The Box is at it again.
First, he hits Ben Davis (.282/.320/.486) 9th tonight, with Mark McLemore (.222/.308/.324) 7th. Davis is 3-for-3 so far, while McLemore is 0-3. Bat Davis 7th, and perhaps the M’s score a few runs in the 6th rather than just one.
Then, he uses Aaron (a-run) Taylor in an unfamiliar fashion, bringing him in to get the last out of an inning and then sending him back out to start a new inning. Sure enough, he gave up a some hits and a pair of runs. I’m probably making too big a deal out of this one, but this isn’t the role Taylor is used to. (That said, his stuff looks pretty good — I think he can easily take Jeff Nelson’s spot next season.)
Greg Colbrunn is back on the DL. Luis Ugueto is back in the majors. Our bench is, once again, the worst in baseball history.
Oh, and the current rumor-du-jour is that the M’s have inquired into the availability of Jose Guillen. The Reds will almost certainly trade him, since he’s in the middle of a monster career year and is a free agent at years end. With Dunn, Kearns, and Griffey, he doesn’t fit into Cincinatti’s future, and he’s hitting the cover off the baseball. He also makes peanuts this year, meaning he’ll fit into the M’s budget.
Unfortunately, he’s a right-handed hitter with a career OBP of .314. His plate discipline is awful, and the Reds are going to ask for two good arms in exchange. As much as I’d like to see another bat here, I don’t want to give up Soriano, Nageotte, Johnson, or Blackley to get a hack like Guillen who could easily fall apart.
Despite your brilliant statistical study of Mr. Box, I still find myself griping about pitcher usage. Melvin went to Arthur Rhodes with a 6-1 lead in the 8th tonight, then to Jeff Nelson with a 6-3 lead two batters later. What baffled me the most, however, was his decision to bring in Shigetoshi Hasegawa to face David Segui. Nelson had control of both his fastball and slider and had been effective, getting a grounder and a flyball from the two batters he faced. And suddenly you need Hasegawa — supposedly the team’s new closer, which is odd given that Box used him in the 8th — to retire David Segui?
Hasegawa didn’t retire Segui, as we all know, and suddenly the score was 6-5. Personally, I would have stuck with Rafael Soriano. He had a 6-1 lead, and the two runners on with no outs really aren’t a huge deal when you consider his stuff (fastball/slider) is perfect for getting strikeouts and grounders. I also think it’s important to let Soriano pitch meaningful innings and work his way out of the jam he created, too.
For reference, here’s the top of the 8th inning:
-Melvin Mora walked.
-Jeff Conine singled to right, Mora to second.
-Arthur Rhodes relieved Rafael Soriano.
-Jay Gibbons singled to left, Mora scored, Conine to second.
-Tony Batista popped out to third.
-BJ Surhoff singled to shallow left, Conine to third, Gibbons to second.
-Jeff Nelson relieved Rhodes.
-Deivi Cruz reached on infield single to second, Conine and Gibbons scored, Surhoff to second.
-Brook Fordyce flied out to right.
-David Segui hit for Brian Roberts.
-Shigetoshi Hasegawa relieved Nelson.
-Segui singled to left center, Surhoff scored, Cruz to second.
-Jose Morban ran for Segui.
-Luis Matos flied out to right.
Side note: How weak is Randy Winn’s throwing arm? The throw he made when Mora scored on Gibbons’ single was from short left, and he didn’t get anything on it at all. It wasn’t even a close play, and it sould have been, given that Mora (and his 3B coach) decided pretty late to head for home rather than stay at third.
Box Melvin, a statistical study
It’s instructive to compare Melvin to his predecessor and look for differences.
Pitching
Last year, there were 505 appearances by Mariner pitchers in 162 games, an average of 3.1 pitcher appearances/game.
This year, there have been 279 appearances by Mariner pitchers in 87 games, an average of 3.2 pitcher appearances/game.
So for all our griping about reliever usage patterns, it’s not as if Melvin’s using significantly more pitchers every game. He’s just using them differently:
| Who | 2002 IP/G | 2003 IP/G |
| Rhodes | 1.1 | .9 |
| Nelson | 1.1 | .8 |
| Hasegawa | 1.3 | 1.2 |
Where’s he getting the IPs to make up for the difference? Moyer, Garcia are both getting an out more an inning, we don’t have the James Baldwin Experiment going 5 innings every few games, and Pineiro’s been out of the pen. For how long he was on the roster. Mateo’s been up longer and working more, and sopping up almost 2 IP/appearance. Carrara was averaging almost an inning and a third while he was up.
Here’s the big difference between Melvin and Piniella through the first half of the season: only five pitchers have made starts for the team, and none of them have made bullpen appearances. Piniella, as you’ll recall, jerked Pineiro in and out of the bullpen early last season, where Melvin has done a lot of subtle rotation position swapping, ordering the team essentially by weighting in-season performance against historical talent (Moyer-Meche-Pineiro-Franklin-Garcia), and avoided moving the pitchers between the rotation and the bullpen. Give Melvin some credit for this — the pitchers (the starters, certainly) must feel secure in knowing what they’re being asked to do and what their contribution to the team is.
Pitching Tactics
One of the things that’s been overlooked about Melvin is that he will not issue the free pass, which we should applaud him for. It’s a dumb move with only limited use that’s pulled out all too often by the advocates of small ball and over-managing. The Mariners have only issued 11 so far this year and are dead last in this category. League leader is Toronto, with 29, and Texas has given 28. Lou used to give one about every fifth game. Melvin’s one in eight, and that’s a significant difference.
Equally interesting is the team’s increase in caught stealing rates. They’ve gone from 35% to 41%, and every out is also a runner wiped off the paths. Oh yeah. This is entirely Ben Davis, though — he’s gunning down 46% of baserunners, up from 44% last year. The other half of this ill catching platoon, Dan Wilson, has thrown out 33% this year, which is up from last year’s even worse 28%. If you wanted another reason the team should play Davis at least two-thirds of the time, there you go… and this is another point against the Box.
Lineups
I discard the notion that set lineups are valuable. There’s no real correlation between lineup frequency and team strength. So I’m going to ignore that, though it’d be easy to say “Piniella turned in 100 lineup cards, Melvin 12” (not actual numbers).
In 2002, we saw 10.8 lineup players/game. In 2003 so far, we’ve only seen 10.2 players a game. It’s interesting to note that Melvin, reputed to be a NL-style manager, is not as big about in-game substitution as Piniella, who… well, he was also frequently noted for being an NL-style manager. While I’m at it, though, that whole distinction is bunk anyway.
Further, we’ve seen a lot less in-position flexibility. Players who’ve appeared at more than 1 position:
McLemore, LF-3b-SS-2b
Bloomquist, LF-RF-3b-SS-2b
Mabry, LF-RF-1b
Winn, LF-CF-RF
By the end of 2002, we’d seen both Wilson and Davis at first, and by my count, 82 outfields including the University of Washington Marching Band.
This tails nicely on what we’ve seen from Melvin on the pitching side: you’re my starter, and you’re my left fielder. Melvin does have the luxury of Winn, a nominal regular left fielder that Piniella did not, but at the same time we should recognize that this is part of his comfort-and-security campaign to make his players like him.
In Game Tactics
What I’m about to say might shock you… Melvin doesn’t steal as much. In 2002, the M’s made 195 stolen base attempts, and were successful on 70%. To break even, you want to be at 75%, though there are other factors involved, and the traditional mark is 66%. Melvin’s team is stealing bases at a 74% rate right now — 78 attempts, 58 steals. He’s also trying to steal less: the team’s going after .9 bases/game, while last year Piniella the riverboat gambler had his team trying 1.2 steals/game — that’s a huge difference.
What’s more, check this out: Ichiro is 23-6 so far, on pace for, uhh… 43-11, which would be way up from last year’s 31-15. I still think he was injured at the end of last year: he just wasn’t as fast or as aggressive. Meanwhile Cameron went 31-8 last year, and this year he’ll end up around 13-7. Winn’s gone 15-2 on pace for 28-4, making McLemore’s 2002 18-10 look terrible. Boone’s 7-1 already, last year he was 12-5 on the season. Or, look at this way:
Top 5 M’s in % of team stolen base attempts, 2003
Ichiro, 37%
Winn, 22%
Cameron, 14%
Boone, 10%
McLemore, 6%
— total 89% of team SB attempts
Top 5 M’s in % of team stolen base attempts, 2002
Ichiro, 24%
Cameron, 20%
McLemore, 14%
Boone, 9%
Relaford, 7%
— total 73% of team SB attempts
Where Piniella would have anyone steal if the impulse struck, Melvin’s concentrating on a few, high-percentage guys and having them run rampant.
Sacrifice hits. I honestly think the stats fail here. Melvin’s got 21 sac hits, on pace for 39. Last year the M’s had 41 all season. I think if I was able to locate a stat for bunt attempts, though, Melvin would bury Piniella. Sometimes the limitations of stats are as frustrating as the limitations of observation.
And the big finish
I’ve learned a lot here. It’s easy to focus on Box Melvin’s crappy in-game management choices or his crappy bullpen management, but the statistics reveal some things we might not otherwise notice. Bob Melvin, the smart guy we heard so much about, shows up here — the reluctance to give up the free pass, the concentration on high-precentage baserunning by players who can pull it off. The stability he’s tried to bring shows up in the number of players we see in a game: all told, in an average M’s game you’ll see 3.2 pitchers and 10.2 batters — 13.4 M’s taking the field, whereas a 2002 M’s game you’d get… 3.1 + 10.8… 13.9 M’s. An extra substitution/game, that’s significant over a season.
Here’s the optimistic viewpoint: Melvin’s reasonably smart, and he has goals in mind for how he wants to run the team, and operates toward those goals. Some of those goals are good: stability, team cohesion, make high-percentage plays. And some of them are bad: protect leads at all costs, use bullpen relievers more situationally and less to their ability, bunt runners along (et cetera). Of the latter, while we’re likely to have to live with the philosophy, it’s possible that someone’s going to straighten him out about workload and bullpen management, one of the areas managers can have a great effect, and it’s possible that Melvin will call someone smart up and talk to them about in-game strategies. And if all that happens, huzzah!
Maybe someone can give him a copy of Earl Weaver’s book.
From the Seattle Times:
“Meche, who has had two shoulder surgeries, is experiencing increasing soreness in his arm the last few starts. He downplayed the soreness and is doing exercises to minimize the problem. He had been fairly consistent all season, allowing three runs or fewer in 11 of his previous 16 starts.
Meche said he’ll use the three-day All-Star break to relax and get away from baseball. Pitching coach Bryan Price said Meche would start the second or third game after the break, so he could go six days between starts.”
John Levesque of the Seattle PI wrote a column about the M’s tinkering with the batter’s eye again. This time it’s “the application of a new material with a honeycomb texture later this month.” After talking about this, Levesque launches into a weird mocking-the-coddled-players thing.
The M’s failure to solve this issue with the ballpark continues to demonstrate the team’s inability as an organization to come up with long-term solutions that do anything but generate more money.
Seattle Media Watch
It’s interesting to look at what a paper does with an off-day. Check this out:
Seattle PI:
- David Andriesen turns out a profile on Aaron Taylor
- Levesque’s column (above) includes a reference to a stat other than batting average (he’s the former TV critic who tends to write particularly shallow columns). I mock Levesque sometimes, but I secretly hold out hope that he might turn into something good.
- John Hickey offers Ichiro up as a possible contestant in the HR derby based on Ichiro’s batting practice power. “Nobody hits the ball further in batting practice than Ichiro,” says John Olerud, who is, well, I’ve seen the M’s take batting practice and he’s totally wrong. Ichiro can park the balls just over the fence in right field, but Boone and others have more distance, height, et cetera.
- Shane O’Neill “taps into his network of major league scouts” to produce a “scouting the Orioles” feature that manages to offer almost no actual information. It’s almost all batting average, RBI, and those ratings are useless. Here’s a quote from Geronimo Gil’s:
“Long swingx. Likes to extend his arms; smokes mistakes out over the platex. Vulnerable insidex. Chases balls down and off the platex. Slow behind the platex. Lacks balancex. Reaches for ballsx.”
Copy editor asleepx.
- Baseball notebook has some around-the-league tidbits
- Answer Guy John Marshall answers questions about ball girls (“young women of high school and college age”) who must complete a period of indentured servitude before they get their positions, and how the infield fly rule doesn’t apply on bunt attempts (which, as a side note, I mentioned at length in a Prospectus article a while back).
- Jim Moore, Go2Guy, “Battling Steve Kelly to be the worst sports writer in Seattle” mercifully doesn’t write about the M’s today.
Seattle Times:
- Bob Sherwin has a half-baked column on the value of lefties. “They have a different angle and release point than right-handers and are effective to either side of the plate, particularly against left-handed hitters.” Um, no.
- Inside the Series is the Times version of the series preview. Includes (gasp) on-base percentage, even though the batting column is still batting-average sorted.
I spend my quarters on the P.I. for what that’s worth, and read Larry Stone (“Official Seattle Baseball Print Writer of the U.S.S. Mariner”) on the Web. Later today: a treatise on Box Melvin. I know you’re excited.
M’s Roster Review
The M’s have made a lot of roster moves lately, and I thought I’d take a second to talk about where the team is.
Rotation: Moyer, Meche, Pineiro, Franklin, Garcia (or put “#1 Ace Garcia” in front). One of the best units in the majors. We’ve been worried about Joel, but he’s come around pretty well. Now we’re worried about Meche. Franklin’s Franklin. If he keeps up this revival, Garcia’s probably going to visit me after the season’s over and punch me in the mouth, and I’ll be okay with it.
Bullpen A: Nelson, Rhodes, Hasegawa. I think Box Melvin’s worn these guys out, and the All Star Break could be a welcome respite for them.
Bullpen B: Mateo, Taylor, Soriano. Soriano’s awesome, he could easily do Hasegawa’s work in tight long-relief situations. Mateo’s a servicable righty. “A-ron” Taylor’s got stuff and, uh, closer experience, so Melvin might use him to allow a return to the traditional bullpen closer-setup/setup roles, which.. well, at least it’s something.
Everyday Lineup:
C: Wilson/Davis
1b: Olerud
2b: Boone
SS: Guillen
3B: Cirillo
LF: Winn
CF: Cameron
RF: Ichiro
Did anyone else notice that “an AL scout” is quoted in Gammons’ latest about how the Mariners take doubles and triples out of the game? You see anyone else doing that kind of analysis a while back? Like, say, us? Anyway…
Offensively, this is a top unit… with some serious issues. It’s pretty much Boone/Edgar/Ichiro/Cameron, with Olerud providing OBP and little else, Guillen hitting well for his position, and Davis another bat when Box remembers to play him. Winn doesn’t hit like a left fielder should, Wilson’s terrible, Cirillo’s not hitting (at home, yes, particularly).
Defensively, they’re outstanding.
Bench: McLemore, Bloomquist, Colbrunn, Mabry. This is awful. McLemore hasn’t hit all year, and his defense is terrible. It looks like age has finally caught up to him. Bloomquist can at least play the infield while he doesn’t hit — McLemore doesn’t offer the team anything this year. Greg Colbrunn, Professional Hitter, hasn’t hit well. I can’t believe that’ll last — he’s hit his whole career, he’s not that old. I wonder if more regular use would help him, but I’m as baffled as anybody. Mabry sucks. He offers a little left-handed pop, but he can’t play defense anywhere enough to spot start him.
As Jason pointed out, this is a bench that needed to pick up D’Angelo Jimenez. Jimenez would have offered a decent bat the team could have played anywhere in the infield, a huge upgrade on Bloomquist. They could also use a huge bat in the outfield to turn Winn into a decent 4th outfielder. And if you’re going to blow roster space on pinch-hitters, they should at least get pinch-hitters that can pinch-hit.
Back in the day — I’m thinking 2001 here — we used to complain that the M’s weren’t getting any offense from the 7-8-9 spots in their batting order. Did anyone happen to see today’s lineup? Batting 6th, Randy Winn (.666 OPS). Batting 7th, Jeff Cirillo (.600 OPS). Batting 8th, Dan Wilson (.600 OPS). Batting 9th, Willie Bloomquist (.536 OPS). Let us also not forget Mark McLemore (.613 OPS), who hit 2nd today. I know Boone had the day off and Guillen has a gimpy groin (side note: “Gimpy Groin” would be a good band name), but still. That’s five hitters who have no business whatsoever in the starting lineup. I won’t go so far as to say they have no business on a major league roster, but I’m close.
Oh, and Gillick missed out on D’Angelo Jimenez, too. The Reds picked him up for a minor league reliever. Yeah, the M’s don’t have any of those sitting around…
Congratulations to Mariner all-stars Ichiro, Edgar, Boone, Hasegawa, and especially Jamie Moyer.
Also, I unfortunately don’t have time to lay out the full explanation as to why, but it may be time to start being concerned with Gil Meche. His strikeout rate has fallen precipitously the past month.
Oh, and friend of U.S.S. Mariner Ivan Weiss was kind enough to drop me a line and tell me that Jamal Strong reached base all 6 times he was up tonight, and threw in a stolen base for good measure. That performance will raise his on base percentage from .290 to .441. Seriously. Gotta love small samples.
Official Seattle Baseball Print Writer of the U.S.S. Mariner, Larry Stone, has another installment of his cool series “Art of Baseball” today, available in your Sunday Times or online:
“Keeping Score,” “Mariners’ scorers take care to keep things fair,” “Ten great moments in scorekeeping,” and “Baseball’s rule book not exactly light reading” (this just in: “Headline Writer Not Exactly Good”. In any event, tons of good reading there — today’s Times contains two full pages filled entirely with Stone’s articles. (And in an entirely different section, my grandfather Larry Parker’s obituary). Congrats to Stone on his continued fine work, and to the Times (!) for giving Stone the space to write at length and so freely about baseball topics.
McLemore’s defense at short continues to be poor. In Moyer’s start there were a couple hits that any average shortstop would have gotten to, and his poor arm strength turned a ball he got to into a single. It’s ridiculous, seriously, there’s no reason he should ever be out there: to make up for the balls that get by him he’d have to go 10 for 5 at the plate, which is (barring multi-ball play) impossible.
In other news, Blogger continues to hack me off, as it’s now denying that I paid for Blog*Spot Plus, even though you’ll clearly note there are no ads on the top of the page and I was able to do things like look at stats up through last week. Of course, my only recourse is to log an issue on Blogger Control, where issues go unreviewed forever and you sort of sit around and wait until it’s accidentally resolved, presumably because someone with immediate family at Blogger discovers they can’t look at the stats for their wind chime blog. I hate wind chimes. Also, the neighbors let their yap-o-tronic corgi out at seven this morning. Seven! And that dog can bark constantly (random 2-3 barks, 5s-90s pause between barks) all fricking day. What kind of inconsiderate clods…. anyway.
Having Blogger denying I paid, which in turn denies me support, makes me feel like I’ve just given Castro a trillion dollar bill.
“Give what back?”