Game 59, Mariners at Indians
Taijuan Walker vs. Trevor Bauer, 4:10pm
Today’s game is a rematch of the M’s 2-1 victory back on May 29th. In that game, Taijuan Walker used a great high fastball to dominate not only a good hitting team, but a team that swings less than any other. Think about that – a guy who’s had control problems this year, and a guy who gets a below-average number of out-of-zone swings threw his best game as a big leaguer by throwing more pitches at the top edge and above the zone. So, is that it? He needs to use his fastball up? It can make sense when you compare his last few starts against the game in Baltimore, say, but it’s harder to see a difference from the approach Tai took into the season. In 2015, 55% of his fastballs have been in the top 1/3 of the zone or out of the zone up/away. This isn’t a new thing, but it may be a more *consistent* thing. I’m not sure what went through the M’s head when Walker struggled in April, and I’m not sure what was going through Taijuan’s head, either. But Walker, by all rights, really should be successful pitching up with his rising fastball. Why he’s only successful in fits and starts better be keeping the M’s coaching staff up at nights. The swings he got in the Cleveland game on both the FB and splitter looked nothing like the way batters reacted to those pitches in his bad games. I still wonder/suspect that he was somehow tipping his pitches, and if the coaching staff corrected that, then they’ve all earned their pay and more on the year. Nice job with Mike Montgomery, too, if we’re handing out plaudits here.
Walker again faces off with the Indians Trevor Bauer, a pitcher who seems tailor-made for baseball bloggers to talk about incessantly. I talked about his contact management last time, and I talked to Kyle Boddy, a coach who works with Bauer, about his approach last year, and just for good measure, I talked about his famous warm-up routine when he was in the minors. Bauer is a guy whose relentless tinkering and study both made him the #3 overall draft pick, and got him unceremoniously dumped by the team that drafted him. We stat-inclined bloggers are often accused of somehow taking away the soul of the game by viewing it almost as a series of engineering problems to be solved rather than a game between people that’s emotional, beautiful, and which balances individual and team in a nuanced way. I’d disagree with the premise that looking at baseball analytically robs it of its non-analytical power. Further, I’d say that if you care about who wins the game, then you better be interested in solving particular problems – and a reliance solely on “fighting spirit” or “belief” or “establish the fastball” or any nostrum, whether sabermetric or not. And that’s why Bauer’s so interesting – he’s that rare player that not only uses data to inform his pitching, but won’t stop talking about it while he’s doing it.
And that brings us to Bauer’s new pitch for 2015, his sinker, or, as he and Kyle Boddy call it, the Laminar Express. I know I’m not the first to notice this by far, but this is, to my knowledge, the first pitch developed on twitter. It started with a gif of a Marcus Stroman pitch. Bauer noticed something about the angle of rotation, and from there a baseball question morphed into a physics question, thanks to the indispensable Alan Nathan. Nathan was flummoxed by a Freddie Garcia splitter from April of 2011 that seemed to move in the opposite direction he expected. A ball’s spin is largely the result of the Magnus force, which is created when the seams disrupt the airflow over the ball, pushing the ball in the opposite direction. For pretty much any pitch with lots of spin – and that’d be all of them except the knuckleball – the Magnus force essentially determines the direction of the break. Because of the pattern of the seams, a fastball thrown with lots of backspin will “rise” (technically, it will fall more slowly) more than a ball thrown without that spin. A slider breaks gloveside thanks to the sidespin on it, and a curve breaks down because the angle of rotation points that way. But if the seams are positioned just right – so one side of the ball is *always* “smoother” than the other, then the ball’s break can get magnified, or even break in the opposite direction of the spin. Garcia’s “splitter” broke gloveside, which is just not a thing that splitters are supposed to do. Stroman’s, as you see in the gif, breaks armside, and it does so in a way that almost looks explosive. Nathan’s estimates of the magnitude of the forces acting on Garcia’s pitch shows what he calls “roughness” is roughly twice as strong as the magnus force produced by the spinning of the ball itself. That’s why, in that case, the ball moves in the direction opposite of the spin.
But Stroman, and now Bauer, throw their sinkers with much, much more spin and velocity. And, as determined by another physicist, Rabi Mehta, the direction of the break when a pitcher successfully creates a “smooth” side depends on the pitch’s *velocity*. That’s why Bauer’s “Laminar Express” moves like this, and not the way El Jefe’s splitter did. Once you see this, you start seeing it everywhere. I think most pitchers aren’t setting out to figure out and replicate this – I think it just sort of happens here and there on certain kinds of pitches, but when it does, you get some insanely giffable moments. Many of these occurred too long ago to know for sure – we’re lucky that the Garcia pitch was captured on an HD broadcast in super-slo-mo, but after seeing all of the above, I instantly thought of perhaps the most amazing M’s pitch I’d ever seen. Those of you who’ve been around for years will remember this, and Jeff Sullivan’s memorable post about it back at LL five (!) years ago. In a late-season game against the Rangers, King Felix uncorked a change-up unlike anything we’d ever seen. For one, it was thrown at *93 miles an hour.* For another, it broke horizontally so much that it nearly hit poor Elvis Andrus in the thigh, and it broke so late that Andrus thought it was a strike, and swung and missed. To me, the same force that violently yanks Stroman’s sinker or this Lance McCullers sinker *must* be what was going on with that infernal change-up.
So, OK, Trevor Bauer has a new pitch this year. Dog bites man. Like literally everything else about the guy, the #laminarexpress is something of a work in progress. The angle has to be just right or it’s just a fastball* and that just-rightness of it may make it similar to a knuckleball, which moves for the same reason. Maybe it’s a “feel” pitch, and maybe it’s about the line-ups he’s faced, but he threw a bunch of them in his first start of the year against the Astros, then none in his next start against the White Sox. The next time he saw the White Sox? He threw 30. He threw a handful against the M’s, but while he controlled it, two of the M’s three swings on it were hit for singles. Look for it today and see if it’s something he’ll use more of as the M’s line-up saw him fairly recently.
1: Morrison, 1B
2: Jackson, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Seager, 3B
5: Smith, DH
6: Trumbo, RF
7: Ackley, LF
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Walker
The draft rolls on, and the M’s will finish up their 40 picks today. Through 30 picks, the list looks like this (from M’s PR). Of particular note is Yelm High School’s Parker McFadden, whom the M’s selected in the 20th round. McFadden had a lot of buzz through the spring, and is a guy Chris Crawford brought up in our pre-draft piece as the cream of the northwest crop this year. He hurt his hamstring late in the year in what the Olympian called a “non baseball injury” so you wouldn’t figure that’d cause BA’s #81 prospect in the draft to fall so far. May be a tough sign down there, but it’s a great pick.
Tacoma beat Sacramento 6-3 behind another solid start from Forrest Snow. Danny Farquhar vultured the win after blowing the lead. Stefen Romero had 3 hits and a double. The Rainiers have the day off.
Chattanooga swept a double-header from Jackson, winning Game 1 6-2 behind Jose Berrios and a big game from LF Adam Brett Walker. Andrew Kittredge threw three scoreless IP in game 2, but Matt Anderson gave up 3 runs and that was that. Byron Buxton, one of the best prospects in the minors, had a single in each game and totaled 3 walks on the day. Jordy Lara went 3-3 in Game 1 for the Generals. Misael Siverio starts today. The Cuban began the year with three very good starts, but has been up and down – and frankly, pretty much all down – since then.
Bakersfield beat San Jose 5-2 with 3 runs in the 10th. Dan Altavilla was solid again, but the Blaze struggled against Keury Mella, then got to the San Jose bullpen. The two clubs played an early game today, and San Jose extinguished the Blaze easily, knocking out Tyler Pike in the 2nd. Tyler O’Neill has a double and a HR, though.
Patrick Peterson leads the Clinton Lumberkings into Lake County today to face Anderson Polanco, a Dominican lefty with decent stuff but serious control issues.
* OK, but then why does it break *less* than Carson Smith’s regular old two-seamer? I think it’s the angle – Smith imparts so much sidespin because of his arm angle that the Magnus force is all he needs to generate 10″ of run. Bauer’s much more over the top, so getting to 7-9″ of run is pretty damned impressive. It’s not unheard of, though, by any stretch. Moreover, Bauer’s over-the-top delivery still has lots of backspin, so his “sinker” has some rise to it – but Stroman’s doesn’t. Instead, it moves more like that Felix change-up and dives down. As is so often the case, I think I have more questions than answers here about whether this is truly distinct from a two-seamer, and how it could be best deployed.
Game 58, Mariners at Indians
Roenis Elias vs. Corey Kluber, 4:10pm
The M’s have had a rough go of it in the past few weeks in part because they’ve faced some of the best starters the AL has to offer. Chris Archer, twice. Jake Odorizzi, Kluber and Bauer. It makes sense – the M’s haven’t scored much in part because they’ve faced pitchers that are very difficult to score on. But then, that should be reflected in their quality of pitcher’s faced, a stat collected at BP, and it essentially isn’t. The M’s have struggled against some of the top arms, but the big problem is that they’ve struggled against Erasmo Ramirez, too. The M’s hit two HRs off of Kluber, but couldn’t figure out Sam Deduno or Roberto Hernandez. Thanks to the King, they eked out a win against Archer, who struck out 12 without walking anyone, but couldn’t quite get to Shaun Marcum. CC Sabathia. Aaron Sanchez. It’s been frustrating as hell, but it’s not due solely to strength of opposition.
Unfortunately, the M’s have simply underperformed. Their offense hasn’t been good, and it’s been down against everyone. In a great series of articles, Jeff writes that a team’s projections are a much better determinant of rest-of-season record than actual record through 2 months of the season (and a much better predictor than a team’s actual pythagorean record, too). That is, it may seem like those preseason projections that had the M’s as the best team are sad, pathetic jokes – aftershocks of 2010 and the #6 org collapse. But they may be closer to the truth than the idea that the M’s are just pathetic offensively. The M’s, A’s and Red Sox are almost certainly better than they’ve looked, and have a good shot to post a better ROS record than, say, the Astros and Rangers.
As we’ve talked about, though, we’re perilously close to a point in the season when that ceases to be enough. The gap in actual records is real, and it’s formidable. The sheer number of teams in between is daunting as well, and that class of underachievers includes tonight’s opponents, the Cleveland Indians. Fangraphs’ playoff odds lists the ROS winning percentage for each club. This, theoretically, should be even BETTER than the preseason projections, as it can account for injuries and other changes. They’ve got the M’s as the class of the AL West, with a .532 WP%, which leaves them a bit short of Houston and LA in the West. Cleveland, though, has the best ROS WP% in the entire AL. They’ve underperformed despite a truly historic rotation thanks to poor defense and a resultant poor strand rate. In recent weeks (:ominous music: including four games against SEATTLE), their defense has taken quite a few steps back towards the mean, and the Indians have not coincidentally been on a tear.
Tonight’s opponent is easily one of the best starters in baseball. 2nd in baseball in WAR (behind the otherworldly-right-now Chris Archer), 3rd best FIP, 5th best K%. Dude one-upped Archer by striking out 18 Cardinals without walking any earlier this year. But as we talked about last time, he’s got a flaw, or perhaps two related flaws. The first is his BABIP. Yes, the Indians behind him have done a bad job of turning balls in play into outs, and yes, the Indians D has been bad for a while, but Kluber now owns a career .330 BABIP. That’s remarkably high for someone with solid velocity and high-grade raw stuff. Second, Kluber’s got huge platoon splits – reminiscent of early Justin Masterson. But while Masterson threw almost sidearm, and had a big sweeping slider, Kluber’s a bit more traditional. For whatever reason, lefties have feasted on his fastball(s), and Kluber doesn’t really have any secondaries that neutralize lefties either. Part of the reason may be the freakish amount of horizontal movement on his cutter and slider/curve. The curve in particular moves more than a foot horizontally in to a lefty compared to his four-seam and sinker. The cutter has a lot of horizontal movement too, so its two-plane break looks like a much slower, more curve-like slider. That’s made both pitches extremely effective against righties, and it’s a reason why righties have essentially had no chance this year (or last year) against Kluber.
1: Morrison, 1B
2: Jackson, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smith, LF
7: Trumbo, DH
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Elias
The MLB draft continues, and the M’s stayed local with their 3rd round pick, taking UW centerfielder Braden Bishop. Bishop’s an outstanding defensive CF (and sounds like a great kid), but questions about his bat made him seem like a Craig Gentry type. However, scouts have been very encouraged by the progress he’s made with the Huskies, and the pick was widely praised by several scouts/analysts who don’t work for the M’s. Hope to see him in Everett in several weeks.
In the fourth round, the M’s took another HS pitcher, this time South Carolina right-hander Dylan Thompson. The M’s then moved back to the college ranks (and the Pac 12, for the 3rd time in 5 picks) to take Stanford SS Drew Jackson.
Tacoma beat Sacramento behind another solid start from Sam Gaviglio (another Pac-12 product!) and a 3R HR from John Hicks. They’ll face Sacramento again tonight with the surging Forrest Snow (another Pac-12 product!) on the mound against Clayton Blackburn.
Jackson’s game against Chattanooga was rained out yesterday, so they’ll play two today. In Game 1, they face one of the Twins top prospects, and one of the better pitching prospects in the minors, in Jose Berrios. The hard throwing righty out of Puerto Rico has 77Ks in 69 1/3 IP so far. Jake Zokan starts for the Generals. In Game 2, they’ll see Greg Peavey (ANOTHER Pac-12 product!) who the Twins picked in the minor league Rule 5 draft from the Mets – he’ll be opposed by Jackson’s Andrew Kittredge, who is, of course, another Pac-12 product.
Bakersfield blanked San Jose 10-0 last night. Must’ve felt great for Eddie Campbell, the Blaze starter, who’d struggled mightily in his first trip through the Cal League. Yesterday, he threw 6 shoutout innings with 6 Ks and just one walk. Nelson Ward, Tyler O’Neill and Burt Reynolds homered for the Blaze. Today, they’ll face Giants prospect Keury Mella, who sits in the mid-90s with a developing change/curve.
Clinton’s off today, but dropped the finale of their series against Bowling Green 4-2. Clinton had the best record of the full-season affiliates recently, and appeared to be nearing .500, but a rough patch has left then 12 games below .500 at 23-35. Now, the top team in the system is Tacoma, at a comparatively solid 27-32. Jackson’s 11 games under .500, while Bakersfield’s 14 under. If you thought you’d read an awful lot of losses in these recaps, you have.
Welcome to the M’s Organization, Nick Neidert and Andrew Moore
The M’s had two selections in today’s first phase of the Rule 4 amateur draft. They’d forfeited their first-rounder when they signed Nelson Cruz, so the M’s had to wait until pick 60 to tab high-school right-hander Nick Neidert. A while later, at pick 72, they selected Oregon State righty Andrew Moore.
Neidert throws hard, and has a low-ish arm slot. The low release point is less due to angle than his drop-and-drive motion. He’s flashed mid-90s heat at times, touching 95-96 late in 2014, and looked to be climbing the board in the spring, but a bout of elbow tendinitis scared some teams off. Coupled with minor size concerns (he’s somewhat slight, and listed at 6’1″ but BA had him at 6′ even, 165lbs), the durability worries essentially write themselves, but then, it’s never been clear that size or build is a predictor of health. MLB.com has some <a href="http://m.mlb.com/sea/video/v84134783/draft-report-nick-neidert-hs-pitcher” target=”_blank”>video of him here. Fangraphs prospect guy Kiley McDaniel saw him as well in November of 2014 right when his stock was taking off. See his write-up here, and check out McDaniel’s video of him as well. Neidert was BaseballAmerica’s #55 prospect.
Moore is even smaller than Neidert – he’s listed at 5’11”, so chalk one up for Kiley McDaniel’s Black Swan Theory. In 16 starts this year, Moore threw 122 IP, striking out 111 and walking just 21. While Moore has a similar “drop” in his delivery, the rest of his throwing motion is nothing like Neidert’s. Moore extends his arm further back and then comes right over the top. His raw stuff may be ranked behind Neidert and the pitchers who went ahead of him, but Moore gets universal praise for his poise, competitiveness and command. That command got him called up to Team USA’s 2014 collegiate squad alongside early 1st-rounders like Dansby Swanson, Carson Fulmer, Alex Bregman and Kyle Funkhouser. Moore typically works in the high-80s, touching the 90s occasionally. He’s got a change-up and slider as well. When those secondary pitches are on, as they were this season and two years ago in his freshman year, Moore’s really tough. When they’re not, like his sophomore campaign, his fastball isn’t enough to bail him out. Here’s MLB video of Moore. The righty from Eugene, Oregon was BaseballAmerica’s #125 prospect.
All things considered, or rather, all things considered in a good 20 minutes or so, I like the moves. The M’s didn’t pick high enough to get someone without some question marks – hell, most teams in the first round didn’t either – but they balanced the risks well. In Neidert, they get someone with very nice raw stuff, but some light injury worries. In Moore, they sacrifice stuff for polish and a great major-conference track record.
For a great recap of Day 1 overall, check out Chris Crawford’s recap at Baseball Prospectus.
2015 MLB Draft Preview with Chris Crawford
With the M’s seemingly stalled out around 8 or so back of the Astros, it’s tempting to focus a bit more than usual on the 2015 MLB draft. Fittingly, the draft starts today, and we can set aside the futility of the M’s offense for a while. But unlike recent seasons in which the need for an escape and a quick hit of hope have been just as necessary, the M’s don’t have a first round pick. Due to the new CBA and the M’s signing of Nelson Cruz, the M’s first pick will come at #60 overall. That’s not to say that this is hopeless – the M’s have found some solid values in that region, with Brad Miller and Taijuan Walker both supplemental selections (and, ok, both went off the board a dozen or more picks before #60). The M’s have done a decent job in the middle rounds as well, though perhaps they’ve struggled to get those guys over the “good in short-season” hump. Still, the draft is always a fascinating few days, as it’s a great case study in how teams respond to changing incentives.
As you know, and as we‘ve talked about in these posts in recent years, MLB radically changed the draft in 2012, bringing in bonus pools and imposing harsh penalties for teams who exceeded them. In subsequent years, we’ve seen teams first toe the line, then blow the similar pool system out of the water on the international side. But no one’s done it (yet) with the Rule 4 draft. That might speak to how teams see the players/scouting domestically versus internationally, and it may be because MLB didn’t understand how to set the penalties, but it’s another example of something I look for in the draft: organizational theory concepts playing out in real time.
But enough about that – we’re here to talk about pro baseball adding another cohort of the best amateur talents to its ranks. We’re here to wonder what a guy like Brendan Rogers can become in the bigs, and what Brady Aiken could do if he stays healthy. It’s been a down year for the class of 2015, made worse by injuries to several top pitching prospects. But that doesn’t mean it won’t add any impact players to the minors and, eventually, to big league rosters. Amateur scouting operates in conjunction with player development, and I think that interplay has never been as important – particularly with so many of the top arms coming off of injury. Yes, pitchers get hurt, but chipping away at pitcher attrition is worth millions in this sport, and the team that can get an Aiken or a Mike Matuella healthy and effective is a team that’s going to have a pretty big advantage.
As we have each year since 2012, we’ve discussed the draft with an actual draft expert – Chris Crawford of BaseballProspectus.com. Chris has been focused on the draft for years, and he really knows his stuff. I was going back over the previews we’ve done, and man, that’s a good track record. So go check out Crawford’s prospect work at BP, like this mock draft, perhaps, and dig in to this year’s draft preview:
So You Still Want Me to Write About the 2015 Draft
As friends of mine are more into the sport and I can be dragged into matters out of a desire to be conversational, I recently found myself paying some amount of attention to the NFL Draft. You can imagine my bewilderment at the whole affair. “So there is some consensus about where players will fall outside of the first round? And these players can be expected to fill major roles immediately? And you can still find major contributors in the NDFA pool? And various pundits have video clips available and are capable of giving practical commentary on each selection as it’s made all through the draft? What the crap is this?”
I understand some of the nuances that differentiate the sports. Baseball is more skill-based, football has an advantage of media given that all their players go through the NCAA system, etc, and yet, the mind still has some difficulty catching up. The phenomena of drafting this type of position in this round because it can be expected to yield this value is wholly foreign to me, even as I can justify pursuing certain molds of players earlier or later based off of what they might provide.
The Mariners gave up their first round pick because of the Nelson Cruz signing. Consequently, they won’t have their first selection until #60. If this were that other sport, I could speculate on what players might be available at #60, set that against organizational needs, and create a general program for what I expect out of the draft. If I tried that here, I would be hilariously wrong. The time investment required to mock an entire draft is unfathomable to me.
Furthermore, in baseball, there’s rationale for making a big affair of the first round. You can get your number one prospect that way! The Mariner’s last six first overall selections have been considered for #1 prospect internally at various points! Waiting until #60, you don’t have that same boon. That’s not to say that there haven’t been productive players taken by the organization after that. Edwin Diaz was selected 98th overall and is likely the farm’s best starting pitcher right now. Brad Miller wasn’t picked up until #62. Kyle Seager had to wait until #82 and there are probably some teams rather upset with themselves for squandering their chances at him.
As far as who the selection will be, baseball is generally not that predictable and I’ve seen return on heavy investment in the Mariners selecting a guy still on the board exactly once (that would be James Paxton). In lieu of going down the draft boards and looking at prospects in that window around #60, I’ll instead talk about what we’ve seen broadly from the Mariners draft board and what that might translate to.
Read more
Game 57, Rays at Mariners
Mike Montgomery vs. Chris Archer, 1:10pm
How does a pitcher go from “great prospect” to legitimate MLB ace? It seems there are a few paths, from the Roy Halladay style early implosion, followed by regrouping, followed by dominance; to the King Felix style early dominance, then a long period where the results don’t match the royal stuff, followed by figuring stuff out and ascending to the throne; to the Corey Kluber/Carlos Carrasco thing, with a period of “possible 4th starter” and then suddenly, like flipping a switch, “Cy Young candidate.” Baseball itself is unpredictable, but the deeper you look it, the deeper the weirdness goes. What the hell got into Kluber, and can anyone replicate that? This year, we’ve seen Chris Archer ascend to the ranks of baseball’s elite, and he’s done a modified version of Felix’s path – Archer was never the elite prospect that Felix (or even Mike Montgomery) was, but he had impressive stuff – great velocity and the makings of a good slider. After a so-so debut in 2012, Archer’s been an above average starter since 2013, and that seemed like a clear success for the Rays development staff. In his mid-20s, Archer was a good #3 on a good rotation, and while the velo was impressive, I’m just not sure anyone saw a great deal more development in him.
After a great start to the year, Archer ran into some trouble in early May. He walked four in back-to-back games, and wasn’t as unhittable as he’d been through much of April. And then, suddenly, the switch flipped. We all remember what happened the last time he faced the M’s on May 25th: 8IP, 2H, 0R, 0BB, 12Ks. He followed that up with another dominant effort against the Angels – another 8 innings, 1R, 0BB and a career-best 15Ks. Sure, it’s early, and sure, small sample size and all of that. But Archer’s FIP is 3rd best in baseball, and his command seems to be improving. You don’t luck your way into a 15K, no walk game, and looking at the list of players who’ve had games like that shows Archer is in some illustrious company and..wait, what? How did Sterling Hitchcock get into this club?
Archer was originally drafted by the Indians in 2006, and was included as part of the deal that sent Mark DeRosa from the Cubs to Cleveland. At the time, he was essentially a lottery ticket – great arm, but couldn’t find the plate at all, and thus a guy who struggled with his consistency. With the Cubs, the raw runs-allowed results were much improved, but the walk rate was still pretty ugly. Then, in 2011, he was traded again, this time as a secondary part of the deal that sent Matt Garza to Chicago. That deal netted Tampa several starters. In addition to Archer, they got Brandon Guyer, who’s starting today, as well as Sam Fuld and C Robinson Chirinos. But the big piece in that deal wasn’t Archer, it was SS Hak-Ju Lee, who would be ranked as baseball’s 44th best prospect in 2012. Archer was way down at #89. Incidentally, Mike Montgomery was way up at #23 back then.
So, for Archer to improve his command to the point where he could be a solid #3, or #2 if everything was going right, was something of an upset and an impressive transformation in its own right. From there, a few things seem to have changed. First, he ditched the sinker that had been his most-used fastball in 2014. Now, like most of his teammates, he’s sticking with a hard 4-seamer with 10+” of rise. Then, he’s tweaked his slider – a pitch he throws a *ton* of to righties and lefties alike. It’s successful against lefties/righties in part because it has so much drop. It moves horizontally a bit, but it’s the drop – about a foot lower than his FB – that helps explain Archer’s lack of platoon splits. This year, he’s added about 1-2mph on the pitch; it’s not a cutter-ish 89mph on average. That’s sacrificed a bit of that vertical drop, but it’s made it harder to hit. His whiff rate on the slider is over 40%, and he can throw it in the zone at will. We talked about the splitter’s effectiveness at generating out-of-zone swings, but Archer demonstrates another way to get to the same place: with splitter-ish drop and great command, batters swing at over 53% of his sliders (vs. about 40% of his fastballs), and still come up empty all the time. As with the splitter, when they DO make contact, a ground ball’s the most likely outcome, and thus Archer has a better-than-50% GB rate despite a fastball that looks like Chris Tillman’s.
One potential red flag, and something Eno Sarris mentioned here, is that Archer throws the slider a lot. I mean, a *lot*. Only Tyson Ross has thrown it more often this year, and a look back at high-slider usage hurlers in recent years shows a hell of a lot of injured pitchers. Of course, literally any list of pitchers will include plenty of injured pitchers – it’s what pitchers *do*. The list also includes Madison Bumgarner, Corey Kluber and Clayton Kershaw, so it may be worth the risk…if sliders actually are more of a risk than any other type of pitch.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Smith, LF
3: Cruz, RF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Trumbo, DH
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Miller, SS
8: Bloomquist, 2B
9: Sucre, C
SP: Montgomery
Cano gets a day off today, with Bloomquist replacing him at 2B.
Danny Farquhar makes his 2nd start for Tacoma today, opposite Nik Turley of Sacramento. [EDIT – as reader Jake points out, Farquhar pitched 2 IP in last night’s game, so perhaps that’s another experiment that the M’s have quietly abandoned. Anyway, Justin Germano is the actual starter of today’s game, no matter what MiLB.com says. Curto has the real scoop.] The RiverCats beat Tacoma 4-2, scoring all four of their runs in the 6th. Franklin Gutierrez homered off of Jake Peavy to account for the Rainiers 2 runs. Gutierrez now has an OBP of .417, and it is still a cosmic injustice that he can’t stay healthy.
Chattanooga topped Jackson 4-1, despite a solid start from Edwin Diaz. Scott DeCecco starts today against Twins prospect/2010 first-rounder Alex Wimmers.
Visalia and Bakersfield went to extras yet again, with Visalia pushing the winning run across in the 13th last night. The Blaze tied it at 2 in the bottom of the 9th on a Guillermo Pimentel HR, but Visalia’s Fidel Pena hit a solo HR in the 13th to win it. Bakersfield’s best performer was reliever Paul Fry, who threw 3 scoreless innings, giving up 1 hit, no walks and 8 strikeouts. Eddie Campbell takes the mound for Bakersfield against Anthony Banda, a D-Backs prospect who came to the Arizona org as part of the Gerardo Parra trade.
Clinton lost to Bowling Green 4-2. Zack Littell got the loss for the Lumberkings, despite striking out 10 (against no walks) in 6 IP. Today’s pitching match-up features Jefferson Medina of Clinton opposite what-a-name righty Hyrum Formo. That’s… that’s just outstanding.
Game 56, Rays at Mariners
King Felix vs. Alex Colome, 7:10pm
Happy Felix Day. We’ve got to stop celebrating Felix Day during losing streaks. Everyone loves Felix Day, and the weather’s just about perfect, but it’s hard to get in the celebratory mindset when the club looks as anemic as ever and has lost seven straight.
Alex Colome remains the over-the-top, rising-four-seam hurler he was when the M’s faced him a week or two ago. In his one start in between, the Angels knocked 3 HRs off of him – that tends to be the trade off with high, rising fastballs – more whiffs, hopefully a lower BABIP due to fly balls and more infield pop-ups, but more HRs and extra-base hits. Last year, he had the low BABIP, some pop-ups but no whiffs. This season (and small sample warnings apply on all of this), he’s missing more bats, getting elevated contact, but his BABIP’s terrible AND he’s giving up HRs. This is as winnable a game as at gets for a team like the M’s with plenty of holes. Take advantage.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Cano, 2B
3: Cruz, RF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Trumbo, DH
6: Smith, LF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Bloomquist, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: FELIX HERNANDEZ
If you’d like to look forward to the next good M’s team, the MLB draft starts on Monday. As we’ve done in previous years, we’ll talk about the draft, the M’s, and draft eligible players from the Northwest with Chris Crawford of Baseball Prospectus. Look for that on Monday.
Pat Venditte did arrive in Boston in time to suit up and play, and he threw two scoreless innings, but the debut of the switch-pitcher was overshadowed by a scary incident in which a fan had to be rushed to the hospital after a chunk of Brett Lawrie’s shattered bat hit her face. Her injuries were described as life-threatening.
Tacoma staged a big comeback, but couldn’t get past New Orleans, who scored 4 runs in the first off Tyler Olson. Jesus Montero and Chris Taylor each had 2 hits. Stephen Landazuri starts tonight in Sacramento against veteran righty Jake Peavy, working his way back to San Francisco.
Jackson lost to Mississippi 4-3 in 12 innings. James Gilheeney had a solid start of 5 2/3 IP and Dario Pizzano homered for the Generals in a losing effort. Today, Edwin Diaz is putting together his best outing in AA. Through 7 IP, he’s given up 2 runs and K’d 5.
Visalia shut out Bakersfield yesterday 4-0. Tyler Pike went just 2 IP and gave up all 4 runs. Visalia’s John Omahen went 8 scoreless for the Rawhide. Brett Ash starts tonight for the Blaze.
Clinton was on the wrong side of a 17-7 blowout against Dayton. Starter Lukas Schiraldi couldn’t get out of the 4th, and gave up 8 runs. Kristian Brito, the L-Kings 1B, homered. Clinton’s hosting Bowling Green today behind Zack Littell.
Game 55, Rays at Mariners
JA Happ vs. Jake Odorizzi, 7:10pm
Man, this is getting pretty tiring. The M’s are again creeping up to the edge here. No one’s mathematically eliminated in early June, but the M’s playoff odds – the ones that are *still* giving them credit for their lovely preseason projections – have the M’s odds down at 30% and dropping fast. The M’s are behind a boatload of teams, and the Astros have held off regression long enough to give themselves quite a cushion if it comes. The Angels aren’t terrible, and even the RANGERS aren’t terrible. Even worse, Minnesota’s gotten off to such a strong start that they can remain in the wildcard chase for months. The Central’s strong start means that the wildcard bar may be higher than we thought. This is the context into which Jack Z dropped the Mark Trumbo trade, and, I think, part of the reason it hasn’t been well received. Will Mark Trumbo make the M’s into what the projections thought they were? No, not by himself he won’t. But if the standard of a trade is whether it makes a disappointing, flawed team into a contender (like they were supposed to be), then essentially no trades can be judged “good.” The M’s got some MLB talent and gave up less-good MLB talent plus some minor league lotto tickets. The M’s may still lose, but hey, an upgrade *somewhere.*
One of the side benefits of bringing in Trumbo is that it gives the M’s another righty bat, and one that they’ll actually use when appropriate. Like, for example, tonight. As I mentioned the last time the M’s faced Jake Odorizzi, they need to get their lefties in the line-up. A guy like Erasmo whose change is better than his breaking stuff can run even splits. James Shields’ career splits are essentially even too for the same reason. Jake Odorizzi seems to be taking that a step further. Obviously, it’s too early to really know, because he’s only been a splitter hurler for 1 year and a few months. But in that time, his splits are quite remarkable. His K rate is driven almost exclusively by striking out lefties. This year, his K:BB ratio to lefties is over 7. To righties? Just 2.33. All 5 of his HRs this year have been to righties, and righties have faced him *less* often than lefties. Last year, the picture wasn’t as extreme, but it was fairly close. His FIP to lefties in 2014 was 3.15. To righties, it was 4.46. The M’s *need* to have righties in the line-up. They had 4 in the line-up back on May 25th. Let’s see how they do tonight:
1: Morrison, 1B
2: Cano, 2B
3: Cruz, RF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Trumbo, DH
6: Smith, LF
7: Miller, SS
8: Zunino, C
9: Ackley, CF
SP: Happ
Damn it.
In other baseball news today, the Athletics have brought up SHP Pat Venditte to the big leagues. He’ll be flying into Boston to join the team just before gametime, so it’s not clear if he’ll pitch tonight, but when he does, he’ll be that rarest of breeds, the switch pitcher (hence the “SHP” tag that the A’s used in the press release). Venditte was a Yankee farmhand for many years, and despite some solid numbers, never made the bigs. With the A’s bullpen still in freefall – they just outrighted Dan Otero – they finally called up the still-effective Venditte. Intra-divisional rivalries be damned, I’m rooting for Venditte and can’t wait to see him pitch.
This story out of Anaheim is pretty crazy. Their VP for ticket sales essentially says on the record that they’re perfectly happy with declining ticket sales, because the attendance they DO have is trending wealthier, and thus the per-capita revenue per fan makes up for lost ticket sales. The Angels attendance really has dropped, but it appears that doesn’t bother the club, because poor people don’t buy as many souvenirs. I think many people have made the perfectly valid point that many, many teams probably *feel* the same way, but the cavalier way Robert Alvarado talked about this on the record is kind of breathtaking.
The Rainiers beat the New Orleans Zephyrs by a score of 6-1 last night, getting another strong start from Forrest Snow, and 2 hits (including a HR) from Shawn O’Malley. Tyler Olson moves back into the starting role he had last year in AA, and he’ll get the start tonight in the last game of the Rainiers’ homestand. Gorgeous night for baseball if you’re in the area – gametime’s 7:05.
The Jackson Generals were held hitless for 8 innings last night by the ruthlessly efficient Jake Brigham of Mississippi. Dan Paolini led off the 9th with a double and eventually came around to score a meaningless run in the 8-1 loss, but Brigham finised the CG with just 96 pitches, striking out 10 and walking none. Jimmy Gilheeney starts tonight for Jackson against Eastern Washington native and Oregon State product Jorge Reyes, who’s been great in relief, but is making just his 2nd start on the year. He reached AAA a few years back in the Padres org, but was traded to Atlanta last June.
Bakersfield beat Visalia 5-2, with Dan Altavilla throwing 7 strong innings (9 Ks) for the win. Only a solo HR by one-time M’s draftee Kevin Cron marred his line. Lefty-hitting 2B/SS Nelson Ward had another 2 hits for Bakersfield, and the Georgia product is 4-7 in two games with the Blaze, including a HR and 2 doubles. Tyler Pike takes the hill tonight for Bakersfield.
Clinton lost to Dayton 4-2, who scored 3 runs late to win it. Both starters, Pat Peterson for the L-Kings and Wyatt Strahan for the Dragons, pitched well, but Dayton won the bullpen battle. Lukas Schiraldi starts tonight for the Lumberkings, while Dayton sends up Junior Morillo, who’ll make his first appearance of the year after making just one all of last year.
Game 54, Rays at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Erasmo Ramirez, 7:10pm
Old friend Erasmo Ramirez returns to Seattle tonight to take on one of the guys who replaced him in the Seattle rotation. Ramirez never really had a chance to crack the M’s in 2015, but that’s because he was never able to capitalize on a brilliant debut year in 2012. In 59 innings that year (and 8 starts), he wasn’t terribly consistent, but his change-up proved to be a plus offering, and his velocity was a better-than-advertised 94. For whatever reason, things fell apart quickly after that. He had some minor injuries, but he had them in 2012 as well. He became incredibly hittable, and hemorrhaged runs all of the sudden, in part because his breaking stuff never really improved.
More than that, though, he had – and has – two big problems. First, Erasmo’s always been awful with men on base. It’s the kind of problem that managers and others tend to psychologize, arguing it’s the product of a weak mind that can’t deal with pressure. I have no idea if that’s true, though I’m suspicious of it. Instead, it could be the result of issues pitching out of the stretch. Whatever the reason, though, Erasmo has allowed a slash line of .235/.310/.368 in his career with the bases empty. With anyone on, that rises to .279/.346/.467, and remember he’s spent most of his career in Seattle and the AL West. A number of pitchers tend to nibble a bit more with men on – maybe their walk rate will rise, but they give up fewer HRs. With Erasmo, essentially everything goes to pot. His HR rate is much *worse* with men on, AND his walk rate goes up, AND his K rate drops a bit. Even his GB rate drops markedly when there are men on, which is pretty important given that Erasmo’s given up almost nothing on the ground. His career OPS-against on grounders is .494. He gets into trouble when he gives up balls in the air, and he gets fewer grounders with men on, and got surprisingly few grounders overall in his tenure with the Mariners.
His other problem comes on the first pitch of at-bats. If batters put the first pitch in play, they’re hitting .392/.407/.700 off of Erasmo. The sample is obviously not huge (it’s 137 PAs), but that’s so striking, it makes you wonder. Erasmo fares much, much better in all at-bats that move through a 1-0 count. What’s going on? At the risk of doing some armchair psycho work myself, it may be that Erasmo’s so focused on getting ahead of hitters that he gets too much of the plate. After running comically low walk rates in the minors, control started to become an issue for him in the majors, particularly in 2013. Trying to avoid walks may have led him to overcorrect a bit on the first pitch. It’s too early to tell, but it looks like he’s doing a bit better job of avoiding the zone on his first pitch this year, though it’s been a down year overall for Ramirez.
2015 got off to about as bad a start as possible for Erasmo. He allowed 7 runs in 2 innings in his first start of the year, and came back 5 days later and allowed *9* runs in 3 1/3 IP. Banished to the pen after that, he was better, but he’s been fairly impressive since Tampa’s health woes have forced him back into the rotation. He’s made 5 starts since being moved back, and his RA/9 has been 3.13 over 23 IP. That’s…nothing much to talk about, but it’s a hell of a lot better than he started. Indeed, his season numbers still bear the scars of his first two appearances. Take them out, and his seasonal RA/9 is a very good 2.34. He’s coming off a strong start against the Orioles in which he tossed 7 scoreless innings, striking out 7 and walking just one. More intriguingly, Erasmo’s been generating ground balls again. This year, his GB% is 51.7%, up from 37.7% last year in Seattle. Erasmo ran out of time in Seattle, and I think the change of scenery may have been good for all involved. The M’s weren’t wrong to make the trade they made (they got Mike Montgomery in return), but I’d like to know a bit more about what Tampa’s done with him.
So, those breaking balls. In Seattle, Erasmo had a slider and curve he would always tinker with. Righties saw more of the slurvy stuff, while lefties got more change-ups. Because the change was simply a better pitch, he ran very slight reverse splits in Seattle. He wasn’t lost against righties, and had a better K:BB ratio, but gave up more HRs to righties than he did to lefties. And a big reason why was the lack of bite on his breaking balls. Righties hit 13 HRs off breaking balls – out of 17 total HRs. They slugged .556 on his slider and *.725* on his curve. Lefties have done some damage on Erasmo’s fastball, righties feasted on the bendy stuff. Roenis Elias’ curve has been a solid pitch, and thus he’s able to put away same-handed hitters very effectively – so effectively that he typically faces righty-stacked line-ups. Still, the curve functions pretty well against them, too, and that’s a big part of why he’s here and Erasmo’s in Tampa.
EDIT- Line-up changed; LoMo scratched.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Cano, 2B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Seager, 3B
5: Trumbo, 1B
6: Smith, RF
7: Miller, SS
8: Ackley, LF
9: Zunino, C
SP: Elias
With Welington Castillo gone, the M’s have recalled Jesus Sucre. To make room on the active roster, OF Justin Ruggiano has been DFA’d. Odd decision, given that it seems to make Rickie Weeks and Trumbo your back-up OFs.
Tacoma beat New Orleans 6-1 last night, behind 8 scoreless innings from Sam Gaviglio. The red hot Jesus Montero homered in the first off of ex-Rainiers and M’s southpaw Travis Blackley. Tonight, Forrest Snow will start for the R’s against the Zephyrs’ Pat Misch.
Jackson beat Mississippi 6-3 last night, scoring 3 runs in the top of the 9th. Trevor Miller got the win in relief, and DJ Peterson doubled. Cuban lefty Misael Siverio starts tonight for the Generals, while Jake Brigham starts for the M-Braves.
Bakersfield returns home to face Visalia tonight with Dan Altavilla on the hill for the Blaze.
Clinton lost to Dayton 8-2, as Reds prospect Tyler Mahle threw 7 scoreless innings, giving up just 2 hits and striking out 8 Lumberkings. Another prospect starts for Dayton tonight – USC-product Wyatt Strahan, who has a great hard, heavy sinker, but never knew where it was going in college. He’s still walking a few too many, but he’s been effective overall. Pat Peterson gets the ball for Clinton.
Mark Trumbo, Vidal Nuno –> Seattle; Dom Leone, Welington Castillo, Gabby Guerrero, Jack Reinheimer –> Arizona
The M’s and Diamondbacks pulled off a six-player swap tonight that bring free-swinging slugger Mark Trumbo and undersized lefty starter Vidal Nuno to the M’s. At first glance, this seems like something of an odd move. The M’s have done very well against lefties, and struggled a bit against righties on the year. The M’s have a high SLG%, low OBP righty to platoon at LF/DH in Rickie Weeks, and the M’s just saw Mike Montgomery pitch effectively against the Yankees. It seems odd, because it is – there’s no getting around it. Many baseball writers I respect are lining up to lambast the trade, and I completely understand the argument: the M’s have been terrible at getting on base, and adept at hitting home runs, and this combination has produced a bad offense overall. The M’s just acquired a hitter who’s terrible at getting on base, but adept at hitting home runs. Typically, teams patch holes by acquiring skills they don’t have instead of acquiring players whose skills mirror the club’s (hole-infested) overall numbers. When Mike Morse failed, the club brought in Corey Hart. When Rickie Weeks failed, they’re bringing in Mark Trumbo *at the cost of a top prospect*.
And yet, you look at the overall talent the M’s are bringing in versus what they’re sending out and the picture gets a bit fuzzier. This is, essentially, a brilliant answer to a question no one’s asked. And that brings us to something that may actually balance the oddity of bringing a sub-.300 OBP slugger to a sub-.300 OBP team. If you’re a big league GM in 2015, what’s the BEST POSSIBLE phone call you could receive? Maybe that your pitching prospect in AA is suddenly throwing 105, or that your low-A shortstop has homered in 15 straight at-bats. Failing that, though, I think perhaps the dream scenario is for Arizona GM Dave Stewart to call you, and for Dave Stewart to have a clear, imminent, pressing need. Arizona has confused the rest of baseball with a series of moves that, thus far, have failed to improve the club. They have a brilliant, all-star 1B and some solid pieces around him, but their eye for pro talent seems…different than other clubs. The club committed $70 million to Cuban Yasmany Tomas then tried and repeatedly failed to convince people he was a 3B and not a LF. This week, their starting catcher, Tuffy Gosewisch, went down with an ACL tear and will miss the rest of the year. The D-Backs are playing 3B/C Jordan Pacheco and the mortal remains of Gerald Laird at C right now, and you’re Jack Zduriencik, and a phone call comes in with a 602 area code. What would YOU do?
The D-Backs have been shopping Mark Trumbo for a while. They have three solid OFs in AJ Pollock, Ender Inciarte and David Peralta, and they’ve got Tomas, who seriously can’t play 3B and would have to move anyway when starter Jake Lamb returns from injury. If there’s one player in baseball available for a sub-market price, it might be Trumbo. Adding in Vidal Nuno, who fills an ACTUAL need for the M’s, and the move gets easier to stomach. More importantly, while Trumbo doesn’t seem like a great fit in Seattle, he’s probably a good fit *somewhere*. In the next month, teams that have a need might inquire about Trumbo, and now they’ll call Seattle. I believe the M’s acquired Welington Castillo with the belief that he’d stick around and provide some offense from the C spot, but dealt him because they had a better offer. Similarly, I think the M’s believe Trumbo is a solution to their runs-scored problem, but I have to think they’d listen if, say, the Angels wanted to upgrade from poor-man’s-Trumbo CJ Cron to the genuine article in an attempt to track down the Astros. The M’s have turned Yoervis Medina, Dom Leone and prospects into Mark Trumbo and rotation depth. That’s not an earth-shattering return, but it’s also not too shabby.
The part of this deal that stings is losing Gabriel Guerrero, Vlad’s nephew and an intriguing talent who was a consensus top-10 prospect for the M’s. Despite hitting .300 in the Cal League last year, Guerrero clearly hasn’t turned his raw tools into production at this stage. He’s got a .567 OPS in AA thus far – a .267 wOBA – in his age-21 season. The comparison is as unfair as it is inevitable, but Vlad Guerrero was *also* 21 when he AA, but his slash line was a bit different – it was .360/.438/.612. Turning tools to talent takes longer for some guys, so Gabby’s current year OPS is clearly not his ceiling, but bloodlines and tools only go so far. Magglio Ordonez famously struggled for years in the White Sox system and he turned out okay, but I think people forget just how unlikely it is for guys who struggle in the minors to turn into big league stars. I’m not as into scouting-by-statistics as I was when I was young and dumb, but Guerrero has plenty of red flags at this stage.
Castillo clearly filled a need on the M’s, and his absence makes the team marginally weaker. Instead of Castillo spelling Zunino, it’ll be Jesus Sucre or John Hicks. Neither has, or will ever have, Castillo’s bat, and that’s a clear downgrade. But both might be better defenders, and the offensive gap simply can’t be that big given the number of plate appearances Castillo and his replacements would get the rest of the way. Losing Dominic Leone is tougher now that the M’s vaunted relief-pitching depth isn’t what it used to be, but we’re talking about a (struggling) 6th inning righty. Leone wasn’t going to close for this club, and is appropriately behind Tom Wilhelmsen and Carson Smith as righty set-up men. Jack Reinheimer was a perfectly decent MiLB SS who was already splitting time with perfectly decent MiLB SS Tyler Smith for AA Jackson. The M’s side of the deal isn’t JUST org depth, but they paid a price they could afford.
Ultimately, your view of this comes down to two things. One, is Gabriel Guerrero one tweak away from stardom or another in a long line of Vlad’s relatives who haven’t been able to hack it in the affiliated minors? Two, is this a case where Zduriencik’s fixation on RH power will override any potential benefit the M’s might get from pulling off a solid trade – that is, will the club’s need to run an OF of Trumbo/Ruggiano/Cruz against any lefty, defense be damned, prevent them from maximizing their return? I don’t really know the answer to either question. I believe Guerrero is a long shot, and I believe Trumbo has actual value*. I think the M’s are in a better position as we near the trade deadline, even as I acknowledge that they haven’t materially improved the 2015 offense that much. I’m a bit concerned that the club doesn’t care about their own OBP, and I’m concerned at how they’ve handled the bench and LF spots to date. That said, I keep thinking about the value of a desperate Dave Stewart, willing to sell Trumbo and Nuno in exchange for Welington Castillo+.
* In a very low run-scoring environment, SLG% becomes more valuable, as you’re less likely to string a bunch of hits together to score runs. In a high run-scoring environment, OBP is more valuable, because the cost of each out is higher. The M’s play in a very low-scoring environment, so you could kind of straight-face an argument about Trumbo here. It wouldn’t really work given the M’s combo of terrible OBP, high-SLG% and terrible runs-scored, but you could say that Trumbo is in a way more valuable in Seattle than in Arizona, even if he’d likely put up better numbers in the desert. That’s putting aside his value to other clubs, which is real, and might rise the closer we get to the trade deadline.
[EDIT – Dave has a good article at Fangraphs this morning on the point I raised here, that Trumbo has a bit more value in Seattle *because* the team OBP and run environment are low. Take a look.]