Rainiers Opening Day (and notes)
You’ve had a chance to read Jay’s team preview below, so you know who’s who. If you’ve got tickets, you’re probably checking the weather reports every few minutes like I am. If you don’t, you can always tune in to 850AM (or on-line here) and catch Mike Curto’s call.
Without rehashing what Jay’s written, I wanted to highlight a few things to keep an eye on as the season progresses. The team has some question marks, but with a lot of experience on the mound and a mix of vets, prospects, and the singular Greg Halman, they’re easily worth the drive to Tacoma.
1) The development of Ezequiel Carrera. While it was the pitching prospects (especially Michael Pineda) who really opened eyes this spring, Zeke Carrera impressed as well. The CF/lead-off man led the Southern League in OBP last year, but many wondered if his approach would be as successful at higher levels.
Carrera hit reasonably well with the M’s early in March, and capped his Spring with a homer off of Felix Hernandez in a minor league game. No one’s expecting power from him (unlike Tyson Gillies, another speedy lead-off prospect that the M’s dealt to Phildelphia in the Cliff Lee trade), but Rainiers hitting coach Alonso Powell thinks there’s more in him than the 2 HR, .079 ISO that he tallied last year. The spring samples are tiny, but they need to be combined with Carrera’s improvement from 2008 to 2009.
If Powell’s right, and if Carrera’s able to maintain his eye ratio in AAA (while playing a decent CF), then he’ll be an intriguing prospect. Most have his ceiling as a good 4th OF, like Endy Chavez, but this year will go a long way towards setting a ceiling and floor for Carrera. Powell’s description of Carrera as ‘the consummate pest’ reminds me of Chone Figgins.
Have I mentioned recently how amazing the Putz trade was? No? REALLY amazing.
2) What do we have in Matt Mangini? Mangini was drafted in the supplemental round in 2007 out of Oklahoma State. He’d impressed everyone in the Cape Cod league in 2006, then had a relatively ho-hum senior season (a classic Fontaine draft profile).
As a pro, Mangini’s struggled with strike-outs and power, and isn’t going to be appearing on any prospect lists. But if he’s able to build on last season’s improvement (K% dropping under 20%), Matt’s still got a shot. Powell worked with Mangini after the ’07 draft, as he was the M’s minor league hitting coordinator; maybe the familiarity will help.
There’s absolutely nothing in Mangini’s statistical record that gives one a lot of hope (the improvement from ’08 to ’09 in AA was nice, but it doesn’t take a lot to improve on a wOBA of .223), but scouts raved about his bat before, and his 2008 line was similar to Matt Tuiasosopo’s trial by fire in AA in 2006 (.226 wOBA). We’ve loved the flyers this org’s taken on ex-prospects, and in Mangini, they’ve got one. While it may seem like damning with faint praise, the fact that he’s a better defender at 3B than Chris Shelton should help a pitching staff that features a lot of ground ballers, too.
3) Managing the journeyman staff seems like it might be easy – none of the starters (David Pauley, Yusmeiro Petit, Chris Seddon, Steven Shell, Luke French) are new to AAA, and only opening day starter David Pauley hasn’t yet played in both AAA leagues. All of them have major league experience, and in fact only 2 of the 12 pitchers on the roster haven’t yet made the majors (Steve Bray and Andy Baldwin, both of whom have plenty of AAA service time). So while it seems easier for new pitching coach Jaime Navarro – especially in comparison to the job Alonso Powell has with Halman – the experience of the staff is a mixed blessing.
Take Steven Shell, whom the M’s picked up after he was DFAd by the Nationals early last year. In 2008, he put up a very solid season in the Nats bullpen, with a Sean White-like 2+ ERA, backed up by so-so peripherals. Still, he found himself out of a job 5 innings into the 2009 season, when the Nationals let him go (Nats GM Mike Rizzo trashed him in the press as well). The M’s quickly shifted him back to the rotation, but he was getting hammered before a line-drive to the face ended his season prematurely.
He had some motivation to try something new when he came to spring training this year, but it’s got to be tough for a pitching coach to get an MLB veteran to buy into changes to his mechanics or routine. I asked Shell, who admitted that it was tougher for him to make changes now, after getting good results in the majors at age 26. But he believes a mechanical adjustment that Rick Adair will help his consistency, and he’s worked with Jaime Navarro before – this winter, Navarro was Shell’s pitching coach with the Lara Cardinales in Venezuela.
So what’s the point? Does anyone care if Shell (or Seddon, or Petit) improve? SP depth is critical in any situation, but it’s especially important when Erik Bedard’s coming off of shoulder surgery, Cliff Lee’s starting the year on the DL, Ian Snell is Ian Snell, and Jason Vargas and Doug Fister are in the opening day starting rotation. None of these guys are bad, and there’s a ton of upside there, but unless the M’s want to bring up one of the WT ‘spects early, they may need to tap one of the AAA starters (though none of them are on the 40 man).
2010 Tacoma Rainiers Preview
Happy Minor League Opening Day, all.
I wish the Rainiers were as neat as the D-Jaxx. They aren’t at the moment, sadly. You have a few interesting pitchers here and there who might see time with the club (more, if Lee and Bedard come back healthy later), multiple slugging first baseman and only two positions they can comfortably occupy, and outfield entirely of 40-man members which run a spectrum of risk and reward. It’s not the most exciting triple-A squad out there, but if you’re nearby, I’d say the outfield provides enough reason to go, if not the possibility of Brad Nelson playing it.
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Game Three Recap
Boo, 1-2.
Don’t worry, I won’t make a habit out of starting these things by talking about the opposing starting pitcher, but Justin Duchscherer was pretty interesting to watch tonight. He’s never been a hard thrower, with a fastball that averaged about 86 MPH the last few years, but that was his top speed tonight. The fastest pitch he threw was 86.2 MPH, and his heater was more regularly in the 84 to 85 range. To compensate, he just threw a ton of breaking balls, and while it worked okay, you saw the problem when he had to come over with a fastball to Bradley in the first inning. It’s just one start, and the first one of the season, but if Duchscherer is just a junk-ball guy now, Oakland’s shot at having a good year takes a blow – they’re depending on him to be average or better as a starter, but he won’t be with the repertoire he showed tonight.
As for the M’s starter, Rowland-Smith was his usual self, just with poor location, especially on his change-up. He left too many of them up in the zone, and the A’s ripped a lot of line drives when he got too much of the plate. He’s a guy that needs to put the ball in the right spots to succeed, and he didn’t really do that tonight. It happens. I wouldn’t be overly concerned.
Good to see Bradley put the ball in the seats in the first inning. I was on with Kevin Calabro on ESPN Radio today, and there were already questions being raised about his abilities after his first two games. The rope isn’t going to be as long with Bradley as it is with others, so a good start to the season would be really nice. I’m not worried about whether or not he’ll hit – there are enough other things to be concerned with from Milton.
Junior’s bat looks so slow. I’m not a scout, but yeah, there isn’t much left in that tank.
League’s fastball has some ridiculous movement to it, but that also comes with the downside of not really being able to command it all that well. Part of his big step forward last year was working in his splitter, but we haven’t seen much of it in his first two outings – 36 of 38 pitches tonight were fastballs. He’s gotta be less fastball-centric going forward. It’s a good pitch, but it’s not good enough to be the only thing he throws.
The six man bullpen is getting tested early on, with the M’s playing three tight games and Rowland-Smith only going five innings tonight. With Fister and Vargas going the next two days, we’re probably one bad start away from people suggesting that the team pull the plug on the experiment. I think a six man bullpen can work, but I’m not sure that this is the right situation for it, with Lee on the DL, an offense that won’t give you many large leads, and a bullpen full of right-handers who don’t throw strikes. Will be interesting to see how attached the M’s are to the 11 man pitching staff, especially with Mike Sweeney having no useful role on this club. If either of the next two days starters have to come out early, the M’s might have to ask Sweeney to take one for the team and spend 15 days on the DL.
Game Three, Mariners at A’s
Rowland-Smith vs Duchscherer, 7:05 pm.
Hyphen takes the hill tonight, looking to build on the strong finish he had to the end of the 2009 season. This is a pretty good match-up for him, as a strike-throwing pitch to contact guy against a bad offense in a big park. We should actually get to see Gutierrez and Ichiro get involved defensively tonight, after a couple of boring days for the outfielders.
Offensively, we go back to the opening day line-up with an RHP on the hill.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Kotchman, 1B
Bradley, LF
Griffey, DH
Lopez, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Johnson, C
Wilson, SS
2010 West Tenn Diamond Jaxx Preview
This is the team you listen to on off-days when the Mariners aren’t playing. Actually, scratch that, because of the time difference, you really have no excuse to not tune in to D-Jaxx games before the M’s come on most nights. The West Tenn squad features a glimpse of what the infield might look like two years down the road and a number of pitchers that might contribute in the near future either in the rotation or the bullpen. Even moving past the top prospect types, the team can run, hit for power, throw hard, even field a little, and should be fun to follow regardless.
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2010 High Desert Mavericks Preview
To start out by setting some reasonable expectations, I expect this year’s High Desert squad to be decent, but have few hopes of them repeating as division winners in both halves. Part of that is that the talent isn’t quite as high as it was in last year, though to be fair, there were a lot of unanticipated breakouts in that group. The other part is that I find the pitching more interesting than the hitting here, which is not something I’m comfortable saying too loudly given what kind of circumstances this crew is going to be dropped into there. That is not to say that the offense will be hopeless, as they have some experience and at least three hitters who could establish themselves as quality prospects in the system with a good showing there, conditional on it being not just a home park thing.
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2010 Clinton Lumberkings Preview
In the Bavasi years, the Midwest League roster was frequently the most interesting squad to start any given season, featuring a variety of high-potential teenagers from the international market and maybe a high school kid or two drafted in the early rounds. This year’s Clinton Lumberkings are similarly interesting (ultimately losing out on talent to West Tenn), but are constructed in a completely different way. There’s only one teenaged international free agent on the roster, and only four international players total, an unusual total among recent years. Similarly, there are only three teenagers on staff, which seems kind of reasonable when you think about. Even without these boom-or-bust styled youngsters, there’s plenty to watch from the ’09 draft picks that dominate the roster.
Game Two Recap
Boo, 1-1.
He’s not a Mariner, but let’s start with Dallas Braden. He’s basically Oakland’s version of Jason Vargas; a finesse lefty with a good change-up who throw strikes and lets the defense do the work. Except, tonight, the M’s decided to abandon their make-the-pitcher-work approach and chased every pitch he threw, most of them being pitches down and out of the zone. As such, Braden rang up 10 strikeouts, easily a career high. Now, maybe his pitches were just really hard to lay off or something, but the approach didn’t resemble anything like the one the team took against Ben Sheets last night. The M’s didn’t make Braden throw strikes, instead waving at pitches that they couldn’t do anything with. I’m not trying to take anything away from the A’s starter, but that looked more like bad hitting than great pitching to me.
Unfortunately, I think the same is mostly true about the Ian Snell and the A’s. Snell looked pretty similar to the guy we saw last year, throwing some decent pitches and some bad ones, plus struggling with his command at times. The two seam fastball was better than the four seam, as the extra velocity seemed to be accompanied by an inability to find the strike zone. The results were pretty decent, I know, but the A’s probably have the worst offense in the American League, and I don’t know that this would have worked all that well against a team that can hit. It’s good that he didn’t get lit up or anything, but I didn’t see anything that made me overly excited from Snell.
Kelley looked good, tossing his newly rediscovered change-up on his second pitch of the game, and locating his fastball and breaking ball well. Glad to see Wak use him in the 7th, even though he’s technically one of the two long guys in the pen.
Here’s a surprise – when Milton Bradley isn’t getting on base, this offense is pretty bad. Oh, wait, we knew that. Try to get on base more, Milton. The guys around you aren’t up to picking up the slack.
Lopez made a couple of mistakes in the field. They both looked like things he can learn to fix with experience, but yeah, there’s going to be growing pains with him over there.
And finally, yeah, he got the loss, but I thought Kanekoa Texeira looked pretty good. The breaking ball (I don’t know if he calls it a slider or splitter) has nasty downward break, and he showed confidence throwing it in any count, even in his major league debut. His fastball moves too, so while he’s not overpowering, he’s got a couple of pitches that can eat hitters up. The bloop double from Travis Buck that caused the problems in the 9th inning was on a pitch that just shattered Buck’s bat, and was nothing but bad luck. He threw some really good pitches in Rajai Davis to get a huge strikeout, showing he’s not just a ground ball guy. Ellis hit a pretty good pitch to win the game, too. I don’t have any complaints about his major league debut, even if it didn’t end all that well.
Game 2, Mariners at A’s
Snell vs Braden, 7:05 pm.
Game one of the “can we fix Ian Snell” experiment. If they can, it will be a big boost to the rotation. He gets the team’s better defensive group, since the M’s face a southpaw, meaning Bradley to DH and Byrnes in left.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Bradley, DH
Lopez, 3B
Kotchman, 1B
Byrnes, LF
Moore, C
Wilson, SS
Game One Recap
Yay, 1-0!
I’d like to start off on a cheerful note, but unfortunately, there is one glaringly obvious thing to talk about, and it’s not positive; the seventh inning choice of relief pitchers.
Sean White had a nice ERA last year. Wak has a belief system with him. I get it. He’s still not a good pitcher, and the M’s need to be smart enough to realize that. His xFIP, a much better indicator of actual ability, was 4.80, two full runs higher. His ERA was a massive fluke, based on an unsustainable .235 batting average on balls in play. He struck out 28 batters in 64 innings, which is terrible, and he doesn’t make up for it with good command. He’s got a decent sinker, but nothing else, and that doesn’t even work all that well against LHBs.
But, despite having a fully rested bullpen, Wak went to Sean White to get a lefty out with the tying run on base in the 7th inning. With Brandon League and Mark Lowe just sitting there, Wak bypassed them both to put in the 5th or 6th best reliever on the team (depending on how much you like Kanekoa Teixeira). White doesn’t do anything better than League, and the only advantage he has over Lowe (ground balls) doesn’t matter when there’s two outs. White, predictably, gives up a couple of hits and the game ended up tied.
Wak doesn’t have long to get over his Sean White fetish. Sean White is not a good pitcher, and his manager has to learn this in a hurry. He should not be used in close games unless he’s the only available option. When he’s the first guy out of the pen on opening day in a close game, that’s a problem. Learn from this, Wak.
Moving on, Felix had an interesting night. It was one of those classic good stuff/no command nights for him, made worse by the fact that Tim Tschida’s strikezone was stupid and inconsistent. But, because of the movement Felix was getting on his fastball, the command problems were minimized by a ridiculous amount of ground balls. It’s really hard to score if you can’t get the ball out of the infield, and for most of the night, the A’s couldn’t. Felix is good enough to succeed even when he has no idea where the ball is going. It wasn’t his best performance, but it showed how tough he can be, even when he’s not entirely on.
Offensively, the approach to the at-bats taken by Figgins, Kotchman, and Bradley were fun to watch. Those guys took advantage of the dancing strike zone and Sheets’ control problems, running up his pitch count and getting themselves on base. They might not be sluggers, but there are going to be a lot of innings where those three take 20 pitches between them, and that has value.
Watching Figgins and Ichiro steal second at will was fun. Watching Ichiro get thrown out at third and Bradley get picked off was less so. Aggressiveness is nice, but if you have to give up two outs in your pursuit of three bases, its not worth it.
Lopez looked pretty good at third. I still don’t love the switch, but it was good to see him make all the plays and start a couple of double plays.
Rob Johnson crushed a Ben Sheets fastball on the same night that Jeff Mathis went yard for the Angels. It was bad hitting catchers home run night in the AL West, apparently. You’ll hear about Johnson’s off-season surgeries every time he does something good, and he’ll almost certainly hit better than he did a year ago simply because its hard to be that bad two years in a row, but don’t expect many repeats of that power display.
You saw one of the benefits of the 11 man staff in the 8th inning. When Jr doubled, Byrnes pinch ran for him, giving the team a better chance of getting the go ahead run in on a base hit. That’s not possible if you don’t have Langerhans around to serve as the extra outfielder. It’s a small thing, but it helps, and keep in mind that it’s only possible because the M’s were willing to go with just six relievers. Every time someone mentions how nervous they are about that, remember that it comes with benefits too.
Congratulations to Casey Kotchman for some big hits and to the Mariners for starting the season off on a winning note. They’ll have to play better than this to win on most nights, but a win is a win, and I’ll take it.