More Basking in Paxton's Glory

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During the broadcast Thursday night, Mike Blowers marveled that 4 or 5 people in Kansas City had walked by him and said, hey dude, we're looking forward to seeing this Paxton kid.  You get it, right.  The buzz is gathering.  James Paxton is gaining legitimacy as a star pitcher.  ;- )

During the Fangraphs blogging this week, Jeff Sullivan wrote a neat article that suggests we agree that James Paxton is one of the best.  We've got no punch line here.  Maybe we woulda had one in 2013.  Nah, you know how much we like Sully.  He got it in 2013.  He's gently leading a grumbly crowd to water, in hopes they'll decide to drink.

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The Exec Sum for Sully's piece:

1.  It's very important, in a good way, that Paxton showed the ability to fix things after his DL stint.

2.  Starting from June 2016, which is when he returned from a demotion, Paxton has thrown 230 innings (about one long season).  Since then he's gotten super-elite results on BATTED balls.  Fine, he whiffs 10+ a game.  But the real story is how weak the hitters' results are assuming they do NOT strike out.

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M's Two Point Five Out

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A few days ago, Dr. D warned gravely that the Mariners would need to win 3 of 4 in Kansas City.  Not "need" 3 of 4 the way the Cavs "need" 3 of 4 after they've played two games against Golden State, but "need" in SSI terms.  Which is a high bar.

He was wrong, improbable as that may seem.  Kansas City themselves were bad at baseball the last week, losing 4 of 5 games to tighten the race.  In retrospect Dr. D should probably have given consideration to the Royals' -12 run differential on the season.  Ah, well.  Even James Paxton gets a pitch wrong now and again.  (Speaking of, after Zeus' win on Friday we're back to -1.5 out with 50 games to go.  The Seahawks have overcome more, in fewer games.)

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Of Play-In Games and Other Winner Take All Death Matches

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Q.  A Mariner suit once publicly declined to input July talent since it was "just a one game playoff" anyway.  Does this make sense?

A.  Could be.  

But in 2001, the Yankee-Diamondback Game Seven was just one game, Clemens against Schilling with the Big Unit and Mo Rivera coming out of the bullpen.  In 1991, the last game of the Serious was the ten-inning shutout by Jack Morris 1-0, just one game.  Personally when I think of "just one game" I think of the Broncos chat boards right before 43 to 8.

Why not think of a Yankee-Mariner playoff game as though --- > we'd each won three, and were fast-forwarding to Game Seven?  ... I guess the main reason would be that you hadn't taken the six games of gate receipts, no snark intended.  Because as a general concept, a "winner moves on" playoff game is usually considered more good than bad.  ... ?

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The M's OF Rotation

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TALKING POINTS MEMO

John Dewan has the Mariners' defensive runs saved by position:  +9 LF, +14 CF, +8 LF.  Every other team in the AL has at least one bad or mediocre outfield position.  The M's have easily the best all-around defensive outfield in the league.

This in turn allows them to Moneyball themselves into a "market inefficiency" with starting pitchers who throw fly balls in Safeco.  Andrew Moore has a ridiculous fly ball rate.  Ariel Miranda may be even more extreme in deserved fly ball ratio; the M's (and he) have a plus record in Miranda's starts despite 27 homers in 126 innings.  There have been Tacoma Rainiers like Christian Bergman who scuffled into decent performances because of the synergy.  No doubt the outfield will run down a lot of Marco Gonzales' mistakes and could make the difference for him psychologically.  If he's any good, of course :- )

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Their throwing arms! are the icing on the cake.  Heredia gets all sorts of credit for a plus arm.  Fangraphs has Jarrod Dyson for +8 runs saved with his arm; that counts throws he doesn't make, where runners avoid testing him.  Dyson has made a couple-three especially cool throws the last week, important throws.  And Leonys Martin?  He made a throw from deep RF to nail one runner, a 95 MPH throw on the fly just like that one Ichiro made in 2001 ... except, I've got to admit, Ichiro was coming in on a groundball single.  Martin did it flatfooted, almost, on a deep sac fly.

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M's 6, Rangers 4

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MOMENT 1  =  FELIX COUGHS UP 4 EARLY

Bill Krueger was about as disgusted as a guy like him can get, which is not very, after Felix grooved a high slowball to Rougned Odor.  If you just joined us, Odor is a bad-ball swinger (not hitter) of Vladian proportions.  You don't have to give him many strikes, much less many teeballs.  Krueg's take on Felix' early "sloppiness" matched Dr. D's own take.  Sloppiness from Felix Hernandez, in a pennant-race showdown with Cole blinkin' Hamels, is weird on a lotttttttt of levels.

When Felix trudged off the mound after 2 innings, the calculator gave the Rangers' chances to win as more than 85%.  And the calculator had no clue that Cole Hamels was pitching in the ballgame.

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M's Pass on Sonny Gray

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MILD-DISAPPOINTMENT TIMELINE

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1.  SSI Denizens had been advised that Jerry Dipoto bolstered his rotation with Erasmo Ramirez and Marco Gonzalez.  We were prepared for nothing on July 31 and we got a big heapin' helpin' of it.

2.  We heard that Sonny Gray was traded to the New York Yankees.  For Fowler, Kaprielian and Mateo, which are roughly speaking the Yankees' #4, #8 and #12 prospects.  Doesn't sound like much, but then again there have been times our #2 prospect has been compared to somebody else's #18 prospect, so whaddoo I know.

2a.  Couldn't find much around the 'net that usefully compared Yankee$ prospects to unhyped prospects.

3.  Thankfully, one of the 'net's great minors analyst had done exactly that, and on a blog I frequent.  Here is Gordon Gross' analysis of the Yankee prospects and exactly how they translate in Mariner-speak.

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M's 9, Mets 1

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Was only able to stop by the 'puter for a jiff, so here's a July 31 chat stub.  As y'know, we live to serve.

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1.  This was the kind of mechanical, soulless victory that Paxton --- > needs to be able to give his squad.

He had easy velocity, and he was throwing strikes, but it says here that (first 2 times through anyway) his yakker was not really a danger and his slider/cutter wasn't much of a threat either.  So he used the Red Sox fastball attack to much lesser effect.  He had to settle for what, 6 ip 6h 0 r 0 er 0 bb 8 k.  In its own way that is more of a $200M performance than when he's feelin' it.

Asterisk, late in the game he started landing his knuckle curve.  That's where he started padding his strikeout totals like LeBron in the 4th quarter of a Warrior bashing.

Double asterisk ... Matty, do you know of any way to quantify "easy velocity"?  Heh!  The kind Verlander had when he was young, Clemens had, Scherzer has, where they're throwing 95 and can go to 98 any time they like.  I'll bet if you could somehow take pitchers with Paxton's "easy velo" and study them you'd find something that ... wasn't unpleasant.

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As y'might be aware, Paxton went 6-0, 1.37 in July (46:6:0 fip line) as he lifted the M's into the majestic glory of an Erasmo Ramirez trade.  The M's are -3.5 back to KC at seven games over, with just the Rays between us and them.

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Jarrod Dyson Qualifying Offer

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Here was a Sully chat snippet that made Dr. D scratch his head:

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Cary: Dave said in a chat that there’s no way the Mariners offer Dyson a QO. Why would that be a no brainer, if they thought he’ll be worth ~2.5 wins next year? The same thought applies to anyone with that value. Isn’t a one year deal at roughly market value either A) worth it on its own, or B) worth the upside of getting a pick?
10:04
Jeff Sullivan: Dyson doesn’t have the skillset that the market actually values at 2.5 or 3.5 wins or whatever. As a defense and baserunning player, he’s still a guy whose market value is suppressed, relative to a stronger bat

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Frankly, at age 32 it hadn't hit me that the Mariners COULD give Dyson a qualifying offer.  That has hit $18M now for 1 year, or thereabouts.  (Simplified) If you extend it and the player declines, you get a comp pick at the end of the 1st round.  As we have seen, a pick like that is worth approximately four Sonny Grays.

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Mitch Haniger's "Lost" 3-WAR Season

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Out of no mood other than sympathy, let me say.  The worst possible place to be sucker-punched is, in the upper teeth, just under the nose, bending the nose up with everything else.  One time a fight I know of consistent of one sucker punch, an uppercut to just that area.  The victim was weeks recovering.

At 95 MPH?

However much you think that hurt, it hurt a lot more.

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