Zduriencik’s Pitcher Type

Dave · March 16, 2009 at 12:14 am · Filed Under Mariners 

Since Zduriencik took over as GM, the Mariners have added five relievers to the organization who require spots on the 40 man roster. Those five are listed below, along with their 2008 walk rate, strikeout rate, and groundball rate

Jose Lugo, 10.5% BB%, 24.2% K%, 56% GB%
David Aardsma, 15.4% BB%, 21.5% K%, 44% GB%
Tyler Walker, 9% BB%, 21.6% K%, 46% GB%
Luis Pena, 19.3% BB%, 20.2% K%, 47% GB%
Jesus Delgado, 12.9% BB%, 21.7% K%, 52% GB%

You should notice a trend. These guys all got a ton of strikeouts, all of them had above average groundball rates, and all of them suck eggs at throwing strikes. Okay, lumping Walker in with the other four in that regard is a little unfair, because while he doesn’t have great command, he looks like Greg Maddux next to these guys.

The M’s have basically spent the winter collecting raw, unpolished arms for the bullpen. Velocity and movement matter, command not so much. And this is, honestly, a great way to build a really good bullpen. If we look at the relievers in MLB last year who posted the 10 lowest FIPs, you get the usual collection of Rivera/Papelbon/Lidge, but there are three names relevant to the discussion:

Hong-Chih Kuo
Grant Balfour
Matt Thornton

Kuo was the best left-handed reliever in the game last year. Coming into the ’08 season, he was a guy with good stuff and no command.

Balfour was an elite setup man, probably the best in the game, for the Rays a year after posting a 7.30 BB/9 in the majors.

Thornton, who you’ll remember for his good stuff/horrible command days with the M’s, had the best year of his career after seeing his command regress in ’07.

These three guys were on the level of the best relievers in baseball. Their teams got all-star value from these three live armed/bad command guys, all of whom were recently available for practically nothing.

The M’s aren’t going to get good work from all five of these guys. But the M’s are simply taking the right approach here, going with quantity over quality, and then waiting to see which one turns into a relief ace. Odds are, when you collect this many good arms, one of them is going to.

Comments

21 Responses to “Zduriencik’s Pitcher Type”

  1. SeasonTix on March 16th, 2009 6:52 am

    You gotta love the way Jack Z keeps stocking up cheap pitching.

    There are very few “sure thing” pitchers, so grabbing a bunch of “live” arms and hoping that one of them catches fire seems to be a smart strategy.

    BTW, did anybody catch the M’s bullpen coach John Wetteland on the Mariner Highlights show on FSN Saturday night?

    He said “we are not results oriented” in analyzing pitchers.

    Should be music to the ears of USSM fans.

  2. pygmalion on March 16th, 2009 7:06 am

    BTW, did anybody catch the M’s bullpen coach John Wetteland on the Mariner Highlights show on FSN Saturday night?

    He said “we are not results oriented” in analyzing pitchers.

    Should be music to the ears of USSM fans.

    Holy crap, he said that? If by “music” you mean Handel’s Hallelujah chorus then heck yeah that’s music baby, sweet sweet music to my ears.

  3. terry on March 16th, 2009 8:27 am

    Could Angel Guzman be the next arm to join the “Mariner Way?”

  4. irish on March 16th, 2009 9:43 am

    One interesting thought I had from this is that many of us were worried (after his hiring was announced) about Jack Z being too “scouting-minded” rather than sabermeterically inclined. Based on many of his acquisitions (Branyan, Shelton, Carp, high-K/GB% pitchers) I think it’s safe to say he is very well versed in the the significance of numbers, and which ones are important to look at.

    Yay!

  5. marc w on March 16th, 2009 9:45 am

    Good call Terry. If he’s willing to let the GB% thing slide with Guzman or Cordero, then I think the next could be Phil Stockman, who was just released by the braves. 6’8″ aussie who gets tons of Ks, but has little command.

  6. Jay Yencich on March 16th, 2009 10:43 am

    I was commenting on this over at my site, but Delgado is of particular interest to me. He’s a converted outfielder who spent his first couple of seasons on the DL after Tommy John surgery. Nevertheless, the orgs he played for challenged him and aside from a rehab stint in the GCL, he has 273 innings in the minors and only 39.1 of those were in advanced-A. Nearly everything else was double-A. He seems like the type who could make a real leap forward one of these years.

  7. wabbles on March 16th, 2009 11:08 am

    “Holy crap, he said that? If by “music” you mean Handel’s Hallelujah chorus then heck yeah that’s music baby, sweet sweet music to my ears.”

    So, should we be standing then?

    Yeah, I don’t ever remember the M’s grabbing this many pitchers just because they were available for nothing or darn close. However, I DO remember the team always seeking a “veteran closer” and paying millions for him/them. I hope they are evaluated well enough that one or more of them doesn’t come north with us then suddenly turn into the Bad Bobby Ayala.

  8. gwangung on March 16th, 2009 11:22 am

    Veteran experience is obviously not a major component here.

  9. Ralph_Malph on March 16th, 2009 11:29 am

    I’m not bringing this up as criticism, but because I really want to understand this.

    How do we reconcile the praise for these moves with the celebration of dumping Thornton 3 years ago (this week), when even Dave thought Thornton was essentially useless: “There’s almost no way not to like this move”.

  10. bakomariner on March 16th, 2009 11:29 am

    Was there a “Good” Bobby Ayala?

  11. gwangung on March 16th, 2009 11:44 am

    How do we reconcile the praise for these moves with the celebration of dumping Thornton 3 years ago (this week), when even Dave thought Thornton was essentially useless: “There’s almost no way not to like this move”.

    Well, for one thing, I don’t think all these pitchers are on the major league roster.

    Too, if you invest in a number of these types, instead of just one that you hang onto forever in hopes that he plays out, you stop hoping and you immediately sieze upon the one who actually works, and dump the rest.

  12. pygmalion on March 16th, 2009 11:48 am

    So, should we be standing then?

    Well, that might be a tad over the top. But when even the bullpen coach of your team buys into process-based analysis, then it is time to celebrate. I don’t really care about picking up another low-risk high-upside arm, but to hear Wetteland explicitly say what we’ve been hoping to hear for years and years – that is great.

  13. joser on March 16th, 2009 11:53 am

    Matt Thornton FIP with Seattle:
    2004: 4.30
    2005: 6.20

    Matt Thornton FIP with Chicago:
    2006: 3.76
    2007: 3.70
    2008: 2.75

    The Matt Thornton pitching today is a very different guy from the borderline useless guy the M’s traded away. I don’t know what happened, and obviously Chicago thought there was something there, but I don’t think anybody (including the White Sox) saw that 2008 coming — and he probably won’t repeat it in ’09 either (projections range from3.22 to 3.89). And you have to take the context of the trade into account: the team had other bullpen arms, and the trade netted Borchard, about whom Dave was “convinced that there’s a good hitter hiding inside of the player he is now.” It turns out there was a good pitcher lurking inside Thornton too, and one latent talent emerged while the other didn’t. And so we have yet another entry in Bavasi’s track record of “losing” trades.

    But the larger point is this: Dave couldn’t predict that 2005’s Thornton was going to turn into 2008’s Thornton. Really, nobody can. So you stockpile as many of those kinds of guys as possible, and throw a parade when one of them turns out to be lightning in a bottle. Obviously in retrospect we gave up on Thornton too early, but that’s not too painful if you have lots more where he came from. And that’s the strategy Zduriencik seems to be using, so the M’s don’t miss out on the next Thornton.

  14. terry on March 16th, 2009 12:00 pm

    How do we reconcile the praise for these moves with the celebration of dumping Thornton 3 years ago (this week), when even Dave thought Thornton was essentially useless: “There’s almost no way not to like this move”.

    Pretty easily. The Ms had guys who could do Thornton’s job (i.e. George “lefty death” Sherrill, Rafeal Soriano, Putz). Also, patience can wear thin and a reliever isn’t such a special commodity that the patience of Moses is a de facto position to take with a 29 yo reliever.

    Thorton still had an option left I believe so they could’ve stashed him in Tacoma. Given he’s a lefty who throws in the mid-90’s w/o platoon splits, maybe they should’ve.

  15. Dave on March 16th, 2009 12:07 pm

    Also, I think I know a little more about baseball than I did three years ago.

  16. joser on March 16th, 2009 12:10 pm

    And if Zduriencik today is smarter than Dave three years ago, that’s a pretty good thing.

  17. wickethewok on March 16th, 2009 12:15 pm

    Pirates GM Neal Huntington has targeted guys with similar profiles like Evan Meek, Tyler Yates, and Craig Hansen. So far the results have been… hmmm… let’s just say “unsatisfactory”.

  18. wabbles on March 16th, 2009 12:21 pm

    “Was there a “Good” Bobby Ayala?”

    Uh, it’s not so much the 19 saves in 1994 which isn’t a lot. It’s that when his split-finger fastball was working, Wilson would be catching it just off the ground while the batter was flailing helplessly and the umpire was yelling “Steee-rike!”

    Anyway, regarding the Thornton thing you only need to look at Raul Ibanez. We let him get away because he just couldn’t win a job before he ran out of options. He goes to the Royals and becomes a stud so we re-sign him. It happens. It probably happens more often with pitchers than position players because they are so much more complicated.

  19. Evan on March 16th, 2009 12:24 pm

    Pitching statistics have come a long way in three years.

  20. Mike Snow on March 16th, 2009 12:42 pm

    Thorton still had an option left I believe so they could’ve stashed him in Tacoma. Given he’s a lefty who throws in the mid-90’s w/o platoon splits, maybe they should’ve.

    Actually, Thornton was not only out of options, he had already been carried in the majors for an entire year after running out of options. After having that much time to work on the command issues without success, it’s not necessarily a mistake for the team to let him go elsewhere.

    It’s one thing to collect potentially useful relievers and see who figures things out in the near term, but roster rules keep you from collecting an unlimited supply while waiting to see who will figure things out in the distant future. So I wouldn’t feel too bad about losing Thornton, any more than it would bother me if Lugo shows nothing for us now but ends up being a relief ace for the Twins in 2012.

  21. decatur7 on March 16th, 2009 2:45 pm

    Great post. It nicely complements a BrewCrewBall post about Milwaukee’s $28 million pen last year– namely, they didn’t need it, since anyone can assemble an outstanding bullpen for $10 million or so.
    So I thought about what the M’s pen salaries might look like, courtesy of Cot:
    (?) = no salary given, I assume that translates to the league minimum of $0.403M. Let me know if this isn’t the case.

    Conclusion: only our favorite pitcher/poet/singer/songwriter ($9.0M), Tyler Walker ($0.75M-$0.9M), Chad Cordero (/$0.75M-$0.95M), and Garret Olson ($0.42M) will make more than the league minimum in 2009. Even with the $9m Bavasi sunk into Batista’s Ponzi scheme, we’ll still be around $11-14 million this year for our bullpen salary. Nice work, Z!

    Bullpen
    SP/RP-L Ryan Rowland-Smith 1y/$0.403M(?) – re-signed
    RP-R Miguel “Doc” Batista: $9.0M (2009) (+$0.2M for Cy Young)
    RP-R Roy Corcoran: 1y/$0.403M(?) – re-signed
    RP-R Tyler Walker: 1y/$0.75M-$0.9M – signed
    RP-R David Aardsma: 1y/$0.403M(?) – signed
    RP-R Mark Lowe: 1y/$0.403M(?) – re-signed
    RP-R Randy Messenger – minor league FA
    RP-R Shawn Kelley – minors
    RP-R Luis Pena: 1y/$0.403M(?) – re-signed
    RP-R Marwin Vega: 1y/$0.403M(?) – re-signed
    RP-R Jesus Delgado 1y/$0.403M(?) – claimed off waivers 3/15/09
    RP-L Chad Cordero 1y/$0.75M-$0.95M (base for debut, +$0.1M-$0.2M in finishing over 20 to over 50 games {+$0.55M each of us will gladly match if he earns it}
    RP-L Cesar Jimenez 1y/$0.403M(?) – re-signed
    RP-L Justin Thomas 1y/$0.403M (?) – re-signed
    RP-L Jason Vargas – minors?
    RP-L Garrett Olson 1y/$0.42M – signed
    RP-L Jose Lugo 1y/$0.403M – signed
    RP-L Tyler Johnson – minor league FA
    RP-L Chris Seddon – minors?

    The Brewers and the Rays had been tied for my second favorite team going into this year, but when I considered how bad I felt that we had taken Jack Z from them, I feel obligated to make the Brewers my sole #2. Losing Z as scouting director must hurt like losing Sabathia for them.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.