Jack said it, not me:
..........
First ups, Avila set Wilk a two-strike target low-away, right on the outside corner at the knees. Wilk snapped off a hard breaking pitch right on the black, and six inches BELOW the target.
Montero threw the bat head at the Outside of Zone (OOZ) ball and softly lined it down the RF line for a looong single and the lead. An Edgar Martinez trick.
Here's the video. Don't stop till you get enough, MJ... till you grok that "throw" action, that is. This is Ichiro-, Gwynn-level HIT application here. The still photo, if you don't care to click over to the highlight reel:
ate what the scouts, such as Jack Zduriencik, see in the dude.
The scouts have always slobbered over Montero because he is a hitter first and a power guy second. Like Edgar. Take Edgar Martinez, subtract 60 walks, but add who knows how many home runs, and that's what it looks like you've got here. I just can't get over Jesus Montero's ability to cover the strike zone.
It is worth remembering. Jack Zduriencik thinks that he got Albert Pujols back for Pineda. Forget whether Montero actually is Pujols. Suppose he's a bit less; suppose he's only Mike Piazza, a .320 hitter with 35-40 home runs.
He's had a .280 average in his first April. This performance does not contradict the expectations.
.
Thanks for referring people to the isobaseball web site. Dr. Yeager has figured out a way to take years of studying the science of the perfect swing and be able to explain it for everyone to understand and put into practice. Please reach out to us should you want to learn more about Isobaseball.
Smoak just cranked a three-run jack in the first of the final Tigers game and Noesi is pitching well so far. Maybe we can complete this sweep afterall. :D
I re-dated my blogs and I messed up the link showing whip and throwing the barrel. Can you please re- link to our blog at isobaseball.com - Don't swing the bat, throw the barrel or the blog that lists the seattle sports insider article. Sorry for the mess up!
Was looking at the Mariners' overall luck stats (I call them luck stats because large differences from expectation are generally a result of small sample anomalies and not real skill...but some skill may be at play...this disclaimer will now appear in every post I make here to avoid Sandy accusing me of thinking everything is luck)
Montero and Smoak are getting hosed right now in that regard. They've had their share of bat at bats, but they've also been repeatedly robbed on line drives and served a helping of frustrating bad reOh...and one other thing:sults with men in scoring position.
But they're just the unluckiest on the team (minus a few of the lesser contributors and of course...Ichiro). The whole team is unlucky in the extreme and the various "luck" stats are 95% aligned against them.
Team LD%: 23.2
Team BABIP: .281 (49 points of delta, normal is 100)
**note that Safeco suppresses BABIP, but mostly because line drives turn into fly balls there due to the heavy air...not because line drives that actually get scored as line drives have less chance of being hits
Team CT%: 81.9 (dead on league average)
Team SW-S%: 8.3% - near the bottom in baseball (suggesting they shouldn't be striking out at a league average rate but much less...many many called third strikes)
Team O-SW%: 25.9 (third from the bottom)
Team Z-SW%: 63.4% (league average) - so the Ks aren't happening because of bad strike zone judgment...when it's a strike, we swing as often as anyone else...when it's a ball we're not swinging
Team Z-CT%: 88.9% (third in baseball) - so...when we swing at in-zone pitches...we make great contact...this means our Ks aren't happening because we're not hitting in-zone strikes or takign them more often than normal...it has be bad luck or inordinantly good pitching.
Team O-CT%: 65% - low-normal...so...we're not fanning on out of zone pitches any more than average
Team Pitches/PA: 3.78 (league average...so it's not like we're sitting there with the bat on the shoulder in bad counts and getting racked up for extra Ks)
Team HR/Fly - 8.3% (7th worst in baseball - Safeco in April likely has some affect on this as does the quality of pitching we faced...but this rate will not continue into the summer...especially not when you note this:
Team GB/FB: 1.04 (third from the bottom)...we're hitting it in the air a LOT...if we keep doing that and hitting homers on those airballs when the weather warms...the homers may strart coming in bunches.
Oh...and one other thing...
Team Offensive Clutchiness (using WPA) - +0.41 (slightly clutchy)...meaning we've been a tad lucky on high leverage plays...but not by much
I'm having a hard time finding any stat commonly used to address luck/small sample variation that shows the Mariners getting any advantage. This won't be true forever.
On the heels of another Jesus HR, the Montero trade is not well-received over there.
"Right now, our hopes and dreams for this player are in jeopardy," Cashman said of Pineda. "Hopefully, someday, our fans will get to see what we expected to see from him for many years to come."
..."This is a massive decision gone wrong right now," Cashman told ESPNNewYork.com on Friday. "So all scrutiny is fair."
Cashman has asserted the Yankees had subjected Pineda to an MRI before the trade became official, but doubts linger whether the Mariners and their GM, Jack Zduriencik, knew the 23-year-old right-hander was damaged goods when the Yankees made the deal.
"How can you not ask a question like that?" Cashman said. "It's a fair question, but I can tell you we did everything possible to be sure Michael Pineda was healthy."
Tiiiiiiicked off. And I don't blame them, I would be too. After this and the Cliff Lee deal, I don't think Cashman can afford to trade with Jack again. The court of public opinion would crucify him. Maybe if we offered him one of the Big Three... but he has nothing left we want. *insert maniacal laughter*
I found this interesting:
As he had on Wednesday, Cashman absolved the Mariners and Zduriencik of any blame in the matter.
"The focus should be on me and the New York Yankees, not the Seattle Mariners," he said. "I'm responsible. I'm the decision-maker."
Cashman said he, too, had wondered about the condition of Pineda's shoulder during spring training, when he struggled to get his fastball above 90 mph on a consistent basis.
"I asked him several times through an interpreter if he had ever been in an MRI tube at Seattle," Cashman said. "Each time, the answer was the same.
"Nunca."
Never.
Cashman did NOT absolve us of guilt, he said it's his fault regardless of whether we were shady. In that quote he's asking Pineda flat-out if we gave him an MRI, noticed something they didn't notice, and didn't tell them before trading them a broken pitcher.
And he said that publicly.
Ticked. Off.
Montero's got one of the most ungainly HR trots I've seen in a while - Kirk Gibson on a bad wheel looked better - but I'm glad I'll be seeing it for years to come.
Best of luck to Pineda - not as much to the Yanks. And no, I'm not sorry at all about taking you to the cleaners. Enjoy Campos though.
~G
Sorry...but any sour grapes in NY....any claims that we hid some injury and that the Yankees weren't given the facts...are their problem, not ours. We offered them a deal in good faith (Z said it was a hard deal for him to make) and they had every chance to scan his arm for problems. I'm not buying this shtick about Seattle being a bad faith team.