Game 67, Astros at Mariners
Jeremy Bonderman vs. Jordan Lyles, 7:10pm
I suppose we should be thankful. The M’s have become an *interesting* team to follow, not because of anything on the field (I’ll refer you to the pitching probables again), but because they’re sick of being bad and injured and boring, so they’re trying essentially everything they can to climb out of this hole. Their college CF-turned-2B is going to play LF tonight. Franklin Gutierrez is going to DH for Tacoma tonight, as his second rehab stint begins. Justin Smoak’s going to play tomorrow in the minors. The M’s are shuffling their 40-man almost daily, and they’re going to have to do more of it in the coming weeks. Their injured players are a bit less injured, and people are playing out of position. Jeremy Bonderman is pitching to Mike Zunino in Seattle, and Dustin Ackley is playing LF in Tacoma. Try to think of what you’d have said if you heard that sentence a year ago. Or a month ago.
The M’s appear to have signed several of their draft picks, and 1st rounder DJ Peterson’s in Seattle tonight taking BP. I’m sure we’ll hear from him on the broadcast.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, RF
2: Bay, LF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Ibanez, DH
5: Franklin, 2B
6: Zunino, C
7: Saunders, CF
8: Ryan, SS
9: Liddi, 1B
SP: Bonderman
Dustin Ackley, Outfielder In Training
It’s not that I didn’t like Nick Franklin. I’ve thought of Franklin as a pretty good prospect all along, a guy capable of eventually helping an organization move forward. But for a super long time, I thought Franklin was obvious trade bait. For a long time, maybe he was obvious trade bait. Franklin wasn’t going to be able to be a long-term shortstop, and the Mariners already had this Dustin Ackley embedded at second. Franklin made the most sense as a guy who’d go away in order to bring back a different guy. But that supposed that Ackley wouldn’t be bad, and then Ackley was bad, and then Franklin became the Mariners’ second baseman, and now look where we are. This is, officially, happening:
Interesting Tacoma lineup today. Dustin Ackley in left field, OF instructor Brant Brown here to work with him.
— Mike Curto (@CurtoWorld) June 12, 2013
What this isn’t is a long-term strategy shift. The Mariners haven’t committed themselves to Franklin as the second baseman and to Ackley as an outfielder. Plans change as circumstances change, and that’s plainly evident from this very Ackley example. We don’t know what’s going to be going on a year from now. This is just an idea being put into execution.
But it’s pretty easy to interpret. Franklin has done well so far, and the Mariners like Brad Miller as a shortstop. The outfield, meanwhile, is threadbare, and Ackley had collegiate outfield experience before he had Tommy John surgery, from which he’s obviously recovered. People were wondering how the Mariners would find room for Ackley and Franklin at the same time, in the event Ackley got things fixed. Here’s your answer. Ackley might not be transitioning to the outfield full-time, but he’s at least going to increase his versatility so that he can play the outfield in a pinch. He’s done it, and while he won’t have a rocket-launcher arm, Ackley should be able to cover a lot of ground. That’s the important bit.
So now Ackley is in Tacoma working on his hitting and a new defensive position, while Jesus Montero is doing the same. For Ackley, at least, it should be somewhat familiar, so this shouldn’t be jarring, even if it’s been years. Ackley turned himself into a plus defensive second baseman so in that regard this might be questionable, but Franklin wasn’t going to become an outfielder himself, and Ackley could be good out there too. If the Mariners end up having to play Franklin at second and Ackley in left.
Which, yeah. Let’s not all get ahead of ourselves. Franklin hasn’t cemented himself as a quality big leaguer, and neither has Ackley. Franklin’s new and Ackley’s in the minors again after falling flat on his face. The ideal situation would be that Franklin and Ackley both succeed for a long time at these respective positions, but we can’t assume that, nor can we write off the possibility of a trade. Maybe Ackley scoots back to second. Maybe Ackley disappears, even though not long ago that would’ve been almost unthinkable.
Getting Ackley some reps in the outfield was a pretty obvious decision, and now it’s been made. Going forward, this could have pretty apparent implications. At present, consider that Dustin Ackley has been bumped off by Nick Franklin. Consider that, a year ago, Ackley was surpassed by Kyle Seager. In the positive light, Franklin has really emerged. In the negative light, Ackley sure is sinking. This could certainly work, but for a long time it would’ve been nuts to think it could come to this.
The Mariners could really use some outfielders. They might just have one, in an infielder. It’s worth trying. Why the hell not?
The Inconsistency
So you already know the Mariners promoted Mike Zunino from Tacoma. On the off chance you didn’t, I suppose this is a pretty casual way of breaking the news. Zunino arrived yesterday afternoon and it shouldn’t be long now before he makes his big-league debut. It’s exciting, because Zunino is a top prospect, and therefore this is another chance to see a top prospect blossom and drive home the point that the Mariners might actually be going somewhere. It’s easy to assume they’re lost and going in circles, given what’s happened with Justin Smoak, Jesus Montero, and Dustin Ackley. Zunino could indicate direction.
Dave’s written about the move twice. It’s curious because of the timing. Zunino, at one point, was lighting the PCL on fire, but that was a while ago, and a lot of secondary pitches ago. Offensively, he’s been in an extended slump, and now he’s been given a promotion to a more challenging level. Now, in the past, the Mariners have talked about how they wanted to see a prospect dominate his level before promoting him. That’s an organizational statement, and Zunino most certainly hasn’t dominated Triple-A. But, that was Chris Gwynn talking, and Chris Gwynn doesn’t make the decisions. He only participates in the chat, and sometimes people might get overruled.
There was a quote from Jack Zduriencik. I spent an hour looking for it before giving up. I took that long because I wanted to copy and paste his exact words, and now I’m frustrated, but I don’t know what else to do. Somewhere over the past few weeks, Zduriencik said he wouldn’t deviate from the long-term organizational plan in response to short-term big-league roster needs. That is, he wouldn’t rush a prospect before his time just because the big club had a hole. This is the best I can do, and it’s from Eric Wedge, and it’s only a half-decent approximation:
“He’s where he needs to be right now,” Wedge said of Franklin. “He’s a young player. Needs to keep playing every day. It’s not just about hitting; it’s about every aspect of the game. We want him to be the most complete player he can be when he does get his opportunity.”
Zunino’s promotion is a response to a major-league need, for a catcher who isn’t whoever Brandon Bantz is. The Mariners have admitted that, and Zduriencik has admitted that Zunino’s timeline was sped up. This seems to be in direct opposition to what Zduriencik said earlier, and I wish so badly I could track that quote down. I guess you’ll just have to take it on faith. I swear it was there, unless I was dreaming a really ordinary dream.
In the past, the Mariners have suggested it was potentially dangerous to promote a prospect too soon. They claimed to have a policy against that, but they’ve hurried up some guys and Zunino is the latest. Of course every prospect should be treated on a case-by-case basis, but it’s not like the Mariners are claiming that Zunino is ready — they’ve acknowledged that he’s a work in progress. So there’s an inconsistency here, where either the Mariners think this is dangerous or they don’t. Jack Zduriencik:
“But when you look at we had an injury right now, there’s no harm in bringing him up. Let’s see where we’re at.”
“No harm.” If there’s no harm in rushing Zunino, what’s the harm in rushing anybody? What’s an acceptable degree of rushing? What would be too aggressive a rush? Brandon Maurer was promoted straight from Double-A. Zunino came from Triple-A, but he was struggling. Would the Mariners promote a position player from Double-A? Would they promote a guy from Single-A? What is the function of the minor leagues, and what is the function of the bigs?
I don’t really have a position here, because like with so many things, I don’t know enough. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know how much it matters when a prospect comes up too early. We don’t know what this could mean for Zunino’s future, or for anyone’s future, and as easy as it would be to suggest that struggles could be a career setback, one could alternatively claim that Zunino won’t learn to hit big leaguers against minor leaguers. To learn to beat the best you have to face the best, right? Where are the best, if not in the major leagues? Zunino’s career hasn’t been destroyed, presumably, by an aggressive promotion. We don’t even know if he’ll still be around once Jesus Sucre is healthy. Struggles could mean a demotion right back to Tacoma, and while one can’t ignore the fact that now Zunino is occupying a 40-man roster spot, that was going to happen soon regardless, and the roster casualty won’t be a great player.
So, in the big picture, this is a move I wouldn’t have made that I also don’t think is a horrible mistake. Zunino is one of the two best catchers in the organization right now, and they’ve decided he’s mature enough to handle the stress and the challenge. Defensively, he’s fine, and he’ll learn, and maybe he’ll run into a pitch or two. What’s most interesting to me is the thinking. According to the Mariners, Bantz came up under the assumption that Sucre was a day-to-day thing, but once Sucre went on the DL, the team had to think longer-term. I don’t understand why Bantz couldn’t have just screwed around for a couple weeks, since, whatever. Bantz isn’t a big-league ballplayer, but the Mariners are hardly a big-league ballclub. But suppose Wedge wanted better than that. Why not go get one of the discarded veteran backstops? Why not grab Chris Snyder or John Baker, or why not call up Jason Jaramillo since he’s somewhat experienced and a complete non-prospect? You might say it’s not that easy to swing a transaction. I’d counter that it can be, especially when you’re talking about nothing catchers that other teams don’t want. The Mariners made a conscious decision not to go that route. They chose, in this case, to speed up a prospect’s timeline, even though in the past they’ve said they didn’t want to do that.
That’s what makes this most interesting to me. That’s a part of why Dave sees this as an attempt to save jobs. If the Mariners got by with John Baker, no one would care. If Zunino impresses, well, Zunino was a Zduriencik get, and that would reflect well on the state of the system. Of course, if Zunino struggles, that won’t accomplish anything, but the Mariners could say it was a temporary response to a need, and then they’d have a better idea of what Zunino needs to work on. The downside here isn’t enormous, assuming Zunino isn’t prone to crippling self-doubt.
I don’t understand the inconsistency, is all. I don’t think Zunino is ready, and I don’t think he’ll be badly hurt by a bit of a slump against advanced competition. He’s a leadership sort, he’ll survive. What do the Mariners actually believe? Under what circumstances are they willing to compromise their beliefs? What we know is that Zunino is only up because of a desperate situation. What we don’t know is the extent of that desperation.
Mike Zunino and the 40 Man Roster
In the wake of Mike Zunino‘s promotion today, there was rationalization. You can always count on some kind of spin from certain corners, and this time, one of the primary talking points is that this was a short term move, and if Zunino’s only here for a few weeks, what’s the problem? Even a couple of dozen challenging big league games won’t hurt him, and if he’s truly not ready, he’ll just be sent back to Tacoma. No harm, no foul.
That explanation might seem to pass muster on the surface, but if we accept it as the truth, then the organization has an entirely different problem: an incorrect valuation of 40 man roster spots.
To get Zunino to the Majors, the Mariners had to purchase his contract, which is the official language teams use to add a player to the 40 man roster. His spot on both the 25 man and 40 man rosters was cleared by designating Brandon Bantz for assignment. Bantz is a non-prospect who won’t get claimed on waivers and will accept his assignment back to the minor leagues, so there’s no cost associated with DFA’ing Bantz. He’ll be back in Tacoma in no time.
There is, however, a cost for prematurely putting Zunino on the 40 man; The Mariners just haven’t paid it yet, but that time is coming soon. If the plan really is to put Jesus Sucre back on the roster when he gets healthy and option Zunino back to Tacoma, the Mariners will then be using a 40-man roster spot on a player not on the active roster. You can’t take Zunino back off the 40 man roster without putting him through waivers, which isn’t happening of course. So, he’s on for good.
Bantz would not have been on for good. When Sucre returned, Bantz could have been DFA’d just as he was today, and the team would have had a 40 man roster spot for one of the three players they currently have on the 60 day disabled list. One of those players, Josh Kinney, is already in Tacoma on a rehab assignment, so the M’s only have a little more than two weeks before they have to either find room for Kinney in Seattle or DFA him as well. The only way to get Kinney back on the active roster will be to reinstate him from the 60 day DL, at which point he’ll require a spot on the 40 man roster. A spot that Bantz could have given him, but that is now occupied by Zunino. So, instead, the Mariners will have to look elsewhere for a 40 man roster spot.
The Mariners have already lost both Francisco Martinez and Vinnie Catricala to other organizations due to this very issue, as Martinez was DFA’d so that the Mariners could call up Nick Franklin and Catricala was DFA’d so that the Mariners could add Jeremy Bonderman. Both players were acquired by other teams who were willing to give up enough cash to get them through trade rather than hope they were able to claim them on waivers, so while neither looks like any real prospect of note, other teams saw some value in both players. The Mariners dumped them both for essentially nothing.
Next on the chopping block is probably Eric Thames, at least if I’m guessing. Thames is 26-years-old and not that good, and the organization hasn’t promoted him at any other time they’ve needed an outfielder this year, strongly suggesting that he has no real future here. Like Catricala and Martinez, Thames doesn’t look like any kind of impact player, but baseball’s weird, and you never know when a guy might have a light turn on.
So, instead of Bantz getting the cut when Kinney comes back, now it’s maybe Thames. But, each time you cut someone, your list of expendables gets smaller and smaller. With Thames already gone, what does the team do when Stephen Pryor returns from the DL? Or Franklin Gutierrez, if that ever happens? Or if they decide they want to promote Brad Miller, who has continued to hit extremely well since being promoted to Tacoma. Who’s next after Thames? Lucas Luetge, maybe? Jeremy Bonderman could go when they decide to promote Erasmo Ramirez, so there’s one spot that could open up eventually should the team actually decide to correct the mistake that occurred in putting Bonderman on the 40 man in the first place. Then who? Bobby LaFromboise? Chance Ruffin?
None of these guys are individually all that likely to turn into a valuable piece, but the reality is that if you toss a half dozen fringe prospects overboard, you’re going to end up regretting it. The Mariners should have learned this lesson in the spring, when they ended up crowding Shawn Kelley and Mike Carp off the 40 man in order to accomodate the useless Veteran Leadership Brigade.
If the Mariners really are willing to just toss a 40-man player out of the organization so that Mike Zunino can get a week or two of experience in the big leagues, then they have an organizational weakness in understanding how valuable a 40-man spot can actually be. And that’s harmful. If the plan really is for this to be a short term cup of coffee while Jesus Sucre gets healthy, then the Mariners are punting organizational depth for no real gain.
This is one of the reasons why I don’t believe that is actually the plan. The organization might try to feed that line to reporters in order to turn the tide of negativity against a move — just like they reassured everyone that Raul Ibanez wasn’t actually being brought in to play much, just be a good guy on the end of the bench — but the facts don’t add up. Or, if they do add up, it says that the people in charge are willing to just waste roster spots for no reason.
The 40 man roster is a real constraint. You don’t just put a prospect on the 40 man just for the fun of it, because, hey, it can’t hurt, right? It can hurt. It causes problems. That’s why teams don’t do it. Other teams value their 40 man roster spots, and they use their open spots to take fliers on young players who other teams are discarding, looking to land the next Ben Zobrist or Nelson Cruz or Josh Donaldson.
If the whole plan is for Zunino to be in Seattle for a week or two, then the Mariners are putting themselves in the position of being a talent discarder for an outcome that offers no upside. They could have just grabbed Chris Snyder for nothing, as he was DFA’d last Tuesday and had the right to refuse the assignment and sign with any other team as a free agent, which he would have done if there was a Major League job for him.
Or, they could have grabbed John Baker from the Padres for nothing, after they DFA’d him yesterday. Part-time veteran catchers are not hard to find, and any of them could have held down a job share for a few weeks until Sucre was ready to be activated. At which time, you DFA the random replacement level catcher and give the 40 man spot to Josh Kinney. Or Franklin Gutierrez. Or Brad Miller. Or whoever.
That’s what big league organizations do when they need a short term stopgap and they don’t have a 40-man guy in-house who can fill the spot. They don’t call up their top prospects and add him to the 40 mant just so he can see what life in the big leagues is like and then head back to the minors a few weeks later. It’s just not a good way to manage your resources.
Punting the 40 man spot makes a lot more sense if they’re not planning on sending Zunino back. And not sending Zunino back makes a lot more sense if they’re hoping that the 2013 season can be salvaged and their jobs can be saved. That’s not the kind of thing you tell the media, though.
Game 66, Astros at Mariners
Aaron Harang vs. Bud Norris, 7:10pm
Bud Norris was once a big-time (er, semi-big time) strikeout artist. A fastball/slider pitcher who mixes in a few change-ups to lefties, Norris racked up whiffs with his sharp slider, but yielded a fair number of homers-allowed. This year, his strikeouts are down markedly (like, 21-24% to 15%). But he’s also managed to *halve* his HR rate.
I know HRs are bad for pitchers and all, but this is something of a worrying trend for Houston fans. K% stabilizes much more quickly, so there’s a (good) chance that his HR rate regresses to his career numbers and he’s left with the worst of both worlds. Still, that seems too easy, too SABR-by-er,-numbers. The combination looks like a conscious choice, a trade off, even if its not obvious exactly what the terms were. He’s still throwing 50% sliders and 50% fastballs to righties, it’s just he’s given up zero HRs to them instead of lots.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, RF
2: Franklin, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Liddi, 1B
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Morse, DH
7: Shoppach, C
8: Saunders, CF
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Harang
The corresponding move to the Zunino call-up was, as expected, DFAing Brandon Bantz.
Alex Liddi takes the place of Kendrys Morales, who was a late scratch with his sore back.
Mariners Call Up Mike Zunino
Got it confirmed from someone who would know: Mike Zunino has gotten the callup, catching a plane from Vegas to Seattle this afternoon
— Larry Stone (@StoneLarry) June 11, 2013
Well, here’s act one of the “I Don’t Want To Get Fired” playbook; the Mariners have decided to call up Mike Zunino from Tacoma, according to Larry Stone, and he’ll join the team in Seattle in time for today’s game. You can bet that Brandon Bantz will be DFA’d to make room for him on both the 25 and 40 man rosters, and they’re not calling Zunino up to sit on the bench; he’s going to take over as at least the semi-full time catcher.
On one hand, you can justify this as a “need” move, since Kelly Shoppach has been carrying far too heavy of a workload and Brandon Bantz is a minor league player who is only in Seattle because of injuries. However, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to find a suitable part-time Major League catcher to give Shoppach a break. For instance, the Padres just DFA’d John Baker yesterday, so he’s available for basically nothing. If the Mariners wanted a veteran big leaguer to take some of Shoppach’s load, they could have acquired one at minimal or no cost.
Instead, this is a hail mary to try and save some jobs. Both Jack Zduriencik and Eric Wedge are in the final year of their contracts, and they almost certainly know that they need to show some progress in the second half of the year in order to get another contract. The team isn’t performing well, the young core hasn’t lived up to expectations, and right now, there’s no good argument either one can make that they should be retained. If they catch lightning in a bottle with Mike Zunino and he has a monster second half, he might just provide the kind of hope and faith in the rebuilding effort that both men need in order to keep themselves employed with the Mariners.
But, unfortunately, there’s not a lot of reason to think that Zunino is actually ready to provide that hope and faith. He’s leaving Tacoma with a .238/.303/.503 batting line that shows his power potential but also the raw nature of his approach at the plate. Zunino got off to a very strong start to the season, but once he started facing a steady diet of breaking balls, things went south in a hurry. He drew two walks and struck out 26 times in May, posting a .278 on base percentage in the process. The PCL is basically the land of offense, and Zunino’s been the offensive equivalent of Raul Ibanez down there.
The power is real, and if pitchers make the mistake of challenging him with fastballs at the big league level, he’s going to hit some home runs. He’s also going to make a lot of outs, and look pretty silly in the process, because Zunino isn’t ready to hit big league pitching yet. Plain and simple, he’s being rushed.
People have often pointed to the Buster Posey comparison as a young catcher who rocketed through the minors, but Zunino hasn’t accomplished anything close to what Posey did as a minor leaguer. In 359 plate appearances at the Triple-A level — 150 more than Zunino has — Posey hit .337/.421/.535 with a 45/53 BB/K ratio. He didn’t have quite the same amount of raw power as Zunino does at this stage, but he was a much more advanced hitter, and the Giants let him go through two full spring trainings as a professional before handing him the starting job.
A year ago, Zunino was preparing for the College World Series. Now, the Mariners are going to ask him to perform well enough to save some jobs. That’s not fair to the kid, and it’s not in the organization’s long term interests. He might be talented enough to learn on the job and make it work well enough to not be a disaster, but there’s no reason the Mariners should be prioritizing the present over the future.
Here’s the reality – the Mariners are 12th in the American League in winning percentage and 14th in run differential. This is not a good team that has just underperformed for a few months and needs a boost to make a playoff run. This is the second or third worst team in the American League. Contending in 2013 is a pipe dream, and anyone trying to convince you otherwise either has an agenda or is bad at math. The people in charge might not want to hear this, but they built a stinker of a roster, and they’re now lying in the bed they made. That bed is probably going to get them fired, but now they’re rushing the team’s best prospect to the big leagues to try and undo their mistakes.
This is what bad organizations do. The chain of events that led to this decision is just littered with poor decision making leading to obvious failures. This move, and the reasons why the team is making this move, is a prime example of why the Mariners need new leadership.
Game 65, Astros at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Dallas Keuchel, 7:10pm
In his last start, Hisashi Iwakuma went 8 scoreless innings with 5 Ks and no walks, yielding just three hits. The M’s scored zero runs, and lost in (a lot of) extra innings. Yesterday, King Felix went 7 innings, giving up one run and five hits while striking out seven. The M’s scored one run and lost in the 9th, 2-1. The M’s aren’t built to overcome poor starts by the back of their rotation. They can hang in games occasionally, and the Astros pitching staff pretty much precludes the M’s from being out of any of these games, but fundamentally, the hope is that they wouldn’t need many wins from Harang/Saunders/whoever. With Felix and Iwakuma pitching brilliantly, the team could get wins in close to 40% of its starts and hang around until reinforcements came. The M’s are 7-8 in Felix’s 15 starts thus far, as a weak offense, some untimely bullpen problems and just a bad start or two have prevented the M’s from taking advantage of their ace.
That’s what makes it so stunning that the M’s have won NINE of Iwakuma’s 13 starts. He’s not been the recipient of a ton of run support, as his last start makes clear. He’s given up zero earned runs in four starts this year and has been credited with a win once.* The point isn’t that he needs the will to win, or that he’s able to pitch to the score, it’s that he’s on an absolutely unreal tear right now. Felix has put up the best stat line in his career so far, and Iwakuma has just about matched it, pitch for pitch. The FIP gap looks so large because of Iwakuma’s penchant for (solo) HRs, and that’s a longstanding issue, but the drop in his walk rate has made it a minor one.
In 2010, we M’s fans got to watch a ton of absolutely atrocious baseball. But we also got to see King Felix take his game to a new level pitching alongside Cliff Lee** if only for half the year. Lee and Felix put up over 9fWAR and 10 fielding-dependent WAR that year. Iwakuma and Felix are at 4.8fWAR and 6.4 fielding-dependent WAR right now, with more than half the season to go. That season felt like an absolute kick in the stomach, and in many ways the M’s have been flailing around trying to ‘un-do’ the damage that season did, but at least we get to watch something like the old Felix/Cliff Lee rotation again. I’m pretty sick of the atrocious baseball though. Here’s hoping the next front office is able to build something around Felix, and that Iwakuma fends off injuries and aging the way he dispatches good left-handed opponents.
Dallas Keuchel sounds like a regional dessert of some sort***, but he’s actually a lefty starting pitcher. If you saw Matthew’s preview, you may have seen that he’s able to get a decent number of whiffs with his change-up. That’s true, but the problem with the pitch is literally everything else. Batters have hit it hard, and righties have been able to hit for power against it. His fastballs are nothing special either. He throws a slider/cutter and curve as well, which have generated a bit better results, though this is probably due to the fact he throws more of them against same-handed hitters. What Keuchel does well is keep the ball on the ground. His sinker is a GB machine, and his breaking balls get grounders too. This is a good match-up for M’s righties, though I should point out that the M’s have seemed to struggle against ground-ball pitchers this year, as we saw the last time these two teams played. The M’s have fared best against pitchers with low GB%, and worst against those with very high GB%, so I guess it’s good the M’s will miss Lucas Harrell. This was a non-ironic comment about the Astros pitching staff. Man, this team could use better hitters.
Line-up:
1: Bay, RF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Morales, 1B
4: Morse, DH
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Shoppach, C
7: Chavez, CF
8: Ryan, SS
9: Triunfel, 2B
SP: Iwakuma
Mariners. Astros. No Nick Franklin, No problem. Tune in tonight at….awww, come back!
The biggest story in the minors today is the return to game action for LHP Anthony Vasquez, who needed emergency brain surgery in late 2012 after a blood vessel in his brain burst. He’s pitching for Clinton tonight.
Tacoma heads to Las Vegas to take on the 51s some more. Hector Noesi in a park that greatly helps hitters. What could go wrong?
AA Jackson is playing two tonight in Chattanooga; Chance Ruffin starts game 2.
Dustin Ackley’s doing well in Tacoma, with a park-adjusted wOBA of .495 in a tiny sample. Houston’s wayward prospect, Brett Wallace, is also faring well in the minors. The guy who started 2013 1-24 with *17* strikeouts is hitting .302/.381/.523 for Oklahoma City. The PCL is a hell of a drug.
* There’s a sentence you never thought you’d read here.
** Not actually alongside him. That wouldn’t work, and would be a total waste. It’s a metaphor, though not a very good one.
*** “…the Keuchel was invented by German immigrants in 1885, who decided that even a sweet dessert pastry should have an abundance of grilled meat on it, and…”
A Ripe Time for Revenge Versus the Astros
| MARINERS (27-37) | ΔMs | ASTROS (22-42) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -12.5 (18th) | -5.9 | -32.7 (26th) | Mariners |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -7.2 (21st) | -1.3 | -32.3 (29th) | Mariners |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 12.7 (8th) | -0.7 | -35.0 (30th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 5.6 (7th) | 2.1 | -20.4 (30th) | Mariners |
| OVERALL (RAA) | -1.3 (16th) | -5.7 | -120.3 (30th) | MARINERS |
It’s nearly unanimous across the board! The Astros are the worst team in baseball. Yeah, the Marlins are worse, much worse, at hitting, but the Astros have baseball’s worst pitching staff and it’s bad enough to edge out Miami for worst team overall, so far. The Astros cannot do anything well, except when they play the Mariners (4-2, +11 run differential) or the Angels (7-3, +10 run differential). One of those is pretty funny. I guess both are, depending on your sense of humor or perspective. It’s probably downright hilarious to Oakland fans, who’ve seen the A’s go 9-0 versus the Astros, but then, the A’s are 3-4 against the Mariners so far so by transitive properties…
Maybe It’s Time For Dustin Ackley To Play Some Outfield
The Mariners outfield is a complete disaster. Not that this was that hard to see coming, but with Michael Saunders looking more like the 2011 version of suck than last year’s useful role player, the Mariners simply don’t have a single outfielder on the team that projects as any more than a decent bench player going forward. Talk of sending Saunders down or giving him time off to work on things falls apart when you actually look at what that would leave. Endy Chavez is a replacement level scrub at this point in his career, but he’s the only other guy on the roster who can play center field, and if he’s in center, you’re locked in to Ibanez playing everyday, and that is nothing short of a total disaster out there.
Michael Morse can’t play the outfield either, not in any kind of competent way, and not without one of his oversized muscles giving out. While the people who built this abomination of a roster might not want to admit it, the realities of building a team full of designated hitters are currently punching the Mariners square in the face. If they want to stop running out embarrassing line-ups, they need an entirely new outfield.
Unfortunately, the team’s total lack of off-season planning has left the organization bereft of outfielders, even at the minor league level. Carlos Peguero is still terrible. Eric Thames is not much better. Abe Almonte is Endy Chavez with worse defense. There’s no one in Tacoma’s outfield who is any better than replacement level either.
So, while I’ve been resistant to the idea in the past, maybe it is finally time to ask Dustin Ackley to start taking some reps in the outfield. No, I don’t think Ackley should be converted into an OF full time — and I still prefer him to Nick Franklin long term at second base — but with Franklin playing well enough to deserve a real shot at second base, Ackley’s best path back to the Majors this year involves him having some defensive versatility. And he’s got both the history and the skills that suggest that he could probably pick up the OF fairly quickly.
OF isn’t a new position for him, as he played there when his arm was healthy enough to allow it in college. Most of the people who were skeptical about his ability to become a quality defensive second baseman have projected Ackley as a long term OF since he has the foot speed to cover some ground out there. You’d probably want to give him a little bit of time to get used to reading balls off the bat again, but it wouldn’t be long of a process to get him to a point where he’s an upgrade over what the Mariners are using in the outfield right now. After all, anyone who isn’t an amputee is an upgrade defensively from Ibanez and Morse.
Ben Zobrist is probably the model you point to here. Zobrist is an excellent defensive second baseman, but he spends a few hundred innings in the OF every year so that the Rays can take advantage of platoon advantages and mix-and-match their roster of role players to best fit on a daily basis. Ackley’s bat isn’t at Zobrist’s level and might not ever be good enough for him to hold down a regular OF job, but giving him the versatility to be able to play the OF when needed can’t hurt his long term value. And it’s the only real way for the Mariners to get both Ackley and Franklin into the line-up together in the second half.
The Mariners are probably going to have to pick between those two at some point, as both are most valuable at second base and neither one has the defensive chops to be a true super utility guy, but with 2013 a lost season and the team in desperate need of competent outfielders, giving both Ackley and Franklin extended looks won’t cost them meaningful wins. This isn’t a pitch to try and fix this roster or turn the season around — that’s an impossible task, and everyone should, at this point, just admit that this roster is bad and the season is over — but it might give the Mariners their best chance to put a decent group of Major League players on the field together, and give them a few months to evaluate, side by side, whether Ackley or Franklin should be their long term answer at second base.
Unlike with Montero, this isn’t the kind of position change that has been long overdue and is required by some kind of skill deficiency. Ackley can still play second base and could still be the organization’s future everyday second baseman. Right now, though, they need three new outfielders, and he is the only guy in Tacoma with any hope of providing value out there. Getting him some versatility and a path back to the big leagues make this a move worth considering, at the least, and maybe worth implementing immediately.
Whether they like it or not, the Mariners are once again building to the future. Endy Chavez, Raul Ibanez, Michael Morse, and Jason Bay are not the future. Dustin Ackley might be. The best way to get him back on this team in the second half is to have him replace one of those guys, and the best way to do that is to have him start playing the outfield again.
Game 64, Yankees at Mariners
King Felix vs. David Phelps, 1:10pm
The M’s try to salvage a split of this four-game set today behind their ace, Felix Hernandez. Another punchless home loss that blended in with so many others can be frustrating, but hopefully we’re reaching the point where we can stop talking about mitigating circumstances, splits and all the rest of it. At this point in the season, the M’s have (more or less) no splits. Against lefties, they’ve put up a .688 OPS. Vs. righties, it’s, uh, .688. At home, they’ve put up a .690 OPS, which is a far cry from the .686 OPS they’ve managed on the road. The M’s have changed the stadium, and I’ve grudgingly come around to the logic of that, and they’ve attempted to change the nature of *how* they put up that OPS, by bringing in guys like Morse to take aim at the new, closer fences. And let’s be clear: it’s worked, to some degree. The M’s are no longer historically inept batsmen. But neither are they playoff-caliber. There was no quick fix here. I’m not suggesting that the front office, or maybe even the fans, thought that a couple of mid-tier moves and an outfield alignment tweak would radically alter the team’s production, but it’s actually nice that we can talk about the hitters and who may replace them and not home/road splits, ‘confidence’, marine layers and meteorology.
Today the M’s take on David Phelps, a 26-year old righty who’s come through the Yankees system after they drafted him out of Notre Dame. His strikeout rate’s risen as he moved up, and he’s now got a 23.5% K rate over the course of 156 major league innings – good for a K/9 near 9. Impressive for anyone, but especially for someone with a fastball in the 89-91 range. It gets tougher and tougher to understand the further you drill down. Does he get batters to chase? Well, no – his o-swing rate is awful, at under 23% this year. Does he get batters to swing through a good change-up or curve? No, batters make contact at better-than-average rates, and Phelps’ swinging strike rate is about as bad as his o-swing rate. His vertical movement’s quite high, so I’d be tempted to say he gets Jered Weaver-ish swingthroughs on his fastball, but that would show up in swinging strikes. He’s got a good curve ball, and curves often get called-strikes, but nothing looks exceptional there. Sure, he’s pitched in relief a bit and that’s making his K% look better than it otherwise would be, but the K% just in the rotation is over 20%. I’m not really sure what’s going on, other than that Phelps gets whiffs with two strikes.
Against righties, he throws a four-seamer, a sinker, and cutter and curve. To lefties, he relies mostly on the sinker and adds a change-up to his breaking ball offerings. The curve’s generated the best results, but the change isn’t a bad pitch, as it’s helped him avoid platoon splits.
Line-up:
1: Bay, RF
2: Franklin, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Shoppach, C
7: Saunders, CF
8: Liddi, 1B
9: Ryan, SS
SP: King Felix
Something of an odd line-up as Morales is still a bit sore from his injury running out a grounder the other day, and Morse needing another day off to rest his quadricep. That’s pushed Franklin to the 2 spot, and it’s also given Alex Liddi a start at 1B against a righty.
Good news on the farm last night, as Erasmo Ramirez went seven shutout innings with seven Ks to just one walk against Las Vegas; Tacoma won 11-0. The Rainiers finish their 4-game set with Vegas today at 1:30, with Brandon Maurer on the hill. It’s mid-june, and the team has Aaron Harang and Jeremy Bonderman in the rotation, but at last some of the pitching depth I thought they’d have is showing up. Erasmo Ramirez, when healthy, is easily the team’s third-best starter, and hopefully he can move up to Seattle in the next few weeks.
The M’s traded Vinnie Catricala to Oakland for a PTBNL yesterday; the M’s had DFAd Catricala a week ago. Catricala was once the darling of the M’s system, having gone from 10th-round pick to top-ten prospect after laying waste to the minors, and putting up video game numbers in AA Jackson. But he never got going in Tacoma last year, and looked a lot more like the 2012 Catricala in Jackson this season than the 2011 Catricala who Southern League pitchers couldn’t figure out. Can’t really remember the last hitting prospect to progress that far, and then fall so suddenly. Alex Liddi was a better 3B defender, and Stefen Romero hasn’t suffered a PCL swoon, so Catricala didn’t really have a place in the org anyway, but hopefully he gets things figured out and has fun playing again in his home town (if the A’s send him to Sacramento).