Game 116, Rangers at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Mike Foltynewicz, 1:10pm
The M’s luck returned, at least for a night, as they beat Texas 2-1 on a walkoff “single” by Luis Torrens, scoring a suddenly-hot Jarred Kelenic. The M’s have talked up Kelenic’s hot streak, and how he’s been better than league average (by some margin) over his last 50 PAs. That’s true, and it’s welcome, even if it’s a very small sample. Is it sustainable? What’s driving it?
The biggest thing in recent weeks is that Kelenic’s making more contact. He made contact in his initial call-up, but got BABIP’d to death, hitting below .100. That would regress, but a decent chunk of that was that he wasn’t hitting the ball all that hard, and was topping too many grounders to the pull side. Upon returning to the bigs, his contact fell away, and he spent most of July swinging and missing. That was a real concern, but he’s suddenly evening out his Ks and BBs, and has become a much more reliable contact hitter.
Contact is only one part of it, though. He’s got 5 XBH in August after racking up 5 in every other month, and that’s showing up in his exit velocities. Making more contact and making louder contact is a very good combination. His OPS just climbed over .500 last night, so to say that there’s more work to be done is understating things. He’s still having a huge challenge with left-handed pitching, something the M’s id’d as a work in progress before the year. And while I’d like to see him doing better there, I think it’s *somewhat* understandable that he’d struggle after never seeing *this* kind of left-handed stuff before in his life. The bigger concern has been his performance against righties.
Again, it may be changing, and that’d be great. But this odd collapse when prospects *have* the platoon advantage seems odd to me, and it seems familiar. Evan White’s wOBA is .199 against lefties, good for a wRC+ of just 24. Kelenic’s done much better recently against righties, but his wOBA is still just .254, for a wRC+ of 64. Remember, Kelenic’s wRC+ projection was better than 100, and *With the platoon advantage* it now 64 (which is much better than where it was!). Kyle Lewis’ career OPS is over 100 points better against righties; with the advantage, Lewis’ wRC+ drops from 128 to 100. I’ll take 100, mind you, but it seems odd that we’d see so many youngsters come up and struggle in the same way.
The other way they struggle? Yes, at home. That’s part of why it was so great to see Kelenic get that big 9th inning double last night – at home, he’s hitting just .114/.239/.190. His OPS is .150 points better on the road.
The down side of last night’s comeback win was that it was necessary at all. The Rangers have pitched pretty well this series after showing no signs they were capable of doing so. Even with the low run totals, they’ve snuck in a couple of “we have no idea what we’re doing here” bases-loaded-walks. The M’s need to be punishing Rangers pitching, not playing down to it. They’ll have some critical games with Toronto coming up, and they won’t see pitchers this bad in those games.
The M’s aren’t playing all that well, but I suppose I’d take improvement in Kelenic even if it means that the bullpen is no longer bullet proof. Paul Sewald has slipped in recent weeks, though of course it was going to be tough to be almost literally unhittable forever. Today, he goes on the paternity list, so a good season just gets better for him. Like Kelenic, the improvement from Marco Gonzales means a heck of a lot more to the M’s chances in 2022 than their 2021 record in one-run games. Hopefully, he can keep it going today.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Kelenic, CF
7: Raleigh, C
8: Fraley, LF
9: Moore, RF
SP: Gonzales
Game 115, Rangers at Mariners
Tyler Anderson vs. Spencer Howard, 7:10pm
Last night’s game seemed like a perfect encapsulation of how the last two-three weeks have felt. Luck, a thing that’s propelled the M’s to an unlikely playoff race, has moved on, and thus you see the M’s loading the bases with no outs in the 9th and somehow not scoring, followed by the inevitable gut-punch in extras. All the things the M’s did for 3-4 months – get the timely hit, dominate extra innings – they failed to do last night.
In a sense, this is just what regression towards the mean *is*, and when we’re talking about performance in close/late games, it’s not pretty. It hurts. But beyond that, luck had a wonderful way of papering over some of the problematic aspects of the team. The whole “can’t hit until there are runners in scoring position, late in a close game” thing was objectively hilarious, but when it’s stops, you’re left with only those sad first two words. Logan Gilbert is, essentially, as advertised. But Jarred Kelenic’s growing pains are tougher to understand, and while he’s looked better recently, the entire year has to go down as a concerning one. Taylor Trammell is both easier to understand and much, much closer to his projections, but Cal Raleigh’s struggles consistently driving the ball is a bit of a head scratcher.
They’ll need to be active in free agency, and they’ll need to add good players to the staff and the line-up. This was supposed to be their springboard year to contend for real in 2022, and while they’ve been much more successful than I and others expected, the WAY they’ve been successful makes 2022’s outlook a bit murkier.
The Rangers, though…this team is just actively bad. Without Joey Gallo and some of their more successful relievers, the Rangers can bring to mind those awful Astros teams of 8-10 years ago. They’re beginning to build a good farm system, and they’ve got some interesting arms who haven’t quite turned talent into performance yet. One of them, Spencer Howard, starts tonight. The erstwhile Phillies top prospect always struck people out in the minors after being drafted out of Cal Poly, but had trouble with his control. The raw stuff was there: he throws a 95 mph four-seam, and mixes in a slider, a curve, and he’s learned a cutter this year. But the weirdest/potentially best offering is a slow change at 79. We’ve seen so many Felix-style hard change-ups that it’s always kind of a shock to see someone with *this* big of a disparity between fastball and change velo. Jharel Cotton did this when he came up with Oakland, and had a nice first half-season before dropping off the map.
At this point, Howard’s change is still working fairly well, as batters are having a hard time making contact. But when they make contact with *any* of his pitches, they tend to do well. Some of that may be bad luck, but Howard doesn’t miss enough bats to get away with it. His K/9 is great, it’s essentially right at 10. But his K% is only “pretty good.” This is another one of those great example cases, where we see exactly how Howard gets his outs, but bringing in all of the walks and balls in play changes the picture a bit.
It hasn’t worked for him yet, either in Arlington or in Philadelphia, but it’s a good high variance move for a team that desperately needs to improve. Essentially all year, the Mariners had the worst batting average in MLB, but a slight improvement in that category paired with Texas’ tanking means the two teams enter tonight’s game tied. Both clubs are hitting .222, with the M’s having an edge in both OBP and SLG%. Texas has leapfrogged Baltimore and Pittsburgh to become the worst hitting team in the game, and their pitching staff ranks last by fWAR, too (though I think Arizona and Baltimore fans may disagree).
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Kelenic, CF
7: Raleigh, C
8: Fraley, LF
9: Bauers, DH
SP: Anderson
Tyler Anderson continues his live-game audition for a multi-year deal. He’s been pretty much as-advertised, and I wonder if the M’s make a run at keeping him around. I also wonder what it’s like to walk into a clubhouse that’s as emotional and hurt as the M’s must’ve been. Such a weird situation all around.
I see there’s a move to bring Jose Marmolejos back given that the M’s are getting nothing out of Jake Bauers. I don’t think I expect too much out of Marmo, but given the low bar and that he’s absolutely raked in AAA-West, I guess it’s worth a shot.
Game 114, Rangers at Mariners
Logan Gilbert vs. Kolby Allard, 7:10pm
This was supposed to be it. A potentially critical homestand with the M’s within striking distance of the playoffs, buoyed by their incredible bullpen. Despite a big win in the final game in the Bronx it…uh, it’s not going to be that. The M’s stumbled in Texas before righting the ship a bit in Tampa. But losing 3 of 4 in New York as both the A’s and Blue Jays surge means the M’s are in a very different position now. It’s nice to point to the Rangers line-up and say that they can get right back in this, but it’s all slipping away as the Jays and A’s stay hot.
I don’t really want to rehash the trade deadline, nor do I want to pick apart the M’s path back into the wild card hunt. It’s odd; we’re at a point of the season I always thought they’d be. They’ve *still* beaten my expectations, and their playoff chances waned far later than I ever would’ve expected. But I’m kind of surprised at my own reaction – my own hurt – to the past road trip.
The M’s desperately need to get hot at the plate after the Yankees’ replacement starters and bullpen arms held them in check. Luckily, that’s what the Rangers are for. I remember writing up Kolby Allard just after he got to Texas from Atlanta, at a time when the Rangers were having some success with reclamation projects like Lance Lynn and Mike Minor. Allard is…not going to turn out like Lance Lynn. He’s improved markedly this year, but something always holds him back.
In the previous few years, that something was control, as he walked over 13% of batters last year. This year, that rate has plummeted to just over 5%, and he’s maintained his average-ish strikeout rate (I can’t believe average is over 23% now). But getting more of the zone comes at a cost: home runs. He’s always maintained a fairly low BABIP, but he’s hemorrhaging dingers this year, along with hard-hit contact. Allard simply doesn’t get swings and misses, and thus depends on catching batters with called strikes. Spend that much time in the zone with so-so stuff, and yeah, you’ll give up too many homers.
Logan Gilbert throws fewer pitches in the zone, but can get away with it thanks to better velo and a better breaking ball. Allard has no such luck.
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: Moore, LF
SP: Gilbert
Game 108, Mariners at Rays
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Luis Patiño, 4:10pm
The M’s beat the Rays for the 5th time in 5 games yesterday, another odd statistic in a season made up wholly of oddities. While they’re a flawed team, and I get why projection systems aren’t high on their playoff chances, the M’s have actually played pretty well against the teams they’re competing with for the wildcard. They’re 5-0 against the Rays, and 6-4 against Oakland. It’s the Tigers that’ve given them fits.
We know, or think we know, why the M’s are on the outskirts of a playoff race. They may not have great starting pitching, and their offense has scuffled, but they had a lockdown bullpen and their bats are unbelievably clutch. Not, perhaps, the *best* set of ingredients for a great team, but as I’ve said all year, it’s an entertaining set of ingredients. This team has been fun to watch because, outside of two painful walkoffs last week, they don’t tend to give away games late, and their offense is at its best (which, I mean, low bar) when it counts. That doesn’t make the team great, but it lets them hang around, even against great teams.
So, why are the Rays in this position? What are the good at, and what’s gone right for them? Remember, the offseason began with the Rays trading away Blake Snell to San Diego and replacing him with Rich Hill. Tyler Glasnow, the team’s best pitcher, is on the shelf, and the Rays traded Hill at the deadline. Randy Arozarena’s star turn in last year’s playoffs has been followed up with a solid, unspectacular season. Manny Margot’s turned back into Manny Margot, not the power hitter who helped get the Rays to the AL Pennant. Especially with Glasnow hurt, Nick Anderson not pitching an inning thus far, Brendan McKay out, and Shane Baz not debuting yet, I expected the Rays pitching staff to be OK/good, but nothing all that special. Instead, they’re right where they always are, near the top in fWAR and bWAR – they’re good by fielding-independent stats and by good old ERA.
They’re line-up is the same: Austin Meadows, Arozarena, Brandon Lowe – they’re all putting up good seasons, but none of them is a star; none of them will get MVP votes. One of their most valuable players is Mike Zunino, putting up perhaps his best year after years of (offensive) struggles in Florida, and Ji-Man Choi is taking the Jake Fraley route to value, drawing loads of walks to make up for a so-so average and power production. It all seems “pretty good” more than “dominant team” but that’s what the Rays have been – they’ve got the #5 staff and the #6 offense by Fangraphs.
What’s more, the offensive strategy looks pretty familiar for M’s fans. The Rays have struck out more than any team in baseball, just ahead of your Seattle Mariners. But they’ve walked far more than Seattle, and hit for a bit more power. Is that just the home parks? Well, Tampa’s rates as even more of a pitcher’s park than Seattle’s by BBREF’s park factors, and FG agrees it’s harder to hit home runs there. Both teams will trade strikeouts for OBP and power, and the Rays have simply been much better at getting them. Mike Zunino and Cal Raleigh really may be similar players, but at least in 2021, Zunino’s been better at it.
Today, the M’s face the primary return for Blake Snell, Luis Patiño, once the pride of the San Diego system. The 21-year old righty throws a hard, rising fastball at 96 and his best pitch is a two-plane slider at 86-87. He’s also got a firm change up and slider, and is messing with a sinker that shows commendably distinct break from his four-seam. The slider’s tough to hit, and righties see a steady dose of them. It’s clearly been his best pitch, but he’s still got to get to it. That’s been harder than you’d think given his fastball. It *looks* good, but batters don’t seem to mind it all that much. They’ve put it in play, and done some damage against it…and MLB’s expected stats show that Patiño is lucky they’ve *only* put up a .331 wOBA against it.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, DH
5: Toro, 2B
6: Fraley, LF
7: Kelenic, CF
8: Raleigh, C
9: Bauers, 1B
SP: Kikuchi
Game 106, Mariners at Rangers
Marco Gonzales vs. Mike Foltynewicz, 11:35am
A rough game last night, as the M’s lost on a walk-off served up by their new closer, Diego Castillo. Castillo should be fine, and you can’t judge a new acquisition after a game or two, no matter how much Jerry Dipoto urges you to do so for Abraham Toro.
The M’s playoff odds stand now at 2.4%, a product of the A’s improving their team’s bullpen and line-up and, you know, losing some games. The M’s have finally surpassed the odds for the Angels, which is kind of funny, but also something of an indictment of the odds themselves. They’re a fantastic team, but were far enough behind that they sold off starting pitcher Andrew Heaney in a trade with the Yankees. That was expected or perhaps even wise to people watching the AL West, but the odds couldn’t shake their preconception that the Angels were not just better than the M’s, but loads better – enough to make up 4-5 games in a heartbeat. Ah well.
So what does success look like for this team? They need Marco Gonzales to look like himself again, and I’d think they need to identify another starter for 2022. That could be Justus Sheffield making a solid return, or Justin Dunn. It could be a lot of things, but the M’s need to get to their 1,400 innings for the year without further injuries, and that’s a tough job. With pitcher workloads dramatically reduced last year, asking anyone to go 150-180 IP (with the exception of Chris Flexen, who did so in Korea) is…a lot. Spreading innings to Darren McCaughan, the pitchers coming off the IL, Gilbert, etc. is going to be critical, but they have to do so in a way that protects pitchers’ health. More bullpen games or shorter starts? A return of the six-man rotation? Not sure how exactly they’ll get this done, but they need to get it done.
Last year, both Evan White and JP Crawford finished the year strong, and while it didn’t have a lot to do with how they opened up 2021, I’d like to see something similar from the young guys this year. No matter their record, the M’s need to get serious contributions from their young prospects – that’s Jarred Kelenic and Taylor Trammell when he returns, and Cal Raleigh. Kelenic took a step in the right direction with a bomb in last night’s game, and today they’re going up against Mike Foltynewicz, the starter having a dreadful year for perhaps the game’s worst team at the moment. Folty has served up 2 of Crawford’s 5 HRs on the year, and leads the Majors with a stunning 31 yielded already this season. Only his teammate Jordan Lyles is within 8 of Folty. So, this is a favorable match-up in a park that isn’t as weirdly suppressive of BABIP. The youngsters need to take advantage.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Kelenic, CF
7: Raleigh, C
8: Bauers, RF
9: Moore, LF
SP: Gonzales
The Mets look like they will not sign Kumar Rocker, the one-time favorite for first-overall-pick in this year’s draft. The Mets are obviously scared about something in his medicals, but most teams assumed there was *something* there, and if they were that scared about it, I’m not sure why they picked him where they did. Worse, they had no contingency plans – potential overslot picks in the 11th-20th rounds to buy preps out of commitments to college teams. As it is, they just get a comp pick at #11 next year with much less leverage than they have now (because they can’t roll it over *again* if they fail to sign their first rounder). Odd situation. I get it from Rocker’s point of view, but it’s still a rough road for him if he needs TJ. He’ll have to do the rehab himself and can’t show off for scouts by playing for Vanderbilt. As one of the biggest amateur pitching prospects in years, he’ll still draw plenty of suitors, but he’s betting on himself and taking a bit of a risk. The Mets are, reliably, Metsing.
The Angels’ top pitching prospect, Reid Detmers, makes his big league debut against A’s prospect Daulton Jefferies, who’ll be making his season debut (he pitched 2 big league IP in late 2020). Detmers, the 10th overall pick in the 2020 draft out of Louisville, shot through the system, striking out 106 in 60 IP, mostly at AA. He was an extreme fly-ball guy in the minors, and thus home runs were his only real weakness. Interesting time for the Angels, as they look to the future; we can probably expect to see Jo Adell back soon. The one-time overall #1 prospect (or close to it) had an Evan-White-esque intro to the majors last year, and has spent 2021 in Salt Lake contending for the AAA HR crown (Taylor Motter’s leading the league right now…which is odd). Still, his strikeout rate remains troubling.
Tacoma beat up on Las Vegas 10-1 behind a great start from Robert Dugger in a tough pitching environment. Jose Marmolejos and Luis Liberato homered. No word on the starters tonight.
It’s former-M’s-propsect day in AA, as Arkansas (behind Tyler Herb) faces Springfield (and Tyler Pike). Pike was drafted in the competitive balance round in 2012, while Herb was a late-round steal in 2014 out of Coastal Carolina.
Everett got two homers from Cade Marlowe to help beat Eugene 5-4 last night. Marlowe overwhelmed lo-A pitching, and has found high-A a bit tougher, but is still holding his own. Hopefully he can have a strong finish for the Frogs, capping off an eye-opening year. Taylor Dollard starts for Everett today. The 22-year-old has 87 Ks in 68 IP, but also 72 hits, the product of a .356 BABIP. We’ll see if that regresses back towards average for him.
Rancho Cucamonga won a back-and-forth game against Modesto last nigh, 8-6.
Game 104, Mariners at Rangers – Deadline Day Fall-out
Logan Gilbert vs. Kolby Allard, 5:05pm
Soooo, a day after gutting the team by trading closer Kendall Graveman to the division-leading Astros, Jerry Dipoto made good on his statement that the move couldn’t be seen in isolation, and that he had plenty more irons in the fire. The M’s moved prospect 3B/1B Austin Shenton to Tampa Bay in exchange for new closer, Diego Castillo. Castillo’s a hard-throwing FB/SL righty who generates more whiffs and strikeouts than Graveman, but doesn’t have Graveman’s sinker, and thus his ground ball rate. Castillo’s arb eligible this coming off season, so could be with the M’s for several years.
So, the M’s raised the white flag the other day, and are now…taking it down? I think Jerry Dipoto simply couldn’t resist turning two months of Graveman into 3-4 years of a comparable player, and, in effect, swapping Austin Shenton for an older, more MLB-ready IF was just gravy. I’ll be honest: I absolutely love Shenton, who’s hit from Day 1 as a professional. While he started the year as the #17 or whatever prospect means nothing; he was shooting up the rankings, but is clearly beneath some of the Untouchables in the M’s system. Tampa got a good one. But if you do not care a whit about the M’s clubhouse, or how the team would take this, I kind of understand where Dipoto is coming from, especially if you see this team for what it is: a flawed team that’s where they are largely due to factors not directly related to their talent.
So the M’s didn’t foolishly go all-in after a lucky start, kept their prospects, and got precious club control to boot? That’s pretty good, right? Well, not exactly. Much of the anger surrounding the first trade comes down to the fact that a team that hasn’t been to the postseason in 20 years would be so blasé about punting on a year like this one. There’s simply no doubt that the M’s are lucky, and that counting on them to keep up…whatever it is that’s causing this is a fool’s errand. Jake Mailhot looked into it at LL, I’ve done it here, national writers have talked about it. The M’s have not played like a 90-win team, but they were in a position to get there. It wasn’t exactly *likely*, but they had a chance, because all of their “lucky” wins are already in the bank. They don’t have to win 90 anymore, just 35. And a team that has a great bullpen can get to 35 in a number of ways, and *especially* if they can upgrade their line-up.
But the M’s *real* contending year is 2022, right? Won’t they have more/better chances then? Here’s the rub: I honestly don’t know, but I kind of doubt it. Dipoto’s repeatedly said that the rebuild may be a bit ahead of schedule, but I think looking at *how* this unlikely team got to 55 wins is instructive. If the team got to 55 because the young stars that they’ve been hyping arrived and immediately put the league on notice, that would be one thing. If they got there partially through breakout years, and partly through unreal performances by non-roster invitees, journeymen, and sequencing, that would be rather another.
I’ve said for a while that something seems off in how the M’s hitters handle the transition from the minors to the majors. This season began with Evan White and Taylor Trammell face-planting. White’s now rehabbing a serious injury, and Trammell is in AAA. Jarred Kelenic finally made his debut, and has…hit worse than Evan White, somehow. The stars of previous ad campaigns like Shed Long and Marco Gonzales have had down years. The team really made the case that Justus Sheffield was an elite starter after 2020, then watched him put up a sub-replacement level campaign in 2021. Now, all of this could turn around, of course. Young players can be volatile. But it has to be at least a little concerning that the M’s have whiffed on so many young hitters. Kyle Lewis hit right from the get-go, and while he’s had some severe ups and downs, he can’t be lumped in with the rest of these guys. JP Crawford has been, well, I guess it depends a bit on what month we’re looking at, but he’s still a starting MLB SS. But it does not take a completely contrarian, needlessly-negative view to worry that next year might not be a walk in the park, *even with* positive regression from Kelenic, Trammell, Sheffield-and-or-Dunn, Gonzales, etc.
Because of that, I think punting on 2021 would make no sense. Yes, the team may be better from a true talent standpoint (and even that’s debatable), but if this year’s taught us anything, it’s that true talent does not correlate to wins 1:1. When you’re in a position to win, I think you’ve got to improve your team. I’ll be honest, I’m fine with the M’s not trading any of their top 5 prospects. I don’t think you go hog-wild just because you’re a game out of the second wild card. But you can’t just say “our prospects will lead us to glory” when Kelenic, Trammell, White, Sheffield, Long, etc. are playing the way they are.
Further, as so many have ably said, the time to *really* improve without moving top prospects isn’t at the trade deadline, it’s in the offseason. The M’s have essentially sat out the past two hot stove leagues, saying that the time wasn’t quite right. That excuse is now gone. Dipoto’s “ahead of schedule” comments all but closed the door on saying that they need to wait and see what they have. It’s still a great free agent class, and the M’s have major, major needs in their rotation and line-up. They cannot – cannot! – fail to address them. I’m not sure anyone’s convinced that they will.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: France, 1B
4: Seager, 3B
5: Torrens, DH
6: Toro, 2B
7: Murphy, C
8: Kelenic, CF
9: Moore, LF
SP: Gilbert
Reasonable people can differ on what Dipoto “owes” the team or the fans. Reasonable people can differ on how to weight the cost to M’s morale in making the Graveman swap, and reasonable people clearly do differ on Abraham Toro’s current and future value. That’s great. But reasonable people cannot say that Toro projects to produce more WAR in 2021 than Graveman. I’m sorry, this is just a pet peeve, but I’ve seen it a lot in the analysis of the trade. Such a comparison (and it’s true, per Fangraphs’ rest-of-season WAR projections from ZiPS or Steamer, or your projection of choice) ignores what teams are buying when they get a closer, and what’s driving a player’s WAR totals. Relievers get a lot less WAR because they play less. Fewer innings, fewer chances to rack up what’s essentially a counting stat. But those innings are insanely high leverage, and especially after the deadline, the games in which he appears mean so much to playoff odds and playoff seeding. In a vacuum, sure, 20 IP of Kendall Graveman isn’t valuable. But that doesn’t mean the Astros “overpaid” any more than the White Sox just did when they acquired Craig Kimbrel. Great teams want to win every game they have a lead in, because some of them will be playoff games. They have no need for the *additional* WAR some random IF would produce should he get the playing time.
The best way to illustrate this is through an example. At present, Fangraphs projects Elvis Andrus to be more valuable from now through the end of the season than Graveman or Craig Kimbrel. Andrus projects to add about as much WAR as Graveman and Kimbrel combined. Why are teams irrationally sending away prospects and young big-leaguers for closers? Why not add some veteran grit in Andrus? I would hope the answer’s obvious here, so please, don’t claim that Graveman’s ROS WAR or his WAR in comparison to another player answers anything. It doesn’t. You can love the trade and make all sorts of wonderful arguments for it, but not this one.
Game 103, Astros at Mariners – M’s Acquire a Rent-a-Starter
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Jake Odorizzi, 12:40pm
Yesterday was quite the day. The afternoon trade of Kendall Graveman from the home to the away dugout unleashed a torrent of (on background) emotion from M’s players, as Ryan Divish’s story lays out. Graveman was clearly a leader in the clubhouse, and players were sad and ultimately outraged about the move. Jerry Dipoto said repeatedly (though not to the players themselves, another sore spot) that this was only the first in a series of moves, and midway through the game, we heard about the next domino to fall: the M’s acquired SP Tyler Anderson from the Pittsburgh Pirates in exchange for two minor prospects, headlined by AA C, Carter Bins.
Anderson’s a fastball/cutter left-hander, and typically sits around 90 mph with his fastballs (he’s also got a sinker). A former first round pick by the Rockies, Anderson came up in 2016 with Colorado and made an instant impact: he tossed 114 well above-average innings for the Rocks that year, with an ERA and FIP both right around 3.5. He was worth 2.4 fWAR in that partial season, and seemed to give the Rockies another piece to build around – they had Jon Gray coming, Kyle Freeland,, Anderson… but while Anderson didn’t really collapse, he’s never quite regained the form he showed in 2016. After an injury plagued 2019 in which he tossed about 20 awful innings, the Rockies waived him, and San Francisco scooped him up as part of their strategy to bring in a lot of former hyped players coming off awful stretches of play.
He wasn’t exactly Kevin Gausman for the Giants, but he worked out just fine. In about 60 IP, he was more or less league avereage-ish. A fly ball pitcher, especially at this stage of his career, San Francisco was a good spot for him, as is Seattle. Pittsburgh was…less so, as his HRs allowed have increased pretty dramatically this year. But as always seems to be the case, other aspects of his game have compensated. He’s walking fewer than he has in years, and his K rate, while still low, is up a tick.
As far as deadline deals go, this is not a sexy one. There’s no raw stuff just waiting to be unlocked, no clear “just get him away from Park X, and he’ll be fine.” As a pending free agent, this isn’t about improving him over the offseason or coaxing another mph from his heater. He’s here to eat some innings in a perfectly average, business-like way. And let’s be clear: the M’s need that. With so many starters on the shelf and with some starters perhaps tiring, the M’s can’t just turn things over to Darren McCaughan or someone else from the minors. They need a little bit more certainty from the rotation, and that’s what Anderson figures to give them. Is acquiring a rental player a questionable decision, particularly after Dipoto seemed to waive the white flag on 2021 with the other move yesterday? Eh, in this case, the price was right. It’s an easier way to demonstrate to the team that you’re not completely giving up while not losing their big, name-brand prospects.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, DH
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Toro, 2B
6: Kelenic, CF
7: Murphy, C
8: Bauers, RF
9: Long, LF
SP: Kikuchi
Abraham Toro made a good impression last night with a pinch-hit HR, and now he’ll show off his positional versatility by playing 2B. Normally a 3B, he’s certainly more useful if he can also spell someone at 2B, but I’m still not sure how much having another Ty France-style utility infielder helps. In any event, what the M’s need from Toro – IF they keep him and don’t move him in a subsequent deal – is for his bat to develop really quickly. Where he plays is a secondary issue, and, as we talked about yesterday, 3B is about to open up with the impending departure of Kyle Seager.
Update: You know who’s only a game up in the Wild Card race and is now shoring up their team? The A’s. A day after acquiring LHRP Andrew Chafin from Chicago, the A’s just acquired rental OF and one of the better bats available, Starling Marte. In exchange, the Marlins get troubled SP/RP prospect, Jesus Luzardo. Luzardo seemed poised to give the A’s an excellent #2 starter for years after a scintillating debut in 2019, but scuffled a bit in 2020 (when he was my preseason pick as the AL ROY…oops). He wasn’t *bad*, but lacked consistency. This year…this year, he was actually bad, and after being demoted to AAA, was even worse. This could be a huge get for the Marlins, who’ve turned into a remarkably effective pitching development org. It could also help the A’s keep their grip on the Wild Card. They can turn to free agency for that next starter spot, or hope that Cole Irvin is able to develop a bit. I’d still say the A’s need someone with more upside than that, and I’m not sure I see it in their system (beyond the oft-injured AJ Puk).
Mariners Trade Their Closer to Houston…For Some Reason
Ok, hit post a bit too quickly on the gamer, as the context around just got upended. After last night’s confidence-boosting comeback, and with the M’s a game out of playoff position, the M’s have decided to trade closer Kendall Graveman and erstwhile closer Rafael Montero (who’d recently been DFA’d) to…Houston, the team in the away dugout. In exchange, the M’s get 3B Abraham Toro and RP Joe Smith. Uhhhh, yeah.
Abraham Toro has been a prospect for years thanks to a good combination of contact skills/low-K rates and a discerning eye that led him to post high walk totals in the minors. When he started driving the ball in AA, his stock rose further, and while Alex Bregman seemed to block him, he’s had opportunities with injuries to both Bregman and SS Carlos Correa (who would often be replaced by…Bregman). He has, sadly, not taken advantage of those opportunities, and over the course of short stints in three seasons, put up a career MLB line of .193/.276/.350. He’s just 25, and there remains some promise here; it’s not hard to see him putting up something like a Kyle Seager-in-2020 type year with roughly equal Ks and BBs, mixed in with some pop. But he’s not there right now, and it’s an open question both if he’s going to be able to consistently have average power for the corner IF, or if he’ll be able to hit for any kind of average.
Joe Smith is the long-tenured veteran righty. He’s 37, and was great for the Astros as recently as 2019, but seems to be breaking down a bit. He’s a very low-arm-slot/side-arming sinker/slider guy, for the most part. His sinker averages about 86 and gets a tremendous amount of sink…but that may be due to gravity as much as spin. His slider has tons of horizontal movement, too, which you’d kind of expect with his sub-4′ release point. He’s been tough on righties for his career, as you’d expect, but he’s nearing the end and righties have absolutely crushed him this season. The M’s sent one DFA’d player to Houston, and I assume Smith is in this deal in lieu of being DFA’d himself.
What’s the idea here? I mean, I get it, at some level: the M’s are selling high from a position of depth – that’s just what I talked about in yesterday’s post on Jerry’s trade history. I think this cannot be the final deal before the deadline, as, on its own, this simply hurts the team. I know they were never going to mortgage the future to improve 2021, but I also don’t think it’ll fly with either the fanbase or the clubhouse to start stripping 2021 for parts in the middle of a wild card run. I can imagine there are some frustrated players pulling on M’s jerseys tonight.
In part, I think the emergency of both Paul Sewald and Drew Steckenrider made this move *possible*, and it really fills an area of need for Houston (as we, uh, saw last night). But Toro is such on odd get for a closer-at-the-deadline like Graveman. The M’s have to be far higher on Toro than the projections and industry; Toro’s projections show a league average bat (that is, they show clear improvement). But an average defensive 3B with a league average bat does not add up to a league-average 3B.
This is the move of a very, very confident GM, and while I can admire the chutzpah, this move looks pretty bad from a baseball and morale point of view. Perhaps the Mariner most upset right now? Kyle Seager. I have never really imagined that the M’s would pick up his $15M+ team option for 2022, but this move all but slams the door on that. In his final year, his team was making one last run at the postseason he’s never played in. Now, the M’s make a trade that makes that dream much less likely while at the same time bringing in his replacement for 2022.
Game 102, Astros at Mariners – How Do You Top THAT?
Chris Flexen vs. Lance McCullers, Jr., 7:10pm
We’re less than 24 hours removed from one of the most unlikely comeback wins I’ve ever seen. Darren McCaughan gave up 6 runs in the first, and Luis Garcia was dealing, and it just looked like he needed to eat innings. The M’s spotted a far, far better team a six spot in the first. And they won. I… this whole team makes no sense whatsoever, and it is glorious.
I mentioned yesterday that Joe Sheehan had found that the M’s performance in high leverage situations was the best *compared to their own overall performance* of any team since integration. The gap between how the M’s play in low-leverage situations vs. high-leverage situations (close/late, etc.) was massive. I worried during the game that the M’s were messing with that narrative, especially when Cal Raleigh hit a three-run double in a game that still felt 100% done. But the M’s had more up their sleeve, and sure enough, they chipped away until they actually got themselves into a high-leverage plate appearance, and on cue, Dylan Moore hit the winning grand slam to left.
That winning grand slam capped a rally that started with a man on and two outs, and the next batters had OBPs of .190, .250, and .274. I remain unsure how that group won the game for the M’s, just as I’m unsure how they had 7 runs by that point in the first place. I mentioned this on Twitter, but this gap between how the M’s play when no one’s on and how they play in these crucial moments is something that would get laughed out of a script. Cal Raleigh still has no hits with the bases empty. Make this make sense, if you can!
Statcast has new zones to categorize pitch locations beyond divvying up the strike zone into a 3X3 grid, with zones outside of the zone as well. They break into four big buckets: pitches in the heart of the plate, which are 99% *always* called a strike, so it’s really a subset of the rulebook zone, which they call “heart” pitches; then, the pitches on the edge of the zone in either direction – some are in, some are out, but all of them are *close* (“shadow” pitches). Then, tough pitches that might induce a swing (“chase” pitches), but which are unambiguous balls, and finally “waste” pitches which generally don’t get swings at all. Pitches in the “heart” category have the highest wOBA against – right now, the league has a .361 wOBA against them. (Why not higher? Because they’re all strikes, so if you don’t swing, it’s a guaranteed strike against you. This is just wOBA, not wOBACON).
With nobody on base, the M’s wOBA on “heart” pitches is .295, by far the worst in the game. Remember, league average is .361. This is remarkably low, and the M’s are the only club below .300. Now, what happens on “heart” pitches with runners in scoring position? The M’s hit to a .467 clip, easily – *easily* – the best in baseball.
I don’t think there’s any real way to spin this into a skill or a kind of heightened concentration. This is hilarious and deeply silly, and I think that odd blend really captures what it *feels* like to watch this team.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, 1B
5: Raleigh, C
6: Torrens, DH
7: Kelenic, CF
8: Moore, 2B
9: Long, LF
SP: Flexen
It’s funny that the M’s have just completely blown up any correlation between run differential and record, or between “being bad at hitting” and “contending” but here we are. It’s odd, because as Robert Arthur notes, the Majors are set up for a supremely boring end of the season in terms of playoff drama. In a fascinating post, he notes that the playoff races are pretty much over, with some very good teams taking early leads and running away with things, and even the wildcard races looking fairly clear, at least to projection systems. This means that the results of each game changes the playoff odds less than in other years – a trend that’s accelerated recently. We don’t get playoff chaos anymore. I would note that the projections all giving the M’s odds at under 5% even with them a game out of the wild card says quite a bit about those projection systems. That is, I completely get why there IS such unanimity around a pending M’s collapse out of the running, but man, I would give this bizarre, dumb, fun, weird team a better than a 1/20 chance given that they are, somehow, 9 games over .500. Every projection assumes the Angels will finish ahead of Seattle, and, uh, I’ve seen the Angels. I dunno that I’d put money on that. (That said, I wouldn’t put money on the M’s magical run continuing, either).
The M’s hired a new President of Business Operations today, Catie Griggs, who recently held a similar position for Atlanta United in MLS. This is something like Kevin Mather’s replacement, but as you may recall back when Mather was fired, M’s owner John Stanton really wanted to separate the President position from Baseball Operations; Mather had a foot in both sides of the house. I don’t know anything about Griggs, but the M’s made an exhaustive search, and she seems like she’s been vetted pretty well. Welcome to Seattle, Catie.
Tacoma beat Sacramento 7-4 at home, with Jake Hager homering and helping Logan Verrett earn his sixth win. Vinny Nittoli starts the final game of the series tonight. It’s off to Nevada after this, with 6 in Las Vegas and 6 in Reno.
Arkansas visits Springfield today to start their series. Alejandro Requena takes the mound for the Travs opposite former M’s prospect Tyler Pike. Pike was sent to Atlanta in one of the M’s many trades with the Braves before the 2017 season, and played some independent league ball in 2019.
Everett hosts Eugene, with Stephen Kolek on the mound for the AquaSox.
Modesto kicks off a series with Rancho Cucamonga.
Game 101, Astros at Mariners
Darren McCaughan vs. Luis Garcia, 7:10pm
What did the M’s big series win over the A’s get them? It improved their playoff odds at the margins, sure, but it gave a real shot in the arm to the team’s confidence, and, perhaps just as critically, it gave them some breathing room. I’m sure the clubhouse is all-in for this series against Houston, but winning against the A’s means the M’s don’t absolutely NEED to win this one. They can catch their breath and do something they haven’t had the opportunity to do in a few years: do some scoreboard watching.
Darren McCaughan’s back after a bizarre but effective MLB debut in Colorado. Opposing him is Luis Garcia, the latest break-out prospect from the Astros taking the league by storm. Garcia has a straight, rising fastball at 93 – it looks a bit like Logan Gilbert’s or Yusei Kikuchi’s, though it’s not as firm as either of those guys’. But his secondaries are a pitch design wonderland. His slider swerves *hard* to the gloveside, and gets unreal sink at 80 mph. It’s slurvey in the best sense, a two-plane breaking ball that’s like a super-hard curve, kind of like his teammate Lance McCullers’. Then, he’s got a change-up with extreme *arm*side run and some sink compared to that fastball. It’s slightly harder at 83, and it helps him keep lefties in check. Then, his out-pitch: a hard (86 mph) cutter than sinks sharply, making it work almost like a split to lefties. It’s got some gloveside movement, so it’s clearly a breaking ball, but a hard pitch breaking down 8″ lower than the fastball… that’s going to play, and it’s been highly effective for Garcia this year.
Joe Sheehan‘s newsletter today focused on the M’s and their remarkable clutch stats. This is something I’ve talked about beginning in April, but Sheehan found some stats that blew my mind. Baseball Reference splits pages compare a team’s performance to the league average, which is helpful, but also to the team’s own performance. By this latter measure, the M’s high-leverage batting line of .277/.348/.494 is the best in MLB history since integration. The M’s overall batting line, as I talked about in the last post, is atrocious, with the club sporting a sub-.300 OBP, driven by a terrible batting average. They seem to lull the opposition into a sense of calm by being so utterly *bad* at hitting. Until the game’s on the line, whereupon they hit like an All-Star. It’s not driven by one player, and it hasn’t really changed since the first few series of the season. At least for 2021, this is just *who they are* and if this isn’t entertaining, I don’t know what is. I remember watching the Texas Rangers in 2016 and going crazy because they were outplaying their true talent without any real reason why. The shoe is on the other foot now; the Rangers are coming off one of the worst 10-game stretches in history, and the M’s shrug-emoji their way to victory after victory. Yes, the bullpen’s unreal performance is driving their record in one-run games, but they have to score some runs, too. They always seem to score exactly as many runs as they need, and I, for one, find this perplexing and delightful in equal measure. The Mariners! Lucky!? What is this?
There are serious questions about the Other Shoe Dropping, not just in 2021, but how this sets up the team’s contention in 2022. I realize that, just as I realize – boy do I – Jarred Kelenic’s “batting” line. I just choose to focus on the random, wonderful brand of baseball the M’s are playing right now, and suggest you do the same.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Haniger, RF
3: Seager, 3B
4: France, DH
5: Raleigh, C
6: Torrens, 1B
7: Kelenic, CF
8: Long, 2B
9: Bauers, LF
SP: McCaughan