Learning From Week One
With one week in the books, we can be sure that the standings in September won’t look anything like they do now. Anything can happen in seven games (the first place Padres say hello), and we can’t extrapolate much from early season performances. It’s just one week, after all.
That doesn’t mean that we didn’t learn anything last week, though. There are some things that became obvious during week one that weren’t as clear prior to the start of the season.
The Washington Nationals are terrible.
An 0-6 start to the season isn’t the end of the world for most teams, but for a club trying to resurrect some respectability, they can’t really afford to have their season go down the drain in April. Scott Olsen didn’t put any fears to rest about his diminishing stuff in his first two starts, with a fastball that averaged just 86.9 MPH and a 7.50 FIP. The rotation is a mess, the outfield is still overcrowded, and the offense leads the majors in strikeouts while showing the least amount of power of any NL team. It’s going to be a long year in Washington.
Josh Johnson and Erik Bedard are healthy.
Coming into the season, the Marlins and Mariners were both understandably reserved about what to expect from their talented starters coming off of injuries. Both have put any concerns about their arms to rest – they have identical 15/1 K/BB ratios through their first pair of starts, and both are showing electric stuff. Johnson’s average fastball is 94.4 MPH, way up from previous seasons. Bedard is pounding the zone with his 91 MPH fastball and ridiculously sick curveball. His 1.45 FIP barely beats out Johnson’s 1.53 FIP, but both have been ridiculously excellent to start the season. They’re still health risks going forward, given their track records, but there shouldn’t be any question of whether they are still recovering from previous injuries. They’re fine.
Evan Longoria is kind of talented.
When the Rays drafted Longoria, he was touted as a defensive whiz with potential to be an above average hitter. The latter part has turned out to be a massive understatement. He hit a major league leading five home runs during the opening week of the season, flashing massive power. He even added four doubles, so nine of his 13 hits have gone for extra bases. Oh, and he made contact with 88.4% of the pitches he swung at. That kind of contact + power ability is only found in the best of the best. Longoria isn’t just a good young player – he’s a remarkably talented superstar in the making. He’s Ryan Braun with gold glove defense at third base. This is the kind of player you build dynasties around.
Outfield defense can win games.
The Mariners decided that their outfield defense needed an upgrade over the winter, so they imported Franklin Gutierrez and Endy Chavez to help cover the gaps. Through one week’s worth of games, the pair rank 2nd and 3rd respectively among MLB outfielders in UZR/150, as both have played off the charts defense so far. Gutierrez made a catch in Minnesota that’s an early Catch Of The Year candidate, and the improved outfield defense has helped the Mariners post the third lowest ERA in baseball with a pitching staff that could generously be described as questionable.
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Oh I just wake up every day and thank God my O’s are in the AL East.
Durability is the issue with Bedard. I need to see more to think that any injury concerns have been put to rest.
Dave mentioned that in his post. However, he’s also simply pointing out that, while durability is always a question mark with Erik Bedard, it’s a safe assumption that he’s healthy now.
This also makes me happier that Wak pulled him in the 9th inning, rather than letting him finish the game. If Bedard had a better injury history, sure, let him finish. But he doesn’t, so keeping his pitch counts around 100 is better for the Ms in the long run.
Its safe assumption that he’s healthy now (what about next week, the week after?). But its also a safe assumption that he still isn’t going to pitch 180 innings. He put up a great 13 IP, but its still just 13 IP. I’d like to see him pitch for a month before I make a very strong claim about his health. Every year people want to come out and make claims off of the first week, and no matter how good your stats are, they still don’t have the sample size to reach significance.
Let these two pitch at 100% effort of a little longer than about 13 innings before we make a conclussion about their health.
Wally–
The point is, as of RIGHT NOW he is completely healthy. We KNOW he is fragile and could get injured tomorrow while walking from one end of the dugot to the other. He’s pitched 13 IP and we can tell that he has been healthy for said 13 innings. Based on his command and velocity, he is healthy as of this moment. That is all Dave’s saying. Not that he’s going to be healthy in 2 hours.
Bedard, or any other pitcher, doing well for 13 IP is not proof that they are fine NOW. 15K/13IP is pretty strong positive indicator, but nothing more. It is very possible to pitch great (especially for such a short period of time), while HURT, and in the process make something worse or hurt something else compensating. With such a small sample stats just can’t tell us if he is healthy.
Also, the other thing that dynasties are built around given today’s baseball economics is the ability to spend enough money to retain and acquire talent. That’s still an open question with the Rays.
They have Longoria through 2016, and every single member of their core is locked through 2010, when Pena, Burrell, and Crawford become free agents. Virtually all of their core of great young players are under club control through at least 2012, many of them longer. They’ve also put together the deepest squad in baseball on a $40 million budget. If they keep winning, the budget will increase, and they’ll be able to hang with the big boys.
All of this is besides the point, though. Right now, Longoria’s looking like a potential 8-10 WAR player, and there are very few of them alive.
2010 is one year away, which is hardly a dynastic timeframe.
Even using 2012 as an end date, remaining competitive at a very high level often means acquiring talent to compensate for effects of attrition. From what I have read, they are up against their payroll limit.
I’m not disputing Longoria’s talent, only the use of the word dynasty, which I believe is illusory for any team.
First, Dave didn’t say the Rays will be a dynasty. He said Longoria’s the type of player you can build a dynasty around.
Second, 2010 is when a couple of guys on the wrong side of 30 and one of the team’s lesser stars walk away. After that, they still have Kazmir, Garza, Longoria, Upton, Aybar, Shields, Sonnanstine, Howell, Bartlett, Joyce, Navarro, and others locked up.
But yeah, the point had nothing to do with the Rays. The point is that Evan Longoria is really freakin’ good. If he blossoms into the 8-10 WAR player he looks like he could become, that gives Friedman a whole lot less he has to do to elevate the team to contender status year after year. Particularly if Upton continues developing into a 5-6 WAR guy himself.
To be fair to Dave, he didn’t necessarily say the Rays are going to be a dynasty, just that Longoria is the type of player to build a dynasty around. At least to me there’s a distinction there.
While Gutierrez and Chavez are 2nd and 3rd in UZR/150, it’s interesting to note that #1 is Daniel Murphy who will be remembered this week not for his stellar defensive play overall, but for a single defensive miscue.
you can’t make any inference from 1 weeks worth of UZR data. Even ignoring all of the noise due to possible errors, 1 week of UZR is like 15 at bats for a hitter. The sample size is just too small.
He knows.
Oh and that Pujols guy is still pretty good as well.
It;’s still early to say (4-3 after seven games) but the Pirates look like they’ll at least be decent this year. More to the point, as I earlier thought, their pitching has probably stablized (six quality starts out of seven) with hitting being the question mark. Oh, for Jason Bay and and even Jose Bautista, both of which we could have had this year.
In the first week in 2006, Chris Shelton hit 5 homers, 3 doubles, and 2 triples for a .536/.567/1.321 line. While I agree that star players are certainly more likely to have weeks like this, it’s still one week, and it is ridiculous to say that anyone is a player to build dynasties around based on one week of play. Longoria may very well be that caliber of player , but we shouldn’t be rushing to that conclusion based on his stats so far.