Stacked for your convenience
“Towels!” by Ross C, cc-licensed
Game 41, Mariners at Rangers
Felix versus Kason Gabbard. 5:05
One of the unexpected side-effects of unbalanced play that I don’t see discussed — and I say this as someone who hugely favored unbalanced play despite its problems — is that it makes you feel like you’ve seen the same team over and over. I feel like over the last few years I’ve seen Texas so often the sight of their uniforms makes me a little nauseous. Those guys again? Millwood for the 200th time in two seasons? Noooooooooooooooo.
So!
CF-L Ichiro
1B-0 Cairo
3B-R Beltre
LF-L Ibanez
2B-R Lopez
C-R Johjima
RF-R Balentien
DH-L Clement
SS-R Betancourt
What a bizarre lineup. Lopez at 5? Why in the world would you do that? I don’t get it. And why play Cairo at first? Or bat him second?
Let’s assume for a second you want Cairo to play. He should bat last, because he’s the worst hitter. Maybe second-to-last, if you want to get the Betancourt-Ichiro sequence. So
1 = Ichiro
9 = Cairo
Then you want your best hitters in the middle, so
CF-L Ichiro
?
3/4: LF-L Ibanez, 3B-R Beltre
Then really, Lopez fits in nicely at 2, which sets up a nice L/R sequence:
CF-L Ichiro
2B-R Lopez
LF-L Ibanez
3B-R Beltre
?
?
?
?
1B-0 Cairo
Then, sorting on current performance and general L/R-ness, a decent lineup comes together pretty quickly.
CF-L Ichiro
2B-R Lopez
LF-L Ibanez
3B-R Beltre
DH-L Clement
RF-R Balentien
C-R Johjima
SS-R Betancourt
1B-0 Cairo
See? Piece of cake.
Texas:
2B-R Kinsler
DH-L Catalanotto
SS-R Young
CF-L Hamilton
RF-L Murphy
LF-B Boggs
C-R Laird
1B-R Shelton
3B-L Vazquez
I’m not a superstitious guy
But you may have noticed that I didn’t put anything up at midnight on what day it is. The last couple haven’t worked out for the team, and they really need the win, so I thought I’d skip it and see how things worked out. That’s all.
Medium sized fish, tiny pond
You may have noticed Jeff Clement sees a lot of pitches. It’s something he’s always done, and on its own it’s not a sign that he’s a good or a bad hitter, but it is good that despite his struggles after being called up he hasn’t become dramatically more or less patient.
The interesting thing is that Clement, seeing over four pitches an at-bat, is by a fair margin the team leader right now among anyone seeing regular playing time. If nothing else, it’s a skill that’s certainly lacking in the rest of the lineup, and welcome.
Stone on Griffey return
Larry knocks out a fine piece on Griffey rumors.
A Griffey homecoming could end up an anti-climactic letdown just as easily as it could be a triumphant valediction for a homegrown Hall of Famer.
Mind you, I think it’s going to happen. Griffey to Seattle is starting to have the distinct feel of inevitability, if all the rumblings in the baseball world are true. The fact that the Mariners had one of Bill Bavasi’s top advisers, Duane Shaffer, in New York over the weekend to reportedly watch Griffey at Shea Stadium is just more fuel to a burgeoning fire.
It’s definitely worth a read. And I believe Dave’s got something on this for later today.
Well
That was a crappy way to lose, but here’s the nice part of knowing the season’s already over – looking past the wins and losses isn’t that hard, and there are other things of interest to look for. And tonight, although he gave up the walk off home run and gets the loss, that was as good as Brandon Morrow has ever looked. Until the Vazquez home run, he was just ridiculously good.
Also, welcome back, Pull Power Kenji.
Game 40, Mariners at Rangers
5:05, Erik “The Interview” Bedard versus Padilla.
Good times. Lineups when I get my grubby hands on them.
Shut Up Jarrod
Jarrod Washburn, back to his old tricks, throwing Kenji Johjima under the bus:
Asked about some apparent situations during his start Saturday when he and catcher Kenji Johjima weren’t in concert, Washburn didn’t deny it.
“There’s times when you’re not always on the same page,” he said. “It happens.”
Washburn was asked if there was any more of it than normal.
“With Kenji? No,” he said. “Read into that what you want.”
Washburn has made prior reference to some difficulty working with Johjima. On Saturday, he appeared to bark at his catcher after one White Sox at-bat.
“It’s a work in progress,” said Washburn. “When he comes over from Japan, you know there are going to be communications issues with the language barrier, and him learning an entirely different league and a whole new pitching staff. And also, he has to learn the umpires and opposing pitchers. He’s got a lot to handle. I would never want to have to do what he’s doing. He’s got a tough job, a lot of hurdles.”
As for whether it’s more complicated than merely different pitch preferences in particular situations, Washburn said: “I don’t know how exactly to word it. It’s more like a consistency issue, I guess. Sometimes you click and sometimes you don’t.”
Washburn’s done this before, insinuating to the media that Johjima’s responsible for his poor performances. I have a news flash for you, Mr. Washburn – you aren’t pitching well because you suck. You throw a meaty fastball over the plate and your breaking pitches are something an 8th grader would be embarrassed of. Johjima can’t flash a few hand signs and tell you to throw a good pitch, because you’re not capable of it. His options are Suck Pitch #1 and Suck Pitch #2, with a side of Suck Pitch #3 worked in for good measure.
You’re lousy because you lack talent, not because your catcher is Japanese. Own up, be a man, take your ridiculous contract and shut the hell up. Thank you.
Crank the Griffey rumor mill back up
Sigh. Did it ever shut down? M’s looking at Griffey.
Reports out of New York say that Duane Shaffer, in his first season as a special assistant to Seattle general manager Bill Bavasi, was in Shea Stadium Sunday to have a look at Griffey.
A case for hope
Even after a deeply relieving win like today’s, it’s hard to look at the standings and have happy thoughts about the fortunes of the team. But as I constantly try to repeat over and over, while I’m not at all optimistic about this season, I have faith in the long-term future. Since so many of the recent comments here have focused on the futility of the team, I thought it might be worthwhile to talk again about why in the current circumstances I still hold to that.
First, the front office. Right now, they’re not the worst in baseball, but the gap between the Mariners and the growing number of smart, well-run franchises is growing. But front offices aren’t like franchise locations: you can hire a new front office. The owners, if they decided to make a change after this season (and please, it won’t be mid-season ahead of the draft, there’s just no way), could in one hiring change the fortunes of the team entirely. Having a bad front office is not an indefinite punishment. It can end.
Now, what triggers that is outside the scope of this, and often times changes there have little to do with any defined criteria. But as long as you know that the front office can be changed without the team leaving town, there’s hope for improvement. I’ll talk more about that in a bit, though.
Moreover (and feel free to mock me for this) I have not entirely given up hope in the current front office. I know, it’s like I’m screaming “Learn, dammit, learn!” at Joshua hoping that he figures it out before it’s too late to recall the B-52s, but there I am. The people in charge of the M’s are not dumb. They understand more about player development than I ever will, and they grasp some concepts, like sunk costs, that other front offices don’t. At the same time, if you’ve been here for a while, you’ve seen us make the case repeatedly that they’re too stuck on roles, on intangibles, that they’re not particularly good at talent evaluation or figuring out how to build a roster, and so on.
I was listening to Joe Morgan once, and he was talking intelligently about how to measure a player based on his individual contributions, and then he veered off onto pitchers, where — you know the drill. And I yelled at the TV “No! No! You were so close!” Eventually I gave up on Joe. I’m not there with the M’s, and maybe that’s just because I can’t tune them out so easily.
Bavasi’s a smart guy. He is. If you’ve been to the events, you know that. But he’s burning his brain power on problems like trying to figure out how to acquire a Bloomquist clone, and not processes that get the team a real right fielder to start the season. He goes looking for a (adjective)(adjective)(noun) to fill a perceived hole — he shops for an established middle-of-the-lineup presence because he really believes that you can’t stick an unproven player in the #4/#5 slots and expect to win, and doesn’t step back and look at whether or not that’s valid.
I can’t imagine that he doesn’t look even within his own division and see GMs taking much different approaches and not think that there are lessons to be learned.
I hold out hope that one of these failures is going to be the one that makes everyone get together and start talking about what’s not working, and what the fundamental assumptions they’re working under are wrong.
I’m realistic, though — there’s really one GM in baseball who has made that kind of change, and he’s running the Padres. Everyone else refuses to change and the dinosaurs get beaten by the furry little mammals. I know the chances are slim. And yet still I hope.
It’s likely it’ll come to a purge. The ownership team – the Baseball Club of Seattle which is, operationally, Howard Lincoln for Nintendo of America, and yes, I know it’s more complicated than just “Nintendo” – has an enormous incentive to right the ship. No matter what the front office says, there is only so much failure can be tolerated. Even if you think that’s a lot of failure, there is somewhere a limit.
And once they’ve decided to make a change, we’re a good interview away from a turnaround. Say there are four retread candidates and Chris Antonetti in the queue, and they ask them each the same opening question: “How quickly do you think the Mariners could compete for a championship, and what would it cost?”
Their answers would be more or less:
1-4: “Next year, with the core we have, if we make the right moves, sign some front-line starters, keep moving forward with the general strategy you already have in place…”
Chris: “It’s hard to say without more information, but if you’re willing to keep spending at the same level, we can find some short-term solutions that will put a .500 team out there while I spend to sign Felix to a long-term extension. Then I’d be looking to work younger, cheaper players into the lineup while making better free agent signings as we go – you’ve been burning your money, but you know that, we should talk about how we can do better – and every year we’d improve the core, try and pick up a couple of wins. We might get into the playoffs while we’re working on the team, but building a championship team will require us to build a young core of home-grown talent to build around, and that won’t come next year or even the year after.”
The conversation starts.
As set in their ways as they may be, as much as Chuck Armstrong and Howard Lincoln may think Bloomquist is the true way to winning baseball, the next time they try and hire a GM, they’re going to be faced (if only in picking candidates to interview) with more of what’s gotten them into trouble and true change in the form of Antonetti or another dramatically different viewpoint.
I hope that if they face that choice, they’ll make the smart business decision and pick the different approach.
Say they don’t, though, and they pick a retread old-school candidate, they muddle around while attendance drops, their next media deals take a hit. How low can the franchise go? With their sweetheart lease, they’re guaranteed to be able to milk profits out of it.
Then there’s another set of criteria to consider: when does the team’s majority owner realize they’re getting an extremely poor return on their investment? What happens then? Do some of the extremely smart, long-neglected, don’t-even-get-a-desk minority owners step in? Or does the Baseball Club sell entirely to someone who thinks they can do better than squeak by? If the team’s making very little money, it’ll be a hugely attractive turnaround buy for someone — get the franchise winning, butts in seats, new media deals and they’ll be climbing the Forbes rankings soon.
We’re of course right to fear the kind of endless Royals/Pirates style purgatory. But the M’s aren’t saddled with parsimonious or micromanaging owners in the same way those have been. And it’s possible they could still do that – beautiful stadium, barely-attended games – but it’s unlikely. That’s a different post, though — this is about hope.
The current owners don’t have to change their minds, or decide to sell the team for financial reasons. Perhaps the owners decide they’d like to get out of owning a pain-in-the-ass franchise. It happens.
Either way, we’d get a change in management.
And there you have it, change and a new shot at success:
– Front office changes, either through person ell or enlightenment
– Ownership changes, in whatever form, resulting in front office changes
Once I started to think rationally about when and why changes would be made, I realized that changes were inevitable. They might not come as quickly as we’d like, but they’ll come. I have faith.