Sullivan on Felix
Dave · June 22, 2007 at 7:34 am · Filed Under Mariners
I posted a lot of my comments in last night’s game thread and was planning on just throwing up a quick recap of why last night’s performance by Felix didn’t impress me much, but Jeff Sullivan did me one better. Just go read that instead. He nails it.
At this point, what can you do? If he’s hurting, he shouldn’t be pitching, but if he’s not hurting, someone needs to tell him to stop being timid.
But if you make him dial it back up and he’s lying about it not hurting, well, there’s suddenly a direct flight to Birmingham out of Seattle….
What I think is that Felix was more hurt than we realized, and even if he is physically-recovered, the caution is just going to take time. Funny idea pandered by Jeff: it ain’t the pitch sequence – it’s the quality of the pitches. What a concept.
You’re amazingly talented at misreading other peoples opinions.
The countdown to the first post asking why Dave hates the Mariners begins now…
As far as Mariners writers with three syllable Irish surnames go, Sullivan > Finnegan.
[deleted, not getting into a flame war]
It’s customary, when using quote marks to represent what someone is saying, for the words within the quote marks to be words the person actually said.
[deleted, not getting into a flame war]
I think this is a case of Felix not knowing that he is 100% healty ,crappy Pitch selection, and loss of his “easiest” pitch (sinker)
Even though he didn’t have the mechanics and movement of his pitches down all that well, I still think he did a pretty good job of location on the outside or corners of the zone. Sure, he did throw up a couple pretty juicy ones over the heart of the plate, but how many starting pitchers manage to go without throwing at least one a game?
I still agree with most of what Jeff is saying, but I’d say because of the location of most of his pitches, he’s an improved Felix over his post-Bosox stint. Just my take on things though.
Dave, first off thanks for carrying the USSMariner banner! I find the posts really interesting, and often forward them to friends (BoSox fans, all). The observations that you and Jeff have made regarding the changes in pitch quality for Felix, and the possibility that he is not completing the follow-through properly, are at least consistent. Can one say that they are consistent with current pain/injury or just not wanting the incur another injury? Assuming we can’t discriminate between the two, what do you make of Chaves pointing out this problem, and then Felix not appearing to make adjustments to it last night?
Here’s my thing. I agree with the fact that we saw the same Felix against a bad line-up, not getting punished for mistakes at the rate he had been. That being said I have 2 observations:
1. This can’t help but improve his confidence. If, indeed, he’s being tentative merely because he’s afraid of reinjuring himself, that is likely to pass with time, right? Bringing back feelings of what it was like to smoke people (or feel like that’s what you’re doing, anyway – Felix was enjoying himself out there last night) may eventually get his mind straight to let go and do what we know he can do. If he’s holding back because something is nagging him, then it’s a long road before us.
2. The confidence issue brings with it something Jeff mentioned, that may be as real a risk as #1 is a possibility. It’s the Brandon Morrow argument. If Felix believes what he did last night is enough to get shut-outs and work 8 innings every night, and also not “endanger” his arm, then he may keep running out the same protective approach, and he’ll have Pittsburgh nights some outings, and Houston nights on others. I’d be very sad, and we’d see the ceiling lower over the next couple of years.
One scenario keeps coming up in my mind, that maybe Felix had a talk with a buddy – or even himself – who said, “Look dude, throwing 99 MPH got you hurt. You haven’t got paid yet. If you want to be around and retire off of what you can do in this game, you better dial it down a notch.” I have no basis for this, but you can see the appeal of the argument. Bad (decent) Felix likely sticks around long enough to make decent money and being a useful part of our rotation for years, where “all-out” Felix may wow people in the short term, but become damaged goods leading to an early MLB exit. I don’t know if that’s a reasonable thing to argue to somebody, but we all know “you gotta get yours” kind of people, and you can imagine how a kid might be swayed.
Thank god that you all are friendly. I can’t imagine how much the M’s blogosphere would be if you didn’t all respect each other so much.
^I can’t imagine how much the M’s blogosphere would suck*
but we all know “you gotta get yours†kind of people, and you can imagine how a kid might be swayed.
The difference between a 97mph fastball and a 99mph fastball isn’t going to impact his longevity. It’s a tremendous arm strain eihter way.
There’s two camps in Mariners fandom. There’s those who blindly love this team and are all full of unwavering rah-rah BS for a club largely run with incompetence from top to bottom, and then there’s those who know that apparently until there is a fan community with a well-develeloped voice pointing out the missteps and gaffes of club operations through reasoned and empirical analysis, utlimately to influence the team into hiring the right personnel and making the right decisions in support of building a championship caliber team, we will never win a World Series. So it comes down to this–do you want to be a cheerleader, or do you want the team to win, and win consistently?
I know that I, for one, won’t be raising no flag atop no ship of fools. If this organization is ever going to become a perennial contender, it will be at the behest of a passionate, knowledgeable fan base that demands a winning philosopy. Ownership and front office will never make that their top priority as long as the team is making money. It really is up to us to make some noise and be uncontented. That is why USSMariner, Lookoutlanding, and other such sites are so important.
If an individual is too dense to realize that the nature of criticisms written here by Dave are the true mark of a passionate fan who wants to see his team win a World Series at some point in his lifetime, then he should probably turn off the computer and go back to kneeling in front of his shrine to Jeff Weaver.
“The difference between a 97mph fastball and a 99mph fastball isn’t going to impact his longevity. It’s a tremendous arm strain eihter way.”
How about the difference between throwing 97-99 consistently v. 93-94?
It’s possible “not finishing his pitches” — or whatever he might be doing to baby his arm, if that’s what he’s doing that’s making his pitches less effective — isn’t particularly concious. Pitching is about muscle memory, but that memory can include the memory of getting hurt. He may indeed be trying to put in 100%, and trying to finish his pitches, and his body is pulling back just before the point where the pain hit. It’s a tricky thing, and when you’re young and hurt for the first time, getting past that can be a big deal (the great benefit of being young is how quickly you learn things; the detriment is that the learning is indiscriminate, so you learn bad habits quickly too). The right thing might be for him to expend less than 100% effort but follow through the motion completely, to get his body to rediscover it can do that without pain, and then ramp it up again. Unfortunately, you do not want to do that in a game situation (at least not in games that count in the standings).
How about the difference between throwing 97-99 consistently v. 93-94?
That probably also doesn’t make a difference. Anything in the 90s is so far above what the arm was designed to tolerate that I’m guessing it doesn’t matter. Workload matters, context matters (highly leveraged v. low leverage), pitch selection matters (breaking balls are harder on the arm) but I doubt velocity has much if any impact unless by dialing down he was taking it into the 70s.
Long time lurker, first time poster. As a Felix owner (fantasy) I am concerned … and I LOVE this site for more than just Felix related info.
I think there is definetely something to his not finishing the pitches … the question is whether anyone is doing anything about it. At least we know for a fact that the coaching staff is somewhat aware of this issue (as opposed to the pitch selection issue). That can give us all some hope. Is there is a place where I can get a transcript of postgame interviews w/ the King … gageing his thoughts/reactions might give some insight.
Very few starting pitchers in history have had the talent that Felix has – insane movement at unbelievable speeds. Maybe this is just the nature of starters with absolutely filthy stuff – it’s not there every night. Sure, we know he has “Boston stuff†in him, but he’s not going to pitch one hit shutouts every night, even when he reaches his prime.
What I see is a pitcher who has “not-his-best-stuff†days just like normal, healthy, great pitchers have. The difference is, Felix lacks command and throws WAY too many fastballs right now, so as Jeff says, he seems to get punished more than his share for a pitcher of his caliber.
He’ll come around.
We know Felix probably isn’t going to be trhowing 97-99 for the rest of his career anyway. He needs to learn how to use his other pitches, and how to get by on reduced stuff, so when the day comes that his pure stuff isn’t the best in baseball, he can still be our ace. It’s concerning, but that’s what baseball is about, learning.
22: That day’s not supposed to come for ten years.
#23, Maybe, but I thought pitchers as a group start losing velocity earlier than that, I can’t verify it though. Not everyone is Randy Johnson, obviously.
I was one of those in the “Why do you hate the Mariners so much?” camp a month or so ago, but I completely agree with this post. I was at the game last night and also at Opening Day, and the difference between the two Felixes was amazing. I am a little frightened about what will happen next week against the Red Sox, honestly.
There’s those who blindly love this team and are all full of unwavering rah-rah BS for a club largely run with incompetence from top to bottom, and then there’s those who know that apparently until there is a fan community with a well-develeloped voice pointing out the missteps and gaffes of club operations through reasoned and empirical analysis, utlimately to influence the team into hiring the right personnel and making the right decisions in support of building a championship caliber team, we will never win a World Series.
The Florida Marlins (and their two World Championships, one more than Billy Beane and the Atlanta Braves combined) say hi… and so do us Mariner fans who still rooted for our team in the 1980′s, even when George Argyros made us wince.
If world championships are your sine qua non for enjoying baseball, you’re pretty miserable most of the time unless you’re a Yankees fan- and even they haven’t won the brass ring lately.
I didn’t mean to be obtuse…I enjoy watching the team, moreso this year than the last few for sure, but the days of the lovable losers should be OVER in this town. I grew up with that, and there were decent reasons for that reality being in place at that time. I just don’t think those realities are there anymore, or at least shouldn’t be.
When do we, as fans, need to demand a little more? We bought the stadium, we fill the seats, we tune into the simulcasts, and we deserve a front office that isn’t getting outmaneuvered by clubs with inferior resources. I think we have every right to be upset as fans. It’s not a need to be a championship caliber team every year, either. It’s a need to be moving in that direction, rather than standing in the Sammammish slough with our pants around our ankles.
Maybe this would fly in the NL (who DOESN’T enjoy watching the Marlins? I do, and yet they still may be taking their two titles out of South Florida), where 85 wins and two decent starters can get you into the playoffs, but the AL is a different animal. To wit, I am wearing my ’03 Marlins championship t-shirt at this very moment. The point was to emphasize my opinion of the absolute necessity for sites like this, that are not towing the company line, but instead searching out and exposing the baseball truths that other teams (Indians, A’s) seem to have locked onto, but which the Mariners seem to eschew to some degree through their operations.
Yeah, I’m bitter. Because I think we should be the class of this division, and we’re not. Anyway, I didn’t mean to hijack the thread, so I will say no more. Mea culpa.
Has anyone been down to Tacoma in the past few week to see Clement? It looks like he’s either 0 for or raking. Thus his progress may be attributed to his learning the opposing pitching rather than quickening his swing. Has anyone seen him hit lately?
What’s wrong with lovable losers? We’ve all seen Stripes, right?
Just to clarify – there wasn’t much lovable about the 04-06 Mariners (or the ’07 team, really). They just lost.
IMHO, what fans like to see, on a scale of 1-10
10: A great team who wins alot
7: A group of players who win alot
6: A team who loses alot
2: A group of players who lose alot
1: World-Class level soccer.
So, lovable losers (ie, a “Team” who loses a bunch) are nearly as desirable as a winning group of players (think Jailblazers)
Ask any Pittsburg or Kansas City fan if they like to watch a team lose a lot. The response will be somewhere between groan and #### off.
Actually your 1 should be the NBA Finals.
The USA – Mexico World Cup Qualifier in 2005 got better ratings than Game 3 of the 2007 NBA Finals.
There are a lot of people who don’t agree with that. Jason Churchill, for example, has been pretty consistent on that. And some people have claimed that Clement was working on going the other way in the first month, giving the impression that his bat speed was going down. And still others have been pointing to his isolated power, which has been consistently decent.
I’d really like to hear from people who know and who’s seen him.
This will be the 15th consecutive losing season for the Pirates.
The Mariners’ streak was 14 years.
I think the Phillies have the record at 16 years (they had a 14 year streak, then were 2 games over .500, then reeled off another 16 years)back in the ’30s and ’40s.
I’d say the Pirates have a pretty good chance of breaking the all time record.
It’s a bummer to grow up with a team that never even gets to .500 during your childhood.
31 – Agree about the NBA finals. This year’s was the most boring and dreadful EVAR.
Prediction for Felix vs. Red Sox: 6 IP, 8 H, 5 ER, 6 SO.
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comments 1-8
Does anyone on this board [this is not a board]
It’s a bummer to grow up with a team that never even gets to .500 during your childhood.
That pretty much describes my experience of being a fan of the Mariners. It also describes Bill James’s childhood when he was a KC A’s fan, because they were miserable- from 1955 to 1967 (their entire time there) they had 0 seasons above .500, 6 seasons above .400, and 6 seasons BELOW .400- meaning if you were a fan, you were at 50-50 odds to be a fan of a 95-100 loss team over a 162 game season.
Even the 80′s Mariners weren’t THAT bad. In fact, they never had back to back 90 loss seasons from 1982 through 2004- 2004/2005 was as bad a 2 year stretch since the early 80′s. So yeah, it wasn’t fun, but the Mariners were never MISERABLY bad- there were always exciting young players we were about to trade away once they got expensive that we got for a couple of years and so on…
Clement looked fine to me when I saw him about a week or so ago 5 rows back on the 3rd base side. Another guy was there as well that noted improved defense and said his bat looked faster than the opening game in which it was like 35 degrees. I was at a game early in the year, but was sitting on the 1B side and was hard to see his swing from my viewpoint. I didn’t think there was anything to worry about then and still don’t.
Defense looked alot better as well. It was the game that Pareda made his debut and there were alot of balls in the dirt that night that Clement kept in front of him.
I think Clement went 0-2 with a walk that night before being lifted for a pinch runner.
Felix returned last night and I think it was the tonic his confindence needed.
Look for the pre injury Felix from here on plain and simple.
As sharp as his pitches were and control was as good as could be so I think he’s over whatever it was that was making him overpitch.
The D last night in the game was also a big boost to Felix as well.No one really knows how much a pitcher performance is affected by bad play from the guys behind him both INF and OF.
It often dictates what a SP feels he can throw to get an out and not have to depend on the K for too high a percent of his outs.
If he feels he can throw a ball so he jams a hitter or makes him beat it in the ground and it’s caught or handle where it results in outs more often than hits.
He relaxs he more likely to trust his D and pitch his game not feel like he’s the one that has to get every out or lose.
As sharp as his pitches were and control was as good as could be
So I take it you really didn’t want to bother reading the article or any of the other comments. That’s fine. I don’t think we’ll miss anything by skipping over your posts either.
As to Jeff Clement if the reports continue to follow their present tone and If from what I’ve seen of him continues to be the rule instead of the exception.
Then I have to say it’s time to either convert him to a corner INFer or trade him while he has some value for neede help.
I quite frankly believe Johnson and Rivera are light years ahead of Clement defensively and are nearly as consistent at the plate.
Also both Johnson and Rivera are ready enough to where should something happen to either Johjima or Burke they could step in for a DL period and be more than good enough to backup the uninjuried of the two.
39 Reading articles are a main stay of my copmment s however I do reserve the right to disagree with an article and put forth my own opinions.
If you feel my opinion and my thoughts are of so little value then you are free to but don’t dismiss me so insultingly
40: I agree, Rivera is probably far more consistant than Clement at the plate.
Isn’t Rivera sporting a sub-sexson batting average in that league?
Consistently bad is still consistent!
44: exactly, it reminds me of Joe Morgan’s substituting ‘consistent’ for ‘good’, except here I’m not exactly sure what was intended.
Dave, what do you think of the Cards picking up Maroth, and did the Mariners miss out in any way?
I’m not Dave, but since we’ve agreed on several occasions that we share a brain, I’m probably qualified to answer for him when I say that Mike Maroth sucks.
fair enough
Quite frankly I don’t think so Maroth has been slipping and was most likely due a team change anyway.
However here’s a question for you to ponder if Maroth was such a hot SP how come the trade was a PTBNL deal and not this player for Maroth.
When PTBNL is involved the chances are the player being traded is either a no name low on the radar or just that odd man out that they don’t know what to do with.
I never disagreed that he was consistent =)
With numbers like his, I sure hope he’s better behind the plate than he was when he was in the bigs last year. I’m so glad to have Johji in the almost every-day lineup. Even Burke is playing well when he gets the day games.
Go M’s tonight!
Or the PTBNL is Jeremy Bonderman.
“I quite frankly believe Johnson and Rivera are light years ahead of Clement defensively and are nearly as consistent at the plate.”
Uhhh, consistency is overrated.
Grizz this is true but that only applies to the PTBNL in return not the player being aquired as in this case Maroth.
DNC to some people consistency is overrated but in the reality of baseball give me a player I can count on giving me game in and game out performances that rarely strays from his career numbers much as does Ichiro’s be they offensive and/or defensive I’m happy.
Cause I know I don’t have worry about that guy I just need to see where the weakness is and correct it and shore up the the strenghths.
So consistency isn’t overrated but can help build a team and weed out the mistakes and the bustes all the faster.
Most champions are made up of stars with great numbers be they pitchers and/or position players but if you look at their lineup and then their bench along with the pen.
You have consistency in performance so the club doesn’t see a marked drop either at the plate and/or with the glove when the backup or reliever is playing.
Champions are made of teams with a lot of talent, who get luckier in the playoffs than other teams with a lot of talent. Call this luck “consistency” if you must.
#48: Hey, if Tango didn’t arbitrarily add 3.2 to FIP, Maroth’s would barely be over 3.
Am I the only one who thinks it’s odd that neither USSM nor LL have anything to say about Junior coming back to Seattle tonight?
I don’t know about USSM, but since I’ve never lived in Seattle and only got to follow those 1990′s Mariner teams through newspaper box scores, I didn’t get the same Griffey experience as so many people, so my saying anything probably wouldn’t do justice to the significance of this moment for much of the fan base.
That’s OK, KJR is all-Griffey, all-the-time.
And I just posted the game thread with my thoughts on the matter. I’m sure it will be used as more evidence that I hate this franchise and I’m a total pile of crap.
Griffey is special for a lot of reasons, but the other guys you mention, Dave, are special for a reason or two that Griffey can’t claim. Don’t get me wrong…Griffey is the only player who has ever made me stop in my tracks whenever he came to the plate, just so I wouldn’t miss a pitch. But he also took his insane amount of talent for granted…imagine if he had stretched like Ichiro, left it all on the diamond every night like Snelling or Bragg, or appeared to play just for the love of the game. He may have been unquestionably the best ever.
Full disclosure, he used to aim for us while taking BP, while we were changing the out of town scoreboard in the dome. Atop a thirty foot ladder and getting hit by a 320 foot line drive, only to turn around and watch the guy who hit it fall down laughing, will remind you that the hero of your childhood probably isn’t quite the god some people think. Then again, I also saw him stop an interview to do an unscheduled meet n’ greet with my brother and his “Little” in the Big Brothers program, so don’t let me paint him as a total jerk. But he’s also no Edgar.