2012 Clinton Lumberkings Preview
I’m going to hit this one up before I have to run to classes and the rest will trickle in as I get time. Sadly, I have a busy week, and really could have used these rosters two days ago, insert meaningful glares and such.
So there have been some changes for the Lumberkings over the offseason. For example, Alliant Energy Field is now Ashford University Field (naming rights!) and Dave Lezotte bounced for the Gwinnett Braves and so now Chad Seely, formerly of the Daytona Cubs, is the “Voice of the Lumberkings”. He’s originally from Wisconsin, so this gets him closer to home I guess. Also of consideration, since the Lake County Captains shifted to the Midwest League not long ago, is that someone may see fit to combat “Moby Dick”, a $20, fifteen-inch sandwich which features fish filets, cheese, clam strips, French Fries, cole slaw, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, tartar sauce, and the threat of myocardial infarction. The Lumberkings won’t be visiting Lake County this year, but one of these years, it could happen. Lord help us, it could happen.
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Cactus League Game 27 – Mariners at Rockies (again)
We’ve finally made it to the end of spring training. It’s minor league opening day eve, and there’s another oddball “real” MLB game tonight, ahead of tomorrow’s opening day for most and Friday’s “did we forget anyone?” opening day redux.
The M’s will send Hector Noesi to the hill in what’s actually a fairly interesting game for the presumptive #3 starter. With Charlie Furbush and Erasmo Ramirez in the bullpen (one in Tacoma and one in Seattle). If they lose a starter, it won’t take long for one of them to get stretched out, but you’d think one of the 6th or 7th starters would be…starting somewhere.
The Rainiers roster is finally set after this morning’s moves, and Mike Curto’s got a list of what to watch for here, ahead of tomorrow evening’s opener against Salt Lake.
High Desert kicks off tomorrow as well, and the High Desert Daily Press has a great interview with new manager (and last year’s Minor League Coordinator) Pedro Grifol.
Jackson’s roster’s the one everyone will focus on thanks to the presence of Paxton, Walker, Hultzen and Franklin – but it’s under-the-radar command pitcher Andrew Carraway who’ll get the ball on opening day. According to Chris Harris, it’l be Carraway, then Paxton, then Brandon Maurer, then Hultzen and then Taijuan Walker. That means high-ceiling prospect Carter Capps will start in the pen for Jackson, fresh off his eye-opening inning in a big league game last week. I know a lot of us were eager to see what he could do as a starter, but he could move very quickly as a late-game reliever.
Here’s the line-up for the final game of the second phase of spring training. Yes, yes, it started a while ago. Oops.
1: Figgins (LF)
2: Ackley (2B)
3: Suzuki (RF)
4: Smoak (1B)
5: Seager (3B)
6: Ryan (SS)
7: Saunders (CF)
8: Wells (DH)
9: Jaso (C)
Sp: Noesi
M’s Option Furbush, probably Peguero
The Mariners haven’t officially announced just announced their final two moves to get down to a 25 man roster before Friday’s opener, and Charlie Furbush and Carlos Peguero are going to join Shawn Kelley down in Tacoma, which will leave open roster spots for Rule 5 LHP Lucas Luetge and 3B Alex Liddi.
Luetge isn’t a surprise, as he pitched well during the spring and the team obviously saw something they liked when they added him over the winter. The shift here is Liddi making the team, as this is essentially the fallout from Mike Carp landing on the DL.
With Liddi apparently making the team, the plan appears to be to move Chone Figgins to left field in Carp’s absence. Essentially, the team is choosing to give Kyle Seager playing time instead of Casper Wells, which is probably a direct result of their spring training performances. With Figgins in LF, they wanted another third baseman on the roster, so Liddi will backup/platoon with Seager at third, and Wells will remain in the fourth OF role even with Carp on the DL.
It will be interesting to see how the team handles Carp’s return, given this change. With Seager getting regular playing time to start the season, he probably has a chance to take the starting job and run with it. If he’s hitting .300 with some doubles and triples mixed in, they’re not going to stick him back on the bench, and Wedge has been pretty adamant that Carp was going to get regular playing time this year.
So, my guess is that this means that Figgins now has about 7-10 days to show something in order to maintain his hold on a starting job. If Seager struggles out of the gate, he might get a little bit longer of a leash, but Carp’s injury opens up the door for Seager to take some playing time that probably was going to go to Figgins had Carp stayed healthy.
Nothing’s set in stone, and I’d imagine Wedge will probably still mix-and-match some, but with Liddi making the team, I think Seager’s hold on the third base job just got a little bit stronger. Also, it means we won’t have to watch Carlos Peguero, which is nice.
Cactus League Game 26 – Mariners at Rockies
First things first – the M’s made the first of three roster moves ahead of tomorrow’s deadline by optioning Shawn Kelley to AAA. This is something of a surprise, as I think most of us thought he was safe. He put up decent numbers this spring, but his fastball’s still not back where it was in 2010. In fact, it’s not back where it was last year, when he was coming off of partial Tommy John surgery. It’s gone from 94 mph in 2009 to 93mph in 2010 to 91.5 last year to a tick under 91 this spring. That’s not entirely fair, as Kelley’s velo would presumably be higher later in the year, but it’s obviously not where the M’s wanted it. Jack Zduriencik explained the reasoning to Greg Johns here.
Felix Hernandez mentioned the fact that he was in fact throwing a cutter yesterday in a post-game Q and A with reporters. I wouldn’t say he has a good feel for the pitch yet and the FB velocity drop is still perplexing, but it’s hard to quibble with yesterday’s results. A part of me is stunned that Felix can be effective at 89-90, even in a Cactus League game, but a larger part of me is no longer capable of being surprised by the myriad ways Felix can be awesome.
Jesus Montero’s fine.
The full-season minor league affiliates kick off their 2012 season on Thursday – all four are at home. If you’re local, Tacoma’s taking on Salt Lake (Angels) – it’ll be a good opportunity to check out Catricala, Carlos Triunfel and Chance Ruffin. If you’re near Jackson, Tennessee, one of the big three pitching prospects figures to get the opening day start. Hell, Jackson’s one of most intriguing minor league affiliates in baseball this year. High Desert hosts Lancaster (Houston), while Clinton hosts Burlington (Athletics).
Erasmo Ramirez gets a spot start today, which (together with Kelley’s demotion) solidifies his presence on the 25 man roster. It’d be odd to pitch him today if he was going to head to Tacoma tomorrow, and taking a righty out of the pen would seem to make the remaining righties pretty safe. Alex Liddi and Charlie Furbush figure to be the other two sent down. It’s just nice to see Erasmo get longer outings, as he figures to be the team’s de facto #6 starter.
The line-up for today’s game (on 710am/Mariners Radio and Root Sports tv):
1: Kawasaki (SS)
2: Ackley (2B)
3: Seager (3B)
4: Olivo (C)
5: Saunders (CF)
6: Liddi (1B)
7: Peguero (RF)
8: Wells (LF)
9: Jaso (DH)
SP: Ramirez
Go M’s.
Cactus League Game #25: Moyers at Felixes
This is a spring training game. This is a spring training game that, improbably, takes place after the M’s have played two regular season games, and after they’ve played two additional Cactus League games since returning in a sea of viruses. We’ve heard reports that Franklin Gutierrez was near returning, but he hasn’t and won’t today. There’s just about no way that this could capture your attention. Unless….
There’s a line-up for this game, but it’s of lesser importance. This game is just one joke, repeated for 4-5 innings. That’s actually OK; this joke happens to be fairly amusing. The avuncular looking man pictured above, grinning and holding a baseball as if describing it to a first-grade class, has made the Rockies rotation after a great spring. Moyer was the oldest active player when the M’s sent him east in 2006. He told everyone that he would rehab from Tommy John surgery and come back better than ever, and while no one would’ve wished him ill, I don’t think many thought this was possible. Opposing him is Felix Hernandez, another one of the three best M’s hurlers ever. Tune in at 1; I believe this one’s on ROOT sports, as well as 710am/Mariners Radio/MLB Gameday audio/etc.
The line-up of lesser importance:
1: Figgins (LF)
2: Ryan (SS)
3: Ichiro! (RF)
4: Smoak (1B)
5: Montero (C)
6: Wells (CF)
7: Peguero (DH)
8: Liddi (3B)
9: Kawasaki (2B)
SP: King Felix
Cactus League Game 24, Royals at Mariners
Last night’s game sure was a hoot. Some things I took away from erratically listening to the broadcast:
1) People were impressed with Brad Miller’s defense, which leads me to think that they may have fixed his throwing mechanics.
2) Chris Gwynn was talking minor leaguers for a while and mentioned that Guillermo Pimentel had won their “Control the Zone” award, which probably had something to do with the strikezone. This is interesting insofar as I look at Pimentel as being a bit of a hacker and not especially coachable, so, positives?
Larry Stone is reporting that, post-flight, the sick list is growing, with Ackley, Peguero, Saunders, and Sherrill all heading home with some kind of illness. And the regular season starts on Friday! I would hope that everyone’s recovered by then. Speaking of Stone’s work, I believe the season preview is up in the Times today.
LF Figgins
SS Kawasaki
RF Ichiro!
1B Smoak
DH Montero
C Olivo
2B Seager
3B Liddi
CF Wells
P Beavan
This one’s on TV and radio at 1 pm, as will be the next three games. Have at you.
Cactus League Game 23, Padres at Mariners
I think somewhere in the Cactus League rulebook, there’s something that says that in any given game, so as not to disappoint the fans, x number of “starters” must appear so that a sense of decency can be maintained. The Mariners, returning from Japan maddened by fame and sleep deprivation, have decided that the rules no longer apply to them. The Padres will be sending out a split squad, and will find themselves adhering to that starter quota, but oh, what they have in store for them, friends…
CF Denny Almonte
LF Daniel Carroll
SS Brad Miller
1B Rich Poythress
2B Stefen Romero
3B Mario Martinez
DH Joe Dunigan
C Jesus Sucre
RF James Jones
RHP Kevin Millwood
What I like best about this lineup is how the outfielders go in order from right to left as the lineup turns over and how the basemen do the same in the heart of the order. There are some things that make sense in this, like Carroll being a decent on-base presence as the #2 hitter and Poythress, Martinez, and to a lesser extent, Romero possessing some power for the middle of the lineup, but overall it looks like an arbitrary order was imposed without consideration for what might work best.
And we even have reserves! Johan Limonta, Jamal Austin, John Hicks, Mike Dowd, Leury Bonilla, and Scott Savastano could all see time. The bullpen will be Bobby LaFromboise, Brian Sweeney, Carter Capps, Stephen Pryor, and Tyler Burgoon. This is almost entirely meaningless to anyone but me!
Tune in at 6 pm for this particular brand of madness.
News and Links for a Very Strange 3/30 [updated]
Sooooo, uh, more spring training anyone? Here’s the downside of having the team set a 28/25 man roster early: Spring training games that are pretty meaningless anyway now even less riding on them. Woo! The team faces San Diego tomorrow night in a game that will probably feature none of the jet-lagged players who made the trip to Tokyo. All of you who’ve been clamoring for another look at Kevin Millwood will be thrilled, but this will be a game made up of the M’s 4th starter backed by a team who have no shot at the 2012 roster.
Thankfully, there’s a lot going on in Marinerland:
1: According to Shannon Drayer, Franklin Gutierrez has been cleared to resume all baseball activities. It’ll be interesting to see how they work him back in, but this is the one thing that might make the next few “games” worth watching.
2: The M’s team blog From the Corner of Edgar and Dave has been doing the internet a great service by posting some box scores of the minor league games that have been going on for a few weeks (and which actually wrap up today). Of note, Carlos Triunfel’s hitting well, Carter Capps has been used as a reliever, Taijuan Walker had a so-so outing (gasp!).
3: One recent High Desert box score stood out – the game featured a reliever named Wes Alsup who pitched alongside 2011 Clinton closer Tyler Burgoon and 2011 HD closer Willy Kesler. Who’s Alsup? He pitched in the independent Northern League in 2010 and while his stats weren’t eye-popping, they were enough to get him a taste of affiliated ball with the Braves low-A team. Nine uninspired games later, he was released and he headed back to the indie leagues, this time with the Windy City Thunderbolts. He was wild, but also, well, this: IP: 34 Ks: 61. I know, I know, it’s the Frontier League – who knows what that means. But it seems that something changed – he had a so-so K rate in the Northern League and walked about as many as he struck out. Having had some success with a reliever from the indie leagues years ago, the M’s signed him in January.
I thought he must be a deceptive-delivery, mid-80s junkballer, but apparently that’s not the case. Jason Parks of BP was down in Peoria recently and saw Alsup’s appearance in a minor-league game. He reported that he sat at 95mph with his fastball, touched 97, and featured a very slider slider from 86-89. Now I’m intrigued. Again, this is a 25-year old who’s pitched one-quarter of a season in low-A, and did poorly enough that it got him cut. His command issues aren’t solved or anything as he still walked quite a few in the Frontier League, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for his name in the box scores when the season starts. Don’t know for sure if he’ll be with High Desert when the season starts; rosters haven’t been finalized yet.
4: While nothing’s official, it sounds like the M’s will have Taijuan Walker, Danny Hultzen and James Paxton start the year together in AA Jackson. This allows the 19-year old Walker to avoid the video-game run environment of High Desert and the chance to learn from the two lefty prospects. Walker’s not the only teenage uber-prospect to hit AA, as the Rangers will apparently send SS Jurickson Profar to the AA Texas League. I’d quibble about the M’s having to move AA leagues, but I think Profar and Walker will face each other plenty down the road.
High Desert’s a problem, but it’s not the only spot teams are loathe to send prospects. Here’s a story speculating that the Arizona Diamondbacks may start Trevor Bauer in AA to avoid homer-happy Reno, their AAA affiliate (hat tip: Mike Curto). Bauer was the inspiration for this great piece at Fangraphs this morning, which has nothing to do with anything, but it’s worth your time anyway. It’s basically impossible to root against Bauer at this point.
5: Fangraphs Org rankings are back for 2012, and the M’s have tumbled to #23. Better than Oakland (#28), but a chasm now separates the top two teams from the bottom two. The M’s quartet of pitching prospects could help close it, though Texas in particular has an extremely deep farm system of its own. The M’s need to develop some position players, particularly at CF and SS. Nick Franklin’s great, but he’s not closing the gap by himself. A renegotiated TV deal will help the M’s address the financial divide in the AL West (at a cost of higher cable fees for fans), but the M’s really need to identify and develop talent the way Texas is.
6: Here’s a great article on A’s Special Assistant to the GM (and ex-University of Puget Sound and UW coach) Grady Fuson, who addresses his portrayal in the book/movie “Moneyball” and what really went on in the A’s draft room in 2001 and 2002.
7: The M’s have the honor of facing Japanese sensation Yu Darvish in his MLB debut on April 9th. Larry Stone’s blog post echoes Ichiro’s classic quote before he faced Daisuke Matsuzaka in the latter’s home debut in Boston.
8: Kevin Goldstein’s AL West Prospect Preview‘s up at Baseball Prospectus ($). Of note, the player he thinks could make the majors this year is Forrest Snow who could move quickly as a reliever. He’s also high on Francisco Martinez who’s been hitting very well in the minor league games.
[UPDATE – 10:20pm]
9? – As many of you know, Michael Pineda’s got rocked by the Phillies in his Grapefruit league start today amid rumors that he’d begin the year in AAA. Then things got worse – he’s now got a sore shoulder and now the rumors involve things like MRIs. I think (thought?) Pineda was amazing, and I have to admit my first reaction to the big trade was feeling like I’d been punched in the kidneys. I don’t take any joy in hearing of his struggles, but I can admit there’s something weirdly satisfying about “winning” a trade; about feeling like the M’s pulled one over on another team. Jeff’s post at Lookout Landing beautifully explores the weird psychology of fandom and the way trades in particular make things more binary, more Manichean somehow.
Late March M’s Roundtable with Jay and Marc
I sent 10 questions to Jay last week, and while it would’ve been timelier to get this posted before opening day, we’ve still got some spring training and 160 regular season games to go. I’d love to do these throughout the year, and if you’ve got any burning M’s-related questions, feel free to suggest some.
1: The M’s roster’s set. Which player is going to surprise us this season? Who’s going to blow their projection out of the water?
JAY: In a pick that will surprise robots and fans that don’t pay that much attention to spring training (why should they when there’s ’round the clock Peyton Manning coverage?), I’m thinking this is Saunders’ year. The new swing is doing stuff for him that we simply haven’t seen before and the anecdotal evidence from camp seems positive. I don’t expect him to be the most productive hitter on the team or anything, but he’ll get the job done often enough to where we start to wonder about where to put him when Guti comes back. I also believe that Ichiro is not quite done yet, but his positive returns will lead to the usual “contract year” jackassery.
Me: Hard to argue with that, though given the offensive projections for the M’s, we’re not exactly starved for choice. Justin Smoak’s probably the other obvious one, and I think he’ll exceed his projected wOBA easily, though I don’t think he’s ready to become the star that M’s fans want him to be just yet. Ackley’s in a similar situation, where his projections are really pretty low, and fan expectation (at least that I’ve encountered) is really high – like elite, franchise-player high. I think we’re going to have a few “good” years before we get there. I think Charlie Furbush annihilates his (crappy) FIP projection, though of course this has as much to do with him changing role as anything. That’s a whole lot of non-answers, so for an answer-answer, I’ll go with Kyle Seager, who’s got a CAIRO-projected wOBA of .291 and a ZIPS-projected wOBA of .306. If he gets consistent playing time, which may be tough to do in April/May, I think he can comfortably exceed that.
2: Who’s going to disappoint? Either by producing at a lower clip than projected, or by disappointing fan expectations?
J: I like Casper Wells as an amusing human being, but I don’t know that he’s the solution in left any more than the previous attempts at filling the position. As far as disappointing fan projections, I think that anyone expecting Montero to hit 30+ bombs out of the gate might be hoping a bit much. Carp might be regarded as an easy target (like shooting fish in a…), but he’s been a different hitter in each of the past three seasons he’s played and I’ve given up on trying to make sense of him. Brendan Ryan may hit better if he’s healthy, but he still won’t approach his 2009 levels of production.
M: Good answers. I’ve got to go with Carp, more for the fan expectation thing. As you mention, Mike Carp’s transformed himself and his approach over the past few years, and he’s much better than I thought possible at this time last year. That’s awesome, but the high BABIP and K rate seem to portend some regression. In an about-face from his pre-2011 career, he started pounding lefties in Tacoma and then kept it up in Seattle. In his small-sample MLB call-up, he was much better against lefties than righties. Of course, this is the number we’d regress heavily given the tiny sample. I think Carp’s given himself the right to a job and the opportunity to prove that he’s figured out lefties, but the risk of a sub-par season’s pretty high. [Ed.: We did this before the season started; now it just looks like I’m kicking Carp while he’s down.]
3: Which M’s prospect take a big step forward this year? Who’s the sleeper in the M’s system who’s going to break out in 2012?
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All-Time WAR Leaderboard for Players Who Share a Name with a Wine Grape Variety
Yesterday morning’s losing pitcher, Andrew Carignan, has a mid 90s fastball, and the surname of a lesser-known Rhone varietal that’s often blended with syrah or grenache. This is odd, to say the least, and can be problematic for people like me who tend to see these coincidences as yet another reason to imbibe. It’s not unprecedented, however. There have been several players who share a name with a vinifera grape varietal who’ve made an appearance in professional baseball, but only two have achieved anything approaching fame.
Cotton “Cot” Tierney was an infielder with the Pirates, Braves and Dodgers (Robins, technically) who, despite a few very good years, is remembered today mostly for the website named in his honor, Cot’s Contracts, which collects salary data on MLB players. Cot is also the original name of the Malbec grape, which was developed ages ago in Cahors and Bordeaux, but achieved success as a varietal much later when transplanted in Argentina. Tierney’s career was cut short due to injury, and Cot (the grape) is similarly susceptible to rot, disease and frost.
Joe Charboneau burst on to the scene as a 27 year old rookie with the Indians in 1980. He won the AL Rookie of the year following a 23 HR, .289/.258/.488 season for the Tribe, then quickly faded into obscurity, playing only 70 more MLB games before calling it quits. “Super Joe” was perhaps more famous for his off-field antics, including opening beer bottles with his eye sockets and eating cigarettes. Before his baseball career, he was an enterprising prize fighter, boxing for $25 wherever he could – a habit that led to several arrests and a life-long penchant for bar fights, the latest of which occurred just over two years ago. In an eerie echo of Tierney, the grape varietal known as Charbono or Charbonneau – which arose in France but wasn’t widely cultivated – thrived in Argentina, where, under the name Bonarda, it became the second most widely planted varietal after Cot/Malbec.
Carignan represents the second wave of vinifera baseball talents to hit the major leagues. In addition to the A’s righty, there’s Antonio Bastardo of Philadelphia who shares a name with a Portuguese varietal, and Russ Canzler, whose surname is awfully close to the German white wine varietal, Kanzler. Carignan, the varietal, is often referred to as “full bodied” and “rustic.” What adjectives come to mind when you look at Andrew Carignan, reader? Bastardo is most often used in port, and Antonio Bastardo is a port-sider. Russ Canzler was basically unknown before Dirk Hayhurst called attention to his exploits, and until he won the International League’s MVP in 2011. You’d never heard of Kanzler until this paragraph.
Bastardo’s got the early lead, having put up a solid 0.7 WAR with a gaudy ERA and win total last year. Canzler caught on with the Indians, and is in a fight for the LF job with Shelley Duncan. Carignan and his 95 mph fastball hopes to have better games than today/yesterday’s in Tokyo. Will one of these three challenge Tierney’s all-time WAR lead? Will one of them post a 2+ WAR season like Charboneau? Will they achieve lasting success an ocean away, say, in Japan? It’s too early to tell, but I’ll be watching closely.
The All-Time WAR Leaderboard:
1: Cot Tierney, 7.1
2: Joe Charboneau, 2.3
3: Antonio Bastardo, 1.1
4: Andrew Carignan, 0.0
5: Russ Canzler, 0.0
Notes:
1: I’ve excluded two named after varietals even more obscure than Kanzler – Kevin Flora of the Phillies and the delightfully named Colonel “Bosco” Snover who played 2 games in 1919. Both of them amassed negative WAR, so I don’t feel too bad about it.
2: How about the minor leagues, you ask? Yes, there are a number who never made the majors, including Primitivo Molina and what is quite possibly the most wine-drenched name in baseball, Henry Madera Graciano.
3: What about players named after hop varietals? Well, like wine varietals there are a few who never made the bigs, but the career MLB WAR leaderboard includes just one name: ex-Mariner Sterling Hitchcock. By fWAR, Hitchcock’s racked up 12.2 WAR, which is comfortably more than the total WAR earned by the wine-players. Score one for beer, I guess. By rWAR, Hitchcock drops to 7 WAR, but Tierney’s down to 4 and Charboneau’s only at 1.1.
4: Feel free to add in others that I missed in the comments. If there was a player named Fuggles, I’d love to know about it.