Seattle Sports Insider

Playing the Game vs. Playing the Clock

I'm not going to even pretend this is a deep post, nor am I seeking validation from y'all on my currently feeble chess skills. But I've run into something during my 3,727 games played over on Chess.com, where my rating currently sits at a woefully inadequate 1324, and I had the glimmer of a thought that it *might* have some bearing on this MLB offseason, so here goes: at what point is playing the clock, rather than the board, uncouth or otherwise socially/morally/ethically deficient? To broaden the question: is it possible for playing the clock to be in bad form, or is it

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HQ on Zunino

Here's an LL article on Mike Zunino with the essential evaluation, "will the real Mike Zunino please stand up?" The idea is that in 2018 we'll find out whether Zuumball is going to be a good player in the majors or whether he isn't. Not wishing to be harsh, the Mainframe considers this a rather facile position, a rather widespread position, and the 'Frame disagrees with conviction. To Dr. D, Mike Zunino is now a .500'ish SLGger in the big leagues until proven otherwise.

Diderot asked us not to overlook the Zuumball comparables in HQ's draft-day cheat sheet giving players with these two qualities:

1. Top PX (Power Index, "true" power based on exit velocity and actual in-game results towards SLG), PLUS

2. Lousy CT (less than 70% of at-bats ending in contact, meaning very high strikeout rate).

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Great Bench Players

Flipping back through old articles at Bill James Online, we found this 2014 piece analysing the best bench players in history. One thing it points out is that a team with an outlier 4-, 5-person bench has a huge leg up on winning a championship. This isn't news; Dipoto speaks in terms of "raising the floor" around the M's top 6-8 players. Indeed the M's had 12 position players last year who pitched in plus WAR, +0.1 or better, and ten guys pitch in +0.5 or more. That was followed by 15 pitchers who were in the black, tailended by Miranda at +0.1.

What's the possibility of the 2018 M's gathering a bunch of role players similar to what Gillick did in 2001? (McLemore +2.8 WAR, Javier +2.6, Martin and Lampkin close to +1.0) Let's get back to that in a second... James points out that the 2013 Red Sox' division win was driven by their bench. Check out the OPS+ below the starters' line!, including Mike Carp's.

James' article contains many interesting insights, but let's start with his list of the 25 best bench players ever ...

1) Matt Stairs. Didn't realize he only had 2 seasons with 500 AB's and only 2 more over 400. Stairs hit 265 HR's, with more HR/AB than Dale Murphy, Eddie Murray, and a bunch of guys like that.

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The Stuck Free Agent Market

We mentioned last article that James hadn't answered a Hey Bill in almost two weeks, and then answered about 20 in one day. Here's an interesting answer, in front of the paywall until 15 answers pop up in front of it:

Re the glut of free agents still unsigned: is it possible that managements are finally realizing that most free agents are a bad investment?

Asked by: manhattanhi

Answered: 1/5/2018

Maybe, but maybe the market is just "constipated", in a sense. The normal process are working, but something is just stuck for the moment.

"Managements" are 30 different organizations. It could be that 20 of those managements had a view of an issue, and then that went to 25, and then it went to something close to 30. In other word, it could be that a consensus has formed around something that was already a majority opinion, but there are important consequences for it being a consensus opinion as opposed to just a majority opinion.

1. "Tipping Points" have always been fascinating to me in any case. Water has a boiling point; at 209 degrees it will not vaporize. At 213 it will. I like philosophical positions that have strong analogies in nature and creation.

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Echo Box, 1.5.18

Wishhiker sez,

Please forgive the bad math..."Eric Filia, RF, Peoria (Mariners). His lone plus tool is his hitting ability, and it showed when he led the AFL in batting (.408), on-base percentage (.483) and OPS (1.088) during the regular season." Yeah, simple subtraction there gets you to .605 SLG which actually shows that hitting is not so lone in his abilities. I guess we should ignore the readily available defensive videos of him in the AFL as well. Like the ones embedded in the article? Eh, it can't be easy to fill all that space, I'll cut Callis a break...It is not a world where I'm always right either. Chipper Jones at 29? There's that .605 SLG; .330/.427/.605... kind of what Filia just did to the AFL. Who hits 4 triples in the AFL anyway? 12 BB and 7 K. 1 HR in case that SLG misled you. 0 steals in 3 tries, i assume means he got caught napping 3 times.

So, did a bunch of you resolve to stop talking baseball this year?

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The M's 5-8 SP slots

At least two of these guys will get ten starts in 2018. At least two.

ARIEL MIRANDA - SO SAITH HQ

Looking at him from 3,000 miles away, HQ sees the sky covered with fly balls and 2.0 HR rate (!!) although "there are #5 SP skills here." Their general sentiment is a terse one: "Pass."

ARIEL MIRANDA - SO SAITH THE MAINFRAME

Miranda has explosive -- well, at least "turbulent" -- stuff (above-average lefty FB, nice arm action on a fadeaway 81 MPH change they call a "slider") and he is early in his career. It is a general baseball truism that you have to give some players time to build, to learn.

Whatever that 84 MPH pitch of his is, it's barely even seed money, and Dr. D will cheerfully admit that 2018 may be a developmental year.

The M's talk a lot about wanting that 2-3 inning Scot Shields / Chris Devenski type pitcher out of the bullpen; it seems to us that if Miranda (after 40 starts' experience) could be ready to crush that role if he went to his 2 best pitches for one trip through the lineup.

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POTD Kyle Seager

SO SAITH THE M'S: Kyle Seager is baseball's #1 most consistent hitter.

The argument is not super-sabermetric :- ) ... more in the mold of old-timey beat writers. But it's still a cool little article with some interesting takeaways.

It starts by cutting the MLB traveling squad down to the 31 batters who have 500+ BA's for the last five years in a row. (So although Giancarlo Stanton has averaged way over 500 AB's for his 8 seasons, he misses the cut for sitting out half a season once.) The M's site then trims the squad to the 12 such batters who have never been below 100 OPS+. And so on, down until there's one guy left, Kyle Seager.

I think of this approach as the "Dante Bichette" method, because guys used to use it (cherrypicked cutoff lines that Bichette barely crossed!) to prove that Bichette, an average player, was a top-50 alltimer. :- ) Any Denizen can smile at the problems with this type of approach, but there are still some neat things here. Did YOU know there were only 12 batters who hit 100 in full seasons the last five years? Takeaway: reliability is not as simple as we thought it was.

So take it easy on Jerry Dipoto for Mike Leake. The SP is yawn-inspiring, but he's also a machine.

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1B Ryon Healy: 35 HR?!

FOREWORD

Dr. D got his Ron Shandler BaseballHQ Forecaster in the post. This is going to heat up a cold news month by more than a degree or two. You can get your own copy at this site. If you spend money on only a few baseball things each year, this is one a' them.

It's not that HQ is right about everything, any more than (say) STEAMER is, but: HQ does what James did in the early days ...

(1) Break down player results by component skills, such as EYE, Contact %, expected PWR, etc ...

(2) And focus strongly on what the YEAR-TO-YEAR TRENDS ARE for these players.

In other words, it's one thing to note that Mike Leake's xFIP is different than it used to be. It's a completely different thing to --- > over-arc a player's batting EYE over his age 24-27 seasons and note that it is typical of an impending breakout. HQ allows you to spring-dive into your own analysis. Perfect red meat for the salivating SSI Denizen.

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Lengthening the Lineup

We can make long lists on Jerry Dipoto, things he's done well and not, but there's one thing he absolutely hammered: "Lengthening the Lineup." Quotes emphasized because it was one of the first phrases he used publicly after replacing Jack Z. With respect to Seth Smith, IIRC.

Wishhiker shoulda popped this onto our front page, but was too humble to do so. Which makes Dr D's life ez 'nuff:

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Megadeals Over With?

SSI doesn't often link to videos, but here's a 5-minute panel worth your Denizen Dime. Brian Kenny argues on MLBNow that teams should never sign $100M deals and "I mean never." The question seems kind of frivolous at first take, but ... nobody has signed yet, right? That's a fact.

Some analysts are saying, they're done --- > until next winter, when the really irresistible free agents hit the market again. Is Dr. D remembering this wrong, or didn't the owners do a pretty good job resisting super long deals until about the time Manny Ramirez (and then ARod) hit the market? Seems it took the REALLY tempting guys, the Kershaw types, to draw out the decade-long contracts. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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