Game 55, Athletics at Mariners
Logan Gilbert vs. James Kaprielian, 1:10pm
The M’s swept the Texas Rangers, and now face a better, though beatable, team. As I’ve said several times already, the M’s have shown an admirable ability to beat the teams they should beat – they’re better than, say, the Orioles, and they’ve won many of those series (Note: principle not valid vs. Detroit). They’ve struggled with teams like Houston and LA, but the entire sport struggles with those teams. When the M’s have really collapsed, they’ve done it comprehensively, and the obvious tell is that they start losing to the bad teams, which is very frustrating until the realization dawns that the M’s are a bad team, too. This has been the lesson of years like 2010, and the realization can actually be helpful, as it reduces the sting of each loss.
All of that to say that the M’s have fashioned themselves – through two months – into a modern baseball rarity: a truly mediocre/average team. The league seems bifurcated between great teams and “rebuilds” and while there are quite a few teams near the M’s in terms of winning percentage, they’re clearly faking it until they make it. The Astros are a few games ahead of the M’s, but they’re a good team who’s going through a rough patch. They’re not as good as they used to be, by any stretch, but they’re still able to crank out decent pitchers. The *Yankees* are kind of in the M’s neighborhood, but this is even more of a mirage. The Yanks have an amazing line-up that’s simply not quite clicking yet, and their pitching has been legitimately good. The M’s, still self-identifying as in some pre-contending purgatory where they want to show improvement but point to a timeline as a reason to hold off on acquiring more really good players, aren’t like the Yankees at all.
It gets tougher with teams like the Blue Jays, closer in both approach and record to the M’s, but even there, the differences are clear. The Jays’ big core prospects are now in the bigs, and have gotten over some of their adjustment periods (the one Jarred Kelenic’s still in, for example). They’re clearly attempting to contend, and can point to the free agency pitching acquisitions to prove it. It’s not going poorly, per se, but they’re in a rough division. Cleveland may be the closest comparison, though again, they’re built around pitching, and have seen what few hitting prospects they’ve either developed or acquired in trade scuffle. And despite all of that, they’re contending anyway, and the idea that they COULD contend despite not really trying has been a key component of THEIR messaging to fans. It’s a different situation, even if it leads to some of the same short-term strategies.
I think I’ve been clear that the M’s could’ve really helped themselves and their process by being a bit more aggressive on the FA market, or on the trade market when teams like the Cubs have decided to sell off vets. They will *certainly* need to be more aggressive this coming off-season. I’m skeptical about many parts of this rebuild, but I have to say that if the M’s are able to maintain this level of play, the season will be a success according to the M’s own stated strategy. Ideally, if they’re able to maintain a ~.500 level of play, they’ll do so for reasons other than a freakishly timely-though-bad offense or solid bullpen management by Scott Servais. They should ideally show us something that influences what types of players they can be aggressive over in free agency. Does Logan Gilbert figure it out? Are Dunn/Sheffield more consistently good? Whither JP Crawford? What do you do with Haniger? There’s a lot left to learn about this team, and I’m still thankful that they don’t make learning completely awful to actually watch, the way they did in 2010 or 2015.
1: Kelenic, LF
2: Lewis, CF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Crawford, SS
6: Fraley, RF
7: Godoy, C
8: Nottingham, DH
9: Walton, 2B
SP: Gilbert
Jake Fraley’s back, as you can see. The M’s optioned Eric Campbell back to Tacoma.
James Kaprielian had his best start in the majors against Seattle his last time out. Will the M’s have better AB’s against him, having just seen him a few days ago? Seems like it’d help, but it didn’t really hurt Mike Foltynewicz, and, if anything, it seemed to help John Means. I know I bang on about this all the time, but the M’s batters remain dead last in MLB with a BABIP of .250 (that’s come up in the past week!), and their pitchers are below average with a BABIP-allowed of .279. I’m not sure if this is just park, just noise, or a fascinating interplay between park and the team’s baseball ops people figuring something out, but hits are hard to get in T-Mobile. That’s not always great for the Mariners, but it has been a lifeline to a rotation that’s sometimes struggled, especially on the road.
Tacoma lost a tough one in Reno, 7-6. They took a 6-2 lead to the bottom of the 9th, but gave up 5 to lose in walk-off fashion. The R’s got HRs from Dillon Thomas, Cal Raleigh, and Luis Torrens. The R’s have hit a ton of HRs recently.
Arkansas dropped a pitcher’s duel to Tulsa, 2-1. Tyler Herb was great for the Travs, tossing 7 IP with both runs allowed on 6 H, 2 BB and 5 Ks.
Everett also lost 2-1, this time in the bottom of the ninth to the Vancouver-by-way-of-Hillsboro Canadians. Juan Then tossed 6 scoreless innings giving up just two hits.
Modesto beat Visalia 6-3. Damon Casetta-Stubbs tossed 6 no-hit innings for the Nuts, and Victor Labrada went 1-3 with two walks.
Game 53, Rangers at Mariners
Justin Dunn vs. Mike Foltynewicz, 7:10pm
We just saw Foltynewicz a few weeks ago when the M’s visited Arlington, so hopefully this one goes about the same – the M’s got to Folty for 4 runs in 6 2/3 IP. The last time we saw Justin Dunn, he had just about the most Dunn game ever, finishing with a BABIP of exactly .000; he gave up one hit, and it left the building.
The great Eric Nusbaum asked a question this morning on twitter, and it sent me down a stats rabbit hole. Eric’s youngster asked if there are more foul balls or fair balls (balls in play) in baseball – a great, simple question that just ends up highlighting how baseball keeps changing. For much of baseball’s history, there have been more balls in play, with somewhat fewer fouls balls. But in another example of balls in play becoming increasingly rare, they’ve now fallen behind foul balls. In recent years – 2009-2014 or so, there were about 18% balls in play, with fouls coming in about 16-17%. In 2017, the two results finished in a statistical dead heat, but with fouls just barely overtaking balls in play. Thus far in 2021, there’ve been fouls on 17.5% of pitches, but balls in play have fallen down to 16.8%.
This is the same basic process, though much less severe, as what happened to the ratio of hits to strikeouts. In 2002, there were about 12,000 more base hits than strikeouts, or a ratio of almost 1.4 to 1. Since that time, hits have more or less stayed in the vicinity of where they were – around 42,000-43,000 (though they dipped in 2014, the peak of the little batting ice age). What’s changed has been the unbroked growth of strikeouts, which finally passed base hits in 2018, and which doesn’t show any sign of slowing down or stopping; the ratio is now 1.15:1 *in favor of strikeouts*. That’s the modern game, and it’s why so many people are worried, and looking for rule changes to bring balance back. That was the theme at Baseball Prospectus this week, and this tweet thread from their EIC Craig Goldstein goes through them. It started with the restrictor plate piece that Craig wrote with friend-of-the-blog Patrick Dubuque. It’s not an idea I’m completely sold on, but it’s a great article, and it’s worth thinking about. In the meantime, for all fans who’ve grown tired of the binary of home runs and strikeouts, might I suggest some Mariners baseball? The M’s are 29th in MLB in strikeout rate, ahead of only the Rockies, whose offseason and general outlook got their GM canned. The M’s feature the lowest team BABIP, so you’ll get to see fielders doing a lot of successful fielding, and while their pitchers give up some dingers, they give up far fewer than the Rockies or Astros, and essentially the same rate as the World Champ Dodgers.
1: Kelenic, LF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, DH
4: Lewis, CF
5: France, 1B
6: Crawford, SS
7: Godoy, C
8: Campbell, 3B
9: Walton, 2B
SP: Dunn
Reno beat Tacoma in 10 innings 8-7 last night, despite a HR from Cal Raleigh. Jake Fraley hit a dinger of his own. Darren McCaughan had a rough outing, giving up 6 in 6 innings, but that’s often how it goes in Reno. Today, Vinny Nittoli started a bullpen day for the R’s, and they’re winning fairly easily.
Tulsa beat Arkansas 7-3. The Travs got their three runs on three solo HRs. Devin Sweet started today, and K’d 6 in 5 IP, giving up 3 R.
Everett got blanked by Vancouver 3-0. Michael Limoncelli made his pro debut, giving up 2 R in 1 IP. Brandon Williamson starts today’s game.
Modesto lost to Visalia 4-2, despite two more hits for the red-hot Cade Marlowe. Sam Carlson’s starting tonight’s rematch.
Game 52, Rangers at Mariners
Justus Sheffield vs. Jordan Lyles, 7:10pm
The M’s try to keep some momentum going after a legitimately good win against a flawed-but-surprisingly-decent Rangers club. Chris Flexen pitched his best game in the majors, keeping the Rangers scoreless for 7 innings, and the bottom of the M’s order, heretofore a source of more embarrassment than run production, came through. Let’s hope it sparks something for guys like Tom Murphy.
Today’s game is a match-up between two former top prospects who seem to have settled in to back-of-the-rotation status. As I mentioned the last time these two faced off, Lyles was once the top Houston Astros prospect, before they were in the AL, and way before they became a player development force. Lyles has been a pitch-to-contact starter for years, in Colorado and now Texas, but has consistently – and severely – underperformed his FIP. His career FIP is 4.63; not great, but something you can live with in the 4-5 spot, especially given Lyles’ durability and rougher pitching environments. But his ERA is 5.25 in over 1,000 innings. Again, maybe beggars can’t be choosers in places like Colorado and a rebuilding Texas club, but that’s a fairly big discrepancy.
The problem is that Lyles can’t strand runners. His career mark is under 66%, and that’s despite a late-career improvement. He had a legitimately good year in 2019, spurred by improvement in that problematic metric, but he still hasn’t been able to reliably get out of innings. The problem may have something to do with his approach: the pitchers who strand 80%+ are guys like deGrom, Verlander, and Snell – guys who can get strikeouts with men on base. That’s harder for someone like Lyles, whose fastball is only 92-93, and is perhaps his worst pitch.
Lyles has responded to the erosion in his fastball’s results by embracing his inner junkballer. Against righties, he’ll throw more sliders than fastballs. That slider’s a hard one at 85-86, and has great vertical drop compared to his fastball. It generates a higher proportion of swings than his fastball does – and it’s not just the slider. Both his change (fairly normal) and curve (not normal) do too. This is essentially the Zach Plesac plan, of having a show-me fastball, and either keeping it out of the zone or throwing the bendy stuff in order to get weak contact. As batters generally have worse outcomes when they put non-fastballs in play, it kind of makes sense, especially if you’re struggling to out and out MISS bats.
His fastball’s now kind of fascinating to me. It gets comparatively few swings against it, and then the results of those swings are starkly divided between whiffs (he’s got a decent whiff rate on it now for seemingly the first time in his 11 years in MLB) and hard, hard contact (he’s given up 7 HRs on it already). All in all, the results aren’t pretty, but he could probably live with that if the rest of the plan was working. It’s not. His breaking stuff is being put in play, and too many of them are falling in for hits.
That’s my worry here. One of the big reasons for the offensive desert we’re watching in 2021 is a drop in BABIP, which is a topic Rob Arthur explored today at BP. What’s worse, there’s no place in the game that BABIP is lower than at T-Mobile park. A big part of *that* has been a reduction in the value of fly balls, or all non-grounders. A trend towards playing CFs deeper than before (and it looks like guys who are new/don’t appear to be as fast are positioned the deepest) coupled with the deadened ball has cut down even more on extra-base hits, which were always in short supply at T-Mobile. Now, it’s essentially impossible to get a base hit on a fly ball in Seattle without it going over the fence. It’s not like the M’s OF defense is world-class. It’s not bad, by any stretch, but it’s just not the first group you’d think of when you see how few balls drop in for hits.
All of this is good news for Lyles, who has a GB% well below 40%. It’s less helpful for Justus Sheffield, though he, too, is getting a few less grounders this year. The problem for Sheff hasn’t been base hits, though, it’s been homers. After giving up just 2 in 2020, he’s already given up 5. Worse, 4 of them have come off of sliders, which has been his outpitch since he was in the minors. It’s been effective against lefties and righties alike, and that’s allowed him to throw a lot of them, especially when ahead in the count.
But batters seem to be developing an approach against him: they’re sitting on the slider. To be fair, this isn’t exactly new. Sheffield’s always struggled to generate a lot of swings on the sinker (or, before that, his four-seam), but just like with Lyles, that’s not necessarily bad. If he can get called strikes, or if he can get weak contact on the slider – which batters swing at nearly *60%* of the time – then this is a feature, not a bug. Unfortunately, none of that is working right now. In 2020, poor results on the slider – which batters couldn’t lay off of – propelled him to his best season. So far this year, he’s not getting many called strikes on the fastball, and batters are battering the slider. Some of this may just be bad luck, but given that his slider’s the most likely pitch he throws to be hit in the air, it’s a calculated risk: more fly balls lead to more outs in play, but also more home runs.
1: Kelenic, LF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: France, 1B
6: Crawford, SS
7: Godoy, DH
8: Murphy, C
9: Walton, 2B
SP: Sheffield
The Rainiers are back in action tonight in Reno. Darren McCaughan gets the ball for Tacoma against former Rainier and ill-fated trade return Zach Lee.
Tulsa beat Arkansas in 13 innings last night by a 6-2 score. It was a pitchers duel most of the way through, with Ian McKinney’s 6 scoreless innings starting it off. He K’d 8, giving him 37 Ks and just 8 walks in 23 IP thus far. He’s still just 26, and probably needs to be the next guy up to Tacoma if they can find a way to play normal baseball and not just operate as Seattle’s off-site overflow bullpen. Today, Penn Murfee starts for the Travs.
Everett got walked-off by the Vancouver Canadiens-of-Hillsboro (they’re sharing a stadium with the Hops while the border remains closed) 5-4. The Frogs managed just four singles, but made them count, and also took advantage of three Vancouver miscues. Today’s starter was supposed to be George Kirby, who hasn’t appeared since May 14th, leading to some worries from M’s fans like Darren Gossler (whose payroll tracker I’m sure you’ve seen). Earlier today, Kirby was shown as the starter, and if you look at MiLB.com, he still is. However, the M’s Player Development twitter, which posts starting line-ups, has the starter as 2019 6th rounder Michael Limoncelli. That in and of itself is noteworthy, as Limoncelli underwent Tommy John before the draft, causing him to fall to the M’s in the 6th. This’ll be his professional debut. Hopefully, Kirby will come in after Limoncelli throws an inning or two to get back into the swing of things. It’s something to keep an eye on, though, especially if Kirby’s pushed back again. There’ll be no Julio Rodriguez, though, no matter who pitches: he’s joined the Dominican Republic team in the Olympic Qualification tournament. The R’s Eric Filia will be on Team USA.
Modesto detroyed Visalia, 9-3, thanks to 3 hits from Cade Marlowe and a 5 IP, 10 K performance from Adam Macko. The Nuts scored 5 in the first, 1 in the second, and 2 in the third to put it out of reach. Visalia is just 5-16 on the year. It’s not going to get any easier for them: today’s starter is strikeout maven, Taylor Dollard.
Game 50, Mariners at Athletics
Robert Dugger vs. James Kaprielian, 12:37pm
Yesterday’s win was an impressive one. Logan Gilbert pitcher around a rough inning, limiting the damage, and turned the game over to a bullpen that did a remarkably good job. The offense did just enough, and was led by Jarred Kelenic. It all added up to a series win against the AL West leaders in their own ballpark. The M’s aren’t yet good, but they’ve done some good things – won some big series – this year.
Today’s getaway day looks like it’ll be a bullpen game for Seattle, with Robert Dugger getting the start. Dugger, the one-time M’s draft pick turned Florida Marlin (what is it with Dipoto trading so frequently with the Florida teams?) turned Mariner, pitches off of his breaking stuff – a mid-70s curve and a slider around 80-81. After having control issues in his first call-up back in 2019, he’s improved markedly in that regard. Unfortunately, he hasn’t yet fixed the HR problems that have plagued him, despite adding a few ticks in velocity.
Opposing him is one-time UCLA standout and oft-injured Yankees/A’s prospect, James Kaprielian. Kaprielian missed two full years with arm injuries, and has thrown 50 innings in a season all of once since being drafted in 2015. He features a four-seam fastball at 93-94 with a bit of sink, a very rare sinker with – yes – more sink, and a really good set of secondaries: his out-pitch, a hard slider at 86, a seldom-used curve, and a fascinating change that works like a splitter. That change has exactly the same amount of horizontal run as his fastball, but it dives down remarkably hard. By statcast, it’s a pretty freakish pitch. But hey, he doesn’t use it as much as the slider. The slider’s great, don’t get me wrong. It has a higher whiff rate, and when batters make contact, it’s more likely to be on the ground.
Given his bendy repertoire, injury history, and the need to limit innings, Kaprelian’s only going 5-6 innings per start. I…I suppose the same is technically true for all non-deGrom pitchers, but still. The M’s can again plan on seeing the A’s bullpen, which is simply not the strength it’s been in recent years. The M’s bullpen ranks just ahead of Oakland by fWAR, 1.4 to 1.3. Can’t remember the last time we could say that; even in Diaz’s unreal 2018, the A’s got Blake Treinen’s equally unreal 2018 along with Lou Trivino’s breakout, some solid Yusmeiro Petit, etc.
1: Kelenic, RF
2: Haniger, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: Crawford, SS
6: France, 2B
7: Walton, LF
8: Campbell, 1B
9: Godoy, C
SP: Dugger
Eric Campbell’s the former Met who hadn’t played in the bigs since 2016. It’s not quite the Sean Kazmar story, or even the Scott Kazmir story, but it’s pretty cool for Campbell. Not sure it’s all that great for the M’s predicted runs scored, but it’s not worse than Donovan Walton starting in left field.
Game 48, Mariners at Athletics – Tacomafication
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Frankie Montas, 6:40pm
The M’s tumble continues, the line-ups remain underwhelming and underpowered, and now they’ve got to start a series with another of the AL’s better teams. This isn’t going to get easier, though it’s heartening to know Dylan Moore at least is about ready to come off of the IL, and Ty France is officially back tonight.
The M’s offensive struggles are getting all kinds of attention, which is never a good sign. The increase in league-wide K rate and the dramatic reduction in league batting average is seen most in the increasingly-common no-hitters, but it’s also a problem for watchability. It’s harder to promote the game when an entire team – OUR team – is hitting below .200, and just looks lost against good pitching. Velocity and strikeouts continue their inexorable climb, leading to calls to make changes – from subtle to dramatic – to slow or reverse these trends, which are approaching 20 years old.
Today, Craig Goldstein and Patrick Dubuque have a great article at Baseball Prospectus arguing for restrictor plate for pitching – this was the device that limited the speed of stock race cars to avoid some of the big accidents that hit NASCAR in the 1980s. Like all changes, it had unintended consequences, which is something we’ve been talking a lot about this year with MLB’s perhaps not completely thought through alterations of the baseball.
Craig and Patrick propose two changes: first, a cap of 12 pitchers on each team’s roster – no more carrying 15 relievers. Second, pitch clocks that are enforced, preventing max-effort relievers from taking a minute between pitches to ensure their max effort really is maximum. They believe this would prioritize the development of starters who could work longer into games, reduce the velocity that seemingly every reliever throws at, and generally bring some balance back to the game – helpfully avoiding a bunch of late-game pitching changes as a side benefit to the pace-of-play worriers.
It’s an interesting argument, and one I’ve been thinking about all day. But I think it has a problem with the way that it structures its incentives; I think it’s going to make every big league club operate like the M’s in 2021, or, in other words, it would lead to Tacomafication. Trader Jerry not only likes to make a ton of trades at the big league level, he’s extraordinarily active on the waiver wire. To provide depth for an influx of new relievers/pitchers at the big league level, the M’s have to have *more* depth in AAA for the M’s to choose from. This culminated in the M’s using a jaw-dropping 57 pitchers in the 2017 season. Well, the 2021 season is not yet a month old, and the Tacoma Rainiers have now used…27 pitchers. They show no signs of slowing down.
With injuries, Covid scares, ineffectiveness, and the need to limit innings on starters following last year’s short season, demand for relievers is up. As Craig and Patrick write, teams are loathe to let reliever pitch in back-to-back games, which helps explain why pitchers are taking up a bigger share of the roster and why the added roster spot has generally gone to a pitcher. The Rainiers essentially act as the off-day program for the back of the M’s bullpen. We’ll see Aaron Fletcher and Wyatt Mills come up whenever there are injuries, and then they go back down after they pitch. All of this means that *Tacoma* then has pitchers who’ve pitched the previous day (for a different team), necessitating the increasingly-regular calls to Everett and/or Modesto. Or, failing that, the waves of minor league free agents and waiver claims that have given Tacoma Brooks Pounders, Ryan Dull, Taylor Guerrieri, etc.
But that’s just Jerry ADHDipoto in a pandemic year. What does this have to do with BP proposal? Well, I think the easy way for teams who were probably getting the shakes just reading the proposal to have the benefit of 16 relievers while rostering 12, is to churn the back of the ‘pen like never before. Or, like Tacoma. Teams will yo-yo the back of the bullpen, a process that may have gotten easier with the restructuring of the minor leagues keeping affiliates closer to their big league team. I think it actually *will* return some semblance of the baseball we knew from the prehistoric days of 2012 or so, in that the best 3-4 relievers won’t get yo-yo’d, and they may need to pitch in back to back games. But teams are going to want to play match-ups, to space out innings for their top set-up guy, and generally use more arms than the new rule would seem to allow.
So, what’s wrong with that? Things change, the back of the 26-man and 40-man have rarely been safe, developmental slots, and much more often the site of Jacob Nottingham-style precarity. If the proposal makes MLB more watchable even at the expense/inconvenience of AAA/AA, isn’t that worth it? In theory, maybe – it depends on how much you care about your local AAA club, perhaps. But here’s my judgment after three weeks of watching this in practice: it SUUUUUCKS. To act as Seattle’s remote bullpen, the Rainiers are essentially prevented from having any semblance of a rotation. Logan Gilbert pitched 5 innings in AAA, and was called up. Only one member of the Rainiers is qualified for the ERA title, and it’s still May. And that pitcher (Hector Santiago) wasn’t on the roster on opening day, which was also in May. The Rainiers have lots of relievers because they have to: they are running bullpen days for most games, essentially whenever Santiago and Darren McCaughan (who started the year in Arkansas) pitch. This is crazy, and it’s no way to develop anyone.
The M’s seem to know this. It’s not just that the games get weird or unattractive. It’s that you push the part of the game you’re ostensibly trying to fix down a level, and make it way worse. For fans, this isn’t great, but the annoying thing is that it might actually work for the M’s. If you’re dedicated to this brutalist baseball, you can segregate your approach. The M’s have a bunch of starters who’ve gotten off to fast starts in Arkansas, but with the exception of McCaughan, they’re leaving them there. Arkansas is for starting pitchers to develop and play normal baseball (5,6,7 IP starts). Tacoma is for 2 IP outings at most, for waiting on the nightly call-ups, and introducing yourself to the day’s crop of low-A call-ups and waiver claims.
This can work fine as a crutch, and I fear that teams would use it as such. I still don’t think this actually works to develop things like big league starters, and I don’t think it really helps get pitchers from the roster-churn spots up into the Kendall Graveman tier of effective, non-churning elite. It doesn’t end the merry-go-round of anonymous, 95-throwing relievers who, thanks to the magic of option years, yo-yo up and down all year – it ossifies it, it locks it in.
Some teams can get around this by spending in free agency, and others can either get great relievers in trade, or by relying on their own development group. That must be nice. But I’ve seen the 2021 Tacoma Rainiers, and fear that they’re a model we may see repeated if roster limits are imposed. Does that mean we shouldn’t try it? I dunno; it’s possible you could enforce similar or complementary limits down the line. I get worried about injuries further down the chain, so perhaps you relax them a bit as you get lower on the MiLB ladder. I worry that none of this will necessarily bring back base hits, which seems to be the thing people want, rather than HRs and mis-hit flies. But, ultimately, we won’t know until it happens.
Whhiiiich, it probably won’t. I think neither side on the CBA negotiation would see a lot of upside in the restrictions, unless you could convince ownership that it’d help pace of play and TV viewership. But MLB tv viewership seems remarkably inelastic with respect to things like time-of-game or percentage of the roster devoted to the back of the bullpen. It moves when a team is awful, and they know that, but I think owners view the modern bullpen strategy as a way to get more-or-less decent/average production for a fraction of the cost, and that’s why they’ll stick with it.
Thoughts? Concerns? Counter-arguments?
1: Kelenic, LF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: Crawford, SS
6: France, 1B
7: Godoy, C
8: Nottingham, DH
9: Walton, 2B
SP: Kikuchi
Today’s roster churn/moves: the M’s claimed 3B Travis Blankenhorn off of waivers. He’d been with the Dodgers system, and has been optioned to Tacoma. Sam Haggerty moves on to the IL with an injured shoulder. Former Met/Oriole Logan Verrett is now with the M’s? He’d pitched in Korea in 2018, and signed a minor league deal with Oakland the following year, but I don’t think he pitched in 2020.
Taylor Trammell was named the AAA-West player of the week, which seemed like an obvious choice.
AAA Tacoma has the minor league stage to themselves tonight with all other leagues off. They kicked off at 6:05, with the Rainiers facing Round Rock yet again at Cheney. Starting for Tacoma is the aforementioned new claim of the day, Logan Verrett.
Game 47, Mariners at Padres – Getaway Day
Justin Dunn vs. Yu Darvish, 1:10pm
It’s getaway day in San Diego, as the M’s head to Oakland tomorrow. After 5 straight losses and a line-up that can charitably be called “sub-optimal,” the M’s just need to get out of this series and this city. As many have said, the M’s simply aren’t in the Padres class right now, and now they’ll face Yu Darvish, one of the Pads best starters. They’ve been comprehensively outclassed, and in the final game of the series, they’re 3:1 underdogs, and that seems kinder than it needs to be.
Defensive miscues, a bout of wildness, and some well-timed hits helped the Padres pull away from Seattle yesterday, so now it falls to Justin Dunn to try and be the stopper that the M’s desperately need. To do so, he’ll need to be just about perfect given the line-up supporting him.
Yu Darvish is again one of the top starters in the league, putting that weird 2018-19 hiccup behind him and pitching to a 2.80 FIP and an ERA solidly under 2. He’s still striking out over 30% of batters, and his walk rate remains low. He uses his 6-7 pitch mix to dial in just what he needs, and it’s helped him strand nearly 90% of runners. That may regress some, but his BABIP is incredibly low, in large part because he’s leaned into his new park and the new ball.
Like some other pitchers the M’s have seen recently, Darvish pitches backwards, relying on a cutter or slider (depending on who you ask) as his primary pitch. It’s…it hasn’t been great, in and of itself, but as a breaking ball (or breaking-ish fastball), it can induce some weaker contact. MLB calls it a cutter and sees a high BA-against, but nothing crazy. Brooks calls it a slider, combining his slider/cutters, and sees it as a decent but unspectacular pitch. What this approach has done, though, is help make his fastball a dominant, dominant pitch. The whiff rate on it is through the roof, but so too is the angle batters hit it (when they’re able to hit it). For years, the average angle on his four-seam has been in the low-20s, but it’s now at 36%. He’s not getting elevated contact with it, he’s getting *mis-hit* contact with it. That helps explain the low BABIP and the great HR/9 mark he’s put up. His GB rate is 41% for his career, and has been fairly reliably bouncing between the high 30’s and low 40s. It’s now at 30. He’s daring batters to hit the new, deadened ball out of Petco, and each attempt results in either a strikeout or a pop-up.
It’s worth remembering that Darvish moved from Chicago for a package of not-that-heralded prospects and a bottom-of-the-rotation starter. No, it wasn’t quite the Nolan Arenado heist, but then, Darvish still has a few years on his deal. Not only did the Padres get a Cy Young contender, but they also got his personal catcher, Victor Caratini, while protecting their big prospects like MacKenzie Gore, Luis Campusano, CJ Abrams, Ryan Weathers, and Tucupita Marcano. Must be nice.
1: Walton, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: Godoy, C
6: Haggerty, LF
7: Nottingham, 1B
8: Mayfield, 2B
9/SP: Dunn
Brady Lail was claimed on waivers by Philadelphia, but Jose Marmolejos cleared waivers, and will head to Tacoma.
Speaking of the Rainiers, they beat the Round Rock express 9-5 in a game that featured 7 HRs. Jake Fraley and Luis Torrens hit back to back HRs to begin the game. Round Rock hit 4, but Hector Santiago pitched effectively – giving up 3 dingers to go 5 IP with 3 runs allowed. That’s a classic Santiago game right there. Max Roberts, just called up from the low minors, was great in his AAA debut, tossing 2 scoreless with 3 Ks. He may head back to Modesto so the R’s can get another pitcher a chance. Today, that “another pitcher” is Bernie Martinez, who’ll be making his AAA debut as well.
Arkansas beat Corpus Christi 6-2 behind Devin Sweet’s best game of the year. The change-up artist had control issues in his first game of the year, but didn’t walk anyone last night, going 7 IP giving up 2 R (1 ER) and striking out 8. Jake Scheiner hit his 7th double, and Dom Thompson-Williams hit his first HR on the year. Tyler Herb makes his second start in his return to the org.
Everett lost to Spokane 7-5, as the Indians scored 4 in the 5th to take the lead. Julioooo went 1-4, Brandon Williamson gave up 4 R in 4 2/3 IP, striking out 9. Juan Then starts today’s game.
Modesto won a slugfest at Inland Empire, 10-7. IE racked up *6* errors in the game. Noelvi Marte went 0-5, but Trent Tinglestad went 2-4 with a double. Damon Casetta-Stubbs starts for the Nuts tonight.
Game 46, Mariners at Padres
Justus Sheffield vs. Ryan Weathers, 5:40pm
The M’s sit at 21-24. They’re on a losing streak, culminating in last night’s 16-1 drubbing. So I’ll stipulate that it’s been a painful week, and the Covid drama of the past few days has definitely not helped. But this is about as pessimistic as I’ve seen the M’s fanbase in a long time, and…that’s odd. I mean, look: I’ve been pessimistic for years/decades. This team just *does* that to people. But as much as I found the over-the-top optimism of April to be misplaced, I’m not sure the burn-it-all-down feelings are warranted, either.
This team wasn’t supposed to be good, and is not, in fact, good. I feel like there needs to be a mismatch between expectations and results to wring this much emotion out of a scarred fanbase. I think part of it must be the daily ledger of transaction that feeds the perception that the team wasn’t fully ready to go, that the roster had pretty massive holes – not to compete for a title, but to just go out and play in/complete a 162 game season. That’s warranted, and everything’s cascading down to Tacoma, who seem destined to beat their own record for most pitchers used in a season.
Part of it has been the slow starts for both Logan Gilbert and Jarred Kelenic. Gilbert’s struggled against two anemic offenses, and Jarred Kelenic’s shown flashes, but is 5 for his first 34. This frustration is understandable, to a point. I think the team built up these two – and especially Kelenic – as instant saviors, and they’re not. I think those of us who roasted the team for manipulating Kelenic’s service time probably fed into that, with the arguments that the M’s were making their current team worse by not bringing him up. Well, now he’s here, and the M’s have been no-hit and swept by the Detroit Tigers. This is an emotional response, though, not really a rational one. I’m still bullish on Kelenic and once his ~.150 BABIP corrects, he’ll be a solid MLB hitter; that process could start today.
Gilbert’s a bit more of a concern, just given how hard and how consistently he’s been hit by batters who haven’t done much hitting. The plane on his four-seam has resulted in an absolute ton of line drives and fly balls, and that’s just hard to do in today’s game, deadened ball or no. I still think that starting from a framework of really good control, 94 mph velo and some breaking stuff gives him a very, very high floor. I think with a few tweaks, he can be a more than serviceable mid-rotation piece.
The biggest unanswered question with all of this is: are the M’s the team that can make those tweaks? Are the M’s the team that can get the most out of Kelenic’s undeniable talent? Are they the team that plug roster holes intelligently? The M’s are in this position – really since about 2002 – because a series of front offices could neither reliably identify the talent *they already had* or build depth to support that talent through free agency and trades. The team has developed a few transcendent talents. The team’s brought in some amazing players in free agency. What they couldn’t do was fill in around that, and they had a number of chances to do so.
Part of the problem there’s been that different years have had different incentives and goals. At times, it was go all-in and win now, and that’s how you lose Shin-Soo Choo, Adam Jones, or, more recently, Pablo Lopez and Freddy Peralta. At other times, the club was content to build around high draft picks, but for a variety of reasons, that didn’t quite work out. There’s no doubt that the current rebuild has left the team with way more talent than they’ve had in years. I don’t think Kelenic’s the same as Dustin Ackley, as hyped as Ackley was. But it’s still not clear that the M’s are any closer to figuring out how to fill in around him.
This is strange. This FO has tried to build so many different TYPES of team, and has partially succeeded at it, but they still can’t make those teams great. I still remember the way Dipoto talked about building a 1970s style team in 2018, one led by Dee Strange-Gordon and designed to hit for high average. They…kind of did that, but it wasn’t enough. Now, they’ve got an extremely 2021 team with more power, plenty of patience, and a very low average, but that’s not exactly working either. I hope they know what they want, because they can’t waste an offseason: they need to bring in players this winter to help the new, Kelenic-led club compete. They need pitchers, a deeper bullpen (I know there are a lot of injuries, but it often feels like Graveman and some question marks), catching, IF help, etc. All of this is predicated, though, on figuring out what’s going on for players like Evan White and, to a lesser extent, JP Crawford: players at the early side of prime age who seem to be regressing.
Today’s starter for the Padres, Ryan Weathers, is interesting in that he has some slight similarities with Logan Gilbert, but has fashioned a very different approach. Weathers throws 60% four-seam fastballs at around 94. So far, so Gilbert. His primary breaking ball is a slider that doesn’t have much in the way of spin or spin efficiency, but it’s produced decent results. He’s got a third pitch – a change instead of Gilbert’s slow curve – but he’s primarily a four-seam/slider guy.
Gilbert approaches each PA like a power pitcher: he’s trying to strike you out, and his fastball’s a big part of that – both to get ahead, and to get whiffs at the top of the zone. His control and confidence mean he’s in the zone a lot, and thus gets a lot of swings. That’s helped keep walks low, but all of those swings on fastballs has meant that a few of them get hit really hard. Weathers throws the same pitches about the same percentage of the time, but seems to know – or has learned – he’s not going to overpower people with them. His fastball’s produced great results despite the fact that it has extremely low spin (lower than Gilbert’s below-average FB), and thus sinks quite a bit. He doesn’t always use it like a sinker – he’s fine throwing to the top of the zone – but it’s helped him run normal to above-average ground ball rates. You can’t give up HRs on grounders, so that’s clearly helped. His slider’s harder than Gilbert’s, but it’s equally low-ranked in terms of spin, and it’s used more like a cutter. Where Gilbert uses his to get swings out of the zone, Weathers keeps his *in* the zone, either to grab a called strike or to generate some balls in play, a little like Zach Plesac did. It’s possible that Weather has just gotten lucky and Gilbert unlucky, but Weathers’ transition to MLB has gone quite smoothly, despite the fact he’s only 21.
1: Kelenic, LF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nottingham, 1B
6: Crawford, SS
7: Murphy, C
8: Mayfield, 2B
9/SP: Sheffield
Today’s transaction report includes the news that the M’s just plucked Ty Kelly from the Long Island Ducks in the independent Atlantic League. Kelly was in the M’s org years before, having a great campaign in Tacoma before being traded for SP Sam Gaviglio in mid-2015. He went on to get some big league time with the Mets and Phillies, and played in the WBC for Team Israel. What’s notable here is that he retired from baseball, opened a food truck, and talks/writes about the game online. I had missed the part where he unretired to play in an indie league, and then it turns out he didn’t quite make it to the indie league, being pulled back to affiliated ball.
The M’s also traded the recently DFA’d Domingo Tapia to the Royals, and picked up RP Danial Zamora, who’d just been waived by the Mets. Zamora is a lefty slider-specialist, so figures to be used as a LOOGY. His fastball’s only 88, but he really pitches off of the slider – throwing it about 3/4 of his pitches. He’ll go reinforce Tacoma, as will Wyatt Mills and Aaron Fletcher, who’ve been optioned back as Anthony Misiewicz and Robert Dugger are back from the Covid/contact tracing IL.
In the minors, Tacoma’s coming off a win in Round Rock, as Darren McCaughan went 6 solid IP to help the R’s to a 6-1 win. Cal Raleigh homered and doubled, and Taylor Trammell, Dillon Thomas, and Jantzen Witte all doubled. That’s doubles in consecutive games for Raleigh. Jantzen Witte was back at 3B after being called in to pitch in the previous game, a 10-5 Express victory. Kind of shocked that was the first time a position player pitched for Tacoma, who’s churning their roster as much as Seattle. No word on the Tacoma starter tonight, but Round Rock starts the aforementioned Sam Gaviglio.
Arkansas swept a double-header in Corpus Christi on the 20th, with Ian McKinney pitching a (7IP) CG and striking out 11 in game 2. Last night, the Hooks won an extra inning contest 7-6. Jake Scheiner and Joe Rizzo both had two hits, including a double. McKinney seems like he’s due for a promotion, especially given the state of Tacoma’s rotation, and given the fact that he’s struck out 29 in just 17 excellent innings. Today, Devin Sweet gets the start for the Travelers.
Everett beat Spokane 8-6 thanks to HRs from Carter Bins and Jack Larsen. Bins also added a double. Stephen Kolek started and went 3 scoreless. The M’s giant Brazilian reliever Igor Januario gave up a run in relief, but I hadn’t heard much from him in years – glad to see he made a huge leap from the DSL team in 2019 all the way up to high A this year. Julio Rodriguez went 0-4, but had two walks. Brandon Williamson gets the start tonight. He’s yet to give up a run in 8 IP and has 17 Ks.
But if it’s impressive K rates you want, check out Modesto starter Taylor Dollard. He got the loss in last night’s 3-2 contest against Inland Empire, giving up 3 runs in 4 2/3. But he struck out 11, giving him 29 on the year in just 13 2/3 IP. He was a 5th round pick in the short 2020 draft out of Cal Poly. Noelvi Marte went 2-4. Tonight’s starter is TBD.
Game 45, Mariners at San Diego – Deep Breath
Chris Flexen vs. Chris Paddack, 7:10pm
Sooo, the M’s got swept by the Tigers, made a bunch of roster moves, then had a player test positive for Covid, necessitating a ton more moves. This has not been a good week for your Seattle Mariners. The offense was shut down by a Tigers staff that came in with serious problems, and while the M’s faced the heart of their rotation, it’s not like they did anything against the bullpen, either.
Faced with a catching tandem that has combined to “hit” .156/.202/.305 *and* which has struggled defensively, the M’s decided to option Luis Torrens down to AAA Tacoma, and pulled back Jacob Nottingham from Milwaukee. The latter has spent the month of May in limbo, being pulled between the M’s and Brewers, and his itinerant life on the fringes of a MLB roster looks both weird and deeply unhappy. It’s one thing to be demoted, but it’s almost Kafka-esque to be caught between demotions a thousand miles apart. You could head home and have a beer and lament your lot, but literally, where is Nottingham’s apartment right now? Does he have one? Nottingham can also play 1B, the position he’ll be at tonight, so for additional catching depth, the M’s have called up Jose Godoy from Tacoma. He’s done well in Tacoma, with 2 HRs and a very low K rate thus far.
Luis Torrens has not always looked so lost defensively, a point made by Connor Donovan in this post at LL. That said, he’s had problems with the running game in the past, as we saw last August. Just before the trade that brought him to Seattle, the M’s faced Torrens with the Padres. The M’s didn’t have a ton of SB opportunities, but took just about all of them, swiping four bags in the game, including 3 straight opportunities in one inning, kicked off by some rare Kyle Seager thievery. The M’s pitchers aren’t helping here, but it’s probably a good time to have Torrens work on his defense under the slightly less glaring lights of AAA.
In addition, the M’s DFA’d 1B Jose Marmolejos, who offered very little defensively, and wasn’t hitting. That’s…a tough guy to keep on the roster of a struggling team. They also DFA’d Brady Lail, who’s been on and off rosters now several times over the past year, and sent OF Jake Fraley on a rehab assignment.
So yesterday’s transactions – like so many involving the M’s – involved a rueful head nod, and the hopes that Tacoma’s coaches can help a player in a tailspin after Seattle’s could not. But today’s! Oooh boy. Ok, so Robert Dugger, Drew Steckenrider, Anthony Misiewicz, and Will Vest are all on the IL with unspecified *cough COVID* issues. Replacing them are the back-from-injury Keynan Middleton, Aaron Fletcher, Wyatt Mills, and Yohan Ramirez. For good measure, they brought up IF Eric Campbell. This is what can happen, I guess, when the maybe 50% vaccinated M’s have a confirmed case in the bullpen. I know management has tried to impress upon the team how important getting the shot is, and there are very attractive incentives at play for the team. The M’s remain unmoved. Some of that is, as Seth Kolloen writes, because the FO hasn’t really earned the players’ trust after the Mather incident this winter. Some of it is that weird, entitled, sense that no sense of shared responsibility may infringe upon convenience and “choice” – as skewered in this brilliant post by David Roth after the Mets struggle to get players vaccinated came to light.
This feels different, though, in that the M’s are voluntarily depriving themselves of such choices/liberties as “being able to leave their hotel.” This feels like a bizarre reflection of the current/fraught culture wars: the M’s choices leave them clearly, rightly *less* free to make choices, and by so doing, they can complain bitterly about powerful entities *depriving* of that freedom. The added layer here is, as Colin O’Keefe notes, many of the just-IL’d are kind of on the fringes of the roster. They could be replaced at any point with the equally/slightly-more fringe players now in Tacoma, but the Tacoma roster is 100% vaccinated. Players generally are loathe to give up a roster advantage like that, but here we are. And yes, many of these players may have been partially vaccinated, or haven’t hit 2 weeks past the second shot yet, but still: it’s odd to put yourself at a competitive disadvantage like this.
So, tonight the M’s start a series in San Diego, with the M’s facing one-time phenom and now bottom-of-the-insanely-good-rotation guy, Chris Paddack. As you’ll remember, Paddack rides his at-times unreal change-up to success despite average FB velocity and despite breaking stuff that hasn’t developed as fully as the cambio. It worked in his rookie season of 2019, but, like many pitchers, he was absolutely sunk by a tidal wave of HRs last year. His rising, high-in-the-zone fastball was easy to elevate, and with the ball playing the way it did last year, not even San Diego’s park could keep them in play. Has the new ball helped him? Yes, definitely. His HR rate has fallen by more than half, from over 2 per 9 last year to under 1. He’s still not quite able to profit from this, though, as he’s struggled to strand runners, and as his walk rate’s grown from microscopic to merely small. He’s posted even-ish platoon splits in his career, but is running reverse splits this year. This may be a better match-up for righties, but it’s possible that he’ll struggle again with his fastball to RHB/LHB alike. That said, as we saw in the John Means no-no, the M’s often have trouble with change-ups. Let’s hope those problems don’t resurface.
1: Kelenic, LF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: Crawford, SS
6: Nottingham, 1B
7: Murphy, C
8: Walton, 2B
9/SP: Flexen
Game 44, Tigers at Mariners – No-Hit Again
Logan Gilbert vs. Tarik Skubal, 7:10pm
I think Spencer Turnbull is a better pitcher than is commonly understood, and he pitched a very good game last night. But this M’s offense is pretty bad right now, and it may get worse: Dylan Moore has been moved to the 10-day IL, with Jack Mayfield (a glove-first SS) coming back up to the M’s. After their second no-hitter of the month, the M’s team average dipped below .200, as they enter play tonight at .199 collectively. I said it in the off-season, but this was always going to be a problem, and I’m not sure what the M’s can do to solve it. Yes, the league itself has seen average plummet, and there are some good teams having trouble stringing together base hits. But they work around their lack of average by hitting for power, or, in the case of Cleveland, by pitching well enough to compensate. The combination of a deadened ball, an extremely tough home park, and a line-up that’s either learning on the job or trying to shake off rust is a combination that’s going to make no-hitters through 6-7 innings a very, very common occurrence this year.
Jarred Kelenic looks a bit lost, but he’ll come around. I’m still hopeful about Logan Gilbert as well, and tonight’s a good opportunity to see if both can take a step forward. All of Gilbert’s strikeouts came on his slider, and that’s a pitch he can lean on in tight situations. His fastball got hit hard against Cleveland, so hopefully facing an even more anemic offense can give him the confidence to use it, to keep it elevated, and follow it with his somewhat rare slow curve.
Today’s opposing starter is Tarik Skubal, a hard-throwing lefty out of Seattle U. MLB.com had a good story about this sort-of homecoming (he’s from Arizona). He was an intriguing prospect during his sophomore year, but blew out his elbow during the year, requiring TJ surgery. He came back for his junior year after his rehab and was extremely up and down – he’d alternate a dominating start with one where he couldn’t find the plate. He struck out nearly 12 per 9, but walked over 6 per 9. The Tigers grabbed him in the 9th round, and almost immediately, Skubal put it all together.
He was great in high-A, but then, lots of pitchers look good in the FSL. So, the Tigers moved him to AA later in 2019 and all he did was strike out 82 in just 42 1/3 IP. Reports on his velo were glowing, and nobody seemed to be able to put the ball in play against him. Without a minor league season last year, the Tigers brought him to Detroit, and while he managed to strike out more than a batter an inning, he was beset by hard contact, giving up 9 HRs in 32 IP. It was a call-up, in the middle of a pandemic, with a juiced ball. I think everyone was fine giving him a pass on a less-than-stellar debut.
But this year, everything’s gotten worse. He’s given up *11* HRs – most in baseball – in 33 innings, essentially re-juicing the baseball through poor location. In a league where hits allowed are rare, he’s suddenly allowing more than a hit an inning. By statcast, he’s one of the easiest pitchers to barrel up, and he’s allowed far more hard contact than average. Worse, that strikeout rate’s in free fall, as he suddenly has a *below average* rate. Oh, and the walks are back. It’s a small sample in a lost season for a bad ball club, but this is…not what he wanted to see, and not what the Tigers vaunted pitching development wanted. I said much the same thing about Casey Mize, and while Mize has certainly been better this year, he looked like a different guy the other night.
Skubal’s got a varied repertoire, with a four-seamer at 94, a hard slider at 86, a curve, and a splitter that he learned this past off-season, but which he’s recently shelved for a change. His slider’s his out-pitch, but unlike last night where both pitchers had carbon-copy sliders, tonight’s pitchers throw very different pitches. Skubal’s slider is fascinating, in that it’s thrown with very low spin, and it’s thrown with almost no spin efficiency. It’s a gyro-ball, with almost no movement of any kind. That can still be effective – even Felix Hernandez used to have one like that. But it’s lack of movement would pair really well with a sinker with armside run or a four-seam with tons of rise. Skubal doesn’t really have that, though his four-seam does have some interesting horizontal movement.
Still, the grades on his fastball and slider as a prospect were 70 and 60 (per Fangraphs), and it’s kind of interesting to see just how little MLB hitters care. He’ll look good at times, but the mistakes add up. I wonder if he needs to throw a different breaking ball against righties, the prime source of his rather grim stat line. It’s fine against lefties, but righties hit it well. The problem is that the same’s true with his fastball. I’m not sure if he’s tipping it, or if his motion allows righties to see it better, but something’s not quite right.
1: Kelenic, LF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Murphy, C
6: Crawford, SS
7: Mayfield, 2B
8: Haggerty, DH
9: Marmolejos, 1B
SP: Gilbert
I’ve given Detroit crap about the quality of the Tigers’ line-ups, but they’ve done just enough. The M’s are coming off a no-hitter, again, and yet have Sam Haggerty DH’ing and about as rough a bottom-half as we’ve seen in a while. I mean…ouch.
Salt Lake destroyed Tacoma 9-3. Cal Raleigh had 2 hits, and Taylor Trammell had 1. They’re off tonight.
Arkansas lost in extras to Corpus Christi, 10-8. Jake Scheiner had 3 hits, including 2 doubles. Today’s game’s been rained out.
Spokane stopped the surging Everett Aqua Sox, 5-2. Matt Brash was good but wild, walking 4 in 3 2/3 scoreless, but striking out 5. David Hill struck out 7 in 3 2/3 for Spokane, but the win went to none other than Riley Pint, the former #4 overall pick out of a Kansas HS, and a guy beset by control issues that have kept him in the low minors. Good to see him pitch a nearly-clean inning; he did give up a walk. Hope he can put it together someday. Levi Stoudt starts for Everett tonight.
Modesto destroyed Inland Empire, 14-4. The Nuts got dingers from Cade Marlowe and Noelvi Marte, both of whom are looking like they might need more challenging opponents soon. Marte had 3 hits on the night, and both players have OPS’s above 1.100. Josias de los Santos was great in 5 IP, giving up 1 unearned run.
Game 43, Tigers at Mariners
Justin Dunn vs. Spencer Turnbull, 7:10pm
So, after throwing some shade on Casey Mize AND the Tigers anemic offense, the Tigers hit some HRs and Mize shuts down the M’s easily. You win some, you lose some…to the *Tigers.* Ouch. Seriously, this has been one of the most impressive things about the M’s this year: they win the winnable games. They’re really doing pretty well at beating the teams they should beat, and playing decently enough in the other games. No one expects them to win every game against the Dodgers or Astros, but they haven’t slipped up too many times against the Orioles and the like. Hopefully, they can recover from last night’s humiliation and start holding down this Tigers’ line-up.
Tonight’s opposing starter is righty Spencer Turnbull, a 2nd round pick out of HS back in 2014. He features a good mid-90s fastball, a sinker, and a slurvy, diving slider at around 85. He has good velocity, but a combination of a low-ish release point and what looks like some cut on the four-seamer means that everything he throws is sinking, almost like Justus Sheffield in his first year with the M’s – he has a four-seamer, but that doesn’t mean it’s a rising, top-of-the-zone type of a pitch. He’ll mix in the odd curve and change, and as usual, I’m intrigued by his Pablo Lopez-style, tons-of-armside-run change, and wonder why he doesn’t throw it more.
His slider is really a carbon copy of…Justin Dunn’s. Both are thrown from a near-matching release point (Turnbull’s is fractionally lower) and both have 4″ of horizontal movement and -1-2″ of vertical movement, putting them both pretty far from league average. Dunn’s is thrown about 1mph slower than Turnbull’s, so it has a bit more movement, but we’re literally talking about fractions of an inch.
They’re extremely similar pitches thrown in much the same way. So why are their fastballs so different? As I mentioned above, Turnbull appears to cut his four-seamer, which may be why it shows up with really good spin rates but comparatively little movement: it has much *less* vertical rise than average, while Dunn’s has more (Dunn *also* has slightly above average spin), and Turnbull has essentially zero horizontal movement, while Dunn has more or less what you’d expect for a four-seam thrown at his arm angle. Both players throw remarkably similarly in terms of velo and motion, and both just took very different approaches to being different.
What I mean by that is that both players want their fastball to do something – *anything* -different than what batters are expecting. Turnbull’s cut gives the pitch the appearance of sink, and it’s helped him post really high ground ball rates, and has helped fuel Turnbull’s almost freakishly low HR rates. Dunn’s taken the opposite road, and so his fastball rises more than you’d expect given his arm angle. This is what helps produce mishits and extremely *low* ground ball rates (coming into tonight, Dunn’s GB% is under 30%). Then, having diverged about as much as two very similar pitchers can, they come back and throw identical sliders as their outpitch, but neither guy strikes out batters at even league-average rates.
All in all, it’ll be a cool match-up to watch. Both have taken their distinct approaches and come in with very similar ERAs. Turnbull has a sparkling FIP thanks to low walks and almost no HRs, but he’s struggled a bit to strand runners. As we’ve talked about, Dunn’s big thing is his low BABIP thanks to all of those popped-up balls in play, which help him pitch around his still-troubling lack of control.
1: Kelenic, CF
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, DH
5: Crawford, SS
6: Moore, 2B
7: Torrens, C
8: Marmolejos, 1B
9: Haggerty, LF
SP: Dunn
Jarred Kelenic gets his first start in CF tonight, with Kyle Lewis DH’ing.
Tacoma beat Salt Lake last night 7-3 behind yet another dinger from Taylor Trammell. Jimmy Yacabonis got the win in relief (it’s all relief; they pretty much have to do bullpen days each day) with 4 Ks in 2 2/3 scoreless. Today, Reeves Martin, a 2019 draft pick called in to support a weary bullpen, gets the spot start against the Bees’ Packy Naughton, whom I mention because I never miss an opportunity to type “Packy Naughton.”
Arkansas kicks off a series with Corpus Christi today with Alejandro Requena starting.
Everett opens a series in Spokane over at Avista Stadium. Matt Brash starts for the Frogs. Spokane’s spent so long as a Rangers affiliate when they were in the NWL, but with the shifting around in the minors, they’re now a Rockies affiliate. The Rockies’ #3 and #5 prospects (Matthew Toglia and Aaron Schunk) are at the IF corners for the Indians, and they also have a couple of pitchers rounding out the Rockies’ top 10 list. They all have the unenviable task of trying to slow down Julio Rodriguez. Good luck with that.
Modesto starts a series with Inland Empire tonight.