Game One Recap
Yay, 1-0!
I’d like to start off on a cheerful note, but unfortunately, there is one glaringly obvious thing to talk about, and it’s not positive; the seventh inning choice of relief pitchers.
Sean White had a nice ERA last year. Wak has a belief system with him. I get it. He’s still not a good pitcher, and the M’s need to be smart enough to realize that. His xFIP, a much better indicator of actual ability, was 4.80, two full runs higher. His ERA was a massive fluke, based on an unsustainable .235 batting average on balls in play. He struck out 28 batters in 64 innings, which is terrible, and he doesn’t make up for it with good command. He’s got a decent sinker, but nothing else, and that doesn’t even work all that well against LHBs.
But, despite having a fully rested bullpen, Wak went to Sean White to get a lefty out with the tying run on base in the 7th inning. With Brandon League and Mark Lowe just sitting there, Wak bypassed them both to put in the 5th or 6th best reliever on the team (depending on how much you like Kanekoa Teixeira). White doesn’t do anything better than League, and the only advantage he has over Lowe (ground balls) doesn’t matter when there’s two outs. White, predictably, gives up a couple of hits and the game ended up tied.
Wak doesn’t have long to get over his Sean White fetish. Sean White is not a good pitcher, and his manager has to learn this in a hurry. He should not be used in close games unless he’s the only available option. When he’s the first guy out of the pen on opening day in a close game, that’s a problem. Learn from this, Wak.
Moving on, Felix had an interesting night. It was one of those classic good stuff/no command nights for him, made worse by the fact that Tim Tschida’s strikezone was stupid and inconsistent. But, because of the movement Felix was getting on his fastball, the command problems were minimized by a ridiculous amount of ground balls. It’s really hard to score if you can’t get the ball out of the infield, and for most of the night, the A’s couldn’t. Felix is good enough to succeed even when he has no idea where the ball is going. It wasn’t his best performance, but it showed how tough he can be, even when he’s not entirely on.
Offensively, the approach to the at-bats taken by Figgins, Kotchman, and Bradley were fun to watch. Those guys took advantage of the dancing strike zone and Sheets’ control problems, running up his pitch count and getting themselves on base. They might not be sluggers, but there are going to be a lot of innings where those three take 20 pitches between them, and that has value.
Watching Figgins and Ichiro steal second at will was fun. Watching Ichiro get thrown out at third and Bradley get picked off was less so. Aggressiveness is nice, but if you have to give up two outs in your pursuit of three bases, its not worth it.
Lopez looked pretty good at third. I still don’t love the switch, but it was good to see him make all the plays and start a couple of double plays.
Rob Johnson crushed a Ben Sheets fastball on the same night that Jeff Mathis went yard for the Angels. It was bad hitting catchers home run night in the AL West, apparently. You’ll hear about Johnson’s off-season surgeries every time he does something good, and he’ll almost certainly hit better than he did a year ago simply because its hard to be that bad two years in a row, but don’t expect many repeats of that power display.
You saw one of the benefits of the 11 man staff in the 8th inning. When Jr doubled, Byrnes pinch ran for him, giving the team a better chance of getting the go ahead run in on a base hit. That’s not possible if you don’t have Langerhans around to serve as the extra outfielder. It’s a small thing, but it helps, and keep in mind that it’s only possible because the M’s were willing to go with just six relievers. Every time someone mentions how nervous they are about that, remember that it comes with benefits too.
Congratulations to Casey Kotchman for some big hits and to the Mariners for starting the season off on a winning note. They’ll have to play better than this to win on most nights, but a win is a win, and I’ll take it.
Opening Day Game Thread
It’s Opening Day and Felix Day #1.
The weather forecasts for Oakland looked fairly dicey, but things look good for now, and the chance of precipitation actually declines later in the evening.
Your first 2010 M’s starting line-up:
1: Ichiro!
2: Chone Figgins, 2B
3: Casey Kotchman, 1B
4: Milton Bradley, LF
5: Ken Griffey, DH
6: Jose Lopez, 3B
7: Franklin Gutierrez, CF
8: Rob Johnson, C
9: Jack Wilson, SS
On the hill for the Athletics is Ben Sheets who 1) hasn’t thrown a pitch since 2008 and 2) makes more than the rest of the Oakland pitching staff combined.
The A’s DFA’d Jack Cust the other day, which means their clean-up hitter is Kevin Kouzmanoff. Yep.
Let’s go M’s.
Wladimir Balentien DFA’d
Anyone worried that the Mariners may have shipped away a legitimate middle of the order bat for a spare minor league arm last year should be able to rest a little bit easier now. Former frustrating Ms farmhand Wladimir Balentien just lost out to former frustrating Texas farmhand Laynce Nix for the 5th outfielder job with the Reds.
If no team trades for him in the next 10 days, Balentien will almost certainly find a minor league deal before too long. Every once in awhile, someone with his raw ability and obvious deficiencies turns into Nelson Cruz. More often, they hang around mashing Triple-A pitching into their late 20s/early 30s or sign a relatively lucrative contract to play in Japan. Best of luck to Wlad.
Previewing the 2010 Season
Everyone and their brother has written a season preview for the team, and they all come to the same general conclusions – the season hinges on several unpredictable players.
It really is that simple. This team is a contender if:
Milton Bradley stays healthy, stays sane, and hits well.
Cliff Lee recovers from this injury quickly and suffers no lingering effects.
Casey Kotchman remembers that he used to be a pretty good hitting prospect.
Ian Snell figures out how to throw strikes and get lefties out.
Felix, Ichiro, Gutierrez, and Figgins all avoid the disabled list.
If all of those things happen, this team has a great shot at the playoffs. If two or three of them happen, they have a shot, but they’ll need all three other AL West clubs to struggle. If less than three of those things happen, they may finish below .500.
This is a high variance team whose success hinges on some things going well that may or may not go well. People who are sure this team will win are wrong, just as those who are sure this team will lose are wrong. There’s no way to be sure about anything with this roster.
And, to be honest, that makes it kind of fun. For the first time in years, I have no idea what to expect. We’ll find out what this team is as we watch them play. Bring it on.
Opening Day Chat
For those that haven’t seen it yet, we’re hosting a big all day chat session over at FanGraphs, with a nifty collection of guests and a rotating panel of authors from the site. I’ll be hanging out over there in the morning, so if you want to swing by and talk baseball, feel free.
And, of course, we’ll have our regularly scheduled game thread here for the first game. Feel free to come talk about the game and the team with the rest of the USSM crowd.
Gutierrez To Hit 3rd
Shannon Drayer has the story of Wak deciding to start the season with Death To Flying Things hitting in the #3 spot in the order, seemingly to avoid putting undue pressure on Casey Kotchman. I talked about this the other day, but there was certainly a chance that Kotchman could have ended up as an easy scape goat for frustrated fans if the offense slumped early and he was hitting into a bunch of double plays. It’s not really the way you want the fans to get to know your new first baseman, so I think this is probably the right call.
If you start Kotchman off down in the order and he struggles, he may still attract some derision, but he won’t be seen as the reason the offense is failing. If he starts off hot, it’s easy enough to move him up.
I’m glad to see Wak make this move. It’s just one potentially bad scenario avoided.
2010 Opening Day Roster Set
Official press release, with some official misspellings.
That means your 2010 Mariners are as follows:
Starting Nine:
C: Rob Johnson
1B: *Casey Kotchman
2B: #Chone Figgins
SS: Jack Wilson
3B: Jose Lopez
LF: #Milton Bradley
CF: Franklin Gutierrez
RF: *Ichiro!
DH: *Ken Griffey, Jr.
Bench:
C: Adam Moore
1B/DH: Mike Sweeney
IF: Matt Tuiasosopo
OF: Eric Byrnes
OF: *Ryan Langerhans
Rotation:
RHP Felix Hernandez
RHP Ian Snell
LHP Ryan Rowland-Smith
RHP Doug Fister
LHP Jason Vargas
Bullpen:
RHP David Aardsma
RHP Shawn Kelley
RHP Brandon League
RHP Mark Lowe
RHP Kanekoa Texeira
RHP Sean White
The Mariners will start the season with Erik Bedard, Cliff Lee, and Jack Hannahan on the DL.
The big loser in this is probably Jesus Colome, who impressed this spring by walking three and striking out twelve in 12.1 innings, when the usual mark for him might be something like six walks and eight Ks. I’d say that this is indicative of the fact that the M’s are willing to exercise restraint and not take spring training results at face value, but then again, Sweeney. If things don’t go so well, expect to see a lot of Kelley, Texeira, and White, who were so thoughtfully stretched out beforehand.
The runner-up for big loser (loser of the year?) is probably Josh Wilson, as the M’s opted for the offensive potential of Tui over a more proficient glove. Of course, once Hannahan comes back, we could see things get rearranged.
Also, MLB.com is televising the final spring training game for free, if you can’t make it until tomorrow.
The Line-Up
And the winner of request-a-post is, well, no one actually. No one specifically requested this post, but the direction a few of the comments combined with some thoughts kicking around in my head and so, here we go, let’s talk about the batting order.
First off, I guess we should list it, eh? While Wak is the man of a million line-up cards, there will probably be more stability this year than last, and I’d imagine we’ll see something like this, at least with the current roster.
Vs RHP: Ichiro-Figgins-Kotchman-Bradley-Griffey-Lopez-Gutierrez-Catcher-Wilson
Vs LHP: Ichiro-Figgins-Gutierrez-Bradley-Lopez-Byrnes/Sweeney-Kotchman-Cacher-Wilson
Let’s start at the top – Ichiro and Figgins. When the M’s signed another lead-off type hitter, it inevitably brought out the question of which player should hit first. The M’s have settled on keeping Ichiro where he’s comfortable, seeing no useful reason to move him to a new spot. Should they?
After all, there are arguments you can put together that show why flipping the two may be advantageous. Figgins draws a lot of his value from the base on balls, which fits better at the #1 slot in the order. As presently stands, an Ichiro single and a Figgins walk puts runners at first and second. If you flip them, and you get the Figgins walk first, there’s a good chance he could advance to third on Ichiro’s single with regularity, and you’d gain an extra base when that occurred. You can also argue that Ichiro’s bat control gives him a greater ability to take advantage of the hole on the right side of the infield, and that he could get pepper that hole with base hits while the first baseman holds Figgins on. So, don’t these make it worth considering flipping them?
Not really, no. Tackling the second point first, Ichiro is a career .331/.361/.438 hitter with the bases empty and a .331/.359/.431 hitter with a man on first base. The theory is nice, but the evidence is not there. We have no actual reason to believe that Ichiro would be able to uniquely take advantage of the hole on the right side, even though it might make intuitive sense. Nine years into his major league career, if he had the ability to do that, I think we’d probably have seen it by now.
Now, for the first point. Yes, a walk and then a single is the preferable order to those two events, but the benefit doesn’t come without a cost. Ichiro has 40 or more infield hits in each of the last four years, with a lot of those being ground balls to the hole between shortstop and third base where they simply can’t get the throw across the diamond in time to get him at first base. However, if you put Figgins on first base when that ball is hit, there’s a pretty good chance for a force play at second, and that infield hit becomes a fielders choice. If Ichiro moved to the two hole and was hitting behind a high on base guy, I’d expect his batting average to take a beating, even if he did everything exactly the same. The chance to get an extra base on the times when he gets a hit to the outfield isn’t worth taking away some of his infield hits.
Okay, now, the #3 spot. It’s going to be a Kotchman/Gutierrez platoon, and let’s be honest, no one is expecting those guys to combine for 40 home runs from that spot in the order. The M’s are likely going to have near league-worst offensive production from that particular line-up spot, even though Gutierrez hits lefties well. Most teams put a burly slugger third, but the M’s don’t have that guy, so they’re making do. Is it a good idea to hit Kotchman third against righties and push Bradley back to the full time cleanup spot?
Maybe. As Tom Tango showed in The Book (and is explained in this primer), a Markov Chain analysis (don’t ask – it even makes my head hurt) shows that the most important spots in the line-up are actually #1, #2, and #4. The #3 hitter frequently comes up with two men out and no one on base, so despite the common wisdom that its a vital run producing spot, it’s actually not, at least not relative to the 1, 2, and 4 spots in the order. So, there’s some logic to what they’re doing by pushing Bradley back to the clean-up spot, since he’s the third best hitter on the team.
But here’s the one problem with this setup – Casey Kotchman is a slow footed ground ball machine. For his career, 52.7 percent of his balls in play have been hit on the ground. As the #3 hitter behind Ichiro and Figgins, he’s going to hit into a lot of frustrating double plays. Count on at least 15, maybe 20. He could lead the league in GIDP, just because of his skillset and line-up spot. If the team is struggling to score runs, he’s going to be a very easy target for the frustrated fans, who simply will see an underpowered first baseman creating two outs at a time. They’re trying to setup Kotchman for a breakout year by playing him everyday, but I hope he can respond well to being a lightning rod for criticism, because I’d guess that we’re going to hear a lot of complaints about his double play proclivities if he stays in the #3 hole all year.
The rest of the line-ups aren’t very controversial. I guess I could talk about Griffey or Sweeney again, but I don’t want to, so I won’t. Gutierrez and Kotchman both struggle against same-handed pitchers, so hitting them seventh against those guys makes sense. Wilson will hit ninth because he’s the worst hitter on the team. That leaves the 8th spot for the catcher of the day, which will probably depend much more on who is starting for the M’s than who is starting for the opponents.
Overall, I’d say that the line-up the M’s are going with is pretty well maximized in terms of efficiency. There aren’t many gains to be had by shuffling things around, as the proposed line-ups have the teams best three hitters in the three most important spots, and give the team ways to move guys around the rest of the order to take advantage of platoons. If the offense isn’t working, there will be calls to change the way the line-up is built, but I don’t think you can really improve on this very much. The only way to make this offense better is to get better hitters in the line-up, not re-arrange the ones already here.
The Odds Of Winning
The guys at Replacement Level Yankee Weblog posted their season simulation blowout on Tuesday, using the inputs of five different projection systems and running them through Diamond Mind’s baseball simulation engine 1,000 times each to produce projected standings for the 2010 season. Since we’re all trying to figure out just how good this team may be, and how likely they are to give us a playoff team to root for this year, I thought it’s worth pointing out.
If you aggregate the projections together, the Mariners are projected to finish 81-81 and place second in the AL West. That might sound like a disappointment, but the key is in the playoff odds – in those 1,000 seasons, the Mariners ended up on top of the AL West 25.6 percent of the time and won the wild card 3.8 percent of the time. In other words, in nearly 3 out of 10 runs of the season, the M’s ended up playing October baseball. I’ll take that. Given where the team was just two years ago, who isn’t happy with 30 % odds of making the playoffs?
Even better, Dan Szymobrski’s ZIPS system (which wasn’t included in RLYW’s run because they were licensed by ESPN for use in their baseball preview) actually has the M’s as favorites in the AL West and winning the World Series more often than all but six other MLB clubs.
This is a roster with flaws. We all know that. We’ll spend a lot of time dissecting every last possible spot to upgrade the team as the year goes on, I’m sure. But, warts and all, there is a non-zero chance we’ll be throwing a parade this winter. Be concerned about the offense, the back of the rotation, the lack of depth on the middle infield, but don’t lose sight of the big picture – the 2010 Mariners are a legitimate contender.
Four More Days
It’s probably that this spring training has been a never ending series of bad news for the Mariners, but I have never been this ready for a season to begin before. March took forever this year. It’s finally over, but we still have to wait through one more weekend without meaningful baseball.
With a couple of days left before the season starts, I realized I only have time left for one or two classic too-long-USSM-posts, and so I’ll open this up to you guys – have any last minute things you’d like to read? What hasn’t been written about enough that we really should talk about before the season starts? (If you say Mike Sweeney, I will burn your house down. But don’t worry, Sweeney will buy you a new one – he’s just that nice.)
I’ll go through the suggestions, then knock out the best idea and post it tonight. Expect some kind of season preview thing tomorrow or Monday, once I figure out what I want that to look like.
Oh, and I should mention that if you want to chat on Monday, I’m going to be hanging out over at FanGraphs with a whole bunch of neat people. Jonah Keri, Dan Szymborski, Tim Marchman, Dave Studemund, and others have agreed to swing by, and we’ll be talking baseball all day. I’ll be in and out in the morning, but should be around in the afternoon. Feel free to swing by and talk baseball with us over there.