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Bismillah! We will not let him go, Dept.
1. It's very cool to have a AAA team that is one city down the highway. Nothing wrong with exploiting the extra 15 men on your roster, when a single-game situation calls for that. Calls for Pryor, as in.
Taijuan's ERA in the big leagues is 3.60, you realize. With a 21:11:2 three true outcomes in 25 innings. He's not exactly Brandon Maurer'ing himself out there.
It's a deft little "taxi squad" move until proven otherwise. Or maybe the M's read the right blogs and they want Taijuan to throw 100 changeups down in the strike zone, with arm action, so that he can take over the American League. Either way, I'm good. :- )
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2. Dutton guesses that the "TBA" is going to be an Attack of the Bullpen Tomatoes. Would that we did it three times per rotation turn.
It says here that almost any reliever can go 4-5 innings on zero notice. Let me read that sentence again. Most fans have been hypnotized by the choice to use those guys 12 pitches at a time. Come on. 60, 70 pitches, a little leaguer can do that.
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2a. We know you don't believe us. So reflect on the fact that for most of baseball history, it was routine to do this, when appropriate.
The M's themselves did it a few years ago, just called on one of their setup guys to throw the first 5 IP of a ballgame. No problem, of course. Was it Julio Mateo?
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2b. James Paxton could do this now, if so desired. In 1975, he would have done so. One can get too precious about babying pitchers, you know. Paxton ain't 21.
But that's not the point. It's a minor irritant to Dr. D that American coaches -- as opposed to Japanese coaches -- think that less work equals more strength. :: shrug ::
Yes, the belief is very widespread. As James put it this week, "widespread belief" is not "knowledge."
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2c. Roenis Elias' mistake rate is rising as the season grinds on. His problem is nothing other than "number of pitches that miss in a bad spot": that specific number is getting higher with time. Again: he's a rookie LHP, so no worries. But SSI won't shed any tears if/when Elias is shifted to the bullpen.
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3. SSI is fervently hoping that it's Tom Wilhelmsen who gets the first five.
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3a. SSI would also be fervently hoping that Wilhelmsen sustained 96 MPH, with the insane yakker, for those five. And that the M's then give him one more chance to do so. Jay Buhner says that if you get two hits you're in there again the next day ...
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3b. Were Dr. D a GM of expansion team #31, he would attempt to trade for Tom Wilhelmsen to make a starter out of him. He is the ideal RP-SP conversion candidate in baseball right now. It's not a guarantee, but it's worth a simoleon.
Great height and release point, starter's rhythm, Josh Beckett repertoire, experiences beginning to jell, Trevor Hoffman mileage on his arm, etc etc etc.
Wasn't Beckett like a 1-1 overall or something? Could somebody explain to Dr. D, in 1-syllable words so he can understand it, what Beckett had that Tom Wilhelmsen (physically) does not?
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3c. That's all just chatter. But wouldn't a Wilhelmsen start be fun?
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4. For what it's worth, I thought Phil Hughes was as good Tuesday as (say) Yu Darvish or Max Scherzer. The guy is a pretty well-kept secret, isn't he? After about inning #2, I was on "Fast Forward 3" most the game.
The Mariners' spin is that the last 5 games have been good enemy pitching, not bad friendly hitting. That has been MOSTLY Dr. D's spin, also.
Still and all, James Jones takes a reasonable little hack, going up the middle, and he puts up a tremendous struggle against elite pitching. The Mariners, it says here, are slow to adjust their ambitions against lights-out pitching. The A's hitters know they're underdogs.
Put a pitcher out there that the M's know is good -- let us say C.J. Wilson -- and the Mariners will calibrate their approach to match. Put a pitcher out there that they don't truly respect -- let us say any Oakland A pitcher -- and they overswing against pitchers' pitches.
Still. Let's give the enemy pitching some credit here. We do that when OUR pitches fire lockdowns, do we not?
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5. We are two up in the Wild Card.
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5a. Kendrys Morales had his shirt sleeves high last night. Who knew the man had guns like that. What a shame he was advised by Scott Boras this past year.
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Preamble. Who ever said that "percentage chance of winning the World Series" is the paradigm by which one makes decisions on July 31?
Suppose you use my definition: high-tension baseball games in September. Who made your definition the right one and mine the wrong one? Was the 1995 season, the one in which 50,000 people gave the ballclub a 20-minute standing ovation for losing its last game, meaningless?
For those who just joined us, 1995 is the reason there is baseball in Seattle. The M's aren't threatening to move, but the team "brand" and the fan following is not exclusively based on "percentage chance of winning the World Series." It is based on whether the local team goes to war.
We assumed that first definition, made it a given without first establishing the basis for it. SSI calls into question the "given." As do 30 GM's, incidentally.
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5b. There's a bunch of stuff, elsewhere, arguing against July trades for the Mariners. It's the usual Seattle shtick that --- > unless you are the heavy favorite to win, you should not try to win. If you are at all the underdog, you should be "responsible," which means --- > to run and hide from people who might punch you in the face.
We have literally seen people arguing that you should accept your fate, accept the season as pointless, avoid sacrificing anything to improve your team, even given that you SECURE the Wild Card game.
It's a bully mentality. We mean that in a good way.
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Check out this 90-second Vince Lombardi speech about "all that a man holds dear." It's impressive how prepared some people are to quit, at the slightest little shove to the shoulder. No, at SSI we'll view Safeco Field as an arena of battle, as opposed to a tournament chessboard.
Zduriencik does not shrink from two-fisted battle. He has spent his entire life competing. We'll definitely give him that.
Let's all give the Mariners a ::golfclap:: for the fact that tonight's ballgame means something enough that they're hectically juggling their 40-man in an attempt to win it. Whatever our complaints, right now we are eating ice cream.
Your friend,
Dr D
Per Divish: "But McClendon said the idea of Wilhelmsen as a starter has also intrigued him. 'I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t tell you I hadn’t thought about it,' McClendon said. 'He’s been impressive in the long role. It’s certainly intriguing and something that’s been on my mind.' "
The following is too long for a shout, and too short for a guest post. So I'm putting it here:
Regarding Montero: I've been looking at his stats closely, and I think we (and the scouting community as a whole, of course) made a serious misjudgement in his abilities, something the Yankees knew and exploited in the trade. Jesus could become one of the great all time lefty mashers, today in fact. He's so good at mashing lefties it really hides his ineptness vs. righties. And that ineptitude dogs him to this day.
The only thing holding Jesus back today is human biology - the scarcity of left handed pitchers. In fact, his recent prodigious thumping is almost largely due to the good fortune of having a spate of left handed starters, and a reliever or two, facing the Rainiers. This is something quite rare in the PCL, and Montero has taken full advantage of it. But his .759 AAA OPS against righties this season, while an improvement from his lifetime minor league mark of .722 since 2011 (a mere .728 in his second season at Scranton - the season Doc has suggested may have led to boredom), is still too low to translate into success in the majors as a DH or everyday DH/1B.
So, while Montero would be useful in a Greg Colbrunn kind of way on a major league roster, his overall value to a team is going to be very negligible (and that's unfair to Colbrunn, who actually hit right handers at a better clip in the majors than Montero has done in the minors). And that's why the Mariners sent him back down: he needs to improve against righties, and make a serious leap in doing so. Hitting him against right handers at the major league level right now will cost us games and sitting him will retard his development in that regard. I don't think boredom has that much to do with it. Right now it's simply a fatal flaw. It's really the one thing to watch as we follow his Tacoma box scores - he can mash lefties in his sleep in any league. But I think he needs to get that OPS against righties up to around .850 in AAA to become a full time DH in the majors. That's how good he is against lefties (.837 in the major leagues, 1.099 minor leagues since 2011 - which is as far back as the Minor League Central website will go). And actually, he is making some progress. But he needs to make more. If he does so, say in the following month, we could see him playing an important role in our stretch drive. We may anyway, come September when rosters expand.
“But that's not the point. It's a minor irritant to Dr. D that American coaches -- as opposed to Japanese coaches -- think that less work equals more strength. :: shrug ::”
Thank you as always Doc for all the excellent commentary! It’s always enjoyable to hear someone challenge “common sense”.
As someone who has trained with a number of kendo teams in Japan however (corporate and collegiate, plus seen the training methods of the police teams), I do have to question the argument above to a degree. There are certainly strong college programs that follow a “less is more” viewpoint in Japan. One example is Keio University. Since it is an academically rigorous university, daily practices (when Keio was ranked in the Kanto best 4, and the women’s team was #2 in all Japan) were just 1.5 hours a day. I asked the coach at the time how did they compete with the Kokushikans and Tsukuba’s with such little practice time, and the answer was one of efficiency and intensity. If there was only a short window of time a day, you had to focus completely and dedicate yourself to every moment. Furthermore, there was a need to practice and fight strategically instead of mechanically/physically (although in Tsukuba’s defense, they do an amazing job blending both approaches). Since Keio left that approach in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s they have actually lost success.
One other counter example is actually powerlifting. If you read the work by Jim Wendler, Dave Tate, or Mark Rippentoe, all discuss “leaving a bit in the tank” after practice and not working until failure. In other words, taking “baby steps”. Wendler’s 5/3/1 is basically built entirely on this premise, and it helped him and others become champion lifters. They argue that otherwise the injuries build up over time. It’s a long-term health/gain vs. short-term gain viewpoint, where one might have greater short-term power gains, but lose out over the long haul due to injury or stalling. Elitefts is one great place to see this concept in action. I coach an informal group of college powerlifters in Yokohama (all just starting out from scratch), so this process of how to balance strength gains while preventing injury has been a question that has troubled me greatly.
Again, these are examples from kendo and powerlifting, and they may well NOT translate to baseball. However, I thought it might add to the conversation to diversify the image of Japanese sports training a bit.
Just my two cents. Hope they help!