Excessive Penalty Week
Hi all. Many people, in email or pulling me aside in person, have complained that the comment threads have really sucked lately, and they wish for the good old days, when… I’m not sure they were ever idyllic, but they weren’t this horrible. However, no one’s got any solutions (have a solution? email us! now! please!)
In the meantime, I’m already tired of dealing with the same OT thread-jackers and people being annoying over the last months. So I declare this Excessive Penalty Week, and consider this adequate warning.
On Boston and New York games
I hate going to the stadium and finding it packed with visiting fans. I hate sitting around people who don’t know anything about the M’s. As a general rule, I’ve found Red Sox and Yankee fans by far the drunkest, rudest, crowds. Every time I’ve been at an M’s game and seen some minor incident – brushing up against someone trying to pass through one of the concourse choke points, for instance – turn into rudeness/a fight challenge, it’s been when the M’s play one of those two teams, and the affronted, loud party’s decked out in the other team’s gears (and it’s a handful of times, so yes, maybe it’s entirely random)(it isn’t). I hate that there are people who’ve grown up in Seattle and are Red Sox fans, and if I had to explain that one, I’m not sure where’d I start.
But…
I love that it’s tense. I love that there are M’s fans who heckle the Red Sox fans, and they give it back. I love that the M’s fans feel compelled to counter-cheer, and applaud good plays even harder. I love that when they come to town, we get good games worth watching. I love that attending those games feels like it matters.
Playoff musings
I was looking at the standings after today’s game, and there’s something interesting afoot. The division races are pretty much locked: either Cleveland or Detroit will win the AL Central unless something dramatic happens: they’re both way better teams than Minnesota. The M’s could still catch the Angels, but skip that for a second.
In the wild card, the straight listings run:
Detroit 61-49, .555
Seattle 60-49, .550 -0.5
New York, 61-50, .550, -0.5
Minnesota 57-53, .518, -4
Detroit should really be “AL Central runner-up, .560 or so”. Whoever wants to win the wild card will likely have to put up a record that would win the AL Central.
Anyway, here’s the same race, but with expected win-losses based on runs scored and allowed (from mlb.com):
New York, 68-43
Detroit 61-49
Minnesota 57-53
Seattle 54-55
Obviously teams don’t get credit in the standings for how many games they should have won or lost: the only thing that matters from here on out is how well they play for the remaining games. But it’s hard to look at the Yankees, who started horribly and have played extremely well for months now, and wonder if there’s another team besides Detroit in that bunch that can keep up. The Yankees offense is putting up almost six runs a game (seriously — 660 runs, 111 games, 5.95 runs a game)(M’s are at 4.83). For all the abuse the pitching’s taken, it’s in the middle of the AL pack, and when you score six runs a game… yeah.
There’s the problem. With 50 games left to play, if the Yankees keep this up, they’ll win another thirty games. The Tigers/Indians can put that together, too, so the wild card question becomes “can the M’s keep up that pace?”
That’s tough. Which is why it may actually be easier for them to take the division. Really. Here’s their schedule against their potential competition for playoff spots:
August 27th: 3 game series against the Angels
August 30th: 1 game makeup in Cleveland
September 3rd: 3 games in New York
September 7th: 3 games in Detroit
September 20th: 4 games in LA
September 25th: 4 games against Cleveland
The Angels might be as good as Detroit/Cleveland, but there’s only one of them. The M’s get seven games against the Angels, and if they go in with a 3.5 game gap in the standings… that’s where the opportunity is.
This is why you can look at the postseason odds right now and see the M’s playoff chances through the division title are about four times better than the wild card. Many things have to break right for the M’s to see their wild card competition fall away, but the Angels… well, it pains me to say this after this week’s games, but I hope Boston hands them an even more embarrassing beating than we had to endure.
Game 109, Red Sox at Mariners
Batista vs Beckett, 1:05 pm.
Line-up today:
1. Ichiro, DH
2. Vidro, 2B
3. Guillen, RF
4. Broussard, 1B
5. Beltre, 3B
6. Ibanez, LF
7. Jones, CF
8. Burke, C
9. Betancourt, SS
There are a lot of things I could point out that don’t make any sense about that line-up, but I’m going to focus on the one that could kill the M’s today – Jose Vidro playing second base.
Jose Lopez has been a terrible hitter since April. He’s stopped hitting for power, still has a lousy approach at the plate, and hasn’t improved a lick since he came up from Tacoma 72 years ago. He’s frustrating to watch and a problem at the plate.
But here’s the deal – Jose Vidro was traded from the NL to the AL for a reason. He can’t play the field anymore. Never a great defender, he’s now the middle infield version of Adam Dunn. His knees are shot, his range is totally gone, and he’s a significant minus defensively. Even if you’re the worlds biggest Vidro fanboy, you have to be able to watch him fail to move on easy groundballs and realize “hey, that guy shouldn’t be paid to use a glove.”
Miguel Batista is on the mound. He’s a contact pitcher with groundball tendencies. He’s facing an offense that can put up runs in bunches. He’s opposed by a guy who will finish in the top ten in Cy Young voting. And to support him, we’ve given him the worst defensive left field alive (non-Manny division) and the worst defensive second baseman alive to hang out next to the below average right fielder and first baseman. This should go well.
The Mariners do not understand the value of defense or how to appropriately measure it. Sticking Jose Vidro at second base is yet another shining example of this organization’s inability to realize that catching the ball is a big part of run prevention.
On a day when you expect a lot of balls to be put in play, you make a bad defense even worse. This is the team we root for.
The value of outfield defense
After tonight’s game, I can’t help but feel that anyone who doesn’t think outfield defense isn’t important hasn’t been watching the M’s lately.
Also, given the Red Sox lineup, their performance against Washburn, why in the world do you bring in the relief version of Washburn to relieve Washburn?
Game 108, Red Sox at Mariners
This should be a good time. Matsuzaka v Washburn? Possibly the best team in baseball against a hot M’s team struggling to put themselves into contention — sign me up.
Daisuke v Jarrod!
Daisuke: 144 IP, 133 H, 15 HR, 50 BB, 142 K
Jarrod: 129.1 IP, 137 H, 10 HR, 42 BB, 69 K
And one of them pitches in Fenway, the other in Safeco.
Jones and role-playing
Hi all.
There’s been a lot made of what the team intends to do with Adam Jones, who is awesome, and whether they’re going to play him all the time, some of the time, never, or what. McLaren’s made some comments, and whatever.
Here’s the thing: what McLaren, or Bavasi, or anyone, says about the team’s plan should be discarded immediately. The only thing we should pay attention to in the next few weeks is when Jones actually plays, and how he does.
We know a couple of contradictory things: McLaren’s been spouting about how little he intends to use Jones. But despite McLaren’s comments, they didn’t call Jones up to play him once a week, or use him as a defensive replacement to carry the destroyed legs of Ibanez/Guillen. McLaren’s clearly also trying to manage the veterans, who haven’t been hitting or fielding, as best he can, which would prevent him from exposing plans to fit a full-time player in the roster. And yet the team’s trying to get into the playoffs for the first time after years of entirely unsatisfying play, and if Jones is playing well and clearly helping them at that, they’ll play him even if the plan really was to have him play twice a week, which it isn’t.
We’ll see. Jones did well last night, so they’ll probably throw him another start as soon as they can figure out a pretext to do so (rest someone on Sunday, say) and then if he’s still on fire, they’ll throw him playing time in Baltimore. His path is obviously made clearer if he’s tearing it up, and then McLaren will go in front of reporters and say “What can I do, the kid’s made a spot for himself, everyone likes winning,” and shrug.
You don’t have to have faith or lack faith in the front office at this point. Complaining about playing time they haven’t had a chance to not allocate to him yet isn’t useful. Let’s wait and see how this plays out, and we can dissect the statements later.
J.D. Pruitt, strange outcome player
J.D. Pruitt plays for the Vancouver Canadians, Oakland’s Northwest League affiliate. He came out of the University of Montevallo, he’s listed as a 5’9″ outfielder who weighs 195, born in 1985, so he’s 22 in short-season ball.
He’s hitting .187/.466/.271.
Pruitt, in 36 games and 107 at-bats, has 20 hits, 1 2b, 1 3b, 2 HR, 31 walks, and 43 K.
“But Derek,” you may be thinking, “that’s only a .370 OBP.”
Aha! The problem, and what’s not showing on his stats page, is that Pruitt’s been hit by (if I caught this correctly) 25 pitches so far this season, on his way to destroying the Northwest League record.
He’s been hit by 5 more pitches than he has hits.
Supposedly, and I haven’t seen it, he doesn’t have the Valle lunge or the Biggio armor-and-lean. He doesn’t move, and at that level the pitchers are wild enough that it means you get plunked all the time doing that.
But I want to just ponder this for a second, the weirdest outcome player ever. Each time he comes to the plate, here’s the odds:
10% it’s a single (12% total for any hit)
15% he’s hit by a pitch
20% he walks
26% he strikes out
.187/.466/.271
If you pay attention to the low minors, you see some strange things.
Dave on KJR
Here’s your weekly reminder that I’ll be on KJR today at 2:20 pm with Groz. You can listen live here. Hopefully, I still have something of a voice left after last night after about eight solid hours of talking at the first USSM/LL event.