.

Still Brad Miller has not witnessed an MLB game in which his team scored fewer than 3 runs!  I'd like to see a historical stat on that.  When did a rookie ever come up, parachute into a lineup, and go his first three weeks without his lineup ever being stopped?  Miller literally has not seen an MLB lineup fail.  Well, not his, anyway.

True, the "success" against Bedard was based only one hit.  Still, they hung in, got him out of the game, came up with 4 runs, and won the game.  We're not saying the M's have won 19 blowouts in a row; some of the successes have been greater than others.  But:  in April, this team scored 3 or fewer in 21/28 games.  From June 6 to June 19, it scored a grand total of 30 runs in two weeks.

19 games for Brad Miller, and 19 games in which the M's have scored 3+ runs.  In terms of WAR, the math says that Brad Miller is worth +3 wins a season to you, beyond what Brendan Ryan was worth last year.  No wonder the sabes were scoffing at the idea of promoting Miller and Franklin.  :- )

There is a very important, maybe dominant school of thought that --- > argues this paradigm strenuously.  Promote a Franklin or a Miller based only on the WAR delta that you think they'll add over your current player.  (This number is never more than 1-2 wins a year.)

Guys like Jack Zduriencik, though, they have SEEN this kind of thing happen before.  Pat Gillick, and Jack Zduriencik, and Walt Jocketty, they have SEEN Brad Miller and Nick Franklin parachute into a team and light it on fire.  They've been there when it happened, you feel me?  GM's will always promote blue-chippers based on the hope that the kids will ignite a team.  That's because sometimes it works.

............

In April, we wrote the article Ptolemy, Copernicus, and WAR.  In it, we asked

.

Q.  Are we going to argue about John Jaso all year?

A.  No, we're going to argue about WAR all year.  If we are sabermetricians, we quite literally have no choice about that.  Allow Dr. D to explain.

There are two competing models in pop sabermetrics right now:  

(1) WAR explains everything (or 98.7% of everything)

(2) The other model (used by Zduriencik, James, and SSI denizens)

From time to time you will hear references to Ptolemy vs Copernicus; how would you be an astronomer of that time and refuse to address the models?  Nah, I don't wanna talk about whether the Sun revolves around the earth; I just want to catalog stars and be the greatest astronomer in the world. 

............

We as sabermetricians are in the business of understanding baseball -- or at least we claim we are.  Here is a question that can really help us gain ground on it.  When you are considering the promotion of a Nick Franklin and a Brad Miller, is that the paradigm you should use?  Franklin's projected WAR vs Ackley's?  Or is that paradigm too limited to properly drive Jack Zduriencik's decision?

When we struggle to reduce baseball to nothing but WAR, we ensure the demise of our own grasp of the game.

............

Miller's tenure here almost, not quite, overlaps July's schedule - Miller got here in very late June.  In July, the Mariners' offensive stats:

In July, the M's have five players slugging .574 or better.  You expected Rauuul, Smoak, and Morales ... also Seager and Saunders.   Brad Miller's almost there.

Before July, the M's team line was (right around) .235/.295/.395.  Roughly a Miguel Olivo statline:  woeful OBP, a "strength" of SLG and HR that itself approached "average."

The most-similar major league hitter to the post-Miller Seattle Mariners:   Justin Upton.  The last three years, 2011 to 2013, Upton has averaged .278/.361/.475.  That's right where the M's have been since they installed their new DP combo.

And, that's just about what their offense has looked like so far.  Nine Justin Uptons would get ten hits, two doubles, two homers, and 6-7 runs a game.