AL West Prospects: April Update
A little over a month ago, we took a look at the rookies (and almost-rookies) that might influence the divisional race in 2011. With a month in the books, let’s see how they’re doing:
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Game 30, Rangers At Mariners
Bedard vs Ogando, 7:10 pm.
Running behind tonight, so no snazzy opening paragraphs from me.
Ichiro, RF
Figgins, 3B
Kennedy, 2B
Olivo, C
Smoak, 1B
Cust, DH
Saunders, CF
Langerhans, LF
Ryan, SS
Taijuan Walker Promoted to Clinton
Perhaps you’re despondent over the fact that James Paxton was scheduled to start last night and didn’t. This should perk you right up. The Lumberkings announced a short time ago that 2010 supplemental first-round pick RHP Taijuan Walker has been promoted to Clinton from extended spring training, along with RH Jandy Sena. RHP Seon Gi Kim went back to Peoria and RHPs Tyler Blandford and Matt Bischoff went on the DL. Walker is scheduled to pitch on Thursday, but the rotation has been in flux for a while, and that information is subject to change.
Walker came into the organization as a strong arm with little polish, having spent most of his earlier years playing basketball. His pre-draft reports had him pitching 91-3 and touching the mid-90s on rare instances, offsetting it with a curve and a slider. Then over the winter, something started to happen. Reports started coming in of his curve developing into a potential plus pitch and that he was sitting in the mid-90s and touching 98. A recent game in extended had him at eight strikeouts in four innings, sitting 95-97 the whole time.
All this information is counterproductive to what I’m going to try to tell you next: remain calm. Walker is going from nice and sunny weather to the Midwest League in the spring. The weather might not be good, the velocity might be down, and yeah, he’ll probably fall behind hitters. But the information we have now would suggest that Walker is a lot closer to what we hoped he would be than he was when he was drafted, and may have been a pretty savvy pick on the part of the scouting dept.
Vargas On Vargas
First of all, I’m glad to be back writing for USS Mariner this season. I think this site is great, and I love the insight Dave and the other posters offer. I don’t pretend to be smart enough to break down the statistics the way Dave does, but I am lucky enough to have access to the clubhouse. So, I’ll try to offer the occasional look from a player’s perspective. You can agree or disagree with my conclusions or with the players’ point of view…just try to remember that we often see the game differently than they do.
I noticed a post from Dave a few weeks ago that mentioned Jason Vargas has been throwing significantly fewer fastballs this year. On April 18, Dave wrote:
In 2009, his first year in Seattle, [Vargas] threw 69% fastballs. Last year, he threw 60% fastballs. This year? 49% fastballs. It looks like he’s relied on his slider a lot more frequently in his first three starts, and he still throws a ton of change-ups – his best pitch by far. Given that his fastball is 87 without a ton of movement, throwing it less often seems like a pretty good plan to me.
The analysis makes sense. But I wondered if Vargas was even aware of the change, let alone if there was a reason behind it. So I asked.
“Really?” he asked me. “Huh. I’m not surprised but it hasn’t been intentional. I guess I would wonder what counts I’ve been in. I think I’ve been ahead of more hitters so I have been able to go to other pitches.”
He’s right. Amazingly, without reading my notes, Dave noticed the same thing. A week later (on April 23rd), he wrote that Vargas had a “big jump in first strike percentage (69.8% so far this year), allowing him to pitch ahead in the count and allocate most of his whiffs to two-strike situations where they’ll result in a knockout.”
Seems pretty simple. Case closed, right?
Sort of.
I also asked catcher Chris Giminez about the fastball dropoff and he had another theory.
“He’s been throwing a ton of cutters,” Giminez told me after catching Vargas against Oakland. “We used it against both right handed hitters and lefties. It’s an in-between speed so it might not show up as a fastball or a breaking ball.”
Interesting.
“We used it against righties to go front door for a strikeout looking,” Giminez continued. “Actually, we might have thrown 25 or 30 of them in the game. Or, versus righties we also went ‘fastball away, cutter away, changeup.’ It was all to set up the change for strike three. Honestly, his changeup is so good though, that we even tripled up on it.”
So why does the cutter work so well with the changeup?
The answer lies in the secret to a good changeup. Whereas most of us were taught that the change’s success depends on using the same arm angle, delivery and arm speed of a fastball, Vargas believes that isn’t enough to fool major league hitters.
“Most guys are paying more attention to the spin on the ball than anything else,” he explains. “The changeup has to spin like a fastball to be truly effective.”
As it turns out, his cutter “looks the same to righties as the changeup,” so he has been able to use it as a set-up pitch. But it has a nice fringe benefit as well.
Vargas likes to use the cutter to saw off he lefties inside or to get righties to hit it off the end of the bat.
“I think I am getting a ton of ground balls off that pitch,” he believes.
Survey says? True again.
According to Dave, Vargas is inducing groundballs 42.4% of the time this year compared to 36.3% last year and 35.2% for his career. The league average is ~43%, so he’s been basically an average groundball pitcher in 2011, despite being an extreme flyball pitcher for his career.
It remains to be seen how this will affect Vargas’s numbers. He has had some success since coming to Seattle, especially considering the way he has used Safeco’s dimensions to get flyball outs. But as players constantly remind me, success in the big leagues is all about adjustments. It’s not like he was a Cy Young candidate before, so adding to his repertoire seems like a great move to me.
I told Vargas about the change in his groundball/flyball ratio and he was not surprised. The next question, I suppose, is whether he will use that information to help him pitch differently at different parks.
“Honestly, my approach changes according to the lineup,” he told me. “Against a line drive hitting team like Oakland, I try to keep it on the outside corner.”
But that wouldn’t work against a home run hitting team like the Blue Jays.
“No, against them I tried to go inside early. I had to. You just can’t let them get their arms extended.”
Of course, Vargas is 1-2 this year with an ERA over 5. So maybe it’s time for him to throw more fastballs! Or maybe, we should let him work his way through this adjustment. Only time will tell.
Mike Salk is the co-host of Brock and Salk, heard weekday mornings from 9 to noon on 710 ESPN. You can read Dave’s posts on his blog every other Thursday.
Also, Matthew Carruth wrote about Vargas’ rising ground ball rates over at Lookout Landing today. Keep in mind that the slider and cutter are often tough to distinguish between, so what Matthew is calling a slider and what Vargas is calling a cutter is likely the same pitch.
Off-Day Rainiers Game Thread
The Rainers are at home to take on Tucson tonight at 7:05. Fabio Castro takes the hill for Tacoma, while Franklin Gutierrez will begin his rehab assignment by hitting leadoff and playing DH. The M’s have said that he won’t play the whole game. They’ll work him in slowly, since this is basically his spring training all over again.
You can catch Mike Curto calling the game online or listen to 850 AM in the Seattle area.
Minor League Wrap (4/25/-5/1/11)
We were 12-13 this week, so I guess things seem to be on the up-and-up, particularly with the high minors affiliates. In this wrap, we talk defense, High Desert mirages, players on the rebound, and the debut of a very important pitcher. Also Horacio Ramirez makes an appearance.
To the jump!
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Game 29: Mariners at Red Sox
10:35am, Felix vs. Wakefield
Any hope I had for the 2011 Mariners at the onset of the season season was burned up a week ago … or so I thought. But here we sit following a five game winning streak and suddenly the Mariners are just 3.5 games back of the AL West-leading Texas Rangers and have a better win-loss record than four American League squads with playoff aspirations in the Red Sox, Twins, White Sox and Tigers. Hope is restored.
That’s not to say my expectations have changed because they haven’t, but as long as the Mariners are within shouting distance there is that hope that players will remain hot and the bounces will continue to go our way. The longer it lasts the better; I can only make it so far drawing positives from the play of Justin Smoak and Michael Pineda while dreaming of the next great Mariner team.
Happy Felix Day! The King worried some people with a couple of clunker starts in the middle of April but a fine bounce-back against Oakland has alleviated much of the concern. If he’s going to kick it up yet another level, however, it seems like this game — at Fenway Park with a winning streak on the line — provides a good opportunity. Opposing him will be the ancient knuckleballer Tim Wakefield who gets the spot start while Clay Buchholz deals with a tummy ache. Jack Cust has to be excited as he figures to receive a fastball he can actually catch up with for the first time all season.
RF Ichiro!
3B Chone Figgins
LF Ryan Langerhans
C Miguel Olivo
1B Justin Smoak
DH Jack Cust
SS Luis Rodriguez
CF Michael Saunders
2B Jack Wilson