Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Craig Stammen gets called up from Syracuse for the start, supersub Alberto Gonzalez gets a start at short, and Roger Bernadina starts in right. Result: the offense wakes up, the defense doesn't commit any errors, and the Nats post a curly W with a 7-2 win over the Braves. Patrick Reddington brings the happy news.

Definitely related: Mark Zuckerman puts up a couple of good posts about Gonzalez and Nyjer Morgan's struggles.

April Whitzman brings the news & notes from the farm system for Tuesday.

In Lancaster, Dan Reichert pitches eight shutout innings with 11 K's as the Blue Crabs win one from the Barnstormers. Crabs remain one game ahead of the surging Riversharks, who have won their last four games.; there'll be one last game in Lancaster tonight before the team comes home to Regency Furniture Stadium for a four-game showdown with Camden over the Independence Day weekend.

In the Orioles farm system, the Baysox took the second game against Erie last night 6-5, and going for the sweep tonight on Daddy/Daughter Date Night, which is also Wawa Wednesday. In Frederick, the Keys lost a close one to the Blue Rocks 3-2, and head off to Salem for the start of a six-game road trip.

The Nightmare Before (During & After) Strasmas?

Another loss last night, this time to the Braves. Cue Patrick Reddington. At least it wasn't the Royals this time.

Screech's Best Friend thinks Riggleman could have done a better job managing last night, focusing specifically on his decision to have Ian Desmond bunt Bernadina over from second with the team down 5-0. Couldn't agree more. Mark Zuckerman notes that the fans are getting irate at the seemingly unending string of losses.

I'm a  little confused by Harper's post at Nationals Baseball. He's trying to get inside the GM's head and figure out how (or if) he's going to react to the current losing streak, and I'm not sure I follow what he's saying. It's still worth reading. There's talk about trading Dunn - sure, the White Sox would love to have him, but what do they have that the Nationals want? Also, the Sports Bog reports that Rob Dibble has had it with the Nationals' defense. (h/t Capitol Punishment)

Brian Oliver brings the (mostly good) news from the farm.

The Blue Crabs' winning streak came to an abrupt end last night as Tommy Herr's Lancaster Barnstormers took both ends of the doubleheader,  11-6 and 2-1. There's two more games left before the Crabs head home for the July 4th weekend.

Over in the O's system, the Baysox take the opener at Erie, 10-9, while in Frederick the Keys lose to the Blue Rocks 4-3.

Stop it. Just stop it right now.

If there's one thing I have grown tired of seeing on my peregrinations through the Natosphere (well, aside from the constant calls from some folks to trade Adam Dunn  for anything, even a bag of magic beans) it's the utterly false and depressing claim that the Nats are the worst defensive team in baseball. I mean, I'd like to think my fellow Nationals fans aren't, on average, as stupid, ill-mannered, and deliberately ignorant as their cousins in Boston, Philadelphia and St. Louis (to name but a few) for whom nothing but wins and saves matter for pitchers, nothing but batting average and RBI matter for hitters, and nothing but errors matter when it comes to fielding. Unfortunately, reading the comments at the WaPo's Nationals Journal and Mark Zuckerman's Nationals Insider is shaking my faith. There's way too many people out there that get an idea stuck in their head, and once it's stuck no amount of proof to the contrary is going to change their mind. Certainly not statistics! Perhaps coincidentally, a lot of those people are Anonymous Cowards, as they say at Slashdot, the kind of people who can't be bothered to take a few seconds to log in with their Google ID, their Facebook ID, or some other easily-established ID that would allow us to detect which idiots we could ignore safely. Or maybe that's the point.

Well, enough spleen venting. We're just going to have to ignore the anonymous folk and move along to the main question: Are the Nationals, in fact, the worst defensive team in the major leagues? Or even the National League? Sure, we lead the league in errors, and our team fielding percentage is 16 out of 16...but it's been known for years that neither of those statistics is really any good when it comes to answering the question we're asking. For reasons I've explained in this post, I tend to prefer Range Factor when it comes to evaluating defensive quality in fielders; it doesn't work well for catchers and first basemen, but everywhere else it will serve quite nicely. So let's go look at the Nationals' fielding page on Baseball-Reference.com and see what we can see.


Starting with the catching corps, it helps to remember that the two things we evaluate catchers on are handling of pitchers (which nobody has a decent stat for yet) and throwing out would-be base stealers. In the latter category, Pudge is clearly the better of our two receivers, taking out 42% of the would-be thieves (clearly above league average) while Wil Nieves is a little under the league average at 24%. For what it's worth, B-R rates Pudge as being three runs better than an average catcher and Wil one run better using the Fielding Runs statistic. I'm not a big fan of the linear weights stats, since I think they mash up too many disparate stats into one generic rating, but it's another tool we can use to make useful comparisons.


At first base, it's hard to tell much from the stats we have, but one thing is very clear: using the conventional metric of fielding percentage, Adam Dunn isn't the iron-handed menace to the defense some people claim he is. In fact, his fielding percentage is slightly above the league average, and actually better than his occasional defensive replacement Adam Kennedy; dragging the R score into this, we see that Dunn is actually far better than Kennedy over the course of a season (1200 innings/135 games).

Second base is full of controversy. At the beginning of the season, the plan was to shift Cristian Guzman from short to second to make room for Ian Desmond while keeping Guzman's bat in the lineup. Adam Kennedy was signed as a defensive replacement in addition to Alberto Gonzalez, one of the team's utility infielders. So far Guzman has actually worked out well at second - better than Kennedy, who has committed the same number of errors while playing only 40% of the time. The smart move would be to dump Kennedy and let Gonzalez, a far better fielder and no worse a hitter, take the innings he would have used up, but this is a team that can't seem to rid itself of Willie Harris, so...

Ryan Zimmerman has played the vast majority of the time at third base, with occasional late-inning appearances by Gonzalez and Kennedy. Zim has committed 8 of the 11 errors at third, and his range has declined to slightly below the league average. Here, too, Kennedy is a defensive liability instead of the late-inning upgrade he was supposed to be, while Gonzalez plays quite well in the hot corner when he gets a chance.

Ian Desmond, despite committing eighteen errors so far this year, is a significant defensive upgrade from Guzman at shortstop. Guzman has done well in short stints there this year, but even in his best years he never had the range that Desmond has now.

In the outfield, Josh Willingham's range factor is a little above league average in left, Morgan ditto in center (despite the five errors) while Maxwell and Morse are both (still) clearly better in right than Bernadina. There really isn't anywhere for Morse to go on this team; they should trade him to a team that can use a good fourth outfielder (Seattle?), release Harris, and make room for Maxwell as the utility outfielder. The kid is 26, the same age as Bernadina, and we're wasting his time and ours letting him pile up numbers in Syracuse.

So...if at most positions our players are better than the league average, and only in one or two are they worse, how can  the Nationals be the worst defensive team in baseball? They can't be, and they aren't. The rest of the season will prove me right, I'm sure.

Fiasco III: With A Vengeance

Well, so much for Adam Kennedy being a defensive improvement over Cristian Guzman at second, an opinion that isn't really supported by the stats. Kennedy threw away the ball trying for a double play in the O's half of the fifth, allowing the tying run to score, and then Tyler Clippard coughs up the winning hit in the eighth. Welp. More details from Patrick Reddington, if you want them. Mark Zuckerman asks if maybe it's time for one of the players to step up and have a little "come to Jesus" talk with the rest of the team. Harper at Nationals Baseball examines the collapse of the team from possible contenders into the drearily familiar cellar of the NLEast.

Brian Oliver brings the weekend roundup for the farm teams; for just the Sunday results, April Whitzman at NatsProspects has the News & Notes.

Left fielder Richard Giannotti singles in the winning run for the Blue Crabs in the bottom of the ninth, giving Southern Maryland a 6-5 victory and a sweep of Sparky Lyle's Somerset Patriots. Camden won yesterday as well, so the Blue Crabs hold their 3-game lead at 37 and 25, while the Patriots fall 3.5 games back in the Freedom Division behind York. The Crabs hit the road for a four-game series against Lancaster, starting with a double-header tonight at 6.

Bowie lost to the Curve 12-3 last night, foiling the Baysox' hopes for a sweep; down in Frederick, the Keys pounded the Wilmington Blue Rocks 10-3. Tonight's Bark in the Park night at Harry Grove Stadium, as well as Kids Eat Free night, so bring the dog and the kids. :)

There's more stuff I want to talk about out there, but I have an accounting final tonight so it'll have to wait.

Rule 5 Sunday - The Woman Behind The Man Behind The Plate II

On the one hand, the Nationals and their wives aren't being stalked by hordes of papparazzi and continually pestered by fans for autographs while trying to get a bite at Five Guys, which is a good thing, but on the other hand it sure makes doing this feature of the blog a damn sight harder. Fortunately, the Nats320 blog came to my rescue this Sunday with a heart-warming post about Wil and Yormarie Nieves' support of the Capitol Area Food Bank last June, featuring some great photos of the lovely couple. Go read the whole thing; it features some folks from the Nationals' front office doing some good works as well.

[Note: the original version of this post had copies of the photos posted. I screwed up in not noting that the photos were copyrighted, and have taken them down at the blogger's request. Sorry, guys.]

Somewhat related: a good article by Kate Kirkpatrick in the WaPo about the glamorous, exciting lives of Nationals wives. Or, actually, not so glamorous. RTWT.

Fiasco II (Electric Throwback Boogaloo)

I caught the last three innings of this atrocity while eating dinner at Carpool in Arlington, and honestly wish I hadn't. Well, at least they didn't throw the game away this-oh, wait...they did. DAMN IT! Patrick Reddington has all the horrible details.

On a more positive note, Sue Dinem at Nationals Prospects has the news from the Nationals' farm system.

The Blue Crabs won again last night, posting a 6-1 victory over the Somerset Patriots in support of lefty starter Craig Anderson's eight scoreless innings. This win puts the Blue Crabs three games up on the Camden Riversharks with nine games left to play in the first half, and they'll be going for the sweep tonight at 5:05 on Meet The Team Sunday.

Baysox made it three straight against the Curve in Altoona last night, winning 5-3; they'll be going for the sweep tonight. Meanwhile, the Keys took the rubber game of the match against the Winson-Salem Dash and will be hosting the Wilmington Blue Rocks tonight at 6 PM. They're having a Lil' Kins giveaway, playing catch on the field before the game, and shooting off some fireworks afterward.

Joe Posnanski's looking to put together a list of the top 100 sports books. Go on over and add your favorites to the list. I'm thinking of doing my own (much shorter) list of favorite baseball books.

Rule 5 Sunday post will be up later.

Game 74: WTF?

Doghouse at Federal Baseball says it most simply and best: Fiasco. Or would you prefer Nats320's In The Most Awful Way Imaginable? They both  work for me. Patrick Reddington with the recap. It pretty much figures, though: the Nats get the bats to wake up, T-Plush starts hitting & playing defense as we all know he could, and then the infield defense kills us. Mark Zuckerman justifiably rails about the errors, but sames some flames for Riggleman's ridiculously dumb managing last night that set up Clip & Save to fail. Nationals Fanboy Looser places the blame squarely on the manager's shoulders. My opinion? Rizzo needs to have some words with his manager and let him know that not only do things need to change, they need to change now if he wants to keep managing.

Looking at the defensive stats, it does look as though Desmond's glove has followed his bat into its slump. His range factor per nine innings has gone below the league average, as has Guzman's at second base, although neither of them are more than a couple well-played games away from getting back over that line. I'm still thinking that Desmond's errors are a result of him getting to balls that other shortstops wouldn't have gotten close to, but he does need to work on his throwing. Problem is, if they've been doing infield drills before every game, and he's just getting worse, what's the answer? More one-on-one work with Listach, who was a decent shortstop in his days with the Brewers? I don't know, but I hope someone on the Nationals staff figures it out soon.

Steven at Fire Jim Bowden turns a critical eye on the Jason Marquis signing. Nationals News Network joins the chorus calling for Willie Harris to be released; so far, we're the only ones suggesting that Maxwell come back up. 

Down on the farm, Rochester and Harrisburg posted wins while the Class A teams suffered the agony of defeat. April Whitzman at NationalsProspects has the rundown; Sue Dinem posts a game report from Woodbridge where the P-Nats fell to the Pelicans.Speaking of the P-Nats, they'll be having their annual silent auction on July 3. Lots of cool stuff available.

The Blue Crabs bounced back from their Thursday loss to the Newark Bears and  gave a 7-2 drubbing to Sparky Lyle's Somerset Patriots last night in St. Charles, pounding out six runs from the fifth inning onward to give reliever Chris Mobley his third win of the season. The Blue Crabs now have a two-game lead atop the Atlantic League's Liberty Division with ten games left in the first half. Tonight's game is NASCAR Night, with fireworks after the game.

Down on the Orioles farm, the Baysox kicked off their three-game series at Altoona with a 5-1 win, breaking a 1-1 tie in the top of the ninth with four runs scored off Curves reliever Mike Dubee and securing win number 7 for Baysox starter Zach Britton. The Keys took the rubber game of their match against Winston-Salem with an 11-2 laugher, lighting up Dash starter Charlie Leesman for six runs and going on to brutalize the bullpen for five more.

Inside blogball: Nationals Fangirls are moving up in the food chain later this summer, joining a blog network being launched by Albritton Communications, parent company of WJLA-TV here in Washington as well as News Channel 8 and those scumsuckers at Politico.com. Good luck to you, ladies!