D.C. Baseball: Correcting the Inaccuracies
Joe Sheehan today finally takes a look at the Nats in his Prospectus Today column. D.C. Baseball (subscription required) is full of a stunning number of half-truths and flatout inaccuracies—the sort of thing I expect better than from BP. Of course, the quality of BP has been flagging lately, as discussed here and elsewhere so maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised.
We’ll start with the one that’s easiest to verify:
You know what bothers me more than that, though? What I perceive as a stunning lack of interest in this team. Much was made over the Nationals’ crossing the one-million mark in home attendance last weekend. It’s a nice feat given the franchise’s recent history in Montreal, but is it that impressive? On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the first-place Nationals, playing at the end of a homestand in which they’d lost once, against a team featuring one of the most marketable players in the game (Ichiro Suzuki), sold 37,170 tickets. Capacity is listed at 56,692, but home attendance peaked on Opening Day at a bit over 45,000. The Nationals’ average of 31,912 fans per home date is just 12th in MLB, eighth in the NL.
For some reason, ESPN (and it looks like, MLB) list RFK’s football-configuration capacity as the baseball capacity. It is not. the actual baseball-configuration capacity is 45,596—the exact number at the opening night game, which was a sellout.
Joe edited his article later on to add:
[Ed. Note. A number of people have written in to point out that RFK’s capacity for baseball is about 45,000, making Opening Day a sellout and moving the team’s average closer to capacity. I’ll concede the fact, but note that the numbers are still unimpressive.—JS]
Yes, it’s incredibly unimpressive that this team is currently outdrawing Philadelphia, Baltimore, Texas and the Chicago White Sox. Nobody is questioning their ability to sustain a team. On top of that, there’s been practically no marketing. I’ve met people who thought the team didn’t move here after Linda Cropp’s gambit. There’s a lot of people who don’t even know when games are played, and even more who have no idea how cheaply you can get in (outfield seats are $7). This is a market that can sustain baseball, and with competent management under new ownership, I expect it to be in the upper tier of attendance and revenue most seasons.
When talking about the recent 12-1 homestand, Joe says:
The Nats’ 37-27 record is a mirage, appearing in the same spot in the desert as the Yankees’ only competent stretch: the one on which the A’s and Mariners play. Remember the Yankees’ 11-1 rush? That was entirely against those two terrible teams. The second half of the Nationals’ homestand consisted of beating up those two AL weak sisters. They won’t play any team that bad again until after the All-Star break; in fact, aside from six games with the Pirates, I’m not sure the Nationals will play a team worse than they are until they go to Milwaukee to kick off the second half. I expect them to be hovering around .500 by then.
Did the Yankees also take 3 out of 4 from the Braves and sweep the Marlins in that stretch? Because going 6-1 against Atlanta and Florida is considerably more impressive than the sweeps of Oakland and Seattle, and it’s something I’d think is worth mentioning.
This is more of a niggling point, but in talking about runs scored and allowed, Joe says:
The Nationals’ 37-27 record is deceptive. Last night’s blowout loss left them with more runs allowed (266) than runs scored (261) for the season, the first indicator that things are amiss. BP’s Adjusted Standings, which account not only for that discrepancy but for a team’s underlying performance and competition level, peg the Nationals as a sub-.500 team, with the largest gap between expected record and actual record in the division (six games) and just barely ahead of the Braves for last place.
What Joe doesn’t mention is that 25 of those runs were allowed by Antonio Osuna and Joe Horgan—both hiding injuries at the time—in about 8 innings of mopup duty at the beginning of the year. Neither of these guys is going to be back this season. Sure, to a certain respect any team can make those sorts of claims, but if Joe wants to talk about the actual ability of this team, including those two guys throwing gas on fires isn’t especially pertinent.
Even beyond that, it’s wins and losses that matter, not BP’s adjusted standings. Ultimately, the best measure of a team is wins and losses—it’s what determines the champions, after all, and it’s why they play the game. And at that, the Nationals are going to play a lot of one-run games—they’re playing to the peculiarities of their park (cut down on home runs, hit doubles instead) and have a good bullpen. So far, this is winning games in RFK, and ultimately, the wins and losses are all that matter.
Discussing the rotation:
The back of the rotation is still a problem, one not made better by the trade of Tomokazu Ohka for a short-term patch at second base (Junior Spivey).
What nobody at BP has mentioned is that Ohka’s peripherals were bad last year and are flatout awful this year. Look at his K:BB ratio (17:27 this year in 54 innings; 38:20 last year in 84.2). Better still, fire up MLB.tv and watch some of his outings, he’s lucky to have an ERA as low as his is—the man is being hit, and hit hard. Maybe it’s a small sample size, maybe he’s still recovering from the shattered forearm last year, or maybe he’s about to fall off a cliff. I don’t know, but I haven’t seen any of this so much as mentioned on BP, everybody talks about him assuming he’s the 2003 version of Tomo Ohka.
Joe also calls out some of our players:
This isn’t a good offense. It’s basically two very good hitters—Nick Johnson and Brad Wilkerson—carrying 12 other guys. Ryan Church has been impressive in limited playing time, as has Marlon Byrd, and Jose Guillen has been an average corner outfielder. The loss of Jose Vidro has been devastating to a team that was already getting nothing from shortstop and very little from behind the plate. On ESPNews, Brian Kenny has twice tried to get me to back away from my criticism of the Vinny Castilla signing. Castilla had a good April and has hit .043/.051/.065 since then. OK, maybe a bit better than that, but he’s down to a .276 EqA and likely to lose another 30 points off of that before leaves start hitting the ground. Signing him was a waste of money, even in a market that valued a glass reproduction of Corey Koskie at three years, $17 million. Add Castilla to Cristian Guzman, Brian Schneider and Spivey, and it’s hard to see this team reaching 700 runs unless Wilkerson and Johnson both play 155 games.
I think Ryan Church is the real deal, but reasonable people can disagree on that. Whether or not you think Marlon Byrd is for real depends on whether you believe his 2003 (.303/.366/.418) or his 2004 (.228/.287/.321 while being jerked around by Larry Bowa) is his true level. I think it’s 2003, but I always liked Byrd when I was a Phillies fan, too. The jury’s still out on Vinny Castilla, but if he can keep his season numbers close to where they are right now (.271/.338/.427), his defense makes him an asset. No, Guzman’s defense doesn’t come close to making up for his anaemic bat, but this team won 37 games with him hitting .190, and I don’t expect him to be that bad all year. Brian Schneider’s been coming around lately and is above league-average for a catcher now.
BP has been developing this horrible groupthink where any evidence (a la Ohka, or the attendance record) is ignored if it doesn’t fit the pre-conceived storyline.
I expect better. Or, at least, I used to. These days, I’m pretty sure BP is rooting against