Game Four Recap
If this season was about wins and losses, these breakdowns would read a bit differently. We’d talk about bullpen usage, line-ups, in-game strategy, and what the team needs to improve on to win games like this. However, the reality is that the Texas Rangers are a really good baseball team and the Mariners, right now, are not. The M’s shouldn’t be able to go into Texas and win a bunch of games, especially in games that Felix doesn’t start. This roster just isn’t on Texas’ level, and they got beat by a better team. That’s what this game boiled down to.
So, instead, we look to the things that do matter, and tonight, that’s Erik Bedard. No, he’s not one of the young kids who the organization is looking to build around, but how he performs this year will go a long way into determining whether the M’s can be respectable and competitive, or if they’re going to be looking at another year in the basement of the AL West. For 2011, Bedard matters a lot, and keeping the current product reasonably entertaining will help the organization invest in its own future.
That’s why I was encouraged by what I saw from Bedard tonight, even if the results weren’t there. He struggled to command his fastball, fell behind in the count too often, and the Rangers were able to sit on pitches and swing for the fences. However, his curve ball is the weapon that made him a good big league pitcher, and he threw a few curves tonight that were as good as pre-surgery Bedard. He threw it for strikes, and he trusted that he could get it over, even when behind in the count.
That’s the pitch that’s going to allow him to succeed, and while he threw a few spinners, more often than not, the curve ball had good break and was well located. The Rangers were able to guess right on a few because he couldn’t get his fastball over, but on nights when he’s pitching ahead in the count, that pitch is still going to be a knockout option for him.
Yes, he only went five innings, and I’m sure the people who still hold a grudge against him for the trade will drag out their worn out arguments about how he’s just not a guy who can work deep into games. He’ll never be Felix Hernandez, but he showed some flashes of the ability that made him one of the league’s best pitchers. It was his first regular season start in nearly two years, and he held his own against a good offense without being able to throw his fastball for strikes. That’s pretty impressive, even if the box score is not.
There were other positives as well – notably, Justin Smoak continues to drive the ball into the gaps against left-handed pitching, and is showing some real improvement from the right side of the plate. Jack Wilson made one of the best 4-3 double plays I’ve ever seen, and he didn’t hurt himself doing it (that we know of). Milton Bradley got three more hits and is off to the hot start he needed in order to keep himself in a good state of mind.
It’s not enough to win games against teams as good as Texas on most nights, but there’s some progress here. For now, moral victories are okay, and there were enough good things on the field tonight to count this game as a moral victory.
Game 4, Mariners At Rangers
Bedard vs Holland, 5:05 pm.
I’m excited to watch Erik Bedard throw tonight. I’m not excited about the circumstances of his first regular season start in nearly two years. The Rangers beat the Red Sox to a bloody pulp this weekend, posting a ridiculous .469 team wOBA in thier match-up against some pretty good Boston pitchers. For comparison, the best wOBA of Albert Pujols’ career is .462, so if you’ve wondered what a line-up of nine Pujols’ would look like, just rewind the tape and watch what Texas just did to Boston.
Of course, it’s just three games that don’t mean anything for predictive puposes, but this a good Rangers offense, and Arlington is not your typical cold-and-damp April climate. The ball was flying out of the park all weekend, and so Bedard is going to have make sure he keeps the ball down and misses bats, or else the Rangers could spoil his return to the mound with some crooked numbers in a hurry.
Based on what he was throwing in Spring Training, he’s still got the stuff to get good hitters out, regardless of the situation. I just wish it wasn’t trial by fire right off the bat.
Oh, and the Rangers are throwing LHP Derek Holland tonight, so the M’s offense is likely to get shut down again. If the M’s are going to win, they’re going to need Bedard to be amazing.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Bradley, LF
Cust, DH
Smoak, 1B
Olivo, C
Langerhans, CF
Ryan, SS
Wilson, 2B
Rebuilding and the Draft
Rebuilding is a dirty word in baseball. In football or basketball, it’s possible to cobble together a youth movement with a few savvy trades and a strong draft. If you’re lucky, you’ll be competing again by year two. In baseball, if a player is even on a MLB roster after two years as a pro, it’s a rare return. The 40-man rules are even set up so that prospects don’t need to be protected from the Rule 5 draft until three or four years into their careers, and even then given three or more option years to be sent back to the minors. The development of prospects in baseball, even for the best of them, takes time. Even worse, when a team starts talking about a rebuilding effort, very often they’re dealing with a stretch where the organization wasn’t able to produce good, young players. Fans get impatient, journalists get impatient, owners get impatient, and before long, whatever groundwork a new GM worked to lay is now being salvaged off for quicker fixes. Rebuilding efforts are both perilous and time consuming.
What follows here is a study of the return the Mariners have gotten from the draft from 2003 to 2007. Anything more recent would be a bit too soon and anything before that would only upset everyone. The goal isn’t to make anyone sick so much as show how the present youth movement, while well-intentioned, is operating with substantial constraints left over by previous administrations. Let’s get to it then, here comes the horror show. I swear this hurts me more than it hurts you…
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Game 3, Mariners At A’s
Fister vs Gonzalez, 1:05 pm.
If you’re wondering, there probably won’t be recap posts on weekends – despite being a blogger, I actually do strive to have some kind of social life. I’ll play catchup on the important stuff during the week.
M’s face another lefty in Gio Gonzalez today, and while they’ve been able to get to some of the LH relievers the A’s have used in the first few days, you still shouldn’t expect this team to be able to hit southpaws. WIth Gutierrez out and the only options to replace him both left-handed bats, the M’s essentially have to run out a minimum of three LHBs every day, and several of the right-handed bats in the line-up have minimal offensive ability. The offense essentially has to come from Ichiro and the three switch-hitters, with maybe a little bit of help from Miguel Olivo. If those guys don’t hit, the team isn’t going to score.
Getting Gutierrez back eventually will help to some degree, but this is never going to be a strong line-up against southpaws, and right now, it’s especially weak. The M’s will need Fister and the bullpen to keep the A’s off the scoreboard for a third straight game if they’re going to complete the sweep.
AL West Prospects Part II: Long Term Impact
The M’s start 2011 as the odds on favorite to finish last in the AL West. That the M’s are not in Texas’ class is a judgment that unites the columnists, sabermetric projection systems and probably most Mariner fans. Fangraphs assessment of the M’s current talent is brutal (27th!) but understandable. While the M’s had an edge over many teams financially, they’re clearly not the Yankees – and with the new television deal negotiated by the Rangers, the M’s are a step behind Anaheim and Texas.
Regression to the mean will help the M’s avoid 100 losses, but how can this team compete in the next 3-5 years in this division? While Jack Zduriencik was able to address a few of the black holes in the 2010 line-up with low-key trades and free agent pick-ups, he’s still got work to do. Essentially, the M’s need their prospects to narrow the (considerable) gap between themselves and the rest of the division.
As you know, the cupboard was pretty bare when Zduriencik became GM, and he’s won plaudits from people like us for restocking the system with guys like Nick Franklin, Ji-Man Choi, Rich Poythress, etc. But how do these guys – the guys a year or two from the majors – stack up with the prospects of the A’s, Angels and Rangers?
Beyond the guys I mentioned in the first post, the big three in each system are:
Angels: Mike Trout, Jean Segura, Garrett Richards
A’s: Grant Green, Michael Choice, Ian Krol
Rangers: Martin Perez, Jurickson Profar, Robbie Erlin
Mariners: Nick Franklin, Johermyn Chavez, Taijuan Walker
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Game 2, Mariners At A’s
Vargas vs Anderson, 6:05 pm.
Haven’t seen a line-up for tonight as of posting time, but with a lefty on the hill for Oakland, I wouldn’t anticipate any changes. Anderson is their version of Felix, so the M’s are going to need some breaks to win tonight. A half dozen more errors by Oakland would be just fine with me.
Game One Recap
I’d suggest that the M’s won that one for Dave, but he’s worthy of a better win than the one we just saw, so we’ll save that for when the team isn’t handed a gift by their opponents. We’ll just get this out of the way quickly so we can move on to the positives from an opening night victory for your first place Seattle Mariners – the A’s played as bad a baseball game as you can play. They were officially charged with five errors, and it probably should have been six, given Pennington’s lousy throw home on the Olivo collision play. That was a rather embarrassing defensive performance from Oakland tonight.
But, credit to the M’s, they took advantage of some of the opportunities they were given. After stranding a bunch of runners early, Ichiro had a classic Ichiro base hit to score Brendan Ryan (and he stole two bases), Jack Cust did what he does and drew a bunch of walks, Justin Smoak ripped a double into the gap (off a lefty, no less), and Chone Figgins hit a home run. The M’s got some help from the A”s, but they also created a few rallies.
It was frustrating early when they couldn’t get anyone in, but if you keep putting men on base, you’ll eventually come away with runs, and the M’s essentially won by attrition tonight. We know this team isn’t the ’27 Yankees, but if they can draw walks and get a few extra base hits per night, they’ll score enough runs to not be a laughing stock.
As for Felix, well, this is why he’s The King – that wasn’t his most dominating performance ever, but he knew he was going up against a mediocre line-up, so he pounded the strike zone and let them hit the ball right at his infielders. He pitched to contact because he could, and while he elevated a few fastballs early, he was able to get the groundouts he wanted for most of the game. You won’t look back at this start like his one-hitter in Boston, but it was an efficient, workman-like performance from a guy who has figured out how to pitch.
There will be nights when Felix needs to strike everyone out, or his stuff is so ridiculous that opposing hitters just can’t touch him. Tonight was not one of those nights, so instead, he just got a bunch of ground ball outs and took a complete game victory. That he can do stuff like this now is one of the reasons he’s so great – the strikeout ability is still there, but he also knows how to back off when facing a weaker offense, and that’s exactly what he did tonight.
Mature Felix is a lot of fun to root for. Long Live The Grownup King.
Game 1, Mariners At A’s
Felix vs Cahill, 7:05 pm.
Happy Felix Day, Happy Opening Day, and Sad We Miss You Dave Niehaus Day.
Those are three stories that are going to dominate the evening. It’s day one of 2011 for the M’s, it’s our first Felix Day of the year, and it’s the first time in franchise history that we will begin the season without Dave’s voice welcoming us back for another season. The home opener next week will be more emotional, I’m sure, but this is still going to be hard.
Once we dry the eyes, though, the attention will turn to Felix. There are worse ways to find comfort than geting to watch The King take the hill to start the season. We all know about the problems the rest of the roster has, but when he’s on the mound, the team has a real chance to win. And, perhaps more importantly, be fun to watch. Felix makes this team interesting.
The line-up:
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Bradley, LF
Cust, DH
Smoak, 1B
Olivo, C
Langerhans, CF
Ryan, SS
Wilson, 2B