NEW DIRECTION: The Washington Nationals Are Headed In A Good Direction With Analytics

NEW DIRECTION: The Washington Nationals Are Headed In A Good Direction With Analytics

Through all the chaos for the Washington Nationals, I do have one good takeaway over this past week, and that is the Nationals, they’ve got a new sense of direction, and it’s a good one. You are Locked on Nationals, your daily Washington Nationals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Thank you all for making Locked on Nationals your first listen every single day as we are free and available wherever you get your podcast. And yes, we are the Locked On Nationals podcast where we are part of the Locked On podcast network. Again, it is your team every single day. And later on in today’s show, we will be discussing the Washington Nationals recalling some of their top prospects. Bobby Barl’s Robert Hassel the third has made a comeback to the major leagues. He had a big weekend. We’ll have that discussion for you later on in today’s show. And also Drew Millis, shout out to him. We’ll have that discussion later on in the show today. And in the second segment, typically it would be a national stock report Monday, but the Nationals, they had a historically bad weekend that we do have to discuss unfortunately. But I want to start off just kind of recapping the past few weeks and really kind of hone in on the trade deadline because while the Nationals might be a 100 loss team, this team does have a sense of direction and it’s a good one in my opinion. But this episode is brought to you by 5Hour Energy Transfusion. Go to 5 hour energy.com today and use my promo code locked ongolf to receive 20% off your order. Only valid through September 30th. Order transfusion flavored 5-hour energy shots today. So, as we were saying, the Washington Nationals have a new fresh sense of direction and I am here for it. And I think that this is kind of a rude awakening for a lot of people, but right now the Nationals I do believe are on the right track. Now, before we get too caught into it, what does the right track mean? The right track does not mean they’re going to win 35, 40 games over the next two months. It does not mean that the Nationals will lose 70 games over the next two months. It means that this organization and the eyes within the baseball operations department are finally facing frontward. And I think right now after this deadline, after the MLB draft, I feel really good about where the Nationals are headed. And here’s why. I think the Nationals right now, they have lacked for years someone who is allin on analytics, someone who is allin on data, someone who believes in the 21st century of baseball. It’s a different game now. the Nationals under Mike Rizzo. It was that scouting boots on the ground era. And while there was a time for that and while it was successful for him, it became pretty clear and evident to me that this has totally passed him. Baseball now but now nowadays is about getting an edge. Baseball nowadays is taking analytics and using them for your direction. The reason why baseball is such an analytical driven sport is because you have a 162 game sample size. You have a good direction and a good sense of what guys are each and every single day based on those maths and analytics. And while yes, anything can happen, it doesn’t mean that you are going to win if you use analytics correctly. The Oakland A’s use analytics. They’re not the best organization in baseball. The Pittsburgh Pirates, they use it. The Tampa Bay Rays, they do it. Maybe not the Pirates, but a team like the A’s and a team like the Rays, they’re better set up for future success than what the Nationals are. At least that’s what they were. I believe that the Nationals are finally adopting that. And Mike Dearlo said as much over this past week. One thing that Spencer Nusbomb of the Washington Post asked Mike Dearllo in his uh post trade deadline press conference what I thought was very interesting. He gave kind of an insight of what the Nationals were thinking and kind of how they were thinking. And again, in years past under Mike Rizzo, they have never been this analytics data organization. And Mike Dearlo made it known that this year was different. And he had this to say. Quote, I do think, now again, this was asked about how they inputed analytics and data into their decision-making. He says, “I do think, and this is no knock on how we’ve done things in the past, everybody has their own recipe for success, and everybody has their own style of how they do things. I think probably some of the conversation in the room this year was a little different in some ways. Maybe some elements of player tracking data or how we’re evaluating players was somewhat different, but we also had strong scouting takes as well and we’re talking to scouts. So, I think some of the conversations, what was discussed were a little bit different, maybe a little bit more emphasis on the numbers in certain situations, but we were also still heavily valuing what our scouts on the ground saw all across the country. Beautiful answer. That is what we want. And this is not to say that Mike Grizzo was not doing that. Mike Darlo, it was his right-hand man. Mike Darlo, as we now know, is heavy in analytics. He went to an Ivy League school and he is applying that to baseball. Now, this is the kind of direction that you want from this front office. And I’m just singling out the front office here because ownership is a whole different discussion at this point. But if you can get backed from ownership with this equation here, no pun intended, that is a beautiful recipe. And again, the Nationals need to go all in on analytics to make this thing work because right now this team is ran like a small market team. Wrong. It should not be a small market team, but here we are. So, you have to make adjustments and these adjustments are actually happening with Mike Darlo at the helm. I’m not here to pound on the table and say Mike Darlo should be the guy. The Nationals should have a widespread search at this point for their next president of baseball operations and their GM. But the things that he is saying and the things that he is feeding me right now is making me feel good. And I have not felt this way about this team in quite literally probably three, four, five years. This season has opened up the floodgates for the fan base. The fan base is livid. I have never seen this fan base up in arms the way that it has been this season, but right now, maybe it’s just Mike Dearlo saying these things, but I am actually hearing and seeing the new change of direction from this team. And while it is hard to see every single day watching this team, it’s not going to happen overnight. But what they did do this trade deadline, I thought was really impressive. And one kind of instance of what I saw from them, again going back in analytics was actually the one guy that they got, Christian Franklin. Christian Franklin gets on base at a very frequent rate. And I even saw one tweet about this I thought was pretty funny, but we’ll get into that a little bit later on. But the reason why that is important is that he walks at a 17% rate right now down in the minor leagues. He gets on base. I’m gonna assume that you have seen the movie Moneyball. What did Brad Pitt say? He points at Jonah Hill and he says he gets on base. That is part of the data and analytics for this team. And that is how teams get to that next step. That is how teams kind of just revolutionize the game of baseball and make it a numbers game for them. It simplifies it in a sense. You bring it down to math. You use the data. You collect the data and you use it to your hopeful advantage at some point. I actually have trust that this thing is going to work. I have trust that this baseball operations department, they are finally operating in the 21st century. And again, it is not a knock on Mike Rizzo. If you were to ask Mike Rizzo to be an analytics guy, that would never work out. It simply would not. He is a big market GM. Boots on the ground, spending money, making savvy moves. This is not his forte, but this is Mike Darlo’s move. And I actually believe in it. I actually see it. And I think this does work out ultimately for the best. Again, you are not going to see the results happen overnight. You are not going to see this team flip into a winning ball club, but you will see in 2026 hopefully a better, much improved season from this team because you do have talent and we’ll see what they do this off season. Do you trade away Mackenzie Gore? Do you use the analytics and have that on your side? Maybe. But the Nationals finally have that sense of direction that we have all been wanting for quite some time now. And Mike Dearlo, again, he’s the interimm GM. The interimm tag is still there, but he has proven that he’s not just saying we’re using analytics like in years past. He is using it and using it wisely. Moving off guys like Alex Call in the draft with Eli Willis drafting him number one overall. These are all analytical-minded moves that have allowed the Nationals to kind of spread their wealth out. And as we saw with this trade deadline, I think Alex Call, the trade that you made, sending him to the Dodgers and getting back two solid pitching prospects in return. You notice that it’s not just one big-time prospect. You’re kind of spreading that wealth out a little bit. These guys may not turn out to be superstars, but these may be very impactful players for this team moving forward. And again, even if they don’t work out, even if these guys are bust down the line, let’s just say that they are, you can trade them, you can move them for pieces, you are doing the right thing here. And these are how the good teams operate and the good organizations operate. So, it may be tough to see the foot view here for the Nationals. I can actually kind of see it and I do kind of believe it. It’s going to be a long road ahead. The Nationals have a long ways to go to climb up that mountaintop again. But I do like the sense of direction and I believe in it. And honestly, it is a breath of fresh air for this team and they need it. So, you probably won’t see me ranting too much over the next two months about how the Nationals are losing every single game. This just comes with the territory. We’re going to have to sit this one out and hopefully things work out for the best in the next few seasons. So, but you can stay tuned to Locked on Nationals to hear the most of that. But now, now I said I’m not going to be ranting too much, but the Nationals had a historically bad weekend and oh my gosh, it was bad. We’ll get into that after this. Time to fuel up and turn it up with 5hour energy transfusion. It brings the bold grape ginger and lime flavor of your favorite golf drink minus the alcohol into a quick energizing shot. Whether you’re sinking birdies or just making memories with friends, this one’s a hole in one for your energy game. Let’s be honest, some days on the course or off of it, you just need that extra boost to stay sharp and energized. And the other day I went golfing and I had my 5-hour energy transfusion and I was kind of feeling a little bit weary on that sixth hole. I finally poured up my 5-hour energy transfusion and bam, I had a great taste drink right in my right hand and all of a sudden I started to hit my good shots that I typically don’t hit. So thyroid energy, you know, there’s no studies there, but it did make me feel better. And if you feel better, you probably play better as well. So if you go to fiveoury.com today, that is the number five hourgy.com. You can use my promo code locked on golf to receive 20% off your order. This offer is valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders. Whether you’re meeting up with friends or trying to turn 18 holes into 36, get the energizing boost you need to power through. order transfusion flavored 5-hour energy shots today. And thank you all for making Lockdown Nationals your first listen every single day as we are free and available wherever you get your podcast. So as we were saying, the Nationals had a historically bad weekend and this is not a drill after Friday tonight’s nine-run outing by the Nationals offense. Well, that went to bed real quick. And the storyline of this weekend was the Brew Crew. Oh my gosh, they are a buzzsaw. And the Nationals ran into them. The Brewers racked up 56 hits over a three-game series against the Washington Nationals. It was the most by an NL team in a threegame series since the Brooklyn Dodgers collected 57 hits against the Pirates from June 23rd to June 25th in 1950. 1950 the most hits after I mean just oh my gosh after the nationals literally just trade away everybody and I spend the first 12 minutes of this show talking about how I feel good about the sense of direction I now have to tell you guys about a historically bad weekend by the Washington Nationals. So let’s get into it here. First and foremost again this is a bad baseball team. This is kind of what you expect when you had Mitchell Parker going on the bump for the Nationals on Friday night’s performance. He gave up 12 hits in his four innings. And then in Saturday, Jake Irvin comes in the game. And yes, we all know what happened there as well. He gave up eight hits in four innings and five earned runs as well. And then Brad Lord yesterday, while he was a little bit better than what the stat line may indicate, he also was not at his best for the Nationals as he went four and two/3, three earned runs. He did give up that big home run, had six strikeouts. He was definitely the best pitching performance by far this weekend. But guys, the early season struggles from what we saw with this bullpen, it’s back and it’s better than ever. After that game yesterday, Ryan Lutus was optioned to TripleA Rochester. And again, the Nationals right now, this bullpen is gonna be like the reason why I would want to turn off a Nationals game at this point. The bullpen is alltime bad yet again. And it’s looking like that way moving forward. Now, the Nationals again, they could go into this thing maybe trying to play this analytics game and maybe try to play the matchup game, but right now, who do you turn to in this bullpen? Who can you say to yourself, I feel good about these guys? Because right now at the Nationals, you’ve got Cole Henry. I like Cole Hen Cole Henry a lot, actually. I like Andre Lara at times. I like Jose Ferrer at times, but Jose Ferrer has proven to be wildly inconsistent. He will go four outings when he strikes out eight guys. You’re like, “Okay, he’s kind of found his stuff again.” And then yesterday happens, you’re just like, “Oh my gosh, find the zone number one.” And when you do find the zone, don’t have it be middle the way that it was in yesterday’s outing. This is going to be a frustrating watch moving forward. And as we saw this past weekend, the frustrations just mounted for the Washington Nationals. And by the way, yesterday, the Milwaukee Brewers again put up 14 runs in that game. Saturday, the Milwaukee Brewers, they put up eight runs. And on Friday, they put up, check the notes real quick, 16 runs. This team got shellacked by the Milwaukee Brewers. Now, let me just say this. The Brewers are the best team in baseball right now. They are a buzzsaw. They have got great pitching. They’ve got a solid bullpen. They have an awesome offense that, as we have seen, it is a very potent one as well. I was at the game on Friday and let me just say this, the Nationals kind of seemed a little deadbeat. This team just knows that they stink. They have their vacations planned in October most likely at this point. They know what’s coming. They know that there’s gonna be a lot of changes this off season and hopefully things will get better. But watching this weekend made me realize just how much it sucks watching a really bad team. And the difference between this year’s team compared to 2024 and in 2023 was that those few seasons, these past few, we realized that we were going to be a bad ball club. This season, the reason why, in my opinion, Davey and Mike Rizzo got fired was because they told everybody that we were ready to win. We were ready to win. No more of this rebuild stuff. No more of it figuring out. We have figured it out and we are going to win. And I believed in it. I think a lot of people did buy into that fact. We never knew. We never thought they were going to be like a 90 team. No one ever expected that. But we were kind of talking ourselves into 75 80 wins and a team that would be kind of, you know, riding that line of 500 baseball. That’s what a lot of people believed in. But this past weekend just goes to show you how far off this Nationals team is. You have no one in the bullpit at this point. You have traded away some of your top guys. And by the way, that’s what you should be doing. You trade away your closer Kyle Finnegan, who shuts down the door, by the way, in Detroit this past weekend for his first save as a Tiger. That was kind of unfortunate to see. You’ve seen guys in the past, whether it be trading away Blake Trinan in years past, like the Nationals have done this time and time again. But I will say this, this past weekend especially stunk watching the Brewers just walk kind of put things in perspective to really kind of show that this team it’s far off and right now the Nationals bullpen it is going to stink to watch them moving forward for these next two months. But good news for them, they will have some arms coming back healthy hopefully relatively soon. But speaking of getting healthy and getting right, Robert Hassel the third, what a weekend for him and I’m excited to see what he does for this team moving forward and a couple other young pieces as well. But I want to talk about Bobby Barrels after this. Summer sports are in full swing and whether you’re all about baseball under the lights, golf on the green, or high stake soccer action, FanDuel is the best way to make every game even more exciting. You’re already following the action. Why not make it a little more thrilling? 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So, yes, the Washington Nationals had a historically bad weekend against the Milwaukee Brewers, but that’s not all the bad that happened because the Nationals did have some solid performances from some young guys. But I do want to get into Robert Hassel a third because after all the news and all the moving off of guys and trades and all that other different stuff, the Nationals called up one of their top guys and that was Robert Hassel the third and I thought he looked really good this past weekend. So, let’s highlight it because Bobby Barrels, he can barrel the baseball as we know. And uh Friday night in his first game back since June 15th, he came off off the bench, had two hits, he had a double in there as well. He had two RBI’s. And I thought it was a really impressive showing from him because what we saw down in TripleA from Robert Hassel was number one, he was finally elevating the baseball again. And with elevating the baseball obviously becomes higher exit veos, higher chance of hits. That is again an analytics approach here. And then in Saturday, he added a home run that was a mammoth home run by the way and two RBI’s again. And he did have that one strikeout. And then yesterday was hitless against the Brewers. But he has this new profound approach in my opinion. And I think one thing that he actually said in his postgame presser after Saturday’s performance was he’s kind of swinging with some intent and I believe in that. Like he has kind of tweaked his swing a little bit. I think you’ve all probably noticed it at this point. I won’t break down the the different verticals or whatever you want to talk about here, but he does have a new found approach that he kind of adopted in AAA and a lot of people made note of that when he was first sent back down to AAA Rochester. and he does have this new approach that I think is really interesting. And as we saw, it equated to a doubled on Friday night and then a big home run in Saturday’s game. So kudos to Robert Hassel the third. I thought he had a really good weekend up with the Nationals. But one guy that we’ve been calling for, at least I have been calling for a lot is Drew Millis. Drew Milis, while he is not a qualified catcher at this point with what he has done and his one game that I mean was phenomenal yesterday against the Brewers, he had two hits. He had two doubles in there, two RBI’s. And this is just kind of what I want in my opinion right now. Between Karuise and Riley Adams, Drew Millis is the answer at Catcher. He is the better defender than both those guys and right now he’s as good as a bat as Kber Ruiz and Riley Adams and likely even probably even better at this point. Drew Millis is not your long-term answer. We know that. But Drew Milis might actually be something for this team and you actually might be able to make the case for him to be the starting catcher for the duration of the season. In fact, if I was Mike Darlo, the first thing that I would say to Miguel Cairo is this. Start Drew Millis every day. And it might not be fair to Kberise losing his job to an injury and Riley Adams has not performed the way that he has in years past, but as we saw yesterday, the Nationals are experimenting. They are putting Riley Adams over at first base to see what he can do for them there. They need to find answers. And in my opinion, Karuise and Riley Adams are no longer answers at the catcher position, but Drew Millis, he’s an unanswered question at this point, and I’m willing to figure that out over these next two months. So, of course, we will be covering it here on Locked on Nationals. So, stay tuned for all the discussion surrounding the catchers and as well as the young guys. But thank you all for making Lockdown Nationals your first listen every single day as we are free and available wherever you get your podcast. So let me know what you guys think about this new sense of direction. And am I just a little bit crazy trying to find some positive stuff after a pretty tough week here in DC? Maybe I am. But you know what? I do feel that way and I do feel that there is a new sense of direction. So buckle up for the last two months of the season. It’s not going to be a short one. It’ll be quite long in fact. So, we’ll have that all the discussions for you surrounding the Washington Nationals moving forward. But until then, have a good one. Go Nets.

Over this past month with Mike DeBartolo at the helm, the Washington Nationals have found a new direction thanks to analytics. We discuss what we have seen from this fresh new approach, and why it could take some time. We then discuss the historically bad series against the Brewers this weekend as the Nats ran into a buzzsaw.

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