Paging Sam Hutcheson, Sam Hutcheson to the white courtesy phone….
ATLANTA — Sunday night, when the Washington Nationals needed runs to break a tied score, a relic from their past lumbered in from left field. Livan Hernandez, the man who threw the first pitch in Nationals history, the soft-tosser who started opening day last year and became obsolete this year, emerged from the Atlanta Braves’ bullpen. The carnage that followed felt like a rally wrapped inside some kind of ritual, the Nationals at once pounding the Braves and further smashing their own history into dust.
The Nationals’ lambasting of Hernandez lifted them to a 7-2 victory at Turner Field and a resounding sweep of the Braves, their first this season after nine chances. Gio Gonzalez silenced the Braves with seven electric innings, striking out 10 while allowing one lonely hit. Gonzalez bettered Brandon Beachy, the major league ERA leader, who received little help from the collapsing team around him. [...]
[Gio] Gonzalez has staked an early claim to the top tier of the National League. He has a 2.04 ERA, a 7-1 record and leads the National League with 79 strikeouts. Gonzalez has allowed five or fewer hits in each of his last nine starts. In 612 / 3 innings, Gonzalez has yielded only 33 hits.
“Hopefully,” Harper said, “he can get a Cy Young this year.
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Perhaps not.
EDIT: The Nationals are likely going to end up with the NL Pitcher of the Month for two consecutive months now (Strasburg in April, Gonzalez in May). Here's to hoping Jordan Zimmemann really steps it up in June.
However, Harper learned his lesson the second time around.
And yes, Harper adjusted. In a major way.
Historical note: When the Orioles had their best season in Camden Yards (1997), they also showed they were serious by going to Atlanta and sweeping the Braves in a weekend series.
(Unfortunately the key stuff is Insider-only, but basically the quotes are all grim-sounding stuff from Braves players saying that they don't know what's going wrong, that they have to try harder, that yeah injuries suck but every team has them, etc. etc.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals-vs-braves-bryce-harper-homers-again-washington-completes-sweep/2012/05/27/gJQAyxLYvU_story.html
Crap, that is totally my fault. I forgot to drop the correct URL into the box when I submitted the article. If there's any way for one of the mods to correct it, I'd be grateful.
Really? I mean, I think he's a ####### phenomenon, but this is a serious comment.
Perhaps "collapsing" is too strong, but they did drop 3 to the Reds in Cinci and got swept at home by the resurgent Nationals for 7 in a row. Their sparklines look like a parabola heading down. You gotta beat the good teams to prove that your own team is good.
Speaking of injuries to catchers, let's examine the Nationals' situation:
Wilson Ramos- done for the year, perhaps a blessing considering his "defense"Jesus Flores- left yesterday's game with hamstring tightnessSandy Leon- wrecked in home plate collisionCarlos Maldonado - career minor leaguer
Anybody know where the Nats can find Wiki Gonzalez???
p.s. It's a been a while since Nats fans have felt this good about The Large Tub of Goo taking the mound, and he delivered.
Though sometimes a good team can drop seven in a row even to teams that aren't that good and still be just fine in the end. The seven game losing streak for the Braves isn't that important, what will matter is what they will do after their excellent start was interrupted like this.
Except for say Mike Trout who is better RIGHT NOW.
I can understand believing that Harper has the most promising future of any rookie you've seen, based on his age. But I can't see any argument at this point that he's actually a better player than Fred Lynn or Albert Pujols were during their respective rookie seasons, to name just two.
you obviously didn't watch albert EFF pujols real too much his rookie year. mostly because he was some nobody who was a 13th rounder and hadn't been pimped to high heaven for 3 straight years like harper. but pujols was beyond incredible from his first PA.
and this year, there is no barry lamar bonds quality player in the NL so he won't be overshadowed neither, like pujols was.
notttt really..I mean, he showed flashes through the year, but on August 6th, he was sitting at 9-8 with a 3.42 ERA. Certainly promising for a rook. But from then on he was lights-#######-out. His last 9 starts he was 8-1 with a 1.07 ERA*. I was living in NY at the time, and EVERYBODY stopped to watch his games during that stretch.
*EDIT: and with 105 K's in 76 IP
Really? I mean, I think he's a ####### phenomenon, but this is a serious comment.
Okay, I should have qualified it by saying that Harper's the best 8-tool position player rookie** I've ever seen, with the 6th tool being an amazing baseball intelligence for someone his age, the 7th tool being hustle, and the 8th tool being position versatility. He won't likely be surpassing Lynn's or Pujols' rookie years in terms of stats, but I honestly see more overall upside in him than in either of those other two.
And then there's this: Harper is only 19, which makes him two years (at least) younger than Pujols and four years younger than Lynn at the time they made their ML debuts.
There are few other phenoms that come to mind:
Mantle: More raw power and speed, but nowhere near the plate discipline, and a far less polished sense of baseball awareness. Mantle didn't really "grow up" until he'd been playing for several years.
Mays: Probably the closest to Harper at the same age, but at this point Harper seems like a more developed player. Mays wasn't really "Mays" until he came back from the Army, and by then he was just turning 23.
Griffey: Very close, but he didn't really start to show his stuff until his second year.
Frank Robinson: A stronger purely offensive force, but his arm was weak.
Update: Once again, Harper's great read of a hit into the gap just got the Nats another run. He seems to do something like this almost every ####### day. It's his almost uncanny peripheral vision (or field awareness) that really sets him apart from any other rookie I've seen, certainly any other 19-year old.
**Point taken about Dwight Gooden, who was an equally phenomenal 19-year old rookie.
What about the 20 YO SS who led the league in batting, runs, and had 91 XBH?
Obviously he didn't come to mind. Clue me in.
He wasn't a rookie. His rookie season was technically 2 years before. But it was his first full season in the majors.
You're right. He had more playing time the year before than I thought. Though I should have known, because I knew he didn't win ROY.
What would Soriano fetch? It looks like there's this Iranian kid blocked in the Gwinnett rotation.
That, and his swing reminds me of a catapult uncoiling. Its like he was a long drive champ in a former life.
They are one point off in wRC+ at the moment, and Trout's line is being propped up by a .368 BABIP. I'll take Harper, who is also 14 months younger.
Nice adjustment, but the second one wasn't nearly as good a pitch, as Hershiser noted.
What the Braves need is to not have their top three hitters out of the lineup with various ailments, and a fifth starter.
If the Nats are the best the league has to offer, the league is pretty bad.
Good lord, it's like you boys haven't seen a baseball player before. Do you squirt one out every time you watch the boy run or something?
The next decade is looking pretty grim for the Braves, eh Sam?
Truth. With the Phillies old and beat-up, it's an underwhelming NL field. I still think the Cardinals are the most likely pennant-winner, but the Nats could do it too.
Of course, given the circumference of Bonds' steroid-swollen head, he overshadowed entire zip codes when the sun was just right.
I haven't seen Harper play, and when will I? I don't have cable TV, so I will have to wait & see if the Nationals make it far into the postseason on a broadcast channel. Or to Arlington for the World Series IRL, which would suit me fine ...
Tomorrow the Nats-Marlins game is the free game of the day on mlb.tv if you're free in the evening.
Quite possibly, but if so, it's due to the horrendous TV deal they're locked into, not due to the talent of the Nationals. I repeat, for those of you who may be too young to know what good baseball teams look like, but the Nationals aren't that good. If this is the best the league has to offer, the league is weak.
When an "experienced" observer like Andy suggests that Harper is better than DiMaggio, I'm impressed.
Thanks! – I didn't know anything was free on mlb.tv :)
It's actually quite a great system they've implemented this year (I think). One free game every day. Or it would be great if I didn't already have an account.
A moderately talented rotation, a hum-drum pen, and an offense that might be best described as pedestrian. Someone fire up the wurlitzers and get the harpers singing. These praises won't write themselves!
And you wouldn't expect them to be, what with several of their key players on the DL, including their best hitter.
But if it's any consolation, the Braves can't possibly be that bad. They'll snap out of it and win a game sometime soon, I can almost guarantee it.
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Harper's the best rookie I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of them.
When an "experienced" observer like Andy suggests that Harper is better than DiMaggio, I'm impressed.
I'm flattered, but I'm not quite that experienced, since Dimaggio came up eight years before I was born. I actually never saw him play at all---missed him by a year.
I think Detwiler is probably still #6 even though Wang is taking his slot in the rotation. Which is pretty good depth wise.
Detwiler has 9 starts. How is not at least #5?
The Nationals' mediocrity has little to do with the Braves' struggles. The problem with the Braves is that Tommy Hanson is a glorified #4 at best, Jair Jurrjens is just now starting to get hitters out at AAA, and Mike Minor has shown no inclination that he could do any better down there. The Braves aren't as bad as they are playing right now. They're hurt and eventually their starters will stabalize a bit - assuming they find someone to take Minor's spot and demote him. But again, that has little to do with the Nats.
The Nationals, even when healthy, simply aren't that good of a team. The fact that they beat up a Braves team that was missing Chipper Jones, Brian McCann and Freddie Freeman doesn't change that fact.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
----Proverbs 16:18; William Tecumseh Sherman, 1864
He was in the rotation, and on many teams would still be, but he was so-so of late, leading the Nationals to announce that a now healthy Wang would take his spot.
That the Braves offense collapses when it is missing a fragile 40 year old, a catcher, and a 1B who had a 116 OPS+ last season is a very damning statement on the quality of the team Frank Wren has put together. All spring the talk in Atlanta was about the overabundance of pitching. The solution was to pay the Indians to take Derek Lowe away and watch as the trade value of Minor (an overreach when he was drafted) and Jurrgens dissipate like the fog off the Chattahooche. Nothing meaningful was done to help the lineup that must rely on Chipper somehow being held together with duct tape and bailing wire and McCann not wearing down catching 135+ games.
"Moderately talented," eh? Sure, Sam. Whatever you say. How's Jair Jurrjens doing in AAA these days?
The Nationals were missing Morse, Werth, Storen, Lidge & a bushel of catchers - which seems like a greater loss. Since none of those Atlanta injuries are pitchers, they wouldn't seem to be much of an excuse for the Braves giving up at least 7 runs a game, as they did in all 3 against the Nationals and again today against the Cardinals.
Perhaps true, but I find it hard to take criticism of any team's roster construction seriously when you can't spell the players' names correctly.
One true top tier starter, a couple of 2-3 possibilities, and rotation filler. But by all means, buy high like any fan-boy would. More the fool you.
Poorly, as I've noted already. As I've also noted previously, this has nothing to do with the true talent level of the Nationals. The Phillies mini-dynasty that is aging out of competitiveness these days was a truly talented team. The Nats of 2012 are not. But lie to yourself if it makes you feel better. Hell, throw in a few jokes about war criminals and crimes against humanity too, if it makes you feel all gushy inside. You're still wrong and showing your stupidity to the world.
As I've noted already, the lack of pitching behind Hudson and Beachy is notable, and the flameout of Tommy Hanson continues apace. There's no such thing as a pitching prospect, a fact you lot with Gio Gonzalez' member down your throats might consider in some depth while deciding whether to spit or swallow.
What I remember most is the way the Nats announcers were heaping praise on Harper, and it came off as pretty over-the-top. At one point Harper tagged up from second and advanced to third on a moderately deep fly ball (like most players do) and Santengelo spent the next 15 minutes waxing about Harper's baseball intellect that "CANNOT BE TAUGHT".
Now, through no fault of his own, I'm always going to think of Harper as that "CANNOT BE TAUGHT" guy.
I was referring to all the young talent they have, not this years team so much. It's not unreasonable for you to assume the Nats will find a way to screw it up, but it looks like there is a good chance they'll have both the best starting pitcher and best position player in the league for the next 5-10 years, and that's a heck of an advantage.
Let's not kid ourselves, Sam: both you and I know that the only possible 'war crime' Sherman committed was in leaving any of those secesh bastards alive. Union!
Strasburg may become the best pitcher in the league. Any assumption that Harper will be the "best position player" is so comically premature as to be sort of pathetic. I mean, sure, the only players in the league who could possibly out perform the God Child Harper are probably Jason Heyward or Matt Weiters, right? Maybe Buster Posey?
Strasburg. Gonzelez and Zimmerman are second tier candidates at best.
Yeah, the only thing funnier than Sherman's march to the sea was 9/11 and gassing Jews.
Say what you mean. I'm not interested in attempting to read your mind.
And I'm sorry, it's still funny to joke about Sherman's March to the Sea. Don't even waste our time attempting to analogize it to 9/11 or the Holocaust (!!). The Confederacy was waging a brutal war of secession in order to uphold their right to enslave human beings on the basis of their skin color, FFS. If anything, they got less than what they deserved, frankly.
Is it surprising that an enlightened fellow like Sam Hutchenson so casually attributes homosexual behavior toward those that have a different view of the relative strengths of the teams in the NL East? Remind me why he is here and Kevin is gone?
I won't repeat the rest.
At what point does a pitcher move beyond prospect? Gonzalez has had 2+ years of solid to outstanding performance. In a list of pitchers with at least 400 IP since 2010, he is 11th in ERA+, just behind Felix Hernandez. Second tier at best? The guy would be an ace on 2/3 of the teams out there, more, considering that 5 of the 10 guys ahead of him are bunched on 2 teams.
Roy Halladay is a top tier starter. Adam Wainwright is a top tier starter. Matt Cain. Justin Verlander. Gio Gonzalez is not.
The Nazis were pretty much evil incarnate. Dresden was still a crime against humanity. al Qeada are a bunch of evil #####. Torturing them is still a war crime. You don't get to be evil just because the other guys are.
This, I don't get.
There are probably three, maybe four Braves SPs I'd trade Matt Garza for straight up. I know Garza isn't Sabathia, but I'd easily go straight up for Teheran, Delgado, Beachey, or Minor. Heyward still looks like he's going to be at least a Jason Bay back when Bay when was good. Freddie Freeman looks like a legit plus 1B. McCann isn't that old yet. Francisco is a perfectly cromulent replacement for Chipper.
All things consider, I'd pretty much let the Braves take any 10 Cubs not named Castro for just 3 Braves.
There are some maybes, yes, but I don't think there's an organization's top to bottom pitching I'd take over the Braves. The Nats might be a smidge better at the moment at the major league level, but I don't think that will be true this time next season.
The clock is ticking on this one. His OPS+ this year is down to 105. His career OPS+ is now 114. He's still only 22 of course but the good Bay (ages 25-30) put up a 131 OPS+ and was a 3-3.5 WAR player. Heyward's main asset at this point is his defense (which bWAR loves) so he's looking more early Luis Gonzalez right now.
Quickly. He had a good opening two weeks or so, and then started hitting like 2011 again. Not good.
The clock is ticking on this one. His OPS+ this year is down to 105. His career OPS+ is now 114. He's still only 22 of course but the good Bay (ages 25-30) put up a 131 OPS+ and was a 3-3.5 WAR player. Heyward's main asset at this point is his defense (which bWAR loves) so he's looking more early Luis Gonzalez right now
Aw, don't be too hard on Heyward. At least he fesses up when he gets caught sleeping in the middle of a play and Harper steals his jersey.
If his stock has fallen that far, I would gladly salvage.
I don't think anyone is suggesting they trade him away for a bag of beans. Simply that the shine is off the star a bit.
I passed over this the first time, not understanding what to make of it, but Sam also dismissed Tommy Hanson, he of the career .600 winning percentage and 121 ERA+, as a "glorified #4 at best." Is he nuts, or does he just use hyperbole in indecipherable ways?
He's 22 and has a career OPS+ of 114 over 1200 major league PA's. I realize that's heavily weighted toward his freshman year, but I still think he's -- next to Trout and Harper and probably Castro -- the position player under 25 I'd most want. I might flip a coin between him and Montero, but I can't see him any lower than 5.
trout
harper
mccutchen
lawrie
adam jones
that seager kid in seattle
contrast that with a guy like nyjer morgan and his fake hustle where when it counts he's staring at first while half running to first and so doesn't beat out the catchers throw on a short to catcher to first double play that shouldn't have happened.
i like the future. and am eager to shed some of the past.
you don't think adam jones is fun to watch?
Good lord people, Heyward spent April moonlighting as Vince Coleman because he didn't quite have his stroke yet. Contract, age, and performance, are they're 5 players around 25 you'd rather have than Heyward?
if you guys want to rant about value go ahead
i was just appreciating that a recent batch of young players in both leagues are not doing the lollygagging bs that was endemic in the league ten years ago when everyone was desperate to look cool by not trying or running unless absolutely necessary.
Giancarlo "Mike" Stanton has to be ahead of Heyward at this point as well.
I know, granted, I've probably watched him at most a dozen times, but Heyward strikes me as a ballplayer. If he's timid, it sometimes seems to me it's more a manchild unsure if it's OK for him to excel. I just think when it's all said and done, Heyward really is going to be a star - maybe not quite inner circle, but a sort of Griffey without the baggage... or clubhouse recliner.
And I have to say, that's one heck of a prediction given Heyward's continuing downward slide. I only wish the best to him, but it seems a bit premature.
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