Game 63, Mariners v Rockies
12:10. Hammel, I think it’s interesting to note, was one of the floating excess pitchers Dave and I wanted the M’s to go after when it looked like the M’s were going to need rotation help, and then the M’s had too many pitchers for the rotation, and now we’re back to famine.
Per the Times, the lineup looks like:
RF-L Ichiro!
1B-L Russ Branyan
3B-R Adrian Beltre
2B-R Jose Lopez
DH-L Ken Griffey Jr.
SS-R Yuniesky Betancourt
C-R Guillermo Quiroz
CF-LF-R Franklin Gutierrez
P-R Jason Vargas
Yes, I’m stealing Mike Snow’s joke.
Rockies
CF-B Dexter Fowler
2B-R Clint Barmes
1B-L Todd Helton
3B-R Garrett Atkins
RF-L Brad Hawpe
LF-R Ryan Spilborghs
SS-R Troy Tulowitzki
C-R Chris Iannetta
P-R Jason Hammel
Fun question to contemplate: are there four future Hall of Fame members in this game? Two and a “wait and see”? Three and a “wait and see”? One? I’ve been tossing this over in my head since I saw the lineups.
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Ackley and North Carolina playing on ESPN right now…
Who’s the fourth? I’d only say Ichiro, Griffey and Helton.
And while we wait, Ackley on ESPN at 11am PT
Wish I had a chance to see Tulo on a regular basis; I don’t have a real sense of how he plays, beyond the numbers.
what? the team somehow missed that he was from Port Orchard?!
Helton, Ichiro and Griffey, yes. Yuni will need some help from the Veterans Committee.
Is Helton really HOF worthy? I think the Coors factor works against him. Maybe I’ll stpo being lazy and go look up the stats.
Don’t laugh at me, I don’t think it’s possible either, but what if Beltre finishes his career with 400+ HR and 2500+ hits. His career 106 OPS+ pales by HOF standards, but hits and HR go a long way with the voters. Add in great defense…Maybe he goes back to the LA and wins a championship…Maybe he even figures out how to hit at some point. Also, he had a season where he was a 10! win player.
It will be rediculous if Helton doesn’t get in because of Coors. It doesn’t seem like anybody goes and discounts pitchers results for pitching in extreme pitchers’ parks. You shouldn’t do it just one way.
As of September 29, 2007, Helton has batted .367 at Coors Field and .295 on the road. He has averaged one home run per 15.5 at-bats at Coors Field versus one home run per 23.8 at-bats on the road. In a similar number of at-bats (2,849 at home vs. 2,807 on the road), Helton has 225 more RBI at Coors Field than on the road. He also has scored more runs (685 vs. 417), has a higher on-base percentage (.465 vs. .394), slugging average (.662 vs. .502) and OPS (1.127 vs. .897).
Yes, I would agree…though unfortunately, both he and Matt Holliday have gotten screwed out of MVP’s in recent years largely because of the perceived “Coors Factor”.
I’ll fess up, I jacked that last paragraph from Wikipedia, hence no 2008 stats included.
Also, he has only one year of postseason appearances. That has to count against him.
If you double Helton’s career away stats, he comes up as one of those “pretty good” players. If HoF committee is looking at his splits, then he still needs a couple more decent years under his belt to be considered pretty good long enough to register as great.
I’d be surprised if Beltre’s defense isn’t considered, but he’ll have to surpass his baseball-reference Ron Santo comparison to get in.
Strange how that all ties together. Santo is a perfect example of your home park hurting your hall of fame chances the way it does for Helton.
Let me take that argument then: say you consider only Helton’s road stats. Just double them and call it a career. What do you get?
Under 2,000 hits
248 HR
1,000 BB
9,982 K
.295/.394/.494 line
That’s Sheffield light. Is Gary Sheffield a Hall of Famer? It’s Tony Clark plus a lot of walks.
Speaking of possible HOF-bound players…. Santana just got rocked by the Yankees. If this keeps up, the “Coors Effect” should start getting applied to anyone who plays in New Yankee Stadium. (Devalue Yankee stats? That’s unpossible!)
That split on Helton makes sense…though a lifetime .295 road average is still pretty darned good — especially when you’re playing a fair number of games in some “hitter’s hells” like San Diego.
DMZ, Don’t you have to give Helton a generic home field advantage and add that to his stats?
More improtant than being from Port Orchard, is Hammel being a fellow Treasure Valley Community College alum. Despite being a fellow Chukar, still gotta see the M’s beat him down for a much needed win.
Hopefully someone…anyone besides Beltre will have a clue in our infield today on D.
I thought the basement for admittance had been established once they “finally” put Jim Rice in the Hall.
Yep. Jim Rice. He’s the minimum benchmark.
Nice swing of the bat there, JV!
Am I the only one starting to think our pitchers should be hitting around 6 or 7 instead of 9?
Yeah, considering some of the “hitters” the M’s have in the lower third of the lineup, Wak should stick the pitchers in there. With the lefties it would be a good way to break up all the RH at the bottom (and avoid having a LH preceding Ichiro and Branyan).
One of these days, I’d like to spend about an hour on B-R and thumb through some of those old box scores from before the DH era just to see what some of the batting orders looked like. I know there were some awfully light-hitting middle-infielders back in those days — and, ironically, a few pitchers who could also swing a bat pretty well.
Well, we know Ruth batted 3rd, right? That’s why #3 is a retired number for the Yankees. I assume he batted 3rd even on the days he pitched.
LOL.
And don’t forget the dark horse candidacy of Dexter Fowler!
I think Quiroz will probably be a shoo-in as well.
DMZ, I still don’t see who the fourth possibility is. Tulo seems to have the best chance of players not named Ichiro, Griffey, and Helton though his whole career is ahead of him and that’s obviously a huge leap to talk about HOF.
My take, if they retired today. Griffey is the only Hall-of-Famer. Assuming he doesn’t get bored and retire, Ichiro will wind up at or near 3000 hits; add in gold glove defense, some credit for his years in Japan, and being “famous” and he’s a shoo in.
I’m not sure on Helton, both whether he’ll get in and whether he belongs in. Depends how many more seasons he plays. His counting stats don’t yet seem impressive enough to overcome the Coors factor. Double the road stats isn’t quite fair, but his career numbers certainly need to be adjusted significantly when considering his impact.
My take 3 from this game get in. Check back in 10 years.
Ruth pitched a total of 31 innings with the Yankees.
Unfortunately, as wonderful as Retrosheet is it’s missing a lot of data from that far back so it’s hard to be sure where in the order he batted as a pitcher, but based on the limited info here I’d guess he batted 2nd, 7th, 8th and 9th for the 4 games they have.
I think there’s a difference in park/league adjusting somebody’s stats, and just looking at their home/away splits.
Double Wade Boggs’ road stats and you get…
2774 hits
96 HR
302/372/389
Of course he gave you a huge 354/443/491 career line at home.
Ichiro will wind up at or near 3000 hits; add in gold glove defense, some credit for his years in Japan, and being “famous†and he’s a shoo in.
Ichiro should get some HOF credit for his wacky outfits as well.
I see there’s three hall of famers. Yes, Helton was boosted by Coors, but .295/.394/.494 is pretty awesome and he’ll get some extra support for having his overall numbers be awesome and winning about fifty gold gloves.
Who’s the fourth potential hall of famer?
Well, let’s see now. Checking Ichiro on the HOF test list at his B-Ref page: on the black-ink test, he’s well above the average HOFer (35-27); on the gray-ink test, he’s below the average but not too bad (113-144); on the HOF monitor, he’s above the average (182-100); and on the HOF standards list, he’s below average (33-50).
All of which is to say, I think Ichiro’s Hall case is looking pretty good so far.
1-1 Tie going to bottom of the 9th. AZ-NC hope there is a future hall of famer on the NC team currently playing 1st base.
Boy it sure gets old watching the M’s hitters make journeyman pitchers look like Cy Young.
Sheesh.
Tornado warning! I wonder, do they have tornado shelters for all the spectators at the stadium?
Niehaus?
Re the Hall of Fame.
Junior = yes.
Ichiro = yes (easily).
Helton = no, he’ll be Coors’d out of it.
Tulo = Tulo early to tell.
Beltre = no.
Yuni = Yes, eventually inducted as a manager known for his amazing motivational speeches. Credits Wak as his role model. Says Wak “really taught me how to handle difficult players.”
I was thinking: If we don’t trade Branyan, should we give him a multi-year deal? Is there any chance of him becoming a type A or B FA at the end of this year or next?
In re: to Branyan, there’s no chance of him becoming a type A/B FA at the end of this year since last year’s numbers were so limited.
He’s been a beast this year, but signing him to a multiyear deal is exactly the type of move Bavasi would have done, I don’t think that’s in the cards for Z and Co. I don’t want Branyan to go, as he’s been one of the few bright spots for this offense, but the asking price in the offseason will be way too high for him to come back I’m afraid.
I could see Branyan getting something like 2yr/12M$. Is that too low, even for this market?
I’d have serious qualms quadruping his salary then guaranteeing it for 2years…that’s all I’m saying.
Washington Nationals Manager Manny Acta is about to be fired and who is gonna become the interim Manager for the rest of the season???? None other than bench coach Jim Riggleman. This is gonna be his big break I can feel it.
Ichiro’s selfishness and lack of clubhouse leadership are going to hurt his chances.
So will his meager power numbers in an era when players were routinely hitting 40-50 home runs a year. His refusal to steal bases or play center field when both were clearly in the best interest of the team can’t help either.
Sarcasm, right?
I see nobody bothered to comment on the game LOL!
This must be a game thread first. There are more comments about another game (one, Az-UNC) than the game the thread is about (zero).
And I still don’t know who the 4th potential HOF is, though I’d guess DMZ was thinking Beltre.
I missed the game; so I thought I’d read the game thread.
I did.
(Still missed the game.)
Nobody missed much. The tornado warning was a little unsettling for me being a life long northwest boy. I was in the club level with my wife, uncle and aunt when they cleared the stands. We waited indoors (next to the bar), so that wasn’t too bad. But, another USSMariner was at the game and was with his family at the BBQ pit under the stand in right field.
My sister-in-law called me after we got moved inside to tell us there was a big funnel cloud forming over her house, 2 miles or so from Coors.
Some baseball related notes from being at the game (and just some of my opinions).
Dexter Fowler is a treat to watch play center field. He’s amazingly smooth out there.
Tulo is what Yuni could have maybe been 3 or 4 years ago (with the glove).
Junior and Ichiro! are locks, IMHO. Helton getting in depends a lot on who gets tainted with the steroids issue. Bill James has an excellent article in this year’s Gold Mine about Helton’s HoF case. Helton isn’t anywhere real close to where Edgar was as hitter, especially once you take Coors into account. Of course Todd played a hell of a first base for awhile so…
I’m really late to this discussion, but two notes about the Coors Advantage: While the humidor did cut down on the number of home runs, Coors still has an unusually large outfield, which gives outfielders more ground to cover and is an advantage for hitters since chances are more likely a ball hit to the outfield will drop in.
Also, the humidor doesn’t weigh the balls down to counteract the high altitude. It simply maintains the temperature and humidity of normal conditions. Denver’s climate dried out baseballs, which exacerbated the high altitude’s effect on the ball’s flight. That high altitude effect still remains to some degree.