Game 102, Mariners at Yankees
4:05. Feels weird to put up a game thread today. Vargas versus Garcia! And Vargas gets
RF-L Ichiro!
SS-R Ryan
2B-L Ackley
C-R Olivo
3B-L Kennedy
DH-L Carp
1B-S Smoak
CF-R Gutierrez
LF-R Halman
Two back to back lefties! Nooooooooooooooooooo! And since so far I’m 100% for Olivo having good games when I doubt him, let me just try our luck: you stink Olivo! Don’t worry, he’s a professional, this stuff washes right off him.
He still shouldn’t be hitting #4.
SS-R Jeter
CF-L Granderson
1B-S Teixeira
2B-L Cano
DH-S Swisher
C-R Martin
RF-R Jones
3B-R Nunez
LF-L Gardner
So here’s where the isolation pod problem comes in. I gotta go look at the Yankee roster to figure out — wait, Andruw Jones? How.. I have to go read a transaction log. I will note that I still hate the Yankees, so I can’t be that far out of things.
Minor League Wrap (7/18-24/11)
Some of the draft and IFA stuff broke loose this week, like C/IF Jack Marder signing for $200k and getting himself assigned to the High Desert Mavericks. Marder had some leverage as a draft-eligible sophomore and could have very easily returned to school, so it’s good that we were able to add him as he sounds like the exact type of player the organization would love. I don’t know what this means for Marlette or the others of the top ten, but if a recent article that one of my readers found on third-round pick Kevin Cron is any indication, we’re probably going up to the deadline with this again. As for the July 2nd guys, we’ll get to that in a moment…
To the jump!
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When Statistics Are Not Helpful
Here on USSM, we talk a lot about probability and likely outcomes. When making a decision, we think it’s generally wise to understand historical precedent, and to learn from history rather than repeat it.
But, there are times in life that you’re not making a decision, and knowledge of the probability of outcomes just doesn’t help at all. You are just rooting for one specific result, even if you don’t have any control over whether it occurs or not.
I’m now in one of those situations. Last week, I was informed that I have Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a particularly nasty member of the cancer family. History has given my doctors all kinds of data about cure rates and life expectancy, and statistical analysis is helping them decide just what kind of chemotherapy I’ll be taking in a few hours, which I’m really thankful for.
But really, those numbers do nothing for me. I’m not going to be making very many decisions over the next few months. I’m just going to be rooting like crazy for the drugs to work. I need reasons for hope, and I won’t find much of that in the harshness of raw data.
Data isn’t always what is needed. If you’re a Pirates fan right now, does it help you at all to know that your team probably won’t keep this up? You’re not going to be making any decisions that will change the outcome anyway, so why not root for the outcome you want, even if it isn’t statistically probable?
Thats what I’m going to spend the next few months (and years, in reality) doing. Save the odds for the doctors; I’m planning on living a long time. I’m planning on beating this thing. I’m planning on watching the Mariners win a game, and at this rate, that might take years. I want to be around to see it, though, and I just don’t care what the odds say is likely.
For the rest of 2011, I’m unsure of what my involvement here will be. You probably noticed that Derek has returned – I asked him to come help when I found out I had leukemia. The hospital has wi-fi, so if I feel good, I might write ten posts a day. If the chemo sucks, you might not hear from me for a few weeks. At this point, I just don’t know what is going to happen, but I know the outcome I want, and the fact that the data suggests it may not happen is irrelevant to me.
Statistics can be powerful, useful tools, and at times, they can be critical to understanding what to do. Other times, though, they’re useless, and so, for this situation, I say screw the data; I choose hope instead.
I know many of you are going to want to know how you can help. For now, I’ll just ask that you strongly consider donating both blood and platelets to the Red Cross – they have a critically low supply of both at the moment. Thankfully, my wife is an oncology PA; we have great health insurance and are in the trusted care of her friends and coworkers, so financial assistance isn’t needed at this time. If that changes, I’ll let everyone know, but for now, send prayers in lieu of cash.
See you all when I can. Don’t get too used to not having me around.
Marc and I discuss the team at some length
It’s a podcast-type thing, kind of! 40+m of raw USSM power! Sighs! Awkward pauses!
Table of contents
—
Ichiro
Jack Cust
Brendan Ryan
Ackley as the source of our problems
Jack Wilson as Patient Zero
A long chemistry discussion that avoids mentioning a certain tattooed third baseman
Chone Figgins
Does (and should) Zduriencik get fired
Miguel Olivo
Josh Bard and canned meats
Olivo and Wedge
Moving the fences
Pineda
Bedard
Pitchers
Smoak
The outfield: Carp, Halman
Adam Kennedy
Saunders
Mike Wilson should get another shot
Saunders, C
We can’t have nice things
Figgins, again, briefly
It’s our first attempt at this kind of thing, so it has issues:
– we couldn’t get recording right, so this is all done from Marc’s side
– audio quality is not great
But hey, we’re giving it a shot. We’ll only get better from here. Probably.
To-do for future efforts:
– Figure out how to record the whole thing on my side (and I’m happy to bore people with details)
– Figure out how to record it on both sides and then merge it for super quality
– Spend too much time on chapter breaks and other ridiculous audio features
– Find a player for wordpress so you can just hit ‘play’ if your browser doesn’t support it
Game 101, Mariners at Red Sox
Jeebus. Pineda v Wakefield
RF-L Ichiro!
SS-R Ryan
2B-L Ackley
C-R Olivo
1B-L Smoak
LF-L Carp
CF-R Gutierrez
DH-L Cust
3B-S Figgins
I know I’ve said this before, but any team that puts out a lineup card like this is either not serious about winning that game or badly managed. Sure, lineups don’t have a huge effect. But making the most of that is what Wedge is employed to do.
Red Sox:
CF-L Ellsbury
2B-R Pedroia
1B-L Gonzalez
3B-R Youkillis
DH-L Ortiz
LF-L Crawford
RF-L Reddick
C-S Saltalamacchia
SS-R Scutaro
Watch Dominican amateur baseball online
With the Mariners among the most prominent players in the international market year in, year out, many people here and on other sites around the internet have often expressed interest in the international scouting game. In the past, the answer was always that the kids are raw as hell, because most of them go into high-octane training programs at a very young age that focus on building athleticism and drills rather than playing actual baseball games.
This has started to change in the past couple of years with the advent of trainer-run leagues, most notably the Dominican Prospect League. Tomorrow, a TV station out of the Dominican Republic will be broadcasting the DPL all-star game. You can watch online at http://www.teleuniversocanal29.net tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. The game will feature $3.5 million Texas signee Ronald Guzman as well as Helsin Martinez, who the Mariners were rumored to have signed for somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million (though that rumor has been walked back), among many other 6 and 7-figure signees.
As for what to expect: I’m going out on a limb and saying you’ll probably see a good deal of athleticism on the field, and very, very raw baseball skills. The DPL is turning into the Dominican equivalent of the showcase circuit in the United States, only with kids 2 years younger than their American counterparts. Nonetheless, I thought it might be interesting for those who want to see what a $3.5 million 16-year-old talent looks like.
The seven-man bullpen
When was the last time a team carried 13 pitchers for any significant length of time and afterwards looked back and said “That worked out really well. We were able to get everyone consistent work and they all contributed”?
Did you have to have double-headers regularly for it to make any sense?
Game 99, Mariners at Redsox
King Felix vs. John Lackey, 4:10 PDT.
After being swept aside by the 4th place team in the AL East, the M’s arrive in Boston to face a team with a wOBA of .354. The only Mariners with a wOBA that high are Dustin Ackley and Doug Fister.
As you all know, the M’s have lost 12 in a row, and I’m sure reactions to the streak differ from fan to fan. Jeff Sullivan says that losing 12 in a row has made each successive game more captivating – that a win wouldn’t just be a meaningless win in a lost season, it would feel like an accomplishment. Others may be secretly (or not so secretly) hoping that the streak continues; if the team isn’t going to win, the least it can do is lose grandly. While it might be hard for some to justify rooting against the Mariners, the line-ups they’ve trotted out must give even the die-hards pause. I’m not big on “true fan” debates; the pointless and often heated arguments wherein one group of baseball fans spews venom on another for enjoying the game in all the wrong ways. If you’re still here after the past two years, you’re a fan. If you think an epic losing streak is more likely to produce meaningful change in the future, great. If you want Felix to destroy and demoralize the Red Sox hitters because he’s Felix and they’re the Red Sox, yeah, that’d be nice too.
The M’s may find themselves in what’s going to have to pass as a decent match-up. No, I know, the Mariners are still playing, so I’m not going to push this too far, but the Red Sox are starting John Lackey, owner of a 4.71 FIP on the year and an RA near 7. Lackey’s fastball has gone from a solid pitch to a liability. He’s walking more lefties, and his walk rate against righties is a bit misleading: he’s already tied his career high in hit-by-pitches, with 9 of 12 coming against righties. That pushes his walk rate vs. righties from around 7.3% to 10.6%.
He’s using his slider more this year, and while it’s not as effective as it once was, it’s still been his best pitch in terms of generating whiffs. When the M’s faced him in late April, they ran out a lefty-heavy line-up, but he handled it fairly well, yielding 2 runs in 6 innings. In that contest, he threw a blizzard of curves to the M’s lefties, and while he gave up walks, that was about all he gave up. Of course, there’s not a lot whole lot to glean from a game in which Lackey faced Mike Saunders, Milton Bradley, Ryan Langerhans and Jack Wilson. Guys like Carp and Ackley can probably expect a steady diet of curves and change-ups, and the right handers will see quite a few sliders.
But if they can be patient, they’ll see Lackey’s fastball, which now has so little arm-side run that the Pitch FX algorithm classifies it as a cutter. Now, maybe it is and maybe it isn’t, but you’d think if he was intentionally throwing his FB this way he’d just, you know, stop. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Whatever you call it, the 90mph thing that he throws hasn’t been good, and the M’s (especially the lefties) need to jump on it. Justin Smoak, if you’re still in there somewhere, give me a sign. Blink twice if you can understand me.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro?
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Kennedy
6: Smoak
7: Carp (LF)
8: Cust (DH)
9: Halman (CF)
Happy Felix Day, though
May he be backed up with a reasonable lineup as he attempts to prevent a thirteenth straight loss.
To each their own
“You can’t give in to the fight. You can’t keep pouting about it. You can’t quit. You’ve got to just keep going,” Wedge said. “I’m looking at this from an individual basis right now. Each man has to come out there and do everything that they need to do to help us win a ballgame tomorrow.” — Eric Wedge, quoted on MLB about his post-game clubhouse meeting
I hope this means Wedge will be turning in a reasonably sane lineup card next time.