Not a huge fan of his...because he frequently says really ignorant, mind-bendingly illogical things when he gets excited. I'm not opposed to having the PBP guy be a bit of a homer...getting excited when the home team plays well. I think that can add to the experience of being a fan. But Dave has a tendency to completely lose his mind when something good happens. Endy Chavez goes 2-3 with a BB a couple of weeks back and he says "You GOTTA love this guy! He's my new favorite Mariner veteran! He's on FIRE here...what a professional!" When they called up Ackley the first time in 2011, he went 1-4 on the first day and Simms described at as "history in the making!"
Rick Rizzs is a bit of a homer...chirping excitedly at the good things, bemoaning the bad...but he's not a Pollyanna. Dave Simms is a Pollyanna. On prozac. At Disneyland. In bed with the Missus (if you know what I mean). After a lobotomy.
Logan Morrison hitting right now...means he'll get to keep playing and it might cost Smoak some ABs out of the shoot while they try Corey Hart at DH. But to assume that Simms' excitement matches the excitement of Mariner management...especially Jack Zduriencik - who got Smoak to save the offense and has stuck with him all these years - is, IMHO, rushing the judgment a bit.
.
Not that Dr. D is like Mr. LoMo fan. But there are some things we dutifully report:
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June 13, 2014
Nick Tepesch threw Morrison a pitch, forget what it was, and Morrison hit it 15 rows deep. Smoother than country butter on gramma's biscuits.
... except the ball was caught on the warning track. We replayed it many times, blinking through the tears :: choke :: trying to figure out why it wasn't upper deck. (Well, aside from the fact that upper deck in straightaway center-right is about 500 feet here.) One thing we noticed was that LoMo admired the HR off the bat for a long second, then turned quizzical, then turned something else.
We wrote it off to Safeco, then crumpled the sheet and nestled it carefully in the litter box. Almost, that night we sez almost, we wrote up a less-than-smooth piece about how the Mariners will never get a lineup together in Safeco. M's lost 0-1, by the way, another 1-0 loss for Felix. That's 38 times he has allowed 0 or 1 runs, and not gotten the W.
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June 11-23, 2014
Logan Morrison has continued to look like .350 standing still. Well, .350 swinging the bat. Just to give you a f'r instance:
- His swings-out-of-zone are a paltry 24% since coming back up
- His swings IN zone are 68% since then, for a 68:24 ratio (better than Cano and Seager over that time, and those two are hot)
- He has not gotten an INCH greedier, despite the Safeco ripoffs
- He weighs like 245 lbs. and could probably dunk from a step inside the foul line
That last point is decidedly in contradistinction to one Justin Smoak, as are all (a-l-l) of the points in the next section.
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June 24, 2014
A walk and four hits, including two (2) jacks. Just to illustrate the 3rd bullet point above...
... actually let's split this out. If 's all the same to you.
..........
What we were going to say, what got us onto this thing, was a weird remark by Sims after the second homer. "Can you say Wally Pipp!" Two possibilities:
- He was just reacting (we rather doubt it)
- He has hung around and heard some kidding, from shot-callers, about Morrison taking Smoak's job if Smoak doesn't hustle
As to the latter? We've gotten used to McClendon by now. Mike Hargrove (tm) he ain't. And Dr. D is blinkin' lovin' it. [APPDX D]
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2014-15
How good could Morrison be, like, what is his ceiling? Shandler said "if he's healthy, he'll hit RHP - UP: .270, 20 HR" and that's a little modest. Morrison's OPS+ was 120 in his first two go-rounds at ages 22 and 23 ... you could find a bunch of hulking LH All-Stars with mediocre EYE ratios, such as Cliff Floyd, who weren't nearly as good as Morrison in their early 20's. Ryan Klesko was similar in EYE (when young), in weight and in swing, but then again Klesko has a career OPS+ of 128.
Here is Spectator's pre-season thumbs up, and here is an article that posits camouflaged young stars to have a hotter smolder, and a Rauuuul-like followthrough, as opposed to the general population.
I dunno, but if Morrison wants to smolder for another month or two, 's ok by us. Y'never know where your next meal's coming from.
Cheers,
Dr D
Comments
That was my thought, too, Doc. Simms wasn't just speaking out of his ear, but there had been some off-air discussion between he and Blowers about Smoak not having a job waiting for him when he is un-DL'ed. I quickly grokked that such discussion probably went to M's coaches, too. I actually thought about HoJo, but I have no clue who Simms and Morrison have a post-game beverage with in the hotel lounge. It was interesting that Simms ran away from his comment pretty quickly, too: Back-tracking, as it were. Almost like he realized, "Oops, shouldn't share that."
In his 1st year and a half in the bigs Morrison produced at a 120 OPS rate. Part of that was fueled by a ridiculous vL line his frosh campaign: .342-.461-.466 with a BABIP of .446 (89 PA's). But he hit RHP to the tune of something close to .810, even with a BABIP of .256 in year two, his first full year.
'12 was just a lousy year. I suspect he still had lingering issues from his off-season knee surgery. The he had mid-season surgery. '12 is just an outlier year and should be discarded as some sort of indicator light.
'13 was a bounce back vs RHP. .778. Nicely done. But he was only 13 for 71 that season vs. lefties, with just 3 doubles.
So what we have is a guy who has demonstrated in his three healthy years that he's a .800 OPS guy vs. RHP, with patience (he walks 90 pts over his career) and pop. We saw that last night. He's not a BA guy, really But he is better than Smoak. And he's a year younger. And he's cheap for a couple of more years. Keep him out of RF please, however.
Cliff Floyd ran a .300-.380-.535 line for 4 seasons during the middle of his career (ages 26-29). That isn't Morrison. But Klesko for 26-28 may well be. Klesko for Capps would be a B.Beane like pilfer job.
If Hart is our DH heading into the 2nd half, the Smoak doesn't have a home. And he probably doesn't have much of a trade market. And he doesn't mash lefties like Montero.
Wally Pipp, indeed.
Saunders is about to "solve" our RF black hole (a reminder here: This Saunders is essentially the same Saunders we've seen for the last two seasons. He isn't Frank Robinson) But Ackley and Chavez need to move out.
In lieu of an acquisition (depressing as that thought may be), I'm all in on Ty Kelly getting the call (Mea culpa: I was wrong. I bet that yesterday was the day we made that move). Gimme' a guy to get on base. But Endy's triple, over a drawn-in OF, will get him another 7 starts, or so. Sigh.....
Good stuff, Doc. As always.
Go team.
Moe