Local Daily Roundup
Offdays often bring a flurry of features in the local papers, and today is no exception. There’s some good stuff to be read this morning.
Dave Andriessen gives us the backstory on Sean Green. It’s a well done human interest story.
Jim Moore tackles the Adam Jones question through the eyes of his mother. To say she’s proud of her son sounds like something of an understatement.
Jason Churchill does the Farm Report, focusing on Adam Moore as well as the potential bullpen arms.
Larry Stone tackles the trade deadline with Bill Bavasi. I’m planning a post on the subject later today, so if you’re one of those who lives for trade speculation, you might want to wait a few hours.
Darrin Beene does a first-half recap through the eyes of a Mariner press kit. He, apparently, didn’t consult with Andriessen, because in talking about the strengths of the bullpen, the words Sean Green never came from his keyboard. If this guy was any further under the radar, he’d be a submarine.
John Sleeper pens a forgetful column about maintaining the status quo. You know how I feel about this, so I’ll just leave it alone.
And finally, just a reminder that I’ll be on KJR with the Groz this afternoon at 2:20.
Fangraphs has it.
http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=1012069&position=P
Okay, so here are the FIPs on five guys the Mariners tried to use as a closer.
Slocumb 3.84
Charlton 5.13
Ayala 4.54
Wells 4.74
Timlin 4.10
I’m certainly not an expert on FIP, but it looks like Slocumb’s is the best. Is there something I’m missing?
A 3.84 FIP for a high leverage reliever isn’t good. That the rest of the Mariners bullpen was also lousy does not make Slocumb any less lousy.
Yeah, but my point was that he was our best guy and that adding a reliever that was better than the horrible guys we had helped our team.
For the record, what is a good FIP? For a starter and for a reliever? I’m just curious. Like I said, I’m no expert on FIP.
I notice JJ’s FIP is .71 higher this year than it was last year. Do you think he had a better year last year?
It’s like fried twinkies for lunch everyday, then deciding to improve your lifestyle by only eating normal twinkies. It might be an improvement, but it’s still a debacle.
A good relief ace should post a FIP under 3.00. A setup guy will be between 3.00 and 3.50. Middle relievers will be between 3.50 and 4.25. Anything over 4.25 as a reliever and you should probably be pitching lower leverage situations.
For starters, I don’t recommend using FIP.
But what about JJ? Do you think he was actually more dominant last year than this year? His FIP is quite a bit higher this year.
What stat do you like for starters?
Baseball-Reference also has stats for players past and future.
DAMellen, you might also want to consider that we could very well have done better in the trade market by giving up less. I think that makes the fact that he was the least terrible particularly irrelevant.
Yes, I think JJ was more dominant last year than this year. He’s done a great job of stranding the few runners he’s put on this year, but in general, that’s not a skill.
I said that in my very first post. We did give up too much for him, but I don’t think we would’ve made the playoffs without him. He was our best relief pitcher and he improved our bullpen.
Right, but I’m just saying he was probably actually worse than any number of cheaper options would have been, which in a sense does mean that he didn’t help us at all.
He did better than Timlin and Spoljaric who we also added at the trade deadline.
As an FYI – This interview IS available via podcast…
http://www.kjram.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=groz.xml
JJ’s allowing 40% less hits and walks this year. I know you’re not a big fan of WHIP, but that seems like a pretty extreme decrease. I guess I’m not the expert, but it looks to me like he’s putting less runners on base rather than stranding more. Do you really think it’s just luck that’s caused him to allow 40% less hits and walks? That seems like a pretty significant amount.
I take it back. He is stranding a lot more this year. Still, a 40% drop sounds like a lot.
You may be right about the available talent level; I don’t actually know… just seemed like a possibility.
(Reposted from game thread, thinking this is the right place for it.)
Dave, you interview was fantastic.
And I’ve never listened to “Griz†before, so I can’t comment on his usual stuff, but today he:
1. Gave you a really great intro.
2. Was very appreciative and treated you very respectfully. That doesn’t, as we know, always happen on sports radio.
So, Dave, fantastic job. I would listen to the DC Hour.
And, Groz, if you’re reading this, I thought you were great, too. And handled all of that intelligently and enthusiastically. So good on you, too.
Re: KJR interview
If this has been posted already, I missed it scrolling through the thread (and apologize for the redundancy), but for those who missed the interview this afternoon, it’s been archived on the KJR website, and you can listen to it there (Groz’s page).
Great job, Dave.
I realize it’s WAAAYYY late in this thread, but since this totally opened up some old wounds, I absolutely couldn’t resist chiming in on the suckitude which was the ’97 M’s bullpen. I’m inclined to agree with Karen in #35 that Varitek AND Lowe for Slo-cumb was arguably the worst trade in Mariner history, but let’s not forget about the two GREAT moves from the year before which helped to precipitate this whole bullpen crisis in the first place:
1: Tino/Nellie/Mecir>Yanks
Davis/Hitchcock>M’s
(Also, arguably the worst trade
in M’s history)
2: Bill Risley>Jays
Edwin Hurtado>M’s
Apparently, Woody Woodpecker (in all his INFINITE wisdom) had forgotten how valuable Nellie and Risley had been to the M’s during the run of ’95 when they were basically going lights-out in the 6th through 8th innings — so much so, in fact, that he deemed trading both of them (along with Mecir, another set-up prospect who had also had some value at that time) for a broken-down starter prospect who never amounted to anything (Hurtado) and a five-inning-wonder with a bad attitude (Hitchcock) to be justifiable. (Note: Not to mention, a blue-chip 1B — Tino — who actually WON games for Yanks with his production for an absolute hack 3B — Davis — who LOST games for the M’s with his ineptitude, but I’ll save that rant for another post!) The vacuum left in the set-up role, in turn, resulted in the next series of bad moves in ’97:
1: Jose Cruz, Jr.>Jays
Timlin/Spoljaric>M’s
2: Varitek/Lowe>Red Sox
Slocumb>M’s
Out of these three, Timlin was probably the best while in a Mariner uniform…yet, I still seem to recall him crapping his pants a few times in hold/save situations down the stretch in ’97. He did have a fairly decent year as the closer in ’98 — when there WAS anything to save, that is — but then couldn’t wait to bolt town the minute his contact was up. Spoljaric I was never impressed with, either, and Slocumb was just plain HORRIBLE the whole time he was here. Out of the guys we dumped: one did become a journeyman (Cruz), though Lowe went on to become a 20-game winner and Varitek an All-Star catcher. The latter two, of course, also wound up with WS rings in ’04 for the Red Sox.
Hmmm…would’ve been nice if they could have gotten those WS rings here, though. Thanks again for the memories, Woody!
>:(
I take it back. He is stranding a lot more this year. Still, a 40% drop sounds like a lot.
Yes, He’s been allowing a very low number of hits, home runs, walks etc. But even last year you was unbelievably good with the “three true outcomes.” A 40% drop isn’t huge when you start out with a tiny number to begin with. I would agree his current hot streak will be nearly impossible to maintain over a full season, let alone multiple seasons, but he doesn’t seem like a massively changed pitcher to me…just a guy who has figured things out and hit the relief pitcher groove. And that’s something we should be used to in Seattle (see Sasaki, Nelson, Rhodes, et al).
Good job today, Dave!
I’ve always been an anti-fan of Sleeper’s columns; I’m a professional writer and I *know* I can write better than he can. Oftentimes, it’s his content but mostly his tone grates. Glad to see others aren’t impressed.
For all you fanatics here on USS Mariner, Dave will indeed be on every Friday at 2:20 pm Pacific with Groz. We love the blog and were anxious to give it its just due.
If you can’t listen live at 950 KJR, you can catch the live stream at 950kjr.com or the podcast on Groz’s webpage at:
http://www.950kjr.com/pages/thegrozpage.html
FT