Men

Rock Theory and Appreciation 105 - Ephemeral

Dr. D isn't an art critic; he just plays one on webTV. But then, you'd found him out as a sabermetric poser too, so you were expecting that. One thing we will say in SSI's defense - the Mainframe is not only a blunt instrument on the culture crunch. It can appreciate subtle, feminine art if the core concept appeals.

I found Helen Lessick's 'Ephemeral' to be a bit puzzling, quite a bit challenging, and, on discovery, satisfying. Pass the Brie, Hodgson. There's a good lad.

Jeffy hasn't yet gotten to 'ephemeral' at Lookout Landing yet, so here are your SSI pre-test crib notes. By 'ephemeral' we refer to something that is wispy, that lasts just a short time and then disappears too soon. The Mariners' 2000-2002 battle for the American League pennant was ephemerally frustrating. The Mariners' acquisition of Cliff Lee was an ephemeral victory.

Okay, here's the quiz. This art uses the medium of baseball cards, which are the opposite of ephemeral - they're collectible. And the ideas on the cards are ... like the baseball. The baseball, as in the leather-covered sphere that Hisashi Iwakuma somehow causes to spin forwards and to the right when he throws a Shuuto pitch. Take out a #2 pencil, kiddies. What is ephemeral about the baseball? Or about a baseball card that is rose-petaled between heavy acrylic slabs and screwed in tightly as though it were a prehistoric fly in amber?

Click to some other article - preferably this one right here - while you try to solve the Sudoku puzzle by yourself. :- ) Remember, Ms. Lessick actually called this 'Ephemeral,' so the whole idea is supposed to be about things that are not here long enough.

Sgt. Wedge, Props + Slops 2 - Job Review Checklist

Dr. D enjoys a good "manager drive-by" as well as the next saberdweeb

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Start with the understanding that successful MLB managers do many things at an incomprehensibly super-competent level. By "incomprehensibly" we mean that it's difficult to even understand their skills, even if we have them explained to us carefully. Personally, I'm not claiming to understand how Bobby Cox could, despite a tough-guy approach, keep control of the Atlanta Braves for 20 years.

Some of these many things include:

Making sure everybody plays hard
Making sure all members of the 25-man roster play hard
Making sure that infielders, outfielders, catchers, and pitchers play hard
Helping with technical instruction (Mike Scioscia being the reductio ad absurdum)
Keeping pitchers healthy (Earl Weaver and Bobby Cox being the reductio ad absurdum)
Making in-game tactical decisions such as pitching changes (Jim Leyland not being the reductio ad absurdum. Maybe Tony LaRussa)
Pointing his finger, in March, at the right ballplayer and saying "THAT one" (Lou Piniella being the reductio ad absurdum)
Staying on the same page with his boss (Mike Hargrove and Bill Bavasi not being the reductios ad absurdum)
Managing the media (Joe Torre and Tony LaRussa being the reductios ad absurdum)
etc

In the scheme of things, that "make sure everybody plays hard" bit: (1) Has always been the most important part of the job, and (2) Becomes a larger and larger part of the job description, as time goes on. It's even worse in the NBA, in which coaching is nothing more than matchups and relating to players. But MLB is plenty bad enough that way.

Stefen Romero Scouting Report 8 - Dr's Prognosis (Green Light)

Q. Why would an otherwise stable individual sit and type 5,000 words about a minor leaguer who is playing 3,000 miles away?

A. You'll remember our year-long retirement in 2008. Send fan mail, and hate mail, to the mighty Klat. For better or worse, their Frankenweenie resurrection has us once more deep-sea diving on esoteric M's issues. And don't think we don't love youse amigos for red-circling the mistakes. Considering the way the Safeco losses are piling up, even the Frankenweenie voltage might not get us up off the slab if it weren't for youse cyber-friends whose comments are usually more interesting than the original posts themselves.

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Q. What are the facts here? What are the "givens" of the investigation, or at least, what do you believe you know about Stefen Romero?

A. Romero might be forgotten a year from now, or might be headed toward AL rookie of the year; either is possible. But right now we'll stipulate the following:

Hector Noesi Update, 7.7.12 - Toolbox (Tomko x Scherzer)

The fruitcake may be thinking the same thing there, Brett ...

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=== Viewed through the Pitch Arsenal Paradigm ===

It's never been clear to me why Noesi is viewed as having elite stuff. But that's how he is viewed. Baseball men think he has, more or less, a Michael Pineda arm. Just a few days ago, Jack Zduriencik told Geoff Baker that three or four Mariners had showed the right stuff "in spurts," and in this handful of names he included Noesi.

I don't get this. I don't mean "I disagree with this and take it as more evidence that baseball people are stupider than bloggers." I mean that the situation is opaque to me: I don't get it.

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Noesi's fastball velocity is 92.4 MPH this year. This puts him #30 in the major leagues, in a group with Zach Greinke, Phil Hughes, Chris Sale (!), Johnny Cueto, and CC Sabathia.

Right below that is Ervin Santana, who has a 92-93 fastball and a wipeout slider. And, a very confusing 5.75 ERA. Santana also has a good fastball that he thinks to be great, and a 1.7 gopher rate.

He averages 92.4 MPH, which is very lively. It's easy velocity, too. Beautiful! Except that it's his only pitch, and 92.4 guys with other pitches, such as Ervin Santana, still get splattered.

Hector Noesi Update, 7.7.12 - Dr's Prognosis (bleak)

=== Gopheritis ===

Erasmo Ramirez learned, like in two games, that --- > if you're going to miss your spot, miss it OFF the plate. Not into the heart of the plate.

Noesi just doesn't seem to care enough to focus on this. If he's in the mood, say to David Ortiz, he'll bear down and make sure there's nothing good for Ortiz to hit. But if he's feeling lazy, he'll just chuck it in there and go "do what you're gonna do." That's not my opinion. That's everybody's on the field.

Gordon pointed out the RISP numbers early on. There's a parallel in golf, for a guy in the sand, who hates sand shots. The experience is so unpleasant that he just walks up and hacks. Get the experience over with, you feel me? Nicklaus' advice: never hit a quit shot. Learn to hit unpleasant shots with SLOWER tempo.

You can see in Noesi's tempo, as well as in his AVG/OBP/SLG line with RISP, that with the bases jacked, he wants to get it over with.

Echo Canyon: Justin Smoak

... Echo Canyon being about as much as I can think of right now, to refer to a shout-and-answer at SSI :- ) Cool Papa Bell shoutz,

Doc, what is your take on Cameron's post about Smoak?

Hmmmmm ... which said, what ... ok, here's the article.

:: taps chin :: The key premise is here:

But, at this point, history suggests that those hopes are probably not well founded.

In the last 30 years, there have been 55 first baseman (including Smoak) who have been given 1,000+ plate appearances through their age 25 season. Every single one of them hit better than Smoak has, and we’re not just talking raw numbers that can be explained away by Safeco Field or the change in run environments. By wRC+, which accounts for both a player’s home park and the average performance of the league at the time, Smoak’s 87 is the worst of the 55 players on the list.

=== Methodology, Dept. ===

All right, we can rephrase that premise by saying "Other first basemen who were given full-time jobs at ages 23 and 24 did better than Smoak did. Some a little better, some a lot better." The key editorial here is 1000+ PA's, which is a subjective (GM's) decision. :: taps chin again ::

So, what do we think about this editorial filter? Let's cull from the herd all first basemen who were given jobs at 23-24, like Smoak was, and look at those organizational Golden Boys. Let's not look at those who were kept in the minor leagues at ages 23-24 .... no, that's not right. The criteria is, 1000+ PA's, so those who were given jobs at age 24 will have fewer than 1000 PA's and will not be competing with Smoak.

Really we're talking about those first basemen who were given fulltime jobs at 22 and, at the latest, 23....

Erasmo Ramirez Scouting Report 6.25.12 - Upside

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Q. He can pitch better? He gave up three hits, one walk and 10 strikeouts. That's got to be a Game Score of 90 or something.

A. He can pitch way better. He didn't throw that good Monday.

Tom Seaver once said that when he was right, a catcher should be able to catch 80-90% of his fastballs by --- > moving his glove at the wrist. One of these days, F/X will give us a Seaver Percentage. Number of times the catcher had to move his glove more than, say, six inches.

Dr. D has been charting Noesi this way; he's about 50%, give or take. Problem is, the other 50% miss badly.

Erasmo Ramirez threw, I would say, six pitches that hit the mitt on Monday. We're talking about fastballs. And the misses were frequently way off.

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Q. So why didn't he get splattered, like he did his first two starts?

Michael Saunders: Batting Slot?

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Bill James once spent an article sardonically praising Walter Matthau. For you kids looking up from your XBoxes, Matthau was the 1970's version of Billy Bob Thornton or Wallace Shawn ("inconceivable!"). When those guys are on the screen, you don't see anything else, which is both a huge blessing and a fatal flaw.

Hey! We can get Billy Bob THORNTON for our movie? Awesome! ... um.... what the deuce do we DO with him?

James' point was, of course, that there are ballplayers like that, guys who have skills and weapons that stand out even in an MLB crowd, but limitations that have you forever banging your head against the desk trying to fill out a lineup card...

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Wedge has remarked, many times, that Saunders has the skills to hit up and down the lineup. He's right. There are some players for whom no comfortable lineup slot exists. Bobby Higginson was always the guy I thought of like that: I liked him three, I liked him six, I liked him leading off.

As they say in England, where do you put Clint Dempsey? You put him on the pitch.

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Hultzen Scouting Report at Fangraphs

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Mike Newman seems to be Fangraphs' feature tools scout. He's got a comprehensive report on Danny Hultzen today, and a video containing dozens of Hultzen pitches from the Chattanooga game that Newman scouted. Great job Mike.

On to the kibitzing!

His success has left me wondering if as a child, Danny Hultzen was the type to constantly ask his parents “are we there yet?” on long road trips. If so, then the left-hander is probably busy texting “Is it time yet?” to Mariners higher-ups as his combination of stuff and performance is Seattle ready.

Hultzen started the year with a moderately disappointing loss, 5 runs allowed, and has since thrown 12 consecutive lockdowns - five runs in 12 games. This shutout-every-single-time shtick has long ago laid waste to any pretense that he needs the AA development time. I mean, what are you going to say? He's thrown 12 shutouts in a row. Maybe if he throws 16.

The good news for Mariners fans: the administration sincerely believes that Hultzen is going to be healthy and starring in the year 2018. Imagine sitting down to lunch with Zduriencik and hearing, "Oh, sure, Hultzen will be fine for 15 years. You don't worry a lot about mileage with Danny." Okay, great. Seriously, am glad to hear that.

My question would be: that crossfire motion is very effective, but also is unnatural. Sid Fernandez used one, but then El Sid only hit 200 IP three times in his career. He totaled 7 seasons with 25 or more starts. Are we sure that a cross-stepper is going to be a workhorse? Just asking: when was the last LHP who stepped 12-18" across to 1B, and who was durable?

We've said before that the M's stand to gain $3M, maybe $4M, one time, by sidestepping the Super Two arbitration in 2015. That seems like niggling, but all 30 MLB teams do it. ::shrug::

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his stuff was down from my first look at him on a Friday night against Georgia Tech in 2011 while playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference. In that game, Hultzen worked full innings in the mid-90′s mixing in a mid-80′s slider and low-to-mid 80′s changeup with great success. In Chattanooga, I had the opportunity to watch a more toned down, workmanlike Hultzen who presented as a much different pitcher now than he did just a year ago. Gone were the mid-90′s readings on the radar gun and slider. Present was a low-90′s fastball and upper 70′s curveball which allowed Hultzen to pitch at three distinct speeds.

Hultzen's motion right now is probably as relaxed as any pitcher's I've ever seen. John Halama used to blow bubbles during his backstroke. Jamie Moyer has the balance of a ballerina, all the way through his followthrough. Greg Maddux looked like he could fall asleep and keep pitching. Hultzen's relaxation is fully the equal of any of them.

We're talking about a relaxation that keeps the eyes softly on target, and the game slowed down, right through that 20-revolutions-per-second acceleration and through the pitch hitting the catcher's mitt. Sloooowwwww, slow, slow. Hultzen's outside his body observing the action.

In aikido they call this "keeping one point" - that at the moment of maximum chaos and confusion is occurring (a punch being thrown, a pitcher's shoulders rotating at 20 revs per second, you flipping somebody over your head) your mind is still unhurried.

M's 1, Dodgers 0 - Ramifications

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Q. Is this going to be an all-year thing for Millwood?

A. Yeah, it looks like Millwood's arm is fresh after last year. He knows how to avoid mistakes (HR's), he knows how to take liberties (ladder fastballs when conditions allow) and as long as he's throwing 92 he's liable to run a 3+ ERA. Like we sez, it's not many innings eaters Millwood's age who can still spin the sliders and cutters.

He's month to month, but could reasonably continue all year. ... remember Bartolo Colon's great first half in 2011, and the second-half fade. These guys got some mileage on them.

I'll say this: if he's not hurt, he's in my rotation long after Beavan and Noesi are not. Way to munch innings for us, grampa. If he is hurt, G-Money gets the shotgun seat. He was the first to say it. You know which Jackson 5'er is in rotation with Millwood.

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Q. Where are they going with the catching platoon?

A. The CERA's were 4.43 for Olivo, 3.90 for Montero going into the game. Olivo having caught Felix more often. The invisible elephant isn't leaving any tracks in the backyard snow, gentlemen.

It says here that the Mariners' admins are increasingly going to "get it" here. Olivo knows more, sure, but Olivo's knowledge simply is not translating into bases gained and bases lost.

"Technical sophistication" is NOT a synonym for "practical effectiveness." As in chess, it doesn't matter what you know; it matters what you can do. There are plenty of patzers who know more than masters do. The master's plan might not be better in theory, but it jibes with his tactical execution and his intentions are realized on the chessboard.

Or, as Carl Willis puts it, you don't have to obsess with your opponent's weaknesses. You can focus on your own strengths. Either paradigm can work, depending.

As fans we hope that the M's admins are flexible enough to accept a paradigm -- focus on your own game, not on your enemy's game -- with which they are not comfortable. The evidence is rolling in right in front of their eyes. Montero just used his own style to call a no-hitter.

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Montero simply has more bases gained, and fewer lost, than does Olivo. How do you argue that Olivo's pitch calling is an elephant-sized factor, if the tracks in his ERA snow are parakeet-sized?

To put it another way: you believe that Olivo helps pitchers (more than young catchers do). If you were wrong, how would you know? What is your self-check process?

I'll go first: If I were wrong about Montero's competency, I would find out I was wrong by ---> observing a lot of runs scored against Montero's pitchers. Hm. That's not occurring.

Or: let's use the "predictive validity" scientific check. My model predicts that Montero's pitchers will not, in the future, have lots of runs scored against them. Any bets?

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Q. And the bullpen?

A. Leutge: three pitches, all sliders, and we're this close to declaring him a certified pennant-class LOOGY. He can come in for one, two batters, and he can throw strike one, and he can go shower, and he can do it the next time.

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