Series Wrap-up, Rearranging Deck Chairs, etc.
On June 19th, the Mariners were a couple of games over .500 and just a half game behind the division-leading Rangers. On July 5th – within two weeks! – the M’s were 2.5 back of the Angels/Rangers. Fans on twitter, on talk-radio, everywhere mentioned the M’s exceptional heart and desire – so unlike the 2010 team, who just rolled over and accepted defeat.
Now, on July 17th, the M’s are 9 games below .500, 11.5 back of the Rangers, and people willing to publicly advocate for their “heart,” “fire,” “determination” are thin on the ground. People who point out the similarities between this year’s M’s team and the last are a lot more numerous than they were 10 days ago.
This isn’t to suggest that criticism of the current roster is reactionary and ill-considered – it’s not; this roster is legitimately awful. Rather, I’m trying to remember how it was that THIS team, the one with Adam Kennedy at DH, or Miguel Olivo at clean-up, with Franklin Gutierrez and with the left-field platoon from hell, fancied itself contenders. From 2009 through 2011, only the Mariners have a team wOBA below .300. From 2009 through 2011, the M’s have trotted out the least valuable collection of position players in the majors, edging out the Orioles and Royals. This includes their exceptional fielding performance in 2009, which netted them almost 10 wins (they’ve been worth 29 *total* in 2.5 years). You will tell your grandchildren about the 2010/2011 Mariners. This team will live on in family stories about great hardship (“So after Jim lost his job, and after my unemployment ran out, we were basically sick-Guti there for a while”) or annoying failure (“Damn it! The TV’s gone Olivo again!”).
The way the M’s lost this series makes you question so much about the team’s decent performance through June. The M’s went 20 for 126 against a good-but-not-exceptional series of Rangers hurlers. The M’s were outscored 17-2. Say what you will about sequencing, luck, or slumps, the talent disparity between these two line-ups just jumped off the screen. Seriously, would Endy Chavez hit clean-up on the M’s? Swap out Peguero for Carp, or Peguero for George Brett circa 1980 and the M’s still get swept handily.
The M’s made lefties like CJ Wilson and Derek Holland look great, because many of the team’s RHH struggle against southpaws (Brendan Ryan, Gutierrez, Halman) and the lefties (while they’ve done OK) can’t pick up the slack. The M’s made righties like Matt Harrison look good because Justin Smoak and Dustin Ackley are struggling against righties for some reason and people like Olivo, Gutierrez and Ryan never stood a chance anyway. The most shocking thing about the M’s offense is how impervious to regression they’ve been. The M’s finished 2010 several standard deviations from the mean, and have somehow maintained that pace in 2011. The M’s are looking like an offense with a true-talent level so far below league average that you have to start questioning the way the team was put together.
I know, I know: they’ve been hit with some key injuries. Adam Moore was supposed to catch at least 50 games this year, Franklin Gutierrez was supposed to be healthy (or healthier), and David Aardsma and Shawn Kelley were supposed to anchor the bullpen. But Adam Moore put up a .224 wOBA last year, and his ZiPS projection was far lower than, say, Josh Bard’s. It’s not at all clear that the M’s “lost” anything there. David Aardsma’s Tommy John surgery’s thrust Brandon League into the closer role, but that’s clearly last on the list of M’s issues. Shawn Kelley would be nice, but Jeff Gray’s demonstrating just how easy it can be to find RH set-up men. Gutierrez is perhaps the most under-performing player on the roster, but after his 2010, no one was counting on him to be above average with the bat. Even if he was healthy on opening day, he’d likely be a below-average hitter.
All of this is to say that we now know more about how the M’s stack up against Los Angeles and Texas, both this year and since 2009 – and the more we know, the more the M’s seem to drop relative to their rivals. This is a roster that had huge, easily-identified holes when the Zduriencik regime took over, and now has larger, just-as-easily-identifiable holes in other places. The M’s have done well in the amateur draft and in trades, but Zduriencik’s free-agent acquisitions haven’t worked out, and even some of the “good” trades (Brendan Ryan for Maikel Cleto) haven’t helped the M’s relative to their peers. The M’s went from an overpaid glove-first SS to a cheaper glove-first SS, but all that did was push the overpaid glove-first SS to the bench.
I understand that Zduriencik inherited a terrible roster/farm system, and that guys like Taijuan Walker and Nick Franklin might help transform the roster a couple of years from now, but how many years does that mitigating circumstance hold? Zduriencik took over a roster with historically bad 1B/DH spots and shifted the historically-bad spots to CF and 3B. I don’t think any of us would’ve done a whole lot differently, but here we are with a line-up that can’t compete in the wide-open AL West and without much help anywhere in the system (they’ve used Seager and Halman, so there’s absolutely no easy way to project even incremental improvement – Langerhans in CF? Liddi/Catricala at 3B?), it’s not clear how the relative strengths will change. Going into 2009, the M’s had a talent deficit vis a vis Anaheim, but an advantage at GM. At this point, it’d appear the Rangers have the better roster and front office. It’s tough to imagine this changing absent a big trade, but as Dave’s already pointed out, the M’s don’t have a lot of veterans to trade.
This April, the M’s ran advertisements acknowledging how painful 2010 was, and pointing to the farm system as a solution to the problem. Well, the M’s could run the same commercial in April of 2012, as absolutely nothing’s changed. Yes, in many ways, this is the exact wrong time to blame the front office; a long losing streak exaggerates a team’s weaknesses and plays up their rivals’ strengths. But the past two series have exposed the current roster’s deficiencies, and the past few years haven’t given me a whole lot of confidence that the team can buy their way out of their predicament on the free agent market.
Yes, the team’s developed some young players who’re getting their feet wet, and Ackley/Smoak should improve, where does that leave the club? We support a team that, when it’s smart, starts Kyle Seager, Brendan Ryan, and Greg Halman. We cheered when the club swapped out Carlos Peguero for Mike Carp in left field. I think that pretty much encapsulates where the team is and the options they’re currently facing. In the past six months, the Rangers lost Josh Hamilton to a broken arm, saw several of their top pitching prospects go down with injury, saw Brandon Webb’s comeback fizzle out, watched Neftali Feliz regress, and watched Julio Borbon stink up Arlington, then go down with an injury. Going back a bit further, they traded a decent chunk of their high-minors depth for a few months of Cliff Lee. And after all of that, after so many bad breaks, still can’t put the M’s in the Rangers’ class.
Carp Up, Peguero Down
Sorry about the lack of a game thread today – moving into a new (to us, not to the world) house has basically sucked up every last bit of free time I’ve had of late. But, given how the season has been going lately, I’m not sure we needed another thread to say “hey, look, the M’s still can’t score.”
After the game, the M’s made the move I called for on Thursday, optioning Carlos Peguero back to Tacoma and recalling Mike Carp. Wedge made it sound like Carp is actually going to get to play fairly regularly this time, though I’d imagine he’ll split time between LF and DH, and if Kennedy gets traded before July 31st, DH is probably the more likely (and better) spot for him. I don’t think Carp is anything special, but given how well he’s hitting in Tacoma, it makes sense to give him a few hundred at-bats and just see how it goes. That’s what you do in losing seasons – give chances to guys who have earned a look. Carp has earned one.
Game 94, Rangers at Mariners
King Felix vs. Wilson, 7:10pm.
Is it bad that a non-negligible reason I’m tuning in tonight is to see/hear the King’s Court? Felix is always worth your time, but I think everyone’s feeling a bit numb after 26 straight scoreless innings. And after getting whitewashed by two good-but-flawed starters, they now face an excellent one – lefty CJ Wilson. CJ had good results in 2010, but a high walk rate and a low BABIP led many to think he’d regress this year. Instead, Wilson just decided to pitch a lot better – his K rate is up while his walks are down substantially, so even though his BABIP did increase, his results have improved.
Score a run, M’s. The Sounders got 4 today, and while that’s probably asking a lot, another shutout simply isn’t an option. The M’s honor their 2001 team tonight, then force several members of that history-making squad watch the 2011 iteration.
Line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Smoak
6: Kennedy
7: Gutierrez
8: Seager
9: Halman
Game 93, Rangers at Mariners
Fister vs. Lewis, 7:10pm
Well, Lewis’ has regressed this year and he’s righthanded, so hopefully the M’s won’t be quite so hopeless as they were last night. Of course, their offense is still pathetic and somehow getting worse, but I’ll grasp to any and all hopeful indicators.
One negative indicator has been Justin Smoak’s performance against right-handers this year. Coming into the year, the risk with Smoak was that he’d continue to struggle against lefties, but in fact he’s blown his projections against southpaws out of the water. Unfortunately, his wOBA’s below average against righties. Now, much of this is BABIP driven; his ISO is the same against lefties and righties, but fewer balls in play are dropping in for hits. Still, the fact that Colby Lewis is a righty was probably a factor in the M’s deciding to give Smoak the night off tonight. Kennedy will handle 1B duties while Jack Cust gets a start at DH.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Kennedy
6: Cust
7: Guti
8: Seager
9: Peguero
The righty starter also Peguero’s back in the line-up in left field. Ryan Langerhans hit 2 HRs last night in Tacoma and probably commiserates with Mike Carp nightly. I realize that there’s not a lot of value in trotting out a minor league vet on the wrong side of 30 now that the M’s are essentially out of it, but there’s not a lot of value in watching your offense challenge…last year’s offense in the race to be the worst offense in a generation.
Game 92, Rangers at Mariners
Jason Vargas vs. Derek Holland, 7:19pm
The M’s kick off the second half with comfortably low expectations. They’re within a 8 games of the Rangers, but with the Rangers healthier than they’ve been in a while and with the M’s coming off a sweep in Anaheim, Seattle isn’t exactly a sexy dark horse pick for the division right now. Shannon Drayer’s blog post sums it up.
Derek Holland’s got very good raw stuff (the 2nd fastest average FB velocity for a lefty starter), but a home run problem has prevented him from becoming a legitimate top of the rotation starter. His peripherals are better than his ERA, but they’re not jaw dropping. After struggling with the HR ball in Arlington – and who hasn’t – he’s actually given up more on the road this year. Of course, Holland is facing the Mariners at Safeco field tonight, so all of that stuff about home runs is just hypothetical anyway. Holland’s left-handedness even gets him a bonus: Chone Figgins is in the line-up.
I’d always harbored some hope that Holland would struggle in Texas the way he did in 2009, and that the Rangers would move him to make room for Scheppers/Feldman/Ogando/Hurley/whoever, but facing a team with a wOBA of .278 on a cold, rainy evening is not going to help him put up superficially bad numbers.
As always, check out Lookout Landing’s series preview for a lot of good information on what Holland (and the other Ranger starters) throw, and how the teams fare offensively and defensively. Hint: the Mariners aren’t good offensively.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro!
2: Ryan
3: Ackley
4: Olivo
5: Smoak (DH)
6: Kennedy (1b)
7: Gutierrez
8: Figgins
9: Halman (LF)
On a brighter note, Taijuan Walker, fresh off his first career complete game, came in at #30 on Keith Law’s list($) of the top 50 prospects in baseball. Jackson Generals SS/concussion victim Nick Franklin’s at #40.
Chris Seddon takes the hill for Tacoma against Salt Lake at 7, James Paxton’s pitching right now for Jackson vs. Carolina, James Gilheeney faces Lancaster, Tony Butler leads Clinton vs. Great Lakes, Seon-Gi Kim’s given up a run so far for Pulaski, and Stephen Kohlscheen gets his 3rd start for Everett against Spokane.
Carp and Peguero
My latest post for Brock and Salk is up, and deals with the relative merits of Mike Carp and Carlos Peguero as they have climbed the minor league ladder.
Despite Peguero’s youthful face and Carp’s — I’ll just try to put this as gently as I can — not youthful face, it can be easy to overlook the fact that they’re actually pretty close to the same age. Mike Carp was born in June of 1986, while Peguero was born just eight months later in February of 1987. Peguero might seem like the young kid with a lot of potential growth ahead of him, and Carp might seem like a grizzled Triple-A veteran who gets exposed by big league pitching, but the reality is that they’re at pretty similar points in their career.
In fact, if we compare their performances throughout the minor leagues, we can see pretty clearly that Carp has been better than Peguero at nearly every point along their development path.
You can read the rest at their blog and listen to me talk to the guys at 11 am on 710 ESPN.
Tonight: The 2011 AAA All-Star Game from Salt Lake City
If you had plans this evening, cancel them. If you’re going to be traveling at any point between 6pm-9pm PDT, find a bar with MLB Network and settle in. Tonight’s the AAA All-Star game, pitting the Pacific Coast League’s brightest stars who haven’t been promoted yet against the International League’s for bragging rights and so much more: you see, this one counts too. Like the MLB All-Star game, the winner receives home field advantage for the AAA National Championship. But unlike MLB who drags out their World Series over four-to-seven games, AAA boils it all down to a single championship game. Winning the AAA All-star game allows the team from the winning league to wear their home uniforms in the neutral stadium the game is played in.
You can’t measure that with statistics, but you can see it in the leave-it-all-on-the-field mentality of the player’s in tonight’s match-up. Watch Bryan LaHair (a vet of the 2009 contest) run the bases and tell me this is an exhibition game. Watch Russ Canzler and tell me he isn’t the best IL 3B you’ve never heard of.
Josh Lueke’s is the Mariners/Rainiers sole representative, but he knows all too well how much home field advantage means in a neutral site game. Jason Kipnis does too; he played on the winning side last year, and while no one can prove that the moderately larger ‘home’ clubhouse proved decisive in Columbus’ win, no one can prove it wasn’t.
That last night’s appetizer was the lowest-rated AS Game in history doesn’t surprise me; it’s pretty tough to compete with line-ups like these. Besides, interleague play has sapped one of the only reasons to tune in to the MLB AS Game: to see matchups between players who never got to face each other. But AAA doesn’t have interleague play, so if you ever dreamed of seeing Yonder Alonso or Dayan Viciedo take on Willie Eyre or Dana freaking Eveland, then you had to play it out in your mind. Tonight, our most mundane dreams are made real.
Game time is 6pm, and it’s on MLB Network, and AM 850 on your radio dial (if you’re in the south puget sound, that is). Follow along on the web here, and you’ll be able to get video if you’re an MiLB.tv subscriber or pick up the audio on your computer. Even better, Mike Curto promises to tweet his impressions of the clash throughout the night, so follow him @CurtoWorld. There’s no excuse to miss this one, unless your excuse is tuning in to Taijuan Walker’s start for Clinton tonight at 5pm.
Update: The AAA HR Derby is better, both because it doesn’t include Chris Berman and because it DOES include things like local high schoolers. Very reminiscent of the time a few years ago when retired slugger and local realtor Rob Stratton won it in Albuquerque. Seriously, if you watched last year’s contest between millionaires and you don’t watch/listen to this, you are a midsummer classist. Brad Mills of Las Vegas is completing his warm-up tosses now.
Update 2: Bryan LaHair is mic’ed up for tonight’s game. Just when you think it can’t get any better….
Trade Value Of The Guys That Might Get Sold
After the belly flop the team pulled in Anaheim – corresponding with winning streaks from the Rangers and Angels – the team will be sellers rather than buyers at the deadline. However, in looking at what the M’s have to offer contenders looking to bolster their rosters, it’s not like we’re going to see a bunch of blockbuster deals that reload the farm system here. The M’s have some pieces with a bit of value, but they’re going to have to position themselves as the Wal-Mart of the trade deadline – it might not be the highest quality stuff around, but at least it doesn’t cost much.
Here’s who the M’s will likely be taking phone calls for over the next few weeks:
Brandon League, RHP.
Good-but-not-great reliever with limited track record as a ninth inning guy. He’s got value, especially because his salary is relatively cheap and he’s under team control for 2012, but you’re not going to get the kind of guy that can turn a franchise around for him, and of course trading League depletes an already weak bullpen that doesn’t have a lot of good options going forward. In fact, given that the M’s will control League for next year and the state of the rest of the arms in the bullpen, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Jack Zduriencik just decided to keep League for himself. They’d likely move him if a team overpays, but with guys like Francisco Rodriguez getting dumped for salary reasons and Heath Bell available, I don’t know how much demand for League there will really be.
Erik Bedard, LHP.
We all know the deal here – even though his current injury isn’t arm related, the fact that he’s on the DL isn’t doing his trade value any good. He hasn’t pitched a game in September since 2007. He’s pitched four innings in October during his entire career. Is any contender going to look at Bedard and believe that they can count on him to pitch well not only for the final two months of the regular season, but also be able to take the ball in the playoffs as well? They might be willing to gamble on him, but they’re not going to be willing to surrender a premium young player for the right to hope that this is the year that Bedard stays healthy all season.
Adam Kennedy, 2B.
After a nice start to the season, he’s turned back into the guy who signed a non-roster invite to spring training a few months ago. He’s been a nice player for the M’s, but on a contender, he’s a bench guy. The M’s will be able to move him for a prospect with warts who is years from the Majors or a low-ceiling guy who could be a role player if everything goes right, but don’t get your hopes up that you’re going to be able to get anything significant in return here.
Jack Wilson, 2B/SS.
Look around baseball at some of the players that are starting at shortstop for contending teams – Yuniesky Betancourt, Brandon Crawford, Ronny Cedeno. Jack Wilson has been available for months, and none of these teams have called and said “yeah, he’s better than what we have.” The M’s will be able to trade Wilson if they pick up most of the rest of his contract, but they’re not getting anything back for him. The M’s don’t want Jack Wilson anymore, and neither does anyone else.
So you’ve got one guy who might be able to bring a solid-but-not-spectacular prospect in return, one guy who could bring some unknown thing in return, and two guys the team can give away if they want. That’s not exactly dealing from a position of strength.
While it’s nice to dream about what the M’s can get if they packaged all these guys together, the reality is that the only guys on the M’s roster who would really generate excited phone calls from other GMs are Felix, Pineda, and Ackley, and I’m pretty sure that none of those guys are getting moved in the next few weeks. League and Bedard might bring you an interesting young player or two, but the M’s aren’t going to be able to reload at the deadline this year. Maybe Jack has a trick or two up his sleeve, but overall, I think we’re probably in for a more boring trade deadline than you might expect.
Minor League Wrap (7/4-10/11)
Greetings! I suppose you might be expecting that this week was the week in which some of the international free agent stuff started going official for us. It wasn’t. Even though one of the guys spreading rumors from Venezuela said that things would start to get announced on the 10th, they weren’t, and we continue to wait. Maybe they get announced today, with the all-star break going on. Maybe we’re really tough negotiators. Maybe we have recognized that the international market is increasingly insane. Maybe we don’t care that the market is insane considering that we continue to have a pretty good return rate on our signings there. I don’t know! Let’s talk about things that have actually happened!
To the jump!
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Series Wrap-up, Futures Game, etc.
Well, at least this series cleared up a lot of nagging questions. These past four games have had a decidedly “2010 Mariners” feel to them, and I suppose I should be happy that it’s taken as long as it has for this no-hit M’s team to ape the look and feel of last year’s no-hit M’s team. As Jeff pointed out at LL, this sweep has taken the M’s postseason odds from 17% to 3% at Cool Standings. Baseball Prospectus’ odds were never as bullish, so the M’s odds have dropped fractionally to 0.7%. The race is not technically over, but hey, the problem of how to limit Michael Pineda’s innings in a tight divisional race has sort of solved itself.
Even down 2-0, I thought the Angels had a better than 50/50 shot to win today. Yes, Felix was pitching, but so was Dan Haren, and with the M’s bullpen sliding… I’m just not surprised it ended the way it did. In fact, I keep trying to recall how it was that the M’s beat Jered Weaver and Dan Haren in a quick two-game set back in May. I mean, I know they did it, and I watched the games. But even having seen it, I can’t imagine how it would look for this team to beat that team behind those starters.
For the second consecutive series, M’s pitchers allowed a three-ball walk. I can’t believe that no one on the bench watches the game with more focus than those of us grabbing beers, distracting kids or doing yardwork, but the evidence would suggest they don’t. In the minors, you’ve got a starting pitcher or two charting the game, and you have to figure they’d notice. I’ve always wondered about how this baseball ritual works in the majors; recent events make me wonder if some of the charts are doodles of cars and caricatures of the opponent’s manager. What do pitchers get out of this, anyway? How does it help Jason Vargas to know that batter X struggles against 97 MPH fastballs up in the zone and 92 MPH sinkers away?
I’m trying to remember what it was like to be confident when Jamey Wright – THAT Jamey Wright – came into a tight game. Looking back, it’s a classic example of why statheads drone on about small sample sizes. Most everyone here knows that BABIP fluctuation or strand rate will play havoc with a reliever’s ERA (another reason ERA isn’t useful). But Wright’s instructive because, for a brief, confusing moment, his peripherals changed too. He was striking more people out and walking fewer back in April/May. Then, just as suddenly, he reverted to being the same Jamey Wright we’ve known for years. Anything can happen in a small sample. The FIP categories of walks, strikeouts and home runs are important because they’re much more stable than things like hits or runs allowed, but pretty much nothing’s “stable” over a week or a month except perhaps Yuniesky Betancourt’s walk rate.
One of the keys to the sweep was Angels’ 1B Mark Trumbo, the same guy I trashed in the AL West prospect preview. According to Fangraphs, he’s now the most valuable rookie position player in the AL. How does a guy whose slash line looks like it’s ripped from a Mike Jacobs baseball card put up 1.6 WAR at the break? First, offense is down so substantially that a .300 on-base percentage *from a first baseman* is no longer an automatic mark of failure. Second, Trumbo’s been solid defensively. There’s still some disagreement amongst the defensive metrics, but he certainly looked like a good defender this weekend (and considerably better than Justin Smoak). Partial season UZRs aren’t all that meaningful, but if you assume Trumbo adds a few runs defensively, his WAR doesn’t seem that crazy: a few runs at the plate, a few runs in the field, and you’ve got the makings of an average-to-decent player. That’s not saying a whole lot, but I’m still stunned – both by the fact that Trumbo’s holding his own and by the fact that he’s performed so much better than Justin Smoak.
In brighter news, the Futures Game featured a ray of hope for M’s fans in the person of James Paxton, who threw a seven pitch 1-2-3 inning for the World team today in Arizona. The Canadian lefty hit the mid-90s on the gun, and got a comebacker from Jason Kipnis and induced a weak grounder from hyped prospect Bryce Harper. Larry Stone spoke with him afterward, and Paxton mentions that he’s picked up a new change-up this year, and his performance against righties will be interesting to watch down the stretch for AA Jackson. Alex Liddi also played – again – and made an excellent defensive play to retire Giants speedy CF Gary Brown. Liddi’s arm is a weapon, but the bat’s still a work in progress. He went 0-3 with a strikeout against the Rays Matt Moore. Mind you, Matt Moore was jaw-dropping today, hitting 100 mph (he’s a LEFTY) on the TV gun and 98 on pitch fx, then breaking in a good high-80s slider. Liddi saw both the 98mph heat and an 86mph slider and that was that. On the bright side, no one Liddi will face for the rest of the year has that kind of arsenal.