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.

An educated guess about the NL East for 2009

1. Philadelphia Phillies
2. Atlanta Braves
3. New York Mets
4. Florida Marlins
5. Washington Nationals

The NL East is easily the best NL division, with three playoff contenders ahead of two also-rans.

The Phillies are well on their way to repeating. Despite his subpar defense in LF, Raul Ibañez adds an impact bat to the lineup that improves even on the departed Pat Burrell’s. This is the best lineup in the NL, with Ibañez, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Shave Victorino, and plenty of productive help around them. The pitching staff has an okay rotation and a solid bullpen, but the real strength is the defense, easily the best in the majors in terms of run prevention. Jayson Werth by himself is one of the best outfielders in baseball. Utley and Rollins are one of baseball’s best double play tandems, Pedro Feliz is an excellent defensive 3B and Raul is the only real weak spot. The Phillies are what the Red Sox are in the AL: a seemingly unbeatable force that’s arguably the best at scoring and preventing runs.

No team should match the Rays’ surprise run (whether or not the saberheads were really surprised), but one team that should rebound strong from a down year is the Atlanta Braves. Picking up Derek Lowe and Javier Vazquez quickly makes the Braves rotation the best in the NL, placing them ahead of the emerging Jair Jurjjens, strike throwing Japanese import Kenshin Kawakami and whichever MLB-ready rookie they elect to throw in the #5 spot. Their offense should also score a lot of runs, as the Braves have quietly assembled a consistently productive lineup built around veteran Chipper Jones and top-shelf catcher Brian McCann. Nearly all of these hitters can hit for some power, and much of the lineup consistently gets on base. The defense is merely average, but the Braves should quietly take the Wildcard in a 90-95 win season the old fashioned way: With solid pitching and solid hitting.

Sadly, the big money NY Mets just don’t have what it takes to crack the playoffs this year. Save for the huge JJ Putz trade and signing K-Rod this offseason, they didn’t really add any talent. The lineup, while one of the league’s better lineups, is essentially the same lineup they had last season. K-Rod and JJ vastly upgrade an okay bullpen to an okay bullpen fronted by two great relievers. The next best arm is one of those other players acquired in the JJ trade, Sean Green. Overall, the pitching is among the best in the NL thanks to the bullpen pickups, but the defense is simply decent, the bottom of the lineup gets a bit thin and the Mets simply don’t have enough top-shelf oomph to oust the Phillies or outlast the soon-to-emerge Braves.

The Marlins manage to stay somewhat competitive despite no budget, no fanbase and a sadistic owner, but this season they simply won’t be in the hunt. This is a 65-70 win team that, despite some young stars and a talented, developing rotation, are hampered by a weak bullpen, a subpar offense and a subpar defense. Cameron Maybin is still a year or two away from becoming a star in the Hanley Ramirez mold. Both he and Ramirez are subpar defenders who will get away with it due to their bats. New 3B Emilio Bonifacio is still a couple years away, if he will indeed meet his potential. Jeremy Hermida and Cody Ross hit for power but only give you so much in the lineup, while Jorge Cantu is the most reliable bat outside of Ramirez. Godspeed, new stadium.

The Washington Nationals will definitely hang with the Marlins for 4th in the NL East, but no one’s wrong about the Nationals being bad. They actually have an average lineup between Ryan Zimmerman, a healthy Nick Johnson and Dmitri Young, newly acquired Adam Dunn, Elijah Dukes, with help from Austin Kearns and Ronnie Belliard. They’ll score some runs. The defense is also average, rather than bad as many may think. But the big problem with the Nationals is what has to be far and away the worst pitching staff in the majors. John Lannan fronts a rag-tag bunch of kids and tomato cans, many whom would struggle to hold down the middle of most AAA staffs. Daniel Cabrera is finished, rookie Jordan Zimmerman’s going to get initiated and Scott Olsen has a gopherball problem. The Nationals should allow the most runs in the NL, and it’ll be mainly because of poor pitching.

Thoughts on random baseball ESPN showed last night

With no Mariners baseball on, I came home and flipped on ESPN, which had planned to show the A's-Yankees game. Alas, it got rained out, and the network decided to rotate around different active games at the time, similar to how CBS covers the NCAA men's Division I basketball tournament. This is a terrific idea that I wish ESPN tried regularly, though I'm sure rights issues with rival network FSN (which lets ESPN borrow the feed for games on a situational basis) makes this difficult, if not unlikely.

Anyway, I noted the following:

- Bronson Arroyo still throws the most generic assortment of Jeff Weaver-like over the plate fastballs and sloppy breaking balls. He must scout his opponents well or something, because he's managed to get away with the same simplistic approach to pitching for several years now.

- I don't hate the DH rule in the AL, but I like how letting the pitcher bat changes the complexion of an NL game. Having a man on and nobody out for a guy who is almost a guaranteed out leads a manager to do things he wouldn't do with a light hitting middle infielder. AL managers never ask a light hitting 2nd baseman to bunt a runner over in the 2nd inning. In the later innings, sure, but never early on.

- Anyone who ever complains about the milquetoast, fairweather attitudes of Mariners fans need only watch a Pirates or Nationals home game. Nate McLouth helped blow a game open with a 3 run blast off Marlins reliever Logan Kensing that one hopped into the Allegheny River behind the right field seats. The sad thing was that not only were the RF seats nearly empty, but when they cut back to home plate for the HR hitter greeting, the box seats were nearly empty as well.

Now, the Nationals can at least claim the alibi that they're awful and, to some extent, unwatchable as to why they play in front of more stadium workers than paying fans. But the Pirates have a developing team that, in recent years, has strung together enough good baseball to put up a fight in a crowded NL Central. This team has too many holes to challenge the Brewers and Cubs, sure, but they're getting better and have their share of bright spots, like McLouth and last night's hurler, Ross Ohlendorf, who put down the marlins like dogs over 7 innings. You'd think that a loyal sports fanbase like Pittsburgh would show enough support to at least fill in most of the box seats. At least move the few stragglers in the bleachers down to fill it in.

- On that note, Nationals rookie pitcher Jordan Zimmerman got out of a jam in the 2nd with a fine effort. No reaction from the fans. No reaction from Zimmerman. Man, it must suck to play for that team.

Speaking of which, Braves outfielder Matt Diaz hit a ball to center that fell in for a base hit in front of Elijah Dukes. Dukes loafed so much running it down that Diaz turned for 2nd and got in safely with the old hustle double. It said more about Dukes than it did about Diaz. I'm starting to think Dukes' recent benching over his participation in a Little League event wasn't just about being tardy.

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?