Game 144, Astros at Mariners
Taijuan Walker vs. Jarred Cosart, 7:10pm
A late-season game between two bottom-dwellers, long since eliminated from contention, both with goals that go beyond – and may even conflict with – trying to put themselves in the best position to win *this* game, in early September of 2013. That game begins as the first Monday Night Football (just about any NFL-related term or phrase just begs to have a trademark associated with it, and I say that as a fan of the game) contest of the year ends, and the second begins. Even for those of us who actually care about the M’s and Astros – how do we resist the biggest brand in US sports, not to mention the spectacle of a Seattle franchise that’s, you know, good, and good now, and not in some nebulous future? You may not care about whoever’s playing on MNF, but isn’t there something odd about expending mental energy on a baseball game that’s much more like a scrimmage or a practice than something that changes or illuminates our understanding of the teams and the game?* Isn’t that what we sometimes mock – the weird way that the media will send 50 people to practice fields and intone seriously about what it means that the Coach mentioned X before mentioning Y?
This pitching match-up is the antidote to all of that woe-is-us apathy, a clear, concise rejection of the idea that this specific game is meaningless and without merit. It could be great TV, pleasingly devoid of the over-the-top theatrics, the stentorian voices and million-selling singers patting you on the back for watching.** This is game exudes potential, and that’s important for fans of the M’s and Astros. The match-up involves two of the top 100 prospects in baseball dueling for the first time – two prospects whose rise to the big leagues seemed inevitable, and whose arrival atones, partially, for the god-awful seasons their clubs have played to date. We’re learning about players who could be franchise cornerstones, and that’s enough. Tomorrow night, uh….huh. Give me a minute.
Jarred Cosart came to the Astros in the Hunter Pence deal in 2011. Blessed with an upper-90s fastball, a curve and a change, he was a classic tools prospect. He was the big prize in the Pence deal despite fair-to-middling statistics – the big fastball and decent secondaries limited hits, but he couldn’t keep runs off the board and his strikeout totals never matched the pure stuff. He got grounders, was solid against lefties, and yet on the whole, Cosart was judged a disappointment. After a social promotion to the PCL, though, something may have clicked. His GB% was through the roof, and his strikeout rate ticked up, despite the fact he was facing better competition. Promoted in July, he took a no-hitter into the 7th, and he’s been an intriguing member of the Astros rotation since.
By fielding-independent measures, Cosart’s been freakishly lucky, and not all that good. He’s never had great control, so his walk rate hovering in the teens is disappointing to Astros fans, if not terribly surprising. But his K% has been bad as well, at just over 13%. This is not a finished product, but the raw material is top-grade. It’s going to be interesting to see how he finishes the year, and what adaptations he’ll develop. I’d guess he’ll work on a slider at some point, as he’s struggled against *righties* this year, both in Houston and in the PCL.
Beyond its velocity, Cosart’s fastball is an odd duck in terms of movement. It comes in with essentially zero horizontal movement. In his MLB games to date, it exhibits a slight glove-side movement, akin to the true over-the-top delivery guys like Yovani Gallardo and Clayton Kershaw, but he doesn’t have a delivery like those two. Most with very little horizontal movement tend to generate plenty of vertical movement (like Kershaw, Chris Tillman, etc.), but Cosart’s is normal, perhaps even a touch below; this probably helps him post great GB% numbers, though it shouldn’t do much for whiffs/strikeouts. We’ll see if the M’s are able to elevate the ball tonight.
Tai Walker’s through 10 mostly excellent innings, but like Cosart, has fewer strikeouts than anyone armed with a mid-90s fastball and big breaking curveball should have. His walk rate is and has been solid, but he doesn’t yet have pinpoint command of his fastball. Again, he’s freakishly young, and like Cosart, he hasn’t been hit hard so far, and I’m still a big believer in his ceiling. This is as good a match-up of guys with bad K% as you’ll see.
1: Miller, SS
2: Almonte, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Smoak, 1B
7: Ackley, CF
8: Zunino, C
9: Franklin, 2B
SP: Tai Walker
Sad I missed James Paxton’s successful MLB debut while I was out in the woods, but I’ve been looking over the pitch fx stats. We’ve still got Safeco’s weird/anomalous readings on vertical movement to contend with, but there’s an awful lot to like. First of all, the velocity’s all the way back. I got a taste of this in his last Tacoma appearance, but to sustain that velo over six innings and not two is a great sign from a guy who’s battled durability concerns since college. Second, if you take his vertical movement numbers and double them, it’s still below what he showed in the AFL and in his truly lousy spring training. I don’t want to oversell this, as it’s comparing one data point with some known measurement problems to a baseline in another park with some known measurement problems. The gap isn’t as big as it looks. Still, Paxton’s fastball came in with extremely low vertical movement for someone with an over-the-top delivery. In the AFL last year, his FB was 94mph and had the movement you’d expect from his delivery – low horizontal movement, and tons of backspin providing “rise.” In the spring, he was clearly tired, as his average velocity was just a hair over 90mph, though its movement was basically the same as it was in the AFL. In Seattle, his fastball was not only faster than it was in the AFL, it had sink. Paxton racked up grounders in his last AAA month, but if his vertical movement is around 8-9″ going forward, that’s still an interesting adjustment he’s made over the course of the season. It’s an odd thing, as his delivery makes you reach for Kershaw-type comps, whereas the movement looks more like, well, Jarred Cosart’s, actually.
Like Walker, he didn’t get many whiffs, and I’m quite surprised he didn’t go to his cutter at all, but I’m glad he’s got another offering to use on unsuspecting big league hitters in his next go-round. Between Paxton, Walker’s innings ceiling, Iwakuma’s ceiling/shoulder history and now Felix’s back, the six-man rotation is just perfect for the M’s right now. They haven’t had the depth for it this year, but they should seriously look into keeping it in 2014.
Glad to see Erasmo Ramirez put in another great start too, despite the control problems. I’m still a bit puzzled by his reliance on the slider, but he’s had some success, so I can’t be too concerned by it. Part of it may be the specific line-ups he’s faced, but he’s seeing more lefties this year (as a proportion of total batters faced), so it’s not like teams are starting righties to take the change-up away. Still, he threw the change to righties last year, and he’s not doing so in 2013.
* As an M’s blogger for a few especially barren years, this line of argument makes me uncomfortable.
** In commercials involving the NFL, literally every person is always on the verge of losing their feces. It’s bizarre. Whether at the game, or at a well-attended viewing party, everyone has food and drink in their hands just so they’ll have something to fling when the next unbelievable thing happens. In commercials involving baseball, there are a lot of children dressed in club gear by their parents. I don’t know what this means, but it’s interesting. I love football, but sometimes feel the culture is telling me I’m doing it wrong.
Game 141, Rays at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Alex Cobb, 7:10pm
I’ve been hoping we’d see these two starters face off against each other for a while now. In early August, I noted that Iwakuma’s splitter had induced the third-highest swing rate in MLB (for active pitchers). #2 on that list was Alex Cobb’s splitter. Cobb and Iwakuma are very similar hurlers, and both have turned into rotation mainstays despite coming to their teams without a ton of hype. They both throw four- and two-seamers and a curve (Iwakuma also has a slider, of course), but their bread and butter pitch – their weapon – is the splitter. In 2013, batters are *slugging* .296 against Cobb’s split, while they’re slugging .241 against Iwakuma’s version. For those of you who prefer tables, here you go:
| Pitcher | Number | Velo | O-Sw. % | Sw% | Contact% | Zone% | HRs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iwakuma | 551 | 85.1 | 51.4% | 59.4% | 71.9% | 26.1% | 3 |
| Cobb | 542 | 85.6 | 54.1% | 65.5% | 71.3% | 37.3% | 3 |
(Data for this is mostly from Fangraphs; the HRs are from BrooksBaseball. I’m mixing sources in this article quite a lot, and that’s frowned upon, but different sites present slightly different info in different ways. Fangraphs calls Cobb’s pitch a change, by the way.)
Iwakuma’s splitter gets fewer swings, but then only about 1/4 are in the zone! Cobb throws a comparatively generous 37% in the pitch fx strike zone, and gets nearly double that in swings. Look at the out-of-zone swing percentage for both players. Add it up, and their slugging percentage-allowed on these pitches is easy to understand: they throw these pitches at batters shoelaces, and batters swing anyway. A lot of the time, they swing and miss, but if they make contact, they’re virtually guaranteed to hit it into the ground.
So wait, why does Alex Cobb post average HR/9 rates while Iwakuma’s been homer-prone? The difference isn’t on splitters, as we’ve seen. It’s not even about how they use their fastballs, as I suspected initially (here‘s Cobb’s FA/sinker chart, and here‘s Kuma’s). Cobb’s superior velocity may help, though neither of them are above average. Part of it probably comes down to usage – Cobb doesn’t throw that many fastballs, throwing offspeed/breaking pitches about 56% of the time. Kuma’s a bit more traditional, throwing 55% FBs and 45% everything-elses.
Both Cobb and Iwakuma have sub-3.00 ERAs this year, and while Kuma’s FIP’s a touch better, Cobb’s got the edge in xFIP; they’re essentially equals. So where’d Cobb come from? Why didn’t we hear more about him, given that several Rays prospects have had a lot of hype – from Wade Davis to David Price to Matt Moore. Jeff touched on this in his article on Cobb earlier this year, but to be fair to prospect ranking folks, he got better at each level. There’s nothing wrong with a 20 year old posting a K/9 a bit over 6 and an RA in the 3.5-4 range, but you don’t top-10 anyone for that. It obviously took Cobb a while to refine his approach, but by the time he reached AA in 2010, he was clearly a much different pitcher. Even then, he couldn’t crack the top 10 (though as John Sickels notes, that may have more to do with the other guys on the list than it did with Cobb). I have no idea if he had a similar pitch mix in the Southern League as he does now, but I can imagine scouts docking him a grade or two for it if he did. Seeing a guy come out throwing 50-60% slow stuff just doesn’t look normal – it looks gimmicky, and scouts are really good at weeding out gimmicky players – even guys who put up insane numbers in the minors. Again, I have no idea if that’s what happened, or if scouts loved him but loved Alex Colume just a tad bit more. But he’s had a great season, and if he didn’t miss a few months after being struck in the head by a line drive, we’d probably be hearing a lot more about him.
Looking forward to this battle of freakishly similar starters.
Line-up:
1: Miller, SS
2: Gutierrez, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Smoak, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Ackley, CF
9: Franklin, 2B
SP: Hisashi Iwakuma. Accept no imitations.
Cheers to the Pulaski Mariners who took home the Appalachian League title last night after a walk-off hit from Gabrial Franca. The fightin’ Pulaskis came back from a 5-0 deficit to win 6-5, so full credit to the bullpen (Gabe Saquilon did the heavy lift, going 5 1/3) after a shaky start by Edwin Diaz. Speaking of shaky starts by very good pitchers, Dylan Unsworth had an uncharacteristic clunker of a start for Clinton, who were knocked out of the Midwest League playoffs by Beloit. Unsworth had walked TWO batters the entire year, but walked three yesterday in just 4 innings. Congratulations, though, on a great season by Clinton.
Kendrys Morales and the “Big Bat” Myth
I consider Ryan Divish a friend. I make a point of hanging out with him every time we’re in the same city, and while we don’t always agree on everything, I like talking baseball with him and reading what he has to say. So, none of this is an attack on Divish. Don’t take it that way.
In the last few weeks, there’s been a decent amount of conversation about what the Mariners should do with Kendrys Morales. I noted a few weeks back that I think Morales has played himself out of the qualifying offer, and the reality at this point is that if the Mariners make him a $14 million offer for one year, he’s going to take it, because he’s simply not going to get anything close to a better offer from a team that also has to give up a draft pick in order to outbid that price.
After Morales hit the game winning home run last night, Divish wrote these paragraphs in his postgame blog:
The Mariners need Morales, who also doubled in the game, for more than just this season. If you look at their current roster set-up and what’s available in the minor leagues, they simply don’t have a traditional middle of the order hitter, who is comfortable in that role.
Morales has no problem with hitting in the No. 3 or 4 spot.
“I have over 500 at-bats in the middle of the line-up,” he said. “There is no reason to feel any pressure or feel any different.”
But how he feels about coming back to Seattle for another year or beyond is an unknown. Morales is a free agent after this season, and his agent Scott Boras is notorious for taking his clients to free agency over signing contract extensions. With a lack of power hitters in this free agent class, Morales could make more on the open market than an extension from the Mariners or the one-year qualifying offer of around $14 million for the 2014 season.
As I stated above, I think the last sentence is just wrong, but the reason that people keep stating that Morales is going to get some big offers in free agency is in the first section: the idea that Morales is a “traditional middle of the order hitter”. And, really, unless you have the most liberal definition of that term in history, it’s simply not true.
There are currently 173 hitters who have accumulated at least 400 plate appearances so far this year, or about six roughly “full time” position players per team. If we’re defining “middle of the order” as #3/#4 hitters, then one definition could be the top 60 hitters in baseball, since 30 teams with two line-up spots per team. This is a pretty rigid definition, but if talent was evenly distributed, it would work out as a decent definition for a guy you want up with men on base.
Of those 173 batters, here’s where Kendrys Morales rates in various offensive metrics that pertain to things that people generally want in a “middle of the order” hitter:
wRC+: 72nd (115)
SLG: 73rd (.443)
ISO: 83rd (.163)
Morales doesn’t qualify in the top 60 of any of these measures. His slugging percentage puts him squarely between Starling Marte and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. Isolated slugging is a little better judge of just pure power, though, since it subtracts out singles, which are probably not something we’re super concerned with when defining a “middle of the order” hitter; by ISO, he’s in a four way tie with Matt Carpenter, Justin Smoak, and A.J. Pierzynski.
Really, though, if you’re evaluating a hitter’s performance, you should care more about the overall value than exactly how they get there, since getting on base and avoiding outs matters too, and isn’t included in the power measures. So, wRC+ gives us a better view of Morales’ overall batting value, where his 115 grades out as 15 percent better than average. Here’s a full list of the 400+ PA players with a wRC+ between 112 and 118 this year:
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eric Hosmer | 589 | 0.300 | 0.354 | 0.445 | 0.348 | 118 |
| Jason Heyward | 405 | 0.253 | 0.347 | 0.423 | 0.342 | 118 |
| Shane Victorino | 472 | 0.294 | 0.351 | 0.449 | 0.352 | 117 |
| Jed Lowrie | 576 | 0.287 | 0.346 | 0.431 | 0.340 | 117 |
| Torii Hunter | 573 | 0.301 | 0.335 | 0.465 | 0.347 | 117 |
| Neil Walker | 469 | 0.262 | 0.351 | 0.413 | 0.337 | 116 |
| Mike Napoli | 514 | 0.253 | 0.344 | 0.456 | 0.349 | 116 |
| Carl Crawford | 408 | 0.294 | 0.346 | 0.414 | 0.334 | 116 |
| Howie Kendrick | 451 | 0.301 | 0.341 | 0.437 | 0.337 | 116 |
| Kendrys Morales | 568 | 0.280 | 0.336 | 0.443 | 0.340 | 115 |
| Nate Schierholtz | 430 | 0.259 | 0.310 | 0.492 | 0.343 | 114 |
| Justin Smoak | 445 | 0.251 | 0.348 | 0.415 | 0.339 | 114 |
| Chris Carter | 506 | 0.220 | 0.320 | 0.454 | 0.338 | 114 |
| Pablo Sandoval | 505 | 0.279 | 0.335 | 0.421 | 0.329 | 114 |
| Jean Segura | 574 | 0.304 | 0.337 | 0.438 | 0.338 | 113 |
| Coco Crisp | 496 | 0.260 | 0.331 | 0.437 | 0.334 | 113 |
| Dustin Pedroia | 638 | 0.296 | 0.371 | 0.411 | 0.345 | 113 |
| Everth Cabrera | 435 | 0.283 | 0.355 | 0.381 | 0.329 | 112 |
Morales’ hitting — not including his baserunning, which makes him a less effective offensive player than wRC+ shows, but we’re just talking hitting for now — puts him between Howie Kendrick and Nate Schierholtz. In the same range as Morales, we find a bunch of shortstops, a couple of second baseman, a few center fielders, a left fielder with a center fielder’s skillset, a couple of disappointing first base prospects who haven’t developed into quality players yet, a lousy season from Kung Fu Panda, and a decline phase Mike Napoli.
On that entire list, Napoli is the only one besides Morales that anyone might call a “middle of the order hitter”, but that’s because a couple of years ago, Napoli posted a 178 wRC+ and was one of the dominant offensive forces in baseball. He’s not that anymore, but reputations linger for a while.
Morales, though, this is what he is, and has always been. His career wRC+ is 117. Last year, it was 118. In his career year back in 2009, before he broke his ankle, he posted a 136 wRC+, which is okay but still nothing spectacular for a “middle of the order hitter”, especially if we cherry pick their very best season.
Morales’ peers with the bats are generally pretty good up-the-middle players or bad corner guys. He’s hanging out with the likes of Jed Lowrie and Neil Walker, who are valuable because they hit this well while playing shortstop and second base respectively. This is how well Torii Hunter hits, and despite the fact that Torii Hunter is a pretty good outfielder and can also run the bases with some talent, the Angels didn’t make him a qualifying offer last year. Morales can’t play the field and is the worst runner in baseball, but apparently none of that matters because he’s so good at hitting.
Except he’s not so good at hitting. He’s okay at hitting. He’s not bad. He’s above average, even. He makes a decent amount of contact and drives some balls out of the ballpark. He takes a walk once in a while. He’s a switch-hitter, and he’s even learned how to hit lefties. He’s not an offensive black hole.
But, really, the idea that Kendrys Morales is a “middle of the order” hitter is a total myth. No one else who hits like Kendrys Morales gets that label, because players with this kind of offensive performance generally aren’t one of the two best hitters on their team. On a good team, these guys are the third or fourth or fifth best hitter, and as you will note from the names around him, the rest of the players who hit like this get value by playing a position and running the bases.
Evaluating players by labels or batting order positions is a lousy idea anyway, even when those labels are true. In this case, it’s entirely undeserved. Kendrys Morales might have experience hitting 3rd or 4th, but that is the exact same excuse that Bill Bavasi gave when he acquired Carl Everett to be DH back in 2006. He’d hit cleanup before, and he had a bunch of RBIs, so he was qualified and necessary to make that line-up work. Except, you know, we all saw how that turned out.
But, really, Morales isn’t 2006 Carl Everett. He’s a lot better than that. In reality, Morales’ offensive production makes him a pretty close approximation of the guy Bavasi acquired to replace Carl Everett at DH. We’ll just close with the following comparison.
| Year | Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | wRC+ | Fld | BsR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Kendrys Morales | 562 | 0.279 | 0.336 | 0.444 | 0.341 | 115 | (1.4) | (5.0) | 0.9 |
| 2007 | Jose Vidro | 625 | 0.314 | 0.381 | 0.394 | 0.345 | 111 | (4.1) | (0.9) | 1.1 |
2013 Kendrys Morales is is basically a rehash of 2007 Jose Vidro. It’s a few more homers and a few less singles, but the package is basically the same. No one thought Jose Vidro was a “traditional middle of the order hitter”. No one should think Kendrys Morales is either.
Game 140, Mariners at Royals
Joe Saunders vs. Jeremy Guthrie, 11:10am
Joe Saunders is a back-end starter making a base salary of $6.5m for this season, and will be a free agent in a short while. Jeremy Guthrie is a back-end starter making a touch less – $5m for 2013. But while Saunders will take his 4.83 FIP to market, Guthrie’s 4.76 is nearly irrelevant: Guthrie’s three year deal calls for $20 million spread over 2014 and 2015. I’m not going to say that Saunders is better, but there’s a reason many reacted with surprise when Guthrie, a few months after being DFA’d by Colorado, signed a three-year, $25m deal with Dayton Moore’s Royals.
There’s no doubt that the Royals needed better pitching: they’d paid Jonathan Sanchez to make 12 of the worst starts in baseball last year. And the moves they’ve made have largely worked out well – James Shields cost a ton in talent, but he’s pitched quite well. Ervin Santana was a good buy-low candidate who actually wasn’t all *that* cheap, but has been worth far more than his $13m club option. Guthrie’s returned 1 fWAR, but because he’s consistently beaten his FIP (even when his FIP and RA have both exceeded 5), he’s been better (above average, even) by RA9-WAR. For $5m, that’s a bargain, but Guthrie hasn’t been baseball’s most consistent player, and he’s due over $10m next year. Look, the money isn’t crippling for any team, even the Royals, but this next year is going to be an interesting one for Dayton Moore. What to do with Santana? What happens if Guthrie has another year like his 2009, or his 2012 again? Does any of it matter as long as Mike Moustakas still can’t hit?
Guthrie’s a sinker/slider/curve/change guy who hits 93mph with his fastball, and throws a fair number of sliders and changes to righties and lefties alike. He’s never racked up big strikeout totals, his walk rate is basically always between 6-7%, and as Dave pointed out, his results are highly dependent on his BABIP and HR rate. To be fair to Guthrie, he’s had a few remarkably low-BABIP years, and his career rate is lower than you’d guess, but you have to be a big believer in the idea that Guthrie just knows how to induce bad contact to see him as a middle-of-the-rotation guy. He’s thrown a lot of change-ups and curve balls in his career, but they haven’t staved off platoon splits; apparently the inducing-weak-contact mojo only works on righties. As such, this is a pretty good match-up for the M’s beleaguered bats.
Unfortunately, the Royals will start 7 righties in order to take advantage of Joe Saunders even longer standing, even more extreme platoon splits. This year, Saunders is surrendering a .400+ wOBA to righties thanks to 20 HRs allowed to them. Hey, on a one-year, $6.5m deal, it’s not the worst deal in the world, or even the worst deal on the team (depending on how you evaluate Franklin Gutierrez and his contract, at least), but the M’s need better pitching next year, and I don’t think they’re going to pay Saunders and hope for some regression to the mean.
1: Miller, SS
2: Almonte, CF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Ackley, LF
7: Franklin, 2B
8: Saunders, RF
9: Blanco, C
SP: Saunders
The new M’s six-man rotation and Felix’s scary muscle strain the other day mean Felix will have a few extra days of rest before he takes the hill again. He was slated to start Sunday’s game against Tampa, but he’ll instead start Wednesday against Houston. Erasmo Ramirez will start on Sunday instead.
Game 139, Mariners at Royals
Taijuan Walker vs. Ervin Santana, 5:10pm
This should be interesting. Taijuan Walker’s MLB debut was excellent, and the poise he showed in pitching around some serious Mariner defending can’t be overstated. But, many have pointed out, it’s a lot easier to pitch around Raul-being-Raul when you’re dealing with the Astros. And that’s true: the Astros have a team wRC+ of just 88, and they have the lowest contact rate (by far) in MLB. Today’s opponent comes in at #1 in all of baseball in contact rate, which means more might be asked of Mariner defenders – a group Walker’s probably not all that confident in right now. But what level of production have the Royals gotten from that best-in-baseball contact rate? Their wRC+ is, er, 88. The Royals hit everything, but they hit everything poorly. The Royals have some actual hitters, so I’m not going to say that this is an identical test, especially as the Royals can review tape and prepare for Walker a bit more than the Astros could. But this is not a fundamentally more difficult test, it’s just fundamentally different. It’ll be interesting to see how he approaches this start.
Ervin Santana could come home with the Comeback Player of the Year award in the AL this year, as he’s posting a lovely RA/FIP for the Royals – the team lambasted for picking up his salary this offseason. Santana’s always had HR problems, and while he’s not exactly eliminated them, it’s instructive to see what can happen when a player takes a peripheral from “lol” to “OK” or “decent.” Santana has always essentially been a three pitch pitcher, with a four-seamer, a slider and an occasional change. He occasionally worked on a sinker, but not terribly often. His slider’s his bread and butter pitch; he throws it to RHB and LHBs alike, and he’ll throw it in any count. Over his career, it’s consistently gotten low batting-average-on-contact as well as whiffs, but that many sliders mean a lot of opportunities for hangers. As such, he’s given up a number of HRs on it. That’s actually not a huge problem; he’s given up *10* HRs on sliders this year, which is kind of astonishing, but as I mentioned, his overall HR rate is OK. His problem has come in years when his *fastball* gets annihilated. Last year, he gave up 22 HRs on his four-seamer. This year, he’s at 8.
Is it a change in approach, a change in luck? I can’t see much change in how he uses it, but the one thing that jumps off his BrooksBaseball pitcher card is the use of a sinker. Last year, the manually-reclassed pitch type system Dan/Harry use picked up no sinkers. This year, he’s using it for over 20% of his pitches. Is it a great pitch? No, not really, but it’s another look for hitters. This is pure speculation, but this would seem to be a much more important factor in Santana’s improvement than the ballyhooed return of some velocity; Santana’s four-seam velo is up less than 1mph from 2012 to 2013. Santana was just extremely predictable in 2012, using a four-seamer to lefties over 70% of his first pitches and over 70% of the time the batter was ahead in the count. To righties, it was a fairly consistent 60:40 split in those situations. With the re-introduction of a sinker, it’s a lot harder for a batter to guess fastball. This may help his HR rates, and his GB% is up this season as well, which lends some credence to the idea that he’s throwing a lot more sinkers.
All of that said, having the kind of bullpen the Royals have can’t help but make their starters look a bit better than they are. The M’s saw it on Labor Day, when Will Smith came in to strike out Kyle Seager in a key situation, and then stuck around for another 4 innings of dominant relief. As such, it’d be lovely if the M’s got to Santana early. The M’s have faced lefty starters in the past four games, and seven of the past nine, and as you know, the M’s are terrible against lefties. So much of the hand-wringing about situational hitting, or the lack of offense, etc. can be explained by this run of lefty starters. Of course, knowing what’s causing the problem and having a solution are two different things. The M’s are very left-handed right now, and until they acquire actual right handed threats, they’ll be vulnerable to teams rejiggering their rotations to give the Travis Blackleys and Bruce Chens of the world a spot start or two.
1: Miller, SS
2: Gutierrez, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Smoak, 1B
7: Ackley, CF
8: Zunino, C
9: Franklin, 2B
SP: Taijuan Walker wooooooo
As you may have seen on TV, twitter, or however it is that you access noteworthy baseball feats these days, A’s 3B Josh Donaldson made a sublime catch of a foul pop-up last night against Texas. The debate about whether baseball itself or certain baseballing acts rise to the level of art is ultimately unresolvable, but I can now point to this poem by Seattle’s own Patrick Dubuque as proof that baseballing acts can inspire art.
The Royals have been staring at the contact rate leaderboard too, it would appear. Today, they called up Carlos Pena from AAA Omaha – the man who was a little bit too three-true-outcomes for even the Houston Astros has arrived to shake things up and get his teammates to live a little, much in the manner of an 80s teen comedy. The article notes that Omaha qualified for the playoffs with a 70-74 record, while the solidly-above-.500 Rainiers’ season is done. Even in the minors, division strength is a huge influence on playoff odds. (hat-tip: Divish).
Game 138, Mariners at Royals
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Bruce Chen, 5:10pm
I have a soft spot for Bruce Chen, as I think there’s just something cool about a Panamanian-Chinese lefty hanging on in MLB for 15 seasons and coming up on 400 games. No one has ever said, “No, I can’t do that – Chen’s pitching and I *need* to see this game,” but on the other hand, Chen’s never been out of work. He’s perfect as an exemplar of all manner of hoary old-school baseball cliches (“Knows how to pitch” “He’s been around a long time, and knows when to challenge” “He keeps you in the ballgame”), and he’s also a perfect example of DIPS theory or the role of luck: In 2011, he ran a 3.77 ERA thanks to low HR/FB and BABIP numbers. In 2012, his ERA was over 5 when he was unlucky in strand rate and HR/FB. If someone really, really believed that ERA was a better measure of pitching talent than, say, FIP, they’d be really troubled by Chen. Life’s too short to be troubled by Bruce Chen, so I have consciously chosen to be smitten by him.
Thanks to the Royals off-season pitching imports, Chen’s pitched mostly out of the bullpen this year, and his results have been superficially astounding, or at least, astounding given that we’re talking about Bruce Chen. Thanks in large part to a career-best strand rate, and thanks to some stellar work by the Royals bullpen behind him, he’s posted an extremely low RA. Sure, his FIP is much higher, but it’s still under 4, which for Chen is pretty remarkable. A big part of this is that he’s yielded fewer HRs than he did last year; his HR/9 is also a career-low this year, and that’s *despite* putting up a jaw-dropping 27% GB% mark. The reason he’s been so volatile, and the reason his GB% is so absurdly low, is simple: Chen likes to elevate his 80-something fastball. Against righties, Chen likes to keep his fastball at or above the center of the zone. Pitching coaches will tell you to pound the knees or “keep it down” and Chen, after 15 seasons, will continue to ignore them. This year, it’s even more extreme, as he’s thrown far more four-seamers up and out of the zone than he has anywhere in the lower third of the strike zone.
That explains the fly ball tendencies, but why would a guy who’s struggled with HRs want to do this? It may be that he’s realized how tempting, how sumptuous, a Bruce Chen fastball looks to a major league hitter. If they’re going to swing, because hey, *Bruce Chen* just threw you a high fastball, you may as way get hitters to climb the ladder. This is a tough game, because if you miss your spot by a few inches – leaving it in the zone instead of out – it could be hit a long way. But even MLB hitters struggle when they go and chase pitches out of the zone. Here’s some pitch fx data from Fangraphs for you, looking only at fastballs. Bruce Chen’s fastball is 86-87mph, remember.
| Pitcher | Velocity | O-Sw% | Contact% | SwStr% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bruce Chen | 86.4 | 37.90% | 80.60% | 11.1 |
| Matt Harvey | 95.4 | 30.20% | 78.30% | 11.1 |
Once more: Bruce Chen’s fastball is 86mph and it gets a swinging strike 11.1% of the time.
I have successfully compared Bruce Chen to Matt Harvey. My work here is done. :Slowly vanishes:
Something interesting to watch with Erasmo Ramirez: in recent games, he’s relied much more heavily on his slider than his change-up. When he first returned, his change-up was clearly rusty, as he struggled to keep it in the zone. Throughout much late July/mid-August, his command of the pitch improved, and he was once again using it as his two-strike pitch. In his last two starts, however, he’s thrown 53 sliders to just 18 cambios. His results haven’t been stellar with the pitch, and his change-up still has a great whiff rate associated with it, so we’ll have to see if this was a reaction to particular teams and hitters, or an effort to focus on a breaking pitch, especially to right-handers. Even if that’s the case, his curveball might be a better option, but I’m not going to second guess a young pitcher’s pitch mix when he’s returning from an extended bout of dead arm. I’m still just glad to see him in an M’s uniform.
Line-up:
1: Miller, 2B
2: Gutierrez, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Ibanez, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Zunino, C
7: Chavez, LF
8: Almonte, CF
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Erasmo Ramirez
Four lefties in the line-up today, as the M’s get Guti and Ryan a start. Chen’s never had high platoon splits, so he’s in a somewhat different category than the lefties the M’s have seen recently. I’d assumed Ibanez got the start due to some prior success against Chen, but he’s 2-12 with 2 singles.
Taijuan Walker starts tomorrow, and James Paxton will make his debut for the M’s on the 7th, starting against the Rays. A six-man rotation down the stretch will help them manage the innings caps for Walker, Paxton and Hisashi Iwakuma.
You know who’s four-seamer has an even lower contact rate than Harvey’s? Erasmo Ramirez, that’s who. Yes, yes, this comparison, like the Chen one, isn’t strictly “fair” in that Erasmo/Bruce have thrown many, many fewer fastballs than Harvey has on the year. But it’s still pretty surprising, and it’s an example of what guys like Trevor Bauer are talking about when they bemoan the “keep it down” dogma. Of course, as Chen (and Bauer too, perhaps) knows, the trade-off here is slugging percentage and home runs, but the upside is that Chen and his “fast”ball have been more-or-less-successful for a long time, and I’d guess a lot of that has to do with his unorthodox approach.
Rainiers hitting coach Howard Johnson will join the team for the final month.
Great stats article by our fearless leader here.
Go M’s, and go Erasmo!
My Preferred 2014 Second Baseman
A few months ago, Dustin Ackley moved to the outfield because it looked like Nick Franklin was taking the second base job for the foreseeable future. Since then, Nick Franklin has been atrocious, while Dustin Ackley has showed some signs of life. Both have shown flashes of their potential, and both have had flaws exposed, raising legitimate questions about their long term value.
Here are their season to date numbers through Labor Day, followed by a poll asking a simple question that I’m curious to see the results of: based on what you’ve seen this year, which one would you rather have starting at second base on Opening Day next year?
| Name | PA | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | Fld | BsR | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nick Franklin | 328 | 10% | 27% | 0.176 | 0.272 | 0.220 | 0.293 | 0.395 | 0.304 | -6.6 | -0.5 | 0.1 |
| Dustin Ackley | 348 | 6% | 17% | 0.090 | 0.300 | 0.252 | 0.301 | 0.343 | 0.286 | -5.7 | 2.8 | 0.1 |
Game 137, Mariners at Royals
King Felix vs. Danny Duffy, 11:10am
I hope you’re all enjoying a good Labor Day. I enjoy that I can hang out and relax, but it’s always a bittersweet day. Today’s the last day of the Minor League Season – all of the promise, the breakouts, the solid progress, the out-of-nowheres…it all comes to an end today. Get out to Tacoma or Everett or wherever your closest team is and check out a game.
Speaking of bittersweet, Danny Duffy’s return from Tommy John surgery a few weeks ago has helped take some of the sting out of the Royals up and down season, and helps recover some of the value from their 2011 top prospect list, the oft-mocked best system in the history of baseball and/or systems. That system featured Mike Moustakas (who’s followed the Dustin Ackley career path so far), John Lamb (struggles in upper minors, retired for a bit, stuff hasn’t quite come back), Mike Montgomery (struggles in upper minors, total loss of command, part of some trade you may have heard about) and Duffy (made the majors, shredded elbow).
Duffy has a plus fastball, averaging 94+, a curve and a solid change-up. Thanks to his well above-average vertical movement, he’s a fairly extreme fly-ball pitcher, but he hasn’t had major problems with HRs thanks in part to an above-average pop-up rate. He struggled with walks in his brief MLB career, but he’s been much better this year (over the course of three starts, remember); if he maintains a good walk rate, he should be OK despite some natural regression in his HR rate. He’s an excellent talent, and the Royals have to like the look of their rotation in future years if they can keep Duffy healthy. At the same time, Duffy’s return does focus attention on the big offseason trade of Wil Myers for James Shields and Wade Davis. The trade was always going to be the biggest storyline of the year, but Duffy’s return to the rotation pushed Davis back to the bullpen. The Royals made a big deal out of the fact that they saw Davis as a starter, and that seeing the trade purely as Myers for Shields was short-sighted. Davis posted an RA over 6, and while his FIP was excellent, the Royals apparently got tired of waiting for his RA to fall back towards his fielding-independent stats. The Royals’ rotation moved up from the 20th most valuable in 2012 to 10th in 2013, and from 26th to 13th by ERA. The trade inarguably improved a weak spot. In some sense, both clubs got exactly what they needed out of it, but the larger context is troubling for the Royals. If Davis isn’t a starter, then they add a very good set-up man to Shields. The Rays meanwhile got a cost-controlled OF who’s already a better-than-league-average hitter as well as additional pieces like Jake Odorizzi.
It probably says something about the Royals and about analysts like me that we can’t even talk about Duffy without rehashing the trade, but I’ve been thinking more about the “just fix your weak spot” method of roster construction recently. Seriously, good luck with Baltimore, Mr. Morse.
Today’s line-up:
1: Miller, SS
2: Franklin, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Saunders, RF
7: Zunino, C
8: Ackley, LF
9: Almonte, CF
SP: King Felix
Welcome back, Mike Zunino. The C was activated from the DL this morning. I’m glad to see him back, but I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense to push a guy who suffered a hand injury back into the line-up so soon. He must be feeling pretty good, and I’m probably just paranoid, but Zunino’s obviously critical to the M’s future in 2014 and beyond.
King Felix has scuffled recently, and if he wants to avoid a repeat of 2012’s awful close to what had looked like a Cy Young season, today’s game’s a good place to get back on track.
Danny Hultzen pitched two perfect innings yesterday for Tacoma, showing great command and the ability to mix his pitches in his first start since returning from a shoulder injury. Following him was James Paxton, who was also impressive in two innings, mixing an over-the-top fastball that sat at 94 and touched 96 with a good looking cutter at around 89. He made a mistake which Michael Taylor deposited in the bullpen (one of 9 HRs in the game), but showed why the M’s have been patient with him. When he’s on, his pure stuff far exceeds Hultzen’s. Meanwhile, Hultzen can hit spots and disguise his fastball with his off-center stride. Neither guy’s perfect, but they both showed why they’re top prospects yesterday. As we discussed earlier, Hultzen’s scheduled to head to Peoria for the Arizona Fall League in November. Today we learned that Paxton’s on the move too: he’s coming up to Seattle. Paxton’s strong finish to the season earned him the call-up, though I suppose his mixed results in the season as a whole haven’t definitively settled his future role: starter or reliever. Not sure on the 40-man move at this point.
Hultzen’s return yesterday was somewhat overshadowed by the performance of the newest member of the M’s system, OF Xavier Avery. Avery led off the game with a long HR and ended up 5-5. It was a great game for someone who’s shown so little in-game power, as the HR was not a cheap one. He added a bloop double as well, and showed pretty good speed on the basepaths (though his day was marred a bit by a weird, half-hearted attempt to tag up and score on a fly ball to right; he ended up in a rundown).
Sounds like Tai Walker will get one home start before the end of the year; possibly on Monday (as reported by Ryan Divish).
Andrew Carraway starts the Rainiers final game at 1:35. The Aquasox finale’s at 7:05 in Everett. Victor Sanchez is the big prospect name on the hill today, as he’ll close out Clinton’s season.
Game 136, Mariners at Astros
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Brett Oberholtzer, 11:10am
I mock the Saunders vs. Keuchel match-up, and it turns into a pretty decent pitcher’s duel. Huh.
Brett Oberholtzer is a lefty the Astros picked up from the Braves org a few years ago in the Michael Bourn trade. He throws a four- and two-seam fastball (92-91, respectively), a curve and a good change-up. The curve is intriguing, in that he’s told Fangraphs’ Eno Sarris that it’s actually two pitches: a true curve and a slurvy slider. Looking at his pitch fx charts, it’s pretty tough to spot. It’s not that I distrust Oberholtzer, it’s just that the distinction is really, really subtle. Most pitchers have some variation with their breaking balls, and I wouldn’t have pegged Oberholtzer’s as being the result of a consciously different approach/grip. But it’s a smart way to change things up; he throws a fair number of curves to lefty bats, and if they’ve seen it several times, it’s a good idea to add a wrinkle to it the 3rd/4th time through the line-up.
That said, his change-up has been his best pitch thus far in his brief MLB career. It generates twice as many whiffs as the curve, and he’s got decent command of it. The curve hasn’t gotten swinging strikes, but batters are hitting it into the ground, at least thus far. He’s had HR issues a bit with his fastballs, and neither the four-seamer or his sinker has a lot of sink, so batters have elevated them – and in Houston, that can lead to home runs. Oberholtzer had HR issues a bit in the minors, so this isn’t a small-sample fluke. He gets a lot of horizontal and vertical movement on his pitches, which should make his sinker effective against lefties, but like so many pitchers, he throws it mostly to righties, while throwing the four-seamer to lefties.
Line-up:
1: Miller, SS
2: Franklin, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Gutierrez, RF
6: Saunders, LF
7: Smoak, 1B
8: Ackley, CF
9: Blanco, C
SP: Iwakuma
“Oberholtzer” is in the running for most Germanic name in MLB. He’s got that going for himself.
In something of a surprise, Danny Hultzen’s returning from the DL to make a start in Tacoma today; we’ll see if he’s able to move up to Seattle when roster’s expand (so far, Tom Wilhelmsen’s the only confirmed call-up). Gametime is 1:35 at Cheney. Hultzen’s only throwing an inning or two, so it’s not like he’s ready to start in Seattle in September, but it’s encouraging to see him nonetheless. Trevor Miller, Charles Kaalekahi (making his high-A debut) and Eddie Campbell are also pitching today.