The Mariners, The Rangers and the L Word
The M’s finished off their series in Arlington today against the first-place Rangers. The fact that the Rangers are in first is one of those things I find fascinating given their pre-season projections, their injury issues and the months and months that saw Shin-Soo Choo and/or Elvis Andrus hitting like replacement level players. The more you look at the Rangers’ campaign, the more fascinating it gets.* There’s been a lot of talk this year about variance – about a team’s base runs not correlating all that well with their actual W/L record (or run differential), about a team’s performance with runners in scoring position or close games, or any number of reasons that traditional pythagorean records have failed in their assessment of a club. To fans of said clubs, this is either evidence that advanced metrics have, in the charitable version, holes and blind spots, or, in the less-charitable (and less-credible) version, biases against this or that specific team. Because the Mariners are where they are in the standings, and because they seem to be there rather frequently, I thought it’d be a good idea to take a closer look at how and where the Rangers have excelled – to take a forensic look at *which* advanced metrics lead us furthest from their actual record, and how the M’s look in comparison. The point here isn’t to make the Rangers look bad – this is an attempt to figure out what’s going on. I’ll admit I’ve tended to watch the Rangers when they face the M’s, and that view hasn’t done a lot to illuminate the Rangers’ strengths. I’ve watched a limited set of games, so I’ll turn to some less-limited numbers.
The first thing we have to acknowledge is that there are far, far more ways to be “clutch” than are commonly identified. A few years ago, the Orioles won far more games than their overall WAR would’ve implied, and the reason was largely due to a great bullpen performance that produced an insane record in 1-run and extra-inning ball games. At the time, sabermetric fans scoffed, but O’s fans thought that the combination of a great tactical manager in Buck Showalter paired with a preternaturally dependable closer (Jim Johnson, who is just as remarkable in more recent years, but for much worse reasons) meant that this variance from their pure pythagorean record (the O’s won 11 games more than their pythag) wasn’t so much luck as a specific kind of skill. The next year, the St. Louis Cardinals actually *under*performed their pythag, but their incredible run differential seemed out of proportion to their overall batting line. By position player WAR, they were so-so, and though they were above-average in park-adjusted batting, they lagged clubs like the Angels and A’s. Despite all of that, they outscored the Angels and A’s by 50 and 20 runs…despite the fact that AL clubs get to use DHs. The Cards scored 77 more runs than 2nd place in the NL (the Rockies) because their were out of their minds with runners in scoring position – they put up an unreal .330/.402/.463 line that lapped the field. We haven’t seen anything like it in recent years, and the fact that it was “unsustainable” won’t take away the NL Pennant the cards won that year.**
When we talk about teams “beating” their lines or run differentials, these are the teams that leap to mind – not only are they recent, but they follow some established, identifiable pathways to improbable win totals. But this year’s Rangers simply don’t look like this. They’re 11 games over .500, but their pythagorean record is 74-74. Thanks to a sub-par pitching staff, the Rangers have given up exactly as many runs as they’ve scored, and before this series began, they were 7 runs in the red. So, is this a Baltimore thing where they’ve won close games and had tons of comebacks? Short answer: no. The Rangers do not have an amazing record in 1-run games, and they don’t have tons of comeback wins. On those measures, they look remarkably like the M’s. It’s not Cardinals-style performance with runners in scoring position either. The M’s have been awful, but when you park adjust, the Rangers have actually fared worse. If you prefer RE24, which just tallies the change in run expectancy for each event, both teams are solid, but the M’s pitching staff fares (predictably) worse.
| Team | OPS w/RISP | RISP wRC+ | One-run wins | Comeback wins | Bat. RE24 | Pitch RE24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mariners | 0.685 | 81 | 27-24 | 29 | 31 | -97 |
| Rangers | 0.694 | 87 | 26-20 | 27 | 41 | -42 |
From the data in the table above, I think you’d expect the Rangers to lead the M’s, but you’d probably expect both teams to be below .500. Looking at the *contextual* stats, neither the M’s look particularly good. That can happen to good teams, and it’s been a big reason why the A’s have struggled despite a GOOD run differential. So let’s take a look at some overall numbers as well:
| Team | Runs Scored | Runs Allowed | wRC+ | Pos. Player WAR | Pitcher ERA- | Pitcher FIP- | Pitcher fWAR | Pitcher rWAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mariners | 597 | 667 | 101 | 14.7 | 107 | 105 | 9 | 9.6 |
| Rangers | 666 | 666 | 95 | 17.1 | 100 | 105 | 10 | 13.7 |
The thing that jumps off the page to me is how similar the M’s look. Neither team looks particularly good, mind you, and at least the Rangers have an ~70 runs-scored advantage, but these teams look like they’d be closer than the 8.5 game advantage the Rangers actually have. This isn’t to take anything away from the Rangers or to insinuate the M’s have been horrifically unlucky. What it DOES say is that we’ve looked at a lot of numbers and *still* can’t quite identify why the Rangers are 12 games over .500. By ERA they’re not so great; they look better when you park adjust (which ERA- does), but if you do that, you have to park adjust their overall batting line, and that makes them look somewhat feeble.
Like a lot of people, including former co-blogger Dave Cameron, have been talking about this a lot, and the conclusion that he’s come to, and the conclusion that Rangers fans really, really hate hearing, is that it’s purely luck. What the data imply is that the Rangers’ ‘skill,’ if you will, is that they score runs in games when they need them, and then don’t score (or do much of anything) in losses. When you put it like that, it sounds crazy, and even looking at their batting and pitching lines in wins and losses, there’s no evidence that they perform any different than other teams. By the numbers, there’s no obvious way around the conclusion that their peripheral numbers don’t support their actual win/loss record. But that’s not interesting. So let’s do this instead: if there WERE some non-luck reason(s) the somewhat similar-looking M’s and Rangers should be 12 games over and 6 games under .500, respectively, what would it(they) be?
1: The park adjustment is missing something.
This is a flavor of measurement error; that, somewhere in the process of neutralizing and contextualizing all of these stats, Fangraphs and Bbref screwed something up. In this case, there’s a big difference in the raw stats and the park-adjusted ones. Maybe the park factors have missed something important – they may still be relying on pre-dimension-changed Safeco numbers, for example, or Texas’ may be inflated by a couple of scaldingly hot years in the recent past. Thanks largely to Nelson Cruz, the Mariners actually have a higher ISO than the Rangers – are the M’s getting more credit for that than it’s worth? Always possible, but this seems extremely unlikely. Or rather, if it affected their batting line, you’d figure it’d affect each team’s pitching WAR as well.
2: A low run-scoring environment has put a premium on things like base-running and the bullpen.
The Rangers are a good base-running team; they’ve earned nearly 12 runs above average in base-running according to Fangraphs, good for first in the AL and 3rd in baseball. The M’s, meanwhile, have the worst mark in MLB, at nearly 22 runs below average. That’s a big gap – it’s essentially as big a gap as you can get, and it just doesn’t seem like it’s anywhere close to big enough. Could there be some sort of reinforcing effect at play? A pitcher’s park PLUS bad base-running makes it exponentially more difficult to score runs, or something? Maybe, but it seems like that would show up either in the park factors themselves or in the base-running value measures.
As far as the low run-scoring environment goes, I wondered if it wasn’t a particular problem for the M’s. Recent research by David Smith concludes that a shockingly high chunk of what we call home field advantage stems from the fact that home teams outscore their opponents by a lot in the first inning. The theory is that pitching first is something of an advantage, because even if you give up some runs, the opposing starter has been sitting on the bench for a long time – essentially, the home starter goes right from warm-ups to the mound, while the visitor doesn’t exactly know when he’ll be called upon to pitch. This shows up in high run-scoring enviroments as well as low, and it persists even if the home team has just traveled. So: if the M’s were really bad at scoring overall, might they not enjoy this benefit? Is that what’s causing this gap between batting RE24 and runs? Er, no. The M’s haven’t scored a ton of runs in the first inning at Safeco, but they’ve given up even fewer. Their differential looks exactly like it should, only the numbers are lower – which is what we’d expect.
So, the bullpen. Both of these clubs have poor overall marks for bullpen performance. The Rangers’ ERA and FIP are slightly higher, but they have a small lead in WAR (1.6 to 1.3) thanks to park adjustments. Neither team is above average in any of these stats, and both are in the bottom half by strand rate, too. The distribution of pitcher WAR is different, with the M’s having both the most valuable reliever (Carson Smith) as well as the *least* valuable relievers (Joe Beimel, Fernando Rodney). The M’s have given more innings to guys having awful years, but it’s not a huge gap. Still, this is an area where depth could come into play. The M’s haven’t found a good replacement for either Mark Lowe or Charlie Furbush – Beimel was supposed to stand in for the latter, and that really didn’t work out.
3: Depth and batting order black holes.
For years, the M’s have under-scored their base runs, and for years, the M’s have struggled with offensive sinkholes towards the back of their batting order. Mariner catchers this year are hitting an unfathomable .157/.208/.260, good for a wRC+ of 29. Remember 2013, when the M’s had to rush Mike Zunino to the majors because no one could hit? They posted a wRC+ of 63 that year. This is historically awful, but could it account for the gap between RE24 and runs? Maybe, but the Rangers have struggled with some black holes (though not quite as black) too. Their CFs rank 29th in baseball in wRC+ thanks to the implosion of Leonys Martin. In fact, their OF as a whole ranks 29th, as Jake Smolinski, Ryan Rua and Ryan Strausborger have all scuffled. The Rangers have just one OF with more than 2 WAR (Choo), while the M’s have 4.
But what’s helped the Rangers is that they’ve been better about swapping out ineffective players with good ones. They didn’t go from Zunino to Jesus Sucre, they went from Carlos Corporan to Robinson Chirinos. Jake Smolinski (and Joey Gallo and Ryan Rua etc.) weren’t cutting it, so the Rangers traded for Will Venable, and they sat Martin in favor of Delino DeShields. This hasn’t always worked (Venable and Josh Hamilton haven’t done much, and Drew Stubbs has been awful), but it’s worked enough. This contrasts with the M’s, who still haven’t found a real starting catcher, and whose bullpen has gotten noticeably worse in the second half, not better.
The bullpen is perhaps a better example of this, as the Rangers have figured out who to turn to in high leverage situations. Lefty Sam Dyson and righty Jake Diekman have *only* pitched in the 2nd half, while Tanner Scheppers and Ross Detwiler haven’t been able to do more damage. That’s probably helped, but it’s worth remembering that even in the 2nd half, when the team is a combined 16 games over, they still don’t have a great run differential. Thanks to their recent sweep of Houston, it’s finally in positive territory, but it’s not great. Still, one could argue that the M’s – as a team in a low-scoring park – have been especially hurt by their bullpen’s second-half struggles. That would imply that the Rangers, with THEIR home park, haven’t needed their pen as much, which makes it harder to argue bullpen depth and sorting out the good from the bad *isn’t* the cause of their surge.
4: Good players underperforming and then bouncing back.
Many Rangers fans argue that their seasonal stats look bad due to the first half, when Adrian Beltre and Shin-Soo Choo were both hurt and bad. Prince Fielder carried them, but could only do so much. That’s similar to the predicament the M’s were in, where Nelson Cruz was dominant, but had no one to drive in thanks to Robinson Cano and Kyle Seager’s struggles. In the 2nd half, Choo’s been the best hitter in the AL West with Beltre not far behind, but Fielder’s regressed significantly. Meanwhile, the M’s got solid production from Cano and Seager, but Cruz hasn’t really dropped off. At least on the batting side, the M’s have benefited from (positive) regression and their offense has been one of the league’s best, particularly once they started getting production out of the lead-off spot – it may seem hard to remember, but the M’s OBP from their 1st hitters has impacted by several starts from Rickie Weeks and Logan Morrison.
Yet despite the fact that the M’s have a higher wRC+ in the 2nd half, the Rangers have scored more runs. The same (or different?) effects that led the Rangers to yield more runs from each batting event has held true in the second half, despite the massive swings in the performance of several of their star players. Baseball!
5: Run scoring, and how runs translate to wins, is messy at the team level.
I’d love an actual explanation, and for those who think this answer is essentially hand-waving, you’re pretty much right. But if you’ve got other theories, I’d love to hear them. The Rangers have scored a higher percentage of their total runs in wins (73%) than the M’s (65%), but it’s hard to attribute that to skill. You can argue that the Rangers have simply been better at beating the teams they *should* beat, but the M’s and Rangers are both 4 games over .500 against teams with sub-.500 records.
Because the M’s record is so driven by their poor performance at home, and because this isn’t the first time the M’s have struggled at home, I kept thinking that Safeco was part of the reason why the M’s look so different from the Rangers. But look at the M’s run differential on the road: they’ve been outscored by 47 runs on the road…and yet they’re 38-36. The weird devil-magic that we ascribe to the Rangers seems to be the same stuff that’s allowed the M’s to post a .500 record despite a pythagorean record far, far worse than their home mark.
Apparently, this kind of thing happens every now and again, and because it does, it seems harder to credit the Rangers with some innate advantage in runs-per-win. That doesn’t mean this post is dispositive, and if you’ve got alternative theories as to what the Rangers have done, I’d honestly love to hear them. I’d hope teams have a better idea about why this happens, though I’m sure they’re also able to quantify just how much luck/sequencing goes in to a team’s record.
While luck and randomness seem to play a big role, I do wonder about park effects. In isolation, the effect may not be large enough to matter, but I wonder how large the effect can get once you layer on crappy base-running, a sub-par bullpen and the like. Again, this seems like the kind of thing that would be dwarfed by the overall talent of the club, but the point of this post was to call attention to just how close the M’s and Rangers seem to be at everything but the whole “wins and losses” thing. Yet another thing I’d ask a GM candidate who wanted to take the reigns.
The Rangers have outplayed the M’s, at least when the Rangers don’t actually PLAY the M’s. The gap doesn’t appear to be large or the result of clear and consistent advantages in true talent. That’s encouraging for M’s fans, of course – this could be us someday. On the other hand, the Rangers are doing this without Yu Darvish, Jurickson Profar, Matt Harrison, etc., and their surge is correlated with 2B Rougned Odor’s hot-streak. Both clubs are getting production from young players, and both teams are dealing with adversity. The Rangers have been fortunate in some ways this year, but that doesn’t mean the M’s will be favored next season.
* Your mileage may vary. Maybe I’m easily fascinated.
** This year, of course, the Cards are doing something similar, but on the pitching side. With men in scoring position, Cards pitchers have given up a .263 wOBA, a mark that’s above all of 2 qualified batting lines. With RISP, the Cards turn the entire NL into Alcides Escobar-with-flu-like-symptoms.
Game 150, Mariners at Rangers
King Felix vs. Derek Holland, 12:05
Happy Felix day, M’s fans.
Despite the Rangers’ easy win yesterday, they couldn’t pull another game ahead of the Astros, as Houston broke their long losing streak against the A’s (and struggling ace Sonny Gray). Back on the 10th, the M’s beat Holland and Texas behind a classic Felix performance in a game that felt like it would mean more than it did. Instead, the Rangers re-grouped and swept Houston in 4 to take charge of the division.
Holland’s return has to be encouraging for a Rangers club that’s had to deal with a patched-together rotation all season. Encouragingly, his velocity is all the way back to pre-injury levels (that is, back to his 2010-2012 averages). His slider is still a very effective pitch against righties and lefties alike, and it’s Holland’s best swing-and-miss pitch. He’s got a change, but it’s never really been all that good either at inducing grounders or whiffs. Theoretically, it should help make his fastballs better by giving the hitter something else to keep in mind, but it’s not a great pitch on its own.
This year, whatever benefit the cambio provides his fastballs is pretty tough to identify. Since his return, his four-seam and sinker have been remarkably, impressively whiff-resistant. Holland has thrown 154 sinkers at an average of 94mph, and with nearly 11″ of armside run, and he has all of two whiffs. Two. One came in his abbreviated 1-inning, injury-plagued start against Houston back in April, so since his retun, he’s thrown about 150 sinkers and racked up a single swing and miss. It came in Seattle, because of course it did. Swings and misses on fastballs has never really been Holland’s strength, but not having ANY reduces his margin of error. You might think the small sample distorts this; maybe he’s faced a lot of contact-oriented teams. In actuality, he’s faced Houston, Baltimore, Seattle (and Toronto and Anaheim) – if anything, he’s faced a slate of hitters that swing and miss much MORE than average. Holland hasn’t paid a big price for this, thanks in part to his slider’s continued effectiveness and in part to a career-low walk rate.
Felix is 4-0 against Texas this year, with two starts early in the year against the odd, punch-less Rangers and two starts since August, when the Rangers have been on fire. Felix cares nothing for your run differential, your 2nd half record, your team depth or your deadline pick-ups.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Trumbo, 1B
7: Smith, RF
8: Romero, CF ?
9: Sucre, C
SP: THE KING
Soooo, Romero will make his first ever start in CF as a professional. I don’t see any CF starts in college either – the Beavers has Adalberto Santos in CF when Romero played there, and Santos was good enough to make it to AAA. This game isn’t crucial to the M’s, so you can see the argument that they should figure out what guys are capable of going forward. But the M’s have expanded rosters, and their best option is sending a guy out to a position he’s never played before? Before Miller made the move to CF (or Dustin Ackley, or Ketel Marte), the M’s talk about how well the players have responded to coaching from guys like Andy Van Slyke or other positional coaches. There’s essentially none of that here – it’s just a shoulder shrug and a, “hey, how hard can it be?” Good luck, Stefen. Keep the ball down, Felix.
David Laurila has a great interview with Edgar Martinez at fangraphs which is well worth your time. Edgar talks a lot about being quick to the ball by eliminating a lot of pre-swing hand movement. It’s the kind of thing I’d love to see him work with, say, Jabari Blash on. Blash had a great year, but his hands are so high and his arms are so long that he’s going to be vulnerable to inside fastballs. Blash’s natural power and some path-shortening thanks to Edgar would be a nice combination. Ah well.
As nice as it’s been to see the M’s hitting take off after Edgar arrived, there’s a confounding variable: EVERYONE’S hitting took off recently. MLB teams scored more runs per game in August of this year than in ANY month in the past 5 years. That’s one of many interesting facts Jon Roegele discovered in this Hardball Times article. In the first half of the year, MLB put up a combined .309 wOBA. Thanks to the August run-scoring explosion, they’re at .320 in the second half. The league last had an overall wOBA of .320 in 2010, the beginning of the recent offensive ice-age.
Game 149, Mariners at Rangers
Vidal Nuno vs. Cole Hamels, 5:05pm
Yesterday’s M’s win snapped the Rangers 5 game winning streak, but it didn’t do too much damage to the Rangers’ division and playoff odds. Thanks to the Astros’ on-going collapse, the Rangers maintained their 2.5 game lead. The Astros’ allowed an 8th-inning go-ahead HR to Danny Valencia of the A’s and lost 4-3 in a game they once had a 3 run lead. That’s five in a row for Houston, and they’ve now won just 2 of their last 11.
It’s probably not a huge surprise that Cole Hamels’ HR rate has crept up since being traded to Texas, but his BABIP’s been high over his first month and a half in the AL, too. That’s something of a rarity for Hamels, who has a lifetime BABIP of .286. With the Rangers, it’s at .313; the last time Hamels had a BABIP that high was 2009. Hamels hasn’t been bad – he’s been worth about 1 fWAR over 8 starts – but his RA/9 WAR isn’t great. The Rangers have made a lot of savvy moves in this playoff race, but it’s kind of funny how few of them have worked out (Will Venable is slugging .236 for Texas). It’s also funny how little it’s mattered.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Trumbo, RF
7: Montero, 1B
8: O’Malley, CF
9: Hicks, C
SP: Nuno
Game 148, Mariners at Rangers
James Paxton vs. Yovani Gallardo, 5:05pm
Sooooo, the Rangers, huh? The Rangers are fresh off a dominating, potentially season-defining sweep of the erstwhile 1st place Astros. Now 2.5 games up, the Rangers playoff odds have shot up by 44 percentage points. In a week. When Felix was polishing off the Rangers and Derek Holland, I noted that the loss – and the resulting split of the four-game series – had done some serious damage to the Rangers’ playoff hopes. As it turns out, the Rangers had a solution for that.
This’ll be Gallardo’s fourth start of the year against Seattle – he shut them out through 5+ last week, his second scoreless start against the M’s this year. The righty continues to be an important stabilizing force in the Rangers’ banged up rotation. I’ve got a big post coming later on the Rangers blowing apart not only their pre-season projections, but also their in-season peripheral stats, but I’ll just say that, Gallardo aside, pitching has not been a real strength of the club. That said, they’ve performed much better in recent games. Part of that is figuring out which of their young arms to trust out of the pen (Sam Dyson/Keone Kela), and part of that is the byproduct of utterly dominating the Astros in four games, including knocking Dallas Keuchel around.
James Paxton needs to stay healthy and find the strike zone. As great as his pure stuff still looks, there are some worrying trends that show up – and that’s setting aside the huge gaps in his performance record for time spent on rehab. Paxton’s never been a guy who gets hitters to chase pitches out of the zone, but it didn’t matter when batters struggled to make contact on strikes. Each year, Paxton’s slipped in that measure, and to make matters worse, he’s slipped in the percentage of pitches in the zone too. If people aren’t going to swing at balls, and you throw more balls, you’ll have to deal with some walks. That all sounds grim, but one thing Paxton still seems to do well is limit contact. He’s running a very low BABIP again, just as he always has. Given the sample, it’s tough to know what to make of that, *particularly* because he’s not the guy who gets a ton of contact on balls out of the zone (which tend to be turned into outs very frequently). Pure velocity may help with that, and a great curve probably does too (as does being left-handed), but I’d be more comfortable if he could balance that out with a plus K%. There’s no reason for someone of Paxton’s talents to be at 18%.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Trumbo, RF
6: Smith, LF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, CF
9: Baron, C
SP: Paxton
Just for fun, here’s BP’s playoff odds graph for the AL West. This week has been…uh…important.
Game 147, Angels at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Jered Weaver, 7:10pm
Jered Weaver has been fairly consistent in his approach and arsenal – he still slings a rising fastball and pairs it with a good change-up and slow curve. He’s still a fly-ball pitcher as a result, and he’s managed to post low BABIPs for 10 years now. Now though, he’s doing all of that with a fastball that averages 84mph. He’s reinvented himself a few times – tweaking his approach, but keeping the basic mechanics constant. But he hasn’t quite figured out a way to make his stuff work at 84mph *when he isn’t pitching in Anaheim.* Since Jeff Sullivan wrote a series of articles about Jeff Weaver and pitching during day games at home, we’ve known that Weaver seems to get an extra boost from his home park – a park that suppresses HRs for everyone. That advantage was key when Weaver was one of the AL’s top starters, but it may be even more important now that his stuff is so marginal.
Last year, Weaver had a 3.09 FIP at home and a 5.59 on the road, largely thanks to the fact that his HR rate was 3 times higher on the road. His K rates were similar, though higher at home. This year, his FIP at home is up to 3.56, while his road FIP is 5.69, actually better than his 6.24 road ERA. His road HR rate is now only double that of his home one, but he’s no longer able to miss bats on the road – his K% is halved when he leaves Orange County. Most players are better at home, so it’s not like his road stats represent his true talent, but gaps like this are pretty rare. Hisashi Iwakuma has big ERA splits this year (he’s been better on the road), but it isn’t replicated in anywhere near the same magnitude in his FIP, and in any event, his career numbers are close to even. But with Weaver, he’s had sizable gaps for a long while, and it’s starting to look like he wouldn’t have a rotation spot if he wasn’t able to do whatever he does to stave off his HR problems at home. The M’s know this phenomenon well: Weaver’s been good against them at home, but they’ve hit him hard in Safeco. In his career, Weaver’s allowed the MARINERS to post a HR rate of 1.5 per 9 in Safeco – a pitcher’s park used by some of the feeblest offenses in recent baseball history.
After dominating lefties at his peak from 2010-2012, Weaver’s platoon splits are beginning to look a lot more normal. At his peak, his K% was higher and his HR% and FIP lower against lefties than righties. In the past two years, that hasn’t held true, as lefties started to drive the ball more than righties. His platoon splits from 2014 on show about a FIP that’s a half a run higher against lefties. That shouldn’t be a huge surprise given Weaver’s arm angle, but it shows how good his change was back when Weaver threw 89-90. Still, the secret weapon back then wasn’t his breaking stuff or even his great change. When he was on, Weaver’s fastball proved extremely difficult for lefties to square up. Since the start of 2014, lefties have hit Weaver’s fastball hard. Weaver never really relied on velocity for his success, but it’s possible that some aspects of his approach just don’t work at velocities at the extreme tail of the big league distribution.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Smith, RF
6: Trumbo, LF
7: Montero, 1B
8: Miller, CF
9: Sucre, C
SP: Iwakuma
Game 146, Angels at Mariners
King Felix vs. Nick Tropeano, 7:10pm
Happy Felix day. If you’re able to see through your disappointment in the season, the M’s are actually pretty fun to watch right now. Today’s game looks like a mismatch on paper, and I’d certainly take a mismatch on the field.
Tropeano is a former Houston Astro, who some of you may remember made his big league debut last year against the M’s down in Houston. Flipped to Anaheim in the deal that sent Hank Conger to Houston, he’s spent nearly all of 2015 in AAA – I say NEARLY all, because he’s made 4 spot starts throughout the year. After pitching quite well in the PCL in 2014 – he was the league’s pitcher of the year – he struggled in the high-altitude environment of Salt Lake, though some of that may be due to the abysmal team surrounding him. Still, for a guy with a reputation for command and pitchability, his line with Salt Lake doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. The walk rate was far too high, and while his strikeouts were up, Salt Lake exerted the kind of influence you’d expect on a fly-baller like Tropeano. That combined with problems stranding runners (whither the “pitchability” people talk about?), and it was a forgettable year.
Still, he’s come up and in very limited duty looked like what you’d want out of a back-of-the-rotation starter. He’s displayed command in the bigs, if he didn’t in the PCL, and he’s getting more strikeouts than he did in Houston. The problem is that he hasn’t stopped giving up runs. His FIP is awesome, thanks to the fact that he’s STILL not given up a HR in his 8 big league starts, but his ERA and RA/9 are awful. Regression may help with his BABIP or strand rate, but it’s going to come for that 0% HR rate, too. One of the reasons why it’s zero – at least this year – is that he’s pitched each of his four previous starts in dinger-suppressing Anaheim. This is his first road start, but he’ll still yet to play in a neutral park, let alone a hitters’ park like Texas.
Coming up, the report on Tropeano was that he had a so-so fastball at 90-91, but a good change-up that generated whiffs. In his very, very brief career, what we’ve seen is *slightly* different. His four-seam fastball is indeed 91, and has very un-remarkable movement, sure, but his change-up has been somewhat problematic. It gets some whiffs, but not too many, and this year, batters have knocked it around without much trouble. Instead, it’s been his slider – a pitch not really mentioned much in reports – that’s been his best offering. The slider gets two-plane break and, unlike his change-up, gets actual sink. This year, he’s started to use it to lefties as well, and he’s throwing a few less change-ups.
In the minors, Tropeano showed pretty large platoon splits – another sign that his change may not have been a great pitch, or that his slider was underrated. Thus far, that hasn’t been true in the majors – it’s been righties who’ve done much of the damage. Of course, his career’s too new to know what to make of that, but he hasn’t been a guy who’s struggled due to seeing tons of opposite-handed hitters.
King Felix remains awesome.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Smith, RF
6: Trumbo, 1B
7: Gutierrez, LF
8: Miller, SS
9: Sucre, C
SP: Felix Hernandez.
The M’s won’t face him in this series, so I can just bring it up here: the Angels’ young righty Andrew Heaney is one of the first big league players to try a new way of mitigating the risk a pitcher making the league minimum faces: he’s selling a chunk of his future revenue. A company called Fantex (which has deals with a few NFL players) will pay Heaney $3.34 million in exchange for 10% of his future earnings – from salary and endorsements alike. Heaney gets a life-changing amount of money even if his arm falls off tomorrow, while Fantex then effectively sells “shares” in Heaney’s future earnings. Fantex mitigates some of Heaney’s risk, and then Fantex disperses that risk across however many people buy shares. It’s a very interesting arrangement, and I’m eager to see how many people sign up – both players and regular joe “shareholders.” Apparently, the MLBPA is on board with it, which makes some sense – we’ve seen teams like Houston offer their own way for youngsters to mitigate risk: signing small long-term deals at below market (but still above league-minimum) rates. George Springer turned them down, and stayed in the minors as a result, while Jon Singleton signed such a deal, to the consternation of the union. Having an option to mitigate risk that doesn’t artificially suppress future earnings – and isn’t directly with management – seems like a decent deal. Of course, we’ll have to see how willing Fantex is to offer larger sums – Fantex probably can’t or won’t offer as much as teams will. Risk-averse players may still go the Singleton route. In any event, it’ll be fun to watch. Which pre-arb players in the M’s system would you buy stock in?
Game 145, Angels at Mariners
Garrett Richards vs. Taijuan Walker, 7:10pm
The Angels head to Seattle with their playoff odds at or below 1 in 5. Depending on who you think the Angels *are*, they can be as high as 20% (according to Fangraphs, which has them winning ~ 83 games), or as low as 11% (according to BP, where they win ~82 games). They aren’t yet zero, and with flawed teams like Texas and Minnesota above them, they probably shouldn’t be. But with less than a month to go, they’ve got a sizable gap to overcome, meaning they absolutely need to win games against teams like…well, the Mariners.
With their ace on the hill, you’d have to like their chances. Garrett Richards is having a Felix-of-2015 style year after his brilliant Felix-of-2014-style year in last year’s campaign. To be clear: Richards isn’t Felix – Felix not only has him on durability and innings pitched (Richards has yet to top 200 IP in any year), but has him on K:BB and FIP, two rate stats. That said, Richards rode a freakishly low HR rate and an excellent K:BB last year to post a FIP of 2.60. This year, the K:BB isn’t what it was, and more fly balls are finding the seats, and his FIP’s all the way up at 3.71. That’s somewhat similar to Felix, who posted a FIP of 2.56 a year ago, and this year has seen it rise to 3.56. Both guys have had disaster starts of 1-2 innings, but both are still top-of-the-rotation types who log quality starts consistently: Richards has 20 quality starts in 27 opportunities this year, essentially the same rate as last year.
Consistency is not a word that would leap to mind when you think of Taijuan Walker’s 2015, not with its horrific start, then great run, and then a more volatile past month. Taijuan’s ERA isn’t indicative of his true talent, as his K:BB’s been solid, and his generosity with the HR is already factored in to his decent-ish FIP of 4.18. Tony Blengino had a great post at Fangraphs that partially explains the gap: Walker simply allows much harder contact than the average pitcher. In Walker’s case, it’s not that he’s given up a ton of hits, leading to a high BABIP (though he WAS doing that early in the season), it’s that so many of the balls in play are hit very hard – this has led to HRs, but it’s also meant more extra base hits. Walker has a normal BABIP but a very high ISO on balls in play. More problematic than this hard contact is WHEN it comes. With no one on, Walker’s ISO is just .123, and his SLG%-against is .333. With men on, that ISO rises to .262, and his SLG%-against is an insane .581. No matter what your K:BB ratio, you can’t survive for long when you turn the league average batter to face you with men on base into Josh Donaldson. The question is why: as we’ve mentioned many times, it’s not that Walker struggles out of the stretch – he ONLY pitches from the stretch. It’s not a big change in approach. It’s either mental, or sequencing that falls into predictable patterns. An expanded repertoire – one that would include a true slider, let’s say – would help.
Here’s the odd thing, though. Walker’s horrific struggles with men on base hasn’t exactly hurt the M’s. Sure, sure – those runs given up has clearly had an impact on their odds of winning, and without those struggles, you’d figure the M’s would’ve won a few more ball games. But the M’s are 16-12 in games Walker’s started. As a comparison, the Angels are… 16-11 in games started by Garrett Richards, their ace. Obviously, a team’s record in games started by each player is, at least in part, luck-driven. Some times the bullpen’s implosions are concentrated on one starter. Some times run support is much better for one guy (Walker’s received 4.5 runs per start, while Roenis Elias has to make do with 3.0, and Richards is only at 4.0). In any event, despite Walker’s inconsistency, the M’s haven’t *really* suffered for it.
Richards problems with the HR ball come down to one pitch: his hellacious slider. I probably talk about this too much, but Richards’ breaking balls look like nothing else when viewed through pitch FX. Despite his freakishly low-spin fastball, his slider comes in at 87-88 with tremendous downward break, nearly 3 standard deviations more than average. His curve is quite similar – 81mph, with 2-3 standard deviations more “drop” than other curveballs. Both pitches generate whiffs and ground balls as a result, just as you’d expect. So it wasn’t a huge shock that he didn’t give up a single HR on either pitch last year – he only gave up 5 dingers in all, after all. His ISO-against on breaking balls was .022 for sliders and .026 on curves – on just about 1,000 pitches-thrown. That’s too extreme to last forever, perhaps, but regression’s been particularly cruel to Richards’ slider. This year, he’s given up *8* HRs on it, and his ISO is up to .163. It’s still a very effective pitch, but his mistakes have been punished pretty severely. You have to wonder how much of this is the result of hitters reacting to it once they’ve seen it. Once you see the drop on it 10-20 times, it may be easier to mentally tell yourself, “like a curve, only faster” and adjust your swing path. That’s why I keep waiting for Richards to switch to his curve: he’s never given up a HR on it, over several years. Sure, the fact that he uses it sparingly probably has a lot to do with that, but if familiarity breeds dingers, it might be worth while to ease up on the sliders a bit: he throws 30%+ sliders these days, compared to just 5-6% yellow hammers.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Smith, RF
6: Trumbo, LF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: O’Malley, CF
9: Hicks, C
SP: Walker
Game 144, Rockies at Mariners
James Paxton vs. Kyle Kendrick, 1:10pm
Sort all pitchers who’ve logged at least 100 innings by FIP, and Kyle Kendrick comes in dead last, #125 of 125 pitchers. Only 5 guys have made at least 20 starts and posted a FIP starting with a 5. Kendrick isn’t among them, because his 6.16 mark if off the scale. To make matters worse, his ERA has actually been worse than his FIP, thanks to a so-so BABIP and struggles with men on base. His fangraphs page is a charnel house; a HR/9 that starts with a 2, a K% under 12, RA/9 WAR and fWAR solidly in negative territory.
Enough of that, though. Kendrick is a graduate of Mt. Vernon high up in Skagit County, a school that also produced one of my favorite low-K, high-HR survivors, Mark Hendrickson. Hendrickson pitched in a slightly different era, but had a similar game: very low K%, low walk totals, and the HRs that came as an expected by-product of that approach coupled with high fly ball rates. You can say that Hendrickson pulled it off while Kendrick hasn’t, but that’s the thing: up until this year, Kendrick had too. Kendrick came to Colorado with a bad FIP, but a surprisingly good ERA and a solid W/L record. Sabermetric fans saw Kendrick-in-Colorado as a disaster waiting to happen, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he logged a lot of innings in a reasonably tough place to pitch and came out bruised by unbowed.
Maybe the point is that, despite the constant tinkering, not all adjustments work, or at least, they don’t work everywhere. Kendrick already ditched his four-seamer for a sinker, and he’s played around with a curve ball as well to complement his cutter and splitter. Kendrick could make MORE adjustments, of course, but you don’t get to the big leagues by changing everything about your game because you struggle. Kendrick probably still believes in his stuff – I just think what he believes about Coors Field couldn’t be printed in a newspaper. Kendrick’s 2015 is one of the worst seasons we’ve seen in recent memory. No one’s thrown over 120 IP with a FIP starting with a 6 in over a decade: broken Scott Kazmir, Jose Lima’s disastrous 2005 – they got close, but couldn’t touch Kendrick’s mark. Sure, the run environment changes the FIP constant, but it just shows how out of step Kendrick is with MLB starters in 2015. And yet, he’ll be back. He’ll still throw 89, and his splitter won’t sink enough, but he’ll believe that his luck is gonna change. I hope it does next year. Just not today.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Trumbo, LF
6: Smith, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, CF
9: Baron, C
SP: Paxton
Welcome back, James. I remember when he first got hurt, “at least it’s just a finger injury.” Several months and another lost season later, he’s finally back from that strain. Hopefully it’s nothing serious, and he’ll be fine for next year, but his injury history is pretty lengthy now.
Game 143, Rockies at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Yohan Flande, 6:10pm
The delightfully-named Yohan Flande is a walking embodiment of the replacement-level concept. A left-hander who’s pitched in the Phillies, Braves and Rockies orgs – and who was acquired as a minor league free agent – Flande has spent several years putting up mediocre results in several minor leagues. Without a real putaway pitch and with surprisingly suspect control, Flande seems like a great guy to stash in the upper minors to ensure someone can make a start every 5 days while your prospects shuttle up and down the ladder. For someone like that, of course, signing with the Rockies may be kind of appealing, because the nature and severity of their pitching woes means you might get to do the whole “well, he’ll be able to make a start every 5 days” thing in the big leagues. Such is the case with Flande, who got to make 10 starts for Colorado last year. He gave up comparatively few HRs, but a sub-60% strand rate meant his ERA started with a 5. The decent FIP was encouraging, but it hasn’t lasted. This year, Flande has gone the other way, stranding plenty of runners and benefiting from a low BABIP. But all the fly balls that found gloves this year are finding the seats, and thus his FIP is firmly in sub-replacement-level territory. His ERA is better, and by RA/9 WAR, he’s been a contributor thanks in large part to the soft bigotry of huge park effects.
Flande is actually a bit like Chad Bettis in that he has a very sinker-ish four-seam fastball. Paired with a change and slider that both get ground balls, and Flande is actually an elite GB% guy. As his GO/AO ratio shot up upon his arrival in the Colorado org, you have to figure this was a conscious decision, or the product of a slight tweak. Whatever it is, it’s been successful at getting grounders, but it hasn’t exactly solved the larger problems. Namely, that Flande is a lefty with a 90mph fastball and spotty command. If everything goes right, he’s capable of getting a grounder. If he misses, the ball goes a long, long way. Worse, his change-up is actually more effective against lefties than righties. For whatever reason, righties seem to see his fastball well and have a high HR/FB ratio on everything he throws. Thus, Flande has huge platoon splits and it’s not clear how he’s going to fix them. This is a game where Trumbo/Cruz et al need to make Flande pay.
1: Marte, SS
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Gutierrez, LF
6: Trumbo, LF
7: Montero, 1B
8: O’Malley, CF
9: Hicks, C
SP: Elias
Game 142, Rockies at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Chad Bettis, 7:10pm
Since 2011, the Rockies have put up a combined record of 334 and 453, a bit worse than the M’s 367-421 mark. Both teams have somewhat extreme home parks which may or may not play a role in oddly specific player development challenges. This year, the Rockies lead the NL in average, slugging percentage and OPS. Since their last playoff appearance in 2009, the roster’s completely turned over (especially now they finally moved Troy Tulowitzki) – only Carlos Gonzalez remains, and he was a mid-year acquisition. The point is, the Rockies had to essentially start from scratch and acquire a line-up. They picked up Nick Hundley to catch, they developed a 3B (Nolan Arenado) who now leads the league in HRs, their CF has been surprisingly effective for so long it really shouldn’t be surprising anymore. They needed to develop an offense to compete in a high-scoring environment, and by and large, they did so.
How does that square with the record I mentioned above? Their pitching hasn’t just been bad, it’s challenging the notion of where we set the imaginary line called replacement level. Let’s be clear: a great deal of this is park related. At altitude, the ball doesn’t break the way it does at sea level, and pitchers without breaking balls tend to sidle up to replacement level production standards. But all of the losing the Rockies have done has allowed them some pretty high draft picks, and they’ve selected a number of highly-regarded hurlers who’ve dominated at times in the minors. At some point, minor league hitters start figuring them out, and major league hitters feast on them. It’s the mirror image of the M’s struggles at developing hitters. LHP Christian Friedrich was a 1st rounder in 2008, and laid waste to the low minors before starting to struggle in AA. I saw him briefly in 2012 in AAA, and he looked like a clear big league starter. After initial success in Colorado, the league adjusted, and Friedrich has a career ERA near 6 and he’s become a middle reliever on a bad ball club. Jon Gray was the 3rd overall pick in 2013 and made 5 incredible starts in the California League that year, striking errbody out while showing impressive control. In 2014 in the AA Texas League, he was merely good as opposed to great, but seemed on track to debut in 2015. He did so, but not without serious issues in the PCL. While he misses his share of bats, he’s been oddly hittable, a trait he brought with him to Colorado for a quick cup of coffee with the Rockies. Eddie Butler was another low-minors star, and a supplemental first rounder in 2012. With plus velo and a good breaking ball, he shot through 3 levels in 2013, yielding just 96 hits in about 150 IP. Like Gray, even scuffles in AAA couldn’t prevent him from making his MLB debut, and while that went about as poorly as it could’ve, he was still a promising young pitcher. This year, like Gray, he’s struggled everywhere he’s pitches, losing his hold on a big league rotation spot and pitching poorly in AAA. All three of these guys were top 50 prospects in baseball. All of them showed not only potential but impressive results, and then all three of them started hemorrhaging runs and hits. They are the mirror image of Mike Zunino, Dustin Ackley and…take your pick, Jesus Montero? Justin Smoak? And as with the M’s disappointments, you wonder if the big league park isn’t just in the players’ heads, but if it starts to warp player development. Fittingly of course, the M’s have reached out to recently-fired Rockies GM Dan O’Dowd about the vacancy here in Seattle.
In this series, the M’s will face not these major disappointments, but the fungible pile of minor league vets and later-round picks the Rockies have assembled because this is baseball and pitchers really are required. Today’s starter, Chad Bettis, is a good bridge between the two groups. A 2nd round pick, Bettis had success in the low minors, showing good control and missing bats. He didn’t have the pedigree of Gray or Friedrich or the undeniable pure stuff of Butler, so when he struggled a bit in the high minors, it wasn’t a shock. Cups of coffee in 2013 and 2014 were disastrous, but he’s made some improvements in 2015 while transitioning to the rotation. He throws a four-seam fastball, which would seem risky for a guy in Colorado with some HR issues, but it’s not a rising fastball – instead, it behaves much like a sinker. He’s got a change with sink that functions as a good ground ball pitch, and a curve that misses some bats but which right-handers tend to see pretty well. The natural sink on his fastball, plus that good sinking change, allow him to post a solid GB%, but the combination of Colorado and command lapses means he can’t fully reap the benefits of it. Righties have teed off on him, and his walk rate is still a bit high for someone without the stuff to pitch around them.
1: Jones, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, DH
4: Cano, 2B
5: Trumbo, LF
6: Smith, RF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, SS
9: Hicks, C
SP: Iwakuma
Let’s hear it for King Felix. The way he’s looked after a bit of rest makes you wonder why the M’s haven’t done this before, and it makes me, for one, hope that they might make some adjustments next year. Whether that’s a 6-man rotation or just a 2nd half re-shuffle to get both Felix and, if he’s back, Iwakuma, some extra rest to prevent late-season swoons we’ve seen from both guys.