Game Eighteen Recap
Boo, 9-9.
Well, you can cross Doug Fister off the list of guys who might be coming out of the rotation when Lee returns. After another strong performance today, there’s no way Wak will send him to the bullpen right now. It’s down to Vargas and Snell at this point.
Did you know the ball carries pretty well in Chicago? Like Rowland-Smith yesterday (and Vargas tomorrow), Aardsma relies on fly balls staying in the yard, and this park is one of the worst spots for him to pitch. It also doesn’t help when his command abandons him.
These one run losses suck, but as long as the M’s continue to run out a JV line-up to accommodate the hugging DH tandem, it’s hard to argue that they deserve to win. The M’s started four guys who are essentially replacement level today. You can’t expect to win too many games when you’re running Eric Byrnes out against a right-hander and starting Tuiasosopo at shortstop, especially when the DH and catcher positions were both chosen for their personality rather than their abilities. The M’s will eventually have to get serious and fix this roster, or they’re going to keep losing games that they should have won.
My point isn’t over a season that we don’t need better offense. My point was it’s not their fault today is all.
Anyways I hope Sweeney is removed soon. I think the point about Griffey is pointless as we all no he is not going to be removed this year so its not worth a debate in my opinion.
Anyways that was my whole point was only about today.
Tough ending to the game, the M’s lost two close ones but hey, they can go out and win tomorrow and then take care of business against the KC Mariners, er I mean Royals and finish with a 4-2 roadtrip. The offense needs Milton Bradley’s bat and I really hope that he is feeling good enough to be in there tomorrow. Give Junior a day off and DH Bradley, pleeeeeease Wak!
And this whole bench situation is getting ridiculous. You know you’re bench is thin when Jack Wilson with a jacked up thumb is pinch running for Junior. Ugh I hope they can fix this soon and get the bench lined up the way it was meant to be, meaning Langerhans and Hannahan are back with the team.
Wilson pinch running for Griffey was a clever move.
Keeping two DH-only players is silly. Something has to give there.
Jeff Nye, your Griffey post makes me happy, the longer he plays and looks nothing like his old self the less respect I have for him and the faster the sparkling image of a god among baseball players tarnishes and leaves me with no fond memories as recent memory of a player is far stronger. Griffey, Please Retire!
Well cross our fingers Lee throw good tomorrow in his rehab start. Hopefully by the time he gets back the offense will be settled. But if Milton and Jack are already hurting it could be a long road ahead. This roster is very fragile.
Face it people, until the Mariners pony up for Adrian Gonzalez or a similar left-handed power hitter, the M’s offense will not be as good as it should be.
Nothing against Z, he’s a more than competent GM, and certainly it will help when Ackley and/or Saunders are good enough to play every day in 2011/2012 but WHERE IS THE OFFENSE?
If you want to be an elite team and beat the best in the American League to get into the playoffs and win in October, you have to be a little bit good in EVERYTHING.
And you can’t just rely on being good at one specific thing to survive.
Oh, p’shaw. All the team needs is good players, remember? It doesn’t matter what they’re good at, how their WAR is derived… you just need better. If you find a left fielder or a catcher with a better WAR than what they’re running out there now, even if that’s due to better defense the team gets better. Same for the pitching – better relief work over the last 2 games and the Ms would be in first place by a half game now.
The team doesn’t need more offense. Just better players overall.
The team doesn’t need more offense. Just better players overall.
True, but right now the most obvious and probably easiest way to upgrade is offensively. I don’t see much of a way the Ms can efficiently better their run prevention (getting Cliff Lee excepted). Seeing how to make the O better is pretty clear.
They can improve at LF, C, DH, backup infielder, backup outfielder, at least 1 if not 2 starting pitching positions, and likely improve over White and Teixera.
DH is the only one of those where an upgrade has to come from offense. Everything else, you can find an overall better player in terms of WAR without shopping for offense specifically.
18 games in the M’s seem quite vulnerable on the road. It is true that the team ( and all teams ) are built to win at home first and then the road. But as yet they don’t seem even close to being capable of playing .500 ball on the road. What good is it to have a closer who is that much more vulnerable on the road? Or 2 fly ball lefties in the rotation? And while it is true that dingers aren’t the cat’s meow as many fans and even team managements think, even the offense seems inadequate to take advantage of ballparks like the White Sox play in.
Most of the potential offensive upgrades also come with the tradeoff of a defensive downgrade.
If you add MOAR POWERZZ but don’t actually make your team any better, you’re not doing yourself any favors.
This conversation about who to “hold accountable” for this or that particular loss or how many runs we should “reasonably expect” in any particular game seems very wrong-headed to me. I expect a team with a great offense to score somewhere between 0 and 17 runs in any given game, and and I expect a team with a terrible offense to score somewhere between 0 and 17 runs in any particular game. The point is, if you have better players, or even so-so players better suited to opposing pitcher and park, you move up the expected runs curve, making higher numbers in that range more likely and lower numbers less likely. If you’re wasting roster/lineup spots (for sentimental reasons, or just because you’re wrong about a player’s value, or whatever) you increase your chances of scoring less and giving up more. This is most likely to cost the team wins in close games. That holds equally for 1-0 games and 11-10 games, and everything in between.
‘Most of the potential offensive upgrades also come with the tradeoff of a defensive downgrade.’
True, but 8 hr’s in 18 games?!?! How about just SOME more power? At least a DH with some pop. And why is management ready to deal an arm and a leg to get Gonzalez from SD if they aren’t interested in more pop? I know he isn’t a defensive liability like many other offensive-minded only hitters out there are, but the M’s lack of power is troubling… at least to me!
But see, for the strategy to work, your marginal hitters still have to score more runs against the other team’s marginal pitching/defense than their good hitters score against your good pitching/defense. The idea was to have good run prevention and average offense. The M’s can have a great defense, if they don’t have Bradley in LF where his legs are too beat up for him to run, and don’t have Tui playing out of position at SS. They currently have decent pitching, hopefully soon to get better with Lee and then later Bedard joining the rotation. But they still need an offense that’s close to average if they want to be a contender. They’re tied for 4th best run-prevention in the league, so that part is going according to plan. But they’re also tied for 3rd worst run-scoring in the league, scoring half a run less than the average offense. That part is seriously lagging. Part of it is guys slumping, but part of it is giving up too many outs with bad hitters.
Going with the “make adjustments” idea, there are a few pre-season assumptions that aren’t panning out. One is that Bradley could be an everyday LF while staying healthy and contributing good defense. So far, he can’t, he’s been a defensive liability and his legs are bothering him, keeping him out of the lineup (likely the two things are related). For him to contribute, he needs to get most of his ABs at DH. Another assumption that’s looking bad was that Griffey could still contribute as a DH against RHPs. And then there was the assumption that Jack Wilson could stay healthy enough to have a bench with only 1 reserve IF (and that guy not really a SS). We’re almost done with April, I think it’s safe to say that we need to move Bradley to DH, find a starting LF (either trade, Saunders, or a Byrnes/Langerhans platoon), and get another IF onto the active roster to spell Wilson . None of that has anything to do with Aardsma or Lowe.
They’re currently on pace for about 85 wins, except they’ve had a pretty easy schedule so far, so that number is probably too high. Offset that with getting Lee back, but 85 wins isn’t a playoff team. They need to pick up the pace on offense a bit.
I almost entirely agree with Dave here about Aardsma and our roster construction. Aardsma pitches up in the zone at Safeco because it works. I think the other side of this point though, Dave et al., is that Aardsma wasn’t pitching in Safeco last night. It’s obvious, sure, but if you hold that one formula works (Aardsma+Safeco=Success) and you take out Safeco, then you must supply something else. Maybe Aardsma just shouldn’t close in parks like US Cellular; if he is going to close, though, he cannot afford to pitch up in the strike zone against hitters like Konerko and Rios.
Dave’s absolutely right about the roster, though. If hitters can’t score more than 4 runs against Freddy Garcia in US Cellular, then we can’t expect too many wins—regardless of where Aardsma throws the ball.