Hardy to Minnesota
You can officially cross J.J. Hardy off the list of possible options this winter. He was traded to the Minnesota Twins for Carlos Gomez.
Heck of a move for the Twins.
The JJ Hardy Plan
With all the talk of whether the M’s should be buyers or sellers, I’ve advocated for the last few months that the M’s should be both.
This team is not good enough to justify hanging onto Erik Bedard and Jarrod Washburn only to watch them leave via free agency at years end, when the trade market is craving veteran starting pitching. If this team had a 40% chance or better at making the playoffs, then you could look at maximizing the talent on the 2009 squad at the expense of future teams in order to take a chance at winning in October. But, realistically, their playoff odds are more like 15%, so five out of six times, that push for the playoffs comes up short and the team gets neither October baseball or future value in exchange for keeping Bedard and Washburn.
On the other hand, a 15% chance of making the playoffs is too high to abandon as a lost cause. The potential reward for that one-in-six chance coming up in your favor is extremely high, and should keep the team away from a blow-up-the-roster-and-play-the-kids strategy. St. Louis won a World Series in 2006 while going 83-79 in the regular season and outscoring their opponents by a whopping 19 runs. You don’t have to be the ’27 Yankees to get hot in October, and the M’s have enough talent to make a crazy playoff run possible. You can’t pretend that the potential for that kind of outcome, even if it is unlikely, has no value.
So the team is faced with a scenario where it should trade Bedard and Washburn for players that will be around past this season, but also should be looking to keep the 2009 team competitive. The solution? J.J. Hardy.
The Brewers shortstop was drafted by Zduriencik when he was the scouting director for Milwaukee. Since arriving in the majors in 2005, Hardy has compiled a career .264/.324/.435 mark that is about as close to league average as you can possibly get. Over 2,168 plate appearances in the big leagues, Hardy’s Weighted Runs Above Average is -0.5. Half of a run below average as a hitter over his 4+ year career. When someone says he’s a league average hitter, they aren’t kidding.
A league average hitter might not be that exciting, but it isn’t very easy to find league average hitters who play quality defense at premium positions. As Mariner fans have seen over the past few years, the average offense + terrific defense combination is quite valuable. And Hardy is a really good defender – his career UZR is +39 in 4,411 innings, which works out to about +12 runs per 150 games. That makes him one of the best defensive shortstops in the game.
This is, essentially, the Adrian Beltre/Mike Cameron/Franklin Gutierrez skillset. Hardy is that kind of player. Over his big league career, he’s been worth +13.4 wins in those 2,168 PA, or about +3.7 wins per season. He turns 27 in August, so he’s not living off of career year performances that he can’t be expected to repeat, either. Going forward, Hardy should be projected as a +4 win player over a full season.
Why on earth would the Brewers want to trade a 26-year-old +4 win shortstop while they are in the middle of a pennant race? Because they have this kid named Alcides Escobar hanging out in Triple-A, waiting for the call to Milwaukee. Escobar is a 22-year-old that the Milwaukee front office is absolutely in love with, to the point that when declaring him off limits in trade discussions, Doug Melvin said “You can go years without having a shortstop prospect like him. They don’t come around that often.”
Escobar is a premium defender with an improving bat, currently hitting .296/.348/.417 in Triple-A, including a .310/.412/.517 mark in July. He’s capable of holding his own in the big leagues right now, and he’d be one of the rangiest players in the league from the moment he got to the big leagues. Quite simply, Escobar is the Brewers shortstop of the future, and they’re going to have to move Hardy out of his way at some point soon.
They could move him to third base, except he has no interest in playing anywhere besides shortstop and their other “untouchable” prospect, Mat Gamel, is getting time there right now. They could move him to second base, but Casey McGehee is posting a .396 wOBA while filling in for the injured Rickie Weeks, who will be back next season. In reality, they just don’t have a spot for Hardy going forward. His future is somewhere besides Milwaukee.
So, if Melvin is looking at an inevitable trade of Hardy, dealing him now to acquire some badly needed pitching help makes more sense than waiting to deal him this winter. Melvin has been blunt about his ability to acquire pitching in this market, stating that the teams that are willing to move veteran starting pitchers are looking for young pitchers back in return, and he doesn’t have any to trade. He’s a man trying to buy in a land where his currency isn’t any good.
The M’s, however, should have little to no interest in getting a young pitcher back from the Brewers. The Mariners need a shortstop, and the Brewers have two. The Brewers need starting pitchers, and the Mariners have seven. This would be a perfect match even if Zduriencik and Melvin hadn’t spent years working together. Their history should make a deal between those two significantly easier to hash out.
What kind of deal would work for both sides? No need to make this complicated. The M’s ship both of their free-agent-to-be starters to Milwaukee, along with enough cash to fit their salaries into Milwaukee’s budget, in exchange for Hardy. Both teams trade from depth to fill holes.
For the Mariners, the move would essentially break down like this.
Hardy replaces Cedeno at SS
Hardy (projected .338 wOBA going forward) would be a big offensive upgrade from Cedeno (projected .284 wOBA going forward), and probably a minor upgrade from Cedeno defensively. Over two and a half months, the offensive difference would be worth about 11 runs.
Morrow replaces Bedard at SP
One talented but enigmatic pitcher replaces another. Morrow’s not nearly as good as Bedard, but as we saw in Boston, he has his moments. His projected FIP of 4.37 over 69 innings over the rest of the year is a dropoff from Bedard’s 3.19 FIP over 62 innings, but only about an eight run difference.
Rowland-Smith replaces Washburn at SP
This is where it gets a little dicey. Washburn’s projected for a 4.22 FIP over 77 innings for the rest of the season, but ZIPS doesn’t know that Ryan Rowland-Smith has been converted to the rotation, got placed on the disabled list for a few months, and then had some issues with decreased velocity in Triple-A. However, RRS has pitched well in the majors in previous years and his last three starts for Tacoma have been very good, so there are reasons to believe that he could join the rotation and pitch well. If you think he’s going to be something like a Jason Vargas and post a ~5.00 FIP over the rest of the season, you’d be looking at a six run dropoff. If you think he’d be really bad, we could give him a 5.50 FIP and the gap would go up to ten runs.
Add it all up for the M’s, and the net difference of adding Hardy while subtracting Bedard and Washburn would be something like -5 runs over the rest of the year. That’s half a win that they lose, while also getting to retain Hardy’s services for 2010 (after which point, this deal would be an easy net positive for the Mariners).
If I do the same thing for the Brewers, just without the wordiness, we get a -5 for the dropoff from Hardy to Escobar, a +9 from Suppan to Bedard, and a +4 from Burns to Washburn. That makes them almost a win better this year by making this deal. They also offset the loss of Hardy’s future value by getting the draft pick back from letting Bedard leave via free agency, and potentially getting Washburn to sign a home town discount deal to stay in Wisconsin beyond this season.
The M’s get a shortstop for the present and future. They make the 2009 roster only marginally worse while drastically improving the 2010 roster and providing a long term solution to the shortstop problem. The Brewers get much needed pitching help, while clearing the way for their shortstop of the future, and they do so without having to expand their budget or trade away any pieces from their farm system.
This is the quintessential win-win trade. The M’s allow themselves to stay in contention for the rest of 2009 (and if you’re that concerned with the rotation after the deal, just go trade for Ian Snell, who Pittsburgh is trying to give away) and acquire a foundation-caliber player who will stick around for 2010 and potentially beyond.
The M’s have surplus pitching. The Brewers have a surplus at shortstop. The Mariners need a shortstop, and the Brewers need pitching. Let’s just make everyone happy and pull the trigger on this, okay?
Game 40, Mariners at Twins: The *Real* Pitching Depth Was Inside Of Us All Along
Wade LeBlanc vs. Jake Odorizzi, 4:10pm
Yesterday’s game was an abject disaster. The M’s lost a game started by their ace, James Paxton, pushing the M’s season record in Pax’s appearances to just 5-4, which is somehow the worst record for any M’s starter. Worse, they lost Robinson Cano to a broken pinky finger thanks to an inside pitch from Blaine Hardy. The M’s had a perfect chance to win another series with their best pitcher facing a guy who’d never started a big league game in his life, and left with a loss and serious questions mounting about how to deploy Juan Nicasio AND with their star 2B out for several weeks.
It feels unfair, because it is. Cano’s been an important part of the M’s successful offense by getting on base like never before (his .385 OBP would be a career high). Paxton’s pitched well enough to win multiple times, only to see his bullpen lose a lead or, like yesterday, give up the winning run. Sure, sure, he’s been bailed out by his offense a few times, especially in his start in Texas, but you feel like the M’s should *win* Paxton’s start, given that James Paxton is *James Paxton* and all, but it doesn’t always work that way. Instead, the M’s have better records in the games Felix Hernandez, Mike Leake, and Marco Gonzales have started despite the fact that all three have pitched worse than Pax. It kind of reminds me of the M’s of 2006-2007, when the M’s won nearly all of Cha Seung Baek’s starts despite the fact that he wasn’t exactly dominating, or when the M’s were nearly .500 in Horacio Ramirez’s starts – the games in which he walked more than he K’d and put up an ERA of 7.16.
Is that a problem with the way we look at statistics? Paxton’s peripherals paint a picture of an elite starter, but if the M’s aren’t winning his games, should that change our view of him? No. Just…no. Things like record in appearances has no predictive value, as it’s includes – is designed to include – a ton of information about things that are extraneous to the pitcher. Let’s flip it around: the M’s are 1-6 in games in which Wade LeBlanc has appeared. This has next to nothing to do with LeBlanc, who’s been oddly effective pretty much every time. It has everything to do with the fact that he started the year as the team’s garbage time reliever, and thus appeared in two blowout losses, and has one of the lowest leverage indexes on the team. It’s bad luck mixed with the role the M’s used him in, so it has no bearing on how we view him as a starter. He’s not a AAAA guy without the will to win; he’s solid starting pitching depth. Perhaps a bit boring, but *good* boring – the total inverse of the Juan Nicasio experience right now (bad-exciting).
Let’s pan out a bit here: the M’s acquired good-boring Wade LeBlanc at the end of spring training to help shore up their SP depth, something that looked like a weakness, but which the team itself was fairly confident in. LeBlanc wasn’t thrust into the role initially; he didn’t need to be. The M’s had so many off-days, they didn’t need a 5th starter, and thus Ariel Miranda could cool his jets in Tacoma while the club waited on the return of Erasmo Ramirez. The club had Andrew Moore in AA and Rob Whalen/Max Povse in AAA behind that. You can kind of see what the FO would’ve been thinking – you don’t want to bring in just any SP on a one year deal to block Whalen/Povse/Moore, but none of those guys would fetch something better in trade. They had multiple options to go to, and with the restructuring of the bullpen, you could argue that they’d need many fewer IP from 5th-6th-7th starters than ever before.
And panning out still more, it’s not like this was a brand new situation. Dipoto and company inherited a team with very little in the way of starting pitching depth, and what little they had was stuck in the low-minors. In order to keep their contention window open, they needed to look for more near-term options. They weren’t in the position of the Astros, who could sell off bits of near-majors pitching depth to fill holes. The Astros probably aren’t too concerned with the fact that everyone from Teoscar Hernandez to Josh Hader were traded off; the ‘Stros got their championship, after all. The M’s didn’t have a Josh Hader, let alone a combo of Teoscar Hernandez and Domingo Santana to move. They’ve had to rebuild their pitching depth from the ground up.
Or maybe not. Yesterday, ex-M’s pitcher Freddy Peralta tossed a stunning MLB debut, striking out 13 in 5 2/3 IP of 1-hit ball. On the 9th, Enyel de los Santos, fired 7 IP of one hit ball for the Phillies AAA club, bringing his season ERA below 1, and giving him 39 Ks in 32 1/3 IP. Ryan Yarbrough starts tonight for the Rays, and he’s got a FIP of about 4 in 29+ big league innings. Zack Littell isn’t going 20-1 like he did last year, but he’s up in AAA with the Twins org, and could get a look fairly soon. Pablo Lopez has made 5 starts for the Marlins AA team, and given up just a single run in 26 IP; he has a 27:4 K:BB ratio. Evidently, the M’s had a ton more depth than essentially everyone knew about.
With the possible exception of Yarbrough, who many saw as a 5th starter, none of these guys were on prospect hounds radar. We’re not talking about Luiz Gohara or Nick Neidert, the two guys who were consensus top-10 types. Guys like Dillon Overton were on the list at one point, as were close-to-the-majors relievers like Dan Altavilla; it’s not like there weren’t big-league pitchers identfied, but . Edwin Diaz was on it in 2016, even though we didn’t know he WAS a close-to-the-majors-reliever at the time. Zack Littell and Pablo Lopez had decent stats, but were pooh-poohed by the prospect watchers. de los Santos had decent stuff, but was seen as a longshot when he was swapped for Joaquin Benoit, kind of like Peralta when he was the secondary piece in the trade for Adam Lind (Daniel Missaki was the headliner, despite the fact he was rehabbing from TJ surgery he underwent in 2015. Now, about 3 years later, he’s yet to pitch again). The good news is that the M’s system was dramatically better for pitching depth than anyone thought. The bad news is that it’s all gone.
This is not purely an indictment of the FO; I’ve written those posts before. Clearly, it’s some sort of a problem that the M’s have either not identified big league talent or not properly valued it. It could also be that these guys would never have gotten to where they are had they stayed, which just shifts blame from one department to another. On the other hand, though…that’s a lot of starting pitching depth in a system that wasn’t supposed to have any. At least a few had already showed signs of being much more than their original scouting reports thought, and that’s true for guys at lower levels as well, like JP Sears and Robert Dugger. No, not everyone who’s been moved has instantly starred – Jio Orozco and Brandon Miller come to mind. But I keep waiting for the M’s to prove the industry experts wrong. I want to not laugh when the M’s vociferously deny that their prospects are the worst group in baseball. This is intriguing evidence that, while you could use it to bury the FO, the experts aren’t foolproof any more than the teams are. The M’s weren’t responsible here, but *baseball* turned a group of org depth guys into real, actual, high-minors (or majors) SP depth. It sucks that they’ve essentially leapfrogged Whalen/Povse/and possibly Moore, but the fact that it happened gives me a bit of pause when I lament the lack of depth in the system now.
The question is, what does this mean? That the M’s had a secretly good draft class years ago? What does this mean for the future? Is this like the M’s record in Wade LeBlanc appearances, and it has no bearing on the future? Was this all due to the previous FO who signed Lopez, Littell, Yarbrough, etc.? Or does it show that the M’s have been better than previously thought at developing unheralded pitchers? I guess we’ll see.
Jake Odorizzi was an obvious trade candidate this off-season as the Rays clearly hit reset and went into a rebuild. Given his fly balling ways and broad repertoire, I thought he’d be the ideal Jerry Dipoto project. This team has already tried off-brand Odorizzis like Nate Karns and Drew Smyly – it seemed like the time to try the real thing. But given their pursuit of Shohei Ohtani and the deals to acquire Dee Gordon, the M’s cupboard was pretty bare. The Twins, fresh off a surprise playoff appearance, pushed their chips in the middle and acquired Odorizzi for a minor league OF and then picked up Lance Lynn on a bounce-back contract. It all looked like textbook GM’ing and adapting to a new, better, place on the win curve. Be more like Thad Levine, we said.
The Twins are now 17-19, and their revamped pitching staff is neck and neck with the M’s staff. The M’s “first, do no harm” approach didn’t bring in a lot of depth outside of nearly-free guys like LeBlanc and Roenis Elias. The new guys for the Twins have been the anchors of the rotation, as Lynn’s ERA is 7.34 and his FIP’s in the mid-5s, while Odorizzi ERA masks a FIP that’s worse than Lynn’s. The two are 1-2 in HR rate on the Twins (anyone who’s pitched at least 20 IP). Odorizzi’s got a rising fastball, a sinker, a slider and curve, both with solid horizontal movement, and his outpitch, a splitter. That pitch allowed him to get grounders when he needed them, and got a ton of swings on pitches outside of the zone, just the way Hisashi Iwakuma used to do. Unfortunately, his command of the pitch has slipped a bit, and now batters aren’t offering at balls. His swing rate on the pitch is way down, and the percentage called balls are way up. That means that when batters *do* swing, they’re swinging at slightly higher pitches, which may be why they’re not topping the pitch as much this year.
1: Gordon, CF
2: Segura, SS
3: Haniger, RF
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Healy, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Gamel, LF
9: Beckham, 2B
SP: LeBlanc
Welcome back Gordon Beckham. The ex-White Sox 2B/3B played well for Tacoma last year and got a September call-up. He re-signed with the M’s this year and he’s gotten the call to replace Robbie Cano. He was hitting .300/.412/.500 for Tacoma with more walks than Ks, and that .200 ISO is the best mark he’s put up in a long, long while – he had a .197 ISO in half a year in AA in 2009. The M’s had space on the 40 man, so they added him today without a move. They still technically have an opening on the 40-man, as David Phelps is still on the 10-day rather than 60-day dl.
Rob Whalen, Anthony Misiewicz and Reggie McClain start in the M’s minors today, but the game to watch may be in the MWL, as Clinton’s Raymond Kerr takes on former top-pitching-prospect-in-baseball Alex Reyes, who’s making his second pro start since undergoing TJ surgery in 2016; he tossed a few IP for the Cardinals’ Florida State League affiliate a little while ago.
Game 39, Mariners at Tigers
James Paxton vs. Blaine Hardy, 10:10am
As I missed the second game of yestersay’s twin bill and thus Felix Day, allow me to improvise and wish you an yours a very happy Maple Day.
James Paxton looks to keep his hot streak going against the Tigers and spot starter Blaine Hardy. Hardy, a lefty, throws 89 with his fastball and pairs it with a so-so change up and a good, hard slider. The overall stuff isn’t amazing, but he’s had flashes of making it play up a bit.
Or at least, he has in the pen. He was always a reliever in the Royals and then Tigers systems, but made a handful of bullpen day starts. But despite debuting back in 2014, he’s *never* started a big league game.
1: Gordon, CF
2: Segura, SS
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Haniger, RF
6: Seager, 3B
7: Healy, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Heredia, LF
SP: James Paxton.
It’s nice to head into today’s game having already beat Michael Fulmer *and* with Paxton on the mound today.
The M’s are still facing a lot of lefty starters…which they seem to enjoy doing.
Tacoma, Arkansas, and Modesto lost; Clinton avoided the org sweep with a 3-2 win. Tacoma’s in Sacramento, with Arkansas facing Springfield, Modesto’s hosting Lake Elsinore and Clinton’s off today before kicking off a series with Peoria on Monday.
The M’s 2016: The Upside
Opening day *should* be about optimism, and while this M’s club has some weaknesses – weaknesses we’ve spent perhaps too much time measuring/analyzing – the club is projected where it is because they’re fundamentally a good team. We’ve talked a lot about the complementary pieces, but given the roster churn, I hope we can get back to marveling at what a healthy Robinson Cano/Nelson Cruz and Felix Hernandez can do. Sure, the projections still don’t know what to make of Leonys Martin and Luis Sardinas, but through the spring, there are a number of players who could blow their projections out of the water. If a few of these happen, the M’s are a playoff team.
In last year’s article, I talked about three things: Taijuan Walker, the M’s OF, and apparent weakness in the Angels and A’s, the M’s supposed rivals. Walker disappointed a bit, his 2015 destroyed by an awful start, and the M’s *offensive* production from the OF was everything we could’ve hoped for, it just came with a side of horrific defense. The Angels and A’s did, in fact, collapse, but unfortunately the Astros and Rangers took advantage instead of the M’s. Taijuan Walker could be on this list every year; don’t take the fact that he’s not detailed below as some sort of slight. I think his ability to jump from “somewhat frustrating prospect” to “above-average MLB pitcher” is obvious, and I don’t want to rehash it every year. As I mentioned yesterday, the OF’s offense looks set to decline from 2015, but that’s by design, and it isn’t a huge problem. The big change isn’t acquiring Leonys Martin, it’s moving Nelson Cruz from RF to DH, a move that I think all of us celebrate. Getting Cruz’s offense with none of the unpleasantness of his defense? Great. So, these are the new, emerging areas for optimism – they haven’t so much erased the others as added to them.
1: Ketel Marte
Even with the SS position a bit thin, the M’s group, headed by Marte, are projected to be in the bottom half of MLB. It makes some sense: Marte’s young, has very little power, and his great 2015 call-up was propelled by patience, a skill he hadn’t really shown in the minors. Even with the big boost he gets from SS, Marte’s projected at under 2 fWAR in (mostly) full time play. Chris Taylor has been bad and is projected to remain bad, but still has a better projected OBP than Marte. So why’s Marte here, and not in the pessimistic post? Because the more you watch him, the more you start to believe that his bat-to-ball skills are as good as scouts say.
Marte’s skill set can *only* work with an elite hit tool. Not just an ability to avoid strikeouts, but an ability to hit the ball hard. This is the reason I was lower on Marte than others; I just didn’t see that kind of ability in the handful of times I saw him in Tacoma. But he followed his eye-opening 2015 with an even better spring, and he seems to be making the adjustments he needs to make. He’s gone from a guy who hit .300 by putting everything in play and running fast to a guy who’s hitting far more gaps than he did in the low minors. As a player who was often young for his league, and a player who’ll be just 22 this year, that kind of progression is great to see, and the fact that it’s been so consistent makes it less likely to be a PCL or small-sample mirage.
The SS position overall’s kind of in flux right now, as four of the top eight projected shortstops are guys with less than a year of MLB service time. The bottom of the list is dotted with a number of disappointing veterans who project even worse – Alexei Ramirez, Jonathan Villar, the over-ripe JJ Hardy, the just-happy-to-be-here Freddy Galvis. Putting that group aside, as even the projections see the Marte as superior, the more you look into it, the easier it gets to see Marte leapfrogging some of his divisional rivals, and joining his peers near the top of the rankings. Marcus Semien’s projected ahead of Marte despite his poor defense thanks largely to his power, but is it crazy to see Marte topping Semien’s projected .402 SLG%? Given the gap in contact rates, I don’t think it’s crazy at all. The Rangers second half surge last year was helped along by Elvis Andrus, who got himself off the autopsy table and started contributing again. He, too, is projected to outproduce Marte, thanks in part to superior defense. But Andrus isn’t the 10+ run-saving wizard he was five years ago, and his offense is now solidly 20% below league average. Worse, his platoon splits have become more and more obvious; his 2015 “rebound” was helped by seeing a lot more lefties than he did in 2014. He simply can’t hit righties anymore, and that makes him vulnerable in high-leverage at-bats in a way that Marte isn’t.
If he can sneak past those guys, it’s not crazy to think he could end the year as a top 10 shorstop. Fangraphs’ 8-10 are Addison Russell, Didi Gregorius and Brad Miller. Marte’s contact skills are worlds better than Russell and Miller’s, and he may hit the ball harder than Gregorius. Russell’s projection is helped by his defense – he purportedly saved over 17 runs defensively despite not playing the whole year, and Gregorius is another glove-first guy. Miller obviously lost his starting gig in Seattle thanks to defensive concerns that UZR just hasn’t seen, but he too is projected to out-defend Marte. Now: is it unreasonable to think that, if things break right, Marte could out-produce a young SS who might strike out in 30% of is plate appearances? Or the guy whose job he took six months ago? Or a no-hit SS playing in a bandbox whose projection is boosted by a one-year spike in UZR last year? I feel like I’m preaching to the choir here, but despite the M’s constant tinkering, shortstop was never really a problematic position for the M’s. It’s not projected to be one this year. But the M’s – and Marte – seem like they could be on the cusp of making it a real competitive advantage for years.
The obvious, obvious counterpoint to all of this is that M’s fans know better than anyone that a solid half-season call-up does not a future all-star make. From Willie Bloomquist to Jeremy Reed to Dustin Ackley to Brad Miller, the M’s have seen quite a few players impress in their first tour of the majors and then never reach that level of production again. What separates Marte from Chris Taylor or Ackley? This is where Marte’s abilty to square up tough pitches, and plus velocity, becomes important. Reed and Ackley took plenty of walks in the minors, but couldn’t consistently translate that to the majors. Ackley in particular can look extremely similar to Marte: in 2013, Ackley hit grounders about 50% of the time, kept his K’s under 20% and had a solid but not great walk rate. That 88 wRC+ is essentially dead on Marte’s projection. That wouldn’t be the end of the world, given Marte’s position, but if we learned anything from Ackley’s time in Seattle, it’s that not all grounders are created equal.
Last year, Ackley hit over half of the balls in play tracked by Statcast between 80-100 MPH. He hit .200 on those balls-in-play. Just under half of Marte’s balls-in-play fell into this mid-range, 80-100mph zone, but Marte’s speed produced a .360 BABIP on them (it helps that, as a switch hitter, Marte wasn’t hitting every grounder to second base). Ackley’s over-100mph balls-in-play jumped markedly after his trade to NY, so they both look good on that score, but the point is that *even if his batted ball profile doesn’t change* Marte can wring more value out of it than Ackley.
2: Nate Karns
Karns won the 5th spot in the rotation almost by default, as James Paxton looked off throughout the spring. That said, as a guy coming off a sneaky-good 2015, he gives the M’s rotation the potential to easily surpass their already-good projections. 5th starters aren’t generally workhorses, and Karns only tossed 147 IP for the Rays, the team that let their starters pitch the fewest the innings last year. But it’s not just that Karns’ rate stats look a bit low, it’s that he’s only projected for 130 IP. Give him 160-180, and you’ve got a 5th starter creeping up on league average.
Of course, if that was his upside, I probably wouldn’t highlight him here. Luckily, I don’t think that’s his ceiling. Anyone who combines a high strikeout rate with some tantalizing signs of being able to ‘beat’ FIP through strand rate and BABIP has the potential to add real value. Karns high-fastball and improving change-up mean he doesn’t have the platoon split worries that many pitchers face. Over his career, he’s actually been better against lefties than righties. When he’s been hurt, it’s been against right-handers.* The M’s know that there are several things that jump out as regression candidates here: first, those reverse platoon splits should be regressed, and then his HR/FB ratio, particularly against righties, may come down as well. Just do the latter and it essentially accomplishes the former, after all. A version of Nate Karns with strikeouts and a better SLG%-against versus righties starts to look pretty good.
The other big factor affecting Karns’ home run rate is his home park. Just as with the relievers the M’s acquired, Karns’ elevated HR-rate figures to drop if only because he’s moving from a solid hitter’s park in a hitter-friendly division to a pitcher’s park on the marine layered west coast. If that was the only thing happening, it’d help. But I hope Karns takes it a step further, and uses Safeco to build confidence in throwing the ball up in the zone. Here’s how Karns has used his fastball against right-handers. Plenty of elevated four-seamers, but there are a lot of low and away and low-middle pitches, too. Now take a look at the average batted-ball speed by location for Karns, courtesy of Baseball Savant:
I’m not suggesting Karns should abandon the low strike entirely, but Karns’ movement and his new home park are tailor-made to just target the top of the zone or above it like Chris Young. Let the curve ball do the work low in the zone – it’ll be harder to pick up, and batters hit the curve softer than they hit his fastball last year anyway.
Another thing that’s preventing Karns from making the leap to middle-of-the-rotation workhorse, it’s his control. While his K/9 sits among some elite pitchers, his walks/9 sticks out as a problem. Could Safeco help with that as well? Maybe, but this may just be a part of his game going forward, or he may not be able to materially improve his walk rate without a corresponding increase in homers. Luckily, there are a few examples of pitchers who’ve become very good starters with similar K and BB numbers. Lance Lynn of the Cardinals posted a 22.2% K rate and a 9.1% BB rate last year. Karns’ numbers, in the American League, mind you, were 23.4% and 9.0%, respectively. Lynn, a fastball-heavy pitcher without much of a change-up, has big platoon splits as well. He’s been effective despite of these red flags by keeping his strand rate high. Part of that may be whatever Cardinals devil magic allowed their BABIP to tumble with runners in scoring position, but part of it seems to be a choice not to give in to hitters: Lynn’s K rate AND walk rate rose with RISP. Hector Santiago has a similar arsenal to Karns, and has carved out a nice little career posting consistently low ERAs and ugly FIPs thanks to a combo of walks and homers. Santiago’s strategy with men on is essentially the same as Lynn’s: his walk rate gets close to 5 per 9IP with RISP, but his BABIP collapses at the same time, leading to a lot of stranded runners. Karns’ strand rate was in the same range as Santiago and Lynn last year, and again, his home park may make it easier for him to target the top of the zone with RISP where BABIP is lower and whiffs higher than the center or bottom of the zone. Santiago was worth 2.5 fielding dependent WAR last year, while Lynn added 3.6 (and over 4 in 2014), so this seems like a fairly easy path to middle-of-the-rotation success for Karns.
3: The Astros Have Breakout Potential and Weaknesses in Roughly Equal Measure
The Astros have Carlos Correa, the best projected SS in baseball, and a lot of talent in the upper minors to boot. They’re the favorites for a reason, and they look likely to be the favorites for years and years, considering the age of their core: Correa is 21, Jose Altuve is not yet 26, George Springer is 26, and Dallas Keuchel is an old man at 28. It should be easy to build around a core like that, and as last year’s remarkable run showed, they’ve proven fairly adept at that. Still, it’s not like they’ve built a juggernaut. There’s a reason their projections are just a tiny bit better than the M’s, and they’ve got concerns sprinkled around their 25-man roster.
Their catching group is headed up by Jason Castro, a 28 year old who’s essentially been the starter since 2012. He came through the minors as a guy with great patience and enough contact skills to be a real asset at the plate, and while he wasn’t exactly good in his debut year of 2010, he posted a solid walk rate and a K rate under 20%. Improve the BABIP, and you’d have something. After losing a year to injury, that’s what Castro did: an improved BABIP led to a nearly league-average line in 2011, and if the Ks crept up, they were still well under control. In 2013, Castro appeared to break out – trading lots more Ks for lots more pop, his overall line was about 30% *better* than the league average. Since then, though, Castro has collapsed. Last year, his K rate soared to over 30%, and his production has tumbled to the point where he’s now about as far below league average as he was above it in 2013. As anyone who watched Mike Zunino (or JP Arencibia) knows, aging curves are different for different players, and the Astros can’t just assume Castro’s offense will bounce back.
The Astros had a great catcher in the low-minors who posted a breakout season last year, but they ended up trading him to Oakland in the Scott Kazmir deal (Oakland then swapped him for Khris Davis). Nottingham will start the year in AA and could theoretically see the Majors this year for the rebuilding Brewers. He’d look great as insurance for Castro. As it is, the Astros just traded for veteran back-up Erik Kratz, a 35 year old who hasn’t posted an OBP over .280 since 2012. If Castro continues to slide, there’s just not much the Astros can do to staunch the bleeding. Their top C prospect is Alfredo Gonzalez, who broke out across three levels last year, but Gonzalez was mediocre-to-average for four years prior to that, and in any event doesn’t crack the Astros top 20 prospects.
For a team that hit so well, the Astros have really struggled to get even adequate production out of 1B and DH. The M’s know all about that, of course, but it’s odd given that the Astros can find 20 year old shortstops with power to spare, or get a bunch of HRs out of ex-2B prospect Luis Valbuena. But while Chris Carter had his moments with Houston, the Astros let him walk and turned over their 1B job to Jon Singleton. Singleton face-planted in 2014, and has done everything in his power to turn the job down. The Astros depth at 1B is much, much better than it is at catcher, so this doesn’t seem like a big problem at first. The Astros plan is to have Tyler White start, and if he fails, they’ll give it to top prospect AJ Reed.
White’s an interesting prospect, as he’s a low draft pick who’s destroyed minor league pitching at every level, but he’s never been seen as a top prospect. Part of the problem has been his age-relative-to-league, but the biggest red flag is his lack of home run power. White’s walked more than he’s struck out, and he’s hit enough doubles to post great wRC+ at every level of the minors, so many Astros fans believe the 1B position will be a strength starting today. But as August Fagerstrom wrote about at Fangraphs, this player type – the high BB, gap hitting, low-HR 1B – has an awfully high bust potential. Anyone who cut their prospecting teeth in the years following Money Ball’s publication can probably rattle off the names Fagerstrom pulls up: Daric Barton was a can’t miss, big-league hitter for the A’s, until he did in fact miss. Dan Johnson seemed even more similar to White, and he’s now a knuckleball pitcher. Justin Smoak was a heralded prospect, and his minor league lines are somewhat similar, though White’s been better overall. Clint Robinson mashed in the KC system, and had plenty more power than White, but hasn’t really been able to get a major league job.
The name I thought of that surprisingly wasn’t on the list was another ex-KC 1B, a name familiar to anyone following the minors 10 years ago: Kila Ka’aihue. Ka’aihue had more power, but was known most of all for his walk rate. White’s 12-17% walk rates are elite, no doubt, but Ka’aihue posted *20%* walk rates in both AA and AAA. White walked more than he K’d at AA, but Ka’aihue had TWICE as many walks as Ks at the same level. Given an (overdue) shot in 2010 with the Royals, Ka’aihue just failed to hit despite a decent K:BB ratio. Maybe White is more Olerud than Ka’aihue, but even Olerud needed an adjustment period (it didn’t help that he went straight from WSU to the majors, of course). White’s stats and major league equivalencies are great, but not swinging at anything except middle-middle pitches works wonders in the minors and just doesn’t work as well in the AL.
Meanwhile, the Astros grabbed Evan Gattis to be their DH, then watched him get off to a horrendous start. He improved down the stretch (while his teammates imploded), but has suffered through injuries this spring, and will begin the year on the disabled list. Preston Tucker may start the year as the DH, and while Tucker was league average at the plate last year, he’s projected to be a replacement level DH this year. If Gattis’ injuries linger, this could become a problem. Sure, everyone expects AJ Reed to hit the moment he arrives, but he can’t play two positions, and top prospects often need a while to get established (okay, sure, Correa sure didn’t). These aren’t huge flaws for the Astros, but they’re weaknesses, and with the M’s so close in true talent, neither team may be able to survive a 2-3 WAR under-performance.
Let’s go M’s.
* This is similar to James Paxton, who’s seen line-ups stacked with righties even as he’s *struggled* against lefties.
Revisiting the M’s Top Prospects of 2006
I mentioned it in a game thread a few days ago, but seriously, you really have to read this Sam Miller piece at BP that looks at what’s become of the Rays top 30 prospects ten years later. It’s the fourth in a series of posts Sam’s done, detailing the outcome of the top farm system in baseball ten years previously. What’s fascinating is not just that many prospects bust, but, and this should’ve been obvious, what teams DO with their prospects vary widely. The Brewers group of 2003 (a group put together largely by Jack Zduriencik) got solid production from the very top of their list – headed by Prince Fielder, JJ Hardy and Rickie Weeks – but struggled to do much with everyone else, and if that isn’t some pretty big foreshadowing of the Zduriencik era in Seattle, I don’t know what is. The Angels did a bit better *despite* the fact that their top prospects at the time – Dallas McPherson and Brandon Wood – are legendary prospect busts. But they had a deep system, and thus got plenty of production from Kendrys Morales, Howie Kendrick, Erick Aybar and the like, and they made a few smaller moves with that cohort, including flipping Kendrick for today’s pre-arb starter, Andrew Heaney. The Rays article represents a very different approach. Instead of keeping their top prospects together, they were very selective about the players they kept, and after that, traded liberally with anyone who’d listen. What this means is that, even ten years later, the Rays still have a bunch of prospects and cost-controlled players they acquired in exchange for earlier prospects, who they acquired in exchange for the prospects on that original 2006 list. As a result, they’ve put up far more WAR as a result of their original list, many of their *current* prospects are in the organization as a result of the original prospects.
The Rays were remarkable in that they ID’d the right players to sign (Evan Longoria) and the right players to sell high on (Delmon Young), and then they kept parlaying one set of acquisitions into another, turning Delmon Young into Matt Garza into Chris Archer. The Angels weren’t quite as adept as that, but their deep system still provided the basis for 5-6 years of contention, thanks to the infield tandem of Kendrick and Aybar. So, what would the M’s look like in this kind of analysis? What would we learn, apart from the basic fact that baseball, like life, is pain, and that point-in-time errors cascade through the seasons, bringing old ghosts and new torments together in a Grand Guignol of… sorry, got a bit carried away. I’m not going to lie: doing this means reliving some of the most painful, most self-destructive moments in recent M’s history. This might hurt a bit.
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Cactus League Game 8, The Value of Durability
Hisashi Iwakuma vs. Jeff Samardzija, 12:05pm
The M’s head to Scottsdale to face San Francisco, and their off-season acquisition, Jeff Samardzija. The right-hander signed a 5 year, $90 million deal with San Francisco despite the fact that his 2015 – his walk year – was, well, awful. After an excellent 2014, Samardzija signed with the White Sox and saw pretty much every indicator decline. His strikeout rate plummeted, he gave up some of the walk-rate gains he’d made, his HRs spiked, his ground-ball rate dropped by over 10 percentage points, and his velocity dropped. Sure, sure, the White Sox defended like they had some team-wide allergy to leather, but you can’t blame the defenders for the fact that his sinker no longer sunk. By FIP, he wasn’t bad – he was actually a bit above average – but the most important stat to the Giants, I’m guessing, was his IP total. 2015 was his third straight year surpassing 200 IP.
Hisashi Iwakuma’s topped 200IP once, and while he’s healthy now, I don’t know anyone who’d bet he’ll do it again. Given that MRIs of his shoulder have led TWO MLB clubs to back away in horror, Iwakuma’s not the kind of guy who’s going to sign a contract like Samardzija’s, especially not at his age. MLB puts a massive premium on pitcher health and durability. But looking at these two starters, you wonder if that premium’s gotten a bit out of hand.
By FIP, Samardzija’s been worth 9.5 WAR over the past three seasons. By the same measure, Iwakuma’s been worth just 8.6. But if FIP couldn’t capture how bad Samardzija’s 2015 was, it’s *never* been able to understand Iwakuma. Thanks to his HRs-allowed, FIP is reliably pessimistic on Kuma, and thus, Kuma’s consistently posted better ERAs. Meanwhile, Samardzija’s career ERA’s a bit higher than his career FIP. So what happens if we look at the recent past by fielding-DEpendent stats? Samardzija’s last three years fall to 6 WAR, and that includes his great, sub-3.00 ERA 2014. Meanwhile, Kuma shoots up to 12.3 – he had a single season that beats Samardzija’s RA9-WAR total from 2013-2015. WAR isn’t a rate stat, so these numbers are already giving Samardzija credit for his extra IP, and penalizing Iwakuma for his lack of durability. Depending on your organization, your bullpen and your position on the win curve, I can definitely see an argument that Samardzija’s age and durability make him the superior bet, and you wouldn’t want to extend Iwakuma a 5 year deal. But Samardzija, a pitcher, gets an absolutely guaranteed $90m, while Iwakuma gets a guarantee of $12m for 2016. Sure, Kuma’s got IP-based incentives that can tip a club option to a guaranteed option, and the IP-thresholds are low enough that they’re quite attainable. But by runs-on-the-scoreboard, Iwakuma’s been a much, much better pitcher. Samardzija’s been tantalizing, frustrating, he’s-figured-it-out!-oh-wait-whoopsadoodle, but healthy. Given pitcher attrition, the subject of yesterday’s post, durability absolutely should be valued, and paid accordingly. But it sure feels like the Iwakumas of the baseball world are a kind of market inefficiency.
1: Marte, SS
2: Martin, CF
3: Seager, 3B
4: Gutierrez, DH
5: Romero, RF
6: Lee, 1B
7: Iannetta, C
8: Navarro, LF
9: O’Malley
SP: KUMA!
In this year’s version of one my favorite series, Sam Miller takes a look at the Rays farm system of 10 years ago and traces what happened to the players and the team. Short answer: that group of players fundamentally re-made the team from a laughingstock to a pennant winner, and they did so in a very different way than the Brewers’ great 2003 class. Whereas the Brewers held tight and built around Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks and JJ Hardy, the Rays kept Evan Longoria, but traded Delmon Young at the height of his value, then traded what they got for Young. Anyway, go read it.
Game 84, Tigers at Mariners
Taijuan Walker vs. Kyle Ryan, 7:10pm
Many years ago, the M’s had a farm system that was short on impact talent, but had a number of more-or-less MLB-ready pitchers on hand in the high minors. There was very little upside in the group, but they could go out and not embarrass the club, and who knows, maybe they’d compensate for poor velocity with experience and guile once they made the adjustments to the big leagues? For years, I’d argue with Dave Cameron in the comments here that Cesar Jimenez or Bobby Livingston or Travis Blackley or Ryan Feierabend should get a legitimate shot. We agreed we didn’t like freezing out these guys by signing the likes of Carlos Silva to long-term deals, but we differed in our assessment of how lefties with 87mph fastballs and slurvy sliders transition from the high minors to the bigs.
Dave’s pessimistic take seems pretty accurate, though Feierabend lives on in the minors. Livingston got hurt after playing for Cincinnati, and Blackley had that one improbable good year with Oakland, but by and large, this group couldn’t quite overcome their lack of pure stuff. I’ve often thought about how odd it was that the M’s had so many players of the same type at the same level at more-or-less the same time. Blackley, Livingston and Jimenez all played for the Rainiers in 2006, and Feierabend came up in 2007. Sure, they weren’t the ONLY players in the system. Clint Nageotte was different, and the offense had a lot of high-ceiling promise in Adam Jones and Jeff Clement, but the M’s clearly saw this template – the high-80s lefty, especially change-up guys – as undervalued, and they practically horded them. I thought about that era of the M’s a lot as I was looking into Kyle Ryan’s skillset. The Tigers started the year with lefty Kyle Lobstein, a one-time Rule 5 guy out of the Rays org, in their rotation. The bespectacled Lobstein’s a lefty with an 87mph fastball who strikes almost no one out, but, at his best, is a perfectly respectable 5th starter thanks to a good ground-ball rate and general pitching intelligence (low HR rate, good with men on, etc.). Anyway, Lobstein’s shoulder started barking in May, but the Tigers had a facsimile in AAA in lefty Blaine Hardy. Hardy’s the fireballer of the group with an average FB of around 89-90, but he’s been so effective in relief that the Tigers decided to keep him in that role, and call up *yet another facsimile* in Kyle Ryan.
Ryan throws a four-seamer and sinker at 88-89, a cutter at 85 and then a slider and change-up that he’ll go to occasionally. Like Lobstein, Ryan is not a strikeout pitcher; his K% was 15% or lower in the *minors* and he’s had control issues off and on since coming up. Lobstein and Hardy don’t have much to throw at right-handers, but they’re able to control lefties. Ryan never had much in the way of platoon splits, and while that’s often a plus, it’s sometimes a sign you don’t have a good breaking ball. Ryan’s cutter’s a decent pitch, but despite it, a slider and a freakish release point, lefties haven’t been bothered by Ryan at all. Ryan releases the ball about a foot further towards 1st base than Charlie Furbush does – the only guy I can think of in that 3-4′ from the center of the plate release point was Carter Capps when he played for Seattle. Given the angle and the arsenal, it looks like a good match-up for the M’s righties, though this isn’t a game where Trent Jewett should shuffle everything to minimize lefty plate appearances. This is Detroit’s Ryan Feierabend, or their Cesar Jimenez after their Feierabend got hurt. To my great surprise, big league teams never seemed to mind facing our 87mph lefties. The problem is, I won’t be surprised about any outcome in this game. If they hit 3 HRs, well yeah, of course. If they get 4 hits in another depressing 3-1 loss, well yeah, of course.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Gutierrez, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Trumbo, DH
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Walker
You…you tried to minimize lefty PAs, didn’t you? Ah well. If Taylor’s going to be on the team, he should probably play now and again, but the strange insistence that they are NOT platooning Taylor and Miller looks harder to defend when you see this. If you’re doing it, defend it – there’s a case to be made. Otherwise, maybe it’s time to stop making definitive statements about the shortstop position only to self-sabotage them a few days later. Just more weirdness in a weird year.
As bad as this offense has been, I’m enjoying the fact that Taijuan Walker’s quickly becoming appointment television. The right-hander’s quick adjustments and newfound command have been stunning, and it’s amazing both how different and how similar he is to the guy who looked absolutely lost in May.
Tacoma lost to the Fresno Grizzlies 8-2 after Forrest Snow had his worst start in quite a while, and Andrew Kittredge gave up an 0-2 grand slam to catcher Max Stassi. Roenis Elias starts tonight for Tacoma for the first time since his recent demotion. He’ll take on Fresno sinkerballer Mike Hauschild.
Jackson edged Mississippi 2-1 thanks to 6 innings of 1-hit, shutout ball from Edwin Diaz. The Puerto Rican struck out 7 and walked only 1. Jordy Lara was the hitting star once again with a 3-4 night. His .731 OPS this year is bad for a corner guy, and disappointing considering his huge year in High Desert last season, but in this org this year, it looks downright powerful. Moises Hernandez starts for Jackson today.
Bakersfield beat Stockton 4-1 as Eddie Campbell and Will Mathis both went three scoreless innings. Dan Altavilla faces off with Giants prospect Keury Mella tonight as the Blaze head to San Jose.
Clinton was rained out in Quad Cities yesterday; they’ll make that one up today. Tyler Herb starts Game 1 of the double header while Jarrett Brown takes the mound in Game 2.
Hillsboro held on for a 2-1 win over Everett. Lane Ratliff gave up 1 run but took the hard-luck loss as Hops starter Cody Reed struck out 10 in 6 shutout IP. LF Corey Simpson had a golden sombrero on the night. The two teams face off again tonight with Anthony Misiewicz starting for the AquaSox.
Game 120, Mariners at Tigerss
James Paxton vs. Rick Porcello, 4:08pm
Mariners Wild Card Odds- Fangraphs.com 44.1% Baseballprospectus.com: 49.8%
After a sweep at the hands of the M’s, the Blue Jays playoff odds are now on life-support. The Tigers too have been hurt in the past week thanks to a few heartbreaking losses to the same Jays team, and thanks to the fact that the Royals have essentially stopped losing. After falling out of the divisional lead, the Tigers found themselves trying to re-take the lead and hold off the M’s just in case Kansas City runs away with the AL Central. The Wild Card is doing exactly what it was meant to do, with these fascinating temporary rivalries and fleeting allegiances (I’ve been rooting for the A’s the past few days, and now I’m a kind of Twins fan).
The Tigers starting pitching made them a juggernaut in the Central last year, and despite the struggles of their erstwhile ace, Justin Verlander, they’re still the top rotation by fWAR this year. They pair that elite rotation with an equally-impressive offense; last season, their 113 team wRC+ ranked second in baseball behind the World Champion Red Sox. This year, despite losing Prince Fielder and with a down year (by his standards) from Miguel Cabrera, they’re still at 108, and still second in baseball. So why are they trailing the Royals by a half-game?
First of all, their actual runs-allowed hasn’t quite matched up to their shiny FIPs. Anibal Sanchez and Justin Verlander in particular have been hurt by absurdly low strand rates, and thus, while the Tigers ERA’s still decent, by fielding dependent WAR, the Tigers are neck and neck with the Royals. A big reason for this has been Detroit’s poor defense. The Tigers rank 27th in baseball by UZR, and 26th by defensive efficiency. By defensive runs saved, they’re all the way down at 29th. They’ve been especially weak in the outfield, with ex-Tiger Austin Jackson’s poor UZR numbers pulling them down a bit, and thanks to Torii Hunter’s quick slide from elite corner defender to liability. And then there’s the Tigers atrocious bullpen. By ERA, they rank 27th in MLB. By FIP, they’re 28th (yes, the defenders have hurt them too, but the Tigers’ pen has been bad even putting balls in play aside). Joba Chamberlain, Al Albuquerque and Blaine Hardy have been solid most of the season, but big off-season acquisition Joe Nathan’s and veteran Phil Coke have been replacement-level this season. That’s the reason the Tigers grabbed Joakim Soria from Texas in July, but the ex-closer had a terrible run with his new team (six runs allowed in his first 1 2/3 IP), and just when he appeared to get back on track, he was sidelined with an oblique strain. The M’s have a massive, massive advantage in both defense and bullpen strength/depth.
Today’s starter, Rick Porcello, posted one of the worst strand rates of any starter from 2010-2013, and thus his ERA was always much higher than his FIP. He’s continually tweaked his approach – last year, his strikeout rate jumped dramatically, but he gave away most of that improvement this year. After years of a terrible BABIP and a terrible ERA, he’s posted the best strand rate and the lowest BABIP of his career, and after years of getting hit hard by lefties, he’s posting reverse splits this year. So what’s he doing differently? For one, he’s throwing a lot more four-seam fastballs to lefties, and that’s taken the pressure off of his 92mph sinker. His GB% at a career low (though it’s still a touch above average), and that’s certainly helping his BABIP. He ditched his slider in favor of a curve ball last year, and he’s gotten better at commanding it. It’s not a swing-and-miss curve, but it generates some ground-ball contact, which helps balance out his batted-ball profile. In two seasons of pretty heavy use, no lefty’s hit a home run off of it, which helps Porcello’s other long-standing problem. Clearly, there are things you can point to that help explain his improvement, and he’s got the status as the top HS-pitching prospect in his draft class and all of that too.
Still, you wouldn’t want to bet anything you cared about that this can continue. After a career of struggling against lefties, it’s unlikely throwing a couple more four-seamers has entirely eradicated that problem. Chris Young can throw lefties high four-seam fastballs and get away with it, but I’m not sure a career sinker-baller can do that consistently. As so much of his improved splits is due to a low HR-rate to lefties, it looks even less sustainable. It’s not like he’s striking them out, he’s just keeping them in the ballpark for the first time. The low strikeout rate also makes it harder to believe that the strand rate belongs up there ahead of King Felix’s. Porcello, as basically every sabermetrically-inclined fan has said, was never as bad as his lousy ERAs, but I’m not convinced he’s as good as this year’s, either.
Line-up:
1: Jackson, CF
2: Ackley, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Morales, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Zunino, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Chavez, RF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: James Paxton
A Belated Defense Of A Thing Howard Lincoln Said
This is something I’ve had stashed away in my mental freezer for a couple of months. Remember when Howard Lincoln did those sit-down interviews with various area media types? Once upon a time, those were a big deal, before the Eric Wedge drama, and before the Geoff Baker article drama, and before the Robinson Cano acquisition drama, and before the rest of the recent drama. I didn’t write anything about the interviews then, and as more time passed I realized I didn’t really want to, but then there’s one thing that just keeps coming up, one thing that keeps being quoted. And when people quote it, for purposes of being critical of Lincoln and the way the Mariners are run, it actually bothers me, because I don’t see what the problem is. I think people get upset because they just want to be upset, and what I’m referring to is a clip from Lincoln’s interview with Ryan Divish:
How do you sell this team to fans? If two fans were standing here right now and asked, ‘Why should we spend our money to go see your product?’ What do you tell them?
First I’d tell them that when you get to Safeco Field you are going to have a safe, friendly environment. You are going to be sitting in a first class ballpark. You are going to get great entertainment. It’s a great place to come whether it’s at the Pen or at Edgar’s or wherever. So there’s a lot of things going on at Safeco Field for the fans to enjoy besides watching major league baseball. And I would point that out to them. Many of our fans are thinking about things other than just what’s on the field, so we have to provide a really good entertainment experience across the board as well as getting that major league team to perform.
This has been cited over and over as evidence that the Mariners care more about the “Safeco experience” than they do about the baseball. This has been a belief among cynics for a long time. Nevermind that Lincoln mentioned the baseball product in the paragraph. Nevermind that his next paragraph was about the team’s developing young talent. Nevermind that his third paragraph was about Felix Hernandez, and about how Lincoln hears all the time that the team should be better. He led with “safe, friendly environment,” and a lot of people just can’t see past that. They figure Lincoln just doesn’t care.
Look at the question. How would you answer it? There was no good way for Lincoln to answer it. Honestly, there’s probably no good way for Lincoln to answer anything — people already hate him too much. They automatically roll their eyes, just like people automatically figure the Mariners are screwing up whenever they attempt a transaction. These feelings, certainly, have been earned. But the Mariners haven’t been to the playoffs since 2001. They haven’t won 90 games since 2003. They’ve been one of the worst teams in baseball for a decade, and when this interview was conducted, the team was fresh off a year in which it was outscored by 130.
And people think Lincoln should’ve highlighted the baseball? The baseball’s been the least entertaining part of the Safeco experience for years. Nobody wants it to be that way, but if Lincoln had answered by saying people should come out to watch the exciting Seattle Mariners, he’d look like an oblivious moron. The team has been borderline unsellable, on its merits. It’s often been unwatchable on TV, and TV doesn’t make you pay money to drive to a ballpark and sit down for three hours. Lincoln had to say something, and Safeco’s strength has undoubtedly been Safeco itself. There’s no sense in denying it.
Relatedly, think about the question “how do you sell this team?” People have been upset that Lincoln didn’t say something more basebally, more appealing to the die-hards. But as an intelligent businessman, here’s something Lincoln knows: the die-hards aren’t going anywhere. They don’t need to be sold on anything, because for the most part they’re already too invested. Look at us, for God’s sake — we’re all still here, like idiots. We’re also outnumbered. Fan bases aren’t groups of die-hards. They’re groups of casual bandwagoners surrounding a die-hardy core. The people that need to be sold on an experience are the people on the bubble. There are people who will keep paying attention to the Mariners, and there are people who’ll never give a damn. Everyone in the middle — those are the people the Mariners need to attract. Because, you know, the Mariners are a business, and there aren’t enough die-hard baseball fans in Seattle to support it on their own.
Safeco’s great. The Mariners have truly done a wonderful job, with Safeco. The baseball experience there has been shitty for years, and still people say that Safeco’s one of baseball’s real gems. They haven’t stopped improving, and while I’m not going to sit here and defend the hyper-conservative ushers, that’s a very small part of the experience, involving a small percentage of attendees. The Mariners would be worse off if Safeco were a worse place. Every baseball team needs to care about the non-baseball part of the show, because every baseball stadium gets filled with fans with varying levels of interest in the gameplay. So Safeco’s got its hydros. Miller Park has its sausage race. Nationals Park has its presidents race. Fenway has its Neil Diamond. Every ballpark has some kind of hat shuffle. The Mariners have made Safeco a priority, and they’ve excelled.
And it’s not like the Mariners have to choose between focusing on Safeco or the roster. Those are different people in different departments, so it’s not like any of Jack Zduriencik’s time was wasted by the installation of the massive new video board. The Mariners haven’t funneled way too much money to the ballpark at the expense of the team, either. The Mariners, like every team, can simultaneously prioritize the park and the roster. The problem, the real problem, has been that the rosters have sucked.
And that’s why everyone’s so upset. That’s essentially the heart of it. That’s why everyone groans whenever they hear Howard Lincoln or Chuck Armstrong’s name. They’ve been in charge while the team has lost a lot of baseball games. So to a large extent they’re thought to be responsible.
And, you know, I don’t know. I don’t know what kind of shape the Mariners would be in under different executive management. Under these guys, they’ve been one of the worst teams in the league. A little over a decade ago, under these guys, they were arguably the most successful team in the league. I don’t know the truths of their influence, but I do know a lot of people complain because Armstrong and Lincoln don’t allow for a high enough budget. People wish the Mariners would’ve been spending more money.
I’m sure they could’ve. I’m sure they could’ve, and still turned a bit of a profit. But every team in baseball has a budget, and just about every team in baseball turns a profit. The Mariners have been making less money as they’ve gotten worse, because attendance tends to drive revenue. Additionally, enough money has been spent to build winners. The payroll in 2008 was nearly $120 million. But, two things: the money’s been spent poorly, and people misunderstand the significance of things like free-agent additions.
You know where the worst money is spent? Free agency. Free agency is almost always a losing gamble, in terms of return on investment. And one player can never turn around an entire team, especially one player who makes it to the market. The Mariners have spent some money in free agency, and they’ve tried to spend more on bigger splashes while coming up short. Sometimes, they’ve made splashes, and they just made the very biggest kind of one. Other times, they’ve been relatively inactive, but they haven’t lost because they haven’t been able to sign good players. They’ve lost because they haven’t been able to develop good players, or spend on the right ones.
You know another use of money? Keeping good players around, through their would-be free-agency years. The Mariners haven’t lost a good young talent to free agency since, I don’t know, Alex Rodriguez? Because they haven’t had good young talents to invest in long-term. The one guy they have had is Felix Hernandez, and they gave him a contract that, at the time, was the biggest contract in baseball history for a pitcher. It was the second time the Mariners had signed Felix to a long-term extension. Money didn’t get in the way there.
The problem hasn’t been the payrolls. The problem hasn’t been falling short for Prince Fielder or Josh Hamilton or whatever. Sure, it’d be great if the team spent a little more, but the problem all along has been the people in charge of actually putting the roster together. And it’s been the people in charge of maximizing player talent within the organization. When you neither develop talent nor identify talent, a little more money isn’t going to make things all better. It’s probably just going to be wasted.
The easiest and most aggravating example is the last-second shift from drafting Troy Tulowitzki to drafting Jeff Clement. Who knows how Tulo would’ve done here, but he’s turned into one of the best position players in baseball. Who knows how Clement would’ve done elsewhere, but here, he totally busted. So much has gone wrong and blaming it on the executives is too easy. There’s also been some bad luck, sure. Chone Figgins went from a six-win player to a no-win player. Franklin Gutierrez developed a chronic untreatable illness I’d literally never heard of before. But the team has made more bad decisions than good decisions. Talented young prospects haven’t often turned into talented young players. Presto: the Mariners have been a lousy baseball team.
It’s on Lincoln and them to some extent. They influence decisions. They influence other things. They hire the general managers who hire the support staffs. I’m not sure what they saw in Bill Bavasi, but that was a long time ago and I don’t remember it very well. As for Zduriencik, well, we all loved him right away, to the point where we gave him a standing ovation at a USSM meet-up. That didn’t look like a screw-up until later. Absolutely, Howard Lincoln deserves some percentage of the blame for what the Mariners have become, but the Mariners have been bad because the Mariners’ players have been bad, and that just isn’t his fault. And bad decisions with more money would just be bigger bad decisions. Don’t over-estimate the impact that a few more million dollars can actually have. Right now a free-agent win costs like $6-7 million. Good teams don’t build themselves around free agency.
Howard Lincoln was facing certain no-win interviews. There is genuinely nothing that he could say to make people change their minds and like him. The only way people will come around on the Mariners is if the Mariners start to win baseball games, and for the most part that’s just out of Lincoln’s hands. Good decisions have to be made by other people. Good performances have to be turned in by still other people. Lincoln, I’m sure, is tired of being embarrassed. But ultimately he’ll spend his summer sitting back and watching. Watching and hoping the team doesn’t suck. In that way we’re kind of alike, us and him.