=== Franklin Morales vs Dustin Ackley, 8th Inning, July 22 2011 ===
I don't know what has happened with Franklin Morales, and don't much care. You can go POTD him off the videos and stats if you want.
All I know is that on July 22, he was Arthur Rhodes 2001, and if somebody cares to explain why, that's great. I figured, just another great "get" by Bill James and Co.
Anyway, he threw two LH 94 mph fastballs to Dustin Ackley and my man Mike Blowers was stunned in the booth. "I don't remember him throwing this hard the last time around..."
Morales whizzed another 94 fastball right down the middle, with impunity, and Ackley flied out.
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=== Two On, Two Out ===
The righty Miguel Olivo reached out and poked a 95 mph fastball on a line to right field ... it found a gap and the M's had a guy on second.
***
Morales, mixing sliders and hair-balls evenly, then detonated Adam Kennedy on a 4-pitch swinging strikeout. No chance.
***
Morales was now up to 97 mph against Smoak, diabolically spooning in lefty sliders unpredictably. But Smoak hitting right handed, incongruously, read the pitches easily and took real close pitches as decisively as if he were Dustin Ackley.
Made me wonder if he's got a speck in his right eye, or something, the night-and-day difference. Anyway, two on, two out.
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=== He Likes It! Hey Mikey! ===
The first pitch was a 96 mph thunderbolt, precisely on the black - Carp swung and missed, or maybe he just ticked the seam a little bit. It was the kind of pitch that made me think, this game is just beyond human reflexes any more. Seriously.
Sometimes I muse about a perfect hitter coming up, a Roy Hobbs, and the pitchers throwing this kind of stuff and the umps jobbing him and the fielders diving to catch his batted balls, and before you know it, a perfect hitter is 0-for-16 ...
This was that kinda pitch. A soul-draining, untouchable fastball.
***
Second pitch, Arthur followed up with a crackling sidearm 83 slider, knee-high, breaking across the strike zone to the outside third. Another swing and miss.
Here's where I expected Carp's shoulders to sag and his chest to collapse, the way Smoak's does these days. Cindy watches the ball; I watch body language on 2-0 and 0-2. I perked an eyebrow, very surprised, because Carp looked alert, happy, and ready to attack the next pitch. whaaaaaa ... ?
***
Pitch three, a 96 mph ladder fastball ... remember that you add +2 for LHP, right? And remember that you add for being up in the zone.
You can't hit that pitch. Carp pulled a Wade Boggs and fouled it off! Carp still looked cool up there, not "hip" cool but "unstressed" cool.
***
Pitch four, on 0-2, a sweeping slider that broke away off the zone. A lot of hitters lunge. Carp took it for ball one.
***
Pitch five, with Carp presumably braced against 96 LHP heat with two strikes, Morales went for the throat with a slider. He threw it inside, which is against convention (hard stuff in, soft stuff away) but I don't notice that other Mariner hitters are ripping offspeed stuff on two-strike counts, do you?
Morales pulled the string, and Carp pulled the knob of the bat in. He hit the ball hard and far, over the fence.
Did I mention that my stepdad grew up in Fenway? He talked about how it was built sideways on an extreme rectangle city block, and that if you hadn't been in the park, you couldn't "get" what a homer to right field was like. One of the reasons he talked up Teddy Ballgame, all those mortar shots over a loooooong straightaway RF.
Fenway homers to RF are long, by definition -- the wall was 380 where Carp hit it out, and it carried the wall by a ways. ... Blowers' reaction, Wow, with two strikes? Huh?
***
Eric Wedge laments how all his hitters are "in between" -- late on the fastball, in front of the offspeed stuff, "not ready to hit," always too reactive and reacting too sluggishly.
Musta been nice for Wedge to see a hitter time a slider as crisply as that. ... it ain't Carp's hits, kids. It's the way he's getting them. That was a whale of a tough lefty pitcher he crushed.
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BABVA,
Dr D
Carp can hit?
Huh!
Didn't see that one coming! :)
(Doc, I was most impressed with him laying off the slider and prolonging the AB. He's good. You're right, I think he was reading the pitch sequence and looking for inside heat on the homer. When he got something inside half and relatively flat, I bet his eyes lit up. What is he? 5 for 14 with 3 x-base hits since he was put in the lineup. Two great plays in left.)
Probably a AAAA guy, right?
(by the way, I remembered in the Prince writeup that Mo Vaughn's nickname was Mo-dog... any connection?)
... anyhow, refresh me ... where were you on Carp in 2010 and 2009? Know that you were bullish, but not recalling exactly how much so.
San-man of course is one of the big adopters here too.
For some reason I think I was aware of him when he was still in the Mets' organization. Can't remember why.
Loved that we got him. I know I loved his EYE ability. Was walking a ton in the Mets organization.
Remember, he was a .315-.415-.463 guy for us in that limited callup in '09. That was after walking 100 points at Tacoma.
He gets better. Look at his Tacoma years, progressively better. Significantly better.
I think he'll do it here to. I did not expect him to be the OF defender he's becoming. He's no Paul Blair.....but he's at least a MLB average LFer'
You'll remember I was ticked that we just didn't give him the 1B or DH job LAST year.
I am entirely comfortable that he is in the lineup to stay. Will eat my words if I have to.
I like him.
were aware of him in the Mets org is beyond me... :- )
***
Another long HR tonight into the power alley, this one after a tough 3-and-2 battle vs Josh Beckett, a pitcher's pitch deposited in the Fenway bullpen.
Beckett was unscathed otherwise: a 1:7 CTL and a shutout, other than the Carp tater.
The 2H plot won't be the pennant race, but it could well be a subplot as to whether the M's have their 3-4-5 locked in for next y'ar.
I loooov eeeet...
How did I find Carp? Let me count the ways.
In 2008, Sexson had already imploded for a year, and by mid-2008 the season was over early and Sexson was getting his DFA ticket punched. So, I started scanning the minors for LH 1B talent.
I was looking for a lefty (Safeco) with a good eye, (because I was more in love with walk rates then than I am today). I was looking for someone as young as possible, (close to 20), but who had moved beyond A ball.
Carp was posting an OPS well over .800 in 2008. He was going through his second season in AA, but only age 22. He had 100 points of patience as an 18-year old which was about as rock steady as I've ever seen from a developing teen. But, it wasn't his 2008 stat line (.299/.403/.471 (.874) is where he finished, though I found him before the season ended). It was the fact that in his FIRST year in AA, his average and ISO both plunged ... but in 2008, they came back with a vengeance. In 2008, he posted a HIGHER slash line than he did in Rookie or A-ball.
My interpretation of the data was simple. This was NOT just a guy having a career year. It was a guy who "learned" something, adjusted, and had become a BETTER hitter at 22 than he was at age 21. There were other tells that his upside might be even higher. (His age 19 year in A-ball, he hit more HRs than 2Bs ... posting a 230 ISO!!!)
Mind you ... I considered the 230 ISO an outlier at the time ... but it was the combo of the eye ... plus improving ... plus the year of "slugger" ISO at age 19 ... that all added up to a very intriguing prospect for me.
At the time, I paid little attention to K-rate, (though there's nothing there in hindsight that would've altered my assessment).
My take on Carp was a kid who would have 100 points of patience any time he wanted, (unless he was basically ordered not to ... which is what I believe happened last year at Tacoma).
I think Z noticed that 230 ISO at age 19 ... and he told his coaches to go fishing for it. And in 2010, at Tacoma, he found it. This is a kid, (IMO), who can *CHOOSE* between being a guy with 100 isolated walk and 170 ISO or accept a 70 isolated walk to post a 230 ISO.
He becomes an absolute MONSTER if after a few years, he can swap between the two from game to game depending on what type of pitcher is on the mound.
I think at the moment, he could be a .250/.320/.480 hitter ALREADY. But, the impossible BA he posted this year in Tacoma makes me wonder what he really is might be a .270/.340/.500 hitter. Note: I'm "lowballing" the ISO at only 230 ... which undersells the 300 ISO he was crushing the opposition with at Tacoma this year.