Game 158, Astros at Mariners
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Zack Greinke, 7:10pm
Last night’s performance by Gerrit Cole was effortlessly dominant, but it wasn’t as captivating as the *last* time he faced the M’s. This illustrates the weird point of yesterday’s post: by some measures, Cole’s 2019 is the most dominant of all time, and I think baseball fans are split over which pitcher’s the ace of the staff, and the potential Cy Young winner. He tosses 14 Ks and no walks in 7, and we’re all like, “It’s a September line-up” and “yeah, but he gave up a few hits.”
If nothing else, we should recognize that if you’re going up against Verlander/Cole, the only chance – the ONLY chance – is to swing for the fences. In years past, we sabermetric fans knew that on-base percentage was more closely associated with run scoring than either batting average or slugging percentage. It made sense: the important thing is to avoid outs. You can come back from X number of runs down, but you can’t come back from 27 outs. The problem is that the way the game’s evolved, and the way pitching and pitching development has gone, there’s simply no benefit to avoiding outs. Strikeouts are too common to manufacture runs anymore. Some lament this trend, and it IS really changing the feeling of watching a game, but what we can’t do is pretend that it isn’t happening.
This great piece by BP treasure Rob Mains highlights the fact that not only is SLG% much MORE correlated with run scoring in 2019, it’s been true many times in the past. The old collective wisdom just isn’t true, at least not now. It’s only true if you look at all of baseball history aggregated together, and while that’s a useful thing to do in some circumstances, it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to add in the deadball era to 20-freaking-19 to get a fuller picture of the impact of home runs. Gerrit Cole’s statistics benefit from this change, as I spelled out yesterday. He gets more strikeouts because more batters are going for broke up at the plate. But those batters are making the right choice.
Cole’s transformation felt nearly instantaneous, and it felt like he moved further than Justin Verlander, though Verlander himself looked like a much-improved version once he donned an Astros jersey. I think between those two examples and this gif taken a few days after Greinke was acquired, everyone just sort of assumed Greinke would dominate right from the start. That hasn’t really happened though; he hasn’t been bad, with an ERA/FIP in the mid-3s and a DRA of 4, but that’s higher than it’d been in Arizona. There’s no big, clear warning sign – his Ks are down a bit, but the walk rate’s still low and he’s getting ground balls. Unlike Cole, there’s no jump in his spin rate, nor in his velocity. He’s almost exactly the same, save for throwing a few more sliders and fewer change-ups, which could just be the result of the handedness of the batters he’s faced. Why isn’t Greinke SuperGreinke by now?
Partly, that’s the result of comically inflated expectations about what PD can do, and do instantly. Part of it is the fatalism of watching the M’s run into the Astros buzzsaw repeatedly this year, and partly it’s the result of watching Cole do what he did last night and not, say, Aaron Sanchez/Joe Biagini, whose transformations have been both manifestly more tangible than anything Greinke’s done and also not all that successful. In any event, as many observers note, this habit of helping pitchers reach their potential isn’t quarantined in Houston anymore, not as Tampa’s success with Tyler Glasnow (and Blake Snell, as if the reigning Cy Young winner is yesterday’s news) and Cleveland’s Mike Clevinger show. And that’s a problem, given that Cleveland and Tampa figure to be perennial contenders for the Wild Card in the coming years. Clevinger in particular seems remarkable; he’s fashioned himself into a poor man’s Gerrit Cole, with a K/9 well over 12. None of this would’ve seemed possible when he debuted way back in 2016, but here we are. The best thing we can say about the Indians, who keep doing this (Corey Kluber was a random trade throw-in, let’s recall), is that they haven’t been great at keeping their pitchers healthy. No pressure, M’s.
1: Long, LF
2: Crawford, SS
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, CF
5: Narvaez, C
6: Vogelbach, 1B
7: Murphy, DH
8: Gordon, 2B
9: Lopes, RF
SP: Kikuchi
Not a great defensive OF, but glad to see Kyle Lewis get some looks in CF here and there. That’s what September’s for.
It’s Yusei Kikuchi’s last start of the year, and I think we’re all ready for him to get to work on improvements off the field. He’s still absolutely critical to the M’s 2021 timeline, and he was the most talented starter the M’s threw out there, but there’s no way to sugar coat his 2019 struggles. He should’ve been better, and I’m still kind of flummoxed as to why he didn’t show it. The M’s player development group, and their big league coaches, have had some real wins this year, but this has to go down as the biggest loss. He looked better momentarily after they fixed what they saw as a mechanical flaw, and getting the ball away from his body too early. But since that first success against San Diego, and then the CG shutout of Toronto two starts later, he’s scuffled just as bad as before. In his last 5 starts, he’s given up 18 runs in 20 1/3 IP on *37 hits* and 7 walks against just 9 Ks.
The M’s won’t give up the most hits in the game this year, not with the Rockies/Tigers/Orioles hanging around. But the reason they *won’t* is their bullpen, which, as bullpens are wont to do, is stingier with base hits. Their rotation has hemorrhaged hits, as Kikuchi’s recent struggles show. The M’s seem to notice this, and their rotation in 2021 figures to be much more, uhhh, modern in their orientation. Guys like Logan Gilbert, Justin Dunn, etc. figure to get Ks and limit BA/offense the way great rotations this year do. But I wonder what goes on in turning the org’s orientation so dramatically. For a few years, the M’s relished getting “undervalued” pitchers who didn’t strike people out, but pitched with moxie and grit. With Marco Gonzales, it’s been largely successful, and they’ve seen flashes from Wade LeBlanc and others. I’m sure even Jerry Dipoto would argue they acquired who they did because it’s what they could afford, or more accurately, what they were willing to pay. They’ve had coaches work to get the most out of 89 MPH pitchability guys from Mike Leake to Marco to Tommy Milone, and that’s admirable and all, and I’m sure all of those coaches would RATHER work with a Gerrit Cole/Tyler Glasnow-style talent, but the whole pitching focus will change – and should change – and I wonder how hard that is on player development staff and coaches. Maybe it’s easy, I have no idea. Just keep Logan Gilbert healthy, folks.
Game 157, Astros at Mariners – The Gerrit Cole Show
Justin Dunn/Tommy Milone vs. Gerrit Cole, 7:10pm
In 1999, Pedro Martinez went 23-4 with a 2.07 ERA and 313 strikeouts. It was one of the greatest pitching seasons ever, and it marked the first time in history a pitcher posted a K/9 ratio over 13. Somewhat like today, baseball saw strikeout records fall in the mid-late 90s, as Pedro and Randy Johnson hit their primes. Pedro’s K/9 record topped Kerry Wood’s 12.58 mark, which had been set the previous year. RJ came just shy in 2000, with a K/9 of 12.56, but he topped it in 2001, striking out 372 batters in 249 2/3 IP for a K/9 of 13.41. For years, pitchers got close, but couldn’t quite eclipse them. But this season, we’re set to crown a brand new all-time single season K/9 champion. Gerrit Cole enters play tonight with a K/9 of 13.57, and 302 K’s in 200 1/3 IP.
Wait, wait, you say. K/9 just tells you how a pitchers got his *outs*; it’s obviously correlated with dominance, but a pitcher who gets hit hard and walks a ton of people could theoretically have a super-high K/9 even as they struck out a lower percentage of opposing hitters! This is absolutely true. I led with K/9 because Baseball-Reference has a wonderful all-time single-season K/9 page, linked above, and it’s just a great visual. Did you know that 10 of the top 50 K/9 season in baseball history are occurring this season? You’ve got this list of some of the most amazing seasons in history and also Matt Boyd’s 2019, and some Robbie Ray years, Shane Bieber, etc. It’s absolutely remarkable, and the problem is that there’s no equivalent single page like this for K%. I’m sorry. Fangraphs lists K%, so we can overcome some of the downsides of K/9, but it’s just really hard to figure out how to get a bunch of different season leaderboards to cohere into an all-time leaderboard. You can do it using the splits leaderboards, and I tried, but I failed.
Still, I just went through a bunch of years, and I’ll just cut to the chase: Cole’s K% this year of 39.1% is going to smash the previous record. It’s not terribly close. Chris Sale got over 38% just last year, and that would’ve been the record, but he only tossed 158 innings. From what I can see, Pedro Martinez’s 1999 had the old record, at 37.5%, just barely edging out Randy’s 2001, at 37.4%. But that’s kind of interesting, isn’t it? Pedro had a BB/9 of just 1.56 in 1999. He gave up *9* HRs. In the entire year. Why isn’t that K% higher? Gerrit Cole’s BB/9 is in the low 2s this year, like RJ’s in 2001. Why is Cole’s K% so much higher than Pedro’s if Pedro wasn’t giving up as many walks or HRs?
The answer of course is hits. Even in the greatest pitching seasons I’ve ever seen, batters managed to get a decent number of base hits. It’s all relative, of course; Pedro gave up 160 hits in 1999, and RJ yielded 181 in 2001. Sure, they faced more batters, but Cole’s given up just 136. Pedro faced 63 more batters in 1999 than Cole has right now. To match Pedro exactly, he’d need just 11 more Ks in those 63 ABs, but he would give up 24 more hits. Batters hit .202 off of Pedro in 1999 (they’d drop even further in the next few years, but so would Pedro’s K rate), and .200 off of RJ in 2001. Batters are hitting .188 off of Cole.
So is Cole’s 2019 in the conversation with these Mt. Rushmore-type seasons of yore? Errr, no, not really. Part of what made Pedro and RJ so remarkable was that they posted those K numbers at a time when K’s weren’t as big a part of the baseball landscape as they are now. The game’s just different now, and well, now the top 19 pitchers in baseball have a K/9 over 10, and 10 have a K% over 30%. Part of it is the fact that nobody in 2019, not even record-setting strikeout mavens, are immune from the HR glut. Cole has given up 28 dingers. Against lefties, Cole’s given up more HRs than *singles*. People complain about it, but there’s no real way to argue that stringing singles together is a better way to get to Cole than to wait for a mistake and hope someone’s on board. If Cole pitches in 1999, he’d probably give up a few more hits, but I’d bet his ERA/runs-allowed would drop considerably.
Cole is now closely associated with the Houston Astros player development wizardry. After solid seasons in Pittsburgh, he’s become absolutely dominant for Houston, and it happened essentially right away. The same thing happened to Justin Verlander, who’d been a big strikeout pitcher in Detroit, but is averaging 11 K/9 in Houston. I probably harp on this too much, but it’s why the M’s plan to contend in 2021 still has some Astro-y problems.
Those plans would look better if Justin Dunn would kindly refrain from walking more batters in 2019 and 2020. It’s a tiny sample, and he looked much better in outing 2, sure, sure, but…he’s walked an awful lot.
1: Long, LF
2: Crawford, SS
3: Lewis, RF
4: Seager, 3B
5: Narvaez, C
6: Nola, 1B
7: Vogelbach, DH
8: Gordon, 2B
9: Smith, CF
SP: Dunn/Milone
Julio Rodriguez is at 1-13 in the Arizona Fall League, which obviously isn’t what we wanted/expected, but it’s still fairly meaningless. Angels uber-prospect Jo Adell is 1-19 and Reds prospect Jonathan India is 0-13.
Statcast’s new swing/take feature looks interesting. It breaks up a hitter’s total run value above/below average by zone – the heart of the plate, the “shadow” pitches on either side of the edge of the zone, chase pitches off the zone, and waste pitches that are way, way away from the zone. Most everyone has positive values on waste pitches, because they’re obvious balls, and people don’t swing at them. But different hitters vary considerably in how they rate on the pitches near/in the zone. This great LL article on Dan Vogelbach’s reticence to swing used the new visual to great effect: Vogie takes too many strikes, and thus he rates poorly in and near the zone. Vogelbach does some damage on middle-middle pitches, though, so he was at -4 runs on pitches in the “heart” zone, better than his -21 runs on shadow pitches. Anyway, I bring this up because I believe Mallex Smith may have the lowest rating on “heart” pitches in the game. Joe Panik’s been the anti-leader for months, and is now up to -25 runs on pitches in the heart of the zone. Smith is now sitting at -26. He’s also at -15 on shadow pitches. It’s been an abysmal year all around for Smith, and I’m not sure if the M’s are going to invest the time to get him right, or just turn to Jake Fraley/Braden Bishop going forward.
Game 154, Mariners at Orioles
King Felix vs. Richard Bleier/Aaron Brooks, 4:05pm
Happy Felix Day to you, and a very pleasant Felix Weekend as well. It’s the second-to-last start for Felix in an M’s uniform, and I’m still moving through the stages of grief. I think I’m in denial right now, though it’s definitely tinged with grief. I think intellectually we’ve all understood that Felix is no longer in the M’s plans, and thus everything from their goal of contending in 2021, to the weird season-in-limbo that will be 2020, to Justus Sheffield and Justin Dunn’s development and a host of things related to the future… none of that has anything to do with the M’s favorite son. You may have read Larry Stone’s column in the Seattle Times about Jerry Dipoto’s performance at the M’s town hall, laying out his rosy view of the future to M’s season ticket holders – if not, it’s here. I didn’t feel this the first time, but upon the second read it hit me: if everything goes right, Felix will be somewhere else, attempting to thwart this rebuild.
Yesterday, the great Patrick Dubuque noted that the M’s had to win 8 of their final 9 games to finish the year just as they began it: with a 13-2 run. After yesterday’s weird comeback win, they’re down to 7 of their last 8, and they begin a series with the 49-104 Baltimore Orioles today. This…this could happen. Please let this happen.
Today, the M’s face opener Richard Bleier, a lefty reliever who throws about 89. Like a classic LOOGY, Bleier struggles mightily against right-handed bats, but is tough against lefties. Unlike a classic LOOGY, the Orioles don’t really have a need for situational relievers, as essentially everything baseball-related is, for them, a tough spot. Thus, Bleier’s faced over 100 righties, and they’ve done plenty of damage against him. After Bleier serves his time, the Orioles will hand the ball to righty Aaron Brooks. Brooks is one of those pitchers that, for whatever reason, I think used to pitch for the M’s. To be clear: he hasn’t. But he just *seems* like a guy who would’ve come over in an early DipotoDeal or maybe that lost 2015 season, where Zduriencik and company cast about for help and came up with Rob Rasmussen and company. Anyway, Brooks throws 91-93, and has a four-seamer with average movement, a sinker that functions as his primary heater, a good sinking change-up at 85, and a hard, gyro-spinning slider at 86. He began the year with Oakland, and tossed 50 innings for them, but HR troubles and the A’s remake of their staff in July got him banished to Baltimore.
Brooks isn’t bad – there’s the bones of a useful 5th starter here, especially with that change/slider combo. But the problem, like many other pitchers have found this year, is that he simply can’t get to those pitches. He throws a fastball, and batters obliterate it, so he’s not able to show them something trickier. As a marginal MLB arm, I’m sure a part of him was thankful that the O’s traded for him and immediately put him in their rotation, or whatever the hell you call this primary pitcher gig now. It’s an opportunity! But people make fun of the Orioles and their work with pitchers not because they’re mean-spirited or because they’re fixated on one or two edge cases like Jake Arrieta. The O’s really, really do have serious, lasting, pervasive problems developing pitching. It should get better with their front office shake-up, and their minor league teams were, if anything, MORE successful than the M’s, with one of their affiliates notching a league strikeout record, just as the M’s did. But it doesn’t help the Bleiers and Brookses of the world right now, in 2019. Brooks has now thrown just over 50 IP, nearly exactly as many outs as he recorded with Oakland. And that 5+ ERA in Oakland is now a 7.11 ERA. His HR problem hasn’t really gone away, but it’s gotten slightly better. The problem is that improvement’s come at a cost of…everything else. Strikeouts down, walks up, BABIP awful, a strand rate of “nope,” etc.
With Oakland, he used his sinker most, followed by his slider and four-seam, in essentially a dead heat for 2nd-most-used-pitch. With Baltimore, he’s going with almost an equal mix of his four pitches, with the four-seamer now slightly more used than the sinker, and the change-up used more than the slider. It’s an interesting change, and just based on movement, it’s one I understand/support. But it’s not working, and the O’s need to figure out why. The slider still seems like his best pitch, and the change-up isn’t half as bad as its results would indicate – he’s getting BABIP’d to death on it. But he still doesn’t have a lot to offer lefties except for that change. The M’s need to take full advantage of his fastballs, especially the sinker, a pitch he still favors against lefties.
1: Long, LF
2: Crawford, SS
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, RF
5: Narvaez, C
6: Nola, 1B
7: Vogelbach, DH
8: Moore, CF
9: Gordon, 2B
SP: El Cartelua
Peoria beat Glendale 10-3 last night in the AFL. Julio Rodriguez went 0-4 with a walk and RBI, Ray Kerr pitched 2 2/3 IP, striking out 3, walking 2, and giving up a run.
In the first game, Penn Murfee snuck a win despite giving up 5 runs in his 2 IP, though only 1 was earned. He K’d 2 in his start. Sam Delaplane pitched the final 2 IP, getting 2 Ks of his own, and allowing just 1 hit in a scoreless appearance. Julio Rodriguez was 0-3 with a walk, and Jose Caballero (playing 3B) went 2-4.
Game 153, Mariners at Pirates
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Joe Musgrove, 9:35am
Last night, Gerrit Cole struck out 11, extending his run of double-digit strikeout games, solidifying his hold on the best single-season K/9 rate in history, and oh yeah, topping 300 strikeouts. It’s been a remarkable ascent after last year’s….remarkable ascent, and he’s a big reason why the Astros are going to win 100 games for a third straight season. The Pirates got a couple of starters from Houston in return for Cole, like today’s starter, Joe Musgrove. But even so, there’s essentially no way to view this trade as equal or great for all sides.
What’s worse, the still-contending Pirates doubled down, shipping talented but frustrating prospects Austin Meadows and Tyler Glasnow to Tampa in exchange for SP Chris Archer. I don’t want to overstate this, but it’s hard to see the effect of those two moves together as anything less than franchise-altering. OK, that still sounds hyperbolic. They’ve collected some perfectly fine, average-ish to a touch below starting players – they’ve received good, solid, middle-of-the-road baseball players – and in return they’ve sent All Stars to two of the better teams in the AL. The Pirates front office has two potentially valid defenses. First, they can say that the moves were required by circumstance – their need to get better right now to stick around with the Cubs/Cards. Second, they can say that Meadows/Cole/Glasnow were never going to do what they’ve done elsewhere in Pittsburgh. The latter excuse just shifts the blame from the FO to the player development staff, but I tend to think it’s absolutely true. The former is a weird one; it’s not clear if ownership – the Pirates have been annoyingly frugal – wanted Cole gone before he got expensive, for example. Sure, they took on more money to bring in Archer, but they seemed hesitant to increase payroll to go along with the urgency of a playoff chase.
Whatever your view of the situation, and whomever your preferred scapegoat might be, the fact is that the Pirates have shipped out players who are among 2019’s biggest stars. If Glasnow and Meadows stay healthy, they can have the kind of impact Cole had in the next few years, which is not a great thought for an M’s team that’s targeting the wild card. Gerrit Cole wasn’t a dominant force in Pittsburgh, and wouldn’t have had the kind of season he’s had if he’d remained. Musgrove and Archer haven’t had the support they’ve needed to grow into or get back to being good, solid top of the rotation arms. The M’s have shipped out a solid team’s worth of young talent during Jerry Dipoto’s tenure, and I tend to remind people of that. A rotation made up of M’s cast offs would almost certainly be better than the actual 2019 M’s rotation, which is kind of depressing. But even I wouldn’t argue that Dipoto’s death by a thousand cuts approach has been as damaging, as deleterious, as the Pirates moves. The Pirates, as we’ve seen, are bad. And they’re not really going to get a lot better, as they big prospect haul they got for Cole/Meadows/Glasnow are here, starting for this go-nowhere team. They don’t have outfield teens. They’ve got Joe Musgrove, who throws 92-93 with a slightly odd sinking movement and a good slider.
1: Long, 2B
2: Smith, CF
3: Narvaez, C
4: Nola, 3B
5: Vogelbach, 1B
6: Lopes, RF
7: Walton, SS
8: Bishop, LF
9/SP: Kikuchi
Musgrove’s on his second consecutive year of posting an ERA way, way above his FIP. He doesn’t get hit quite as hard as Marco/Yusei, and isn’t sporting a crazy BABIP. It seems more that Musgrove really struggles with runners on base, and thus his sequencing is killing his runs-allowed numbers. In his career, batters have a .303 wOBA agaisnt him with no one on, but a .336 with men on. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s pretty striking: batters K less against him with men on, but he doesn’t get any benefit from pitching around people: the HR rate’s the same, and their batting average is higher.
This M’s line-up without Kyles Lewis or Seager is among the weakest we’ve seen this year, but Shed Long’s been hot and the Pirates have not, so let’s go get it.
Game 152, Mariners at Pirates: Take 2
Justin Dunn/Tommy Milone vs. Dario Agrazal, 4:05pm
Ok, so Justin Dunn’s MLB debut didn’t quite go according to plan. 2/3 of an inning, with 5 walks and 2 runs is going to make a mess of your pitching line, but it’s not a death sentence, right?
Seven pitchers have made their MLB debut and gone an inning or less, and given up 5 or more walks. Two members of this inauspicious club never got another chance, including the only guy to exceed 5 walks, Dizzy Sutherland. Sutherland, whose nickname may have made light of a very real vision/balance problem, started a September game for the Washington Senators in 1949 and walked 6, giving up 2 hits and 5 runs. Banished back to Charlotte of the old Tri-State League, he pitched a few more seasons, and then seems to have retired – he never got to play for his hometown team again (Sutherland was from DC). Frank Wurm started the second game of a doubleheader in late 1944 and made it only 1/3 of an inning, walking 5 and giving up 4 runs. Like Sutherland, he never pitched in the majors again, despite being the only member of the club to record a strikeout. Wurm pitched one game for Montreal of the old International League the following year, going 1 IP with *6* walks, and that was it for him in the IL. With MLB players flooding back from the war, Wurm’s career seems to have ended after the 1945 season (as it did for Butch Nieman, the RF for Boston who was Wurm’s strikeout victim).
Wurm wasn’t the only 5-walk debut in 1944, though. By far the most famous such debut occurred in June of that year in Cincinnati, where the Reds came up with a plan to gin up fan interest despite the fact that the majority of MLB-talents were tied up in the war effort. They signed local high-schooler Joe Nuxhall, and sent him to the big club to make his debut against the St. Louis Cardinals. Nuxhall was 15 years old, and pretty clearly overmatched. He gave up 5 walks, 2 hits, and 5 runs in 2/3 of an inning, and went down to the minors where he pitched one more inning, giving up another 5 walks and 6 runs. He stepped away from the game in 1946, but made a remarkable comeback in 1952. He was an All-Star in 1955 and 1956, retiring with over 2,300 IP. He stuck around in Cincinnati, broadcasting Reds games for over 40 years.
Al Milnar debuted as a reliever for Cleveland in 1936, and had a statistical dead ringer for Dunn’s debut. Milnar walked 5, gave up 2 runs, but didn’t allow a base hit. The local kid went back to play for what Baseball-Reference says was a minor league team in Cleveland, but I’m not sure who that would’ve been. If it was the Indians’ AA affiliate, that would’ve been in Minnesota, or it could’ve been a semi-pro league. Anyway, Milnar stayed there for a while, getting a couple of big league games in 1938, then making the team for good in 1939. He made the All-Star team in 1940, going 18-10 for the Tribe.
The final two companions to Dunn have clear ties to Seattle. First is former M’s first-baseman Mike Carp, who pitched in relief for the Red Sox in a 14-5 drubbing by the Yankees. Strangely, the long-time Tacoma Rainier’s 5-walk debut was technically the best, or perhaps least-awful. Thanks to a double-play grounder and an infield pop-fly, Carp got out of the inning with only 1 run scoring. He never pitched again, and his big league career didn’t extend past 2014. He was traded to the Rangers late in the year and cratered, and a brief stint back in the PCL in 2015 went even worse.
That leaves the single worst 5-walk debut, which occurred in 1939. The Tigers starter was coming off a brilliant 1938 PCL campaign for the Seattle Rainiers, and was seen as a key player for the Tigers ’39-40 seasons. And then he debuted on May 2nd against the Yankees. The 19 year old, whose name was Fred Hutchinson, yielded *8* runs on 5 walks and 4 hits in just 2/3 of an inning in the Yankees 22-2 win. Banished to Toledo, he had sporadic bouts of wildness, but turned things around and after a bit of action in 1940, he became a rotation fixture after World War II, tossing 1,464 IP before beginning a successful stint as a big league manager. That career was cut short by cancer, a diagnosis made by his brother Bill back in Seattle (Bill/Fred’s father had been a physician in Seattle as well), and after he died in 1964, Bill named his new medical research facility in First Hill after Fred.
Thus, even the worst debuts are not always a death knell. And unlike Dizzy and Mr. Wurm, at least Justin Dunn will get another crack at things. Let’s hope things go better today.
1: Long, LF
2: Crawford, SS
3: Nola, 1B
4: Seager, 3B
5: Lewis, RF
6: Murphy, C
7: Gordon, 2B
8: Moore, CF
9/SP: Dunn/Milone
The big, hopeful, news of the day is that the Arizona Fall League kicks off down in, uhhhh, Arizona at 6:30. This high-level winter/fall-ball routinely collects some of the biggest prospect names, and has been a proving ground for future big-leaguers for well over a decade. This was a great first test for guys like Dustin Ackley and Clint Nageotte, but also a lot of players who went on to great things, from Troy Tulowitzki, Matt Kemp, and Howie Kendrick in the early days to Mike Trout and Bryce Harper in 2011 to Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Nico Hoerner last year. The M’s group is, without a doubt, the most heralded group of prospects they’ve assigned to the AFL ever. The group is co-headlined by the M’s top prospects, Jarred Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez. Rounding out the position players are 3B Joe Rizzo and IF/UTIL Jose Caballero. It’s hard to evaluate pitching in the AFL at times, but the M’s are sending an intriguing group including hard-throwing RP Ray Kerr, sidearming multi-inning guy/potential starter Penn Murfee, lefty Aaron Fletcher (part of the Elias/Strickland deal with Washington), and strikeout maven Sam Delaplane. Murfee gets the start for the Peoria Javelinas tonight against Salt River, where he’ll be opposed by former M’s prospect Nick Neidert, now in the Marlins organization.* The Rafters have several big-time prospects, like 1B Seth Beer of the D’Backs and SS Royce Lewis of the Twins. 18 year-old uberprospect Wander Franco doesn’t seem to be in the AFL, but another Rays IF, Vidal Brujan, will be. Joey Bart, Forrest Whitley, Jo Adell, too. It’s a pretty big deal. Go Javelinas!
* Prospects, man. The M’s sent several pitching prospects (and other prospects) to Miami for both David Phelps and then Dee Gordon. Of these, Neidert seemed the most polished, while Robert Dugger was a relatively unknown pop-up prospect and Pablo Lopez didn’t have the prospect cache. Of course, now Lopez has been a relatively successful starter for a while, and Dugger’s made a few starts for the Marlins, while Neidert went sideways this year in AA/AAA.
Game 151, Mariners at Pirates
Marco Gonzales vs. Mitch Keller, 4:10pm
Well. The M’s head east after a successful homestand against Cincinnati and Chicago, and now face not just a bad team, but a bad team in turmoil.
This morning, fans got word that Pirates closer Felipe Vasquez had been arrested, and reports out of Florida show one of the charges is solicitation of a child. Pirates players getting ready for this game now have to answer questions about Vazquez, a player who’d been in the news just weeks ago for a fight he got into with fellow pitcher Kyle Crick. At this point, Dejan Kovacevic is reporting that Vasquez’s locker is cleared out, and as he was denied bail, he’s uhhhh not gonna be available.
It’s been an awful year for the Pirates in general, as this LL post details. They’d been contenders, but like the Royals and, uh, the Mariners, those days are now over, and they’re paying the price. While they don’t quite have the farm system the M’s do to build their hope around, they’ve got a lot of young talent who’ve debuted this year or had their first full campaigns in the majors, and at least on the position player side, it’s not bad. They’re led by SS Kevin Newman, who’s hitting .318/.364/.463 thanks to an exceedingly low K rate. They’ve also got CF Bryan Reynolds, who’s opened eyes, but isn’t playing tonight. 1B Josh Bell had a massive breakout in the first half, slugging HRs out of PNC park, but has fallen back to earth a bit in the second half, and has been shut down for the year with lingering injuries.
Their top prospect coming into the year, Mitch Keller, gets tonight’s start. Keller throws very hard, at 95-98, and has a decent slider at 89. He’s been brutally unlucky thus far, but is having real trouble with left-handed batters.
1: Long, LF
2: Crawford, SS
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, RF
5: Narvaez, C
6: Nola, 1B
7: Gordon, 2B
8: Smith, CF
9/SP: Marcoooo
Game 150, White Sox at Mariners
Justus Sheffield vs. Ivan Nova, 1:10pm
Everything just feels better after a dominant Felix performance and a walk-off HR (?) win. The Seahawks seem to move better, the September call-ups have more potential – even the rain seems fresher and more nourishing than normal rain. This is what Felix does to us, and, sure, what pro sports does to otherwise normal brains. I’m still sad it’s ending the way it is, but if I had to answer the question, “What do YOU, the fan, get out of investing time/energy/money in the hedge fund investors world of pro sports?” I would point them to Felix’s career in Seattle. In every way, this would seem to be a disastrous 15 years, and from the raw wins/losses/championships point of view, it probably was. But Felix transcends all of that; through him, all of that churn, all of that effort, had a beautiful kind of reasoning. This doesn’t really make sense, I know, and maybe it’s a fools errand to try to wring meaning out of a story that could more easily be written as a tragedy, but Felix puts a smile on your face, so whatever.
Today, Justus Sheffield tries to continue a solid little run. He’s still too hittable, and the command isn’t great, but he’s finding a way to compete and win at the big league level at a very young age, and there’s nothing wrong with that. He had good success with his fastball against Cincinnati, but it’s still concerning he’s been unable to get swings-and-misses with it, even as he crests 95 MPH on the pitch. That helped balance some slight struggles with the slider, which remains his best pitch by far. We’ll see how he uses it today against a free-swinging team; this should be a good match-up for him.
On the hill for Chicago is veteran sinkerballer Ivan Nova, who came up with the Yankees and tossed a very good 2011 season – a fact I’d forgotten, as I was caught up at the time in lamenting the suddenly clear fact that Dustin Ackley would not be saving the Seattle Mariners. After injury troubles and occasional HR issues, he was remade in Pittsburgh under the sinker-whisperer, Ray Searage. The Sox signed him, figuring their own 2010-era Guru pitching coach could help, but he’s regressed across the board. He still throws his sinker a ton, but it’s much less successful now that batters can elevate it and the ball is made of flubber. He’s given up a lot of HRs, which is one reason DRA isn’t a fan (and hated him even during his Pittsburgh run). His FIP’s over 5, so it’s not just BP’s metric that’s down on him. Of course, he’s run an ERA under that FIP for years now, though with 9 unearned runs, that may be due more to the official scorer than any contact-limiting prowess. Still, as with so many pitchers in this HR-addled era, it’s tough to get a purchase on just how valuable it is to give up more than 5 runs per 9. Park factors matter a lot, particularly in parks like Chicago’s, which are so HR-friendly. By BBREF’s RA/9-based WAR, he’s easily above average. Even with that ugly FIP, Fangraphs thinks he’s within shouting distance of a league-average season for a starting pitcher. That leaves Baseball Prospectus on its own, pointing at all of the HRs, the 204 hits in less than 173 innings, the K% under 14% and screaming that Nova’s a sub-replacement-level scrub. They gave him an astonishing -3.1 WARP on the year; for all of you who think DRA is irrationally fixated on Marco Gonzales, take heart: it hates Nova much, much more.
1: Long, 2B
2: Nola, 1B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Lewis, RF
5: Vogelbach, DH
6: Murphy, C
7: Moore, LF
8: Walton, SS
9: Smith, CF
SP: Sheffield
Game 148, White Sox at Mariners
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Dylan Covey, 7:10pm
The Mariners pitching staff boasts a team ERA of 5.17, with a FIP of 5.04. Those marks are awful, though not the worst in the majors, but due to the magic of park factors, the M’s currently rank dead last in Fangraphs’ team WAR table. Baseball Prospectus would undoubtedly rank them there too, as they’re even harsher on the M’s pitchers than ERA or FIP. The White Sox rank slightly better, but not by a ton. Their ERA is 4.97, and their FIP is 4.94. While their strikeout rate and HR/9 is slightly better than Seattle’s, they give back a lot through poor control – all of those walks make the HRs hurt more.
But what does it matter? Neither team is really trying to contend in 2019 anyway, right? Looking at the Sox today, I’m struck by the view from 2017, when their rebuild hit its peak when they traded for Eloy Jimenez. At the time, I wrote about how striking it was that the M’s seemed to put a lot of value on the second wild card, or the play-in game in general, while the White Sox (who could’ve gone into that year with Chris Sale, Adam Eaton, and Jose Quintana on absurdly cheap contracts) obviously didn’t value contending for it at all. Because they had so much quality talent to sell off, AND because of a strategic decision to focus on the top end of the international market, they amassed a formidable array of prospect talent. They got Yoan Moncada from Boston, Jimenez from the Cubs, and then they signed Luis Robert out of Cuba (Robert’s in contention for MiLB player of the year this year). They got Dylan Cease from the Cubs, they had Carlos Rodon, the third overall pick in 2014 and then Carson Fulmer, the #8 pick in 2015, Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez from the Nats, and hard-throwing Dylan Covey out of the A’s organization. They had a huge collection of highly-prized prospects, most of them in the high minors. All they had to do was wait.
And wait. It’s now the tail end of the 2019 season, and nearly all of these acquisitions have arrived (not Robert, but still). Moncada’s breakout this year’s coincided with Lucas Giolito putting it all together after struggling mightily for years. It’s not that there’s no progress, no movement, in this rebuild. It’s just that it hasn’t been close to enough. They enter play today at 55-92 in the worst division in the game, getting to play both Detroit and Kansas City in divisional games. Eloy Jimenez is a league-average hitter, Tim Anderson’s had a big year, and James McCann’s having a great year at C. But the team, overall, is among the worst hitting clubs in the game. The reason is one that should be familiar to M’s fans of the past 10 years: they’re surrounding young, solid performers with a bunch of sub-replacement-level dreck. Jon Jay, Yonder Alonso, and Wellington Castillo are all solidly below replacement level, and some younger fill-ins like Daniel Palka and AJ Reed have fared even worse (in mercifully short stints).
On the pitching side, Giolito’s improvements have been counteracted by injuries and ineffectiveness from Rodon and Fulmer, regression from Lopez, and absolutely no progress whatsoever from Dylan Covey. Dylan Cease has missed bats, but walks and dingers have his ERA over 6.5. The White Sox were once lauded for their pitching coach’s ability to unlock potential from struggling starters, but in the course of this rebuild, they’re becoming known for development stalling out. This is the lesson the M’s need to learn: it’s not enough to amass a ton of great prospects, you have to coach them over that final hill. They’ve shown some signs of improving in that regard, as Justus Sheffield’s looked better recently. But the overall state of the pitching staff shows that it’s not exactly an organizational strength.
Justin Dunn’s..ahhh…lackluster debut was too short to mean much of anything, and he was obviously dealing with some nerves, leaving his front shoulder flying open and eliminating any trace of fastball command. No matter; he’ll be better next time out. But while the minor league system did absolutely exemplary work with Dunn and Logan Gilbert in particular, the M’s cannot afford a White Sox-style stall-out once these guys hit the majors. Giolito lost two years in Chicago after making his debut in Washington due to awful control. Covey’s done the same, and Cease is on track to do it this year. It’s been a huge problem for Fulmer, and, to a lesser degree, Rodon. The M’s are not the White Sox, and are by no means bound to follow in their wild footsteps. But they can’t have that happen. If there’s any good that’s come from Sheffield’s struggles with command early in the year, it’s that the M’s had a test case: can they improve a guy’s command when he’s got the yips? So far so good, I suppose. Now they need to do it with Dunn.
It’s hard to evaluate a start like Dunn’s, but I will say I liked his slider. He threw a couple of great ones, and the horizontal movement was something to see. Of course, he didn’t get as many chases as I would’ve expected, especially on an 0-2 pitch to Eugenio Suarez. It looked, at times, like the Reds saw it coming, although that may just be that they were geared up to take a pitch, given that Dunn threw so many balls. He seemed to throw a hard change at 89-90; there were only 2, and weren’t coded as such by Brooks, but I think they’re change-ups. The problem is that by movement, velo, and spin axis, they’re carbon-copies of his fastball. Felix threw his change at near-FB speeds, but it dove down and under bats. I know it’s Dunn’s third pitch, but I’d like to see more vertical movement separation.
Reader William Lofton mentioned on twitter that Dunn may have been thrown a bit by the 2019 baseball. Many pitchers, he noted, have said it feels slippery. We’ve heard a lot this year about how using the MLB ball in AAA distorted competition in the highest level of the minors, with a massive increase in HRs leading to a huge increase in ERA, with several teams sitting over 6 for an entire year. That in turn has led to more teams saying that they’re skipping AAA when promoting prospects, as they find AAA-in-2019 almost impossible to scout/assess. Dunn is just such a player, who debuted in MLB without ever playing in AAA. While it’s sensible to avoid putting a player in a bad environment, the ball is the same in MLB and AAA. If they’re in MLB, they’re going to have to use it. Wouldn’t you rather they have some familiarity with it in the minors before they’re asked to adjust in front of big crowds in TV cameras? Sheffield’s first starts after his call-up weren’t great, and he’s actually used the MLB ball before, both in AAA and, well, MLB. Dunn hadn’t; I’m not blaming the ball for his 5 walks, but I do wonder if it’s short-sighted to have pitching prospects skip AAA to protect their precious minor league stats.
Dylan Covey’s essentially never done anything of note in the majors, but he pitched in the game at last year’s BP event at Safeco and handcuffed the M’s. I see what the Sox saw when they got him – a big righty with a worm-burning sinker at 95+, and a host of secondaries. Sure, none of these pitches has ever evinced any sign of being a MLB-quality pitch, but damn it, they *look* good. Whatever problem Chicago has in developing pitching, Covey seems to be a perfect example. His second year was worse than his (abbreviated) first year, and this year’s been worse still. It’s the Carson Fulmer story told over many more pages; it’s got to be maddening for the Sox AND for Covey himself.
1: Long, LF
2: Crawford, SS
3: Nola, 1B
4: Seager, 3B
5: Lewis, RF
6: Narvaez, DH
7: Murphy, C
8: Gordon, 2B
9: Smith, CF
SP: Kikuchi
All hail Kyle Lewis.
Game 147, Reds at Mariners – Kyle Lewis Is Fun
Justin Dunn/Tommy Milone vs. Tyler Mahle, 7:10pm
Kyle Lewis has hit an absolutely crucial home run in the last two games, and the M’s continue to destroy the Cincinnati Reds. I propose we move the M’s to the NL Central. It’s just much more fun to watch when the M’s have MLB debutantes who really hit the ground running. And hey, tonight we’ll try for another, as Justin Dunn makes his big league debut as the opener.
I think we’re all sick of Milone/LeBlanc appearances, which is nothing against those two crafty hurlers, but they simply don’t matter for 2021. Justin Dunn, on the other hand, really does. The M’s need new starters, especially if Marco Gonzales isn’t going to be a top of the rotation arm, as now seems pretty clear. Dunn’s got upside that Marco, and even potentially Justus Sheffield, simply doesn’t possess. I’m really curious to see how his first appearance goes, and how his great slider works against the Joey Vottos of the world.
Dunn posted the best K/9 and BB/9 numbers of his career this year, but he struggled just slightly with HRs, a consequence of a fairly extreme fly ball approach. MLB in 2019 has not been kind to such approaches, but then strikeouts cover a multitude of sins. Punchouts, Justin… Punchouts.
Righty Tyler Mahle is a bit similar, in that he’s got a great K:BB ratio, but he’s getting stung by homers, which are even more prevalent in his home park. Like a lot of young pitchers, his real problems are platoon splits. He throws a four-seam fastball, a curve, and an intriguing splitter, which should help him avoid platoon splits, but big league lefties haven’t gotten the memo, and are slugging .544 off of him this year.
1: Long, LF
2: Nola, 1B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Narvaez, C
5: Lewis, RF
6: Vogelbach, DH
7: Moore, 2B
8: Walton, SS
9: Bishop, CF
SP: Dunn/Milone
Game 145, Reds at Mariners – How Do You Do, Fellow Kids
Justus Sheffield vs. Trevor Bauer, 7:10pm
I’m really not sure if any player’s seen their stock drop quite as fast as Bauer’s has. After tossing the ball over the outfield wall when his manager tried to take him out, he was traded to Cincinnati, giving him a couple of months to rebuild value and help out the Reds pitcher reclamation project (eg. Sonny Gray). It uh…it hasn’t worked out. In seven appearances for the Reds, he’s gone 1-4 with an ERA of 8.23 and a FIP of 5.27. The gains he’s made in his strikeout rate and K:BB ratio are still there, which is why his FIP’s better than his ERA. But it’s not, you know, GOOD, because he’s giving up HRs at a remarkable rate and because he’s not stranding runners.
With another hurler you might say that he hasn’t clicked with his pitching coach, or that the team sucks at helping even acquired pitchers succeed (Baltimore’s the historic example of this). But 1) the Reds are a top-10 staff this year and 2) this is Bauer, who is self-made and has no need for plebeian pitching coaches. He’ll rapsodo himself, thank you. Obviously, he’s dealing with some bad luck, but there does seem to be a lack of adjustment to the new ball and a disturbing trend in his ability to get out lefties.
To his credit, he’s tried some stuff. He spent the offseason working on a changeup, and I thought it looked deadly in April. But it hasn’t quite been there for him consistently, and while big offseason pitch design overhauls are great, you need to have the ability to make minor tweaks mid-season. All in all, he seems to have lost many if not all of the gains he made last year, where he was a legitimate Cy Young candidate. The overall track record is much murkier, and that’s even before you get to personality/twitter stuff that will absolutely hold down his value.
Justus Sheffield’s heading in the opposite direction a bit, with solid results in his last few outings taking the sting out of what had been about a year of downward trends in his results and prospect sheen. Like anyone, though, it’s about consolidating those gains and displaying them consistently that matters. Taken as a whole, I don’t think his 2019 has fully demonstrated that he can be a rotation cog in 2020, but a hell of a good September probably would.
And of course, Sheffield’s joined now by a bunch of other prospects that the M’s have brought up after the minor league season concluded. Today, the M’s called up a number of players who’d been at AA Arkansas, including Kyle Lewis, SP Justin Dunn, RP Art Warren and IF/UTIL Donnie Walton. Lewis, the M’s #1 draft pick a few weeks back, gets the start tonight in RF.
It’s too short of a stint to meaningfully change our view of these prospects, but I’d love it if a couple of the hitters showed some real improvement in what had been a weakness – maybe Lewis’ K rate or Walton’s ISO. The M’s are closer than ever to having their actual 2021 team assembled and playing together than ever. Some of the players tonight really need to be in that group, and the M’s need to identify them and keep them on a path that leads to MLB success. Tonight’s pretty exciting, or about as exciting as a late season game featuring a go-nowhere team that’s had almost no success in the second half goes. Sadly, I’m going to miss it, as I’m away and visiting another go-nowhere team that’s had almost no success in the second half.
1: Gordon, 2B
2: Nola, 1B
3: Seager, 3B
4: Murphy, C
5: Vogelbach, DH
6: Lewis, RF
7: Lopes, LF
8: Smith, CF
9: Moore, SS
SP: Sheffield