.500! Woooo!
Last time the Mariners were a .500 — April 2nd. Last time the team was over .500 — September 28th, 2003.
Really.
Do the Mariners have a pitching problem?
Larry Stone looks at the previous week’s pitching stats and concludes that the arms have actually performed relatively well.
Stone admits that injuries are a serious concern, but cites some traditional performance numbers like ERA to make his case. Interesting to see WHIP listed as an indicator for the “stat-geeky.”
But one part of the article, unrelated to its main premise, actually shocked me.
Now the team is trying to figure out what to make of [Gil Meche’s] elbow problems, which he says have been contributory to his erratic start  twice unable to make it through five innings, and a 7.88 ERA.
While pitching coach Bryan Price said the Mariners will “honor” the fact he has tenderness, it is clear they believe he needs to learn to pitch through such discomfort.
“I’d hate for anybody to have to go through the year with any type of a chronic problem, soreness,” Price said. “Even if it wasn’t career-threatening, it’s still tedious, and it works people over mentally. You feel like you’re not going out there with your best stuff.
“But experienced pitchers understand they’re not going to go out there every time with their best stuff, and they still have to compete and give us a chance to win.”
There is a difference between ‘not going out with your best stuff’ and having an injury, though certainly the latter can lead to the former. After all the arm trouble Meche has had, I can’t believe they are still questioning his toughness in public like this.
When Meche told them he was hurt in 2001, they effectively told him to rub some dirt on it, suck it up, and so on. By the time the doctor found his rotator cuff problem, he was actually relieved that he had an injury, so he knew he wasn’t crazy.
I’m not a doctor, and even if I was, I haven’t examined Meche’s arm, so I don’t know whether there is anything structurally wrong with his elbow or not. But calling a guy out like that — especially after you’ve sniffed at his concerns once, with disastrous results — just seems to me uncalled for.
Minor League Stuff
I took in a game tonight between the Winston-Salem Warthogs and the Myrtle Beach Pelicans. Good ol’ Carolina League baseball. MB was sending Jake Stevens, a highly touted left-handed pitching prospect to the hill, and I wanted to get a look at him. So, despite being about 40 degrees and raining, I joined the other eight fans at the park. I’m not kidding. You’ve never seen a professional game with less people.
Tonight was one of those nights that remind me why its wise to discount second hand information. Here’s an excerpt from the Baseball America Prospect Handbook on Jake Stevens:
Scouts drool over Stevens’ projectable body. He’s a good athlete and shows excellent stamina. He has terrific command of three pitches, beginning with an 89-91 mph fastball that has registered as high as 94. He displays excellent feel for an overhand curveball that could become a plus power pitch. Stevens’ changeup could give him a third above-average pitch.
Now, I’ve said enough good things about BA and the work they do that I think anyone who knows me probably realizes that I’m a big fan of their stuff. They’re the reason every other prospect analyst alive has any information to go off of, and if they disappeared, so would every other “independant” minor league expert who is really just repackaging BA’s words and putting their personal spin on his stats.
But that scouting report for Stevens was completely, utterly wrong. It felt like I was reading the wrong bio. Here’s a brief sample of my notes from the game:
Listed at 6’3. Probably 6’0. Maybe not even that. 6’3 is a total joke.
Fastballs early in the count, curve when he gets ahead. 84-86, only
hit 88 once on a FB up in the zone. Never got near reported velocity.
Not much movement on FB. Short armer. Curve 69-72, not a ton of
bite. Very hittable pitch if its in the strike zone. Change is okay,
but nothing special. Had decent command, but no stuff.
Honestly, the closest thing I could compare him to was Craig Anderson. Or maybe if you combined Jamie Moyer’s fastball with Shigetoshi Hasegawa’s curve and Matt Thornton’s changeup, you’d have a decent idea of what I saw tonight. The Jake Stevens that I saw had the stuff of a Double-A reliever.
Now, maybe it was just an off night. Or maybe it was the weather. Maybe he’s hurt. I’m not trying to attack Bill Ballew, the guy who wrote the Braves chapter for BA, but it was a reminder to me just how sketchy some second hand information can be. Even reputable second hand information can be completely off base. It was like the report was written while gathering radar readings from the stadium scoreboard (don’t get me started on that thing…) or something, because the pitcher I saw tonight couldn’t possibly be the guy that Baseball America ranked as the 92nd best prospect in baseball.
A review of the first week
Seven games is still a ridiculous sample size, and what follows probably doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but it could be interesting anyways.
The Mariners as a team are hitting .273/.319/.395, which isn’t good. However, they are averaging 5.57 runs per game, which is very good. Why the disparity? They’re hitting .347/.392/.537 with runners on base and .404/.452/.667 with men in scoring position. Overall, they’re hitting like a roster full of Willie Bloomquist’s, but with runners on base, they’re more like Adrian Beltre, and with men in scoring position, they’re Ted Williams.
This is all just sample size noise. The M’s will hit better than they have with the bases empty, but they’ll hit worse than they have with runners on. Where they meet will determine if this team can keep scoring runs at the current pace. The smart money leans towards no.
On the pitching and defense side, the M’s have held their opponents to a .251/.316/.348 line. They’ve issued 22 walks against just 32 strikeouts, which isn’t very good, but they’ve held teams to just 14 extra base hits, or 22 percent of total hits allowed. Last year, 36 percent of their hits allowed were extra base knocks. The batting average allowed isn’t hugely different from last year, but that masks the fact that most of the hits off the M’s so far have been singles.
Interestingly, the pitching has been the the inverse of the offense, pitching very well with no one on base and getting torched with runners on. As a result, the team is still giving up 5 runs per game despite keeping other teams from hitting well. Again, this is noise, and it will even out as the year goes on.
Other random individual notes:
Ichiro leads the team in walks. That’s never a good sign.
Richie Sexson is hitting .259. Ichiro is hitting .464. Sexson has more total bases, 16 to 15. The long ball is still the most efficient way to score runs.
Ryan Franklin has faced 47 batters and 43 of them have put the ball in play. 8 of those have gone for hits, for a BABIP of .186. League average is generally .300. When that comes back to earth, watch out.
Jamie Moyer has twice as many strikeouts as any other pitcher on the staff. He has 28 percent of the team’s strikeouts in 17 percent of the innings. Jamie Moyer, strikeout king.
We’re 3-4. If you want to be optimistic, we’re only one game out of first place. If you want to be a pessimist, we’re tied with six other teams for the worst record in the American League.
M’s adjust rotation
From MLB.com:
Gil Meche, who has been bothered by a sore right elbow in his first two starts, will start on Saturday, instead of Friday. Right-hander Joel Pineiro, who began the season on the disabled list with a tender shoulder, will be activated and start on Friday.
Um… wow.
The Mariners had Meche’s bothersome elbow X-rayed after he left the game on Sunday.
“It was absolutely and purely precautionary,” Hargrove said of the X-rays. “Everything was normal on it. We decided to give him an extra day because of the stiffness. Other than that I don’t think we are really that concerned. I think it’s just one of those things.”
In the event the Mariners have to put Meche on the DL, they anticipate calling up both Baek and Campillo, anticipating that one of the two will explode or otherwise injure themselves badly enough such that they can’t pitch before they’re able to report (not really).
Game 7, Mariners at Royals
Just one question: have Steve Bartman and Jeffrey Maier taught us nothing? Can’t the ruined shreds of a Cub fan’s life turn into an object lesson of what not to do when a foul ball comes your way?
The M’s get a refreshing change today. This time, they’re facing a pitcher coming off of major surgery instead of sending one to the hill themselves. Runelvys “Don’t Walkelvys” Hernandez vs. Ryan “Where’s My Home Town, Again?” Franklin, 1:10 p.m., PDT.
Madritsch has torn ligament
MRI reveals a “small tear in a ligament behind the shoulder” according to the team. Article at MLB.com and elsewhere.
Now, there’s no way to directly blame this on Bob Melvin. Indirectly, of course, one might argue that Melvin’s late-season pointless riding of Madritsch might have something to do with it. No way to know, though. Fortunately, in Hargrove we have a manager well-known for his concern– uh oh.
Moves
In case you missed it —
Bobby Madritsch is on the 15-day DL. Ryan Franklin will assume his spot in the rotation. Justin Leone was recalled from Tacoma.
Jason’s Quick Take on the 2005 Season
People seem upset about the pitching staff. Well, duh. You could have seen this coming all winter, and now it’s gotten worse with the injury to Madritsch. It’s also amusing to me how people (I’m talking fans, here) were picking the M’s to win 90+ games before the year started and after the first game, but suddenly they lose two straight and they’re worse than last year.
So here goes — they’re not going to contend this season, but that’s Ok. You don’t magically go from 99 losses to division champs without something dramatic happening (and you certainly don’t do it with this pitching staff). If they can get back to around .500, we should be thrilled.
This winter they addressed the anemic offense by signing Beltre and Sexson, but ignored the pitching staff. Next winter, they’ll do the opposite and sign a starting pitcher. Put that starter in with a healthy Piniero, a healthy Madritsch, and King Felix and presto, you’ve got a pretty good rotation. And then we can talk about contending. But that’s next season, not this season.
Minor League Scores
Anybody know of a good source for minor league scores, or more specifically, boxscores? It bugs me to no end that this stuff is so hard to find — my usual sources are coming up empty. Baseball America still has scores up from the last day of the 2004 season (“Note: We are working dilligently to have our scores and stats for 2005 ready as soon as possible.”). ESPN.com’s minor league scoreboard says no games were scheduled yesterday (a lie). Minorleaguebaseball.com, my former favorite site because they had archived boxscores, says the season hasn’t started yet. And USAtoday.com at least has linescores, but no boxscores. Argh.