M’s Select Danny Hultzen
The first stunning pick of the 2011 draft came on the second pick, when the M’s selected LHP Danny Hultzen out of Virginia. In the run-up to the draft, everyone was convinced the M’s were going to take a hitter – either Anthony Rendon, Bubba Starling, or Francisco Lindor. A pitcher wasn’t really on the radar, and the pitchers you generally heard talked about in the spots around them were the UCLA teammates Gerrit Cole and Trevor Bauer, as well as high school right hander Dylan Bundy. Hultzen is generally considered the fourth best pitching prospect in the draft, and that’s not even considering the position players.
That said, pre-draft rankings aren’t worthless, but they’re pretty close. The last time Jack Zduriencik took a guy way before he was expected to go, he took Prince Fielder with the seventh overall pick in 2002. Fielder was expected to go towards the end of the first round, but Jack knew he had one chance to take the guy he really liked, and he took it. It’s obviously worked out pretty well.
So, Jack Zduriencik and his crew have earned some benefit of the doubt. They didn’t make this pick out of ignorance. They did their homework, and they decided Danny Hultzen was their guy. I know a few other baseball executives who would have made the same pick. But, that said, Jack and Tom McNamara just stuck their necks out a bit on this one. They could have drafted the best college hitter in the draft – the type of player that is usually the safest pick of any draft pick. They could have taken the high ceiling high school outfielder or shortstop, both of whom could become superstars down the line. They could have taken Trevor Bauer, who was the best pitcher in college this year.
Instead, they took Hultzen, and are betting he’s going to be better than all of them. They might be right – he’s definitely a top notch pitching prospect. He’s a low-90s lefty with a plus change-up, a decent slider, and terrific command. He’s not a pure stuff guy – he’s a good stuff guy who can also pitch. And he’s a lefty, so Safeco will help him. But, you’re not going to hear too many people project Hultzen as an ace. He’s more likely to be a good pitcher than a great one. He’s probably a safer bet than a guy like Bauer (who has had a heavy workload), but he’s still a pitcher, and pitchers break down a lot. Generally, to take a pitcher this high, you want a guy who can offer a massive return in order to justify the risk.
I wrote this afternoon on FanGraphs that I thought the Pirates were probably making a mistake by taking a college arm over Anthony Rendon. Now that the Mariners have done the same thing, it’s hard to say anything other than that I think they made a mistake too. Bats are just so much safer than arms in general, and Hultzen doesn’t seem all that likely to turn into an ace. But, they’ve seen Rendon’s medicals and I haven’t, so my opinion isn’t nearly as informed as theirs is (even ignoring the huge difference in how much value you should place in our respective opinions), and they could be right in betting on Hultzen.
Let’s hope they are. Jack and Mac have good track records, but they just put those reputations on the line with this pick. They need Hultzen to be awesome, or else we just may hear about this pick for a long time.
Game 60, Mariners At White Sox
Pineda vs Danks, 5:10 pm.
For the last year or so, whenever I’ve written anything anywhere about John Danks, some White Sox fan always finds it and decides it will be funny to make some kind of joke about how Chicago should trade him for Jose Lopez, since part of my 2010 off-season plan involved the Mariners trading Lopez (along with Jason Vargas and Mark Lowe) to get Danks in an effort to re-build the rotation. That suggestion got passed around the internet in a game of telephone and has eventually just become “Lopez for Danks”, with everyone ignoring the other parts in the deal. And, obviously, Lopez has been pretty terrible since then, and is (for now) out of baseball.
But, interestingly, here’s Danks and Vargas since the post was written.
Vargas: 2.59 BB/9, 5.51 K/9, 37% GB%, 3.83 ERA, 3.91 FIP, 4.50 xFIP, +3.6 WAR
Danks: 3.02 BB/9, 6.61 K/9, 44% GB%, 4.10 ERA, 3.99 FIP, 4.04 xFIP, +4.7 WAR
During that time frame, the White Sox have paid Danks $5.45 million (and are on the hook for another $4 million this year), while the Mariners have paid Vargas $1.1 million (and owe him another $1.3 million this year). Danks has been marginally better, but the salary wipes out any real difference. Despite the mocking, a Vargas/Danks trade made in the winter of 2009 would have turned out to be almost exactly fair 18 months later. Funny how life works out.
Ichiro, DH
Ryan, SS
Smoak, 1B
Olivo, C
Gutierrez, CF
M. Wilson, RF
J. WIlson, 2B
Figgins, 3B
Halman, LF
Minor League Wrap (5/30-6/5/11)
No intro this week either, as I’m draft-busy, what with the M’s selecting a new number one prospect this afternoon around 4 pm PDT. The draft will continue with rounds two through thirty starting at 9 am PDT on Tuesday and then wrap up with rounds thirty-one through fifty starting at 9 am PDT on Wednesday. Remember when we used to do this all in one day? Remember how neat that was?
Anyway, I’ll have my spin on the pick when it happens and leave a thread open where I’ll make some responses as I have time, probably not too many until later in the evening. On Tuesday, the plan would be to cover everything through the tenth round, including the compensation pick we get for not signing Stanek, and then leave catch-all threads from there out where I might fly by to make some comments. It’ll be a busy few days. The good news is that this draft is super deep and we could be picking up a lot of talent. The bad news is that other teams are drafting too and in many cases have more picks than we do.
To the jump!
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Pirates To Draft Gerrit Cole
According to Jonathan Mayo, the Pirates have decided to select Gerrit Cole #1 overall in tonight’s draft, leaving the Mariners to select between the three hitters that they’ve been targeting over the last few weeks – Rice third baseman Anthony Rendon, Kansas high school outfielder Bubba Starling, and Florida high school shortstop Francisco Lindor. While Rendon was the big name headed into the season, the front office have become big fans of the two high school kids, and I’m not sure there will be a consensus in the war room on who the pick should be.
That said, I don’t think the M’s are going to be able to pass on Rendon. There may be people hoping Pittsburgh would take that option away from them so that they could pick Starling or Lindor, but with Rendon on the board, it’s going to be very tough for the M’s to grab the high school kid when they have a 21-year-old polished third baseman on the board who could get to the Majors by 2013.
Jay and I will have more draft coverage later tonight, but if Mayo’s report is true and the Pirates are going to take Cole #1 overall, then I think the Mariners will end up with Rendon. It’s not a lock, but that’s my gut feel for now.
A Few Words On Mike Carp
Mike Carp just hit another home run for Tacoma, his 17th of the season. Now, before you get too excited, you should probably know that it came off Bobby Kielty. Yes, the outfielder; he was on the mound because the game was a blow-out and Tucson was conserving their pitching staff. So, yeah, maybe don’t get too excited about that home run. Still, Carp did go 2-4 with a walk before launching the homer off a non-pitcher, and his average is now up to .341, so I’m sure the calls for Carp to be promoted will only continue to get louder this week.
However, before you buy your ticket for the Mike Carp bandwagon, I just want to throw this out there:
2010: 8.9% BB%, 22.7% K%, .259 ISO
2011: 8.1% BB%, 20.2% K%, .293 ISO
While Carp is showing a bit more power this year, the vast majority of improvement in his line for Tacoma a year ago and his line this year is in his BABIP, which is significantly less predictive than the core metrics above. After posting a .259 BABIP last year (probably a bit below his true talent level), Carp is at .359 this year, almost certainly above his true talent mark. Slow power hitters usually post marks a bit below the Major League average, which is currently sitting at around .290 – if you were going to project Carp’s BABIP upon getting called up, you’d likely have him somewhere in that range, and that would cause all of his rate stats (BA/OBP/SLG) to tumble quite a bit from their current lofty heights.
Of course, if Carp actually could sustain the near-.300 ISO he’s putting up now, his BABIP wouldn’t matter much, as he’d basically be Ryan Howard. However, playing in the PCL is certainly helping Carp put up these nutso power numbers, and Carp hasn’t exactly come up and hit moon shots in his two prior stints in the big leagues. Maybe he’s made some changes and added some real thump, but in general, betting on big power spikes from guys in the PCL is a fool’s errand. For example, Carp is currently being outhit by Bryan LaHair; these parks can make scrubs look good.
Given that Carp is almost certainly a pretty bad defensive outfielder, and that his offensive surge is based around a lot of balls not being caught by opposing defenders, I understand the Mariners reticence to call him up. I’m not opposing a call-up, necessarily, as Carlos Peguero is not a Major League player and Mike Carp might be, but I do think that some perspective is needed when looking at Carp’s gaudy numbers.
The M’s may get to a point where they agree that Carp has just forced their hand, and they give him an audition in left field. His performance since the beginning of May certainly makes him hard to ignore. However, I don’t see much evidence that Carp has suddenly transformed as a hitter, and I wouldn’t expect an offensive monster if he does get called up. He might be better than Peguero, but that’s not saying much, and I don’t think the team should view him as the answer to their left field problems.
Game 59, Rays At Mariners
Bedard vs Davis, 1:10 pm.
Wade Davis, K/9, by season:
2009: 8.92
2010: 6.05
2011: 4.25
Don’t think of him as the hard-throwing top prospect he was a few years ago. Think of him as a pitcher that this team could light up, especially if they don’t swing at crap out of the strike zone.
Game 58, Rays At Mariners
Fister vs Hellickson, 1:10 pm.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Smoak, 1B
Cust, DH
Kennedy, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Peguero, LF
Figgins, 3B
Gimenez, C
Game 57, Rays At Mariners
Sonnanstine vs Vargas, 7:10 pm.
As Marc noted last night, the M’s made a roster move by shipping Michael Saunders back to Tacoma and replacing him on the roster with Greg Halman. It’s an odd move from my perspective, as the role he’s up to fill is basically twice-a-week fill-in at CF with some defensive replacement work in left field mixed in. If the M’s actually think Halman is a prospect worth developing, having him sit around on the bench isn’t going to be a great way to have him spend his days, but then again, they might agree with me that Halman is not likely to ever turn into much in the big leagues.
Like Peguero, his approach at the plate is just atrocious, and his power isn’t enough to make the whole package work. Halman is a good defender, at least, but I don’t think he’s ever going to hit much. I do wonder what his promotion means for Mike Wilson, though – Halman could theoretically serve as the right-handed of the left field platoon, making Wilson redundant.
Essentially, this move is strange on its own, but this roster is hardly a finished product – I still don’t expect Peguero to be here much longer despite his two homer game last night. Dustin Ackley will be up soon, and the roster will need to do some more changing to accommodate his presence. The Halman promotion may have just been about getting Saunders back to Tacoma more than anything else.
Halman Up, Saunders Down
Greg Halman was recalled from AAA this evening and Michael Saunders was finally, mercifully, optioned to Tacoma. This move wasn’t exactly difficult to foresee; when you’ve got a CF with a wOBA of .212 in 150+ PAs, you reach for another CF. Halman fits the bill as a good CF (unlike Peguero/Wilson), and he won’t need to play as often as Saunders did now that Franklin Gutierrez has a few weeks under his belt.
Halman’s missed several weeks himself with a broken bone in his hand, and he showed some rust tonight in his last AAA game: he had some late breaks on shallow fly balls and struck out twice. That said, he’s shown some improvement from 2010, when he hit 33 HRs, but struck out in over 36% of his plate appearances. He’s around 20% this year, though the sample’s quite small.
While the improvement in plated discipline looks nice, this move is all about Mike Saunders. Halman’s just the CF who’s closest to the majors. In an ideal world, he’d have more ABs in AAA to get his timing back after missing so many games. Of course, in an ideal world, Saunders wouldn’t force the issue with a .212 wOBA. Saunders altered his batting stance near the end of spring training and had a decent game or two with the new mechanics in Peoria, but since the season’s started, he’s looked lost. It’s not like he’s been the victim of bad luck: in May, he struck out in nearly 40% of his plate appearances, and I’m actually surprised the figure’s that low. He’s been good defensively, but you simply can’t carry a hitter this bad for long. Halman’s famously a tools project with poor discipline and pitch recognition, but he’s found himself in a situation in which his discipline/pitch recognition skills may be better than the guy’s he’s replacing.
Something’s really, really wrong with Saunders, and he’s forced the M’s hand here. Gutierrez still isn’t playing back-to-back games in CF, so they desperately need a competent back-up (this is why Halman gets the call and not Carp, as Ryan Divish and others have noted). Everything was set up for Saunders to stake his claim as a legitimate MLB center fielder, and instead he’s looked far, far worse than his initial MLB call-up. We’ll see if Alonzo Powell can work with him better than Chambliss could, though it’s worth pointing out that Powell was Saunders’ hitting coach in the 2nd half of last season too. Saunders has looked so lost that it seems the problem’s more mental than mechanical. Here’s hoping he can work things out in Tacoma.
In other recent transactions, Nate Robertson made his first rehab start for Tacoma tonight, going 6 innings with 6H, 3R, 2K, 1BB, 2HRs. The ex-Tiger sat 87-88 with his FB, with a decent two-seamer at around 84-85 and a change-up in the 80 range. He’s always been a fly-ball pitcher, so the two HRs don’t come as too much of a surprise, and Reno’s line-up hit him harder than his line might suggest, but all in all it was a decent first outing for a guy who missed all of spring training with bone chips in his elbow.
Manny Delcarmen asked for his release and got it yesterday; the veteran reliever is now a free agent.
Here’s a photo from tonight’s game – Robertson’s first and Halman’s last in a Tacoma uniform.
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Game 56, Rays At Mariners
Hernandez vs Shields, 7:10 pm.
Happy Felix Day!
Last year, I predicted that James Shields would win the AL Cy Young. He posted an ERA of 5.18 and didn’t receive a vote, but his peripherals were pretty good (3.55 xFIP) and I remained a fan. This year, Shields is actually pitching like a Cy Young winner, running a 2.15 ERA and a 2.75 xFIP through the first two months of the season. Couldn’t have done this last year, Mr. Shields? You suck.
The M’s counter with Felix, so whatever the over/under is, take the under.
Also, Figgins is back, and Peguero is still here. Celebrate* accordingly.
*Don’t actually celebrate.
Ichiro, RF
Ryan, SS
Smoak, 1B
Cust, DH
Gutierrez, CF
Kennedy, 2B
Olivo, C
Figgins, 3B
Peguero, LF