*FAN SUBMISSION by Viktors Bebris of College Park, MD.*
Courtesy: Washington Post
The addition of starting pitcher Max Scherzer to the Washington Nationals is a monumental deal. The seven year contract is reported to be at 210 million dollars, which is pretty substantial for a 30 year old pitcher. But the dividends that can come from it are well worth the money.
This is the kind of signing that propels good teams to greatness. Last year the Washington Nationals starting rotation had a WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of 17.6, which was the best in the NL (National League). With the addition of Scherzer the projected WAR for the Washington Nationals for the upcoming season jumps up to 19.8. Granted this also accounts for Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmerman, Max Scherzer, Gio Gonzalez and Doug Fister all pitching just as well as they did last season.
Since the Wild Card era of baseball only five teams have posted a WAR score higher than 20 points. The number one team for posting a 20+ WAR was the 1997 Atlanta Braves who posted a WAR of 25.4. This pitching staff featured three Hall of Fame candidates of John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine.
The number two team was the 2013 Detroit Tigers who posted a WAR score of 25.2. This team was led by Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez and Doug Fister. This 2013 Tigers team featured two starters that are now a part of The Washington Nationals staff and Scherzer himself won the AL Cy Young award that season. This could be a good indicator for the Washington Nationals potentially being able to post a 20+ WAR.
But if these stats don’t already show how good 2015 should be for the Washington Nationals. Max Scherzer comes over to the NL, which historically is better for pitchers anyway, with 18 wins and 5 losses out of 33 games started. He also posted a 3.15 ERA, had 252 strikeouts and opponents combined batting average against him was .238. Three out of the four other projected starting pitchers for the Nationals had a better ERA and the fifth one was Gio Gonzalez who posted a 3.57 ERA. All in all this is a coup of a signing; the best pitching staff in the NL is getting one of the best pitchers from the AL (American League).
Based off of last year’s win totals for the five pitchers they would combine to 72 wins; 82 wins would be half of a season’s worth of games since the MLB season is 164 games long. Granted only 82 wins would not get a team into the playoffs, but in a down NL East 95 wins could easily be enough.
If the Washington Nationals manager were to hope to get to at least 95 wins for the 2015 season the rest of the pitching staff would have to win around 23 games. For an average pitching staff that has roughly ten pitchers, that are not in the starting rotation and are considered to be the bullpen, these ten pitchers would have to win an average of 2.3 games. Any MLB manager would love to only have to rely on 23 wins out of their bullpen.
