Game 129, Twins at Mariners
Pavano vs French, 1:10 pm.
Sorry about missing the game thread yesterday. I went biking on the Blue Ridge Parkway with my wife and just never thought about it. So I’m actually not all that sorry after all.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Branyan, DH
Lopez, 3B
Kotchman, 1B
Gutierrez, CF
Moore, C
Tuiasosopo, LF
Wilson, SS
Game 128, Twins at Mariners
Baker vs Vargas, 7:10 pm.
M’s return home to take on the Twins. Good news on Saunders, as an MRI found no damage, and he may be back in the line-up as soon as Monday.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Branyan, DH
Lopez, 3B
Kotchman, 1B
Guiterrez, CF
Moore, C
Tuiasosopo, LF
Josh Wilson, SS
The ’10 AFL Crew
A couple weeks back, the Mariners announced the seven players they’ll be sending to the Arizona Fall League starting October 12th, and this year it’s going to be 2B Dustin Ackley, RHP Maikel Cleto, RHP Dan Cortes, RHP Josh Fields, RHP Josh Lueke, 3B Matt Mangini, and OF Nate Tenbrink. I hadn’t exactly thrown my two cents in on this one yet, so guess what happens next?
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A Glass Three-Eighths Full: Reasons for Optimism
It’s Insider-only, so you might’ve missed it, but Dan Szymborski of Baseball Think Factory posted a piece at ESPN yesterday on the historical ineptitude of the M’s offense.
Conclusion? It’s really bad.
Writes Szymborski: “The Mariners have scored 3.29 runs per game. The last American League team to score fewer runs per game was the 1981 Toronto Blue Jays, who averaged 3.10 at a time when an average team scored only 4.07 runs per game. That number is 4.42 this year.”
It’s very likely you know this — or at least suspected something like this. Sorry about that.
But in a shocking turn of events, Seattle’s incompetence actually turns out to be good news. “How?” you ask. Through the wonder of nerdom!
Szymborski again:
So, by how much have the team’s bats underperformed expectations? And how does this compare historically?
To answer this question, I used the historical Marcel projection database that sabermetrician Jeff Sackmann recently created. Marcel is a simple projection system originally created by Tom Tango based on a player’s most recent three seasons, age and regression to the mean. Using this database, I went through every team’s offense from the past 40 years to see how the actual offenses compared to their expectations, taking into consideration league offenses, mix of players and actual playing time received. The “performance ratio” is simply the ratio between runs expected before the season and the actual runs scored.
After this, Szymborski provides a list of the 10 most underperforming teams. The worst “performance ratio,” as he calls it, belongs to the 1978 Oakland A’s. That team scored only 71% of the runs that Marcel would’ve projected. This year’s Seattle Mariners are fourth on the list, with a performance ratio of 73%.
And here’s probably the best news for the M’s and their fans: the teams on this top-10 list averaged a 0.6 run/game improvement and a nine-win improvement a season later.
This information probably comes as some relief to Seattleites, who can now view the glass not as mostly empty, but definitely like a quarter, or even three-eighths, full.
What if we applied this new-found optimism to the rest of the season? What would that look like?
Here are five cases wherein rejoicing might be possible:
Mostly Empty: An elderly Ken Griffey Jr is given over 100 plate appearances and posts -0.8 WAR.
Three-Eighths Full: Every last Seattle-area resident — including moms and their newborns — have more productive major league season than a future Hall-of-Famer!
Mostly Empty: Manager Don Wakamatsu and second baseman Chone Figgins engage in fisticuffs after the latter appears to stop trying.
Three-Eighths Full: The encounter is dramatized, choreographed, and set to music — a la Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” video*.
Mostly Empty: Brandon Morrow turns out to be pretty awesome, actually, posting season numbers comparable to Tim Lincecum‘s.
Three-Eighths Full: Most of his (i.e. Morrow’s) starts are over by 6:00pm PT, when Seattle fans are just coming home from work.
Mostly Empty: Rob Johnson plays 61 games, compiles 209 PAs, generally bites.
Three-Eighths Full: Team determines, once and for all, that Rob Johnson is not major league catcher. (Note: This isn’t all that satisfying. Sorry.)
Mostly Empty: Team gets absolutely no offense from first base, where hitters combine to slash .222/.288/.358.
Three-Eighths Full: Team acquires Russell Branyan mid-season-ish. Though the signing does little for Seattle’s playoff hope, Branyan becomes first person ever to hit baseball into space.
*Denotes things that only happened in an ideal dreamworld.
Brock and Salk Spot Today
I’ll be on with the ESPN Radio crew at 11:30 am today, presumably talking about Felix’s chances for the Cy Young award and other stuff.
Oh, and if you haven’t heard yet, Stephen Strasburg needs Tommy John surgery and is out until 2012. This is why we say Happy Felix Day. Every time he takes the mound, we should be thankful that we get to watch him pitch.
8/26/10 Pineda Day Thread
Comcast 179, Rainiers vs. Beavers, 7:05 pm PDT. On the pregame show, some guy said that PGE Park was better for dog racing than it ever was for baseball. Huh.
2B Ackley
3B Mangini
LF Carp
1B Smoak
RF Winfree
SS Hulett
DH B. Nelson
CF Halman
C Alfonzo
Pennant race baseball, right in your backyard. Former M’s prospect Jeff Heaverlo joins Curto in the booth.
Felix And The Cy Young
My new post for the guys at the Brock and Salk blog is up and deals with my thoughts on Felix and his chances at winning the Cy Young Award. For more thoughts in the subject, check out my post today over at Fangraphs as well.
Also, I am doing my segment with Brock and Salk tomorrow instead of our normal Thursday spot.
Game 127, Mariners at Red Sox
Hernandez vs Wakefield, 4:10 pm.
Happy Felix Half Of The Day.
Felix is worth watching, even if the rest of the team isn’t. But, the more interesting baseball on TV is on later tonight, when Tacoma and Portland begin their annual five game series, all five of which are on TV – Comcast Sportsnet, channel 179 for those of you who have Comcast Digital. Tonight at 7:00, its Mauricio Robles vs Cory Luebke, with Dustin Ackley, Justin Smoak, and company carrying the offense. Tomorrow night is Michael Pineda’s turn in what will probably be his last appearance in 2010.
The Rainiers have a 2 1/2 game lead with 13 games to play, so the games mean something. Unlike the one that’s going to start in Boston shortly.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Branyan, DH
Lopez, 3B
Kotchman, 1B
Gutierrez, CF
Moore, C
Tuiasosopo, LF
Josh Wilson, SS
Game 126, Mariners at Red Sox
Pauley (for real this time) vs Beckett, 10:35 am.
Game one of the double header. Get excited for six hours of watching this team play…
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Branyan, DH
Lopez, 3B
Kotchman, 1B
Gutierrez, CF
Bard, C
Langerhans, LF
Josh Wilson, SS
Minor League Wrap (8/16-22/10)
Before we get rolling here, I’d like to notify local baseball fans that the Mariners have extended their player development contract with the Tacoma Rainiers until 2014 and with the Everett Aquasox until 2012. The rest is up in the air a bit, so I think I’ll wait a couple of weeks to cover the other affiliations, which are also expiring. There’s a chance we might get out of High Desert for next year.
To the jump!
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