What Happened to “The Hyphen”

By Blaidd Drwg

After another complete disaster on the mound, you really need to wonder what the heck the Mariners are doing trucking Ryan Rowland-Smith out there every 5 days. His record stands at 1-10 with a stellar 6.97 ERA. At this point, I think it is time to move “The Hyphen” to the pen or ship him down to Tacoma and give someone else a shot – my vote, Chris Seddon.

So what has happened to RRS? He has been good for the last couple of seasons and now he can’t get anyone out. I am guessing that he has some sort of an undiagnosed injury that is causing his issues, but we can’t know for sure. The one thing I can tell you is there are some very disturbing trends. Here are his stats from the last 3 seasons as a starter:

	GS	IP	HR	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP	BAbip	BB/9	SO/9	HR/9
2008	12	72.0	10	27	38	3.50	1.389	.272	3.4	4.8	1.2
2009	15	96.1	9	27	52	3.74	1.183	.253	2.5	4.9	0.8
2010	19	96.1	23	40	38	7.10	1.723	.302	3.7	3.6	2.1

Note – please see the glossary for an explanation of BAbip, and the /9 stats.

BAbip – RRS was somewhat lucky in both 2008 and 2009 – he had an abnormally low BAbip (most pitchers, even great ones are somewhere around .285 – .290 most seasons), especially in 2009. It is probably partially attributed to the great Mariners defense, partially to Safeco Field (his career split difference is somewhere around .035), partially to his drop in walk rate (less guys on base means you can throw more pitches on the fringe of the zone and those tend to make for more outs) and partially to luck. His 2010 number is a little higher than average, but not completely out of line and probably closer to what you would actually expect from any pitcher. The jump from 2009 to 2010 explains some of change in his performance, but not most of it.

HR Allowed – In his 168 innings in 2008 and 2009, RRS allowed 19 home runs, a pretty run of the mill number. In 96 innings this year he has allowed a league leading 23 (!). There is one of the primary reasons that he has had issues. When the ball leaves the yard that often, you really won’t be successful. That is a huge jump for a guy who historically does not give up many HRs and it has been a real problem on the road. He has given up 5 HR in 47.1 IP at Safeco and 18 HR allowed in 51 innings on the road. This is the primary reason I think that he might be hurt. Of course, it could also be a mechanical issue on his part too.

Strikeout Rate – Let’s face it, you would expect a guy who is 6’3” and 230 Lbs. to actually throw hard and strike out batters at a minimum a league average pace (about 6 K’s per 9 innings). Not RRS. Most guys don’t last long when the K rate is down around 5 per 9 innings and you really have a short lifespan when your rate drops below 4. The big drop on an already low rate is another indicator he might be hurt. The thing is, it isn’t like he can’t be a power pitcher – he has a career 8.6 K/9 in 87 innings as a reliever. The problem is that most of those innings came before he got hurt last season. I say, put him back in relief and let him throw hard for an inning instead of trying to pace himself.

Maybe the Mariners are trying to let RRS work out some mechanical issue with the big club and maybe they are trying to showcase him for a trade (that isn’t really working if it is the case). Either way, it is time to pull the plug on him in the starting rotation. Don’t be surprised if RRS ends up on the DL sometime before his next start and Luke French takes his place in the rotation.

Update – I wrote this the morning of 7/28. Shortly thereafter, the Mariners placed RRS on the 15-Day DL and called up Luke French. Shocking.

Athlete in Retrospect — Vern Stephens

by Coltrane

100th post. It could be about anything! I was strongly considering yet another Howard Schultz rant, but we’ll save that for another day.

Boycott Starbucks! Howard Schultz is a traitor to the community that made him filthy stinkin’ rich! He’s a back-stabbing…backstabber!

There. I got it out of my system.

Onto the subject of the post — Vern Stephens.

Stephens came up as a 20 year-old in 1941 with the St. Louis Browns. He avoided service in the war due to bad knees, instead working at a shipyard when he wasn’t playing baseball. In the winter of 1947 he was traded to the Red Sox. By 1949 he was in his prime, as a 28 year-old playing shortstop and hitting the cover off of the ball. The Red Sox that year went 96-58, finishing 2nd in the American League, one game behind the Yankees. Here’s his age 28 season as compared to the age 28 seasons of some other well-known-and-fairly-recent shortstops:

Age 28 Year	Average	HR	RBI	OPS+
Vern Stephens	.290	39	159	138
Barry Larkin	.304	12	78	132
Alex Rodriguez	.286	36	106	131

Miguel Tejada	.308	34	131	128
Nomar Garciaparra	.310	24	120	127
Alan Trammel	.277	21	75	120

Derek Jeter	.297	18	75	111
Cal Ripken	.257	21	93	105

39 HR! 159 RBI! (And yeah, RBI is a flawed stat, but 159 RBI is a huge total.)

In 1949 he totalled 8.2 WAR — a figure Barry Bonds or Albert Pujols would be happy with. Stephens totalled 53.7 WAR for his career. By comparison, Bill Buckner (the subject of the last Athlete Restrospective) totalled 24.6, and Buckner was a really good player who played seven more seasons than Stephens. (Stephens’ knees quit on him. His last good, healthy year was his age 29 season in 1950.)

Why am I so hooked on Vern Stephens? I really have no idea. He hit for average, he hit for power, and he did it while playing shortstop. He played with Ted Williams and was a comparable hitter. I probably learned about him in 1985 from reading the Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, so in my consciousness he predates A-Rod and Jeter and the rest. I didn’t see a picture of him until maybe 15-20 years later, which added to the intrigue. For a while he was one of the all-time greats, and nobody really remembers him any more.

That’s kind of what this series of posts are about.

Things I Have Forgotten

By Blaidd Drwg

The only pitcher to record a save without throwing a pitch – Mitch Williams with this gem in 1989. He picked off Carmelo Martinez before throwing a pitch to a batter.

Wild Thing, I think I (used to) love you, but you gave me an ulcer watching you pitch.

Next up – post number 100. I will leave that honor to Coltrane.

Athlete Retrospective — or, Being Bill Buckner

by Coltrane

This is the first in what I expect to be a series of posts, featuring former athletes that for one reason or another captured my attention and never really went away.

—

Bill Buckner is a player who always gets talked about when the Red Sox are in town. He’s well-known, but it occurred to me that I didn’t really know how valuable he was over the course of his career. I decided it would be fun to do a little digging…

Exhibit One–

Bill Buckner played four decades in the major leagues, from 1969 (one AB) up through his age 40 season in 1990. When he was young he played for the Dodgers, in mid-career the Cubs, and in the twilight of his career he played for the Red Sox (and the Royals and the Angels.) He played 22 years in total, mixing some big seasons in with years that were less than great.

Buckner totalled 24.6 career WAR, good for 735th all-time among position players. As the chart illustrates, he would have had a great career, rather than a really good one — had his production just resembled a bell curve a little more than it did.

Exhibit Two– Hitters that rank just ahead of Buckner on the Career WAR list:

Mike Bordick

billbuckner1 — The future was wide open..

Irish Meusel
Sammy Strang
Johnny Kling
Charlie Hollocher
Gus Suhr
Joe Cunningham
Ed Charles
Jeff Conine
Bill Buckner

Bordick, Conine, and Buckner were all “good” players for a long time. Catcher Johnny Kling had a more sustained peak but shorter career. Kling played from 1900 to 1913, his good years coming with the Cubs.

Exhibit Three– The 10 most similar hitters to Buckner (using career totals) from Baseball-Reference.com:

1. Mickey Vernon (876)

2. Al Oliver (866)

3. Steve Garvey (855)

4. Mark Grace (853)

5. Willie Davis (850)

6. B.J. Surhoff (839)

7. Buddy Bell (838)

8. Vada Pinson (833)

9. Jose Cruz (828)

10. Julio Franco (826)

This one is fun. I had guessed Steve Garvey and Mark Grace would be comps — they shared many traits with Buckner: marginal speed, middling power, and no patience at the plate. Buckner’s career highs were 18 HRs and 39 walks. He’d usually hit around .300, finishing his career with a .289/.329/.408 slash line, 174 career HR. Buckner could run when he was young, topping out at 32 stolen bases. As he got older his legs abandoned him.

Interestingly, Buckner and Garvey both had their fist cup of coffee with the Dodgers in 1969. They remained teammates through the 1976 season. Buckner was traded to the Cubs in the winter of 1977, along with Jeff Albert and Ivan De Jesus. In return the Cubs sent back Mike Garman and Rick Monday.

Exhibit Four– Hall of Fame Voting:

Buckner became eligible for the Hall of Fame in 1996. In order to remain on the ballot a player must receive at least 5% of the vote. The results:

Finish	Name	Year on Ballot	Votes	Percent
22	Fred Lynn	1st	26	5.50%
23	Bobby Bonds	10th	24	5.10%
24	Rusty Staub	6th	24	5.10%
25	Keith Hernandez	1st	24	5.10%
26	Frank White	1st	18	3.80%
27	Dan Quisenberry	1st	18	3.80%
28	Bill Buckner	1st	10	2.10%
29	Jerry Reuss	1st	2	0.40%
30	John Tudor	1st	2	0.40%
31	Chet Lemon	1st	1	0.20%
32	Jeffrey Leonard	1st	0	0.00%
33	Johnny Ray	1st	0	0.00%
34	Claudell Washington	1st	0	0.00%
35	Bob Knepper	1st	0	0.00%

There’s a first baseman who was a contemporary of Buckner’s on the list — “I’m Keith Hernandez“. (Link is to the Youtube “JFK” Seinfeld episode.) It’s an interesting peer group. Seattle Mariners fans will remember the revolving door in LF, starring such players as Jeffrey Leonard.

Frank White really got the shaft in the voting that year.

Other Bill Buckner facts:

Buckner won the batting championship while playing for the Cubs in 1981. He led the league in doubles twice.

Buckner retired with 2715 hits. He had nearly as many career walks (450), as strikeouts (453.) These are both incredibly low totals for a 22-year career.

He was once traded for Mike Brumley and Dennis Eckersley.

He made one All-Star team.

In April 2008 Buckner threw out the first pitch in Fenway park.

mlb_a_mookbuckner_275 — Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner, 2006

I believe the picture above was taken at a sports memorabilia show — Buckner and Mookie Wilson were signing pictures together at the event. Beats working I guess.

A Little Food Humor

By Iron Chef Lefotvers

A little something to brighten your day. I am only posting this because of the bacon reference, and yes, if I was a pig, I would probably still love bacon. This is even funnier if you are a fan of “Pearls Before Swine” and makes much more sense if you read the strips starting from 6-30-2010.

The Great Brandon Wood Experiment…

By Blaidd Drwg

..finally appears to be over. The Angels have traded for a 3B, putting to bed one of the worst seasons I can remember for a guy who got 184 plate appearances. It was so bad that it made Griffey’s 2010 season look like Babe Ruth in his prime. In 2010, Brandon Wood posted a line of 168/185/225 (BA/OBP/SLG). Folks, that is an OPS+ of 10 (!!), lowering his career OPS+ to 26 (!!!!) in 420 plate appearances (Wood is a guy with a career 888 OPS in the minors).Wood was so bad that his OPS+ this season is the same as CC Sabathia’s and the only player with at least 150 PA that is anywhere close to Wood is Gerald Laird with an OPS+ of 41. Wood is easily the worst semi-regular in the AL this season.

I really was hoping that he would join the TTO club with Jack Cust, Mark Reynolds and Adam Dunn, I guess it just wasn’t meant to be. (If you want to know what TTO is, check back tomorrow).

Wood is still only 25, but he looks like the new poster child for a 4A player.

Tiger And The Layoff

by Coltrane

The front page headline on Sports Illustrated [dot] com today states that “The Dominance Is Over” for Tiger Woods. “THE STORY” links to Joe Posnanski’s excellent piece, “Writing Off Tiger.” Posnanski argues that we shouldn’t expect Tiger to be dominant again. Among Posnanski’s points:

First, he will turn 35 at the end of the year. There has been talk that this means Woods will still be in his golfing prime for the next few years, but history tells a different story. Since 1970, the average age of major championship winners is 32, and things tumble off for golfers after age 35. Fewer than a quarter of the major championship winners have been 36 or older. The only players since 1970 to win multiple majors after 35 are: Jack Nicklaus (4), Gary Player (4), Ray Floyd (2), Nick Price (2), Vijay Singh (2), Mark O’Meara (2), Angel Cabrera (2), Padraig Harrington (2).

More to the point, Woods has been dominant for a dozen years — which is a long time to dominate in golf. The greatest golfers have had a fairly short window of time when they dominate, and when that window closes, they stop winning major championships.

• Ben Hogan won all his majors from 1946 through 1953 and though he contended for years (finishing second four times in the next three years), he never won another one.

• Arnold Palmer won all his majors from 1958 through 1964.

• Tom Watson (more on him in a minute) won all his majors from 1975 through 1983.

• Sam Snead won all his majors from 1946 through 1954.

• Nick Faldo won all his majors from 1987 through 1996.

• Bobby Jones won all his majors from 1923 through 1930.

And so on. There are two notable exceptions — they are the two best old golfers of the last 50 years. Gary Player spread out his major championship victories over two decades — 1959-78. His endurance is a marvel, what makes him one of the greatest who ever lived. The other, of course, is Nicklaus, who won his first major in 1962 and his last at Augusta in 1986 when he was 46 years old. Nicklaus’ ability to overcome disappointment — from 1976 through ’83 he finished second a staggering SEVEN times — and continue to maintain his will and enthusiasm for winning is part of what makes him one of the great sportsmen of the 20th Century.

I’ve been thinking about Tiger’s layoff for a while. I remembered reading something Bill James wrote about Home Run Baker in his original Historical Baseball Abstract (published 1985.) To paraphrase: Home Run Baker was a .700+ Offensive Winning Percentage player from 1911 to 1914. (In other words, a team of Home Run Bakers would be expected to win 70%+ of their games.) Baker took the year off in 1915 due to a dispute with Philadelphia Atheltics owner Connie Mack — Baker decided playing semi-pro ball was preferable to playing for Mack. Baker returned in 1916 as a .600+ Winning Percentage player. He held that value through 1919. Baker retired for a year following the 1919 season. Upon his return to baseball in 1920 he was a .500+ Winning Percentage player.

James’ point, and I think there’s something to this idea, is that when world-class performers voluntarily take time off it’s incredibly difficult for them to recapture what made them great in the first place.

I believe we may be looking at that now with Tiger Woods.

—————–

Home Run Baker’s OPS+ By Year, 100 is league average:

Year	Age	OPS+
1908	22	113
1909	23	147
1910	24	126
1911	25	149
1912	26	173
1913	27	167
1914	28	151
Year Off	29	Off
1916	30	130
1917	31	116
1918	32	129
1919	33	105
Year Off	34	Off
1921	35	99
1922	36	97

Mark Bittman’s Bruschetta and Crostini

by Coltrane

The recipe is basically Mark Bittman’s, from How To Cook Everything, 10th Anniversary Edition. I used french bread that I’d made the day before. The bread hadn’t risen like I would have liked — it wound up relatively too dense to use as “bread”, so I repurposed it into these crostini.

This crostini recipe didn’t quite use up all of the bread I’d made — the remaining bread became Bittman’s French Toast. The French toast was also quite good. That book has yet to let me down.

The crostini ingredients:

8” of	Baugette, cut into 1/2” rounds
15 oz can or	Whole Tomatoes, seeded and diced
6 large	Roma Tomatoes, seeded and diced
10 large	Basil Leaves, chiffonade
4 TBP	Blue Cheese, in small pieces
2 TBP	Pecorino Romano, in small pieces
1 clove	Garlic, minced
	Sea Salt or Kosher Salt
	Extra Virgin Olive Oil for brushing
	Garlic clove cut in half

I used canned tomatoes in this recipe and it went over well. Roma tomatoes would be good too. My advice would be to go with whatever you have on hand.

Directions:

Place the tomatoes in a colander and drain for a few minutes. Heat broiler and adjust the rack to 4″ from the heat. Place the bread onto a cookie sheet or equivalent. Lightly brush the bread slices on both sides with olive oil. Place the cookie sheet under the broiler to lightly brown the first side of the bread. (This will take 2-4 minutes.) Turn and brown the other side. Don’t walk away from the bread while it’s under the broiler, as the bread will go from “toasty” to “setting off the fire alarm” in about 30 seconds. Rub the crostini with the halved garlic clove.

Combine the tomato, basil, cheeses, minced garlic, and the two tablespoons of olive oil. Mix to combine and salt to taste (about 1/2 tsp). Distribute the tomato mixture on the crostini rounds. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil.

As for what happens when you get wrapped up in taking pictures and forget about the bread under the broiler…

Chard with Cannellini

by Coltrane

Chard arrived in the CSA box this week. The chard, along with some leftover cheese, canned beans, and basil from the planter box become a very nice topping for crostini or crackers:

2 TBP	Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1/3 cup	Shallots, minced
1 clove	Garlic, minced
1 lb	Chard, stems removed, cut into 1” pieces
1/2 15 oz can	Cannellini Beans rinsed and drained
1/4 cup	Chicken Broth
Pinch	Red Pepper Flakes
3 TBP	Pecorino Romano, chopped fine
6 large	Basil Leaves, chopped or chiffonade
1 TBP	Lemon Juice

Heat skillet over medium high heat. Add Olive Oil, Shallots, and Garlic. Saute until soft. Add Chard, Beans, Chicken Broth, and Red Pepper. Cook until the Chard is wilted and reduced. Add cheese, basil, and lemon juice, heat through. Salt to taste (the chicken broth and cheese both contain some salt.)

Serve over crostini, bruschetta, or crackers.

This recipe would work well with spinach instead of chard. A lesser amount of onion may be substituted for the shallot.

Mariners at the Break

By Blaidd Drwg

On March 14^th, I made my prediction about the Mariners 2010 season:

I am skeptical about 2010 Mariners team. They downgraded their offense, so 640 runs in 2010 might be a stretch, they still have too many free swingers in the lineup, and I am not sure that the pitching (starting and relieving beyond Lee and Felix) will repeat their 2009 performances. My prediction – 77 to 80 wins for this team IF Felix and Lee are healthy and pitch a full season with the team.

Well, Felix has been health (and quite dominant over the last 2 months) and Lee, well, we know what happened to him. The Mariners have played slightly more than half a season, and currently sit in 4^th with a winning percentage of .398 and a 35-53 record. Not quite the season that most pundits expected. Without Lee, I would revise my final estimate for the Mariners win total to be between 66 and 70 wins, which would mean the Mariners would need to win at about a 42% clip. Do I think this team is better without Lee that they would be able to win more regularly than with him – not at all? This is simple case of regression to the mean – it is hard to maintain a very below average place with an average team.

Let’s break down my statements.

Offense – I said that they would be lucky to score 640 runs this season. That total means they need to average about 3.95 runs per game. Through 88 games in 2010, the Mariners have scored 298 runs an average of 3.38 per game – a pretty significant difference. Even with improvement that generally comes with the weather warming up, I just don’t see this team averaging 4.62 runs a game the rest of the way. I would say that I called this one.

Starting Pitching – I thought this would be a no brainer – you added Lee, but you still had Rowland-Smith, Vargas and Snell in the rotation (not to mention Fister), none of whom I thought would be anywhere close to their 2009 numbers. I was somewhat right on this:

			2009				2010
	W-L	ERA	WHIP	K/9	ERA+	W-L	ERA	K/9	WHIP	ERA+
R-S	5-4	3.74	1.18	4.9	116	1-9	5.89	3.4	1.64	70
Vargas	3-6	4.91	1.33	5.3	89	6-4	3.09	5.7	1.19	133
Snell	5-2	4.20	1.55	5.2	104	0-5	6.41	5.1	1.84	64
Fister	3-4	4.13	1.28	5.3	105	3-4	3.09	4.2	1.07	133

Rowland-Smith has been a disaster and Snell is in Tacoma. Fister started off hot and has turned back into a pumpkin in his last 4 starts, posting an ERA over 6. Vargas has been a nice surprise – he might actually be living up to the potential that made him a top prospect for the Marlins a few years ago. With a rotation of Felix, Vargas, Rowland-Smith, Fister and (maybe) Bedard, I think this team will be hard pressed to match the starting pitching stats from last season. There are too many guys who don’t make batters swing and miss in this rotation.

Relief Pitching – Relief pitching is notoriously hard to predict year over year. In 2009, you had a bullpen that had a guy who had been terrible over his entire career suddenly find himself (Aardsma), a couple of young guys pitch much better than expected (Lowe and Kelley) a soft-tosser who was strangely tough to get hits off (White) and a washed up started who found himself (Batista). Not really a recipe for long-term success. Z did essentially replace Batista with League (a good move I thought), but did nothing else to upgrade the pen. Well, 2010 has not been as kind to these guys:

			2009					2010
	W-L	BS%	IRS%	WHIP	ERA+	W-L	BS%	IRS%	WHIP	ERA+
Aardsma	3-6	10%	0%	1.16	172	0-6	20%	0%	1.34	77
Lowe	2-7	77%	31%	1.25	133	1-3	—	0%	1.55	122
Kelley	5-4	100%	40%	1.17	97	3-1	—	36%	1.52	105
White	3-2	67%	27%	1.08	156	0-0	100%	39%	2.91	61
Batista/ League	7-4	80%	67%	1.65	108	5-6	71%	40%	1.26	107

Note – BS% is the percentage of save opportunities blown by a pitcher and IRS% is the percentage of Inherited Runners that a reliever allowed to score.

The bullpen in 2009 was horrible at keeping inherited runners from scoring and blew a bunch of leads but did manage to keep the hitters they faced off base and were bailed out by the offense when they blew the lead. In 2010, none of those apply. The bullpen has been a mess – Lowe was bad, then got hurt, and then got traded. Aardsma regressed, and Kelley and White have been horrible (and pitching closer to what I think their career norms would be). As much maligned as League has been, he has actually been one of the few bright spots in the pen, but he runs the risk of being horribly overworked. Don’t be surprised if he is the closer for 2011. Overall, the relief corps has been much worse in 2010 than in 2009, so I would say I called this one.

On a side note – something interesting about Aardsma – at no point in the 2009 did he come into a game before the 9^th inning and only twice did he come into a game with runners on base. Might be worth looking at how Wak uses his pitchers.

Fielding – Didn’t really make a statement on this, but the defense has been good, just not as good as 2009 (the Sunday game non-withstanding). The M’s defense was +91 runs better than average in 2009 and has been 27 runs better than average in 2010. Still pretty good, but not great like last season.

To summarize: Nobody likes an “I told you so,” but I told you so.