Non-Perfect People To Play Baseball

The Mariners' record doesn't seem all that bad now, nine games under .500. Though that still projects out to a 75-87 record by the end of the season unless baseball unexpectedly plays more or fewer than 162 games. That would really throw projections off unless you are smart enough to utilize rates instead of counting stats as your concern. In which case, nothing would be thrown off unless baseball never stops. I imagine that with baseball all the time, the performances would eventually all get worse.

The Twins have a worse record than the Mariners. So do the Royals and so do the Indians. The Mariners, if magically transplanted to the AL Central in some reality where nothing aside from that change took place, would be in third place. Out of six teams. And the AL West would have three teams and this doesn't make sense and why do people make these comparisons? They're not useful.

Anyways, Felix Hernandez isn't going to be involved in this series so you should probably all kill yourselves and then get revived on Tuesday morning. Imagine how refreshed you would be! From all that "sleep".

The Mariners scored just five runs in the three games against Tampa, but managed to not have their hitting ratings plunge too much. The 2012 Safeco Field effect kicks in a little more with each passing game. These aren't direct comparisons, since I do my park factors with rolling three-year windows, but at the conclusion of 2011, Safeco Field had an overall park factor for runs of 89.

Four months into the 2012 season, which remember is still weighted back by 2.25 years of data prior to 2012 and Safeco's overall factor is down to 82. It's ridiculous. If I did just a 2012 rating on Safeco Field, it's run factor would be around 61. 61!

P/PA = pitches per PA [avg~3.8], nBB = uBB + HBP, Sw = swinging [avg~45%], Ct = contact [avg~81%], Qual+ = a measure of quality of batted balls [avg=100, higher is better]

Somewhat interestingly, Safeco isn't suppressing hits on balls in play to a great extent. The rate of singles isn't dramatically down, nor are the rates of ground balls or fly balls avoiding being outs. All three of those are down, to be clear, just not lowered by much. What's really being destroyed are extra base hits of any kind.

So all those sub-.200 batting averages are just as pathetic as you probably think they are.

Michael Saunders is mired in a horrible slump, but here's where I like having a sanity check like Qual+ around. His batted ball profile hasn't been as terrible as the batting line would suggest. Brendan Ryan's, yes, but Saunders has probably been a tad unlucky to be hitting .048 over the last two weeks. Less strikeouts wouldn't hurt though.

I think Kyle Seager and Dustin Ackley are fine defensively at their positions, but not outstanding. I'd peg them as average +/- five runs per season or near abouts. I don't think either Mike Carp or Justin Smoak have been quietly great either, perhaps, likely, even below average. So while single-year UZR can be crazy, measuring the Mariners' collective ability to turn ground balls and bunts into outs suggests that those four positions have been very good as a unit. I believe that the majority of that belongs to Brendan Ryan.

Nick Blackburn's overall whiff rate doesn't visually show up in this chart.

No further joke or exposition is needed.

You might remember Scott Diamond from nowhere. You're lying.

He's faced more batters than any other starter for the Twins this year.

Sam "Slayer" Deduno, Major League Starting Pitcher: 175 batters faced, 40 innings completed, 28 strikeouts, 30 walks, hit a guy. His TRA is currently 6.66.

Str% = strike rate [avg~63%], Ct% = contact rate [avg~78%], GB% = groundball rate [avg~45%], Qual- = a measure of quality of batted balls [avg=100, lower is better], LI = leverage [avg~1.2]

The Mariners' bullpen pitched five innings total against the Rays. So like nothing changed here except that Stephen Pryor continues to get better. He struck out five of the first 22 batters he faced as a Major Leaguer, a good, but not otherwordly rate. The last 20 have been something special though.

Series Drink: Mai Tai
It's too hot for beer, at least any beer that I want to drink. So instead of compromising and drinking a light lager, why not just switch to warm weather cocktails? They exist for just this sort of temperature!

Instead of going on further about the benefits of mixed cocktails and whether or not a mai tai will make you feel immasculated because you are a pitiful, puny person, I will bestow two recommendations for places in Seattle to get a good mai tai. Sun Liquor (two Capitol Hill locations) and The Forge (on the overhead walkway between the ferry terminal and Marion)