Net Runs Special, 6-8-2010: Stephen Strasburg's Major League Debut (Washington 5, Pittsburgh 2)

Team	Player	Net Runs	Hit	Pitch	Def	Base	EXERA	PitOuts
PIT	Jeff Karstens	-0.671	-0.274	-0.397	0.000	0.000	4.95	15
PIT	Jason Jaramillo	-0.804	-0.803	0.000	-0.001	0.000	0.00	0
PIT	Garrett Jones	-1.788	-0.939	0.000	-0.009	-0.840	0.00	0
PIT	Neil Walker	0.807	-0.164	0.000	0.971	0.000	0.00	0
PIT	Andy LaRoche	-0.030	-0.082	0.000	0.052	0.000	0.00	0
PIT	Ronny Cedeno	1.180	-0.044	0.000	1.118	0.106	0.00	0
PIT	Lastings Milledge	2.335	0.248	0.000	2.087	0.000	0.00	0
PIT	Andrew McCutchen	-0.694	-0.912	0.000	0.218	0.000	0.00	0
PIT	Delwyn Young	0.543	1.397	0.000	-0.854	0.000	0.00	0
PIT	Javier Lopez	-1.237	0.000	-1.237	0.000	0.000	14.61	3
PIT	Evan Meek	0.606	0.000	0.606	0.000	0.000	1.76	6
PIT	Ryan Church	-0.319	-0.319	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.00	0
PIT	PIT Luckbox	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.00	0
PIT	John Russell	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.00	0

Team	Player	Net Runs	Hit	Pitch	Def	Base	EXERA	PitOuts
WAS	Stephen Strasburg	0.017	-0.412	0.429	0.000	0.000	3.78	21
WAS	Ivan Rodriguez	-0.355	0.454	0.000	-0.106	-0.703	0.00	0
WAS	Adam Dunn	2.660	2.522	0.000	0.138	0.000	0.00	0
WAS	Cristian Guzman	0.484	-0.462	0.000	0.840	0.106	0.00	0
WAS	Ryan Zimmerman	1.615	1.616	0.000	-0.001	0.000	0.00	0
WAS	Ian Desmond	0.381	-0.703	0.000	1.084	0.000	0.00	0
WAS	Josh Willingham	1.132	1.245	0.000	0.376	-0.489	0.00	0
WAS	Nyjer Morgan	-0.482	-0.482	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.00	0
WAS	Roger Bernadina	-1.066	-1.564	0.000	0.498	0.000	0.00	0
WAS	Tyler Clippard	0.143	0.000	0.143	0.000	0.000	3.10	3
WAS	Matt Capps	0.446	0.000	0.446	0.000	0.000	0.57	3
WAS	Adam Kennedy	-0.001	0.000	0.000	-0.001	0.000	0.00	0
WAS	Willie Harris	-0.240	-0.240	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.00	0
WAS	WAS Luckbox	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.00	0
WAS	Jim Riggleman	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.000	0.00	0
	Nationals Park	4.662	0.000	0.000	-4.662	0.000	0.00	0
	RE/Inning: 0.514

How Net Runs works.

More on Strasburg's debut in this piece.

Player of the Game: ... Adam Dunn?! (2.660 NRuns: 2.522 hitting, 0.138 fielding)

What about our hero, Stephen Strasburg? (0.017 NRuns: -0.412 hitting, 0.429 pitching... 3.78 EXERA)

Nationals defense: 2.828 NRuns
Nationals hitting: 1.974 NRuns

Goat: Garrett Jones (-1.788 NRuns: -0.939 hitting, -0.009 fielding, -0.840 running)

******

I don't process Net Runs with any personal bias. At most, I make judgment calls on which fielder was responsible for some plays, and whether a wild pitch was truly a wild pitch or a pitch the catcher should have blocked and didn't. But otherwise, I just put in the play by play data, my spreadsheet auto-scores it accordingly and what you get is the end result.

For any misgivings I have offered about the possibilities of Stephen Strasburg's greatness, I fully expected him to be the Player of the Game for this contest and for his pitching stats to bear out a dominant performance against the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates.

Instead, Net Runs indicates that he had simply a good game, an effort where you should expect him to allow 3 runs over 7 innings. He allowed two runs on a home run by Delwyn Young in the 4th, but I figured that would be a blip on a radar of strikeouts and groundballs that would roll up positive Net Runs like a Katamari ball.

Instead, it turns out that inning also featured three of the five line drives Strasburg allowed, each of which cost him 0.521 NRuns. Strasburg's 14 strikeouts averaged 0.180 NRuns per K, a total of 2.520 NRuns in pitching production. And the line drives cost him about 2.605 NRuns, offseting all of that and more. You can say that Strasburg had a bad lineup so far off balance that it shouldn't matter, and contextually speaking you're probably right. But on five occasions, Pirates hitters were able to square a Strasburg pitch up and drive it, and appropriately four of those line drives produced base hits, one of which was Delwyn Young's two run homer.

Strasburg still finished in the black thanks to four groundballs at 0.102 NRuns a pop, and a pop up (which it turns out ended the two run inning) for 0.102 NRuns. But a combination of the Pirates' own futility and a bit of fortune during the two run inning (a double play turned against Garrett Jones actually saved a run: Young's homer came in the next plate appearance) did just as much to cement Strasburg's dominance as Strasburg did himself.

Last night, Stephen Strasburg assured he's going to be a disappointment

... wait, what?

No, last night wasn't disappointing by any means. Last night a young and undisciplined Pittsburgh Pirates lineup spent seven innings getting played like a piano by Stephen Strasburg. And Strasburg didn't even get a lot of help from the home plate umpire, who was actually squeezing Strasburg on pitch calls quite a bit during the early innings. Strasburg got the Pirates to swing and miss pitches in the zone and got them to chase crisp breaking pitches out of the zone, ringing up 14 incredible strikeouts over 7 strong (to say the least) innings. Why would I claim disappointment is coming?

First, let's look down the road at his next potential outings.

- He's probably going to have another great game in 4 days at Cleveland during interleague play because the Indians are also awful.

- The White Sox come to DC after that, many of the ChiSox power bats are somewhat neutered outside of their bandbox home park and a lot of their mid-level bats are hackers.

- Then the Royals come to DC and the Nats will probably get him a home start versus yet another weak, hacktastic lineup.

- Then he goes to Atlanta's pitching friendly Turner Field and gets a relatively power-limp Braves lineup. It's here where he'll face his first actual test, as Atlanta currently leads the NL in walks plus has the 4th fewest strikeouts at the plate in the NL.

What's probably going to happen is Strasburg is going to throw two more terrific games, possibly a third against a somewhat respected (read: overrated) ChiSox lineup, building his already bloated hype machine as he did pitching against weakish Mountain West lineups in San Diego State's very pitcher-friendly home park during college.

But we're not going to see how relatively good Strasburg is until he offers his stuff to real, average-level MLB lineups laden with selective hitters, and he's not going to see one until he faces the Braves late this month.

The Nats planned the timing of his debut perfectly. The timing wasn't so much about starting his service time clock at the right time or controlling arb years, because they're just going to buy those out in a couple years by offering him a ridiculous contract to lock him up through his prime, as other teams have with their young phenoms (like Justin Upton with the D-Backs and Evan Longoria with the Rays). It wasn't even about ensuring several home starts: That could have been timed on several occasions during this season, and if it was about maximizing gate revenue they would have added him to the roster a month or two ago. Strasburg's hype would have assured a sellout in early April.

No, Washington's timing of Strasburg's debut was about ensuring his first starts came against crappy, beatable lineups that were easy for a talented pitcher to dominate. Instead of throwing him to the wolves and risking an up and down beginning that would undercut the hype around their now-franchise pitcher, they give him the best chance to come out looking dominant and make him look every bit like the pitcher he was hyped by everyone in the media, scouting community and blogosphere to be.

So how is he going to disappoint people? Pretty simple. As the season wears on, other teams are going to assemble scouting data on Strasburg, figure out how to attack him and maximize their chances of hitting and getting on base against him. Last night the Pirates were mostly blind squirrels, in part because they hadn't really seen Strasburg before and in part because, well, most of them aren't very disciplined hitters. Cleveland's hitters will likely suffer the same fate, as will Kansas City's.

Some of Atlanta's players will run into the same problem: Their rookie phenom Jason Heyward has struck out in over 21% of his plate appearances, not terrible but indicative that a deceptive power pitcher like Strasburg could own him. Veteran Troy Glaus has struck out in 20% of his PAs. If Nate McLouth (22% K's) plays, he could get owned. But everyone else in that lineup is fairly good at working the count AND avoiding the K. The key will be if Strasburg can induce a ton of groundballs if he doesn't rack up the K's.

And from there, Strasburg's opposition will get tougher. He gets the Mets at home to start July, and while they struggled early this season, they've got some good veteran hitters (David Wright, Jose Reyes, a surging Angel Pagan... and they might get Carlos Beltran back) that have seen the likes of power pitchers like Strasburg before and aren't going to be intimidated. Ditto with the Giants, who don't exactly have a vaunted lineup but do have a lineup of disciplined, productive veteran hitters (Bengie Molina, Juan Uribe, Aaron Rowand, Aubrey Huff et al) that aren't going to surrender like the Pirates did yesterday.

The tradeoff of the Nats giving Strasburg a soft landing is that, in dominating weaker lineups, Strasburg's going to elevate expectations so high that even if he does alright against better lineups and/or lineups that know when to attack him and when to back off, it's going to be deflating for fans when those outings aren't ownership-claiming 14 strikeout outings. That isn't fair, because Strasburg again could be effective against better lineups, but he will rarely if ever again be as good as he was yesterday and likely will be during his first 3-4 Major League starts.

Stephen Strasburg is good. Unfortunately, last night didn't tell us too much about exactly HOW good he is, other than he can dominate bad, intimidated lineups. A lot of good pitchers can dominate bad, intimidated lineups. Let's see how many batters Stephen Strasburg strikes out once the book's out on him and he's facing good MLB hitters that can get around on a 98 mph fastball and take pitches out of the zone. If he strikes out 14 batters against a lineup like the Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals or L.A. Dodgers, then I'll cream my pants with the rest of the saber-fanboys. But I doubt he's going to do that well even in his prime. He might have more days like yesterday... if he faces more bad, dominable lineups like that Pirates lineup.

Meanwhile, I don't foresee him throwing every start as good as that debut, which went as perfectly as the Nats could have hoped... mainly because of how well they timed his debut and who they threw him against. And now that Strasburg's shown people a performance beyond many's wild imaginations, he's ensured he'll never live up to the hype that casual fans have bought into. What we saw last night, and what we may see over the next 2-3 starts, is an exceptional deviation from what he will bring to the table.

That is, unless...

a) Umpires bring the LeBron Rule to MLB, and start giving him superstar strike calls on pitches off the plate to help appease the hype MLB and the media have placed on him. Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, Roger Clemens and many other stars can thank umpires for a few hundred extra career strikeouts netted in part from marginally wider star pitcher strike zones.

b) He gets hurt. Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Jake Peavy, Ben Sheets... many a phenom came out of the gates fast only to stumble headlong into obscurity once the injuries piled up. We have no assurance Strasburg will remain healthy and sharp even if the Nats are careful about deploying him.

Or...

c) He gets hit in one or more of his next three starts, which should in itself bring expectations back to Earth. (I'm not expecting it, though)

Anyway, I wouldn't pencil in Strasburg for 470 strikeouts a year. Or even 300. Let's see him strike out a few lineups with guys like Chase Utley and Manny Ramirez first... or at least a few lineups with better hitters than Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones.

In all likelihood, however, he's never going to be as good as he was last night, not over 32-34 starts a season. Analysts certainly wouldn't expect that, but a lot of casual fans might. And they're in for a letdown, even if Strasburg goes on to a Hall of Fame career.

Also, check out the Net Runs data for Strasburg's debut.

National Crisis

Between fielding a poor team with thin talent and... well, that's enough of a problem in itself, baseball's Washington Nationals face the following problems going into Spring Training:

- Despite narrowly avoiding arbitration and agreeing to a one year, $3.325 million contract, the Nationals' relations with star 3rd baseman Ryan Zimmerman may be strained and could affect the possibility of retaining the team's best hitter over the long term.

- GM Jim Bowden's being investigated for suspicion of skimming signing bonuses from prospects. Smooth move, Jim.

- Veteran starting pitcher Odalis Perez, the Opening Day starting pitcher from last season and arguably the best pitcher of a crappy bunch, is threatening a contract holdout. If he refuses to report, the Nats' Opening Day starter in 2009 projects to be middling lefthander John Lannan, he of 15 losses and ~3.5 walks plus per 9 innings in 2008, not to mention 23 HR in 182 innings pitching mostly in pitchers parks.

- Investigative journalism has discovered that top prospect Esmailyn "Smiley" Gonzalez is not only four years older than previously thought, but Esmailyn Gonzalez is not his real name: that would be Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo, part of the coverup of the Dominican's actual age. Someone may well go to jail as a result of the fradulent transaction spearheaded by agent and former major league pitcher Jose Rijo.

- The Nats' top offseason acquisition: plodding 1B/DH/strikeout machine Adam Dunn. This signing came despite having talented but injury prone 1B Nick Johnson and expensive and troublesome but powerful 1B Dmitri Young on the payroll. Both come with baggage that make trading them difficult, and GM Jim Bowden now faces the difficulty of trying to deal one or both of them instead of letting both pricey, talented sluggers ride the pine or embarrass themselves in the outfield every day.

- Meanwhile, the team's best hope is owning the 1st pick in the draft after compiling MLB's worst regular season record (59-102) in 2008. It's doubtful even Stephen Strasburg, the San Diego State ace pitcher projected to be this year's number 1 draft pick, can save this tattered bunch.

Would Montreal be willing to take the Nats back if the Nats ownership asked nicely?