Old school rules
The Nationals defy many modern analytics.
WASHINGTON — The Washington Nationals don't care what anybody thinks. Their motto might be: “I don't need a second opinion. I like mine just fine.”
Baseball's smartest minds, often with letters such as P, H and D after their names, like to believe that they are advanced mavericks, independent thinkers who, in the Wall Street traditions from which many of them came, are constantly looking for “market inefficiencies.” And if they find those inefficiencies, and can convince their owners that they have saved them tens of millions in payroll, then guess who gets a pay raise?
The Nats respect all this higher learning, all these numbers provided by “analytics.” As one team executive said, “It's good information. And you must be smart to figure out the math to get to the numbers. But once it's been done, anybody can understand it.”
So, once everybody has the numbers, you have to look for the next step, the next advantage. And the Nats may have found a few because they know that all these bright young things are just a new kind of herd. As on Wall Street, everyone thinks they are a contrarian. Few are.
There are several current tenets of “modern” dogma in baseball. The Nats appear to be going against the grain of all of them.
They now have a National League pennant that says they may not be the dumb ones who are behind the times. Maybe they've just digested the times, then looked backward to meld past and present.
“Everybody” now believes that players in their 20s are just as good, or better, than fading players in their 30s. Kids have an annual salary of less than $600,000 while those old guys, even if they're just pretty good, can often be 10 times that figure. Age 30 is synonymous with waste, 32 equals retired and 35 is deceased.
On Tuesday, the Nats’ 25-man playoff roster had 18 men past their 30th birthday, 13 who were 32 or older and six older than 35, including Fernando Rodney, 42, the oldest player in the game — by three years.
The most valuable player of the National League Championship Series was Howie Kendrick, 36, who over the past three years, has the highest batting average in the majors (.325) and a slash line comparable to Houston star Jose Altuve, 29.
The battery of Max Scherzer and Kurt Suzuki has a combined age of 71. Aníbal Sánchez, who had a no-hitter for 72⁄33 innings in Game 1 of the NLCS, is 36 and October hero Ryan Zimmerman is 35. Should these guys be in bed by 10 p.m. with a warm glass of milk?
“It just makes it sweet because, as we’re getting older, the game keeps getting younger,” Kendrick said. “The mixture of people is what makes us so good. The big reason we have success is because we truly care about the next guy.”
There's a word for that: Maturity.
The real market inefficiency is that the nonconformist conformists left Gerardo Parra and Asdrubal Cabrera (40 RBIs in 38 games as a National) — on the market free while their former teams still pay their salaries. Current closer Daniel Hudson, 32, cost almost nothing in trade despite his 3.00 ERA in Toronto because he didn't strike out quite enough men to fit the modern relief profile. His ERA in Washington is 1.44 — not sustainable, but much appreciated.
Successful modern teams, with a few exceptions, believe that batting average means next to nothing and that it’s a great statistical idea to swing for the fences and trade five strikeouts for a home run.
Since May 23, when the Nats bottomed out at 19-31, they have scored 654 runs, second only to the Yankees (683) — despite ranking only 13th in the majors in home runs over that stretch. How is that possible? The Nats led everyone in that time in archaic batting average (. 275) and onbase-percentage (. 353). They were also third in MLB in steals and had the fourth-best walk percentage. Only two teams, both in the AL, struck out less frequently.
That .275 batting average jumps out because it was done with far fewer homers than many teams. The Nats constantly “find grass,” not gloves. Why? Defensive shifts work; it's a fundamental insight into the game, just like the value of launch angle. But the Nats (and Astros) may be damaged least by shifts because they have so many hitters who use the whole field, like Kendrick, Juan Soto, Anthony Rendon, Adam Eaton and Cabrera.
“We can beat you with homers or we can manufacture runs,” shortstop Trea Turner said.
The Nats swept the NLCS with two home runs.
The Nats, as a group, are not elite defenders — ranked 10th in defensive runs (worth 25.9 runs). But their potential World Series foes are much worse — Houston is 20th in defense (-4.0) and the Yankees 21st (-4.5).
Ever since the Nats shut down Stephen Strasburg in August 2012, removing him from the playoff picture when they had a 98-win team, the knee-jerk verdict was that, while the Nats' motives of trying to maximize the chances of a long Strasburg career might be noble, they may have jeopardized their best chance at reaching a World Series.
This was the first dramatic example of the Nationals not caring what others think. For years, some in or around the game have resented the team for its bluntness. How dare you be really contrarian?
Well, Strasburg led the NL in wins and innings this season, his 10th season as a National, and his career postseason ERA is 1.10.
As for never getting another title shot, the World Series starts Tuesday and the Nats are the only team guaranteed a spot.
For years, as the Nats have suffered four NLDS playoff exits, they have maintained that they have two goals — build around strong starting pitching and try to win 90-plus games to reach the playoffs and take a shot. Sooner or later, you'll break through.
Or as veteran second baseman Brian Dozier has said all season, “This team is made for October. If we can just get there.”
Yet in a no-pennant, no-praise sports culture, the Nats were nagged for not quite being as “up with the times” as others. For instance, how can you just drop out of the Bryce Harper sweepstakes — publicly — in early December and think you can approximate his power with platoons while improving your defense and clubhouse without him?
On Tuesday, the Nats' stance on team-building — keep getting to the dance and eventually you'll get kissed — had a night of vindication.
“People think it's easy to win in the playoffs. First of all, it's really hard to get to the playoffs,” Zimmerman said. “You've got to catch some breaks. In the years past, maybe we didn't catch those breaks. We caught some breaks this year, but, more importantly, we took advantage of those breaks. So, kind of made our own luck.”
More likely, the Nats, especially those who own and run them, were probably were overdue for some breaks to help make their luck.
Don't weep for the Nats. Plenty of well-run franchises have had to wait longer than eight straight winning seasons — with the second-best regular season record behind the Dodgers since 2012 — to get to a World Series. The postseason is cruel. And it can stay cruel longer than you can stay sane.
But the Nats are not NL champions by fluke. They have followed their own ideas, fiercely independent, right down to encouraging Hudson to be with his wife for the birth of their third child instead of with the team for Game 1 of the NLCS.
Every team likes to flatter itself in the good times with a chorus of “We Did It Our Way.” In the case of the Nats, it's actually true.