Throwing the Book at the M’s Lineup
The M’s 2010 offense was a spectacle none of us will forget, however hard we might want to. If you’ve been reading for any length of time, you know that scoring runs is just one part of the WAR equation, and that run suppression is just as important. But clearly, the M’s gave their pitchers/defenders a hopeless job last year, and while regression to the mean will help the M’s score more runs, the gap between where they were and plain old ‘bad’ is still huge. This team’s upgraded the offense, particularly at DH, but while regression and luck may giveth, aging taketh away (Jack Wilson, Milton Bradley, Chone Figgins and Jack Cust are all 30+, and while Ichiro doesn’t fit traditional aging curves, the man IS 37). The M’s offense has a lot riding on a good year from its prospects, the health/improvement of Jack Wilson and a bounce-back year from Figgins or Bradley. All of this means deploying these meager resources wisely is more important to the M’s this year than it is for other teams.
Using a neutral projection system (I’ve chosen CAIRO, as it breaks down projections by batter handedness), I’ve taken a stab at an optimal line-up for this decidedly sub-optimal collection of hitters. Steel yourself, then take a look.
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Bedard And Impressive Performances
I’m a few days late to this party, but as you probably know by now, Erik Bedard had what he called “the best spring training outing of his life” on Sunday. And while that sentence is kind of funny on the surface, it’s hard to argue with his enthusiasm – he threw nine pitches, eight of them strikes, and got two strikeouts along a first pitch ground out. Given that he’s basically spent the last 20 months rehabbing, you wouldn’t expect him to be laser sharp in his first outing. But, there he was, throwing fastballs and curveballs that Pitch F/x said were consistent with his pre-surgery velocities. Now, it’s just one inning in a game that didn’t even count in the Cactus League standings, but it’s the kind of outing that inspires hope. Every time Bedard throws like that, we remember just how good he could be, and there’s a part of every fan that wants to believe he can be that again. That’s what spring is all about after all, right? Hope?
Well, sure. But we also have to remind ourselves that March is full of the kind of hope that disappoints. Matt Tuiasosopo is the King Of March, annually tearing the cover off the ball in Arizona and convincing the team that he deserves a spot on the opening day roster. Two years ago, Mike Wilson led the Cactus League in home runs and Wakamatsu nearly put him on the team too. Remember the epic Chris Jakubauskas spring, where he forced himself onto the staff out of nowhere with impressive performances left and right?
Now, there’s a difference between just compiling good spring numbers and actually impressive feats of skill, right? Right. We don’t really care that Bedard got two strikeouts on Sunday, but the fact that he was throwing 91 MPH fastballs is something. However, even there, we need to exercise some caution. Pitch F/x data is great, but it can be wonky at times. We know the system in KC reports inflated velocities, and the one in Texas is a tick or two slower than the rest. Is the one in Peoria calibrated correctly? It appears to be giving similar numbers to what we see in other parks during the season for most guys, but are guys really throwing at full strength at this point in spring training? Maybe, but we can’t really be sure sure if the 95-98 that Peoria was reporting for Dan Cortes today is the same 95-98 that Safeco was reporting him at last September. Because we only really have spring training (and Arizona Fall League, but not many elite arms pitch there) data for Peoria’s system, we can’t really vet the numbers as well as we would like.
It doesn’t seem like the data is inaccurate, but it’s at least possible that it’s overstating the pitch velocity (which would be really terrible for Manny Delcarmen, who was already way below his career norms). On Pitch F/x data in spring training stadiums, I’ll just encourage caution and leave it at that.
Bedard’s not the only one who has been opening eyes so far. Johermyn Chavez has opened some eyes with a couple of long home runs and strong throws from the outfield, and given his size, it’s easy to be impressed by the physical specimen. He looks like a monster of a man, and when he crushes a ball into the Arizona sky, it can be easy to get enthused about a potential cleanup hitter on the way to Safeco. However, caution is once again the right path here. Just like with Wilson and Tui, Chavez is an undisciplined hitter who has some fairly easily exploitable flaws, but the pitchers he’s facing now don’t care. They’re not reading scouting reports on how to get him out. They’re not pounding him with breaking balls and mixing locations to keep him off balance. Pitchers are tinkering with things, trying to get the feel for certain pitches, and generally just getting their work in. If they groove a fastball to a big kid who spent last year in A-ball and he hits it a mile, so be it.
When the games count, everything changes, and that’s when flaws become apparent again. Chavez has some ability, certainly, and he might just turn himself into a big league player with time, but don’t get sucked into a big guy launching home runs in Arizona and think that he’s showing off some better skills than he had a year ago. He’s a prospect, and worth keeping an eye on, but he’s not going to help the Mariners this year no matter how many impressive moon shots he launches in March.
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With a few baseball notes out of the way, I have a couple of site related things to mention. As you’ve noticed, I simply haven’t been able to maintain my previous pace of writing here this winter, so I’ve reached out to Jon Shields and invited him to join the writing crew here. Jon runs Pro Ball NW and has been around the blogosphere for a few years, so he’s probably a familiar name to many of you. We’re not absorbing PBNW, but Jon is going to do double duty and contribute to both sites going forward. Jay and Marc aren’t going anywhere, but adding Jon to the mix should give the site more consistent content going forward, and I think you’ll enjoy reading his take on the goings on surrounding the organization. I’m happy to have Jon as part of the crew, and look forward to reading his contributions both here and at his home.
Speaking of writing consistency, I’m going to be hit or miss the next few weeks here. I’m flying to Boston on Thursday for Dorkapalooza The Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, where I’ll be through Sunday morning. Next week, the wife and I are spending some time up in New Hampshire on a semi-vacation, and then on the 10th, I fly to Arizona for four days of spring training. I’ll have internet access the whole time, but am not sure how much time I’ll have to bang out long posts. I’ll try to do a chat or two when I have some free time, but they may be fairly spontaneous, so check the blog (or follow me on twitter for notifications – @d_a_cameron) if you want to be involved in some impromptu Q&A sessions. While I’m down in Arizona, I’ll try to get a few interesting things to share, but those might have to wait until I get back – the schedule is pretty crowded while I’m down there.
Thanks for bearing with me this winter. I know we weren’t as active as you guys have gotten used to, but we’re doing our best to make sure the site maintains a premium place for discussion of the organization. We appreciate your patience while we fine-tune things to make it all go as smooth as possible.
Cactus League Game 3, Rangers at M’s
This game is new and different in that instead of the Padres, we’re facing the defending American League champion Texas Rangers. I thought long and hard before typing that one out and it didn’t seem to make it any easier.
RF Ichiro!
3B Figgins
LF Bradley
DH Cust
C Olivo
1B Kennedy
CF Gutierrez
2B Ackley
SS Ja. Wilson
P Robertson
Can you spot the outlier?
Nate Robertson’s gameday photo vaguely resembles RR-S’, if Hyphen didn’t smile. He’ll be followed by Beaven, Lueke, Cortes, and Jose Flores, so this could be somewhat interesting. Guti is back in the lineup after the stomach thing.
Cactus League Game 2, M’s at Padres
This lineup looks a bit less like a Mariners starting lineup than it did yesterday. I can only assume that means that we cared an awful lot about charity, unlike those horrible Padres.
2B Jo. Wilson
SS Ryan
1B Smoak
DH Cust
RF Gross
LF Saunders
3B Tuiasosopo
C Moore
CF Halman
P Fister
Game time, again, is 12:05 pm, the radio dial tuned to 710 if you’re able to deal with that just yet.
Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 2
I’m thinking this could be a regular thing for spring training, or at the very least, I’m hoping they still give me material for it throughout. Here are some mostly minor league tidbits from the past week with some commentary and the occasional tangent.
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Paxton Reportedly Inks
Do two tweets equate to some kind of confirmation in today’s world? We have one from a former teammate and one from a B.C. area radio personality, so that may qualify. James Paxton has signed, eight days after the date Josh Fields signed in 2009. That falls within deviation, I guess.
Most of what I said last June still holds true now. On the potential he showed two seasons ago, Paxton is easily in the top ten prospects of the system and maybe in the top five, but where Fields was still looking back to a recent college campaign, Paxton had all of 17.2 innings for Grand Prairie last season. Those innings did not constitute a return to form.
What’s next at this point is something that perhaps only Paxton, Boras, and some of the Mariners staff can guess at. We don’t know what kind of condition he’s in. Some Boras clients who have signed late came to camp ready to go. Pedro Alvarez, I seem to remember showing up to the Pirates camp out of shape. Paxton could end up joining the M’s for part of the Cactus League schedule or he could end up working with the coaches for a while and not get immediately assigned when camp breaks. His past history with various minor injuries might suggest the latter, along with a healthy dose of caution in handling him.
The 2009 version of Paxton is our best pitching prospect outside of Pineda. The ’10 version is more like a mid-rotation starter, if that, than a frontline one. Either would be a significant gain for us, though my feeling is that he might take a little longer to contribute than we might like.
Charity Game Notes
For an utterly meaningless game, today’s game certainly had its share of interest.
1: As Dave noted in the game thread, this marked the first broadcast since Dave Niehaus’ passing. With Duke Snider’s death this morning and Jody Gerut’s retirement, the broadcast seemed suffused with loss and remembrance – two things not normally associated with the first game of the spring. Despite this (or maybe because of it), I found it easier to take than I expected. The broadcasters didn’t overdo it; everyone listening knew something was missing, and didn’t need to be reminded of it continuously. Everything was great until Peguero’s game-tying HR with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th. For the first of what I’m sure will be thousands of times, I started thinking of how Niehaus would’ve called it.
2: The middle innings featured a number of players fighting for a middle-relief job, and, well, let’s hope the next group of relief candidates fares a bit better. Denny Bautista had nightmarish results, giving up 5 runs on 2 hits (including a grand slam), 2 BBs and a hit batsmen. Manny Delcarmen’s lost some zip on his fastball, which has led to a lot fewer swings and misses (and a lot more hits/runs allowed). Today, his fastball velocity (which averaged about 96mph in 2008) was solidly below 90mph. Yes, it’s early, but this isn’t a good sign. If Delcarmen couldn’t get outs/whiffs at 93, it’s going to be awfully tough to do so at 90-91 (let alone 88). For comparison, Cesar Jimenez had a higher average velo, and threw 7 pitches above 90 (to Delcarmen’s none). I don’t care how big the sample is, Manny Delcarmen currently has less zip on his FB than a soft-tossing lefty who’d just lost a year to major surgery.
3: Carlos Peguero had both a game-tying HR and a game-saving assist in the top of the 10th, but the player of the game may be Erik Bedard who looked sharp in one inning. His velocity of 89-91 was about what it was in Tacoma last year, and not far behind where he was in 2008-9. I think we’re used to assuming the worst about Bedard’s health, and an inning in February against an anemic offense doesn’t mean he’s ‘back,’ but I don’t think his inning could’ve gone any better. Bedard told reporters afterwards, “That was probably the best inning I’ve had in spring training history.” (hat tip Greg Johns).
Doug Fister gets the abbreviated start tomorrow.
Charity Game Thread
Padres vs Mariners, 12:05 pm. Pitchers and catchers are nice, intrasquads are okay, but this is an actual (exhibition, but still) game against another Major League team. Welcome back, baseball.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Bradley, DH
Smoak, 1B
Kennedy, 2B
Olivo, C
Saunders, CF
Gross, LF
Jack Wilson, SS
Erik Bedard takes the hill for the M’s. While he won’t pitch very long, it will be interesting to see where his velocity and movement are. He’s still not someone the M’s can count on, but tracking his progress is probably one of the more meaningful stories of spring training.
In other news, Jody Gerut has decided to retire. He wasn’t likely to make the team anyway, so this doesn’t have much of an impact on the outlook this year, but it does give them a little less depth in the outfield. I still expect the M’s to make a trade for a right-handed hitting outfielder at some point during March.
I’m going to my father-in-laws 60th birthday party, so I won’t be around to listen to the game, but that’s probably for the best anyway. I’m not ready to listen to a Mariners game that isn’t voiced by Dave Niehaus yet. I wish good luck to those of you who have to try to get through today’s broadcast without openly weeping.
The Middle Infield
If there’s been a story to come out of Spring Training so far, it’s probably been Eric Wedge‘s comments about opening up the shortstop job for competition, with Brendan Ryan expected to see time there and Jack Wilson to get some work at second base. Could we be seeing another Figgins-Lopez scenario where the team switches two players between the positions they were expected to play?
I don’t think so, and in the end, I don’t think any of this means anything. The reality is that the Mariners don’t really have two starting middle infielders, and they probably won’t all year. They intentionally built a three man rotation that gives them some depth and flexibility, and while those three names might not stay the same all year, I’d expect the allocation of playing time will follow a similar pattern.
Jack Wilson and Brendan Ryan will share time at shortstop. Wilson isn’t an everyday player – we all know that. No team in their right mind would go into the season planning on Wilson playing more than 120 or 130 games, and that’s a best case scenario. With his nagging injuries, Wilson’s going to need frequent days off, and Ryan will play shortstop on the days that Wilson sits. Given this inevitability, it’s natural for Ryan to get reps at shortstop this spring. It would be weird if they didn’t play him there.
At second base, Ryan will likely split time with Adam Kennedy to start the year. Kennedy gives the team a left-handed bat that they can slide into the line-up and a capable defender at second base. When Ryan shifts over to shortstop, or when they want another LH bat in the line-up, they’ll put Kennedy in at second base. Those three will share two jobs, giving Eric Wedge some ability to play with match-ups and keep Wilson off the field regularly.
It also sets them up for the expected summer transition. Sometime in June, Dustin Ackley will pass the expected threshold for Super-Two status, and the team will be able to call him up (if he’s performing well in Tacoma) without worrying about escalating his paychecks too quickly. At that point, they’ll have a couple of options. If Jack Wilson is playing well and has re-established some trade value, they’ll be able to move him to a contender, save some cash, maybe get a prospect, and create playing time for Ackley. Ryan would slide into the everyday shortstop role at that point, with Ackley taking over most of the second base duties. Kennedy would become more of a reserve than a part of a job share.
Alternately, if Wilson is doing his continued impression of an old man, and the M’s find that there isn’t much of a market for his services, they could jettison Kennedy in order to promote Ackley, make Ryan the full-time shortstop, and move Wilson into a reserve SS/2B role. Ryan and Ackley are the two guys with a future in the organization, so if the team gets to a buiilding-for-2012 point in June or July, Wilson will likely either be traded or see his role reduced in order to accommodate more playing time for the other two. In that role, it would help if Wilson could play second base if need be, which is likely why he’s getting work there this spring.
The alignments we’re seeing don’t appear to me to be the signs of any real change in thought on how the situation will be handled. Instead, it simply seems like the logical way to prepare several players to share two jobs. As long as the organization is working on building up Jack Wilson’s trade value, moving him permanently to second base would be a poor idea, as it would signal to other teams that they felt his range had been reduced. Teams are far more frequently in the market for shortstops (a position where talent is in short supply) than second baseman, so swapping Ryan and Wilson would mostly serve to downgrade the team’s ability to get something for Wilson this summer. I just don’t think we’ll see the club go with Ryan at shortstop and Wilson at second very often, and overall, I don’t think this is really all that newsworthy.
But, hey, it’s February and they’re just stretching, so this is what we get for now.
Stories From Camp That I’m Reading, pt. 1
While part of me always wants it to just be the second week of April already so I can go back to doing what it is I do, there’s another part that revels in spring training and the opportunities it brings. For one thing, there’s radio coverage and the rare TV spot which may provide an opportunity to look at a prospect in the late innings, and for another there’s the media saturation of the camp which allows players normally only covered in minor league articles to get talked up by our various Mariners beat writers. Here are a few of those articles that I’ve been reading of late.
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