Three On Twenty-Five

Brian Schneider: He's still batting .231 and slugging under .300. His Isolated Power (Slugging - Batting) is right around where it was last year, which is about half of his career totals. Where has his power gone?

Jesus Flores: By OPS+, he's the best hitter on the team (125). What's impressive about his line (.286 .419 .400) are those isolated numbers. Even if he can't hold that batting average -- and it's likely he can't -- he's still useful because he walks and hits for power, so he's contributing even with a low batting average.

Dmitri Young: After fighting back from his foot injury, he's right about at his career averages relative to the league -- a 113 OPS+. He's walking a lot more (12%) than he has for his career (7%). But, wow, the defense...

Robert Fick: Managers often have players who are security blankets to them, and I guess that Robert Fick is Acta's. How else to explain his daily appearance given his .192 Batting average and .231 slugging? Sure, he's better defensively at first than Dmitri Young is, but then so is Stan Kasten.

Ron Belliard: Since his hot start, he's been in a complete freefall. Since the day Manny moved him up to #2, he's hit .221/ .279/ .274. Might we miss Josh Wilson?

Ryan Zimmerman: Since May 5th, he's been the hitter we're used to: .279/ .311/ .544. The batting average and obp are a bit low, but the isolated power is there. For the season, he's hit about 7% fewer line drives than last year, but it seems like that's changed lately.

Felipe Lopez: Can a team carry a leadoff hitter with a .298 OBP? He's drawing walks at half the rate he did last year while striking out at the same pace, an indication that he's lost some plate discipline. I think he's going to be an intriguing decision for the Nats in the offseason.

Cristian Guzman: On a rate basis, this is his second best season, by far. He's drawing walks at twice the rate of his career (10% versus 5%) and hitting lots more groundballs, but other than that, the rest of his numbers aren't that different than what he's done in the rest of his career. He's been far more hit lucky (.320 BABIP versus .255 in '05) this year, but that's likely a function of him driving the ball a bit better, even if he's not scorching liners all over the park.

Tony Batista: Have you noticed how big his ass is? It's not that it's wide, but that it's really long from waist to bottom. It's the ass of a 50-year-old housewife.

Ryan Church: Did you realize that his slugging average was down to .428? Still, only Young's .432 is higher. He's walking a bit more this year, and striking out significantly less.

Nook Logan: Range Factor is a flawed stat, but I'll point out that he has the lowest RF of any of the four players who've played CF for the Nats this year. In fairness, he's well ahead of Church and Kearns in Zone Rating, a somewhat better defensive stat. On the offensive side, I can't find one stat that shows improvement, and it'd probably be cruel of me to point out his one for seven success rate on the bunt.

Ryan Langerhans: He has hit a depressing .258/ .324/ .323 as a Nat, which is only slightly better than the currently disabled Chris Snelling. What's amazing is that he's hit .204/ .319/ .316 over the last calendar year. Maybe he just sucks?

Austin Kearns: He certainly alternates looking brilliant and terrible in the field and at the plate. He's really hurt by RFK. He's hitting .214 at home and has slugged just .369.

Matt Chico: Would you believe that he leads the team in Innings Pitched? He has improved his command, a bit, and is just off the league average pace for strike% and first-pitch strikes. But despite that, when you walk nearly 5 a game and allow 1.6 homers per game, you're going to be an ineffective pitcher.

Mike Bacsik: Six shutout innings is six shutout innings, but when you only K one batter, it's likely not a skill you can repeat with regularity. But, hey, if he can pitch a season at Tucson with an ERA under 3, there's no reason he can't pitch a season with an ERA under 6 at RFK, right? Yeah, we have low standards!

Micah Bowie: Left-handed batters are still smacking him around: .382/ .389/ .441. Thankfully, he's held righties to a .171 average. I wonder if they'll try to trade him, or if they'll hold on to him since he's under team control for a few years (~3 years of service time)

Jason Simontacchi: He's kind of a fun pitcher to watch, although opposing teams probably enjoy it a bit more. Based on his K/BB/HR numbers, he's actually been a bit unlucky. He's had bad luck with runners left on, and his BABIP is over .360, both of which should improve.

Levale Speigner: I get hives watching this guy. He's sporting a scary .67 K/BB ratio. Is it wrong of me to want him to get injured so they can stash him on the DL the way the Twins have with Alejandro Machado?

Chad Cordero: Since his return, he's pitched 5 scoreless innings while striking out five batters. Athletes are humans too, and with the razor-thin margin (mentally and physically) between success and failure, these things come into play, even if we can't quantify it at the time. When we pick our heart surgeons, we'd pick the one not going through the messy divorce, right?

Jon Rauch: Since he filled in for Cordero, he's pitched 8 innings and allowed 4 runs, although those came in two games. There are a few warning signs with him, though. His K rate is down nearly 2 per game from last year and his BABIP is lower than it was, but at least he doesn't walk anyone...well, most of the time.

Winston Abreu: He's certainly got a live arm and a pretty good strikeout pitch. I just worry a bit about his control. Still, for a middle reliever, we could certainly do worse.

Jesus Colome: Do you s'pose he's sick of hearing the "Jesus Saves" joke? No, probably not. Jim Bowden has always had a knack for finding a cheap and passable bullpen, turning over raw materials to craftsmen pitching coaches, and it seems like Colome is this year's Carrasco.

Ray King: Poor Fat Ray. He's done his job, getting lefties out and holding them to a .200 batting average. It's just that the demands placed on relievers by crappy starting pitching has meant that he's faced more righties (.393 batting average), making his numbers look worse than they would be on a good team.

Saul Rivera: I kinda like Saul. He just sorta goes about his job, doing it very well without anyone really noticing what a good job he's doing, which is all you could really hope for from a low-paid middle reliever. It's those 6/7 inning guys who keep crappy teams like ours in games.

Billy Traber: What does the dude have to do to buy a start? The team needs SP, so they pick anyone and everyone except for the guy with the most recent experience as a starting pitcher. Sure, he sucked as a SP, but he could at least get the team to teh 5th occasionally, right?