Game 16, Twins at Mariners
King Felix vs. Phil Hughes, 7:10pm
Last season, King Felix finished 4th in baseball in pitcher WAR. Slotting in 5th was Phil Hughes, Yankee cast-off, budget signing, and a guy who’d never come all that close to 3 WAR in a season before 2014’s 5.7. He set an all-time record for K:BB ratio, got his home runs under control and was rewarded with a generous contract extension that’ll run through 2019. There were a number of keys to his breakout season, but the most obvious one was a determination – really a single-minded obsession – to stick to the strike zone. Hughes has always had solid control, but in 2014 he all but stopped throwing balls. Not only was his walk rate the lowest in baseball, but his zone%, the percentage of pitches thrown in the zone, led all qualified hurlers by a mile. These days, this really is a side contest between Hughes and Bartolo Colon, and Hughes took it handily last year (Colon leads in the early-going of 2015, however – game on). This is interesting, because Hughes’ big problem in New York was the long ball. It seems odd that one could cure a meatball problem by throwing more strikes, but it seemed to work for Hughes (as did moving out of new Yankee Stadium, of course). Now, as a legitimate rotation ace, Hughes is attempting to show that his adjustments can last, and that his 2014 wasn’t a fluke.
Ah, adjustments. If there’s one thing Hughes is known for, it’s that he can’t stop making adjustments. Jeff’s talked about it, I’ve talked about it, and it seems like there’s a story about some change Hughes is making to his pitch mix or his arm angle. Hughes reacts to the ways batters react to him – if a pitch isn’t working, he drops it and uses another. Traditionally, this has taken the form of swapping out a slider and cutter, or curve and slider. In general, I think this sort of a thing is laudable, and it speaks to why scouts remark on a prospect’s “coachability.” There’s a humility to it all that you’d think guys with 4+ ERAs would have, or anyone in baseball, really, but in general, humility isn’t correlated too well with succeeding at the upper levels of baseball. Hughes’ adaptability seemed like a good proof of concept for how to bring sabermetrics into player development, and not just GM development – if you’ve got a guy who’ll follow the data, and someone capable of making changes to his repertoire based on data (and do so quickly), that sounds pretty cool. Now, however, Hughes faces a very different challenge.
Is Phil Hughes physically capable of NOT changing? Hughes tinkered so much because he hadn’t found an approach that’s led to consistent success as a starting pitcher. Righties annihilated his curve ball in 2012, so he ditched it and went to the slider. So, in 2013, lefties torched him, hitting .294/.354/.509 off him. 2014 brought the focus on the strike zone and he swapped the slider out again, this time going with a cutter and a slightly harder curve. A 5.7 fWAR season resulted, and I’m sure Hughes – and the Twins – would love to see him maintain the same approach. So how’s that going? Not so well. So far in 2015, he’s still throwing strikes, but the curve is all but gone, as Hughes almost out-Colons Colon, throwing a mix of 60% four-seamers, 16% sinkers and 18% cutters – all have average velocities between 90 and 92.2mph. Moreover, he’s changed his arm angle *again*, releasing the ball closer to the 3rd base side than he did last season (but similar to his 2012 arm angle). I have no idea how much of this is intentional, but it’s the most Phil Hughes thing ever.
Thus far, this new and…uh…different Phil Hughes hasn’t been able to recapture last year’s form. In 18 2/3 innings on the young season, he’s given up 11 runs on *4* HRs. The walks are still low, but he’s a quarter of the way to his 2014 HR total already. Like last season, it’s actually *righties* who are doing the most damage, and like last year, his BABIP’s still on the high end of normal. FIP loved his K:BB ratio and low HRs last year, but his actual runs allowed came in quite a bit above his fielding-independent stats.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Smith, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Ackley, LF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: El Cartelua
Tacoma’s Jordan Pries looks to avoid the big inning today and put together his first really good outing of the year. He’ll face off against Albuquerue starter Leuris Gomez, a swingman who came up as a position player, then toiled away as a starter who got big K numbers, but couldn’t keep teams off the board, to an intermittently successful reliever to…this. Mike Montgomery (and the R’s bullpen) combined on a 3 hit shutout of the Isotopes yesterday, winning 3-0. Montgomery gave up 1 hit in 6 IP, with 5 Ks, and Chris Taylor hit his second HR. As you may have heard, the M’s signed ex-White Sox RF Carlos Quentin to a minor league deal, and he was in the line-up for Tacoma, going 0-3 in his first game. He’s going to DH mostly, but may play 1B a few times a week. Quentin was traded to Atlanta recently purely to even out salaries in the BJ Upton deal, but was released immediately. ZiPS has him projected for a .340 MLB wOBA in limited duty.
Jackson faces off against the Tennessee Smokies today with Dylan Unsworth taking the hill against former 2nd round pick Rob Zastryzny. Tyler Pike walked 6 in 3 2/3 yesterday, half the Generals total of 12 free passes. As you might imagine, it didn’t go well, with the Smokies winning 9-2. Ex-M’s relief prospect Matt Brazis made his debut for Tennessee yesterday – he’s the guy the M’s sent to Chicago in exchange for Justin Ruggiano. Speaking of M’s/Cubs stuff, the Rainiers signed pitcher Tony Zych, who played parts of three seasons with the Smokies, and he’s made two appearances out of the pen for Jackson, the last one coming against Tennessee.
Edwin Diaz starts tonight as Bakersfield takes on San Jose. Bakersfield nipped the Giants 3-2 yesterday, with Tyler Marlette’s HR tying the game in the 6th, and a walk, 2 wild pitches and a single producing a walk-off win for the Blaze. Trey Cochran-Gill pitched a grounder-filled inning in relief for the win. The righty has yielded 2 hits and 1 run in 11 2/3 IP thus far with 12 Ks. As a major-college guy, he’s probably in line for a call-up in a while.
Clinton beat Kane County 7-1 yesterday, with Lukas Schiraldi and Osmer Morales pitching well, and Alex Jackson tallying two hits. German native Markus Solbach took the loss. Today, Jeferson Medina faces off with Daniel Gossett – it’s a rematch of the game 5 days ago that Clinton won easily.
Two Early M’s Observations
The Mariners have played 15 games – not terribly well, as it happens, but they remain an intriguing and promising team. Less than 10% of the way through the regular season, we’re not yet able to say a whole lot about true talent. We can identify some patterns in their results, but we can’t say that those results are representative. We can’t yet say what the Mariners *are* as a team, but we can say what they’ve *done* as a team. Through 15 games. This isn’t a gripping lead-in, but I’m describing a 6-9 team in April.
Just for reference, at 15 games in last year, we would’ve focused on the near total collapse of Kyle Seager’s batting line, and the signs of hope from Nick Franklin and Corey Hart. So let’s forget about individual players, and look at what’s defined the Mariners as a group thus far. I’ve got two random, unrelated observations here: 1) The M’s defense has been remarkably lousy/unlucky. 2) The M’s sequencing on offense has been about perfect. The former goes a long way towards explaining both why the M’s pitching staff’s ERA is so much worse than its FIP, and also why the team strand rate’s poor. The latter says that while their luck may improve on the run prevention front, they’ve been pretty fortunate on *when* they’ve scored runs.
1) Mike Petriello had a good piece at Fangraphs this morning about the Cleveland Indians defense, and how the club sought to improve it this past offseason. Last year, you can make the case that defense prevented the Indians from running away with the Central, or, more conservatively, that the over 120 run gap in UZR between the Indians and the Royals *might* have been a factor in the Royals edging out the Indians for the wild card. It’s early yet, but despite a number of personnel changes, the Indians still rate poorly. They have reason to hope that they won’t be awful for long, but awful they’ve been.
One of the ways this awfulness is demonstrated is by looking at a team’s BABIP against, or defensive efficiency. By Fangraphs’ BABIP, the M’s rank 28th in baseball, easily ahead of Cleveland, but edging out the Rangers as well. By Baseball Prospectus’ defensive efficiency stat, the M’s are 29th, a bit *worse* than the Rangers. The M’s have allowed 420 balls in play, while the A’s have allowed 419; the M’s have allowed 26 more base hits than have the A’s, which, if you’re into that sort of thing, pretty much explains the A’s advantage in the standings.
What’s interesting is that this defensive problem isn’t so much a problem with the outfield – an outfield that’s seen a whole lot of Nelson Cruz, thanks to Seth Smith’s groin injury – it’s been an infield issue. I mentioned it in yesterday’s game thread, but the M’s positioning and first step hasn’t been up to par yet, and that’s meant that ground balls that would normally be turned into outs have bounded into the outfield. The M’s staff has generated a good number of ground balls, but they’ve been awful at turning double plays. The Rangers and A’s have each turned 5 more DPs this year despite the fact that the M’s pitchers have induced more ground balls.
Personally, I’m a bit encouraged by this. It hasn’t been fun to watch, of course, and the loss to the Astros on Tuesday was an object lesson in how BABIP can kill, but this doesn’t seem to be a systematic weakness. By advanced metrics, the M’s defense looks OK. The fact that the problem’s concentrated on the IF means that guys like Robinson Cano just haven’t gotten to a few balls. If Robbie Cano is the problem, it’s probably not going to be a problem for long. Sure, the OF defense could get worse, especially if Cruz continues to see a lot of time in right, and if Austin Jackson’s first step doesn’t return. But if the M’s start turning grounders into outs, they’ll start to chip away at the yawning chasm between their fielding-dependent and fielding-independent pitching marks, and that’d mean fewer total runs allowed.
2) As unlucky as M’s pitchers have been, their bats have been remarkably fortunate. The Hardball Times founder Dave Studeman mentioned it on twitter, but the M’s have a high offensive win probability added despite relatively few total runs scored. The M’s rank 21st in both runs scored and on-base percentage, but 5th in WPA, a stat measuring how the offense improved the team’s chance of winning games. Traditionally, and this is one of those groundbreaking sabermetric insights, offenses that make a ton of outs don’t improve their team’s odds of winning. A line-up that HAS been quite good at improving WPA despite a sub-.300 OBP is something of an odd duck, though it’s worth noting both that the M’s had a surprisingly good WPA given their putrid output in April of 2014, and also that the team that led the league in WPA last April was the Minnesota Twins’ juggernaut of an offense.
Some stats *feel* right – they highlight something that you see while watching a game, but that doesn’t get picked up in traditional stats. This one…depends. What’s happening is that the M’s offense has racked up plenty of WPA in their big comebacks, two extra-inning wins in Oakland, and then the wild 11-10 comeback against the Rangers. That said, it’s not like the M’s are a clear Pythagorean outlier – if you re-allocated the M’s total runs scored, you might come out with a similar W/L record. Sure, any runs added in that 12-0 shellacking in Oakland would be wasted, but the M’s have two one-run losses and four two-run losses on the year.* An optimist would point out that this is more an artifact of great M’s offensive performances coinciding with awful pitching, allowing the O to take all of the WPA spoils (as the pitching WPA in those three big games was negative). The pessimist would point out that the M’s are 6-9, and have an OBP below .300, and wouldn’t deign to talk about WPA.
I don’t really know what to think about either of these stats, and it’s quite possible neither will persist much into May. I don’t *think* the M’s are going to be a lousy defensive team, but it’d be concerning if they weren’t as good on the IF as we thought. You can’t count on WPA luck to stick around and help you win a pennant, but it doesn’t really need to. The M’s won three games they very easily could’ve lost, and here’s hoping we’ll remember them when toasting a divisional championship – the gap between runs and WPA could shrink either because the M’s sequencing luck deserts them, or because they *start scoring lots of runs*. Which of those is more likely depends on what you expect from Logan Morrison, Mike Zunino and Rickie Weeks.
* Outside of that one game in Oakland, *every game* the M’s has been decided by three or fewer runs.
Game 15, Astros at Mariners
JA Happ vs. Roberto Hernandez, 7:10pm
Last night’s loss was probably the toughest to take of the M’s young season – a young season that’s already produced more than its share of painful defeats. For the first time this year, Taijuan Walker managed to pitch out of trouble, and generate actual whiffs/strikeouts. His fastball velocity looked OK, and he was able to use all of his pitches, even though his command still hasn’t been good, and his results were skewed a bit by CB Bucknor impressionistic umpiring. Despite what is now the highest walk rate of any starting pitcher with at least 10 IP, Walker isn’t missing the zone too often – the percentage of his pitches that are in the pitch fx strike zone is far higher than Felix’s, for example. Walker’s been done in by command lapses and an awful BABIP. I thought about that last night as fly ball after fly ball fell in front of Austin Jackson, and what could’ve been a critical double play ball off the bat of Marwin Gonzalez seemingly crossed up Robbie Cano, scooting into right and kick-starting the Astros big rally. To date, the M’s rank poorly both by DRS and regular old defensive efficiency despite any clear defensive black holes – especially last night, with Nelson Cruz DHing. It’s way too early to prove, but I’m going to be watching the M’s positioning going forward. None of this gives Walker a pass, as his FIP is still plenty awful thanks to that walk rate. But it may be a factor, and getting Walker from “tire fire” back to “OK 5th starter” would really help the M’s right now.
In the course of researching the above, I found it kind of odd that zone% – the percentage of pitches thrown in the zone – and walk rate don’t correlate better. Sure, the guys at the very very top of that ranking – Bartolo Colon, Phil Hughes, etc. – never walk anyone. But Felix has one of the league’s lowest zone%, and he’s not exactly walking the world. Zack Greinke and Scott Kazmir are in the top (er, bottom?) 20 and they have low walk rates. There are command-challenged walk machines in there too, but by and large it’s not an iron clad lock that a poor zone% = a poor BB%. You just have to do something *else* to compensate. Felix and Greinke get plenty of swings on out-of-the-zone pitches, for example. Jason Vargas generates tons of contact, and tries hard to entice hitters to make contact on balls, but if that doesn’t work, he’ll give you a strike to hit. That’s essentially the approach Roberto Hernandez takes, and he comes in to tonight’s game with the lowest zone% amongst all starting pitchers in baseball. A bit more than 1/3 of his pitches are in the zone – one THIRD. He’s never been a low BB% guy, but that still strikes me as an absurdly low percentage. What he does is generate ground balls. Back in 2007-2010, when he was known as Fausto Carmona, Hernandez posted GB% over 60%, and with a 94mph fastball, a change and slider, he got a solid number of Ks to go with them. His ability to create so many grounders mitigated the walk rate, as all they did was create double play opportunities.
Unfortunately for Hernandez, the velocity’s not what it was, and injuries and swings in BABIP and HRs have made him one of the least consistent pitchers you’ll find; this should probably not be a shock given that he was not able to maintain a consistent legal identity over his career. At this stage, he throws an 89-90mph sinker without quite as much drop as it once had, and he’s moving away from his slider. Instead, he’s throwing his change-up a bit more, including to righties. At 83-84, it’s pretty firm, and looks more like a splitter by pitch FX – it has a bit less horizontal break than his sinker, but it drops more. As Hisashi Iwakuma knows, a splitter (or any change-up, really) is a great pitch for getting swings on balls not in the zone. Good arm action disguises the pitch, and it *looks* like a strike right until it dives below the knees. It’s a good pitch to use on opposite-handed hitters, but it hasn’t prevented Hernadez from showing some pretty standard platoon splits. Lefties have fared much better against him in his career, as he’s simply not able to strike them out. They may top his change, but they’re not whiffing on it.
At 34, Hernandez isn’t a world beater. He’s just hanging on, though it’s worth pointing out that he can go through some pretty effective stretches every now and again – he had one in April last year, in fact. He’s a stop-gap, and paired with a good IF defense, he can be a decent one. He’s had mixed results in his two starts this year, but the M’s need to be patient and wait for him to elevate a sinker. The M’s have been baaaad against ground ball pitchers in recent years, but they’ve been slightly better thus far thanks largely to Nelson Cruz.
The line-up:
1: Smith, DH
2: Jackson, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Happ
The Rainiers dropped the first game of their series against Albuquerque 8-6 after Sam Gaviglio turned in his first dud of a start. The teams face off again tonight with Mike Kickham facing Chad Bettis.
Jackson beat Tennessee in comeback fashion, 5-3; the Generals scored 4 runs over the final two innings to win. Stephen Landazuri gave up 3 runs, but James Gilheeney and Matt Anderson combined to allow just two singles and no walks over the final 3 1/3IP. Tonight, Scott DeCecco gets the ball for Jackson.
Bakersfield stayed hot, beating Stockton 5-1 behind solid pitching from Dan Altavila (6 IP, 1R, 7Ks), Nick Valenza (2 IP, 0R , 3Ks) and Trey Cochran-Gill (1IP, 0R 1K). Austin Wilson is showing further signs of life, going 2-4 with a double. That made up for Tyler O’Neill and Tyler Marlette going 0-8. O’Neill had 4Ks, too, and now has 21 Ks to 1 BB on the year. It’s early. Carlos Misell faces off against Kyle Finnegan, a one-time college teammate of Carson Smith.
Clinton dropped a 5-2 contest to Kane County. Gianfranco Wawoe, the splendidly-named 2B from Curacao, extended his hitting streak to 8 games. And, since the L-Kings have already played – and won – today, I can report that Wawoe now has a 9-game streak, going 13-32 with 2 HRs over that span. Pat Peterson started today’s 2-1 win, but the bullpen came up big, with Ryan Horstman again looking sharp, with 2 Ks and 0 hits in 1 1/3IP, after coming in with a man on 3rd.
Game 14, Astros at Mariners
Taijuan Walker vs. Collin McHugh, 7:10pm
The M’s had an improbable comeback to beat the Rangers on Sunday, and then missed a great opportunity to gain some ground last night. Asher Wojchiechowski was predictably mediocre, and the M’s lefties (and Cruz) made him pay, but some shaky bullpen work and a lack of timely hits resulted in a loss. Today, the pitching match-up appears to be against them, as struggling Taijuan Walker faces Collin McHugh, the AAAA reject turned all-star level starter.
McHugh announced his rebirth as a bona fide MLB pitcher almost exactly a year ago today (it was April 22nd, to be precise) at Safeco Field. The righty was called up from AAA to make a start around three weeks in to the season. At that point, he’d made a handful of unexceptional starts for Oklahoma City, and he was a few months passed getting waived by the Colorado Rockies org after putting up 19 sub-replacement level innings for the big club. That night in Seattle, however, McHugh struck out 12, walked no one, and went 6 2/3 scoreless innings, yielding only 3 hits. He had his ups and downs, but finished 2014 with 3.2 fWAR in just 154+ IP; by ERA-based WAR, he was even better, at 4 full wins above replacement.
As Neil Weinberg talked about at Fangraphs recently, McHugh looked like a new pitcher right from that first start, even if that was the low point for the 2014 M’s – they were mired in a losing streak and looked god awful. But down the stretch, he changed again and became even more effective. Somewhere during the 2nd half, something clicked for McHugh, and both his walk rate and his home run rate fell markedly. It’s still only 300 batters faced, but every single component is different/better. He’s been effective in two starts thus far, so McHugh’s doing all he can to show that last season wasn’t a fluke (Matt Shoemaker, on the other hand…).
The first big change McHugh made last year was to develop better fastball command. By keeping the ball away from lefties, he started finding some success against southpaws for the first time in his brief big league career. But down the stretch, McHugh changed again, and began featuring his slider much, much more. At this point, McHugh is throwing fastballs less than 1/3 of the time. The pitch he throws most is his slider, at 40%. He’s also got a curve ball he throws 1/4 of the time versus lefties and 1/5 of the time to righties, and a change-up that he’ll go to infrequently to lefties. McHugh is the anti-Ross Detwiler, but he’s nearly as extreme. His approach looks most similar to Madison Bumgarner, another pitcher who makes liberal use of a slider to opposite-handed hitters, but even Bumgarner still throws 50% FBs (if you combine 4- and 2-seamers). The three pitchers most similar to McHugh’s approach last year were Francisco Liriano in Pittsburgh, Hiroki Kuroda in New York and Kevin Correia in the Twin Cities. This isn’t about creating a list of comps, and it’s not to suggest that McHugh will bounce out of the bigs the way Correia has, or that this is a late-career move, or anything like that. This observation is merely descriptive: McHugh has been incredibly successful of late, and McHugh’s approach is pretty unlike that of most other MLB starters.
Taijuan Walker is also at one end of the results distribution, unfortunately. Walker’s been hit hard repeatedly, and that’s got a lot of fans looking to the minors for help. Roenis Elias is on the 40-man, but he’s been shaky thus far. Jordan Pries was a good candidate to show up eventually, but he’d require a 40-man move and he’s been worse than Elias. The pitching depth in the system hasn’t been able to develop just yet – Danny Hultzen’s still in instructs, and a 40-man move this early feels like an overreactive response. Walker may be best off in MLB with Rick Waits working on both his fastball command and his mental approach to yielding a few hits, but that doesn’t mean his starts are practice games. The AL West is still tightly bunched, unlike, say, the NL East. That alone buys the M’s a bit of time. But that also means that the division is still just as tight as the predictions thought it’d be, and other teams reinforcements are already moving in (Garrett Richards in Anaheim, Josh Reddick in Oakland). Walker has some time, but not a ton of it.
1: Ackley, LF
2: Jackson, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smith, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Walker
Tacoma kicked the Chihuahuas last night by a score of 5-4. Roenis Elias still wasn’t sharp, going 5 IP with 7 hits and 4 runs allowed, but it was enough thanks to two 5th inning HRs, one from Chris Taylor and the other from Jesus Montero. Today, Sam Gaviglio gets the start against Carlos Hernandez of Albuquerque.
Jackson beat Tennessee 7-1 yesterday, as Misael Siverio was sharp over 5 2/3 IP, giving up 2 hits and 1 run (a HR by zaftig 1B prospect Dan Vogelbach). The Generals were held scoreless until the 7th, but they made up for lost time with Leon Landry notching 3 RBIs in his first game of the season. Stephen Landazuri makes his third start tonight; he’s yet to give up a run in 8 IP, though his last start was shortened to just 2 IP due to rain (they finished the game the next day).
Bakersfield started slow, but they’re on a bit of a roll now. They beat Stockton 5-1 yesterday behind prospect Ryan Yarbrough’s best start of the year – he went 6 scoreless, and didn’t walk anyone. That said, with just a single K, I’m starting to wonder about his bat-missing. It’s really early, of course, but Yarbrough shot up rankings by racking up 53 strikeouts (against just 4 walks!) in less than 39 IP for Everett. This year, he’s got 6 Ks (and 2 walks) in 16 IP. Something to watch, I suppose. And hey, Tyler O’Neill showed further signs of breaking out of an early slump with a triple, and Austin Wilson, who’d looked lost in the early going, went 2-4 with his first Cal League HR. Dan Altavila starts tonight against Stockton and their Aussie SP, Tim Atherton. Atherton was originally signed as an OF by Minnesota, and then released by both the Twins and Padres. He moved to the mound, and pitched well in the Australian league before the Twins signed him again, this time as a pitcher. Oakland then acquired him in the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft.
Daniel Missaki got hit fairly hard yesterday in Clinton’s loss to Beloit 7-5. Missaki K’d 7 in 5 IP, but also gave up 8 hits and 4 runs. Nick Kiel, of Everett’s Jackson HS and Bellevue College, pitched the final two frames in his first game action of 2015; Kiel was an 18th rounder last year and played in Peoria and Everett late in 2014. Today, Tyler Herb starts for Clinton against Kane County’s Jeferson Mejia, a D-Backs prospect who came from the Cubs org in the Miguel Montero deal. Mejia had a good year in the Arizona League last year, and while he got destroyed in his first class A start, he’s 6’7″, and probably bigger than his listed 195 – shades of Michael Pineda, a bit, or, for the pessimists, shades of Michael Ynoa.
Podcast: Nelson Cruzzzzzzzzzzzzz
So many ding-dongers you guys. So many!
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Game 13, Astros at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Asher Wojchichowski, 7:10pm
Baseball seasons are famously long and grinding, and it’s difficult to take time to really bask in a win like yesterday’s. What’s more, since you can’t predict baseball and all that, you can’t see them coming – you just have to stick it out, through 12-0 drubbings, and 6-3 losses you’ve forgotten before they end. You stick it out and suddenly you get a game with Willie Bloomquist starting at SS, a game in which the team is down 5 to Ross Detwiler and down 5 again to the Ranger bullpen that becomes something you’ll remember for years. I will be in line at a market, and I will think about Cruz’s reaction to the walk-off hit, and I will conveniently excise the 3rd inning and feel slightly happier. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s pretty great. That, nice weather, beer, tradition, cultural norms, etc. are why we follow the game religiously. Felix, too, of course.
Today’s game doesn’t look all too promising, but it might look better on paper than yesterday’s, and look what happened! Asher Wojciechowski is a right-hander who was a supplemental-1st round pick of the Blue Jays in 2010. The Jays reworked his delivery with spotty results, and finally sent him to Houston in a July 2010 deal that’s been characterized as the most boring ten-player trade ever. The headliner, I suppose, was JA Happ, and the return was six fair-to-middling prospects to add depth to an Astros system still hollowed out by the last few Ed Wade years. Nobody Houston received was a clear blue-chip player – this was the exception proving the rule that you can’t just add more so-so players to make a deal appealing – but Wojchiechowski had that first-round pedigree and some initial success in the lower levels of the Jays system. The only other prospect in that deal with a strong shot at the majors was David Rollins, the guy the M’s selected in this year’s Rule 5 draft and who’d be in the bullpen now if it wasn’t for a PED suspension.
Before the trade, Wojciechowski was probably best known for his peripatetic childhood, as his missionary parents moved from state to state, and also briefly to the Dominican Republic before spending Asher’s little league years in Bucharest, Romania. Luckily, Bucharest somehow had a little league team. After spending several years in Michigan, the family moved to the southeast for his final year of high school to help the recruiting process. Wojo’s got prototypical size at 6’4″ 235lbs, and he rewarded Houston initially with a stand-out 2013, faring reasonably well in the PCL after a quick stop in AA. Unfortunately, his 2014 was marred by a bad lat strain – the kind of injury that nuked ex-M’s reliever Stephen Pryor’s 2013, and that sidelined James Paxton last year as well. When Wojciechowski returned, he was mediocre, giving up 89 hits and 46 runs in 76 PCL innings.
Now fully healed, he made the Astros rotation as the 5th starter, though he’s made just one start and one relief appearance to date. His fastball’s completely unremarkable – a four-seamer at 91 with average rise and horizontal run. He also throws a change-up and a slider, and I’ll be damned if I can find anything to say about them. To date, Wojciechowski has found it extremely difficult to get MLB hitters to swing and miss at any of his pitches, which makes his 6 Ks in 8 IP all the more impressive. We don’t have much info to go on, but the thing that jumped off the page to me was his extremely low GB rate. He doesn’t throw a sinker, and his fastball doesn’t have much natural sink, so I wondered if it was a fluke. Probably not – he’s posted very low ratios in the upper minors as well. The key is how he uses his pitches. He seems to like keeping his fastball up, preferring to miss up and out of the zone than to try to target the (expanding) lower reaches of the zone. We’ve talked about this approach in recent years, thanks to high-strike maven Chris Young’s 2014 and Trevor Bauer’s twitter rants against the “aim for the knees” doctrine. It’s true – you can get lots of whiffs, infield pop-ups and a lower BABIP if you can reliably pull off the high strike. The problem, of course, is what happens if you can’t reliably pull it off. He’s had two four-inning appearances this season. In the first, he surrendered two HRs to the Indians. In the second, he avoided mistakes and struck out 4 without giving up a run. We’ll see how good the righty’s command is tonight against an M’s line-up that’s probably feeling a bit better about itself after yesterday’s 11-run barrage.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smith, DH
7: Zunino, C
8: Morrison, 1B
9: Miller, SS
SP: Iwakuma
Six lefties against Wojo, who struggled with lefties in his minor league career. Nicely done.
The Rainiers look for their first home win tonight against El Paso, with Roenis Elias on the hill. His first outing against the Chihuahuas was not…good, but he’s got another shot, and this time he’ll face them in a pitcher’s park. The park didn’t help Jordan Pries yesterday, as he coughed up a 5 run lead thanks to a 5 run 5th that ended his day. Joe Saunders gave up four runs in relief, and that was essentially that. Franklin Gutierrez homered, and Julio Morban had two hits in his first game since being promoted from Jackson. Ketel Marte is hitting over .300 and he drew two walks yesterday, bringing his OBP over .350, which sounds great, until you see that his SLG% is just .326. It’s an encouraging start, but the ceiling still looks really low.
Jackson got rained out again on get-away day for the second straight time. They face the Tennessee Smokies today, with Misael Siverio facing Cubs reliever-turned-starter Frank Batista.
Bakersfield, coming off back to back shutouts of San Jose, handed the ball to ace Edwin Diaz yesterday, but the scoreless inning streak stopped pretty suddenly. Diaz just wasn’t sharp, giving up 4 R in 2 2/3 IP, but the offense bailed him out, as the Blaze won 10-7. Tyler O’Neill homered, which is great to see after the Canuck’s slow start. The Blaze face Stockton tonight, with Ryan Yarbrough opposing Dylan Covey, an A’s 4th rounder from 2013.
Clinton beat Beloit 9-4 thanks to three hits from Gianfranco Wawoe, a hit and two walks by Joe DeCarlo and a decent game from pitchers Jefferson Medina, Ryan Horstman, Rohn Pierce and Peter Miller. Horstman, the rare freshman-eligible collegiate player the M’s got from St. Johns, has been good in the early-going, with 8Ks and 2BBs in 6 scoreless innings. Clinton faces the Snappers again tonight with Daniel Missaki on the hill against Brett Graves – a rematch of the game on April 10th that the L-Kings lost 4-3.
Game 12, Rangers at Mariners
James Paxton vs. Ross Detwiler, 1:10pm
Felix did his job. As staff ace and de facto psychologist, Felix stymied the Rangers and assuaged the fatalism and disappointment surrounding the club, if only for a few days. Every fan base does this – it’s not just M’s fans who go “here we go again” after a bleak 3-4 game stretch – but it’s nice that Felix’ greatness is such that he seems to quiet the concerns about the *offense* by making offense look unimportant. Instead of elite athletes at the far, far edge of the talent distribution pummeling pitches all over the park, Felix makes hitting look like a series of pratfalls – mistimed lunges, tepid swatting (as if at a persistent bee), and confused stares. The M’s really should’ve done more against Colby Lewis, but it just didn’t matter.
Today, the M’s go for the series win against let-hander Ross Detwiler, the one-time 6th overall pick of the Nationals who came over in a minor trade in December. Detwiler’s battled a series of injuries over the years, including a surgically repaired hip and a pinched nerve in his back. After throwing a career-high 164 1/3 regular-season IP in 2012, those injuries and the Nationals suddenly stacked rotation pushed Detwiler to a long-relief/swingman role, but he’s back in the rotation with the, uh, unstacked Rangers.
There’s nothing that really stands out in Detwiler’s repertoire – he’s got a four- and two-seam fastball at about 93-94, a curve at 80 and a change-up that he uses, rarely, against righties. So, a FB/CU pitcher – not that much different from Paxton, right? Despite the surface similarities, Detwiler’s actually got more in common with Bartolo Colon. Combining four- and two-seam fastballs, Detwiler is extremely fastball-reliant. In his big year of 2012, fully 80% of his pitches were fastballs. Last year, that number was even higher, at around 84%. Against lefties, he’s pushing 90% fairly regularly, and he was over 80% last year against righties as well. Given that approach, it’s a bit odd to see that he’s got persistently high platoon splits. Lefties just don’t seem to see his fastball well, and have a career .302 SLG% against Detwiler. Thus, Detwiler typically sees more righties than lefties, and righties have fared fairly well. So that’s great, right? The M’s can throw out a righty-heavy line-up, and they’re just *fastballs* right? Aw, man.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Weeks, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Ruggiano, LF
7: Bloomquist, SS
8: Morrison, 1B
9: Sucre, C
SP: Paxton
I like the top of that line-up, but it peters out towards the end. Bloomquist is at SS, and is the official back-up for a while as the M’s took Chris Taylor off the DL and optioned him to Tacoma.
Speaking of Tacoma, Mike Montgomery had a forgettable home debut last night as the Rainiers dropped the second game of their series against El Paso 6-3. Montgomery gave up 5 runs in 2 2/3 IP. Patrick Kivlehan homered. Today, Jordan Pries tries to make some adjustments and get back to where he was last season against the Chihuahuas and Jason Lane in an opening day re-match.
Jackson lost 7-3 to Mississippi yesterday, with Dylan Unsworth taking his 2nd loss; Jordan Shipers also got tagged for 2R in 2 relief innings. Braves prospect Mallex Smith, who came over from SD in an Upton trade went 3-5 with a triple. In the series, the lead-off man and CF is 10-20 with a HR. Cuban lefty Misael Siverio starts today for Jackson in the final game of the series.
Bakersfield won another 3-0 game behind Jake Zokan and Trey Cochran-Gill. The latter, another short righty from an SEC school with a good fastball, has had a brilliant start to his pro career, with 24 hits and 3 total runs in 45 2/3 IP, along with 55 Ks amd just seven un-intentional walks. We saw him a bit in spring training, where he showed a side-winding, sinking FB and a slider. Things aren’t going to get any easier today for San Jose as Edwin Diaz, who’s yet to surrender a run this year, makes his third start.
Clinton’s comeback fell short against Beloit yesterday, 6-5. Alex Jackson and Joe DeCarlo went 0-7 with 4 Ks, which isn’t what you want from your #3-4 hitters. Jefferson Medina starts today for the LumberKings against Dan Gossett, a 2014 2nd rounder for the A’s out of Clemson.
Game 11, Rangers at Mariners
King Felix vs. Colby Lewis, 6:10pm (Note the odd start time)
Happy Felix Day. This one couldn’t come at a better time – when the M’s have lost four in a row, with an offense sputtering to the lowest OBP in the league, and a pitching staff that’s put up the third-worst ERA in baseball. I always love Felix starts when the M’s are on a bit of a roll, and it feels like they’re up 2-0 before the game even starts. Those have been the exception, of course; we’re all a bit more familiar with these “Save us, Felix” starts in which it falls to Felix to halt a slide. It’s early, and Lloyd McClendon isn’t necessarily wrong when he says the team will click eventually – their FIP is a full run lower than their ERA, and the club’s worst-in-baseball BABIP means luck has played a role in the awful OBP. Still, this isn’t the start anyone wanted, and the Oakland series feels ages ago now. After putting up another poor performance against Gallardo last night, the M’s face long-time Rangers junkballer Colby Lewis.
Lewis famously reworked his mechanics and repertoire during a stint in Japan with Hiroshima, and returned to the AL in 2010 as a surprisingly good starter. Injuries and age have sapped some velocity and the bite on his slider, and his platoon splits have become more and more of an issue, but he’s giving Texas innings at a time they desperately need them. He was worth a bit over 1 fWAR last year, despite an ugly ERA, thanks to a consistently good K:BB ratio. That said, as a fly-baller who plays in Texas, he’s always had home run issues. And as he’s aged, that problem’s getting a bit worse.
Lewis’ four-seamer is now in the 88-89mph range, and his best pitch is a slider that comes in around 83. It’s got a lot of drop for a slider, and that two-plane movement has helped it be effective against lefties as well as righties – since 2012, he’s had better results with it to lefties, though that’s due in part to sample size and the situations he uses it in against southpaws. He throws about 1/3 sliders to righties, but he’ll mix it in with a curve and change to lefties; neither pitch is particularly effective, but they give batters something to think about. Despite the slider and a five-pitch mix, he continues to struggle against lefties. In his career, lefties have a .361 wOBA against him, while righties are at .318. This is an opportunity for the M’s to use their lefty-heavy line-up to good effect.
Felix scared us all a bit with his quad problem in Oakland. It obviously isn’t too serious as he’s making the start tonight, and it also provides a convenient excuse for Felix’s poor game in Oakland. If he’s healthy, this *should* be a decent match-up, and yes, I realize I said that yesterday.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smith, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Felix Hernandez.
Zunino in the 9th spot for the first time. Can’t say I mind. Smith started hot, but has yet to draw a walk on the season – hell, even Zunino’s got two of them.
As Jeff pointed out a week or so ago, the Angels are weighing their options to rid themselves of the Josh Hamilton contract. Ken Rosenthal mentions that the Angels are looking to trade him, but could buy out Hamilton – not sure how much savings they’d get on the $83 million they still owe him. It’s been a rough few months for Hamilton, who filed for divorce recently as well.
Pete Rose will join Fox as a studio analyst, according to, er, Fox. I guess they should know.
The Rainiers dropped their home opener to El Paso last night 4-2 after starter Mike Kickham walked 7 in 5 IP. It’s a gorgeous day today, and the Rainiers game starts at 5pm – plenty of sunlight left. Mike Montgomery gets the start after an encouraging 2015 debut. Very curious to hear how he looks and how hard he’s throwing these days.
Jackson lost 6-5 in 12 innings yesterday, but that’s OK. The Mississippi Braves scored the winning run off Carlton Tanabe, the catcher, who was pressed into service on the mound after the Generals had run through so many pitchers in the first week. More importantly, DJ Peterson showed some signs of life, going 3-6 with a double. Dylan Unsworth starts tonight’s contest.
The Bakersfield Blaze shut out San Jose, with Carlos Misell, Emilio Pagan and Brett Ash combining for 9Ks and just a single walk. Tyler O’Neill and Austin Wilson both had hits, but the offensive star was Tyler Marlette, again. He’s now at 12 for 24 on the year, with a pair of HRs. I was a bit surprised he started in high-A; maybe Marlette’s taking his frustration out on the Cal League, and maybe they wanted to give him some confidence for when he moves back up to AA. Jake Zokan starts tonight against DJ Snelton, a 9th rounder in 2013 out of Minnesota.
Clinton won 3-2 yesterday behind six shutout innings from Pat Peterson, who struck out 7 along the way. Joe DeCarlo continued his hot start with another HR – that’s 3 in 2 days for him. Clinton faces the Beloit Snappers today, and send Lukas Schiraldi to the mound.
Game 10, Rangers at Mariners
JA Happ vs. Yovani Gallardo, 7:10pm
Great night for a ballgame tonight, and you head to Safeco to see the M’s and Rangers, or go south to Cheney for the Rainiers’ home opener. The M’s gut-wrenching sweep in LA hurt, but the M’s now get 16 straight games against the Rangers, Astros and Twins, the teams projected to rank 15th, 14th and 12th in the AL this year. The M’s Fangraphs projections haven’t taken too much of a hit thanks to that faceplant in Chavez Ravine because the Angels were swept by Kansas City a bit before. The Baseball Prospectus odds haven’t changed much, because the M’s were never favored in them – they saw the Angels as the clear favorite, and still do.
The Rangers acquired Gallardo from the Brewers to solidify the middle of their rotation. They had Yu Darvish and Derek Holland ahead, and would be bringing in some youngsters for the back, so getting a veteran #3 seemed like a great move even for a team that wasn’t ready to compete in 2015. Thanks to the injuries that continue to ravage the club, Gallardo’s now the de facto ace, and that’s asking a lot from the 29 year old. As I mentioned when the M’s faced him this spring, one of the issues facing Gallardo as he moves to the AL is the plethora of left-handed hitting thanks in part to the DH and in part because that’s just how the AL West rolls. The A’s have been platooning for years, the M’s have moved from a bunch of switch-hitters to a more Oakland-style of platooning. Gallardo’s straight-over-the-top delivery minimzed his platoon splits, but he still had some, and in the NL Central, he still got to face more righties than lefties.
When he’s on, his four-seam fastball’s a weapon against all hitters, and he can mix in a slider and a curve as well. Even as his strikeout rate has fallen, he’s maintained a level of effectiveness because he’s been able to get ground balls and limit walks. That’s what’s going to be interesting to see if he can maintain in the new league – his walk numbers are worse against lefties, but he’s balanced it by limiting HRs and getting K’s. If neither of those two things hold, and limiting HRs in Arlington is kind of a challenge, his stats may tumble. It’s early yet, but he’s been hit fairly hard, and by lefties in particular (and as you’d guess, he’s now facing more lefties than righties instead of the other way around). To counteract this, it looks like he may make more use of his change-up. He threw all of 20 of them in 2014, and he’s already at 12 just 9 innings and change into 2015. It’s something he’s been toying with for years, and his success with it will go a long way towards his overall value.
Among the fun things you can do with one week of data is scan through the list of each team’s most valuable player of 2015. The M’s most valuable position player has been Nelson Cruz, of course. The Rangers’ most valuable player has been ex-Mariner Carlos Peguero. The big Dominican didn’t get a shot last year in Kansas City, so he’s moved to the Rangers org, and he’s been forced into duty with injuries to Shin-Soo Choo and opening day LF Ryan Rua. Prince Fielder looks great at the plate, and he’s struck out just twice in 44 plate appearances this year, but he’s not hitting for power at all. But at least he’s hitting *something*. The Rangers come in with a slash line of .210/.290/.335 thanks to slow starts from Adrian Beltre, Elvis Andrus, Rougned Odor, and Leonys Martin. The splits are even more meaningless given the sample, but they’ve been worse against lefties, which makes sense given that only Fielder and Peguero are hitting, and they’re both southpaws. Fielder’s got sneaky large platoon splits over his career too, so it’s not a bad match up for JA Happ tonight.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Smith, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: Happ
Zunino’s now struck out 14 times in 30 at-bats, and has just a single XBH. He’s never going to be a high-contact guy, so he needs to hit for power to (partially) offset all the whiffs. His o-swing has actually improved a bit this year, only to have his IN-zone contact plummet. Right now, pitchers are beating him with fastballs in the zone, and that simply can’t happen. Not sure what needs to change, but the poor kid is totally out of sorts thus far.
The Rainiers kick off their home schedule tonight with a 7:05 start against the El Paso Chihuahuas. Mike Kickham starts for Tacoma opposite James Needy; these two faced off five days ago in a forgettable 7-6 El Paso win. Needy gave up two HRs in that one, to Carlos Rivero and Patrick Kivlehan. The R’s picked up a win in extras yesterday, getting a great performance from Sam Gaviglio, who went the first six, and then 5 scoreless innings from the ‘pen.
AA Jackson continued their rained-out home opener yesterday, then played a 7 inning game after it. They lost the continuation game, but won the nightcap behind HRs from Gabby Guerrero and Jabari Henry. Moises Hernandez capped off a bullpen day to get the win. DJ Peterson’s slow start continues; after notching a single in game 1, he went 0-3 in game 2, dropping his season line to .080/.115/.080. Tyler Pike starts tonight against Mississippi.
Everything about Bakersfield’s game last night was terrible, with the exception of Tyler Marlette’s 3-3 night. They send Carlos Misell to the hill tonight against San Jose in the hopes of giving me something good to say tomorrow.
Clinton won 7-6 yesterday thanks to two Joe DeCarlo HRs. The over-slot 2nd rounder from the 2012 draft has taken a loooong time to get going in pro ball, and he’s moved down the defensive spectrum, but he’s off to a respectable start in the pitcher-friendly MWL. Alex Jackson went 0-6, but his line of .111/.219/.185 is better than Peterson’s. Tonight, Patrick Peterson gets the ball against Kane County.
The most anticipated baseballing event of the day had nothing to do with the M’s or its affiliates. Instead, the eyes of baseball fans were on Wrigley Field for the MLB debut of top prospect Kris Bryant. His brilliant spring and the Cubs decision to send him to the minors for service time manipulation seasoning/defensive work has been the talk of baseball for a month, perhaps even overshadowing much of the majors’ first week. He debuted in the clean-up spot, just like legendary Mariner prospect Al Chambers, and went 0-4 with 3 Ks. Bryant will always have some Ks, but he looked pretty lost against James Shields’ great change-up.* It was something of a let down for a crowd that was there to heap praise on the rookie. Bryant’s first AB became a sustained standing ovation, as the entire crowd stood and positioned their cell phones to capture Bryant’s first AB, which was over after 3 consecutive whiffs. I know it was a home game, but it struck me how things have changed that an entire crowd would be hanging on Bryant’s arrival. M’s fans didn’t do that with A-Rod, though in hindsight, we really should’ve. We probably WOULD have done it with Griffey, but of course he started off on the road. Mike Trout’s debut came at home (against the M’s), but I don’t remember anything like what Bryant got. Felix debuted on the road in a game that wasn’t even televised, so that definitely wouldn’t compare. Can you think of another MLB debut that’s been so anticipated? And who was the first prospect you were really, really excited to see join the big club?
* You know who never had a problem with James Shields’ change-up? Carlos Peguero, that’s who. The M’s weren’t a lot of fun in 2012-2013, but THAT – Peguero’s mastery of James Shields – always brought a smile to my face.
Roll The Die
The Mariners are in a state right now. They’re 3-6, tied for the worst record in the American League, and they’re fresh off a road series sweep. It was a road series sweep, granted, at the hands of probably the best team in baseball, but then a sweep is a sweep, and, worse, it was a series the Mariners easily could’ve won with just a little bit better execution. The Dodgers lucked out by missing Felix Hernandez. The Mariners lucked out by missing Clayton Kershaw. One guy the Mariners didn’t miss was David Huff. Didn’t matter; Mariners lost. No one looks good after getting swept, no matter the location and no matter the opponent, and you’d like the Mariners at some point to start clicking and playing cleaner baseball. If they don’t shape up soon, they could lose control of this whole thing.
The Mariners are in a state I feel obligated to respond to. I know my role, and I’m supposed to chime in when people are getting emotional and reactionary. But I have to tell you: writing about a single team can be difficult, especially when you’ve been doing it for well more than a decade. You start to feel like you’re getting predictable, and you start to feel like everything you want to say, you’ve already said. In fairness, pretty much everything we say everywhere is something we’ve already said, because all we are are warm-blooded recycling machines, but I’m conscious of balance. What’s the sense in writing something if everyone already knows what you’re going to write? You have to stay fresh.
So I’ve developed a little tool, intended to help myself, and intended therefore to help you, the reader. The idea: I can identify times when I want to write a response to recent events. That part’s easy. It’s a feel thing. But then there’s the matter of the content. And what shapes the content is the angle of the content. The tool I’ve developed determines the reaction angle, and it’s completely out of my hands. Following, an explanatory image:
What we have here is an image of a six-sided die. Beside, smaller images of all six sides, with corresponding recommended article approaches. So, when I want to write about something, I can just roll the die, and then that guides how I’m going to follow through. Now, to be completely honest, I don’t actually have any dice in my apartment. But I do have Microsoft Excel in my apartment, so what I’ve done is just use a simple random number generator, picking from between 1 – 6. There’s something I want to address? I generate a random number, and then the tiny spreadsheet tells me how I’m going to address it. The words are entirely up to me, but the overall message is determined by electrons and circuits and whatever the hell goes on underneath my laptop keyboard.
It’s time to put this to use. The Mariners are 3-6. They were once 3-3, but they just got swept in agonizing fashion by the Dodgers. The closer looks like a wreck, the rotation looks not even a little bit better, and the offense is pretty much entirely Nelson Cruz dingers off the end of the bat. People are freaking out. This year was supposed to be different. Everything was supposed to be in place. Observers in Arizona predicted that the Mariners would be the best team in the league. Almost to a man, the team has stumbled out of the gate. What’s to be said? Let me roll the die.
Random number: 6!
COOL OWL FACT
A group of owls is called a parliament, a wisdom, a stare, or a study. As for baby owls? Baby owls are known as owlets.