The Mariners defense as rated by Plus/Minus reached a low point near the end of May, standing at 36 plays below average through May 26, 52 games into the season. It put the team on pace to finish the season at 112 plays below average, a remarkable 90 runs below average. 90 runs. You know how much 90 runs is?

If we went back in time to 2007 and replaced the bats (ignoring defense) of our middle infield combo of Lopez and Betancourt with the bats (ignoring defense) of Robinson Cano and Hanley Ramirez, you still wouldn't quite get 90 runs of difference. 90 runs is a lot of funking runs.

I noted earlier this month that the defense had been better since that point, slowing the rate of separation from league average and pointing out that it somewhat coincided with Reed's introduction to regular play.

However, we now stand 99 games in and the Mariners team defense, rated by Plus/Minus doesn't sit at -69 as it were if it had kept pace. Instead, it sits at -25, an actual improvement over past numbers. According to Plus/Minus, since May 26th, our defense has been 11 plays above average. That cannot possibly be correct right?

Well, a quick check of team BABIP by month suggests it is. The Mariner pitchers suffered a BABIP of .324 in the month of May after a .298 BABIP April. June saw the team regress back toward that league mean with a .304 number and so far in July they're posting a .274 BABIP number, far better than average.

As to what weights to assign to new personnel and general regression for this improvement I can only speculate, but glancing at the position-by-position figures, it does appear that Yuni has gotten a little better and Miguel Cairo has been a substantial improvement over Sexson at first. Meanwhile, Reed is gobbling up balls like Ms. Pac-Man does 2D dots... or something.

Remarkably, the Ms outfield now rates rather neutral according to Plus/Minus with the majority of the -25 plays coming from the infield. It will certainly be worth watching as this season becomes more and more of a showcase for 2009.

His last ten starts:

3.03 ERA
62.1 IP
10 times made it into the sixth inning
7 times made it into the seventh inning
Faced, limited strong Boston, New York, Atlanta offenses

This team has been on the receiving end of a lot of crappy luck so far this year, but at least the universe is conspiring to make Jarrod Washburn tradeable at just the perfect time. That's a big deal, because ditching Washburn - even if all we get in return is salary relief and a busted prospect - is a vital step in any well thought-out plan to make this team a contender next season. They can just get so much more for the money than Washburn currently provides.

Make it happen, Lee. For the next week and a half, trying to move Jarrod Washburn should be priority #1. Okay, so if I had my druthers, moving Yuniesky Betancourt would be priority #1, but since no one's talking about that I doubt it's being considered, so realistically, Washburn is it. Move him. Put all of your eggs in this basket if you have to. It's not like you really have anything else to think about, since Ibanez sells himself and the Bedard front's gone cold. This is what ought to be commanding the bulk of your attention, and honestly, if you can't pull it off, that's not going to reflect very well on you. I know teams are getting smarter and all, but a hot pitcher's a hot pitcher, and come deadline time a starter like Washburn shouldn't be that hard to ship off.

Do it. Don't play hardball with anyone. Just do it. Do it do it do it, and don't look back.

A simple ratio of Fangraphs' Z-Swing% (swinging at pitches in the zone) to O-Swing% (swinging at pitches outside of the zone). Pitchers excluded.

Top Ten, 2008: (minimum: 50 PA)

1. Nick Johnson, 5.7
2. Frank Thomas, 5.3
3. Jack Cust, 4.9
4. Chipper Jones, 4.6
5. Marco Scutaro, 4.6
6. Rob Mackowiak, 4.5
7. Willie Harris, 4.4
8. BJ Upton, 4.4
9. Doug Mientkiewicz, 4.3
10. Daric Barton, 4.3

Bottom Ten, 2008:

1. Angel Berroa, 1.6
2. Darin Erstad, 1.7
3. Brandon Wood, 1.7
4. Wladimir Balentien, 1.7
5. Carlos Gomez, 1.7
6. Rajai Davis, 1.7
7. Brett Gardner, 1.7
8. Tony Pena, 1.7
9. Alexei Ramirez, 1.8
10. Miguel Olivo, 1.8

Top Ten, 2007: (minimum: 100 PA)

1. Barry Bonds, 4.9
2. Morgan Ensberg, 4.9
3. Jack Cust, 4.5
4. Doug Mirabelli, 4.3
5. Gabe Gross, 4.3
6. D'Angelo Jimenez, 4.3
7. Brian Giles, 4.3
8. Kenny Lofton, 4.2
9. Luis Castillo, 4.2
10. Marco Scutaro, 4.1

Bottom Ten, 2007:

1. Carlos Gomez, 1.6
2. Miguel Olivo, 1.6
3. Rondell White, 1.7
4. Howie Kendrick, 1.7
5. Jose Molina, 1.7
6. Marlon Anderson, 1.8
7. Johnny Estrada, 1.8
8. Tony Pena, 1.8
9. Toby Hall, 1.8
10. Vladimir Guerrero, 1.8

Top Ten, 2006: (minimum: 100 PA)

1. Ryan Spilborghs, 7.7
2. Hideki Matsui, 5.8
3. Scott Hatteberg, 5.4
4. Bill Mueller, 5.1
5. Morgan Ensberg, 4.9
6. Barry Bonds, 4.9
7. Brian Giles, 4.8
8. BJ Upton, 4.8
9. Jason Giambi, 4.7
10. Chipper Jones, 4.7

Bottom Ten, 2006:

1. Eliezer Alfonzo, 1.5
2. Delmon Young, 1.7
3. Angel Berroa, 1.7
4. Sandy Alomar Jr, 1.9
5. Alex Gonzalez, 1.9
6. Bengie Molina, 1.9
7. Ronny Cedeno, 1.9
8. Shane Costa, 1.9
9. Toby Hall, 1.9
10. Reed Johnson, 1.9

Who's got the worst eye in baseball? I'm inclined to give the nod to Miguel Olivo. Over the last three years he's had the 10th, 2nd, and 11th-lowest ratios in the league, while at the same time making contact with only 43.2% of his swings on pitches out of the zone (against a league average of 60%). And yet he's still somehow found a way to slug .430 over the same span of time. Currently that would be good enough for third place on the Mariners. As a unit, we're hitting worse than the least disciplined hitter in baseball. Think about that for a minute.

BJ Upton surprised me. I generally don't think of him as being all that selective, but the proof is right there. Angel Berroa? Less of a surprise.

Since Edgar said his final goodbye at the end of 2004, Mariner designated hitters have combined to put up a total batting line of .254/.317/.363 and a position-adjusted OPS+ of 74. This staggering display of consistent run production came for the low low cost of Chris Snelling, Emiliano Fruto, Shin-soo Choo, Asdrubal Cabrera, and roughly twenty-one million dollars.

Over the same span of time, Darin Erstad has batted .271/.325/.380.

Designated hitters have one job. Their job is to hit.

Good eye for talent there, Bill.

Back in March I wrote about trying to ascertain a team's true talent level during past events. In a nutshell, you don't want to look at actual win-loss record and even Pythag (looking at runs scored and allowed) is faulty, though a lot better than straight won-loss. Instead, you should look toward BaseRuns which helps tell you how many runs the team should have scored and allowed based on the batter-pitcher outcomes that happened.

(In that post I went on to talk about how tRA can be used to improve further on that, but it's a smaller degree of improvement than using BaseRuns over Pythag and for the purposes of this post, would be far too time intensive to do across all teams.)

So, in that spirit, and inspired by LFoJL I present the methodology behind this ranking of lucky and unlucky teams. I have access to BaseRuns data courtesy of The Hardball Times (up through end of play last Friday) and so I have said true talent level for each team. Taking that, I computed the expected wins and losses over a 162 game season for each team. Then, I simply subtracted that number from each team's current won-loss record, projected out to a 162 game season. Here's an example:

Tampa Bay Rays
Actual record: 55-37
Actual Win%: .598
Projected Record: (.598 * 162) = 96.8 wins
BaseRuns, Runs Scored: 444.81
BaseRuns, Runs Allowed: 364.5
BaseRuns, Expected Win%: (pythag formula) = .592
Projected Record: (.592 * 162) = 95.9 wins
Difference: +0.9 wins (positive = lucky)

There you have it. Pretty simple eh? Alright, time for the rundown. Keep in mind the difference is projected over a 162 game season. It does not reflect the number of games at this current point in time.

FIVE LUCKIEST TEAMS IN BASEBALL

1. Anaheim Angels. 95.8 (Actual). 78.7 (BaseRuns). +17.1 (Luck)
2. Minnesota Twins. 90.6. 76.9. +13.7
3. Pittsburgh Pirates. 75.7. 63.2. +12.5
4. Cincinnati Reds. 77.6. 69.5. +8.1
5. St. Louis Cardinals. 89.6. 83.4. +6.2

(Honorable Mention: Astros (+6.0) and Marlins (+5.5) )

FIVE UNLUCKIEST TEAMS IN BASEBALL

1. Atlanta Braves. 74.9. 89.1. -14.2
2. San Diego Padres. 64.5. 74.3. -9.8
3. Cleveland Indians. 68.7. 76.5. -7.8
4. Colorado Rockies. 67.2. 74.9. -7.7
5. Seattle Mariners. 62.7. 69.0 -6.3

(Honorable Mention: Blue Jays (-5.9) and Red Sox (-5.2) )

We're roughly half way through 2008 and we just took a look at 2007, so let's see how teams are faring thus far this season shall we?

First off, some league wide numbers to provide that oak-casked, hoppy context. Word of warning though, the run and out constants have not been updated in over a month, so these are the slightest bit off, as you can tell by the cumulative figure for O-xO. The system is currently expected too few expected outs which means that once adjusted, the overall tRAs will go down a skosh.

O-xO = Outs - eXpected Outs: A positive number means more outs were record than the underlying numbers would suggest (good luck). A negative number means the opposite.

Offense and scoring is down league wide so far this year, which isn't much of a surprise since it's usually down at the start of the season and peaks in the hot July and August months which we haven't gotten to yet. Nonetheless, the average MLB hitter had a .758 OPS in 2007 and so far through 2008 it stands at .740, a hefty drop. While both leagues are down offensively, it's the AL that has seen the bigger drop as you can see here in the respective tRAs.

This effect is only magnified in reality by the opposite polarity in the O-xO column for the AL against the NL. By the lower tRAs we see that AL pitching should be doing better at run prevention than their NL brethren and with the AL seeing many more outs than expected on top of that, we'd expect to see run prevention much improved in the AL. Indeed, AL teams are surrendering 4.44 runs per game while their NL counterparts are up at 4.63.

BEST ROTATIONS IN 2008

1. Arizona Diamondbacks, 3.73
2. Los Angeles Dodgers, 4.09
3. Toronto Blue Jays, 4.09
4. Chicago White Sox, 4.13
5. Oakland Athletics, 4.19

This seems like a grab bag of teams based on actual MLB standings, but take a look at their expected wins according to BaseRuns: 86, 81, 87, 97 and 92. Those are hefty numbers and should be good enough to land at least two in the postseason were they to play to those records.

WORST ROTATIONS IN 2008

1. Texas Rangers, 5.70
2. Pittsburgh Pirates, 5.66
3. Baltimore Orioles, 5.56
4. Florida Marlins, 5.23
5. Cincinnati Reds, 5.20

Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are the only two truly terrible teams on this list as Texas and Florida make up for their loathsome starters with tremendous offense and the Orioles with good defense. Worst to first is nearly two runs per game which is a fantastic amount.

BEST BULLPENS IN 2008

1. Chicago White Sox, 3.25
2. Atlanta Braves, 3.57
3. Philadelphia Phillies, 3.61
4. Los Angeles Dodgers, 3.63
5. Boston Red Sox, 3.80

The White Sox and Dodgers appear on both best of lists which is pretty telling why Chicago is where they are and just how bad the Dodger's offense has been to keep them from running away with the pathetic NL West.

WORST BULLPENS IN 2008

1. Pittsburgh Pirates, 5.36
2. Texas Rangers, 5.14
3. Milwaukee Brewers, 5.12
4. St. Louis Cardinals, 5.02
5. Cleveland Indians, 4.99

The Pirates and Rangers again appear 1-2 on the worst list though they swap spots this time around. That's remarkably horrific when you consider it. The Brewers are feeling the loss of Francisco Cordero for sure while the Indians at least finally made the move to cut Joe Borowski out of their life. Worst to first here is comfortably over two runs a game.

Seattle ranks near the bottom of the pack with a SP tRA of 5.13 and right about average in baseball (though below average in the AL) with a bullpen tRA of 4.35.

Note: there's an update posted at the bottom

A few days ago I made my case that this team isn't that far off from being a contender, and that the organization by no means needs to blow things up and start all over again. In fact, given only a handful of constaints, I found myself content with a surprisingly substantial fraction of the roster being part of a solid team, of which a reminder is shown below:

At the end of the post, I promised a second part to the series, a part where I would demonstrate how to make this team good again with just a handful of simple additions. After talking it over with Graham and Matthew, this is that part.

Before getting started, however, I do want to say that what you're about to read isn't the way to get better. It's - a - way to get better, a way that the three of us have agreed works pretty well without jeopardizing the big picture. But there are countless different ways in which this team could improve. Ways with more trades; ways with different constraints; ways requiring more imagination than we allowed of ourselves. This is but an exercise in creativity to show that the organization isn't in as bad shape as it seems. Nothing more.

So with that out of the way, let's get started. The partial roster I originally listed had holes at SP, 1B, DH, LF, 4th OF, utility IF, bench bat, and bench bat/reliever. Off we go.

----------

Starting Pitcher

The three of us agreed that, if this team wants to compete next year, it needs to make some kind of splash. And when the only decent big-name bats on the market are due to get far too much money, what do you do? You look at the arms. There's not all that much out there, but there is talent, and the talent is more affordable than, say, Mark Texieira is going to be. On which arm did we settle?

AJ Burnett: the idea here is that Burnett will opt out of his contract, negating the final $24m/2yr of his Toronto deal and thereby going back to free agency. It's not a guarantee, but for the time being the odds look pretty good. Why Burnett? Mostly because he's good while his ERA is not. Burnett's a power pitcher who does a reasonable job of keeping the ball on the ground, but his ERA stands at 5.23 despite entering the day with a tRA of 3.96. That's bad for his market value. Even with a regression-happy second half, he'll still be looking at something higher than most pitchers would like to have when they're trying to get paid. I'd offer him a few million more than the Silva contract to come in and form probably the best rotation 1-2-3 in the league. If it's not enough, throw in a little more money. It's going to be an overpay regardless - Burnett is 31 and injury-prone - but this team has the ability to absorb an overpay to a talented player, and the short-term upside is pretty high if you're looking to win in '09/'10.

If Burnett doesn't work out, throw the same sort of money at Ben Sheets. Just do what you can to try and land one of those two without going too many years, because holy crap we'd never allow runs ever.

First Base

I hope you liked spending money on the rotation, because we're going bargain basement everywhere else.

Russ Branyan: do I even need to say anything about this? Branyan hasn't collected 300 PAs in a season since 2002 despite a career OPS+ of 110, and after accepting a minor league contract from Milwaukee this year all he's done is lead the minors in OPS and then come up and slug .636 through 99 at bats. He's not a great player, but he's always available, he's always cheap, and he's always productive, and as a left-handed mammoth he could make sure the people in the Hit It Here Cafe are a wee bit more skittish. So he strikes out all the time. Who cares? At the end of the day, you just want a guy who can produce a little bit, and Branyan's been producing for as long as he's been a big leaguer.

In the unlikely event that Branyan becomes untouchable, there's always Big Ben Broussard!

Designated Hitter

Surprise!

Raul Ibanez: because why not? I didn't really think about it while writing the original 2009 post, but after talking it over, it makes all kinds of sense.

Left Field

The 08/09 free agency crop is pretty underwhelming, but there's one player in there who could prove to be the new Jose Guillen. A guy with the potential to go straight from the scrap heap to the middle of the order.

Juan Rivera: two years ago, a 27 year old Rivera reached a new level by posting a 126 OPS+ as a regular outfielder in LAnaheim. It was the peak of a 3.5-season period of time over which he slugged .482 with the ability to hit for average and put the ball in play. That winter, he broke his leg. Due to the injury, Rivera's 2007 was a complete and utter washout, and as part of an overstaffed Angel outfield in 2008, he's struggled to produce while getting limited and irregular playing time. Having just turned 30 a week ago, though, it's not like the ability is gone, and Rivera has the potential to re-establish himself as a legitimate run-producing corner outfielder should he be given the opportunity. I would like this to be the team that gives him such an opportunity. He's not exactly a Gold Glover, but he appears to be worth something like -10 < x < 0 in the field, which is good enough not to take much away from his offensive contributions. Juan Rivera could end up being a great, great deal. And I love a great deal.

Fourth Outfielder

In a fourth outfielder, you typically want someone capable of playing all three positions without embarrassing himself. In our case, we also wanted to find a guy who could step in as the everyday center fielder for at least a little bit in the event that Reed completely sucks. I settled on two candidates.

Endy Chavez: Endy Chavez isn't much of a hitter. At the plate, he's...he's a lot like Jeremy Reed, really. But the man has great legs and one hell of a glove, a plus CF who may very well belong to a pretty exclusive group of defensive wizards. Undervalued.

Jason Michaels: he'll be on the market should the Pirates decline his option. What he brings is more bat and less glove than Endy Chavez. Capable of hitting lefties a little bit when you want to give Ibanez or Branyan a day off. Not afraid to take a walk. Fourth outfielder to a tee.

Utility Infield

We're getting into the boring, relatively irrelevant part of the post, so I'll limit myself to just a few words.

Adam Everett: duh. Great glove. Great, great glove. Can't hit for beans. A defense-first shortstop who can actually play defense.

Alex Cora: like Michaels above, Cora brings a little more bat and a little less glove than Everett.

Bench Bat

We went looking for a righty who could spell/pinch-hit for Ibanez or Branyan.

Morgan Ensberg: hasn't become what he could've been, but the man can still punish the occasional lefty, as his career OPS against southpaws is .912. If for some reason Ensberg isn't available, you can just settle for

Generic AAAA Fan Favorite: what's that? You need to find someone capable of putting up a .760-.800 OPS against left-handed pitchers? I've got bad news for you. There are only like 2340892342093 of those available all the time for absolutely nothing.

Bench Bat/Reliever

This one we didn't really think out. Initially I gave us a seven-man bullpen with the last spot going to someone like Cesar Jimenez or Eric O'Flaherty or Josh Fields or whoever, but seven-man bullpens are stupid, so you could just as easily give this roster spot to another set of legs or really whatever you want. If it's RRS who takes that fifth rotation spot instead of Morrow or Dickey, though, then you should probably give this to a lefty reliever.

----------

So here's what the filled-out roster looks like. Feel free to swap Chavez with Michaels, Everett with Cora, Ensberg with anything, and (Tacoma) with anything. Also Burnett/Sheets, Branyan/Broussard, and...yeah. Anyway:

There you go. There's your contending 2009 Seattle Mariners. The offense isn't spectacular, and the defense is only okay, but the pitching staff is a strength and capable of taking this team a long way. The best part? The whole unit would actually cost about $10m less than the current variety. I set it up like this for a reason - it leaves room for Washburn to take the #5 slot if he doesn't get traded, in which case you probably jettison Dickey since there's no reason to have both him and Batista in the same bullpen. But if Washburn really is gone, then that leaves you the flexibility to make another splash by free agency or trade (or to just make the owners happy). I won't go into that, though, since I'm comfortable with what we already have.

That's a pretty good team. It's not the best team in baseball, but it should be a contender, and the only thing it costs the future is a little money for AJ Burnett (or Sheets). In other words, there's minimal sacrifice. And that's the whole point of this little series of articles. Yeah, the Mariners could blow things up if they wanted to. They wouldn't be the first team to do it, and the whole process would actually be pretty exciting. But blowing things up and starting from scratch is unnecessary when you have this kind of money and this kind of foundation. Why tear down when you can build for the future and play for the present at the same time? That's the beauty of the whole thing. Given a choice between trying to win and blowing things up, the Mariners don't have to choose. They can do both.

And they should do both.

UPDATE: so I've learned two things: (1) Endy Chavez isn't a free agent this year like Cot's says he is, and (2) Wlad's out of options, which for some reason I forgot about. So here's my new solution:

Fourth OF: Wlad. Spells Ibanez from time to time, plays for Rivera ~2-3 times a week
Fifth OF: any moron who runs fast enough to play center
Seventh Reliever: gone. It turns into a six-man bullpen. If Morrow or Dickey take the #5 slot, RRS is your lefty, but in the event that RRS takes the #5 slot, you're either without a lefty, or you have to ditch Dickey to add one. Dumping Batista would be nice, but that's a lot of money to eat.

I know it already seems like Pick on Geoff Baker Day between LL and USSM, but it's my turn to chip in.

We went over this a couple of weeks back when U.S.S. Mariner took a swipe at Jarrod Washburn -- called him an idiot, I believe -- for saying he had better command. Mentioned his strike ratios and walk ratios. But that basic premise shows a lack of understanding of the meaning of command in the major leagues, which isn't exclusively about the ability to throw strikes and not walk guys. Well, part of it is, that's true. But right here is an example of a guy who throws tons of strikes -- but who also has no command.

 

Sometimes, the ball is an inch or two too close to a hitter's sweet spot. They live on the edge. With Washburn, lately, he's gotten on the better side of that edge because of a mechanical adjustment (or so he says). He'll still give up some extra base hits, as he did the other night. But so far, he isn't getting crushed like he was in May. So, if that makes him an idiot, OK.

These quotes come from here.

Here is how this reads to me, and if Geoff wants to correct my assumptions, I'm all ears.

1. Geoff Baker is talking about command in the sense of the pitcher staying away from the middle of the zone.
2. Washburn has been better of late because he has improved said command.

I buy the first point. There's a rather intuitive way to break down a pitcher's skills.

• Stuff - What he throws, how well he throws it, how well he hides it, etc. Good stuff leads to missed bats leads to strikeouts.
• Control - Ability to throw pitches for strikes. Good control leads to fewer balls leads to fewer walks.
• Command - (a.k.a. "Control within the zone") Ability to avoid throwing in the middle of plate. Good command leads to a better batted ball profile leads to fewer home runs.

Command and control are somewhat related, but can be thought of as distinct skills. Pitchers can have good control with bad command by just aiming for the heart of the zone and pitchers can have good command but bad control.

The problem comes from the second point.

Sometimes, the ball is an inch or two too close to a hitter's sweet spot. They live on the edge. With Washburn, lately, he's gotten on the better side of that edge.

I'm going to make another assumption here and go back to Washburn's June 9th start as the beginning of this good period since that's when he had the first traditionally good result of this recent run.

Washburn strike%, pre-6/9: 62%
Washburn strike%, post-6/9: 61%
(hattip: Jeff for these)

Okay, you might argue, but that just tells us his control isn't any better, it doesn't say anything about his command. Well, Washburn's post-6/9 LD% is higher than it was in either of his first two seasons as a Mariner (again, thanks Jeff). Furthermore,

These are Washburn's heat maps with all pitches (excluding his relief appearance) from the start of the year through June 2nd on the left and all pitches from June 9th onward on the right. Does the picture on the right look like a mapping of a pitcher staying away from hitter's sweet spots? It doesn't to me. It looks like the exact opposite. It looks like a pitcher chucking the ball in the center of the zone. One possible reason for that might be because said pitcher was facing, on average, pretty mediocre hitters.

I'm not going to speculate on what Geoff Baker's motivation was in particular, but I will use this to point out again what is a typical trademark of results-based analysis: the results are known going in. You know that Jarrod Washburn has pitched better^ over his last x-odd starts so you go hunting for a reason. Seeing what you might believe to be an effect and then going back and trying to connect it to a cause is bad science and it's going to be incorrect a vast majority of the time.

^by your definition, which may not be shared by others.

In unison, everybody, doing your best Bryan Price:

Silva has been working all year to figure out why his sinker isn't working the way he'd like. It isn't sinking much. That's a big reason why he needed 100 pitches to get through five innings against the Tigers last Thursday.

It turns out, Silva made a between-starts mechanical adjustment. Pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre, an ex-sinkerballer himself, felt Silva was squeezing the ball too hard. So, instead of holding his hands up near his chest as he began his windup -- which Silva felt caused his arms to press together and his fingers to grip the ball tighter -- he held them at waist level tonight.

Photographic evidence of this striking transformation:

One little adjustment and Silva goes from five runs in five innings to two runs in eight. Remarkable! This hand position thing sounds like the real deal. Stottlemyre sure does know what he's doing.

So just what kind of difference did Silva's shiny new sinker make, anyway? With 25 non-bunted balls in play tonight, it's probably pretty safe to assume that he was generating a bunch more groundballs than before. After all, that's what a sinker's supposed to do, right? Let's have us a look see:

Buhh. Maybe we're getting some extra noise in here from his changeup and slider. How about we isolate the balls Oakland put in play against his sinker?

Well that doesn't make any sense at all. It's almost as if...it's almost as if his sinker was actually worse tonight than it had been before. Save us, PITCHf/x. In your infinite wisdom, at least show us that Silva's sinker did indeed have more sink tonight, and that the A's just so happened to put it in the air. Let's do a movement comparison between tonight and Silva's 100-pitch/5-inning start against the Tigers last week, the start over which Silva's so embarrassed:

Wait. So you mean to tell me that Silva's sinker actually had 0.8 inches less vertical drop than it did against Detroit? Impossible! Getting more sink is why he made the whole change in the first place! Something fishy is going on. Something fishy is going on, and I don't like it one bit.

-----

...I'll stop playing around and get to the point. Carlos Silva may have made a little mechanical adjustment, but that isn't why he just threw eight solid innings of two-run baseball. Carlos Silva just threw eight solid innings of  two-run baseball because the A's can't hit. Not because of some improved sinker. Because the A's have a bad offense that runs into trouble when it faces a guy that throws a lot of strikes. Simple as that. It's the exact same thing we're hearing about Jarrod Washburn right now. Washburn will tell you he's built off a little change he's made since taking the advice of his collegiate pitching coach, but really, he's just been facing bad lineups. Pitchers don't like to hear that sort of thing, though (as you can imagine), so they point to something they did a little differently as being the reason behind any success. Correlation and causation and all that. If a pitcher makes a minor tweak (which they do all the time anyway) and then goes out and throws a heck of a game, he'll credit the tweak, even if it wasn't responsible for the success in the least. It's up to us to pick out what's real and what's just a fairy tale.

You want to know the truth? Silva's sinker has had a little more drop recently than it used to. His season average pfx_z is 8.3 (the same as last year, incidentally, even though he only now feels he isn't getting enough sink), but again, today he was at 6.6. So in that regard, he's right, there is a difference. However, he was at 5.8 a week ago against the Tigers and sucked hard, so what do we make of that? How do we reconcile these two data points?

(1) The hand position didn't do anything. Silva only lowered his hands today and his sinker sank less than it did against Detroit.
(2) Therefore what's going on is either (A) nothing, or (B) due to some other change he made earlier. Baker quotes Silva as saying that he and Stottlemyre have "been trying so many things" over the weeks, so I guess it's possible they did something before the Detroit game to give his sinker more drop, something people don't want to talk about because the Detroit game was bad.
(3) Pitchers don't talk about mechanical adjustments when they fail. Silva's sinker clearly dropped more against Detroit than it did on average before, but because he sucked, he didn't say a word. Reported mechanical adjustments are therefore selective for success. You don't read too many stories about guys making changes and not making any progress, and when you're only getting one side of the whole thing, it kind of negates its usefulness. Discussing how Silva's theoretical little changes may or may not have made a difference tonight does us no good if we don't also discuss how it may or may not have made a difference last week, but seldom can we ever know when a pitcher made a change that didn't work, so what's the point?

Remember how Silva was supposed to throw a splitter this year to combat tough lefties? Yeah. Safe to say I'm getting pretty sick of these things. They sound good on the surface, but there's so little actual substance in there that it's almost impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff, and...and now I see that Dave just put up a post about the same freaking thing. Uh. Son of a bitch...

(1) Life

From the profile on his new blog:

Favorite Sport to Watch: Hockey. I like to watch it live. They are fast, aggressive, and good athletes.

RRS is not a man. He is a non-stop endearing machine that is powered by awesome.