Trophies Shine Forever

As I’ve said before, Flags Fly Forever. Going all out for a chance at a championship is worth whatever risk it may take. Last year, Curt Schilling put his career in serious jeopardy to pitch the Red Sox past the Yankees to the World Championship. Now, Curt Schilling will never again buy a drink in Boston, has a sock (think about that: a sock) in the Hall of Fame and, more importantly, wears the World Championship ring that Jason Giambi wishes belonged to him. Indeed, Flags Fly Forever. And for solace in this time of mere adequacy for Minnesota fans, I am now asserting the trophy corollary to Flags Fly Forever, that Trophies Shine Forever. In particular, Trophies Shine Forever for players who overcame a poor season to dominate their position. If you don’t see where I’m going with this yet, I’ll be more explicit: Johan Santana’s pursuit of the Cy Young is the last vestige of hope for Twins fans in 2005.

First, I will define what I see as the Cy Young field. Santana and Bartolo Colon are the only two pitchers who have received much press explicitly mentioning their Cy Young credentials. Mariano Rivera has been on the outside of some discussions, and Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland will probably join him near the end of several ballots.

Speaking strictly in terms of perception, Colon seems to be the early favorite, with his team winning their division and a 20-win season under his belt. However, Colon has received Jeff Brantley’s ardent support, which should be a kiss of death for anyone who has heard Brantley “analyze” baseball. Rivera is a good dark horse candidate with an ERA around 1.40 and 41 saves for a team that has not had much bullpen stability. On the other hand, Rivera does not lead the league in saves (for what it’s worth statistically), and closers have to look especially dominant to be considered for the Cy Young, just think back to how good Gagne was in 2003, and how some people still argued against his candidacy. Buehrle and Garland are packing it in, playing for a team in the midst of a tremendous slide, and they are largely responsible for it.

As for the traditional pitching stats, which will dictate how most voters fill out their ballots, Santana sits in very good company in two out of three categories, but wins may cost him the award. After Santana’s strong start on Tuesday, he caught up to Kevin Millwood’s 2.92 league-leading ERA, with a chance to overtake Millwood over the last week of the season. Millwood’s 9-11 record will keep him squarely out of the discussion, but an ERA crown would be helpful. Santana also has a comfortable lead in strikeouts, currently sitting at 229, which is 26 more than second place Randy Johnson. (two notes here: Johnson and Santana led the league in Ks, just as we all expected, but I’ve heard people saying that both have had off years. Harsh. Also, anybody know when was the last time two lefties led the league in strikeouts?). With one start remaining, Santana will almost certainly finish with more than 230 IP, placing him behind only Buehrle. So Santana has been one of the most effective pitchers in the league, and has done it more than anyone else. That should probably qualify him to win, but voters like wins, for some reason, and we will revisit the debate as to whether wins or performance are more important. Last year, Randy Johnson outpitched Roger Clemens, but didn’t have the wins and lost out on the award. Clemens approached the other side of the problem this season before stumbling in September.

That brings me to Bill James’ Cy Predictor, a metric used to predict the Cy Young winner based not on performance, but on what stats voters have historically gone for. The metric has been unduly kind to closers in past seasons, and Mariano Rivera continues the trend, leading by a wide margin. Colon comes in second, Joe Nathan third (see- too much credit to closers) and Santana fourth. Colon’s difference comes largely from the win deficit, so Santana picking up one more this weekend is tremendously important.

Looking to more advanced statistics, Santana leads the AL in Value Over Replacement Player by 27 runs (70 to 53). He’s third in all of baseball- behind Carpenter and Clemens- and leads fourth-place Bartolo Colon by more than 30 runs. Roy Halladay comes in second, which points to how good he was when healthy this year. In fact, Halladay leads nearly every meaningful rate stat, and was on pace to demolish everyone’s counting stats if not for his freak injury on a comebacker. Halladay’s 141 IP is also good enough for 3rd in the AL in Support Neutral Value Added Over Replacement player, which measures how many expected wins a pitcher added over a replacement player, adjusted for lineup. Santana leads that category, as well, by a margin of almost a full win over Colon (7.3 to 6.4). While the margin may not seem that large, consider that we’re talking about fractions of full wins, making Santana 14.3% more effective this season.

While the pundits have the right pitchers in the discussion, Santana has ultimately been better than everyone else, and it isn’t close. So even if the win police are out to get Johan, and knock him right on the head, here’s hoping that his multiple Cy Young trophies all shine on… like the moon, and the stars and the sun.

High Five Friday

Today’s edition of the Maury Povich show featured people dating other people less than half their age. I probably do not need to elaborate much, but know that the 16 year old girl was probably twice the weight of her 33 year old boyfriend, that she insisted that it was important that the marry before she turns 18, that the older brother was wearing a rodeo shirt and had hair in a braid to his mid-back, and that the mother approved of the relationship in full. I think there’s an important lesson in all of this, being that we should continue watching baseball instead of NASCAR.

Anyway, there are more important things in the world than relationships between 33 and 16 year olds, such as transvestite Nazi hookers abducted by Aliens and forced into eating disorders.

So Ozzie Guillen is going to retire if the White Sox win the World Series. How about retiring out of shame if they squander a historically large 15 game lead to the Cleveland Indians, who were completely written off as late as July. The lead is down to 1 ½ games, and Twins fans have a reason to pay close attention once again, as the team can help keep the White Sox out of the playoffs.

I’m most interested in my own preference for Cleveland over Chicago, and I have a few reasons for why I feel this way. First, Chicago doesn’t spend that much more money than other Central teams, but they behave like a big market team, only dumber. They sign free agents to fill holes (Iguchi, Pierzynski, Dye), trade prospects for big name players in season (Garcia, discussions of Griffey this year) and rarely lose their own players due to escalating salaries. Cleveland is a more sympathetic group, playing well for several years, then rebuilding through savvy trades and a well-managed minor league system. They were more loathsome in the 90s when they spent money on players like Albert Belle, Juan Gonzalez and Matt Williams, but when the salaries grew, Cleveland got other teams competing for the sports dollars (Browns, LeBron’s Cavs), they had to budget more closely and had to let Jim Thome, Roberto Alomar and others go. It’s hard to hate players like Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore, so like a losing primary candidate, I suggest that we shift our support to the Cleveland camp.

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As if Rafael Palmeiro needed to make any more enemies, he has now indicated that he got his steroids from Miguel Tejada, one of the most respected players in the major leagues. I’m not saying that Tejada didn’t give Palmeiro steroids, and I’m not saying that he did; I have no idea, and neither do most people who will speculate on it. All I’m saying is that Palmeiro has zero credibility right now, and people will probably disregard his testimony. For example, remember when Palmeiro was a paragon of decency and everyone dismissed Jose Canseco’s allegations that Palmeiro was juicing? The same thing will happen now to Tejada and Palmeiro. Which is for the best, because now only a positive drug test will indict Tejada in the court of public opinion, which is exactly how it should be.

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I’m split as to what is more exciting: a Yankees-Red Sox ALCS or the two teams playing for one playoff spot in the last weekend of the regular season. While the stakes are probably higher in the postseason, it would be interesting to see them play with desperation rather than confidence. Ultimately, both teams seem to be malevolent hegemons at this point, so I’ll gladly watch them and their substantial flaws next weekend, but I’ll also be hoping for an early exit from the playoffs. If nothing else, can we get a Schilling-Johnson matchup at Fenway to determine who stays home and who plays on? That would be almost as amazing as Clemens pitching at Fenway in the World Series.

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Carlos Silva had successful knee surgery yesterday, which should leave him in good shape for next season. Although most of the rest is probably due to being out of the race, imagine what it would have felt like to lose Johan (briefly), Radke and Silva for the stretch run if the Twins were still in the middle of a pennant race. The clear upside is that Baker and Liriano look like they’ll be ready next year to take a big step up from Lohse and Mays at the bottom of the rotation, but having the opportunity to see that has been a silver lining on a darker cloud than we expected to see this season.

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Here’s hoping that losing Kyle Lohse doesn’t turn out to be a disaster. I know I’m nearly alone in trumpeting his potential, but I’m not about to stop, as he’s a very young starter who has better stats than anyone has recognized. He’s already passed through the injury nexus without event and has proven that he can withstand a pretty heavy workload. I’m eerily reminded of David Ortiz, who was let go because he was slightly too costly to justify when cheaper replacements were waiting in the wings. In neither case has the departure been due to bad performance, but a failure to live up to lofty expectations. I’ll admit that Lohse is going to be gone next year, but I hope they are able to trade him for something, rather than non-tendering him and regretting it when he’s in the All-Star game three or four years from now.

Protecting the Unit

For all of the criticism of Steve Phillips I’ve heard, he deserves some credit for piloting a team to the World Series. He built some pretty decent teams in New York during his tenure, and I actually really enjoy listening to his broadcasts with Gary Thorne and Steve Stone. That said, giving him a column on ESPN Insider is like the New York Times making Mike Tyson its White House correspondent (“I would just like to take this opportunity to pontificate the vociferousness of the War in Iraq. I want to eat George Bush’s children. Praise to Allah.”).

Anyway, Phillips’ dedicated his most recent column to sorting out the success and failures of last year’s free agent market. Fundamentally, a team invests in a player for two reasons: 1) to win more games/make the playoffs/fly a flag and 2) to bring in more revenue. Using the research from Nate Silver last month at Baseball Prospectus, we know that the only financial windfall comes from making the playoffs, restating the obvious idea that these two goals are intertwined. It stands to reason, then, that free agent signings should be preferred if they brought a team marginally closer to a pennant race or a pennant, and relatively discounted if the team remains far from the playoffs.

Using this methodology, Phillips’ pick for the best free agent signing, Pedro Martinez, is quite defensible, as Martinez probably would have pushed the Mets over the top if their other additions (Carlos Beltran and Doug Mientkiewicz) even approximated their previously established levels of performance. Entering his prime, Beltran was a nine win player last year, and had averaged about 7.5 wins (by WARP1), and has regressed to a five win player this year. Add another four wins to the Mets and they’re 3.5 games out of the Wild Card, definitely still in the race. Consider that the Mets are eight wins below their first order Pythaganport projection, seven wins below the third order projection. Even if they sliced in half the deficit between production and results, they would be roughly tied with the Astros for the Wild Card.

In other words, Phillips’ choice for best free agent signing was a defensible one, if not my first choice. Several of his subsequent top-ten picks were less reasonable, such as Richie Sexson (#3) and Troy Glaus (#8) who had no chance of making their teams contenders in the best case scenario. He also included Scott Podsednik (#7) who has burned the bridge between perception and reality like no player in recent memory.

But my bigger quibble lies with his naming Randy Johnson the third biggest off-season failure for the Yankees. True, Johnson has not been his Cy Young self in this, his 41 year-old season, but the Yankees cannot afford to miss the playoffs, and would not be close without him. Undeniably, Johnson has been New York’s ace this season, posting the 15th highest VORP for a pitcher so far this season in the American League. He has also accumulated an acceptable 3.90 ERA in a hitter’s park, and a 2.74 ERA in September, including a couple of memorable step-up games, such as the one where he out-dueled Felix Hernandez early in the month. And as much as we’ve been mislead by Roger Clemens, Johnson’s 15 wins, 212 IP and 201 Ks are a pretty remarkable achievement for a 41 year-old.

Certainly, Johnson hasn’t been worth the $15M+ he’ll be paid this year in terms of marginal wins, but imagine where the Yankees would be without him. Steinbrenner long ago committed to spending as much as he had to spend in order to fly more flags at The Stadium, and Johnson has been one of the few constants in a shaky Yankee rotation this year. What was supposed to be Johnson, Mussina, Brown, Pavano and Wright has seen that pentumverate start only 102 of their games this year. That’s like having two starting pitchers go down for the year during spring training, a fate that would cripple almost any team’s playoff aspirations. The Yankees have been resourceful, scrubbing up tarnished starters Shawn Chacon and Aaron Small, and getting as much as possible out of Chien-Ming Wang and Al Leiter, but the odds of them stumbling upon another such player early in the season to fill the spot that Johnson has held down seems extremely unlikely. A modest estimate of the Johnson-less Yankees would have them starting the likes of Sean Henn, Darrell May or Tim Redding at least 5-10 more times.

Also consider the revenue that the Yankees bring in each postseason through at least a half-dozen more sellouts that are pure profit for The Boss. If the Yankees indeed make the playoffs, Johnson deserves a ton of credit for gutting out over 30 starts on creeky knees and a sore back while dialing it up down the stretch. Enough credit, even, to make him the most valuable free agent pick up of the off-season.

High Five Friday
NL Wild Card revisited

Barry Bonds steps on the field and everyone assumes that the Giants are back in the pennant race. Never mind that the gap between them and the still ugly Padres is even larger than the gap between Cleveland and Chicago in the AL Central (Chicago is only six games out of missing the playoffs entirely, but would I really prefer the Yankees in the playoffs?). Never mind that Bonds’ return has accompanied upper leg injuries to J.T. Snow, Moises Alou and Jason Schmidt that will substantially offset his rusty value. Never mind that the Padres will have Jake Peavy back for the stretch after a scary sore shoulder threatened to keep him out the rest of the way. I’m as excited as anyone to have Bonds playing again. After all, I plucked him off the fantasy waiver wire a month ago in hopes that he could give me a playoff boost, and it is working. But I’m not buying the Giants as a legitimate postseason contender. Flawed as the NL West has been, the Giants are really flawed, and no one player is going to make a bad team good, especially when he hasn’t played in almost a year.

As for teams that will factor prominently in the pennant race, it seems to be down to three, with Houston, Florida and Philadelphia coming down the stretch after getting there in very different ways.

Both Philly and Florida had disappointing starts and rebounded in the second half, but while Florida did it through offensive catch-up, Philly has a different cast of characters spinning their wheels. Randy Wolf, Jim Thome, Placido Polanco and Marlon Byrd all figured to factor prominently in their drive for the postseason, but the best they have got from any of them is Ugeth Urbina in the Polanco swap. Thome’s offensive contribution before deciding to call it quits on the season was 2.7 runs of VORP, almost identical to what they have got out of Vicente Padilla (2.6).

The loss of Wolf hasn’t killed the pitching rotation due to the surprising contributions of Robinson Tejada, who has accumulated a 3.16 ERA in 84 2/3 IP. He walks more than five batters per nine innings, but makes up for it with a 7+ K rate, and a miniscule .53 HR/9. In other words, baserunners are less valuable when you can’t drive them in.

Chase Utley has also broken through (Philly’s 3rd best 48.8 VORP), softening the blow of losing Polanco in a trade that has sort of worked out for everyone. Polanco has led the AL in batting average since the trade, for what it’s worth to Detroit. Urbina hasn’t been great, allowing over 1.6 HR/9 in 44 IP, but he has struck out batters more frequently than anyone else on the pitching staff (10.96/9), giving the team plenty of innings in which he’s not killing them, a contribution which shouldn’t be understated in the relief-starved NL East. Probably the biggest surprise is Aaron Fultz, who Twins fans will remember for being the lefty mop-up guy who shared time with Old Man Mulholland last year. He has found his groove for Philly, has put up a 2.18 ERA in 66 IP.

Over the last few weeks, they’ll continue to hope Ryan Howard doesn’t have to face too many lefties, Bobby Abreu can start breaking out of his post-derby slugging slump, and nobody falls apart. All in all, they look pretty solid.

Further south in Dolphins Stadium, the field’s namesake may have to share it with Miami’s less favored sons, the Marlins, for a little longer than anticipated. While A.J. Burnett has softened in the last few weeks, Dontrelle and Beckett continue to carry the staff, and some of the call-ups should help mask the offensive attrition of players like Juan Encarnacion and Paul LoDuca.

LoDuca is a remarkable case, famous for second half collapses, and doing nothing to disprove the theory this season. His three year (2002-2004) Pre-ASB/Post-ASB split is .315/.371/.452 before and .236/.288/.334 after. This year, he’s posted a sub-.700 in August as well as September, creating a vortex at the bottom of the lineup (well, anything after Castillo, Cabrera, Delgado, really). They recently called up Josh Willingham who can mash, but probably doesn’t have the glove to survive as a ML catcher, and certainly doesn’t have the bat to compete with Delgado at first.

Furthermore, their rotation continues to walk the Brian Moehler tight-rope, which puts extra pressure on a weak bullpen, if nothing else. With Alfonseca done for the year, Jack McKeon has been kicking around the corpses of Paul Quantrill and Jim Mecir, not exactly the electric arms one may want in order to make a run. But far be it from me to second guess the team that turned Todd Jones’ rotting flesh into the second highest WXRL in the National League.

Houston got an inspired performance from Roger Clemens last night after his mother’s death, leading me to wonder why I only see inspired performances after parent’s deaths by players whom I hate. Bret Favre, Barry Bonds and now Roger Clemens. It’s making feel really insensitive when I know that it’s actually the fault of smarmy programming and tough-guy athletes pretending to show emotion.

Anyway, Houston’s big three continues to dominate while Brad Lidge and Dan Wheeler anchor a solid bullpen. Brandon Backe returned this week to give them a legitimate fourth starter, and Jeff Bagwell is even ready to contribute as a pinch hitter. That all looks good enough, but an already thin offense could lose some production from Willy Taveras, who has a bad cut on his middle finger, and Chris Burke, who hurt his shoulder while diving for a ball and will miss several games, all according to Will Carroll. They don’t have much room for error at this point, and even minor injuries could make a big difference.

In their favor, the Astros may have the easiest remaining schedule, facing the Cubs seven times, the Pirates and Brewers each thrice and the Cardinals twice. Florida and Philadelphia play a huge three game set in south Florida this weekend, and each face the Mets and Nats three more times. Philly’s schedule is a little easier, though, as they split their other six games between Atlanta and Cincy, while Florida plays the Braves six more times.

Based on momentum, the Phillies seem like the favorites, as Houston has only won one series all month (a three game sweep of the Phils, which is natural considering their recent history). But I know enough Philadelphia sports fans to remain skeptical, even if they were my preseason pick. As much as I want to pick Philadelphia, I think Houston is the smarter pick, primarily based on their remaining schedule.

Twins Notes: Lohse and the O

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote the following about Kyle Lohse:

"It seems that Lohse has more or less come to a point of mutual dissatisfaction with Minnesota, and neither side would be angry to see the union end. So what happens? He finally starts succeeding, exemplified by the seven shutout innings he threw in the depressing loss to KC."

Both of the predictions seem to be pretty much on the money, as he's pitched better over the last couple of weeks while his relationship with the team has devolved into childish fighting, and the front office has openly acknowledged that they will try to trade him in the offseason (ESPN insider). Gardy recently lifted Lohse from a game earlier than he wanted, and Lohse took a baseball bat to the door of Gardy's office after the game, injuring himself in the process. While Lohse is behaving like one of those kids on a Sally Jesse Rafael bootcamp show, Gardy is successfully playing the role of sympathetic, but not blameless parent. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Gardy has been lifting Lohse early routinely as a misguided disciplinary effort. As I've mentioned several times, Lohse is having a surprisingly good season; his 26.6 VORP is good for 4th on the team, a stone's throw from Radke's 32.0. Overall, that ranks him tied for 31st in the AL with C.C. Sabathia, ahead of the much more heralded Jeremy Bonderman, among others.

I keep writing about Lohse because I think the media covering the Twins have ganged up on him as a sort of scapegoat for a bad season and for clubhouse instability. Another symptom of misguided media: the ESPN broadcast crew last week attributing the Twins weak offense to the inability to resign Corey Koskie and Christian Guzman. It would be hard to say that Koskie's injury would be predictable; even with a chronically bad back, a broken thumb is just unfortunate. Guzman, though, was not a "loss" as much as it was "cutting bait." After several consecutive seasons of declining production, they let him walk into the open arms of Jim Bowden, who now has to give up a compensatory draft pick for the right to play someone who can't hit .200.

To compare the actual stats, the Twins aren't losing much there. In terms of pure wins, Koskie is 2.0 Wins Above Replace Player, Guzman about .4. The Minnesota trio of Cuddyer, Castro and Bartlett has a cumulative 6.9 WARP (1.3, 3.3, 2.3 respectively) including adjusted offensive and defensive contributions. In terms of rate stats, Koskie has a .255 EQA (equivalent average, designed to make all offensive contributions look like a batting average, where a good player is about .300, etc), Guzman is at .184, Cuddyer at .254 (strikingly similar to Koskie offensively), Castro at .245, and Bartlett at .249.

These numbers can lead to two conclusions upon which we may not currently be in agreement. First, the Twins offensive problems are not due to free agent departures. Unless you count non-tendering David Ortiz (which wasn't that bad of a move for a team with more depth than cash), the position players they have lost due to price in one way or another are A. J. Pierzynski, Doug Mientkiewicz, Corey Koskie and Christian Guzman. All of these players had the best years in Twins uniforms, all of them declined noticeably with other teams. Add in Eric Milton, LaTroy Hawkins and Eddie Guardado as players Terry Ryan has gotten rid of by his own volition, and he has a pretty exceptional record of knowing when to turn someone loose. Considering that he actually turned a profit of Joe Nathan, Carlos Silva, Nick Punto, Francisco Liriano, Boof Bonser and a pocketful of draft picks, and Ryan looks like a genius. In any case, the offensive failure is an internal phenomenon, powered by the poor seasons of Justin Morneau, the second base disaster, Shannon Stewart and Lew Ford. If they got league average production from each of these positions, the offense would probably be good enough to get them into the playoffs.

The second, and less important, conclusion is that Juan Castro has not been that bad. Indeed, defensive metrics are raw, but by any measure, he has been brilliant in the field, and just a tick behind Bartlett offensively. I don't mean to say that he should keep getting playing time, as Bartlett should continue his improvement, but they could do worse than giving Castro some starts at second if Punto and Rivas are the next best options. Also, it isn't fair to hang the poor season on him, as he's only a small part of the problem.

NL Wild Card updates forthcoming, hopefully on Thursday.

High Five Friday
AL Wild Card revisited

As you may have noticed, I have been on a bit of a hiatus from my column as I have settled into my class schedule and my jobs. Hopefully, I'll have enough time to complete two columns per week for the rest of the year, as there is plenty in baseball to write about over the last few weeks. In the offseason, I will work on putting up one column per week with more of an analytical research base. With that said, I have five headlines into which I would like to delve.

First, I am most interested in the AL wild card race right now, with the Indians and Yankees emerging from the pack as the legitimate favorites. With Bobby Crosby and Rich Harden repeating their early season break down, the A's started repeating their early season swoon without two of their studs. Not to fret, the A's have a bright future and put up a pretty incredible run in their big rebuilding year. If nothing else, Billy Beane should face less unwarranted criticism after producing substantial results with more of "his guys."

But as the season draws to a close, the Yankees and Indians matter most. The winner will probably be the team that can overcome its biggest weakness: the Indians' lineup vs. the Yankees' rotation.

The Indians got in a hole by hitting nothing early in the season, but Aaron Boone and Casey Blake have come back to respectability to join Travis Hafner, Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner as legitimate producers. Before slumping in September, Boone hit .322/.372/.437 in August, his third straight month with an OPS above .775 (not great, but it's a lot better than the .400 OPS he had before that). After Blake's rough start, he has actually put up an OPS above .900 for the last two months. Coincidentally, Peralta is mired in a 1-19 slump, but he's been picked up by pitchers like Scott Elarton, pitching shutout baseball in a recent 2-0 win over Detroit, and CC Sabathia, Kevin Millwood and Cliff Lee all have a VORP between 23.9 and 41.7, and their league-leading save man, Bob Wickman, has only been their third best reliever by the same measure.

As for the Yankees, they have also found a way to overcome their rotational struggles, losing Carl Pavano and Kevin Brown to injuries and ineffectiveness, Mike Mussina to shoulder uncertainty (possibly due to years of throwing a splitter), and now relying on RJ, Jaret Wright, Aaron Small, Shawn Chacon and Chien-Ming Wang. The bullpen is no great shakes either, with pretty much nothing behind Mo, Flash and Tanyon Sturtze. Jaret Wright remains below replacement level, but he has put up a couple of decent starts since coming off the DL. Even the bottom three have performed admirably. Must be the pinstripes. Or maybe Ole Mel's wonderful coaching.

Here's the difference, the Indians are progressing towards the mean (Blake, Boone and Victor Martinez are not bad players, but had atrocious starts) while the Yankees are improving on long track records with smoke and mirrors. Even with the homefield advantage of The Stadium in September, the Indians are playing at a similar level with better players, so I think their performance is more sustainable. The Yankees have the flexibility to eat salary at the trade deadline, and this year they chose not to do so. Remember what Steinbrenner said when they traded for Arod? Yeah, the Yankees must be embarrassed that they couldn't get better pitching for their fans. They should also be embarrassed that the D-Rays beat them like a rented mule.

Later this weekend, I'll update the NL Wild Card race, but I'll tell you this much now: after seeing the Nats give up on John Halama after 2/3 of an inning, they don't look like much of a contender.