Touche, Mariners.

wheres your bat

Yes, the Mariners needed a little help with their first two runs. And yes, it was just their 49th win of the season. Bottom line? They’re all precious to a team trying hard not to lose 100 games.

Take Beltre.

His manager, Jim Riggleman, keeps talking about how many hard outs he’s made all season, and this wasn’t a bad example. Beltre lined out in the first and sixth innings, then doubled to set up Seattle’s run in the ninth.

Then he hit his 21st home run of the season through the Twins bullpen beyond left field in the 11th inning.

“It was a good feeling to see Beltre hit that ball,” Riggleman said. “He’s hit in bad luck all year, and hit two line drives tonight that were caught.

This is the most intelligent thing a Mariner manager has said in years. Jim Riggleman may not have the execution exactly right, but the man knows what to say.

THE LOWS

1. Adrian Beltre lines out sharply to LF.
2. Adrian Beltre flies out deep to LF.
3. Adrian Beltre lines out sharply to RF.

THE HIGHS

4. Adrian Beltre doubles on a line drive to CF.
5. Adrian Beltre homers on a line drive to LF.

If there's anyone who deserves a month in which he hits .400 with 8-10 homeruns and has every single dink fly fall in, it's Adrian Beltre in September. The man has been a beast at the plate all year long; drawing walks and squaring up the ball with great frequency and has just been flattened by bad luck.

I've known for a while that Beltre leaving is going to be a sad moment for me. It's honestly hard to imagine following a team with him not on it, providing some curious histrionics at the plate coupled with just goofy strength and a jaw-dropping third base defense complete with such grace as to make you wonder if the hitter and the fielder are split personalities.

I don't know if Adrian has any interest in sticking around Seattle, but I'd understand completely if he doesn't. And with a new GM coming in this winter and a rebuild at least somewhat likely, we might not even get to enjoy Beltre's contract year here. I have no inside knowledge on this, I just want to make sure that I fully appreciate what we have now because someday it will be gone, and that day might be just a few short months away.

Adrian, I know far too many people have labeled you a bust, but I hope you know that we don't feel that way*. We have your back Adrian and we'd love for you to stay. If you don't, that's fine too, there's always going to be a soft spot in our hearts** for you.

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It wasn't very long ago that Graham and Matthew launched StatCorner and, in so doing, made tRA available to the public. tRA, as we should all know by now, is a pitching metric designed to evaluate pitchers based on the run values of the pitch outcomes that they generate on the mound. It should be better than FIP and xFIP because it adjusts for things like grounders and line drives. It should be better than ERC because it doesn't fool around with hits and constants. It should be better than ERA because it doesn't suck. One could make a fairly convincing argument that, at least as far as the non-PITCHf/x realm is concerned, tRA (or, if you prefer, tRA*) is about as good of a pitching metric as anyone could design.

This leads to an obvious follow-up question: if tRA is so good, then shouldn't we be evaluating hitters the same way?

The answer is, yes, we should. But all too often people don't even try, because it's pretty freaking hard.

It's not a trivial thing. You can try to apply the same principles to hitters as you do for pitchers, but you'll find that you run into trouble in a hurry. It's easy to figure out the average run value of a line drive allowed by, say, John Lackey or Aaron Harang. That's because we can make the safe assumption that, over a long enough period of time, both Lackey and Harang face a ~representative sample of hitters throughout the league, so the run value of a LD will simply be (or approximate) the league average run value of a LD. Pitchers face everybody. And when you have everybody blended together, you approach the league average. Obviously there will be little variations if you have a guy in, say, a really strong or really weak offensive division, but this generally isn't a big deal. Run values of outcomes for pitchers are easy to determine because the batters that pitchers face even out over time.

It's not so for hitters. Hitters are individual. Each one will put a unique spin on every ball he puts in play. While the average line drive allowed by John Lackey will be worth ~the same as the average line drive allowed by Aaron Harang, the average line drive hit by Albert Pujols is not worth the same as the average line drive hit by Miguel Cairo. Pujols is stronger. He hits the ball harder. So his line drives will rather obviously be better than Cairo's. You can see this reflected in their career splits; Pujols' career BA on line drives is .816 with a bunch of home runs, against .725 and two for Cairo. I think this is pretty intuitive.

So you can't apply the same principles to hitters as you can for pitchers, because the whole averaging-out phenomenon doesn't take place. You can't treat a groundball hit by David Ortiz the same way you treat a groundball hit by Ichiro. It wouldn't make sense. They're clearly two different types of balls in play, and they should therefore be treated as such.

This is where we begin to understand why nothing like tRA has ever really been attempted with hitters. It hasn't been attempted because to do so, you need to (A) calculate run values on a player-by-player basis, rather than applying the average to everyone, and (B) accumulate enough of a sample size to be able to calculate those run values in the first place. Sound fun? You're a nerd. And a dreamer. Such a project would be unfathomably complicated. PrOPS tried, sort of, and because it's better than raw OPS it's fun to look at from time to time, but it leaves a lot to be desired. A lot that I'm not sure is possible to obtain.

So we're stuck. Tango's wOBA is the perfect (and I mean literally perfect) measure of what a hitter has already done in terms of results, but why should we care that much about the results? If we never talk about a pitcher's BAA, why should we have to talk about a hitter's BA? Okay, yeah, so a hitter's batting average is more meaningful than that of a pitcher, but I think the point should remain. If we're so ready to accept that a pitcher should be evaluated on the immediate results of his pitches, why aren't we the same way with hitters?

In an ideal world, hitters would be evaluated not on their BA/OBP/SLG slash lines, but rather on the balls they put in play (and, of course, the balls they don't). This is the more relevant information, right? Not all hits deserve to be hits. Not all outs deserve to be outs. The ball is out of a hitter's control the instant it leaves his bat. After all, you can't aim your line drives. So shouldn't we be judging hitters on how well they do their jobs, rather than on some combination of that, defense, and luck?

Just because we can't have the same level of accuracy as we can with tRA doesn't mean we shouldn't at least try to look at things this way. Educated estimates are better than nothing. Adrian Beltre's current batting average is .247. That sucks. But he's also hit just .622 on his line drives, against a career average of .748. Which seems more likely - that Beltre's suddenly gotten weaker than ever before in his age-29 season, to the point at which he's turning fewer line drives into base hits than Willie Ballgame, or that he's simply the victim of unsustainable bad luck? If you regress Beltre's BA on line drives to his career rate, his 2008 average jumps from .247 to .270. Right there you're talking about an OPS difference of 50-70 points. By the traditional measures, Beltre hasn't been a very good hitter so far this season, but in reality, he's actually done his job fairly well. It just hasn't worked out like he and the rest of us have hoped.

Isn't that important information? And forget about Beltre; isn't this the sort of approach we should be taking with everyone? Luck doesn't only happen to pitchers. It happens to hitters, too, and it can often have a significant effect on their results. If we're going to try and eliminate it when evaluating one, we should do the same for the other. Ultimately, what we're after is an accurate measure of how well a guy has performed, and accepting that a hitter's slash line automatically reflects how good he's been just doesn't strike me as being good enough.

HITf/x is going to be a godsend. Where currently we have to deal with the limitations of human observation when it comes to the quality of balls put in play, down the road we'll be able to look at a hit with a given trajectory and assign it a 40% chance of dropping in for a double, then look at another hit with another given trajectory and assign that one a 90% chance of being caught. It's going to open so many doors that, over time, it may bring about the death of the slash line. At least among us dorks. There are going to be real stats - BA, OBP, and SLG - and there are going to be theoretical stats - tBA, tOBP, and tSLG - that tell a more accurate story. This will represent the pinnacle of hitter analysis. Once you can assign a ball in play an accurate probability of turning into any given event, there is no further room for growth.

But just because we're not there yet doesn't mean that, given present constraints, we can't try to be as accurate as possible. Question the slash line. Ask yourself whether a guy's BA truly reflects how well he's performed at the plate. Dig deeper. Because to not do so is to do yourself a disservice, and there is no more noble endeavor than the pursuit of new knowledge.

And so it's upon us. The big story is, of course, the whole saga with Manny Ramirez, but Pelekoudas shouldn't be worrying about that, because he's got a lot of work to do, and - as of this writing - less than twelve hours to do it. It's going to be a busy day. I don't think he'll be sleeping in.

If the Mariners are to get any value in return for Jarrod Washburn, today's the day it's going to happen. Not only would waiting until August reduce the amount of difference he could make for another team, but waiver rules make anything other than a simple salary dump highly unlikely. Waiting until the offseason wouldn't make much sense in this regard, either, since there'll be so many other arms floating around. Now's the last chance for Pelekoudas to try and turn Washburn into something useful for the future. I wish him luck. And I do think he can do it, provided he backs down from his unreasonable previous demands. Although I should take this opportunity to re-state that all I really want is for Washburn to go away. I just want his salary and roster spot to be available going forward. So I'll try not to flip out too much if he isn't moved today, just because it won't be our last chance to dump him.

Arthur Rhodes should be shipped away for the best offer. Hands down. No point in keeping him.

Raul Ibanez is drawing interest, but Pelekoudas has affixed a high price tag, and for good reason. Not because he's a good player, but because the Elias free agent rankings think he's a good player. If he gets moved, it's because another front office caved at the last minute.

Adrian Beltre is drawing interest, but there's maybe a 1-in-25 chance that someone out there ponies up enough to pry him loose.

JJ is drawing interest, but Pelekoudas isn't about to sell at a value trench, so he'll only get traded if another GM pays as if he's been pitching effectively.

Not much else going on. But being that we possess two of the most highly sought-after players on the market, today should be anything but dull.

Just don't do anything stupid, Lee. It's all I ask.

A few years ago, JC Bradbury introduced the idea of predicted OPS - PrOPS - a metric that takes a player's offensive peripheral stats and BIP profile and uses them to calculate a luck-independent expected batting line. The metric isn't perfect, as it can run into trouble when dealing with, say, a speedster or a plodding slugger who defy the norm a little bit, but it seems to work pretty well for Adrian Beltre:

2004-2007, Real: .283/.335/.497
2004-2007, PrOPS: .286/.336/.501

With that in mind, I present to you the following:

2008, Real: .244/.321/.469
2008, PrOPS: .299/.366/.552

I think we've known for a while that Beltre's been the victim of a nasty rash of bad luck, but it's the magnitude that's startling. Beltre has the sixth-lowest BABIP in baseball despite an above-average LD%, and when you account for that and adjust his batting up to what he "deserves", he comes out looking amazing. His .918 PrOPS is seventh-best in the AL and second only to Josh Hamilton among players at skill positions. Throw in his 5 < x < 15 defense and you have a guy who'd be a legitimate MVP contender given standard luck and a better team. And to think that people claim he's a bust.

Now, it's only been two months, and because Beltre's 2008 PrOPS is so much higher than what he's had in the recent past (.758, .816, .790 in Seattle), he's probably due for some regression. But this is still the best version of Adrian Beltre we've had in four years, low batting line be damned, and only Alex Rodriguez stands in his way of being the best third baseman in the American League. Forget the anomalous 2004; at 29, Beltre appears to be reaching his peak, and his peak is terrific.

Adrian Beltre is a star player. Possibly the most underappreciated star player in the league. It's too bad that only upon his inevitable departure will more people come to realize just how much he brought to this team.

The person with the best caption wins a comment recommendation from yours truly and a free subscription to the True.com Sexy Singles newsletter.

I'm going with Seattle Mariners third baseman Adrian Beltre signals for a timeout after identifying a fan on the field as Izzy Alcantara.

(I don't know how to bump a Fanshot.)

AB: 599 (595)
2B: 40 (41)
3B: 2 (2)
HR: 29 (26)
HBP: 4 (2)
BB: 43 (38)
K: 102 (104)
SB: 12 (14)
CS: 4 (2)
GB%: 42 (44)

BA: .288 (.276)
OBP: .340 (.319)
SLG: .506 (.482)
IsoPa: .052 (.043)
IsoPo: .219 (.207)

What can I say? You guys love Adrian Beltre almost as much as Adrian Beltre loves fishing.

For sliders. Not fish. That probably could've been clearer.