Game 8, Mariners at Rangers
Vargas vs Holland, 11:05 am.
So, today’s line-up is a little weird. It’s a day-game-after-night situation, so it’s not unusual to see some of the reserves play, but Wedge is also taking advantage of the fact that the team is facing a left-handed starter to get a couple of little used right-handed bats in the line-up today. So, if you’ve been wanting to see more of Casper Wells (as I have) and Alex Liddi (okay, not so much), then today is your day.
To make room for those two in the line-up, Saunders and Ackley take a seat, with Figgins moving to center and Seager shifting to second. Also, Olivo’s back in there at catcher, but against an LHP, they don’t really have a better option. Even after Jaso’s two hits last night, there’s no real value in having him in the line-up today – Holland would tear him up.
Figgins, CF
Liddi, 3B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Montero, DH
Seager, 2B
Olivo, C
Wells, LF
Ryan, SS
Game 7, Mariners at Rangers
Millwood vs Lewis, 5:05 pm.
Eric Wedge has answered our prayers – Miguel Olivo is not in today’s starting line-up. Jesus Montero makes his debut behind the plate for the team, while John Jaso makes his first appearance of the year at DH. He’s hitting 9th – behind Brendan Ryan – which should tell you all you need to know about what Wedge thinks of him as a hitter, but, hey, Jaso and Montero are both playing and Olivo is not. I’ll take it any way I can get it.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Seager, 3B
Montero, C
Saunders, CF
Ryan, SS
Jaso, DH
It’s Time For Miguel Olivo To Be Accountable
Eric Wedge is big on accountability, and last night, he benched Brendan Ryan for an issue that he chalked up to that very reason. We could debate the merits of this kind of public-punishment leadership style, but that’s probably another post. The reality is that Wedge has made it clear that if you screw up, your spot in the line-up is in danger.
Unless, of course, your name is Miguel Olivo.
The Mariners have played 53 innings of baseball so far this year – Olivo has been behind the plate for every single one of them. John Jaso is the only position player who has not yet seen any action in 2012, and it’s pretty clear that Wedge intends on playing Olivo just as frequently as he did last year, when Olivo made 120 starts and caught 1,064 of the team’s 1,433 innings. And it apparently doesn’t matter how many times Olivo fails to perform the basic fundamental tasks asked of a catcher – his playing time is just not in jeopardy.
Take last night, for instance. In the second inning, Adrian Beltre led off with a double to put a man in scoring position. Blake Beavan then got Michael Young to bounce back to the mound, and they were able to get Beltre out at third. Young was able to advance to second on the play, however, so the situation remained the same – man in scoring position, one out.
Then, on the 1-1 pitch to Nelson Cruz, Beavan threw this 75 MPH curveball:
The pitch was down in the zone and a little bit outside, but it was a fairly routine stop for any Major League catcher. Olivo stabbed at the ball rather than dropping to his knees (catching 101), and the ball got away from him, so Young moved up to third base. He would then score on an infield single by David Murphy, and that would end up being the only run in the game. It’s not fair to say that Olivo’s misplay was the only reason they lost, but it directly led to the only run the team allowed all night, and it is fair to say that Olivo has no excuse for not stopping that pitch.
You know, except for the fact that he’s apparently unwilling or unable to become a reasonably passable defensive catcher.
Miguel Olivo broke in to the Major Leagues in 2003, starting 98 games for the White Sox as a rookie. Despite being just a part-time player, he still managed to allow 8 passed balls, third most in the American League. Since then, here’s his season passed ball totals and where they rank in his respective league:
2004 – 13 (2nd)
2005 – 7 (in only 690 IP, dumped by Mariners at midseason)
2006 – 10 (1st)
2007 – 16 (1st)
2008 – 4 (injured, only started 56 games)
2009 – 10 (1st)
2010 – 10 (1st)
2011 – 11 (3rd)
Last year was the first time in five years that Olivo had been healthy and not led his league in passed balls. He was eclipsed only by Toronto rookie J.P. Arencibia and Boston’s Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who was tasked with catching knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, so in reality, his PB total requires a large asterisk.
And, as we saw last night, a lot of easily stopped balls end up getting classified as wild pitches by the official scorer, and Olivo doesn’t take any kind of official hit for those. You will probably not be shocked to learn that, in addition to the official passed balls, the Mariners threw 68 “wild pitches”, fifth most in baseball. It’s impossible to know just how many of those wild pitches were actually balls that Olivo should have stopped, but you can bet there were more than a couple.
Catching the ball is the basic fundamental skill required of the position – it’s why they’re called “Catchers”. Miguel Olivo is absolutely terrible at this, and has been for a very long time. He’s the active leader in passed balls by a mile – he has 92, the next highest is Ramon Hernandez at 78 – and he has almost twice as many as the #4 guy on the list. That guy, Yadier Molina, has almost exactly the same number of career innings behind the dish, coming out at 7,715 compared to Olivo’s 7,700. Molina has allowed 48 passed balls. Now, he’s the best defensive catcher in the sport, but we’re talking 44 extra passed balls, or about six extra PB every single year. And again, this doesn’t count the ones that aren’t called passed balls like the pitch Beavan threw last night.
If Eric Wedge is going to bluster about “playing the game the right way” and “being accountable”, Miguel Olivo should be on the bench today. In reality, he should be on the bench most days, as he is a disaster of a baseball player, and has no future with this organization. Since signing back with the M’s, he’s posted a .247 on base percentage. Two-Forty-Seven. He refuses to stop chasing pitches out of the zone, and is the easiest out in the line-up every single night. He’s abysmal defensively. He’s 33, and thankfully in the last year of his contract. That he’s still playing every day for a rebuilding team with a legitimate alternative (or two, if you think Montero is ready to catch occasionally) is a legitimate problem, and Wedge’s love affair with Olivo is not only costing the team wins but undermines this entire concept of accountability.
Miguel Olivo is perhaps of the least fundamentally sound player in the sport. He either cannot or will not improve on his obvious flaws. And yet, he plays. Every single day.
It’s ridiculous and it should come to an end. If Jack needs to release Olivo in order to get him out of the line-up, so be it. Olivo brings nothing to the table that can’t be easily replaced, and the team would be better off with him letting balls roll to the backstop in another uniform.
Game 6, Mariners at Rangers
Yesterday, the M’s got to face a guy making his US/MLB debut, and today they face Neftali Feliz who’ll be making his first MLB start. Feliz was one of baseball’s hottest commodities in 2008/9; he was acquired in the massive Mark Teixeira deal that essentially remade the Rangers, and Feliz quickly rose through the ranks to become a top 10 prospect in all of baseball. He had the classic power pitcher’s arsenal and high-90s velocity, and it seemed like it was only a matter of time before he began laying waste to the AL.
The Rangers eased him in to the bigs in 2009 by using him as their set-up man in the bullpen. In 31 innings, he struck out 39 hitters and yielded 8 walks. The next season, the Rangers made the seemingly curious decision to keep him in the bullpen, this time as their closer. As much as it seemed counterproductive to keep your best pitching prospect limited to 1IP stints, it didn’t seem to hurt the club or the pitcher, as Feliz enjoyed another sub-3.0 FIP season and the Rangers won the pennant. In 2011, the Rangers again pulled the plug on a possible role change for Feliz and kept him in the pen, and they again won the pennant with the Venezuelan as their closer. But Feliz seemed like a different pitcher.
Instead of the good control he’d exhibited in 2009-10, he was something of a mess as his walk rate increased from under 7% to nearly 12%. His K rate continued to fall, ending the year at 21.4%, well behind the likes of Craig Kimbrel or Mariano Rivera, but also behind Grant Balfour, Matt Albers, Will Ohman and a scuffling Joakim Soria. A low BABIP (though he’s always had a low BABIP-against) helped his ERA, but his FIP was now a fairly pedestrian 3.57. This spring, the Rangers committed to moving Feliz to the rotation and they’ve stuck with it (Boston, you could learn something here), despite some scares like shoulder soreness this spring.
Feliz hasn’t really demonstrated big platoon splits the way you’d expect given his FB-SL heavy repertoire. He does throw a change, but it’s his fastball that he’s relied on thus far, using it about 80% of the time in 2010-11. The sudden wildness and a curious lack of strikeouts make him a real question mark for a team without many. Since these are the Rangers, even if Feliz struggles, it shouldn’t hurt their chances: they could always swap him out for Alexi Ogando who moved from the pen to the rotation last year with great results. Still, the M’s get yet another shot at an immensely talented pitcher who’s also strangely vulnerable right now.
On the other hand, the M’s are the one team who didn’t seem to notice that Feliz was suddenly human last year. The M’s were famously 0-28 with 13 Ks (about 1/4 of his overall strikeout total on the season) against him, and it says something that what jumped out at me the most from his line were the two walks (“Really? Someone got on base? I don’t remember that”). That said, it’s a new, Cust-less line-up the M’s are trotting out, and it’s one that gave Yu Darvish a rude welcome last night. They were patient, but they also punished mistakes – it’s sort of a truism, but that’s the approach they need to use against Feliz. Making the pitcher throw a lot of pitches and work hard early isn’t some novel strategy, but it’s particularly relevant when facing a converted closer who battled arm troubles in March.
The M’s line-up is loaded with left-handed hitters to counter Feliz’s slider; Miguel Olivo’s the only righty in the group. Jesus Montero returns from the stomach flu to DH, and Munenori Kawasaki’s in the line-up again at SS, as Brendan Ryan’s sore somewhere.
1: Figgins (LF)
2: Ackley (2B)
3: Ichiro! (RF)
4: Smoak (1B)
5: Seager (3B)
6: Montero (DH)
7: Saunders (CF)
8: Olivo (C)
9: Kawasaki (SS)
SP: Beavan
Gametime’s 5:05
Go M’s
Game 5, Mariners at Rangers
Noesi vs Darvish, 5:05 pm
It’s Yu Darvish’s Major League debut, so the Mariners are kind of an afterthought tonight. I had a chance to sit behind the plate for one of Darvish’s spring training starts, and his breaking stuff is ridiculous, so there’s a good chance he makes a lot of guys look foolish tonight. However, he did struggle with his fastball command all spring and seemed to live on the outer half of the plate, so the team would do well to make Darvish throw strikes before they go up there hacking. If they can get into good hitting counts, they can sit on a fastball and neutralize his secondary stuff to a degree. If he’s throwing strikes, they’re screwed anyway – at least patience at the plate will give them a fighting chance if he’s not sharp. Aggressiveness is exactly the wrong approach to take tonight.
There’s one line-up change as Jesus Montero is on the bench due to a stomach bug, so Dustin Ackley moves to DH and Munenori Kawasaki gets the start. I haven’t seen an official comment from Wedge on why Kawasaki gets the call over a guy who can hit – like say Casper Wells – but I’d imagine you’re likely to hear something about “experience” and “he’s seen this guy before”. Yes, Kawasaki faced Darvish in Japan, but he was a trainwreck. According to the M’s, Kawasaki hit .221 with two walks and 19 strikeouts in 88 plate appearances, an abysmal line that suggests that any information we should gain (which is none, really, but assuming you put any faith in batter-pitcher match-ups to begin with) from their batter-pitcher matchup is that Kawasaki can’t hit Darvish.
But, hey, that’s Eric Wedge for you. I wonder what would have to happen for Casper Wells to get some playing time? Seems like we’re not going to find out any time soon.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, DH
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Seager, 3B
Saunders, CF
Olivo, C
Kawasaki, 2B
Ryan, SS
Felix, Velocity, and Ground Balls
So, besides the Mariners stringing a bunch of singles together on Friday and Saturday, the main storyline to come out of the team’s first four games probably all have to do with Felix Hernandez. We knew his velocity was down in spring training, but it’s spring training, and he still blowing hitters away, so there didn’t seem to be much reason for concern. Then, the team went to japan, and Felix was still throwing in the 89-92 range, but again, he shut down the A’s with few problems, and the reduced velocity seemed to not be any kind of issue.
On Saturday night, though, Felix continued to throw in the low-90s with his fastball. For the first few innings, the results were still fine, but eventually the poorly located hittable fastballs caught up with him, and the A’s hit some balls really hard. But, more than the missing velocity, his location seemed to be the real problem.
I went into more detail this morning over on FanGraphs, but the short version is that I’d say his fly ball tendencies during his first two starts concern me more than the lack of top-end fastball speed. Felix’s best pitches have always been his off-speed offerings, especially his change-up. Unlike a guy such as Michael Pineda, Felix doesn’t need a mid-90s fastball to get hitters out. Even with very little separation between his fastball and change-up on Saturday, he still got eight swinging strikes on 26 change-ups, a ridiculous percentage even when facing a team like the A’s. Most pitchers would kill to have an 89-93 MPH fastball, an elite change-up, and two well above average breaking balls, which is what Felix was throwing on Saturday.
So, I’m not worried about whether Felix can get batters out with what he’s currently throwing. If it’s well located, he’d still have one of the best arsenals of any pitcher in baseball. But, if the diminished velocity sticks around, location is going to become key for him, and it’s not something that has traditionally been his strong suit. He left a lot of fastballs up in the zone on Saturday, and he’s previously been able to get away with that because those pitches have been 95+, but when they’re 92, they get whacked.
Felix’s command is better than it used to be, but it’s still not consistent from start to start. Hopefully, his velocity will come back and he’ll continue to be able to dominate with less than stellar command as he has through most of his entire career. However, if Felix is heading down the Tim Lincecum career path, and he needs to adapt to pitching off his secondary stuff instead of his fastball, he’s going to have to locate his pitches better. It’s easier to hit your spots at 92 than 95, so this might not be as difficult a transition as it sounds, but it’s one Felix may have to make.
Of course, he can make this all moot by coming out and firing 95 at some point in the next week or two, and I certainly hope that he does. But, velocity is a young man’s game, and it’s not all that surprising that Felix’s top end fastball isn’t what it used to be. The key for him to remain an elite starter will be figuring out how to keep getting the necessary sink and location to remain a ground ball pitcher, and use the secondary stuff to rack up the strikeouts. If he keeps pitching up in the zone like he did on Saturday, he might not be as King-esque as he has been in prior years.
Off Day Thread, Hultzen’s Minor League Debut
The Mariners have a day off today after playing some meaningful games against the Athletics, but unlike the last time that happened, the team will not be flying back to Arizona to follow it up with a series of less meaningful games. I’m sure this is confusing for a lot of people. While we wait with much anticipation for all of our hopes to be deflated tomorrow, as we become the first team to face Yu Darvish, today there’s a different kind of baseball/hope to pay attention to. Danny Hultzen is making his debut today, right around noon.
LF Daniel Carroll
SS Nick Franklin
3B Francisco Martinez
RF Chih-Hsien Chiang
1B Rich Poythress
DH Joe Dunigan
CF Denny Almonte
C Jesus Sucre
2B Gabriel Noriega
P Danny Hultzen
The Generals, playing the lowly Birmingham Barons (how have they not lost their title already?) have won all three games in the series so far. Paxton struck out ten over five and two-thirds innings with only two hits allowed. That was pretty good.
You can head over to the Jackson site, scroll down on the audio page, and find their “Listen Live” link. There will also be a Gameday available, but it’s not up yet. I’ll add it later?
Game 4, Mariners at Athletics
Hernandez vs Colon, 6:05 pm.
Happy Felix Day!
Sorry I haven’t been around much lately. I’ll be back on Monday.
Figgins, LF
Ackley, 2B
Ichiro, RF
Smoak, 1B
Montero, DH
Seager, 3B
Olivo, C
Saunders, CF
Kawasaki, SS
Source: FanGraphs
Game #3 – Mariners at Athletics
Welcome back to the regular season, which is just like the last time we had regular season games, only more sparsely attended and without quite as much focus on Ichiro.
Oakland’s ace Brandon McCarthy gets the ball, just as he did in the first game in Tokyo. Jason Vargas gets another shot at the A’s, and hopes his bullpen’s a little stingier this time. The A’s have another righty-heavy line-up with Jonny Gomes DHing and batting cleanup, Josh Donaldson at 3B and Kila Ka’aihue at 1B; he only lefty is Josh Reddick.
The M’s counter with seven lefties (man, it’s nice having switch hitters) with Michael Saunders in CF and Seager at 3B.
1: Figgins (LF)
2: Ackley (2B)
3: Ichiro! (RF)
4: Smoak (1B)
5: Montero (DH)
6: Seager (3B)
7: Olivo (C)
8: Saunders (CF)
9: Ryan (SS)
SP: Vargas
GO M’S
James Paxton makes his 2012 debut tonight for Jackson, Jeff Marquez starts for Tacoma. Chris Sorce makes his first start for High Desert and Ambioris Hidalgo’s already a few innings in to his start for Clinton.
Minor League Opening Day Wrap-Up
No, we’re not going to do one of these every day, and no, this site hasn’t become a minor-league focused site, but you can see why fans of bad MLB teams focus attention on the minors. We do it because the organization has been telling us that help is on the way, and that they’re building from the bottom up. We also do it because we all know that the M’s simply haven’t been anywhere near as good as Texas (and now, presumably, LA), and so the minors are something of a respite from the hopeless fight the big club was engaged in the past two seasons.
Beyond the prospect of short-term assistance in the war against irrelevance (the M’s were technically relevant in July, but they felt irrelevant by late May or so), the start of a new minor league season always brings new story lines that may take years to unfold. It was at about this time last year that hardcore fans began to view Taijuan Walker not as a hyper-raw reach pick, but as a very interesting prospect. Of course, last year we were all paying special attention to Johermyn Chavez and Rich Poythress after their solid 2010 seasons, and at this point last year, Nate Tenbrink was perhaps more interesting than either Kyle Seager or Vinnie Catricala. Forrest Snow was an organizational arm, Mike Carp was still a blah 1B, and we had no idea that Detroit had a 3B prospect named Francisco Martinez, nor why we would care if they did. These are essentially anecdotes, and while encouraging, they don’t directly address the fact that the Rangers have better baseball players than we do. But we keep looking, hoping to find a pattern – a sign that something fundamentally different is going on, and that the next core of club-controlled stars are going to wear M’s jerseys.
To the cynic, this is the cruelest fate for the true M’s fan: relegated to scanning minor league boxes, divining evidence that the “Mariners Way” the commercials keep talking about is paying dividends somewhere. To the optimist, it’s the beautiful possibility that the AL West’s next cohort will be pretty evenly matched, or that the M’s have the edge once all of these all-stars in Arlington and Anaheim start declining. There’s plenty of room in the middle, of course, and there’s plenty of joy in seeing the contours of a new, more even division and league emerge. I have no idea who this year’s James Paxton might be, or who this year’s Kyle Seager is, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to try and find out.
So, opening day for the four full-season clubs was a mixed bag, but I can’t express how cool it is to start looking through the box scores again.
Cameron Hobson had a so-so debut for Clinton, giving up 6 runs thanks to 3 walks and a grand slam in just 3 innings. The top three hitters, Jamal Austin, Guillermo Pimentel and Daniel Paolini went hitless. Jabari Blash tripled and Ramon Morla tried to help everyone forget about his 2011 with a double, a walk and a steal.
High Desert hung on for a 9-7 win over Lancaster in Adelento. SS Brad Miller homered and tripled, John Hicks hit 2 doubles from the DH spot (Jack Marder played C tonight), and Stefen Romero went 4-5 with a double and a homer. Jay’s pick as the breakout player of 2012 isn’t wasting any time.
Jackson cruised to a 3-2 win over Birmingham, as Andrew Carraway stole the spotlight from Paxton/Walker/Hultzen with 6 scoreless innings. He yielded 2 hits and 1 walk and racked up 6 Ks, and while Birmingham’s light on legitimate prospects (as it’s a White Sox affiliate), Carraway’s line is excellent. Rich Poythress had a two-run, two-out double and Nick Franklin was 2-3. Stephen Pryor gave up 2 runs in the 9th, but got the final out.
Tacoma dropped its opener to Salt Lake 3-2. Angels pitching prospect Garrett Richards was extremely tough, with a well-located 94-97 mph fastball, a big breaking curve ball in the 70s and a slider in the 80s. He struck out Trayvon Robinson and Carlos Triunfel (the 1 and 2 hitters) twice, en route to 7 Ks in 7 innings. Mike Wilson homered and Carlos Peguero managed two hits off of Richards, including a triple that probably carried 415 feet on a frigid night in Tacoma. Vinnie Catricala didn’t appear overmatched, but he also didn’t look too comfortable at the plate. The first grounder hit to the left side turned into a grisly run after a bad bounce and a bad throw left the batter on third and a runner scoring from first. Catricala didn’t move well to his left to grab it, and then things went downhill from there. Catricala made a decent play later on (that was dropped by the 1B), so it’s too soon to say much about his defense. Angels uberprospect Mike Trout went 3-5 as the DH, as he’s been nursing a shoulder injury and some sort of virus.
Pictures after the jump:
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