If those shlubs can whack out some doubles (you can live without the taters).....say a 35-42/162 game pace, then you can roll offensively. Only Seager and Saunders are on that kind of pace. We need some gappers. Or Carp to heal and return to 2nd half '11 levels.
I"m going right to the head of the line and putting Felix in the Maddux class, over the M's recent 20-11 run. That coincides (roughly) with The King's last 7 starts: 5-0 (Guys, he hasn't lost since JUNE 12th!), 56.1 innings (That's 8-innings per, guys), 27 hits, 9 ER's (1.4 ERA), 46 K's, 9 walks, 3 shutouts (two of them the 12 K variety, one of them the el perfecto grande).
WHIP is something like .6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Doc, remember APBA baseball? In high school I was all over that game. I replayed the 1971 season twice, once with a redraft. These are Vida Blue+ type numbers.
Remember this run guys. You may never see a better one from a hometown guy. Even Felix. OK...You WILL never see a better one.
moe
Ghost sez,
So...um...why is no one talking about the current Mariners' on-field performance anymore? In case you chowdah-heads missed it, the team is only 8 games out of the WC lead, has won 20 of its' last 31 games .... Doc...where are the articles about the current Mariners? I dig the scouting reports...I dig the discussion of future roster maneuvers...I'm not trying to be contrarian, but...the Mariners had your attention after they won seven in a row and seem to have lost it on that five-game losing streak...well take the longer view and add it up and they're playing some darned good baseball since the AS break. So...why aren't we happy?
Court hereby in session.
You figure it's going to take a 27-13 record from here, give or take a coupla wins, in order to make a run. If the M's got 27, 28 wins from here to the wire, they'd wind up 8-10 games over .500 and that easily could grab a Wild Card slot. It could miss out, too. But by that token, 26-14 and +6 over could also nab a spot, especially if the 26 wins came against key teams ahead of them.
So, just for fun. Supposing you could take the 2012 Mariners for that run, or you could take a Strat-O-Matic historical team like this, which would you take?
SP1 - Christy Mathewson or Walter Johnson (your pick)
SP2 - David Cone or Kevin Appier
SP3 - Brad Radke or Doug Fister '10
SP4 - Jamie Moyer or Jimmy Key
SP5 - Tim Hudson (2H) or Derek Lowe (2H of career)
CL - Francisco "KRod" Rodriguez or John Wetteland
...........
LF - Some mediocre shlub
RF - Some mediocre shlub
1B - Some mediocre shlub
C - Ted Williams or Lou Gehrig (all right, we'll say Mike Piazza in a career year, 1995, .350/.400/.600)
SS - Some mediocre shlub
3B - Some mediocre shlub
DH - Some mediocre shlub
CF - Somebody hitting like .150
2B - Some mediocre shlub
..................
Here's the question. Would you be enthused about taking this Strat-O-Matic team down the last six weeks of the 2012 AL Wild Card race?
Let's not quibble about it for the moment; we'll give the rationale next post. But the above lineup is essentially what the Mariners have been playing with the last 30 days.
Historically, this Great Rotation and One Hitter shtick reminds me of some of Whitey Herzog's St. Louis Cardinals teams, who had one great hitter (Jack Clark), a lineup of shlubs around him (some years Clark was the only hitter with a 100 OPS+), and a rotation stacked with guys like Joaquin Andujar, John Tudor (21-8, 1.93 ERA in 1985), Bob Forsch, Danny Cox etc.
Also some early Bobby Cox Braves teams fit this description. The 1992 Braves had only Pendleton and Justice, both around 120 OPS+, but Rafael Belliard gave that back all by himself with a 37 OPS+. Their pre-Maddux rotation carried their dreary 93 OPS+ offense to 98 wins. Also in 1999, Chipper didn't have a lot of help offensively; their OPS+ was 96. But their pitching staff had one of its best years -- a 123 ERA+! -- and they won over 100 games.
You could have a lot of fun looking up great pitching staffs carried by one (1) hitter, which is how the Mariners have gone on their run. The way the Mariners are playing is completely sustainable, over a short span of (say) 40 more games.
Provided that John Jaso's night-in night-out heroics are sustainable, of course. :- )
.
Comments
The "gappers" aren't really finding success in the Safe this year, for whatever reason. Smoak didn't get his first Safeco double for months, Ackley had like a two-month gap without one, Montero's are all singles because he can't run... Not like the opposition's doing that much better. The 2012 Safeco effect isn't so much suppressing all balls in play (which it does a little) as suppressing all forms of XBH, especially doubles and triples. It's gotten a little better lately, but earlier in the season it felt like we could go entire series and neither team would hit one double or triple.
We need total XBH per position to be about that...2B+3B+HR. Here are the Mariners, by position per 162:
C) 61 (!)
1B) 38
2B) 40
3B) 48
SS) 28 (ew)
LF) 49
CF) 58 (eeeeexcellent)
RF) 43
DH) 35 (ew)
So...in terms of line-up position power, our problems are DH, 1B and SS. The outfield is actually hitting OK overall though RF is going to become a problem if we don't get help from Thames/Wells at all. We have enough pop to hang tough against good pitching and wallop bad pitching.
In my day, they covered half the card with stuff like pitchers batting, offensive linemen kicking field goals, stuff like that ... it was awesome :- )
One of my fondest childhood memories. Getting my S-O-M/APBA player cards in the mail and slobbering over the look of the superstars' cards :- )
Wouldn't it be fun to see Felix' ...
Although whatever it is, it's going to rise sharply with Eric Thames in right field...
Mariners hitters, Safeco: 78 2B, 4 3B, 32 HR
Mariners hitters, Away: 104 2B, 17 3B, 71 HR
The pitchers' SLG allowed is way, way lower in Safeco, too, though FG doesn't carry doubles and triples numbers for pitchers.
At b-ref here.
Pitchers allowed 65 dbl, 8 tpl, 46 HR at Safeco in 552.0 IP
And allowed 119 dbl, 12 tpl, 83 HR on road in 554.0 IP
Home: 2.92 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 2.6 BB/9, 7.6 K/9
Away: 4.52 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 2.9 BB/9, 7.0 K/9
A glance at prior splits indicates they were somewhat less extreme, with the 2007 staff actually allowing more doubles at Safeco.