=== July 1-4, 2011 ===
In Bard's next four games, the Mariners gave up 0, 1, 1, and 1 runs. Dr. D danced the Futterwack vigorously.
Well, the M's have great pitchers, though -- three different Cy Young candidates in their rotation. But! Were these lockdowns fired by Felix and Bedard? No, this glorious run included:
True, the M's opponents were offenses well into the lower half of the league.
But Chris Gimenez' long string of beatdowns were also frequently against bad offenses. For example, Gimenez got Jason Vargas crushed 9-1 by the selfsame A's, and that's not the game referred to up in the May 23 section (that was against the Twinkies). He got Felix smashed by the Royals, the postgame screamout game. This year's catcher ERA's stand at:
You have to be careful with CERA's. Guess what? We have been careful. We know what's going on with the M's before we look up CERA's.
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=== July 5 - Sept. 28, 2011 ===
The Mainframe estimates that the Josh Bard move is worth at least three, and maybe more like six, games in the win column.
Naturally, those wins will be invisible to WAR, because Jason Vargas beatdowns don't show up on Chris Gimenez' WAR. But their backup C had in the first half cost the M's -4 games in the standings, going by catcher W-L record (which is fully justified in view of his CERA).
Hard to believe? Then think of Gimenez -- a 3B trying to catch -- as being worth -3 games, rather than Bard being worth +3. Sabermetricians find it much easier to believe in (unorthodox) marginal differences that are insults, rather than compliments. ;- ) They can believe that a manager cost a team six games.
***
I give Josh Bard credit for two* games already that their previous backup C would probably have lost: This nailbiting 2-1 win Monday, and Blake Beavan's terrific debut performance in a 3-1 win. (Never mind that Bard actually hit a home run, also, in the 2-1 win.)
With the Mariners playing 2-1, 2-0 and 3-1 games every night, they can't afford to have a backup catcher cause any SP knockouts, much less cause them 60% of the time.
***
Olivo's bat will also benefit from the fact that he can now keep his legs fresh. Forget 125 games vs 145 games: this long week off, around the All-Star break, will pop Olivo right back to Re-Set Baby. A long week off sets your muscles back to 100%. Well, provided that you're sleeping in and drinking orange juice...
***
Eric Wedge perceived, in Bard's first or second game, that Bard was performing superbly. He then decided, as was reported, to "take advantage of Bard's strong play" to rest Olivo.
It's a shame that the Mariners didn't do this voluntarily, for the month of June. But the point is, the M's just added 3-5 games for the second half -- even if SSI/MC denizens are the only ones who caught the improvement on camera.
Your fast-flick shutter reel also caught the fact that Josh Bard's presence is possibly more impactful than would be a Carlos Beltran acquisition. With Bard, we're talking 3-5 games in the second half -- hey, two games already, kid. Of course, we want the Beltran games now, too.
Most divisions are won by 4 or fewer games, and the 2011 AL West certainly looks like "most divisions." The Mariners, by a delicious coincidence, just placed Chris Gimenez on the 60-day DL due to a tweaked rib muscle (not bone). Apparently they also caught the improvement on camera.
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Cheerio,
Dr D
Gooooaaallll, by Doc!
Doc, one of your best calls. Kudo's.
I supported Bard over Gimenez early, but for a different reason, the wrong one.
I liked Bard's bat. Missed the more important ability totally.
Well done, my friend
Moe
Has earned a default assumption of being right (that does not mean a free pass though) ;-) Love the writing, love the site. I very seldom leave my lurker status on the internets but felt compelled to comment the outstanding work I see here. Baseball like life is full of nuance that statistical analysis alone will fail to appreciate.
Muchas gracias very much, Rooster... appreciate your taking the time bro'...
Baseball like life is full of nuance that statistical analysis alone will fail to appreciate.
The tide seems to have shifted somewhat on that, especially locally.
Three years ago, a stats-only (WAR/$) rip of an Ibanez contract not only would have been the last word, but people would have been intimidated to even discuss it other than "attaboy, terrific writeup."
Bill James has been cautioning us, for 35 years, that the problems are complex, that carbon-based :- ) systems cannot be captured with a 6-variable formula.
And there are domino sequences to consider ... A causes B causes C causes D, unto 10 or 30 or 100 effects in the chain. These domino strings aren't going to be captured with math, either.
***
With the Josh Bard move, we're hopeful (not dogmatic) that the hard-to-measure benefits will cascade.
My favorite hard-to-measure benefit: less stress on the SP's in the second half, as they face fewer rallies and 20-25 pitch innings.
There have been better rotations in terms of DNRA?xFIP/ERA+...but since the lowering of the mound, the advent of the DH and the institutional acceptance of the 5-man rotation, the Seattle Mariners are almost entirely unique in the history of baseball for two main reasons:
1) They get incredibly deep into games with good results
2) They do so without being in an organization that dogmatically preeches pitchers' needs to be tough and throw a ton of pitches.
The Mariners are second in baseball in pitches thrown by the starters with 8674 in 85 games (or roughly 102 pitches per start) but they're not doing this because they routinely run guys out there for 120 pitches when they're having good nights. The Rangers (run by Nolan Ryan...the king of durability and in-game stamina in the modern era) have talked about needing to get more out of pitchers when they're performing well, and they do...the Mariners have run a 120 pitch count on one of their starters 7 times this year, 5 by Felix Hernandez (LOL)...the Rangers have done it more tha twice as often. The oly thing that keeps most teams from having a high pitch count per start like the Mariners do is that most teams have more very ineffective starts where the pitcher only throw 72 pitches and gets booted in the third inning such as what happened to the struggling John Lackey in yesterday's Jays/Sox match-up.
The fact of the matter is...the Ms are running five (now six) guys in the rotation that routinely go 100 pitches and not much more...and yet routinely throw 7+ innings.
Starters have thrown 566.2 innings (tops in baseball) despite the lack of long pitch counts...putting them on pace to get approximately 1080 of the necessary 1470 innings or so that most teas play from their rotation and only 400 from their bullpen. For the whaling and gnashing of teeth about the top three guys in our bullpen getting overworked...they just aren't. There's no reason for the Mariners to plan on using 7 relievers again for a very long time. This staff is uniquely capable of making a short (1970s-like) bullpen a workable solution.
Here's a point of reference to illustrate the effectiveness of the Mariner rotation toward unusually efficient bullpen-saving efforts:
Starters have throw 8674 pitches (the second most in the AL), relievers have thrown 2898 pitches (!!)...the next closest team (Rays) have thrown 500 more pitches than that...and the rest of baseball sees no team below 3625 pitches. In terms of IP, pitch count efficiency, and workload, the Mariner rotation is remarkable and it's not obvious until you see the results for the Mariner bullpen.
Incidentally, while their pitching is being ridiculously efficient, their offense, for all of its flaws, is wearing away at opponents a bit more than is obvious from the face value stats. They've taken 12330 pitches (as compared to 11572 pitches thrown), which is a 1.066 ratio, which is far and away leading all of baseball (FWIW). If they could do more with their time of possession (on offense) they would be a brutal team to face.
While we're talking about domino affects....do you suppose that the Mariners' pitchers might look better than the rest of the league as we go down the stretch by more than they looked better in the first half simply because they're fresher than everyone else's guys during the dog days of summer? Or perhaps, do we image it possible that the Mariner offense might be poised to improve by a LOT more than is appears cosmetically with the addition of a bat or two in key spots because they're already winning the time of possession battle and getting plenty of chances to score...a difference maker in some of those RBI situations might change our fortune more than you might guess sabermetrically?
Just noodling here.
We could tack onto great comments ... GOOOoooooalllll !
Starters have throw 8674 pitches (the second most in the AL), relievers have thrown 2898 pitches (!!)...the next closest team (Rays) have thrown 500 more pitches than that...and the rest of baseball sees no team below 3625 pitches. In terms of IP, pitch count efficiency, and workload, the Mariner rotation is remarkable and it's not obvious until you see the results for the Mariner bullpen.
This bullpen is quilted together from old flour sacks, no doubts there, and yet it has performed very well.
The 2011 Mariners are the reductio ad absurdum for the old baseball saw, have your starters go deep and your relievers will be fine.
If there were ever a post-1973 team that could use a 6-man pen, this is it, and as it is Jeff Gray never sees the light of day... they are using 4.5 relievers and that is appropriate for this club...