Cactus League Game 9, Dodgers at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Chris Capuano, 12:05pm
“They said it wouldn’t count, and then they count it anyway. Bush league stuff. What have you got when your word means nothing?” asked the old man to his distracted grandson. The young boy continued playing with a smartphone, but mouthed the word “nothing” as his grandfather repeated the word emphatically. “Nothing! That’s right! They said it was a charity game!”
The boy loved coming to his grandparents to play to but didn’t know what to make of his grandfather’s old-fashioned obsession with Cactus League baseball. “None of it counts, grandpa. Can we make sandwiches?” “I know none of it counts, but you can still learn if you pay attention. That’s why we always pay extra attention when they play in Peoria or Surprise.”
“Pappy, was that a change-up?”
“Let’s see…NO, no it wasn’t! Ha! The algorithm’s messed it up again.” The old man’s voice was excited, as he opened another browser window.
“What now, pappy?” “I’ve got to tell people.” “Who, pappy?” “Everyone! I mean, people are going to think…that….they’re going to.. make…judgments..they’re…and they’re…I’ve got to type this.”
“It’s March 2nd, pappy. Don’t you think people are doing other things?”
“Some of them aren’t. The fans aren’t . The people who *know* what they’re doing. I mean, this rotation is taking shape here, and we’ve got data to compare now for Iwakuma. This is big stuff, here.”
“But….”
“Look, Sam, you may not appreciate it right now, but there’s a long tradition involved. For decades moms and dads have hunched over gameday, or way back when they’d just look at the raw XML. Fathers joking with sons about the best horizontal movement on a change-up he’d ever seen. Moms piping in about the time Felix through a 93mph change against Texas, kids learning to differentiate sliders and curves from the data alone. And then the community beyond that – integrating these conversations with hundreds of others through sports radio, blogs, twitter. It’s a way of engaging with the baseballing world! And it’s just about the same today as it was when my grandpa first showed me a reverse-slider of Trevor Bauer’s in a Spring Training game years and years ago. And then we went on a blog together and called some other fans rubes and morons…it’s…I still hear his laugh when I look at these data.”
“Can I have a sandwich now, pappy?”
“Just…a…hold on.” He read over his comment quickly, occasionally quietly saying the words out loud. He gave the word “narrative” a mocking, sing-song cadence, and a big grin spread over his wrinkled face. “Heh. Yeah, let’s go make a sandwich. Who makes the best grilled cheese in the entire world?”
Line-up:
1: Gutierrez, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Ibanez, LF
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Wells, RF
6: Paulino, DH
7: Zunino, C
8: Andino, SS
9: Triunfel, 2B
SP: Hisashi Iwakuma
“Paulino DHing? What’s the point? He’s not there to hit, the whole point was to be a back-up who handled the staff! You’ve only got so much time to figure out some of the key battles, and that means getting at-bats for the guys on the bubble! You can’t…he’s a…slow…I mean, what does it tell you? Nothing! There’s no…why not DH Thames or Liddi or literally anyone, I just”
“I think the sandwich is burning, pappy.”
Catcus League Game 7, Rangers at Mariners
James Paxton vs. A Ranger, 12:05
After a few successful but disorienting road games, the M’s return to Peoria to luxuriate in the warm, pocket-protected embrace of pitch fx. OK, they probably don’t care, but after a few days of tape delayed radio and no pitch-by-pitch data, I’m more excited than I have any reason to be that both Paxton and Brandon Maurer figure to pitch today in Peoria.
The M’s continue to slug the ball, and their pitching’s (mostly) been solid as well. They look to continue that against division rival Texas today. The Rangers have struggled so far this spring, which just shows that their peak has passed, and that they’ll aGAHR (sorry, Dave’s rigged this so a cattle prod shocks me if I start reading things into spring stats). After losing 5 straight, the Rangers pounded Cleveland yesterday 10-0 behind Derek Holland and dozens of other, less MLB-like pitchers. Elvis Andrus has been held out of a few games to allow his massive portrait tattoo to heal, but he’ll be back in the line-up today, before heading off to join the World Baseball Classic tomorrow. Nelson Cruz was scheduled to join the DR team on Saturday, but was felled by chest pains last night – the team thinks it’s an abdominal/chest muscle strain, but they took him to the hospital just to be safe.
In yesterday’s game, Nick Franklin deposited a Matt Cain pitch over the berm in deep right-center. Jon Garland got through an inning on 21 pitches and his arm’s still attached, so that’s progress of a sort. Blake Beavan missed bats (?), induced a flurry of ground balls (??), before giving up a long home run (oh, ok). All in all though, Beavan’s gotten reasonably good results with his new arm slot – I’d be worried that a change like this could reduce his one marketable skill: impeccable control. That hasn’t happened to date, and coupling the angle with more two-seamers could help him avoid so many fly balls. That’s important not only because his HR rate is single-handedly keeping him at/near replacement level and because his OF figures to contain a lot of Mike Morse/Raul Ibanez this year.
James Paxton starts today, as he looks to build on a so-so appearance on Feb. 24th. It was a scoreless inning, he got a punchout, but his velocity and stuff seemed to be a step behind that of his fellow prospects like Danny Hultzen, Brandon Maurer and Taijuan Walker. Now that’s an exceedingly high bar to clear, and it’s not like he was Joe Saunders out there. And as I think I hear the cattle prod charging again, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that this is the peril of Pitch FX: reading too much into an inning, in February, just because, well, what else are you going to do with the data? I’ll be thrilled to see Paxton sitting in the low-90s, working in the occasional change-up with his traditional FB/CU mix. Brandon Maurer figures to pitch as well, and that should be exciting as well. Anthony Fernandez and Andrew Carraway may pitch too.
The line-up:
1: Ackley, 2B
2: Bay, DH
3: Morales, 1B
4: Morse, RF
5: Saunders, CF
6: Shoppach, C
7: Peguero, LF
8: Andino, 3B
9: Ryan, SS
SP: James Paxton
Good to see Ackley/Ryan, but Andino at 3B is a bit underwhelming.
Go M’s!