Game 143, Royals at Mariners
Looks like no thread went up for last night’s exciting Furbush vs. Williams pitching match-up/Liddi’s debut. Whoops.
Hochevar vs. Vargas
The 2005 draft gets a lot of press for being that time when everything went right for everyone but the Mariners and the Cubs (Mark Pawelek!) and valuable players were had by most. People don’t talk about the ’06 draft in the same way, for a number of reasons. Hochevar was supposed to set an uncomfortable precedent by going back to the independent leagues instead of signing with the Dodgers and then pitching himself into first overall. To date, Brandon Morrow accumulated more WAR as a Mariner than Hochevar has over nearly six hundred innings with the Royals.
Greg Reynolds, who went second to the Rockies, was a polished pitcher with good stuff who was thought to be able to move quickly because he had great command of his heater and solid secondary offerings. To date, he’s logged fewer than a hundred innings in the majors and has had a negative WAR. Brad Lincoln, another top five prospect who was regarded as near major league ready, went to the Pirates and had an oblique injury and TJ postpone his debut until June of last season. His positive contibutions this year haven’t yet negated the negative ones from the previous season, and he’s struggling to strike batters out at a reasonable clip. And who could forget that Andrew Miller, the top ranked prospect by most, dropped to the Tigers due to his demands, was traded twice, and now has parts of six seasons in the majors where at no time has he been a positive contributor. Also the Orioles drafted Billy Rowell. This guy.
Morrow was picked over the local guy who went on to make good. In a sense, even if he had done well for us, he probably would have always been regarded as getting in the way of a more obvious pick. But for all his struggles here, he turned out way better than a lot of the guys selected early in that draft.
RF Ichiro!
SS Ryan
2B Ackley
LF Carp
1B Smoak
DH Kennedy
3B Seager
CF Robinson
C Jimenez
Minor League Wrap (8/29-9/5/11)
I couldn’t think of any special matter to cover in the final intro, especially considering that we only have one squad headed to the playoffs, so I’ll just drop the note that we had three guys named Pitcher of the Week by their respective leagues and then get to it. Some of the write-ups for certain guys this week are rather long, so break it up if you have to. I know I had to take breaks when writing it!
To the jump!
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Game 141, Mariners at Angels
Happy Felix Day! The six-man rotation (may it die a swift and terrible death) means that even when the schedule has you facing the same team twice in a row, your pitching opponent will be different. So instead of the fine Felix vs. Dan Haren matchup we enjoyed last week, this time it has to be Felix against Ervin Santana.
Another thought to consider – we already have seven-man bullpens, imagine if the six-man rotation caught on too. You’d need more than half of your roster for the pitching staff, and you’d be left with absolutely no bench. Once you make sure you’re carrying the standard three catchers, there’s room for literally one guy, who apparently has to be able to somewhat capably play all of the positions in the field. Wait, I see a market opportunity for Chone Figgins! (And don’t tell me you can cut down on the bullpen if you go with a six-man rotation. The deeper you have to dredge to find starters, the crummier they will be, and you’ll need that bullpen more than ever.)
RF-L Ichiro
SS-R Ryan
2B-L Ackley
DH-L Carp
1B-B Smoak
C-R Olivo
3B-L Seager
LF-B Robinson
CF-L Saunders
Let’s Talk About Alex Liddi
Yesterday, the Mariners made semi-history when they promoted Alex Liddi to the Majors. While there have been other Italian born Major Leaguers, Liddi is the first in a long time to actually have been raised in Italy, as the Mariners signed him as a 17-year-old after scouting him internationally. Because of his power and the organization’s overall lack of that particular skill, he’s gotten a decent amount of attention as a prospect, and I’m sure many of you are hoping to see him play quite a bit in September.
Personally, I hope we don’t see too terribly much of Liddi this month, because I’d argue that regardless of what happens this month, he needs to spend 2012 back in Tacoma. I know it’s tempting to look at the 30 home runs he hit for the Rainiers and hope that he could provide some thump from the third base position for next year and the future, but when you look at the context of the PCL this year, Liddi didn’t actually have that great of a season.
For the season, he hit .259/.332/.488, good for an .821 OPS. The average hitter in the PCL this year hit .286/.359/.448, good for an .807 OPS. Always a good hitters league, this year the PCL was the best offensive environment to be found anywhere in the sport. Four teams averaged in excess of six runs per game, and only two averaged less than five. It was just a great year to be a hitter in the Pacific Coast League.
When you adjust for context, Liddi’s overall offensive performance simply isn’t all that impressive. He showed no real improvement in his ability to make contact, and a 27% strikeout rate in Triple-A is a legitimate concern. While he’s more selective than a guy like Carlos Peguero, often times an inability to make contact with minor league stuff indicates a more serious issue that can be exploited at the Major League level.
While Liddi made significant strides with the glove this year, he’s still a guy whose value will be tied to well he hits in the big leagues. Right now, there’s not much of a reason to think he’s ready to hit big league pitching.
If he gets regular playing time in September, there are basically two potential outcomes – he performs well and generates unrealistic expectations about his potential ability to contribute to the 2012 roster, or he struggles mightily and loses some of the sheen from what is (at least on the surface) a pretty successful 2011 campaign. Either outcome is probably not in the organization’s best interests.
Liddi is young enough to still have time to improve on his weaknesses and potentially develop into a useful big league player, but he’s just not there yet. Giving him regular playing time down the stretch will likely either generate unfair expectations or harm his confidence, and I’d rather avoid both of those outcomes.
Let him play once a week, use him in blowouts, and give him a taste of the Major Leagues. But, the best use of playing time at third base is still to continue to evaluate Kyle Seager on a daily basis, and I’d rather not see Liddi take any PT away from a guy who could legitimately fill a role on the 2012 team.
Mysterious happenings
In a duel with fellow trade deadline acquisition Ubaldo Jimenez, Doug Fister struck out 13 Cleveland Indians today. That’s just crazy.
Before this, Fister had never even reached double digits in strikeouts before. He only had more than 7 once in his whole career: that was 9 Orioles on May 30, which happens to be last time he was awarded a win as a Mariner. Let’s just say the Tigers can never complain about the Jarrod Washburn implosion ever again.
Game 140, Mariners at Angels
Haren vs. Vasquez, 6:05 pm
I don’t think that really anyone is looking forward to this. Haren is a talented pitcher. Vasquez has turned in two bad starts and may have finally run into the wall due to his lack of stuff, despite coming up as a pretty good pitcher throughout his minor league tenure. He’ll probably be facing the likes of Trumbo and Trout, and Trout hit him up pretty bad last time around. This is probably going to be unpleasant.
This is also the final regular season day of minor league action, with Jackson (4-8 loss), High Desert (10-0 victory), and Clinton (9-3 victory) already final and Tacoma still playing at the moment. I’m not holding out hope or anything, but if Liddi homers again today, he’ll have thirty on the season, and who doesn’t love round numbers? The Mariners are holding out on calling up any additional players from Tacoma until they’ve finished their game, which means that sometime in the later innings we’ll likely get word of exhausted-looking outfielders stumbling into the dugout after a day game and then a flight to Los Angeles.
RF Ichiro!
SS Ryan
2B Ackley
LF Carp
DH Smoak
1B Kennedy
3B Seager
C Bard
CF Robinson
Game 139, Mariners at A’s
Cahill vs. Beavan, 1:05 pm
Back when Beavan was first called up, I think the immediate comparisons made for him were to Doug Fister. Both are giants, had great command of fastballs unimpressive in velocity, didn’t really have other signature pitches, but got by on throwing strikes without actually striking dudes out and inducing some groundballs here and there. So how’s that comparison working out now?
Fister 2009: 61.0 IP, 14.1% Ks, 5.9% BB, 19.9% LD, 41.3% GB, 38.8% FB, 14.1% HR/FB, 5.10 FIP, 4.43 xFIP, 5.28 tERA, 4.11 ERA
Beavan 2011: 65.2 IP, 9.1% Ks, 3.7% BB, 23.3% LD, 39.7% GB, 37.1% FB, 11.6% HR/FB, 4.83 FIP, 4.46 xFIP, 5.56 tERA, 4.11 ERA
What we’ve seen so far with Beavan is a guy who is even more extreme on the balls in play than Fister, striking out and walking fewer batters overall. There has been more solid contact with him, chipping away from the groundball and flyball totals, but so far as the ERA-styled stuff is concerned (disclosure: I rarely use the advanced stuff, and have no idea if I’m using it well), they’re appreciably close to being the same overall value out of the gate. Now, Fister actually added some velocity, about a mile and a half on the fastball, from the time he got promoted and slowly shifted from relying on his change-up as a secondary offering to using the slider a lot. Beavan relies even more on the fastball than Fister did (68% to Fister’s 61.4%) and has yet to show any real preference for an offspeed pitch, but he does have better life on the fastball at present (90.7 to Fister’s 88.2 back in the day) and his high school days of throwing 96 have led to rumors that he’s back to throwing at least 92-3 during just about every spring training for the past few years. Where Beavan goes from here, if he goes down that same path Fister did or does something else, I don’t know quite yet, but we can hope that he’ll keep eating innings for us in the meantime.
RF Ichiro!
CF Gutierrez
2B Ackley
DH Carp
1B Smoak
C Olivo
3B Seager
LF Wells
SS Rodriguez
Game 138, Mariners at A’s
Update: Since it’s Labor Day weekend, posting may be kind of light. Feel free to use this as a game thread for Sunday’s and Monday’s games if we don’t get separate posts up for those.
Pineda vs. McCarthy, 1:05.
Smoak is back in the field today. Since Smoak has been thought of as a better prospect than Carp, it was assumed that he would block Carp, which is a big reason why Carp was ever tried in the outfield. That apparently motivated some of Carp’s improved conditioning, which may contribute to him turning into a better hitter. Not that Carp should really be an outfielder, especially with how many other possibilities there are that can field the position better.
At that point, then the question becomes whether you want Smoak at first and Carp at DH, like today, or Carp at first and Smoak at DH, like yesterday. Smoak has usually been considered the better defender, but it’s not clear that he’ll perform to the glowing reputation he had in some circles when he was acquired. Carp, meanwhile, is not spectacular but not a total disaster either. Smoak is still probably the better option of the two defensively, but the difference is not so dramatic that you can’t switch back and forth a little. It can keep both of them well-rested while keeping them in the lineup, and they can both learn how to adjust to the rhythms of DHing so their hitting doesn’t suffer too much.
RF-L Ichiro
CF-R Gutierrez
2B-L Ackley
DH-L Carp
1B-B Smoak
LF-R Wells
3B-L Seager
C-B Bard
SS-R Ryan
Game 137, Mariners at A’s
Vargas vs. Moscoso, 7:05.
Moscoso you may remember from throwing a 2-hitter for 7 innings in the game that started the 17-game losing streak. At least he won’t be starting any Mariner losing streaks this time.
RF-L Ichiro
CF-R Gutierrez
2B-L Ackley
1B-L Carp
DH-B Smoak
C-R Olivo
3B-L Seager
LF-R Wells
SS-R Ryan
Game 136, Angels at Mariners
Furbush vs. Santana, 7:10pm.
Let’s just get this out of the way now: this game won’t be as good as last night’s. Sorry. It’s always valuable to see if Charlie Furbush is progressing at all – if he’s gaining command or if his stuff just looks better – but ultimately, this game’s going to be a let down, because it isn’t Felix slicing through the Angels.
I guess we’ll see if Cesar Jimenez makes an appearance out of the pen. I’m really selling this one, aren’t I?
The line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Olivo
6: Seager
7: Wells (LF)
8: Ryan
9: Robinson (DH)
In the minors, the Tui-less Rainiers face Tucson at 7:05 in Tacoma, Jackson lost a tough one to Jacksonville, 8-7 (Catricala was 2-2 with 2 walks, a 2B and a HBP). Everett takes on Spokane at 6:30, Clinton’s tied 4-4 with Quad Cities a day after giving up 21 to the Cardinals affiliate; Carter Capps is pitching for the LumberKings.