Game 56, Athletics at (Injured) Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Chris Bassitt, 7:10pm
It’s a glorious day in the Northwest after a mostly-glorious holiday weekend. Hope you all managed to get out and enjoy the weather.
The M’s get their opening day starter back off the injured list today, but the M’s aren’t celebrating. Going TO the injured list is CF Kyle Lewis, a big part of an offense that could use all the help it can get. Taylor Trammell, red hot in Tacoma, returns, but he won’t be in CF. Instead, the M’s are giving the gig to Jarred Kelenic, as he’d played the position in previous years, and obviously if he’s able to do so at this level, he provides the team some valuable flexibility.
To make room, the M’s have optioned Robert Dugger back to Tacoma and waived Travis Blankenhorn, who was picked up by the Mets. In less than two months, Blankenhorn has been with the Twins, Dodgers, Mariners, and Mets organizations. It doesn’t have the Kafkaesque humor of the Jacob Nottinham M’s/Brewers situation, but it seems equally annoying and hard on one’s career. It’s great to be wanted, and it beats no one giving you a uniform at all, but I just hope he isn’t paying rent in like three different time zones simultaneously.
At the other end of the player distribution, we’ve got Mitch Haniger, who’s been red hot, and whose 138 wRC+ is easily the best on the team (Kyle Lewis’ 112 was second, which is why losing him is such a blow). If the M’s two struggling rookies – Taylor Trammell and Jarred Kelenic – find their stroke, or hell, even if they don’t, would the M’s look to move Haniger in trade? He’d be a fascinating player to value, given the combination of his age, club control, salary, etc. I think the M’s probably don’t unless they get a huge offer, but I do wonder if a team might see him as someone that could help them win a pennant race.
I think one complicating factor here is what to make of the minor leagues, and AAA in particular. We’ve talked about it a bit this year, but AAA uses the exact same baseball that MLB does, but it’s hard to know what to make of that when MLB keeps changing their ball. It seems like minor league teams like Tacoma are using up their 2020 balls, which makes sense, and also means the ball is different than the one MLB uses *now*. The league realignment/MLB takeover means that the old Pacific Coast League was shorn of its midwestern wing, a set of clubs without the altitude and other hitting-friendly park factors that came to be associated with the PCL. Thus, the AAA-West has a completely different run environment that AAA-East. It’s 1 full run per game higher in the West, for each team.
Because the MLB ball was made lighter, it’s coming off the bat harder, but because it’s less bouncy, it doesn’t fly as far. It’s lowered weight helps it spin more, which increases the Magnus effect causing the ball to bend and break. All of this has created havoc in MLB, where you’ve got the Mariners sitting with a .205 team average. But that’s not happening in AAA-West due to the slightly different ball and atmospheric/other conditions in effect. All of this has meant that it’s essentially impossible to know what to *make* of stats in AAA-West even setting aside the fact that all of them are small samples. Taylor Trammell hit .385, but what does that tell us? I don’t know. I’d love to figure this out, but for now, I just need to point out that these dramatically different environments make the usual translated stats or projections kind of useless.
The M’s face one of the more unheralded pitchers in the AL, Chris Bassitt. Once a high-floor back-of-the-rotation arm and a throw-in to the trade that brought Marcus Semien to Oakland, Bassitt’s become the de facto ace of the A’s rotation – a rotation beset by injuries during his time with the club. A former 16th-round pick, he’s a righty without big-time velo or raw stuff. If you were going to draw up a pitcher to get overlooked or discounted, this would be it. I’d say that kind of applies to Marco Gonzales, but let’s not forget: Marco was a first round draft pick and flew through the minors, pitching in the postseason a year after being drafted.
Bassitt moved up the White Sox system, making his debut in 2014, and then he got a brief look with the A’s in 2015 and then an injury-plagued 2016. He didn’t miss many bats and walked a few too many, which is not a great look. After his injury, I don’t think many would’ve considered him a likely rotation candidate, but the A’s have had a terrible run of injuries to their starters sandwiched around things like Frankie Montas’ long suspension for PEDs. Bassitt got that second chance, and since then, he’s been remarkable, going 22-12 with an ERA of 3.27. His FIP hasn’t been as impressed, but it’s coming around now, too. Bassitt’s currently striking out more than 1/4 of batters facing him, something that would’ve been ludicrous in 2015, and his walk rate has dropped every year since 2016. With the new ball and a spacious ballpark, he’s been stingy with home runs.
What’s the difference? A big part of it seems to be the cutter he added in 2018. He’s now got six distinct pitches – a four-seam, a sinker, a cutter, a slider, a change, and a slow, slow curve. Nothing jumps off the page, there are now freakish spin rates, no velo spikes, no wild movement – but the approach just works. To righties, he pitches off of his sinker, keeping the ball down, and then trying to get a whiff with the breaking stuff. To lefties, it’s a Marco Gonzales-style equal mix of the three hard pitches (four-seam, sinker, cutter), then some cambios and the curve.
That new cutter doesn’t look great judging by results – batters are hitting over .300 this year, about what they’ve always done off of it. But this different look seems to have unlocked the rest of his repertoire – his curve (and slider, when he throws it) are now real out-pitches despite not being all that different than they were in 2015-16. And his fastballs, the sinker in particular, plays completely differently when batters have to keep an eye out for a hard pitch breaking the opposite way. It’s a classic case of a new pitch making every OTHER pitch great, even if it doesn’t look great in isolation.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Hangier, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Fraley, RF
6: Kelenic, CF
7: Trammell, RF
8: Murphy, C
9: Walton, 2B
SP: Gonzales
Tacoma beat Reno 11-4 behind two Sam Travis long balls and a great start from Logan Verrett. Verrett gave up 1 R in 7 IP, striking out 4 and walking none. No word on the starter tonight.
Arkansas begins a series against the Wichita WindSurge. Alejandro Requena is on the mound for the Travs.
Everett’s back home to face the Hillsboro Hops. Matt Brash in on the mound for the AquaSox; he’s got 27 punch outs in 15 2/3 IP thus far.
Modesto opens a series with San Jose tonight. They’ll face Giants prospect Kyle Harrison, a 19-yo draft pick out of a Concord, CA HS… kind of cool he can begin his pro-career fairly close to home. He was a 3rd rounder in the 2020 draft, and has struck out 28 batters in his first 13 2/3 professional innings, which is kind of bonkers, even for 2021 baseball.
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7 Responses to “Game 56, Athletics at (Injured) Mariners”
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Imagine if Seattle trades Haniger, then signs him as a free agent in 2023.
If you trade for Haniger, you can probably get on his good side by making him a decent offer for a 2-3 year contract. It wouldn’t be the most terrible thing in the world to tie a good player down for ages 31-33/34 or so.
There is a Billy Beane/Branch Rickey “trade too soon rather than too late” argument I guess… and then you look and see Nelson Cruz playing some pretty good ball for $13 million at 41. Gosh, what’s it like to have TWO players on your team with 30+ HR power?
Imagine the Seattle Mariners deciding they’re tired of good teams yesterday (Remember 1995! 2001!) and good teams tomorrow (#SeaUsRise), but never good teams today, and committing to keeping good players.
Way to read into that way too far.
Stevemotivateir on June 2nd, 2021 5:07 am
“Way to read into that way too far.”
Or reply with a bunch of stuff barely relevant at all to what was said….
^I guess this is the natural byproduct of nearly two decades of bad baseball.
But we all want the same thing, right? Keep and acquire good players; legitimately contend for a World Series title.
We’ve paid our dues.
I don’t know about you, but I want a team that for the ~60% of 2021 left to us, isn’t relying on a bunch of struggling kids and converted infielders to carry an offense that’s scuffling to stay over the Mendoza line, and has very little in the way of veterans for 2022 (if Seager were to not come back and Haniger was traded, you’d be looking at JP Crawford being the senior position player in terms of time on the field with the M’s).
Hey, we’ve seen struggling washed-up vets as well, and we’ll probably see more.