Meche, September callups
Meche was expected to be activated from the 15-day DL (patellar tendinitis, right knee) this week, but he had a setback while throwing. Great quote: “He said his shoulder felt funny.” — Mike Hargrove.
It’s possible Meche’s shoulder has been bugging him for some time now, and it’s also possible he changed his mechanics due to the knee problem and it put some new stress on his shoulder (or some combination of the two). In any event, I would not be surprised at all if he’s done for the year as a precautionary measure.
In the same article, the Times reports that Soriano and Atchison will be up from Tacoma this week. Finnigan speculates others will be Shin-soo Choo, Ramon Santiago (?!) and Rene Rivera. He also says Bucky Jacobsen is likely not among the first wave. The PI, however, says that after Soriano and Atchison, the M’s are likely to leave both Tacoma’s and San Antonio’s untouched through the minor league playoffs.
Finally, Tacoma starter Bobby Livingston posted the following line last night: 7 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 14 K. He’s now 6-2 for the Rainiers with a 4.70 ERA, in what has been an up-and-down stint since being promoted from San Antonio.
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42 Responses to “Meche, September callups”
It will be interesting to see if Livingston gets a real shot at the rotation in the spring. While he has been inconsistant at AAA, I have to believe that he would be better than 3 of the 5 we currently ask to walk the plank every 5 days.
Ramon Santiago?! I guess he had a good year, but he’s not on the 40 man and there is no reason to make a move to get him on there if we’ll be outrighting him again at the end of the season.
Larue speculates Heaverlo. That would be more interesting than anybody else, but once again, not 40 man roster. I suppose you can 60 day Snelling, but then you have to do that to activate Atchison. I guess if you want Heaverlo and Santiago, you 60 Day Campillo and Willie, or cut Kida. Speaking of which, no mention of Kida getting a Sept callup? He was left on the 40m so I see no reason not to, once playoffs are over.
I exchanged e-mails with my former colleague, a Mariners beat writer who shall go nameless but is known here by the pseudonymous initials P.L.
He said Meche’s (and Thornton’s) problem is that they have no balls, meaning that both of them are afraid to challenge the hitters.
It’s a little more diplomatic a statement than the one he made about an injury suffered by Floyd Bannister more than 20 years ago: “He pulled a c__t muscle.”
I may be just a grumpy old fart, but any pitcher who won’t challenge the hitters doesn’t belong on a major-league roster, and no manager who wants to draw a major-league paycheck should tolerate a pitcher who won’t challenge the hitters.
Right, it can’t be that they just aren’t good enough — or in Meche’s case, persistently injured — they must be lacking essential moral fiber. What a load of horsefeathers.
Wow, 14 strikeots in 7 innings. That is amazing. I am unfamiliar with Livingston and his year, which you describe as inconsistent. Is he a strikeout pitcher? Does he throw hard? Does he have good control?
Meche had been complaining about his shoulder feeling weak for some time prior to his DL stint, so this latest development is no surprise. The thing that disappoints me is that Meche’s injury means that the M’s have no one to replace Franklin in the rotation.
Also, I cannot see the advantage of calling up minor leaguer position players with Grover managing. They wouldn’t play. But he probably does want a few more pitchers. It must be hard on him only having seven arms in the bullpen.
I can understand Santiago getting a call because the middle infield lacks depth, especially when Morse is DHing. Making room on th 40 man isn’t too much trouble at this point in the year.
Soriano, Atch, and Nageotte should get in a few appearances. Choo would be completely buried. Bucky has failed to hit at all in AAA. Leone has been pretty underwhelming as well.
Franklin is counting the ininnings before he’s banished to the back of the bullpen for the rest of the year. Meche is looking like he’ll never throw for the Mariners again, so someone from the minors will need to take Franklin’s spot. Livingston is the front-runner because he’s healthy. Foppert, maybe a couple weeks from now. Bazardo could get another look too if he shows some improvement soon.
It sounds like “P.L.” is doing what he does best, parroting the company line — in this case Price.
“Damn it kid,” Price says as he picks Meche’s throwing arm up off the dirt of the mound where it lay weakly pumping the last of it blood, “take this, put it back on, and show some balls. You have to challenge batters! You’re just a wimp, and you need to learn to pitch through pain. Oh, stop your snivelling! Just find a trainer with a needle and some thread…hell, we just used crazy glue and duct tape in my day….”
That’s right, Shoeless Jose. Why, when I was a kid, if we needed laces for our baseball shoes, we had to use our own tendons!
Wow, 14 strikeots in 7 innings. That is amazing. I am unfamiliar with Livingston and his year, which you describe as inconsistent. Is he a strikeout pitcher? Does he throw hard? Does he have good control?
Livingston doesn’t have good stuff. He has a good assortment of pitches, but is by no means a flamethrower; Ryan Franklin might actually be a decent comparison, except Livingston’s a lefty (and lefties can often get by with less stuff than righties). He tops out around 88-89, though I’ve heard his velocity was down since arriving in Tacoma. Change and curve are his other offerings.
He’s all about command and keeping the ball in the park. The past two years at Wiconsin and IE, he threw 365 innings, allowed 363 hits and only fanned 246, but only walked 58 and gave up 25 homers. These kind of guys often thrive until they hit AA, sometimes AAA, and then fail to make it.
In any event, he’s in a pretty decent situation to succeed, given the M’s defense and home park. If his groundball rates are as good as his homers allowed suggest, he could do a nice job at the back of the rotation with Beltre-Betancourt-Lopez-Sexson behind him.
jason
I think the Mariners should move Ichiro to the 5th spot in the batting order. I know it sounds crazy but it is working like a charm in my MVP Baseball 2005 Mariners dynasty. At the 5 spot he drives in runs and gets lots of steals. At the leadoff spot I hesitated to steal with him because Beltre and Sexson were coming up at the 3 and 4 spots and they can crush the ball. I realize that Beltre and Sexson don’t crush the ball in real life like they do in MVP Baseball so that may debunk my theory but at this point what do the Mariners have to lose. 🙂
JMB: You said: “These kind of guys often thrive until they hit AA, sometimes AAA, and then fail to make it.” Do you mean guys who have a low strikeout rate, or specifically guys with a low strikeout rate and a good K/BB ratio (like Livingston’s 4:1 ratio)?
It seems to me that if you have a guy with a low strikeout rate, you know he’s going to give up hits. But, if he’s a groundball pitcher behind a good defense, not many of those hits will go for extra bases. So, if he keeps his walk rate down, he’s essentially giving up the same number of baserunners, just with more singles and fewer walks, and I don’t see why a guy like that couldn’t have success. That’s just my intuition, though, I’m not sure if the numbers back it up. Perhaps it would be difficult to check due to lack of minor league G/F ratios, too.
I think some of the blame for Meche’s struggles must fall on Price’s shoulders. He obviously doesn’t attack the strike zone, but after being sent down last year he came back with an attack attitude and pitched well. I forget who he worked with but he gave him alot of credit. Basically I want to see how Meche pitches working with a different pitching coach. My question is what does everyone think are the odds on Price being gone after this year?
Do you mean guys who have a low strikeout rate, or specifically guys with a low strikeout rate and a good K/BB ratio (like Livingston’s 4:1 ratio)?
I meant guys without good stuff who don’t miss bats. The fact that he doesn’t walk anyone might actually be a detriment — when you’re putting that many balls in play, you’re going to give up a ton of hits even with a good defense behind you (though obviously the good defense would help).
I have no idea what his GB:FB ratios are like… I’m not sure there’s a place to find that for the minors. It’s hard enough even finding lefty/righty splits in the minors. I’m guessing they’re pretty good given his HR totals, but that’s just a guess. As for this season, both Wolff Stadium (San Antonio) and Cheney (Tacoma), as far as I know, depress homers.
jason
Probably better directed for Dave, but is Livingston a REAL prospect (future member of the rotation) or not?
I seem to recall he’s had nice numbers in prior seasons. He was 8-4 with a 2.86 ERA (I know those numbers aren’t the best way to judge) with 6 K/9IP and ~3:1 K/BB ratio at AA. At Tacoma, despite the ERA, he’s > 7 K/9 IP (seems to missing a lot of bats, no?) and a 2.7:1 K/BB ratio with only 2HR in 51 IP. He’s been in the Seattle Times top 10 prospects all season and USSM/Dave rate him a 6 for reward which would put him in the top 10 if the list were rank ordered. All of that sounds good.
But every time his name comes up I see things like “Livingston doesn’t have good stuff… Ryan Franklin might actually be a decent comparison … These kind of guys often thrive until they hit AA, sometimes AAA, and then fail to make it.” which is pretty negative. And in talking about the 2006 rotation Campillo and Madritsch come up much more often than Livingston.
I’m confused about Livingston not missing bats. Isn’t 6-7 K/9IP pretty good? Of the AL starting pitchers for qualify for the ERA title only 17 are above 6 and only eight above 7. Or is this something that tends to fall off significantly when promoted to the majors?
Thanks
So, for Livingston being a minor leaguer with a low K/9, good K/BB, low HR/9, but lacking in stuff, should we think Zack Greinke more than Carlos Silva?
Looking at their minor league numbers, they seem to fit the profile fairly well, though Silva had lower K/9, and a non-existent HR/9. (Literally, he allowed 0 HRs in 685 minor league IP.) Silva’s been pretty successful (though he’s older), while Greinke’s struggled, with his HR rate a fairly high 1.6 HR/9 in the majors.
16: the best pitching prospects in the minors usually have K/9s above 9.0. >7 is quite good relative to the league, but not enough to indicate that a pitcher will be able to miss bats at a higher level. Usually when people talk about “real prospects,” they’re talking about pitchers who dominate the minors, indicating that they can pitch at an above-average level in the majors. A pitcher with a K/9 between 6 and 7 in AAA will probably be in the 5-6 range in the majors, which isn’t too good.
From what I’ve read/heard, Livingston seems to profile as a back-of-the-rotation innings eater. One person I talked to who saw him play in San Antonio said he never topped 87 (according to the stadium gun) on his fastball. He has, however, had several dominant starts this year, particularly around late June/early July, and Dave has written elsewhere that he used to consistently throw in the 90-92 range, so he might be able to develop into something more than an adequate innings-eater.
Regarding Livingston’s GB/FB tendencies, I was bored, so I looked at a few of his more recent starts to get a snapshot of the way he’s getting guys out. I looked at the logs from his last 5 starts, then got tired of digging. Obviously, this is way too little data to mean much, but here are the numbers anyway:
41 GBs, 27 FBs, 11 Line-Drives.
So, over his last 5 starts he’s got a GB/FB of 1.52. He seems, from these few games at least, to be a solid if not extreme groundball pitcher. Of those 25 FBs, 1 was a hr. I don’t know what that means, or how to interpret it, but hopefully someone else does.
11. Thanks for that.
Let’s keep in mind that September callups are less about merit than need. If the M’s feel they need late-inning defensive help in the infield and no other options are available, Ramon Santiago fills that need adequately. If they need garbage relief innings, Scott Atchison fills that bill. Soriano’s recall is more about seeing if he’s all the way back against the best level of hitters in baseball. Bucky, it seems, is neither ready nor needed, as replacement-level righthanded DHing and pinch-hitting is not a big need for the team right now.
Livingston … I agree with JMB. He needs to be carefully nurtured in circumstances that allow him to succeed, but for a guy with unimpressive “stuff,” he seems to have a pretty good idea how to pitch. That doesn’t translate into a “need” for the M’s in September, but I see no point in not letting him get a start or two in the last two weeks of the season after Tacoma’s case is decided in the PCL playoffs. Gotta love the low HR-to-IP ratio, as well as the GB-to-FB ratio. I like Heaverlo now for the same reason  his overall stats don’t look good, but he has been mostly lights-out in the Pacific Coast League the last three months. I don’t see why he couldn’t do just as well as Atchison … which is not to deny Atchison, who has been lights-out the whole way through the Triple-A portion of his rehab.
The fact that a pitcher doesn’t top 88 on the stadium gun doesn’t necessarily mean that he isn’t going to be successful in the bigs, especially if he can change speeds. Jamie Moyer comes to mind.
I thought Abraham Nunez had earned himself another shot. Oh well, tough luck.
#18:
To make a connection back to the Piñeiro thread, Joel was between 6 and 7 for all of his minor league career past low A ball. He held that rate for the first few years he was in the majors, but this year he hsa dropped into the 5-6 range.
Greinke throws two fastballs, topping out in the low-to-mid 90s, as well as a slider and hammer curve. Livingston doesn’t have anywhere near his stuff (I know Greinke’s been mauled this year; I must be his only backer still around, or something).
RickL: The fact that a pitcher doesn’t top 88 on the stadium gun doesn’t necessarily mean that he isn’t going to be successful in the bigs, especially if he can change speeds. Jamie Moyer comes to mind.
That’s a fair point, but it’s often said that for every ten of these guys floating around the minors, only one of them makes it. That might have something to do with opportunity, as teams will always give a guy who lights up the gun *cough* Thornton *cough* more shots than a soft-tosser. But you have to admit, Moyer hasn’t exactly followed a typical career path.
It is worth noting that Livingston upped his K-rate pretty significantly from 2003 (5.3K/9IP) to 2004 (6.8). He was back down to 6.1 at AA, but back up to 7.1 at AAA thanks in large part to his 14-K outing. Take that out of the mix, and he’s back down to a pretty weak 5.4.
jason
Alright, my bad on Greinke. I thought he mainly relied on his control, but apparently that was wrong. On team as pitching thin as the M’s are right now, though, it seems like it’s worth their time to see if his lack of stuff turns out to be a problem at the major league level, or if he can become a successful lefty soft-tosser.
Might as well have them pitch instead of Hasegawa and Nelson. There’s no point using guys who you are sure will not be on the team next season.
If you remove B-Liv’s horrible start in Oklahoma (1ip, 9er) he’s sitting on a 3.20 ERA in nine starts with 40k and 13bb in 50.2 ip.
BTW, i have left-righty splits and G/F stats for any Mariner minor leaguer.
Greinke has all these nice things people say about his pitches and then he gets lit up like Dwight Gooden on a trip to Bogota. Did KC bring him up too fast? He as only drafted in 2002.
JasonAChurchill: BTW, i have left-righty splits and G/F stats for any Mariner minor leaguer.
Well then, let’s hear it for Livingston. Also, do you have a link or something?
Can we agree to no longer use the “throw out this start” or “throw out that game” argument? It muddies the water of objective clarity, it seems.
Actually, I kind of like to see the “let’s throw out this one game” arguments, it’s just the conclusions that I don’t like. To me, it gives us sort of an idea on how big of a sample size we’re talking about. If you can throw out one game and it totally changes your view of a player, I think you should look for a bigger data set.
On the other hand, the arguments that run: “Well, if you throw out this month that doesn’t support my argument, and then those other two weeks that also don’t support my argument, and hey! What do you know? The numbers support my argument.” Those are kind of silly.
If one there were a surefire way to distinguish genuine “outlier” performances from projecting “outlier-liness” onto performances that don’t reinforce our arguments ….
I’ll agree to throw out the Oklahoma 9-ER start if you agree to throw out last night’s 14-K performance. Cherry-picking your evidence is bad, but removing extreme statistical outliers can be useful for analytical purposes.
In this case, that would leave a guy with a 3.50 ERA, 43.2 IP, 41 H, 2.3 BB/9, 5.4 K/9 in AAA. Which sounds like a soft-tosser who’s unlikely to be anything special in the majors, but might be a useful enough innings-eater to qualify as an improvement over Ryan Franklin.
In other words, exactly what we’ve thought Livingston was all along.
Two things:
Bucky has become a one-hit wonder. I wouldn’t doubt if they release him. It is unfortunate, and I hope he makes it to the bigs and comes back to haunt the M’s.
I prefer the risk of Livingston over Moyer next year, without a doubt.
Bucky Jacobsen hasn’t hit a lick since he was bumped back up to AAA; he isn’t even starting all the time. I suspect that he’s not realy healthy, but that’s just a guess. There’s no point in promoting him this month, since he’s not hitting. Next year?: Where does he get a lineup slot?? I like the Big Guy, but he’s just boxed out on the 25-man. And because he’s not made it back from a prolonged injury, he has less than zero value in filling out a trade. . . . The guy can’t catch a break.
If Thornton or Meche challenge hitters with their typical poor command, the ball ends up in the seats: that is the fundamental problem for both guys. HRs kill them, and it’s not due to an unwillingness to throw strikes but an inability to throw quality strikes with any consistency. Whether they have problems above the neck is secondary. They don’t command the strike zone, and it’s a matter of time before they throw the gopher ball if they’re pounding it.
I’ll get those B-Liv splits today… No link because I’m just getting it from the media notes and stats splits at Cheney.
Bobby has induced 59 ground balls and 50 fly balls – 1.18/GF
Thats i just in his 10 starts in Tacoma.
Jason: are you just counting fly outs and groundouts, or did you count hits as well?
Those are just outs, JH.
The league, team, nor any source that I know of does a count on minor league G/F including hits.
I can track down pretty much any general split or situational stat in the system, from Peoria through Tacoma. They are usually an easy get.
I don’t know if anyone’s checking this thread anymore…but is that the way G/F data is normally collected for major league hitters, too? Aren’t the hits just as important to give a total picture of how players hit a pitcher?