Game 19, Tigers at Mariners
Nate Robertson v. Gil Meche. Neither pitcher is off to what one would call a good start, unless one were a member of the opposing team. But it’s a lovely Saturday evening in Seattle — as a wise man once said, a beautiful night out for baseball.
Game 18, Tigers at Mariners
Lefty Maroth v lefty Washburn, 7:05 FSN. This means we’ll likely see the not-a-platoon platoon with Bloomquist in center field and the backup infielder in Tacoma (well, that’s not entirely fair– you just put Reed in center and move Bloomquist in)(unless Bloomquist gets injured)(“Oh I wish
I disagree with the platoon arrangement not because I particularly think Reed’s a better hitter against lefties, or degrading the defense is that massive.
It’s that you don’t really know if a player’s truly vulnerable to one side or another for a while. It’s not as if Reed came up through the minors with scouting reports that said he was going to need a platoon partner, or was easily neutralized by left-handers.
It’s that if he’s not hitting against left-handers, he’s certainly not going to improve if he only sees them once every month. I’d like to see at least three seasons of being vulnerable to lefties before I write him off, especially since there’s nothing obvious in his approach that breaks down.
There are many left-handed players who were thought to be helpless against lefties because they did poorly in their rookie year (or even their second year), and later became good hitters who didn’t require platoon partners. If fear of Reed not hitting means he never grows, that’s a loss for the team and Reed.
Mariners 8th-most valuable franchise
Forbes team valuations are out. The team’s value didn’t go up much last year at all, but Forbes has them tied for 5th in revenue with $179m.
Value of the team? $428m.
I have some particular quibbles with the article and some of the conclusions, but let me just skip those and note this: for all the poor-mouthing the team does, they’re making money in two ways:
– the team’s profitable
– the value of the team continues to rise
A lot of the M’s whinging is like someone who owns a great stock — say it’s returned 10% on their investment annually — complaining that they’re only getting 2% dividends every year.
Now what’s really interesting about this is that two 90-loss seasons hurt them pretty badly: the value of the team didn’t go up that much since Forbes last looked at this. You can see that dropping attendance has had a real impact on the team’s finances. But if two years of horrible seasons means a 3% increase in value and $7m in the pocket, that’s not bad at all.
Update: Maury Brown’s got a nice article on what’s interesting in the Forbes numbers.
Bobblehead fever forces fans to remain at home
(hopefully they’ll recover in time to collect their swag)
Greg Bishop in the Times writes about crazy bobblehead fever. Looking at their picture, this may be the worst-looking likeness of Ichiro yet. That’s an old picture on the Times site: here’s the new one.
The Go 2 Guy, who generally doesn’t get much love or links from us, offers a gem today on the subject of low attendance:
“I never thought I’d see the day where there was less than 20,000,” said utility man Willie Bloomquist. “(Tuesday night) was the first time I’ve walked out for a game and gone, ‘Wow.’ It’s a little odd being able to hear conversations with fans.”
“Really?” I wondered. “What did they say?”
“You (expletive) suck, Bloomquist!” Bloomquist said.
That’s not going to be topped this season.
More aggressive baserunning analysis
I’m going to stand on the shoulders of giants, as some scientist guy said.
Tom Tippett wrote a 2002 article on the impact of speed that gets into aggressive baserunning and Ichiro.
Today, I read an article on Baseball Prospectus by Dan Fox (“Baserunning, in two acts” subscription required) which build on a set of articles he wrote at the Hardball Times:
Circle the Wagons, Running the Bases Part I, Part II, and Part III
Part III uses run expectency in much the same way I started, but gets a little nuttier with it.
The short version of the BP article is that the Mariners were really good at baserunning last year, and there’s not a lot of room for improvement. Moreover, to sum the whole thing up, you have to be successful a lot to make it worthwhile and, as you’d expect, it depends a great deal on the game situtation.
Anyway, it’s good reading.
Game 17, Rangers at Mariners
Joel Pineiro brings his 88 MPH fastball to face Vicente Padilla and the Rangers. While we’ve said our peace about Pineiro and his new junkballing ways, it is worth noting that he’s posted a 1.79 G/F rate during his first three starts, a 40 percent improvement over his 1.29 G/F last year. The three keys to pitching success are throw strikes, miss bats, and keep the ball on the ground. If you can do two of those three, you’re probably okay. Right now, Pineiro’s throwing strikes and keeping the ball on the ground, offsetting his inability to make anyone swing and miss at the crap he’s throwing up there.
For the Rangers, Padilla is pretty much the opposite; recently, his strikeout rates have gone up a bit, while his control and G/F rates have gotten worse.
This is a battle of pretty mediocre pitchers whose reputations outweigh their abilities. So, after slagging them both, expect a pair of perfect games.
Live Game Notes
I might not be a unique snowflake, and I might not have seen Ray Allen’s record-setting performance, but I will be able to tell my great-grandnieces that I was part of the smallest crowd in Safeco Field history.
The stadium’s emptiness was obvious before you even entered. Free parking was plentiful. There was no waiting for walk-up tickets. You could hear every word of the TV broadcast while entering, because the crowd noise was Marcel Marceau-esque.
All that would change, of course, as the improbably rally got started. But that was three hours after The Lovely Wife and I strolled out to the right field bleachers. In the meantime, I noticed a few things:
* 17,613 was the announced attendance, the lightest yet, and there’s no way 17,000 people showed up. Wide swaths of seats were uninhabited. I’d put it closer to 12,000 if I had to guess.
* The minimal meat in the seats enabled one to hear virtually everything other fans were saying and doing. This ranged from the sophomoric (a guy who looked like the unholy offspring of John Elway and Secretariat repeatedly informing Kevin Mench that he “sucked” and “is tubby”) to the heartwarming (a group of five young women conspiring to shout “ICHIRO!!!” all at once, and then wave at the right fielder. He shot a glance their way, inspiring many blushes and giggles).
* Why not walk Hank Blalock in the seventh inning? It sets up the double play and prevents your right-handed pitcher from facing a left-handed batter that has hurt you already. Blalock’s ensuing two-run single sent about a third of the Mariner faithful scurrying for the exits, not that there were many to spare.
* Nice to see Roberto Petagine get a meaningful at-bat.
* Adrian Beltre still looked utterly lost for two of his four plate appearances. It was, however, nice to see him finally come up with an extra-base hit, and to be fair, he narrowly missed another when he smoked a loud foul the first time up. Note: Scott Spiezio has one more home run than Beltre does, Bronson Arroyo two more.
* Not that you need me to tell you this, but Kenji Johjima is for real, and is well on his way to becoming a fan favorite. He can’t run, so he will ground into some double plays, but he hits the ball hard an awful lot.
* Jamie Moyer looks like he is throwing wads of tissue paper. Not wet wads of tissue paper: bone-dry wads of tissue paper.
So yes, I passed up a chance to see Felix pitch, instead watching a junkballer more than twice his age — and got to see a win powered by a Carl Everett walk-off home run. I guess Joaquin Andujar was right. The most important word in English is “youneverknow.”
Game 16, Rangers at Mariners
RHP Kevin Millwood v LHP Jamie Moyer. 7:05, Fox Sports Northwest.
After last night’s offensive outburst
To answer the first question, Carl Everett’s not going to make me happy. Let’s move on.
I think the USSM author consensus (as much as we ever have one) was that Everett would probably hit around .260/.320/.425 with a good chance for a nasty collapse
If Everett hit that, a lot more of the criticism would be focused on the management for giving him that contract, and people would be particularly concerned over whether his option’s going to vest for 2007. Grover should come under criticism every time he allows Everett to hit right-handed.
What would it take for people to stop carping about the deal? That’s an interesting question. Assume you can get a bad DH for free (we certainly saw some candidates bob along the creek past us this spring). To get $3.4m of value out of Everett, using a nice round (and, helpfully, pretty close to the truth) $1m/win, he has to hit like 2005 Raul Ibanez: .280/.355/.436.
At that point, you’ve broken even on performance from the slot, but then we have to remember we’re downgrading left… but I think if Everett hits .280/.355/.436 no one would be complaining about the value of his contract. And then we can complain about everything else that’s wrong with bringing Carl in.
Random Mariner mid-week news
Guardado hurts inside. You’ll hurt inside if you read Steve Kelley’s column on Beltre. In the PI’s notebook, there’s the same Eddie-type story, but you also get Gil Meche’s decreased velocity, Hargrove on Beltre.
Oh, and Hargrove says it’s not a center-field platoon.
On ESPN.com, Nate Silver puts King Felix #8 on his list of baseball’s most valuable players.
Game 15, Rangers at Mariners
7:05. Koronka v Hernandez. KSTW for TV, or you can walk down to the stadium and get a nice ticket still.
How will you celebrate Felix day? Other than taking the server down by posting a ton of comments. You rascals. Go buy some USSM T-shirts.