Game 114, White Sox at Mariners

August 12, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 352 Comments 

News! Getcha red hot news here! Bedard’s going to have surgery, so that’s curtains for this season. Labrum and shoulder issues aren’t the career-ending sentence they were even a decade ago, but yeeeaaghhhh. Silva threw a bullpen session, no reports back from that yet looked good, which means who knows what (good good? Silva good? good for a guy coming off the DL after so long?), so maybe he’ll be ready to step into that second-staff-ace role the team’s been lacking.

Anyway — FELIX DAY!!! FELIX DAAAYYYY!!!

Oh, and Rob Johnson’s back in the lineup, if you’re a fan of passed balls, battery bromances, and intangibles in general.

7.

Enough Is Enough

August 12, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 39 Comments 

Miguel Batista has kind of slogged his way through the 2009 season as the outcast in the room. He’s not happy working as a middle reliever, yet due to his salary, there was no way the M’s would be able to move him to a team who wanted to use him in a different role. So, as an aging, overpaid guy, the M’s have just put him in the innings-eater role, bringing him in when they just need someone to save the arms they actually care about. For the first few months, he did that inoffensively enough, though he was intolerable to watch, as always.

Lately, though, Batista has combined his molasses like timing with ridiculously awful pitching. In his last 7 appearances, he’s pitched 6 2/3 innings, allowed 14 hits, walked 7, struck out 7, and allowed 4 home runs. That’s… not good.

With just six weeks left in the season, the M’s have no more use for Batista. They’re not getting any value out of using him. He won’t be here next year. He’s absolutely painful to watch, so he’s not helping the fans get any enjoyment out of the team. He’s just taking up space, and it’s time to say goodbye.

Justin Speier, just released by the Angels yesterday, would love Safeco Field, where his home run problem would be somewhat limited. You could give him Batista’s spot immediately and make a nice little upgrade, while also finding a guy who you might want back next year. Or, you know, just promote Randy Messenger or something. Anything’s better than watching Miguel Batista anymore.

A more reasoned post on platoon splits

August 12, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 38 Comments 

That last one was uhhhhh… not constructive, I know.

Here’s the thing: when you pinch-hit a dude, the dude doesn’t hit as well as they do normally. Or, as Tango puts it in The Book, “a pinch hitter would have to be significantly better than the player he is hitting for in order to make the substitution worthwhile.”

Pretty much, it’s ~25 points of OBP. Or ~35 points of wOBA, if that’s how you roll.

Then the average platoon split amounts to ~17 points for righties and ~27 for lefties.

Now, let’s do the math. Jenks is a right-hander. Sweeney cannot hit. So here’s about the overall line you want for the left-hander you’d be swapping in:

.000/.002/.000

Actually, okay, Sweeney’s hitting .248/.306 /.393. So you want to swap him out for anyone on the bench hitting either that line as a lefty, or significantly better than that as a rightie.

Here are the guys the M’s had sitting on the bench:

Lefties:
Griffey
Langerhans (remember that guy? Yeah, he’s good)
Hannahan

Righties
Johnson, assuming his sore elbow isn’t affecting his hitting
Woodward (remember kids, don’t just write your post and publish! you’ll do the roster circa two weeks ago and be wrong!)

So the lefties, then: pretty much there were three, count ’em, three players on the bench who would have been good pinch-hit options.

I know Don’s not a big pinch-hitting guy, and there’s probably some clubhouse/intangible/whatever justification for why. But I just do not care. The team’s wasting high-leverage opportunities late in games where they have to get hits to avoid taking the loss, and it’s driving me batty. If — as we’re to believe by all accounts — Wakamatsu is a great people manager, those moments are where he can spend that credit to the team’s best advantage. And isn’t Sweeney supposed to be the consummate professional and teammate, willing to sacrifice for the team?

I don’t get it.

Hi Don! A quick note on “pinch hitting”

August 11, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 27 Comments 

You’re allowed to send players not currently in the lineup to the plate instead of players in the lineup. It’s called “pinch-hitting”. For example, if you have an absolutely horrible right-handed hitter (except that he doesn’t hit) up against a right-handed pitcher in a situation where failing to get on base probably ends the game, and you have one (or more!) good left-handed hitters on the bench, you can “pinch-hit” for the right-hander and increase your chances to win.

Check it out! It’s in the rule book and everything.

Game 113, White Sox at Mariners

August 11, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 181 Comments 

Fister! Fister! Fister!

Rios may make a late appearance — according to the Times and elsewhere, he’s supposed to be in uniform tonight.

M’s go with last night’s lineup… except…

RF-L Ichiro!
CF-R Gutierrez
2B-R Lopez
DO-0 Sweeney
3B-R Beltre
1B-L Branyan
SS-R Wilson
C-R Johjima
LF-L Saunders

Sooooo Johjima gets a chance to work with the new pitchers who weren’t around to have Washburn poison their minds, is that it?

And Sweeney… what am I going to tell you?

The vagaries of divisional alignment

August 11, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 76 Comments 

If we’re lucky, we’ll get to see Alex Rios play in this home stand against the White Sox. The White Sox claimed him on waivers, picking up his massive (though not that unreasonable) contract as part of their effort to capture a division title.

The M’s, you have no doubt noted, are a couple games ahead of the White Sox in the wild card standings.

Game 112, White Sox at Mariners

August 10, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 155 Comments 

I so hope French beans someone to start the game. Just to make the series spicy. Get Guillen suspended for 100 games for having his whole staff thrown out for retaliation and seeing Podsednik start the second game against Felix.

Anyway! French, who is performing like Washburn while Washburn performs like… not even like French, really.

NEW LINEUP ALERT
RF-L Ichiro!
CF-R Gutierrez (“To Tony!”)
2B-R Lopez
DH-L Griffey
3B-R Beltre
1B-L Branyan
SS-R Wilson
C-R Johjima
LF-L Saunders

Griffey’s incentives

August 10, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 39 Comments 

The Mariners didn’t sign Griffey just to bring the fans back – they needed a DH, same as they have for the past three years – but they nevertheless wanted Griffey in part to help sustain casual fan interest while the front office cleaned up the mess from the previous regime. It’s in his contract, which has a bunch of incentives tied to combinations of playing time and attendance.

So how’s he doing? Well, on the one hand, he couldn’t even sell out his own bobblehead night, despite (predictably) homering and (unpredictably) the team coming back on the Langerhans walkoff. On the other hand, the game was practically a sellout and the best gate since Opening Day, and if we could know in advance which would be the exciting games to see, let’s just say we would have had USSM at Safeco on Friday night instead of Saturday.

But assuming you can’t have Griffey bobbleheads every night, is he having the desired impact on attendance otherwise? These questions are always a bit tricky, since it’s affected by things like the day of the week, whether school’s out, or who the opposing team is. Conveniently, to reduce the variables we have to account for, guess who we played the second weekend in August last year. That’s right, the Rays. It was a four-game series then, but to get a reasonable comparison I’m throwing out the Thursday game from 2008 and the Griffey promotion this year.

In 2008:
Friday – 30,220
Saturday – 27,905
Sunday – 30,336

2009:
Saturday – 28,239
Sunday – 28,490

That’s about 1,000 fewer people on average, which pretty well tracks how attendance has been most of the year. I penciled out rough guesses for the rest of the year, as I’m sure the team is doing in a more sophisticated way. The average shouldn’t change much, but there are still the two Yankees series that should draw crowds, and overall the total’s likely going to be between 2.25 and 2.3 million. Of course, after 101 losses an attendance dropoff is to be expected the next year, and arguably Griffey did his job to stave off a worse decline – the trendline since 2002 has been to lose about 300,000 a year except for Bavasi’s fluke contention year in 2007, which would have put you right at 2 million this year. That’s also where his incentives start, sensibly enough.

The other part of the formula is plate appearances, where Griffey is on a pace for 493 and the incentives top out at 500. There are also some attendance bonuses tied to merely being on the roster on July 31 and at the end of the season, but those start at 2.35 million so they shouldn’t come into play, except possibly in a scenario I’ll get to. Anyway, let’s break it down.

  • 2 million, 400 PAs, $500K – the breakdown’s more detailed, but consider this earned
  • 450 and 500 PAs, $250K each (regardless of attendance) – on track for the first, not the second; they might play him more down the stretch, though
  • 2.1-2.3 million, 300-500 PAs, $1 million total – these are incremental, each additional 50 PAs and 50,000 fans in combination is worth $200K; right now we’re looking at $800K for 2.25 million and 450 PAs, and falling short on the last set
  • Above 2.3 million, each additional 50,000 at the gate is worth $50K – unlikely
  • Above 2.6 million, the same increments are worth $100K apiece up to 3 million – not going to make those numbers unless every game the rest of the season sells out

There were some award bonuses in the contract, All-Star and MVP and stuff like that, that bring the maximum payout to $5 million, but those aren’t happening. Adding in the $2 million base, Griffey stands to cost the Mariners $3.55 million right now. With a little effort on his part, Griffey could pull in $4 million, which you may recall is exactly what we paid Carl Everett.

How can Griffey put in more effort if his incentives depend on attendance, you may ask? Easy – sometime in the next few weeks, announce that he’s retiring at the end of the season. Once this officially turns into a farewell tour, that should bring the wave of nostalgic fans through the turnstiles one more time to get their final looks, and of course he’ll need to play all the time so they can see him. That could push him over the hump for 500 PAs and 2.3 million.

Not that Griffey needs that extra money, or would admit that he’s motivated by it, and he’d probably be the same Ichiro-tickling good clubhouse guy regardless. But these things do matter to the franchise and its connection with the public. That’s why, even ignoring unquantifiable team chemistry, he’s the one guy along with Ichiro who has value to the Mariners outside of direct on-field performance (maybe someday Felix too, but I’d wait on that). And that’s why Griffey’s been worth what he’s being paid this year. If the performance hasn’t been spectacular, neither was the cost, and with the alternatives unappetizing, why not pick the snack that’s tasty even if it’s not any more nutritious? There’s a limit to this approach, though – when it becomes actively detrimental to building a winning roster, you can’t indulge anymore.

You know and I know that this should be it for Griffey. Casual fans may still believe in the possibility he might be back next year. Zduriencik is no doubt anticipating possible 2010 roster scenarios already, which ought not to include Griffey at DH. That means having the delicate conversation about it now, to let Griffey decide how he wants to go out. So Junior, if you’re still planning to retire as a Mariner, just let us know.

USSM Goes To Safeco Recap

August 10, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 124 Comments 

It was awesome.

Okay, you probably wanted more details than that. So, let’s see what I can remember off the top of my head before I hand the comments over to those of you who made it to Saturday night’s shindig to fill in the blanks.

We packed out the Ellis Pavilion. I don’t think we could have fit another soul in there. The M’s event staff did a a great job with setup, though – I would have never believed that we could get 300 people into that room and have everyone be able to see/hear without any problems. The M’s, as a whole, were tremendous in helping put the whole thing together.

I think Jack and Tony better get used to long standing ovations when they come to these things.

You guys did a really good job with the questions. They were great.

Stuff you guys care about that Jack/Tony said at the event, as best as I can remember and paraphrase:

Settle in for the Jack Wilson era – he’s here for the next two or three years. This was not a stop-gap move, and Jack is a huge fan of what he brings to the team. There just isn’t much out there in the way of talent at SS to be had, and they thought Wilson could help them now and going forward.

Blengino’s been on Zduriencik to acquire Ian Snell for a couple of years now. They think that, while he’s a risk, he fits into the pattern of players they’ve been targeting in other deals – young, able to help immediately, and under club control for 3+ years.

The massive importation of left-handers isn’t an accident. They realize the park is really friendly to lefties and much less so than righties. When they were looking at the roster they inherited, they couldn’t believe how badly it was suited to Safeco Field. They’re setting out to fix that, obviously.

They believe in the value of defense, especially in premium spots, but also saw that as the best path to success in 2009. They realized that there was just no way they were going to be able to fix the problems with the offense and pitching staff in one off-season, but due to defense being cheap, they thought they could make the defense a strength of the team very quickly. The strong emphasis on defense is partially about the availability of wins. As Blengino said “we’ll take wins wherever we can get them”. If the market shifts and defense becomes more highly valued, or better hitters become available, expect to see the M’s be more willing to bring in less proficient glove guys.

Yuniesky Betancourt wasn’t their favorite guy ever.

Blengino thinks Mike Cameron is massively underrated. We obviously agree – we’ve been raving about Cameron for something like 10 years now.

Langerhans was the fruit of a suggestion from Tom Tango. Thanks, Tom – he’s awesome.

The timing of Saunders call-up; they reached a point where everyone who saw him play felt he was ready, and so even with four LHPs and Roy Halladay on the schedule, they brought him up because they thought he was able to help the club. Jack’s been extremely impressed so far, and you get the feeling that Saunders’ early play has helped him cement his spot as the team’s 2010 left fielder.

Brandon Morrow – the yo-yo situation with the way his season has gone was as frustrating for them as it was for us. You could tell that Jack wanted to get his side of the Morrow thing out there, as he explained his view of the back-and-forth without anyone even asking about him specifically. They see him as a big part of their 2010 rotation.

Phillippe Aumont – Blengino had seen him extensively pre-draft and always felt he was a reliever. Everyone in the organization felt that his future was in the bullpen, so while they agreed that it was weird to limit a 20-year-old to relief work, they felt like he was a unique situation and that he’s got a chance to be a shut down, end of game closer very soon. They reserve the right to change their minds in the future, but they certainly didn’t talk like guys who saw him as a major league quality starting pitcher.

Jack is 100% dead set on winning a World Series in Seattle. If you didn’t like anything else he said (well, first off, you’re crazy), you had to be thrilled to see the remarkable dedication he has to that singular goal. The M’s are in very, very good hands.

DMZ: I’ll quickly add a couple of things. One, they’re a great comedy team, and you can see how easily they work together and trust each other. And you also see one of the fundamental differences in that and in Bavasi’s approach. Bavasi talked about wanting all the information, and took a step with hiring a stats guy to consult. Zduriencik doesn’t just want someone to run some historical minor-league valuations, or look at list of players they can pick as part of a larger, horrible trade — they brought in Langerhans on the recommendation of their analysis people, validated by their scouts, and the guy who’s in charge of the baseball analysis is one of Zduriencik’s hands, and has been working closely with him for ages.

Which reminds me — Tony’s been pushing Gutierrez on Jack for years. Every time Gutierrez makes a great play, give a small thanks to Tony. And to Jack for listening.

Also, on Wakamatsu, they’re big fans of what he and the staff are doing in creating a winning atmosphere which, in turn, allows them to be confident about bringing on players (like Snell, say) where they think a change of organization might do them good. Obviously, I’ve been a continual skeptic of chemistry as a valuation metric (see my howl about Shelton/Sweeney) but if there’s a way to make it into something that allows them to attract and retain the kind of player they want, I’m entirely willing to give it a chance.

So yeah. I don’t know heading into this off-season if there was (or could have been) a tougher sell on the team than me, and here I am, wondering if maybe they’re figuring out a way to build a clubhouse into a recruiting advantage. I’m a happy dude, and I hope everyone understands why.

Minor League Wrap (8/3-9/09)

August 10, 2009 · Filed Under Mariners · 12 Comments 

This week was one in which the hitters were actually hitting in most cases and the pitchers threw three complete game shutouts, which we’re lucky to see in a half a season let alone a week. So, I have quite a bit more to talk about this time than I have in the recent past.

To the jump!
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