In Happier News
Thank God we didn’t trade for Dontrelle Willis. After being the worst pitcher anyone has ever seen so far in 2008, he was optioned to Single-A Lakeland today to overhaul his mechanics and try to remember how to throw strikes.
If the “[Expletive Dave Samson]” quote from Bavasi had a negative effect on our ability to trade with the Marlins, then we should induct “[Expletive Dave Samson]” into the Mariners hall of fame. This season has been horrible, but at least we haven’t had to watch D-Train fall apart.
I’ve got a slightly longer writeup on Dontrelle’s situation over at fangraphs. /end self promotion.
On Johjima’s power outage
I haven’t written much about Johjima, while taking time out of my day to take potshots at Vidro, McLaren, Ibanez’s defense, Sexson, and pretty much everyone except Ichiro.
So here’s the short version: Johjima’s performance at the plate so far has been just abysmal. But some this is that I’ve felt a lot like I do about Beltre: Beltre’s been smashing the ball around, hitting line drives, and they’ve been caught. His batting average looks bad, but he’s doing fine, I’ve got no complaints.
Similarly, if you look at Johjima, you see much the same thing: he’s still not taking walks, he’s striking out about as often, and the huge difference in terms of average/on-base percentage is that the balls he’s putting in play aren’t getting hits (this year his batting average on balls in play is .236, after being at .292 and .291 the previous two seasons). Normally, I’d just shrug that off.
What worries me is the missing power. What power he had hasn’t shown at all:
– He’s not hitting line drives nearly as often, and his ground ball and fly ball rates are both up
– When he’s hitting line drives, they’re not going anywhere: only 3% turn into home runs. That’s awful. Vidro gets twice that (this year, last year he was at 4%)
The only real difference between this season and the last two is that Johjima seems to be swinging at and making contact with a lot more pitches out of the zone. If you look at Fangraphs’ data, you see the one thing that really spikes this year is his “O-Contact” which is the number of pitches outside the zone they make contact with when swinging.
More baffling, though, he’s not swinging at those more often — he’s just hitting them a lot more often, not making good contact, and they’re going for outs. We’ve all seen this (and ended up screaming at him, or the TV, to please knock that off).
Is it a quirk of the season to date? When everything else seems stable except for one weird stat, my instinct is often to shrug and chalk it up to chance. Johjima’s stance isn’t changed from last year, and I haven’t been able to find anything about him switching to a longer bat, for instance, and if there’s a change at work it doesn’t seem to be affecting much else about his game. And yet between these two things:
– he’s making a lot more crappy contact on crappy pitches, and
– overall, his power numbers are way, way down, more than I’d even expect from the contact issue
I am worried. But I don’t have anything to offer that might help. I think I keep hoping that it’s just a random fluke, because the worst case is that the M’s just signed a catcher to a lucrative extension as his hitting game started to fall apart. We have enough bad news to dwell on already.
Game 64, Mariners at Blue Jays
4:07. Washburn v Lisch.
I know many of you out there are a little upset with the Mariners right now, and unsure of what the future holds.
But rest easy, because Jarrod Washburn’s contract runs through 2009 (at $10m). And so does Miguel Batista’s (at $9m) deal. And Silva’s here through 2011 ($11m for next year), and thank goodness, because he’s got the ERA under six of this bunch.
That’s $30m for what will be 103 years of baseball experience. Ahhhhh. A back-end rotation that goes a hair over five and a third innings a start. A semi-rotation that can’t buy a strikeout but, fortunately, gives out ball four passes a little less than you’d expect.
What’s more, each of them will remind us a season past: Washburn of the 2006 campaign that made his contract seem superficially a good deal, Batista, of the off-season when signing Miguel Batista to a three year deal seemed like one of the more reasonable pitching contracts and of his participation in the 88-win team that convinced the front-office they were a contender… and Silva, best of all, this year’s disaster, a reminder that no one in the organization’s learning anything about anything.
What’s with that :07, anyway? Is there some kind of US:Canadian conversion issue at work here? Was :05 too soon after dinner but :10 ran into the kids bedtimes?
Actually, turns out that’s toxic and really, really bad for you
Baker, quoting Elia:
“In everything in life, sometimes change is better,” he said. “Sometimes you make an omelette in a baggie and put it in boiling water and it comes out just as juicy and even better than if you fry it.”
I’m serious, munching on eggs saturated with melty long-chain polymers turns out to be bad for your health. Don’t do it.
Shouldn’t they put the defense coach on the block next?
Everything they said about the offense’s performance is just as true about their abysmally bad defense. They need to get someone in here that can whip this team’s run prevention into shape.
The first head rolls
Hot word this morning is Pentland’s been fired. Possibly that Lee Elia, who totally rocks, is taking his place.
Which is crazy, since just last week they’d completed the benching-and-reteaching of Sexson with such success, and the — yeah, you know the whole rest of the joke here already.
I was going to make a historical analogy with the Reign of Terror, but interestingly (to me, anyway) I couldn’t figure out who the first person to put their head on a block that September was.
Anyway, at least the Jacobins had the good sense to get the King first, rather than going after his undersecretary for cobblestone supply.
Return of return of Doyle
Many people noted yesterday that the Phillies DFA’d Chris Snelling’s when they brought Jayson Werth off the DL. Which is Greg-Norton-style ungrateful, given that he’d been hitting like crazy. In, uh, his 4 at-bats.
Snelling’s 27 now, his career delayed and savaged by injuries, and in the last year he’s been signed, traded, traded, optioned, claimed, released and probably folded, spindled, and mutilated flying from team to team. Not surprisingly, I have a couple of arguments for why the M’s should put in their bid.
1. He’s Snelling. He’s awesome.
2. Everyone in baseball (nearly) agrees that Snelling can hit but can’t stay healthy. This was the argument for acquiring Vidro not that long ago, and that held up okay. This requires the M’s to either DH him and spot-start him in the outfield, or use him in a bench role. Either way, it helps: the M’s need offense any way they can get it, and Wlad’s not helping, and they need defense in an even worse way, and Snelling is, at least, an upgrade over Raul in left. And he’s free and if he works out, you try and find a spot for him next year somehow.
And 3 is all about chemistry.
If you think part of the M’s problem is that they don’t have a winning attitude, or their clubhouse is fractured, or whatever your theory might be, Snelling helps. You can go back through his minor league career and see what people said about him, but it’s crazy — he’s been a huge clubhouse leader. If you want a full-effort player who’s all about the competition and can’t wait for his next at-bat, who starts brawls heckling from the dugout, here you go. His managers love him, even if sometimes they’re annoyed by him.
So maybe he’ll help the team cohesion. And if he doesn’t, what do they lose?
Wait, 4: The M’s could really use someone who does awesome interviews.
Game 63, Mariners at Red Sox
The Interview vs Masterson. 10:35.
9:35 for a game post? Bleagh.
Sunday lineup:
CF-L Ichiro!
DH-R Lopez (wait, what–)
LF-L Ibanez
3B-R Beltre
RF-L Reed
1B-R Sexson
SS-R Betancourt
C-R Burke
2B-R Bloomquist
I’m not quite sure what the logic is there. Or if there’s logic. But okay, not a huge deal, getting Lopez a day off. But now the team’s batting Reed at #5 ahead of Sexson and Betancourt? Does that mean Reed’s Tacoma stats mean something? If so, shouldn’t Clement be playing? And… I give up.
Checking in on that young whippersnapper Vidro
In today’s comments TomC reminded me that we haven’t run this feature in a while, so:
Jeff Clement was sent down after hitting .167/.286/.250 in 55 plate appearances, so that he could play every day, the team could get better production out of the DH slot from the reliable veteran Vidro, and so on.
Since May 16th through today, Vidro’s in 71 plate appearances, he’s hit 12 singles, 3 doubles, and one home run… and he’s walked four times. Which, I believe, means he’s hitting ~.258/.294/.354 (I didn’t take out SF/SH there, so that’s a little off) and still providing significantly more production out of the guy he replaced in the lineup. Good job, Vidro!
Sure, Clement’s been having a monster time in Tacoma since being sent down, even though he fouled a ball off his ankle and was out a couple of weeks, which pretty much established that there’s nothing left for him to learn offensively in AAA. But he couldn’t hit in 15 games in the major leagues, so, uhhhh… I’m having trouble maintaining the tone here, so I’ll just stop. But yeah, our DH is terrible.
M’s Second Rounder Walked Six Times
Dennis Raben, the outfielder the M’s selected from the University of Miami in the second round on Thursday is playing for the Hurricanes against Arizona in a Super Regional qualifier for the College World Series. It is the 9th inning as I type this, and Raben was just intentionally walked – his sixth base on balls of the game.
Yuniesky Betancourt has four walks all season. Jose Lopez has six. Kenji Johjima has seven. Raben got six walks in one game.