Category: Sports

A Seattle Send-off for Mo

By Blaidd Drwg

What looking down the barrel of a loaded gun is like.
What looking down the barrel of a loaded gun is like.

It is somewhat rare for a player to call it a career while still performing at a high level. Mariano Rivera is a player who is doing just that. Mo is hanging it up after the season. He is going to be 44 in November and has decided it is time to spend more time with his family. Mo should end up his career with 1100+ appearances, 650+ saves, an ERA around 2.25 and a WHIP around 1, not to mention that he is arguably the greatest post season pitcher in MLB history. In 2018, you should be hearing Mariano Rivera’s name called at the podium in Cooperstown.

How good has Mo been in his age 43 season? How about 28 saves, 8.3 K/9 Innings, 4.83 K/BB ratio and a 1.44 ERA. Granted, his WHIP is 1.21 (which would be the highest of his career as a closer), but the guy is still one of a handful of guys I would want on the mound with the game on the line.

A few weeks ago, the Yankees were in town for their only time this season. Mo entered the game in the bottom of the 9th on the last game of the series, giving everyone one last chance to see him. This fact was not lost on several people sitting in my section – people who are Mariners season ticket holder and fans. There were several of us who gave Mo a standing ovation as he entered into the game, giving him the proper recognition he deserves. I couldn’t possibly dislike any team more than the Yankees, but Rivera has been something special for the better part of 2 decades and that needs to be recognized.

I decided to snap the picture in this post, trying to catch the delivery. The batter? Another old geezer – Raul Ibanez who is also north of 40. It is not every day in baseball that you get to see 2 40 year olds square off at the plate.

A Tale of Two Pitchers

By Blaidd Drwg

I am convinced that there is something wrong (an injury perhaps) with both Felix Hernandez and Tom Wilhelmsen. One of the benefits of having seats behind home plate is that you get a good look at a pitcher’s delivery, and in both cases, the delivery looks off.

Felix Hernandez – He got pounded by the Angels again on the 20th and has not looked all that dominating his last few starts. Felix started off the season yielding just 11 earned runs in his first 64.2 innings (ERA of 1.53) with 64 strike outs and 10 walks. Then came the game in New York on May 14th where Felix tweaked his back (that was the last game in the 64.2 inning stretch). Since then, Felix has posted a mortal 24 ER in 45 innings (a 4.80 ERA) with 10 walks and 48 strikeouts. His strike out rate is up, but he has been getting hit with much more frequency.

I looked at fangraphs.com to see what kind of pitches Felix has been throwing and it seems he is throwing more fastballs, which indicates to me that something is not right – in the 9 games before the injury, he threw the fastball roughly 53% of the time and only exceeded that rate twice in a game – against the Angels on 4/27 and the White Sox on 4/6. Since that time he is throwing it about 57% of the time, but has thrown it over 60% of the time in the last 3 games. When your back hurts, you don’t have the flexibility to throw a breaking pitch as easily or as effectively and that means you rely on your fastball more. When hitters realize this they sit on your fastball. No matter how good the pitcher, hitters have an advantage when they know the fastball is coming and it doesn’t move like Mariano Rivera’s pitches. My observations on Felix have been the same – he is not getting the breaking stuff over the plate like he used to and it is exposing the declining velocity on his fastball.

My guess – Felix makes one or two more starts before ending up on the DL and effectively sinking the rest of the season for the Mariners.

Tom Wilhelmsen – He has been terrible for the month of June (11 ER in 7 innings) after being borderline unhittable in April and May (2 ER in 24 innings). It to judge what is going on with a relief pitcher based on pitch breakdown because the sample size is smaller and subject to randomness, but my observation has been that Wilhelmsen hasn’t been getting the breaking ball over the plate and once again, teams are sitting on his fastball. This has led to more fly balls and more walks. I can’t think of a specific point where he seems to have gotten hurt, so it might just be that his mechanics are messed up and it is all in his head, but whatever it is, he needs to get it squared away soon – the M’s bullpen does not have many effective weapons in their arsenal these days.

A Trip Down (Draft) Memory Lane

By Blaidd Drwg

The baseball draft has passed, and, while it will be a few years before you know how well your favorite team did, there are a ton of great “hindsight” stories that have come out of the draft. Dave Schoenfield hit on a few of them in a recent article. Here are a few of my favorites:

1966: Reggie Jackson falls into A’s lap
In one of the more famous draft blunders, the Mets’ had the No. 1 pick and passed on Arizona State outfielder Jackson to select a high school catcher named Steve Chilcott, who would battle injuries and never reach the majors. “It was a position pick,” said Joe McDonald, a Mets executive at the time. “We did not feel we had an adequate catching prospect in the organization.”

Position pick my butt – the real story behind this was that the Mets were concerned about Jackson (who is actually half black-half Mexican) having a white girlfriend. Keep in mind this was 1966 at the height of the civil rights movement.

1966: Braves draft Tom Seaver
The Braves? Yep. Atlanta selected Seaver in the now non-existent January secondary phase of the draft (for players who had previously been drafted). Seaver, pitching at USC, had been drafted the previous June by the Dodgers, but didn’t sign after the Dodgers turned down his $70,000 asking price. The Braves took him with the 20th pick of the January phase, setting off a weird chain of events. The Braves signed Seaver for $40,000, but commissioner Spike Eckert ruled Seaver was ineligible to sign because USC had already played two exhibition games (Seaver didn’t pitch). But the NCAA then declared Seaver ineligible, because he had signed a pro contract. So Eckert ruled that any team willing to match the Braves’ offer would enter a lottery. The Mets, Phillies and Indians matched, and the Mets won the lottery.

This one is little known. Talk about a big SNAFU – the signing disaster probably cost the Braves a couple of pennants and is directly responsible for the Mets winning a couple of them and for one of the most memorable teams ever – the 1969 Miracle Mets. Yes, Seaver was that good. It kind of made up for not drafting Reggie.

1976: Trammell and Morris … and Ozzie (sort of)
In 1976, the Tigers had one of the great drafts ever, selecting Steve Kemp in the January phase and then Alan Trammell (second round), Dan Petry (fourth round), and Jack Morris (fifth round). Trammell and Morris aren’t in the Hall of Fame yet, but both could get there someday. No team has ever drafted (and signed) two future Hall of Famers in the same draft. The kicker: They also drafted Ozzie Smith in the seventh round, but he didn’t sign, and the Padres selected him the following year.

I had no idea about this one. That is one hell of a draft even if Ozzie did not sign. I don’t think Morris is a HOFer, but he was one heck of a 5th round pick.

1988: Dodgers draft Mike Piazza … in 62nd round
Maybe the most famous late-round pick, Piazza was the Dodgers’ final pick that year — the 1,390th pick overall out of 1,395.

Yep, 5 players drafted after him and the Dodgers only picked him as a favor to his father. Spent 4 seasons in the minors raking the ball and got called up in late 1992 and stuck around the majors for another 15 seasons. Had a career 59.2 WAR according to baseball-reference.com, and posted a higher career WAR than any player taken in the first round of the 1988 draft. Only Robin Ventura was close at 55.9. The next highest was Brian Jordan at 32.7. How did no one scout this guy?

Chris Bosh, Rocket Scientist

By Blaidd Drwg

With the Heat facing elimination at the hands of the Spurs, Miami is changing its game-plan to try to stop Danny Green and his 66% shooting percentage from beyond the arc. Bosh’s comments:

“He has a knack for shooting, but he won’t be open tonight,” Bosh said Tuesday. “We’ll see how he shoots with somebody always on him.”

Congratulations, Chris Bosh, it took you and your coaches 5 games of getting lit up to finally figure out what a casual basketball fan could tell you – if you let a guy who regularly shoots 43% from long distance have open shots, he is going to kill you.

Shane Battier was much more articulate in his comments:

Most of [Green’s] shots come off of defensive breakdowns on our part. So it just goes into our overall game plan of playing with a sharper, clearer mind and just doing our job.

“He’s done a good job of watching our guys who are ball-hawks. We have a tendency to do that. He just goes to the open space. He utilizes the oldest trick in the book: the old blind spot.”

So the Heat’s plan is to not collapse on Tony Parker to try to cover Green. I just don’t see this ending well for the Heat.

The Week of the Reliever

By Blaidd Drwg

Jim Caple runs a section of his Off Base column on espn.com titled “Box Score Line of the Week”. Each week, he picks and interesting performance and writes about it. It is usually some pitcher absolutely getting his head beat in. This week, he had tons to choose from:

Arizona starter Ian Kennedy allowed 10 runs last Thursday (4 IP, 13 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 2 BB, 4 K), while Pittsburgh’s Jeff Locke allowed just one hit but also walked seven batters on Sunday (5 1/3 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 7 BB, 6 K). But it’s the relievers who put in the real effort this week, thanks in large part to all of those extra-inning marathons.

Mariners reliever Blake Beavan faced the minimum number of batters in 6 2/3 innings Thursday (6 2/3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K), which might have been the winning line had it not been for the Rangers’ Ross Wolf, who also pitched 6 2/3 innings of relief (6 2/3 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K) on Saturday. Which also might have won had Miami’s Kevin Slowey not pitched seven scoreless innings in relief on Saturday (7 IP, 8 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 8 K).

But even he lost because of the Mets’ Shaun Marcum, who pitched eight innings in relief the same game. He lost the game, but he wins this week’s award:
8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 7 K

That was the longest relief outing since Scott Sanderson in 1989.

In case you were wondering, Sanderson came into the game in the 10th inning against the Pirates after Calvin Schiraldi, Steve Wilson and Mitch Williams failed to hold the lead in the 9th. Sanderson’s line was 8 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1ER, 2 BB, 5 K. He lost the game on a HR by Jeff King in the bottom of the 18th.

Interesting to note in that game – the Pirates managed to tie the game in the 9th without a hit, thanks to 4 walks, a wild pitch and a sac fly.

Either way, it was a freaky week for relief pitching.

Revisiting the 2001 Baseball Prospectus Top Prospects

By Blaidd Drwg

Recently, I was in a conversation with someone regarding the Baseball Prospectus Top Prospects list that comes out annually. We were essentially talking about how much talent made their debut in 2001 so I decided to go back and look at the list to see how well, 12 years later, the guys at BP did. The full article is here and it is worth reading especially with discussion about Ichiro, Nick Johnson and Ryan Anderson.

Below is the top 40 list if you don’t care to read the article:

1. Ichiro Suzuki, RF
2. Sean Burroughs, 3B
3. Ryan Anderson, LHP
4. Corey Patterson, CF
5. Ben Sheets, RHP
6. Antonio Perez, SS
7. Jimmy Rollins, SS
8. Roy Oswalt, RHP
9. Vernon Wells, CF
10. Jose Ortiz, 2B
11. Jon Rauch, RHP
12. Joe Crede, 3B
13. Josh Hamilton, CF
14. Chris George, LHP
15. Bobby Bradley, RHP
16. Austin Kearns, OF
17. Brad Wilkerson, OF
18. C.C. Sabathia, LHP
19. Kevin Mench, OF
20. Bud Smith, LHP
21. J.R. House, C
22. Keith Ginter, 2B
23. Alex Escobar, CF
24. D’Angelo Jimenez, SS
25. Adam Dunn, OF
26. Nick Johnson, 1B/DL
27. Luke Prokopec, RHP
28. Hee Seop Choi, 1B
29. Albert Pujols, 3B
30. Adrian Hernandez, RHP
31. Craig Wilson, C/1B
32. Michael Cuddyer, 3B
33. Mike Bynum, LHP
34. Luis Rivas, SS
35. Jack Cust, 1B
36. Wilson Betemit, SS/3B
37. Brian Lawrence, RHP
38. Marcus Giles, 2B
39. Dee Brown, LF
40. Nick Neugebauer, RHP

There are a couple terrible misses on this list, particularly in the top 10. Sean Burroughs, Corey Patterson, and Antonio Perez never really got it together in the majors, although Perez will probably be best remembered as one of the guys the Mariners got for Ken Griffey. Ryan Anderson had all sorts of arm trouble and never made the majors. Beyond that, they did pretty well with the list. Ichiro, say what you want about him, has posted a 57.8 career WAR, won an MVP and a ROY award. Ben Sheets posted a 25.6 WAR in 8 seasons before his arm fell off. Jimmy Rollins has a career 41.9 WAR and an MVP award. Roy Oswalt has a career 50.8 WAR and finished in the top 5 in Cy Young voting 5 times. Even Vernon Wells, as overpaid as he is, has posted a 30+ career WAR.

The guy on this list that they underrated the most? Some guy at #29 who was a 21 year old 3B for the Cardinals who had one minor league season under his belt; Albert Pujols.

The MLS Expands…Again

By Iron Chef Leftovers

I almost spit out my coffee when I saw that the MLS wants to expand again and add another team in the New York City area. Here is a quote from the ever delusional MLS Prez, Don Garber:

“This market has 19 million people in the region and is soccer hungry,” said MLS commissioner Don Garber. “With the Red Bulls here, we have the opportunity for a rival — a derby, if you will — that will break through the clutter of sports teams in this market and will work on the local, national and global levels.”

Ok, sure. The market has 19 million people but it has never really embraced the MLS. The team has averaged about 75% capacity over the 3 seasons they have occupied Red Bull Arena and their average of 18,804 per game there is only slightly higher than it was at Giants Stadium. Red Bull Arena sits right on 2 mass transit lines, has easy highway access, plenty of parking and is in the middle of an area that has a high immigrant population, which usually means more soccer support. The problem that the MLS has is that those people know what good soccer looks like and the MLS isn’t it. There is a reason why you don’t see the US National team playing home games in NY/NJ during the World Cup qualifying – it turns into a virtual home game for their opponent.

That being said, is the talent level in the MLS really that good that they can dilute it down further without compromising the “quality” of the product? I don’t think they can. The season is early, but the attendance is down league-wide this year – Only DC, Montreal, Dallas and Portland have seen any increase in attendance (well technically KC also, but their average has gone up 9 per game). Even the Sounders have seen a significant drop in attendance this year. Last year they drew 66,000 for a game against Portland. This year – just a shade over 40,000.

What this is all about is money and brand. The new NY club will be owned by the Steinbrenners (of NY Yankee fame) and Sheik Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan (owner of Manchester City). Since both of these owners have very deep pockets and the MLS has very liberal rules about skirting the salary cap when it comes to foreign players, you can expect this team to be stocked with over-paid, past their prime players from Europe who have name recognition, a la David Beckham. That is not good for the long term success of the MLS and is exactly what brought down the NASL.

Considering that teams like Chivas, New England, Dallas and San Jose don’t draw well, the league might just be better served moving one of those teams to NY. Honestly, the league would probably be better served putting another team in Seattle over NY – right now, I believe the only cities that could support a second team attendance wise would be either Seattle or Portland.

Brandon Maurer and Pitching in the Big Boy League

By Blaidd Drwg

Look, there comes a time when you have to send a guy down to the minors before you completely destroy his confidence, and that time has probably come for Brandon Maurer. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about his struggles with left handed batters. Well, he has pitched “slightly” better against lefties recently (they are “only” hitting about .325 against him over his last few starts) but he has suddenly lost the ability to get right handed hitters out also (they are hitting over .400 against him in his last few starts).

Right now Maurer is a mess. If you watch him pitch, he looks like he has no confidence in his stuff. His start on Tuesday night was a disaster and he has given up 10 home runs in 49 innings. It is time for him to go back down to regain that confidence. I would suggest something radical too – sending him to AA Jackson rather than AAA Tacoma. Why? Well Tacoma, and the PCL in general, is a hitter’s league. Maurer has been getting smacked around pretty badly and pitching in the band box that is Cheney Stadium will probably not help his confidence. Maurer wasn’t that great last year in Jackson anyway.

I know the Mariners don’t really have many options at this point, but I think I would rather see Hector Noesi stink it up out there than watch Maurer get destroyed, completely lose confidence in himself, get traded to another organization for a bucket of baseballs and come back in a few years as a serviceable major league starter.

UPDATE – The Mariners sent Maurer to Tacoma sometime between when I wrote this and this morning, calling up Alex Liddi. Supposedly they are looking at calling up Jeremy Bonderman, but Bondo is not on the 40 man roster, so someone either goes to the 60 day DL (Guti possibly) or someone gets DFA (either Ryan or Thames), to add Bondo.

Hitting Your Way Out of a Paper Bag

By Blaidd Drwg

Once again, the Mariners are hitting like they can’t punch their way out of a paper bag. Thus far this season, the Mariners have scored fewer total runs than all but one AL team – the Chicago White Sox (actually they have outscored the Nationals, Phillies (just barely), Marlins and Dodgers, but that is the NL, so it hardly counts, but more on that in a moment). It is actually worse than that – the Mariners have outscored the Pale Hose by a whopping 2 runs and have played 3 more games than Chicago, so the Sox have actually scored more runs per game than the Mariners. It has been so bad that the Mariners have been outscored by the Astros (!!!) by 16 runs in the same number of games. That is the same Astros lineup that I ripped on earlier this season. At least the Mariners offense hasn’t been historically bad this year and they seem to be hitting about as well (if you can call it that) at home as on the road.

Sadly, the despite the vast improvement, they are still in sorry shape. Morales, Seager and Morse have been ok, Shoppach and Bay have been better than expected; Smoak has been drawing walks (but not much else) and hasn’t looked completely hopeless at the plate. Montero, Ackley, Ryan, Andino and Chavez have all been wasted at bats though in this lineup. The M’s have gotten so little production out of their #9 spot in the order that they might as well be a NL team. Here is how the #9 hitter compares to the teams in the NL who have scored fewer runs. Keep in mind that the AB’s for the NL teams come from a combination of the pitchers batting and pinch hitters. Just for the heck of it, I am including the Tigers, who lead baseball in runs scored. (Stats from baseball-reference.com)

BA OBP SLG sOPS+
Mariners .168 .235 .206 63
Nationals .134 .185 .190 38
Phillies .201 .242 .329 107
Marlins .155 .214 .169 42
Dodgers .197 .255 .282 96
Tigers .292 .317 .456 180

Basically the Mariners are getting the same production from Chavez/Ryan/Andino in the 9th spot as National League teams get from their pitchers. That is not a recipe for success.

The M’s took the first step in trying to right the ship by sending Montero down to Tacoma, but they did call up a no-hit, all-glove catcher in Jesus Sucre, so that won’t help much. The next step is probably sending down Ackley and bringing up Nick Franklin. I think Ackley needs to get some time in the bandbox that is Cheney Stadium to get his groove back. The shortstop mess is probably not fixable this season, so we will probably get another 120 games of almost automatic outs from the bottom of the lineup.

My prediction – if the M’s don’t have a winning record on this home stand, Eric Wedge will be looking for a new job. I hear Don Mattingly might be available soon…