One Bat Or Two?

The Nats extended run of .500ish goodness has everyone salivating at the possibility of next year. The more deluded amongst us sees images of a wild card run, perhaps aided by a few more well-timed John Lannan pitches. But even the sane can see the possibility of a .500ish team. And in the NL, mediocrity central, a .500ish record into September gives you hope. (Were we .500, we'd be about 4.5 games out)

This is a variation of a post I've written once or twice before, but it's interesting to look at.

Winning and losing in baseball revolves around runs scored and runs allowed. You score more than your opponent, you win. Simple, right. That's blindingly obvious on a per game basis, but it also holds over the course of a season. Good teams outscore their opponents. Bad teams get outscored. Bill James came up with a formula for estimating this, the Pythagorean formula, which says that a team's winning percentage is equal to:

(Runs Scored ^ 2) / ( (Runs Scored ^ 2) + (Runs Allowed ^ 2) )

There are variations using different exponents that are more accurate, but for 90% of baseball teams, this formula predicts a teams record within 4-5 games. The formula says the Nats are a 54-73 team; they're really a 57-70 team. Pretty close.

Using the formula as a baseline, you can make some rough estimates about improvements the team would need to make for various records. It's a hell of a lot easier to project offense, so lets make some basic assumptions about the pitching.

The team is on pace to allow 755 runs (120 fewer than last year). Amazingly, they've only had four starters completely crap the bed: Simontacchi, Patterson, Williams and Speigner. The rest have ranged from great (Hill) to passably mediocre (Chico).

If we make the assumption that the team gets more out of Hill and Patterson (or some FA pitcher), when we factor in the move from RFK to a more favorable hitter's park, we can probably safely assume that the Nats will allow roughly the same number of runs next year. They could improve and still allow the same number because of the park.

So to get to 81 wins next year, the team would have to score around 750 runs.
85 wins: 790
87 wins: 810
90 wins: 840
95 wins: 895

The Nats are currently on pace for right around 635 runs. Yikes. That's a lot of improving.

Some of that will come from the park. How much? Damed if I know. The Nats are on pace to score about 20 more runs on the road this year than average. It was dead even last year. And the road team in '05 outscored the average by 60 runs. For the hell of it, let's call it 30 runs attributable to park, but I have a hunch that with a medium-power team like this, it's more dramatic.

So if we factor in ~30 runs for the park, the offensive improvement needed for each of those targets is:
81 wins: 55 runs
85 wins: 95 runs
87 wins: 115 runs
90 wins: 145 runs
95 wins: 200 runs

.500 certainly seems doable, doesn't it?

Now some of those runs will come from this year's slumping players.

If Schneider's bat awakens and he splits the difference between the last two years and '04/'05, that's 5 runs or so. Kearns splitting the difference between this year and last gives another 10. Zimmerman doing the same is another 5-10.

It adds up quickly.

Of course, you'll have to subtract a few for Dmitri -- can you really EXPECT (different from hope!) him to do this again next year? And probably a few from Belliard, who was over his head for half a season.

Make some rough estimates, and you can see that the Nats are one bat away from being a .500 team and one All-Star-type bat from being in the 85-87 range.

So who's out there?

Adam Dunn over the last three years creates about 110-120 runs per season. Subtract a few runs for defense, and he's a solid 100-run a year contributer. When healthy, Torii Hunter is a 75-90-run bat and probably a few runs on defense, considering that Logan isn't a complete butcher (other than on easy popups!). If we chalk this up to a fluke season, Andruw Jones is a solid 100-115-run guy with the bat.

There are options there in the offseason, enough bats to push the Nats, if they choose, to .500 or beyond.

Of course, all this is predicated on the Nats' pitching being as solid next year as it has been this year, which is never a truly safe assumption.

But if it works out, maybe we ARE closer than we think.