phillies d Nats 11-1.  WP: Roy Halladay.  LP: John Lannan
• 2009: away: Marlins d Nats 12-6.  WP: Nolasco, LP; Lannan
• 2008: home: Nats d Braves 3-2.  WP: Jon Rauch.  LP: Peter Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez)
• 2007: home: Marlins d Nats 9-2.  WP: Dontrelle Willis.  LP: John Patterson
• 2006: away: Mets d Nats 3-2.  WP: Glavine, LP: Hernandez
• 2005: away: Phillies d Nats 8-4.  WP: Lieber, LP: Hernandez

Opening Day Starter Trivia

Here’s my Opening Day starters worksheet in Google docs, updated for the 2017 slate.  Here’s the answer to some fun Opening Day Starter trivia:

• Leader in Opening day starts: remains C.C. Sabathia with 11, though he’s not extending his record and will be caught next  year.
• Leader in consecutive opening day starts: Felix Hernandez, making his 9th consecutive, 10th overall.
• Justin Verlander returned to Opening Day duties, getting his 9th career opening day start; he remains in 3rd place actively.
• Clayton Kershaw now has seven straight and may be in a position to challenge the all time records.
• For the Nats; Stephen Strasburg gets his fourth.  Max Scherzer has two.  John Lannan, now back as a submarining lefty in AAA, also has two.
• Twelve (12) pitchers made their first career opening day start in 2017, including (surprisingly) Yu Darvish.
• Edinson Volquez got his 5th career opening day start … on four different teams.
• The Mets have now used 7 different opening day starters in the last 7 seasons.  But that pales in comparison to what’s going on in Texas: 9 straight different opening day starters there.   Miami has used 6 different guys in a row and there’s a few other teams that have used 4 or 5 different guys over the last 4-5 seasons.
• The most ever?  Tom Seaver with 16.  The most consecutive?  Jack Morris with 14.

2015 opening day image via sayhellobaseball.wordpress.com

My recurring “Opening Day” trivia/useless information post.  Here was 2015’s version, 2014‘s and 2013.  Many of the below links are to Google XLS docs that i’ve updated for 2016 and which are available on the right hand side under “NatsArm Creations.”

Nats 2016 Opening day Payroll: $145,178,886 according to Cots.  This is down nearly $20M from last year’s figure.  We can only hope that Mike Rizzo will be allowed to “spend” that money later in the year at the trade deadline if this team actually needs to spend money to acquire helpful players.

My personal payroll estimate came in at $ $137,286,029 coincidentally; why am I $8M off?  Because Cots basically makes arbitrary proclamations of salary for current year when money is deferred whereas I’m counting it as real dollars.  So for example I’m charging the Nats payroll precisely $15M for Max Scherzer this year while Cots puts the figure north of $22M, and Cots puts all of Papelbon’s $3M deferred 2016 salary on the 2016 books.  So between those two players the entire delta is accounted for.

The question is this: as a Nats fan are you “happy” that your payroll is down nearly $20M in Stephen Strasburg‘s walk  year and while your Season Ticket prices continue to rise?

Opening Day Payroll; MLB

USAToday also publishes opening day salaries for teams and i’m convinced that they’re garbage.  I’ve got a comparison spreadsheet where i’ve put the USAtoday figures side-by-side with Cots’ analysis and for some teams they’re off by more than $25M.  The problem is that USAToday doesn’t count ANY payments handed to and from between teams, whereas Cots does a very detailed auditing of such money.

Nonetheless, here’s USAToday and Cots’ rankings for the 30 teams (this is my first time using this new Table plug in; head to Google XLS to read it if this is too difficult):

Opening day Nats park attendance

Opening Day 2016 attendance was announced at 41,650.  That’s down more than 800 from last year (but still a sell-out).  Perhaps the rain forcast kept people away.   Here’s all our home openers in order with attendance, time of game, weather:

• 2016: 41,650 (4:05 thursday game, 60 and 1.5hr rain delay)
• 2015: 42,295 (4:05 monday game, 75 and gorgeous)
• 2014: 42,834 (1:05 friday game, 50s and overcast)
• 2013: 45,274 (1:05 monday game, 60 and beautiful)
• 2012: 40,907 (1:05 thursday game 56, partly cloudy)
• 2011: 39,055 (1:05 thursday game, 41 degrees and overcast)
• 2010: 41,290 (1pm game monday, beautiful weather 80s and sunny): Phillies invasion
• 2009: 40,386 (3pm game on a monday, chilly 53degr and overcast)
• 2008: 39,389 (season and stadium opener), 8pm sunday night, Braves, nat’l tv clear but cold.
• 2007: 40,389 (in rfk, 1pm game vs Florida, 72degrees
• 2006: 40,516 (in rfk, tuesday day game vs Mets, 72degr and sunny)
• 2005: 45,596 (in rfk, debut of entire franchise, 62degr and clear, evening game).

Here’s some attendance milestones for the franchise:

• Nats park capacity for 2015 seems to still be 41,456 unless they announce an 2016 adjustment.
• 2015’s opening day crowd wasn’t even close to 2013’s: 45,274.  That remains the regular season record attendance.
• All time record attendance?  The ill-fated 2012 NLDS game 5: 45,966.
• The first game in franchise history; 2005 in RFK: 45,596, which stood until the NLDS record-setting game.
• The long-running regular season attendance record was the great Fathers day 2006 game in RFK against the Yankees: 45,157.  That record stood for more than 6 years.

Opening Day Box Scores and Results

Nats are just 4-8 in their home openers now since moving to Washington.  Just one guy has thrown more than one home opener for the Nats: Livan Hernandez.  When Livan gets elected to Cooperstown, I hope he’s wearing the curly W.  🙂

• 2016: mlb.com: Marlins d Nats 6-4.  WP: David Phelps, LP Tanner Roark (Starters: Brian Conley and Roark).
• 2015: mlb.com: Mets d Nats 3-1.  WP: Bartolo Colon.  LP: Max Scherzer
• 2014: mlb.com or b-r.com.  Braves d Nats 2-1.  WP: Luis Avilan.  LP: Tyler Clippard.  (Starters: Jordan Zimmermann and David Hale).
• 2013: mlb.com or b-r.com.  Nats d Marlins 2-0.  WP: Stephen Strasburg.  LP: Ricky Nolasco
• 2012: mlb.com.  Nats d Reds 3-2.  WP: Craig Stammen. LP: Alfredo Simon (Starters: Gio Gonzalez and Mat Latos)
• 2011: mlb.com.  Braves d Nats 2-0.  WP: Derek Lowe.  LP: Livan Hernandez
• 2010: mlb.com.  Phillies d Nats 11-1.  WP: Roy Halladay.  LP: John Lannan
• 2009: mlb.com.  Phillies d Nats 9-8.  WP: Jamie Moyer.  LP: Saul Rivera (Nats Starter: Daniel Cabrera)
• 2008: mlb.com.  Nats d Braves 3-2.  WP: Jon Rauch.  LP: Peter Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez)
• 2007: mlb.com.  Marlins d Nats 9-2.  WP: Dontrelle Willis.  LP: John Patterson
• 2006: mlb.com.  Mets d Nats 7-1.  WP: Brian Bannister.  LP: Ramon Ortiz
• 2005: mlb.com.  Nats beat Arizona 5-3. WP: Livan Hernandez. LP: Javier Vazquez

How about Season openers?

Record: 5-7.  # times home/away: 6 home, 6 away.

The Nats managed to lose 6 of their first 7 season openers … only winning in 2008 when debuting their new stadium.  And Jon Rauch did his darndest to blow that opener too, coughing up the lead in the 9th to give Ryan Zimmerman a chance at glory.

2016: away: Nats d Braves 4-3.  WP Treinen, LP O’Flarity (starters Scherzer, Teheran)
2015: home: Mets d Nats 3-1.  WP: Bartolo Colon.  LP: Max Scherzer
2014: away: Nats d Mets 9-7.  WP Aaron Barrett, LP Familia (starters Strasburg, Dillon Gee)
2013: home: Nats d Marlins 2-0.  WP: Stephen Strasburg.  LP: Ricky Nolasco
2012: away: Nats d Cubs 2-1.  WP Clippard, LP Marmol (starters: Strasburg and Ryan Dempster)
2011: home: Braves d Nats 2-0.  WP: Derek Lowe.  LP: Livan Hernandez
2010: home: Phillies d Nats 11-1.  WP: Roy Halladay.  LP: John Lannan
2009: away: Marlins d Nats 12-6.  WP: Nolasco, LP; Lannan
2008: home: Nats d Braves 3-2.  WP: Jon Rauch.  LP: Peter Moylan (Starters: Tim Hudson and Odalis Perez)
2007: home: Marlins d Nats 9-2.  WP: Dontrelle Willis.  LP: John Patterson
2006: away: Mets d Nats 3-2.  WP: Glavine, LP: Hernandez
2005: away: Phillies d Nats 8-4.  WP: Lieber, LP: Hernandez

Opening Day Starter Trivia

Here’s my Opening Day starters worksheet in Google docs.  Here’s the answer to some fun Opening Day Starter trivia:

• Leader in Opening day starts: remains C.C. Sabathia with 11, though he’s missed the last two years.
• Leader in consecutive opening day starts: Felix Hernandez, making his 8th consecutive, 9th overall.
• Justin Verlander returned to Opening Day duties, getting his 8th career opening day start; he remains in 3rd place actively.
• For the Nats; Max Scherzer gets his 2nd and Stephen Strasburg continues to have three.
• Ten (10) pitchers made their first opening day start in 2016.
• There’s 8 guys out there still active with 4 or more Opening Day starts who did not get them this year, and they include a number of former Aces who might be on the way out of the game (Tim Lincecum in particular, but also guys like James Shields, Bartolo Colon and Yovanni Gallardo)
• The most ever?  Tom Seaver with 16.  The most consecutive?  Jack Morris with 14.

The best pitcher on the best rotation in the league. Photo: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

I’m returning to a fun post that I did in 2013 and again in 2014 (but couldn’t find the time to do while switching jobs in 2015): Ranking the MLB rotations 1-30 ahead of the new season.  I normally wait to do this post until all the significant starter free agents have signed; when Yovani Gallardo signed, he was the final QO-attached starter who might make a difference in a team’s ranking, so it was time to publish.

This is not a scientific analysis necessarily; i’m not looking at PECOTA or ZIPS to project war to do my rankings.  Rather, this is an eye test of the guys projected to pitch 1-5 for each team in the coming season.  So feel free to disagree.  For what its worth, I am pretty confident in my top 10 and my bottom 5 rotations … but am not exactly going to argue vehemently that the rotation i’ve got ranked 22nd is appreciably better than the one I have ranked 24th.

At the bottom i’ve put links to other pundit’s rankings, which are similar but different.

As always, I show my work; here’s the rotation ranks worksheet that I use to track rotation players.  As an added bonus to what is shown below, the worksheet color codes new acquisitions, puts in “depth” for each team and tracks who the team lost from last  year.  it also has a list of as-of-yet-unsigned hurlers, though none would move the needle if/when they sign for 2016.

I’ll put these into sections and put in comments as we go.

Discussion 1-5: My top 5 is pretty similar to other people’s top 5 rotations.  I don’t think anyone would argue against the Mets being at #1; if Zack Wheeler comes back healthy he can replace either the ageless Colon or the oft-injured Matz and perhaps even improve what is clearly the class of the league.  I have St. Louis #2 since everyone seems to forget just how good they were last  year; yes they lose Lynn but they gain back Wainwright.

I could see why people could argue against having both San Francisco and Cleveland higher than Washington, and indeed over the course of the winter I had Washington above both.  But I’m convinced that both of SF’s new acquisitions Cueto and Samardzija will completely thrive playing in the NL West, and you can do worse than Cain/Peavy as your 4/5.   They have some depth in case those two veterans get hurt and I see SF as a sneaky NL West challenger in 2016.

Cleveland you say?  Kluber is a former Cy Young winner who hasn’t forgotten how to pitch, Carrasco and Salazar are two of the best young arms in the league (I’m seeing Carrasco in particular going very high in fantasy ADP rankings for 2016), and their 4/5 are comparable to Washington’s back end.  If you wanted to argue that man for man Washington was just ahead of Cleveland i wouldn’t disagree; i’ve been burned over-ranking DC’s rotation in the past so perhaps I was gun shy this time around.

Discussion 6-10: So, is Washington > than the Cubs?  I think so: I don’t view Lester as a real #2 any more, Lackey is approaching retirement and their 4/5 are basically 5th starters easily found on the waiver wire; i’d take the Nats’ 3-4-5 over the Cubs any day.  Still, Arrieta‘s 2nd half was legendary and it is possible that Lackey puts up a 3-win season, so they’re still quite good.  Both Arizona and the Dodgers are propped up by virtue of their Aces; the back side of both rotations looks downright scary.  In fact, you can say the same for Seattle and the White Sox too; all four of these teams have league-wide top end Aces and then 5th starters who seem like they could be replaced by someone in AAA.  That’s really the difference between these teams and the top 5 ranked teams; its the back of the rotations, not so much the front.

I could be slightly wrong about Seattle’s depth; if Iwakuma is really hurt and if Felix‘s decline phase has really started, then Seattle’s a notch down.  If Rodon takes the step forward that he can, then the White Sox can really become a force of a rotation quickly.

Discussion 11-15: So again looking at edge cases, I have the likes of Seattle and Chicago > Pittsburgh based on the strength (or lack there of) of the back-end of Pittsburgh’s rotation; Niese?  Vogelsong??  Really?  I just have a hard time believing that Pittsburgh is going to reach 90 wins with this 2016 rotation.  Houston is one Cy Young winner and four guys who look like 4-A replacements.  I like the Price signing … but Price is not exactly Kershaw-esque when it comes to putting up constant shut-down performances; Price gets just lit up some times.  Last year he had outings where he gave up 10 hits/8 runs in 2+ innings and a 13-hit 6 1/3 outing.  75% QS rate, which sounds good but isn’t in the 82-85% range like Kershaw and Arrieta.  My point is this: Price goes to the AL East, to pitching in a hitters park, and he can take some big numbers.  The rest of Boston’s rotation is weak too; would you trust Buchholz at this point?  Porcello is their #3 and he’d be in the Syracuse if he played for us.

In fact, Maybe I have Tampa and Detroit too low; Tampa in particular could be a monster if Moore comes back strong and Archer is as good as he could be.  If Verlander can capture his 2nd half form … then Detroit could take a big step up too.

Discussion 16-20: Texas is an interesting one; Darvish won’t be ready for opening day, but if he comes back this ranking could rise.  Likewise, I might have Miami too low considering that Fernandez is one of the top pitchers in the game; i just don’t trust the rest of their rotation, and the Chen signing made zero sense for a team that can’t seem to decide if they’re trying to win or not.  The strength of Kansas City’s pitching staff isn’t their starters; its the bullpen (best in the league along with the  Yankees), and the Kennedy signing seemed to make no sense.  Thanks to two early ST injuries, I literally have no idea who the Angels 5th starter is going to be now … perhaps they should now be lower.  Lastly you have the Yankees: every guy in their rotation seems like a huge question mark; Tanaka has a torn UCL, Sabathia is a shell of who he once was, Pineda had a shoulder injury that cost him all of 2012 and half of the next two seasons, Nova just came off of Tommy John surgery, and Eovaldi (himself on his 2nd elbow ligament) can’t find the plate.  If these guys are ranked 20th … imagine what’s coming below.

Discussion 21-25: As with all the edge cases, perhaps you can squint at San Diego and say they could be ranked higher.  Perhaps; but take any of those 5 guys at this point and put them in a hitter’s park and they’re not half as good.  I like Stroman (former Nats draft pick!) but the rest of the Toronto rotation looks like guys who are just holding on.  I’m not sure even Oakland’s management knows who some of their rotation candidates are.

I might be selling Baltimore a bit short; I’ve just never been convinced that Jimenez can repeat his earlier glory, and Baltimore’s notoriously awful coaching staff has seemingly ruined yet another young vibrant arm in Gausman.  Atlanta’s rotation may not look that great right now, especially considering that they’re purposely tanking in 2016 … but they have a couple of sleeper potentials and their prospect depth (including two high end hurlers in Michael Foltynewicz and Aaron Blair) put them above the bottom 5.

Discussion 26-30: The bottom 5 rotations feature two teams clearly tanking (Philly and Cincy) who are throwing out mostly kids and 4-A one-year acquisitions.  Its telling that these two rotations are better than the bottom 3 rotations, each of which belongs to a team that just seems to have no idea how to build a modern rotation.  Minnesota has for  years favored soft-tossers and not pursued high-end arms and now they have a relatively highly paid rotation of guys who, well, are not effective.  Milwaukee is in the same boat, having shelled out money for Garza just to watch him implode.

Lastly we come to Colorado, who still is searching for a strategy upon which to build a rotation.  The latest seems to be to pursue high velocity fastball guys who can just throw their ball through the light air and fool hitters.  But they’re not there yet and their Ace for 2016 is a 35yr old with a career 4.55 ERA.  Its not looking pretty in Colorado for 2016 and the fact that they havn’t sold off all their quality outfielders for parts speaks to the incompetence and indecision of their front office.   You’re not going to win in 2016; you’re in a division with the Dodgers, Giants and Diamondbacks, all of which spent big (either last off-season or before) and are putting out quality lineups.

—-

Some other pundit’s rotation ranks for 2016 for comparison purposes.

http://espn.go.com/blog/buster-olney/insider/post?id=12054
http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2016/1/12/10755692/baseball-rotation-rankings-mlb

All 30 MLB teams’ starting rotations, ranked

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/164500586/top-10-pitching-staffs-major-league-baseball

Arrieta makes for a great WC matchup this week in Pittsburgh. Photo via mlb.com

Welcome to playoff baseball.  Lets look at the playoff rotations of the 8 playoff teams.

Reference links: MLB post-season schedule, Depth Charts for all teams, baseball-reference for stats.

NL Divisional Winners:

• New York Mets: deGrom, Snydergaard, Harvey, Matz (Colon)
• Los Angeles Dodgers: Kershaw, Greinke, Wood, Anderson (Bolsinger)
• St. Louis Cardinals: Lynn, Wacha, Garcia, Lackey (Lyons)

Discussions/Thoughts

• NY Mets: Only the Mets so far  have announced their rotation order.  Matt Harvey has quelled shut-down-gate talks by finishing out the season and saying he’d take the ball in the NLDS: hard to see him getting beat in his home game 3 start against the Dodgers, especially given his last outing (6ip, 11Ks).  deGrom struggled somewhat down the stretch and Snydergaard is only 22; hard to see them beating the seasoned vets Kershaw/Greinke at home.  We still don’t know if Matz is going to be healthy for game 4, but the potential LA opponent isn’t exactly scaring anyone, so I could see this go to a game 5 back in LA with Kershaw getting a 2nd divisional start.
• LA: We say this every year: Kershaw is the greatest … and he has a 5+ post-season ERA.  I’ll never bet against him in the playoffs, especially not after the September he had.  Greinke either wins the Cy Young or finishes a close second, and Wood is an effective 3rd starter.  This is a tough rotation to handle.  But they’re going against probably the 2nd best rotation in the post-season, meaning this could be a tight 5-game set.  Or not; watch every game will be 8-7.
• StL: They don’t look tough … but this rotation led the Cardinals to a 100 win season in a division with two other 97+ game winners.  That’s pretty amazing.  Bet against them at your own peril.  They were 11-8 versus the Cubs, 10-9 (and got outscored) against the Pirates, so I’m guessing they’re rooting for a Pittsburgh win in the WC play-in game.

NL Wild Card

• Chicago Cubs: Arrieta, Hendricks, Haren, Lester (Hammel)
• Pittsburgh Pirates: Cole, Liriano, Happ, Burnett (Morton)

Discussion/Prediction: Arrieta has given up 3 runs in the last month … and two of them were in his road start in Pittsburgh on 9/16/15.  I could see a similar start from him again in the Wednesday WC game.  So what can the Cubs do with Cole?  They have also seen him twice in the last month, got shut down at home but got to him on 9/15/15 in Pittsburgh.   Tough one to predict but I’m going with your presumptive Cy Young winner to hold serve in Pittsburgh, sending home the 97 win Pirates for the 2nd straight year in the play-in game.   Prediction: Cubs win.

If the Cubs win, they’ll be at a huge disadvantage against the Cards.  If the Pirates win, Liriano and Happ have been pitching well enough to get them back to their ace quickly and make a series of it.

AL Divisional Winners

• Toronto: Price, Estrada, Buehrle, Dickey/Stroman
• Kansas City: Cueto, Ventura, Volquez, Young (Medlen)
• Texas: Hamels, Gallardo, Holland, Perez/Lewis

Discussion:

• Toronto is setup for the playoffs and will get Price twice.  The back-end of their rotation doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in a playoff series, but Toronto isn’t about top-notch pitching.  They hope to bash their way to the title and just may do it.  Would you roll the dice and sit Dickey for the 4th spot in favor of Stroman and his live arm?  Do you insult the veteran Buehrle and leave him off your playoff roster (probably not).
• Kansas City: blew Cueto in an attempt to keep home field and were successful, so Ventura likely gets two NLDS starts.  Nationals re-tread Young suddenly looks like the #4 starter for a WS contender.  Who would have thought that?
• Texas burned Hamels just to get to the playoffs; they’ll struggle to compete against two David Price home starts.  Who is their #4 in the playoffs?  Will Toronto average 6 runs a game against this staff?  Could be a short-post season run for the Rangers; no judgement here; they’ve done fantastically just to get into the playoffs given the number of rotation injuries and their poor start.

AL Wild Card

• Houston: Keuchel, McHugh, McCullers, Kazmir/Fiers
• New  York  Yankees: Tanaka, Severino, Pineda, Nova (Sabathia)

Discussion/Prediction: well, it doesn’t look good for the Yankees; Keuchel is scheduled to start and has thrown twice against New York this year: he threw a 6-hit shutout with 12 Ks against them in June and then threw 7 innings of 3-hit shutout ball in late August.  He’s your shoe-in Cy Young Winner and seems likely to pitch the Astros into the divisional series.   New York counters with Tanaka; in his sole appearance vs Houston he got lit up (5ip, 6runs) and the Yankees seem like they’re struggling just to field a lineup at season’s end.  They get the home game but likely go out a loser to end their season.  And if the Yankees somehow won, they’d have thrown their best pitcher … and one of the presumptive rotation members just checked himself into Alcohol Rehab.  Prediction: Astros Win.

Interesting collection of guys with Washington ties featuring prominently in the 2015 playoffs.

• Dan Haren was nearly released mid-season because he was so bad in Washington 2  years ago, now he’s the #3 starter on a 97 win team.
• Marco Estrada was waived by the Nats after a long and uninspiring minor league career; now he’s the #2 starter for the AL favorite?
• Chris Young played a whole season for Syracuse in 2013, working his way back from an injury.  When he didn’t make the 2014 roster he signed with Seattle and has been pretty effective since.
• Marcus Stroman was an 18th round pick out of HS by the Nats; he was listed as a SS (he’s only 5’8″) but went to Duke, became a power arm and was a 1st round pick by the Blue Jays 3 years later.
• Colby Lewis signed on with the Nats back in the bad years, failing to make the team out of Spring Training in 2007.  He hooked on with Oakland, playing most of the year in Sacramento before signing a 2-year gig in Japan.