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.

Cardboard Gods New Book

by Coltrane

Josh Wilker of Cardboard Gods has a new book– Cardboard Gods: An All American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards

Here’s the product description on Amazon.com:

Cardboard Gods is the memoir of Josh Wilker, a brilliant writer who has marked the stages of his life through the baseball cards he collected as a child. It also captures the experience of growing up obsessed with baseball cards and explores what it means to be a fan of the game. Along the way, as we get to know Josh, his family, and his friends, we also get Josh’s classic observations about the central artifacts from his life: the baseball cards themselves. Josh writes about an imagined correspondence with his favorite player, Carl Yastrzemski; he uses the magical bubble-blowing powers of journeyman Kurt Bevacqua to shed light on the weakening of the powerful childhood bond with his older brother; he considers the doomed utopian back-to-the-land dreams of his hippie parents against the backdrop of inimitable 1970s baseball figures such as “Designated Pinch Runner” Herb Washington and Mark “The Bird” Fidrych. Cardboard Gods is more than just the story of a man who can’t let go of his past, it’s proof that — to paraphrase Jim Bouton — as children we grow up holding baseball cards but in the end we realize that it’s really the other way around.

That’s better than I could have put it. Buy the book at the link above.

The Worst Team of 2010

By Blaidd Drwg

We are twenty six games into the season and the Pittsburgh Pirates have been outscored by 88 runs. Why is that news you ask? The Pirates are obviously the worst team in baseball you say. Well, it is news worthy because the Pirates record currently somehow stands at 11-15. Based on their run differential they should be a truly awful 5-21.

Currently, there are only 2 teams in baseball who are more than 2 games +/- between their expected record and their actual records based on runs – the Colorado Rockies who are 3 wins worse than their expected record and the Pirates who are 6 wins better.

How the heck are they doing it? If you remember earlier in the year, I posted about the luck the Mariners had last season winning 35 1 run games. Well, that is the Pirates this year – they are currently 6-1 in one run games, 5-14 in all others. I have absolutely no explanation for this, but if you back out the +5 runs the Pirates have gained in those 5 games, they are -93 run differential for 19 games – which means that they have lost by a 4.9 runs a game. They have a team ERA of 6.60 and no starter with an ERA under 5. I guess that is what happens when you give up 10 runs in a game 5 times in 26 games.

Goodbye, Ernie Harwell

By Blaidd Drwg

Today, one of the truly great voices in baseball has gone silent for the last time. Ernie Harwell, longtime brodcaster for the Detroit Tigers, passed away this afternoon at age 92 after a short battle with cancer.

When I think about who are the greatest baseball broadcasters I have heard, it is a short list – Harwell, Jack Buck and Vin Scully. Buck passed a few years ago and now Scully is the only one left. If you have never heard him call a Dodgers game, you should go online and listen to one before his voice too signs off – he is an artist with words and brings you into the stadium with his descriptions. The added bonus – he has no color commentator calling the game with him. You just don’t see a one man broadcast booth anymore outside European soccer.

There are a lot of tributes to Harwell being written and I feel compelled to write mine, with tears streaming down my cheeks as I type this. I have never lived in Detroit, but I remember listening to a number of Tigers games in the mid-80’s with my dad’s short wave radio. On a good night, you could pick up the Tigers. I was struck by the descriptions of the game given by Harwell and I think he contributed to my love of Alan Trammell. My most memorable moment though occurred on September 29th, 2002. I was in Montreal watching what I was sure was going to be the last game for the Expos and it also happened to be the last regular broadcast for Harwell. I went back to the hotel after the game and logged onto the internet to listen to the rebroadcast of the game. I will let Harwell take it from there:

“The Tigers have just finished their 2002 season. And I’ve just finished my baseball broadcasting career, and it’s time to say good-bye. But I think good-byes are sad, and I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure.

“I’m not leaving, folks. I’ll still be with you, living my life in Michigan, my home state, surrounded by family and friends.

“And rather than good-bye, please allow me to say thank you.

“Thank you for letting me be part of your family. Thank you for taking me with you to that cottage up north, to the beach, the picnic, your work place and your backyard.

“Thank you for sneaking your transistor under the pillow as you grew up loving the Tigers.

“Now I might have been a small part of your life. But you have been a very large part of mine. And it’s my privilege and honor to share with you the greatest game of all.

“Now God has a new adventure for me. And I’m ready to move on. So I leave you with a deep sense of appreciation for your longtime loyalty and support.

“I thank you very much, and God bless all of you.”

I wish I could find the audio, but I have had no luck as of yet.

Goodbye, Mr. Harwell, and to use your words it has been my privilege and honor to share with you the greatest game of all, thank you for that.

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.