Cactus League: M’s at Brewers; Bloggers vs. Information Gap
Marco Gonzales vs. Junior Guerra, 12:05 (radio on 710, delayed until 7)
The M’s head to Maryvale to take on one of the most intriguing teams of 2018, the Milwaukee Brewers. After getting a jump-start on their rebuild by swapping current M’s SS Jean Segura, the Brewers made a series of deals in 2016 and have turned themselves into a contending team faster than anyone would’ve hoped. After a near miss last year, they’ve added CF Lorenzo Cain and traded for OF Christian Yelich. Their offense was solid last year, and looks to be even better now. The key is going to be pitching. While they were excellent last year, the projection systems simply aren’t buying the impressive seasons of guys like Chase Anderson and Jimmy Nelson. That they’ve now got Yovani Gallardo and Wade Miley for depth doesn’t help their projections, either.
Today’s starter, Junion Guerra, may help pitch the innings that went to Matt Garza last year (who’s left in free agency), and may prevent the Brewers from needing to squeeze serious innings out of Gallardo. Guerra’s an interesting story, having been drafted as a catcher and not starting to pitch until he was in his early 20s. Even from that point, it took him years to reach the majors, getting 4 innings with the White Sox in 2015. Claimed off of waivers, the Brewers made him a starter, and after a solid half-year with them in 2016, became the club’s opening day starter last year at age 32. 2017 was a rough one, however, as he logged just 70 IP, and lost his starting job. Plagued by shoulder injuries for a few years, Guerra’s velo was off noticeably in 2017, with his four-seam fastball down about 2 full MPH from 2016.
It’d be cool for Brewers fans to see how he’s doing, and as a Mariner fan, I’m really intrigued by the cutter Marco Gonzales is re-introducing this spring. The problem is that one of the key information sources for things like this – pitch fx – has been switched off. No longer can we get real-time data on what pitchers are throwing and how it’s working. Mike Leake’s tweaked his changeup to increase the velocity gap between it and his fastball, as this great Ryan Divish piece details. I’d love to see more stats on how many times he’s thrown it and what batters have done, but in 2018, that’s no longer possible. It’s tough to complain about access to data now that every game has statcast and gobs and gobs more data than we could ever really use. But getting information on pitchers in the spring was awesome – a great way to see who might be on the verge of a breakout and who might be slowing down.
To be clear, reporters are notifying everyone of these pitch/repertoire changes, and you can see snippets of them in highlight clips, but it’s still really, really useful to get a record of what batters do against a pitch. Leake and Gonzales are absolutely critical to the M’s playoff chances this year, and any kind of change to their arsenal may make it more likely that they can contribute the way Jerry Dipoto believes they’re capable. But every spring is full of stories like this, and many of them are left behind in Peoria when the season starts; not sure how many years we’ve heard about Felix experimenting with a cutter, for example.
Leake’s change is a fascinating example. It’s always been thrown extremely hard – it’s averaged 85-86 since Leake entered the majors, and his fastball’s been around 91. That small gap in velocity should lead to very low whiff/swinging strike rates, and that’s indeed what we’ve seen. That said, it’s been his best groundball pitch, better even than his sinker. Early in his career, it was hit quite hard, with batters often slugging over .500 against him on cambios. In recent years, Leake’s results on his change have improved markedly. It’s a nice weapon to have to pair with his cutter, especially against lefties, who’ve troubled him from time to time over his career (not too surprising for a sinkerballing righty). So Leake was already doing something with his change; some adjustment between 2015 and 2016 generated much more drop at more or less the same velocity. Will the new, larger, velocity gap make Leake more of a strikeout pitcher? I guess we’ll see – it’d be cool to see his whiff rates on it thus far, but I guess that’s not in the cards.
1: Gamel, LF
2: Romine, SS
3: Zunino, DH
4: Vogelbach, 1B
5: Lake, LF
6: Motter, 3B
7: Beckham, 2B
8: Marjama, C
9: Bishop, CF
SP: Gonzales
Vogelbach’s, uh, back in the field and starts at 1B. The M’s have been oddly consistent in where their utility-IF candidates play – Romine’s essentially only been at SS, while Motter’s played 3B. Huh.
2018 Baseball Prospectus Annual
Hey, a non-game post here for a second. I was going to mention this earlier, but I never actually believed it would happen until I actually held the thing in my hands, but I’ve written the Mariners essay in the 2018 Baseball Prospectus Annual. More importantly, they’ve actually gone and published it.
This blog and BP go way back, as Derek and Dave wrote for BP 15-20 years ago, helping to build that site from offshoot of particularly fecund online forums to what it is now, a breeding ground for MLB team analysts and a place to find some of the best baseball writing anywhere. As a fan of BP for years, it’s a surreal feeling to see something I wrote in a BP annual, and while the essay itself may feel familiar for those 3-4 of you who religiously read each game past, I think M’s fans will get something out of it.
It’s on sale at your neighborhood book store, and it’s also at Amazon (and it’s on sale). Other M’s-blogosphere people who’ve got essays in the book include the inimitable Patrick Dubuque of BP (formerly of Lookout Landing), who wrote the Diamondbacks essay and Meg Rowley of The Hardball Times (formerly of BP and Lookout Landing) who wrote about the Astros. It’s all worth reading, and I’d be grateful if you picked one up.
Cactus League Game 7, Royals at Mariners
Mike Leake vs. Burch Smith, 12:10pm
The M’s lost to Cleveland yesterday, dropping their Cactus League record to 2-4, which is about as meaningless a thing as you’re liable to run across today. The M’s starting pitching – a disastrous start by Andrew Moore aside – has been excellent, and Mike Leake looks to continue that today. The rebuilding Royals are undefeated thus far, which just reinforces the fact that wins/losses in Arizona don’t really matter – this is where Munenori Kawasaki was a batting star, where Mike Zunino couldn’t make an out if he tried right before one of the worst seasons in Mariners history. Some things, some stats, some indicators matter. Wins and losses are not among those indicators.
Opposing Leake today is the fascinating ex-Ray/ex-Padre righty Burch Smith. Smith was utterly dominant in the Pads system in 2013, rising from AA to the majors thanks to solid control of a plus fastball and change. He throws from a low 3/4 slot, making him especially tough on right-handed bats. That said, his 10-game cup of coffee with San Diego was a frustrating one, as he hemorrhaged runs and while his K rate was nice, it didn’t make up for newfound control woes and a complete inability to deal with lefties. As Carson Cistulli (an early fan) noted at Fangraphs many years ago, one of the big issues he had was maintaining his good velocity. He averaged 93 on his four-seam fastball, but that average was the result of a much wider range than most starters. Early in the game, Smith would touch 98, and Brooks has him throwing at least one pitch at 99 in May of 2013. For a starter, that’s pretty remarkable. The problem was that by the end of his outing, he’d be at 91.
Something to work on for Smith, then, and at just 23 years old in 2013, he had plenty of time. Unfortunately, injuries got in the way. Just after he was traded to Tampa in the huge Wil Myers/Steven Souza/Trea Turner 3-way swap (what I call the Rene Rivera deal for short), he started feeling arm pain, which limited him to a handful of minor league innings in 2014. After all that rest, he was ready to make a run at the Rays rotation in 2015, but his elbow gave out and he underwent Tommy John surgery in April of 2015. After a setback with he rehab in 2016, he didn’t throw a pitch in 2015 or 2016, and had thrown all of 5+ innings in three full years. He made it back on the field for the Rays system in 2017, tossing less than 60 IP across three levels. He’s still racking up strikeouts, but you can tell he’s been Rays-ified: his fly ball rate spiked after being something of a ground ball guy in the Pads system. The Royals – desperate for pitching – swooped in and made a deal to acquire him in the Rule 5 draft this year.
It’ll be interesting to see if he’s gone full Tampa and raised his arm slot, or if he’s back in his old low, low 3/4 slot. While he won’t pitch enough to see if he’s learned to maintain his velocity, I’m kind of curious if he’s capable of touching the mid-upper-90s anymore, or if that premium velo was left on the operating table back in 2015.
1: Gordon, CF
2: Segura, SS
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Nieuwenhuis, RF
8: Hague, 1B
9: Miller, LF
SP: Leake
Matt Hague’s getting some good looks at 1B with the injury to Ryon Healy. Mike Ford – the lefty-swinging 1B the M’s got in the Rule 5 draft – has had a slow start, but he’s really competing with Vogelbach anyway. Hague still has a steep uphill climb to make the opening day roster (assuming Healy’s ready), but if Healy has a setback, you never know. The M’s wouldn’t want to just send Ford back to NY, but they presumably wouldn’t want two LHH 1Bs, either.
Felix sounds like he’ll only miss one start, which would be about the best possible outcome following his (terrifying) run-in with a line drive. To really beat their projections, the M’s need a return to form of the King.
I mentioned Seth Elledge the other day, but he didn’t make it into a game. He’s in the bullpen today, so we’ll see if he gets a look. Also available is ex-Gonzaga reliever Wyatt Mills, the underslot 3rd rounder who tore through the low-minors with his funky sidearm delivery and good command. Jack Anderson, the submariner who got touched up a bit in the Cubs game, is also in the pen.