D’Angelo Jimenez
From MLB.com:
Designated INF D’Angelo Jimenez for assignment and purchased the contract of INF Luis Lopez from Triple-A Louisville.
Jimenez plays 2b/SS, mostly 2b, and would be fine pickup to stick in Valdez’s place and try and patch the lineup. He’s 27 and his last two years:
2003, White Sox: .255 .332 .410
2003, Reds: .290 .365 .421
2004, Reds: .270 .364 .394 in a full-season.
That’s not earth-shaking, certainly, but I’d take a shortstop who could give the team 100 more points of on-base percentage — for free.
Draft Update
Big news out of Arizona this morning, thanks to Baseball America. The Diamondbacks have eliminated all but four players from contention for the #1 pick in the draft: Justin Upton, Luke Hochevar, Mike Pelfrey, and Craig Hansen, a college reliever.
So, barring an extreme change, the D’Backs won’t be selecting Alex Gordon number one overall. This makes sense considering their organization’s depth at his potential positions, but it does go away from the “best available talent” philosophy. It’s hard to argue that you’d rather have Craig Hansen than Alex Gordon, all things being equal.
But that’s not for us to quibble. So, essentially, the M’s simply have to hope that the Royals pass on Gordon, and they’ll get a shot at selecting the player I believe is the best in the draft.
Week #8 in Review
It’s May 20. And we all know what that means. In 325 A.D. the first ecumenical gathering of bishops met in Nicaea to hammer out the particulars of orthodox Christianity. In 1861, the commonwealth of Kentucky proclaimed its neutrality in the Civil War. In 1971, the world found out What’s Going On, thanks to Marvin Gaye. And in 2005, by 5 p.m. my semester will be complete. Yeah, and it’s also time to take a look at what happened to the Mariners last week.
And its still not too late to send Busta Rhymes a birthday card.
Vital Signs
On this Friday we find the Mariners 16-24. Rumor has it “one” is the lonliest number, and now the Mariners aren’t quite so lonely in last place. The Mariners now share that distinction with the Oakland Athletics. They dropped one more game back of the Angels and now stand 7 games out of first place. Please don’t jump ship yet. We’ve only played two months of baseball here. The Mariners have been outscored 195-173, and that’s not too shabby at all when you consider the Angels’ run differential of +4 and the Rangers of +3. And those two teams have yet to play New York and Boston. According to third-order-wins, the Mariners are still underperforming by a little less than a game. They should be in second place and the M’s, Angels and A’s are all dead even. Things really aren’t as bad as they may seem.
The offense ranks 10th in the league in runs scored (173), same as last week. Their 29 home runs rank 13th in the league. Their 116 walks rank 10th. The team is hitting .250/.312/.376. Think a lineup of Endy Chavez times nine. Their OBP is 11th in the league, and the SLG is 13th (the Angels, Mariners and A’s occupy the three bottom slots).
Their runs allowed is 9th in the league. The defense is turning 70.6% of balls-in-play into outs, slipping to fifth in the league.
Random stat of the week: Home runs from Seattle first basemen in 2004: 15 in 600 AB. In 2005: 11 in 145 AB.
Break out the bubbly. The Mariners won their first series of the season since a three-game sweep of the Royals in the second week of the season. And they did it against the reigning champ Red Sox. In baseball’s version of reincarnation this week, the Mariners came back with some better karma and split the week against New York and Boston. This has to be seen as a moral victory. Perhaps if the Mariners could play these teams yet again this week, we’d see more improvement. The Mariners nearly matched these offensive powerhouses, being outscored by just 3 runs (35-32), despite being out-homered 10-6 and out-walked 30-14. The Mariners did slug twice as many doubles as their opponents (16-8).
That 14-run outburst on Friday certainly helped.
Heroes
Raul Ibanez led the team in batting .348/.400/.739 with 3 doubles and a pair of home runs. with 15 total bases.
Saturday against Boston, Ryan Franklin stymied the Sox to just a 1 run, walked 3, but struck out 9 in 5.1 innings. He tossed 110 pitches and didn’t finish the sixth inning, so this isn’t a Cy Young week or anything. Still, Franklin struck out twice as many batters as he had in any other outing this year. The M’s failed to offer much run support and the bullpen imploded, as the the M’s lost the game.
Not-so-much Heroes
Wilson Valdez went 2-for-12 (.167/.231/.250).
Friday against Boston, Joel Pineiro lasted just 3.2 innings. It took him 81 pitches to collect 11 outs, and just half of those pitches he threw for strikes. He walked 4, allowed 2 home runs and struck out none. The Mariners scored 14 runs and won the game. Go figure. He was sent to Tacoma.
Coming to a Stadium Near You
The homestand continues with interleague play beginning this weekend (already?). Like the Christmas decorations at Wal-Mart, interleague play seems to come earlier and earlier each year. Maybe it’s just me. The Mariners host “archrivals” San Diego Friday-Saturday-Sunday. The Padres currently lead the NL West, ranked 3rd in the National League in runs scored and 9th in runs allowed.
The Mariners get a Monday day-off while they travel to the east coast for a three-game set against the heavy slugging Orioles. The O’s are 2nd in the league in runs scored and 6th in the league in runs allowed. Just because the Yankees and Red Sox are leaving town doesn’t mean a reprieve from the heavy-hitting offenses.
Return of Borders
From MLB.com transactions:
Acquired C Pat Borders from Milwaukee affiliate Triple-A Nashville in exchange for cash considerations and assigned him to Triple-A Tacoma.
This has been hashed out in a previous thread, but to sum up:
– Wow, it’s come down to the return of Borders
– He comes cheap
– He knows the team, the team knows him, and if they decide to push Wiki when he returns, Borders will head down to Tacoma without throwing a tantrum
– Once he’s up with the club, this will free Rene to return to catching regularly and hopefully developing as a prospect (whether that’ll work…)
Pat Borders has done everything in baseball — he’s won a World Series and been on teams that fell apart on the way there, he’s hung out in the minors, and he’s been catching professionally since 1982 (Medicine Hat, Pioneer League). Many of our fine readers here aren’t even that old. I have a lot of respect for Borders, and I hope that comes through. We can acknowledge that we wish the Mariners had other options (say, that they didn’t have Wiki on the roster and had been free to stash a Mike Rose-type guy in Tacoma) and still tip our caps. May Borders instill some of his work ethic and hard-worn experience into Olivo.
Tonight’s baseball fix
May I recommend Nashville at Tacoma, 6:05 start? Featuring the fine play-by-play of Mike Curto and available on the internet.
Otherise, your only game is Arizona @ Houston if you’ve got MLB Extra Innings. The Bob Melvin-led Diamondbacks are 24-17 and got to Clemens early.
Today’s news, PI bit
The M’s had a closed team meeting. From the PI:
Second baseman Bret Boone, with the permission of manager Mike Hargrove, called a “players-only” meeting to see if there isn’t some way to turn around the team’s slow start.
“It was time,” Boone said. “Enough is enough. Guys talked, said what they had to say.”
Bret Boone enters the clubhouse.
Boone: Okay, I”ve talked to Grove-y, he’s given me permission to hold a team meeting.
Team groans.
Boone: We need to find a way out of this slump. Anything you have to say, let’s hear it.
Silence.
Boone: Okay, I’ll start. Adrian, stop swinging for low, outside pitches you can’t hit.
Beltre: Why don’t you stop swinging at pitches over your head, little guy? At least I play defense.
Boone: Good, good, let’s get it all out there. Wilson, you want one of the big boys to show you what to do with that wood thing in your hands?
Valdez: I’ll show you what to do–
Chaotic brawling.
Really, what could have come of this? Let’s come up with some ideas for how we can turn this thing around. How abouuuuuttt… playing better? Can that kind of thing be turned on and off in a player meeting?
I have to admit that I’m happy to learn that at least someone cares that they’re playing this badly.
In this week’s PI bit, I check out the pitching to see which starter’s most likely to get axed.
Stats and Scouting
A few months ago, Pat Dillon asked me if I’d be willing to write one of the articles for the Everett Aquasox programs this year. Since Pat’s the coolest guy on earth and a big friend of the blog, I readily agreed, and he’s also given the go ahead for me to publish the article here on USSM. So, what you will find below will also be available in print form in the Aquasox program this summer, which you should all purchase when you go to Everett Memorial Stadium. In fact, buy three. Give them out to friends. They’ll make great stocking stuffers.
Anyways, the topic of the column is the balance of statistical analysis and traditional tools scouting. It is clearly written to people attending Aquasox games, but the topic is certainly relevant here, especially since we’re viewed as mostly statgeeks. Hope you enjoy.
Game 40, Yankees at Mariners
Frank Gorshin, best known for his role as Batman’s rival The Riddler, has died.
Gorshin didn’t just play Edward Nygma. The veteran actor and impressionist played the villanous Bele in a famous Star Trek episode featuring two aliens, each of whom had one side of his face painted black and the other side painted white. But see, they hated each other, because the colors were transposed — Star Trek’s second-most important critique of racism, right after William Shatner making out with Nichelle Nichols on national TV.
In honor of Mr. Gorshin’s most famous role, though, let’s use this riddling technique to dissect the rather dishonorable recent performance of the hometown nine in advance of tonight’s game.
Riddle No. 1: Riddle me this, riddle me that: a home run off Moyer will come from whose bat?
Riddle No. 2: What can you catch but not throw?
Riddle No. 3: This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays kings, brings disorder,
Destroys all, except Pat Borders.
The answers in reverse order are: time, a cold or Steve Blass disease, and “to be announced.”
Use this as a game thread for tonight’s Mike Mussina/Jamie Moyer matchup. TV: FSN. Radio: KOMO.
The Sweet Milk of Pythagoras
Jeff Angus, the Seattle Times’ newly-minted baseball statistics columnist, explains the Pythagorean Wins theorem and applies it to the Mariners’ season.
This won’t be news to many, but should be a salve against panic. Check the article for more if you’re interested, but here’s the upshot:
Studying the numbers suggests the M’s will play at about the pace preseason predictions posted, though perhaps not at the pace more passionate followers had hoped for.
Borders! Borders! Borders!
From Hickey, in the PI notebook today:
The Mariners are making a bid to acquire Borders, 42. If they decide they want the former Mariner (2001-04), the expectation is that they can have him. Sources in the Brewers’ front office say they will not block Borders’ return to the major leagues.
Even better:
Borders, because of an injury-free history and his knowledge of the Mariners’ pitching staff, is considered the heavy favorite.
I… I don’t even know where to start here.