Game 139, Mariners at Rangers
Roenis Elias vs. Robbie Ross, 5:05pm
Wildcard Odds- Fangraphs.com: 45.3%. Baseballprospectus.com: 41.6%
Big day yesterday, as a great performance from Felix paired with a Detroit loss to give the M’s playoff odds a boost.
Today, the M’s head to Arlington to take on the reeling Rangers, who more resemble a AAA club than the team many thought could win the division. Robbie Ross won a spring competition to start the year in the rotation, and while injuries helped with that, he looked like he belonged. The lefty blanked the M’s over 7 2/3 IP back in April – his third straight solid outing to begin the year. Five days later, he got knocked around a bit and simply hasn’t been the same.
Ross is heavily fastball dependent, though he also throws a slider, curve and change. He gets good sink, and his delivery must be deceptive to righties, as he never had problems with RHBs, at least until this year. He’s always generated grounders, which has helped him avoid HRs, but even with a solid GB%, he’s had HR issues this year. It can’t be too shocking considering his home park and raw stuff that’s never been elite (he was seen as a finesse lefty by many when he was coming through the minors), but he, like the entire club, has been both bad and tremendously unlucky.
Most teams stack their lineups with righties, but Ross has reverse splits for his career in part because his slider’s been so bad against lefties. That said, his fastball’s been poor to righties this year after being effective for the two years he spent in the Texas bullpen.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, 1B
5: Seager, 3B
6: Hart, DH
7: Denorfia, RF
8: Taylor, SS
9: Sucre, C
SP: Elias
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57 Responses to “Game 139, Mariners at Rangers”
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I should also say, I’m NOT an Endy fan myself… But to not appreciate the less than awful season he’s having is as ridiculous as any other thoughts about him.
.314 wOBA
101 wRC+
What’s amazing is that he’s managed, with some great good fortune, to be a league average hitter for the first time since….2006! But his defense and baserunning have deteriorated to such a degree that he’s still below replacement level. (Back when he was Endy Chavez, useful player edition, being a league average hitter made him an above average player.)
Why Chavez?
Because Michael Saunders is still injured and the other options are different kinds of crap, like Jones (who’s a younger version of Chavez who can’t field yet) or Romero.
Guess what, the M’s haven’t got a lot of OFers, and what’s in the minors is mostly replacement level, which is what Chavez is.
Now, if Saunders was actually sitting on the bench getting splinters in his butt instead of trying to put weight back on and getting hitting timing back in Peoria, THEN I might be upset with McClendon for playing one of his multitude of replacement-level talent on his bench. But he’s not.
The fact that the M’s are shy OFers/1B/DH types has only been mentioned about 434567898 times, so I guess we can mention it 434567899 times, and blame Jack Z, but he did go out at the deadline and pull in AJax/Denorfia/Morales without giving up much (a reasonable stab at making the OF/1B/DH position not a drawback, which hasn’t paid off great, but it did give us some bodies), and Saunders seems to be the unluckiest bastard ever when it comes to injury, so my take is “meh”. At this point, the roster cake is mostly baked, we’ll know how it comes out at the end.
Serious question here — does anyone know all the different factors that go into weighing WAR? I’ve always found it odd how there can be such a big discrepancy between sites. Example — Chavez is shown as having a -.1 WAR on Fangraphs, but +.4 WAR on baseball-reference. Is there more subjectivity to WAR than I realized?
Chavez has been at .4 at baseball-reference for quite a while, but went from something like .1 or .2 to -.1 at Fangraphs recently. I’ve always viewed WAR as being an objective stat, but if there’s subjectivity involved I’m wondering if maybe its importance should be downplayed a bit?
That’s interesting. B-Ref and FanGraphs had announced a year or so ago they were standardizing how they calculate player WAR – they’d been using somewhat different formulas. I assumed that would have happened by now; but apparently not.
I would point out that a difference of .5 WAR over almost a complete season isn’t much, though – it’s not as if B-Ref has Endy being worth 4 wins or something. Both sites have him hovering right around replacement level.
But to answer your question… And, after reading that page, it appears what the two sites agreed to do was standardize how Replacement Level is calculated, not WAR itself.
Thanks, Westside. I didn’t realize there was an agreement/consensus among the two.
I suppose you’re right — .5 isn’t really THAT big of a difference, and that’s typically the biggest difference I’ve seen.
Another one I found interesting — Corey Hart -1 at Fangraphs, but -.4 at Baseball Reference.
I trust Endy has been a better base runner this year than Kyle Seager.