is he Werth It?

I was surprised to pick up the paper this morning, and read that the Nats had signed Jayson Werth for seven years and $118M (actually, the way the headline read, I thought they were just saying they were trying to sign him, but apparently not. And for that amount of money, you can see why). I was even more surprised when I later read, online, that it was actually a $126M.

My initial thought, without looking at the numbers (most especially his age; he's a couple of years older than I remembered), was that it was possible the deal would not be a disaster for the team, at least for some of the years. Now, I'm thinking that, absent significant salary inflation, they're likely to get their money's worth for only a couple of seasons.

ALmost no matter how well he does next year, the near-zero chance of the team being competitive means he's overpaid. The next two to three years after that, I think there's a decent chance of him earning that entire paycheck (not great, but decent). But after that, it's not looking good.

We'll be keeping our fingers crossed. At least it's unlikely to be as bad a signing for the Nats as the Zito signing has been for the Giants. Of course, if it gets us a fluke World Series victory like the Giants managed, we'll take it. :)

Strasburg-ian?

At the beginning of the season, one of the projection systems (CHONE?) was predicting a 2.50 ERA for Strasburg, based on Major League Equivalencies of his college (and Arizona Fall League?) stats.

That seemed outrageously low; I thought he'd be doing well to get a 3.50 ERA.

But after four starts, and in spite of allowing a ridiculously high .358 BABIP, he had a 1.78 ERA. And his FIP was even lower. Huh?!? Amazing.

I remembered, when I was giving my daughter a bath, this evening that Strasburg was starting tonight, and got downstairs in time to catch the strikeout to end the sixth inning. Unfortunately, things fell apart for him after that.

A leadoff double was completely wasted by a sacrifice and a strikeout (chasing a pitch nearly a foot off the plate).

And then the wheels fell right off the cart. A leadoff walk to Chipper was followed by a single up the middle by McCann. Then a sure double-play ball was booted by Desmond. And it just kept getting worse.

Strasburg ended up responsible for four runs (although perhaps they weren't all earned; I'm too lazy to check), and the Nats were down 5-0 at the end of the inning.

Ugly, ugly stuff.

It'd be really nice if he could get some run support, so he could think about getting wins to go with his excellent performance.

couple minor baseball notes

Well, as expected, the Nats took Strasburg. I hope that works out a whole lot better than any previous pitcher taken with the top pick. That's quite a record of destruction. My fingers are crossed, both for him, and for the team.

Brad Lidge went on the DL yesterday; I wonder how he feels about last year's All Star game now. For those who missed it, he threw about 100 warm up pitches in that game before finally entering and locking down the win for the National League. (Hmm... I wonder what the over/under is for years until the Nats can hope to take advantage of that home-field advantage.) His ERA for the rest of the year more than doubled (and I think it was almost triple at one point towards the end of the season). But he still didn't blow any saves (I was amazed when I noticed this at the end of the season, having occasionally noted his ERA), and they won the World Series. Worth it? Maybe. Probably depends on how serious the injury is. Or maybe not; some people would say that's worth anything.

Well, that's about it; the only other thing I'll say is, at this point, I hope the Nats can hold on to their current draft position. Oh, and I'd be very happy if the A's can get back into the race in the AL West, but that's quite a long shot.

Update: This is the original article I saw about Strasburg's odds of not being that great. TINSTAAPP, y'know.

how bad are the Nats?

Was just looking again this morning at their futility (despite Paul Dunn-yan's heroics last night). They're comfortably on pace to finish with the top pick in the draft again this year. What was more interesting to me, though, was who was second and third in that race: Oakland and Cleveland.

The A's haven't had anything go right this year for them. They traded for Holliday from the Rox, and he started the season in a deep freeze. They knew their pitching was risky, given the youth of the starters. Chavez is badly injured again, and might not be able to play again, ever. In fact, without checking any facts, I wonder if the only off-season move that's paid off is Giambi.

Cleveland is also quite a surprise. Like the A's, they were expected to compete for their division. They have a couple of bright spots, but when your top hitter (by far) is your catcher, you know you're in trouble.

playoff-caliber offense?

The Post, this morning, talking about the Nationals, said, "its offense humming at a playoff-caliber level".

This seems, at best, a bit of a stretch to me. Looking at runs scored, the Nats are in a three-way tie for sixth in the senior circuit. For what it's worth, that puts fourteen teams ahead of them in the majors.

I'm pleasantly surprised to see, now that I'm looking, that it does put them at a solid 107 OPS+. Seeing as the National League as a whole has a 94 OPS+, that's quite impressive. Adding in that the only two teams ahead of them (the Mets at 108 and the Dodgers at 109), I guess I'll have to concede the point.

Hmm... Actually, those numbers seem a bit suspicious now that I'm looking at the whole of the Majors. I can't really see how the league as a whole could have something other than a 100 OPS+; kind of defeats the purpose of the stat, if that's the case. Certainly, the park factor for the new Yankee stadium is still an unknown, but that should fall out in the wash of the overall stat, I would think (but it does make the Yankees 112 OPS+ a bit suspicious, to put it mildly).

Anyway, I guess the Nats do have a better offense (at least in performance so far; I'm not sure what their odds of this continuing through the season are). And it appears not to be absurd to say playoff-caliber.