1
The thing I like best about Ackley right now is hes hitting LHP. 894 OPS with a 13/11 BB/K.
Overall OPS up to 815.
M's 5, Twinkies 2 - Props and Slops
PROPS TO ADAM KENNEDY, who played in the middle infield with ... drumroll ... Luis Rodriguez at short. The Mariners scored 5 runs in their first attempt at this offensive-MI configuration.
Weaver and Herzog used to run not only left-right platoons, but offensive-defensive platoons, day-night platoons and who knows what else. Here were the offensive MI's behind ... Michael Pineda, a strikeout flyball pitcher.
Good on yer, Mr. Wedge.
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PROPS TO MOE, who called shotgun on the idea that the deployment of LRod + Kennedy tonight might presage a Wilson release (and Ackley callup). Wow, if Ackley's up in the next few days, that's one of the coupla best prophecies of the year.
Taro's beginning-of-the-year call on Trevor Bauer is going to be tough to exceed, though :- )
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M-Pops had a whale of a great point on Kennedy:
Am watching the Twins chip line drives into the heavy sea air only to have Condor stride easily under them to make the catch. This made me wonder how many backspin hitters have succeeded in Seattle...
The list of Mariner offensive achievers is short enough as it is, but watching the difference between Peguero's and Kennedy's line drives versus those of the Twins is suprising.
Sweeney and Lamkin (sp?) were two other topspin guys, as are Branyan and Ibanez, who have had success in Safeco. Kennedy is making me think that you must get on top when playing by the sea in Seattle.
Cirillo was a productive player in the dome in Minneapolis, right?
If you didn't see it, Kennedy's homer was on a high fastball. He got on top of it, finished with the bat low like Pete Sampras hitting a groundstroke.
Pops' comment cements for us that Kennedy is a particularly Safeco player. He's got to be here all year, as a backup, at least.
Kennedy is hardly a savior; he's a 100-offense second baseman. But he's still got a pretty quick bat for an older gentleman, and a few things happen when he's in the lineup.
..........
It was Inside Pitch who pointed out the effect of topspin in Safeco. In the 2003 offseason, he assured us that Ibanez would be great here, and proceeded to calmly explain why.
He's not a Mariners fan. It would be like you calling Adrian Gonzalez to fail in Boston because the batter's box there keeps him too close to the plate, or something.
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PROPS TO 5-0 LEADS. The Mariners gave up two runs in the ninth, and ... whattaya know. It doesn't matter.
When you've got Michael Pineda on the mound and a dubious starter going against you, you're supposed to be +5 in a certain amount of those games.
The Mariners, with no homers, have made the game wayyyyyyyy too hard. With this rotation, a few homers will be all they need.
...........
See that? Y'throw a bat-first lineup out there and whattaya know. Like Earl said, "give me a lineup full of Eddie Murrays and I'll show you how easy managing can be."
Hey, how does Justin Smoak compare to him, by the way? >:-]
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PROPS TO MICHAEL SAUNDERS whose UZR/150 is up to ... wait for it...
+17.6 runs saved per season
I trust that we all realize that Michael Saunders isn't really a historically-great center fielder.
(He does look very rangy out there. From an aiki standpoint, it's fun to watch the guy move. Every move he makes is leveraged. If a horse were a human, it would look like Michael Saunders.)
CF in the bigs is loaded with speed burners like Denard Span, Curtis Granderson, Peter Bourjos and Austin Jackson. It isn't really possible, within reason, to be +20 runs better than all those track guys.
Safeco makes CF's look better than they are. But it doesn't mean that Franklin Gutierrez is bad.
It does, however, mean that the Mariners can use people like Michael Saunders in CF when they want to.
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PROPS TO CARLOS PEGUERO whose HR we clocked at 2.85 seconds hang time. (Kennedy's was a line drive, and was 5.5 seconds.)
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SLOPS TO THE M'S TEAM UZR, which is #26 in the majors. Something is not right with that.
- SS - gold glove SS
- 2B - gold glove SS
- 3B - a guy who scored a $45M deal with his glove
- CF - a guy running a +17 UZR right now
- RF - Ichiro, the only speed burner ever to play right field
- 1B - Smoak, who is a good glove there, I guarantee you
Imagine if you took nine All-Star hitters and they played a month and a half as one of the worst offenses in baseball. Cognitive dissonance.
Maybe it's hard-hit balls. Maybe it's terrible defensive positioning. Maybe the fielders are sleeping in log cabins. Maybe the pitchers are getting 8 chances a game. Something's weird. First guy who explains it (convincingly) gets flowers from me.
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SLOPS TO JACK ZDURIENCIK who is feeding my addictions with lines like "Dustin Ackley will be up sooner than later."
Roto champ suggested that we make sure that Ackley has mastered AAA first; we're sure than Sandy (whose roto team just blasted mine) will jump out of his seat cheering. :- )
Agree with the macro idea here - don't push him past AAA until he's mastered that first.
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Where we differ would be in the specifics. Says here that Ackley has mastered AAA.
Of course, it's not a statistical paradigm we're using to say that, as it wasn't a statistical paradigm that we used to opine that Pineda had solved AAA.
Ackley has a specific set of skills. Play him in AAA for one more month, or for thirty more months, and the same things will happen. He'll work 3-ball counts, whip the bat around and snick the pitches out of the catcher's mitt for base hits, and he'll OBP .400.
IMHO, he's got nothing to learn in AAA.
It is possible that Dustin Ackley won't have much to learn in the bigs. Ichiro didn't. Ackley and Ichiro are more similar than you realize.
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BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
2
Hadn't made sense that Ackley would be a platoon-split guy. For reasons similar to Ichiro. So that's a cool byte.
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I have been wondering how the M's defense could be so bad as well.
First, the obvious answer. The M's team UZR is -13 runs, while Langerhans in CF, Bradley in LF, and Ichiro in RF have been worth -17.3 runs on the year. So the answer is attrocious outfield defense. I'm curious if Ichiro has 'looked' as bad as UZR has thought he's played? He doesn't seem to be hurt (as indicated by basestealing). Langerhans was a fringe CF in his athletic prime and Bradley played defense like he was trying not to get hurt, so their numbers conform with expectation to some extent. Ichiro has been a premiere RF for a decade. What is up with him? Anyway, the outfield defense will be fixed shortly, though the outfield offense will continue to be AAA quality, I fear.
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More generally, I have a couple notions about why the defense has underperformed expectation. (1) We are often bringing in journeymen whose primary skill is with the glove (Hannahan, Langerhans, Jack Wilson). This is a problem because defensive performance peaks early and is more dependent on leg and back health. Jack Wilson WAS an elite SS, but why should he be elite at 33 playing 2B for the first time after years of leg injuries? (2) Defense requires coordination between the fielders, pitcher, and catcher. The roster churn can't possibly help. (3) Brendan Ryan doesn't strike me as a video room grinder, so he's going to have to learn the hitters and pitchers on the M's on the field. I think he'll get better and he's been roughly league average.
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I suspect (well, I'm pretty sure) that there was really no bat-related need to put Ackley in Tacoma this year at all. He's probably been a major league bat (of had a MLB batting skill set) since about July of LAST year.
Doc is right. Ackley recognizes pitches, commands the strike zone, gets solid wood on it when it is a strike, and rips it well more than enough. That's a heck of a productive offensive skill set. Once he's adjusted to a more refined strike zone (which takes a few games for an Ackley), a borderline pitch is a borderline pitch, AAA or MLB. He's faced guys who throw 97mph already, and guys who snap off wicked curves. By results, it looks like he doesn't have a hole in his swing.
He's an MLB batter right now. A 6 for 12 series against Portland and then a 4 for 9 against Albuquerque won't make him any more of a MLB batting talent than he is right now.
Seasoning? Didn't seem to make much difference for Yount and Olerud. Ackley is one of those guys.
Fieldingwise, I suppose a bit more 2B time was fine. But I suspect he was a sufficient MLB 2B in Arizona during ST.
Now it looks like a delay in calling him up is all about a million $ (or so) of future contract, perhaps. Not calling Ackley up this year would be amazingly rediculous...so now that you've saved the arb year, just do it. The stupid thing is looking at Ackley as a 6-year Mariner, which assumes you can't sign him long term.
Heck, bring him up now....and sign him long term during his 1st arb year. He's going to be worth it.
Remember that Pete Rose came up as a 2B guy, then moved to LF. To tell you the truth....I wouldn't be surprised by such a move down the line. Not that he can't handle the glove at 2B but that I just love the idea of Ackley as a Lonnie Smith type leadoff LF'er.
Fall in love with the bat. That's what Ackley brings to the table. Let him play out in LF and chase flyballs and rip doubles.
As a LF'er, he should have started with the M's lat July.
moe
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If and when they ever move him off 2B he can play center for us and still stay at a glove position. Unless he's slowed a whole lot by then - he's at least as fast as Saunders, if his strides are less loping. He could play LF easily...but I'd rather he stay up the middle if he can.
Which is a reason we used for sending him down in April. We wanted to maintain his service time and get him more comfortable at 2B. His slow start has helped us justify it, but how much longer do we wait? His glove is okay. It'll get better. But it's the bat we desperately need, and with the massive offensive needs on this club can we wait another 3 weeks to deploy him?
I think we will, but I can see the argument the other way. Service time is preserved, now it's just about money. Ackley is laying waste to the PCL in May. April's adjustments have been calculated and implemented, and now he's added his AFL power into his PCL performance, while walking a ton and striking out
He's like the Borg - the man just assimilates and carries on. His AA adjustment period was a month, his AAA adjustment period involved more power, and he incorporated his whole arsenal in the AFL for a devastating month. He came out struggling horribly this April, whether because he thought he should be in the bigs, bad luck, or simple adjustments to the craftier pitchers in the PCL I don't know.
But that's done now and he's still a walk machine (something he abandoned in AAA last year to get in more swings and practice driving the ball), with improved power and some stacked multi-hit games in May. I thought he'd put it together in the AFL, and just watching him hit it sure looks like he has. He's ready.
How many more doubles, HR, walks and runs do you want to waste in Tacoma?
Three weeks more, I'll wager, but we'll see.
~G
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But just for giggles:
AB
2B
3B
HR
BB
SO
BA
OBP
SLG
Smoak
115
10
0
6
22
29
.287
.403
.530
Ackley
164
9
0
6
33
24
.280
.395
.445
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at second base with that .840 OPS. If you want to know what the dropoff looks like at the position, though, a .705 OPS makes him the 9th best at his position (min 125 plate appearances).
Adam Kennedy, savior of our offense, is at .722 with 89 PAs.
Jack Wilson, anchor of my soul, is at .567. He's still better than Jose Lopez, though, who is LAST at .477 among anybody with 50 or more PAs.
Ackley as he is now would be a giant in our offense. Ackley even on a learning curve could not POSSIBLY be worse than the combined MIF we've run out there this season.
~G
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That would explain it.
1. Assume sub-level defense from MB and Langerhans, all those games.
2. Assume poor defense from Jack Wilson.
3. Remember the bat-first MI's.
Ya, just that "leakage" from eight different spots on the pipe would account for it. Thanks.
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Only thing I can think of on Ichiro, is that sun fly ball, plus a couple of other weird drops early on. If it's not positioning, it's the three or four goofy plays early.
That Ichiro covers more ground, under a batted ball, than Nick Swisher, we can take as a given. Ichiro's -33 UZR doesn't represent anything that I have seen from the upper deck.
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in Safeco, correct?
If and when the M's had a Nick Franklin / Carlos Triunfel problem, we'd cheerfully /cosign on Ackley to CF.
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Sometimes make too big a deal out of LF/CF/RF, too. Outfield is outfield. Go grab a glove.
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Adam Kennedy, savior of our offense, is at .722 with 89 PAs.
Jack Wilson, anchor of my soul, is at .567.
Ah, man... :- )
That .280/.400/.450 line that you posted for Ackley there, Spec... not sure how much time Ackley will need in the bigs before he starts giving you that... "none" would not shock me...
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Pedroia, a similar player, did need two months before kicking in at All-Star level ... certainly Ackley *might* require 50 games before beginning his 6-year run...
Would look awfully sweet in the first inning, Ichiro-blank-Ackley-Smoak, supporting the 9,000 monster starters that Jack has hoarded :- )
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Yes, in this lineup it looks like Ackley's best spot in the order is 3rd.
I would prefer 2nd, with a Figgins move downward, but I don't anticipate that.
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USSMariner reporting that tomorrow "may be" the day.
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:- ) for Called Shot of 2011 ... behind Taro's (and G's?) pre-season clamor for Trevor Bauer with the M's pick...
Good reminder from Cameron that the M's may well doubt whether Super Two is going to exist in 2013-14.
Good reminder from G-Money that Ackley's contract does have accelerator clauses, though... only Jack and Boras know when those dates impact... maybe one of them was May 16 ... >:-]
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Now it looks like a delay in calling him up is all about a million $ (or so) of future contract, perhaps. Not calling Ackley up this year would be amazingly rediculous...so now that you've saved the arb year, just do it. The stupid thing is looking at Ackley as a 6-year Mariner, which assumes you can't sign him long term.
Totally agree Moe, I cannot understand why people continue to harp on the minor league service time issue. Do they think that the players are going to forgive the team for holding them back? Come Arbitration or Free Agency isn't the penny pinching just going to come back to bite you in the rear?
Treat them well, encourage the 'home town' discount, you'll probably save money in the long run.
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Ackley: 3 'fer 5 tonight with a tater. It's time.
Carp: 2 'fer 5 with a double. Ditto
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So...I'm guessing he's about to get himself a pink slip. Excellent. ACKLEY TIME!!!!!
Guti by the weekend or Monday at the latest.
Carp soon after, I hope.
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Did anyone look good tonight against Liriano? Didn't see the game.
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Ghost, I'll agree. wilso looked overmatched against Liriano. he did hit the ball hard in his 1st AB, then he just waved at thrown things.
I've pushed for his call up...so I'll admit when he didn't look great (to say the least).
But...it was only his third game up, with nearly a week off between appearances.....and Liriano was dominant. Heck, Smoak looked lost at the plate tonight.
And Morneau was donimated by Felix, too.
I'll call for a Wilson demotion when needed, I promise. But 12 PA's is hardly a test.
moe
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I was talking about JACK Wilson...not Michael...sorry for the confusion. :D
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He was locating well with his fastball and had a NASTY change-up...Mariners were in between on it all night.
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Reading your original note, I can now see that you were talking about Jack Wilson. I missed that completely. My bad.
I was perplexed by the Ryan/J.Wilson combo last night. Kennedy homers the night before and then sits. But his vLHP splits this year are pretty ugly, so....I suppose I can understand, maybe.
But I was sure that Wilson was gone as soon as Ackley is up (Today! Man, what else do you need to see of him in Tacoma). Last night tossed a wrench into my certainty.
Still betting on that, though. I would like to see what LRod becomes.
this team is 7 games below 500. it CAN'T compete with this lineup. It needs a couple of bats. Ackley must come up. Carp should, too.
J.Wilson and Cust are great pros, I suppose. Their Mariner time has run out.