Distressing to see so many go and say after a loss or two, "Glad we got that out of the way and I can start being realistic about this season." This is especially prevelant at Lookout and USS with articles about how nice it is that Michael Pineda flopped so we can let go of the superman persona and how Erik Bedard is at his '08/'09 levels and we should be thankful but he'll never pitch like '06/'07 again, how having Adam Kennedy at 3rd instead of Chone Figgins would only be worth a 'half win' over the rest of the season. I understand not wanting to be hurt, being used to having the rug pulled out from under you after the last 10 years and getting sick of people saying, "It happened in '95", but come on, this is baseball, we're fans that aren't making decisions about the team any more important than roster kibitzing, why not allow yourself to hope a bit?
Personally I'm hoping we pick up Ian Stewart for next to nothing or maybe Mark Reynolds (who's picked up that Adam Dunn mantle I laid on him last year) for a future piece or two. I'm hoping that the Mariners pitching proves to belong in the same discussion with the Braves and the Phillies staffs. I'm hoping the Mariners have a season to make people reference 1995 meaningfully.
There does come a point, in a chess game, when you resign -- even though you may still have 1-in-500 chances of winning.
There comes a point in an NBA game, in which a coach pulls his regulars, and saves their legs for the next game.
There comes a point in an MLB game, in which a manager runs up the white flag, and makes pitching changes with a view towards winning tomorrow's game, not today's. When the Padres were down 6-0 in the 8th to the Mariners, they weren't going to use their best setup man.
There certainly comes a time, in sports, when cooler heads must prevail and you keep your gunpowder dry for the next firefight. For sure.
.
=== When ? ===
At what point do you quit on a game? Do you quit when your chances go below 1%? Do you quit when they go below 3%? When?
Consider the Boston-Houston MLB game on July 1, 2011. Here are the win probabilities, play-by-play. After Bud Norris singled to left, the Astros went ahead 5-1 in the sixth inning ... in a vacuum, the Astros' chances of winning were 96.1%.
There you go. Down 5-1 in the sixth. Is your heart still in that game? Do you still run into the catcher at home plate? Do you still run the starting pitcher up to 105 pitches?
Four times in 100, you'll come back to win. And, naturally since I chose that game, Boston did come back to win a rousing 7-5 ballgame.
Could a team afford to write off several wins per season* that, at some point, saw its winning chances down to 4%?
Could a franchise afford to write off 2-3 pennants per century, that, at some point, saw its chances down to 4%?
***
It's a big part of who you are as a person. Do you have to be a favorite, in order to stay in the fight? Are you willing to fight, even though you're the underdog? Or do you run away from any fight, where you're not the bigger guy? The technical term for that is "Bully."
Some people actually do enjoy fights in which they can't lose, and despise fights in which they might lose.... in real life, and in cyberspace ... if you don't like to fight, that's fine. NO, that's GREAT. But don't pick on guys smaller than you, then.
Geoff Baker will throw down with anybody in cyberspace, and, I suspect, in real life also. Sully normally avoids picking on little guys, and stands up to fair fights. Justin enjoys picking on little guys who mouth off to him, and he enjoys fighting huge guys even more. Read Semantic Insanity sometime for accounts of real-life Fight-Clubbing there ... G-Money, Taro, and most SSI denizens walk around fights when they can, but calmly wrap the foil and take on 50 assailants when challenged.
I loooooov eeeeet :- )
Adam Kennedy is the Mariner that you wouldn't want to mouth off to.
***
Your trainer throws in the towel when you're down to 1-in-500. A major league GM throws in the towel for his ballplayers and manager, when he's at 1-in-500.
If you are the kind of guy who quits when your chances are down to 1-in-20, you're not the kind of guy who will be hanging out with pro athletes a lot. They're cut from a little different cloth.
.
=== Cool Standings dot com ===
Right now, Cool Standings has the M's playoff chances at 18.2%. That's the same odds, as if you are down 3-1 going into the fifth inning.
***
It's not like the Rangers are great. Their run differential is +18 on the season and their OPS+ is 103. Don't tell me that they can't falter, or that they're a mortal lock to win 92 games. They are not.
The Rangers could very feasibly finish at .500 or under. One of the reasons an NBA team keeps scratching and clawing when it is down 71-59 in the third quarter, is because its opponent can, and often does, start playing badly.
That's an important reality of a sports contest. Don't forget about it. The other guys can run into problems.
***
It's not like the Mariners don't have any weapons to fight with in 2011. Their run differential is -13 on the season. A +18 run differential vs. a -13 run differential, that's not a fight you resign.
.
=== Preseason Script ===
True, the preseason script sneered at the M's 2011 playoff chances.
But the preseason script also sneered at Michael Pineda trying to pitch with two pitches, and it sneered at anybody counting on Erik Bedard for significant contribution in 2011.
The M's are roughly comparable to the Rangers in overall talent, their rotation is sickening, and the offense couldn't be more improvable. There are multiple 50-OPS+ black holes, at which the M's need only insert 100 bats in order to improve drastically.
***
It's the GM's, manager's, and players' job to actually fight. As a fan, it's merely your job to encourage them in that fight.
Very little is required of us as fans, but one thing that's required of any self-respecting sports fan is a little guts. Nobody in the M's blogosphere should be speaking as though the 2011 division was a lost cause. Everybody should be glad about the M's surprise, dark-horse shot to win this thing.
This is obviously a winnable fight. The Rangers are only +18 runs this year, dummies. It's a weak division! And the M's have some heavy tonnage in the rotation. This ain't a lost cause. So don't call it that.
And just 'cause the M's lose two or three in a row, don't mean we have to whine about them "showing their true colors" again. Friday, Jason Vargas was the stopper. They got five stoppers.
.
=== No Cop-Outs, Dept. ===
99 times out of 100, Seattle Sports Insider will acknowledge the other point-of-view as reasonable. Not this time, amigo, not this time. It is not reasonable to quit on an 18% chance to win. It is cowardly to do so.
If you're a fan who quits on 18% chances to win, what in the world do you do in tough situations in real life?
You don't have to be the favorite, in order to fight. Even if it's only on a fan's level, babe, show some guts.
.
Your friend,
Jeff Clarke
Comments
So that call is lookin' pretty good Mal. Mark Reynolds' 15 doubles and 15 dongs woulda won the Mariners some ballgames in the first half.
Reynolds maybe be the TTO'est of 'em all ... at 215 strikeouts per year, he's testing the boundaries. So far, he's been an overall plus offensive hitter. Would be a white-knuckle ride, though ... :- )
***
In fairness to LL, I take them as kinda "living and dying with each win and loss," wearing their hearts on their sleeves in an honest and heartfelt presentation ... as opposed to scoffing at Jack Zduriencik's attempts to win, and pushing trades of Bedard and Pineda, and so forth.
And Sully has been less ashamed of getting into the 2011 pennant race than most guys would, with his audience.
But yeah.
This team is unquestionably a dark-horse contender, in this weak division. There is no excuse for (other) blogs to still pretend that the Mariners have no chance.
The Mariners have a fair chance to beat Texas, and it is high time for Mariners analysts to stop justifying preseason assumptions, and to start rooting for the home team to win this thing.
Agree with practically every word. Great piece, Doc.
That said ... my position from the get-go is that the "best" way for this club to continue in this race is to play the hand they have been dealt. Where I think you and I have been on different pages is that I get the feeling from you (and many of the other most vocal proponents of trades) that the very choice of not trading is by itself a resolution to defeat. I don't believe that is true.
Baseball is practially unique in its trading practices. All those second half surges by the Chargers in the NFL were not a result of going out and acquiring Urlacher or Brady at the deadline.
I would agree that trading away Bedard for a few 2012 prospects would certainly be a flag of surrender. I don't view NOT trading Bedard or NOT replacing the OF prospect Hydra as white flags.
In point of fact, discussion of somehow replacing Figgins with a productive 3B I'd be 100% behind --- because replacing non-productive vet with a productive vet is a completely different action (in terms of psychological impact) compared to replacing a productive rookie with a slightly more productive veteran.
I suppose what I've been harping on of late might be described as concerns about organizational Feng Shui. I viewed the calls to get a LF to replace the Hydra as the same mistake as giving Junior 6 weeks that nobody else on the planet would've been given with the same production. The club suffered from debilitating veteran entitlement for most of a decade. You cannot remove that with words. It takes actions ... and at some point, I believe you MUST weigh the needs of the prospects ahead of the desire for the quick-fix veteran. The ACTION of choosing to gamble on the rookies is not a guarantee of failure - nor a concession to defeat. And I believe the perception that it is ... is probably driven by the results of the horrible policies in regards to prospect development of the past decade.
Winning teams "routinely" rely on rookie callups during critical pennant runs. Some are stars from day one - (Posey) - some are just solid scrubs typically called up due to unexpected injury. Bartlett gets hurt, so Zobrist gets a call-up, plays well ... and when Bartlett returns, Zobrist dons the McLemore role of supersub and become and integral part of 2008 Tampa World Series run.
A rookie doesn't have to have a pedigree of Ackley or Smoak to be a reasonable, solid and successful 'acquisition' for a pennant run. Just consider. What if Z had "traded" Bradley and Langerhans for Peguero, Halman and Carp at the end of April. Would such a trade been viewed as giving up on the season? Because I recall (at the time) that the move (though internal, not external), was viewed with almost across the board applause and seen as a route to improving the team. (And, of course, the team did get better).
The most frustratinmg trend I've observed over at USSM is the trend toward snide articles calling people like me idiots for daring to hope that my team might come back from a deficit and get into a fight by making a few well-placed trades. The "it's not realistic to win now" crowd would have quit on 1995...the very same season that SAVED baseball in Seattle.
I realize I'm in the vast minority right now, but I don't see continuing a rebuild as quitting. I've grown tired of watching the Ms go after pennant races they aren't' really in and hurt their long-term chances. Would rather they keep an eye on 2012 while building the best team they can for 2011 and hope for the best.
With a team built around the dominance of Pineda and Bedard so far, an overperforming bullpen, the team is still sub .500 (right at pythag and OPS differential).
Texas may not seem like much with their run differential, but they've had some bad luck. Team OPS 759, Oponnents 727. Luck-aside, they should be roughly 8 games ahead of the Ms at this point. The true talent levels are significantly different.
If the team contends you are happilly suprised, but you keep the eye on the long-term.
I think you have to rely on a balanced approach. You have organizational goals and visions. They have to mesh with the individuals you have.
Like Sandy, I'm not convinced you have to make a splash with a trade, I'm only convinced that the guys in the trenches absolutely must be convinced that the entire org is focused on the same goal.
Removing the "veteran entitlement" program that has existed for so long may have gone a long way toward accomplishing that.
If I'm GM, I'm looking at a couple of difficult decisions - neither of which involves "quitting" on the season. Priority #1 for me is an extension for Erik Bedard. If I cannot extend him, I would explore the option to trade him - not to give up, but to make sure have all the reasonable options in front of you.
I think you go to Bedard, tell him he's an integral part of this upcoming window, and get him on board.
If I have to trade him, I strongly consider it. (And this is coming from one of a half-dozen people on the planet who has strongly defended the trade for Bedard since Day One and never wavered). But I would look for very high value for him. It's not going to be easy to pry him from me.
This is going to be one of the toughest months so far since Z has taken the helm. Here is where he'll earn his salary.
Bedard is toughest decision this year. I really think it'll come down to the kind of trade value he has at the deadline and how far out the Ms are at the time.
Will teams give up a premium prospect for him, or is it Rich Harden type scenario where teams won't give up much even if hes dominating?
I'd really be nervous about handing Bedard a long-term deal, but its a logical strategic move if you can't deal him for good value. Hes willing to sign for a discount so you lock him up (hopefully with a ton of incentives).
What you don't want to do is let him walk into FA.
Jack ain't gonna quit. Eric ain't gonna quit. Most of the players on this team ain't gonna quit. If Jack presents an offensive upgrade opportunity to The Two Amigos that does not compromise his overall plan but does require some upward adjustment to this year's budget, will They plead poverty/fiscal prudence/sound business practices/etc., etc. and refuse him, and therefore quit? They've clearly done it before. Will they do it again? Has the leopard changed his spots?
I don't think the choices are "play the hand you're dealt and hope for the best or totally destroy your future to win now"...
Geoff Baker, whose style I don't generally like, mind you, had a good article on this. The battle cry of the republic in defense of no action seems to be "if you go for the post-season, it means blowing up the farm...look at Choo and Cabrera and Adam Jones!" But he points out that the only two guys still on the big league club from 2007 are King Felix and Ichiro and that our farm system looks nothing like it did then...so...what rebuild did our trades blow up, exactly?
I would also point out that trader Jack is not Bill Bavasi...his trade record, while not perfect, is far above Bavasi's and it's irrational to assume that every prospect he trades for help now is going to be the difference makers that Choo and Ascab were. I think the balanced approach works well here...I think you don't trade your Franklins or your Pinedas now...but you certainly do consider trading your Saunderses and your Seagers (sorry, Doc. :) ) and your Pegueros if it means getting some short term help to convince the remaining troupes that you care about winning. Bad luck or not, the Rangers haven't buried us and it's now July. Maybe they'll continue to be unlucky! Lord knows, we've seen Mariner teams run super-unlucky for a whole season before. Just because something is unlikely, doesn't make it not worth fighting for.
I think if you don't get premium return and there is still an outside chance of competing, you risk letting him walk and carry on.
I think if you extend him, it'll be risky. Just like holding on to him would be. Just like trading him will be. If they extend him, I'm sure there will be many who will scream "too expensive!", "You're nuts!", etc. No one (team fans anyway) who signs Bedard will be comfortable paying what he's likley going to get. If they trade him, those same people will likely scream that they didn't get enough for him. If they hold him and let him walk, those same people will scream that they should have traded him for Pujols or whatever.
It's a great time to watch Z at his job....
The Mariners have 3 or 4 upper-minors bats to consider in the next couple of years: Seager and Catricala and maybe Liddi at 3rd, and Franklin at short. The holes that need patching are 3B, LF, DH, RF after Ichiro (potentially), and CF (potentially). They can get by with a Josh Bard/Miguel Olivo catching situation, IMO. SS is no longer a bitter hole so we don't have to have Franklin ready next year.
But if I have up to 5 holes dragging my team down, what do my internal options look like for the 2012 team?
3B: Kennedy, Seager, Liddi, Catricala (if he keeps up his blistering pace).
LF: Carp, Peguero, Halman.
CF: Halman
RF: see: LF
DH: see: LF
And all of a sudden, even if you list SS and put Franklin/Triunfel next to it, it seems obvious that we need to address the outfield. We have 3 options there, for 3 or 4 positions (including DH). Tenbrink has a broken arm now, I think, and Poythress has a season in the toilet. Raben's knee is junk so he's a DH only, though he's having an interesting season in High Desert as well. I still don't think he's a 2012 option.
In the most recent draft we picked one (1) 1B/DH clubber in Cron (a kid I am praying we sign) and then a bunch more infielders. Our top dozen picks or so went 3B, SS, catcher, SS, 2B, another catcher, more catchers, CF...
We took glove positions. Not the worst thing in the world, but we stayed away from anything resembling LF/RF/1B/DH, with Cron as the notable exception.
If those hitters can stay at those glove positions that could still be really interesting, but it won't solve our corner power issue. The next closest thing to corner power we have is in Pulaski, 5 levels away from the bigs.
If I assume that Halman can be my backup CF (or worst-case, my STARTING one) and default 4th OFer, then the question is whether I trust Carp or Peguero to be my starting LFer next year. If I don't, then I need one, and I don't care about hurting their feelings by signing some 100 OPS+ hitter to play there in the meantime. Competing this year can have a nice effect on next year's box office, remember - gate receipts are a lagging indicator, and if Jack ever wants more budgetary flexibility he needs to get butts in the seats soon.
The idea that, "well Bavasi totally screwed up the club by trading away talent and getting little in return, so no one should ever be allowed to trade any minor leaguers unless we're 100% sure of a pennant to help assuage the loss of the next Shin-soo Choo" is just fear talking.
We've seen Jack trade for two and a half years already. Whom do you feel has gotten the better of him? What talent has he let slip away? Phillippe Aumont has had a good half-a-season as a reliever - I'd take Justin Smoak instead, thanks. Brandon Morrow is still running his usual 4.50 ERA with lots of Ks, after starting the year with an injury. If there's a third bit of trade bait out there doing well at a high level I can't place em off the top of my head. In 3 years Brett Lorin might work out for someone else, but Jack has a ton of arms he's stockpiling. Aumont's getting a shot, which is great, but he's not better than any of the guys pitching for us.
Jack didn't always come out right in his trades - Jack Wilson was not what we'd hoped, and neither was Ian Snell, but we didn't give up too much either. When he's wrong, we haven't lost talent in the process.
The options are not binary. It's not, "hold on to all your cards and you can build from within without needing outside help" or "trade away The Future and every all-star you'll get in a decade in a futile attempt to compete this year."
Holding on to the minor leaguers might just mean they drop in value because they're not as good as you wanted them to be or you can't keep them all on your 40 man. Sometimes a bird in the hand is NOT worth two in the bush, and it's Jack's job to figure that out. Trading high on a guy like Gillies is brilliant.
I could easily see us making a major trade, or a minor one. Ryan Ludwick isn't gonna cost us Nick Franklin, after all. I don't see us making no trades at all.
Here's the list of guys available in free agency next year:
http://mlbcontracts.blogspot.com/2001/04/potential-free-agents-for-2012....
You tell me, which of those guys are you counting on to lift this offense? Now, which ones would the Ms be likely to shell out significant cash for? Maybe we do buy in to free agency, but if we did we wouldn't need some of the guys we've got still hanging around.
I've been on the "Don't Trade Our Future" bandwagon for forever, but that's not something Jack has ever done or threatened to do. He's traded high-round picks without the requisite results or career-year guys to get back pieces he likes better for the Mariners.
If we trade for a minor, reliable upgrade at LF or DH I will expect it to be for a piece we won't miss. If we trade for a long-term upgrade at one of our positions of need, then I expect to swap from a position of strength (ie, pitching) to improving our hitting need.
Neither option is abandoning the rebuild, IMO. Part of rebuilding is knowing what you have...and what you need to go out and get.
~G
But some of the pages are jumping to a random sales page or randomly playing videos about SecondLife that aren't visible...
If he's too pricey and the hometown discount isn't there, I'm happy to ride him out all season. I'd rather enjoy a full season of Bedard than trade him for another French/Robles kind of package. But if you can get a true blue chip, or even red chip prospect, I'll be OK with that.
How the heck has Mister Fister been able to go out there and keep pitching his heart out...and pitching well...when he is the most snakebit man in baseball today? The last three outings in particular...8 IP/1 ER, 8 IP/0 ER, 9 IP 0 ER (and still got the frackin' loss because the home plate umpire FORGOT HOW TO COUNT!!!!)
Just...unbelievable. Doug Fister is my second favorite Mariner right now, beihnd only Dustin Ackley.
Anyone else seeing this behavior?
I've grown tired of watching the Ms go after pennant races they aren't' really in and hurt their long-term chances.
On a visceral level, I do connect with what you're saying, Champ. I get what you mean.
***
The problem comes on a logical level. Which of these two things are not feasible?
The Mariners cannot improve their offense moderately, from where it's been?
The Rangers cannot have a disappointing second half?
CoolStandings.com has us at 16.4% this afternoon, and that's because we are not in a division with the Yankees and Red Sox.
***
What is a pennant race you're really in? One where you're the bully, and don't have to stand up to an upperdog?
The semantics are important in this case. If you're going to say, vaguely, "we're not really in this race," then which of the causes are you committing to? The Rangers are a lock to win 90-95 games, and it can't be otherwise?
Their run differential projects to 60, full season. Hardly an intimidating club.
I'm not interested in quitting on a baseball game when behind 4-2 in the sixth, which is another 16% situation. ... you'll have to explain to me the M's right to say "no mas" to such a weak Rangers team.
... due to circumstances, that being the knee, then ...
As it happened, you didn't really have the resource you thought you had. In that event, Bedard gets away from you in 2012 and you have no regrets.
In June, he LOOKED like a huge org resource, but sometimes looks were deceiving.
***
That said, it's just a sore knee, and you've got a pitcher here who's a guaranteed Number One Starter any time he does return to the mound.
If you're into Karma, you could say that Erikkk got tweaked to ensure that he'd win his ring in a Mariner uniform :- )
And by the way, the spam filter is blocking 25k of spam (!) a day. Many will remember when detectovision.com was immolated by spam, thanks to the feeble WordPress plugins.
SSI needs its heavy-duty spamfilter, but any of youse guys who comment as guests are getting your posts delayed.
When that happens, I'll bump the delayed comments to the top when I launch them, but if you choose, you can get around the delays by using an account.
:daps:
- He's a devastating pitcher whenever he can take the mound in good form.
- Never threw 120 innings in a season in the minors, nor 200 in the bigs
- gets waylaid by injuries, be they minor or major, that somehow do not affect his ability as a pitcher.
- is a free agent in 2012 and maybe the best starter available at the trade deadline, but may not have much value.
I keep getting this nagging feeling that we should make him into a closer. It's not like his arsenal is a lot different than Sasaki's (spike-curve/low 90s FB vs. forkball/low-90s FB), except Erik has the control of his pitches that Sasaki never really did.
I would feel better about Bedard in the closer role instead of League, and League might have more trade value as an All-Star near the league lead in saves than Bedard could with his knee injury and shoulder history.
You'd need Erik's buy-in. He'd have to accept that getting a multi-year contract to start for the $12 mil+ per year his talent deserves is not gonna happen because he can't stay healthy as a starter.
But of my apparent options (trade Erik for low-to-moderate return, keep Erik as a pretty expensive starter and continue the log-jam, let Erik pitch out the year and then depart for nothing) I'm starting to like option D:
Trade League for a hitter at C/3B/LF/DH (or the pieces to get such) and install Erik as the closer for the 2nd half. Announce you're extending him and get a contract that rewards for innings pitched OR games finished, and then see where he fits.
Maybe Jack can find other options, and get a huge haul for Erik or re-sign him cheaply. But League's gonna cost us 5+ mil next year anyway if he keeps racking up saves. I'd rather pay Erik instead for the same job. He's got the right mentality - question is whether he can do the job - or wants to.
But Felix, Pineda, Fister, Vargas and Beavan starting, with Hultzen and Paxton angling for a starting job in 2013, backed by Bedard as a closer in the Smoltz-vein?
Ooooof. Bring me some hitters and call me a champion. Somebody ask Bedard if he minds, considering it would allow him to stay here and might extend his career a few years.
The ring it might put on his finger could be another bonus.
~G
I'd feel 1,000 times better if Erikkk were closing rather than League.
And didn't we trade a closer for a young franchise player not long ago? ... League has at least this year and next under club control, too. You'd think he'd have a lot of value.
As you mention, broaching the subject of closer-age with Erik would be no small thing...
The raw OPS differential has Texas very unlucky in their run differential. +36 OPS
On a true talent basis, Texas is roughly 10-15 games better than the Mariners prorated so far this season and already spotted a 3 game lead.. The Angels are better too.
The Ms are also doing this with a rotation that is hitting its absolute best-case scenario and relying heavily on Bedard and Pineda in 2nd half.. There is too much ground to make up IMO. The Ms still need to build up their core before making moves with an eye on only 2011.
... have Texas as a 88-win team so far and LA and Seattle as 84-win teams. I'm perfectly comfortable fighting from that position. I also think this offense has a lot more upside, especially if a bat is added, than the pitching has downside. And if this offense gets just a little bit better, we can rip off some really long win-streaks.
Though am not sure about "very unlucky" amigo...
Their RC/27 is 5.0, based on .268/.329/.440.
They have given up 4.5 runs per game, based on .254/.321/.408 and poor defense leading to many unearned runs.
From an OPS/RC27 standpoint they should be +43 runs differential; they're actually +31. That's not a "very unlucky" first half camoflaging a powerhouse; it's an 85-88 win team loping along a game or two lower than it could be.
***
I am beginning to understand the difference in our thinking, though. I'm not as impressed with the Rangers as you are.
***
What is the 10th-percentile W/L record for Texas in the second half? In the 90% worst-case scenario, do they play at .500 from here, five games under .500, or what?
True talent around high 80s for Texas this year. It seems as if they are more likely to do better in the 2nd half to boot. None of their key players are doing well asides from Ogando and Harrison (both will regress). Ms rely heavily on Pineda and Bedard.. I think we're more likely to be worse in the 2nd half.
The M's replaced one of the absolute worst players in MLB (Figgins) with one of the best (Ackley). That hasn't factored into the teams overall numbers yet but is going to be a HUGE difference in the second half. Last night was a perfect example; we would have lost if Chone had been playing instead of Dustin.
Ackley looks like a massive upgrade over Figgins so far, but I think LF may be in for some regression (Halman/Peguero hitting over their heads probably). Still think the hitting improves a bit in the 2nd half as Ichiro regresses slightly upwards, Ackley a big upgrade, downgrade in LF, perhaps less from C in 2nd half, concerned about Guti. Probably a 3-5 OPS+ improvement.
The pitching will probably regress more than the hitting improves though. The Pineda/Bedard spots mostly, slightly regression from Fister/Vargas should be covered by a stronger 2nd half from Felix, bullpen might be quite a bit worse. Would guess for a 5-8 ERA+ decrease. The team HR/FB% against is running very low. Some of that is pitching and the park, but there will be regression there.
Left field has a cumulative OPS of .599. I don't see how that gets appreciably worse, and it's not going to decline more than right field will improve. Third base has an OPS of .468. That is going to be A LOT better. So effectively you're saying that the regressions from the pitching staff will more than offset replacing a black hole with Chase Utley? I don't agree. This offense is capable of doing far better than it has in the first half while I only see injuries knocking the pitching down significantly enough to torpedo the teams chances.
This offense doesn't need to be much better to win a bunch of games, it just has to be the 25th best lineup instead of the 30th. That can happen without any trades and if they do add a big bat then there is a very real chance this team goes on a tear.
Further, let's not the forget the impact of actually having a serious chance of winning when our backup catcher plays. Gimenez did cost the M's numerous games and his removal will also be a significant boost.
In a second-half league, you draft Ackley with the big boys at second?
***
And Champ may be 12-and-0 in the 2011 SSI Smackdown, but he is 0-and-12 answering this question: "What are Texas' chances of playing .500 or less from here to the wire?"
It's easy to be less impressed with a Dustin Ackley callup than with a Carlos Beltran trade, but...
***
Kyle Seager hit a three-run HR last night night. I believe that he has hit in all 12 games with Tacoma -- 25-for-55, giving him a .500 OBP (!) with a near-.700 SLG and an 0.83 EYE.
Like we say, another week or two of this and you start to wonder whether he's not another offensive upgrade.
The Mariners tend to use scouts' eyes to gauge readiness for the AL -- ability to hit LH-on-LH curve balls and plus velo, etc -- and I'll bet they're seeing everything they need to see, in Seager.
***
I wonder which of the infielders would play LF.
As Wedge coyly reveals in this interview.
The Mariners will level their big guns at Texas in that 4-gamer, and we presume that a lot of people will feel differently (one way or the other) after that head-up.
Catricala for LF. Talk about a guy coming up the ladder at warp speed.
350 PAs this year (A+/AA): .359/.427/.601, 40 XBH (22 dbl, 2 tpl, 16 HR) -- in 77 G.
0.69 eye ratio (34 BB/49 K), 16% K%
Last year in Clinton: .302/.386/.488
He's seriously doing a Pujols on the minors. [OK, getting carried away, Pujols was 20 . . . but Vinnie actually has better numbers.]
Take a look at the guy and see what you think. He played 32 games in LF last year. He seems to make contatct in a PGA kind of way, too, but my eye is not reliable on these things.
He's already hitting better than any other second baseman and it doesn't seem the least bit flukey. But even if his Slg% were to drop below .500 he'd still likely be one of the top 3 at the position.
Per Drayer, and now the official M's twitter, Seager has been called up.
WOW, 12 games in Tacoma. That was FAST. Very excited, though.
I dunno where he's gonna play (3B I assume, with Kennedy in LF?) but it was RIGHT after the game.
Tomorrow's an off-day, and today is get-away day for the Rainiers. They could have left him on Tacoma (for me to see!!) and made the move tomorrow.
It was a statement. I'm really interested to see the North Carolina re-union on the Mariners.
~G
.500 or less for Texas would take a lot of significant injuries. I'd have it at 5-10%.
The problem is even with that unlikely scenario, we'd likely still finish behind them or Anaheim unless the Ms have a strong 2nd half.
I think the chances of the Ms finishing .500 or less in the 2nd half is better than coinflip.It would take something like a 90% finish for the Ms and a 10% finish for the Rangers, and maybe a 35% finish from Anaheim to pull it off.
Its not impossible. Its something you can root for it, but you should still be building your team with an eye on the future. Any moves made in 2011 to win now need also be for the future as well.
I think that 4-gamer with Texas after the all-star break is important.
Guti has sunk into an absolute sinkhole (.227 SLG). His last XBH was June 10.
Smoak, Olivo, Ryan and Kennedy are all on the wrong side of a slippery slope at the moment, with only Smoak having a strong likelihood of meaningful upside.
The bullpen is showing some wear and tear.
Ackley's brilliance is just fading into the soup.
Just my view, but it doesn't look pretty right now.