I’m on NPR today
Day to Day, at or about 1 pm. Check it out on your local affiliate, where applicable.
Please note that’s not when Day to Day runs, that’s when I’m on.
Meaningless stats
Did you know Baseball-Reference is now updating every night? The greatest site of all time just got even better. You can forget hunting through ESPN or Yahoo for splits. Now you can just stroll over to the greatness that is B-R and get a guys current line right next to his career statistics.
Fun things learned while strolling through B-R this morning:
Turbo is tied with Dioner Navarro and Adam Kennedy for the most double plays grounded into so far. Shocking.
Felix Hernanez’s ERA+ is “infinity”.
The Mariners averaged 31,369 fans per game for the first three games of the year. The Royals averaged 31,803 fans per game. The M’s attendance per game is the lowest of any AL team during the first series.
The average age of the Mariners batter is 30.1 years old, and the average age of the pitchers is 29.0.
Travis Hafner has drawn four walks in two games. The Mariners offense has drawn four walks in three games.
Shea Hillenbrand has been caught stealing twice. Does he not know that he’s Shea Hillenbrand?
Batista gets hit while down
22,816 showed up to see the M’s third game yesterday. This is slightly up from last year’s game three 21,394.
Larry Stone rocks. Check out this, from his game story.
In his first start since signing a three-year, $25 million free-agent contract in December, Batista entered the game laden with expectations that he will help solidify Seattle’s rotation.
He left in the fifth inning laden with a 15.43 earned-run average. In 4-2/3 innings, before giving way to the credible major-league debut of Sean White, Batista allowed the A’s 10 hits — four of them doubles of the booming variety — and eight runs.
Greg Johns in the PI offers:
Would the addition of Miguel Batista, Horacio Ramirez and Jeff Weaver signify a step forward for a team looking to erase its three-year residence in the American League West cellar?
First impressions can be misleading, but there’s no doubt early hopes of a Mariners resurgence received a cold slap of reality Wednesday when Batista — first of the new trio out of the box — got undressed by the Oakland A’s in a 9-0 loss at Safeco Field.
Notebook fun: Betancourt’s the lead in the Times, while the PI gives him his own story. The PI’s lead notebook piece is the potential for snow and cold, cold temperatures in Cleveland.
Game 3, Athletics at Mariners
Harden vs Batista.
Standard M’s lineup.
Oakland, it’s
C Kendall
LF Stewart
CF Bradley
DH Piazza
3B Chavez
1B Swisher
SS Crosby
RF Buck
2b Ellis
Let the good times continue a-rolling.
Dave reports: the M’s signed Betancourt to a contract extension that wipes out all his arbitration years and gives them an option for on his first free agent year.
Talent Overload in Appleton
A Future Forty update is coming tomorrow, as I wanted to confirm all the minor league rosters before putting it out there, but since the Future Forty threads often turn into discussions about a specific player, I wanted to give this its own post.
The Wisconsin Timber Rattlers have more prospects on their roster than any team I can remember in Mariner history. This team is loaded with guys who at least have a shot at a major league future, and basically every exciting young talent in the system has been sent to Appleton.
The rotation contains Tony Butler, Chris Tillman, Nathan Adcock, Anthony Varvaro, and Ricky Orta. Tillman, Butler, Orta, and Adcock were the M’s selections in the second, third, fourth, and fifth rounds respectively last summer, and Anthony Varvaro would have been a second or third round pick in the 2005 draft had he not undergone Tommy John surgery. Orta and Adcock are more fringy prospects at this point, but even they have some potential, and Butler/Tillman/Varvaro is an outstanding trio of arms. Steve Uhlmansiek, another TJ recovery guy, will work out of the bullpen.
On the offensive side, SS Carlos Triunfel will make his professional debut as a 17-year-old in the Midwest League, making him likely to be the youngest player in the league this year. He’ll be joined by Alex Liddi, Kuo-Hui Lo, Greg Halman, Gerardo Avila, and Kalian Sams to form a very talented young line-up. Of that group, only Sams won’t appear on the Future Forty, and all but Sams and Avila are among the organizations best offensive prospects.
Butler, Tillman, Varvaro, Triunfel, Liddi, Halman, and Lo are essentially the cream of the crop in terms of low-level talent in the organization, and they’re all going to be playing together in Wisconsin this year. If you’re anywhere near a Midwest League city, you want to make sure to make it to the ballpark when the T-Rats roll into town. The next wave of talent headed towards Seattle will be on full display.
The M’s can stop playing now
2-0 wooooooo! Clearly the positive tone of yesterday’s game post is to be credited.
Over on the Cheater’s Guide Blog, I look at the Angels’ K-Rod cheating in the first game of the year.
I built this to put in what I knew would be nearly identical stories from the two papers, but the Times is being slow to post tomorrow’s stories, so all you get are the PI links right now. Hopefully they post before I fall asleep here.
The M’s matched last season’s win total against the A’s: PI. The Times story curiously pushes it to the seventh paragraph. Of course, Mr. Baker wasn’t here last year and has no idea how traumatic it was.
Morrow’s first start gets a story in the PI
Batista says nice things about Felix. Betancourt might miss a game to testify that big trial thing.
Game 2, Athletics at Mariners
Joe Blanton versus Jarrod “The Leader” Washburn. 7:05, KSTW.
Our first Felix Day a rousing success, this is where the season’s long slog starts: the rest of the rotation. I was listening to a spring training report where Peter Gammons talked about the Mariners and could not name a pitcher past Washburn. When Gammons can’t remember who your 3-5 guys are off the top of his head, that’s trouble.
This is why we play the games, though. The Mariners hope that they’re going to get great performances that most reasonable analyst think aren’t going to happen, but we don’t know if Horacio Ramirez will win 20 games pitching in Safeco until he does, or doesn’t. Washburn could be this season’s surprise ace — more unlikely candidates have done better in baseball’s history.
I love Opening Day in part because of that feeling, being able to pull the wool over my own eyes a little and not think at all about what the standings will be like after the last game ends. Knowing that the season is long, and winding, and even if I could nail the win total, there’s no way any prediction about how the experience will be could approach accuracy.
More than anything, I want the Mariners to get into and win in the playoffs. I want to see a championship baseball team. Right now, they’re in first place. They could go wire to wire, it’s happened before.
A’s field
C Kendall
LF Stewart
CF Bradley
DH Piazza
3B Chavez
1B Swisher
RF Kielty
SS Crosby
2B Ellis
M’s go
CF Ichiro!
3B Beltre
DH Vidro
LF Ibanez
1B Sexson
RF Guillen
C Johjima
SS Betancourt
2B Lopez
Jim Rice beware
Two things that I already believed were reinforced heavily during yesterdays game.
1. Felix Hernandez is awesome.
2. Jose Vidro is ridiculously slow.
I’m not sure what else to say about Felix, so let’s talk about Vidro for a second. During his first at bat, I made the following observation in the game thread after Vidro’s ground ball up the middle turned into a 4-3 putout.
I like how Ellis planted in the hole and got ready to rush an off balance throw, then noticed Vidro was 20 steps from the bag, slowed down, and tossed it across to still get him by 8 feet.
If you go back and watch the replay, it’s really remarkable just how long it took Vidro to get up the line on this play. Ellis took several steps into the hole, planted off his back foot, loaded up to make a hope-it-gets-there heave, and then stopped, because Vidro wasn’t anywhere close to the bag. So, instead, he takes a step forward and lobs the ball to first and it’s still not a close play. I’m pretty sure the scouts in the stands were using sand timers to clock Vidro’s home-to-first time.
During spring training, when all this Vidro-as-#3-hitter stuff started to sprout, I began to think that there was one issue in this whole line-up construction thing that was getting overlooked – Jose Vidro is probably the last person on the team you want hitting with a runner on first base. His combination of heavy groundball tendencies and glacier-like speed is a recipe for a double play.
In 2006, Vidro had a 46.4% Ground Ball percentage. From 2002-2006, his total was 48.6%. Basically, half of his balls in play are worm burners, making him a heavy groundball hitter. A huge majority of the guys who hit that many groundballs are no-power speedsters, and the GB% leaderboard matches up pretty well with the SB leaderboards, as both are populated with the likes of Willy Taveras, Scott Podsednik, Juan Pierre, Carl Crawford, Dave Roberts, and Luis Castillo. Of course, all those guys could run a lap around the outfield before Vidro could make his way down the first base line, and most of them hit at the top of the batting order.
Among heavy groundball hitters, there are a couple who aren’t particularly fast and hit 3rd or 4th ine their respective line-ups. Miguel Tejada had a 51% ground ball rate last year, continuing his career trend of hitting the ball on the ground or over the wall. Joe Mauer had a 49.4% ground ball rate, Lyle Overbay had a 45.8% ground ball rate, and Victor Martinez had a 44% ground ball rate. These guys are all middle of the order hitters, being counted on to drive in runs and sustain rallies, while also being heavy groundball hitters and not running particularly well.
You know who ranked #1 in the the majors in grounding into double plays last year? Miguel Tejada. #2? Victor Martinez. Joe Mauer tied for the #6 spot, while Overbay checked in all the way down at a tie for 14th place. These guys are all varying degrees of good hitter, but their combination of hitting 3rd, having strong groundball tendencies, and being slow runners lead to a lot of double plays.
If Vidro hits 3rd all season against both RHP and LHP, and stays healthy, he should get approximately 150 opportunities to ground into a double play. Ibanez had 144 such opportunities last year, while guys like Mauer and Tejada were up in the 170 range. Ballparking 150 GIDP opportunities should put us within 10 chances or so.
So, let’s see if we can project how many double plays he’ll ground into this year, using his ball in play patterns.
First, let’s remove the plate appearances that have no chance of being a GIDP – walks, strikeouts, and home runs. I’m projecting about a 9% walk rate and a 10% strikeout rate, so we can remove 24 plate appearances right off the top. Given his likely power output, I’ll give him four home runs in double play chances, bringing our total chances down to 122.
That’s 122 balls in play with the double play in order for a guy who is going to put the ball on the ground half the time. Using a 47% groundball rate, that’s 57 ground balls in double play situations. 57!
The major league record for double plays grounded into is 36, set by Jim Rice in 1984. Teams would have to convert 63% of Vidro’s groundballs in double play situations to match that record. That sounds high, at least until you watch Vidro shimmy up the line.
I’m not saying he’s going to break the all-time GIDP record, but if you’re going to bet on a guy to lead the league, he’s the Barbaro of this race. It will be one of those things that doesn’t show up in his OBP or SLG, but will affect the team’s run production. When a guy is this slow and has strong groundball tendencies, he needs to hit the ball over the wall 30 times a year to have any business hitting in the middle of the order. Vidro, obviously, won’t come anywhere near that.
You might want to prepare yourself now, because Jose Vidro is likely to frustrate the hell out of you this year.
Drowning in Opening Day coverage
ObBookPlug: The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball got a really positive review in the LA Times (registration).
Lots, lots, lots of Opening Day coverage. KUOW has yesterday’s epic Art Thiel-Larry Stone-Me Weekday online. Listen to me sick, dehydrated, on an hour’s sleep, try to keep up with my favorite Seattle print columnists.
PI
Art Thiel
Miller
Hickey’s game recap
More on the local boys!
A whole article on the Crosby error
Notebook: Johjima, Hernandez get along
Times
Baker and again
Larry Stone on Sexson
Bishop on the Crosby error
Kelley wrote something, too
If you missed it, the Kitsap Sun ran a huge, front-page covering article on the Bloomquist/Ellison reunion: “Now, Two Wolves in Seattle Clothing” featuring many pictures and running, by my guess, about 80,000 words.
All Hail The King
8 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 12 K. 12 groundouts, 0 flyouts.
Felix’s performance was good for a game score of 86. Last year, there were exactly seven performances by AL starters that achieved a higher game score the entire season. On opening day, Felix just put up a start that will likely go down as one of the ten best games thrown in the American League this season.
Johan Who?