A Few Good Men: 21 - Gorzelanny

We are almost to the halfway point of our journey to 44 complete player evaluations, let's carry onward.

Tom Gorzelanny - Age 29 - Arbitration Eligible (3rd time - Super 2)

How he became a Nat: Came over to the Nats from the Cubs in a January trade that sent AJ Morris, Graham Hicks, and Michael Burgess to the North Side.

The Raw Numbers:
Games - 30
Games Started - 15
ERA - 4.03
FIP - 4.19
K/9 - 8.14
WAR - 0.7

Key Stat: 4.46/2.42. This split right here is Gorzelanny's ERA as a starter and as a reliever. Across the board, Gorzelanny was much more dominant in the relief role - posting a better WHIP (1.343/1.075), K/BB (2.78/3.33), and BAA (.267/.222).

Best Game: May 2nd vs Los Gigantes. In just his 5th start of the season, Gorzelanny showed why Mike Rizzo pulled the trigger to bring him to DC. He went 8 innings, gave up no runs, only 3 hits, struck out 4 and walked 0. It was a wonderful outing that lead the way in a Nats 2-0 win against the defending World Champions. The 80 Bill James Game Score was the second highest of his career, behind a 2006 start against the Pirates (83).

Worst Game: July 23rd vs the Dodgers. It wasn't his worst WPA of the season, but IMO it was his worst appearance - start to very quick finish. Gorzelanny lasted just 3 innings against an underachieving club, giving up 8 hits and 5 earned runs. The Nats bullpen gave the Nats a chance but the Curly W's lost 7-6.

CapBall Grade: C. As a starter, Gorzelanny was the definition of inconsistent - 8 shutout innings one night, can't make it out of the 5th the next. A 4.46 ERA as a starter won't cut it in the NL East. Once he was moved to the Pen, into an ill-defined role none-the-less, he was able to concentrate on getting through the order once instead of multiple times. It should be noted that he inherited 9 runners as a reliever and that NONE of them scored.

2012 Nats Status: I don't believe that he will be back next year, but I've been wrong (many times) before. He is still under club control which would make him a cheap starting option, but not for this club and $2.1Mill+ is too much to pay for a 29 year-old starter/reliever/no-real-role. I don't see the team offering him arbitration, which would make him a free agent. He probably will catch on with a team looking for cheap starting pitching.

Winning Against Odds

If you look at the box score from Wednesday night's game, it looked like just another Nats-like win. A one-run game without a ton of runs and a solid pitching performance from the starter and the pen. Everyone starter besides Jayson Werth got a hit, but that's for another post. If you saw the game, though, frustration probably outweighed excitement until Morse scored on Ramos'

Gorzelanny got through 6 innings of work and was surprisingly pitch efficient (82 pitches) after throwing more than 50 pitches through just 3 innings of work, but it didn't come pretty. There were 3 very, very loud outs to deep centerfield, that would have been home runs in almost any other ballpark in the country. Not to mention the home run that Aramis Ramirez hit in the 6th to center field went as high up the batters eye as Zimm's walk off blast on Opening Day 2008. He just crushed it. Gorzelanny's developed a propensity for giving up home runs and lots of them, and not solo ones.

The real problem wasn't Tom Gorzelanny's home runs, though. It was the Nats ineptitude with runners on base. The offense put 16 runners on base (13 hits, 3 walks) and stranded 11 of them. That's right, they left 11 runners on base, with many of them in scoring position with 1 out or less. When Davey Johnson talked about a laugher the other day, this game would have been a prime candidate. It just didn't happen.

Perhaps the best thing to take from the win was Ryan Zimmerman's breakthrough night. Zimm went 3 for 4 with a towering 2-run home run to left field and a walk. Let's all just hope that Zimm is able to keep doing that, because if his offense takes off, there is absolutely no telling where this team can go from here. They can even win games like that, where they had no business even being in it.

Keys to a Nats Series Win Against Giants

After an emotional Sunday night in the Nation's Capital, where President Obama announced that United States' forces had killed Osama bin Laden, it will be back to baseball tonight for the Nats and the Giants to finish up the wrap around, 4-game series in DC.

After issuing two star Giants' pitchers losses this weekend (Lincecum and Cain), Tom Gorzelanny looks to get a win over Madison Bumgarner. Here are a few keys for the Nationals to get a series win:

• Offense, offense, offense: Without Ryan Zimmerman until at least mid-June, the Nats offense will continue to be lethargic. In the last 2 weeks, the Nats have scored more than 4-runs just twice. Jayson Werth looks to be breaking free, though, going 3-for-4 on Sunday, and raising his average slowly, but surely. Shockingly, Laynce Nix has been an offensive staple for the Nats offense as well, and he'll need to continue to be so in Zimmerman's absence.
• Veterans: The keys to the Nats success are almost entirely dependent on veterans for the time being, including Monday's contest against the Giants. Hairston, Cora, Werth, Nix, LaRoche, Rodriguez, and Ankiel are all going to be key players. Their average age? 33. That will make or break the team in the games to come.
  
• Starting Pitching: The Nats starting pitching has been nothing short of stellar this season, especially considering what most expected of them. They're the only rotation left in baseball to have all starters go at least 5 innings (27 games and counting), and they'll need to continue on that roll. Tom Gorzelanny has had a back and forth start to the season, but he'll need to be outstanding against the young Madison Bumgarner. Despite Bumgarner's struggles to start the year (0-4; 6.17 ERA), he's got great stuff that could really shut down the Nats' struggling bats. Besides Clippard and Storen, the bullpen has been been shaky all season, and Gorzelanny will need to go as far as he can.
  
• A Stable Closer: Drew Storen sure looks to be establishing himself as the closer, and he'll need to stay strong in the wake of Sean Burnett's struggles. It was good to see Burnett come in and get a quick out on Sunday's contest, but the out was a well hit ball up the middle. They got the out on good defense more than good pitching. Burnett has to stop getting lucky and start throwing better pitches to help out his fellow relievers. There aren't too many quality colleagues to rely on. Until there are, here's hoping we can give Storen the ball in the 9th with a lead a bit more often.

What say you, CapBallers? What are some other keys to a Nats series win.

Will the Real Gorzelanny Please Stand Up?

Now I know that we are just a few short weeks into the 2011 season, but there have been several patterns emerging - rain, offensive offense, spotty defense, irregular bullpen. But one of the more constant things so far has been the starting rotation. You have heard the stat over and over, that rotation is the only one left in baseball to have each starter go at least 5IP or more in each game; and this is great. But as several of our beatwriters have written, that doesn't necessarily mean that they have been good. None have been more back-and-forth than Tom Gorzelanny. At times this year he has has been brilliant, and at times he has been not-so-brilliant (much like a certain DC ballclub). There is one really big question hanging out there...

Has he really been that bad?

His ERA currently sits at a 3.97, and its always good to have a sub-4 ERA. But that number is very deceptive.

We have talked in the past about FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching, which essentially tallies up everything that a pitcher can control while removing everything that he can't (just hits, walks, strikeouts). I like using FIP to judge how a pitcher is really performing, and in Gorzelanny's case, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Right now it is over a point higher than his ERA, sitting uncomfortably at 5.11. Seeing as though we read FIP the same as ERA, 5.11 is not good.

Next, let's talk about his BABIP (Batting Average of Balls in Play), and as we discussed earlier this week, league average is somewhere around .298. BABIP is useful in determining a pitchers luck, a high BABIP means that the other team are finding gaps and getting lucky hits, low meaning that the pitcher is getting some help from his team via solid defense or lucky outs.

Before I tell you what his 2011 BABIP is, I should tell you that his career average is .296 which is incredibly average. This year, in his 4 starts, his BABIP is .200, good for 4th lowest in MLB. One has to figure that this number doesn't change that drastically in one offseason, and that Gorzelanny will soon regress towards his career average almost .100 points higher - sending his ERA skyrocketing.

We will get into this a bit more in the next section, but he is also suffering from a severe case of Gopher-Ball-Itis. In 2011 his HR/9 rate is 60% higher than his career rate (0.98 career, 1.59 in 2011).

To sum up...
1 - Gorzelanny has not been good when the defense is out of the picture.
2 - Gorzelanny has been getting extremely lucky.
3 - Gorzelanny is giving up significantly more Homers.

Now the bigger question - Why?

Gorzelanny is coming off of a bounce-back year with the Cubs, winning 7 games with a sub-4 FIP, while also earning his 2nd highest WAR total ever with a 2.3. What happened between this year and last year that has this writer so worried?

1 - Over the past 5 years, Gorzelanny has made a living getting hitters to ground out, having never posted a Ground Ball Percentage (GB%) rate below 40%. This year his GB% is at 31.7%. And when you aren't getting the ground balls...

2 - You give up more fly balls, and in turn, more homers. Gorzelanny's highest percentage of fly-balls in a season (FB%) has never been above 43.8%. This year it is at 54.0%.

3 - His career best Pitches per Plate Appearance is 3.87. And in 2011 it is currently at 4.12 - leading to higher pitch counts and fewer innings pitched.

The last point I have is probably the biggest harbinger for future bad performance.

4 - In 2009, just 2 years ago, Gorzelanny's fastball averaged 91 MPH. This year his fastball sits at 87.9 MPH - 60th slowest out of 70 NL starting pitchers (at least 20 IP).

Recap

Could this be just a small sample size issue? Yes.

Could this be signs of worse to come? Yes.

Fly Balls + Higher HR Rate + Slower Fastball + Lucky Hitters = Bad Juju.

Nats Sweep Brewers; Move Above .500

There are a lot of reasons to be excited in NatsTown today after an exciting series with the Milwaukee Brewers. Great starting pitching is probably the biggest headline, but on Sunday, the Nats offense exploded as the weather warmed up, which is exactly the kind of thing you want to see from a team that hasn't been able to explode at all this season. As an aside, we'd like to add that this is our 300th post here at Capitol Baseball. Thank you sincerely for still reading.

But back to the sweep. Let's go over some headlines by game during this impressive 3-game sweep of Nyjer Morgan's Brewers.

Friday Headlines:

• Nats Score 4 Runs, None Batted In: This is almost impossible to believe, but of the 4 runs the Nats' offense scored, none of them were actually batted in. Two of them were walks by Chris Narveson, one was a sac fly by Michael Morse, and one was a sacrifice grounder by Adam LaRoche that scored Jayson Werth to win the game. By the way, Werth was only on 3rd because of an error: really bizarre way to end the game.
• Gorzelanny Goes 6 Innings; Gives Up Two Runs: Gorzelanny, the Nats "big" pitching acquisition in the offseason, got rocked by the Mets for 5 earned runs despite striking out 8 in his season debut, but he got it together to face the potent Brewers lineup.
• Burnett Blows First Save of 2011: Despite this negative headline, the Nats and Chad Gaudin got it together in the 10th inning for a walk off victory.

Sunday Game 1 Headlines:

• Nats Offense Breaks Free of Slump: This is clearly the main headline of the first game of the double header. Both Espinosa and Pudge rocked 3-run homers, and Desmond broke free of his 0-for at home by hitting a double and a line drive home run to left. More good news: they stranded just 4 runners.
  
• Marquis Wins First Nats Game at Home: It's hard to believe that it's Marquis' second season with the Nats and he just got the first home win, but it's true. He did it in commanding fashion in 7+ innings. The first time that Marquis faced the Brewers as a Nats pitcher... well... it wasn't so pretty. Marquis gave up 7 of 10 earned runs in the 1st inning, and we lost him for most of the season. This is a nice rebound for Jason, as he got his first Curly W at Nats Park against the same team.
  

Sunday Game 2 Headlines:

• Livo Dominates in 7 Innings and Gets Win; Nats Above .500: Hernandez threw just 88 pitches in 7 innings, giving up just 1 earned run and walking none. He's now 2-1 on the season. This is what you want to see from the Nats substitute ace; he needs to eat innings and manage runs scored. He succeeded in every way and continues to put the Nats in a position to win every outing. The Nats are now above .500 for the first time since May 2010.
  
• Hairston Breaks Free; Triple Short of Cycle: Jerry Hairson, Jr. exploded from his sub-.100 start to the year and went 3 for 3. His first AB of the game resulted in a home run, and it was nothing but offense from there for the 34 year old switch hitter.
• Nationals Defense Posts Error-Free Weekend: The Nats were able to get through the weekend in flawless fashion defensively, largely due to two major factors: a younger catcher (Ramos) behind the plate in 2 of the 3 games and Adam LaRoche at first base. LaRoche easily saved 2 overthrows from the other side of the field, not to mention 2 incredible picks on line drives to first. It's nice to have a solid defenseman over there.
  
• Desmond Completes 4-for-8 Double Header: After Desmond's disappointing start that resulted in his move from the lead off spot, he made a case to move right back up into it. It's incredibly unlike that it'd happen, especially since Riggleman said in his post-game(s) press conference that he likes Espi leading off now, but he made the decision a lot harder. He landed 2 singles in the game and stole his 6th base; he hasn't been caught stealing yet in 2011.

So there's a ton to be thrilled about about this sweep. Now, the Nats hit the road for 6 games to face two very beatable teams: the Wainwright-less St. Louis Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Nats aren't even scheduled to face Chris Carpenter while in Missouri. Then the Nats come back to town for a 3 games series against the NL East cellar-dwelling New York Mets. It'll be exciting to see if this resurgent offense combined with an over-achieving starting rotation can capitalize during the next 9 games and continue the magic of the weekend sweep of the Brew Crew.

25 in 25: Tom Gorzelanny (#18)

In 8 days, all the Nationals diehards will be preparing to head to Nationals Park on Opening Day. Until then, we're going to predict the 25 man roster. With one catch. We're going to do it one day at a time. This way, we can provide more in depth thoughts on who we think is going to make the roster, why we think so, and what to expect from them in 2011. On the morning of Opening Day, we'll post the real 25-man compared with what we predicted.

Today we delve into a former Cubbie, Tom Gorzelanny.

Why? The Nats traded two of their top 30 draft picks for the right-hander in the offseason, expecting him to be the 5th starter. This trade was met with a bit of skepticism throughout NatsTown, wondering why we were trading a (Supplemental) First-Round selection for a mediocre pitcher that we didn't necessarily need. Initially, it seemed as if the Cubs took the Nats to school on this trade, though I've warmed to it recently.

Being a victim of a numbers game in Chicago, Gorzelanny joined another challenge in Viera; too many pitchers, too few spots. His spring started late due to illness, but he has shown that he can be effective. Rizzo and Riggleman had in their minds that Gorzelanny was going to be in the rotation, and come March 31st he will be there. But for how long.

What should you expect? Don't expect a 10 win season. I still don't see Gorzelanny being a good fit in Washington, especially with McCatty's "new" philosophy of throwing strikes. In 2010, Tom had a 4.49 BB/9, not a great number, and even worse considering that its not even close to his career worst (5.98 in 2008). The ability to strike batters out is great, but even that number went down by more than 1 K/9 last year. It should be noted that his K/BB ratio is even this Spring, 8 K and 8 BB.

I see Gorzelanny winning about 8 or 9 games with a +4 ERA, a 4.50 BB/9, a 7.5 K/9, and about 23 starts. All contingent on him staying in the Nats rotation all year, which I am not convinced he will with Detwiler and Maya nipping at his heels...

Mets Nip Nats

Yesterday the Nats traveled to Port St. Lucie on what turned out to be a terrible day for the organization. Granted, that might be a little bit dramatic, but any day that sees injuries to a future HOFer (Pudge), the Face of the Franchise (Zim), and the up-and-coming 2B stud (Espi) is not a very good day in my book. Lets look at some of the highlights.

- On the offensive side, there really are no highlights to point out aside from LaRoche going 1 for 1 with 2 BBs. Should be mentioned that owners of the Nats hits were LaRoche, Bernadina, Marrero, Ankiel, Flores, and Espinosa.

- The Beat Writers extraordinaire provided great news when they said that Espinosa felt fine after that game and that he was just day-to-day, pending an X-ray. Lets just get the team healthy so that Opening Day 2011 can erase the memory of 2010's festivities.

- The Nats once again played an error-less game.

- On the bump, Tom Gorzelanny had a much improved outing his 2nd time out; posting 4 innings of 2 H, 1 ER ball. What is not yet improved is his strike-rate, he threw 65 pitches but only 36 of them for strikes; a stark contrast to the rest of the staff this spring. He also added 4 strikeouts, but 3 more walks giving him 6 BB and 5 K in his 2 outings.

- Worst Star of the Day goes to Craig Stammen, who did nothing to help his stock as a reliable bullpen arm. In just 1.2 IP, he gave up 3 runs, walking 1 and striking out 0, raising his ERA from a stellar 1.50 to a paltry 4.80. Not good for someone who is trying to be the long-man out of the pen.

- Henry Rodriguez gave up another run, but didn't walk anyone. Progress.

- #1 Star of the Day - Brian Broderick. The 24 year-old Rule 5 draftee continued his impressive spring by allowing just a walk in his 1 inning today. His spring totals are now 8.2 IP, 1.04 ERA, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 R, 1 BB, 4 K. I can definitely see Broderick starting the season in the Nats bullpen, keeping the righty away from his original team, the Red Birds.

Tom Gorzelanny: Mike Rizzo's Front-Line Starter [UPDATE]

So in a move that no one expected, the Nationals acquired LHP Tom Gorzelanny from the Chicago Cubs for 3 minor league prospects this afternoon (pending a physical). The details of the move are still a bit hazy, but one thing is for sure: a significant prospect will be sent to the Cubs, OF Michael Burgess. Burgess was a 1st round draft pick in 2007.

Here's a short bit about Gorzelanny: 28 years old, career 4.68 ERA, 1.60 strikeout/walk ratio. Gorzelanny has one outstanding season on his ledger in 2007 with the Pirates. He posted a 14-10 record, a 3.88 ERA, and threw more than 200 innings. Yes, with Pittsburgh. Besides that, he only has one other winning season in his career (2009), where he split time in Pittsburgh and Chicago and posted a 7-3 record and an outrageous 5.55 ERA.

Both Mac and Dave Nichols at Nats News Network have already pointed out that Gorzelanny is essentially John Lannan. Seems to be pretty accurate, though I think Gorzelanny's ceiling might be a bit higher despite his age. Though Lannan's career WAR is 6.4 while Gorzelanny's is just 4.1 over the course of a longer career. My problem isn't really that the Nats traded for Gorzelanny, it's that they gave up Michael Burgess and 2 other prospects for him. Would you have done that for John Lannan?

We'll have more on this "big" signing day (Gorzelanny and Cora) in the coming days, but I'll leave you with this. Is this the front line starter that Mike Rizzo was looking for? I know that Cliff Lee didn't happen, I know that Zack Grienke fell through, and I know that the Nationals starting rotation looks lackluster going into 2011. But I don't understand what was seemingly a forced move to get a 28 year old pitcher that has had one good season, when there are so many starters in the Nationals organization that need to be evaluated once and for all. Time will tell the results of this move, however.

At least Gorzelanny is a funny name to see on the back of a jersey...

[UPDATE - 4:55PM]
OF Michael Burgess inclusion in this trade has been confirmed, joining him will be RHP and 4th Round Draft Pick in 2009 A.J. Morris. Both of those players are included on Baseball America's Top 30 Nats prospects list, coming in at 19 and 18 respectively. There is reportedly another Nats player included in this deal, and according to Jim Callis at Baseball America this player is not on the Top 30 Nats Prospect list.

[UPDATE - 5:56PM]
The third player that the Nats are shipping off to Chicago has been confirmed by Bill Ladson of MLB.com; LHP Graham Hicks. This player appears to just be a filler player. A 4th round pick in 2008, Hicks has put up a 5.33 ERA and a 1.628 WHIP in his 3 minor league seasons. This past year he went 2-6 in 16 games between Vermont and Hagerstown (1G and 15G respectively).