Seattle Mariners

Joe Saunders pitched one of the better games we've seen from him, getting the eight-inning complete game and allowing just one run. But his Mariners couldn't score and so he and they took  a 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Angels. The Mariners had just two hits over seven innings against Angels starter C.J. Wilson and then none against the bullpen. In oher words, this is starting to look like the offense of two or three years ago, minus all the home runs. It came at a terrible time, too, since the Mariners needed to start maing inroads towards that .500 mark. Instead, they've been stuck in this ongoing dance between eight-and-10 games under and can never make any steady progress because they rarely win more than two or three in a row. It's getting to the point where if the Mariners don't go deep, they don't score. They are also scoring all of their runs in just one or two innings per night and that's usually a good way not to tally very many runs. Saunders got a double play grounder off the at of Albert Pujols in the third inning with runners at the corners and one out. He got another off the bat of Mark Trumbo in the eighth with two on and the Angels looking for some insurance. Turns out, they didn't need any. Maybe Saunders does. He should call All-State. Tonight, he wasn't in good hands.

Despite their offensive struggles on this trip, the Mariners can secure a winning mark if they take down C.J. Wilson and the Angels tonight. The Mariners are 3-2 with just two games remaining to go. They start tonight eight games under .500, so you'd think they would like to make some headway. Joe Saunders looked good in Oakland his last time out and if the M's can steal one here, they have Felix Hernandez going in tomorrow's finale.

Throw Justin Smoak back into a first base/DH mix that was already crowded for the Mariners and you get...some overcrowding. That's why Smoak is on the bench tonight -- despite three well-hit balls last night, including a home run -- and Michael Morse is at first base. Kendrys Morales is the DH. There's a lefty on the mound, so the right-handed bats are trumping Smoak's switch-hitting abilities. Mariners manager Eric Wedge said he's going to give subsequent time off to Morse and some to Morales in order to help them recover from injuries. That means Smoak will get his turn on those days. But I asked Wedge how it's going to work once the Morse and Morales injuries are done. In other words, is he going to keep this merry-go-round going between the three with one guy sitting every three days? "You've got to just get Morse into the outfield,'' Wedge said. "That's what we've got to try to do. He did some work yesterday. He's going to do a little more today. For a first day in the outfield yesterday, (trainer) Rick (Griffin) felt pretty good about it. So, it was a good first day.'' As a follow-up, I asked Wedge how comfortable he was with Morse as an outfield defender. His advanced defensive metrics aren't very good, though it's never a great idea to look at those in two-month samples. The metrics of past years suggest Morse is a below-average defender, though they said the same thing about Jason Bay and he's looked very good playing in left field this year. We've all seen Morse make some gaffes with our naked eye and take some long routes to balls. But how much of a factor is that when offset by his healthy bat? Even unhealthy, he's still one of the team's most dangerous hitters. And can we say -- based off 2 1/2 months of Ultimate Zone Zone Rating (UZR) or Defensive Runs Saved  (DRS) metrics -- that his defense offsets his offense? No we can't. Those metrics are not reliable over such short term and can fluctuate greatly. We don't know whether he's just a little below average or really, really bad out there. And thus, if we don't know, we can't say how much WAR (Wins Above Replacement) value he has been worth, as I've seen some try to argue. So, as I said, I asked Wedge what he thought. "Right now, he's still limited,'' Wedge said. "I'm not comfortable putting him out there right now. He's just going to have to continue to get better before he can get back out there.'' The implication being that Wedge is comfortable enough with Morse out there when he's healthy. Question answered. Now, before anyone goes throwing any WAR numbers at me, please, just remember, there is not enough info to make a 2 1/2-month WAR argument. Not using defensive metrics as a component that are nowhere near reliable in such a small sample. If the defensive number is tainted, the WAR score will be tainted. Seriously, we had this discussion over the winter and many folks wrote in saying that people who use WAR would never stoop to making small sample arguments involving less than a full season of numbers. Well, guess what? I see people making those arguments nightly, whether on Twitter, in the Lookout Landing blog or other places when it comes to Morse and Raul Ibanez. Again, to those people making such claims: you don't know whether the WAR numbers have any real accuracy this soon into the season. Please stop throwing them out there to suggest Morse's glove and baserunning overrides his bat. You don't know that they do. Putting Morse in the outfield may very well be a not-so-great idea from a defensive standpoint. But nobody out there has any evidence his defense negates his offense. A flawed, short-term WAR sample does not constitute evidence. In the end, if he does play the outfield, the people running the Mariners had better have some proprietary information that suggests his bat can more than offset his glov

Joe Saunders vs. CJ Wilson, 7:05pm The M’s face left-hander CJ Wilson of the Angels tonight, the guy who hasn’t exactly justified the huge free agent contract that brought him west from Texas, but may get more than his fair share of grief for underwhelming pitching of baseballs and shampoo. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s interesting to see the steep climb in opponents ISO/SLG% when they make contact with Wilson’s fastball. He went from posting a very low ISO on his four-seamer of .134 in Arlington in 2011 to .189 last year to .226 this year, in a part that severely restricts HRs (and therefore ISO). All of this could be small-sample nonsense, but at the very least, it casts a great deal of doubt on how much of that 2011 performance was “true talent.” Wilson’s adjusted a bit by throwing more breaking balls and fewer fastballs (of any kind) than he did in 2011. That may be helping him post solid strikeout numbers, and his o-swing and whiff rates are at/near career highs. But his high walk rate may be a result of the change as well, and walks plus even a “normal” amount of home runs isn’t a recipe for making the leap to #1-#2 starter material. That’s not to say Wilson’s bad – he’s not. He’s got a sub-4 FIP, and he’s been a dependable AL starter who’s clearly better than league average. He’s just not going to be worth what the Angels have to pay him in the next few years unless he can drop his HRs-allowed back down. The M’s look to see if Joe Saunders success in HR-suppressing Safeco and HR-suppressing PetCo park can translate to HR-suppressing Angel Stadium. The park’s well suited to Saunders’ skillset, but unfortunately the line-up isn’t. The Angels were a great match-up for Jeremy Bonderman, but their right-handedness makes it a poor one for Saunders. C’mon wind direction – help a long-suffering M’s fan out. Line-up: 1: Chavez, RF 2: Franklin, 2B 3: Seager, 3B 4: Morales, DH 5: Morse, 1B 6: Ibanez, LF 7: Zunino, C 8: M. Saunders, CF 9: Ryan, SS SP: J. Saunders The M’s have been busy signing their draft picks, so the short-season club rosters will look different pretty much daily for a while. The biggest news on that front is that tonight marks 1st-round pick DJ Peterson’s M’s org debut with Everett, who take on Tri-Cities at home tonight at 7. With Brad Miller playing SS in Tacoma, AA Jackson gave the position to defensive-whiz Gabriel Noriega. That wasn’t because they saw the defensive-whiz/no-bat Noriega as a prospect, but because they wanted to let Taylor play in the advanced-A All-Star game. Now he (and 3B/1B Ramon Morla) has been moved up to AA, and he’ll start tonight’s game against Mobile. He’ll be playing with his college teammate, John Hicks. Taylor was drafted with the reputation of a slick-fielder without much offense, but he’s blossomed in the M’s org (who signed him to an overslot bonus, so apparently the idea that he wouldn’t hit was not universally shared) and was hitting .335/.426/.524 in the offensive haven of High Desert. The Rainiers played in Colorado Springs today, and beat the Sky Sox 16-4. Carlos Peguero had six RBIs with a 2B and a 3B, and Dustin Ackley went 3-4. Whatever setting that humidor is at, it’s too low. -- This post came from: U.S.S. Mariner, and is copyright by the authors. This RSS feed is intended for the personal use of readers and not, for instance, spam blogs.Game 73, Mariners at Angels

Anyone who follows this team at all closely, or even glances at the rotation can tell you that the back end of our rotation sucks. Aaron Harang and Jeremy Bonderman are not MLB level starters. There is no way you could ever convince me otherwise. So I’m going to go over the potential replacements and the reasons why Harang and Bonderman could be replaced and may not be. Here is a hint: it’s not pretty. In Part 1 I covered Harang, Erasmo Ramirez, Hector Noesi and James Paxton. This is Part 2 and discusses Jeremy Bonderman, Blake Beavan and Brandon Maurer. Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports Jeremy Bonderman I’m 99% sure he doesn’t have an awful nickname yet, which is the best thing going for Bonderman right now. Like Harang, Bonderman has made some good starts. And honestly, he has done a decent job. He shut down a strong Yankees team in Safeco, beat the Astros and did a fine job against the Angels.  The Twins also destroyed him, but I am feeling guilty because I may have already assumed he was pitching awfully for us. Bonderman has actually been perfectly fine as a back of the rotation guy, and as long as he keeps his ERA well below the Harang-line (5.00 ERA, I’m making it a thing) he can stay. He also will probably stay over Harang as well because Harang is cheaper and easier to cut. Something that is concerning about Bonderman but has yet to rear its ugly head is his K/9. For those who don’t understand FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching), the core idea is that once a ball is hit in fair territory the pitcher cannot control where it goes. All pitchers can control are K’s, BB’s (And HBP’s) and HR’s. So good pitchers will have lots of K’s and few BB’s and HR’s. Bonderman’s K/9 is 2.92. That is abysmally low. Like that would be low on the Minnesota Twins. This implies that Bonderman hasn’t been as good as he has shown and has stayed out of trouble by luck. Bonderman should be pitching much worse than he is and regression is on its way. Hopefully its a far off problem, but Bonderman is not as good as his 3.28 ERA. Anyway lets please stay away from the nicknames in case Bonderman remembers his last season in Detroit where he was easily above the Harang-line (Totally a thing right?) He can stay for a while. Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports Blake Beavan Does anybody remember New Blake Beavan? The guy who went and worked with the University of Texas pitching coach and hoped to come into Spring Training and earn a spot in the rotation. Yeah well, that didn’t go great. Blake Beavan really doesn’t have a future in the rotation but seems to be reinventing himself as a reliever. He has been slightly better than awful in long relief, a role he seems suited to. Something else that’s interesting about Beavan: since he moved to the bullpen, he has thrown way more sliders than before. Whether that is a causation of his dominance or is just a weird thing because he’s not a starter anymore has yet to be determined. But that is definitely something to monitor. I don’t see Beavan making the rotation again, but he is an interesting long reliever. Brandon Maurer I hate Spring Training stats. They look so easy to project into an actual MLB season, but in all reality, they are awful. Maurer may have already lost his first chance at the MLB roster after he struggled to get LHB’s out in April. Hopefully he is ironing out that issue by working on his change up more. He has made three starts in Tacoma and has an ERA of 1.53. I don’t know how long he can keep that up and have the team ignore him. If he doesn’t get a call up, he should definitely be in the mix for a rotation spot next year. He was pulled from his start this morning after an inning with an ailing back, hopefully this is not a long term issue and he can make his next start.

Dustin Ackley keeps on hitting down in Class AAA Tacoma. The Mariners keep not hitting at the major league level -- scrounging up three runs over 10 innings for a win last night, though it took two home runs and an extra frame to reach that meager total. So, why no Ackley? Well, the Mariners keep saying they want to make sure his hitting is "real" but by the time they figure that out, this season will be pretty much over for all intents and purposes. With jobs now on the line in the front office and coaching ranks, there's probably a limit to just how large a sample size the M's higher-ups can really afford to have with Ackley since none of these numbers and samples will offer any type of guarantee when it comes to his hitting in the majors. So, no, that hitting being "real" isn't the big reason he's still down there. But his ability to play center field consistently is one of the reasons and looking at the team now, it's probably the biggest reason he hasn't been called up yet. Mariners manager Eric Wedge finally seemed to admit as much yesterday when I asked him about it pregame. "I want him to have a little bit more time in the outfield in general,'' Wedge said. "Whether it be left field or center field. Either way for me I think it works good. The reps in center field would just be a concern right now. I want to make sure he can do that.'' And that makes a little more sense given the context of where this team now sits. Because the Mariners aren't liable to gain a whole lot more certainly with Ackley at the plate simply by waiting another few days or even a week to bring him back up. But several more days of reps in center could make a difference. Especially given what the team needs to do next. The Mariners need Ackley to be able to play center because they need a backup at the position to spell Franklin Gutierrez at least a couple of days per week. And realistically, once Gutierrez comes off the 60-day DL -- he's eligible as of Saturday and I'd expect the team to move rather quick -- there still has to be a backup plan, for a variety of reasons. First, nobody really knows how long Gutierrez will stay healthy. The Mariners have tried to insist before that they knew and had reasonable expectations for his good heath. They were wrong -- for whatever reason, be it bad luck, injury-prone tendancies, slow recovery, whatever. They just don't know fr certain and haven't guessed right yet. So, if he goes down, there has to be a backup plan. Right now, center field is manned by Michael Saunders and Endy Chavez. It's doubtful both will still be here once Gutierrez and Ackley arrive. First, the team will have to find a 40-man roster spot for Gutierrez. One candidate would be Chavez. Then, they would have to find a major league spot for Ackley. Saunders seems to fit that bill. But if Saunders is sent to AAA and Chavez sent packing, that would leave just Gutierrez and Ackley capable of playing center. And if you know Gutierrez can only play four or five times per week max, then you'd better be darned sure that Ackley can handle center at least twice a week. Now, if Gutierrez gets hurt again, you could always call Saunders back up from AAA and have him man center while Ackley backs it up. But if the reason Saunders was sent down to AAA in the first place is because he seemed "lost" and unfixable in MLB, you don't want him playing seven days per week for the Mariners either. You might not want him playing even five days per week. So, Ackley has to be able to handle center with more frequency than just an emergency backup. He can't be the Kelly Shoppach of center fielders, whose game declines if played more than twice in seven days. Now, the plug hasn't been pulled on Saunders just yet. He has several more days to show he's figured something out. Despite attrocious numbers since early May, Saunders has started to collect a few hits and drove the ball hard

Today brings another round of bearish reports. If you’re looking for cheap and readily available outfield help, today is your lucky day. Brandon Moss Over the past 14 days, Brandon Moss is 11-for-35 — with five of those hits going for home runs. He also drove in 10 and scored seven runs over that time frame. Following last season’s breakout performance was going to be a difficult task, though he came out swinging in April, May saw him struggle. Many owners on the fence about Moss ditched him during his May slump, and given his .153/.262/.333 line in 84 plate appearances, we shouldn’t be quick to judge those that were quick to drop him. Of course months — and seasons, for that matter — are all arbitrary end points and we can’t get too caught up in them. But for now, let us get caught up in them. Between his very good April, terrible May, and thus far excellent June, Moss has brought his line up to .240/.328/.480 and now has 13 home runs, four doubles, and (somehow) three triples. Moss has just 49 hits on the year, so seeing 20 of them go for extra-bases has boosted his ISO to the top 15 of qualified hitters. He’ll still struggle against left-handed pitchers, career 93 wRC+, though this year the league as a whole has a mere 94 wRC+ against lefties. Basically Moss has been a tick below average against fellow southpaws this year. One can live with that as he rakes right-handed pitching. He is Matt Joyce 2.0, someone who will demolish opposite handed pitching and isn’t helpless against lefties. Whereas Joyce is owned in 64% of Yahoo! leagues and over 85% of ESPN and CBS formats, Moss is owned in just 27% of Yahoo! leagues and 50% of ESPN and CBS leagues. Moss is one year older and will strikeout a lot more than Joyce, however they will put up comparable counting stats and their RoS batting average should be within 10 points. Mike Carp The first thing people see when looking at Mike Carp‘s season to date is his .400 BABIP. The next thing people look at is themselves in the mirror, asking why on earth did they think about picking up Mike Carp. That BABIP is totally unsustainable! And they’e right, to certain extent. What many people are discounting is what Carp has done before coming to Fenway. Previously with the Seattle Mariners, the soon to be 27-year-old Carp had 608 PA’s spread across parts of four seasons. Despite being yanked around from the minors and majors, Carp managed a .255/.327/.413 line that equated to a .327 wOBA and 109 wRC+. Carp’s only prolonged stay in the majors was in 2011 where he hit for a .345 wOBA and socked 12 dingers in 313 PA’s. Last year was an immediate uphill climb, as he hit the DL with a shoulder sprain on March 28 and didn’t make it back to the majors until May first. Even after his DL stint, Carp was shuttled between Tacoma and Seattle too often to get into a decent rhythm. What we’ve seen from his snippets of MLB action is that Carp has some power, he’ll have a solid batting average, but he will strikeout about a quarter of time. He’ll also take his share of walks though — career 8.6% walk rate — and if he continues to get regular playing time, he should settle in a decent option in deeper leagues. Carp isn’t an illusion of park factors, though the move to Fenway is certainly a better hitters environment than Safeco. For the time being, Daniel Nava is still listed as the left field starter, though he has started several games at first base. Partly to give Mike Napoli a rest, partly to continue to get Carp’s bat in the lineup. With Jacoby Ellsbury being a constant injury worry and Shane Victorino already having spent time on the DL this season, Carp should continue to see solid amounts of playing time. Carp projects to hit .275 with about 10 home runs and 40 runs and RBIs, but it wouldn’t shock to see him surpass all of those numbers. Carp is currently available in 75% of Yahoo! leagues, 60%

by Eric Stashin (aka The Rotoprofessor) It would appear likely that Erasmo Ramirez will soon be arriving in the Seattle Mariners rotation.  The team clearly has a need, Ramirez pitched well over 59.0 innings in 2012 (3.36 ERA, 1.00 WHIP) and he has looked even better during his rehab appearances (1.71 ERA, 26 K, 7 BB over 31.2 IP). It all comes together as a no-brainer player to add, doesn’t it?  Possibly, but we don’t want to be too hasty. Let’s keep in mind that there was an awful lot of luck involved in his Major League numbers, especially while working as a starting pitcher.  He made 8 starts (47.0 IP), which yielded a 3.64 ERA and 0.98 WHIP.  However, we have to keep in mind that opponents did hit him hard (22.3% line drive rate), yet didn’t have much success (.250 BABIP). A 59.0% strand rate does help to balance out the luck metrics, but the line drive rate is something that needs to be considered. The line drive rate has been better in the minor leagues, with an 18.6% mark since 2011 (15.2% this season).  It’s promising, but it’s not enough to get us overly excited. He does have elite control, with a 1.70 BB/9 over his minor league career.  Of course, that also comes with a limited strikeout rate of 6.91 which is going to cap his potential value over the long-term. Obviously some pitchers step onto a Major League mound and suddenly figure out how to improve, but how excited are we really going to get about a pitcher who owns a Triple-A ERA of 3.76 and WHIP of 1.29 over 26 starts?  Throw in the fact that, over the past three seasons, he owns a 45.7% groundball rate and will be pitching for a less than stellar Mariners team and the knocks grow quickly. In deeper formats is Ramirez a pitcher worth rolling the dice on?  He is, because he has the potential to help in the WHIP department, but don’t expect him to be any type of savior.  His upside is limited and chances are he’s a backend fantasy option, at best. What are your thoughts of Ramirez?  Is he a player you are stashing?  Why or why not? Sources – Minor League Central, The Baseball Cube

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