Looking At The Opening Day Roster
We’re a little over a week away from Opening Day, so the M’s are going to start having to make some decisions on who goes north with the club pretty soon. I’m guessing that most of the decisions have already been made, but there is probably still one or two openings. As of today, here’s my best guess as to what the Opening Day roster for the M’s will look like.
1. Ichiro, RF
2. Figgins, 3B
3. Bradley, LF
4. Cust, DH
5. Smoak, 1B
6. Olivo, C
7. Gutierrez, CF
8. Wilson, 2B
9. Ryan, SS
Bench: Moore (C), Kennedy (IF), Langerhans (OF), Josh Wilson (UT)
SP: Felix
SP: Vargas
SP: Fister
SP: Bedard
SP: Pineda
CL: League
RHP: Ray
RHP: Lueke
LHP: Laffey
RHP: Wright
LHP: Ring
RHP: Pauley
The spots that could still be up in the air are the utility spot (where it’s possible that they could go with Chris Gimenez instead of Josh Wilson if they wanted a third catcher with Olivo at less than 100%) and the second lefty, where Ring could be beaten out by Fabio Castro (if they want a guy who can go multiple innings) or Cesar Jimenez (if they don’t want to put Jimenez on waivers). My feeling is the other 23 spots are basically decided at this point.
Probably the main “story” that would come out of this roster would be Michael Saunders heading back for another round in Triple-A. The M’s are trying to rework his swing a bit after some pretty poor results during his stints in the big leagues, and having him serve as a part-time player is not in the best interests of his development. When they decided to keep Milton Bradley around as the regular left fielder, they essentially ticketed Saunders for the PCL and turned his roster spot into more of a fourth outfielder role, which Langerhans is better suited for.
We’ll do a post about Saunders shortly, but in reality, he needs more time in the minors. As we talked about last year, his swing essentially made it impossible for him to hit anything to left field, so he was highly susceptible to anything on the outer half of the plate. This meant that righties could just pitch him away and lefties could pound him with breaking balls, and he couldn’t really do anything about it. Unless he can correct that issue and come up with a swing that allows him to occasionally dump the ball into left field when he needs to, he’s not going to be a good big league hitter. It’s better for Saunders to work on that in Tacoma to be continually embarrassed in Seattle.
As it stands, the bench provides a decent amount of versatility in terms of pinch-running and moving guys around the field, but it leaves Wedge with some inferior pinch-hitting options for high leverage situations when he wants to swap out Wilson or Ryan to get a big hit. Langerhans and Kennedy offer LH bats but neither have the kind of offensive ability you really want in a pinch-hitter, and if you use Langerhans to pinch hit for one of the middle infielders, you probably burn two bench spots – either Wilson or Kennedy has to go in to play the infield position in the next inning, so in most cases, Wedge would probably just opt to use Kennedy as the pinch-hitter du jour. Not exactly the kind of guy who is going to strike fear into opposing pitchers when they see him come out in the on deck circle.
There’s also no real reserve corner infielder on the roster. This is a team that could really use a right-handed 3B/1B with some punch against left-handed hitters, as both Figgins and Smoak have had their problems with southpaws historically. Even if you don’t plan on platooning either of those guys, giving them a day off here and there when an LHP is on the mound isn’t the worst idea in the world. This bench doesn’t really give the M’s that option. If the team could find a corner infielder who could also fake it in left field occasionally (necessary because of Bradley’s health issues), they could punt Wilson and improve the team. Whether that’s something they actually try to do or not remains to be seen.
On the pitching side of things, the rotation is clearly the strength of the team, with three quality arms, a fly ball lefty who is perfect for the park, and a command righty who has shown some ability to be a decent innings sponge. Neither Pineda or Bedard are likely to soak up a lot of innings this year, however, so expect to see guys like Luke French and David Pauley make quite a few starts as well. Bedard is a pretty huge wild card – if he stays healthy, he represents a nice upgrade for the team that they couldn’t have counted on, but every time he takes the hill, there’s a chance that he could experience shoulder pain and have to shut it down.
The bullpen… well, it just isn’t good. Aardsma and Kelly’s injuries took away good arms, and Dan Cortes failed to throw enough strikes in spring training to crack the roster. That left the team with a few veteran stop-gaps who will try to hold down the fort until the good arms return, and the late innings could be pretty scary in April and May. The M’s need to hope that guys like Cortes and Wilhelmsen develop quickly, Aardsma gets healthy in a hurry, and they can avoid total bullpen meltdown until that happens.
The team should also be actively looking to steal arms from other organizations who might be in a roster crunch and have a decent reliever to spare. There’s no reason they should settle for the status quo if an improvement hits the waiver wire or is dangled in trade, and the current bullpen is pretty easy to improve. With any luck, they’ll have found a better option than Jamey Wright before the end of camp.
Realistically, the M’s roster by mid-summer probably won’t look too much like the one that takes the field in Oakland for Game 1. There are quite a few veteran placeholders who are just biding their time until a more talented prospect shows he’s ready to come up and take their job, and the M’s success this year will depend on how quickly and how ably those guys can transition to the big leagues. This obviously isn’t the roster of a contender, but that isn’t the goal this year – the goal is to play decent baseball, establish some young players as foundational pieces for the future, and win enough games that there isn’t a massive housecleaning at year’s end. This roster is probably good enough to do that, as long as guys like Smoak, Pineda, and Ackley are able to contribute some value. If they all prove that they’re not quite ready, this year could be another disaster.
Let’s hope the kids are ready.
Brendan Ryan Takes Shortstop Job
After experimenting with it a bit over the last few weeks, Eric Wedge made it official this morning – the M’s are going to start Brendan Ryan at shortstop and Jack Wilson at second base to begin the season. Ryan is younger, healthier, and is likely the better defender of the two, so there’s certainly logic in giving him the more challenging defensive position. And, with Adam Kennedy slated for some fairly regular playing time at second base, this creates a natural job share with the left-handed batting Kennedy and the right-handed hitting Wilson, where the two can both play part-time and hopefully keep Wilson’s body from breaking down as often as it has the last few years.
There are merits to this decision. That said, I’m still not a big fan of the call. Perhaps its still the memory of last year’s failed Jose Lopez-Chone Figgins switcheroo, where the M’s decided that Figgins looked more like a second baseman than Lopez did and went with body type instead of positional experience as the deciding factor. Figgins was a disaster at second base, however, in part because it was a position he just hadn’t played all that much. There was a learning curve that had to be overcome, and so for most of last year, the M’s had to put up with Figgins making mistakes that a more experienced second baseman wouldn’t have made. And, of course, it all meant nothing, as this year Figgins is right back where he belongs, over at third base.
I have a bit of a feeling of deja vu here. Jack Wilson is not any kind of long term answer for the Mariners. He almost certainly won’t be a Mariner in 2012, and he might not even be one in July. Dustin Ackley is the future at second base, and if he plays well in Tacoma to start the year, he could force his way up to the big club early this summer. Once again, the Mariners are asking a player with limited experience at second base to make the conversion in season without it having much of a long term reward. They’re eating the cost of the adjustment without the hope of a payoff.
There’s an argument to be made that having Wilson gain experience at second base might increase his trade value this summer, as he’ll have greater positional flexibility and could be marketed to teams looking for either a shortstop or a second baseman. That’s possible, I guess, but I think you could also argue that there is such a small supply of shortstops that moving Wilson off the position might actually harm his trade value – if a team like the Giants decides to scout Wilson as a fill-in for the black hole they have at the position, they won’t get to see him actually play shortstop, and will have to make inferences about his abilities to still play that spot on the field. Additionally, they’ll have the knowledge that the Mariners think he wasn’t capable of playing SS for them this year, and likely include that in their decision making process. You may add teams looking for a second baseman to the list of suitors for Wilson this summer, but I think you probably subtract teams looking for a shortstop. And shortstops are in higher demand than second baseman.
Overall, I’d say this is unlikely to help Wilson’s trade value and unlikely to improve the Mariners defense all that much. It might make things a bit easier on Ryan, who can focus on playing shortstop exclusively now, but I don’t know that there’s a big gain to be had from that. I guess I just don’t see a lot of upside here, but I do some potential risks. Wilson could adapt poorly to second base, or he could be taken out while trying to turn the double play with his back to the runner – a play he hasn’t had to make in his career until now.
It seems like another needless position switch, honestly. It didn’t help last year, and I’m not sure it will help this year either.
Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 5
Even though minor league camp has opened up, news has been limited. I don’t know what to tell you. There’s still plenty of commentary on the few pieces I do have, so let’s get on with it.
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The 40 Man Roster Crunch
As noted by Ken Rosenthal tonight, the M’s are going to have to start making some decisions on 40-man roster guys in the next couple of weeks. The team is at the 40 man limit, but several of the players penciled into the opening day roster are in camp on minor league contracts, and will have to be added to the 40 man roster before the season starts. Adam Kennedy is basically a lock for a spot at this point, and it seems likely that the fourth outfielder job will go to either Ryan Langerhans or Gabe Gross, with Michael Saunders headed back to Tacoma for more seasoning. With Miguel Olivo gimpy, they might also need to carry bring Josh Bard north to fill a catching spot, and depending on how the bullpen shakes out, there could be a non-roster guy or two down there that needs to be added as well.
Rosenthal put out the possibility of the M’s needing to open up five spots. I’d say it’s probably going to be four, but five isn’t completely out of the question. Where will the M’s find those spots?
There’s three that are very easy to identify from my perspective.
As Rosenthal notes in the same column, Garrett Olson is already on waivers, and he seems to be unlikely to make the team after the acquisition of Aaron Laffey. Since he’s out of options, the team will likely either ship him elsewhere or outright him to Tacoma. Either way, he’s probably not long for the 40-man roster.
It’s also pretty unlikely that Rule 5 pick Jose Flores is going to make the team either. He hadn’t pitched in a Cactus League game since March 7th coming into today, and after walking three guys in 2/3 of an inning (raising his spring training ERA to 12.27 in the process), he hasn’t exactly made a strong case for himself. Given that the team is already starting with a somewhat shaky bullpen out of the gates, they probably can’t afford to carry Flores, and he’ll either be offered back to Cleveland or they’ll strike a deal that lets them send him to the minors after he clears waivers.
On the position player side of things, Mike Carp has no real future with the organization, and given how common his skillset is, he’d be a pretty easy guy to replace even if he was grabbed off waivers. Carp might have a career as a back-up first baseman on a bad team, but he offers little upside and isn’t worth a 40 man spot, especially not to the Mariners right now.
I’d put decent money on those three being removed from the 40 man roster before spring ends. After that, its a little more speculative. There are quite a few guys who are all equally disposable, including Chaz Roe, Josh Wilson, and Matt Tuiasosopo. Tui has an option left and could be sent to Tacoma without passing through waivers, so he’s probably the least likely option. Brendan Ryan‘s acquisition made Josh Wilson nearly useless, but his ability to fill in as an outfielder might convince them to keep him around, given the lack of confidence that Milton Bradley, Starting Left Fielder engenders. If they do decide to keep Wilson, then a guy like Roe could be sacrificed, as the organization has no shortage of right-handed sinkerballers with no out pitch.
None of these guys are likely to be missed in the future, so these aren’t super painful decisions, but the 40 man roster you see today is going to look pretty different come April 1st.
Pineda Isn’t Ready
I’ve been sitting on this post for a few weeks now. I started writing it while I was up in New Hampshire on a ski trip, but I wasn’t satisfied that I had enough information and I was only a few days away from seeing Michael Pineda pitch in Arizona, so I figured I’d let it slide until I got a chance to see him live. I got that chance last week when the M’s played the Indians in Goodyear, but my vantage point wasn’t exactly what you would want for a good report, and so I kept asking around about him. Every scout I talked to loves Pineda. They all think he’s awesome, and trying to get anyone to do anything but rave was a challenge. So, I figured I’d watch him one more time, and try to let him change my mind with his outing last night.
It didn’t happen. The Michael Pineda I watched last night was the same Pineda I’ve seen before, and the one that I just don’t think is ready to pitch in the big leagues right now.
The first thing everyone talks about with Pineda is the velocity. He throws a legitimate mid-90s fastball, and at 6’7, he’s got enough arm extension where it probably gets on the hitter like a high-90s heater. He’s a big dude who throws really hard, and that’s generally exciting. When you add in that he can actually locate the pitch in the strike zone with regularity, and all of the sudden, you have something of an unusual prospect. Big guys who throw hard often have no idea where its going, but Pineda hardly ever walks anyone. If anything, he might throw too many strikes. And so, right off the bat, you have two really positive traits, which is why he’s considered a premium pitching prospect to begin with.
The problem that I see is that there’s a pretty gap between those strengths and the next best thing Pineda can actually do. Once you get past fastballs in the strike zone, there’s not a whole lot else there right now. His slider has some promise, but he throws it in the low-to-mid-80s and it doesn’t have a hard bite, so it’s not a classic knockout breaking ball. It’s also inconsistent, and he flattens out it at times, turning it into more of a cut-fastball. It’s not a plus pitch yet and he knows it, so his go-to pitch when he wants a strikeout is the high fastball out of the zone. This pitch gets swinging strikes, but it’s also a pretty easy pitch to lay off when you know it’s coming, and since the slider isn’t refined enough to be a really good second option, hitters are going to quickly figure out that they can look for the high heat with two strikes.
Against right-handers, this probably won’t be that big of a deal. He’s got enough velocity and command to get it in on right-handers enough that it should be a pretty effective pitch for him. They’ll also have to keep an eye out for the slider, which is far more effective against same-handed hitters, so he’ll have some element of surprise when a right-handed hitter steps up to the plate. The one plus pitch, usable breaking ball, and good control should be enough to let him get righties out with regularity.
Lefties are a whole different story, however. The slider has the largest platoon split of any pitch in baseball, and it’s generally a pretty worthless offering against opposite-handed hitters. Unfortunately for Pineda, he has to use it as his off-speed pitch against them, because his change-up is not really Major League quality at this point. When a lefty steps in, they can essentially sit on Pineda’s fastball, because they can easily adjust to the slider and pound it if it dives into their wheelhouse. He doesn’t have a weapon to keep LHBs honest.
Look through the list of fastball-slider starters who rely primarily on those two pitches, and you quickly identify one pretty clear trend – they often have very large platoon splits. Jeremy Bonderman is the classic example, as he’s a guy who basically pitched with just those two offerings his whole career and dominated righties while getting torched by lefties. The result – a reputation as a career underachiever. Oher examples of similar pitcher types are Justin Masterson (though his arm slot is a complicating factor, as he simply can’t get lefties out from where he releases the ball), Ervin Santana, and Mike Pelfrey. All three were pretty well thought of as prospects, but have had some shine come off as big leaguers. They’re quality pitchers, but none of them are aces, as they struggle to get left-handed bats out and can easily get beat by teams with LH-heavy line-ups.
For Pineda to be more than that, he’s going to need his change-up to turn into a legitimate pitch he can lean on. It’s just not there yet. It could get there, but it needs work. Ideally, to develop the pitch, he should probably be throwing it 10-20 times a game, but if he does that in the big leagues, he’s going to get destroyed – nearly every change-up he threw tonight was either out of the strike zone or got crushed. In Tacoma, the team could essentially mandate change-up usage, and make it a focal aspect of his development. In Seattle, he’d have to essentially put it in the shelf and only work on it in bullpens between starts, as it’s not good enough to get big league hitters out right now.
For Pineda to become what the M’s want him to become, he needs that change-up to get a lot better. Letting him break camp with the team will slow down the pace with which he could work on the pitch, and potentially slow down the timetable until he becomes a legitimate front-end starter. Is he better than David Pauley or Luke French right now, even without the change-up? Yeah, probably. Could he succeed in the big leagues this year? It’s certainly possible. However, the M’s focus needs to be on developing Pineda into a top-shelf pitcher as quickly as possible, and given the state of his non-fastball pitches, I think the organization is best served if he spends a few months in Tacoma trying to get the rest of his repertoire up to speed.
There are compounding factors that will go into the decision, but for me, I’m not all that worried about service time or his arbitration schedule. I’d rather see Pineda come up as a more fully polished product. Right now, he’s a pretty good raw talent, and while he might be able to survive on what he has, he’s going to need more than just his fastball to become what the organization hopes he can be. He’s just not Major League ready yet. He’s got work to do, and that work is best done in Tacoma.
Thanks to the positive developments with Erik Bedard (who we’ll talk about tomorrow), the organization has the ability to send Pineda to Tacoma without having to just completely punt the back end of the rotation. They should take advantage of that opportunity, and let Pineda get his work in down in the PCL. Everyone will be better off in the long run.
Pineda On TV
Michael Pineda takes the hill for the M’s against the Brewers tonight, and the game is on TV. I’m going to be throwing my thoughts in the comments for the first few innings, at least. I’ve got a long post on the rotation basically ready to go, but have been holding it off until getting to see Pineda tonight. I saw him live (although from a mediocre-at-best vantage point) last Friday and my feeling was that he needs some more time in the minors, but I’m willing to be swayed if he shows some legitimate secondary pitches tonight.
Game starts at 7:05 and is on FSNW.
Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 4
As I started writing this, I was thinking “I can’t remember that much news in this past week that caught my eye.” Three hours later, it turns out to be the longest one I’ve written. This is why marc accuses me of graphomania.
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Weekend Odds and Ends: Over/Unders, “Short Hops” vs Strategy
Vegas Watch posted MLB win totals in February, and with several projection systems out now, it’s always fun to see where the major discrepancies lie. Last year, several teams projected win totals and their Vegas over/under figures (and remember, over/unders aren’t designed to project actual wins, they’re designed to produce an equal amount of bets for both sides) differed markedly. Matthew Carruth’s piece last year argued that the Vegas line was biased towards the previous year’s results, or more accurately stated, the Vegas line was set to account for the fact that most bettors are heavily influenced by last year’s results.
What’s interesting, at least to me, is how much they agree this year. Last year, six teams had over/under projections that were at least six wins above or below the average of their CHONE and CAIRO projected win totals. This year, well, I can’t use CHONE as its creator was snapped up by an MLB team, and thus the system isn’t public anymore. But CAIRO’s here, and Baseball Prospectus playoff odds report is here. Compare them to the over/unders here, courtesy of Vegas Watch. BP’s odds came out after Chris Carpenter’s injury, but even so, they’re within a win or two. CAIRO and the Vegas lines are surprisingly close; there just aren’t outliers here. The only one that stands out is the Angels, who have an over/under of 85, but 77 wins in both CAIRO/BP’s projections. What would account for this convergence? Are bettors more aware of regression? Do big trades/signings help bettors put aside previous year’s results? If so, were there really that many more impact moves this off-season than last? This would all be more fascinating if the projections for the M’s weren’t so uniformly terrible.
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Cactus League Game 14 – M’s vs. A’s
Blake Beavan gets the start with Felix Hernandez pitching in a ‘B’ game to prevent the A’s from becoming too familiar with his repertoire. As Jeff Sullivan pointed out, it seems pretty unlikely that the A’s would learn a whole lot from facing Felix twice in spring training that they haven’t figured out from advanced scouts, video, and Felix’s 5.5 year career. But hey, I’m sure Beavan doesn’t mind another start. The former Rangers first round pick struggled in Tacoma last year and so far this spring, he’s showing the same 89-91 velocity he had with the Rainiers – which is considerably slower than he threw immediately before/after the 2007 draft (when he touched the mid 90s).
Today’s line-up:
Ichiro Suzuki RF
Chone Figgins 3B
Milton Bradley LF
Jack Cust DH
Justin Smoak 1B
Franklin Gutierrez CF
Adam Kennedy 2B
Jack Wilson SS
Josh Bard C
Blake Beavan P
The A’s counter with Guillermo Moscoso, who started the previous game between these two teams. The A’s are evidently not as worried about the M’s booking Moscoso.
Also available to pitch today: Luke French, Jamey Wright, Tom Wilhelmsen and Dan Cortes,
Mariners slim down by 6
As reported by Larry Stone and the rest of the Mariners beat on Twitter this morning, Seattle kicked off their weekend by sending six players to minor league camp.
LHP Mauricio Robles, CIF Alex Liddi and COF Carlos Peguero were optioned to AAA Tacoma, COF Joherymn Chavez was optioned to AA Jackson and non-roster players LHP James Paxton and RHP Yusmeiro Petit were also assigned to minor league camp.
No big surprises here. Robles, Liddi, Peguero and Chavez could play a major part in the Mariners’ future but they all need to marinate a little longer before they’ll be ready. Paxton was brought to big league camp as a courtesy or contract obligation as well as to give the Mariners brass a good look at him, while Petit is looking more and more like upper minors roster-filler.
33 more cuts to go before Oakland.