Jamie Burke on Weekend America
Game 60, Mariners at Indians
Baek v Byrd. 4:05, FSN.
This makeup schedule is just crazy. There’s no good way they were going to re-schedule those games, but I can’t imagine there wasn’t a less-bad way. And to think that this was a compromise! Ugh.
Anyway, the Indians are 37-24 and the M’s are 33-26. The M’s are on a ridiculous tear, and the Indians are playing well, but not as well. Go team.
The ESPN player rankings
If you look at ESPN.com’s front page right now, there’s a story about a player ranking formula that they’ve created.
It’s horrible, it’s useless, and you shouldn’t care. It’s based on bad premises, produces bad results, and is a collossal waste of time. ESPN is horrible at this kind of stuff – a few years ago, they shoved Productive Outs down our throats and tried to convince everyone that they’d created some fantastic new statistic.
ESPN does some things well, but besides a select few guys they’ve hired (John Hollinger, for one), they are a disaster when it comes to any kind of serious analysis. Just ignore the player rater, because it isn’t worth your time, unless you want to learn why Sean White is better than Jarrod Washburn.
Best Ichiro Quote Yet
The Mariners were clearly not thrilled with the detour before opening a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday.
“To tell the truth, I’m not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to,” Ichiro said through an interpreter. “If I ever saw myself saying I’m excited going to Cleveland, I’d punch myself in the face, because I’m lying.”
Felix, Pitch Selection, Part 843
The M’s just completed a sweep of a pretty good baseball team. Hooray. They’re now only 4 1/2 games out, and with some lousy NL Central teams coming up after today’s distraction in Cleveland, they have a chance to keep the winning going.
But, you know me, I’m generally a lot more interested in the process than the result. I like to find out why things happen, rather than just settling for accepting that they did. And, one of my obvious obsessions over the past 18 months has been the pitch selection of Felix Hernandez. It all started with the Charting Felix series last year, and in the last few days, I’ve spent some time talking with Dan Fox, who is doing great work plotting velocity and break data from MLB.com’s enhanced gameday, which basically turns game charting into an automated process and makes my life a lot easier.
So, to help Dan be able to translate the velocity/data numbers from gameday into understanding pitch types, I watched yesterday’s game with Gameday open simultaneously, so I could quickly associate the pitch that he threw with how gameday described it. He’s going to use the pitch descriptions and his data to do some cool stuff pretty soon. But, since I have the information from yesterday’s game now, and I find this stuff remarkably interesting, here’s a look at Felix’s pitch selection against the Padres.
Since he threw 93 pitches, I’ve broken them out into 15 pitch segments, which allows us to view his start in 1/6th chunks and watch the transformation as the game goes on. To the charting – by request, the italicized pitches in the sequence charts are the first pitch of an at-bat.
Pitch 1-15
Sequence: FB, FB, FB, FB, FB, FB, FB, CH, FB, SL, CB, FB, FB, SL, FB
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 80%
CB: 0%
SL: 13%
CH: 7%
Results: Walk (fastball), Groundout (curveball), Strikeout (slider).
It’s the same gameplan he takes to the hill every single time. He begins the game by just throwing fastball after fastball, to the great surprise of no one. Because it’s his worst pitch and the one he has the least command over, he falls behind hitters, gets in more fastball counts, and generally struggles. We’ve pointed this out for over a year now, and it’s blindingly obvious – Felix’s struggles in the first inning are completely related to his pitch selection. Yes, if he had pinpoint command of his fastball, it wouldn’t be a problem, but he doesn’t. So when he goes all fastballs, all the time, he struggles.
Pitch 16-30
Sequence: FB, FB, SL, FB, FB, SL, FB, FB, SL, FB, CH, FB, CH, SL, CB
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 53%
CB: 7%
SL: 27%
CH: 13%
Results: Groundout (fastball), Single (fastball), Strikeout (slider), Single (fastball)
After feeling that the fastball was significantly established, Felix converts to using his entire arsenal. Of course, it’s still a pretty predictable two-fastballs-then-a-slider pattern to start off, but when he works in the change-up and curve at the end, he’s good. Both hits came off badly located fastballs up in the zone early in the count, but when he threw anything that moved, the Padres were helpless.
Pitch 31-45
Sequence: SL, CH, FB, FB, CB, CB, FB, FB, FB, CH, FB, FB, FB, SL, SL
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 53%
CB: 13%
SL: 20%
CH: 13%
Results: Strikeout (change), Groundout (fastball), Groundout (fastball), Single (fastball), Double Play (change), groundout (fastball)
This was Felix at his best. He threw a couple of nasty change-ups, including a first-pitch change to Adrian Gonzalez that produced an inning ending double play directly after throwing another badly located high fastball that got hit for a single. Even when he threw the fastballs, he was keeping hitters off balance, getting Marcus Giles to groundout on a sinker after starting him with back to back curveballs.
Pitch 46-60
Sequence: SL, CH, SL, FB, FB, FB, FB, CH, FB, FB, SL, CB, FB, CH, CH?
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 47%
CB: 7%
SL: 20%
CH: 27%
Results: Home Run (fastball), Groundout (slider), Single (fastball), Home Run (change-up? I’m not sure, honestly)
The crappy fourth inning. Generally, you’d expect some rant from me here about bad pitch selection causing the home runs, but really, it wasn’t. The 3-2 fastball to Cameron was another badly located high fastball, but it came after five consecutive offspeed pitches to start the at-bat. It was the only fastball Cameron saw the whole at-bat, as they clearly had a gameplan off attacking him with stuff that moved. On a 3-2 count, throwing a guy a fastball after seeing a lot of breaking stuff isn’t a bad idea. It was just put in a bad spot, and Cameron jumped on it. It happens.
The Sledge homer, though, is the one that just makes you shake your head. After giving up a single on a fastball, Felix threw a first pitch change-up to Sledge, and again, there’s nothing to complain about there. He was still mixing his pitches and staying away from first-pitch fastballs to every hitter. But, the second pich… I honestly don’t know what it was. 88 MPH, no movement whatsoever, belt high, and just a Weaveresque meatball. I’m guessing it was a change-up that he just overthrew, or maybe he took an awful lot off a fastball, but either way, the result was horrible. It was a mistake pitch, a marshmellow soft meatball with no movement. It’s not something you ever see Felix throw, so we certainly can’t call it predictable. Something just went wrong with that pitch and Sledge made him pay for it.
Pitch 61-75
Sequence: FB, FB, FB, SL, CB, FB, FB, SL, SL, CB, CB, CH, CB, FB, CH
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 40%
CB: 27%
SL: 20%
CH: 13%
Results: Strikeout (slider), Popout (curve), Strikeout (slider), Groundout (fastball)
Here, again, is Good Felix. If there’s a pattern to his pitches, I can’t see it, and he kept throwing offspeed pitches on the first pitch of an-bat with great success. By keeping the hitters off balance so they couldn’t look for a fastball early in the at-bat, he got ahead and put them away with the nasty breaking balls.
Pitch 76-93
Sequence: SL, FB, CB, CB, SL, CB, CH, SL, FB, CB, FB, SL, FB, SL, FB, FB, CB, CB
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 33%
CB: 33%
SL: 28%
CH: 6%
Results: Strikeout (curve), Flyout (slider), Single (fastball), Flyout (curve)
The last segment is 18 pitches, but again, we see the continuing de-evolution of Felix from his establish-the-fastball start to him practically overthrowing his breaking balls as he gets near the end of the game. But, as we continue to see, it works – the soft stuff gets outs, and the hard stuff gets hit.
Total
Percentage Breakdown
FB: 49%
CB: 16%
SL: 22%
CH: 13%
Results By Type:
Fastball: 6 for 12, walk, home run
Curveball: 0 for 4
Slider: 0 for 6, 4 strikeouts
Change: 1 for 3, strikeout, double play, home run
The evolution of Felix during a game is fascinating to watch, at least, when it’s not aggravatingly frustrating. For whatever reason (be it organizational philosophy or just stubbornness of youth), he will begin every single game exactly the same way, despite the fact that it’s never done anything other than dig him a hole and run up his pitch count, before he settles into a pattern of varying his pitches and getting outs with breaking balls.
We all know that Felix’s fastball is his worst pitch. Yesterday, he threw it less than half the time, and with the exception of two swings, he mostly had success.
All I’m asking is that one of these days, the Mariners send him to the hill with a gameplan other than nothing-but-fastballs early. It’s not good for Felix, it’s not good for the team, and it’s frustrating as hell to watch.
Game 59, Mariners at Padres
Happy Felix Day! 1:05.
I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, but this (and Felix’s next start against the even weaker Astros lineup including the shell of Biggio) are a fine time for him to put up some great numbers. Mix pitches early! Seriously! It’s the key to life!
Faces Chris Young, so I’m looking forward to a great pitching matchup, though looking through past game threads, it looks like hoping for great pitching matchups rarely results in them. Still, I always enjoy looking forward to seeing Felix.
Game 58, Mariners at Padres
The Return of Jeff Weaver! Yes! Has his time off doing exercises and throwing simulated games against Jason Ellison and Willie Bloomquist turned him back into a legitimate major league pitcher? Because that would be nice.
7:05, FSNW, we’ll find out.
Hargrove’s still too chicken to try Vidro in the field. I’m taking this as a sign he doesn’t want to intentionally sabotage Weaver’s first outing back.
I can’t believe we have get to see Weaver back in the rotation. Hopefully, we get different results.
Game 57, Mariners at Padres
After an off day, I hope you’re as excited to see some baseball my dear and unfortunately duped readers. Not exciting baseball (Lincecum in Oakland tonight!) but it has its charms:
Batista’s put together a string of not-disastrous starts since his May 12th drubbing at the hands of the Yankees. To compete, the M’s desperately need Batista to at least put up those kind of performances: get six innings in, keep the game under control. It may not be what they hired him on for, but they need the starting pitching to compete.
Fortunately, he’s up against the Padres, who are not a particularly good-hitting team. Even taking park effects into consideration, they’re not good.
Unfortunately, he’s up against Germano, who’s done quite well for himself so far. But the Mariners – they can hit this year. But then Germano’s right-handed, and the M’s aren’t as good against righties. Interestingly, though, the potential swap of Vidro-for-Sexson isn’t nearly the win it might seem. At least this year, while Vidro’s OBP v RHP (.339) is better than Sexson’s (.290)(ugh), Sexson’s decent power when he makes contact makes them a wash offensively. Even more interestingly, now that I look at those splits, is how badly Guillen’s done against righties. He’s hitting .240/.305/.367. That’s low. For a corner outfielder, too.
That’s likely not going to hang around: over the last three years, he’s hit righties better than lefties. Still, it’s weird to think that Guillen’s reasonable performance so far this year is due in such great part to his hitting left-handed pitching so well.
The really interesting thing, of course, is what happens if Hargrove, who seems somewhat bent on shoving Vidro, the team’s third-worst regular hitter (Sexson, Ibanez)(and it’s more like tied-for-second-worst, really), into the lineup, he may well do it at the expense of a lot of hitting and defense at third, less hitting and defense at second, or more or less a wash at first.
Which brings us to another point sometimes brought up in comments. Vidro’s 54 games into the year, he’s got 224 at-bats, 19 walks (11 GIDPs, 9 extra-base hits). At this point last year, Carl Everett had played in 54 games of 57, had 219 at-bats, 22 walks (5 GIDPs, 14 XBH).
Turbo: .290/.344/.357
Jurassic: .257/.338/.403
Carl Everett was, at this point in the season last year, having a better year than Jose Vidro is. You give up six points of OBP to get 43 points of SLG. At least Turbo isn’t quite as expens– ooooooh, right.
Lineups when they’re posted. I’m so excited to see them. Go for it, Hargrove! Be crazy!
Hot update! Hargrove chickens out! Buck-buck-ba-gaawwwwkkkkk! Isn’t baseball intended to be entertaining?
CF-L Ichiro!
2B-R Lopez
RF-R Guillen
LF-L Ibanez
1B-R Sexson
C-R Johjima
3B-R Beltre
SS-R Betancourt
Friday Roundup
So, obviously, the draft was the big news from yesterday. There’s three posts on it below this, so scroll down if you’re looking for information on Philippe Aumont. After the first round, the M’s selected five more players – college 3B Matt Mangini, HS outfielders Denny Almonte, Daniel Carroll, and Joe Dunigan, and college RHP Nolan Gallagher. Don’t read anything into the fact that they loaded up on toolsy young outfielders and any hidden meanings about their intentions regarding Ichiro – the decisions are completely disconnected from one another, and they were simply taking the players they thought were the best available at the time of the pick.
Speaking of the M’s center fielder, it’s Ichiro Day at the P-I, as they got nearly the entire baseball department to spend the offday writing an opinion piece on what the M’s should do with him. David Andriessen writes the “What is he worth” article, Ted Miller pens the “just sign him” piece, Seth Kolloen gives the emotional heartstrings a tug, Bill Virgin discusses Ichiro’s lack of endorsement deals, and Greg Johns talks to Adam Jones about biding his time in Tacoma.
We wrote about Ichiro a few weeks ago, and nothing has changed since. For various reasons, Ichiro is an underappreciated player in many circles of the fanbase, and he’s clearly the best player on the team, one of the true superstars in baseball, and a remarkably valuable player. Losing Ichiro would be a crippling blow to an organization that needs to be adding talent, not subtracting it. The “Trade Ichiro For Pitching” crowd wants the M’s to cut off their nose to spite their face, and I couldn’t be more against that line of thinking. So, yea – the M’s are currently contenders, Ichiro is their best player, he shouldn’t be traded, and they should try their darndest to resign him this winter.
Weaver Makes Rehab Start?
So, I know Jeff Weaver is starting for the M’s on Saturday, but when looking at the minor league box scores tonight and noticing that the Rainiers currently trail the Colorado Springs Sky Sox 21-11 in the top of the 8th inning, my first thought was “hey, they got Weaver to go on a rehab start after all”.
But no, it was just Jake Woods, Juan Sandoval, and Jamie Cerda taking the pounding.
Also, on a night where the two teams have combined for 36 hits, Jeff Clement is 0 for 3. Awesome.
Major League ready outfielder Adam Jones is 4-4 with 2 homers, though.