Three views of a start
I’ve been playing with the Pitch FX data from Felix’s last start. This is the first time I’ve used Pitch FX data like this (Dave, obviously, is a little more familiar). I ask for forgiveness in advance if I’ve flipped an axis or something similar.
Velocity: this is the speed of the pitch as it leaves his hand
L-R break: this is taken from “pfx_x”. Positive is to the catcher’s right, negative to the catcher’s left.
Vertical break: this is taken from “pfx_z”. Positive numbers mean it rises, negative that it drops.
I mention that because the way break is handled will seem a little weird. It’s measured from a straight line, for instance, not from an average pitch. And for vertical break, gravity’s effect is removed, so you’re measuring is how much more or less the ball moved.
So this is easy:
You can almost label the pitch groups there. We’re all familiar with that. Two more, then:
I don’t think I’d seen that chart done before: the grouping’s not nearly as neat, but the fast ball came in to righties.
Then both movements:
You can see the huge difference in how his stuff can move, and this is part of why Dave’s been so passionate about the need to mix the pitches up. There’s a huge grouping of pitches there with essentially similar overall movement and then the really sweet breaking stuff forms an outlier. If the movement on those pitches is the same, then varying velocity becomes a necessity for success. And moreover, if there’s one set of pitches come in and up and another pitch that drops wickedly and runs the other way, that’s a huge potential weapon that can also be better used.
Game Who Cares, Mariners at Royals
Greinke vs Feierabend, 11:10 am.
I challenge anyone to try to care about this game.
Officially The Worst Trade In Franchise History
John Hickey gets Bedard to talk, and it’s not good.
“The start after I hurt my hip, I felt discomfort in the last inning I pitched,” Bedard said. “I know exactly when I did it. After that it got worse and worse”.
“We knew what it was after the MRI — it’s a tear in the labrum and a cyst,” Bedard said. “Surgery was always an option, but you want it to be the last option. You’re never 100 percent sure what will happen in surgery.”
“The surgery we’re talking about can be six to nine months (of rehabilitation) or it can be longer,” Bedard said. “To not be able to pitch, that’s the most frustrating part of the whole season. To not be able to do what you love is hard.”
A torn labrum isn’t quite the career ender it used to be, but it’s still as bad an injury as a pitcher can have. Apparently, the whole “exploratory surgery” thing was a lie, as Bedard clearly believes he’s having his labrum repaired when they cut him open.
Realistically, this news puts Bedard out until at least June or July of 2009. Since Bedard’s eligible for arbitration this winter and the team would have to offer him at least $6 million, there’s a pretty good chance he’s going to be non-tendered. In which case, he’d almost certainly sign elsewhere, and the Erik Bedard era in Seattle would be over.
80 meaningless innings in the worst season ever – that’s potentially Bedard’s entire Mariner career. No trading him for some prospects to try to recoup the losses. No draft picks when he leaves as a free agent. Just labrum surgery and a potential release, while the M’s try to rebuild without the core of their farm system, now enjoying success in Baltimore.
In terms of results, this is easily the worst trade in franchise history. Everyone involved in making that trade should resign in disgrace.
Congratulations, Ichiro!
The man is a machine.
For the eighth-consecutive year, Ichiro has recorded 200+ hits. Ichiro has eight of the 11 200-hit seasons in Mariners’ history and tonight’s game brings him up to 1792 hits over his MLB career—268 more than the next closest player, Derek Jeter, over that span. You can even spot Jeter an extra year and Ichiro still comes out on top!
The milestone ties Ichiro with Wee Willie Keeler for most-consecutive 200-hit seasons and the only players to ever collect more in their career are Pete Rose with 10 and Ty Cobb with nine.
Congratulations, Ichiro!
Game 151, Mariners at Royals
RRS v Meche.
It’s a little funny that the day after we find out Bedard is going under the knife to correct a shoulder problem that’s probably made pitching close to agonizing, the Mariners will face Gil Meche, who the team overworked and operated on a couple of times. The M’s and many fans felt that many of Meche’s post-first-operation problems were due to his general lack of testicular fortitude, right up to and past the point where it turned out his shoulder would need surgery again. No one ever went back and apologized for telling him to pitch through the pain, or for saying he was a coward for complaining of pain when he’d go deep into games. And in Bedard’s case, we’re seeing the same thing — faced with evidence that they didn’t know anything about what was going on with him and they should have refrained from making character judgments, you can head over to other blog comment sections and see people doubling down on Bedard-as-wimp.
I look forward to the day when we’re past this kind of thing and pitchers can be honest about what they’re experiencing and their health, and teams and fans will listen to them.
USSM Welcomes New Writer
Derek and I are always looking for ways to make USSM better, and so when we identify an area that could use some help, we try to address it. With my impending marriage and what is sure to be a busy offseason coming up, it became clear to us that we could use another good writer to help carry the load.
So, I approached friend-of-the-blog Conor Glassey and he has agreed to begin writing for USSM. If you’ve been to any of the get togethers we’ve organized, you’ve met Conor, because he’s been to every single one. He’s a Seattle guy all the way, but he’s temporarily relocated to Durham, North Carolina, as he’s currently interning with Baseball America.
Conor has also written extensively for The Grand Salami magazine you see being sold outside Safeco Field and has maintained a blog of his own called Stop The Wave for the last few years. We’re happy to have Conor on board, and I’m sure you guys will enjoy the content he adds to the discussion.
Update from Conor: Alright, I’m home from work and would like to take a minute to introduce myself to everybody. I guess making my USSM debut by updating Dave’s original post is a bit like making your ML debut as a pinch hitter, but that’s just how it goes sometimes. For those that don’t know me, I moved to the Seattle area in 1990, fell in love with Griffey and have been a M’s fan ever since. Although he still holds a special place in my heart, Griffey hasn’t remained my favorite player over the years, as he was replaced by the guy that replaced him—Mike Cameron. As a long-time USSM reader (fanboy?), I couldn’t be happier to join Dave and Derek for what should certainly be an exciting off-season. Thank you for all the kind words in the comments so far and let me know if you have any questions!
Bedard to have “exploratory” surgery
So they gave him the MRI, rested him, had him go through physical therapy (training, yes) and now he’s going under the knife.
Now technically, that is what it sounds like… something’s wrong, unclear what, you open them up and take a look around. In sports, though, it’s often a lot more like “something’s wrong with the rotator cuff and we’re going to take a look and if we’re there and we see something, we’ll fix it since we’re in the neighborhood and have the surgeon already prepped.”
They know what the range of injury they might find before they start cutting, and whether or not they would fix it on discovery. And sometimes it’s the team being tight-lipped and they know what they’ll see but they don’t want to say (and certainly not before they’ve verified it).
Exploratory surgery that sounds investigative and turns corrective happens all the time — you can go search for “exploratory arthroscopic surgery” and “pitcher” and you turn up Mark Prior in April of 2007 and a host of others. And they don’t always admit it.
We saw this with Gil Meche, where the M’s couldn’t figure out his dead arm, did “exploratory” surgery, said everything was cool, then much later the story changed and they had fixed something during the surgery — which had to be retouched later.
But there’s nothing we can do about it. Hopefully this turns out to be something minor and correctable, and the team can get him back before next year.
Game 150, Mariners at Royals
5:10. Washburn Morrow! Yes, Morrow! vs Duckworth. I was looking forward to this when it was Morrow. Oh well. We can’t always get what we want.
The Media and Jose Guillen
Occasionally, the local beat writers like to play the “we’re objective!” card to try to explain why you should listen to them despite the fact that their analysis is usually horrible. But then, they write about Jose Guillen, and their analysis becomes both horrible and unobjective.
Case in point, John Hickey’s latest musings on Guillen and how retaining him would have effected the Mariners.
Guillen has, after a slow start, come on to have a decent (.263, 20 homers, 93 RBIs) season…
Guillen’s hitting .263/.297/.446 – he’s hit a few longballs, but they just serve to somewhat offset his abysmal rate of reaching base, making him a slightly below average hitter instead of a horrible one. I don’t care how much you think all our statistical analysis stuff is crap – you can’t sit there and honestly believe that a right fielder with a .297 on base percentage is having a decent offensive season. You have to intentionally ignore the facts to write that sentence.
The reality is that Guillen’s been worth a couple runs less than an average major league hitter this year, thanks to his out making prowess. Corner outfielders hit better than the average hitter, so we can knock off another five runs or so to compare him to his positional peers. And, to boot, he’s also played absolutely abysmal defense. The Fielding Bible’s +/- system has him at 19 plays below average on the season, which works out to about -15 runs or so.
Overall, Jose Guillen has been about 20 to 25 runs worse than a league average right fielder this season. If you think that’s a decent season, you don’t know baseball.
for a Kansas City team that’s only claim to fame is that they’re going to finish 2008 with a better record than the Mariners.
Wait – isn’t part of Guillen’s mythical appeal that his presence in the locker room makes the team’s he’s on magically better? In fact, let’s just go ahead and skip down to where Hickey makes that point in the same post.
That’s a lot to put on one man’s shoulders, but there’s no doubt that one of the reasons the Mariners won 88 games last year was because they had an in-your-face guy, Guillen, in the clubhouse.
That’s right, folks – there’s “no doubt” that Guillen’s personality was one of the main reasons the M’s won 88 games, and his loss is one of the main reasons why the M’s suck this year. Except, you know, the Kansas Royals have Guillen this year, and they didn’t have him last year, and they’ve improved a whopping .014 points in Win%, going from .426 to .440.
If Guillen’s clubhouse influence is without doubt, why haven’t the Royals bonded together and performed better than expected? What players has Guillen held accountable and forced to perform who otherwise would have slacked off without his vaunted leadership? Seriously, name a player on that roster that you could make any kind of argument that Guillen has helped this year. Just one.
The beat writers love to tell us that Guillen kept the young players focused on winning and playing the right way, inspiring them to work hard by his example. But in his only season here, Jose Lopez – the guy who the organization constantly reminds us needs help working hard – had his worst season as a Mariner, and then had his best season as soon as Guillen left.
If you want to play the correlation = causation game, then you might as well conclude that Guillen was responsible for Lopez’s brutal 2007 season. Or, you could realize that correlation is not causation, and that the team’s collapse is due to things beyond not having a replacement level right fielder yelling in the clubhouse.
John Hickey’s not stupid. But when it comes to Jose Guillen, the guy who was constantly there for the beat writers last year, the media has no objectivity. They continue to ignore facts in order to fawn over a guy they like, whose personality fits their preconceived notion of what a clubhouse leader is supposed to look like, despite the fact that Guillen is one of the main reasons the Royals haven’t improved at all this year.
Jose Guillen’s having a horrible season, and he’s costing the Royals $12 million a year for the right to not make them any better. And yet, the local writers continue to write about Guillen as a glowing savior.
Good luck playing the objectivity card, fellas. Your biases are just as obvious as you claim ours are.
How do you sell Silva?
Hypothetically, let’s say that the M’s hire you to be the GM next season and you can’t resign because they’ve got a bunch of really, really cute kittens they’re holding hostage or something. And your orders are to get rid of Silva and his Silva-sized contract.
What’s your pitch to other teams?
“He’s bound to regress up to the mean.”
“It’s not the worst contract for a back-of-the-rotation guy.”
“If you put him in a big park with a great defense he’d do much better.”
“He used to be friends with Santana.”
What do you say?