Game 83, Mariners at Padres: Independence
Chris Flexen vs. Sean Manaea, 3:40pm
Happy Independence Day. I am far from home this year, way over in Europe…hence the paucity of game posts and general thoughts on what’s been a very successful stint from the M’s. What was going to be a family trip has been marred by Covid, and thus I almost feel like I’m hiding out here on the Eastern shores of England. It makes this, for me, at least, an exceedingly odd July 4th. I’ve missed so many M’s games due to the time difference, so my news from home consists of the phone notifications upon waking: how the M’s game ended, and a mass shooting update.
I didn’t have to wake up for the shooting notification. You got started early, I guess. I’d mentioned on Twitter the other day that, absent watching the M’s game live, the only option is to follow the narrative. We try to rise above that sort of stuff at USSM, but when you can’t watch the actual games, what else is there? It’s kind of the same for watching the US…I get snippets on the BBC or elsewhere, and it looks unrecognizable, and all too familiar. Narratives can be annoying for what they elide, but most have a basis in truth.
It’s felt this way for a few years now, but in 2022, it’s inescapable: half the country is celebrating something very different from the other half. Sure, I know: most people are just grilling and having fun with family. But to the degree people are reflecting on the actual holiday, people are drawing very different conclusions. It’s weird, and I’m not sure how to change it.
But then, we know exactly how this goes, right? This hot streak lands very differently for those who expected the M’s to contend this year vs. those of us who didn’t. There is a very real divide between something as small and fragile and beautiful as Mariner fans online. So let’s be clear here for a minute. It’s July 4th, after all.
If you’ve ever read any of this…whatever this is, you’re at the party. If you’ve read Dave and DMZ and company, and left when it was mostly left to this weirdo, you’re at the party. If you’ve hate-read this and believe in your heart that Jerry and the M’s are perma-contenders starting now or next year, you’re at the party. If you just want more statcast and pitch movement posts and hate the lack of posts, you are definitely at the party. July 4th is a great holiday because there is no one way to do it; there aren’t hard and fast rules. So today, from a long way away, in quite weird circumstances, and in ominous and angry times, we get to define what we want.
All M’s fans, all baseball fans, all of baseball Twitter, all of analog baseball who listens on radio, or goes to minor league games: you are my people, and you have supported me without knowing it. It is so weird to connect to something like baseball, as beautiful as it is, but it is extra weird to connect to the flawed and perhaps doomed form the Seattle Mariners play. Every one of you so afflicted is awesome, and I wish I could clink a glass with you today. As everything seems to spin apart, as divisions harden day after day, let’s think about how insane and magical it is that something so imperfect can create connections and sustain community. But it can only do so if we all do the work to sustain it.
So, yeah, it’s extra weird being abroad on July 4th, but I am trying to feel the spirit of it here at night on a rundown seaside. I’m gonna catch at least part of the game today, and I’ll be thinking a lot about home. I’m homesick today, even though the big parties were cancelled at home. Mostly, I just miss my dog. But I am very excited to dive back into the nuances of the season and not just the big narratives.
Today, though, it’s Sean Manaea and the Padres. We are perhaps over-familiar with Manaea: FB, CH, SL, in essentially the same percentages as when he broke in back in 2016. He looks consistent, and he really is: his ERA’s bounced around, but he’s figured out how to be himself as the game has changed around him. He had HR trouble in 2016 and 2017, but be fitted from the HR dip in 2018. He was injured for bits of 2019-2020, but while his walk rate is up this year, the second drop in HRs (and the drop in BABIP) has helped him out. I don’t want to say that his success is the result of league-wide trends. He is who he is: successful overall, and more or less so depending on the context. Which means he is remarkably consistent, and I kind of like that.
1: Rodriguez, CF
2: Crawford, SS
3: Suarez, 3B
4: Santana, 1B
5: Raleigh, C
6: Toro, 2B
7: Upton, DH
8: Moore, LF
9: Wilson, RF
SP: Flexen
Game 69, Mariners at Athletics: Not So Nice
Marco Gonzales Vs. James Kaprelian, 6:40pm
The M’a fell to ten games under. The offense is in crisis-mode. The once impregnable fortress of a bullpen is in tatters. It’s a rough patch for our Seattle Mariners, but at least they get to face Oakland, a perennial power that took itself out of the running quite successfully this offseason, trading nearly all of their star position players in exchange for exciting young talent with questionable hit tools. I’ve said frequently that even as an M’s fan, I just don’t know how to BE an Oakland fan, but the past twenty years remains a fascinating comparison of depressing styles.
The A’s have been a dynamic team that has excelled at different things over the years, but they’ve always been good at *something.* What do they DO with these skills and abilities? Well, mostly stay cheap, sell off any player you can, and keep developing youngsters or drafting well or scout waiver claims. It’s a living.
The M’s have occasionally been good at things, but a combination of blind spots, bad luck, and a desire to remain within their station from a payroll perspective has meant they haven’t challenged for anything. I don’t really think that Oakland *wants* to, but they keep getting close due to skills and abilities. The M’s want to (I can see many of your rolling your eyes through the screen), but can’t due to a lack of those skills and self-defeating bouts of parsimony. It’s always weird watching these two teams “compete.”
One of the things Oakland’s been quite good at is building a bullpen out of the flotsam and jetsam of the league. Or, you know, out of homegrown players. They’re not picky, but they have been consistently good in that regard. The M’s have done so occasionally, but, as we see this year, it doesn’t always hold up. It’s understandable, given bullpen volatility. The A’s manage through coaching, but also through a relentless churn that makes it hard to be a fan, but easy to like if you’re paying the bills.
The style of baseball they helped usher in is now ascendant throughout the game. The concept of the starting pitcher is now in flux, as workhorses like Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander represent the last of their kind. Closers are still closers, but the importance of the times through the order penalty or platoon splits or just the league-wide lines for starters vs. relievers has opened the door for regular, non-closer relievers to proliferate. The league’s pitching staff cap of 13 is in place, and many teams don’t really know what to do with so few pitchers, even though 10-15 years ago, the idea of a 13 man staff wasn’t even considered. We’ve come a long way.
Where…where are we? In a place where starting pitchers, often the league’s highest paid players in a given year, are less valuable. A vast, faceless mob of relievers straddles MLB and AAA, with the middle tier in constant movement between the levels. With more innings going to low-paid pre-arb arms. Where volatility dominates, and the solution is simple: just draw from the deck again.
For absolutely no reason, and changing subjects entirely, the M’s have DFA’d veteran RP Sergio Romo and lefty Roenis Elias. In their place, they’ve activated veteran RP Ken Giles, signed before his TJ surgery last year.
1: Crawford, SS
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Winker, LF
5: Suarez, 3B
6: Frazier, 2B
7: Upton, DH
8: Trammell, RF
9: Raleigh, C
SP: Marcoooo
James Kaprelian is a starter the A’s did a good job developing, but have seen injuries, the Covid layoff and regression reduce his effectiveness. He used to throw 2-3 ticks harder, and despite throwing more breaking balls these days, he’s not missing bats. He’s also walking too many and liable to dingers, so the overall line is getting at something tangible and disappointing for A’s fans. He throws a four seamer, a slider, a change, and a curve he’s gone to more frequently this year.
Game 65, Angels at Mariners: Upton’s Revenge?
Robbie Ray vs. Michael Lorenzen, 7:10pm
With the M’s offense struggling again, the M’s keep throwing things at the wall to see if any of them can hit. They’ve changed the batting order, they’ve shifted things at the bottom of the line-up, etc. Today, they’re trying something new. Kind of. The M’s have brought up Justin Upton, the free agent – still only 34 – who the Angels cut after spring training. He caught on with the M’s, as the Angels are still paying his salary, and today, he’ll join the team and start in left field. Can Upton recharge the offense? Eh, the odds are against it, but at this point, what’s the harm? He’s taking Sam Haggerty’s spot on the roster, and quite frankly, he’s going to be a better hitter than Haggerty (though a worse/more limited defender). He was rusty, and certainly wasn’t tearing it up in Tacoma, though of course we have 15 years of MLB performance against his few weeks in the PCL. But if this isn’t the end for Upton’s MLB time, it’s coming soon. We can just hope he uses the Angels’ dropping him as fuel, and hits a dinger or two against a lefty tonight. That’s likely how he can best be used: as a lefty-masher off the bench. That spot is generally held by Luis Torrens right now, esp. if he isn’t starting, and boooooy has it not worked out to have Torrens hit in late game situations against lefties. I’m fine trying something new.
I had kind of a hot take on Twitter last night that some may agree with, and some definitely do not. I feel like I need to lay out the case here in a bit more depth. What I said was that at this point, the idea that the M’s could become a pennant contender through player development is now dead, and further, that we can now close the book on the M’s being a PD super-org. Others pointed out that in short succession, the M’s had the 2020 Rookie of the Year, Logan Gilbert, Julio’s strong start, and now George Kirby. Sure, there were misfires, but any org that can turn signings and drafts into *this* actually IS having a ton of developmental success. It’s true!
But what I’m pointing out is that they’ve had all of that, and currently sit 28-36, and are the 11th-best team in the 15-team American League. I don’t think they are *bad* at player development, certainly not on the pitching side. But what they are NOT is so good that they essentially don’t need to do anything else. Talent gaps between them and the Astros, or Twins, or whoever you pick are only point in time measures that don’t reflect what’s going on below the MLB level. The problem with that is that it’s not clear the gaps are shrinking. The M’s have developed two great starters, and it certainly seems like Matt Brash will be back soon, AND they’ve got Julio. And they’re 28-36.
It’s not enough to be good. The problem is that because they believe in their own ability *so much*, they didn’t explore much in free agency (apart from tonight’s starter, of course). They continue to make minor moves, and even some of those have been amongst the crowning successes of the development coaches: Paul Sewald, Casey Sadler, or, going back a ways, Austin Adams. But the problem is those successes each have a counter-example of a player who looked pretty good who’s cratered here. Mallex Smith was a three-win player the year before he got to Seattle, and then he developed his way out of the big leagues. Dee Strange-Gordon was nearly a three-win player the year before the M’s acquired him, and spent three replacement-level years in Seattle. Luis Torrens was a decent hitter in 2020-21, but is…not right now. We don’t even need to go into Evan White. But Justus Sheffield, Justin Dunn, Shed Long. They’ve had so many players – from drafted prospects to near-MLB prospects developed elsewhere to guys with a lot or a little MLB time. Some worked out, a lot didn’t. Hey, bad luck happens to every team, and absolutely no one develops every single player. But it’s hard to look at this record – the whole record – and believe that the M’s are a developmental powerhouse.
I think the ramifications here are important. Does the team need to make a change? Yeah, I think so. But change what? I think the most important thing is to figure out what’s going on when development goes right, and what’s going on when you get these slips from Torrens or the disastrous starts from the likes of White and Taylor Trammell. As is, they seem less like the development stars like the Dodgers and Yankees, and more like the Detroit Tigers. Detroit’s done a great job with Tarik Skubal, and might get some points for Matthew Boyd’s development, but they’ve essentially struck out on offense. That might change with Spencer Torkelson (who’s struggled) and now Riley Greene (their top prospect, who was called up today). But as it stands, they don’t have a lot to show for what many credit as a top-flight development group *for pitchers.* They’ve had some go down with injuries, they’ve had some grow in the big leagues, they’ve spent a bit of money after a painful rebuild, and…it’s not enough.
So are the M’s doomed? No, of course not. Well…uh, whatever their “doom” status, it’s not my point here. The point is that they tried very hard to build the club through player development and trades for youngish talent before splashing out on Robbie Ray and Jesse Winker. That hasn’t worked, and the signs it might not were evident long before late-May of 2022. So, ok, you don’t have the Dodgers money or development. You don’t have the Rays savvy with development. You don’t have the Astros’ skill there. It’s going to take more in free agency. You might have to pay more, you might have some eye-wateringly high salaries on the back end of deals that may seem like wasted money. But you’ve got to do something differently.
1: Crawford, SS
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Suarez, 3B
5: Winker, DH
6: Upton, LF
7: Frazier, 2B
8: Raleigh, C
9: Trammell, RF
SP: Ray
Angels’ starter Michael Lorenzen was once something of a two-way phenomenon, though nothing like his current teammate Shohei Ohtani. Lorenzen’s come to bat over 130 times, and owns a higher career OPS than many in the M’s line-up. It is just barely below JP Crawford’s career OPS, though of course accounting for park would tilt things in Crawford’s favor. He is not a “hits well for a pitcher” which is not even a thing that could give him an advantage anymore. But the Reds used to use him as an occasional pinch hitter, and after seeing several of the late-game PHs the M’s have used, uh…could we borrow Lorenzen from time to time?
Lorenzen throws a sinker, a four-seam, a change-up, a slider, a cutter, and his thrown two (2) curve balls. He’ll throw the kitchen sink. He doesn’t have the super high velo he had coming up as a reliever, but is averaging about 95 with his four seam. Despite the change and a deep repertoire, he’s still got very sizable platoon splits, so this may be a decent match-up for the M’s lefties. It’s less of an ideal match-up for Upton.
Game 63, Twins at Mariners: Development is Not Linear
Marco Gonzales vs. Sonny Gray, 1:10pm
It’s a matinee for get-away day today in Seattle, as Marco Gonzales takes the hill against a team he’s struggled against. Sonny Gray makes his first start since coming off the IL with a pectoral strain.
I want to get back to something I mentioned yesterday, brought up by this great BP article on Jarred Kelenic’s struggles, particularly with breaking balls. In that piece, Jarrett Seidler mentions that concerns about swing and miss were pretty consistently waived off as Kelenic continued his ascension through the M’s system, and that his overall ability perhaps papered over the issue as opposed to actually solving it. The point he’s making concerns evaluation: how should scouts/evaluators/prospect nerds handle a concern like that? What should it mean to a prospect’s ranking or floor/ceiling? These are all great questions, but they’re not my concern.
What I’m interested in is what happens to a prospect as he’s moving up the ranks, or in some cases, after he faces his first sustained bout with failure? How does a team *teach* things like pitch recognition, or mechanics, or any of the tools in a baseball player’s tool kit for improving and attacking opposing pitchers. Seidler points out all that we don’t know – especially in the public sphere. We don’t have pitch-level data for the low minors (mostly). We don’t get to hear from PD staff what they’re trying to change in a hitters’ swing and why, or how it’s going. This means it’s essentially impossible to disentangle a whole bunch of confounding variables. Did a hitter’s K rate improve because he had more reps, because he changed his set-up, because he focused only on fastballs, and pitchers in his league obliged, some combination of these, or none of the above?
What I think complicates the Kelenic story in particular is just how many tweaks he’s made. I can’t count how many articles you can find about him making adjustments, both to his swing and his attitude. He talked to M’s coaches, to Mark McGwire, his old youth-baseball swing coach, and probably plenty more. He seems exceedingly coachable, always willing to try something to improve. But something’s not quite clicking, or at least, it hasn’t just yet.
So again: is this a case where evaluators knew something, and all the world’s hitting coaches and all the willingness to learn in the world can’t help address it? I just doubt that, given everything we know about how new coaching methods and training have transformed careers. All of that to me points to development as a potential issue, and at least in Kelenic’s case, I wonder if it’s a bit more systemic than we’d hope.
I am absolutely not comparing Kelenic and Evan White, whose own career has been crushed by injuries as much as his struggles at the plate. But White had more swing-and-miss in his game at the AA level, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he dealt with whispers about it from scouts. But it’s just as true that they popped up, or become more apparent anyway, after a swing change in high-A that enabled him to improve his power. It worked. But often times there are reactions for actions like this, and White’s swing was exposed badly in MLB in 2020. So, the M’s presumably made further adjustments, and White cut his K rate significantly early in 2021. The problem was that those adjustments sapped that power: his exit velo cratered, wiping away the advantage of the contact improvement.
Let’s be clear: White had a different problem. White struggled with fastballs, and in-zone fastballs, while Kelenic’s problems have been more with breaking/offspeed stuff. But the point is, the reactions – the adjustments – have hurt as much as they’ve helped. By pitch values, Kelenic slumped further in 2022 compared to 2021 (in a minuscule sample, I know, but it continues in AAA), all while *not* improving on fastballs. His exit velos dropped a bit, too. White kind of collapsed across the board. To me, this speaks to developmental issues and how hitters are coached, perhaps even what kind of cues they’re given to get into position. I don’t know that, and am not qualified to speak to how to improve it or even how to know that it’s the issue. But we’re seeing this…pretty often? Luis Torrens has slumped badly from last year’s pace. Shed Long took a solid half-season opener and hasn’t been back to that level since (though statcast expected stats always saw that cup of coffee as a mirage).
I worry about this because there are plenty of players who’ve had that “swing and miss” flag in their file, and who became superstars regardless. George Springer is perhaps the best example, as he was a college-trained hitter with K rates far in excess of anything we saw from Kelenic/White/Julio Rodriguez/etc. He was older for the level and K’d way more than Kelenic. Yordan Alvarez did too, and at the same rate as White in AA. Obviously, we don’t have data at the level we’d need to say that those K rates were a categorically different problem than the one Kelenic faced, but we don’t really need to. The point is: Alvarez and Springer got better, and Kelenic, to date, has not. None of this means he’s a bust or doomed or that he should’ve been docked in prospect rankings back in 2020. It just means the M’s PD hasn’t fixed this issue. I really hope they do soon.
1: Frazier, 2B
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Suarez, 3B
5: Winker, (DH)
6: Moore, SS
7: Torrens, C
8: Trammell, RF
9: Haggerty, LF
SP: Gonzales
JP Crawford was a late scratch last night with “flu like symptoms” and isn’t in the line-up today, which… sounds like Covid. But it is *not*, in fact, Covid. Ryan Divish reports he’s in the clubhouse today, and thinks he had food poisoning instead, which led him to vomit three times before the first pitch last night, necessitating Dylan Moore replace him. That’s good news – not the food poisoning and barfing, of course – as it means we could see him very soon.
Game 62, Twins at Mariners
Logan Gilbert vs Joe Ryan, 7:10pm
Quick one today, as I’m standing outside T-Mobile…(but headed to a Sounders game). Two things today: first, Jesse Winker’s getting a night off. So far, so normal- Julio was off last night. But there are rumblings, per Ryan Divish, that the M’s are getting a bit tired of Winker’s inability to hit the ball hard in key situations. He was up with two outs in the 9th last night in a favorable situation: he represented the go-ahead run, and Dylan Moore was on 2nd. His opponent was a righty with a penchant for allowing HRs and hard, elevated contact. He struck out. Winker is clearly better than he’s shown, but my patience is wearing thin a bit, too.
Second, Jarrett Seidler has a great piece on Jarred Kelenic and his swing and miss issues. With statcast data, we can see he hasn’t solved his big problem, even as he was putting up good numbers for Tacoma (he was before tweaking a hamstring). Seidler notes that there were swing and miss concerns throughout his rise, but people ignored or more accurately downplayed them because he hit the ball so hard, so often. But breaking balls and off speed pitches have flummoxed him at the big league level, and continue to in Tacoma. Did evaluators miss something? I’m perhaps more inclined to give them a break: his K rate (which is a crude but huge metric) was going down as he hit the low minors. Big league pitchers found a weakness that minor leaguers couldn’t exploit perhaps, but something else is going on. The hitting development has had a couple of these, where swing changes unlocked power, but perhaps at the expense of pitch recognition. Was there an overemphasis on timing the fastball?
1: Frazier, 2B
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Suarez, 3B
5: Toro, DH
6: Raleigh, C
7: Trammell, RF
8: Moore, SS
9: Haggerty, LF
SP: Gilbert
JP Crawford was supposed to start and play SS; he’s apparently a late scratch. Hmmm.
Game 61, Twins at Mariners
Chris Flexen vs. Chris Archer, 7:10pm
The M’s had a chance to win a series against a wild card rival, at home, against a spot starter. It looked like a mismatch. Robbie Ray pitched a gem, and it didn’t matter. The M’s managed a lone hit against Kutter Crawford and a series of relievers, and the M’s limped to perhaps their most uninspired loss of the season. It chipped away at the good feelings from the previous day’s improbable comeback, and it must hurt the team’s morale.
Today, they begin a series with the Central-leading Twins, who’ve bounced back from a disastrous 2021. A huge problem last year was their starting rotation, which seemed to put them in a hole early in every game. As a result, they’ve overhauled the entire thing, with four of their top five starters in 2021 shown the door in 2022. To replace them, the Twins made a series of interesting trades in order to combine their younger prospects like Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober with lower-cost vets and reclamation projects, from Chris Paddack to Dylan Bundy to today’s starter, Chris Archer.
It hasn’t been perfect, but this diversified portfolio has led them to a rotation that’s more middle of the pack rather than “clear bottom 5” like last year. Bundy’s been bad, Paddack needs Tommy John again, and Sonny Gray’s been hurt, but they’re hanging around. In a flashback to the mid-2000s, the Twins have one of the lowest K rates and average fastball velocities in the game, but they’re making it kind of work. Joe Ryan’s been good, and Archer’s been…well, not “Good” exactly, but oddly effective?
All in all, it reminds me a bit of the M’s plan in 2021, when they picked up guys like Chris Flexen to fill in and give time for Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, and Emerson Hancock to emerge. Flexen didn’t – and doesn’t – do anything flashy, but he could pitch a bit, and mix his 92-93mph fastball with a hard cutter, change, and curveball. The velo and shape of his pitches meant that racking up a ton of K’s probably wasn’t in the cards, but limiting walks and hopefully running a low BABIP would make him a perfectly fine middle of the rotation/#4 starter. That’s pretty much exactly what happened, and Flexen turned into the bargain of 2021 for the M’s.
This year, Flexen’s just sliiiightly worse in every respect, and he’s much more of a #5. His K rate dropped about 1 percentage point, while his walk rate rose by 2. His ground ball rate dropped a bit more – from the low 40s to the mid-30s. This has helped produce a pretty large increase in his home run rate. Some of that may have been by design: he’s changed his cutter fairly dramatically.
Last year, the cutter was just 3ish ticks slower than his fastball, and while it didn’t get many whiffs, it helped him get grounders. This year, he’s taken a lot off of it; it comes in 2 mph slower than last year, expanding that gap even though his fastball’s down slightly as well. His fastball shape is straighter, and he’s improved the spin efficiency and thus rise on it. That might play better with his cutter, which sinks compared to the heater. All of that has actually paid off in a way; batters have a lower average off of his cutter, which makes some sense, as they no longer hit on the ground. It’s a perfectly fine trade off to make, but it results in fewer grounders overall. Even with a supposedly draggier ball, that’s something of a dangerous game.
Right now, Flexen has the 5th-lowest K rate of any qualified starter (Marco’s in 4th). You can kind of make this work; there are successful pitchers on that list. Framber Valdez and Paul Blackburn (and Martin Perez) make it work by getting tons of grounders, and thus limit dingers. Jameson Taillon and Blackburn don’t walk many. But you’ve got to do something. Flexen’s given up on trying for even average grounder rates, and now his walk rate is heading towards average. This is a dangerous spot to be in, and he may need to think about how he’s going to attack a line-up that’s been one of the best in the AL.
Of course, the *Mariners* are supposedly one of the better offenses (at least according to Fangraphs), but games like yesterday’s make that tougher to really understand. The M’s biggest problem thus far has been an inability to score any runs. They’re giving them up at essentially league-average rates – nothing crazy either way. But they can’t score. Sure, by BaseRuns, they “should have” scored more – and yes, it’s darkly comic that they’re unlucky by BaseRuns one year after a campaign that essentially broke BaseRuns in the other direction (BaseRuns, sobbing: “You can’t score six runs on two singles and three strikeouts. It doesn’t work like that! 2021 Mariners: “Run machine goes brrrrrrr”)
This is largely the result of park effects, and I get it. T-Mobile’s been a brutal park for run scoring. But in *this* year, I’m just not certain that the M’s get this much of the benefit of the doubt. They’ve certainly enjoyed hitting at home much more than on the newly-humidified road.
1: Winker, LF
2: France, 1B
3: Crawford, SS
4: Suarez, 3B
5: Frazier, 2B
6: Toro, DH
7: Raleigh, C
8: Trammell, CF
9: Moore, RF
SP: Flexen
No Julio tonight, as he gets a day off with a FB/SL righty on the bump for Minnesota.
The Twins have been hit very hard by the injury bug. They’ve already lost more days to the IL than any other team in the AL, but things got worse when they learned they lost #1 prospect Royce Lewis to his second ACL tear. Lots of prospects and high draft picks have gone down, with Walker Buehler on the shelf for months, Casey Mize going for TJ, as summarized in this post.
Game 60, Red Sox at Mariners
Robbie Ray vs. Kutter Crawford, 1:10pm
Last night’s thrilling, come-from-behind win felt like it could be important. Another in what’s seeming like a string of games the M’s looked sure to lose, but putting together tough at bats in key situations and doing just enough to come out on top. The Sox jumped on George Kirby for 3 in the first, but the M’s weren’t too concerned. They gave up what felt like a crushing HR in the 9th, but yawned again and came back with 2 in the bottom half. That was legitimately fun.
Kirby was solid, but I’m still unsure about his secondaries. Kirby’s fastball is a great, if straight, pitch. It’s key for him, as it allows him to get swinging strikes, and I keep thinking that if it stays effective and gets him ahead in counts, it almost won’t matter that his slider hasn’t really been fooling people. But as the league moves further and further towards swing-and-miss breaking balls in fastball counts, I worry that it could keep Kirby’s K rate lower than it should be. And even then, it would keep him playable and effective given his microscopic walk rate. But I’d like to be greedy, and get something other than a great #3, because Kirby’s got the ability to do more. He just needs a better slider.
Speaking of better sliders, I hope the M’s are keeping an eye on today’s starter’s breaking ball, too. Robbie Ray’s seen his K rate drop noticeably this season – a season that’s seen his velocity drop as well. It’s possible he picks it back up in the warmer months, but right now, he’s down over 1 mph with his fastball and breakers, too. It’s not a bad pitch by any stretch, but as we’ve seen over the course of Ray’s career, it’s prone to hard contact. He’s given up 7 “barrels” – the best quality of contact for hitters – on sliders this year, tied for 4th most in MLB. Sure, he throws so many of them that they’re not exactly common, but they’re why he’s already allowed 6 home runs on the pitch, 2nd most in MLB.
It’s such a key pitch for him, and it’s what’s enabled him to become essentially a two-pitch pitcher. It’s a pitch that elicits swings, which can be tricky for breaking balls. In recent years, Ray’s getting swings on well over 50% of his sliders, which is great because many of them become whiffs, and at least theoretically, you’d always prefer batters to put sliders in play as opposed to fastballs. Even with high exit velocities, it’s still garnered lower exit velos than his fastball – last year, that gap was 2 mph on average. This year, the gap is down to a half an mph – and his slider exit velo is just about 91 mph. Sure, the whiffs are still there, but there are a bit fewer put in play, and those that ARE put in play are hit slightly harder. It’s a series of very small declines adding up to a more precipitous one. He reminds me so much of Yusei Kikuchi, actually. Kikuchi’s given up the highest exit velo on sliders in MLB (among pitchers with at least 25 BIP off of them), while Ray sits in 10th.
But hopefully that can change today. Boston’s back of the line-up isn’t all that different from the M’s – both line-ups have some ugly stat lines. And beyond that, the edge in starting pitching is in the M’s favor, no matter what your projections are for Ray. Boston’s starting Kutter Crawford, an improving righty who’s more MLB depth option than real prospect. A 16th round pick, Crawford’s had mop-up duty in 2021 and 2022, and produced a 10.66 ERA. William the Conquerer, he is not. He has good velocity on his fastball, and of course his primary breaker would be a cutter. But the overall results have not been there. He’s giving up hard contact to just about everyone, and even his AAA numbers look like there’s something wrong. He has no platoon splits, but in the bad way, not the good way. On paper, this is a mismatch.
1: Winker, LF
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Crawford, SS
5: Suarez, DH
6: Frazier, 2B
7: Toro, 3B
8: Trammell, RF
9: Torrens, C
SP: Ray
Tacoma lost a wild one at home to Round Rock. They scored 5 in the bottom of the 9th to tie a game that looked lost, then gave up 5 in the top of the 10th. They’re back at it today in Tacoma.
Arkansas’ Taylor Dollard continues his eye-opening season, and his ERA remains below 1 into June.
Modesto jumped all over Inland Empire, winning 14-3. Edwin Arroyo and Jonaton Clase hit back to back homers in the victory.
Game 58, Red Sox at Mariners
Marco Gonzales vs. Rich Hill, 7:10pm
The M’s won a second straight series from the Astros on Wednesday. It wasn’t always pretty, but the M’s won 2 of 3 from Houston *in Houston* after earlier beating them in Seattle. They’ve won 3 of the 4 series they’ve played against the Astros this year. Look, I wish that these wins meant more, or that Houston and Seattle were neck and neck in the standings. But they’re not meaningless either, not for a Mariner team that was dangerously close to falling out of the hunt completely. These series wins coupled with the epic collapse of the Angels mean we get to care about the standings for a little longer, and sure, hopefully a lot longer.
But if we’re going to do that, the M’s have to beat teams like Boston. The four-game sweep in Boston was the early season’s low point, and while they’ve bounced back admirably, they have to figure out how to grind out wins against good but flawed teams like this. The bullpen that was such a problem early has been improving steadily, kind of an echo of last year’s success (as were the almost bizarre late-game rallies we’ve seen recently).
One thing that’s *nothing* like last year is the M’s batting success at T-Mobile park. A year after a BABIP-depressed home line of .214/.296/.367, they’re hitting .256/.346/.419 at home – 5th best in MLB. Sure, on the road, things are still a little bleak, but being able to hit at home helps them create a legitimate home field advantage, and it helps their pitchers feel a bit less pressure – that one solo HR might doom their start. T-Mobile boasts the 5th highest wOBA (for the M’s and their opponents) and the 5th highest exit velocity. It’s still not a real hitters park, but it’s also not an anchor on the offense this year, which is kind of remarkable given the cold we’ve seen in the area this year.
It’s also just not somewhere they’ve *played* very often thus far. I saw Scott Servais’ minor complaint about the brutal schedule and travel the M’s have had thus far, and it’s pretty accurate. The M’s have played 35 road games thus far, and none in Oakland or Anaheim, and just 22 home contests. They’ll have a nice streak of home games and closer road travels through the rest of the month.
Marco Gonzales is having a repeat of his 2021 season, as his K rate drops, his HR rate spikes, and it…all just sort of works out somehow? His FIP, his expected stats, DRA, all of them are horrified, but while a 4 ERA doesn’t mean the same thing it meant in 2019, he’s still on the good side of the line. I think a K rate of 13.7%, as Marco’s is now, is borderline unless you’re a world class ground baller, and Marco is not. He’s gone to his change-up more than he ever has as a Mariner, and while it’s been his best pitch, I’m not thrilled that he’s doing so because his breaking balls – cutter and curve – have been so ineffective. Getting those right is going to be key to restoring at least some bat-missing, and that can help him avoid big innings. If it helps, maybe his teammates can make up some stories about him being disrespected by that day’s opponents or something; he always pitches well when he thinks he’s being overlooked.
1: Winker, LF
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Crawford, SS
5: Suarez, 3B
6: Moore, RF
7: Toro, 2B
8: Torrens, DH
9: Raleigh, C
SP: Gonzales
Tacoma beat Salt Lake 5-3 last night, getting a win for Darren McCaughan, and giving the loss to one of Jerry Dipoto’s first acquisitions as M’s GM, Jonathan Aro. Aro was acquired from Boston in the Wade Miley deal, heading east for Carson Smith and Roenis Elias back in late 2015. Tacoma’s supposed to start a series at home against Round Rock tonight, but that…might be difficult.
Arkansas split a double-header with Wichita last night. It was Joe Rizzo’s best night of the year, as he hit three HRs over the two (shortened) games, giving him 9 on the year.
Everett beat Hillsboro 4-2, with Bryce Miller pitching 6 excellent innings in what turned out to be a no-decision.
Modesto lost at Inland Empire, 3-1. Sam Carlson had a strong outing in relief.
Game 55, Mariners at Astros
Robbie Ray vs. Cristian Javier, 5:10pm
Yesterday’s win was a wildly improbable robbery, thanks to Eugenio Suarez’s 4 RBIs. It looked like a boring, listless loss to a boring, listless Rangers club until their remarkable 9th inning comeback, and a great relief performance from the suddenly-unhittable Diego Castillo. Two series wins is just so, so different from coming into this series at .500 on the trip. Intellectually, it’s not all that different at all; only the Angels collapse is keeping these M’s games slightly meaningful. But if we can’t get a thrilling playoff chase – yet – we want two things: 1) some sort of improvement, and beating the teams you’re supposed to beat; and 2) to be exciting. Give me chaos or give me greatness, but don’t give me dependable mediocrity.
Justin Choi had a great article at Fangraphs today on the declining effectiveness of the high fastball. Choi notes that perhaps the primary reason pitchers employ elevated hitters – to get swings-and-misses – wasn’t working out in 2022, as whiff rate on them is down markedly, after a minor drop in 2021. As Rob Arthur noted as BP late in 2021, and as Choi mentions as well, a big part of that 2021 leveling out was due to the crackdown on sticky stuff. The ban on Spider Tack produced a near instantaneous drop in whiff rate, right as fastball spin rates dropped. But then, spin rate returned. And velocity on elevated fastballs (and, er, everything else) continues to rise too; fastballs are a full tick faster than they were just a few years ago.
All of that is interesting to read given that tonight’s starting pitcher, Cristian Javier, is a pitcher whose entire strategy/profile could be summed up in the phrase “elevated heaters.” Here’s his zone chart for fastballs from Brooks, first for his career, and for this year. It’s why Javier’s yet to post a season ground ball rate above 30%, and why his current rate of 26.1% is 3rd-lowest in MLB among pitchers with at least 30 IP. Unlike the rest of the league, Javier’s whiff rate on his fastball continues to climb, and it’s helped him post great strikeout numbers.
But it’s interesting: where Javier gets fastball whiffs looks a lot different than where he throws most of his fastballs. This is a reminder that there are other reasons to throw an elevated fastball than just to chase, uh, chases. wOBACON (weighted On Base Average on Contact) on high strikezone fastballs is down considerably in 2022; it’s dropped every year since 2019. If we look at all high fastballs, not just strikes, we see the exact same pattern. It doesn’t change much if we include all fastballs and not just four-seamers. I think Choi is right that batters are getting better at reaching these pitches due to changes in batting practice and using more high-velo pitching machines instead of lobbed pitches from coaches. But they haven’t yet made the switch to actually hurting those pitches the way they did with low fastballs.
The other thing to remember is that high fastballs are often great at disguising breaking balls, especially curves, because the curve’s trajectory can look an awful lot like a high fastball’s before the magnus force causes it to head south. Javier has a curve, but his primary breaker is a slider, but the same effect may occur. Whatever the reason, Javier has thrown 213 fastballs *out* of the zone and only 207 within it. He’s *more* likely to throw a ball than a strike with his primary pitch, and yet it’s drawn a swing over 55% of the time. That’s remarkable.
On the plus side, the Mariners have fared better against fly-ball pitchers than any other kind of hurler, according to BBREF’s batting splits. They just have to make sure they’re hitting strikes, and not popping up above-the-zone fastballs. As a FB/SL guy, Javier has pretty noticeable splits. This isn’t a great match-up for, say, Julio, so Winker and Crawford are going to need to step up.
1: Winker, LF
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Crawford, SS
5: Suarez, 3B
6: Frazier, 2B
7: Trammell, DH
8: Moore, RF
9: Raleigh, C
SP: Robbie Ray
Would be good to see a real ace-type game from Ray.
Tacoma lost the final game in their series in Reno 6-5 despite Justin Upton’s first org home run.
Taylor Dollard was excellent in Arkansas’ 6-0 win over Springfield, tossing 6 IP of 2 H, 0R, 3 BB, 6 K ball at the Cardinals. That brought his ERA on the year under 1 (5 ER in 47 1/3 IP).
Everett beat Eugene 5-1, as Noelvi Marte homered. Marte’s prospect stock has dipped a bit, so it’s nice to see him heat up a bit. He’s 3 for his last 7 with a double and a dinger.
Modesto beat Fresno 7-4, as Edwin Arroyo (whose prospect stock has moved sharply up) got back in the hit column.
Game 54, Mariners at Rangers: Give and Take
George Kirby vs. Martin Perez, 11:35am
After a close win and a close loss, the M’s look to win the series this morning in Arlington. They’ve got George Kirby on the mound against veteran lefty Martin Perez, and if you’ve followed Perez for any length of time, that sounds like a favorable match-up. But in one of the more improbable early-season lines, Perez is 4-2 with a 1.42 ERA and a 2.36 FIP. If the season ended today, Martin Perez – the journeyman, the ol’ pitch-to-contact, yikes, not THAT contact guy – would get Cy Young votes. The guy on a one-year, $4M contract has been one of the AL’s best starters, and it makes zero sense.
Perez was one of the most anticipated prospects in years, coming up in 2012 as a 21-year old. He showed poise, a deep repertoire, and just enough bat-missing ability to be a widely-hailed prospect, and rose through the ranks quickly. This was despite some troubling signs, though. Despite the decent peripherals, Perez gave up a lot of runs for a top-50 prospect. Sure, he was young for the league, but he gave up too many walks. He got grounders, which helped, but evidently not enough. This was the classic scouting over stats call; the numbers showed a young guy struggling to put it all together, but the scouts insisted he would.
In his second season, the scouts appeared to be on the march, as he crested 100IP with an ERA under 4. FIP was a bit more concerned at the lack of K’s and mild HR trouble, but the guy was 22. He looked erratic, but often sharp the next year, notching two CG shutouts in 2014, but his season was cut short when he blew out his elbow. After returning, he just looked…off. He logged innings, he was perfectly serviceable, but his K rate collapsed as the league’s was surging. Perhaps because of that inability to miss bats, he really struggled to strand runners, and this led to higher ERAs than his already high FIPs. After a disastrous 2018, the Rangers cut bait, and Perez began wandering through the AL. He gained a bit of velo in 2019 with Minnesota, raising his K rate. But HRs and that awful strand rate gave him a nearly-unchanged ERA/FIP. He moved to Boston the next year, and his walk rate spiked, and he oddly transformed himself into a fly ball pitcher after making his name as a rather pedestrian ground baller. His K:BB ratio was a career best last season, but being a fly baller in 2021 wasn’t a great recipe for anyone, and he again struggled. Lacking anything better, he moved back to Texas.
And all of the sudden he’s an ace. He has already pitched his first CG shutout since 2014, and he’s back to being a ground ball pitcher after that stint in Boston. He’s lowered his walk rate below 6%, easily a career-best. While his K rate is still low, it’s his first time above 20%. So what’s the difference? A new pitch? Different mix? A faddish sweeping slider? No, not really any of that. He’s leaning on his sinker more after being a cutter/change guy for a few years. That explains the increased ground balls, but there’s no real difference in movement with any of his offerings. His velo is *down* compared to last year. He’s just hitting his spots much, much better. After a decade of consistent mediocrity, Martin Perez is taking off. It makes no sense. It’s tempting to think it’s short-term luck, and his HR luck is pretty remarkable (in over 63, he’s yet to give up a home run this year), but he’s been so consistently good this year. I’m trying to think of something like it – that Jason Vargas all-star year in KC comes close, but Vargas was better than Perez.
But even as Texas gets an unexpected All-Star season out of a guy all of baseball thought it knew, they’ve reached the end of the road with a player who was supposed to drive their re-build. The Rangers called up OF prospect and 80-grade name Steele Walker today, and to make room on the 40-man, they’ve DFA’d Willie Calhoun. Calhoun was the prize in the trade that sent Yu Darvish to Los Angeles, and despite being undersized and defensively challenged, he was born to hit. He flew through the Dodgers system, hitting at every step. The key was preternatural bat-to-ball ability that limited Ks, paired with sneaky power. Two initial cups of coffee with Texas weren’t great, but he hit 21 HRs in a very solid 2019, and while his defense kept that season from being *valuable*, it was at the very least *encouraging.* He seemed to be exactly what he was supposed to be: a DH or corner OF who hit enough to be dangerous. And then it all went wrong.
He was disastrous in the shortened 2020, as both his BABIP and his power just evaporated. Everyone in the world had a bad 2020, so how did he bounce back? By showing 2020 wasn’t a fluke. He hasn’t really struck out much, but everything else has been bad: no power, no average, no defense. He’s clashed with the team and demanded a trade after being optioned to the minors. This day has been coming. Calhoun’s ability to make contact will get him a shot somewhere, and it’s easy to convince yourself that this kind of profile plays up in today’s high-K environment – hell, that’s why Adam Frazier is here. But in something that’s really surprised me, so many guys with this skillset have really struggled. This was supposed to be Nick Madrigal’s year with Chicago, but he’s played himself out of a starting role. Willians Astudillo is back to being a journeyman. Steven Kwan is trying, and has been good for Cleveland, but his line is propped up by an insane first week. You’ve got to hit a ton of line drives like Luis Arraez and Michael Brantley, or have power like Wander Franco (who hasn’t shown as much as he’s got) and Jose Ramirez. With shifting and a draggier baseball, it’s hard to make it on pure BABIP.
But again, that wasn’t supposed to Calhoun’s problem. At his shape, he wasn’t going to make it by slapping grounders around the park. This is someone with 20-30+ HR power, and then it just…went away. I’d love to know if this was the result of an injury, maybe one Calhoun never knew about, or possibly even Covid. Was it a disastrous swing fix suggested by a coach (leading to Calhoun’s mistrust and headbutting with the Rangers coaches)? Whatever it was, Calhoun’s moving on. I’m not sure the M’s have any kind of track record with a player like this, but they’re clearly a team that doesn’t mind the low-K, low-power profile. Their work with JP Crawford has been encouraging, but they couldn’t help Dan Vogelbach. We’ll see if they kick the tires on Calhoun, but with Justin Upton in Tacoma, I’m just not sure there’s room.
1: Winker, LF
2: France, 1B
3: Rodriguez, CF
4: Crawford, SS
5: Suarez, 3B
6: Torrens, C
7: Toro, 2B
8: Moore, RF
9: Haggerty, LF
SP: Kirby
Taylor Dollard is the biggest name amongst today’s minor league starting pitchers.
Tacoma lost to Reno last night, and Everett got swept by Eugene in a double header. Modesto came back to beat Fresno 4-3, getting three runs in the 9th.