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I'm enjoying this series of writeups, Doc. Thanks!
M's 2, Rangers 3 - Slops and Props
PROPS TO FELIX for being a Seattle Mariner. They have a saying in golf, usually applied when assessing new golf courses -- "Par is supposed to be a good score."
If the Mariners come home from Oakland and Texas at 3-and-3, they're shooting par. Par in the best sense of the word.
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SLOPS TO ALEXI OGANDO for being "on" tonight. I thought we were supposed to get a #5 starter somewhere in the first five games?!
First three games were against the AL's best pitching staff. Next two were against two very-up-and-down young SP's who couldn't miss with their curve balls. GRRRRrrrrrrr.
C.J. Wilson will be a piece of cake Wednesday, by comparison. And if you were wondering whether it was Ogando, consider the fact that the Mariners immediately started up the 4-base merry-go-round the second that a reliever came into the ballgame.
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Dr. D knows that you don't think he knows what he is talking about. So here it is in the language y'unnerstand:
- Ogando's FB = 94.0 mph = #5 in the AL last year ... and over 60% strikes
- Ogando's Slider = -15 mph off that ... and 17 of 28 for strikes
If Ogando threw like that every game, he'd be Josh Beckett. The Mariners haven't caught a lot of weak sisters this week.
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PROPS TO THE HUSTLE BOARD, which caught the Mariners cruising through a mere 109 pitches while the Rangers used 142.
The pitch counts so far, through five games:
- G1 - Sea 108, Oak 184 (Cahill)
- G2 - Sea 122, Oak 175 (Anderson)
- G3 - Sea 147, Oak 141 (Gonzalez)
- G4 - Sea 139, Tex 152 (Holland)
- G5 - Sea 109, Tex 142 (Ogando)
Through five games, the Mariners have needed 169 fewer pitches than their enemies. Whatever caveats you want to slap on: Beltre and Lopez, this ain't.
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SLOPS TO BRIAN O'NORA, who blew a strike call on Josh Hamilton in the 6th. Right before Hamilton doubled with two strikes.
And later that inning, with two outs (instead of three), O'Nora blew another strike call on Michael Young, who hit a "3-1" pitch for a double and a second insurance run. Had the count been 2-2, Young would have been desperately trying to avoid a strikeout.
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PROPS TO MICHAEL PINEDA, who ... here, let's split this out.
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SLOPS TO MICHAEL SAUNDERS, who gathered himself and leaped at the wall in the 2nd inning -- as the ball bounced on the track two yards to his right.
Pineda was this gaffe, plus O'Nora's blown strike call on Hamilton, away from a shutout.
We're not making excuses, but it's not often that you bunch 5 hits, and no homers, to score 3 runs. The Rangers had 6 baserunners all night.
You think if the M's have 6 baserunners tomorrow morning, with no homers, they're getting 3 runs out of it? SLLLLLOPPPPPS!
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PROPS TO MILTON BRADLEY, who had a hit, a BB, and who has a 300/400/500 start going for himself.
PROPS TO ADAM KENNEDY, the other M on base twice. Kennedy's double was on a hard-breaking curve that was well inside off the strike zone.
The M's have three good middle infielders right now, none of them thinking about a 9-figure contract as is the kid in Cheney.
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SLOPS TO CHONE FIGGINS, who came up bases loaded 1 out, down 3-2, and who could have scored the runner with an out. He popped up on the infield.
This time there was no excuse; the pitcher was ordinary (Mark Lowe, who had given up 4 baserunners already in the inning). Figgins just didn't execute, and it was the ballgame.
Figgins is 3-for-21 with several plays like that.
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SLOPS TO PASCAL'S TRIANGLE again: on the next play in the 7th, 3 on 2 out, Milton Bradley's humpback liner juuuuust fell within reach of the CF Borbon, or the Mariners win the game.
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PROPS TO MICHAEL SAUNDERS, who had a gigantic base hit in the 7th inning.
Score 3-1, runners at 1st and 3rd, and Mariners fans wondering whether they should get back into the game .... Saunders lined a real tough pitch hard back into CF and in the space of three or four hitters, the M's win expectancy went from 12% to 50%.
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PROPS TO JAMEY WRIGHT, who early on is looking a little bit like Shigetoshi Hasegawa 2003. "Stability" isn't something that shows up in WAR, but the GM's think about it a lot.
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Par's a good score,
Dr D
Comments
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make a mechanical adjustment that makes you good?
Baker:
Wright, 36, had a 5.00 ERA in 466 major league games with 10 different teams over the years. But he made an adjustment last season in Seattle that he says has worked wonders with his curveball and sinker.
"It involves me just keeping my hands lower, that's it,'' Wright said.
Wright used to keep his hands real high, almost at eye level, when he'd come to the set positon before making a high leg kick. Now, he keeps them down near his belt buckle and it allows him to make a quicker delivery to the plate.
Wright credits former pitching coach Rick Adair, now with the Orioles, for the switch.
"He just told me 'When you're young, your arm will always catch up to you','' Wright said. "But when you get a little bit older, your arm all of a sudden starts lagging behind when you're going through your delivery.' ''
Wright's longtime nemesis has been an ability to consistently find the strike zone. The mechanical change, he added, has helped him better locate his heavy-moving fastball for strikes.
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I share your frustration with this snakebit feel the last three games...we could easily be 4-1 right now if not for a few really bad breaks that aren't likely to repeat too often over the course of a full 162.
Get Felix out there and get a W today and then hope you can run off some wins against lesser foes. It's nice that we have a team that plays baseball well enough to enjoy watching them again.
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No doubt, Pineda is a talent.
He managed 6 solid innings against a lineup that is on fire.
5 hits in 6 innings is always going to sound nice.
The downside is 10 bases in 5 hits - (no HRs, just fyi).
Bedard allowed only 4 hits in 5 innings the day before - but Texas managed 17 bases on 7 hits in that start. HRs will jack the total base count quickly, of course.
There are tons of ways to measure pitchers - K/BB, ERA ... but one measure generally ignored is opponent ISO. While there are certainly exceptions, I think one of the things that makes "ace" level pitchers, (remember, I watched Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz for a decade), is keeping "hard hit" balls to a minimum. That manifests itself in low ISO rates. IMO, ISO is a nice little proxy for experience and guile, (craftyness?).
What were the ISOs for the 2010 Seattle SPs?
Felix - .100
C.Lee - .101
Vargas - .148
Fister - .108
French - .190
Pauley - .142
The sample is waaaay too small on Pineda to draw any conclusions, (Felix stands at .209 at the moment and Bedard at .450). But, as talented as Pineda is, it will likely be his ISO that determines how good his 2011 season turns out.
That ability to not get hit HARD when you get hit is to a large degree what turns great throwing into great pitchers. Many don't quite get that Felix started out with ISOs of .140 his first couple of years, which have turned into 100s his last couple. His K-rate and K/BB rates didn't change drastically. His ISO allowed changed - and he went from a 4.50 to a .350 to a 2.30 ERA. SOME of that improvement is defense cutting doubles to singles - but lots of it is just avoiding line drives (and especially avoiding mistakes against the most dangerous hitters).
Pineda will likely get there ... he's certainly got the tools. Just remember that Felix had problems "perceived" as being overly aggressive early in his career. I don't believe it's about aggression - it's about experience - about knowing WHEN to not be quite as intent on catching the black vs. missing the black.
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...in Pineda's defense, two of those XBH he gave up were not hit hard. The triple was a deep fly ball but not a crushed deep fly ball...just had a ton of hang time and Saunders missed it for no reason. And the double to Hamilton was a routine fly ball as well that just happened to be in the gap. One thing...Pineda is not a groundballer like Felix so he'll probably never have Felix' dominant ISO...I doubt he'll be quite as good as Felix...but there's a ton of room between Felix and "solid #2/#1b starter in the bigs". :)
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We're in interesting ground when we say that a pitcher might avoid HR's, but be prone to giving up *doubles.* The general consensus is that if the ball's in play and in the park, then about the same things should happen for every pitcher.
Am not dogmatic about it, but I'd raise an eyebrow about the idea that Pineda might run a 0.9 homer rate, good K's and BB's but have *doubles* as an Achilles' heel.
Any pitchers for whom that is true on a career basis? Is there a doubles-stricken pitcher whose HR's are fine?
...........
Present company excepted, that was basically the blog-o-sphere's reaction to Pineda's start. "Boy, he fans guys and doesn't walk people, and probably won't give up homers, but 80% of his base hits tend to be in the gap."
:- )
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Me? I'm thinking Seattle likely has had a NUMBER of doubles-happy pitchers go through (undetected) - since the park is especially good at turning HRs into doubles. (Turns doubles into outs, too, of course).
IMO, the assumption that "he probably won't give up HRs" is based primarily on incredible faith in Safeco and dismissal of HR rate (1.3) at Tacoma, because the sample was small.
Honestly ... each time I discuss Pineda, I include my belief that he *WILL* eventually get there. I'm just not drinking the "He's Bob Gibson TODAY" Koolaid that seems to be going around.
Is he gonna strike guys out? Absolutely.
Is his control going to be impecabble? High confidence.
Is he gonna keep the ball in the park when facing guys like Dunn and Teixeira and Cabrerra instead of guys like Brad Nelson, Carp and Saunders? Not so fast, there Buckaroo.
Take Felix' HR rates: 1.1; 0.9; 0.8; 0.6 (last three years). It wasn't until Felix' 4th full season that he "put it ALL together". And that's when he jumped from 9-11 to 19-5. And, having read the discussions, he did not add some magic pitch after the 2008 season. His defense got better, yes. But, his HR rate dropped to 0.6, where it remains.
The HR rate is a "proxy" for all XBHs ... and a darn good one. But, the scale is so tight - and just one or two HRs in a season can skew that number, that I believe ISO is actually a more finely attuned stat for judging how hard a pitcher is getting hit.
Look at Vargas, Fister and Pauley in 2010:
Fister - 0.7 HR rate - .108 ISO
Vargas 0.8 HR rate - .148 ISO
Pauley 1.3 HR rate - .142 ISO
Because Pauley only had 90 innings, his HR rate is VERY susceptible to skewing. I think the ISO is a better tool for judging Pauley (and helps explain his better-than-Fister ERA to some degree).
I'm just saying if Pineda's ISO is high THIS YEAR, (which I expect it will be) - that is not a condemnation of him as a #2 SP.
Maddux, back in the day - in BAD years would run a .100 ISO -- but he was down in the 60s at his peak, and finished with a 108 for his career. Glavine was around 100 at his peak, retired with a 121 ISO. Smoltz had the best "stuff", but consistently ran the worst ISO of the Big Three, (which was still great, mind you), and ended at 123 - (never really had the off-the-charts great ISO, except during his reliever seasons - and he didn't have the extended Sunset that Mad Dog & Glavine had).
I'm just trying to manage expectations a little here.
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...keeping in mind that everybody, other than me, is pulling on the same side of the rope, managing expectations. :- )
Nobody's Bob Gibson, but the gospel according to SSI was: get ready for a top-20 AL starting pitcher, starting immediately. And (present company excepted) consider the imperative to play a 2011 season, along with obsessing over Fangraphs $/WAR mini-victories.
Pineda's not a finished product, but the pitcher holds the ball, and this kid is a leeettle better than Luke French. Now.