.
There is discussion, in the Shout Box, about Jason Churchill's interesting article "What the M's Can Do Now." Extra-credit points to Jason for --- > going beyond griping, and offering solutions. Cliffs Notes as to Jason's analysis:
In the Shout Box, SSI denizens have offered follow-ons such as the following ...
....
phxterry:
Churchill comments on Lloyd's use of Almonte & Saunders: "Almonte has yet to be sat, even versus left-handed pitching where the switch hitter (is) as useless as any pure lefty bat the club has, it appears that Saunders is being set up to fail, often sitting versus right-handed pitcher he’s been strong against and even once wasted as a pinch runner for the designated hitter, which means he couldn’t be used defensively, perhaps his best asset to the club." http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2014/04/20/churchill-what-the-ms-can-do-now/
Gordon Gross:
We can't both hate Saunders AND hate Lloyd for giving someone else the opportunity that Saunders has failed to capitalize on the last 4 years. Just sayin'. I still like Saunders for many situations, though, certainly more than Romero and Almonte's bats, regardless of some mysterious handedness issue. And he's better all-around than LoMo. Saunders should play against RHP, all the time. If we're gonna platoon him, then REALLY platoon him. Just getting to swing a bat in the 8th as a defensive replacement doesn't cut it.
Gordon Gross:
for Tom over Danny, I got nuthin. Farquhar is the better, more reliable reliever, and better under pressure too. I'd be fine with converting Tom back to a starter to give us another option there in case of catastrophe. Start stretching him out. He's got the pitches and I don't like his reliever rhythm (or results lately, for that matter). Of course, if Tom's fastball is gonna be down 2 mph or more, maybe that's a bad idea too. Dropping even more mph while moving back to the rotation could hurt.
.........
30,000-Foot View, Dept.
I agree 100% with Churchill's bottom line: the Mariners have to be patient, and wait for (1) their varsity rotation along with (2) their bats to heat up. (Yes, I think if you give Miller, and Seager, and etc., time, they'll hit.)
But! There's an important add here. The 2005-13 Mariners are notorious for folding up shop and quitting on the season, sometimes before it starts. If I am Jack Zduriencik, all attention is devoted to making this happen.
......
Lloyd McClendon is making a large number of idiosyncratic decisions.
Abraham Almonte is a peculiar player to be anointed Teacher's Pet at this stage of his career. (Not only does this result in freeze-outs that hurt Romero and Saunders, but also Dustin Ackley has been summarily evicted from CF.)
Roenis Elias is a strange, unpredictable choice to be warmly received by McClendon when Erasmo Ramirez and Chris Young are publicly humiliated by McClendon on the pitcher's mound.
It's quite odd that Danny Farquhar would be "demoted" from closer, past the 8th-inning role, past the #3 reliever role, all the way down to #4-5 reliever. Joe Beimel is also a nepotistic 86-MPH reliever that subjects McClendon to criticism.
There are other examples, also. It was "creative," the way that McClendon so obviously deferred to Felix Hernandez' choice to go out and get blasted in the 8th inning of that A's game. Not wrong. Just out of the ordinary.
......
From an aiki standpoint, I don't like the mesh between (1) McClendon's faux-bravado "He's there because I want him there" shtick, and (2) the nauseated, lost facial expression in the dugout as the losses pile up.
I'm not saying it's over. But personally, I read his situation as alarming.
Dr. D has taken over several organizations in his day. One thing he can tell you: the more idiosyncratic you are going to be, the more "creative," the more blustery you are, then --- > the more important it is that you deliver early returns.
Not talking opinion. Talking fact. If you are going to call a company meeting and sell yourself as The Boss, My Way Or the Highway, you have like 30 days to prove yourself.
Maybe, within the next week or so, McClendon will stop on a dime, give us 9 cents' change, and assert himself as baseball's Bill Belichick. Thing is, we were thinking that Felix Hernandez would be the Tom Brady who would help him do so...
......
We're not saying his decisions are wrong decisions. The Mariners' defensive outfield is a huge plus, relative to 2013, so perhaps McClendon is right about Almonte's privileged status. They are "Forget You" decisions, decisions that tell the media and the world "I'll do it this way because I want to. Why the deuce would I explain to YOU what I'm doing? I'm an MLB(TM) manager!"
That's an interesting choice, and Dr. D admires the guts required.
The main observation that he would make, however, is that 18 games in --- > McClendon seems to have lost the clubhouse.
Maury Wills, in 1980, felt a lot like this situation. Wills always said "Give me any last place in the majors and inside three years, we'd win the championship." Or somesuch. He took over the Mariners, did "blustery" stuff like putting Julio Cruz at shortstop, and so forth.
It failed from the word Go.
Another guy whose personality (from the bleachers) seemed a lot like McClendon's: Chuck Cottier, the guy who preceded Wills. I played in a golf group right behind Cottier's one day. It wasn't a pleasant experience.
I'm not writing McClendon off. But at SSI, you get tomorrow's news today. McClendon's got a blustery veneer, and 18 games in, his supporters have got to feel quite alarmed at the early returns.
..........
If I'm Zduriencik, am I watching this situation with a view to a possible change at manager?! :: gasp ::
In May 2003, the Miami Marlins replaced the lost Jeff Torborg with the 72-year-old Jack McKeon. The losing Marlins then went 75-49 with the elderly McKeon at the helm, teaching the young20-somethings Beckett, Willis, Penny, etc. to win. They won the World Championship that year -- after firing their manager on May 11.
Tony LaRussa for this team? At age 69? What do you think?
Obviously such a move -- say it were on May 11 -- would draw a lot of controversy. Which all ends, if the Mariners start winning. On June 15, it's the win-loss record that will dominate the discussion.
.
Good News, dept.
Earl's 6th Law. Momentum is as good as the next night's starting pitcher.
The M's have a nuclear pitching rotation lurking in dry dock, perhaps including Brandon Maurer (who looked like a 17-game winner in his debut Sunday).
In the best case analysis, Dr. D is hallucinating the McClendon Effect and the rotation will rev up shortly to pull us out of the fire.
Or not,
Jeff
McClendon and GMZ don't seem to get the news until a week later than everyone else. The team will get better simply because it's bar is already set so low. Wedgie made too many changes all the time and McClendon only makes them when forced to do so. I don't have confidence in them at this point.
what McClendon is supposed to do with just 2 hitters over 700 OPS? SP has been better than expected with all the injuries factored in. Can't blame Lloyd if the same group gives up again in 2014, they've been doing it for years before he arrived. Is he somehow going to get Smoak to not wilt when it matters? Get Ackley to swing at strikes? Tell Erasmo to stop having a nervous breakdown between pitches with men on base? Snap Seager, Saunders and Wilhelmsen out of their regressions?
I said about a week ago that the Marlins and Astros are young and hungry. Our team rarely appears to be hungry, and several of these guys aren't all that young.
So one member of the varsity won't be back til approximately the All-Star Break, on that kind of timeline.
SkyWalker could be back in three more weeks, or not for the year - depending on what "impingment" means. It's not a good word.
If we were getting Kuma next week, Paxton in 2 weeks and Walker the week after I'd feel fine about getting my Varsity rotation back and annihilating some fools.
As it is, I'm hoping Maurer and Elias can help hold the fort, but the offense HAS to come around. We've scored 16 runs during our 7 game losing streak. I don't care if the Varsity WAS here, we wouldn't have won 5 of those games. And who did we face to lock us down so badly during this streak?
Starter's Career ERA+:Keuchel: 80Slowey: 90Alvarez: 99Eovaldi: 102Scheppers: 114 (Bullpen went 6.2 scoreless)Darvish: 131Ross: 165 (reliever prior to this year)
So we pounded Scheppers (normally a reliever) and scored the rest of his runs off Noesi and then... nothing. We had Darvish and let him off the hook with defense. We let the Marlins off with bad defensive plays in tight games TWICE.
I get losing to Ross, who is a bear right now, and I could have accepted a loss to Darvish except for the way it happened. But losing to the next FIVE Blake Beavan / Jason Vargas level meatballs with barely a fight is a problem for me. It wasn't a murderer's row of starters.
And we didn't just fold up against the starters. 19.2 IP against bullpens during the streak, ONE run charged to the pen. We plated a couple runs after Noesi came in the game for Texas, but they weren’t his. And we couldn’t win that game either.
Back when we were overmatched and under-talented, I could understand these sorts of things. I didn't LIKE them, but I understood.
This team is not untalented. They are now CLEARLY under-performing.
It needs to stop.
~G
Almonte's K rate is alarming. In 396 AAA PA's he K'ed 66 times (and walked 49). In 168 MLB PA's he's K'ed 49 times and walked but 11. And this year is only marginally worse than last year on that front.
Eric Davis, Jerome Watson, and Andy Van Slyke were the CF's that McClendon played with: There is clearly no template there for Almonte that he might see. Two were pretty good and one wasn't (and wasn't much like Almonte).
As manager his CF's were Gary Matthews , Adrian Brown, Kelly Lofton, and Tike Redman. He stuck with a not-very-good Brown for only 80 games, or so...but stuck with a not-very-good Redman for two seasons.
In Detroit, Austin Jackson would come to mind as a CF he saw...but he and Almonte don't seem to be the same kind of guy. Hey, I was fond of Almonte, too, in the off season. His potential pop excited me. But the ST performance worried me. He didn't hit LHP worth a hoot last year and this year it has spread to RHP.
Actually, were I to send one OF'er down, it would be him. While I'm not a big Saunders fan as a RF, I like him in CF, where his bat plays fine. I could well live with Saunders and Gillespie sharing CF, Gillespie and Romero and Ackley sharing the corner spots. Churchill is pretty right about Ackley not getting some CF time. It certainly won't hurt him.
I love Almonte's story, but it wouldn't hurt him or us for him to sit 2 or 3 games. He's showing that he's got a 50 XB hit season in him, but at .242-.289 30 of those better be homers.
It is possible to lock in on a player and love them to death. Let's hope that doesn't happen here. Loving Almonte to death means taking the M's (in the short run) with him.
Edit: OK, Gillespie hasn't played but one game of CF in a couple of years. he could probably still handle it a bit at the MLB level, ditto Ackley.
They said 6-8 weeks FROM the time he went down - so he could in fact be back in mid/late May
I was a little angry hearing it last night in the middle of all that debacle we were being served.
But yes, if Paxton and Walker both are cleared to throw and there are no more horrible delays they're probably 3 weeks minimum from pitching for the Mariners big-league club (or as close to the big-leagues as the Mariners feel like approximating). :)
I really hope that's the case.
But if they're delayed and we keep playing like a team racing for a Protected Draft Pick as Jim so eloquently stated in his sarcastic recap on Mariner Brainstorm, then I hope LaRussa is still waiting in the wings to take over once we fire both Jack and Lloyd.
He'll have a lot of raw material to work with.
~G
I confess I don't understand Lloyd: the M's are desperately short of starting pitching and need E-Ram to pitch well and go deep into games to save the over-worked pen and put some w's on the board. So in E-Ram's last start, he has a rocky first 2 innings but then settles down to pitch 4 solid innings, ending with 3 earned runs in 6 innings. Overall, a quality start with eight strikeouts and 19 swing-and-miss strikes. From the team's #4-5 starter.
But how does Lloyd respond to E-Ram's quality start (per Divish today): "Ramirez gave up three runs in six innings on Tuesday, but McClendon still didn't sound too pleased with Ramirez after the game..... Erasmo Ramirez's spot in the starting rotation might not be his for much longer. When asked if he was considering making a change with Ramirez, McClendon paused and then said, “Yeah, I would say that’s a fair assessment. I’m not sure what we’re going to do as of right now.” "
Obviously E-Ram is not one of Lloyd's pets, so no praise from Lloyd on a gutty performance to come back from a bad start. If I were E-Ram, I would be sharpening the shiv that I intend to stab in Lloyd's back on the day of the player's mutiny that surely is coming. I personally just don't get why Lloyd felt the need to bad-mouth E-Ram after a quality start that was better than his last 3 outings. Why not build the young pitcher up with praise, and try to increase his shaky confidence? What did Lloyd gain, how did Lloyd improve the team's chances to play better, by bad-mouthing E-Ram?
This article is brilliant, Jeff. As you say, tomorrow's news today. And Lloyd is fast losing this clubhouse through his arbitrary and high-handed treatment of veterans like E-Ram and Saunders in favor of his pets like Almonte and TW. If Lloyd has in fact lost Felix, it's all over already.