Derek In Lights
Our own esteemed colleague, Derek Zumsteg, has an article up over at ESPN’s Page 2, dealing with the putrid theft being put on by the Chicago Cubs. As with any piece by DMZ, there are some terrific one liners that will have you cracking up at your desk, so proceed with caution if you’re not in a location where laughing is an acceptable behavior.
Nice job, D.
Game 113, Devil Rays at Mariners
Washburn vs Shields, 1:35 pm.
In lieu of writing about the team, let me direct you to today’s interesting reading material: Andy Dolphin has a free article at Baseball Prospectus on the value of pinch-hitting. It’s interesting stuff, but I’ll leave those of you who hate numbers with his conclusionary paragraph:
What can we conclude from all this? Simply put, when a pinch hitter comes in, you should expect him to do significantly worse than if he were a starter, so a substitution that would look good on paper may actually cost you runs. Managers beware!
As terrifying as it sounds, maybe Hargrove understood something we didn’t when he refused to pinch hit for Crazy Carl or Willie Ballgame in situations where a pinch-hit looked so obvious. Maybe.
Anyways, today’s line-up:
1. Ichiro, RF
2. Lopez, 2B
3. Beltre, 3B
4. Ibanez, LF
5. Sexson, 1B
6. Broussard, DH
7. Betancourt, SS
8. Rivera, C
9. Jones, CF
If the bottom of that line-up makes you groan, this should make you feel better: Tampa Bay is hitting Travis Lee (.208/.298/.344) in the cleanup spot.
The Statistical King
You guys seemed to enjoy the breakdowns I did on Gil Meche recently, so let’s writeup King Felix from a similar perspective. After another good outing last night, everyone seems to agree that the King is back on track and pitching like we expected from the outset. So let’s break him down by month, and see where the improvement has come from.
Month IP BB% K% GB% FB% LD% HR/FB FIP xFIP ERA April 26.2 10% 23% 56% 25% 19% 25% 4.89 3.52 5.06 May 35.2 7% 22% 53% 25% 22% 21% 4.35 3.29 6.31 June 34.2 4% 20% 59% 23% 18% 13% 3.17 3.04 3.37 July 26.1 12% 19% 59% 27% 15% 15% 4.79 4.40 3.42 August 13 10% 17% 70% 16% 14% 0% 2.97 3.63 1.38
Lots of numbers there, so, here’s a quick overview, by component, and what it’s meant to his run prevention by month:
BB% – He threw a lot of strikes in June, but other than that, he’s still struggled with his command. 10% walk rates aren’t death, but they’re still something that can be improved upon. He’s not really cutting down on his walks lately, so this isn’t the key to his improvement.
K% – He’s actually missing less bats as the year goes on, as he’s struck out fewer batters each month than the previous. His 18% strikeout rate the last 5 weeks is actually just a tick above average. This certainly isn’t the cause for the improvement.
GB%/FB%/LD% – He’s getting more groundballs, less fly balls, and less line drives lately, and that has certainly helped. This is definitely part of the improvement, but the difference isn’t big enough to explain the rebound entirely. The LD% is probably due for a spike going forward, as 14% line drives isn’t sustainable.
HR/FB% – And here’s 95% of the improvement, right here. A league average starting pitcher will allow 11-12% HR/FB rate, and significant variance from that is in almost every case unsustainable. Felix’s HR/FB rate was an absurd 25% in April, a still awful 21% in May, then an almost normal 13% in June, slightly high 15% in July, and he has yet to give up a home run in either start in August. The August number isn’t an abberation, as you might think from the percentage, since he’s only given up six fly balls total in his last two starts.
His Fielding Independent ERA basically tracks the difference in run prevention if his HR/FB rate was indeed a true skill, and you can see how big of a difference home runs make. xFIP translates HR/FB rate into a league average number, eliminating that “skill” from the analysis, and gives a pretty clear picture that Felix hasn’t really changed much at all. Outside of July, he’s posted consistent xFIPs in the 3.00-3.60 range, which is outstanding. For comparison, Johan Santana’s xFIP for the season is 3.42. Roy Halladay’s is 3.57. That’s the class of pitcher that Felix has been in most of the year, by xFIP.
This is about as clear a picture as one could paint for why ERA is not a good tool for predicting pitcher performance going forward. The only thing that has significantly changed for Felix from April to August is the amount of his flyballs that go over the wall. That entire change, mostly out of his control, has led to the mirage of improvement.
Felix has been pitching mostly well all year. ERA just didn’t do a good job of telling people that.
Game 112, Devil Rays at Mariners
Happy Felix Day.
Hernandez vs Seo, 7:05 pm.
Seo has iffy stuff and throws strikes. He’s Tampa’s Joe Blanton, basically. Hopefully the M’s can treat him like the rest of the league treats Blanton, and not like we treat Blanton.
Also, bad news; Mark Lowe is battling some elbow soreness, and though I heard he was available tonight, John Hickey is reporting that he won’t pitch in this series. The M’s are being cautious with their young arms, which we like, but you still never like to hear that the arms we love are anything less than 100 percent healthy.
Here’s the line-up:
1. Ichiro, RF
2. Lopez, 2B
3. Beltre, 3B
4. Ibanez, LF
5. Sexson, 1B
6. Broussard, DH
7. Johjima, C
8. Betancourt, SS
9. Empty, CF
Adam Jones has 7 at-bats in August. Glad to see that part of the development strategy, after crushing his confidence with a premature callup, is to let him sit on the bench and not play. Well done, Grover.
More Random Notes
You know the drill by now.
1. Adrian Beltre doesn’t suck anymore.
I know the general baseball public hasn’t caught on yet, and because of his contract, he’s likely going to be considered a bust for the rest of his time in Seattle. But for the last couple of months, he’s been the Mariners best player. Here are some breakdowns:
April: .189/.284/.233, 90 at-bats
May: .264/.302/.355, 110 at-bats
June-Current: .287/.354/.539, 230 at-bats
In April, he was the worst player in baseball. In May, he just sucked. Since the beginning of June, he’s been playing at an all-star caliber level. A .900 OPS from a gold glove third baseman who plays half his games in Safeco Field and never takes a day off? That’s a borderline MVP candidate. And that’s what he’s been for the last two and a half months.
He’s not the guy he was in 2004, and he’ll never be that guy again. But since the beginning of June, he’s been the guy we thought we were signing. It’s still a small sample, and we can’t ignore April and May – they did happen, and the potential for them to happen again is still there – but we also can’t ignore that he’s now been Good Adrian for longer than he was Bad Adrian.
2. Chris Snelling apparently stole Bad Adrian’s Mojo.
On the other end of things, we have Doyle. After another 0 for 5 last night, he’s now hitting .218 for the season. But he hasn’t been consistently bad. Look at his montly splits:
May: .297/.371/.333, 48 at-bats
June: .301/.391/.507, 73 at-bats
July: .169/.286/.273, 77 at-bats
August: .000/.045/.000, 21 at-bats
He’s 9 for his last 98 dating back to July 1st. 9 for 98! In his last 64 at-bats, he’s walked twice.
The reports on him are similarly poor. He’s popping balls up, swinging through fastballs, chasing pitches out of the zone, and his mood has soured. At the end of June, he was hitting the ball well and on the verge of a major league callup. Since the calendar turned to July, he’s turned into an automatic out with no discernable approach at the plate.
Clearly, something is wrong. A kid who is this good of a hitter doesn’t go into a slump like this without there being an underlying cause. Almost everyone agrees that its mental, but we just don’t know. Here’s to hoping he snaps out of it soon.
3. The Mariners and Twins have the best bullpens in baseball.
And the average baseball fan has probably never heard of any of these guys. The Twins bullpen is the only one who can give the M’s end-of-game quartet a run for their money, and its made up of Joe Nathan, Juan Rincon, Pat Neshek, Dennys Reyes, and Jessie Crain. The M’s foursome of Putz, Soriano, Lowe, and Sherrill are just as dominant, but throw strikes a little less often. The final four for the Twins bullpen (Nathan, Rincon, Neshek, and Reyes) have a combined FIP of 2.27, while the M’s combined FIP is 2.49.
Either way, if you’re losing to the M’s or Twins after 6 innings, you’re probably done. Both of these teams have built lights-out bullpens that cost them nothing. Even after all the evidence, though, you still see teams throwing good money at big name relievers. It’s amazing.
4. My mother could beat up Willie Bloomquist.
Willie Ballgame has an Isolated Slugging% (SLG-BA) of .032, thanks to his whopping four extra base hits on the season. Among players with at least 100 plate appearances, WFB’s .032 ISO ranks 374th out of 374, unsurprisingly. But how bad is an ISO of .032?
The average national league pitcher has an ISO of .043. Willie Bloomquist has hit for less power this year than the league average hitting pitcher. Yes, he does some things well enough (mainly, steal bases) to keep a roster spot in the major leagues, but the idea that he’s any kind of major league player who deserves regular playing time is a joke.
It was fun
In April, we were all asked at the USSM feed how we thought the team would do. My “85 wins, contends for the division” prediction drew chuckles and scoffs from around the room. In May, when the team was scuffling, I continued to argue that the season was not lost, and I maintained my status as the most optimistic of our quartet of bloggers.
Tonight, I throw in the towel. 6.5 games back with just 52 games to play is a monumental hill to climb. It’s not impossible – the team’s mathmatical odds are probably around 3-5% – but this sweep crippled the team’s chances of making a real run. If this was a better team, making up 7 games in 7 weeks wouldn’t be unheard of. But this team is just too flawed for that kind of run to be expected. It’s hard to play .700 baseball for two months when you have a center fielder with a .450 OPS and don’t have a single hitter on the roster who doesn’t disdain the base on balls.
For four months, we were contenders. Now? We’re waiting til next year. Again.
The end of Carl
I was hoping this would go up on the Mariners’ transaction wire so I could point to the official news, but I’ve waited too long already. Everett cleared waivers and was released on Thursday. He won’t be showing up in Tacoma, if you were worried about that. Unfortunately, it looks like he also won’t be eating playing time for one of our divisional rivals.
I don’t really care about, though. He’s gone. May this debacle serve as yet another example that buying clubhouse leadership, grit, and hustle is a fool’s errand. I hope that this one finally causes the lesson to stick.
Which reminds me, I posted these and then the post got nuked in the great server crash. I present — memories of better days.
Game 109, A’s at M’s
Doh.
Big Board Update
If you’re feeling down about last night’s pathetic effort vs. Oakland, cheer up — there’s a new Big Board in town. I’m sorry it has taken so long, but between extern, school, a new computer, and a new baby I’ve been busy. In any event, here it is. As always, leave a comment if something looks amiss (bad link, wrong handedness, etc.).
If you think the page itself looks a bit off, you’d be right. I’m still playing around with Office for Mac, and I know it doesn’t look quite right in Safari. I suspect that’s going to be the case for other browsers as well. My hope is that you can deal with the minor asthetic issues and focus on the content instead.
Future Forty Update for August
The Future Forty has received its monthly update. There are some notable departures in this version, as I’ve decided that its time to give organizational opportunity a little more weight in the rankings than I have in the past. Opportunity is obviously vital to a prospects success, and if the organization isn’t going to give him one, we necessarily have to downgrade the likelyhood that he’s going to become a major league player.
So, with that in mind, Guillermo Quiroz and Bobby Livingston have both been removed from the list. Yes, they’re probably better bets to have major league careers than some of the players listed, but at this point, it’s almost certain that those major league careers won’t come with the Mariners, and neither has any real trade value, making it unlikely that the Mariners will ever get anything of value out of either player. Also departing are Shin-Soo Choo (traded), George Sherrill (established major leaguer), and Michael Saunders (not as good as some other end of list guys).
Replacing them are some new names, as well as a mea culpa. A few months ago, I booted Luis Valbuena from the Future Forty as he hadn’t hit in several years and his defense was nothing to write home about. Well, pretty much starting the day after that, he started to hit, and hit well. He earned a promotion out of the Midwest League, and is now trying to hold his own as a 20-year-old in high-A. So, sorry Luis, I never should have dismissed you in the first place. Welcome back. Joining him as newcomers or returners to the list are Michael Wilson (numbers too good to ignore right now), Kuo-Hui Lo (interesting young OF prospect), Carlos Peguero (Wladimir Balentien part two?), and Anthony Butler (solid arm, showing decent stuff in pro debut).
You’ll notice that the list got quite a bit younger. The top levels of the system are really being thinned out by promotion and trade. This isn’t a problem, as this is exactly what a farm system is for, but the bulk of the talent in the minors is now several years away. Among current minor leaguers, the only ones you could realistically expect to contribute the rest of the year would be Chris Snelling, Eric O’Flaherty, and Francisco Cruceta, and none of them would play major roles for the big club. I’ve categorized only 7 of the 32 minor leaguers on the Future Forty as being in one of the top four tiers of prospects. The guys who are close to the majors are probably role players, and the guys with talent to be everyday players are several years away. The M’s farm system is going to be ranked quite low again this offseason.
However, that shouldn’t cause us to overlook the fact that the farm system is doing its job – stocking the major league club with young, effective, cheap talent. A huge portion of the M’s success this season can be tied directly to the players the farm system promoted in the last 12-18 months. We won’t be seeing another wave of talent like the one we saw get to Seattle in the last year, but we don’t need to.
One player specific comment, since the guy has been generating some buzz lately for his improved play.
I’m a known critic of Wladimir Balentien. In the past, his approach at the plate was so terrible that finding a major leaguer who had succeeded with his mentality and skillset was darn near impossible. I kept comparing him to Hensley “Bam Bam” Muelens, and while we acknowledged the potential was there, kept reminding everyone that the risk was even higher. Until he learned to control the strike zone and make better contact, his ability to hit major league pitching was going to be neutralized.
So, in the last month, Wladimir Balentien apparently got the memo. During July, he drew 24 walks and struck out 25 times in 93 at-bats. This is a guy who drew 33 walks all of last season. His 2005 walk rate was 6.1%. In July, his walk rate was 26%. That’s a ridiculous difference, and there’s no chance it was a fluke. Wlad has clearly worked on his patience at the plate, working counts, and laying off pitches out of the strike zone.
However, it has come at a high cost. Balentien’s calling card has been his power, and that is the one tool he has that projects to the major leagues. He’s going to live and die by how often he crushes the baseball. And while the walks went through the roof, the power took the elevator to the ground floor. In July, just 7 of his 24 wents went for extra bases, or a 29% mark. For the rest of the season, 31 of his 65 hits had gone for extra bases, or 47%. That difference is just as significant as the walk rate. 29% XBH/H in the minors is barely acceptable for a player with a broad base of skills; for a guy whose power is his only plus tool, it’s disaster.
In the last month, we’ve seen Balentien essentially convert himself from being Hensley Muelens into being Rich Becker. While the improved walk rate is an extremely positive development, it’s hard to think that its a coincidence that his power took a nosedive when his approach at the plate changed. I’ve often referred to skillsets as a sliding scale – the more you move one set of skills, other skills are often negatively impacted. Wlad needs to show that he can both walk and hit for power at the same time.
As always, feel free to use this thread as a catch-all for minor league questions, and I’ll try to answer as many as I can.