.
Moe pointed out that Guillermo Heredia is mashing lefties and Ben Gamel is crushing righties. Maybe over the next two-three years they will perform even better if spotted for 400 AB's per season each. Of course you have Dyson and Haniger along with very possibly Boog Powell and of course Tyler O'Neill next year. Nelson Cruz and Danny Valencia are also corner players competing for time.
Don't forget that Boog Powell was running an OBP of .441 this year at Tacoma and has a career OBP of .391 in the minors. Pretty sure Beane would find a way to get him 200 AB's a year.
It reminded us of when Billy Beane used to do this with such amazing success. For example 2004, Beane's corner players included:
Or in 2005 they had all that minus Durazo and Dye, but plus Dan Johnson 113 OPS+ at first for 434 AB's and Jay Payton 97 OPS+ for 291 AB's. Beane wasn't afraid to ask corner players to share time, that's for sure.
In 2006 they had:
Or in 2007 it was even more extreme, with 11 "name" players rotating through and that just in the corners:
Last year, 2016, it wasn't quite as successful with their 93 OPS+. But they still list Danny Valencia and Coco Crisp as subs (!) behind Josh Reddick, Billy Butler, Yonder Alonso, Khris Davis and co.
Maybe M's fans need to start thinking in the same terms. At the OF spots, 1B, and DH. Would it be so bad to allocate 400 AB's to Gamel and Heredia and Dyson and other players of their ilk? They're exciting players as starters; they could be sensational as major role players. Turned out the Royals knew what they were doing on Jarrod Dyson's playing time, huh.
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HWMNBN vs Adelberto Mejia
Here's the preview. Regarding Skip's comment that Gallardo seems to always run into "one bad inning" per game ... doesn't it strike you that you could offer that in defense of most 5.00, 6.00 ERA starters? In any case, Dr. D is still soliciting opinions as to whether the M's will cave in on their marriage to Gallardo's big salary.
BABVA,
Dr D
...I gotta believe they pull the plug for Felix to keep Bergman and Gaviglio in there, assuming they both keep looking credible.
Especially if we keep going on four game winning streaks and then Gallardo shows up to wreck them. :)
I would hope so at any rate
And yes, I think the Mariners should be running an outfield rotation that includes 600 ABs for Haniger, but 300-400 ABs for everyone else.
Why run with a guy you barely use? OF is taylor-made for this, a Util-class player good enough to play anytime, but who gives you a solid platoon advantage over (a) starter(s).
Dial it up: O'Neill, Gamel/Heredia (vs RHP/LHP), Haniger. Either off-day guy pushes O'Neill out 1-2/6 days, giving you 3 to make 2, until Tyler forces the issue. Dyson, though... is he OF5 in this scenario, AAA OF1 (seems a waste!), or super-Utility finally getting 1B time as some have requested previously?
I like him, but the .440 this season is a complete anomaly. He's had 20 BB's vs. 7 K's. Something will have to give...and it will be the BB's. He did that all with just 5 2B's and no HR's in 94 PA's. Even AAA throwers don't fear him.
His career AAA OBP is .357. There's where to plant the flag. Coming into this season his BB/K at AAA was 54/83. Unless those PED's drastically improved his eyesight, he'll slide back.
BTW, 500 PA's for Gamel and Heredia, w/280 for Dyson (KC-style) suits me just fine. For this season.
I will admit that Gamel's BABIP must drop, but I suspect his K rate will, too. His BABIP will always run a little hot, BTW, simply because he hits the ball from foul line to foul line and is tough to book. how the heck do you play him defensively.
I've noticed a bit of change in the way P's attack him, too. He's been more eager, and successful, early in the count, so you're not seeing grooved first pitch FB's as often. He's 4-8 on the 1st pitch, 7-11 at 0-1, and 6-7 at 1-0. He's had 155 PA's. in 64 of them, he's gone ahead 1-0. After a 1-0 count he's hitting .383-.516-.617. He's deadly when ahead. He'll help himself if he hurts some 1st pitch FB's. As well, I think I'm noticing that, with 2-strikes, P's aren't going up and out of the zone like they were just a couple of weeks ago.
MLB give/take and he's holding his own.
Although he hasn't hit a homer in a month. Poach some of those 0-1 fastballs kid.
Agreed the question isn't whether he is going to take 350 AB's from these guys. My own Q is more whether he can fit in for 200 AB's spotted against his type of pitcher. Bobby Kielty for example had several seasons in which he got 189, 238, 238, 101, 297 at bats.
Boog does not look like he's got Ben Gamel type of talent right now, that's for sure. But there are reasons that he's being evaluated, as we know. :- )
....
Agreed also that Gamel's strikeouts will drop. He is fantastically patient and deep counts lead to K's. But he can't really afford a 140, 150/yr strikeout rate. And he's not that kinda guy; he's not swinging from his wallet on 3-2 counts.
Sometimes we forget that Gamel and Heredia are just getting started...
...when do the PEDS take effect? Somewhere outside Las Vegas?
I had less faith in Gamel than I do in Powell now. That would be September, although I could as easily have said 3 months ago. It's as you say, "Sometimes we forget...". And Boog has barely more than half the Pro PA that Ben has. Difference being mainly that Ben has a more corner bat and Boog a more CF glove. I don't have a preference yet between the 2. Gamel played last year in AAA above his AA stats and this year in MLB above his AAA stats would suggest. I'm still unsure that it's real.
But that swing change looks legit. The thing I find fascinating is that these prospects had to go out and do it themselves. Gamel and Motter and Heredia all watched a ton of film, read up on swing angles and corrected their own swings by molding them after other successful players they thought would fit their own mechanics.
Where the heck were their hitting coaches? Are those guys still providing "choke up on the bat and work out to keep your baseball face from getting too pudgy" types of advice? Happened with Saunders when he was here too. Zunino's swing changes have been team-orchestrated and he's getting good early results there, and Gar is doing good work for the team - having the #5 OBP in the AL last year and #3 this year is not a fluke - but I'd love to know how the Mariners pulled THAT many guys from other teams who had all changed their swing planes to good effect on their own.
I don't buy Gamel as a star but I do buy him as a big-league regular and that's just fine with me - I had him as a Jeremy Reed player with his old swing. Fingers crossed that all continues - the Mariners need it to.
Great reminder. Let a little time go by and we WILL see half of the prospects very differently. Same could apply with Boog.
+1.
Tyler Smith gets the SS start tonight, batting 2nd. He hit .309-.344-.431 vL at Tacoma last season. In a SSS this season, he was .263--378-.447.
Heredia leading and in CF. Motter in LF, Gamel in RF. Vs. the lefty, Dyson and the .440 OPS sits.
...it always does.
Gamel now has COMMAND at the plate. He did in the minors, but not until now in the majors.
Heredia had some mojo put on him, but found acclimatization to a steadfast major league player.
Undoutedly Hang In There will get more opportunities than either of these guys when he gets back, if, when he gets back, he is the same kind of player he was before his injury.
And they are using Dyson in a KC smart kind of way so you shouldn't be measuring his AB's in the team equation.
So we have two of our five starters from this season's onset, and if you wanna bet, how can DePoet not go after a starter should any other even minor maladies occur with these starters ... if they can keep this winning momentum going.
To get an arm, they're gonna have to give up hot prospects (of which they have few) (perhaps Tank has moved to a spot on the endangered list which not one of us consented to three months ago ... and if they want a middle of the rotation guy they are gonna have to give up one of the aforementioned OF's or Booger Powell.
We still don't have a clear picture of Smyly's status, Kuma keeps getting pushed back, and The King is gonna have to have a better rehab start than he had yesterday to bolster confidence.
It appears I was horribly out of ink in writing off Zunino (an excess of ex-) but I still am not convinced chapter 11 is not just around the corner. He has done this before, ya know. I hope he has gained the COMMAND at the plate that Gambel discovered.
Valencia the Orange also keeps hammering my doubts, but he has certainly gained COMMAND after his limp-wristed start. I hope he also continues to maintain focused.
As for my belief in Guy Art Dough, much to this sitewinder crew's tilt-a-whirl expressions about him .... HEY, no other starter has made every start. Admittedly, he is blowing up more often than I anticipated, y'all should be thinkin hope is where you find it.
The AB count of any player is not the PH factor for this team.
It appears a firepower heart beats within it's arsenal, which are difficult to measure against sabres.
zoom
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/how-the-teams-have-drafted-in-this-millen...
That's drafted-and-signed WAR since 2000, and yep - Seattle is last. Sullivan's comments:
Every Mariners fan already knew this, even if they didn’t *know* this, but the Mariners are again in last place, with a combined WAR of 140. Now, that’s close to the Orioles, who have also sucked. They’re down there at 146. But, well, it’s a funny coincidence that the Orioles are next to the Mariners, because the Mariners’ WAR leader out of these players is Adam Jones. Chris Tillman‘s in fourth. The Mariners have drafted and signed four players worth at least 10 WAR, and only Kyle Seager has stuck around. (Doug Fister was traded away in his second full season.)
Since we've been abominable drafters - and also terrible at keeping the few players who did work out - the trade scenario is vital to us over the next couple of years. If our entire outfield is now cost-controlled and Decent-WAR, and Segura keeps performing at his terrific pace, then maybe the Mariners have a chance. You don't HAVE to be great at drafting if you can steal workable draft picks from other teams while they are still pre-arb. Hopefully the couple of pitchers we have actually work out.
For the future though, it'd be great if we could draft a few more Seager-level players. Several of the teams in the middle of that pack have Kris Bryants and Miguel Sanos that will drive up those homegrown WAR figures in the immediate future. The way to pay the success stories is to have a lot of cost-controlled players. With Haniger, Motter, Heredia and Gamel the Mariners are looking much better on that front than they did last year. MUCH better.
But let's try drafting some more All-Stars, shall we? Just to change it up, I mean...
That WAR figure for us is about double we what, as an actual team, gained from the draft...we traded most of the good players away. :(
Of course, they would have been better off trading every single pick for someone else's choices. In that sense the Ms trading their farm for somebody else's high-minors guys and ML players this offseason makes perfect sense. Once you've seen that chart, of course you'd like to get out of the radioactive wasteland that is the Ms farm rather than trying to reclaim the salted earth that's already there.
There were some pitchers I would not have moved - but I understand DiPoto's thinking. And with it paying off to the tune of Segura / Haniger / Gamel / Motter / some pen arms so far, it's been fine. Getting this team to the playoffs while Cano, Cruz and the King are still viable players is important. Worry about the farm rebuild from here forward. Fingers crossed we kept most of the right guys this time.
A sobering picture. Thanks for that.
Fortunately, the draft is one of several ways to acquire talent and Dipoto doesn't seem all that averse to the others. :- ) Like Taro and Mojician said, a single Segura-Haniger trade can (in effect) make up for who knows how many positions' stature on the draft graph. Or a single Paxton emergence. Or a Cruz free agent signing. Or an Edwin Diaz conversion. Or an international Guillermo Heredia find. Or a trade for Drew Smyly, if he'd ever get off the DL.
But yeah, for guys who enjoy tracking the amateur draft, that's got to be some kinda frustrating.
I've said before I think Kyle Lewis may have a chance at being Griffey-level special. There's a guy in this draft that has a good chance, in my opinion, of being a guy like Torii Hunter - took a while to get his bat going, but a +++++ character from the start. His name is Jordan Adell, and MLB has him currently ranked #21 due to questions on his hit tool, but he's an outstanding fielder with a very quick bat.
I found this article impressive - www.sportingnews.com/mlb/news/mlb-draft-2017-jordon-adell-first-round-mo.... A guy like that, paired with Lewis, might give the Ms an all-time character OF, whether Heredia, Gamel, or Haniger is still around to lineup with them in the future.
Its probably smarter for the Ms to draft a pitcher like UO's Peterson, but I admire talented kids who are also grounded in their relationships.
In the 2nd round, there are two guys from Vanderbilt that look really interesting to me - another fast, high baseball IQ OF, Stuart Fairchild, a local kid who went to Vandy for an education, and Gavin Sheets, a 6'5" 1B, son of Larry Sheets, who played for the Orioles in the late 80s. A lot of 2nd generation types move fast to MLB, and having a big LH target at 1B, a la Olerud, is nice.
Actually I'd missed where you had indicated that. I don't know the first thing about Kyle Lewis. Mind giving a quick-sum as to why so high on him?
Gracias amigo :- )
First of all, note that I said a chance. And it's simply my opinion in response to folks who think he's a trade chip.
But, Kyle Lewis has every tool to start tearing things up. He dropped to #11 in the Draft last year, after talk that he would go #1-3, because scouts and FO types were worried that Mercer hadn't faced top-flight competition, so perhaps his numbers had some helium. But he'd starred the previous summer in the Cape Cod League, against the best college players, using a wooden bat. Then, after the draft, he went to Everett and showed the same tools until an idiot catcher didn't give him a scoring lane and caused him to rip up his knee.
His tools are there. His work ethic is said to be outstanding, even more so after this knee rehab. He is incredibly sharp in interviews, and plays confidently like he really knows what the game is about. Finally, the Ms brass, even after a year away to rehab his knee, are double-promoting him to Modesto. Is it because they think the drier fields of the California summer will be better for his knee than the fields of the Midwest, or do they think he has the talent and the moxie to rise to the challenge to catch up to and surpass his draft peers? Watch any of the video of him and read any of the interviews, and you see a kid who can really play and really wants to play better. My guess is he'll take up where he left off in Everett and give Modesto fans a summer to remember. Jason Churchill, in his latest Farm Report at PI, expects him to star there this year, start at Arkansas next year, and be on the Ms by the end of 2018 season.
Success in Baseball requires talent/tools and the ability to adjust. Stardom requires those and a burning desire to excel, not for the money or fame, but to satisfy yourself. Lewis, to me, just reeks of the drive to excel, to push his limits without the need of external factors pushing him on. The same drive we've seen in the 5'10" 180# Guillermo Heredia, I see in the the 6'4" 210# Kyle Lewis. I wish him well and fully expect him to be in Little Rock, and then Tacoma, sooner than later.
From Greg Johns.
http://m.mariners.mlb.com/news/article/235103416/mariners-mike-zuninos-n...
"He's bought in and he understands," Servais said. "He's been able to make adjustments. Last night he struck out three times and I asked him today and he knew right away what he was going to go to. 'I got a little quick, I have to slow my leg kick down, my timing is going to be fine and I'll be OK.' Just getting that response back versus the wide-eyed, 'I don't know,' he's a much, much different player right now."