Mariners Limp Home and Face White Sox
| MARINERS (24-33) | ΔMs | WHITE SOX (24-30) | EDGE | |
| HITTING (wOBA*) | -9.8 (19th) | -0.1 | -79.2 (30th) | Mariners |
| FIELDING (RBBIP) | -3.9 (19th) | 0.5 | 9.9 (10th) | White Sox |
| ROTATION (xRA) | 11.1 (9th) | -0.9 | 22.3 (5th) | White Sox |
| BULLPEN (xRA) | 3.9 (8th) | -2.3 | -12.2 (29th) | Mariners |
| OVERALL (RAA) | 1.2 (16th) | -2.9 | -59.2 (28th) | MARINERS |
Oh, wow, the worst hitting team in the majors! The White Sox are posting a team slash line of about 25 points worse than the Mariners in both OBP and SLG. And the White Sox play in their joke of a park while the Mariners play in their less laughable park. Using StatCorner’s ratings, only one White Sox hitter — Alex Rios — has had a better than average bat. FanGraphs concurs unless you want to include Dylan Axelrod’s 1-for-2 performance.
In comparison, the Mariners have the following hitters with above average lines: Bay, Franklin, Gutierrez*, Ibanez, Morales, Morse, Peguero, Seager and, yeah, even Justin Smoak.
*Coincidentally funny that Nick Franklin and Franklin Gutierrez line up next to each other in alphabetical order
The Mariners aren’t a bad team, I think, they just seem to sometimes play like a horrendous team. Bonderman is an example of that. Three home runs allowed is a bad number for one start. Two of those were hitters took pitches, while behind in the count, on the outside edge of the zone and hit them over the fence the other way. That doesn’t happen very often. Is Bonderman just more hittable? It sure looked like it, but it’s hard to say after only one start. I don’t think he’ll be up for long regardless, and he wasn’t mowing down hitters in Triple-A either, but that was a weird start, from an overall stat line perspective.
| Batter | PA | P/PA | Slash line | nBB | K (sw) | 1B/2B/3B/HR | Sw- | Ct+ | Qual+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| K Morales^ | 57 | 3.6 | .411/.421/.696 | 1 | 11 (9) | 13 / 7 / 0 / 3 | 117 | 97 | 110 |
| K Seager* | 54 | 3.7 | .294/.352/.510 | 3 | 8 (6) | 8 / 5 / 0 / 2 | 100 | 107 | 110 |
| M Saunders* | 48 | 4.1 | .143/.250/.190 | 6 | 16 (11) | 4 / 2 / 0 / 0 | 95 | 88 | 105 |
| B Ryan | 45 | 3.7 | .302/.333/.442 | 2 | 5 (4) | 9 / 3 / 0 / 1 | 103 | 115 | 103 |
| J Bay | 43 | 4.2 | .216/.326/.541 | 6 | 10 (7) | 4 / 0 / 0 / 4 | 89 | 95 | 138 |
| R Ibanez* | 37 | 4.0 | .229/.297/.371 | 2 | 10 (8) | 5 / 2 / 0 / 1 | 92 | 102 | 126 |
| E Chavez* | 35 | 3.7 | .265/.286/.441 | 1 | 0 (0) | 7 / 0 / 0 / 2 | 105 | 122 | 98 |
| M Morse | 31 | 3.8 | .286/.387/.393 | 3 | 5 (5) | 7 / 0 / 0 / 1 | 117 | 84 | 95 |
| K Shoppach | 27 | 3.4 | .077/.111/.192 | 1 | 12 (11) | 1 / 0 / 0 / 1 | 113 | 68 | 41 |
| J Sucre | 24 | 3.2 | .190/.250/.190 | 2 | 1 (1) | 4 / 0 / 0 / 0 | 89 | 118 | 106 |
| J Smoak^ | 21 | 4.1 | .150/.190/.300 | 1 | 6 (5) | 2 / 0 / 0 / 1 | 86 | 93 | 89 |
| N Franklin^ | 21 | 4.2 | .235/.381/.588 | 4 | 2 (0) | 2 / 0 / 0 / 2 | 71 | 113 | 157 |
How many games do you think Nick Franklin can go before his first swinging strikeout?
Now, remember how long it took for Dustin Ackley to have his first swing-and-miss, at all? It was like 40 swings. Now look at him. Now look at Nick Franklin. Now appreciate the moment and don’t assume it will last. Don’t assume anything will last. Go hug your dog. Go get a dog and hug it.
| Batter | PA | P/PA | Slash line | nBB | SO (sw) | 1B/2B/3B/HR | Sw- | Ct+ | Qual+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A De Aza* | 51 | 4.3 | .239/.294/.326 | 4 | 11 (10) | 7 / 4 / 0 / 0 | 95 | 94 | 83 |
| A Ramirez | 51 | 3.2 | .245/.308/.306 | 2 | 4 (4) | 9 / 3 / 0 / 0 | 116 | 108 | 72 |
| D Viciedo | 45 | 4.1 | .159/.178/.205 | 1 | 14 (12) | 5 / 2 / 0 / 0 | 128 | 89 | 105 |
| A Rios | 45 | 3.5 | .209/.261/.256 | 2 | 6 (5) | 7 / 2 / 0 / 0 | 98 | 110 | 90 |
| A Dunn* | 44 | 4.5 | .125/.182/.300 | 3 | 18 (15) | 2 / 1 / 0 / 2 | 94 | 79 | 84 |
| J Keppinger | 39 | 3.6 | .359/.359/.462 | 0 | 3 (3) | 12 / 1 / 0 / 1 | 94 | 118 | 96 |
| P Konerko | 37 | 4.1 | .303/.395/.424 | 4 | 3 (3) | 8 / 1 / 0 / 1 | 99 | 113 | 128 |
| C Gillaspie* | 37 | 3.5 | .257/.316/.286 | 2 | 4 (2) | 8 / 1 / 0 / 0 | 103 | 112 | 122 |
| T Flowers | 27 | 3.7 | .192/.222/.269 | 1 | 10 (8) | 3 / 2 / 0 / 0 | 100 | 82 | 68 |
Adam Dunn is shooting for the one of the more fascinating tail ends (I’m assuming) of careers in baseball history. His wRC+ for the past four seasons, all with regular playing time, have gone 136, 59, 114, 66. Unlike his 2011 collapse, Dunn’s power is still present this season, but the walks are way down, the strikeouts are back up and the batted ball breakdowns are worse.
| MARINERS | ΔMs | WHITE SOX | EDGE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| INFIELD | -2.5 (18th) | -1.0 | -6.0 (21st) | Mariners |
| OUTFIELD | -1.5 (16th) | 1.4 | 15.9 (4th) | White Sox |
| RBBIP | 0.311 (18th) | — | 0.299 (10th) | White Sox |
| OVERALL | -3.9 (19th) | 0.5 | 9.9 (10th) | WHITE SOX |
03 JUN 19:10 – JOE SAUNDERS* vs JOHN DANKS*
John Danks for his career has actually surrendered a slightly better batting line to left-handed hitters (.738 OPS) than against right-handed hitters (.728 OPS) so I don’t think that Wedge needs to factor in Danks’ handedness much into lineup construction tonight. Meaning, you probably don’t need to freak if Ibanez starts against a lefty again.
04 JUN 19:10 – FELIX HERNANDEZ vs JAKE PEAVY
This is actually a dynamite pitching match up. Peavy’s resurgence since 2012 has been remarkable and he’s so far taken it to a new high this season. He’s been excellent at getting ahead of hitters and having them chase out of zone pitches so I might coach the Mariner hitters to look for pitches early in the count to swing at and then be more selective as the count runs deep. But I’m not a coach, so instead I’m just writing it here.
05 JUN 12:40 – HISASHI IWAKUMA vs DYLAN AXELROD
| Reliever | BF | Str+ | nBB | Ct- | K(sw) | GB+ | HR | Qual- | LI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C Furbush* | 55 | 102 | 5 | 92 | 16 (11) | 86 | 2 | 122 | 1.1 |
| T Wilhelmsen | 42 | 90 | 5 | 100 | 6 (6) | 123 | 0 | 110 | 2.9 |
| C Capps | 38 | 103 | 2 | 88 | 12 (9) | 66 | 1 | 90 | 1.6 |
| Y Medina | 37 | 87 | 5 | 94 | 8 (4) | 141 | 0 | 79 | 1.9 |
| O Perez* | 34 | 102 | 3 | 85 | 16 (12) | 75 | 1 | 113 | 1.1 |
| D Farquhar | 33 | 97 | 2 | 95 | 15 (13) | 112 | 0 | 88 | 0.3 |
| L Luetge* | 29 | 104 | 2 | 99 | 7 (5) | 146 | 2 | 95 | 0.7 |
Tom Wilhelmsen could have picked a better time to melt down than right after I declared that I wasn’t too worried about his recent scuffling. For instance, he could have picked a time that didn’t cost the team a win. That would have been a better time. Why did he pick this time? We can only guess.
| Reliever | BF | Str+ | nBB | Ct- | K(sw) | GB+ | HR | Qual- | LI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N Jones | 56 | 100 | 5 | 107 | 10 (8) | 110 | 1 | 106 | 0.9 |
| M Lindstrom | 51 | 97 | 6 | 108 | 6 (6) | 110 | 0 | 81 | 1.4 |
| B Omogrosso | 45 | 92 | 5 | 95 | 9 (7) | 116 | 2 | 100 | 0.4 |
| J Crain | 43 | 100 | 3 | 97 | 15 (12) | 99 | 0 | 119 | 1.8 |
| A Reed | 37 | 111 | 0 | 94 | 10 (9) | 67 | 0 | 132 | 1.4 |
| M Thornton* | 29 | 92 | 6 | 116 | 2 (1) | 118 | 0 | 88 | 1.7 |
This is Matt Thornton’s eighth season with the White Sox. That is one of those passages of time that doesn’t seem quite right to me. It doesn’t “seem like yesterday” that the Mariners traded him and I rejoiced, but it doesn’t feel like eight seasons ago either.
On the other hand, last night I had the chance to go back and look at the Mariners’ 2007 roster and it was these alternating feelings of “oh yeah, Miguel Batista, I knew that” and “oh I totally forgot about Chris Reitsma”, that summed up to something that didn’t feel like a six plus year old experience. I was still in college when that team began playing. I know that’s a personal reference only, but that almost feels like a different life back then. So maybe it’s like my brain thinks that everything baseball that happened between 2003-7 exists as though it happened at just one time.
What am I going to feel when I’m 50? Weird stuff, y’all. We live a long time.
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18 Responses to “Mariners Limp Home and Face White Sox”
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My mind gets blown every time I realize how long ago high school was… and its only been a few years..
How bad are the Mariners? So bad that the new Mariner radio ad is touting that this weekend’s Yankee series will be the last time you’ll be able to see Mariano Rivera—a player who will only come in if we’re losing.
“What am I going to feel when I’m 50?”
More memories, more aches and more pains. That’s just the Mariners. Wait ’till you physically deteriorate as well.
This year is my fiftyith . What am I feeling? Increasingly rushed.
Prepare for another dose of weirdness when one day you wake up and realize you’ve been alive for more time _since_ your High School graduation than you were alive _before_ it. Then after that sinks in for a few days, try to juxtapose that against the fact that you’re _still_ not yet to 50% of your expected life-span. Enjoy the rollercoaster of emotions! (and maybe gain a bit of insight into why so many elderly people seem short on patience – especially if they’ve been watching the M’s).
I’ve been married for more of my life than I’ve been single. THAT’S old…
Westside, I just passed that line myself this year.
What do I win?
Oh, and she STILL doesn’t like baseball.
I’ve been alive for my entire life so far, and married for the vast majority of my marriage. Does that count for something?
Time has been messing with my head ever since I realized that kids from the early 90s are now drinking age. I no longer have a cousin who can’t come with me to a bar. I thought it was bad enough when all of them could DRIVE.
Would someone please explain what the carats and asterisks on the charts mean?
You know, I didn’t know, so I tried to look it up, but even in the very first instances of the chart I could find (from LL a while ago) I didn’t see an explanation of those. I don’t know.
old? Not me. Although, most of my Grandchildren drive, two are in college and one is getting married. Okay. Someone throw dirt on me I’m old.
Asterisk=lefty.
Carats, on the other hand, are some kind of way to
assign some sort of comparative value to diamonds. No idea how you’re seeing them here.
zeeb – Switch-hitters and Lefties, respectively.
Idiot Fan: The WWW is now 20 years old. There are college graduates who have _no_ _conscious_ _memory_ of a world without the Web. They have *no* concept (no frame of reference) of a world where you cannot simply to go Google and find the answer to virtually _ANY_ question! Of course, this is possibly also part of the reason there’s such a schism between “old” and “new” schools of baseball thought – old-timers simply don’t have a frame of reference for today’s technology to gather, collate, track, and analyze baseball statistics.
djw- first I thought you meant baseball diamonds. Then I realized you were correcting my spelling. You guys are tough.
Thank you to everyone who explained it including those who are helping my typing.
Matthew, did anyone ever guess what you were using to sort the hitter/pitcher tables once you introduced Qual+? I can’t remember if so, and I’m still curious as to what you’re sorting by.
Well, these days, it looks like he’s sorting by Plate Appearances and Batters Faced. I don’t know what he was once sorting by.
My 33rd anniversary is tomorrow (we will spend it at Safeco, natch) and we finally just passed being married half as long as my parents.