My first reaction to the news that Stephen Strasburg needed Tommy John surgery to repair a tear in his right elbow was that I felt horrible for Washington Nationals fans — and that remains my foremost thought. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a diehard fan of the Nationals right now.

After a long period of time without a team, Washington baseball fans have been treated to horrific baseball of late – Nationals’ history has been worse than that of the Baltimore Orioles spanning the last few years. That’s bad — really bad. Then, Nationals fans were blessed with the No. 1 pick in the correct year and ended up with Strasburg, a pitcher with once-in-a-decade talent and a pitching repertoire that was among the best in the big leagues as soon as he put on a Nationals jersey.

Strasburg was the centerpiece of the Nationals’ rebuilding program, the great white hope. Things were slowly coming together for the Nationals — with Strasburg and Jordan Zimmermann, they had the beginnings of a really nice, young starting rotation. They had Drew Storen at the back end of the bullpen. They already had one of the best players in the big leagues, Ryan Zimmerman, over at third base. And 17-year-old Bryce Harper, whose potential is seemingly limitless, was signed and ready to begin his ascent through the Nationals’ farm system. Things were looking way up.

And one morning, it seems like all of it, ever so quickly, falls apart. It really does feel that way for Nationals fans right now. For Orioles fans, I’ll try to wrap a little context around the loss of Strasburg to Tommy John — it would be like if Orioles fans found out – on the same day – that Brian Matusz, Zach Britton, Chris Tillman and Jake Arrieta would all undergo Tommy John surgery. Imagine how you’d feel if that scenario played out — and that’s how Nationals fans feel right now. My buddy, who’s a Red Sox fan, said the Nationals losing Strasburg to Tommy John would be like if the Red Sox lost Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz.

But you know what? Even though I spoke in the past tense in terms of Strasburg’s potential earlier in the post, it’s far too early to write off Strasburg as another pitcher claimed by injury. Strasburg can still be the centerpiece of the rebuilding program in Washington. Strasburg can still be one of the great pitchers in baseball. As bad as things seem right now, in reality, it’s not as bad as it seems. Plenty of pitchers have come back from Tommy John surgery better than ever — just ask Josh Johnson, who recovered from Tommy John to be one of the best pitchers in the game today.

All that Nationals fans can do is think in a positive nature — that Strasburg will be the next Johnson, that Strasburg will return better and healthier than ever. Even still, Nationals fans can’t begin to speculate how Strasburg’s pitching repertoire will be affected by the surgery and lengthy rehab – they’ll drive themselves crazy. They just need to hope for the best. And for fans of baseball, we should be hoping for the best along with Nationals fans — because a baseball world with Strasburg is a better place than without him. The more great and exciting players there are, the better.

But at some point, the Nationals have to stop grieving about Strasburg and look towards the future and this offseason. Here is part of what Dave Cameron of FanGraphs had to say about the effect Strasburg’s injury has on the Nationals’ organization:

“This is a loss for the game. Obviously, it’s a pretty significant blow to the Nationals as well, who now have to re-think their path to contention and potentially push back their time-frame a year or two. If they were thinking of re-signing Adam Dunn before, they almost certainly shouldn’t now. Losing Strasburg for 2011 and getting a questionable version of him for 2012 pushes the Nats back into long-term building mode, as they just lost a player they simply can’t replace. This injury has a significant effect on the decisions Washington has to make this winter.”

In the near term, like Cameron states, the Nationals are likely to delve deeper into a rebuilding mode this offseason than if Strasburg was healthy. I doubt Nationals’ management has any interest in putting big dollars into free agent pieces this offseason when the team’s short-term potential just changed for the worse in such a radical fashion. With Strasburg in his second year at the top of the rotation and a healthy Zimmermann, the Nationals might have been an interesting team in the National League East next year. Probably not so much anymore — the offseason game plan might have changed from adding a bat and a starter to getting a prospect or two for Josh Willingham.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention this before, but a really good point was made by Jim Callis of Baseball America on Twitter on Friday: Strasburg’s 2.6 WAR that he accumulated during his brief time this year will eclipse every other 2009 draftee through 2011 even though he won’t play next year. So there’s that.

This is from a series of seven tweets from Buster Olney of ESPN:

“Heard this: Would-be free agent Adam Dunn has just about lost interest in working out a long-term deal with the Nationals because of what he perceives to be a lack of urgency from the team in working out a new deal. He does not feel there seems to be the same amount of interest as he has in working out contract. The Nationals are fast approaching fish-or-cut bait time with the slugger, who is fast approaching his seventh consecutive with 38 or more homers. At a time when power is becoming more scarce in the game, his value would appear to be high in the forthcoming free agent market — if the Nationals don’t move fast. The Nationals have had conversations with other teams about possible deals involving Dunn, and it figures they will trade him if they don’t work out a contract extension in the days ahead. The White Sox are among the interested teams.”

Two things propelled the Nationals to a 20-15 start to the season and kept them afloat for much of the first half — the 3-4-5 in their lineup and their bullpen. The 3-4-5 of their lineup is among the best in the major leagues, with third baseman Ryan Zimmerman batting third; Dunn, fourth; and left fielder Josh Willingham, fifth.

Dunn is eighth in the big leagues in OPS at .959; Willingham, 19th in the bigs at .913; and Zimmerman, 21st, at .909. Dunn is eighth in the bigs in wOBA at .405; Willingham, ninth, at .404; and Zimmerman, 26th, at .388. Dunn and Willingham are the third and fourth in the National League, respectively, in wOBA. This is an extremely productive middle of an order, so anyone would be loathe to break it up if these numbers were to continue into the foreseeable future for each hitter.

But with Dunn’s contract up at the end of the season, the Nationals have a pressing issue on their hands. Do they move Dunn for the best bundle of prospects they can find or do they re-sign the 6-foot-6, 287-pound first baseman to a new deal?

Well, the basic case for keeping Dunn is that — as outlined above — his production helps bolster quite a formidable middle of an order for years to come. The Nationals don’t have a Mike Stanton-type on the way from the minor leagues that projects to quickly become a middle-of-the-order hitter, so the team either keeps Dunn or has a gaping hole at the cleanup spot. 40 homers per year doesn’t exactly grow on trees, especially now that yearly home run totals are back down to reasonable levels.

Another interesting part of Dunn is that, while he’s universally considered to be a terrible fielder at whatever position he plays, he’s been about an average fielder at first base this year. The Nationals committed to Dunn being their everyday first baseman during spring training rather than shuffling him between first base and the outfield. It’s paid off, as Dunn, a career -17.3 UZR per 150 games at first base and a career -13.3 UZR per 150 games in the outfield, has improved to become a very slightly below average first baseman this year, with a -0.6 UZR.

Now, one isn’t supposed to look at just one season’s worth of UZR — especially when that season is only a little over three months old — but I can tell you, from watching a lot of Nationals’ games this year, that Dunn is much improved first baseman from years past. Dunn has certainly become a viable enough first baseman that National League teams won’t be so scared off by his skills at first base that they wouldn’t offer Dunn a contract this coming offseason if they otherwise would have.

So if Dunn’s defense is no longer a big concern and he makes up part of a very productive middle of an order, the Nationals should sign up Dunn for a brand new three or four year deal, right? Well, let’s take a gander.

Dunn has an impressive line this season of .288/.372/.588 with 22 homers and a .405 wOBA. Dunn’s .288 batting average is 36 points above his career average, while his .372 on-base percentage is 11 points lower than his .383 career on-base mark.

How in the world did Dunn’s batting average go up 36 points, while his on-base percentage went markedly down? Simple. His walk rate has gone way down from years past. Dunn has accumulated a 10.9% walk rate this year, while his career mark is 16.5%. Dunn is leaving himself vulnerable to make more outs this year than in years past, and he has indeed made more outs, even if his batting average has skyrocketed.

Since Dunn is indeed making more outs this year than any other year in his career since 2003, his successes this year can be attributed to one main factor: BABIP (batting average on balls in play). Dunn’s career BABIP is .297 — pretty standard for any hitter. His BABIP this year is .365, which indicates that Dunn has gotten very lucky this season and is in for some regression towards his career means in the second half.

But Dunn is making the most out of the hits he has gotten this year. Of his 92 hits, 22 have been homers, 26 have been doubles, and two have been triples. Over half of Dunn’s hits have gone for extra bases, hence his .588 slugging percentage – 44 points above his career slugging percentage. Dunn’s 26 doubles this year already hover around his yearly totals throughout his career, seemingly a direct reflection of his BABIP — as are his batting average and slugging percentage.

I’d imagine that Dunn is definitely in for a little regression towards his career averages in the second half. Dunn’s BABIP will gradually creep back down towards .300 (.335 by the end of the season?) and henceforth, his batting average and slugging percentage will both decrease a bit as those hard hit balls to the gaps start to find more gloves. The home runs will definitely still be there — I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dunn pushing 45 homers towards the end of the season if he gets on a home run binge late.

Even with some inevitable regression, I still think Dunn has a career year. He’s headed towards a 40 homer and 40 double season with an OPS well north of .900 and a wOBA hovering around .400.

One would also think that Dunn — who’s swung at 45.6% of the pitches he’s seen, up from his career average of 40.7% — will begin to take a few more pitches and hence, a few more walks, as the season progresses and both his walk rate and on-base percentage will shift a little towards his career means. Interestingly, though, Dunn is swinging away at 28.5% of pitches he’s seeing outside of the strike zone, up from his career average of 17.8%. As is stated often on the Nationals’ MASN broadcast, Dunn is being a lot more aggresive this season than in the past. One would assume that Dunn may be swinging away more because he’s getting a lot of pitches to drive due to Willingham’s presence behind him in the batting order, but that’s not the case. 43.3% of the pitches Dunn is seeing are within the strike zone, down from his career average of 47.5%.

All told, Dunn has put together a first half in which he’s been worth 3.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), so he’s already well-eclipsed last year’s 1.2 WAR. In fact, Dunn is set to shatter every one of his season’s WAR totals except for 2004 with the Cincinnati Reds (5.2 WAR). Dunn’s increase in WAR is a direct coorelation with his improved defense this season. Dunn’s value skyrockets as an average defender at first base.

Dunn’s going to end up putting up offensive numbers a little above his career averages due to an increased aggresiveness at the plate and a high BABIP, but it’s his defense that makes Dunn a significantly more valuable player this year than in the past. Last year, Dunn recorded a .396 wOBA (right around where it is now), but was horrific defensively (-37.1 combined UZR between first and left), and thus, was left with a very ordinary 1.2 WAR. Even when examined under a greater lens, Dunn is a .386 career wOBA, so his increased offensive numbers this year really aren’t that much of an increase. It’s his improved defense that lifts Dunn to being a complete player in terms of overall value.

Let’s assume Dunn doesn’t get injured during the second half, and thus, that he’s headed towards another 5.2 WAR-type of season that he recorded in 2004, when he put up a .403 wOBA and wasn’t that bad defensively (-2.3 combined UZR between first base and left field, but played the vast majority of his time — 146 starts — in left). Given that the market pays about $4.5 million per win, Dunn has already been worth about $13.5 million to the Nationals (3.0 WAR multiplied by 4.5). If Dunn ends up with a 5.2 WAR, then Dunn would be worth $23.4 million to the Nationals. If Dunn’s vastly increased defensive acumen continues for the foreseeable future, is Dunn worth a contract of three years and $40 million, which is the type of contract that Dunn is rumored to probably get? For $13.33 million per year, I’d hold onto Dunn, but only if you think his improved defense this season isn’t a mirage.

(Update: I forgot to mention this when I first published the post, but Dunn is 30 years old. I have no reservations about Dunn’s production over the span of a three-year deal in relation to his career averages. He’s going to continue to mash and get on base a lot. The real concern, to me, is his defense. Moving on).

I think the value is there to sign Dunn to a three-year deal. To lock up Dunn, though, the Nationals would have to hammer out this contract extension right now because if the Nationals wait until after the trade deadline to try to lock him up, Dunn will be so close to free agency that he’ll really want to test the free agent waters. So if the Nationals decide that they don’t like Dunn’s asking price, they need to trade him.

What’s two months of Dunn worth in a trade? I’m not sure, but I’d assume teams are dangling a good Double-A-type prospect that projects to be in big leagues within a year and a filler prospect or two in order to complete the deal. One thing’s for sure, though — any package that the Nationals are offered will be of much better quality than keeping Dunn and letting him walk at the end of the season and henceforth just settling for draft picks.

I think the value is there to re-sign Dunn to a three-year deal worth around $40 million. If the Nationals offer Dunn that type of three-year deal within the next week or so and Dunn rejects the offer, then trade him. If Rizzo keeps Dunn, then he’d be hedging his bet that he’d be able to re-sign Dunn in the offseason, but again, once a player gets that close to free agency, he’s going to ultimately test the market. Rizzo can’t afford to keep Dunn without a contract extension because at that point, Rizzo’s bound to just end up with draft picks.

Now, would Dunn look good in a certain shade of orange? We’ll discuss that at another time.

All statistics are courtesy of FanGraphs.

I recently interviewed Ben Goessling of MASN Sports via e-mail about various subjects surrounding the Washington Nationals. Goessling writes daily about the Nationals on his MASN Sports blog, The Goessling Game. You can follow Goessling on Twitter via @masnBen. The interview is below. Statistics are as of Monday’s results. Enjoy.

I recently spoke with Dan Steinberg, author of the Washington Post’s “DC Sports Bog,” via e-mail about Stephen Strasburg, the Nationals, Capitals, Wizards, and United, as well as his brand of sports blogging and the future of sports writing.

Steinberg was a guest on my University of Maryland talk show in the spring semester. You can follow Steinberg on Twitter (@dcsportsbog). Without further ado, let’s get right to it. Many thanks to Steinberg for contributing to the blog.

Luke Jackson: What were your expectations of “Strasmas” going into the event, and how did it compare to how the event actually turned out? Where does the event rank in your experiences covering Washington sports?

Dan Steinberg: I figured it would be electric and unique, but I had no idea how Strasburg would perform. If he had bombed and gotten taken out early, the place would have emptied. Fact is, he exceeded every possible expectation, which made the entire night thrilling. In terms of my own experiences, I would rank it with George Mason’s win over U-Conn. at Verizon Center to go to the Final Four, The Caps’ win over the Rangers in Game 7 of the 2009 playoffs, and the Redskins winning their final game to advance to the 2007 NFL playoffs. Can’t think of much else. It was just a perfect night.

LJ: Will the Nationals be able to sell out every Strasburg start at home — or come close to it — for the rest of the season, even if the Nationals continue to slide further under .500?

Dan Steinberg: Yeah, I think they will come very close to selling out every Strasburg game. He’s a phenomenon. That has nothing to do with the team’s record.

LJ: Despite the fact that the Nationals have played respectable baseball for the most part and that Strasburg is in the bigs, it seems like the Nationals are still well on the back-burner in DC in regards to local media coverage and attendance, even though they’re the only team currently playing. Why is this? Will it take a Capitals’-like ascension to the top of the standings to illicit media coverage and great crowds day in and day out?

Dan Steinberg: People have lived here for more than three decades without a baseball team. They formed other allegiances. It’s hard enough for the Caps and Wizards — teams that have been here for decades — to penetrate the local zeitgeist. How much harder must it be for a team that’s been here five years, and has never finished with a winning record. Yes, it will take a consistently winning record for that to change.

LJ: Nationals Park, to me, has a major feeling of incompleteness because the area from the centerfield gate to the metro station is so empty. But I also feel like that block has big potential to become a vibrant area around the ballpark. Do you envision a Chinatown-esque revitalization down the line?

Dan Steinberg: I don’t think it’ll be quite like Chinatown, though I’m certainly no expert on development issues. But Chinatown has a lot of other things going for it; proximity to five Metro lines, proximity to the Hill, the downtown offices and the federal buildings, an existing core of retail space. The area was rundown in the late ’90s, but it wasn’t completely empty the way the area around Nats Park is. It just needed revitalization. Nats Park area seems like starting from scratch. I certainly think it’ll look a lot different in five years than it does now, but I can’t imagine it ever becoming such a hub the way Chinatown is.

LJ: You diligently followed the Capitals’ television ratings this season and made a point to recognize how remarkable the ratings were. How do the Capitals’ best television ratings — games late in their 14-game winning streak, games against Pittsburgh, playoff games against the Canadiens — compare to a typical Redskins’ regular season game and playoff game?

Dan Steinberg: I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but they’re not in the same universe. There are 16 Redskins games, and they’re shown on network television. That’s the most popular sport in the country, and the most popular team in D.C. It’s really not in the same universe as an 82-game schedule on a regional cable network.

LJ: Given the way the playoffs turned out, will the excitement level be down for the Capitals’ regular season next year? Even if the arena is sold out, will there be a loud arena for a random Wednesday night game against the Panthers? Will Pittsburgh games in the regular season even seem important, or will all eyes simply be towards mid-April?

Dan Steinberg: I’m not sure if anyone knows the answer to this. The arena will be sold out, and I’d guess there will be plenty of loud crowds, but not quite the euphoria seen during this year’s run to the top of the standings. Still, that’s a long time from now. People will be excited to see the team again. At some point, you’re paying for regular season games knowing they’re regular season games, and if you’re going to be entertained, you’re not going to sit on your hands just because it’s November. But I think there will be at least a mild hit.

LJ: The aspect of the Capitals’ playoff series against the Canadiens that really stood out to me was an alarming lack of adjustments made by the Capitals during the series in order to beat the very sound defensive scheme of the Canadiens. What was the sense you got from the players after the series was over about what they felt went wrong?

Dan Steinberg: Some thought it was fluky, some thought it was the goalie, some thought it was the concentration level, etc. If anyone thought it was the scheme or the preparation, they didn’t talk about that. I think as the playoffs went on, you sort of saw that the “fluky” defense wasn’t as cowardly as it seemed at first. The Philadelphia Flyers needed a shootout to get in the playoffs, and they almost won the whole thing. That’s the way the sport goes.

LJ: Over the past few seasons, have the Capitals built the type of fan base that can sell out and fill up Verizon Center even if the team is struggling in future years?

Dan Steinberg: Yeah, probably. But I don’t think they can maintain their status as one of the hot teams in this city without wins.

LJ: From what you’ve seen from Ted Leonsis in his handling of the Capitals, how will his ownership [of the Wizards] differ from Abe Pollin’s, in terms of connecting with fans and building a winning team?

Dan Steinberg: Well, he’ll answer every email he gets. He’ll read blogs and message boards. He’ll be easy to find inside the arena. He’ll write frequently about his plans for the team. It will be a sea change in connecting with fans. Building a winning team? That’s sort of a different question. We know that, thanks to some great drafting and some luck (in landing Ovechkin), Leonsis — after some down years — helped turn the Caps into one of the best regular-season teams in the NHL. Does that mean he will be able to do the same thing in the NBA? Will he be able to figure out the postseason? Will John Wall be as good as Alex Ovechkin? There’s just no way to say. If it was all really as Leonsis sometimes suggests, every owner would be able to win. That’s impossible. But every owner can treat fans well.

LJ: Does John Wall immediately take the Wizards out of the cellar of the league and into competition for a low playoff spot with the help of a free agent or two? Or are the Wizards in such disarray that nothing less than a total commitment to a multi-year rebuilding effort could take them into the playoffs?

Dan Steinberg: My guess is that this team was too messed up (and still too incomplete) to even be talking about the playoffs now. I’d look toward 2011-2012. But some fans are a lot more optimistic than I am. The Wizards were 26-56 last year. If they improve by 12 wins, which would be significant, they’d still be 38-44 and on the outside looking in.

LJ: Is Gilbert Arenas in a Wizards’ uniform next year?

Dan Steinberg: I’ll say yes. Not sure where else he could be.

LJ: For people like me who are unfamiliar with the team, can you describe the enthusiasm of the fan base for DC United and what a typical game-day atmosphere is like at RFK?

Dan Steinberg: The thing is, every fan base in every sport in every city will rise and fall to some extent based on success. The D.C. United fan base was louder, more excited and crazier three or four years ago, when the team was better. But the supporters groups really make that experience what it is; hundreds or thousands of people wearing the same shirts, singing the same songs, playing drums and chanting and letting off smoke bombs etc. throughout the entire 90 minutes. It’s tough to find another experience quite like that. They’re not better people or more devoted followers than those of other sports, but it’s just a different kind of rooting setup. I love it.

LJ: How did you settle upon your current unique niche of blogging? Do you envision your brand of blogging to become more popular among major newspapers online?

Dan Steinberg: I did some blogging from the 2006 Winter Olympics, really enjoyed it and asked my bosses if I could find a way to do that full-time. After a few months, we came up with a solution. I think every newspaper is already blogging, and doing so aggressively. I doubt many have the resources to let someone be a full-time blogger without having a beat, the way I am. I’m not even sure I’d recommend it, since the nuts and bolts of any sports section –online or in print — has to be beat writers and news gathering.

LJ: How financially viable is online sports journalism going forward?

Dan Steinberg: I really have no idea. I know that people already consume huge amounts of sports writing online, and will do so more and more very quickly — on the Internet, on mobile devices, and in ways we don’t even imagine yet. But whether it becomes financially viable? Really, who knows. I hope so. Regardless, people will always want to read and write about sports.

Livan Hernandez has a 2.94 ERA through 13 starts for the Washington Nationals, which is a better ERA than Tim Lincecum, Roy Oswalt, Johan Santata and Felix Hernandez.

Any baseball fan knows than L. Hernandez pales in comparison to those four other starters listed, but what does Hernandez have in his favor against the others that has helped him give up less earned runs per nine innings thus far this season?

Well, luck. A whole lot of luck.

Essentially every advanced measure in regards to Hernandez’s first 13 starts indicates that he has been very lucky with the outcomes of the batted ball, and is due for regression over the course of a long, six-month season.

Hernandez’s surface statistics are more than acceptable — any team in the bigs would love to have a 2.94 ERA to their starting rotation. Hernandez has given up 75 hits and 31 walks in 85.2 innings, leaving his walks per nine at 3.26, which is a bit high, but his low amount of hits allowed leaves his WHIP (walks plus hits per inning pitched) at a very respectable 1.24. Not domination, but still more than serviceable, it appears.

Hernandez’s 85.2 innings are nothing to take lightly, either. For a team like the Nationals that has struggled mightily to get consistent, quality innings out of their starters, there is significant value to a starter that is currently pro-rating to throw approximately 200 innings this season.

Also noteworthy among Hernandez’s surface statistics is that he’s only given up eight home runs, or 0.84 homers per nine innings. Keeping the ball in the park, at a very minimum, gives the defense a chance to bail the pitcher out on a given batted ball.

Ah, the batted ball. That’s where Hernandez’s great luck has come into play. He’s only given up 75 hits in his 85.2 innings, and everything seems to indicate that Hernandez will begin to allow hits much more frequently.

Hernandez has only struck out batters this season, good for a 3.68 strikeouts per nine innings, third-worst in the majors among qualifying starters. Hernandez is certainly allowing hitters to put plenty of balls in play, or as they say these days, is “pitching to contact.” Indeed, 88.8% of Hernandez’s pitches are resulting in contact, and only 4.5% of the pitches he’s throwing are resulting in swings and misses. He’s not missing many bats. He’s not particularly fooling anyone, especially when considering his pitching repertoire.

64.4% of Hernandez’s pitches this season have been his low-to-mid-80′s fastball; 17.o%, high-70′s sliders; 9.2%, a mid-60′s curveball; and 9.4%, a high-70′s changeup. And he’ll bust out an eephus pitch from time to time.

Not exactly a strikeout formula.

Hitters are putting the a ton of balls in play against Hernandez, which leaves Hernandez susceptible to allowing a ton of hits and baserunners. Strikeouts eliminate the possibility an error in the field, a weakly hit bloop falling in between fielders in the outfield, or a fielder just missing snatching a line drive out of the air. Once the ball is put in play, it’s essentially luck that accounts for if the batted ball results in a hit.

Batting averages on balls in play (BABIP) tend to hover around .300, meaning that of the balls put in play (homers not included), around 30% of them tend to fall in for hits. Hernandez’s BABIP is a ridiculously low .245. It’s difficult to say that his low BABIP is completely due to luck, but that .245 BABIP will definitely trend closer to .300 as the season moves along, and with it, more hits will begin falling in and more runs will be scored.

His FIP of 4.61 also indicates that Hernandez is in for regression, as this indicates that the aspects of his game that he can control — strikeouts, walks and homers allowed — are at levels that make his 2.94 ERA unsustainable over 30 starts. Hernandez simply does not strike out enough batters and walks a few too many to minimize the effects of chance and luck over a long season.

Simply put, Hernandez is the antithesis of Stephen Strasburg. When Strasburg strikes out 14 in seven innings, that’s pure dominance. Strasburg is minimizing the effects of chance and luck — the pitcher is depending on his defense for just seven outs over seven innings, or one out per inning. Simply dominant, something that Hernandez is not.

Just don’t be fooled by Hernandez’s ERA.

All statistics are courtesy of FanGraphs.

I’m now re-arranging my life in order to see Stephen Strasburg of the Washington Nationals on television every fifth day. I don’t find this to be weird. I find this to be an expectation for any sports fan. Any time one has a chance to see Strasburg, one needs to clear his or her schedule to see his 95 or so pitches.

Strasburg has the best stuff I’ve ever seen out of any pitcher in my years of watching baseball, and I’m fairly certain that he already possesses the best stuff of any pitcher in the league right now. He’s must-see television in order to view his unreal talent and polish at such a young age. 

Strasburg’s second start of his big league career wasn’t the 14-strikeout masterpiece he had in his debut, but he still struck out eight in 5.1 innings and only allowed two hits against the the Cleveland Indians.

One of those two hits was a Travis Hafner line drive home run down the right field line, on what appeared to be a low-90′s changeup at the knees in the middle of the plate. It was very similar to the pitch that Strasburg surrendered a homer against Delwyn Young of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Strasburg’s stuff in his debut is the best stuff I’ve ever seen in a single game, with a two-seam and four-seam fastball spotted all across the strike zone at 95-100 miles-per-hour to go along with with a power curveball that has ridiculous bite to it. Also present was a sharp low-90′s changeup that dipped as it entered the strike zone.

His stuff didn’t have as much bite to it as it did last Tuesday, but Strasburg with less than his ideal stuff is still better than every other pitcher’s stuff save for maybe Ubaldo Jimenez and Josh Johnson. Most of Strasburg’s issues had to do with his control, especially on the outside corner to left-handed hitters. Strasburg walked five in his outing after walking none in his debut.

Some of his control issues seemed to stem from a shoddy mound in Cleveland, which caused Strasburg slipped on the mound on a 3-2 pitch, resulting in a walk. The mound required constant attention from the grounds crew throughout the game, and Strasburg was visibly not pleased with the mound.

Despite the mound issues and the walks, Strasburg still struck out eight and gave up only two hits. If he had better control, he saves his pitch count a bit and maybe he comes close to duplicating his debut. Strasburg was dominating at times in his second start and was missing a ton of bats.

In his two starts combined (12.1 innings pitched), Strasburg has given up three runs, all earned, for a 2.19 ERA, much of which he can credit to his good buddy Drew Storen, who inherited Strasburg’s bases loaded, one out situation in the sixth inning in Cleveland and got out of it with no damage. Strasburg’s FIP stands at a pretty ridiculous 2.87 thanks to his strikeout ability.

Strasburg has struck out 22 batters (16.05 batters per nine innings) and amassed a straight up filthy contact percentage of 57.5%, which means 42.5% of the swings that Strasburg has induced have been swings and misses. Further, 15.3% of the pitches Strasburg has thrown have resulted in swings and misses, which is far beyond filthy.

Strasburg has only given up six hits and  five walks to leave his WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched) at 0.89 and his walks per nine innings at 3.65. I’m not a huge fan of WHIP because a home run counts the same as a swinging bunt, but 0.89 is nasty under any circumstances.

62.o% of Strasburg’s pitches in his two starts have been fastballs, 26.1% curveballs, and 12.0% changeups.

Strasburg does have a very low .238 BABIP (batting average on balls in play), which would seem to indicate that Strasburg has fallen into good luck once the ball is in play, but I wouldn’t be looking at Strasburg regressing to the league average quite yet. After all, it’s just two starts. And with the amount of meek swings Strasburg has induced, does BABIP even apply to him like any other pitcher? Strasburg’s hitters, even when they put the bat on the ball, are producing very weak swings and results.

Besides, since when does Strasburg even fit into any league average? BABIP averages don’t apply to superhumans like Stephen Strasburg. When extra-terrestrials invade the earth, the only person that will be able to control them is Stephen Strasburg.

All statistics are courtesy of FanGraphs.

In a previous blog entry, I outlined the Washington Nationals’ terrific heart of the order, and how Orioles’ fans would kill to have a 3-4-5 of Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham.

I’ve also outlined the Baltimore Orioles’ penchant to implode fairly spectacularly in the late innings, and now I’m going to tell you why Orioles’ fans would also kill to have a back end of the bullpen consisting of Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard and closer Matt Capps to avoid such implosions.

The biggest part of the Nationals’ bullpen, in my opinion, has not been Capps — it’s been the set-up man, Clippard, who came up through the New York Yankees’ farm system as a starter, but eventually was switched to a bullpen role once he was traded to the Nationals.

I’ve watched a lot of Nationals games this year, and I only recall Clippard blowing up once, and that was on May 11 against the New York Mets. Of the seven runs (all earned) that Clippard’s given up this season, three of them came on that night. All in all, Clippard simply shuts the door on the opposition seemingly every time out on the mound, either preserving the a Nationals’ lead or keeping the score as is. He’s been phenomenal, and I personally believe he’s more deserving of an All-Star Game invitation than Capps at this point.

Clippard is essentially a two-pitch guy (fastball and changeup) who will occasionally mix in a slider and curveball. According to FanGraphs, 51.0% of Clippard’s pitches are fastballs, 28.0% changeups, 13.2% sliders, and 7.9% curveballs. Clippard uses his fastball, which comes in at the 93-91 mile-per-hour range with good movement, to get ahead of most of his hitters, and has used his secondary stuff quite effectively to finish off hitters. Clippard can also blow away hitters with high heat late in a count.

Clippard has been missing bats, striking out 49 batters in 41.0 innings (32 appearances), which equates to 10.76 strikeouts per nine innings. He’s countered that with only 17 walks this season (3.73 walks per nine innings), for a 2.88 strikeout to walk ratio.

The two key aspects for a late-inning reliever, to me, are a) throwing strikes immediately out of the bullpen, and b) keeping the ball in the ballpark. Clippard, as shown above, obviously throws the ball over the plate, and in his 41.0 innings, has only given up two home runs on 24 hits. Clippard is often holding onto tenuous one-run leads — the Nationals tend to play a lot of close games — and his ability to keep the ball in the park has been a key factor in his ability to hand the ball over to Capps with a lead.

Clippard has also been able to keep the score right where it is in a tight ballgame, even if the Nationals don’t have a lead. Being such a highly-used reliever (tied for second in the majors in appearances with 32) on a team that plays a lot of close games, Clippard’s fallen into some odd luck. He’s earned eight wins on the year, three more than any other reliever in the majors.

All told, Clippard has compiled an excellent 1.54 ERA and 2.74 FIP, which is very good for a reliever (relievers tend to have better opportunities to earn a lower FIP than starters do). FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, an advanced statisitic that I examine here), which measures how well a pitcher actually pitched, regardless of defense and luck by just taking homers, walks and strikeouts into account. The theory at play is that pitchers only can control those three things, whereas everything else is based upon the quality of the defense behind them and just plain old luck.

FIP, which is meant to be a predictor of future performance, is scaled to look like ERA. The theory is that over the course of a 162-game season, the luck involved in pitching will eventually even itself out and an ERA will begin to look more like the way the pitcher has actually pitched — in other words, an ERA will trend towards the pitcher’s FIP.

Common sense also tells us that it’d be difficult for Clippard to maintain a 1.50 ERA. But even if his ERA does begin to resemble his FIP a little, an ERA hovering around 2.50 is still fully acceptable out of the bullpen.

Clippard’s .248 BABIP (batting average on balls in play, homers aren’t taken into account) also suggests he’s in for a bit of regression. BABIP should be around .300 based upon the usual trends of luck on the batted ball. Then again, Clippard’s BABIP has been below .300 ever since he joined the Nationals’ organization in 2008, so maybe the traditional mean for BABIP doesn’t quite apply the same way to Clippard.

Clippard hands the ball to the closer Capps, who the Nationals took a gamble on last offseason after Capps had an ordinary 2009 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who subsequently non-tendered after 2009. In 24 save opportunities this season, Capps has saved 20 of them. Capps began the year with 16 straight saves, then fell into a bit of a rut, but now seems to breaking out of said rut.

Last year, Capps saved 27 of 32 games for the Pirates, but did it in ugly fashion. He compiled a 5.80 ERA and 4.90 FIP, while only striking out 46 batters in 54.1 innings of work for the season, but still managed to only walk 17 batters. Last year’s strikeouts per nine innings averaged out to 7.62, and the walks per nine to 2.71.

Capps gave up 73 hits in his 54.1 innings, but I’m sure at least some of that had to do with his freakishly high BABIP (.370), which is especially freakish when considering that the Pirates had the sixth-best rated defense by UZR last season. Luck was just not on the side of Capps.

Capps did manage to give up a lot of home runs (10) given his workload. Still, his FIP and BABIP indicate that he did not pitch nearly as poorly in 2009 as his 5.90 ERA indicates.

Onto the 2010 season. Capps became the closer for the Nationals, which was the first time I had really ever seen Capps pitch. I liked what I’ve been seeing all year — I like pitchers that attack hitters early in the count with their best stuff. Capps doesn’t nibble around the plate — he goes right after hitters with his best pitch, the fastball. He can hit the black with his fastball, too.

Sure enough, Capps seems to be attacking hitters with his fastball more this year than last year. According to FanGraphs, 77.6% of Capps’ pitches this season have been fastballs, up from 68.7% last year. This season has also seen 18.4% sliders and 4.0% changeups, whereas as last season saw 25.0% sliders and 6.2% changeups.

Capps is not a finesse pitcher in the least. He’s gone back to his strengths. And unsurprisingly, when Capps was struggling on the Nationals’ recent road trip to San Francisco, San Deigo and Houston, Capps seemed to be fiddling around with his secondary stuff too much.

Overall this season, Capps’ strikeouts are up from last year and his walks are down. In 29.1 innings pitched, Capps has struck out 26 batters and has only walked seven, equating to 7.98 strikeouts per nine innings, and 2.15 walks per nine.

Capps is still giving up a lot of hits (36), but his BABIP is still very high at .361. This should come down over the course of the season — and subsequently, the rate of hits for Capps’ batters — but it’s not guaranteed.

Capps has given up four homers, which puts him on track to hover around last year’s total. All told, Capps has surrendered 11 earned runs (17 total) for a 3.38 ERA, and his FIP is in the same neighborhood, at 3.82.

Interestingly, Capps’ FIP indicates that his ERA should increase slightly in the future, but his high BABIP indicates that the hits that he allows should decrease over time. Of course, BABIP doesn’t take walks and strikeouts into account and home runs are the only batted ball that FIP takes into account, so there are two completely different statistics with two different meanings. But it is interesting to note the difference in how each statistic is predicting the future performance of Capps.

The recent call-up Storen is the new kid on the block. Storen, who was selected 10th overall in the 2009 draft as a compensation pick for not signing first rounder Aaron Crow in 2008, has been hailed as the future closer of the Nationals. He ripped through the minor leagues before reaching Washington.

Storen immediately went to a pressurized late-inning role along with Clippard and Capps. Through college and the minors, Storen’s calling card was his insane control. In 53.2 total innings in the minors, he walked just 11 batters.

Storen’s only pitched 10.1 innings for the Nationals thus far, so it’s obviously difficult to draw any real conclusions about him. But primarily, Storen is a fastball-slider pitcher that will mix in a curveball occasionally. According to FanGraphs, 66.5% of Storen’s pitches were fastballs, 24.1% sliders, and 9.4% curveballs.

Storen has six strikeouts and five walks in his 10.1 innings, equating to 5.23 strikeouts per nine innings and 4.35 walks per nine. He’s given up seven hits (no homers) and three runs (two earned). His ERA is 1.74 and his FIP, 3.70. He has an abnormally low BABIP, at .232. Both his FIP and BABIP suggest regression in effectiveness is coming. But again, it’s hard to analyze such few innings, especially from a rookie.

So Orioles fans, would Clippard, Capps and Storen look good in orange and black?

I think so.

All statistics are courtesy of FanGraphs.

For over a year, we’ve heard about just how good Stephen Strasburg is. He’s the best pitching prospect ever, we were told. His stuff is unhittable. He could have jumped into a major league rotation right out of college.

On Tuesday night, Strasburg made those claims seem like understatements. He was somehow better than advertised, as Strasburg struck out 14 Pittsburgh Pirates and walked none, going seven innings and giving up two runs (both earned).

(I had a video here of Strasburg’s 14 strikeouts, but the video was disabled).

In his post-game press conference, Strasburg said that he didn’t go over single scouting report in preparation for his big league debut against the Pirates. 14 strikeouts without a single scouting report.

Impressive, to say the least. But I’ve heard that young pitchers can over-think on the mound after studying scouting reports on a team. For instance, if a pitcher learns that particular hitters struggle on a given pitch, that pitcher may overuse his less effective, secondary stuff. That means his most effective pitch is under-utilized. Or something.

Anyway, Strasburg displayed the best stuff that I’ve ever seen a pitcher display. His fastball sat at 98 MPH for the evening, and even touched 100 on a few occasions (Strasburg even hit 103 on the MASN gun in the seventh inning.) He threw his fastball with pinpoint command and used it quite effectively, which set up maybe the best pitch I’ve ever seen, his power curveball — or as Strasburg calls it, his slurve. The slurve is straight filthy. It drops off the table at 83 or 84 MPH. It starts at the top of the strike zone and finishes out of the zone. Strasburg works quickly and comes right at hitters with his big heater.

Simply put, a pitcher can’t be much nastier than Strasburg was on Tuesday night. One instance really pops out in my mind — Strasburg fell behind 3-0 in the count to Pirates’ cleanup man Garrett Jones in the second inning, and Strasburg struck Jones out by blowing three pitches right by him.

Strasburg gave up a two-run homer to Delwyn Young in the fourth inning on a changeup, which apparently wasn’t as sharp as it could have been on this night. Strasburg’s changeup sat at 91 MPH on the night, a speed that apparently is a little too close to his monster fastball in order for the changeup to be as effective as it can be. Young hit a changeup that stayed in the middle of the zone out of the park.

Strasburg finished his outing by fanning his last seven hitters with electric stuff — it’s almost as if his stuff got better as the game went along. The atmosphere of Nationals Park as Strasburg was striking out the side in order in the seventh inning was almost as electric as Strasburg’s stuff.

Now, let’s be real here — Strasburg wasn’t facing the lineup of the New York Yankees or Tampa Bay Rays. He was facing one of the weaker lineups in the big leagues. Coming into Tueday’s games, the Pirates are tied for last in the league in average (.237), next-to-last in runs (187), and third-worst in wOBA (.300).

Strasburg will face much better lineups in the future. He’ll face much more patient lineups in the future. There will be nights where Strasburg’s stuff isn’t as godly as it was on Tuesday night.

But Tuesday night may very well turn out to be the night where the Washington Nationals truly arrived, because this could turn out to be the start of something huge, both for Strasburg and for the team.

The Baltimore Orioles appear to have helped greatly in solving their organizational need for middle infielders of quality all-around talent by drafting Manny Machado, and the Washington Nationals selected phenom Bryce Harper with the No. 1 overall selection in the draft.

Machado and Harper are both only 17 years old and both are advised by Scott Boras. Machado attended Brito Private High and put up gaudy numbers in his senior year, batting .639 and recorded 27 doubles, 12 home runs, and 17 stolen bases. Harper dropped out of high school after his sophomore year, earned a GED, and enrolled in the College of Southern Nevada (a junior college). Harper hit .442 with 29 homers in his lone season in a wooden bat league at the College of Southern Nevada, while earning full marks by scouts regarding anything and everything having to do with hitting. Harper’s story, both in baseball and his life in general, is very well chronicled by Jerry Crasnick of ESPN here.

The Orioles could really use some high-end talent around the diamond in the organization, and not just on the pitching mound. Machado is a magnificent start to the draft in that regard. At the shortstop position, the Orioles had a Grand Canyon-sized hole at the position organizationally, and assuming he signs, Machado will help in filling that organizational void. Machado is often compared to Alex Rodriguez because both are Latin-born shortstops with power potential from Miami-area high schools, and I’ll be honest, he does physically look like Rodriguez and his swing, too, looks similar on video.

Machado was universally considered the top talent left for the Orioles at No. 3. After Harper at No. 1, the two top talents available were generally considered to be prep flamethrower Jameson Taillon and Machado. The Pirates took Taillon at No. 2, so the Orioles took Machado. The talent drop-off from No. 3 to subsequent picks was considered to be wider than usual.

Machado, as Keith Law states in his scouting report on ESPN Insider (link for Insiders only) on Machado, he’s a “plus defender” with a good arm and power potential at the plate. Law also says Machado is “A-Rod Lite.” Law is a talent evaluator for ESPN and Scouts, Inc. on the amateur, minor league and major league levels. He was a special assistant to the general manager for the Toronto Blue Jays for 4.5 years before his work with ESPN and Scouts, Inc. I really like Law’s work because he really knows what he’s talking about and is not ever afraid to share his opinion. I posted Law’s scouting report in my last post, but I’ll post it again:

“Machado is going to get the Alex Rodriguez comparison — tall, athletic, right-handed-hitting Latino shortstop from a Miami-area high school — but A-Rod Lite is more apt, since he’s not preternaturally gifted as a hitter as A-Rod was.

Machado can hit, though, with strong, quick wrists, good rotation, and excellent extension through his swing; he does wrap his bat briefly but clears it as he loads, making it something of a red herring. He has line drive power now, but he’s going to have more power down the road as he gets stronger.

Machado has a 70 arm and good hands at shortstop; there’s some sentiment that he’ll outgrow the position, as he’s going to fill out significantly over the next ten years, but he has the tools to be a plus defender there and I imagine it’ll take a lot to convince the team that drafts him to move him to third base. He will need help with his footwork and needs to quiet down his game, as he has the habit of many talented teenagers of trying to make the flashy play. He’s committed to Florida International but is very unlikely to attend school.”

Here’s a Baseball America video of Machado:

It would have been nice to actually have a second round selection to be able to further build off of the Machado pick, but instead we are subjected to this. Also tempering enthusiasm is the fact that the Boston Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays are apparently on their way to having yet more great drafts.

Moving onto the Nationals. When Bud Selig announced Harper, a “natural” catcher, as an outfielder, I thought Selig had slipped up by mistake. Harper is mostly a catcher by trade, and there was a lot of speculation that Harper, who played multiple positions at the junior college level, would eventually become an an right fielder to reduce the wear and tear, and maximize his offensive potential. I just didn’t think the Nationals would be so quick to officially move Harper from catcher to right field.

Here’s part of Law’s scouting report on Harper:

“Harper’s calling card is his enormous raw power, a product of both tremendous bat speed and huge leverage in his swing. He’s always had the hand-eye coordination to be a good hitter for average, but the length of his swing and his own eagerness to hit every pitch 800 feet led to problems making contact last summer and fall.

CSN coach Tim Chambers and his staff worked with Harper on getting him to stand more upright at the plate and to work on hitting the ball to left, both of which contributed to his Scenic West Conference-best .417 average to go with his school record 21 home runs (breaking the old record of 12). He’s also shown improvement over the course of the spring, so while he’ll still chase a fastball up, he’s less vulnerable away today than he was in February.”

Here’s Harper hitting his second homer of his college season:

Here’s a Baseball America video of both Harper and Machado:

What’s incredible to me is that Harper seems like a relatively skinny player — he just looks like a regular 17-year-old. If he was hitting 500+ foot homers in high school, then what is he going to do when he gets bigger, stronger, and fills out?

Scary.

If I had to venture a guess about the future of Harper and Machado, I’d say that both will sign late in the signing process. Both will go to instructional league after they sign, and Harper will mash. I’d guess that each player will begin in the low levels of their organization’s minor league system next year, with Harper having the significantly earlier time of arrival at the big leagues. But I don’t think Harper is with the Nationals until mid-2012, at the very earliest. Purely speculation on my part, though.

(As an aside, this from my floormate from freshman year at the University of Maryland, Juan Cervantes:

“[Harper] has a very stark lookalike in the former WWF (now known as WWE) wrestler, the Ultimate Warrior. Although the Ultimate Warrior only won the WWF Championship once, he is still one of the more memorable wrestlers in history. The main reason for this is his excitement and his face paint, face paint that was in the exact pattern as Harper does his before games.”

Take a look at the Ultimate Warrior here and Harper here. Despite the eye black and face paint, I just don’t see it).

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.