Sheffield

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Exercise: The "free, safe, magic pill"

According to this article by a well-respected sports medicine doctor, exercise is the magic bullet that can cure all ails, and lack of exercise is the greatest public health epidemic of our times.

(Although I have to point out that he makes his whole entire living by fixing people who hurt themselves exercising. So it’s not THAT great.)

Image courtesy Flickr/Sheffield Tiger

 

Image: 

Franklin Gutierrez, SuperSub

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Q.  Franklin Gutierrez, Super Sub?  I thought Dr. D was Guti's eternal opponent?

A.  Funny thing.  Back when they were giving him +6 WAR and four-year deals, I thought the emperor had no clothes.  But now that we're talking about him as a 4th outfielder extraordinaire, I'm super stoked.

The 116- Mariners had two main substitutes, Mark McLemore and Stan Javier.  They both played so cotton-pickin' ever-lovin' grrrrrrrr-eat that Lou didn't give even 100 at-bats to any other sub.*

*the backup catcher played a little.  But it's amazing how few AB's went to anybody else on the bench.  Kain't argue with 116 wins, kiddies.

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Q.  Is a 4th outfielder a big deal?

A.  It never is for us.  It sometimes is for good teams, though.

b-ref.com Comps for Robinson Cano

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This isn't analysis; it's just something I thought was fun to look at.

If you go to Robinson Cano's b-ref.com page, and scroll down to Similarity Scores, then over where it says 30. David Wright, you can click the little C and bring up Cano's age-based similarity players.  That page will show you what ten Cano-like players ... Ryne Sandberg, George Brett, Joe Torre ... DID in their PAST careers, up through age 30.

Then you click where it says "Display totals from age ... to end of career," pick the 31 of course, and you get this page.  It's an amusingly sad picture of what those 10 historical players did.  Down where it says "average of all 5 retired players," you can see that as a group they only delivered OPS+ of 111 from age 31, and for only 5 years before retiring.

That's a "complete catastrophe" set of comps.  The M's in-house list has not been this list.  :- )

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What is entertaining, is that --- > David Wright is Robinson Cano's #1 comp and he is currently the same age as Cano (so they are not in any way era-shifted against each other; they are perfect contemporaries).  

If you look at Wright's set of comps, you get a hilariously great set of performances from ages 31-40.  The retired players, as a group, played a full 9 more seasons after age 31, and they averaged (averaged!) a 126 OPS+.  Even including their AARP seasons.

Carlos Beltran and Nelson Cruz

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This from MLBTradeRumors:

The Mariners have money to spend and a need for offense.  Yesterday, Joel Sherman of the New York Post wrote that the team could be aggressive on free agents Jhonny Peralta,Nelson Cruz, and Mike Napoli.  The latest:

  • The Mariners' reported interest in Jacoby Ellsbury may be overblown, hears ESPN's Jerry Crasnick.  
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  • Crasnick wrote earlier than the Ms are more immersed in the Carlos Beltran/Peralta/Kendrys Morales market than in Ellsbury's.  The Mariners would like to find a way to add Cruz and Beltran, tweets Crasnick.  If they are to pull that off, it could be another offseason of disregarding defense, in my opinion.  Signing Cruz and Beltran requires the forfeiture of draft picks, but the Mariners' first rounder is protected.  They would lose their second round pick as well as their Competitive Balance Round B pick (similar to the Indians last winter).

The Mariners' outfield cost them a remarkable number of defensive runs in 2013.  However, in 2014, batters will not get to play Joe Saunders Tee Ball against Taijuan and K-Pax.

Gimme the 4-man rotation, and I'll play bats in the outfield.  But that's just me.

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This from Bill James, on Dec. 15, 2012:

Mike Zunino

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Q.  Is there anybody left who does not think that the Mariners are going to be Mike Zunino's club very shortly?

A.  Nobody within the organization, not that I know of.  And Jack Zduriencik his ownself certainly plans to give the team to Zunino before too much time passes.

The few people left, warning us not to get too excited, are bloggers.  Not the baseball people.

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Q.  Would there be any precedent, for asking Mike Zunino to hit in the major leagues after so little time in the minors?

A.  You know about John Olerud, of course, who skipped the minors and posted a .364 OBP back in 1990.

The fascinating thing to me, was that when the Mariners signed Danny Hultzen -- do you remember Hultzen's demands, back then? -- that Jack Zduriencik pointed to the one NCAA starting pitcher who had recently skipped the minors, that being Mike Leake.

Carlos Triunfel, top o' th innin'

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Didn't watch that much TV this September.  Don't even remember which game it was when we flicked it on and there it was, four years on.  Carlos Triunfel at shortstop in Safeco Field.  

Dr. D is a mammal like most of those reading this, and sadly enough, classical conditioning overmatches his higher brain functions like Felix Hernandez vs. Elvis Andrus.  He therefore expected, on a visceral level, to see a train wreck defensively.  Intellectually he had no reason to have any expectations in either direction.  Instinctively, though?  He pinched his eyebrows painfully and hoped he wouldn't see something embarrassing.  

Years of scouting reports had closed the books on this one.  Carlos Triunfel had been a minor league SS only in the sense that Garry Sheffield once was a minor league SS.  Dr. D reminds himself again and again and again to trust only his own eyes (and, admittedly, Gordon Gross' eyes), but his self-reprimands only go so far.  You come back to your instinctive reactions.  The world can't be crazy.

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A ground ball went to second base.  The second baseman - who even remembers or cares whether it was Ackley - flipped over to Carlos Triunfel for the DP relay.

Ichiro's Rebound - a Sense of Proportion

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Q.  Might Ichiro rebound to +5 WAR?

A.  Nobody is asking for that.  The thing is, last year Ichiro dropped from 5 WAR to 0 WAR.  We're discussing whether he can do 3 WAR.  Capiche?

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Here, check this WAR grid, the 25 best players since 1990 (though my 1990ff filter might not survive the hyperlink; you could have to reset it).  Look at what these great players' WAR's were, at age 38.

If you don't click through, here's the exec sum:  great players like Biggio, Sheffield, and Piazza are not racking up 7 WAR per season in their late 30's.  They're fighting to post 3-WAR seasons at that age.  Even the great ones are.

Well, Edgar logged 5.0 WAR at the age of 38.  But you wouldn't count on it...

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Q.  Might he rebound to +3 WAR?

A.  All he has to do, to post +3 WAR this year, is two things:

  1. Revert to above-average, not great, defense compared to other RF's like Francoeur, Swisher, and Werth.
  2. Post a normal BABIP - normal for other players, not necessarily normal compared to his own high standards.

He does those two things, he's +3 or +4 WAR for 2012.  Maybe he won't.  

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Q.  Is he likely to post a normal BABIP in 2012?

The Pujols Comp

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Brian Cashman kidded Jack Zduriencik last week, saying that Albert Pujols' numbers are Montero-like.  Cash was willing to go Mike Piazza or Miguel Cabrera on the comp, but Jay-Z raised him back with Albert Pujols.

Dr. D has seen zero commentary on this, other than on SSI.  It is odd:  nobody has been interested in even asking the question, "Why, exactly, does Zduriencik think that?" Possible answers:

  • Because he pulled the comp out of his ear?
  • Because he's trying to sell the trade?
  • Because he doesn't understand baseball the way we bloggers do?
  • Because of .... what?

Dr. D is feeling very, verrrrry lonely these days, because when Zduriencik makes a comparison like that, his reaction is to wonder about the thinking that goes into the process, not to simply wave it off as naive.

Jay-Z has not explained his thought process.  But if Dr. D were comparing Montero to Pujols, this would be his thought process:  that Montero has a combination of PWR and HIT that is combined by only a couple of players per generation, such as Albert Pujols.

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