by Coltrane

On the old blog I’d do posts with the theme – “Time Machine.”  I’d pull emails out of the archives and see how they looked in the current light.

Here’s an email from shortly after the M’s signed Richie Sexson, dated January 1, 2005.  For the professional (Joe Posnanski) piece, go to the bottom of this post:

…Ichiro had a “historic” league-record 262 hits in 2004. In 2004 Ichiro drew 49 walks and was hit by a pitch 4 times. Ichiro got on base 315 times, leading the American league. Barry Bonds got on base 376 times last season. The all-time record is 379 by Babe Ruth. Bonds missed that record by 3, but I never heard anyone mention it. Ichiro’s 315 was enough for a 5-way tie for 58th best all-time. Sure, it’s “good”, but is it “historic”?

As Ichiro approached the hits record a couple of interesting things happened:

1. In the months of September and October Ichiro had a total of 50 hits— 47 singles and 3 doubles. It doesn’t get much emptier than that. Ichiro’s OPS (On Base + Slugging) for the season ranked 22nd in the American league. It’s tough to rank 22nd in OPS when you hit .372, but he literally didn’t do anything *besides* hit singles in 2004.

2. On one or two occasions Ichiro tried to bunt with a runner on 2nd base. He made no attempt to drive the runner in, he was simply trying to pad his hit total. It was a selfish move and it is not “winning baseball”.

Of course, the thing that really bugs me is that I’m going to have to hear about the “historic season” every game for the next 5-7 years, as well as every time Ichiro comes to visit after he retires. Believe me, Neihas is *not* going to miss an opportunity to bring it up ad naseum.

The single-season leaders for Times on Base  (Baseball-Reference.com.)

Next subject [Ed: same email] — Sexson/Jacobsen/Leone:

Mike Cameron pretty much got run out of Seattle due to his high strikeout rate. Mike struck out the equivalent of 151 times per full season of play. Here’s how that figure compares to some current and former M’s.

Bucky Jacobsen 181
Justin Leone 167
Richie Sexson 156
Jay Buhner 155
Mike Cameron 151

Be prepared to look at a *lot* of swinging and missing in 2005. In 2004 Jacobsen and Leone both got hurt before the league had figured out how to pitch to them. If anything those strikeout rates are likely to go up. If Jacobsen gets significant playing time in 2005 you can figure on a batting average of about .230. Leone you can forget about, he’s not really a major league player.

In a lot of ways Richie Sexson is the new Jay Buhner. He has good power, he strikes out a lot, and he’ll give the fans another muscle-bound white guy to root for. Figure Sexson for about .260 with 30 HR if he stays healthy. Sexson got hurt twice last year checking his swing– he’s a significant injury risk. The M’s signed him to a $50 million/4 year contract. The other question would be – is a 1B who hits .260 with 30 HR is worth $12.5 million per year? Sexson is now 30 years old — this is also another example of the M’s paying for past performance on an aging player…

——————-

Jacobsen never played another game in the majors.  Leone played in one more game — it was two years later with the Padres.  (Of course, that’s what tends to happen when your rookie year is age 28 (Jacobsen) and age 27 (Leone.))  So much for those strikeouts I’d predicted.

Sexson hit .244 over the length of that contract, compiling WARs of 4.2, 3.3, -1.4, and -0.3.  Fangraphs values those contributions at $14.3m, $12.1m, -$5.6m, and -$2.6m.  In other words, the M’s received $18.2 of production from Sexson on a $50m contract.  Thank you Bill Bavasi.  (Click here for an explanation of WAR.)

I did the digging in the old emails because Joe Posnanki had a really interesting piece today, comparing Ichiro to Nolan Ryan.  Both players excell(ed) in at least one statistical category, though you could argue (and Joe does) that neither player was as productive as his reputation would lead you to believe.

As for the picture above, here’s an excerpt from Ryan’s wikipedia entry:

…Before the 1993 season, Ryan announced his retirement, effective at the end of that season. On August 4, just before the end, Ryan had yet another high profile moment – this time an on-the-mound fight. After Ryan hit Robin Ventura of the Chicago White Sox, Ventura charged the mound in order to fight Ryan, who was 20 years his senior. Ryan secured the 26-year-old Ventura in a headlock with his left arm, while pummelling Ventura’s head with his right fist six times before catcher Iván Rodríguez was able to pull Ventura away from Ryan. Ryan stated afterwards it was the same maneuver he used on steers he had to brand on his Texas ranch…

Interestingly – Annie S., my brother, and I were all in the Kingdome to see Nolan Ryan’s last game on September 22 of that same year, though we didn’t know each other until later.  (Of course, at that time I already knew my brother, but you get the idea.)

By Blaidd Drwg

The Mariners have hit 90 home runs as a team this season, which is currently tied for last in the AL with the A’s. That is awful. To put it in perspective, the M’s have 2 guys who have double digit home runs – Gutierrez and Branyan, and Branyan leads the team with 14 and he wasn’t even playing in Seattle before July.

The Mariners lineup in last night’s game has hit 56 HR on the season, the AL leader in HR as of last night, Jose Bautista, has hit 46 HR on the season. Normally I would use the excuse that it is a meaningless September game for the M’s and they are getting guys playing time. Unfortunately, the M’s played most of their regulars last night.

It amazes me that the Red Sox stuck around the playoff race as long as they did – their outfield last night: Josh Reddick, Daniel Nava and Ryan Kalish, all rookies. It is a far cry from the OF they started the season with – JD Drew, Mike Cameron and Jacoby Ellsbury.

Matt Tuiasosopo is the new Willie Bloomquist. He is a guy who is probably a good 25th man because he can play 7 positions but can’t hit his way out of a paper bag and is probably a good clubhouse guy because he is just “happy to be here”. Managers love these type of guys and then fall in love with them, finding a way to put them in the lineup on a semi-regular basis. I understand that Tacoma is playing for the AAA championship and that has prevented the M’s from calling anyone up and that Michael Saunders is hurt, but can you honestly tell me that there is no better option in LF than Tuiasosopo? (Rob Neyer had a wonderfully snarky post about Bloomquist here)

Local product Jon Lester dominated the Mariners once again giving up 1 run with 12 K’s in 8 innings. Last time in Seattle, he had 13K’s and took a no-hitter into the 8th inning before imploding.

The game time was 2:23 last night – impressive considering the Red Sox average game time this season is significantly over 3 hours.

The attendance for last night’s game – 19,063. That is far and away the lowest attendance at a Red Sox-Mariners game that I have been to in the 7 years I have been here. Heck, I can’t remember the last time that I was at any Red Sox game the attendance was that low, in any stadium (it may have been sometime back in 2001).

By Blaidd Drwg

By now, you have heard that Don Wakamatsu has been fired. According to a few things that I have read, one of the reasons for his firing was that he lost control of the clubhouse because he was believed by Griffey to be the leak in the entire Griffey/Napgate incident. He also supposedly pressured Griffey into retiring.

If that is true:
1) I have a new level of respect for Wak for showing just how much of a prima donna Griffey is.
2) I have no respect for the Mariners organization for backing a player over the manager, especially since it was painfully obvious to everyone that Griffey was done.

So much for stocking the clubhouse full of “character” guys.

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.

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.

By Blaidd Drwg

In Saturday’s pitching matchup between Felix Hernandez and Javier Vazquez, both pitchers had the exact same pitch distribution after their 99th pitch – 33 balls, 66 strikes. It is always neat to see 33 66 99 on the pitch count board, really cool to see it twice in one game.

By Blaidd Drwg

According to ESPN, it seems like New York is the likely destination for Cliff Lee. If that is the case, I would expect him to be pulled from tonight’s start against the Yankees sometime before the game. If that deal falls through and his destination is elsewhere, I suspect he will pitch tonight.

Either way, hang onto your hats folks!

Updated 3:15 PM – It is official, Cliff Lee is no longer a Mariner. He is headed to Texas with Mark Lowe and Cash for Justin Smoak and 3 minor leaguers.

By Blaidd Drwg

He’s baaaaccckkkk! In the WTF move of the week by Jack Zduriencik, the Marines have traded 2 spare part minor leaguers for old friend Russell Branyan.

Despite the M’s first base issues, why trade for a 32 year old slugger with back problems when you are sitting 14 games back of first place in your division half way through the season? Me thinks that Z is not ready to give up on the season, which is probably going to lead to at least one other stupid deal and possible the M’s not trading Cliff Lee. I also suspect that this will mean that either Mike Carp or Mike Saunders (or possibly both) will see a significant reduction in playing time or a trip back to Tacoma. Wak does love to play his veterans.