Mariners Morsels

Hot, Hot, Hot!
Posted 7/23/2006 6:59:00 PM by: PositivePaul

I dunno about your house, but it's really hot in mine! I just walked past the thermostat, and the temp inside my house is 92 degrees. It's at least that hot outside, but there's somewhat of a breeze going. Even though the ratio's pretty much the same, I'll have to start opening the windows pretty darn soon. As soon as that gaseous orb that we never get to see in Western Washington hides behind the row of cedar trees along my back fence, those windows are flyin' open!!!

After a pretty intense game of back-and-forth, the M's ultimately won the battle. The curse of the Slocumb trade still haunts us, but that curse was neutralized by another reliever the M's sacrificed a bit of the future for. Since the only bullpen arm I would've considered trading for just landed in San Diego, I don't really want to see the M's go after another one. Ridding ourselves of Julio Mateo when Sean Green decides that he's healthy would be just fine by me. Man, wouldn't it be nice if we could sucker some team out of their Varitek/Lowe for our Slocumb! Hello Jim Bowden -- er, wait. He already made one of those deals, and, well, let's just say he wasn't on the receiving end of the Slocumb this time.

On that note, the M's are hot, hot, hot!!! They took a series from the AL-East leading Red Sox. They were a Mike Reilly blown call away from taking one from the second-place Yankees. They hung in there vs. the Blue Jays. With barely a week to go before the first trading deadline, the M's are still in the race. Yes, they have to leapfrog 3 other teams. But, really, none of those teams has decided to go for the gusto yet. The Angels are probably the most primed -- with the best set of pitchers, arguably, and some decent offensive reinforcements thrown in with the deepest pool of talent in their farm system, should they decide to make a run on one of the more available bats. But they lost two out of four (almost a third) to Kansas City. Yes. Kansas City.

It's nice to have some more momentum, going into another series with the Blue Jays. Park Factors should control Glaus. The inside-the-park HR should pump up Beltre's confidence. It'll be an interesting pitching matchup, with Halliday vs. Meche. The Baseball gods owe Meche for the debacle last week in Yankee Stadium. That it'll probably land on Pineiro's shoulders shouldn't surprise us, but still.

Let's hope the weather cools off 'round here, but that the M's don't. It's time to take the division! The M's can do it, and they should focus on doing it. Rebuild, schmeebuild. I'm sick of losing! Let's leave these foes in the dust!!!!

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Sold, But Not Leaving Town!
Posted 7/21/2006 10:28:00 AM by: PositivePaul

(as posted in the Lookout Landing diaries this morning):

No, this isn't another thread about the Sonics potentially leaving town. This one's actually about baseball.

I heard on the radio this morning, and saw it confirmed on the Rainiers web site, that the Tacoma Rainiers have finally been sold. George Foster (Foster Farms) has been trying to sell the team for awhile, and a Texas group that has other minor league interests bought the team.

Damn. I was going to buy the team when I won the mega-Lottery. Just to be sure to keep it in town.

It sounds like, though, that they're not going to be moved. They're already talking about rennovating Cheney, renewing the lease, and extending the player development contract with the Mariners.

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Bavasi Losing Face
Posted 7/20/2006 10:09:00 AM by: PositivePaul

I've been a supporter of Bavasi for quite awhile. I've stood against those who banter about the "Fire Bavasi" perspective. I've trusted his judgment through the questionable trades and even MORE questionable signings. But the one thing that sticks out in my mind is his treatment of Chris "Doyle" Snelling.

If you recall, the M's had a decision to make with Snelling to start the season. They needed a roster spot to make room for a decent backup catcher (Quiroz), and Bavasi decided to DFA Carvajal rather than place Snelling on the 60-day DL. The reason that Bavasi gave for not putting Snelling on the 60-day DL was along the lines that it was more of a mental thing for Snelling. Bavasi wanted to give Snelling a bit of a psychological break.

Now, however, what favor is Bill giving Chris by holding him down in Tacoma, while Carl Everett sucks roster space and crucial at-bats up in Seattle? It's been waaaay more than 60 days, and I'd like to think that the extra 40-man spot freed up (take your pick -- Lawton, Borchard, Carvajal) would have helped the M's more than the psychological negative vibes would've hurt Snelling.

I've seen Chris a few times in Tacoma. He's struggled a little bit, but his defense has been solid, and he appears to be healthy enough. Maybe marc or Oly Rainiers Fan can give a little more insight, but it doesn't appear to me that Snelling needs any more time in Tacoma.

A brief discussion over at Prospect Insider gives us, possibly, one reason for Snelling's extended stay in Tacoma. Jason suspects (as does a wide group of others) that Hargrove's insistance on Everett is blocking Snelling's return.

Interesting.

Does anyone believe that Hargrove's lovefest for Everett is reciprocated -- that Everett likes Hargrove as much as Hargrove likes Everett? I have many reasons to believe that it's not -- starting with Everett's little tirade shortly after the M's landed Perez. If Hargrove's own 'ally' is against him, then, then why are the M's so intent on keeping Hargrove and/or Everett around? Why doesn't Bavasi do something about this situation?

I'm of the belief that Bavasi doesn't have ultimate authority over roster/coaching decisions. Based on his track record, that may not be a bad thing. But still, I don't see Chuck Armstrong retiring any time soon, and even if he did, there's no reason to believe that the M's would take Bedirthanaverage's suggestion to replace Armstrong with Bavasi. It's fairly common knowledge that Bavasi's strength as an executive is moreso in the field of farm system management, especially when partnered with Bob Fontaine's drafting knack.

That's an important reason to keep Bavasi around -- the seismic aftershocks of decimation wrought about by the failures of the farm system to produce much outside of the international market (which, actually, is somewhat of an understated area of overlooked success, in light of the common criticism of the Gillick era) have started to subside. Some Bavasi-era trades, a couple of drafts, and a focus on rebuilding from the rubble seems to point to an improvement in the farm system.

But the fact that he either has no authority or hasn't used his authority to remove some obvious holes in the clubhouse and in the lineup cannot be overlooked. Again, I've been one of Bavasi's biggest supporters. But I'm really starting to tire of his lack of proper action.

It's not like he's averse to risk...

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By George, the Numbers!
Posted 7/17/2006 11:25:00 PM by: PositivePaul

I know I'm taking a HUGELY jinx-able risk here with this post, but I wanted to bring some stuff into the forefront a bit. Don't worry, elsid and family, I've knocked quite hard on my oak kitchen/dining room table several times, of course, just in case.

What follows are a couple of things you might not have known about George's performance thus far in 2006. Not only is George the only pitcher (that's been on the roster for the entire year) who hasn't given up a home run, but he has also yet to allow any of his ERA-affecting runs to score himself. Sure, I suppose you could argue that Hargrove's choke-chain leash-snappings minimize this a bit, and that its moreso due to the LOOGY factor than anything. Still, he's made 41 appearances (to the tune of ~25 innings) and that's AT LEAST 41 opportunities to give up a long ball. That he hasn't is really quite remarkable. Even if he has faced mostly lefties.

Actually, though, while he has faced more lefties than righties, George's splits show that that gap isn't as far as it seems. Well, true, the gap between the RESULTS of George's lefty-righty splits is quite wide (but narrowing every day). But he's only faced 5 more lefties than he has righties. It felt a lot more like 2- or 3-to-1 to me.

Looking at the numbers, George has had 9 runners which he's left on base score. If I'm reading ESPN's stats correctly (and I don't know where else to find such stats), I see that he's inherited 34 baserunners (IR) and allowed 8 of them to score (IS). Elsid and I were chatting about this the other day, and he mentioned that JJ Putz is the bullpen leader, percentage-wise, in this stat (5 IS/25 IR according to JJ's ESPN stats), George is second and Soriano's 10/34 is third.

So, the IRAS (Inherited Runners Allowed to Score) for George is about even with his BRAS (Bequeathed Runners Allowed to Score). His K/BF and K/9 ratio is still quite good (over 9 K/9). The one thing that's affecting him are his hits, as well as his nearly doubled BB/9 and his well-weakened K/BB rate. He's putting a ton more guys on base in the first place this year. That it's continued past the halfway point is somewhat worrysome. Of course, we're probably rather biased (okay, there's no "probably" about it), but it does appear that George's strikezone is very inconsistent. Even on Opening Day it seemed to be apparent that George will have to get guys to swing in order for them to strike out. That could explain a bit of the jump in BAA (for righties anyway -- Fortunately George is still pretty much death to most lefties).

A consequence of leaving baserunners, multiplied with the LOOGY-choke-chain factor, is that his ERA is totally dependent on others' performances -- not that ERA is a good measure, of course, of a pitcher (especially a reliever). I know it isn't, and that looking at relievers' ERAs and judging them is total folly. But anyway, I digress...

Last year, it seemed to be JJ Putz or Jeff Nelson that padded George's ERA. This year, it seems to be Mateo. So, to be fair to Julio, I actually tried to put together a list of the guilty -- the guys who allowed George's runners to score once he left the game. As with all hypotheses, I wanted to verify my assumption and possibly gather some data to throw at folks when they ask me why I want the next move the M's make to be the Julio Mateo DFA (if they're not going to DFA Everett and Fire Hargrove).

So, I went back to George's Game Log on Yahoo (since it was the first place I found it) to track down when George was charged with a run. I then looked at the game logs and play-by-play data (not pitch-by-pitch, although I can totally see how much more helpful that might be to analyze) to see who gave up the run(s) and how.

I did my work first in Excel, and exported it into an HTML file, since that's the only way I know how to display tables in Blogger. The results? Of the 9 runs that other pitchers have surrendered on behalf of George, the breakdown appears as follows:

JJ Putz: 2
Sean Green: 2
Rafael Soriano: 3
Julio Mateo: 3

So, my theory that the load was unbalanced in Mateo's favor didn't pan out to be true. Soriano's equally guilty. I suppose that if I'm going to go deep into an anti-Mateo rant using those situations as an example, I'd be less than honest, and would have to bring Soriano into the discussion.

I know sample size is a huge issue here, but still. There's no conclusive data that points to the conclusion I wanted to make with it. Now you know why I rarely dabble in the numbers ;-) Still, although this tiny piece of analysis doesn't really support my original theory, the fact that Mateo leads the club in IRAS (with Woods being a close second -- and having a higher percentage) is cause for concern. Is it because he's getting a ton of inherited runners? Nope, he's 10 behind George and Raffey. Mateo and Woods are not the types of pitchers you want to have coming to the mound with runners on base.

But, unfortunately, Mateo's the guy that Hargrove loves to pull in to clean up the 'mess'. Here's to hoping that Lowe's confidence is built up by his success and that Hargrove's trust in Lowe develops him further.

And that George is allowed to clean up his own messes. I'm sick and tired of that sinking feeling when someone else is called upon to do so. They often don't get the job done...

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Now Back To Seriousness...
Posted 7/17/2006 11:08:00 AM by: PositivePaul

I have a legitimate question:

I'm honestly curious if someone can come up with a list of decisions by Hargrove that:

a) positively affected the outcome of a game;
b) would've been a unique decision that another manager would not have made.

I'm sure I can come up with a list of the converse (decisions by Hargrove that NEGATIVELY affected the outcome of a game, and would've been a decision another manager WOULD NOT HAVE MADE).

I've followed a lot of M's games closely this year, and I'm seriously trying hard to brush away the negatives to see if there are any positives I can focus on with Hargrove. I obviously need some help with that. If anyone can give me a legit list, I'd more than appreciate it!!!

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