Sexson Sexson Sexson
Building off Dave’s Sexson post yesterday, I just wanted to throw today’s pitches up for contrast, using stills of MLB’s fine Gameday tracking to demonstrate something.
“Mystical Fork of Supreme Flatness” by qnr, creative commons licensed
I mean, uhhhh…. let’s take a look at Sexson’s at-bats today, and see if there’s anything they can tell us.
First, a disclaimer: I don’t have any idea how pitchfx is classifying these. Pitches with identical breaks and speeds are sometimes down as different types. I don’t know.
First Inning
This is the weird one of the day. Ibanez is on second.
1: Watches an 87mph pitch a little up and in
2: Takes way inside
3: Takes right down the middle, takes. With a runner on second, Sexson lets an 88mph flat fastball down the middle of the plate go. It’s called a ball.
4: Swings and misses at something off the plate
5: Takes way inside
6: Fouls off an 80 mph slider on the up-out corner.
7: Takes a faster version of that same pitch for the walk.
Here’s the odd stuff: that 3rd pitch. You’d think he’d crush that.
Then, 6-7: he’s fouling off an 80mph pitch without a ton of break on it? Okay, so maybe he just didn’t have the timing right — but then served the same pitch again, but faster, he didn’t even offer.
I don’t get it. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. He’s a free-swinging power-hitting masher, both of those should have been delicious. If he’s swinging at 80mph breaking stuff in that spot but passing on 88mph breaking stuff in the same location, I’m worried.
Fourth Inning
Swings at the first pitch, a pretty nice thigh-high 85mph slider. He grounds to third.
You would think your #4 hitter would crush that pitch.
Fifth Inning
Sexson’s up against Jennings, who is being cuffed around and just walked Ibanez. Sexson swings at and misses an 80mph slider that looks pretty meaty, lets two pretty obvious balls go by, and then given a second 80mph slider in almost exactly the same place, pops out to short.
Even when given slow breaking pitches without much break, Sexson’s grounding to the left side of the infield. Ugh. If Sexson can’t hit those, I don’t know what we can expect him to hit. Jennings repeatedly gave him chances to hit weak breaking stuff and Sexson did nothing with them.
Now it’s not as if the other right-handers handled that pitch much better. Beltre, given the same pitch in the 4th, grounded out to third. Lopez repeatedly swung at similar pitches even farther up in the zone. But Jennings threw a lot of weird stuff at Sexson — only two fastballs in three plate appearances — and it worked.
Eight Inning
Jamey Wright puts up a pretty weak fastball, which Sexson watches for a strike. Sexson then swings at a second fastball in, up, and off the plate, managing to pull it to third base.
Ugh. If these are serious gaps in Sexson’s game, every team with an advanced scout is going to hang golden sombreros on him by feeding him breaking pitches on the outside corners and letting him get himself out swinging or weakly grounding out. They don’t even need to challenge his bat speed right now.
Update: Look at Sexon’s pitch f/x data for last year if you want to be even more worried. Josh Kalk built a sweet tool for this.
This is grim. Between this and McLaren sacrificing Lopez to move Ichiro and force the intentional walk of Raul, loading the bases for Richie (so he could strike out), I am concerned. I think it’s called cognitive dissonance.
Maybe we should sign Bonds and see if he can supply Sexson with a little “somethin, somethin” to regain some bat speed?
shorter Zumsteg: $Richie$ SUCKS.
thank you.
Maybe we should see if Rob Deer can still swing a bat — he’ll be a better option than Richie pretty soon!
I think you mean “lets two pretty obvious balls go by.”
Fixed
By the pitch f/x I have come to a couple conclusions…
1- Richie Sexson is not good.
2- Richie Sexson is ridiculously (insert derogatory term OR 9 of choice) awful.
I am glad I did not watch the games on mlb.tv because it would have been to tough to stomach those AB’s. I commend all that watched.
I am wondering about his eye sight right now.
All this makes you wonder: are the other teams putting together game plans for Sexson that work really well, or could they just throw 88-mph fastballs in the center of the plate, let Richie swing all day long, and do just as well?
Richie seems to not only be dealing with bat speed issues but basic pitchcount strategy. Laying off everything in the middle of the plate, but swinging for junk well out of the strike zone?
I remember that first at-bat, and feeling *good* about the fact that Richie drew a walk. Then, I realized….I feel good about our cleanup hitter getting a walk!
I wish Richie would either immensely fail or succeed, nothing in between. I just can’t take it anymore.
I was amused by Sims’ rant about the fans booing Richie after his last at bat, being that it is “only the third game of the season”. As though this season should be taken in a vacuum, without last year’s suckfest as additional and valid context.
9:
I would posit that Richie failed immensely last year and continues to do so this year.
oddly, that was also the theme of most of the radio-talking heads yesterday as well, as though last year was an abberration based solely on Sexson’s leg injuries.
Blatantly stolen from Deanna based on the ad from a year or two ago, but it still makes me laugh every time I think of it:
o/~ “He swings his bat and there’s strike three! BIG RICHIEEEEEE” o/~
I like Sims on the TV broadcast last night after Richie’s last AB:
“A smattering of boos already. Give the guy a break! It’s the third game! So he didn’t get out of the box hot!”
Fuck, Dave, did you watch any of last season? At all? Or hear any of the 2,000 talking heads who have said that all of our fortunes rely on a return to form for Sexson?
Sims is insulting my intelligence by saying Sexson is only getting booed for what he did in these first three games. And god knows I’d be booing him if I was there. I’m half tempted to boo the SOB from my barcalounger in Ellensburg.
I thought this post was going to be a rant about “Sexon” and “Sexton” and whatever other derivatives of his name are out there.
How much is PitchF/X error playing into this? Pitch 3 of AB#1 looks like a big meatball, but it was called a ball. Was it really that meaty?
I am not trying to defend Sexson here, just trying to calibrate my sensors since I’ve only been able to “watch” games on gamecast so far this year.
JJD, didn’t read your 10 first. Sorry. COuld have just blockquoted you and said “+1.”
I wish someone would tell him he needs to calm his hands down. He is not talented enough to have that much movement. Beltre is a good example of steady hands as well as Ichiro. Less movement will allow him to take his hands to the ball. He drops his hands under the ball which makes it virtually impossible to make consistent contact. Pop ups and swinging under the pitch occurs way to often. You would think he would miss above the ball because he is so tall, but watch his misses on fastballs. Keeping his hands steady will force him to stay back and adjust to the barrage of breaking balls. He needs to simplify his approach and silencing his hands will be a good start.
Isn’t it a classic big-bopper-who’s-past-it skill to suddenly draw more walks, and in more unlikely situations? He’s more tentative, because he knows if it’s heat, he can’t get around on it, and he can’t really tell what pitch it is or if its located well or not. And when he does get a meatball, instead of putting it in the seats like he used to, he pops or grounds out, maybe doubles if he gets lucky. Classic old-player skills. Walks go up, power goes down. Sexson’s going to have a higher OBP than SLG this year, and both are going to be low numbers. Not what you want from 1B, not what you want from the 4 hole.
Can he pitch? Maybe he can be our new closer.
Elevators go down. What’s happening to Sexson is more akin to what happens to the Coyote when he sprints off a cliff with a fanny pack full of Acme brand anvils.
per Andriesen:
“It might seem early in the season for a player to be under pressure, but Richie Sexson is feeling it. He’s also hearing it from the Safeco Field crowd, which has already started booing.
Sexson fully admits he failed in a key situation Monday, striking out with the bases loaded in a tie game, swinging at a pitch out of the strike zone.
“I wanted to do something great there,” he said. “Instead of relaxing, I got a little ahead of myself. It’s early in the year, and you want to hit a five-run homer there. I got excited. A week from now that won’t be the case. I wanted to be great right there.”
The mind and the eyes are the first to go. What I’d do is get Sexson to an optometrist and also a psychotherapist.
His whole obsession with what people are thinking (the booing) is symptomatic of the deeper rooted problem that he himself thinks he’s over the hill. He might not be, but if he thinks he is, he is.
Hey! That actually sounded like it could be right. I just took a guess.
I’m sure his eyes were thoroughly checked in spring training; remember that is where they first caught Edgar’s strabismus.
Yea, this whole line of thinking that it’s all in Sexson’s head is just crap. Stop psychoanalyzing the guy and pretending that it’s all mental – he’s physically lost batspeed, which makes him suck. Accept that and move on.
What the hell is a 5 run homer? He’s clearly lost it.
How much is PitchF/X error playing into this? Pitch 3 of AB#1 looks like a big meatball, but it was called a ball. Was it really that meaty?
I am not trying to defend Sexson here, just trying to calibrate my sensors since I’ve only been able to “watch†games on gamecast so far this year.
He’s looked absolutely awful live. Yeah, there’s some screwiness with pitch f/x, but he looks like a high school player from some podunk town who’s in college and seeing breaking pitches for the first time. Not a good sign.
“5 run homer” is traditional baseball slang, what guys say to mean they’re pressing, trying too hard, which is what Sexson wants us to believe is wrong with him.
Whoa, that 15 minute edit period thingie is freaking me out.
Hey Sexson’s not the only high paid 1b struggling to open the season.
At least the D….
Ponies
Seems to me he has lost any semblance of pitch recognition right now, leading to a tentative approach.
Look at the 6-7 sequence of the first at bat – he started early (cheating because he can’t recognize pitches), and missed the slider. Then, because the next pitch was almost identical, he “recognized” that it would be another slider off the plate. (And also knew that he couldn’t hit it even if he’d tried.)
Either that, or he’s deciding before the pitch whether he’s swinging or not.
I know Dave is seeing a loss of batspeed – and that can also cause a tentative approach.
I just wonder if it is a chicken or an egg – did he really lose so much physical bat speed, causing a tentative approach? Or is it poor pitch recognition (poor results, no confidence, etc.) that causes him to either cheat and swing early, or just slow, late, and weak?
#28
Yeah, but Morneau is on the right side of 30.
So this is like Beltre vs. low-away breaking balls, except it’s not just against one pitch?
edited: because it’s there. I tried to hold off but the countdown timer won me over.
oooh, today’s KJR installment in the soap opera.
“it’s a mob mentality, they are bullying Richie Sexson into crying.”
He seems like a good enough guy. I feel sorry for him. I also do not want him anywhere near my favorite baseball team.
Time for Charlton or Buhner or one of the other ex-players who are still somewhat involved with the club to sit him down and explain how this happens to everyone eventually, and that now is the time to retire with a shred of dignity.
I wonder if the callers into KJR last night on the postgame show asking the fans to quit booing Richie are the same people that still boo A-Rod.
I’m a season ticket holder that converses with all the other season ticket holders in my section. Although I watch baseball for the sheer love of the game, some of the folks we sit near are as rabid at number crunching as the USSM reader-ship are. And they agree, Richie sucks and should be booed!
Perhas he can go live with Bobby Ayala?
In Boston or NY or Philie he’d be facing worse, and the media would be leading the charge.
You know what a hall of mirrors is? KJR is a hall of morons. Except when Dave is on there, anyway. Thanks again to msb for enduring it so the rest of us don’t have to.
Anyone who buys a ticket to the game, and especially season ticketholders like myself, have a right to see the Mariners respect our patronage by delivering a successful and enjoyable service.
What is our recourse if we think that an important part of that service — Sexson, the cleanup hitter — is performing his duties in an unsatisfactory way? And not just this season, but also last season and, let’s face it, the season before (more than half his HRs in 2006 were hit in the second half of the second half, after the team was out of the running.)
We can’t leave a smaller tip, or stop coming to games (season tix are a sunk cost). So the only option we have to express our dismay is to boo Sexson. We need to let management know that we think this part of their service is unacceptable.
I don’t care how great your starting pitching is, if you dont have a strong 4-hole hitter, you are not going to be a successful team over 162 games. Or even 24 games in a high-school season.
Why should Sexson retire? Wouldn’t he be giving up millions of remaining guaranteed contract money. Just because you can’t physically hit major league pitching any more doesn’t mean you have to be stupid.
No. The Mariners know the risks when they sign a long term contract with a player. They are going to have to DFA him and eat the contract.
So, do you think the Twins would trade us Morneau for Richie straight up?
So, do you think the Twins would trade us Morneau for Richie straight up?
If the M’s paid the entirety of both players’ salaries? Still no.