Game 140, Mariners at Angels
Haren vs. Vasquez, 6:05 pm
I don’t think that really anyone is looking forward to this. Haren is a talented pitcher. Vasquez has turned in two bad starts and may have finally run into the wall due to his lack of stuff, despite coming up as a pretty good pitcher throughout his minor league tenure. He’ll probably be facing the likes of Trumbo and Trout, and Trout hit him up pretty bad last time around. This is probably going to be unpleasant.
This is also the final regular season day of minor league action, with Jackson (4-8 loss), High Desert (10-0 victory), and Clinton (9-3 victory) already final and Tacoma still playing at the moment. I’m not holding out hope or anything, but if Liddi homers again today, he’ll have thirty on the season, and who doesn’t love round numbers? The Mariners are holding out on calling up any additional players from Tacoma until they’ve finished their game, which means that sometime in the later innings we’ll likely get word of exhausted-looking outfielders stumbling into the dugout after a day game and then a flight to Los Angeles.
RF Ichiro!
SS Ryan
2B Ackley
LF Carp
DH Smoak
1B Kennedy
3B Seager
C Bard
CF Robinson
Game 139, Mariners at A’s
Cahill vs. Beavan, 1:05 pm
Back when Beavan was first called up, I think the immediate comparisons made for him were to Doug Fister. Both are giants, had great command of fastballs unimpressive in velocity, didn’t really have other signature pitches, but got by on throwing strikes without actually striking dudes out and inducing some groundballs here and there. So how’s that comparison working out now?
Fister 2009: 61.0 IP, 14.1% Ks, 5.9% BB, 19.9% LD, 41.3% GB, 38.8% FB, 14.1% HR/FB, 5.10 FIP, 4.43 xFIP, 5.28 tERA, 4.11 ERA
Beavan 2011: 65.2 IP, 9.1% Ks, 3.7% BB, 23.3% LD, 39.7% GB, 37.1% FB, 11.6% HR/FB, 4.83 FIP, 4.46 xFIP, 5.56 tERA, 4.11 ERA
What we’ve seen so far with Beavan is a guy who is even more extreme on the balls in play than Fister, striking out and walking fewer batters overall. There has been more solid contact with him, chipping away from the groundball and flyball totals, but so far as the ERA-styled stuff is concerned (disclosure: I rarely use the advanced stuff, and have no idea if I’m using it well), they’re appreciably close to being the same overall value out of the gate. Now, Fister actually added some velocity, about a mile and a half on the fastball, from the time he got promoted and slowly shifted from relying on his change-up as a secondary offering to using the slider a lot. Beavan relies even more on the fastball than Fister did (68% to Fister’s 61.4%) and has yet to show any real preference for an offspeed pitch, but he does have better life on the fastball at present (90.7 to Fister’s 88.2 back in the day) and his high school days of throwing 96 have led to rumors that he’s back to throwing at least 92-3 during just about every spring training for the past few years. Where Beavan goes from here, if he goes down that same path Fister did or does something else, I don’t know quite yet, but we can hope that he’ll keep eating innings for us in the meantime.
RF Ichiro!
CF Gutierrez
2B Ackley
DH Carp
1B Smoak
C Olivo
3B Seager
LF Wells
SS Rodriguez
Game 138, Mariners at A’s
Update: Since it’s Labor Day weekend, posting may be kind of light. Feel free to use this as a game thread for Sunday’s and Monday’s games if we don’t get separate posts up for those.
Pineda vs. McCarthy, 1:05.
Smoak is back in the field today. Since Smoak has been thought of as a better prospect than Carp, it was assumed that he would block Carp, which is a big reason why Carp was ever tried in the outfield. That apparently motivated some of Carp’s improved conditioning, which may contribute to him turning into a better hitter. Not that Carp should really be an outfielder, especially with how many other possibilities there are that can field the position better.
At that point, then the question becomes whether you want Smoak at first and Carp at DH, like today, or Carp at first and Smoak at DH, like yesterday. Smoak has usually been considered the better defender, but it’s not clear that he’ll perform to the glowing reputation he had in some circles when he was acquired. Carp, meanwhile, is not spectacular but not a total disaster either. Smoak is still probably the better option of the two defensively, but the difference is not so dramatic that you can’t switch back and forth a little. It can keep both of them well-rested while keeping them in the lineup, and they can both learn how to adjust to the rhythms of DHing so their hitting doesn’t suffer too much.
RF-L Ichiro
CF-R Gutierrez
2B-L Ackley
DH-L Carp
1B-B Smoak
LF-R Wells
3B-L Seager
C-B Bard
SS-R Ryan
Game 137, Mariners at A’s
Vargas vs. Moscoso, 7:05.
Moscoso you may remember from throwing a 2-hitter for 7 innings in the game that started the 17-game losing streak. At least he won’t be starting any Mariner losing streaks this time.
RF-L Ichiro
CF-R Gutierrez
2B-L Ackley
1B-L Carp
DH-B Smoak
C-R Olivo
3B-L Seager
LF-R Wells
SS-R Ryan
Game 136, Angels at Mariners
Furbush vs. Santana, 7:10pm.
Let’s just get this out of the way now: this game won’t be as good as last night’s. Sorry. It’s always valuable to see if Charlie Furbush is progressing at all – if he’s gaining command or if his stuff just looks better – but ultimately, this game’s going to be a let down, because it isn’t Felix slicing through the Angels.
I guess we’ll see if Cesar Jimenez makes an appearance out of the pen. I’m really selling this one, aren’t I?
The line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Olivo
6: Seager
7: Wells (LF)
8: Ryan
9: Robinson (DH)
In the minors, the Tui-less Rainiers face Tucson at 7:05 in Tacoma, Jackson lost a tough one to Jacksonville, 8-7 (Catricala was 2-2 with 2 walks, a 2B and a HBP). Everett takes on Spokane at 6:30, Clinton’s tied 4-4 with Quad Cities a day after giving up 21 to the Cardinals affiliate; Carter Capps is pitching for the LumberKings.
Gimenez, Jimenez, and Kelley Added
Two of these were the obvious moves once rosters expanded. The addition of Kelley probably does the most for us, and is really the only one I’m all that interested in. You may remember that Kelley was out for a while having a ligament in his elbow re-attached, sort of like TJ except minus the severity and about a year in recovery time. While in Tacoma, he got 14.2 innings in and had a .208 average against with a 15/6 K/BB. That sounds less impressive than it is because five of those walks inexplicably came in one outing. Kelley proving that he’s healthy will go a long way towards shoring up the bullpen for next season. The Mariners lucked out in the early part of the year in that their Franken-bullpen managed to turn in a series of good performances, but as time went on we learned why guys like Wright and Laffey and Ray and Gray were having a hard time holding down major league jobs in the first place. Ideally, Kelley would provide us an actual setup reliever or something resembling one.
We knew that Chris Gimenez was going to come back as soon as he recovered from the oblique injury, and the last couple of weeks, he’s been down in Tacoma batting .265/.357/.347 over forty-nine at-bats. Seeing as how the Mariners are trying to figure out what they have in Robinson and Wells in the outfield, I doubt that Gimenez is much more than our third catcher at the moment. The org had a use for him out of spring training, but since that time it seems like his versatility has become less of a factor. It just makes more sense right now to have Bard around with various recent Rainiers on the staff.
The addition of Jimenez is a head-scratcher for me because it requires a 40-man spot and Jimenez has not recently become good or anything. He’s basically showing the same issues that he’s always had with his splits: he holds right-handers to a decent-ish average at .246, but left-handers are batting .283 off of him. Except, even considering that, he’s had a 56/26 K/BB against right handers, walking more than a batter every two innings, and his 25/9 K/BB against lefties in 25.1 IP, while better, is nothing special. If you think that the Ks are any good, well, he’s done that since 2008 in Tacoma and this year is his worst walk rate yet there. A less desperate club would probably leave him there, and he’s definitely among the first on the cutting block if we need another spot in the offseason.
Edit: The corresponding move to Jimenez getting added as that the M’s released Matt Tuiasosopo. This might shock some because, hey, local kid (Woodinville High School!), but in reality Tui has been defensively limited in the past year or so, spending much of his time at first and in left, with some starts at second after both Ackley and Seager left. The decreased pressure on him on the field hasn’t helped his bat any, and it’s been stagnant for the past couple of years. Maybe he needs a change of scenery. Maybe he’s just not that good. Either way, I couldn’t have come up with a reason to keep him around unless I was really stretching.
M’s Extend Jack Z
Since this broke yesterday, we’re a little late to the party, but the Mariners announced that they’ve extended the contract of Jack Zduriencik for “multiple years” to keep him and his staff in place and continue the work that has been building since he was hired three years ago.
Plenty of other of people have weighed in on Jack’s extension and have talked about the focus on the farm system, development of talent through the draft, and how the M’s have begun to really build from within for the first time in 15-20 years. That’s all true, and is certainly one of the main reasons why the M’s decided to keep Jack around even though there hasn’t been a lot of winning going on since he took over. Everyone can see the ground work being laid for a bright future, and it was the right call to keep the current front office in place to continue the work they’ve been doing.
However, at some point, the front office is going to have to pivot, and my guess is that point is going to come within the next 12 months. While Jack got a “multi-year extension”, he didn’t get a lifetime extension, and I’m pretty sure that the ownership will eventually demand that all the ground work produce wins on the field at the Major League level. It’s one thing to see the fruit of guys like Dustin Ackley and Kyle Seager, but it’s another thing to have a competitive roster full of guys who can go toe to toe with the Texas Rangers.
The Mariners have a few guys who can do that. They have more coming. But there’s also still quite a bit of dreck on this roster. The team’s primary setup guy right now is Jamey Wright. The entire bullpen is really a bit of a disaster, if we’re being honest. After trading away Doug Fister and Erik Bedard, the rotation is no longer a strength – you could argue that the M’s really only have a couple of Major League starters right now. And, you know, the offense still isn’t great. Miguel Olivo hits fifth on most nights. Casper Wells isn’t yet showing that he’s an everyday left fielder in the big leagues. Franklin Gutierrez’s power is still completely MIA.
For all the good work that has been done on the farm, the big league team is still not very good. And yet, in the not too distant future, it needs to be good, and the M’s can’t count on all of the necessary talent coming from guys already in the organization. Danny Hultzen and James Paxton might help a lot, or they might be Gil Meche and Joel Pineiro. The M’s can’t depend entirely on the wave of talent coming to fill the holes.
For the last few years, the focus has been on the farm system. Sure, the M’s “pivoted” somewhat when they made the Cliff Lee trade and the Chone Figgins signing, but even while they were making those moves, the focus was more on giving the team a chance to be good rather than making themselves the favorites in the division. It didn’t work, so they pivoted back towards building for the future.
I don’t know that the point has to come this winter, but the time is going to come when the team has to go back to focusing more on adding to the big league roster than the farm system. They’re going to have to get more guys like Franklin Gutierrez, Russell Branyan, and David Aardmsa – useful, present Major Leaguers who just need a better chance to show what they can do – rather than just sit around waiting for the minor league kids to be ready for the show.
The farm system is now in good shape – certainly better shape than the big league roster. The groundwork has been laid for a strong future, and that work needs to continue. But, pretty soon, the M’s need to put together a roster that can win 90 games in a season. Even with his contract extension, the ownership isn’t going to give Jack a free pass on 90 loss seasons forever.
I’m glad Jack is sticking around, and I do believe in what they’ve been doing to lay a foundation for the future. Pretty soon, though, I believe that the front office’s priorities will have to shift to a degree, and the organization will have to focus on building out the Major League roster to compete with what the rest of the division has to offer. How Jack does at that kind of GM’ing will determine whether or not he’ll get another contract extension in a few years.