Nationals 2014 Game 42: Doleo

Game Date 17 May 2014, Mets 5, Nationals 2

Highest Leverage PA:     2.4, PA#5, Campbell single vs Gonzalez, Mets' 1st.
Highest LI Win Value:   -.138, PA#19, Moore GDP vs Colon, Nationals' 2nd.
QMAX rating:             (7,5) for Gonzalez (Hit Hard).
Bullpen Award:           None.

Batters' Aggregate LI Win Values:

Desmond        0.079
Stammen        0.046
Werth          0.020
McLouth        0.007
Espinosa      -0.014
Gonzalez      -0.029
Walters       -0.029
Rendon        -0.079
Span          -0.100
Ramos         -0.129
Moore         -0.170

Craig Stammen arguable deserves a Hero's Palm for his relief effort in this game, but I am reluctant to award
them in losses. The Nationals failed to take advantage of any of three opportunities with runners in scoring
position, which was the difference in the final score. Gio Gonzalez went on the disabled list after this, nd
in the pre-game chat on the radio the next day, Slowes and Jageler suggested the trouble had started back on
23 April, which in fact was a Success Square start by Gonzalez. Shoulder injuries for pitchers are
particularly worrying.

2012 Game 32

Highest Leverage PA:         3.1, PA #73, Heisey F5 vs Mattheus, Reds' 8th.
Highest Clutch Value:        .172, PA #2, Bernadina HR vs Leake, Nationals' 1st.
Lowest Opp. Clutch Value:   -.081, PA #73, Heisey F5 vs Mattheus, Reds' 8th.
QMAX rating:                 (4,5) for Gonzalez.
Bullpen Award:               None.

Batters' Leveraged Win Values:

Bernadina      0.190
LaRoche        0.104
Zimmerman      0.052
Desmond        0.036
Espinosa       0.015
Ramos          0.005
Stammen       -0.003
Ankiel        -0.016
Gonzalez      -0.025
Harper        -0.069

You remember those games earlier in the season, where the Nationals would squeeze out a victory through some timely hitting? This is a through-the-looking-glass version, in which some timely pitching squeezed out a victory. The Nationals did not have a good performance from Gio Gonzalez, but a mediocre one, and Craig Stammen managed to pitch his way into a jam in his third inning of work, following two solid innings. Stammen might have got a Hero's Palm had he not needed to be rescued by Ryan Mattheus. In other words, the pitching did just enough for the victory, in a situation that could easily have turned ugly twice over, in the 5th and again in the 8th.

2012 Game 28 NATITUDE series

Work took longer than I anticipated, so the batting ratings will now be published tomorrow, including the results of tonight's stunning game.

Highest Leverage PA:         2.2, PA #19, Rollins 3g vs Zimmermann, Phils' 3rd.
                             2.2, PA #20, Pierre 43g vs Zimmermann, Phils' 3rd.
Highest Clutch Value:        .221, PA #26, Pence HR vs Zimmermann, Phils' 4th.
Lowest Opp Clutch Value:    -.074, PA #37, Victorino 463gdp vs Zimmermann, 5th.
QMAX rating:                 (4,4) for Zimmermann.
Bullpen Award:               None.

Batters' Leveraged Win Values:

Harper         0.117
Bernadina      0.040
Desmond       -0.001
Moore         -0.019
Werth         -0.020
Tracy         -0.036
Ramos         -0.042
Zimmermann    -0.042
Espinosa      -0.068
Nady          -0.076
Ankiel        -0.086
Lombardozzi   -0.122

I thought long and hard about awarding a Hero's Palm to Craig Stammen. He did yeoman's work in the 7th, coming in with the bases loaded and getting the team out of the jam. However, the palms are only awarded in victories. Otherwise, this was a thoroughly unremarkable game for the most part, even with Ryan Perry's implosion in the 9th. It came too late to do any real damage, although those two runs in the bottom of the inning would have been considerably more valuable if there had been no implosion.

2012 Game 24

Highest Leverage PA:         5.2, PA #71, Desmond HR vs Putz, Nationals' 9th.
Highest Clutch Value:        .640, PA #71, Desmond HR vs Putz, Nationals' 9th.
QMAX rating:                 None (5,3) for Jackson.
Bullpen Award:               Hero's Palm for Stammen.

Batters' Leveraged Win Values:

Desmond        0.594
Harper         0.310
Werth          0.126
Lombardozzi    0.083
Ramos         -0.025
Jackson       -0.041
Moore         -0.068
Nady          -0.075
Espinosa      -0.133
Ankiel        -0.135
LaRoche       -0.197

Pity poor Ian Desmond, who has bust out of a slump. The last two days his Leveraged Win (or 'Clutch') Values with the bat have been in positive territory for the first time in a while. Yet all the headline attention has gone to Bryce Harper. Well, he's taking it for the team, I'm sure.

As you can see, the game was won by the bats for a change. The only thing I'd point out is that Stammen's fine two-inning stint produced a good chunk of value, too. So he gets a Hero's Palm.

2012 Game 17 Notes

Highest Leverage PA:          4.3 PA #56, Denorfia vs Clippard, Padres' 7th.
Highest Leveraged Win Value:  .187, PA #54, Perino vs Clippard, Padres' 7th.
Highest Lev Win Val for Nats: .130, PA #49, Tracy vs Richard, Nationals' 7th.
Lowest Lev Win Val for Nats:  -.121, PA #3, DeRosa vs Richard, Nationals' 1st.
QMAX rating:                  Success Square (1,3) for Gonzalez.
Bullpen Award:                Hero's Palm to Clippard, for gaining .142 on Win
                              Probability

Batters' Leveraged Win Values:

Tracy          0.130
Ankiel         0.055
Nady           0.047
Ramos          0.022
Werth         -0.015
Bernadina     -0.026
Desmond       -0.033
Espinosa      -0.042
LaRoche       -0.05
Lombardozzi   -0.068
Gonzalez      -0.081
DeRosa        -0.141

Mark DeRosa's grounding into a double play in the top of first set the tone for this pitcher's duel. The crucial inning on both sides was the seventh, and for both teams the outcome of the game may have turned on bullpen usage. Bud Black may have been too slow in pulling Clayton Richard, while Davey Johnson wasted no time in taking Craig Stammen out when things turned a bit bad for him.

3,000-and-some words on Garrett Mock

Garret Mock was sent down to AAA Syracuse today to make room for Livan Hernandez. At first, this move sent me into a momentary despondency. I thought he would get five or six starts, and the final decision of whether he has a future on the Nationals' big-league staff could be made. One start is not enough. Mock was being handled very poorly, in spite of his pitching shortcomings. This is the Big Moan I have about the Nationals, that they seem to handle personnel decisions very poorly.

The more I thought about it, though, the more it made sense in terms of roster strategy. The Phillies just showed us last week we need plenty of relievers. Furthermore, there are good reasons not to give up hope on Garrett Mock. However, pictures speak a thousand words so I'm going to show you a picture:

Then I'm going to show you another picture:

And finally a third picture:

(Images courtesy of the wonderful Brooks Baseball.)

Everybody says Mock has got good stuff. These three pictures highlight what that means in practical terms.

The top one shows the location of Livo!'s pitches in his start yesterday. The middle Stammen's Thursday start. The bottom is Mock's last start for the Nationals.

First I draw your attention to the blue rectangles. These represent the case for Mock. Stammen can't beat bats in that zone. Livo! avoids it altogether. Mock can pitch in that zone, and beat bats. If you study these three diagrams you'll see that batters do best at getting hits in that zone. Mock can challenge hitters; Stammen needs the batters to make weak contact so his fielders can get him the outs. It's much safer to beat hitters, if you can.

Next, I point you to the red circles. What on Earth are all those pitches from Mock doing there? They have no apparent relationship to the strike zone. Note how both Livo! and Stammen managed to keep almost all their pitches closer to the strike zone.

Mock has his objective very clear down in AAA. Stay out of the red circle.

First Bullpen Hero Award for 2010

Last year my frustration with the bullpen drove me to create the Bullpen Goat of the Day awards, which I later in less churlish mood supplemented with Bullpen Heroes of the Day. I fully anticipated that the first award of 2010 would be a Goat, but Matt Capps managed to snatch the Hero's palm away from Brian Bruney yesterday.

These awards are based on the concept of 'P', the work of sabermetrician Doug Drinen which first appeared in the 1990s-era Big Bad Baseball Annual (previously known as the Baseball Sabermetric and the lineal line of descent from Bill James' original Baseball Abstract series). 'P' calculates the win probability at the moment when a reliever enters the game, and what it will be if he retires the side from that point. I've added the actual result of the pitcher's work, and calculated the difference between the ideal and the actual. Here are the scores from yesterday's game:

Capps         .175
Bruney        .127
Clippard     -.004
Burnett      -.352

Another statistic I have lifted from the Big Bad Baseball Annual stable is QMAX, which is a more sophisticated way of analysing starts than the Quality Start/Not Quality Start binary opposition. The interesting thing is that Craig Stammen pitched the worst kind of start (in the 'Hit Hard' category), and yet the Nationals' still won. That means the lineup and the bullpen were the difference in this game. And with a 1-2 record after three 'Hit Hard' starts in a row, against the tough Phillies' lineup, it shows that the despair that many may have felt going into yesterday's game might be a trifle misplaced.