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Originally published on March 13, 2017, after Moore's early spring training outing. - Dr. D
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1 - ULTRA KING FELIX (TM) PITCH SEQUENCE
This was Andrew Moore's pitch chart to the first Reds hitter on Saturday, the LH Jesse Winker. Fastball HI for 1-0 ripped off by the ump hey ain't no thang, Fastball PAINTED for 1-1, Changeup / Splitfinger SHINS 1-2, Fastball POUND KNEES grounded through the infield for a base hit.
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I'm conducting a little experiment.
A few days back, I mentioned that, when I was in college, I had a personal project idea - go through the best teams in baseball and look for their best player that I hadn't heard of before (no hall of famers, no players famous for other reasons) and look him up. I would peruse his statistical profile, his photographs, written histories, and media commentary, and give that forgotten star some love, just for the sake of showing appreciation for the rich history of the sport.
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AIN'T LIFE GRAND!, Dept.
The M's have a 3-0 sweep of the star-studded Detroit Tigers, they are clear Next-Up in the Wild Card race by themselves, He Who Must Not Be Named has been voted off the rotation island by DiPoet, and his replacement is Andrew Moore. In the 4-0 game.
The game's on TV. And a few miles away. What, you want Dr. D to butter your toast for you?
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JAMES PAXTON
His rhythm had been 1-2 on a scale of 10 the last two games. In this one it was a 5 on average ... 4-5 to start the game, 7 in the second, 3-4 for a couple innings after, 7 again later. Blowers pointed out you don't see a lot of 7-foot golfers; it's too much area to control on the arc. Same reason you have to let a miracle lefthander slowly figure his career out. Good thing is, the trendline on the rhythm is "up" and quickly going up.
Paxton fanned 8, walked 2 and gave up 3 earnies. Against a less right-handed power team he'd have given up, oh, 2 runs in 6. But give the Tigers (and the ump) credit. They cobbled four runs against our ace; we wound up doing the same to theirs.
Hey all! Sorry I went back to lurking and hoarding my potatoes for a bit. I just walked with my bachelor's this weekend, and the leadup was a little hectic. I'm back now, I think, just in time for the stars to align and the team to hit its stride! Here's my first guest post, to make up for my prolonged absence.
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PLAYOFFS BA-BEH
Still -1.5. But the three teams between us and 'Rays are all .500, so we're the thinnest possible whisker behind them. In this first half of parity, Matt figures 88 wins could easily qualify and 85 might possibly. ... let's say 87; the M's would have to go 51-38 to do that. That's equivalent to a 93-win season, and 93 wins over the course of one-half a year is exponenentially easier than being a 93-win TEAM. So, nothing farfetched in the least.
Tuesday's game was extra innings but it was not a 50-50 coin flip. The M's had 15 baserunners to the Tigers' 10, and a 5:6 EYE compared to the Tigers' 3:8.
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K-SWAG
He could play for my club, I think.
Is he in the middle of an off year? Nah. If you look carefully at his statline he's doing the same thing he's done for several years: batting .270 give or take, EYE ratio of 0.60 give or take, 90 RBI give or take, 7.3000% swing and miss rate to the micron. (In fact his fish rate is going down, suggesting further pitch-recog development.)
What has "changed" is his homers per fly ball, which is a luck stat. Three years previous, 13%, 12%, 14%. Now this year 6%. Not because of him; his launch velo is over 90 MPH and his distance is over 220 feet. He just has seen six or eight deep flies caught on the warning track. It'll change.
Last player on the club to worry about is Kyle Seager. Literally. Write his name in the lineup and move your attention to your problems. :- )
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BEN GAME-R's LUCK STATS
Gamel had three hits again. Seeing-eye grounders? Balls dropping in between OF's? Um, no. Actually: (1) a double whistled cleanly into the corner ... (2) a low line drive that skipped off the cut of the grass into CF ... and (3) a power-alley home run. Gamel is benefitting from BABIP luck but he is also laying enemy pitchers waste.
You can't sustain a .400 BABIP for a career, or even for a season. But you can deserve one for a month. This is what it looks like. Gamel's white-hot, like Zunino is.
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WILD CARD
The Mariners are -2 below .500, the Rays +1 above it. By my math this leaves the M's 1.5 games out of the playoffs, magic number of 89. And the big kids get out of school tomorrow, rotationally speaking.
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ROTATION
Speaking of which, Servais had a more predictable quote on this Monday. Forget where it was. The gist was, when Felix and Iwakuma get back Friday-Saturday, we'll figure out what to do with the Rainiers starters at that time. Maybe Gaviglio will head out to Tacoma; maybe he'll be our long man. We'll decide then.
Heavy sigh. I guess it's possible the M's believe that Gallardo's "stuff" and moxie make him, simply a better bet than Gaviglio. (Even if you thought that, I would point out the development imperative; given an equal choice between a ham sandwich and a developmental player, invest the time). Or it's possible that the M's have a buyer on the line, hey, just two quality starts here and we can get back Dillon Overton. :- )
In any case, if you're willing to bet hard cash on a sub-5.00 ERA for Gallardo going foward -- even in Safeco with Dipoto's athletic outfield -- then you've got better persistence than most men.
Smyly goes out for a rehab stint shortly and then would it be Gallardo over MIRANDA TOO?!
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LIFE LESSONS
You watch these major leaguers - ANY of them - take a 90 MPH fastball in the short ribs. Or in the shoulder blade. Or off the elbow. And they kinda growl, and take four seconds, and then go on with their lives. The average major leaguer compared to the average guy on the street? Joe Mainstreet, hit in the shoulder blade with a 90 MPH fastball, would probably think he'd been sniped and had had four seconds to LIVE. The pain tolerance of ballplayers, man.
But catchers especially. You see them take 90, even 95, foul tips right off their masks and just adjust the mask. YOU put on a mask and let me hit you in it with a sledgehammer? The kinetic energy has got to be about the same.
But Mike Zunino? He takes HBP's as well as any Mariner since 1977, as well as any ballplayer active right now. He won't even duck the pitch if he's well able to duck it; he'll just stand there, take the shot, and not flinch in the slightest. He'll just trot calmly (not in a buzzed way, just calmly) down to take his base.
I've always loved Gentlemen Samurai. It looks like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths; talking to them, it's like talking to your friendly aunt. But when there is killing to be done, they won't even change expression. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee ... Russell Wilson. Captain America, who at one time was a bit of an ideal. Who wouldn't root for him? Wait, don't answer that ... :- )
If Mike Zunino becomes a star, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Would love to see it happen for him.
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Somebody STAP meh before I Gamel again!
Kain't help it. Very much aside from Gamel's freakish BABIP-driven statline, there are 29 things that make this player more fun than beating the San Francisco 49er's. Tell you one thing about sports... how should we put it. One time last year my son and I ran down to the YMCA to get in some basketball. The place was deserted, except for two high school kids, maybe 10th grade. Take what you can get. :- )
Clueless, I sauntered up to the kids and axed if they wanted to go a few minutes of 2-on-2. They looked at me weird but said, yeah, I guess. With my legendary self-effacement I'll modestly allow that John and I destroyed them. Which isn't supposed to shock you when you play children.
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My son dragged me to the lasted Pirates of the Caribbean serial. The movie was unfunny, it was grotesque in spots, Johnny Depp mailed it in. The movie was lifeless and the cameos were self-congratulatory. But! I was glad that I went. The guy who plays Capt. Barbosa is riveting. And the backdrop, the water and the whirlpools and nature at its most threatening, was enjoyable.
There are a lot of movies like this: Movie Blows Chunks, Actor Rocks Hard. The Last Stand was a cruddy movie overall. But there is something about Arnold Schwarzenegger where I just enjoy every scene he's in. I think it is because he is such a massive "Winner" in real life that you're always fascinated by what's going on in his mind. Also Johnny Knoxville is kewl.
Remember the musical guests in Blues Brothers? HEH! Jim Carrey as the Riddler in that hopeless Batman movie: Is Every Body Listening? Here's the Bargain! I'd go to that movie and ignore the rest of it, in order to catch Jim Carrey's scene where he bargains down Two-Face.
