Game Report, Indians over M’s, 9-5
Coming soon! A post!
Okay, sorry, I ended up having to cover for a Prospectus content outage and I turned around a column when I got back from the game.
So! Notes from the game. But first —
If anyone out there knows a good first amendment lawyer, preferably one who’s a fan of the site, and is willing to answer a limited-in-scope but potentially thorny question for a… uh… a sister site of ours which is, in all respects relating to the question itself, exactly like this site (as in… broke and unable to pay for an answer to that question), could you please drop us a line? This is entirely serious, but Dear Readers, please let this progress on its own, and I’ll offer updates as I can. Don’t panic or anything. Really.
On to the game!
Today’s early omen came when I was waiting for my bus to downtown and a bunch of helicopters flew over. Because I was a bit of a military geek in my youth (as every other boy I knew was, to some degree), I could guess that it was a pair of Kiowa scouts, then two pairs of Apaches, then a trailing Kiowa. The Apaches appeared loaded, I couldn’t make out enough details on the Kiowas to see if they were. Seven helicopters, apparantly armed, loud, passing between me and the five o’clock overcast sky, then heading southwest. Who bases attack helicopters near Bellevue? What the hell were they doing? If there were heading to Kent/Renton/Auburn, couldn’t they at least have called me and asked for some targeting suggestions (please note that I am not suggesting the Army should use precision munitions to exact petty revenge for my childhood, only that they should maybe give them a good scare)?
So with a knot of fear that something requiring attack helicopters was happening in Seattle, I headed to the game.
Edgar is awesome. I almost expect to see him or Ichiro! do a full Matrix mind-over-matter feat soon, where for his record-setting hit Ichiro! hits a ball back to Orix, or in Edgar’s last game he goes 10 for 5 with ten monster home runs.
Overheard at the Ballpark, 9/8 edition:
“After a grand slam, the next at-bat is always a pop-up… but if you get eight base hits in a row, it kiiiillls them.”
Bonus overhead at the Ballpark, 9/8 edition:
“What? That’s insane. Do you have any idea the probabilities against getting eight base hits in a row? You can’t — the OPS those guys would have — there’s no way you can–”
“Well, uh, that’s why you need a bunch of Ichiros in your lineup.”
Once again, I had a great seat and the Mariners were stomped. Look… I’m not a suspicious person. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time you’ve probably seen me take a swipe at astrologers or purported psychics or whatever. And we can talk about small sample sizes, and the fact that the team isn’t good this year anyway… but at a certain point, the Mariners should consider paying me off to stay in my regular seats. I think we’re at that point.
Blowouts aren’t good for the fan base, they wear out the bullpen, and no one wants to be on ESPN four times in one night as the team getting shelled over and over. Does ESPN still air highlights anymore?
Wild pitches my eye. Olivo blocks pitches like he’s on tape delay. I’m not saying I’d rather have Wilson catching. As I’m fond of saying, Olivo’s a hit-and-throw catcher, rather than a catch-and-throw guy. It’s just that… come on, dude, this is the major leagues, and unless you’re Mike Piazza (younger, awesome version) you’ve got to get to some of those. Look for Wilson to be re-signed as a defensive specialist backstop next year.
Olivo at one point faked a passed ball, which was weird — he stabbed at it, snagging it, and kept turning away, eyes darting to second to see if he could get the runner to go. It was strange to see, but it is plausible: he lets a lot of balls go by, and the way he snagged it it didn’t make a noise when it hit the glove. Plausibility was further enhanced when he immediately let another ball by him, advancing the runner.
Uh, the rest of the game… bad. Bad defense, bad hitting, more bad defense… that was just ugly.
Comments
19 Responses to “Game Report, Indians over M’s, 9-5”
A POST!!!
If anyone sees the USB cable for my Minolta, could you please let me know? I’ve got this picture, you see…
Dobbs OBP in Tacoma was horrific, but… damn, that was a sweet first at-bat!
-mike
Finally, first mariner rookie to homer in first at bat.
Dear Bob Melvin,
Your line-up for the rest of the season should be:
lb. Ibanez
2b. Boone
ss. Lopez
3b. Dobbs
c. Olivo
lf. Winn
cf. Reed
rf. Ichiro
dh. Edgar
Dan Wilson, defensive specialist? Hmmm.. I was looking at his numbers, and I think this may be the year he gets the Gold Glove. No passed balls, quite good throwing percentage (middle of the pack) and only 1 error. Those sound like gold glove numbers to me.
While I might contend with your assertion that middle of the pack throwing percentage is “quite good,” (I’d probably use a label more like “average”), I’d say we all agree Danny can play some D. Errors are relatively worthless measures of defensive performance, but MAY be more relevant for catchers than anywhere else on the diamond. Does anyone know if any of the advanced defensive metrics are at all trustworthy when evaluating catchers, and if so, how Daniel stacks up?
Olivo has fundamental problems as a receiver…can’t block, bad set up before the pitch, with throwing arm putting him out of balance, which drives the inability to drop and block, he looks very inflexible and tight through his core, thigh, butt, stomach…
Wilson is pretty close to done, 18 out of the first 20 runners stole on him this year…his talent early on was due to exceptionally quick feet and a transfer. His arm has always been avg…
It doesn’t look to me as if they could win with Olivo catching 120 games, all other things equal…
Troy,
Errors do not encompass all of the fielding performance, but they are very very significant – far from “worthless measures of defensive performance.” As a matter of fact, errors are the most tangible measure of defensive performance available. A lot of errors (per chance) is bad, no matter what your range or who’s pitching, and few errors is good – it usually means you are at least servicable. Danny has been a solid glove. I don’t know if he’s a gold glover, but should probably get at least a bronze glove. 🙂
Olivo should emulate Danny’s style.
Congratulations Dobbs.
Terry,
Despite the praise I give Danny – I totally agree. He’s almost done. He used to be very good at throwing out runners and you probably evaulated the reason for his decline to a T.
Olivo is young-ish, so perhaps he can improve all of his fundamentals over winter.
I wonder if Howard Lincoln is suing the site for calling him a liarhead…
On topic, I always like to see fielders try to deceive baserunners. Adds a nice cerebral aspect to the game.
Lincoln would be embarassed by a court finding him to in fact be a liarhead.
Weaver, in an ideal world with consistent, objective scorekeepers, I’d say your point has some merit. In the baseball world we actually live in, many scorekeepers are tools who assign “erros” based as much on whim or personal bias than the actual intent of the ruling. Obviously, a player with 30 errors in 100 chances isn’t any good no matter what scorekeeper he’s playing in front of, but how frequently do we see that at the big-league level? Hardly, if at all. Thus, I stick with my assessment – errors, as they are scored in modern-day, major league baseball, are relatively worthless measures of defensive performance.
BTW, Derek, great piece in “Breaking Balls.” I thought your analysis of the introduction of the Moose was particularly hilarious, especially the question if “know” was in the Biblical sense. Funny crap.
Checking the stats, I see that Wilson is 3rd in CS%, with 22 out of 60. Henry Blanco has been incredible in that department, gunning down almost 50%! Ivan Rodriguez only has 15 out of 51, with 3 passed balls and 11 errors.
Well Troy,
I think what you say about the error is the exception and not the rule – that there is a relative objectivity. I understand what you are saying – I’ve seen scorekeepers not give the error, give the wrong guy the error, etc. But I think it’s usually more obvious, and less of a judgement call. Enough so that it is reliable.
I still say that though errors do not encompass all of the information you analyze fielding upon, they are still major and not “worthless measures of fielding.”
Remember Russ Davis? He would occassionally make a highlight-worthy play, but his errors were all too common, and glaring. Errors can lose you the game. A high fielding percentage should be something you analyze fielding ability on….to a degree – there are other factors too.
Wow Chris Begley,
I didn’t know Danny was doing that well on CS%. Maybe I’ve just missed the good stuff when watching the Ms.
FPCT is useful to give you rate for errors and effects for a game, but it doesn’t give you anything on how well a player actually defends.
Jeter has some of the highest FPCTs for SS year after year. But his RF and ZRs are usually at the bottom.
In other words, Jeter might have softer hands, but he has no range and is letting dribblers go up the middle at a rate that would make Omar Vizquel cry.
“Do you have any idea the probabilities against getting eight base hits in a row?”
Well, the Royals managed to get 13 consecutive batters to reach base today against the Tigers. Would that be harder?