Game 13, Indians at Mariners
Vargas vs Lowe, 7:10 pm.
I’m going to assume that there’s something wrong with Justin Smoak that hasn’t been made public yet, because he’s not in the line-up a night after going 4 for 5, which isn’t generally how you reward a guy for his first ever four hit performance. In Smoak’s absence, Dustin Ackley is shifting over to first base while Munenori Kawasaki replaces him at second base.
Oh, and Olivo is back behind the plate, so John Jaso is getting another night on the bench, despite Derek Lowe’s career 100 point platoon split. He’s not as drastically anti-RHB as Masterson, but as a sinker/slider right-hander, he’s the kind of guy who will likely eat Olivo alive but Jaso would have had a fighting chance again. But, hey, what do we know, we’re not Big League Managers (TM). We must never question their decisions. They know stuff.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 1B
Ichiro, RF
Montero, DH
Seager, 3B
Saunders, CF
Olivo, C
Kawasaki, 2B
Ryan, SS
Game 12, Indians at Mariners
Millwood vs Masterson, 7:05 pm.
So, we’re apparently not the only ones who have discerned that Miguel Olivo shouldn’t be playing against right-handed pitching. After week one’s all-Olivo-all-the-time line-ups, Wedge has inserted John Jaso into the DH spot tonight and put Jesus Montero behind the plate for the third time. This is likely in part a response to Justin Masterson’s career platoon splits (.601 OPS against RHBs, .787 against LHBs), but kudos to Wedge for being willing to end the Olivo-as-everyday-catcher thing in mid-April. I’m guessing he’s still going to play more than he should, but at least he’s not the de facto catcher at the moment, and Wedge is showing that he will put non-Olivo line-ups on the field.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Seager, 3B
Montero, C
Saunders, CF
Ryan, SS
Jaso, DH
Comparing Mariner Fastball Speeds: April 2012 versus (mostly) April 2011
The loss of a few ticks on Felix Hernandez’s fastball’s the talk of the town these days, and a similar drop landed George Sherrill on the disabled list. What about the rest of the staff – is everyone similarly affected? Who’s thrown harder?
I’ll be honest: I don’t have much of a point here; I don’t know what question I want to attempt to answer with the following data. In part, I wanted to get this out there to refer to later; Felix may decide to throw 94 again in May, and we’ll all look back at this in laugh. Maybe Hector Noesi will throw as hard as he was reported to have thrown in the Dominican (or in his very first Cactus League start). Maybe Kevin Millwood’s velocity will fade back to 2010 levels. This is a starting point. (To be fair, I was also inspired by a post by the great Jeff Zimmerman at Royals Review).
| Pitcher | Velo 2011 | Velo 2012 | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| George Sherrill | 89.7 | 86.6 | -3.1 |
| Felix Hernandez | 94.1 | 91.2 | -2.9 |
| Brandon League | 96.6 | 95.6 | -1 |
| Charlie Furbush | 91.6 | 91 | -0.6 |
| Hector Noesi | 93.5 | 93 | -0.5 |
| Blake Beavan | 91.5 | 91.2 | -0.3 |
| Jason Vargas | 88.1 | 88.1 | 0 |
| Steve Delabar | 94.8 | 94.8 | 0 |
| Tom Wilhelmsen | 95.6 | 95.7 | 0.1 |
| Kevin Millwood | 89.8 | 90.5 | 0.7 |
This table includes each pitcher’s average fastball velocity thus far in April compared to their fastball velocity in April of 2011. Now, many of these guys didn’t pitch in April of ’11, so I just took the first month they appeared. That’s not a great comparison, as it means Steve Delabar’s April of ’12 is being compared to his September of ’11. Charlie Furbush and Hector Noesi didn’t appear until May of 2011, Blake Beavan until July, and Kevin Millwood didn’t make the Rockies until August last year. Like I said – not ideal, but it’s what we’ve got and we’ll console ourselves with the fact that velocity stabilizes fairly quickly.
The other issue which I’ll get to below is pitch mix. I’ve used each pitcher’s most common fastball for the table; if someone throws a four-seamer but occasionally mixes in a cutter, I’ve reported the four-seamer. If they mix a four- and two-seamer, I’ve used whichever they throw most. But the FB a pitcher uses most isn’t necessarily the same across seasons. The data all come from Brooksbaseball, so the pitch IDs are done manually, not by the pitch fx algorithm. This is important in the case of Felix or even Furbush where the algorithm has had some difficulty distinguishing fastballs from change-ups.
George Sherrill tops the list as the guy with the biggest velocity drop, and it appears that the cause is a physical one. This isn’t something that came on this spring, however. In fact, it appears that Sherrill’s big velocity drop occurred mid way through 2011; his FB velocity in April of 2011 was fine (about 90), but dropped below 88MPH by June and never recovered. It dropped again at some point, as his average FB from his single April appearance was under 87, but the larger change occurred some time last May. It’ll be interesting to see if rest/physical therapy’s able to get him back to 90, or if he’s going to have to learn to live in the 87.5-88.5 range.
Thus far, Felix hasn’t suffered too much from his lack of velocity – his K rate’s not terribly different from last year’s rate, and the slight drop’s been accompanied by fewer walks, too. Obviously, it’s much too early to say a whole lot – he’s only faced one (awful) team, but he’s faced them three times. I’d rather face the A’s three times than just about anyone else in baseball, but three games against the same team – even the A’s – in a couple of weeks is difficult for a pitcher. If you’re wondering if it takes Felix a few months to hit his top velocity, well, no, it hasn’t in previous years. April was his best month of 2011 for FB velocity, and was one of his best months in 2009 and 2010. As many have pointed out, however, he may struggle in hitters counts in crucial situations if he’s not able to hit 95 on occasion. Justin Verlander’s velocity’s been fairly modest thus far compared to previous years, but he’s been able to add a few MPH in big at-bats. If Felix is able to do that, he should be fine.
Brandon League appears to be someone who needs time to reach his peak velocity. As such, I’m not too worried about his apparent velocity drop thus far. It’s exactly where he was in April of 2010, and he was hitting 97+ later in the summer. He started a bit higher last year, but got to the same peak around the same time. Hopefully, this year’s no different. It’s not like he’s struggled thus far anyway.
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MLB.com Profiles My Last Year
I feel a little weird linking to a story about myself, but since so many of you were so supportive over the last nine months or so, I think you may enjoy this story about how I got diagnosed with leukemia mixed in with a bit of the backstory behind my life. Doug Miller spent a lot of time talking with my parents, my brother, my wife, and some friends of mine to get their perspective on my situation and to share stories and pictures that I never planned on making public.
But, I’m hopeful that the story will help others. Amy and I decided to publicly live through our fight, not really knowing where it would take us, because we wanted to try and be an example of how you can have hope in situations that don’t offer a lot of it. If you get anything from this story, I’d like it to be that – regardless of what kind of circumstance you find yourself in, there’s always a reason for hope.
Minor League Wrap (4/5-15/12)
Here we are again! There was also a big pack of releases to start the season, as usual, and various players that were of interest at some point like Matt Bischoff, Jessie Nava, and Brandon Haveman found themselves on the outs. You can also find a list of players on the DL on the same page. Use this to not ask me redundant questions!
To address assorted ways in which I have been wrong to start the season, neither Smith nor Sena have been in the Mavericks rotation and instead it’s Sorce and Gillheeney, and over in Clinton, it looks like they might be using off-days to keep mileage down on certain arms (Shipers and Landazuri did a piggyback outing at one point), but Trevor Miller and Brett Shankin are in the rotation, trading off starts, and Kohlscheen isn’t.
Did you notice that two Mariners (and one former Mariner, UGH) landed on Baseball America’s inaugural Prospect Hot Sheet? Did you see where Gameday seems to have expanded to advanced-A leagues, or at least the Cal League? Did you know that the Mavericks and the Generals don’t get a day off until the 30th? Did you realize that this minor league season began with two of our affiliates playing against the Bees and AHH BEEESSSS RUNNNNNNNNNNN. . . .
To the jump!
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Game 11, Athletics at Mariners
Godfrey vs Beavan, 1:10 pm.
Hey, you’ll never guess who is catching today. Even in a day-game-after-night situation, even with a right-handed pitcher on the mound, even with John Jaso sitting around screaming “hey, coach, over here!”… Olivo’s quickly reaching Jose Vidro territory at this point. I guess we can count our blessings that he’s not hitting cleanup. Now, we’ll just have to wait and see how long it takes Eric Wedge to figure out that he doesn’t belong in the line-up at all.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Montero, DH
Seager, 3B
Saunders, LF
Olivo, C
Ryan, SS
Game 10, Athletics at Mariners
I’m not sure if Dave or anyone else is going to want to chime in. Last night was a disappointment, in a word, but certain things broke against us and it’s still pretty early. A team like this is going to have days of exciting baseball and days of mediocre baseball. It’s part of the process. Trusting the process eventually might work in Kansas City and elsewhere.
Noesi vs. Milone, 6:10 pm PDT
Today, the M’s are going up against someone they’ve never seen before. Jokes about being utterly dominated as the natural consequence of that. Milone was acquired from the Nationals in the Gio Gonzalez deal. He’s your basic left-handed change-up artist with average or slightly worse velocity and good command of his offerings. He’s unexciting, but he’s also in the major leagues, and his first name is Tomaso, not Thomas. Tomaso Milone sounds like a more exciting pitcher, or maybe the leader of some Cuban-inspired swing band. Last time out, he walked three, allowed three hits, and struck out no one in eight innings. That 100% strand rate has got to break sometime. Why not against the Mariners?
As a result of the match-up, we’re going heavy on right-handers tonight.
CF Figgins
2B Ackley
RF Ichiro!
1B Smoak
C Montero
3B Liddi
DH Olivo
LF Wells
SS Ryan
P Noesi
Game 9, Athletics at Mariners
Hernandez vs Colon, 7:10 pm.
Happy Felix Day! We’re dealing with a situation here at Haus Cameron (not related to my health, I’m fine, no worries there), so no commentary from me tonight besides “Welcome Back Mike Cameron”.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Seager, 3B
Montero, DH
Olivo, C
Saunders, CF
Ryan, SS
Sherrill –> Disabled List, Furbush –> Mariners
After six hits (two of them HRs) and a walk in only ten batters faced, George Sherrill’s been placed on the 15-day disabled list with elbow problems. Sherrill’s never been a fireballer, but his average fastball came in at under 86 MPH so far, substantially lower than it was a year ago in Atlanta, and a far cry from the nearly 91mph he averaged in his first go-round with the M’s.
To replace him, the M’s have recalled Charlie Furbush, who’s worked in relief for Tacoma. In 16 batters faced so far, Furbush has K’d six and given up just one hit. He’s only walked two. At this point, I’d expect Furbush to be a big improvement, albeit in a spot that just isn’t that important. Lucas Luetge’s been impressive so far, so Furbush can divide the LOOGY appearances with the Rule 5 kid or he can work in long relief with Erasmo Ramirez.
What I Learned This Week
Ok, so it was both a week and about two weeks, but the M’s and their full-season affiliates have now played a couple of opponents each. This is a situation ripe for reading way too much into small samples, of course. I’m aware of the danger here, but hey, we’ve been waiting for months to have real games to look at, so what the hell:
1: Felix Hernandez has enough faith in his new cutter to throw it in “real” games. In theory, this ought to be something new that he can use against lefties who are used to a steady diet of his change-up. In practice, well, this. Felix put that pitch in a pretty good spot against a hitter who hadn’t shown a lot of HR power, so it’s hard to fault him for it, but Felix missed his target badly. This’ll be something to watch in his next start – if he’s able to command the pitch well enough to hit the black, or if this is going to be relegated to a side show; something to give hitters a different look, but not something used to get outs directly. I’m excited to see what he does tonight and how he mixes the pitch in against a line-up that’s seen it already.
2: James Paxton’s off to the best start of the three top prospects in AA Jackson. A week ago, he was absolutely dominant, striking out 10 of the 19 hitters he faced with (crucially) no walks. Paxton’s command problems didn’t hurt him in the Midwest League, but bouts of wildness popped up at times in his spring training outings, so it’s great to see what he can do when he’s not yielding free passes. His second start (this past Wednesday) was less impressive, as he walked a batter and ran a number of three ball counts which increased his pitch count and led to an early exit. His command wasn’t great, but he was able to get fastballs over when he needed to and struck out 7 of the 19 Tennessee Smokies that faced him. If 4 hits, 1 walk and 7Ks are what we get in a so-so Paxton start, then he might need to move up a level. He’s got things to work on, but he’s in the enviable position of being able to throw fastballs by people in 3-1 counts and feel pretty confident that if they’re hit, they won’t be hit hard. That approach probably won’t work in MLB and it probably wouldn’t be as effective in the video-game run environments of the PCL. I’d initially thought that Danny Hultzen might move quicker given his pedigree and the fact that he’s on the 40-man, but Paxton’s first week was eye-opening.
3: Danny Hultzen’s debut was a lot better than the box score may indicate; he K’d 7 hitters, generated a lot of ground balls (several of which went for hits), and his command issues may be a combination of nerves and a tight zone (Cameron Bayne of Birmingham, a guy with decent career walk rates, walked 5 in 4 2/3 IP too). I’m still worried that his arm slot might give him problems against good right-handed hitters, but righties weren’t a huge problem last week (it could be argued that the White Sox system doesn’t have anyone that could be described as a “good right-handed hitter”). 3 of the runs charged to Hultzen scored on Yoervis Medina’s watch, but the first two were legitimate. After a one-out single, Hultzen gave up a triple to a very flawed lefty in Birmingham’s Jared Mitchell, and then scored Mitchell on a wild pitch. He’s facing a slightly better line-up today in the Cubs AA affiliate so we’ll hopefully know more this evening. The game starts at 4:15 pacific (so, in just a few minutes), and it’ll be shown live on milb.tv.
4: The High Desert Mavericks are going to score a lot of runs. No, I’m serious. While their league and park are such that a random smattering of commenters here could be counted on to plate a couple runs per game, the Mavs have several great hitters with college experience. Last year’s Mavs had several very talented, high-ceiling hitters that were drafted out of high school and moved up through the ranks – Nick Franklin was the biggest name, but Denny Almonte and Danny Carroll were tools picks out of high school. This year’s team includes SS Brad Miller, Cs John Hicks and Jack Marder, IFs Stefen Romero and Steven Proscia. So far, the college guys are getting it done – they’ve scored over 8 runs a game, and are slugging .565 as a team. Yes, the park is silly in some ways, and yes, it’s difficult to properly evaluate anyone playing there, but this isn’t 100% park effect – the team has the fewest strikeouts and the most walks in the California League.
(Incidentally, if you have the twitters and want to follow High Desert, give Victorville Daily Press reporter Kyle Glaser a follow – @KyleAGlaser)
5: Kyle Seager’s pretty good. After his long HR yesterday, Seager’s got the team’s best wOBA and he’s K’d only twice in 29 plate appearances – the latter stat’s interesting, as the M’s led the league in both swinging strike rate and strikeout rate in 2011. These whiffs obviously weren’t balanced out by power, patience or much of anything. While I viewed Bill Bavasi’s bizarre antipathy to Ks as counterproductive (ahhh, Jose Vidro), the fact remains that the M’s couldn’t even get lucky on balls in play when they were incapable of hitting balls in play. Seager’s absurd sub-3% whiff rate will regress, but I think last season’s call-up undersold his contact ability. Again, the contact rate is perfectly fine, but it’s got to be accompanied by something more – and after a 446 foot HR off of a lefty, I’d say Seager’s showing signs that he can hit the ball with more authority than he did last year. Now that the line-up’s been De-Custed (and with Carlos Peguero recuperating), there are only a few whiff-prone hitters in the everyday line-up. Miguel Olivo’s the big offender, of course, but if this team wants to avoid shutouts in Arlington, Justin Smoak’s going to have to improve his plate discipline a bit more.