Game 86, Mariners at Athletics
Happy Felix Evening!
Felix vs. the enigmatic Trevor Cahill.
Of note: Ichiro gets one of his rare DH starts, with Halman playing RF. Olivo’s back, so this line-up is pretty much as powerful a group as the M’s are able to muster.
Lineup:
1: Ichiro! (DH)
2: Ryan
3: Kennedy
4: Smoak
5: Ackley
6: Olivo
7: Peguero (LF)
8: Gutierrez (CF)
9: Halman (RF)
Sorry for the lateness of the post…after my commute, I could really use a beer. Let’s go Mariners!
Be Bold, Jack
Over at FanGraphs today, I wrote a piece advocating for the Pirates to act as buyers as we head towards the trade deadline, even though it’s pretty likely that they’ll end up falling short of the playoffs. They aren’t actually a very good team, and their current record is something of a fluke, but I still believe that the potential rewards from that fluke lasting all year outweigh the potential gains that could be made by punting the season and acting as sellers.
I believe that this applies to the Mariners as well. This is not a great team, but they’re in a position to give Seattle some interesting baseball in September, and I think they should capitalize on that opportunity. I know the Bill Bavasi era made us very reluctant to trade any young players, but the reality is that the franchise has some players who would have some trade value and probably don’t have a future in Seattle.
Michael Saunders is the most obvious player in that position. He’s still get a little bit of former top prospect shine attached to him, and he’s still a good athlete with some interesting tools. There are organizations out there who would probably be willing to see if they could fix his swing and teach him how to hit Major League pitching. If the M’s were looking to make a blockbuster deal, Saunders wouldn’t be enough on his own, but I’d imagine they could make a smaller move to improve the roster using him as bait. And we shouldn’t let the fact that Bavasi traded away legitimately good talents like Asdrubal Cabrera scare us away from being willing to move a guy like Saunders.
The Mariners need a real left fielder, and if takes giving up Saunders to get a guy who can actually hit big league pitching, so be it. I wouldn’t advocate moving any of the guys that you think could be a real part of the future here, but a guy like Saunders (or maybe even Carlos Triunfel, who also is likely most valuable to the team as trade bait) is expendable. The M’s have some pieces to make a move and improve this team for 2011 without mortgaging the future, and as I talked about in the FG piece, the payoff of stealing a playoff spot is often worth more than the payoff of keeping a marginally interesting prospect around and seeing what he turns into.
Game 85, Mariners at Athletics
Happy 4th of July, and happy Pineda day!
Michael Pineda faces the last-place A’s and the 2nd-worst offense in MLB (behind the M’s, of course). He’ll be opposed by twitter superstar Brandon McCarthy, making his first start since May 19th when he went on the DL with a “stress reaction” in his shoulder. Lucky for McCarthy, the M’s bats don’t tend to stress pitchers out too much.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro!
2: Ryan
3: Kennedy (3B)
4: Smoak
5: Ackley
6: Cust
7: Halman (CF)
8: Peguero
9: Bard
No Gutierrez today with a right-hander on the mound for Oakland. Never thought I’d say this, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Halman to allow Gutierrez to rest/build his strength back towards where it was in 2010 (I worry that we may not see the 2009 version for quite some time).
(Edited to correct where the game’s occurring. Oops. First pitch is at 1:05pm)
Minor League Wrap (6/27-7/3/11)
Happy Fourth! I’ll be answering some questions early and then others much later on. No new news on the international signing front except that everything you thought you heard is now unconfirmed.
To the jump!
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Game 84, Padres at Mariners
Blake Beavan makes his MLB debut today in perhaps the best situation a rookie fly-ball hurler could ask for: facing the Padres at Safeco Field.
The 6’7″ 240-250lb righty faces a line-up that doesn’t hit for a lot of power; keep fastballs away from Anthony Rizzo and Chase Headley, and he can hopefully keep out of trouble. His recent velo increase has helped make his change-up a bit more of a viable pitch, and he mixes in a slider as well. The M’s made two moves to get Beavan on the roster. First, they moved Chris Gimenez to the 60-day DL to open a 40 man spot. Then, they optioned Mike Carp to Tacoma to make room on the 25 man roster. Welcome to the show, Blake.
The M’s face Mat Latos, who’s in the unusual position of being smaller than the pitcher he’s facing. Latos has had a disappointing year that started with a shoulder injury and a DL stint.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Ryan
3: Kennedy (3B)
4: Smoak
5: Ackley
6: Halman (LF)
7: Peguero (DH)
8: Gutierrez (CF)
9: Bard
*Update to a previous story: The M’s now say that they don’t have a deal in place with Helsin Martinez. Bob Engle spoke to Ben Badler of BA early this morning disputing the published reports (from BA and elsewhere) that the M’s had inked Martinez to a $2m deal. Here’s Larry Stone’s post on the controversy.
Game 83, Padres at Mariners
Dustin Ackley’s still out with sore ribs, so we get Figginsed again. Also, Adam Kennedy gets the night off against a lefty, allowing Jack Wilson to get a rare start. Doug Fister takes the hill against lefty Cory Luebke, a reliever making a spot start.
Luebke came up through the SD system with great command and decent GB rates, and the move to the pen helped his K rate. The main reason he’s been fairly successful as a reliever (and in 4 previous starts between 2010-2011) is his HR/FB rate.
He doesn’t show much in the way of platoon splits, but the M’s went with a fairly standard line-up with Halman in LF instead of Carp/Peguero and Franklin Gutierrez moved up to 3rd. That’s not an awe-inspiring middle of the order, but I can’t say I’m unhappy with it. This is a very good defensive arrangement, and they’re playing the Padres.
The lineup (courtesy of Greg Johns)
1: Ichiro, RF
2: Ryan, SS
3: Gutierrez, CF
4: Smoak, 1B
5: Halman, LF
6: Cust, DH
7: Bard, C
8: Figgins, 3B
9: Wilson, 2B
Mariners Sign Dominican OF Helsin Martinez
It’s not quite July 2nd yet, but some of the major international free agent signings are now public. The big signing for the Mariners is OF Helsin Martinez, a power hitting OF who signed for $2m. Both IPL Baseball and ESPN’s Enrique Rojas confirmed the signing on twitter.
From what little I know, the best comp would seem to be Guillermo Pimentel, another power hitter from the DR who signed for $2m back in 2009 (he’s now in the Appy league and has appeared as a top 5 prospect in several lists).
In other prospect news, the M’s have made a flurry of promotions in the minor leagues, with Vinny Catricala and James Paxton moving up to AA Jackson, Anthony Vasquez and Josh Fields moving to Tacoma, C/LF Angel Salome continues his comeback at High Desert, and tons of catchers moving up/around thanks to the M;s losing both of their backstops on one day.
The M’s have one more move to make: they need to call up a starter for Sunday’s game to take the place of Erik Bedard. Eric Wedge has said it’d be someone who wasn’t on the roster (ruling out a David Pauley/Aaron Laffey spot start), this has led many to speculate that the start will go to Tacoma RHP Blake Beavan, acquired in the Cliff Lee deal last year. He’s got two things going for him: he’s been hot recently and Sunday would be his turn in the rotation (he pitched on 6/28). The huge righty was abysmal for Tacoma in a late season call-up last year, and got out of the gate slowly in 2011 as well. But an uptick in his velocity’s made him an effective starter – he went 21 IP with 18 Ks, 5 BBs and 4 runs allowed over 3 starts this month before a terrible start the other day in Las Vegas.
Nothing really jumps out at you with Beavan – he doesn’t have a wipeout breaking ball, he doesn’t have great command, and he’s not going to light up radar guns (he was at 89-90 last year/April 2011 and is now 91-93, touching 94). If he can carry the newfound velocity with him, though, he could hopefully do a decent Doug Fister impersonation for a while. Fister always had better command, however. Beavan’s also had a bit of a HR problem, especially at home. They’d need a 40-man spot for Beavan, but they have several candidates for a DFA – from forgotten man Jeff Gray, OF Mike Wilson or P Yoervis Medina. They’d likely slip through waivers, the way Edward Paredes did this week.
The other spot start candidate in Tacoma is Luke French, who’s currently on the 40-man and who made 13 starts for the M’s last year. French, however, has been consistently awful this year, with 21 HRs given up in his 85 innings, and a FIP over 7. His velocity’s down a bit, and I’m not convinced he’s healthy
Update: It’s Beavan who’ll start tomorrow. M’s will wait on the roster move until tomorrow. Hat tip: Ryan Divish.
Photo of Beavan below:
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Game 82, Padres At Mariners
Vargas vs Moseley, 7:10 pm.
Dustin Ackley is not in the line-up tonight due to bruised ribs, but apparently he’ll be back in the line-up tomorrow. Still, that makes tonight’s game about 99% less interesting.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Kennedy, 2B
Smoak, 1B
Cust, DH
Peguero, LF
Gutierrez, CF
Bard, C
Figgins, 3B
Asking The Question Slightly Differently
I get that a lot of people think the idea of trading Michael Pineda away is crazy. It’s just not something you see teams do – in almost every case, they keep their best young players around and hope for the best. But, let me turn the tables and present the question in a slightly different manner.
Let’s say that the team was in exactly the same position in the standings that they are right now at 39-42, 4 games out of first place. However, instead of Jack Cust struggling at DH, they had 24-year-old Yonder Alonso, a left-handed hitting line drive guy with some upside. Instead of Adam Kennedy and Chone Figgins platooning at third base, they had 25-year-old Todd Frazier adding some right-handed power to the line-up. The rotation featured a 24-year-old lefty in Travis Wood who had racked up +3.2 WAR in 196 innings at the big league level and was a perfect fit for Safeco Field. And, down on the farm, the best prospect in the system was a 22-year-old switch-hitting catcher with patience and power, the fruit of the team’s high selection in the first round a year ago.
Would anyone here really be suggesting that the Mariners trade three guys off their Major League roster and their best prospect remaining in the minors – one of the very best catching prospects in the game, by the way – for a starting pitcher? Anyone?
I’ll suggest that the answer is no, and as evidence, I’ll point to the discussions we were all having at this time last summer. The Mariners were going to trade Cliff Lee and everyone knew it, so the month of July was essentially non-stop speculation about what kinds of players the Mariners should target. The public opinion was nearly unanimous – the package of players coming back should be centered around the best hitter the team could get. The general reaction to a rumored package from Minnesota that might include Scott Baker was “no thanks, we want bats!”
That’s why the focus the last few weeks was on the teams who could offer up a top hitting prospect in return – the Yankees dangled Jesus Montero before the Rangers finally caved on Justin Smoak, but this was the kind of guy the Mariners were after when trading Lee, and the kind of guy that nearly everyone in the fan base wanted to see the team get in return. There just wasn’t any kind of push to use Lee to get a young pitcher in return, even though the rotation was mediocre and in need of some serious help.
Last year, no one wanted to build around pitching when making a trade that would almost certainly bring back an elite young talent. Now, all of the sudden, a premium young pitcher is a more valuable commodity to the team than a position player despite the rest of the rotation getting even better and the team using the #2 overall pick in the draft on a premium pitching prospect?
I get that watching Michael Pineda is exciting, and dreaming of what he could be is one of the most fun things about being a Mariner fan right now. However, if the tables were flipped and Pineda was already in Cincinnati, and the Mariners had Grandal, Alonso, Frazier, and Wood in the organization, I just don’t think we’d be seeing massive support for trading them all away to acquire Pineda and build an uber-rotation. I think the reaction to that suggestion would be something along the lines of “the pitching is already very good, why create huge holes on the roster to upgrade the strength of the team?”
I’m just saying that if you wouldn’t make the trade if the tables were turned, then maybe it’s not such a crazy idea after all.
Trade Michael Pineda?
Turning comments back on for this post as a test since I know many of you will want to weigh in. Behave.
My newest post is up on the Brock and Salk blog, and in it, I advocate the team exploring a trade for Michael Pineda. Yes, seriously.
I realize that the thought of trading Pineda is going to sound crazy. He’s a 22-year-old flamethrower who is already a quality Major League arm, and the Mariners control his rights through the 2016 season. He’s the leading candidate for the American League Rookie of the Year, and a big part of why the Mariners have been competitive this season. But, for those same reasons, Pineda would attract a ridiculous amount of demand if the organization let it be known that they would move him for the right price.
The list of available starting pitchers this summer is weak and thin. There is no Cliff Lee on the market, and so teams looking to upgrade their rotation will be frustrated by their options. There are also multiple contending teams that are up against their payroll limits, and given their budgetary restraints, they wouldn’t be able to take on much salary even if they could find a player they coveted. Pineda solves a lot of problems for these teams, offering a league-minimum front-line starter who would be with their organization for years to come.
Read the rest over at 710sports.com, and the link to my segment with the guys should be up on that page soon..