M's 5, Twinkies 2 - Props and Slops
PROPS TO ADAM KENNEDY, who played in the middle infield with ... drumroll ... Luis Rodriguez at short. The Mariners scored 5 runs in their first attempt at this offensive-MI configuration.
Weaver and Herzog used to run not only left-right platoons, but offensive-defensive platoons, day-night platoons and who knows what else. Here were the offensive MI's behind ... Michael Pineda, a strikeout flyball pitcher.
Good on yer, Mr. Wedge.
........
PROPS TO MOE, who called shotgun on the idea that the deployment of LRod + Kennedy tonight might presage a Wilson release (and Ackley callup). Wow, if Ackley's up in the next few days, that's one of the coupla best prophecies of the year.
Taro's beginning-of-the-year call on Trevor Bauer is going to be tough to exceed, though :- )
........
Am watching the Twins chip line drives into the heavy sea air only to have Condor stride easily under them to make the catch. This made me wonder how many backspin hitters have succeeded in Seattle...
The list of Mariner offensive achievers is short enough as it is, but watching the difference between Peguero's and Kennedy's line drives versus those of the Twins is suprising.
Sweeney and Lamkin (sp?) were two other topspin guys, as are Branyan and Ibanez, who have had success in Safeco. Kennedy is making me think that you must get on top when playing by the sea in Seattle.
Cirillo was a productive player in the dome in Minneapolis, right?
If you didn't see it, Kennedy's homer was on a high fastball. He got on top of it, finished with the bat low like Pete Sampras hitting a groundstroke.
Pops' comment cements for us that Kennedy is a particularly Safeco player. He's got to be here all year, as a backup, at least.
Kennedy is hardly a savior; he's a 100-offense second baseman. But he's still got a pretty quick bat for an older gentleman, and a few things happen when he's in the lineup.
..........
It was Inside Pitch who pointed out the effect of topspin in Safeco. In the 2003 offseason, he assured us that Ibanez would be great here, and proceeded to calmly explain why.
He's not a Mariners fan. It would be like you calling Adrian Gonzalez to fail in Boston because the batter's box there keeps him too close to the plate, or something.
.
PROPS TO 5-0 LEADS. The Mariners gave up two runs in the ninth, and ... whattaya know. It doesn't matter.
When you've got Michael Pineda on the mound and a dubious starter going against you, you're supposed to be +5 in a certain amount of those games.
The Mariners, with no homers, have made the game wayyyyyyyy too hard. With this rotation, a few homers will be all they need.
...........
See that? Y'throw a bat-first lineup out there and whattaya know. Like Earl said, "give me a lineup full of Eddie Murrays and I'll show you how easy managing can be."
Hey, how does Justin Smoak compare to him, by the way? >:-]
.
PROPS TO MICHAEL SAUNDERS whose UZR/150 is up to ... wait for it...
+17.6 runs saved per season
I trust that we all realize that Michael Saunders isn't really a historically-great center fielder.
(He does look very rangy out there. From an aiki standpoint, it's fun to watch the guy move. Every move he makes is leveraged. If a horse were a human, it would look like Michael Saunders.)
CF in the bigs is loaded with speed burners like Denard Span, Curtis Granderson, Peter Bourjos and Austin Jackson. It isn't really possible, within reason, to be +20 runs better than all those track guys.
Safeco makes CF's look better than they are. But it doesn't mean that Franklin Gutierrez is bad.
It does, however, mean that the Mariners can use people like Michael Saunders in CF when they want to.
.
PROPS TO CARLOS PEGUERO whose HR we clocked at 2.85 seconds hang time. (Kennedy's was a line drive, and was 5.5 seconds.)
.
SLOPS TO THE M'S TEAM UZR, which is #26 in the majors. Something is not right with that.
- SS - gold glove SS
- 2B - gold glove SS
- 3B - a guy who scored a $45M deal with his glove
- CF - a guy running a +17 UZR right now
- RF - Ichiro, the only speed burner ever to play right field
- 1B - Smoak, who is a good glove there, I guarantee you
Imagine if you took nine All-Star hitters and they played a month and a half as one of the worst offenses in baseball. Cognitive dissonance.
Maybe it's hard-hit balls. Maybe it's terrible defensive positioning. Maybe the fielders are sleeping in log cabins. Maybe the pitchers are getting 8 chances a game. Something's weird. First guy who explains it (convincingly) gets flowers from me.
.
SLOPS TO JACK ZDURIENCIK who is feeding my addictions with lines like "Dustin Ackley will be up sooner than later."
Roto champ suggested that we make sure that Ackley has mastered AAA first; we're sure than Sandy (whose roto team just blasted mine) will jump out of his seat cheering. :- )
Agree with the macro idea here - don't push him past AAA until he's mastered that first.
..........
Where we differ would be in the specifics. Says here that Ackley has mastered AAA.
Of course, it's not a statistical paradigm we're using to say that, as it wasn't a statistical paradigm that we used to opine that Pineda had solved AAA.
Ackley has a specific set of skills. Play him in AAA for one more month, or for thirty more months, and the same things will happen. He'll work 3-ball counts, whip the bat around and snick the pitches out of the catcher's mitt for base hits, and he'll OBP .400.
IMHO, he's got nothing to learn in AAA.
It is possible that Dustin Ackley won't have much to learn in the bigs. Ichiro didn't. Ackley and Ichiro are more similar than you realize.
.
BABVA,
Dr D