Man, What a Beatdown

There have been a few positives that have come out of the first games. They do not even come close to outweighing some of the negatives, but there is reason to believe that the Nats have improved in a couple areas.

Left-handed relief: A few days ago, I realized that Joe Beimel was still unsigned (the Rockies since signed him to a crappy minor league deal) and was pissed the Nats did nothing to bring him back. Well, it is difficult to argue with their decision, as Burnett has produced consistent numbers with sustained "success" for two years now. The key is keeping him from having to appear in eighty games. Jesse English should be able to handle the lower leverage situations without during 5-2 deficits into 8-2 deficits, and occasionally stepping in to get a key 7th inning out.

There are many more reasons to worry. The bomb aside, Ian Desmond looked horribly overmatched with a runner on second and 2 out, hacking furiously at balls out of the zone. He should have that arrogance about him, knowing crappy relief pitchers will waste pitches to him because balls in the zone are problematic. That, and he may be after a couple dubious records in the field. The growing pains will make fans long for Guzman.

Jason Marquis looked shaky, almost Daniel Cabrera at time, but the 87 mph meatball deposited by Ryan Howard off the Acela sign was inexcusable. If anything, miss to Howard and pitch to Werth... don't let Howard mash a freebie. Just bad decision making and execution.

Right field is still struggling, and Cristian Guzman's cameo almost turned hilarious. Both Harris and Morse deserve about a month before searching for alternatives.

The Phillies are good, but those optimistic 78 win predictions are flying out the window quickly.

Good News

Cutting ties Daniel Cabrera doesn't look like it will be biting the Nats in the butt.

Seriously, how did he get worse?

Good News and Bad News

First, the good news. Yes, I called for his head at the beginning of the month and said if he didn't improve, he'd be gone by June 1st.

The bad news is that it looks like the Nats STILL haven't hit rock bottom, finding a way to let Livan shut them down. Johan may have something special to drop on the Nats tomorrow... he's never thrown a no-no.

Cabrera Out of the Pen?

Let's pretend that never happened. 25 pitches, 10 strikes. Three walks, one wild pitch, one out... one sacrifice.

Seven relievers will be enough.

Damnit...

I was actually considering getting tickets to Thursday's game, but then I caught wind of who was starting and decided I really can't deal with that. I have an unblemished record at Nats Park, and Cabrera's record is completely blemished. To say otherwise would symptomize battered wife syndrome. It is pretty sad that a player can drive fans away like this, but those of you who have watched him pitch all agree; he is painful to watch. He takes the artistry out of pitching with his lack of control and beleaguered pace. Hell, even the rain-shortened catastrophe took over two hours to play 5+ innings. In fact, subtracting that game out of the equation, the average Cabrera start has featured 10 runs for the opponent and a Steve Trachsel-ian 3 hours 8 minute of losing baseball. Funny that they also share a similar K/BB ratio at the end of their careers, though at least Trachsel would bother to win a couple games a month.

Basically what I am pleading here is for Mr. Cabrera to suck a little more quickly, like Barry Zito.

Cabrera's Last Stand

I know you all can’t wait for the next Daniel Cabrera start. I know I can’t. Seriously, the sky is the limit for Cabrera. He could actually join Rick Vaughn in the Hall of Shame. Seven wild pitches in 24.1 innings, adding 17 walks, 2 hit batsmen, 255 strikes on 459 pitches (55.6%). Those numbers don’t really even begin to tell the story of how poorly he has actually pitched. He has managed to do this over five starts as well, so management is coddling the giant and are not being rewarded. It would be unfair to say Cabrera is the worst starter in the NL because the Mets look like they are going to have paid 2.2 million for Oliver Perez’s body of work. He has probably been the second worst starting pitcher in the NL, though.

The sad, sad thing is that management had to know what they were getting into; it is not like he suddenly lost command. He never had it. Period. Randy Johnson didn’t begin to harness his unique anatomy and stuff until he was 29, in fact appeared to be regressing upon arriving in Seattle before breaking out in ’93. Now he’s first ballot to Cooperstown. The difference is that Cabrera broke down at the end of last season after a decent start and really needed to be fully examined before coming on board.

As noted by numerous accounts, Cabrera’s velocity is way down. Everybody wants to cover their asses and blame it on tinkering with his delivery. Yet a closer look his struggles in the second half of last year reveal similar trends. He produced fewer swings and misses as the season progressed, generally resulting in fewer strikeouts and more balls in play. This season, he has produced a total of 22 misses. That number is fine for Derek Lowe or Jamie Moyer, pitchers who pitch to contact, but a power pitcher gives up more line drives and fly balls. Power pitchers, who don’t have pinpoint control, generally rely upon beating average hitters.

A look at Cabrera’s pitch history shows that even when he has been successful, he has had fairly miserable control. He actually has survived this long because of the perception of his lack of control. First pitch fastballs resulted in 79 balls and 61 called strikes out of 193 pitches. Basically 75% of the time the batter is taking all the way. Most of the taken strikes were hittable pitches; there is no grouping on the fringes. His overall first pitch results are about 50% strikes. Yes, very poor. His slider has gotten him out of jams before, but without the velocity on his fastball, hitters now lay off it and watch it miss.

There is little hope for Cabrera to figure this out in one start or one month. Randy St. Clair doesn’t seem to have the first clue of where to start. Sending him to the minors won’t accomplish anything, except maybe further some bad habits by getting a few extra cheap punch outs. The key is to shorten his windup and delivery as much as possible, eliminate the wasted energy. He will never make the leap Johnson made, but getting him to the 7th inning would be encouraging. It's not happening and he will likely be out the door by June 1st.