Seattle Sports Insider

You Can Sit Back Down and Watch

in what mood, is purely up to you

Posted by

9/13/16

IN NFL TERMS

A week ago, the Mariners' playoff chances had dipped to 4% per Fangraphs simulated seasons. (Wild Card chances, Season to Date stats mode). This morning, after six wins in a row, those chances are back to 19.7%.

Pro Football Reference has a Win Probability Calculator for in-game scores and yard lines, so we can compare a football game to the Mariners' standings Then-and-Now.

THEN (4%): Behind 28-7 in the first quarter. (Four minutes left in Q1, your ball on the 50.)

NOW (20%): Behind 34-28 in the fourth quarter. (Five minutes left, your ball on the 25.)

Sooooo ... you walked out disgusted after the flurry of pick sixes in the first quarter. But while you were mowing the lawn, your son yelled, Dad, get back in here and see this! You shrug. What, we're down 28-17? Not hardly. You're a touchdown drive away from a win. Say what? Right - the M's are no more unlikely to make up 2.5 games on the Orioles than an NFL team is to sustain a long drive on a must-TD.

So, siddown and watch the game Tuesday night. The Seattle Mariners are back in the playoff race. That's all.

ARIEL MIRANDA

We've compared him to Roenis Elias - similar live 93 MPH lefty stuff, erratic, three pitches, weird release points, aggressiveness inside, effectively wild ... Elias with an erratic head and Miranda with an erratic center of gravity.

The M's have reportedly been "coaching him up" in a frenetic desperation. On Monday, he Up'ped. Mel Stottlemyre Jr. got the winter-flurry of strikes, at one point 27 strikes against 10 balls. So a question arises: did the Mariners just gift themselves a #3-4 starter with one month's terrific coaching?

....

Miranda against the Angels was a quirky, as hard to figure out, and as oddly pleasing as Zooey Deschanel.

se words to describe THIS facial expression. Or Ariel Miranda's split finger fastball.

You'll process Ariel more quickly if we bullet it out. (Zooey can't be processed via any known method.)

1) His second pitch is a mushy "foshball" slider like Paxton's. Not much break, and NO late break. Whereupon, this slider works well. For no reason I can grok. (Well, arm motion doesn't hurt, maybe.)

2) This foshball is weird in that he throws it LETTER HIGH. It's axiomatic that you cannot throw 80 MPH out and over. But Miranda does.

3) His 1-2 "strikeout" pitch is a splitfinger that he throws HIGH. Ummmmmmmm ....

Now sit right back down. We are Just. Getting. Loose. here.

4) His splitfinger SAILS HIGH AND WIDE. It doesn't drop like a shuuto. It rises, and runs armside. ????!?

5) His slider does the same.

6) The above 5 items refer merely to isolated pitch weirdnesses. The COLLECTION of his pitches in aggregate provide a three-pitch pattern that I have simply never seen before:

Ariel Miranda pitch movement, catcher's POV, fastball-slider-splitter

6a) I have no words.

7) That is real nice "hop" on a fastball.

...........

So why did it work? Because of ---- > "effective wildness" on many different levels. One of those sub-levels is the Cuban Syndrome on the arm angles:

Miranda's crazy release points, per Brooks Baseball

Summing up, Miranda's:

LOCATION does NOT help him (at all)
MOVEMENT does NOT help him (at all)
VELOCITY AND HOP does help him (a lot)
ARM ACTION and -11 MPH differential on the offspeed does help him (a fair bit)
UNPREDICTABILITY on location does help him (to some extent)
AGGRESSIVENESS INSIDE does help him (tons)

If Ariel Miranda is going to go 0-1, 1-2 and pitch ahead all the time, he'll get lots of quality starts. That's a big "if," but the "then" is something you as an M's fan can count on.

THE OFFENSE

What say, in the comments, you amigos each throw a 'tater in the pot around the trash can fire? Ben Gamel's first homer, a blast to the OFF field power alley? Vogelbach is up? Leonys Martin got his back thumb on top, left Carlos Peguero in the rear view mirror, and was a factor in 2016? Weird in-game corner OF platoon? Other?

SEE YOU AT 7:10

So Miranda gave us a real good start, and already it's only one game back to the Big Three. That bridge game Tuesday features a Taijuan Walker who also flashed last time around. How sweet these last few sips of meaningful baseball are.

Enjoy,

Dr D

Blog:

Postgame

Tags:

Ariel Miranda

Comments

And I missed it

Turned it off after the 7th:

1. Didn't get to see Gamel's blast (except on-line this morning)

2. Didn't get to see Vogelbach's first MLB AB

Drats to missing both

Did get to see Miranda:

1. If he gets a slider that eats dirt he's going to be tough. He seems to have so much movement up...the ball seems to want to sail. That isn't terrible with the fastball, if you can match it with a complementary "dirty" pitch. But then you've already pointed this out. Doc, Miranda's 141 innings this year (AAA/MLB) are the most he's ever thrown. He topped out at 127 in Cuba. His next start will be his 20th and that will tie his previous high.

Oh...he didn't pitch at all in '14 and he threw just 70 innings in '15. I think we've got a guy whose body is 27 but his arm is just 21....and his head (being a funky lefty Cuban) is just 18. He's thrown 598 inning of organized ball....in his lifetime. Taijuan Walker is just 24 and has thrown 809 NOT counting HS. Make it an even 1000 then.

Miranda is really just learning to pitch. And 27 is really just 22 for Cuban dudes. Cuellar didn't get his MLB shot until he was 27, then threw well for another 114 years. Almost. Tiant's best year was at 27 but he remained a crafty dude until he was 63 years old. Almost. LIvan Hernandez got to the bigs at age 22 (being more contemporary) but struggled until he was 28, then ran off a streak of three really good seasons. Camilio Pascual was really good from 25-30. He threw 65 complete games from seasons 27-30.

Cuban pitchers are weird. BTW, we have three Cubans in the clubhouse: We must have the best cigars in the league.

Anyway, bet'cha Miranda just keeps getting better for the next 2-3 years...it is the Cuban way. I think it is less that we "coach him up" and more that we let him find what works. Innings will help that. He's in the right clubhouse for support, too.

I like funky lefties. Give him the ball!

Senor Moe

Wasn't Chico Escuela late to the bigs, too? "Baseball been berry berry good to me," he said.

My appreciation for Miranda is entirely mercenary.

I'm competing for the championship of my paid/money fantasy league this week...yes...I made it back to the championship for the third year in a row. :)

And I had to start Miranda because my top starters were only getting one start this week and I was looking for double-start guys. Miranda got my 38 points...which I will absolutely take alllll day. :) One more this Sunday, kid.

Three thoughts

1) First of all, Moe, the comparison to Cuellar is inspired--that's EXACTLY who he reminds me of. Cuellar didn't get a rotation spot until he was 29. After three very good years at Houston they traded him for a slugger wannabe named Curt Blefary (he stayed there only a year). Oops. Cuellar won the Cy Young his first year as an Oriole (with 6.6 WAR), and averaged 3.7 WAR over seven seasons. Did not strike out people...walked more than you'd want...but somehow kept getting hitters out. Let's hope.

2) All hail the changeup. If there's any justice, Hendricks wins the Cy Young in the NL this year. Love him. Leading the league in ERA, FB averages less than 90, #2 in percentage of changeups thrown. Even more last night to take the no hitter into the 9th. There are 40 guys who average 97+ this year. Velocity is not the difference maker anymore. Maybe the changeup is the new undervalued asset? You know who else this profile fits? The new Felix: FB velo 90.4 this year, throwing 28% changeups (slightly more than Hendricks). Maybe next year there's a three day seminar in spring training on throwing the changeup--led by Felix. Kuma has the splitter instead. Walker throws it almost 20% of the time. Paxton 9%. Miranda not at all.

3) Euphemistically, you could say our chances for the postseason are 'hanging by the fingernails'. Which may be why I foresee, in true Mariner fashion, Paxton starting the last game of the season with the wild card on the line...while still nursing that fingernail!

If standings were set according to pythagorean

we'd be two ahead of the Rangers right now.

On the release points

If I recall correctly, Elias had a rainbow of separated colors while Miranda's appear to be mixed. He may be giving false reads to some hitters due to every pitch having varied release points. It seems more common that a different release point equals a different pitch than how Ariel's were yesterday.

It's now down to 13-5 or so which seems much more doable. Apr. 13-May 6th 15-5, Started August 14-5. I haven't stopped watching.

I said that Gamel and Martin hadn't gotten in to the offensive onslaught much and they go 5-5 with 4 runs and 2 RBI the same day. O'Malley and Ianetta today?