Game 42, Mariners at Giants – The Weirdest Meaningful Series
Ljay Newsome vs. Logan Webb, 6:45pm
Thanks to the utter collapse of two of the game’s best teams coming into 2020 (the Yankees and Astros) along with the continued bifurcation of the league into good and rrrreal bad (looking at you, Texas), the M’s are kind of in a playoff hunt. It’s September, there are 18 games left, and the M’s head out on the road a couple of games behind the Astros for 2nd place in the west, and a few back of the Yankees for one of the wild card spots. The Yankees AND Astros are trailing as I write this, too.
The M’s have won 6 straight and are on quite a good run, but it’s so hard to figure out how to interpret that given the M’s schedule. The M’s are coming off a sweep of the Rangers, who are by winning percentage the worst team in MLB. They started their streak against the Angels, who have more talent than the Rangers, but are mired at 17-25. They haven’t fared as well against the better teams in the league, but then again, it’s 2020: they don’t have to FACE the likes of the Twins/White Sox/Rays/Indians. This season makes no sense, so of course the M’s have a shot.
If there’s one team that can understand the weird psychological conundrum of thinking they had a good shot to pick #1 overall and then quickly shifting to daydreaming about 1st round playoff pitching match-ups, it’s the Giants. The Mariners had the 2nd worst projected record in the AL, just a game or two back of the Orioles. Meanwhile, San Francisco had the 2nd worst projection in the NL, just fractionally ahead of the Marlins. Both the Marlins and Giants enter play tonight with .500 records, plenty good enough to be in the hunt for a wildcard in the new “everyone’s invited” playoff format of 8 teams per league making the first round.
Thus, we get what seemed like a sick joke in July, and perhaps even a couple of weeks ago: a September series between the M’s and Giants with playoff implications for both teams. I’ll be honest: I’m not sure how the M’s are in this spot, and I worry that we’re overreacting to the M’s swatting away a tanking Rangers team. I worry the M’s could fade in the late-September series against Houston and Oakland. But if there’s one thing 2020 has taught us, it’s that you don’t really need to be good to be in a position like this. You just have to convert winning chances.
The Rangers don’t because they essentially don’t have any, not with a line-up that can’t hit. The Yankees have all kinds of winning chances, and seem to be inventing more baroque, bizarre ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, kind of like their cross-town rivals, the Mets (watching the two teams play was like a bizarre grand guignol version of the game, with games ending on a wild pitch, a HR, a single, and the Yanks blowing a late lead with three runs hit off of their best set-up man). The M’s, despite a patched-together bullpen, have *mostly* kept things together, save that awful 8 run final inning in the first game of a double-header in San Diego.
Their bullpen isn’t great, but it’s figuring things out, and their rotation has been good enough to keep them in games. Now, it’s been good enough against bad teams. Marco Gonzales aside, I’m less sure about the other starters. This will be an interesting test for Newsome, who may be the only starter who HASN’T had a cupcake schedule for a while. He’s only faced the Dodgers and Padres, the two teams outpacing the Giants in the NL West. But the Giants boast a very good offense; they rank 5th in baseball behind, among others, the aforementioned Dodgers and Padres. They’re led by the breakout star Mike Yastrzemski, whose 2.4 fWAR are 2nd in baseball behind Fernando Tatis, Jr. down the road in San Diego. They’re also getting a career year from Donovan Solano, the ex-Marlin, who’s pairing solid bat-to-ball skill with newfound gap power, and a huge bounce-back year from 1B Brandon Belt, who’s power stroke is back.
Like the M’s, though, their pitching is a bit hit and miss. Tonight’s starter, Logan Webb, is another guy like Kolby Allard with solid overall batting-against numbers, but a mediocre ERA thanks to trouble stranding runners and some control issues. He’s a righty (unlike Allard) with a low-3/4 arm slot, and throws a very heavy, sinking four-seamer, a sinker that he’ll mix in against righties, a change, and a curve (and a very rare slider). The change-up is the outpitch, a pitch with drop and some armside run, a pitch that makes the rest of his arsenal better. It’s also a pitch that’s most effective against lefties.
Webb’s been very tough on lefties, but with a curve that’s not great and 93 MPH fastballs that really aren’t designed to be swing-and-miss pitches, he’s a bit lost against righties. He’s managed a decent K rate against them, and he’ll definitely throw change-ups to righties, too. But it’s simply not the weapon that it is against righties. Against lefties, that change helps him post absurdly high ground ball rates. But his GB% plummets against righties – it’s still high-ish, or a bit above average, but he’s not a ground ball specialist against same-handed batters.
The template here is pretty clear – get some righties in the line-up and look for sinking fastballs, and hit them hard.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, 2B
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: France, DH
6: Marmolejos, RF
7: White, 1B
8: Torrens, C
9: Long, LF
SP: Newsome
Evan White’s K rate has fallen below 40% and he’s hitting over .300 after the odd, made-up All Star break. His SLG% has dropped though, and I hope he’s not trading off power for contact, akin to what JP Crawford seems to have done. White’s always going to be an odd duck, and I’m not sure he’ll ever be a big power threat. He simply had to make more contact, and he’s doing that. But the offensive demands of the 1B position are high, and I just hope he’s able to continue to refine his approach.
Game 41, Rangers at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Kolby Allard, 1:10pm
The M’s have won 5 in a row, and are somehow now on the fringes of a playoff spot thanks to the expanded postseason. The M’s have 20 games to play, 1/3 of the shortened season. Despite both their pitching and position players ranking in the bottom third (per Fangraphs), they’re not as painful to watch as they were early in the season.
Given the short season and extra-imbalanced schedule, it’s hard to know what to make of it. Are the M’s figuring things out, or just playing Texas/Anaheim a lot? Are their starters really developing before our eyes, or is it just a couple of games of BABIP luck? The answer is undoubtedly a mixture. The Rangers really are terrible, and I’m not quite sure where they go from here. They’re going to wait out some bad contracts, hope their pitchers develop and…I’m not exactly sure what they do on the infield. But that’s not all of it. There have been clear, unambiguous signs of development from several Mariners, from Kyle Lewis’ improved K% to Ljay Newsome’s solid initial games. But one of the more improbable, at least to me, has been Marco Gonzales’ remarkable improvement.
Marco Gonzales has been good-goodish for a few years now, but after a solid 2018, things looked worse in 2019 (despite a nice ERA). His velocity dropped, his walk rate climbed, and his strikeouts fell markedly. That lovely ERA was held down by a flurry of unearned runs and some HR/FB luck. He alternated effective months with disastrous ones, but ultimately finished the year fairly strong. Still, the trend in velo and thus strikeouts looked ominous.
If Gonzales was going to rebound and put together a great season, what do you think would change? What, exactly, would be the cause of this breakthrough? I and other M’s-writers have mused on this several times over the years, and we have been wrong every time. I certainly would’ve been wrong this year. A velocity spike, aided by the M’s “Gas Camp” perhaps? No, his velocity is even lower this year, and is among the lowest in the velo-obsessed game. How about an improvement in his change-up, once his best pitch, but an offering whose results have never quite shown up in games? No, if anything, 2020 has pretty clearly demonstrated that the cambio is in fact his worst pitch. Uh, more randomized pitch mix? No, he’s not quiet as random this year, favoring his fastball and cutter a bit more.
It’s thus hard to say exactly what he’s doing, but clearly command is at the center of it. His walk rate is nearly imperceptible, and he’s gotten increasingly good at targeting different zones with different pitches. He’s keeping his four-seam fastball and sinker down, using the former to get in on the hands of righties, and the latter to bore in towards lefties. He’s not abandoning the top of the zone entirely, though – he just uses the cutter up there. Whatever the reason, his average exit velocity has fallen, and it’s fallen for both grounders and fly balls. Batters aren’t driving the ball in the air, and it’s made his underpowered fastball one of the better pitches in the game, looking at pure results. It’s amazing.
Before the year, I worried that the Rangers might overtake the M’s in pursuit of contention if they could coax some improvement and consistency from younger starters like Kolby Allard. The 23 year old lefty has a very low BABIP, an improved K rate…it’s happening, right. No, despite luck on BABIP and HR/FB, he’s got an ERA well over 5, and he’s walking way too many. His woes look a bit like Yusei Kikuchi’s in that he pairs a very solid overall wOBA or batting average against with far too many runs allowed. The key is that he’s been great with no one on, but unable to strand any runners. That’s not a good pattern for someone who walks a lot of batters, too.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, 2B
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: France, DH
6: White, 1B
7: Ervin, RF
8: Torrens, C
9: Strange-Gordon, LF
SP: Gonzales
Dee Gordon now goes by Dee Strange-Gordon, as you can see from the line-up.
Happy Labor Day!
Game 39, Rangers at Mariners
Justus Sheffield vs. Kyle Gibson, 6:10pm
After another win against the Rangers, the M’s are now 5-2 against Texas. There’s not a lot of mystery about why the Rangers are where they are: they have the worst group of position players in the game, and at least by Fangraphs’ metrics, it’s not even close. They’re the only group that’s racked up negative WAR, and they’re closing in on -3, so they’re not just fractionally into negative territory. The problems are widespread: nearly the entire starting line-up, from Shin-Soo Choo to Todd Frazier (since departed) to Rougned Odor was in negative territory. Veterans like Choo or Andrus, younger players like Willie Calhoun – it didn’t matter.
At the beginning of the year, league-wide BABIP was way down – lower than it had been in decades. That’s changed in recent weeks, and league BABIP is up around .290, just a couple of points lower than last year. The Rangers have not gotten the memo, as their team BABIP is still .257, by far the worst in the league. Optimists may point to this as a reason their offense hasn’t gotten going; they’re snakebit by BABIP luck. Their average exit velocity is middle of the pack, so there’s something to this theory, but it can’t explain all of it. They’ve hit for no power, have middling plate discipline, and this is what, the third year in four that Odor’s been nearly unplayable?
Kendall Graveman was electric out of the bullpen yesterday, averaging 97 on his sinker in a perfect inning. The M’s will have an interesting decision to make on him at year’s end. His contract’ll be up, and he may get some attention from other clubs, but his neck injury and arm issues the past few years will limit how much they bid. The M’s may want to bring him back as a bullpen arm.
Today, the M’s again face Kyle Gibson, the ex-Twins ground ball maven who’s been a regular punching bag in Texas. While the Rangers haven’t hit for power, opposing teams have done just fine against Gibson, who enters sporting a HR/9 rate of 2.13. The Rangers had done well in rehabilitating Mike Minor and especially Lance Lynn (who struggled a bit in Minnesota), but it hasn’t worked with Gibson, nor with Juan Nicasio. I think this year was always supposed to be a bridge year before their minor league pitching prospects could get their feet wet in the bigs, and ideally, swapping out vets like Minor or Lynn would help restock the farm system. I’m not sure any of that’s really going to happen now. They held on to Lance Lynn at the deadline, moved Mike Minor (whose ERA was 5.60), and made minor deals to move on from the disappointing Robinson Chirinos and Todd Frazier. That’s not exactly a big system restock, and without the minors, it’s hard to know how much progress their hurlers have made on the year.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: France, 2B
6: Marmolejos, DH
7: White, 1B
8: Ervin, RF
9: Torrens, C
SP: Sheffield
Game 38, Rangers at Mariners – Back to the Grind
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Kyle Cody, 6:10pm
The M’s series with the A’s was postponed due to a player contracting Covid-19, but will be made up with a series of double-headers soon. This is a common site now across baseball, as today’s action features what, 5 7-inning twin bills?
The M’s salvaging a split in that series in Anaheim was well-timed. Not only did they not fall behind the Angels in the standings, but it gave the pitching staff some confidence coming into this series against the lackluster Rangers. He’s someone I’ve criticized on the blog before, or at least questioned his ceiling, but Marco Gonzales has suddenly become quite good. He stopped the slide in his K%, BB% (and, uh, K/BB ratio) and has a microscopic walk rate along with the best K% he’s ever posted. He’s inducing weaker contact and thanks to that great control, the balls in play he’s allowing have predominantly come after he’s ahead in the count. This isn’t flukey BABIP luck, it’s the product of an aggressive approach, and it’s paying off.
Yusei Kikuchi remains an enigma, however. He’s allowed batters a sub-.700 OPS on the year, and thanks to a single HR-allowed, has a sparkling FIP, but his ERA remains stubbornly above 6. I’ve mentioned it a lot, but he’s really struggled with men on base, which is pretty much the only way you could turn his overall batting-against numbers into a high ERA. It’s weird – he’s corrected nearly all of the things that plagued him last year, most especially his HR problems. He’s striking out more thanks to an uptick in velocity and his new hard cutter. Walks are higher, but trading walks for dingers seems like a deal worth making. The trouble-from-the-stretch thing wasn’t really a problem last year, so I don’t *think* it’s just a case of him losing velo or effectiveness without the windup, and in any event that windup and his mechanics are pretty different from last year.
Kikuchi’s been much, much better at home this year, with a better K:BB ratio, no HRs-allowed, and all the rest. He is, of course 0-2 at home. And while he’s been knocked around on the road, he’s 1-0. Object lesson in the irrelevance of pitcher wins #4,502,341.
So, today’s opponent is Kyle Cody, a rookie righty out of the University of Kentucky (where he was a teammate of Evan White). Cody was drafted in 2016, and made it to high-A the next year before going down with TJ surgery. He missed nearly all of 2018 and missed all-all of 2019, before popping back this year at the Alternate Training Site, and now making a couple of appearances for Texas. It’s happened a lot this year, but Cody’s another player who never appeared at AA or AAA, and has now made the majors. He’s still getting stretched out and has only made 1-1+IP stints, so this is probably an “opener” situation; he’s not going to work too deep tonight.
Cody throws a mid-high-90s fastball (averaging 96), and a blizzard of sliders. He’s got a sinker and change, but essentially, he’s in there to be the 2020 version of the way the M’s used Matt Wisler last year (Wisler’s having a phenomenal year for Minnesota, by the way). That slider is a fascinating pitch, with *tons* more drop than the average slider; it functions much like a curve, with much more vertical drop than sweeping action (like Wisler’s). Batters haven’t really figured it out, though of course, he really hasn’t pitched to many thus far.
After getting beat badly by the M’s two Kyles, you can’t really blame the Rangers for calling up one of their own. We’ll see how effective this pretender is when facing the M’s Kyles tonight.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, 2B
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: France, DH
6: Marmolejos, LF
7: White, 1B
8: Torrens, C
9: Haggerty, RF
SP: Kikuchi
The M’s have been busy on the transaction wire. Their big trade with the Padres supplied tonight’s DH and C, and then the M’s traded nominal closer Taylor Williams for a PTBNL (supposedly Matt Brash, a pitcher). Because a few of the prospects the M’s got from San Diego aren’t on the roster, they’ve claimed P Walker Lockett off of waivers from the Mets, and OF Phillip Ervin off of waivers from the Reds. Ervin was a former 1st round pick who moved slowly up the Reds system thanks to excellent walk rates, but struggled with a low average and mediocre power (not a great combo in an OF). He was pretty solid in 2019 in his longest big league stint (260 PAs), but looked utterly lost this year, going 3-42 with no extra-base hits.
Lockett is another ex-Padres prospect (like Wisler!) who had a cup of coffee with San Diego before moving to the Mets. He’s been a frustratingly mediocre pitcher, without a real out-pitch, and who’s given up 11 HRs in his 45+ big league innings. Lockett’s four-seam (?) fastball is a weird one, with super low rise. It looks like a sinker, and seemed to function like one in the minors, where he’d put up above-average GB rates. That hasn’t happened in the big leagues (I refer you again to the HRs-allowed) where he’s been, if anything, a real fly ball guy. That’s not working, and I wonder if the M’s will try to get him on the Justus Sheffield program of turning a freakishly sinking four-seamer into a delightfully sinking sinker. MLB thinks it IS one, while Brooks still calls it a four-seamer. We’ll see if we can figure out what to call it once he appears with the M’s.
Ervin and possibly Lockett are out of options, and thus are with the big club. Tim Lopes, Joe Hudson and Braden Bishop have been optioned back to Tacoma, while Zac Grotz was outrighted there. With Dylan Moore back from the IL and Ty France in the fold, Shed Long will apparently struggle for playing time. The M’s may move him around the OF and he may get DH opportunities here and there. Sounds like he won’t really have much of a chance to hit his way out of his 2020 slump.