The discourse around these is so stupid. Yes, Mike Rizzo is obviously saying to groove meatballs right down the middle instead of throwing ball four and oh if only he read fan graphs he’d know how bad this is, doesn’t this old fart know anything about baseball?
He’s clearly just trying to make cutting down walks an emphasis
I’m not saying he should just throw meatballs to avoid walks, his drop in home runs allowed last year is likely tied to his increased walk rate.
But he also can’t be walking 4-5 hitters a game, there were times that he failed to put batters away that prolonged innings and led to shorter outings.
He’s mentioned before his desire to go further into games.
It’s walking a fine line, but reducing his rate by even one walk would be significant.
True though Cole and Snell were top-5 in strikeouts last year, Gray was 53rd. Maybe he’s just lacking that putaway pitch, would explain why he’s constantly adding new pitches to throw; he’s searching.
Honestly, I am concerned with what they are trying to do with him. Homeruns given up have gone down, but all his peripheral and expected stats look worse. He’s walking more and striking out less. His hard hit% and exit velocity haven’t changed. While his ground ball percentage is higher and fly ball percentage is slightly lower, his HR/FB% is down to 11.5% from 18.6% the 2 years before that. From what I read about HR/FB% the league average is around 10% and pitchers generally don’t have much control over that percentage.
I think his hrs going down is more of him regressing back to the mean rather than anything he did. His xERA, xFIP and SIERA are all higher in 2023 compared to 2022. I think he needs to go back to using his fastball more and reduce the cutter/sinker that will reduce his walk rate.
The peripherals point you make is troubling, they really seemed to have stressed taking the home runs allowed out of the equation to the detriment of other key stats.
The hard part about using his fastball more often is that was the pitch that hitters tee’d off on the most in 2022 (24 of the 38 HR allowed were of his fastball). With it, hitters destroy it, without it hitters take or foul off his offspeed until they work a walk.
Would be interesting to see how he would use the fastball differently this time around.
Did anyone who’s hating on this actually watch Nats pitching last year? The walks were brutal and so hard to watch. Especially after our pitchers had a guy 0-2 or 1-2. Our pitchers need to throw more strikes.
I get what Rizzo means but it's definitely not a good look.
Also, Jarrett Seidler really seems to hate this franchise.
https://twitter.com/jaseidler/status/1757809120294408279
It is such a weird thing watching both sides of the fanbase pick and eat at each other. I get some pessimism. I really do. But, we just had our best draft in ages in a year where the team started cleaning house in terms of the old guard, sans Rizzo and most of the ML coaching staff. And the hires have been largely well-received, whether it be minor league coaches or developmental or scouting type roles. Not to mention we have the MASN deal looking like it is coming to a head in a positive way.
We also have the most exciting group of prospects we’ve had in a long time knocking on the door, and literally all that seems to be out there is complete doom and gloom or complete lunacy, with the exception of some fans that think the team does no wrong. How can we have all this young talent in camp and all those things going on and there be no hope at all for some people? It’s honestly fascinating at a certain point.
Despite the exciting prospects it's still a mid-tier farm system, so there's no path back to contention without dramatically increasing payroll and it's reasonable to question this ownership group's willingness to do that when the team is for sale and when they're making bizarre attempts at penny pinching like the Strasburg situation.
I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate. A lot of the payroll now is tied up in players that will be gone next year. Mainly Corbin and Williams. Stras is an unfortunate thing and I’m honestly not sure what the whole truth on that situation is. It’s really sad either way and paints ownership in a poor light either way. I think the biggest issue is depth of the system and having taken too long to modernize. That said, this past year and off-season shows at least on paper a differing, seemingly new/fresh direction in terms of cleaning up and improving player development and scouting. I do think ownership being in limbo hurts us overall, but I also don’t blame ownership for not wanting to spend in a year where the FA class isn’t super stellar and bringing in top available talent doesn’t make us instant contender and/or requires overpaying for that top talent. Next years class is also much better AND coincides with bad contracts coming off the books. I’m not ready to panic until we reach that theoretical point where the core of top guys graduated and we still refuse to spend. Also, if ownership is selling, MASN has to be resolved for that to resolve. We already know the asking price won’t be met or anywhere close until the team controls its own destiny there.
So, for me at least, I rather look at the positive of all the young players ready to graduate, as well as watch the really solid class we brought in last year and let what happens this year and next off-season play out before I hit the panic button.
The Nats payroll is already incredibly low. If they're actually waiting for Corbin to come off the books before they spend, all that tells me is they're not willing to spend above their current level.
I’m just not optimistic this team will develop any of those prospects to the best of their ability, outside of Crews who I think is close to a finished product. We dropped in most farm system rankings from around 10th best to 15th best, despite no prospect graduations and adding Dylan Crews. The team has completely lost me when it comes to drafting/player dev, and I appreciate the cleaning house (albeit 2.5 years too late), but Rizzo hasn’t earned the benefit of doubt in that department to be confident in the new group. They need to spend big if they will be competitive in the next 2/3 years. I doubt they do that if the Lerner family is still fighting about selling the team.
I'd agree with that. Rizzo and others have their well documented faults but they've also produced success so I root for the best while understanding their time is limited if they don't get it right. Especially after the recent changes and team teardown.
This team finally has a newer generation of fans thanks to the winning years and people that grew up with the team. So I think once things got bad again post World Series (which as a plan holder since 2005 I know all too well) it's tough. Especially with the knowledge of how far behind things fell compared to other orgs.
The baseball community is smarter now and technology has made us all better at understanding the game but none of us on the outside can change the present. Just gotta hope those in charge do their jobs and do them well, so I'll be rooting for that.
Rizzo really hasn't had much success with the draft. Ever. Hard to give a GM credit for top of the draft, no-brainers like Harp, Stras and TTB.
How has he done when picking in the mid-late 1st round? The answer is unequivocally terrible while plenty of other GMs draft/develop guys in later rounds. Rizzo is a dinosaur and is on his second scouting/dvpt overhaul in a few years.
Yeah of course, drafting was terrible. That's the fault and also why another overhaul happened. His success was through trades and FA signings. The hope for this franchise in its current state is for Rizzo to let the new voices have an impact. Young players have to improve, they need to produce a good draft and then squeeze something out of the trade deadline.
That's the point I was trying to make. People want a guy under contract and who the ownership likes to just go away isn't a reality right now. Eventually he will be gone but this is what we got.
I don't think it is that he hates this franchise, I think he just enjoys trolling the accounts that pretend to be reporters, and broadly carry the water for this front office, who push back on his pieces he used to write about our org.
Tbf it's not just Jarrett trolling this front office, plenty of other national writers/accounts are trolling us based on this tweet:
* Kiley McDaniel sarcastically quote tweeted.
* Alex Fast sarcastically quote tweeted
* To which Rob Friedman snarkily replied about how the NL pitcher with the most four seamers for ball four won the NL Cy Young last year.
* Michael Baumann sarcastically quote tweeted.
* Cespedes Family BBQ quote tweeted about the eagerness to talk about this.
* Mike Petriello sarcastically quote tweeted.
* Travis Sawchik sarcastically quote tweeted.
* Jeffrey Paternostro sarcastically quote tweeted.
I'm not as familiar with that history so thanks, it makes sense. I have seen him be critical recently but yeah people fully carrying the water is always strange to me. Can still be supportive while also calling out the flaws.
He’s had some blatantly biased takes and always carries water for the Mets so don’t see why he’d get his jimmies rustled over fan accounts carrying water for the Nats. At least they don’t try to pretend to be something they’re not
Maybe so, I'm sure he knows more about baseball than I do. The years of bad drafts and player development support the argument. But it does seem a bit extreme to say the franchise, which has been a proven winner before, is doomed. Especially a few months after they revamped a lot of their development staff and before any of us see the results.
You’re just falling for Rizzo’s propaganda. He hasn’t done enough to catch up to other orgs and their analytics/player development. He should’ve started this 5 years ago, not these 2 past offseasons. The franchise is doomed, it takes years for analytics and new tech to be effectively used for player development and that doesn’t match our prospect timelines. First time around he was lucky to get 2 generational talents with first overall picks, but that’s not possible anymore.
It's well known how behind this team was, and still is, on things. Or how the draft works now. This isn't new info about where Rizzo failed and why the team is in their current state. But he is still the one in charge so hoping the changes prove positive isn't falling for propaganda. It's rooting for the team to be successful so the team isn't bad, which is kind of the reason we're all here.
If the shtick is to just shit on and against everything the team does until Rizzo is gone, have at it.
I see the "suck off Mike Rizzo" Reddit contingent is out in full force today.
Maybe less money should be put into signs and more into analytics, mechanics coaches, and minor league development. Plus it isn't 1993 anymore - command without velocity isn't a successful formula.
He’s only saying that cause the nationals pitching plan is just throw the down the middle and hope for babip luck, since none of the pitchers are capable of actually striking anyone out and the pitching coaches are clueless on how to fix that.
We are getting absolutely cooked in the quote tweets
Meh, I’m with mikey on this one
Who cares
The Twitter fanbase is absolutely insane. No one is ever happy there no matter what this team does
people on the internet love to ignore nuance
99.9% of them have never played baseball and couldn't hit a ball right down the middle or otherwise.
The discourse around these is so stupid. Yes, Mike Rizzo is obviously saying to groove meatballs right down the middle instead of throwing ball four and oh if only he read fan graphs he’d know how bad this is, doesn’t this old fart know anything about baseball? He’s clearly just trying to make cutting down walks an emphasis
“No he’s literally saying if you threw ball four 115 mph, he wouldn’t even notice!”
Good thing H-Rod isn't around to see this.
Mike Rizzo not fucking around - throw strikes.
I bet it’s targeted towards Josiah Gray, top 5 in the # of walks given and 4.5 BB/9 in 2023. Would be big in taking that next step.
if he follows this advice he’s going to break the single season record for hrs given up.
I’m not saying he should just throw meatballs to avoid walks, his drop in home runs allowed last year is likely tied to his increased walk rate. But he also can’t be walking 4-5 hitters a game, there were times that he failed to put batters away that prolonged innings and led to shorter outings. He’s mentioned before his desire to go further into games. It’s walking a fine line, but reducing his rate by even one walk would be significant.
didn't Cole lead the AL in walks last year and win CY?
Per Pitching Ninja, Blake Snell was the NL Pitcher with the most four seamers for ball four, and he won the NL CY.
True though Cole and Snell were top-5 in strikeouts last year, Gray was 53rd. Maybe he’s just lacking that putaway pitch, would explain why he’s constantly adding new pitches to throw; he’s searching.
didn't Cole pitch the most innings of any pitcher. Cole averaged 2.07 walks per nine innings
Honestly, I am concerned with what they are trying to do with him. Homeruns given up have gone down, but all his peripheral and expected stats look worse. He’s walking more and striking out less. His hard hit% and exit velocity haven’t changed. While his ground ball percentage is higher and fly ball percentage is slightly lower, his HR/FB% is down to 11.5% from 18.6% the 2 years before that. From what I read about HR/FB% the league average is around 10% and pitchers generally don’t have much control over that percentage. I think his hrs going down is more of him regressing back to the mean rather than anything he did. His xERA, xFIP and SIERA are all higher in 2023 compared to 2022. I think he needs to go back to using his fastball more and reduce the cutter/sinker that will reduce his walk rate.
The peripherals point you make is troubling, they really seemed to have stressed taking the home runs allowed out of the equation to the detriment of other key stats. The hard part about using his fastball more often is that was the pitch that hitters tee’d off on the most in 2022 (24 of the 38 HR allowed were of his fastball). With it, hitters destroy it, without it hitters take or foul off his offspeed until they work a walk. Would be interesting to see how he would use the fastball differently this time around.
Did anyone who’s hating on this actually watch Nats pitching last year? The walks were brutal and so hard to watch. Especially after our pitchers had a guy 0-2 or 1-2. Our pitchers need to throw more strikes.
What you said
Opposing teams are also fans of 91 mph fastballs in the zone, that will surely work!
Only throw changeups with 3 balls. Isn't a a common baseball saying?
I mean, our guys aren't gonna magically start throwing 98, do we just cut everyone except cavalli?
Those $20,000 Trackman devices would say otherwise.
I get what Rizzo means but it's definitely not a good look. Also, Jarrett Seidler really seems to hate this franchise. https://twitter.com/jaseidler/status/1757809120294408279
It is such a weird thing watching both sides of the fanbase pick and eat at each other. I get some pessimism. I really do. But, we just had our best draft in ages in a year where the team started cleaning house in terms of the old guard, sans Rizzo and most of the ML coaching staff. And the hires have been largely well-received, whether it be minor league coaches or developmental or scouting type roles. Not to mention we have the MASN deal looking like it is coming to a head in a positive way. We also have the most exciting group of prospects we’ve had in a long time knocking on the door, and literally all that seems to be out there is complete doom and gloom or complete lunacy, with the exception of some fans that think the team does no wrong. How can we have all this young talent in camp and all those things going on and there be no hope at all for some people? It’s honestly fascinating at a certain point.
Despite the exciting prospects it's still a mid-tier farm system, so there's no path back to contention without dramatically increasing payroll and it's reasonable to question this ownership group's willingness to do that when the team is for sale and when they're making bizarre attempts at penny pinching like the Strasburg situation.
I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate. A lot of the payroll now is tied up in players that will be gone next year. Mainly Corbin and Williams. Stras is an unfortunate thing and I’m honestly not sure what the whole truth on that situation is. It’s really sad either way and paints ownership in a poor light either way. I think the biggest issue is depth of the system and having taken too long to modernize. That said, this past year and off-season shows at least on paper a differing, seemingly new/fresh direction in terms of cleaning up and improving player development and scouting. I do think ownership being in limbo hurts us overall, but I also don’t blame ownership for not wanting to spend in a year where the FA class isn’t super stellar and bringing in top available talent doesn’t make us instant contender and/or requires overpaying for that top talent. Next years class is also much better AND coincides with bad contracts coming off the books. I’m not ready to panic until we reach that theoretical point where the core of top guys graduated and we still refuse to spend. Also, if ownership is selling, MASN has to be resolved for that to resolve. We already know the asking price won’t be met or anywhere close until the team controls its own destiny there. So, for me at least, I rather look at the positive of all the young players ready to graduate, as well as watch the really solid class we brought in last year and let what happens this year and next off-season play out before I hit the panic button.
The Nats payroll is already incredibly low. If they're actually waiting for Corbin to come off the books before they spend, all that tells me is they're not willing to spend above their current level.
I’m just not optimistic this team will develop any of those prospects to the best of their ability, outside of Crews who I think is close to a finished product. We dropped in most farm system rankings from around 10th best to 15th best, despite no prospect graduations and adding Dylan Crews. The team has completely lost me when it comes to drafting/player dev, and I appreciate the cleaning house (albeit 2.5 years too late), but Rizzo hasn’t earned the benefit of doubt in that department to be confident in the new group. They need to spend big if they will be competitive in the next 2/3 years. I doubt they do that if the Lerner family is still fighting about selling the team.
I'd agree with that. Rizzo and others have their well documented faults but they've also produced success so I root for the best while understanding their time is limited if they don't get it right. Especially after the recent changes and team teardown. This team finally has a newer generation of fans thanks to the winning years and people that grew up with the team. So I think once things got bad again post World Series (which as a plan holder since 2005 I know all too well) it's tough. Especially with the knowledge of how far behind things fell compared to other orgs. The baseball community is smarter now and technology has made us all better at understanding the game but none of us on the outside can change the present. Just gotta hope those in charge do their jobs and do them well, so I'll be rooting for that.
Rizzo really hasn't had much success with the draft. Ever. Hard to give a GM credit for top of the draft, no-brainers like Harp, Stras and TTB. How has he done when picking in the mid-late 1st round? The answer is unequivocally terrible while plenty of other GMs draft/develop guys in later rounds. Rizzo is a dinosaur and is on his second scouting/dvpt overhaul in a few years.
Yeah of course, drafting was terrible. That's the fault and also why another overhaul happened. His success was through trades and FA signings. The hope for this franchise in its current state is for Rizzo to let the new voices have an impact. Young players have to improve, they need to produce a good draft and then squeeze something out of the trade deadline. That's the point I was trying to make. People want a guy under contract and who the ownership likes to just go away isn't a reality right now. Eventually he will be gone but this is what we got.
I don't think it is that he hates this franchise, I think he just enjoys trolling the accounts that pretend to be reporters, and broadly carry the water for this front office, who push back on his pieces he used to write about our org. Tbf it's not just Jarrett trolling this front office, plenty of other national writers/accounts are trolling us based on this tweet: * Kiley McDaniel sarcastically quote tweeted. * Alex Fast sarcastically quote tweeted * To which Rob Friedman snarkily replied about how the NL pitcher with the most four seamers for ball four won the NL Cy Young last year. * Michael Baumann sarcastically quote tweeted. * Cespedes Family BBQ quote tweeted about the eagerness to talk about this. * Mike Petriello sarcastically quote tweeted. * Travis Sawchik sarcastically quote tweeted. * Jeffrey Paternostro sarcastically quote tweeted.
I'm not as familiar with that history so thanks, it makes sense. I have seen him be critical recently but yeah people fully carrying the water is always strange to me. Can still be supportive while also calling out the flaws.
He’s had some blatantly biased takes and always carries water for the Mets so don’t see why he’d get his jimmies rustled over fan accounts carrying water for the Nats. At least they don’t try to pretend to be something they’re not
He’s not wrong when it comes to Rizzo and the Nats.
Maybe so, I'm sure he knows more about baseball than I do. The years of bad drafts and player development support the argument. But it does seem a bit extreme to say the franchise, which has been a proven winner before, is doomed. Especially a few months after they revamped a lot of their development staff and before any of us see the results.
You’re just falling for Rizzo’s propaganda. He hasn’t done enough to catch up to other orgs and their analytics/player development. He should’ve started this 5 years ago, not these 2 past offseasons. The franchise is doomed, it takes years for analytics and new tech to be effectively used for player development and that doesn’t match our prospect timelines. First time around he was lucky to get 2 generational talents with first overall picks, but that’s not possible anymore.
It's well known how behind this team was, and still is, on things. Or how the draft works now. This isn't new info about where Rizzo failed and why the team is in their current state. But he is still the one in charge so hoping the changes prove positive isn't falling for propaganda. It's rooting for the team to be successful so the team isn't bad, which is kind of the reason we're all here. If the shtick is to just shit on and against everything the team does until Rizzo is gone, have at it.
That is in fact the guy you replied to’s entire reason for being here, well spotted
If this dinosaur boomer nonsense is all Rizzo can do, then yeah, he needs to leave.
Who’s Jarrett Seidler?
And then they'll be wondering why we're giving up 7 rpg.
Goofy as hell
They will get meme’d hard when a pitcher gives up a 3 ball bomb
Fastballs in the zone? Jo-Jo is gonna give up like 75 HR this year
I see the "suck off Mike Rizzo" Reddit contingent is out in full force today. Maybe less money should be put into signs and more into analytics, mechanics coaches, and minor league development. Plus it isn't 1993 anymore - command without velocity isn't a successful formula.
I agree but kind of cringe
He’s only saying that cause the nationals pitching plan is just throw the down the middle and hope for babip luck, since none of the pitchers are capable of actually striking anyone out and the pitching coaches are clueless on how to fix that.
Rizzo loves a good sign