Here's an idea...

If the Nationals had any marketing prowess, they would buy Walter Johnson's former house in Bethesda at the corner of Old Georgetown and Cedar Lane and turn it into a museum. We've said this before, but it's a shame that the Nationals don't do more to embrace the history of the Washington Senators. Johnson was the team's best player, and the Nats should wrap the franchise in his memory. We blamed their failure to do this on major league baseball, but MLB no longer owns the franchise.

If there aren't any historical structure restrictions, the Lerners could move it to the the parking lot of the new stadium. If that's not possible, make the house a museum in Bethesda.

The organization is running out of excuses for its lame marketing. How about some creative thinking, people?!

Blockbuster Wizards Trade?

Ethan's post about a Wizards/Lakers trade got me to thinking about some moves the Wizards might want to make. How about this: Arenas, their first round pick, and maybe a guy like Haywood for the Blazers' first pick and some stiffs?

Arenas is undoubtedly the Wizards best player, but the Wizards as currently configured are unlikely to get to a championship level. It's very hard to improve in the NBA, and without top draft picks or cap room a team like the Wizards has very limited tools to use in improving. So, maybe they have to break out of this box and do something dramatic.

Getting the next dominant center is pretty dramatic. I don't know whether Portland would part with Oden, but the Wizards have been without a productive big man (at either the center or power forward positions) for what seems like forever. Arenas, Butler, and Jamison are nice, but without a good player at the 4 or 5 spots, good luck and good night.

Leiv

Nat's lose to Pirates 7-6

The nationals lost last night to the pirates 7-6. The nationals had help from Ryan Church who had 3 hits and 2 runs. Felipe Lopez drove in 2 runs and Mike Bacsik gave up 6 hits/6 runs in 6 innings. It's funny because Mike Bacsik woke up with a stomach ailment. This brings me back to think when they were doing well in their first half of their first season. Everyone was excited, and I loved watching their games, now I don't that often. I am hoping that before I go to college they will ever be exceptionaly good. They lose .600 of their games. It's just terrible. I want your thoughts.



Erik

Nat's new stadium

I was biking with my family once and we found out like the Anacostia River, I think. So, we got there and we couldn't find how to get to the bike path. (The bike path was on the other side of the river) So we were just biking around town when my dad and I found out that we were near the National's new stadium. We got there and there was a lot of traffic and noise. I just thought it was so cool because the Nat's don't get a lot of excitement after the 1st season and they will get some excitement from the cool stadium. You might want to check it out with your family one day. It's pretty cool.

Erik

But What Does He Know About Basketball?

Erik's recent musings have inspired me to play GM: would the fans of the Wizards be willing to trade Gilbert Arenas for Andrew Bynum?

The salaries don't fit is an unacceptable response.

I digress. Erik's appreciation for all things Lebron is echoed here on the Left Coast. However, these NBA Finals, like so many recent NBA Finals, will be boring. And that boredom evolves from neither the talents nor the passions of the Spurs or Cavaliers. It is a by-product of the lengthy NBA season.

Which brings me to the point of today's Post. If David Stern intends to cement his legacy as a Great Commissioner, accompanied in the pantheon by only Pete Rozelle and Bowie Kuhn, he needs to do something about the NBA regular season.

Some demand to shorten the season. However, in the immortal words of Celtic Legend, "Cornbread" Maxwell (I paraphrase), "...and earn less money?" The Players' Union will cease to exist before the season is shortened.
Some, like Mark Heisler of the LA Times, call for the Conference Finals to be re-seeded in a 1-4 bracket. That is still boring.

The NBA - if it intends to be Great - needs to take a page from club soccer and make the sport a year-round event. Tournaments and Invitationals should break-up the "regular season." NBA teams should play European teams in 8-team invitationals. The FIBA World Cup and the Olympics should get more play. Heck, wouldn't it be great to see the bottom four of the NBA take on the NCAA Final Four? Now, that's must see-TV!

Ethan

A digression from baseball...

The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Detroit Pistons 98-82 last night. Daniel Gibson had a great game, especially 19 points in the 4th quarter, 31 points on the night.

I'm not really a fan of the Cavaliers; I like the Wizards and Lakers. I am rooting for the the Cavs after the Wizards got out because of Lebron James. He runs the team and is so fun to watch. Lebron doesn't get recognized enough for making his teammates better. He usually gets recognized for his points.

I don't think that points make people great. I think their all around skills do. For example, Gilbert Arenas is popular all around DC for scoring 30 PPG, but does he make his teammates better? Antawn Jamison had his best games when Arenas was out, although Caron Butler pretty clearly was a better player when Arenas was in the lineup. The Wizards could be a much better team if they get a plan for going forward that makes sense. Any plan like that has to involve getting a productive big man. The Wizards have been without one for years, and they'll never take the next step without one. They don't need Tim Duncan, but they do need someone who can rebound, play good defense, and score when needed.

Right now their plan is to get the ball to the big 3, Gil, Caron, and Antawn. That's not bad, but it won't get them to the championship series. Last season, Caron and Gil were injured for like 1/3 or 1/4 of the season, maybe even more. We can't blame them for being bad late in the season, but we can ask what is the plan for the future? I don't see one. It's ridiculous; I just don't get it. I want your thoughts.

Erik

Further Adventures with Trivia

Last week's visit by the Dodgers has conspired with the previous post to create treacly feelings within regarding the career of Don Sutton. For those of you too young to remember Sutton was Tom Delay to Steve Garvey's Mitt Romney.
Sutton's career was not without significance. However, with regards towards Righties who started for the Dodgers, he only straddles the great divide that separates the likes of Drysdale and Hershiser from Ramon Martinez.
What is astonishing is how Sutton fit in within the parameters of success within his era. The Trivia Answer reveals that Sutton was remarkable for his durability - indeed, nos. 2 through 8 on the list are all occupied by pitchers from the late '60s through the 1970s.
What was it about the strengh of these pitcher's bodies that enabled such longetivity? Or, does responsibility for this statistical revelation lie within the minds of the managerial class?

Ethan

Trivia Answer

Most Career Games Started by a Pitcher (at the end of last season):

815 Cy Young
773 Nolan Ryan
756 Don Sutton
716 Phil Niekro
709 Steve Carlton
700 Tommy John
690 Gaylord Perry
685 Bert Blyleven
681 Jim Galvin
673 Greg Maddux
666 Walter Johnson
665 Warren Spahn
647 Tom Seaver
635 Tom Glavine

Leiv

Trivia

Most trivia regarding career numbers for a right-handed pitcher is dominated by Cy Young, so most everything is a race for second place. And most of these stats are dominated by pitchers who threw in the dead ball era.

Most career games started by a pitcher is a surprising exception. Check out the top 25 in this category. Answers tomorrow.

Good night and good luck.

Leiv

What Do Brad Penny and Andrew Bynum Have in Common?

Brad Penny shut down the Nats last night. No great revelation there. However, Penny's success this season mirrors that of another outstanding power pitcher in the NL West, Jake Peavy.
Devoted readers of this blog will no doubt recall that Penny was acquired by the Dodgers to fulfill their aspirations of having a No. 1 starter in their rotation. Since that trade, Penny has taken his fair share of abuse for failing to live up to that reputation. Nonetheless, he is an excellent starting pitcher and he provides the Dodgers with a critical counter-weight in any late season matchups against Peavy and the Padres. While Peavy may be the more accomplished of the two starters, it must be reassuring to Dodger management (if not their fans) that they have someone who can at least provide a challenge to Peavy and the Padres and make them earn any late-season victories.
Of course, all of this is prelude to the real purpose of this post. The Lakers. We'll hold off on the Kobe Bryant melodrama for another day (or at least until Dr. Buss posts bail). However, the significance of a Peavy-Penny September matchup brings up the fact as to how the recent NBA Draft Lottery has tied the Lakers hands. Barring injury, Greg Oden should dominate the Western Conference playoffs for the next 10-15 years. For any team in the West to seriously challenge the Trailblazers they will need a center who can compete with Oden. Such persons are hard to find. Fortunately, the Lakers have one in Andrew Bynum.
However, Bynum is the likeliest candidate for trade to appease the "win with Kobe now" crowd.
Of such conundrums are headaches made. No wonder Dr. Buss was arrested for DUI.


Ethan

Whither Ryan Zimmerman?

Yes, we know, that it's only May, but it's time to start thinking about a sophomore slump for Ryan Zimmerman. His line has dropped 50 points. Last year, his line was .287/.351/.471. This year it has dropped to .250/.305/.417. Especially troubling is the 50 point drop in OBP; it suggests that rather than learning to be more patient, Zimmerman is taking the bait of pitchers who don't see much reason to throw to a dangerous hitter in the midst of a substandard lineup.

Yes, it's only May, but Zimmerman has almost 200 at bats. That's more than enough to make this year so far a statistically significant sample.

Is this all $28 million buys you?

The $28 million man isn't going to earn his keep at this pace.

In appreciation of Ken Griffey Jr.

Here's what Manny Acta says in today's Post about Ken Griffey Jr.:

"He's just amazing. He's a guy that, no contest, if he wouldn't have gotten hurt and lost all those games, he probably would be chasing 800 home runs now."

Acta seems to be saying that had injuries not slowed him, Griffey would be neck-and-neck with Bonds in the home run race. Griffey was once thought of as the next Willie Mays, but his stock has taken a tumble as he has fallen prey to debilitating injuries over the past five years. It's commonly thought that the injuries kept him from becoming a latter-day Willie Mays, but is that really true?

I must admit that I was skeptical when I read Acta's comments, but I've got to say now that it's undoubtedly correct that Griffey would have compared favorably to Willie Mays had he played without injury, although he probably would not have approached a Bondsian level of performance.

Here are some of his career numbers from baseball-reference.com. OPS+ is an adjusted OPS calculation normalized for the park effects and the league; it essentially expresses as a percentage the rate a player performs above or below league average, with 100 being average. The last column is my calculation of the number of the average number of at bats it took Griffey to hit a home run.

Year	G	AB	HR	OPS+	AB/HR
1989	127	455	16	108	28.44
1990	155	597	22	135	27.14
1991	154	548	22	155	24.91
1992	142	565	27	148	20.93
1993	156	582	45	172	12.93
1994	111	433	40	170	10.83
1995	72	260	17	120	15.29
1996	140	545	49	153	11.12
1997	157	608	56	164	10.86
1998	161	633	48	149	13.19
1999	160	606	40	138	15.15
2000	145	520	22	128	23.64
2001	111	364	8	130	45.50
2002	70	197	13	100	15.15
2003	53	166	20	140	8.30
2004	83	300	35	128	8.57
2005	128	491	27	138	18.19
2006	109	428	10	96	42.80

A few conclusions emerge from the data. First, Griffey is undeniably a great hitter, one of the game's best.

Second, his power gradually increased during the first few years of his career, and then dramatically improved beginning in 1993 and stayed generally consistent through 1998. Those were Griffey's best years and among the best years most hitters could ever hope to have.

Third, Griffey's power reached its peak in 1997 and began a slow decline in 1998 that reached its nadir in 2001. Interestingly, though, Griffey's OPS+ was fairly consistent throughout the rise and fall of his home run rate. It was below the level of the 1993-1997 years, but it was still well above the league average.

Fourth, Griffey appears now to be in the twilight years of his career. He's had a steep drop-off in both his home run and OPS+ rate, and he appears unlikely ever again to approach his power levels of even a few years ago.

Finally, had Griffey performed between 2000 and 2003 as he did in 1999 and 2004, he would have hit another 89 home runs, meaning that instead of 573 career home runs today, he would have 662. That's definitely at the level of Willie Mays, who hit 660 career home runs, but it's about 85 behind Barry Bonds. Given Griffey's greatness with the glove in center field, he probably would have been every bit the equal of Willie Mays had he not been injured.

But Barry Bonds? Sorry, Manny, but we don't think so.

Expect an expectations problem...

The Nationals lost 8-7 to the Reds last night, blowing leads of 6-0, 6-2, and 7-5. There is a lot of criticism to be levied for that, and much of it has rightly been aimed at Jon Rauch. Rauch gave up the ghost in the eighth when Javier Valentin, a .239 hitter with 40 career home runs, hit a three-run home run. Today's Post article notes that many, including Rauch himself, are taking Rauch to task for his poor performance.

We're certaintly not going to defend Rauch's gopheritis last night, but we do think that expectations may be a bit out of kilter. He had arguably his best year last year, posting an ERA of 3.35 in 91 innings and 85 appearances. His appearances last year should raise a red flag, though. Prior to last year, the most innings he had pitched in a single year was 30, and that was in 2005. That means that over the last two years he pitched in 100 games and logged 121 innings. That compares very unfavorably to his workload over the three years before that: in those three years, Rauch appeared in only 19 games and threw only 61 2/3 innings.

Will Rauch duplicate his 2006 success in 2007? Maybe, but he's on pace to appear in 85 games again this year. That's a lot of work for a reliever over the last few years, and it's possible that Rauch is running out of gas.

But more to the point, a lot is being expected of Rauch. He's throwing so many innings because the Nationals are depending on him to an extraordinary extent. He has become their primary set-up man.

Is our faith in him deserved? Rauch is a useful pitcher and should definitely be on the roster, but he's not a primary set-up guy for a contending team. His career ERA is almost 4.00, and heisn't the kind of dominating pitcher you'd like to see in the primary set-up role. He averaged almost 9 strikeouts per nine innings last year, which is a phenomenal rate, but his career rate is closer to 6, which is where he is so far this season.

Don't get us wrong--we like Rauch. But if the Nationals were a well-run baseball organization, they'd have a guy like Jonathan Broxton, primary set-up man for the Dodgers. Broxton's numbers are out of this world. He has an ERA of 1.13, has allowed about one baserunner per inning, and is averaging about one strikeout per inning. And, get this, he's earning only $390,000 this year.

There a lot of good pitchers out there, and hopefully the Nationals are cultivating talent that one day will populate their bullpen. Until then, we'll continue to ask too much of guys like Jon Rauch.

Jekyll and Bowden

We just got finished saying that Jim Bowden made a great trade in getting Austin Kearns, Felipe LOpez, and Ryan Wagner from the Reds for Gary Majewski. Now that we've let that linger for a few hours, it's time to bring our views of Bowden back down to earth.

On Saturday Darrell Rasner was the Yankees' starting pitcher. He threw all of nine pitches before Endy Chavey hit a shot back at the box that broke Rasner's finger. You can see the play here. Rasner is now out for 3 months.

You may remember the name "Darrell Rasner" because he pitched for the Nationals in 2005. Bowden put Rasner on waivers for reasons that are known only to him. Rasner pitched well for the Yankees last year after a September call up and put himself in position to crack the starting rotation this year, which he did after the team's rotation imploded.

Rasner isn't the next Roger Clemens, but he's got some promise. Why would a team like the Nationals who need live arms let one go? We need to be stockpiling good arms, not squandering them on the waiver wire.

You think?

The Post reports today that the Nationals fleeced the Reds in the Kearns/Majewski trade. That is the understatement of the century. Gary Majewski is mired in the minors and shoulder tendinitis may keep him and his now underperforming fastball there for a long time.

So, in exchange for a guy the Reds haven't been able to use, the Nationals got Austin Kearns, who has proven what we thought we already knew--he is a good, professional hitter. Analyzing that part of the trade is obvious--in a Majewski for Kearns swap, the Nationals clearly got the better of the deal.

But we probably disagree with a lot of people regarding the other players the Nationals got in the trade. We don't think much of Felipe Lopez. His career line is not great(.260/.330/.404), although it's pretty good for a shortstop. The problem is that no one wanted to use him as a shortstop because his defense is substandard. As a second basemen, he's not such a defensive liability, but his offensive output relative to other second basemen makes him more of an offensive liability. And his defense isn't so great to compensate for those offensive problems. That's especially true in RFK, where Lopez is bound to underperform his career numbers. He sure is so far this year (.239/.292/.339).

On the other hand, we think getting Ryan Wagner was a good move, even if Wagner hasn't done much yet. Wagner is one of those guys who looks like a closer, but never quite is able to play the part. Chances are that he won't fit the bill, but then how many young closers in waiting turn out to be full timers? Not many, but why not take the chance? It wasn't like the Nationals were giving up a lot, and they're a team that needs to take chances on younger talent.

Of course, all of this could change if the Reds win their grievance against the Nationals, which asserts that Jim Bowden knew that Majewski was injured before he traded him, but failed to disclose that to the Reds. We assume that the Nats will win the grievance because we can't believe Bowden would be so stupid to do what the Reds accuse him of doing. This is the same guy, after all, who wouldn't trade Alfonso Soriano because he thought the price he was offered was too low and making the trade for that price would harm his credibility with other clubs. Maybe so (although we think he should have made a trade), but if you're so worried about your credibility that you won't make a trade that gives you something when you otherwise will be left with nothing, why would you be deliberately dishonest?

Well, anything is possible, I guess. This is Jim Bowden, after all.

We know, we know--we're bad!

Two depressing facts from the Elias Sports Bureau:

• Ryan Church's three-run double was the key hit in Washington's 6-4 victory over Atlanta. Entering the game, the Nationals were batting .135 with the bases loaded this season, the second-lowest average in the major leagues, ahead of only San Diego (.094).

• Washington used seven pitchers in the game, the fourth time in the major leagues this season that a team used as many as seven pitchers in a nine-inning victory. The Nationals have accounted for two of those four instances; Manny Acta used seven pitchers on April 4 against Florida, resulting in the first major-league victory of his managerial career.

John Smoltz: Baseball Elder

You have to check out this interview with John Smoltz. The interview begins at the 9:28 mark. His comments about the Nationals, the Braves' transformation from a bad to a great team, and Ryan Zimmerman's development are remarkably interesting and insightful. Smoltz will make a great GM one day.

When the Audacity of Hope Fades

2007 will go down as the year that the Lerner/Kasten Regime began its top-to-bottom review of what the organization has today and what it needs to be successful next year and beyond.

With 40 games under its belt, we now know the Washington Nationals to be a .350 team, despite their admirable .500 performance in the last 10 games. We know that with a quarter of the season passed, the Nats are baseball's worst-hitting team. We also know that, unlike last year, the Nats have no individual stars on offense. How bad is it without Soriano? Consider this: no Nat even appears in the National League's top 20 in the major offensive categories of R, HR, RBI, AVG, OBP, SLG and OPS. Incredibly, only one Nat -- Ryan Church -- appears in the NL's top 40 in these categories (clocking in at 21st for OBP and 39th for OPS).

With performance like this, it takes a certain audacity to believe in the Nats this year and to hope that the current starting eight will develop into major offensive contributors next year and beyond. With the exception of the promise of Ryan Zimmerman, it is hard to believe that any Nat has a realistic chance of being an above-league-average offensive player and that anyone except Church and Austin Kearns will be league-average producers. (Yes, we know that Nick Johnson lurks in the background, but we'll deal with him soon enough!)

While the Nats' pitchers have been marginally more effective, there is no one on the current roster who projects as anything better than a third or fourth starter on a competitive team, and no Philip Hughes-equivalent waiting in the Nats' minor-league teams.

Is it time to re-start a sustained drumbeat to drive Bowden out of his job? It's tough to see why not. Bowden in 2007 is a known quantity, and he no longer deserves the ability to use otherwise legitimate excuses about the team's poor performance -- ownership uncertainty, long-term franchise neglect -- to justify a future in Washington.

Bowden's tenure in Washington -- granted, under unique and difficult circumstances in 2005-06 -- is poor. The Nats were worse in 2006 than 2005. And 2007 is quickly shaping up to be worse than 2006. More troubling, though, is that Bowden's Nats today have fewer league-average-or-better players and fewer promising such prospects than at any time since the team arrived in DC. We know the plan has been to develop young talent internally and through strategic trades, but today there are no indications that Bowden is successfully implementing that plan. And, off the field, Bowden embarrassed the organization with his DUI arrest last year.

Bowden's tenure in Cincinnati also was, ultimately, a failure. While he ran the Reds for 10.5 years, he only had one playoff birth to show for his efforts -- in 1995, when the Reds had the NL's second-highest payroll and won the NL Central but lost in the NLCS. By 2003, the Reds fired Bowden, tiring of the Reds' poor performance under his stewardship and of his antics. Bowden appeared to sew his fate in Cincinnati when, less than a year after 9/11, and with MLB and the Players' Association in the middle of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement, Bowden unforgivably suggested that if the players "do walk out, make sure it's Sept. 11. Be symbolic. Let Donald Fehr drive the plane right into the building, if that's what they want to do." Bowden followed up that chestnut with a lame and insincere apology.

We're not trying to suggest that Bowden is the worst GM ever, but there's no longer any compelling reason to keep him as the Nats' GM, if there ever was one. Bowden's got a proven track record of mediocrity, and his personal antics at times have made him a distraction and an embarrassment to his employers. Why, under those circumstances, should he continue to receive the benefit of the doubt, especially when there are so many other promising GM candidates who would love to work for the Nats -- a team with low short-term expectations, solid upper management, a new stadium coming online and a fan base that is too young to be jaded?

The Nats and Bowden have been selling their fans on the audacity of hope since 2005. Yet what we lack are any tangible signs to be hopeful. We can't do anything to significantly upgrade the player talent base in the short term. Yet ditching Bowden and hiring a Paul DePodesta (an Alexandria, VA native) or another promising GM would be the easiest and most effective move the Nats could make to restore a little hope.

What does Jimbo have up his sleeve?

From Bill Ladson's chat:

Do the Nats regret not re-signing Alfonso Soriano? Soriano is a five-tool player.
-- David M., Washington, D.C.

I don't think they regret it at all. There was no way they were going to sign Soriano to an eight-year, $136 million deal. I agree with "The Plan." They have to address their Minor League system. That does not mean, however, they are not trying to improve their Major League team. When the club was in San Diego, general manager Jim Bowden said he was looking to trade for a slugger, which they desperately need.


We agree with almost everything Ladson says. Of course, passing on a $136 million deal for Soriano was a no-brainer, but failing to deal him last season wasn't.

But here is our main point: a "slugger"? The Nationals definitely need one, actually a few, but who are they going to trade to get one? Assuming Bowden means a legitimate slugger and not a retread like Preston Wilson (remember that allegedly great trade?), there isn't a whole lot the Nationals have to give. We'll stay tuned, but we're skeptical.

Just how bad is the Nationals' offense?

Pretty bad.

We've talked a lot about how this season has produced a few pleasant surprises on the Nationals' pitching staff. We haven't talked much about any pleasant surprises among Nationals hitters. There is a good reason for that--there aren't any.

Think about it this way: only four Nationals hitters with more than 50 plate appearances have a VORP (value over replacement player) higher than Shawn Hill. That's Shawn Hill the hitter, not the pitcher. HIll's VORP as a hitter is 1.1; only Ryan Church (10.5), Austin Kearns (5.7), Dimitri Young (1.7), and Brian Schneider (1.3) have higher VORP scores than Hill.

You think that's bad? It gets worse. Only two Nationals hitters have positive PMLV scores. PMLV stands for Positional Marginal Lineup Value; it measures the runs a hitter contributes beyond what an average player at the same position would produce in a team of otherwise league-average hitters. In other words, it measures whether a positional player is adding anything offensively beyond what you could get at the same position off the proverbial baseball street. PMLV is more useful than VORP because there are some positions--first base, for example--from which we expect significant offensive production. It doesn't do much good to have a hitter playing first base who produces only a marginally positive VORP when good first basemen are producing VORP scores well over zero. As we'll soon see, this is a particular problem for the Nationals at first base.

Only two Nationals hitters with more than 50 plate appearances have positive PMLV scores--Ryan Church (5.4) and Austin Kearns (2.0). The rest have scores that are abysmal:

Player	PMLV
Brian Schneider	-1.1
Dimitri Young	-2.6
Ronnie Belliard	-3.3
Ryan Zimmerman	-5.3
Felipe Lopez	-6.6

Although Brian Schneider and Dimitri Young have positive VORP scores, their offensive production is materially worse than an average player at their positions.

These statistics are truly depressing. The Nationals are fielding positive offensive contributors at only two positions--center and right field--and even there the positive contributions aren't great. At every other position the team is fielding a player whose production is worse than what the team could get from just an average player. It doesn't take a baseball genius to realize that you aren't going to win many games with that kind of paltry production.

We said before that there haven't been any pleasant surprises among Nationals hitters. That was a bit of an exaggeration; sometimes as we try to write with a flourish our words get out in front of our meaning. Anyway, watch Jesus Flores. He's had only 33 plate appearances, but his VORP is 3.0, and we think he could be a material upgrade from Brian Schneider. If the Nationals were smart, they would find a way to trade Schneider for a minor leaguer and give Flores a chance to prove himself.

It's possible to argue that Ryan Church has been a pleasant surprise, but what we've seen in the past is pretty much what we're going to get from him. We don't mean to suggest that Church isn't a useful player. He is, but he's probably more of a fourth outfielder than a starter on a contending team.

And, please, spare us any talk of Cristian Guzman's performance this far. Yes, his PMLV score is 1.1, but he's had only 37 plate appearances, and we're confident that his production by the end of the season will be solidly negative.

A star emerges? How about a good pitcher?

We said yesterday that we would learn a lot about Jason Bergmann in games like last night's game against the Braves. Bergmann has pitched well this season, but he needs to be consistently good against good teams before he can assume the mantle of a #4 or #3 starter.

Well, we learned a lot about Bergmann after last night's stellar performance. Bergmann was flawless for seven innings, taking a no-hitter into the eighth. Brian McCann had the temerity to break up the no-hitter with a solo homerun, but Bergmann finished the eighth with the Nats up 2-1. Amazingly, this was Bergmann's first win despite the fact that he has been the Nationals' best pitcher.

We realize that being "the Nationals' best pitcher" isn't exactly a crowning achievement, but for a guy who in spring training was a baseball unknown to anyone outside his immediate family, that's quite a success story.

Bergmann's stats are lights out. His ERA is 2.76, he's allowing only one base runner per inning, and hitters are whiffing against him (.162/.253/.306). If anything, Bergmann has been too good, meaning that he can't continue at this pace indefinitely. His BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is .183, which is shockingly low and unsustainable. Still, we're not talking about someone whose performance suggests his ERA will balloon to 5. Bergmann has pitched well enough to be considered a real prospect for a rotation spot well into the future of this team. Let's hope he keeps it up.



Speaking of another success story, Cristian Guzman was 2-4 with another triple. He now has two triples in two games, which is one-third the total he had in all of 2005. Shockingly, Guzman's line is pretty good: .323/.364/.452. Don't get used to this, though, because Guzman has had only 31 at bats. We're confident we'll soon see the Cristian we all know and loathe.




Jesus Colome got the save in place of Chad Cordero. [Full disclosure--I just picked up Colome in my fantasy league and now want him to get gobs of saves.] Colome has pitched well this season, but he's got a long way to go before we can say he's a good pitcher. His walks per nine innings are way too high, and he walks as many batters as he strikes out per nine innings (5.47). That's not a recipe for long-term success.

A Fate Worse Than Death?

In a development overshadowed by last night's stunning episode of the Sopranos, we learn here that the sore elbow of the Nationals' leading All-Star candidate, Shawn Hill, will likely send him to the DL. Hill described his elbow as "tender" but "not too bad," which sounds slightly less painful than Christopher Moltisanti's bloody demise. Sore pitcher elbows have a way of requiring surgery to make them right, which we can only hope is not required. As we've stated before, the Nats must focus this season on finding back-of-the-rotation starters to help them next year and beyond. That's hard to do when the most promising candidates are injured and cannot develop themselves. It also hurts when no pitcher -- starting or relief -- even has 25 career wins' worth of experience. While Hill's 5 career wins and first 50 innings this year are a great beginning, it would be tough to slot him as a reliable starter next year if his sore elbow turns into season-ending surgery.

In a parallel development that warms our hearts and mitigates the pain in Hill's elbow, Christian Guzman delivered an epic 2-RBI performance on Sunday (the words Guzman and RBI have not appeared in the same sentence in nearly 2 years). Guzman's efforts helped the Nats to a rare sweep. For those of you keeping score at home, that's $8M and 2 RBIs in the last 2 years.

You can't stop us, you can only hope to contain us...

The Nationals did something they haven't done all season and may not do again: they swept a series, this time against the Florida Marlins.

As amazing as it is to say, the Nationals' starting pitching is the best thing about this team right now, even though John Patterson and Chad Cordero have pitched like Manny Acta. Who would have thought before the season began we would say that at any time this season? But it's true: Jason Bergmann and Shawn Hill have pitched very effectively, and, with Jason Simontacchi's victory yesterday....

Wait a minute! Let's not get carried away here. Simontacchi gave up 10 baserunners and 3 earned runs in only 5 1/3 innings. It's not like we're talking Sandy Koufax here. And the Nats are 12-25, only one-half game ahead of the worst record in baseball.

Still, if you're a discerning Nationals fan, you can see at least some small glimmer of hope. The Nationals' pitching staff shows that it's possible for this team to develop some pretty good starting pitchers--back of the rotation guys--and most of a bullpen this year without having to make any trade or sign any free agents. Bergmann, Hill, and Jon Rauch can all be productive pitchers. Matt Chico and Ryan Wagner are projects, but there is enough talent there to warrant a team like the Nationals taking a risk on them. If Patterson and Cordero ever get their act together, we can have something to trade. That's looking less and less likely this year though, so our best hope probably is that Patterson and Cordero anchor the rotation and the bullpen next year, respectively.

That's not the beginnings of a World Series team, but our point is that we have to be realistic about what is possible in the short term, meaning not a whole lot. Stan Kasten and the Lerners have embarked on what is at best a three-year plan to build a competitive team. Let's have some patience and good sense in evaluating that plan.



Speaking of amazing, how about Cristian Guzman's two-run triple? You can see it here. Notice how far over toward center Borchard was playing in right field. That tells you a lot about the Marlins' view of whether Guzman can get around on a fastball.



A guy who is still slow on the uptick is Ryan Zimmerman. He's been making more contact in the last ten games--he's hitting .308 over that span--but without much power. Of course, his one home run over his last ten games was a walk-off grand slam this weekend. (Zimm hit that off Jorge Julio, who was supposed to be one of the closers on my fantasy team. Doh!) We've said this before, but it bears repeating: this is going to be a tough year for Zimmerman. He's got virtually no help in the lineup, and he's unlikely to see a lot of good pitches. So, like everything else with the Nationals this year, we need to have a lot of patience with him.



All in all, a great weekend for the Nationals. Coming up tonight are the Braves, with Bergmann starting against John Smoltz. We'll learn a lot about Jason in games like this.

When billionaires go bad...

There probably isn't enough attention paid to the quality of an ownership group and its effect on a franchise. As we consider the quality of the Lerner group, we were struck yesterday by a public spat that hinted at what a disaster we would have if the ownership hunt had gone bad.

For reasons we don't understand, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and Donald Trump, owner of some of the cheesiest casinos in Atlantic City, a business built almost solely on his celebrity, and a nasty haircut, hate each other. What we do understand, is that they are in a very public fight. Yesterday on Stephen A. Smith's radio show on ESPN 1050 in New York, Trump went after Cuban in very personal terms and said the Mavericks would never win a championship so long as Cuban owned the team. You can listen to the interview here.

Why Trump thinks he's qualified to criticize another business owner is beyond us, but that's how one becomes a celebrity these days, I guess. Anyway, Trump apparently thinks he's qualified to offer detailed criticism of a basketball team's on-court decisions, and listening to him explain his basketball strategy is hilarious. Unfortunately, too many owners insinuate themselves too closely in the on-the-field or on-the-court decisions of their teams.

Thinking of any one in particular?

That's right, the Danny. He's the one who refuses to install a GM at the Redskins, preferring instead to make the football decisions himself. That's gone really well for the Skins, wouldn't you say?




Which brings us to the Lerners. There has been a lot of critical press recently about the billionaire Lerners and the Nationals' management. Ken Rosenthal wrote a four-part series laying out all of criticism that's been circling within baseball about the Lerners' management of the team so far. While the Post today writes a generally favorable article, it too recounts some of this criticism.

There is a lot to criticize, I guess, but most of the criticism seems to us to relate to new management cleaning house and establishing itself and its new rules over an unruly organization. It's not surprising that people who are being moved out or told to do things differently are disgruntled. We have a lot of confidence in Stan Kasten and his ability to transform a franchise, so we're willing to give management the benefit of the doubt on most of these issues.

Save one.

Jim Bowden. God only knows why Kasten decided to keep Jimbo. As Ken Rosenthal says, rumor has it that "Kasten might have little choice in the matter: Bowden, according to major-league sources, endeared himself to principal owner Mark Lerner, son of managing principal owner Ted Lerner, before Kasten entered the equation." We hope that's not true, because Kasten has to be making the GM decision in this organization if it is to thrive. It would be a real shame if Mark Lerner became the team's Donald Trump or Dan Snyder and took on an operational role in the team's baseball decisions.

Kasten needs his own man in the position, and we're convinced that Bowden isn't that guy. If you doubt us, this story certainly suggests that Bowden is at least partially responsible for a lot of the instability within the organization. But our criticism of Bowden is more fundamantel than that: he just isn't the guy to take a team through the turn-around situation in which the Nationals find themselves. Is there anything in Bowden's history that suggests he can do it? If there is, we don't know about it.

Turning this franchise around is going to be very hard, it's going to take a very long time, and it's going to be one of baseball's biggest challenges. The Nationals are going to have to invest their money wisely because they have so many needs. We assume the team will have at least $30 million to begin spending this offseason, but they can't spend that on a few players--they need A LOT of players. This isn't a situation in whichthe Nats can sign A-Rod to a big contract and be assured of success. They need players at catcher, maybe first, second, and an entire outfield. They need pitchers in the first three rotation spots, at least, and almost an entire bullpen. Meanwhile, they have to rebuild the farm system.

Can you get all of that for $30 million? Not if you want good players. So the Nats will have to be patient and try to identify good value opportunities and nurture those players over a period of years.

Do you think the guy who signed Cristian Guzman and traded for Preston Wilson is the guy to do that job?



By the way, just so you know, we cringe every time we have to mention Guzman's and Wilson's name on this blog. We were contemplating using a Harry Potter phrase like, "They who may not be named," but we're afraid that the number of names in that category will grow too large for it to have any meaning.

Yankees, Clemens, $28 million? Genius!

An alert reader pointed me to this article from Fortune, which argues that the Clemens signing may put the Yankees into the playoffs.

A diamond deep in the rough

As the Nationals were being swept by the Milwaukee Brewers, the frustration and promise of this lost season were there for everyone to see. Not surprisingly, the players are frustrated as the losses mount; Austin Kearns said, "I don't think you can do this for six months."

But the bright spot was Jason Bergmann, an unknown before this season lost in the Nationals' farm system. The exodus from the major league roster of nearly every pitcher with a combination of talent and experience created an opportunity for Bergmann, and he has made the most of it. He gave up only one run and two hits over six innings and lowered his ERA to 3.07. Unfortunately, he has nothing to show for it; he's 0-3, primarily because he gets no run support from the Nationals' anemic lineup.

But like everything with the Nationals now, Bergmann will realize his promise only if he improves significantly over the course of this season. He walked two and struck out only two yesterday; that's OK when you allow only two hits, but there won't be many games when Bergmann is able to do that. As we've said before, Bergmann is relying right now on a very high percentage of the balls put into play being hit for outs. That can't continue, and as that percentage falls the number of batters he puts on base will rise and his ERA will likely rise with it.

Nothing is inevitable, though. Bergmann is a work in progress in a year in which the Nationals are seeking works in progress. Pitching coach Randy St. Clair needs to earn his keep by helping Bergmann become a better pitcher so that Bergmann can be a consistent producer on next year's roster. If players like Bergmann don't improve, this will truly be a lost year.



Here is a very good example of how bad the Nationals' offense is. Bergmann was due up last night with two outs in the top of the seventh and the score tied 1-1. Manny Acta decided to send up a pinch hitter. Bergmann had thrown only 79 pitches, so he could have gone at least another inning. But the object is to win games so pinch hitter for a young pitcher you'd like to keep around for a long time made sense. Ideally, Acta would have sent up someone with either a high OBP percentage so the Nats could start a two-out rally or someone with a high SLG so they could put the Nationals ahead with one swing.

The problem, of course, is that the nationals don't have anyone fitting either description on their bench. So, Acta sent up Nook Logan to pinch hit for Bergmann. Logan's OPS is .286. You read that right--his OPS is .286, not his on base percentage or his batting average. His OBP, SLG, and his AVG are all .143.

Guess what Bergmann's stats are? You got it, .143 each for his OBP, SLG, and his AVG. In other words, the Nationals didn't materially improve their offensive situation by pinch hitting for Bergmann.

Yes, yes, I know, Logan only has seven at bats. And, yes, Logan's numbers will rise, but to what? His career OBP is .317, and his career SLG is .344. Pretty anemic on an already anemic team.

So, what did Logan do last night?

He struck out.



How is Ryan Langerhans doing? You remember him--the Nats got him from the A's for Chris Snelling, a pretty good hitter who was looking forward to the opportunity to prove himself as a regular player. In 57 at bats this season, Langerhans' line is .088/.197/.123. Jim Bowden says that he traded for Langerhans because the team needed a good defensive outfielder. He'd better be Willie Mays out there because he's worse than Mark Belanger at the plate right now.

Meanwhile, Snelling is getting on base in Oakland with freakish consistency: .389/.522/.389. He's only had 18 at bats, but given that his career OBP is 25 points higher than Langerhans', we expect that we'll see Snelling on the basepaths a lot more often than Langerhans.

Of course, that is, if Snelling stays healthy because he's an injury risk. But isn't that the point? Shouldn't the Nationals be taking on more risk this year? Why get a guy like Langerhans who you know will be mediocre when you can take a change on Snelling?



Roger Clemens' trivia from Jayson Stark: "Clemens doesn't just wear No. 22. He wears it to dinner, eats it for breakfast and writes it into his contracts.

So what number will you see in Clemens' contract, once it finally gets written?

$28,000,022.

Of course."

The inevitable Schilling apology...

After making an absolute ass of himself by alleging that Barry Bonds cheated on his wife and his taxes, Curt Schilling has issued the inevitable apology. Here is the key sentence in the apology:

"Regardless of my opinions, thoughts and beliefs on anything Barry Bonds it was absolutely irresponsible and wrong to say what I did."

There is obviously nothing wrong with a person criticizing Barry Bonds for using steroids, and there certainly is more than enough evidence on which to base an allegation that Bonds used steroids, but why go after the guy's family life? What possible relationship does that have to the steroids issue or to Bonds' status as a baseball player?

The only explanation is that Schilling hates Bonds with the same fury that characterizes one of his fastballs.

But why does he hate Bonds so much? They've never been teammates. They were on division rivals when Schilling played in Arizona, but I don't remember any confrontation between them.

The answer, I think, is that Schilling views himself as a guardian of the game and is offended that Bonds would disrespect the game and its history by taking performance enhancing drugs that help him assault some of the game's most hallowed records. There's nothing wrong with that, and, indeed, the game needs its guardians. The problem is that Schilling has no filter, so he pretty much says anything that comes to his mind, and some pretty dumb things enter his cranium.

So, Curt, we have a proposal for you: continue to try to protect the game, but do it only through written statements. That way you avoid having to wave the white flag every time you say something stupid, which is far too often.

Oh, and he's also the Antichrist...

Curt Schilling needs to know when to fold 'em. He apparently is offended by Barry Bonds' assault on Hank Aaron's home run record; Bonds is only 10 dingers short of Aaron's record. Here is what Schilling said on a radio show yesterday:

"I mean, he admitted that he used steroids. I mean, there's no gray area. He admitted to cheating on his wife, cheating on his taxes, and cheating on the game, so I think the reaction around the league, the game, being what it is, in the case of what people think. Hank Aaron not being there. The commissioner [Bud Selig] trying to figure out where to be. It's sad."

Um, Curt, Bonds didn't admit to any of that. He certainly hasn't admitted to cheating on his wife or on his taxes, and he didn't even admit to using steroids, at least knowingly. It's one thing to take on a player about using performance enhancing drugs, but why would Schilling go after Bonds in such personal terms? What's behind this verbal sucker punch? Did Bonds steal Schilling's lunch money when they were kids?

Who knows, but Schiling has a history of saying things he later backs away from. After blasting baseball's failure to deal with steroid use among major league baseball players, Schilling belted out another tune during his Congressional testimony. As ESPN.com reported at the time: "In his opening statement, Curt Schilling blasts Canseco for writing his book and says he hopes this doesn't serve as a way to sell more books. He also defends baseball, citing that the league has made strides in recent years to curtail use of performance-enhancing drugs. " Schilling flatly denied saying that some players used steroids to enhance their performance.

As Bonds nears the most hallowed record in sports, we need to hear a whole lot less from Curt Schilling.

One mistake? Please...

The Post and other are reporting that Jason Simontacchi made just one mistake last night: "His one mistake turned into a three-run homer by Prince Fielder in the sixth, his last inning."

That is a very charitable view of Simontacchi's performance. He pitched much better than we had expected, but in Fielder's prior two at bats he absolutely scorched the ball, both for outs. And in the sixth, Simontacchi was punched around like an aging boxer. He's very lucky that he only gave up three runs; he got his first out in the same at bat in which Ricky Weeks hit a foul ball about as far as a person of his size can hit it.

All in all, a pretty good outing for Simontacchi, but not as good as some have suggested.

A sign the apocolypse is upon us...

Today comes word of something I thought I would never hear anyone say: Cristian Guzman and Nook Logan "are being hailed not so much as saviors, but perhaps, if the Washington Nationals are lucky, as stabilizers."

Guzman may be the worst regular starting shortstop who received a major contract I have ever seen. In fact, he may be the worst starting shortstop I've ever seen, period. Does anyone remember 2005, Guzman's last season? Here are his 2005 numbers: .219/.260/.314. Guzman's OPS (.574) was less than 50 points higher than Barry Bonds' ON BASE PERCENTAGE this year (.528).

Logan's career OBP is only .319, which is awul for an alleged lead-off hitter.

This is the cavalry? For what, F-Troop?



The idiocy of Guzman and Logan coming to the rescue and yet another Nationals' loss obscured a pretty good pitching performance from Matt Chico. Chico gave up three runs, eight hits, and one walk in seven innings. He struck out five. Chico's fellow pitchers apparently told him that he was giving hitters too much credit and needed to go after them. That was good advice. We've said previously that Chico has to cut down on his walks if he wants to be successful, and that's just what he did.

Chico is someone the Nats should really try to develop. He has a pretty good fastball and a decent curve. He's only 24, so he should be capable of improving dramatically. He's not much yet, but he's the kind of player with just the right amount of talent that the Nats should be spending this lost year developing. I hope that Randy St. Clair knows what he's doing.



Speaking of developing pitchers, Jason Simontacchi will start for the Nats today. He hasn't started a major league game since 2003. Simontacchi has been injured ever since, but he wasn't very good before the injury, so don't expect much.



The Roger Clemens deal is apparently ruffling some MLB feathers. David Wells, Clemens' former teammate, says that Clemens is disrespecting the Yankee players by not traveling with them. Clemens' contract essentially provides that he can show up for work only on the days when he is designated to start. He had this same deal in Houston, and it didn't seem to create much of a stir there. But Clemens is in New York now, and everything he does will be amplified by an order of magnitude over what he did in Houston.

By the way, that same ESPN story makes the point that you could field a pretty good team of nine players with the $28 million the Yankees are spending on Clemens. This reminds me of a point my dad used to make: it isn't hard to live on a budget when you've got a lot of money; the real skill is living on a budget when you don't have a lot of money. The Yankees can afford to make a lot of dumb mistakes because they have gobs of cash. And the Yankees have made A LOT of mistakes--Randy Johnson, Jared Wright, Javier Vazquez, Jeff Weaver, Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, etc., etc., etc.

It may be hard working with George Steinbrenner, but it's a lot easier for Brian Cashman to look smart than it is for GM's Billy Beane and Kevin Towers who are on very tight budgets and can't afford the big blunders that are routine in the House that Ruth Built. So, Yankee fans, please spare me the sonnets to Cashman's baseball genius.

Pitching implosion

Going into this year we all would have said that John Patterson and Chad Cordero would be the Nats' two best pitchers. Instead, they've been our worst. Cordero blew another save yesterday, and has now blown half of his save opportunities. (Skip down to the next paragraph if you've got a quesy stomach.) His ERA is not almost 5, which is horrific for a closer. The Chief has given up almost twice as many hits as strikeouts (22-13) and almost three times as many baserunners as strikeouts (32-13). He hasn't even been as good as a replacement pitcher; his VORP is -0.4. He has been, in a word, awful.

Meanwhile, Patterson went on the DL yesterday with something called "right elbow biceps soreness." When exactly did the elbow become connected to the biceps? Anyway, Manny Acta is saying that Patterson will be out at least a month, and you have to wonder whether the best thing now is to sit him down for the rest of the season.

So, the two pitchers who could have commanded the most in trades are worthless on the market right now. But, the news is not all bad. Shawn Hill had another good game, giving up two runs in six innings. Hill has been the team's best pitcher this year, posting a VORP of 8.4. He's not great, but it would be good to come out of this season knowing that we have two reliable back-of-the-rotation pitchers in Hill and Jason Bergmann. It's not as much as we hoped for, but its something.



Just in case you're keeping score, the Nats now have the worst record in baseball--9-22. But don't focus on the negative--focus of the positive. The Nationals' expected record is 8-23, meaning that the team is performing one game better than its runs scored-runs allowed ratio would suggest. So, we're not bad, we're overachievers!




You probably know by now that Roger Clemens signed on to play for the Yankees this season for $18.5 million. From a baseball perspective, it's not clear what the Yankees will get for their money. Clemens has been superb recently; the last time he posted an ERA above 3 was in 2003. He is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and arguable the best pitcher the game has ever seen. But the only reason the Yankees are making this move is to improve their playoff position, and his ERA in his last two post-seasons was more than twice his regular season ERA. Of course, the Yankees might not make the playoffs without the Rocket, so they may be willing to live with decreased performance in October so long as they're still playing.


Financially, though, this deal is yet more evidence that there is something seriously wrong with Major League Baseball. On a prorated basis, Clemens is now the highest paid player in baseball and will earn $4.5 million per month and $8,888 per pitch. A guy with a better financial mind than me has concluded that there is no way the Yankees can make money on this deal. You have to wonder about the sanity and competitive health of a sport in which owners are not engaging in profit-maximizing behavior. Baseball is definitely better off than it was ten years ago, but it still has a long, long way to go to be a properly functioning league.

Yeah, about that improving arm strength...

We've been hearing for weeks that John Patterson's only problem was a lack of arm strength following surgery on his right arm last year. We heard that his arm strength was improving, even while he pitched more like Marc Brunell than the John Patterson we had come to know and love.

That whole story came crashing down yesterday with news that Patterson has a "bicep problem." The actual problem sounds worse than that, though, because Patterson says he has pain in his elbow, as well. That's a bit scary.

Patterson has been pitching so badly that it's easy to conclude that he has a serious injury. How else to explain an ERA that is over 7 after 7 starts--7.47 to be exact. (By the way, what is this proclivity of Nats' pitchers for ERAs equal to model numbers of Boeing airplanes?)

Although we'd love for Patterson to get back to form quickly so that he could be traded for younger players, it's pretty clear that that's not going to happen. Given that the Nats are going nowhere fast this year, the best thing is probably to shut him down until the team is sure he has no significant medical issue. An MRI is in his immediate future, so we should know more soon.

You should know that Patterson is on my team in a NL-only fantasy league, as is Chris Carpenter, Jason Jennings, Jorge Julio, Micah Owings, and Juan Cruz, all of whom have had significant arm injuries this year. Yes, that's right, I think I caused Patterson's injury by drafting him. Sorry about that.

And, while you're at it, be great, too...

I feel for Manny Acta. Everything he's ever done in baseball has taught him to try to win every game. If his team doesn't win, he assumes there is something he, as manager, can do to better his team. So, we get quotes like this after a 6-4 loss to the Cubs:

"We have to teach these guys about not letting up," Acta said. "How do you explain about going with that approach with Zambrano in the first inning -- working the count and scoring four runs -- and then allowing him to have some easy innings? After that, the guys completely forgot what they did in the first inning."

And this:

"We just haven't learned how to win without having an outstanding performance by the pitcher," Acta said. "And in this game, you're going to have to learn how to win even when you're struggling at the plate or when you're struggling on the mound. There are games that teams win without having a two-hit shutout, and we just haven't learned how to do that."

It's good that Manny thinks this way, and it's good that his standard of excellence is rubbing off on the players:

"We know we have to put teams away. Guys who have played know that," Kearns said. "It's just doing it. They can show us the way, but we are the ones that are swinging the bat and throwing the ball, but we have to be the ones that do it. [Acta and the coaches] are working. We are all working. The results are not there."

But despite all of Acta's efforts, there is a reason the results are not there, as Kearns says. The reason?

The Nationals stink. They just don't have the talent to win on a consistent basis. That's not a criticism of current management, because these are the cards they've been dealt by Major League Baseball. No, it's a statement of fact, and the really hard thing for Acta is that the Nats aren't going to get better for a long time. The process by which they get better is going to be both long and hard, and I have doubts about whether Acta, or any other manager committed to winning, will survive the process. There's only so much losing a guy like Acta can take.

So, we feel for you, Manny.

Understatement of the century...

The headline from tomorrow's story in the Post about today's 6-4 loss to the Cubs:

"Winning Formula Eludes Nationals".

I would say say so--the Nationals' record is 9-20.

Where have you gone, D'Angelo Jimenez?

Doesn't have the same ring to it, does it? Too many syllables, I guess.

Although DJ is in the minors now and the lights are about to go dark on his career, it wasn't always so. As a prospect in the Yankees organization, he was highly coveted in the same way we all covet an upcoming season of American Idol. After climbing up the organizational ladder, Jimenez was rated higher than Alfonso Soriano by some analysts and was regarded as the future Yankee second baseman.

Then something awful happened. In January 2000, Jimenez was in an automobile accident and literally broke his neck. Although he was back on the field in July, he was never the same player. He was on six teams in the next six years, and he now may never again be on a major league roster.

Nick Neugebauer thought he had it made in 1998--he had just been drafted in the first round by the Milwaukee Brewers and could throw a baseball 100 mph. When he arrived at the big club in August 2001, his future seemed certain, as did the multi-million dollar contract. Then he felt something in his shoulder, and his career was effectively over. Two major shoulder surgeries followed, and he appeared in only 12 more games before the Brewers released him in 2004.

Jimenez and Neugebauer are cautionary tales for all those youngsters with a one-in-a-million talent and for Jim Bowden and the Washington Nationals, who are trying (correctly) to build a future on young prospects. You never know what you have until a player is established. For every Ryan Zimmerman, there are dozens of talented players who never make it. And for every Chipper Jones, there are dozens of guys who look like they were established, but flame out. Who knows, Ryan Zimmerman may prove to be one of those flame outs.

I don't think he will, but the point is you never know. This is a very tough business, and while success depends on a lot of skill, it also depends on a lot of luck.

Somebody stop me!!

That's what "The Mask" says right before doing something he shouldn't. And that's what Jim Bowden should have said right before trading Chris Snelling for Ryan Langerhans.

Bowden made a great deal in ridding the Nats of Jose Vidro and his huge contract. In the process, he acquired a young hitter with some promise. Not a great hitter and a guy who was injured a lot, but a guy who if given the chance might blossom into a productive hitter. That's the kind of hitter the Nats need more of, because they have gobs of time this year to let players develop.

But Bowden cut short the Snelling experiment to acquire a guy who is now with his third team this year. The Braves cancelled their Langerhans project and so did the A's. But we have Jim Bowden as the master of our domain, right?

Is there any chance Bowden is able to see something John Schuerholz doesn't?

No.

Is there any chance Bowden is able to see something Billy Beane doesn't?

No.

Those are two of the best GMs in baseball, and they both decided to dump Langerhans in the space of a few months. And we gave Beane something valuable in return.

That's called a dumb trade. Yes, we know, this is a minor trade and not likely to affect the team's fortunes in a significant way. And, yes, we know, there is probably a lot that Jim Bowden is thinking about that isn't being published in the papers.

But why do this deal? Bowden says that he wanted a good defensive outfielder. Maybe he did, but is there anyone out there who thinks that if Ryan Langerhans is patrolling the friendly confines of the Nats' new stadium next year that the team will have come close to executing on its long term strategy? No. Every day that Langerhans is in the outfield is a reminder that the Nats still have a lot of work to do.

Let's stay upbeat, people!

The Nationals are going to lose a lot of game--A LOT of games. They now are 9-17. Only Kansas City has a worse record (8-19), and the Nats are only a game and a half behind the Royals in the race for the worst record in baseball. If we assume the Nationals will have the same winning percentage at the end of the season that they have now--.346--they will end the season with a 56-106 record. If, however, we assume that their expected record (7-19) more closely approximates their final winning percentage, the Nationals' record will be 44-118, meaning that they would finish two losses short of the post-1900 record of 120 losses set by the 1962 New York Mets.

We need to have some perspective here, though. The salient point is not how many games the Nats lose, but that they're going to lose a lot of them. I say this because it would be a huge mistake to look at games like last night's 3-0 loss to the San Diego Padres as a failure. The Nationals' management has to approach every game as an opportunity to evaluate players they may want to keep next year and to showcase other players who may command good, young talent in trades. The players and Manny Acta, obviously, are going to want to win, but Jim Bowden, Stan Kasten, and the Lerners have to be realistic; they have to focus on the future because that's the only way this team will improve.

So, was there anything from last night's game that should give Jim Bowden some comfort? Yes.

Shawn Hill pitched a pretty good game, giving up three runs, four hits, and three walks while striking out five over 6 1/3 innings. That's encouraging, because Hill has pitched well over 39 innings now:

ERA	WHIP	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	H/9
3.00	1.08	5.77	2.54	2.27	7.15

We'd like to see his strikeout ratio climb above 6.00 and his walk ratio fall below 2, but these are good numbers. Hill also is befuddling hitters: .217/.287/.329.

Will Hill be great? No, but he could be consistently pretty good, and that could help a team like the Nationals because he's a low-priced player. That's a silver lining from last night's loss, which will be meaningless a few years from now. Shawn Hill, however, could be a lot more meaningful to the Nationals.

The Hall of Shame

From the Elias Sports Bureau:

"Washington's Felipe Lopez went 0-for-4 with four strikeouts against San Diego. It's already the third time this season that a leadoff batter went 0-for-4 with four Ks in one game (Kelly Johnson and Willy Taveras also did it). In the entire 2006 season it happened only twice (Ryan Freel and Gary Matthews, Jr.)."

Order is restored, at least for now...

Going into last night's game, journeyman Jerome Williams had a lower ERA than staff ace John Patterson. That produced a wrinkle in the space-time continuum, which caused the Bay Bridge to collapse and LeBron James to go 8 for 22 against the Wizards last night.

Order had to be restored if our planet was to survive, and, thankfully, Patterson took a big step in that direction last night as the Nats beat the San Diego Padres 3-2. Patterson served up his best outing this season, giving up one run and four hits over six innings. Patterson walked two and struck out three. You can see highlights of his performance here. Patterson needed every bit of that perfomance because he was pitching against one of the best pitchers in the game--Jake Peavy. Peavy came into the game with an ERA under 2.00 and has been dominating hitters; his K/BB ratio is over 3.5 (Patterson's is .74).

Patterson wasn't back to his 2005 form, but he was light years beyond his 2007 performance. If we can believe Patterson's self-diagnosis, he's getting stronger:

"It was better today," Patterson said. "I've been working tremendously hard on my mechanics. I'm just trying to generate some power with my legs, let my arm work, and just take some of the stress off of it. Early in the game, I definitely saw a difference in the life on my fastball and the velocity was a little bit better, which carried over into my breaking balls."

Also better was Chad Cordero, who didn't blow a save. Instead, Cordero put down the Padres 1-2-3 in the ninth for his fourth save in seven tries.

So, this was another good game for a Nats' starting pitcher. Let's hope it is what it looks like--a real step forward for Patterson on his road to recovery. Let's remember, though, that Patterson's ERA is still above Williams', so watch for falling objects.


Ray King was back for the first time since April 10, a spot having been cleared for him by Williams' trip to the DL. How did he do? Not great--one inning, one home run, one earned run. As a bullpen lefty for a last place team, King has no real value for the Nats other than as trade bait. Before you vomit in your mouth, realize that teams in pennant races often need a lefty late in the season to prepare to face hitters like David Ortiz in the playoffs. King could command some value in a late-season trade, so the goal now is to fatten up his numbers--wait, sorry, wrong methaphor. King is 6'1" and 242 pounds.

Let me try again. The goal now is for King to post good numbers, thereby making him appear attractive to potential suitors. That's how the Nationals have to be thinking about virtually everyone on the roster.



Let's go back to Jake Peavy for a second. He's a young, dominant pitcher on a team with a long-term plan. Peavy's salary is $4.75 million. To put that in context, Cristian Guzman will make $4.2 million this year. It's hard to build a good team on a budget when you make salary mistakes like that.

In any event, Peavy is exactly the kind of young pitcher the Nats want, but they're very hard to find. Detroit and Oakland have done phenomenal jobs in stocking their roster with good, young pitchers, but they had to make controversial trades to do it. Does anyone remember the reaction of the pundits to Oakland's decision to trade Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder for prospects? ESPN commentators used it as an opportunity to heap scorn on Billy Beane's "Moneyball" strategy. The cries were long and loud that Beane had been fleeced by better GMs at Atlanta and St. Louis. Now, those trades look like a stroke of genius. Hudson and Mulder have underperformed, and the A's have something every other team in baseball wants--talented young pitchers.

The Nationals don't have a Hudson or Mulder to trade, but they do have Patterson, Cordero, and some other lesser lights. Their lack of marquee names means that the Nats will probably have to take chances on even younger (and, therefore, more speculative) arms, but that's a chance they're going to have to take. There is no way this team can get to where it wants to go without young pitching. The notion that the Nats can buy a great pitching staff is lunacy, and it's sure to bankrupt the team.

Who keeps track of this stuff?

From the Elias Sports Bureau:

"Carlos Beltran's sixth-inning solo home run accounted for all of the scoring in the Mets' triumph at Washington. Beltran became the sixth player to homer in a 1-0 game at RFK Stadium and the first to do it since the Expos relocated to the nation's capital. The others to do it were Manny Jimenez (1962 Kansas City Athletics), Don Lock (1963 Senators), Tommie Agee (1967 White Sox), Frank Howard (1969 Senators) and Curt Blefary (1971 Yankees)."

You're kidding, right?

Mlb.com reports that Dmitri Young is looking forward to playing the outfield when Nick Johnson returns.

This would be a very good move, if the Nationals could play four outfielders. Otherwise, they would instantly have one of the worst defensive outfields in baseball.

We're heartened, though, that the goal seems to be to increase Young's value and then trade him for prospects. More of that thinking, please.

An outbreak of pitching

The Nationals got something on Saturday and Sunday that they're not exactly used to--great starting pitching performances. The first--and most improbable--was the six shutout innings Jerome Williams posted on Saturday. Williams gave up only one hit, but was still in trouble from time to time because he walked five while striking out only one. We've said before that Williams gives up far too many baserunners to be successful consistently, but if he's going to give up only one hit every six innings he live with a proclivity to walk a hitter every inning. Of course, I may also have won the lottery on Saturday night. I'll find out later today and let you know how that turned out.

Williams followed his good performance by going on the DL. Talk about a let down. We have to teach him not to step on his applause lines.

Saturday's problem was the inability of the Nats' bullpen to hold a lead and then keep the game close. There was also the problem of a lack of hitting, but that's so chronic with this team that it's no longer a problem--it's a state of being. Jesus Colome gave up a run in the sixth, and Chad Cordero blew his third save by giving up a run in the ninth.

A quick word about Colome. Most people think he's pitched well, but to us he's a ticking time bomb. He's allowing over 1.5 runners per inning, meaning that it's just a matter of time before he gives up a slew of runs.

A longer word about Cordero. Something is wrong. Cordero has already blown three saves and isn't fooling much of anyone. He doesn't have the heat to dominate hitters, so he needs control of a few pitches to get hitters out. How is that going so far? Not well. His ERA is over 5, and he's allowing more than two runners per inning. Opposing hitters have Hall-of-Fame numbers against him so far this year: .352/.429/.611. This isn't so much about this year, because a great closer is important only if you enter a lot of ninth innings with a lead, and no one expects the Nats to do that. The salient point is that the Nationals need Cordero to improve so that they have something to trade for young prospects to a team in a pennant race. Get well soon, Chad.

Sunday's game involved another good pitching performance, this time by Jason Bergmann. Bergmann gave up one run, two hits, three walks, and struck out six over seven innings. It was a very good outing for a pitcher who has some promise. His only blemish was a home run by Carlos Beltran, but there's no shame in getting beat once a game by one of the game's best hitters. Bergmann is 0-2, but he has been lights out so far. His ERA is 2.79 and he's allowing just over one runner per inning. He's dominating hitters so far--.158/.274/.277--and his eight strikeouts per nine innings suggest that the domination isn't likely to end soon. The only note of caution is that he walks too many hitters--almost five per nine innings. Like most Nats pitchers, he needs to establish better control, but he's only 25, so there's every reason to believe he can do that.

Sunday's blight was the lack of hitting for the Nats. Are you catching the pattern here? They managed only three hits off starter John Maine--who has been awesome this year--and while they mustered a rally in the eighth, Ryan Church grounded out to end it. That was the game because the Nats--like all other teams--are overmatched against Billy Wagner and his high-nineties heat.

So, 0-2 for the weekend, but there was something on which to base some hope for the future. We'll see whether Williams can duplicate his success and start to realize some of his promise--we aren't holding our breath--and whether Bergmann can continue his march of progress toward being a quality major league starting pitcher--we're much more optimistic about that.

Austin fever, catch it! And we don't mean Texas, baby...

A guy we haven't talked much about is Austin Kearns. His 3-run home run last night propelled the Nats to a 4-3 victory over the Mets. You can see the home run here. As you'll hear in the video, this was the first time this season the Nats scored in the first inning. That's a pretty depressing stat.

Anyway, back to the subject of this post. Kearns is a good, professional hitter. He was better in Cincy (.274/.351/.492) than in DC (.250/.381/.429) last year, but we'll look past his post-trade slump. His numbers this year (.287/.367/.471) are better than both his Cincy numbers last year and his career numbers (.266/.361/.464). He's 27, so it's not surprising that he's improving, and we reasonably can expect him to maintain something near his numbers this year for the next few years.

Comparing Kearns to other players shows something interesting. The players with whom Kearns' stats are most similar are:

Bubba Trammell (966)
Jim Greengrass (964)
Kevin Mench (960)
Craig Monroe (959)
Johnny Rizzo (957)
Craig Wilson (954)
Dick Kokos (947)
Greg Norton (946)
Ben Broussard (944)
Butch Huskey (944)

Not exactly a list of all stars. But if we look at the players with whom Kearns is most similar when they were his age we find something quite different:

Frank Thomas (975)
Larry Walker (970)
Mike Marshall (963)
Torii Hunter (958)
Wally Post (955)
Kevin McReynolds (954)
Gil Hodges (952)
Mel Hall (950)
Preston Wilson (949)
Sam Chapman (948)

Now, that's much better, although it pains us to see Preston Wilson's name on this web site again. No one thinks Kearns is or will be a hitter like Frank Thomas (at least we don't), but it would be nice if he could continue his current trajectory.

The Kearns for Majewski deal was a steal for the Nats and the kind of deal Jim Bowden needs to make often for the Nats to turn this ship around over the next few years. Well done, Jimbo.

Who's your daddy now?

It's not John Patterson, the putative number 1 starter who is struggling to keep his ERA below 7. It's probably Shawn Hill. Hill pitched another strong game last night: 8 IP, 2 ER, 4 H, 2 BB, 3 K. Hill's ERA is now 2.76, and is the Nationals' most reliable pitcher.

The chances of Hill continuing to pitch at this level are about the same as Dan Snyder becoming humble. Hill has a good sinker, but not a lot of heat. His success therefore depends on hitters hitting a lot of ground balls for outs. He's helped by the relatively spacious dimensions of RFK, but there will be a number of games in which Hill's finesse game gets shelled like Omaha Beach on D-Day. Still, Hill is a pretty good pitcher who could probably be a number 4 starter. On this team now, though, being as good as a number 4 starter catapults you to the number 1 spot.

The number 2 starter should be Jason Bergmann. He has a positive VORP (value over replacement player) of 3.9 and an ERA of 3.27. Bergmann also has some power behind his pitch--his K/9 ratio is 8.18. His problem is that he walks hitters as often as my wife wants me to walk our dog, which is a lot. His BB/9 ratio is 5.32, which is terrible. His saving grace is that he's given up only 14 hits in 22 innings. His walk rate is too high for him to be consistently good, but if he can reduce it he could be a pretty good pitcher, perhaps a number 4 or number 5 pitcher on a team with a pretty good staff. He's only 25, so there should be some further development for him.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but the feeling of dread is too much, so I need to get this out of the way now: Jerome Williams is awful in the same way Crash was awful--one of the worst movies ever to win the Best Picture Oscar. Having an ERA that equals a model number of a Boeing airplane says it all. You can read more here, but it's not for the faint of heart. Suffice it to say that Jerome isn't a number 5 starter now; in fact, he's not a starter at all. He should be fitted with a restraint anklet that keeps him on clubhouse arrest and off the field.

That leaves John Patterson and Matt Chico. Here is our view of Patterson. There's not a whole lot the team can do now besides wait for Patterson to develop arm strength, assuming that's his problem.

As for Chico, he has some talent and, given the team's depleted talent, is a guy who should be given a chance to excel this year. Will he do it? He might. He's only 24 with a low-90s fastball and a decent curve. Sound like somebody you know? Think of the surprise starter that emerged for the Nats in 2005. If he's going to be successful, he has to reduce his walks and increase his strikeouts. With some quality coaching, Chico could become a useful starter, maybe a number 4 or 5 starter.

If you're still reading, you've noticed that the Nationals have three starters who should be number 4 or 5 starters. That doesn't bode well for the team's future staff, meaning that the Nats have to develop front-of-the-rotation starters from their farm system or acquire them through free agency. The Nats have a lot of money to spend, but quality starters have become shockingly expensive recently, so the farm system route is preferred. Do the Nats have the arms in their system they need?

More on that next week.