Game 145, Astros at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Nick Tropeano, 7:10pm
Wildcard Odds – Fangraphs.com: 49.6% Baseballprospectus.com: 47.7%
A tough loss against a surprisingly tough pitcher last night, and suddenly the M’s wildcard odds edge below 50%. A part of the issue is the Tigers closing schedule is fairly easy, with seven games against the Twins and another three against the White Sox. The Central teams have an advantage in the very last weeks thanks to the unbalanced schedule and the enduring mediocrity of the AL Central itself. That said, the Royals and Tigers are playing each other at the moment, and thus the M’s have to gain ground on SOMEONE. They’ll face off four more times including tonight’s match-up, which features James Shields and Rick Porcello.
The Mariners hope to get back on track behind #2 starter Hisashi Iwakuma, who’s sustained level of success is nothing short of remarkable. Given his sky-high strand rate and low BABIP in 2013, it really felt like there was no way to go but down. Indeed, his BABIP and strand rate have slipped a bit this year, but he’s compensated by improving his peripherals. He is a phenomenal starter and his acquisition and extension remain the two biggest feathers in this front office’s cap.
Nick Tropeano makes his big league debut tonight for Houston. The righty is a product of Stony Brook, where he put up two fantastic statistical seasons in 2010 and 2011, but fell to the fifth round due to pedestrian stuff. After signing with the Astros, his velocity took a bit of an uptick, and he’s been successful at essentially every level, rising through the lower leagues until spending an entire year at AA in 2013 and the whole year in the PCL in 2014. There’s nothing flashy about him; he flashed slightly above-average velocity in the Arizona Fall League in 2012, but that came in relief and the AFL data’s always a bit weird. He’s earned rave review for his change-up, and he also flashes a slurvy curve ball and, according to many scouts, a splitter. In the AFL, we saw just the four-seam, the change and the curve/slider thingy, and it seems a bit odd to throw BOTH a change and a splitter, but hey, it seems to be working for Tropeano.
He’s a fly-ball pitcher, and when he’s run into trouble in the minors, home runs have largely been to blame. His command may have improved, as his numbers overall look better in AAA than they did in the Texas League, despite the increase in altitude/skill level/video game ballparks. Tropeano reduced his dinger rate, and as a result, became one of the the PCL’s best/most consistent arms this year. He sustained a forearm strain early in the season, but was healthy down the stretch, and thus the Astros summoned him up to become the sixth starter in their rotation through the end of the year. Thanks to the change, he’s not shown much in the way of platoon splits. They’re there, but they haven’t been a major problem; while his K:BB ratio’s a bit worse, he still struck out about a quarter of lefties. All in all, the Astros have to be happy with the development of a guy many thought had a back-of-the-rotation (or 7th inning reliever) ceiling. He hasn’t proven he’s any of those things, but his bounce-back year in the PCL showed he could add some value if he can keep the ball in the park in the American League.
Line-up:
1: Jackson, CF
2: Saunders, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Miller, SS
8: Zunino, C
9: Jones, LF
SP: Iwakuma
You may have seen/heard about the latest skirmish in the long-running battle about WAR, the comprehensive value stat for baseball players. Jeff Passan of Yahoo wrote a pretty good article about the incongruity of seeing Alex Gordon’s name top Mike Trout on the fangraphs leaderboard. Gordon’s value’s propelled in large part due to his defensive numbers, numbers which are out of line with his career averages (which were always good, just not great). Dave’s response was measured, and pointed to Robert Arthur’s work at BP and baseball’s own division of payroll to support the idea that the metrics absolutely need to include defensive numbers to get the total WAR numbers right for position players. Today, Tango (the inventor of WAR) has his own multi-part series explaining what WAR is and responding to criticisms about playing time, position adjustments and defense. It’s worth your time, whatever side of the fence you’re on.
One of the benefits of last night’s game, maybe the only one, was getting a longer look at rookie RP Carson Smith, who threw two great innings. I’ve been a fan of his for years, and think he could be a Zach Britton/Jeremy Affeldt type out of the pen at his peak, thanks to a freakish sinking fastball that should generate top-of-the-charts ground ball rates. He can pair it with a good breaking ball, allowing him to get some strikeouts too. The issue, for a side-arming sinkerballer, is going to be platoon splits. We all worried this would hurt Carter Capps’ ability to close long-term, and then Capps suddenly couldn’t get RIGHTIES out either, a fact that I still can’t quite fathom given his arm angle and velocity. Indeed, Smith’s platoon splits in the minors are fairly wide, though that’s mostly because he gave righties fits. This is also where the GB% can give him something of a cushion – if he can’t miss as many lefty bats, that’s OK as long as they’re hitting grounders. It’s also worth noting that his BABIP in the minors was always quite high, which could just be an artifact of lesser fields and fielders, or it could indicate some issues with hard contact. Still, Smith looks like a good one, and while the M’s don’t really have any vacancies for righties in their pen, having too many good big-league arms is a good problem to have.
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83 Responses to “Game 145, Astros at Mariners”
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Giants playing Arizona on ESPN looking like a better game to watch.
Wow, Wilhelmsen put his foot on the rubber (even though he never came set) and the team was not allowed to challenge the Carter steal.
Gotta work on that one, fellas. Freaking team is sleep walking through a meaningful September game at home against a bad team.
Come ON, Jackson. You aren’t supposed to suck this bad!
Sad thing is, we can’t really blame it on obvious bad luck – he’s just been a crappy hitter for us.
It’s hard to find a “lead off” hitter who can strike out 4 times in a game. All swinging, I believe.
Nice game, Jax.
Didn’t he have 3 k’s in yesterday’s game?
It’s not THAT hard, we had it early in the year with Almonte.
Perfect time for Medina. This is the ideal situation for him.
Lloyd loves his roles, so I doubt it’ll change – but Saunders would be better as a leadoff hitter right now.
You are right JMB, but do you realize how many electro shock therapy sessions I had to endure to erase that memory?
Damn you, man!!!
“Late inning lightning.”
Late inning lightning, electro shock therapy, we’ve come full circle.
/thread
msfan-
You gotta think like an old school manager… That means play him MORE– he’s obviously due. Big time. Likely to hit 3 HR’s tomorrow…
Jackson’ll be AL Player of the Week before you know it.
Only obvious changes in Jackson’s line are his O-swing is 10% higher as a Mariner, and what power he had (which wasn’t a ton) has evaporated. His walk line is down a bit, but his strikeout rate, contact rate, BABIP, etc. all are similar.
That 10% O-swing% jump is hopefully just noise, as opposed to coaching.
Who’s “Al-mon-tay”?
(Keen ability with selective memory, I have…)
Rainbow flatulence coming full circle.
Looks like I picked the wrong night to tune in for the 9th inning.
Although I’m shocked they’re not using their ex-Mariner, wasted 1st round draft pick, this last inning to douse our Playoff dreams.
I guess there’s no real chance of pinch-hitting for our “bat only” DH we picked up at the deadline?
Great… it’s Kendrys.
Westy-
You made my same comment, but much more succinctly.
Hey, if the White Sox can score 2 in the bottom of the 9th off the A’s, we can certainly score 4…
Or, maybe not. Dammit.
Great minds think alike, MrZ.
Ours do too.
Nick Tropeano Fan Club. Dave Sims, President.
Seriously, move the fences in. Like 5 feet.
Easily a top 5 worst game of the season to watch.
An effervescent overflow of horseshit galore.
Boooooooo!
That SUCKED… Big time… Kyle with 2 feet too few Wheaties this morning.
Let’s get the A’s… They’re struggling too.
Glad I decided to watch COPS instead. Sheesh.
“An effervescent overflow of horseshit galore”
Sorry, Mike… Rainbow farts can’t fix that. Sadly.
Two solid display’s of my vote for motto: Warning Track Power. Although “Late inning Lightning” is pretty funny too!
How much will it take to get Giancarlo Stanton this winter? I’d feel pretty good about Cano-Stanton-Seager 3-4-5. Dare to dream!
Chiming in again with a late comment that I’m sure no one reads but just saw that attendance tonight was 16,931 or about 1/3 capacity. In comparison Philadelphia was 2/3 full and Boston was at capacity (two last place teams). Hard to have a home field “advantage” when the home fans don’t show up. I’ve probably been to more Ms games in Oakland this year(I live in SF) than the average Seattle based fan had been to up there.
Hey, Warning Track Power was the nickname of my Fantasy Baseball team.
Gad. If there was any justice in the schedule, they’d finish the season with a 3 game series with Detroit and to hell with this battle by proxy.
And… something I thought I’d never say: get well soon Dustin.
Go Ms!
Seattle loves their bandwagons, eddieranch.
Well, on the plus side – at least Saunders came back and is getting on base.
Maybe they need to just tell him to start stealing bases willy-nilly. Including home. Or pinch run James Jones and have him do it.