Lazy Sunday
M’s v Rockies! Bloomquist is playing! HOLY MACKERAL ARE THE TEAL JERSEYS UGLY!
M’s lost yesterday, but Felix still rocks (ST). Guardado is a sage to young players (TNT). Pineiro enjoyed playing in the WBC (TNT).
Alert reader Aditya Sood pointed out that yesterday Matt Thornton pitched for the cycle and then some in getting three outs:
1 HR
1 3B
2 2B
2 1B
That’s painful. In happier news, both Gonzaga and the UW advanced in the NCAA tournament in two games that were much more fun to watch than a Thornton-thwacking.
Boy, Foppert’s getting rocked as I write this, with a nice assist by his defense.
Saturday: 12 pitchers again! Wheee!
PI: M’s lose, but Everett hits his first homer. Not of his career, of course. Despite the hype, neither Vina or Bloomquist played. Appier hurt himself.
Since Mike Hargrove plans to keep a dozen pitchers, the Mariners will have 13 position players on the 25-man active major-league roster on opening day.
This is so dumb. 5 starters + 6 relievers didn’t work out so well for us last year.
Anyway, Finnigan figures that with C = Johjima, 1B = Sexson, 2B = Lopez/?, SS = Betancourt, 3B = Beltre, LF = Ibanez, CF = Reed, RF = Ichiro!, and DH = clubhouse leader Everett, that leaves 4 spots left. A backup catcher, then Bloomquist takes one if he’s not the 2B, Lawton’s the backup OF, and that means you only get to pick one of “Roberto Petagine, Greg Dobbs, Mike Morse or Cody Ransom.”
Cody Ransom? They’d consider that?
So look at what these guys offer:
Petagine: left-handed bat, might rake. Can’t play good defense anywhere, may be passable at 1B. (PECOTA: .257 .349 .419 ) No speed.
Dobbs: left-handed hitter (PECOTA: 246 .274 .356). No speed.
Morse: right-handed hitter (PECOTA: .252 .301 .397). Was decent at short, bad in left, may have improved his defense there.
Ransom: right-handed hitter. No PECOTA, but he can’t hit. No speed. Plays the infield reasonably well.
When you look at this team, then, which of these guys would provide the most value? Ransom’s Bloomquist without any basestealing ability. Petagine is the best bat of the bunch, but given that the team’s got two DHs in Ibanez and Everett, Lawton probably chewing up some LF time, finding him any kind of regular ABs is likely to be a challenge.
The nature of building a bench is that you don’t get to pick starter-quality players. I don’t get to say “well, obviously, the team needs a crackerjack switch-hitter with a great glove” because you don’t get that.
Instead, how about this: the M’s play in a huge, spacious park with a massive outfield. Every candidate on the roster who supposedly plays LF is bad at it (well, Bloomquist isn’t bad). No one can play center well behind Reed except perhaps Ichiro. There are pitchers on the team who could really use a solid defensive upgrade there, some of them in the bullpen. It’s not a huge deal, but unlike the skill set of Morse (can’t hit, can’t field) it does offer the team something they don’t have. Even playing Choo as a 5th OF (with primary Reed-resting responsibility) gives the team some options (PECOTA, btw, .268 .337 .396) and he has some baserunning speed.
I’m not convinced Choo’s the answer (or Bohn or anyone). It’s strange that besides Petagine, the players being discussed as candidates for the bench don’t offer the manager anything, be it additional tools or options within a game. There’s no need they fill or help they offer.
Ahhhhh Friday
Team had an off day yesterday, so no game stories.
Mariners got about 2,000 fewer season ticket holders compared to last year to about 15,000. I’m curious whether that’s full-season or includes 16-game plans (you’d think it’d be full-season). That’s a lot of money disappearing (though, of course, many of those people will likely still attend some games).
Tomorrow! The hated Padres! Vina may actually play a game! Bloomquist may return! Will the excitement never stop?
Thursday Mariner fix
PI: M’s beat the Royals. Ichiro said some things about the WBC that didn’t work out.
Times: Finnigan laments Heaverlo’s release.
Baseball Hacks
I’d recommend Baseball Hacks
Here’s my quick-and-dirty summary of the book
Chapter 1, Basics of Baseball.
Baseball information is on the internet! Whee!
Chapter 2, Baseball Games from Past Years
This is good stuff: getting yourself databases with all kinds of past game stats, hooking it up, querying it… and this is where we start to get into the real work: using Perl makes an appearance. Still, it’s almost all database-and-SQL stuff, and isn’t that heavy – if you’re not scared of the word ‘database’ you’ll be fine.
Chapter 3, Stats from the Current Season
Noooow it starts to get heavy. Hack 25 is “Spider Baseball Sites for Data” for instance. Soon it’s into building and keeping current year stats updated.
Chapter 4, Visualize Baseball Statistics
This is cool stuff, and instead of being programming/technical heavy, it’s much more into statistical analysis and visualization.
Chapter 5, Formulas
How to calculate a bunch of stats.
Chapter 6, Sabermetric Thinking
This is where you’d think things get interesting, and that’s kinda true. Here it’s about how to use the data you’re getting to look for good stuff. I disagree with how he goes about some of it (Hack 64, on clutch hitting, specifically) but it is good to see what kind of things the data can offer you.
Then there’s some fantasy stuff, which I’m sure would be great if you were interested in using your newfound data to try and find some crazy advantage. I skipped it, because that’s not me at all. And really, when Baseball Prospectus has a pretty good budgeting-and-forecasting thing, it seems a little pointless.
So what can this all get you? If you’re interested in historical baseball stats, and know or are willing to learn a little bit about databases, it’s a nice walkthrough from getting a freely available database of historical stats (The Baseball Archive) and setting it up nicely so you can do cool stuff. From there, well… even I don’t get into the kind of data-scraping that’s in here: I’d rather put up with ESPN’s ads and use their splits, or build it out of Retrosheet box scores the hard way, or whatever. And I’m fairly technical and willing to tinker with this stuff. Some of the more advanced stuff seems geared towards someone with fair technical skills who wants to tinker with both baseball data and with building thier own framework, rather get started in baseball analysis.
I will say that there’s a lot of value in having access to even a nice historical database of raw stats: I find myself pawing around it all the time, looking for interesting stuff that ends up a throwaway reference in a piece here.
So this is a book where if you’re looking to get a lot more technical and want to do a lot more research independently, you’re going to dig it. If you’d just like to be able to baseball-reference-y things, that part’s fairly easy too, and I’ve found it quite rewarding.
However, it’s not about baseball, or really about baseball statistics, or anything. It’s about (as you’d guess from the title), using computers and freely available data to hack stuff together.
Anyway, I hope this helps determine whether it’ll be a good book for you or not. check it out
AJ the joking gamer
From ESPN: in a long article about AJ Pierzynski, who, it turns out, is just misunderstood:
Two hours earlier, the same man stands behind home plate during a team workout. A ball just dropped in front of outfielder Jermaine Dye, and the catcher won’t let his friend hear the end of it. “Don’t you know how to run?” he yells to Dye. “We run here.”
Dye mumbles his rebuttal, but the catcher has one of his own. “What’s that Jermaine? I’m sorry — we don’t speak Ebonics,” he says jokingly. “I can’t understand you.”
How, exactly, is it a joke to say that to a black teammate?
Wednesday Mariner update
PI: M’s beat the Cubs. Sexson wants to hit well. M’s going to make first cuts on Tuesday.
TNT: Wladimir Balentien and his strikeouts. Includes some comments from the team’s new hitting coach, Pentland:
“I’m not as worried about strikeouts as some people. A lot of young Latin players know they have to hit just to get a shot at playing professionally, so they don’t take a lot of pitches,†Mariners batting coach Jeff Pentland said.
“There are a lot of factors in striking out in the minors – including young umpires. If you’re a young hitter working on discipline and you take a pitch off the plate and it’s called strike one, that doesn’t help.
“You put too much focus on the strikeout, you make it harder for a young hitter because now he’s getting away from his natural skills. You have to let experience come, and you work on their timing, their swing, their pitch recognition.â€Â
The TNT also put up a story about this one Mariner outfielder from Australia yesterday after the day-in-news post which is, uh, worth reading. Cough.
Times: If you’ve been dying for a Dave Burba story, well, you’re now sated.
Update: aaand we get the first sighting of the team commercials. I think the Ichiro one’s clearly pick of the litter.
Tuesday results and ramblings
So Jeff and I showed up to laze about Jonah’s Baseball Prospectus 2006
In most exciting news, USSM is now the only Mariners site of any kind to feature the writings of a Fulbright Scholar, our own Jeff Shaw. Clap clap clap clap. He rocks. Remember when you write in to congratulate him: only one “l” in Fulbright.
Oh yeah, the M’s.
They lost to the Angels (Times). Over in the PI, Thornton must improve his control. Either there’s increased competition for spots or the team contract wonks discovered an option year hidden somewhere. Also, Johjima threw a runner out. It’s going to be great to have a catcher that can hit some and field his position.
Which reminds me. Having hashed on some parts of this off-season at great length, I want to be clear that there are some things I am genuinely enthusiastic about: Rafael Soriano, Felix, Johjima, Lopez, Betancourt, of course I’m a huge Ichiro! fan, and the team could put together a really good, young bullpen that would be a lot of fun to watch.
USSM bracket pool
Already filled out 182 brackets today? Make it 183, and join the USSMariner blog pool.
Group Name: USSMariner
Password: wfb
No fees, no prizes, just a bunch of baseball geeks pretending like we know basketball too.
Monday Marinerathon
PI: “Soriano shows his stuff in ninth inning“. Soriano’s one of the storylines I’m really excited about this year. I’d also like to point out, for people who continue to say that he’s got only two pitches: a) no and b) we don’t know if he can throw all three for strikes against major leaguers yet. Don’t count against it.
TNT: Felix had a nice outing. In the Times, Stone writes that both Felix and Appier were notable.
And, uh, if you missed it, “Bugs Bunny, greatest banned player ever“. Or you could page down a bit.
For those of you with nothing to do tonight, Jeff and I are going to go heckle Jonah at Third Place Books in Bothell at a Baseball Prospectus 2006
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forrest Park , WA 98155