Wednesday, October 12, 2011

A Few Good Men: 2 - Stairs

Today is Part 2 of our 44 part series examining each player that suited up in a Curly W this year. Yes, this is probably a fool's errand and the worst CapBall move since Joe asked us to take over this blog - but it's also fun.

So sit back, relax, grab a nice cup of (Irish) coffee and enjoy the ride. Let’s get this one out of the way right up front. Matt Stairs.

How he became a Nat: Signed a 1-year, 850k contract in the off-season

The Raw Numbers

Batting Average: .154

RBI: 2

Nats Pitchers with higher BA: 8 (5 if you adjust for small sample sizes, still ridiculous)

WAR: -0.5

Games played: 56

Key Stat: oRAR (offensive runs above replacement-player): -5. That means that a replacement player would have been 5 runs better than Stairs, who was signed, to drive in runs, late in games. Extrapolate that out to a full season and its almost 15 runs he cost the Nats.

Best Game: July 1 against the Pirates. In the bottom of the ninth, with the game tied at 1, he crushed a pitch off Tim Wood to drive in pinch runner Alex Cora ( who, with Stairs, combined for an age of 78. Also one of Davey’s first games…the old man vibe was flowing!!!) and win the game. This was literally the only time he was clutch all season. He was paid 850,000 dollars to be clutch.

Worst Game: Wow… where to start… As a starter he twice went 0-4 with 2ks, May 20 in the “BATTLE OF THE BELTWAY!” and June 29 against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Which Is In California Which Is A State In The United States Of America. Include numerous pinch hitting failures (6-39, 2 RBI) and it’s really tough to label one game his worst. But I have to give it to June 29, a 1-0 loss in which Jzimm gave up 1 run on 4 hits. Stairs was 0-4 with 2ks and left 2 runners in scoring position, including a weak ground out with Zim as the tying run on second in the ninth.

Capball Grade: Is there anything lower than an F? If so, Matt Stairs gets it. He is a good guy and was a good major leaguer for a long time. But his 2011 season with the Nationals was just plain awful by any standard. There was little to no intangible impact on rookies or bench players and he basically had nothing of value to offer the team.

2012 Nats Status: Bill Buckner has a better chance of being Mayor of Boston than Matt Stairs has of returning to Washington.

4 comments:

  1. I guess the unanswered question is why did it take so long to get rid of him? It was abundantly clear by the end of May that he was worthless, yet we had to wait until well after Davey arrived to see the door hit him on the way out. Pathetic.

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  2. I agree with section 222 - I guess someone had a problem admitting they were wrong. In reality - I think they assumed it had to get better - it didn't. Question - how did you decide on Morse first and Stairs second? Tossing darts? Drawing numbers?

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  3. I listed all players and then used an online randomizer, so there is absolutely no rhyme or reason as to why a certain player appears on a given day.

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  4. The only thing I could figure is they hoped he'd get hot and that they could flip him for prospects.

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