Game 62, Yankees at Mariners
Jeremy Bonderman vs. Hiroki Kuroda, 7:10pm
OK, on paper, this game looks like the mismatch of the year. But that’s why they don’t play the games in a spreadsheet. Did WAR predict Blake Beavan would shut down the Yankees, facing the minimum over 6 2/3 IP last night? Ha! Did your “spreadsheet” predict Aaron Harang would get outpitched by Phil Hughes? Huh? Oh, it did? Carry on then.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, CF
2: Bay, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, 1B
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Morse, DH
7: Franklin, 2B
8: Shoppach, C
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Bonderman
C’mon, be a heartwarming comeback story, Jeremy. Not one of those, “Well, I guess he just didn’t want to believe it was over” stories or a “Does this tarnish his legacy?” comeback stories. Raul took some time to get going this year, but I imagine Bonderman’s got a pretty short leash.
More on the draft later tonight/tomorrow.
If you’re in the south sound, I’d head to Cheney and check out the Rainiers/Las Vegas 51s game. Mike Curto’s post has the details, but the pitching match-up looks great. James Paxton tries to keep himself in the running to possibly succeed Jeremy Bonderman while the 51s send out Zack Wheeler, the Mets prospect who routinely sits in the 96-97mph range with his fastball. He started off slowly, but came on in May and is coming off an excellent start against Fresno. Still, he’s definitely more about potential, as he’s just been more hittable than anyone with that kind of velocity should be. Still, if/when he puts it together, he could move extremely fast. Shelby Miller was terrible for most of the year in the PCL last year, but the switch flipped and he’s now a dominant ace-like pitcher for the Cardinals. Wheeler’s breaking balls still aren’t as advanced as Miller’s were, even last year, so it’s not a great comp, but he’s a great talent.
Funky Fresh Baseball Themed Podcast with Jeff and Matthew
Jeff was free again and Jay was otherwise occupied so we went back to the normal format of Jeff and myself swapping whatever Mariners and baseball stuff come to mind. Our apologies for the lack of focus in this edition, we sort of running low on specific targets so instead tried a more scatter shot approach.
Podcast with Jeff and Matthew: Direct link! || iTunes link! || RSS/XML link!
Just Find This Interesting
If you ask Tom McNamara, he’ll tell you he doesn’t have a philosophy on the draft. He just takes whoever he thinks is the best player on the board. Every scouting director says this.
But, of course, the best player on your board is determined in part by your philosophy. These aren’t mutually exclusive things. If you believe that pitching is 90% of the game, you’re going to have the best pitchers higher on your draft board than a guy who thinks that you win by hitting home runs. The best player available to each team is, to some extent, determined by how they evaluate various abilities and what kind of risk tolerance they have.
Mac has now been the Mariners scouting director for five drafts. In 2010, they didn’t really have a first round pick, as their first selection came 43rd overall, the pick they used to take Taijuan Walker. However, in 2009 (#2), 2011 (#2), 2012 (#3), and now 2013 (#12), Mac and his staff have been in a position to pick fairly high in the draft. And all four picks seem to have one trait in common; proximity to the Majors.
At #2 overall in 2009, they took Dustin Ackley, a polished college bat who was considered the safest bet to become a big leaguer in the entire draft. He wasn’t ever a super high upside guy, but the floor was supposed to be very high. It hasn’t quite worked out that way yet, but Ackley was a premium draft prospect because he was a pretty sure bet to make the big leagues.
At #2 overall in 2011, they took Danny Hultzen, a polished college arm who was considered the safest bet to become a big leaguer in the entire draft. Baseball America even used this exact term — “safest bet” — in their write-up on him heading into that draft. Like with Ackley, Hultzen has proven to be a little further away than first thought, but he was drafted on the idea that he would get to the majors quickly, with his high floor canceling out his lower ceiling.
At #3 overall in 2012, they took Mike Zunino, a polished college bat who was considered the safest bet to become a big leaguer in the entire draft. In their write-up on Zunino, BA said he projected to be “above average”, noting that he wasn’t as exciting as recent first round college players like Buster Posey or Matt Wieters, but was a really good prospect even without that upside. While catchers often take a bit longer to get to the big leagues, the Mariners have been very aggressive with Zunino, and he’s probably going to make his big league debut at some point later this year.
A #12 overall today, they took D.J. Peterson, a polished college bat who was considered one of the safest bets to become a big leaguer in the entire draft. That title probably belongs to Colin Moran, who went #6 overall, but Moran had been tied to the Mariners earlier in the draft season before it became clear he wouldn’t fall that far. In Peterson, the Mariners drafted another guy with a mature approach and good hitting skills but a bit less upside than other picks in that same range, as he isn’t considered a defensive asset and there is some question as to how much power he’ll hit for outside of the hitter’s haven of his college park in New Mexico.
This isn’t to say that McNamara only likes these kinds of players. After all, he’s also drafted Nick Franklin, Steve Baron, and Taijuan Walker fairly high, and the team has taken their fair share of shots on raw toolsy guys in later rounds. But, four times McNamara has had a fairly high first round pick, and four times McNamara has taken a high floor/moderate upside college guy.
Based on an n of four, it seems like Mac might like these kinds of players more than most other scouting directors in baseball. There are certainly teams that prioritize upside over all else, and some scouts much prefer to go for the home run even if it means they’ll end up with more busts overall. So far, it seems like the Mariners draft board under McNamara has been pushed a bit more by polish and proximity to the big leagues than it has been by pure upside. Or, maybe a better way of saying it is that at the top of the draft board — and relative to other current scouting directors — Mac may place a larger emphasis on present skills over potential.
Despite Ackley’s current problems and Hultzen’s command issues and now shoulder tenderness, I think I’m probably in agreement with this philosophy to a large degree. At the top of the draft, I think it’s more important to not screw up than it is to get a slightly better long term reward. For me, I think it might make sense to be a little more present value oriented with the high picks and save the lottery picks for later, which is basically what the Mariners have done under McNamara. None of this should read as a criticism, and Mac’s overall draft track record is quite strong, even if the top picks aren’t necessarily helping the Mariners win games right now.
But, as we look back at his five drafts, I do think the evidence is starting to lean towards a trend. You can only draft so many polished college guys in a row before you admit that you have a preference for polished college guys.
Game 61, Yankees at Mariners
Aaron Harang vs. Phil Hughes, 7:10pm
By the time the game starts, we’ll know the first round (and probably their second round) draft pick. We’ll have some reactions to the selection, with the caveat that we won’t know much about what pick was a reach and what pick was a steal for many, many years. Hopefully, we can dream about the future while watching the M’s destroy Phil Hughes and the Yankees again. Hughes didn’t make it out of the first inning the last time he faced the murderer’s row that is the Seattle Mariners.
No one was helped by that road trip more than Raul Ibanez, who went from a .653 OPS to near .800 in his first two days in the Bronx. Phil Hughes served up a grand slam to Ibanez in the game on 5/15, and Raul added another HR later, giving him three HRs in his first two games back in New York. Perhaps Hughes would like to apply the defibrillator to Michael Saunders today? Just a thought.
Aaron Harang’s on a very nice two game run, giving up two runs in 15 innings with 12 strikeouts and only four walks. Of course, those games pitted him against below-average opponents, but they still happened. The Angels have a similar wRC+ to the Padres, and Harang’s outings against LA have not gone well. So we’ll hope for another quality outing; we’ll hope he buys the team more time for Erasmo Ramirez to get healthy or for Danny Hultzen to get his shoulder right. The M’s can muddle through with a gaping hole in their rotation, but they can’t do so with three of them. Saunders has stepped up a bit, and Harang needs to keep it up.
The M’s will have someone new in the bullpen today, as Hector Noesi was sent to Tacoma following yesterday’s 16-inning loss. The M’s recalled him for bullpen help, and having burned through their bullpen, they’ve grabbed someone who can actually pitch tonight: Blake Beavan, who was scheduled to start tonight in Tacoma. The M’s obviously feel they have enough situational arms in the ‘pen (sorry Lucas Luetge/Bobby LaFromboise), and need someone capable of throwing 4-5 innings in case the game goes long again, or in case Harang has one of…those games. I feel a bit bad for Tacoma, who had a 14-inning game of their own this week and will need to scramble through a bullpen day today.*
Line-up:
1: Bay, RF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Ibanez, LF
4: Morales, 1B
5: Morse, DH
6: Franklin, 2B
7: Saunders, CF
8: Shoppach, C
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Harang
Here are some mock drafts to read in conjunction with JY’s piece below. Chris Crawford’s is here, and John Sickels’ is here. It’ll be fun watching which picks totally blow up the predictions; Peter Gammons tweeted last night about HS 1B Dominic Smith potentially going #3, for example. It’ll also be fun to see what rumors may have been about draft strategy and negotiations than anything player-related.
As a reminder, the bonus pool caps apply to the first ten rounds, and teams lose the slot money if they fail to sign one of the drafted players in those rounds. At this point, players are floating high bonus demands, and teams may feign interest in lower-rated prospects to get kids to give them leverage against those demands. Mark Appel did fine for himself, and very well may go 1-1, but it’ll be interesting to see what teams, players and agents take from his failure to sign last year. At some level, it gives players some leverage by showing that their demands can be more than wishful thinking – Appel proved that the threat to say ‘no thanks’ is real, even in the new system. But obviously Appel took a tremendous amount of risk in doing so, and teams know it. They also know that the risks are even greater for high-school kids, who would need to shoulder not one but three years of injury risk. It’s worked out for Ryne Stanek, but not so much for Karsten Whitson.
We haven’t talked much about the M’s *other* pick today, the #49 selection. It’s near impossible to forecast the first 12 picks, so predictions about #49 are worthless, but some names of note include Dustin Driver, a RHP from Wenatchee, who’s got a low-90s fastball and who’s dominated competition in central Washington this year. Ryan Boldt was a potential 5-tool OF from Minnesota who went from a first-rounder this spring to a second rounder after an injury essentially wiped out his senior season. Cavan Biggio (Craig’s son) is a 2B from a Texas HS with a commitment to Notre Dame, but may be around at #49. There’s also Chad Pinder, a 3B for Virginia Tech (and you know how the M’s have drafted from ACC school recently), who had something of a down senior season for the Hokies, and C Andrew Knapp of Cal who posted a big season after two so-so ones (and scout quibbles about his ceiling/tools).
* This is the real organizational value of Brian Sweeney, who, whether he starts or not, will probably pitch several innings today. He’s a remarkably versatile pitcher – from Team Italy in the WBC to giving the M’s 30 or so solid innings in 2010, to playing in Japan, to the Rainiers, he works well with young prospects and helps a manager get through a week like this one, where the AAA roster is changing from hour to hour.
The Utility Of Shrugging
A few days ago, someone on Twitter asked me if I thought the Nationals had any chance of signing Bryce Harper to a long-term contract. It’s not like I’d just written about Harper, and it’s not like there have been contract rumors, and the Twitterer in question had spent the previous few days suggesting that Harper’s a princess for sitting out injured. But I answered and answered honestly, saying I had no idea. I’m not a Nationals expert, and I don’t have insight on any potential negotiations. The guy responded, just asking for an opinion, any opinion. He wanted me to say something. So, again, I answered as honestly as I could, saying it’s possible but Harper probably wouldn’t give the Nationals a discount. Essentially, insight without being insight. My answer said nothing.
People want opinions. They want strong, certain, oftentimes provocative opinions. This is not a desire to give in to. This is a desire to fight. It’s good to have opinions. It’s great to have opinions! But it’s critically important to recognize when you don’t have an opinion, or when you’re not sufficiently informed. It’s important to not always declare a position on something. It’s important to not be afraid of uncertainty. In this way, trust can be established and built. In this way, actual strong opinions can carry actual weight, standing out from the ordinary baseline.
It seemed like draft day was the right day for this post, because draft day brings out a whole host of strong opinions. Let’s make one thing clear: when it comes to roster construction, drafts are the thing you know about the least. You’re not out there scouting draft-eligible players. Scouting itself is in large part a subjective exercise, which is why so many scouts differ on so many players. There are statistics, but they’re empty, and no one really cares about numbers in high school or college. Numbers matter a lot in the majors, and a little in the minors. Draft-eligible players don’t have a meaningful, statistical track record. If there’s one time to just defer to the organization, it’s when it’s conducting a draft. They know more than you do, by a lot.
But people care, and people care so much. People select favorites, based on their own preferences, and they celebrate when the favorites are taken and flip out when they’re missed or passed up. It’s not sensible behavior. You know how you think college players are better investments than high schoolers? They’re not. You know how you’d probably rather have a position player than a pitcher? Just because a lot of pitchers have flamed out doesn’t mean a specific one will. There are so many opinions on draft day, and so many of them are way too strong.
Okay, so it usually seems like a mistake to use a high pick on a reliever. That’s infrequent, and it’s not always the wrong thing to do. Let’s think about a team’s draft position. Let’s think about that team’s highest pick. They’ll be selecting from a pool of the best available players. There’s no one right choice. They’re all going to be projected for some career WAR, and many of the WARs are going to be pretty similar. Maybe there’s a Strasburg or Harper standout, but that’s rare, and those guys don’t make it past first. Maybe you want Player X, and maybe the team instead drafts Player Y. The difference in their projections is probably small. They might pan out very differently, but only so much is known at the time of the draft. Every player taken early has an expectation, and every player taken early is good. Teams might blow it on draft day, but odds are you’re not going to know.
In 2005, the Mariners took Jeff Clement instead of Troy Tulowitzki. Tulowitzki is one of the best players in baseball, and Clement has been worth negative WAR. The Mariners are said to have audibled to Clement at the last second, and he proved to be a tremendous disappointment. This is considered one of the worst draft decisions the Mariners have ever made. But Tulo has exceeded his projections. Clement has undershot them. Clement was widely considered a top draft-eligible prospect, and remember that he was a patient, powerful, lefty-hitting catcher. The way things have gone is the way things have gone once. What if the same thing were repeated a hundred times? Maybe, in a different universe, Clement stays healthy and hits, and Tulo struggles. Maybe Clement would’ve turned out were he drafted by another team. At the time of the draft, Clement and Tulo were similar in outlook. So it wouldn’t have made sense to strongly prefer one over the other. There’s a lot of luck that goes into how draft picks turn out. The best ones have great stories about how they were scouted and about how the scouts really believed in them deeply, but the scouts believed in all the busts, too. Clement went third overall in a draft. He didn’t suck, then.
I’ve gotten into talking about the draft specifically, but this is also a bigger-picture principle. Have strong opinions only when they’re warranted, and only when they’re informed. Seldom are they warranted and sufficiently informed on draft day. I get a little self-conscious about the fact that so few of my baseball posts have strong conclusions, but that’s the way I like it, because if I took more positions, I’d be wrong more. The fact of the matter is that we don’t know much. We don’t know a lot about how things happen, and we don’t know a lot about how they will happen later. One can’t be afraid of that, and one can’t pretend like it isn’t true. Predictions can be fun, but they’re a waste of time. The important life skill isn’t arriving at a concrete conclusion — it’s developing the right thought processes. Often, those processes will lead to educated uncertainty. Present and recognize evidence, but don’t make more of the evidence than you should. Assume that everything’s in the gray area between the black and the white.
If you’re expressing yourself, control yourself, and use a volume level you feel is appropriate. There’s a reason there are dynamics in music. People will pay attention to your strong opinions if you arrive at them appropriately and sparingly. If you always sound certain of yourself, people will start to tune you out or point out when you’ve been wrong. If you’re reading or listening, meanwhile, accept and appreciate evidence presented for evidence’s sake. Don’t expect the author to conclude with an authoritative position, and don’t be disappointed if the presentation ends with something soft. That’s for your benefit. To be disappointed by the absence of a strong conclusion is often to be disappointed to not have been misled.
Sometimes, of course, you do just need to make a decision. If you’re dealing with something minor, it doesn’t matter. If you’re in a group and you can’t decide where to go for dinner, just go somewhere for dinner and it’s going to be fine. You don’t need to obsess over making precisely the right choice. And I suppose you could argue that baseball is minor, so you might as well have strong opinions, since ultimately isn’t it just a game? That’s up to you, but personally the way I handle baseball is the way I try to handle my life in general. It’s important to be able to think through things critically, it’s important to say only as much as can be said, and it’s important to accept the uncertainty that’s everywhere, just everywhere you look. Certainty makes you feel safer. That’s temporary.
This has meandered, because I’m writing it off the top of my head and I didn’t prepare an outline. And, ironically, this post about strong opinions contains a strong opinion. You probably have a strong opinion about my use of “ironically.” Let’s move past that. Always be looking for answers. Always understand when an answer isn’t within reach, or when the answer is “I don’t know.” The answer to most questions is “I don’t know.” The fun and the real truth is in the exploration.
Mariners and Yankees in Seattle for Only Time until Playoffs
| MARINERS (26-34) | ΔMs | YANKEES (34-25) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -6.6 (18th) | 3.2 | -33.4 (27th) | Mariners |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -5.9 (19th) | -2.0 | -10.0 (22nd) | Mariners |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 13.4 (9th) | 2.3 | 9.2 (10th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 3.5 (8th) | -0.4 | 21.2 (1st) | Yankees |
| OVERALL (RAA) | 4.4 (15th) | 3.2 | -13.0 (18th) | MARINERS |
It’s draft day. Rather, it’s the first of what is now three draft days. It’s a bit of a futile pursuit since the returns typically take a long time and are notoriously unpredictable. However, since it happens only once a year and offers a bit of respite from the present and allow people to dream of the future. Go read Jay’s post below.
The last time Seattle faced the Yankees, in New York, the Mariners came away looking pretty good and sidled up next to that elusive and spooky .500 figure. Since then the Yankees have gone 9-9, but the Mariners have stumbled to 6-13 and yet the two teams still seem to produce odd ratings above. However, I’ll quote myself from that previous preview.
It seems far-fetched for the Mariners to actually be rated a better team than the Yankees here. I don’t think it is… Secondly, other systems agree that the Mariners have slightly under performed their record while the Yankees have over performed theirs. The gap between the two teams in actual standings is six games. Baseball Prospectus’ third-order standings, which uses expected runs scored and allowed adjusted for opponents has the two team just two games apart.
It’s three weeks later and though the team’s records continued along their respective paths, the two teams still have separated themselves in their underlying metrics. Those B-Pro third-order standings have the Yankees at 29-29 and the Mariners at 29-31. Call the difference between 3rd-order wins and actual wins whatever you want, I’ll use luck. Of teams, the Yankees are the “luckiest” team in all of baseball. The Mariners are the second “unluckiest” in the American League and fifth most in baseball. Get those games back, Mariners!
Names for the First-Round, 2013 Edition
Since I started blogging about this possibly-not-stupid stuff, I’ve been able to set aside draft day to sit down, analyze, and more often than not wait for a rather long time between picks because the Mariners are disinclined towards acquiring supplemental round selections and the early part of the draft is unbearably long. This year, however, the first day of the draft coincides with my most recent graduation (UW, MFA, poetry), and if the process starts up at 4 pm PDT and the ceremonies start at 5 pm, it’s hard to see me sticking around to cover any of this. [I also might not be at my cognitive best the next morning, when more draft happens.]
What I’ve tried to do here is profile some of the names I see floating around. Picking twelfth is in some respects easier and some respects more taxing: easier because the investment is not quite so large, more taxing in that there are more names that should be known, what with the vagaries of the draft. Something weird could easily happen and one of the two top prep outfielders, Austin Meadows and Clint Frazier, could land in our hands simply because other teams think they need pitching more. Or we could see the Mariners pick someone not on the public radar, as they did when they picked Taijuan Walker [after being rumored to the end to be looking at Marcus Littlewood with the same pick]. A not-infinite number of things could happen and undoubtedly one of them will.
I won’t take it personally if anything I say here does not come to fruition. I’m not really in the business of casting baseballs into the fire and then reading how they pop along their seams. I’m only here to apprise you of certain possibilities and leave the rest the results-based analysis. Certainly, someone will come in posting after me once the pick actually happens. Here are ten names in no particular order, not even the one that they were written in.
Read more
Game 60, White Sox at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Dylan Axelrod, 12:40pm
The M’s go for the three-game sweep this afternoon behind Hisashi Iwakuma. The White Sox have hit a bit better than we thought coming in, but they’ve pitched worse – long may this continue. Righthander Dylan Axelrod shut the M’s down for 5+ innings in early April this year, and was tough against them in the cactus league as well. Back then, I talked about his slider being his outpitch and that he may struggle against lefties. : Pulls at collar and laughs nervously : So uh, forget that. It’s absolutely true that he’s gotten more whiffs and more strikeouts on the slider than any other pitch (he also throws a four- and two-seam fastball, a curve, and a change-up). But as a guy who doesn’t strike many batters out, that only tells us so much.
This year, Axelrod’s best pitch has been his change-up, a pitch he throws less than 20% of the time, and pretty much solely to lefties. He’s faced a lot of lefthanders (61% of opposing baters), so in part he’s *had* to develop something besides his slider. But his change-up isn’t used to get strikeouts or swinging strikes – or rather, if that’s what he’s trying to do, it’s not working. Instead, he uses it to get ground balls and weak contact. If *that’s* what he’s trying to do, so far so good. He’s not given up a home run on his change-up in his brief career, and while judging pitches based solely on their results with a guy who hasn’t pitched a full season is dicey, he’s given up two doubles on his 200+ change-ups. And he’s done it without making anyone miss. He’s recorded three strikeouts ending with a change, but giving batters something else to think about and having a pitch that generates choppers and fly-outs isn’t bad.
It would sound horribly unsustainable (look at that BABIP!) if we haven’t watched Hisashi Iwakuma and his amazing splitter. Iwakuma’s pitched a bit more, so he’s thrown three times as many splitters, and like Axelrod, he’s yet to give up a HR on one,* and has a career ISO-against on splitters of .037, which looks like Axelrod’s .039. Let’s be clear, here: Iwakuma’s splitter is miles better than Axelrod’s change. It gets whiffs AND grounders. It’s been tested much more, and it’s passed each test. It also helps to explain why both have reverse platoon splits. Again, these should be regressed severely, so maybe the best we can say is that they’re unlikely to have extreme platoon splits, with opposite-handed hitters crushing them. But we have some reason to think that their reverse splits aren’t just dumb luck.
Today’s big story is the apparent promotion of Tacoma back-up catcher Brandon Bantz to Seattle to replace Jesus Sucre who was struck in the finger by a batter’s follow-through in last night’s game and had to be replaced by Kelly Shoppach. With Jesus Montero injured (he’s apparently having surgery today), that left the M’s with only one catcher on the roster. Their options seemed to be to have 41-year old Raul Ibanez as the emergency catcher or to make a move. Bantz is essentially a paler version of Sucre. He hasn’t hit at all in the minors, but the organization loves his arm (he made probably the best throw I’ve seen all year in Monday’s game to catch Jemile Weeks) and he’s been a solid defensive back-up for years after the M’s drafted him out of Dallas Baptist University in 2009. Mike Curto noted the similarities to 2011, when the M’s brought up Jose Yepez to essentially be the emergency back-up for a week; Yepez unfortunately never got into a game. Yepez could hit, sort of, with a good K:BB ratio making up for a lack of power. But he clearly wasn’t around to hit, and everyone knew it. Same thing with Sucre, of course. Bantz is now the second catcher that essentially no one thought would ever sniff the majors to make the 30-mile trip north from Tacoma, and I’m hoping that Sucre essentially taking the starting job from Shoppach means the club will think about getting Brandon into a game. He’s not going to hit worse than Sucre. And while we think of ballplayers being impossibly rich, spoiled jocks, it’s probably worth noting that guys like Bantz (and Sucre) make very, very little money playing year to year without being on the 40-man roster. Unlike high draft picks, Bantz went in the 30th round, so his bonus probably went towards rent for a fraction of one minor league season. Just being on the active roster for a week or so will get Bantz more money than he’d earn in an entire minor league season, even at the AAA level.
The corresponding move? The M’s abandoned their plan to get Franklin Gutierrez another 20-day rehab assignment and instead moved him to the 60-day DL. That got a 40-man spot, and to make room on the 25, they’ve optioned Carlos Triunfel to Tacoma. Sure, they could’ve done that a week ago when they brought up Bonderman, but they didn’t. I know some fans are miffed that they had to lose a player (Catricala in that case) to bring in Bonderman for one or two starts, but at some point, they’ve got to start culling their 40-man. They’ve moved off Catricala and Francisco Martinez, but more decisions loom with Erasmo Ramirez and, hopefully, Danny Hultzen on the mend. I’m somewhat sympathetic to them, as needing to clear a roster spot to bring in Brandon Bantz (because Jesus freaking Sucre was hurt) just wasn’t something they could’ve anticipated in April. Franklin Gutierrez getting hurt, well, that IS something that could’ve been anticipated.
The line-up:
1: Chavez, RF
2: Bay, LF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, 1B
5: Ibanez, DH
6: Franklin, 2B
7: Saunders, CF
8: Shoppach, C
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Iwakuma
Rainiers are off today, but they’ll host Las Vegas from Thursday-Sunday. Friday’s game looks like the prospecty-est, as Vegas may go with Mets’ top prospect Zach Wheeler. Tomorrow’s game features DJ Mitchell starting for Las Vegas; he opened the year in Tacoma’s rotation.
AA Jackson’s off too, but open a series tomorrow with an early game against Tennessee. Er, they’re scheduled to play tonight at Tennessee, with Anthony Fernandez starting, but it’s raining heavily. Tomorrow’s game may be a double-header.
* With Iwakuma’s velo down a bit in early April, it was a bit tough to separate out the splits and two-seamers. BrooksBaseball has the most questionable pitch, the long HR he gave up to Adam Dunn in Chicago, as a two-seamer. MLBAM had it as a splitter. We’ll go with Brooks, but if you thought that pitch looked like a bad splitter, well, you weren’t alone.
Game 59, White Sox at Mariners
King Felix vs. Jake Peavy, 7:10pm
It’s absolutely perfect ballgame weather, and the M’s send their ace to the hill against an eminently beatable line-up. They’re coming off a game in which Raul Ibanez had the M’s at-bat of the year, which he capped with a homer off a lefty. To make the night even better, the Astros completed a sweep of the Angels, pushing the Halos into a tie with Seattle. Strip context away, and this is a game you look forward to, and move stuff around to try and attend. With all of that context, it starts to feel a bit more like our customary once-every-five-days respite from watching Astros scores a lot more than A’s scores, and of looking at Rainiers box scores more purposefully (“Zunino hit a double!”) than we do M’s box scores (“Endy Chavez had a good game, I guess”). I know this, you know this, but let’s pretend, for one night, that we don’t. I’m going to try and be the casual fan that gets more scorn from the die-hards than he/she deserves. TOday I’m going to ignore the fact that the M’s playoff odds are at 1.3% and watch Felix be Felix for a while.
This is tougher than it looks. I’m not sure how far to take it (can I be a casual fan and still revel in Jesus Sucre’s pitch framing ability?), and even a casual fan might find it odd that Endy Chavez (35), Jason Bay (34) and Raul Ibanez (41) are in the line-up together. Still, heading to Safeco tonight and just watching Felix versus Peavy and forgetting about injuries, depth, stalled prospects and the yawning chasm between the M’s and Rangers sounds awesome. There are times I worry about my own tendency to forgive the M’s just about anything as long as they employ Felix Hernandez, but that sort of navel-gazing, woe-is-M’s stuff is exactly what I’m taking a temporary break from. Go Felix! Let’s see some dingers!
Jake Peavy’s late-career renaissance seems like it’s flown under the radar a bit, though that’s easy to say for someone who doesn’t live in Chicago. After two injury-plagued, inconsistent seasons in 2010-2011, he produced a 4.5fWAR season for the White Sox last year, throwing 219 innings and holding/improving his K% despite his velocity dropping below league average. This year, he’s been just as good if not better: his K% is now over 25%, back where it was in his heyday in San Diego in 2006 or so. His cutter’s still a very good pitch, and he pairs it with two well-located fastballs, a curve and a change-up for lefty hitters. Peavy’s cutter initially helped him battle opposite-handed hitters, but he now uses it as a slider (essentially), and his results look a bit slider-y; he’s running sizable platoon splits this year. Some may quibble and point out that his splits are essentially BABIP-driven, but it’s not just seeing-eye singles – lefties hit many more extra-base hits and hit more line drives against him. The K rate is just the same (better even), but he’ll hang the occasional cutter, and good hitters need to punish his mistakes. As it happens, the M’s actually have a good lefty hitter or two in the line-up tonight.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, RF
2: Bay, LF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, 1B
5: Ibanez, DH
6: Franklin, 2B
7: Saunders, CF
8: Sucre, C
9: Ryan, SS
SP: El Rey
Jesus Sucre is the M’s starting catcher, and his hitting spray chart looks almost identical to Munenori Kawasaki’s from last year. The guy who struggles to hit a pitched baseball over 180 feet or so is the de facto starter, and I can’t complain. Kelly Shoppach’s a great fit on this team, and actually gives the team something of an interesting bench bat against lefties, but the team loves Jesus Sucre and if he can help get this team’s runs allowed under control, they can play him all they want.
A casual fan may have missed the news that Franklin Gutierrez’s leg is still giving him problems, and that he’s not able to return despite his rehab stint ending. The M’s have petitioned MLB to get a second 20-day rehab start for Guti based on a report from team doctor, Edward Khalfayan. This is something of uncharted territory, as the rules are the way they are to both prevent teams from keeping big leaguers in the minors on bogus pretext, or for stashing players in the minors to avoid service time/roster limit rules. But if anyone actually needs more than the allotted time to recover, it’s Gutierrez. I sincerely hope he’s granted a rehab do-over, and that this becomes known as the Gutierrez Rule forever more.
I went to Cheney last night to check up on Brandon Maurer, who made his AAA debut against Sacramento. The raw numbers were very good – 6 2/3 IP, 3H, 1R, 3BB, 7Ks, but he struggled a bit early. He walked the first hitter in the 1st and 2nd, and gave up two warning-track fly balls in the 2nd. His command within the zone was spotty, but he was able to work his way out of bad counts and keep the ball in the park. As the game went on, he got more comfortable, and he cruised through the middle innings before a couple of singles ended his night in the 7th. The RiverCats have some free-swinging right-handers (Grant Green is not looking forward to seeing Maurer again), but he was better against lefties than he was in the majors (not a big shock, but still good to see), and his command seemed to improve from the first inning to the sixth and seventh.
Rainiers’ righty Andrew Carraway’d quietly put himself into contention (kind of) for the rotation spot currently held by Jeremy Bonderman, with a sub-3.00 ERA and a solid run of form in May, but he was hit fairly hard by Sacremento this morning, as the RiverCats beat Tacoma 6-2. Carraway’s not on the 40-man, and Erasmo Ramirez obviously has the inside track on the 5th spot, but stranger things have happened.
Chance Ruffin, whose move to the starting rotation has gone far better than I would’ve thought (and I have to tip my cap to Mike Curto who predicted he’d do well in the new role), starts tonight for Jackson against Tennessee.
Meaningless Numbers That Are Meaningless
Fans spent years pleading for the Mariners to move in the fences at Safeco Field, because they wanted to watch the Mariners be a different kind of bad. There was a pretty sensible argument to do so, though, in that the ballpark before was simply too extreme, so at last the organization got to work last winter. Citing young-hitter psychology, the Mariners made the ballpark more batter-friendly in left, left-center, and center. Today Jesus Montero is in the minors, Dustin Ackley is in the minors, and Justin Smoak has three home runs in the season’s first third, but this sentence is hardly fair. It’s accurate, but it’s misleading and unfair, yet I’m leaving it in as part of an experiment. I won’t get into that part because you’re not supposed to know about it.
The potential effects of the Safeco changes were underwhelmingly studied, privately and publicly. It stood to reason that homers would increase, because the walls would be closer, and it’s just that simple. Less ground would have to be covered by fly balls. But park effects are almost inconceivably complicated, and the changes could also have effects on doubles and triples and singles and maybe even walks and strikeouts and everything else. The only way to know what would happen would be to make the changes and find out. We’re in the initial stages now of finding out. Safeco should play differently, but just how differently are we talking?
Let’s set a baseline and look at Mariners games in Safeco and away from Safeco between 2008-2012. I combined numbers for hitters and pitchers, for the Mariners and for their opponents, and following, you’ll see the Safeco numbers divided by the road numbers, expressed as a percentage. To get to it:
BA: 94% (Safeco BA was 94% road BA)
OBP: 97%
SLG: 90%
HR%: 81%
HR/BIP: 83%
These are all very simple, straight-forward numbers, unadjusted for quality of competition and such. The samples are each more than 30,000 plate appearances. Let’s look now at how the numbers appear so far for the 2013 season. The Mariners have played 26 games at home, and 32 games on the road. There have been more than 2,100 Safeco plate appearances, and nearly 2,600 road plate appearances. Straight-forward again and unadjusted again:
BA: 101%
OBP: 99%
SLG: 91%
HR%: 72%
HR/BIP: 73%
The respective batting averages are .247 and .244. The respective on-base percentages are .303 and .307. Essentially identical. But Safeco’s still reduced power — even more so than it used to. Home runs are down, relative to road games, and that carries over to isolated slugging percentage. The Mariners moved in the Safeco fences because they wanted more home runs in Seattle. So far, they’ve observed the opposite effect.
That’s poorly worded. There have been more home runs in Seattle. Mission accomplished! But there have been a lot more home runs away from Seattle, such that the ratios don’t match up. Such outcomes would’ve been unexpected. The Mariners thought this would be a gimme.
So what’s going on? Did the Mariners screw even this up? Did the Mariners somehow render Safeco even less dinger-friendly than it was before? Did the Mariners put too little thought into what they were doing, leaving them with a ballpark that isn’t what they wanted? Moving in the fences and still not getting homers — that would be very Mariners of them. It seems like a thing that would happen.
What’s actually going on, of course, is nothing. Park effects, as stated, are complicated, and you’re not going to learn about them based on two months of one season. It’s going to take years before it’s clear what the new Safeco is, because it takes a while for these numbers to sort of stabilize. 26 home games. 26 home games! That’s nothing! And the schedule’s been skewed! You’d have to adjust for opponents, and even then, 26 home games.
And it’s been April and May, in Seattle. The ball doesn’t fly so well in April and May in Seattle. This is a very inadequate look at the data. It doesn’t control for participants, it doesn’t control for the time of the year, and it doesn’t mind the sample sizes. The only real conclusion we can draw is that, so far, there haven’t been many homers in Safeco, compared to on the road. But it won’t continue that way. The home-run split is evidence in and of itself of why the sample size is insufficient. It makes no sense why dinger rate would go down in Seattle after the changes. The fact that it has speaks to the other fact that we can’t prove anything yet, and won’t be able to for some time.
So why post this at all? In part, to sate my own curiosity. Just because we only have small-sample numbers doesn’t mean I don’t want to look at them anyway, in the way that we look at player’s statistics in the middle of April. In bigger part, this is a test. A test of critical thinking and careful reading and data interpretation. As you were reading along, did you spot the problems with the analysis? Were you eager to leave me a comment, pointing out that it’s too early to say anything? Congratulations! If not, why do you suppose that is? Do you trust numbers when you see them online? Do you trust numbers when I’m the one posting them? (Ed. note: awww) There’s a lot of baseball analysis on the Internet. A lot of it sucks. There’s a lot of general analysis on the Internet. A lot of it sucks, too. One of the greatest skills you can possess is the ability to break down an argument. So many of them are flimsy, or insufficient, and more people would notice if more people were paying more careful attention. Don’t read passively. Read actively! That’s for you, Mr. D’Onofrio! I mean, don’t be a dick about it, but keep thinking. Think for yourself, as someone else is explain his or her thought process. It can be satisfying and illuminating and it can prevent you from being misled.
So that’s how this post turned out. I’m kind of surprised, myself. You’d think I’d have an outline for these things. Whatever, it’s a baseball blog.