Game 152, Mariners at Athletics
Chris Flexen vs. Cole Irwin, 6:40pm
The M’s continued their mastery over the A’s last night to pull into a tie for 2nd in the AL West, and for third in the Wild Card standings. The Rays took care of Toronto earlier, so we’ll hope for good news out of New York, and focus on the game at hand here in Oakland.
We’re just at the point in the season – and I think this is *especially* true this year, following the shortened 2020 mini-campaign – where teams are fraying at the edges. The M’s bullpen had been unreal for months, but while still great overall, has shown some signs of slipping. The A’s starting rotation essentially pitched the A’s into playoff position, but has been worse over the past 30 days. The M’s historic “clutch” performance? It’s still there, kind of, but it’s fading, if something as elusive and intangible can “fade.”
But that’s not all bad. It’s time for the M’s to become a good team without resorting to “I don’t know how, but some random player in the midst of a terrible season will hit a game winning HR tonight,” in lieu of a sustainable model. No, we’ve had enough dingers-ex-machina endings, as awesome as they’ve been (again, this has been the most *fun* season in recent memory). So it’s great to see Ty France end the season on a high note, and even better to see Jarred Kelenic put game after game together where he looks like an offensive force.
Kelenic, like Abraham Toro, who had a similar run after coming over, still has below-average exit velo, and that’s a bit of a red flag. He’s not striking out like Evan White or Taylor Trammell, but it’s elevated enough that he’s either got to learn to hit for power (something he’s showing some aptitude for at the moment), or he’s going to have to maintain a very high BABIP in a park that makes that very hard to do. Kelenic’s season-long BABIP is .211, which is just ridiculously low. It took a hot streak to get it over .200, so yeah, he’s been unlucky. But the problem is that the M’s have several hitters whose approach look similar, and who consistently run very low BABIPs: this is Kyle Seager’s big problem.
Seager has never had a full season BABIP over .300, and hasn’t been above .250 since 2018 (.251!). The reason is that, despite hitting fewer ground balls than average, teams know he’ll pull the ones he does hit. Thus, Kyle’s BABIP on grounders is below .200. Well, Kelenic’s BABIP on grounders is way, way worse than Seager’s. It’s not always going to float dangerously close to .100, but it may never be high, exactly.
And that’s why the most helpful sign from Kelenic recently has been the drop in his GB%. Kelenic’s K% is actually up in September compared to August, but his GB:FB ratio went from 1.67 in July to 1.42 in August to just 0.70 in September. Along with that shift has been a decrease in his pull rate and an ability to spray line drives from gap to gap. That’s an approach that can work. That is, in a nutshell, Ty France’s deal. France is having a great year in many ways, and his low K% is one example of why. But he had a more or less average K rate last year, and still put together a solid season at the plate: France’s approach has led to consistently high BABIPs. He’s at .330 for his career, which is pretty much exactly what he’s running now. He’s not fast, he hits more grounders than Kyle, and his pull rate has been high (2020) and medium (2021) and it hasn’t changed much. He doesn’t have incredible exit velo, either. He just consistently hits the ball on a line. That’s something Kelenic has shown flashes of, and it’s one way to turn what’s been a forgettable rookie season into a long, successful career.
A more easily obtainable outcome, and maybe something like an intermediate step for Kelenic, would be to take Chris Taylor’s approach. Taylor has a nearly identical K rate, and similar numbers in terms of exit velo and hard hit rates. Like France, he has a good idea of the strike zone, and lays off of balls (leading to a good walk rate). But Taylor essentially sells out for power. He has less true raw power than Kelenic, I’d guess, but he gets into balls and barrels them up more than France does. Thus, Taylor has a consistently high BABIP as well, even with a lower batting average due to the higher K rate. Are there some red flags there? Yeah, probably, but Taylor’s a very good player who’ll be a sought-after free agent. If Kelenic’s second act is to refine his approach and hit mistakes harder, that’d be pretty good – no need to go from 0-60 in a year.
1: Crawford, SS
2: France, 1B
3: Haniger, RF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Torrens, DH
6: Toro, 2B
7: Kelenic, CF
8: Murphy, C
9: Moore, LF
SP: Flexen
Tacoma lost 8-4 loss to El Paso. Tyler Herb took the loss in his first start up from Arkansas. The R’s start a series at Round Rock on Thursday.
Game 150, Mariners at Athletics
Tyler Anderson vs. Sean Manaea, 6:40pm
Thanks in large part to Jarred Kelenic’s dominant performance in KC, the M’s still have a chance to play meaningful games here in Mid-September. Because they face the A’s, now two games ahead of them, and because the Rays and Jays are playing each other…well, the odds are overwhelmingly against. But it’s fun to look at different scenarios and find *some* path to a wildcard, however remote.
It’s also better to watch these games now that they’re winning them according to the pre-season plan: with good starting pitching and their prospects producing and flashing potential.
In September, Kelenic looks like a completely different player. It’s true that Evan White ended 2020 on a high note in terms of OPS, but his K rate was still alarming; even the hot streak contained a red flag. That’s why it’s great to see Kelenic producing without the contact issues he had in July/August. He’s hitting the ball extremely hard and making contact, a pretty cool combination. Hopefully Cal Raleigh can get it going soon.
With most of the minor league season ending yesterday, I thought we’d take a look at some of the system’s standout performances. Tacoma ends their regular season tonight, but as their late season onslaught resulted in them having the best record in AAA-W, they’ll be in the playoffs starting later this week.
No other teams made it, though Everett’s hot start gave them the best run differential in their league (the M’s stole all of Everett’s run differential luck, I guess), and Modesto had a very good record.
Low-A Modesto:
Position Player of the Year: Noelvi Marte, duh.
The M’s new #2 prospect lived up to high expectations and hit for serious power as a teenager in the full season league. He really went toe to toe with Marco Luciano of the Giants, a top-10-in-baseball type of prospect, and fully earned a promotion to Everett. 17 HRs by a teenager in 99 full-season games is impressive, no matter the league context. Sure, he’s got some whiffs, and there’s talk he may move off SS, but all of those issues are ameliorated by power. He showed that and the ability to not just hang around but succeed in full season ball.
Pitcher of the Year: Sam Carlson
The team’s leader in IP isn’t going to wow anyone with his raw stats, but some times it’s enough to come back and demonstrate health as much as any other tool. I think a lot of us were starting to wonder if he’d ever get to triple digits in innings pitched. He has now, and has a year to build on for next year – a make-or-break campaign.
Pop-up of the Year: CF Corey Rosier, a 2021 pick out of UNC-Greensboro hit .390/.461/.585 in 118 ABs.
High-A Everett:
Position Player of the Year: I mean, it’s Julio Rodriguez, but we’ll save him for AA and go with Cade Marlowe. The center fielder out of West Georgia put up a .911 OPS in high-A, and hit a total of 26 HRs and a system-best 108 RBIs in just 105 games. Yes, it helps having Julio on base in front of you, but this was an eye-opening season in terms of run production. He even stole 23 bags. There are serious swing-and-miss issues, but when you hit 60 XBH and drive in over 100, I’ll let it slide.
Pitcher of the Year: George Kirby
He only made 9 starts at the level, but he made them count, and edges out Levi Stoudt. Before the year, this was seen as an absolutely loaded rotation, and that was more or less borne out by their actual results, but we still had some surprises. Juan Then struggled, while Matt Brash dominated. And in the middle of it all was George Kirby, refining that great control and missing bats. He didn’t have the raw whiffs of Brash, but he only walked 8 at Everett and gave up a single dinger across both of his MiLB stops. He was expected to be too good for this level, and that’s exactly what he was.
Pop-up of the Year: Ben Onyshko
Onyshko’s a reliever from Alberta, and like fellow eastern-European-named Albertan Adam Macko, Onyshko misses bats. His numbers at Everett aren’t great overall, but anyone with a season line of 75 Ks in 46 2/3 IP between high-A and AAA gets some attention. His walk rate wasn’t great, but also not terrible. Instead, he was undone by sequencing and dingers, though again, three of those came in the video-game-baseball of AAA-West.
AA Arkansas:
Position Player of the Year: Julio Rodriguez
Again with the easy answers. Julio got off to a great start in Everett, and then headed off to the Olympics to play for the Dominican Republic. Upon his return, his forced his way to AA and just like Brash, he kicked it into another gear. Still just 20, Rodriguez hit .362/.461/.546 in AA in 174 ABs, and stole 21 bags on the year between High-A and AA. This is the M’s #1 prospect, and one of the absolute elite in the game, and he had a season to remember. Whatever goals, whatever numbers you would’ve wanted him to hit, he flew past them. He even cut his K% moving up to AA. I dunno, man. He looks like the real deal.
Pitcher of the Year: Matt Brash
The least heralded of Everett’s opening day rotation, Brash forced his way to Arkansas by running right with Kirby in his dominance of high-A hitters. But what happened after his promotion makes this the easiest call of the entire series. Brash got *better*, striking out 80 in 55 utterly dominant AA innings, yielding just 32 hits. It was all highlighted by his 6 no-hit innings in a combined no-no and a string where he had double-digit Ks in three straight games. The highlights looked fake – a slider bending comically, a bit like Tanner Houck’s. A two-seamer swerving violently arm-side. It was all enough for Jerry Dipoto to publicly mull promoting him to the M’s bullpen in September. As it is, he’s re-ordering the M’s pitching-rich top prospect lists and looks set to debut in the majors next year after some seasoning in Tacoma.
Pop-up of the Year:
Ray Kerr, an undrafted free agent signing by the M’s back in 2017 out of a California JuCo hit 100 MPH and blew away AA as a great closer prospect. Between AA and AAA, he struck out 55 batters in 35 2/3 IP, yielding just 21 hits. He’s been in the system for years, and was Modesto’s closer for part of 2019, so this may be stretching the definition of a pop-up guy, but while we’d heard rumors of added velo, this was the first time we’d seen the lefty simply blow away opposing batters, and he did it in the high minors.
AAA Tacoma
Position Player of the Year: Jose Marmolejos
He was DFA’d twice, and didn’t do that well in Seattle, but what do you want me to say about a guy who hit .360/.452/.700 in AAA? The team caught fire after a so-so start, and Marmolejos was in the middle of most of that, with 72 games played as of now (he’s back with them). 91 hits and 177 total bases in 72 games… the mind reels. He’s not a real prospect at this point, but then, Tacoma’s roster’s is full of these guys. Marmo was just the absolute best of them. I’m tempted to give the nod to Taylor Trammell, but it wouldn’t be right. This was Marmo’s masterpiece.
Pitcher of the Year: Darren McCaughan
Tacoma used over 50 pitchers this year. They had entire waves of newcomers signed and veterans released. They had a shuttle between low-A Modesto and Tacoma. There was zero continuity, but a few guys stood up and ate innings in the worst possible pitching environment: the 2021 AAA-West. Darren McCaughan started in AA, but ended up with the most IP on Tacoma, and pitched as well as anyone could expect, going 5-4 with a 4.47 ERA. Only two Tacoma pitchers even qualified for the ERA title. McCaughan obviously pitched well enough to get a big league promotion, and while that went poorly, he’s done everything the org has asked. He doesn’t miss too many bats, and the ball is flying out of high-elevation parks, but he limits walks. It doesn’t sound like I’m selling the guy, but in this environment, all of that is incredibly valuable, and it added up to the regular season championship for Tacoma.
Pop-up of the Year: Kevin Padlo
Padlo was downright bad for the Rays org this year, but since coming to Tacoma, all he’s done is hit .355/.467/.694 in 62 ABs. It’s a tiny sample, but again, the Rainiers were basically an evolving mass of waiver claims throughout the year. This one was positively Marmolejan for a month, and gets the nod. He’s still just 24, too.
OK, back to tonight’s M’s game:
1: Crawford, SS
2: France, 1B
3: Haniger, RF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Torrens, DH
6: Toro, 2B
7: Kelenic, CF
8: Murphy, C
9: Moore, LF
SP: Anderson
Probably Seattle’s best line-up, and I like France and Haniger switching 2nd/3rd. Swap Toro and Torrens, and it’s exactly how I’d draw it up.
Go M’s. At present, the Yankees and Rays are winning, with Toronto behind Tampa.
Game 145, Mariners at Royals
Chris Flexen vs. Jon Heasley, 5:10pm
Jon Heasley? Who the heck is that? Heasley was plucked from AA to make his MLB debut tonight. The probable had been Brady Singer, one of the Royals many young pitchers, and KC’s first round pick in 2018. Heasley was drafted in that same draft, but a few hundred picks later in the 13th round. That 2018 draft was a pitching-heavy one, and it’s been pretty successful just a few years later. In fact, as Rany Jazayerli notes, Heasley will be the *5th* member of the Royals 2018 class to make a start for Kansas City thus far, a new MLB record.
What’s the best class in Mariners history? I mean, the easy answer is that it’s A-Rod and/or Ken Griffey Jr., and you don’t particularly care who else they drafted.* I mean, that’s true, right? It means a lot more to get a singular, game-changing talent who stars for your team than the *likely* contributions of Jon Heasley and Daniel Lynch and Kris Bubic, etc. Still, this is a very good sign for their player development, an area in which that org repeatedly and ruthlessly shot themselves in the foot for the best part of a decade from 2000-2010.
The M’s playoff odds are….low, at this point. The A’s win puts them ahead of the M’s at the moment, and pushes the M’s fangraphs odds below 1%. That hasn’t stopped the M’s from playing incredibly hard, and with a series against a weaker opponent, the M’s can jump back into this race. The problem is that they have to hope a whole bunch of other things happen, and that’s getting increasingly unlikely.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Kelenic, CF
7: Torrens, DH
8: Fraley, LF
9: Raleigh, C
SP: Flexen
The playoff odds are better for Tacoma, who can clinch a spot *tonight* if Sugarland and Reno both lose and Tacoma wins.
* If you care about quantity over transcendent quality, it’s probably 2009, with Ackley and, more importanly, Kyle Seager. Taijuan Walker and James Paxton was a pretty good two-fer the next year, but we’re a long ways from either 5 MLB starting pitchers or the kind of value that A-Rod put up at his peak.
Game 146, Red Sox at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Tanner Houck, 1:10pm
Another day, another critical game in the M’s wild card pursuit. The matinee features the M’s opening day starter, who’s been sharp in the second half, but is coming off of a couple of mediocre starts against the toothless Diamondbacks. His re-emergence has been huge for the M’s, who have desperately needed the good version of Marco all year. His FIP is now nearly 1.4 runs above his ERA, so he’s still yielding too many walks and HRs, but it’s impressive that he’s managed to get his ERA back down to where it always seems to be – right around 4. That’s not an ace, but any semblance of dependability is very worthwhile right now.
Opposing him is Tanner Houck, a right-handed Chris Sale clone whom the Sox drafted in the first round in 2017. He struck out a few, but wildness and BABIP issues meant that his raw numbers never looked all that great in the minors. Happily for the Red Sox, he’s been much, much better in MLB, striking out a ton (29% K rate between 2020 and 2021) and getting his walks under control. He’s got Sale’s low 3/4 delivery, and thus gets the same kind of sink on his fastballs (he throws both a four-seam and sinker). He also throws a slider and splitter that’s helped him keep left handed bats honest.
He doesn’t have huge platoon splits, but clearly lefties have an advantage over righties, who are really struggling against him (despite a high BABIP). We’ve seen that the Red Sox defense is rough around the edges, so with Houck’s BABIP history and the general immovable-slugger vibe of Schwarber + Renfroe, the M’s need to put the ball in play and see what happens. The other plus is that Houck’s still not working deep into games as the Red Sox manage his innings. He’s gone 5 innings three times this year, and has lots of 3+ and 4+ IP mini-starts, so hey, even if he’s nails today, the M’s can wait it out and try their luck with the Sox bullpen.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Fraley, LF
7: Torrens, DH
8: Kelenic, CF
9: Murphy, C
SP: Gonzales
Game 145, Red Sox at Mariners – Baseball as Comedy
Tyler Anderson vs. Nathan Eovaldi, 7:10pm
The Mariners have a team OBP of .301, and thus have a real chance to have a sub-.300 OBP and be in the thick of a playoff chase. This is the fundemantal incongruity that we’ve all been dealing with for the past 5 months. We can worry about the future, we can lament the loss of a key free agent pick-up on the M’s playoff odds, we can wonder what to make of Jarred Kelenic’s struggles, or we can laugh and clap. It’s time to laugh and clap. The M’s are not a great baseball team. They don’t really look like a *good* baseball team most of the time, and that’s the reason why they’re in historical territory for wins above their expected (ie. pythagorean or BaseRuns) winning percentage. Why is this so compelling?
Aristotle defined comedy “as an imitation of men worse than the average,” and if that isn’t nearly too on-the-nose to abandon this entire analogy, I don’t know what is. Last night’s game was tied in the late innings, and the first two M’s batters made outs. Up to the plate strode Jake Bauers, decidedly worse than the average hitter or MLB-caliber ball player. He slapped an easy grounder to first, but Kyle Schwarber booted it, and the inning rolled along. Not long after, Mitch Haniger hit a 3R-HR that won the game. The M’s beat their wild card rival, and moved to 12 games over .500, and a big part of that hinged on *Jake Bauers* who has a career 81 wRC+ and a 64 this year, rolled over a grounder, and it worked. For some of last night, the M’s had a line-up without a single .800 OPS hitter, until Mitch Haniger’s 4-4 night pushed him over. The M’s may end the year with a sub-.300 OBP. The story – THE story – of 2021 is Jake Bauers hitting an easy ground ball to 1B over and over and somehow reaching base.
This is, I think objectively, hilarious. What we’re seeing here is subversion: we see the set-up, we see some initial results that illustrate important things about that set-up, and then something random happens and the M’s win. Sports, with their combination of true talent levels and just the right amount of variance, kick off so many pat narratives because both components: evaluating true talent and randomness provided by variance – lend themselves to them. Think of all of the easy stories we had going into this year. They started before the year with the evil and miserly team President bragging of service time manipulation. You had the story of the next wave of talent trying to break through. You had the Wisconsin WonderBoy calling out the Org and the destroying AAA for a week or two. You had Jerry Dipoto’s vaunted rotation and his repeated predictions of a big “step forward.”
So much of those easy (but potentially compelling!) stories have just blown up. None of it’s gone according to those scripts. FINALLY freed from service time manipulation, Jarred Kelenic didn’t carry the M’s – he’s been terrible. The M’s young rotation didn’t rise to the occasion, they showed themselves as, uh, “men worse than the average.” So is the easy narrative that Dipoto’s bluster and spin failed and he was taught some sort of lesson? No! The team is 12 games over .500 and he got a promotion and contract extension! Why? Because Jake Bauers keeps hitting ground balls that get booted.
This sounds like an easy farce, something that almost mocks sports. By essentially eliminating the true talent part and running a season on 100% variance, they’re replacing the outsized efforts and talents of the Blue Jays or Yankees and their stacked rosters with the fart jokes that are Jake Bauers ground balls and that week where Luis Torrens only hit clutch homers. This seems like 5 months of a Mr. Bean video or a direct-to-video “American Pie” sequel.
But it’s not. The subversion goes beyond that. In the Rob Arthur BP piece I linked above, he notes that this kind of divergence between expected and actual record is increasing in recent years. Thus, this surrealist comedy involving whole swaths of a line-up below the Mendoza line could actually teach us something. Is it the shift in total innings towards (more volatile) relief pitchers that keeps allowing the M’s to Jake Bauers their way to “underserved” wins? Is it the over-the-top run suppression going on at T-Mobile (the inability of the M’s to hit at home is like a bit the M’s keep going back to, or a leitmotif if you’re a fancy intellectual) that keep more games (that would’ve been out of reach had true talent been allowed to express itself) within striking/variance distance? Is this knowable/resolvable?
I’m not really sure, but I *am* enjoying the fact that essentially everyone’s priors, everyone’s expected stories of this season have been dashed. I didn’t think the M’s would be good, but here they are in a wild card chase – and not one borne of a season in which 83 wins would get you to the playoffs. The optimists expected Kelenic/Raleigh/Sheffield to step up and dominate. Dipoto and Servais thought the rotation would keep them in a lot of ballgames and give their offense a chance. Everyone thought that talent would win out, but we all disagreed on where we might find it. Instead, this season has essentially shown us what success looks like in its absence, a kind of success in negative space or those double images of a rabbit and a duck. None of this is very predictive, and it may not last until the end of the season, let alone the next one. But I think that just heightens the comedy and entertainment value of this season. This is pure, absurdist genius, and the fact that it has no real author makes it one of the most compelling things I can recall. The M’s history has had so much tragedy and so much losing. I never really imagined they could weave that right into a successful season, but here we are. I’m laughing just thinking about it.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Kelenic, CF
7: Fraley, LF
8: Bauers, DH
9: Raleigh, C
SP: Anderson
Bauers DHing. Perfect.
Yes, Jake Fraley’s back from his rehab stint. Sadly, his return necessitated the DFA’ing of Jose Marmolejos.
Tacoma’s back in action against Sacramento to close out their series.
Arkansas faces Wichita tonight and former Jays/Mets prospect and current Twins prospect, Simeon Woods-Richardson.
Everett’s Taylor Dollard is on the hill vs. Spokane.
Modesto finally gets back to action after their Covid outbreak, and they’ll face Stockton.
Game 143, Red Sox at Mariners
Logan Gilbert vs. Eduardo Rodriguez, 7:10pm
Sorry for the outage; I’ve been camping and out of cell phone range, so it was something of a rude surprise to find that the M’s had dropped their series against Arizona. While the M’s weren’t shut out or anything, they again struggled to score and struggled to put a weaker team away as a result. If the M’s come up short this year, their inability to hit at home will be a big reason why.
We know who the M’s are at this point, for better or worse. They don’t score many runs (they average 4.25 per game, 23rd in MLB) and they’re merely middle-of-the-pack at preventing runs (4.65 per game, 16th in MLB). Digging deeper, the M’s offense gets so few hits, you’d *expect* them to score even fewer runs – BaseRuns puts the figure at 4.16 per game. Thus, combining their expected runs and runs allowed, the M’s are an astonishing 13 games ahead of the pace BaseRuns would expect. Some of that is their incredible bullpen, but a big chunk is their success in clutch situations, a factor we’ve mentioned essentially since the season’s first week. That luck still hasn’t run out.
But the run environment of T-Mobile can give and it can take. By suppressing scoring overall, it helps the M’s overcome a lack of talent on the pitching side, as well as a so-so defense. It can keep games close enough for the M’s clutch weirdness to show up, and thus we see the M’s doing so well in one-run games (yesterday’s excepted). It’s been enough to give the M’s a 10-games-over-.500 record at home at 41-31 *despite* scoring only 4.14 runs per game there. And it’s that low run environment that means some of those late-inning rallies are going to fall short.
It’s already incredibly difficult to evaluate what this season means. The M’s have four position players who’ll grade out at or above league average: Ty France, Mitch Haniger, JP Crawford, and Kyle Seager. Seager is likely gone after this year, and Haniger’s year has been hurt by some inconsistency, leaving him with a slash line that looks more like 2019’s down year and less like 2018’s awesome one. JP Crawford’s overall value is buoyed by his position, defense, and park – and you could say the same about Kyle Seager. Seager’s overall production is great despite a brutal OBP because he’s hit for so much power. Even in a career year for dingers, Seager’s production is only in the neighborhood of average because his BABIP and average are so low.
The M’s were never going to keep him around, and at this point, they probably shouldn’t: let Kyle choose his own adventure. Don’t tether him to a rebuild, and let him hit somewhere other than Seattle. At home, Kyle Seager has a sub-.600 OPS. Wanting him to return for next year is, frankly, cruel to Kyle.
All of this means that the one thing that this year was supposed to deliver – vital information on the M’s next core group of players – hasn’t really happened. The guys who were supposed to be pretty good were merely pretty good. The prospects… oh man, the prospects… have been atrocious. But again: how much can we separate out the T-Mobile effect, which is bound to be worse for players exactly like Kyle: fly ball hitters who derive much of their value from dingers. The version of Taylor Trammell we saw this year fits that description, and it’s a particularly apt summation of Cal Raleigh (poor Cal is hitting even worse on the road, though). Strangest, given his scouting report, is that it has applied to Jarred Kelenic. As in yesterday’s game, he’s shown pop at times, and perhaps more than some scouts thought he’d show – at least this yearly in is career. But what’s missing is the gap hitting, bat-to-ball skills that he’d shown in the minors. Kelenic has a .525 OPS at home. Sure, it’s bad on the road, too, but I still wonder how much of these struggles we’ve seen from the youngsters is due to an inability to get comfortable at home.
They’re a very different team with a very different narrative this season, but it all kind of reminds me of the Mets. The Mets score even fewer runs than the M’s, but give up just as few. They’re trapped in 2014 a bit, the peak season for pitchers in the past few decades. It hasn’t worked out for them, exactly (though they were leading a bad NL east for much of the summer), but they feel like they’re more or less as expected: a team whose pitching would carry them. They’re also a team who’s succeeded at home despite a more or less total inability to score runs there. The Mets are scoring just 3.7 runs per game in Queens (!), but are giving up a Dead-Ball-Era-style 3.37. Despite losing Jacob de Grom, they’ve managed to emulate 1968 baseball here in 2021.
But again, how much of this is dominant pitchers, and how much of it is the actual park? Sure, Francisco Lindor had himself a night last night, but he’s clearly underperformed this year, and a big part of that is a .238 home BABIP. Kelenic, incidentally, would kill for a home BABIP that high; his sits at .169. I’m just not sure that these things are purely bad luck. Citi Field and T-Mobile were notoriously difficult to homer in, and so both adjusted their outfield wall dimensions several years ago. More recently, both parks introduced humidors like the big hitters’ parks in Arizona and Colorado. These changes – reduced OF area making XBH harder to come by, humidors reducing fly ball distance – combine with the various changes to the baseball’s drag, and produce… we don’t really know. The fact that we still don’t know is frustrating, and it makes Jerry Dipoto’s job – already tough – that much harder. He’s going to have to untangle which guys are struggling due to factors outside of their control, and which guys are struggling due to deeper issues within themselves and their skillsets.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: France, 1B
4: Seager, 3B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Torrens, DH
7: Murphy, C
8: Kelenic, CF
9: Moore, LF
SP: Gilbert
Tacoma won the first game of a doubleheader today in Tacoma, beating Sacramento 8-4. They’re tied late in the game in the nightcap. Jake Fraley homered in his rehab assignment in Game 1, and Taylor Trammell is 2-2 with 2 BBs in Game 2.
Modesto’s still sidelined with that Covid outbreak, and it was a rough weekend for Arkansas, who got blasted by Springfield on Saturday and Sunday.
Game 131, Diamondbacks at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Madison Bumgarner, 7:10pm
For what feels like the 40th time this season, the M’s faced what felt like a must-win game, and despite an early lead, you could feel it slipping away. The Astros came back to tie, then take the lead, and extend the lead. The best part of the Astros bullpen awaited. And then, just as they’ve done so many times, the M’s found a way to win. It’s got to be frustrating for the Astros, who’ve outscored the M’s by a mile, but have a tendency to trade 11-2 wins with close losses. All of that means that the M’s are still neck and neck with the A’s, and behind the Blue Jays, who, frankly, have to lose some time.
As a reward, the M’s get to face the D-backs team that they just swept in Phoenix. Toronto unfortunately has a series in Baltimore, but then, the Orioles just snapped the Yankees long winning streak (that feels like it was 3 months ago), so who knows. Oakland continues to grapple with the White Sox, while Houston faces the Angels. The Red Sox are still dealing with a Covid outbreak that’s now sidelined Chris Sale, who’d just returned from the IL.
The M’s hottest hitter at the moment is JP Crawford, fresh off a HR in his last game. He remains a fascinatingly streaky player, who was incandescent in June, then atrocious for all of July and much of August, before jumping back to locked in for September. Every time I think we’ve seen enough to essentially say that the M’s need a replacement to really be a consistent contender, he teases this kind of hitting ability. And then once we’re all comfortable with him holding down the starting SS job for the next 4-5 years, he’ll go O-for-a-month. Strange.
But not as strange as the sudden end of Luis Torrens’ catching career. The guy had a brutal defensive start to the year, and I’d thought that part of the reason they sent him to Tacoma was to work on his defense away from the cameras. Instead, he’s come back and never caught an inning. The M’s raved about his ability to pick up the staff when they brought him over from San Diego, and while he’s never been good at controlling the running game, that tends to be overrated. They haven’t mentioned anything about it, but he just DHs pretty much all the time now, after a brief spell at 1B.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: France, 1B
4: Seager, 3B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Torrens, DH
7: Murphy, C
8: Kelenic, CF
9: Moore
SP: Gonzales
The Rainiers are now 3 games up in the AAA-W-W thanks to a 5 game winning streak. They’re at home facing Sacramento tonight after beating them 10-4 last night.
Arkansas’ Matt Brash (who Jerry Dipoto toyed with the idea of bringing up to the big league bullpen in a radio hit last week) was back in action, and helped the Travs beat Springfield. It was a quiet night for Brash, who went 5 1/3 giving up 3 R on 3 H, 3 BB with 5 Ks. Brandon Williamson starts tonight’s contest.
Eugene got the better of Everett, 4-1. Kai-Wei Teng of the Emeralds went 6 IP with 1 R and *13 strikeouts* – the Frogs K’d 16 times overall. Ouch.
Modesto’s game was canceled due to a Covid outbreak on the Nuts, and today the M’s have said that they’re suspending the entire series to do contract tracing and halt the spread. I’m kind of stunned this hasn’t happened already this year, but it’s too bad that this happened so late in the year.
Game 140, Mariners at Astros
Tyler Anderson vs. Jose Urquidy, 11:10am – Broadcast is NOT on Root, but is on Youtube.
After another crushing loss to the Astros, the M’s turn to their erstwhile ace, Tyler Anderson for today’s getaway day match-up. Anderson’s made seven starts, and is already the M’s third most valuable starting pitcher by fWAR. It’s all the more remarkable because he can’t lean on tons of strikeouts to try to impress fWAR’s fielding-independent system. His already-good control has taken another step forward with Seattle, and he’s become near-elite at avoiding the barrel of the bat. For a pitch-to-contact guy with below-average velo, he simply has to avoid hard contact. No one can avoid it forever, but Anderson’s hard hit% and barrel rates are in the top 10-15% in baseball this year. No walks, mis-hit contact = success.
It’s also something that may be harder to count on. I think Anderson’s done enough here that the M’s should definitely explore a multi-year deal for him, but this was Marco Gonzales’ profile, too, and while he’s turned it around admirably, he’s been less successful despite only a slight drop in his average exit velo/hard hit%. For Marco, his walk rate increased from barely-detectable to merely good, and his hard hit rate went from amazing to simply “above average.” The problem has been that those hard hit balls have been hit much harder and further. That may simply be luck – the price of doing this kind of business as a pitcher – or it could be a very slight diminution in his skills/true talent. Marco’s still helped, but this season is *why* his success hasn’t felt quite as assured as it would if he struck out more batters. When contact management is all you’ve got, it’s got to be consistently great, and I’m not really sure *anyone* can be consistently great contact managers.
Still, the M’s are going to have a lot of innings to fill next year, and I think Anderson might be a solid 3rd starter, even if his good season may raise the price a bit. The money they’ll save by not picking up Yusei Kikuchi’s team option shows that they’ve got money budgeted for it, but they can’t stop at Anderson. They’ll need a lot more, and I’m sure they know that. They’ve targeted guys just like Anderson and Gonzales because they may be undervalued precisely because they DON’T rack up tons of strikeouts; no one’s confusing these guys with Jacob de Grom. But given where the team sees themselves and their oft-stated/re-stated contention window, it may be time to throw your ideas of what’s under or over-valued out the window and open up your wallet.
The same is true for the offense, of course. The Blue Jays got perhaps the bargain of the year in signing Marcus Semien to a one-year deal (the competition for this would be the Blue Jays signing Robbie Ray to a one-year deal), and now they’ll have to see if they can keep him. The fact that the Blue Jays, too, see their contention window wide open complicates things for the M’s. They can want to spend money and sign free agents, but they *need* to get them to sign on the dotted line to play in Seattle. Toronto’s already ramping up spending, and the Yankees and Dodgers are always going to compete for top-tier talent. This is where it’s vital that Jerry Dipoto gets what he wants. A part of that is convincing ownership, but he’s also got to convince those players and agents.
I suppose we should touch on last night’s loss. It was painful to see Paul Sewald, who’d been dominant this year, and especially dominant against Houston, lose the lead in the 9th. The game had proceeded just as about 90% of M’s wins this year have done: the M’s looked hopeless early, then fell behind, and then strung together extra base hits at precisely the time when those hits would do the most. They took the lead despite being out-hit, out-hit for power, and despite mostly great pitching from the opponent. They mastered sequencing, just as they’ve done so many times. By BaseRuns, this was a loss 90% of the time, but BaseRuns doesn’t incorporate Fun Differential. They got an insurance run and handed the game to their best reliever, and, well, sometimes the Astros are just gonna Astro. The only positive here was the the Yankees free-fall continued, the Red Sox lost again at home, and Oakland lost badly to Chicago. There’s no real harm done, but it was a missed opportunity to really gain some ground.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Torrens, DH
7: Kelenic, Cf
8: Murphy, C
9: Marmolejos, LF
SP: Anderson
The Rainiers smash-and-grab in Reno continued, with a 4-3 win to close out the series. Tacoma won four in a row in erstwhile-first-place Reno to take a 2 game lead in the AAA-W-W (A cubed, W squared?). Closer Ray Kerr, a high-90s closer who was an undrafted free agent several years ago, continues to impress – he got the save last night.
Julio Rodriguez homered in Arkansas’ loss to Springfield. Uh, that’s *Springfield’s* Julio Rodriguez. Arkansas’ Julio Rodriguez went 0-5, but his slash line is still .359/.474/.508 in AA.
Cade Marlowe homered in Everett’s 9-6 loss to Eugene. That’s his 24th between Modesto and Everett, and it’s brought him up to 100 RBIs on the year (he’s also got 21 stolen bases). Noelvi Marte hit clean-up in his hi-A debut and went 2-4. Taylor Dollard continues to rack up K’s, but he’s given up 12 HRs now in 11 games/61 IP.
Modesto’s replaced Noelvi Marte with Milkar Perez, who’d opened eyes in the Arizona Complex League. Perez, a 3B, is 19, and went 1-4 in his first full-season game. CF Corey Rozier, a 12th-round pick this year, is pushing for a promotion, hitting .417/.492/.602 in just over 100 ABs. He’s got an 18:18 K:BB, too, and 13 SBs in 27 games with the Nuts.
Game 139, Mariners at Astros
Logan Gilbert vs. Jake Odorizzi, 5:10pm
Well, last night’s game was brutal. Yusei Kikuchi was off, and didn’t make it out of the second. The bullpen scuffled, albeit with the lesser lights of the pen logging the innings and taking their lumps. Houston again pounded the M’s, and the put the game out of reach immediately. Kikuchi *just* pitched a gem against this same line-up, but looked like a completely different pitcher, with his velo down and his control non-existent. It all culminated in this Ryan Divish recap where he says the chances of the M’s picking up his four-year option are now at zero. I hadn’t remembered that Kikuchi has a player option when/if the M’s opt out of taking the next four years. That might be an intriguing decision for him. It’s valued at $13 M, and I’m not sure he’ll get a lot more than that even if it’s spread out over 2-3 years. I imagine that he’ll attract serious attention from clubs if he becomes a free agent, but I’m not sure that he can command a ton of guaranteed money coming off this second-half collapse.
It’s a sad story. I thought Kikuchi was a great pick-up, and I found the Scott Boras-devised contract, with its multi-year extension and options intriguing. I think it’s ultimately worked more or less as intended, as Kikuchi got several years to show his value without the M’s committing to him for six years. He’s shown tremendous ability to increase his velocity, he’s shown the ability to quickly make changes to his repertoire (adding a cutter, modifying his change on the fly), and to make little adjustments as needed. What he hasn’t mastered is consistency, but I bet 29 other pitching coaches in the league would love to try to help him do that.
Today, the M’s try to see if Logan Gilbert can carry over the momentum of a solid start against these guys where Kikuchi could not. Like Kikuchi, Gilbert has seen them a few times recently, and while one appearance was great, the other was painful. A big part of that is that it’s tough to keep what’s probably the best line-up in the game bottled up indefinitely, but I’m still pretty convinced a bunch of this is T-Mobile.
If you split team batting by home/away, you’ll find two very different M’s teams. At home, the M’s are “hitting” .210/.293/.364, for a wOBA of .288, and a park-adjusted wRC+ of 89. They strike out at a 26% clip, and have a BABIP of .259, worst in the game. They are by many metrics the absolute worst offense in the game. Away, they’re…well, not exactly great, but they’re perfectly fine, with a .235/.308/.395 line for an OPS above .700, and a wOBA of .306. They strike out under 25%, and are generally MLB-quality. One big problem here is that they’ve hit the ball in the air a lot: their home GB% is the second-lowest in baseball behind the Dodgers. The Dodgers, like the M’s, have a brutal home BABIP, but it doesn’t really matter, because they’re more than capable of hitting home runs. The M’s have a bunch of fly-ball hitters who hit for power, but not enough to overcome the fact that any fly ball in Seattle that’s not a HR is essentially a guaranteed out. Jose Marmolejos’ BABIP is .182, Dylan Moore’s is .217, Cal Raleigh’s is .239. These guys don’t strike out at an alarming clip, but with those BABIPs, even an average K rate is going to nuke your offensive production. Of course, Kyle Seager is very much in this camp as well, and it’s driven down his BABIP for the past five years. This year, though, he’s hitting enough HRs to pull his overall production above league average *despite* an average of .212 and an OBP of .286.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Torrens, DH
7: Kelenic, CF
8: Murphy, C
9: Bauers, LF
SP: Gilbert
Game 138, Mariners at Astros – Hold Fast
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Lance McCullers, Jr., 4:10pm
The Mariners once again picked themselves off the mat, shook off what looked for all the world like a wrenching, playoff-chase-ending series, and fought on. Sure, it helps to face the out-of-it Diamondbacks, but those were each hard-fought wins, and it’s often been those “bad” teams that have inflicted some damage on the M’s. Well, bad teams and the Astros.
This has not been a friendly ballpark for Seattle, going back to the days before the Astros become a juggernaut. Sure, some electronic trickery had *some* part in that, but the biggest problem has been that Houston’s put out far more talented rosters. They still do. But as we’ve seen time and again, from the last Astros series in Seattle to the recent sweep in Phoenix, the M’s bullpen becomes an equalizer. If the M’s starter gives the team any kind of chance, the bullpen gives the team every opportunity to take it.
The M’s playoff odds have increased recently as they’ve passed the Oakland A’s for 2nd in the AL West. They had been in 3rd place (or worse) every day from May 9th to September 4th. Even so, the primary beneficiary of the A’s losing streak – according to the projections – is Toronto, a club that is legitimately red hot, and are coming off an 8-0 win against New York today. The Jays will have a rough schedule, but they are in the midst of playing a bunch of playoff contenders, and they are *destroying* them. In a normal world, the Jays would be 10 games ahead of Seattle, but thankfully, nothing is normal.
That helped clarify who this bizarre M’s team reminds me of. There are no perfect parallels in a sport whose offensive environment has changed somewhat dramatically over the past 10-20 years, but there are a few echoes. I’d initially thought of the 2005 Padres, a team that won the NL West with an 82-80 record. That team had a below-average offense, Jake Peavy-and-then-not-much in the rotation, but baseball’s best bullpen. That pen (Trevor Hoffman was the closer, sure, but it was Scott Linebrink’s big year) helped the club overcome a 77-85 pythagorean winning percentage, but they were quickly eliminated in the playoffs.
Some of the great Giants teams were more great-in-clutch-situations than out-and-out great. The 2010 team had a great pitching staff and a line-up that rated as below-average, but had some very good performances up and down the line-up. The 2012 was the least-M’s-like, with an offense that helped prop up a so-so pitching staff weighed down by a mediocre pen (who, of course, played out of their minds in the playoffs). The 2014 team is closest, with a slightly below-average line-up, but even that club had big offensive threats like Buster Posey, and they had a great starter in Madison Bumgarner.
But that 2014 team *beat* the club that might be the best analog to this year’s weirdly awesome Mariners: the Kansas City Royals. The 2015 team that won it all actually had a good offense, with one Alex Gordon’s last great years, and Kendrys Morales and others driving in runs. The 2014 version of the Royals just couldn’t hit. And despite an utterly dominant bullpen, the club still had a K rate in the bottom third of MLB, thanks to starters who were allergic to whiffs. OPS is not a perfect stat, and the run environment was dramatically different back in 2014, but the Royals made the playoffs without a single starter posting an OPS over .800 that year. That’s…that’s incredible. That 2005 Padres team had a bunch of sub-800 guys, but also a peak Brian Giles season. The Giants had Posey or Mike Morse or Pat Burrell. It’s hard to score without someone hitting well over .800, but the Royals managed to score just enough. It helped, of course, that *nobody* scored in 2014, but even for that year, they stood out. I bring it up because the M’s are one cold snap from Ty France away from finishing without an .800 OPS slugger. In 2021.
Now, the Royals could do one thing better than anyone, and that was play defense. That’s not really the M’s strength, as they grade out poorly by, say, UZR or OOA. They’ve had to do…whatever this is purely through sequencing, but they keep doing it, and the bullpen keeps giving them extra chances, like Yohan Ramirez’s escape in extra innings yesterday, or Paul Sewald’s season against Houston.
I thought that 2014 Royals team was pretty bad, but they made it all the way to the 7th game of the World Series, and they won it all the following year. It doesn’t matter how something looks or even how sustainable it is. You just need to win.* The M’s desperately need to keep this momentum going, even though they’re entering their house of horrors in Houston.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Marmolejos, DH
7: Kelenic, CF
8: Bauers, LF
9: Raleigh, C
SP: Kikuchi
You know who else is enjoying a playoff push? The Tacoma Rainiers, who’ve ridden a hot streak into a tie for first in the AAA-West, uh, West. The R’s are facing the team they’re tied with, Reno, right now. Tacoma’s got a late lead.
Arkansas’ Matt Brash predictably won the AA-Central’s Pitcher of the Week after starting a no-hitter.
SS Noelvi Marte’s been promoted from Modesto up to Everett.
* At the team level, or from the front office’s view, sure, sustainability matters particularly for a growing/young team like this one. But the M’s won’t be disqualified from the playoffs due to run differential.