The heart is a very important part of the body.
See? Hang around this blog often enough, and you may very well learn something.
But in all seriousness, I want to talk about the Washington Nationals a little bit. My heart is with the Baltimore Orioles, of course, but ever since the Nationals came to the area, I’ve watched a good bit of their games. And in my spring semester at College Park, I was a fairly consistent visitor to Nationals Park via the Metro.
The Nationals are a little breath of fresh air given the Orioles’ futility. It’s not that the 2010 Nationals are the best thing since sliced bread or anything, but they play very respectable baseball, which is a lot more than the Orioles can say. The Nationals are a competent team that will probably hover around .500 all year, unless a) they sustain major injuries and therfore tank, or b) Stephen Strasburg turns out to really be Jesus Christ and the rest of their young starters all start piling up innings, in which case they’ll be a very competitive team for the rest of the year.
Washington is 25-26 in the very competitive NL East — all five teams are separated by four games, with the Philadelphia Phillies currently clinging to the division lead at 28-21, with the Atlanta Braves, a half of a game back, breathing down the Phillies’ necks. The Nationals have a chance to hop right back into the thick of things with a four-game set in Houston against the National League-worst Astros from Monday until Thursday.
(UPDATE: The Nationals won on Monday afternoon in Houston, 14-4, to push their record to 26-26. The Braves defeated the Phillies, 9-3, to take over first place. All five teams in the division are now separated by 3.5 games).
The Nationals’ record last year was 59-103, and underwent a serious makeover in Mike Rizzo’s first offseason as general manager. The biggest of Rizzo’s moves probably was taking a chance on beleagured closer Matt Capps, formerly a Pittsburgh Pirate. After having an ordinary 2009 (but prior success in years prior), Capps was picked up by Rizzo and inserted as the Nationals’ closer this season. All Capps has done is regain the crispness on his fastball and attack hitter after hitter with his big fastball. What’s resulted is 17 saves in 18 opportunities (and of all people to break his perfect save streak — Julio Lugo).
Capps and dominant set-up man Tyler Clippard, to go along with recent call-up Drew Storen, anchor the backbone of this Nationals’ team — the bullpen. I’ll discuss my thoughts on those three relievers in a later post, but for now, I want to focus on something else — the heart of the Nationals’ order.
The heart of the order is unchanged from last year. It’s a heart of the order that any Oriole fan would absolutely kill for. Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman hits third in the lineup, first baseman Adam Dunn hits cleanup, and left fielder Josh Willingham, perhaps the most underrated player in baseball, hits fifth.
Recently, manager Jim Riggleman has flipped Zimmerman and Dunn in the lineup for a couple of games, but the standard lineup will include what’s listed above.
We’ll start out with Zimmerman, who is well-known for his defensive prowess over at the hot corner. Zimmerman, who missed a handful of games early on due to injury, is hitting .299 with 10 homers. He has recorded a .374 on-base percentage and .571 slugging percentage, which combine to a .945 OPS (on-base plus slugging). These statistics, and all future statistics in the blog post, are courtesy of FanGraphs.
Slugging percentage, by the way, is simply total bases divided by at-bats. One base for a single, two for a double, three for a triple, four for a homer. Walks aren’t considered in the equation. A perfect slugging percentage is 4.000, because a hitter is hitting a homer every at-bat.
Any OPS .900 and over tends to be a good mark, as does an OBP of .370 and over and a slugging percentage of .500 and over. OBP marks of .400 and above are terrific, as are slugging marks of .600 and above.
How often one gets on base and to what degree one hits for power are the two most important measurements for a hitter. OBP is a much more indicative statistic of the productivity of a hitter than batting average because OBP takes walks into account. In other words, OBP takes into account every single time a hitter steps to the plate, whereas batting average does not. With OBP, we can see exactly how many times hitters have made an out.
OPS is not the greatest tool to use to determine the total effectiveness of a hitter because the two additives use different denominators — plate appearances for on-base, and at-bats for slugging percentage. For n00bs out there, at-bats do not take walks into account. Plate appearances do.
Although OPS is a nice for a quick look at a hitter, one needs a statistic to properly weigh the positive outcomes for hitters. Enter wOBA (weighted on-base average).
Weighted on-base average is scaled to act just like on-base percentage. So a .370 wOBA is really good, just like a .370 on-base is good, while wOBA of .400 is awesome. wOBA weighs the productivity of positive outcomes for a hitter (single, double, triple, home run, unintentional walks, and reaching base on an error) using coefficients that have been devised by baseball nerds. Just know that .340 is average, .370 is good, and .400 is awesome.
The formula for wOBA, courtesy of Alex Remington of Yahoo! Sports’ Big League Stew, is as follows:
“((0.72 x NIBB) + (0.75 x HBP) + (0.90 x 1B) + (0.92 x RBOE) + (1.24 x 2B) + (1.56 x 3B) + (1.95 x HR)) / PA
(NIBB stands for unintentional walks, because batters have no control over intentional walks. RBOE stands for reached base on error.)”
Advanced hitting statistics use wOBA as the basis of evaluating the true productivity of a hitter. Zimmerman is tied for the 18th-best wOBA mark in the league, at .402.
Zimmerman’s BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is .316, which does indicate that he’s been marginally “lucky” with the balls he’s put in play, as any batter’s BABIP should hover around .300, so Zimmerman’s offensive numbers may come down very marginally in the future, as balls put in play begin to fall as they should over a long season — or so the theory goes.
Onto the cleanup spot, occupied by Dunn. Your average baseball fan knows Dunn as your typical massive-sized cleanup guy who either strikes out, walks or hits a home run. Your average fan is incorrect (imagine that).
Dunn comes in with 10 homers and a batting average of .270. He has an OBP of .379, and a slugging percentage of .546, which equates to an OPS of .925. Dunn, according to wOBA, is tied for being the 22nd-most productive hitter in the league, at .397.
Dunn’s BABIP is .333, which does indicate he’s probably been a bit lucky. Don’t be surprised if his numbers dip in the future, as his BABIP comes down to the usual .300 mark through the rest of the season.
In the fifth spot of the lineup comes Willingham, whom I mentioned before as the most underrated player in baseball. On the surface, Willingham, a dead pull hitter, comes off as a nice No. 5 hitter that pitchers better not throw a mistake pitch to, or else it’s ending up in the left field bleachers.
A look at the statistics shows that Willingham has 10 homers, a .275 batting average, .429 OBP (!), .529 sluggling percentage, and a .958 OPS.
Best of all, Willingham rates as the sixth-most productive hitter in baseball, with a .423 wOBA.
Willingham may even see a bit of a hot streak in the future, as his BABIP is down at .283, and over a long season, that BABIP should increase to right around .300. More balls falling in between fielders equates to higher offensive numbers, obviously. Of the top-11 wOBA hitters, Willingham is the only hitter who has fallen on bad luck. So once that evens out, do we see Willingham even higher up among the wOBA leaders? We’ll see.
If you don’t know who Willingham is, then get to know him. He’s an elite hitter in the game. Next time someone tells you that they don’t know who he is, smack them across the face.
If Willingham, or “The Hammer,” as Nationals’ fans call him, isn’t in the All-Star Game, then he may very well be the biggest snub ever. And you know what? He probably won’t get in. Why? Because not many have ever heard of him.
Zimmerman-Dunn-Willingham. Get to know them — because they’re more productive at the plate this season than Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth in Philadelphia.