Game 50, Indians at Mariners
JA Happ vs. Danny Salazar, 1:10pm
Danny Salazar is a small righty with a huge fastball and an array of visually incredible breaking/offspeed pitches. The Dominican signed with Cleveland in 2006, debuted in the Indians US rookie affiliate in 2008, and logged 100 innings in A ball in 2009. That season, he struck out 5 per 9, and had a FIP pushing 5. A live arm is nice and all, but his transformation from org depth to nuclear-grade young ace in waiting is still pretty stunning. Part of the problem was health, as he missed most of 2010 and 2011 with injury, but he returned as a different guy – he started missing more bats in high-A and dominated in a quick trip to AA. Then, in 2013, no one could touch him. He struck out 194 in 144 innings, culminating in 10 mostly brilliant starts with the major league club. Expectations were incredibly high last year, but he scuffled a bit despite a solid 3.52 FIP. This being the Indians, Salazar yielded a BABIP of .343, and struggled against same-handed hitters.
Part of the problem is his slider. It looks great, and when he keeps it down, it’s a good swing-and-miss pitch. But he has a tendency to hang it, resulting in a career average-against of .307 and a SLG% over .500. That’s incredibly bad for someone who throws so hard and uses the breaking ball as a putaway pitch. Luckily for Salazar, his change/split has been better, and tends to stay down more than the slider. Thanks to the split, Salazar’s run reverse splits over his brief career; his FIP against lefties is under 3, while his FIP against righties is a full run higher. The splitter’s helped him strike out more lefties, while mistake sliders have pushed his HR rate higher against righties. This season, Salazar’s added a curve ball to try and get a breaking ball that works against righties AND lefties. It’s a bit too early to tell if it’ll be successful, as he’s only thrown 30 or so of them.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Smith, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Castillo, C
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Miller, SS
9: Ackley, LF
SP: Happ
Sounders game today at 2pm, so if you go to the game be advised: it’s going to be crowded in Sodo.
The Rainiers beat Round Rock last night behind a great game from Forrest Snow, who allowed 1R in 6 IP. The R’s had their customary struggles in the 9th, but Mayckol Guaipe only gave up 2, and the Rainiers had enough of a cushion. Mike Montgomery starts today.
Rancho Cucamonga beat Bakersfield 3-1 in a game with plenty of M’s ties. The winning pitcher for the Quakes was Erik Bedard, and RC’s starting SS was Dillon Moyer, Jamie’s son. Dan Altavilla got the loss. Bakersfield sends lefty Tyler Pike to the mound today against the Quakes.
Clinton lost 5-1 to Cedar Rapids despite a solid game from starter Lukas Schiraldi. Reliever Hawtin Buchanon gave up 4 runs in 2/3 of an inning in the 7th, though, and that was that. Zach Littell starts today against the Kernels.
Game 49, Indians at Mariners
Roenis Elias vs. Shaun Marcum, 7:10pm
Yesterday’s game was one of the most rewarding of the year. Not only did the M’s win a crucial game against Cleveland, but they played decent defense (until that unfortunate Nelson Cruz bit in the 9th), and watched the best start of Taijuan Walker’s young career. Trevor Bauer was excellent, and made very few mistakes – but Seth Smith punished one, and that was that. That’s two games in a week where the opposing starter’s been excellent, but the M’s did enough to blank the opposition until they broke through for a couple of runs. The M’s offense still isn’t great, but we’re seeing the benefits of HR power. When scoring is low, HRs mean more. Their OBP needs to come up from 27th in baseball, but they haven’t been hapless thanks to how far their hits have travelled.
Before the series, I talked about the Indians issues with balls in play. Their 5th starter certainly hasn’t had to worry about that – not just because this’ll be just his 3rd start of the year, but because he’s allowed comically few balls in play. Shaun Marcum – long-time Blue Jay, traded to Milwaukee for prospect Brett Lawrie, oft-injured journeyman – has faced 58 batters so far, and 27 of those plate appearances have ended in a K, a walk, or a HR. Lots of three true outcomes can be great for a pitcher. Craig Kimbrel‘s 2011 saw an astonishing 53% of his PAs end in a K, BB or HR. But it’s only astonishing if you get a whole lot of the GOOD “true” outcome, and less of the bad ones. Marcum’s been a bit more inclusive. In 14+ innings, he’s already yielded 5 HRs, and 6 walks. His 16 Ks are pretty remarkable for a righty with a fastball that struggles to touch 88, but it’s hard to celebrate that run of whiffishness when your FIP is pushing 7.
Marcum’s been a valuable guy when he’s healthy. He missed all of 2009 with TJ surgery, then came back in 2010-11 with a pair of 3+WAR seasons, one with Toronto and the other with Milwaukee. After signing a one-year deal with the Mets in 2013, he suffered horrific sequencing luck that led to a 1-10 record, and then more horrific health luck, missing much of 2013 and all of 2014 recuperating from Thoracic Outlet syndrome surgery. After a solid April in the Indians’ minor leagues, he’s replaced the ineffective TJ House and Bruce Chen in the Tribe’s rotation. If you remember Marcum for anything, it’s probably his excellent change-up. Easily his best pitch, he disguises his arm angle very well, and has a career whiff/swing rate approaching 40% on it – and that’s after throwing thousands of them. He’ll throw it to righties and lefties alike, but lefties see a ton of them, and they’ve consistently struggled with it. So does he, like quite a few change-up artists, have reverse platoon splits? No, because his fastball has proven as hittable as his change is deceptive. Lefties are slugging .510 against his four-seamer in Marcum’s career. He went to a sinker for a while, but they are slugging .667 off that, so he scrapped it. Now, he’s primarily a four-seam/change/cutter guy, with lefties getting mostly cambios and righties seeing cutters.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Smith, DH
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Zunino, C
8: Miller, SS
9: Ackley, LF
SP: Elias
Welcome back to the line-up, Robby Cano, and welcome back to the team, Joe Beimel. Lucas Luetge takes the I-5 shuttle back to Tacoma.
Tacoma beat Round Rock 5-3, but still had to withstand another shaky 9th inning. Sam Gaviglio attempted to go for his first pro complete game, but after getting into trouble, the R’s brought in Danny Farquhar, who promptly allowed an inherited runner to score, then gave up a 2R HR of his own before getting the final two outs. Shawn O’Malley had 3 hits for the R’s, who survived a forgettable night by the middle of their order. Today, Forrest Snow gets his 6th start – he’s been excellent in his first five.
Jackson lost to Montgomery 4-3 in 12 innings last night. Jake Zokan was solid in 4+ innings, and the Generals scored 3 on Biscuits starter and former big-time draft prospect Ryne Stanek (whom the M’s drafted in the 3rd round in 2011, but he didn’t sign, opting to go to Arkansas). The Generals were rained out today.
Visalia topped Bakersfield 6-2 yesterday, as Ryan Yarbrough struggled again, giving up 6 R in 6 IP. Tyler O’Neill had 2 hits in a losing effort. Dan Altavilla starts tonight.
Clinton lost to Cedar Rapids 6-1, but it was still a good night. Brazilian lefty Luiz Gohara made his 2015 debut and threw 5 shutout innings, with a walk and a punchout. Nelson Ward had two doubles for the L-Kings, but their bullpen imploded in the 6th. Tonight, Lukas Schiraldi faces off with Zach Tillery of Cedar Rapids.
Game 48, Indians at Mariners
Taijuan Walker vs. Trevor Bauer, 7:10pm
Another start, another match-up of hyped young starters. Trevor Bauer tore through the minors after going 3rd overall to the D-Backs in 2011, one pick after Danny Hultzen. But upon arriving in the majors, serious problems developed. While his walk rate was always poor, it was simply unworkable in the majors, and when he combined it with too many HRs and what Arizona insisted was a bad attitude, the club quickly soured on their top prospect. Flipped to Cleveland in the Didi Gregorius/Shin-Soo Choo swap, Bauer continued to struggle in limited looks. After some work on his mechanics and a dominant stint in AAA, Bauer was up to stay early in 2014, and tossed 153 solid innings for the Tribe. “Solid” innings are worth something, and slotting in behind guys like Kluber and Carrasco is great. But Cleveland – and Bauer – still expect more, and their patience may be paying off. Bauer’s pretty much the only Indians hurler with an ERA *below* his FIP, because he’s done an excellent job at contact management. Fangraphs’ new batted ball statistics categorizes each batted ball as either “soft” “medium” or “hard” hit. Thus far in 2015, no pitcher’s gotten a higher percentage of “soft” contact than Bauer, and that’s reflected in his low .265 BABIP.
This was never a big part of Bauer’s game. In previous years, he wasn’t great at getting weak contact, and as we’ve talked about, it’s not like his teammates are benefiting from the same effect. In fact, Bauer’s 26% weak contact rate is TEN percentage points higher than Corey Kluber’s. Kluber is going to be just fine, and if he always has an ERA a bit higher than his FIP, that doesn’t prevent him from being a legitimate ace. But some pitchers seem to be able to combine weak contact and great fielding-independent numbers, as Tony Blengino’s series of articles at Fangraphs attests – and as anyone who watches Felix Hernandez a lot will understand. Bauer’s success in soft contact is most evident when he yields grounders. That’s not the focus of Bauer’s game, as this is the way he uses his rising four-seam fastball, but he’s not a Chris Young clone: his offspeed/breaking arsenal generate some grounders. Baseball Reference has splits for batted ball type, and thus far in 2015, Bauer’s OPS-against on grounders is .464. Compare that to Kluber, who’s at a .625 OPS this year, up from last year’s .512. Or, to be mean, compare it to Taijuan Walker, who has somehow allowed an OPS of *.815* on GROUND BALLS this year.
Walker’s suffered from myriad problems this season, from a poor walk rate, to HRs (even on good pitches, like the one to Encarnacion) to a very high BABIP. But while Paxton’s BABIP “luck” eventually evened out, Walker’s hasn’t, and the more we learn about pitcher BABIP, the less we can point to that .356 number and wisely intone, “Regression will take care of that.” Walker doesn’t need to get luckier, Walker needs to get *better.* But that’s why Bauer’s evolution is somewhat encouraging. He dealt with his control problem, and now it’s no longer something that’ll prevent him from contributing. Now, his contact management is much better, which could mean this is a skill that can be taught. Walker’s been incredibly coachable since he was drafted, and I’m sure he’d be receptive.
The poster boy for contact management in Blengino’s series is Dallas Keuchel, the Astros sinkerballer who has fashioned himself into an odd kind of ace despite an 89mph fastball. As you saw on that “Soft” contact leaderboard, Keuchel’s 3rd in baseball in soft contact in 2015, and he ranked 4th in 2014. Of special interest is his success at inducing soft grounders. His OPS-against in 2014 was .438 – and this from the guy who lead all starters in GB% by a mile. But it’s worth remembering that as recently as 2013, Keuchel was outright bad at contact management. His 5+ ERA that year was based a bit on slightly worse-than-average GB contact, and hide-your-eyes bad performance on fly balls (Corey Kluber is also worse than average on FB contact). If he learned something, he learned it really quickly.
So, the good news here is that contact can be learned, and that it shouldn’t take 5 years to improve. The bad news is that until he gets there, Walker isn’t a great young pitcher getting horrifically unlucky, he’s legitimately bad, and will continue to post poor results. The bit-of-both news is that this USED to be Walker’s strength. The sample is so tiny, but Walker never had issues with BABIP and hard contact before. It’s the kind of full-spectrum sucking that makes me think one of two things is at play. One, as we talked about last time, he’s tipping his pitches. A good way to get weak grounders is for hitters to be way out in front of a pitch. A good way to avoid being way out in front of a pitch is to know what’s coming. Jeff mentioned his distinct release point for his splitter, and pairing that with his predictable usage of it might help explain why lefties have lit him up this year. But it doesn’t explain righties. They’re actually hitting him even harder, and they see essentially zero splitters. Either he’s tipping *all* his pitches, or something changed in his mechanics when he went to his new stretch-only delivery that gives righties a long look at the ball. I’m sure the M’s are looking at every possibility, if only because they don’t have a lot of alternatives to Walker right now. But I’d let him use his old mechanics just to see if something clicks, and I’d be talking to both Zunino and Welington Castillo to see if they can detect anything different when he throws a fastball versus anything else.
In any event, Bauer famously throws all of the pitches. He’s got a rising FB at 94-95, but a variety of sliders from slurvy to cutter, and even his “reverse” slider that BrooksBaseball classes as a screwball. You might see a change-up AND a splitter, maybe the odd sinker, and a curve ball in the high 70s. With all of those pitches breaking everywhere, Bauer doesn’t have much in the way of platoon splits. Technically, Walker doesn’t either, but in his case, it’s not a good thing.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Seager, 3B
3: Cruz, RF
4: Smith, DH
5: Morrison, 1B
6: Zunino, C
7: Miller, SS
8: Bloomquist, 2B
9: Ackley, LF
SP: Walker
Cano’s out again with the flu.
If you watched the game last night, you saw the M’s trainer Rob Nodine work on James Paxton’s finger before Paxton had to leave the game. Today, the M’s placed Paxton on the 15-day DL with a tendon strain in that finger. No word on the corresponding move, but it’ll probably be a reliever since the M’s have gone with 6 for a while. Farquhar could come back, as his 10-day requirement in Tacoma should be waived due to injury. But Dominic Leone may be a better bet. Lucas Luetge is already back with the club, as Joe Beimel’s taking some time off to go to his son’s HS graduation.
The Rainiers finished up their series in Omaha with yet another painful late-inning melt down. This time, it was Tony Zich who gave up a 2 run HR in the 9th to tie the game, then allowed a walk-off single in the 10th to end it. The Rainiers led 5-2 going into the 8th. Starter Justin Germano was solid yet again through 8 and Ketel Marte had three hits to run his line up to .342/.391/.432. Today, Sam Gaviglio leads the Rainiers into a series against Round Rock.
Jackson lost to Montgomery 3-2, but they still did more damage off of Blake Snell than any other team. After blanking the Generals through 6 IP, Jabari Blash connected for a HR – the first Snell’s given up all year. They scored another run that inning as well, DOUBLING Snell’s total runs allowed on the year, and running his AA ERA from under 0.3 to over 0.7. Ha! Over-rated, clap clap, clapclapclap! Not really, of course, as those would be the only runs on the day, and the Generals fell to 20-26. Today, Jake Zokan has his turn against the Biscuits.
Speaking of odd ERAs, Eddie Campbell had his best game of the year for Bakersfield, who topped Visalia 4-1. In the process, Campbell’s ERA dropped from 37+ down to a more manageable 14.09. Austin Wilson hit his 4th HR of the year as well. Today, it’ll be Ryan Yarbrough taking on Visalia’s Blayne Weller, who we discussed back in early May.
Clinton beat Peoria 11-8 in *15 innings* last night. The pitching star wasn’t Tyler Herb, who started and yielded 5 runs in 3 IP, but reliever Rohn Pierce who went 4 scoreless innings with 8 Ks. The L-Kings were up 8-2 early, lost the lead, then won it in the 15th on 5 straight singles. Tonight it’ll be TBD for Clinton up against the soap-operatically-named Keaton Steele of Cedar Rapids.
Game 47, Indians at Mariners
James Paxton vs. Corey Kluber, 7:10pm
Corey Kluber’s FIP last year was better than King Felix’s career low. Thus far in 2015, Kluber has tossed an 18K, 1H game against the Cardinals and *lowered* his FIP to an unreal-for-anyone-but-Kershaw 2.17. His K/9 is 10.72 and his BB/9 is 1.55. For good measure, his HR rate is lower than average. These are video game numbers, but Kluber is 2-5 with a 3.49 ERA. As I discussed earlier, a big part of this is the Indians’ general inability to catch hit baseballs, which pushes Kluber’s BABIP to .348. In addition, his strand rate has fallen markedly this year from 78.6% to 68.1%. Finally, his platoon splits have been a bit wider this year. As a slider/cutter pitcher, this probably isn’t a big surprise.
The key for the M’s today is to get as many lefties in the line-up as possible, yes, even Ackley, and to get him early. Lefties see first-pitch fastballs nearly 70% of the time. They get a lot more breaking stuff as the count moves on, and they’ve done less with bendy stuff. Righties? Good luck. If he makes a mistake with a sinker, feel free to hit it hard, Nelson Cruz.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Smith, RF
3: Cruz, DH
4: Seager, 3B
5: Morrison, 1B
6: Miller, 2B
7: Ackley, LF
8: Taylor, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Paxton
Cano could use a break, and with Miller, they don’t have to lose a lefty in the process. Would’ve been nice to see him sit against a lefty, I suppose, given Kluber’s splits, but in the grand scheme of things, this is fine. I suppose you could argue there’s a knock-on effect because it gets Jackson’s bat back in the line-up, but that’s somewhat secondary, and seriously, Jackson just needs to produce right now. This is an awful match-up for him, but it’s time to show he’s not a platoon player.
The Rainiers dropped yesterday’s game in Omaha 5-2, as former Royals star prospect John Lamb got the win a day after former Royals star prospect Mike Montgomery pitched for Tacoma. Stephen Landazuri threw a decent 5 IP, and Danny Farquhar yielded a HR in his first AAA inning of the year. Justin Germano starts today for the Rainiers against Omaha’s Andy Ferguson.
Jackson destroyed Montgomery 12-4, as the bats finally came alive. Even DJ Peterson, who’s been in deep freeze thus far, hit a 3r HR the opposite way. Jabari Blash homered as well, and Felix’s brother Moises got the win in relief. Today, the Generals face Rays prospect and Seattle-native Blake Snell, who is having a rather solid year. He’s made 9 appearances and 7 starts on the year, throwing 52 innings. In that span, he’s K’d 66 and given up just 21 hits. Oh, and one run. He enters the game with an ERA of 0.17, which marred by the one run he gave up to Tennessee, which pushes his AA ERA way up to 0.29 in 5 starts.
Bakersfield lost at Visalia 10-5 despite HRs from Kyle Petty and Tyler Marlette. Today, Eddie Campbell tries to get his ERA out of the 30s. In better Bakersfield news, the guys from Cespedes Family BBQ have been journaling their road trip through California for Baseball Prospectus, and wrote about Bakersfield’s historic Sam Lynn ballpark here (no subscription needed).
Clinton beat Peoria 8-2 behind another strong Jefferson Medina start and 3 doubles from LF Chantz Mack. Kristian Brito had 2 doubles of his own. Tyler Herb takes the mound against the Chiefs tonight, and converted position player Fernando Baez.
The Cleveland Indians Are an Odd Team
No, I’m not referring to racist mascot Chief Wahoo, though that’s pretty weird too. Rather, the Indians are notable for their run-prevention group, and the increasingly lop-sided division of labor between their starting pitchers, who have been remarkable, and their fielders, who have been remarkably bad. It feels like we should keep these two facets of the Indians separate, if for no other reason than one has been going on a long time, while the other is quite recent. But as with most things about how pitching and fielding interact, I’m not really sure that they ARE separate. I have no idea, so I’m just going to throw some things out there, and we can all guess. I feel that’s a bad opening for a baseball post, but I also feel it’s an unstated and important prologue to *any* baseball post.
Here are the two distinct-but-possibly-related-in-ways-I-can’t-really-fathom facts: 1) The Indians have failed spectacularly at catching the baseball this year, and the entire UZR era suggests that this is pretty common for the Tribe. 2) The Indians, and their starters in particular, are historically great at striking out opposing batters.
Let’s delve into these two things in order. This year, the Indians team DER is a laughably bad .678, meaning they’ve turned just under 68% of balls in play into outs. The Rays and Royals are way up over 73%, so while the range isn’t huge here, it’s pretty important given the sheer numbers of balls in play. Last year, the Indians ranked 25th, and they were 23rd the year before. Baseball Prospectus calculates a park-adjusted team defensive efficiency percentage, which measures the percentage of balls in play above/below league average a team converts into outs. The Indians have been below average now for 10 years, and ranked dead last back in 2002 as well.
Now, DER is a simple team-based stat, but it can’t tell you as much about the quality of the balls in play. Turning 60% of line drives into outs would be remarkable. Turning 90% of pop-ups into outs would be atrocious. So, we could also look at UZR, which Fangraphs reports going back to 2002. Over the entire history of UZR, 2002-2015, the Indians have given up 300 runs more than average, 29th in baseball behind only the Yankees (who fielded one of the worst fielding teams in recent memory in 2005, which, incidentally, was the Indians sole really good defensive season). If you look at their outfield over that 2002-2015 span, it rates OK – they’re slightly above average, but nothing incredible. If they were awful, the problem must be on the infield. And it is. The Indians shortstops rank 29th in baseball over that time, giving up more than 100 runs more than average, and finishing a bit ahead of the Yankees and sabermetric whipping-boy, Derek Jeter.
Well, that’s understandable, right? They had Jhonny Peralta and Asdrubal Cabrera there for a bunch of that time, and neither was a gold glover. This is where it gets interesting, at least to me. The Indians have had essentially four full-time shortstops since 2002: Omar Vizquel, Peralta, Cabrera and now Jose Ramirez. The data for Omar starts in 2002, near the end of his tenure in Cleveland, and when Vizquel was 35 years old, so maybe it’s not a huge surprise that UZR didn’t think much of Omar’s defense. He ranked a tiny bit below average in 2002, then did quite well in 2003 as Peralta’s back-up, and back to average again in 2004. All told, Omar was essentially dead on league average over three seasons. After the M’s voided a trade for him, he moved on to San Francisco in 2005 for his age-38 season. From that point through the end of his career, so, from age *38 to 45* Omar saved over 50 runs more than the average shortstop.
With Omar gone, the SS job fell to Jhonny Peralta, a much better hitter than little O, but not someone who looked like a great defensive SS. So no one thought much was amiss when Perlta racked up -28 runs over 5-6 full-time seasons. But interestingly, as soon as he was traded to Detroit, at the age of 28, Peralta started running well-above-average UZRs. Since LEAVING Cleveland, Peralta’s career UZR at SS is +36.1. Asdrubal Cabrera took over from Peralta after a little while as his double play partner; Cabrera really started seeing the majority of time at SS in 2009, at the age of 23. In his 6 full seasons at SS, Cabrera was the Indians worst offender, yielding nearly 50 runs more than the average shortstop. Tiny sample UZRs aren’t great, but you’ve seen the pattern here, so it probably won’t shock you that Cabrera’s done a bit better than average this year at age 29 for Tampa – one of the league’s best defensive teams.
After a decade-plus of bad SS play, the Indians turned the position over to Jose Ramirez, a guy who’d played all over the IF in the minors, and not someone scouts saw as an Omar Vizquel-style slick fielder. After a brilliant half-year in 2014, he’s fallen back to earth in 2015, ranking below average. I have no idea what Ramirez’s true talent at SS really is, but the larger point is this: I have no idea what ANY of these guys’ true talent is at this point. The numbers suggest that Omar really was a brilliant defender, and that Jhonny Peralta’s pretty good too, despite some ugliness when he was with Cleveland. Maybe Asdrubal Cabrera *wasn’t* a bad SS, which is nice, because I rated him pretty highly in the minors. What the hell is going on? Dave wrote an article about the disconnect between Peralta’s numbers in and out of Cleveland last year, but that was focused more on Peralta himself. I don’t care too much about Peralta – I want to know about *Cleveland*. Again, the simple thing would be to say that UZR is wrong, or that it’s just broken when it comes to the Indians. But Cleveland’s DER, calculated in a very, very different way, shows that they’ve been poor too. I feel confident that *something* was wrong with Cleveland’s defense, but I’m not confident at all about who caused it.
The second thing that stands out about Cleveland is their starting pitching. Thus far in 2015, their starters have struck out over 26% of opposing batters, a startling 10.10 K/9. They probably can’t keep that pace up, but they finished 2014 at 23.4%, the highest mark I’ve found – ever. That’s not surprising, given the increase in strikeouts overall, and that for most of baseball history, starters hitting 20% seemed nearly impossible. No team did it until the Indians hit 20.8% in 1968, the year of the pitcher, and then the Astros hit 21% the year after. From there, you get the top teams settling in around 18% through the 70s, dipping down to 15% or so around 1980, and rising back to 18% in 1985 (Dwight Gooden’s big year) and 20% in 1986 (Mike Scott, Roger Clemens, Nolan Ryan). From 1987-2000, the best teams were around 19-20%. That changed in 2001, when 4 teams topped 20% and the Randy Johnson/Curt Schilling Diamondbacks shot up to 22.4%. The D-Backs actually bettered that figure the next year, and 2003 saw the Prior/Wood Cubs jump to 22.5% before fading a bit in 2004-5 (they led MLB in all three years). 2009 saw Tim Lincecum’s first big year, and that pushed the Giants over 21%, the first club to do that since ’04. And then the pace of increasing strikeouts picked up league wide, as some group’s been above 21% each year. In 2013, the historically dominant Tigers pushed past 23% for the first time, as Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and a career year from Anibal Sanchez led the Tigers to the pennant. But their record would be topped the next year by Carlos Carrasco, Corey Kluber, Danny Salazar and Trevor Bauer. Who the hell are these guys?
Unlike the Rays/Orioles/Astros, there’s less of an overall, unified approach, at least to my eye. Trevor Bauer famously loves pitching up in the zone, and high-fastballs followed by curves or splitters can play tricks on opposing hitters. But Corey Kluber throws a sinker, not a rising four-seamer, and while he certainly doesn’t keep it at the knees, he doesn’t use his fastball the way Bauer/Chris Young do. He’s had some success when throwing high, but it’s not a defining approach the way it is for Bauer. Kluber and Carrasco have good hard sliders that have proven very effective, including against opposite-handed hitters. But Bauer’s was slower than his teammates’, and he’s known more for throwing 7-8 pitches, not one true weapon. Moreover, while all had decent stuff, none of these guys were elite K% pitchers before 2014. Carrasco had a K% under 16% in 2011. Bauer was at 21% coming into the year, and Kluber was at 19% in 2012.
Now, it makes some sense that if you see your teammates can’t reliably catch the baseball that you might take some steps to reduce the number of balls in play you allow. But it’s somewhat doubtful that mediocre defense is more of an incentive than the incentive that exists for all pitchers, from little league on, to get strikeouts. The question is, do the Indians DO something that results in an abnormally difficult-to-field set of balls in play? Is there some kind of trade-off where batters swing and miss all the time, but hit the ball well when they catch up to it? Are the Indians trading low contact for high contact quality? For one thing, they lead baseball in Zone%, the percentage of pitches in the zone, and contact on pitches *in* the zone is obviously better than contact on out-of-zone pitches.
But given the dominant K% numbers and above-average velocity, we’d expect the Indians BABIP to be *lower* than league average. That’s not what we see, as we’ve discussed. Instead, the Indians BABIP is awful, and that turns their eye-popping FIP into a mediocre group ERA, and that was true last year as well. Corey Kluber’s the poster child for this, as his FIP last year was lower than anything Felix has ever put up. But due to balls-in-play, his ERA came in above his FIP (and above Felix’s). This year, Kluber’s FIP is even lower, but his BABIP luck is worse, and thus the gap between his ERA and FIP is huge – but not as big as Carlos Carrasco’s.
So what’s going on here? Are these things related, or is the 2014-15 strikeout thing unrelated to Cleveland’s reliably lousy defending? If they’re separate, what accounts for the defensive performance? Is there some odd park effect at work here? Is the infield subject to more shadows than other parks? Is there a “fielder’s eye” behind the plate that slows an IF’s first step? If they’re related, what causes it, and why don’t we see it for other teams? The other teams that gave up really high BABIP last year – the Twins, D-Backs, Rangers, etc. employed low-K starters. I’m open to theories, conspiracy or otherwise, here.
Game 46, Mariners at Rays
King Felix vs. Chris Archer, 10:10am
Somehow, the M’s are going for the series sweep of the Rays, who came into the series on a roll and leading the AL East. Kyle Seager is a little bit hot right now, and no blown save is going to stop him from saving the win. Good luck with that, Chris Archer.
Archer’s another high-vertical rise, lots of four-seamers hurler with plus velocity. He’s also got a big slider that he’ll throw about 1/3 of the time, a sinker, and a change-up. Archer’s a bit like James Paxton in that he’s somehow able to get ground balls out of a fast, rising fastball.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Smith, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Miller, SS
8: Ackley, LF
9: Zunino, C
SP: The King
Game 45, Mariners at Rays
JA Happ vs. Alex Colome, 4:10pm
Yesterday’s game worked out pretty well, and the game plan for today’s pretty similar. Alex Colome’s a right-hander with a good fastball, a four-seamer with lots of vertical rise and almost no horizontal movement. In that respect, he’s likely roughly EVERY OTHER STARTER THE M’S HAVE FACED ON THIS TRIP*. Seriously, this is kind of interesting to me. The M’s recently faced the Orioles, whose starters feature an abnormally high average “rise” on their fastballs, and now they face the Rays, who actually lead the league in rising fastballs. The Rays take it a step further in another way, though. The Orioles rotation features guys with big four-seamers, but many of them (like Miguel Gonzalez and Wei-Yin Chen) mix in some sinkers as well. Not too many, as the Orioles rank 3rd in MLB in the percentage of four-seamers (FA in Fangraphs’ leaderboards) thrown by starters. The Rays again lead the league in four-seamer percentage, as they’ve all but eliminated sinking fastballs. If you add sinkers and two-seamers together (I still don’t know that there’s an actual distinction here), you find that the average team throws about 23% sinking fastballs, with the Pirates nearing 40%. Only the Rays are under 10%, at just over 7%, and much of that’s come courtesy of Erasmo Ramirez, who clearly isn’t endearing himself to the Rays or their fans at this point, and Drew Smyly, who’s out for the year. The gap between the Rays and Yankees in 2nd place is larger than the gap between the Yankees and Marlins, down in 9th place.
So the Rays – even more than the Orioles – clearly put a premium on establishing rising four-seamers. It’s an interesting approach, as you might expect it to reduce BABIP and contact, but result in tons of HRs. You can kind of see the opposite approach at work down in Houston, where the Astros rank last in four-seamers thrown overall, and 2nd in GB% behind the like-minded Pirates. The Astros HR/FB is a bit higher than the Rays, but by limiting the denominator, they rank fairly well in HR prevention, and as a result, they’ve got a team FIP of about 3.6. The Rays give up fly balls, but also get more strikeouts and have fewer baserunners, and, thanks to the likes of Kevin Kiermaier and Evan Longoria, run a low BABIP. The puts and takes are quite different, but the Rays end up with a team FIP of 3.7, and an ERA that’s a bit better than that. Neither team spends a ton of money period, and the Rays spend little on their rotation. They just cut their highest paid pitcher overall (Grant Balfour), and with Drew Smyly, Alex Cobb and Matt Moore rehabbing, the most expensive starter is Chris Archer, pulling in just over $1m per year. This pitcher type might be a way to cobble together a decent rotation – or rotation depth – on the cheap. I don’t think the Rays went into the year planning on Alex Colome and Nate Karns getting a ton of innings, but they’ve been decent when the Rays needed them.
So, back to Colome: his FB comes in around 95, and in prior years he’s been a change-up/slider pitcher. He developed a curve ball in 2014, and has been throwing that a bit more in 2015, particularly to lefties. But the big change in Colome’s repertoire is a move away from a slider and towards a firmer cutter (yes, the same move Odorizzi’s been making too). He always had a very hard slider – it was 88mph last year and it’s 87 this year, but the cutter’s even harder than that. It has very little horizontal movement, and as you’d expect, a bit less vertical drop. In 5 starts thus far, Colome’s control’s noticeably better – his walk rate’s under 3% despite throwing an average number of pitches in the zone. He can apparently throw a strike when he needs to. That said, his contact rate’s been rising, and he’s not the swing-and-miss guy he seemed like he might be when he debuted back in 2013. His splits have been all over the place in a very small sample (this’ll be his 12th big league start), and given the changes he’s made to his pitch mix, there’s just not much to go on there.
1: Jackson, CF
2: Smith, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Castillo, C
8: Miller, LF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Happ
The M’s are sending down Danny Farquhar to Tacoma to make room for Austin Jackson. That makes some sense, but it’s really just prolonging the big decision point facing the M’s. The club doesn’t want to go with six bullpen arms indefinitely, so this just buys them some time while they figure out if they want to option someone like Chris Taylor or jettison a vet like Dustin Ackley, Rickie Weeks or Justin Ruggiano. Bob Dutton’s blog post covers the options quite well.
Yesterday’s late loss dropped the Rainiers to 18-27. They face Omaha today, but haven’t named a starter at this point. With Taijuan Walker struggling, many would like to see the struggling righty switch places with someone in the Rainiers’ rotation, but that’s a bit tougher than it looks. Mike Montgomery’s on the 40-man and has pitched fairly well, but the team may want to get him more work in AAA – he’s struggled at the AAA level since 2011, and the M’s may want to take it slow with the talented but enigmatic Montgomery. Justin Germano would require a 40-man move (which isn’t THAT big of an impediment at this point thanks to the maybe-still-dinged-up Edgar Olmos), but hasn’t logged significant MLB time since 2010. McClendon favorite Jordan Pries was ineffective and is now hurt and another guy with big-league experience, Mike Kickham, was ineffective and then cut, so after that you’re looking at very short-term solutions like giving someone a spot start or two. If you’re going to do something like that, you may as well just have a bullpen day with Tom Wilhelmsen starting, so the M’s are in something of a bind here. The M’s need Walker to improve, and there just isn’t much depth behind him at this point.
Jackson, who you’ll remember rank last in the Southern League in ERA, face Montgomery today as Edwin Diaz tries to figure out AA. The righty’s had two sub-par starts in his introduction to the high minors, and now faces the SL’s 2nd-ranked offense.
Bakersfield lost the series finale to High Desert by a score of 4-3. Today’s an off-day, and then they’ll take their last-place offense to league leading Visalia. Austin Wilson hit his 3rd HR yesterday, which is something.
Clinton’s got the best record of the M’s affiliates at 21-24, and they’ll have Zack Littell – coming off a strong start where he threw 6 scoreless – on the mound against Peoria today. The L-Kings swept a double-header yesterday, taking game 1 5-1 over Burlington behind Lukas Schiraldi, and then winning the nightcap 2-1 on a 7th inning walk-off single from Chris Mariscal.
* Except Mark Buehrle, who at this point isn’t terribly similar to anyone.
Game 44, Mariners at Rays
Roenis Elias vs. Jake Odorizzi, 4:10pm
The M’s loss yesterday pushed them behind the Rangers and into 4th place in the AL West. The Rangers’ surge hasn’t dented the M’s playoff odds that much, both because the Rangers are bad, and because it’s coincided with 2 straight losses by the Angels.
The M’s head to St. Petersburg today to face the surprising Rays, who currently lead the AL East. Many expected something of a rebuild this year from Tampa after losing David Price, Wil Myers AND GM Andrew Friedman over the past year. Instead, they’ve been remarkably solid in all phases of the game – a 101 wRC+ at the plate, a 6th-best ERA/10th-best FIP from the staff, and excellent defense. Ex-Mariner Rene Rivera was a known defensive asset, and Kevin Kiermaier may be one of the best defensive OFs in the game, but they’re getting defense from unlikely sources, like, er, ex-Mariner farmhand Asdrubal Cabrera. They currently sport the 2nd best BABIP-against/DER in baseball, behind only the Royals. This has been critical, as they’re already missing two of their better pitchers in Alex Cobb and Drew Smyly. Cobb’s been a brilliant but injury-prone starter for Tampa, but he’s still contributing to the club.
It was Cobb who taught today’s starter Jake Odorizzi a splitter, and changed the career trajectory of the young right-hander. Odorizzi was part of two huge trades (one for Greinke, one for Shields) but never had an outpitch. He seemed like a solid #4-5 guy, but nothing more. Worse, with a sub-par change-up, lefties destroyed him. Before the 2014 season, he picked up Alex Cobb’s split-change thing (both Cobb and Odorizzi actually call it ‘the Thing’) and began throwing it a lot. He threw about 1/3 splitters last season, and he’s actually begun 2015 by throwing *more* of them. He now throws it nearly 1/2 the time to lefties, and now instead of getting destroyed by lefties, he’s running reverse splits. The pitch isn’t perfect – it gets fewer whiffs and grounders than Cobb’s or Iwakuma’s splitters. He gave up 6 HRs on it last year, or one fewer than Iwakuma’s given up in his *career*. The pitch also helps Odorizzi balance his fly-ball heavy fastball. With a 11″ of rise and little in the way of horizontal movement, Odorizzi’s fastball is an extreme fly ball pitch, and you can see that in his overall stats: only Chris Young had a lower GB rate than Odorizzi last season. That’s led to some issues with HRs, and that may be what’s behind his changing use of the pitch.
This year, Odorizzi is throwing fewer fastballs, with lefties seeing a lot more splitters and righties seeing more cutters. He started moving away from his slider last year and towards a firmer cutter, and that transition’s essentially done this year – he’s not thrown any sliders. The cutter isn’t really a swing and miss pitch; Odorizzi seems to use it to generate weak contact. And because he uses it so much to righties, it’s a big reason for his odd platoon splits. Odorizzi doesn’t just have a better wOBA against or FIP vs. lefties – he looks like a different pitcher. Lefties strike out much more and walk less. His K-BB% was twice as good vs. lefties last year, and this year the gap’s even bigger. Instead of chasing Ks, it looks like he’s trying to limit HRs and hard contact, and thus far, he’s done so. Still, given his approach and his improving command, the M’s should really get as many *right* handed hitters in the line-up as they can.
1: Smith, RF
2: Miller, LF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, DH
5: Seager, 3B
6: Ruggiano, CF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Taylor, SS
9: Zunino, C
SP: Elias
Oh well.
The Rainiers dropped the finale of their series against the I-Cubs yesterday 7-4, as Cubs prospect Javier Baez knocked two HRs against R’s starter Sam Gaviglio. Jesus Montero and Pat Kivlehan homered for Tacoma, and Kevin Gregg pitched his 2nd scoreless inning since joining the team. The Rainiers played an early game today in Omaha, and lost a tough one. The Storm Chasers scored five runs in the bottom of the 8th to beat Mayckol Guaipe and the Rainiers 8-5. Forrest Snow started and pitched well before he lost his command all of the sudden in the 2nd. Logan Bawcom came in, got out of a bases loaded jam, and pitched another 3 innings after that.
Jackson reeled in the Pensacola Blue Wahoos 6-5. The Generals trailed 4-0 before mounting a comeback. Dan Paolini had a 2 run triple that gave Jackson the lead. More importantly, the game featured Jabari Blash pinch hitting for Jabari Henry, the best pinch-hit since Corey Hart pinch hit for the other Corey Hart back in 2005. Jimmy Gilheeney starts for Jackson today against Wandy Peralta of Pensacola.
High Desert held off Bakersfield yesterday in 11 innings despite HRs from Tim Lopes and Carlton Tanabe. Dan Altivilla pitched well, but the 3-4-5 hitters for Bakersfield went 0-11. Tyler Pike starts today for the Blaze.
Clinton was rained out yesterday, and they’re playing two today. Lukas Schiraldi went in game 1, and Jarrett Brown starts game 2 against Burlington.
Game 43, Mariners at Blue Jays
Taijuan Walker vs. Aaron Sanchez, 10:07am
So the series finale features either a preview of two future stars or two command-challenged, over-hyped young fireballers.
Aaron Sanchez throws 95-99, and blew threw the low minors quickly. In the high minors, though, some issues started to appear. For one, he walked too many. For another, he stopped missing bats, and settled in around 7 K/9 or so. It didn’t hurt him too much thanks to all of that velocity and his avoidance of HRs. That wasn’t just luck, either, as Sanchez’s main fastball is a sinker at 96, and that’s why he’s got a GB% of around 60% in his brief MLB career. His K:BB ratio may never be pretty, but he still hasn’t given up too many runs. He made 20-odd appearances at the end of 2014 as a reliever, but he’s been the Jays 5th starter this season, and while his stats have declined, he’s still starting, which many prospect watchers believed he simply couldn’t do in the bigs.
That said, starting really has magnified some of the…issues Sanchez has. For one, his control problems have worsened, and in 45 IP this year he’s struck out 30, but walked 32 (and plunked a pair of hitters, too). For another, while he’s been death on a stick against righties, he’s developed some serious platoon issues. In his career, righties are hitting .129/.225/162 with 0 HRs while lefties enjoy a line of .258/.388/.451 with 6 HRs. Sanchez’s primary breaking ball is a curve that’s actually been effective against both, but he also throw a really hard (89-90) change-up that looks to have great movement (tons of horizontal run, plus sink), but that doesn’t seem to trouble lefties as much as it should. Taijuan Walker knows how that goes.
1: Miller, 2B
2: Smith, LF
3: Cano, DH
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Morrison, 1B
7: Castillo, C
8: Ackley, CF
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Walker
Six lefties in the lineup.
The Rainiers lost to Iowa yesterday 13-7 in Justin Germano’s first truly bad outing of the year. Patrick Kivlehan homered off of Yoervis Medina in the 7th, and Franklin Gutierrez had 3 hits. Sam Gaviglio starts today opposite Donn Roach, a one-time Angels farmhand who moved to SD in the Ernesto Frieri deal and was signed off waivers by the Cubs. He’s an extreme sinkerballer who posts eye-popping GB rates but little else.
Jackson beat Pensacola in 11 IP yesterday. Reds prospect Robert Stephenson got out of the first against the Generals, and ended up striking out *11* in just 4 2/3, but Jackson ran his pitch count up (he walked 5 in that stretch), and did some damage against the bullpen. DJ Peterson had a triple and IF Tyler Smith had two doubles. Jake Zokan starts against the Blue Wahoos today.
Bakersfield got blanked 5-0 last night against High Desert. Mavericks starter Richelson Pena had a perfect game into the 7th, as he’d retired the first 19 hitters to face him, but he gave up a single to Tim Lopes with 1 out. Ryan Yarbrough took the loss. Dan Altavilla starts today.
Clinton beat Burlington 10-2. Gianfranco Wawoe had 2 hits including his 3rd HR of the year. Patrick Peterson starts today.
Game 42, Mariners at Blue Jays
James Paxton vs. Mark Buehrle, 10:07am
Oh great, another absurdly early start.
The M’s face long-time foe Mark Buehrle, who’ll make his 18th career start against Seattle. The lefty’s fastball is now only about 85-86, but he put up a 3 fWAR season last year at the age of 35. He throws a four- and two-seam fastball, a good change-up, a cutter and a curve. Partly because he doesn’t strike anyone out, he’s known at least as much for his pace than his repertoire. On average, Buehrle’s delivered a pitch every 17 seconds or so, compared to a league average around 23. It’s early, but he’s cut another second off that average this year, averaging just over 16 seconds between pitches. With new rules in place to speed up the hitters that used to slow Buehrle down, it makes sense that his pace should be down a bit from his career numbers. By eschewing overthinking and routine, Buehrle shaves plenty of time off a game. This is how you come up with something like this: a game between the M’s and White Sox in 2005 that took 1:39 to complete.
Who’s the fastest worker on the M’s staff? It’s actually today’s starter, James Paxton, whose pace ranks 10th in the league so far (Buehrle is, obviously, #1). Paxton seems to have righted the ship a bit after a poor start, and he continues to benefit from a low BABIP, but his control issues have resulted in lots of hitters’ counts thus far. That may be part of the reason why he’s given up so many more fly balls this year than ever before. He’s still a ground ball guy, but definitely not as extreme as he was before 2015. Toronto’s obviously a place where fly balls get punished, as park factors or Mark Buehrle’s elevated HR rate will tell you.
1: Weeks, LF
2: Bloomquist, RF
3: Cano, 2B
4: Cruz, RF
5: Seager, 3B
6: Ruggiano, CF
7: Morrison, 1B
8: Zunino, C
9: Taylor, SS
SP: Paxton
Lots of righties today, but Buehrle doesn’t have much in the way of platoon splits.
Justin Germano starts for Tacoma today in Iowa. The I-Cubs topped Tacoma 10-9 last night, getting a walk-off win against Mayckol Guaipe in the 9th. Leon Landry and Carlos Rivero homered for the Rainiers.
Jackson faces Pensacola and enigmatic Reds prospect Robert Stephenson today. The Generals knocked Stephenson out in the 1st last month, but he’s still a guy with 97-98mph velo as a starter. The Blue Wahoos blanked the Generals yesterday 3-0. Jackson got 6 singles and 7 walks, but couldn’t get a timely hit to score a run. Today’s starter for Jackson is well-traveled vet TBD.
Bakersfield lost to High Desert 5-2, as Eddie Campbell did indeed get out of the first, but was knocked out after 2 IP and 5 runs allowed. That lowered his Cal League ERA to 37.13. Tyler O’Neill hit his 11th home run in the 8th. He’s got an OPS over 1.000 in May after struggling mightily in April. Still only 19, the OF from Maple Ridge, BC seems to have figured something out; his K:BB ratio was 31:1 in April, but just 15:6 in May, with the same number of ABs in each month. Ryan Yarbrough starts tonight for the Blaze.
Burlington beat Clinton 10-7 yesterday, despite two doubles from Gianfranco Wawoe. Tyler Herb starts tonight’s game against Jeremy Rhoades of the Bees.