Game 15, Mariners At Royals
Hernandez vs O’Sullivan, 10:10 am.
Happy Felix Day!
Sorry about not getting a game thread up last night – had some stuff unexpectedly arise yesterday afternoon that kept me out of the loop all day. I’ll try to make sure that’s the only time all year we miss a game thread, but I’m glad Marc had reports on Tacoma’s home opener as a fill-in.
Since I didn’t see last night’s game, I don’t have many comments, but I will throw this out there:
2009 Bedard: 3.69 BB/9, 9.76 K/9, 42.3% GB%, 9.3% HR/FB, .269 BABIP
2011 Bedard: 3.95 BB/9, 9.88 K/9, 34.0% GB%, 28.6% HR/FB, .357 BABIP
Bedard’s performance isn’t quite as good as it was pre-injury two years ago, but the main driver of his poor results so far this year are an insane HR/FB rate and a ridiculously high batting average on balls in play. While I’m sure we can point to those things as examples that he’s been throwing hittable pitches, the rate at which hitters are making him pay for those hitters is simply unsustainable. Every pitcher makes mistakes, but so far, all of Bedard’s mistakes are getting whacked. That won’t continue. His 3.97 xFIP so far is a better indicator of his future performance than his 8.56 ERA. I know it’s hard to be encouraged by what you’ve seen, but don’t overreact to his poor start – it’s based on factors that won’t last.
Ryan Langerhans is hitting third for the M’s today. I’m wondering if anyone has ever hit 3rd and 9th for their team in the same week before.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Langerhans, CF
Cust, DH
Smoak, 1B
Rodriguez, 2B
Saunders, LF
Gimenez, C
Ryan, SS
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81 Responses to “Game 15, Mariners At Royals”
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I’m not usually a sunny optimist, but I’m going to try to look on the bright side (in a manner of speaking).
I believe part of the problem (the reason the Ms continue to play veterans on a daily basis) is the typical fan doesn’t want to believe his/her team is not going to be competitive – until they see ample evidence with their own eyes. But given how badly this team sucks right now, it’s going to make it easier for the front office to shift to a “we’re not competitive, so let’s just play the young guys” mode.
Please don’t misunderstand me – playing the newbies is going to be painful to watch at times (4 Ks today, Saunders? Ouch!). But I’d rather watch him play everyday, even with the mistakes; I’d rather see Ackley at second as much as possible; and I’d rather see Smoak in the 4-hole… even if we end up losing another 100 games. We already know our veterans aren’t going to carry us to 90 wins – so lets do what we can to advance the development of our future starters.
I don’t believe in luck, and right now this team isn’t lucky or unlucky — it’s just bad. The team hasn’t been competitive this year, and shows no signs of life.
The four wins have been due more so to failures on the part of the opponents rather than competitiveness from the Mariners.
Quite a while ago, Jack Z said there was more than one way to win a baseball game (defense and pitching.) One thing is certain: lack of offense in the American League guarantees losing. It is obvious that, as constructed, we are incapable of competing against other teams of the American League in Major League Baseball.
Improvement? Regression to the mean? I think we need to take our noses out of the statistics and just look on the field. This is no longer the fault of the players or the coaches. It is the team management’s fault.
Bottom line, this team is trash. The entire lineup is a joke. We need to go youth, like we “supposedly” already are. Call Peguero up in a few months, as well as Ackley. Get rid of Chris Ray’s sorry ass, and bring Cortes up in a couple of months as well. This team is a joke, and they do not belong in the majors as a whole.
What is going on with this team? Every year the offense is getting worse than the last. I honestly hope that this doesn’t result in Jack Z. becoming this years scapegoat and sacrificial offering on the alter of sucktitude, but something has to change, and soon. is it time to bite the bullet and if need be eat contracts to get some of these clowns out of here? (I’m looking at you Bradley and Figgins). This is becoming epic. And not the good kind of epic.
I feel like we’re in for a few lean years no matter what we do with guys like Figgins, Bradley, and Ray (although, the latter should be out the door soon, no question). I’d love to see Dave et al. work on a post that at least considers the type of haul we’d have to get to consider trading the best players on this team. By that I don’t mean that devilish sacrilege that is rosterbation (GASP!); but, rather, a consideration what seems sort of obvious to everyone: The best players on our current roster probably won’t be around when we’re winning the World Series, and they definitely won’t be playing at the level they are now at that point, either. I would absolutely hate to lose either Ichiro or Felix—it would be just plain awful—but if we could rebuild at several positions in the process, it might be worth it. I could see a sucker GM like Kenny Williams tossing a bunch of young players at us for either Ichiro or Felix, for example. Again, though, that would be a painful admission of failure by the front office, the players, the manager, and the fans.
You guys want to hear something extremely depressing? The Mariners don’t have a single player in the top 100 in baseball in RBI’s. Saunders, Smoak, and Ichiro are tied at 119 with 6. Yikes…
I was thinking the same thing earlier today, but I managed to talk myself out of it. I am not exactly sure how I did it, but I did it. Good luck to you, sir.
I was thinking the same thing earlier today, but I managed to talk myself out of it. I am not exactly sure how I did it, but I did it. Good luck to you, sir.
Yeah. It sucks especially when I read this post again.
With Guti possibly heading to the Mayo Clinic is there any possibility that Ackley will start taking some fly balls in CF … or get an occasional look out there in Tacoma. Having to go to the Mayo Clinic is about as bad as the “non-news” can be … but they are so good over there that they will diagnose the problem; which may or may not end up being good news. 30 year old man – Mayo Clinic … this is not heading in the right direction.
was thinking the same thing earlier today, but I managed to talk myself out of it. I am not exactly sure how I did it, but I did it. Good luck to you, sir.
Yeah. It sucks especially when I read this post again.
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/Felix-Hernandez-to-New-York-Yankees-makes-sense-for-Seattle-Mariners-031311
@ make_dave_proud: In regard to you 1:34 post from earlier today – well said! There is nothing to argue with. Bad is bad and this team is flat out (maybe historic) bad. Not quite Cleveland Spider bad, but probably worse than last years team.
Echo some of Westy’s comments about playing young guys too. Saunders was awful today, but should be in there again tomorrow. He is faster than Langerhans and should probably be looked at as our “starting” CF for the time being. He might have caught a couple key balls that Langerhans couldn’t quite get to. Wouldn’t have mattered much, though … the team can’t hit/score.
Yes
No comment … this simply needed to be repeated
I’m not convinced. I mean, I do not think our team is good – but I think it’s better than last year’s team. I believe the problem is two-fold. First this mediocre team has, in the first two weeks of the season, consistently had bad luck. In addition, after last year’s debacle we fans are simply not tolerant of anything that doesn’t immediately look like improvement.
When I see individual posts (either from Dave or in the comments) that point out, for example, Chone Figgin’s absurdly low BABIP so far, no one argues that the point is invalid. Yet we – and I’m including myself here – don’t seem to actually accept that. When we evaluate this team, we are largely ignoring the numbers that most of us usually accept as being meaningful. We may pay lip-service to the idea that Bedard’s deserved a better result than he’s gotten, since his 8.56 ERA is absurdly high compared to his 3.97 xFIP; but when push comes to shove we apparently think he’s turned into Carlos Silva 2.0.
Again, I don’t think the 2011 Seattle Mariners are good – but I don’t think they’re as bad as they’ve played so far, or as bad as many of us seem to believe them to be.
What the heck is going on? The M’s are 4-11!? Season is over! NOT. plenty of time left….
.
If this is a yet to be named syndrome, I admit to having it.
Westside guy and dingla:
I absolutely agree with both of you, insofar as A) I agree that some of these guys still have honest to goodness value and B) the season is not over. But, for me, that doesn’t change the fact that the way the front office has chosen to rebuild doesn’t appear to be working.
Given the limitations they’ve faced, signing free agents is all but out of the question. That sucks, because, well, other teams don’t have that restriction. But, we do, so we have to find a new way to get better players. So far, Z&Co. have decided to keep Ichiro and Felix, fill the roster with so-called “stop-gap players” (what are they stopping, exactly?), and wait for the farm system to give us Ackley, this year’s No. 2, next year’s No. 1, the following year’s top-five pick, etc. Let me be clear about one thing: That way works. Tampa has a core of really talented players by building that way. As long as the fans will keep supporting a team enough to keep it in existence, we could have a contender in, say, 5 years.
But that’s 5 years.
Furthermore, what happens when guys like that get pricey, as the inevitably do? We trade them or let them go, and do it all over again. Tampa was smart enough to lock up Longoria when they had the chance, but Upton, Crawford, and others, aren’t falling for it. They’re waiting, and they’re taking the money from Boston and New York. I can’t blame them.
This is Major League Baseball in 2011. We’ve been lucky enough to hang onto Ichiro this long, and Felix signing to stay was nothing short of a miracle. But here we are. 4-11. Freefalling toward another 100-loss season. No amount of rants from Wedge or Z. can prevent that from happening, because we don’t have enough talent. We can get more, but we can’t do it fast. The fastest way, though, is to ditch guys who have value now to guys who’ll have value later.
Not sure of the context exactly, but good for you M’s Chamber of Commerce/Season Ticket Sales Manager!
Correct. Tampa also has 9 picks to make out of the first 60 selections in this years upcoming draft. The Mariners have 1 selection in the top 60 picks. Not that high picks and/or “pick” guarantee anything other than a big, beefy bonus being paid out, but Tampa is probably going to improve a lot more quickly than the Mariners.
More reason to think about trading our stars, it seems to me. I would hate to send them to the Yankees, though.
So, in that case, shall we trade Felix to the Giants instead? We won’t have to worry about having to face him more than once every few years or so, watching the tandem of him/Lincecum/Cain would be awesome…plus, we’d at least have one team within a thousand miles of here that should be consistently decent enough to root for for the 15-20 years that the M’s will continue to suck.
On this specific point, I’m going to disagree with you. I think next year’s performance will be a better indicator of whether the way Jack Z has chosen to rebuild is working or not.
I agree with Westside guy on this. As painful as it is right now to watch the Mariners; the jury will be out on GM Z for a year or 2. It takes a long time to replenish a farm system as depleted as the Mariners were at the end of the Bavasi era.
It has become respectable in 2 years. I assume it will continue to get stronger; not just because of the high draft picks we are getting for sucking so bad, but because of the pieces Jack has picked up in recent trades as well. Next year the team will be dumping a lot of the salary that is handcuffing them this year. That will provide more flexibility to put together a decent team.
For now I’m channelling my inner zen master with occasional success.
As shitty as the offense has been Minnesota has been even worse. The M’s are second in baseball in walks and top ten in stolen bases.
All hope is not lost for eventually becoming a slightly below average unit.
Five years! Five years! Guys, I’m 72 and have been supporting this team through thin and thin. (Haven’t missed an opener or closer in team’s existence.) I’m not even sure I’ll be around in five years. PUH-leeze give me something to hope for now!
I find it fascinating that it’s still all Bill Bavasi’s fault, after Zduriencik has gotten to turn over almost all of the roster since 2008 (and the ones who weren’t turned over were the players who didn’t suck, like Ichiro and Felix). Cust isn’t hitting? Bavasi’s fault. Figgins has been terrible? Bavasi’s fault. Brandon League is a rotten closer and never throws a splitter? Bavasi’s fault. Jack Wilson was a waste of money? Bavasi’s fault.
So, apparently the results are irrelevant and always Bavasi’s fault, because Zduriencik’s process isn’t Bavasi’s process?
The season isn’t over yet, and there’s plenty of time to turn things around, so it’s too soon to close out 2011, but I’ll make it simple: the number of really good GMs who have turned in back to back 100 loss seasons and gone on to championships in the modern era is basically none. Bill Bavasi has ONE 100 loss season. Billy Beane, with a lot less salary to work with than the Mariners do? Zero. So, no, in my mind, Zduriencik doesn’t get a mulligan if 2011 is a trainwreck. He used that mulligan up last year, and if the Mariners are going to have a prayer of contention in 2012, they can’t go from 95-100 losses to 90 wins- that just doesn’t happen. They need to be close enough to .500 that adding 10-15 wins gets them into contention. Adding 10-15 wins to a 95 loss team might not even get you to .500. If Zduriencik can’t build a 70-75 win team with Ichiro and Felix chipping in 10 or so WAR, and with 90 million in salary, but instead faceplants with very bad teams back to back, he’s doing it wrong. Very wrong.
eponymous coward is right. It is time to start acknowledging that some part of this debacle is attributable to Zduriencik’s moves. Figgins, for example, may be unlucky but even with regular luck he is not worth the $9Million plus we are paying him for the next few years. And . . . who was it that signed Kotchman & Byrnes last year anyway?
I want to scream everytime he signs some mid-level veteran. They aren’t worth the money and they have very poor track records. Spend the money on improving our terrible farm system – which can’t seem to develop a passable major league catcher or outfielder.
By all accounts the farm system is significantly better than it was three years ago – so what are you complaining about? How fast do you think farmhands develop?
The catchers and outfielders you’re obviously complaining about were drafted by Bavasi.
Also, where would you have gotten the cash needed to sign anything BUT mid-level veterans up until now?
We can’t really blame Z. for signing mid-level guys. We never had a shot at guys like Teixeira, Crawford, etc. Those guys cost too much. That’s sort of my point. We absolutely can’t build that way. And, because we play in a notorious pitchers park, it’s difficult for us to bring in hitters anyway. I guess that’s why I feel like the only way to bring in players is to not give them a choice. Trade for them, keep them while we can afford them, rinse and repeat—all while building through the farm system, of course. This is the Tampa model, more or less. Except, unlike Tampa, we so have some money to spend. That’s why it makes me mad to see guys like Adam Dunn get away; maybe he didn’t want to play in Seattle—I have no idea—but he’s at the fringe of we could afford in free agency. We went with Jack Cust. And, what’dya know. He just struck out again.
Jack Cust, last year with Oakland – .272/.395/.438
Adam Dunn, last year with Washington – .260/.356/.536
I agree Dunn had a better season, but Cust wasn’t exactly 2009/2010 Griffey-esque either. And Dunn actually struck out at pretty much the same rate as Cust – they both “don’t get cheated at the plate”, as the announcers like to say when talking about players that strike out a lot.
I’m in total agreement with you there.
So if the only way for the Mariners to not be a complete joke on the field is to build through the farm system, and that’s Jack Z’s only strategy, and there is no reasonable expectation that the Mariners would contend in the near team, or even pull off a close to .500 record (ignoring 2009), what exactly was the point of Chone Figgins? He’s not likely to BE a crucial part of a good Mariners team in 2014. Why are we bothering with a 90 million dollar payroll? Can’t you lose 90 games with a 50 million dollar payroll? Shouldn’t we be dumping Ichiro and Felix for as many high ceiling prospects as we can, and just raze the ruins down to dirt and rebuild like the Indians did?
I see this as pretty simple. If you can’t build a decent team with a 90 million dollar payroll and two Hall of Famers in the prime of their careers, you’re probably doing something wrong, whether your name is Bill Bavasi or Jack Zduriencik, whether you are old school or you use WAR to evaluate players. This year needs to show progress, not be a case of “well, we’re going with the kids, but we still suck, we’re only in Year Three of our glorious Five Year Plan”. Five year plans died with the Soviet Union.