Game 71, Phillies At Mariners
Hernandez vs Worley, 7:10 pm.
Happy Felix Day!
After a pretty awful night last night, Chone Figgins is back on the bench, and Adam Kennedy gets his first start at third base this year. That opens up the DH spot, which goes to Mike Carp. Carlos Peguero keeps rolling out there in left field despite the fact that he’s getting exposed by good pitchers again – hopefully the team doesn’t toss Jack Cust overboard before they realize that Peguero doesn’t belong in the big leagues, though that seems to be the likely path at this point.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Kennedy, 3B
Smoak, 1B
Olivo, C
Peguero, LF
Ackley, 2B
Carp, DH
Halman, CF
Game 70, Phillies At Mariners
Pineda vs Oswalt, 7:10 pm.
The big story of the day is obviously Dustin Ackley’s Major League debut, and as expected, he’s being put in the bottom of the order to begin with. If he hits, hopefully it won’t take too long for Wedge to move him up.
The other question was how Wedge would handle third base with Ackley’s arrival. Today’s decision is to stick with Figgins and use Kennedy at DH, meaning another night on the bench for Jack Cust. It’s pretty clear that he’s on the outs here, as Wedge simply doesn’t value the base on balls, and that is Cust’s primary skill. He’s only played in four of the last 10 games, going 0 for 12 in those appearances. He already had Carp and Peguero cutting into his playing time, and now with Kennedy getting starts at DH too, the writing is on the wall – I wouldn’t expect Jack Cust to be on the roster too much longer.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Kennedy, DH
Smoak, 1B
Olivo, C
Peguero, LF
Ackley, 2B
Figgins, 3B
Gutierrez, CF
The Optimal Line-Up
Now that the Mariners have added Dustin Ackley to the roster, I thought I’d throw out my suggestion for what the line-up should look like on a fairly regular basis, based on the team as currently constructed.
Vs RHP:
Ichiro, RF
Ackley, 2B
Smoak, 1B
Cust, DH
Olivo, C
Carp, LF
Gutierrez, CF
Figgins/Kennedy, 3B
Ryan, SS
I’m sure Wedge will start Ackley lower in the line-up for reasons related to “pressure” and “adjusting”, but I don’t put a lot of stock in those ideas. Right now, Ackley is one of the best hitters on the team, and the Mariners have their best chance of winning if he’s near the top of the batting order and on base for Justin Smoak to drive in.
As for Carp over Peguero, this shouldn’t even be that controversial; Carp outhit Peguero in Tacoma, and he’s outhit him in the Majors. I don’t think either of them should be considered the answer in left field, but given the choice between the two, I think Carp should win out pretty easily. If you want to argue for Peguero to get some of Cust’s playing time, that’s fine – just realize that the “lousy” Jack Cust that many people want to see released has a .314 wOBA, and the “exciting” Carlos Peguero that has “proved his skeptics wrong” has a .316 wOBA. Both are flawed players, but I’ll take a guy who can actually get on base over an all-or-nothing hack.
Figgins probably won’t like becoming a part-time player, but he hasn’t earned an everyday role, and until Adam Kennedy cools off, those two can share third base. They’re both probably best utliized as part-time players at this point in their career anyway.
Vs LHP:
Ichiro, RF
Ackley, 2B
Smoak, 1B
Olivo, C
Gutierrez, CF
Halman, LF
Carp, DH
Figgins, 3B
Ryan, SS
The lack of a real left fielder continues to hurt here, as the team has a very weak middle of the order against southpaws. Halman is probably the best option right now due to handedness and defense, but that’s just being the biggest fish in a very tiny pond. If the Mariners are serious about trying to stay in the race this summer, they need a new left fielder – preferably one who can hit LHPs. You can mix and match at DH if you want, as none of the options are all that great against southpaws.
There will be some push to use Jack Wilson at second base against lefties, but I would advise against a strict platoon. Ackley actually hit LHPs better than RHPs in Tacoma this year, and the team needs his bat in the line-up as often as possible. Wilson can get the occasional start against southpaws, but they should be benching Ackley about as often as they bench Justin Smoak – these two aren’t just the future of the offense, they’re two of the best hitters this team has, and they need them in order to win.
The Pitching Has Been Fantastic
My latest post for 710sports.com is now up, where I look at how it’s not really a big mystery why the Mariners are better this year. Short answer – it’s the pitching.
Earlier this week, Jayson Stark of ESPN came on this radio station and talked about how it’s hard to find many improvements on the roster beyond the addition of Michael Pineda. He finished by saying, “I don’t know how you explain what’s going on in Seattle beyond what the manager has done.”
I like Jayson Stark quite a bit, and think he’s fantastic at his job. But, in this instance, I have to disagree with him. Explaining the improvement over last year is actually pretty easy, and doesn’t require believing in any kind of unmeasurable magic brought by the mustached manager.
Read the rest at their blog. The podcast of our segment from this morning is also on that page if you missed it.
2011 Everett Aquasox Preview
We all remember what happened last year. I looked at the roster the Aquasox were going to field on opening day, said it didn’t seem all that interesting, and then a couple of months later they won the NWL Championship. Funny how that works out. And yet a lot of the names from the 2010 squad are already gone from the system: Evan Sharpley, Kevin Mailluox, Hawkins Gebbers, Ryan Royster, Eric Thomas, Jorden Merry, John Housey. I don’t even know if Terry Serrano is still around, but he was a free agent in the winter. The most dominant bat in the NWL, Kevin Rivers, is now putting up pedestrian numbers in Clinton (better of late), LHP Anthony Fernandez and RHP Chris Sorce are taking their lumps in High Desert, and LHP Edlando Seco, the fifth man in the rotation, didn’t start the year in the rotation and is having his poor command catch up with him. Baseball is kind of weird when you get right down to it.
Anyway, the roster isn’t totally in place yet, as we’ve seen fewer higher-end signings to this point than we usually get. There’s still some talent around in the pitching staff though, it just seems to be a team that’s currently constructed to pitch a lot and then hope for enough offense to get by, which can be a little tricky when there are only so many position players on the roster that can bat left-handed. Some of those fellows are among the better players on the roster.
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Ackley Coming Up
Per Shannon Drayer on Twitter. Not sure why M’s would wait until they have a day off to promote him, but there you go – expect him to start at second base on Friday night. Luis Rodriguez was optioned to Tacoma to make room on the roster.
While I don’t think Ackley is going to come up and challenge for the batting title right away, I do think it’s reasonable to conclude that he is, right now, a better hitter than everyone on the roster except for Justin Smoak and Ichiro. I’m sure we’ll see him at the bottom of the order to begin with, but he has the skills to make a smooth transition to the big leagues, and adding him to this line-up can only help.
I’d expect something like .270/.350/.400 out of Ackley over the rest of the year, and while that might not sound like much, in this day and age, it’s a pretty nifty line out of a middle infielder. And given what else the Mariners are running out there right now, that makes him look like Barry Bonds.
Welcome to Seattle, Dustin. Stay awhile.
Game 69, Angels At Mariners
Santana vs. Bedard, 7:10 pm.
Is this a joke? Not that tinkering with lineup order matters that much, but first, Wedge doesn’t want to stick Smoak in the cleanup spot because he doesn’t want to put that kind of pressure on him, yet now he’s fine putting Peguero there just to give it a try.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Smoak, 1B
Peguero, DH
Olivo, C
Carp, LF
Gutierrez, CF
Figgins, 3B
Wilson, 2B
Game 68, Angels At Mariners
Weaver vs Fister, 7:10 pm.
The Mariners are going to need Doug Fister to be excellent tonight, though Jered Weaver does have some of the most extreme home/road splits in baseball, and Safeco isn’t as friendly to flyballing RHPs as Anaheim’s stadium is. Maybe the M’s can get one or two up in the air and out to right field.
Oh, and we get our first look at Mike Carp in left field tonight.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Smoak, 1B
Kennedy, 2B
Cust, DH
Olivo, C
Carp, LF
Halman, CF
Figgins, 3B
It’s Not Super Two
Since people keep referring to the Super Two deadline as a reason why Dustin Ackley is still in Tacoma, I figured I’d just do the math. A day of service is any day that a player is on the active roster during the regular season, whether that team has a game that day or not.
Today is June 14th. The regular season ends on September 28th. By month, the number of service time dates available, including today:
June: 17
July: 31
August: 31
September: 28
17+31+31+28 = 107 days. That is the amount of service time that Dustin Ackley would accrue if the Mariners called him up tonight.
Last year, the Super Two cutoff was 122 days. Most years, it’s been over 130, but it’s going down as more teams are waiting to keep their top prospects away from that extra arbitration year if they can. A reasonable estimate for the 2013 Super Two crop would be around 110-115 days, which is why you saw a lot of teams call up their better prospects last week – Anthony Rizzo (SD), Mike Moustakas (KC), Jemile Weeks (OAK), and Dee Gordon (LA) all made their MLB debuts between June 6th and 10th, and that wasn’t a coincidence.
There’s almost no chance that the Super Two cutoff is only 107 days in 2013. Baseball America keeps a chart of all the players who have made their debut this season, and a lot of those guys have remained in the Majors since they were called up. It is not hard to find ~20 guys (the number of players who qualified for Super Two status last winter) on that list who will likely have more service time than Ackley, even if he’s called up today.
The Mariners showed that they didn’t care about Super Two status, or even the extra year of team control, when it came to Michael Pineda. We’re almost certainly past the super two deadline with Dustin Ackley, and yet he’s still in Tacoma. The only reasonable conclusion is that his promotion timetable has nothing to do with service time, and everything to do with the forced reduction in playing time for either (or both) Chone Figgins and Adam Kennedy. The M’s are apparently not yet willing to make those two share third base, and that is almost certainly the reason why Ackley is still in Triple-A.
Game 67, Angels At Mariners
Vargas vs Haren, 7:10 pm.
Dustin Ackley is still in Tacoma. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. We’re well under the service time threshold for Super Two status from the last few years, and while the expectation is that the number of days required to qualify will be lower if it’s still around when Ackley would be eligible, it’s hard to believe that the number would be this low. At this point, the only explanation I can come up with is that they’re simply not willing to turn third base into a Figgins/Kennedy platoon yet. While I still don’t think this team is a contender, they are 1 1/2 games out of first place, and Ackley is probably the third best hitter in the organization right now – they can worry about rescuing some of Figgins value down the stretch if the team does fade from the race. It’s not like he’s going to have any trade value by July 31st anyway.
Essentially, that was a long-winded way of saying Dustin Ackley has no more business in Tacoma and should be starting at second base for the Mariners tonight. That he’s not is… disappointing.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Smoak, 1B
Kennedy, 2B
Olivo, C
Peguero, LF
Gutierrez, CF
Carp, DH
Figgins, 3B