Edgar for Eternity
Edgar Martinez is going to Cooperstown. I’m early with this; I don’t know the final ballot total, and I’m writing this days before the announcement. But the vote trend this year is striking, and there’s essentially no way he can fail to reach 75% of the vote at this point. I’m on record as saying that Edgar would eventually get in, but only because of a veteran’s committee or whatever they replace it with. The early years of Edgar’s candidacy showed a bit of promise, but also just how daunting the task would be: Edgar would need to change the mind of around half of the voters.
Of course, he didn’t have to change their mind – he had to wait for a chunk of the voters to age out and be replaced with a more congenial set, a group who didn’t balk at the prospect of a DH in the hall. Still, there were two major factors that helped Edgar’s vote total rise. The first was that the anti-DH crowd faded when faced with Frank Thomas and the looming candidacy of David Ortiz. The increasing use of advanced stats helped show that Edgar and Thomas’ OBP translated into considerable value, but I think when people had to pick between keeping DHs out and keeping Big Papi/the Big Hurt out, they got over their objections (as they should).
Even more important was the rise of social media in these debates. Many of you may remember the first blog-based candidacy – that of Bert Blyleven, championed by Rich Lederer at the Baseball Analysts, and how Blyleven’s votes grew as people engaged with Lederer’s arguments and counter-arguments. It wasn’t about building a coalition of fans to support the candidate – it was that Lederer’s arguments were being bandied about by the voters themselves. The same thing happened a few years later with Tim Raines, and by that time, Ryan Thibodaux was collecting and publishing the ballots as they were tweeted out by voters. It’s this last advance that let blogs and fans tailor their arguments to on-the-fence voters and use Twitter to win over holdouts. Kate Preusser’s encomiums to Edgar weren’t just great pieces of writing, they were picked up by MLB Network, who’d use them to make a case directly to “no” voters and shame them when they couldn’t stand up to scrutiny.
Watching Edgar in his prime was an absolute joy, and it’s wonderful for M’s fans to celebrate a player like this, one who spent his entire career in an M’s uniform, who never asked to be traded, was never accused of quitting on a season, and who never became, in the minds of crazed fans, the embodiment of greed. He gave back to the team that had kept him in the minors far too long, and whose public persona and record has always been that of a genuinely nice person. This is a bit of unalloyed good news, and if it’s been delayed for too long, at least it arrived. Congratulations, Edgar.
The M’s Approach to Hitting Is Changing
In 2015, the M’s hired Jerry Dipoto and entrusted him with the task of remaking a disappointing team that finished 4th in the AL West. They did so despite hitting a bunch of home runs, posting the 5th-highest ISO in the AL, and the 3rd-highest strikeout rate. They worked around those Ks thanks to hitting the ball hard, but they gave away much of that production in sub-par defense and awful baserunning. This was Dipoto’s first impression of the team he’d be taking over, and it led to an abrupt change in philosophy, one that reached its apotheosis in 2018. The Mariners K rate has declined in every year of Dipoto’s tenure as GM despite an increase in the league-wide K rate, and the Mariners’ ISO has dropped to 11th in 2018, with a raw rate lower than in 2015 despite an increase in league-wide ISO. The M’s worked very hard to zig where the league zagged in the philosophy of hitting.
Jerry Dipoto stated his desire to craft a 1970s-style offense last year, putting far more balls in play than their opponents, and putting pressure on pitchers with lots of runners on base. In many ways, this worked; the M’s put more balls in play thanks to very low K *and* BB rates, and an aforementioned lack of extra-base hitting and HRs. If Mark Trumbo playing RF typified the 2015 M’s, last year’s team featured a line-up with Dee Gordon and Jean Segura hitting 1-2. Segura’s K rate was 4th-lowest of all qualified hitters, while Gordon was 19th-lowest. While the rest of the line-up wasn’t quite so contact-focused, many of the players Dipoto targeted struck out less than league average, including Ryon Healy and Ben Gamel, who played positions where most teams tolerate some swing-and-miss in exchange for power. The team got plenty of base hits out of all those balls in play, but…well, you know. Despite racking up more base knocks than Houston, and just five less than Oakland, they were outscored by 120 runs and 136 runs by their divisional rivals. They had a plan, they executed their plan, and the plan did not work.
So there’s a new plan. Segura’s gone, and in his place are the SS tandem of JP Crawford and Tim Beckham, two guys who’ve struggled at times to make contact, but exhibit some power potential. Ben Gamel’s off to Milwaukee in exchange for power-hitting strikeout-prone Domingo Santana. And then, today, the M’s jumped in to the Yankees/Reds Sonny Gray deal and picked up 2B/Util prospect Shed Long in exchange for 2018-draftee and CF prospect Josh Stowers (they DFA’d recently-acquired Kaleb Cowart to make room for Long). These are not the types of players they’d been targeting in the past, but then, they’ve remade some of their development group as well.
Last year and in previous years, the assumption seemed to be that it was easier to teach the finer points of hitting to players who already knew how to make contact. Think of Dan Vogelbach, a guy who was always described as polished and who put up low K rates in the minors despite lacking the in-game power you might want from a 1B prospect. Or Gamel, whose plate discipline and hit tool might make up for power that struggled to play in an OF corner. Or Guillermo Heredia, or Dee Gordon, etc. That logic seems to have been flipped on its head. I’m not suggesting that they only want players who strike out a ton and hit dingers; if that was the case, then Mike Zunino would still be here. Instead, they seem to want to identify players with power potential who may need a bit of help in unlocking it. If that skillset comes with strikeouts, well that’s no longer as big a red flag as it was a year ago.
We’ve seen the M’s target certain types of player before, and as always, there’s an assumption that their coaching staff can help that certain kind of player. Shed Long broke out in 2017, but fell back quite a bit in 2018. His swing produced fly balls and dingers in high A, but his GB rate soared in AA last season. Tim Beckham seemed to have broken out after a trade to the Orioles in 2017, but he cratered on one of the worst teams in recent memory. JP Crawford, like Vogelbach, posted great K:BB numbers in the minors, but looked overmatched at times in the big leagues, and scuffled a bit in the minors as well. If the M’s are right that their new-look staff can help these players, this off-season will be seen as pivotal in retrospect. But the M’s have to show that they can create a system where their coaches can succeed.
I’m no insider here, so I can’t say how the team and its player development staff communicate. But from the outside, the team seems like they’ve struggled in this area. The biggest example was the Dr. Lorena Martin fiasco, in which they seemingly hired someone to oversee all aspects of training, but then balked when the magnitude of that job description clashed with the day-to-day operations of several teams (how would you run workouts in Little Rock, Arkansas, Clinton, Iowa, etc. from Seattle, and how would you communicate your expectations to training staffs and managers, etc.?). I’m not sure what the right balance is between an overarching philosophy that applies organization-wide and granting autonomy/flexibility/adaptability to local coaches is, but I’d argue the M’s haven’t found it yet. This offseason shows some tantalizing evidence that they’ve seen those failures and are determined to correct them.
It’s not about hiring a bunch of new-school, data-driven coaches. Or at least, that’s only a part of it. The M’s reached out to some non-traditional spots to add to their pitching program last year, hiring Brian De Lunas and getting ex-Driveline trainees Cody Buckel to be a coach and Tyler Matzek to pitch. A year later, other orgs are being hailed as savvy modern orgs for hiring Buckel and picking up Matzek after an eye-opening session for scouts. The M’s were ahead of the curve! It didn’t matter! If things are changing, they’ll have plenty of opportunity to demonstrate it with this new crop of flawed-but-intriguing hitters, and we’ll see it when players change levels. If Long starts at Tacoma, as seems to be the plan, how does he improve there, and then how does he transition to the majors? The success of orgs like Houston, whose affiliates led their league in strikeouts *at every level*, demonstrate that PD can create massive advantages. The M’s, for all I find fault them, are not a stupid org. They’ve simply been behind the Astros and others, and haven’t figured out how to harness their own strengths. They seem to be working on doing that now, and I’m intrigued to see if it works.
Yusei Kikuchi and The M’s Pitching Plan
I’ll be the first to admit I didn’t see the M’s as a major player to land Yusei Kikuchi. Something about the way the Shohei Ohtani saga ended combined with general Mariners-specific pessimism made me think the M’s weren’t serious players, even as rumblings through December made it sound like they were. And here we are: the M’s signed the Japanese lefty to an interesting contract for anywhere between 3/$43 million to 7/$109 million. He’s got an opt-out after three years, but the M’s can void it by essentially signing him to a pre-agreed 4-year extension. As M’s fans, we’re all hoping that’s what the M’s do. If Kikuchi hits his ceiling and stays healthy, it’d be awesome to have him stick around for his early 30s. So, the question is: how can the M’s keep him healthy and effective?
The M’s sat down with Kikuchi’s agent, Scott Boras, and appear to have a plan to limit his innings in his first year in MLB. As Greg Johns article describes, the plan would be to use him as an opener every 5 or so starts, or about once a month. So, he starts like normal for 4 starts, and then on his fifth start, he pitches only the first inning or about 30 pitches. That limits pitches, innings, and keeps him fresh for the difficult transition between Japan’s 6-man rotations/one start per week and the US’s 5-man rotations.
That barrier, the additional high-stress pitches that accumulate over a longer season with more starts, has proven a difficult one to navigate for pitchers from Japan. Shohei Ohtani’s merely the latest pitcher to undergo Tommy John after coming over, joining Yu Darvish, Hisashi Iwakuma, Daisuke Matsuzaka and others. Masahiro Tanaka avoided the knife, but missed time with other arm injuries and seems to have some elbow injuries that simply haven’t necessitated surgery. Iwakuma and Kenta Maeda have had shoulder issues before coming over, and that’s factored into their usage in the US (think of Kuma’s initial usage as a reliever, and Maeda’s role as swingman this year for the Dodgers). Kikuchi’s had shoulder problems in the recent past as well, so thinking about how best to keep him healthy makes sense.
On paper, I’ve got no real complaint about the M’s plan. It’d be interesting to see how it would work, and what pitcher would pick up the innings that Kikuchi cedes as an opener – Johns’ article mentions using a youngster like Justus Sheffield the way the Rays used ex-M’s prospect Ryan Yarbrough as a somewhat gentler introduction to an MLB rotation, but they could also use them as true bullpen days once we figure out who’s actually in the M’s bullpen (Jerry Dipoto is, as always, looking for FA relievers at the moment). That said, I keep thinking that they may have missed an opportunity here.
There’s no real way to say for certain that a 6-man rotation results in higher average velocity for pitchers, but it seems clear that essentially every Japanese pitcher loses velocity when they come to the US. I say it’s impossible to pin it on the additional starts because our pool of pitchers is still too small, and then there’s the difference in the physical ball to contend with PLUS the fact that the ball itself has changed a few times *within each country* over the past 5 or so years. So this is all noisy as hell, but it’s pretty consistent. Kikuchi apparently sat 92, touching 95 in Japan, but I feel pretty comfortable taking the under on that even with the M’s innings-limit plan. Moreover, if Kikuchi loses velocity in 2019 due to the new workload or any other factor, he’ll have plenty of company. Mike Leake is coming off a year where his velocity was over a full MPH lower than the previous season. Marco Gonzales got attention for throwing harder post-TJ rehab in 2017, but those gains didn’t follow him into 2018. Felix Hernandez…you know all about Felix Hernandez’s velocity trends. The entire team has seen their velo drop, and sat comfortably at the bottom in average FB velocity last year.
With that context, if you’re trying to accomodate someone who’s used to 6-man rotations, why not – stay with me here – use a 6-man rotation? The Angels sort of tried with Ohtani, and sure, that didn’t save his elbow, but he sat at 97 MPH with his fastball. Literally every member of the M’s rotation, and every *potential* member of the M’s rotation, could stand an extra day of rest, because they could all use an extra tick on their fastball. The M’s have tried everything with Felix, from belittling him to having him do special off-season workouts to working with a peak performance trainer they hired and then got sued by. Surely, trying an extra day of rest every week is in order?
The opener strategy has the value of getting Kikuchi ready to be a “regular” member of a traditional rotation in his second year, and there’s value in trying to get additional innings out of a good pitcher. But while they don’t have a ton of depth at starter, I think they’re actually better positioned to go with a 6-man rotation than a series of bullpen days. Adding an extra pitcher would enable them to control the innings of every pitcher, which would make breaking in a Sheffield or Erik Swanson easier. Going whole hog enables them to assess the impact it has on their veterans, too. Wade LeBlanc, an ex-teammate of Kikuchi’s in Japan, is obviously familiar with the role, and I think it would help Leake, should Leake somehow make it to March on this roster. Moreover, they’re not really expected to contend in 2019, so I’d think there’d be less pressure to ride your top 2-3 pitchers down the stretch. If this year’s really about development, that make it about development, and not just Kikuchi’s adjustment to MLB.
As a FB/SL pitcher, Kikuchi needs to get every MPH he can get. Hisashi Iwakuma’s brilliant splitter reduced his dependence on velo, and Iwakuma struggled with slider consistency in the US after being known for his slider in Japan. Sliders see more of a drop-off in effectiveness as measured by average wOBA-against at lower velocities than do splitters/change-ups. Sliders lose effectiveness as they get slower, with sliders in the upper 80s having wOBA against in the mid .250s, but .300s in the high-70s. Change-ups are great at high velocities *and* very low velocities, though they’re worse in the middle ground than sliders (data from baseballsavant). Thus, in addition to limiting innings, the M’s need to keep an eye on Kikuchi’s velocity, and limiting his rest – even if they give him a short start each month – seems a less-than-idea way to do that.
This isn’t to suggest that the plan’s a dumb idea. They presumably worked it out with Kikuchi himself, and if he prefers it, well then, so do I. But the M’s need to do something pretty dramatically different to fix the hole left by James Paxton. They’ve got youth, and they’ve got depth, albeit not exactly bankable depth. Trying a 6-man rotation – really, actually committing to it – would be great to see, and it would herald a new approach to development at the big league level. I’d think it’d make them an attractive place to pitch for every subsequent pitcher that gets posted from the NPB as well. In any event, Kikuchi makes the M’s better in 2019 and beyond, and even the limited opener-based strategy will be fun to watch. But when you’re trying to catch up with the Astros/Yankees/Red Sox of the world – even if you don’t need to show it at the big league level in 2019 – you need to be open to radically transforming how you align your team. I’m still stunned that no team has given this a shot.