Blog Archives
As Nats Battle Tough Sked – A New ? Arises: Who Will Be The Future 2B: Rendon Or Espinosa?
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Follow @mlbreportsWednesday, Apr.24/2013
Danny Espinosa had best start producing for this talented Washington Nationals club – with the likes of Anthony Rendon looking for a position to overtake. The 25 Year Old has started the campaign at a 3 Slash Line of .176/.222/.556 -even though he has cutdown his SO so far.
During the course of a baseball season there are going to be ups and downs, and for the past week and a half I have written that reality far too much. The Nats started the season with a tough stretch that doesn’t end until June.
Consider for a moment that between April 1 and May 31 the Nats play 33 games against teams that were over .500 in 2012 – and only 22 afterwards. They play more games against team that had winning records the season before in the first two months of the season than they do in the final four.
That is an odd balance. Combine that with the unseemly amount of errors and irregular Bullpen play – and it is a recipe for a slow start, or exactly the start the Nationals are off to.
It was the effort by the Nationals in a while – and they ended up losing a one run game. During the course of the season those are the types of games that even out. It is unusual for a team, good or bad, to have a record much above or below .500 in one run games. Read the rest of this entry
Dan Haren Has Not Pitched Well For The Nationals!
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Dan Haren signed a 1 YR/ $13 Million Contract over the winter with the Washington Nationals. He was supposed to be a competent #5 Starter that would give the Nats an edge versus opponents #5 Starters. The 32 Year Old is 1 – 2 with a 8.10 ERA and 2.03 WHIP so far – spanning 3 Games Started and 13.1 Innings Pitched.
By David Huzzard (Nationals Correspondent via Citizens of Natstown.com – view website here): Follow @davidhuzzard
Dan Haren has not pitched well for the Nationals. There have been a multitude of issues, but the main and most important one is he has been getting hit hard. His line drive rate is up to 25.9% from his career average of 19.9% – and his ground ball rate is down to 25.9% from his career average of 43.0%.
Avoiding line drives and inducing ground balls is good for a pitcher. Most line drives are hits -while most ground balls are not.
Giving up more line drives and less ground balls is never good and it has led to Haren having a .420 BABIP so far on the season compared to his career average of .292, and this doesn’t include the five homeruns he has given up, but even if nothing else changes a 3.38 HR/9 is unsustainable.
MLB Talk on the Haren Signing at the Winter Meetings 2012:
Nats Acquire LHP Ian Krol To Complete The Mike Morse Deal
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Ian Krol is a 6 FT 1 and 190 LB native of Illinois – who was drafted by the Oakland Athletics in the 7th Round of the 2009 Amateur Draft, He was selected right out of high school and jumped two levels of the Minor Leagues before he even hit the age of 19. Controversies and in injuries then ensued. Last year he played with Stockton (A+) and Midland (AA) – going 3 – 9 with a 5.20 ERA.
By Sean Hogan (Nationals Correspondent via Citizens of Natstown.com – view website here): Follow @seanhoganvt
The Nationals already came out ahead in the Michael Morse trade, acquiring two Righties with upside in A.J. Cole and Blake Treinen. Last Wednesday, they added to the previous bounty when the player to be named later was named:was… wait for it……..
LHP Ian Krol. The Lefty, who was once lauded by prospect gurus Kevin Goldstein and Keith Law in 2010, has fought through some self-inflicted drama as well as some minor injuries since then; the Nationals are picking him up in hopes that he’ll continue to be “a joy to watch” as Goldstein mentioned and will build upon his solid 2012 season.
Krol is a pitcher, not a thrower. His mechanics are excellent, throwing from a ¾ arm slot, and he has no issues locating his three pitches. Like former Nats prospects Tommy Milone and Danny Rosenbaum, Krol lacks velocity, topping out at 90-91 MPH. In order to keep climbing up the ladder, he must continue to exhibit excellent command on the hill and induce ground balls.
Ian Krol Bullpen Session:
What Will It Take For Bryce Harper To Be An NL MVP This Year?
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Follow @mlbreportsTuesday, Mar. 19/2013
Just how far can Bryce Harper improve during his 2nd season? If he can improve by about 15% – might we see a 30 HR/30 SB year, with around 120 Runs Scored and 80 Extra Base Hits? With the Nationals being the consensus favorite in the National League amongst experts, this would definitely put him in the NL MVP discussion. Seasons of improvement between the age of 19 and 20 for MLB Players of the past has proved to show this could happen. Harper will look to avoid the similar fates of the last 5 NL Rookie Of The Year Awards with a 2nd year regression.
By David Huzzard (Nationals Correspondent via Citizens of Natstown.com – view website here): Follow @davidhuzzard
A good part of analysis is knowing when numbers are useless. I was going to look back at the last 5 NL Rookies of the Year – and inform you of their average decrease in OPS, but two of the five are Geovany Soto and Chris Coghlan. On top of that Posey got injured his second full season after only 45 games and Ryan Braun hit like a madman in his rookie season with an OPS of 1.004. It did drop from that to .888, but seriously he OPS’d 1.004 in his rookie season.
The only one of the last five position player rookies of the year to not suffer any drop was Hanley Ramirez who saw his OPS rise from .833 in 2006 to .948 in 2007. If we go back one more season to the 2005 rookie of the year, Ryan Howard, his OPS rose from .924 in 2005 to 1.084 in 2006 when he won the MVP (Pujols had a 1.102 OPS that season, the third highest of his career and tops in the NL, but the vote went to Howard).
Bryce Harper Steals Home!
Ross Detwiler And 1st Pitch Strikes
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Detwiler was 10-8 – with a 3.40 ERA during his 27 Games Started in 2012.
By David Huzzard (Nationals Correspondent via Citizens of Natstown.com – view website here): Follow @davidhuzzard
After making his Spring Training debut yesterday Ross Detwiler was asked what he wanted to improve upon in 2013 and his answer was first pitch strikes. Detwiler said this, but he isn’t a non-strike thrower. He is around league average in that category with 62% first pitch strikes compared to a league average of 60% and an overall Strike Percentage of 64% compared to a league average of 63%. As a strike thrower Detwiler is right around league average, if he has a flaw – it is that he doesn’t strike many batters out.
For his career Detwiler strikes out 14.4% of the batters he faces – and has walked 8.3%. Both of those numbers improved in 2012 – as his Strikeout Percentage rose to 15.3% and Walk Percentage fell to 7.6%, but Detwiler would like to improve that even further and getting ahead of hitters is one easy way to do that. Detwiler was around league average in most control categories, but he is a below average strikeout pitcher. He is an above average ground ball pitcher with 50.8% ground ball rate in 2012. This number is up from his overall career average and the reason for that is Detwiler has started to rely on his sinker.
Rob Dibble interviews Ross Detwiler from a few years back:
