On April 25, the Washington Nationals had the 6th best starting rotation in baseball at a 3.41 ERA. That is considering all of the inherited runners the bullpen allowed to score on the starter’s ERAs. Today, the starting rotation is the 10th worst at a 4.26 ERA.
There are a myriad reasons for the decline. Some would say that this was bound to happen and was just regression to the mean. Others would say that this is just how the Nationals do their thing. They expect starters to go as far as they can go. Others say that the bullpen is to blame, and this is why manager Dave Martinez pushes his starters hard.
Honestly, we don’t know what Martinez’s true thinking is on why he pushes the starting pitchers hard. As I say, when you do that you usually get diminishing returns where you get less by going for more. And you will see the numbers below that the Nationals starters are second in the Majors in most innings.
The past two games were examples of starters having shutouts through the first 5.0 innings of the game. Brad Lord last night, and Michael Soroka this afternoon. Both were put out there for the 6th inning. Both had meltdown innings. Lord set a career high in a 93-pitch count and 6.0 innings. Soroka was in his first game back from injury. He had a very low pitch count of 67, however his velo was down 2 mph and struggled in his previous start in Triple-A in the 5th inning. During both of these games, there were relievers at the ready, but they didn’t come in for a clean inning — rather they came in after the damage was done, and in today’s game just poured extra flammable liquid on the fire.
This feels like the Andrea True Connection repeating: “More, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it,” on a scratched record. These are just Groundhog Days, and it hasn’t changed. This just continues the same way over and over, and expecting different results.
The end of last month it was pushing Mitchell Parker and Jake Irvin into the 8th inning of games with comfortable leads. Both unraveled in their next starts as expected. That is the third time that Martinez has had Irvin pitch into the 8th inning of a game — each time resulting in disastrous games to follow. In yesterday’s first game of the doubleheader, Irvin got an unexpected extra day of rest from Monday’s rainout to make his second start after his 8th inning appearance. It was a much better outcome than his previous start giving up 6-runs.
“It all starts with starting pitching. Our starting pitching needs to get better, that’s for sure.”
— Manager Dave Martinez said two years ago
Yes, the final starter’s ERA for that team in 2022 was an atrocious 5.97 , and the worst in Nats’ history by a wide margin. The 2023 Nats’ improved from 2022. But there is a lot of room for improvement going forward. We talked incessantly over the offseason about improving the defense from the 2024 season, and that should improve the starting rotation just by doing that.
Of course, not everything goes according to plan and one of the Nats’ best starters in 2024, DJ Herz, blew out his elbow during Spring Training. The Nats also lost Soroka to biceps tightness after his first start of the season, and replaced him with Lord.
But even without Herz and Soroka, the Nats had a rotation of MacKenzie Gore, Irvin, Trevor Williams, Parker, and Lord. They were doing great through April 25. As mentioned above, the Nats starters have the second most innings combined in MLB this season at 207.0 innings. That is nearly 5 2/3 innings per start.
The average age of the Nationals starting rotation is just over 27.8 years of age. That is young, yet they are pushed and pushed, harder and harder at a time when the Dodgers average just 4 2/3 innings per start, the Padres at 5 1/3 innings per start, and the Yankees and Mets are at 5.0 innings per start. Three of those teams are in first place in their divisions, and the other is a half-game from first place.
What do those teams know that the Nationals do not? They rely on analytics and keeping their starters fresh. They push on their bullpens. And they all have top-half rotations with the Mets as the best in baseball at a 2.80 ERA.
When was the last time the Washington Nationals have developed an amateur they acquired into a relief pitcher that you can say turned into a bullpen stud? You would have to go back over 15-years to Drew Storen to find one. Maybe Jose A. Ferrer will be that guy, but the failure rate in this system defies logic and has been costly to keep going through trades and free agents to build bullpens for the Washington Nationals.
The tired narrative is that the Nationals bullpen is bad because they didn’t spend enough money. The average MLB bullpen with eight active bullpen arms costs an average of $14.8 million. The Dodgers certainly skewed that number up. The Guardians are currently at $12.5 million because starter Jakob Junis was converted to a reliever. They are paying Emmanuel Clase only $4 million. The Nats bullpen as currently constructed costs $16.5 million and that price will go up when Derek Law rejoins the bullpen.
“Starting pitching is the driver to me . . . We’ve built our [rosters] based on having a guy in the middle of the diamond who gives us a chance to win every day.”
— General Manager Mike Rizzo said after the 2018 season
Easy to say for Rizzo back in 2018. He had Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg for years in rotations that sometimes had four aces. They were workhorses, and except for Strasburg, they stayed healthy. You pay dearly for those aces. In 2021, the Nationals had the most expensive starting rotation in baseball at $100 million. And the team didn’t win, Strasburg wasn’t healthy, and the rebuild began on July 31 of that year.
But Martinez cannot manage these young guys like he did his elite starters back in the day. You have to protect your starters — not baby them. When you pitch to the analytics, you will hopefully get more with less. Don’t make your bullpen problems the starters’ problems. When you push the starters, often they end up faltering in an inning where the bullpen must come in with traffic on the bases. Clean innings are better for bullpen success. Look at what happened to Derek Law last year. He was unsuccessful in 17 of his 22 appearances last year with an inherited runner on the bases. He had 44 clean appearances last year without giving up a run. He had 17 appearances where he gave up earned runs on his ledger, and 8-of-the-17 were when he entered with inherited runners. So Law was successful 44-of-53 when he got a clean inning. Yet Martinez sent him out there 22 times regardless of his failures with inherited runners.
This team lacks a fireman which in baseball parlance means a reliever who puts out the fire. Every team needs some relievers who thrive in those spots. But if you err on the side of caution and pull your starters before they get in trouble, you might get better results from the bullpen. When Soroka couldn’t record an out in the 6th inning, it took both Jorge Lopez and Andrew Chafin to pitch the 6th inning to get the three outs.
Think about today and this that Soroka ‘s first 5.0 innings gave up 0-runs. Chafin’s 1.0 inning gave up 1-run. Cole Henry‘s 3.0 innings gave up 0-runs. That’s 9-innings and 1-run. The problem is the 8-run 6th inning was 7-runs between Soroka and Lopez.
There is no rewind button, and I don’t play the hindsight game. I was emphatic well before the 6th inning today that you pull Soroka and put in Chafin to face the lefties at the top of the Guardian’s order. My comments are all in the game post and based on the traffic, hundreds of people read it. There is no revisionist history here. Maybe Chafin comes in and gets lit up. Maybe he gives up the 1-run that he eventually gave up. Who knows. No rewind button.
