Game 158, Mariners at Blue Jays
Taijuan Walker vs. Mark Buehrle, 4:07pm
Wildcard Odds – Fangraphs.com: nope Baseballprospectus.com: noooope
Maybe it’s fair – the M’s sweep of the Jays in early August dealt Toronto a significant blow, and it was one they ultimately never recovered from. The Jays arrived sometime after midnight on August 11th, sitting 2nd in the East and in the WC hunt. They had playoff odds of 31.5%, about evenly split between the Wild Card and the Divisional crown. They limped out of Seattle that Wednesday with playoff odds of 14.2%. They weren’t out of it, exactly, but they ultimately never hit 14% again. This week, the Jays have returned the favor, essentially eliminating the M’s from the playoffs. They haven’t been mathematically eliminated yet, but they could be today. Damn it.
Taijuan Walker’s coming off an encouraging start against Houston; it marked the first time this season he had more strikeouts than innings pitched. He’s dealt with that command lapse, and he’s continued to keep the ball in the park.* Walker’s fastball comes in at 95, and has similar movement to James Paxton’s, with just a tiny bit less armside run and rise. Intriguingly, at least to nerds like me, is that he’s getting similar balls-in-play results. Not identical, because I don’t think I’ve seen anything like Paxton’s BIP ratios, but similar – Walker throws a “rising” fastball but gets more grounders than the average. Because it’s not extreme, and because he doesn’t pair it with another outlier pitch like Paxton’s curve, Walker’s overall GB% is just a bit over average, at 47%. But just looking at the arsenal, you’d assume something significantly lower. Like Paxton, it’s not like he’s pounding the knees with it; he’s throwing it up in the zone, especially up and away to lefties. And because of *that*, Walker’s able to get a lot of infield pop-ups – his 15.8% rate leads the team, and while the sample is miniscule, he was over 11% in another small sample last year. A rising FB, thrown up and away really OUGHT to get a fair share of pop-ups, after all.
His opponent today is the nearly perfectly-opposite Mark Buehrle. Buehrle’s a veteran with an extremely low walk rate and an extraordinarily slow fastball. The lefty now averages 83-84mph, or about what you might see in a local high school game. His swinging strike rate was never all that high, and his contact rate has crept up recently as well. That said, he’s having one of his better years thanks to a big shift in approach – something Jeff found in a Fangraphs article back in May. Seriously, go read that. Have the trends that Jeff found – Buerhle getting an absurd amount of called strike-threes, and throwing inside sinkers to righties – continued, or were they just a weird one-month blip? Uh, the former. After throwing very few 2-strike sinkers to righties from 2007-2013 (under 10% each year), he’s throwing sinkers in about 40% of his 2-strike counts this year. And that’s led to a huge increase in the percentage of backwards Ks . His previous career high in the percentage of strikeouts that came looking was 39%, back in 2004. This year, it’s 54%. Over his career, Buehrle has no discernible platoon splits. It’s not like this change in approach has changed his fortunes against right-handed bats or anything, but it’s an insight into Buehrle’s ability to adapt, change and hang around in a league that has generally not found guys throwing 83 to be viable. Command is huge.
Here’s today’s line-up:
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, RF
7: Hart, DH
8: Zunino, C
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Tai Walker
Eno Sarris’ interview with Brandon Moss is well worth your time.
And Jeff just wrote about another pitcher who gets even more backwards Ks than 2014-Mark Buehrle: Vance Worley of Pittsburgh.
Here’s Russell “Pizza Cutter” Carleton at BP talking about how much clarity that new “StatCast” system can bring to defensive metrics, and how much we’ll probably never know.
* – Yes, yes, I’m aware that I talked about Paxton’s low BABIP and he got BABIP’d to death, then talked about the crappy line-up yesterday and watched that crappy line-up knock Felix around.
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60 Responses to “Game 158, Mariners at Blue Jays”
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It is so “Mariners” to say this, but Walker has to make you feel pretty good about the rotation for next year. With him and Paxton in there it should at least be fun to watch going into the year.
Elias wasn’t so bad, either. A league-average LHP as your 5th starter?
Now, fix the OF and 1B, and we’re mostly done.
Yes, a CF who can hit lead off and a 1B and a DH who can produce.
More production from the C position, too.
Where have we heard this before?
I thought this was a 79 win team coming into the season, and I still think they will somehow find a way to play bad enough and land on that number.
I think they I overachieved a bit – but it was good to see that happen. Walker ending on a high note was really good to see, too.
You really and truly fill one of the 1b/dh positions and spackle the other. Either LoMo rises to the occasion or DJ or Kivlehan emerge during the first half.
You really and truly fill an outfield spot. Hope and pray that Saunders can stay healthy enough to fill a corner. Leave Jackson/Ackley/Jones et al to fill the last spot.
There’s still a ways to go.
At least it took until the last week of the season for the game threads to become a “what they need to do next year” forum.
Paxton stays healthy for a full season (asking too much considering his history and mechanics?) and continues to progress; Walker stays up for a full season and continues to progress; Ackley hits for a full season the way he’s hit in the second half; Elias finds a bit more consistency; Saunders stays healthy for a full season (asking too much) and hits.
Wild Card slot at least if not a division title.
The Braves will likely be moving Evan Gattis this winter, if that sort of thing interests you. And they really need a CF. Perhaps they can be talked into Jackson or Jones.
BTW Marc – thank you for pointing out the Eno Sarris article. It’s easy to miss stuff on FanGraphs, and I completely missed that great article. Eno Sarris’ is amazing!
Where 180 becomes 360 (aaaaah, the return of some 2013 Snide).
Go M’s! Go Ahead… the pressure’s off.
In case anyone gives a shit, since August 5th, they’ve had 3 or more games winning streaks 4 times, and 3 or more games losing streaks twice.
Unfortunately, this last losing streak has plumbed the depths of bad, not yet equaling that ugly stretch in April in losses … but far outdoing it in loss margin per game — due mainly to our vaunted pitching imploding. Very simply, this is the absolute very worst they’ve done all season.
Go … figure. I can’t. Just like I can’t figure them giving Jack an additional $25-30 million to play with again this winter.
Last winter was desperate. I’m now wondering if, given the five months of something resembling baseball in 2014, it means 2015 will see the return of WFB 2.0 Hotstove.