Game 139, Astros at Mariners
Ariel Miranda vs. Justin Verlander, 7:10pm
It’s not enough that the M’s can’t really compete with the Astros, or that they enter play tonight 15.5 games back of Houston in the AL West standings. No, tonight the M’s get to play host to Justin Verlander, who makes his debut as a member of the Astros rotation. It’s a twist of the knife not to the M’s fans who wanted the M’s to get JV instead – I don’t think it would’ve been a great move, and I’m not sure the M’s could’ve swung it – but to the front office, to see a divisional rival setting up their rotation and bullpen for playoff series, not a bid to make the wild card game. It’s September, and the M’s are on the periphery of the playoff race, and I should be happier about that, but 1) they’re miles and miles away from the Astros/Indians, and 2) there is ash literally falling from the sky like snow in much of the Northwest and the world just seems more tenuous and fraught than ever.
Ariel Miranda’s the only Mariner to make each start in the rotation. Normally, you’d hate that a guy with a FIP of *5.60* is Mr. Durability for the year, but then you’ve seen some of the M’s 6th-12th starter options. This is Houston’s *5th* game against Miranda this year, but hopefully they’ve forgotten him, as it’s been about 6 weeks since last they met. Miranda desperately needs to keep the ball in the park, but that may be harder than normal given the high gametime temperature today – the ball flies further in warmer weather.
Ex-TB Ray Ryan Garton threw an inning the other day, and while another righty 6th inning guy isn’t too noteworthy, the movement on his pitches looks interesting. He throws a cutter-ish four-seam fastball that actually has gloveside break of about 1″, and the most truly “12-6” curve I’ve seen.
Today, the M’s have recalled 1B Dan Vogelbach, who had a solid 2nd half in Tacoma, and they’ve also activated newly-acquired OF Jacob Hannemann, whom they just picked up off of waivers from the Cubs. Hannemann is your classic speed/defense guy; he’s struggled at the plate in the minors, but his defense boosted him to the back end of the Cubs top 30 prospect lists. He’s swiped nearly 30 bags this year, so he could have some value as a pinch runner down the stretch. But wait, you say: this sounds an awful like the profile of the two high-minors CF prospects the Mariners already have, and who greased the skids for the DFA of Leonys Martin: Ian Miller’s in AAA Tacoma and is more of a 40-50 stolen base threat kind of guy. And Braden Bishop makes more contact and plays brilliant defense, and he’s waiting for the Arizona Fall League to start. All of this is true, so it’s a bit odd, but I think the plan must be to get Bishop more experience against high-minors arms before throwing him to the wolves. Bishop isn’t in the same league as a baserunner as Hannemann and Miller, as well. Miller would make the most sense, but then he’s had a rough go of things in the PCL after starting off with a 12-game hitting streak. His walk rate’s fallen and when his BABIP dropped, it killed his batting value. Still, all of these players are plagued by a dearth of power – Miller’s problem is the most acute, while Hannemann is the best bet to run an ISO north of .100 (a low bar, I know). The problem is that Hannemann’s also the best bet to post an ugly K rate. Bishop would seem like the best option from that point of view, so then things like the timing of adding players to the 40-man comes into it. We’ll have to see how this plays out in the offseason, and if Miller gets added to the rotation or if Hannemann acts as the last-in, first-out guy on the 40-man, and yields his place to the next waiver claim Dipoto makes. Bishop’s probably the guy who’s most clearly in the team’s longer term plans, but it can’t feel good to see the club get a player very much like you and have that guy instantly move to the active roster in Seattle.
1: Segura, SS
2: Alonso, 1B
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Haniger, RF
7: Gamel, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Heredia, CF
SP: Miranda
Game 138, Astros at Mariners – Checking In On M’s Newest Pitchers
Erasmo Ramirez vs. Dallas Keuchel, 3:40pm
The M’s continue their homestand by hosting the first-place Astros. The Astros were in on several players at the deadline, and after failing to land any of them, made a big splash later in August by acquiring Justin Verlander and reliever Tyler Clippard, and then getting OF Cameron Maybin as well. Houston got off to a scorching start to the year, with Dallas Keuchel looking like he’d recaptured his Cy Young form from 2015, Lance McCullers was untouchable at times, and Chris Devenski was making a bid for a historic season out of the bullpen. Then things fell apart for a while: Keuchel hit the disabled list for a few months, McCullers was awful and then hit the DL (he hasn’t pitched in over a month, but he’ll be activated for this series), Devenski fell back to earth, and top prospect Francis Martes came up and struggled. It’s easy to say that the Astros depth saved them, as pitchers like Brad Peacock held the fort until the injured were ready to pitch again. But it’s worth noting that there was nothing spectacular about the depth that they’ve used: Brad Peacock’s preseason ZiPS projection was essentially identical to Christian Bergman’s, and worse than Max Povse’s. The story of the Astros’ rise isn’t just about high draft picks; Carlos Correa’s been great, but HE’S missed a bunch of time, too. Rather, it’s how much production they’ve squeezed out of the kinds of minor acquisitions that the M’s have made dozens of this year. Collin McHugh was a waiver claim. Peacock was a throw-in in a deal with the A’s. Jose Altuve was ignored by many because of his stature, Chris Devenski was a PTBNL, and Charlie Morton was signed to a two-year deal for a bit more than Marc Rzepczynski got. Their pro scouting group seems to know what it wants, and their player development staff seems to know how to turn those skills/attributes into MLB production. If I sound a bit jealous, I am.
The M’s seem to know what they want, but turning things like “fly balls, but not HRs” into on-the-ground production is hard. I’m sympathetic to the argument that ground ball pitchers are now costlier to acquire, but then I see a guy like Erasmo Ramirez, whom the M’s acquired for very little and who IS an effective GB% hurler. And as soon as he came to Seattle, the M’s seem intent on reducing his GB ability. I talked about the uptick in his four-seam usage back in mid-August, but with that month complete, we have a better idea of what’s it’s done to his batted ball profile: August saw his second-highest fly ball rate of any month since 2014. If the M’s wanted him to avoid GBs, then I guess job well done and all, but then it seems odd to lament the fact that ground ball pitchers cost more than you can afford. Erasmo’s change-up movement looks a bit different too, and less likely to get either whiffs or grounders, but I will say that sequencing a four-seam and change seems better than just sinkers/change-ups; the movement on them is too similar, and Erasmo’s velocity difference isn’t big enough.
Speaking of recent acquisitions, the M’s finally got to see RP Shae Simmons make his M’s debut in yesterday’s win. Lookout Landing’s John Trupin had a great article/interview with him that posted today, and he notes that Simmons’ command isn’t quite back to normal after his injury woes. Simmons throws his fastball very hard, at 95-98, and sat at 96+ yesterday. It’s always been a very odd duck – not a sinker thanks to very little horizontal movement, but with sinker-like “rise”. In all, I’d call it most similar to a cutter, but it’s not a textbook cutter, either. Whatever you call it, with sinking action and plus velocity, it looks pretty good. He pairs it with a slider in the mid-low 80s, and with his low release point, it moves an awful lot like Carson Smith’s, a point Trupin notes. He used to throw a split-change that looks like a great complement to his fastball, but he didn’t throw it yesterday – instead, he debuted a NEW pitch – an actual cutter that comes in about 6-7 MPH slower than the fastball, and has less vertical drop than the true slider. Compared to where Simmons was when he debuted in 2014, his fastball was even straighter and with more rise, and his slider was slower with more horizontal run. He seemed to be releasing the ball a bit higher, which may account for the movement on his fastball, but we’ll have to see more of him to know for sure.
1: Segura, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Valencia, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Heredia, CF
9: Motter, LF
SP: Erasmoooo
Today’s the final day of the MiLB season; it hasn’t been a great one overall for the M’s, but Modesto’s first half qualifies them for the Cal League playoffs. Tacoma ends up their campaign in Las Vegas today, while Arkansas hosts NW Arkansas (who I swear they’ve played roughly half their games against), Modesto hosts Visalia, while Clinton’s in Burlington. Modesto’s the only affiliate to end with a better-than-.500 record.
Fittingly for a post titled like this one, the M’s have added a new pitcher since I began writing today. They picked up RHP Seth Frankoff off waivers from the Cubs, along with OF Jacob Hanneman. David Phelps has been moved to the 60-day DL, ending his season, and Zac Curtis has been DFA’d.
Game 137, Athletics at Mariners – Why Don’t they make the Entire SEASON Out of A’s Games?
Andrew Albers vs. Daniel Gossett, 1:10pm
By all accounts, yesterday’s Lookout Landing Night was a success, and I hear Jerry Dipoto was a gracious and funny panelist. Nathan Bishop was on the panel, and said that this was his big takeaway from the night: “this FO’s plan was absolutely built on a pre-flyball revolution model, and they’re still scrambling because of it.” That explains a lot, and it’s something we’ve talked a lot about on the blog – the fact that Safeco became a much, much more HR-friendly ballpark and then the entire league context changed as well. I completely understand being blindsided by the late-2015 dinger explosion, or the 2016 Gotterdingerung, when Safeco saw the most HRs of any park in baseball. It’s slightly *less* understandable to be taken aback by all the homers your pitching staff gives up in 2017, when the team’s response to 2016 was to attempt to become even more fly ball oriented. You understand it from a BABIP point of view, and getting Jarrod Dyson was key to that. But it’s also hard to claim to be surprised stocking up on low-strikeout, high-fly-ball pitchers would lead to a bunch of HRs flying out of Safeco field. We all witnessed 2016; what’s happened this year didn’t come out of nowhere.
I understand that low-HR, high-K pitchers are universally valued and may cost more in talent and dollars than the M’s want to spend, but as Bishop says, they’re not exorbitant if you develop them yourself. Further, I think the most important thing in the forensic analysis of 2017 isn’t fighting over how much bad luck the M’s had (the Angels and Mets had it much worse). Instead, it’s figuring out why the pitchers the M’s targeted or developed haven’t fared as well as their projections would’ve predicted. Why was Gallardo bad? What happened to Andrew Moore? Or Marco Gonzales (last night’s long relief gem excepted)? Why have Paul Blackburn and a host of the prospects the M’s traded away flourished? Whether the M’s shift their pitching strategy or not in light of the HR revolution is irrelevant if they still have trouble implementing it.
Daniel Gossett’s a low-K, high-HR-allowed pitcher with excellent control coming through the A’s system, but who’s been beaten to a pulp by the American League. If this sounds like Dillon Overton, I completely agree. The A’s had a ton of these guys in the past few years, from Overton to Daniel Mengden to Chris Smith. They’ve all faceplanted in MLB after varying degrees of success in the PCL (Mengden in particular was great for Nashville, but he’s been the worst in MLB). I guess it’s nice to see that this phenomenon isn’t limited to Mariners prospects.
1: Segura, SS
2: Alonso, 1B
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Haniger, RF
7: Gamel, LF
8: Heredia, CF
9: Ruiz, C
SP: Albers
Game 136, Athletics at Mariners – Roster Moves and Lookout Landing Night
Yovani Gallardo vs. Jharel Cotton, 6:10pm
As mentioned yesterday, the A’s offense hasn’t been too bad. They’re not great defensively, but they’ve hit the ball hard, and they’re doing it with a lot of homegrown young talent. The A’s are also 18 games under .500, which tells you something about their pitching staff. Sonny Gray was fine, but in a lost season, the A’s shipped him to New York to restock their farm system. Kendall Graveman started the year on fire, then got hurt and hasn’t been the same since. Andrew Triggs got off to a decent start, then needed hip surgery and was gone for the year. Jesse Hahn’s FIP is right where it was when he was an effective starter for Oakland back in 2015, but his ERA most certainly is not. Sean Manaea also started well, but, last night excepted, has been awful down the stretch. But perhaps the biggest difference between what was expected and what’s been delivered is in Jharel Cotton’s stat line.
Cotton came over in the Rich Hill trade from the Dodgers a year ago, a year after rising from the single-A Midwest League to the Pacific Coast League. Last year, the change-up specialist pitched well for Nashville after the trade, and then made 5 starts for Oakland that opened a lot of eyes. He walked just 4 in those 5 starts, and used his screwball-like change (it’s thrown at 78 MPH, the same as his curveball) to post very low BABIP rates. All of that led to a very good ERA, and while his FIP was higher (thanks to 4 HRs allowed), it wasn’t problematic. The A’s seemed to have acquired a useful middle of the rotation piece who’d be decent for years without commanding much in salary. So far, so Oakland. But instead, Cotton’s regressed in every possible way, with a FIP and ERA both well over 5. His K%’s down, and his walk rate’s soared, meaning his K-BB% has been nearly halved. His HR rate’s climbed even further, and he’s been especially bad with men on base.
His change-up’s still his best pitch, but it’s looking quite a bit worse this year. Batters had 1 single on the pitch in 2016, but they’ve knocked 9 XBHs off of it this year, and are slugging .462 on it. Perhaps worse, the A’s are doing what they seemingly always do, and are directing him to throw more sinkers and cutters. Those have come at the expense of his rising four-seam fastball at 93-94 and his change. There’s nothing wrong, theoretically, with using a cutter more against same-handed bats, but righties have hit well against it, and his sinker’s clearly still a work in progress. With a huge gap in vertical movement and velocity between his four-seam and change, Cotton seemed well positioned to either get whiffs or mis-hit contact. I get not wanting to show too much of the change and allow batters to sit on it, but Cotton’s far from the only Athletic who’s been given a pitch mix overhaul with questionable goals and results. It’s possible that the ultra-slow change was something of a trick pitch, and once batters learned to recognize it, they could feast on it. It’s possible that they’ve seen something in him that would make a sinker-heavy approach work well. But I’m suspicious.
1: Segura, SS
2: Alonso, 1B
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Haniger, RF
7: Gamel, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Dyson, CF
SP: Gallardo
With Jarrod Dyson back and rosters expanding, the M’s have made a bunch of roster moves over the past 48 hours. Leonys Martin didn’t make it through waivers a second time, and he’s been acquired by the Cubs, who’ve already brought him up to Chicago. The M’s continual shuffling of pitchers has resulted in a lot of outright assignments, as Christian Bergman was just outrighted for at least the second time. The M’s also tried to slip Sam Gaviglio through waivers, but like Martin, he didn’t make it; he’s been acquired by Kansas City.
Tacoma’s season ends on Monday, so the M’s will probably call up a few more players on Tuesday, but for today, they’ve brought up C Mike Marjama and RP Ryan Garton, both picked up in a late summer trade with Tampa, SP Andrew Moore (who’ll work out of the pen for now), and RP Shae Simmons, the intriguing reliever they got from Atlanta in the offseason and who was shut down in spring training. David Phelps is on the 10-day DL with an impingement in his elbow, which, I have to say, sounds really bad given it’s his second arm injury of the second half of the season.
Before the game tonight, the M’s are hosting Lookout Landing night with the current staff of the venerable M’s blog along with some previous writers who’ve gone on to other gigs. Nathan Bishop now writes over at Dome and Bedlam, while Colin O’Keefe and Jose Rivera were picked up by the Mariners themselves. GM Jerry Dipoto’s doing a Q and A so go ask some tough questions!
Game 135, Athletics at Mariners – Is This It?
Mike Leake vs. Sean Manaea, 7:10pm
Sorry for the delay!!
M’s fans get their first look at new Mariner Mike Leake, and it comes in an intradivisional game on a gorgeous night at Safeco. I mentioned Leake’s struggles in the second half of the season in the post on the trade, but Manaea’s having similar difficulties. On August 12th, he gave up 6 runs in just 1/3 of an inning, his 3rd straight start giving up 6 runs. His FIP in the second half is 5.51, and it’s coincided with a big drop in his strikeouts. Leake hasn’t been himself recently, but Manaea’s struggled at least as much. That tilts the odds in the M’s favor, which can help them re-start their on-again, off-again pursuit of the 2nd wildcard.
As some of you noted in comments on that Leake trade post, it really does seem like wildcard contention’s what this club’s built for. It’s an excellent point, and as much as Jerry Dipoto’s hands were tied with contracts, the minor league system, etc., it’s pretty clear that the M’s are not really attempting to become a juggernaut like the Astros, Cubs, Red Sox, Indians or whoever. Again, the M’s couldn’t really pull a White Sox or Braves-style rebuild because they didn’t really have much to sell. They couldn’t get 2-3 straight top-of-the-first-round draft picks either. They couldn’t play their top prospects, because they really didn’t have that many, and then decided to trade them all for some pitching help instead. This team, the 40-man roster, has been largely accumulated through mid- to low-level trades, and through long-term extensions and free agent deals. For a variety of reasons, there simply isn’t a Kris Bryant, a Rafael Devers/Mookie Betts, a Francisco Lindor, a Carlos Correa to build the NEXT great team around, and in that context, maybe it’s OK that they’re trying to muddle along and back their way into the playoffs for a couple of years. The question is when and how you pivot from that strategy and set about actually trying to compete with the Astros. The draft would be a good start, and evaluators have liked their work the past few years, and we could assess more of the player development staff’s work if Dipoto stopped trading everyone, but the point is it would take a pretty big change in how the club’s operated over the past couple of years. They’ve been willing to spend money, so maybe they build around a big free agent. But the timing of that’s really tough to pull off, and you’d like to have a homegrown group to complement whichever star you acquire. This season’s been kind of fun, and I think they can do something similar next year, maybe even more if Haniger stays healthy and Jean Segura recovers his first-half form, but a big change in approach and mindset is coming. It has to.
The A’s have been quietly building a pretty impressive farm system over the past year or two, and with 2017 already a lost cause, they’ve been able to play a lot of their youngsters in the second half. While top prospect Franklin Barreto face-planted and is now back in the PCL, Chad Pinder, Ryon Healy, Matt Chapman and Matt Olson have stabilized the A’s offense. In a neat inversion of Moneyball, they’re swinging for the fences and not appearing to care at all about plate discipline. Pinder and Healy have wRC+ figures of 100, meaning they’ve been league-average bats, and neither one has an OBP over .300. Chapman’s OBP is .308 and he’s been better than league average. Olson’s put up the best slash line, but his K rate is safely above 30%. These are not the Scott Hatteberg A’s – they’re Khris Davis’ team now. Sure, Boog Powell’s down there now, and he actually has a great walk rate. The A’s have a top-10 walk rate on the year, but much of that’s due to the work of veteran hitters, many of whom are gone: Yonder Alonso for one. Their team stats are pretty much the equal of the M’s – both clubs are right at league average overall. The fact that the A’s are hanging around that mark on the cheap, and with so many under 26-year-old bats, should give M’s fans pause. Yes, their pitching has been a shambles, and grades out worse than the M’s. But I would like to know why the A’s have gotten far more out of M’s cast-off Paul Blackburn than the M’s have from Yovani Gallardo, Marco Gonzales, and Adam Moore. Luck? Coaching? A more HR-suppressing ballpark?
1: Segura, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Valencia, 1B
7: Heredia, LF
8: Zunino, C
9: Dyson, CF
SP: Leake
Welcome to Seattle, Mike! The future of the team aside, all of the warning signs aside, I hope you pitch out of your mind in the last month and keep the M’s in this race.
The M’s are sending 8 prospects to the Arizona Fall League that begins play in October. They are RPs Matt Festa, Art Warren and Darin Gillies; SP Max Povse; C/1B Joe DeCarlo; OFs Eric Filia, Braden Bishop and Kyle Lewis. Lewis is the top prospect of the group, while Povse could use a good re-set to his 2017 that started so brightly. DeCarlo can presumably work on his catching a bit more, though the M’s aren’t keeping him there full time with Modesto. The prospect with the best shot at opening some eyes and perhaps changing the industry consensus about him is Bishop, the speedy CF and ex-UW Husky. A slight uptick in his power production helped him in High A, but he’s been even better at AA, dropping his K rate and keeping his walk rate above 10%. Turning into a contact+defense poor-man’s-Jarrod-Dyson (Bishop’s defense is his calling card) would be huge for the M’s, and I hope he pulls it off. Fangraphs’ prospect guy Eric Longenhagen has some comments on the M’s and every other team’s prospects in this AFL round-up post.