Game 83, Tigers at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Alfredo Simon, 7:10pm
The M’s ended their 9-game west coast road trip 5-4, but are still stuck at 9 games behind Houston, right where they were before leaving. A bad series of games for teams like the Rays and Twins has meant that Fangraphs’ playoff odds went up a bit, but then, those odds rest-of-season projections still have the M’s as the 2nd best team in the AL. I’m…I’m not seeing that. On the plus side, the M’s welcome Hisashi Iwakuma back to the rotation, and if Iwakuma’s able to go 7 innings per game, that should help a suddenly formidable rotation. Of course, the rotation was already performing well; the M’s need runs, and that’s not something they can address in the short term.
Jeff had a great article today at Fangraphs about the M’s opponent tonight, the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers have fallen short of expectations as well, and while they’re above .500 (barely) and thus right in the thick of the wild card race, the injury to Miguel Cabrera means that they’re going to need a lot to go right if they want to pass Kansas City for the division or whoever’s 2nd in the AL East and West. As an aging team, they could conceivably be sellers at the deadline – David Price would get a lot of interest, of course, and you just KNOW the Mariners would ask if Yoenis Cespedes was getting shopped. It’s an interesting puzzle, and I’m not sure what choice I’d make if I was in the Detroit front office. I will say, though, that it’s kind of nice to have a choice to make. The M’s are trapped too, but there’s just not a whole lot they can do about it. The M’s are comprised of four really high-cost, high-talent stars in Felix, Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager and Nelson Cruz. The M’s won’t sell Felix and Seager who are young, good and cornerstone-type pieces. They can’t sell Cano because his recent struggles now have a medical component to them, and they wouldn’t get as much for Cruz given his contract. At the other end of the roster, they’ve got several intriguing pre-arb players like Taijuan Walker, James Paxton, Brad Miller and Carson Smith. These are the guys they won’t sell, because there’s no point in selling pre-arb producers for pre-arb prospects. Robinson Cano’s struggles have clearly hurt the M’s, but there problem isn’t with the stars, and it’s not with the prospect-emeritus guys like Walker (at least not anymore). The problem’s the roster’s flabby midsection.
Logan Morrison’s going into his final year of arb next year, as is Mark Trumbo. The market for those two, even considering the paucity of sellers this year, is *not irrationally exuberant*. Iwakuma’s a free-agent-to-be, but hasn’t thrown a big league pitch since April 20th. JA Happ (also a free agent after this season) isn’t a bad mid-to-back-of-rotation starter, but you don’t give up a ton for a half-year of JA Happ. Austin Jackson is not going to fetch as much this year as he did last year, and contenders are probably not calling about Fernando Rodney. If the M’s really, truly wanted to sell, and I don’t think they do at this point, they could talk up Cruz or they could deal, say, Charlie Furbush or a pre-arb starter. Those aren’t great options.
The other option is to go all-in and swap out some pitching depth for another bat. That’s a dangerously short-term gamble, as 5 years of, say, Tai Walker is incredibly valuable and potentially critical to the NEXT decent M’s team. But short of that, they don’t seem to have the prospect pieces to move to get a bat better than the Trumbos and Morrisons of the world. They were able to get those two quite cheaply in terms of prospects, but as we’ve seen, they’re not the kinds of players capable of lifting on offense on their own. Worse, the market’s going to be full of teams who’ll bid up the likes of Adam Lind – the market is starved for bats, and other teams can probably outbid Seattle. The M’s are only on the periphery of the race if you believe their rest-of-season projection’s close to right. BP is much more bearish about both Seattle and Boston, as both have a ton of ground to make up in less than half a season. The M’s may stand pat because that’s all they can realistically do.
Soooo, this series is going to be fascinating. Today the M’s face righty Alfredo Simon, who’d been a reliever for several years after failing as a starter. But he made a few starts for Cincinnati late in 2013 and got the chance to work in the rotation there full time last season and the 33-year old ended up making the All-Star team. The Reds traded him for prospects in the off-season, as the Tigers needed rotation help with Justin Verlander’s health status uncertain. Simon’s done fairly well – he’s striking out more batters despite the NL-to-AL move, and thanks to his big new home park, he’s giving up fewer HRs which have helped his FIP. Coming into the year, Simon may have looked like a big regression candidate thanks to a sky-high strand rate, low BABIP and huge platoon splits that were masked by playing in the righty-heavy NL Central, but he’s been decent despite it all. The strand rate fell, his BABIP is normal now and his platoon splits are as high as they’ve ever been, but he hasn’t fallen apart.
Instead, he’s decided to throw like a reliever. He’s got 4-5 pitches – a four-seam FB at about 93, a sinker, a cutter at 88, and his standby pitch, a splitter. He’s thrown a curveball as well, but he’s not throwing much of it at all this season. Instead, he’s just loading up on splitters – he’s not quite like Fernando Rodney, but especially to left-handers, Simon is pretty much a sinker/split pitcher right now. As I’ve mentioned many times, the splitter should be a great pitch against lefties, as it’s basically a species of change-up – these pitches either don’t have much in the way of platoon splits or even have reverse splits (look at Iwakuma’s career splits, for example). So why does Simon have such huge platoon split issues? It’s not the splitter’s fault, it’s the sinker. Like a lot of pitchers, Simon uses his sinker to opposite handed hitters and throws a few more four-seamers to righties. This advice must be pretty standard, particularly for those who’ve had HR issues, but I’ve never seen any evidence that it’s useful. Lefties have always feasted on Simon’s sinker (career SLG%: .549), and they’re destroying it this year (SLG%: .705). It’s not like he doesn’t have another option – he’s got TWO. This year, he’s trying to get around the issue by throwing blizzards of splitters – he’s thrown it more than his sinker to lefties, and 33% of his pitches overall, or about double last year’s frequency.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Smith, RF
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Iwakuma
Tacoma beat Fresno 7-4 to make Vidal Nuno a winner in his first game for the club, and just-reactivated Logan Kensing picked up the save. Steve Baron was the hitting star, getting three hits including two doubles. Baron’s been a defense-first catcher since he was drafted, and he’s been around long enough that his status as a first-round bust seemed secure. There’s nothing about a BABIP-driven 60 at-bat sample that can change that perception, but I’m pulling for him because Baron turning into a big leaguer would be kind of hilarious – the ultimate “You Can’t Predict Baseball” kind of outcome. Baron played most of 2013 at High Desert and had an OPS under .600! But he took some walks in AA this year, and is now sporting an OBP of .380 across two levels and nearly 200 plate appearances. PCL All-Star Forrest Snow gets the start tonight at Chukchansi park.
Jackson scored three in the first to take control of the game, and cruised to a 9-2 win over Mississippi. Anthony Fernandez went 4 IP giving up just one run, and then Cam Hobson came in and faced 7 batters – he struck out 6 around 1 walk. DJ Peterson had 3 hits for the Generals and Jordy Lara had 2, including his 4th HR. Edwin Diaz takes the mound tonight, and he’ll be facing Greg Ross – a rematch of their 6/1 match-up (the Generals won that one).
Bakersfield bombed the Stockton Ports 7-1 thanks to HRs from Guillermo Pimentel and Burt Reynolds. Eddie Campbell starts tonight for the Blaze against TBD of Stockton.
Kane County downed Clinton 7-1. Zack Littell had his worst start of the year, and Clinton couldn’t figure out Markus Solbach, a pitcher who’s gone 14 IP against them on the year and yielded just one run. Clinton’s game today was rained out.
Everett’s relievers were lit up in an 11-4 loss to Hillsboro. Joselito Cano walked 4 in 2/3 of an inning, and then Spencer Herrmann gave up 5 runs in 1 1/3 of work. Braden Bishop had 2 hits from the lead-off spot for the AquaSox. Today, Lane Ratliff gets the start opposite lefty Cody Reed, Arizona’s 2nd round pick in 2014 out of an Alabama high school. He’s a strikeout pitcher; not sure about the quality of competition, but in his senior year of HS, Reed struck out 226 batters in 92 innings.
Game 82, Mariners at Athletics
JA Happ vs. Chris Bassitt, 1:05pm
Yesterday marked the half-way point of the season. Yesterday marked the M’s largest deficit in the West, as they fell 10 games behind Houston. Yesterday marked the M’s 9th shutout loss. The M’s are shut down by Chris Archer, sure, but the M’s democratize the shut-out. They’ve been shut out by the since-demoted Brett Oberholtzer, by Ryan Vogelsong, by a group of Rays relievers, by Kendall Graveman. We look at their tendencies, and beyond a tendency to make a ton of outs, there’s not much rhyme or reason to it. They’re not a good offense, and haven’t been for many years, but the way this team seems to look so overmatched is concerning – concerning above and beyond all of the losses and squandered opportunities and failed promise. Baseball can do this – it makes even good offenses look inept, and often the beneficiary is some AAAA non-entity. This is the unpredictable nature of sport and baseball that makes each game worth watching. But with the M’s, it’s more like standard operating precedure, and the only thing that’s unknown is when it’s going to happen next. The M’s were a good team of sorts last year, and they got shut out 19 times – far more than they did when they were well and truly abysmal in 2010-11. They’re at 9 half-way through the year – they’re on pace to challenge last year’s mark and it feels like they’ll blow past the 2010-11 shutout totals in a week or so. The M’s have worked for *years* to fix the problem they and every fan knows they have, and the result is a team that could very easily get shut out today by a pitcher I’ve barely heard of.
Chris Bassitt is starting because Sonny Gray was laid low by a stomach virus this week. He’s made one start on the year – he was demoted after struggling in the A’s bullpen early on (he faced the M’s in fact on May 9th). He came to Oakland from the White Sox org as part of the Jeff Samardzija trade, and he seems to have improved – his velocity’s up a tick from where it was in his brief look in 2014, and he was excellent at AAA Nashville. But there are still some warning signs. He had issues with walks in the White Sox org, and he’s given up 12 free passes (9 walks, 3 HBPs) to just 11 Ks in 15+ innings this year. He’s got a good looking sinker – it’s depressingly similar to Kendall Graveman’s in shape), but he’s been a fly-ball pitcher. He’s working on a change, but doesn’t throw it much, and thus he doesn’t have much to throw against lefties. As a result, his command problems are magnified against lefties. The M’s have lefties. They’ve occasionally been good against sinkers. But at this point, I’m not sure it matters.
1: Jones, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Smith, RF
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Happ
Brett Oberholtzer didn’t find the Rainiers as easy as he did the M’s, but he and Fresno still crushed the Rainiers 10-3. Jesus Montero hit his 14 HR, but Sam Gaviglio couldn’t get the final out of the 6th inning, and that turned a 3-2 lead into an 8-3 deficit. Vidal Nuno makes his Rainiers debut today, as he’ll start opposite lefthander Luis Cruz.
Jackson lost to Mississippi 4-2. All of the M-Braves runs scored in the 7th; starter Jimmy gilheeney was excellent through 6 1/3, but Scott DeCecco was tagged for 3 runs in 1/3 of an inning. Jordy Lara went 3-3 with a triple in the loss. Today, Anthony Fernandez makes his 3rd start of the year as he continues his comeback from TJ surgery.
Stockton edged Bakersfield 2-1. Dylan Unsworth was the hard-luck loser, and indie-league pick-up Kyle Schepel pitched two scoreless in relief. Schepel had a couple of seriously ugly outings early on with the Blaze, but is intriguing as he can be given that he’s a single-A reliever with an ERA in double digits. He sits in the mid 90s, and while the Blaze have some solid relievers, he could be one to watch if he improves his consistency.
Kane County topped Clinton 6-3, as Jefferson Medina gave up 5 runs in 6 IP. 1B Pat Leyland, a recent pick-up from the Detroit org, had three hits for the L-Kings. Zack Littell starts today against the German Markus Solbach.
Hillsboro beat Everett 8-7 to complete the organizational sweep. What a year. Hillsboro scored 3 runs off of Kyle Wilcox in the 9th to tie the game, then won it in the 10th. Alex Jackson hit 2 doubles and a single for the AquaSox. Jose Santiago starts for Everett tonight.
Game 81, Mariners at Athletics
King Felix vs. Kendall Graveman, 1:05pm
Happy Felix Day, and Happy 4th to you all. This season has been so painful, but it’s nice that we cans still celebrate every now and again. The M’s dinger-fueled romp yesterday was the perfect appetizer to today’s game, a chance to win a road series against the formerly-hot A’s and watch Felix perform yet again. And crucially, we can do all of this while grilling and drinking with friends. Not bad.
Today the M’s face righty Kendall Graveman, a sinkerballer the A’s got from Toronto as part of the Josh Donaldson deal. Graveman, a right-hander, throws a sinker, cutter and change, and he’ll mix in a curve at times. The repertoire sounds a lot like Jesse Chavez, and in fact Graveman’s release point is nearly an exact match of Chavez’s. But in terms of pitch movement and shape, the two are very, very different. Graveman doesn’t have much velocity; his fastball is around 91, and he’s got the low strikeout rates that you might expect from mediocre raw stuff. Instead, Graveman gets good sink with pretty much everything he throws. His change-up has splitter-like movement, and he should be able to throw it to righties and lefties, but it doesn’t look like he does (despite telling David Laurila that he does). Instead, he’ll throw righties his slider-like cutter that comes in at 86 and has very good horizontal movement (unlike Chavez’s more fastball-like cutter). The sinker and change-up are his big ground ball pitches, and they’ve pushed his GB% near 50% – it’s above average, though not in Felix’s class.
That could become a problem for him. Graveman doesn’t have the stuff for strikeouts, and (rightly) attempts to use what he CAN do to his advantage. But without really high GB rates, he’s kind of stuck in the middle – he’s not great at managing contact, control or strikeouts, and doesn’t seem to have any elite attributes to balance that out. He’s giving up over a HR per 9IP, and while tiny samples are all we’ve got with him, it’s not clear how that’s going to change unless he does something different, particularly with that cutter. Graveman’s cutter is noticeably slower than his fastballs, and while it’s got movement, it’s got less sink than you’d expect given everything else Graveman throws. And despite the horizontal movement, righties have destroyed the cutter thus far while lefties have fared well on his sinker. That sounds more dismissive than I mean it to – I think Graveman could be a solid #4 in time. But right now, he’s getting by on an amazing strand rate.
Baseball-Reference shows that the M’s have fared pretty well (ok, for *them*) against ground ball pitchers. By bbref’s definition, Graveman probably wouldn’t qualify, but I think this is a proxy for how the M’s do against pitches (not pitchers) of a certain type, and Graveman throws a lot of those pitches. The M’s have a number of fly-ball hitters with a pronounced uppercut in their swing, and Graveman’s sinker feels like it could fall into their wheelhouse. This year, Seager and especially Zunino have been much better against GB pitchers, while Cruz has been good against everyone. It’s Oakland, it’s the Mariners, and Graveman’s been better since his late-April demotion, but this isn’t the worst match-up for the M’s line-up.
1: LoMo, 1B
2: Jackson, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smith, LF
7: Trumbo, DH
8: Miller, SS
9: Sucre, C
SP: El Rey
Day game after a night game and all, but it’s fitting that Zunino finally gets a match-up that looks decent for him…and Sucre gets the start.
So the M’s made a series of moves last night precipitated in part by the end of David Rollins’ rehab stint. The M’s have called up Rollins, righty Mayckol Guaipe and OF James Jones, and sent down Vidal Nuno, Roenis Elias and Tom Wilhelmsen. Nuno was the easy call, but the other two are somewhat surprising. Elias has been burned by the HR ball of late, but has been steady performer in the rotation. Wilhelmsen’s inconsistency is tough to figure out. This year, his strikeout rate’s up, but he’s been doomed by a terrible BABIP (it’s .413!). His FIP is almost two full runs better than his ERA, so in some sense this feels like penalizing Wilhelmsen for bad luck. You figure Wilhelmsen will work with Jaime Navarro for a few games and then swap places with Guaipe again. Jones is just biding his time until Hisashi Iwakuma returns on Monday, so this’ll be a short stay for him. I’m excited to see Rollins in the majors though. We talked him up in the spring, and he’s looked solid in AAA this past month.
Tacoma outslugged Las Vegas 12-7 at Cheney. There were 5 total HRs in the game, with the Rainiers’ Steve Baron, Patrick Kivlehan and Stefen Romero all homering. Neither starter was good; Stephen Landazuri gave up 4 runs in 4 innings while Vegas’ Rainy Lara apparently didn’t appreciate the hot, dry weather and gave up 7 runs on 10 hits (2 HRs) in 4 IP. Danny Farquhar had his best outing of the year for Tacoma, throwing 2 1/3 perfect innings with 5 Ks. The R’s took the lead for good in the 5th off of hard-throwing reliever Vic Black, who’s in AAA to rehab a groin pull. Today, the R’s head to Fresno to take on the Grizzlies and recently-demoted Astro Brett Oberholtzer.
Jackson lost the completion of their July 2nd game, but came back to beat Mobile 1-0 in a rain-shortened game behind Misael Siverio’s 6 shutout innings. The Generals prevailed after what looked like a game-tying sacrifice fly was taken off the board when the umpire ruled the runner had left 3rd base early. Former Mariner Dominic Leone got the win in the first game. Today, Jimmy Gilheeney starts for Jackson as they start a series against Mississippi. Prospect Tyrell Jenkins starts for the M-Braves.
Bakersfield topped Modesto 3-2 thanks to another strong start from Tyler Pike, who went 6 2/3 IP and struck out a career-high 10 batters. Paul Fry got the save, and deserves some attention for his excellent 2015 season. In 48 2/3 IP, the lefty now has 63 strikeouts to 12 walks, and he’s been equally tough on righties and lefties. Bakersfield returns home and begins a series with Stockton today.
Kane County beat Clinton 3-2. Catcher Wayne Taylor hit a 2R HR early, but that was it for the L-Kings offense. Jefferson Medina starts for Clinton tonight against the Cougars.
Luiz Gohara had another disappointing start in Everett’s 9-3 loss to Tri-Cities. He didn’t make it out of the 1st inning, giving up 3 runs…hope he’s OK. Everett’s home tonight to kick off a series with the Hillsboro Hops, the Diamondbacks NWL affiliate. Taylor Bird starts for Everett opposite Tyler Bolton.
Game 80, Mariners at Athletics
JA Happ vs. Jesse Chavez, 6:05pm
For the umpteenth time, we have to start off by acknowledging a dreadful offensive performance last night. This time, it was Scott Kazmir who sliced through the M’s line-up, limiting the M’s to 2 hits and no walks in 8 innings. Kazmir is tough on righties, but that’s not much excuse for Jackson, Cruz, Trumbo and Zunino to go 0-13 with 5 Ks. The M’s runs per game is under 3.4, which is as remarkable as it is unacceptable.
Today, the M’s face right-hander Jesse Chavez, who’d been a career reliever before rebuilding his confidence and repertoire in Oakland. Coming up with Pittsburgh, he threw a hard four-seamer and, after some input from the club, a slider. Never blessed with exceptional command, Chavez’s rising fastball also led to a spate of home runs. During some struggles with his breaking ball, Chavez developed a cutter, and while he didn’t throw it much in games, it became his bread and butter in Oakland. Brandon McCarthy made it famous, but the Scott Feldman approach of a cutter, a sinker, a curve and change is now a pretty standard arsenal, and Chavez took to it nearly as well and as quickly as McCarthy did. Not only did he get a few more grounders (which helped with the HR problem), but he was now quite effective against lefties, which helped his transition to the starting rotation. As a starter, Chavez pounded the zone with cutters/sinkers, and tried to get batters to chase his curve. The slider was gone, but he now used his change-up equally to lefties and righties. He gave up a fair number of HRs, but was at least in the acceptable range, as opposed to the “fatal flaw” range it was with the Pirates.
Now in his second stint in the rotation after a number of A’s hurlers had issues with performance and injury, Chavez has improved again – his HR rate is vanishingly low, and while that’s in part due to luck, he’s also running his lowest walk rate. I’m always fascinated that pitchers can bounce around as back-of-the-bullpen guys, and can live in fear of the DFA, then find a bit of success with a new approach – but then change it, because baseball *requires* continual tinkering and adjustments. We saw Brandon McCarthy try this and get knocked around for a while before settling into a new routine, and we’re seeing it now with Chavez. After telling Eno Sarris the four-seamer was basically out as a game-usable pitch, he’s throwing a lot of them in 2015, and it’s been one of his best pitches. The curve that he loved much more than the slider that he seemingly developed under protest? All but gone, and replaced by a new, better slider. Even the cutter, the pitch he throws most, has seen an overhaul. This year, it’s more fastball-like than ever. He’s throwing it a bit harder, and it has less slider-like horizontal movement and drop. Some part of this may be chance, but a lot of it has to be the result of a distinctive, conscious change in approach. Baseball tends to reward pitchers who’re able to make these kinds of adjustments, and thus far Chavez has the best FIP of his career. The slider’s helped his results against righties, while the four-seamer has been effective against lefties.
1: LoMo, 1B
2: Jackson, CF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Smith, LF
7: Trumbo, RF
8: Miller, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Happ
Las Vegas jumped all over Tacoma’s Jordan Pries in the first inning and kept up the pressure, ending up with a 12-2 win at Cheney. David Rollins was the sole pitching star of the game, working 2 scoreless innings while striking out 4. Rollins is an interesting case, as his rehab assignment (following an 80-game suspension for performance enhancers) runs out today, necessitating a move to the 25-man roster (he’s a Rule 5 draft pick). He looked great in spring training, and has yet to give up a run in 9 1/3 AAA innings, but the roster’s full. Bob Dutton speculates he could move up for Vidal Nuno, another lefty. But the M’s will deal with another move once Hisashi Iwakuma’s back. Ryan Divish reports that Lloyd McClendon says they’ll announce the roster move tomorrow – Rollins will either head to Oakland to join the M’s, or return to the Houston Astros org. Anyway, Sam Gaviglio starts tonight for Tacoma. Big firework show at Cheney tonight.
Jackson’s game against Mobile was suspended with Mobile up 2-1. They’re finishing that one now, and will play another game tonight. Moises Hernandez was brilliant in 5+ innings yesterday, striking out 6 without a walk. Dominic Leone, Gabby Guerrero and Jack Reinheimer are all in the game for Mobile.
Bakersfield beat Modesto 3-2 behind a great start from Dan Altavilla. The 2014 5th round pick threw 7 IP with 1 run allowed and 8 strikeouts to no walks. It was Altavilla’s first start of the season without giving up a free pass. Reliever Aaron Brooks (a Seattle native and Edmonds CC product) finished the game with 5 Ks in his 2 innings of work. Today, Tyler Pike gets the start against Modesto’s Alex Balog.
Clinton lost to Kane County 7-5. Estarlyn Morales hit his 4th HR for Clinton, but the Cougars scored 2 runs in the 8th off Nick Valenza for the final margin. Today, Lukas Schiraldi of Clinton faces off with Canadian righty Ethan Elias, who was cut by the Cubs org two years ago and spent 2014 pitching in the Independent leagues in Illinois. Signed after a try-out by the D-Backs, and then pitching his way into the Cougars rotation, he’s suddenly sporting a 7-3 record with a 2.61 ERA. Do his peripherals support that? No, but I’m sure he doesn’t mind.
Everett beat Tri-Cities 8-3, with 1B Ryan Uhl getting 4 RBIs. Andrew Moore gave up 2 unearned runs in his 3 IP, and WSU product Joe Pistorese continues to impress with 1 2/3 scoreless with 3 Ks. The Montana native hasn’t been scored on in 6 1/3 innings thus far. Luiz Gohara starts tonight for the AquaSox.
Game 79, Mariners at Athletics
Roenis Elias vs. Scott Kazmir, 7:05pm
The M’s head north to Oakland, the final stop on their road trip. Man, it feels better today after back to back shutouts than it did a few days earlier.
I will never get over the fact that Scott Kazmir is pitching effectively in the majors after bombing out with the Angels, then struggling to break 82, then recovering essentially all of the velo he had when he broke into baseball with the Devil Rays. Kazmir came up with a good fastball and a big slurvey slider. Death against lefties, he’s faced strongly right-handed line-ups since 2005-6. But since his stunning renaissance with Cleveland, he’s done very well against righties too. He’s now got a good change-up – it gets whiffs on almost 40% of swings – and with his sinker and cutter, he’s able to get more ground balls. He’ll never be a true ground-ball hurler, not with a four-seam fastball with 10-11″ of rise, but he’s done a very good job of limiting HRs. Sure, his home park helps with that, but so does his more-than-respectable K rate against opposite-handed hitters.
All of that said, he’s still got some platoon splits. He’s been tough on righties, but Cruz, Jackson and Trumbo need to step up here.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Cano, 2B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Seager, 3B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Trumbo, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Elias
To be clear, McClendon says that Miller is still the starter, but that Taylor will get the odd start against tough lefties like Kazmir.
Tacoma beat Las Vegas 4-2 last night behind another great start from Forrest Snow. Chris Taylor walked and singled in two PAs before being pulled from the game, putting all of today’s roster moves into play. Stephen Landazuri starts tonight at Cheney.
Jackson got shut out by Mobile 8-0. Edwin Diaz pitched poorly. Moises Hernandez will try to do better tonight. I should mention that erstwhile Generals manager Jim Horner left to take a job at Washington State University, and Roy Howell, the fill-in last year in Tacoma, will see out the 2015 campaign.
Bakersfield was beated soundly by Modesto, 8-1. Eddie Campbell went 3 1/3 giving up 5 runs, and that was essentially that. Dan Altavilla starts tonight against Modesto’s Antonio Senzatela, who struck out 11 in a win against Bakersfield in early May.
Clinton lost a slugfest 12-10 to Peoria. Patrick Peterson leads them into today’s opening game of a series with Kane County.
Everett lost to Tri-Cities 7-1 as Lane Ratliff gave up 5 runs and 2 HRs in 4 2/3 IP. Tri-Cities is generally a tough place to homer, but winds can change that. Tonight, Andrew Moore gets the start against the DustDevils’ Brett Kennedy.
July 2nd International Signing Day / Fare Thee Well, Willie Bloomquist
I was going to do a post about the opening of the 2015-16 signing period for international free agents, and then word come over the transom that the M’s had DFA’d Willie Bloomquist to make room for Chris Taylor. These things have nothing – at all – to do with each other, but 1) there’s something about the juxtaposition of multi-millionaire 16-year old tools prospects and the elder statesman of utility players; and 2) fewer posts! Fewer things I can screw up! Willie has accomplished far, far more than 99% of the kids signing today and over the next few months, but there’s a reason the hype follows promise and not the utility guy on the bench.
1: So, first things first. As many of you know, the latest MLB collective bargaining agreement not only instituted bonus pools for the June amateur draft – essentially setting a hard cap on the amount of money a team can spend on draft-eligible players – but it also created a new pool system for international free agents, too. MLB teams each receive a set amount of money (based on last year’s record) they can spend on players under a certain age and who haven’t been pros in other countries (this is for Latin American/Asian teenagers, not Yu Darvish or Jose Abreu). Just like with the amateur draft’s pool system, there are some severe penalties for going over the caps: if a team exceeds its cap by 15% or more, they forfeit the ability to sign any international free agents over $300,000 for the next TWO seasons. Right now, the Diamondbacks, Angels, Rays, Red Sox and Yankees can’t sign any of the marquee names in this year’s class – and they’ll be out next year as well.
For some teams, and the Yankees are the best example here, this is a calculated move. If there are players you really want in one class, it may make sense to spend like mad in one year and take your penalty/shift your resources elsewhere in the next year. The incentive here is clear: if you’re going to take a penalty, make it worth it. Teams generally avoid triggering the one-year bans, and either stay under the cap (as the M’s have done), or go hog wild and spend many multiples of the draft pool. That’s what the Yankees did last year, and it’s what the Dodgers are doing today. The Dodgers bonus pool is a shade over $2 million, and as of lunch time, they’ve spent $21.5 million plus on their first four signings, headlined by Cuban pitching phenom, Yadier Alvarez who got $16m on his own. Essentially, if you’re in the market for an Alvarez or his countryman Eddy Julio Martinez, it makes sense to try and vacuum up as many Dominican/Venezuelan players as you can. A big name is going to cost way more than the bonus pool on his own, and you’re not going to be able to spread the money out over next year’s class, so go nuts. Other teams may be following this strategy too, including the Cubs (who’ve signed 5 players in the top 30 for over $8m thus far today) and Blue Jays, who inked Vlad Guerrero, Jr. for pool-busting $3.9m.
The M’s have eschewed the “blow up the pool” strategy for a series of low key moves. They haven’t been shut out of the top 30, but they’ve typically picked up players in the $200,000 to $2m level, not the headliners. It’s too early to really tell which strategies pay off – Yoan Moncada is the big test case here, and he’s still in the minors – but the M’s have generally grabbed one or back-of-the-top-30 guys per year. This year, it’s a Dominican shortstop named Carlos Vargas, who’s either around #20 or #30, depending on the list you use. Vargas signed for $1.7m, so the M’s may not have a lot of room if they’d like to stay under their $2.15m cap. There’s video in that last link and another one here, courtesy of Baseball America. Vargas is big at 6’3″ already, and has a somewhat unorthodox swing, but he’s got some pop on it. That’ll help, as it sounds like many see him as a future 3B.
So what happens to these guys? In the past, the M’s maintained an official presence in both the Dominican Republic and in Venezuela, where they’d made the most headway (Felix!). In the past year, the M’s have shuttered their Venezuelan facility due to security concerns. Instead, they’ve expanded in the DR, and now have two clubs competing in the Dominican Summer League. The Venezuelan league has dwindled to four clubs, while the Dominican League is now headed towards 40 teams (there are 38 teams in 5 divisions now). Many of the guys the M’s signed in the 2013 and 2014 signing periods play for one of their DSL teams. Last year’s class was headed up by OF Brayan Hernandez, while SS Greifer Andrade was the big name in the 2013 group.
2: Willie Bloomquist feels like the other end of some spectrum from a 16 year old power-hitting SS, but that’s not really fair. We mentally put Bloomquist into a very different category because we’re able to look back at a career that’s spanned 13 years in the bigs, and 16 years since he was drafted out of Arizona State (and, technically, 19 years since the M’s first selected him out of South Kitsap high school. We know just about everything there is to know about Willie, and where he could add value and where he may be taking some runs off the board. Years ago, some fans fell hard for the guy, and some fans recoiled when Bloomquist used to talk about wanting a starting job. At that point, we could say that it didn’t appear starting him would make the M’s better. In the spring, using what we knew about the relative performance and roles of Bloomquist and Taylor that it’d be better to go with the younger, better player. More recently, as Bloomquist ended up backing up 1B and outfield corners, it looked like the M’s had given another slot in the batting order to Mark Trumbo, a guy who fills in at those positions and offers more on offense. Bloomquist has so often been a slightly worse option for what the M’s (the 2015 M’s as well as the 2006 ‘s) needed.
Like so many others, Bloomquist had to leave Seattle to demonstrate his value. After a tough year in Kansas City, Willie had a late career resurgence coming off Arizona’s bench. There’s nothing showy about a bench player hitting decently in limited duty, but there’s nothing showy about a tiny flower blooming in the corner of a parking lot, either. It wasn’t much, but it made things better. Since his return, he couldn’t demonstrate the freakish contact skills he’d picked up in the desert, and with the M’s shortstop glut, the fact that he could stand out there and not be Mike Morse wasn’t as valuable. That’s not his fault, though. Willie played for the M’s for a long, long time, and he must’ve gotten something from playing so close to home, for the team he rooted for as a kid. But while the M’s loved him, they never quite figured out how to put him in a position to succeed. It’s too bad that this move felt inevitable, and it’s too bad that after a wRC+ of 81 in 2014, Bloomquist cratered to a wRC+ of 2 (.159/.194/.174) now.
It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes him to get into coaching. Adam Jones apparently learned a lot from Willie from what must’ve been limited interactions in spring training. His clubhouse presence was another big reason the M’s resigned him and a reason a guy without much in the way of statistical performance held down big league jobs for over a decade. We’ve often said that chemistry has to show up somewhere, and that it appears teams may overvalue it. But that doesn’t mean it has no value at all. If Willie had it, and if he could inspire an Adam Jones, perhaps he could do the same for Carlos Vargas or Greifer Andrade one of these days.
Lookout Landing has a good pair of posts on Willie if you’re interested.
Game 78, Mariners at Padres
Taijuan Walker vs. James Shields, 12:40pm
Early game today, which means many of us won’t actually get to see what’s looking like a very interesting pitching match-up. The resurgent Taijuan Walker’s rattled off six consecutive quality starts, and while yes, quality start streaks make me think of Blake Beavan’s first year, Walker’s looked amazing. His K:BB ratio in that stretch? It’s 44:3. His splitter’s evolved into a real weapon against lefties, and he’s now running reverse splits. That’s probably a better problem to have, but given that he’s all but abandoned both his curve and slider/cutter, it’d be nice if he had a breaking ball he felt comfortable throwing to righties. Mike Montgomery’s got the same basic “problem” and you can see how little it’s troubled him. But Montgomery’s cutter is now something he’s comfortable throwing to lefties, and he showed it again last night (despite facing only 1 lefty starter and 1 lefty pinch-hitter). A true slider would make Walker even more of a threat, and while you don’t necessarily want to disrupt his routine, it should definitely be on Walker’s off-season to-do list.
When we last saw James Shields, he was having a fascinating season. In his first year in the NL, he was striking out more batters than ever. Not by a little, not a “I get to face pitchers now” bump, but a total shift in his peripherals. Through the first two months, he was striking out over 30% of batters that faced him, while keeping his walks low. He’d been a change-up heavy hurler with average K rates and plus-plus durability for years, and now he was in Petco, it looked like he decided to see how power pitchers lived. The problem was home runs. It might SEEM like a good idea to pitch higher and dare guys to hit it out of Petco or San Francisco or Dodgers stadium, but batters excitedly accepted that challenge. Shields led the majors in HRs given up for a long while, but despite some FIP issues, he wasn’t pitching poorly. All the Ks helped, certainly, and his xFIP was under 3 through May. But after an effective April, May was something of a homer-drunk mess. Despite the Ks, despite the fact that his defense had issues that pushed Shields’ BABIP up, after giving up 11 HRs in a month, Shields decided to make a change.
In his first 10 starts, Shields had just one homer-free game. In his last 6 starts, he’s given up just a single dinger. Shields adjusted, or rather, made a series of adjustments. First, he’s throwing the ball down in the zone much, much more than he did before. Second, he’s throwing his change-up a bit less, and replacing it with more curves and cutters. The curve has seen the biggest increase in frequency, and that may be because it’s his best ground-ball pitch. As a result, his ground ball rate has shot up in June.
So, veteran pitcher has a problem, and veteran pitcher uses his knowledge and guile to adjust back and correct it, huh? That’s why these guys get the big bucks. Well, not necessarily. Shields is now homer-free, but that hasn’t made him good. He probably needed to make some adjustments, but it’s not clear that this new approach is natural for him, and it has other side effects. The first is an increase in his walk rate. This shouldn’t be a big shock now that the zones he’s targeting most are below the bottom of the strike zone. You can make a case that this is an acceptable trade – a few more walks for less HRs is defensible. But his K rate has fallen back to his career line, too. He tried the three-true-outcome game, didn’t like it, and is now trying to get grounders. But his fastball and change are still fly-ball pitches, and while putting them lower helps avoid HRs, he can’t avoid balls in play. And that means that the Padres, and the Padres outfield, is going to need to make a lot more plays than they have. While Shields change is effective, lefties still have an advantage against Shields, particularly if they can elevate the ball.
1: Morrison,1B
2: Cano, 2B
3: Cruz, RF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Jackson, CF
7: Miller, SS
8: Zunino, C
9/SP: Walker
Tacoma beat Las Vegas 8-4 behind Hisashi Iwakuma’s solid 5 2/3 IP of work. The rehabbing righty went 82 pitches, striking out 6 and giving up 1 run on 5 hits and a walk. Unfortunately, he left the game with a blister on the middle finger of his right hand. Iwakuma told the News Tribune this was fairly common and nothing to be too concerned about, but from time to time it’s limited him. He didn’t throw his splitter much in the spring due to a blister, and he pitched through blister issues in 2013 quite well. Still, not exactly what we wanted to see from the game. No word on if the M’s will bring him north or have him make another start in the PCL. He’s thrown 68 and 82 pitches in his two rehab starts in Tacoma, and it might be a good idea to see if he can get to 90+ without incident. Meanwhile, the R’s battered Dillon Gee for 13 hits and 8 runs in just 4 1/3 IP. Jordan Pries faces off against the 51s tonight.
Jackson was off yesterday. Edwin Diaz starts the first game of a series against Mobile today against right-hander Zack Godley, who’ll be making his AA debut. Godley is a 10th rounder out of Tennessee. Originally drafted by the Cubs, he moved to the D-Backs org in the deal that sent Miguel Montero to Chicago. He’s had great stats in the low minors, and was brilliant for Visalia in the Cal League this year. He faced Bakersfield twice back in May and pitched pretty well, striking out 11 in a tough loss (the Rawhide struck out 17 and walked only 1, but lost).
Bakersfield lost a tough one in extras to Modesto by a score of 5-4. Up 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th, Emilio Pagan gave up a triple that turned into the tying run after a throwing error from Austin Wilson. In the 10th, the Blaze couldn’t get an out, and yielded a walk-off single. Tyler O’Neill hit his 16th HR in the 8th to give the Blaze a short-lived lead. Eddie Campbell starts today for Bakersfield against Modesto’s Harrison Musgrave.
Peoria easily handled Clinton 7-2, as L-Kings starter Zack Littell had his shortest start of the year. Clinton made 3 errors leading to 3 unearned runs, and the L-Kings couldn’t figure out Peoria starter Austin Gomber, who struck out 8 without walking anyone. Tyler Herb starts for Clinton today opposite Jack Flaherty, the Cardinals 2014 first-rounder out of baseball powerhouse Harvard-Westlake, the school that produced first-round pitchers Max Fried and Lucas Giolito in 2012 and overslot 2nd rounder Austin Wilson (who went to Stanford before the M’s got him) as well.
The Everett AquaSox have been a very tough team this year, but they trailed 3-1 heading into the 8th inning last night. They exploded for 4 runs in the 8th, capped by Alex Jackson’s 1st NWL home run, and made the lead hold up in the 9th. Corey Simpson earns a mention by going 3-4 with 2 2Bs. After a very slow first few games, he’s coming around. Everett heads east to take on Tri-Cities today with Lane Ratliff sharing the mound with the DustDevils’ Travis Radke.