The Year In Review

[Senatorswin]

The year started off really bad. 0-1 in March. 9-17 in April. There's seemed to be almost no hope in the batting order and Finnegan started out with a couple of ugly relief appearances. Josiah Gray had a 2.67 ERA. Gore 3-1 3.00 ERA. No batter stood out.

May was 14 - 15. Pretty good. Finnegan pitched well and Lane Thomas hit 8 home runs with a .303 average. Meneses wasn't showing the same power as the year before but hit .315 with a .361 OBP. CJ Abrams hit .247 AVG, ,280 OBP. Josiah Gray had an ERA of 2.89 for the month.  Ruiz hit .193. Gore 0-2 4.06 ERA. Harvey had a 4.20 ERA. Luis Garcia .304, .347 OBP.

June was 9 - 16. Not so good. Gray was 4.28 for the month. Thomas was hot with a .340 AVG, .374 OBP, 1.014 OPS. Meneses was bad with a .238 AVG, .278 OBP, 599 OPS. Abrams hit .216 for the month. Finnegan 0.79 ERA for the month. Harvey 2.79. Garcia .289 but not walking. Ruiz .222 BA. Gore 1-3 4.55 ERA.

July was 12 - 14. Pretty good. Thomas hit .245 OPS of .632. Meneses .283 OPS of .863. Abrams was smoking with a .327 .891 OPS. Finnegan 1.54 ERA. Gray 3.13 ERA. Gore 6.64 ERA. Abrams came alive , .327 BA, .391 OBP, 891 OPS. Ruiz .276, 717 OPS. Harvey 2.08.

August was 17 - 11. Smoking. Thomas Not so good .243 AVG .747 OPS. Meneses .286 AVG, .792 OPS. Abrams .223 AVG .261 OBP. Ruiz THE MAN .311 BA, .380 OBP, .913 OPS. Garcia in the minors, Gray  0-3 8.84 ERA, Gore 3.76 ERA 1-2. Finnegan 2.63 ERA 2-0. Harvey 1.08 ERA.

September – 8 – 18 Not good – Thomas .184 8 home runs, Meneses .232 .601 OPS, Abrams .223. Ruiz .311 .913 OPS. Garcia .304, .850 OPS. Gray 2.95 ERA 1-2. Gore 4 IP shutdown. Finnegan 8.38 ERA. Harvey .245.


Corbin was decent in May and August. Bad the other months.

Stone Garrett was getting 40-50 at bats per month until he got hurt August 23rd. That was his hottest month batting .320.

Keibert Ruiz signed for 8 years prior to the season. He had a really good second half of the season.

So we got a shortstop, catcher, right fielder, maybe DH, maybe 2nd baseman. 2 young starters showed promise. The backend of the bullpen looks good with Finnegan, Harvey and Rainey coming back.

Whoever doesn’t pan out there are promising players in the minors ready to step in.

[Senatorswin]

A few more at stats from the year:

Team Wins - Tied for 25th

Batting average - Tied for 11th

Runs - Runs 21st

OPS - 21st.

Batters Walked - 28th

Batters Struck out - 29th (surprisingly good)

Pitchers ERA - 28th

Pitchers Walks - 28th

Pitchers Stike outs - 29th

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I think the fun one is that this was the NL's anti-Three True Outcomes team. Lowest Ks, BBs, and HRs. I think Vargas epitomizes this. Not that it's good (it isn't). More that it is so anti-Modern in style. Add in a team record for SBs, and you'd swear Whitey Herzog was coaching these guys up.

They had 127 steals this year. 80 of those were from CJ, Lane, and Young. Robles chipped in 8 in a month, call had 9, so that's 30 out of CF (more or less).  They were 8th in the NL in steals over the full season, but were 2nd to Cinci in the second half of the year. Too bad steals aren't all that valuable in terms of runs.

[aspenbubba]

Zuck in todays article really gives us some great stats. Last in HR's and horrible in pitches seen in an AB. The two strike revelation was also an eye opener.

[Senatorswin]

I think the fun one is that this was the NL's anti-Three True Outcomes team. Lowest Ks, BBs, and HRs. I think Vargas epitomizes this. Not that it's good (it isn't). More that it is so anti-Modern in style. Add in a team record for SBs, and you'd swear Whitey Herzog was coaching these guys up.

They had 127 steals this year. 80 of those were from CJ, Lane, and Young. Robles chipped in 8 in a month, call had 9, so that's 30 out of CF (more or less).  They were 8th in the NL in steals over the full season, but were 2nd to Cinci in the second half of the year. Too bad steals aren't all that valuable in terms of runs.

I forgot about the steals. I think that's as important as any of the stats because I think it reflects a change in Davey's managing. It seemed he became much more aggressive this year. I have been critical of him in the past about this. Maybe he just didn't have the players to run in the past. I remember going to a game last year where the Phillies stole about 6 bases off the Nats and we didn't even throw down on any of them.

[Senatorswin]

Zuck in todays article really gives us some great stats. Last in HR's and horrible in pitches seen in an AB. The two strike revelation was also an eye opener.

He must be saying last in home runs in the NL because the Guardians hit 27 less than the Nats.

[Five Banners]

He must be saying last in home runs in the NL because the Guardians hit 27 less than the Nats.

They’re guarding the warning track

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I forgot about the steals. I think that's as important as any of the stats because I think it reflects a change in Davey's managing. It seemed he became much more aggressive this year. I have been critical of him in the past about this. Maybe he just didn't have the players to run in the past. I remember going to a game last year where the Phillies stole about 6 bases off the Nats and we didn't even throw down on any of them.

Steals are valuable if successful. They fell out of favor because the overall success rates were not high enough for most runners to justify the risk of being thrown out. Outs are precious. However, the current rules, with limits on pickoffs and pitch clocks limiting how well you can hold a runner, and with the changes to the bases, the success is easier for competent / typical base runners. Davey changed with the rules. IIRC, we were quite low in steal attempts at the start of the year, but we became much more aggressive as increased success rates became obvious.  There's still too many "baserunning mistake, Drink!" instances (Call was horrific with pickoffs but even Thomas had problems), but you would think this is something that could be improved upon going forward.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

link to Zuck:
https://www.masnsports.com/blog/offensive-goals-for-nats-next-year-more-homers-more-walks
reader's digest version - need more homers while maintaining contact skills

“Slug is something that we’re going to try and either acquire and/or develop,” Rizzo said, “to get to a point where you don’t need to get three or four hits in an inning to score a run, and it makes it much more difficult to put up a crooked number.”
...
Under the tutelage of hitting coach Darnell Coles and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler, the Nats ranked 10th in the majors in hits, second in singles. They struck out fewer times than 28 other teams. And they weren’t bad in clutch situations. They hit .268 with runners in scoring position (ninth-best) and ranked higher in on-base percentage (.337), slugging percentage (.410) and OPS (.747) in those situations than they did overall.

Discusses how swing-happy they were. While the Nats didn't get to a lot of deep counts (3 ball or two strike) and were middling in performance with 2 strikes (14th in OPS at .530), those still aren't really productive numbers. So, Davey offers the "be aggressive in the zone but don't be afraid to hit with 2 strikes" I think he believes more power will come when they are more confident to spit on some close pitches that can't be hit hard early in counts while knowing that, with 2 strikes, they can still salvage at bats. 

“The plan for next year is to get them to understand how to shrink the strike zone and get good pitches to hit,” manager Davey Martinez said. “Because they hit. We don’t strike out a lot. But if we can be a little more patient and get a good pitch to hit, I think we’ll start driving the ball. …

[Slateman]

Zuck in todays article really gives us some great stats. Last in HR's and horrible in pitches seen in an AB. The two strike revelation was also an eye opener.

The Darnell Coles Effect

[Slateman]

link to Zuck:
https://www.masnsports.com/blog/offensive-goals-for-nats-next-year-more-homers-more-walks
reader's digest version - need more homers while maintaining contact skills
Discusses how swing-happy they were. While the Nats didn't get to a lot of deep counts (3 ball or two strike) and were middling in performance with 2 strikes (14th in OPS at .530), those still aren't really productive numbers. So, Davey offers the "be aggressive in the zone but don't be afraid to hit with 2 strikes" I think he believes more power will come when they are more confident to spit on some close pitches that can't be hit hard early in counts while knowing that, with 2 strikes, they can still salvage at bats. 

Why wasnt that the plan this year? Thats, effectively, Double A coachimg

[JCA-CrystalCity]

The year started off really bad. 0-1 in March. 9-17 in April. There's seemed to be almost no hope in the batting order and Finnegan started out with a couple of ugly relief appearances. Josiah Gray had a 2.67 ERA. Gore 3-1 3.00 ERA. No batter stood out.

May was 14 - 15. Pretty good. Finnegan pitched well and Lane Thomas hit 8 home runs with a .303 average. Meneses wasn't showing the same power as the year before but hit .315 with a .361 OBP. CJ Abrams hit .247 AVG, ,280 OBP. Josiah Gray had an ERA of 2.89 for the month.  Ruiz hit .193. Gore 0-2 4.06 ERA. Harvey had a 4.20 ERA. Luis Garcia .304, .347 OBP.

June was 9 - 16. Not so good. Gray was 4.28 for the month. Thomas was hot with a .340 AVG, .374 OBP, 1.014 OPS. Meneses was bad with a .238 AVG, .278 OBP, 599 OPS. Abrams hit .216 for the month. Finnegan 0.79 ERA for the month. Harvey 2.79. Garcia .289 but not walking. Ruiz .222 BA. Gore 1-3 4.55 ERA.

July was 12 - 14. Pretty good. Thomas hit .245 OPS of .632. Meneses .283 OPS of .863. Abrams was smoking with a .327 .891 OPS. Finnegan 1.54 ERA. Gray 3.13 ERA. Gore 6.64 ERA. Abrams came alive , .327 BA, .391 OBP, 891 OPS. Ruiz .276, 717 OPS. Harvey 2.08.

August was 17 - 11. Smoking. Thomas Not so good .243 AVG .747 OPS. Meneses .286 AVG, .792 OPS. Abrams .223 AVG .261 OBP. Ruiz THE MAN .311 BA, .380 OBP, .913 OPS. Garcia in the minors, Gray  0-3 8.84 ERA, Gore 3.76 ERA 1-2. Finnegan 2.63 ERA 2-0. Harvey 1.08 ERA.

September – 8 – 18 Not good – Thomas .184 8 home runs, Meneses .232 .601 OPS, Abrams .223. Ruiz .311 .913 OPS. Garcia .304, .850 OPS. Gray 2.95 ERA 1-2. Gore 4 IP shutdown. Finnegan 8.38 ERA. Harvey .245.

I might segment the season a bit differently. Rather than the default monthly totals and halves, I think there were large chunk of the season when the Nats were middling, around .500, surrounded by 3 bad stretches and one very good one. Only one of those stretches mostly corresponded with a month (September).

How I would segment the season:

1) Disastrous opening week when facing arguably the two best early-season team in base ball (Barves, Rays). 1-5. (3/30 - 1/5). I could cherry pick and add in the next game, a road loss at Colorado, but that one was of a different character (bad opponent, 1-0 loss, well pitched game by Gray (1 run 6 IP) and Thompson (0 runs over 2 IP)).

2) Sustained stretch of near .500 ball. 1/6 -6/2, 24-27. That's a quarter of a season. Again, could get cute if I dropped the Rockies loss and cut this at 5/27 so this would be a game under .500 for a slightly shorter stretch.

3) the first sustained poor stretch - 6/3 - 6/23, 3-15. Of the 6 teams that we played in complete series, 5 were playoff teams (St L, and 1 game v the Padres, were not).

4) sustained stretch of around .500 - 6/24 - 8/1, 17-16. Basically, up to the trade deadline, the team had played nearly half a year around .500 (74 games) with two bad streaks that buried them in the standings.

5) The hopeful, hot stretch - 8/2-26, 16-6. Garrett (and Vargas!) plays full time, team goes to 6 man rotation, pitching staff responds well.

6) Longest bad stretch - 8/27 - 10/1 - 10-22. Coincides with Garrett's injury, pitchers seemingly getting tired, full-time position tryouts that mostly did not have good results, and some tailing off of season main stays like Thomas.

[English Natsie]

Review of the Nationals year?  Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...(sigh),,,

[Senatorswin]

The months they played well it seems coincides with one hitter getting extremely hot and one pitcher pitching well. I didn't put Jake Irvin in there but in August he had a 2.35 ERA and Ruiz smoked. In May it was Gray and Garcia. July Gray and Abrams.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

The months they played well it seems coincides with one hitter getting extremely hot and one pitcher pitching well. I didn't put Jake Irvin in there but in August he had a 2.35 ERA and Ruiz smoked. In May it was Gray and Garcia. July Gray and Abrams.

for the 8/2-26, it coincided with Ruiz, Thomas, Garrrett and Meneses all getting hot. Even Kieboom, who only had 15 PAs, performed well enough to rack up 0.2 WAR.

Ruiz - .343 / .418 / .586 in 79 PAs 0.7 fWAR
Thomas - .279 / .340 / .500 in 97 PAs 0.6 fWAR
Garrett - .320 / .379 / .560 in 60 PAs 0.4 fWAR
Meneses - .281 / .360 / .461 in 100 PAs 0.3 fWAR
Kieboom - 2 HRs in 15 PAs. .786 SLG 0.2 fWAR
Every Day Every Play - poor bat but positive defense. Same for Call.

Abrams? not so hot (.205 / .247 / .375, with negative defense). Pretty comparable to Call's // line

That was a 22 game stretch.

Let's compare that to the sustained cold streak in June from 6/3-23 (18 games). Thomas pulled his weight but so much dead-weight in the lineup.
Thomas - .310 / .324 / .620 0.6 fWAR in 74 PAs. 2 other players with 30 PAs had positive WAR (Candy and Stone - 0.1 fWAR). Jeimer's positive WAR came from his defense, not his O (.200 / .304 / .350 over 69 PAs).

Worst of the worst? Meneses, Dickerson, Call, Ruiz. -1.0 fWAR combined.
Call provided one of the most feeble offensive lines over just 34 PAs - .182 / .206 / .182. He didn't even walk 10% of the time.
Meneses provided somewhat better but still poor rates over nearly twice as many PAs (64), while displaying negative defensive value. .237 / .281 / .322. A non-slugging DH /1B who doesn't get on base.

More or less, other than Thomas and Garrett, everyone who got significant PAs over that down stretch was awful all at once. In contrast, in the hot streak, a few guys were red hot, which balanced off the deadweight in the batting order, and even that deadweight contributed defensively.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

In the pleasant surprise department, I think Irvin had enough sustained success and innings pitched that he's at least a guy for the back end of a rotation. Nice sustained success after his skipped turn in June through his first two starts in September. I'll give him some slack for his last two starts, when he might have been hurt. 143 innings between the Nats and Rochester. That gives them 3 young rotation pieces that are middling or better. HE ma not be a core guy in a playoff rotation, but it'll take somebody good to beat him out.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

Harvey and Garcia had terrific seasons and show stuff that could hold up going forward.

Among relievers, Harvey had above average K% (28.5%) and below average BB% (5.5%). His K%-BB% ranked 19th among relievers with 10 IP (out of 162), right below Joahn Duran (23.1%) and right above Raisel Iglesias (22.9%). MLB average was 14% for relievers. His 0.94 WHIP was 7th. 12th in fastball velocity (98.4) (tbh, he seemed more 97-98 at the end of the year). His weak spot, if any, was that he was slightly more homer prone than average (12.3% HR/FB vs. 11.8%) and he's slightly more FB prone than average (37.5% vs. 36.8%).

Garcia also had above average K% (26.6% vs. 23.6%) and below average BB% (8.9% vs. 9.5%) and a good WHIP (1.14). Fewer flies, so his similar HR/FB resulted in fewer HR/9. Above average GB rate.   

[Senatorswin]

I don't know what the numbers say but one reason I like Finnegan it seems he rarely walks anybody. There's nothing more aggravating than a reliever coming in and giving free passes.

[aspenbubba]

I don't know what the numbers say but one reason I like Finnegan it seems he rarely walks anybody. There's nothing more aggravating than a reliever coming in and giving free passes.

Rarely has a clean inning. Heartattack 2.0

[nobleisthyname]

I don't know what the numbers say but one reason I like Finnegan it seems he rarely walks anybody. There's nothing more aggravating than a reliever coming in and giving free passes.

8.3% BB rate, which is above average, but not nearly as good as Harvey.

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I don't know what the numbers say but one reason I like Finnegan it seems he rarely walks anybody. There's nothing more aggravating than a reliever coming in and giving free passes.

It's a funny trick memory does, but Finnegan actually walks more guys than Harvey or even Andres Machado per 9. Per batter, he's much closer to (a touch worse than) Trevor Williams.

When it comes to the bottom line of letting runs in, I'm not going to argue either Weems or Finnegan weren't pretty good. It's just a harder look at things supporting the bottom line tends to make you think they weren't more middling but lucky.

[Senatorswin]

I don't know what the numbers say but one reason I like Finnegan it seems he rarely walks anybody. There's nothing more aggravating than a reliever coming in and giving free passes.

I think I got this impression because Finnegan would go stretches where he wouldn't walk anybody. He went from July 17th to August 17 not walking anybody. He went from August 22 to September 9th without walking anybody. There were other shorter stretches. Then he might have a stretch he walked batters in 4 of 5 appearances or one or two appearances he walked 3.

[CALSGR8]

Rules I hate!
1.  The pitcher can only throw to 1st twice for a pick off!  If he throws a 3rd and doesn’t get the guy; it’s a balk and everyone moves up 1 base!  No wonder there are so many steals (cough Acuna)!  Your chances are greater knowing you’re gonna steal. Catcher has to have a perfect throw to get him

2.  Pitch clock - I’d have to research some more, but it APPEARS more pitching injuries (and serious ones too) due to less recovery time!  You throw a pitch btwn 95-100 mph and only have 20 seconds btwn pitches?  No wonder pitchers barely last 5 innings!

3.  Still hate ghost runner on 2nd in extra innings!

[Senatorswin]

Rules I hate!
1.  The pitcher can only throw to 1st twice for a pick off!  If he throws a 3rd and doesn’t get the guy; it’s a balk and everyone moves up 1 base!  No wonder there are so many steals (cough Acuna)!  Your chances are greater knowing you’re gonna steal. Catcher has to have a perfect throw to get him

2.  Pitch clock - I’d have to research some more, but it APPEARS more pitching injuries (and serious ones too) due to less recovery time!  You throw a pitch btwn 95-100 mph and only have 20 seconds btwn pitches?  No wonder pitchers barely last 5 innings!

3.  Still hate ghost runner on 2nd in extra innings!

I have no strong opinion on 1 and 3 but I do like the pitch clock. I enjoy the speed increase of the game.

[Smithian]

This offseason will tell me a lot. If they make a real attempt at improving this team this offseason, then the 2023 season was a real success and step forward.

If they punt it like the last couple offseasons, then just another wasted season like 2021 and 2022.