I wonder if the Wedge "be aggressive" mantra, which is not only publically acknowledged, but also supported by the reduction of PT of every 'patient' hitter on the club is exacerbating the issue.
Your analysis sounds spot on, Doc. But, while I have been thrilled with Wedge overall in terms of roster management ... I'm really starting to believe his "be aggressive" mantra is contributing to the downward spiral of the offense.
Figgins HAS been more aggressive ... (but the only skill he ever had was patience). Peguero has no patience at all ... but Wedge supports him at every turn ... which I believe may be having a detrimental impact on Smoak.
I think Cust is still mostly Cust ... but leading the team in OBP just gets his PT reduced.
Is it really a trick to get into ANY Seattle Mariner's head when it is public knowledge that they are being paid and played to be aggressive at the plate?
=== Vintage Eck Territory ===
Thursday's ballgame featured two long, lean SP's with 90 mph fastballs and exquisite command. One is a superstar about to cash in a $125M contract; the other is patted on the head and told "attaboy" for hanging in there with his 3-10 record.
It hits me that really the biggest difference between Jered Weaver, and Doug Fister, is...
Weaver being attuned to whether the hitters are passive or aggressive.
I was amazed during the game. Every time Jered threw a 71-76 breaking pitch, the amped-up batter lunged out in front. (For those who just joined us, when the batter is grinding the bat handle into sawdust, you avoid fastballs and throw soft stuff.)
Watching the game, it suddenly dawned, just how much of Jered Weaver's game is based on his hair-fine feel for where the batter's head is at. He's one of the best you'll ever see.
I don't feel that Doug Fister has this skill whatsoever, and it may be the last thing standing between him and stardom.
Fister may have better pure stuff, and as good of command, as Weaver does. But Fister gives me no sense at all that his pitch sequences are being tailored to a hitter's passiveness or aggressiveness, as such.
It's true that Weaver has always fanned more batters than Fister. But why?
Yes, Weaver's slider has always been a strikeout pitch. Fister's overhand yakker, and his fadeaway change, are works in progress. Frankly, that's another important difference. But Weaver has always had the ability to get punchouts on FB's outside the zone, and on soft stuff against aggressive batters.
Fister grinds his K's by locating perfect FB's. This could change. Fister's current 6.0 strikeout rate isn't so different from Weaver's 6.4 in year three.
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=== M's Rotation ===
For what it's worth, here are my grades of the M's starters for this Dennis Eckersley factor:
- Doug Fister -- I can't perceive any element of this all, though am sure he probably does
- Jason Vargas -- Average to above-average
- Erik Bedard -- Outstanding from the word Go
- Felix Hernandez -- Above-average; Not unusual to see him catch hitters lunging, but many of his sequences are stock and guessable
- Michael Pineda -- Very good already. Which is astounding
The Dennis Eckersley factor ... that is, (1) go soft or off the plate when a batter thinks he's got you zero'ed, or (2) grab strike one with a FB when he's a little confused ... is not the be-all and end-all of pitching. But IMHO, Jered Weaver's insane level of success is driven by this factor and it's one of the reasons that Doug Fister is going to continue to get better.
***
We've heard amigos call Fister a number one, but his lack of strikeouts leaves him too vulnerable to circumstances -- BABIP, umpires, jam-shot base hits, etc etc. Right now he is a championship-level #2-3 who is having a great year.
But! Jered Weaver forged ahead and became a superstar with his 90 fastball and command, by improving his pitchability before he lost his stuff. In years 2, 3, and 4, Weaver's FIP and xFIP were 4.00 to 4.50. In years 5 and 6, he has lowered that to around 3.00.
Fister could do something similar. There are pitching stars whose K's are similar to Fister's. In 2006 and 2007, Roy Halladay had fewer K's than Fister does now. Chris Carpenter, Jamie Moyer, David Wells, lots of control artists.
It took Jered Weaver four (4) years. Then the light came on, and stayed on, and from then on he became an automatic W. Maybe for Doogie, it will happen quicker.
For Michael Pineda, it seems to be just about here already, though people won't be fast to credit him. If Hollywood has a super-brain part to cast, they don't seek guys who physically look like Michael Pineda. But Pineda's brain is one of his strongest assets.
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Comments
What got Cust benched has not been his OBP, it's been his lack of HRs. What got Peguero PT was his HRs.
With such a subpar offense surrounding him, Custs walks were setting the table for failure rather than crooked-number innings. Wedge had to look for SOMEbody who could drive in runners given the opportunity.
Now granted, Peguero has turned out to be a monumental baserunner-strander as well, but his PT has largely been based on the need to play a prospect to see what you have, while Cust's situation is entirely different.
Now the "I hear you" part. Despite LOVING the no-nonsense approach of Wedge, and his determination to take charge of the lineup and jettison ANY notion of veteran entitlement (apart from Ichiro), I've been concerned since May that the approach taken is better suited for a well-stocked lineup. And I've wondered if trying to squeeze blood (normal AL offensive production) out of a turnip (a roster incapable of doing so) will become counterproductive.
Smoak has not been the same since leaving the 5-hole. Is it AL pitchers figuring out how to retire him, or is it Smoak struggling with the pressure of being asked as a rookie to carry an MLB lineup? I don't know.
What I do know is that the M's have struggled offensively for years now, and in each case they put hitters in a position where they have to perform one or two notches beyond their capabilities if the lineup is to sustain AL average performance.
If you're right that Smoak is slumping badly right now because he's pressing (and I think you are)...then the solution is obvious...find hitters to protect him. And you can bet that Z is doing that.
And no, Sandy, I don't think the aggressive stance Wedge has taken with his offense is expressed in personnel decisions. The team LOVES Ackley and his patient at bats...they LOVE Seager and his patient shtick...the LOVE Smoak and his potential for plate discipline as well as power. I think the roster moves are largely about trying to find a batter who'll put up professional at bats (go up there with a plan of attack) and be a threat to pitchers. Peguero isn't working out, but we don't have better viable alternatives that haven't already been tried.
The key point I would make in regard to trying to get "too much" out of a lineup is it begins with the concept of attempting to get "too much" ***something*** out of an individual hitter that he is incapable of.
Clearly, no sane individual is going to expect HRs from Figgins. The skill set he brings has never and will never produce HRs. Heck, his career ISO is under 90. If there was any hitter on the planet with any more evidence of "pressing" than Figgins, I've never seen him. Yet, Wedge gives the exact same advice to Figgins as Cust?!?
The problem I see is that - even assuming the reality of the Wedge position is as nuanced as many believe - (which I am beginning to doubt) - it seems utterly ridiculous to me to believe that every hitter in the majors needs the exact same advice to succeed. Fixing Adam Dunn should not require the same remedy as fixing Ichiro. The entire concept that is does is what I find disturbing.
"You have to be aggressive to escape a slump". That is the public Wedge position. I believe the position is flawed and that if you see a hitter pressing, then the best advice (and one I *OFTEN* heard was what was directed at Andruw Jones during his worst slumps), was that he needed to be more patient, more relaxed, try to go "with the pitch" more than he normally did *until* his timing and contact returned.
Now, I fully supported the dumping of Bradley and Langerhans (based on defensive inadequacy). But, at this point, considering the Peguero defense in LF ... I am of the opinion that DESPITE Bradley and Langerhans producing decent ISO numbers ... that the reason they were dumped was ... they liked taking pitches.
But, I remember in early April, how Doc *GUSHED* about how many pitches the club was taking ... as we forced SPs to work hard and run up large pitch counts early. And the key men in that area were: Bradley, Langerhans, Cust and Figgins. And Ichiro was taking a lot more pitches early, too.
Look at the team offensive results for the first three months:
April - 112-BB; .235/.316/.339 (.656)
May - 72-BB; .228/.289/.325 (.614)
June - 68-BB; .219/.277/.354 (.631)
After 109 runs in April, it was 84 in both May and June. And April is historically the lowest scoring month of the season, which is why when they left Langerhans and Bradley had OPS+ figures of 95 and today stand at 90.
What is missing is the understand that each hitter has weaknesses. You want Beltre to stop swinging at the outside slider ... but he cannot recognize the pitch in time to do so. It's fine and well to say - "stop swinging at that". It's another to understand pitch recognition is not a constant from player to player.
Figgins and Cust and Bradley and Langerhans, etc. all have pitches they "see" better than others and pitchers, too I would bet. Bradley is "waiting" for a pitch that he recognizes AND is in a zone he can do something with. So, when a pitch he 'reads' as "change-up low" ends up being FB down the middle, Wedge gets upset. The downside is that what you're doing is convincing the player to swing at the change-up low as well as the FB down the middle. But, the pitchers throw the change-up low a LOT more than the FB down the middle.
This doesn't mean there aren't players that are too passive. I think by the end, Saunders had become a complete 'guess' hitter and was hosed. But, Cust and Bradley (and Figgins too) were hitters with experience, who knew what pitches they could handle - who had proven that they had reasonable balance between patience and aggression.
As average and OBP continue to plunge, at some point, you have to conclude that the strategy and tactics and coaching are not helping.
Eric Wedge has nothing against walking, despite his public stance on patience. His first year as manager of the Indians in 2003, the team had teh 22nd ranked offense with the 26th ranked walk rate. Over the next 6 years as the manager of the Indians, he resided over a team with the 5th best offense and the 9th best walk rate. The only point I am trying to make is that we was not an impediment to his Indians teams taking a walk.
So why the present stance in Seattle? DaddyO has arrived at a similar conclusion to me, though I suspect the reasons for sitting Cust are more than just the absence of home runs. After all, he is sitting to the benefit of Adam Kennedy and it is not like Adam is a huge home run threat. I think that Jack's only skill is trying to walk. He has lost the ability to punish a mistake or a centered fastball, so his contribution to the team in the present is minimal and zero to the future.
Let's say you figure Jack Cust has a 85% chance of out hitting Greg Halman, but the what you get for it is mediocrity at best in the present and nothing in the future. Who do you play?
Last point I'd like to make is that if one takes a historical view of hitting in the bigs, the number of singles hitters with high walk rates is very low. For every one Dave Madagan, you get ten Willie McGee's. For every one Wade Boggs, you get ten Rod Carew's. I think Eric Wedge saw a bunch of punchless wonders trying to work deep counts and letting good pitches go by when he knew the pitcher had no reason to fear the batter. If the worst you have to fear from a hitter is a ground ball single (Jack Wilson, Brendan Ryan, Ichiro, Gutierrez, etc), you challenge them early in the count and then put them away. If by chance you fall behind, you can still challenge them later in the count. What do you have to loose?
Of the M's that get regular playing time, Justin Smoak is the only player with a positive performance against fastballs according to pitch values at fangraphs. If you cannot manage hitting fastballs in the bigs, you will not succeed. As an aside, this is also why I am concerned about Ichiro. Disregarding 2005 when he changed his approach to appease Mike Hargrove (more power, more walks, and less effectiveness for those that want to make Ichiro a home run hitter), Ichiro had positive results for from 2002 to 2009. He was slightly negative last year, and is doing much worse this year. The results indicate he's lost enough bat speed to struggle with fastballs which is the beginning of the end.
As opposed to being cast, positively, as wanting his hitters to plan for their pitch and then do something with the pitch when they get them.
A guy who golfs 100, and goes to a pro for ten lessons, is going to golf 110 before he golfs 90.
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Agreed also about the singles/BB correlation, and it relates to the idea that a hitter has to sting the pitcher when he gets his chance. That's included in what Wedge is thinking of.
Good catch about the FB mini-trend.
It would be odd if a HOF leadoff hitter fell off the table at age 37, but if he did, I suppose his long, complex swing could explain it.
I notice that his CH values are strong, which is a bit of an encouragement -- he's not cheating on FB's. If Ichiro doesn't feel an inferiority complex against heat, it could be a sign that his reflexes are not down.
Possibly the tragedies in Japan have taken the starch out of his collar in 2011. Let's hope.
***
BTW, when I looked at Dustin Ackley's swing, did the same with Ichiro's, for comparison. His 2011 swing is identical to his 2007 swing -- almost impossibly so.
A real enigma. But the trouble against jam pitches, and against fastballs, maybe help get started on triangulating it....
What precisely would they want to see, first? It would not yet have been seen?
By no means is this meant to be definitive, but I was curious is poor performance against fastballs is any kind of indicator. At first it looked real bad for Ichiro, as the people I looked up [Ken Griffey, Jeff Bagwell, Frank Thomas, and Edgar Martinez] all had their first and only negative performance against fastballs in their last seasons [note that fangraphs data only goes back to 2002]. Derek Jeter is struggling like never before this year and he is also showing his first negative performance against fastballs.
But I did some more digging, and the rule didn't apply to Craig Biggio (never negative), Jason Giambi, or Carlos Delgado. Not sure if this real or noise.
Its obvious that Smoak is pressing, his slump fairly well corresponded with his move up in the lineup. What I see with him, and others isn't real uncommon. No one I know preaches more aggressive behavior to get out of a rut, and you can bet Wedge isn't either. However, the opposite doesn't work well either. Passively looking to hit the ball the other way leads one to allowing the fb to get on top of them before they can react. When I watch Smoak, lately, I see a robotic approach whereby he tries to jump on breaking pitches, and take (very precisely) pitches up, and away, to the opposite field. Fine in theory, but he seems to be losing some snap by trying to steering the ball. In short, trying to Steve Vai his way through an AB, instead of feeling it ala Edward Van Halen. Weird references aside, there is too much coached behavior on the field right now, though I am confident a few of these kids will pan out.
Ichiro had no leg kick in 2001, partly because he took it out to increase his reaction speed in the conversion to the AL.
He can get rid of it again and it'll probably jumpstart his swing. BUT Ichiro usually won't get to this conclusion unless he really crashes, but at this point, with what he's hittng the last month, I doubt he's to that point yet.
It will further karate chop his power. And as seen of Tommy Hanson, Ichiro still has good power when he decides to drill it.
I, too, disagree with the idea of being "more aggressive" in order to bust out of a slump. It often means just swinging at pitches that you have LESS chance of finding a hole with. The same aggressive solution does not fix each and every slump.
If a batter gets "their" pitch 3 times a night would be about normal, I suppose. He gets the pitch he wants (is looking for) in the zone he likes.
If being more aggressive is hacking away, regardless, well you probably turn into a Yuni Betancourt. If being more aggressive is going after the first fastball you see, well you probably will handle some. If being more aggressive is saying "I'm driving the first _______ that I see on the __________ part of the plate," well then you've becoming a discerning hitter, but still agressive.
It's hard to say that a Ted Williams or Barry Bonds or Adam Dunn (well, not the '11 variety) was not an aggressive hitter. Yet they walked a ton. Williams had a career .482 OBP, for goodness sake! He WALKED ..138! He took a ton of pitches but was aggressive when he got the one he wanted.
So from my standpoint, if Wedge's intent is to get more batters to swing more harder (sic) more often, well.......it ain't helping and it probably won't.
You probably don't make a batter better by asking him to be something he isn't. Some great putters bang the ball into the back of the cup (Tom Watson), some die the ball into the hole (Ben Crenshaw). but asking Watson to be Crenshaw probably doesn't fix a slump.
Batters get out of slumps by recognizing pitches they can handle (Saunders seems to have no such recognition gene) and then squaring tghe bat on the ball. Teach that, and you end slumps.
BTW, I posted a couple of days ago (and it seems lost in the electronic ether) that Peguerro is in historically uncharted waters. True 2.5 Option guys can survive if their OBP approaches .300. Dave Kingman, Rob Deer, Pete Incaviglia and even '09 Miguel Olivio are guys in this template. I'm talking about guys that are 20+ homer, 30K's/100AB types. This is doable and valuable player, especially if you get to 30+ taters.
But if you set the search to guys who have .250 OBP's, or worse (Peg's is currently .250), then you find ZERO players ever who hit 20+ homers, K'ed 30/100AB's and had a max. .250 OBP. Nobody. The template doesn't exist.
Essentially that says that at 30K's/100 AB's and not enough HIT or EYE to get to OPB of .250 that no manager in history will play a power hitter full time.
If you drop the homer requirement to 10 homers you find Sammy Sosa in '91 (330+ PA's). If you drop it to 5 homers, you find a bunch of utility IF types.
A fulltime Peguerro (at his current production) doesn't exist, historically, in baseball. Look it up.
Mostly is says that Peguerro is out of his league.
A more aggressive Peguerro would be out of his league even a level down.
moe