Week #13 in Review
So that battle for the basement really didn’t turn out so well, eh. Despite stomach-punching those Athletics. Let’s play the Mets some more. Yeah, let’s play the Mets. And Pedro!
Vital Signs
On this Friday we find the Mariners 32-39. Still in third place. Barely. Three losses to the A’s means the Mariners are now a fraction of a game from last place. Despite winning four games, the Mariners dropped another pair of games in the standings, now 10.5 back of the Angels. Seems the Halos decided to lose only one game this week. According to Baseball Prospectus’ adjusted standings, the M’s are underperforming by a game and a half, and should really be in last place.
300 runs. It sounds like a lot. But it really isn’t. For the Mariners, it really sounds like a lot. The Mariners are one of three major league clubs yet to crack the 300-run barrier. They are the only one of those clubs handicapped with a designated hitter. Shameful, I say.
After a rather embarrassing series against the likewise run-deficient Athletics, the Mariners are now last in the American league in runs scored with 294. As a team, they are batting .256/.316/.380, compared to the league average of .266/.329/.419 — below average across the board. Their OBP ranks 13th in the league (squeaking past the Indians) and their SLG also ranks 13th (just above Oakland). They have hit 49 home runs, which ranks last in the league, tied with Oakland. They’ve drawn 199 bases on balls, 9th in the league, tied with the Orioles. Their .254 EqA ranks 27th in all of baseball, sandwiched between Atlanta, Arizona and Oakland.
The defense has allowed 311 runs, which makes them the 7th best team in the American League at keeping runs off the board. The gloves are turning 71.3% of balls in play into outs, which is the 2nd best rate in all of baseball. The overall the pitching staff ERA continues to shrink, now at 4.19. The starters are allowing 4.66 runs per nine innnings, while the relievers are at 3.22.
What goes up (a sweep of the National League New Yorkers) must come down (dropping 3 of 4 to lowly Oakland). In going 4-3, the Mariners outscored their opponents by four runs, 29-25. That they did so is pretty incredible when you consider the numbers. They allowed more total bases 102-83, more walks 27-13 and more home runs 5-3. Few things went right for the offense. The guy who led the team in total bases (Richie Sexson 12) only reached base 7 times all week. Ichiro! led the team in RBI. [dramatic pause] No knock on the great Ichiro!, but when he’s driving in all the runs, something just ain’t right with the offense.
Heroes
In a ray of sunshine, Adrian Beltre hit .368/.478/.474. You’ll note the on-base is higher than the slugging. That’s in part to the fact that Mr. Beltre walked 4 times. [dramatic pause] This is a very good thing, as Mr. Beltre had only walked 9 times prior to that all season. He further contributed a pair of doubles.
In 15 innings over 2 starts, Jamie Moyer allowed just 3 earned runs. However, he did walk more batters than he struck out, 4:3.
Not-so-much Heroes
Okay so its only be 2 games since returning from Don Baylor Jedi training school, but Bret Boone still stinks. In the last seven days, he has gone 1-for-11.
The Catfish may have been suckerpunched on Wednesday, but call it revenge for Monday. So Jeff Nelson enters a 3-2 game with two outs. His mission? Retire Mark Ellis of the .323 OBP against right-handed pitching. Ellis squibbles an infield single. Jason Kendall takes his .332 OBP against righties like Nelson and draws himself a walk. Mark Kotsay then proceeds to take his .389 SLG against right-handers and smacks a homer. Now 6-3 A’s. Nelson retired just one of four batters he faced and those three he failed to retire all scored.
Coming to a stadium near you
Get ready. Can you feel it? The tension is so palpable. The heated rivalry continues this weekend… Mariners versus Padres!
What? You say you don’t? I’m sorry, I don’t either.
San Diego remains the top of the NL West, despite a 7-14 June. After coming off a string of four straight wins (in which they allowed a total of 4 runs), they’ve dropped their last two games.
Monday then begins a three-game set with those pesky Athletics again. The Battle for the Basement continues.
Jake Peavy + Petco Field = I don’t expect the Mariners to cross 300 runs until after the weekend.
Future Forty Update
Since I’m going to be busy next weekend, I’ve updated the Future Forty a week early, so the July edition is now online. We have three additions (Jeff Clement, Luis Valbuena, and Thomas Hubbard) to the list, with Clement obviously being the most prominant of the trio. Valbuena is the starting second baseman for the Aquasox and, by most accounts, the best prospect on the team this year. Hubbard has rebounded from a miserable professional debut last year to become one of the best hitters in the Midwest League, but at age 23, well, he should be.
Other things of interest in the system include promotions for Adam Jones and Asdrubal Cabrera, as the two young shortstop prospects each move up a notch. Also, as mentioned the other day, Clint Nageotte is on the rehab trail, and so he leaves the overcrowded land of the injured prospects.
We’re now a bit past the halfway point of the minor league season, and the system is in a similar state to where we believed it was heading into the season. Adam Jones has taken the biggest step forward, and the addition of Clement and the continued progress of Cabrera has given the organization a boost in offensive talent. The pitching continues to be, well, bad. There’s Felix, there’s a big gap, there’s Livingston and Campillo, and then there’s… not a whole lot. The M’s clearly recognized that the lower level pitching is in terrible shape, focusing heavily on pitchers in the early rounds of this years draft. In stark contrast to the Gillick/Mattox years, the system is now certainly heavy on hitters and light on pitchers. As bad as the offense is now, at least there is reason for optimism in the future.
As always, this is a prime thread for minor league questions. I’ll do my best to answer as many as I can.
Game 71, A’s at Mariners
Kirk Saarloos vs Ryan Franklin, 1:35 pm matinee game.
The race to 300 runs is on, as the last two teams in the American League to reach the magic number match up. The M’s have scored 298 runs, the A’s 294. These offensive juggernauts both get to face undersized RHPs who couldn’t strike out your sister. Seriously. Kirk Saarloos has struck out 14 of the 290 batters he’s faced this year, a microscopic five percent. His K/9 is 1.90. That’d make a great ERA, but as a strikeout ratio, not so much. Franklin looks like Nolan Ryan in comparison with his 3.93 K/9. He strikeouts out 10 percent of all batters he faces. For comparison, Randy Johnson has struck out 30 percent of the batters to face him in his career.
So, today, look for lots of balls in play. The team that flashes the better leather probably wins.
Bavasi with fans, Lopez’s future
The Olympian just ran this story about Bavasi talking to some fans. Choice quotes:
“We’ve got to get things going, or you’re going to be talking to someone else.”
And this surprising Boone v Lopez comment:
“Boone will play today,” the general manager said, referring to Wednesday’s game. “But when Jose is in there, there’s a different energy. A different style of play. In the past four games, we turned three doubles plays we wouldn’t have turned. What we needed was the energy.”
If Boone regains his swing, the 21-year-old Lopez will return to Tacoma.
“Hopefully, it works for Bret,” Bavasi said. “If that doesn’t work out, we’ll have to punt and play Jose again.”
It’s couched in “different kind” but to acknowledge that about Boone’s defense… wow
Boone’s impending turnaround
This week’s PI article is on Boone, and his collapse from brief greatness. Boone’s response was to hit a single.
Since the last time I wrote something like this it went “if Sele keeps up like this, he’s clearly the guy to get dropped from the rotation” I can only hope this means we get 2001 Boone for the rest of the year (Sele now leads the team’s pitchers in VORP with 16.3).
It also touches on Boone’s Hall of Fame chances, but not in a whole lot of detail. Boone is not as good as players already enshrined, he’s not as good as other players who haven’t been voted in, and I don’t see how he has much of a chance. I resent the implication that Mariner fans, or any home team fans, have an obligation to support their team’s most marginal candidates zealously because they wore one uniform or another. Fandom can mean support without blindness.
Also, Clint Nageotte made an appearance in the Arizona league, went three innings and struck out six. He’s been out with back issues.
Griffey v. Griffey
Concerned that modern ballplayers are cold, unfeeling automatons? Vexed that your All-Star votes are going to these unreachable, unappreciative subjects? Then turn your attention and critical thinking skills toward something that is actually, by its very nature, incapable of feelings — the modern stadium giveaway statue.
On May 24, our own Peter White braved the perilous Kentucky-Ohio border to score a Ken Griffey Jr. bobble-head in a Cincinnati uniform — a piece we’ll refer to as “Reds Griffey”. Tonight, the M’s will give away “Teal Griffey,” third in the “1995 commemorative statues” series.
With these two giveaways occuring in the same season, how could we at USS Mariner Labs not host a classic confrontation between these two diminutive powerhouses?
Maybe a top-ten tale of the tape will help fans on the fence decide whether or not to brave Safeco Field tonight to pick up Teal Griffey. Maybe we’ll help fuel the Internet economy with a rush in consumer spending. And maybe the following will contribute in some small way to peace, leave and understanding.
But probably not.
After the jump are 10 reasons to prefer each statue over the other. With pictures. See the photos, judge for yourself, and feel free to contribute your own evaluations in the comments. Read more
Japan and/or Ichiro to skip World Cup?
Japan’s participation in next year’s first-of-its-kind World Baseball Classic is up in the air. Negotiations are ongoing, with an important deadline at the end of the month. The Japanese players’ union is the holdup, citing scheduling issues.
If an accord can’t be reached, it would be a big disappointment. Japan’s tentatively slated to be one of the first-round host sites. A baseball-crazy fan base would be disappointed, and the tournament would end up being less interesting.
Perhaps due to this uncertainty about Japan’s participation, both Ichiro and Hideki Matsui appear pretty lukewarm about whether they would want to play.
Personally, I think they’re just taking a wait-and-see approach. The tone of the comments seems to be “we’ll see if this tournament works out, and then we’ll decide.”
This World Cup-style tournament could be great for baseball if the kinks get worked out. May negotiations be smooth from here on in.
Game 68, Oakland at Seattle
Pop quiz, hotshot: identify what the following pitching lines have in common.
90.2 IP, 4.27 ERA, 1.32 WHIP 51 K
85.2 IP, 3.78 ERA, 1.52 WHIP, 51 K
92.2 IP, 4.66 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 69 K
87 IP, 4.14 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 67 K
All are or were members of the Oakland A’s rotation. It seemed fitting to bring this up as the M’s start a series with the Green and Yellow Elephants tonight.
First up is Mark Mulder. Next is Tim Hudson. Third is Barry Zito, rounding out the former “Big Three.”
And number four? That’s Dan Haren, who goes tonight against the Mariners. You could make a solid case that he’s pitched at least as well as any of the others — including Mulder, who he was traded for. The A’s also got Kiko Calero and catching prospect Daric Barton in the deal.
The A’s offensive moves haven’t worked out this year, but Haren is legit. And he turns 25 in September. I’ll be rooting for the M’s to treat him like Tom Glavine, but if they don’t, it may not be the fault of the bats.
Aaron Sele v. Dan Haren. TV: FSN. Radio: KOMO.
The View From The Other Side
Sometimes it’s interesting to see the spin from other markets after games, or, in this case, a series.
It seems Tom Glavine feels that — apart from Richie Sexson’s home run — the Mariner offense just plain got lucky off of him yesterday.
[“]The rest of the stuff, ground balls in the hole or bloop line drives falling in front of guys. If you get a break here or there, it’s a ground ball at somebody or it’s a fly-ball out.”
Without irony, I can say that I admire confidence. It’s a necessary stock in trade for any high-pressure industry, professional sports perhaps the best example. But Tom, you’re giving up 11.8 hits per nine this year. Crash Davis’ “ground ball with eyes” speech aside, not all of those are bleeders.
Besides, it seemed to me that command was the real issue for Glavine yesterday. In over 80 innings, he’s walked just 34 men so far this year — but issued two free passes in two-and-a-third yesterday.
Perhaps he was just frustrated at giving up so many runs against the heretofore anemic Mariner attack. Hopefully, the bats have woken up just in time for another offensively-challenged ball club, the A’s, to roll into town.
Random notes
There’s a lot of stuff to talk about, so forgive me for going all Peter Gammons on this post.
The lesson here, though, isn’t that Mike Morse is a tremendous player. He’s not. He’s a mid tier prospect who is having a phenomenal hot streak to begin his career. The lesson of Mike Morse is the one we’ve been clamoring for the front office to learn for years: the perceived dropoff from major league to Triple-A talent isn’t nearly as vast as a lot of people think. Rather than spending millions of dollars on players who have proven to be mediocre or worse at the major league level, the team could improve remarkably by simply reallocating those resources to upper level players and giving opportunities to younger, unproven players with similar skills. Paying a premium for players with a major league track record of failure has cost this team dearly over the past few years. If there’s one thing we can hope comes from the ridiculous start that Morse has had, it’s that the organization may begin to realize that freely available talent often can outproduce the bottom rung of major league players, and do so for the league minimum.
Oh, and if you’re one of those wondering why Morse can’t keep this up, 82 percent of his hits in the majors have been singles. Besides Ichiro and Luis Castillo, two burners who get a huge amount of infield hits, there aren’t productive major league hitters who avoid extra base hits at that kind of clip. A realistic projection for Morse for the rest of the season is still something along the lines of .250/.290/.360.