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AL West Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Los Angeles
|
97 | 65 | .598 | 0 | Lost 1 |
|
Texas
|
87 | 75 | .537 | 10 | Lost 2 |
|
Seattle
|
85 | 77 | .524 | 12 | Won 2 |
|
Oakland
|
75 | 87 | .462 | 22 | Lost 7 |
(updated 2.9.2010 at 9:43 PM PST)
Nevermind About Petit
by Jeff Sullivan on Feb 9, 2010 9:43 PM PST
in The More You Know
5 comments
I have just received notice that Yusmeiro Petit has not cleared waivers. He hasn't been claimed, but he hasn't yet cleared, either. I have no idea where the original rumor started, but I picked it up from Rotoworld, and they're usually pretty good about these things, so, sorry. You Yusmeiro Petit fans are in for at least one more sleepless night.
The same goes for Gaby Hernandez. He's still claimable as well. You Gaby Hernandez fans are...well you guys are something.
5 comments | 0 recs |
The History of the Seattle Mariners In Graphical Form
by Graham on Feb 9, 2010 9:28 PM PST
in Miscellaneous
9 comments
Not sure much commentary is required on my part. Lots of big graphs after the jump, showing our rank in the AL for the rotation, bullpen, offence, and defence. FIP was used for the pitchers, wOBA for the hitter, and defensive efficacy ratio (DER) for the gloves. There were 14 American League teams in each of the 33 seasons the Mariners have played.
9 comments | 0 recs |
Erik Bedard's Incentives
Dave at USSM, via Ken Rosenthal, breaks it down in a way that warrants me not stealing his post.
about 2 hours ago
Matthew
1 comment
0 recs
Somebody Explain This To Me
by Jeff Sullivan on Feb 9, 2010 5:58 PM PST
in Miscellaneous
16 comments
A table of league-total baserunning numbers, via Baseball Prospectus. Note that:
EqGAR = Equivalent Ground Advancement Runs
EqSBR = Equivalent Stolen Base Runs
EqAAR = Equivalent Air Advancement Runs
EqHAR = Equivalent Hit Advancement Runs
EqOAR = Equivalent Other Advancement Runs
EqBRR = Equivalent Base Running Runs (Sum of all components)
| Year | EQGAR | EQSBR | EQAAR | EQHAR | EQOAR | EQBRR |
| 1985 | 0 | -155 | 4 | 0 | 0 | -150 |
| 1986 | 0 | -223 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -223 |
| 1987 | 0 | -143 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -143 |
| 1988 | 0 | -208 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -207 |
| 1989 | 0 | -217 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -215 |
| 1990 | 0 | -232 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -232 |
| 1991 | 0 | -293 | 2 | 0 | 0 | -291 |
| 1992 | 0 | -266 | 2 | 0 | 0 | -265 |
| 1993 | 0 | -292 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -291 |
| 1994 | 0 | -182 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -181 |
| 1995 | 0 | -197 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -197 |
| 1996 | 0 | -212 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -210 |
| 1997 | 0 | -340 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -338 |
| 1998 | 0 | -317 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -315 |
| 1999 | 0 | -299 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -298 |
| 2000 | 0 | -296 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -296 |
| 2001 | 0 | -321 | 2 | 0 | 0 | -318 |
| 2002 | 0 | -310 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -308 |
| 2003 | 0 | -172 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -170 |
| 2004 | 0 | -171 | 2 | 0 | 0 | -169 |
| 2005 | 0 | -174 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -171 |
| 2006 | 0 | -141 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -139 |
| 2007 | 0 | -47 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -45 |
| 2008 | 0 | -66 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -65 |
| 2009 | 0 | -88 | 1 | 0 | 0 | -85 |
I imagine this pattern continues as you go beyond 1985. I just got tired of copying and pasting.
Why is it that, over the past 25 seasons, BP has all Major League baserunners as contributing -5362 runs via stolen base attempts? Why does everything else add up to ~zero?
16 comments | 0 recs
Yusmeiro Petit Clears Waivers
by Jeff Sullivan on Feb 9, 2010 5:20 PM PST
in Transactions
20 comments
It's weird to think that a 25 year old righty starter with a career 2.5 K/BB and no injury history could pass by unclaimed, but that's exactly what happened with Yusmeiro Petit, as he's been outrighted to AAA Tacoma. Of course, he has 28 strikeouts and zero walks against opposing pitchers, so that kind of inflates the numbers a little bit, but still, you'd think that someone like, I dunno, San Diego could've used him for nothing. Maybe instead of Jon Garland. Just spitballing here.
This now sets us up with a probable Tacoma rotation featuring five of the following:
Doug Fister
Jason Vargas
Luke French
Nick Hill
Garrett Olson
Yusmeiro Petit
Ryan Feierabend
This isn't the sort of depth you should brag about to your friends, but it is the sort of depth that, if one of your friends asks "so do you have any depth?" you're all "yeah no we're cool" and then he's like "how good?" and you're like "oh y'know whatever" and he's like "no seriously who do you got" and you're like "oh just some guys" and he's like "whatever man you wanna get a soda?" and you're like "I don't drink that stuff anymore" and he's all "oh excuse me your majesty" and you're like "yeah ok" and you roll your eyes because seriously how many times do you have to repeat yourself
Gaby Hernandez cleared waivers too, offering no depth at all, for anything.
20 comments | 3 recs |
Assorted Tuesday Bullet Points
by Jeff Sullivan on Feb 9, 2010 1:52 PM PST
in Miscellaneous
61 comments
- My last full day in San Diego was gloomy with rain. My first full day in Portland looks like this:
Either people have been telling me lies my whole life or this is a wonderful example of why you should never judge a player by his debut. - Yeah, I read the Steve Kelley column. Like you, I was intrigued by the headline, and like you, I was disappointed by everything else. That was a really crappy way to go about apologizing for shameful abuse.
In Kelley's defense, he did technically apologize (Jeff's note: or at least recognize that an apology is overdue). In his headline, his intro, and his conclusion. Kelley had the right thesis, and it's a thesis that we've long wanted to see come out of the major media types. Erik Bedard didn't deserve the treatment he got, and it's good to see more and more people acknowledge their wrongdoing.
But, oh man, so bad. For one thing, if "a lot of readers suggested" that Kelley issue an apology, why bother going through all the background? Kelley wasn't writing for a national audience. He was writing for Seattle. The people who read Steve Kelley will already be familiar with the whole Bedard situation, so they don't need Kelley to go into detail to explain why Bedard was treated poorly in the first place.
And for another, the first thing you learn about issuing an apology is that a proper apology should be unconditional. No mentioning excuses, no mentioning mitigating circumstances. A year ago I mindlessly tossed a softball in the air and when it came down it hit one of my friends square on the top of the head. After everything settled down, I told him "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry, although that was hilarious." That's a bad apology. Even though no one got hurt and it was hilarious, I should've just told him how sorry I was and left it at that. Saying anything more makes it sound not like you're expressing remorse, but like you're saying you're sorry because you have to.
And that's how Steve Kelley comes off. No matter how he may feel at his core, his column reads like he doesn't actually mean what he's saying, like he's apologizing to satisfy public demand while still feeling like his behavior was justified. So either he's being insincere, which is a miserable quality, or he's a bad writer, which, uh - To go along with what Dave wrote about Zduriencik praise last night, I would like to make one thing clear to as many people as possible:
We do not love Jack Zduriencik and the rest of the front office for turning the Mariners into a clear 2010 WS contender.
We love Jack Zduriencik and the rest of the front office for turning the 2008 Mariners into a possible 2010 WS contender.
There's a huge difference in there. Tony Blengino keeps a copy of the 40-man roster they inherited at his desk. I don't know what that 40-man roster looked like, but I know it was a complete mess, which you can kind of gather from this. Ordinarily, when you have a team constructed as poorly as the 2008 Mariners, it can take years upon years for the organization to return to relevance. These guys have accomplished that goal seemingly overnight.
To bring about as much progress as this front office has in so little time...the Mariners aren't a great team, and they're exceedingly unlikely to win the championship this season, but the fact that we're even able to talk about the playoffs at all - that's what's so incredible. - In the fifth starter breakdown poll posted below on the front page, Garrett Olson got 28 votes. I can forgive the 74 votes for Ryan Feierabend, kind of, but 28 for Olson? 1.2% of the total? What this tells me is that 1.1% of all votes in all polls are submitted by complete retards and 0.04% of all votes are submitted by Garrett Olson's mother.
61 comments | 0 recs |
Your Recommended Daily Intake of Fact
by Matthew on Feb 6, 2010 5:29 PM PST
in The More You Know
123 comments
All numbers presented herein are based off 2009 American League totals, but I do not expect them to differ much in previous years or in the National League.
Pitchers with high ground ball rates are good. Like Felix! Felix is good. You should prefer ground balls to fly balls. Fly balls are bad. The standard rationale goes like this: home runs allowed per fly ball is a stat that does not appear to be under much control by the pitcher and since ground balls never leave the yard, the more balls you keep out of the air, the fewer home runs you allow. Not allowing home runs is good.
Some people counter that argument with the fact that ground balls go for a hit more often than fly balls. While true, the difference between the two is vastly overstated. Strictly between ground balls and fly balls (excluding bunts, home runs, line drives and infield flies) ground balls go for a hit about 3% more often. That is not much.
It is even less once you factor in the salient facts that ground balls become double plays far more often, non ground-balls see a higher slugging percentage allowed on average and that excluding line drives is a misleading distinction. You can read this all and just believe it, but how about some handy numbers to give you some nice foundation support when you go to convince others?
The average ground ball (including bunts) generated 0.04 runs and 0.80 outs
The average non-ground ball (fly balls, line drives, pop ups) generated 0.23 runs and 0.62 outs
On a runs per out basis, balls in the air generate almost 7.5 times as much offense as balls on the ground do.
123 comments | 7 recs |
Fifth Starter Rundown
by Matthew on Feb 6, 2010 3:00 PM PST
in The More You Know
157 comments
In between the time from the start of the season until Erik Bedard is healthy, the Mariners will need to run out a starter aside from Felix, Lee, Snell or Hyphen. Who might that person be? There are seven possible names internally that I am looking at in this post: Doug Fister, Nick Hill, Yusmeiro Petit (whoops, not any more!), Luke French, Garrett Olson, Ryan Feierabend and Jason Vargas. There is also the possibility of another starter added via trade or free agency, though those seem like slim odds at this point.
The aim of this post is to look at the seven pitchers listed above and profile them. I am not going to attempt to pass confident judgment on which of the seven should be anointed into the rotation. The work put in by each over the winter is going to be vitally important along with their varying rates of health and progress come Spring Training. I am also disregarding the contract situations, re: options remaining. Think of this post as a reference chart.
I go into some greater detail below, though not as expansive as Jeff did on Nick Hill earlier, but up front I decided to rate each pitcher on the 20-80 scouting scale in what I feel is the three main categories for pitching success. These are completely subjective.
| Fister | Hill* | Petit^ | French | Olson | Vargas | Feierabend | |
| Throws Strikes | 65 | 50 | 60 | 52 | 40 | 45 | 45 |
| Misses Bats | 43 | 55 | 60 | 45 | 45 | 60 | 50 |
| Ground Balls | 45 | 60 | 30 | 45 | 45 | 40 | 40 |
Read on for some blurbs about each player.
157 comments | 2 recs |
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