A Change in Focus

Just a few weeks ago, I started this blog with no idea where I was going to go with it.  After writing a few pieces, I was given an opportunity by Will Yoder over at The Nats Blog to become a guest writer.  Since then, I have found the difficulties of maintaining a blog to be greater than I anticipated.  Coincidently, The Nats Blog is taking a huge step forward and is on its way to becoming one of the better Nats websites on the internet.  So while it is a bit bittersweet for me to say this, I am thrilled to tell you all that I will now become a full-time writer over at Will's site for the foreseeable future.  His site will provide me with the opportunity to write about everything that I would want to here, but with a better design and a better blog network.  It will also allow for me to be a part of something that has the potential to be great.  I will be providing statsitical analysis as well as information on the minor leagues, while occasionally writing on some off the wall topics and pet projects I have been thinking on for some time.

Make sure you check out the blog and while this blog will basically become defunct, I may post a few easter eggs from time to time.

Phil

The Nationals Latin American Presence

Surprisingly, during the Aroldis Chapman sweepstakes the Nationals made a legitimate offer given their absence in the Latin America market since the Smiley Gonzalez scandal.  Besides the player formerly known as Smily (aka Carlos Alvarez), the Nationals have not had a major signing in Latin America.  Out of the few low key signings they have made, the only notable names are Jhonathan Solano, Marcos Frias, and Eury Perez.  More teams, like Houston and Minnesota, are recognizing the importance of the Latin markets and are refocusing their efforts in those areas, specifically the Dominican Republic.  The Nationals, who have placed an importance on developing their farm system, will also need to expand their efforts if they want to be able to eventually compete with the top tier teams.  The first signs are encouraging.

This October the Nationals hired former Red Sox Latin America head Johnny DiPuglia to head their own international scouting efforts.  Last August, before the DiPuglia hire, the Nationals made five low key signings in the Dominican.  These five players were:  IF Jean Valdez (16), OF Jose Noberto (18), RHP Cleto Brazoban (17), RHP Videl Paredes (18), and George Rosa (19).  The five were scouted by both Dana Brown, now with the Blue Jays, and former Royals scouting director Derek Ladnier.  The pick of the litter is Valdez and here is what Baseball America and The Nationals had to say about him:

NCAA Tourney Edition

Sorry folks I have not been able to update lately due to a busy personal schedule and overall lackluster week of spring training for the Nationals.  Once the season gets under way, posts will be coming at you in a greater frequency. In the meantime make sure to check out my weekly posts over at the ever expanding The Nats Blog.  And as I return to my hole, I leave all you March Madness fans with a little NCAA-themed post:

Through all the excitement and pressure that fills spring training, you can expect some friendly ribbing in the Nats clubhouse in the upcoming weeks as the NCAA tournament kicks underway.  Houston takes on Maryland in the first round and I would expect Justin Maxwell to be talking up his team all week to Houston Alum Garret Mock.  Other Nationals players that will have their former alma maters going at it in the big dance include (with college, seed #, bracket):

John Lannan ( Sienna, #13 South)
Tyler Walker (California, #8 South)
Adam Dunn (Texas, #5 South)
Stephen Strasburg (San Diego State, #11 Midwest)
Justin Maxwell (Maryland, #4 Midwest)
Garrett Mock (Houston, #13 Midwest)

Washington Minor League Players that will be rooting on teams this March/April:

Jeff Kobernus (California, #8 South)
AJ Morris/Justin Bloxom (Kansas State, #2 West)
Adrian Alaniz (Texas, #5 South)
Dan Lyons (Minnesota, #11 West)
Jeff Mandel/Cory VanAllen (Baylor, #3 South)
Adam Carr (Oklahoma State, #7 Midwest)
Boomer Whiting (Louisville, #9 South)

And in case you were wondering who I have winning it all this year, look no further than the team with the best player in the country in Kentucky and John Wall.

Lannan vs. Utley

July 26, 2007.  After a sudden rise to the major leagues, John Lannan was making his big league debut at Philadelphia's Citizen Bank Park.  The young Lannan pitched as well as one could expect in a debut, letting up three runs in 4 innings.  In the bottom of the fifth, the nerves kicked in for Lannan.  With a perfect 2 for 2 Utley at bat, Lannan lost control of his pitch and hit Utley.  Utley strolled to first base and Ryan Howard stepped up.  Maybe it was a case of the jitters for Lannan, maybe it was the fact that he had let up a home run to Howard in his previous at-bat, or maybe it was fate, but Lannan plunked Howard too. Hunter Wendelstedt had seen enough and preceded to eject Lannan and then Manny Acta, who for one of the few times in his Washington career showed some fire at a bad call.

The Two Hole

Discussion about potential batting orders are a natural occurrence during the spring training period.  There are always new guys on the team, others are playing above or below their actual talent levels, and the manager will use a various combination of orders throughout the Grapefruit League competition.  For the Nats, the #1, 3, 4, and 5 slots are locked down by Morgan, Zimmerman, Dunn, and Willingham.  Who bats second will be the most important spot still open in spring training, with Guzman having the early head start.  Using splits and other considerations, let us take a look at the Nationals likely options for the two hole on opening day:


Cristian Guzman:
When batting #2 in 2009:  266 PA, 8 BB, 36 SO, 5 GDP, .286/.310/.393
When batting #2 career:  2819 PA, 114 BB, 372 SO, 36 GDP, .271/.303/.388


He does not have a great on base percentage (.307 career), he no longer has enough speed to steal bases (12 total in the last three seasons), and he does not see many pitches (3.26 Pitches/PA).  The one possible reason you would consider Guzman batting second is his contact percentage (and possibly because he can bat from both sides).  Among the candidates on this list, Guzman had the highest contact percentage last year:

On Dunn and Dingers

Last off-season, Stan Kasten remarked on how the team was going to have to open up RF for batting practice at Nats Park because of all the balls that would be hit there by recently (at the time) acquired slugger Adam Dunn.  These were gladly welcome words to Nationals fans.  In the opening year of their new park, and with a team full of hitters that were touted by the Washington front office because of the supposed power that lurked in their bats, the Nationals did not go yard very often.  In fact, only the Giants and Twins finished with less homers than the Nationals (117) that season.  In the dinger department the team was led by Ryan Zimmerman (14) and Lastings Milledge (14).  No one finished with more than 15 HRs.  The signing of Adam Dunn brought a guy that had hit 40 home runs per a season for the last five years.  And in 2009, right field got a lot more crowded.

Rotation Preview

Pitchers and catchers have reported and spring training is officially underway.  The big story so far has been Steven Strasburg's presence in camp, with the ESPN RV stopping through Viera for a story on Sunday.  Everybody has been blown away by this kid, but let us not forget he is not the only one competing for a spot on this team.  In that spirit I present to you a preview of all the guys that are in contention for the rotation this spring training (Strasburg included):

Jason Marquis

2009 Stats:  216 IP, 4.04 ERA/4.10 FIP, 9.1 H/9, 3.3 BB/9, 4.8 K/9, 0.63 HR/9, .291 BABIP

Money Pitch:  Slider

Total MLB Service Time:  9.01 years

2010 Rotation Chances:  Barring injury, Marquis is guaranteed to be in the rotation and will be in contention with Lannan for the opening day gig.  He has four major league pitches, including a plus slider.  Much of his success this season will be tied to the Nationals' defense as he is a guy that keeps the ball on the ground (2.03 GB/FB).  He is also a very similar pitcher to John Lannan and Craig Stammen, so it is not unreasonable to expect Marquis to be a positive influence on both Lannan and Stammen this season.

John Lannan

2009 Stats:  206.1 IP, 3.88 ERA/4.70 FIP, 9.2 H/9, 3.0 BB/9, 3.9 K/9, 1.0 HR/9, .276 BABIP

Money Pitch:  Slider/Curve

Total MLB Service Time: 2.04 years

2010 Rotation Chances:  He is a lock.  He was drafted by the team in 2006 and made his debut in 2007. Ever since he has been the most reliable pitcher Washington has had to offer.  He has good command of the strike zone and can work out of jams.  He has a good selection of pitches (sinker, curve, slider, change) and does a great job of locating them all.  Now this season he and Marquis have the opportunity to form a formidable 1-2 punch at the front of the Nationals' rotation.  Lannan recently switched his agent to Brodie Van Wagenen, the same agent as Ryan Zimmerman, so it will be interesting to see if the Nats can come to an extension agreement this season in order to avoid arbitration with Lannan next year.

Is Chien-Ming Wang "The Michael Jordan of Taiwan"?

Chien-Ming Wang was officially introduced as Washington National today in front of members of the media on the field at the National's Space Coast Stadium.  The press conference went as most press events do.  There was praise for the player's ability.  The general manager talked about what a swell guy he is and how much of a positive influence he will be on the clubhouse and other players.  Then the player responded how he would like to have a great season and be with the team for a long time.  Typical press stuff that means little.  But amongst it all were some interesting quotes by General Manager Mike Rizzo.

"Not only did we get a player of his caliber, on the mound and on the field and in the clubhouse, it's also our first foray into that market," Rizzo said. "When your first guy in the market is the most popular player in the history of the country, it's a big coup for us."

I am not going to read too much into this one, but it is certainly encouraging considering some of the moves made by the team this off-season. The far East is a market that remains untouched by the Nationals, excluding their most recent addition, who could greatly increase the Nats exposure in Taiwan.    This offseason, Rizzo hired three guys (Clark, DiPuglia, McKeon) that came from clubs that were familiar with the Taiwan prospects, as well Asian baseball in general.

Top Prospects Link

Joe Hamrahi of Baseball Daily Digest has posted a compilation of the top prospects as rated by various baseball writers in an excel format.  The chart is updated rather frequently and it is a nifty tool if you are interested in prospects at all.

Regarding the National's prospects, Strasburg and Norris have been the unanimous #1 and #2 selection.  The majority had Storen at #3, though there were some that had others like Espinosa, Desmond, and Marrero in that slot.  The #4 selection was mostly a split between Marrero and Espinosa.  The rest of the lists were pretty much a variation of orderings of different prospects that were in my earlier 15/15 top prospects post.  Check out the post and see for yourself.

The Nats Blog

Starting tomorrow, I will be writing weekly posts for The Nats Blog.  Will Yoder runs a great site over there and the site is apart of the Bloguin network.  There are some good quality posts and a diverse amount of content.  Most recently he has run a Bryce Harper Watch with videos of Harper HRs and 2Bs.  I will be continuing to post on this blog, but am grateful to Will for the opportunity to enter his endeavor with him.

Here is the article and here are some follow-up thoughts that did not make the cut:

-  Not surprisingly, the Nationals bullpen was also last in FIP last year with 5.00
-  Out of 25 blown saves by the pen last year, 3 guys (Hanrahan, Beimel, Villone) accounted for one half
-  I look at the combined totals of the projected top seven guys from the bullpen for this upcoming season, but what about the top seven guys from last season?  Here is what that seven (based off IP) would have looked like and their combined totals:

Nats Beat Others to Punch, Secure Wang

Confirming what many of us have known for the past week, Taiwanese pitcher Chien Ming Wang has signed with the Washington Nationals for the upcoming season.  Wang, formerly of the New York Yankees, will not be ready to pitch until sometime in May, but he is a welcome improvement to a rotation that has not had more than one 10 game winners since 2005.

A quick scouting report on Wang for those of you unfamiliar with him:

-  SINKER:  His money pitch is his sinking fastball.  He throws it most of the time (near 80% of the time) and it can reach speeds of up to 96 MPH.  The sinker has good horizontal movement and moves towards right handed batter's shins.  This is a plus pitch and is needed by Wang in order to pitch at his elite level.
-  SECONDARY:  Wang also has a slider and change up which he uses about 10% of the time for each pitch.  His slider is a good compliment to his sinker and his changeup is a decent pitch at around 10 MPH slower than his fastball.  He will also throws a splitter late in counts when he needs an out.
-  COMMAND:  His command and control are excellent.  He is able to locate pitches well and rarely gives up a walk (2.37 career BB/9).  For his career, he averages 14.42 pitches/inning (better than anyone on last years Nats squad) and has earned a reputation for being able to go late into his starts with his power still intact.  His repertoire and control allow him to maintain a high groundball rate (2.70 career GB/FB) and when he is healthy he will rarely let up the long ball.  Wang has always struggled with lefties, but has not done so bad where it kills him.

Hall of Fame Indicators

This blog is oriented towards basic scouting and advanced statistics, but sometimes within these concepts the details can get a bit blurry.  Every now and then I would like to take a look at some of the advanced statistics out there and attempt to discuss them in a way that makes it easier for you, the reader, to understand them.  This week I am going to keep it light with a brief explanation and look at Hall of Fame Ink.  The reason I selected this specific stat is due to the addition of the first likely hall of famer to the Nationals roster, the recent selection of a former Expo to the Hall, and the retirement of Frank Thomas, all of which will be discussed in this post to help reinforce the explanation.

Hall of Fame Ink is advanced metric devised by Bill James that helps us understand how likely a player is to get in the hall of fame.  It does not tell us how good a player is or what he did.  It is essentially four counting numbers where points are added to the total for various statistical accomplishments.  The four categories are:

Washington Nationals Top Pitching Prospects 2010

Pitchers

1.  Stephen Strasburg (21, 2009/1st) -  If you have not heard of Stras yet, then you probably have been hiding in a hole somewhere for the last year.  There is not much I can say about the guy that you probably do not already know.  The Nationals needed to sign him and they did (at the last second).  He had some knee problems in Arizona that should cause some alarm, but all signs point to him showing up 100% in Viera for ST.  My guess, we see him with Washington sometime in June or July.

2.  Drew Storen (22, 2009/1st) - I am just not high on taking a reliever with the 10th overall pick in the draft.  Relievers just do not have enough value to merit their selection that early.  Despite this, the Nationals bullpen was so bad last year and Storen is a quality enough pitcher for this pick to actually border on reason.  Relievers selected in the first round are very often "fast-tracked" meaning that the odds of Storen spending the whole 2010 season in the minors is close to zero. Storen features a fastball that tops out around 96 MPH and a good curveball that has some late bite on it.  After getting knocked around in his first two starts with Hagerstown, Storen rebounded and pitched magnificently for the Suns, the P-Nats, and the Senators.  His control was impeccable as well (8 walks in 37.1 minor league IP).  As he progressed through the ranks, his BB/9 increased and his SO/9 decreased.  This is not too alarming as this type of trend is to be expected with the increased quality of competition as well as a very small sample size.  In the 13 AFL innings, Storen allowed 16 hits, 1 ER, 3 BB, and struck out 13 batters.  These are pleasing numbers to my eyes and they indicate that Storen has the ability to make batters have to beat him.  There will not be any Mike MacDougal-esque walks from this kid.  I am sure to have lots more on this kid once the season starts.

Washington Nationals Top Position Player Prospects 2010

With Spring Training fast approaching, things are starting to slow down in terms of player movement. Just for the hell of it, I thought I'd post my top 30 (15 pitchers, 15 position players) rankings of the Nationals farm system.  I should take a second to address the issue of prospects as a whole before I delve into the lists.

Drafting prospects is far from an exact science and, much like the game of baseball, it is a game of failure. Out of about 50 some players drafted by each team every year, a team would be more than happy to have five of them contribute to the major league roster someday.  Many of these players drafted are kids straight out of high school that will not have the benefit of getting slapped around (and learning from it) in the college leagues; they have to do this in the minors.  Oftentimes players are drafted because of their ability in one or two specific areas with the club hoping that they will be develop in the areas they skills they are lacking.  That is what the minor leagues are about, though, development.  At any one time a player in the minors could be working specifically on one facet of his game.  With the dearth of reporting on minor league players/teams, it is hard to know exactly what the causes for each player not performing to expectations might be.  What I am getting at is that players might show poor statistics for 3 or 4 years in the minors, but due to age and development factors they should not be considered "busts" (yet).  That is not to say we should not be worried with highly touted players that seriously underperform.  We just need to keep in mind that there more than just the numbers.  So without further adieu here is my position players list, to be followed by the pitchers list in the near future...


Batters

1.  Derek Norris (21, C, 2007/4th) -  The Nationals minor league hitter of the year is coming off a breakout season that has many considering him one of the best prospects in the organization.  He was amongst the South-Atlantic League's leaders in TB, 2B, HR, RBI.  He put up a monster line of .286/.413/.513 at Hagerstown and was one of the only consistent offensive producers on the team last year.  The only weak area of his offensive game is the strikeouts (111 last year), but with an eye like his it would be easy fathom this number dropping as he gains more pro experience.  His bat is going to get him to the majors at some point, but what position he will play is still up in the air.  He has struggled behind the plate after playing 3B for much of his HS career.  His game-calling and blocking skills (28 passed balls in 2009) are well below average, but he does have a rocket of an arm (almost 50% CS).  Norris is still very young and should have another year or two to prove he belongs behind the plate before the Nationals contemplate moving him.  If he is moved, my guess is that he ends up in RF.  He was supposed to play in the AFL this fall, but sustained an injury and returned home to rehab for the off season.  He will be in Viera for ST.

The Launch Post

...and then Mike Rizzo kissed the frog and it turned into a winning baseball team.  Ok, so maybe the fairy tale ending is a bit over the top in regards to the Washington National's organization, but almost no fan can deny that this offseason had a less bitter taste to it than those of offseasons past.  Jim Bowden was notorious for blowing cash on insane contract renewals (Austin Kearns and Dmitri Young were the main culprits) and then using what was left to search the salvage yard for anything with a pulse (ahem Daniel Cabrera).  After a messy scandal involving the Nationals Dominican operations, Bowden was shown the door and Mike Rizzo emerged as the top candidate for his spot.

Rizzo started as a scout like his pops and rose through the ranks in the Diamondback's organization as a talent evaluator.  His experience in this area is going to be vital, especially to a team that has held high draft picks in each of their drafts in the last half-decade, including the first pick last year and this upcoming year.  He started the long process of overhauling this team last season and has continued into the winter.  The process began with a revamping of the front office with some of the most experienced and respected minds in the game (Roy Clark, Davey Johnson, etc.).  For my first post I would like to take a look at some of the signings Rizzo has made thus far.

KEY PICKUPS THIS OFFSEASON:
Jason Marquis (SP)  -  With 7 wins this season John Lannan will become the franchise's* all-time leader in wins.  With 27 wins, Jason Marquis could take that honor.  The point here, of course, is that the Nationals have always been missing a key component of their club, pitching.  The signing of a guy like Marquis is a step that should have been taken 5 years ago, especially when considering that some of the best pitchers this organization has thrown out there include the likes of Livan Hernandez, Tony Armas, and Tim Redding.  Look, Marquis might not be an "All-Star" ever again in his career, but he is easily one of (if not) the best arms that has come to Washington.