Eye on the field
like glass to the cornea
So if you're like me you've been seeing a lot of the posts and shouts on this blog (and may have shouted a few of them yourself at high volume during Mariners broadcasts/torture sessions). The general frustration in Mariner-dom after a straight decade of radical incompetence on the playing field is entirely understandable, and it certainly FEELS like I've been forced to watch this ineptitude with my eyes forced open Clockwork-Orange style for months.
But it's still just April. The Ms are bad (horrendous, abominable, a blight on all that is good and holy... pick an appropriate term and roll with it) but a mere 7-game winning streak brings us back to .500 and a date with sanity. The "Fire Eric Wedge" groundswell has some validity, but on a team expected to play .500 ball that has suffered through horrible injury luck that's unlikely to happen. After all, we:
- lost our #3 starter (Erasmo) in Spring Training and he has yet to even begin his minor league rehab.
- lost one of our best hitters to a separated shoulder for 2+ weeks on a bizare fielding play.
- lost our best setup man to a torn shoulder
- had a freak hand injury to our best power hitter who afterward is making contact like he's rocking a child to sleep in a cradle and is afraid to startle it.
- had our CFer continue his insane injury-prone run in between terrific power at-bats and have now lost him to the DL.
- had our #5 starter fail so spectacularly that we had to make an April trade for another starter.
- had our rookie starter stumble out of the gate in a couple of games, blowing up the pen in the process.
Kinney went down in ST too, remember, and the pen has been radically unstable with all the call-ups and necessary shuffling to get enough arms for the innings.
The outfield injury issues (Saunders's shoulder, Morse's hand, Guti's everything) has caused too much playing time from our benchies Ibanez and Bay. Is that partly the manager's fault? Sure - partly. I mean, Ibanez doesn't have to be in there against lefties and Wedge could manage his situational baseball better, but he can't conjure healthy players out of thin air. They've even tried with the additions of players like Endy Chavez and adding Harang to the team via a "panic" trade. We've been very willing to shuffle the roster early in the year, but it's not working out. We just keep losing.
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So what to do?
Wedge will not be fired tomorrow. Neither will Ibanez. Smoak will not be sent down and neither will Ackley, not now that they're hitting a little. We aren't going to DFA Joe Saunders and his 6.5 MILLION dollar salary. So how do you invigorate a lineup and a pitching staff that have got to be demoralized and are certainly underperforming?
1) Call up Nick Franklin as a lefty platoon bat. Our right-handed bats are hitting .208/.269/.355 against RHP. That's an entire RH lineup of Brendan Ryans. We actually do all right as Lefties-on-Righty-Pitching as a team - we're the best at that among all possible combinations, and Franklin would make that stronger. If you can't patch all your weaknesses then strengthen what few strengths you have, and LH hitting against favorable matchups is all the lineup has going for it. Right now there is no backup-lefty to play the middle infield. Andino and Ryan are both righties, and they are both invalid children at the plate anyway. Anything to help production there is a positive.
Nick can demolish right-handed pitching as a short-stop or second baseman. If you're worried about his defense, well, that's what Ryan and Andino (ugh) are for, right? They have defensive capabilities and late in close games you can insert them. Who goes? Personally I'd can Andino, but we just named the dude the starter for a day at SS. It's his dunce cap to carry around. There's still time to correct that, though, and this is how I'd do it. We'd have to make room on the 40-man, but Catricala can be DFAed without much worry. He's lost in the forest without a map or a compass right now, so nobody's poaching him. It adds a power stroke to the lineup as well, which is nice.
2) ONLY PLAY RAUL AGAINST RIGHTIES EVER. And try to keep him out of the field. That said, his BABIP of .185 against RHP isn't likely to continue. He has more left in the tank than that... just not while playing every day. If you're gonna keep him around instead of putting him out to pasture then don't make him gallop around at the Kentucky Derby all the time. There are easier races to let him run in. Find some - or shoot him.
3) Find a righty bat. Lefties kill Morales (who has always been vastly better as a LH hitter), and hurt Seager and Saunders (When he returns) who are some of our only good hitters. They'll also hurt an improving Ackley, and Smoak can't be counted on to put butter on rice let alone power a lefty-majority against their kryptonite. This isn't as important since we face more righties (we've only faced 5 lefty starters so far compared to 18 righties), but we can't be taking auto-losses if a team puts their #6 starter on the mound just because he's a southpaw. This might be an Alex Liddi callup, since he hits lefties decently for his career.
4) don't be afraid of platoons. The above all lead into this point. Franklin/Ryan is one platoon that should be enacted immediately. I would have liked Thames/Wells to be another, but that ship has sailed. Raul/Bay are a terrible one, but better than if each is playing against same-handed pitching. I'd love a good L/R combo once Raul and/or Bay are put out to pasture, and Endy/Guti once Franklin is healthy is a great CF combo. Just saying, embrace your platoon-ness.
Did you not see the CF situation in Texas? They're fine with platoons that serve their purposes, and those guys killed us in the field AND at the plate. Feel free to give Morales days off (or play 1B instead of Smoak, who's been atrocious as a righty in limited ABs this year) and let Montero hit at DH a little against lefties. I know if Montero and Shoppach both play in the same game the world will end, but I promise the Mayans were wrong about that. Pay no attention to the calendar behind that curtain.
5) Motives are better than moves. It's not "fire everyone who is underperforming" that makes the message resonate. That just gets you scared employees who won't look you in the eye but will cuss you out behind your back and destroys morale. Because right now the coaching is underperforming, and the trainers, and the GM... everyone. Singling out the players doesn't help things. Switching that message to "give your team the utmost chance at success" is vital. If your team feels like you're trying to put them all in the best possible position to succeed maybe they can ACTUALLY succeed. Patching the SS black hole is about success. Letting Ryan face only lefties is also about success, for him and for you.
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Change the implementation of the roster and add 1 or 2 pieces that can effect that change to greater result, and then leave it alone for a minute. See what happens. After all, it's a long season and we have some injured players coming back that will continue to change the makeup.
The team may not buy DFAing Saunders and installing Hultzen as a recipe for immediate success after 3 weeks, since they've seen Maurer faceplant in a few starts in his ML debut, but you have Hultzen around for later. He is your first call if the starter blow-ups continue, and then sometime in June I would think Erasmo is your second bullet in that gun. "Replacing the #5 starter" has already been done, remember. Replacing him again, or replacing the #3 later in the year are options that are absolutely on the menu... but not in April.
Right now we have two monster starters, a couple of really good bullpenners, and an offense in search of an edge. Ackley and Smoak are crawling back from the brink. Seager and Morales are decent. Saunders and Morse have to work back from injury, and the rest... the rest need to stop dragging us down.
So we have to help them help us.
One word: Platoon. It's not just an 80s flick with great quotes. Napalm may smell like victory, but so does platooning when it enables players to succeed.
~G
Blog:
Gordon