Gutierrez To Hit 3rd
Shannon Drayer has the story of Wak deciding to start the season with Death To Flying Things hitting in the #3 spot in the order, seemingly to avoid putting undue pressure on Casey Kotchman. I talked about this the other day, but there was certainly a chance that Kotchman could have ended up as an easy scape goat for frustrated fans if the offense slumped early and he was hitting into a bunch of double plays. It’s not really the way you want the fans to get to know your new first baseman, so I think this is probably the right call.
If you start Kotchman off down in the order and he struggles, he may still attract some derision, but he won’t be seen as the reason the offense is failing. If he starts off hot, it’s easy enough to move him up.
I’m glad to see Wak make this move. It’s just one potentially bad scenario avoided.
2010 Opening Day Roster Set
Official press release, with some official misspellings.
That means your 2010 Mariners are as follows:
Starting Nine:
C: Rob Johnson
1B: *Casey Kotchman
2B: #Chone Figgins
SS: Jack Wilson
3B: Jose Lopez
LF: #Milton Bradley
CF: Franklin Gutierrez
RF: *Ichiro!
DH: *Ken Griffey, Jr.
Bench:
C: Adam Moore
1B/DH: Mike Sweeney
IF: Matt Tuiasosopo
OF: Eric Byrnes
OF: *Ryan Langerhans
Rotation:
RHP Felix Hernandez
RHP Ian Snell
LHP Ryan Rowland-Smith
RHP Doug Fister
LHP Jason Vargas
Bullpen:
RHP David Aardsma
RHP Shawn Kelley
RHP Brandon League
RHP Mark Lowe
RHP Kanekoa Texeira
RHP Sean White
The Mariners will start the season with Erik Bedard, Cliff Lee, and Jack Hannahan on the DL.
The big loser in this is probably Jesus Colome, who impressed this spring by walking three and striking out twelve in 12.1 innings, when the usual mark for him might be something like six walks and eight Ks. I’d say that this is indicative of the fact that the M’s are willing to exercise restraint and not take spring training results at face value, but then again, Sweeney. If things don’t go so well, expect to see a lot of Kelley, Texeira, and White, who were so thoughtfully stretched out beforehand.
The runner-up for big loser (loser of the year?) is probably Josh Wilson, as the M’s opted for the offensive potential of Tui over a more proficient glove. Of course, once Hannahan comes back, we could see things get rearranged.
Also, MLB.com is televising the final spring training game for free, if you can’t make it until tomorrow.
The Line-Up
And the winner of request-a-post is, well, no one actually. No one specifically requested this post, but the direction a few of the comments combined with some thoughts kicking around in my head and so, here we go, let’s talk about the batting order.
First off, I guess we should list it, eh? While Wak is the man of a million line-up cards, there will probably be more stability this year than last, and I’d imagine we’ll see something like this, at least with the current roster.
Vs RHP: Ichiro-Figgins-Kotchman-Bradley-Griffey-Lopez-Gutierrez-Catcher-Wilson
Vs LHP: Ichiro-Figgins-Gutierrez-Bradley-Lopez-Byrnes/Sweeney-Kotchman-Cacher-Wilson
Let’s start at the top – Ichiro and Figgins. When the M’s signed another lead-off type hitter, it inevitably brought out the question of which player should hit first. The M’s have settled on keeping Ichiro where he’s comfortable, seeing no useful reason to move him to a new spot. Should they?
After all, there are arguments you can put together that show why flipping the two may be advantageous. Figgins draws a lot of his value from the base on balls, which fits better at the #1 slot in the order. As presently stands, an Ichiro single and a Figgins walk puts runners at first and second. If you flip them, and you get the Figgins walk first, there’s a good chance he could advance to third on Ichiro’s single with regularity, and you’d gain an extra base when that occurred. You can also argue that Ichiro’s bat control gives him a greater ability to take advantage of the hole on the right side of the infield, and that he could get pepper that hole with base hits while the first baseman holds Figgins on. So, don’t these make it worth considering flipping them?
Not really, no. Tackling the second point first, Ichiro is a career .331/.361/.438 hitter with the bases empty and a .331/.359/.431 hitter with a man on first base. The theory is nice, but the evidence is not there. We have no actual reason to believe that Ichiro would be able to uniquely take advantage of the hole on the right side, even though it might make intuitive sense. Nine years into his major league career, if he had the ability to do that, I think we’d probably have seen it by now.
Now, for the first point. Yes, a walk and then a single is the preferable order to those two events, but the benefit doesn’t come without a cost. Ichiro has 40 or more infield hits in each of the last four years, with a lot of those being ground balls to the hole between shortstop and third base where they simply can’t get the throw across the diamond in time to get him at first base. However, if you put Figgins on first base when that ball is hit, there’s a pretty good chance for a force play at second, and that infield hit becomes a fielders choice. If Ichiro moved to the two hole and was hitting behind a high on base guy, I’d expect his batting average to take a beating, even if he did everything exactly the same. The chance to get an extra base on the times when he gets a hit to the outfield isn’t worth taking away some of his infield hits.
Okay, now, the #3 spot. It’s going to be a Kotchman/Gutierrez platoon, and let’s be honest, no one is expecting those guys to combine for 40 home runs from that spot in the order. The M’s are likely going to have near league-worst offensive production from that particular line-up spot, even though Gutierrez hits lefties well. Most teams put a burly slugger third, but the M’s don’t have that guy, so they’re making do. Is it a good idea to hit Kotchman third against righties and push Bradley back to the full time cleanup spot?
Maybe. As Tom Tango showed in The Book (and is explained in this primer), a Markov Chain analysis (don’t ask – it even makes my head hurt) shows that the most important spots in the line-up are actually #1, #2, and #4. The #3 hitter frequently comes up with two men out and no one on base, so despite the common wisdom that its a vital run producing spot, it’s actually not, at least not relative to the 1, 2, and 4 spots in the order. So, there’s some logic to what they’re doing by pushing Bradley back to the clean-up spot, since he’s the third best hitter on the team.
But here’s the one problem with this setup – Casey Kotchman is a slow footed ground ball machine. For his career, 52.7 percent of his balls in play have been hit on the ground. As the #3 hitter behind Ichiro and Figgins, he’s going to hit into a lot of frustrating double plays. Count on at least 15, maybe 20. He could lead the league in GIDP, just because of his skillset and line-up spot. If the team is struggling to score runs, he’s going to be a very easy target for the frustrated fans, who simply will see an underpowered first baseman creating two outs at a time. They’re trying to setup Kotchman for a breakout year by playing him everyday, but I hope he can respond well to being a lightning rod for criticism, because I’d guess that we’re going to hear a lot of complaints about his double play proclivities if he stays in the #3 hole all year.
The rest of the line-ups aren’t very controversial. I guess I could talk about Griffey or Sweeney again, but I don’t want to, so I won’t. Gutierrez and Kotchman both struggle against same-handed pitchers, so hitting them seventh against those guys makes sense. Wilson will hit ninth because he’s the worst hitter on the team. That leaves the 8th spot for the catcher of the day, which will probably depend much more on who is starting for the M’s than who is starting for the opponents.
Overall, I’d say that the line-up the M’s are going with is pretty well maximized in terms of efficiency. There aren’t many gains to be had by shuffling things around, as the proposed line-ups have the teams best three hitters in the three most important spots, and give the team ways to move guys around the rest of the order to take advantage of platoons. If the offense isn’t working, there will be calls to change the way the line-up is built, but I don’t think you can really improve on this very much. The only way to make this offense better is to get better hitters in the line-up, not re-arrange the ones already here.
The Odds Of Winning
The guys at Replacement Level Yankee Weblog posted their season simulation blowout on Tuesday, using the inputs of five different projection systems and running them through Diamond Mind’s baseball simulation engine 1,000 times each to produce projected standings for the 2010 season. Since we’re all trying to figure out just how good this team may be, and how likely they are to give us a playoff team to root for this year, I thought it’s worth pointing out.
If you aggregate the projections together, the Mariners are projected to finish 81-81 and place second in the AL West. That might sound like a disappointment, but the key is in the playoff odds – in those 1,000 seasons, the Mariners ended up on top of the AL West 25.6 percent of the time and won the wild card 3.8 percent of the time. In other words, in nearly 3 out of 10 runs of the season, the M’s ended up playing October baseball. I’ll take that. Given where the team was just two years ago, who isn’t happy with 30 % odds of making the playoffs?
Even better, Dan Szymobrski’s ZIPS system (which wasn’t included in RLYW’s run because they were licensed by ESPN for use in their baseball preview) actually has the M’s as favorites in the AL West and winning the World Series more often than all but six other MLB clubs.
This is a roster with flaws. We all know that. We’ll spend a lot of time dissecting every last possible spot to upgrade the team as the year goes on, I’m sure. But, warts and all, there is a non-zero chance we’ll be throwing a parade this winter. Be concerned about the offense, the back of the rotation, the lack of depth on the middle infield, but don’t lose sight of the big picture – the 2010 Mariners are a legitimate contender.
Four More Days
It’s probably that this spring training has been a never ending series of bad news for the Mariners, but I have never been this ready for a season to begin before. March took forever this year. It’s finally over, but we still have to wait through one more weekend without meaningful baseball.
With a couple of days left before the season starts, I realized I only have time left for one or two classic too-long-USSM-posts, and so I’ll open this up to you guys – have any last minute things you’d like to read? What hasn’t been written about enough that we really should talk about before the season starts? (If you say Mike Sweeney, I will burn your house down. But don’t worry, Sweeney will buy you a new one – he’s just that nice.)
I’ll go through the suggestions, then knock out the best idea and post it tonight. Expect some kind of season preview thing tomorrow or Monday, once I figure out what I want that to look like.
Oh, and I should mention that if you want to chat on Monday, I’m going to be hanging out over at FanGraphs with a whole bunch of neat people. Jonah Keri, Dan Szymborski, Tim Marchman, Dave Studemund, and others have agreed to swing by, and we’ll be talking baseball all day. I’ll be in and out in the morning, but should be around in the afternoon. Feel free to swing by and talk baseball with us over there.
Thanks, guys
It’s no secret that a Certain Other Baseball Site Dave Writes For is doing a major series right now that is generating a lot of, uh, discussion. (yeah, let’s call it that)
So, I just wanted to say, on behalf of all of the USSM crew:
Thanks to all of our regular commenters. Sometimes we take you for granted, and it takes something like watching a total trainwreck somewhere else to really make us appreciate what a good overall community we’ve managed to collect here at USSM.
(LL people, you’re awesome too, even if you won’t let me make Carlos Silva fat jokes anymore)
Garko Waived
Jon Morosi reports that the M’s have placed Ryan Garko on waivers, finalizing the speculation over the last week that Mike Sweeney took his roster spot. Garko had an option left, so that the M’s put him on waivers tells you just how little they want to keep him around. He didn’t impress anyone in Peoria, and this is the M’s just letting him go.
I’m not a fan of making roster choices based on March, but I already ranted about this last week, so I’ll leave it at that.
Update: It turns out we were all wrong assuming the M’s could just option Garko to Tacoma. I’ve been told that there’s a rule that requires any player to pass through waivers before he can be optioned after the 3 year anniversary of his major league debut. Since Garko debuted on September 18, 2005, he fits the criteria. Even though he has an option left, the M’s were still required to put him on waivers before they could send him down.
A Good Time To Be Hurting
The M’s are going to open the season at significantly less than full strength. With Cliff Lee, Erik Bedard, and Jack Hannahan on the DL, the team is going to have to fight through April with a roster that would probably finish below .500 over a full 162 game season. Don’t expect this team to come firing out of the gates and blow the doors off of everyone in the first month of the season.
However, if the M’s had to choose a month in which to be hurting, April may just have been their best bet. While they start the season with ten games against the A’s and Rangers, they follow that with series’ against Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, and Kansas City. There isn’t a likely playoff team in that bunch, and in reality, the last two weeks of April looks like one of the easiest stretches of baseball this team will play all year.
It’s easy to look at the roster and be a little discouraged with how this spring has gone, but the M’s may have caught something of a lucky break in their schedule. Thanks to the weaker opponents they play in the first month of the season, they’re unlikely to get buried early. Even with a lot of question marks, I wouldn’t be surprised if the M’s posted a winning record in April, which should inspire a decent amount of optimism if Lee and Bedard can rejoin a team that’s already over .500.
May to August are going to be tough. The M’s need their big guns back for that stretch. April, though, they may just be able to sneak through with this less than perfect roster.
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Casey Kotchman’s Upside
Many people see Casey Kotchman as something of a wild card in the 2010 Mariner lineup. Over at the Max Info blog, Dave mentioned that the hitting staff will be working with Kotchman to start focusing on hitting more fly balls to try and take advantage of the right field porch in Safeco. The idea is that with the right adjustments, Kotchman might just rediscover his power stroke and become an impact player.
Looking at his stats, it is very easy to see why people see Kotchman as a high upside guy. A top prospect his entire minor league career, Kotchman broke through with a .296/.372/.467 line in 2007. When a 24-year-old top prospect puts up a .372 wOBA while flashing a plus glove, most people assume he has nowhere to go but up. Even after a couple of disappointing seasons, it’s easy to keep dreaming on that upside and expect a breakout. As much as I would love to be on the Kotchman bandwagon, I’m not so sure anymore.
2007 was a tale of two seasons for Kotchman, who suffered a concussion in June of that year. Post-injury his power, which finally seemed to be emerging in the first half, dropped off. His .199 first-half ISO dropped down to .138 in the second half, stayed at .137 in 2008, and then plummeted to .114 last year.
This spring, I had the opportunity to watch Kotchman in both batting practice and game action down in Arizona. I was accompanied by a friend of mine who was a high school baseball standout and D1 recruit before an injury ended his baseball career. Suffice it to say he and I see the game a little bit differently. When I mentioned Kotchman’s name as a potential breakout candidate, my friend laughed, remarking “not with that swing he’s not.” Where I saw a 27-year-old hitter with a mature approach who’d hit for average and power in the past, my friend saw a guy who didn’t get the barrel of the bat through the strike zone quickly enough to punish major league pitching.
I was intrigued, and decided to look a little deeper into Kotchman’s offensive profile to see if I could isolate any differences between Kotchman’s 2007 and 2008-09 performances. While there were several small differences, each of which is potentially meaningful, one thing jumped out at me. In 2007, 36.2% of the pitches Kotchman saw were in the strike zone. In 2008, that number jumped to 48.8%, and rose again in 2009 to 49.6%. For comparison’s sake, league average Zone% has hovered right around 50% in those years. Unfortunately, rather than punish pitchers for their new-found hubris, Kotchman’s power fell off a cliff.
The only hard conclusion I can draw from this is that major league pitchers have made an adjustment in their approach with Kotchman. Where they used to tiptoe around him, they no longer seem afraid to challenge him. It’s pure speculation I know, but my gut is telling me that major league scouts are telling their pitching coaches something similar to what my friend told me: Casey Kotchman doesn’t have the bat speed to be a threat anymore.
I hope I am wrong, but I am starting to see Kotchman more as a known quantity/solid roleplayer than as a guy capable of returning to his 2007 form.
EDIT: Jeff Sullivan points out that there seems to be a major blip in Fangraphs’ 2007 Zone% Data for the Angels and Dodgers in 2007 which may or may not render this entire post completely moot. Incorrect source data is frustrating.