Dobbs and BP Premium articles
Two quick hits:
* If you can, please help Dave with his computer problem. He will need the peace of mind after he sees John Levesque’s latest effort, a love letter to Greg Dobbs, who has “intensity” and is “feisty.”
After reading his column about Mariners clubhouse guy Ted Walsh, there seemed cause for hope that Levesque would put together what Ron Fairly might call a “two game writing streak.” Perhaps he had even read some wise counsel about stepping off the well-trodden road for ideas.
But no, we’re back to elevating the gritty, bad player. Pity.
* Interested in the Mariners’ prospects for injury? Of course you are. Heard of Will Carroll? Of course you have. Subscribe to Baseball Prospectus? Maybe you do. Meet all three criteria? Check out Will’s take on the M’s, especially the Aaron Sele zinger.
* While I’m linking to BP Premium content, scope Nate Silver’s PECOTA system’s projections for the American League. The system expects the A’s to win the division by five games over the Angels, with the M’s finishing last, just behind Texas.
Don’t worry: my spreadsheet can beat up Nate’s spreadsheet.
The Success of Jeff Nelson and other urban legends
The Mariners’ most vexing dilemma in spring training so far? They have too many solid pitchers, quoth the Sunday Everett Herald.
Given that too many good players is always a pleasant problem, I was pleased to read an article with this premise. I was even more pleased to read the sub-headline, “The success of Jeff Nelson and Aaron Sele gives Seattle 16 pitchers for 12 spots,” because I had thought Nelson was struggling. Eagerly, I dove into the article, anxious to get some positive news.
In the next-to-last paragraph, here’s what I found:
Nelson, who pitched for the Mariners from 2001-2003, has an unimpressive 7.20 ERA but has allowed one run in his past three outings and has three strikeouts in his past two innings. The swings and misses tell Nelson that his best pitch, his slider, is working.
Holy Small Sample Size, Batman! He’s got three strikeouts in his last two innings! Quick, lock him up to a multi-year deal, like we did with Shiggy and Villone.
Most importantly: I am shocked that I just read an article about the outstanding spring a guy with a 7.20 ERA is having. Really puts all those “Aaron Sele has pitched nine straight scoreless innings” stories in perpective.
But wait! There’s more. The Herald’s Kirby Arnold continues by saying that just about every pitcher offers something that will make it hard to keep him off the team. For example, “Shigetoshi Hasegawa, J.J. Putz, Scott Atchison, Julio Mateo, George Sherrill and Nathan Bland all are pitching well … and Matt Thornton is a rare power left-hander who the M’s believe will dominate left-handed hitters if he solves control issues”
But check out the following quote from the Sunday TNT, where Mike Hargrove says that “Nathan Bland, Matt Thornton and George Sherrill have not yet pitched well enough to make the team.” This seems to blow up Arnold’s theory that every pitcher is wowing management. And for those keeping score at home, yes, these may be the first unflattering remarks Hargrove has said about anyone in spring training. I’m sure Bland, Thornton and Sherrill feel special.
Speaking of small sample size, this Nathan Bland Arnold praises is the same Nathan Bland that “turned heads” with four early scoreless innings. Yes, four. Then he got shelled, but that seems to be unimportant. Like Nelson’s impressive last two innings, it’s the impressive small sample that Arnold wants to focus on, not the gnarly small sample.
First upshot: From my perspective, the problem isn’t too many good arms — it’s too many undistinguished arms, pitchers that are promising in some ways but flawed in others.
Second upshot: it’s silly for ballclubs to make important roster decisions based only on spring training performances. It’s even sillier for media folks to project roster decisions based on the parts of spring performances they like.
Melvin on Melvin
Pulling a new thread from eponymous coward’s comment:
As ever, Melvin was quick, affable, yet guarded in his comments, which was smart and sensible.
“You learn things in any job,†he said. “I’m not going to go into those things. I hadn’t managed before. There’s a lot of things I didn’t know then that I do now.â€Â
While Melvin never shied from his task with the Mariners, he had been thrown into a tougher situation than anyone realized, a rookie manager with a team largely comprised of experienced players.
After acknowledging he prefers the National League game, he was specific in one area, recalling that in 2003 Seattle had put together a good bench.
“In the National League you use those guys for substitutions, pinch-hitting. But we weren’t able to use it enough in the American League to keep them ready.â€Â
Anyone want to guess what Mariner pinch hitters in 2003 with that good bench?
Try .154, with an OPS of .519. Yeah, awesome bench, alright.
Oh, wait, you mean to tell me Greg Colbrunn would have been the only bench player on that team to have an OPS over .700 (and he spent most of the year on the DL)?
And blaming the DH for not being able to get action for your bench is, well, just showing that when your strategy crutch is taken away (the option to PH for the pitcher) you don’t have the flexibility to think differently. I’ve never seen LaRussa, Anderson or Piniella say they couldn’t use their bench when they managed in the AL… but if you are a strictly by tne book sheep^H^H^H^H^H^Hmanager, I could understand why you’d be confused when part of the book is taken away.
Stone, trapped
U.S.S. Mariner-endorsed columnist Larry Stone falls into exactly the same easy trap I blasted Bayless for earlier this week, implying that McGwire took steroids, et cetera, because McGwire didn’t come out blasting with fiesty-enough angry denials when faced with questions in a Congressional hearing (which, while I’m at it, accords too much respect to those proceedings, but anyway):
But Thursday, under oath, facing perjury, he all but came clean, damning himself with faint refutation. Contrasted with a finger-pointing, insistent Rafael Palmeiro, McGwire was the epitome of impotence (and no, that’s not a Viagra joke).
Those fans still clinging to the belief that McGwire was clean all along, the victim of innuendo and mud-slinging, don’t have one thread to cling to. Not after McGwire’s repeated refusal to answer any questions related to his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Here’s the thing, for me. There’s no more, or less, evidence that McGwire used steroids than there is evidence that Rafael Palmeiro did.
And if you want to believe that steroids increase power, well, Palmeiro’s career certainly has more of a weird, sustained, late career power spike than McGwire or even Barry Bonds — and my point here is not to imply that Palmeiro used steroids, or did not.
We don’t know. And all of the noise this week over “loopholes” in the MLB drug testing policy (which amount to a typo that’ll get fixed), and who denied it with enough anger and who didn’t… none of this amounts to anything.
I’m disappointed in Stone, but I’m disappointed with almost everything I’ve read on the topic.
So… Go Huskies! Wooooooo!!
The issue with short archives
Some of you have noted that clicking on a monthly link only gets the top 6 from that month.
Essentially, in the old version of WordPress, we could control the archive results and the front page size differently. Now we can’t — setting it to return 30 days of stuff for the archives means 30 days on the front page and we’re out of bandwith and dead. Setting it to, say, six posts means that if you want to go back through last month, you only get six posts worth returned from the link.
Sorry. I don’t know how to fix this yet.
Position Roundtables: #2 Starter
#2 Starter: Bobby Madritsch
Jeff: Work the chip.
This is the advice I used to give to debate students that came from a
tough background or were, for any reason, angry at the world. The
logic being, if you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, you can let it
weigh you down or motivate you. You can either work the chip or let it
work you.
Bobby Madritsch works the chip. Read more
The new crusade
Courtesy of Skip Bayless’ latest at ESPN. It’s not enough to not take steroids.. you have to convince Skip.
McGwire failed to acknowledge his third option: Telling the truth, if he was as steroid-free as he has always said he was. Apparently, McGwire didn’t take that option because, under oath, he couldn’t.
I don’t know if McGwire took steroids. But this assumption-of-guilt thing is a load of crap. Especially given this:
To McGwire’s right on the five-player panel, Sammy Sosa had already said he has “never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.” To McGwire’s left, Rafael Palmeiro would soon shake a finger at the congressmen and cameras and say, “I have never used steroids. Period. Never.”
I’m not sure I believe Sosa – though his body language and facial expressions did little, if anything, to damage his credibility. Yet Palmeiro spoke with such angry conviction that he certainly came across as convincing.
Has Skip seriously never met a convincing liar? No, seriously. Never confronted someone trying to steal his girlfriend and had the guy get all huffy and go into a rage that you’d even think such a thing?
Maybe Raffy took steroids. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe McGwire did, or didn’t. But to pronounce McGwire guilty because he didn’t act in a certain manner, wasn’t angry enough to “come across as convincing…”
I’ll remember that baseball was caught deceiving the public about the few teeth its new testing program does have.
What — random testing for a wide range of these drugs, with not only penalties but disclosure of those who test positive for them? Did he mean “had” since he’s so down on McGwire, or doesn’t he know that there was a new deal struck with pretty good testing?
I’m disgusted that this is what baseball coverage has come to. It’s as if the long rumor-churning of are they/aren’t they wasn’t awful enough, last year’s testing, where only 12 players tested positive, didn’t catch those rotten users people are convinced were out htere, and now we’re to the point where denials or admissions aren’t good enough either. We’re going to have to torture all professional athletes until they give us an answer we like. If they drown before they confess, well, they must have been guilty.
Baseball has drug testing now, like everyone wanted. Even if you want instant lifetime bans on first time offenses, we know that it has already eliminated almost entirely abuse of the targeted substances in the sport, so it’s achieved its goal. Can we please stop fighting this battle and get back to enjoying the game?
Lopez to stick and start?
From Bob Finnigan’s roster construction story today spring a few intriguing matters, greatest of which is speculation that Jose Lopez may start at shortstop.
But a seismic shift appears to be happening at shortstop. With Pokey Reese’s spring affected by an ankle problem and, more lately, personal matters that took him out of camp for several days, Jose Lopez has used the opportunity and shown far better play at short than he did when he was called up for the last half of last season  in addition to hitting .308 this spring with some big late-game, run-producing hits.
Though this is “far from decided,” Finnigan reports that if Lopez stays in the majors, he’ll start.
Our thoughts on why this isn’t good for him or for the team have been repeated quite a bit. Even if you don’t buy those arguments, though, this would have a domino effect on big-league jobs.
Mike Hargrove appears adamant about starting the year with 12 pitchers, so if Lopez breaks camp with the big club, then there is no open spot on the bench — Pokey Reese would slide into a backup role. That leaves your reserves as Dan Wilson, Scott Spiezio, Willie Bloomquist and Pokey. If this happens, I guess we won’t be pinch-hitting a lot early in the season. At least, I hope not.
If Lopez starts the season in Tacoma, there will be an extra spot on the bench, which the article implies would be filled by Jamal Strong or (eek!) Greg Dobbs. Bucky Jacobsen would presumably get that spot if and when he is healthy.
KUOW today, PI article
Two quick things– unless the time changes again, I’m on KUOW today at 2:30 PM (Pacific) talking about the Mariners, BP, and other good stuff. If you’re a regular reader, I’ll be frank–probably nothing you haven’t read here.
Then, because this is a fairly important point, I screwed up in today’s PI column w/r/t the reference to Dobbs v Leone and the park factors involved. As I wrote in a comment thread:
“There’s a fix submitted for the column, as that is obviously not as it should be. That should have been much, much clearer in what happened where, what the levels were, and how park-adjusted stats compared the two.
One of my largest problems writing these PI columns is that I’m trying to strike this balance between technical but readable in a short form, and this is a case where I obviously errored in trying to shorten and simplify, to the point where the finished product is wrong. “
Sorry. I’ll be entirely frank here: this was a product of the amount of time and brain power I had available to devote to this, given my other crushing obligations, and other stuff I’m not going to get into.
I should have done better.
2005 Draft Board
The May 12th update of the 2005 Draft Board is below. The top two remain unchaged, Maybin and Hochevar swap spots, and Tyler Greene drops from the fifth spot in favor of Stephen Drew, who looks like he’ll be back in the draft after asking for more than Arizona is willing to pay.
The dropoff from Upton to Maybin is a pretty severe one, so the M’s have to be hoping that either Gordon or Upton fall to them at the third pick. After those two, there is little difference between the next 10 players on the board, so you could see a lot of different possibilities at the third pick.
1. Alex Gordon, 3B, University of Nebraska
.402/.554/.747, 174 At-Bats, 31 extra base hits, 49 walks, 26 strikeouts, 19 steals in 22 attemps
Comment: Gordon’s having a solid senior season and is still the top college player on the board. He’s become frustrated by the lack of strikes he’s seen, but he’s been able to stay within himself for the most part. The swing is fine and the approach is there. He’s a pure power hitter and should have few problems adjusting to wood bats. Most of the clubs I have spoken with have him at the top of their draft boards. At this point, he’s the likely choice to go #1 overall.
2. Justin Upton, SS/CF, Great Bridge HS (Virginia)
.550/.617/1.650, 40 at-bats, 19 extra base hits, 7 walks, 2 strikeouts, 7 stolen bases
Comment: First off, everyone should realize that high school statistics are completely worthless. There is absolutely no predictive value in Upton’s statline, and it shouldn’t affect your opinion of him one way or another. Okay, now that we have that disclaimer out of the way, he’s having a ridiculous year. He has more extra base hits than outs. He’s hitting .550 and only has 3 singles. Three!. The bat has never really been a question with Upton. He’s a hitter through and through, and like his brother, his offensive performances will likely allow him to move through the system quickly. His defense has continued to be a problem, however, with the general consensus now agreeing that he will likely be drafted as a centerfielder. It is looking like a longshot that he will stay at shortstop as a professional.
3. Cameron Maybin, OF, TC Roberson HS (North Carolina)
.655/.750/.896, 58 AB, 22 extra base hits, 22 walks, 4 strikeouts, 24 stolen bases
Comment: Maybin got pitched around for most of his senior year-note the ridiculous walk rate-and impressed scouts with his willingness to take what he was given. For a player considered raw who would need significant development, he did a terrific job of playing within himself and showing a polished approach at the plate. His physical skills still rank near the top of the charts, and for pure potential, he’s as good as any player in this draft.
4. Luke Hochevar, RHP, University of Tennessee
13 starts, 97 innings, 64 hits, 32 walks, 107 strikeouts, 3 home runs allowed, 1.77 ERA
Comment: Hochevar’s command has come and gone at points this year, but his stuff has held up all season and everyone still raves about his makeup. His control issues have been a bit of a disappointment considering his stuff is simply above average rather than dynamite, but he’s been able to succeed without having his full arsenal in every start. He’s viewed as a safe selection who should reach the majors relatively quickly but doesn’t offer the same potential as a few other arms in the draft. He’s still ranked as the best overall pitcher in the draft, however his affiliation with Scott Boras may cause him to fall.
5. Stephen Drew, SS, Camden Rivercats (Atlantic League)
.400/.444/.680, 25 at-bats, 5 extra base hits, 2 walks, 5 strikeouts, 1 stolen base in 1 attempt
Comment: It is beginning to look extremely unlikely that Arizona will be able to sign Drew before May 30th, the cutoff date to sign players from the 2004 draft. Drew has signed with the independant Camden Rivercats to get some playing time and shake off any rust before he re-enters the 2005 draft. He was the best player in last year’s draft, and on talent, he’s comparable to everyone in this draft after Gordon and Upton. However, the year layoff didn’t help his development, and the money being asked for by Scott Boras is going to be a detractror for most clubs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Drew fall to the second or third round this year, and his story will be one of the most interesting of the day.
Others To Watch:
Jered Weaver, RHP, Unsigned
Jeff Clement, C, USC
Mike Pelfrey, RHP, Wichita State
Andrew McCutcheon, OF, HS (Florida)
Ryan Zimmerman, 3B, Virginia
Justin Bristow, 3B, HS (Virginia)
Wade Townsand, RHP, Rice
Troy Tulowitzki, SS, Long Beat State
Ryan Braun, 3B, Miami