Game 96, Mariners at Blue Jays
James Paxton vs. Marco Estrada, 4:07pm
After winning a series against the suddenly-open-to-selling White Sox, the M’s head to Toronto to face a team whose wild card chances are a bit better, the 54-42 Jays. If the M’s have a move in them, now’s perhaps their last decent shot.
They’re not quite the offensive juggernaut they were last year, but Toronto still boasts an impressive offense. Josh Donaldson has improbably improved upon his MVP season last year, and while Jose Bautista’s fallen off, his production has been offset by growth from ex-M’s Michael Saunders and Ezequiel Carrera. What’s striking about their offense, though, is just how *similar* it is to the M’s. The M’s slash line of .260/.328/.439 looks an awful lot like the Jays’ .253/.334/.439. The Jays have blasted 137 HR, the M’s, 138. The Jays have stolen 31 bags to Seattle’s 26, ranking 25th and 27th in MLB, respectively. The value that both teams get from their powerful offenses are tempered by struggles in on the base paths. The M’s are 29th in baserunning runs, while the Jays are 24th. The one area where the Jays shine, though, is defense, as their position players have added significant runs above a league average club while the M’s have lost about 30 runs more than average thanks to poor defending.
Pitching for Toronto is unlikely All Star Marco Estrada, the exteme over-the-top, rising fastball maestro who shook off home run trouble in Milwaukee to become a BABIP ace. A right-hander with an 89mph fastball, Estrada seems like an unlikely candidate for stardom, but he’s honed his four-seamer into a bizarre outpitch. Over the pitch fx era, Estrada ranks 5th in vertical four-seam rise at 12″ or so, a bit behind Chris Young. With Toronto, Estrada’s made a couple of very minor moves that seem to have paid off. First, he ditched the sinker he threw occasionally with Milwaukee – while the pitch got more GBs, it wasn’t effective – batters destroyed it, while they were more feast or famine on his four-seam (poor batting average, but a fair number of HRs). Second, he was able to adjust the angle on the four-seam to squeeze out a bit more vertical rise (and a bit less horizontal movement). Focusing just on 2016, Estrada’s now #1 in vertical movement, surpassing Young, Clayton Kershaw and Drew Smyly. He’ll still give up HRs on the pitch, but his BABIP on four-seamers continues to drop, and while batters hit ~ .240-.250 on it in Milwaukee, they’ve hit .195 and .184 in Toronto. Think about that: this is his four-seam fastball, a slower than average, extremely straight offering that he, like basically every other pitcher, throws MORE often with the batter ahead in the count and LESS often when he’s got 2 strikes.
He complements the pitch with a good change-up that’s his strike-out pitch and a cutter and curve he’ll use to change eye level and/or get a ground ball. He’s closing in on 300 IP with the Jays, and he’s been oddly consistent for a guy who struggled in that department before. After a 3.13 ERA last year, he’s at 2.93 this year, good for 7.7 RA9-based WAR. By FIP, his so-so walk rate and continued long ball issues push his value down to 3.6 WAR, but Estrada’s insanely low BABIP doesn’t look like a fluke. Estrada is a challenge to DIPS theory, which, in simple terms, argues that pitchers don’t have much control over balls in play. In over 800 career innings, Estrada’s BABIP is just .253, and it’s been lower still in Toronto. On the plus side for Seattle, Estrada’s just back from a back injury, as he’s being activated from the DL to make this start.
Speaking of BABIP, another hit to DIPS came today, as Jonathan Judge and BaseballProspectus refined their new pitching stat by explicitly INcluding balls in play; they found it actually helped their new version of DRA or deserved run average.*
Today’s line-up:
1:
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4:
5:
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7:
8:
9:
SP: Paxton
The M’s recalled Luis Sardinas to take Mike Montgomery’s spot on the 25-man roster, but they’ll make another move today, as Ketel Marte’s been placed on the DL with mononucleosis. He’d been sick for a few days, and not responding well…now they know why. Not sure who’ll come up, but Dutton speculates it’ll be David Rollins, a lefty who seems a good fit with the M’s losing a lefty reliever in trade.
Bad news from the minors, as #1 draft pick Kyle Lewis will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL, an injury he suffered Wednesday in a collision at the plate. And in what seems more like acknowleging reality than breaking news, the M’s announced Danny Hultzen’s shoulder hasn’t responded well to rest and that he’s likely looking at other “career opportunities.”
Tacoma lost a late lead, as Blake Parker blew his first save of the season in OKC’s 6-4 win at Cheney. Parker came in with a 4-3 lead, gave up two hits, and then a 3R HR to Okoyea Dickson (he had Dickson 0-2, before Dickson worked the count full and then hit a good curve out). Ah well. Joe Wieland starts tonight against Salt Lake’s Nate Jones.
Tyler Herb’s control wasn’t great, but everything else about his night was OK, as Herb and the Generals blanked Chattanooga 6-0. Herb went 6 IP, and then Forrest Snow worked 2 perfect IP with 3 Ks, and Dan Altavila closed it out with 2 Ks of his own. Kyle Petty tripled. Andrew Moore takes the hill tonight against the Lookouts’ Omar Bencomo.
Osmer Morales had a rare complete game L in Bakersfield’s 3-0 loss to Modesto. The Blaze K’d 11 times against three Nuts pitchers. Increasingly interesting prospect Zack Littell starts for Bakersfield tonight.
Clinton’s 3 errors hurt their cause in a 7-5 loss to Lansing. Luiz Gohara starts for the L-Kings tonight, and tries to sustain the momentum he’s had this season.
Everett lost to Salem-Keizer 12-5, and, perhaps more worryingly, lost starter Ljay Newsome to a leg injury in the 1st. It doesn’t sound serious, but Joselito Cano replaced him in the 2nd, and instantly gave up 5 runs and that was essentially that.
* Interestingly, at least to me, DRA still doesn’t buy Estrada; his DRA looks pretty much like his FIP, not like his ERA.
Revisiting the M’s Top Prospects of 2006
I mentioned it in a game thread a few days ago, but seriously, you really have to read this Sam Miller piece at BP that looks at what’s become of the Rays top 30 prospects ten years later. It’s the fourth in a series of posts Sam’s done, detailing the outcome of the top farm system in baseball ten years previously. What’s fascinating is not just that many prospects bust, but, and this should’ve been obvious, what teams DO with their prospects vary widely. The Brewers group of 2003 (a group put together largely by Jack Zduriencik) got solid production from the very top of their list – headed by Prince Fielder, JJ Hardy and Rickie Weeks – but struggled to do much with everyone else, and if that isn’t some pretty big foreshadowing of the Zduriencik era in Seattle, I don’t know what is. The Angels did a bit better *despite* the fact that their top prospects at the time – Dallas McPherson and Brandon Wood – are legendary prospect busts. But they had a deep system, and thus got plenty of production from Kendrys Morales, Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar and the like, and they made a few smaller moves with that cohort, including flipping Kendrick for today’s pre-arb starter, Andrew Heaney. The Rays article represents a very different approach. Instead of keeping their top prospects together, they were very selective about the players they kept, and after that, traded liberally with anyone who’d listen. What this means is that, even ten years later, the Rays still have a bunch of prospects and cost-controlled players they acquired in exchange for earlier prospects, who they acquired in exchange for the prospects on that original 2006 list. As a result, they’ve put up far more WAR as a result of their original list, many of their *current* prospects are in the organization as a result of the original prospects.
The Rays were remarkable in that they ID’d the right players to sign (Evan Longoria) and the right players to sell high on (Delmon Young), and then they kept parlaying one set of acquisitions into another, turning Delmon Young into Matt Garza into Chris Archer. The Angels weren’t quite as adept as that, but their deep system still provided the basis for 5-6 years of contention, thanks to the infield tandem of Kendrick and Aybar. So, what would the M’s look like in this kind of analysis? What would we learn, apart from the basic fact that baseball, like life, is pain, and that point-in-time errors cascade through the seasons, bringing old ghosts and new torments together in a Grand Guignol of… sorry, got a bit carried away. I’m not going to lie: doing this means reliving some of the most painful, most self-destructive moments in recent M’s history. This might hurt a bit.
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Game 115, Orioles at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Kevin Gausman, 12:40pm
Early one in Seattle as well as in Tacoma.
The M’s walk-off win was a lot of fun, in that it prevented more anguish at the M’s bullpen, which blew a 3 run lead. But it was also a measure of brightness in a dark, dark campaign. I can’t have been alone in thinking Zunino’s at-bat in the 10th was headed for disaster, and had only marginally more faith in Austin Jackson. But all’s well that ends with Felix kicks.
Today, the M’s face Kevin Gausman, the young righty the Orioles selected 4th overall in 2012. Dominant at times in the minors, Gausman hasn’t been able to pitch well consistently in the majors despite a 97mph fastball, a visually stunning slider that he’s since abandoned for a curveball, and a good splitter. Despite the top-shelf stuff, Gausman’s K% is slightly below league average, while his HR% remains above average. In addition, he’s struggled out of the stretch, particularly this year. Some is luck, but essentially every peripheral stat goes to hell as soon as someone’s on base. Gausman has nearly 5 Ks per walk with no one on – but his K:BB ratio plummets to below 2 with men on. Maybe he’s trading some walks for really hard contact? No; his HR rate spikes with men on, too. All of this means that his strand rate is below 70% for his career, and that’s left him with some uninspiring fielding-dependent WAR figures.
Of course, there’s another confounding variable here: health. Gausman was on the DL this year with shoulder tendinitis, and then he spent some time in the minors getting stretched out. He began the year in the O’s bullpen, so some of his struggles may be related to the change in role – though of course he started in 2014. Clearly, using him in the pen didn’t prevent soreness from developing, but it might tighten the leash with him – I can’t imagine they’d want him racking up high-stress pitches the rest of 2015.
This year, Gausman’s worked on pitching up in the zone with his fastball, presumably to hide his new curve a bit better. Since April, though, the picture’s a bit more muddled. He’s still throwing some four-seamers at or above the top of the zone, but the heatmap doesn’t look radically different from 2014’s: last year, a bit over 18% of his fastballs were “up” – the top third of the zone or above. This year, it’s 24%. After talking so much about pitching up, why is he doing so only sporadically? This may be the result of continued worries about HRs, or it may be the byproduct of pitching to contact to keep his pitch-count lower – he’s dropped his pitches per PA from 4.1 to 3.9 this year. In any event, Gausman has plenty of time to put it together, and avoid the fate of so many Orioles pitching prospects before him. Jake Arrieta was great in the minors, then struggled for the O’s before becoming an elite starter with the Cubs. Brian Matusz, another #4 overall pick, was untouchable in the minors before regressing from “disappointing” to “make it stop” in the O’s rotation. He’s a decent bullpen arm now, but that’s not what the O’s thought they had. Zach Britton was another guy with a great MiLB track record who stalled out in the rotation, though at least he’s been an elite reliever. And that’s not even counting Dylan Bundy, one of the better prospects in baseball in 2012 who missed all of 2013 with TJ surgery and is now “shut down indefinitely” with tendinitis, which doesn’t sound terribly encouraging.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Gutierrez, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Smith, RF
6: Jackson, CF
7: Trumbo, 1B
8: Miller, SS
9: Sucre, C
SP: Iwakuma
Nelson Cruz came out of the game last night with neck spasms, hence the off-day today.
Tacoma lost to Sacramento 9-4 after holding a 4-0 lead through 5. After Edgar Olmos’ 5 shutout IP were up, the RiverCats feasted on the R’s bullpen, including Forrest Snow and especially Tony Zych. Jose Ramirez couldn’t stop the bleeding either, and thus Sacto scored the final 9 runs of the game. Ramon Flores homered again and continues to impress at the plate. He’s also playing a lot of CF for Tacoma. Today, Jordan Pries takes the hill (at 11:35am!) against Ty Blach of Sacramento.
Jackson blanked Tennessee 8-0 behind Stephen Landazuri and Andrew Kittredge. Guillermo Pimentel homered and doubled in his first AA game – he was just called up from high-A Bakersfield. The Generals face the Jacksonville Suns today in West Tennessee – no word on the starter at this point.
Speaking of Bakersfield, the Blaze won their 6th consecutive game, which is pretty impressive for a club that’s spent much of the year 20+ games under .500. Yesterday, they scorched struggling Lake Elsinore 11-1 behind a solid start from Brett Ash and 4 hits from lead-off man Nelson Ward. Scott DeCecco’s scheduled to get the start today in Game 2 of the series.
Clinton dropped the first game of their series to the Lansing Lugnuts 6-4. SP Ryan Yarbrough continues to struggle, as he went just 2/3 of an inning, giving up 5 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks. It’s been a lost season for the Old Dominion product. Gianfranco Wawoe doubled for the Lumberkings. No word on today’s starter.
Vancouver walked-off Everett 7-6 despite HRs from Alex Jackson and C Adam Martin. Drew Jackson’s 2 hits and a walk brought his line up to .395/.453/.500 on the year. The AquaSox head down to Eugene today for a series against the Emeralds.
Friend of the blog Jonah Keri has a depressing read on the M’s inability to develop prospects today at Grantland. From Ackley to Zunino to Smoak, the M’s have certainly not gotten much production out of prospects that were universally regarded as MLB-ready. And he’s absolutely right to contrast this dubious record with Cardinals, who plug in unknown guys most people pegged for org depth and get solid production from them. You can probably mention the Astros as well as another team that’s turned some high draft picks and some also-rans into a solid young core. So player development has absolutely been a problem for the M’s, and it’s an area where other clubs are clearly doing something better. But the frustrating thing about the M’s is how multi-faceted their struggles are. A year ago, we lamented that in addition to player development, their eye for *pro* talent was equally bad. The complementary players brought in to stabilize the club for the youngsters were pretty much universally awful – from vets like Joe Saunders, Mike Morse and Miguel Olivo to MLB-ready youngsters like Hector Noesi and Trayvon Robinson. After an off-season in which the M’s signed Seth Smith and Nelson Cruz, that pro-scouting problem looks a whole lot different, but it hasn’t mattered.
Game 102, Diamondbacks at Mariners
King Felix vs. Patrick Corbin, 12:40pm
Happy Felix day in the actual day time, everyone.
While the King’s fielding-independent stats are down, he’s still having a remarkable season, and one that FIP may tend to underestimate. His K:BB ratio is a bit worse than it’s been in recent years, but at the same time, his strand rate and ground ball rate continue to rise. The key here, as usual when discussing veteran (as opposed to flamethrowing-rookie) Felix is his change-up. Felix went from throwing curves to lefties to throwing change-ups to lefties, and the platoon issues that cropped up occasionally (like in 2008) vanished. The pitch produced a lot of ground ball contact *and* whiffs, but the key thing was that it generated swings. All of those whiffs and ground-outs helped lower his walk rate, and then his command improved to the point where the pitch type didn’t really matter: he’s never going to have control problems again. In 2014, Felix greatly increased the number of cambios he threw to *righties*, which meant that he was throwing more change-ups in general. As a result, his ground ball rate shot up from 51% to 56%.
Felix can essentially choose his ground ball rate now, as we can see when he’s in a jam. With the bases empty, Felix gets ground balls on 53% of balls in play. Once runners are on, and especially with RISP, his use of the change increases to nearly 40% of all pitches thrown, and his GB% soars to 62%. It’s important to note that his GB rate’s rise this year isn’t solely due to the change-up – Felix is using more curve balls than ever before. Fully 1/5th of his pitches are now curves – a level he’s never been at in the pitch fx era. This is a pitch mix we haven’t seen since April of of 2007.
As usual whenever I choose to write about something, Jeff Sullivan’s beaten me to it and done a better job of it. The wrinkle here isn’t *just* that Felix’s curve is again so good that it gets swings out of the zone and takes in the zone, but that it’s every bit as grounder-heavy as his change. It isn’t swung at as much – which is nice in certain high-leverage situations – and consequently, it’s not put in play as much as the change. But when it IS put into play, it’s remarkably difficult to elevate, and in 2015, Felix is throwing a ton of it with men on base, and particularly to left-handers. It’s a pitch that no one’s managed to drive all year – not only has he not surrendered a home run on it, he hasn’t given up a double. This isn’t to say it always generates bad contact – his batted-ball velocity on curves isn’t elite. But exit speed is only one part of the puzzle: angle matters, too. What Felix’s curve seems to do is trade angle for velo. Collin McHugh, just as an example, has a good curve, and batters have tended to put it in play more slowly than they’ve put Felix’s in play. But because so much of the contact against Felix is on the ground, that contact can’t do much damage. Batters are slugging .307 against McHugh’s this year, while they’re slugging just .096 against Felix’s.
Today’s opponent is Patrick Corbin, once a throw-in prospect from the Angels in the Dan Haren/Joe Saunders deal, he saw his velocity grow and turn from a pitchability lefty potential #5 starter into a solid #3. Of course, that was before Ulnar, God of Elbows paid a visit to him in 2013, and thus Corbin is only just returning to the big leagues this month. So far, he’s looked good – his velocity is actually up a tick compared to 2013, and he’s still getting very good run on his fastball. He’s got a so-so change-up that moves just like his sinker but comes in 10mph slower, but his best pitch is a good slider with two-plane break. Because of its downward movement, he’s comfortable using it to righties as well as lefties, and both have struggled against it. Thanks to the slider, Corbin’s o-swing% has been well above average, and it’s touching 40% in his first 22 IP back this year.
He throws both a four- and two-seam fastball, preferring to target the top of the zone with the former, while moving the latter around. The slider is thrown down and away to lefties and low and in to righties – that is, it’s thrown to the same spot no matter who’s batting. He’s got good command, but for whatever reason, he’s given up a fair number of home runs already in his four starts. Part of this may be due to throwing more four-seamers this year, but he’s actually given up more off the sinker. Perhaps it’s rust after the long layoff, but the M’s should be somewhat aggressive – he’s been prone to mistakes with his fastball, and the M’s need to capitalize.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, RF
4: Gutierrez, LF
5: Trumbo, DH
6: Miller, 2B
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Taylor, SS
SP: El Rey
The M’s promoted DJ Peterson to Tacoma this morning; an interesting move given Peterson’s struggles at the plate this year. Maybe a change in environment will do him some good.
Game 20, Mariners at Rangers
JA Happ vs. Ross Detwiler, 5:05pm
Now that’s more like it, Taijuan. Armed with better command, Walker carved up the Rangers line-up, and while the Rangers aren’t exactly Murderer’s Row, they had enough lefties to give someone like Walker fits. That they didn’t is very good news. Early on, he used his curve ball, and that seemed like a good change of pace, but then he put it away and stuck with his FB/cutter and change (the M’s announcers mentioned that he used his curve more, but he only threw 4 on the day). To me, the biggest takeaway was that Walker was able to find a pitch that worked when he didn’t have his best stuff. Against the Rangers’ lefties, I expected that pitch to be his splitter, but unfortunately, the splitter is still a work in progress – it was better than it’s been, and he gave up some hard contact even when he put it where he wanted to (like Rougned Odor’s single), but it’s simply not fooling anyone, and I’m still not sure why. That said, his cutter picked up the slack, and he felt comfortable using it against lefties – the strikeout of Choo in the 2nd, for example, or the double play that Leonys Martin hit into. Put it all together, and Walker had his second best career start, and he did it essentially without a change-up and using his curve 4 times total. I’d still like to see what he could do with three or four pitches functioning at the same time, but it’s nice to know he doesn’t HAVE to have that to win.
The M’s face Ross Detwiler, the guy who started the great 11-10 comeback game 9 days ago. As I mentioned then, Detwiler’s got massive platoon splits, with righties hitting .282/.347/.446 off of him in his career. This year, their wOBA is a Nelson-Cruz-inflated .523. He hasn’t pitched since that wild game at Safeco, and he’s given up 18 runs in 12+ innings – it’s not like Texas has a lot of good alternatives, but you’ve got to assume he’s another bad start or two from swapping roles with a current reliever. The M’s will try to hasten that along with their righty-centric line-up.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ruggiano, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Weeks, LF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Happ
The Rainiers lost 6-5 to Sacramento in extra innings last night, failing to hold a few late leads. Ronny Cedeno tied the game with a HR off of Joe Saunders in the bottom of the 8th to send it to extras. I love the PCL sometimes because of blasts from the recent pasts like that, perhaps the most 2009 sentence you’ll read on this blog all year. Chris Taylor went 3-5 with a 2B and 3B, while Carlos Quentin went 2-3 before being lifted for a pinch runner. Mike Montgomery starts today against Austin Fleet.
Jackson was on the other end of a late comeback, scoring 4 runs over the final two innings to beat Montgomery 5-4. Stephen Landazuri was sharp in the early going, and then the line-up bailed the Generals out after some shaky relief work in the middle innings. Gabby Guerrero had two hits and Dario Pizzano three. Lefty Kyle Hunter starts today for the Generals.
Bakersfield lost to Stockton 9-4, as starter Paul Fry recorded only a single out, giving up 5 runs on 6 hits. Tyler Marlette went 2-5 with a HR, and 2B/SS Brock Hebert pitched a scoreless inning in relief – the only Blaze pitcher not to yield a run. Tyler Pike starts today, and maybe *this* will be the start where his control clicks back into place. I know I’ve been saying that for the best part of a year now. Annnnny day now.
Clinton faces ex-M’s affiliate Wisconsin today. Pat Peterson starts for the L-Kings, and David Burkhalter goes for the TimberRattlers.
Game 13, Astros at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Asher Wojchichowski, 7:10pm
Baseball seasons are famously long and grinding, and it’s difficult to take time to really bask in a win like yesterday’s. What’s more, since you can’t predict baseball and all that, you can’t see them coming – you just have to stick it out, through 12-0 drubbings, and 6-3 losses you’ve forgotten before they end. You stick it out and suddenly you get a game with Willie Bloomquist starting at SS, a game in which the team is down 5 to Ross Detwiler and down 5 again to the Ranger bullpen that becomes something you’ll remember for years. I will be in line at a market, and I will think about Cruz’s reaction to the walk-off hit, and I will conveniently excise the 3rd inning and feel slightly happier. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s pretty great. That, nice weather, beer, tradition, cultural norms, etc. are why we follow the game religiously. Felix, too, of course.
Today’s game doesn’t look all too promising, but it might look better on paper than yesterday’s, and look what happened! Asher Wojciechowski is a right-hander who was a supplemental-1st round pick of the Blue Jays in 2010. The Jays reworked his delivery with spotty results, and finally sent him to Houston in a July 2010 deal that’s been characterized as the most boring ten-player trade ever. The headliner, I suppose, was JA Happ, and the return was six fair-to-middling prospects to add depth to an Astros system still hollowed out by the last few Ed Wade years. Nobody Houston received was a clear blue-chip player – this was the exception proving the rule that you can’t just add more so-so players to make a deal appealing – but Wojchiechowski had that first-round pedigree and some initial success in the lower levels of the Jays system. The only other prospect in that deal with a strong shot at the majors was David Rollins, the guy the M’s selected in this year’s Rule 5 draft and who’d be in the bullpen now if it wasn’t for a PED suspension.
Before the trade, Wojciechowski was probably best known for his peripatetic childhood, as his missionary parents moved from state to state, and also briefly to the Dominican Republic before spending Asher’s little league years in Bucharest, Romania. Luckily, Bucharest somehow had a little league team. After spending several years in Michigan, the family moved to the southeast for his final year of high school to help the recruiting process. Wojo’s got prototypical size at 6’4″ 235lbs, and he rewarded Houston initially with a stand-out 2013, faring reasonably well in the PCL after a quick stop in AA. Unfortunately, his 2014 was marred by a bad lat strain – the kind of injury that nuked ex-M’s reliever Stephen Pryor’s 2013, and that sidelined James Paxton last year as well. When Wojciechowski returned, he was mediocre, giving up 89 hits and 46 runs in 76 PCL innings.
Now fully healed, he made the Astros rotation as the 5th starter, though he’s made just one start and one relief appearance to date. His fastball’s completely unremarkable – a four-seamer at 91 with average rise and horizontal run. He also throws a change-up and a slider, and I’ll be damned if I can find anything to say about them. To date, Wojciechowski has found it extremely difficult to get MLB hitters to swing and miss at any of his pitches, which makes his 6 Ks in 8 IP all the more impressive. We don’t have much info to go on, but the thing that jumped off the page to me was his extremely low GB rate. He doesn’t throw a sinker, and his fastball doesn’t have much natural sink, so I wondered if it was a fluke. Probably not – he’s posted very low ratios in the upper minors as well. The key is how he uses his pitches. He seems to like keeping his fastball up, preferring to miss up and out of the zone than to try to target the (expanding) lower reaches of the zone. We’ve talked about this approach in recent years, thanks to high-strike maven Chris Young’s 2014 and Trevor Bauer’s twitter rants against the “aim for the knees” doctrine. It’s true – you can get lots of whiffs, infield pop-ups and a lower BABIP if you can reliably pull off the high strike. The problem, of course, is what happens if you can’t reliably pull it off. He’s had two four-inning appearances this season. In the first, he surrendered two HRs to the Indians. In the second, he avoided mistakes and struck out 4 without giving up a run. We’ll see how good the righty’s command is tonight against an M’s line-up that’s probably feeling a bit better about itself after yesterday’s 11-run barrage.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smith, DH
7: Zunino, C
8: Morrison, 1B
9: Miller, SS
SP: Iwakuma
Six lefties against Wojo, who struggled with lefties in his minor league career. Nicely done.
The Rainiers look for their first home win tonight against El Paso, with Roenis Elias on the hill. His first outing against the Chihuahuas was not…good, but he’s got another shot, and this time he’ll face them in a pitcher’s park. The park didn’t help Jordan Pries yesterday, as he coughed up a 5 run lead thanks to a 5 run 5th that ended his day. Joe Saunders gave up four runs in relief, and that was essentially that. Franklin Gutierrez homered, and Julio Morban had two hits in his first game since being promoted from Jackson. Ketel Marte is hitting over .300 and he drew two walks yesterday, bringing his OBP over .350, which sounds great, until you see that his SLG% is just .326. It’s an encouraging start, but the ceiling still looks really low.
Jackson got rained out again on get-away day for the second straight time. They face the Tennessee Smokies today, with Misael Siverio facing Cubs reliever-turned-starter Frank Batista.
Bakersfield, coming off back to back shutouts of San Jose, handed the ball to ace Edwin Diaz yesterday, but the scoreless inning streak stopped pretty suddenly. Diaz just wasn’t sharp, giving up 4 R in 2 2/3 IP, but the offense bailed him out, as the Blaze won 10-7. Tyler O’Neill homered, which is great to see after the Canuck’s slow start. The Blaze face Stockton tonight, with Ryan Yarbrough opposing Dylan Covey, an A’s 4th rounder from 2013.
Clinton beat Beloit 9-4 thanks to three hits from Gianfranco Wawoe, a hit and two walks by Joe DeCarlo and a decent game from pitchers Jefferson Medina, Ryan Horstman, Rohn Pierce and Peter Miller. Horstman, the rare freshman-eligible collegiate player the M’s got from St. Johns, has been good in the early-going, with 8Ks and 2BBs in 6 scoreless innings. Clinton faces the Snappers again tonight with Daniel Missaki on the hill against Brett Graves – a rematch of the game on April 10th that the L-Kings lost 4-3.
2015 Tacoma Rainiers Preview
An evening full of typing and being sort of bummed out by a failed Mariners rally later, and I’m here with a Tacoma Rainiers preview. I feel like at this level, there’s a tendency to get more philosophical because we’re not so much trying to determine what could happen for guys as evaluating what has happened. Triple-A can be a land of players that have been around a while, for whom the results have already spoken, but I found myself unusually eager to type my way through it this time even if it’s been a slog in years past.
Three-fifths of the rotation is new to us and features some former top prospects within their respective systems and whatever Elias is outside of a ten-game winner for the ‘Ners last season. The bullpen has various names of recent and more distant familiarity and a guy who, despite being added to the 40-man, still seems to be ignored in a lot of outlets. Catching will be split between two guys with solid all-around profiles. The infield has Montero, Marte, and a supporting cast that can make a case for fringe MLB roles (I pray we give Bonilla the Jaime Bubela treatment when he finally does retire), and then the outfield has a unicorn, a broken unicorn, some role players we’re still trying to figure out, and the bizarre and talented Jabari Blash, who isn’t a unicorn but is probably some other breed of cryptid.
The M’s 2015: The Upside
The variance around projections doesn’t just run one way. While it may seem hard to believe for M’s fans since 2003, the team could just as easily outpace its projected win total as undershoot it. Similarly, their divisional rivals have the same sorts of risks that we talked about yesterday. By the projection systems, the AL West is a tight three-team race, with ZiPS/Steamer showing the M’s about a win in front of the Angels, while BP’s PECOTA has the Angels on top by a bit. Clay Davenport’s projections look quite a bit different, with the A’s a game up on the M’s, with the Angels further back). ESPN’s “Experts” projections show the M’s as the clear favorite, with the Angels in 2nd. So, *people* tend to like the M’s more than the projection *systems* and there are a number of reasons for that. It’s also worth remembering that while the M’s were good last year, the Angels won 98 games and still employ Mike Trout. Still, just as there are areas where the M’s are vulnerable, there are specific projections that the M’s have a good chance of surpassing. Here are a few areas where the M’s might get more production than forecasted:
1: Tai. Juan. Walker.
It’s not that Walker’s forecast is *bad* so much as the walk rate pushes his from “excellent” to “average-y.” Last year in the Majors, Walker’s walk rate was near 4 per 9 IP. In AAA, Walker’s walk rate has been near 4 per 9 IP as well. Sometimes projections use complicated regression and aging algorithms, and some times they just look at what a pitcher’s put up in the past. This is a sensible way to project young pitchers, and arguing against it on the basis of spring training stats or 90th percentile wishcasting is generally a bad idea. And yet…Walker’s unrecognizable from the guy who debuted in 2013, and he’s changed markedly from last year too.
His new mechanics (going from the stretch exclusively) seem to have simplified his entire motion and given him much better control. Carlos Carrasco made a similar change, and had even more dramatic results last year, and while no one’s projecting *that* from Walker, it’s extremely easy to see him put up a BB rate nearer to 2 per 9 than 4. That said, it’s not just about control improvements. While the stretch doesn’t seem to provide more deception by itself, there’s something deceptive about a 96mph fastball from such an easy delivery. In the spring, his whiff rate is up slightly, but it’s his ground ball rate that’s up significantly. A sneaky-fast four-seamer and a ground-ball machine split are a good way to keep Walker’s GB rate up and his HR rate down.
The focus coming into spring was the change in his cutter/slider, but he hasn’t thrown enough of them to say much about that. Instead, the story is that he simply hasn’t needed it – simplified mechanics and a simplified arsenal have positioned him well, and a healthy, effective spring have positioned him well going into the season. ZiPS and Steamer see an ERA/FIP nearer to 4, but with half his starts in Safeco and another chunk in Oakland/Anaheim, even the occasional grooved fastball won’t hurt as much. With lower walk rates, it’s easy for biased fans like ourselves to see him beating that projection handily. At 150 IP with lower walk rates, even a HR rate above last year’s can get him closer to 3 WAR than 1-1.5 he’s looking like now.
James Paxton would work here too, as the lefty has similar projections to Walker. The difference is that those projections are based on some regression in Paxton’s HR rate; there’s nothing odd about his K:BB projections. And while Paxton’s been great at limiting his HRs thus far, I’ve been stunned at just how few fly balls he gives up. It’d be easy to see that continuing, but since I have no idea how he’s doing it, I can’t complain too much about the projections. If I had to bet, I’d take the over on Paxton too, but I think Walker has the best chance to blow his projection out of the water.
2: OF Depth
Thanks to the black hole of CF and a down year in LF, the M’s posted the worst OF batting line in the AL, and finished 29th in MLB last year. As a team, they had issues with left-handed pitching for the second consecutive year. While Lloyd McClendon hates to use the word, the M’s are positioned well to use platoons to their advantage, especially in the OF corners. Seth Smith and Justin Ruggiano aren’t great players, but they can be quite useful. This alone puts the M’s in a much, much better position than they found themselves in last year.
But don’t platoon players introduce a problem of their own? Now when someone has an injury, the replacement isn’t really geared to playing every day. Having a healthy right-handed platoon OF doesn’t really matter if you’re facing a righty that day. It’s true, and in years past, the club’s lack of OF depth has been a serious issue. With Michael Saunders hurt, the M’s turned to everyone from Cole Gillesie to Stefen Romero to Endy Chavez in the OF corners, and they simply weren’t up to the job. In 2013, when Michael Morse went down, they turned to Jason Bay, Carlos Peguero, Franklin Gutierrez and, of course, Endy Chavez, and the results were similar. The starters have underwhelmed, but the back-ups have been atrocious. It’s not like having an every-day OF protected the club – injuries have forced them to use sub-standard filler, and they’ve paid the price for it.
For the first time in a while, the M’s upper-minors depth is concentrated in bat-first corner defenders. Ketel Marte aside, the M’s have DJ Peterson and Patrick Kivlehan in the high minors this season, and while neither has played much in the minors, I think we’re all ready to move on from the Endy Chavez contingency plan (evidently, so was Chavez, who declined an assignment to Tacoma and became a free agent). These are inexperienced players, particularly in the OF, and neither is a franchise savior. What they are is very different kind of players than Romero, the last IF-to-OF conversion the M’s tried, and very different from Carlos Peguero, whose K% and swing made him hard to comp to just about anyone. Peterson offers big-league power and solid all-around bat to ball ability, while Kivlehan has completely re-made himself from a mistake hitting 3B with huge K% issues to a solid all-around bat. It’s not the Kivlehan’s stats are eye-popping, it’s that the trend line is going up. Even last year, his wRC+ went from 123 in high-A to 140 in AA (and it stayed there in the AFL). Let’s be clear, it’s not like the either is – or should be – projected to out-hit Michael Saunders, and ZiPS doesn’t even see them outpacing Stefen Romero. If you were *counting* on one or both of them contributing in 2015, that’d be a big problem. But with additional seasoning in the minors, the M’s can see first how they fare in the OF, and second how their bats are faring against tough pitching.
Beyond that, the M’s have pieces to deal for short-term help. They can move Marte, who realistically has no shot at a big league job in Seattle. If the price is right and his wrist checks out, they could deal Chris Taylor (or Brad Miller). If Paxton and Walker look good and guys like Jordan Pries look good, the M’s could move Roenis Elias. And that’s only if one or both of Smith and Ruggiano are hurt, Kivlehan, Romero and possibly Peterson fall on their face *and* the M’s are still in the race. The M’s have options in the OF, and for the first time in a while, they’re not bad ones.
3: The M’s rivals have down-side risks, too.
We’ve already gone into great detail about the areas the M’s are vulnerable to underperformance, but the A’s and Angels have plenty of their own. The Angels, for example, had surprisingly good starting pitching last year, with a top-10 staff by FIP – a few spots ahead of the Mariners. Garrett Richards led the staff, but the team stayed hot after Richards’ injury thanks to Matt Shoemaker and veterans CJ Wilson and Jered Weaver. Shoemaker was the most successful of the three, but the trio combined to go 45-22 and stabilize a staff rocked by injuries to both Richards and Tyler Skaggs.
At home, the three had very different approaches, but each had tremendous success in keeping the ball in the ballpark. Shoemaker was a revelation, with more than 5 strikeouts for every walk, and a HR/9IP rate of 0.66. CJ Wilson’s slide into mediocrity continued, but he kept up appearances at home, with more than 2 strikeouts per walk and a low HR rate producing a FIP in the mid-high 3’s. For a back of the rotation guy – never mind his salary, that’s Wilson’s role – that’s not awful. Weaver fell somewhere in the middle, with a solid K:BB ratio (though not the equal of Shoemaker’s) and an exceptionally low HR rate. While his velocity has continued to slide, Weaver’s home stats showed some reasons for optimism – that his arm angle and FB rotation might allow him to continue to be successful. Unfortunately, the Angels, like every other team, play road games.
Shoemaker’s HR rate doubled from 0.66 to 1.32 – while he continued to pound the strikezone, batters exacted a much higher price. CJ Wilson was below replacement level, with a walk rate over 13% compounded with 1.47 HR/9IP – this resulted in a FIP just about 5, and an ERA that was worse. Weaver’s HR/FB magic failed completely, and batters teed off to the tune of over 2 HR per 9IP. Weaver’s road FIP was 5.59, and while his ERA was better than that, it wasn’t good. As solid as the Angels rotation was at home, it was Richards and then a lot of slugfests on the road. The Angels offense was a potent group, but even they couldn’t salvage many of these starts, and thus the Angels, who had the same road record as the M’s, finished 11 games ahead.
Of course, huge splits of any kind aren’t some iron-clad guarantee that the Angels got lucky somehow in 2014. They’ll play half their games in Anaheim in 2015, too, and they still get to visit Oakland and Seattle several times – a good thing if your problem is home runs. For years, Weaver’s game has been based on dominating at home for whatever reason, and being average-to-a-bit-better on the road. When he was great, like in 2011, Weaver was a near-ace on the road, and nearly-unhittable at home. Since then, his road numbers have fallen quickly, while he’s managed to keep him home stats decent. In a tight division, the Angels can’t afford to just punt road games, and if Weaver’s FB falls to Zito-level velocity, then his remarkable string of “beating” his expected HRs allowed might not continue. CJ Wilson has pitched around poor platoon splits and HR issues for years, but at 34, it’s not clear he’ll be able to do so forever, especially not if he continues to walk so many batters. Matt Shoemaker, of all people, showed more pure bat-missing stuff last year, and it’s possible he could be effective in a poor-man’s-Iwakuma sort of way even if his home run rate regresses. But it’s also possible that a guy who hasn’t yet succeeded at the AAA level and dominated teams who’d never seen him before returns to earth the way Kris Medlen did in 2013.
The projection systems can see this too, for the most part; no one’s simply taking Shoemaker’s rate stats and extending them out to 200 IP in 2015. Still, there’s the potential here for a more systemic collapse, particularly if Weaver’s home form falters. Jeff had the great idea to tailor Weaver’s schedule to maximize his home (and daytime) starts, and the Angels could try that – but they can’t do it for all three of these guys. Shoemaker and Weaver already had more home starts than road ones, but if anyone needs their schedule moved around, it looks like it’s Wilson. The Angels attempted to build some depth behind the vets by trading Howie Kendrick for Andrew Heaney, and they hope to get Skaggs back at some point, but while Heaney’s a solid prospect, the loss of Kendrick means there’s less offense to help bail out the rotation. The Angels could get regression in the right direction and see the troika’s road stats move back towards average, Wilson’s control could improve a bit, and Shoemaker could do…no, he couldn’t, the entire idea of Matt Shoemaker is already the most Angels thing in history, or at least since Scott Spiezio was good. But if they don’t, the Angels may not be the good-to-very-good club ZiPS and PECOTA see, and that’d open the door to Seattle.
For Oakland, the problem’s really on the offensive side. If anything, the projected pitching WAR for the A’s looks low, though they once again rely on a number of young, untested arms. But after dealing their biggest offensive threat for a decent buy-low candidate and a promising teenage SS prospect, the A’s new look offense looks much more suspicious to the eye than the projection system. To me, the A’s have issues at 1B, SS, 3B and the OF. This isn’t to say all of these positions will be black holes, or even below average. Rather, it’s that the projections seem bullish on players with some red flags, particularly injury issues.
At 1B, the A’s have ex-Met Ike Davis penciled in. Davis famously hit 32 HRs in 2012 and then suddenly misplaced his power, accumulating 20 HRs total in the two seasons after that. His playing time slipped, which explains part of it, but then, the fact that he wasn’t hitting also explains the lack of playing time. One of the things the Mets seem to have concluded is that Davis is an extreme platoon hitter. In his career, Davis has a .577 OPS against lefties, and thus in his almost-sort-of-bounceback campaign last year, Davis had only 35 plate appearances against lefties compared to nearly 400 against righties. We talk about Ruggiano as a platoon OF, but Ruggiano can actually hit righties a bit, and *actually faces them occasionally*. While the projections don’t love Davis (and given the NL-to-AL move, the power-sapping ballparks in the AL West, and the glut of lefty pitching teams can throw at the A’s, that’s understandable), they like him enough to give him 490 PAs, with Billy Butler getting most of the rest. If Billy Butler playing defense is a better option, something’s gone wrong.
The A’s picked up Marcus Semien in the deal that sent Jeff Samardzija to Chicago, and seem to have installed him as their starting SS. Their IF coaches have done a tremendous job, but while Semien’s young, this seems like a stretch. For the White Sox, Semien split time between 2B and 3B and didn’t seem like an obvious candidate to move up the defensive spectrum. While he played SS quite a bit in the minors, he was shifting to 2B and 3B often, beginning in the Carolina league. Eno Sarris had a good article at Fangraphs about the A’s confidence in Semien, but many of the other players who’ve moved from utility-guy to SS were clear defense-first guys, from Adeiny Hechevarria to Brendan Ryan. If Semien is more of a 2B-pressed-into-SS, and if Butler gets more reps against lefties than assumed, the A’s defense as a whole could struggle. Meanwhile, even with the positional adjustment, Semien’s bat has question marks following a year in which he K’d 27.5% of the time, and hit for less power than his MiLB numbers would suggest. Since 2013, Semien’s had surprising pop for a middle infielder, and while he hasn’t been Brendan Ryan-esque, he’s played in a very hitter-friendly park and put up a .140 ISO. He’s obviously developing, but playing half his games in Oakland isn’t ideal.
That brings us to 3B, and perhaps the biggest deal of the winter. The A’s had 5-win 3B Josh Donaldson heading to arbitration, but instead flipped him for a package built around 3B Brett Lawrie and SS Franklin Barreto. The latter won’t be in the bigs for a few years, so the A’s ability to challenge the M’s rests in part on Lawrie bouncing back from two sub-par, injury plagued seasons and replacing Donaldson’s production. Right now, Lawrie’s projected for 3.5 fWAR in 560 plate appearances, shockingly close to Kyle Seager’s 3.9 in 616 plate appearances. Is Lawrie Seager’s equal on a per-PA basis, but we’ve just missed it because he’s been hurt? The short answer is no, and the longer answer is hell no. First, Lawrie’s slash lines are aided both by his home park and generated in very few games. Lawrie’s never made it to 560 PAs in the bigs, and hasn’t done so at all since AA in 2010. The A’s are confident that they can contain his hyper-aggressive style in order to keep him healthy, but they can’t change where they play. In his career, Lawrie has a .183 ISO and a 119 wRC+ at home compared to a .139 ISO and an 89 wRC+ on the road. Given his aggressive approach at the plate, Lawrie needs to hit for enough power to make up for a lack of walks. Like Semien and Davis, that’s a tall order given his new park and division. I think Lawrie’s a solid player, and a good buy-low candidate (though why you need to offer an all-star, borderline MVP candidate to get back a buy-low candidate is another question), and I can see him staying healthier than he’s been and putting up league-average or better numbers. What I can’t see is him challenging Seager’s production.
The A’s OF has seen a lot of turnover, but it’s been a solid group in recent years, with Josh Reddick and Coco Crisp anchoring the group. Crisp has aged surprisingly well, and given the A’s a better-than-league-average bat in CF in each of the past three years. Reddick has been more volatile, but produced a sneaky-good 2014 after a down 2013 campaign. The issue here is somewhat obvious given recent headlines – both Crisp and Reddick start 2015 on the DL, and injury problems are starting to mount up for both players. The A’s have some depth in Craig Gentry, and neither Crisp nor Reddick injury will keep them out for long, but the A’s are getting an early preview of what it looks like to lose both at the same time. With Sam Fuld playing CF, Craig Gentry is essentially the back-up for all three OF slots. He can’t play everywhere, so the A’s may open with Gentry, Fuld and Zobrist in the OF. Zobrist’s versatility covers a multitude of sins, but ideally, Zobrist plays on the IF, obviating the need for Eric Sogard starts. They could play Mark Canha in the OF, but Canha is both a 1B by trade and someone who’s hasn’t played a big league game as of today. They’re the A’s – they’ll figure it all out by late May, and maybe Crisp and Reddick play the rest of the games without incident. But a bad start may prove difficult to overcome if the Angels and M’s play up to their potential, and if the A’s fall behind, they could opt to trade Zobrist for prospects instead of trading Barreto for big league reinforcements.
The M’s 2015: The Risks
With opening day tantalizingly close, and the M’s set to open their most anticipated season since 2010, er, 2008, in a long time, the M’s remain the favorite in a revamped AL West. As we know, of course, projections don’t win actual games, and everything from trades to injury to breakout years and collapses mean that the season won’t play out the way PECOTA/ZiPS/Steamer/baseball writers see it. The M’s could be much, much better than their projection, and we will retroactively identify and scoff at the deficiencies in the projections. Alternatively, the M’s could underperform significantly, as anyone who’s followed this team for a while knows. So today and tomorrow we’ll take a look at some of the areas that could cause the M’s actual win total to diverge from the projection consensus of somewhere around 87-90 wins. We’ll start today with some of the reasons the M’s might underperform, because pessimism feels like an old comfortable old jacket at this point.. Ahhhhh.
1: Mike Zunino’s grasp of the strike zone remains tenuous
Mike Zunino did a brilliant job behind the plate last year, and the more we learn about catcher framing, the more we understand that Safeco field isn’t the only thing making the M’s pitchers look better than they otherwise would. He’s a leader, has the tools to become a perennial all-star, and just turned 24 last week. He also put up a .254 on base percentage last year, knocking 22 HRs but costing the M’s runs on offense thanks to his all-or-nothing approach. Zunino is both a catcher, and a catcher who hits freakishly few ground balls, so his BABIP is never going to be very high, but however many HRs you hit, striking out in a third of your plate appearances AND putting up a low BABIP is a recipe to getting reaaallly familiar with the Mendoza line.
There are two distinct issues here. The first, and the one that’s working very hard at correcting, is his strike zone judgment. Last year, he swung at nearly 40% of out-of-the-strike-zone pitches, up 10 percentage points from his call-up in 2013. As a result of this ecumenical approach to swinging, his K:BB ratio tanked – his 0.11 BB:K ratio was tied for the worst in MLB for anyone with at least 300 PAs. If this number is below the 0.16 put up by Javier Baez last year, you have a serious problem. What’s worrying is that it doesn’t appear that opposing pitchers have fully plumbed the depths of Zunino’s obsession with swinging. They threw him a slightly below-average number of strikes last year, but there’s some room for that number to drop. Pitchers understand that Pablo Sandoval *wants* to swing, and thus he gets far fewer strikes than average (or Zunino). As long as his O-swing stays around 40%, he’ll see his strike percentage drop, as pitchers learn there’s no need to risk strikes.
Second, it’s obviously a problem if Zunino swings and misses at breaking balls diving out of the zone. His other problem, though, is hitting them. Scott Lindholm had a great article on hitting pitches out of the zone a few months back at Beyond the Box Score. Within that is a great Tableau visualization/table comparing each batter’s BA and SLG% for in-zone pitches and out-of-zone pitches. It’s well worth diving into and playing with. What it’s showing you is that there are a few different ways to be a good hitter. For those hitters with massive, massive gaps in in-zone vs. out-of-zone production, you need to do serious damage on strikes. So, Jose Abreu, Devin Mesoraco, Giancarlo Stanton, Steve Pearce, Adam Dunn are all clustered near the top. Freakish, 70-80 grade power helps, but so does plate discipline – that’s why Dunn and Stanton are here.
That’s not the only approach, however. Sandoval has a predictably small gap. If he had his approach and wasn’t successful, he’d have washed out of the league years ago. As it is, he’s actually a pretty decent bad-ball hitter, and while his stats are worse, they’re not atrocious when he hits a ball. Same thing with Adam Jones, another guy with a poor BB:K ratio and some pop. He doesn’t really recognize the strike zone all that well, but he can hit bad balls well enough that the discipline issue isn’t critical. The final approach is just being good at everything, and that’s where we find Mike Trout, who destroys strikes and is suprisingly decent on balls, especially given his well-known struggles with high fastballs. In any event, just as you can be effective with a really small gap between strikes and balls, or with a really huge gap, you start to see the flip side of the coin, the evil Spock approach that could produce similar results. For example, if you’re not strong enough to do serious damage on strikes, then you’re going to have a Sandovalian gap but without Sandovalian production – this is the sad state that, say, Endy Chavez and Justin Smoak find themselves in. With Smoak in particular, it’s not that he didn’t recognize the strike zone – he was pretty good at that. It’s that even when he got his pitch, he couldn’t do much with it. And what the gap doesn’t tell you is the rate at which you put balls and strikes into play. Thus, having a very large gap isn’t helpful if you put too many bad pitches in play. Unfortunately, this is the situation Zunino finds himself in. He’s not yet good enough to SLG *enough* on balls that 2-strike counts aren’t a kind of death sentence. But unless he tightens the strike zone, he’ll keep seeing more and more balls.
The good news here is that Zunino and the M’s are very aware of the problem, and Zunino’s spent the spring giving us reasons to believe he’s made serious strides in plate discipline. It’s tempting to look at his spring and his birthdate and assume that this is something he’s rapidly growing out of, and that he’ll improve his BB:K over time like most hitters. But the cautionary tale here is that of another young catcher whose power helped him overcome a terrible BB:K ratio for a while, but who never improved on his first full season in the big leagues. Look on the works of JP Arencibia and despair, M’s fans. Arencibia blew through the low minors and then had a bit of a hiccup in his first taste of AAA. Returning to the level and the deliciously hitter-friendly Cashman Field, Arencibia uncorked a slash line of .301/.359/.626 in 2010. In 2011, he was the Blue Jays starting C, hit 23 HRs, and though the .282 OBP wasn’t ideal, Arencibia could improve on his plate discipline with time, right? Instead, he’s been unable to make adjustments, and his BB:K ratio got worse. His o-swing% started high, but climbed a bit more in the years that followed, culminating in an abysmal 2013, with a BB:K ratio of 0.12, a .194 average and a .227 OBP. He was a 27 year old catcher who hit 21 HRs, and the Blue Jays didn’t make him an arbitration offer, effectively cutting him. He’s now in the Orioles’ minor league system. Oh yeah – the spring before that career-nuking 2013 season? The one where his approach cratered? That spring, Arencibia hit .439/.477/.902.
That’s a worst-case scenario, clearly, but it’s a bit terrifying that Zunino’s o-swing and BB:K is ALREADY where Arencibia’s ended up in 2013. He’s younger, and honestly, his spring has produced some reasons to think he can get a lot better at the plate in 2015. It’s great that the coaching staff have worked on this so much with Zunino, because as we saw with Zunino from 2013 to 2014, or Arencibia from 2011 to 2013, it’s not enough to say that experience will take care of the problem. Fixing the problem takes care of the problem.
2: The bullpen acts like a bullpen, and puts up very different numbers this year
OK, you could write this about any team, in any year. High variance isn’t the point of a bullpen, but it seems to be the price we pay for the highly specialized and generally highly effective modern reliever corps. In 2014, the M’s had the lowest bullpen ERA in baseball. They had the best strand rate, even platoon splits, and a very high strikeout rate. While FIP didn’t love them for a few reasons, they were clearly an asset for the club, and you see that clearly in their 4-in-the-AL win probability added. The bullpen is largely unchanged this year, so can we chalk up another sub-3.00 ERA? The problem is that in 2013, the M’s had the *worst* strand rate in baseball and a terrible ERA *despite* an even better K rate than they had last year. Some of this is just sequencing – the difference in the bullpen’s FIP from 2013 to 2014 isn’t *that* big, but the M’s were unlucky on balls in play and sequencing in 2013, but very lucky on balls in play and sequencing in 2014.
So far, so orthodox. Regression to the mean, people! But this isn’t purely about luck. The specific relievers the M’s have come with a specific set of skills, and a specific set of concerns. The M’s got a brilliant rookie season from Dominic Leone last year, as the righty used a 95mph fastball to rack up a 25% K rate and an ERA hovering around 2. The issue isn’t so much that he “beat” his FIP, it’s that he was never a huge swing-and-miss guy in the minors. In 2013, he had one of the lowest swinging strike rates for the Jackson Generals, and his K% in the A+ and AA didn’t approach the mark he put last year. Some times pitchers figure something out and become far more hittable than they were in the minors (or in college), but it’s equally likely that an out-of-nowhere reliever can put up great numbers and then struggle to sustain them – Mark Lowe in 2006, Julio Mateo in 2003, etc. Dominic Leone has the tools to be good for a while, but it was just odd that big leaguers found him harder to square up than the California League. Spring training generally means nothing, but it makes me squeamish to see Leone give up 17 hits in just seven spring innings. Obviously, if your fourth or fifth righty in the pen is your problem, you’re living right. If Leone tanks, the M’s can swap in Carson Smith and not miss a beat. If it was *just* Leone, that’d be one thing.
It’s not, though. Not while Danny Farquhar’s velocity seemed to be down this spring. It’s always impossible to know what to do with that – maybe he was working on something, maybe he was tired one day and that screwed up the overall averages. Still, let’s remember that Farquhar was a frequent guest of the waiver wire, and struggled to latch on until he started throwing 95. Sure, the big change was a mechanical overhaul, and it’s not like Farquhar’s throwing sidearm again, but this is a guy who threw 89mph for years, and then induced his small frame to throw 95. His velocity dropped by over 1mph last year, and he proved he could still be effective at 94. However, Farquhar averaged 92.6 in Arizona. If he’s around 92 in Seattle, can he still avoid HRs the way he’s done the past two years? Farquhar’s smart and knows several pitches. He ditched his sinker in 2014, and though his four-seamer wasn’t quite as good in 2014, his cutter could compensate. Changing his approach – switching back to the four-seam and curve, say – can help him accommodate lower velo, but it’s not a fix. If he comes out throwing 95-96 again, then the point is moot. For the M’s sake, let’s hope he does.
That brings us to Tom Wilhelmsen, the most enigmatic/important of the M’s relievers. The Bartender led the bullpen in WPA last year, and he paired the biggest workload with the lowest ERA. We all know what he’s capable of, and that’s part of the reason his 2013 was so disappointing. Wilhelmsen struggled with his control all year, and that made his top-shelf stuff play down. He didn’t get as many strikeouts in part because he was behind in counts. His overall results were much better in 2014, but it’s worth remembering that he didn’t entirely solve the problem. His walk rate was still over 11%, and his K rate was good, but not in line with his excellent FB/CU combo. For a variety of reasons, Wilhelmsen’s been inconsistent, trading months with off-the-charts performances with months where he couldn’t find the zone. What helped him tremendously last year was his insane .200 BABIP. A pitcher with great velo can run lower-than-average BABIPs, but .200 just isn’t sustainable. To compensate, he needs to get back to the form he showed in 2012, with a 27% K rate and a walk rate safely under 10%.
So, finally, we’ve got the Fernando Rodney experience. Rodney is 38, and coming off a year in which his fastball lost 1.5MPH. It’s still a good pitch, and the change-up is mind-altering, but this is still the guy who was cut in 2011, and whose grasp of the closer job seemed shaky in April/May. His dominance the rest of the way was a huge part of the M’s run to contention, and if they want to get past the Angels/A’s, another year from the archer would really help. I’m wary of all non-Felix pitchers, though, and 38-year old closers are rare enough that it’s tough to feel absolutely safe about this. As Fangraphs and others have noted, the M’s could have the best bullpen in baseball this year. If one or two of the guys listed here struggles, they could still have an excellent group that adds value to the team overall. But the potential – however remote – is there for a more systemic collapse, or at least regression, that spells the difference between the division and a one game crapshoot, or the playoffs and another frustrating season. We need those arrows to be real.
3: The *good* Austin Jackson never returns
In the aggregate, we can say something meaningful about player aging curves, but that doesn’t help you understand an individual player. It’s nice to know when the median player peaks, or how gradually the average player (who is allowed to decline on a major league roster) declines. In the face of all of these averaged, combined numbers, we have the actual records of thousands of individual cases – and while that can help us understand just how uncommon a particular career arc is, it by definition can’t help identify the statistical anomalies, the great players who defy aging and those whose aging seems to run in fast-forward.
Since his 2010 debut, everyone has *known* what would doom Austin Jackson’s batting stats. After posting a sky-high .396 BABIP in 2010, it’s been easy to assume that his stats would regress. The problem is that Jackson continued to post sky-high (if not quite as high as .396) BABIPs, while also making each ball in play do a bit more damage. Not only that, but Jackson transformed himself from an extremely high K% hitter to someone with essentially average K rates. All of this speaks volumes about Jackson’s ability to adapt and change his approach. That’s good, because it’s crucial that he make further adjustments.
As we all saw in 2014, the version of Austin Jackson that the M’s acquired from Detroit turned out to be a terrible hitter. Jackson’s K% crept back up to 25% after the move, but that’s still below his K% in Detroit in 2010 and 2011, when he was a moderately effective hitter. His BABIP was low for him, but not extraordinarily low for the league. Instead, Jackson’s problem was that his contact produced shockingly weak results. I mean, NL pitcher-esque results. With the M’s, over 236 plate appearances, Jackson produced an ISO of .031, or exactly the same as NL pitchers managed in 2014. As many have pointed out, his production on fly balls was particularly poor. But anything abnormally poor should regress to the mean as surely as the M’s bullpen’s strand rate, right? Wellll, this is where the difference between a population and a specific player becomes pretty important.
Jackson’s ISO on fastballs dropped from .189 in 2012 to .073 in 2014. It is essentially impossible to remain a legitimate MLB starter at that level. James Jones’ SLG% on hard pitches was .080, for reference, and James Jones is not, as of this date, a legitimate MLB CF. Because Jackson’s been effective in 2012-2013, the projection systems forecast something of a bounce-back for 2015. It makes sense – if you average his production over the previous three years, you come out with a pretty good CF.
Only that ignores the fact that his ISO and BABIP have been moving in tandem. Jackson’s sort of the flip side of Mike Zunino, in that his plate discipline has actually gotten better over the years. He’s swinging at fewer balls, swinging at fewer pitches overall, and making more contact. This is the blueprint of a hitter who gets more selective in order to do more damage on each ball in play, only Jackson has left out the all-important do-more-damage-on-each-ball-in-play part. Like we talked about with Zunino, pitchers are going to notice they aren’t getting punished for leaving pitches up or in the zone, and that’s going to put even more pressure on Jackson’s walk rate. Jackson’s walk rate was as low as it had been since 2010 last year, but pitchers started to throw him a few more strikes in 2014. If they continue to do so, and if Jackson can’t run the .350+ BABIPs that sustained his first few years in the league, then he’s in trouble. He’s either got to do much more damage on balls in play, or he’s got to be extraordinarily selective (and great at defense). Unfortunately, he’s already exceptionally selective, so there just isn’t a whole lot of room for improvement there.
There IS, obviously, room to improve his ISO and his production on balls in play. Angel Pagan looked like he was winding down at age 29 before leading the Giants to a World Series title at age 30. Marlon Byrd wasn’t really a decent player *until* he was 29-30. Brian McRae’s career arc followed Jackson’s, with some early struggles, some success around age 27, some bad years after that, but then a nice bounce-back at 30. Clearly it’s possible to be productive after a year as barren as the one Jackson just suffered through. But not everyone manages it, and the problem is that after shipping Michael Saunders to Toronto, the M’s just don’t have a plan B.
Last year, the M’s turned to James Jones when Abe Almonte proved himself unable to handle the CF job. When his lack of pop and/or discipline proved too great an obstacle, the M’s traded for Jackson. That Jackson proceeded to put up a half year even worse than Jones’ line puts the M’s CF depth into question. At this point, the M’s have Jackson as the unquestioned starter, with Justin Ruggiano and Jones behind him. Ruggiano is a competent back-up, but he’s generally a platoon player hitting from the right side. Jones can hit lefty, but hasn’t proven he can hit at all, at this point. The M’s lack of a half-decent CF spot doomed their 2014, and their plan for 2015 is essentially, “What are the odds THAT happens again, right?”
Again, none of this is to suggest that Jackson is doomed, or that a bad year from Jackson (or Zunino, or Leone) will doom the M’s. It’s just that there are certain positions where you can kind of see the weak points in the armor. One problem the M’s have had in recent years has been unbalanced line-ups, with some decent players, some so-so guys, and then some automatic outs. Each year, the M’s have attempted to rid their line-up of Brendan-Ryan-style out machines, and they’ve done a decent job of it. Having one up-the-middle-defender put up an awful batting line won’t harm the M’s, but two might. One plus a bullpen decline might prove critical. Obviously, the M’s have some upside risk as well, and all of the risks we’ve talked about have equivalents in their divisional rivals. But if the M’s underperform, I’m betting these three issues will prove critical.
What do you think? What are you worried about for 2015?
Justin Ruggiano For Basically Free
The Cubs are trying to contend right now. I think that’s become pretty clear, with the moves that they’ve already made. If you examine the Cubs’ current roster, I think it’s fairly evident they could use some help in the outfield. Okay, so, file that away.
Have you ever heard of Matt Brazis? Had you ever heard of him before today? I don’t know anything about Matt Brazis, and I’m sure he’s a great guy, but the people to whom Brazis is most important have nothing at all to do with major league baseball. Brazis has never been on the organizational radar. I should note that, by the way, Brazis was in the Mariners’ system. He’s not anymore. He’s the guy the Cubs just accepted, in exchange for Justin Ruggiano.
That feels like a data point. The Mariners just filled a need in trade, and they did so for basically nothing, getting a guy who might’ve helped the team he was already on. That tells you something about how the Cubs viewed Ruggiano, and that can’t be ignored, but we can proceed only with what we know and what we know is that Ruggiano appears like a fine short-term fit with the roster the Mariners have built.
He’s right-handed, so, check. He’s a versatile outfielder, so, check. He’s relatively inexpensive, so, check. Ruggiano isn’t Justin Upton, and he’s not even close. This isn’t the sexy acquisition so many people have been hoping for. Ruggiano shouldn’t even be a starter. But, again: the Mariners didn’t need one outfielder. They needed to find two. Ruggiano’s one, and I think Brad Miller turns into the other.
Maybe the Mariners keep scouring the market, and maybe they bring in another guy, but as is I think that’s unlikely. Seems like there’s one more spot open on the bench, but that could go to someone capable of spelling Logan Morrison. Even more helpful would be a guy capable of replacing Logan Morrison against left-handed pitchers. Because it’s still the middle of December we can’t predict exactly how the spring-training roster will shape up, but I think if you look at what the Mariners have, you’ve got a more or less complete team.
A key with Ruggiano is that he has a lifetime 128 wRC+ against southpaws. He has the same number of extra-base hits against lefties as against righties, in a little over half the trips to the plate. So Ruggiano pairs well with Miller and Dustin Ackley, and he’s center-field capable, while short of center-field good. Miller, for the record, has posted a 104 wRC+ against righties, and a 72 wRC+ against lefties. Against righties, he’s had more power, and against lefties, he’s had more strikeouts. It was obvious last year that Miller struggles against even decent left-handed pitching, and though most people expect his bat to improve, the Mariners can have only so much patience in a season where they’re trying to win a championship.
Naturally, there are valid concerns. Ruggiano is coming up on 33 years old. Everyone younger than 33 is coming up on 33 years old, but Ruggiano is closer to the finish line than most. Last season he fought some injuries and he flashed less power, especially to the pull side. It’s possible the Mariners are adding a useful player too late, like they did with Chris Denorfia. Denorfia was an underrated asset with the Padres earlier on, but by 2014 he’d become a shell, and he stopped hitting. If Ruggiano’s just about toast, all this will do is lead to outs, and the Mariners will have to search for help again. But considering the price, I think this is a worthwhile shot. If Ruggiano doesn’t work out, the team isn’t stuck with him. And they won’t be killed by a role player being ineffective for a handful of months.
As for Miller as an outfielder and a utility type, it’s looking increasingly likely. The Mariners did try to trade him once, for Matt Kemp, but that didn’t go anywhere and since then the team’s become more protective of the guy. Obviously, they didn’t bid up Melky Cabrera too far. They didn’t bid up Alex Rios. They haven’t made a strong push for Justin Upton. The Mariners keep talking about how they believe Miller is going to hit, and some of that is just supporting their own player, but also, I think the confidence is real. And the idea of Miller moving around and playing some outfield isn’t a new one. Some say he’s a natural. So why pay steeply for an outfielder if you might not actually need one?
Ideally, Chris Taylor does well at short, and Miller and Ruggiano do well in right. There you go, two positions solved. Miller is also valuable as Taylor insurance, in case his bat doesn’t really come around. Under those circumstances, you demote Taylor, you shift Miller to short, and in the middle of the year you try to pick up a left-handed role player. If Ruggiano doesn’t do anything, you try to pick up a right-handed role player. If Taylor and Ruggiano bust, you find a regular outfielder. If Taylor and Miller bust, uh oh. If all three of them bust, come on, pitching staff! There are a lot of ways this can go. The most likely way is that, at both positions, the Mariners are fine. Maybe not great, but probably not terrible. And they’d have a right-field solution that was inexpensive, and didn’t sacrifice any future assets.
A lot of people want impact additions. A lot of people want an impact right fielder. A lot of people think an impact right fielder would put the Mariners right over the top. Well, maybe, but, at what cost? Impact additions are distracting. In a lot of ways they’re overrated. Justin Upton is something like a 3-win player. Maybe 4, if he’s really clicking. What do you make of Ruggiano and Miller, as a tandem? Is that 2 wins? That doesn’t seem over-optimistic. I’d say it might even be low. What’s the real difference between Upton and a Ruggiano/Miller platoon? Would it be worth giving away what it would take? What if the Mariners traded Miller for a right fielder? Would it be worth giving up the talent and the shortstop insurance? If nothing else, I’m content to let the Mariners evaluate what they have and re-visit if they need to in June or July. Prices will be higher, but by then at least we’ll know if the Mariners actually need anything.
I don’t think they need much more than they have. Not at the moment. The Mariners are almost through the offseason, and they have a good team, and they still have Miller, and Taylor, and Taijuan Walker, and James Paxton, and an intact farm system. They’re down one Michael Saunders, and I’ll never like that, but this all could’ve gone worse. The Matt Kemp trade probably would’ve been worse. Now the Mariners have added a useful role player and they seem open to leveraging Brad Miller’s pop and athleticism. As many different ways as this could’ve gone, it’s gone a decent way. Justin Ruggiano doesn’t make the Mariners a World Series contender on his own, but he fits with what was already a legitimate World Series contender, and the future’s remained untouched.