Game 121, Mariners at Tigers
King Felix vs. David Price, 4:08pm
I’m not going to say this is the biggest game of Felix’s career. That it might be is actually a bit depressing, so forget I mentioned it.
This game features two recent Cy Young winners, and the winner will take the lead in the wild card chase. What more do you need? This *feels* like the biggest game the M’s have played since…what, 2003?
The Tigers are reeling and now they deal with Felix. Go Mariners.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, DH
5: Denorfia, RF
6: Seager, 3B
7: Zunino, C
8: Morrison, 1B
9: Taylor, SS
Game 120, Mariners at Tigerss
James Paxton vs. Rick Porcello, 4:08pm
Mariners Wild Card Odds- Fangraphs.com 44.1% Baseballprospectus.com: 49.8%
After a sweep at the hands of the M’s, the Blue Jays playoff odds are now on life-support. The Tigers too have been hurt in the past week thanks to a few heartbreaking losses to the same Jays team, and thanks to the fact that the Royals have essentially stopped losing. After falling out of the divisional lead, the Tigers found themselves trying to re-take the lead and hold off the M’s just in case Kansas City runs away with the AL Central. The Wild Card is doing exactly what it was meant to do, with these fascinating temporary rivalries and fleeting allegiances (I’ve been rooting for the A’s the past few days, and now I’m a kind of Twins fan).
The Tigers starting pitching made them a juggernaut in the Central last year, and despite the struggles of their erstwhile ace, Justin Verlander, they’re still the top rotation by fWAR this year. They pair that elite rotation with an equally-impressive offense; last season, their 113 team wRC+ ranked second in baseball behind the World Champion Red Sox. This year, despite losing Prince Fielder and with a down year (by his standards) from Miguel Cabrera, they’re still at 108, and still second in baseball. So why are they trailing the Royals by a half-game?
First of all, their actual runs-allowed hasn’t quite matched up to their shiny FIPs. Anibal Sanchez and Justin Verlander in particular have been hurt by absurdly low strand rates, and thus, while the Tigers ERA’s still decent, by fielding dependent WAR, the Tigers are neck and neck with the Royals. A big reason for this has been Detroit’s poor defense. The Tigers rank 27th in baseball by UZR, and 26th by defensive efficiency. By defensive runs saved, they’re all the way down at 29th. They’ve been especially weak in the outfield, with ex-Tiger Austin Jackson’s poor UZR numbers pulling them down a bit, and thanks to Torii Hunter’s quick slide from elite corner defender to liability. And then there’s the Tigers atrocious bullpen. By ERA, they rank 27th in MLB. By FIP, they’re 28th (yes, the defenders have hurt them too, but the Tigers’ pen has been bad even putting balls in play aside). Joba Chamberlain, Al Albuquerque and Blaine Hardy have been solid most of the season, but big off-season acquisition Joe Nathan’s and veteran Phil Coke have been replacement-level this season. That’s the reason the Tigers grabbed Joakim Soria from Texas in July, but the ex-closer had a terrible run with his new team (six runs allowed in his first 1 2/3 IP), and just when he appeared to get back on track, he was sidelined with an oblique strain. The M’s have a massive, massive advantage in both defense and bullpen strength/depth.
Today’s starter, Rick Porcello, posted one of the worst strand rates of any starter from 2010-2013, and thus his ERA was always much higher than his FIP. He’s continually tweaked his approach – last year, his strikeout rate jumped dramatically, but he gave away most of that improvement this year. After years of a terrible BABIP and a terrible ERA, he’s posted the best strand rate and the lowest BABIP of his career, and after years of getting hit hard by lefties, he’s posting reverse splits this year. So what’s he doing differently? For one, he’s throwing a lot more four-seam fastballs to lefties, and that’s taken the pressure off of his 92mph sinker. His GB% at a career low (though it’s still a touch above average), and that’s certainly helping his BABIP. He ditched his slider in favor of a curve ball last year, and he’s gotten better at commanding it. It’s not a swing-and-miss curve, but it generates some ground-ball contact, which helps balance out his batted-ball profile. In two seasons of pretty heavy use, no lefty’s hit a home run off of it, which helps Porcello’s other long-standing problem. Clearly, there are things you can point to that help explain his improvement, and he’s got the status as the top HS-pitching prospect in his draft class and all of that too.
Still, you wouldn’t want to bet anything you cared about that this can continue. After a career of struggling against lefties, it’s unlikely throwing a couple more four-seamers has entirely eradicated that problem. Chris Young can throw lefties high four-seam fastballs and get away with it, but I’m not sure a career sinker-baller can do that consistently. As so much of his improved splits is due to a low HR-rate to lefties, it looks even less sustainable. It’s not like he’s striking them out, he’s just keeping them in the ballpark for the first time. The low strikeout rate also makes it harder to believe that the strand rate belongs up there ahead of King Felix’s. Porcello, as basically every sabermetrically-inclined fan has said, was never as bad as his lousy ERAs, but I’m not convinced he’s as good as this year’s, either.
Line-up:
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Chavez, RF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: James Paxton
The Mariners are Now Bumming Out Other Teams
There’s always a sort of impetus to kick off these posts, something that sat us down to look and then type frantically for however many minutes and hours until, bam, front page post. Sometimes it’s just as simple as looking at a stat sheets and going “wull, that’s weird” and then going from there and other times it’s something that we pick up from video observations, which are more easily repeated in the wild.
I get most of my game intake from radio, which means the perspective I get is somewhat skewed. I don’t have a TV in the same room as my computer because I might never leave otherwise, and besides, I work most of the time. But the point I’m attempting to get at here: Over the past couple of days I’ve been listening to games and have also had the privilege of visually catching some of last night’s game at a bar [with Matthew and others] and tonight’s game while at home.
One of the things that I’ve noticed over the past series on radio is there have been a few instances in which a strikeout pitch got a bit wild and got away from the catcher du jour. In many of those instances (one excludes Mune because Mune, Tolleson because WHO IS HE), I’ve heard or seen the same batters victimized by those strikeouts looking at the balls with a flat “WELP.” No running for first, just existential misery. Or, more commonly, they’re staring at the called third strike or the swing is a bail swing, defensive, reflexive, not hoping for much more than staying alive. The example I would point to is the Melky Cabrera strikeout late in today’s game, but there are others that are available as well and I’ve reviewed what pitching videos I could up to this moment.
These types of swings, I’m kind of used to seeing from the Mariners. Used to seeing Smoak or Montero or Bad Ackley take a hack or watch a bad pitch and then go stoically to the dugout (Michael Saunders doesn’t count, has need of mouth soap). I’m not used to the Mariners causing it to happen outside of Felix. But the Blue Jays are a good team. They don’t really have much pitching, but they’re the fifth best team in the American League by hitter WAR and fourth best by wRC+ and third in runs scored. Their strikeout rate only ranks tenth. And at times during this series, they’ve looked utterly demoralized, incapable of executing on what they needed to do in order to keep in it. They had twenty-seven Ks in 100 ABs. Fangraphs is telling me that they K’d in 20.7% of their ABs coming into this particular game. We outdid that mark by about a third.
This was a series with playoff implications and the Mariners, by strength of their pitching, sometimes loud hitting, and a weird outburst by Kendrys Morales, but mostly pitching, have made the Blue Jays look and act like losers. In Safeco, where the ‘Ners didn’t even have a winning record coming into the homestand. Meanwhile, the offense has done what it was supposed to do to pitchers that had middling track records, which is to say, get leads.
Consider this information over the off day, delighting in it, or applying the habituated skepticism.
Game 119, Blue Jays at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. RA Dickey, 7:10pm
RA Dickey was the 2012 NL Cy Young award winner, and he signed a big (ok, maybe “moderate” is more accurate) contract with the Jays the year after. And yet, he’s clearly the second best pitcher tonight, and that’s the big reason why Fangraphs gives the M’s a better-than-60% chance of completing the series sweep tonight.
Dickey’s always been just about impossible to project. In his first few seasons as a knuckleballer, first with the M’s and then with Minnesota, his control got him into trouble, and while he limited BABIP (the knuckleballer addendum to Voros McCracken’s DIPS theory), it wasn’t enough to make him more than replacement level. But upon joining the Mets in 2010, he suddenly stopped walking so many and nearly instantly became a good, solid MLB starting pitcher. He posted better-than-league average WARs in 2010 and 2011, and that clearly understated his value: because his true talent BABIP was lower than the average (something FIP ignored), he was much better on the field than you’d know by looking at his fielding independent stats. In 2012, he went nuts and became a strikeout pitcher as well, as batters started chasing his knuckler out of the zone. His control was excellent, and that allowed him to get ahead of hitters and get them to expand the zone. In addition, the low BABIP meant higher than average strand rates, and boom, 20 wins, less-than-3.00 ERA, hardware.
Before he signed with Toronto, Dave tried to correct the idea that Dickey was a one-year wonder, and indeed, Toronto ended up paying not for his extraordinary 2012, but something like his 2010-2011 level of performance. In a lot of ways, that’s what they’ve gotten. His BABIP is right where it was, his walks are up a bit (expected after switching leagues), but his K’s have stayed fairly high too. He’s not getting as many whiffs, but that’s not the story. The story is that he’s lost that traditional knuckleballer skill of stranding baserunners because of his low BABIP. The low BABIP’s still there, but the strand rate keep falling.
Most pitchers have a very similar pattern in their three-true-outcome stats when the bases are empty and when there are runners in scoring position. Traditionally, K rates are highest, walk rates are lowest, and HR rates highest with the bases empty. Hisashi Iwakuma is the best example, as he challenges hitters with the bases empty, then gets a bit cagier with RISP (even if that means pitching around a tough hitter). Dickey was just like everyone else when he was with the Mets, but now, the reverse is happening. Or rather, he’s not seeing any gains in HR-rate from his losses in BB rate with RISP. He walks more hitters, but he’s giving up his HRs when they hurt the most. The odd thing is that it’s not JUST Dickey. The entire Blue Jays team has a higher HR rate with RISP than they do with the bases empty. That makes no sense. Not sure you can blame this on the HR-inflating properties of the Rogers Centre, not sure if it’s pitch calling, or something the catchers are doing, but it’s really weird. Dickey’s retained some of the benefit that adheres to knuckleballers, but he’s lost the others. No idea if he can get them back.
Line-up:
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Denorfia, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Miller SS
SP: Iwakuma
Game 118, Not-As-Blue-As-Steller’s-Jays at Mariners
Chris Young vs. J.A. Happ, 7:10pm
Mariners wild card odds – Fangraphs.com: 34.7% BaseballProspectus.com: 37.7%
I’m going to start putting the playoff odds for the M’s up at the top of these posts. I have been here since 2010, so at no point was this a priority, or a thing I needed to think about, or discuss with Jeff/Dave/a qualified therapist. This is fun. For reference, BP’s odds also calculate the one-day and seven-day change in these playoff odds, and you can get a sense of how volatile they can be when two teams chasing the same prize play each other by looking at how they change from day to day. For example, yesterday’s game improved the M’s odds by 8%, while the Blue Jays’ dropped by about the same (actually, 8.9%). To be clear – I’m just posting the wild card odds. Their overall playoff odds are a tiny bit higher, reflecting their odds of catching both the A’s and Angels. This is more of an issue for the Blue Jays, who could conceivably catch Baltimore, but I’m not going to worry about it for Seattle. The M’s are focused on that second wild card, and thus I’ll focus on that too. If you want to make a run at the division, though, I am willing to revisit this, OK M’s?
Yesterday’s game was a great one – it featured yet another dominant outing from Felix (who really made one bad pitch and paid for it; he was close to getting Bautista with an earlier change/sinker, but then really hung a pitch), a suprisingly tense early period where Hutchison pitched effectively, and then an offensive explosion that turned the later innings into a party that featured lots of Canada-taunting. That said, yesterday’s was the game they were *supposed* to win. The next two are arguably more important than beating a jet-lagged, exhausted team throwing Brad Mills to the wolves. Today’s game features lefty J.A. Happ, a fastball/curve/change-up hurler the Blue Jays picked up from Houston in exchange for the curdled dregs of Francisco Cordero’s career.
He first garnered attention in 2009, when he went 12-4 with a sparkling 2.93 ERA in a hitter’s park for Philadelphia. The sabermetrically-inclined blogosphere noted that he benefited from an absurdly high strand rate, and didn’t seem to have a dominant skill – his K% was so-so, his walk rate was so-so, and while his HR/FB was low, he didn’t magically avoid HRs. He threw 90mph, and had normal platoon splits. In a rare moment of lucidity and brilliance, Ruben Amaro Jr. flipped him to Houston in exchange for Roy Oswalt, and he again posted a good RA/9 despite bad peripherals. Was he another Jarrod Washburn, or, and you hate to even mention the king of the “peripherals don’t matter” pitchers, Chris Young? Apparently not. From 2011-2013, Happ decided to see how the other half lived, and posted better peripherals (thanks to an uptick in K rate) and god-awful actual results. Suddenly, FIP wasn’t the big meany telling him he wasn’t actually worth nearly 5 wins in 2009, it was about the only thing saying that Happ was better than replacement level.
This year’s been an interesting one for the lefty. He’s finally brought his walks under control again after several years of posting BB% over 10%, and he’s got a K% of 20% for the first time in his career. He’s still not exactly great; that 85% (!) strand rate that produced 2009’s lovely ERA never returned. But he’s suddenly throwing a lot harder than he had in the past. Happ actually gained about 1 MPH on his fastball from 2009 to 2012-13, but this year, it’s up even more, and he’s now averaging 93-94mph on it. His four-seamer has a lot of vertical rise, and thus he’s generally been a fly-ball pitcher. It’s nowhere near as extreme as Chris Young’s and thus his FB% is likewise a bit more moderate. Happ’s also gone away from his slider/cutter, a pitch he used as his primary breaking ball before. Instead, he’s relying on a curve at around 78mph and a hard change at 86. The change in particular has been easy for right-handers to elevate, and thus he’s struggled a bit against them this year. It’s hard to know if it’s just a small sample thing (he’s had a decent change-up in the past) or if there’s some issue with his change and sinker (another pitch he’s throwing more of) getting too similar. Adding the two- and four-seamers together (and he still throws far more of the latter than the former), Happ throws his fastball around 70% of the time, which is actually a bit more than Chris Young’s 65% rate this season, but right in line with Young’s career mark.
Today’s line-up:
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Denorfia, RF
7: Zunino, C
8: Morrison, 1B
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Young
Great (but math-heavy!) article from Russell Carleton at BP (free) today investigating clutch hitting. It’s very interesting; Carleton used player-specific regressions to examine change in behavior (in this case swing rates) in high-leverage situations. That’s a step or three removed from what we think of as “clutch hitting” but it’s important to start to tease out if and how players react to clutch situations. Hopefully he’ll look at more components of hitting and we’ll start to piece together a picture of what some players are able to do in high-leverage moments.
Sticking at BP, Sam Miller wrote about ($) the sudden, sad decline of the Texas Rangers, a team that looked in 2012 to be a perennial powerhouse.
You’ve just read Jeff’s article on Felix and the AL MVP race (just below this one), now take a look at Dave’s examination of how starters have fared in MVP voting recently. Mostly bad, of course, but hey, Verlander in 2011! I think the list of pitcher MVPs highlights how strange that award really is. Everyone has a different definition of value, so you can’t *just* go by WAR, but you combine the oddities like Rollie Fingers in 1981 with the blunders like Ivan Rodriguez and Mo Vaughn and the whole thing looks a bit strange. It’s clearly gotten much better in recent years, which is why Felix will win the Cy Young even if, say, Scott Kazmir finishes with more wins. But Felix is an MVP, and while I don’t think he’ll get one, that’s no fault of his.
The Rainiers are in New Orleans tonight, taking on prospect Andrew Heaney. Not sure who’s starting for Tacoma, but it isn’t Roenis Elias; sounds like Elias will get 3-4 innings on Wednesday (hat tip Greg Johns). Cam Habson starts in AA, and Scott DeCecco takes the hill for High Desert (also facing a prospect – this time, it’s Astros fireballer Lance McCullers).
Speaking of the Rainiers, M’s SS prospect Ketel Marte’s now in AAA with the club, and he went 2-5 in his AAA debut yesterday. The 20-year old has very little power, but he’s improved as he’s moved up the ladder, and has a good defensive reputation. You may have seen him in spring training with the M’s in recent years.
This Is What An MVP Looks Like
Let’s just take a quick little look at the American League leaders in WAR:
| Player | WAR |
|---|---|
| Felix Hernandez | 6.2 |
| Mike Trout | 5.9 |
| Alex Gordon | 5.3 |
| Corey Kluber | 5.2 |
| Jon Lester | 5.1 |
Felix would lead the National League, too, but for MVP purposes, we split the leagues apart. How about a closely-related alternative, where we use a pitcher WAR that gives more direct credit for runs allowed or prevented?
| Player | WAR |
|---|---|
| Felix Hernandez | 6.6 |
| Mike Trout | 5.9 |
| Alex Gordon | 5.3 |
| Corey Kluber | 4.9 |
| Garrett Richards | 4.8 |
| Robinson Cano | 4.8 |
| Michael Brantley | 4.8 |
| Ben Zobrist | 4.8 |
Hey, another Mariner. Anyhow, Felix’s WAR is the highest in the league. Felix’s RA9-WAR is the highest in the league. By those measures, Felix has been the American League’s most valuable player to date, and while this is more of a starting point than a definitive conclusion, this really gets to the core of things quick. You start with WAR and argue around it, and there’s only so much room to budge.
There is room to budge. Trout has been insanely good. He’s even been clutch, somehow. Most of the time, Trout’s a shoo-in. Maybe Trout still is a shoo-in, despite the current landscape. The whole precedent here for Felix would be 2011 Justin Verlander, who’s the only pitcher to win a league MVP in the last 20+ years. Verlander’s main competition, statistically, was Jacoby Ellsbury, who was amazing, but that was the year that the Red Sox collapsed down the stretch and they ultimately barely missed the playoffs, while the Tigers won their division. Voters, apparently, hate collapses. We know they reward playoff berths. Trout vs. Felix looks a lot like Ellsbury vs. Verlander, except that Felix’s team is currently out of the playoffs and Trout’s team is somewhat safely in. Presumably, if the voting happened today, Trout would win by a landslide.
But, I don’t know for sure. I’m guessing Felix would end up splitting some votes with Robinson Cano — Cano’s been great, and in some voters’ minds, he’s the difference here. The Mariners have had awesome Felix, and they’ve been terrible. Now they have Cano and they’re competing. Okay. What Felix really has going in his favor, aside from his overall numbers, is that he has a thing. He has this ongoing streak. Felix has made those 16 consecutive starts of 7+ innings and no more than two runs, and that’s the longest such streak ever, and that might gain him a little more purchase. He’s done something no one’s ever done, and it’s taken place into the stretch run with the Mariners turning their season around and getting deep into the race. Who knows how much longer it could continue? Voters love high-leverage performances, and they love consistency, and Felix is breaking baseball in his first playoff chase since blooming.
Plus, there’s the whole sub-2 ERA thing. If that keeps up, it sure is mighty hard to ignore a sub-2 ERA from a starting pitcher. That’s one of Felix’s other things. And maybe there’s a little Mike Trout fatigue? I’m just flailing around and grasping at anything right now, but I think that’s also how some of the voting takes place.
Today, Mike Trout would almost certainly win the AL MVP, and he’d almost certainly win it by a lot. But for one thing, the season isn’t over, and Felix might get into the postseason yet. He can still gain even more momentum. For another thing, even if Felix doesn’t win, that doesn’t mean he won’t have been the most valuable player in the league, or at least basically tied for it. The headline reads “This Is What An MVP Looks Like”. That’s true. This is how an MVP looks and feels. You have more confidence in the player than you have in all the other players combined. An MVP leaves baseball in ruins behind him, and by certain criteria, Felix has put together the longest dominant streak in baseball history. Impossibly, he’s raised his game to a level we couldn’t have dreamed would exist. If you were building a 2014 baseball team from scratch, you very well might select Felix Hernandez first.
Within the last few years, we’ve gotten to care about the Cy Young. This year, we get to care about both the Cy Young and the league MVP. And also a run to the playoffs. Nothing quite like caring about a run to the playoffs. The Mariners wouldn’t be in this position were it not for the King, who has become in every sense the perfect player. Sure would be great for him to get an MVP. Sure would be great for him to get something better.
Game 117, Blue Jays at Mariners
King Felix vs. Drew Hutchison, 7:10pm
Here it is, the biggest series of the M’s season, and thus the biggest series the M’s have played in several years. The Blue Jays can overtake the M’s in the WC race, or the M’s could do some serious damage to the Jays’ playoff hopes. It’s a match-up featuring the team with the best pitching against the team with the (second) best hitting, and it’s going to be fun to hear the Safeco crowd pulling for the M’s against Toronto for the first time in a while.
Today’s game in particular offers another interesting contrast: a team that’s presumably well-rested and one that’s exhausted and has no idea what time it is right now. The Jays flew across the country after a 19 inning game against Detroit, and two days after a 10 inning game. The Jays’ bullpen is essentially toast, as they threw nearly 16 innings last night. Starter Drew Hutchison averages about 5 2/3 IP per start, but the Jays really, really need him to get deeper than that tonight. In case he can’t, the Jays have called up swingman Brad Mills from the minors, optioning 2B Ryan Goins back to AAA.
Speaking of Hutchison, he’s an intriguing starter – a guy with a 92-93mph four-seamer, a slider and a change-up. With a “rising” FB, he’s definitely a fly ball pitcher, but he’s kept the HRs in check, at least, he’s allowed a decent number of them considering his home park’s pretty HR-friendly. His real problem concerns his change-up, and thus, his platoon splits. His change-up, which he throws often to lefties, gets respectable whiff numbers, but when batters hit it, they hit it hard. In a tiny sample, lefties are slugging .746 on the pitch this year, and thus he’s been weak against lefties. Like Brandon Maurer, this problem never really showed up in the minors; his MiLB FIPs are essentially dead even for RHB/LHBs. If you want to work in baseball, this’d be a great project to work on – what are the attributes of a successful big league change-up? Why do some work very well against minor leaguers but don’t fool major leaguers?
Hutchison originally came up in 2012, jumping from AA to the Jays rotation, but after 11 starts, he tore his UCL and needed Tommy John surgery. In those 11 starts his change was better against lefties, though we’re now talking about a miniscule sample. Has he changed his delivery post-surgery, such that the pitch isn’t as deceptive now? Is it small-sample nothingness? Is he now familiar enough that hitters have learned his tendencies and pitch sequencing? I don’t know, and I’m not GOING to know, because I don’t cover the Blue Jays, and for the next few weeks/months, the Blue Jays are the enemy. Your change-up sucks, Drew Hutchison.
Let’s talk about Felix for a minute here. This morning, Ryan Divish of the Times tweeted the Baseball-Reference stats for Felix’s current 15-start run. The line contains multitudes, and I’m not sure what to focus on. The OBP of .208? The K:BB ratio of 126:20? It’s all just so, so beautiful, except for the part about the M’s suffering four losses during the streak. It made me think back to the last time we saw something like this – the summer of 2012, and Felix’s incredible run from mid-June to late-August. That streak spanned 14 starts and 109 innings, so it’s just about exactly as long as Felix’s current run (114 IP). There are some surface similarities, obviously. Felix gave up a higher OBP in the 2012 streak (thanks to four HBPs), but only two HRs, so his SLG% against is actually higher in the current streak. But the more I look at it, the more I think the current streak is actually more mind-blowing, and I saw that despite the fact Felix punctuated that 2012 run with a perfect %$#ing game. Felix’s 2012 streak featured fewer strikeouts and a very different batted-ball profile. In 2012, Felix paired his devilish change-up thingy with a four-seam fastball. He threw twice as many four- as two-seamers, and had a GB/FB ratio just under 1. This go-round, he’s thrown twice as many sinkers as four-seamers, and he’s actually throwing both of them harder than he did in 2012. After years of gradual velo decline, Felix has ticked up slightly this year, and that’s comparing a sample that started in mid-June to one that started in mid-May.
More than the change in his fastball usage, though, what really stands out is the change in his, uh, change usage. In 2012, he pitched off of his fastball, and was extremely effective in limiting hard contact (until September rolled around, and he gave up all sorts of hard contact). In 2014, he’s pitching *off of his change-up*, a pitch he’s thrown more often than any other, sinker included, and generating even weaker contact while also getting more strikeouts. In the 2012 streak, about 4% of his change-ups were hit for fly balls, which is remarkably low, but in the current streak, it’s just under 2%. 2%! As a result, his GB% is higher in the current streak, and while you can’t assume a hot streak = a player’s true talent, Felix has pretty clearly shifted how he pitches, and the way he pitches now looks fairly sustainable. He’s not always going to be nearly untouchable, but Felix can have a so-so night and still be very effective (I’d argue that’s what he did against Baltimore back on July 25th) with this approach.
So is it a good idea to throw the change-up so often? Is there a greater injury risk? I don’t know, but I’d tend to doubt it. Part of the problem is that looking at how change-up frequency correlates with injury wouldn’t tell us much we could apply to Felix. No one throws a change-up like Felix, and I hesitate to even call it one.
Tonight’s line-up:
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Chavez, RF
9: Miller, SS
SP: King Felix
Good lefty line-up today; here’s hoping facing Hutchison can get Miller going again. Endy Chavez actually has a .301/.329/.411 slash line against RHPs this season, which explains why he’s still here. I wouldn’t want to bank on that going forward, but… I’m sorry, I can’t get over the fact that his SLG% starts with a 4, even if it is a platoon split. Endy Chavez has two HRs against righties this year! You should feel bad, Scott Carroll and Trevor Bauer! (Both HRs came on breaking balls, and neither was in a spot that you’d expect Endy Chavez to do some damage. Both were inside, of course, but Bauer threw a cutter that was arguably a ball, while Carroll hung a curve ball).
As you know, the M’s (and Jays) are currently chasing the KC Royals for the 2nd wild card. Jeff’s got a good post today explaining what it is the Royals do well – better than anyone, in fact.
Noted Royals fan Rany Jazayerli has a great post up on an even more noted Royals fan, at least for the past month or so. If you’re on twitter, you may have heard a bit about the story of Sun Woo Lee, and how the South Korean’s first trip to KC has kind of taken off and made the unassuming Kim (who became a fan of the Royals in the 1990s) a minor celebrity in the area. The Royals and several of their players have reached out to Lee, and they’re stepping it up by allowing Kim to throw out the first pitch of tonight’s game. Of note: the Royals haven’t lost since Lee came over. Damn you Royals, and your attempts to humanize yourself in the eyes of your bitter Grass Creek rivals!
In the minors, Taijuan Walker pitched his best game of the year last night, striking out 13 Fresno Grizzlies (and only walking one) in the Rainiers 2-1 win. As a team, the R’s struck out 17 and walked just the one batter. Today, though, they lost 4-3 after Jordan Pries had some control issues, walking 5 in 5 1/3 IP. Ramire Cleto starts for Everett as they host Spokane.
All Right, Seattle
Dayton Moore said a couple things last year that got him staring down the business end of the Internet. And he definitely deserved it, if not to such an extreme degree. Around the All-Star break, defending his decision not to sell, he said he believed the Royals could get back in it by winning 15 out of 20. Shortly thereafter they won 17 out of 20. And then, Moore was speaking after the year, after a year in which the Royals again didn’t make the playoffs. His exact words: “In a small way, I feel like we’ve won the World Series.” That got him roasted. Few things the baseball Internet loves quite like roasted Dayton Moore.
Of course, 15 out of 20 is usually over-optimistic. Of course, the Royals didn’t win the World Series, or the ALCS, or the ALDS, or the wild-card playoff, or an 87th game. But talking about that second quote, if you allow yourself, you can see where Moore was coming from. He said himself after the fact it was a poor choice of words, but he was trying to convey a certain sentiment, and one that isn’t untrue or invalid. The Royals last year didn’t succeed by playing in October, but they did succeed in getting people engaged, and keeping people engaged. People went to Royals games in August; people were excited to go to Royals games in August. There was a buzz, and it was as if someone had revived a comatose franchise. The 2013 Royals returned the Royals organization to local and national relevance.
The Mariners are about to host the Blue Jays. The Mariners are competing directly against the Blue Jays. These could be games described as having a playoff atmosphere, and that’s because, in terms of feel, these games won’t feel altogether that different from playoff games. The Mariners are definitely fighting for their lives. Nothing will be conclusively determined by the next three games, but the future in part depends on this. You might not think these will be pseudo-playoff games. You might not remember the feel of playoff games. That’s okay, I don’t either. I’m just basically guessing here, but I think that I’m on to something.
We can’t say the Mariners organization overall has been rescued, but a feeling buried deep within us has been unearthed. It’s August and we give a shit, and if we’re lucky, soon it will be September and we’ll be able to continue giving shits. Not in the “this prospect might help us down the road” kind of way — in the other way, the more immediately meaningful way, the way where we care about team outcomes over individual outcomes. It’s the reverse of our usual stretch run, and when it’s August and when you care, you get games against competitors, not just games against the White Sox or some interleague opponent. Yesterday’s game, for the Mariners, was of a certain leverage. Tonight’s game, and the following couple games, will be of a higher leverage. These matter, more than usual, and they’re at home, and the Mariners have their three best starting pitchers lined up against three inferior starting pitchers.
This is the biggest Safeco series of the year. It was big to take two of three from the A’s before the break, but the A’s were so far out ahead it’s not like the Mariners were playing for the division. It was important to take two of three from the Indians at the end of June, but that was June, and the Indians were several games behind. There was nothing this big in 2013, of course. Nor 2012, nor 2011, nor 2010, nor 2009 nor 2008. You know where this is going. There was a hyped home series in August 2007. When it started, the Mariners were two games out of first place in the division, and they had the lead in the wild card. Then they got stomped, outscored 24-8, and the tailspin lasted for, I don’t know, years? Felix Hernandez might remember that series. Kendrys Morales might remember that series, too, albeit with a hell of a lot more fondness.
It’s been that long since we had this. How precious is this? Well, it’s been that long since we had this. Last time people got to look forward to a playoff atmosphere in Safeco in August, the team lost 13 of 14 games and plummeted right out of the race. It could happen again! There’s absolutely no way to know. The only thing we know for sure is these games matter, an awful lot, and this is something that ought to be cherished. For those in attendance, this is something that ought to be wild.
The complaint has existed for more than a decade, that Safeco is baseball’s most beautiful library. But, what do you expect from a crowd of people watching the last decade+ of the Mariners? Maybe you’d like for there to be more noise, but the noises would not have been pleasant or appropriate for kids. Crowds respond to a response-worthy product, and Safeco used to ring, it used to roar during that four-year window of incredible success. I can’t say enough about the idea behind and execution of the King’s Court. The King’s Court is the second-coolest damned thing in baseball, behind the King himself. That atmosphere was made possible, once every five home games, by the formation of such a fan-centric area. There’s another kind of atmosphere made possible for every home game by the baseball team being one of the better baseball teams. To participate, the only special ticket you need is a ticket for entry. The whole park’s involved, to say nothing of the fan network watching somewhere else. This is the sweet spot of fandom, where you have legitimate hope that falls well shy of entitled expectation. It makes a sound, and you can hear it for nine innings at a time.
Lloyd McClendon’s talked about the second season, the season that begins August 1. Everybody plays after August 1, but only some of the teams play for any reason. The Mariners made it to season #2, and they’re trying to make it to season #3. The stakes right now are lower, yet at the same time they’re incredibly high, and this is why Dayton Moore emerged from 2013 feeling more than a little satisfied. In theory there’s a black-and-white difference between regular-season baseball and postseason baseball, but really, towards the end you’re either playing baseball that matters or you’re not. The point is to make people care for as long as you can, and the Mariners today are where they haven’t been in some time. This is fragile and God knows we don’t trust it, but we get to look forward to immediate opportunity. What’s the worst that could happen? I mean, we know the worst that could happen, because we already went through it in 2007. At least we get the anticipation.
The fans never left. The sports scene in the northwest is rabid and loyal. The fans never left. They just didn’t show up, because why would they? They checked out because there was no reason not to. They’re all now getting pulled back in, so they can maybe be a part of something. A part of what, we don’t know, but without the hopeful mystery sports would be a sentence told to you.
At one point earlier this post had a direction. Appropriately, I guess, I’ve gotten lost in my own tangled mental web of excitement. Seattle isn’t hosting playoff games, but it’s hosting almost-playoff games, and that beats the crap out of everything we’re used to. For three days, the Mariners will try to thump the damn Blue Jays. For three days, we’ll think everything about these Mariners, from the best to the worst and to everything in between. For at least three days, we’ll hope that someone can beat the unbeatable Royals. There are no teams of destiny, but there are teams that reach the end and stand alone, and on August 11 we wonder if — this season — that team is our team.
Podcast: The Mariners are Winning
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Game 116, White Sox at Mariners
Erasmo Ramirez vs. John Danks, 1:10pm
As a rebuilding team, it’s probably not that surprising that the White Sox have some payroll flexibility in the next few years. Paul Konerko’s gone after this year, and Adam Dunn’s four-year deal expires. Most of the players under contract are still good, and most of the contracts are remarkably team friendly. Jose Quintana’s due all of one million next season. Alexei Ramirez isn’t great, but his $10m salary isn’t crippling, either. Jose Abreu’s under contract until 2019, and I think the Sox are OK with that. In any event, he’s due just $7m in 2015. But then there’s John Danks.
Danks was a solid starter around 2010, topping 200 IP twice and riding a 92mph fastball and a very good change-up to around 15 fWAR in the four seasons from 2008-2011. The change-up was good enough that it inspired a counter-strategy by Tampa – Joe Maddon would stack his line-up with *lefties* against the left-handed Danks to try to get him to throw fewer change-ups. At the end of that 2011 campaign, the Sox locked him up on a 5-yr-$65m extension, covering 2012-2016. So far it…well it hasn’t been good. He made all of nine (bad) starts in the spring of 2012 before going down with a season-ending shoulder injury. After a difficult surgery to repair a torn capsule, he returned to make 22 starts in 2013. Unfortunately, his velocity was down, and he got hammered in those starts, finishing with an ERA and a FIP over 5.00.
So, 2014 – another year removed from surgery, another opportunity to re-build arm stre…no, just, no. His velocity’s down again, now hovering from 88-89 with his fastball, and while his change-up’s still a decent pitch, it’s harder to get to it when batters are teeing off against his fastball. The Danks Theory thing is probably out the window as well – right-handers are eating that not-so-fastball alive. RHBs have a total of 12 HRs against his four- and two-seam fastballs this season alone, on their way to 20 HRs off of him in all. After running remarkably even splits for years, even some reverse splits, RHBs are teeing off. I don’t think we’ll see Endy Chavez, is what I’m saying. We may be seeing the sad end to Danks’ career, as he’s not been able to pull his FIP below 5 since his injury. The HRs are mounting, and it’s not like he can get a change of scenery – his contract is unmovable. Next year, Jose Quintana and Chris Sale will make $7m COMBINED, while Danks will take in $14.25m. He’ll out-earn Quintana/Sale again in 2016, but the odds he’ll actually pitch for the White Sox that year are looking pretty remote.
Erasmo Ramirez has a Danksian change-up, but he’s struggled with the long ball as well. Danks had a useful cutter for a few years to keep lefties honest, but Ramirez’s slider has been remarkably bad against right-handed bats. If it was me, I’d tell him to shelve his two-seamer and work on a cutter or a curve.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Denorfia, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Taylor, SS
9: Sucre, C
SP: Erasmoooooo
Tough end to the game last night. It’s actually a good sign that the M’s are sticking with Taylor today after his inglorious end in the 10th last night (error, then game ending DP). The Royals keep winning, and they and the Yankees have home games today. This is a big game, M’s.