Disclaimer: Unusually shoddy use of sabermetrics and statistics ahead! This post is a thought experiment, a combination of ideas I’ve been kicking around. The concept can now “Fly, be free”, and go roost somewhere else.
Prior to the 2011 season, the sabermetric community and the gambling community agreed in their assessments of how many games the M’s would win. That number was about 69.5 – 70.
The Concept:
1. Given that the numbers and the public opinion are the same, let’s say that we “know” that Mariners will win 70 games in 2011 — that the M’s true talent level will produce exactly 70 wins.
2. Let’s say that we also “know” the standard deviation of season wins around that result. The difference would result from things like the team under or overperforming their expected wins relative to their run differential, or an unexpected player addition or loss, or something as simple as “luck.” This research has been done before, and the standard deviation of wins according to The Book is 6.4.
What does that mean?
It means that we could forecast the M’s ceiling and floor for season wins, as well as make a pretty good guess as to their actual odds for contention. Like so:
Wins
Percent
89-95
0.1%
83-88
2.1%
76-83
13.6%
70-76
34.1%
63-69
34.1%
56-62
13.6%
48-55
2.1%
41-47
0.1%
I rounded off the win totals of course, it isn’t possible for the M’s to win 4/10th of a game, anymore than it’s possible to have 6/10th of a kid, or be “kind of pregnant.”
In reality it’s hard to win fewer than about 48 games — a team composed entirely of fringe major leaguers would win around that many games. The 2001 Diamondbacks won 51 games. The 2004 Tigers won 43 games. Beyond that you have to go back to 1962 and the Mets, who went 40-120. I think it’s interesting that there was a 42-year gap between the terrible Tigers and Mets — I’d have to think that teams are almost never “pegged” for fewer than 60 wins in the new millenium.. there’s too much information available to even the most incompetent of baseball front offices, and the stakes are too high.
Blaidd wrote a post that focused in part on the M’s poor attendance so far this year. I’m wondering if maybe to some degree it isn’t “I already know how the movie ends, why bother going?” (That, and it’s been a cold spring.)
There was a time, and it wasn’t that long ago, that fans really didn’t know the talent level of their favorite team coming into a season. Information consisted of weekly Sports Illustrated fluff pieces, a skimpy sports section headed by people with homer-centric viewpoints, and, if you were lucky, a half-page in the Sporting News weekly baseball edition. You wouldn’t really know if your team had a shot or not until at least a couple of months into the season. Now, if somebody on the team gets a hangnail the fans know about it within a few minutes. The M’s opened the season 2-7, continued on to 4-11, and were declared DOA on the spot. Looking at the chart above, the M’s had less than a 2% chance of the playoffs this year before any games were played. The poor start basically finished their hopes for the playoffs.
Now you can pick him out of a police lineup if needed.
It took twelve years, but somebody finally did it. Ryan Raburn became a trivia answer last night by becoming the first player to hit the Safeco Field roof. (Technically it was a beam supporting the roof, but still.)
In other news: The final score was 8-3, Tigers. The M’s are now 5-12. It’s April 19 and Coolstandings gives the M’s a .2% chance to make the playoffs.
And not about the team on the field, we already knew that product wouldn’t be particularly good. The attendance is what they should worry about. In the 6 game home stand the M’s just completed, they drew 138,127 fans, which is an average of 23,000 per game – not great, but not terrible for April when attendance tends to be lower. That number is deceiving, especially when you consider that more than half of those fans were at 2 games – the home opener (45,000) and the second game which was an Ichiro Felix Bobble Head night (30,000).
Not even this handsome gentleman could boost attendance at Safeco these days.
They managed to draw 21,000 to Kids Opening Day on Sunday (it seemed like a lot less than that), 13,000 to Felix’s first start of the season and 12,400 to the last game of the series against the Jays, a new all-time low attendance figure for Safeco field. The really sad thing is that the game Felix started also broke the record for the lowest attendance at Safeco field. I am also shocked to see that the attendance for the bobble head night was only 30k – it is usually closer to 40K.
This is a team with a nearly 90 million dollar payroll that has a handful of players worth watching, so the lack of people coming to the games is really not all that surprising. There has been a noticeable downward trend in attendance for years for the M’s and I think this might be the year they fail to break 2 million for the first time since Safeco opened. To make matters worse, with all the talk of a “youth movement” for the Mariners, their hitters have an average age of 31.3, which makes them older than every team in the AL except the Yankees (the league average is 29.5 years old). They do much better with an average pitcher age of 27.5, good for the 5th youngest in the AL, but outside of Felix and Pineda, are any of the “young” pitchers on this team really guys you see being Mariners in 3 years?
MLB.com is running a series of the “20 Greatest Games Ever Played”. Included is this gem from game 7 of the 1992 Braves – Pirates series:
… Sid Bream, Mark Lemke and Andy Van Slyke are the guests. (As part of the conversation, Van Slyke told MLB Network that on the Francisco Cabrera game-winning hit, he motioned to Barry Bonds to move in. Bonds responded by giving him the finger, and the ball ended up landing exactly where Van Slyke said to play)…
As I sit here yet again late at night, working, I find myself reflecting on the Mariners home opener. The game was not pretty – they got shellacked badly and the offense looked lifeless. I won’t bother with a game recap, there are plenty of those out there, I wanted to talk about a few things I noticed at the game.
Just about everyone on the coaching staff played for the Cleveland Indians at some point in their career, which is funny considering it is a new staff and the home opener was against Cleveland. The only coaches that did not play for Cleveland are Mike Brumley and Carl Willis (although Willis did sign with them as a free agent but ended up pitching in the minors for them). The other 6 coaches all played at least 1 game for Cleveland.
I am digging the new scoreboards that line the stadium. They are LED, easy to read and have all sorts of new statistical information. The one near the Hit It Here Café not only has the pitchers line for the game, but also has the hitters BA/OBP/OPS for the season, vs. the handedness of the pitcher on the mound and his career splits against the current pitcher.
The Dave Neihaus tribute was somewhat lacking. While I am sure the My Oh My rap song was a heartfelt tribute, it sounded lousy and didn’t seem to fit celebrating the man who was the voice of the Mariners. I am sure they wanted something less somber than the tribute that was held in the off-season, but the least they could have done was have a moment of silence for Dave. There should not have been a dry eye in the house for this.
They did have a remembrance for the baseball players who passed away in the off-season. I hadn’t realized it, but we lost several Hall of Famers in the span of a couple of months. Our connection to the golden age of baseball is slowly fading into history and soon there will be no one left who remembers it.
Something I noticed – when Ichiro was presented with his plaque for becoming the Mariners all-time hit leader by Edgar Martinez, Edgar got a much bigger ovation. Edgar looks like he dropped a bunch of weight also and hasn’t looked that good since his playing days.
On a note not related to the Mariners, this is the 50th anniversary of the first time that MLB expanded, when the AL added 2 teams. Can you name them? (answer after the jump)
The Vegas over/under for M’s season wins opened in the 67.5 – 68.5 range. The number closed at 70.
I recently read somewhere that in 2010 there were a few significant differences between sabermetric projections and the Vegas lines, and that this year they’re pretty much in agreement.
As I was working at 2 AM the other morning and was trying to stay awake watching a file load, I started thinking about the 2011 season for the Mariners and what that is going to look like. I took a “best case” and “worst case” look at the team and eventually it evolved into a discussion with myself. Here is how that broke down:
This analysis of the Mariners is sort of like Spy vs. Spy.
Starting Pitching
The rotation: Felix, Jason Vargas, Doug Fister, Erik Bedard, Michael Pineda
The Optimist’s Take – this has the potential to be one of the top 5 rotations in baseball. Felix should easily put together another Cy Young quality season, Bedard looks like he regained his form and is ready to be dominating, Vargas is right about in his prime years and looks to have finally realized his ceiling, Fister is a serviceable back of the rotation guy, and Pineda looks ready to be a young Felix. The rotation could be the strength of this team.
The Pessimist’s Take – Once you get past Felix, this rotation has a potential for disaster. Vargas has no track record to show last season was not a fluke; Bedard is as fragile as a china doll and there is nothing in the organization to replace him with (French, Robertson, and a bunch of 4A guys); Fister is a soft tosser that is always playing with fire when it comes to getting shelled; Pineda might be the next coming of Felix, or he might pitch like a 22 year old rookie and find himself back in Tacoma sooner rather than later. There are too many questions to get excited about the rotation right now.
Relief Pitching
The Pen: David Pauley, Brandon League, Chris Ray, Jamey Wright, Josh Lueke, Tom Wilhelmsen and Aaron Laffey
The Optimist’s Take – the pen is going to have to hold together until Aardsma comes back. League should step right in to the closer role the rest of the pen is a nice combination of rookies and vets with some hard tossers thrown in. If they can hang on until Aardsma is back, they should be tough in the 7th, 8th and 9th innings with League – Lueke – Aardsma.
The Pessimist’s Take – this pen is a bunch of has-beens and never will-bees. League is solid and they will hopefully improve when Aardsma comes back, but who bridges the gap between the starters and League. Chris Ray, has a terrible injury history and isn’t a power pitcher anymore. Pauley, Laffey and Wright are all mop up guys and you don’t want them protecting any leads. Lueke throws hard and has all of 17 innings at AAA in his career. Wilhelmsen is a 27 year old rookie who has never pitched above class A. That is not the kind of pen that strikes fear into the hearts of opposing hitters.
Hitters
The Starters: Chone Figgins at third, Brendan Ryan at shortstop, Jack Wilson at second and Justin Smoak at first. Miguel Olivo will start behind the plate. Jack Cust will be the designated hitter. Seattle’s outfield will include Ichiro Suzuki (right field), Ryan Langerhans (center field) and Milton Bradley (left field).
Langerhans as the starting CF for the Mariners? Really?
The Optimist’s Take – the lineup can’t possibly be any worse than it was last season. Figgins should be better at 3B than Lopez and will hopefully build off his 2nd half of 2010; Ryan should be better than the Wilson-Wilson-Woodward disaster there last season; Wilson is probably a downgrade at 2B and you have to wonder if there is something wrong with him (you don’t normally move a Gold Glove SS to 2B for a lesser defensive replacement) and hope that Ackley is ready by June; Smoak has a full season under his belt and looks more relaxed; Cust will be better than the black hole at DH the M’s had last season and has the potential for being a legitimate 25-30 HR power threat; Olivo should be more productive then Bard-Moore-Johnson; Ichiro will be Ichiro. The only real potential areas for worse production are CF (until Guti comes back) and LF where it will be dependant on which Milton Bradley shows up day to day.
The Pessimist’s Take – Of course this lineup would be hard pressed to do worse than last year’s ineptitude. In the IF, you have an unknown with Smoak and potentially 4 sub-100 OPS+ guys manning the rest of the IF, with three of those guys, Ryan, Wilson and Olivo possibly posting sub-300 OBP. Olivo didn’t hit last year outside of Colorado, so how far will his numbers drop? Cust is a nice addition, but will he show any power in Safeco? Ichiro will hopefully continue to produce, but Langerhans in center? Really? You aren’t going to win and you need to know if Saunders is going to have anything resembling a decent career so why not put him out there. Either way, I think we are going to find that Guti’s 2009 season was his career year when he gets back from the DL. Bradley should be interesting. I give him until April 20th to blow up again.
The Bench
Luis Rodriguez and Adam Kennedy will act at utility infielders, Adam Moore as backup catcher and Michael Saunders acting as a utility outfielder.
The Optimist’s Take – Not much here to look at; you just hope that they are able to produce something when they are in the lineup.
The Pessimist’s Take – Langerhans should be your backup OF. You are leaving too much potential on the bench.
The Outlook The Optimist’s Take – if the pitching comes together and the hitting improves, this should be a 73 – 77 win team. Nothing exciting, but not nearly as dreadful as last year,
The Pessimist’s Take – this team isn’t much of an improvement over last season’s crapfest, so they should really end up in the 65 – 70 win range, only because you have Felix and it is really hard to lose 100 games in back to back seasons. The fire sale should take place in about June again.
After the outlooks were written, the following conversation took place:
Pessimist: Hey, O, what kind of sunshine are you smoking, calling this a 77 win team? Optimist: The pitching is better, the hitting should improve. Pessimist: You could put me in the lineup and the hitting would improve. Even if the M’s score 100 more runs this season, that will still probably make them the worst offense in the AL. Do you really think this team is going to score 100 more runs? Optimist: Probably not, but the pitching will probably give up fewer runs and close the run differential gap. Pessimist: You mean like last season when we had Cliff Lee? What do you do when Bedard can’t make it past the 5th in every start and then goes down with an injury? Luke French time? Optimist: This team doesn’t exactly have pitching depth. Pessimist: And the bullpen? Optimist: Yeah, they really aren’t that impressive. Pessimist: Ok, let me get this straight – the offense is better, but still among the worst in the AL, the pitching could be great, but is fragile and the bullpen isn’t good. Yet, you think they will improve by 15 wins? Back to my original question, what kind of sunshine are you smoking? Optimist: Well, since you say it that way, it does sound a little crazy. Pessimist: Yeah, just a *little*. Then again, this conversation is between me and myself.
There you have it, my prediction is the Mariners win between 65 and 70 games this season.
In 1995, the possibilites were endless for Mike Sweeney. Oh, what could have been.
Mike Sweeney signed a one day deal with the Royals yesterday and then promptly announced his retirement. Sweeney was probably the most feared hitter no one ever heard of back in the early 2000’s playing for the Royals, posting OPS+ numbers between 117 and 148 each season between 1999 and 2005, before back problems pretty much killed his career. Sweeney is generally considered to be one to the nicest guys in baseball, from what people who have met him have told me. Sweeney started his career in the Royals organization as a catcher and really hit is stride when he finally moved to 1B, He put together 2 minimally productive seasons with the Mariners before getting dealt to the Phillies late last season. Sweeney ends up in the “what could have been” category for me – a guy who would have put up some great numbers if he could stay healthy and would have been more well known if he didn’t play in the black hole that is Kansas City.
I wish him well in his retirement and hope that some team is smart enough to offer him a coaching job if he wants it.
Will someone please explain this to me – The Kingdome, which cost $67 million to build originally and another $51 million to fix when the roof fell in, and was blown up in 2000, won’t be paid off until sometime in the second half of this decade. Safeco Field, which cost $340 million in public funds to build, will be paid off by the end of this year. Did the state ever think that refinancing those bonds from the Kingdome might be a good idea?
FlatbreadGarden 