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:

*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).

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

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.

By Blaidd Drwg

As I sit here this morning thinking about the Mariners game Friday night, I am struck by the lineup they fielded. You have Ichiro and Figgins at the top, Bradley, Olivio, Smoak and Cust in the middle and Wilson, Saunders and Ryan and the back end, Not exactly Murderer’s Row, but it was good enough to get them the win last night after Brendan Ryan, who was batting under .190 going into the at bat, punched a single up the middle to score the winning run.

Talking to Annie at the game made me realize this lineup is pushing the extremes at both ends of the OBP spectrum. Generally the league average OBP is somewhere around .325. You are above average in the .365 to .375 range and, if you are over .400, you are an OBP machine. Conversely, anything under .300 means you probably shouldn’t be a regular in the lineup.

Here is how the lineup last night looked with their OBP listed as of 5/7:

The OBP number is basically how good a players OBP is relative to league average with 100 being league average. This lineup is basically split between the guys who get on base at an above average clip and the guys who are really bad at it. There isn’t much room for middle ground in this lineup, which has a lot to do with why the Mariners are still only in a 3-way tie for 10th in the AL in scoring with Baltimore and Chicago. The interesting thing is that the Mariners are actually second in walks in the AL, only 3 behind the Red Sox. How are they doing it? “Walk this way” and I will show you:

The OBP spread is OBP – BA, it is a quick and dirty way to see how much of a players OBP comes from walks. A value of 100 is considered a very patient hitter, 60 would be about league average and a value of 40 would be a free swinger. I caution you that these numbers are skewed by sample size, but it does illustrate how you can be at the bottom of the league in scoring while being near the top in walks – THIS TEAM DOES NOT HIT. Putting guys on base is great, but it doesn’t help you if you don’t drive them in, which is the Mariners problem. If Eric Wedge handed me the keys to the castle for one day, this is the lineup you would see:

Figgins – 3B
Bradley – LF
Ichiro – RF
Smoak – 1B
Langerhans – CF
Cust – DH
Kennedy – 2B
Giminez – C
Ryan – SS

There isn’t much to work with and I hate Langerhans, but honestly, he is the best option for this lineup right now. If the bats eventually come around and the guys who are walking now continue to do so, this team will have a legitimate shot at a .500 record. If they continue to hit like a bunch of bush leaguers, I will stand by my original win prediction.