Game 54, Mariners at Padres
King Felix vs. Andrew Cashner, 12:40pm
Early game today as the M’s fly to the Twin Cities after this game.
Andrew Cashner could be a dominant starting pitcher. The odds are stacked against him, in that we’re talking about pitchers, and it’s something of a wonder every MLB hurler’s arm doesn’t dislocate monthly. But Cashner’s got plus-plus velocity that he can pair with average-ish control as well as a change-up and a slider. The tools are all there, but injuries have slowed his development. The Padres, who acquired him from the Cubs in the trade that sent Anthony Rizzo to Chicago, used him as a reliever for the first half of 2012, where his average – AVERAGE – fastball was 99.4mph, then moved him to the minors to prepare to start. He was up last year, but was shut down in September with pain in his shoulder.
As Matthew’s chart illustrates really well, Cashner’s fastball gets far more whiffs than the average heater; there are advantages to throwing 96mph as a starting pitcher. But the other thing that jumps out at you from his chart is the change-up. He’s able to keep it in the zone pretty much at will – he throws fewer balls with the change-up than he does with his fastball. But there’s a problem: it’s also his most hittable pitch. He gets fewer whiffs and fouls on the change-up than he does with the fastball as well, and while he gets ground balls with it, if he misses his spot, batters are able to time the pitch and punish it. As a result, his K% doesn’t really match the pure stuff. His slider’s effective, so he’s still extremely tough on right-handed batters, but lefties are a bit more trouble than they should be given that he’s pitcher who can throw 96-97mph and drop a change-up in whenever he wants.
You can see it in his pitch usage chart – he throws more change-ups than sliders to righties, and relies on it heavily when he’s behind in the count. That’s what he goes to when he falls behind. Against lefties, his results have been mixed. In his favor, they don’t hit for a lot of power on the change, but essentially no one’s fooled by it. You can chalk some of the poor results up to BABIP luck, but when he can’t get whiffs and everyone can put it in play, there’s only so far for that BABIP to fall. If his shoulder doesn’t act up, I think Cashner figures this out – if his command of the change improves (either by spotting it low and out of the zone some times or by improving his arm action to disguise it better), he’s going to be an elite pitcher. But he isn’t yet, and as the M’s have Felix on the mound, this is a big game for them, particularly after last night’s heartbreaker.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, RF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Ibanez, LF
4: Morales, 1B
5: Saunders, CF
6: Franklin, 2B
7: Sucre, C
8: Ryan, SS
9/SP: Felix
That’s about as lefty-dominant as the M’s can get. Makes sense today.
Some of you have asked about the MLB draft – no worries, the annual draft preview article posts later today.
The Rainiers scored 25 runs in Colorado Springs, essentially mocking the recently-installed humidor. Abe Almonte went 6-6, and Dustin Ackley’s swing rehab looked great after a 5-6 night with a HR. Righty Andrew Carraway was effective in the windy-Colorado-Springsy conditions, continuing his fine run of form after a clunker or two in April, and keeping his ERA under 3, which is kind of miraculous for a fly-balling right-hander without much velocity.
Speaking of fly-balling righties, Cardinals prospect Michael Wacha makes his MLB debut today against the Royals. The tastefully-named Marc Hulet runs down the scouting report at Fangraphs here. That report matches what I saw almost perfectly. Wacha works up in the zone and his fastball seems to have a lot of vertical movement, leading to a flurry of fly balls and pop-ups, and also more whiffs than you might expect given his velocity. A lot’s been made about his lack of Ks in AAA, but that may have been due to the Cards instructing him to work on specific pitches; he certainly didn’t have trouble striking out many Rainiers. Still, it’s always interesting to see how a pitcher who’s made his living throwing up in the zone fares when he comes to a league that selects in part for the ability to send high fastballs far, far away. It’ll also be interesting to see if the deception in his delivery ‘works’ against MLB left-handers.
2013 MLB Draft Preview with Chris Crawford of MLB Draft Insider
Major League Baseball’s amateur draft – or at least the first round of it – kicks off one week from today. The M’s have three picks in the first 100, starting with the twelfth pick overall. The pick was evidently important to the front office, as they seemed hesitant to sign free agents that would’ve resulted in forfeiting their first-round pick. To be fair, that same scenario played out for other teams too, resulting in Kyle Lohse waiting a long, long time to sign. So who are some of the players that could shoot up prospect lists a year or two from now? Like last year, I reached out to Chris Crawford, proprietor of the draft-focused site MLBDraftInsider.com to get the scoop on the draft class overall and some of the players the M’s might grab at #12. You can check out Chris’ latest mock draft here, ask him questions on twitter there, or dive into the rather lengthy Q and A below.
1: Who do you think the M’s pick? Who *should* they pick?
It’s really difficult to project who the Mariners are going to select this year since they are 1. notoriously tight-lipped about their process and 2. aren’t picking in the top five, which they seem to be every year. That being said, there’s quite a few players tied to them, including Lakewood High School (Calif.) shortstop J.P. Crawford, New Mexico first-baseman D.J. Peterson, Grayson High School (Ga.) outfielder Austin Meadows and Arkansas right-hander Ryne Stanek. If I was going to guess which of those the Mariners select right now, I’d lean towards Crawford.
Would I have a huge problem with the Mariners taking Crawford? No, he’s a shortstop with good defensive instincts who’s bat would play above-average at short or if he had to move over to second base. The only name I would be disappointed with in that range is Peterson, as I just don’t think he has the upside to justify taking in the first round, though many scouts disagree with me.
How do you compare the hit tool and power tool of Crawford and Meadows? Meadows has been ranked higher the whole year (and last year too), but Crawford’s obviously had a good year to put himself in the conversation. If they’re both available, do you lean Meadows, or does an above-average bat at SS trump the pedigree?
Offensively, Meadows is the far superior player. He’s got good bat speed and if he adds some loft he’s going to hit for power. Crawford’s offensive game is much more limited; he’s not very big (6’2″, 175) and while he has good bat speed its difficult to project big power numbers. I lean Meadows simply because the upside is too good to ignore, especially at pick No. 12.
2: How do you think this draft class stacks up with other recent years’? Last year, you mentioned that the 2012 class was a step behind 2011 and 2010’s…do you still think that’s the case? Overall, do you think talent evaluators are able to forecast this (draft class quality) reliably? Or is it something that can only be judged in hindsight?
It’s a case of quality or quantity. The top five prospects in this class are really good, with two future aces in Mark Appel and Jonathan Gray, a plus-plus power hitter in Kris Bryant who I think can play third base, a pitcher with two 70 pitches in Kohl Stewart and a very intriguing athlete in Meadows. After that, the quality wanes quite a bit, with very little available in terms of college bats and not a single left-handed starter who will go in the first round assuming Sean Manaea’s injuries push him out.
As far as judging this class accurately, I think it’s an interesting question. This was the year of the pop-up; Gray was considered more of a second-third round guy when the year began, and names like Nevada right-hander Braden Shipley and Mississippi State’s Hunter Renfroe coming from no where to being possible top ten picks. Pop-up’s help increase the depth in the class, but also make scouting difficult as there isn’t the pedigree that some of the other top names have. Guys like Peterson, Renfroe and Reese McGuire have a ton of varying positions from the scouts and talent-evaluators I talk to, but there does seem to be a sort of consensus in this year’s draft compared to others.
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Game 53, Mariners at Padres
Joe Saunders vs. Eric Stults, 7:10pm
The M’s begin the road portion of this home and home with San Diego with a battle of lefty pitch to contact guys. It’s not appointment television, but the M’s could use a few wins, and while they’re hobbled and beset by bottom-of-the-rotation problems, Joe Saunders in a big park is what passes for a good match-up these days.
Eric Stults is, and I checked on this, NOT Eric Stoltz. Who he IS, is a lefty fly-baller who throws a ‘rising’ four-seam fastball, a good change-up, and a curve and slider. He’s used to righty-dominated line-ups, and his career platoon splits are essentially even, just like Edinson Volquez’s. He’s got a solid FIP, though again, some of that’s to be expected pitching in Petco. Speaking of which, it’ll be interesting to see how the hitters fare in the new, fairer park. Both teams hit a number of homers in Seattle, but it remains to be seen how much of that was park-related and how much was Clayton Richard/Brandon Maurer related.
Line-up:
1: Bay, LF
2: Chavez, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, 1B
5: Shoppach, C
6: Saunders, CF
7: Franklin, 2B
8: Ryan, SS
9/SP: Saunders
The big story of the day is the promotion of Alex Liddi and the option of Brandon Maurer. While it may be a very brief swap, it’s obvious at this point that Maurer has some things to work on, and I’m fairly optimistic about his chances in the long term. He showed some flashes in his M’s tenure, especially against righties, and he’ll be able to talk to coaches and – importantly – other players in Tacoma about developing his change. Brian Sweeney is essentially another pitching coach on the roster, and he may be able to pick Erasmo Ramirez’s brain a bit too. Alex Liddi’s had a strange season – he started off OK, then went into deep freeze (along with Zunino and Thames, to be fair). He’s showing some signs of coming out of it, but Liddi’s K% has jumped over 10 percentage points in Tacoma this year. I liked some of the changes he made last season, but he’s looked absolutely lost at the plate some times this year. Hopefully he’s figured something out, though he may not get too many opportunities right now.
The other big story is the continuing fall-out from Eric Wedge’s ‘sabermetrics destroyed my second baseman’ comments. Yesterday was the day for disbelief, ripostes and, yes, some snark. Today marks the more contemplative period of reflection and trying to understand where Wedge was coming from. Larry Stone’s got a good piece trying to build some more context for the quotes, and Lance Rinker (At Beyond the Box Score) and Ian Miller (at Baseball Prospectus) urge caution and begin to evaluate Wedge’s claim dispassionately. I think this is all to the good, even if I don’t agree with 100% of it. Sabermetrics or the blogosphere or whatever you want to call it often has a reputation for being a single-minded entity, out to quash dissent. At our best, I think we can lead by example in coolly evaluating claims. Not to say we have all the information, or know with certainty, but to try and figure out what data tells us about some baseball question. It’s going to be really tough to do that in a case like this where the problem (or the question) is tied to a particular player’s mental state. But we can look into Ackley’s struggles and attempt to figure out what’s happening. We can be forward looking, and then evaluate how well any changes in approach have worked. Who knows. Maybe we’ll get credit for fixing him as well as ruining him.
An Actual Post About Jesus Sucre
Used to be you didn’t know anything about Jesus Sucre. That’s fine. There wasn’t much reason to, and he was one of those catchers who’d go to spring training with the big leaguers just because the big leaguers needed catchers. I don’t know how Sucre wound up in the Mariners organization, and I know I never expected to see him in the majors. He just struck me as filler that would eventually become veteran filler. But now he’s on the team. Jesus Montero isn’t catching for the Mariners, because he’s bad at it. Mike Zunino isn’t catching for the Mariners, because he doesn’t know how to walk and not strike out. Kelly Shoppach can’t catch for the Mariners every day, because he’s old and not an everyday catcher. So Sucre could stick. He could make an impression, on the team and on you.
Based on Sucre’s numbers, I could’ve guessed he’s a defensive specialist. That’s also what I’ve heard, and that would explain why some other teams were interested in him in March. Now we’ve seen Sucre in action, as he’s started behind the plate three times. Following, a series of screenshots, showing called strikes that Sucre and the Mariners got in their favor:
Brandon Maurer, Meet Tacoma
Update: And there you go – Maurer is being optioned to Tacoma, though it’s Alex Liddi, not Franklin Gutierrez, who is replacing him. Liddi is probably only up for a few days.
With both Justin Smoak and Michael Morse unable to play at the moment, the Mariners need to add a position player to the roster, especially headed into an NL park where they will need to pinch hit for the pitcher’s spot. The most likely call-up would be Franklin Gutierrez, who has been playing everyday down in Tacoma without breaking himself. His rehab assignment could theoretically last another week, but with the M’s in need of an outfielder while Morse is more unable to run than usual, I would expect Guti to join the team sooner than later.
And, really, there’s a pretty easy swap for the M’s to make today. Since they’re short on position players for the next few days, they could add Gutierrez to the roster without getting rid of a hitter by optioning Brandon Maurer to Tacoma. Since his turn in the rotation doesn’t come up again until Sunday and he shouldn’t be the one making that start, he doesn’t really need to be on the roster right now.
For all the talk of Maurer learning on the job, there’s just no real evidence that he’s actually improving in a meaningful way.
Brandon Maurer, April: 128 batters faced, .299/.359/.521, .380 wOBA, 5.15 FIP, 4.97 xFIP
Brandon Maurer, May: 93 batters faced, .369/.435/.646, .458 wOBA, 6.32 FIP, 4.60 xFIP
Back on May 1st, I wrote about Maurer’s problems with left-handed batters, as they hit .359/.424/.717 against him in April. In May, he’s introduced more curveballs to try and combat lefties, but they’ve hit .335/.410/.542 against him this month. That’s improvement of the “it had nowhere to go but up” kind, and shows that he still can’t get big league left-handers out on a regular basis.
Maurer simply isn’t ready for the Major Leagues. The Mariners rushed him because they got overexcited about spring training performance — stop me if you’ve heard this before — and the in-house alternatives weren’t particularly good. He’s never pitched in Triple-A before, and there was no real reason to expect him to be good enough to skip a level and compete against Major League hitters without the necessary weapons. Despite all the talk about how he “has the stuff”, Maurer is not currently a big league starting pitcher. He is against right-handers, and he could have success in a relief role similar to Carter Capps, but he’s not cut out for starting right now. His secondary pitches need work. His command needs work. He needs time to develop.
It’s in his best interests, and the organization’s best interests, to let Maurer develop at a natural pace rather than let him get his brains beat in by left-handers he’s not ready to get out yet. Send him to Tacoma, and use the roster spot to get another position player on the team for the next few days. When Maurer’s spot in the rotation comes up on Sunday, they can create a roster spot for the new 5th starter by either DL’ing an injured player or putting Chavez through waivers. As much as I don’t think he’s ever going to amount to anything, I’d probably give the roster spot to Blake Beavan. Jeremy Bonderman hasn’t shown anything to earn a 40 man spot, and Beavan or Noesi can fill-in for Maurer and give a similar performance without harming the long term development of one of the team’s young arms.
The M’s need a roster spot. Maurer needs time in Tacoma. This shouldn’t be too hard.
Game 52, Padres at Mariners
Brandon Maurer vs. Edinson Volquez, 7:10pm
It’s been a crazy week here in Marinerland. Harang pitched well, King Felix didn’t, Ackley’s not hitting, Brendan Ryan’s hitting, bloggers driving personnel moves and player development trajectories.* It’s insane. Until Sunday, the M’s appeared to be a roiling cauldron of frustration, disappointment, churn and attrition. And while it’s nice to beat up on an obliging Clayton Richard, Brandon Maurer’s still probably feeling a bit of pressure tonight. It never would’ve occurred to me to make sure everyone knew where sabermetrics stands on Maurer and pitching in general, but I’m not going to take much for granted anymore. Great power, great responsibility and all that. So: Maurer should limit walks, get strikeouts, and seek to avoid home runs. He should understand that sometimes hitters have good results on good (‘pitcher’s’) pitches, and that, at other times, a centered fastball will get popped up or lined directly into a glove. Mostly though, sabermetric outcomes aren’t different or competing with, I don’t know, ‘traditional’ outcomes. I would’ve thought this would be common ground.**
Maurer’s start coincides with Jeremy Bonderman’s start for AAA Tacoma tonight in Colorado Springs. It’ll be Bonderman’s final appearance before his June 1st ‘opt-out’ date in his contract. I have no idea what Bonderman’s thinking about 6/1/13 (or if he’s secretly reading USSM to get info on how to tweak his approach on the mound), but it seems like it could be a big start for both hurlers. Both are pitching for a spot, but both of them may be keeping the rotation slot warm for Erasmo Ramirez, who’s been recuperating from a forearm strain since March. Like many of you, I’d interpreted the silence surrounding his progress as a bad sign, but look who’s popped up on the pitching probables in the minors today? Erasmo gets the start in Jackson tonight, as the Generals host Huntsville. Danny Hultzen’s also going to Peoria and extended spring training. The M’s pitching depth, which looked solid in March, has been incredibly thin since. It’d be nice to see that change.
OK, today’s game. Edinson Volquez is having a season nearly as bad as Richard’s. I’d be tempted to blame the new, less pitcher-friendly Petco park, but in Volquez’s case, there’s a better explanation. He’s lost about 2mph on his fastball this year; he was at 94+ in May of 2011 and 2012, but is down to 92mph now. He’s throwing more curveballs to righties and fewer change-ups, but that’s a minor change (and one that seems to have helped, albeit a tiny bit). His change-up hasn’t dropped by nearly as much, but it’s clearly less effective when it’s backed by average velocity as opposed to the plus velo Volquez has worked with. The change reliably got whiffs more than 20% of the time he threw it, but that’s down under 15% now, and it’s one reason his K% has dropped. It too was reliably over 20%, and is now under 15%. The curveball’s still pretty solid to righties, but with a so-so fastball, and with lefties figuring out his change-up, Volquez has been hit hard.
Volquez’s solid change led him to post even splits or even reverse platoon splits for much of his career. Even with the curve, this isn’t a bad match-up for the M’s right-handers. And, even with the pitch generating worse results than it ever has, I would pay money for Brandon Maurer’s change to be as effective against lefties as Volquez’s is now. He’s been somewhat better in recent games, but left-handers are still hitting a cool .359/.438/.648 against Maurer. That this represents regression to the mean shows just how big the problem is. The curve’s been decent in fleeting glimpses, but Maurer (and his catchers) still seem to like to go back to the slider with two strikes. I’d say something here, but we’ve been blamed for one prospect, so I’ll just keep it banal: just focus on your game; take it one pitch at a time; Execute your pitches, in the figurative and not literal sense.
Line-up:
1: Chavez, LF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Ibanez, DH
4: Morales, 1B
5: Morse, RF
6: Saunders, CF
7: Franklin, 2B
8: Sucre, C
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Maurer
Erasmomania in Jackson tonight. That’s some unexpected good news pretty much on par with “Aarong Harang, complete game shutout.”
The Rainiers scored 5 in the 9th to beat Reno 11-10 yesterday. Alex Liddi drove the offense with a 4-5 day including a HR.
* I fully understand that part of Wedge’s job is to protect his players by deflecting blame. It’s just – for that to work, it has to be remotely plausible, doesn’t it? What exactly is the causal chain here? M’s saber-bloggers, drunk with jealousy, attempt to scuttle the talented golden boy by urging passivity? That our misguided ideas proved too tempting for a young player, and overcame the advice his coaches provided? I just don’t see what the theory is; this is an insult (‘stopped playing at age 9’), not a theory. I will say this: the insult/prototheory depends on the idea that advice from the outside had a chance to wreak its effects because players have stopped listening to the staff. That…well, that’s not the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.
** Full disclosure: I saw Ackley hit a flurry of 4-3 groundouts in Tacoma and thought he might be better served to lay off tough breaking balls and drive pitches he was able to drive instead. His bat control allowed him to stay on a hard slider, say, even as it dropped into a location that would produce weak contact. The Rainiers coaches at the time argued instead that he was often too passive, and urged him to look for and drive strikes. If Ackley overheard my musings in the stands and decided to pay attention to them and not those of his coaches, I’d like to apologize unreservedly, and point out that everyone from Dave Cameron to Alonzo Powell to Dave Hansen just want you to smack doubles off the right field fence. Again, I apologize for any confusion. For the record, sabermetrics would point out that a walk is, in fact, NOT as good as a hit – it is simply much, much better than an out. OK, that’s about enough snark wrung out out of one very, very bizarre quote for today.
In Fairness (But)
By now you’ve seen what Eric Wedge had to say about Dustin Ackley, and the sabermetricians that live inside his head. Ackley has been demoted on account of his not hitting in the majors. Wedge has elected to blame, at least in part, numbers guys who emphasize the importance of OBP and plate discipline. What Wedge seems to be suggesting is that Ackley hasn’t been aggressive enough, that he’s been caught in between and that’s why he hasn’t looked comfortable.
Dave pointed out that we’ve been calling Ackley pretty passive for a while. From the sabermetric perspective, with Ackley, specifically, it’s been evident that he’s had weak spots within the strike zone. We liked Ackley a lot because he seemed like the sort to hit line drives and draw walks and get on base, but part of that is hitting line drives, and without the line drives, you won’t get the walks, either. We’ve wanted for Ackley to change. We’ve understood his approach wasn’t working.
In fairness to Wedge, he probably wasn’t thinking about the sabermetric discussion of Ackley, specifically. Do you really think Wedge is that up to speed on the current state of sabermetrics? Wedge probably knows about Moneyball, and his idea of sabermetrics is probably all about walks and OBP, like things were a decade ago. What Wedge sees is a guy who hasn’t been practicing controlled discipline. Ackley hasn’t done enough to pitches in the strike zone. Wedge knows numbers guys like walks, and he knows Ackley knows he’s been celebrated in the past for his control of the strike zone. Ackley would’ve known people loved his OBP, so it’s possible he got his priorities crossed.
I’m not explaining this well, so let’s try an example. Let’s say we’re talking about lineup protection. It doesn’t matter who the next hitter actually is; it matters how he’s perceived by the catcher, pitcher, and manager. It doesn’t matter what sabermetrics actually say about Ackley. It matters what Ackley might actually think, and it’s possible Ackley got too focused on walks and deep counts. Which could lead to passiveness, which could lead to pitcher aggressiveness, which could lead to fewer walks, and fewer hits. Maybe Ackley has been in between. Wedge is the guy who’s been with him all this time. Maybe Ackley has over-prioritized walks and under-prioritized hits. I don’t know and can’t know.
It’s evident from this, and from the rest of life, that Wedge doesn’t hold the sabermetric movement in high regard. Which makes sense, since the sabermetric movement, in turn, doesn’t hold Eric Wedge in high regard. That’s on one hand frustrating and on the other hand okay, in that a manager doesn’t have to be a sabermetrician to win. Lots of stat-idiot managers have won in the past, and it’s more important to have the statistically intellectual guys in the front office, making roster decisions. Managers manage what they’re given, and it’s not the end of the world that Eric Wedge doesn’t know what wRC+ means. More troubling is that Wedge and the front office work closely together. This is somewhat indicative of the shift in the Mariners’ philosophies over the past few years.
Here’s the But. Maybe the other But. Let’s say Wedge is right about Ackley, that he’s been caught in between because he hasn’t been aggressive enough. Let’s say Wedge understands what Ackley has been doing wrong. What does it say that Ackley is off to Tacoma to try to get things straightened out? What does that say about the major-league coaching staff? If Ackley had the wrong ideas in his head, isn’t it the big-league coaches’ responsibility to address that? Why is the thinking that the guys in Tacoma are better-equipped to handle this?
So maybe they decided Ackley wouldn’t help the Mariners any time soon, and they didn’t want to continue hurting the major-league team by keeping Ackley around and working on things. Maybe they just think Nick Franklin is better at the moment. But what about all the work to date? In June 2011, Ackley had a .953 OPS. In July 2011, he had an .876 OPS. In August 2011, he had a .751 OPS. Ackley hasn’t surpassed .751 since in any month. Ackley has played ten months in the majors since August 2011. In two of those, he’s posted an OPS over .700. Where has the progress been? Why has Ackley been getting worse under Eric Wedge’s watch, if Wedge has known what the problem was?
For all I know, maybe Ackley just can’t be helped. Maybe the Mariners have worked with him on the right things, and they simply haven’t taken. That would be on Ackley, not the sabermetricians who like it when players find ways to get on base a lot. Maybe the demotion is just getting Ackley out of the way so Franklin can get a shot to take the job and run with it. Seems to me there are three possible parties at fault for the way Ackley has gone:
- Dustin Ackley
- the Mariners
- mysterious sabermetricians
Wedge called out the last one. The first two should share the overwhelming majority of the blame. Ackley hasn’t had the right approach, and the Mariners haven’t been able to work with him to fix it. Wedge, in the past, has been all about taking accountability. Not in this case, though. In this case, it’s the fault of the nerds. The nerds who polluted Ackley’s mind with ideas like “draw walks” and “reach base somehow.”
Some people blame the Mariners entirely for the failure of some young players to develop. Seems to me the players can’t be absolved, and Ackley needs to figure his crap out. But the Mariners haven’t helped. Ackley hasn’t been good since August 2011, and the Mariners haven’t helped. The latest attempt involves taking Ackley out of Eric Wedge’s hands. Interesting, that.
Eric Wedge Thinks Dustin Ackley is Our Fault
The man just keeps getting better and better. Here’s a quote from Wedge on Dustin Ackley‘s struggles, as published on MLB.com.
Wedge was talking about Ackley’s demotion to Triple-A and his mental approach, and he intimated that Ackley might have been too concerned with pitch selectivity and high on-base percentage, leading to a one-liner that hit on one of baseball’s most intriguing ongoing philosophical battles.
“It’s the new generation. It’s all this sabermetrics stuff, for lack of a better term, you know what I mean?” Wedge said. “People who haven’t played since they were 9 years old think they have it figured out. It gets in these kids’ heads.”
Hear that, everyone? We’ve gotten in Dustin Ackley’s head. His struggles over the last year and a half? Sabermetrics is to blame, what with all of our promoting “on base percentage” and “swinging at strikes”. Dustin Ackley’s failure is because all these new age ideas have gotten in his head.
Which, of course, perfectly explains why Ackley is posting the lowest walk rate of his career this season. His focus on drawing walks and getting on base has caused him to not draw walks nor get on base. We’re ruining everything!
Except, you know, here’s a thing Mathew Carruth wrote about Dustin Ackley on FanGraphs last summer.
On the other hand, when it comes to called strikeouts, Ackley has had a tougher go. His patience at the plate, some might deem it passiveness, has seen him post higher than average called strikeout rates at every level, ballooning somewhat in his years in the Majors. Dustin is no Drew Stubbs (10% of Stubbs’ PAs have ended in a called strikeout), but Ackley’s rate was 7.5% last year and is 6.4% this year whereas the average is about 4.5%.
Having visually watched Dustin Ackley for a little over a year now, that is not surprising either. The most vexing problem has been watching him take, and get called, on the so-called lefty strike repeatedly. Ackley has seemed a bit obstinate in accepting that, though technically not a strike by the book, the rule book isn’t the meaningful arbiter, the home plate umpire is.
…
As pitchers got to know Ackley, it appears that he may have developed a reputation that he had a weak spot there and he began to see more and more pitches in that location. It dipped back at the beginning of this season, but quickly climbed back up and has stayed above average for the rest of the season. Pitchers were, intentionally or not, exploiting Ackley’s weakness.
Using “sabermetrics”, Carruth (among many others) noted that Ackley takes a ton of called strikes on the outer half of the plate, and wrote that to be successful, Ackley would have to start swinging at these pitches more often. Yes, a sabermetric nerd suggested that Dustin Ackley was too passive at the plate. Huh. What do you know?
The idea that “all these people who haven’t played since they were 9 years old” have gotten in Dustin Ackley’s head by telling him to not swing at strikes is hilarious. We’ve been writing about Ackley’s weaknesses on the outer half of the plate for quite a while. I’m pretty sure that you won’t find any sabermetric thinkers who believe that taking called strikes in the same location over and over is a good offensive philosophy.
If you want to sum up the philosophy of “sabermetric thinking”, it’s basically take pitches out of the strike zone and swing at pitches in the strike zone. A lot of hitters swing too often, chasing pitches they have no chance of hitting with any authority. We would tell them all to try and be more selective. Some hitters don’t swing often enough, taking pitches down the middle in hitters counts when they should be trying to hit the crap out of meatballs. We would tell them all to try and be less selective.
You can probably make a pretty good case that Ackley has been too passive, though perhaps that’s the symptom and not the cause. Ackley’s swing has progressively become very pull-oriented, and he no longer covers the outer half of the plate very well. Perhaps Ackley isn’t swinging at pitches on the outer half because he knows he can’t hit them particularly well with his current swing. In that case, swinging more often wouldn’t be the solution; that would require an adjustment to his swing to get better coverage of the outer half of the plate.
But, what do I know, I haven’t played the game competitively since I was nine years old 18-years-old. Everyone knows that the only people capable of offering any kind of intelligent analysis of baseball players are those who have Major League experience. You know, like Eric Wedge. That’s what’s made him such a successful Major League manager, with his career record of 725 wins and 784 losses. And, you know, clearly Wedge knows how to develop young talent, since he helped all those young players turn into superstars in Cleveland.
Oh, wait, Cleveland’s young players didn’t develop as well as they were expected, and Wedge has had two winning seasons in 10 years as a big league manager. Hmm. Maybe experience isn’t the only thing that matters after all?
Eric Wedge is going to be fired in the not too distant future. That move, in and of itself, won’t turn around the Mariners franchise. But it won’t hurt.
And no, before you ask, I don’t think I could do a better job of managing a baseball team than Eric Wedge. His job is hard, and I’m not qualified to do it. But there are a lot of other people in baseball who are, and who know more about the game than Eric Wedge. The Mariners would be better off with someone who has actually learned something about the sport in the last 30 years rather than someone who thinks that all this new age numbers crap is getting into the heads of his hitters.
REED WATCH
The worst thing I ever did to myself was compare Dustin Ackley to Jeremy Reed. I don’t remember when I did it first, and at the time it was an accident, but since then I haven’t felt very good. About Ackley, I mean; I’m otherwise healthy. I can’t shake the Reed comp no matter what I do, and it’s not like Ackley has been doing much to separate himself. Of course, if you get into enough detail dissimilarities emerge, which is how all comparisons are, but now my burden is making you feel the way that I feel. If I have to live my existence thinking about Ackley and Reed at the same time, well, dammit, bummer for you. Now this is happening.
Ackley is 25. He just got optioned to Tacoma, and Nick Franklin was brought back. Reed turned 25 in June 2006. A couple weeks later, he got injured in one of the more frustrating Mariners games in somewhat recent history. He missed the rest of the year, and he opened 2007 in Triple-A. Those 2007 Mariners, you’ll remember, tried Ichiro in center field. They also played Raul Ibanez 131 times in left field. That was a problem, then, in 2007. That was a long time ago! But we’re getting off track. A simple comparison between Ackley and Reed through their age-25 seasons, acknowledging that Ackley might still come back up later on:
Ackley: 1215 plate appearances
Reed: 839
Ackley: 1.9 WAR/600 PA
Reed: 2.0
Ackley: 84 wRC+
Reed: 84
Ackley: .285 BABIP
Reed: .286
Ackley: .107 isolated slugging
Reed: .113
Ackley: 86% contact
Reed: 86%
There are differences in their walk and strikeout rates, but that’s because Reed swung more often. Again, the closer you get, the more differences you can see. Look at two trees from a hundred yards away. If they’re similar trees, they’ll look like it. Look at the same two trees from one yard away. There are different patterns in the bark! This one has a squirrel. That one has two squirrels and a bird. They are still very similar trees, and one shouldn’t overstate the differences between them. Granted, different trees are more closely related than different people, in that you can predict what one tree will do based on another, but with Dustin Ackley and Jeremy Reed, it’s getting spooky. Statistically, they’re brothers, or at least really tight cousins that hang out all the time.
The Mariners have expressed confidence in Ackley, even after demoting him. Jack Zduriencik has attempted to reassure everyone that this is pretty normal for a young player. It’s hard to track down quotes from after Reed’s injury and demotion, but there were assurances that he was still in the team’s plans. Unfortunately for Reed, there were these other guys named Adam Jones and Wladimir Balentien. Ackley’s version would be Franklin. Franklin’s a second baseman, and suddenly he has the leg up.
I think there’s still a lot of faith in Ackley, even among fans. I’ll grant that I don’t know what fans think, outside of the Internet. But a popular sentiment seems to be that he’s just taking longer than expected, and he’ll be able to find his way. His track record is too good, his history is too promising. For sure, Ackley’s track record matters, and so it matters that he was once a can’t-miss prospect. But it also matters that he’s got well more than a thousand underwhelming big-league plate appearances, and to fall back on the track-record idea is to under-weight what Ackley has actually done at the highest level. It’s to make the same mistake we made before: to think of Ackley like he couldn’t fail. He could. He has! so far, to an extent.
It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Jeremy Reed wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Once it became clear that Reed was a bust, it started to make sense. That’s the way it would be for Ackley, if things don’t improve. I certainly hope that they do, and I like him more than I like Jesus Montero, but a few short months ago Ackley was the second baseman and I thought of Nick Franklin as a goner in some future trade. Now it’s Franklin who’s in the majors, and if he does well, it’ll be hard for Ackley to fit. Understand that this is what the development process can look like. Understand also that this is what busting can look like.
Mariners and Padres Begin Split Series
| MARINERS (21-29) | ΔMs | PADRES (22-27) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -9.6 (19th) | -0.7 | 8.4 (13th) | Padres |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -10.5 (22nd) | -4.6 | 9.1 (12th) | Padres |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 13.2 (8th) | 4.4 | -23.7 (25th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 6.4 (6th) | 1.8 | -3.0 (18th) | Mariners |
| OVERALL (RAA) | -0.5 (16th) | 0.9 | -9.3 (18th) | MARINERS |
The Mariners broke the streak and managed to avoid falling to a 65-win pace. They’re currently on a 68-win pace instead! There’s no time like the near present to continue improving that projection though, the Padres are no juggernaut.
It’s Memorial Day and I have lots of other stuff to do, so my apologies but this will be a brief (actually brief and not a fake brief that turns into thousands of words like Sullivan does) post. Today’s game thread is directly below.