And Smoak is indeed headed toward the .800+ OPS mark (.919 since April 22), then I'm fine with letting Ryan be our Mark Belanger the rest of the way. And Franklin becomes an extremely good looking trade chip, doesn't he? Come June, we'll know what we have and what we'll need. Ackley's OPS, btw, is .764 since that April 22 date (the day after the Arlington Weekend Massacre).
I said I'd wait until the middle of May before deciding whether we are in a pennant race or not. I feel good about it right now. I say we go for it.
Gamers and Fighters. I love the holistic approach this site gives to baseball. Sabermetrics are welcome, even practiced with precision here. You have to know everything you can about troop strength when you go into battle. But just as science cannot replace the role of philosophy, sabermetrics cannot replace our understanding of the art of war as practiced in baseball. War is fought and won by warriors as well as by civilizations. McClellan vs. Lee. On paper it was no contest, but McClellan couldn't take the fight to the enemy, the way Ibanez did in New York.
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Rauuuuuuul, Dept.
After "HR - Ibanez 2 (6)" in the Bronx on Wednesday, he went on ESPN's Quick Pitch and praised his teammates highly. "We've got a bunch of gamers and fighters, and we're enjoying playing together," he sez.
Granted, Rauuul has always been an org guy, a leader in this respect. But his statement is also accurate. The Mariners do have gamers now. Kyle Seager is a "gamer." Obviously Rauuul is. You can name your own list, and it isn't a short one.
.............
The average fan, like you and me, probably has no way to comprehend what it's like going from AAA to ... well, to being on ESPN, to walking out into triple-deck stadiums, to playing in front of 12 slo-mo TV's, to going up against all of the computers and scouting reports that tear a player's strike zone limb-from-limb.
It's got to be another thing entirely, to go into the city of New York and play in Yankee Stadium.
............
Going into Yankee, Eric Wedge decides to put Raul Ibanez into the lineup. Ibanez is a man who is completely at ease, playing under that level of pressure and scrutiny. And if you've ever played a team sport, you know that when the pressure is on, the way your teammates carry themselves affects your own confidence.
I don't know why we make so much effort in Seattle to minimize this factor; in other cities, they really don't. It's hard to understand why we want so much, in Seattle, for baseball players to be nothing more than Strat-O-Matic cards. But they're really not.
............
I wasn't supportive of the Raul Ibanez addition. I argued what I so often do: that there is a case to be made for it, that it was not an unintelligent decision, that few such decisions are. But I'd rather see young talent than a retread.
But this is a fact we should acknowledge, in the name of objectivity: Jack Zduriencik intended to build a roster full of "gamers and fighters." Since Eric Wedge flipped over the buffet tables in Texas, that's exactly what Jack Zduriencik has.
Every GM wants gamers, you say. Well ... some of them take flak for going overboard about it, for carrying guys like Raul Ibanez. They used to say about Pat Gillick, that the best thing about him was that he had a fine feel for a 25-man roster and the way guys would interact. At the moment, that is precisely what you are seeing in Seattle.
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Another subject.
Dr. D doesn't give two flying flips about lineups. But THIS one, the one with Saunders #1, Seager #3, the two RBI men #4 and #5, and the kiddies down in the lineup, THIS one rocks. You even get a mosh position in the #2 slot, a chance to put your OBP Man Du Jour there. Bay against Pettitte, right?
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WBC-san
On TV tonight, they said that Iwakuma has, since he became a starter, THE lowest ERA in the American League among qualified starters. That's #1, as in. Then they said something much weirder: they said that he has made 25 career starts -- and has allowed 3 or fewer runs in 23 of them.
That can't be right. Can it? (Phil Hughes just had a career start in which he gave up 7 runs before leaving in the 1st inning.)
............
Three starts ago, we said you had two starts left, during which Iwakuma would remain your little secret. Today in the Times, they reported the New York buzz...
At this point there is one (1) question left. It would be nice to hear from Taro, or IcebreakerX, or somebody, how much mileage he has left in his shoulder. He's feeling real good at the moment.
............
Iwakuma pays attention to his center of gravity. Over the years, he has thought about where his CG is, how his weight moves under him. And he's become as balanced as Jamie Moyer.
He has made a technique, a method, out of his balance. He's not groping in the dark for a release point: he is method-izing his release point, by method-izing his "hara," his one-point. This is the single idea around which the entire sport of aikido revolves.
In Japan they consider it important, in sports, to know where your weight is. In America that's still considered slightly zany, slightly New Age or something. Aren't you lucky that the only "One Point" blog in sports happens to be in Seattle.
:: winning Anthony Hopkins smile ::
It's hard to predict that Iwakuma won't go 23-for-25 over his FUTURE starts, isn't it? Just how good is this guy?
Game on,
Dr D
Comments
60 extra-base hits is a magic number. If you can string three guys beyond 50 XB's in the MOTO then you have a potent offense.
Seager needs to hit 3rd. He's a 60+ guy, heading towards 70 this year. Moving Morales and Morse down was done to get Seager to #3, I'm convinced.
Kudo's to Raul. I hope he keeps it up. If he does so for another 30 games I'll come crawling in asking for forgiveness for doubting the wisdom of his signing. In the meantime I'm going to remember that his glove and bat have already cost us more than they gave us these smoking two games.
It was still a silly signing. I hope he proves me wrong.
moe
I am eating a lot of crow around what I thought were poor decisions right now!
I am not sure but I am thinking I know less about baseball than I think I do lol.
Ryan would have to get up to last year's level to be a Belanger. Belanger's career OPS+ was 68, Ryan was 60 last year.
He's -1 this year. He isn't even close to a Belanger level bat.
It can be argued that he isn't a Belanger-level glove, too. The lack of modern sabermetric #'s (UZR, etc) complicate matters somewhat, but Belanger was recognized as the best glve of his generation. The best glove until Ozzie came along. 8 GG's are powerful stuff.
Not when there's a chance that he's a legit ML shortstop with plus offense. Those guys are hard to find. There aren't that many of them.
The move I would make is Walker to AAA for five starts and if all goes well, call him up in late June. Actually, if all goes well, it's a competition at that point between Walker, Hultzen, and Paxton, and don't forget Erasmo! And Stephen Prior! And say goodbye to Joe Saunders and Aaron Harang!
When most people watch a baseball game, there are parts they aren't paying attention to; a look away for a conversation, getting a snack or going to the bathroom, people at home might flip through the channels, and almost no one watches every game. Eric Wedge watches every game, every pitch, every play. He also watches every batting practice and every fielding practice and he's been doing it for 10+ years. There's no shame in being outsmarted by Eric Wedge or any other baseball manager.
I think the Wedge-based complaints around here narrow down to two:
1. No Franklin/Too much Ryan and Andino
2. Smoak
(I'm crediting the Raul issue to Z)
1. The Franklin issue remains. Wedge should have long ago said, "Give me the kid." I'll still give demerits to Wedge on this one.
2. Smoak is reaching his Kotchman-type projections. Over his last 14 games, he is 12-44 (.272) with 4 doubles. He isn't mashing. On the other hand, he has 12 walks in that time. OBP is .428! He should be batting 2nd! What's jumped off the chart is his eye, nothing else. But that is pretty cool, in and of itself. Determining his value over that streak means you have to dtermine what the guys sho would have had those PA's would do. That's probably a combination of Montero and Bay. Might they have been that good?
Consider this. As good as Smoak has been over that time, has he been good enough to compensate for our SS's?
Since April 25th (my start date for the Smoak numbers) our starting SS's have been 5-54 with no XB and 5 BB's. That's a .092 Avg. and .169 OBP
Does Smoak balance that?
Combined, Smoak and our SS's are 17-98 with 17 walks, 5 doubles. .173-.296-.224
That's if you lay both Smoak and the SS's on Wedge's lap. I'm still giving Raul to Z.
I may well be wrong. Your mileage may vary.
moe
At least he could bunt. He had 155 successful sac bunts over 18 years vs. Ryan at 41 over 7. How many times have we seen Ryan fail to even get one down, which usually doesn't get "counted" as an attempt? He's bad at it, and looks bad doing it. He has no excuse. Yeah, I understand it was a different era, and sac bunting is now perceived as giving up an out. But these guys are going to make an out anyway, so it might as well be "productive".
Apparently the M's like Brad Miller better than Franklin at short, and there's Chris Taylor at High Desert, whom Spec loves. If Ackley settles in at second, Franklin becomes expendable. But I sure wouldn't give him away for half a DH. He'd have to fetch something like a 1-3 starter, this season's Cliff Lee. Not sure who that would be.
Jeff and Jay note in their USSM podcast that even though Triunfel has been on everyone's radar for ever, he's still younger than Brad Miller by six months.
With the logjam at the middle infield positions, it is critical for the M's Brass to gain as much information as possible about each player, to give them a better chance to make the optimum decisions about which players to keep and which players to trade. That requires promoting prospects when they are ready. Being overly-patient to ensure that no prospect suffers a setback is an ineffective approach when the pipeline is jammed. Bringing Franklin and Truinfel up now frees Tacoma for Miller and the AA roster for Taylor. Maybe Franklin is a better MLB 2Bman than Ackley, and Dustin is the one who should be traded to clear the logjam. Nobody will know until Franklin is brought up. Time's a wastin', as well games being lost.