So far this year, League has struck out just 5.19 batters per 9 innings. He has also walked 5.19 batters per 9 innings. It doesn’t take a sabermetrician to figure out that a pitcher that walks as many as he strikes out isn’t going to cut it in the big leagues. Out of pitchers that have thrown at least 20 innings (again, slightly more than League has thrown), here is the complete list of guys that have walked more than they have struck out (no one has walked exactly as much as they have struck out League): Ubaldo Jimenez, Jonathan Sanchez, Derek Lowe (who has walked less than 3 batters per 9 innings, but also had an ERA over 6 last year), Luis Mendoza, Rafael Dolis, Jason Marquis, Kevin Correia, and Jeremy Guthrie.

League’s velocity is also down. In his career (according to Brooks Baseball, Fangraphs has been really inconsistent on how it categorizes his pitches, but their data also shows that his velocity is down) he has averaged 96.60 MPH on his fastball. On Thursday, he averaged 93.60 MPH on his fastball. 3 MPH is a big difference. Countless articles on Roy Halladay’s drop in velocity has been written, and it has dropped about 1 MPH from last year. Scott Kazmir went from very good pitcher to unemployed on about a 4-5 MPH drop. It is always a big deal when someone has that kind of velocity drop. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the pitcher can’t gain the velocity back, but it is concerning until they can.

League has also seen a change in his release point:

As you can see, League made a change in his release point earlier in his career and it turned him into a solid reliever. However, there is no reason for another change in release point at this time. This, combined with his velocity, makes you believe that something is really wrong with League. Again, as I have emphasized, this is still a pretty small sample size at just over 17 innings, but the trend is not good. I am not going to speculate on whether this has to do with age, an injury, or just a slow start. I simply don’t know, but we have an explanation it seems for how he is bad. We just don’t know why he has been bad.

And bad he has been, as his win probability sits at a career low, as does his ground-ball to fly-ball rate. In his career, League has gotten 2.83 ground-balls per fly-ball. This year so far? 1.44. While 1.44 is a good ground-ball rate that most pitchers would be proud of, but like everything else, is outside of his career norms. In 2011, League had a SIERA of 2.74, and he has a 3.28 in his career. This year his SIERA sits at an appalling 4.96. While FIP likes him better so far this year, it isn’t controversial to say tat League isn’t right.

The first story of the game was that Mike Carp was scratched right before the game started. I thought this would be the headline and this is what I would be writing about. Then, Eric Wedge decided to start Chone Figgins in left instead of Casper Wells. This is obviously a stupid decision. However, this wasn’t the story of the game either. During the game, Jesus Montero gave up a passed ball and then made another error (and Chone Figgins made it worse by making am error of his own). I then thought I would be writing about the general ineptitude of Montero’s defense and his slow start (which may be meaningless offensively). Yet, this was not the story either. The real story was that King Felix was no King. Sure, he got no help from hos defense, but he looked more like a peasant than a king. Overall, Felix threw 103 pitches, 60 for strikes (a little bit low strike percentage) and jammed it into 3.2 innings. He got 10 ground-balls, 3 strikeouts swinging, 3 walks, 3 line drives, 3 fly-balls, 1 infield fly-ball, 1 HBP. You notice 2 things, he got the ground-outs and 3 swinging strikeouts is pretty good for 3.2 innings. So that would indicate that the stuff was there. With the loss in velocity and virtually no speed differential between his fastball and change-up, this is a big deal. Despite 10 hits allowed, it doesn’t seem like hitters have caught up to him and he can’t get big league hitters out. It looks like it is all about control (hence the same amount of walks as strikeouts, more if you count hit by pitches, which you should, since it is a hitter put on without putting the ball in play).

Control has always been a part of King Felix’s game, as he has struck out 3 times as many hitters as he has walked in his career, walking less than 3 per 9 innings. For whatever reason, perhaps just randomness, that was not part of his game on Wednesday. Another thing that has been strange for Felix, in a very strange season so far for him, is his home road splits. As much as one is tempted to chalk up much of Felix’s success to Safeco Field, the difference between his career home starts (3.15 ERA, 1.194 WHIP, 8.5 K/9IP) and road starts (3.25 ERA, 1.239 WHIP, 8.0 K/9IP) aren’t very big. However, in 2012, that hasn’t been the case. Before Wednesday’s start, Felix had a .439 OPS at home and .669 OPS on the road. He has now given up 19 runs in 39.2 innings on the road, versus just a .78 ERA at home. However, his K/BB ratio and strikeouts in general are down on the road as well. So it is not just the comfy confines of Safeco, it is a different Felix. What does it mean? My suspicion is not much. Most likely, it is just random statistical quirks that we always see in the first half of the season. However, it is another thing that we see about Felix that is not like pre-2012 Felix. It certainly seems that he is a different pitcher. It doesn’t mean he won’t be a good pitcher, as he still looks like a good pitcher, he still gets awesome movement, it just means he is different and adjustments will have to be made.

The team averages 6.55 runs per game, more than a full run above the 2nd best offensive team. Do the Mavericks have the best hitters in the league? Perhaps, I don’t really know how to quantify this, but does it seem rational to say that the Mavericks’ hitters are a full run per game better than the 2nd best team? No. It is much more reasonable to conclude that something funky is going on with their park.

Prospect Brad Miller’s home/road splits (courtesy of Baseball America) is probably the best example of the difference between home and road games for High Desert. At home, he is slugging .765. On the road? Just a measly .300. Patrick Brady, who at 24 is a little old for the level, is hitting .407/.448/.556 at home. On the road, his slash line is .211/.268/.289. Stefan Romero is hitting .392 at home, he is hitting .314 on the road with a drop of over .200 in Slugging Percentage. Jack Marder is slugging .652 at home, and .353 on the road (Glaser did talk to a scout that views Marder as a Major League player). Even though he has already popped a couple homers in AA since being promoted, Stephen Proscia slugged .843 at home, and .329 on the road.

This affects pitchers as well of course, as even though Anthony Fernandez has a better GO/AO ratio at home, his ERA is a full run higher at home. Tyler Stanton hasn’t been particularly good on the road (5.68 ERA), but he has been even worse at home, with an ERA over 10. Wily Kesler has an ERA of 1.61 on the road. At home, Kesler has given up 10 earned runs in 3.1 innings. Austin Hudson is another pitcher that doesn’t like the home ballpark, with an ERA over 8.

While there are exceptions, such as Julio Morban and pitchers Roenis Elias and George Mieses, the general rule is that pitchers stats will be worse and hitters stats will be better in High Desert. The crazy game last night was a perfect example. I wrote this post so Mariner fans (or just general minor league fans) won’t read to much into a hitter that is crushing the ball there, or a pitcher that is laboring there. There is a reason Taijuan Walker and Danny Hultzen were never allowed to pitch there.

“Last year, Josh Beckett’s fastball averaged 93.0 MPH, and he topped out at 94-95 with regularity. This year, Beckett’s fastball is averaging just 91.5 MPH, and the fastest pitch he threw last night was 92.9 MPH”

and:

“Maybe the story should be that Josh Beckett just isn’t healthy enough to perform up to his usual standards. I know, I know, that’s not nearly as fun as assassinating someone’s character, but it’s the conclusion that best lines up with the evidence.”

Dave Cameron could never get a job in Boston sports talk radio (they might let him intern if he is real nice).

In related news, Josh Beckett threw 7 scoreless innings with 9 strikeouts and 2 walks against the Mariners on Tuesday. The Mariners managed just 6 baserunners in 7 innings off the pitcher that reportedly killed everyone’s puppy. So Beckett’s velocity was back correct? No:

Start against Cleveland:

Start against Seattle:

As you can see, this was basically the same Josh Beckett that pitched terribly against the Indians. His release point was a bit more consistent, but his pitch locations were really similar excluding a few balls that went way up in Cleveland (this screams release point):

So a Mariner fan/writer/organization member is left with two choices: The Mariners can make even bad pitchers look good, or the Mariners really need to stop eating so much chicken and playing so much golf.

When not striking dudes out, Mariners relievers can be found standing, looking

The Seattle Mariners Baseball Playing Club has spent the last several seasons as a source of frustration. This frustration stemmed from mediocrity, sure, but also by the predictable nature of that mediocrity. In 2010 the Mariners lost 101 games with a good defense, good rotation, terrible bullpen and terrible offense. In 2011 the Mariners lost 97 games with a good defense, good rotation, terrible bullpen and terrible offense. The 2012 incarnation of the team was supposed to feature the same above average defense, a lessened rotation, an improved bullpen and an improved offense. Hope for a better tomorrow, mixed with a healthy dose of more of the same.

So far the defense has been great, the rotation has probably been overachieving and the offense is still superlative in the same way that Jose Lopez is superlative. But blah blah blah, enough about the same-olds. The bullpen has been either disastrous or fantastic, depending on how you look at it, and it’s the bullpen that I currently find myself thinking and writing about. The bullpen has been interesting, and it deserves a closer look.

There was a lot of optimism surrounding the pen going into the season. The team signed some interesting free agent relievers, unlike in seasons past when they signed Jamey Wright, twice. Shawn Camp, Hong Chih Kuo and George Sherrill all seemed like good, or at the very least plausible, bets to contribute in an otherwise-young bullpen filled with curiosities. There was Brandon League, now a “proven closer” coming off his best season as a professional. There was Charlie Furbush, poised to succeed as a bullpen lefty after a disappointing trial in the rotation. There was Tom Wilhelmsen, and Chance Ruffin, and Steve Delabar, and Shawn Kelley, amongst others. The bullpen, it seemed, could hang with the league’s best.

So far, they haven’t. The team has received less-than-nothing from their three “big” free agent pickups, as Kuo and Camp were released before the season even started and Sherrill made but two brief appearances before shredding his elbow like the delicious pork that it isn’t. The bullpen has been mostly manned by the kids, and the kids, by some measures, are blowing it.

By tRA the M’s pen ranks 27th in the majors. They are tied with the Pirates at 25th in WAR with 0.0 over 98.2 innings. They rank 28th in FIP. Based on these metrics the Mariners bullpen looks awful, again, as usual, despite all the signs that progress was on the way. But upon closer examination, perhaps they haven’t been so terrible after all.

Strikeouts are good. Everyone knows that. Strikeouts are good, and generally predictive of success. Strikeout pitchers often are highly successful, and in short it’s better to strike dudes out than to not strike dudes out. When it comes to striking dudes out, the Mariners relief corps have been excellent. The bullpen is running an 8.67 K/9 and a 2.64 K/BB, both solidly above average figures. Better yet, those numbers include George Sherrill and his zero Ks as well as Erasmo Ramirez, who struck out virtually nobody before heading back to Tacoma to start, which is what he should be doing. Brandon League hasn’t struck anybody out either, but he’s been fine. Take a look at what the relievers on the active roster are doing:

League average K/9 for relievers so far in 2012 is 8.67. League average K/BB for relievers has been 2.64. Based on this so much is clear: the Mariners young power arms have been, well, powerful. The entire non-closer contingency of the bullpen has posted an above average strikeout rate, with most of the prominent contributors soaring well above the mark. League and Luetge have issued too many walks, but the rest of the bullpen is surviving in that area. Steve Delabar’s hilariously fantastic 7 strikeouts-per-walk rate ranks tenth in the majors amongst relievers with over 10 innings pitched. By some measures, namely K/9 and K/BB, the bad-on-the-surface Mariners bullpen has actually been dominant.

Of course, strikeouts aren’t everything and the bullpen has been stumbling all year. We’ve had to watch some painful games where the relievers couldn’t hold a lead, or where they let a close game get out of hand. But under the microscope it would appear that things are bound to turn around soon. Even further under the microscope, actually underneath the microscope entirely and perhaps even underneath the table, even more reason for positivity exists. For the first time in a long time the Mariners have multiple exciting relief prospects, which are a real thing, relief prospects. Stephen Pryor was just promoted to close for Tacoma and Carter Capps has been stupendous as the new Jackson closer. Chance Ruffin is still a highly regarded prospect and there’s been rumblings that Mauricio Robles could finally put it all together in relief. Remember Mauricio Robles? While the current crop of young guys are busy striking out major leaguers there is another batch waiting in the high minors for their time to shine.

Many have decried that trading Brandon League would be a disaster of a move given the instability of the pen as it currently stands. That instability is highly overstated and the next wave of relief talent looks to be coming along just about as nicely as one could reasonably expect. Don’t worry about the bullpen. Based on the current indicators, they’ll be just fine.

That is not what I really wanted to write about though. In a double header against the Tennessee Smokies (making up for a rain out on Sunday), the AA Jackson Generals trotted out Mariner prospects James Paxton and Taijuan Walker.

The big tall lefty that gets on top of the ball well wasn’t afraid to throw breaking balls early in the game. This is usually a sign of an advanced pitcher (or a junkballer, which Paxton is certainly not), but he walked the leadoff hitter (2 walks in the first inning) and then quickly gave up a homer on an off-speed pitch down the middle. He then gave up a warning track out. A quick disclaimer, the ballpark of the Tennessee Smokies is a very hitter friendly ballpark. It has pretty small dimensions, and once you mix that with the air and win, you have a very anti-pitcher ballpark. This was pretty apparent throughout the games. Overall, he had a good slider that got some swing and misses when they were down. He also has a curveball with decent arc. Again, it is worth noting that he threw a lot of breaking stuff. He made a silly error defensively, but responded by getting a double play and then another ground-ball. There is absolutely no reason to believe that he won’t be a very good ground-ball pitcher if he gains more command. The command wasn’t there on Monday though, especially with his fastball. A pitch on the inside of the plate was pulled for a homer by Junior Lake, which started a horrible sequence for Paxton. He walked the next guy on pitches that weren’t even close to the zone, gave up a line drive on a ball in the middle of the plate, then balked, had a 2 RBI Sac Fly that nearly left the park, threw a fastball 10 feet high, and then finally got his first strikeout. Overall, he threw just 50 % strikes, went 3 innings with 4 walks and 2 strikeouts (5 runs).

Yoervis Medina came in and made us forget all about how terrible Paxton was by one upping him. He had major control problems with his breaking stuff (really all of his pitches). He gave up 3 balls hit off the wall and was just absolutely rocked. He also had some bad luck on a weird bouncer. With that said, he has a good fastball with above average movement and velocity and his breaking stuff looks promising. Remember, Medina is on the team’s 40 man roster. Moises Hernandez, the less celebrated Hernandez in the Mariners organization, looked pretty bad in his first appearance since coming off the DL. He had an inconsistent arm slot, and threw balls in the middle of the plate with pedestrian velocity.

Offensively, Kalian Sims had an ugly strikeout on a Trey Mcnutt breaking ball. Mcnutt looked really good and was really nasty outside of two Stephen Proscia home runs to right (watch out Rich Poythress, who is on the DL. That is why Proscia is currently in AA. Poythress had a misleading big 2011 in hitter friendly High Desert). The ball was definitely carrying in that first game. Francisco Martinez showed some good plate discipline I thought, with some long at-bats with fouls. Combined with his athleticism, at-bats like that make him drool worthy. Daniel Carroll just missed a homer on a foul ball and chased a breaking ball to strikeout in that at-bat.

In the second game, Taijuan Walker showed off his good fastball (94-97 MPH), but really had no command of it. He may not have had command problems to the extent that Paxton did, but it was close, as it was a real issue for Walker. In the 2nd inning, he hit two straight batters, and walked the very next one. His breaking stuff had nice late movement and deception. He threw his curveball (76 MPH) when he was in trouble and then struck out Brenly. When he went back to his fastball, he gave up a hard ground-ball for a run. He then exited with an apparent injury, probably on his ankle as he seemed to hurt it covering first. It doesn’t look like it was serious, but who really knows.

Unlike the first game, when they lost 15-4, Jackson won this game 3-1 as Carter Capps got the final 4 outs on 17 pitches. Overall Walker/Paxton went less than 6 innings combined and gave up 6 runs and walked as many batters as they struck out.

Perhaps paradoxically, Pettitte had a more consistent release point after about a year off than October of 2010. Of course, who knows what a pitcher’s arm feels like in October after a long season, and one would guess that Pettitte was nothing but fresh in his start against the Mariners. Velocity wise, Pettitte hit 90 MPH and averaged 88.43 MPH on his fastball. This is a slight down tick from the last start in the Majors for Pettitte, as he hit 91.1 MPH and averaged almost 89 MPH. The drop isn’t drastic, and it really couldn’t have been, as he was below average in the first place. The 2 seam fastball is what gave the Mariners the most trouble, as he got 4 swing and misses, with 8 strikes not put in play.

Pettitte’s overall plan against the Mariners was pretty obvious, as evidenced here:

For comparison, here is Pettitte in his last start, as talked about above:

Pettitte was obviously missing to the left a whole lot more on Sunday. He also had more pitches on the lower right in the playoffs in 2010 than he did on Sunday? What does this mean? I don’t exactly know exactly. Casper Wells got a rare start (which makes very little sense. You would think that a young player like Wells would be given full playing time considering the Mariners current situation) and was in the 2 hole. He had a big game, with 2 hits, including a homer, with a walk. Here is Gameday on Wells homer:

Brendan Ryan was back in the lineup, hitting 9th (the best spot for him) and he didn’t get any hits, but he drew a walk. Justin Smoak and Alex Liddi also had 2 hits apiece. Overall, Pettitte walked 3 batters and struck out 2, giving up 4 runs in 6.1 innings.

Kevin Millwood had a solid start, getting 6 ground-outs and 4 fly-outs and giving up just 1 run in 7 innings. Millwood was due for this kind of start, as his ERA has been much higher than his FIP and what his peripherals suggest his ERA should be.

Brendan Ryan is third on the team in Fangraphs WAR with .6 thanks largely due to a great defensive rating of 6.5 (meaning UZR thinks he has saved the Mariners 6 and a half runs over an average defender). Ryan has a positive baserunning rating as well, unlike Kawasaki. However, he is in the doghouse and was benched on Saturday. Manager Eric Wedge says he wasn’t able to “defend himself” in a key at-bat on Friday. Make no mistake about it, Brendan Ryan is not hitting. Even though he is walking above league average (a nice team leading 13.2 %), he has an Isolated Slugging of .080 (.200 is usually considered pretty good) with an OBP of .267. However, it is not as if Kawasaki is hitting either, as his .194/.286/.194 line causes Mario Mendoza himself to weep. Remember that ZIPs projected Kawasaki to have an OPS + of 67 (Brendan Ryan has a 76 OPS + for his career) and a .277 expected OBP (using his Japan stats in my NPB metric).

On Saturday, in place of Ryan, Kawaski went 0-3. In his first at-bat, he saw one pitch, a high (in the strike zone) fastball and he hit it for an out:

In his 2nd at-bat, Kawasaki lasted a little longer, and saw some good pitches to hit. However, he hit into another out, flying out to Curtis Granderson:

Kawasaki saw 2 more strikes in his 3rd time to face Hughes, but as with his previous 2 at-bats, he hit into another out.

Kawasaki is seeing a lot of strikes and not doing anything with them. This is obviously a sign of a hitter who isn’t big league caliber. He has actually been more patient than I expected him to be, as you can see here:

There is nothing wrong with his approach, he isn’t swinging at many outside the zone pitches and is swinging at pitches in the middle of the zone. The pitches he is taking are pitches out of the zone or on the corners. There are two ways to look at this, the pessimist way, or the optimist way. The optimist would say that his approach is good and the results will follow as the sample size grows. The pessimist would say that he simply doesn’t have the ability to get hits and get on base in the Majors, even if he has a good approach. Maybe his bat speed, strength, etc. is too inferior to do anything with good pitches. Since the sample size is so small, one could probably make a good argument either way. I certainly hold to the pessimist view because of the projections, but as the sample size grows, I could turn out to be wrong. So what does this have to do with the Mariners and the Brendan Ryan situation?

Ryan has by far the best fielding rating of shortstops in baseball (Jed Lowrie is a distant 2nd with a 4.0 to Ryan’s 6.5) and is the 13th best shortstop in baseball according to WAR. This means he is slightly above league average, and only 3 of the shortstops above him have BABIPs .300 or under, meaning most of the shortstops above Ryan are due for some kind of regression. Ryan’s BABIP sits at just .190 so the law of averages state that Ryan won’t keep hitting .149/.267/.230. It was absurd that Wedge hit him in the 2 hole in the lineup, but Ryan is a good player. To castrate one of your best players in the media is also a sign of bad managing, and Wedge has a long history of doing just that.

Iwakuma had the much publicized bad spring (Albert Pujols had a great spring, Josh Hamilton had a terrible spring) and was booted out of the rotation and sent to the bullpen. The Mariners plan has obviously been to hide him in the bullpen, as he has gotten into just 3 games so far this year. There have been some encouraging signs in those games though.

To give you an idea of how his velocity has crept up, Brooks Baseball includes some of his Spring Training appearances with his regular season appearances (when concerns about his velocity were plentiful) and lists his fastball as an average of 90.54 MPH and 89.18 MPH for his sinker. Fangraphs has just his regular season velocity counts, and it lists him with a 91 MPH fastball (about league average) with a 90.8 MPH sinker. So there has been an uptick in his velocity. According to NPB Tracker’s velocity charts, Hisashi was averaging anywhere (depending on which start you looked at) from 88-89 MPH on his fastball last year. It doesn’t seem to be a “slow gun” either, as it has Yu Darvish’s average velocity higher in Japan than it has been in the U.S. In his last appearance (against the Tigers on the 7th of May) Hisashi was averaging 91.36 on his fastball and 91.53 on his sinker. The velocity is building, and even though he probably won’t add on much more, his velocity is fine. There has been a bit of inconsistency in his release points, but nothing that is really alarming:

As you can see, he has 5 different pitches, and he can throw them all for strikes:

With such a small sample size, it is sort of hard to look at statistics, and as you would expect, we get some conflicting reports. His xFIP is 2.66, his FIP is 4.7, but his SIERA is 2.31. Of course, he has thrown all of 8 innings so this matters very little. In this limited time, he has a good ground-ball rate with a normal line drive rate. The problem is that the sample is just too small. We have gaps of knowledge when it comes to Iwakuma because we simply haven’t seen him pitch enough. He lurks in the shadows of the bullpen, never to be seen. His existence is but whispers and rumors, but like Jack the Ripper, no one really seems to know who he is.

I’m not saying he should be moved to the rotation, I have consistently been in favor of young pitchers getting a shot for the Mariners (especially in the rotation). However, it is absurd that the Mariners are just hiding him in the bullpen. They really should be using him more often as a long reliever. If he pitches like it looks like he can, and stays healthy, there could be some trade value for him at the deadline.

The amount of times he is walking has been tremendously down, as he is walking just 6.8 percent of the time (league average is about 8.3%) as opposed to his career average of 10.9 %. He is seeing less pitches per plate appearance, at 3.85, versus his usual 3.92. As much excuses as there was made for Smoak’s 2011, it has been his best year in his short career with a .719 OPS (.758 “neutralized”, meaning in a neutral run environment).

In May this year, Smoak has a laughable .136 BABIP to go with his .282 OPS. Obviously, the simple idea of regression to the mean teaches us that Smoak is due for some kind of bounce back, and he won’t hit this way forever. However, when someone’s statistics are that bad, it is easy to assert that he isn’t hitting the ball very well. So lets look at some spray charts:

Here is Smoak’s best month in the Majors according to BABIP, April 2011:

Here is Smoak so far this year:

The amount of times he is weakly hitting the ball to 2nd is striking. Hitting the ball to 2nd is probably not the way to elevate your run production. Last April, when he went to left field, the ball traveled further. You can see all the shallow outs he has made to that side in 2012. He is also suffering from a low BABIP on balls hit to center field at just .167. In April last year it was .538. So even though you can see the different locations in center, there is certainly luck playing into this. Overall BABIP was certainly a factor in Smoak’s April last year, with a .321 versus his career BABIP of .257 (league average is around .300). So April of 2011 is not who Smoak is, although it is probably safe to say that his 2012 start is not who he really is either.

Smoak has a career 1004 plate appearances and has a wOBA of .299 (.300 is considered poor, .290 is “awful:), .369 SLG, and .149 ISO. To further add to the pain, he has posted mainly negative defensive ratings over the past two years and plays the position that the most offense is expected. I have heard Justin Smoak called a AAA player, but that idea is really absurd. He only has 108 career AAA games, all in the hitter friendly PCL. In that time, his OPS is just .794. For comparison, 79 players with at least 33 at-bats in the PCL this year have a higher OPS. This includes Mariner minor leaguers Luis Antonio Jimenez, Guillermo Quiroz, and Carlos Triunfel. At some point, people are going to give up and declare that Justin Smoak just isn’t very good. Perhaps it was time to say that a long time ago.