This is OT for this thread, but you don't have any recent posts in the last week on the Mariner offense - which is IMHO a far more important story than Stephen Pryor, as fun as he is to watch.
I'm looking at the Mariners' team totals in various offensive stats that generally are good predictors of performance. For example:
Team BABIP: .276 vs.
Team xBABIP (assuming normal BABIP on trajectory types): .306
Some of this difference may be park related, but not all 30 points of it. That gap, BTW, would be larger if the Mariners didn't pop the ball up so much. In dialing up the aggression, they've increased their LD% from last year's abysmal 16.8% to this year's 20.5%, but also increased the pop-up rate from a more normal 11.0% last year to 12.1% now (!!).
Or, we could try:
Team HR/Fly: 7.5%
SAFECO all time average HR/Fly: 9.4%
And it should be intuitively obvious that our line-up is better suited to Safeco than that historical average and that we have at least normal power potential this year. Even with the unlucky HR/Fly, the team is middle of the pack in longballs and XBH thus far...that's without the maximized performance of Montero, Ackley, and Smoak (though Smoak is coming around)...not ot mention Carp.
Team SW-S%: 9.1% (league average is 9%)
Team K-rate: 21.4% (league average is 18.5%)
With a normal whiff rate, the Mariners continue to be in the top third in K-rate...this won't likely continue now that their power numbers are increasing and likely to continue to increase.
To compliment this fact:
Team O-SW%: 28% (6th best rate in the game)
Team P/PA: 3.85 (dead on league average)
Those two things don't mesh except that we're still getting too many strikes...a fact that changes the more our power numbers improve.
This offense looks primed, IMHO, to break out in the second half as the weather warms. If we can fix the back of our rotation and maybe add one more quality reliever, it could be a lot more fun and very soon.
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Q. 98.3 MPH, eh? Does Stephen Pryor throw the hottest fastball in organized baseball?
A. The hottest the Mariners have ever seen, him and the young Randy Johnson. The 98.3 he averaged in his debut, that would theoretically lead both leagues in fastball velocity. Henry Rodriguez averaged 98.0 MPH last year; a grand total of four (4) other guys including Chapman, Bard and Jordan Walden were at 97 or better. Note carefully that Pryor averaged 98.3 despite a multi-inning outing, warming up twice, all that stuff.
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Q. Does the fastball have "life" on it, or is it just real fast?
A. We quipped in the shout box that the velocity was the 3rd best thing about his fastball... here, gentlemen, is the best thing:
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A typical 4-seam (extra-fast) fastball swerves armside 5", and rises 8". Stephen Pryor's fastball does not run armside; relatively speaking it cuts in on lefties, and it rises 11". A lot of the time it rises 13-14".
You'll remember that the secret to Mariano Rivera's cutter lies solely in the fact that he gets such drastic "hop" on it, along with extra length. This is the very definition of "late life." Also Brandon Morrow's fastball -- whatever you want to say about Brandon Morrow -- has dramatic late rise on it, and that's why the catchers tell you "Wow! Brandon Morrow's fastball gets to the last 5 feet and it just EXPLODES!"
These are two completely separate issues. One - Pryor's fastball is 96-100 MPH. Two - his fastball is turbocharged in the last 10 feet.
You say, "no way." Read it and weep, chump.
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Q. Do the other 100-MPH relievers have this hop?
A. Daniel Bard gets 8-9" rise, about average, though Bard's heater does cut in to LHB's nicely. You might have heard that Bard's fastball is a little bit hard to square up.
Henry Rodriguez gets 9-10" of rise, really nice hop, and roughly average armside run.
Chapman's lefty fastball actually sinks a bit compared to typical ML fastballs. He gets really good armside sail.
Jordan Walden's heater is similar to Pyror's, not quite so much .... he gets 10" of rise but he also gets a lot of armside sail. It is the "cutting" action into LHB's, added to the 10-12" rise, that gives Pryor's heater a Rivera-style shape. The cut in gloveside is what keeps these pitches off the barrels of the bats.
Joel Hanrahan's fastball doesn't cut and rise like Pryor's, Kelvin Herrera's doesn't ... Nate Jones we just saw tonight and he looks awesome, but his fastball is fairly straight. It is safe to say that the life and hop on Pryor's fastball is very special, probably unique.
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Q. How does Pyror get this hop and life?
A. He gets on top of the baseball. Like he gets on top of the ball as well as anybody in O.B. It's bizarre to see somebody powerflush a fastball down at the ground in front of home plate, and still get 100 MPH on it.
You probably remember SSI's sermonizing about Brandon Morrow. Morrow throws better, the closer his fingers point to 12 o'clock, which he has been doing more and more. When Morrow's fingers drop to 2 o'clock, even close to 3 o'clock, it's like his fingers undercut the ball and sail it, giving a floating action.
Pryor's natural motion gets him way, way on top of the ball. The intersection of 99 MPH with a downhill release, that is inflammable. Roger Clemens used it at 92-93 MPH, in his 30's, to rack up nine thousand Cy Youngs.
We've got the hop and life as the "secret drop of poison" here, the #1 thing about the heater, and the deceptive high front side, over-the-top downhill motion as #2. We've got the tongue in cheek a bit on that last. You can put the 99 MPH second on the list.
Heh.
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Is Dr. D sounding as though he likes Stephen Pryor's fastball at all?
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Comments
Team pitches seen for the offense: 8081
Team pitches thrown by the pitchers: 7839
This ratio is fourth in the AL and 11th in baseball.
Time of possession matters in baseball like any other sport. The team that hits for longest usually scores the most.
The team is developing at a quicker pace than I anticipated. Already the pythag is at .500 without any of our big 3 pitching prospects promoted, with only a few months of development from our young hitting, and some BABIP rebounding that is due.
The one negative is Wedge for me. His teams have had a pattern of performing significantly under pythag in the past and we've begun to see the reasons behind it this year. In-game and strategic managing is non-existant.
And without his crucial blown saves we're basically right on Pythag. His runs and Delabar's HRs (who has a 2.6 HR rate??) have made our leveraged innings very shaky.
Wedge is using the bench a bit more than I expected, is making sure Jaso gets into games, and rather than panicking about Smoak he made sure the big guy kept getting lots of at-bats, and it's paying off now. Wedge has been about as agile recently as I could ask him to be.
His stubborn refusal to pinch-hit or bother vets in any way was horribly frustrating in April, and we'll see how Olivo does and how much of a tether he gets, but his gut has served him pretty well. And he's trying to change the psyche of a team so there are things he's looking for and feeling out that I'm not in a proper position to judge (even though, believe me, I judge my tail off).
Interesting article about Wedge telling people to shut it and let him do his job to make this bunch of rooks into pro ballplayers.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/baseball/2012/05/30/eric-wedge-spills-his-guts...
Once Hultzen comes up and either Noesi or Beavan go down, we'll see if we can't make some more strides. The exchange of League for Capps later this summer should continue the process. A stable back-end will help the starters and the offense, not to mention the Pythag.
~G
Agreed, with the weather warming up and the Safe not playing as tough, home offensive output should jump.
There's a lot of talent on this team. It's not reflected in our offensive AL rankings yet, but we've scored 30 more runs through 56 games than we did last year. "On pace" is a misleading stat category, but still: on pace for 670 runs, and feeling like 700 should be doable.
With a usable offense and improving pitching staff, I'm interested to see how Wedge's Pythag looks the rest of the year. Keep hitting fellas - a few more hot streaks by really talented hitters (looking at you Ackley) would be most welcome.
But the team's posting a .584 OPS at home (.238 BABIP) with a .724 on the road (.296 BABIP). That's not gonna last. Safeco's a pitcher's park, but not like Petco.
Home/Road differential:
2012: +.140 road
2011: +.035 road
2010: +.028 road
2009: +.007 road
2008: +.025 HOME
Horrible teams or good, our team has never been crushed at home for a season like they have been this year. That'll rebound. And folks need to remember that while home field advantage isn't the same in baseball as it is in other sports, home cooking is still better and we've played WAY more road games than home so far.
Home PAs: 762
Away: 1330
We've played 34 games on the road and only 22 at home. That includes an overseas trip. We been able to skip a few games at the Safe when offense would be depressed due to weather and hitter struggles, and hopefully now that our hitters are all bringing lumber to the yard they'll be able to make some dents in our offensive struggles in Seattle as well.
~G
At this point, I think it's off base to blame Wedge. He's got the hitters digging in and performing better than we all thought, including being more patient and hitting more aggressively...AT THE SAME TIME (which is hard to do). He's been VERY agile with his bullpen management, moving bad guys out of pressure roles quickly and inserting the new arms he's given right away. He's also begun using his bench aggressively to keep guys fresh and ready to hit. His defensive substitutions and pinch hits aren't there...but that's probably the least important part of managing, IMHO.
This team, minus five really bad appearances from league, would be at .500. Blame the guy who can't throw his splitter for strikes and therefore has to throw fastballs whenever he gets behind in counts in save situations.