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Seems like yesterday when Clement and Johnson were drafted, then Moore and catching was at a surplus for the M's. Opps. Got to love baseball!
Snakebit
So here's the thing...13-21 and not scoring any runs at all looks TERRIBLE...it's painful to watch...it's BORING to watch...but I am here to tell ya...this team is horribly...horribly snakebit. I still see a 90-win club on paper. Some things have gone far...far against them so far in the luck column. Let's list out a few of them:
BABIP
.278 as a team - with Ichiro on the club, the team BABIP should be .305 or .310. To confirm just how much the baseball gods apparently hate the Mariners...player by player BABIP vs. last-three-seasons and how many hits that costs:
- ROB JOHNSON: .195 (.245 - having trouble making solid contact in the bigs so far) - -3
- ADAM MOORE: .250 (no career...probably about as good as you can expect from an overmatched player) - 0
- CASEY KOTCHMAN: .194 (.286 last three seasons) - -10
- MIKE SWEENEY: .207 (.284 last three seasons) - -3
- CHONE FIGGINS: .247 (.363 last three seasons) - -14
- MATT TUIASOSOPO: .308 (.260 entry expectation for a guy with his K/BB) - +1
- JOSE LOPEZ: .242 (.283 career, .280 last three years) - -6
- JACK WILSON: .302 (.291 last three years and falling as he becomes overmatched, .270 expectation going forward) - +2
- JOSH WILSON: .278 (right about where I'd expect it) - 0
- MILTON BRADLEY: .295 (.321 career, no recent trends) - -2
- FRANKLIN GUTIERREZ: .393 (.326 career, .333 last year) - +8
- ICHIRO SUZUKI: .375 (.358 career, no recent trends) - +2
- ERIC BYRNES: .130 (.250 expected for a non-MLB player) - -4
- MICHAEL SAUNDERS: .385 (.329 last year) - +1
- RYAN LANGERHANS: .308 (.298 career) - 0
- KEN GRIFFEY JR.: .239 (.250 for a dead payer expected) - -1
TEAM TOTALS: .278 (.304 expected) - -29 Hits
in 34 games the team is short 29 hits from bad luck and group slumpage. But we're not done yet.
HR/Fly
Doc raised the panic flag when he noted at one point near the end of April that the Mariners were hitting at 4% HR/Fly...I quickly responded with "that's just bad luck, Doc...no team has ever had a 4% HR/Fly since the parks got smaller and the ball got livelier." As proof of this...let's count how many HRs the Mariners are currently missing based on player career average HR/Fly adjusted to account for the difference between their career average park and Safeco Field (which suppresses HR/Fly by about 2%...from 11.2 to 9.4 in the last five seasons).
- ROB JOHNSON: 7.1 (4.3 career) - 0
- ADAM MOORE: 0.0 (12.4 in the minors) - -1
- CASEY KOTCHMAN: 11.1 (9.0 career) - 0
- MIKE SWEENEY: 7.7 (Reasonably close to expectation) - 0
- CHONE FIGGINS: 0.0 (3.0 career) - -1
- MATT TUIASOSOPO: 0.0 (10.5 in AAA, but only 5 big league fly balls so far) - 0
- JOSE LOPEZ: 2.4 (7.4 career, higher in recent seasons) - -2
- JACK WILSON: 0.0 (4.5 career, 3.5 recently) - -1
- JOSH WILSON: 12.5 (8.0 in the minors, 6.5 or so in Safeco expected) - 0
- MILTON BRADLEY: 8.0 (14.7 career, 18.9 2007/2008, played in a lot of pitchers parks aside from one year in TX and one year in CHC) - -2
- FRANKLIN GUTIERREZ: 8.3 (9.8 career, 11.5 last year in Safeco) - -1
- ICHIRO SUZUKI: 2.6 (6.5 career) - -2
- ERIC BYRNES: 0.0 (8.9 career, no recent fall-off), Safeco would drop this to around 7% - -1
- MICHAEL SAUNDERS: 33.3 (LOL!...2 for his first 6 FBs...we'll call one of those lucky) - +1
- RYAN LANGERHANS: 16.7 (1 for 6...too small a sample to worry about) - 0
- KEN GRIFFEY JR.: 0.0 (13.1 last year, assuming continued decline, maybe 7.5 would be reasonable) - -2
TEAM TOTALS: 4.8% (8.4 expected) - -12 HRs lost
Would Doc be in full fledged panic mode re: the power on this club if they were running an 8.4% HR/Fly and had hit 28 HRs instead of 16? He'd be saying it was a weakness...but he certainly would not be saying the club literally could not win the west with that kind of power. 28 HRs in 34 games, BTW, is a pace for 133 total HRs, which is dangerously close to my projected 145 HRs...and plenty enough power to contend...not ideal, but enough to get by if your pitching and defense are good.
And then there's PythagenMatt
The team is 13-21 for a .382 W% and has scored 114 and allowed 136 runs (.423 PythagenPat...that's -1 win of seasonal luck...but it actually gets worse. Our PythagenMatt W% right now is .454 (LOL). We're losing a lot of one-run games...we're in most of these losses and getting very unlucky (3-7 in one-run games...should be 5-5)...So...as bad as we've been playing offensively (mostly due to horrible luck!)...we've been unlucky in the pure results too. We should be 15-19 right now even with the bad luck on offense. With better luck, we project to have scored 148 runs by now...that would make us an 18-16 team.
SNAKEBIT...in the extreme.
Slumps happen...this team will rebound. It may be too late to save the west, but there are going to be good months of baseball to watch and we're not gonig to fade completely out of contention...if Jack Z wants to win, he can still make one or two well-placed deals and put this club in position to rally and take the west.
Comments
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Johnson is going to be a solid catcher with the bat once his BABIP equalizes...he's got a good eye and can get on base...that's all I need. Bard is a solid SOLID back-up...Moore needs to go down and remember how to hit.
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I rarely get to see anything live of the M's. I just read so much of the negative to Johnson, especially with the PB's of late. It is nice to have sobriety brought back in and some blanks filled in!
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Definetly.
We're the opposite of the 2009 Angels offensively. I should have forseen that collapse coming. They were ridiculously lucky in BABIP AND high leverage hitting.
Even so, the offense is poor and the Rangers have had a couple things pan out even better than I thought. I think the division is a long shot at this point. I had Texas winning by 5 games over 2nd place, but it looks like its going to be more than that.
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They're a good ballclub...no doubt about it...their pitching looks better than I thought at first, though I still don't like their bullpen outside of Feliz.
I think their offense is WAY overrated though, as is their defense.
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Okay, I get the concept that the Ranger offense is perceived to be better than it is.
But I don't at all get why you believe their defense is over-rated.
In 2009, just like Seattle, they made a quantum leap in defensive performance. While they were not as good as Seattle, they ended 2009 3rd in DER - ahead of Tampa. That has GOT to be considered an amazing feat, given the realities of their home park, (DER doesn't get park adjusted).
So, what do we see in 2010? Tampa, Yanks, Oakland, Texas, Seattle as the top 5 teams in DER. Oakland is the only one of the top DER teams in 2010 that was not also a top 5 DER team in 2009. How many months of turning BIPs into outs does Texas have to string together before they are "for real?"
Honestly - they've got a guy OPSing at 33 playing CF -- so their CF defensive performance could take a hit if/when they make a move there. But, I don't see ANYTHING about the current Texas defensive lineup that suggests abberation. They've only got one guy over 30 playing defense (Mike Young at third).
Total Zone even has them 3rd in the AL -- (though there is a significant gap between Tampa and Seattle in the first two slots, and the rest of the league).
I just don't get why you think they aren't a top 5 defensive team. Who do you think is actually better?
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For example, they've been forced to play Vlad Guerrero in right field to cover for the absence of Nelson Cruz, and they've swapped from Davis (by all accounts a well above aveerage first baseman) to Smoak (by all accounts a large human whom, if the ball lands directly in his glove, can occasioally make the play...there for his power, not his defensive brilliance). I'm not saying Texas is a bad fielding team...I think they are above average defensively...I just don't think they match with Tampa Bay, Seattle, Oakland or, when everyone is healthy, Boston defensively.
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I'd agree that they are more likely to be top 10 than elite defensively, but I think Texas just flat has a superior roster to the rest of the division. They can pitch, they can hit, and they can play defense. They also have the most upside in talent AND the most depth in the minors.
Smoak will win ROY if he continues these peripherals (once the BABIP rebounds) and they just called up Holland. Their best position player (Cruz) is going to return from the DL this weekend.
A lot of people thought I was crazy for calling Texas by 5 games over the rest of the division when they were sub .500 at the time. Right now, I think its going to be more than that.