Game 115, Rangers at Mariners
Tyler Anderson vs. Spencer Howard, 7:10pm
Last night’s game seemed like a perfect encapsulation of how the last two-three weeks have felt. Luck, a thing that’s propelled the M’s to an unlikely playoff race, has moved on, and thus you see the M’s loading the bases with no outs in the 9th and somehow not scoring, followed by the inevitable gut-punch in extras. All the things the M’s did for 3-4 months – get the timely hit, dominate extra innings – they failed to do last night.
In a sense, this is just what regression towards the mean *is*, and when we’re talking about performance in close/late games, it’s not pretty. It hurts. But beyond that, luck had a wonderful way of papering over some of the problematic aspects of the team. The whole “can’t hit until there are runners in scoring position, late in a close game” thing was objectively hilarious, but when it’s stops, you’re left with only those sad first two words. Logan Gilbert is, essentially, as advertised. But Jarred Kelenic’s growing pains are tougher to understand, and while he’s looked better recently, the entire year has to go down as a concerning one. Taylor Trammell is both easier to understand and much, much closer to his projections, but Cal Raleigh’s struggles consistently driving the ball is a bit of a head scratcher.
They’ll need to be active in free agency, and they’ll need to add good players to the staff and the line-up. This was supposed to be their springboard year to contend for real in 2022, and while they’ve been much more successful than I and others expected, the WAY they’ve been successful makes 2022’s outlook a bit murkier.
The Rangers, though…this team is just actively bad. Without Joey Gallo and some of their more successful relievers, the Rangers can bring to mind those awful Astros teams of 8-10 years ago. They’re beginning to build a good farm system, and they’ve got some interesting arms who haven’t quite turned talent into performance yet. One of them, Spencer Howard, starts tonight. The erstwhile Phillies top prospect always struck people out in the minors after being drafted out of Cal Poly, but had trouble with his control. The raw stuff was there: he throws a 95 mph four-seam, and mixes in a slider, a curve, and he’s learned a cutter this year. But the weirdest/potentially best offering is a slow change at 79. We’ve seen so many Felix-style hard change-ups that it’s always kind of a shock to see someone with *this* big of a disparity between fastball and change velo. Jharel Cotton did this when he came up with Oakland, and had a nice first half-season before dropping off the map.
At this point, Howard’s change is still working fairly well, as batters are having a hard time making contact. But when they make contact with *any* of his pitches, they tend to do well. Some of that may be bad luck, but Howard doesn’t miss enough bats to get away with it. His K/9 is great, it’s essentially right at 10. But his K% is only “pretty good.” This is another one of those great example cases, where we see exactly how Howard gets his outs, but bringing in all of the walks and balls in play changes the picture a bit.
It hasn’t worked for him yet, either in Arlington or in Philadelphia, but it’s a good high variance move for a team that desperately needs to improve. Essentially all year, the Mariners had the worst batting average in MLB, but a slight improvement in that category paired with Texas’ tanking means the two teams enter tonight’s game tied. Both clubs are hitting .222, with the M’s having an edge in both OBP and SLG%. Texas has leapfrogged Baltimore and Pittsburgh to become the worst hitting team in the game, and their pitching staff ranks last by fWAR, too (though I think Arizona and Baltimore fans may disagree).
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Kelenic, CF
7: Raleigh, C
8: Fraley, LF
9: Bauers, DH
SP: Anderson
Tyler Anderson continues his live-game audition for a multi-year deal. He’s been pretty much as-advertised, and I wonder if the M’s make a run at keeping him around. I also wonder what it’s like to walk into a clubhouse that’s as emotional and hurt as the M’s must’ve been. Such a weird situation all around.
I see there’s a move to bring Jose Marmolejos back given that the M’s are getting nothing out of Jake Bauers. I don’t think I expect too much out of Marmo, but given the low bar and that he’s absolutely raked in AAA-West, I guess it’s worth a shot.
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Virtually all of this is fair, if not 100% accurate. I want to see how Kelenic plays through September before I express an opinion one way or the other, but I’ve always felt expectations of him for this year were too high given his age and MiLB experience, so I would call a baby step a win.
The Marmolejos chatter is kind of funny. You would think he was the top-ranked prospect in baseball the way fans have argued for his promotion. I agree that it really can’t hurt to give him another shot, but it would take a heck of a lot more for Seattle to reach the postseason this year and every clip I see of him mashing is a fastball in the middle, or breaking ball that hangs.
Regarding free agency…
Getting away from a dependency on 2021 clutch hitters woudd be good. I know most fans want Seager to return, but he’s been one of the most ‘clutch’ hitters this year. The overall line isn’t pretty and it isn’t hard to envision a repeat of Griffey’s situation. The team needs veterans, but it would probably be better to hang on to Haniger and find experience elsewhere; move forward.
*Cue the backlash.
Seaver’s overall line is ~30 points of batting average difference from his career line, basically, and this year (which isn’t done yet) he’s flashing an OPS+ that’s 105 of league vs. a career of 113.
There’s legit reasons to not bring him back (especially if you’re a GM under an ownership mandate to keep payroll down and if you drop him and Kikuchi, you won’t have anyone on an eight digit salary for 2022 except maybe Haniger, ahem), but that’s not exactly Albert Pujols either.