Whoa! Have the M's Stopped Throwing Away Felix' Masterpieces?
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So the Kansas City Royals had won +10 games IN. A. ROW. before they ran into the 250-HP woodchipper that is Safeco Field.* And then we demonstrated to The Resurrected John Lackey (TM) that his 2.50 ERA had been fake all along.
You watch the Mariners play, and they don't physically LOOK like they're on pace for 87-91 wins** and a playoff spot. No way no how.
But actually, the M's are +6 over .500 for the first time since their 116th win in 2001.*** And they're better than they look. And there is an argument to be made that they don't need to add anything that is actually available.
Four reasons the 2014 M's might BE good, although they don't LOOK that good:
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#1
Felix is beside himself. As other rich guys ::cough,verlander,peavy,ubaldo,jered,etc,cough:: wobble, Felix spirals off into his own lonely universe.
This blog doesn't exist to tell you everything you already know. So we won't bullet out Felix' greatness, and Felix' (unlikely) improvement.
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#2
The rest of the rotation is, if not kicking tail and taking names, at least not throwing away Felix' efforts.
See above. Second paragraph, last section.
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#2a
These two things have, very often, been a recipe for a world championship. Orel Hershiser in 1988 threw 50+ straight shutout innings, was supported by Tim Leary and Tim Belcher at 115 ERA+, and two or three guys about as good as Chris Young in an average year. Orel simply didn't have Joe Saunders, Aaron Harang, Brandon Maurer, and Jeremy Bonderman cancelling out his efforts.
Sweet Lou got Jose Rijo onto a 20-degree-downhill roll in 1990 with three average-solid SP's behind him. And a 95 offense. When they swept the Bash Brother A's, baseball's head imploded.
Kevin Brown's 1+ ERA in 1997; the Marlins' offense was 98, the rest of their rotation only decent and they didn't even have a bullpen. But! The rest of the Marlins did not throw away Brown's efforts. It was like a .500'ish team without Brown.
We could look up dozens of examples. Or you could. Probably Moe and TJM will ... out of their heads, rather than off baseball reference.
Oh! The 1995 M's, the first time they made the playoffs, they were like 27-3 in Unit games and below .500 otherwise. (Maybe I'm mixing that up with 1997, but the point is) I thoroughly enjoy such teams.
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#3
The M's did add somebody to Robinson Cano, that being Fernando Rodney. That allowed everybody else to click-ratchet down one tennis court and, slap me silly, the bullpen has five (5) guys outpitching Danny Farquhar. 116 wins, baby.
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#4
I don't remember the last time I looked at their lineup on b-ref.com and saw so few LOW numbers. Behind Cano and Seager, everybody else is at 85, 90, 95.
It doesn't look impressive. But go flick through 300 pages of b-ref.com playoff teams and see how many of them have one hitter and a bunch of 90's.
The Beane/McClendon 9-to-make-5 is, gentlemen, working.
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Bonus Round
If that's what the M's are, now ...
- A .500-ish (average-mediocre) team without Felix
- Then, Felix
- Felix is going to put his snake eyes on, July-Sept 2014, and show us just exactly what level he is at
Then I, for one, am going to wallow in the baseball summer. The fabric of baseball history is written on HOF starting pitchers. Or at least the 2nd Wild Card might be.
BABVA,
Dr D
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* Anibal Sanchez did clip them for a 2-1 result, the single game before they flew x-country to our house. But the Royals scored 69 runs and allowed 30 during that win streak, including 3 wins over the Tigers before Sanchez bailed them out.
** Mathematically, 87.2. But don't you think we should weight the recent trends a bit? Isn't that like a MGL thingie or something?
*** Asterisks on SSI usually mean "I know, I know, LrKrBoi29. It's not precisely accurate, but it is true." Or it means "of course I'm kidding." Or it means whatever I say, after being called on my baloney. Asterisks, those are 20 years' worth of LrKrBoi29-flinch talking, homies.