Author Topic: Nationals in the National media - 2014 (Read 13249 times)

Las Vegas is giving the Tigers, Dodgers, and Nationals equal chances of winning it all

http://www.vegasinsider.com/mlb/odds/futures/

Dodgers are also co-favorites with the Nats to win the NL, though I thought I saw the Dodgers with better odds yesterday. Perhaps more people starting betting on the Nationals?

Natsinpwc · « **Reply #137:** September 30, 2014, 07:34:35 AM »

Quote from: Count Walewski on September 30, 2014, 07:18:57 AM

Las Vegas is giving the Tigers, Dodgers, and Nationals equal chances of winning it all

http://www.vegasinsider.com/mlb/odds/futures/

Dodgers are also co-favorites with the Nats to win the NL, though I thought I saw the Dodgers with better odds yesterday. Perhaps more people starting betting on the Nationals?

Nats-Dodgers I understand.

Tigers being AL favorites I don't get.

houston-nat · « **Reply #138:** September 30, 2014, 09:00:53 AM »

Doug Glanville @dougglanville
Hmmm. Choosing who I want to face from the @Nationals rotation is like choosing between different ways to pour hot sauce into your eye.

TigerFan · « **Reply #139:** September 30, 2014, 09:24:07 AM »

Quote from: Natsinpwc on September 30, 2014, 07:34:35 AM

Nats-Dodgers I understand.

Tigers being AL favorites I don't get.

I agree, LAA should be favored in the AL IMO though I hope I'm wrong.

JCA-CrystalCity · « **Reply #140:** September 30, 2014, 03:45:31 PM »

Quote from: TigerFan on September 30, 2014, 09:24:07 AM

I agree, LAA should be favored in the AL IMO though I hope I'm wrong.

I think folks seriously question LAA's pitching after Weaver, and Weaver would be behind Price and Scherzer if he were a Tiger.

Gosh, is Verlander really their 4th starter now?

TigerFan · « **Reply #141:** September 30, 2014, 05:42:01 PM »

Quote from: JCA-CrystalCity on September 30, 2014, 03:45:31 PM

I think folks seriously question LAA's pitching after Weaver, and Weaver would be behind Price and Scherzer if he were a Tiger.

Gosh, is Verlander really their 4th starter now?

It will be interesting to see what happens. JV is 5-1 in his last 7 starts. He isn't striking people out as he has in years past but his numbers have been up lately.

PC · « **Reply #142:** September 30, 2014, 05:48:31 PM »

Quote

Swarm of Nats

My ZiPS projection system likes the Nats, at 13.8 percent, to win it all. Here's why.
Originally Published: September 29, 2014
By Dan Szymborski | ESPN The Magazine

THEY'RE HEALTHY
The Angels lost ace Garrett Richards and the Orioles don't have Manny Machado, but the Nationals have key pieces back from the DL. Bryce Harper, who missed 57 games because of a thumb injury, hit .273/.325/.455 with 10 home runs after July. Two-time All-Star Gio Gonzalez, who lost a month because of a muscle tear, had a 3.30 ERA in the 17 starts before his final tuneup. Ryan Zimmerman, back from a 55-game DL stint for hamstring issues, will give the Nats the option of sitting Adam LaRoche against a tough lefty. Word is the Dodgers have one of those.

THEY'RE BALANCED
Despite what Peter Keating's Surplus Quality Wins metric says, ZiPS sees the Nationals as built for October. Start with a terrifying top four, who combined for a 2.79 ERA -- best among all playoff teams. Their fourth-best starter is Stephen Strasburg. In fact, Gonzalez's aforementioned run gives Washington a strange choice: Save Gonzalez for the bullpen, and add tremendous depth to the relief, or start him in place of Tanner Roark and have a rotation that's more fearsome than Detroit's. On offense, the Nats lack an MVP-type mauler, but the team tied for third in the NL in runs and was fourth in homers and walks. Every starter except catcher Wilson Ramos had an OPS+ above 100 (the league average). Zimmerman's return (124 OPS+) could free up Anthony Rendon (125) to play second and boost the offense even more. It's the best problem to have too many options.

THEY'RE CRUISING
Baseball history suggests that teams that crush all summer and then coast in September perform best in the playoffs. From 1903 to 2012, teams that won their division by 10 games or more had a .542 winning percentage in the postseason, well above the expected .516 rate. (Excluding Baltimore, no team had a bigger cakewalk this year than Washington.) Meanwhile, teams that won by five or fewer games had a .483 winning percentage, .010 below expectations. In the end, not only do cruising teams perform better than expected in the postseason, but their advantage is greater -- far greater -- than having the home-field edge in any playoff series: The .542 winning percentage for coasting teams is 26 points of winning percentage above expectation. And home-field advantage is worth only seven points of winning percentage in a seven-game series, 10 points in a five-game series.

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/11589800/why-nationals-win-world-series?src=mobile&rand=ref~%7B%22ref%22%3A%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F%22%7D

JCA-CrystalCity · « **Reply #143:** October 02, 2014, 04:31:39 PM »

Well, it's just Fangraphs, so Blue is going to give Dave Cameron grief even though this is written by August Gagerstrom. He writes about Williams's ability to keep his bullpen fresh going into the post-season.

Quote

But a manager can do his part in keeping a bullpen fresh by who he choose to use in each situation and how often he uses them. Last year, Davey Johnson asked his relievers to pitch with zero days rest on 99 occasions – right in the middle of the pack. This year, Matt Williams has asked his relievers to pitch on zero days rest just 56 times – fewest in the MLB. For comparison, the league-leading Cleveland Indians asked their pitchers to throw on zero days rest a staggering 150 times.

Pitching a baseball at the major league level is incredibly stressful on a human arm. Having an appropriate amount of time to recover is crucial, so long as we’re dealing with humans. . . . And the Nationals appear to have an advantage, in having a bullpen which has been granted more recovery time than any other bullpen in baseball.

. . . The reliever they’ve asked the most of, Tyler Clippard, has thrown on consecutive days 15 times, and even that’s just the league average.

Of the 50 relievers who were asked to throw consecutive innings most often this year, they posted a 2.82 first-half FIP. In the second half, that jumped to 3.36, for a 54-point jump. Of the 50 relievers who were asked to throw consecutive innings least often this year, their FIP remained constant, raising just eight points from 3.62 to 3.70. Surely, there’s some noise in here, and we can’t say for sure that the reason behind the first group’s increase is directly correlated to how often they threw consecutive days, but it seems to support an idea that is accepted as common sense – the heavier the workload, the more a player might feel the effects of fatigue. The Nationals, as a unit, actually saw their bullpen’s FIP decrease eight points from the first half to the second half.

Let’s take it a step further. Something that would seem to have an inverse relationship with how often a team asks a reliever to pitch on consecutive days would be how often a team asks a reliever to work multiple innings. If you’re spreading your guys out, the logical trade-off would be to have them put in more work when they’re called upon. This line of thinking is backed by the numbers. The other teams, besides Washington, who have called upon their relievers to work consecutive days the least often are Toronto, Texas and Houston. Toronto had relievers work multiple innings 133 times – seventh in the MLB. Texas was sixth, at 138. Houston had the fifth-highest total, at 140. Washington? Fourth-fewest multi-inning relief appearances of any team in baseball, with just 76. Stammen and Detwiler are the long relievers, so they’ve racked up 45 of those 76 multi-inning appearances. Blevins? 12. Clippard? Just one. Soriano and Storen haven’t worked more than a single inning in a game all season, and they’re two of just seven qualified relievers in the MLB who can say that.

I'm assuming some of this is coming from the in-house saber guys Rizzo has. Not widely practiced by even the saber teams, but a new insight that may be giving the Nats an advantage.

HalfSmokes · « **Reply #144:** October 02, 2014, 04:54:29 PM »

Quote from: JCA-CrystalCity on October 02, 2014, 04:31:39 PM

Well, it's just Fangraphs, so Blue is going to give Dave Cameron grief even though this is written by August Gagerstrom. He writes about Williams's ability to keep his bullpen fresh going into the post-season.

I'm assuming some of this is coming from the in-house saber guys Rizzo has. Not widely practiced by even the saber teams, but a new insight that may be giving the Nats an advantage.

it seems like Williams has the luxury of a very deep pen- how many managers are in a position to not have to use relievers on consecutive days or for multiple innings?

houston-nat · « **Reply #145:** October 02, 2014, 04:57:33 PM »

The other thing is pointed out by a guy in the commenters: there seems to have been a conscious, purposeful strategy of cycling minor leaguers through the major league bullpen one by one (Treinen, Cedeno, Barrett, etc.) to give the bullpen even more depth.

blue911 · « **Reply #146:** October 02, 2014, 05:24:02 PM »

Quote from: JCA-CrystalCity on October 02, 2014, 04:31:39 PM

Well, it's just Fangraphs, so Blue is going to give Dave Cameron grief even though this is written by August Gagerstrom. He writes about Williams's ability to keep his bullpen fresh going into the post-season.

I'm assuming some of this is coming from the in-house saber guys Rizzo has. Not widely practiced by even the saber teams, but a new insight that may be giving the Nats an advantage.

Quote

Early in the season, a group of relievers pleaded with pitching coach Steve McCatty to stop Williams from warming them up so frequently in the bullpen.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/was-nationals-manager-matt-williams-given-a-good-team-or-has-he-done-a-good-job-yes/2014/09/27/d749b7be-3f43-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html

JCA-CrystalCity · « **Reply #147:** October 02, 2014, 05:34:50 PM »

Quote from: blue911 on October 02, 2014, 05:24:02 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/was-nationals-manager-matt-williams-given-a-good-team-or-has-he-done-a-good-job-yes/2014/09/27/d749b7be-3f43-11e4-b03f-de718edeb92f_story.html

Yes. Maybe he learned or starting paying attention to it after McCatty relayed this to him? The numbers quoted don't say numbers of times guys warm up, but, OTOH, I did not have the impression in the second half that he was getting guys up frequently without using them. Also, hard to argue with the point about multiple inning stints and who has had to do them. Not storen, not Soriano, and not Clippard all that often.

blue911 · « **Reply #148:** October 02, 2014, 05:41:35 PM »

Quote from: JCA-CrystalCity on October 02, 2014, 05:34:50 PM

Yes. Maybe he learned or starting paying attention to it after McCatty relayed this to him? The numbers quoted don't say numbers of times guys warm up, but, OTOH, I did not have the impression in the second half that he was getting guys up frequently without using them. Also, hard to argue with the point about multiple inning stints and who has had to do them. Not storen, not Soriano, and not Clippard all that often.

He did get better but the point remains that you can't go strictly by the box score. Mark Patrick was still make snarky comments well into August for whatever that's worth.

imref · « **Reply #149:** November 24, 2014, 01:23:26 PM »

Buster Olney is publishing his rankings of the top 10 players by position (Insider access on epsn.com required).

Nat who made the list so far:
3B: Rendon - 2nd (behind Josh Donaldson)
SS: Desmond - 3rd (behind Peralta and Simmons, Tulo is 4th)
2B: We can skip this one (Cano is #1)
1B: Nobody, though LaRoche makes the honorable mention list (Goldschmidt is #1)
C: Nobody (Posey is #1)