Game 96, Mariners at Blue Jays
Pineda vs. Cecil, 4:07 PDT.
Happy Pineda day! I find that thinking about Pineda’s development helps prevent me from sinking into pessimism and apathy after watching the M’s get annihilated by the Rangers. If you somehow figured out how to watch condensed games that only showed the M’s on defense, you might think they were contenders.
Pineda will indeed get to face Jose Bautista, who returns to the line-up after a minor ankle injury. He and Travis Snider are the Jays best/only hitters, but Pineda handled them back in April.
Mike Carp’s in the line-up despite the fact that Cecil’s a lefty. Mike Curto points out that Carp went 2-6 with a HR off of Cecil in Las Vegas this year, so that certainly helps (Ackley was even better – 4 for 7 with a HR and a 2B). Carp’s the DH today, which allows the team to get another righty into the line-up in Greg Halman. However, while Carp’s allowed to face lefties, Kyle Seager’s still got his training wheels on. Chone Figgins plays 3B and hits 8th. I can’t seriously argue that Seager’s a better bet against Brett Cecil, but if we’re going to bench Jack Cust so Carp can take on lefties (and I like that move), then I’m not sure why Figgins’ marginally better split would earn him the start.
Line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Smoak
6: Gutierrez
7: Carp
8: Figgins
9: Halman
Save us, Michael Pineda!
Series Preview – Mariners at Blue Jays
Now that the Rangers have well and truly kicked the life out of the 2011 season, it’s time the M’s focused on player development goals that could pave the way for an improvement in 2012. The M’s head east for a road trip that begins in Toronto, where they’ll face another team that’s looking for improvement in some young players that they hope form the core of a contending roster down the road.
The M’s face lefty starters on Tuesday and Thursday, and they’ll see old friend Brandon Morrow in between. Given Dustin Ackley, Kyle Seager and now Mike Carp hit lefty, one critical goal for the M’s will be to figure out how to hurt lefty starters. Derek Holland and CJ Wilson didn’t seem to break a sweat against this line-up, and while Ackley started off hot against lefties (including his HR against Johnny Venters), Justin Smoak’s been the M’s most consistent right-handed bat. The M’s will need Greg Halman and/or Franklin Gutierrez to contribute. Production out of Brendan Ryan/Jack Wilson would be nice, but that’s getting pretty fanciful. Franklin Gutierrez used to excel against lefties, but I don’t think anyone expects a whole lot from him now.
The M’s also need to assess exactly what kind of hitter Mike Carp is against righties. This may interfere with him playing every day, and I know many want to see Carp sink or swim, but the M’s need to see a lot of both Halman and Carp. Halman needs to show that he can hit more than just the occasional HR without sending his K rate through the roof, and Carp needs to show that his struggles against righties were a small-sample mirage. No one’s asking either player to single-handedly claim the LF spot next year; rather, each just needs to show that they can be of some use if they’re put in advantageous situations.
Jays RF/Demi-god Jose Bautista missed his last game with a slight ankle injury, but is expected back for tomorrow’s game. Travis Snider was awful in April (I can still see his “swing” against a Pineda slider) and was sent down to AAA for a while, but he’s got 10 extra-base hits in 11 games since being recalled. JP Arencibia is essentially a young Miguel Olivo, as he’s got a wOBA of .305 despite a terrible OBP. He’s been awful against right-handers this year, despite not showing much of a platoon split in the minors. Aaron Hill’s descent from slugging 2B star to poor man’s Jack Wilson is nearly as bizarre as Gutierrez’ collapse. He hit 36 HRs two years ago on his way to a 4 win season. Last year, he still hit 26 long balls, but put up a putrid slash line of .205/.271/.394. Jays fans pointed to his sub-.200 BABIP as a reason for hope in 2011, but instead, he’s cratered. He’s got all of four HRs and a .274 wOBA that makes him one of the few regular players who’s hit worse than the Seattle Mariners.
What are you looking for in the remainder of 2011? Should Seager and Carp play against lefties even if it makes shutouts more likely? Should the M’s pick up older stop-gaps (Marcus Thames, maybe) to improve the watchability of these meaningless games, or would you accept another 100+ losses if it provided some meaningful input for 2012 roster construction?
Minor League Wrap (7/11-17/11)
Monday of last week, 7th-round pick 3B Steve Proscia and 22nd-round pick RHP John Taylor signed. Since then, nothing. No new draft news, no new international news. Taijuan Walker and James Paxton both made Baseball America’s Prospect Hot Sheet though, so there is that. There was also a Geoff Baker piece which references the allegations against the buscon of Esteilon Peguero and others and clarifies why Peguero hasn’t gotten his bonus yet. The short of it is that the rules have changed and the money is now held in escrow until a prospect turns eighteen. Oh, and there was that Peguero/Carp thing, which is probably good for us in the long run.
To the jump!
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Series Wrap-up, Rearranging Deck Chairs, etc.
On June 19th, the Mariners were a couple of games over .500 and just a half game behind the division-leading Rangers. On July 5th – within two weeks! – the M’s were 2.5 back of the Angels/Rangers. Fans on twitter, on talk-radio, everywhere mentioned the M’s exceptional heart and desire – so unlike the 2010 team, who just rolled over and accepted defeat.
Now, on July 17th, the M’s are 9 games below .500, 11.5 back of the Rangers, and people willing to publicly advocate for their “heart,” “fire,” “determination” are thin on the ground. People who point out the similarities between this year’s M’s team and the last are a lot more numerous than they were 10 days ago.
This isn’t to suggest that criticism of the current roster is reactionary and ill-considered – it’s not; this roster is legitimately awful. Rather, I’m trying to remember how it was that THIS team, the one with Adam Kennedy at DH, or Miguel Olivo at clean-up, with Franklin Gutierrez and with the left-field platoon from hell, fancied itself contenders. From 2009 through 2011, only the Mariners have a team wOBA below .300. From 2009 through 2011, the M’s have trotted out the least valuable collection of position players in the majors, edging out the Orioles and Royals. This includes their exceptional fielding performance in 2009, which netted them almost 10 wins (they’ve been worth 29 *total* in 2.5 years). You will tell your grandchildren about the 2010/2011 Mariners. This team will live on in family stories about great hardship (“So after Jim lost his job, and after my unemployment ran out, we were basically sick-Guti there for a while”) or annoying failure (“Damn it! The TV’s gone Olivo again!”).
The way the M’s lost this series makes you question so much about the team’s decent performance through June. The M’s went 20 for 126 against a good-but-not-exceptional series of Rangers hurlers. The M’s were outscored 17-2. Say what you will about sequencing, luck, or slumps, the talent disparity between these two line-ups just jumped off the screen. Seriously, would Endy Chavez hit clean-up on the M’s? Swap out Peguero for Carp, or Peguero for George Brett circa 1980 and the M’s still get swept handily.
The M’s made lefties like CJ Wilson and Derek Holland look great, because many of the team’s RHH struggle against southpaws (Brendan Ryan, Gutierrez, Halman) and the lefties (while they’ve done OK) can’t pick up the slack. The M’s made righties like Matt Harrison look good because Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley are struggling against righties for some reason and people like Olivo, Gutierrez and Ryan never stood a chance anyway. The most shocking thing about the M’s offense is how impervious to regression they’ve been. The M’s finished 2010 several standard deviations from the mean, and have somehow maintained that pace in 2011. The M’s are looking like an offense with a true-talent level so far below league average that you have to start questioning the way the team was put together.
I know, I know: they’ve been hit with some key injuries. Adam Moore was supposed to catch at least 50 games this year, Franklin Gutierrez was supposed to be healthy (or healthier), and David Aardsma and Shawn Kelley were supposed to anchor the bullpen. But Adam Moore put up a .224 wOBA last year, and his ZiPS projection was far lower than, say, Josh Bard’s. It’s not at all clear that the M’s “lost” anything there. David Aardsma’s Tommy John surgery’s thrust Brandon League into the closer role, but that’s clearly last on the list of M’s issues. Shawn Kelley would be nice, but Jeff Gray’s demonstrating just how easy it can be to find RH set-up men. Gutierrez is perhaps the most under-performing player on the roster, but after his 2010, no one was counting on him to be above average with the bat. Even if he was healthy on opening day, he’d likely be a below-average hitter.
All of this is to say that we now know more about how the M’s stack up against Los Angeles and Texas, both this year and since 2009 – and the more we know, the more the M’s seem to drop relative to their rivals. This is a roster that had huge, easily-identified holes when the Zduriencik regime took over, and now has larger, just-as-easily-identifiable holes in other places. The M’s have done well in the amateur draft and in trades, but Zduriencik’s free-agent acquisitions haven’t worked out, and even some of the “good” trades (Brendan Ryan for Maikel Cleto) haven’t helped the M’s relative to their peers. The M’s went from an overpaid glove-first SS to a cheaper glove-first SS, but all that did was push the overpaid glove-first SS to the bench.
I understand that Zduriencik inherited a terrible roster/farm system, and that guys like Taijuan Walker and Nick Franklin might help transform the roster a couple of years from now, but how many years does that mitigating circumstance hold? Zduriencik took over a roster with historically bad 1B/DH spots and shifted the historically-bad spots to CF and 3B. I don’t think any of us would’ve done a whole lot differently, but here we are with a line-up that can’t compete in the wide-open AL West and without much help anywhere in the system (they’ve used Seager and Halman, so there’s absolutely no easy way to project even incremental improvement – Langerhans in CF? Liddi/Catricala at 3B?), it’s not clear how the relative strengths will change. Going into 2009, the M’s had a talent deficit vis a vis Anaheim, but an advantage at GM. At this point, it’d appear the Rangers have the better roster and front office. It’s tough to imagine this changing absent a big trade, but as Dave’s already pointed out, the M’s don’t have a lot of veterans to trade.
This April, the M’s ran advertisements acknowledging how painful 2010 was, and pointing to the farm system as a solution to the problem. Well, the M’s could run the same commercial in April of 2012, as absolutely nothing’s changed. Yes, in many ways, this is the exact wrong time to blame the front office; a long losing streak exaggerates a team’s weaknesses and plays up their rivals’ strengths. But the past two series have exposed the current roster’s deficiencies, and the past few years haven’t given me a whole lot of confidence that the team can buy their way out of their predicament on the free agent market.
Yes, the team’s developed some young players who’re getting their feet wet, and Ackley/Smoak should improve, where does that leave the club? We support a team that, when it’s smart, starts Kyle Seager, Brendan Ryan, and Greg Halman. We cheered when the club swapped out Carlos Peguero for Mike Carp in left field. I think that pretty much encapsulates where the team is and the options they’re currently facing. In the past six months, the Rangers lost Josh Hamilton to a broken arm, saw several of their top pitching prospects go down with injury, saw Brandon Webb’s comeback fizzle out, watched Neftali Feliz regress, and watched Julio Borbon stink up Arlington, then go down with an injury. Going back a bit further, they traded a decent chunk of their high-minors depth for a few months of Cliff Lee. And after all of that, after so many bad breaks, still can’t put the M’s in the Rangers’ class.
Carp Up, Peguero Down
Sorry about the lack of a game thread today – moving into a new (to us, not to the world) house has basically sucked up every last bit of free time I’ve had of late. But, given how the season has been going lately, I’m not sure we needed another thread to say “hey, look, the M’s still can’t score.”
After the game, the M’s made the move I called for on Thursday, optioning Carlos Peguero back to Tacoma and recalling Mike Carp. Wedge made it sound like Carp is actually going to get to play fairly regularly this time, though I’d imagine he’ll split time between LF and DH, and if Kennedy gets traded before July 31st, DH is probably the more likely (and better) spot for him. I don’t think Carp is anything special, but given how well he’s hitting in Tacoma, it makes sense to give him a few hundred at-bats and just see how it goes. That’s what you do in losing seasons – give chances to guys who have earned a look. Carp has earned one.
Game 94, Rangers at Mariners
King Felix vs. Wilson, 7:10pm.
Is it bad that a non-negligible reason I’m tuning in tonight is to see/hear the King’s Court? Felix is always worth your time, but I think everyone’s feeling a bit numb after 26 straight scoreless innings. And after getting whitewashed by two good-but-flawed starters, they now face an excellent one – lefty CJ Wilson. CJ had good results in 2010, but a high walk rate and a low BABIP led many to think he’d regress this year. Instead, Wilson just decided to pitch a lot better – his K rate is up while his walks are down substantially, so even though his BABIP did increase, his results have improved.
Score a run, M’s. The Sounders got 4 today, and while that’s probably asking a lot, another shutout simply isn’t an option. The M’s honor their 2001 team tonight, then force several members of that history-making squad watch the 2011 iteration.
Line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Smoak
6: Kennedy
7: Gutierrez
8: Seager
9: Halman
Game 93, Rangers at Mariners
Fister vs. Lewis, 7:10pm
Well, Lewis’ has regressed this year and he’s righthanded, so hopefully the M’s won’t be quite so hopeless as they were last night. Of course, their offense is still pathetic and somehow getting worse, but I’ll grasp to any and all hopeful indicators.
One negative indicator has been Justin Smoak’s performance against right-handers this year. Coming into the year, the risk with Smoak was that he’d continue to struggle against lefties, but in fact he’s blown his projections against southpaws out of the water. Unfortunately, his wOBA’s below average against righties. Now, much of this is BABIP driven; his ISO is the same against lefties and righties, but fewer balls in play are dropping in for hits. Still, the fact that Colby Lewis is a righty was probably a factor in the M’s deciding to give Smoak the night off tonight. Kennedy will handle 1B duties while Jack Cust gets a start at DH.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Kennedy
6: Cust
7: Guti
8: Seager
9: Peguero
The righty starter also Peguero’s back in the line-up in left field. Ryan Langerhans hit 2 HRs last night in Tacoma and probably commiserates with Mike Carp nightly. I realize that there’s not a lot of value in trotting out a minor league vet on the wrong side of 30 now that the M’s are essentially out of it, but there’s not a lot of value in watching your offense challenge…last year’s offense in the race to be the worst offense in a generation.
Game 92, Rangers at Mariners
Jason Vargas vs. Derek Holland, 7:19pm
The M’s kick off the second half with comfortably low expectations. They’re within a 8 games of the Rangers, but with the Rangers healthier than they’ve been in a while and with the M’s coming off a sweep in Anaheim, Seattle isn’t exactly a sexy dark horse pick for the division right now. Shannon Drayer’s blog post sums it up.
Derek Holland’s got very good raw stuff (the 2nd fastest average FB velocity for a lefty starter), but a home run problem has prevented him from becoming a legitimate top of the rotation starter. His peripherals are better than his ERA, but they’re not jaw dropping. After struggling with the HR ball in Arlington – and who hasn’t – he’s actually given up more on the road this year. Of course, Holland is facing the Mariners at Safeco field tonight, so all of that stuff about home runs is just hypothetical anyway. Holland’s left-handedness even gets him a bonus: Chone Figgins is in the line-up.
I’d always harbored some hope that Holland would struggle in Texas the way he did in 2009, and that the Rangers would move him to make room for Scheppers/Feldman/Ogando/Hurley/whoever, but facing a team with a wOBA of .278 on a cold, rainy evening is not going to help him put up superficially bad numbers.
As always, check out Lookout Landing’s series preview for a lot of good information on what Holland (and the other Ranger starters) throw, and how the teams fare offensively and defensively. Hint: the Mariners aren’t good offensively.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro!
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Smoak (DH)
6: Kennedy (1b)
7: Gutierrez
8: Figgins
9: Halman (LF)
On a brighter note, Taijuan Walker, fresh off his first career complete game, came in at #30 on Keith Law’s list($) of the top 50 prospects in baseball. Jackson Generals SS/concussion victim Nick Franklin’s at #40.
Chris Seddon takes the hill for Tacoma against Salt Lake at 7, James Paxton’s pitching right now for Jackson vs. Carolina, James Gilheeney faces Lancaster, Tony Butler leads Clinton vs. Great Lakes, Seon-Gi Kim’s given up a run so far for Pulaski, and Stephen Kohlscheen gets his 3rd start for Everett against Spokane.
Carp and Peguero
My latest post for Brock and Salk is up, and deals with the relative merits of Mike Carp and Carlos Peguero as they have climbed the minor league ladder.
Despite Peguero’s youthful face and Carp’s — I’ll just try to put this as gently as I can — not youthful face, it can be easy to overlook the fact that they’re actually pretty close to the same age. Mike Carp was born in June of 1986, while Peguero was born just eight months later in February of 1987. Peguero might seem like the young kid with a lot of potential growth ahead of him, and Carp might seem like a grizzled Triple-A veteran who gets exposed by big league pitching, but the reality is that they’re at pretty similar points in their career.
In fact, if we compare their performances throughout the minor leagues, we can see pretty clearly that Carp has been better than Peguero at nearly every point along their development path.
You can read the rest at their blog and listen to me talk to the guys at 11 am on 710 ESPN.
Tonight: The 2011 AAA All-Star Game from Salt Lake City
If you had plans this evening, cancel them. If you’re going to be traveling at any point between 6pm-9pm PDT, find a bar with MLB Network and settle in. Tonight’s the AAA All-Star game, pitting the Pacific Coast League’s brightest stars who haven’t been promoted yet against the International League’s for bragging rights and so much more: you see, this one counts too. Like the MLB All-Star game, the winner receives home field advantage for the AAA National Championship. But unlike MLB who drags out their World Series over four-to-seven games, AAA boils it all down to a single championship game. Winning the AAA All-star game allows the team from the winning league to wear their home uniforms in the neutral stadium the game is played in.
You can’t measure that with statistics, but you can see it in the leave-it-all-on-the-field mentality of the player’s in tonight’s match-up. Watch Bryan LaHair (a vet of the 2009 contest) run the bases and tell me this is an exhibition game. Watch Russ Canzler and tell me he isn’t the best IL 3B you’ve never heard of.
Josh Lueke’s is the Mariners/Rainiers sole representative, but he knows all too well how much home field advantage means in a neutral site game. Jason Kipnis does too; he played on the winning side last year, and while no one can prove that the moderately larger ‘home’ clubhouse proved decisive in Columbus’ win, no one can prove it wasn’t.
That last night’s appetizer was the lowest-rated AS Game in history doesn’t surprise me; it’s pretty tough to compete with line-ups like these. Besides, interleague play has sapped one of the only reasons to tune in to the MLB AS Game: to see matchups between players who never got to face each other. But AAA doesn’t have interleague play, so if you ever dreamed of seeing Yonder Alonso or Dayan Viciedo take on Willie Eyre or Dana freaking Eveland, then you had to play it out in your mind. Tonight, our most mundane dreams are made real.
Game time is 6pm, and it’s on MLB Network, and AM 850 on your radio dial (if you’re in the south puget sound, that is). Follow along on the web here, and you’ll be able to get video if you’re an MiLB.tv subscriber or pick up the audio on your computer. Even better, Mike Curto promises to tweet his impressions of the clash throughout the night, so follow him @CurtoWorld. There’s no excuse to miss this one, unless your excuse is tuning in to Taijuan Walker’s start for Clinton tonight at 5pm.
Update: The AAA HR Derby is better, both because it doesn’t include Chris Berman and because it DOES include things like local high schoolers. Very reminiscent of the time a few years ago when retired slugger and local realtor Rob Stratton won it in Albuquerque. Seriously, if you watched last year’s contest between millionaires and you don’t watch/listen to this, you are a midsummer classist. Brad Mills of Las Vegas is completing his warm-up tosses now.
Update 2: Bryan LaHair is mic’ed up for tonight’s game. Just when you think it can’t get any better….