The Washington Nationals rotation has a 4.86 ERA, a -0.77 WPA, and a -9.17 BRAA. That’s not very good, and from a look at those numbers, you’d probably think Washington needs to find some better starting pitchers. But if you look closer, you’ll see a very interesting breakdown.

Washington’s #1-#4 Starters

Odalis Perez: 3.71 ERA, 4.91 FIP, 0.41 WPA, 4.82 BRAA
Shawn Hill: 3.56 ERA, 3.23 FIP, 0.22 WPA, 3.18 BRAA
Tim Redding: 3.51 ERA, 4.56 FIP, -0.10 WPA, -1.38 BRAA
John Lannan: 3.74 ERA, 4.22 FIP, 0.65 WPA, 3.69 BRAA

Totals: 3.63 ERA, 4.34 FIP, 1.18 WPA, 10.31 BRAA

Washington’s #5 Starters

Matt Chico: 6.87 ERA, 5.19 FIP, -1.03 WPA, -9.61 BRAA
Jason Bergmann: 10.45 ERA, 6.67 FIP, -0.42 WPA, -5.18 BRAA
Mike O’Connor: 24.30 ERA, 10.21 FIP, -0.29 WPA, -4.68 BRAA

Totals: 8.67 ERA, 6.21 FIP, -1.74 WPA, -19.47 BRAA

In just over 50 innings of work, the three guys the Nationals have used to fill their final rotation spot have erased, and then some, the good work done by their teammates. Despite their overall rotations performance, Jim Bowden and company should be quite proud of the fact that they’ve assembled four useful starters for essentially nothing - Lannan, Perez, and Redding were acquired for a combined $1.25 and a couple of signed baseballs. Only Hill (6th round pick in 2000) required an asset to bring in, and let’s be honest, a 6th round pick isn’t the most valuable property in baseball.

They won’t win a championship with Perez-Hill-Lannan-Redding, but they’re the epitome of what you can do with freely available talent when you’re willing to take some flyers on guys with question marks. Along with that comes the downside of what they’ve gotten from their #5 starters, however. Washington has done well filling the front four spots in their rotation, but they’re going to have to do some more work to get a fifth starter who won’t cancel out all the work already done.