Every good bullpen is the same; every bad bullpen is bad in its own way
With Danny Farquhar’s loss yesterday to Baltimore, the M’s tied the historically hapless Athletics with 12 bullpen losses on the year, the most in the majors. M’s fans know well, of course, that the pen hasn’t been operating at peak effectiveness, and that it’s cost the M’s several wins, but nationally, the M’s bullpen struggles may fly under the radar because they’re within the normal range, whereas Oakland’s struggles really do seem pretty unique. Dave wrote a great article at Rob Neyer’s Just a Bit Outside site on the A’s, but I wanted to look at the myriad ways bullpens can become a problem by looking at the M’s and Marlins struggles, and how they differ from the A’s.
The job of the bullpen’s pretty clear: don’t let inherited runners score, and snuff out any potential comebacks before they occur. The best way to do this, it seems, is to pair high-strikeout guys with platoon specialists, and in so doing limit balls in play, hits and runs. This is all pretty obvious, but if we’re going to talk about how this can go wrong, we should probably start with the platonic ideal of a bullpen. In recent years, the closest thing to a platonic idea we’ve seen has been the Kansas City and Atlanta bullpens, who’ve combined high-K set-up and closers with some highly effective left-handed specialists, and given up very few runs as a result. You can make a go of it in other ways, and the M’s had a good run for a year with the likes of Roy Corcoran, who induced a lot of weak (ground ball) contact for a while, and then abruptly stopped doing so. To be consistently good, the Aroldis Chapman/Craig Kimbrel/Jordan Walden type is effective because you take a lot of lucky elements out of play. There’s no BABIP fluctuations to worry about with strikeouts, and high-velocity pitchers often run lower BABIPs and HR/FB ratios because they’re just much harder to barrel up. A great K:BB ratio and lower HRs produces a great FIP, and that’s generally correlated with good runs-on-the-board results.
But not always. As of today, the Marlins rank 3rd in baseball in bullpen FIP at 2.93, essentially tied with the 2nd place Astros (?). They’ve got the lowest HR rate of any team, and they pair that with the 7th best K:BB ratio. Because their home park, some of that low HR rate isn’t related to their performance, but even after park adjusting with FIP-, they rank 5th in baseball. They’ve been good.
Sort to ERA, though, and the Marlins rank 21st, and by WPA, they’re consorting with the M’s and A’s – they rank 28th. There are a number of somewhat complicated factors at work here and one big simple one. First, their balls in play have found holes, and that’s pushing up their ERA relative to the fielding-independent numbers. Partly as a result of that high BABIP, they’re terrible at stranding inherited runners – they rank 3rd worst in all of baseball with 43% of inherited runners scoring, and they’ve converted just 4 of the 12 save opportunities they’ve had. This points to the simple factor here: their closer just lost it. Steve Cishek has been a solid if non-traditional closer for a few years, and he’s generally been quite good. A high-GB guy, he’s limited home runs, but he’s not just a Corcoran clone: his K rate started around 25% in 2012 and hit 30% last year. From 2012 through 2014, Cishek ranked 5th in baseball in WPA, with 6.98, just ahead of Koji Uehara, Kenley Jansen and Aroldis Chapman. This year, he’s last in baseball, and it’s not even close. Other players have chipped in, of course. Bryan Morris really WAS more of a Corcoran clone, with a high GB rate covering over a sub-par K rate and bad walk rate, but it worked for him in Pittsburgh and again last year in Miami, until it suddenly stopped working in 2015.
Lessons: getting a good MLB closer out of nowhere happens somewhat often, but a bad couple of months from a closer can absolutely kill your WPA, dent your playoff chances, and piss off your fans. The Marlins have had some luck go against them, and they seem to have a good closer candidate now in AJ Ramos, so they won’t finish the year with this huge gap between ERA, FIP and WPA, but it illustrates that a great FIP doesn’t always translate into great results. This reminds me a bit of the Athletics of last year, whose bullpen was good overall, but suffered through the implosion of Jim Johnson’s closing career in April/May.
The Mariners are the opposite of the Marlins in many respects. The percentage of inherited runners that they’ve allowed to score is lower than league average, for example, and the percentage of save opportunities they’ve converted is dead on the league average. Their FIP isn’t pretty despite a low HR rate because they’ve walked far too many hitters – their 10.7% BB rate is 28th in baseball. But they’ve pitched around it, thanks in part to a good BABIP, and that’s left their ERA at a decent 3.60 – far below their FIP, and not something you’d associate with their low WPA, which ranks 26th.
Like the Marlins, the M’s have one big offender in the WPA department. Danny Farquhar’s WPA of -1.41 ranks second worst in baseball, distantly trailing Cishek’s. Farquhar’s strikeout rate has tumbled this year to under 19%. It was 28% last year, and nearly 35% just two seasons ago. To make matters worse, his HR/9 has gone from 0.32 in 2013 to 0.63 last year to 1.17 thus far in 2015. I’d worried a lot about a decline in velocity, but it’s movement that tells the story much better – Farquhar’s cutter really looked like a hard slider in previous years, but this year it’s behaving like a slow version of his fastball – the difference in horizontal movement from his four seam is less than 4″ now, down from 6.5″ or so last year, and the vertical drop is less than 2″ different. It’s a straight fastball now, and batters have responded by killing it. But he’s not a closer, so you’d think that the M’s could quarantine the damage a bit, especially given worsening movement on his cutter. That hasn’t happened yet, as Farquhar leads the team in bullpen IP.
The M’s have done all right in save opportunities, but the Fernando Rodney experience hasn’t been kind to the team’s WPA. He’s at -0.54, largely the result of back-to-back appearances early in the year. He blew a save in LA, taking a -0.8 hit in WPA just two days after a dramatic game in Oakland in which Fernando gave up *4* runs in the 9th to the A’s, sending the game to extras. But of course that just meant the M’s got to face Oakland’s historic bullpen, and thus Tyler Clippard served up a Nelson Cruz HR in the 10th. WPA isn’t predictive overall, and it really really isn’t predictive in a case like this, where two games exert such a strong pull on his overall number because we’re only 25% of the way through the season for a pitcher who’s only going to throw 60 IP or so. Rodney won’t keep putting up an awful WPA, especially if he keeps converting saves. The TEAM won’t continue to have an odd gap between ERA and WPA, because Farquhar’s eventually going to cede time to Carson Smith and the now-healthy Tom Wilhelmsen. Dominic Leone (2nd worst WPA) is in Tacoma. This is the kind of bad luck that’s bound to even out. But while that’s true, that’s not the only form of luck operating here. The M’s still haven’t really paid for their poor K:BB ratio, and if regression helps in one area, it can just as easily hurt in another. In some ways, the Marlins have it easier, because they isolated the big problem and can now wait for their solid FIP to result in better actual-runs-allowed.
Lesson: especially early in the year, little things can cascade and have a big impact on a team’s record. The bullpen has been extremely deep in recent years, and just the other day, the M’s were able to deal Yoervis Medina for big-league help. But a 15-day DL stint and a lack of confidence in Medina (ironically, Medina leads the M’s bullpen in WPA) meant that Lloyd McClendon felt he had to continue to use Farquhar. Poor starts from Taijuan Walker’s left the bullpen somewhat overtaxed, and pushed everyone’s workload up, and the offense has struggled against non-Oakland bullpens, meaning the M’s pen has had a lot on its shoulders. Despite decent runs-allowed stats and good work with inherited runners, they’ve given up critical runs in tie games. Not all of this is likely to last, but it’s a big reason the M’s playoff odds have been cut in half in a month, and a big reason why they trail the Angels by 2.5 games.
As I think you may be tired of reading, none of this is predictive. The Marlins and Mariners could finish with above-average bullpens, and could even fare well by WPA by the end of the year. More save opportunities for AJ Ramos, and more innings period for Carson Smith and the picture could change. But it’s kind of interesting how many ways a bullpen can struggle. The A’s have had the misfortune of hitting on all of them at once, as Dave mentioned – their ERA sucks, their FIP sucks, and the impact’s been even worse due to sequencing and leverage (when the pressure’s greatest, the A’s get worse). All of this is magnified early in the year, of course, but knowing that things may regress is very different from how it FEELS to watch the M’s, or how it must feel to Marlins fans when Cishek trots in. It’s often said that sabermetrics can’t get at emotions – they can’t illuminate what it’s like to watch a dominant pitcher, or what it feels like when a team wins. In this limited case, however, I think they do a decent job. You just need to know which numbers to look at. FIP isn’t great at emotion. WPA, on the other hand, is a wonderful proxy for angst.
Game 41, Mariners at Blue Jays
King Felix vs. Marco Estrada, 4:07pm
Happy Felix Day / Bonne Fete de la Roy Felix
Another day, and another tough loss after the M’s offense scrabbled together a few runs to get out of an early hole. I’ll have a post on that coming up, but the M’s bullpen has struggled in very different ways than, for example, the A’s remarkably terrible one. At least the loss didn’t hurt, as both the Astros and Angels lost as well. The Astros came back late against David Price and the Tigers only to lose in extras, so it wasn’t just the M’s who saw comebacks nullified by a bullpen slip-up.
Today’s game pits our valiant King against Marco Estrada, who features a low-90s four-seamer with tons of vertical rise, leading to high fly ball rates and lots of home runs. Seriously, didn’t I just write this preview yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that? I know managers sometimes like to structure their rotations to balance lefties and righties, but this is kind of amazing. If there’s anything to the idea that a team can adjust to the movement on a fastball, the M’s should be in good shape. I’m not sure there IS anything to that idea, or if it’s just an idea I made up this morning, but we can hope.
Estrada came up with the Nationals, but is best known as a solid part of the Brewers staff from about 2011-2014. He broke out in 2012, compiling a K-BB% over 20%. He had swing-and-miss stuff, great control, and if he gave up a few too many HRs, that was an acceptable price to pay. Fangraphs had him at 3.2 fWAR that year in only 23 starts and 138 IP. Injuries limited him to less than 130 IP the following year, but he was still effective, if not quite the potential star he’d looked like in 2012. Each of his peripherals were trending the wrong way, and by the end of 2013, he didn’t have much room to fall and still be effective. Unfortunately for Estrada, he fell off markedly – his K% dropped from 23% to 20%, his walk rate increased, and his HR rate spiked to 1.73HR/9. That all added up to a sub-replacement-level season, and got him shipped out of town for Adam Lind. So, a pitcher struggling mightily with HRs prepared to head not only from the NL to the AL, but to one of the few parks that boosts HRs as much as Milwaukee’s Miller Park: Rogers Centre. When it became clear that Estrada would get some time in the rotation, Joe Sheehan tweeted a reminder that the MLB record for HRs in a year was 50. Estrada’s making only his fourth start today, and has thrown just 25 innings, so Bert Blyleven’s record is probably safe for now. But he’s already yielded 5, or one every 5 IP, so the idea that Estrada would struggle to be effective in Toronto is still very much alive.
Unlike the Orioles troika of high-FB, high-HR, surprisingly low-ERA hurlers, Estrada’s never really “beaten” his FIP. In fact, his FIP’s actually a bit better than his ERA over his career. When he’s on, he uses his rising FB with a curve and a good change to rack up strikeouts, and that makes it easier to pitch around the occasional homer. His K% is actually back *up* this year after years of decline, though that’s probably got something to do with the fact he started the year in the bullpen. Since 2012, he’s gone away from his curve – which used to be his second-most-frequent pitch behind the four-seam – to his change-up, which he now throws nearly 40% of the time. It’s a good swing-and-miss pitch, unlike the curve, but while it’s not quite as much of a fly-ball pitch as his fastball, it’s still easy for batters to elevate. The curve tends to get hit on the ground, which seems like an attractive option for a guy with a dinger problem. On the other hand, strikeouts are perhaps the only way for Estrada to balance things out. If he can keep his K rate near 25%, he’s got a shot to stick around like his ex-teammate Carlos Villanueva. Of course, Villanueva never could last in a rotation full time, so maybe the better approach is to focus on keeping his walks under 5%, like late-period Dan Haren.
Using that straight-over-the-top delivery that so many Brewers pitchers favored (Yovani Gallardo being another good example), Estrada’s platoon splits have always been pretty even. The change-up helps with that, but it’s something of an all-or-nothing pitch: it generates more swinging strikes than any of his other pitches, but it’s also got a higher HR/FB ratio than his FB, which is a HR pitch in its own right. This does not seem like a game where the M’s need to focus on stacking the line-up with lefties…
1: Miller, CF
2: Smith, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Castillo, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Taylor, SS
SP: King. Felix.
…and yet Welington Castillo, DH? Sure, Estrada doesn’t have big platoon splits, but Castillo does. No one’s looking to see Dustin Ackley’s bat at DH, but Ackley actually has a higher wRC+ in his career against righties than Castillo does. Or if you want to give Ackley a rest, and I’m for that by the way, what about Justin Ruggiano, who has a higher wRC+ against righties than either Castillo or Ackley?
So, Brad Miller is officially a big league CF now. This should be interesting. I’m still skeptical of the Miller-as-Zobrist idea, just because no one has made it clear to me why he shouldn’t be a shortstop. His value takes a hit with a number of starts in OF corners, but CF has been a problem for the M’s, and if Miller can help cover it, I guess that’s making the best of a bad situation.
Mike Montgomery picked up his fourth win last night as Tacoma beat the I-Cubs 5-3. Old friend Yoervis Medina pitched in that game, giving up a hit to Austin Jackson (who promptly stole 2nd) and walking James Jones and Jesus Montero, but he didn’t give up any runs. Jackson, Pat Kivlehan and Jesus Sucre each had two hits, and Tony Zych pitched a scoreless inning in relief. Picked up from the Cubs org a while ago, Zych is putting together a solid run in recent games. Zych uses a plus fastball at 95+ and a slider. He’s yet to allow a walk on the year, either in Jackson or Tacoma, and has struck out about a batter an inning, something he struggled to do consistently with the Cubs. Today, Stephen Landazuri steps up from AA to make the start for Tacoma.
Jackson lost to Pensacola 8-5, as the Blue Wahoos bats finally came alive against Edwin Diaz. Diaz was great through 4, then gave up 2 runs in the 5th, and left after the first two batters reached in the 6th. The Generals bullpen let those two score and added four more of their own, and that was essentially that. DJ Peterson is still in deep freeze, going 0-4 with 3 Ks. Jordy Lara had three hits. One-time intriguing draft pick Jordan Shipers – who threw a no-hitter for Clinton in 2012 – continues to struggle. He looked solid in High Desert after a move to the bullpen, but he struggled with Jackson last year, but he’s taken it to a new level in 2015. In 21 innings, he’s given up 39 hits and 12 walks for 24 runs (not counting the inherited runs he’s allowed, of course). Something’s wrong here. Anyway, Misael Siverio tries to break out of his own personal slump against Pensacola tonight.
Bakersfield beat Stockton 8-3 thanks to 6 scoreless IP from Carlos Misell and a 2B and HR from Tyler O’Neill. The Blaze were up 8-0 after 2 and coasted to the easy win. Eddie Campbell starts tonight against High Desert. Campbell didn’t make it out of the first inning in his first career Cal League start, so there’s nowhere to go but up from there.
Zack Littell threw 6 shutout innings as Clinton blanked Quad Cities 3-0. Jefferson Medina leads the L-Kings against Burlington today.
Game 40, Mariners at Orioles
JA Happ vs. Chris Tillman, 9:35am
It’s early.
Very nice win yesterday, as Roenis Elias continued to pitch far, far better in the bigs than his minor league track record would indicate. A reminder: When Elias was called up, he’d made 3 starts in Tacoma and had an ERA over 8 – he’d given up 15 runs in just shy of 16 innings. In the majors, he’s given up 10 in just shy of 33 innings. K:BB ratio in the PCL? 12:7. In the bigs? 25:9. He’s unrecognizable from the guy who scuffled, and I’m really, really glad. Elias has been a vital stabilizing force for a rotation that looked like it could spiral into disarray.
Today’s opponent is old M’s farmhand Chris Tillman. It’s been a bit over 4 years since he beat the M’s and noted that he felt a bit of extra motivation in facing the team that traded him away. At that point, he was a hard-throwing tools prospect who seemed to have little idea where the ball was going. While he was sorting out how to deal with the rest of the AL, he was fattening up on the Mariners. Even when he was bad (2009-2011) he was great against the M’s. Then, once his walk rate fell below 10%, he was solid-to-very-good against the league as a whole…but he was still gave the M’s fits. He’s gone from a Danny-Waechter-with-a-grudge to an All-Star In his career, he’s made 6 starts against Seattle, and he’s 6-0 with an ERA of 2 and 32 Ks to 9 walks. M’s batters are *slugging* .282 against Tillman, and that’s the one thing most other teams have done decently well against the righty.
In a sense, you could cut and paste everything I’ve written about the previous two O’s starters and it’d work for Tillman as well. At some point, it’s not a coincidence – this is a player type that the O’s prefer and seem to scout for. They’ve assembled a United Nations of fly-balling, rising-four-seamer guys who’ll give up HRs but “beat” their FIP. Yesterday I mentioned that Miguel Gonzalez is #1 in baseball since 2012 for the biggest (negative) gap between his ERA and FIP – and that Wei Yin Chen was just outside of the top 10. Well, Chris Tillman ranks #4. We talked about HR/9 rate, and how Gonzalez and Chen ranked highly as well (Gonzalez at #4, Chen at #10) – Tillman’s #11.
This shouldn’t really be a surprise, because they pitch similarly. Tillman’s four-seam fastball’s only 92 or so, but it has extremely high vertical “Rise” – #1 in baseball among qualified starters this year and last. With that kind of movement, you pretty much know that Tillman’s never going to be a ground ball guy, so his fly ball rates fit in nicely with his teammates Gonzalez and Chen. Like them, that’s helped push his BABIP down, and that’s one reason why his career ERA is significantly lower than his FIP. Another thing that helps is an absence of platoon splits. Against righties, he’s got a cutter and a curve ball, but he’ll also throw a change every once in a while. To lefties, he’ll stick mostly with the curve and change. The curve’s a weapon, and scouts have been talking about since just before the M’s drafted him out of a California HS. Lefties have struggled with it, but they’ve also done a bit worse on his fastball. A true over the top four-seamer shouldn’t have much in the way of platoon splits, but it’s possible there’s some deception in his delivery to lefties that’s led to a significantly higher HR rate against *righties* than southpaws.
Today’s line-up:
1: Smith, RF
2: Miller, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Castillo, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Ackley, CF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Happ
Welcome to the club, Welington Castillo.
Mike Montgomery leads Tacoma against the Iowa Cubs and Felipe Paulino today.
Edwin Diaz makes his second AA start. He scuffled a bit against the loaded Tennessee Smokies; we’ll see how he fares against Pensacola, the Southern League’s most hapless offense.
The Bakersfield Blaze take on Stockton again behind Carlos Misell. Stockton won last night 8-6, as the Blaze bullpen faltered after a solid start from Tyler Pike. Guillermo Pimentel went 4-5 and Martin Peguero homered in a losing effort.
Zack Littell makes his second start for Clinton. Like Diaz, he was roughed up in his first, but unlike Diaz, Littell has to make his second appearance against his league’s BEST offense, Quad Cities. Clinton won last night 7-6, torching the River Bandits bullpen after starter Akeem Bostick held them in check for 7 innings. Estarlyn Morales homered, and then the L-Kings got a walk-off walk in the 9th to win it.
Game 39, Mariners at Orioles
Roenis Elias vs. Wei-Yin Chen, 4:05pm
Soooo, with the Angels pushing a game over .500, they’ve overtaken the M’s in Fangraphs playoff odds, albeit fractionally. It just reaffirms BP’s pre-season opinion that the Angels were the class of the division, as the Angels and Astros now have identical end-of-season records there, with the Angels’ odds a tiny bit higher. The Angels started slow, as we thought they might, and have picked up their game since Garrett Richards returned. The M’s started slow, as…ok, wasn’t really expecting that, and they have… what, really? They’re better, as they’re 6-4 in their last 10 games, but that streak has left them a game further out than when they started. They’ve shored up their catcher spot disaster area by bringing in Welington Castillo, but they haven’t solved the riddle of Taijuan Walker or Robby Cano’s possible decline. There are always signs of life, from James Paxton’s improvement to Brad Miller’s resurgence to Carson Smith’s emergence as a true late-inning stopper. But the M’s need to make a move here as June looms. The A’s can lament their luck and wonder how a bullpen that was relatively effective last year has turned into a squad of lead-incinerating pyromaniacs, or they can work the phones and remake their team again for the third time in 12 months. I’m not saying the M’s are there – Oakland does what they do because they have to – but they need to figure out what they want to do a month from now. Are they going to focus on acquiring MLB rotation depth, or are they going to retool for 2016? I’m sure many will argue – not least the M’s themselves – that the two shouldn’t be seen as polar opposites: if the team moves on from Dustin Ackley, are they getting better now, or rebuilding? It *can* be both, and that’s nice and all, but it’s also a big, big problem.
Today would be a decent time to start a nice stretch of wins against potential Wild Card foes. The Orioles are 27th in the league in FIP, play in a tough division, and still have a better record at this stage (though, for now, worse playoff odds). The Orioles have been better against right-handed pitching this year than lefties, which is interesting given their RH-heavy line-up. In any event, Roenis Elias will seek to keep that trend going. He’ll face off with Wei-Yin Chen, who is essentially a left-handed Miguel Gonzalez. This isn’t an original thought exactly, but that’s just because it’s true. Chen pitches off a 91-92mph four-seamer with lots of vertical rise, creating plenty of elevated contact. If you look at all starters who’ve thrown 400 IP since 2012 (the year Chen joined the league) and sort them by fly ball rate, Miguel Gonzalez ranks 10th (of 92). In 11th spot sits Wei-Yin Chen.* Just as with Gonzalez, there’s no weird Chris-Young-like ability to give up fly balls but avoid HRs. Chen gives up lots of homers, nearly the same number as Gonzalez. And like his teammate, Chen’s ERA has trailed his FIP, though not to the same degree. With Chen, there’s no BABIP magic (his career .285 mark is lower than average, but about what you’d expect for a fly-balling lefty), no HR/FB magic, or “clutch” pitching magic.
Chen survives because he’s been pretty good at avoiding walks. His career BB% of around 6% is significantly better than average, which is good. It’s a trait that essentially makes him a poor man’s Hisashi Iwakuma. Kuma’s K% is about 1% higher, and his BB% 1%+ lower, and he’s given up fewer HRs thanks to higher GB rates, but you’re looking at a control pitcher who limits baserunners, and thus doesn’t pay as big of a price for the HRs he gives up as FIP thinks he “should.” Let’s be clear here: Iwakuma’s much, much better and that’s because at these margins, marginal differences matter, and marginal differences in pretty much every category makes a bigger-than-you’d-think difference overall. But both of these guys have been better than their FIP, and both of these guys have similar arsenals. Chen throws his four-seamer around 50% of the time, and he’s got a sinker that he’ll throw around 10%. He’s also got a splitter, but it’s got very different movement than Kuma’s. Chen’s isn’t a swing-and-miss pitch, but it does generate ground balls (again, not as well as Kuma’s, but that should pretty much go without saying), and it’s a good pitch to use against righties, and it clearly limits HRs. He doesn’t use it all that much, though – only about 15% of his pitches *to righties* and essentially never against lefties. Against same-handed hitters, Chen features a slider that may be his best pitch. It comes in around 83, and features good two-plane break; it actually drops, while his splitter (oddly) doesn’t. It’s made Chen effective against lefties, or, if you prefer, it’s produced the totally normal platoon splits that he’s shown since 2012. As a result, Chen’s faced heavily skewed line-ups: just one quarter of the batter’s he’s faced have been lefties.
How about tonight?
1: Weeks (DH)
2: Bloomquist, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Ruggiano, CF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Elias
6 of 9 are righties, but… man, that’s an odd line-up.
The M’s made a couple of minor moves today, reinstating lefty reliever Edgar Olmos, and assigning him to Tacoma. Joining him there will be righty reliever Kevin Gregg, the veteran reliever the Reds DFAd a little while ago. Gregg has been a big league closer, but he’s also been at or below replacement level six of the past seven seasons. He’s thrown 20 IP in the bigs since the start of 2014, which is obviously a tiny sample, but he’s given up 12 runs on 10 walks and 5 HRs. It’s been rough, is what I’m saying.
Tacoma’s off today, but they’ll start a road-trip tomorrow in Iowa. Austin Jackson’s first rehab appearance yesterday – he went 1-4 – apparently resulted in some swelling in his injured ankle.
Jackson was blanked 3-0 by Ivan Pineyro and the Tennessee Smokies yesterday. Jabari Blash had the only XBH for the Generals, a double, but the team couldn’t capitalize on six walks – 3 from Pineyro and 3 from big prospect Carl (CJ) Edwards. The righty suffered a shoulder injury last year, so he’s now working from the pen after 230+ brilliant innings as a starter. His stats have actually slipped a bit this year, but he did strike out 3 in 2 IP yesterday. Jackson got their revenge in today’s getaway day match-up, with reliever Trey Cochran-Gill earning his 3rd win despite a so-so 2 1/3 IP. Since moving to AA, he’s given up more hits, and his K:BB ratio is now even, but everyone’s still hitting the ball into the ground. Over 3 levels this year, Cochran-Gill’s sporting an ERA of 1.57 and 4 ground-outs for every air out. Dario Pizzano homered, and Blash added two more, giving him 6 on the year for Jackson and 8 total.
Bakersfield takes on Stockton tonight with Tyler Pike on the mound against Joel Seddon. The Blaze beat the Ports last night 8-7, racking up 12 hits including a HR from DH Guillermo Pimentel, and knocked out starter Kyle Finnegan in the 1st inning.
Clinton lost to Quad Cities 8-5, as Patrick Peterson gave up all 8 runs in 5 1/3 IP – a 4 run sixth ended his day. Daniel Torres (a catcher the M’s drafted back in 2013) had the L-Kings only XBH. The two teams face off again today, with Lukas Schiraldi facing the league’s top offense in Quad Cities, and SP Akeem Bostick, a solid prospect the Astros picked up from Texas in the Carlos Corporan trade. Bostick played 3 sports in HS, and his cousin is Brandon Bostick, a back-up Packers tight-end whom everyone may remember from his rather important touch in the NFC championship game. Akeem’s a big guy at 6’6″, 215, and is something of a scout’s dream with the frame and building blocks to be a solid MLB starter. The results haven’t been there yet in his pro career; he got knocked around in the Sally league last year, and he’s only thrown 9 IP in the pitcher-friendly MWL so far.
* Use the same cut-offs and sort for HR/9, and you’ll find Gonzalez at 4th in MLB and Chen at 10th. Oh, and if you sort by the gap between ERA and FIP (ERA-FIP), no one in baseball has had a larger gap since 2012 than Gonzalez, and Chen’s not TOO far behind at 11th, one spot behind Hisashi Iwakuma.
Game 38, Mariners at Orioles
Taijuan Walker vs. Miguel Gonzalez, 4:05pm
The M’s head east to take on the Orioles, owners of one of baseball’s best offenses in the early going. Despite losing Nelson Cruz, the Birds are 6th in wRC+ as a team, and 5th in SLG%. They’re not perfect, of course, not with a low OBP and park effects taking some of the shine off of that SLG number. But this is still a pretty good test, especially in Baltimore, for M’s pitchers. And this is the time Taijuan Walker needs to take two steps forward, without all of those annoying steps back.
Jeff mentioned this back in the spring, when Walker was utterly dominant, but Walker’s splitter’s somewhat interesting in that it seems fairly easy to identify. That is, Taijuan Walker releases his split/change thing both lower (vertically) and more towards third base (horizontally) than his fastball. That’s the kind of thing that seems like a “tell” and when you add the fact that he throws it most often against lefties, it’s the kind of thing that batters can learn to look for. To be fair, this isn’t new – this isn’t a 2015 phenomenon. He had a very similar gap in 2013 and 2014. That said, batters certainly *seem* to be reacting to it like they know what’s coming. His whiff rate with the pitch is down substantially, and then there’s his slash line on the pitch this year: batters are averaging .519, and slugging .741. Against lefties, it’s even worse, though it’s worth reiterating that we’re talking about less than 100 pitches thrown. But his struggles with the pitch, or whatever word conveys vastly more than a bad bounce here or there, matter. He’s had multiple issues with multiple pitches, but if he has nothing to throw at lefties, then his future prospects come down. Tonight’s a good test for Taijuan. At this point, he knows what’s working and what’s not, and he’s probably got a few concrete steps to improve those weaknesses. Bringing his release point closer to his FB is probably the biggest one.
He’ll face off against Miguel Gonzalez, a former Rule 5 pick by the Red Sox who toiled in the minors without a great deal of success (and got released by Boston in late 2011) before something clicked with the O’s in 2012. Since that time, he’s been a solid back-of-the-rotation starter for Baltimore, racking up nearly 4 fWAR over 3+ seasons. It’s a cool story, but it still may be selling him short. Fangraphs’ WAR is based on FIP, but if you look at their fielding-DEpendent wins above replacement, he’s already over 6, with a 3 WAR season in 2014. By Baseball-Reference’s RA9-based WAR, he’s over 8. If you believe in Gonzalez’s sterling strand rates and ERAs, you’re saying that he’s a Chris Young type – a guy whose ERA hasn’t just been below his FIP, but will continue to be below his FIP for the foreseeable future. So, how similar is he to Young? Fastball with well above average vertical rise? Check. Lots of fly balls, but also lots of infield pop-ups? Check. Consistently low HR/FB ratio? Nnnnoooo.
Thanks to his season last year, Chris Young is a great recent example of someone who “beats” his FIP. In years past, Matt Cain was always the guy people associated with this class of hurlers. But there are probably multiple ways to get there. You can consistently run low BABIPs like knuckleballers or Jamie Moyer, and reduce your FIP that way. You could strike errybody out, which reduces baserunners, and thus lessens the impact of the occasional HR or walk while also improving strand rate). Or, you could do that weird Chris Young magic trick of allowing plenty of HRs that fly precisely 270′ and not 350′. Gonzalez has given up plenty of fly balls, and he’s given up plenty of home runs. He’s never been a strikeout guy, and doesn’t get a ton of out-of-the-zone swings, so he’s not going the Clayton Kershaw route either. Instead, it may be the result of a very different approach with men on. With no one on, he’s given up over 1.5 HR/9, and with men on, it’s under 1. Neither is particularly impressive, but if his OVERALL rate was 1.5, we wouldn’t be talking about Gonzalez, because he wouldn’t be a major leaguer. His overall line with runners on isn’t THAT different, so we’re not talking about a radically different approach, but he will throw more splitters, esp. to lefties. His “clutch” stats are solid as well – in high leverage situations, he’s been much better than average, while he’s below average in low-leverage situations. Finally, he’s got a career BABIP of .262. Sum it up, and you’ve got a guy who’s better than average in just about every way that a sabermetric fan would dismiss as luck.
I’m not ready to do that, though, given the consistency with which Gonzalez has piled up these stats. I don’t think he’s a true talent 3.00 ERA guy, but I think he’s probably a bit better than the rich man’s Blake Beavan that FIP describes. I’m not quite sure what to make of a guy who’s been so effective against same-handed hitters despite failing to strike them out, or a guy who gives up lots of home runs and few runs (though this always makes me think of M’s broadcast descriptions of Ryan Franklin). I’m not Gonzalez’s biggest fan, or anything, and wonder what he’d do in the AL West where he might actually run a low HR/FB ratio, but I’m glad we’ve got these statistical anomalies to examine. And ultimately root against, as the case may be.
1: Smith, LF
2: Miller, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Ackley, CF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Walker
So, the M’s swung a trade with the Cubs this morning for C Wellington Castillo, the Cubs starter in 2013-14 who gave way to Miguel Montero this year. Castillo’s got a career wRC+ of 97, and was worth 5.5 fWAR the last two seasons, but who rates abysmally in catcher framing metrics. The return is reliever Yoervis Medina, a hard-throwing righty with great GB% who’s been fairly effective despite ugly walk rates. Medina’s ERA has been lower than his FIP by almost as much as Miguel Gonzalez, albeit in a much smaller sample, and the M’s were unhappy enough to demote him a while back. The M’s are clearly quite deep at reliever, and they may get deeper down the line when David Rollins comes off his suspension.
In the near term, Castillo is replacing Jesus Sucre, who’s been optioned to AAA. If Castillo is going to unseat Zunino, that hasn’t happened yet, and the M’s see Zunino as the starter for now. In fact, nothing’s changing today, as Castillo isn’t in Baltimore yet. But Zunino has to be looking over his shoulder a bit more than when Sucre/John Hicks/John Baker were the competition. Zunino’s still a tantalizing talent who combines great pitch framing/defense with plus raw power, but he’s been ineffective at the plate and he hasn’t been getting better. If regular old aging and experience haven’t been enough, it’s time to start wondering why, and what IS going to help that process. I really hope the M’s have a plan here. In the meantime, they’ve got someone to beat up on lefties (Castillo has a career 129 wRC+ against ’em), or a starter that could hold down the fort while Zunino went back to learn the things he skipped in the minors. That said, the M’s have tried this particular approach many, many times – with Ackley, Montero and Justin Smoak in particular – and it’s not clear there’s a clear protocol to backfill development time for guys who moved up quickly/too quickly.
Franklin Gutierrez returns to the Tacoma line-up after missing some time with an injury, and yes, I have a keyboard macro for that phrase. The Rainiers played a day game against Las Vegas and lost 2-0, despite another good start from Forrest Snow (7IP, 2R, 0BB, 7Ks). They simply couldn’t figure out Duane “the Love” Below, who tossed a complete game 4-hitter. The R’s beat the 51s last night 5-4, getting 9Ks from starter Sam Gaviglio and HRs from Ketel Marte and Jesus Montero. Marte’s line is now up to .346/.390/.446. Not a bad line for the top prospect I think most M’s fans were the LEAST confident in of all the M’s top 10 prospects.
AA Jackson takes on the Tennessee Smokies tonight with Jake Zokan on the hill. The Generals blanked Tennessee 11-0 yesterday behind Scott DeCecco and a HR from Jordy Lara. Dario Pizzano went 2-4 with 2 2Bs, Jack Reinheimer had 3 hits, and DJ Peterson hit a 2B in 6 trips to the plate. Moises Hernandez closed it out with three perfect innings. Felix’s bro has actually pitched decently in his fifth campaign with Jackson. The Generals face Ivan Pineyro of Tennessee tonight, a righty tools prospect who’s been delayed by injuries and inconsistency, but who’s having a solid year in 2015. If you’ve got MiLB.tv, this is a game worth watching, as Tennessee features several top Cubs prospects, including C/DH Kyle Schwarber, 1B Dan Vogelback and CF Albert Almora.
High Desert topped Bakersfield 7-6 last night, dropping the Blaze to 15-22 on the year. Tylers O’Neill and Marlette went 0-8 combined, but Austin Wilson awoke from his slumber to knock a HR. Ryan Yarbrough was shaky again, giving up 5 runs in 4 IP, despite 7 Ks. Dan Altavilla starts today against Kyle Finnegan of Stockton. The Blaze knocked Finnegan around back on April 22nd. More of the same, let’s hope.
Clinton lost 14-10 to Quad Cities, as Tyler Herb and a host of reliever got lit up. SS Erick Mejia had three hits to lead the Lumberkings, and Joe DeCarlo homered. Gianfranco Wawoe got a base hit; the Curacao native has been in a tailspin since his long hitting streak was snapped, and has seen his average fall from .350 to .277. Patrick Peterson, the L-Kings best starter, goes tonight.
Mariners Trade Yoervis Medina For Mike Zunino Off Days
Officially, the deal is Yoervis Medina to the Cubs in exchange for catcher Welington Castillo. And, indeed, that’s what’s happening — the Mariners are giving up the Medina asset, and they’re receiving a whole new person, who will have a locker in the clubhouse and everything. But this isn’t a deal that’s really about Medina, from the Mariners’ perspective, nor is it really about Castillo. Castillo’s positive quality is that, okay, he’s fine enough. So he’s a catcher actually capable of letting Mike Zunino get some rest.
There’s any number of reasons why the Mariners have been relatively disappointing, and I suppose you don’t have to look much further than Robinson Cano, who, I’ll remind you, has another eight years after this year. And Dustin Ackley sucks, even more than he’s ever sucked, and you wonder if he’s okay or if he’s been replaced by one of those alien people-impersonators from Men In Black. But at some point you get to Mike Zunino, who has yet to make offensive progress. In fairness, he’s actually been one of the team’s better hitters in May. But, in May, he also hasn’t walked. His approach has become less disciplined. His last base on balls was 18 strikeouts ago.
Zunino, basically, looks like Zunino looked last season. Maybe a little better, maybe a little worse, depending on the day you see him. There was talk in spring training he was learning to use the opposite field, but actually he’s pulled more baseballs this year than he did last year or the year before. The defense? Zunino is good at defense. He knows how to catch, and he seems to know how to handle a pitching staff. Big responsibilities, for a player his age. But, catching is hard. There’s a reason why catchers tend to develop slower offensively than other guys. They have a lot going on, and one theory is that Zunino is just too exhausted to improve.
This year he’s fifth in baseball in innings caught. Last year he was fourth. There have been six games this year Zunino didn’t start, but he’s still played in four of them. A catcher on a roster with two catchers can never completely take a day off, because you don’t know if the other guy might get hurt, but there are degrees of rest, of peace of mind. Zunino’s been given a heavy workload, and Jesus Sucre couldn’t give him much of a breather. Sucre, we know, is a skilled defensive catcher. We all liked his framing, back when the Mariners didn’t have a framer. But Sucre swings the bat like a head of lettuce you put a baseball bat next to. You don’t want a Sucre in the lineup on back-to-back days. You don’t want Sucre at the plate in a high-leverage late-inning situation. You pinch-hit for a Sucre. When you pinch-hit for a catcher, you have to bring in the other catcher.
Welington Castillo is not good. Welington Castillo is not bad. You now understand Welington Castillo. He’s not as good a defender as Sucre. He’s certainly not as good a defender as Zunino. He’ll lose these pitchers some strikes. But, he makes a decent amount of contact. From time to time, he’ll draw a walk. Last year he hit a home run 432 feet. The year before he reached 443. Castillo projects as a slightly below-average hitter, which is not unlike what he’s been for his career. He just turned 28 a few weeks ago. And, significantly, last year Castillo played in 110 games. That followed a 113-game campaign. Granted, the Cubs went 86-124 in his starts, and 53-61 in games he didn’t start, and that’s troubling, but there’s also a lot of noise in those numbers and the Cubs were bad. Castillo is adequate, maybe a third-tier backstop, and he’s handled a regular major-league workload while also handling being a reserve.
For now, the hope is that having Castillo can buy Zunino some rest. He shouldn’t need to play as often as he does, and the team will be more comfortable using Castillo more than it used Sucre. And that could be important for Zunino, as rest might be able to keep him from getting into and developing bad habits. More bad habits, I guess. With more rest, there’s more focus. With more focus, there might be better results. With Welington Castillo, Mike Zunino can afford to relax on designated days.
And if, in time, it still doesn’t look like Zunino is getting better, Castillo’s a more capable stopgap than Sucre. Either Castillo could take more of Zunino’s playing time, or Zunino could get demoted, and then Sucre or somebody else could come up while Zunino tries to learn some lessons in Tacoma. From the sounds of things, the organization is pretty committed to trying to get Zunino to work out in the bigs, but maybe that’s stubbornness, or maybe things just haven’t gotten bad enough. One should hope that they never do, but things can have a way of going wrong, and minds can be changed by enough swings and enough misses.
On Tuesday, the Mariners added a new catcher, and it seems to me to be about the old catcher, who’s also something of a new catcher. He’s a young catcher in whom the Mariners believe, and he’s a young catcher the Mariners think should be a part of the long-term core. Before that happens, the catcher needs to not suck when he’s hitting, and maybe he just needs a little more rest. We’re easily impressed by those who soldier through fatigue, but seldom is it actually helpful. Your body needs time to restore. Mike Zunino is presumably no different.
As for Medina going away? He’s got live stuff and bad command. He’s missing a couple miles per hour now, relative to before, and the Cubs think it’s probably mechanical. If Medina were to put everything together, he could close. If Medina were to put just enough together, he’d be last year’s Medina. Last year’s Medina was no one’s favorite bullpen arm. These guys are everywhere, and it’s impossible to predict which ones will have futures and which ones will frustrate through to retirement. If it makes you feel better, Medina probably wasn’t going to find his strikes as a Mariner. One of the upsides in not believing in your own player development.
Game 36, Red Sox at Mariners
King Felix vs. Rick Porcello, 6:10pm
The Red Sox made a very expensive bet that Rick Porcello’s somewhat underwhelming tenure in Detroit was the result of growing pains and a focus on pitching to contact. Porcello was a prep phenom who dropped to the Tigers in the 2007 draft. He flew threw the minors thanks to a hard sinker and joined the Detroit rotation in 2009. Those who scouted him in the draft were always a bit confused that Porcello missed so few bats. Porcello’s always had a strong GB rate, but thanks either to some ill-timed pitches, bad sequencing luck, or a bad Tigers defense, his actual runs allowed always came in higher than his FIP suggested. At only 26, Porcello’s one of the youngest hurlers to, er, almost hit free agency in a while. All of these factors – the rumored great breaking ball that the Tigers wouldn’t let him throw, the FIP, and his youth combined to score Porcello an extension from 2016-19 that’ll pay him over $20m per year.
Thus far, like pretty much everything about the Red Sox, things haven’t quite gone as planned. Porcello is pitching differently, and he’s using a four seam fastball more than he ever has, and his K rate’s up a bit, but we’ve seen this from Porcello before. He’s tweaked his underwhelming slider into a hard cutter, but it hasn’t made it any more effective. His K:BB ratio’s up, but so is his HR rate. Thus far, it’s added up to a really familiar 4.50 ERA and a low-4’s FIP.
Here’s today’s line-up for the Seattle Steelheads, as the M’s pay tribute to the Negro League history of the northwest.
1: Smith, LF
2: Miller, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Ackley, CF
8: Taylor, SS
9: Sucre, C
Game 35, Red Sox at Mariners
JA Happ vs. Clay Buchholz, 7:10pm
So the M’s had some ugly LF miscues and they had nothing to do with Miller! Let’s keep in mind that Miller isn’t the only guy getting used to the position. Rickie Weeks has Miller beat by all of about 3 months. Meanwhile, the M’s couldn’t figure out Joe Kelly, who wriggled free time and again. I know the M’s issues with RISP have been ugly, but I thought Kelly made some impressive pitches when he needed to. The M’s have fared much better against ground-ball pitchers this year than they have in the recent past, but I get the sense that the M’s are still struggling with plus velocity – we’ll have to check that out. The M’s have struggled against fastballs for years, and that’s still true this year, despite their improved overall batting line.
The M’s have had frustrating talents over the years. Jose Cruz Jr. Justin Smoak. Hell, Dustin Ackley. You can add any number of your own from whatever era M’s clubs you cheered for: Carlos Guillen, maybe. Depending on your definition, you could argue for Dave Henderson. For the M’s, much of this disappointment has been a failure of observable talent to translate into consistent production. We’d get solid months from Ackley or Smoak, but we didn’t get sustained growth. It’s been one of the most frustrating aspects of the team the past few years, and it’s a big reason why they’ve struggled – if that core group of Ackley/Smoak/Montero actually developed, the M’s would be in a very different place. Today’s opposing starter, though, illustrates a different path to gut-churning frustration.
Clay Buchholz burst onto the scene in 2007, throwing a no-hitter in one of his first big league starts and giving the World Series champs one of the most valuable commodities in baseball heading into 2008. And in 2008, Buchholz had an RA/9 over 7 thanks to HR problems and an absurdly low strand rate. He was slightly better in 2009, because how could he not be, but his walk rate kept climbing and he was missing far fewer bats. He looked like your average prospect bust, an east coast Roger Salkeld or something, and then, suddenly, he was effective again. His K% wasn’t a whole lot better, but his HR/FB dropped and that led to a big improvement in his FIP. Even better, his strand rate got better, and his ERA was a gaudy 2.33. The strand rate stuck around in his injury plagued 2011, but his HR luck didn’t, so he was only good as opposed to great, but nothing worked in 2012. HRs and sequencing pushed his FIP back up over 4.6, and I think expectations must’ve been pretty low in 2013. Despite further injury problems, Buchholz tossed 108 innings and put up an ERA of 1.74. Was it lucky? Of course, but at least he was missing some bats again to go along with an insanely high strand rate and equally crazy HR/FB rate. Just as Sox fans must’ve thought the prospect had regained the promise of 2007, he collapsed again in 2014, as a bad strand rate again pushed his ERA over 5.
Maybe the moral of this story is that ERA is too volatile, and that strand rate luck can make a guy look like the second coming of Pedro Martinez one year and a AA org guy the next. That’s very clearly a part of it. Buchholz’s FIP certainly didn’t swing as much from 2013 to 2014, but that’s what FIP’s designed to do. The more interesting side of this is that Buchholz has an almost Phil Hughes-like* capacity for tinkering and self- uh, self-improvement doesn’t sound right in this context. A capacity for change, we’ll call it. When he came up, Buchholz had an extreme over the top delivery and a four-seam FB at 95 with plenty of vertical rise. He paired it with the oddest change-up ever, a sort of hybrid cutter/change that came in extremely slow with zero horizontal movement. He dropped his release point a bit after that, and that altered all of his pitches – less vertical rise, a bit less cutter-action on his change (which was now harder), and a sinker with plenty of armside run. By 2013, he’d moved a foot over on the rubber, but his four-seam fastball (now 92-93) now had less horizontal movement and more vertical. The change was still there, and still weird, but he now had a cutter that he threw to RHBs and LHBs alike – the odd thing of course is that the cutter and change sort of blurred together, with relatively similar movement but a 7mph difference in velo. This year, that oddball change-up is gone, as it the splitter experiment. In their place is a regular old change-up – one that’s still a bit slow (although it’s faster than it was in 2007), but that moves like other cambios. It’s his putaway pitch to lefties in the early going – and his strikeouts are up sharply in the first month and a half. His fastball’s movement changed back to where it was a few years back, helped again by another drop in release point. The results HAVEN’T been there, though, as both of his fastballs have been hit hard this season. His strand rate won’t stay this low for long, and it may be he’ll start regressing towards his FIP, but Buchholz is still reeling right now, with an ERA approaching 6. Boston’s defense probably hasn’t helped, as their BABIP-allowed is 7th worst in baseball.
1: Smith, LF
2: Miller, SS
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Ruggiano, CF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Weeks, DH
9: Zunino, C
SP: Happ
The Rainiers split their doubleheader with SLC yesterday, losing the opener 2-0, but winning the nightcap 4-0 behind a spot start from Andrew Kittredge and a HR from Stefen Romero. Mike Montgomery, originally scheduled to start last night’s 2nd game, will get the start today against Nick Tropeano, the ex-Astros hurler and the PCL pitcher of the year in 2014.
Jackson beat Biloxi 2-0 as peripatetic reliever Trey Cochran-Gill got the win in relief in his first AA appearance. Jake Zokan started and went 5 2/3 scoreless, and then TCG went 2 1/3, before handing it over to Tony Zych for the save. Jordy Lara and Dan Paolini had two hits for the Generals. Moises Hernandez gets a spot start today as all of the affiliates juggle their rosters after a spate of promotions/relegations and injuries.
Bakersfield was rained out, so Tyler Pike will go today against his old club/former M’s affiliate, the High Desert Mavericks.
Clinton dropped a 9-3 contest to Wisconsin (another former M’s affiliate), as Pat Peterson got knocked around a bit. The L-Kings had 9 hits, but none for extra bases. Lukas Schiraldi gets the start tonight in Burlington.
* It’s funny, because Hughes and Buchholz were the two big pitching prospects of 2006-7, and both debuted in the 2nd half of 2007. At any given time, one or the other has been deemed to have “won” this non-existent competition, only to have the other one come back with a great season. Both are fascinating pitchers to follow, though I’m pretty happy neither is on the team I care about.
Game 34, Red Sox at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Joe Kelly, 7:10pm
Ah, the Red Sox. Some of my favorite memories of Safeco have come from games against the Red Sox, including a sweep-clinching victory in 2007 wherein Ryan Feierabend gave up about a dozen 390′ fly balls that Ichiro managed to track down. Of course, most memories of Red Sox series in Safeco aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. The Sox have been good, the M’s have been bad, and there are way, way too many people in Red Sox gear.
Last night’s game was a tough one. James Shields did indeed leave some pitches hanging, but with one exception, the M’s couldn’t quite barrel them up. A ball that Nelson Cruz fouled back early on and a Zunino miss on a high fastball stick out, but they were far from the only offenders. On the positive side, that’s another quality start for Tai Walker, who now needs to follow it up with several more.
Tonight’s contest features extremely hard throwing righty Joe Kelly, who the Sox picked up from St. Louis in the John Lackey deal. Kelly throws a sinker at around 96-97, and has a slider and curve as well. In the past, his change-up and four-seam fastball were afterthoughts, as he threw them once or twice a game. This year, though, the four-seam is now a major part of his arsenal, at about 1/4 of his pitches. Before 2015, Kelly was known as one of those confounding pitchers who throw incredibly hard and yet don’t get strikeouts and whiffs – he was a Henderson Alvarez type with a high GB% and not much else. At least Alvarez never walked anyone – Kelly’s walk rate’s pretty standard, or even a bit higher. Still, you can see how it’s supposed to work – pitch to contact, but have the velocity take the sting out of much of that contact. Ideally, you’d get a GB pitcher with better than average BABIP, or better than you’d expect given his batted ball profile. As it happens, that’s what Kelly’s done over his career. From 2013-15, he’s put up BABIPs of .289, .274 and .277 (league average is .295 this year).
The Red Sox and/or Kelly may have wanted a bit more out of that 97mph heat, though. By using his four-seamer more, and actually attempting to get Ks with his breaking ball (he’s using them more in 2 strike counts than in previous years), Kelly looks like he’s trying a modified approach. It worked brilliantly in his first start of 2015, where he set a new career high in Ks against the Yankees. But it’s come at a cost. Fewer sinkers have resulted in fewer grounders. More fly balls – and his FB% has jumped from 23.7% last year to 34.3% now – have meant more home runs. And while his BABIP’s still low, he’s been terrible with men on base. With no one on, he’s giving up a wOBA of .254. With men on, it’s .396, and it just goes up from there if they’re in scoring position. In one sense, this is encouraging – guy making some adjustments, and has an undeserved 6+ ERA. That sequencing luck will probably turn around, but the HR issue is tougher. Sure, his HR/FB is up, and thus his xFIP isn’t too bad, but as a control-challenged righty who now yields more FBs, we can’t expect his HR rate to fall all the way back to his own career average. Let’s see if the M’s can push it higher tonight. Kennedy and Shields were guys they needed to be somewhat aggressive with, but Kelly – coming off a game in which he walked 7 Blue Jays in 5 2/3IP – is someone to be patient with.
1: Smith, RF
2: Miller, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Ackley, CF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Elias
And there we have it, Brad Miller’s first OF start. He may get some work with the lefty Roenis Elias on the hill and a righty-dominated line-up against him. That said, Elias has had some GB tendencies, and the Red Sox as a team hit more grounders than average.
The Rainiers were rained out yesterday, so they’ll play a doubleheader today at Cheney. Forrest Snow starts game 1, and Mike Montgomery will go in game 2. Head to Cheney if you don’t want to deal with an army of Sawx fans tonight.
Jackson faces Biloxi again, and look to get back in the win column behind Jake Zokan. He’ll face off with Hobbs Johnson, a 14th round pick out of UNC who’s put up gaudy ERAs but doesn’t have the raw stuff to rank highly on prospect lists.
Tyler Pike leads the Bakersfield Blaze against Rancho Cucamonga. Scott Barlow starts for the Quakes. Barlow’s a former 6th rounder the Dodgers grabbed out of HS, and who has a very good FB/Curve combo. He’s struggled to stay healthy, though, and his results haven’t been there in the past. Rancho topped Bakersfield 4-3 last night, getting a walk-off win in the 11th off newly-demoted RP Dylan Unsworth.
Game 33, Padres at Mariners
Taijuan Walker vs. James Shields, 7:10pm
After tieing a club record with six HRs yesterday against a HR-challenged Padre Starter (and their HR-challenged bullpen), the M’s face a guy who’s having even more trouble with the long ball this year. James Shields has yielded seven HRs in his last two starts. His season total of 11 leads MLB, and he’s facing an M’s team that’s making up for a poor OBP by clubbing a few baseballs senseless.
Shields has been remarkably durable and consistent over his career. As Eno Sarris mentions in a great interview with Shields, the righty has made the most starts in baseball since 2007, and he’s just six IP behind the leader in IP since then (the leader, or perhaps the King, in total IP? Felix, of course). His repertoire has been the same since he joined baseball, too – a four-seam fastball, a great change-up, a curve ball and a cutter (and a two-seamer he very rarely throws). Over time, his pitch *mix* has changed a bit, but we’re really getting marginal now – in the main, he’s a guy who throws 1/3 four-seam fastballs and 2/3 change/curve/cutter.
Obviously, the change-up is his signature pitch. He gets whiffs on 20% of them, or 35% of swings against it, and he’s racked up over 700 punchouts on change-ups in his long career.* It’s helped him neutralize lefties, as he throws the pitch more often to them. It’s probably also helped him stay healthy – Shields fastball results aren’t all that great. Hitters appear to see his four-seamer pretty well, and thanks to above-average “rise,” they elevate the ball pretty easily on it. That’s led to some of the home run problems that have dogged Shields since his Tampa days, and without the change, he’d either have to throw more of a pitch batters hit hard, or throw a lot more breaking balls. The change seems easier on his arm, and again, it’s been a consistently good pitch for him.
But it’s not perfect. Like basically all pitchers, Shields like to keep his change low in the zone, or below the bottom edge of the zone. When he doesn’t, bad things happen. It’s similar to the issue we talked about yesterday with Ian Kennedy – when everything works just the way it’s supposed to, he’s fine. But mistakes are costly, and he’s essentially hoping that hitters miss the mistakes – either that they’re looking for something else, or mishit the ball. That’s true of literally every pitcher, so it’s not like some great insight, but I think it matters to certain pitchers more. To a degree, this is “more” true for fly-ball pitchers like Kennedy. But because Shields *fastball* is a flyball pitch, it matters to him even when his overall GB% (pushed higher by the change and curve) is at or above league average. Making mistakes with his fastball results in more damage (in the long run) than it does for Felix for a variety of reasons. But when hitters sit on his change, the same thing can happen. Last night, the M’s were ready for every Kennedy mistake. Here’s hoping they’re ready again tonight.
Line-up:
1: Smith, LF
2: Miller, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Ackley, CF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Walker
Man, it was nice seeing Mike Zunino get into a couple of pitches last night. Essentially recreating last year’s season line isn’t great, but it’s a hell of a lot better than the decline-on-all-fronts we’d seen before. Gradually, his O-swing% has dropped below last year’s frightening mark of 40%, and he’s actually making a bit more contact than last season. We couldn’t say that two weeks ago.
After another solid performance this week, the M’s have promoted righty Edwin Diaz from Bakersfield to AA Jackson. This is a well-deserved promotion; Diaz has 42 strikeouts in 37 IP against 9 walks, and he’s limited hitters to just 21 hits. At 21, it’s not too aggressive, and I’ll be interested to see what he learns from longtime AA pitching coach Lance Painter.
Tacoma lost to Salt Lake yesterday 4-3, on two HRs from the delightfully named Jett Bandy. Angels top prospect Andrew Heaney was tough for 7 IP, but was matched by Sam Gaviglio, who gave up 1 run in 6 IP. But Lucas Luetge gave up a three run shot to Bandy in the 8th, and that was essentially that. Forrest Snow starts for the R’s tonight against minor league veteran Zach Stewart.
Misael Siverio disgorged another clunker of a start, giving up 6 runs in 5 IP in Jackson’s 6-3 loss to Biloxi. The hitting star of the day was old friend Steve Baron, who went 2-3 with a triple. The two teams played an early game today, which evidently disrupted the pitchers’ circadian rhythms, as Jackson lost by a score of 14-10. Perhaps it’s not a big surprise that just as Bakersfield’s team batting stats were off the charts bad, Jackson’s pitching staff is last in the league in ERA by *1.24* runs. They’re at 5.25, as a team, in a league where 8 of 10 teams have ERAs below 4, and the team in 9th place is at 4.01. Anyway, Jabari Blash hit 2 HRs today and knocked in 7 in a losing effort.
Bakersfield lost 6-3 to Rancho Cucamonga, as Ryan Yarbrough gave up 6 runs in 2 2/3 IP. Reliever Paul Fry had 5 Ks in 2 scoreless innings. Tyler Marlette had two hits, a double and a triple – here’s hoping his long slump is over.
Clinton takes on Wisconsin tonight, with Tyler Herb starting for the L-Kings. The TimberRattlers send LHP Kodi Medeiros to the hill. The Hawaiian was a 1st round pick in last year’s draft, and someone scouts thought might make a big impact right away. But he got destroyed in the Arizona league, showing lower velo, poor command and general hitability that he hadn’t shown before. He’s been slightly better, all things considered, this year, as he’s jumped straight to full season ball, but the results are still not there.
* Shields is often credited, as that Sarris piece notes, as having the best right-handed change in the game. At this point, I think Felix has the superior claim due not just to equally solid K rates, but because hitters have done so much less damage on it when they DO make contact.