Over the winter, when things were rosey and Mike Morse was coming off a great season, there were lots of ideas of how to deal with the outfield. Rick Ankiel, a lefty hitter, could play great CF, but nobody knew if he could hit. Roger Bernadina wasn’t as good of a fielder, and was also a lefty. Mike Morse was a righty but hit everyone in 2010. Nyjer Morgan, another lefty, was still on the team. When Morgan left, alot of people started constructing ideas of the lineup. Perhaps Morse would start against lefties, and either Bernie or Ankiel would play CF. Maybe Hairston and Morse would play those games, while Bernie and Ankiel would start against righties. But Morse has looked so good, starting only against lefties seemed like a waste.
Well the season is moving along, and things have changed. First, Morse hasn’t hit at all. Ankiel is on the DL, and Bernadina just came up from the minors, with still a bit of a reverse platoon split, hitting better against righties. Meanwhile, other than their 23 year old catcher, the best hitter on the Nats has been Laynce Nix, and he is rightfully getting playing time in LF. Just as Morse’s 2010 may not have been a true reflection of how good he can hit, Nix’s April and May probably is a little overstated. The 30 year old hit this well last year, but it was in a very hitter friendly park in Cincinnati, and it was almost exclusively versus righties. Which brings me to the premise of the article.
While we can’t figure out everything at once, and CF remains a mystery, there is hope for LF for this season. You see, even this year, while everyone has lauded was Nix has done, something that has remained somewhat unnoticed is that he hasn’t hit lefties. Literally and figuratively, as he only has 1 hit in 8 PAs against them. His remaining 65 have been against lefties. And his career OPS splits of .743 vs righties and .518 vs lefties suggest this is the way to go with him. Meanwhile, despite Mike Morse’s struggle this particular season, he has always shown an ability to hit lefties, and hit them with power.
It’s beyond bad, at this point. After a week in which the Nats broke their team record for striking out the most in one game, they came out Sunday and got no hit for 7 innings. Sanchez pitched a good game, but this team certainly helped. You know the hitting has been bad, but it’s probably worse than you realized. They are last in the league in OBP, and second to last in SLG and OPS. Thanks to the last place team playing in San Diego, a big pitchers park, they are actually ranked last in OPS+ (which factors in park effects). They are just plain bad at hitting.
Looking down the lineup is sickening. Forgive the order, this is just a sample lineup that could go out there:
.221/.321/.389
.217/.250/.383
.227/.324/.387
.196/.300/.313
.319/.377/.493
.241/.275/.325
.220/.297/.317
That’s Espinosa (2B), Desmond (SS), Werth (RF), LaRoche (1B), Ramos (C), Morse (LF) and Hairston (3B). There’s no CF in there, but Ankiel’s .221/.302/.288 ranks 5th in plate appearances on the team, so factor that in the list. Ramos is looking great, even without comparing him to the rest of the team. Unfortunately, his last few weeks haven’t looked great, with a very low OBP, but he’s still slugging, so in comparison, a .250/.275/.500 is still the best hitter on this team. When you put Pudge in the lineup with his .214/.241/.321, he manages to drag down these horrendous averages.
I know it’s early, and we don’t want to worry too much about statistics. A bunch of hitters on this team have started off slowly, and most of them will probably recover. Similarly, Wilson Ramos won’t hit .364 all season. But one player that does worry me is Rick Ankiel. He’s currently hitting .231/.306/.308, which is pretty much atrocious. I’d be less worried, except last season he only hit .232/.321/.389. Basically, if 2 of his hits were a HR and a triple instead of the 2 singles that they were, he’d be right on pace for last season, with a few less walks. Not good, and not convincing me that he is going to do any better.
In fact, it wasn’t just last season that he hit so poorly. In 2009, he had 404 PAs and hit .231/.285/.387. It’s starting to look familiar. Maybe he’s a .231/.300/.387 hitter. Which would mean his ISO power is decent at .150, but not so great that it can excuse the rest of the junk. It’s not even very good power, it’s better described as “some pop” or something similar. Ankiel is a vet, and he’s played well in center field, but this experiment may quickly be coming to an end. If it does, then who else can they play there?
Laynce Nix
This may surprise some fans, but Nix has played more CF in his career than any other position. He’s spent about 58% of his innings playing CF, the rest in the corner OF spots. And his fielding has been good there. Over his career his UZR/150 is 9.3 in CF, so it looks like he can field the position. The problem with Nix, though, is his bat. He has started out strong, managing to make the club and then hitting .276/.300/.483 in 30 PAs. The power is still there, but his numbers suggest that he doesn’t walk that much, and it’s true. He is also probably not a .275 hitter in terms of average, as his career numbers are .244/.286/.426. And his best years, really his only good years, were in Cincinnati, a great park for hitters. But, even if he hits .240/.290/.426 from here on out, it may beat what Ankiel can do.
With the Nyjer Morgan trade, and Roger Bernadina‘s .245/.310/.340 spring, Rick Ankiel has won the CF job outright. So far he has hit slightly better than Bernadina, hitting .218/.271/.455 so far. The OPS is higher, so are the runs created and other similar offensive value stats. But since OBP is more important that SLG, those other offensive stats aren’t as far apart as OPS is. Regardless, Ankiel is hitting the best of the two.
Roger Bernadina
Bernadina will still get his shots at the position. He’s probably going to be considered a 4th outfielderbeen assigned to the minors, although being a lefty as well, he isn’t automatically going in when Ankiel gets a convenient rest against left handed starters. The thing he has going against him, as mentioned, is that he hits from the same side of the plate as Ankiel, unlike…
A tradition that has I’ll rank each position for each team in the NL East, seeing who has the best pieces to their team. There are 5 teams in the division, so if someone has the #1 player at a position, they get 5 points for it. If they have the worst, they get 1 point. At some point I have to make judgments about who is there, and playing time, on top of assessing their abilities. Starting with the position players:
CATCHER
1. Braves – Brian McCann
2. Phillies – Carlos Ruiz
3. Mets – Josh Thole
4. Nationals – Wilson Ramos/Ivan Rodriguez/Jesus Flores
5. Marlins – John Buck/John Baker
McCann is not just the best catcher in the group, he’s one of the best in the game, and is generally highly underrated as an altogether great player. Ruiz, now 31, has developed the patience to make him a good hitter, even though he won’t hit .300 again this year. Thole is a youngster who has proven he can get on base. The trio in DC may have to drop down if Flores doesn’t recover, Pudge gets too many ABs, and Ramos doesn’t mature. But I think enough will happen on the other side to allow them to surpass the Marlins catching tandem, with once decent hitting John Baker struggling to even make the team.
Mike Morse has had such a strong showing this spring, that it’s assumed the LF job is his. With Jayson Werth the obvious starter in RF, that leaves all the other guys scrambling to get placed in CF. Morgan is the favorite, but his poor 2010 and an unimpressive spring (although he hit a homer yesterday) has certainly opened up the competition. Roger Bernadina and Rick Ankiel are the other two obvious candidates, and even Jerry Hairston could be considered in the mix. A platoon isn’t really much of an option because all the guys are lefties other than Hairston, and Hairston has almost no discernible split in over 4000 PAs. So without a convenient platoon, someone’s gotta be the initial starter. Who should it be?
Spring Training is in full swing, and while we must take every performance with a grain of salt and a handfull of small sample size, it’s important not to ignore what’s happened so far. Here are a few highlights after the first few weeks:
The Position Players
The middle infield – Danny Espinosa is batting .324/.378/.559 and Ian Desmond is batting .314/.351/.400 while having the two highest AB totals on the team. They’re not walking much, which is troubling, but at least they are hitting the ball. Without walking, they will have to sit lower in the lineup, they just won’t get on base enough, but hopefully some of that will come.
Left Field – It would be hard to deny Mike Morse the starting job at this point. He’s hitting .469, he’s slugging 1.000, and he’s got 5 HRs in only 32 ABs. This compares with Rick Ankiel‘s .194/.219/.548. Ankiel has shown enough power that you’d think he’d make the team, but he doesn’t look like the starter yet.
Center field – Nyjer Morgan is now batting .212/.242/.261, while Roger Bernadina is hitting .281/.324/.438. Bernadina is putting together a strong case to be the 4th outfielder, since Morse is hitting so well. But if Morgan continues to slump this way, Bernie’s got a chance to be the starting centerfielder.
Spring Training is fun, because baseball’s back, and it can be interesting, because there are guys coming back from surgery, or the minors, or just a few months off of real baseball. There are battles for positions, rotation spots and even roster spots. But too often we think a good spring could catapult someone into a place they don’t belong.
For the most part we know better, but I guarantee you if Jerry Hairston were to hit .350/.450/.550 over the next month, people would start talking about him as the starting left fielder or SS or 2B going in to the season. It’s possible that Hairston has 4 weeks that make those numbers happen, but Hairston is a career 257/.325/.370 hitter, in over 4000 PAs. We know exactly what we’ll get from Hairston. This isn’t to pick on him, it’s to remind you that spring training is just a month of the not-yet-season, against sub-standard competition, and shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
All those caveats aside, there are things that we can learn in spring training, especially from young players who don’t have alot of experience. Sometimes they can surprise in the spring and give us a preview of something new. Here are a few players that are worth watching right now:
Last week, Baseball Prospectus came out with their PECOTA predictions for the Nationals, and it wasn’t pretty. This week, they came out with their depth charts. This is basically their predictions, with playing time adjusted for what the lineup situation looks like right now. They also changed some of the underlying numbers to get their totals. I said I’d be shocked if they put the Nats at more than 60 wins, but they are actually predicted to get to 70 (Joy!). So there must be something positive out of this. There is, here’s a rundown of some of their adjustments, and a few other notes.
Let’s begin with the starting pitching
Jordan Zimmermann got better. He went from an 86 IP, 4.27 ERA guy to a 172 IP, 4.19 ERA guy. That puts him as the most valuable starter on the team, with 149 Ks and a 1.4 WARP.
Tom Gorzelanny joined the group, and got better. He was still listed on the Cubs, and maybe it was the ballpark, but his ERA was predicted to be 4.73. Now, on the Nats, he is predicted to be their 2nd best of the 5 main starters, with a 4.34 ERA, 105 Ks, and a 0.7 WARP, all ranked #2 behind JZimm. Perhaps because of injury history, they have him ranked #5 in IP.
Livan, Marquis and Lannan fill out the rotation, each with about a 0.10 ERA drop from last weeks predictions.
Lannan’s predictions still seem a little off. His PECOTA suggested 4.76 ERA would be his career low
Chien-Ming Wang does come back and pitch, according to them, and his 4.24 ERA is the best in the rotation after JZimm, but they only have him going 65 innings.
If you paid attention to the DC baseball world yesterday, be it ona website or on twitter, the talk of the day seemed to be Roger Bernadina‘s massive muscles. The pictures don’t lie, those are pretty big arms for a baseball player. Is it possible that bulking up will make Bernie better? If you can buy what sportswriters have said about the last decade of baseball, then you can buy that since Bernie got bigger, he will hit with more power. Where will that get him?
Right now, PECOTA predicts he’ll hit .260/.321/.382 in 450 PAs. The playing time will be adjusted before the season starts to account for playing time, but it certainly isn’t unreasonable, especially if Morgan or Ankiel struggle. Before we get into adding stats on to Roger, let’s take a look at how often he hits the ball in the air. His career GB/FB ratio is 0.97. It’s not at the high end, where a guy like Morgan (1.16) might want to be, but it isn’t as low as some power hitters like Zimmerman (0.74). Either way, I think it’s reasonable to assume that an addition of power would add some home runs to his arsenal, rather than just some hard hit grounders. But there would be some of those, too.
Posted by Charlie 
