Trying to focus on the positive ... :- )
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=== Jakubauskas ===
Didn't see the whole game, but the AB's I did see, Jaka wasn't hitting his spots. Which underlines San-man's caution that you might want to judge new pitchers after seeing both their best and worst games :- )
That said, Jaka did not give up an HR; the M's defense converted 7 outs out of what, 18 balls in play, for about a 40% DER ... Dr. D is not rattled by Jaka's getting knocked out of a game in which the balls missed fielders, even if several of them were hit hard by talented Rays batters...
Onward and upward; looking forward to Jaka's next start to see if he recovers the plus-plus command ...
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=== M's Defense ===
Equal Time Dept: Dr. D likes defense (paid for by citizens for fair-and-balanced coverage).
The M's "Defensive Efficiency Rating" -- that is, a simple measure of the % of balls (not HR or K) in play that get turned into outs -- had tumbled to .707 on Tuesday, an unremarkable #4 in the American League. That DER will tumble further after Wednesday's very inefficient defensive game.
Fangraphs has the M's with a relatively unremarkable DER / BABIP, but oddly, its theoretical UZR stat has the M's as saving by far the most defensive runs in baseball. This is a weird dissonance that underlines the relative unreliability of defensive metrics.
The only way that you could IN REALITY have an ordinary DER, but a great UZR, would be if the enemy hitters were giving you an unusually large number of balls to dive for. Then you'd be diving and catching a lot of the "tweeners," and playing great physical defense, and saving a lot of runs -- but the unlucky bloopers would make your DER / BABIP look worse.
...................
Let me tell you something: exactly the opposite has happened in the games that I have watched. The M's pitchers have given up a relatively FEW number of balls to dive for. They have given up a large number of sky-high fly balls and two-bouncers.
Without the slightest bias or rancor, my own take on this is that UZR is way wrong on the M's for the first two weeks. For example, I don't think Griffey is saving 50 runs a year with his glove in RF. That's my opinion; I could be wrong. :- )
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Again, I like defense and I like UZR. We're all working at understanding defense better. Up to the point to where we exaggerate its importance, or get overestimate our ability to measure it, I'm wit'cha.
Endy Chavez caught a foul pop on the LF line, RIIIGHHHHHT up against the pads, which was a mirror of the one that Carl Crawford dropped a bit earlier. Endy can really move out there. He's fun to watch.
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=== Mark Lowe ===
Threw a routine 96-97 mph, which is more than you could say for Brandon Morrow the chilly night before. Lowe, if his arm can take the workload, is threatening to become an 8th-inning mainstay.
Is short-arming the ball more than he used to. I guess because it hurts less.
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=== Jose Lopez ===
Had practically no weight transfer on the HR that he blasted deep to left-center. Just flicked the bat and WHAPPED it through the cold air, deep over the fence. The kid is SUDDEN.
One of these days, he's liable to WHAP forty dingers. For somebody else. ;- )
Well, maybe twenty-five or thirty, not for somebody else. At second base that's doing a whale of a lot to help the club win some ball games.
See you at the park,
Jeff
Didn't see the game, but I sure hope Jaku can rebound. Hes a pretty important memeber of this staff.
From what I've seen from the D, I expect us to live in the .710-.715 range this year. The OF D is otherworldly in a large park, but the IF is only slightly above-average (Betancourt hurts).
Doc...if you quote the Griffey UZR stat one more time, I'm going to beat you over the head with a 6-pound trout, dude. I say that with all the love in the world. That's for THREE GAMES!!! in right. THREE! Of course the number is going to look kind of weird. LOL BTW Griffey made two very nice plays in RF including throwing a guy out in one of those games, and I didn't see him miss a ball that you would expect a typical right fielder to catch.
The only UZR figures that look wacky to me through game 16 are the one sfor players who have played 4 or fewer games at a position. Seriously...take a look at the numbers that are *NOT* rate-converted..it's stupid to look at rate stats at game 16, Doc...if you do that you start saying things like "Well after 8 games, Griffey is on pace for 162 walks!"
Franklin Gutierrez: 3.7 runs saved. Is that a believable figure? 3.7 runs in 15 games? I think yes...it is indeed believable
Endy Chavez: 3.6 runs saved. Yup...also reasonable
Adrian Beltre: 2.3. Check
Jose Lopez: 1.0. Check
Ronny Cedeno: 0.7. Check
Griffey: 0.5. OK...this could be a little fluky
Branyan: 0.4. Maybe a tad high
Wlad Balentien: -0.2. Yep
Ichiro!: -1.0. WOW is he overrated by this UZR thingy! LOL THis is unrealistic in the OTHER direction
Betancourt: -2.8. Sounds about right to me.
So tell me Doc...where is UZR wrong? Where is the obvious incorrectness of the system. Is it totally absurd to imagine that Gutierrez and Chavez have saved the equivalent of 7 singles, 4 singles and 2 doubles, 3 singles, a double and a triple...in 15 games? Have you WATCHED the games? Is it ridiculous to believe that Beltre has robbed a couple of doubles and a couple of singles? Some of the diving plays he's made down the line looked pretty criminal to me. How about Lopez...saved two hits or maybe turned an extra DP and saved a hit? What the heck am I missing Doc? Where is the obvious error?
The Mariner DER is around average right now...but three games ago it was 3rd in baseball! The problem with rate states taken over a seasonal summary is that they are heavily influenced by outlier games and the Mariners have had a couple of stinkers recently. The problem with DER is that it does not account for the type of hits being saved or allowed. The Mariners may be middle of the pack in hit rate on balls in play, but the hits they're saving are biased mostly toward the OUTFIELD...where they have more value because if Gutz and Chavez don't catch those...they turn into extra base hits more than singles...the strength of the Mariner team defense this year is the outfield...and that's a lot more important per hit saved than the infield (which gets its value from typically seeing more fielding chances).
You lecture people all the time about being dogmatic, but you're doing the same thing when you quote 3-game samples as your reducto ad absurdem and cling to oversimplified general metrics to center your arguments even when you are fully apprised of their limitations. Point is...give the numbers a chance to build...16 games don't follow the same rules that a whole season of stats will.
Also...I think it's important to point out that there's a bug on fangraphs' site and for some reason Mike Sweeney's UZR has not been evaluated...I don't know what it would be but a number of bad plays on the right side of the infield occurred when Sweeney took over for Branyan.