Game 13, Angels at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Julio Teheran, 6:40pm
The M’s made things moderately interesting, but they couldn’t overcome a poor first inning by Justin Dunn in yesterday’s 5-3 loss. The young righty gave up 2 HRs and used a ton of pitches early when he simply could not find the plate. To his credit, he bounced back, getting through 4 IP without yielding any more damage. On the other hand, Dunn now has walked 16 in 13 1/3 innings, with 3 HRs given up. I’m just not sure how high the ceiling is here, sitting at 91-92 with a fastball no one swings at. He could be one small tweak away from being a consistent strike thrower, but he’s got to show that he can succeed in the zone.
Erik Swanson gave up what turned out to be some pretty important insurance runs for Anaheim on a 2R HR by David Fletcher. That came a few batters after Jason Castro’s long drive to CF was brought back over the wall by Kyle Lewis; it would appear Swanson’s long-ball issues are back. That’s too bad, because I was very impressed by Swanson’s first inning of 2020. He’s showing improved velocity this year, and he *Could* have a swing-and-miss breaking ball, but he’s just been very hittable in his short time with the M’s.
I talked a lot about what makes a fastball hittable or not in yesterday’s post, and while Andrew Heaney pitched pretty well against Seattle, it wasn’t necessarily because of his odd sinker. Worse, Shane Bieber gave up two HRs on his fastball, so my timing was off (though Bieber is still the odds-on Cy Young favorite at this writing). But baseball, like life, comes at you fast: today, the M’s face another opponent with a somewhat weird fastball. Julio Teheran has settled in as a rotation workhorse, making over 30 starts the past seven seasons. Only the great viral mess of 2020 could break that streak; not even his own bout of Covid-19 seems to have slowed him down. He’ll make his season debut tonight, but he’s a known commodity.
Teheran had swing-and-miss stuff as a top prospect out of Colombia, but as baseball’s K rates have skyrocketed, he’s now got less-than-average rates of his own. Worse, the former control guy now routinely posts high walk rates. Some of this may have been an attempt to deal with rising HR rates, another league-wide issue that has forced pitchers to make adjustments. Teheran still gives up plenty of dingers, not surprising given that his fastball (two of them, actually – a four-seam and a sinker that he’ll mix in occasionally) have dropped in velo to the point he averaged just under 90 last year. So how’s he still around? His fastball beats DIPS.
DIPS is the incredibly useful shorthand that pitchers don’t really control their batting average on balls in play. It was never a hard and fast rule, even if it was often described that way. Knuckle-ballers and some soft-tossing lefties (Jamie Moyer being a great example) seemed to be able to run lower-than-average BABIPs year in and year out, but a normal righty FB/SL/CU guy should settle in around league average if he pitches long enough. Well, that finding never made it to Colombia. Teheran has routinely run BABIPs 20-30 points lower than league average. In over 1,350 innings, his career mark is .268. In the last four seasons, it’s .258, 2nd best in the majors behind Justin Verlander’s .254. But Verlander’s got that high-velo, high-spin fastball that *should* produce lower batting averages. Teheran’s got…what, a 90-MPH sinking four-seam and running sinker. They look completely normal. Up until 2018-19, his spin rates were low.
Despite that long-running success, Teheran has made some adjustments. He’s started using his sinker more to righties, instead of lefties. He’s had long-standing platoon splits, so that was a move he probably should’ve made earlier, but whatever. He’s dropped his already-low release point, and he’s suddenly boosted his fastball spin rates significantly. Is he doing something weird? No, I think he’s just cutting the ball. The additional side-spin adds more total spin than he loses in reduced backspin, so the overall rate goes up. Is it “better?” I dunno. It certainly has less vertical movement, but that’s neither here nor there. What’s interesting is that it still seems to befuddle batters, righties in particular. In his long career, batters are hitting .236 with a .405 SLG% off of Teheran’s low-90s/high-80s nothing-special fastballs. Righties are at .206/.343. Sure, lefties fare a bit better, but even they have a BABIP in the .270s. It’s pretty remarkable, and it’s meant that his ERA consistently – every single full year in the big leagues – comes in lower than his FIP.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Moore, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: Vogelbach, DH
7: White, 1B
8: Long, 2B
9: Smith, RF
SP: Gonzales
It’s early, so it’s fun to look at small-sample lines (unless you’re looking at Mallex Smith’s, in which case, don’t), but the best batting line on the M’s belongs to…Dylan Moore, who homered and hit the ball really hard quite often last night. Strikeouts killed his average last year, which seems like the kind of thing that’ll happen a lot to the 2020 M’s, but it’s lower this year, and he’s playing well. His exit velo’s the top on the team for anyone with more than a couple of balls in play (yes, above Kyle Lewis), and he stands out as so many M’s have seen their exit velo crater. Dee Gordon and Mallex Smith are down below 80 MPH, and look like they’d rather be anywhere than in the line-up.
Game 12, Angels at Mariners
Justin Dunn vs. Andrew Heaney, 7:10pm
It’s 2020, and we’ve had incredibly granular pitch data for over a decade. For the last few, we’ve got quasi-direct measures of spin, spin efficiency, and all manner of break measurements. Teams, of course, have even more; ultra-high speed cameras, wearable technology to measure stress, and everything pitchers need to tweak or design pitches from scratch. Nearly every team can create actionable coaching to target very specific patterns of movement to pair with other offerings or create less-hittable versions of the same pitch. And I think I know less about fastballs – the most easy-to-understand pitch – than ever.
One of the themes on this blog since 2016-2017 or so has been the interplay between pitchers and batters as the ball got slicker and fly balls starting turning into HRs at alarming rates. In the little batting ice age, the strike zone grew at the bottom of the zone, and pitchers targeted that area generating a lot of weak contact and called-strikes. But batters didn’t just shrug their shoulders and look for something better. They added loft to their swings, started actively stalking those low fastballs, and started destroying them. The “Trout Swing” was born, and it caused a sudden change in pitching approach.
The biggest casualty of this new approach was the sinker itself. Pitchers turned instead to four-seam fastballs that had more vertical movement, allowing them to sink less, and stay above batters’ swings. Vertical movement played extremely well at the top of the zone, leading both to more whiffs on fastballs themselves AND pairing extremely well with curveballs to deceive batters, who had a harder time distinguishing between the two pitches. At first, it seemed like there was no trade-off: you avoided the “bad” areas low in the zone, and you got more swing-and-miss and pop-ups to boot. But then batters adjusted again.
It’s taken a while, but in the (very) early-going in 2020, the sinker is making something of a comeback. It’s over 10% of pitches thrown this season for the first time since 2014, and it’s being thrown more often than it was back then.
Today’s opposing starter, Andrew Heaney, is a great example of a sinker specialist excelling in the current era. But what I think makes me so confused is the *way* he’s doing it. We all essentially know what a sinker is, and how it works, right? It’s a fastball thrown with side-spin, leading to more arm-side movement. Critically, the pitch doesn’t have as much backspin, leading to lower vertical movement, or, in english, more sink. All of this led to a series of trade-offs. On the plus side, that sinking movement led to a lot of ground ball contact, as batters hit the top of the ball. That arm-side movement made them very effective against same-handed batters, as the ball would tunnel in towards their hands. On the down side, they weren’t good at getting whiffs; high vertical movement/backspin produced strikeouts, whereas as sinkers were more designed for mis-hits. Still, how to utilize sinkers and four-seamers seemed easy. You’d get oddballs that threw something in between this dichotomy – Justus Sheffield’s low-spin, low-rise four-seamer in 2019 is a perfect example – and teams would try to push them towards one of the poles. Justus Sheffield’s low-spin sinker in 2020 is a great example of that, too.
With all of that as background, let’s turn our attention to today’s opposing starter, Andrew Heaney. Heaney’s been with the Angels since 2015, and has used his sinker about 60-65% of the time since then. It’s got a lot of movement, but it unlike many sinkers, it doesn’t actually…sink. With about 9″ of vertical movement, it looks like a tailing four-seamer, and that may be why Heaney’s ground ball rate has always been extremely low.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. From 2015 through 2017, he dutifully targeted the low strike, and while he got more of the middle of the zone than peak Derek Lowe or Justin Masterson, you could see the approach. He was hurt so much there’s less to go on, but he didn’t get many K’s in 2015, but after a few years in rehab, his K rate inched up in 2018 – his breakout season. But given that movement, he simply didn’t look like a sinkerballer at all. He got whiffs with his sinker, and that pitch generated a ton of fly balls, which in this day and age, meant he gave up a ton of home runs.
So he decided to just throw it like a four-seamer. Here’s how he’s using it since the start of 2019. For reasons I really can’t explain, this has turned the pitch into a dominant swing-and-miss pitch. In that time frame, his sinker – his SINKER – is generating a whiff/swing rate of about 30%. It was 12% in 2015. Moreover, it’s making his slider more deadly. There’s nothing weird in his velo – it’s identical to what it was in 2015. There’s nothing radically different in its movement over the years (normal swings and shifts). It’s just suddenly well-nigh unhittable. Heaney enters with a K/9 over 11 over his last 100+ innings, and his walk rate is declining.
It’s a very different situation, but it calls to mind Shane Bieber’s astonishing start in 2020 (and excellent 2019). Bieber’s been untouchable thus far, with 27 Ks and just 1 walk in 14 innings. Here’s the question, though: Why? What does Bieber *do* that’s producing this? Jacob de Grom throws a 94 MPH slider, and touches 100. Justin Verlander throws that high-spin, high-efficiency back-spin fastball, as does Gerrit Cole. Bieber does *none* of these things. It’s a perfectly average velocity fastball with perfectly normal spin rates and perfectly middle-of-the-road efficiency. Sure, sure, he gets most of his Ks on his breaking pitches, but you’re not supposed to be able to get away with throwing a perfectly average fastball in today’s game. Just like everyone knows you can’t succeed by throwing a sinker up in the zone all the time.
I feel like we know so little right now about how so many pitchers are doing what they’re doing. We can come up with ad hoc justifications, or point to one or two odd things about them, but it doesn’t seem to be as satisfying as the big picture ideas we thought we knew: high fastballs get swings and misses, and a “good” fastball has tons of vertical rise thanks to super high spin. The physics matched up with what we saw in the data at the time. But it’s the “at the time” bit that turned out to be the most important part of the statement.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Lopes, DH
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: White, 1B
7: Long, 2B
8: Moore, RF
9: Gordon, LF
SP: Dunn
Kendall Graveman’s sore neck has landed him on the 10-day IL. Also, reliever Zac Grotz has been optioned to the alternative site in Tacoma. They’ll be replaced by relievers Taylor Guilbeau, who’s already made an appearance, and Joey Gerber, who has yet to pitch above AA, but got plenty of action in the intrasquad games in the summer camp.
It’s Uber-prospect Jo Adell’s big league debut tonight. I got to see the athletic OF last year in Tacoma; he hit 2 HRs in two PAs before the game was cancelled by a sudden/heavy downpour. This guy is good.
Game 11, A’s at Mariners
Justus Sheffield vs. Frankie Montas, 6:10pm
After castigating the M’s starting pitching a few days back, the starting pitching has been remarkably good. Annnny time you’re ready to do something Evan White and Dan Vogelbach, we’re ready for it. I joke, but it really is hard to tell what’s going on in such a short season, with this weird, even-more-imbalanced schedule. Are the A’s just not as good of an offense as we thought? Are the Angels just really good at the plate? Did the M’s fix something on the quick? Is this all just meaningless variance? Let’s hope they found something.
One of the things I like best about baseball is watching a pitcher at the top of their game. I’ve essentially blogged through the peak of the Felix Hernandez era, and there’s a reason we all got so giddy watching him. No matter the opponent, no matter the line-up, a great pitcher is one of the most compellingly watchable things in sport. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been excited to see baseball come back despite all of the problems involved with trying to restart a sport during a pandemic. Watching Gerrit Cole, or Jacob de Grom, or Clayton Kershaw, or Shane Bieber, or so many more, transcends rooting interest (ok, I don’t particularly care for watching them carve up the M’s), and seems like an amazing cocktail of physics, competition, training, athleticism, and more. Jacob de Grom just tossed a 94 MPH *slider* tonight. That’s the sort of thing I’m talking about.
And because 2020 sucks *so much*, it’s the kind of thing that’s imperiled now. Shohei Ohtani, just back from TJ surgery, was clearly not himself in two abbreviated starts this year. He walked 8 in 1 2/3 IP, and threw 40+ awful pitches in the second inning yesterday, walking *5* before being lifted. He’s now out with a forearm strain that may keep him from DHing in Seattle tomorrow. When healthy, I’m not sure there’s a more compelling player to watch, and he simply hasn’t been healthy. While writing this, Mike Soroka of Atlanta went down with what may be an achilles injury, and left the field without putting any pressure on his leg. Justin Verlander and Corey Kluber are already down. I’m starting to wonder how many more might follow them.*
I’m not sure what could’ve been done differently, but it’s starting to look like the weird attempt at a second spring training – the “summer camps” – may not have been long enough to get pitchers’ prepared for a real season. Yes, every year pitchers go down with injury, and yes, we don’t yet know if this spate of injuries is worse. But given everything from timing to incentives, I’m not sure that teams have done a lot to prioritize player health or to reduce injury risk. I think the players themselves were probably so eager to get back to games that they may have cut corners on their own processes and routines, too. Playing in 2020 was never going to be easy, and the top 10-20 best ways of doing things simply weren’t possible. But this is getting tough. I’m glad the M’s have a 6-man rotation, and I’m really hoping their youth protects them to a degree, but we have to hope Dunn/Sheffield/Gilbert etc. stay healthy.
Frankie Montas looked like he was breaking out as an ace pitcher for Oakland last year when he tested positive for a banned substance and lost 80 games. The sinkerballer always had really good velocity – he averages 96+ with his fastball – but struggled to put batters away as a starter in 2018, as he didn’t really have a pitch to throw to lefties. His slider was fine, and his fastball not bad, but it didn’t really add up to a lot of strikeouts. Last year, he added a splitter, and was off to the races. In a year, he *doubled* his K rate to lefties, and started striking out over a batter per inning despite a fastball that’s still not exactly a putaway pitch.
There’s so much talk these days (and I’ve done some of it myself) about the importance of high fastballs at generating whiffs, and “high spin” fourseamers with vertical movement. But guys like Montas highlight another way of being really effective: ground balls and strikeouts are a hell of a combo, even if they’re tough to find together. When batters suddenly started elevating low fastballs, baseball started prioritizing high fastballs. But it’s not clear that high fastballs are any sort of way to prevent damage, even if they DO get put in play less often.
That’s why it’s so interesting to watch Justus Sheffield’s development this year. His weird low-spin four-seam wasn’t a great pitch last year, and making it sink *more* won’t turn him into Brandon Wood or Frankie Montas overnight. But trying to shove the round peg of Sheffield’s fastball into the round hole of “elevate the four-seam” wasn’t working, and I’m glad to see the M’s change course. Of course, not all changes will work from the drop, and Sheffield’s sinker wasn’t exactly great in his first outing. The thing that jumps out is that no one swung at it. His command wasn’t quite there, but it has to be odd to adjust to slightly new movement so early in one’s big league career. The move to a sinker has led to a lot more armside movement, for example, along with more sink.
His slider’s still a thing, and he didn’t throw enough change-ups to know much about that, but I hope he has more of an opportunity to showcase the changes he’s made tonight.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Long, 2B
3: Lewis, Cf
4: Seager, 3B
5: Nola, C
6: Vogelbach, DH
7: White, 1B
8: Marmolejos, LF
9: Smith, RF
SP: Sheffield
Evan White’s been a revelation, and JP Crawford has started well, so at least a few of the young M’s should leave their lackluster projections in the dust. But Evan White’s swinging through quite a few fastballs, and Dan Vogelbach’s striking out and hitting a ton of ground balls. Dan: K’s and grounders are good for pitchers, not you. Mallex Smith looks like he’s in his head again, and I’m not sure how long the M’s can wait for him, now that they have their CF of the future in place. It’s the same sort of thing for Vogelbach – with White at 1B, a poor start or poor year leaves his future with this club in doubt. Hope to see some signs of life from both, but both now play positions that prioritize offense, meaning that they can’t really be league-average bats – and being league-average bats would be a shocking improvement at this point.
* James Paxton’s plummeting velocity makes me very, very worried.
Game 8, A’s at Mariners
Taijuan Walker vs. Sean Manaea, 6:40pm
Well, here we are. The strangest home opener any of us have experienced. The M’s host the 3-3 Athletics, who have played Anaheim and Colorado. The A’s have stumbled a bit at the plate; after a tough series against the Rockies, they’re sporting a sub-.300 OBP.
In recent years, they’ve had a good offense, but have benefitted from some great pitching performances. They’ve needed them, given how injury prone they’ve been. One of their top pitching prospects missed almost of 2019, and is hurt again now. Tonight’s starter had TJ surgery a few years back, interrupting his development. But despite these setbacks, they’ve gotten good-enough (or better!) pitching from their depth starters like Chris Bassitt and Daniel Mengden.
Sean Manaea’s an ex-phenom, I suppose. After a dominant Cape Cod league performance, he was the favorite to go #1 overall in the 2013 draft. But his junior year at Indiana State was plagued with inconsistency and minor arm trouble, and he fell to the competitive balance round. For years now in the majors, there’s still the sense that you don’t know which Manaea you’ll see. Far from the mid-90s he sat at in college and flashed in the minors, he’s been around 90-92 in the bigs. He averaged 90 last year after coming back from surgery, but sat at just 88 last week.
He has a weird, Justus Sheffield-like sinking four seam fastball, a slider (for years his best pitch), and a so-so change. He’s mixing in a curve now, though it’s still a work in progress, and lacks real depth. The lefty has been ok against righties, as his slider has been very effective against them. His fastball has been less effective, so the M’s will probably look to jump on fastball counts.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Lopes, DH
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: White, 1B
6: Nola, C
7: Long, 2B
8: Moore, RF
9: Gordon, LF
SP: Walker
Welcome back Austin Nola! The catching crew was a bit suspect with both Tom Murphy and Nola out. Crawford’s started the season on fire, which is great to see; I was losing hope he could be a league—average bat. It’s early, but he and Kyle Lewis are propelling what’s been a surprisingly good line-up. Obligatory small sample caveats, of course.
Game 7, Mariners at Angels
Marco Gonzales vs. Dylan Bundt, 6:40 pm
So, the M’s have made one complete cycle of their six starting pitchers. As a group, they’ve given up 28 runs in 21 1/3 IP. Putting aside Graveman and Walker, the young core of Gonzales/Sheffield/Kikuchi/Dunn allowed 12 walks against 10 Ks. They’ve shown flashes of promise, but have been brutal at stranding runners. They simply need to get better – a lot better.
That’s why today’s game is an interesting barometer. The Angels wanted to revamp their pitching instruction, too. They picked up ex-Indians pitching coach Mickey Calloway and took a flyer on one-time Uber-prospect and Orioles flame-out, Dylan Bundy. The righty had been brilliant back in spring training four months and seven lifetimes ago, but we all know spring stats don’t mean much.
In his first start, Bundy flummoxed the A’s by essentially becoming a junkballer. He threw more breaking balls and change-ups than 91-mph fastballs, and was able to keep a good line-up off balance. For all the talk about fastball velocity, or working the top of the zone, the first few games of 2020 have been all about bendy pitches. Shane Bieber’s dominant start (14 K’s in 6 IP) produced no swinging strikes off of fastballs. Likewise, Bundy recorded no whiffs on 40+ FBs against the A’s, but K’d 7 to just 1 walk and 3 hits in 6 2/3 IP. To put it plainly, if the Angels are better at teaching pitching than the M’s, this rebuild is in trouble. Seattle can’t just use their own prior development record as a point of reference or baseline. Being better than they used to be is not enough.
Despite Cleveland and Cincinnati’s starting pitchers looking great, Seattle has some company: lots of teams starting pitcher numbers are brutal right now. It’s interesting to me, because while there’s zero precedent for playing a season like this one, the owners’ lock-out in 1990 was a recent-ish example of teams not having a real spring training, and then hurrying through an abbreviated/late version of it. And in that case, pitchers entered the year *miles* ahead of the hitters.
Almost immediately, Mark Langston (and Mike Witt) tossed a no-hitter in his first time playing against Seattle. Later that month, Brian Holman came within an out of a perfect game for Seattle, and months later, Randy Johnson got the franchise’s first no-no. Randy’s was the first of four in the month of June, with two occurring on the same day.
This year, walks are up and HRs continue to fly out of parks. BABIP and average are down, though. I guess the season seems bifurcated, with the M’s unable to stop teams from scoring while Cleveland continues to strike out everyone. The M’s and Mets have hit well, while four teams are still below the Mendoza line.
1: Crawford, SS
2: Lopes, LF
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Marmolejos, 1B
6: Long, 2B
7: Vogelbach, DH
8: Smith, RF
9: Hudson, C
SP: Gonzales
If you want to read more about the Mariners’ player development philosophy, check out this interview with Andy McKay at Fangraphs.
Game 5, Mariners at Angels
Justus Sheffield vs. Patrick Sandoval, 6:40pm
The M’s escape Houston bloodied but unbowed at 1-3, and face the Angels. All 1-3 records are not created equal, and the Angels may be a bit more concerned about their opening series. It’s all weird, and given the chaos in Philly with now fully 1/2 of the Marlins roster positive for COVID, it feels churlish to laugh at a bad first series by the Angels, as comforting as that is.
So, the M’s big reclamation projects have all had a turn in the rotation – all but today’s starter, Justus Sheffield. Tai Walker, Kendall Graveman, and Yusei Kikuchi all struggled, so the hope is that Sheffield’s new fastball will help him succeed where the others failed. It’s just tougher to be optimistic given the M’s pitching woes. We all thought the line-up would be a problem, but it’s been solid overall. Just need to keep the runs allowed down to 5-6, which has been a problem.
Patrick Sandoval’s a lefty the Angels got after some time in Houston’s system. He’s a fastball-change guy, but has a slider and curve in his repertoire. He scuffled last year in his initial 40 or so MLB innings, in part due to wildness, and in part due to HR:FB ratio awfulness. He did benefit from seeing a heavily right-handed slate of hitters, and thanks to his change – by far his best pitch – he did well against them. Lefties were more of a problem. We’ll see if that was small sample weirdness or if the change makes him more likely to run reverse splits long term.
1: Long, 2B
2: White, 1B
3: Lewis, CF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Lopes, DH
6: Crawford, SS
7: Moore, LF
8: Smith, RF
9: Odom, C (Nola a late scratch; he’d been in the line up, batting 6th. Instead, it’ll be the first MLB start for Joe Odom)
SP: Sheffield
Game 4, Mariners at Astros
Kendall Graveman vs. Joshua James, 4:10pm
The M’s got their first win yesterday, coming back against the Astros after a poor start from Yusei Kikuchi. Taylor Williams, Washington native, got the save with the tying run on 2nd. Today’s game is a great match-up between Kendall Graveman, who seemed to be on the upswing before suffering a UCL tear and missing two years, and Josh James, the one-time phenom who had a rough season out of the Houston bullpen. Will Graveman flourish with Seattle? Will James take a step forward and secure a rotation spot with his power arsenal?
I don’t know, and the news out of baseball has been so ugly that it’s harder to care. Nearly half of the Marlins tested positive for COVID-19, necessitating two games being canceled today. This came a day after Justin Verlander’s elbow injury knocked him out for the season. We haven’t made it a week, and MLB’s viability is kind of teetering and we’ve lost at least one star player. Fun.
1: Long, 2B
2: Crawford, SS
3: Seaver, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: White, 1B
6: Marmolejos, DH
7: Nola, C
8: Lopes, RF
9: Gordon, LF
SP: Graveman
Game 2, Mariners at Astros
Taijuan Walker vs. Lance McCullers, 1:10pm
Lance McCullers last threw a pitch in a big league game in September of 2018. He tore his UCL in August, but apparently decided to pitch through it, notching some playoff innings for the eventual champs. But in November, he went under the knife, missing all of 2019. It was a big blow for the righty who’s had several injury scares in his career. In fact, McCullers thinks the elbow injury actually stemmed from a shoulder problem that took away half of his 2016 season. He’s been very good when healthy, but seldom healthy.
Taijuan Walker’s nearly got McCullers beat. Aside from a couple of throwaway innings in September of last year, Walker’s last start came in *April* of 2018. After a solid 2017 that heralded his transition from prospect to middle-of-the-rotation workhorse, he too tore his UCL and required surgery. Given the timing of the diagnosis and rehab, it essentially cost him two full years.
Today these two rehab warriors face off in Houston. Walker was a great low-risk pick-up for a club that could use a veteran presence, especially one that has a modicum of upside. I was always a big Walker fan as he came up through the M’s system years ago (debuting in Houston, of all places, a bit over 7 years ago), so I’m hoping Walker can stay healthy and flash some of the promise he had. Walker used to throw a four-seamer at 94 with average-ish movement given his fairly high release point, and he’d mix in a sinker, slider, curve, and split/change. That last pitch was always one to dream on, especially after he struggled to command his curve. The split wasn’t great for him in Seattle, and it was no help in limiting the HRs that sunk his 2016 campaign, his final one in Seattle. In Arizona, though, his HR problems eased (which is amazing, considering the HR explosion of 2017 and the fact that his home park was *Arizona*), but it wasn’t so much his command of his split or breaking balls – it was his four-seam. He gave up 16 HRs on the heater his last year in Seattle, but just 9 in his Arizona tenure, despite throwing more of them. Let’s hope he learned something in Arizona he can bring with him into 2020.
Lance McCullers famously threw 50% of his death-dealing slurve, and used it to rack up strikeouts and grounders. In his career, batters are hitting just .174 off of the slurve, and that’s over 3,600+ pitches, with hundreds of balls in play. He’s used it more than his four-seam and sinker combined, and why not? Despite its tilt, it’s been extremely effective against lefties as well as righties. The only reason to ease up on it may be his injury history. I don’t really know if the old pitching coach truism is actually accurate that a ton of breaking balls are harder on the arm, but McCullers arm certainly has not responded well.
Yesterday’s game features abysmal defense (someone get Perry Hill on a Zoom call) and equally poor relief work, but I didn’t feel too bad about thanks to Kyle Lewis moon shot off of Justin Verlander. I think we’re going to get pretty used to focusing on individual players or even plays when we attempt to take joy and entertainment from a season like that, but that’s ok. As M’s fans, we’ve been doing that off and on for decades.
1: Long, 2B
2: White, 1B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: Nola, C
6: Vogelbach, DH
7: Gordon, LF
8: Crawford, SS
9: Smith, RF
SP: Walker, woooooo
Mmmm, Mallex Smith and Dee Gordon starting in OF corners together. Can’t say I like/understand that, but the M’s did say they’d be showing this look a lot.
Game 1, Mariners at Astros
Marco Gonzales vs. Justin Verlander, 6:10pm
This is the strangest opening day we’ve ever seen, in the strangest year we’ve ever seen. Felix is gone, the Mariners are terrible, and start the year off facing the Astros, who beat the M’s in 18 of 19 contests last year. There are very good arguments against *having* a baseball season this year, and I don’t blame any of you for taking a year off. I’ve found it hard to think about baseball for several months after the lockdowns started, but I’m shocked to find that I’m pretty excited about it now. Yes, it was cool to watch some KBO games to scratch a baseball itch for a while, but my sleep schedule wouldn’t allow it long term. I’ve really missed the pleasing background hum that baseball adds to summer, even if that hum is made up of the details of yet another M’s loss.
The idea that “people need baseball” was a somewhat grating part of the rancorous dispute between the players’ union and ownership before the season began. It seemed so vain, so clueless, at a time people were dying due to shortages of life-saving equipment in New York and elsewhere. Baseball’s background noise can’t make up for the country’s manifest failures at dealing with Covid, and an institution like baseball sure can’t solve institutional racism. But I’m kind of stunned how good it feels to have it on in the background right now. Is it nostalgia for a time before Covid? Before the myriad horrors the news delivers us each day? Is it just a familiar distraction? I don’t know, and don’t much care. It is not enough, but it’s something. It feels like help, somehow.
In the absence of a playoff chase, we can follow the development of Shed Long, JP Crawford, and the M’s young starters. I’m fascinated by Yusei Kikuchi, and how he’s able to put 2019 behind him and figure out a way to become a consistent starter. Tom Murphy’s follow-up after a shockingly good 2019 will be delayed a bit, but we’ve all got plenty of time. And if the M’s appear ready to have Dee Gordon and Mallex Smith man the outfield corners *simultaneously*, well, hey, why not. In a strange year, I’m fine if the M’s get a bit surreal this season.
The Astros are coming off a very rough off-season that saw them punished by MLB for a long-running sign-stealing scheme. In the Before Times, we speculated how this affect them, and if their players would see a big drop-off in their batting lines. Now, it seems like a hazily-remembered story or rumor. Every team now has a hell of a lot more to worry about, and in any event, the Astros could be significantly worse, and still plenty good enough to make the playoffs (even before yesterday’s random and odd move to increase playoff teams from 10 to 16). They’ve lost Gerrit Cole, Jose Urquidy’s hurt, but it doesn’t seem to matter a whole lot. With a perennial MVP candidate at 3B, one of the game’s best SS, and Justin Verlander, they’re the easy pick as AL West champs, despite the improvements in Anaheim and Oakland.
Still, they’re going to need to fill the innings Cole gave them, and the easiest thing would be for one of their youngsters to step up and stake a claim on a rotation slot. Josh James seemed like he’d be another perennial All-Star after blowing up the minor leagues and making his MLB debut in 2018, but he scuffled out of the bullpen for Houston last year. Framber Valdez was slightly better despite ugly K:BB numbers, but he’ll have to stop walking so many people to be a long-term answer as a starter. They do get Lance McCullers back, but this would be a great year for perennial top prospect Forrest Whitley to turn his incredible talent into actual, on-field production.
Last year, Marco Gonzales started the year well, going 5-0 by the end of April. However, his velocity was noticeably lower; his 88 MPH average fastball in April was the lowest of any month in his career. He got around it by moving the ball around and keeping his pitch mix unpredictable, but he got hit hard in May. Tonight, I’ll be fascinated to see how hard he’s throwing, and how he adjusts to an Astros line-up that’s seen him a ton these past two seasons.
Your opening day line-up:
1: Shed Long, 2B
2: Evan White, 1B
3: Kyle Seager, 3B
4: Kyle Lewis, CF
5: Dan Vogelbach, DH
6: Austin Nola, C
7: Jose Marmolejos, LF
8: JP Crawford, SS
9: Mallex Smith, RF
SP: Marco Gonzales
The Risks: 2020
Does anyone need pessimism in the year 2020? Do I need to write about it? It’s all we think about when we stop trying – really trying – to think about other things. It seems silly to do a post like this and not just have every item be “Someone dies.” Juan Soto tested positive yesterday, and the Braves lost both of their catchers to Covid as well. This is going to keep happening as we wait for news of Jarred Kelenic’s development or Kendall Graveman’s velocity. It’s hard to tune it all out and just be entertained.
But I’m going to try. Pessimism about everything is easy, and if there’s anything we’ve learned as M’s fans, it’s that there are occasional (bizarre) joys to be mined once you leave the easy path. They take work, they’re not just sitting there on the surface (“we won the championship!”), and experience beats a naive, perpetual hope out of you. But they’re hiding in there somewhere. I know it feels cynical to look for those joys in 2020, I know it feels weird to look forward to fake crowd noise, and radio broadcasters getting surprised by a home run because they’re just watching the game on TV, and I *definitely* know there are more important things going on. We need this because of them, not in spite of them.
So if we’re going to get anything out of this delusion, we have to set aside the sickening feeling that is always just below the surface. We’re going to try and take this seriously, and, for tradition’s sake and because this delusion demands it, let’s think about what would happen if this all goes wrong. But not too wrong.
1: The Mariners’ young core just isn’t going to work out
Going into what was assuredly a non-contending season, the M’s allowed themselves a minor splurge when they picked up Yusei Kikuchi for a multi-year (the exact length of the deal is kind of complicated given the opt outs) contract. He was young enough that he could be around when JP Crawford and Logan Gilbert and Evan White were ready, and he could spend 2019 and 2020 getting used to things and building up his innings. Great idea, great move all around. Kikuchi was essentially replacement level, with a 5.71 FIP and a DRA so bad I don’t want to actually type it here. Sure, it didn’t really matter, and yes, he’s made mechanical changes, and pitchers can surprise you, and maybe he’ll be good in 2021, but we all feel differently about Kikuchi and his role on a hypothetical good M’s team now.
What if that essentially happens to all of the young players we’ll be watching in 2020? I mean, it’s not a crazy thought. The M’s projected record is bad because the M’s individual projections are all…really bad! ZiPS projects Evan White to get on base at a .277 clip. It forecasts JP Crawford to essentially duplicate last year’s disappointing season at the plate, and for Shed Long to regress to a sub-Crawford level of offensive “production.” Somehow, Kyle Lewis’ projections are even worse (.227/.281/.376). ZiPS is actually pretty bullish on Dan Vogelbach, but we all saw Vogelbach’s second half, so we know what’s possible.
They’re only projections. Young players improve, and now they can focus on that improvement without expectations or fans or anything. But, and I know this is crazy for long-time M’s fans… what if they don’t? What if we’re forced to fall into that most familiar of M’s-fan postures and speculate about the NEXT wave? I think many of us are almost primed for it – gun to our head, I think many of us would rather watch the intra-squad games in Tacoma, at least once Julio Rodriguez is healthy and playing again. This club has potential, but right now, on paper, their flaws are so numerous and exploitable that profound, dispiriting, Zunino-in-2015-or-2019 ways. What if the one thing we’re looking forward to – young players improving in a short, meaningless season – goes away, and we end up watching the league humiliate Crawford/Lewis/White/Dunn/Sheffield/Long? Wouldn’t that be the most 2020 thing ever?
Statistically, it’s likely that a few of them will blow those projections out of the water. But some won’t even reach the low bar that ZiPS (or PECOTA, or Steamer, etc.) set. Maybe it’ll be easier to set that kind of public failure aside in this weird season, but it’s got to hurt psychologically. Not only that, but many of the standard ways to fix a young player in a horrible slump aren’t available. Remember Mallex Smith’s jag where he was so lost at the plate that he forgot how to catch baseballs? He worked with coaches and got right by playing for the Rainiers for a while. Well, no one can play for the Rainiers in 2020. Many of the coaches are working remotely. Maybe a few Zoom meetings would’ve worked just as well for Mallex Smith last year?
2: Injuries!
It’s baseball, people get hurt all the time. But the M’s progress towards contention depends so powerfully on development, and 2020 is doing everything it can to make that impossible. You could argue that the loss of the minor leagues and the chaos of 2020 has hurt the M’s more than just about any other team. What does losing your age-18 season *do* to Noelvi Marte, long term? What about Logan Gilbert?
One thing that I’ve been worrying about after Tom Murphy, Julio Rodriguez, Austin Adams, Mitch Haniger, Sam Haggerty, and Gerson Bautista got hurt is a wave of injuries hitting the M’s. It makes sense: the season’s a short 60-game sprint, and everyone wants to impress the front office. Pitchers know they won’t be logging 200 (or even 100) big league innings, so why not air it out like every start’s a relief outing? The M’s are doing everything they can to care for pitchers – going to a 6-man rotation, or exploring piggy-back starts, etc. But what if creating entirely new routines doesn’t put the players at ease?
The strange rules around the 60-man player pool makes things difficult, too. Without the minor leagues, the M’s brought essentially every top prospect to Tacoma to monitor their development/ensure SOME development would take place. They did this without regard to when a player (Mr. Marte is the best example) would be ready for the majors. It took some getting used to, but I think that was the right decision. Having near-to-the-majors talent ready to step in is vital for contenders, but doesn’t mean much to the Mariners. But seriously: what happens if the M’s need real help in the outfield? The worry isn’t so much that Jose Marmelojos or Tim Lopes can’t hang out in LF, but that players will be hesitant to admit that they need a break, or that the little ankle injury may be more severe than it seemed. Players probably never want to go on the 10-day IL, but now that 10-days is a solid chunk of the season? I think we’re going to see a lot of minor injuries turn into bigger injuries this season.
To be fair, small injuries aren’t going to tank a season that was tanked before it began. But what about a big injury? What about a TJ surgery or shoulder trouble from one of the M’s young starters? What about another injury to Julio? The M’s have been living this with Haniger, who had a series of small injuries followed by a cascade of big injuries that sunk his 2019 and threaten to take the entirety of 2020 as well. Opportunities for development are so rare, so precious right now. Losing that opportunity to injury would be a cruel blow. There’s never been a season like this where injuries could be both more common and more harmful.
3: The M’s player development settles in around the middle of the MLB pack
It’s the one thing we’ve been legitimately excited about: the M’s took two solid prospects into 2019 and finished it with three of the games’ best. Julio Rodriguez and Jarred Kelenic became top-10-in-MLB prospects, and Logan Gilbert flew through three levels looking like a potential ace. For so long, M’s player development lagged their peers in Houston and Oakland, and it killed their chances to build a dependable, consistent contending club. 2019 offered hopeful signs that that flaw had been remedied.
What this post presupposes is…maybe it wasn’t. What if the team had great years from three very well-thought-of prospects, and there’s no magic at work – no game-changing processes or cutting-edge theories. Let’s say Kelenic/Rodriguez/Gilbert are in the league in ’21, and are pretty good in ’22. If the M’s player development group is merely average, this rosy scenario isn’t going to be nearly enough, not when the Astros are still the Astros and the Angels have Trout/Rendon/Adell in the middle of their line-up. The beauty of a year like this is that we get to cheer on development without worrying about the standings. But what if it becomes clear that the Mariners are losing at *that* too?
Jesus Luzardo wins Rookie of the Year (which I picked in Baseball Prospectus’ Staff Predictions), maybe Forrest Whitley puts it all together, maybe the White Sox contend thanks to Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez. None of these things are all that outlandish. Individually, they don’t threaten the idea of a contending M’s team in 2022 or your year of choice. But taken as a whole, they’d be a pretty concerning sign that other teams – who are, to put it mildly, a bit better than the M’s right now – are developing great prospects, too. The M’s need to develop prospects, but because of the whole zero-sum nature of sports, they need to develop more and better prospects to win. If their rivals have as many hits and as many failures as they do, it’s hard to see how things materially change.
We’ve been so focused on the Astros that the Twins’ remarkable turnaround caught us (or at least me) unaware. I’ve been mocking the White Sox player development for years, but they’re beginning to look a bit scary. The Indians keep turning boring minor league arms into Shane Biebers and Mike Clevingers, and I have no idea how they’re doing it. That’s just one division! The A’s and Astros have been doing this for years, and as a fan of a divisional rival, it sucks. If Justus Sheffield and Justin Dunn struggle – meaning if they put up similar seasons to their 2019 campaigns – while the likes of Jose Urquidy or Griffin Canning or Kolby Allard succeed, it’s going to make wishing on 2022 pretty hard. It’s all we’ve got, and I’m very worried it’ll get yanked away.