As you know, Dr. D lives to serve
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Dr. Lecter, er, Dr. D is good-natured in his polite argumentation style. He is not obsessing about Olivo's playing time. And as you know he likes Eric Wedge very much. And as you know he was the last blogger looking for Olivo's invisible-elephant tracks in the snow. And as you know, uber-wimp hedges like this never lead to anything good in a piece of info-tainment. It's like borrowing a napkin at the lunch table: even if it's necessary, it's not necessary. The cost is far higher than any actual benefit gained. :: pulls up just short of a crash landing ::
I don't particularly begrudge Eric Wedge a catcher who provides him a comfort zone. We're just cracking peanuts in the bleachers and chatting baseball. :: crash lands anyway :: And the Mariners ARE, you understand, turning the team over to Jesus Montero. In Bill's day, 1978, these transitions would take three years. We're arguing about whether they should take a month more or less. That's what we've come to. :: wreckage ignites with fwishhh-boom sound ::
At SSI let's just nod our heads politely, behind the bars of our cells, and agree to disagree over the "Montero's Not Ready" party line. Olivo's Ancient Wisdom has translated into precisely zero bases gained on the field, and into precisely zero games won on the green grass of A.L. ballparks. On a much less egregious scale, it's still Mike Hargrove freezing out Jim Thome for his pal Brook Jacoby.
If it's my team, I'm all about developing the players that I plan to win my next pennant with. But that's my personal orientation when in a rebuild situation.
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One thing you gotta love about this 2012 administration. They're -11 games under in June, and they're out there in rain gear throwing sandbags onto the river bank like tomorrow's game is the pennant. It's not enough to block with Kevin Millwood and Miguel Olivo over Erasmo Ramirez (earlier), Danny Hultzen (now) and Jesus Montero (now). Now OLIVER BLINKIN' PEREZ?? At least we know the 40-man roster isn't ossified against Capps and Hultzen and Nick Franklin.
Never say die. Gotta love it. But could somebody please explain, in one-syllable words, whether this is a rebuild?
I'll guarantee you. It was some kind of Montero-Olivo vet vs. kid playing time situation that moved Bill James to get out the typewriter in the first place. The raging wars of 1978 have become the minor squabbles of 2012, but I found the little echo to be poignant.
Gotta jet, literally. Hopefully G-Money and Spec can pick out a coupla draftees for us this week?
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Stay cool,
Dr D
Can't think of an Ms manager I've been happy with since Lou.
Wedge's pattern of performing of well under pythag was too much for me when they hired him (is it -10 Ws already this year?), but not developing Montero at C this year is the point at which he loses me.
Nothing wrong with a Montero-Jaso job share.
But all that does is help Montero get better at throwing out runners. Nobody would have made that snap throw to third much better last night, and he's been able to throw the ball down to 2nd on the correct line the last few games he's caught instead of 3 feet wide or bouncing it in the infield grass.
Montero's getting better with the arm. He can't do that if he doesn't play. I GUESS if you have pitchers who are terrified of being run on (Noesi) that you could play Olivo there, since neither Jaso nor Montero are ever gonna be huge cannon guys behind the plate.
Otherwise...move Olivo on. The Phillies just had their catcher injured, right? He can actually hit and Olivo can't, but send Miguel their way for free and give the team over to Montero, please.
As for Wedge and the Ms Pythag: The Mariners have played 24 games where they've scored 2 runs or less and have won TWO of them. Detroit hasn't won any of their
The whole situation is starting to grate. Wedge, refusal to use our best players. Blech.
...and that's ENTIRELY explained by League imploding.
The pythag stuff is, IMHO, way overblown. Wedge was not particularly under PythagenMatt...his Cleveland teams were notoriously streaky offensively and put up a number of huge crooked numbers around times of sluggish performance. That's not his fault.
And pleeeeeease give Ichiro some days off. No excuse with all the OFers we have on the yeam.
Man,
I'm shouted out guys. Not much indignation left.
Well...for today, anyway. :)
I am afraid, very afraid that Wedge is dooming us.
moe
Mariners just won....but pinch running for Ackley was one of the dumbest things I can imagine.
Figgins for Ackley?
My goodness!
PythagMatt would be better in judging manager performance for pythag. Do you know where Wedge is career?
It was Figgins for Seager, which is completely reasonable as Seager isn't that fast.
And Figgins is not that fast either (sorry...he's lost a step)
But the idea there was to get someone with baserunning SKILL...which Figgins undeniably has.
That was a perfectly fine call.
Wedge managed the Indians from 2003-2009 and the Mariners in 2011 and 2012.
Tlaly 'em up, boys!
Year / Actual Wins / PythagenMatt Wins / Diff
2003 / 68 / 70 / -2 (something weird happened in September...they had a nearly-even run differential and went 7-18...the run differential was horribly misleading with several blowout wins and a bunch of closer losses)
2004 / 80 / 79 / +1 (one 22-0 game throws off their whole seasonal pythag by 3 games)
2005 / 93 / 95 / -2 (most of their blowouts were wins, which throws off their pythag, but so does their oddly poor one-run record...their bullpen was excellent, and managed well, but their starters seemed to get left in there too long)
2006 / 78 / 83 / -2 (HUGE difference between PMatt and PPat here...PPat says they should have won 89 but that's a mirage...their blowout games explained their entire run differential and their bullpen was LOUSY, blowing a ton of close games late)
2007 / 96 / 89 / +7 (small difference cutting further in Wedge's favor this time...their blowouts were in line with the rest of their season and not a factor, their bullpen was still pretty weak with Borowski their closer and two good set-up men but no depth...their one-run game performance was subpar for a 96 win team)
2008 / 81 / 77 / +4 (They had more blowout games going their way and more one-run games going against them than the seasonal numbers suggest should have happened...their bullpen by committee was disastrously bad, explaining the "blown quality start" problem Doc observed.
2009 / 65 / 72 / -7 (this time, PMat and PPat largely agree.
2011 / 67 / 67 / 0 (the Mariners were a well-behaved loser in 2011)
2012 / 28 / 29 / -1 (as noted, the Mariners this year are as bad as their record because their bullpen is shaky and their offense is streaky. Streaky offense + consistently mediocre pitching = better PPat performance that isn't a real indication of "skill".
Wedge's career differential: -2
In 8.4 seasons.
Wedge is not a spectacular manager by this metric...but he's not a poor one either.
Casper Wells?
Figgins Steal Attempts/Opportunity % is down to 6% this year from a career 17%. I wonder if that's the reason he hasn't been traded, who wants a guy who's only skill is speed when that's almost tapped out.
Separate issues. There's Wedge (in fairness his hands may be partially tied due to the need to showcase several players for trading purposes). The other issue is leaving potentially some of our better players in the minors to avoid super 2 (as listed above by G).
My Bad.
Still..I'm not smiling at running Figgins for Seager.
But I do feel like a fool...
Here's my problem. Wedge was going to bunt the runner over anyway, so the question is how many fly balls to the outfiled does Figgins score on that Seager doesn't?
Not very dang many.
moe