Happy Felix Day, maybe?
Here’s the National Weather Service short version:
Today: Showers and possibly a thunderstorm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Steady temperature around 72. Northeast wind around 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%.
The MLB.com blurb says
Area rain will delay the start time until at least 12:05 p.m. PT.
Surprised they’re not just making them play now. Worked last night, didn’t it? Are they really hoping they’ll get six-something hours in? Or why not pack everyone up and play them up here when it was clear the weekend was going to be awful? They’ve got direct charter flights, and — I’ll stop ranting. I’m just not looking forward to twelve hours of on-again, off-again baseball while worrying somebody’s going to get hurt.
Update! 2:05. So now we’re hoping they can get two games in, 4 local and then ~7 local. yeaaahhhh.
Update: 2:45. If they wanted to really get two games in, the way to do it would be to get the broadcasters to run w/no commercial breaks (or super-limited ones). You could craaank these out.
Game 142, take 2
Morrow v Millwood, let’s get one of these in the books at least.
Good news, everyone
“I know you’re all disappointed we lost Brandon–”
“Yeah!”
“Mad as hell!”
“–but we have to be happy for him, don’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“I guess.”
“Besides, the club’s sent us a little something in return, to help us out with our pitching staff.”
“Really?”
“Probably Batista.”
“It’s not Batista. You ready? You’re going to be surprised.”
“Do you think it’s Felix?”
“There’s no way it’s Felix.”
“Now, he’s only won fifty two games as a starter…”
“Oh my god it’s Felix.”
“It’s not Felix.”
“…but this proud Venezuelan, STANDING INNNN AT SIX FEET FOOOOURR INCHEESSS…”
“It’s Felix.”
“Does he have an option left? How is this even possible?”
“…WEIGHING IN AT TWO-HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE POUNDS…”
“It’s Felix! It has to be Felix! Oh my god we’re the PCL Champions!”
“This is going to be the greatest game of my career.”
“…CARLOS SILVA!”
“Shit.”
“Worst. Worst game.”
2 IP, 2H, 2R, 2ER, 1K, 1HR.
Game 142, Mariners at Rangers
The hopefully triumphant return of Morrow to help stop this losing streak! Slightly shuffled but still not particularly interesting lineup!
5:05 our time.
Liddi, E. Ramirez Take MiLB Honors
Perhaps you’ve noticed, but if you haven’t, the Mariners have announced their Minor League Players and Pitchers of the Year, this time passing the award to High Desert third baseman Alex Liddi and Venezuelan Summer League right-hander Erasmo Ramirez. Mavericks manager Jim Horner also won an award for player development. The rest of the winners per affiliate run like this:
AAA Tacoma: C Adam Moore, RH Gaby Hernandez
AA West Tennessee: OF Ezequiel Carrera, LH Nick Hill
A High Desert: 3B Alex Liddi, LH Donnie Hume
A Clinton: INF/OF Scott Savastano, RH Kenn Kasparek
Short-A Everett: 1B Geradro Avila, RH Tyler Stanton
Rookie Pulaski: 3B Vincent Catricala, RH Brandon Maurer
Rookie Peoria: OF Mario Yepez, RH Chris Kessinger
Dominican: C/1B Hector Mercedes, RH Richard Vargas
Venezuelan: INF Carlos Ramirez, RH Erasmo Ramirez
Liddi joins such previous minor league MVPs as Bryan LaHair and Greg Halman, and if that gives you a moment of pause, it should. These awards are often given out to players well-liked by the development staff that have had tremendous statistical success in a season, but are no means an indicator of future stardom. I’ve pointed out the progress he’s made in his plate discipline and his development as a hitter throughout the season, yet that same development is, obviously, not complete. The real test for him will be when he reaches the less hitter-friendly, more experienced Southern League next season. He’ll have to be added to the 40-man in the offseason, so we’ll have three years to see what we have in him, four if he falls under that same clause Balentien did, and I suspect he does. Keep in mind that Adam Jones was also a minor league MVP at one point, not to draw unfair comparisons.
Ramirez has captured the imagination of prospect hounds with a stat line that looks like it was generated on an old NES with a fair share of Game Genie codes entered. He’s even been mentioned on the Building to the Future segment during the broadcasts, and endorsed columnist Larry Stone got around to profiling him in a recent Times article. As Stone states, the numbers are misleading, as he’s not a second Felix Hernandez or even a J.C. Ramirez, but has slightly above-average stuff that he can command well, and down in the zone. The hitters in the Venezuelan Summer League are frequently confounded by any pitcher with a passable offspeed pitch or even a modicum of command. The last pitcher that I saw dominate hitters like this in the VSL was Cesar Jimenez, though I feel like I’ve been saying that all the time. Expect to see Ramirez turn up in Pulaski or Everett next season.
As for the rest, Avila wins over Jones I guess because he’s been an org favorite for years and went on a great tear now that he’s finally healthy. That’s no knock on Jones though. Catricala over Haveman or even Noriega is a bit surprising, as is Savastano over Tenbrink. The rest plays out about as expected. Fister, Vargas, or Olson weren’t going to make it as the top pitcher in Tacoma because all spent large chunks of the season in the MLB.
Game 141, Mariners at Angels
RRS v Lackey. Avoiding a sweep would be nice, if only for the sake of dignity as they travel to Texas to face the Rangers. It’s a tough stretch to watch for me, the M’s facing a sure playoff entrant, being severely beat up, looking forward to a series in Texas this weekend and hoping they can avoid pushing the Rangers up to a neck-and-neck race with the Red Sox.
Or, to take a step back, I want the M’s to finish with 81 wins or more. It’d be nice to get one of those nine from the Angels.
Gutierrez’s Defense
If you’ve been around for a while, you probably know that we’re big fans of Franklin Gutierrez. He represents exactly the kind of player we’ve been pounding on the M’s to acquire for years, and its a joy watching him chase down flyballs in center field. He’s going to end the year as a +5 win player, with a decent chance of outproducing even Ichiro in terms of value added to the club this year. He’s been sensational.
However, the purpose of this post is to serve as something of a cautionary note. Gutierrez is a tremendous defensive outfielder, but we very well could be witnessing a career year with the glove. Death To Flying Things isn’t likely to ever post UZRs this good again. Honestly, no one is likely to ever post UZRs this good again – his defensive numbers are pretty close to being off the charts.
As you probably know, UZR is broken down into components of range, arm, and errors. Gutierrez’s total UZR for the season is an eye-popping +22.6, but even that undersells his range a bit, as he’s lost nearly three runs due to some of those embarrassing errors he’s committed over the last few months. The Range portion of his UZR is +24.8. The next highest Range number for a center fielder in baseball this year? Mike Cameron, +12.9. No one else is over +10.
He isn’t just blowing away the field this year, either. Here’s the ranking of the best Range Runs seasons by a center fielder since 2002, the first year we’re able to produce UZR data for on FanGraphs.
Coco Crisp, 2007, +25.6
Franklin Gutierrez, 2009, +24.8
Andruw Jones, 2005, +21.7
Andruw Jones, 2003, +21.6
Juan Pierre, 2002, +21.1
Andruw Jones, 2004, +20.8
Corey Patterson, 2004, +20.3
Darin Erstad, 2002, +19.4
Andruw Jones, 2002, +18.8
Mike Cameron, 2003, +18.4
Juan Pierre, 2006, +18.4
Carlos Gomez, 2008: +17.0
Andruw Jones, 2006, +15.9
There have been 13 seasons in the last eight years where a center fielder has posted Range portion of their UZR in excess of +15. Five of those belong to Andruw Jones – besides him, Juan Pierre is the only guy to do it more than once. There’s a reason we usually say the normal range of defensive performance is something like -20 to +20 runs from best to worst at a given position.
This isn’t to degrade Gutierrez’s performance at all. We’ve all watched him run down every fly ball in the gap this year. He’s been amazing out there. But this is probably something like the defensive version of Ichiro’s 262 hit season. It’s not a slight against Ichiro to say that he’s probably not ever going to do that again. He’s a great hitter, but 262 hits in a season is crazy.
So is +24.8 range runs from a center fielder. What we’ve seen is the combination of a great defender playing at the absolute peak of his abilities for six months. If Gutierrez actually could sustain this level of run saving range, he’d go down as the best defensive outfielder in the history of baseball. I love Death To Flying Things, but we shouldn’t be projecting anyone to go down as the greatest of all time.
Appreciate what we’ve seen. Just don’t expect to ever see it again. Gutierrez is having an historically great defensive season, and expecting him to repeat it next year is asking too much.
Game 140, Mariners at Anaheim
Snell v Jered Weaver.
Here’s a lineup for you…
RF-L Ichiro!
CF-R Gutierrez
2B-R Lopez
DH-L Griffey
3B-R Beltre
LF-R Hall
1B-L Carp
C-R Johjima
SS-R Jack Wilson
That’s pretty close to a lineup-by-OBP even with Griffey in the DH=4th slot.
The Kenji Situation
Perhaps one of the more important stories of the winter that has gotten very little coverage so far is how the teams situation with Kenji Johjima gets resolved. We’ve all watched as he’s seen his offense take a step back the last two years, and while his work throwing out runners this season has been terrific, the fact that hardly anyone on the team likes pitching to him is no secret. He’s essentially been turned into a very expensive back-up catcher, and the only reason he’s still around is the contract extension he was given last year.
He’s scheduled to be paid $8 million in each of the next two years before the deal expires. However, with Adam Moore finishing up a strong season in Tacoma and the front office’s stated enthusiasm about his abilities, along with the pitchers fondness for Rob Johnson, and the Mariners would almost certainly prefer that Johjima spends the 2010 season with another team. How that plays itself out will be interesting and important to the reshaping of the club.
There have been rumors since the contract was signed that it contained an opt-out clause after the 2009 season, which would allow Kenji to go back to Japan if he wished. Other rumors suggest that the clause may not depend on his wishes at all, believing he could be asked to use the clause to void the rest of his contract and free the M’s from a burden they don’t particularly want Geoff Baker reminds me that he covered the opt-out clause last year, and that it exists, but is limited in what it covers. Read his story for better context. Given his current levels of production, salary, and age, along with the language barrier issue, and there’s approximately a 0.0% chance that another team would trade for Johjima and give him a starting job next year. If Kenji wants to play everyday, his only chance to do that is in Japan.
However, that assumes a lot of things. Primarily, that this opt-out clause even exists, but also that Kenji would choose regular playing time over a pretty nifty guaranteed salary the next two seasons Per Baker’s note, the opt-out can’t be used for playing time issues. The M’s got a pretty nice bargain on him the first two seasons he was here, so it’s entirely possible that he feels completely fine with being an expensive backup to finish out his career in America.
If that’s true, then Kenji is just the catching version of Carlos Silva – an overpaid old guy that the M’s don’t really want but can’t easily get rid of. And in that scenario, we’re really going to find out just how big of a magician Jack Z really is, because turning Johjima into something the M’s might be able to get some value out of will not be easy.
There’s also the possibility that this will get resolved in a way that we just won’t know the details about. Derek and I talked about this a little bit during the USSM event last month, but there’s a decent chance that Kenji ends up going back to Japan with a briefcase full of money, and while it may look like he “opted-out” of the deal, the M’s could still end up adjusting their budget to account for his stop at the ATM machine before he caught his flight. Even if Kenji does go back to Japan after the season, we can’t assume that all $8 million of his salary if off the books, and we can be pretty darn sure the M’s won’t mention how large of a going away present he got at the press conference.
Don’t bet on Johjima coming to spring training with the M’s next year. How that happens, I don’t know that anyone knows. How it plays out will be one of the more interesting stories of the winter.
Game 139, Mariners at Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim California United States of America Earth
FELIX DAYYYYY
RF-L Ichiro!
CF-R Gutierrez
1B-R Lopez
DH-0 Sweeney
3B-R Beltre
LF-R Hall
SS Wilson
SS Wilson
C-R Johnson
Oh, MLB.yahoo.com, when will you stop giving me duplicate J Wilsons in the lineup? Is it a bug? What is it?