Middle Infield Adjustment Watch
Obviously, right now, Brad Miller and Nick Franklin are kind of growing together. They’re not literally growing together, but they’re *developing together* as Mariners middle infielders. When they’re going well, they look like foundation pieces for the next good Mariners team. When they’re not going well, it’s no biggie, they’re rookies, they’re supposed to slump, they’ll build character and be better for it in the long run. Not a whole lot of downside with rooting for young players. It’s all either good news or no news, until you have a quality player or a player who’s too old to still be young and learning. Then it’s on the player for being an annoying bust, like Jeremy Reed. Jeremy Reed is 32 years old. Jacoby Ellsbury is 29.
Anyway, what the Mariners are doing is trying to figure out whether Miller and Franklin will make up next year’s middle infield. Clearly, the potential is there; clearly, there’s some work to be done, on Franklin’s offense and Miller’s defense. Given their somewhat similar backgrounds you could call them the Double Play Twins if that nickname didn’t carry an Indian curse. Instead you can just call them Brad Miller and Nick Franklin, and in order to proceed, I’ll note that Miller debuted almost exactly a month after Franklin did.
From his debut through June 28, Franklin batted 117 times in 29 games and 27 starts. From his debut through July 30, Miller batted 116 times in 27 games and 25 starts. We’ll refer to these as Phase One. All their games and plate appearances since? We’ll refer to those as Phase Two. Let’s dig just a little bit into adjustment periods and whatnot.
PHASE ONE
For his first stretch, Franklin saw about 69% of what Brooks Baseball classifies as “hard” pitches. So, fastballs, basically. He batted .302/.368/.500, with 15% strikeouts. He had 13 extra-base hits, and nine of them came off hard pitches.
For his first stretch, Miller saw about 68% hard pitches. He batted .240/.319/.394, with 17% strikeouts. Of his ten extra-base hits, five came off hard pitches.
PHASE TWO
For his second stretch, Franklin has seen about 61% hard pitches. He’s batted .193/.263/.366, with 34% strikeouts. Five of his six homers have come off hard stuff, and he’s hardly been able to touch the rest.
For his second stretch, Miller has seen about 57% hard pitches. He’s batted .266/.319/.484, with 16% strikeouts. He has three extra-base hits against hard stuff, and four extra-base hits against breaking stuff.
—–
The short of it: Miller and Franklin have seen somewhat similar reductions in fastballs seen. Of course, there’s a lot more that goes into league adjustments, and Franklin has an extra month of data, so the numbers mean only so much, but what we’re seeing is that Franklin is having a lot of trouble hitting against guys throwing him more bendy stuff, while Miller is handling it just fine. Franklin’s strikeout rate has doubled. Miller’s strikeout rate has stayed the same, and he hasn’t had to sit on heaters. Just based on this, pitchers have no reason yet to change the way they’re working against Franklin, but Miller has passed his tests.
If you want some Franklin optimism, Yasiel Puig went through a little ugly stretch where he couldn’t hit any sliders, then he figured it out overnight and went back to being absolutely incredible. On the other hand, Nick Franklin isn’t Yasiel Puig. If you want some Miller realism, we’re looking at small samples and the league might still be learning him. It’s not like Miller is a known entity, and maybe they’ll discover a hole or two. Maybe he’ll hit a slump like Franklin’s current slump, and maybe he’ll get out of it and maybe he won’t. The future! Can’t tell it. Only know who’s done best recently, which is the best I can do.
Franklin’s been striking out for a while. He saw 64% hard stuff in July, and he’s seen 56% hard stuff in August. He struck out 36% of the time in July, and he’s struck out 29% of the time in August, which might be progress although the rest of his numbers really suck. If Miller had a strikeout phase, it came early — he struck out a quarter of the time through his first couple weeks. Since then he’s been something of a contact machine, tonight excepted, where an awesome lefty was on the mound. And Neal Cotts is also an awesome lefty.
Right now, Miller’s stock is higher. Right now, Miller looks like a legitimate starting shortstop for 2014. Used to be Franklin looked like a lot more of a sure thing, but they know what the problem is and they’re working on it. That should fix his troubles, unless it doesn’t, because not all troubles can just be fixed and smoothed out at the highest level. You don’t need me to tell you it’s going to be a critical last month and a half, for both these guys. From Miller, I’d like to see fewer errors and maintained decent production. From Franklin, I’d like to see way fewer strikeouts. And from Dustin Ackley I’d like to see a home run and from the Mariners I’d like to see 41 consecutive wins. Don’t really care if it’s all because of Raul Ibanez. Grant a dying man’s wish, God*.
* we’re all dying, even you
Game 121, Mariners at Rangers
Iwakuma vs. Holland, 5:05 pm.
I’m not sure who will be around over the weekend or if there will be new game threads going up – if not, feel free to keep using this one. The lineup:
Miller SS-L
Franklin 2B-B
Seager 3B-L
Morales DH-B
Morse RF-R
Ibanez LF-L
Smoak 1B-B
Ackley CF-L
Quintero C-R
Game 120, Mariners at Rays
Saunders vs. Cobb, 4:10 pm.
Today I miss John Jaso. Not for the prosaic reason that the Michael Morse trade was a mistake, or even the hindsight justification involving the total immolation of the team’s catching corps this year. No, it’s a much more whimsical basis, in that we’re deprived of that rare opportunity for another all-lefthanded lineup. (Oddly enough, the previous one last year was also in Tampa.)
Miller SS-L
Franklin 2B-B
Seager 3B-L
Morales DH-B
Ibanez LF-L
Smoak 1B-B
Saunders RF-L
Ackley CF-L
Blanco C-R
Brad Miller vs. Jesus Montero
Jesus Montero
- one career triple
- estimated 13.0 seconds from contact to third base
- no throw
Brad Miller
- five career triples
- estimated average 11.1 seconds from contact to third base
- 10.9-second fastest
- 11.4-second slowest
- four of five with no throw
Estimated difference
- 1.9 seconds
Significance of 1.9 seconds
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I’m going to stop short of openly praising Brad Miller right now, only because right after I wrote in praise of Nick Franklin he started to suck and I’ve done gone and spooked myself. Miller’s doing well and I’m just going to go ahead and leave it at that for the time being. We’ll see about adjustments and we’ll see about the smoothing-out process with his defense. One thing I will say is that, with Miller’s triple on Wednesday, he now officially has more triples in a Mariners uniform than Chone Figgins. Brad Miller’s all right, and I’m too afraid to go into any more detail. There’s value in them crazy legs.
Game 119, Mariners at Rays
Stepping in to get a game thread up, after we missed yesterday. Brad Miller was the big story, but it’s also worth taking a look at what Erasmo Ramirez is doing. Seriously, the guy is 4-0 with a 7.06 ERA – yes, in analytical terms those are numbers we don’t want to focus on, but it’s still a bizarre combination. Normally, you would think that kind of record belongs to a bad reliever who vultures wins by coming in with leads, giving up some runs, and then getting bailed out by his offense. But Ramirez has done this as a starter.
Similar to what Dave and Jeff have been talking about with respect to Farquhar, there’s also some divergence between results and performance here. Ramirez’s FIP is 5.25, and his xFIP is a practically respectable 4.03. Understanding how those are derived, you won’t be surprised to know that the differences are mostly due to home runs. Ramirez is giving up more flyballs than last year, and then they are going out of the park at insane rates. We’ll see if that normalizes over the rest of the year. Anyway, today’s game features:
Miller SS-L
Franklin 2B-B
Seager 3B-L
Morales DH-B
Morse RF-R
Smoak 1B-B
Saunders LF-L
Ackley CF-L
Quintero C-R
The pitching matchup of Harang versus Price is not one we necessarily want to dwell on, other than the tidbit that this is the first time Price has pitched against the Mariners in his career. Also, the right-left imbalance of the current roster is showing.
Danny Farquhar’s Place In History
There’s been a growing emphasis on strikeouts around baseball. It’s interesting when you examine the reasons why — teams are less concerned with hitters striking out, but more concerned with pitchers striking hitters out. Strikeouts are simply more important for pitchers, because it’s a lot harder for a guy to reach base on a strikeout than it is for him to reach base on a non-strikeout, provided Miguel Olivo isn’t catching, and if you let hitters put the ball in play, you have only so much control over the results. Pitchers who don’t get strikeouts allow more baserunners. Pitchers who allow more baserunners allow more runs. Pitchers who allow more runs become high school pitching coaches and real estate agents.
Of course strikeouts aren’t everything, and maybe analysts today give them a little too much weight. There are other ways that a pitcher can succeed, and perhaps we can all be a little too dismissive. But you just can’t do anything better than strike a hitter out. So much of the time, we’re trying to figure out how players are going to perform in the future. There’s no better single indicator of future success for a pitcher than strikeout ability. Hits might have something to do with a pitcher’s talent. Home runs might have something to do with a pitcher’s talent. Strikeouts have a lot to do with a pitcher’s talent, so it’s easier to overlook a guy having allowed too many hits than a guy having recorded too few whiffs. Most of the time, you want to follow the strikeouts. The guys with the strikeouts will be where the magic happens.
Danny Farquhar used to be kind of annoying. Danny Farquhar used to be a nobody, then he used to be kind of annoying, when he was piling up the strikeouts and running an ERA in the 7s. Farquhar hasn’t allowed a run since July 19, but through that point, he’d allowed a .298 average and 22 runs in 17 games. Whenever you see that kind of outlier performance, people are hasty to suggest that maybe “the rules just don’t apply to this guy.” There are most certainly guys to whom the rules don’t quite apply, but we can’t identify them after two dozen innings. Farquhar had strikeouts and little success. Now he has strikeouts and great success, having taken over for Tom Wilhelmsen, and he’s beginning to look like he really is one of baseball’s better relievers.
Yeah, I know relievers burn quick and burn bright. For example, Tom Wilhelmsen the year before he got replaced by Danny Farquhar. But I want to show you a table. Here are the top individual single-season strikeout rates for pitchers in Mariners franchise history:
| Player | Year | K% |
|---|---|---|
| Danny Farquhar | 2013 | 37.4% |
| J.J. Putz | 2006 | 34.6% |
| Randy Johnson | 1997 | 34.5% |
| Randy Johnson | 1995 | 34.1% |
| Norm Charlton | 1993 | 34.0% |
| Rafael Soriano | 2003 | 34.0% |
| Oliver Perez | 2013 | 33.7% |
| Randy Johnson | 1996 | 33.3% |
| Charlie Furbush | 2013 | 33.0% |
| Jeff Nelson | 2001 | 32.6% |
The difference between first place and second place is about 2.9 percentage points. The difference between second place and 17th place is about 2.9 percentage points. It’s Farquhar, then it’s everyone else, and we remember 2006 JJ Putz as having been one of the Mariners’ most dominant relievers ever. Putz had the heat and the splitter. Farquhar has the cutter and the curve. He doesn’t have the same music or the same intensity, but he’s been even better at making batters just turn right around.
As noted before, strikeout rates have been on the rise. When Randy did what he did in 1995, the league-average strikeout rate was just over 15%. Right now, the league-average strikeout rate is creeping up on 20%. Farquhar’s pitching at a time when strikeouts are easier to come by, and of course there’s also a difference between relieving and starting. One notes that the same table includes this year’s Oliver Perez and this year’s Charlie Furbush. If I wanted to make an adjustment for the sake of fairness, Farquhar would slip from the top position, but we don’t need to adjust everything, and we can just be happy that there’s a way in which Danny Farquhar compares to Randy Johnson. We’re allowed to be content knowing simply that Danny Farquhar currently has the Mariners’ highest single-season strikeout rate ever.
And he’s 26, and he’s cheap and under team control forever, and he’s good against both lefties and righties, and he was a pick-up no one thought of at the time. I wasn’t alone when I figured the Mariners just dumped Ichiro on the Yankees for nothing, basically to give him an opportunity to win. I didn’t think about D.J. Mitchell or Danny Farquhar until…I don’t even know. Spring training? And I thought of Mitchell first. But Jack Zduriencik noted that Farquhar had picked up a cutter. Zduriencik thought he might be getting some value back, and now a year later Farquhar is closing, effectively, after the Mariners’ intended closer decided to be non-confrontational with the strike zone. This helps cancel out the Yankees turning Shawn Kelley into a strikeout machine (lookit). The Mariners did squeeze something out of the Ichiro trade, and though you never want to bet on any reliever for long, maybe Farquhar closes for a few years. Maybe he settles in as a recognizable part of the team. Maybe he gets a role in a commercial. Jack Zduriencik turned Steve Delabar into Eric Thames. He also turned contract-year Ichiro into Danny Farquhar. You have to acknowledge the wins, if you’re going to complain about the losses.
Yesterday in Tampa Bay, Evan Longoria almost tied the game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. For Farquhar, that would’ve been a rather unpleasant blown save. On the other hand, Longoria was behind 0-and-2, and Farquhar hit his spot, and there were two outs because the first two batters went down on strikes. Maybe Farquhar got a little bit lucky. He deserves it. And if he keeps pitching like this, there won’t be that much room for luck to begin with.
Mariners Player As A Volcano
Player
Dustin Ackley
Volcano
South Sister
The South Sister rises prominently within a crowded volcanic field, and it’s known to be relatively young. A few years ago, there were signs of unrest, as geoscientists detected uplift just west of the peak. It was unknown whether the area might be on the verge of a destructive eruption. However, the rate of uplift has since slowed down, such that now it’s hardly noticeable. Though the area is closely monitored, there exists no present threat of activity.
Felix Hernandez: Man Who Gets It
On April 19, 2012, the Mariners played a game against the Indians I wish I didn’t remember, and that I hope I never forget. The Mariners were, I don’t know, whatever record they were, and it was too early to think they’d be any good and it was too early to think they would suck. It was, in other words, a typical Mariners April, and in this game they turned to Felix Hernandez on the mound. In classic Mariners form, Felix’s teammates didn’t provide him with much in the way of support, but they did give him a run. In classic Felix form, the King let it hold up. Over eight shutout innings, Felix whiffed a dozen batters, and pitching with one out and the bases loaded in the top of the eighth, Felix escaped by striking out consecutive Indians on eight pitches. First, he made Jason Kipnis go away. Then he made Shin-Soo Choo go away, just like Bill Bavasi did. Felix was approaching 130 pitches, so in the ninth he’d turn the ball over to the bullpen, but he left the mound in the eighth with a roar. Choo’s swing and miss wrapped up one of the most utterly dominant outings of Felix’s big-league career. It was, somehow, an outing that stood out from most of the others.
Then in the top of the ninth, that stupid son of a bitch Brandon League coughed it up. Two walks and a single loaded the bases, and another single un-loaded them, and the Mariners lost 2-1. In the bigger picture, League’s meltdown was independent of Felix’s dominance, but that night, because of League, we couldn’t feel the same about Felix. We didn’t get that last taste of sweet closure, and to this day I can’t think of the first eight innings without thinking of the ninth. On too many occasions, Felix has been let down by his offense. On too many other occasions, Felix has been let down by his bullpen. Too much of Felix’s ability has been wasted, and Felix is a guy who really likes to win. Everybody likes to win, but Felix can usually do more on his own to that end.
Now keep all of that in mind as you read this. You might’ve missed it, but yesterday, Felix was amazing! Against a lineup that isn’t good, but against a lineup that’d scored 20 runs in two games. The Mariners’ offense, meanwhile, was not amazing, but it did provide Felix with two runs to protect, which he did. The top of the eighth ended with Felix striking out Martin Maldonado, and the score then was 2-0 Mariners with Felix at 108 pitches. His last pitch had been a fastball at 94.
For Robby Thompson, there’d be options. He could stick with Felix, or he could give the ball to new closer Danny Farquhar. As all managers would, Thompson asked Felix how he felt. Ryan Divish notes the response.
[Felix] admitted to Thompson in between innings that he was done for day.
“He was pretty much at the end of his rope,” Thompson said. “He’d basically had enough. He was honest with me.”
Normally Hernandez puts up a contentious fight about coming out of games. This time he didn’t. Of course, he could have and would have pitched if they needed him to.
“I was a little tired,” Hernandez said. “They asked me if I wanted to go back in. I said I’m alright, but I’ve had enough. I was just being honest. I want to go out there, but if I’m tired, I don’t want to blow the game.”
For Felix, this would’ve been a perfectly understandable thought process:
- I’m tired
- but if I come out someone else comes in
- the score is close because this offense is the Mariners’ offense
- whoever comes in could blow it
- lots of leads have been blown and the closer has an ERA near 5
- if they blow it I don’t win and the team doesn’t win
- I should probably do this by myself
- “I’m good to go”
But this seems to have been the actual thought process:
- I’m tired
- fatigue leads to reduced effectiveness
- probably better, then, to use a fresh reliever
- another guy could provide a better chance to win than I could
- “I’m tired”
A little while ago, I wrote about a Kyle Seager bunt against the shift, and I noted how weird it is that we think of obvious baseball as smart baseball. Felix, on Sunday, made what’s probably a pretty obvious decision, and I’m praising him for being smart. But there’s smart smart and baseball smart, and baseball is a game of egos and over-confidence. Smartness is relative, and many pitchers probably would’ve preferred to stay in the game. Rarely do you observe this blend of competitiveness and honesty, and Felix should be celebrated for being different from the others. He should be celebrated for being different from how he used to be. Based on his own testosterone and memory, Felix had every reason to deny his own fatigue, but in that moment he understood what would be best for all parties involved. He understood his own level, he understood the level of the fresh bullpen, and he forgave prior letdowns. In that moment, there was no hubris, there were no grudges.
Say what you will about Erik Bedard, but at least he doesn’t try to over-push it. Bedard knows that pitching tired means under-performance and increased injury risk. Felix gets that. Felix didn’t used to get that, but Felix gets that now, and it’s maybe more important than ever with Felix occupying a leadership role in the clubhouse. Younger pitchers are going to be learning from the Felix example, and the reason things are the way they are is because that’s how it’s always been. Pitchers have forever been too stubborn, and following the Felix example, Mariners pitchers might not be afraid to be honest. Felix isn’t, despite all the times he’s been burned.
Felix has the talent. Felix has the loyalty. Felix has the emotional maturity and brains. Felix has it all. Felix Hernandez has everything, and we have Felix Hernandez.
Game 117, Brewers at Mariners
King Felix vs. Wily Peralta, 1:10pm
So this series could’ve gone better.
Today’s game pits King Felix against hard-throwing righty Wily Peralta. Peralta’s four- and two-seam fastballs average 95mph; his sinker’s the third-fastest in MLB behind Matt Harvey and Stephen Strasburg. His four-seamer’s in the top 10 as well, surrounded by flame-throwers like Jose Fernandez, Homer Bailey, Justin Verlander and Andrew Cashner. He pairs it with a sharp slider and the occasional change-up against lefties. His slider’s useful against lefties and righties alike, though he’s able to get righties to hit it on the ground, while lefties are able to elevate it a bit better. All in all, a mid-90s fastball and a good breaking ball along with a developing change up should be plenty, but Peralta’s K% looks nothing like Verlander’s/Harvey’s/Fernandez’s. His 15% mark is actually 81st out of 90 qualified starters, surrounded by Eric Stultz, Jhoulys Chacin, Bronson Arroyo and Mark Buehrle.
Great velocity, solid movement, and well below average contact rates. Part of the problem is that his command isn’t quite there yet. His walk rate’s a tad high, generated in part by the fact that he throws fewer pitches in the zone than average. Thus, he’s pitching from behind more than average, and 95mph can’t overcome that kind of disadvantage. In addition to some issues with command, he’s struggled a bit against lefties, as they’re more apt to drive his slider as opposed to rolling it over. Now, none of this makes him an awful pitcher. He’s just a work in progress. 95mph with great ground ball rates is a great place to start, and if his command improves, he could be excellent.
1: Miller, 2B
2: Chavez, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Ibanez, LF
6: Smoak, 1B
7: Ackley, CF
8: Ryan, SS
9: Blanco, C
SP: El Cartelua
Stephen Pryor had surgery to repair his torn lat, which is a new one for me. It’s not a ligament/tendon issue, it just sounds like a torn muscle is re-joined surgically. Jake Peavy is among the very few players to have had this procedure.
Blake Beavan, Charles Kaalekahi and Anthony Vasquez start today in the M’s minors.
Game 116, Brewers at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Tom Gorzelanny, 6:10pm
Happy Griffey Day. The M’s are honoring Ken Griffey Jr. today by inducting him into the team’s Hall of Fame, which is an idea Griffey made possible, or at least not completely laughable. For those that remember 1989* – the double, the HR in his first Kingdome AB, the chocalate bars (I’ve still got one), the impossible ease with which he did everything (hitting, fielding, talking to strange old men in the press, smiling) is still imprinted on your mind. There are a number of reasons his exit(s) weren’t ripped from fairy-tale style children’s sports books, but an underrated one is that many people never really came to grips with the fact that he’s human. Our first impression was this impossible combination of homespun gee-whizishness overlaid on some futuristic cyborg skeleton. How can that – I mean he- feel depressed? Why does he want to talk about money? Junior deserves this. Some times, the rhetoric about the team not being in Seattle if it weren’t for him can get a bit overblown, but I seriously doubt they’d be holding this ceremony in Safeco Field without Junior.
I’m going to go from talking about Ken Griffey Jr. to talking about Tom Gorzelanny, which sounds bizarre and wrong, and which is also not Gorzelanny’s fault. No one grew up mimicking Tom Gorzelanny’s wind-up. The ex-Pirate and National is making his seventh start, as he doubles as a swing man and a very effective lefty reliever. The sinker/slider combo’s the centerpiece of his repertoire, but he’s also got a change that he throws to righties. He struggled against righties in the rotation, but he’s been effective in the bullpen. His put-away pitch is the slider, which he throws to righties and lefties alike, at least when ahead in the count. Like a lot of pitchers, he’ll use a four-seamer to same-handed hitters, but stick to the sinker against opposite-handed hitters; this isn’t unique, but it seems counterproductive, given the platoon splits of two-seam/sinking fastballs. Hey, he’s the pitcher, and I’m just the guy hanging on to a 25 year old candy bar with a picture of a teenager on it.
Beyond trouble with righties, Gorzelanny struggled with his command as a starter. It wasn’t awful, but he threw a fair number of balls, and so-so stuff and slightly below average control meant that he was pitching from behind more than average. If fly balls stayed in the yard, or if he got out of trouble with a groundball, he’d look OK. If the fly balls crept over the fence, and if batters stopped swinging at low 3-1 sinkers, his walk rate would spike and, well, that’s why he’s a reliever now. And this year, for the first time in his career, he’s pitching from ahead in the count, enabling him to use his best pitch more. A lefty starter who throws sliders like they’re going to be banned in a month sounds like a terrible match up, but it’s only his seventh start, and his last start lasted all of one inning before he came out with elbow issues. Work counts, Mariners. Or honor Griffey by peppering the cafe in right field; that’d work too.
1: Miller, SS
2: Franklin, 2B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Morales, DH
5: Morse, RF
6: Saunders, CF
7: Smoak, 1B
8: Ackley, :sigh:
9: Quintero, C
SP: Iwakuma
Griffey’s induction starts at 5:30pm, and the M’s are streaming it live on their website.
Whenever I think of Griffey, I think of the story from Spring Training in 2009 and of how awed Greg Halman was to be shagging flies with his childhood idol. Wish you could see this ceremony, Greg.
Taijuan Walker leads the M’s affiliates into battle today, as he starts for Tacoma against Albuquerque. Lefty Roenis Elias takes the hill for Jackson in Game 1 of a doubleheader, while Forrest Snow starts game 2. Fresh off of hanging 30 on Lancaster, High Desert gives the ball to Matt Anderson for today’s game in Adelanto.
* What a year. Junior debuts, then a few months in, the franchise trades its most famous player for a 7′ freak from Walnut Creek. Two of the most iconic, unearthly players of their generation, crossing paths for the first time in Milwaukee, one with an easy smile for everyone, the other mis-labeled a sullen, introverted jerk. It all still looked like losing, but *man* it felt different. Then, of course, the earthquake during the World Series in Oakland and about two weeks later, the fall of the Berlin Wall. That was some kind of year.