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M's fans are in a froth about the radical realignment under discussion - no, not the Astros realignment.  The Ackley-to-1B realignment.  ... By 'in a froth' we mean that they're clicking onto baseball sites twice a week now instead of once a week.

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Quick Mail-Order R/X on Chase Headley 

You know how right hand hitters grow progressively more demoralized at Safeco as time grinds them down.  PETCO in San Diego can do that to lefties.  Headley's swing shape, and batted balls, had become warped by the electroshock that the park has applied to his lefty* swings:

Funny thing, though.  This year, age 28, his grounders continued to go up, to 49%.  But!  His HR per fly ball has zoomed, to 14%.  Wow!  

Have the homers been legit?  Well, they haven't exactly been Peguero-like.  Above is the scatterchart, with Safeco overlay.  That's average, average in the sense of "solid."  He's averaged 394 feet on his homers, not inspiring.  Not a problem, exactly, either.

Three of his 11 homers have been "just enoughs" and two have been "no doubters."  Per that metric, Headley is fine to keep bopping.  About twenty a year.  There are a few Mariners who don't.

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Gordon sez,

[The Safeco solution is] a garage door opener.  Make Edgar close it and leave it closed unless the day is spectacular.

 

It seems like the easiest fix for the lower end of our offensive woes.  The other part - the high end - is harder to fix.

 

As is ably illustrated in this Jayson Stark article, the age of the crushing offenses is over.  It's why I said last year that Fielder was a good buy despite the cost because of his age and because getting great offensive pieces will only get harder.

 

You might notice that nobody's hitting the market.  Tulo?  Locked up.  Cargo?  Same thing.  Votto? locked up.

 

The Brewers had to make a choice and took Braun over Fielder, otherwise Prince would never have made the open market either.  Ethier didn't and he's not even the best hitter on his team.  Kemp was extended for a fortune.

 

There aren't a lot of offensive talents any more and the odds of getting them, especially in their prime, are going way down.

 

Have to draft them or trade for them.  Which is what Jack's been trying to exploit before everybody else figures out that pitchers are easier to find now than hitters.  That's why we got Smoak, Montero, F-Mart, Trayvon, Chiang,  and Wells in trades, while also re-stocking pitching with Furbush, Beavan, Noesi and crew.

 

The year I wanted him to draft a pitcher he took a cross-fire pitcher (Hultzen), a newer breed of arm starting to show up (also briefly discussed in Stark's article).  But it was a good pitching year, and Hultzen's making him look like a genius.

 

This year he took one of the biggest HR hitters in college (which has been nice enough deaden their own bat to give a better read of the power potenial of collegiates).

 

But he took him at a glove position so that if he doesn't work out to as much power as we'd like he's still good positionally.  I hope that becomes a positive for us either way.

 

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That still doesn't help the plus side of the ledger as far as runs goes. We're going back to the 70s and 80s as far as power goes, and parks built in the 90s to play "fair" with all the crazy offense now look ENORMOUS to non-roided hitters.

 

The other way to fix that is to move the fences in, as has already been discussed.  20 years from now there are two possible solutions: one, somebody proves that HGH is good for you, and it's allowed, or two, the newer parks they're building at that point are cozier.

 

Because chicks dig the long ball and 1-0 pitching duels don't sell tickets.  Television ratings matter, and they recovered when hitters could hit. I don't think the league is gonna let viewership lag no matter how much they push their Verlanders.

 

In the meantime we need to figure it out in the Northwest in our already-built park.  First, close the roof next year if the temp is under 80.  If that doesn't help as much as we want, then start talking about the fences.  I'd prefer to let it be a roof issue and let the park simply pay fair with the non-roiders - I do not want to move the fence.

 

If the Rangers are proving that the excuses of heat and park were not gonna be accepted by their owners as reasons for terrible pitching down the stretch, then I really don't want to accept that simply hitting doubles instead of homers is a curse for our offense.

 

But if our pitchers are Felix / Vargas / Walker / Hutzen / Paxton or whatever,  with a bullpen of 99 mph torchers, then moving the fences in will do more for our offense than against our pitching.

 

Gotta do whatcha gotta do, and you can't win if you don't score.  In Safeco right now, we don't score.

 

~G

Hadn't thought of this, the parks that were designed as reactions to the absurd 70-homer seasons of the 1990's..

Why is it that 30% of all batted balls go for base hits, and it is even true that no individual hitter sustains a BABIP outside the 25-35% range?

What is it in the nature of a baseball game that causes 25-35% of batted balls to hit the ground and fall for base hits?  If we could grasp that, we could grasp why a 25% line drive rate, with a .250 BABIP, mean bad luck, even over the course of 30 at-bats.  Here's a hint:  would as many balls fall into the sides of this Pachinko machine as would fall into the middle?  Why or why not?

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If you dropped 30 balls down a Pascal board, and they all fell into the two left receptacles, you'd say "ah, that's bad luck."  And any other explanation would be incorrect.

The thing is, you have to first thoroughly absorb WHY a ball, coming off a hitter's bat, is a Pascal's Triangle situation.  Does a hitter's bat make contact 1/8 inch higher, or lower, because he meant for it to do so?  

Does BABIP actually work?

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=== Crystal Ball Dept. ===

BABIP actually does work, and it works always.  (Within a certain range.)  BABIP always works just like it always works that Mark Reynolds never leads the league in strikeouts and batting average at the same time.  It's not a statistical trick; it's the fabric of the reality out there.

This is part B.  Part A can be found here.

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(continued)  Q.  Where is he on the starter's rhythm spectrum?

A.  Here, check this key aspect of his mechanics:

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He steps lightly.  He carries his weight high, and loosely.  He's not "running down the mound" (Orel Hersisher).  He's smooth, not explosive. 

You can see that for yourself, can't you?

There's every chance in the world this guy could be a Grade A starter.  Check that:  if he executed the pitches that he did on Avila, he WOULD BE a grade A starter.

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Q.  How are Feliz, Bard, and Sale doing?

A.  They're adjusting, obviously.  While AL batters are suffering.   Feliz' ERA is 2.70, and he's on pace for 4.0 WAR.  He had 1.0 WAR last year in 62 IP out of the bullpen.  Okay, they're leveraged innings:  multiply it by 2x and what is 1 times 2?

Daniel Bard fired a gem at the Rays on April 16, and then the Sox moved him back to the pen, apparently.  Here's a discussion of his situation.  I trust that nobody in Seattle would be debating Tom Wilhelmsen's control.  Well, at this point...