Nationals Pitcher Has Found Perfect Balance Optimizing His Repertoire

There has been a lot of attention given to Washington Nationals starting pitcher MacKenzie Gore, who has emerged as an ace for the staff.

He currently has a 3.19 ERA with a National League-high 123 strikeouts, leading baseball with an 11.9 K/9 ratio. His 2.7 bWAR is the best mark amongst pitchers on the team and third highest overall on the team.

Gore looks like he will anchor this staff for years and the team has to be happy about developing another middle-of-the-rotation arm in Jake Irvin.

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Irvin may not be a staff anchor liek Gore because of his lack of strikeout stuff, but he brings a lot to the table to like.

He is durable, tying for the Major League lead with 33 starts in 2024 and currently tied for the lead this year thus far with 16.

In the midst of his most productive season thus far with a bWAR of 1.7, he has nearly matched the previous career high of 1.9 set in 2024.

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While Irvin may not have the most dominant stuff in baseball, he has figured out a way to get the most out of it, making it work every time he takes the mound.

It has led to him possessing the most optimized pitching repertoire in baseball, as shared by Neil Paine of ESPN.

He created a formula, Nash Score, that measures balance in effectiveness between all of their offerings, from most used to least used.

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Irvin has struck a nearly perfect balance, recording a 0.05, the best number for starting pitchers in baseball. On the opposite end of the spectrum with the least optimized arsenal is Ronel Blanco of the Houston Astros with a Nash Score of 4.36.

“Over the past three seasons (again, with more weight on more recent data), Irvin has almost exclusively used three pitches: four-seam fastball, curve and sinker. Each was within 0.2 runs per 100 pitches of the average of his other offerings, meaning he found the mix where basically all of his pitches are equally effective -- the whole point of this entire exercise,” Paine wrote.

Improving every year is exactly what the Nationals want to see from Irvin, who looks like a long-term piece in the rotation.

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He and Gore are going to be anchoring this staff for years to come, as both are amongst the most optimized starting pitchers in the game.

Irvin has the best Nash Score and Gore isn’t too far behind, ranking 10th with a 0.36 Nash Score.

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