Gutierrez’s Encouraging Finish
While we noted on Monday that Justin Smoak’s strong finish to the year shouldn’t guarantee him a job on the 2013 club, the fact that he’s playing his way back into the conversation is a positive. You don’t want to overreact to a few good weeks of performance, but it’s better to have guys like Smoak finishing strong than simply limping to the end. And, while most of the focus has gone towards Smoak’s offensive surge, the most encouraging sign over the last month has come from someone else – Franklin Gutierrez.
Since he came off the DL on August 27th, the Mariners have played 26 games – Guti has started 23 of those, including the 18 inning game and the game the next day. He’s essentially been an everyday player for the last month, which is something we haven’t seen from Guti in a couple of years now. And, more than just taking the field, he’s actually been pretty good.
In this 23 game stretch, Guti is hitting .261/.320/.413, which is good for a 107 wRC+. In his breakout 2009 season where he racked up +6.3 WAR, he posted a 105 wRC+, and the stats the measure his core skills (walk rate, strikeout rate, isolated slugging) are pretty much dead on with what he put up three years ago. Even when Guti was on the field the last couple of years, he didn’t show much in the way of power, likely due to the intestinal issues and the loss of weight that occurred as a result. This year, 13 of Gutierrez’s 36 hits have gone for extra bases, compared to just 14 of 72 last year.
With his defense, Gutierrez doesn’t have to be a great hitter to be a productive part of a winning team – he simply needs to be an average-ish hitter and stay on the field. For the last month of the season, that’s pretty much exactly what he’s done. To give it some context, Gutierrez’s 110 wRC+ for the season is an almost exact match for Michael Saunders’ 111 wRC+, and I think we’d all agree that he’s had an encouraging year at the plate. When he’s been able to play, Guti has essentially been Saunders’ offensive equal.
The absolute ideal scenario for the Mariners is to have those two play side by side next year, producing average-ish offense in both left and center while providing significant defensive value in the spacious gaps of Safeco Field. They can’t plan on the ideal scenario — Guti has proven to be too brittle to be relied upon — but Guti’s durability and performance over the last month has at least created some reason to at least give him a chance to play regularly next year. They’ll need to commit to a strong fourth outfielder who can play regularly if pushed into that role, since Wedge clearly doesn’t trust Casper Wells with that position, but Guti’s performance over the last month means that they can probably focus this winter on acquiring just one starting outfielder, and then adding a good fourth OF as a reserve behind Gutierrez and Saunders. That’s certainly an easier task than going out and getting two everyday guys.
Like with Smoak, we can’t simply take the final month and extrapolate it out to 150 games next year. Baseball doesn’t work that way. But, we can be encourages that Gutierrez is showing that for a reasonable period of time, he’s both able to play regularly and hit like he did when he was one of the best center fielders in baseball.
Game 154, Mariners at Angels
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Zack Greinke, 7:05pm
It’s time once again for a “Pitcher A, B, C” comparison, the lifeblood of the baseball blog. Take your valid concerns about sample size, selective endpoints and selective measures and lock them away for a minute. The M’s are going to finish last in their division for the third consecutive year, and silly comparisons based on small samples are something we can cling to in the long night of the offseason. Sure, I’d rather think about the M’s player development system’s myriad success stories and how they herald a competitive M’s team in 2013 and beyond, but the record there is mixed. You know what’s not ambiguous? This:
| Player: | Pitcher A | Pitcher B | Pitcher C |
| K% | 23.7 | 23.4 | 19.9 |
| BB% | 3.0 | 5.8 | 7.1 |
| FIP | 2.73 | 2.91 | 3.95 |
| xFIP | 3.25 | 3.24 | 3.91 |
| GB% | 35.1 | 48.5 | 43.2 |
| IFFB% | 15.4 | 10.3 | 10.3 |
| Strike% | 67.5 | 65.1 | 62.3 |
| Contact% | 77.3 | 77.0 | 79.2 |
Pitchers A and B are pretty similar in their results, but different in their batted-ball profile. Pitcher C seems like a step behind across the board. That A and B have good walk rates makes sense, as both are comfortably above the league average strike rate for starters of 62.5%. So who are they?
Pitcher A is Erasmo Ramirez, Pitcher B is Felix Hernandez and Pitcher C is Erasmo’s opponent today, Zack Greinke. Caveat time: these are Erasmo’s stats *as a starter* and this is Greinke’s line with the Angels only. I’m taking Ramirez’s 6 starts because he really seems like a different pitcher since joining the rotation, and since his call-up in September. We’ll get to that in a second. I only included Greinke’s AL stint since it gets tougher to compare K rates when one pitcher’s in the AL and the other’s facing pitchers each game. Incidentally, Felix’s stats were compiled in well over 200 innings and stacks up quite nicely with a strong six-start run from Erasmo (or AJ Griffin, etc.). Felix is completely amazing.
The Erasmo Ramirez we’ve seen in September’s similar to the version we saw in April-May-June, but he’s made some key adjustments that seem to be paying dividends. First, he’s using his change-up far more often; he used it about 18% of the time before going down to Tacoma in June, and he’s using it over 30% of the time now. Second, his velocity’s not only holding up despite moving into the rotation, it’s getting better. He averaged 93mph with his fastball in his last start against Baltimore, and averaged 91-92mph in his first *relief* appearance in Seattle back in April. We knew he could touch 94 or even 95 on occasion, but he was hitting 94-95 with regularity deep in games with the Rainiers, and that stamina’s carried over with the M’s.
Ramirez has an interesting approach in that he’s a very different pitcher against righties and lefties. Against righties, he uses his fastball more and gets fewer strikeouts but more grounders and pop-ups and very few walks. Against lefties, he uses a blizzard of change-ups to generate a lot of strikeouts, while keeping his walks low. Another nice approach, just a very different one. Of course, all of this is based on tiny samples of MLB data, but it seems to match his minor league numbers too: in the minors in 2011-12 combined, his GB% was 10 percentage points higher against righties, while his strikeout and walk rates were 4 and 3 percentage points lower (respectively). His slider’s been better since his return though it’s still not a real chase pitch, which means Erasmo could get *better*. Right now, his change-up’s been about the equal of Felix’s statistically. It’s generating ridiculous contact rates, and he hasn’t really thrown a bad one since the hanging change that Josh Hamilton hit out way back in Erasmo’s major league debut. That may regress towards the mean a bit, but Erasmo has a weapon. Sure, his strike% is actually a bit better than Blake Beavan’s, but Erasmo’s got swing-and-miss stuff. If his slider continues to develop, look out.
Zack Greinke been solid but unspectacular since coming over to the Angels. His ERA and W-L records are fine, but he hasn’t been a dominant force that could help the Angels track down the A’s. This isn’t his fault any more than CJ Wilson’s a-bit-above-average season’s the reason the Angels find themselves in 3rd. But it’s a useful reminder that deadline deals and free-agent pick ups can’t win divisions by themselves. Greinke’s been good – his velocity’s right where it has been, his contact rate’s still above average, but I wonder what Angels fans think about the move in hindsight. It was a solid, aggressive play from a team looking to get better return on their investment in Wilson and Pujols, and it nearly worked out – I don’t think anyone in the front office is kicking themselves over it – but the Angels playoff odds sit under 25% right now, despite being only 2 games behind Oakland. I’ll just say that Angels fans will think a lot more highly of the trade if Greinke’s able to shut the M’s down tonight.
The line-up:
1: Ackley
2: Gutierrez
3: Seager
4: Jaso (DH)
5: Smoak
6: Saunders
7: Olivo (C)
8: Robinson
9: Ryan
SP: Erasmooooo
Today’s an important date in baseball history. On this date in 1974, Dr. Frank Jobe transferred a tendon from Tommy John’s right wrist into the hurler’s left elbow, and completed the first ulnal collateral ligament reconstruction, AKA Tommy John surgery.
Justin Smoak Complicating Matters
For the first 5 1/2 months of 2012, Justin Smoak was awful. In a make-or-break year, Smoak put up his worst numbers in nearly every meaningful category and lost his spot on the roster, ending up back in Triple-A to try and fix his swing. He only got recalled to the Majors because Mike Carp got injured and they didn’t have any other alternatives at first base in the organization, so despite the fact that he was lousy in Tacoma too, he came back up before he had really gotten his act together. And then he continued to be lousy against Major League pitching.
On September 12th, Smoak was hitting .190/.260/.312 and had been worth -1.4 WAR. He was in the running for worst player of 2012. And then, out of nowhere, Smoak started hitting.
Over the last 10 games, Justin Smoak has come to the plate 38 times, and he’s reached base in 20 of them. He’s only struck out five times. He even has three doubles, which is as many as he had in the first three months of the season put together, and he’s hit the ball over the wall twice.
Five extra base hits in 10 games isn’t anything special for a first baseman, but for Smoak, it’s a pretty big step forward from what he’d done previously. And, it’s come at the same time that he’s making contact and stinging singles all over the plate, so the total package has resulted in a crazy .455/.526/.727 line that is second best in baseball over the last 14 days – only Ichiro Suzuki has been better. I wonder what the odds in June would have been for Ichiro and Smoak being the two best hitters in baseball down the stretch. Baseball is weird.
So, after 5 1/2 months of being hopeless, Smoak has given us 10 days of being amazing, and is threatening to leave a lasting positive memory of his performance on the organization going into the off-season. An off-season in which one of the main priorities is to figure out what they’re going to do at first base, because they simply can’t go into 2013 with Justin Smoak penciled in as a starter. But, now, all of the sudden, having him around to at least fight for a job in spring training doesn’t seem all that crazy, given his shorter swing and the results its producing. It’s worth figuring out if this is for real, right?
Well, maybe. Keep in mind, Smoak has done this before, and even put together a run like this earlier in the season. From May 25 to June 2nd, Smoak hit .394/.459/.879 over 37 plate appearances. He hit five home runs in eight games while only striking out six times. He won AL Player of the Week. And then it all disappeared in an instant – from June 3rd to June 17th, he hit .137/.241/.137, failing to even knock a single extra base in 14 games. Smoak’s crazy hot streak didn’t have any predictive value then, and we should be careful assuming that this one does simply because we might not have enough time left in the season to actually see the regression take place.
I hope Justin Smoak has figured something out. It doesn’t make sense that he’s truly one of the worst hitters in baseball, and it’s nice to see that he is still capable of hitting the ball hard for short bursts of time. But, I don’t think our opinion of what the team should do with Justin Smoak next year should have changed much over the last 10 days.
Because he was never optioned to the minors in 2011, he still one option year remaining, meaning the Mariners can have him start 2013 in Tacoma if they want. And they should want to. If he’s really retooled his swing in a way that will lead to long term success, starting out in the hitter’s heaven of the PCL should allow him to prove it in an environment where hitting the ball hard is often rewarded. While I’m sure these last 10 days have been a confidence boost, sustained success with his new swing can’t hurt, and he’s more likely to get that kind of confidence-inspiring success in the minors than he is in the Majors. And, to be honest, the Mariners need more proof that he really is a changed hitter, capable of racking up doubles in bunches and avoiding all those weak pop-ups he hit this year.
Back in June, I wrote that I was ready to give up on Justin Smoak. My feelings from that post still haven’t changed – the Mariners have to do better at first base next year than simply giving Smoak another opportunity. But, now, instead of shipping him off as a change-of-scenery guy, keeping him around as depth in Tacoma doesn’t seem like a terrible idea. If these changes are real, and he’s going to keep hitting in the future, having him start 2013 in the minors to earn his way back to the big leagues isn’t a terrible idea. If he lights up the PCL next April, I’m sure the Mariners won’t have a problem finding room for him on the roster, and if he doesn’t, then they’ll be happy they didn’t waste another year hoping that this is the season Justin Smoak gets hot for more than a week or two at a time.
10 days ago, it was fairly safe to write Smoak out of the team’s plans for next year. Now, he’s forced himself back into the discussion, but 10 good games shouldn’t be enough to overwhelm the months and years of failure that he’s put up previously. While I’m happy to see Smoak doing well, the M’s need to view his recent run of success with some skepticism, at least when it comes to planning for who is getting playing time in 2013. He’s hit well enough to avoid being a write-off, but he shouldn’t yet be given any kind of starring role in the team’s future plans. Now, you keep around as a curiosity and depth, but you still can’t go into next year with Smoak as the scheduled starter at first base. He hasn’t earned that, even with a really strong finish to the year.
Game 152, Rangers at Mariners
Beavan vs. Harrison, 6:10 pm.
Ackley is out tonight, so we get a little bit improvisatory lineup. Considering that they’re facing a lefty, it’s not bad to give him a day off anyway, and they need to improvise considering that they have yet to find a combination that works against Harrison.
Gutierrez CF-R
Wells RF-R
Seager 2B-L
Montero C-R
Smoak 1B-B
Saunders LF-L
Liddi 3B-R
Jimenez DH-L
Ryan SS-R
Game 151, Rangers at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Martin Perez, 7:10pm
It’s odd when you look forward to playing one of the better teams in baseball, but I’m pretty sick of playing the magical birds from Baltimore. Dave’s post on the in-game strategy is spot on, but it marked the second time in as many days that the M’s made completely bizarre moves in the late innings. Wedge hasn’t excelled in in-game strategy, but he also hasn’t been shockingly, aggressively bad either. Couple an entire series’ worth of ill-timed, ill-fated bunts, Jasoless pinch-hitting and the stolen base call, then add it to an errant pick-off throw that somehow didn’t hurt the Orioles after it plunked the first base coach in the gut and rolled back to the first basemen and the conclusion is clear: the Orioles are actually magic. The Rangers are merely excellent at baseball; the Orioles are excellent at conjuring and mind-control. No contest.
The Rangers come in on a high after two solid wins over their rivals, the Angels. They haven’t mathematically clinched anything, but the AL West race is essentially over. CoolStandings and Baseball Prospectus have the Rangers playoff odds at 99.9% and 100%, respectively. It’s in that context that the Rangers turn to 21-year old lefty Martin Perez, who replaces Scott Feldman and will make his 4th MLB start tonight. Perez has been a prospect so long, Baseball America may name its top 100 list after him. Despite great stuff – a good curve ball, a solid change-up, above average velocity – Perez tended to disappoint statistically, especially in the high minors. He seemed like a classic tools-prospect bust; a guy lingering on prospect lists out of inertia. This was especially true after his May start at Cheney Stadium in which he gave up 7 runs in two atrocious innings. At that point, his fastball was in the 89-92 range, and his change wasn’t good enough to fool minor-league righthanders.
Injuries forced him to the Rangers not long after, but I had him down in my own mind as the Rangers’ version of Carlos Triunfel, a prospect who was famous for being a prospect as opposed to someone who could help the big club win. Now, several months into his career as a bullpen lefty/spot starter, he’s been far better than I would have thought. He hasn’t been excellent, but his stuff’s better than it was, with 92-94mph fastballs and a better curve. In recent appearances, the velocity’s down a tad, but he’s still a far sight better than he was in May. He uses a four-seam fastball (primarily to lefties) and a two-seamer/sinker (to righties) both around 92-93mph, along with a curve in the 75mph range and a change-up at 83mph. Like many, he uses the change more to right-handers and uses the curve (and a rare slider) on lefties. The change isn’t actually his put-away pitch; he uses it more when he’s behind in the count. This may indicate that he’s more confident in his control with the pitch, as walks have been a problem for him for years.
Perez shows clear, persistent platoon splits, so the M’s need to get right-handers some at-bats tonight. Over the past two years in the minors, he put up a 3.29 FIP vs. lefties and a 4.42 FIP against righties. He’s walked more right-handed batters than he’s K’d, and his overall line would look worse if his BABIP regressed towards the mean, so this is a good match-up for someone like Casper Wells and Jesus Montero. Of course, Perez just faced the M’s a week ago and dominated them, so who knows. He faced a middle of the order on that day that included Seager, Jaso, Saunders and Thames, so that certainly helped.
Iwakuma’s looking to finish the season strong after a bad game against Oakland and mixed results in Texas last week. His velocity’s surprisingly unchanged for a pitcher coming off injury and pitching more frequently; his last start in Texas looked low, but the pitch fx velo numbers seem consistently low there. Still, this is a great test – playing a good line-up for the second time in as many weeks. He faced the Angels twice in about 3 weeks, and shut them out for 7 innings the second time, so it’s not like other teams automatically ‘book’ him. He’s a crafty pitcher who’s ability to learn from the hitters and adapt to them has been more impressive than his splitter.
The line-up:
1: Ackley
2: Gutierrez
3: Seager
4: Montero (DH)
5: Smoak
6: Saunders
7: Olivo (C)
8: Wells
9: Triunfel
SP: Iwakuma
Another Possible Option for Jesus Montero
A little over a month ago, I noted that the progression of John Jaso and Mike Zunino meant that there was no real reason to continue pretending like Jesus Montero had a future as a catcher in this organization. Projecting him as a regular catcher was always a big reach anyway, and now that the Mariners had better options both now and in the future, the decision to convert him into a first baseman seems obvious. The Mariners don’t have any real first base prospects in the organization, and Montero’s lack of athleticism could be somewhat hidden at the easiest spot on the field to defend. There’s also some hope that allowing him to just focus on hitting, rather than futilely trying to improve his defense behind the plate, might speed up the development of his offense.
So, given the configuration of talent in the organization, making Montero the regular first baseman for 2013 seems to be the obvious move. However, there’s a less obvious option that might actually be better for the organization – trade him.
No, this isn’t simply a reaction to Montero’s disappointing 2012 season. I’m not suggesting that any 22-year-old who doesn’t immediately come to the big leagues and tear the cover off the ball is a bust, or that we can definitively say that Montero isn’t going to become what the team envisioned when they acquired him last winter. I will suggest, however, that Montero isn’t as close to becoming that hitter as they had hoped, and now that it’s clear that he has no future as a catcher in Seattle, perhaps his particular skillset is a better fit for another organization.
Last January, I wrote a post over at FanGraphs about the career paths that similar hitting prospects over the last 20 years have taken. Using a few different variables, we came up with two dozen guys who had reached the Majors at an early age by bashing their way through the minor leagues, and the good news was that a good chunk of the had gone on to become really terrific Major League hitters. The bad news was that the majority of them just became above average hitters, though, and Montero’s minor league performances were closer to the guys at the lower end of the spectrum rather than the higher end.
Well, we now have an extra year of information, and we can reevaluate where Montero stands relative to those comparisons through his age-22 season. 22 of the 24 comparisons on the list had some MLB experience by age 22; just Chipper Jones (blew out his knee as a rookie) and Mike Piazza (didn’t reach the Majors until age 23) don’t really offer us any additional information to compare to Montero’s first full year (plus his brief debut last year) as a big leaguer. So, below is a table of where Montero fits in the list of those players, with their total Major League performance through their age-22 season.
| Name | PA | BB% | K% | ISO | BABIP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alex Rodriguez | 2,271 | 7% | 17% | 0.229 | 0.341 | 0.313 | 0.364 | 0.543 | 135 |
| Miguel Cabrera | 1,716 | 9% | 21% | 0.223 | 0.343 | 0.300 | 0.366 | 0.523 | 131 |
| Ben Grieve | 786 | 13% | 19% | 0.169 | 0.346 | 0.291 | 0.389 | 0.460 | 125 |
| Juan Gonzalez | 1,390 | 6% | 21% | 0.235 | 0.278 | 0.259 | 0.308 | 0.494 | 119 |
| B.J. Upton | 914 | 10% | 26% | 0.162 | 0.362 | 0.280 | 0.356 | 0.442 | 113 |
| Justin Upton | 1,728 | 11% | 26% | 0.199 | 0.345 | 0.272 | 0.352 | 0.471 | 111 |
| Prince Fielder | 710 | 9% | 20% | 0.209 | 0.303 | 0.272 | 0.344 | 0.481 | 109 |
| Manny Ramirez | 391 | 11% | 21% | 0.233 | 0.274 | 0.254 | 0.335 | 0.487 | 108 |
| Hank Blalock | 787 | 8% | 18% | 0.200 | 0.309 | 0.282 | 0.340 | 0.482 | 108 |
| Andruw Jones | 1,890 | 10% | 20% | 0.216 | 0.287 | 0.260 | 0.335 | 0.476 | 108 |
| Vladimir Guerrero | 381 | 5% | 11% | 0.176 | 0.302 | 0.293 | 0.339 | 0.469 | 107 |
| Eric Chavez | 1,019 | 11% | 15% | 0.198 | 0.283 | 0.267 | 0.346 | 0.466 | 104 |
| Adrian Beltre | 1,918 | 8% | 16% | 0.160 | 0.298 | 0.270 | 0.335 | 0.430 | 100 |
| Carlos Delgado | 161 | 16% | 29% | 0.221 | 0.247 | 0.214 | 0.354 | 0.435 | 99 |
| Jesus Montero | 582 | 6% | 19% | 0.146 | 0.302 | 0.269 | 0.311 | 0.415 | 98 |
| Shawn Green | 445 | 5% | 17% | 0.203 | 0.295 | 0.268 | 0.306 | 0.471 | 95 |
| Jay Bruce | 839 | 9% | 22% | 0.220 | 0.261 | 0.240 | 0.309 | 0.460 | 94 |
| Delmon Young | 1,435 | 4% | 18% | 0.121 | 0.341 | 0.292 | 0.326 | 0.413 | 94 |
| Vernon Wells | 197 | 5% | 17% | 0.102 | 0.336 | 0.285 | 0.320 | 0.387 | 84 |
| Aramis Ramirez | 613 | 6% | 19% | 0.125 | 0.279 | 0.239 | 0.290 | 0.364 | 65 |
| Andy Marte | 244 | 8% | 21% | 0.163 | 0.240 | 0.204 | 0.270 | 0.367 | 61 |
| Paul Konerko | 247 | 7% | 17% | 0.112 | 0.230 | 0.214 | 0.275 | 0.326 | 60 |
| Karim Garcia | 421 | 6% | 23% | 0.142 | 0.252 | 0.211 | 0.254 | 0.354 | 51 |
The Alex Rodriguez/Miguel Cabrera comparisons were always a little ridiculous, but this illustrates just how far Montero is from those levels. Those guys were already elite sluggers at this point in their career, two of the best hitters in baseball with significant established track records. Of course, not being Rodriguez or Cabrera doesn’t mean there’s no hope, as there were plenty of other guys who weren’t yet what they would become at this same age.
However, note Montero’s placement on the list, especially in the three core skills categories – 17th in walk rate, 13th in strikeout rate, 18th in isolated slugging. While his overall performance relative to league average is basically a tie with Carlos Delgado, Delgado had already shown plate discipline and power, and simply needed to get his strikeouts under control and wait for his BABIP to normalize. Vladimir Guerrero wasn’t a great hitter at 22, but he had the best strikeout rate of anyone on the list and hit for decent power, which is of course the combination that made him so great once he took off. Jay Bruce was basically the same as Delgado, showing significant power but needing refinement in his approach.
Montero hasn’t really set himself apart in any of these areas, so in that way, he’s hanging out with guys like Adrian Beltre, Aramis Ramirez, Paul Konerko, Karim Garcia, and Delmon Young. And, if that’s the kind of career path Montero is on, the Mariners simply can’t count on him taking a huge step forward next year. Aramis Ramirez had a good year at 23, but then regressed back to average-ish the next few years and didn’t establish himself as a consistent offensive threat until age-26. Beltre muddled around until age-25, when he went nuts in his final year with the Dodgers, the kind of production he’s only gotten close to again in his 31-33 seasons. Konerko took a nice step forward at 23 and became a productive player, but didn’t post his first season over +2.5 WAR until age-29. And of course, Young has never turned into anything useful and Garcia was a total bust.
We can talk about the huge years that guys like Vladimir Guerrero, Prince Fielder, and Manny Ramirez had at 23 after being fairly pedestrian the year before, but we have to acknowledge that each of them had shown more offensive promise in the big leagues prior to their breakout season than Montero has to date. Right now, Montero looks a lot more like the guys who took their time developing, and eventually became good hitters in their mid-20s.
The Mariners don’t have several years to wait for Montero to turn into a good hitter, especially not as a first baseman. This is a team that needs production at first base sooner than later, and it’s not clear that Montero is going to hit well enough next year to be a real asset at first base. So, instead of going through another year of growing pains while he transitions to a new position and tries to figure out how to lay off the slider breaking off the outside of the plate, maybe the organization is better off trading him to a team that can afford to be a little more patient and might still see him as a catcher.
While he hasn’t been good behind the plate, he has caught 52 games in the Majors this year without the entire pitching staff falling apart, so it’s certainly possible that another team has upgraded their evaluation of him as a Mike Napoli/Carlos Santana type of catcher, and would be willing to continue to let him develop behind the plate in the hopes of getting a premium bat at a position where those aren’t very common. A team that might be willing to be a little more patient with Montero, accepting the fact that they might need to wait a couple more years for him to turn into the kind of player that he was hyped up to be while in the minors. A team that doesn’t already have an above average big league catcher and probably the best catching prospect in baseball knocking on the door, as the Mariners do.
Maybe a team like the Pirates, the Marlins, the Cubs, or the Mets would want to continue the Montero-as-catcher experiment, and pay for the right to be the one to try and reap the rewards if he sticks behind the plate. Maybe they wouldn’t — I’m totally speculating here — but it only takes one or two teams to think that catcher defense is overrated or that Montero was better than advertised to generate an interesting offer for Jack to consider.
If Montero could net you a package of players that included a young-ish first baseman like Logan Morrison or Ike Davis (and some other stuff, as he clearly has more trade value than either), perhaps the Mariners could use Montero to fill their biggest organizational need without actually using Montero though, and come out with some other useful piece as well. Or, maybe you use Montero to get a player from another team that the Diamondbacks covet and ship that guy to Arizona for Justin Upton. Obviously, without talking to other teams and figuring out if any of them would want to pay for Montero-as-a-catcher, this is all just wild speculation.
But it’s probably the worth making a few phone calls and gauging interest. They obviously don’t have to trade him, as he gives them a first base option for both next year and the future, but my long standing issue with Montero is that the bat doesn’t look special to me as a first baseman, and now the reality of the talent in Seattle is that he has no future as catcher here. But, maybe some other team thinks he still has a future as a catcher, and sees him as a premium young position player in a market where there aren’t very many of those available.
For the Mariners, he’s just a first baseman going forward, and it’s not obvious that the bat is going to make him a good first baseman any time soon. They shouldn’t be anywhere close to giving up on him, but exploring his trade value this winter to see if they can get a comparable young first baseman and some other stuff in return while he still might be viewed as a catcher seems like research worth doing. If everyone else just sees him as a first baseman too, then you just keep him and hope he has a big year in 2013. If someone sees him as a guy who is still worth keeping behind the plate for a while longer, though, then Montero may very well have more value to someone else than he does to the Mariners. And perhaps he’s the chip that gets them the good young hitter that they desperately need.
Just So We’re Clear
In the 10th inning, after Michael Saunders got a leadoff walk, we got the following sequences.
Miguel Olivo vs an RHP, runner on first. No pinch hitter, calls for a bunt, fails.
Casper Wells vs an RHP, runner on first. Trayvon Robinson pinch-hits, Saunders steals second, walk.
Brendan Ryan vs an RHP, runners on first and second. Mike Carp pinch hits, Baltimore counters with LHP, strikeout.
Dustin Ackley vs an LHP, runners on first and second. Walk.
Franklin Gutierrez vs an RHP. No pinch hitter, pop-out.
Instead of pinch hitting for Miguel Olivo with John Jaso, Eric Wedge called for a sacrifice bunt in a 2-0 count. Instead of pinch-hitting Jaso for Casper Wells, Wedge went with Trayvon Robinson. Instead of pinch-hitting Jaso for Brendan Ryan, Wedge went with Mike Carp. Instead of pinch-hitting Jaso for Franklin Gutierrez, Wedge stayed with Gutierrez versus a righty.
At this point, I decided that there was no explanation besides Jaso being hurt or unavailable for some unspecified reason. There’s no way you’d go through that inning with your best hitter on the bench, choose two other pinch-hitters to come in, and then not pinch hit for a right-hander with a right-hander on the mound.
Then, in the 11th inning, now down by two runs, the first two batters reach, and Justin Smoak is allowed to hit versus an RHP. He grounds into a double play. Again, Jaso must be unavailable. After a Michael Saunders walk puts the tying run on base, Wedge finally calls for John Jaso to pinch-hit for Olivo.
And then Saunders is promptly thrown out trying to steal second base. Had he been successful, they likely would have just walked Jaso and pitched to Trayvon Robinson instead.
Yeah, in-game strategy isn’t the only thing managers should be evaluated on, but come on – unless Jaso had diarrhea in the 10th inning and was temporarily unavailable, this was just a disastrous series of decisions by Eric Wedge. Seriously, if you have Jaso available, and you don’t use him in the 10th inning, and then you don’t use him to hit for Smoak in the 11th, and then when you do use him in the 11th, you end the game with a needless SB attempt so he doesn’t get a chance to hit, you screwed up.
We already know Eric Wedge is lousy at evaluating talent. He can’t afford to also be lousy at this kind of stuff too.
Game 150, Orioles at Mariners
King Felix vs. Joe Saunders, 7:10pm
Ok, admit it: who here predicted that Joe Saunders would be an “important trade deadline acquisition” in 2012? By the Orioles?
Felix could use a solid game after a couple of comparative clunkers.
Saunders is a lefty, so that explains Wells reappearance as well as Olivo “DH”ing.
The line-up:
1: Ackley
2: Gutierrez
3: Seager
4: Montero (C)
5: Smoak
6: Saunders
7: Olivo (DH)
8: Wells
9: Ryan
SP: El Rey
Welcome to the 2013 Rotation, Erasmo Ramirez
Forget all the talk about him coming to camp with a chance to compete for a spot in next year’s rotation – Erasmo Ramirez has pitched himself firmly into a spot in the team’s starting five next year. Yeah, we’re dealing with less than 50 big league innings, but come on – a 5/1 K/BB ratio while getting some groundballs and destroying left-handed hitters with an out-pitch change-up?
The Erasmo Ramirez we talked about as a prospect the last few years first threw 86-90, then 88-92, then 90-94. This year, he’s sitting at 93 and hitting 95 in the eighth, as he did tonight. He’s no longer an interesting strike-thrower. With his new found velocity and the movement he’s getting on his change-up, he’s a legitimate Major League starter, and maybe a pretty good one.
Ramirez should get a few more starts before the season wraps up, but he doesn’t have to do anything else to earn a job in next year’s rotation. He’s shown enough this year. He’s in.
Game 149, Orioles at Mariners
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Wei-Yin Chen, 7:10pm
Well, it’s gotta be better than yesterday’s unwatchable contest. How’s that for a game thread introduction? Hey, it’s true. This game is going to be Noesi-free, and I think that makes it easier to get into, despite the playing-out-the-string aspect of it. And if Hector Noesi doesn’t show any improvement, then tonight’s starter is one of the clear beneficiaries. Erasmo Ramirez could be the half-decent #3 we wanted Noesi to be, and Ramirez’s development is one of the few remaining items of interest in Marinerland this month.
Opposing Erasmo is Wei-Yin Chen, the Taiwanese pitcher who came over from the Japanese leagues this season to give the Orioles a crucial, steadying 2-3 win season. The Orioles starting pitchers, especially once Jason Hammel went down, have been bad (not that the M’s have noticed), and Chen’s solid lefty stuff (combined with his durability) is a key reason the Orioles are in a playoff race. He dominated the M’s back on July 3rd, going 7+ and striking out 9 while walking none. The game ended up a contest between bullpens, with Pedro Strop blowing a lead before Charlie Furbush gave up a game-winning HR, but on that day, Chen outpitched King Felix.
He’s uses a good rising four-seam fastball along with a slider and change-up to post slightly better than average K rates and slightly better than average BB rates. He’s given up a fair number of home runs, but he doesn’t have exceptional gopheritis. He’s a solid pitcher who succeeds because he can put himself in pitchers counts. In fact, his splits by count are one of the most interesting things about him. If you just read Dave’s post about John Jaso, you know how important getting ahead is to a hitter. When Chen gets to 0-1, batters post a .244 wOBA and Chen luxuriates in a FIP of 2.54. If he starts 1-0, the story’s a bit different: batters have a .375 wOBA and his FIP’s over 6. Most any pitcher is going to have extreme splits between 0-1 and 1-0, but Chen’s are remarkable. (For the other end of the spectrum, check out Blake Beavan). He’s been successful because he’s able to *get* to 0-1 counts. Go back to his last outing in Seattle – how many batters put a ball in play when they were ahead in the count? Zero. The M’s put 14 balls in play against Chen that day (not including one HR), 3 came on the first pitch of the at-bat, 4 came in even counts, and 7 came in pitcher’s counts. Add those to his 9 strikeouts and it’s pretty clear that Chen was ahead of the M’s all night (2 of the ‘even counts’ were 2-2 counts, where the batter had to expand the zone to avoid a K). If the M’s want to avoid a repeat, they’re going to have to be smart. Don’t let him get first-pitch fastballs over.
Erasmo Ramirez is easily one of the most likeable M’s prospects in a while, and his growth from low-velo control artist to a guy who can hit 95 with some regularity while maintaining solid walk rates is perhaps the M’s player development system’s biggest success story in recent years. Here’s the righty-heavy line-up behind him (at least Jaso will be available as a PH? Right?):
1: Ackley
2: Gutierrez
3: Seager
4: Montero (DH)
5: Saunders
6: Smoak
7: Wells
8: Olivo (C)
9: Ryan
SP: Erasmoooooo