Nationals' Fielding 'Weekly' #6

I took a break in posting the Fielding Weekly for the Washington Nationals last week because there had only been four games after the All-Star Break. (Also, I had a lot of work on last week.) This week's figures could be read as giving some support to the notion that Mr Riggleman's new routine is having some effect, nothwithstanding this horror story. The problem with taking that too far is that Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR) is not so enthusiastic as Revised Zone Rating (RZR). See an explanation for these stats after the table.

The big movers are Dunn, Dunn and Morgan, which sounds like an old-fashioned firm of stockbrokers. Morgan's really made a big difference, and I wonder if he's responsible for some of Dunn's improvement in leftfield this week. Anyone who tells you to trade Nick Johnson and move Dunn to first base should be shown Dunn's RZR. It makes this grown man cry.

Player              UZR   Change  UZR/150  Change  RZR   Change   MLBaverage
Zimmerman          13.3   + 3.7    19.4     +2.6  .753   +.014     .717
Johnson           - 6.4   - 1.8   - 7.8     -1.0  .760   +.008     .783
Guzman            - 4.0   - 0.1   - 6.2     +0.5  .767   +.010     .803
Dunn (LF)         -12.0   - 0.3   -23.1     +4.3  .849   +.036     .890
Hernandez           1.0   - 0.2     2.0     -0.6  .848   +.004     .816
Kearns (RF)         0.4   + 0.3   - 0.9     +2.3  .887   +.006     .907
Willingham (LF)   - 1.3   + 0.5   - 4.0     +1.3  .908   +.003     .890
Harris (CF)       - 5.0   - 0.3   -15.0     -0.6  .938   +.002     .933
Dukes (CF)        - 5.6   + 0.3   -21.1     +0.7  .898   n.c.      .933
Gonzalez (ss)     - 4.5   - 1.3   -22.5     -0.1  .689   +.007     .803
Belliard (2b)       1.5   + 2.6     6.8     -0.2  .889   +.020     .816
Willingham (RF)   - 1.3   - 1.5    -4.4     -5.9  .977   -.023     .907
Dunn (RF)         - 6.7   + 0.1   -33.9     -0.2  .756   n.c.      .907
Morgan (cf)         4.9   + 4.2    26.5    +22.0  .969   +.027     .933
Dukes (RF)        - 0.2    n.c.   - 3.4     +0.1  .952   n.c.      .907
Gonzalez (2b)     - 1.9   - 1.0   -14.5     -1.5  .794   +.021     .816
Harris (2b)       - 2.4    n/a    -27.6     n/a   .739   n.c.      .816
Dunn (1b)         - 3.6   - 0.5   -44.5     -1.7  .545   -.055     .783

The table is in order of innings played at the position, with the cut-off at 75 innings.

UZR converts fielding statistics into a +/- rating reflecting the number of runs saved or given away. There is a basic version, which is based on the number of innings played by the player, and a normalized version that assumes everybody plays 150 games. It also is forced to sum to zero, so a player can have his UZR adjusted even when he doesn't play.
RZR is like a fielding 'batting average', dividing the number of plays made by the number of opportunities. Unlike old Zone Rating, it excludes plays made 'out of zone'. (Zone Rating divides the field into zones, and assigns responsibility among the players.) For comparative purposes, I've put at the end of each player's line the MLB average RZR for position.

So long, Julian

Julian Tavárez, who was really (no, really!) my favourite Washington Nationals' pitcher, has been designated for assignment. People have been a little unfair towards him, as he hasn't been as bad at blowing games as Joe Beimel, but seemed to attract more hostility. Nor do I complain. He's been shockingly poor these last few weeks, finding the plate with difficulty, which is the unforgivable sin in a major-league pitcher. (Kip Wells—another player I liked—got into a similar funk, and was gone even more quickly.) I don't have a positive-scoring outing for him since 27 June.

Ron Villone may be the next to go. The signs are not good. I'd even argue that his stats are worse than Tavárez', although he hasn't committed that unforgivable sin to quite the same degree.

I'm not sure who my favourite Washington Nationals' pitcher is now. Probably Clippard or Mock. Sorry guys.

Zambrano, Ramírez, Fontenot, Bradley

Messing around with the leverage index during yesterday's game and comparing it with the win probability reveals a disagreement. My method of multiplying the 'win value' of an event by the leverage does not have the same results as the win probability effect. Does that mean I'm doing it wrong? Maybe it does.

Player/Event/Inning       WPA        WV*LI
Zambrano/double/2nd       18%        13.9%
Ramirez/homer/3rd         11          4.9
Zimmerman/DP/1st          10         11.9*
Harris/BB/1st              9          7.6
Fontenot/double/2nd        9          8.6
Bradley/GDP/8th            5          7.6

I was a surprised at how the Ramirez homer scored so low in my method, not even as high as the Bradley double play. Curiously, though, it was the point at which the balance of the game shifted towards the Cubs permanently. It may be,in this case, that I'm rating double plays too highly. Are they the same as two outs, or the same as an out plus a caught stealing?
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* I'm not sure I call this a double play. I've got two events, the Zimmerman strike out and Morgan being thrown out at third.

First-Half Nationals' Review: the Pitching

Pitching is 75 per cent of the game. Or something like that. Maybe 52 per cent, but there's some defence in there, too. Actually, where the Washington Nationals and the fabled 'Plan' are concerned, pitching is probably 75 per cent, if not more. As Definitely-Not-Interim-or-Acting President Stan Kasten said the other day, 'It's hard to amass a core of young future starters. That took us time. I've always believed that that was the most important thing, that was Job One.'

And, frankly, it's still a work in progress. There are signs of a rosy dawn in the future, but not necessarily where you'd think. But right now it's still night.

Rather than trot out some traditional statistics, or even some old-fashioned sabermetric ones, I'm going straight to the 21st-century granular approach here. I'm going to talk about LD% (Line-Drive percentage) and HR/FB ratio (home runs as a percentage of fly balls). I'll throw in K/9 and BB/9, just for retro effect.

Basically, LD% has an impact on the batting average by a pitcher's opponents. If the LD% is high, the BABIP (batting average on balls in play) will probably be high, too. Young pitchers who don't make quick progress with getting a high LD% lower are likely to have short big-league careers. HR/FB is pretty constant for most pitchers, so if there's some deviation from the league average there, for a young pitcher it's safer to assume that it will drift towards that league average. Taking the pitchers currently on the 40-man, this is the statistical snapshot.

Starter      K/9   BB/9    LD%   HR/FB
Olsen        6.0    3.6   22.5   13.7
Martis       3.6    4.1   15.4   10.2
Detwiler     5.7    3.8   24.5    5.6
Zimmermann   8.8    2.9   25.3   13.9
Stammen      4.0    1.8   19.1    8.8
Lannan       4.0    3.1   18.7   11.8

League Ave   6.9    3.2   19.2   10.3

Martis, Stammen and Lannan are doing a Mark Fidrych impersonation. If they don't get that K/9 up, their careers will be short. Otherwise, Martis needs to get his walk rate down, and the other two are doing a fine job. You can fit guys like this into the 4 and 5 slots in the rotation, and not complain.

Olsen's a league-average innings eater type, with numbers like that, great for spot 3 or 4 in the rotation.

Detwiler and Zimmermann are supposed to be the future studs. Unfortunately, they look pretty uneven here. Zimmermann's got the Ks, but that LD% worries me. It's remained stubbornly high all season. Detwiler's not quite got the stuff, and also has a high LD%, but something about that line fills me with more confidence that you're looking at a future Scott Olsen type, who might turn into a #2 for a season or two. That's actually pretty good, because one never knows. Sometimes people raise their game even higher. But, being realistic, a young pitcher's best seasons for strikeouts are at the start of their career. Then they go down.

Well, this review is partly about the coming 'Riggleman Era'. My advice? Keep Stammen in the rotation. At one time their was a rumour that he was headed for the bullpen, but he's doing too good a job starting. I think that plan has been set aside with Detwiler's return to the minors, but you never can tell.

As for the bullpen, I'll just go straight to the chart

Starter      K/9   BB/9    LD%   HR/FB
Beimel       5.6    3.8   16.7    6.2
Bergmann     6.2    3.9   23.5   15.3
Burnett      7.1    1.4   11.9   17.0
Clippard     9.0    3.9   10.0    7.8
Kensing      3.6    7.2   29.2   14.6
MacDougal    3.7    7.4   14.3    8.5
Mock         4.2    5.5   10.9    0.0
Tavárez      8.4    6.8   17.2    3.4
Villone      4.9    6.4   20.3    6.2

League Ave   7.4    4.0   18.7    8.8

Well, what a mess. Walks are killing this bullpen. Look at MacDougal, he's got the numbers the wrong way round. 7.4 would be acceptable as a K/9, but as a BB/9 it's a sentence to transportation. Here's where Mr Riggleman has his work cut out for him.

I'd do something like this:

Closer: Burnett
Setup: MacDougal, Clippard, Tavárez, Beimel
Mop-up, Long Relief: Bergmann, Villone.

Villone I'd keep on a short lease. The Nationals have Dave Williams, a former big league left-hander, at Syracuse. If Villone doesn't pick up his game, I'd DFA him and try Williams.

Beimel has tolerable numbers, but his performance doesn't measure up. I believe he's added a few goats to his existing collection.

Tavárez may be done. If he could get his walks down, though, that's a closer there. MacDougal may well be in the same boat, to be honest.

The rest are a bit mix and match at the moment. I have a feeling they are going to miss Kip Wells. He somehow could dial it up for an inning, but he was screwed if he had to go two. Then he got hurt, and didn't come back the same pitcher. They won't miss Kensing, though. Didn't he cost them a real, live player?

First Half Nationals Review: The Fielding (incorporating Nationals Fielding Weekly #5)

Probably you'd have to go to some forsaken place that knows nothing about baseball, like Ys or Norumbega to find someone who didn't know that the Washington Nationals had the worst fielding in the National League. If that doesn't make you want to go out and fire someone from their job, you've got no future as a senior baseball executive. Let's hold an investigation. Who is to blame for this sorry situation?

One of the things Bill James learned while inventing Sabermetrics was that a lot of what one perceives as pitching is, in fact, fielding. However, one of the things I've learned is that fielding responsibility is very difficult to apportion individually. There are 'fielding theorists' who argue that you have to start at the level of the player, with stuff like fielding percentage or zone rating. I'm more inclined to see it the other way: you have to start from the top, then start sharing out the blame further down. However, nobody knows the truth! Nothing's been proven! How do you evaluate defensive statistics anyway?

Defensive Efficiency Rating was a Bill James' invention, I think, which basically tells you what percentage of balls hit into play against a team are converted into outs. It's a bit deceptive in that not all balls hit are really playable. This demonstrates that some of what one perceives as fielding is, in fact, pitching. It's useful, nonetheless, in giving a rough idea of one team's defence in relation to another's. By this measure, the Nationals rest at the bottom of the league, with a DER of .695. This is very bad, considering the Dodgers are at the top with a DER of .729. That means out of every 100 balls in play, the Dodgers convert three more of them into outs than the Nationals do. Now, realistically, that means about one ball-in-play per game. But over 162 games that's 162 hits, or worth something approaching one Chase Utley per season. Would you like your pitchers to face Chase Ultey in every game?

The Nationals aren't good at turning the double play (13th in the league). They're good at making errors (1st in the league). They're last in putouts (but 4th in assists—they must like helping old ladies across the street). They're also worst in fielding percentage. And that's about all you can say at the team level.

Well, except the good folks at The Hardball Times have published a team Revised Zone Rating. (Kind of like DER, a rate of converting balls in play into outs, but one that allows for those hard-to-reach balls.) Yes, the Nationals are last, at .809. (But Milwaukee's best, at .860.) However, they take it a step further, and break RZR out into Infield RZR and Outfield RZR. Nationals' infielders manage to be 14th in the league, but the outfield is dead last.

So, I'll conclude this analysis with the current Ultimate Zone Rating* and Revised Zone Ratings by player (minimum 60 innings at position), then tell you what I think Mr Riggleman ought to do.

Player              UZR   Change  UZR/150  Change  RZR   Change   LgMedian
Zimmerman           9.6   + 2.0    16.8     -1.0  .739   -.018     .716
Johnson           - 4.6   + 1.8   - 6.8     +3.6  .752   +.023     .778
Guzman            - 3.9   - 0.1   - 6.7     +0.4  .757   +.003     .802
Hernandez           1.2   - 0.3     2.6     -0.6  .844   -.002   .813/.801
Dunn (LF)         -11.7   - 2.2   -27.4     -4.1  .813   +.001     .865
Kearns (RF)         0.1   + 0.6   - 3.2     +2.4  .881   +.004   .916/.910
Willingham (LF)   - 1.8   + 0.4   - 5.3     +1.2  .905   +.003     .865
Dukes (CF)        - 5.9   + 0.1   -21.8     +1.5  .898   n.c.    .947/.943
Harris (CF)       - 4.7   + 0.2   -14.4     +1.0  .936   +.001   .947/.943
Dunn (RF)         - 6.8   + 0.1   -34.1     +1.0  .756   n.c.    .916/.910
Belliard (2b)     - 1.1   - 2.5     7.0     -2.0  .869   -.012   .813/.801
Gonzalez (ss)     - 3.1   - 1.1   -22.4     -7.3  .682   -.036     .802
Dukes (RF)        - 0.2   - 1.1   - 3.5     n.c.  .952   n.c.    .916/.910
Willingham (RF)     0.2   - 0.2     1.5     -4.2 1.000   n.c.    .916/.910
Morgan (cf)         0.7    n/a      4.5     n/a   .938   n/a     .947/.943
Dunn (1b)         - 3.1   - 1.1   -42.8    -7.4   .600   -.114     .778
Gonzalez (2b)     - 0.9    n/a    -14.5     n/a   .773   n/a     .813/.801

Well, really, I don't see what Mr Riggleman can do that Mr Acta hadn't done already, by taking Dukes out of centre and keeping Dunn out of right. Is there any room to improve the infield? Belliard's numbers were good earlier on, but he's been in sharp decline since getting more playing time. Use him in games with flyball pitchers. Gonzalez is sinking like a stone. He's worse than Guzmán now. Nick Johnson shows some improvement this week, balanced by Zimmerman's decline. My one piece of helpful advice—keep Dunn OFF first base. Don't listen to the Sirens calling for Johnson's trade because Dunn can fill in at first. Hecan'thecan'thecan't.
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* Ultimate Zone Rating was developed by Mitchel Lichtman, one of the authors of The Book. (See link to blog at left.) It has to sum to zero, which is why players who get no playing time still see their numbers change each week. It's highly regarded, and gives you a number that represents runs saved (the pluses) or given away (minuses).

First Half Nationals Review: The Lineup

So, here we stand, looking forward to the Riggleman phase of the 2009 Washington Nationals. The team is on pace to lose a hundred games, and on a pace not to win more than 50. Teams with that kind of record more than likely have so many flaws that a mere change of manager won't achieve much. de civitate sabermetricarum takes this All Star Break to review the situation that will welcome Mr Riggleman when he gets back to work. Since there are conveniently three days between now and the return of the team to action, I've divided this survey, like Gaul, into three parts: the lineup, the fielding, and the pitching. What has Mr Riggleman got? What can he do about the areas that need work?

This survey of the batting isn't going to focus on players so much as the lineup. Comparing this to the league will, one hopes, indicate how it contributes to this losing season so far. In spite of an offense not being too bad, in relation to the rest of the league, the Nationals aren't winning. They are not short of baserunners, as the team OBP is second in the league. But it seems that these opportunities are not being converted into enough runs. We know that lately the Nationals are leaving a lot of men on base. In the 86 games played so far, the Nationals have left 699 men on base. Is that a lot?

The National League team with the lowest percentage of its baserunners scoring is San Diego, which has only managed to put 12% of them across the plate. They've left 613 on base. But they also have the fewest number of baserunners to begin with. The best team at driving them in is Colorado, with 16% of baserunners scoring. They've left on base 612 runners. The closest in total number of baserunners with a batter at the plate is the Mets, with 2235 to the Nationals 2317. The Mets have left 660 runners on base. So, the short answer is, yes, 699 is a lot.

Looking at the batting order, and using Runs Created per 27 Outs, the old Bill James formula, we get the following for each batting order position:

1st     4.17
2nd     6.87
3rd     5.67
4th     7.48
5th     5.46
6th     4.16
7th     3.76
8th     4.72
9th     1.83

That leadoff number is a bit of a shocker, isn't it? The leadoff spot's OBP is .317, worse than any other spot except the pitcher's and the guys who have batted 7th. So, chances are there's one out by the time the better performing slots of 2 and 3 get to the plate. It's absolutely vital to get the first man at bat on base to maximize the chance of scoring runs. However, the chances are the leadoff man will only leadoff one or two innings.

Let's do this another way, and track the OBP and SLG of the Nationals' batting order against the league average:

Spot    Nationals     League
1st     .317/.372     .327/.383
2nd     .416/.429     .348/.413
3rd     .363/.477     .373/.490
4th     .384/.541     .351/.472
5th     .352/.489     .337/.433
6th     .337/.347     .332/.403
7th     .310/.379     .316/.399
8th     .348/.369     .328/.377
9th     .256/.251     .247/.262

Here's another question for you: where do you think the Nationals rank in the league in slugging? The answer is 6th. Pretty good, but when you compare the slugging by batting order, an interesting pattern emerges. The Nationals' slugging is concentrated in a handful of spots in the order. They beat the league average at the 2nd, 4th and 5th, but are behind elsewhere. An awful lot of the Nationals' slugging is tied up in Adam Dunn. The rest of the lineup, with the exception of the 5th spot, is hovering around league average or, in the case of spots 6 and 7, a worryingly amount below.

I think we have an answer here as to why the Nationals are leaving so many men on base. The production is too concentrated, rather than being spread around the lineup. Adam Dunn, with the lion's share of plate appearances in the 4 slot, can't carry the team on his own. That's something Riggleman needs to fix. Sadly, I don't see a solution on the team at the moment.

Manny Acta Fired

The Nationals have fired Manny Acta.

My first reaction is a 'so what'? The team is in such a mess that firing the manager is probably the daftest thing one could do. No bullpen, shockingly bad fielding, inability to drive the runners in - these are not things that a manager can do much about. Those all reflect the personnel who are assembled by the general manager.

On the other hand, Mr Acta did make some queer decisions sometimes. His eagerness to play the infield in, for example. And sometimes you wonder if his bullpen management made matters worse.

I might write some more about this later, once I've finished the mid-season analysis I've started. But I might not.