Game 132, Mariners at Indians
LHP Ramirez vs. LHP Aaron Laffey, 4:05pm, radio only?
Ramirez, 2007 road: 8 G, 38.1 IP, 61 H, 45 R, 6 HR, 20 BB, 17 K, .363 BAA. That’s almost an unfathomably bad line.
Laffey, making his fourth major league start, is a groundball machine. First time out, he was 11:5 GB:FB. Second start, 14:2. Last start, 15:0. That’s not a typo. I’m sure Dave loves Aaron Laffey.
I’m going to go grab some BBQ, watch the game, and contemplate staying up to watch USA Hoops vs. Argentina at midnight.
CF Ichiro CF Sizemore 2B Vidro 2B Cabrera DH Guillen DH Hafner LF Ibanez C Martinez 3B Beltre 1B Garko 1B Sexson SS Peralta C Johjima RF Gutierrez RF Jones LF Michaels SS Betancourt 3B Gomez
My second thought on Guillen/Balentien
After talking to Dave about our disagreement, I realized something else: one of the things the M’s player development has become much, much better at in the last few years under Bavasi/Fontaine is determining which of their players are ready to play in the majors, and what their roles might be. We’ve seen most of that in filling out the bullpen, and I may disagree with what they do with them once they’ve come to those decisions (Morrow, for instance, was a case where they figured he could help with the bullpen, but that might have come at the expense of his development as a starter).
Bavasi’s stated that he’s unwilling to start two new outfielders, and if that was the limit of discussion, I’d still be pretty hot about it, but I can’t believe that during the season, particularly during the drawn-out discussions with Guillen, he didn’t have a discussion with the player development people and say “Do you think Wlad’s going to be ready in a year? Two years?” And I guess they must have put up their hands and said “We dunno, boss.”
If you grant them that, then it means that the brighter minds in the M’s player development organization aren’t seeing the big leap forward in Wlad’s game, or at least aren’t convinced it’s sustainable. Or they don’t think his performance is major-league ready. And I haven’t seen Wlad like they have — so I’m entirely willing to be humble and say “there may well be something they’re seeing that I’m not.”
Why does Rick White have to take 99 to Ballard if he wants to drink this off?
Because flammable cargo’s prohibited on I-5 under the Convention Center.
Well
That went about as poorly as humanly possible. Swept at home, despite throwing the three arms you’d choose against LAA, while missing out on having to face Kelvim Escobar – the M’s are now five games back of the Angels, and the chances for taking the division are plunging towards slim and none.
But hey, at least we’ve got Horacio Ramirez on the road against Cleveland tom… Uh oh.
Game 131, Angels at Mariners
Felix day! Felix versus the currently-better of the two Weavers! With Broussard at first!
1:35, FSN
Get ’em! Get ’em Mr. B!
Guillen’s extension: no thanks
Dave’s off his rocker. Guillen’s been a nice pickup, no doubt, and we’re all happy he’s here, but the M’s already have roster problems in the outfield: Jones needs to start in 08, and we’ve also got Balentien, who has made huge strides offensively this year and looks ready. Both of those guys have potential coming out their ears, and they’re as close to free as to make no odds. To make room for Jones, someone’s got go to somewhere, and it ought to be Ibanez to DH or 1B, pushing Sexson out. Then to play Balentien, you can’t retain Guillen, since Ichiro’s not going anywhere…
I’m not all that worried that Guillen’s going to drop off a cliff or anything, though that’s certainly possible. Or even that the contract’s outrageous, because it’s not — though I’ll point out that it’s another great example of teams not learning from success. “Hey, we turned this random guy into an ace closer! No way that would happen again! Let’s give them a 10y, $230m extension!” “Hey, we found a pretty good outfielder on the scrap heap and only had to pay them a couple million! There’s no chance we’d ever be that saavy twice — extend that player’s contract!” There will be Jose Guillen-type finds next year. The M’s just won’t be making them.
And I don’t care that it means the team would be starting 08 with two new outfielders. They’re the best option the team has, and an Ichiro-Jones-Balentien outfield would be a huge defensive upgrade over this year’s.
But think even beyond that: this team has a huge gaping hole of a rotation for next year. I’m all for free talent acquisition, especially gambling in the 4-5 slots, but as we’ve seen, the team desperately needs to upgrade the rotation. Considering how they’ve doled out the payroll in past years, it’s entirely possible that $10m’s going to be the difference between giving Schilling or whoever a short, extremely lucrative deal and seeing who wants to come on board for $6.5m and free Moose rides.
The M’s have better, cheaper long-term solutions that will help build a young core that can compete for championships. They have better uses for the money. They’re paying for security when security’s not what the team needs.
A few quick notes
Okay, a couple of items, two even baseball related, that I need to get up before the game thread.
1. A friend of mine is starting a non-profit and needs some immediate help from an experienced web designer. If you’re interested in helping fix some code and get the site live, and can offer some assistance in the next couple of days, drop us a line.
2. John Hickey reports that Jose Guillen and the M’s are close to a three year contract extension. These negotiations haven’t been any kind of secret, and it’s been known for a while now that this was probably going to happen. It will get its own post when it becomes official, but I’m guessing it’s coming in around 3 years and $30 million, and if so, I’m on board – Guillen’s a quality player that the M’s should be interested in retaining.
3. I’m proud to have never watched one second of Dancing With The Stars, but that might change this fall – my cousin, Josie Maran, is part of the new cast. No, I have no idea how she and I came from the same gene pool, but she obviously hogged all the good looking genes. Go Josie.
4. Happy Felix Day.
Ouch
That one hurts. Up 5-0 after the first inning, having chased the other team’s starter, and end up losing 10-6? There’s failure on all fronts in that kind of performance.
1. Jeff Weaver failed. Spotted a big lead against a team that doesn’t have a great offense, he allowed the Angels to put the bat on the ball far too often and bad things resulted. Now, this is part of the deal with a pitcher of Weaver’s skillset, so it’s hard to be too tough on him – he’s a mediocre #5 starter, and stuff like this happens to mediocre #5 starters. But it was bad timing, to say the least.
2. The offense failed. After knocking Ervin Santana out early, they proceeded to let Dustin Mosely get through the next 5 1/3 innings on 54 pitches. We all know the M’s have built an aggressive offense, but seriously, do these guys have no ability to take a pitch? Ever? You’ve just bounced the other team’s starter in the first inning, and now their bullpen is going to have to get 25 outs, plus you’re playing them in a day game tomorrow – make the arms work and churn through their bullpen. That it only took the Angels three pitchers to finish out the last 8 2/3 innings is a total joke.
3. The bullpen failed. They’ve been the rock of the team all year long, so they’re allowed to let some runs in occassionally, but Sean Green and Brandon Morrow chose a bad time to stop being unhittable.
4. And finally, John McLaren failed. Spectacularly. He continues to demonstrate a massive lack of understanding of actual baseball strategy that is staggering in depth. Sean Green gets to face Vladimir Guerrero with first base open because Vlad was 0 for 4 career against Green? That’s the kind of analysis I’d expect from a six year old. You have to have a complete lack of understanding of the the uses of statistics to decide that an 0-for-4 means something, but McLaren clings to it to make a terrible, and crucial, decision in a game that could swing the tide of the playoff race.
Then, the unbelievable capper.
Bases loaded, two outs, top of the 8th, trailing by one run – this is the most important at-bat of the game, even before accounting for the fact that Vladimir Guerrero is the one coming to the plate. The leverage index of this situation was 2.92, and remember, its scaled where 1.00 is exactly average and anything over 1.8 is considered high pressure – 2.92 is nail-biting, game-changing, biggest-play-of-the-game territory.
John McLaren chose Rick White. Rick White. The worst pitcher in the bullpen. Rick White would be the worst pitcher in almost every bullpen in the American League, and certainly the worst pitcher on any contending team in the A.L. He’s not a major league pitcher, and he hasn’t been for a while now. The people who tell you he is simply don’t understand how to evaluate pitchers. The only scenario where carrying Rick White is a defensible position is if you intend to use him to pitch in already decided games, for multiple innings, and let him be a veteran voice for the kids in the bullpen. Rick White’s skills, at this point, are essentially those of a coach, not a player.
That’s not how John McLaren sees him. John McLaren sees a guy who has experience, and above all else, he values track records, and of course, Rick White has a track record against Vladimir Guerrero. 2-12 in his career – this must be a good matchup, right? Uhh, no. Look at the years when those matchups occurred. Individual batter-pitcher stats mean less than nothing. They should not be used to make any kind of in game strategical decision.
It matters not that Rick White has as much business on the mound as you or I do in a close game in a playoff race. The result, of course, wasn’t hard to see coming – a couple of base hits, the bases clear, and the game is essentially over.
George Sherrill is then brought in to pitch mopup work in the 9th inning of a game the team trailed 10-6 and had little chance of winning. J.J. Putz never pitched. The Mariners, in a game that could very well cost them a chance at the division title, chose Rick White over George Sherrill or J.J. Putz. That’s incompetence of a level that I can’t even define.
Last nights game was a team wide failure. You can lay blame at the feet of practically everyone on the roster. At this point, there’s only one thing to say:
Please, Felix, save us.
Game 130, Angels at Mariners
Santana v Weaver. 7:05. Bloomquist at second to ignite a struggling offense.
A brief moment to discuss the ineptness of the Jones call-up
In part because of that, manager John McLaren has talked to Jones about the possibility of playing winter baseball.
Jones wasn’t a huge fan of the idea last year – when he also spent huge amounts of time on the Seattle bench down the stretch – but McLaren says the outfielder has been receptive to the idea, although nothing has been finalized.
Jones was ready to help the team in May. However, there’s no place on the team for him, because
a) he’s not a veteran
b) the team’s winning so they refuse to make moves to make themselves better, hence
c) they’re unwilling to find ways to get him playing time, so
d) he doesn’t get playing time, exacerbating his defensive problems because he’s almost never playing
e) even in mop-up games
If Jones had come up and hit .900 with good power, no doubt they’d be finding a way to get him more playing time, because he’d be helping the team. But because he’s barely over .200, they’re finding ways to keep him on the bench, even though his skills are exactly the same as if he’d started hot. He would still help the team, and there are still ways to get him time.
There’s no reason, none at all, to believe that Jones, who proved there was nothing left for him to learn in Tacoma, and proved it to everyone who saw him or could read a statline, suddenly forgot how to field, forgot how to hit.
Every other team with a prospect of Jones’s value called their guys up, most of them much, much earlier, and found ways to get them into the lineup to help them.
That the M’s are still unable to figure out how to get Jones playing time with a roster that provides such clear, obvious opportunities to get Jones playing time — and that their solution to this is not to get smarter, or more flexible, or even more persuasive in making the case to Ibanez/Vidro/whoever that a regular outfield rotation’s a good thing, but to send Jones to winter ball, where he’ll face competition far, far below what he would be stomping in Tacoma — is a pretty stunning indictment of the club’s inability to do a reasonable job looking at the whole roster, and to put the best team on the field every day.
They didn’t call Jones up because they thought he would hurt the team. For that moment, at least, they saw a way to make the team better, and then they chickened out.
Update: Ibanez has only started in three games by my count against lefties, 2 against Danks and one against Santana, and went .250 (3-12) with a walk, a HBP, and a double. Not facing lefties has been a big part of Ibanez’s performance this month. So far this year, Ibanez has been hitting .267/.297/.351 against lefties.