Whale

POTD Kevin Millwood, 1

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Q. How do we organize our thinking about the 'bridge starter'?

A. The Mariners want a bridge starter who keeps them in the hunt ::blinks:: during the 1H 2012. You want a bridge starter who can be swapped out for James Paxton on one week's notice. Let me read those last four words again.

The Mariners have one of the best Big Threes in baseball now, rich team or not. You're talking about the #4 and #5 starter slots here. That could be Hultzen and Paxton, and if not both, it certainly could be Charlie Furbush and one of them. And if not either, it certainly could be Furbush and Beavan until one is ready.

This is where "don't lose sight of the rebuild" fans should be bringing their drive-thru Quarter Pounder orders back into the lobby for the Happy Meals they requested.

HQ 2012: Pineda Two Thumbs Wayyy Up

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Got my prrrrecious in the mail today. First up: find those Mariner players that HQ likes more than Seattle fans do.

Highest on the list of HQ raves: Michael Pineda. Well, it woulda been pretty much impossible for HQ to wax more ecstatic than SSI, probably. But we can tell ya this: HQ likes Pineda a whale of a lot more than the "Shed Pineda Before It's Too Late" bloggers do.

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HQ gives Pineda as the #9 roto SP draftee in 2012, American League, giving the Mariners by far the best 1-2 starting pitcher combo outside of Los Angeles.

They run a blizzard of component stats, with the key "BPX" (peripherals grade indexed to 100) being 150. Their verbal comment:

"What 2nd-half slump? ERA spike came not from 'fatigue,' but from an unlikely-to-repeat 58% strand rate.

"In fact, skills were even better in the 2nd half -- BPV, xERA tell the real story.

"And he did it all at age 22, in his first big league season. With health, this is a Cy Young winner in the making.

"For now, IP limits impose a ceiling on his (roto) value."

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=== Better In the 2nd Half? ===

I remember Pineda's second half as being one in which his K's exceeded his IP's ... in one which his velocity ran at 89-90 mph in the first inning or two of some games ... and one in which a lot of base hits knocked in a lot of runners ... and one in which SSI carried on the fight against the Michael Pineda naysayers.

Nationals can only play 25 men at a time, I guess

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Gio Gonzalez and somebody for RHP A.J. Cole, RHP Brad Peacock, LHP Tom Milone and C Derek Norris.

Somebody being a 23-year-old who just posted a 5.04 ERA in the low minors.

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=== RHP A.J. Cole and RHP Taijuan Walker ===

Seedlings to Stars has Taijuan at #23 in o.b., with A.J. Cole at #30. Prior to 2011, my fave mag, BaseballHQ's, had Cole as one of the few 9/10 pitchers in the minors, and then Cole went out and posted this line in 2011.

Both Cole and Taijuan are teenaged RHP's with big velocity and excellent results for age-and-level. HQ goes so far as to call Cole "tall and athletic." Both pitchers attack with big fastballs and power curves, with the changeups an afterthought.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better comp-pair than Cole and Taijuan.

Yu Go, C.J. - The Good

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=== C.J. Wilson ===

It is possible that Yu Darvish will pitch better than CJ Wilson has, and will join the Big Five as a Tier I starter in the AL. But it's asking a whale of a lot.

C.J. Wilson just finished a 16-7, 2.94 season. That's a 2+ ERA, in the Texas heat, in that stadium, after 223 innings were completed. I would bet against Felix Hernandez accomplishing that. Hey, I'd bet against Bob Gibson His Ownself accomplishing it. A 2+ ERA, full season, in Texas? Slap me silly.

Cuddyer as Bridge for 3B

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USSM assumes, sensibly, that any Willingham- or Cuddyer-type signing puts the kibosh on a Fielder king-hunt. Geoff Baker and Jason Churchill demur, saying that if Fielder parachutes into Safeco (sending the tarp crew scrambling madly for cover) that the Mariners are certainly not done.

Baker in fact says that a Willingham- or Cuddyer-type signing makes a Fielder signing more likely, because Prince's main holdup is that he's dubious about the M's playoff chances in 2012.

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I think that Michael Cuddyer is likely to hit about what Hanley Ramirez will in 2012. Consider him a poor man's Hanley.

Chinks in Prince Albert's Plate Mail

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Pujols is a mortal lock for the HOF. That's point A. In 2006-09, he showed us all what Lou Gehrig must have looked like. 2006-09 was one of baseball's all-time great offensive detonations.

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But Dr. D had Pujols on his roster during the 2011 season. On a day-to-day basis, Dr. D watched carefully as the post-30 Pujols showed him something rather less than Lou Gehrig.

Here are Albert's SLG numbers as he has aged from 32 to 34 ... er, 29 to 31:

29	.658 SLG
30	.596 SLG
31	.548 SLG

And his OPS+, once a reliable 180-190, is now 150.

When we last saw Albert, in August and September, he was slugging .560. That's over his last 53 games, the last 1/3 of a season. The numbers 560, and 660, are two different numbers.

If Albert Pujols were to SLG 660 for the LA Angels, I'd be emotionally very nervous too. If he is only going to slug 560 in his 30's, well, that just doesn't mean the end of the division for me. Fans think of Albert as the 660 SLG hitter. Fans think, wow, the Angels just landed the 2008-09 Pujols. But have they?

Albert Pujols, slugging 660, has been a force of nature. It is not clear that the Angels are getting that player.

Jeff Francis: Zduriencik flashes his hole cards

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... and he thinks he's got a small pair here.

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Fun article from SSI hero Jeff Sullivan. Note the word "chimed" at the end of his first paragraph, because I disagree with that word. Jon Paul Morosi doesn't "chime." Other than that, Dr. D agrees with all the other words in the article.

Jeff Francis is the definition of a Tommy John lefty: allow singles, but allow nothing else. His BB's are waifish, his groundball ratio pudgy, his HR ratio ectomorphic, his K rate anorexic. Jeff Francis is a solid #4 pitcher in the big leagues. The Tommy John lefty would rather pitch in Safeco than elsewhere.

That, of course, is true also of Jason Vargas.

Player Families - Dustin Ackley's defining attributes

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In the seven posts below (gasp, wheeze) Dr. D lays out his personal theory on Player Families as they are helpful to sabermetrics. He supposes that, logically, you'd read those first, and then this one. But hey, it's a free country.

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=== Ackley's Defining Attributes ===

In a think-tank spirit -- and in fun -- SSI proposes the following set of "irreducibly complex" attributes for Dustin Ackley. For a player to comp to Ackley, it says here, he must have all of these attributes, and need have no others.

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=== 1. Plus-plus-plus HIT Ability ===

We all watched as Dustin Ackley arrived in the big leagues, and connected with the pitch on the first 25, or something, pitches that he saw. Edgar Martinez, and Ichiro, don't seem to have been able to bisect the ball any better than Ackley does.

Now, here's a delicious problem. Ackley's strikeout rate was 21%, similar to that of Mark Trumbo, Jason Bay, and even Mike Cameron.