Sullied My Good Name
Harper at OMG tabulates the data, and shames me.
Sometime after the Kearns/Lopez/Clayton/Bray/Majewski/Sabo/Wagner trade, I got full of myself and my magical prognostication abilities. Somehow, I came to the conclusion that minus Guillen and Clayton and Watson and.... that this was a very good offensive team. I bet Mr. Harper that the Nats would be a top-6 offense from that point forward.
Well, they weren't.
They were 11th. Close, right? Well, nope.
He does point out some mitigating factors though that do make it closer than it actually appears, but you'll have to click over to read them.
He does point out something interesting, though:
The Nats finished 6th in Septemeber with Soriano providing little offensively. This supports Chris’ theory that the Nats could have an above average offense in 2007.
Maybe that $16 million would be better spent on some pitching, pitching, pitching?
Speaking of pitching, pitching, pitching...
Take a look at Federal Baseball's recap of how truly dreadful this team's pitching was. He focuses on the sheer lack of innings (irrespective of quality) from the starters, and what that means, and what the team is going to need to do/look for in the upcoming offseason.
Sometime after the Kearns/Lopez/Clayton/Bray/Majewski/Sabo/Wagner trade, I got full of myself and my magical prognostication abilities. Somehow, I came to the conclusion that minus Guillen and Clayton and Watson and.... that this was a very good offensive team. I bet Mr. Harper that the Nats would be a top-6 offense from that point forward.
Well, they weren't.
They were 11th. Close, right? Well, nope.
He does point out some mitigating factors though that do make it closer than it actually appears, but you'll have to click over to read them.
He does point out something interesting, though:
The Nats finished 6th in Septemeber with Soriano providing little offensively. This supports Chris’ theory that the Nats could have an above average offense in 2007.
Maybe that $16 million would be better spent on some pitching, pitching, pitching?
Take a look at Federal Baseball's recap of how truly dreadful this team's pitching was. He focuses on the sheer lack of innings (irrespective of quality) from the starters, and what that means, and what the team is going to need to do/look for in the upcoming offseason.
posted by Chris Needham at
10:43 AM
9 Comments:
If only we had a guy who, say, led the league in innings three of the last four years.
By
Ryan, at 10/05/2006 11:15 AM
If only that guy were an ace, rather than a #3 or #4.
By
Anonymous, at 10/05/2006 11:37 AM
Unfortunately that guy wasn't pitching nearly well enough to last enough innings to lead the league. It doesn't matter if it's Livan giving up 6 runs/game or Jason Bergmann doing it.
By
Anonymous, at 10/05/2006 9:18 PM
I just love the fact that you slipped that Chris Sabo reference in there...
By
Anonymous, at 10/05/2006 10:38 PM
You don't have to be Johan Santana to contribute to this staff. 216 innings and a sub-5 ERA would have made him by far our best starter. Youth movement, dawg!
By
Ryan, at 10/05/2006 10:45 PM
Indeed, the Nats should spend their money elsewhere. To me it looked an awful lot like Soriano wasn't slumping at the end of the season, but actually just not trying after he hit his 40/40/40/20 thresholds and knew that he'd locked in his next big contract and didn't have a pennant to play for. Without a contract to play for and with no money to bring in the players to make the team a contender, what's to say he won't lolligag through the next four years until it's time to work on another contract again? Besides Kory Casto's career minor league OPS (even including his pitiful 2003 at Vermont) is .829, compared to Soriano's career OPS of .835
By
Anonymous, at 10/06/2006 10:35 AM
No, this is a time to freak out.
It's a bit like reading "The steak you ate last night MAY have been contaminated with e coli." There's no inappropriate reaction. ;)
By
Chris Needham, at 10/07/2006 10:35 AM
The Post article mentions one name that I'd be interested to hear more about, Ron Washington.
I've read a number of things (thanks to all the fawning A's profiles) about improvements and adjustments he's made in various players. and he seems to be very well respected.
He's definitely a better choice than Dusty Baker.
By
Chris Needham, at 10/07/2006 11:01 AM
Didn't I just say that? ;)
By
Chris Needham, at 10/07/2006 11:07 AM
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