Game 124, Felix Day in Cleveland
I’ve been a baseball fan since I can remember, and I still can’t quite get used to games that start at 9, 10 AM, where your beverage of choice is coffee instead of Coke, or a beer.
A couple notes on Felix while perusing his Fangraphs page: his groundball percentage this season’s as low as it’s ever been (at 51.7%, last year was 2nd-lowest by a hair at 52.1%), which is significantly off his career numbers. His HR rate, though, is also way down, bettered only by his 2005 partial-season mark, when he was a groundout machine.
Or look at his pitch type distribution, for that matter, and how much different the precentages of breaking pitches is.
It’s sometimes a wonder to me that Felix has managed to get here, considering how many managers (four) and pitching coaches he’s had in his years as a Mariner. And thank goodness he did.
Happy Felix Day.
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RF-L Ichiro!
1B-L Branyan
2B-R Lopez
DH-L Griffey Jr
CF-R Gutierrez
3B-L Hannahan
SS-R Josh Wilson
LF-L Langerhans
C-R Johnson
Back to the bad lineup. And Hannahan gets the start over Hall. Wak solves losing in such strategic ways. Bleh.
It’s like a bad broadcaster on statroids.
“Well, Rick, the KEYS TO THE GAME are for Felix to be sharp, to keep the fastball down in the zone and to use lots of off-speed stuff. Oh, and don’t make any errors.”
Or, as the metrics indicate:
Select and deliver your pitches in such a way to keep the groundball and K% up, which keeps the HR% down, and that increases the chances you’ll give up fewer runs than the other pitcher. As long as your guys catch the ball.
Thanks for skimming the post before tearing into it. I’ll put even less effort into the next one.
Updates from the pregame– Ja. Wilson back tomorrow, AB likely not ready when he comes off the DL, Silva has a simulated game wed.
$12 million to pitch in simulated games? I guess that’s a step up from batting practice.
Is this going to be one of those tiny stretches when Ichiro tries too hard?
Down goes Langerhans.
flashbeak, what’s wrong with the lineup? Hannahan has the platoon advantage, that’s why Hall is not starting.
Yeah, I’m not really sure what I would do to improve the lineup given a RH opposing starter. I don’t like Branyan in the #2 hole but just about anywhere else requires more juggling to avoid having three LH in a row, which could bite you when you (hopefully) chase the starter and get into the bullpen.
Ichiro can be considered a switch hitter for lineup construction purposes, since he has no platoon (dis)advantage.
And lineups don’t matter all that much in the scheme of things anyway. I’d judge Wak more closely by some of his other decisions… not that I see much wrong with this one.
Meanwhile: Griffey!
Old Man!
Old Doubles McJohnson strikes again!
We are so terrible right now, we have had so many lead off doubles today and last night and haven’t been able to score any of them. My god Branyan, in that situation, swing at the first good pitch you see, don’t watch two strikes go by (again) and get yourself in a hole, then strike out. These guys just aren’t making adjustments in golden opportunities and it is very frustrating for me to watch right now. But I have nothing else to do so I will keep watching these guys and hope we can at least go .500 on a road trip where we should have swept both teams.
So I am the only one that drinks Coke at 9am? I don’t drink coffee. I guess the trade off for being a Mariners fan on the east coast is I don’t have to stay up till 1am watching them when they are at Safeco Field. When I was in Seattle earlier this month, I did find those 5pm KC and Texas starts a little odd.
I have a friend who drinks Coke in the morning, daveblev. I mean, it’s caffeine and sugar–same thing. (Not counting all the scary additives.)
Thanks, Guti. Let’s not make this any worse than it is.
Oops, hit submit a bit too early. It can get worse.
And Batista warming up.
Can we get rid of Lopez? Like now? I cannot bear his total defensive incompetence any longer.
Right about now, what I want to see happen the most over the winter?
Jose Lopez wearing a different jersey.
That’s right. I want this more than I want Carlos Silva gone.
I used to drink Coke at 9am and every other part of the day.
Then my waistline did a frighteningly close imitation of a balloonfish, and I stopped.
Well, at least there’s a Cubs/Dodgers game coming on at 1:00. Watching this meltdown is depressing me something fierce.
Well, if you thought this game couldn’t get any worse, you were wrong.
Batista!
Batista’s in.
“Hi there, gasoline. I’m the match.”
Yeah, when Sims was going over what had to happen to pull of a win in this game as Batista’s ready to pitch, I’m thinking, well, don’t run him out. But I guess there’s no one else.
Reasonably speaking, if Cy Young votes were being counted right now, where would Felix stand? Second? Third? Dare I hope first?
Anybody got an idea who the AL front-runner would be?
Greinke would win I would think.
how pathetic can this team play? They keep surprising me more and more each game with their Anemic offense, awful defense.(sigh)
I don’t understand what the big problem with Lopez is. Yeah, he isn’t a great defender, but he is also our number 3 hitter and our biggest bat besides Ichiro and maybe Gutierrez. He is also still only like 26 years old, so unless Jack can get a great deal, I don’t see the point in getting rid of Lopez.
Well Snarf since you asked, my issues with Lopez are:
– disinterested defense. I don’t mind errors from effort (i.e. Beltre). But I hate the ones from blatant lack of concentration.
– horrible approach at the plate, terrible OBP.
Don’t let the RBI’s fool you.
It could be Greinke. But Sabathia’s got wins and innings right now. It should be noted that Felix is in the top 10 in almost every category.
You could always try the ESPN Predictor. It might be as logical as the BBWAA voters …
Sims is yelling at children, demanding that they confess their ice cream cone count.
Gotta do something to entertain himself.
UGH.
All Sabathia has is innings (should that count?) and wins though. He’s not to 10 in ERA or K’s though.
If I’m voting today, my vote is 1) Greinke 2) Verlander and 3) Felix
** top 10
Gahhh. Oh, well. Go get ’em tomorrow.
Maybe I do need that Coca-Cola. Defeat’s always so bitter.
But Greinke’s main thing is that he has the ERA. He’s still at 11 wins, right?
Greinke is also 2nd in K’s, as well as 1st in ERA, and tied for 8th in wins on a pretty crappy team. As much as I hate two of those stats, they weigh pretty important in the minds of a lot of voters.
So I’m about four hours late with this Derek, but sorry – I didn’t mean to disparage your post earlier on. Mostly, I though I’d get in a good dig at what passes for pregame analysis on the radio, but as I re-read it, it sounds kind of rude to you… so in my least kiss-ass tone available, thanks for everything you do, I am really appreciative of your work here on a daily basis. Sorry.
Yeah, there’s two separate questions:
– Who is the best pitcher in the AL
– Who is the top contender for the Cy Young
The second is dependent on a several criteria (ERA, wins) that are as much about the team as the pitcher. So a great pitcher on a crappy team, like Greinke, tends to get screwed, while a good pitcher on a strong team, like Sabathia, gets a bonus. (And it helps to be on a team that gets national exposure every week too, of course).
In terms of WAR in the AL it’s Greinke, Verlander, Halladay; Felix is 5th (after Lester). Felix’s real problem is consistency: in terms of positive WPA he’s 2nd only to Verlander, but a couple of really bad starts left him 3rd in negative WPA as well, for a net WPA that places him 7th overall.
Sad road trip. But as far as Felix is concerned I’d like to see the CB% and SL% reversed and the changeup used even more in place of the fastball. He has the best changeup I’ve seen beside Pedro 98-99.
I don’t get the sense that there is as much feeling that the Cy winner should be from a playoff team as I do for the MVP.
The Cy Young award has actually gone to a last place or near last place team a number of times.
Cliff Lee won it last year.
I know I’ll probably get slammed for saying this, but it seems to me that Felix has lost some of his focus since the M’s dropped out of realistic hopes for making the playoffs.
His last few starts, he has pitched good but not “great.”
I know his run support has sucked, but he gave up a lot of big hits today.
I’m just saying …
Dear Indians,
We would like Asdrubal Cabrera, Shin-soo Choo, and Luis Valbuena back in Seattle. You can have Mike Sweeney and Chris Shelton in return, as we understand DH-types are the going rate (or were several years ago) for these types of young, cheap, talented players.
Hoping to hear from you,
Mariners
Nothing wrong with beer at breakfast. It goes well with a typical pub breakfast.
That was a sad Felix Day.
On another note, any predictions for September call-ups?
On another note, any predictions for September call-ups?
Hmmm…I would guess Morrow, Tuiasasopo, Jakubauskas for sure. Vargas and Olson. On the prospect side, I might guess Phillippe Aumont, Nick Hill, Adam Moore.
Fields is hurt, so far as I know. So probably no call-up for him.
Maybe Mike Wilson? (evil grin)
Oh, and they might bring up Carp…but they HAVE TO bring up LaHair.
Mike Morse!
Oh, wait…
And Clement.
I was guessing Jakubauskas, Olson, Vargas, Tui, LaHair, Carp, Moore, and Hill.