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BLUE FUNK
Mojo sez -
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Happ had blue funk. It is a disease that saps 100 percent of professionalism, manhood and ability out of its sufferers, and is fatal to a career. The only cure is to trade or DFA the infected player. Usually, as soon as the player takes off the Mariners jersey, he has a complete recovery. Blue funk is mostly known to affect hitters, the most severe case being Kendrys Morales, but it can and does affect pitchers as well. When a player is suspected of blue funk, it is important to quarantine him, usually via the 10 day DL, to make sure the infection doesn't spread. I'm not sure why Danny Valencia isn't being tested and quarantined. Maybe JeDi is so confident in his trading abilities that he thinks he can handle a full blue funk epidemic, or maybe there were so few people left over from the Z regime that they didn't leave notes about blue funk.
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This disease is nonexistent in the Americas, wherein High School players receive their DPT shots and Blue Funk shots on the same Office Day reporting to 10th. In America you sign a deal and you throw your best pitch until the inning immediately preceding Free Agency.
In English Premier Soccer, however, the Funk is as much a part the fabric of the sport as is chewing an opponent's arm off at the elbow if he's been stepping on your foot all day. There, if you have 18 months to go on your contract and demand out, the club flushes you out within 10 days maximum. This is to prevent clownish, half-hearted "ok, let's see if you like lousy performances any better" displays from spreading to other players on the pitch.
In baseball they will occasionally see a Taylor Motter flourish and rather than say:
1) NOT CORRECT The Tampa Rays sure didn't know what the deuce to do with THIS kid, now did they
2) CORRECT That head case Motter sure benefitted from a change of scenery, didn't he
The 'net rat "Book" on Taylor Motter is that you couldn't throw an inside heater by him any more than you could throw a Steelix evolution stone past a Pokemon Go pedestrian. It then becomes a finger-trigger game whether the SP can hit a called strike on a low-away slider vs. falling behind in the count, is 'cause Motter already has shown very little inclination to chase those pitches.
Right now Dr. is leaning a little more, and a little more, and a little more, forward in his seat on Taylor Motter. He's at .253/.333/.629, as opposed to Zack Cozart's LIFE .243/.293/.390.
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Mojo seems to be crediting Dipoto with the Carroll-type magnetism that brings disaffected players into The Happiest Place on Earth. 's worked for Maniger and Motter. Perhaps a Moyer-Moore bromance is in the cards next?
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10% OF THE WAY INTO THE SEASON
20 - Wins for Zeus, pro-rated
220:40 - CTL ratio for Zeus (but check this space tomorrow)
10 - WAR, Zeus (but check this space tomorrow)
10:160 - Rectangular EYE ratio for our catcher
150 - Runs scored, Maniger
150 - RBI, Maniger
20-10 - Won loss record for Felix, in front of this catatonia-inducing batting lineup
200:10:50 homers for Felix, setting about 14 records across various Almanac columns (e.g. "most wins per BLS")
131 - Runs for Jean Segura, deducting his 10-Day jaunt to Vegas for some R&R
0.69 - WHIP allowed by Rzepczynski, leaving him solidly in the 8th inning for the ALCS
UP - stock of every single RP chosen by Dipoto, except perhaps Fien and Scribner (but Scribner is just the 10% thingy)
SLIGHTLY UP BUT UNCHANGED IN STRATIFICATION - the stock price of He Who Must Not Be Named
WAY DOWN - the stock price of the Mariner starter that Dr. D would most like to go to Benihana's with
EVEN STEVEN - the stock price of the #6 starter
13:1 - M's stolen base record
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NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL SCRUBS
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The guys banking $1,000,000 every biweekly paycheck have been well aware of the nerd baling the season out during their post-WBC hangover. This road trip it's time for them to throw in.
Nice to not have to NEED your stars, huh. By the way amigos ... "Stars & Scrubs" does not refer in any way to the performance of a player. It refers to his initial cost. Thus if you were drafting a 23-man rotissirie team, Felix Hernandez at $27 would be a "Star" but Mitch Haniger at $8 would be a "scrub." Still more would Taylor Motter be an "uber scrub", probably available for $0 on the waiver wire. The fashionable thing is to tank up on $10 Steady Eddies but this doesn't allow you to swap the $2 player in and out as they get hot.
James Paxton's cost going in to the season was $9, per Shandler. Gallardo's was -$4. It's not like Dr. D was alone in his trepidation here.
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MANIGER
Yes, we saw the Ancient Chinese Secret in which he decided to hit the bottom half of the ball, into the middle wedge of the field. You'll pardon me for getting stuck on the fact that about 90% of minor league players have tried this at one time or another. Starting at least as far back as Carl Yasztremski.
I know I'm being stubborn here, but great players show FLASHES of stompifying lower leagues at younger ages. Still don't get when it is he was supposed to have flashed hit talent.
The question is moot. He's on a 12-game HIT streak and HIT is not his strength. PWR is. It's like you told me Ichiro was on an 8-game homer streak. What's that tell me? That his mother was visited by aliens?
Maniger and K-Pax are the two most vital assets to hit the Puget Sound since, oh, Michael Pineda if not even back to 2005 when Felix got here.
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MANIGER'S ROY
About half of Denizens will remember the 88-74 1974 Red Sox coming up with Fred Lynn CF and Jim Rice LF. In 1975 those two as rookies finished #1 and # in the MVP (not ROY) voting, and then we had that Best World Series Ever Played against the Big Red Machine.
This could no longer happen today -- the WAR voting, not the great Series -- because we go by WAR and Trout will win that. But you have Dr. D's blessing to keep us posted on the ROY race. Is here is where you find that, and Maniger has lapped the field. Especially on that East Coast darling, Andrew Benintendi.
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BACKUP SP's
Both the beat writers continue to insist that the fastest Moore and Povse would be promoted is AA in July and maybe MLB in 2018. I don't see why, do you?
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HIT THAT THUMBS-UP BUTTON
Or if you can't find one, throw us a comment to us-all to read in the morning :- ) We are wayyyyy behind the curve on M's news. SportSpyder us into a fare-thee-well Wednesday morning. Probably live-blogging the Paxton victory in this Shout Box, too!
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Happy Zeus Day,
Dr D
...why not Heston? 19K/4BB in 17.0 IP right now, with only 17H/1HR/6ER (or any other kind of R for that matter). There's your stopgap back to Smyly... and a potential band-aid if neither Gallardo nor Iwakuma are going to truly be able to make it through the season.
Paxton-Haniger-Segura (haven't forgotten about him yet)-Motter. What a (start to the) season.
You'll find that often an SP who has a lot of experience in the majors can plow thru AAA pitchers with savvy. Don't know whether Heston is doing that, or whether he's finding his groove. 's a good Q.
1) His CT% has always been above average, at every level
2) His minor league BABIP has always been well above average...at every level...even when other parts of his game didn't materialize, and it's because he's always hit the ball fairly hard...even when it was grounders.
He's always been a 65 HIT, 65 PWR guy...just not playing to his level...at least that is how I read it.
By the numbers:
His career BABIP in the minors: .349
His career in-play percentage: 83%
So he covers the ball (doesn't K) has a good eye (fairly high BB/K), and hits the ball hard (high BABIP). How is that not HIT, described fully?
And then some, of course. So I totally agree. I hadn't noticed the BABIP until I found that article yesterday and I wish I'd found it in November. The hype might have been even quicker because there's several things there people hadn't pointed out around Seattle until very recently. He's even over my ceiling slash line in all 3 at this point. I'm not worried about pitchers figuring him out.
In fact, Book June 6th vs Minnesota. You'll want to be at Safeco to see Haniger get a hit in #57.
If Haniger is a natural Abreu, or Trout, or Donaldson type, but the Arizona coaches seeing his legs were always on him to imitate Segura and Heyward, that would make sense. This happened to Buhner at times as a young player.
Jolly good show. Now I can watch for that and relax into the fun. :- )
Moore and Povse absolutely own Texas League hitters right now. I suppose somebody might call it luck, but that discounts the fact that they have basically dominated hitters at all levels in their brief professional careers; College hitters, too, for that matter.
And they both threw pretty dang well in ST, if you will remember. They get guys out.
I hate the idea that there is more seasoning to be had in Arkansas. There is some sort of possibility that Gallardo is meat, Kuma is gassed and Smyly is broken again.In that case, let's go with the best remaining starters we have, and they are likely named Moore and Povse.
It's "Just win, Baby." It isn't "Just protect an option year, Baby!"
Kuma to the 'pen, I get but there's fitment issues there with solid relievers returning in the next couple weeks. And the pen should be cut down to 7. Any day now.
The Rainiers have already used 6 Starters and they've all done pretty well. Who do you demote if you're bringing Moore or Povse up to Tacoma? Who even deserves the demotion or DFA? Gallardo, kind of...
But a 9:6:2 slash line in 16 IP, with a 4.53 FIP (63 ERA, 6.19) isn't quite going to gain him his freedom. Maybe if Dyson hadn't a robbed that HR...
Will cheerfully admit that in 3 games, Gallardo has thrown the ball a bit more representatively than expected. Three more like this, a notch better, and he may find a way to sink in there as #5.
Sigh....
But as to keeping around a MLB(TM) longtimer with a big salary, to carry water for Max Povse? Nada.
Did Zeus break the ERA+ machine at Baseball Reference?
I looked up to see what his ERA+ is and there is no entry for 2017..........
They do say 1.4 WAR for him so far! That's even better than the 1 WAR above *does happy Zeus Day Dance*
So here is my concern with Maniger.
How long before the league figures out how to get this kid out at the plate. Do any of you "experts" have any idea if you think he'll be able to adjust and not fail like the kids that came before him?
Or does that not happen and he continues to be the AL West version of Bryce Harper?
Who needs new Starting pitching? If we have Segura, Maniger, Cano, Cruz and Seager all hitting like they should it wont matter will it?
Cruz has his OPS+ up to 108. Segura was 118, Cano is 110. Seager....well someday he'll learn to hit in April but he's still at 100.
Bench Martin and let Heredia play. Bench Valencia and let Motter play.
Heck at that point we could trade for Ichiro and let him start instead of Gallardo. We'd be scoring 20 runs a game......
ok.
I'm done now
Like I been telling Matty, 0 isn't a number ... :- ) He couldn't run it to 4 games could he. Nahhhhhh. According to Fangraphs, he and Triggs are the two SP's left with 0.00. Who or what is a Triggs? An Orc, of course. 17.1 IP, 4.6 strikeouts, 2.0 walks. Very orc'ish of him.
On Maniger's swing holes Chuck. This was PRECISELY what the Mainframe dialed it up to 500x, the first half of spring training. From then till now we haven't seen a thing.
He holds up very comfortably on lo-away sucker pitches - better than Boomstick does, it seems. He gets the bat around with snake-tongue speed on jam pitches. He tops high pitches. He sticks his face wayyyyy down into knee-pounders and paintballs.
He lets the ball travel and takes a reasonable swing at it. In fact he could have 6, 7 homers right now if he were letting the bat fly, but he doesn't. Later he will. That's kind of the scary part. He's got a good turbo button in reserve that he's been laying off of.
They been trying to book him since they booked Valencia, Zuumball and Leonydas but can't find it. Either can I.
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The kid is just too good to be true. Honestly can't get why Arizona coughed him up. Probably like us and Guillen.
But like the depth you have of explanation.
I've seen pitchers try everything that's worked on Zunino at different times to no avail. He's not falling for the banana in the tailpipe. LL just showed he swings at things in the zone except up away which is nearly impossible to exploit for many pitchers. Everything else he has a tendency to clobber. What's a pitcher supposed to do?
if he keeps pitching like he has it's quite possible.
His last outting was the best one he's has so far
That means he's just starting to hit his groove.
19-year-old Cuban OF Luis Robert has been cleared to sign with an MLB club on May 20th. What big market team that's not the Angels, Blue Jays, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Rays, Red Sox, or Royals could use a phenom center fielder? The teams listed are likely ineligible to sign him as they are limited to $300,000 or less during the current signing period.
Filtered out the above teams:
Filtering out teams who wouldn't want to rock their CF boat: Astros, Twins, Orioles, Marlins, Phillies, Braves
Filtering out cash-strapped teams: Tigers (above lux. tax), Rangers (175/195 toward lux tax), Giants (172/195 toward lux tax)
and we're left with Seattle competing with the: Athletics, Indians, White Sox, Nationals, Mets, Cardinals, and Rockies.
Ben Badler leans toward the White Sox here back in March. Quoth,
"...most other teams are unofficially out of the mix because they have millions of dollars committed to players who will sign on July 2 in the 2017-18 signing period. If one of those clubs were to sign Robert before June 15 and blow past its bonus pool, that team wouldn’t be able to sign anyone for more than $300,000 in 2017-18. They can’t sign Robert without those commitments evaporating. And if for some reason Robert isn’t cleared until after June 15, those teams have already tied up a huge chunk of their pool space anyway."
Does anybody know if the Mariners are committed to any players who will need to sign on July 2?
In the past 2 weeks we've found the Haniger top side: .370-.463-.652 with a BABIP of .424. Guys, it is hard for any MLB'er, HOGF'er or not, to run a two week line much better than that. For the past 7 days, Haniger is at .458-.538-.682 w/.529 BABIP. There is almost no up from there.
The question we should ask ourselves is what is his bottom side? What does an 0-15 look like, or a 5-30. Just like every other MLB'er, he's got those in him.
Haniger has been incredible so far, even way above Matty's proposed line; Way way above mine (110 OPS). Matt wins that one.
But this stuff isn't sustainable. It just isn't. Well, maybe it is if you're George Brett and it is 1980. And even in '80 Brett only had a .368 BABIP (only 22 K's all season!).
So what we should be watching for is just how low his lows are, and where his in-between is.
Otherwise the implications are that Haniger is Trout. I'm not buying that.
He's pretty good and basically packing us.
But he will cool off.
you want to soberly assess the guy during a slump. If you still like Paxton after two losses, good on you. :- )
Will admit though that Haniger is an odd duck, because he looks rather Edgar like the plate, always brainy, in control of the zone ... that phrase gets over used doesnt it? Got to say at this point that 110 made perfect sense in ST but will be disappointed at that from here ...
if we were talking Motter then for sure. Haniger looks pretty special from here :- )
Trout like numbers are axing too much but ROY numbers?
I had .310/.430/.570 as a ceiling and he's clearing those. I am now sitting on those numbers as what I'll hope for including the low points. Also said he'd approach both 100 runs and 100 RBIs and I'm sticking to that.
was bound to happen at some point. He just couldn't get the curve over, I'd guess something like 3 of 15 were close to what he wanted in movement and location. Hopefully Kuma has an up game today.
Not all streaks were stopped by the orcs. Haniger still made it in base.