Game 125, Mariners at Rays
Pineda vs. Shields, 10:40am
Happy Pineda morning! I sincerely hope we get a more watchable game then yesterday’s pathetic loss. After getting shut down by a mediocre pitcher on Friday, and then by an above-average one yesterday, the M’s try to avoid getting swept versus James Shields, the best starter (statistically) they’ll face. A long-time favorite of Dave Cameron’s, Shields has a great change-up that’s allowed him to neutralize left-handed hitters. Whereas Jeremy Hellickson’s still struggling against lefties, Shields’ xFIP against lefties is under 3.00, and his FIP is 3.22. He’s given up a few more HRs, but he’s struck out over a quarter of the lefties to face him.
The biggest outlier in his 2011 stats is his HR rate. Shields has always had a HR problem, but he hasn’t been hurt by it this year. This may be due to some HR/FB luck, or his improvement infield pop-up rate may be the result of an improved approach. It certainly wasn’t in evidence when Shields faced the M’s in early June. He yielded HRs to Jack Cust, Justin Smoak and two to Carlos Peguero en route to a 4 IP, 8 R, 3 BB, 4 K disaster start at Safeco Field – a game that probably bought Peguero another month on the big league roster.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Wells (LF)
6: Kennedy (3b)
7: Pena (DH)
8: Seager (SS)
9: Bard
The Rainiers are in Reno for Game 2 of their series against the first-place Aces. They came back from a 5-0 hole yesterday to take a 7-6 lead, then Cesar Jimenez gave up two in the 8th for the loss.
Jackson’s slumping too – they were swept in 4 games by Tennessee, and start a series against Mobile today with Andrew Carraway starting the first game.
Carter Capps makes his 2nd start in the M’s system for Clinton today. Ambioris Hidalgo gets the ball for Pulaski, as Alfredo Morales and Guillermo Pimentel try to recapture their early season form, while Tyler Marlette adjusts to wood bats (he’s 1-8 in two games so far).
Game, er, 124 – Mariners at Rays
Furbush vs. Hellickson, 4:10pm
(Please note: the Seahawks preseason game preempts the M’s on 710AM radio, so if you’re looking for the game, head to 770AM instead)
So, uh, THIS is game 124 I think. And again, the M’s face a solid young righthander who throws in the low 90s. Hellickson and Wade Davis were both highly regarded, but while Hell Boy’s tRA/FIP aren’t much to write home about, Hellickson’s probably surpassed Davis at this point.
The difference is that Hellickson has a legitimate plus pitch in his arsenal – the change-up – that Davis doesn’t. As a result, Hellickson’s able to get more strikeouts (though not as many as I would’ve thought) and thus keep his strand rate a bit higher. Hellickson throws his curve about 1/3 of the time, and gets whiffs on over 20% of them – that’s over 1/3 of all swings on his change. That sort of stuff has his change-up’s value up with teammate James Shields or Ricky Romero in the Fangraphs leaderboard. No, it’s not as good as Felix’s or Hamels’, but it’s up there.
You’d think this would help Hellickson stay out of trouble against lefties, but he’s run FIP/xFIPs in the 5s against lefties in his brief career. Oddly for a pitch with good arm-side run, Hellickson uses his change-up more often against *righties* and he’s generated more whiffs against righties than lefties. His big problem against lefties has been control. Hellickson had great walk rates in the minors, but they’ve been quite pedestrian this year, and he’s given up about as many free passes to lefties as he’s struck out. He hasn’t shown command problems against the M’s, of course, walking only 2 in 14 1/3 solid innings in 2 starts against Seattle (both walks came against lefties).
Like Charlie Furbush, Hellickson’s a fly ball guy, so he’s going to need to keep Carp/Wily Mo/Ackley in the ballpark. I’d love to see Pena attack the catwalks at Tropicana, but I fear Hellickson’s change might make this a poor match-up.
Wedge put together a lefty-heavy line-up today, as Dustin Ackley’s back after his day off:
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Olivo
6: Rodriguez
7: Pena
8: Seager
9: Robinson
* Brendan Ryan came off the DL as Jack Wilson went on it, but Rodriguez gets his second consecutive start at SS (Rodriguez got the start, but Seager’s at SS tonight after Rodriguez took a pitch off his elbow in his first AB).
* Nick Franklin went 3-4 with a triple in his return to AA.
* Tacoma got swept at home by Omaha, and now head to first-place Reno for a big series – Mike Curto talks about it here. They’ve got a lot of ground to make up in 17 games, so they really need to win/sweep this series.
* Today’s a big sports day in Seattle, with the M’s game, the sole Seahawks preseason game and a Sounders match all competing for eyeballs.
Game 124, Mariners at Rays
King Felix vs. Wade Davis, 4:10pm
Happy Felix Day! Let’s focus there and not on the fact that Ackley’s sitting this one out.
The M’s travel across the country to St. Pete to take on the Rays, who, despite being talented and relatively successful this year, are playing out their season the same as the M’s. At this point, BP’s playoff odds gives them a 0.7% chance of grabbing the wild card. Rays fans can dream about top prospect Matt Moore getting a cup of coffee this September, as the consensus top pitching prospect is now 3-0 with 57 Ks in his first 34 2/3 IP for AAA Durham.
Once he’s up for good, today’s starter might find himself the odd man out. Wade Davis had a deceptively good start, with an ERA near 2.8 through May 3rd, but then his HR/FB luck ran out and he’s been hit pretty hard since. Now, the guy who was once a top 20 prospect in all of baseball needs to reinvent himself as he’s got a K rate is nearing Beavan territory, and Davis doesn’t have Beavan’s good control. On paper, this is a good match-up for the M’s.
That said, Wedge has chosen to rest the “struggling” Dustin Ackley, who’s 8 for his last 42 with only one extra-base hit in that stretch. Still, during this slump, he’s got an OBP of .346. During his worst stretch since his call-up, Ackley’s line looks a lot like that put up by Jack Cust, who was, depressingly, one of the M’s best hitters through mid-July. Kyle Seager gets the start in Ackley’s place; this should allow Seager to show off his versatility to the M’s while hitting against a righty who doesn’t miss bats.
The line-up:
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Kennedy (3B)
4: Carp
5: Wells (DH)
6: Olivo
7: Rodriguez
8: Seager (2B)
9: Robinson
In the minors, the AA Jackson Generals have shuffled things around after James Paxton was shut down. IF prospect Nick Franklin returns today from the DL/AZL rehab, and seeing how he closes out his season will be one of the big things to watch down the stretch. He’s been out since late June with a concussion and mononucleosis. Rich Poythress is also on the DL with a back injury, which is too bad considering the progress he made since his horrible start to 2011. Yoervis Medina (1-13 with an RA of 8.00) replaces Paxton in the Generals rotation.
Tacoma’s trying to stay in the PCL playoff hunt, but they’re slumping at the wrong time. Jarrett Grube starts tonight against Omaha at Cheney.
Jose Campos, one of the top prospects in the NWL, gets the ball in today’s matinee in Vancouver. Campos has 63 Ks to 9 BBs in 62 innings, to go with a good GB rate and very good raw stuff.
Casper Wells Day-to-Day, James Paxton shut down
Casper Wells took a Brandon Morrow fastball to the face tonight, but his nose is somehow, impossibly, not broken. He turned his face, and the ball just glanced off his nose such that it left it bloodied but essentially unscathed. The play looked ugly, but a broken nose would’ve resulted in a lot more blood and gore. A shaken Wells spoke to reporters after the game, and Eric Wedge said that he was day-to-day; no DL time.
Meanwhile, lefty James Paxton, who was a late scratch for AA Jackson, has been shut down for the year according to, er, Paxton, via Jackson radio guy Chris Harris. Honestly, it makes sense given Paxton’s winding path to the high minors (and some back pain). Shutting him down after 95 innings could also allow him to play in the Arizona Fall League along side Danny Hultzen; we’ll see. The M’s have a lot of options for the AFL this year, and the Peoria Javelinas should be a fun team to watch this November.
Game 122 – Blue Jays at Mariners
Beavan vs. Morrow, 7:10pm
This is one of my favorite pitching match-ups of the season. Not only do we have a couple of young starters facing line-ups that feature interesting prospects, we’ve got an object lesson in different approaches to analyzing baseball. No, seriously.
Every bit as enigmatic/frustrating as he was in Seattle, Brandon Morrow enters tonight’s game with an ERA of 4.55, a tRA of 3.96 and a FIP of 3.08. Blake Beavan’s sporting an ERA of 3.59, a tRA of 5.27 and a FIP of 4.46. Morrow’s strikeout rate is in a dead heat with Justin Verlander’s for the best in the AL. Beavan’s would be the worst, if he qualified (Sean O’Sullivan’s is a tiny bit worse amongst the guys with less-than-50 IP, just to remind everyone of one of the most disheartening losses of the year). Morrow’s ERA is below average despite great fielding-independent stats, while Beavan’s ERA is much lower than his fielding-independent stats would predict.
While Beavan’s benefited from a low BABIP, Morrow hasn’t been troubled with a freakishly high one. Instead, he’s suffering from poor sequencing. While Beavan’s stranded nearly 80% of runners, Morrow’s down at 62.5%. With the bases empty, Morrow’s FIP is 2.67. With RISP, it rises to 4.14.* Beavan’s, predictably, goes the other direction. It’s at 5.00 with no one on, but drops to 3.17 with RISP. These are one-year samples, and they’re absurdly tiny in Beavan’s case, but I’m not trying to make a point about their true talent or their psychology (“Morrow can’t handle pressure!”). I’m just asking: what do YOU do with these numbers? If we’re going to determine who’s been the more valuable pitcher, you have to make a choice about what value means to YOU. We all make slightly different determinations, whether explicitly or implicitly. If you want to focus on actual runs given up by the actual Brandon Morrow/Blake Beavan, then you might come up with something like rWAR at baseball-reference, which has the two essentially tied with 1 WAR despite Morrow’s huge advantage in innings pitched. If you want to isolate certain features of their performance – the components that are least impacted by their teammates, say – you’d come up with something more like fWAR at Fangraphs, and you’d rate Brandon Morrow ten times more valuable than Beavan. Ten times!
When someone says they hate WAR, they’re probably just implicitly weighting different factors. That is, they may just hate FIP. Or ERA+, or UZR, or RF, etc. Just disregarding fWAR/rWAR entirely can be problematic, as it can lead you to weight things differently for different players based on who you grew up idolizing, who got that huge double that won a game you attended, or who is Chris Jakubauskas. But you CAN do it systematically and come up with very, very different numbers that are just as “real,” just as sabermetric-y, as b-ref’s or Fangraphs.
* – For someone with better results with no one on, you’d figure Morrow would ditch his childish habit of walking everyone.
The line-up that will try to get Morrow into RISP-situations:
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Wells
6: Robinson
7: Seager
8: Bard
9: Wilson
It’s starting to feel almost like a set line-up. Bard’s in for Olivo after the latter had his “bell rung” last night.
In the minors tonight, James Paxton had his start for Jackson skipped/moved, so instead of seeing one of the best non-Matt Moore lefties in the minors, Generals fans get Moises Hernandez tonight.
Forrest Snow starts for the Rainiers against Omaha and Jeff Suppan, Nathan Reed faces off against Inland Empire, Steven Landazuri goes for Everett against Eugene, and Dylan Unsworth’s currently battling Greeneville in the Appy league.
Chance Ruffin is named
Imagine waiting 18 days before your parents gave you a name. I trust Chance Ruffin’s parents didn’t wait that long to give him a name, but the Tigers and Mariners did. (Then again, when you’re 18 days old, how much do you care? Chance Ruffin is 22, so he’s probably all kinds of annoyed that nobody wanted to give him a name. I suppose they can say it’s his own fault for waiting until the signing deadline last year to put that name on a contract.) Anyway, Ruffin is now officially the player who was to be named later from the Fister-Pauley-Wells-Furbush-Martinez trade.
Ruffin comes straight into the bullpen, taking the place of Aaron Laffey, who has been designated for assignment. Laffey has looked pretty bad lately, and the team seems to have soured on him. This leaves them without a left-hander in the pen (Ruffin is right-handed), but Laffey wasn’t really a lefty specialist, and lefty specialists are overrated.
Guys who now figure to be part of the bullpen to start off 2012, based on the current roster: Ruffin, Brandon League (if he isn’t traded), Shawn Kelley, Josh Lueke, maybe Dan Cortes. There’s enough flexibility that some low-cost spring training invites could work their way in, but the existing base is enough that nobody should have delusions that signing free-agent relievers is a big priority for the offseason.
Sanchez and Leal signings official
Just because the signing deadline has passed, doesn’t mean they can’t keep signing players. Jay covered this a little while ago, and now the Mariners have officially announced the signings of two 16-year-old Venezuelans, RHP Victor Sanchez and OF Jose Leal. Bob Engle says they considered Sanchez the top-rated international prospect available.
Previously reported bonus amounts were $2.5 million and $1,925,000, respectively, which of course the team’s announcement doesn’t comment on. Anyway, clearly they’re considered key acquisitions, but it will be 4-5 years before they’d even start to appear in the picture as potential contributors, so just tuck them away in the back of your brain for now.
Both of these guys are from Venezuela, and there’s no word on signings from the Dominican Republic or elsewhere. The team may announce more international signings at some point down the road. Still nothing new on OF Helsin Martinez (who was rumored to have signed last month, a report that Engle refuted) that I know about.
Game 121, Blue Jays at Mariners
Vargas vs. Mills, 7:10pm
Jason Vargas and Brad Mills face off tonight in a match-up of soft-tossing lefties trying to keep the ball in the stadium. Both have pretty good change-ups, and that’s nice, because neither’s going to do much with their fastball. Mills’ averages a hair under 85 MPH, which isn’t good, and what’s worse is that he has trouble commanding it.
Will wonders never cease? This line-up looks awfully familiar:
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Wells
6: Olivo
7: Robinson
8: Seager
9: Wilson
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It’s amazing how much easier it is to fill out a line-up card when you’ve got hitters. Wells vs. Mills seems like a good match-up for the M’s.
The Rainiers open a series against the Omaha Storm Chasers tonight at Cheney. I’d circled this one at the beginning of the season, as Omaha had what looked like the best assemblage of talent in the minors – Mike Moustakas, Eric Hosmer, Danny Duffy, Mike Montgomery, Johnny Giavotella, etc. Well, all of the above except Montgomery are now playing in Kansas City. They’re still pretty good, but it looks like they’re relying more on vets (Jeff Suppan!) and once-prospects (Vin Mazzaro, Kila Ka’aihue, Robinson Tejeda). That’s fine, as I want the Rainiers to keep up their scoring pace and lead the PCL in runs scored. Reno’s got a commanding lead at this point, but given that Wily Mo Pena now plays for Seattle instead, I don’t think the lead is safe.
Clinton and the entire Midwest League has a day off for travel and for roster shenanigans as they prepare to add players who signed at last night’s deadline. Should be fun to see where some of the new guys end up.
The Jays not only lost last night’s game, they also failed to sign their first-rounder, pitcher Tyler Beede. There’d been a lot of talk that they’d worked out a pre-draft deal – rumors which GM Alex Anthopolous angrily scuttled earlier (he’s been doing a lot of that these days). Anthopolous has had an amazing year, and they were able to sign their sandwich pick for a $1.65m deal (so it’s not like they’re totally empty handed), but losing Beede has to sting a bit.
Hultzen signs
Mariners 1st-round pick Danny Hultzen signed just ahead of the deadline. It’s a major-league contract, so Chris Ray was released to make room on the 40-man roster. Ray seemed to be improving after a horrible start to the year, but has never really gotten back to where he was five years ago with the Orioles. He was most recently on the disabled list, and you can probably give the team the benefit of the doubt in making the call about how well he might recover and whether he could contribute in the future. While the bullpen for next year is hardly settled, it’s not like Zduriencik can’t bring in a lot of spare parts (which is what Ray was in the first place) and cobble it together again in spring training.
All of the other high picks except for 3rd-rounder Kevin Cron have also signed. In place of Cron, they get a compensatory pick in the supplemental 3rd round next year. Unlike the 1st and 2nd rounds, makeup picks for the 3rd round come at the end of the round, not in the slot immediately after the unsigned pick. While generally you would rather have them sign, it’s nice that the front office gets another shot at finding a good player. You lose a little in terms of present value (effectively, the extra development time the player would get compared to someone in next year’s draft), but that difference isn’t nearly as dramatic as it would be for a higher draft pick like Hultzen.
Game 120 – Blue Jays at Mariners
Michael Pineda vs. Henderson Alvarez, 7:10pm
Happy Pineda Day!
The M’s welcome the Blue Jays to Safeco tonight as both teams trot out some of the young guys they hope to contend with in some glorious, Yankee-less future. 3B Brett Lawrie hasn’t slowed down following his promotion, Colby Rasmus is adjusting to life without Tony LaRussa and tonight, 21-year old RHP Henderson Alvarez makes his second MLB start.
Alvarez is a righty who sat in the mid-90s in his debut against Oakland 5 days ago, touching 97. He appears to have two fastballs, a change and a slider, but he’s not a swing-and-miss pitcher – he’s a ground ball guy. He maintained 50%+ rates at every stop in the minors, which, combined with low walk rates, helped him work around the fact that he doesn’t miss bats. Good velocity and an amazingly easy entry into the majors (Oakland, then Seattle away?) have helped him, but he’s not a good MLB player yet. He had a tRA in AA of over 4, and he got 5 swinging strikes in over 100 pitches against a terrible A’s offense in his first start. He has no business shutting out an M’s line-up that just acquitted themselves quite well against the Boston Red Sox. And yes, I now almost expect that he will.
1: Ichiro
2: Gutierrez
3: Ackley
4: Carp
5: Wells (DH)
6: Olivo
7: Robinson
8: Seager
9: Wilson
Other notes:
* Carter Capps makes his M’s system debut tonight for Clinton in the Midwest League.
* The Detroit Tigers acquired Delmon Young from Minnesota to shore up their corner OF situation, a situation they caused/exacerbated by trading Casper Wells to the M’s. No take-backs.
* The Rainiers close out a 4-game series at home against the Iowa Cubs, led by slugging 1B Bryan LaHair (who broke up Erasmo Ramirez’s shot at a CG shut-out last night with a 9th inning homer).
* Nick Franklin’s working his way back into game shape, playing in the Arizona League. Unfortunately, he went 0-5 with 4 Ks and two fielding errors today. Patience.
* The aforementioned Erasmo Ramirez had his best outing with the Rainiers last night, going 8 1/3 IP of 1 R, 7 H, 0 BB, 11 K ball against Iowa. He really struggled near the end of his tenure with Jackson, but this is still a great year for him. He sat at 94 for much of the game, and while he’s not been very consistent, I will call Henderson Alvarez a poor man’s Erasmo Ramirez for however long the former’s in the league.