Quick note on lockdown
In the event site load becomes huge, and it will, USSM will lean more and more heavily on caching, which means in particular you may see comments (if they’re on) lag way behind. Please don’t panic.
More on Bedard’s ranking
Baker writes at some length about why he thinks Bedard’s going to be a Type A in responding to “comments” and ups his prediction:
Taking all that into account, there is an excellent chance Bedard qualifies for Type A free-agency next November. It doesn’t matter where he ranks at present-time, because that ranking is skewed by an incomplete 2008. As long as Bedard stays on the mound, he should be fine. Rarely will things be a slam dunk like they were with Raul Ibanez. But in this case, as long as Bedard makes it to the mound, goes six innings and does what he’s been doing, he will make that elite cut. He might even increase his projected wins and winning percentage now that the Mariners are scoring a few more runs.
Now we’re to “excellent” chance?
I’d like first to just cross-apply the previous arguments, which are still entirely applicable. I’m not sure exactly what he’s arguing here, except that he both understands how they’re done and… doesn’t.
But the two-year thing… Bedard barely, barely made the cut last year, and Baker’s making the argument that all he has to do is match the 07-08 two-year performance to be an A.
Okay. But the rankings count wins and win percentage. In 2007, Bedard went 13-5 for a .722 win percentage. What are the chances he’s going to get there with this M’s team? Eight wins I can see, but this M’s team is legitimately terrible offensively. He’s not going to go the rest of the year losing only three games. In 2007, Bedard struck out 221 batters — he’s pitching well this year, but he’s not going to get there. Check out the single-season win-loss leaderboards: the best and luckiest starters in each league don’t get much higher than that. Why, in 2006 no one in the NL managed a .722. Takes a lot to get there.
And on and on… that Bedard’s composite 2007-2008 line got him at the tail end of the A players is a persuasive argument for how steep the mountain he has to climb this season. Given how bad, ranking-wise, his 08 was, he had to have it taken alongside the best year of his career, where he got lucky not taking losses, in order to be at the back of the pack.
Anyway, as I said last time, it could happen. But it’s a lot more difficult than Baker seems to believe it is, even if Bedard continues to pitch well the rest of the year.
Draft Day Reading
Draft Day is finally here, and in about six hours, we’ll find out who the M’s have selected with the 2nd pick in the draft.
To tide yourself over, here’s a series of draft related links to read until then.
I’ve got a Wall Street Journal piece on how various teams have done drafting pitchers in the last 20 years or so.
My FanGraphs post for the afternoon is called “The Case for Dustin Ackley”, where I argue that perhaps the Nationals should consider Ackley with the first pick in the draft. It’s going to get me called an idiot by a lot of people, but I think there’s a legitimate argument to be made for going the safe route. Their fans would riot, though.
Baseball America has a bunch of good stuff for their subscribers: Is Strasburg the best ever?, the poor track record of college arms, and Jim Callis’ latest mock draft. Their draft blog is free, and will be updated with news throughout the day as well.
Keith Law has his draft morning notes on ESPN’s draft blog for Insiders, as well as his latest mock draft.
Larry Stone does his thing summing up the news of the past few days.
And finally, don’t forget you can view reports and video on most of the guys drafted today at MLB.com’s draft central. They’ll also have live video of the draft as it occurs.
As a reminder, we’re not having a game thread tonight, since the draft and the M’s-O’s game run concurrently (thanks MLB!). I’ll have a draft reaction post up, though we might turn off comments if the load on the site gets too rough. I’ll also be live blogging the draft over at FanGraphs, so if USSM goes down, you’ll know where to find me.
Bedard’s upcoming Elias ranking
Baker:
Besides, Bedard is likely headed to Type A free-agent status. You’ll likely get two high draft picks for him if he leaves as a free-agent at season’s end. It would take quite a haul to pry him away from Seattle in June, I’d suspect. We’ll know the answer to that in three weeks or less.
It’s possible, but he’s a lot farther than likely. Here’s the Elias system, as best I know it. You take everyone’s two-year stats in a bunch of categories, and assign everyone ordinal ranks. Then you add that all up.
For starters, I believe it’s total games (as starts + 1/2 relief appearances), IP, Wins, W/L percentage, ERA, strikeouts. Then the top 20 percent get rated A, 21-40 percent are B, and then everyone else bites it.
Bedard only got 6 wins last year (68th in the AL among all pitchers), his win percentage was 60%, his ERA was 3.67, and 72 K put him at 70th among all pitchers. Bedard gets helped a little by his decent rate stats and hurt by getting killed on counting stats.
For 2009, he looks great — among qualified starters, he’s #12 in wins, his win percentage looks great, he’s 4th on ERA, and 9th in K.
To be an ‘A’ Bedard needs not only to pitch a lot (which… yeah), and do really well (which he’s entirely capable of). Or think of this another way: how many pitchers can you name quickly that will end up ahead of him when rated over two years on all those stats? You only have to get to the top 20%, because the ratings include all pitchers. When I rattled off a list this morning while discussing this on the Mariners Blogosphere Conspiracy Conference Call, it was
Burnett, Halladay, Meche (I can’t even believe that i just typed that), Greinke, Beckett, Lee, Floyd, Sabathia, Shields, Millwood, Joba probably, Garza, Jered Weaver maybe?, Edwin Jackson, Marcum (?), Wakefield…
That’s 16 I can name off the top of my head. And as much as Bedard might do well on the rate stats, there are going to be some random starters out there who luck into getting ranked well on the wins, say, or with fluky ERAs.
So I asked Eddie, who’s been working on this over at Tiger Thoughts, and he said yup, Bedard’s in the middle of the Type Bs.
Which is better than being in the others. And he’s talented… but say he pitches with the M’s the rest of the year. He needs to stay lucky on wins and win percent, stay healthy, and you’re still going to be crossing your fingers that he sneaks up to the last spot on the Type A list.
Now, I know this, and the M’s know this, and I would bet the brain trust already sent someone out to project this and see what the chances are that Bedard ends up as a Type A. And maybe they talked to Baker and gave him the nudge nudge that they’re expecting a little something, wanted to get that aired for other teams to note as well…. but it’s a tall order. Given the way it’s calculated, and who’s ahead of him, I don’t see how he’s a likely Type A.
Draft Stuff
So, the draft is tomorrow. Thanks to MLB trying to get it more publicity, they’ve split it into three days, with the first three rounds taking place tomorrow evening. The draft kicks off at 3 pm Seattle time. And, just for fun, the Mariners-Orioles game starts at 4 pm Seattle time. Apparently, MLB is not content with forcing us to deal with just draft-related traffic (which always crashes the server), but also wants us to have to deal with a game going on at the same time. Awesome.
So, yea, there probably won’t be a game thread tomorrow. And as always, we’ll ask that you please be kind to the blog – don’t just sit there and pound refresh waiting for updates. MLB.com is going to be streaming the whole thing live, and if you really need to get up-to-the-minute picks via a website, nuke their servers, not ours.
As for what the M’s are expected to do, here’s what I’ve gathered this morning.
Dustin Ackley is still the strong favorite to go #2. There’s a chance they could take Aaron Crow or Tyler Matzek instead, but Ackley is a good bet to be the pick.
At #27, the M’s will have a chance to select a premium arm if they want to gamble on signability a bit. Kyle Gibson was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his forearm, so there’s a chance he slides to #27. Likewise, Tanner Scheppers, James Paxton, and Matt Purke are asking for more money than teams want to give them, so they don’t have an obvious home in the first round right now. The front office will have a player on the board that shouldn’t be there on talent. If the rumors about a pre-draft deal being struck with Steven Baron are true, then the M’s will be saving money at #33, and could overpay at #27 while still being able to keep their total draft budget under control. That seems to be the path that most expect the M’s to travel.
However, that’s not a lock. Last week, I mentioned that I had heard high school shortstop Nick Franklin attached to the M’s at #51. As of this morning, I was told that he probably won’t last that long, so the M’s may consider him at #27 or #33. As a left-handed hitting middle infielder with some power and defensive skills, he’d provide something the organization badly lacks currently.
It will be interesting to see what transpires tomorrow. As long as you all let us keep the blog alive, we’ll provide analysis throughout the draft.
Minor League Wrap (6/1-7/09)
I figure that some people out there are going to be asking over the next few days, so preemptively, the draft starts on Tuesday at 3 pm Pacific, 6 pm for me (no day off from work), and will probably continue on for five to six rounds before calling it a night and resuming Wednesday. In another 33 hours, the system will have a new top prospect. I’ll probably be live blogging the whole thing at my site, hunkered down with food supplies and frantically Googling. It’s a big deal to me, but I’m probably not going to try to cover all fifty rounds this year because oh my god what was I thinking?
To the jump!
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Game 57, Twins at Mariners
Slowey v Bedard.
Burke! Jamie Burke!
Um, also, Cedeno at short, Chavez in left. But Burke’s back! Denny Stark gets the DFA to make room on the roster.
Game 56, Twins at Mariners
Blackburn vs the Sometimes New, Sometimes Improved, Frequently Frustrating Jarrod Washburn. 1:10
Sooo the M’s…
RF-L Ichiro!
1B-L Branyan
3B-R Beltre
DH-L Griffey
2B-R Lopez
SS-R Cedeno
LF-L Chavez
C-R Quiroz
CF-R Gutierrez
By way of contrast, here’s the Twins —
CF-L Span
DH-L Mauer
1B-L Morneau
3B-R Crede
RF-R Cuddyer
SS-R Harris
C-R Redmond
LF-R Young
2B-S Casilla
I always hope when I see D Young in the lineup for the Twins it’ll be Dmitri Young, because that would be hilarious.
Anyway, it’s surprising that the Twins are going to stack the lineup so heavily with lefties against a starter. Usually teams seek out ways to get the platoon advantage from the start, and are only held back by the need to look out for relievers later. Here the Twins either think their lefties will be immune to Washburn’s charm, or don’t care.
I wonder which it is.
No, Really, Defense Matters
That’s why Franklin Gutierrez is a good player and Wladimir Balentien sucks.
Game 55, Twins at Mariners
Liriano v Felix.
Sweeney at DH! Yessss! Batting 4th! Yessss!
On the other hand, Cedeno gets back in, so he’ll have a shot at redeeming his generally disappointing performances. It’d be nice to see him get back into the infield rotation.