Series Preview Feedback

At least in some cases. Obviously a breakdown of say, CC Sabathia isn’t necessary. But if we’re facing a younger pitcher, or one who has performed against expectations, a breakdown of what the guy’s about would be helpful.

like what you think would be a good, bad or mediocre outcome for the team.

Also, keep the beer previews going for sure

As you’re looking at the other team and their starters and all that, pick something unique or whatever catches your fancy. Sort of like a mini version of what you sometimes write up on Fangraphs when you come across an anomaly. It would be a fun way to continue presenting and exploring the finer points of sabremetrics.

The truth is even a very good pitcher has shitty outings, and mediocre pitchers have great outings (Brandon Morrow, I’m looking at you*). I wouldn’t want to focus on that too much because delving into per pitch values or Pitch F/X doesn’t become particularly useful unless you simultaneously look at hitting trends—like a heat map of our line-up’s wOBA in the zone, or better, how well our line-up handles pitch types. This would probably be awesomely useful information for roster construction or pre-season bantering, but for series previews that you write over the course of a week at most, it just seems too much.

I like seattlebruin’s idea above about a brief summary of an ideal series for the Mariners—realistic expectations, let’s say.

It also just occurred to me that it would be really cool to see a sort of park effects analysis. The Rangers in Texas isn’t the same as the Rangers in Seattle, and different park factors may aid the M’s groundballing and speed tendencies (I’d think they’d do very well in Oakland, relying on the cavernous space of foul territory to shoot balls down the line, for example). Thus, a series preview takes into account what location it’s played in, not just the players involved.

To sum up: individual player analysis (like pitcher previews) just seems too much work to ask of you, but big picture analysis and wrap-up would be great.

*I love Brandon. Hated the League trade…but damned if every game after his starting debut wasn’t frustrating as Hell to watch.

Where you come up with three fun slogans for each game that relate to ways the Mariners can succeed that night.

Since we see a new one for the Ms with each new series, I’d like to see in the change in run values since the start of the last series. I know you almost always pointed out the larger deviations (I like that), so if would be cool to add a column with the deltas.

I was reading the paragraph with your ideas of post topics, and thought all are pretty cool.

I would suggest a little bit of everything. Then as the season goes on it might be more obvious which posts are easier to make and which ones get the most readers…

I always enjoy reading about players trends the previous week or 2 so I can see if they may be hot in the upcoming series or hopefully coming out of a slump, maybe something similar for the opposing teams so we can tell if we are playing opponent during their up or down trend.