SB Nation - Jason Vargas

Is This Sparta?

Graham — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 00:21:58 -0000

More photos » by Duane Burleson - AP

His hat is stifling. It narrows his vision. And he must see far. His glove is heavy. It throws him off balance. And his target is ninety feet away.

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We've been hearing about the Mariner bullpen quite a lot this season. For a unit that was entirely comprised of question marks, it's held out particularly well, and is often cited as one of the prime reasons the Mariners have remained above .500 well into September. Perhaps no element of the team has defied expectations so much as the relief corps. With a week left in spring training, there was no closer. Late inning duties this year have been shared by a guy who was traded for a no-name last winter, someone who was a no-name last winter, a guy who's coming back from microfracture surgery in his pitching elbow, someone who isn't Tim Lincecum (he didn't last for very long), and Sean White, who is boring. Complementing the late inning boys was a random crop of AAA arms and Miguel Batista. One can only imagine how bullpen coach John Wetteland must have felt when presented with his men at the start of the year, but eventually he was able to turn them into a functional (albeit more than slightly insane) unit.

How? As the story goes, on an early-season road trip, Mark Lowe downloaded 300, which for those unfamiliar with it, is a ridiculously over-the-top movie about the Spartans at Battle of Thermopylae, which occurred during the second Persian invasion of Greece in late 480 BC (spoiler: they all die). He shared his enthusiasm for the film with Wetteland, and things snowballed from there. Members of the bullpen adopted characters from the movie, Spartan helmets popped up everywhere, and a grand ol' time was had by all. One wonders exactly how badly the relievers expected the team to do if they felt as though they identified best with a bunch of guys who all end up dead, but there's no denying it fueled an us-against-the-whole-damn-world mindset that the bullpen latched onto and used as inspiration to pitch their hearts out. The siege mentality was further reinforced when MLB officials decided to take their helmets away. Small wonder, then, that the bullpen has pitched their collective hearts out this year, keeping games just close enough for the struggling position players to scrape out more wins than losses.

This would be all well and good if the Mariner bullpen was actually as good as traditional numbers suggest. But they're not. They're not even average, despite all the one-run games and saves for David Aardsma. By using tRA-derived valuation statistics, they've been more than a quarter-century of runs below average, which turns out to be the worst mark in the American League. AL West rivals Oakland, on the other hand, are well over the +50 mark, which is a spread of almost seven and a half wins. By the numbers, they have answered the questions surrounding them in spring training, and the answer turns out to have been 'holy crap they're bad'. But this doesn't jive at all with their ability to keep them Mariners in business in close games. The team has won an absurd number of one run games, and generally has the ability to keep games close once the team turns over pitching duties to the bullpen. So what gives? Is the Mariner bullpen an above-average unit with an elite closer as the spearhead, or is David Aarsdma the equivalent of affixing a razor blade to a forty foot tall marshmallow and calling it a weapon? Or is the answer somewhere in between?

I hope it's the last option, because otherwise I've just spent a tonne of time collecting data for no good reason. Let's dig in.

Note: All data current as of 2:39 PM Sept 12th, 2009. Partial innings denoted as .3 for one out, .7 for two.

First, let's look at our cast of intrepid heroes and Denny Stark. Who's been leaned on the most? The quartet of Mark Lowe, Sean White, Miguel Batista, and David Aardsma have accounted for a little over half of the innings thrown by Mariner relievers this season, as shown in the chart below:

Figure 1: Innings pitched by Mariner relievers in 2009

Chris Jakubauskas and Shawn Kelley have also both seen significant time this year as well, and Kelley was thriving in a late-inning role until he suffered a rib injury in mid-May. Five arms have appeared in both the rotation and the bullpen, including Brandon Morrow, who began the season as the closer before a series of meltdowns got him demoted. Now that we have a pretty good idea of who's soaked up how many innings, let's take a look at their numbers in RA and tRA form:

Table 1: RA, tRA, rRAA, and pRAA for Mariner relievers in 2009

rRAA and pRAA are computed by taking the difference between league RA and tRA respectively and multiplying by innings pitched/9 for rRAA and expected innings/9 for pRAA, with Δ denoting the difference between rRAA and pRAA. As the column on the far right shows, Mariners pitchers have, by and large, far exceeded their expected value as far as defence/park-independent statistics are concerned. This is hardly a surprise, as the Mariners have the best defence in the game and play in a pitcher-friendly park. The biggest differences are in Sean White and David Aardsma's numbers, who between them 'should' be worth around 15 runs less than their actual numbers would suggest. Again, this isn't a surprise, as the pitchers likely to have the biggest negative difference between pRAA and rRAA are those who've been highly effective by ERA and associated metrics. The opposite should also hold true: the poor performers are likely to have been negatively impacted by their fielders.

In fact, the only relief pitchers who have a lower tRA than RA are Mark Lowe, Brandon Morrow, and Garrett Olson, and only Lowe has been part of the bullpen all season. The numbers are fairly remarkable - by using traditional numbers, the Mariner bullpen has been worth +6.4 runs total, and with pRAA, they've been at a rather alarming -25.9. Miguel Batista is particularly notable for having cost us almost ten runs over the course of the season, but he's had a couple of competitors for the suckiest bullpen arm award, with Jakubauskas and Stark (in ten innings somehow) pushing him all the way. Some (most) of the numbers in the table above has to have come from the defence, as Safeco Field isn't going to explain away the whole thing. But before we look at defensive contributions explicitly, I'd like to introduce the concept of leverage.

Most of you should be familiar with Jeff's lovely win expectancy charts, which appear after nearly every game. The idea of win expectancy is straightforward. For each game state (outs, score, runners, inning) we can figure out the likelihood of an average team beating another average team. Despite most teams not being completely average and entirely constituted of average players, win probability can be used as a measure of how important a given event was in terms of winning or losing baseball games. A walk-off home run? Worth a lot. A two-out walk with the bases loaded in the second when down by five? Not so much. In fact, for each game state, we know what the possible swings in win probability are. A team cannot possibly make a big impact in one at-bat when they're ten runs down, even if the batter hits a grand slam, but with the tying run at third with one out in the ninth, the situation can become critically important.

Table 2: 2009 AL relief leverage by
team, descending

Leverage is a measurement of just how important those situations are. Fortunately, the good people at Fangraphs keep track of this number for both teams and individual players. Here we are concerned with the average leverage a pitcher sees, denoted as pLI (the average is 1.00). In general one might expect bullpens to see higher leverage situations than starting pitchers, but as Table 2 to the left shows, this is not the case for most of the American League, which have seven teams below 1.00 and 12 below 1.10. The standout teams are the Boston Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners, with the latter leading the major leagues in bullpen leverage (the Dodgers and Cubs are also both over 1.20 in average bullpen leverage).

There are a number of reasons why we might see such a disparity in the stressfulness of situations seen by a bullpen. One such reason might be that a team is poor enough that they are regularly losing by large enough amounts to make winning improbably: this might apply to the AL's basement teams: Oakland, Kansas City, and Baltimore. Or the opposite could be true and the team could routinely be so far ahead by the time the manager goes to a reliever that their innings simply aren't worth very much, which is the route taken by the New York Yankees and their absurdly powerful offence.

Conversely, a team which finds its bullpen highly stressed will be in contention to win many games, one that relies on excellent run prevention to keep things close. That would be the Mariners. Their bullpen leverage index of 1.23 means that the runs saved or given up by Mariner relievers are worth 132% of those saved or given up by their counterparts in New York.

The same concept applies to individual pitchers on the same team. By multiplying innings pitched by individual pLI, we can see the relative importance of the innings a pitcher has soaked up, as shown below:

Figure 2: IP*pLI for Mariner relievers in 2009

As we can see, David Aardsma springs into the lead once important innings are considered. The top four of Aardsma/Lowe/White/Batista are now responsible for almost two thirds of leveraged relief innings, and the team total has jumped by more than 100 innings (this is insane, by the way). Aardsma and Lowe are entirely responsible for the team's jump in innings total, with the former experiencing the equivalent of 76 extra innings' worth of stress and the latter a robust +38, due to pLIs of 2.21 and 1.55 respectively. Brandon Morrow's adventures in Minnesota and Texas see him grab more innings, and poor Doug Fister, who made his debut at the end of a blowout game, has his contribution marked as wholly irrelevant and thus discarded.

We need to account for leverage when we look at value metrics like pRAA, and again this is a simple case of multiplication. Numbers multiplied by pLI are denoted with an apostrophe:

Table 3: pLI and leveraged rRAA and pRAA for Mariner relievers in 2009

Aardsma's performance is particularly notable, but apart from the fantastic contribution from our closer, what really stands out is how poorly Miguel Batista has been used. His pLI was just a tick below average, and this season he's been running a tRA of almost six. While his contract demanded that he be on the roster somewhere, the damage he's caused could probably have been mitigated by relegating him to mop-up duty rather than deploying him in relatively close games. Denny Stark and Chris Jakubauskas both saw their negative contributions decreased due to their throwing in less stressful situations, which would have left Batista all alone at the bottom if not for the increased impact of The Adventures of Brandon Morrow. The chart does show you why the Mariner pen is held in high regard by those watching, though. The important innings have gone to White, Aardsma, and Lowe, and by and large they just haven't allowed runs, to the tune of 44 runs saved by rRAA. Let's look at an overall comparison between rRAA, pRAA, and the leveraged numbers:

Table 4: rRAA, pRAA, and leveraged values for Mariner relievers in 2009

As shown in the table above, leveraging the numbers results in an increase in both rRAA' and pRAA'. This should go as a feather in the cap of Don Wakamatsu, as it demonstrates his ability use his bullpen arms (sans Batista) effectively - the most important innings have gone to the most able pitchers. It's really no wonder that those watching games and following closely think that the team has a good bullpen. Naturally, we pay more attention when we're in with a shot at winning, and in those situations, the relief corps just doesn't give up runs. It's hard not to be confident in the later innings when your top arms are that good at shutting the opposition's bats. But again, how much of this is the responsibility of the pitcher? pRAA' agrees that the bullpen is generally far better when the game's on the line, but still has the unit as well below average, and almost three wins less valuable than it would appear when simply looking at runs, which is a similar result to what we saw earlier when looking at unleveraged values.

The defence, then, has to have some responsibility for the perception of the bullpen as an elite unit. How much defensive support has each pitcher received? Is defence clutch in any way (the most likely explanation for this would be sensible use of defensive replacements)? Although you could probably figure things out from the numbers above, we like our graphs around here - the chart below shows the defensive support given to each pitcher per tRA's xRR, which is simply expected runs minus actual runs with park effects accounted for. Both plain xRR and xRR multiplied by pLI are shown.

Figure 3: Defensive support (standard and leveraged) for Mariner relievers in 2009 (click image for full size).

Aardsma and White have been the primary beneficiaries of the defence this season, but it's hard to argue in favour of defensive clutchness: Morrow didn't get much support, and Lowe has been a little better than his traditional line too. In fact, summing leveraged xRR and subtracting plain xRR leaves you with one extra run, which is a little surprising considering the average pLI of 1.23. Overall, the defence hasn't cared who's pitching or what the score is - it's just gone out and made plays no matter the situation. Despite some of it being explained away with leveraged numbers, I have to conclude that the greater part of the difference between 'common knowledge' and a quick statistical peek at our pen's numbers is due to Franklin Gutierrez and company.

All in all, I think it's pretty clear that although the bullpen isn't as good as commonly believed, it hasn't been as bad as simply looking at unleveraged pRAA would suggest, simply because the guys relied on when the games are on the line have been much better than those in mopup duty (surprise!). However, the bullpen has still been below average, and without the safety blanket of the best defence in the game to make them look good, we'd hear less about resilience and esprit de corps and more about fatigue and the need for mechanical tweaks.

If this is Sparta, it's been more Sellasia than Thermopylae.

72-65, Quick Game Notes

Jeff — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:45:54 -0000

More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

OH GOD NOT AGAIN

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Maybe if I write really fast people won't notice that this is how I spent my Saturday night.

When I went through the PITCHfx data and saw that Luke French threw 63% strikes, I could hardly believe it, because I could've sworn he threw a lot more balls. Turns out maybe he should've, because the strikes he threw got pounded. Though I thought he was a lot better than his results the last time out, today he was awful - just awful - to the point that even the A's made him pay. Slider? Fine. Fastball? Kept missing. Change? Practically non-existant. How does a guy with French's fastball throw 37 pitches to righties and only five changeups?

A step back for a guy whose spot in next year's rotation is in no way guaranteed. While he's not a bad pitcher, I'd wager he doesn't have anyone's confidence right now, and that confidence won't come until he starts getting better results.

Jason Vargas, meanwhile - welcome back. Vargas was good with Tacoma, came up, had his ups and downs, went back to Tacoma, was good, then came up again. Tonight he worked in relief of French and threw 2.1 perfect innings, flashing more of that changeup I love so much (five thrown, three swinging strikes). I think it's a product of having spent so much of my life surrounded by praise for Jamie Moyer and Trevor Hoffman, but the changeup is my favorite pitch, so I love having a guy like Vargas who can use it whenever he wants to great effect. French may very well wash out. Garrett Olson may never improve. Vargas, though, I think is good enough to pitch in the bigs for a pretty long time, even if he doesn't get any better.

Rank of Michael Wuertz's swinging strike rate among all relievers:

2009: 1st
2008: 22nd
2007: 4th
2006: 1st
2005: 3rd

Seems like the Cubs could've used something like a ZiPS projection before trading him for pocket change. Wuertz has often been accused of falling in love with his slider, but considering his slider is literally the most unhittable slider in baseball, I think he can be forgiven, and if the A's handle this right, they'll be able to use him to trade for a lot more than they originally gave up.

Of the two feel-good stories we've plugged in at DH, I never expected Mike Sweeney to be the one to catch fire down the stretch. His homer today was longer than any Jose Lopez has hit all season.

I can't find an exact count, but on only something like 120 occasions has a player ever struck out five times in a game. BIll Hall just wants to be remembered.

Since he got so close today and I don't think I'm going to be around tomorrow, let's get this out of the way - congratulations, Ichiro, on reaching 2000 career hits. 2000 career Major League hits, anyway. People will always bring up his Japanese stats and some will insist that their exclusion is insulting, but the Japanese (A) don't play in the Major Leagues, and (B) don't play at a Major League level, so for our purposes, those stats are meaningless. What does hit #2000 mean? Nothing, really, at least nothing more than hit #1999 or hit #2001, but America loves a big round number as much as it loves its big round people, and to get there in fewer than nine seasons is one of those things that I don't think we're going to appreciate in full until Ichiro's gone.

We all take Ichiro for granted. Every single one of us. Let his big day be the one day we try - just try - to understand how extraordinary he really is.

Miguel Batista : Mariners :: appendix : humans. He doesn't serve a critical purpose and all he ever does is make you hurt.

Mariners Make Exactly Zero Surprising Roster Moves

Jeff — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:53:50 -0000

From Baker's blog and a bevy of Twitters, the M's have kicked off September by adding Mike Carp, Jason Vargas, and Adrian Beltre back on to the big league roster. Those aren't the only players you're going to see added this month, but Tacoma's still gunning for the playoffs, so in the interest of maintaining a pleasant relationship with their highest affiliate, the Mariners have for the time being elected to only take its best pitcher and one of its best hitters. Rooting for a minor league team seems fulfilling.

Carp's here to both get some playing time and fill in for Russell Branyan, who may be done for the year with a funny back. On the plus side, Branyan's back issue helps explain his second half and lower his price in the offseason, but then it also serves as a chilling reminder that he's a 33 year old slugging first baseman who's had old player skills his entire life. Going forward he is by no means a sure thing, which is why it'd be nice if we could depend on Carp to provide a little productivity as a fallback. He's no star in the making, as Dave talked about earlier today, but guys have done more with less, so there's some reason for optimism.

Vargas...well I don't know why so many people seem to have written him off already. Granted, little can be expected of him over the course of this final month, since the team is in theory still trying to limit his innings, but considering he didn't throw a single meaningful pitch all of 2008 due to injury, I'm more than happy with his strong changeup and ability to induce swings at balls out of the zone. Vargas has been good in AAA and okay in the Majors, and though he's not RRS, he's not Garrett Olson, either, and it's nice to have him back. Despite the crowded picture, he may very well be a part of our future rotation.

Beltre's back for what will likely be his final five weeks in a Mariner uniform. His time in Seattle has been marked by several long fly balls at home dying on the track, relentless fan criticism, and a contused right testicle. I wonder what's the opposite of a home town discount.

Jason Vargas Optioned, Doug Fister Purchased

Matthew — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:22:02 -0000

That move was well hidden.

I do not think anyone has ever been really excited with Doug Fister, but he we are. The 25-year-old righty spent the last two seasons in Double-A West Tennessee where he was unexciting. Promoted to Tacoma this year, he has turned some corners, entirely in the never walking anyone department. Fister is a moderate groundballer who does not miss bats but also tries to never miss the zone either. It is rather hard to fathom that he is not a Twin.

Someone with a scouting report will fill us in on his pitches, but for now... yeah... okay.

Erik Bedard to the DL

Brendan Scolari — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:53:02 -0000

More photos » by Ted S. Warren - AP

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Mariners starting pitcher Erik Bedard is going on the disabled list yet again, this time because of inflammation in his left shoulder according to AP reports. Left-hander Jason Vargas was called up from Triple-A Tacoma to take his place:

The move came less than 24 hours after Bedard lasted just three innings and threw 81 pitches in Seattle's 10-3 loss to Cleveland.

After Saturday's game, Bedard met with manager Don Wakamatsu and Zduriencik and admitted there was some discomfort in his troublesome pitching shoulder.

"I know he's trying to go out there and do the best he can. He just feels like he cannot get the command of the fastball," Wakamatsu said. "We're looking from this point forward [of] can we get him back on the field and can we get some more starts out of him."

The team plans to use medication and rest as its treatment plan this time. Bedard already missed a month in June and July with shoulder inflammation and has made just four starts since June 7.

Bedard is 5-3 with a 2.82 ERA so far this season and was considered the Mariners best possible trade chip if they decided to be sellers at the deadline. The Mariners are 7.5 games back in the AL West and 6.5 games back in the Wildcard race so losing one of their best starting pitchers could help them decide to trade off some of their veterans and rebuild for next year. Either way, one of the top available starting pitchers is now off the market.

Two Quick Updates

Jeff — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:04:58 -0000

(1) It looks like Reid Brignac wasn't pulled because of a trade, but rather (allegedly) because he didn't hustle. So then. I wonder if Brignac has any idea how many people were affected by his laziness. Does Tampa Bay just breed these guys? Still a very good chance that something is going on here, though. This looks like a possible smokescreen. What's the team going to say? "Yeah, no, he's not playing tonight either. Why? Oh, I dunno. For the hell of it?"

Update: now the reports are that Brignac was pulled due to minor pain in his leg. Was seen icing in the clubhouse. This is aggravating.

(2) Jason Vargas was scratched from his start in Tacoma tonight and will presumably go tomorrow instead of Chris Jakubauskas. What this means for Jak is that, instead of warming up before the game, he'll warm up in the third.

49-44, Very Quick Notes

Jeff — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:59:12 -0000

And thus ends Garrett Olson's 2009 stint in the rotation. When you watch him, you don't see much velocity or command or composure or a great breaking ball or a great change. That he used to be one of Baltimore's top pitching prospects seems to say more about Baltimore's old farm system than it does about Olson, because there's nothing in there that would blow a scout away. He's just thoroughly mediocre, without a whole lot of upside. I like having him around as insurance both now and down the road, but he just isn't good, and games like this are why so many people are afraid of dealing starters. Olson'll be okay, but he's pitched himself out of his spot. Welcome back Jason Vargas, and welcome back RRS.

Add "swing" to the list of Jack Hannahan's positive attributes that still don't add up to make much of a hitter. It's the weirdest thing. When you look at his discipline numbers and watch him swing, you'd think he'd be some sort of lefty masher with on base ability, but instead he just sucks. But boy did he look good this afternoon. How does that swing have three homers while Raul Ibanez's swing has 25?

I don't know why anyone ever thought that unpadded outfield walls would be a good idea, and maybe today will help shed some light on the sort of hazard they really pose. Putting players in that kind of danger is unnecessary, and having the kind of range in the outfield that we do these days is only going to make us that much more uneasy.

Franklin Gutierrez was going to make a spectacular catch looks really easy.

Larry Stone on Olson today at Baker's blog:

Olson did not have one swinging strike, by the way.

Atta boy, Larry.

The 1-2 changeup that Rodney threw to Wladimir Balentien in the ninth was pretty much never in the strike zone. Too often fans will criticize a hitter's pitch identification without understanding how hard it really is, but that swing - that swing decision was awful. It's a shame, too, because up until then Wlad had put up a good day at the plate, and now all anyone will remember is how bad he looked with the game on the line.

Ryan Langerhans came so close.

First Half In Review: Mariners Go Driving

Jeff — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:56:45 -0000

The Mariner players' first half performances as things that can happen to you in the car.

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David Aardsma: somebody texts you a happy score update of a big game, the beginning of which you have to miss because your boss made you work late and you've had it with these stupid East Coast start times.

Wladimir Balentien: somebody texts you a sad score update of said game.

Miguel Batista: somebody texts you a score update of the game, but when you reach into your pocket to see if it's happy or sad, a police officer drives by, sees you, pulls you over, and writes you a ticket.

Erik Bedard: the air conditioner keeps shutting off every few minutes, and while it always manages to fix itself, you wish it would just turn on and stay on because it's a hundred degrees outside and you don't want to roll down the window.

Adrian Beltre: you use the same six-hour permit on your dashboard to park downtown four nights in a row. On the fifth night, you get caught and your car is towed.

Yuniesky Betancourt: the cop that pulled you over for texting while driving hands you the ticket then punches you in the face for being such a sad little fairy.

Russell Branyan: drive-in movie with the prom queen who didn't win because of her intellect. And the movie is Braveheart or something.

Ronny :(edeno: sometime during the night a cat climbs up and dies in your engine.

Endy Chavez: you clean your window, but the wiper fluid leaves some messy streaks and when you try to make those go away you run out of liquid.

Ken Griffey Jr: every time you turn on your vent or air conditioner, it introduces a little tolerable but annoying constant static to your iPod playback.

Franklin Gutierrez: you're driving down a desert freeway and you see a hitchhiker and even though you don't usually do things like this you decide to pull over and pick him up and the hitchhiker is Mitch Hedberg who's alive somehow and vows to repay you with hours of comedy.

Felix Hernandez: reaching for some change to pay for your drive-through coffee, you open up the container you keep under the seat and find $200 in cash that you got from an ATM, stored away, and forgot about.

Chris Jakubauskas: no matter how many times you adjust the rear-view mirror, it keeps slipping out of position and giving you a view of the back seat. But you just re-upholstered the back seat and it looks nice, so that's something.

Kenji Johjima: the switch to electronically move your seat forward and back is broken, so you have to move it yourself with that lever that's by the floor that got all sticky when you dropped that one soda.

Rob Johnson: the cupholder is too wide and too shallow, so every time you drive with a drink you have to lean forward a little and awkwardly position yourself so that you can hold it in place.

Shawn Kelley: you get into the car just in time to hear your favorite radio station kick off an hour block of BRMC.

Ryan Langerhans: during the hour block the DJ mentions that BRMC will be coming to town on Friday with Maximo Park as the opener.

Jose Lopez: leaving work to drive home, you notice that the gas light is on, but you decide, what the hell, I'm gonna go for it.

Mark Lowe: you're driving around with a friend and you mention to her "hey you know what song I heard this morning that's really annoying? Lights by Journey. I fucking hate that song" and your friend nods and twenty seconds later she starts to sing Lights by Journey.

Brandon Morrow: on a six-hour nighttime drive through the plains to meet up with friends at the cabin in the morning, the car's GPS breaks and you lose all sense of direction.

Garrett Olson: you drive home and nothing happens.

Carlos Silva: you're driving around a lonely stretch of highway when your car starts to smell funny, and it breaks down just as you're crossing the train tracks, and then the railroad barriers sound off and lower themselves, and then your doors jam and won't open, and OH MY GOD THERE'S A COBRA IN THE GLOVE COMPARTMENT

Ichiro Suzuki: you bring dinner home to have a pleasant in-house date night with your significant other and your car smells like fresh pizza and mozzarella sticks for a week.

Mike Sweeney: lost in an unfamiliar neighborhood, you pull over and get very bad directions from a very nice man.

Jason Vargas: In-n-Out accidentally gives you an extra double-double free of charge.

Jarrod Washburn: getting an oil change and buying new tires improves your car's performance by a couple mpg.

Sean White: already running late, you spill scalding hot coffee in your lap and drive all the way to work in blinding discomfort.

Assorted others: you're wasted but not fit to drive home so you recline the seat and fall asleep.

First Half In Review: Passing Out The Grades (Pitching Staff)

Jeff — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:10:25 -0000

Part two of a two-part series. Awwww yeahhhh

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David Aardsma: A-. Aarsdma's been quite a find, helping to somewhat stabilize a bullpen that was sent into disarray by Brandon Morrow. The strikeouts are way up, and he's only had a couple meltdowns through three months. My only concern is that he allows a ton of fly balls, many of them deep. He's definitely benefited from a big park and an awesome defense. He hasn't pitched as well as his ERA.

Miguel Batista: D. It's interesting to me that people don't realize how bad he still is. That 2008 must've left quite the impression.

Erik Bedard: B. Pitched well a lot of the time he was on the mound, but he didn't spent enough time on the mound, and there's not much consistency start-to-start. While it's great that his shoulder MRI came up clean, in some ways mysterious discomfort is worse than the stuff you can explain. I feel about Erik the way aviophobes feel about an overseas vacation.

Felix Hernandez: A. Felix may be a 23 year old All Star with a million-dollar contract and a billion-dollar arm, but I bet he doesn't have an emergency survival blanket in his pocket. You may think you're some kind of hotshot, but come wintertime, we'll see which one of us gets to enjoy complete thermal protection from rain and snow.

Chris Jakubauskas: D+. A few months ago I mentioned how much I liked Jakubauskas' curveball. Recently Harry Pavlidis did some work at Beyond The Box Score showing that Jakubauskas' curve has the lowest swinging strike rate of any curve in the Majors. I will never understand why anyone takes me seriously anymore.

Shawn Kelley: C. Kelley generally did good work on the mound, but he missed a lot of time and his most recent appearances show that he's still not all the way right. I both love Shawn Kelley and wish that he weren't probably the second-most dependable arm in the bullpen.

Mark Lowe: C. Too many balls and far too much contact for a guy with his stuff. USE YOUR CHANGEUP IT WILL HELP YOU AGAINST THOSE SINISTER LEFTIES

Brandon Morrow: C-. The best pitching prospect in our system has 127 games of Major League experience.

Garrett Olson: D+. I like having Olson around, and he has a little decent upside as a 4/5 starter, but his stuff gives him so little margin for error that it's basically impossible for me to feel comfortable in any situation where he's on the mound. I think that's the biggest reason why his bases loaded Houdini act the other day was so incredible. He doesn't miss many bats and he too often struggles to find the strike zone. Hurry up, RRS. And don't take this the wrong way, but you should hurry up too, Brandon.

Carlos Silva: F. Every day for the past three weeks I've thought about posting "Today's Fun Fact: Carlos Silva is still a Mariner" but I couldn't bring myself to do it, so now I'm doing it here. Only $25m left on the books after this season! Silva is living(?) proof that the big league DL system is a farce. Yeah, yeah, he has some wear and tear. That's not why he's sitting. He's sitting because oh my god why why would you ever let him pitch

Jason Vargas: C+. The more I see of him, the more I fall in love with Vargas' changeup. Between that and his ordinary but left-handed breaking ball, he's a starter who's not likely to run a big platoon split. Considering he's not even getting expensive yet, he was one hell of a throw-in, a guy I barely even noticed when we made the trade. I'm worried about how well he'll hold up down the stretch after not throwing in 2008, but to date, he's been quite good for what he is.

Jarrod Washburn: B-. Last year's litmus test of baseball intelligence was Raul Ibanez's defense. This year's is Jarrod Washburn's value as a pitcher. Washburn has taken a step forward - listen to me, everybody, Washburn has taken a step forward - but he's still not very good, and people who want to offer him arbitration or sign him to an extension are pants-on-arms crazy. He's been neat for three months, though. You know what else is neat? This emergency survival blanket. The package says it can be used as a signaling device for air support, and I work right next to Miramar, but for some reason when I took it for a field test the pilots got all uppity.

Sean White: C-. He's last year's Roy Corcoran, only with like 25% less of the only thing that made last year's Roy Corcoran any good. Speaking of percentages, this emergency survival blanket retains 90% of body heat. Great for survival, and great for taking warm pies to a picnic! White probably deserves a D or a D+, but he's flukily avoided home runs, so whatever. I wonder if people back home refer to him as the pride of Pullman. That would suck for Pullman.

Assorted Others: Irrelevant. When Roy Corcoran's on, he covers the ground with his sinker, but nothing covers the ground quite like this emergency survival blanket.

A Comparison

Jeff — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:25:34 -0000

More photos » by Nam Y. Huh - AP

Here's a sexy picture.

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Do you like tables? I hope you like tables.

	Washburn	Vargas^
tRA	5.10	5.76
tRA*	5.21	5.05
Strike%	62.4	61.0
SwS%	7.5	7.7
GB%	37.6	38.3
LD%	22.5	20.4
^ as a starter

By the way, RRS is getting better down in Tacoma. Over his last six starts, he's thrown 35.2 innings, striking out 25 while walking six. His velocity the other day was 89-92 on the stadium gun, which - according to Ryan Divish - manager Daren Brown calls his best of the year. Last time we saw RRS in the Mariner rotation on a consistent basis, he was throwing 64% strikes with a 7.2% whiff rate.