A Few Good Men: 42 - Maya

Before we get into the post, I want all of NatsTown to congratulate Mac on his engagement. I could not be prouder of my brother and his bride to be!

That being said, there are just a few players left in our march to 44, so lets get into it with...

Yuniesky Maya - Age 30 - MLB Service Time 0.07 years

How He Became A Nat: Signed as an international free agent on July 31, 2010. He is a Cuban defector.

The Raw Numbers:
GS - 5
Quality Starts - 1
IP/GS - 5
BAA - .323
K - 15
GB/FB - .73

The Key Stat: BAbip - .346 Ah. Batting Average on balls in play. Great stat. Usually it is used to determine the luck of a pitcher. But .346 is very high and 15 Ks in over 30 innings is indicative of a pitcher who pitches to contact, and gets hit hard. And when batters made contact, it was usually in the air, as the GB/FB ratio shows. Not ideal.

His Best Game: July 30 against the Mets. Anyone notice many of our best games were against the Mets? He scattered 5 hits over five and a third innings, striking out no one, but walking no one. It was the only game he started in which he had more ground balls than fly balls. He also hit Josh Thole with a pitch, though he was hit by a pitch twice that day, so maybe he was crowding the plate.

His Worst Game: Ironically, the only other game the Nats won in which Maya pitched. June 14 at Nats Park against the World Champion Red Birds. His line is so ugly I hesitate to type it...4.2 IP, 9 H, 6 ER, and 2 each in the BB, K, HR category. Luckily for the Nats, Ms. Iowa himself Miguel Batista was worse that day, and Washington pulled out an 8-6 win.

Capball Grade: A very big F. Maya is 30, and while he is relatively new to MLB, he just doesn't have the repertoire for the bigs, and everyone can see it. You cannot pitch to contact and have the majority of the balls in play be in the air. He is smart and he knows how to pitch, but he needed to be mentored by Livan Hernandez when he was 20, not when he was 30.

2012 Nats Status: He is on a major league contract, so he will be in spring training. But at this point his contract is ephemera. He is of little value to the Nats and will spend the majority of his season at Syracuse, perhaps earning a spot start, if its his turn to pitch. A switch to relieving won't help, as he was ineffective in relief, allowing 12 base runners in just under 8 IP.

Do you have something nice to say about Yuniesky Maya? Please share it, because I'm drawing a blank.