Game 82, Orioles at Mariners
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Ubaldo Jimenez, 1:10pm
When the M’s are successful, there’s a natural tendency to see the results as an expression of the great changes brought about by the new front office, but it’s kind of funny when you look at *how* they’ve succeeded. Zduriencik was rightly criticized for what seemed like a fixation on power – and RH power in particular – at the expense of every other aspect of the game. The M’s have won three in a row for the first time since May by outslugging the slugging Orioles. The M’s right-handed sluggers like Nelson Cruz and Dae Ho Lee are a key reason why the M’s find themselves over .500. The M’s defense still isn’t great, and they still can’t run the bases very well, but instead of getting pitiful performance from every right-handed complementary player (Trumbo), they’re getting actual production from the odd-couple of Guti and Lee. This isn’t a complaint, mind you, but it and Trumbo’s resurgence with the O’s, must be frustrating to Zduriencik.
Ubaldo Jimenez fascinates me. His Fangraphs page defies explanation and sabermetric ideas. There’s volatility, and then there’s whatever Jimenez is doing. Since 2010, his ERAs have been: 2.68, 4.68, 5.40, 3.30, 4.81, 4.11 and now 6.63. A tremendously lucky (or unlucky?) player? I don’t know, because his FIP (and xFIP) follows the same lack-of-pattern. I can’t tell if his bizarre career is the product of too much luck or too little. Sabermetric analysis of pitchers has centered on the concept of true talent, a lodestar around which results orbit, pushed from the center by luck, variance, park effects, opposition strength, defense, etc. The idea of getting a glimpse of true talent by measuring these results is an attractive one, but Jimenez makes a mockery of it. Instead of these smooth arcs, resembling planetary orbits, Jimenez calls to mind someone trying and failing to control a massive machine that spinning out of control. Parts are flying off, there’s smoke billowing from the engine, but every now and again, it almost looks controlled. But whatever that big machine is doing, it’s pretty clearly not orbiting anything – the point around which it’s spinning is moving, too.
Jimenez has changed his pitch mix a few times, and he’s gained and lost velocity. Occasionally, he’s quite good against lefties, and at other times, he makes them look like a collective Mike Trout. There is nothing but variance. There’s no fixed point with Jimenez, there is only the struggle to figure out how to change next.
It helps that his mechanics look so odd. Some pitchers look fluid, like their arm and trunk make graceful arcs and circles in the course of delivering the baseball. Jimenez is all angles and thrusts at angles that go everywhere but towards the catcher’s mitt. When he’s going great, you can see that it might be tough to pick up the ball, and when he’s not, it seems like a gigantic waste of effort and source of potential error.
1: Martin, CF
2: Smith, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Lind, 1B
7: Gutierrez, RF
8: Iannetta, C
9: Marte, SS
SP: Iwakuma
Game 81, Orioles at Mariners
James Paxton vs. Tyler Wilson, 7:10pm
On the M’s last trip to Baltimore, they faced extreme pitch-to-contact righty Tyler Wilson, who came up without much hype thanks to a strong aversion to missing bats and so-so minor league numbers. Despite all of that, he’d held opposing offenses in check through his first few months in the bigs (split between 2015 and 2016) thanks to a freakishly low HR rate. Back in May, I wondered if he might follow the dispiriting path that so many pitch-to-contact guys (Nick Blackburn, Scott Diamond, etc.) had gone before, where the league adjusts and a low HR/FB ratio just isn’t sustainable any more. We’re a few months later now, and the evidence is starting to come in that Wilson really is Blake Beavan in a more compact exterior. With a HR/9 over 1, his ERA and FIP are both in the mid 4s instead of the mid 3s (his xFIP is essentially unchanged, which shows how dependent he’d been on fly balls falling short of the wall).
Wilson isn’t quite the extreme fly ball guy that Beavan or various Twins were; his fastball has a bit too much sink for that. It’s also freakishly straight, which may help explain his lack of platoon splits. His sluve-slider has been his best pitch, and it’s curveball-ish enough that it works pretty well to left-handed bats. He’s got a change-up too.
I didn’t get into this to talk about Tyler Wilson, no offense to him, his family or his fans. So let’s talk about the M’s defense. Getting more “athletic” on defense was a key part of Jerry Dipoto’s offseason strategy, and they’ve clearly done that, bringing in ball hawk Leonys Martin, and replacing Mark Trumbo with Nori Aoki (a move that looks…different now). To a degree, that shift in emphasis has brought results: the M’s defense turned 89.1% of fly balls into outs in 2015, while turning…uh… 89.0% this year. Moving from the gaffe-pron Brad Miller to Ketel Marte has helped the infield go from turning 75.4% of ground balls into outs in 2015 to 74.7% this year.*
That’s…surprising, I think. The Mariners overall defensive efficiency is pretty good, thanks to a great job at turning line drives into outs. But these numbers don’t neatly match up with what the team talks about. That is, the team loves to tout the extra outs they’ve saved using defensive shifts. And maybe they’re right! But the overall ratio of ground balls to outs seams kind of low if the shifting was getting them dozens of extra outs every where, and while you can argue that the real benefit is showing up in line drives, I’m not sure that an approach that results in a lot of line drives (even ones caught by fielders!) is an optimal strategy.
So am I against shifting? No, I don’t think so. But like I’ve mentioned before, it’s a bit hard to see the clear, obvious evidence that it’s helping the M’s defense overall. Is it hurting the defense? Ehhhh, probably not. There’s no reason not to put your fielders where a batter typically hits the ball, and the evidence seems pretty good that it works against a certain type of hitter. It’s possible that the real issue is how the M’s pitchers perform in a shift, which is something both Russell Carleton and others have mentioned. As Joe Sheehan points out (and as the M’s infield confirms this year) – way more shifting does nothing to limit singles or base hits. It may “work”, but it doesn’t do what we think.
1: Martin, CF
2: Smith, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Lee, 1B
7: Lind, DH
8: Zunino, C
9: O’Malley, SS
SP: Paxton
This is not the line-up that’s going to improve the M’s DER on its own, so hey, strike some dudes out, Paxton.
Welcome back to the bigs, Mike Zunino. After one of the most horrific non-injury related career trajectories ever seen, Zunino’s spent 2016 getting his approach right in Tacoma. So far, so good; he hit .282/.366/.512. His K rate’s fallen as well, which helps me overlook the fact that he’s been only OK after a brilliant April. That weird thing from 2013 where he hit a ton on the road and struggled at Cheney Stadium? Ha, in 2016 he’s actually…no? Still there? Huh, yeah, still doing that.
* Of note: Miller’s new team, the Rays, rank dead last in ground ball defensive efficiency this year.
Game 80, Orioles at Mariners
Wade LeBlanc vs. Kevin Gausman, 7:10pm
Taijuan Walker threw a great game, and helped the M’s beat their long-time nemesis, Chris Tillman, last night. He also said that his foot pain was still bothering him, but he’d gut it out knowing there was no structural damage. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the M’s season so far: there’s some real good things happening, but they’re always followed up with something concerning. The M’s bullpen’s great, except for that Joel Peralta guy. Ok, great, he’s gone…and now Nick Vincent’s shaky. We have Edwin Diaz now! Aaaand Joaquin Benoit’s having control problems. Wade Miley’s back! Aaaand he’s still ineffective.
Maybe the M’s can follow up their win yesterday by going on a bit of a run. Wade LeBlanc’s success makes no sense, but hey, James Paxton picking up several MPH on his FB somewhere between Tacoma and Seattle makes no sense either, so let’s just roll with it. Maybe Paxton shared a detailed map with Zunino, and he’ll have a similarly-sized improvement in his K:BB ratio.
Today’s match-up is a fun one, in that these two pitchers are so dissimilar, but share a statistical oddity. Kevin Gausman went a couple of picks after Mike Zunino early in the 1st round of the 2012 draft, and with velocity that sits at 96 with ease, you can understand why. Wade LeBlanc’s velocity is… well, LeBlanc was not drafted for his velo, and even after showing some signs of adding a tick or so recently, his average FB velo will always start with an 8. LeBlanc’s calling card has always been a solid change-up. It’s a pitch without dramatic movement, and it comes in at a curveball-esque 75MPH, but his arm action’s good enough that it works for him. In his career, batters hit worse against LeBlanc’s change than any other pitch. Gausman’s primary non-fastball is his splitter, a pitch which averages 86mph. Like LeBlanc, he’s enjoyed some success with the pitch, and it plays well with his ultra-fast four-seamer.
Their physical tools are so different, but this looks like a pretty similar approach, and it leads to a similar problem. Without an effective breaking ball, both depend on their fastballs and offspeed stuff to attack same-handed hitters. And, to date, they haven’t been effective. Righties are hitting .254/.327/.411 off LeBlanc, which, if he had *normal* splits would make him a pretty good starter. But he doesn’t: lefties are hitting .313/.369/.532. Gausman’s the same: lefties are hitting .238/.301/.380 off of him, but righties have feasted to a .274/.321/.463 line, and they’re doing even better this year, with a slugging percentage right at .500.
Gausman uses his splitter to lefties and righties alike, and that shouldn’t be a big problem. But for whatever reason, righties just see the pitch better, and tee off on it. It’s a devastating weapon to lefties, though. LeBlanc tries to get lefties out with breaking stuff, but it simply doesn’t work, and neither does his fastball. Gausman’s got an intriguing curve/slider thing that seems like it’d be an average-ish pitch, but righties are teeing off on it like they know it’s coming.
1: Martin, CF
2: Smith, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Lee, 1B
7: Lind, DH
8: Iannetta, C
9: Marte, SS
SP: LeBlanc
Noooo, not the standard lefty line-up, nooooooo!
I still can’t get over the fact that Wade LeBlanc is on the team and in the rotation and Nate Karns is in the ‘pen. If you told me that would happen in 2016, I would assume the club was 35 games under .500. They’re actually above .500, and still on the fringes of contention. Baseball is amazing.
Tom Wilhelmsen is back in place of Donn Roach. Mike Zunino’s up, replacing Steve Clevenger, who’ll have surgery on a broken bone in his hand.