Game 159, Astros at Mariners
Tony Zych vs. Scott Kazmir, 7:10pm
Imagine you’re an Astros fan. You’ve been through years of one of the most comprehensive, painful, soul-crushing rebuilds on record. Cable carriage-fee wrangling left most of Houston unable to watch the club on TV, and the owner who’s overseen all of this has a…uh, controversial past. Thanks to savvy drafting and a player development group that seems several standard deviations from average, and boom, the club contends in 2015 at least a year ahead of schedule. Not content to hope that they’re good enough as-is, the club then goes out and picks up Scott Kazmir, Mike Fiers and Carlos Gomez at the deadline. And then it all goes to hell, and the Angels – the ANGELS – get off the mat and start winning a bunch of one-run games. It’s ok, says this long-suffering Houston fan, we can just beat up on a Mariner team that seems to have divested itself of starting pitching. Just beat Vidal Nuno on short rest and Mayckol Guaipe Tony Zych, and everything’ll work out. To quote an old phrase well-beloved by veteran M’s watchers, “There is no floor.”
Mayckol Guaipe was listed as the starter tonight at Fangraphs, as he initially came up as a starter in rookie ball. Following a third-straight disaster start in April of 2013, he gave it up and hasn’t been back since. Now, the M’s tweet that it’ll be Tony Zych, who closed in his junior year at Louisville and has been a reliever since then. His last appearance as a starter came in 2010, when he was a college sophomore. I find this so amazing, I have to repeat it: Tony Zych is making his first start as a pro of any kind. Joe Beimel? Ex-starter. Logan Kensing? Definitely. Danny Farquhar’s the closest you can get, as he hadn’t made any starts until one this year in Tacoma, but he was a college starter. The same’s true of Carson Smith, who started at Texas State before moving to the ‘pen in the pros.
Tony Zych is perhaps the least-likely starter given his pro experience and two-pitch repertoire, but hey, maybe the M’s can innovate here. As the wildcard game often means pitching your ace *before* you get to the “real” playoffs, there’s a potential for a club to essentially play match-ups the entire game with their relievers. That is, start a lefty-reliever, get the other club to stack righties in their line-up, then bring in a ROOGY in the 2nd or 3rd. Switch again a few innings later, etc. In this game, the Astros may have no choice but to start a righty-hitting line-up, leaving them somewhat vulnerable if the M’s then put in Joe Beimel….or Rob Rasmussen. Hmm. Okay, let me amend this theory by saying that IN THEORY a team with expanded rosters would have a plethora of left-handed relievers that could replace Zych. But because Nuno just pitched, Furbush is hurt, Olson’s in extended, and Rasmussen and Rollins have been shaky, the Astros may have a bit less to worry about.
And to be fair: Zych’s been remarkably effective. It’s not just that his fastball’s tough to square up, but his slider breaks so much that it may be tough to read for guys who aren’t familiar with him. And at this point in his career, NO ONE’s familiar with him. Without a ton of drop, it’s going to be hard to keep those minimal splits forever, but hey, he’s developing a change-up, and Chaz Roe’s shown that as long as you don’t get blown out of the building by lefties, there’s a way to stick around with a solid FB and a swerving slider.
The other big news item out of M’s-ville is related to the scramble for a starter here: Felix Hernandez won’t pitch again this year. That’s probably for the best, but given the state of the M’s rotation, I can imagine Lloyd McClendon lobbying for one final start, even if it was only 5 IP or so.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Trumbo, RF
7: Montero, 1B
8: O’Malley, CF
9: Sucre, C
SP: Zych
With the M’s win last night, the Astros fell behind the Angels by a half game. It was the first time they’d been out of a playoff position since mid-April.
Game 158, Astros at Mariners
Vidal Nuno vs. Mike Fiers, 7:10pm
It’s not just a Vidal Nuno start, it’s a Nuno start *on short rest.* With James Paxton hurt, Taijuan Walker shut down and the M’s lack of upper-minors pitching depth (it’s telling that the M’s have as many eligible, healthy catchers SPs on their 40-man roster as they have catchers), Lloyd McClendon turned to Nuno to make the spot start tonight, the managing equivalent of a shrug emoji. McClendon’s fighting for his job, meeting with new GM Jerry Dipoto, and also starting Vidal Nuno on short rest because it probably *is* the best option. Managing his own exasperation has got to be part of the game plan as he discusses his vision of the 2016 M’s with Dipoto, but as much as Lloyd has some things to answer for, overall roster depth isn’t on him.
That all sounds like a reason to avoid this contest and do something productive with your life, but this is one of those pitching match-ups I find irrationally interesting. Both of today’s starters were draft day afterthoughts, with Fiers picked after the 20th round, and Nuno waiting until the 48th round to hear his name. And you can see why: neither guy averages 90mph on his fastball, and both love pitching up in the zone despite that lack of velo. As a result, both generate a lot of fly balls, and the difference between a 200′ fly ball and a 425′ one is minuscule. To be successful, they have to be extremely precise. This sounds Moyer-ish; Chris Young with less magic or Beavan with a more command. But they *aren’t* pitch-to-contact, soft-tossing control artists – they’re strikeout pitchers.
Batters have come up empty on 25% of their swings against Vidal Nuno’s four-seam fastball. Not only is that the highest rate of any M’s starter, that would put him in the top 10 of all starting pitchers this season with at least 200 fastballs-thrown. That puts him ahead of Clayton Kershaw, Jose Fernandez, Corey Kluber and Chris Archer. It does not make his fastball a *good pitch* but it does help him maintain a strikeout rate above the league average despite being a lefty throwing 88mph. Fiers gets whiffs on 19% of his four-seamers, which, thanks to his over-the-top delivery generate an absurd amount of rise. But Fiers has learned to do something that Nuno, to date, has not: get opposite-handed hitters out.
Nuno was relieving in Arizona for a reason: righties dominate him, while lefties struggle. In his career, Nuno has a 2.33 FIP vs. lefties and a 5.25 FIP vs. righties. For Fiers, those marks are 3.66 and 4.41, respectively. Both have a shot at “beating” their FIP thanks to a lot of pop-ups and easy fly balls pushing down their BABIP (Nuno’s is .279, Fiers’ is .285), but Nuno simply has to get better against righties, or he can’t be a starter. Fiers’ weapon that’s actually helped him post reverse splits (he’s a righty, remember) isn’t a change-up – it’s a slow curve. Coming in at 73mph, Fiers’ curve has an insane amount of drop; I’m guessing the same over-the-top delivery that produces a backspinning fastball channels the spin on his curve such that it drops nearly straight down. As a result, no curve in baseball has as much drop as Fiers – he comes in just ahead of Chris Tillman, a guy with very similar mechanics. While righties struggle with Fiers’ curve, lefties seem unable to pick it up at all – they’re slugging .291 on it in Fiers’ career. Nuno’s change isn’t anywhere close to that effective. Nuno’s got a curve too, but he doesn’t throw it much – especially to righties. His best pitch is probably his slider, but it’s much less effective against righties, and it doesn’t matter as long as righties are slugging .651 on his four-seam fastball.
Nuno gets strikeouts, but when batters hit the ball, they hit it extremely hard. Fiers struggles with that a bit (he’s given up 17 HRs on his fastball alone this year), but a slow breaking ball and command allow him to survive. That either of these pitchers is in the majors at all seems sort of bizarre – that they’re high-K guys is even more confusing. But Fiers’ curve is, in internet-speak, the one weird trick to become a viable target from a playoff team. Even if Nuno can’t come up with a trick of his own to start battling righties, he’s shown enough that he should carve out a niche as a good LOOGY, and there’s something admirable about watching him throw elevated fastballs past hitters. But this match-up illustrates just how fine the margins are when you throw 88.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Smith, LF
6: Trumbo, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Jones, CF
9: Hicks, C
SP: Nuno
It was good to hear Dipoto mention depth in his press conference, though of course it’s fairly obvious. The M’s system’s prediliction for high-K tools-projects also got a mention, when Dipoto said he was taken aback by the strikeout numbers in the M’s minor league system. This in part reflects one of the key differences between the Zduriencik regime’s draft strategy and that of Dipoto: the M’s tended to value high ceiling guys, while the Angels under Dipoto went for higher floors. Part of this was the result of losing a number of first round picks due to free agent signings – really high ceiling guys don’t stick around long – but part of it seems to be preference. The M’s have gone after younger power bats from Gareth Morgan, Corey Simpson and Tyler O’Neill to college guys with power potential like Mike Zunino or Austin Wilson. There’s nothing wrong with either approach, necessarily. The Rangers have, if anything, actively sought out raw, toolsy guys with K issues, but they’ve often made it work (Lewis Brinson and Joey Gallo have been great in the minors). The problem’s been that the M’s were awful at developing precisely the kind of player their amateur scouts loved. To be fair though, the Angels struggled to develop their own “type” – Cuban IF Roberto Baldoquin alternated between hurt and terrible in the Cal League this year, while Alex Yarbrough mixed Ks with a lack of power in the PCL. Let’s end on yet another caveat: if Dipoto’s drafts had a “type” it wasn’t low-K hitters, it was pitchers. Dipoto didn’t pick a bat until his 8th selection in 2013, and not until his 6th pick in 2014. There’s a reason their top prospect lists are so weighted towards pitchers.
Game 157, Astros at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Lance McCullers, 7:10pm
The M’s have a new GM, and we’ll see where Jerry Dipoto steers the good ship Mariner in the coming months and years, but for now, the M’s play out the string against an Astros club that’s desperately trying to hold off the Angels. Roenis Elias has all but replicated the out-of-nowhere season he had in 2014, despite his poor showing in the minors in between. Meanwhile, Lance McCullers stabilized the back of the Astros rotation and was a big part of their run in May/June. But like the rest of his team, McCullers has fallen back to earth a bit in the second half. To be clear: we’re talking about a guy who pitched, and not exactly well, in high-A in 2014, so the fact that he’s no longer dominating big league hitters falls in the “good problems to have” category. But here we are: there’s less than a week to go, the Astros have a half-game lead, and they desperately need their 21-year old rookie to get back on track.
One of the striking things about McCullers is his platoon splits. It’s not just that they’re reversed, and he’s pitching better against lefties, it’s that they’re massive and persist in basically any component you want to look at. His FIP against righties isn’t just higher – it’s *1.7 runs* higher. His K/9 isn’t just higher against lefties, it’s 2.6 higher. Against righties, McCullers is a perfectly good, young middle of the rotation guy. Against lefties, he’s a dominant force. This seems odd. But the pattern’s repeated at essentially every stop in the minors – this really doesn’t seem like a sample-size oddity. Even looking by pitch, you see it: lefties are mystified by his hard curve ball, while righties are slightly confused.
How’s this possible? My guess is that it’s the product of McCullers’ “crossfire” delivery – his tendency to hide the ball with his body by stepping a bit towards 3B. We often associate this with sidearmers and relief specialists, but there are several pitchers who employ this technique and, for whatever reason, end up messing with opposite-handed-hitters’ view of the ball during delivery. One of the only pitchers with a K/9 against lefties that’s higher than McCullers is another crossfiring right-hander: Jake Arrieta. This NY Times piece mentions that Baltimore tried to change Arrieta’s delivery to save strain on his shoulder, but the Cubs essentially told him to throw however he wanted, and he reverted back to his pre-draft delivery. With the Cubs, Arrieta’s been great against everyone, but look what he’s doing to lefties on the year. The same pattern held last year as well.
So why would Baltimore teach an effective delivery out of Arrieta? M’s fans are probably already wincing, but this across-the-body delivery was the hallmark of Danny Hultzen. While Hultzen’s splits weren’t as bizarrely reversed as Arrieta’s or McCullers, that delivery was a big reason Hultzen was able to throw 89-91mph fastballs past right-handed hitters in the high minors. You’d see it with his breaking ball, with righties putting up some truly ugly swings on sliders – a pitch that’s supposed to have big (normal) platoon splits. Deception overcame that, just as it overcame average velocity. One of the big issues teams have with this delivery is that it often leads to control problems. That happened to Hultzen, but he was able to work through it, just as he did at UVA. The other problem is worse: shoulder injuries. Hultzen couldn’t dodge that one, and while it’s essentially impossible to pin an injury on mechanics (esp. ones the pitcher had for years in college), it makes you think slightly differently about Baltimore’s dilemma with Arrieta. Hultzen went to extended spring training with the intent of straightening out his delivery, but weakness in his shoulder made it a second straight lost season.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Trumbo, RF
6: Smith, LF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, CF
9: Sucre, S
SP: Elias
6 lefties in the line-up tonight. McCullers has to be happy about that.
M’s Will Reportedly Announce Jerry Dipoto as New GM Today
It started with a tweet from ESPN’s Jim Bowden, but it’s everywhere now: the M’s have reportedly decided to offer the GM position to ex-Angels GM Jerry Dipoto. We don’t know the full candidate list, but recent reports had the M’s deciding between Dipoto and Yankees AGM Billy Eppler. I’ll have more later, but here’s what we know about Dipoto:
1: Has the GM experience that M’s president Kevin Mather wanted, as he led the Angels from October 2011 to July of 2015.
2: Worked as head of player development in Arizona from 2005 to 2010 under stat-conscious GM Josh Byrnes. As player development is perhaps the most crucial (and unexpected) failing of the M’s in the Zduriencik years, this was probably a big plus for Dipoto.
3: Reputation for mixing statistical information with old-school scouting. Dipoto has scouted for Boston and Colorado before moving to Arizona, and clearly has a foot in both worlds. Theoretically, his status as an ex-MLB pitcher may help him sell recommendations with managers; it’s probably a bit easier to take coming from a big leaguer than a 27-year old Ivy League grad who refers to probability distributions.
That sounds great, of course, but there are also some red flags here. These aren’t proof positive of anything, mind you, but they need to be discussed. First, while he has GM experience, his Angels tenure was not without problems. Given that the M’s wanted GM experience because it was a proxy for being able to manage a diverse group of departments, the fact that Dipoto resigned after getting out-maneuvered by his field manager – who worked directly with ownership – is a concern. More than that, Dipoto presided over a series of remarkably unproductive drafts. As I mentioned the other day, the Angels have had a surprisingly good group of young players make the majors under Dipoto, but nearly all were drafted before Dipoto took over. Because he only took over in 2011, some of this is to be expected: the Angels haven’t had time to graduate top prospects like Sean Newcomb. They’ve gotten great production out of Mike Trout, Kole Calhoun and Garrett Richards, but all of them were drafted by Tony Reagins. Andrew Heaney’s been a bright spot, but he made his MLB debut for the Marlins and was essentially MLB-ready before Dipoto acquired him. Many of the balance of the Angels’ top 10 were acquired in trade, from Nick Tropeano (Astros), Kyle Kubitza (Braves) and Trevor Gott (Padres). Maybe that’s the result of some skilled deal-making, but it suggests that the system’s draft-and-development group hasn’t been terribly productive.
The same is true of Dipoto’s tenure in Arizona. When Josh Byrnes took over in late 2005, the Diamondbacks had a farm system ranked #1 in baseball. By the time he and Dipoto left, the system ranked in baseball’s bottom third. To be fair: part of the reason why the system looked bereft of talent was that so many of their top prospects graduated to the majors, from Justin Upton to Micah Owings to Stephen Drew. Dipoto should get a modicum of credit for helping get those players ready for the bigs, but again, all three were drafted prior to his hiring, and the players he presided over have a pretty mixed record. From Bobby Borchering to Taijuan Walker’s HS teammate Matt Davidson to Marc Krauss to Brandon Allen, the D-Backs collected corner bats and watched nearly all of them stall. The one who DIDN’T was the least-heralded of the bunch, and his success makes you think differently about the prospect rankings. If we knew then what we know now, would they be ranked 22nd? No, probably not. Does one really big win make up for a ton of losses? It depends, but it clearly helps. In any event, Dipoto had a couple of successes during his tenure, but that tenure also saw the system’s overall talent drop vis a vis its competitors. How you apportion credit and blame between the GM, the Player Development group and the amateur scouting crew is impossible to figure out. Let’s just say, though, that the overall record is mixed.
I mention all of this not to say it’s a terrible hire. His blend of experiences seems perfect – from player to scout to (stat-aware) executive – and having navigated a number of different organizations, I think he’ll be better at people-management than his predecessor. He’s worked in an environment where he had a nearly unlimited free-agent budget, and he’s worked under a GM in Arizona who had more fiscal constraints. While the Josh Hamilton acquisition blew up on him, it’s generally acknowledged that ownership had a hand in that deal. He’s made some extremely good trades, such as the Zack Greinke deal, and picking up Ernesto Frieri worked wonders in the short term. But just as there’s good on his resume, there’s some concerning things, too. That’s the nature of long resumes, perhaps. I’m cautiously optimistic here, though I think I’m much more cautious than others, at least from a quick glance at my twitter feed.
Game 156, Mariners at Angels
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Jered Weaver, 12:35pm
One of the tired cliches of meaningless September baseball is that a team can play “spoiler” – that they have an opportunity to impact a playoff race that they themselves aren’t involved in. The verb feels odd, like this spoiling business is a game or musical instrument, and it’s never clear if this is a nice consolation prize or some awful baseball purgatory: watching others experience what you and your teammates can’t. Does it have to be forward-looking, or can the M’s look back on their season and identify spoilering back in, say, May? I bring it up because, despite their strong second half record, the M’s have brought joy to several teams in recent weeks. While they delayed the inevitable by a day, they were the opponent the Royals clinched the AL Central against. And now, they’re keeping the wild card chase pretty interesting, bringing the Angels to within a half-game of Houston and keeping them there last night. This is the necessary opposite of the “spoiler,” and because the M’s face Houston after this series, they will either spread joy again or, if you prefer, spoil their previous spoiling.
Instead of having a role in deciding playoff teams, most M’s fans are interested in this one because of the Angels’ starter. 11 days ago, Weaver was ejected after plunking Kyle Seager following a testy exchange as Seager settled into the batters box. I’ve been a bit surprised to see how many people saw this as a case of Seager trolling the competitive Weaver as opposed to Weaver picking a really odd thing to get pissed off about. In any event, it doesn’t sound like there’s any residual animosity here, so I doubt we’ll see an encore or an escalation, though I really hope Seager homers so we’ll get a chance to test that hypothesis.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Montero, 1B
6: Smith, LF
7: Morrison, RF
8: Miller, CF
9: Hicks, C
SP: Iwakuma
The Angels seem to struggle against splitters, which bodes well for Iwakuma today. LoMo as an outfielder, however, does not. Thankfully, Iwakuma’s a ground ball guy.
Game 155, Mariners at Angels
King Felix vs. Andrew Heaney, 6:05pm
Happy Felix day.
After an extra day of rest, the King faces off with Angels rookie lefty Andrew Heaney. The M’s saw him in the last game of the first half, back in July, and couldn’t figure him out. Heaney tossed 7 shutout innings at the M’s, confounding them with his low 3/4 delivery and a release point that’s half way to the first base line. That should make him tough on lefties, and he is, with a FIP barely above 2 against them. As a result, he’s facing nearly 3X more right-handed batters than lefties, and with that kind of release point, you’d figure he’d really struggle against them. That hasn’t happened yet, for whatever reason. Thanks in part to a low BABIP, righties are only hitting .241/.302/.382 off of him. His FIP isn’t great, as he’s not missing many right-handed bats despite a solid change and a very good curveball.
Heaney’s running a low BABIP and an extremely low ground ball rate, which illustrates the most interesting part of Heaney’s splits. To lefties, he pairs Ks with lots of ground balls. Righties, on the other hand, hit a ton of fly balls. Both his curve and change get get sink, but while lefties swing over the top or beat them into the ground, right-handers seem to sky them. Righties have hit 11 infield flies, while lefties have hit none. This sounds like a great approach for his home park, but Heaney’s actually struggled there, giving up 6 of his 8 HRs at home.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Trumbo, RF
7: Montero, 1B
8: Sucre, C
9: O’Malley, CF
SP: El Cartelua
Tony Blengino used Z scores and age-relative-to-league to rank minor leaguers and then rank the MiLB systems of each club. As you’d expect, the M’s finished in the bottom third thanks to the odd struggles of DJ Peterson and Alex Jackson. The top players were Ketel Marte, who, to be fair, has looked great so far, and SP Edwin Diaz who was excellent in high A and then battled AA to a draw at 21. Blengino dubs the M’s the org that took the biggest step back. The Angels actually finished behind the M’s thanks to a dearth of hitting prospects – something that’s troubled the org for a while. With Jerry Dipoto apparently a finalist for the M’s GM opening, it’s worth noting that Dipoto really struggled in the draft as head of the Halos. His predecessor, Tony Reagins, didn’t have the reputation of a great draft/player development guy, but he DID pick Mike Trout and Kole Calhoun, Randal Grichuk, Tyler Skaggs and Patrick Corbin in one draft, then Calhoun and still-sorta-prospect Kaleb Cowart in the next.
Game 154, Mariners at Angels
Vidal Nuno vs. Garrett Richards, 7:05pm
Garrett Richards makes his 5th start of the year against the M’s, and, perhaps luckily for him, dodges Felix Hernandez following the M’s rotation shake-up. Going back to 2014, when Richards became a top-flight starter, he’s faced the M’s 6 times, and utterly dominated them in 4 of those starts. Maybe it’s luck, maybe it’s the wear and tear of topping 170 IP for the first time, but his only two mediocre starts have come in his last two tries. The first four times he faced the M’s, he went 2-0 and gave up four total runs in 29 2/3 IP. With his cutter-ish four-seam and hard, hard slider, he has essentially no platoon splits. His heavy fastball produces lots of grounders, so he’s largely immune from the HR problems that have plagued some of his teammates on the road. Every indication we have is that all of those strengths are still there – he’s still throwing 97, still throwing a sinking four-seamer, and his slider still dives like an 89mph curve ball. But the M’s have touched him for 8 runs on 17 hits and 2 HRs in just 10 1/3 IP the last two times they faced him.
The biggest reason why Richards’ FIP is nearly a run higher than it was last year is that Richards’ slider is no longer untouchable. In 2014, batters *slugging percentage* on sliders was .173. They hit zero homers and just four doubles on the nearly 800 sliders Richards threw. This year, though, they’re slugging .358 on 943 sliders, with 18 XBH including 8 dingers. To be clear: it’s still a very good pitch, and Richards has probably been somewhat unlucky on the pitch this year, but it illustrates how regression comes for every player *and every player strength*. Richards’ slider was gold in 2014, and nothing gold can stay. So is that the answer to the M’s recent run of form against the Angels’ ace? Surprisingly, no. The M’s were always completely undone by Richards’ fastball, and that’s the pitch they’ve seemingly learned to hit.
In his first 3 starts against the M’s, he posted pitch type linear weights, or the run value below average, of about 8 runs in total (I’m combining Richards’ sinker and four-seamer here) while his slider was 3.4 runs better than average. There are many reasons why pitch type linear weights isn’t the best metric here, in that it’s a counting stat and he threw more FBs and balls “hurt” Richards, and he’s more likely to throw the slider for a ball. But in this case, it illuminates the problem the M’s had with his fastball. Richards threw a *ton* of sliders in this 3 game sample, throwing 47 of 98 pitches in a game in 2014, for example, so while he threw more total fastballs, it’s not like he threw 80% FB/20% sliders. But look what’s happened to his run value in his LAST 3 starts against the M’s: it’s 3.3 runs BELOW average. His slider has dropped too, but it isn’t as dramatic.
As Richards is almost absurdly consistent, there doesn’t seem to be any change in *how* he uses his fastball. Here, for example, is a graph of his horizontal pitch location this year. This graph *should* be volatile, and it’s not. There are more peaks and valleys on the vertical location chart, but there’s been no change in approach. It this the M’s making an adjustment? I’d like to think so, just because evidence of them adjusting just about anything that isn’t working is so often hard to find. But we’re quickly reaching the outer limits of what I can gin up by looking at free data; the M’s aren’t whiffing on his FB now, but then, they didn’t too much before. They’re turning strikes into balls in play, and balls in play into hits, but that’s always the noisiest part of the data. Maybe they’ve figured out the pitch’s odd movement, maybe they spotted some sort of tell (his vertical release point for sliders is a tiiiiny bit higher than it is for FBs), or maybe the batters’ eye at Safeco’s really good. Maybe it’s just that his most recent starts occurred when the M’s offense has been legitimately good. Whatever it is, may it continue tonight.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Smith, LF
6: Trumbo, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, CF
9: Baron, C
SP:
A depressing note from Joe Sheehan regarding King Felix. In a free preview of his subscription newsletter, Sheehan noted a year ago that Felix has the highest WAR of any active player who’s never played in the playoffs, and it’s not close. At the time, Felix had a 10+ WAR lead over Brian Roberts, who then retired (and technically, Roberts played a tiny bit on the 2013 O’s team that went to the playoffs, though of course Roberts wasn’t on the playoff roster), a larger lead over Mike Trout and Alex Rios. Mike Trout made the playoffs last year, and Rios is headed there in 2015. It’s not just that Felix leads this sad group, it’s that so many of the group get disqualified every year once their clubs break their playoff droughts. We always say that Felix stands alone, but this is a particularly sad verification of it.
The Red Sox today hired ex-Braves GM Frank Wren as a senior VP for baseball ops, which means their front office is now even more crowded than it was. Despite firing GM Ben Cherington earlier in the year, the club now has a President of baseball operations, a general manager, and now Wren. Gordon Edes says the hierarchy is Dave Dombrowski (President), then Mike Hazen (the GM), and then Wren (Senior VP). But the club now has 4 “Senior VPs” within the same division and it’s not clear at all how they divvy up the work. Along with Allard Baird, there are fully 4 GMs/ex-GMs on staff, and 28 total VPs throughout the org (plus another with Fenway Sports). I know there’s a trend towards hiring “President” types above GMs, but this seems unparalleled.
Game 153, Mariners at Royals
James Paxton vs. Johnny Cueto, 5:10pm
We’re under ten games to go in 2015, and the M’s technically haven’t been eliminated yet, which is…no, it’s not much of anything, but I suppose it’s better than the LAST time national experts thought the M’s would be contenders. That year, 2010, was one of the most dispiriting campaigns in M’s history, which is saying something. At the other end of the spectrum, Kansas City can clinch the AL West tonight with a win and a Twins loss. I remember when we used to joke that at least the M’s org wasn’t as bad as the Royals or Pirates. Both of those teams are *returning* to the playoffs this year.
Johnny Cueto’s been a rather disappointing pick-up since the Royals traded for him in late July. In 10 starts, he’s gone 2-6 with an ERA over 5 thanks to a very high BABIP. By FIP, he’s been merely average, which still isn’t quite what Dayton Moore thought he was buying, but it’s reason for hope (of a sort). Cueto’s explanation of what’s gone wrong is, at least in part, that catcher Sal Perez kept his glove too high, and this caused him to elevate pitches. After talking with him about it, he pitched quite well, though as Jeff Sullivan noted, he threw the ball *higher* than he did before. It’s not important if Cueto’s explanation was true or not – if Cueto believed it was affecting him, then he was right to say something. Pitching coach Dave Eiland blamed a mechanical issue with Cueto’s delivery – that his front shoulder was flying open. Both explanations are somewhat hard to evaluate, given that no pitcher always hits a catcher’s target and that Cueto’s twisting delivery means his front shoulder goes flying on every pitch. Whatever the real explanation (and it may just be BABIP luck and stranding runners), I can’t imagine Cueto’s the favorite guy in the clubhouse after pointing the finger at Perez.
Cueto throws a four-seam fastball at around 93 and has a great diving change-up that racks up whiffs and strikeouts. This year, he’s missing just as many bats, but batters have really made him pay for mistakes. When he leaves it up, batters have done very well. When he gets it down – which is typically where he wants it – the results have been much better. Given his career-best walk rate, it’s hard to detect command issues, but the results make you wonder – in 10 games, he’s given up 9 HRs, including 7 in two games against Baltimore. Most of the damage has been done by right-handed hitters. The change is still quite effective against lefties, but he’s using it pretty often against righties, and it hasn’t been as successful. There’s nothing really wrong with that approach – it moves somewhat like a splitter, so it shouldn’t have much in the way of platoon splits. The cutter he developed recently has also been a bit spotty. Cueto’s dead-even platoon splits last year have turned into extreme *reverse* splits this year, as his K% is much higher against lefties, while he’s giving up more HRs to righties. His FIP to lefties is 2.83, but to righties it’s 4.13.
Cueto’s not *really* a guy with extreme reverse platoon splits; he’s a guy who’s made a number of bad pitches to righties, and paid a steep price. But it’s also worth considering that he isn’t a true-talent 80% left-on-base guy either. In 2013 and 2014, he put up great ERAs despite solid-but-not-Cy-Young-worthy FIPs thanks to ridiculous BABIPs of .236 and .238. Even with his so-so few months in KC, Cueto’s FIP is right in between in 2013 and 2014 marks; he doesn’t look like a different pitcher at all, it’s just that now his BABIP is a low but not insane .275, his strand rate’s lower and his ERA matches up with his FIP. Still, Cueto had full season BABIPs under .250 three times from 2011-2014, which is kind of incredible for a righty. He’s clearly pitching in front of a better defense now than when he was in Cincinnati, but it may be that Cincinnati knew a lot more about how to position themselves behind him. If that’s true, and I haven’t done any looking for evidence that it is, I wonder if that’s part of what’s going on in the so-called free agent penalty – the observation that players who stay with a team tend to do better than veteran players who sign with a new club.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Smith, LF
6: Trumbo, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, CF
9: Sucre, C
SP: Paxton
Game 152, Mariners at Royals
Roenis Elias vs. Yordano Ventura, 5:10pm
Not sure if Jeremy Guthrie’s going to make the Royals playoff roster. Yesterday’s disaster start did serious damage to his FIP, and pushed his fWAR (which is based on FIP) down from -0.5 to -0.9. By runs allowed, the picture is somehow even worse: -1.0 WAR thanks to an RA that’s now over 6.
I didn’t come here to bury Mr. Guthrie, however. Rather, I wanted to note that the Royals have surged to the top of the AL despite a second consecutive down year from their all-star catcher, Salvador Perez. In a development pattern that’s bizarre to everyone except M’s fans, Perez has put up the following wRC+ figures since his debut in 2011: 126, 114, 106, 92, 86. Perez’s bat-to-ball skills are freakishly good, and even now he strikes out much less than most hitters, but his return on all of the balls in play he produces have grown steadily worse, and while his walk rate was never good, it’s now a real red flag. 43 catchers have had at least 200 plate appearances this year. By OBP, Perez’s .276 mark ranks 39th. In case you were wondering, Rene Rivera spared Mike Zunino the ignominy of having the lowest OBP by putting up a remarkable .180/.214/.279 line that looks like it’s from the dead ball era. Perez started from a much better place than Zunino, but the trajectory looks familiar. I wondered if other catchers fit this profile, but they’re pretty hard to find. Like most players, catcher offense benefits from experience and normal aging curves. As Perez *has* reached the 20 HR mark for the first time, I wondered if he was selling out for power, but there’s not a lot of evidence for that in his pull percentage or GB/FB ratio. I bring it up not because it’s crippled the Royals – they’re pretty obviously doing fine – but because I’m fascinated, and oddly encouraged, when I see other teams have development…oddities like the M’s.
Today’s starter, Yordano Ventura, has had an eventful year. From odd cramping problems, to a suspension for plunking Brett Lawrie to a mid-year demotion to AAA, you’d think Ventura would be having a year to forget. It hasn’t been *good*, but Ventura’s starting to turn his elite stuff – the fastest starting pitcher fastball, for example – into strikeouts. When he came up, he put up great results without strikeouts thanks to oddly low BABIPs and good ground ball rates. This year, his GB% is even higher, and he’s finally above the league average in K%. His curve has developed into a great pitch, and while he has some platoon splits, they’re minuscule thanks to a good-if-erratic change-up. That said, his nearly-100mph fastball’s been oddly hittable. This year, batters are hitting .367 and slugging .600 on Ventura’s four-seam fastball – he’s got a sinker as well, but the four-seamer’s the one he uses most often. Last year, the league hit .235 off of it. Obviously, sample’s an issue here, and his true talent is probably in between these two marks, but the point is: Ventura’s fastball’s sucked, and Ventura’s paying a price for it.
Back in June, Jeff Sullivan noted that Ventura led the league in pull% – the percentage of balls in play allowed that were pulled. This was true of fly balls as well as grounders, and generally made a mockery of the small but consistent inverse correlation between velocity and pull%. For some reason, batters find it really easy to turn around Ventura’s fastball. Checking in now, Jered Weaver’s got him beat, but Ventura’s still #2. Fangraphs’ numbers don’t break out grounders (which tend to be pulled more often) from other balls in play, so it’s not a big surprise that much of the top of the list is made up of ground ball guys like Felix, Jeff Locke and Charlie Morton. So: batters pull the ball against Ventura, and batters have destroyed Ventura’s fastball. So are they pulling his fastball? Strangely, not really. Here’s a balls-in-play heatmap of *left* handers against Ventura’s fastball:
The righty version looks much the same. What I think may be happening is that hitters have to start so early on his fastball, that they invariably pull pitches that come in slower, like his change-up. Ventura’s change averages 88mph, so it must be tempting to either get more sink on it (so batters swing over the top) or slower speed (so they get their bat out of the zone before the pitch arrives), but I can imagine both of those things are easier said than done.
What Ventura *has* done is tweak his delivery a bit. He’s much more 3/4 as opposed to more over the top, and thus his vertical release point’s come down. That’s taken some of the “rise” off of the four-seamer while adding a bit of horizontal run. No idea if that change has made it easier to see, but it has coincided with much lower fastball whiff rates and *higher* breaking ball/offspeed whiff rates. Add it all up, and Ventura’s got a solid FIP but a mediocre ERA and RA thanks to a high BABIP – and Ventura certainly can’t blame that on poor fielders. Ventura’s always been a polarizing prospect/player, and I can imagine few players would generate a wider spectrum of answers as to how to value him.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Smith, RF
7: Trumbo, 1B
8: Miller, CF
9: Sucre, C
SP: Elias
Game 151, Mariners at Royals
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Jeremy Guthrie, 5:10pm
I wrote about the huge gap in W/L records between the M’s and Rangers despite some striking similarities in their peripheral stats the other day, but I could’ve written much the same about the M’s and Royals. With the AL clustered around .500, perhaps it’s to be expected that a team could get to 10 games over .500 or so through a combination of sequencing and whatever’s in the black box that we can’t yet measure. But the Royals have laid waste to the league, owning the league’s best record since early June or so. While they haven’t been perfect in recent weeks, they’re still a game up on Toronto, a team that seemingly hasn’t lost since the trade deadline.
And yet, the Royals and Mariners are tied with identical wRC+ marks for their offenses. The Royals have a better OBP, the M’s have a larger lead in slugging. Their pitching staffs rank 18th and 19th by FIP. Park adjusting that gives the Royals a clear but small lead in fWAR, but by xFIP the M’s have a similar edge. By park adjusted ERA, the Royals have a clear advantage, and that starts to hint at a few of the reasons why the Royals have outplayed their raw FIP.
First, and perhaps most importantly, they remain one of the best fielding clubs in baseball. By most measures Fangraphs has (like UZR), the Royals lead all teams in runs saved. By DRS, they’re second, but it’s quite close. As we heard about last year, their outfield is a real strength, and they’re still excellent, though they rank second behind Kevin Kiermaier and it-literally-doesn’t-matter-who-else of the Rays. They’re solid at nearly every spot on the IF as well, and this run-prevention group is a big reason why the Royals staff has given up far fewer runs than you’d expect if you just glanced at FIP. Add their batting runs to their fielding, and the Royals position players have a ten-win edge on the M’s’ group.
Second, they strand runners thanks to an elite bullpen. The pen’s been a strength of the club for years, but the group STILL has the lowest bullpen ERA in the AL, a solid-but-not-incredible FIP and they’ve done it all throwing more innings than any other AL team besides Tampa. The bullpen gives the Royals a clear advantage in close and low-scoring games, and they’ve come from behind to win 37 games while only coughing up a lead 24 times. This also doesn’t feel “lucky” per se, especially given that they’ve been dominating at the tail end of games for 3-4 years now. Interestingly, their closer, Greg Holland, has been struggling of late and today the Royals announced he’d be moving out of the role due to a mild elbow injury. Not only that, but even when he’s back, the guy with 125 saves since the start of 2013 won’t get his old job back: the Royals are sticking with Wade Davis, the lefty acquired as the 2nd part of the huge Wil Myers/James Shields trade (which now that neither of those guys play for the teams that acquired them, maybe we should just call the Wade Davis for Jake Odorizzi deal). It’s Davis who’s been the real star of the KC bullpen this year – he’s 3rd on the team in fWAR, but that probably undersells him. Since the start of 2014, a period covering over 130 innings, Davis has an ERA under 1 and has given up all of 2 home runs. His FIP last season was 1.19, but has soared to 2.22 this campaign. The Royals are gonna be fine at closer, is what I’m saying.
At the other end of the Royals WAR list stands tonight’s starter, Jeremy Guthrie. Guthrie’s not a strikeout pitcher, so he’s benefited greatly from the all-world defense behind him, and as a fly-ball pitcher, he’s been especially fortunate (he and Chris Young are tailor-made for this club). It’s one reason why Guthrie’s so consistently “beaten” his FIP. From 2007 to 2014 – *8* full seasons – Guthrie posted a lower ERA than FIP, and some years, 2013 for example, the gap was huge. That streak looks like it’s coming to an end this year, and Guthrie’s currently sporting an ugly ERA (and FIP) solidly above 5. If the Royals weren’t leading the AL, this would probably be extremely frustrating to Guthrie, considering how little difference you see in his stats: his velocity’s essentially the same, his K% is exactly where it was in 2013, and his BB% is higher only fractionally. BABIP and strand rate have worsened, as they’d have to, but hitters are making *less* contact than they did in 2013. They *are* hitting the ball in the air a lot more, as his line drive rate has spiked and his fly ball rate is higher than it’s been since he was a Baltimore Oriole. And thus, despite a fairly normal HR/FB, he’s given up an awful lot of HRs. Lefties have always given him trouble, but in recent years, his platoon splits have gotten fairly extreme.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Smith, RF
7: Montero, 1B
8: Miller, CF
9: Sucre, C
SP: Iwakuma
Given Guthrie’s splits, you’d expect to see LoMo in there at 1B, but there are two reasons why he’s not. First, his wife gave birth to a baby girl last night, so LoMo’s taking some paternity leave (congratulations, Morrison family). Second, Montero’s got great stats against Guthrie in what is obviously a small sample. We can talk about the validity of stats like that, but they clearly matter to McClendon, and may mean more to players than we’d think.
Nelson Cruz quad continues to bother him, though it’s obviously not keeping him out of the line-up. Today, Lloyd said we wouldn’t see Cruz in the field again this year.
The Brewers filled their GM vacancy with 30-year old Houston AGM David Stearns. The M’s have been oddly silent, especially given how much Mather stressed he wanted someone soon. There was talk that Jerry Dipoto interviewed back in early September, and more recently, we’ve heard the M’s have interviewed Yankees AGM Billy Eppler. If the M’s are open to folks who haven’t been GMs before (they said they weren’t, of course, but Eppler’s never been a GM), they may want to speak to Quinton McCracken, the head of player development in Houston. McCracken’s led a PD group that’s been jaw-droppingly successful this year, though how to apportion credit for minor league success and success in MLB is always tough to do. The M’s may not have a chance, as McCracken’s already interviewing for the Boston job.