Colon
Dave · September 22, 2004 at 8:38 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Bartolo Colon putting on display all the reasons why giving long, big money contracts to mid-tier starting pitchers is bad bad bad. I can’t imagine the Angels could give away the 3 years and $37 million left on his contract. How bad has Colon been this year?
Colon’s VORP: 19.7. Ryan Franklin’s VORP: 19.1
Yech.
In the last 13 innings, the Mariners have 28 hits.
Raul Ibanez is hitting .312 in September. He’s also slugging .376, thanks to only three of those 24 hits going for extra bases. Our cleanup hitter has spent the last month doing a Luis Castillo impersonation.
Comments
29 Responses to “Colon”
Paul Molitor helped me with my swing. Now I’ve lost my power. Thanks, Paul!
Sure you didn’t get help from ichiro? 4 singles tonight man.
Make that 5 singles.
Ahh, there’s the gil meche we used to know. Welcome back!
6 singles for Ibanez.
The six hits is a new club record, by the way.
FYI on Meche:
With one in the 6th, Fairly and Neihaus were saying on the radio that Meche was done and should be pulled. Meche ran the count to 3-0 and then got a pop up for the second out which was followed by the 3 run dong to CF after which Melvin finally pulled him.
Since the start of the last home stand, Melvin has really been pushing his starters to go an extra inning. He’s gotten away with it at times with a few wins. But times like tonight and with Baek last week where he left both starters in for extra abuse shows that his short term interests and the Mariners long term interests no longer coincide. Well, at least Meche will get a win out of his abuse tonight.
After tonight’s game:
Meche 6-6 5.17 ERA
Colon 16-12 5.31 ERA
Can we get some players for next year who aren’t going to set SINGLES records? Remember when Edgar used to hit tons of doubles and Griffey would hit tons of homers? Man, those were the days I tell you. Extra base hits how I miss thee.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/6_hits_1_game.shtml
In the AL at least, 6 hits in a game puts you in a pretty small group.
Note that 7 hits in a 9 inning game makes you one of 3 in the history of the game. This is probably the most exclusive club in baseball.
Unfortunately, melvin is a dipshit, and decided to pinch hit bocachica against a righty (nice .169 average there) instead of letting winn hit, which would have likely given ibanez another shot at it.
Go Bob.
This game was a laugh riot to listen to; more dinks, wierd records, and locomotion than a cannister of nitrous. Ichiros: 7 plate appeanances in a _nine inning_ game. You may not be here to read about it when it happens next.
Melvin. And Meche. The thing about Bob is he’s a slow learner, solid when you show him fifteen times but still on yesterday’s news when its fourteen. (Nice guy though.) Meche nearly always runs out of gas after 90 pitches. That’s been discussed on this blog before, is obvious if you follow the guy—I like him and I always have—and I feel certain that Bob and Brian both know this. Why in God’s name did BoMel leave him in when he as gassed? Because after Villone was put into the rotation to showcase for a trade, the bullpen fell apart in July and was a disaster for most of August. When that happened, Melvin started to leave his starters out there as long as possible if the team had a lead, because for a long stretch he didn’t have a single reliable arm to call in. Except in as BoMel seems not to have noticed, and few others have discussed the bullpen came around seveal weeks ago. Hasegawa is pitching much more consistently. Atchison has done the job. Villone hasn’t been used much (because the front office brought up so many arms _nobody’s_ getting reasonable innings or a regular slot in the bullpen) but has thrown decently lately. Putz has been about the same, basically bad (great guy but his numbers don’t even put him on a real team, let alone closing), but he hasn’t been smoked for a loss. Taylor went out and threw well tonight (I really hope he breaks camp with the Ms next year, NO one is more likely to be an impact arm from within the organization).
—But BoMel is still leaving his starters out in the desert to die like he has no bullpen. Slow, slow, slow to use his resources. The team had a big lead, so ‘it doesn’t matter’ if Meche gets burned for a three-bie even though you could see it coming as his location was miserable in the inning. BoMel managing ‘to win’ and preserve his reputation? If so, he pulls his starter and goes to his reliable relievers, who when he finally did just that did the job just right. BoMel _isn’t_ managaing to win (for me) now: he’s managing just like he always has—5 weeks late on what’s in front of him. I hate to knock on people, but I like Meche More the Melvin, and Bob, yah done him wrong.
-Bela Txadux-
Go look at Putz’s splits for August and September.
I don’t think any reliever is pitching as good as Putz for the last 2 months.
even though i haven’t seen him play on tv once, reed looks to be pretty impressive. he’s hit safely in every game but one he’s played in, and he has ZERO strikeouts to date. i hope melvin decides to play him everyday for the rest of the season, as opposed to just when RHs pitch.
lyle I’ve only cought him on TV a few times, but his approach at the plate looks pretty good to me. Obviously that .400+ avg is going to drop, but I think the hype about him was well deserved.
Putz has only pitched 13.3 innings in August and September this year. They’ve been a pretty good 13 innings (11 SO, 1 BB, 2.70 ERA – though 3 HR), but still.
And who cares how often Reed strikes out? The guy has hit 11 singles and 2 doubles in 31 at bats. Add in a paltry 2 walks, and you end up with not much to write home about, even if he does have a .419 average *stars in eyes*
Bob – Admittedly 31 at bats is a pretty small sample size, but it does give him an OBP of .455 which isn’t too shabby and is right up there with Bonds, Helton and Berkman. His .488 slugging percentage isn’t very good. But overall he would rank in the top 15 in that stat everyone seems to love OPS with a .981. Which is right around the Thome/Ortiz range. Like I said though 31 at-bats (33 plate appearances) is a very small sample size. Still I’d like to see him actually drive in a couple of batters.
I like Reed, too, but then I recall Willie B hitting .455 rowhatever a couple Septembers back. I believe it’s called Voros’s Law – anything can happen in 60 PA’s.
Maybe they can trade Winn for a decent releiver and open up some space in the OF for Reed and/or a free agent.
Tede, I agree with you. Meche should be pulled. And with that big a lead, I don’t know why he had to stay out there. Melvin is such a terrible manager. Bill Kruger also commented on the game before that Moyer’s work load needed to be limited to six innings. That was how Lou managed Moyer and that was how Moyer had most success. What’s teh bull pen for I wonder. The season is lost. We should do everything to protect our pitchers.
Young hitters coming into the MLs for the first time usually do not hit for power and average right out of the chute. I think Reed is right on track, with his singles and a few doubles here and there. Occasionally, you’ll see guys like David Wright on NYM, who blasts his way onto the scene, but Reed isn’t a Wright type of player (yet?). If Reed shows that he can hit the breaking balls and off-speed stuff, he’ll be able to sit on fastballs, and then he’ll be my choice for an OF position next season.
Obviously it’s too early to really decide how good he is, but all his minor league numbers point towards him hitting pretty well (unlike Bloomquist).
Plus he’s 23 and has been rushed through the minors at a hugely accelerated rate. The fact that he doesn’t look overmatched when facing MLB pitching is a great sign. Looking lost and putting up terrible numbers for a while wouldn’t have been unexpected with that sort of experience.
Bob’s point isn’t that Reed’s on base and slugging percentage (OPS) aren’t nice, but the vast majority of that .981 OPS comes from his batting average. Drop that .419 average to .305, which I think is what he hit in Tacoma, and his OBP is .341 and his slugging is .374. Yikes.
Reed’s a nice player, and really it’s really too early to make any conclusions about his power, batting eye or singles ability. We should still base things on what he did in the minors, which makes him basically Ichiro-lite – he’ll usually post somewhat lower averages, draw a few more walks and hit for a bit more pop, but essentially his value will be tied almost exclusively to his batting average. Right now, his batting average is high (as is Ichi’s) and so is his value, but when those singles stop falling in, he’s not real overly valuable.
I’m not trying to diss Reed – I like his future (although not as much as Lopez’s), but I think we’re asking too much if we think he’s going to become an annual All-Star. He’ll have good years and bad, like most average players.
Young hitters coming into the MLs for the first time usually do not hit for power and average right out of the chute.
Um, you mean like Willie Bloomqust?
OK, that’s an unfair shot, because Reed’s going to be better than Bloomquist, but geez, people, SMALL SAMPLE SIZE.
And Troy, think of Reed as a cheaper version of Randy Winn (or a healthier version of Chris Snelling that actually walks), and that’s about right. Which means we now have an expendible OF to use in trade, unlesss the team suddenly thinks that an OF of Winn, Reed and Ichiro with Ibanez at 1B and Bucky at DH makes sense (it doesn’t unless we get Nomaaaah AND Glaus both healthy and hitting as if they are in their prime, and even then it’s sorta marginal).
There are no conclusions to be drawn on Reed yet. None, zippo. You can look at his swing as suited to power, but not much more. Edgar was kept down for lack of power too, so who knows. He turned out to have more power than, dare I predict, Willie Bloomquist is likely to show.
By the way Eponymous, who are you the eponym for? Noel Coward? The Cowardly Lion? George Bush?
Yeah, beware the small sample sizes. Didn’t Willie Mays bat horribly his first 40 PAs or so?
When I saw Reed in Tacoma, I felt that he was 75% ready. He was a swinger….as in, did not take a lot of pitches. 😉
When I look at his minor league stats I like the SBs, I like the avg. He could easily replace Winn, if we needed to trade. I can see this Reed guy eventually getting enough doubles and triples, with double digit home run years to be an effective LF/CF-fillin. Not someone you build a ball club around, but a good piece of a good ball club maybe.
Funny how these threads go off track.
Colon is bad, but I don’t think I would call him mid-tier prior to this season. He had decent Ks, ate up a lot of innings, always had 110+ adjusted ERAs, and is at a ripe age for pitchers. Investing in a good pitcher and then seeing him fail is a risk you take – the Angels risked millions on him. If he bounces back to original form the next three years, or in the playoffs if they were to make it, he’d be worth the money…about. (They may have paid too much even for his old production, but the FA goes to the highest bidder, so most will be overpaid)
Um, you mean like Willie Bloomqust?
Willie who?
Re: J.J. Putz to PaulP, I like the man, it’s the numbers I resist, exactly. So he’s thrown ‘well’ in 13 innings stretched over two months? Here’s his _year_: 60 innings, 63 hits, 24 walks, 46 Ks, 10 HRs. His last few outings do not cancel out the fact that he was racked in June and July. These numbers are right in line with his minor league outings where he has _never_ struck out a man an inning. He gives up the long ball; _his_ ERA in recent outings may look good, but to my recollection he’s allowed too many inherited runners to score, as he has too often all year. Along with his 8 saves, he’s blown 4. As mentioned on this blog, and frequently on the air, his front side opens up and he hangs his slider a bunch. If you’ve followed him all year, you’ll be aware that if he’s had a day off and comes in to start an inning, he shows good velocity, gets his Ks then, and the hitters don’t get into him; if he comes in on consecutive days, his control is poor, and he gets just hammered. The chief reason he is looking better at the back end of the year is that Price and perhaps Melvin have figured out he can’t go back to back, and have stayed away from that. Look at his age, man, then tell me his role next year. He doesn’t dominate the way a late-inning guy must, fluffs his slider at least once an outing, is vulnerable to the gopher pitch due to control issues generally (look at his walk rate again), and can’t go back to back: Putz has NO role as a late inning guy. Personally, I hope he comes into camp with his mechanics firmed up so that he’s playing for a year or two until he qualifies for the ML pension—but not for this team. He’s exactly the kind of ‘gutsy good guy’ who looks just good enough for a team to commit to a role his talent base can’t deliver on. Of course the M’s front office seems in love with him. But it’s Atchison with his 9+ K/9 who should get the shot.
Re: Reed, I hope he gets the full shot next year, too, but there’s a fly in the pottage he presents: he’s not walking. Nothing in his minor league numbers suggests that power will be a substantial part of his game in the Bigs, and as noted above the bulk of his offensive value is in his BA. However, through most of his minor league time he walked enough to keeps his OBP above .400, and that’s a pretty number. Until he got to Tacoma, where as Paul Weaver pointed out above he stopped walking, in part because he was swinging pretty free. He’s continued this in his call-up, hardly walking at all. If Reed doesn’t start walking again at the level that his demonstrated grasp of the strike zone would suggest, he doesn’t block out as any kind of star, and I would far rather see him packaged in a trade for somebody with a differnt skill mix. But it may take the full shot to find out for sure, and he’s shown enough to get that.
Reed’s minor league stats and major league performance thus far remind me of Rod Carew.
Rod Carew was probably a #2 hitter on the successful teams he’s been on. He never carried the team to first place, but had potent bats in the line up with him.
If Ichiro is #1, Reed #2, perhaps Boone #6, Ibanez #5 or #7, the M’s still lack that #3 and #4 hitter. Bucky could be a good fill in for #4 or #5 – but where is that OPS guy for #3?
Do you think Beltran can do it? He had three hits yesterday to raise his average to .258?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Oh, the Beltran comment wasn’t meant to insult anyone’s intelligence. His defense, patience at the plate, baserunning, and XB ability make the average deceivingly lower than his value. But this is a $15mil/year guy?
On Reed and walks, the fact that he seems to have such a good eye makes me less concerned about his lack of walks. Since he seems to be getting so many pitches to hit why take a walk when you can get a hit? Sure he isn’t goign to hit .400 for long, but right now since he is an unkown pitchers seem to be simply challanging him and giving him strikes, once he gets scouted and teams realize he can hit they’ll start getting carefull and the walks will go up and the hits down.
In My ideal world I would trade Winn and Ibanez and install Reed in LF and a FA in RF with Ichiro in CF. Winn should be attractive to teams with his combo of offense and adequate CF play, Ibanez is more of a salary dump, maybe we need to package a minor league arm to move him.