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Unfortunately he's the only M's hitter deserving a full article on his ABs like that. I guess your hopes about Smoak are very risky indeed.
MOTO Prospects Watch: Dustin Ackley, 2B
=== July 20, 2011 ===
FIRST UPS. With runners on 1B and 2B, nobody out, leading off the game... Brandon Morrow threw Ackley five pitches, four balls and one strike.
Ackley swung at the strike, and did not swing at the balls. And three of those were just about one baseball's width off the strike zone.
Ackley followed them with what Bruce Lee called "half positions," but did not check his swing on any of them. .... Sudden thought: does anybody ever remember Ackley checking a swing? A real checked swing, the kind you appeal at third base?
I'm not sure he can. With that bat wrap, by the time the bat is to the strike zone, if he checked his swing he'd snap the bat in half.
***
Anyway, here's GameDay, in case you want to savor the rest of the 16-for-17 performance on the evening....
You know what, the day will come when Justin Smoak allows the game to come to him like this. Some day, Smoak won't jitter in the box with ultrasonic frequency at the sight of RBI's. That day is not yet.
Some players, Dustin Ackley, Edgar Martinez, they seem incapable of hitting unintelligently. I can't visualize what it would look like (heh! Zum-bro') for Dustin Ackley to press at the plate.
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SECOND UPS. Five more Morrow pitches, three strikes and two balls. Ackley swings at the strikes and doesn't swing at the balls. He is 10-for-10 on that.
Tremendous Brandon Morrow pitch, an 89 slider (?!) up and in (!?), pops Ackley up.
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THIRD AB. Morrow throws two balls and one strike. Ackley swings at the one strike. However, the umpire blows the call on one of the balls.
On 1-1, unleashes on a 92 fastball on the black. He lines it hard to the left fielder, a ball that is probably a .350, .400 BABIP and mostly doubles when it lands. Not this time.
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FOURTH AB. Morrow feeds Ackley an "exploding" 95 mph fastball right. at. the top. of the strike zone.
This is the pitch, the exact pitch, that has Brandon Morrow's K rate at 10.9 and 10.4 the last two years. Morrow's fastball rises by as much as 15 inches (!!) and all the players tell you that it "accelerates" in the last ten feet.
Morrow's 95 high fastball is effectively 100 mph, and it's the reason that he strikes people out. (Terrified of the sailing fastball, they commit way too early and swing over the 89 slider.)
This particular high 95 fastball was thrown to Dustin Ackley, who crushed it into LF/CF gap for a double. In the booth, Mike Blowers pointed out that lefty batters can't hit good velocity up. "It sure doesn't bother Dustin, though."
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FIFTH AB. After Dustin Ackley takes an Octavio Dotel fastball for 1-0 ... he is now 16-for-16 in terms of swinging at strikes and letting balls go.
On the 17th, Ackley's plate discipline collapses. Dotel throws him a 91 cutter that is too far in on his hands, off the plate ... and that is also a possible ball call for being too high.
Ackley turns on the ball and hits a home run down the RF line, into the second deck. Somebody tell me how you can wrap the bat like Ackley does, and get to that inside pitch so quickly. Check that: somebody tell my man Ichiro how that's done...
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=== Dr's Prognosis ===
Ackley's EYE in June was 5:5. Here in July, it is 4:11. His frustration and confusion is (1) palpable and (2) publicly announced, by him. Ackley hates, hates, haaaaaates being constantly outsmarted by the pitchers, hates being reactive, hates not being able to play his game.
You can see it in his face, his body language, his disgust when he loses a battle. It's like Michael Jordan at the start and end of his career.
He's batting .283 / .343 / .505. As a second baseman. How many middle infielders are natural 3-hole hitters?
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BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
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Two nights ago, on the AB where Ackley hit that soft looper into CF for an RBI knock, he had two of those "half position" efforts in a row.
The first was on an 02 pitch, IIRC. He got a tough off-speed pitch, down and in. He half position the barrel onto the ball and fouled it into the dirt. ON the very next pitch, he "half-positioned" the same pitch, in the same location, and looped it for the single.
I thought at the time that there were almost no major leaguers who could have started after that pitch and held up as late as he did...w/o a checked swing that was probably a strike. What was as amazing was that he actually got the barrel on the ball twice.
Put a "C" on his shoulder, spring training '13.
If, in the next 10 years, the M's ever let Ackley (uninjured) get close to being an FA I'll give up on the team.
Roberto Alomar, Ryne Sandburg, Joe Morgan...He's going to be in that 2B league.
Man, he's on a full-season clip to have 60-65 x-base hits!
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He views him as a "little guy," IMO, a runs-scored-man at a glove position who doesn't look like much physically but runs real fast.
A guy who will get on base a lot and needs to be driven home.
Smoak's life will get WAY easier when a) he accepts that Ackley is gonna score a hundred and drive in a hundred once we find a real offense, and b) we get him some MOTO help.
IMO, those two things will happen at the same time, and will hopefully be enhanced by a free agent/trade or two for bats.
But right now, this is Smoak's reality:
# of RBI's from Smoak in the last 28 days: 3
Leader in team RBIs: Smoak
I LOVE that Ackley is angry that he's only putting up a 140 OPS+ as he takes the first turn in his 400 meter jaunt around the league. I did watch him check his swing, actually - happened two nights ago and he wound up punching a lazy looper into shallow center because there was no way to stop that swing in time. :)
But the kid is a killer. Forever, though, we've been hearing that he's not gonna have MOTO power and he's more of a singles and doubles guy with some walks and speed. Not a thumper.
I wonder how Griffey felt seeing Edgar in 1990 in a full season for the first time. I mean, it was obvious he could hit, but did Junior think, "That right there, that 5'10 dude with the weird 'stache, that guy is gonna be the cleanup hitter in the heart of this order for a decade?"
Somehow I don't think so, and neither did anybody else except maybe Gar.
In 1990 Gar hit 6th and 7th. In 91 he batted all over the place, but mostly leadoff (yeah, that's funny to me too). In 92 they realized he couldn't run, but he was a nice 2-hole hitter. Won a batting title that way and slugged .550. 1993 was his injury year.
1994 he was finally installed as the number FIVE hitter. You know what it took for Gar to get to be the #3 or #4? Griffey breaking his wrist and FORCING them to let Edgar carry the team on his shoulders. Which he did, all the way to the playoffs.
Because our MOTO sucks horribly, we're not going to be using Ackley as a leadoff guy and wasting his RBI capabilities, but I do believe the "little-guy" stigma is still there.
"Ackley should bat leadoff."
"Ackley's a good #2."
"Ackley's bat doesn't play at a corner position, so he has to be moved off of 1B."
Draft day stuff stays with you, until you change the tune. Ackley is changing it fast, but until Smoak picks up that tune he's still gonna feel like he's going it alone as a slugger in this lineup and he isn't ready for that yet.
Hopefully after this year he'll never have to do that again, and he and Ackley can both take turns making magic happen for our future offense. Once Smoak trusts him to do it and freakin' RELAXES, anyway. He was fine to start the year when he thought he had Good Ichiro on his team and Cust was still believed to be a slugger. He carried his own weight fine for the first 6 weeks. It was carrying their weight too that threw him off stride.
The burden is no longer all on him - he just has to realize that. Which is another reason for Jack to sign an RBI man in the offseason to make sure Justin gets the memo.
~G
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Ackley is definetly looking like a star. Hes a big reason I don't think we're all that far off.
Ichiro will probably rebound some. Hes in decline for sure. His IFH% is down despite a high GB% and the fielders playing more back than norm. That said, I'd still bet on his BABIP-ability being over .300. He won't continue to be this bad and will likely rebound to some degree in 2012.
Gutierrez is extremely important in '12 and beyond. In '09 and early '10, he was a star player. The club needs to have him figure out his digestive issues and get him muscle back in the offseason.
Depending on Gutierrez, I think '12 can be a competitive year if we can figure out LF, 3B (likely Seager), and DH between now and April.
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G, I'm not sure having understood, are you saying Smoak is not performing due to Ackley powerful presence and strong personality ? Baseball is a mental game and that kind of psychological fragility would be a bad trait IMO. However looking back to Smoak short career in the majors - do not forget Rangers time too - I see a lot of bad times, perhaps too many to maintain such a great confidence. Hope to be wrong of course.
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Never really seen Smoak as a star after watching his debut, but hes a high% shot an average/solid player (with upside of 3+ WAR if everything goes right).
He was running a sky high BABIP and hitting for more power early in the year on his hot streak. Right now, his BABIP is very low.
That said he deserves his BABIP because of an extremely low LD%, but I think he figures that out long-term and his BABIP rises.
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but it's really hard on the psychie. It sounds like Smoak didn't just lose his dad but also his best friend and baseball confidante. It takes ist toll and there is little chance that he doesn't have some degree of depression going on right now. I'm not saying he is a depressed person but that losing a loved one is pretty much a guarantee that there will be unique sadness. I can't imagine trying to hit a fastball when your mind and body is not in synch.
I still believe Smoak is going to be a great player for the M's but this year is going to be tough for him regardless of how he is plays from here on out.
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Did that happen this year? Sorry to hear..
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When he came back that is when he went on to hit like we all hoped. Hard to keep that up considering the circumstances.
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His dad meant a lot to him.
And para, I'm not saying he's a mental weakling, just that he's trying to do too much. He's looking to hit a 5 run home run every time he comes up with a man on base. He's not following his game, and he's swinging a foot over the inside breaking stuff.
He's not looking at the ball when he swings, he's looking at the fence. I agree with taro, the emasculatingly-low BABIP won't last, but he needs to improve his approach and return it to his early season one. Well, Doc called it on the early stuff where he was also pulling his eye-line off the ball, but he settled down after that for a month.
And now we're back to this. When he settles in I think Smoak will be great. Maybe not a true #4 but at least a great #5 (and I didn't think Morneau was a true #4 before 2 years ago but he helped drive that offense just fine).
He just needs some help, and a break from the, "If I don't drive in a run, it's not coming home at all" mentality - even if it's basically true. Smoak driving in runs over the first 2.5 months = the Mariners clinging to contention. Smoak has a bad RBI month = the Ms fall screaming out of contention and into the cellar.
I trust Smoak and his calm southern ways, sweet power to all fields and ability to control the zone (which has also disappeared in the last month). He should be a rock in the middle of our order for a while. But right now he's sinking like the stone that he is, and it's just painful to watch.
Unlike Guti, though, I do expect him to improve back to the good version shortly - and for Ackley to greet him from Plus-Player-ville when he gets back there.
~G
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Ok, let's forget this season looking forward for 2012. Smoak at 1B, Ackley at 2B, Catricala at 3B and.... Liddi at SS. Don't worry, feel free to call me with bad words, I'm prepared to. And Carp in left, Halman in center with Ichiro in right. DH and catcher at your disposal. Is it a AAAA team or worse ? Well, what are the present M's if not the worst team in the majors ready to break that old 18 games losing streak, and how long should we pretend to be an AL team ?