At the halfway point of the season, the Nationals have an OPS of .712. The second half of last season (post Bell and Soto), the Nationals had an OPS of .682. On its face, that is an improvement of 30 points in OPS across the board, with only Candelario being an improvement over what the Nationals had the second half of last season. However, a closer examination reveals that this is not the case, and the Nationals are simply not getting better at the plate, outside of Lane Thomas.
The average OPS last season was .706 across baseball. This year that is up to .729. That is a 23 point increase across MLB. Which means that, in reality, the Nationals have improved a whopping 7 points from the second half of last season to the first half of this season. And that has been almost entirely due to Lane Thomas' breakout season and Jeimer Candelario returning to career norms.
Jeimer Candelario is basically where he was in Detroit two seasons ago. He OPS's .835 away from Motor City.
Did Coles improve Lane Thomas? Maybe, but I kind of doubt it. He was already improving the second half of last season and he has stated multiple times that he is simply making a conscious effort to swing earlier in the count, particularly at fastballs. Never once mentioned any help from the coaching staff. And if Coles did help Thomas, its been at the expense of virtually everyone else
Joey Meneses is just ... gone. He was literally mashing the crap out of the baseball in the WBC, and now slugging .371.
Stone Garrett's slugging has dropped over 100 points. You can say small sample size and Arizona, but the dude went from murdering baseballs to barely getting them out of Citizens Bank Park.
Luis Garcia looks awful. He has traded any power he had for a marginal improvement in walk rate. Oh good, an, at best, average second base defender on pace for 10 home runs and an OBP of .310. Glad Coles' philosophy is working so well.
CJ Abrams ... oh man, how is it possible this guy is this bad? He's basically not improved at all, and in many ways gotten worse. He looks totally defeated every time he steps to the plate. He literally hasn't sucked like this since he was an 18 year old in A ball.
Finally ... Keibert. Of all the players, this is the one that hurts the most. He came to DC as a high average, good contact guy with minimal power. And now ... he's a .230 hitter with sub .400 slugging. Which is odd to me because he is on pace for 18 home runs. If you had told me at the beginning of the year that Ruiz would have 18 home runs, I'd be like, cool, he's an all star. He finished his first season in DC hitting .273. Last year he hit .251. Now he's hitting .233. He is getting worse.
Darnell Coles sucks as a hitting coach. He sucked before he got here, hence why he was let go. Twice. Our marginal increase in OPS is due to Lane Thomas far exceeding his metrics and Rizzo signing Candelario. Beyond that, the core of our offense is getting worse. Coles' approach of just swing and make contact is clearly not applicable at the major league level. Send him back to the minors to work on guys who are actually struggling to make contact.
