Game Thirty-Nine Recap
Boo, 14-25.
A lot of stuff happened. A lot of it mattered. But there’s only one thing you need to know. With a one run lead in the 7th inning, two runners on base, and nobody out, Wak went to the mound and summoned Sean White. That’s not the only reason they lost, but it’s reason enough to earn it.
11 games under .500, 7 1/2 games out of first place… If the Mariners don’t make wholesale changes tomorrow, then we might as well just shut the blog down and go do something else for the next four months. This is beyond ridiculous. The season is a few days away from being a lost cause, and the Mariners continue to lose due to staggeringly bad performances from the worst players on the roster, who are repeatedly put into remarkably important situations. Players who don’t even belong in the major leagues.
It didn’t have to be like this. Despite all the slumps and the injuries and the problems, the team could have survived. But they can’t survive another day of DH Griffey, Setup Man White, or Shortstop Tui.
Changes. Tomorrow. Or Fury.
Game 39, Mariners at A’s
Hernandez vs Sheets, 4:05 pm.
Happy Felix Day.
Sad Same Line-Up As Always Night.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Lopez, 3B
Griffey, DH
Kotchman, 1B
Josh Wilson, SS
Johnson, C
Saunders, LF
It’s Time
In 1987, Andre Thornton was given 97 plate appearances as a DH and posted a .118/.206/.141 line before he was removed from the roster and retired at season’s end.
In 2001, Harold Baines was given 94 plate appearances as a DH and posted a .131/.202/.143 line before he was removed from the roster and retired at season’s end.
In 2003, Dean Palmer was given 98 plate appearances as a DH and posted a .140/.235/.163 line before he was removed from the roster and retired at season’s end.
Those are the only three DHs in major league history to post a lower OPS than Ken Griffey Jr currently has in a season where they racked up at least 90 plate appearances. Not one of them made it to 100.
Ken Griffey Jr has 97 plate appearances. It’s time.
Process and Results
One of the main tenets of the blog is that, since we can’t predict the future, the best you can ask from someone is to make wise decisions based on probability and hope for the best. Good plans don’t always work, but the best path to success is to make decisions that have proven to work more often than not, and over the long haul, you will end up successful. So, we judge organizations on the process of their decisions, not on the outcomes they couldn’t have predicted to begin with.
So, let’s break the current problems the Mariners face into two categories – good process/bad outcome and bad process/bad outcome. I have no real interest in criticizing the organization for the former, as there’s nothing you can do about good decisions that don’t work. But the latter, those are the ones that we’re more than willing to lay at the feet of the people who put this team together, and those are the problems that they need to fix, because for the most part, those are decisions that can be corrected. Those are the ones to get upset about.
Good Process, Bad Outcome To Date
Signing Chone Figgins. Practically everyone was in favor of this move, because he was a good player who improved the team at a position where they needed improvement. He hasn’t hit, but he will eventually, and the investment was a sound one.
Putting Ryan Rowland-Smith in the rotation. He’s been downright terrible, but that wasn’t what anyone expected going into the season. As a strike-throwing flyball lefty, he profiled as a guy who was a good fit for the team and park. He just forgot how to throw strikes, and that’s a big problem for guys with fringe stuff.
Trading for Casey Kotchman. This one may be a little more controversial, but I’ll still put this in the good process column. He projected as an average-ish player, especially if he was platooned against lefties. Given the team’s payroll constraints, there weren’t many better options in his price range, and he offered enough upside to make the gamble worth it. You can’t predict anyone to post a .190 BABIP, which has derailed Kotchman’s season so far.
Trading for Milton Bradley. In the grand scheme of things, the M’s paid $3 million per year for two years of Milton Bradley. The risks were well known, but given the price, it was a risk worth taking. Forget the people who say Bradley has been the problem – they don’t know what they are talking about. The Mariners are 10-10 when Milton Bradley starts, yet 4-14 when he doesn’t. He has his issues, but every $3 million acquisition has warts. Bradley can still help this team, even if the first six weeks of his Mariner career haven’t gone so well.
Bad Process, Bad Outcomes
Signing Ken Griffey Jr. Self-explanatory.
Settling on Jack Wilson as your starting shortstop, then going without a capable backup. His durability problems were no secret, and the Mariners decided to screw themselves over when he ended up getting hurt.
Choosing catchers based on personality, not skill. They like Rob Johnson for his work ethic, so the fact that he has no major league skills doesn’t matter.
Screwing the bench over by carrying Mike Sweeney. Once they had committed themselves to Griffey, there was no reasonable way to have another player on this team who couldn’t play the field. They chose to keep Sweeney anyway, and in the process, completely destroyed the bench. This directly led to Eric Brynes playing LF against RHPs, an inability to pinch hit or pinch run in high leverage situations, and not being able to give struggling hitters a day off, as there was no one capable of playing their position on the bench.
Believing that Matt Tuiasosopo can play. Two years in a row, Tui has had a huge spring training, and his performances in March have convinced Wak that he’s a major league player. He’s not. He might be an okay platoon player in a year or two, but he’s a defensive zero who has the bat of a good glove shortstop. He belongs in Tacoma. He’s always belonged in Tacoma.
Not carrying a left-handed reliever. I get that some right-handed relievers don’t have big platoon splits and can get guys out from both sides of the plate. I understand the value in having relievers pitch full innings in order to save their arms and keep everyone fresh. That said, the Mariners are carrying a pair of replacement level arms in Jesus Colome and Sean White, neither of whom are good against lefties, that could easily be replaced by a generic lefty that would give the team the platoon advantage in critical situations when its called for. If they had six or seven good right-handed relievers, fine, don’t carry a lefty. But not carrying a lefty so that you can have Sean White’s useless arm on the team? That’s not good baseball.
Depending on Milton Bradley to play the outfield everyday. This is another consequence of carrying Sweeney, but instead of the original off-season plan of having Bradley split time between LF and DH, he was made the everyday LF when Sweeney made the team and Langerhans was jettisoned to get back to a 12 man pitching staff, giving the team no LH left fielder besides Bradley. The team should have known that asking him to play the outfield, and interact with fans all game long, was a recipe for disaster, and realized that everyone was best served having him spend his days at DH.
Game Thirty-Eight Recap
Boo, 14-24.
American League Teams, sorted by winning percentage.
Tampa Bay, .711
New York, .658
Minnesota, .632
Detroit, .579
Toronto, .575
Texas, .538
Boston, .487
Oakland, .474
Anaheim, .450
Cleveland, .417
Chicago, .405
KANSAS CITY, .385
Seattle, .368
Baltimore, .308
When you’re behind the Royals, it might – just maybe – be time to consider making some changes.
Yeah, this roster works. Just keep running Griffey out there – I’m sure his bat will come around any day now. Keep Sweeney around for that oh so valuable leadership that has kept this team on track. Don’t bother with an actual bench, as pinch hitting and pinch running are overrated. Don’t worry about acquiring any one of the hundred or so guys in Triple-A that could improve your roster right now. Just keep sitting there, doing nothing.
Game 38, Mariners at A’s
Rowland-Smith vs Gonzalez, 7:05 pm.
The line-ups are getting more ridiculous by the day. The A’s are starting a lefty, so instead of either of the actual useful left fielders, we get Tui in left, playing behind an extreme fly-ball southpaw who badly needs to have a good game. I’ll do a post on this tomorrow, but Wak’s lack of understanding that Tui sucks is a problem. Oh, and the kicker – Junior is at DH, hitting 5th. Against a lefty. Sure is a good thing we’re carrying two old guys who can’t play the field and 12 pitchers. That never comes back to haunt us.
This roster is a joke.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Lopez, 3B
Griffey, DH
Tuiasosopo, LF
Kotchman, 1B
Josh Wilson, SS
Bard, C
It’s Get Serious Time
At 14-23, the Mariners need some good news. They’re not going to get it from looking at their schedule, though. Over the next month, the Mariners play 29 games, with only seven of those coming against a team that is currently below .500 (the Angels). They have to play the Twins four times, the Cardinals three times, and the Rangers four times. They finish the stretch with 20 consecutive games without an off day.
There are no more games against the Royals or Orioles to look forward to. The M’s face a pretty grueling schedule for the next month, the kind of gauntlet that even a good team would struggle to finish over .500 against. And as we’ve all seen, the Mariners right now are not a good team.
Plain and simple, the M’s cannot wait any longer. If they keep trying to hold on with what they have, they’re going to sink. They need to get Milton Bradley and Jack Wilson back on the team as soon as possible. They need to make a trade (Ryan Raburn, please) right now. If Ryan Rowland-Smith struggles again tonight, he should probably head to the bullpen. The time for waiting is over. 29 games in 31 days, most of them against high quality competition… if the Mariners try to tackle that challenge with this roster, they don’t stand a chance.
The season isn’t over yet, but the time for patience is. It’s no longer a belief system to run Ken Griffey Jr out there – that’s just stubbornness. If the Mariners are serious about winning, they need to make changes, and they need to make them right now.
Minor League Wrap (5/10-16/10)
I don’t have any meditative/rambling intro prepared this time. The Diamond Jaxx are still playing good baseball though, and are within reach of the division lead, while the Clinton Lumberkings are getting it done with good pitching, home runs, and nothing else.
To the jump!
Read more
Game 37 Götterdämmerung
If it’s not one thing, it’s another at this point. I don’t know if we’re full into the Götterdämmerung phase yet, as the offense will surely bounce back, and Milton Bradley will soon resume doing what he does, but the state of affairs is quite disheartening at the moment, and I wasn’t going to let marc’s use of “ragnarok” slide.
The Mariners faced off against a Matt Garza who wasn’t particularly on his game. At some point in the third inning, a graphic popped up that indicated that he had more balls than strikes. He left with only two strikeouts. Unfortunately, the home plate umpire didn’t really care that Garza was off his game and was repeatedly giving him the outside strike to left-handed batters. The two Ks, to Saunders in the third and to Griffey in the fourth, were questionable if you look at the pitch tracker. Take it away, robots.
Despite giving up his first walk of the season to Longoria, Lee pitched as well as we’ve seen from him, ending the night with ten Ks. Hank Blalock, who came in hitting 6-for-13 off him, went 0-for-3 and struck out twice. He managed to strand Aybar after that bizarre double just outside the infield when Figgins and Ichiro both lost the ball and Guti didn’t make it in time. He’s done everything to endear himself to the Mariners, including appearing back on the mound in the second before they even went to commercial break. The Mariners? Well, I can’t imagine that the feeling is mutual at this point.
Our one run came on three consecutive singles by the Tacoma Rainiers, Josh Wilson, Josh Bard, and Michael Saunders, but then Ichiro flew out, after coming into the game with seven consecutive multi-hit games, and Figgins grounded into his second double play of the series to end it. Bard made a good first impression on the team with the single, and the walk, and the catching of the baseball. We’ll see what happens in a couple of weeks when Moore is eligible to come off.
Other bullet points from the day:
* Griffey nearly blooped one to the left side, against the Griffey Shift. That ball was caught by Crawford, who also stole what might have been a RBI double from Jose Lopez in the sixth. Carl Crawford ruined my Sunday afternoon.
* Saunders nearly caught Crawford’s triple. Remain calm.
* It’s distasteful to see a man getting kicked when he’s down. Kotchman got that today, in consecutive at-bats. First he gets the chin music, and then as he’s spinning away, Navarro throws to his blindside to keep Lopez on the bag at first. The next time up, he gets drilled in the shoulder. What did Kotchman ever do to you, Rays?
* One of the things that’s likely to stick out in our minds after today’s game, like the Moore pinch-running mistake last night, is Gutierrez running into the third out of the inning at third base. Josh Wilson was at-bat then, not exactly the guy you want at the plate in a RBI situation, but still, awful. One interesting statistical tidbit on Guti is that in the month of May, he’s running a 13/11 K/BB. So, on one hand, he’s striking out in almost a third of his at-bats, but on the other, he’s already logged three more walks in May than he did the whole month of April.
* Jack Wilson went 1-for-2 as the DH in last night’s game for West Tenn, but is sitting out today.
Game 37, Mariners at Rays
Lee vs Garza, 10:40 am.
Junior returns to the line-up. It’s anyone’s guess as to why.
Moore to 15 day DL, Bedard to 60 day DL, Bard to the majors.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 2B
Gutierrez, CF
Lopez, 3B
Griffey, DH
Kotchman, 1B
Josh Wilson, SS
Bard, C
Saunders, LF