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Archive for MarinersFanGraphs Audio: John Jaso and Geoff BakerEpisode 182 Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter. You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things. Audio after the jump. (Approximately 28 min. play time.) Podcast: Play in new window | Download The Sacrifice Bunt: The Real Rally KillerLast night, the Dodgers trailed the Giants 2-1 in the seventh inning. Juan Rivera and James Loney led off the inning with back-to-back singles, putting the tying run in scoring position and the go-ahead run on base with nobody out. Juan Uribe, the #7 hitter in the line-up, was due up to hit. Don Mattingly asked him to bunt, which, if successful, would have put runners at second and third with one out, bringing A.J. Ellis to the plate with first base open. With the pitcher’s spot coming up behind Ellis, an intentional walk would have been an obvious call, and the Dodgers would then have had the bases loaded with one out and Bobby Abreu pinch-hitting. A few years ago, that might have been a really nice situation. Now, though, Abreu is about a league average hitter, and hitters perform worse in pinch-hitting situations than in other situations. Abreu is also a guy who hits the ball on the ground more than most hitters, and he’s a good candidate to hit into a double play in that situation. Had Abreu only made one out and not ended the inning, the Dodgers would then have had Dee Gordon and his .266 wOBA at the plate. Essentially, Don Mattingly was willing to give up an out for the chance to have a pinch-hitting Bobby Abreu and a bad-hitting Dee Gordon try to put runs on the board. However, Uribe laid down a lousy bunt, and Buster Posey turned it into a 2-5-3 double play. Ellis then flew out to end the inning, and the rally ended up without even turning the line-up over, much less getting any runs across. MLB Instant Replay: I Luv U, Do You Luv Me?
Yesterday, it took Los Angeles Dodgers manager * All white guys look the same to me. Getting the calls wrong in baseball takes time. Managers — depending on their personality, the game situation, and the offense — take different amounts of time arguing both bad and good calls. The arguing, for the most part, exists because of uncertainty. My lip-reading skills inform me most arguments follow this general pattern:
Recent evidence suggests, however, that despite these conflicts resulting from close calls, instant replays still take more time than good ol’ fashioned shout-spittin’ matches. Evidence furthermore suggests that in the time it takes to get in a healthy workout, a normal person could empty approximately ten Squeeze Cheese cans directly into his or her porcine gullet. Which is to say: Quicker is not always better. Dissecting Philip Humber’s Wild Perfect GameAccording to the raw neutrality of the win probability chart, the Seattle Mariners actually had a chance to win the game last Saturday:
But it did not know — nor did the players know — what day it was. A.J. Pierzynski did not realize the significance of that first pitch, sailing wide to his glove side. Philip Humber may have even felt a twinge of frustration as that first toss missed so poorly. And Paul Konerko had no way of knowing what he started when he took that first grounder and tossed it to Humber for out number one. They were all witness to and participants of a rare and wild event. Justin Verlander’s Ninth Inning HeatBy now, there is not much that Justin Verlander does that should surprise us. The Tigers ace has thrown not one, but two no-hitters and regularly displays the hardest fastball, in terms of average velocity, in the league. Since 2009, only Ubaldo Jimenez has an average four-seam fastball equal to Verlander’s in terms of velocity (95.4), and given Jimenez’s recently struggles Verlander essentially stands alone. In his last start against the Kansas City Royals, Verlander entered the ninth inning having thrown 104 pitches. Up to that point, the righthander had not thrown more than 18 pitches in a single inning. He would go on to close the game out by throwing 27 more pitches, bringing his pitch total for the night to 131. What was more impressive than the fact that he threw 131 pitches was the fact that, in the 9th inning, he threw four fastballs that topped 100 mph. (Now, the gun in Kansas City that night may have been a little hot, but we are still talking about 98+ mph fastballs.) It has been said that Verlander is one of those pitchers who generally gains velocity as the game goes on, and that such a trait is quite stable. I was curious about how Verlander compared to other hard-throwing starters who pitched deep into games. To be clear up front, there are not many pitchers who not only throw extremely hard but also pitch as deep into games as Verlander. I came up with two such pitchers: Felix Hernandez and CC Sabathia. Since 2009, Verlander, Hernandez, and Sabathia all averaged over 107 pitches per game, seven innings per start, and ~94 mph on their four-seam fastballs. Darvish, Verlander, and Buckets of Nerves
On Monday, I watched with imprisoned eyes as Yu Darvish made his major league debut and did that which many had thought impossible — he walked Chone Figgins. To say the least, I studied Yu Darvish quite a bit this offseason and was surprised at this seemingly immediate loss of control and command. Some of the hits that followed in that four-run first inning were bloops and seers, but even in the pitches preceding the bad luck, Darvish looked wild — nothing like he looked in Japan or even in the 2012 Spring Training season. By the third inning, a different man was pitching, a steadier, stronger Darvish. He mowed through the Mariners lineup — while the Mariners pitchers got mowed over by the Rangers — and ended up “winning” the game with 5 ER, 6.2 IP, and raucous applause. Watching the game, I could not help but suspect something more than a rusty start was at hand. Maybe my studies of Darvish and likewise high expectations for him tainted my perception? Maybe the psychological framing of it being his first start in the MLB pushed me to think this, but for my money, Darvish looked nervous. Felix Hernandez and Missing VelocityWhen Felix Hernandez broke into the Majors as a 19-year-old, he threw the ball really hard. Here’s the Pitch F/x plot of his start against the Oakland A’s on April 2nd, 2007, the first for which we have Pitch F/x data available.
The fastball was 95-100, the slider was 89-92, the change-up was 86-89 (ignore the “FS” labels, as the algorithm wasn’t so good back then), and even his “slow curve” was 82-87. Felix was the embodiment of a power pitcher, and while his three off-speed pitchers were all notable in their own right, Felix’s mid-90s two-seamer was his defining pitch. There just weren’t many guys in the game that could run a sinking fastball up there at 95 MPH, and that pitch helped him run a 60.8% GB% that year. Now, here’s Felix’s Pitch F/x plot from his start against Oakland on Saturday night. 2012 Organizational Rankings: #23 – SeattleDave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings last Friday. Remember that the grading scale for each category is 20-80, with 50 representing league average. 2012 Organizational Rankings #30 – Baltimore Seattle’s 2011 Ranking: #17 2012 Outlook: 36 (26th) You don’t have to crunch too many numbers to figure out that this year’s Mariners are an extreme longshot to make the playoffs. They haven’t scored 600 runs in a season since 2009, and the team is breaking in a host of young, inexperienced players, many of whom have significant question marks surrounding their 2012 production levels. The team is basically betting on regression to the mean for previously useful position players (Chone Figgins, Ichiro Suzuki, and Franklin Gutierrez) to bolster the offense, but they’re still likely to be among the lowest scoring teams in the league. Daily Notes for March 28thCarson Cistulli remains away, so us the other writers shall — as the Necronomicon suggests we might — play. Table of Contents 1. Selected Televised Games Selected Televised Games Mariners at Athletics AL | 6:10 ET The game is still in progress at the time of publication. I don’t want to give anything away, but suffice it to say: The game involves pitching performances! and multi-hit efforts! and diving/jumping catches! Ichiro Suzuki Will Rebound: A Final PostulationOf all the expletive-filled shouting matches between Dave Cameron and I during the recent Arizona FanGraphs retreat, the most interesting one pertained to Seattle’s very own Ichiro Suzuki. I am convinced Ichiro will rebound in 2012, and though he may not be the Ichiro of five years ago, he will still be a viable asset on offense. Today, I will posit that argument for you, the dribbling masses. “What’s there to worry about Ichiro?” I asked Dave during one of our daily cactus-hunting team-building exercises, “Wasn’t most of Suzuki’s drop-off in 2011 due to BABIP issues?” “Well, for one thing, Ichiro’s power numbers were way down, and what are you doing with a gun?” he said. Power numbers, Dave? Hahaha!
Hmm… Yes… His declining power. 10 Year Disabled List TrendsWith disabled list information available going back 10 years, I have decided to examine some league wide and team trends. League Trends To begin with, here are the league values for trips, days and average days lost to the DL over the past 10 years. Fielding Independent Offense, Part 2
On Thursday, we looked at Fielding Independent Offense (FIO) — as well as the Should Hit formula — and decided to toss stolen bases into the equation. The result were, let’s say, brow-elevating. Today, we are going to put that result — the FIO formula — into action. In the timeless words of Sir Samuel Leroy Jackson: “Hold onto your butts!” Tom McNamara: Scouting the Mariners DraftTom McNamara is playing a major role in the Mariners’ rebuilding efforts. Seattle’s scouting director for each of the past three drafts, McNamara added a franchise cornerstone when he took Dustin Ackley with the second-overall pick in 2009. A year later, he selected a raw high school right-hander named Taijuan Walker — now the team’s top-prospect — 43rd overall. Last June, he boldly nabbed left-hander Danny Hultzen with the second pick of a draft considered to have been one of the deepest in years. McNamara talked about his scouting philosophy — including what he has learned working under Jack Zduriencik — and the decisions to take Walker and Hultzen. —— On scouting Hultzen: “About two weeks before the draft we set up our board. We’re running around, seeing players all spring, and then we get into that room and start ranking the players. I keep it simple. We take the best guy and Dan fit that bill for us. “I saw Dan pitch in high school, so we had a history with him. We saw him all three years in college and he improved each year. He was a Friday-night guy at Virginia, in a good conference, and [last year] I got to see him four times against pitchers who went in the first three rounds. We’d had our eyes on him all spring and wanted to make sure we saw him as much as we could.” On Zduriencik‘s role in the draft: Read the rest of this entry » Chone Figgins, Leadoff HitterThe Seattle Mariners are looking for any way to get some value out of Chone Figgins. Since joining the team, the 34-year-old has been one of the worst regulars in the game. So to salvage what’s left of his contract, the Mariners are making Figgins a leadoff hitter — again. It’s a last ditch effort to improve his value, though it’s unclear whether Figgins’ contract can be saved. Ichiro to Hit Third, Try to Slug in 2012?For the last 11 seasons, Ichiro Suzuki at the top of the order has been the one constant in Seattle. Ichiro isn’t leaving Seattle, but as Eric Wedge announced today, he won’t be leading off for the Mariners any more:
For most of his career, Ichiro has been the prototypical leadoff hitter. Even without taking a bunch of walks, Ichiro has managed to post good-to-great on-base percentages and set the table for the rest of the Mariners’ lineups. But the third hitter’s job isn’t just to get on base, it’s also to move runners around to score. Can Ichiro — especially an Ichiro feeling the effects of aging at 38 — adapt his game to fit this new role? Building Through the Draft: Worst of the WorstOn Monday morning, I wrote an article that revealed the top five teams in Major League Baseball at drafting and developing talent for their big league club over the past decade, starting with the 2002 Draft. Several people commented that they wished to see the entire list of teams, ranked by total accumulated WAR and also including average WAR per homegrown player. Here is the entire league: What Is Sabermetrics? And Which Teams Use It?It is a simple question. What is sabermetrics? Not the history of it, but what is it, right now? What is, in our nerdiest of lingoes, its derivative? Where is it pointing? What does it do? Last Tuesday I created no little stir when I listed the 2012 saber teams, delineating them according to their perceived embrace of modern sabermetrics. Today, I recognize I needed to take a step back and first define sabermetrics, because it became obvious quickly I did not have the same definition at heart as some of the readers and protesters who gathered outside my apartment. I believe, and this is my belief — as researcher and a linguist — that sabermetrics is not statistics. The term itself has come to — or needs to — describe more than just on-base percentage, weighted runs created plus, fielding independent pitching, and wins above replacement. Sabermetrics is the advanced study of baseball, not the burying of one’s head in numbers. Top 15 Prospects: Seattle MarinersThe Seattle Mariners organization is loaded with high-ceiling pitching arms and could field one of the most potent pitching staffs in the game within the next two to three years. The club has done a great job of building an organizational strength that will thrive in its home environment. The front office spent time this past off-season answering questions about its future offense with the addition of Jesus Montero, one of the most potent bats in the minor leagues. The organization has some other interesting position players but a lot of them are raw and years away from helping out at the big league level. 1. Jesus Montero, C/DH The Mariners organization acquired one of the top offensive prospects in baseball but it cost the organization dearly with pitchers Michael Pineda and Jose Campos heading to the New York Yankees. The Mariners front office suggests that Montero will continue to catch, although the general consensus remains that he’ll move to first base or designated hitter sooner rather than later. The right-handed hitter made his MLB debut in 2011 and showed the ability to hit for both power and average despite the fact he didn’t turn 22 until this past November. Despite his youth, Montero already has five years of pro experience, as well as two full seasons in triple-A. He’s ready for prime time and could be the Mariners best hitter in 2012 – as a rookie. The home ball park could hamper his numbers a bit but the all-star potential could be there for years to come. The Next Michael Pineda (Part 2 of 2)Yesterday, as Part 1 of this post, I looked at the accomplishment that was Michael Pineda‘s 2010 season in the minor leagues — an accomplishment, specifically, for his ability to limit walks while simultanously throwing a fastball with excellent velocity. As was noted in that piece, no other starter with 50-plus innings in either Double- or Triple-A (again, in 2010) was able to sit at around 95 mph with his fastball while also walking fewer than 7.0% of batters faced. Pineda, in fact, accomplished this feat at both Double- and Triple-A, walking 5.4% of opposing batters in 77.0 innings at Double-A West Tenn and then 6.5% of opposing batters in 62.1 innings at Triple-A Tacoma. In this post, I’ll be looking at which players performed similarly in the high minors last season to how Pineda did in 2010. 2012 Sabermetric Teams: The Market for Saber Players
Casey Kotchman is in many ways a man without a home — a player equal parts under-appreciated and over-valued, who irks both old and new schools at the same time. Old school analysts say his defense is amazing, but they cannot quantify it, and in 2011, they claimed his cleared vision meant he finally learned how to aim the ball “where they ain’t,” but he’s still a .268 hitter with little power. The new school says he’s worth about 7.6 runs per season defensively, but worth ~1.1 WAR per 600 PAs — not good — and his BABIP was high 2011, so he should not be able to repeat his success. Despite his inability to build a consistent following of fans in the baseball outsiders communities, Kotchman seems to have some insider communities very much interested in him, as Tom Tango points out:
Indeed, after spending five and a half seasons on the Angels’ and Braves’ rosters, Kotchman has begun to shuffle around with the Nerdz, most recently signing with the Cleveland Indians. It makes sense too — Kotchman’s lack of power keeps him cheap, and his strong defense keeps him amorphous for the old school teams, while the new schools might have different valuations on Kotchman, they can at least quantify his contributions and better know how he fits. Then, on Monday, the Houston Astros signed Justin Ruggiano, long-time Tampa Bay Rays outfielder who was never good enough to stick on the Rays’ roster, but who possesses strong defensive chops and above average patience. His lack of power and ~.290 batting average, however, must make him a mystery — or at least an undesirable asset — to the old school teams. Upon Ruggiano signing with the Astros, a once highly old school team, my reaction was all: “Welp, that’s one more team to compete with” — and then it occurred to me! No only have the Astros entered the realm of, so to speak, saber-minded organizations, but so have the long-backward Chicago Cubs. Suddenly the league looks very different. Loading
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