Good Bye, Ian Snell

By Blaidd Drwg

It appears that Ian Snell‘s up and down career with the Mariners has come to a close as the M’s have DFA’ed him, which means they have 10 days to waive, trade or option him to the minors. If I am not mistaken, he has enough service time to refuse the demotion and become a free agent.

What do you want to bet he ends up with the Royals in the next week and a half? They seem to enjoy picking up the chaff that is cut loose from the M’s (although the Royals currently have a better record than the M’s), and Snell might actually improve their rotation.

Run Scoring in the AL East

By Blaidd Drwg

I happened to be looking at the MLB standings this morning and I noticed something interesting In the AL East:

Team	League Ranking Runs Scored	League Ranking Runs Allowed
Rays	3	4
Yankees	1 (tie)	9
Red Sox	1 (tie)	21
Blue Jays	4	13

The top 4 teams in the division are the top 4 scoring teams in baseball (think about that, all of MLB, not just the AL) as of this morning. The Yankees and Sox are both tied with 314 runs scored and the Rays and Jays are just slightly behind with 296 and 295 runs scored respectively. To put it into perspective, the Mariners currently rank 27th in runs scored with 203. The offense in the AL East is a good reason why the Blue Jays would be within half a game of the division lead in 3 of the divisions, within 1 game of one of them and leading the AL West, instead of being in 4th place in the East.

Maybe the M’s can learn something from this – considering the Sox, Yankees and Rays all “focused” on defense this offseason.

Mike Sweeney and Scooping USS Mariner

By Blaidd Drwg

This post on USS Mariner sums up Mike Sweeney’s At-Bat against Fernando Rodney the other night.

I also would like to point out that I scooped USS Mariner on their story about the pitch selection that Griffey is seeing this season – by almost 2 weeks. I would like to think they stole my idea, even if they didn’t.

Congrats to Mike Saunders on hitting his first big league home run. He made his mom extremely happy.

Breaking News From The Mariners

By Blaidd Drwg

The M’s have fired Alan Cockrell as hitting coach and replaced him with Alonzo Powell.

I have a couple of issues with Cockrell taking the blame for the terrible offense – he has done a nice job at getting the team to be more patient this season and this is a veteran team – the average age of the hitters that have appeared in a game is 30.6 – only the Yankees and Red Sox have older average ages in the AL (The M’s were actually tied with the Sox until the got Mike Saunders in a game). I really don’t think the hitting coach has too much impact on the vets, but something had to be done and firing the coach is much easier than changing the players.

Will Powell help – I seriously doubt it. He was the hitting coach in Tacoma where, despite playing in one of the best hitters parks in the league, the team is in the bottom half of the PCL in OPS and the prospects (Mike Carp, Greg Halman and Mike Saunders) have all struggled so far this year. We will see if this helps at all.

Musings on Last Night’s Mariners Game

By Blaidd Drwg

So much interesting stuff from last night’s game, so here we go:

— Last night’s true WTF moment occurred before the first pitch. The home plate ump, Ed Rapuano, who I have no great love for because of his horribly inconsistent strike zone, did something that made me want to go down to the field and ask him what was he doing – he intentionally erased the inner lines of the batters boxes (the one closest to the plate). Being a former umpire who actually enforced the rule of hitters being too close to the plate, this actually made me sick and angry. It seems that Rapuano truly has no interest in enforcing the rules of the game.

— Low and behold, the Mariners actually had an extra base hit in the game, 3 of them in fact, and 2 of them resulted in all of the runs they scored. The importance of hitting for power made obvious. As I keep saying, getting on base is great, but you need the occasional extra base hit to break an inning open.

— The flip side was the 9th inning for the M’s. Fernando Rodney could not get the ball over the plate, proceeding to walk the bases loaded. The M’s managed to not get the ball out of the infield and thus failed to score.

Two critical decisions were made in this inning, one by Wakamatsu and one by Scioscia, that I question.

— Wak – with no one out and Ichiro on first in a tie game in the bottom of the 9th inning why the heck would you sacrifice Ichiro to second? You have a guy who tends to not swing at bad pitches (Figgins) up, you have your best base stealer on first, a catcher who is not terribly good defensively (Budde) and a pitcher who has control issues (Rodney). To me, you let Figgins work the count or you send Ichiro instead of trading the out for moving the runner. I hate the sacrifice to move a runner to 2nd base when you have the top of you lineup up, especially in a tie game. If Ichiro is successful, you then try the sac and move him to 3rd with 1 out. Figgins is your #2 hitter for a reason, don’t waste the out.

— Scioscia – why not bring in Fuentes in the bottom of the 9th instead of Rodney. You had L-S-L hitters coming up and you have one Lefty in the pen. Seems to me to be the better call, but despite the ugly inning, it did work out with Rodney.

— The Mariners drew 9 walks in the game (which was nice to see) but left 12 runners on base, including 9 in the last 5 innings. This team will continue to lose games if they keep doing that.

— As much as it pains me to say this, why the heck is Sweeney hitting against a RH pitcher with the bases loaded, 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th? You have 2 LH bats you can use in this situation – Griffey and Saunders. Why not use them?

— This team has now lost 12 out of their last 14 and is now 5.5 back of Texas. At what point does Z realize something needs to be done?

On a belated note – Congratulations to Ryan Budde of the Angels on his first MLB HR Friday night. I love seeing milestones for 31-year-old backup catchers!

Sure, I am probably beating a dead horse…

By Blaidd Drwg

The Mariners are LAST in the American League in Runs, Home Runs (and have fewer home runs as a team than current AL HR leader Paul Konerko has by himself), OBP and SLG. They have an OPS+ of 73 (which means that their On Base Percentage + Slugging – a measure of productivity, is 27% worse than league average) and now for the truly frightening stat – they have a team SLG that is lower than 9 teams’ OBP. All of the pitching and defense in the world is not going to help with offensive numbers like those.

This team would have been competitive in about 1977 with the way it is built, but unfortunately, it is 2010.

The M’s Fundamental Problem

By Blaidd Drwg

Reason # 12434231 why the Mariners need to do something about their offense. I am a big fan of On Base Percentage – if you can’t get on base, you can’t score and walks are a great thing. It is nice to see the Mariners finally embracing that concept. The problem is, they seem to have sacrificed hitting for power (slugging) in the meantime. It is pretty rare to see a guy with a higher on base than slugging percentage, especially a month after the season starts – the Mariners have 3 (and almost 5) of those guys in their lineup.

I give you the Mariners’ lineup (before tonight’s game – including the catcher platoon):

Player	OBP	SLG	Difference
Ichiro	.371	.380	-.009
Figgins	.351	.278	+.073
Gutierrez	.393	.475	-.082
Lopez	.250	.290	-.040
Griffey	.269	.226	+.043
Bradley	.313	.371	-.058
Kotchman	.303	.425	-.122
Johnson	.367	.306	+.061
Moore	.200	.209	-.009
Wilson	.266	.338	-.072

Folks, this is one of the worst lineups in baseball. You have 3 guys in Figgins, Griffey and Johnson who have combined for exactly 9 extra base hits in 188 At Bats, you have a cleanup hitter with a .250 OBP and a .290 SLG and this list doesn’t even cover Sweeney, Byrnes and Tuiasosopo who managed to squeeze out a collective .250 OBP with a sub-.200 SLG in 90 AB.

As I said to Mrs. Drwg over the weekend, you don’t feel like this team can score since it seems like it takes at least 3 hits in an inning for them to get 1 run.

Post Script: In watching tonight’s game, the announcers mentioned that Guti’s HR was the first one the Mariners have hit since April 23rd – That is over 8 games ago. Time to get a bat Z.

Thanks to Jim Wolf

By Blaidd Drwg

In the bottom of the 7th inning of last night’s Mariners-Rangers game, home plate umpire Jim Wolf actually made a call that (incorrectly) almost never gets made in MLB baseball games. Casey Kotchman at bat and hits a little bleeder in front of the plate and it is picked up by Matt Treanor who proceeds to throw the ball past 1B Jason Smoak. However, Jim Wolf waves the play off and calls Kotchman out for interference. You see Kotchman was clearly running on the fair side of the first base line, which is against the rules (there is actually a runners box that runs on the foul side of the baseline for the last 45 feet to first base and the runner is supposed to be in that box). In Wolf’s opinion, Kotchman’s running interfered with Treanor’s ability to make the play, hence the call. Score it 2-3 on the putout.

I think I need to send Wolf a fruit basket or something for actually making that call. I will see if I can find footage of the play later.

Sorry, I Couldn’t Resist…

By Blaidd Drwg

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not make a comment on another nostolgic Griffey piece of peplum from last week, this time from Steve Kelley of the Times. Some of the comments from both Griffey and Wak make me think that they are sharing the same delusion about the rapidly declining skills that Griffey has. Note to Griffey, Wak, Z and all the Griffey defenders – this is not 1999 anymore. Griffey is a shadow of his former self and needs to put his ego aside, announce he is retiring at the end of the season and take the role as bench player/cheerleader that he seems most suited for at this point in his career.

Some wonderful gems from the piece:

“So Griffey takes pitches. Lots of pitches. He works the count the way manager Don Wakamatsu preaches to all of his players. He waits for that one pitch in his at-bat that he can work with. The Mariners’ offensive strategy is simple. Make the starting pitcher throw dozens of pitches in the early innings. Wear him down. Get “the horse” out of the game early. Get into the bullpen fast.

Griffey fits that philosophy and that plate patience is one of the reasons the Mariners re-signed him for his 22nd big-league season.”

I am not sure where this notion comes from – Griffey sees 3.88 pitcher per plate appearance, which is almost exactly league average and slightly below the team average of 3.92. He is also not particularly patient – he swings at 44% of the pitches he faces, which is league average and it is also one of the highest percentages in the Mariners lineup (and highest % for him since 2006) – even higher than Ichiro and only outdone by Milton Bradley (which is surprising considering he is a patient hitter) and our favorite hackers Jose Lopez and Jack Wilson. Griffey also swings at 30% of the first pitches he gets, with only Bradley swinging at more. Sorry Mr. Kelly – the numbers don’t show what you are saying.

The Mariners offensive strategy may be to get pitchers out of the game early, but they aren’t really doing it. They are just about league average in their opponents starters appearance lengths – just over 6 innings and 99 pitches per start, about what you would expect from a starting pitcher in April. There have only been 5 of 19 games in which the opponents’ starter failed to last 6 innings this season and there have been 8 times where the opponents starter has pitched at least 7 full innings in a game against the M’s. Need to work on that Wak.

My favorite quote from Griffey:

“I’m not going to get the 2-0 fastball. I understand that,” he said, walking toward the field to take batting practice. “I have to be selective, wait for a pitch that’s over the plate that I can hit, whether it’s a changeup, or curveball.”

Here is what Griffey has faced this season:

Pitch Type	% of Pitches (2010)	% of Pitches (2009)
Fastball	63.8%	64.2%
Cutter/Splitter	9.0%	8.0%
Slider	6.4%	7.7%
Curve	10.6%	9.2%
Change	10.1%	9.9%

The percentages of what he is seeing really haven’t changed – he sees roughly 72% fastballs, and 17% breaking stuff.

Teams aren’t afraid of him anymore – he is swinging at 22.3% of his pitches outside the zone (as opposed 20.6% over the last 8 seasons), making less contact with pitches in the zone at 82% this year (87.8% over the last 8 seasons) and missing a lot more – 10.3% of his swings. Even if you don’t believe the numbers – if you watched the end of the M’s game yesterday, you could see if for your self. Bobby Jenks threw Griffey 3 pitches – a 94 MPH Fastball that Griffey took, a 95 MPH fastball that Griffey was way behind on and fouled off and a 96 MPH fastball down the heart of the plate that Griffey came no where close to hitting. There were your fastballs, Junior, why didn’t you hit them?

If Griffey Makes the All-Star Team as a Starter…

By Blaidd Drwg

…I am no longer watching a baseball game involving him. It is bad enough that you have the Mariners asking fans to vote for him, but you also have this moron who created a site to encourage fans to vote for him. Folks, he ranks dead last in production among AL DH. He doesn’t deserve to be at the game unless he buys a ticket. From the aforementioned Vote for Junior Website:

Goals:

1. Vote Ken Griffey, Jr. into the AL’s starting lineup for the 2010 All-Star Game in Anaheim.

2. Once that happens, get him back in the Home Run Derby.

As much trouble as I have with the logic defying voting Griffey as a starter goal, the suggestion that a guy with 1 extra base hit over the first 19 games of the season even being considered for the HR derby causes this guy to lose all credibility.

I realize that All-Star voting is a joke and a popularity contest, but generally the fans come close to getting it right. A couple years ago, someone floated a proposal to have 1 honorary spot on each team reserved for a retiring player. They would participate in the pre-game and get a nice ovation, but would not actively play in the game. That is the kind of thing I would be happy to see for Griffey, assuming that he actually realized it was time to call it quits. Otherwise, the only worse selection I can think of for an AS game would be this one in 2008 – and it was made by a Manager.

I say, if you want to vote for someone, vote for the guy who actually deserves it – Adam Lind.