MVN - Most Valuable Network

What about Guzman?

What about him?

Listen, my distaste for the little guy runs pretty deep.  Deeper than a few key hits and a nice couple of months can change.  It’s not a logical dislike.  He didn’t hit me with a line drive, or lose me a big bet, or knock up my sister and force her child to then fight a guerilla war for Fruit of the Loom against Hanes. (that would have probably swung me back toward liking him.  Boo Hanes!).  I just don’t like him.   I can’t quantify it.  (or is that “qualify”?) It’s just a feeling - a feeling backed by a near -historically bad 2005, a non existant 2006 and 3/4 of 2007 to the tune of 12 million dollars .  Sorry if you come here expecting me to praise the guy, but I ain’t a “what have you done for me lately” kind of guy.  

[Hell, I’d honestly still put votes in for Tim Redding, Odalis Perez, and even Nick Johnson as best Nationals right now.  Biased?  Sure.  Nick Johnson?  You bet.  He’s well outperforming Cristian in getting on base despite hitting about .200, and he’s not that far off in power (going into Saturday he was actually 30 points ahead in SLG).  Add that to flawless defense (which Cristian hasn’t displayed) and you have an argument.  It’s not a slam-dunk argument by any means, but certainly not the slam-dunk the other way most people would think. 

Oh but what about during this winning streak?   Outperforming Cristian again in OBP (by .100 pts! .288 to .381) and only 1 less XBH.]

Anyway the Nats won 3 out of 4, that they needed to and frankly they should have (you should look to win series versus teams that aren’t significantly better than you when playing at home).  So that’s good.  This homestand - @ HOU - v FLA stretch was one that I thought might be nice for the Nats when I saw the schedule.  So far it has been.   Let’s see if they can keep it up.  At the end of May through Mid-June comes a couple of long and odd road trips (SD & ARI then home the the common PIT to SEA to MIN juant) that might be more difficult.  Time to rack up the wins now until then.

Manny sits Zimmerman to keep him fresh for later in the year?   I kind of question whether a game or two here and there can really make a difference - but dammit if they aren’t the ones playing 162 games, so I’ll start by giving them the benefit of the doubt.   Then I’ll check the stats.

Zimmerman ‘07 stats (162 games):

Mar/Apr: .236 / .288 / .327

May:  .257  / .331 / .495

June: .241 / .261 / .444

July: .311 / .372 / .456

August: .299 / .359 / .607

Sept/Oct: .255 / .406 / .338

It does seem like something was off that last month.  The slugging percentage drops well below what we’d seen the past few moths.  Looking even further

August 1-15: SLG .621

August 16-31: .593

September 1-15: .480

September 16-30: .339

That’s a pretty definitive trend.   Will a day off now make a difference?  Who knows?  However Ryan thinks it makes a difference and that’s probably just as important.

“I knew I wouldn’t want to” play 162 again, he said. “It’s tough. It takes a toll on your body. . . . Two days of relaxing and doing nothing, you can’t really tell anybody how much that does for you in the course of a long season. It’s better for me. It’s better for the team. It’s better for everybody.” 

This entry was posted on Monday, May 5th, 2008 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.