Game 83, Mariners at Astros
Unlike assorted other scrubs (I am glaring at Josh Tomlin), Collin McHugh has also been good against other baseball teams, though not quite as good as he was against us on April 22nd. There have been fewer Ks and more walks at times, but he’s gone 6+ in five of his twelve outings so far. One exception is the last time we faced him in Houston, May 4th, when the Mariners touched him up for more runs than in any of his other starts and knocked him out before the fourth inning, his shortest start of the year. So either the Mariners will be dominated by him, or they’ll kick ass, or somewhere in between.
You aren’t here to read about Collin McHugh, you’re here to read about Taijuan Walker. As grudgingly as I would go to something that presents itself as “Fantasy” content, the Baseball America “What To Expect” Profile does a lot of good to talk about his repertoire, strengths/weaknesses, and his most recent outing. That last one was his first complete game shutout ever as a pro! Wow! (He’s only ever had one other complete game)
The story from his time rehabbing, of course, is larger than that. He was all right in High Desert and Jackson back in the first couple of weeks of April before his shoulder started balking again and he needed to go back. Unlike the more depressing scenarios that played out with Hultzen, he was able to pitch again for Tacoma. Out of the six starts he made there, he’s hit the five inning mark or more in his last four starts, walked one or fewer four times (and three or more twice), and has struck out seven or more twice, with all the other outings being in the threes or fours. This isn’t super meaningful since we’re talking three innings or fewer with at least two of those outings. What I’m trying to drive at by saying all this is just to indicate that his command can be good or bad. The Astros don’t have much position player value because their defensive WAR, according to Fangraphs, has been the worst in the league, but they’re roughly in the middle of the pack for offense. Many things could happen.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
Other stuff? Mac says that neither Smoak nor Hart will be back this week. Kyle Seager was AL Player of the Week, Taijuan Walker was PCL Pitcher of the Week, Daniel Missaki was APL Pitcher of the Week. Paxton threw a 35-pitch bullpen that went all right. Joel Pineiro, in triple-A, tested positive for a banned stimulant and was released by the Angels.
Go ‘Ners!
Podcast: A Fortnight Done Well
Monday morning podcast(s) continues/begins.
Apologies for last week’s absence, but I was not in a place able to record. And unfortunately this week’s podcast was shorter than our usual. And next week, with the 4th, may be delayed and/or short as well. We’ll see, but will try to deliver you as much awesome as we’re capable of. Thank you for you listenership.
Podcast with Jeff and Matthew: Direct link! || iTunes link! || RSS/XML link!
Thanks again to those that helped support the show and/or StatCorner work in general last week, and in the past, and hopefully in the future. It’s truly appreciated.
Game 82, Indians at Mariners
Felix Hernandez vs. T.J. House, 1:10 PM
Raise your hand if you had heard of T.J. House before this series. Okay, I can’t see that from here but I’m going to assume that nothing is happening. T.J. House, real name: Glenn Anthony House, has never been a top prospect and is the latest in a storied line of some guys who end up making major league starts for baseball teams. His pitch selection has been roughly 60% FB, 20% slider, 20% change, with the fastball clocking in around 91 mph. The slider appears to be his best pitch. He hasn’t been good overall and is significantly worse against right-handers, giving up more walks and extra-base hits. Seriously, his RH numbers are .314/.392/.529. This means we get a different looking lineup.
SS Willie Bloomquist
CF Michael Saunders
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
C Mike Zunino
1B Logan Morrison
RF Stefen Romero
DH John Buck
LF Cole Gillespie
To touch on the only real positive of last night’s game: Maurer in relief looks good. We’ve all been burned by the erratic nature of pitching and bullpen arms before, so I’m not making any long-term declarations as to what might happen, but he looks like what we thought we were getting with the first year of Carter Capps.
After the game, we also got confirmation that Taijuan Walker will be starting tomorrow. Hooray.
Happy Felix Day.
Game 81, Indians at Mariners
The halfway point? THE HALFWAY POINT?!? This is going up early because hey, I won’t be around later.
Roenis Elias vs. Josh Tomlin, 7:10 pm PT
Roenis Elias was last seen, I think, during last night’s game as he was pounding the dugout railing and cheering after Endy Chavez’ home run. Endy Chavez now has a 94 wRC+, which is eighth-best mark on the team, or just sixth-best if you pull out the limited samples from Iwakuma and Montero hitting. Even numbers dig the long ball.
Josh Tomlin was last seen by the Mariners on April 19th of 2012, a game in which he threw 71 of 96 pitches for strikes and ended up K’ing seven while allowing just five hits and one run over eight innings. It was plainly his best start in a year that he ultimately ended up being worth -0.1 WAR. This year, he’s had some value and his strikeout rate, at nearly 20%, is considerably better than the ~13% clip he’s been at for most of his career. As ever, he doesn’t walk dudes and one of the easier ways to get him into trouble is to hit a home run. Like Endy Chavez hit a home run. Just last night. Help.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
I didn’t mention it last night in that edition of the minor league news, but remember how I was loudly complaining about the lack of at-bats for Choi? Turns out they had a solution in the works. With Hart and Smoak occupying DH and first base as rehabbers, the workaround has been that last night and in the AM part of today’s day/night doubleheader, Choi has been playing left field.
You may want to ask me how I expect that will work out and I really have no idea. I’ve never seen Choi at a position where scouting reports would even talk about his speed, so I haven’t the least idea as to how readily he might be able to run down flyballs. I would assume that because he’s played third and catcher in the past, the arm works in his favor. Additionally, he’s known to be a hard worker, so what he doesn’t pick up immediately he’ll improve on in time. It’s versatility.
Game 80, Indians at Mariners
Chris Young vs. Trevor Bauer, 7:10 pm
One of my favorite things about Trevor Bauer was when he was drafted. Bauer was and is known for his unusual regimen (long toss) and engineered delivery that was patterned off of Lincecum. Teams knew how committed he was to it and that he was unlikely to change it for just any old reason. He was drafted by the Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks tried to tweak his delivery. He was not happy. Sometime later, he was traded to Cleveland in three-team deal. Though there were more pieces involved, the Diamondbacks basically got back a year of a below-average reliever (Tony Sipp), a strong defensive shortstop who can only hope to have a league average wRC+ (Didi Gregorious), and a former top prospect first baseman who was subsequently waived and lost for nothing (Lars Anderson). This is at least one interesting thing about Bauer.
Another interesting thing is that Major League Baseball has been around for well over a hundred years and we still haven’t the least idea how to keep pitchers healthy. Because it’s not like they’re integral to the team or anything. Every few years some new pitcher comes along with a new thing they’re doing, a Lincecum, a Bauer, a Bundy, and sometimes they last and sometimes they don’t and sometimes we see diminishing returns as we seem to see with a lot of them. Usually they are treated with suspicion or occasionally contempt. Pitchers throw all kinds of strange ways with unusual arm angles and some stay healthy and some don’t. Sometimes a 6’1″, 180 pound guy is throwing 99 mph as a starter and others a 6’8″, 250 pound behemoth is only sitting low-90s in relief. Is this not odd to all of you, the lack of codification, the lack of guarantee?
Bauer has been better at avoiding the free pass this season, but has been giving up home runs as he has in the majors. He’s been below average overall and throws a little bit of everything.
The Condor is back in the lineup at the obvious expense of Jesus Montero. Please welcome him with quiet, respectful cawing, as is the song of his people, and reserve more enthusiastic cawing for when he actually does something positive.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
RF Michael Saunders
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
Minor league news? Paxton threw a bullpen and his arm is still attached to his torso. Jabari Blash and Jamal Austin were suspended 50 games for drug of abuse violations (i.e., the after-school special variety, not the body building variety). Alex Jackson and Gareth Morgan both debuted last night, with Jackson going 2-for-4 with a triple, two runs, two RBI, a walk and two Ks, and Morgan going 1-for-3 with a run, three RBI, two walks and two Ks. Daydream if you must.
Game 79, Red Sox at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Clay Buchholz, 7:10 pm
Returning from the DL, the Mariners get a version of Clay Buchholz that has been rather poor this season. Of course, he has never been as good as everyone thought he would be. Back in the day, everyone said ace starter, top ten prospect in all of baseball, etc. This is a guy who has never had higher than a 3.5 WAR and has only exceeded 1.5 twice since 2008.
Injuries? Injuries. I’m looking at the Wikipedia page for him and seeing shoulder fatigue, torn fingernail, hamstring, esophagitis, neck strain, and most recently a hyperextended knee. When he’s healthy, he’s been all right, despite having a career K/9 of under seven, but he hasn’t been healthy often enough. This year, he’s had the highest walk and home run rates he’s had since his rookie season. I feel like I typed out something very similar for Peavy. This also happens to be a winnable game that may or may not be won and we may or may not sweep out the defending world champions. These are things that are actually happening, to the Mariners.
I was listening to the pre- and post-game content as I often do. Among the interesting pre-game content was that Endy Chavez said that one of his main reasons for being up here is to mentor James Jones in the outfield trade, defending, how to lead off, etc. James Jones was batting .277/.333/.386 when Chavez arrived. He is now batting .279/.314/.346. Whoops.
Among the interesting post-game content was that Lloyd McClendon, when asked about the work of the bullpen, emphasized that the team cannot continue to tax it in the way that it has. What was omitted, or I perhaps missed as I was paying attention unevenly, was the frequency with which it was happening, particularly in Erasmo’s starts. I mentioned that potentially dangerous meeting of his high walk rate with the Red Sox’ own high walk rate, and sure enough, we saw five walks in four and a third innings. Goldsmith, in that sly way of his, mentioned Erasmo’s scoreless streak in the context of him having allowed and stranded ~30 baserunners in ~20 innings. WHIP is a statistic of limited uses, but a 1.50 of that should not equate to a 0.00 ERA. We all knew that, though it was hard to take Erasmo out while people were talking about how he was “gaining confidence” and such as.
I emphasize all of t his because last night, Taijuan Walker threw a complete game shutout with 107 pitches. He had twelve groundballs to only three flies and a 8/1 K/BB with four hits allowed. If the Mariners were looking for a “statement” game, that was it. He’ll have his struggles, tax the bullpen himself now and then, and may even be not-so-amazing next time out on account of throwing so many pitches in the shutout. He should still be up to make the start next time the rotation turns around. I would be surprised if he weren’t.
The first step in this process (note: I wrote the above at around 2 pm, and the rest is tacked on at 4 pm) has been Erasmo’s demotion to Tacoma in order to get an extra relief arm in Brandon Maurer. Reports in Tacoma have had Maurer in the mid-to-high-90s and using his slider to great effect. In an ideal world, we wouldn’t be talking about him as a relief candidate, but in an ideal world we also probably wouldn’t have the dozens and dozens of arm surgeries for pitchers this year and it would be harder to break through as such. We have needs in the bullpen and other arms who have handled starting better, so Maurer is in the ‘pen for now. I’d expect his tenure to last only as long as it takes us to get to that rotation slot again, barring weirdness. Baseball is so weird.
DH Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
RF Stefen Romero
The Weirdness Has Already Happened
On a podcast earlier this season, Matthew briefly lamented the fact that the Mariners seldom blow other teams out. It’s not much of a complaint, and it’s true because the Mariners haven’t been a great team*, but there is nothing quite like an easy, comfortable win. On consecutive nights now, the Mariners have dismantled the Red Sox. They’ve outscored the defending champions 20-5. The first of two starting lineups had Endy Chavez leading off, and Willie Bloomquist at DH. The second had Endy Chavez leading off, John Buck at DH, and Erasmo Ramirez on the mound. If you don’t understand, don’t worry, because nobody does.
* great teams blow other teams out
Go ahead and pick your favorite WTF statistic. There are a few to choose from. A selection:
- The Mariners are 5-1 when Willie Bloomquist starts at first base or DH.
- The Mariners are 12-5 when Endy Chavez starts.
- The Mariners are 14-7 when Cole Gillespie starts.
- Chris Young has allowed fewer runs per nine innings than Max Scherzer, Jered Weaver, C.J. Wilson, and Jon Lester, among so many others.
What’s not a total shock is that the Mariners are in third place. What’s more of a shock is that they’re sitting on six more wins than losses, and they have a game lead on the Orioles for the second wild-card slot. They have baseball’s second-highest run differential, which seems absolutely insane, and according to the FanGraphs playoff odds, the Mariners are securely in fifth in the AL, where five teams get to play extra. The Mariners project to finish a little above average, and that’s all you need to be these days to live at least another nine innings.
A decade ago, that run-differential statistic would’ve been more exciting. These days, we know better; run differential matters, but it matters less than other things you can do. The Mariners haven’t actually played like baseball’s second-best team, and to get a little more advanced, you can look instead at wOBA differential, which is simply wOBA produced less wOBA allowed. By that metric, the Mariners come out fifth in the AL at present, behind the A’s, Angels, Tigers, and Blue Jays. That’s not unexpected. They’re still ahead of the Orioles, and Indians, and Royals, and Yankees. Actually, right behind the Mariners are the Rays, who have baseball’s very worst record. That’s the Rays’ misfortune, but the Rays’ misfortune isn’t our problem.
An important point to recognize: the Mariners’ record probably isn’t an accurate reflection of the Mariners’ performance. On paper, they should be a few games worse, which I don’t think many would disagree with.
An important point to recognize: that’s all in the books, though. The weirdness that’s taken place never has to be given back. The Mariners will forever have gone 12-5 in Endy Chavez’s first 17 starts. A lot of people are growing increasingly familiar with the concept of regression to the mean, but that doesn’t get to apply retroactively, so it’s not like you should go around expecting a team-wide slump to even everything out. That’s not reality, that’s the gambler’s fallacy, and so what matters most now is taking advantage of the win/loss foundation the team has already set.
This isn’t rocking any boats. This is all simple, obvious stuff, but while you’re free to await the other shoe dropping, understand what that would look like. There’s no reason to expect that to be a massive collapse. It would look a lot more like .500 baseball, and if the Mariners finish .500, they’ll finish 84-78. That’s close enough to be interesting into September, and now you look around and see reasons to think the team could play more sustainably well.
I mean, Brad Miller is showing signs, right? Erasmo Ramirez is a disaster either waiting to happen or in the process of happening, but Taijuan Walker just spun a shutout in triple-A. Michael Saunders is almost back to replace Endy Chavez, and Saunders doesn’t look like he’s missed a step. Logan Morrison has reduced the importance of getting back a normal Justin Smoak, and I don’t think Corey Hart is as bad as his early-season statistics. It’s possible to be both cynical about the organization and excited by the rest-of-season outlook. Apparently the Mariners are looking at making deadline additions. Even if 2014 is a save-the-job season for the front office, it’s not like we’re in position to choose the circumstances under which we get a decent Mariners team. What we all want is competitive baseball, and while we’d prefer competitive baseball under the sort of leadership we thought we had in 2009, the present situation is better than other, recent situations. The position the Mariners are in now is a position where they’re probably going to be some kind of compelling for at least most of the regular season.
The Mariners’ disadvantage is that they share a division with maybe the two best teams in the league. So they’re looking almost strictly wild card, and that means a potential one-and-done, and that feels less than totally satisfying. But a potential one-and-done, half the time, is also a one-and-on, and while you can say what you will about the true intentions behind wild-card expansion, again, it’s not like we don’t get to benefit. If the idea is to increase interest and drum up profits, they can drum up profits because they’re successfully increasing interest. It’s fun to give a shit, and right now we get to give all the shit we like.
It’s kind of weird that the Mariners have this many wins. They’re guaranteed to finish with at least that many wins. What’s done is done, and the future could have a lot less Bloomquist, Chavez, and Gillespie. The future’s only 84 games. You don’t have to understand why what’s happened has happened. Just recognize that it could be a hell of a lot worse.
Game 78, Red Sox at Mariners
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Jake Peavy, 7:10 pm
That was some game last night, right?
This one will feature two guys who have not been what their respective teams expected them to be, though in Peavy’s case it’s more impactful. By whatever metric you care to look at, Peavy has not been good. His home run/fly ball percentage is the worst that it’s been since his sophomore season back in 2003 and his walks and K rates are in the same camp. He’s also lost a mile off his heater relative to last year, which is weird, because he’s using it more and hasn’t busted out the cutter nearly as often, if the pitch types are to be believed. Peavy has never been a pitcher with great stuff, so any loss of it is something that you can see the effects of. When, in addition to that, he doesn’t have good command, then things get rather bad for him. The Mariners have also hit him well in the past, when he was good and with the Padres or the White Sox. This looks like a winnable game for the Mariners which means that we could either win or lose the game.
A lot of lip service was played to the most recent start by Erasmo being the best. It is technically accurate in that he went six innings without a run and the last three starts have spanned scoreless 15.2 innings. But then this most recent outing against the Padres was the first in which he had more strikeouts than walks. By one. The Red Sox have the fourth best walk rate in the MLB. This could get aggravating in a hurry. Fortunately for Erasmo, the Red Sox rank 24th in isolated slugging as a team ahead of the Padres, Yankees, Rays, Mets, Cardinals, and Royals. Okay, some of those names seem like they belong there.
Some of us will likely be paying attention to the Taijuan Walker start in Tacoma tonight, just to figure out if he’s getting any closer. Others will be paying attention to it because Michael Saunders is hitting .529/.556/.941 (!) through his first four games there and our offense plainly looks a lot better with Condor in the lineup. One other consideration I would have is the whole Justin Smoak thing, beyond the fact that he’s been taking away at-bats from the previously red-hot Ji-Man Choi, which irks me. Smoak has been batting .217/.296/.391 down in Tacoma so far. The walks and power (sort of?) have been there, but he’s still striking out a bit and hits aren’t falling in for him regularly. Now that Logan Morrison is looking like he could be a solid lineup contributor, the question is what you do with first base once Smoak is ready. Play Smoak at first and keep with the defensive gains, leaving Morrison to DH, or play Morrison at first, take a hit on defense, and try to find an actual hitter to use at designated hitter instead of oh look here’s another lineup:
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
DH John Buck
D.J. Peterson, who was promoted to Jackson last night, and Gabriel Guerrero, who was not, have been named to the Futures Game. I will have stuff to say about both of them in the future myself, but NOT NOW.
Game 77, Red Sox at Mariners
Felix Hernandez vs. John Lackey, 7:10 pm
Happy Felix Day? Like last time out, we want an easy win and end up with a pitcher’s duel. John Lackey has accumulated 2.7 WAR so far this year according to Fangraphs. Among his high marks in WAR since 2008, you have 3.9, 3.5, and 3.2 last year. The odds seem reasonable that this year he’ll live up to being the guy the Red Sox thought they were getting when they signed him away from the Angels. Strangely, the stats aren’t too far off from what he’s been throughout his career. His strikeout rate isn’t much higher, it’s just that his walks and home runs have been a little bit lower than they have been in other years recently. Pitch counters tell us that he’s throwing the fastball more than any year since 2003 and that he’s phased the curve and change out. He doesn’t show much in the way of splits, but are we playing the lefty lineup again? Yes. Yes we are.
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
2B Robinson Cano
3B Kyle Seager
1B Logan Morrison
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
DH Willie Bloomquist
Boom Boom accounted for much of our hitter WPA yesterday. I don’t like it but it is what it is. The Mariners victory helped push them to 40 wins and they presently have the 3rd-best run differential in the AL. And the AL West. Do not look at the Oakland A’s run differential unless you are fully prepared to be depressed and confused.
Minor league news? D.J. Peterson and Dylan Unsworth were both Cal League Players of the Week. Alex Jackson has also officially signed. That was your minor league news.
Go ‘Ners. Do baseball.
Game 76, Mariners at Royals
Roenis Elias vs. Yordano Ventura, 11:10 am
For the second time this year, we’re going up against noted flamethrower Yordano Ventura. Last time we faced him, it was May 10th in Safeco and we basically waited him out and hit what he missed with, as he walked four and gave up two home runs which collectively helped draw three runs for us. It was one of his worse outings and I don’t know that we get so lucky this time out, except that he’s a pitcher of some volatility. That said, his splits, be they home or away, left or right, really don’t show that much of an advantage beyond the expected, so we gain no points for heavily platooning as we are wont to do. I might be tempted to send out a less experienced right-handed bat just to show said bat what it’s like to face that kind of velocity, but I don’t think that’s a method aligned with winning games as such.
Speaking of volatility, Mariners? We recently failed to score enough runs to beat the Padres, who can’t score runs but have a good pitching staff, and then went on to win two in a row against the Royals, who have at least a decent pitching staff but can score runs. I remember talking with the fellows prior to the season and the conclusion we all seemed to come to independently and then agree upon was that this year’s team would be around or over .500 but erratic. The losing steak was not surprising, nor the rebound after it. I would say that the results of these past four games, while still agonizing from a Felix perspective, are also not wholly surprising either. Not all .500-ish teams appear to be made alike.
What I can say about the team, as presently structured, is that it possesses a few high-end talents who can be relied on somewhat consistently (all talents slump now and then), Felix and Iwakuma for the pitching staff, Cano and Seager for the hitting. Sometimes things sync up to where those high-end talents are performing with the other occasional talents and we win games. Sometimes those talents alone are enough to keep us afloat, and sometimes not. In other instances, the stars struggle and we’re sometimes on the winning side and sometimes not, depending on how the supporting players are during that time. I don’t know that any of us phrased it particularly as such coming into the year, but it seems to make sense, in that way that is largely spitballing and not too reliant on data (to be fair, I wouldn’t know what to cite).
RF Endy Chavez
CF James Jones
DH Robinson Cano
1B Logan Morrison
3B Kyle Seager
C Mike Zunino
LF Dustin Ackley
SS Rad Miller
2B Willie Bloomquist
Some of you probably got the word yesterday that Raul Ibanez was released by the Angels. You could make remarks in an attempt to be clever about “oh he would be one of our better hitters” except haha no. Raul has been worth a 53 wRC+ this year and that’s been worse than every non-Almonte hitter we’ve had. Yes, worse even than Endy Chavez. So while it would be very Mariners to sign Raul for one final tour so that he can retire as a Mariner, the results aren’t there to support it and I don’t think we’re that dumb. He would only just be inside the top ten on our team in dingers and we all know how we value those. Fun fact: he also has three stolen bases. How?