Road Trip Of Doom Recap
The M’s just completed the hardest stretch of their season schedule. Before they took off for LA, we noted that anything over .500 would be a pretty big accomplishment. They went 9-7.
Now, here’s the amazing part. How well would you have thought the offense was going to do if Russell Branyan was going to hit .200/.315/.467 during the last 16 games? Seriously, we’d have been expecting a long series of shutouts. Instead, Franklin Gutierrez and Rob Johnson (four extra base hits and three walks in his last seven games… amazing) picked up the slack, and the offense was respectable enough, especially considering the competition.
And, when the offense is respectable, this team wins games, because the run prevention is among the best in the league. Even with some bullpen problems, the defense and the rotation carried the day, and the M’s were able to keep enough runs off the board to be in most every game. With the subtraction of Betancourt and the additions of Langerhans and Hannahan, the M’s probably have the best defense in baseball, and this is what you can do when nearly everyone on the field is turning balls in play into outs. Over the last two weeks, the M’s opponents have posted a .234 batting average on balls in play. .234! Yea, a decent chunk of that is good luck, but these guys can really play defense, and they’ve got some quality arms in the rotation to boot.
16 games against quality opponents, with Beltre missing the last 13 of them, and the team went 9-7. Be impressed. The M’s just played a bunch of games against playoff quality teams and held their own. There are still some pretty obvious weaknesses on this roster, and the Angels catching fire means that we’re still 4 games out of first place in the AL West, but if this roster was going to roll over and die, this was when they were going to do it. Instead, they went toe to toe with the best in the league and won.
What a great way to finish the most encouraging first half of baseball we’ve seen since 2001. Over the next three weeks, we’ll find out just what Jack and his crew can do to make the team better. If Beltre can come back, and the team adds a shortstop and shores up the bullpen… watch out. This could be a fun, fun ride.
I can’t even describe how much more enjoyable this first half of the year has been comparatively to last year. And its going to be even more fun to watch good, solid baseball and see what Jack Z has up his sleeve. There are ways (as Dave and others have said more eloquently) to trade guys like Washburn and Bedard and Lowe and still compete. Lets see how they go about it, I have nothing but confidence.
I really, really hope those two bullpen implosions against Baltimore don’t come back to haunt us.
I expect they will, though. This team doesn’t have a very large margin for error if we want to catch the Angels.
I was particularly impressed by this:
Opponent, Runs/game, we allowed:
Dodgers, 5.03, 4.66
Yankees, 5.63, 5.33
Red Sox, 5.28, 5.33
Rangers, 4.94, 2.75
Except for the Texas series, we didn’t exactly set the world on fire holding the opposing offenses below their season averages yet we went 8-5 in those games. Which meant the offense stepped up. And that’s good to see.
The problem with chasing two teams…Mariner’s fans are feeling pretty good about taking three of four from the Rangers, knocking them out of first place, four of seven on the home stand and nine of the last 16. The problem is the Angels just swept the Yankees, have won five of their last seven and 11 of their last 16 so the Mariners lost a game in the standings and two games over a period when they’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations.
Regardless what happens this season, it’s fun to be an M’s fan again.
I was firmly in the camp that the M’s should settle on being “buyers” if they won the Texas series. But now I’ve come around to what Dave has been saying for weeks and months now. When Z took over, he inherited a roster full of holes; as the spring and the season progressed, he has methodically upgraded everywhere he could. In a sense, the M’s have been “buyers” for months now, as every single move of 2009 has represented the sale of an asset for another one of more value. We should expect this type of buyer’s mentality not only through July and up to the first trade deadline, but into the offseason as well. If all this “buying” results in a pennant race in September, then great; but the ultimate goal seems to be a constant upgrading of the 40-man roster no matter the time of year. What a breath of fresh air this organizational competency is.
The Angels have also exceeded expectations, though.
According to BP’s third-order adjusted standings, both the Ranger and Angels are playing above their heads (3.3 and 2.9 wins, respectively), while the Mariners are right in line, only getting a .2 win bump.
BP basically thinks the Angels, Rangers and Mariners have been equivalently good this year. Now, the Angels having 4 wins in hand is really huge, to be sure, but it’s not like they’re demonstrably a much better team than Seattle. Two teams to overcome is a lot, but it’s not impossible, and it’s been a Hell of a lot of fun watching them thus far.
This isn’t 2007. This team *isn’t* built on smoke and mirrors, and that’s awesome.
What a difference a year (and a GM with a functioning brain) makes! Last time this year, we were all pretty much done for the year…I know personally I dreaded the recap of the previous night’s debacle.
That is all gone. There have been very few games in which the M’s weren’t competitive. That’s what happens when you put a quality defense behind a pitch-to-contact pitching staff, and, not coincidentally, why Washburn is having his best year as a Mariner.
I laugh at those people who claim that this year’s team isn’t all that different from last year’s – either they didn’t watch both teams or have no idea what they’re talking about (I assume its a combination of both). The entire team plays defense, and, with Yuni gone, the entire team gets the idea of playing with intent, playing with will.
I am as excited about the possibility of the postseason, of course, but am more excited about the long-term prospects of this team. Bringing Griffey back to get the fans back was a brilliant move, but getting a winning product on the field both short- and long-term is going to really bring the fans back. Getting rid of old, tired, dead-weight players that infested this team has given the M’s a short of energy, a boost that spreads to the fans.
I can’t wait to see what trades Z has in store to make the second half as interesting as the first!
Not all that different . . . good grief. Let’s see, we have new starters this year at 1B, SS, LF, CF, and DH (not counting the injury replacement at 3B), we’ve used two new starting pitchers, and we have a different closer. Offhand, I’d say turning over 5/9 of the lineup and a pretty good chunk of the pitching staff qualifies as “all that different.”
Axtell, I couldn’t agree with you more. I actually look forward to [MARINERS MARINERS NO APOSTROPHE] games this year. The difference Z and Wak have made is just incredible. I think the biggest thing is getting these guys to believe in themselves after losing over 100 games last year. Wak absolutely HAS to be manager of the year just for that!
As for Jack Z, I too am very excited to see what he’s going to do next. I have learned to believe in the guy and his phenomenal eye for talent. It’s going to be interesting to see what he does to shore up the infield while, hopefully, upgrading the offense. I have full confidence in the guy…and that’s a great feeling for this M’s fan.
It seems so recently that there was this hopeless feeling. “Do I root for the team to win, knowing winning means more Bavasi and moves like the Bedard trade? Or do I actually root for them to fail so that the regime will be replaced?” Last year was incredibly conflicting in that regard, especially with wanting to at least get some value from Bedard.
what a difference a year makes. It’s so refreshing and fun to be rooting for an organization that has a clue, and what’s more, seems to be more of a clue than almost everyone else.
Ancient, I totally agree with you, but you have this segment of the fanbase who doesn’t see that, instead, sees the low scoring team and figures they’re the same as last year’s bunch. These are the people who think that CERA means something, that Griffey should be playing in LF, and that defense doesn’t matter.
Unfortunately, it seems we will be seeing a lot more of Johnson and very little of Kenji.
Art Thiel yesterday said
Ouch.
Whoa. Really? They INSIST on it? Is this like how pitchers hop over the chalk lines when walking back to the dugout?
“The entire team plays defense”
But, but, but according to Jim Street’s latest post, the M’s are the worst defensive team in the A.L. and are surviving on pitching alone.
I thought we were done with the “personal catcher” junk?
Well, it did seem like something was up yesterday when Johnson caught a day game after a night game.
I actually saw a shot of Washburn, Bedard, and Kenji laughing and joking around in the dugout the other day. So it appears if it is true that they don’t like throwing to him, they at least like talking to him.
I wonder if the 0 curveballs from Morrow incident is part of what’s going on. If the club’s not happy with Morrow for not shaking Joh off, then it would stand to reason that they’d really be unhappy with Joh.
Lauren, hard to say for certain since nobody’s explicitly stated it, but Thiel is good at finding out the hidden story and normally won’t make a bald statement of fact like that without knowing whereof he speaks. At any rate, Johjima has caught naught but Olson, Vargas, and Morrow since coming off the disabled list.
I think that the fact that some pitchers insist on throwing to Johnson shows something. While of course there is the language barrier with Kenji, I also think that the differing pitch selection of the two has something to do with it. A half season seems like a large enough sample size that catchers ERA would be a viable statistic. Obviously, the front office thinks so as Johnson has gotten more playing time than Kenji despite being a much worse hitter.
CERA is never, has never, and will never be a viable statistic.
You might be right that pitch selection has to do with the team’s thinking about Johjima. But you’re clearly uninformed about the research on CERA if you think it’s a viable statistic under any sample size.
Yeah! Beat Mike to the reply by seconds! Wooooo!
That’s what I get for trying to write an extra sentence.
That’s just because your reply was shorter!
You guys wrote about how Felix Hernandez pitched better when he threw more changeups. Therefore, his pitch selection effects his ERA. If the catchers for the most part call the pitches, how can you say that Catchers ERA means nothing.
brevity = wit
If the catchers for the most part call the pitches, how can you say that Catchers ERA means nothing.
Because as they told Morrow, it’s the pitcher’s job to shake to something else, and he’s the one ultimately responsible for pitch selection.
Okay, so you’re now arguing that the two catchers, working from the same scouting reports and instructions from the coaching staff, are calling dramatically different pitch mixes, and that, say, Felix, is following them blindly and not affecting the selection. And one of those two approaches is better, but the catcher who is taking the worse approach can’t change it (or for some other unstated reason, doesn’t).
brevity = wit
If that were true, acronyms would be hilarious. (Occasionally they are, of course.)
This was in the News Tribune yesterday:
If he’s back in Tacoma by the end of the week, any chance he’ll be in the 3rd base mix for the Mariners before Beltre comes back?
I think this actually might be true though. Here’s Wak’s comments from Baker’s blog:
“You have the ability as a pitcher to call pitches and you’re responsible as much as anybody else out there to be able to dictate that’. We went in yesterday with a game plan of using that breaking ball a little bit more. And whether he didn’t feel like he had the feel of it or whether Joh didn’t call it, I still put the onus on the pitcher as much as anybody else.”
It sounds like he’s saying that he’s not happy with what happened in Morrow’s last start and makes it clear he expects better from both the starter and whoever is influencing pitch selection.
A couple of thoughts….
1. I notice that the M’s now lead the AL in Defensive Efficiency Ratio.
2. I notice that by replacing Betancourt, Balentien, and (having to replace) Beltre with Cedeno, Langerhans, and Hanrahan, the M’s lineup is now filled with hitters that make a pitcher work. No more 5 pitch innings against us.
3. Imagine how good we are going to be after a couple of years with JackZ in control.
4. I’m glad I don’t see the posts deriding Armstrong/Lincoln anymore. Kudos to them for hiring JackZ and Wakamatsu.
I realize that a good portion of the pitch selection comes form the dugout and the pitcher. I think that Kenji’s approach is worse and that it probably results from how he was taught in Japan where they don’t rely as heavily on scouting as in the US. With about an equal amount of total playing time this year, a difference in CERA as drastic as Johnson’s and Kenji’s must mean something. As I said before, the front office must think this too, because it is the only reason that Johnson would be starting over Kenji
Que CERA Sera, the future’s not ours to see.
Umm, sorry about that. Regarding CERA Johnson’s recent offensive explosion, is there anything in his minor league history to indicate he could be a good hitter, or is he just having his Willie Bloomquist Run?
Since ERA is not a viable predictor for pitcher performance, why shoule we think CERA is useful? (ignoring all the studies that have shown it to be pretty much useless, for the moment).
I’m not convinced. It could be that the pitchers feel better working with Johnson (maybe he has some skill at psychology) even though he doesn’t really make them pitch better. It could be that Wak goes along with it not because he thinks CERA is useful, but because he is in favor of clubhouse harmony.
It’s not true though.
Now you’re arguing that Johnson would have called for more breaking balls and that Morrow would have accepted the calls and, just to throw results in, it would have made a difference in the outcome.
Seriously. Smart minds have looked long and hard at CERA in the context of finding ways to measure catcher contributions and it’s not there. It’s not there.
If you can prove that it is, you’ll be like Voros McCracken with DIPS. I wish you the best of luck supporting your hypothesis.
I agree CERA is itself not a viable statistic, but does anyone have a reasonable response to the above? Seems to me blabcock is right, that the FO/Wak like what Johnson is doing, either defensively or interacting with pitchers, significantly more than they like what Joh is doing. And I think our FO/Wak are pretty darn smart. Anyone have a hypothesis that doesn’t rely in part on CERA?
My guess is that, even if CERA isn’t exactly it, if one catcher is consistently calling a better game (in the manager’s opinion) and keeping the pitchers happy (in the pithcers’ opinions), then that catcher is going to get starts over a catcher who doesn’t have these qualities, in the absence of huge offensive disparity.
His best season was 2008 in Tacoma.
Even that wasn’t very good, but at least it wasn’t awful. He was toward the bottom of the Rainier regulars in OPS.
Well, we’re now to the point where trying to have Kenji log a better CERA with Olson, Vargas and whomever (BTW, nice start by RRS yesterday) than Johnson will catching Felix, Bedard and Washburn.
What I can’t understand is why the smart people in the organization don’t see Johnson stumbling after popups, throwing one-hoppers into second, failing to stab balls in the dirt, and and literally failing to catch more pitched balls (not tips, not even swung at) than anyone else in baseball.
Assuming there is a better vibe than with Kenji, doesn’t lack of ability play into this somewhere?
IIRC, with the start yesterday, Johnson has caught one more game that Johjima since Joh came back.
What chance Kenji has been tarred with the “fragile” brush after two trips to the DL this season?
*than.
and (speaking of cherry-picking) this nugget from Kirby Arnold “The Mariners are 25-15 when Rob Johnson is the starting catcher.”
re: personal catchers, from designated cheerleader Jim Street:
“Two capable catchers come in handy, and manager Don Wakamatsu wants to give both Kenji Johjima and Rob Johnson enough playing time to keep both of them sharp and rested.
Each receiver has his strengths and weaknesses, which keeps Wakamatsu playing a game of matchups, being careful not to have a particular pitcher throwing entirely to the same catcher.
That was an issue addressed during Spring Training and Wakamatsu, a former catcher, has stuck to his guns and had Johjima and Johnson catching everyone’s games. “
They could be setting up gameplans that Johjima isn’t following as well as Johnson.
Calling 0 curveballs in Morrow’s last start wouldn’t have a direct relationship with CERA.
oh yay.
Ian Furness just teased looking at the starting catcher, and that there are some “crazy numbers” between the two catchers he is going to reveal.
Que CERA CERA?
1. He’s making up for it with his hitting
2. Adam Moore is coming soon whether it’s this year or next year and Johnson will then be relegated to a backup role.
“With about an equal amount of total playing time this year, a difference in CERA as drastic as Johnson’s and Kenji’s must mean something”
It means Kenji has caught Olsen, Vargas, Silva, and Morrow a lot more than Johnson has if I’m not mistaken.
Exactly. If one catcher is catching Felix, Washburn, and Bedard, and the other is catching everyone else, what do you think the CERA stats are going to look like?
My part on the personal catcher thing is the confidence level of the pitcher. If it puts him in a better mental state, and he pitches better as a result, I’m all for it. I’d be looking at P/AB, swinging strikes, K/BB ratios, stuff like that.
Catcher’s ERA debunked here. If you haven’t, read that.
Statements like “this big of a difference has to mean something” simply means that you’re misunderstanding what goes into CERA, and how predictive it is.
I’m a believer in catchers influencing pitcher performance. I think that, in a few years, we’ll have the tools to study this issue better, and we’ll find out that some backstops do a better job than others at the game calling aspect of things. But, it won’t matter nearly as much as CERA says it does.
One might suggest that you would put your better game-caller into games where the pitcher is more in need of, and/or more receptive to, guidance.
One might further suggest that this approach would be highly likely to result in a situation where your better catcher would “earn” himself a higher cERA than your worse catcher.
I say one of these days we all flood the station with phone calls when they talk about CERA and beat into the head of whoever the host is that, as the famous quote from Meatballs, “IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER!”
In my opinion there are too many external variables for cERA to have any significant meaning. Individual catcher-picter-opposing team combinations are too small of a sample size for any meaning.
Remember, we are essentially debating the same player. According to Fangraphs, the 2009 difference between Johjima and Johnson is 0.3 WAR. In 2008 and so far in 2009, Johjima has been a 0.3 WAR catcher, while Johnson, in 60 career games is around a Replacement level player (around 0.0). Hardly enough to be upset one way or another.
The tiebreaker in this case, may, in fact be whom the pitchers are more comfortable with.
If Johjima has given us .3 WAR in 32 games started so far, doesn’t that translate to ~1.5 WAR if he started ‘most every day for a full season*?
In other words, the more playing time Kenji gets, the greater his margin of superiority over Johnson.
*If that isn’t how WAR works, let me know; I will at least have learned something.
Wak has publicly stated that he puts no stock in Catchers ERA (during a Dave N. pre-game interview a few weeks ago when they were discussing the return of Joh). He did however once again re-iterate how comfortable the pitchers are with Johnson. So perhaps he doesn’t care about CERA, but cares greatly that the pitchers feel comfortable/confident on the mound.
The whole thing doesn’t make a lot of sense to me though. The M’s have to be looking to move Kenji with Moore on the way; so it would stand to reason you’d want to play him as much as possible to see if he can put up pre-2008 like numbers and thus *maybe* JZ could get someone to take him and his salary.
Rob Johnson will make a decent backup catcher at that time when Moore is ready, but will likely never be anything more.
It’s a mystery. But in the end, JZ and Wak seem to do just about everything right; so either they know what they are doing and we are all wrong, or they have a blind spot when it comes to Johnson. In the latter case, I like that JZ and Wak’s mistakes are things like “Rob Johnson catching more than Joh”, whereas Bavasi’s mistakes were things like “You can have our entire farm system and we get an oft injured pitcher for two years”.
I do feel a little bad for Joh though. I know statistically I shouldn’t with him (over his career), but I’ve always had a soft spot for him for some reason. Probably because so many people seem not to like him, even during his first two years.
With advances in Pitch/FX data, and with Fangraphs putting together information like the pitch value stuff that’s in their databases, yeah, I think that some better evaluation tools for game-calling are on the way. They’re not here, yet, though.
I gotta wonder what the differences would look like for Felix’s wFB/C, for instance, between two different catchers, and whether that would be statistically significant.
Actually, Johjima is 0.3 WAR in his last 133 games (2008-2009) if you want to go that route. (2006 – 3.3 WAR, 2007 – 2.7 WAR).
Johnson has a 0.0 WAR in 46 games of 2009, and a -0.3 WAR in 10 games of 2008, and 0.1 WAR in 4 games of 2007. None of which can really tell you anything because of their sample sizes.
I can guarantee that at least for the next 5 years or so the Gold Glove winners in the AL for the OF are as follows; Ichiro, Guttierrez, Torrii (Puke) Hunter
JZ is a freaking genius. I was thinking more along the lines of 7-9 would be respectible. But also wouldn’t have been surprised had they gone 4-12, very impressed. JZ may be going to hell for ripping off the Royals, but he’s our GM and no one else can have him.
Johjima’s ’08 performance looks suspiciously like an outlier to me, and I submit that the value he’s put up in limited opportunities this year supports that argument.
Add to that the fact that his detriment to the team was all from his bat, which wouldn’t be reflected in anybody’s cERA anyhow.
I heard the M’s traded Yuni because Cedeño has a much lower SSERA.
That was a joke, BTW.
Last night on SportsCenter they called Guti an “underrated fielder.” I just want to know who’s doing that rating, and how they got that responsibility, given how obviously sightless they are.
The same ones who say the Ms have the worst defense in the league?
Dave, Derek, the first person I ever saw talk about CERA was Craig Wright, in his book (with Tom House) The Diamond Appraised. When he did it, though, he controlled for innings with each pitcher, producing a stat off a theoretical equal set of catcher-pitcher pairings. Do you think there’s any value to that sort of approach?
If the M’s do make it to the post season, can you imagine them leaving Griffey off of the roster?
Anyone else want a Cedeno to get sent down?
Wow, who does that leave to play short? Rick Rizzs?
I think Rizzs was a 2B….
Your going to guarantee that Gutierrez is going to hit 25 HR’s?
Cause that’s what he’s going to need to get a gold glove.
Get over the Rob Johnson bashing.
In the stats world, catcher is the big black hole where it’s (thus far at least) incredibly hard to measure/quantify anything other than their offense. So it’s all subjective or anecdotal.
More than any other players on a team, catchers and pitchers performances are tightly coupled together. They impact each others’ performance whether or not the stats exist now (or ever will) to properly apportion credit or blame. Some of it is likely mental as in ‘do I trust this catcher enough to throw what he tells me to’ but even that is based upon the catchers skill – at prepping for the game, discussing the batters ahead of time, adjusting during the game, communicating all of that to the pitcher and manager AND having successful results for the pitcher. We can’t possibly discretely measure ANY of that stuff, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an impact. Clearly, the pitchers believe it does, and as they are part of that 2-person battery, I’m inclined to believe them.
I was wondering if anyone else noticed that Johnson often can’t catch a pitched ball. For some reason, scorers seem to generously call many of his misses wild pitches rather than passed balls. It made me wonder if passed balls plus wild pitches per at bat (or some other rate) would be useful measure of that aspect of catcher defense.