Good News, Bad News
We’re two months into the season, so let’s look at how things have gone. We’ll call this Good News/Bad News, though we realize we might struggle to find equal amounts of Good News.
Good News!
Ichiro! is hitting .339.
Bad News!
The next highest average on the team belongs to Jose Lopez. He’s hitting .280.
Good News!
Speaking of Lopez, he leads the team in home runs, SLG%, and RBI’s.
Bad News!
Jose Lopez also leads the major leagues in sacrifice bunts.
Good News!
Roberto Petagine’s first 3 plate appearances of the year resulted in a home run, a double, and a walk, all as a pinch-hitter. That’s a nifty 1.000/1.000/3.000 line.
Bad News!
His last 24 plate appearances have resulted in 2 singles, 2 walks, and 20 outs. That’s a not-as-nifty .095/.174/.095 line.
Good News!
Adrian Beltre and Richie Sexson both went yard twice this weekend.
Bad News!
Their combined 12 home runs on the season is one less than Ty Wigginton has by himself.
Good News!
J.J. Putz has been as good a reliever as you’ll find in baseball.
Bad News!
Eddie Guardado has not.
Good News!
Rafael Soriano looks to be fully healthy and is throwing as well as ever.
Bad News!
Gil Meche looks to be fully healthy and is throwing as poorly as ever.
Good News!
Jamie Moyer has taken crafty veteran status to a whole other level.
Bad News!
King Felix has taken inexperienced 20-year-old status to a whole other level.
Good News!
The M’s have the fifth pick in the draft tomorrow
Bad News!
They’ll probably have a top 5 pick next year, too.
Good News!
USS Mariner is the first site I check on the M’s every morning, and the best.
Bad News!
USS Mariner’s predictions of competence, relevance, and competitiveness for the hometown nine look to have been as heavily influenced by fannish blinders as the rants and raves of most other M’s sites.
Staying with a newly minted Mariners outlook this week…
Watching Putz is great fun. He is pitching (not throwing) well and working his pitches with confidence. One can see that the batters are absolutely fooled by his movement, arm angle and pitch selction. He is a bright spot this year.
Seeing Soriano come back to form is another great event for Mariner’s fans. The way the ball explodes out of his hand has always been a thing of beauty. Having him back to his greatness is worth watching.
USS Mariner’s predictions of competence, relevance, and competitiveness for the hometown nine look to have been as heavily influenced by fannish blinders as the rants and raves of most other M’s sites.
So you correctly predicted Sexson’s crash, King Felix’s woefulness, and Guardado completely checking out as a pitcher? Really?
Can we see the envelope from the mayo jar under Funk and Wagnalls’ front porch?
(Sad thing is that about 25% of the USSM readers don’t even know what that’s a reference to.)
And the Good News thing always reminds me too much of Prof. Farnsworth.
“Good news everyone! I just came up with a way to solve all our problems. It’s called Moving The Mariners To Bangalore.”
Good news:
Johjima is hitting and performing just as expected.
Bad news:
Grover has forgotten why Major League teams carry TWO catchers! Johjima is leading the majors in innings. Way to break in a rookie into a 162 game schedule by having him catch ALL of the innings!
USS Mariner’s predictions of competence, relevance, and competitiveness for the hometown nine look to have been as heavily influenced by fannish blinders as the rants and raves of most other M’s sites.
Care to cite the exact posts you’re referring to, by the authors of the site (not commentors)? Because I recall them predicting a team somewhat better than last year’s (right now, at 25-33, .431, they’re slightly ahead of where they were last year on June 5th: 23-31, .426) with a good chance to win 81 games, which still seems like a plausible goal (especially with a change in coaches). Certainly there were people posting here predicting better results, but they weren’t the folks who run the site (who in fact were criticized for being too negative). Possibly you are the one wearing blinders with regard to what USSM was actually predicting? Or perhaps you are one of the people who expected better performance and are now lashing out in dissapointment?
Words to live by:
Don’t feed the trolls.
Good News: WFB is hitting slightly better than expected
Bad News: He’s platooning in CF
Bad news: The Mariners are underperforming. Again.
Good news: Great seats still available!
Good News: More and Better seats available at Safeco every day!
Bad News: Poor performance on field leads to more money spent drowning sorrows
While # 2 was mildly obnoxious, I was rather alarmed by the extreme defensiveness of post 7. Post 7 in itself wasn’t particularly bad, but it is representative of a reflexive defensiveness that pops up on this site with some frequency that I don’t think is helpful or productive.
The fact of the matter is, a lot of us, certainly including myself and a number of the folks running this site, were more optimistic about this year’s team than has so far been borne out. While that could have been pointed out more politely, I think the tone of post number 7 is a bit much.
In any event, to respond to Joser’s request for a specific post, consider Dave’s April 4 post, called “Dave’s Crazy ’06 Predictions”:
“Wins: 85
Runs Scored/Allowed: 770-749
Team MVP: Felix Hernandez
Most Improved: Adrian Beltre
Comeback Player: Rafael Soriano
BA leader: Ichiro, who else, .339
HR leader: Beltre, 34
OPS leader: Sexson, .880
Innings Pitched Leader: Felix, 198
ERA Leader: King Felix, 2.47
K leader: El Cartuela, 213″
So far, the predictions re: Ichiro and Soriano appear to be right on the mark; the others, not so much.
This isn’t meant to make Dave look bad; those predictions were in line with what I was guessing, as well. But it shows that the folks who run the site are in fact human, don’t have clairvoyance, and someone doesn’t need to be called a troll or otherwise yelled at for pointing that out.
Good news: the endless NBA borefest is almost over, meaning I’ll soon be able to go anywhere for dinner without worrying there’ll be anything other than baseball on the TV over the bar.
Bad news: the baseball on the TV over the bar will be the 2006 Mariners.
It’s still better than basketball though.
I don’t think this team will have a top 5 pick next year. Doesn’t the NL pick first next year, so we’d have to fall behind TB to get in the top 5? Aside from that technically (and your hyperbole), I think they have a decent chance to catch LA, Minnesota, and Baltimore. Heck, they have a pythagorean win% better than those teams now.
Once again, two months in, I look at a Mariners team with no real overachievers (maybe Sherill and Lopez’s power) and several underachievers. Not sure if that’s good news or bad news.
They did away with the pick-by-league thing. Now its strictly based on worst record.
And you’re right, at this point, it’s more likely the M’s pick 8th or 9th. But the point is the same.
Bad news!
Ryan Franklin still has delusions that he can help the rotation.
Good news!
He’s not talking about the Mariners rotation.
Bad news!
But he might as well be, at the rate we’re going.
Dave,
Any news on the updates for the Future Forty? Or are you waiting until after the draft to make any updates. I would think there are going to be some changes in the list. Cruceta sounds like he is pitching way above his last rating.
Yea, the new Future Forty will be out Thursday or Friday, after the draft.
Good news: Despite his unimpressive baseball pedigree and questionable character, Carl Everett got off to a respectable 841 OPS over the first two weeks of the season.
Bad news: Since then he’s 261/309/366 in 150 PA, not even replacement level for a DH
Worse news: Hargrove still runs him out there just about every day in the middle of the order, even against lefties when “anyone else” would be a better option.
Call me an optimist, but I don’t think the M’s will wind up with a top 10 pick next year.
Good News:
If the M’s continue to suck this bad, Hargrove won’t last until the All-Star break.
Bad News:
Yep, that’s right, another 90-loss season.
Good News:
Richie’s OPS is increasing
Bad News:
It still has 40 points to gain to be as high as Willie’s
Good news: Sherrill is one of the best lefty-on-lefty relievers in baseball.
Bad news: Jake Woods and Eddie Guardado are not.
They’ll probably have a top 5 pick next year, too.
Right now they stand to pick sixth next year. “Rising” into the top five would need one of either Tampa Bay or the Cubs to pass us in the standings. I figure there’s no way the Royals, Pirates, or Marlins finish with a better record than the Mariners. Unless of course the team does one of the Hargrove Orioles patented September season-tankings, but I think most people hope Hargrove is gone by then.
Baseball Prospectus has a wonderful Monte Carlo simulation of the rest of the season that they update everyday, here.
If the season ends as they predict, we get the fifth draft pick again:
Royals 51-111
Devil Rays 63-99
Marlins 68-94
Pirates 69-93
Mariners 70-92
That’s some sad, sad company, especially since I believe we have the payroll of any two of those combined and possibly the lowest three.
At least we still have a shot at contention — about 2% chance of winning the AL West. The Royals don’t even have a 1-in-a-million chance.
I do wish they’d put error bars on that report, though.
Yeah, thanks to the tanking of teams Marlins and Cubs, the M’s could do no better than last year and still drop in the draft. Crazy.
Good news:
No one expected the M’s to contend.
Bad news:
They are contending (I’d rather have a higher draft pick, Tacoma Shuttle, and “break it up” panic”)
Meanwhile (don’t know if this was discussed elsewhere) John Donovan of SI.com says that Lopez should be the starting 2nd baseman in the All Star Game.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/john_donovan/05/31/al.allstars/index.html
Good news! John Donovan is correct.
Bad news! The fans won’t vote him in.
Bad news: Grover has forgotten why Major League teams carry TWO catchers! Johjima is leading the majors in innings. Way to break in a rookie into a 162 game schedule by having him catch ALL of the innings!
even worse news– Hargrove has his ‘regulars’, and they have played more games at their respective positions than anyone else in the AL, even the DH. However, the non-platooning centerfielder has only started 33 games in center.
Thanks Deanna, that Ryan Franklin link was very funny.
Good News: Unlike the Phillies, the M’s don’t have a “seventh inning specialist” (and if they do he isn’t Ryan Franklin).
Bad News: The M’s don’t have a “fifth inning specialist” today with Meche on the mound.
+USS Mariner’s predictions of competence, relevance, and competitiveness for the hometown nine look to have been as heavily influenced by fannish blinders as the rants and raves of most other M’s sites.+
So you correctly predicted Sexson’s crash, King Felix’s woefulness, and Guardado completely checking out as a pitcher? Really?+
No. I sure didn’t. Nor was this post intended as a troll, though it was meant tongue-in-cheek to match the tone of the post. I am sorry if I offended.
If I didn’t misunderstand, The authors of this site boldly predicted that the M’s offense would be above average this year. They stated legitimate concerns about the starting pitching, but seemed overall to feel the offense and defense would be good enough for the M’s to finish .500 or above and to contend, if only at the fringes.
I felt at the time that every step in the argument seemed reasonable, but that the argument taken as a whole relied upon a long sequence of reasonable projections all breaking the M’s way. (The probability of all 7 65% probability events coming true is very very low.)
I’m sorry to say this, but Sexson tanking with possible undertones of less than perfect health is not a shocker. Guardado, a man with a partially-torn labrum, having a hard time is similarly not a bolt from the blue. As an old O’s fan who watched Ben McDonald storm the league (5-0 his first 5 starts), I’m neither shocked nor overly concerned by Felix Hernandez’s struggles thus far.
We needed Beltre to recover substantially, Betancourt, Lopez, and Reed to improve dramatically on their major league numbers, Sexson and Ichiro to at least maintain, Johjima to adjust to american baseball, and Raul not to age too dramatically. If we’d gotten all of the above, we would have a contenderish offense. Every step above is reasonable. About half came true, which is close enough to what we could have anticipated.
The pitching hasn’t been much worse than we thought, Felix excepted.
Hargrove has created extra losses, to be sure. But the M’s are essentially the 70-win team that started the season. We shouldn’t be too surprised to be here now.
Once again, I do apologize to all I may have offended.
Minor point: I don’t believe Guardado has a partially torn labrum; he has a partially torn rotator cuff.
If I didn’t misunderstand, The authors of this site boldly predicted that the M’s offense would be above average this year.
Don’t look now, but it basically is. The M’s rank 9th in the AL in runs scored, despite playing in an extreme pitchers park. The team has a .259 EqA, which adjusts for park factors. League average is set to .260.
They stated legitimate concerns about the starting pitching, but seemed overall to feel the offense and defense would be good enough for the M’s to finish .500 or above and to contend, if only at the fringes.
The team has a -13 run differential, which puts their pythagorean record at 28-30.
We needed Beltre to recover substantially, Betancourt, Lopez, and Reed to improve dramatically on their major league numbers, Sexson and Ichiro to at least maintain, Johjima to adjust to american baseball, and Raul not to age too dramatically. If we’d gotten all of the above, we would have a contenderish offense. Every step above is reasonable. About half came true, which is close enough to what we could have anticipated.
If all that had happened, the offense would be one of the best in baseball. As is, with Beltre and Sexson completely in the toilet, the offense has been essentially league average.
The pitching hasn’t been much worse than we thought, Felix excepted.
Guardado and Mateo, too.
Hargrove has created extra losses, to be sure. But the M’s are essentially the 70-win team that started the season. We shouldn’t be too surprised to be here now.
If you think a team that allows 13 more runs than it scores is a 70-win team, then I don’t know what else to say.
Maybe I’m easy to entertain, but those last two lines were just about the funniest I’ve seen in a sports-related post. I laughed out loud. Props to the authors!
Good news!
As of this weekend Sexson was 4/4 in hitting HR’s with 3-1 counts.
Bad news!
Two months into the season, and Sexson has only had four 3-1 counts.
The team has a -13 run differential, which puts their pythagorean record at 28-30.
Hm. They’ve been consistently underperforming their pythagorean record for the last four years. Last time they were on, was when Lou was managing.
Hm.
A team that allows 13 more runs than it scores is a 70 win team… in a 140 game season
While tempting, I’m not gonna get on the GN/BN bandwagon. I’ll just say that this year, Grover (various poor lineup decisions) and Eddie (blown saves) have undone a large portion of this team’s success. Even with Bad Sexson and Bad Beltre, this team is essentially what we hoped it would be, if not for Eddie and Grover’s gaffes.
#5 – A Futurama reference! I love it!
27 – Bad news M’s regulars play games at their respective positions
Remember when (2001-2003) Mark McLemore used to get 300 and 400 AB’s, giving everyone a dayoff now and again? Does a better rested team perform better?
Whoops – M’s regulars play MORE games at their respective positions
Remember when (2001-2003) Mark McLemore used to get 300 and 400 AB’s, giving everyone a dayoff now and again? Does a better rested team perform better?
Well, that’s one thing that REALLY bugs me about Grover…his use of non regulars. Sitting Snelling last year when he was hot and you needed offense? Calling up Livingston, and sticking him in long relief…and not using him? Leaving Petagine on the bench? Bloomquist/Reed?????
Isn’t this just a recipe to wear down your starters as the year goes on?
Two months into the season, and Sexson has only had four 3-1 counts.
No. He’s had at least 23. He has gone 4/4 on 3-1 counts plus 6 walks, and overall after a 3-1 count he’s gone 5 for 14 with 9 BB.
Thats the problem with Hargrove’s approach. It wears down to best players, and doesn’t keep the supporting bench players sharp. Sadly enough, if you don’t think you are going to be used, its hard to remain prepared for the times that you are used. Last year, I worked up a prediction of how many games I thought each player should be used (yeah, yeah, I had some time). Nobody got over 150 starts, and just about everybody got 40 starts. Now, to use that as a hard and fast rule isn’t optimal, but it does get all players involved. And it provides days off here and there. But I had to toss it out 50 games into the season as I realised that just about everybody was going to play 160 games. The baseball season is a marathon, and any rest a player can get is useful, in my simple opinion.
Good News:
Any Mariner win.
Bad News:
Rick Rizzs delivering the happy totals.
I’ve asked a version of this question before, but don’t believe I received a reply, so I’ll rephrase it:
Has anyone done a study to determine whether the teams of certain managers consistently underperform their Pythagoreans? If there has been such a study, I’d be surprised if Hargrove’s name didn’t surface.
Which leads me to: if Hargrove’s teams consistently underperform their Pythagoreans, we shouldn’t be particularly optimistic that the team will dramatically improve anytime this year (statistical correction toward the mean) unless he’s fired.
gwangung, it seems inconsistent to bitch that Hargrove doesn’t use his bench enough then in the same breath bitch about the Bloomquist/Reed platoon.
Good News!
The Mariners still managed to get 87 thousand in fans over the weekend for some terrible games (KC).
Bad news!
The Tampa Bay series on the comparable weekend LAST year drew 180,000 fans (and Tampa Bay isn’t much more of a draw than KC), so they are still bleeding lots of fans, and are still on pace for 2.1 million in attendance, down 600,000 from last year.
Er, that’s 108,000 fans.
44 – No one wants him to use it stupidly.
Has anyone done a study to determine whether the teams of certain managers consistently underperform their Pythagoreans?
I think there are a lot of other larger factors at play than managers that would make this a difficult proposition to prove. One thing that comes to mind is blowout wins/losses. These wind up having a pretty large effect on a team’s pythag record, and losing by a lot certainly isn’t a good sign for the future, but I think pythag exaggerates this effect.
For instance, how seriously should M’s fans take the Twins, who come to town with a 0.428 pythag winning percentage? (using the old-fashioned exponent of 2) Well, in one three-game series in Detroit earlier this season, Minnesota got spanked to the tune of 33-1 over three games. If you take those three games out, their pythag winning percentage stands at 0.486. This isn’t to say that .486 is necessarily a better estimate of how good the Twins are, but it seems unreasonable to me that 3 games should swing your record going forward by almost 60 points.
Basically, just because of that one horrible 3-game series, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Twins out-perform their pythag record by the end of the season, and it won’t have anything to do with Ron Gardenhire being a good manager (which he’s not). And certainly, I think there are other factors at play that make it tough to use pythag as the measuring stick for managers.
I didn’t say that he was underusing his bench. I said that he was using his players badly…and in ways that aren’t justified by performance or player response or even common sense.
Dave, that was a good rebuttal of bookbooks post. I went to the THT site and all the stats were as you said. One thing I noticed while I was there was that our record in “close games” (and two run games) was 9-17, about as bad as I could find. And as you would guess, teams having bad years have poor records in close games and good teams have good records in those games. Gwangung correctly mentioned in another post that we are underperforming our projected pythagorean record as well. That made me wonder about the relationship between the two and made me wonder if poor managing would cause that. So I checked the variance between the pythagorean and actual records and as you would expect it was in most cases negative for a team with a losing record in close games and positive for teams with winning records in close games. That seems fairly intuitive to me, although one is based on our predicted record based on run differential and the other is our actual record in tight games. So they are not exactly the same thing. However, to make the numbers work out it seems like a team would have to lose alot of close games to have a large variance and that could be considered a sign of a bad manager.
part of the second line on my post above should be: (one and two run games)
gwangung
I concur. Overusing WFB in Centerfield, and then no one else or nothing else is not smart bench use.
I’d like to see WFB and Mike Morse each get a start every week, across CF, LF, 3B, SS, and 2B. I’d like to see Petagine Once a week at either 1B or DH, and see other regulars get a shot at DH once a month. This means a regular would get a day off once every 2-3 weeks, and we’d have 3 sharp or sharper guys on the bench.
I’m not a bring back Lou crazed fan, but I thought his use of McLemore and giving the regulars occaisional rest was smart managing.
I love all this talk of Pythagorean wins . . . but can anybody tell me when they play the Pythagorean World Series?
I agree completely with lokiforever’s suggested bench usage in 52. And you time those days off so that you (1) rest the regulars against starters they have trouble with, and (2) give the bench guys their best opportunities and best platoon advantages. In other words, the game when Morse plays LF in place of Ibanez would be with a lefthander on the mound. When Petagine plays 1B in place of Sexson it is against a RHP. And so on. When Bloomquist plays CF (shudder) in place of Reed it is against a LHP. Not a platoon, just smart bench usage.
Hargrove’s bench usage shows no sign of being part of any kind of plan. He sits more than one starter some games and none another, and he puts bench guys in when they are at a platoon disadvantage sometimes. It seems to be a one-game-at-a-time thing, perhaps based on how desperate he is to get a win on any given day to keep from getting fired that day.
Dave, that was a good rebuttal of bookbooks post. I went to the THT site and all the stats were as you said. One thing I noticed while I was there was that our record in “close games†(and two run games) was 9-17, about as bad as I could find. And as you would guess, teams having bad years have poor records in close games and good teams have good records in those games. Gwangung correctly mentioned in another post that we are underperforming our projected pythagorean record as well. That made me wonder about the relationship between the two and made me wonder if poor managing would cause that. So I checked the variance between the pythagorean and actual records and as you would expect it was in most cases negative for a team with a losing record in close games and positive for teams with winning records in close games. That seems fairly intuitive to me, although one is based on our predicted record based on run differential and the other is our actual record in tight games. So they are not exactly the same thing. However, to make the numbers work out it seems like a team would have to lose alot of close games to have a large variance and that could be considered a sign of a bad manager.
Well, at least there’s prima facie reasoning to think that managers have more effect on one-two run games…..
lokiforever….I wouldn’t have an argument with that kind of player use. It seems more sensible to me than what’s been done the last two years….
Why on earth would you want to see Mike Morse play ever, let alone once a week?
If a guy is on the major league roster he should start at least once every couple of weeks. Period.
I disagree. It should be position-dependent. If it’s a platoon, he should start 2-3 times a week. If he’s a defensive sub, 1-2 times. Pinch hitter, 1-2 times. But it should vary.
For instance, I think Bloomquist should be not be starting except to rest a player. I’d only like him to start in a week where there are seven games.
dw I thought that’s what he said.
I can’t believe Franklin’s already grousing about his run support, and he’s not even in the rotation yet.
Good News!
Jeff posted recently.
Bad News!
That means Jeff’s not due to post again until sometime after King Felix’s 3rd consecutive Cy Young in 2011.
Has anyone done a study to determine whether the teams of certain managers consistently underperform their Pythagoreans?
I believe the guys at Baseball Prospectus did this in Baseball Between the Numbers and showed no year-to-year correlation between over/under-performing Pythagorean for managers.
Morse shouldn’t be on the roster. Given that he’s on the roster he shouldn’t play because he sucks. Since he sucks the more you play him the more you make the team suck, it’s pretty simple.
Morse shouldn’t be on the roster. Given that he’s on the roster he shouldn’t play because he sucks. Since he sucks the more you play him the more you make the team suck, it’s pretty simple
Well, yeah….I think there were at least two Tacoma player NOT rehabbing who were better choices….but I still think if he’s here, use him, because the degradation in the rest of the team brings them down past his level (and I don’t think he’s THAT bad)
You can’t have a guy on the roster and just not use him. Well, you can if you’re Lou and he’s a Rule 5 guy.
Luis Ugueto sighting!
You can use the guys who stink as little as possible.
Given that they have Morse up it’s not that unreasonable to have him fester on the bench instead of stink in the field. I don’t think the guy can field any position at the Major league level and he’s never going to hit.
I just love the fact that it had to be Morse, because they needed an infield back-up, and then they never give the infield a day off….
I just love the fact that it had to be Morse, because they needed an infield back-up, and then they never give the infield a day off….
Grover all over.
I stand corrected. The Mariners are a phenomenally unlucky 80-win team, on track to win 70-73 games this year.
(this sounds to me a little bit like the anti-greens who had to stop criticizing Gore for being wrong about global warming, but settle now for condemning him for being right too early.)
Y’know, if you’re trying to answer complaints that you’re not misrepresenting and belittling those with whom you disagree, it’s generally not a good idea to add another example of misrepresenting and belittling those with whom you disagree.
I disagree with that characterization of what I’ve done or attempted to do, Ancient one. I would personally be shocked if the M’s win more than 73 games this year (and/or if Sexson, Beltre, Reed ever forms a championship-quality heart of an order).
I’d be glad to be wrong…