SB Nation User Blog: Jeff

7/3: Open Game Thread

Jeff — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:04:44 -0000

Felix Hernandez

#34 / Pitcher / Seattle Mariners

Height: 6-3

Weight: 225

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Apr 08, 1986

Tim Wakefield

#49 / Pitcher / Boston Red Sox

Height: 6-2

Weight: 210

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Aug 02, 1966

Tim Wakefield looks like a man who just realized that he's going up against King Felix. And Ryan Langerhans maybe. Ryan Langerhans!

I'm out of town and not expecting to write this weekend, but don't let that diminish your enthusiasm. A decent showing in Boston and we will have had ourselves a damn solid voyage through a woodchipper of a road trip. Do it, Felix. After yesterday's miracle of a win, I'm feeling reinvigorated.

40-38, Chart

Jeff — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:26:09 -0000

Biggest Contribution: Mark Lowe, +21.4%
Biggest Suckfest: Ronny :(edeno, -9.3%
Most Important AB: Ichiro double, +14.3%
Most Important Pitch: Matsui homer, -13.8%
Total Contribution by Pitcher(s): +32.4%
Total Contribution by Lineup: +15.2%
Total Contribution by Opposition: +2.4%
(What is this chart?)

7/2: Open Game Thread

Jeff — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:59:22 -0000

Lineup

Seattle Mariners @ New York Yankees

07/02/09 4:05 PM PDT

Seattle Mariners	New York Yankees
Ichiro Suzuki - RF	Derek Jeter - SS
Russell Branyan - 1B	Johnny Damon - LF
Jose Lopez - 2B	Mark Teixeira - 1B
Mike Sweeney - DH	Alex Rodriguez - 3B
Franklin Gutierrez - CF	Robinson Cano - 2B
Kenji Johjima - C	Nick Swisher - RF
Ryan Langerhans - LF	Hideki Matsui - DH
Chris Woodward - 3B	Melky Cabrera - CF
Ronny Cedeno - SS	Francisco Cervelli - C

Jason Vargas

#38 / Pitcher / Seattle Mariners

Height: 6-0

Weight: 215

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Feb 02, 1983

CC Sabathia

#52 / Pitcher / New York Yankees

Height: 6-7

Weight: 290

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Jul 21, 1980

Jason Vargas looks like a guy you've been chasing on foot for twenty minutes but just when you run him into an alley and think you have him cornered, he turns around, pulls a blade out of his pocket, and gives you the "what now?" face. CC Sabathia looks like he sees muffins. Why did the Yankees get the angelic white backdrop while the Mariners got stuck with Vicente-Padilla's-bedroom black?

39-38, Game Notes

Jeff — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 03:06:27 -0000

More photos » by Kathy Willens - AP

Come to me. Come to me, ball.

Browse more photos »

Yesterday we faced terrible odds and lost by three. Today we faced better odds and lost by two. In neither game did the Mariners lead. In both games were the Mariners able to force a few ties. It's weird, then, that while last night's loss felt like getting stabbed in that fleshy part of the jaw under the chin, today's kind of rolled off my back. Both of them were equally bad. It's just, I dunno, I guess once you prepare yourself for devastation, it doesn't really bother you as much when things go as you feared. Nothing compares to the initial blow. If the Mariners want to keep tearing me down, first they'll have to build me back up.

A good start for Washburn against a difficult lineup. Though he only threw 60% of his pitches for strikes, you get the feeling with Washburn that his misses off the plate are a little more deliberate than Morrow's or the bullpen's. He pitched a strong game, and while he gave up the four runs, it's hard to be disappointed with his performance in Yankee Stadium. For the second consecutive start he walked but one batter while striking out six - five of them righties - and the home run that Damon hit in the third was a ballpark home run that doesn't leave a lot of other places. Combine all that with his ten swinging strikes and you have to feel pretty good that Washburn has put his issues behind him and gotten back on track. Whether the team goes on to contend or try to sell, these were seven encouraging innings. It's hard to be mad at someone for getting burned by Alex Rodriguez.

Today we got to witness the famed Yankee Stadium Effect. As I already mentioned, Damon's was a lucky shot, and Griffey's tying homer in the sixth was even more improbable. Not because it was off a good lefty, but because it's hard to imagine that thing leaving in pretty much any other ballpark. I don't mean to take away from Griffey - he got out in front of a fastball and pulled a sizzling line drive - but that was a double that got him four bases. It's like playing in a cooler Texas.

Johnny Damon, by the way, seems to enjoy the new stadium so much that he cheats on his wife with it. Today's shot was his eleventh at home against four on the road in an equal number of plate appearances. Damon isn't a power hitter. Over the past season and a half, he's only hit one ball further than 400 feet. And yet here he is on the home run leaderboard, one behind Miguel Cabrera and Evan Longoria. I wonder what it would be like to follow baseball and not know about park factors.

Ronny :(edeno is actually swinging the bat a little better of late. He hit a couple balls sharply in LA, he hit that 413! foot homer last night, and twice today he hit reasonably deep fly balls to right and center fields. Whether or not that actually means anything, I'm not sure - :(edeno's OPS in June was lower than Ichiro's batting average - but it does provide a little bit of promise for a guy who up until quite recently was looking lost. Now is the time for Ronny to try and salvage his season. We already know Wak likes his energy on defense, so if he can start chipping in with a few hits here and there, that could go a long way towards erasing the memory of his humiliating first half.

The front page article on Yahoo! MLB earlier this afternoon was about Alex Rodriguez's diminished production. A-Rod's contact rate is its best in more than a decade, he's chasing fewer balls out of the strike zone than ever before, his line drive rate is healthy, and a quarter of his fly balls have left the yard. You know what A-Rod's problem is? A .215 BABIP. He's fine. He's absolutely fine. He's just been unlucky. Given how much the media loves to talk about everything that's going on with the Yankees, you'd think they'd bother to learn a little something about player evaluation.

Every year, the Yankees seem to have one nobody position player they keep around just so they can tell other front offices "see, we're all playing the same game." It tends to be a utility guy or a backup catcher. This year's designated Yankee Who Doesn't Belong is Cody Ransom. It's like a gorilla living with people and trying to blend in by wearing a hat.

The essence of being a sports fan is hope. In order for anything to be worth a sports fan's time, it has to give him some element of hope. Some little chance that things could work out. One of the things that's so daunting about playing the Yankees, then, is that Mariano Rivera doesn't offer any hope. When you're playing New York, you really do feel like you need to have a lead or a tie through eight innings, because Rivera carries with him this certain air of invincibility. He is flawed. Obviously. Rivera will have some games where he gives up hits and blows a save. But every hit and every run you score against him feels like a minor miracle. When you're losing to, say, the Orioles or the Angels, you can clasp your hands together and pray that you get some good swings against Sherrill or Fuentes. Games against most closers don't feel over until they're over. Games against Rivera, though, feel over the instant he's called. At no point in either of these last two nights did I so much as entertain the possibility of putting a rally together in the ninth. It simply seemed to me that it couldn't be done.

Kudos to Rivera for being so very dominant for so very long. Here's to one Yankee of whom I'd never have a bad thing to say.

Jason Vargas and CC Sabathia tomorrow at 4:05. Win and no one remembers the first two losses, but lose and the Dodgers series becomes a distant memory. I am afraid.

Trade Rumor Of The Day*

Jeff — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:21:53 -0000

*there will not be a new rumor every day

From Jon Paul Morosi:

The Mariners, running a close third in the American League West, will probably wait about two weeks before moving definitively on the trade market.

Already, though, they have engaged in preliminary discussions with the Padres about third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff, according to one source with knowledge of the talks.
The person added that the chances for a deal — at this point, at least — are not strong. But San Diego officials have made clear to other clubs that Kouzmanoff is available.

I don't advise getting your hopes up (or down, depending on your perspective) quite yet, but with the Mariners in desperate need of a third baseman and the Padres being out of the race, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the teams have talked to each other. Kouzmanoff's actually a pretty obvious target when you really think about things, and though I should caution that the odds are probably 90-95% that nothing like this ever happens, he's a player to think about that could help us both now and over the next few years. Don't be deterred by his unimpressive numbers - Petco just kills him, and the reality is that he's a solidly average to above-average regular who'd fill a big hole. Assuming a reasonable price, I'd be happy to have him. As much as I'd like to have Beltre come back, that's probably not in the cards.

So there you go. A little something to take your mind off the loss.

Honestly Though

Jeff — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:53:52 -0000

Called strikeouts from today's (astonishingly fast-paced) game:

Don't take this as blaming or scapegoating. Forget what happened in the game. Forget that it was the Mariners and the Yankees. Just take an objective look at these images and give me a good reason why people still so readily accept inaccuracies like this when we have the technology to be so much better. Batters made 64 trips to the plate in this game. On five of those occasions, they were undeservedly called out, according to the rule book strike zone that both they and the umpires were presumably taught. How is that okay? That's five outs! Outs are hugely important!

I'll take a page out of Tango's book - if from the beginning of baseball's existence the strike zone had always been judged according to a system that gets almost every call correct, would you want to change it?

I will never, ever, ever understand the argument that umpires and human error contribute to the beauty of the game. Regardless of how much they get right, umpires screw up all the time, and the game is worse because of it.

39-38, Chart

Jeff — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:41:39 -0000

Biggest Contribution: Griffey, +11.7%
Biggest Suckfest: Ronny :(edeno, -11.3%
Most Important AB: Griffey homer, +13.8%
Most Important Pitch: Rodriguez homer, -19.8%
Total Contribution by Pitcher(s): -6.8%
Total Contribution by Lineup: -43.2%
Total Contribution by Opposition: 0.0%
(What is this chart?)

Let's Hear It For Tradition

Jeff — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:05:12 -0000

7/1: Open Game Thread

Jeff — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:57:24 -0000

Lineup

Seattle Mariners @ New York Yankees

07/01/09 4:05 PM PDT

Seattle Mariners	New York Yankees
Ichiro Suzuki - RF	Derek Jeter - SS
Russell Branyan - 1B	Johnny Damon - LF
Jose Lopez - 2B	Mark Teixeira - 1B
Ken Griffey Jr. - DH	Alex Rodriguez - DH
Franklin Gutierrez - CF	Jorge Posada - C
Wladimir Balentien - LF	Robinson Cano - 2B
Chris Woodward - 3B	Nick Swisher - RF
Rob Johnson - C	Melky Cabrera - CF
Ronny Cedeno - SS	Cody Ransom - 3B

Jarrod Washburn

#56 / Pitcher / Seattle Mariners

Height: 6-1

Weight: 195

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Aug 13, 1974

Andy Pettitte

#46 / Pitcher / New York Yankees

Height: 6-5

Weight: 225

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Jun 15, 1972

Well that does it. I have a new favorite team photographer. "Hi Andy! I am here to take your picture. And also you are going to be raped."

Four switch-hitters in the Yankee lineup means Washburn will only get to face two lefties, putting him at the opposite disadvantage that Morrow faced last night. Players who can bat from both sides? We should try getting some of those.

39-37, Game Notes

Jeff — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:09:58 -0000

More photos » by Kathy Willens - AP

Although known to scowl and known to glare, many argue that the disapproving grimace is Ichiro's most intimidating expression.

Browse more photos »

When you think about everything that happened, tonight's loss probably shouldn't have made me as upset as it did. The Mariners came in as significant underdogs. They were never in the lead. They didn't make Joba work as much as they could have. They didn't hit a lot of balls hard. They didn't get good pitching. They didn't play great defense. As valiant as their effort was, all game long it just felt like they were barely hanging in there, like their plan was to stay close long enough to get lucky. And in those sorts of games, it's hard to really build up your expectations. By all rights, I should've seen this loss coming a mile away. Hell, I did see this loss coming a mile away. But even given that certain degree of predictability, Cabrera's double off White in the eighth still made me get up and leave the room, and it's been a while since a Mariners game really got that deep under my skin.

I'm not sure why it did. Maybe it's because, as much as the Yankees are the superior team, this game was still winnable. Maybe it's because I feel like we could've made a better effort than we did. Maybe it's because I feel like we could've fielded a better team than we did. Maybe it's because I just hate losing to the Yankees. But if anything, I'm guessing it's because this felt like the sort of game people could point to months down the road when they talk about where it all went wrong. Negative turning points are an irrational and frequent fear of mine, but while I'm aware of their irrationality, it's the Mariners who've made me like this, and you're probably all in the same boat. The last few innings saw us get slapped in the face by regression, and regression is what we've been afraid of since this team got back in the mix.

Everybody knows what we're up against. Everybody recognized that, even with the series win in LA, this trip still had the potential to deal our chances a serious blow. And this just felt like a miserable way to kick off a stretch of six arduous games. My objective brain reminds me that this is only one loss, and that the M's were tied as late as the bottom of the eighth, but sometimes you just want to pick something up and smash it, objectivity be damned. One of the side effects of meaningful baseball is emotion. Tonight we got the bad ones.

In the top of the third, third base umpire Mike DiMuro rang up Russell Branyan on a check swing third strike with a simple raise of his fist. I haven't been able to get video yet, but compare it to this. I hope Angel Hernandez wakes up bleeding tomorrow and doesn't know why or where it's coming from.

I don't want to be too harsh on Brandon Morrow. He doesn't deserve it. I know he threw 98 pitches and walked five while failing to get through five innings, but pitching in Yankee Stadium against a patient, powerful, and predominantly left-handed lineup, this was as bad a matchup as Morrow's likely to see in his entire career, and he held them in check. You know what his ball-in-play profile looked like? 12 grounders, 1 outfield fly, 1 pop up, 1 liner. He took an interesting and inefficient route to his destination, but he got there, and had it not been for Woodward's misplay of Matsui's groundball, who knows how things might've gone. Morrow did as well tonight as anyone could have realistically hoped.

The problem is that starts like this really serve to highlight Morrow's shortcomings - namely, his command and his lack of consistent secondary stuff. He wasn't hitting his spots all game long, and while he was by and large able to keep his fastball within the zone, he only threw 20 of his 40 offspeed pitches for strikes, generating only two swings and misses. He didn't have any sort of feel for his changeup or breaking balls, which puts him in a severely disadvantageous position against left-handed hitters, and a pitcher who doesn't have a good weapon to use against left-handed hitters isn't going to last very long in New York. It's a testament to the quality of Morrow's stuff that he was able to do what he did tonight without having any idea of where he was throwing the ball, but it was made evident today that there's a whole lot of room for improvement.

I'm happy that, despite (or perhaps because of) the conditions, Morrow threw so many offspeed pitches tonight. You can't improve a pitch unless you throw it, and Morrow gave the Yankees a good amount of sliders, changeups, and curves. That makes me feel a little better about the prospect of him continuing his development in the Major Leagues in front of a big league coaching staff. But tonight it still felt like I was watching a guy who needs some minor league conditioning. I'm not saying they ought to send him to AA or AAA for a year and a half. They could just demote him long enough to work out a kink or three and then bring him back as soon as he shows some progress. But right now, as long as Morrow's throwing 20 pitches per inning and struggling to find the catcher's glove, I'm not sure he's really helping us. Does he have that potential? Of course he does. There's no question about it. But the version of Brandon Morrow that we've seen take the hill these last few turns is a promising but nevertheless ineffective pitcher. He could very well become an asset to the team down the stretch, but that's not going to happen unless he figures something out. Here's hoping he does.

A lot of things came out of the media's seemingly nonstop Joba coverage in 2007 and 2008, but not least among them is the perception that people still have of Joba that he's some sort of unhittable, flamethrowing phenom. Let me tell you a little about Joba Chamberlain: his average fastball this year is down to 92.4mph (as opposed to 97.0mph as a rookie reliever), his 58.7% strike rate is one of the worst in the league, and his swinging strike rate of 7.8% is right on the league average and ties him with guys like Dallas Braden and Kevin Correia. Joba was amazing as a rookie, and he's been awesome out of the bullpen. Absolutely. But through 15 starts and 81 innings in 2009, he hasn't been good. While Joba may very well stick as a long-term starting pitcher, make no mistake - he's nothing special now, and he needs to take several steps foward if he wants to become something special later on. A talented pitcher can't have the start he did against the Mariners tonight and then go home and look at himself in the mirror.

Tonight's obligatory mentions of missed calls: Ichiro didn't go around in the first, and Cedeno was safe in the sixth. I wonder if it's possible to point out that the umpires screwed up without other people automatically thinking that you're blaming them for a loss. I'm not blaming the umpires for our loss. I'm just noting that they got at least two calls wrong, and those two calls cost us two outs. When you keep a mental log book of all the calls that they get wrong, it's remarkable how quickly you begin to wish ill upon the entire profession. Robots robots robots!

I guess I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to taking to heart all the cries over Yankee Stadium being a crazy hitter's park. Given all the mass hysteria we've heard over the past few months, I couldn't help it; I just came in expecting to see everything carry and at least five fly balls leave the yard. Guess what? There were only two homers today, and both were hit to left field. It's important to remember that even the most extreme ballpark environments these days don't really alter the game as much as you think they do. Yeah, balls that die in San Diego and Seattle take off in Texas and New York, but it's not like the Mariners came in tonight expecting to play a different sport. It's all still baseball. It's just baseball with a slightly higher rate of home runs. I psyched myself out.

For those of you keeping score at home, it took seven batters' worth of defense before we missed Adrian Beltre. Beltre makes that play where he charges in and barehands a chopper look so easy that you forget how difficult it really is, and today Chris Woodward made the dual mistake of both bobbling such a chopper and then throwing the ball away to first base, costing the M's an out and a run. Then, a few batters later, Jeter hit a grounder to third that bounced off of Woodward directly to Ronny Cedeno, who salvaged the play. Defense is one of those things that's hard to notice until it's gone, and had we played with Beltre and Langerhans (or Endy) today instead of Woodward and Griffey, the bottom of the second looks different, and Damon's double in the seventh is probably caught. On the plus side, Gutierrez played as well as he ever has in center. I maintain that it isn't possible to watch Franklin Gutierrez play ever day and still insist that bloggers care too much about range. Anyone who's watched this team so far and thinks we need more Griffey in left to help the offense is someone you shouldn't take seriously.

How about the bullpen regression? Watching Jakubauskas go to work against A-Rod in the seventh, he got away with a couple called strikes on inside fastballs, but that pitch made me afraid. The whole time A-Rod just looked like he was timing it and getting ready to pounce. Sure enough, Jak tried one too many inside fastballs, and Alex hit as long a home run as any I think new Yankee Stadium has seen. It's a shame, too, because up until that point Jak had worked some excellent relief, but he just doesn't have the repertoire to be dependable against a good lineup in high-leverage situations.

Then the eighth saw everything catch up with Sean White. I don't think I need to explain this one. Innings like that are why we could really use a lefty in the bullpen. You just can't expect a righty with more walks than strikeouts and no changeup to speak of to get the job done in that sort of situation. White got hit - finally - and that was the game. I am very thankful for the contribution that White has made to this team so far, but the fact of the matter is that he isn't very good. His improved velocity has made him better than he was the first time he came around, but that's kind of damning with faint praise.

Franklin Gutierrez has better offensive numbers on the season than Ken Griffey Jr. In each of his first two at bats, Griffey flew out to center on thigh-high fastballs over the outer half that he used to destroy. Those two swings he took are all the evidence you need that he isn't the hitter he used to be (and he was visibly and audibly upset after the second one). They were absolute meatballs, and Ken Griffey Jr. - one of the best left-handed hitters the game has ever seen - missed them.

How much better does the lineup look with Kenji in there instead of Rob Johnson or Jamie Burke? That's gross but it's true.

With the bases loaded and one out in the top of the eighth, Branyan lifted a 3-2 fly ball into left field that Dave Sims deemed plenty deep enough to score the tying run. Why? Because, according to Sims, Damon "can't throw a lick." Mike Blowers then chimed in in agreement: "Damon won't throw anyone out." It's funny - that sort of talk is nothing new to you or me, but announcers tend not to be so openly critical of the players on the field. Even when a guy has lousy footspeed, they'll still try to put a positive spin on it by saying something like "he's a cautious baserunner" or "he runs well for a catcher." I wonder, then, what makes poor throwing arms the exception. I literally can't think of any other player attribute that announcers are so willing to tear to shreds. You won't hear anyone in the broadcast booth cracking up when they watch Daniel Cabrera try to throw strikes, but every fly ball hit to Johnny Damon with a runner on base comes complete with its own Friars Club roast.