2010 West Tenn Diamond Jaxx Preview
This is the team you listen to on off-days when the Mariners aren’t playing. Actually, scratch that, because of the time difference, you really have no excuse to not tune in to D-Jaxx games before the M’s come on most nights. The West Tenn squad features a glimpse of what the infield might look like two years down the road and a number of pitchers that might contribute in the near future either in the rotation or the bullpen. Even moving past the top prospect types, the team can run, hit for power, throw hard, even field a little, and should be fun to follow regardless.
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2010 High Desert Mavericks Preview
To start out by setting some reasonable expectations, I expect this year’s High Desert squad to be decent, but have few hopes of them repeating as division winners in both halves. Part of that is that the talent isn’t quite as high as it was in last year, though to be fair, there were a lot of unanticipated breakouts in that group. The other part is that I find the pitching more interesting than the hitting here, which is not something I’m comfortable saying too loudly given what kind of circumstances this crew is going to be dropped into there. That is not to say that the offense will be hopeless, as they have some experience and at least three hitters who could establish themselves as quality prospects in the system with a good showing there, conditional on it being not just a home park thing.
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2010 Clinton Lumberkings Preview
In the Bavasi years, the Midwest League roster was frequently the most interesting squad to start any given season, featuring a variety of high-potential teenagers from the international market and maybe a high school kid or two drafted in the early rounds. This year’s Clinton Lumberkings are similarly interesting (ultimately losing out on talent to West Tenn), but are constructed in a completely different way. There’s only one teenaged international free agent on the roster, and only four international players total, an unusual total among recent years. Similarly, there are only three teenagers on staff, which seems kind of reasonable when you think about. Even without these boom-or-bust styled youngsters, there’s plenty to watch from the ’09 draft picks that dominate the roster.
Game Two Recap
Boo, 1-1.
He’s not a Mariner, but let’s start with Dallas Braden. He’s basically Oakland’s version of Jason Vargas; a finesse lefty with a good change-up who throw strikes and lets the defense do the work. Except, tonight, the M’s decided to abandon their make-the-pitcher-work approach and chased every pitch he threw, most of them being pitches down and out of the zone. As such, Braden rang up 10 strikeouts, easily a career high. Now, maybe his pitches were just really hard to lay off or something, but the approach didn’t resemble anything like the one the team took against Ben Sheets last night. The M’s didn’t make Braden throw strikes, instead waving at pitches that they couldn’t do anything with. I’m not trying to take anything away from the A’s starter, but that looked more like bad hitting than great pitching to me.
Unfortunately, I think the same is mostly true about the Ian Snell and the A’s. Snell looked pretty similar to the guy we saw last year, throwing some decent pitches and some bad ones, plus struggling with his command at times. The two seam fastball was better than the four seam, as the extra velocity seemed to be accompanied by an inability to find the strike zone. The results were pretty decent, I know, but the A’s probably have the worst offense in the American League, and I don’t know that this would have worked all that well against a team that can hit. It’s good that he didn’t get lit up or anything, but I didn’t see anything that made me overly excited from Snell.
Kelley looked good, tossing his newly rediscovered change-up on his second pitch of the game, and locating his fastball and breaking ball well. Glad to see Wak use him in the 7th, even though he’s technically one of the two long guys in the pen.
Here’s a surprise – when Milton Bradley isn’t getting on base, this offense is pretty bad. Oh, wait, we knew that. Try to get on base more, Milton. The guys around you aren’t up to picking up the slack.
Lopez made a couple of mistakes in the field. They both looked like things he can learn to fix with experience, but yeah, there’s going to be growing pains with him over there.
And finally, yeah, he got the loss, but I thought Kanekoa Texeira looked pretty good. The breaking ball (I don’t know if he calls it a slider or splitter) has nasty downward break, and he showed confidence throwing it in any count, even in his major league debut. His fastball moves too, so while he’s not overpowering, he’s got a couple of pitches that can eat hitters up. The bloop double from Travis Buck that caused the problems in the 9th inning was on a pitch that just shattered Buck’s bat, and was nothing but bad luck. He threw some really good pitches in Rajai Davis to get a huge strikeout, showing he’s not just a ground ball guy. Ellis hit a pretty good pitch to win the game, too. I don’t have any complaints about his major league debut, even if it didn’t end all that well.
Game 2, Mariners at A’s
Snell vs Braden, 7:05 pm.
Game one of the “can we fix Ian Snell” experiment. If they can, it will be a big boost to the rotation. He gets the team’s better defensive group, since the M’s face a southpaw, meaning Bradley to DH and Byrnes in left.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Bradley, DH
Lopez, 3B
Kotchman, 1B
Byrnes, LF
Moore, C
Wilson, SS
Game One Recap
Yay, 1-0!
I’d like to start off on a cheerful note, but unfortunately, there is one glaringly obvious thing to talk about, and it’s not positive; the seventh inning choice of relief pitchers.
Sean White had a nice ERA last year. Wak has a belief system with him. I get it. He’s still not a good pitcher, and the M’s need to be smart enough to realize that. His xFIP, a much better indicator of actual ability, was 4.80, two full runs higher. His ERA was a massive fluke, based on an unsustainable .235 batting average on balls in play. He struck out 28 batters in 64 innings, which is terrible, and he doesn’t make up for it with good command. He’s got a decent sinker, but nothing else, and that doesn’t even work all that well against LHBs.
But, despite having a fully rested bullpen, Wak went to Sean White to get a lefty out with the tying run on base in the 7th inning. With Brandon League and Mark Lowe just sitting there, Wak bypassed them both to put in the 5th or 6th best reliever on the team (depending on how much you like Kanekoa Teixeira). White doesn’t do anything better than League, and the only advantage he has over Lowe (ground balls) doesn’t matter when there’s two outs. White, predictably, gives up a couple of hits and the game ended up tied.
Wak doesn’t have long to get over his Sean White fetish. Sean White is not a good pitcher, and his manager has to learn this in a hurry. He should not be used in close games unless he’s the only available option. When he’s the first guy out of the pen on opening day in a close game, that’s a problem. Learn from this, Wak.
Moving on, Felix had an interesting night. It was one of those classic good stuff/no command nights for him, made worse by the fact that Tim Tschida’s strikezone was stupid and inconsistent. But, because of the movement Felix was getting on his fastball, the command problems were minimized by a ridiculous amount of ground balls. It’s really hard to score if you can’t get the ball out of the infield, and for most of the night, the A’s couldn’t. Felix is good enough to succeed even when he has no idea where the ball is going. It wasn’t his best performance, but it showed how tough he can be, even when he’s not entirely on.
Offensively, the approach to the at-bats taken by Figgins, Kotchman, and Bradley were fun to watch. Those guys took advantage of the dancing strike zone and Sheets’ control problems, running up his pitch count and getting themselves on base. They might not be sluggers, but there are going to be a lot of innings where those three take 20 pitches between them, and that has value.
Watching Figgins and Ichiro steal second at will was fun. Watching Ichiro get thrown out at third and Bradley get picked off was less so. Aggressiveness is nice, but if you have to give up two outs in your pursuit of three bases, its not worth it.
Lopez looked pretty good at third. I still don’t love the switch, but it was good to see him make all the plays and start a couple of double plays.
Rob Johnson crushed a Ben Sheets fastball on the same night that Jeff Mathis went yard for the Angels. It was bad hitting catchers home run night in the AL West, apparently. You’ll hear about Johnson’s off-season surgeries every time he does something good, and he’ll almost certainly hit better than he did a year ago simply because its hard to be that bad two years in a row, but don’t expect many repeats of that power display.
You saw one of the benefits of the 11 man staff in the 8th inning. When Jr doubled, Byrnes pinch ran for him, giving the team a better chance of getting the go ahead run in on a base hit. That’s not possible if you don’t have Langerhans around to serve as the extra outfielder. It’s a small thing, but it helps, and keep in mind that it’s only possible because the M’s were willing to go with just six relievers. Every time someone mentions how nervous they are about that, remember that it comes with benefits too.
Congratulations to Casey Kotchman for some big hits and to the Mariners for starting the season off on a winning note. They’ll have to play better than this to win on most nights, but a win is a win, and I’ll take it.
Opening Day Game Thread
It’s Opening Day and Felix Day #1.
The weather forecasts for Oakland looked fairly dicey, but things look good for now, and the chance of precipitation actually declines later in the evening.
Your first 2010 M’s starting line-up:
1: Ichiro!
2: Chone Figgins, 2B
3: Casey Kotchman, 1B
4: Milton Bradley, LF
5: Ken Griffey, DH
6: Jose Lopez, 3B
7: Franklin Gutierrez, CF
8: Rob Johnson, C
9: Jack Wilson, SS
On the hill for the Athletics is Ben Sheets who 1) hasn’t thrown a pitch since 2008 and 2) makes more than the rest of the Oakland pitching staff combined.
The A’s DFA’d Jack Cust the other day, which means their clean-up hitter is Kevin Kouzmanoff. Yep.
Let’s go M’s.
Wladimir Balentien DFA’d
Anyone worried that the Mariners may have shipped away a legitimate middle of the order bat for a spare minor league arm last year should be able to rest a little bit easier now. Former frustrating Ms farmhand Wladimir Balentien just lost out to former frustrating Texas farmhand Laynce Nix for the 5th outfielder job with the Reds.
If no team trades for him in the next 10 days, Balentien will almost certainly find a minor league deal before too long. Every once in awhile, someone with his raw ability and obvious deficiencies turns into Nelson Cruz. More often, they hang around mashing Triple-A pitching into their late 20s/early 30s or sign a relatively lucrative contract to play in Japan. Best of luck to Wlad.
Previewing the 2010 Season
Everyone and their brother has written a season preview for the team, and they all come to the same general conclusions – the season hinges on several unpredictable players.
It really is that simple. This team is a contender if:
Milton Bradley stays healthy, stays sane, and hits well.
Cliff Lee recovers from this injury quickly and suffers no lingering effects.
Casey Kotchman remembers that he used to be a pretty good hitting prospect.
Ian Snell figures out how to throw strikes and get lefties out.
Felix, Ichiro, Gutierrez, and Figgins all avoid the disabled list.
If all of those things happen, this team has a great shot at the playoffs. If two or three of them happen, they have a shot, but they’ll need all three other AL West clubs to struggle. If less than three of those things happen, they may finish below .500.
This is a high variance team whose success hinges on some things going well that may or may not go well. People who are sure this team will win are wrong, just as those who are sure this team will lose are wrong. There’s no way to be sure about anything with this roster.
And, to be honest, that makes it kind of fun. For the first time in years, I have no idea what to expect. We’ll find out what this team is as we watch them play. Bring it on.
Opening Day Chat
For those that haven’t seen it yet, we’re hosting a big all day chat session over at FanGraphs, with a nifty collection of guests and a rotating panel of authors from the site. I’ll be hanging out over there in the morning, so if you want to swing by and talk baseball, feel free.
And, of course, we’ll have our regularly scheduled game thread here for the first game. Feel free to come talk about the game and the team with the rest of the USSM crowd.