Watching Hisashi Iwakuma
At points last year, Hisashi Iwakuma was good, bad, and everything in between. That’s a sentence that could apply to everyone in baseball, but Iwakuma came in with expectations, then got relegated to the hidden corner of the bullpen, then wound up as a starting rotation standout. Down the stretch, Iwakuma was fantastic, and he did enough to convince the Mariners he was worthy of re-signing. There really could’ve been only one complaint: Iwakuma took his damn time. “Pace” is a measure of the average number of seconds in between pitches. (Find it at FanGraphs!) (Find these USSM authors at FanGraphs!) (FanGraphs!) The league-average pace last year for starters was 21.4 seconds. Iwakuma’s pace as a starter was 26.1 seconds. This was the slowest pace out of every starter in baseball.
I remember Matthew and I talked about this on a small handful of occasions. I suppose you can’t have a handful of occasions. Unless they’re like bacteria occasions, or pistachio occasions. Anyway I think we reasonably concluded that we could put up with Iwakuma’s tempo so long as he was good, but if he started to go off the rails, he’d be intolerable and unwatchable. Ryan Franklin, at least, was fast when he was not good. Nobody wants a slow, ineffective pitcher. Nobody wants Miguel Batista.
Of course, pace doesn’t have much, if anything, to do with pitcher effectiveness, but if baseball’s here as entertainment, slower pitchers are less entertaining. Watchability is genuinely important, for us. Games that drag tend to be games that are less fun, and I don’t need to explain this any more to you. This is a fairly self-evident principle.
We skip ahead now. So far in 2013, Iwakuma’s been outstanding, matching a lot of zeroes with Felix Hernandez. Iwakuma and Felix have both allowed ten earned runs, and a dozen runs overall. Iwakuma has allowed fewer runs than Joe Saunders has strikeouts, if that helps, and Iwakuma’s just been a hell of a pitcher and a hell of a bargain. This year, if you care about park-adjusted ERA, FIP, and xFIP, Iwakuma’s been the same as Clayton Kershaw. Clayton Kershaw is amazing! Hisashi Iwakuma has been amazing.
But it’s not just that his performance has improved. His tempo, also, has improved, if reduction counts as improvement. Iwakuma’s pace, now, is down to 23.5 seconds, a drop of 2.6 seconds from last year. That’s the biggest drop for any starter in baseball, and I’ll show you the top five:
- Hisashi Iwakuma, -2.6 seconds
- Clay Buchholz, -2.1 seconds
- Tim Lincecum, -2.0 seconds
- Matt Harvey, -1.9 seconds
- Mike Minor, -1.8 seconds
Iwakuma hasn’t been fast. But instead of bringing up the rear, now he’s just a little slower than average. He’s less than a second slower than Felix, and nobody complains that Felix takes too much time out there doing nothing. I have to note that Iwakuma hasn’t allowed many baserunners, and pitchers work faster with nobody on. Iwakuma’s pace would be a little higher, I’m guessing, if he’d had to throw more pitches out of the stretch. But it’s not like Iwakuma allowed a ton of runners as a starter in 2012, so while these numbers will move around, it does look like Iwakuma’s a little quicker. In terms of performance, he’s increased his watchability. In terms of pace, he’s also increased his watchability.
Maybe 2.6 seconds doesn’t seem like a lot of time. And, really, it’s not. Especially if you consult with a mountain, or really any geologic process. But for one thing, that adds up over the course of a start. And this guy drank a whole beer in 2.6 seconds. Iwakuma has shaved a whole that guy’s beer off of his pace. Hopefully this is about the only comparison we can make between Hisashi Iwakuma and that guy, with the beer.
We used to joke about how Doug Fister just never stopped improbably getting better. First, he just stopped walking people. Then he started to get groundballs. Then he started to get strikeouts. It’s important for people to remember when they reflect on the trade — Fister then wasn’t what Fister is now. Iwakuma, too, has just gotten better. He built up his arm strength, he’s quit it with the home-run problems, and he’s working faster. Iwakuma is a legitimate, quality AL starting pitcher, and for a time in spring training 2012 Mariners people didn’t know how they’d even keep him on the roster. The days have gotten better for Iwakuma, and, therefore, for us.
Just as an overall closing note: Iwakuma has made 24 major-league starts. They’ve all come within the last one calendar year. Over that year, according to FanGraphs, he’s posted baseball’s fourth-lowest adjusted ERA, among regular and semi-regular starters. His adjusted xFIP ranks 17th out of 130, right around guys like Zack Greinke, Cliff Lee, Fister, Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, and CC Sabathia. The one thing Iwakuma hasn’t shown is in-game durability, and he doesn’t log a ton of innings, but on a per-inning basis, Iwakuma’s been as good as almost anyone. Not just this season — over the last 365 days. He is making Joe Saunders’ salary.
Game 36, A’s at Mariners
Iwakuma vs Straily, 7:10 pm.
Marc’s taking the weekend off, so prepare for three less comprehensive game previews than you normally get. To find out about the specifics of the series, read Matthew’s preview right below this.
One quick note on Iwakuma, though – he ranks second in the majors among starting pitchers in getting batters to chase pitches out of the strike zone, with a 36.4% O-Swing rate; only Tim Hudson rates higher so far this year, and wouldn’t you know it, Hudson also throws a split-finger fastball. Felix — whose change-up is basically a splitter, since he throws it at 89 mph — ranks #4 in O-Swing%. The splitter/change-up is an exceptional pitch. The Mariners have two guys who are really great at getting ahead of batters and then getting them to chase a tumbling breaking ball falling out of the zone. Iwakuma’s not going to put up an ERA below 2.00 all year, but he is a quality pitcher with a real out pitch.
Also, let’s hope his blister is feeling better and he can keep the ball on the ground tonight, because the outfield defense is going to be disastrous.
1. Saunders, CF
2. Seager, 3B
3. Morales, DH
4. Morse, RF
5. Smoak, 1B
6. Ibanez, LF
7. Montero, C
8. Ackley, 2B
9. Ryan, SS
Learning to Pitch
This morning afternoon day, the Mariners won a game, after Felix Hernandez shut down the Pirates despite not really seeming to have his best stuff. Granted, the Pirates’ offense isn’t nearly as intimidating as actual pirates, or at least as actual pirates would’ve been a few hundred years ago, but so far they’ve been middle of the pack, and it’s not like Felix turned in this start in isolation. This was the fifth start in a row that Felix allowed one or zero earned runs, and his ERA is now exactly half his ERA from last season. His ERA last season was good! ERA is being used because this post is unscientific in nature.
There’s an old expression that gets slapped onto young guys who throw hard: they need to learn how to pitch, not throw. It’s so vague as to be completely unhelpful, and I generally can’t stand it when it’s used on phenoms and prospects, but at its core is the right message. There is an art to pitching, and it’s a hell of a lot more complicated than throwing the ball 97 miles per hour somewhere and trying to get a swing and miss. You need to have multiple pitches, you need to know how to command them, and you need to know how to mix them up in mostly unpredictable patterns. Some people are just naturally gifted at throwing, but that’ll only get them noticed, and it’s challenging to get to the bigs and stick in the bigs. The biggest idiot big-league veteran still understands better than most how to do his job.
I was asked in my latest FanGraphs chat about, I don’t know, someone, some young pitcher who throws really hard and has a famous fastball. The name escapes me and the name doesn’t matter. That pitcher, whoever he is, might have some initial success just on account of his raw stuff, but when the league adjusts he’ll have to adjust back. When he loses velocity as he gets older, he’ll have to make up for it. A gifted young pitcher still needs to develop, and we can all think of examples of pitchers who didn’t.
In the course of writing this I’ve been interrupted by several text messages, so I already hate the way this post flows, but I’m thinking about that old expression and the King, on the heels of his latest greatness. Felix, as a rookie, had immediate, outstanding success, the sort of success that led us all to believe he couldn’t possibly struggle. Seriously, that’s what I recall as we headed into 2006 — I recall thinking “Felix doesn’t have any downside.” Subsequent years would reveal that Felix still had a lot of work to do, but as his fastball deteriorated, his numbers bounced back. Felix, now, looks only a little like the guy he was in 2005. Felix, now, looks almost identical to the guy he was in 2005. There are throwers, and there are pitchers. Felix has been amazing as both of them.
This is all to set up just a few factoids. The following, courtesy of Baseball Info Solutions, won’t take you by surprise:
2005: 96mph average fastball
2013: 91mph average fastball
Every so often Felix used to rush it up there in or near the triple digits. Somewhat alarmingly, now I feel good when I see him hit 93. I say “somewhat alarmingly,” because while velocity loss is cause for alarm, it’s hard to panic when the results look like Felix’s results. He’s clearly not broken, and now for another comparison, updated to include today’s eight-inning gem:
2005: 2.67 ERA, 2.85 FIP, 2.77 xFIP
2013: 1.53 ERA, 2.16 FIP, 2.66 xFIP
Felix is all the way back to his incredible rookie results with a fraction — albeit a big fraction — of the stuff. More generally, this year stands as continuing evidence that Felix has evolved as he’s needed to as the years have gone on. No longer capable of doing what he did, Felix is doing what he did, in another way. In a more polished, intelligent way.
With less of a fastball, Felix worked on his patterns. With less of a fastball, Felix worked on his location. With less of a fastball, Felix mastered the changeup, then he mastered that mastered changeup. We aren’t to the point yet where we can say that Felix is thriving as a finesse pitcher, but what’s crazy is that such an idea isn’t wild or unrealistic. Ten years from now, that could be Felix. He’s lost five ticks off his heater — what would be five more? He’s slowed down without slowing down.
Felix is perfect. Felix has worked out perfectly. While Felix still allows hits and runs, what needs to be appreciated is that this is what it looks like when a prospect reaches his ceiling. Prospects are always being evaluated on their ceilings by idiots, and those people are idiots because prospects don’t actually reach their ceilings. Ceilings are virtually unreachable, but here’s Felix, who got there and who then figured it out. His stuff was unbelievable, and it all still moves like pitches shouldn’t. Felix has demonstrated maturity and dedication, and there’s no questioning his loyalty, and while I remember Felix getting blasted by Will Carroll for having violent mechanics, Felix to this point has stayed almost perfectly healthy. When Felix got to the majors, he was great. When he struggled in the majors, he actually made all the adjustments that he needed to make. It took him a few years, but Felix was 23 when he was the Cy Young runner-up. He was 24 when he actually won it. At just about every fork in the road, Felix has followed the right path. There’s no question he’s unusually blessed, but Felix put his work in. He actually learned to pitch, when he found out what’s what he needed to do.
I hate this post. I don’t think it conveys the idea I want it to, and I think it’s pretty poorly written. Thankfully, people seldom notice bad baseball writing, given the pool of people selected to write about baseball. Here’s a takeaway point: Felix is a pitcher, and because of that, we’re constantly worried. He’s the best pitcher on this team. He’s the best player on this team. He is this team, even though this team isn’t very good. We’re constantly worried about his health and about his ability to keep being dominant while his fastball slows down further and further. All of our worries — they’ve pretty much all been in our own heads. Felix hasn’t actually given us a reason to worry. Felix has been amazing, and he still is, despite it all. These days he’s been pitching as well as he ever has.
Roy Halladay needs shoulder surgery, and it’s an operation that involves his labrum, so there’s no telling how he’s going to come back. It’s a devastating blow to the Phillies, who previously saw Halladay as automatic. It’s something we’re all going to keep in mind, because pitchers are healthy until they aren’t. But the only worry about Felix is worry because he’s a pitcher. There’s not a single reason to worry about Felix otherwise. There’s nothing that’s Felix-specific. Felix is an ace, and he’s ours, and he’s perfect.
Game 25, Angels at Mariners
Aaron Harang vs. CJ Wilson, 7:10pm
Let’s be clear: CJ Wilson isn’t a bad pitcher; he’d look great in the M’s rotation. That said, he’s pretty clearly not the guy the Angels thought they signed (for $77.5m over five years). By RA9, he was worth over 5 WAR per year in his two seasons as a starter for Texas. By FIP, he averaged just shy of 5 WAR per year. By any measure, he was a great starter, and while he posted those two great seasons in somewhat different ways, he appeared to be growing and developing – perhaps into a true ace. His best attribute was keeping the ball in the ballpark; he gave up a freakishly low number of HRs in 2010 (especially considering his home park), and while that figure rose in 2011, it was still better than average. So, remove him from the HR-aiding Ballpark in Arlington and plunk him down in one of the league’s most underrated pitcher’s parks, a park that suppresses HRs, and you’d pencil him in for 3-6 WAR, conservatively, right?
Instead, Wilson was merely so-so, thanks to a home run rate that looked like the league average, not Wilson’s career average. Strikeouts were down, contact up, walk rate back up where it had been in 2010. As a 5-6 win pitcher in 2011, he had a long way to fall while remaining good, and he used nearly that entire cushion. A 2+ WAR season is nothing to be ashamed of, and given that he made only $10m in the first year of his contract, it was arguably a bargain. But as I discussed last year, Wilson’s in for a series of pretty big raises beginning next season.* At this point, it’s become more clear that his very different peripheral stats may not have been the sign of development, they were just the product of higher-than-normal volatility.
Every pitcher is volatile, of course, and it’s magnified in Wilson’s case because he was a good reliever, then a crappy one, then a good one again at the beginning of his career. But the Angels can’t be too happy that his walk rate, which had improved dramatically in 2011, became a problem again in 2012 and has been even worse through four starts this year. His strikeout rate fell back to its 2010 level last year, but it’s fallen well past that this season, even as the league-average figure has climbed (he’s faced only four teams, of course, but the teams he’s faced run the gamut from the high-K% Astros to the contact-happy Tigers). The HR rate is still concerning, and batters stubbornly refuse to chase pitches (he has an absurdly low swing% overall). Add in long-standing platoon splits, and I’d be nervous about paying him $20m in a few years time.**
Ok, so that’s the (mostly pessimistic) context. The good signs, for Angels/Wilson fans, are that his velocity is essentially right where it was in 2012, when his FB velo average hit a career high. And he’s still able to mix six pitches – two fastballs, a cutter, a slider, a curve and a change. His slider/cutter combo has been effective for years, and seems to be just as good now. His fastball seems like a real problem, despite its 92-mph-ness. He had good (read: few homers allowed) results with the four-seamer in 2010, and while it regressed a bit in 2011, it was still a good pitch, as he notched more K’s with it than walks and HRs, despite using it more often when behind in the count. That changed last year, as his ISO rose and his strikeouts dropped. So far this year, it’s more of the same, with a continued increase in his ISO and drop in K’s (tiny sample alert, of course). The M’s need to be patient and get themselves into good counts. No one – not even the Astros – went chasing too many of his pitches out of the zone, so the M’s need to be disciplined enough to avoid that too.
The M’s start Aaron Harang, who was just terrible in his last start. Just awful. C’mon M’s: let’s talk about another good night from Kyle Seager so we don’t have to focus on Harang’s HRs-allowed.
Line-up:
1: Jason Bay, !
2: Seager, 3B
3: Morales, DH
4: Morse, RF
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Shoppach, C
7: Andino, 2B
8: Chavez, CF
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Harang
Jason Bay is leading off a big league game in 2013. Huh.
The Day of Pitching Prospects last night went fairly well, with Victor Sanchez overcoming a rough 1st inning (and a dropped fly ball behind him) to cruise through six solid innings. Taijuan Walker worked out of a couple of jams early and similarly fell into a groove in a great start for AA Jackson, easily outpitching Zach Lee (though you could nitpick about the four walks). Unfortunately, the AAA prospect match-up between Danny Hultzen and Zack Wheeler didn’t happen, as Hultzen was scratched after not being able to get loose. Mike Zunino didn’t find Wheeler to his liking, as he started 0-4 with 4Ks, but the R’s came back from a 7-1 deficit, and a 10-6 gap in the 9th to win a classic PCL pitcher’s duel, 13-12. The Rainiers made five errors. On the positive side, Nick Franklin is nearly as hot in AAA as Kyle Seager is in MLB, going 5-5 last night with two doubles, and a single that slammed off the wall in right.
Today, Tyler Pike pitches for Clinton, and sinkerballer Brett Shankin makes his second start for Jackson. Andrew Carraway get the ball for Tacoma in their second game in Las Vegas.
* It’s not just Wilson, of course. The Angels back-loaded many of their free agent deals. They have five players under contract right now for the 2016 season, and they owe those five players *$107 million.* The M’s have one player under contract for 2016, and he is just the dreamiest dreamboat that ever sailed. This is certainly manageable in the era of the irrationally exuberant TV contract, but it’d be even more manageable with an influx of cost-controlled players to replace the current group who’ll hit arbitration when the big free agent bills start coming due. Unfortunately, the Angels prospect cupboard is freakishly bare right now, with #1 prospect Kaleb Cowart off to a slow start in AA, and #2 prospect LHP Nick Maronde getting a rude welcome to the big leagues last night courtesy of Kyle Seager. Their willingness to spend, and their good fortune/good work developing a Mantle-like talent in Mike Trout make all of these challenges concerning, and not insurmountable. The Angels have been in similar positions before, and they always seem to figure out a way to grind out 85-93 wins, but I’ll admit to a few grins when I look at Wilson/Hamilton/Pujols production and what they’re owed.
** Of course, before I *got* to that, I’d be looking at the fact I owed Vernon Wells nearly $19m next season, even after the offsetting payment from the Yankees.
Mariners Possibly Await Their Doom
| MARINERS (8-15) | ΔMs | ANGELS (8-12) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -13.1 (26th) | 2.9 | 11.6 (6th) | Angels |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -1.7 (16th) | -6.9 | 1.9 (12th) | Angels |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 6.2 (7th) | 0.7 | -20.8 (30th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 3.1 (6th) | 2.0 | -7.6 (29th) | Mariners |
| OVERALL (RAA) | -5.5 (16th) | -1.2 | -14.9 (23rd) | MARINERS |
Welp.
If you listened to the podcast below you can gleam a general sense of mine and Jeff’s current opinion on the Mariners state of affairs. Something is rotten in the state of Cascadia and judging by the schedule, it’s not going to get any easier, even if the Angels seem weak right now. The Mariners cannot even beat the Astros so this isn’t really about the other teams. It’s about the Mariners and they need to get their house in order.
This seems like an opportune time for me to take a break. Actually, after the first two games of the season would have been the best, and hopefully I will return regretting missing some fun and exciting baseball, but oh well. I’ll be back in a few weeks.
Game 22, Mariners at Astros
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Bud Norris, 5:10pm
Man, everything feels better after a single day of full-spectrum dominance. Thank you, Felix. Thank you, Brad Peacock.
Bud Norris is the Astros nominal ace, and at a cool $3 million, the highest paid member of the team. He’s a straight-fastball/slider pitcher, who throws a 50:50 mix to righties, but will mix in the occasional change to left-handers. His slider is a swing-and-miss pitch, which has helped him rack up impressive strike-out totals over the past several seasons, but so-so control and a HR problem have limited his effectiveness, even with the 22%+ K rates. Lefties have typically hit a bit better off of him, which makes some sense given his arsenal, but given his lack of fastball movement, he’s not dominant against right-handers.
The M’s made a roster move today, placing Franklin Gutierrez on the 15-day DL and recalling Carlos Peguero from Tacoma. This was all but announced last night, when Peguero was removed from the game in Salt Lake pretty much as soon as Guti went down. Eric Thames is out-hitting Peguero, left-handed, on the 40-man, and possessed of a superior MLB career line, but that wasn’t enough to get the call. Peguero isn’t in the line-up tonight, and it’s not immediately clear how much he’ll play; he could find himself back in Tacoma when Michael Saunders comes off the DL in a few days.
Hisashi Iwakuma’s been incredibly effective this year despite a real change in his batted ball profile. Fly balls are up considerably over 2012, but while he’s given up the occasional homer, this hasn’t led to a flurry of long balls. His K% is essentially dead-on his 2012 figure, but he’s not walking anyone. Yes, his BABIP is absurdly low and this will regress, but he’s been legitimately good this year, with a FIP and xFIP solidly better than his 2012 results. As Matthew said, signing him to a two-year deal is looking like the M’s best move of the off-season, and one of the better moves by any team.
The line-up:
1: Chavez, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Morales, DH
4: Morse, RF
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Ibanez, LF
7: Montero, C
8: Ackley, 2B
9: Ryan
SP: Iwakuma
SO I mentioned it was a big start for James Paxton last night, and he got hammered by Salt Lake. Two HRs and six total runs in less than 2 IP, as the Rainiers dropped a classic PCL game, 13-11. Just to keep things fresh, they played a pitcher’s duel today, beating the Bees 2-1 behind “PCL Dream” Brian Sweeney (6Ks in 5 IP), Lucas Luetge and Logan Bawcom.
Clinton’s game was postponed, again. That’s seven in the last twelve days.
Chance Ruffin starts tonight for Jackson in the only night-game on the M’s affiliate scoreboard.
What 100 Means
Monday night, Felix Hernandez picked up win No. 100 of his major-league career. It was something of an occasion, as all these round-number achievements tend to be, and Felix was a wee bit emotional in the aftermath. Felix has always cared about wins, because wins mean that the team won. Felix is awful young to have 100 wins already, and now people are looking forward to another 100 more, all in a Mariners uniform. Yesterday, Felix reached a milestone.
Of course, he reached that milestone against the Astros, in a start in which he had to come out early with back discomfort. Everything you need to know about wins, you can glean from the fact that Felix didn’t get win No. 100 in his previous start, in which he allowed a run to the Tigers over eight innings, generating a dozen punch-outs. Against maybe the best team in the American League, Felix was nothing short of dominant, and he came away winless. The milestone was reached when Felix turned in an inferior performance against a team that’s laughably bad.
It’s easy to ignore the achievement, because we’ve been conditioned to ignore pitcher wins. For good reason — pitcher wins are stupid and they don’t make sense. Nobody would design pitcher wins as they are from scratch were they beginning today. Sometimes some pitchers get more wins than they deserve, and sometimes other pitchers, like Felix, get far fewer. It’s a small miracle that Felix ever won 19 games in 2009. He had 13 wins when he won the Cy Young. Felix’s career ERA in no-decisions is 2.80. A dozen times, Felix has allowed no more than two runs, and lost. An incredible 39 times, Felix has allowed no more than two runs, and come away with no decision. Last April, Felix blanked the Indians over eight frames, with a full 12 strikeouts. He didn’t get support and the closer blew the game. Felix didn’t get a win. It’s not an unfamiliar experience.
If you don’t believe in a stat, it doesn’t make sense to care when a certain level is reached in that stat. I don’t care about how many times I’ve been to Walgreens, so I wouldn’t care about the hundredth time I went to Walgreens. What’s deemed to be insignificant ought remain insignificant regardless of circumstances, and if you can’t stand pitcher wins, then you shouldn’t ever care about pitcher wins, no matter what they’re saying, because ultimately they’re still pitcher wins and you decided to dismiss them.
But let me tell you a thing about Felix’s 100 wins, as flawed and as dumb as the total is. Objectively, wins are stupid, and objectively, celebrating round-number achievements is stupid. There’s no reason at all why this should matter, but it does, if only in a little way. And you shouldn’t deny yourself the feeling.
For one thing, pitcher wins aren’t completely meaningless. There is a correlation between winning and effectiveness, so wins aren’t measuring nothing. They just don’t measure effectiveness as well as other things. But far more importantly, consider Felix and consider how you’ve probably come to take him a little for granted. When Felix came up and set the league on fire, many of us took for granted that he’d be amazing, and we were disappointed when he disappointed. When Felix blossomed into an ace some years later, it started to feel like routine, and now whenever Felix isn’t outstanding people wonder what’s wrong. Every time Felix allows three or four or five runs, there’s panic, because Felix isn’t supposed to do that.
The greatest barrier to happiness is the failure to appreciate what you have, what’s good, what are blessings. We’re always thinking about change, we’re always thinking about upgrades, and while evolutionarily there’s a benefit to what one might consider ambition, there needs to be a balance and people have difficulty finding it. Unhappy people tend not to be appreciative enough. Ordinary people also tend not to be appreciative enough, and they could be happier. Look around you. You’re doing well, at least on average. A lot of the time you probably don’t feel like you’re doing well enough.
The Mariners have a blessing in Felix Hernandez, in the so-far durable ace who’s committed his career to this team and this city despite what one might see as indications that the Mariners have been trying to drive him away. Other teams, most other teams, don’t have a Felix. I laughed the other day when Buster Olney compared Matt Harvey to Felix because there’s no comparison, at least not yet. Harvey’s a hell of a baseball player; Felix is a team. Felix is a player who seems to love us all back, and that’s a rare quality, or more accurately a rare constellation of qualities. As bad as we’ve had it overall, we have it good here.
We have, in Felix, something every sports fan wants. A superstar athlete who allows you to daydream, to overlook the fact that it’s all just a business. It doesn’t feel like it’s just a business for Felix, and he’s selected this place as his home. We have this fantasy of a starting pitcher and more often than not we take him for granted. It’s not necessarily something we can help, not without re-wiring ourselves, but there’s no way Felix is appreciated as much as he ought to be. This is not a feature — this is a bug.
What 100 wins does is, if only for an instant, give us a little perspective. It allows for a moment of reflection, and out of reflection comes appreciation, appreciation for what Felix is and how he’s come along. When Felix won the Cy Young, it only mattered because it let us appreciate him naturally. We got to feel natural appreciation when Felix threw his perfect game, and when he signed his extension. And we get to feel natural appreciation now, or at least we did last night. It’s only temporary, because we are wired to not feel those feelings all of the time, but it’s important to feel them on occasion. We got to count a blessing. That’s an easy thing to suggest, but it’s a diabolically tricky thing to do.
None of this stuff really matters. None of the achievements really matter, none of the inductions really matter. Not to us, as fans and outsiders. What matters is the amazing ability these players have on the field, and what they do for teams and cities, and so 100 wins isn’t significant because it’s 100 wins. It’s significant because it reminds us, ever so briefly, of how lucky we are and how lucky we’ve been. In the aftermath, Felix got to reflect on his career, and we got to reflect on Felix. We got, for a few moments, to appreciate, and those are the moments of greatest clarity. Here’s to these moments, and to the next.
Tumbling Mariners Will Face Astros
| MARINERS (7-13) | ΔMs | ASTROS (5-13) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -16.0 (28th) | -8.2 | 0.2 (15th) | Astros |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | 5.2 (11th) | 3.0 | -5.6 (21st) | Mariners |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 5.5 (7th) | -1.0 | -13.3 (29th) | Mariners |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 1.1 (11th) | 0.3 | -10.6 (30th) | Mariners |
| OVERALL (RAA) | -4.3 (17th) | -6.1 | -29.2 (29th) | MARINERS |
Last week I spoke of my emotional difference between the records of 6-11 and 7-10 and how it seemed larger than it should in reality. Just three games later and that gap is gone. Who cares between 7-13 and 6-14? So perhaps I was more influenced by the win coming in that final game leaving a small residue of optimism. Well, mission accomplished, Mariners!
There’s certainly the opportunity for the Mariners to roll through the Astros and re-establish some fringe hope of contention. I’m not optimistic about that however. CoolStandings has the Mariners’ playoff odds already down to 8% with Baseball Prospectus even more grime at 6%. Frankly, I’m just hoping for mild entertainment. It’s a low bar, Mariners.
Game 17, Tigers at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Justin Verlander, 12:40pm
(Note the early start-time today for getaway day)
First of all, thank you Felix. Thank you for that display of mastery, for rising to and far beyond the challenge the Tigers line-up provides. Thanks for breaking the will of Prince Fielder, and in so doing, making Franklin Gutierrez feel less bad about HIS night (or at least making him feel less alone). There’s only so much you can say about a mid-April loss to a good team, and thankfully you can read all you need from Jeff and Dave.* Thanks for appearing to care and for expending so much effort in a game with a result that seemed so inevitable. The M’s were never going to hit Scherzer, for reasons I talked about yesterday. That the M’s nearly won is remarkable and the game is very, very close to his perfecto or maybe some of his better games from 2007 in Felix’s sheer dominance. But ultimately, Felix (and M’s fans) needed help. Ultimately, Felix needed help from people remarkably ill-prepared to give it.
Dave’s article breaks down many of the managing issues, and they were legion, but the injury issues mitigate some of the blame. That Endy Chavez is here doesn’t explain away why he was used the way he was (I mean, what), but the fact that Saunders *wasn’t* available directly led to Franklin Gutierrez facing tough right-handed pitching in high-leverage situations. This is Franklin’s whiff rate by location against right-handed pitchers, compared to *other* right-handed batters. Guti’s career wOBA against righties is almost exactly the same as Brendan Ryan’s career wOBA. The M’s may have successfully purged one “part-time player” who couldn’t be trusted late in games due to his splits, but really needing hits from Gutierrez is roughly equivalent to requiring Endy Chavez to spark a two-out rally against Max Scherzer as a pinch-hitter.
Of course, the final, unavoidable case of a player attempting to do something he’s just not capable of was watching Smoak try to score from 1B on a sharp double to right. The decision to send him was the right one, given how long the game had gone on and how rare scoring opportunities were. But the M’s will win exactly when they do not need Endy Chavez to pinch hit while Jason Bay pinch runs. When Franklin Gutierrez faces a lefty with men on base, and when Justin Smoak is telling an actual runner to slide, not angrily barreling into a catcher who’s already got the ball safely tucked away. At this point, the line-up has known problems and other teams are unsurprisingly exploiting them.
So, today, the M’s face Justin Verlander. All of that stuff I said yesterday doesn’t necessarily apply. Verlander’s arm slot means his splits aren’t as extreme as Scherzer’s. And that’s all I’ve got as far as hopeful signs go.
1: Chavez, CF
2: Bay, RF
3: Morales, DH
4: Morse, LF
5: Smoak, 1B
6: Shoppach, C
7: Ackley, 2B
8: Andino, 3B
9: Ryan, SS
SP: Iwakuma
Hector Noesi was scheduled to make his 2013 debut with Tacoma today after impressing with AA Jackson. But that’s on hold now, as he’s been surprisingly recalled to Seattle, with Bobby LaFromboise heading down I-5. Last night’s long game means they need a long man, and hey, he was on the 40-man. Speaking of Jackson, Chance Ruffin continues his surprising run as a starting pitcher.
* The first gif in Dave’s article at Fangraphs may be in my top 5 all-time. *That’s* Felix. An unearthly pitch to a good hitter, and the reaction combines excitement with an air of inevitability. He’s excited, because he did exactly what he wanted to do, and it was about as difficult for him as dropping the resin bag, or putting on a hat.
Mariners Take Majority Ownership of ROOT SPORTS NW
We’ve known for a while that the Mariners had an opt-out in their agreement with ROOT SPORTS, and were going to be able to renegotiate their contract based on the fact that television revenues for Major League teams are skyrocketing right now. Because live sports are mostly DVR proof and not (legally) available through streaming sites, cable companies are investing very heavily in exclusive long term contracts for sports franchises, especially baseball, because it offers 162 broadcasts per year.
Instead of re-signing to a new deal with ROOT — currently owned by DirecTV, by the way — the Mariners have bought a majority stake in the network. What this means is that instead of simply licensing their television rights, the Mariners will generate revenue directly from the network, much like the Yankees do with YES. Wendy Thurm laid out all the different television contract arrangements in a great post at FanGraphs last year, so you can see there that the Mariners will join the Yankees (YES), the Mets (SNY), the Red Sox (NESN), and the Orioles/Nationals (MASN) as owners of their own RSN, rather than striking a licensing deal with an existing cable network.
The big advantage of owning your own network is having a separate entity in which to hide revenues and keep them from going into the revenue sharing pool that MLB takes a 34% cut from to distribute among the lower revenue clubs. If the Mariners had signed a deal that simply caused DirecTV to cut them checks for their broadcast rights, the team would have had to disperse 1/3 of that to MLB. As owners of the network, the Mariners will simply be able to claim that revenue as ROOT SPORTS revenue and not Mariners revenue, and thus won’t be subject to the same revenue sharing rules. It’s a loophole, but it’s one that MLB has not yet seen fit to close. It doesn’t mean they won’t close it eventually, but it’s more difficult to track revenues of affiliated companies than it is to track what the teams have to disclose as income, so it’s likely that this partnership will result in the team being able to keep a larger percentage of their television rights money than if they had struck a pure licensing deal.
What this will mean is that the Mariners are going to have a significant increase in revenues going forward. Under their current television deal, the publicly available information has the team bringing in about $45 million per year, or at least that was the average during the life of the deal – it might be higher at the moment if the deal was backloaded. Every team who has signed a new licensing agreement with an RSN over the last few years has done significantly better than that AAV, ranging from $60 million per year (plus a 20% equity stake) for the Padres to $280 million per year for the Dodgers. That the Mariners chose to take a controlling stake instead of signing a licensing deal means that they believe they can make even more money by controlling the RSN than they would have by signing those rights away, so while we’ll never know exactly how much the team will get from owning a good chunk of ROOT, you can bet it’s going to be a sizable raise.
So, yes, the Mariners payroll is going to go up, and probably go up a good amount next year. Pretty much every new TV deal has been met with a payroll increase for the team that signed the contract, even among the lower revenue teams. The Indians just signed Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn over the off-season in large part because of the deal they struck to sell SportsTime Ohio to Fox Sports. Don’t be surprised if the Mariners are among the most aggressive teams in free agency next winter. This is generally how things work after a team signs a new TV deal or creates their own RSN.
But, at the same time, you have to realize that this isn’t a Mariners specific thing. The Mariners are taking part of a trend that is pushing up the revenues and the payrolls of every Major League team. Relative to the rest of the league, the Mariners had to do this just to keep pace. Having their own RSN doesn’t instantly make the Mariners into the Yankees. They’re just jumping onto the wave that is lifting all Major League clubs at the moment, and so they’re going to have more money to spend, but when everyone has more money to spend, players just get more expensive.
And, as we’ve talked about, free agency is changing. The wave of long term extensions for players like Felix Hernandez and other teams’ versions of Felix mean that premium young talents aren’t getting to FA early in their careers any more. Money that used to go into luring away star players is now being used to keep star talents with their original organizations, and so the players who actually change teams are of lesser quality — or are just older — than they used to be. The Mariners may very well go into this coming off-season with a lot of money to spend, only to find that the best players available are Jacoby Ellsbury and Matt Garza. Franchise saviors aren’t hitting the market much anymore.
It doesn’t make that money useless, though. In my opinion, the new advantage of financial resources is going to come through a heightened ability to make trades. While MLB teams haven’t traditionally sold off their best players, I wouldn’t be surprised if teams like the Rays and Marlins begin to look for some kind of financial compensation when they put David Price and Giancarlo Stanton on the trade block. The commissioner’s office might not go for large cash transfers, but there are creative ways that low revenue teams can get teams flush with cash to provide them some financial flexibility. Maybe instead of just asking for five good prospects, the Rays would want the Mariners to sign Taijuan Walker to a guaranteed six year contract with a bunch of team options for $40 or $50 million guaranteed and then agree to pay Walker to pitch for the Rays for the next decade. Would MLB go for this? I don’t know, but this is the kind of thing that a team with money to burn and no obvious free agent targets could try.
And now the Mariners are going to be that kind of team. The payroll is going to go up, and they’re going to be more aggressive in player acquisition than they have been. This isn’t an unexpected gift from the heavens, as they’ve known this windfall was coming and it was part of the motivation behind the Felix Hernandez extension, but it’s still going to be a financial boost to the team. It doesn’t make them the richest team in baseball or anything, but you can bet that the team almost certainly isn’t going to run an $85 million payroll again next year.
One final note – if your plan is to respond to this post with a rant against ownership being cheap bastards who are just pocketing all the money and screwing the fans because they don’t want to win, don’t bother. In fact, go away. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The perpetuated myth that the team is intent on screwing you out of your money by putting a bad product on the field is stupid and wrong. Winning teams make more money than losing teams. If the Mariners were completely and utterly intent on maximizing profits with no regard for anything else, they’d have invested more heavily in the product, because winning breeds revenues. It isn’t a lack of desire to win, or a preference for profit over winning, that has caused the team to stumble the last decade. They just made a bunch of bad baseball decisions that ended up doing real long term harm to the franchise. It is as simple as that. They aren’t losing on purpose. Stop believing that crap.