Cactus League Game Thread, 3/6/2010
I can imagine, some time, far off in the distance (let us call it Monday), when the Mariners will not be facing the Padres. I know. “Impossible”, you must surely say.
There isn’t much news out of camp early this morning, save that Jack Wilson and David Aardsma are both feeling better. Your lineup for the 12:05 pm PT game:
CF Ezequiel Carrera
LF Eric Byrnes
1B Ryan Garko
DH Mike Sweeney
RF Ryan Langerhans
3B Matt Tuiasosopo
2B Dustin Ackley
C Adam Moore
SS Josh Wilson
RHP Ian Snell
There’s something in the rule books about needing a certain number of regulars in the lineup in any given Cactus League game, so clearly, some of the fellows above have to feel good about their odds.
Death to Flying Things remains MIA 🙁
Dave vs Dave
The Brock and Salk media bracket thing continues today, and amazingly enough, I’m still in it. I’m now facing Dave Niehaus, and let’s be honest, he’s going to slaughter me. Seriously, the voice of the Mariners or a blogger. This isn’t fair.
Feel free to vote for me anyway, if you want to make it less of a massacre.
Second (Official!) Cactus League Game
Happy Birthday Mauricio Robles!
Other news in camp, via the Everett Herald:
* Aardsma is out for a little while after straining his groin a bit in yesterday’s game.
* Lee and Felix are pitching a simulated game on the other field. There is no cause for alarm.
* Junior Junior Griffey: just as smug as original Junior Griffey.
* Original Junior Griffey, taking note of Joe Girardi switching the number on his jersey, tries to give #1 to Wakamatsu. As all the single digits were already taken in the first place, catastrophe ensues.
* Mark Lowe, when not preoccupied with thoughts of what to do next with his sideburns, enjoys thoughtfully reading all of his fan mail.
Today, the M’s go up against the Padres again, with a lineup closer to what they’ll run out on opening day.
RF Ichiro!
2B Figgins
LF Bradley
DH Griffey
3B Lopez
1B Kotchman
CF Halman
C Quiroz
SS Jack Wilson
LHP Luke French
Given that the M’s beat the Padres yesterday 9-3 in a game where Jack Wilson was the only regular, and Ryan Garko was probably the best hitter, we could be in for a long one. The potential drubbing starts at 12:05 PT.
MiLB Roundtable: March ’10
We’re bringing it back for another go, seeing as how it was good fun last time and a way of getting our thoughts out in a different setting. The idea is that we’ll be doing this more often during the regular season this year, maybe even monthly.
Read more
Charity Game, er, Game Thread
Yesterday, Dave noted that the line-up the M’s trotted out against the Giants was basically the assumed opening day line-up. This is… a different situation!
1. Mike Saunders (CF)
2. Eric Byrnes (LF)
3. Ryan Garko (1B)
4. Mike Sweeney (DH)
5. Jack Hannahan (SS)
6. Ryan Langerhans (RF)
7. Josh Bard (C)
8. Matt Tuiasosopo (2B)
9. Chris Woodward (3B)
SP: Jason Vargas
Gametime: Right about now.
Yep. The Padres start Chris Young and what looks like their opening day line-up (Gonzalez, Hairston, Blanks, Headley, etc.).
The M’s bullpen includes Nick Hill, Josh Fields, Brandon League, David Aardsma, Edward Paredes, Erasmo Ramirez, Shawn Kelley, and Levale Speigner. (Hat tip to Kirby Arnold).
Nick Hill could conceivably make the team as the lefty reliever, though I’d guess the team may want him to continue working as a starter in Tacoma. Levale Speigner is one of the myriad groundballing righthanders Zduriencik picked up, and Erasmo Ramirez got some interest in these parts last year for his video game numbers in the Venezuelan summer league (80 Ks to 5 BBs in 88 IP, 74% GB rate). The 19 year old was repeating the VSL and was a bit older for his league, hence the fact that he’s not on a lot of prospect lists. Still, it’ll be fun seeing him face off against… Padres minor leaguers should he get the chance.
Assorted Things (And A New Author)
You may have noticed that the post directly below this one is written by a new author. In addition to Marc W, who we brought in last week and has been adding some good content to the blog of late, we”ve asked frequent commenter JH to join the writing staff. For various reasons, he’ll just be going by his initials, but I think he’ll add a nice dynamic to the group. With Jay, Marc, and JH around, this is going to be a tremendous year for prospect coverage on USSM – and yes, a new version of the Future Forty is coming.
In other news, Brock and Salk are running a NCAA-style tournament of Seattle sports media personalities. Ridiculously, I’m included, and somehow knocked off Warren Moon in round one. I don’t even know how to wrap my head around more people voting for me than Warren Moon, but, uhh, thanks. In round two, I’m squaring off against Dave Sims, a tremendous broadcaster and consumer of awesome hats. We’re fighting for the right to get trounced by Dave Niehaus in round three. If you want to vote for me, there are instructions on how to do so on the Brock and Salk blog. If you want to vote for Sims, well, I can’t blame you. I’m still trying to figure out how I got included in this whole thing. Apparently talking fast pays off at times.
And finally, I’m going to be scarce around here next week. Amy and I are flying to Arizona on Sunday, and we’re hitting up Red Rock country and the Grand Canyon for a few days of a no internet/no phone getaway. The Mariners could trade for Albert Pujols and you still won’t get a post from me about it. At the end of the week, I’m headed for Peoria, and will get a few days down in camp, but have a busy enough schedule that I probably won’t post too much here until I get back. I may throw up a few pictures on twitter, but that’s probably all you’ll get from me next week. Jay, Marc, and JH will hold down the fort while I’m gone, and I’ll come back with some too long posts about the team once I return from the desert.
BP’s top 101 Prospects
Kevin Goldstein, Baseball Prospectus’s prospect guru, just released his personal top 101 prospect list. The ranking of the Mariners’ usual suspects is pretty much in line with what everyone else has been saying. Dustin Ackley’s on at #12 and Michael Saunders comes in at #62. He likes Saunders less than BA does, but the difference between #30 and #62 really isn’t that huge.
At the back end, though, is a pretty big shocker. Bucking industry consensus, Goldstein ranked SS Gabriel Noriega as the #94 prospect in baseball. This ranking is…aggressive, to say the least. Noriega is a great defensive shortstop with a level swing who produced only modest power last year while striking out in nearly 30% of his at-bats for Pulaski. Baseball America was nowhere near as impressed with him, ranking him towards the back end of the Mariners’ top-30 list.
Clearly Goldstein is hearing something about Noriega that other talent evaluators are not. I generally respect Goldstein’s opinion, but I don’t really get this one. I hate to be a downer, but Noriega is one of the rawest talents in a system that also features Gregory Halman and Denny Almonte. As nice as it is to see a national prospect analyst so high on one of our players, we should all temper our expectations quite a bit. There’s upside here, but if Noriega is able to hold his own in the Midwest League this year I will be pleasantly surprised.
First Cactus League Game Thread
The exhibition season kicks off today with the Mariners hosting the Giants down in Peoria. The game will be broadcast on 710 ESPN, starting at 12:05 in Seattle. Tim Lincecum starts for the Giants, and the M’s counter with Doug Fister.
The first line-up of the spring looks pretty darn close to what I’d expect the M’s to run out on opening day, with one or two small changes.
1. Ichiro, RF
2. Figgins, 2B
3. Bradley, LF
4. Griffey, DH
5. Lopez, 3B
6. Kotchman, 1B
7. Byrnes, CF (this will be Gutierrez on Opening Day)
8. Moore, C (gotta think this will be Rob Johnson catching Felix)
9. Wilson, SS
News/Innovations/Links
1) Students at Northeastern University have developed a shirt that they hope will aid in the detection of changes in a pitcher’s mechanics that can indicate fatigue. Pitcher injury/attrition is a massive, massive issue in baseball (and was a particular problem for the M’s), and I like the idea here. It’s not perfect, but this is an undergraduate project, and it’s a fascinating idea. (It’s machine washable!).
2) Some of you already saw this on The Book Blog -written by sabermetrician and M’s employee (I never get tired of saying that) Tom Tango- but Craig Glaser has an interesting twist on measuring a batter’s ‘selectivity.’ Limiting his analysis to 2-strike pitches, Craig’s measuring how likely a batter is to swing at a strike (and not swing at a ball). Why 2 strikes? Because a batter on a 2-0 or 3-0 count may take a pitch he thinks is probably a strike because he’d rather wait for a better one (thus, this isn’t exactly the same thing as ‘knowledge of the strike zone’). Why does it matter? Well, check out this conclusion:
“If a batter puts a ball in play and the pitch was a strike: Batting Average: .298 SLG: .492
If a batter puts a ball in play and the pitch was a ball: Batting Average: .181 SLG: .254.”
Great stuff. Of course, I give bonus points to any references to Chris Sabo, so the fact that Glaser’s blog is called ‘Sabometrics’ was a big plus.
3) I know Baseball Prospectus has taken some shots from the saber community, and from our fearless leader in particular. But this piece by Pizza Cutter is just dead-on. I, for one, completely agree with the premise that we don’t know very much about ‘chemistry,’ which players are ‘clutch’, or which ones are ‘all about themselves/the stats’ and what effect any of these may have on building a winning club. I’m comfortable saying that there seems to be a non-negligible effect and that it may have helped the M’s in 2009. The problem is that the people who often use this argument against the analytical community *don’t know how to measure this either*. The implicit argument is that it’s better to spout off about Player X’s ‘clutch’ skills or Player Y’s ‘selfishness’ with absolutely no back-up outside of an anecdote than it is to say, “I don’t know if he’s a selfish bastard who’s killing this team with his personality or not, but I can tell you how many runs he created.”
Some players in 2008 seem to have seen Ichiro as aloof or not team-oriented. In 2009, Ichiro seemed to get along with his teammates swimmingly. In 2008, A-Rod was a playoff choker, and in 2009 he was a playoff hero. In 2006-7, Brian Giles clubhouse antics kept the team loose and helped them fight for the division title. In 2009, Brian Giles was no longer hilarious, because being jumped on by a naked guy hitting below the Mendoza line in a lost season is, apparently, *not cool*. These attributes can be annoyingly ephemeral! So here’s to all we DON’T know about baseball, and here’s to all of the people willing to say that we don’t know everything!
4) Again, many of you have been following along for a while, but I wanted to plug USSM mod/Lookout Landing author Graham MacAree’s amazing ‘Sabermetrics 101’ series over at LL. Read ’em all.
5) This came up in comments on one of the Wes Littleton posts, but pitch f/x guru Dave Allen (whose piece on Cliff Lee is available in the 2010 Mariners Annual, available at fine retailers everywhere or from Maple Street Press here!) wrote an interesting piece on pitch sequences. This is focused on 2-pitch sequences amongst pitchers with (essentially) 2 pitches in their repertoire, so it’s not exhaustive, but it’s interesting, and I’m glad we’ve got people like Allen looking into this. I love you, pitch f/x.
6) The Tacoma Rainiers unveiled their Cheney Stadium redesign plan to the Tacoma City Council today. Here’s the Rainiers presser, here’s the Tacoma News Tribune’s piece on the design proposal from back in November, and here’s a TNT piece from today on the design. Check out the photo gallery at the end of the last link.
The City put up $30 million in bond proceeds, and the Cheney Foundation would add in a few million as well. State funding isn’t mentioned as a funding source; the Rainiers received state capital budget appropriations of $2.5 million in the 2007-09 capital budget (the money was appropriated as a community project from the old Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development to the City of Tacoma for the Rainiers), but presumably that money went towards the new scoreboard that debuted in 2009.
[8pm update]
The City’s putting up the bulk of the money for the renovation, but the debt service will largely come from private sources. A $0.50/ticket charge will help pay off the $28m debt, and the Rainiers will pay a higher rent under a new 30-year lease agreement. Thanks to mike in comments and this City Council handout (see page 21).
More on Littleton: How He Compares
As Jay mentioned just down the page, the M’s added Wes Littleton today, a sinkerballing righty who gets a decent amount of ground balls, and is thus very, very similar to Sean White, Kanekoa Texeira, Levale Speigner and 3-4 minor league free agents Jack’s probably signed since I started this post (it’s handy that you don’t really need a scouting report anymore for these minor pick-ups). Let’s be honest: this isn’t a big deal, but there are still some important differences between these guys – and we’ve got a bit more time to kill before the Cactus League ‘season’ starts.
The Incumbent:
Sean White relies on a sinking fastball, which he throws at 93-94 MPH. He gets next to no swinging strikes (3.7%), which explains his miniscule K rate. That said, the combination of GBs and a low HR/FB rate helped him post an above average FIP and tRA. He’s below-average by xFIP, which assumes that a pitcher has no control over his HR/FB rate (substituting a league average rate for the pitcher’s actual results). He’s got the best velocity in this group (by a wide margin), but his GB rate isn’t eye-popping any more. This shouldn’t be that surprising, as his fastball’s vertical movement (the amount it moves compared to a ball thrown without spin) isn’t all that far from league average.
The Rule 5 Kid:
Kanekoa Texeira came to the M’s in the Rule 5 draft from the Yankees organization. A fastball/slider righty, he had the third-highest GB rate in the Eastern League (amongst relievers). His fastball velocity is lower than White’s, high 80s to 90. And while we don’t have pitch f/x in the minor leagues yet, we can assume his fastball sinks a bit more than White’s. This isn’t to say it’s ‘better’ – just that it’s different. Also, his command isn’t as good as White’s, as his walk rate was higher in AA than White’s was in MLB.
The New Guy:
Wes Littleton turned a 70% GB rate, a low line drive rate, and a batting average on balls in play under .200 into a great (but brief) 2006. His tRA, FIP and xFIP weren’t amazing, but his ERA certainly was. It was only 36 innings, which helps explain his eye-popping numbers: small sample size. For a recent M’s example of this phenomenon, think of 2008 Roy Corcoran, who saw a decent-sized shift in his batted ball profile from LD to GB. The next year? Corcoran was DFAd. The problem for Littleton is that he’s significantly worse than Roy Corcoran. What pitch fx data we have on Littleton shows that his FB has a remarkable amount of sink – it’s equivalent to Sean Green’s sinking fastball during his M’s tenure (Green’s new arm angle means he’s something of a different animal with the Mets). But while Green got batters to swing and miss on his FB 6.1% of the time in 2008, Littleton was down to an unheard-of 1.6% in that same year. That’s about half of Doug Fister’s FB swinging strike rate. A move to the Brewers organization didn’t help, as his GB rate continued to decline. For good measure, Jeff Sullivan noted some problems in his ability to get lefties at Lookout Landing (though to be fair, Littleton couldn’t get righties out last year either).
Even with Sean White’s health still in question, I have a hard time thinking that Littleton has a good shot at making this bullpen. With declining velocity, GB rates and abysmal results, Littleton’s probably going to be battling Levale Speigner to win the job as GB-heavy righty in the Tacoma bullpen. The M’s signed Littleton to a minor league deal, so they’re thinking the same thing. An ‘awesome year’ in Texas is impressive, but 36 IP with unsustainable peripherals doesn’t mean he’s got a leg up – it just means that small sample sizes can produce really odd results.
Some of you may be wondering why the team focuses so much on GB rates, or why we should care. Stuff is stuff, right? Matthew Carruth (of Lookout Landing fame) looked at GBs in a great series posted at Fangraphs. Here’s a summary, but if you’ve got some time, read the whole thing.