Hey Doc,
I would almost bet that Liddi plays 1B against the Angels in Safeco on Thursday.
Tacoma is off on Wednesday.
Smoak HAS gone 6 'fer his last 25 (which constitutes his hottest streak of the year) with 3 walks. .240-.311-not much.
But he's K'ed 9 times in his last 6 games. I suppose we give him another couple of starts in the Lone Star State, to see if we can find a pulse, ya' know.
Alas, he'll probably get a homer and a double....so we have to watch him for 20 more games.
I know all about his Sept. and Spring Training. But you know what? Prince Fielder has terrible months. He probably had a terrible ST sometime. But you don't judge him on THAT month, rather than the previous 1500 PA's.
Liddi is showing some Tacoma pop and allows us to be a lot more flexable in the IF, too. So barring a one tater/one double barrage from Smoak in the next couple of days, he's likely down. If we have dreams of salvaging the season, anyway.
Raul? The question mark following his name was always the critical element, wasn't it? Why was he ever here?
Saunder is due back. Who goes, Raul or Bay or Chavez? My bet is that we let Bay go and Raul never plays another inning in the OF, if avoidable. I can't see us chucking him overboard right now. Alas.....
I think I would throw both he and Bay over the rails, get Thames in the lineup again. I like Thames against RHP, you know.
Whether we're playing for this year OR next, the value of keeping Raul and Bay is highly questionable. Well, nonexistent.
Keeping Smoak is a question of how much good money do you want to throw after bad. Right now we're keeping Smoak because he MIGHT be a 110 OPS+ 1B in ONE of the next few seasons. Problem is, 1B guys who MIGHT hit like that exist all over the game.....AAA, too.
We're not bringing Romero up yet. We're not giving Franklin the SS position and going bat first. We're not demoting Ackley. But we HAVE to do something. Smoak and Bay will be that something.
BTW, I had a dream last night that the M's had canned Wedge and replaced him with somebody named "Campbell" (I think that was it...it was a dream after all). Really, I had that dream.
Anybody know of the guy?
moe
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Hot seat, in which the bleacher bums chat baseball with absolutely no (a) statistical analysis, (b) preparation, (c) accuracy or even (d) undue concern for whether they're completely wrong.
But hey. We're a lot of things -- fair-weather fans ain't one of 'em. As Bill James said, "I believe in struggling through the down times, in watching the kids figure things out. It makes the winning more fun."
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=== Buy a Clue, Dept. ===
Dr. D is as disgusted, and discouraged, as anybody. Why is it an Act Of blinkin' Congress to score one lousy run?
- The Darvishes, Fisters, and Verlanders did it, between the lines, with the radar gun
- The BABIP did it, on the infield dirt, with a splinter off the busted roulette wheel
- The kids did it, in the Starbucks, with a case of Quad-Shot Lattes
- The DL did it, in the training room, with a variety of foreign objects (baseballs, fences, and Eric Davis-like CF's)
- Blaise Pascal did it, under the stands, with the spike-anchor of 2B
- The weather did it, on the frozen tundra, with a bad case of hypothermic baseballs
- The assisted-care nurse did it, in Raul Ibanez' room, with a pillow
Without looking up the stats, we can tell yer that the young players are pressing; Kyle Seager is the only one going up there satisfied to sock a solid line drive anywhere the ball's pitched. We can tell yer that the runs on the board don't reflect the balls in play the last week-plus. And when Ortiz came out of the bullpen, and pitched badly, he stuck out like a coal pile in a ball room.
It's not logical that this offense should be worse than 2012, much less worse than 2011, but you know that as well as we do. As for me, I'm just gonna ride it out.
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=== Dustin Ackley ===
Gordon was first to notice that Ackley was taking better swings. He is. Tonight, for example, he lined an opposite-field single ... 'twasn't the BABIP. At least, not Only.
The outside fastball, an inch or two inside the black, has been Ack's Bane. But tonight he drove the front knee up the middle, extended his Ki right back at the pitcher, and calmly socked a line drive to left field.
He's showing signs. Agree 100% with your man, my man, the G-Money man.
...........
His post about "tweener" position players was fascinating too. The Dr. D mosh is due and payable.
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=== Justin Smoak ===
Okay, we've applied the shock paddles, the patient started breathing. He's in cardiac arrest again. Hey, G, at what point does the most aggressive doctor call it?!
No pitch recog, no steam behind the swing, just looks like if it ever arrives it's going to be in arb year 5 or 6. If the M's pull the plug they'll get no yap out of any of us.
Supposing they did. Who gets into the lineup?
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=== M's 7 up, 12 down ===
You could come up with as long a list as I could --- > of reasons to despair. So, next subject.
If the M's could poach Sunday's game ... the M's have Felix, WBC-san and Bazooka Joe against ---> the Lastros' three Bottom of Rotation starters. The objective would be a SWEEEEEEP against Houston, not farfetched in view of Felix' presumed (yep) victory to open it up. Logic dictates (yep) that if WBC-san can take on Sale, Darvish and Verlander, that he can take on a must-win against Houston.
Hey, I like to watch baseball. I'm going to watch it. And even root. True to the Blue, baby.
:- P
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Comments
I think they wait for Saunders to get back at the end of the week and it's Smoakmthat gets sent down. The Morse/Morales signings were made for just this scenario. Morales goes to 1B, maybe getting spelled by Morse once or twice a week. Ibanez then slides to DH with time off against LH starters. I doubt they will give up on Ibanez this early given the 'intangibles' but they definitely need to get him out of the field.
If we're going to rely on pitching to carry us until the offense shows up, we need to tighten up the pen. Pryor's going down left a huge hole that apparently Medina is not ready to fill. Furbush needs to get back to his first half 2012 form. 2-1, 3-2 victories call for a lock down pen.
I have this bad feeling that when Saunders comes off the DL then Guti goes on it. He can't play two games in a row and has been having "leg tightness" for two weeks now. That way they keep Endy as CF backup or left field starter so we aren't having Raul in left so much, because he's even worse in the field than I thought he'd be. I thought he'd be bad, but he's been atrocious.
Very much like Pryor, this huge, hulking dude who throws mid-90s with enough wildness to make you really nervous. I'm a fan of Pryor, and I disklike Medina. Why? Because Pryor dictates terms to the hitter, while Medina is constantly at war with himself to even be effective. I've advocated dumping him off the 40-man before.
Medina doesn't have the same walks problem that Matt Thornton had in the minors, but something about him reminds me of that struggle. Thornton began as a starter, couldn't make hay, got injured, and was moved to the pen but he always... he never had self-belief on the mound. Maybe it's because he was never sure where the ball was going. Some people like being the Wild Thing and gain comfort from it, and some hate it. Once we traded him to the White Sox they fixed his control issue in a couple of bullpen sessions and THEN Thornton became the reliever he wanted to be, and believed in himself.
Medina just lacks something for a guy with a chin of granite and a 95 mph fastball. I get why the scouts won't let us get rid of him - he's got all kinds of arm and he certainly LOOKS the part. But it's like watching Gabe Kapler at the plate for me: the dude looks superhuman but never actually performs that way.
I don't like mid-90s relievers who always look like they're on the defensive, I guess. Of course, Putz was this way until he got a forkball and then he went all Genghis Khan on people. I'm positive there's a plateau for Medina to jump to be the pitcher we want him to be. The same was true of Mumba Rivera. Who, you say? Exactly.
Cuz he never jumped the plateau. Fingers crossed that Medina does, I guess, but I don't want him doing it at the big-league level. Because he's on the 40-man, though, and we're limited with our current options, we're left hoping that he does.
~G
Hitting .270/.340 with good power in the minors and a hundred billion strikeouts. He's not growing. He can't close the holes in his swing. Striking out in 25% of your plate appearances is almost impossible to overcome unless you walk a ton AND have fairly prodigious power (the Mark Reynolds and Ryan Howard way). Liddi struck out more in the minors than Reynolds, and has struck out at a higher percentage in the Majors as well. When you strike out more than the Strikout King of the World there's not a huge chance of success for you. He's not as bad as Peguero career-wise, but it isn't pretty.
Now, Alex might make it anyway in some fashion. I've called Tony Batista my comp for Liddi before (a few years ago) and a .250/.300/.450 line wouldn't blow the doors down at first base but would still be a sight better than what we're getting now. But how do you replace the .200/.300 batter you have now with the .220/.280 hitter you're suggesting? By saying he'll have more power, I suppose.
I don't expect us to go that way. I would think we would kick Ibanez and Bay to a DH platoon, demote Smoak to Tacoma and let Morales play first.
That lets us keep our "vet leadership," play Chavez for his D more (man is Ibanez scary out there at this point) and audition Morales for NL clubs at the deadline if such a trade scenario comes up. We'll get a chance to see soon if Smoak keeps looking like he has in Texas: dead man walking.
~G
Exactly G! Maybe Liddi actually brings some pop.
If Saunders displaces Smoak then you have Guti, Saunders, Morse, Bay, Chavez AND Raul who are primarily OF types. 6 out of 13 guys on the roster would be OF/DH. Well, I suppose you could play Morse at 1B fulltime. I don't see it though.
I just think Saunders will replace one of those guys and something else happens with Smoak.
Liddi isn't great. But he's the kind of 3 position player who brings power. I think the Smoak power possibility is all illusion.
He's has 71 homers in more than 2000 AB's in his PRO career......including A and AA. He looks county strong...but there is something missing. So he's got to be a .270-.350 type of guy. He's never come close to .250 in the Majors and only his AAA career BA is .252.
I can't see him getting close anytime soon. He homers 1/28 AB's in AAA and 1/33 in MLB.
And he just K'ed for the 2nd time today, on a curve not even close.
But I'm beating a dead horse. I just think Liddi will get the call. He's not great. But he's probably better than Smoak.
BTW, more and more it looks like Guti is just a 4th OF (but we've said that long ago). He's too dang fragile. Give him the vL starts and then use him defensively against righties, or to PH. I'm all for giving Thames a ton of vR starts, too.
moe
I've been thinking a lot about the seemingly systematic failure of so many of our once-highly-touted young players. How could so many "can't miss" guys... miss? I know not all of the guys have come up through our system (Montero), but have we considered the possibility that Dr. Marcus Elliott's new workout program the team adopted in 2010 is simply failing us? I don't know enough of the particulars about how widely it was applied, or whether or not it would have anything to do with the offensive failure we are seeing. But, is it possible?
The problem began years before Dr. E came on board.
The particulars of the problem are:
1) Ms haven't produced an .800 hitter *internally* since AROD.
2) MANY Ms prospects have blossomed after leaving the org, (Guillen, Choo, Morse, Adam Jones).
3) Ms pitcher development shows none of the same problems that hitters do.
4) The minor successes have typically been from a template of pure athletic instinct, (Lopez, Yubet, Seager, Saunders), with general failures by any Mariner prospect who showed any "cerebral" or "selective" foundation to their hitting. Basically, the more walks they draw early in their minors careers, the worse they do upon hitting the majors.
My assessment is that it is NOT about the physicality - the swing planes - the mechanical stuff that they are screwing up. I think they are (perhaps unwittingly), destroying player production through the preaching of "approach" to at bats.
The short hand managerial rhetoric has long been "we want intelligent at bats", which sounds good. But, what that means I think is ... "don't let strikes go by .. EVER ... and don't swing too often at pitches Waaaaay out of the zone, (if you can help it).
I think high walk players (Ackley/Smoak) are criticized for not being aggressive enough. I think players like Peguero, (whom they would "like" to strike out less often), is actually viewed more positively, because he IS aggressive.
I think Saunders is about as "passive" as the org can stand. (Now, Saunders had some real technical issues to fix, and did a wonderful job of fixing them ... which means the FOCUS on Saunders was mechanical ... not on his approach to hitting).
I think Smoak and Ackley are both suffering from too much meddling to "mold" them into something they are not.
Montero is the hardest to figure ... but BEFORE he reached the Ms, he had gotten WORSE with each promotion. I think Montero may simply have reached the limit of what his instincts can do, and has no real experience in terms of adapting his hitting to higher level opposition.