By Blaidd Drwg

It is all over the news in Seattle – for the second time in 8 games, the Mariners had an opposing hitter take a base on balls with just 3 balls. Ok, as a former umpire, I wanted to put my 2 cents in on this one.

It happens. You occasionally make a mistake on the count – every umpire has done it. You have a ball/strike indicator in your hand and you occasionally advance it too far or not enough or just forget on a pitch and you have the wrong count. It has happened to me multiple times but only once do I believe that a runner took a walk with less than 4 balls. In that case, I was the only umpire, it was a long at bat and the opposing coach did question it, but didn’t put up any argument when I said I had ball 4. In this case, I find the mistake excusable.

What is not excusable is the situation that happened twice to the Mariners, I am just trying to figure out who is more at fault – the umpires or the Mariners bench.

There are 4 umpires in a MLB game. They all have a ball/strike indicator which they keep independently. You generally have to look at it to reset it for the next batter. How the heck did none of them notice that the hitter only had 3 balls, not 4? In both cases, the home plate umpire had 3 balls on his indicator and assumed it was a mistake after looking at the scoreboard. NEVER LOOK AT THE SCOREBOARD. You are paid to get it right, the scoreboard is there for the fans. If you think the count is wrong, consult with the other umpires. Seeing the umpires blatantly miss a call like that twice in the span of a week drives me nuts. They will consult on home run calls, they will consult on close plays, why not on the count? Are they afraid of looking stupid?

While the umps are supposed to get it right, the Mariners bench coaches should be fired for what I see is a lack of attention to detail. Every MLB has someone on the bench charting pitches. That person should have noticed it. There are at least 10 guys on that bench who are supposed to be watching the game. One of them should have noticed. I am even more disturbed by Wedge’s comments about the 3 ball walk to Abreu:

“I was OK with that,” Wedge said. “I figured it worked against us last time, let it work for us this time. … I was fine with (Abreu) not being up there 3-1 with the next two guys coming. I felt good about Felix facing those next two guys. I was hoping for a double play, but we got a strikeout and a popup.”

Does this mean he noticed and just didn’t care? If that is the case, he shouldn’t be managing a MLB team. Baserunners are bad if you are on defense, even with Felix pitching. It changes the dynamic of how a pitcher approaches a hitter and that could lead to trouble. Is it any wonder why the Mariners are sinking quicker than a deflating balloon*?

* I almost used the Indianapolis, but I pulled it back since I did not want to make light of the deaths of 900 US sailors in the worst single naval disaster (and probably failure in military intelligence) in American history. You probably only know the Indianapolis from “Jaws”, so if you don’t know the whole story, read about it here.

By Blaidd Drwg

A quick question: Which of these fine hitters would you want in your lineup?

	BATS	PA	OBP	SLG	OPS+
Player A	L	245	.359	.335	100
Player B	S	115	.313	.356	91
Player C	L	148	.243	.372	73
Player D	R	52	.314	.408	104
Player E	L	42	.333	.257	72

It would be pretty easy to eliminate Player C from this list – the OBP is awful, despite having one of the “better” slugging percentages on the list (and that is still pretty lousy). Player B wouldn’t be the worst choice and player E does not have enough plate appearances to make a call on. Players A and D would be the logical choices, but I would be cautious of Player D – small sample size. I have also intentionally left out Batting Average. You might say that Player A is the no-brainer when I add that he has 44 walks in those 245 PA and Player D only has 3 in 52 PA.

The list of players (in order of appearance): Jack Cust, Milton Bradley, Carlos Peguero, Greg Halman and Mike Carp.

The Mariners recently announced that Cust and Chone Figgins would see reduced playing time. It is funn, because it is hard to lose playing time when you are only in the lineup maybe twice a week anyway. I can’t make the argument for that being a bad thing for Figgins, but it does not make any sense to me to reduce Cust’s playing time if you are trying to win.

His power numbers are way down this season, but Cust has the highest OBP on the team, leads the team in walks (one ahead of Justin Smoak, who has roughly 100 more PA) and really is better than his .215 BA. Besides, the only Mariner with more than 100 PA and a higher OPS+ is Smoak. Adam Kennedy figures to take the bulk of the AB from Cust at this point.

Considering Bradley is gone, Carp is back in Tacoma and the Halman/Peguero platoon should produce somewhere around 20 walks this season and, if we are lucky, hit over .220, why not play Cust on a regular basis?

It seems to me that the team is adopting a “let’s play the kids and if we win, great, if not, we will call it a rebuilding year” mentality, which is fine, but let Jack Cust go to someplace where he can produce.

By Blaidd Drwg

Dave Cameron recently suggested that the Mariners should consider trading Michael Pineda. While I don’t necessarily disagree with him, I do think that his expectations on the players in return are a little, how would you say it, generous. Cameron writes:

The Reds have an excess prospect at nearly every position the Mariners have a massive hole, and could offer something like a package built around a switch-hitting catcher with power (Yasmani Grandal), a line-drive hitting first baseman who might be able to play left field or could DH (Yonder Alonso), a third baseman with legitimate power (Todd Frazier), and throw in a decent back-end starter (Travis Wood) to help the M’s compensate for losing a member of their rotation.

Of the guys he lists, John Sickles ranks Alonso as the Reds #3 prospect, Grandal as their #5 prospect and Frazier as their #7 prospect. As much as I think this would be a windfall for the Mariners, I seriously doubt that the Reds would be insane enough to move 3 of their top 7 prospects for a guy who, while he has the makings of a great pitcher, has thrown just over 100 innings in the majors. I would think that the Mariners would have to move at least one prospect in addition to Pineda in a deal like that.

Something else that Cameron writes bothers me a little:

Alonso, Frazier, and Wood could step right onto the big league roster, and given who they’d be replacing, the M’s might actually be better this year even after trading Pineda away.

Lets look at these players individually:
Alonso – He has a 298/363/476 slash line with 1 1/2 seasons under his belt in AAA. He doesn’t hit for much power (despite being 6’ 2” and 240 lbs) and doesn’t have great command of the strike zone. He would replace the revolving door that is at DH for the Mariners, but I doubt that he would be significantly better than Cust/Carp/whoever else. The one red flag for me, he is from Cuba and his “listed” age is 24. He might really be 24 and have some room for improvement, but if history holds for Cuban defectors, we could be looking at him at his career peak right now.

Grandal – Another Cuban (the Reds sure do like them, there is a bit of irony in them constantly taking Cubans and that can be found here, just scroll down to the newspaper article) who has put up some impressive numbers in the minors (897 career OPS). I would temper my expectations about being able to plug him in the lineup right now (and Cameron admits that) – he has exactly 27 plate appearances at AA (and only 1 walk in those 27 appearances) and his MiLB stats last season came from playing in Arizona and Bakersfield – 2 places the ball travels a bit. I really doubt that a guy with 300 PA in the minors and very limited experience at AA would be able to out produce the hack Miguel Olivo they are putting out there most days (and I am not a great fan of Olivo). I would guess he is probably 2 years away from the majors at the earliest.

Frazier – He is 25, has some mid range power, has improved his walk rate dramatically so far this year, but looks like he might be a slightly above average MLB hitter based on his stats in AAA. There are some health concerns on Frazier, but the biggest concern to me would be his fielding – he is a bit of a butcher with the glove, sporting a .950 fielding percentage at 3B in his AAA career. I have a feeling he is probably destined for the OF if he makes it to the majors. That being said, his bat is probably better than Chone Figgins or Adam Kennedy at this point, but how much would defense suffer if he was plugged into 3B right now? Besides, the Mariners have Alex Liddi in AAA right now and he basically would be Frazier with more power and a slightly better glove, so why bother at this point.

Wood – He is a relatively young, power arm who is better than anyone the M’s currently have in AAA, so he probably would be roughly equivalent to Jason Vargas with more strikeouts.

I know this is just one suggestion for a deal that could be made, but if you were Z, would you make it?

By Blaidd Drwg

On June 16th, the AL West Standings looked like this:

Team	Win %	GB
Texas	.514	—-
Seattle	.507	0.5
LAA	.471	3.0
Oakland	.429	6.0

As of June 30th, they look like this:

Team	Win %	GB
Texas	.531	—-
LAA	.512	1.5
Seattle	.481	4.0
Oakland	.439	7.5

Thanks to a decent win streak by the Rangers and a 4 – 8 stretch by the Mariners, the Puget Sound Plunkers have slipped into 3rd, are below .500 and closer to last than they are first. How bad have the last 12 games been for the M’s? They have scored 30 runs and given up 35, It isn’t easy to win only 33% of your games averaging giving up 3 runs a game in the process. Well, unless you have the worst offense in baseball that is. I honestly think the M’s will be out of contention by late July, if not sooner, unless they get at least 2 bats in that lineup.

In the more interesting division in the AL, here is what it looked like on 6/16:

Team	Win %	GB
Boston	.603	—-
NYY	.582	1.5
TB	.522	5.5
Toronto	.493	7.5
Baltimore	.470	9.0

As of 6/30, we now have this:

Team	Win %	GB
NYY	.608	—-
Boston	.575	2.5
TB	.556	4.0
Toronto	.494	9.0
Baltimore	.455	12.0

We would like to thank the Jays and O’s for playing and we will see you next year. The Sox have dropped thanks to a less than stellar performance against the Pirates and Padres and you have to feel bad for the Rays. Third place in their division and the 3rd best record in the AL. Heck they would be leading either the Central or the West by at least 3 games if they played either place. Sadly, they probably won’t even win the wild card without the Yankees or Sox choking.

By Iron Chef Leftovers:

 

In today’s Seattle Times, Steve Kelley wrote about what the Mariners should do with Erik Bedard. He wrote this nugget:

Timing will be everything.

Bedard made his 15th start of the season Monday. In both 2008 and 2009, he broke down after 15 starts. Is he fixed, as healthy as he was when he made 33 starts for Baltimore in 2006? Or is he one nasty curveball away from grabbing his shoulder and walking off the mound and out of the season?

The irony of it all – Bedard was placed on the DL today albeit with a strained knee.

By Blaidd Drwg

For those of you luck to be attending the Mariners – Phillies series in the middle of June, you don’t exactly get cheated on your pitching matchups (assuming the current rotations hold and there are no postponed games between then and now):

June 17th – Roy Oswalt squares off with Michael Pineda
June 18th – The King, Felix Hernandez battles Cole Hamels
June 19th – A bit of lighter fare as Kyle Kendrick matches wits with Jason Vargas

The Mariners do dodge a bullet by not having to face Halliday or Lee.

By Blaidd Drwg

Larry Stone of the Seattle Times wrote recently that Bedard’s recent pitching has been good enough to make it look like the trade the Mariners made for him back in 2008 wasn’t a complete bust. In case you don’t remember, the M’s traded 5 players – Tony Butler, Adam Jones, Kameron Mickolio, George Sherrill and Chris Tillman for Bedard. Except for Sherrill, all of the other players the M’s moved were in their early 20’s. Butler has not reached the majors, and doesn’t look like he will anytime soon. Mickolio had a couple of cups of coffee with the Orioles and is now pitching for the Diamondbacks. Sherrill spent a year and a half with the Orioles before getting shipped to the Dodgers for a couple of prospects. Jones is a regular in the Orioles lineup and Tillman is in their starting rotation.

Here is how that deal has worked out based on wins above replacement from baseball-reference.com:

Season	Bedard		Jones	Tillman	Sherrill	Mickolio	Butler
2008	1.3		2.8	0.0	0.5	0.0	0.0
2009	2.0		2.5	0.4	1.6	0.3	0.0
2010	0.0		3.0	0.0	-1.0^	-0.1	0.0
2011	0.9		0.7	0.5	0.0	-0.1*	0.0
Total	4.2		9.0	0.9	1.1	0.1	0.0

*Mickolio’s -0.1 figure is the WAR for Mark Reynolds, whom the Orioles received from the Diamondbacks in the trade for Mickolio.
^Sherrill’s -1.0 figure is the WAR for Josh Bell, whom the Orioles received from the Dodgers in the trade for Sherrill.

It is a pretty significant difference in total WAR – the O’s have picked up about 3 wins a season from the trade while the M’s have picked up about 1 win. It is not like either of these teams are on the verge of the playoffs either, so that is not going to make a huge difference. Where it really ends up hurting is when you look at what the M’s gave up. Jones is only 25 and just starting to enter his prime. He is a fantastic defensive CF and figures to man his position for several years to come. Had the M’s not traded him, they still could have gone out and gotten Franklin Gutierrez – and outfield of Guti, Jones and Ichiro would probably be the best defensive OF in baseball. Couple that with the loss of Tillman, whose numbers probably would have benefited from playing in Safeco, who is only 23 and seems to finally be finding his stride in the majors and will probably end up a #3 or #4 starter (think someone like Jason Vargas or Doug Fister), it makes it hard to believe that 4 injury riddled seasons of Erik Bedard could possibly equate.

Just to add insult to injury (sorry, couldn’t resist) the Orioles have paid less salary to the 5 players they received in the trade over the last 3 seasons (not counting 2011) than the Mariners paid for Erik Bedard in 2008.

Even if Bedard manages to stay healthy and pitches like a Cy Young Award contender and Chris Tillman flames out of the majors, there is no way that Erik Bedard for Adam Jones is not a significant win on the trade ledgers for the Orioles.

By Blaidd Drwg

Last night, aided by 6 walks and 3 HR, the Mariners had one of the ugliest 7-0 victories I have ever seen against Tampa Bay. The Mariners actually only had 4 hits in the game, but because of the timeliness of the hitting and the fine pitching of Jason Vargas, it did not matter.

The ugliness of the game was punctuated by the 3rd inning where the Mariners sent 9 guys to the plate, had 1 hit, hit one ball out of the infield and still scored 3 runs. Here is the play by play:

C Peguero hit by pitch.
I Suzuki walked, C Peguero to second.
B Ryan sacrificed into fielder’s choice to catcher, C Peguero to third, I Suzuki to second.
J Smoak walked, C Peguero scored, I Suzuki to third, B Ryan to second.
J Cust grounded out to first, I Suzuki scored, B Ryan to third, J Smoak to second.
F Gutierrez lined out to shortstop.
A Kennedy intentionally walked.
M Olivo reached on infield single to third, B Ryan scored, J Smoak to third, A Kennedy to second.
C Figgins lined out to center.

This could have been a much bigger inning if the Mariners managed to put a ball in play that went more than 90 feet. It is a fundamental problem with this team, but that is for another post.

In other Mariners news, before the game they sent down Michael Saunders to Tacoma and called up Greg Halman. I am not a big fan of Halman, he strikes out way too much and doesn’t take walks, but do we really need to carry 5 outfielders? The M’s seem committed to trucking Peguero and his .170 BA out to LF every day and they have Mike Wilson on the bench as a backup OF. Halman is not going to play every day, so why not leave him in Tacoma where he can get regular AB’s instead of riding the bench in the bigs?

By Blaidd Drwg

Over the weekend, the Mariners played the White Sox. There is really nothing all that special about 2 teams that are floundering pretty badly at the plate going against each other and you would expect some pretty low scoring games, which you got.

There was, however, an interesting side bar to this series – it involved two of the career leaders in TTO% (remember that – if not check here and here) – Adam Dunn and Jack Cust. Below is a chart showing their 2011 campaigns through the end of the day Sunday (I also added in Mark Reynolds for a reason to be explained shortly).

	PA	HR	BB	SO	TTO%
Jack Cust	127	0	25	37	48.8%
Adam Dunn	117	3	19	36	49.6%
Mark Reynolds	127	3	16	34	41.7%

Dunn has a slight lead over Cust right now. Here is how they both did over the weekend:

	G	PA	HR	BB	SO	TTO%
Dunn	3	14	0	2	3	35.7%
Cust	3	12	0	0	4	33.3%

I will admit – it was somewhat disappointing to see 26 PA between the 2 of them and no HRs. Dunn hit a bomb to the warning track on Saturday and Cust hit one off the CF fence on Sunday, but that was as close as either came. The interesting thing about Dunn is both his walks and none of his strikeouts came against Felix Hernandez.

Why do I mention Mark Reynolds above – well, the M’s move on to play the Orioles now, so we get to see the battle of Cust vs. Reynolds in the TTO arena.