2015 MLB Season Thread with Postseason Discussion

[jrodsep]

Correa man, Correa.

[HedleyLamarr]

Tanking, to me, implies that you're purposely losing in order to gain something that makes you instantly better. Baseball's draft and system just doesn't allow this to happen. It's not like there's a LeBron or a Crosby or an Andrew Luck that's going to make your 2016 or 2017 season a quick turn-around. And one drafted player isn't going to turn a team's fortunes around that quickly. That's why I say that tanking in baseball is dumb.

Losing a bunch of games because you're playing a bunch of young, inexperienced players with the intention of them being part of your core going forward isn't tanking. That's how the 90's Braves got their start....by Smoltz and Glavine and Avery and their lineup getting pounded in their first couple seasons in the late 80's.

[pmoehrin]

Correa man, Correa.

My apologizes.

[pmoehrin]

Tanking, to me, implies that you're purposely losing in order to gain something that makes you instantly better. Baseball's draft and system just doesn't allow this to happen. It's not like there's a LeBron or a Crosby or an Andrew Luck that's going to make your 2016 or 2017 season a quick turn-around. And one drafted player isn't going to turn a team's fortunes around that quickly. That's why I say that tanking in baseball is dumb.

Losing a bunch of games because you're playing a bunch of young, inexperienced players with the intention of them being part of your core going forward isn't tanking. That's how the 90's Braves got their start....by Smoltz and Glavine and Avery and their lineup getting pounded in their first couple seasons in the late 80's.

If you read what I said right, you'll see I'm really not agreeing or disagreeing with you.

On the point of tanking as a one dimensional strategy to building a team as it relates to "whording" picks, I think we're both in agreement that this does not work as a means to build a team on its own. As it relates to part of a larger and more multi facitated plan (ie. holding off on signing free agents until a certain point) it gets a bit more complicated.

In this sense I think back to not what the Astros did now, but what they did in the 1960's. They were maybe the most aggressive in pursuing talent just out of high school during the 1960's. Because of this strategy they landed Jimmy Wynn, Rusty Staub, Larry Dierker and Joe Morgan just to name a few. Not a bad haul for a farm system you would think. But yet the Astros did hardly anything with it because they didn't hold onto these guys long enough to see the full benefit.

Morgan won his MVP's with the Reds. Both Stuab and Wynn had all-star seasons for teams other then the Astros.

The point is you could have the best farm system in the baseball. It you make bad trades and free agent deals, it almost won't matter. If the Astros didn't trade Joe Morgan for Lee May, the Astros may have been able to take home a title in the 70's.

[chrysleraspen08]

The 2016 MLB schedule has been released already. Is it just me or does it seem to get released earlier every year?

[ninersdd]

Not sure about that.

I saw the Giants schedule online and it seems lame. They get the AL East like in 2013. The team goes to the Bronx and Tampa again, plus host Baltimore like that year. At least they get 2 and 2 with Boston(It was a Toronto in 2013). I don't know why the MLB can't be like the NFL and simply alternate home and road opponents from the other league when they play.

[zpqmaowl]

They can't because each division has five teams not four, and the stupid local rival exception would ruin it anyway. Save those games for the final exhibitions and otherwise give them no special treatment. Those annual 1992 World Series rematches with Atlanta and Toronto are really exciting, I tell you.

[pmoehrin]

Hard not to look at tonight as a microcosim for how the season has gone for the Nats.

Up 7-1 on the Mets and they lose 8-7.

On the comeback/meltdown scale I would have to weigh it pretty heavily on the meltdown side. Nats bullpen walked six Mets batters in the seventh.

Matt Williams then went into full panic mode and brought Papbelon into the eighth to face the 7, 8 and 9 hitters. This after leaving Drew Storen for dead in the seventh. Then followed up by leaving Papbelbon in the ninth down by a run, because its not like there's a game tomorrow or anything.

I've seen some bad bullpen management over the years, but what Matt Williams did tonight had to be one of the worst. Granted guys didn't do their job, but that still doesen't explain why you bring in Papbelbon in the eighth with the game tied to retire the bottom half of the order or why they didn't have somebody warming up as soon as Storen entered the game.

If I were Mike Rizzo I'm not sure I wouldn't fire Matt Williams tonight. That's how bad I thought the mismanagement was.

[jrodsep]

Matt Williams should have been fired weeks ago this is just getting ridiculous.

[FiddySicks]

I was really hoping Matt Williams was going to be a good manager. He was a hometown hero where I grew up, played for the Giants, and was in Arizona both as a player and as a coach during some really fun times for me personally.

After his run in Washington, though? He's probably one of the worst managers I've ever seen. He's gone soon. No doubt about it. And he'll probably never get another shot at managing a team again.

[WSU151]

I was really hoping Matt Williams was going to be a good manager. He was a hometown hero where I grew up, played for the Giants, and was in Arizona both as a player and as a coach during some really fun times for me personally.

After his run in Washington, though? He's probably one of the worst managers I've ever seen. He's gone soon. No doubt about it. And he'll probably never get another shot at managing a team again.

Yesterday's management of his bullpen and today's management of his bullpen was pretty atrocious.

I'm pretty sure the Nats lead the league in pitching changes in September with 3,219.

[Kramerica Industries]

Williams went to who is supposed to be his two best relief pitchers and they allowed five runs to score in 2.1 innings of work. I get that Drew Storen has completely imploded since the Papelbon trade because apparently he can't handle non-closing situations anymore, but for all the legitimate gripes that exist for Matt Williams bullpen management (like, I dunno, yesterday, or last week, or last postseason), tonight really isn't one of them. I actually liked him going to Papelbon in the 8th because...who the hell else could he turn to at this point? He got criticized for his reticence on Storen and Papelbon last week in St. Louis, so we can't go 180 and criticize him for using Papelbon the way he did tonight.

That doesn't mean we can't criticize Matt Williams tonight, however, because he still did something really stupid. That being in the 9th inning, when he had Anthony Rendon, the 5th place finisher in the NL MVP balloting last year, sac bunt. And then he doubled down on the stupidity of it, and had Rendon keep the sac bunt on even after Familia had pitched into a 3-1 count. I mean, I made a snarky quip about keeping the sac bunt on once the count got to 3-1, but he actually effing kept it on. He had the second best pure hitter in the Nationals lineup sac bunt in a dead red fastball count while representing the potential winning run. The result that followed (which was a bunt that got the lead runner thrown out) isn't even relevant. I don't care who the batter is or what the situation is - sac bunting in a three ball count is absolutely mind-numbing (I've seen a 3-0 sac bunt before a few years back in a Yankees/Rangers game and almost fainted; you guys can figure out which team did the bunting, I'm sure).

See? You can still make fun of Matt Williams even if it's not for traditional reasons. You're all welcome.

[HedleyLamarr]

Yeah, I can't fault the use of Papelbon, either.

You use your best-remaining bullpen arm in a situation where you're trying to stop their momentum. If no run is given up, Williams is hailed as finally learning how to deviate from a plan. You worry about who's going to close out the game once you get to that point.

I can live with my best player getting beaten. I'd go that route over using a player not as good any time.

Besides, it takes a whole lot of bad to lose a 6-run lead. The starter gets to 100 pitches in the 6th inning, and plenty of bullpen failures before Papelbon got to the mound.

[2001mark]

The 2016 MLB schedule has been released already. Is it just me or does it seem to get released earlier every year?

It's still tentative, though to be fair, most MLB teams have their own stadiums to plan ahead easier.

Blue Jays don't have to play in the cold until April 15 (@Boston)... on the road at TB followed by home series... I've always looked at that first.

Toronto's got a fun 3 game home series v Dodgers in May immediately followed by 3 on the road at the Giants. That'd be fun to attend & travel with if anyone wants to give me money.

Wow... Blue Jays play only 5 road games all of July? Wouldn't be surprised to see changes on that.

[pmoehrin]

In fairness to Williams, in no way is the Nationals collapse all on him, both with last night and on the season.

While Mets completely transformed their team into the juggernaut we've seen over the last month and a half, the Nats did almost nothing. That was probably the season right there.

I'd say the Nats were also arguably the team most effected by injuries this year as well. Werth has been hurt for a good chunk of the year. So has Denard Span, Anthony Rendon and Doug Fister. I'm sure if all four were more healthy the Nats would still be in the hunt, if not leading the division instead of on life support at this point in the season.

Guys have underperformed. Ryan Zimmerman seems to have turned into an old man before our eyes. Scherzer who earlier in the year seemed like a near lock for the Cy Young has completed fallen off in the second half, possibly a bit from overwork. He had four straight starts from late June to early July where he went at least 8 innings, including three complete games and two shutouts. 34+ innings over 19 days is a lot of innings over a short amount of time (over 300 innings if that rate kept up over the entire regular season) and since that stretch he's only gone past the seventh inning once. Gio Gonzalez has regressed back to being a middle of the rotation starter, as has Jordan Zimmerman. And Stephen Strasburg the guy who the were expecting to take over the rotation is still the exact same pitcher he was in 2010 both in his approach and his injury issues. How do I know this? Of the top three batters he's faced the most, Jason Heyward, Giancarlo Stanton and Freddie Freeman, all of them are hitting above .400. Dan Uggla who's faced Strasburg the seventh most also has a .400+ average against him.

Dead red fastball hitters should love facing Stephen Strasburg, because he challenges every single batter he faces and the rest of the league has figured that out. A few years ago that could have been written off as young pitcher being over-aggressive. Now I would classify it as immaturity.

Another troubling situation is what's going on with Bryce Harper. He looks like someone who at times looks totally disconnected with the rest of the team. How much of that is Harper's fault and how much of that is the team's fault is up for debate. Just keep in mind this guy is still only 22, so if the knock on him is that he's acting too much like a kid, its because he basically still is one. My opinion, I get the sense that he's someone that is struggling to understand where he fits in leadership wise, which when your both the best and the youngest guy on the team I think is understandable. The talent says he should be the captain, but what 34 year old veteran is really going to listen to what a 22 year old has to say beyond "let's go get 'em boys" or something of that nature? So what do you do to work around it? Lead by example? Just focus on the young guys? Form an alliance with a veteran group? All of the above? Far as I can tell, Harper has gone for the lead by example option more often then not and it hasn't always worked out.

This is a guy who the Nats should be looking to lock up for the next 10 years, but if he's that isolated he may want to take the first plane out of town. I can think of 29 Major League teams off the top of my head that would love to have him. If nothing else though his clubhouse role on the team next year should be more defined then its been all this year. I think he's someone looking for direction from coaches and other players and I don't think he's finding much because they may not be sure either. This is also the type of stuff you sort out in Spring Training. Not in the middle of a pennant race.

All of this being said, that still doesn't let Matt Williams off the hook. The way he worked the bullpen last night would have been acceptable if it was game seven of the World Series. But it wasn't. Again why wasn't someone up for Storen the second he got in the game? He's been struggling of late, so you know he's not a sure thing to get out of the inning. You have a 40 man roster of guys to choose from. Worst case scenario you get someone up and don't have to use him, but what are you saving people for at this point in the year? It took a bases loaded double, a wild pitch and back to back two walks before Matt Williams finally decided to get someone up.

Then you send out your closer who has a history of fading in September (career ERA of 3.64 from September 1st on) to pitch two innings with the game tied.

I was shocked to see him out in the eighth. If you want to say that's defendable, okay I can see that perspective even though I don't agree with it. But why on earth was he still in for the ninth down a run? All your doing at that point is ensuring he's not available tomorrow. I find way more issue with that then bringing him in early.

And yes the bunt which Kramerica mentioned and I forgot about. 0 outs, you got the heart of the order coming up and your playing for one run? If you're that worried about the double play, then maybe you pinch run for the 36 old with no steals on the year for someone that is younger and has more then 0 stolen bases on the year. Again its a 40 man roster, somebody on the bench should have some speed. Wilmer Difo had 30 steals at AA this year. Why not try him? In fact should probably do that even if you are bunting.

Would it have made a difference in the game if they had a pinch runner for Werth? Probably not. But there's no reason it shouldn't have been done, unless you really value that potential 11th inning AB from Werth.

Bottom line is there is a lot wrong with this team. Williams should be gone without question. I'd say Rizzo should be gone for sitting on his hands at the deadline, and whoever the GM is needs to take a long hard look at that roster, because the biggest problem of all with the Nats is that they're just not that good anymore.

[Kramerica Industries]

I'm loathe to ascribing intangible qualities to teams, because they are often narrative-driven and I prefer to work with data if given the choice, but this Nationals team has earned an exception in this case. Clearly, this is a team that got shaken up quite terribly by what happened on that one Friday night in October in 2012, and even though certainly there's been roster turnover since then, the core is still there and the stigma has never disappeared. Lord knows I've given them enough grief over the Strasburg situation that year (and so have you), but the fact still remains they led 6-0 in the final game of their first round series, 6-3 in the 8th, and 7-5 with two outs in the ninth. Yadi Molina goes around one inch further and they win the series. Instead, Drew Storen let the situation snowball out of control, and someone you've never heard from again ended up driving in the winning runs in that series. Even worse, Storen doubled down on this last postseason. Vic Carapazza had a controversial strike zone in the 9th inning that caused Williams to lift Zimmermann and bring in Storen, but we're still talking two outs and the tying run at first base. That's a navigable situation. What followed was a walk and a double that damn near scored the winning run outright for the Giants. Storen, once again, couldn't get the third out to secure things. We're talking microscopic sample sizes here, but seeing now what's happened to Storen as well since the Papelbon trade pushed him back into set-up duty...I mean, I can't ignore this. Sometimes, a game speeds up or slows down in big situations, and it no doubt speeds up for Storen. This has happened time and again.

There's little doubt that Washington's injury issues haven't helped, but those injury issues have not caused their middle relief and now set-up relief to fail so badly. They have lost so many games recently because their bullpen has been leaking runs left and right. Two games last week in St. Louis and two games against the Mets this week, and obviously Matt Williams hasn't helped, some of his decisions have been bad process decisions that have predictably yielded bad results, but you see even last night when (what I would classify as) even good process decisions are made, they still backfire badly. That's a team effort to take a six run lead in a must-win game, and not even make it through the next half-inning with the lead at all.

This also isn't all that different from what happened in 2013, either. Recall that Washington also went into that season with sky-high expectations, an "unlimited" Strasburg, and...they spent much of the season fiddling under .500 and were never in the playoff race. They won 85 games in a weak division that year. Something about not sustaining prosperity or something. Not having Denard Span for much of this season hasn't helped, but it's true that Werth has declined significantly both due to age and health (.849 OPS last season; .630 this year), Rendon has been battling injuries all season (.824 to .717), Zimmerman is no where near the bat he was in his prime, and injuries haven't helped that (four year decline in OPS; .773 this year), and, of course, Ian Desmond doesn't get off the hook here. Contract year, would've been in line for a nine digit contract perhaps if he hit 20+ home runs again; instead, besides playing some horrific short stop, he's sitting on a sub-.300 OBP and a .690 OPS, numbers that aren't even horrible by 2015 SS standards, but represent a significant decline from both last season (.743) and previous seasons where he was in the high-.700s to low-.800s in that metric.

Pmoehrin touched on the pitching, so I'll leave that be. I probably talked myself out of that very first sentence of this post, which goes right back into my general belief that ascribing intangible qualities to entire teams is stupid; it applies to Drew Storen, but the rest of this can be explained away due to age, health, and production issues. Washington has had the hat trick in those this season, and some awful management both in the dugout and the front office to go with that. And, (*hikes back atop his trusty high horse*) this is precisely why, whenever you have a chance to go for a championship, you must take it, because it sure seemed like Washington was set to rule the East for years to come back in 2012, right? Well, looks like the Mets have caught up and now passed them. Good for New York. I'm glad to see the Mets having so much success this season.

EDIT - upon further thought, which I may elaborate on in my next post, I'm scratching the FO part. May not be very fair.

[Epiphanic]

Hard not to look at tonight as a microcosim for how the season has gone for the Nats.

Up 7-1 on the Mets and they lose 8-7.

On the comeback/meltdown scale I would have to weigh it pretty heavily on the meltdown side. Nats bullpen walked six Mets batters in the seventh.

Matt Williams then went into full panic mode and brought Papbelon into the eighth to face the 7, 8 and 9 hitters. This after leaving Drew Storen for dead in the seventh. Then followed up by leaving Papbelbon in the ninth down by a run, because its not like there's a game tomorrow or anything.

I've seen some bad bullpen management over the years, but what Matt Williams did tonight had to be one of the worst. Granted guys didn't do their job, but that still doesen't explain why you bring in Papbelbon in the eighth with the game tied to retire the bottom half of the order or why they didn't have somebody warming up as soon as Storen entered the game.

If I were Mike Rizzo I'm not sure I wouldn't fire Matt Williams tonight. That's how bad I thought the mismanagement was.

Bringing in Papbelbon for two innings was perfectly fine. After Storen walked the tying run in who else are you going to bring in? The bullpen management was fine this game. It's not his fault Treinen, Rivero, Storen couldn't throw strikes. And if you're going to say that the bullpen management last night would've been fine for Game 7 of the World Series then it's good enough for last night. Last night was the definition of a must-win game.

Williams's bigger flaw was having Rendon continue bunt after the count got to 3-1.

I'm not on the "fire Matt Williams" bandwagon, but I'm okay with it because managers are a dime a dozen. Rizzo is a great GM though and there is no way this disappointing season is his fault.

[teddthebucfan]

BEAT THE NATS!
BEAT THE NATS!

Step right up and beat the Nats!
They can't play and they can't win!

Sending this season into a tailspin!

Because the Nats are really blowing it all!
Gonna miss out again on the fall.

Ohhhh East and West and Central say the season's done!
It's over for the Nationals of Wash-ing-ton!

[cmm]

Hard not to look at tonight as a microcosim for how the season has gone for the Nats.

Up 7-1 on the Mets and they lose 8-7.

On the comeback/meltdown scale I would have to weigh it pretty heavily on the meltdown side. Nats bullpen walked six Mets batters in the seventh.

Matt Williams then went into full panic mode and brought Papbelon into the eighth to face the 7, 8 and 9 hitters. This after leaving Drew Storen for dead in the seventh. Then followed up by leaving Papbelbon in the ninth down by a run, because its not like there's a game tomorrow or anything.

I've seen some bad bullpen management over the years, but what Matt Williams did tonight had to be one of the worst. Granted guys didn't do their job, but that still doesen't explain why you bring in Papbelbon in the eighth with the game tied to retire the bottom half of the order or why they didn't have somebody warming up as soon as Storen entered the game.

If I were Mike Rizzo I'm not sure I wouldn't fire Matt Williams tonight. That's how bad I thought the mismanagement was.

Bringing in Papbelbon for two innings was perfectly fine. After Storen walked the tying run in who else are you going to bring in? The bullpen management was fine this game. It's not his fault Treinen, Rivero, Storen couldn't throw strikes. And if you're going to say that the bullpen management last night would've been fine for Game 7 of the World Series then it's good enough for last night. Last night was the definition of a must-win game.

Williams's bigger flaw was having Rendon continue bunt after the count got to 3-1.

I'm not on the "fire Matt Williams" bandwagon, but I'm okay with it because managers are a dime a dozen. Rizzo is a great GM though and there is no way this disappointing season is his fault.

Bringing him in for the 8th was fine, but once the Mets took the lead it was odd seeing Papelbon come back for the 9th. He ended up only throwing 9 more pitches (20 for the game) but had it been a longer inning, they would have lost him for today.

[Epiphanic]

I disagree with that logic.

If you are arguing that Papelbon should come back for the 9th if the game was tied, then you definitely should argue that he should come back when you're down by one. You need to keep the margin as small as possible and if a second inning from Papelbon is what does it, then so be it.