Mariners and Yankees in Seattle for Only Time until Playoffs
| MARINERS (26-34) | ΔMs | YANKEES (34-25) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -6.6 (18th) | 3.2 | -33.4 (27th) | Mariners |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -5.9 (19th) | -2.0 | -10.0 (22nd) | Mariners |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 13.4 (9th) | 2.3 | 9.2 (10th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 3.5 (8th) | -0.4 | 21.2 (1st) | Yankees |
| OVERALL (RAA) | 4.4 (15th) | 3.2 | -13.0 (18th) | MARINERS |
It’s draft day. Rather, it’s the first of what is now three draft days. It’s a bit of a futile pursuit since the returns typically take a long time and are notoriously unpredictable. However, since it happens only once a year and offers a bit of respite from the present and allow people to dream of the future. Go read Jay’s post below.
The last time Seattle faced the Yankees, in New York, the Mariners came away looking pretty good and sidled up next to that elusive and spooky .500 figure. Since then the Yankees have gone 9-9, but the Mariners have stumbled to 6-13 and yet the two teams still seem to produce odd ratings above. However, I’ll quote myself from that previous preview.
It seems far-fetched for the Mariners to actually be rated a better team than the Yankees here. I don’t think it is… Secondly, other systems agree that the Mariners have slightly under performed their record while the Yankees have over performed theirs. The gap between the two teams in actual standings is six games. Baseball Prospectus’ third-order standings, which uses expected runs scored and allowed adjusted for opponents has the two team just two games apart.
It’s three weeks later and though the team’s records continued along their respective paths, the two teams still have separated themselves in their underlying metrics. Those B-Pro third-order standings have the Yankees at 29-29 and the Mariners at 29-31. Call the difference between 3rd-order wins and actual wins whatever you want, I’ll use luck. Of teams, the Yankees are the “luckiest” team in all of baseball. The Mariners are the second “unluckiest” in the American League and fifth most in baseball. Get those games back, Mariners!
| Batter | PA | P/PA | Slash line | nBB | K (sw) | 1B/2B/3B/HR | Sw- | Ct+ | Qual+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K Seager* | 60 | 3.7 | .309/.383/.509 | 5 | 9 (6) | 10 / 5 / 0 / 2 | 100 | 107 | 115 |
| K Morales^ | 59 | 3.6 | .379/.390/.621 | 1 | 10 (8) | 14 / 5 / 0 / 3 | 117 | 97 | 96 |
| B Ryan | 51 | 3.8 | .265/.294/.367 | 2 | 9 (8) | 10 / 2 / 0 / 1 | 103 | 107 | 105 |
| J Bay | 49 | 4.1 | .205/.286/.477 | 5 | 15 (10) | 5 / 0 / 0 / 4 | 94 | 97 | 164 |
| M Saunders* | 49 | 4.6 | .171/.306/.220 | 8 | 19 (13) | 5 / 2 / 0 / 0 | 84 | 91 | 115 |
| R Ibanez* | 48 | 4.0 | .239/.292/.500 | 2 | 14 (12) | 5 / 3 / 0 / 3 | 101 | 99 | 124 |
| E Chavez* | 48 | 3.8 | .261/.292/.326 | 2 | 2 (2) | 11 / 0 / 0 / 1 | 100 | 117 | 88 |
| N Franklin^ | 35 | 4.1 | .276/.400/.552 | 6 | 3 (1) | 4 / 2 / 0 / 2 | 71 | 115 | 155 |
| J Sucre | 29 | 3.3 | .192/.241/.192 | 2 | 1 (1) | 5 / 0 / 0 / 0 | 89 | 116 | 115 |
| K Shoppach | 25 | 3.7 | .125/.120/.250 | 0 | 14 (14) | 2 / 0 / 0 / 1 | 136 | 57 | 111 |
We don’t have pitch-by-pitch data for baseball below Triple-A so as far as a hitter’s swing rate, say Nick Franklin’s, we can only know it for Tacoma and Seattle. Franklin’s swing rate was 48% last year in Tacoma. That was above average. Then to start this year, in Tacoma, that fell to 39% and now so far in Seattle it’s down to 33%, which is one of the smallest rates in baseball. Perhaps related, Franklin’s contact rate over those three periods has gone from 77% to 86% to 91%. He has also been one of the few hitters — again, small sample so far — to be in more hitter-friendly counts (1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 3-1) than in pitcher-friendly counts (0-1, 0-2, 1-2, 2-2). This has been your Nick Franklin Appreciation Paragraph.
| Batter | PA | P/PA | Slash line | nBB | SO (sw) | 1B/2B/3B/HR | Sw- | Ct+ | Qual+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| R Cano* | 53 | 3.7 | .239/.370/.304 | 7 | 11 (8) | 10 / 0 / 0 / 1 | 95 | 108 | 95 |
| B Gardner* | 50 | 4.0 | .304/.360/.587 | 4 | 8 (5) | 8 / 2 / 1 / 3 | 91 | 108 | 105 |
| V Wells | 44 | 3.0 | .068/.068/.091 | 0 | 8 (4) | 2 / 1 / 0 / 0 | 124 | 103 | 55 |
| I Suzuki* | 41 | 3.7 | .359/.415/.410 | 2 | 3 (3) | 13 / 0 / 1 / 0 | 106 | 111 | 101 |
| D Adams | 40 | 3.6 | .179/.225/.205 | 1 | 9 (6) | 6 / 1 / 0 / 0 | 102 | 96 | 67 |
| L Overbay* | 39 | 4.1 | .257/.333/.429 | 4 | 11 (10) | 5 / 3 / 0 / 1 | 90 | 88 | 104 |
| J Nix | 39 | 4.4 | .333/.385/.417 | 3 | 12 (9) | 10 / 1 / 1 / 0 | 103 | 101 | 122 |
| T Hafner* | 35 | 4.2 | .161/.257/.387 | 4 | 16 (10) | 2 / 1 / 0 / 2 | 88 | 83 | 77 |
| C Stewart | 26 | 4.4 | .300/.423/.300 | 5 | 5 (4) | 6 / 0 / 0 / 0 | 68 | 91 | 137 |
| M Teixeira^ | 21 | 4.2 | .222/.364/.556 | 3 | 8 (5) | 2 / 0 / 0 / 2 | 82 | 92 | 152 |
Hahaha, Vernon Wells! Wooooowwwwwwwww.
| MARINERS | ΔMs | YANKEES | EDGE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| INFIELD | -1.5 (15th) | 1.0 | -6.5 (23rd) | Mariners |
| OUTFIELD | -4.5 (18th) | -3.0 | -3.5 (17th) | Yankees |
| RBBIP | 0.311 (18th) | — | 0.316 (22nd) | Mariners |
| OVERALL | -5.9 (19th) | -2.0 | -10.0 (22nd) | MARINERS |
06 JUN 19:10 – AARON HARANG vs PHIL HUGHES
Phil Hughes got demolished last time against the Mariners. Ok, that hasn’t been a limited occurrence this season as Hughes’ RBBIP (BABIP + reached on errors) is still very elevated.
07 JUN 19:10 – JEREMY BONDERMAN vs HIROKI KURODA
Jeremy Bonderman doesn’t get a chart because he hasn’t pitched enough and won’t pitch enough. I’m mildly surprised he’s even making this start to be honest.
08 JUN 13:10 – JOE SAUNDERS* vs ANDY PETTITTE*
09 JUN 13:10 – FELIX HERNANDEZ vs DAVID PHELPS
Phelps is a sort of swingman, alternating between the pen and the rotation at the higher levels, though he’s a starter by development. His lackluster slider but decently good curve ball give Phelps a chance to avoid wide platoon splits.
| Reliever | BF | Str+ | nBB | Ct- | K(sw) | GB+ | HR | Qual- | LI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C Furbush* | 53 | 102 | 5 | 92 | 14 (10) | 86 | 2 | 122 | 1.1 |
| Y Medina | 48 | 91 | 5 | 96 | 10 (5) | 148 | 0 | 61 | 1.9 |
| T Wilhelmsen | 46 | 90 | 7 | 98 | 8 (8) | 124 | 0 | 99 | 2.6 |
| D Farquhar | 42 | 96 | 4 | 93 | 18 (16) | 90 | 0 | 97 | 0.7 |
| C Capps | 38 | 101 | 1 | 90 | 12 (9) | 72 | 0 | 74 | 2.0 |
| O Perez* | 37 | 103 | 3 | 87 | 16 (12) | 75 | 1 | 128 | 1.2 |
| H Noesi | 31 | 108 | 1 | 105 | 6 (4) | 113 | 1 | 132 | 1.4 |
| L Luetge* | 29 | 104 | 2 | 99 | 7 (5) | 147 | 2 | 94 | 0.7 |
You (should) see a lot of green in that contact column above. My apologies to the red-green color blind among you. I did not consider you when deciding on these two colors. Should I change them? Anyways, the Mariners’ bullpen has baseball best (i.e. lowest) contact rate. They also throw lots of pitches in the strike zone, despite your recent experiences with Tom Wilhelmsen.
| Reliever | BF | Str+ | nBB | Ct- | K(sw) | GB+ | HR | Qual- | LI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A Warren | 67 | 104 | 4 | 103 | 12 (12) | 124 | 3 | 97 | 0.4 |
| P Claiborne | 50 | 107 | 0 | 98 | 12 (10) | 101 | 1 | 113 | 0.7 |
| D Robertson | 45 | 99 | 6 | 83 | 17 (10) | 92 | 1 | 96 | 2.1 |
| S Kelley | 36 | 103 | 2 | 80 | 20 (15) | 81 | 1 | 67 | 0.9 |
| M Rivera | 35 | 113 | 1 | 103 | 8 (7) | 104 | 0 | 89 | 2.0 |
| B Marshall | 29 | 81 | 5 | 108 | 1 (1) | 108 | 2 | 101 | 0.3 |
| I Nova | 27 | 110 | 2 | 91 | 8 (8) | 119 | 0 | 72 | 1.1 |
| B Logan* | 25 | 110 | 0 | 83 | 12 (10) | 139 | 0 | 25 | 1.0 |
While the Mariners’ pen has great core numbers — I consider things like throwing strikes and missing bats to be the core skills for pitches — the Yankees’ pen has tremendous results (i.e. strikeouts, walks) so far. To the tune of best in baseball actually. Shawn Kelley — remember him? — has 38 strikeouts in 92 batters faced. That’s tremendous.
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13 Responses to “Mariners and Yankees in Seattle for Only Time until Playoffs”
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And the last time the Mariners faced the Yankees in Seattle, the Yankees took Ichiro home with them.
When will the Mariners finally reach the conclusion that Michael Saunders is not an everyday major league player. He’s a 4th OF or AAA. I know the team doesn’t have many options but you can’t have two guys (Ryan & Saunders) hitting .200 in the lineup day in and day out.
Wait, are these not real slash lines? Seager isn’t batting .309. Morales isn’t at .379. What are those?
I am not exactly sure of the time frame that the charts cover, but the PA column I am pretty sure stands for Plate Appearances. This covers Seager’s last 60 and Morales’ last 59 PAs.
Matthew-
I think the bad luck shows it’s ugly face in the fact that we lead the league in walk-off losses (while amazingly retaining a spot in the top third of bullpens?)…
(Wow, in his last 49 AB’s Saunders has 19 K’s… What is going on?)
((Double Wow… Nick Franklin is lowest in swing rate, and virtually tied for best in contact… Nice job, kid))
@jak924 that’s weird it seems as though the Rangers have done a fine job with two people hitting .200. There is more to baseball then just averages.
Today, I learned that there is green text in these graphs.
Endy Chavez has walked twice in June(!).
I figure Bonderman’s run total, for the game, over/under: 6.5.
Those are what the players have done in the last 14 days.
Why can’t Wedge just play the guys that are hot, and bench the guys that aren’t? I mean, it is just like playing the stock market, isn’t it?
/sarcasm
Thanks, @whittier ms fan and @Typical Idiot Fan – I totally glanced past the PA’s listed there…
Luck. Random occurrence of event specifics within a range of variability. Just look at pitchers’ targets and how often they hit them exactly. A pitcher with good command probably gets closer more often than one with poor command, but even for a great command pitcher a perfect bulls-eye is somewhat rare. There is an area of a certain size around the target that they hit more often than not, but it’s likely pretty random within that area.
Seems to me too that the Mariners have been hit by the negative result random occurrence more than the positive, although Raul may nearly balance that out all by himself. Raul’s been cool in the box, but I don’t expect him to maintain his recent pace, no matter how much Wedge believes he is clutch.
Saunders strikes out ~ one third of the time; often looking.