Game 115, Mariners at Rangers
Meche v Wells. Not David Wells, the other one. Not Kip Wells either. No, wait, it is Kip Wells. 5:35, KSTW-11. Lineup’s standard. Mllleaaah.
Leadership deceived
“I felt like if Mateo came in and threw the way he can that we’d have a chance of getting a ground ball,” Hargrove said. “It just didn’t work.”
Julio Mateo’s groundball percentage is 24.2%. There are exactly two major league pitchers with a lower GB% than Mateo this season; Keith Foulke, who has spent most of the season on the DL because he was unable to pitch effectively, and Chuck James, a rookie starting pitcher who has an ERA of 4.69 in the National League.
And I’m sure the response from Hargrove would be something like “he’s throwing the ball better lately”, due to the slightly altered arm slot that they worked on. Thankfully, we have game logs, so we can know if Recent Mateo is any more likely to get a groundball than Yearlong Mateo.
August 1st: 5 batters faced, 0 groundballs
August 4th: 2 batters faced, 0 groundballs
August 7th: 6 batters faced, 1 groundball
August 8th: 4 batters faced, 0 groundballs
Julio Mateo had faced 17 batters since they altered his mechanics and he had started “throwing better”. In that time, he has induced one ground ball. After last night’s performance, he’s now faced 21 batters in August and has a 5% groundball rate.
There isn’t a pitcher on an American League roster right now that is less likely to get a groundball than Julio Mateo.
This post isn’t about taking Mike Hargrove to task for a difference in philosophy. This is an indictment on his ignorance of the skills of his players. I guarantee you that Mike Hargrove does not know that Julio Mateo is the absolute worst choice in the entire league if your hope is to get a ground ball.
He’s managing the club based on bad information. He’s making critical decisions while lacking basic, publically available information that even fans who follow the team know.
We’ve documented the problems with Hargrove’s in game strategies before, so I won’t document those again. But man, I have no idea how a guy who is using fundamentally, tangibly incorrect ideas to make pitching decisions still has a job.
Game 114, Mariners at Rangers
Joel Pineiro v Adam Eaton.
Wow, game time sure snuck up on me today.
Derek In Lights
Our own esteemed colleague, Derek Zumsteg, has an article up over at ESPN’s Page 2, dealing with the putrid theft being put on by the Chicago Cubs. As with any piece by DMZ, there are some terrific one liners that will have you cracking up at your desk, so proceed with caution if you’re not in a location where laughing is an acceptable behavior.
Nice job, D.
Game 113, Devil Rays at Mariners
Washburn vs Shields, 1:35 pm.
In lieu of writing about the team, let me direct you to today’s interesting reading material: Andy Dolphin has a free article at Baseball Prospectus on the value of pinch-hitting. It’s interesting stuff, but I’ll leave those of you who hate numbers with his conclusionary paragraph:
What can we conclude from all this? Simply put, when a pinch hitter comes in, you should expect him to do significantly worse than if he were a starter, so a substitution that would look good on paper may actually cost you runs. Managers beware!
As terrifying as it sounds, maybe Hargrove understood something we didn’t when he refused to pinch hit for Crazy Carl or Willie Ballgame in situations where a pinch-hit looked so obvious. Maybe.
Anyways, today’s line-up:
1. Ichiro, RF
2. Lopez, 2B
3. Beltre, 3B
4. Ibanez, LF
5. Sexson, 1B
6. Broussard, DH
7. Betancourt, SS
8. Rivera, C
9. Jones, CF
If the bottom of that line-up makes you groan, this should make you feel better: Tampa Bay is hitting Travis Lee (.208/.298/.344) in the cleanup spot.
The Statistical King
You guys seemed to enjoy the breakdowns I did on Gil Meche recently, so let’s writeup King Felix from a similar perspective. After another good outing last night, everyone seems to agree that the King is back on track and pitching like we expected from the outset. So let’s break him down by month, and see where the improvement has come from.
Month IP BB% K% GB% FB% LD% HR/FB FIP xFIP ERA April 26.2 10% 23% 56% 25% 19% 25% 4.89 3.52 5.06 May 35.2 7% 22% 53% 25% 22% 21% 4.35 3.29 6.31 June 34.2 4% 20% 59% 23% 18% 13% 3.17 3.04 3.37 July 26.1 12% 19% 59% 27% 15% 15% 4.79 4.40 3.42 August 13 10% 17% 70% 16% 14% 0% 2.97 3.63 1.38
Lots of numbers there, so, here’s a quick overview, by component, and what it’s meant to his run prevention by month:
BB% – He threw a lot of strikes in June, but other than that, he’s still struggled with his command. 10% walk rates aren’t death, but they’re still something that can be improved upon. He’s not really cutting down on his walks lately, so this isn’t the key to his improvement.
K% – He’s actually missing less bats as the year goes on, as he’s struck out fewer batters each month than the previous. His 18% strikeout rate the last 5 weeks is actually just a tick above average. This certainly isn’t the cause for the improvement.
GB%/FB%/LD% – He’s getting more groundballs, less fly balls, and less line drives lately, and that has certainly helped. This is definitely part of the improvement, but the difference isn’t big enough to explain the rebound entirely. The LD% is probably due for a spike going forward, as 14% line drives isn’t sustainable.
HR/FB% – And here’s 95% of the improvement, right here. A league average starting pitcher will allow 11-12% HR/FB rate, and significant variance from that is in almost every case unsustainable. Felix’s HR/FB rate was an absurd 25% in April, a still awful 21% in May, then an almost normal 13% in June, slightly high 15% in July, and he has yet to give up a home run in either start in August. The August number isn’t an abberation, as you might think from the percentage, since he’s only given up six fly balls total in his last two starts.
His Fielding Independent ERA basically tracks the difference in run prevention if his HR/FB rate was indeed a true skill, and you can see how big of a difference home runs make. xFIP translates HR/FB rate into a league average number, eliminating that “skill” from the analysis, and gives a pretty clear picture that Felix hasn’t really changed much at all. Outside of July, he’s posted consistent xFIPs in the 3.00-3.60 range, which is outstanding. For comparison, Johan Santana’s xFIP for the season is 3.42. Roy Halladay’s is 3.57. That’s the class of pitcher that Felix has been in most of the year, by xFIP.
This is about as clear a picture as one could paint for why ERA is not a good tool for predicting pitcher performance going forward. The only thing that has significantly changed for Felix from April to August is the amount of his flyballs that go over the wall. That entire change, mostly out of his control, has led to the mirage of improvement.
Felix has been pitching mostly well all year. ERA just didn’t do a good job of telling people that.
Game 112, Devil Rays at Mariners
Happy Felix Day.
Hernandez vs Seo, 7:05 pm.
Seo has iffy stuff and throws strikes. He’s Tampa’s Joe Blanton, basically. Hopefully the M’s can treat him like the rest of the league treats Blanton, and not like we treat Blanton.
Also, bad news; Mark Lowe is battling some elbow soreness, and though I heard he was available tonight, John Hickey is reporting that he won’t pitch in this series. The M’s are being cautious with their young arms, which we like, but you still never like to hear that the arms we love are anything less than 100 percent healthy.
Here’s the line-up:
1. Ichiro, RF
2. Lopez, 2B
3. Beltre, 3B
4. Ibanez, LF
5. Sexson, 1B
6. Broussard, DH
7. Johjima, C
8. Betancourt, SS
9. Empty, CF
Adam Jones has 7 at-bats in August. Glad to see that part of the development strategy, after crushing his confidence with a premature callup, is to let him sit on the bench and not play. Well done, Grover.
More Random Notes
You know the drill by now.
1. Adrian Beltre doesn’t suck anymore.
I know the general baseball public hasn’t caught on yet, and because of his contract, he’s likely going to be considered a bust for the rest of his time in Seattle. But for the last couple of months, he’s been the Mariners best player. Here are some breakdowns:
April: .189/.284/.233, 90 at-bats
May: .264/.302/.355, 110 at-bats
June-Current: .287/.354/.539, 230 at-bats
In April, he was the worst player in baseball. In May, he just sucked. Since the beginning of June, he’s been playing at an all-star caliber level. A .900 OPS from a gold glove third baseman who plays half his games in Safeco Field and never takes a day off? That’s a borderline MVP candidate. And that’s what he’s been for the last two and a half months.
He’s not the guy he was in 2004, and he’ll never be that guy again. But since the beginning of June, he’s been the guy we thought we were signing. It’s still a small sample, and we can’t ignore April and May – they did happen, and the potential for them to happen again is still there – but we also can’t ignore that he’s now been Good Adrian for longer than he was Bad Adrian.
2. Chris Snelling apparently stole Bad Adrian’s Mojo.
On the other end of things, we have Doyle. After another 0 for 5 last night, he’s now hitting .218 for the season. But he hasn’t been consistently bad. Look at his montly splits:
May: .297/.371/.333, 48 at-bats
June: .301/.391/.507, 73 at-bats
July: .169/.286/.273, 77 at-bats
August: .000/.045/.000, 21 at-bats
He’s 9 for his last 98 dating back to July 1st. 9 for 98! In his last 64 at-bats, he’s walked twice.
The reports on him are similarly poor. He’s popping balls up, swinging through fastballs, chasing pitches out of the zone, and his mood has soured. At the end of June, he was hitting the ball well and on the verge of a major league callup. Since the calendar turned to July, he’s turned into an automatic out with no discernable approach at the plate.
Clearly, something is wrong. A kid who is this good of a hitter doesn’t go into a slump like this without there being an underlying cause. Almost everyone agrees that its mental, but we just don’t know. Here’s to hoping he snaps out of it soon.
3. The Mariners and Twins have the best bullpens in baseball.
And the average baseball fan has probably never heard of any of these guys. The Twins bullpen is the only one who can give the M’s end-of-game quartet a run for their money, and its made up of Joe Nathan, Juan Rincon, Pat Neshek, Dennys Reyes, and Jessie Crain. The M’s foursome of Putz, Soriano, Lowe, and Sherrill are just as dominant, but throw strikes a little less often. The final four for the Twins bullpen (Nathan, Rincon, Neshek, and Reyes) have a combined FIP of 2.27, while the M’s combined FIP is 2.49.
Either way, if you’re losing to the M’s or Twins after 6 innings, you’re probably done. Both of these teams have built lights-out bullpens that cost them nothing. Even after all the evidence, though, you still see teams throwing good money at big name relievers. It’s amazing.
4. My mother could beat up Willie Bloomquist.
Willie Ballgame has an Isolated Slugging% (SLG-BA) of .032, thanks to his whopping four extra base hits on the season. Among players with at least 100 plate appearances, WFB’s .032 ISO ranks 374th out of 374, unsurprisingly. But how bad is an ISO of .032?
The average national league pitcher has an ISO of .043. Willie Bloomquist has hit for less power this year than the league average hitting pitcher. Yes, he does some things well enough (mainly, steal bases) to keep a roster spot in the major leagues, but the idea that he’s any kind of major league player who deserves regular playing time is a joke.
Game 111, Devil Rays at Mariners
There’s only one way the team can compete now. They must win and win and win. They must put together a long stretch of sustained success against every team they face, taking game and then series off divisional rivals and also-rans alike.
7:05, RHP Tim Corcoran versus LHP Jamie Moyer.
It was fun
In April, we were all asked at the USSM feed how we thought the team would do. My “85 wins, contends for the division” prediction drew chuckles and scoffs from around the room. In May, when the team was scuffling, I continued to argue that the season was not lost, and I maintained my status as the most optimistic of our quartet of bloggers.
Tonight, I throw in the towel. 6.5 games back with just 52 games to play is a monumental hill to climb. It’s not impossible – the team’s mathmatical odds are probably around 3-5% – but this sweep crippled the team’s chances of making a real run. If this was a better team, making up 7 games in 7 weeks wouldn’t be unheard of. But this team is just too flawed for that kind of run to be expected. It’s hard to play .700 baseball for two months when you have a center fielder with a .450 OPS and don’t have a single hitter on the roster who doesn’t disdain the base on balls.
For four months, we were contenders. Now? We’re waiting til next year. Again.