The Mariners Kick off a Series in Chicago

Matthew Carruth · April 5, 2013 at 11:10 am · Filed Under Mariners 
MARINERS (2-2) WHITE SOX (2-1) EDGE
HITTING (wOBA*) 0.7 (14th) -2.8 (20th) Mariners
FIELDING (RBBIP) 3.0 (7th) 1.0 (9th) Mariners
ROTATION (xRA) 2.0 (4th) 1.8 (5th) Mariners
BULLPEN (xRA) -1.0 (24th) 0.7 (11th) White Sox
OVERALL (RAA) 4.6 (11th) 0.8 (15th) MARINERS

Hello there, you may not be familiar with my series preview breakdowns. I did these, in evolving formats, for years at Lookout Landing and I hope to continue doing them here. I’ll do so even if only for my own benefit since the above and below charts are informative for me and I like to get the periodic checks on how the composite units of the Mariners are doing.

Since this may be new to you, I’ll run through what each row means. Hitting is judged on each team’s park-adjusted wOBA to date. I’m using the wOBA from my site, StatCorner.com, so that answers any questions on why it might be slightly different than FanGraphs.com or whatever your preferred site shows.

xRA is laid out in a really long post here, but the simple take is that it’s xFIP meets tRA. That is, it’s xFIP plus batted ball types and whether or not the batted balls were pulled or hit the other way.

MARINERS WHITE SOX EDGE
INFIELD 3.4 (2nd) 5.3 (1st) White Sox
OUTFIELD -0.4 (15th) -4.3 (26th) Mariners
RBBIP 0.245 (8th) 0.263 (10th) Mariners
OVERALL 3.0 (7th) 1.0 (9th) MARINERS

Fielding is judged by looking at how often each team allows a ball in play to result in a runner on base via either a hit or error. There’s more explanation available, but the 10,000-foot view is to take all the balls in play, adjust them for the park (yes, it has an effect), and then for each type (e.g. grounder, liner), figure out how often they should turn into outs and the cost (in run value) of not turning them into an out. Then add it all up. It can’t be used to judge individual defenders, but I’m not convinced of any metrics’ worth at doing that anyways.

Above, I split the fielding into infield and outfield units based on who I judge is responsible for fielding each batted ball type. Unremarkably, the Mariners are already showing a divergence between their infield defenders and their outfielders.

05 APR 17:10 – JOSE QUINTANA* vs BLAKE BEAVAN

I used to include what I thought were pretty cool illustrated and interactive charts here for each starting pitcher. Alas, they rely on external javascript to build and WordPress is so so lame. If anyone has experience in this manner, please get in touch with me. I’m going to continue working toward some presentation solution, but for now, here are the dates, times and starting pitchers!

06 APR 10:10 – DYLAN AXELROD vs FELIX HERNANDEZ

07 APR 11:10 – CHRIS SALE* vs HISASHI IWAKUMA

Comments

13 Responses to “The Mariners Kick off a Series in Chicago”

  1. Westside guy on April 5th, 2013 11:18 am

    THANK YOU MATTHEW.

    I hope you DO continue to do these here! I’ve always found them to be both informative and interesting.

  2. Dobbs on April 5th, 2013 11:23 am

    I’m hardly familiar with all of the stat types (I just trust you guys on it usually anyway), but the series preview and ranks for each are appreciated.

    Thanks for joining USS Mariner, for some reason I never did go to LL often enough.

  3. Scott5000 on April 5th, 2013 11:24 am

    I smiled when i saw this

  4. Westside guy on April 5th, 2013 11:25 am

    Matthew, have you seen this? I don’t know if USSMariner is running some munged version of WordPress or not, so it may or may not be helpful… (or if they’re doing self-hosting or relying on another hosting provider that may block this behavior)

    http://www.labnol.org/software/javascript-in-wordpress/19396/

  5. KDC88 on April 5th, 2013 11:27 am

    Thank you Matthew! I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to survive without these! These series previews are definitely one of the highlights of the season for me, even when it is just to see how inept our offense is.

  6. Sports on a Shtick on April 5th, 2013 12:01 pm

    Hell yes! I love these.

  7. vb1138 on April 5th, 2013 12:05 pm

    What about the series beer?

  8. californiamariner on April 5th, 2013 12:23 pm

    These previews are great! I’m hoping they can somehow steal this first game with Beavan pitching.

  9. MrZDevotee on April 5th, 2013 12:28 pm

    This is freaking awesome Matthew!!! Especially for relative newbies like myself (a 3 year newbie?), as we will get daily experience with MORE statistical analysis than the 2 or 3 I tend to gravitate towards, out of ease and habit.

    AND we can see a day to day movement of the team’s overall performance. Thanks so much. Seriously.

  10. fret_24 on April 5th, 2013 1:01 pm

    I love that you are doing these here Matthew. I’m not super familiar with WordPress, but I am a developer and might be able to help. Send me an email with some specifics and I’ll see what I can do. fret_24@hotmail.com

  11. Paul B on April 5th, 2013 1:04 pm

    Yay preview!

  12. JG on April 5th, 2013 7:17 pm

    I don’t post much, but I’m really glad to see you made it over here Matthew! I love theses.

  13. leftarrow2 on April 6th, 2013 7:39 am

    Oh my god, I miss these. Thanks for the hard work.

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