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.