Fun facts for Tuesday
DMZ · August 9, 2005 at 11:07 am · Filed Under Mariners
Random small sample-sizey goodness on Doyle heading into tonight’s game (with pre-game USSM-related food and beverages), because here at USSM labs, we’re filled with “irrational love for Snelling and irrational hatred for Bloomquist” or so we’re told.
Chris Snelling, by rate stats, all M’s:
7th in batting average
1st in on-base percentage
3rd in slugging percentage
Chris Snelling, by counting stats, all M’s:
20th in at-bats (21)
Tied for 17th in hits (6, with Dobbs)
Tied for 16th in doubles (2, with Betancourt)
Tied for 9th in home runs (1, with Borders-Hansen-Rivera-Spiezio)
Tied for 15th in total bases (11, with Betancourt, Hansen)
11th in walks (5)
1 RBI
Comments
104 Responses to “Fun facts for Tuesday”
No problem Chief. I was merely replying about the general nature of the debate and the terminology being used. Your posts really were just a lightning rod for what I wanted to say. Nothing more. And truth be told… I did see some humor in your remark about irrational love/hate for Snellz/Willz.
#101 Thanks Rusty. Now lets get on to more sweeter things like urging Felix on to a great game tonight at SAFCO!!
#85 – Dr. Chock…is that short for Dr. Tchock?
Re: Matt Thornton, a lot of the discussion here misses the point on his +/-. He isn’t ‘so wild he can’t pick up the strike zone.’ His walk rate isn’t good, but it isn’t abomidable. The issue with his control is that he can’t reliable locate his stuff _within_ the strike zone, which means he tends to leave fat pitches up, which means he tends to give up HRs: it’s the dingers which hurt him and his team. He does have games where he just blows the balls by folks, so it doesn’t much matter where the ball HAD BEEN in the zone if they’re swinging through it. He doesn’t reliably repeat those, however.
Myself, I have no problem with Thornton being on this team, at least this year—so long as he’s throwing long relief or mop-up. And of the good outings he’s had, most have been in that role. The idea of bringing him in in situational lefty situations, which was tried in mid-season, while obviously an experiment nonetheless struck me as a poor, poor, idea. Thornton just doesn’t have the consistency to locate the ball for such usage to be a good percentage bet, and he’s not enormously more effective against lefties. As a long guy, he’s been serviceable, and to the extent that he’s been a ‘project’ that’s the place where projects get re-engineered. If the Ms simply release Thornton, he’d be snapped up by several other teams, guaranteed, but given his downside risk obviously nobody’s going to trade for him. Ergo, playing him hasn’t been that bad an idea.
Thornton hasn’t been blocking anybody, BTW: It was Villone who was blocking Sherrill as the lefty-latey or some such. I didn’t like that idea, because I didn’t think Villone would have a good year—but he did, and Bavasi flipped him for an excellent price at the deadline which _more than makes up for_ having Sherrill spend a few more months in the minors, especially since George wasn’t really ready to go physically at the start of the year. If you’ve all been watching the bullpen’s been even better shinch Sherrill is up now; he’s really ready, really healthy, and dominating.
Used for what he can do, Thornton may not be better than anyone else this year, but he’s not enormously worse. Used for late work Sherrill should be doing, Thornton is misused—but none of that is his fault. If Thornton is part of a package to another team in the offseason, I’d have no problem with that, either. I hope and expect that Matt will hang around on a major league roster long enough to vest for a pension no matter whose roster.