Games 32-33, Mariners at Padres – Double Header
Ljay Newsome vs. Dinelson Lamet, 12:10pm
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Garrett Richards, 3:10pm
The M’s are making up yesterday’s game with a hastily-arranged double header today. The pitching match up has changed, because the Mariners made a trade during/after yesterday’s drama, sending Taijuan Walker (who was scheduled to start last night) to Toronto for a player to be named later. Jerry Dipoto apparently said on the radio this morning that the return would be a player, and not another cash considerations deal, which was the return for Dan Vogelbach (who may be activated by the Jays today).
John Trupin speculates about the possible return in this post at Lookout Landing, noting that the Jays top 30 prospect list is jam packed with young shortstops. The M’s don’t have many pure SS in the system; there’s Noelvi Marte and something of a gap behind him. Thus, taking one of the Jays many SS off of their hands might make some sense. It wouldn’t be one of their absolute top prospects, but a guy like Otto Lopez would be nice. Another possibility, perhaps, could be the recently-DFA’d Anthony Alford, a toolsy OF who played college football at Ole Miss before joining the Jays org. He’s been good at times in the minors, but his development stalled out, and without many routes to playing time (and without any minor league options left), the Jays moved on. He’s not on the Jays 60-man pool, but I’m not sure why they couldn’t simply announce the deal if it was Alford, but it’s always possible that there are some weird, made-up-on-the-fly rules governing this in 2020. The M’s have a need at OF with Mallex Smith struggling mightily, and using Tim Lopes/Dylan Moore in OF corners out of position. Jake Fraley, Sam Haggerty, and Braden Bishop need PAs, but depth would be nice, even if it’s depth that they couldn’t stash in Tacoma.
Ljay Newsome gets his first big league start a few days after his encouraging MLB debut. The righty throws an interesting FB from a very low arm slot. It’s got average to a bit below ride thanks to solidly below average spin, and I wonder if he’d benefit from embracing the sinker the way Justus Sheffield has. Like Sheff, he throws his slurve/curve a ton – more than his FB in his one appearance. That pitch, even more than his FB, stands out for freakishly low spin, though I’m not convinced that this is a big red flag. We should see a bit more of his change, which I like the best of his three offerings. It’s got splitter-style vertical drop compared to his FB, and it could help him with the lefties in San Diego’s line-up.
Opposing him is Dinelson Lamet, a flame-throwing righty who’s back from a series of injuries and having by far his best season. His fastball is thrown from a higher arm slot but has similar movement to Newsome’s. It’s thrown at 98, not 92, however. His primary pitch, thrown over 50% of the time, is a brutal high-80s slider. It’s helped push Lamet’s strikeout percentage over 34%, and importantly, he’s been able to limit walks – control had always been a problem for him in previous seasons.
I’ll write up the nightcap’s match up in a little while. Former Angel Garrett Richards starts for San Diego opposite Yusei Kikuchi.
Game 1:
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haggerty, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, DH
6: White, 1B
7: Fraley, RF
8: Long, 2B
9: Odom, C
SP: Newsome
Well, Ljay Newsome acquitted himself quite well in Game 1, going 4 IP with 5 Ks and no walks, and only one real mistake, a fastball hit out by Manny Machado. Dinelson Lamet wasn’t sharp, but relied on his stuff to get through. Jose Marmolejos, who’d been called up as the “29th man” for the double-header was forced into action after Evan White hurt his shoulder broke a scoreless tie with a 2-run HR.
Newsome sat 91-92 with his FB, but hit 94 at times, striking out Tatis,Jr. on one of those amped-up fastballs in the first. He’s been remarkably hard to hit in his two appearances, which is interesting; batters are clearly not seeing the ball out of his hand. He did use his change-up more, but it wasn’t all that sharp. His curve/slurve, on the other hand, was, getting some weak contact and a couple of called strikes.
The bullpen blew it for him, as Fernando Tatis, Jr. shook off his Ks against Newsome to drive a Matt Magill pitch out, and then Trent Grisham went back to back, tying the game at 3. Of course, team wins aren’t that important, and you can make a case that they’re counterproductive, but I still like seeing a decent-if-flawed-and-inexperienced team rather than an out and out bad one. But hey, that’s been the nice thing about this winning streak. If you squint, you could really see how this group could come together, get to .500-ish next year and then add in free agency to make a run in 2022. I haven’t been able to visualize that in many years. As if to underscore that point, the M’s shook off the blown save and scored four in the 7th to take the lead before a rather disastrous bottom of the inning. All in all, that’s just about the ideal result.
In the nightcap, the M’s face the original spin-rate king, Garrett Richards. Richards’ cut fastball, slider, and curve were always the top of the MLB class in spin rate, and at times, he’s used them to be an effective starter. But he simply couldn’t stay healthy; the last time he made 20 starts was 2015. He made 18 in 2018, but only six in 2016 and 2017. This’ll be his seventh start of the year, which makes this a comparatively healthy campaign. And a good one – he’s got his ERA/FIP under 4 thus far, and hasn’t been as troubled by HRs as he was in those short 2018-19 years. His K rate is down, but he’s looking a bit more like the guy he was for the Angels years ago.
He’s still predominantly a three-pitch guy: four-seam/cut fastball at 95, a hard slider at 89, and a rare curve. He’s mixing in more of a sinker these days as well.
Game 2:
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haggerty, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: Marmolejos, 1B
7: Lopes, RF
8: Long, DH
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: Kikuchi
The M’s broadcaster Dave Sims moderated a great discussion called Black Voices in Baseball with several of the M’s Black players back in June. In the wake of last night’s strike, they recorded another raw discussion along with the Brewers’ Devin Williams. It’s put out by MLB Network Radio, and it’s on YouTube here. You should listen.
No Game 32, Mariners vs. Pretending Things are Normal
I knew that this strange, seemingly slapdash season was a risk. I knew it could potentially put players at risk, and I knew it was harder to really get excited about a 60-game season with all sorts of rule changes thrown in at the last minute. But since it started, I’ve been kind of surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed it. I love baseball, so it’s not *that* shocking, but I actually don’t like missing any of these games, which is not something I said about the 2019 season, as long and unsullied by rule changes and Jays-in-Buffalo as it was.
Baseball’s attachment to tradition isn’t just about records or numbers or even about memories of childhood and intergenerational conversations. It’s the way it seems to exist out of time – that people can turn on or go to a game to get away from everything else that demands that you pay attention to the present. It’s an escape, and it’s an effective one because it’s designed to be familiar, and look more or less the same as it did when you were a kid (this is especially true this year, with the spate of throwback powder blue uniforms, dating back to…my childhood), with the promise that it’ll look more or less the same when your own kids are grown. I have *needed* that this year more than any other. I have desperately needed to shut off the news, to put the paper down, and just get away from 2020, at least as much as you can under Covid-19 threat. Today, sports stars have decided that the most powerful thing that they can do is to shut that escape valve, to say, at least for right now, you’ve got to pay attention to the news, and you have to act. They are 100% right to do so.
The Milwaukee Bucks kicked it off when they decided to essentially go on strike and potentially forfeit a playoff game after the shooting of Jacob Blake and then the killing of two protestors last night. It was in their back yard, and they decided that playing would allow too many people to tune out Kenosha and instead watch a majority of black players play a game from the relative safety of the Orlando bubble. The rest of the league followed suit. Then, the Milwaukee Brewers decided to do the same thing, and not play tonight’s scheduled contest with the Reds. Once that happened, and probably a bit before then, the M’s decision not to play tonight in San Diego seemed like a fait accompli. The M’s Black players have tried to keep the focus on issues of social justice, and this is probably the best way they could turn their activism into something concrete.
Many on social media are excoriating teams, saying that this strike isn’t concrete action at all, and won’t help Blake walk again. But it’s much more than a statement or kneeling before the anthem. They, like the NBA and WNBA, wanted to believe that these things – BLM patches on the uniform, or BLM written in the dirt of the pitcher’s mound, or pre-game ceremonies – might help inform people on the fence, might help make a case to the millions of fans tuning in. And they now don’t believe that these things are enough, because they pretty self-evidently aren’t. At that point, they can either produce counter-programming to the news from Kenosha, from Minneapolis, from all over the country, or they could withhold it.
Here’s Dee Gordon on twitter just a little while ago:
I have had my problems with the M’s as an organization, and have been somewhat skeptical about their step-back rebuild. But I am incredibly proud to be an M’s fan today. Proud of you Taijuan, JP, Dee, Shed, Kyle, Justus, Justin, Aaron, Tim, and every player on the team that stood with them. Go Mariners.
Game 31, Mariners at Padres
Marco Gonzales vs. Chris Paddack, 6:10pm
Oops, little late here. The M’s open the second half in San Diego, facing one of the more electrifying new pitchers of 2019. Chris Paddack was nearly unhittable in the minors, putting up video game numbers across several levels thanks to a mid-90s fastball and a dominant change-up. He had issues with HRs, as he gets backspin on everything, but balanced it with very low walk rates and elite BABIP. This year, he’s had almost the exact same season, but with every trait turned up to eleven. The BABIP remains absurdly low. Walks? 6 in nearly 32 innings. Ahh, but the home runs…those are cranked up, too.
Paddack’s fastball was a real weapon last year, with a BABIP under .250 and plenty of swings and misses from batters looking for his change. He’s throwing it even harder this year, at 95, but it’s a very different pitch. Maybe to try and avoid the HR issues he had, he’s cut the vertical movement on it. He still throws it up in the zone to disguise his change, but he took something that was working, more or less, and made it worse. Batters are teeing off on his fastball, even as his change remains effective. I don’t get it. Maybe our former leader, Dave Cameron, is hard at work figuring this out.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haggerty, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: White, 1B
7: Fraley, RF
8: Lopes, DH
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: Marco Gonzales
The M’s at the Half-Way Point: Grading the Rebuild
The M’s are half-way through this bizarre season. They’re nowhere near contention, but then that was never the goal. The goal is to start to see the outlines of what a contending team might look like. While the team keeps kicking out the date at which they’re supposed to be in the running, or at least not out-and-out bad. The key this season was to identify a number of players who could be regulars on a not-awful version of the M’s. You’ll recognize this as the goal of the last few M’s campaigns as well. But now that the full-on rebuild’s in swing, the M’s *must* identify some key players who’ll lead them to contention. It’s not enough to be young. It’s time to be young and at least intermittently good.
I think one of the frustrating things about the past few years is that any definitive evaluation of the rebuild had to wait. Sure, Marco Gonzales was doing fine, but the peripherals were concerning. JP Crawford had a great first half, and a lousy second half, and that went triple for Dan Vogelbach. Shed Long was alright. There were flashes of promise, and if you squinted, you could see progress. But the overall numbers were concerning. I think so many fans, myself included, want clear, unambiguous signs that the player development group has unlocked potential in the M’s young hopefuls, and that we could say that the first phase of the rebuild was done. But baseball’s rarely that clear, or rather, *Mariners* baseball is rarely that clear.
Justus Sheffield has pretty clearly taken a step forward with his new sinker/slider approach, and despite my worries about velocity, Marco Gonzales is on the best run of his career. These were two keys to the upside pieces I wrote in 2019 and 2020, and while it took some time, we may be getting ready to check these off the to-do list. But at the same time, several other key young players have struggled. We’ve gone over Evan White’s unpleasant introduction to the major leagues quite a bit, but at 100 plate appearances, he’s still got a K% over 40%, and has a wRC+ of 52. Better than where it was, but…really not good. He’s made 17 starts in August, and notched at least one K in 16 of them. Shed Long’s wRC+ is even lower, at 39, and the surprising pop he showed last year hasn’t re-appeared. That’s the story of JP Crawford’s 2020, too. Despite improvements in his K:BB ratio and rates overall, he’s hitting for no power whatsoever, leaving him with a slugging percentage below .300. He’s essentially matching his production from the second half of last year, an injury-marred period in which he looked like a shadow of the player who’d been so good in the spring.
Mallex Smith appears like he may follow Vogelbach out of town. He’s already been demoted, and looked lost on his way to a wRC+ of…uh…-5. He’d already lost his CF job, and his bat doesn’t come close to playing in a corner, so he may moved for perennially useful cash considerations soon. Dee Gordon’s contract may be a sticking point, but he too has lost even the utility role he had, now that the M’s suddenly have utility players all over the clubhouse. Gordon’s looked miserable, which is tough to watch for a guy with his personality and appeal. It’s simply not working, and at his age, he’s not a part of this rebuild anyway.
That’s all quite depressing, but it’s balanced by the one thing I never thought the M’s could do. For years, I’ve been saying that to really ensure that a rebuild was possible, they needed to identify an actual star-level player. Not a 3-5 win guy who would represent the team well at the All Star game, but an actual star – someone capable of winning MVP votes. They really haven’t had that since Felix was last great, and just given the nature of the players they were bringing up, it seemed like they might have to continue selling fans on the promise of Julio Rodriguez/Jarred Kelenic. Enter Kyle Lewis. His initial call-up was breathtaking, with a somewhat unexpected power surge, but the K rate was a concern. It’s just 30 games, but I seriously don’t think they could’ve gone any better for Lewis. Not only is he showing more bat-to-ball contact skills, he’s drawing way more walks. Not only has that in-game power still a part of his game, but he’s playing a decent center field. Yes, the BABIP will come down, and yes, pitchers will adjust, and he doesn’t have to face the formidable rotations of Cleveland or Chicago or Cincinnati, but this is a package that is capable of getting to 7-8 WAR in good years. This is the elite-level talent that the M’s have been looking for.
One of the other keys to the season is getting more intel on how the competition stacks up. This, too, has been something of a mixed bag, but in general I think things look a bit less bleak than they did a few months or a year ago. The Astros, beset by injuries and regression, are not quite the juggernaut they’ve been. There are still excellent players there, but they can’t just plug in another young player and have an instant boost the way they did with Carlos Correa years ago or Yordan Alvarez and Jose Urquidy in 2019. They’ve still got some interesting young arms coming up, including a few who handcuffed the M’s on the recent road trip, but they no longer look their player development overall is in a completely different league. They have Bregman locked up for years and are quite a bit better in terms of talent than the M’s right now, but they could lose additional players in the coming years as their contracts expire.
The Angels got one of the biggest prizes in free agency in Anthony Rendon, and have Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani for the foreseeable future, giving them the best group of core players in the division. Yes, they’re older than the M’s, Astros, and Athletics best players, but by a surprisingly small margin. But as we’ve seen so often in Anaheim, it hasn’t translated into success quite yet. Jo Adell has fewer at-bats, but may catch up to Evan White in strikeouts in the second half. Justin Upton looks done, and Pujols has been for quite some time. Not even the emergence of David Fletcher has been enough. The problem remains – as it has for several years – in their pitching staff, and in particular, the rotation. The Angels got the free agent bargain of the winter in Dylan Bundy, who’s been shockingly good, but even that just highlights how bad his compatriots have been. Angels starters have gone 4-15 with an ERA of 5.84 *despite the fact* that Bundy is 3-2 with an ERA of 2.58.
Julio Teheran has shown that the Angels don’t have magical powers to fix one-time prospects, as he’s sporting an ERA over 12. Shohei Ohtani can’t pitch again this season, and may never pitch again in the bigs. The Angels always feel a small step from contention, but haven’t been able to make that small step, and could miss their window if Griffin Canning, Jose Suarez, and the other pitchers don’t step it up. Bundy may not be in LA for long, after all.
The A’s are as-advertised. Matt Chapman, Ramon Laureano, and Matt Olson are a formidable middle-of-the-order, and all three play great defense. They’ve gotten big years from Mark Canha and Robbie Grossman, and they remain an annoyingly good team, with a core not too much older than Seattle’s. They’ve been hit hard by injuries in their rotation over the past few years, but are seeing a healthy Jesus Luzardo stake a claim to a rotation spot, and Chris Bassitt show that last year’s breakout was for real. They’re not perfect or anything; Mike Fiers is regressing and Sean Manaea’s velocity is all over the map, dipping well into the mid-high 80s at times. There’s clearly less talent in the pipeline for Oakland than for Seattle, but there’s much less need for it, too. This team will be battling the M’s for contention whenever the M’s see fit to compete.
Texas looks lost. I’m not trying to take anything away from the M’s sweep of the Rangers that marked the high point of the first half, but the Rangers look completely sunk – they don’t look ready to play in many games, and several veteran players they’ve depended on look like they’d rather be anywhere else. Rougned Odor has seemed on the edge of playing himself out of the team and maybe the league these past few seasons, but he’s removing any doubt this year – he’s been perhaps the worst player in baseball in 2020. The Rangers no-glove, all-bat prospect, Willie Calhoun, has been awful as well, even worse than his collapse in 2018. Elvis Andrus fell off a cliff in 2019, and has now discovered a new, deeper cliff to plunge from. Lance Lynn remains good, but Mike Minor’s brilliant 2019 looks like a bizarre outlier, and their youngsters haven’t been able to step up and solidify the rotation. I’m seriously not sure where they go from here; Nick Solak’s good, and one of their top prospects, CF Leody Taveras, debuted tonight. But like the M’s, they had a lot of young pitching prospects, but unlike the M’s, they couldn’t stash them on the 60-man player pool. It was supposed to be a crucial year of development for the likes of Hans Crouse, Yerry Rodriguez, and Cole Winn, and it’s not going to happen. The team looks considerably worse than they have in recent years, and would’ve loved to sell high on the likes of Minor, Lynn, and Kyle Gibson, but may be forced to just wait.
The fear I’ve had is that another wave of talent in Houston, Oakland, Anaheim, or all three would make Seattle’s job much, much tougher. By and large, that hasn’t happened, and while it still could, the gap between the M’s and their rivals doesn’t look certain to grow over the next few years. That’s an opportunity the M’s absolutely need to grab, and it makes watching Crawford or White struggle that much harder. The M’s don’t have unlimited time here, and they need to know who they can count on. They now have their CF of the future, and at least a couple of rotation slots seem in decent hands before the next wave of M’s SP prospects arrives. Yusei Kikuchi still receives an incomplete grade, as his stuff has ticked up, but he’s still incapable of pitching out of trouble. It’d be nice to know that Mitch Haniger will be back in some kind of reasonable shape in 2021 to check off another line-up box. But the infield is still something of a question mark, particularly if the M’s move the resurgent Kyle Seager. Justin Dunn still seems like a bullpen arm, despite his first unalloyed great game yesterday. The bullpen looks bad, but it almost seemed designed to fail.
The grade will improve if Shed Long and/or JP Crawford pull out of their tailspin and finish the year with overall production close to league average. That’s hard to do in 30 games given the hole they’ve dug for themselves, but they’re remarkably streaky hitters and a hot streak would soothe my pessimistic mind. The grade will improve if Marco Gonzales stays hot, and doesn’t repeat his Jekyll and Hyde 2019, and if Justus Sheffield finishes the year with an ERA/FIP/DRA under 4. It’ll improve if Evan White’s second-half K rate is under 30%, and his production is league-averageish. And it’ll improve if the M’s receive meaningful talent in deadline deals, probably involving Tai Walker and, less likely, Seager. Overall, I’d give them a C+/B-, but so much of that’s due to Lewis. What do you think? Am I overreacting to small samples on White/Long/Crawford? Too optimistic on Lewis and the rest of the AL West? When do you think this team can compete?
Game 29, Rangers at Mariners
Justus Sheffield vs. Jordan Lyles, 6:10pm
It’s hard to remember, but back before the 2011 season, the Astros were both 1) in the National League and 2) the laughingstock of the prospect/player development world. Their top prospect heading into the campaign wasn’t Dallas Keuchel (14th on some lists) or Jose Altuve (11th). It was Jordan Lyles, who’d done fairly well in AA as a teenager in 2010. The problem was that he was more of a command/control guy as opposed to a real power pitcher, and could have trouble missing big league bats.
That proved prescient, as he debuted in 2011 but couldn’t…miss a ton of bats, and thus wasn’t able to turn his legitimately good control into good overall results. It didn’t help that his team was awful, and about to get a lot worse. In three seasons from 2011-2013, Lyles couldn’t push his ERA under 5 despite a decent-ish FIP for a back-end starter. Like Kolby Allard last night – a guy with a remarkably similar profile, but for his handedness – Lyles struggled with men on base, and thus with a poor strand rate. He also struggled with HRs, which was somewhat notable given the time period – there were far fewer of them then than there are in recent years.
Thus, it didn’t look good for his career that he moved from Houston to Colorado. However, Lyles put together a very good first year with the Rockies in 2014. Shockingly, his HRs-allowed fell despite moving up to altitude, but there were some concerning signs: his walk rate started to climb. That problem only got worse the next two years, and by 2016, he was a bullpen arm/swingman. Since then, he’s been a consistent presence on the trade wire – he’s played for two teams in each season since 2017. Lyles has a four-seam fastball at 92, a hard change in the high 80s, a slider, and a curve – his best secondary. He’s traditionally had some sizable platoon splits, with a much worse K:BB ratio against lefties.
Justus Sheffield has had similar issues stranding runners, but has enjoyed a pretty good year despite some BABIP trouble. That’s a rare thing on this staff, as M’s pitchers/defense are not allowing many balls in play to fall in. It hasn’t exactly mattered. Still, it’s nice to see that Sheffield’s solid run hasn’t just been BABIP luck. The fact that he hasn’t yielded a dinger yet may be lucky, sure, but he’s done pretty well overall. He’s missing bats when needed, and his walk rate has come down nicely. Now, it’s just about consistency. Sheffield’s got to show that this is who he is now: a guy the M’s can count on for 2021.
It is interesting that unlike a number of M’s minor leaguers, Sheffield’s velo seems to be going the wrong way. He averaged a bit over 93 last year, and is just under 92 now. Maybe that’s just the result of the weird, shortened, two-part spring training – a factor James Paxton blamed for the injury that sent him to the Yankees IL. So far, it hasn’t really hurt him. It’s a different sort of pitch now, but his whiff rate on it hasn’t really changed (it’s still not *good*, mind you), and that sinker seems to be playing well with his slider.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haggerty, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: White, 1B
7: Fraley, RF
8: Lopes, DH
9: Long, 2B
SP: Sheffield
Yes, Jake Fraley’s back. The CF/OF the M’s picked up from Tampa made his debut last year, and while it didn’t exactly go well, he’s got more upside than guys like Bishop, who’s spot he’s essentially taking tonight. The spot he’s taking on the active roster is Dylan Moore’s. Moore will head to the IL with a sprained wrist.
Game 28, Rangers at Mariners
Nick Margevicius vs. Kolby Allard, 6:10pm
Nick Margevicius is coming off of two very solid starts, holding opponents to a .200 batting average and yielding only one walk in 9 1/3 IP. He wasn’t the original plan for a 6th starter, but he’s stabilized a rotation that desperately needed stabilizing there for a while. With high 80s velo, he’s not a big strikeout guy, but with control and some BABIP fortune, he hasn’t needed to be. With a slider and curve, he can give righties three separate pitches (four, if you include a rare change), and he’s kept them off balance a bit.
Kolby Allard, Texas’ starter, is a guy the M’s saw at the end of last year after a trade with Atlanta brought him west. With a 92 MPH four-seamer and hard cutter, he’s gained some of the velocity that deserted him in the Braves organization. That said, he hasn’t been able to find sustained success with the Rangers, despite decent K rates this year and limited HRs allowed in both 2020 and 2019.
The reason is that he’s been much more similar to Yusei Kikuchi than, well, Nick Margevicius. That is, he’s had a rough time on balls in play, but he’s also not stranding anyone once they reach. In general, this is something that should look more normal and less “unlucky” over time, but we’ve been saying that with Kikuchi for a while now. I’m perfectly aware that Matt Beaty probably should’ve struck out before his ground rule double, but Kikuchi seems to ping between dominant innings (like the 1st or 2nd yesterday) and train wrecks (the 3rd). We’ll see if Allard’s similar tendencies help the M’s today.
The M’s were never going to beat Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers last night, and I’m glad it doesn’t really matter. It’s magnified the fact that I’m watching these games the way I do Spring Training. It’s decidedly NOT Spring Training, but the procession of new call-ups and bullpen arms feels a bit like it. The good thing about it not being spring is that Ljay Newsome’s fantastic debut actually “counts.” The righty flashed a 93 MPH fastball, a curve, and a change, and mostly kept the Dodgers off balance. They’d never seen him, but hey, we’ve seen a lot of MLB debuts go south *quickly* and that goes for some highly touted prospects (Tarik Skubal’s debut comes to mind here). Congrats to him.
We may see another such debut today, as lefty reliever Aaron Fletcher’s been called up from Tacoma. Fletcher was part of the trade with Washington last year that sent Roenis Elias to the Nats; this is the trade that also netted the M’s Taylor Guilbeau, who pitched last night. Guilbeau’s come down with shoulder soreness, so he’s headed to the IL, as is Erik Swanson, who’s dealing with forearm tightness (uh oh). With minor injuries to Evan White (knee) and Dylan Moore (wrist), the M’s will be a bit shorthanded today.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haggerty, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, 1B
6: Lopes, DH
7: Gordon, 2B
8: Bishop, RF
9: Odom, C
SP: Margevicius
Game 27, Dodgers at Mariners
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Clayton Kershaw, 4:10pm
Kikuchi was scratched from his last start, but is back to face perhaps the greatest lefty of his generation. I can’t imagine how often coaches just tell lefties to copy Clayton Kershw. Not the weird wind-up; that’s not something any coach wants to see emulated. But the interplay between a straight, rising fastball, a diving curveball, and then a great slider in between. As M’s fans, we remember the team working with James Paxton to Kershaw-ify his delivery, a move that lasted a few years before he dropped his arm angle down in the minors and suddenly started throwing 98. But I think they may have done it again: I think the M’s have told Yusei Kikuchi to look at some of the things Kershaw’s done over the years.
For years, Kershaw’s three pitch mix worked so well because he had impeccable command of each (he also throws a change, because hey, why not). He was able to limit home runs and walks, and still get Ks at the top of the zone with the fastball, or the bottom of the zone with breaking balls. After his first few years in the league, his GB% was consistently high in large part because of those breaking balls; batters sitting fastball adjusted late, and ended up topping some of them.
Since 2017, the new drag-less baseball and declining velo meant that Kershaw was no longer the HR-suppressing guy he was at his 2011-2016 peak. He’s given up 73 HRs since 2017, and it hasn’t really mattered. Like Justin Verlander or Gerrit Cole, Kershaw has traded solo HRs for dominance in every other facet of the game. And unlike Verlander/Cole, he’s had to do it without top-shelf velocity.
Specifically, in 2019, Kershaw sat at 90-91 with his fastball and leaned in to becoming a junkball artist. He threw his FB 43% of the time, his slider 40%, and his curve 16%. The slider got whiffs and grounders, and the fastball kept hitters honest. In part due to his ability to get ahead, batters swung at over 60% of his sliders, but under 45% of his fastballs. If you’re putting Kershaw sliders in play more than Kershaw fastballs, you’ve pretty much already lost.
This year, he’s thrown *even more* breaking balls, and batters are hitting a staggering number of ground balls. He’s at 65% in the early going, 17 percentage points higher than last year. The key is that slider, with 88% of all balls in play getting smacked into the ground. It’s always been a cutter, at only 3 MPH slower than his FB last year, but a bit more than that now, as his FB velo’s returned somewhat. He’s tweaked the movement on that slider, getting a bit more drop despite throwing it at 88 (his FB’s now 92). Batters know it’s coming, but can’t quite stop.
I mention all of this because a lot of it sounds like Yusei Kikuchi’s revised gameplan. Gone is last year’s 86 MPH slider – a pitch that yielded 11 HRs last year. Instead, he’s now throwing a power cutter at 91-92, just a few MPH lower than his revved-up fastball. Last year, he threw that slider less than 30% of the time, but it’s now his #1 pitch. It doesn’t have the drop it once did, but it doesn’t need to; it’s functionally a fastball, and batters looking four-seam either top it or swing over it. And batters looking cutter aren’t ready for a four-seam – his whiff% on his fastball has doubled since last year. Like Kershaw, Kikuchi’s GB% has spiked.
Even better for Kikuchi, he’s yet to give up a HR. Even with the ground ball spike, he’s been quite lucky to avoid dingers thus far, but it’s worth noting that even if he wasn’t lucky on HR/FB ratio, he’d still be giving up fewer between an improved K rate AND all of those grounders. So why isn’t his ERA following the trend? The one thing Kikuchi hasn’t emulated is Kershaw’s consistently amazing strand rates. That’s going to take some additional work, even if Kikuchi’s absurdly low 55% strand rate should regress towards the mean.
1: Haggerty, LF
2: Moore, SS
3: Lewis, DH
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, 1B
6: Lopes, RF
7: Long, 2B
8: Bishop, CF
9: Odom, C
SP: Kikuchi
An off day for the struggling JP Crawford, while Evan White rests the knee he hurt on a foul ball in last night’s contest. Kyle Lewis gets a DH day, allowing Braded Bishop to play his more natural position of CF. I think the team’s technically better at 1B and SS at the plate, but the overall line-up is…not a great one. We’ll see if Kershaw takes advantage.
Kikuchi’s best friend on the team seemed to be Dan Vogelbach, so we’ll see how he’s adjusting to life without “Uncle Vogie.” Kyle Seager’s wife tweeted that her kids have never loved a teammate as much as they loved Vogie. I think all of these players recognize that a DH can’t stick on the roster with a sub .200 average and sub .400 SLG%, but I think a lot of players are missing a surprisingly good clubhouse guy. We’ll see if someone else steps up to fill the Uncle Vogie role, or if the clubhouse chemistry is a little different (not necessarily worse) going forward.
Game 26, Dodgers at Mariners: Roster Moves
Taijuan Walker vs. Luis Urias, 6:40pm
You can’t say the M’s didn’t let us know their patience was wearing thin. On August 9th, Ryan Divish wrote a story for the Times about the M’s frustration with Dan Vogelbach’s prolonged slump and how they couldn’t afford to keep him on the roster if he didn’t snap out of it. After an abysmal road trip, Vogelbach – hitting .094/.250/.226 – the M’s today DFA’d the husky DH who’d made the AL All-Star game a bit more than a year ago.
Since that power+patience fueled hot streak, he’s utterly collapsed. The HRs are few and far between, the result of an overly-patient approach that’s also pushed his K rate higher, and an out-of-whack swing that’s seeing him posting the high ground ball rates that sunk his first call-ups in Seattle. It’s been a surprisingly rapid, and surprisingly thorough, decline.
We’ve all seen players that flame out after a brief spark, and the M’s have been hurt by call-ups who are great for a couple of weeks, but can never regain that glory (Jeremy Reed and Willie Bloomquist are the go-to examples here). But in Vogelbach, I think we have a neat parallel to another M’s/Cubs 1B who made an All-Star team and will be a damned hard pub quiz questions years hence. Yes, the M’s have finally repaid the Cubs for the three-month success of Bryan LaHair.
LaHair was a lefty-swinging 1B who came through the M’s system as a competent gap-hitting guy who’d sometimes get hot. That’s not a great prospect profile, but that he had one at all was a minor miracle; he’d been a 39th round pick. He got a couple of games for a truly awful 2008 M’s team, but left after that, resurfacing with the Cubs years later. In 20 games, he hit reasonably well – enough, at least, that he’d come back in 2012 while the Cubs gave newly-acquired 1B prospect Anthony Rizzo more AAA seasoning. In the first half, LaHair hit .286/.364/.519 with 14 HRs and made the NL All-Star team. By the end of calendar year 2012, LaHair had signed a contract with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, and I think a move to NPB or KBO is potentially in Vogelbach’s future.
Vogelbach had a bigger prospect pedigree, but that was largely based on draft position (he was a somewhat risky 2nd rounder). Vogie detonated short-season and the Pioneer League, but once he moved up, his lines looked a bit like LaHair’s had a decade earlier: solid batting average, some patience (Vogelbach had more, to be fair), and a slugging percentage on the wrong side of .500.
That’s the guy the M’s called up back in 2016 after the mid-year trade. Vogie hit well in Tacoma, but didn’t have an ISO over .200. He was again a good overall hitter for Tacoma in 2017, but his ISO went down to .166. Given his speed and position, that wasn’t going to cut it in the majors, and to his credit, Vogelbach reinvented himself somewhat, ditching the short, contact-focused swing and essentially selling out for power. He killed AAA in 2018, which is nice, because in doing so he burned his final option year. It worked in the big leagues in 2019 for a while, but pitchers found a hole and relentlessly attacked it.
We’ll see if another AL team picks him up, or if he’ll ply his trade in Asia. For a guy who leaves the M’s with a career .199 average and .397 slugging percentage, I think there’s refreshingly little animosity directed his way. We all *wanted* this to work. It just didn’t.
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With Mallex Smith demoted and Vogelbach now gone, the M’s have brought up two righty hitting OFs to deal with a number of left-handed starters in the coming days. First, there’s UW product Braden Bishop, who had a rough go in 20 games last season, but is probably the best CF defender on the M’s roster by a good margin. They’ve also brought in Sam Haggerty, whom the M’s got off of waivers from the Mets months ago, and who was drafted/developed initially by Cleveland. Haggerty’s actually a switch hitter, so has some versatility once the M’s face another RH starter or just a reliever later in games. Haggerty has a bit more plate discipline than Bishop, but is similarly lacking in over-the-fence pop. Bishop made more contact and hit for higher average in the minors, while Haggerty stole more bases.
The M’s face lefty Julio Urias, once a top-5-in-baseball prospect. The lefty came up at the age of 19, but injuries and the sheer depth of the Dodgers staff have slowed his ascent. Coming off of TJ rehab last year, the Dodgers opted to use Urias out of the bullpen, and he was a formidable reliever for them. But they’ve moved him back to the rotation, seeing if some of the gains he made in velocity would stick around. So far, they have. He’s sitting 94 with his fastball, up from 93 in 2016-2018. His best pitch is a change at 85. It’s been good for years, but never had much of a gap in vertical movement from his standard, rising fastball. That’s changed a bit this year, as the change has more drop than in prior years, something he’s been able to do despite throwing it much harder than before. Yes, he has a slider and curve, but it’s the change that’s enabled him to run pronounced reverse platoon splits in his career.
I had a lot of good things to say about Tony Gonsolin in yesterday’s post, and he went out and shoved last night for the Dodgers. He didn’t get the win, AND he was utterly outpitched by Marco Gonzales, but it seemed to be enough that he’ll stick around in the Dodger rotation. But that’s not why I bring him up. I was thinking yesterday about who he reminded me of, and for non-Iwakuma four-seam-and-splitter guys, the go-to example is probably Matt Shoemaker. But there’s another starter who throws plenty of splitters but is a fly-ball pitcher despite it: tonight’s starter, Taijuan Walker. Pitch tracking has improved baseball analysis, I think, and it’s certainly something I lean on heavily in these posts. But it kind of fails us here, where we really need it: Why is Gonsolin so effective compared to Walker? I mean, I think Walker was pretty successful 2017, I’m not saying he’s a failure as a pitcher. But Gonsolin has been ridiculously hard to hit, while Walker’s first M’s tenure was beset by HR trouble? The differences are so subtle, but they’re picked up on by hitters remarkably quickly. Ah well, maybe Gonsolin’s in for some dinger problems of his own in the coming months/years, but I’d love for Walker to have a dominant streak like Gonsolin’s. Hell, he’s certainly shown flashes of it this year.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, 2B
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: White, 1B
7: Lopes, DH
8: Haggerty, LF
9: Bishop, RF
SP: Walker
Game 25, Mariners at Dingers…er, Dodgers, sorry
Marco Gonzales vs. Tony Gonsolin, 4:10pm
The Mariners hit four home runs and scored 9 – count em NINE – runs, but fell to the Dodgers 11-9 after Justin Dunn was hit hard literally and then figuratively. The bullpen did what it’s done so often this season and refused to stop the Dodgers from adding on, but the M’s line-up kept putting pressure on the Dodgers’ pen, and had chances to win the game late. That they didn’t only helps their draft position, so I guess it’s what passes for a win in 2020. It was, if nothing else, very watchable.
Today, their ace faces off against another of the Dodgers’ unheralded back-of-the-rotation guys, in this case, FB/Splitter guy, Tony Gonsolin. I’ve made no secret of the fact that the splitter is my favorite pitch, as it mixes the brilliant grounders-and-whiff majesty of the change-up with effectiveness against same- and opposite-handed batters. It’s the pitch that dominated the game when I was young (Mike Scott in 1986, for example), and it’s the pitch that made Hisashi Iwakuma one of the most compelling Mariners of the last ten years.
I’ve written about this a lot, but I loved the fact that Iwakuma could throw a pitch out of the strike zone the overwhelming majority of the time, and STILL induce a ton of swings on it. Not only was he able to get whiffs by doing this despite underwhelming stuff – he didn’t mind if batters DID hit the ball. Out-of-the-zone balls put in play are, statistically speaking, really terrible for batters. If you can throw a pitch where the *best* outcome a hitter can manage is a weak ball in play, you’re doing something right.
Gonsolin throws a four-seam fastball with solid rise/backspin, and then a harder splitter than Kuma’s. So this is Kuma + 5 MPH of velo? Well, no. All of that backspin means the splitter doesn’t dive quite like Kuma’s, and as a result, Gonsolin is definitely a fly ball pitcher. And even in 2020 in Dodgers Stadium, that’s something of a dangerous game to play (as we all saw last night). Even his splitter is something of a fly ball/air ball pitch, which is interesting. On the plus side, he too gets some weak swings on it.
Batters find it hard to resist Gonsolin’s split, though it’s not quite as tempting as Kuma’s, despite being thrown a bit higher. Lucky for Gonsolin, his slider’s much better than Kuma’s ever was, and he’s working on a curve with steep vertical drop, too. Like Kuma, all of this has resulted in very low BABIPs and BA-allowed, which has allowed Gonsolin to pitch around the occasional HR (sounds like Kuma). I think he’s a very tough match-up, and better than Ross Stripling. If there’s a silver lining here, he’s made two starts this year and hasn’t pitched 5 IP yet. If the M’s get 4 IP or more against the underside of the Dodger bullpen, hey, that’s all you can ask.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, RF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: Vogelbach, DH
7: White, 1B
8: Long, 2B
9: Gordon, LF
SP: Gonzales
Game 24, Mariners at Dodgers
Justin Dunn vs. Ross Stripling, 6:40pm
The M’s visit the Dodgers today, allowing the two Seager brothers to face off for the first time. Due to injuries and the comparative rarity of these interleague games, the two somehow haven’t yet played a game against each other in the regular season. Nathan Bishop and the Dome and Bedlam blog have been highlighting the degree to which Kyle’s been underrated by Mariner fans, and I’m coming around to this view. At first, I thought it seemed odd; Kyle’s beloved by just about all M’s fans I’ve ever encountered. But when you think about his stature in M’s lore compared to, say, Jay Buhner – a lesser ballplayer who became a legitimate nationally-known figure in the late 90s – I start to understand the point.
I think Kyle’s weird mid-career dip in production hurt his standing a bit; he seemed ready to take off after his brilliant 2016, but then shifting and bulking up seemed sapped his batting average and thus contributed to a drop in overall value. Still, he’s come back from all of that and been one of the leaders of this year’s group, and he finished 2019 looking very strong as well.
The other, perhaps larger, reason Seager’s gone underrated has been the glut of ridiculously good AL West 3Bs during his M’s tenure. This is the Duke Snider problem in action – a deserving player goes relatively unnoticed because others at the same position are having historically great careers/seasons. Seager’s first peak occurred in 2014, but that was during the heyday of Adrian Beltre’s late-career surge with Texas. Beltre out fWAR’d Seager in both 2014 and 2016 on his way to a hall of fame career. Josh Donaldson switched off of catching in 2010-11, and had his first full season in 2013, Seager’s second full year in Seattle. Donaldson put up over 7 WAR, and 13 in two seasons before moving to Toronto and getting somehow even better. Beltre retired and Donaldson’s been injury-prone in recent years, but somehow, it hasn’t mattered. The Astros developed Alex Bregman, who’s been worth over 16 fWAR in his last two seasons in Houston, and the A’s have replaced Donaldson with Platinum-Gloved Matt Chapman, worth “only’ 12.7 WAR the last two years.
The same sort of thing may develop with JP Crawford. Crawford’s plate discipline has been great, and his defense unbelievable, and it may get him to a place where he can post 3-4 WAR seasons year in and year out. That’s incredibly valuable. It might allow him to be the 3rd best SS in the division. Carlos Correa’s been streaky and missed time, but as an MVP candidate when he’s healthy. Marcus Semien somehow became an all-world defender in a 7.6 WAR year last year. And now the Angels’ low-K afterthought, David Fletcher, is working on another 3-WAR season? Fletcher hasn’t really played much SS, and now he can do this?
Crawford’s been a streaky hitter, and he’s shown a variety of approaches. Before his injury last year, Crawford showed good pop, with an ISO of .189 in the first half. This approach came with a few more Ks than he’d like, and in the second half, he improved his plate discipline – taking more walks and striking out less. That approach has carried over into 2020, and it’s very much like Fletcher’s in Anaheim. But it’s *so* powerless (his ISO in 2020 is .061) that it saps his overall value. He’s hitting the ball on the ground much more often than last year, or in his previous stints with the Phillies, and while his average and OBP are up, his ceiling’s probably down. Maybe it’s a trade worth making? It’s just going to be tough to keep up with the other shortstops in what’s suddenly baseball’s deepest position. Hell, Corey Seager is almost an afterthought now with Tatis Jr. going nuclear in San Diego, Bo Bichette coming on in Toronto/Buffalo, and Correa/Trevor Story/Semien/Lindor/etc. all starring for their teams.
Ross Stripling was a 5th round pick by the Dodgers back in 2012, coming up as an unexciting depth guy with solid but not amazing control. Something clicked around 2016, and Stripling’s had nearly immediate success in the big leagues. He’s not overpowering, but he’s never had an ERA or FIP over 4. It’s never been under 3 either, but for a guy the Dodgers were counting on only as a 5th starter, that’s pretty darned good.
Stripling, a righty, throws a four-seam fastball from a high release point at about 91. It’s arrow-straight and has a bit more vertical movement than average, but it’s not some high-spin thing; it’s pretty much dead-on league average in that regard. He has a change, and then two solid breaking balls: a slider and curve. He’s used the slider more in his big league career, but has had much more success with the curve. He’s tried using the slider to lefties, but they’ve done quite well on the pitch, which is nice, as they’ve struggled somewhat with his fastball. Flip that for RHBs: they see his fastball quite well, but struggle with the breaking stuff. Overall, righties have used that FB success to post much better numbers than lefties over the course of Stripling’s 400 IP+ career. The key has been keeping them off-balance with his change, a pitch he rarely throws to righties.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, RF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: Vogelbach, DH
7: White, 1B
8: Long, 2B
9: Lopes, LF
SP: Dunn