Game 59, Mariners at Braves
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Mike Minor, 9:10am (??)
Eaarrrrrly game here. Mike Minor’s a lefty with a FB that scrapes 90 mph, but who posts an above average K rate thanks to a good curve and change, along with what looks like some deception in his delivery. The change is good enough that he has extremely small platoon splits, and he’s able to pound the zone reliably and limit walks. He’s down to essentially two weaknesses. First, home runs. Pitching half his games in Turner Field, Minor shouldn’t have a 1.11 career HR/9. Second, the poor fellow underwent urinary tract surgery this offseason, which is why he’s only making his seventh start of the season. Baseball is unpredictable, and I like to think that each of these game previews can be different or unique in some way, but if I never have to read the phrase “scarring around his urethra” again, I’ll be a happy blogger.
1: Bloomquist 1bwhaaa?
2: Chavez, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Romero, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Gillespie, LF
8: Miller, SS
9/SP: Iwakuma
Trevor Miller, Scott DeCecco start in the minors today. Tacoma’s got a rare day off.
2014 MLB Draft Preview with Chris Crawford
The first round of baseball’s amateur draft kicks off on Thursday, June 5th. You’ve seen JY’s list of names to be aware of, and you’ve no doubt heard some discussion about local players thanks to the brilliant seasons of Oregon State and, shockingly, the University of Washington. As we’ve done the past two years, we’ve attempted to summarize some of the big issues in the draft in a Q and A with Chris Crawford, proprietor of MLB Draft Insider, a writer for ESPN, and now the head honcho of a new site, DraftTotheShow.com. The draft changed markedly with the imposition of bonus pool caps in 2012, and we’ve seen teams, players and agents struggle to come to terms with how to value draft picks (some of which now CAN be traded) and the consequences of free agents signing with new teams. You can argue that teams now clearly OVERvalue draft picks, and that their reticence to sign a, say, Stephen Drew, is foolish. Then, you look at the value of pre-arb players, or the new team-friendly extensions like the one Jon Singleton just signed, and you start to argue it the other way. The draft isn’t necessarily *better* than it’s ever been, but it’s certainly more complex and interesting.
So let’s get to it:
1: Who will the M’s select at #6? Who SHOULD they pick?
As I mentioned — or at least should have mentioned — in the last time we did this, the Mariners are one of the more secretive organizations in baseball. I have been told that they are considering several guys, but the name I have heard that they’re hoping fall to them the most is Alex Jackson, a catcher/outfielder out of Rancho Bernardo High School. I’ve also heard names like LSU right-hander Aaron Nola, Olympia High School (Orlando) shortstop Nick Gordon and a plethora of others that are being considered, but it sounds like if Jackson is still on the board, he’s the guy.
And if that’s who they do take, I don’t think it’s a bad choice. This is a terrible offensive class, and he’s the only guy that I think could have a plus hit-tool and plus power tool in the entire class. I can already hear Mariner fans groaning about taking another catcher, but Jackson will likely move to the outfield and he’s a good enough athlete to play a solid right field. He won’t be able to help until 2017, but, the upside and floor are too high for me to pass.
Read more
Game 58, Mariners at Braves
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Gavin Floyd, 4:10pm
The M’s head south to face the NL East-leading Atlanta Braves. Erasmo’s up to make this start, as we mentioned after Brandon Maurer’s demotion.
I’ve heard lots more M’s chatter recently in the national press, on local radio, and just in conversation than I’ve heard in years. Well, more POSITIVE chatter, anyway. People think the team’s decent, and could be better than decent if they can find another bat in free agency or trade. Everyone recognizes that starting pitching has been an unlikely strength. Felix is Felix, but many of us were terrified about the back of the rotation. Roenis Elias and Chris Young have been key components of the M’s success to date, and they’ve certainly helped cover for an offense that’s been a weird combination of lucky and terrible. Sure, Elias was good in spring training this year, but not as good as either Maurer or Carter Capps last year. Essentially no one saw as a steady contributor, well on his way to an above-league-average season.
But as nice a surprise the rotation’s been for Seattle, look what’s going on in Atlanta. Tonight’s starter, Gavin Floyd, is 31, and returning from TJ surgery. In his final few years on the South Side of Chicago, Floyd first underperformed his fielding-independent stats, then saw his fielding independent stats tank along with all the rest of his numbers. In particular, his platoon split problems were just too big to hide – it didn’t matter what he did to righties if lefties were approaching 2 HR/9 off of him. The Braves brought in the recuperating Floyd as well as such luminaries as Aaron Harang, and somehow, they’ve got the 5th best FIP of any rotation. Sort by ERA, of course, and they’re number 1. We talk so much about the Canos and the Choos of the market, guys who are clearly, obviously better than Chris Young and Aaron %$#ing Harang, but it’s hilarious to see this game frustrate attempts at small-sample prognostication. The M’s can use Endy Chavez at DH and get big hits from Willie Bloomquist to beat Scherzer and the Tigers. The Braves can pick up old, failed starters and watch them post brilliant peripherals along with sparkly runs allowed. This game makes no sense sometimes, and I think we’re all glad about that.
Tonight’s line-up is heavily left-handed, as it should be. Floyd’s overall numbers have improved across the board, but he’s still got platoon splits.
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Seager, 3B
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Ackley, LF
7: Buck, C
8: Miller, SS
9/SP: Erasmooooo
Tonight our 3rd annual draft preview posts – check it out after the game. The amateur draft kicks off this Thursday.
Game 57, Mariners at Yankees
King Felix vs. David Phelps
Happy Felix Day!
David Phelps is remarkably unremarkable. Bouncing between the bullpen and the rotation, he’s put together a decent 2014 thus far despite well below average whiff rates. How does a guy who can’t make anyone miss strike out 21% of the batters he faces? How does a guy who relies on a sinker, slider and curve to left-handers post reverse platoon splits? Phelps has a change-up, and it’s not without its utility, but he throws it less than 10% overall; lefties are more likely to see a slider than a change-up. His sinker’s around 90-92mph, and lefties have put up a .525 slugging percentage on it in Phelps’ brief MLB career. Nothing about this profile looks like it would pose a problem for lefties, and, to be fair, he was Maurered by lefties in his first call-up in 2012. But last year, he K’d 23% of lefties and only walked 8%. That was a far sight better than his performance against righties – the batters you’d assume might find a same-handed slider difficult to contend with. This season, he’s striking out a few more lefties, and while his walk rate’s regressed, so have the homers. Phelps still isn’t great, and there’s plenty in the data that suggests his success to date – such as it is – won’t last. And the overall sample here is still very small – it all needs some regressing. But it’s odd, and I keep thinking good teams *know* when a pitcher’s getting lucky against groups of hitters and when he’s doing something repeatable and effective to neutralize the platoon advantage. For Phelps, a lot of it is his curve ball, which is easily his best pitch. But the answer’s probably a lot more nuanced than that – Phelps’ results overall don’t match up with the components, and it’s interesting to think about how/why that might be. The A’s, presumably, know why Tommy Milone’s effective despite possessing the physical size and velocity of an 11th grader. I’m not saying that guys like Milone or Phelps are how championships are won, but nurturing effective depth beyond your starting 5 is clearly critical, and while the M’s have been terribly unlucky this year, they’ve also struggled with this.
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Ackley, DH
8: Chavez, LF
9: Miller, SS
SP: El Cartelua
Lots of lefties in the line-up against the righty Phelps. Of course, Phelps has started to run reverse splits, and has even splits over his career. This isn’t equivalent to the Scherzer situation, although hey, that looked like insanity on paper, but the M’s came out of the game and the series with a win. I can’t believe that actually happened, and I just hope it’s a turning point.
Seriously, congratulations to Roenis Elias, who shut out a very good line-up and did what even Hisashi Iwakuma wasn’t able to do. Elias has been up and down, but his success against right-handed batters has been jaw-dropping. I, perhaps because of Maurer’s struggles last year, expected him to scuffle against heavily-RH line-ups, and he just hasn’t.
The story of the day has to do with the Astros’ extension/promotion of 1B prospect Jon Singleton. This is really interesting; despite the fact that we all know/understand/tacitly approve of teams toying with service time to extend their control over players, we’ve never seen it acknowledged by teams so publicly.
Podcast: Blake Beavan is like a ratty sponge
Monday morning podcast(s) continues/begins.
That is the conclusion Jeff and I drew in this week’s podcast. In addition, my apologies for a weird audio feedback issue around the 50th minute. It only lasts about one minute.
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. A lot of those funds have gone into purchasing new equipment to hopefully prevent that interference issue above!
Game 56, Tigers at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Max Scherzer, 1:10pm
The M’s held on to a big game yesterday, holding off the Tigers to win 3-2. That’s big, because the M’s could’ve been looking at a sweep – the Tigers are the clear favorites in this one, with the defending Cy Young winner on the hill. Yesterday’s game was also another object lesson in the unpredictability of the game; the M’s won a ballgame against a clearly-better team despite a line-up that featured hitters with a 78 and a 74 career wRC+ in the top two line-up spots. So hey, just because the M’s are starting Endy Chavez at DH today, it doesn’t necessarily m-Wait, come back!
Max Scherzer’s took the leap from “talented” to “really, really good” in 2012. In that year, he picked up a new pitch – a curve ball – that he credits with helping him against lefties. He used the pitch much more often in 2013, and walked away with a Cy Young award. He’d traditionally been a fastball/change-up/slider guy, and while his change-up was effective overall, lefties hit him fairly hard. Last year, Scherzer blew lefties away; they put up a .283 wOBA, and his curve was an important part of his approach. He still goes to the change-up as his put-away pitch, but he often used the curve to get ahead of lefties. That, along with improved fastball command, allowed him to pitch ahead in the count considerably more than the league average (42% vs. an average of 36%).
Still, the idea that he became great by overcoming his platoon splits doesn’t fully explain Scherzer’s emergence. In fact, he improved against *righties* every year from 2010-2013. Righties had an OBP against him last year of .219. He’s had a K:BB ratio over 5 against righties each year since 2011, and he’s driven his walks down and his K’s up. The curve’s nice, and he’s clearly more effective against lefties than he used to be, but Scherzer’s great because righties have essentially had no chance against him. There’s no new pitch, no change in mechanics – but as his command improved, his slider became unhittable. Last year, righties missed on about half of their swings against the slider (vs. a whiff rate to righties of 28% back in 2009). As many point out, platoon splits aren’t a kiss of death or a sign of a future bullpen arm as long as a pitcher completely dominates one side. Scherzer’s doing that now, so he can be effective even when his performance against lefties regresses a bit (as it’s doing so far in 2014).
Line-up:
1: Chavez, DH (I’ve checked it four times. I swear it’s true.)
2: Jones, CF
3: Saunders, RF
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Ackley, LF
8: Miller, SS
9: Bloomquist, 2B
SP: Elias
Again, the M’s have serious injury problems at the moment, with Robbie Cano missing his third straight start. Nobody goes into managing with the intention of one day writing Endy Chavez’s name in the DH spot and handing that to an umpire in front of thousands of paying customers. I get that. But man, the M’s are trying desperately to stick around the wild card chase and it’s harder to take that seriously right now. In their defense, the Blue Jays have used Ryan Goins and Munenori Kawasaki this year, and they’re leading the AL East. The Rangers are sticking around despite injury problems that have forced them to start Josh Wilson, JP Arencibia and others in the line-up and Joe Saunders and Tanner Scheppers in the rotation. This isn’t *uniquely* embarrassing, but it’s embarrassing.
Jordan Pries starts for Tacoma today as they start their road trip in El Paso.
Game 55, Tigers at Mariners
Chris Young vs. Drew Smyly, 7:10pm
Tonight’s game’s an interesting match up in that it pits two pitchers with the same fundamental approach against each other. Chris Young’s famous for allowing more fly-ball contact than anyone and relying on guile and a certain je ne sais quoi to prevent those fly balls from becoming home runs. Drew Smyly also has a fly-ball generating fastball, with 12″ of vertical rise and very little horizontal movement. He’s also got the advantage of throwing left-handed AND averaging around 92mph with his fastball as opposed to Young’s 86. They both balance that FB with a slurvy-curve ball (Brooks Baseball classifies Smyly’s as a curve, while MLBAM calls it a slider, same as Young’s).
The differences are telling, though. Smyly’s velocity and sharper breaking ball allow him to get whiffs and strikeouts, particularly to lefties. His lack of a solid change make him vulnerable to righties, though. Young’s fastball-reliant approach minimizes platoon splits, but also prevent him from getting strikeouts…as if an 86mph fastball wasn’t enough to suppress K’s. On paper, you might take Smyly’s arsenal – more velo, more whiffs, and the ability to just neutralize lefties. Between the lines, though, Young’s been pretty effective despite his lack of velo and his reliance on whatever form of sorcery allows him to reliably yield 280 foot fly balls and not 350 foot fly balls.
1: Bloomquist?, 2B
2: Chavez?, CF
3: Zunino, DH
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Romero, RF
7: Buck, C
8: Gillespie, LF
9: Franklin, SS
SP: Chris Young
The M’s maximize their right-handedness, as they should against someone with such prominent platoon splits. But the result is…uh, I mean…it’s kind of hard to argue that this is a major league line-up. Zunino’s RH power is a good match up, but he’s not a typical 3 hitter, and the less said about the top 2 the better. This looks pretty Pacific Coast League, frankly.
Game 54, Tigers at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Justin Verlander, 7:10pm
Everyone talks about the painful sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Indians last year as a turning point in the season. To me, the tone was set in April, when the Tigers came to Seattle and essentially shut down the M’s. That awful extra-inning game in which the M’s wasted a brilliant start by Felix through a combination of poor strategy and poor roster construction…that felt ominous, and it was. That’s not to say that getting shut down by the Tigers was some damning indictment – their rotation last year was incredible. It was a test for the M’s against playoff-caliber opponents, with their own playoff-caliber starter on the hill. They failed the test.
Today, the Tigers are once again the class of the AL Central, which is again perhaps the weakest division in baseball. They’ve still got 2-time Cy Young winner Justin Verlander at the top of their rotation, and they’ve still got a powerful offense paced by Miguel Cabrera. Verlander’s been a key component of the Tigers success, as the righty’s been incredibly durable while maintaining excellent rate stats. Last year was the first sign that he might be slipping – his walk rate inched up, and his BABIP jumped as well. His velocity wasn’t changed much overall (though it seemed to come and go), and it would’ve been easy to assume it’d regress back to his very low career average. Instead, his walk rate’s up further and his BABIP’s crept still higher. He’s paired that with a drop in K rate too. Verlander is still an excellent pitcher, and he’s had plenty of room to fall from his peak and still add plenty of value for Detroit, but facing him doesn’t feel like quite the test it did just a few years ago.
You can argue that Hisashi Iwakuma is the better pitcher in this game, even if Verlander may still have the edge when you combine quantity and quality of innings. That doesn’t factor in quality of opponent, but it’s pretty good to go into a game against Verlander, a game with Endy Chavez leading off, and know that the M’s have a decent chance.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, LF
2: Jones, CF
3: Saunders, RF
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Ackley, DH
8: Franklin, 2B
9: Miller, SS
SP: Iwakuma
Sooooo….Endy Chavez is back, Cano is out, and Dustin Ackley is DH’ing. I may have spoken too soon when I said all that about a “decent chance.”
Brandon Maurer has mercifully been optioned to Tacoma, and Endy’s up and :sigh: leading off. Blake Beavan goes to the 60-day DL to free up a 40-man spot. Erasmo Ramirez, who was pretty effective last night in Tacoma, will take Maurer’s spot in the rotation.
Matt Palmer starts for Tacoma tonight against Salt Lake, one of his former teams. The Rainiers have been struggling, and pitching’s a big part of that. Palmer’s steadied the rotation since joining the team in mid-May, but he can’t do it alone. Despite a very good offense playing in one of the only pitcher’s parks in the circuit, the Rainiers’ team ERA is over 5. Of course, tonight’s opponent’s got a team ERA over 6. #PCLforLife.
Today’s Fun Fact
There are 248 players who have batted at least 100 times this season, who also batted at least 100 times last season. Here are the top five biggest gainers in contact rate, by percentage points:
- Ike Davis, +9.8 percentage points
- Dan Uggla, +8.8
- Pedro Alvarez, +8.4
- Michael Saunders, +8.2
- Dioner Navarro, +8.1
Last year, and for his career to that point, Michael Saunders missed once for every four swings. This year, he’s missed once for every six swings, which is a substantial gain. That doesn’t always mean it’s a substantial improvement — one can, in theory, make a lot more bad contact, which is worse than no contact — but Saunders doesn’t seem to be making bad contact. Saunders is delivering, and more consistently than he did before.
A related way of looking at this: the two years previous, 36% of Saunders’ swings resulted in a ball hit fair. So far this year, 45% of Saunders’ swings have resulted in a ball hit fair. Back when Saunders first emerged in 2012, the announcers couldn’t say enough about his new and heightened aggressiveness. Saunders isn’t as aggressive as he was in 2012. He’s almost back to what he used to be, in terms of his swing patterns. But he’s better than ever about knowing the zone, and he’s better about finding the baseball with the bat.
Saunders has made more contact out of the zone, and he’s made more contact within it. But maybe the biggest difference is this: between 2012-2013, Saunders made 59% contact against high pitches. This year, he’s at 84%, no longer so vulnerable to being blown away. While I’m not an expert when it comes to swing mechanics, it stands to reason Saunders has probably shortened things up, as his swing used to be exploitably long. His swing has long been a work in various progresses, and now he’s finding a balance between adding contact and preserving power.
Saunders hit a few mammoth home runs back in 2012. Four of them went at least 430 feet. He hit no such home runs in 2013, and he’s hit no such home runs in 2014. But he’s still running a decent ISO, and he just went deep last night. If you think about it, there were only so many ways for Saunders to get better at the plate. He could’ve increased his walks, decreased his strikeouts, or increased his power. His walks right now are fine, and his power isn’t absent, and where before Saunders struck out a quarter of the time, this year he’s at 18%. He’s better against both righties and lefties, and in this way Saunders has altered his own profile. He was fine in 2012, and now he’s differently fine, perhaps with some upside.
A very simple comparison:
Average Outfielder: 8.4% walks, 21% strikeouts, .147 ISO
Michael Saunders: 8.5% walks, 18% strikeouts, .154 ISO
So Saunders looks like something in the neighborhood of an average bat. And he might become an above-average player if you’re a believer in his power potential, his baserunning, or his defense. He’s only now 27 years old, and he’s doing something he’s never done before at this level. Lloyd McClendon is of the belief that Saunders is starting to put everything together, and while McClendon is a believer in a lot of his guys, it’s nice to see Saunders in a manager’s good graces for once. He’s not a great player, and he’ll presumably never become one, but what we’re seeing might be Michael Saunders as an actual legitimate regular. If he adds more power he could be real good. If he doesn’t, he can at least be steady, a non-negative contributor in all areas, including handsomeness.
So this is Michael Saunders with bat control. Unless it’s sample-size noise, which it might be, but which it probably isn’t. It isn’t a sign that Saunders is taking a massive leap forward in value. He’s simply reducing an old vulnerability, and while I’ve always been biased in Saunders’ favor as a player, it’s nice to be biased in favor of a player who’s not getting worse. I like when Mariners don’t get worse.
Gam3 53, Angels at Mariners
Brandon Maurer vs. Matt Shoemaker, 7:10pm
There’s nothing like seeing Felix pitching well. He started the year brilliantly, then struggled, culminating in a weirdly un-Kingly game in which he struck out no one. But since then, he’s gone 31 1/3 IP with 30 strikeouts to just four walks. That’s encouraging, and it’s good to remember and ponder, because today’s match-up does not feature that kind of potential.
Today’s game features Matt Shoemaker, the righty who’s struggled mightily for many years in AAA, but who came up for a single start last year and, predictably, blanked the M’s over 5 innings. He’s been OK as a spot starter this year as well, though he’s continued to bounce back and forth between Anaheim and the PCL, his personal hell. The start was supposed to be lefty Wade LeBlanc’s, but after Sean Burnett’s injury, they’ve moved LeBlanc to the bullpen to have another southpaw. That meant Shoemaker didn’t have to spend the normally-required ten days in the minors after being optioned.
Last year, we knew nothing about Shoemaker, but now at least we know what he throws. He’s a fastball/change-up guy primarily, with a slider and the occasional curve. He tops out around 91, but his slider looks like an OK pitch. His change has been oddly successful in the majors, as it’s clearly not fooling minor league lefties. His start last year certainly was very successful, though perhaps not predictive; that game’s M’s line-up included Carlos Triunfel, Franklin Gutierrez, Henry Blanco, Kendrys Morales and Raul Ibanez.
Today’s line-up:
1: Jones, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Franklin, DH
7: Ackley, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller, SS
SP: :deep sigh: Brandon Maurer. C’mon big fella.
Eight lefties – very nice.
Erasmo Ramirez starts tonight for Tacoma. Taijuan Walker made it through three so-so innings, but gave up four runs on a three-run HR to Efren Navarro and then Luis Jimenez went back-to-back. Still, there’ve been no reports of soreness, or inflammation or other problems following the outing. Again, it was his first outing of the year, something most M’s hurlers got out of the way back in February or early March.