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Baseball is for fun. At least, it's more fun for Dr. D than explaining to his boss why the IRS is auditing. In order to be fun, there's got to be some hope. SSI has always insisted, therefore, in casting the searchlights about for reasons to keep da faith. If he wanted to impress audiences with his surgeon-cool objectivity, he'd write about Bernie Sanders ...
Dennis Miller had a funny throwaway line yesterday. OSU students would gladly move to Cuba if they didn't need a connecting flight to get there ...
Mariners fans would gladly watch 0-0 soccer draws if they could find the right channel.
....
Jon Gruden's Quarterback Camp, do you ever watch that? He had that small-college guy on, Carson whatsisname ... Carson Wentz ... In 2015 the defending national champ Bisons had a terrible loss to open their season and Gruden, in his inimitable style, wallowed in the loss with Wentz. What was that like, to face that adversity? How exactly did you rally the troops? What was your message?
Kid smiles benignly ... nothing you can do but go back to work the next week. (Which they won 41-14, en route to a long series of blowouts and another championship.) Gruden at the end of the show looks into the camera and addresses the NFL, this is the kid you want.
Fine for us fans to lose it in the stands, whether in happiness or despair. The guys on the field have to stay on point. Personally I liked the stories about the M's team meetings this week; Servais' job is exponentially tougher since he doesn't have a resume for players reporters to buy into.
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Didn't see the game Wednesday - was working a long day - but Servais raved about Taijuan Walker's toughness despite "some long-at bats against him in the first inning." According to Brooks, Taijuan lacked good offspeed stuff again, but ... he seems to be getting into the habit of locating pitchers' pitches even when he's not getting swings and misses. That's indeed a good sign of a plateau leap, not a leap into 9 strikeouts per game, but a leap into Quality Starts With Your Grade B Stuff.
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BY THE NUMBERS
9.99 / 2.52 / 0.88 - What are the Mariner pitching staff's Three True Outcomes
Noah Syndergaard, Corey Kluber - to which starting pitchers are these stats most comparable
3.17 - What is the Mariners' team FIP (fielding-independent ERA)
White Sox - which AL team has a better FIP than this
The others - which AL teams have worse FIP than this
17.3% - What is Nick Vincent's SwStr%
85.7% - What is Vincent's first strike %
1+ - What are the FIPs of Zych, Montgomery, and Nuno
....
71 / 30 / 13 - The M's hitters' K / BB / HR totals
91 / 23 / 8 - What are their opponents' K / BB / HR totals
78% / 130% / 163% - The above Three True Outcomes advantages expressed as ratios
>100 - what would be your expected Win total if you had the above ratios at the end of the season
95% / 106% / 111% - What were the 2015 Cardinals' TTO ratios (100 wins)
90% / 142% / 129% - What were the 2015 Dodgers' TTO ratios (92 wins)
84% / 78% (yep) / 90% (yep) - What were the 2015 Royals' TTO ratios (95 wins)
94% / 132% / 106% - What were the 2001 M's TTO ratios (116 wins)
NO - Does this assure 100+ wins
YES - Does this indicate a very strong "component success" trend
...
.224 - The M's BABIP
.299 - Their opponents' BABIP
29% - The M's hard-hit ball rate
27% - Their opponents' hard-hit ball rate
.205 - The M's batting average with runners in scoring position
.174 - The M's slugging average with runners in scoring position, two out
-3 runs - defensive runs lost, according to John Dewan (all at shortstop. Couple of big errors early)
...
28% - Typical hard-hit ball ratio in American League
Leonydas, Guti, Lee, Lind, Seager, Smith, Cruz - who are the M's hitters with ratios well above 28%
Aoki, Marte - Who are the M's hitters with ratios below 20%
+0.6 Wins - Leonys Martin's offensive impact in first 9 games
4 - on scale of 1-10, how does Martin's strike zone control look early (not too bad)
47.1% - Leonydas' hard-hit ball rate
Wobbling - Where is Dr. D on his preseason forecast of early burial for Leonydas
...
2 of 3 - How many wins should the M's expect in NYY, if they have a K / BB / HR advantage
Karns (SSI Best Bet, 175 K in 176 IP), Felix (2.56 FIP, 4 hits in 13 IP), and Iwakuma (2.37 FIP) in New York. Yankees serve up three righties to you SSI denizens: a young Luis Severino, Masahiro Tanaka, and a perhaps-fading Michael Pineda. Here is an article from Yankees' fans fretting over Tanaka.
See you at the ballpark,
Dr D
I find it amazing that year after year that the Mariner hitters consistently hit the ball harder than most teams, and in fact are consistently in the top 5 in this category. Normally hitting the ball harder is considered a good thing... but how many times in the past few years have we seen Seager, Cano, Smith, and others hit a one bouncer or line shot right at a fielder and it turns into a double play. Can this all really be bad luck... year after year?
I wouldn't even be able to hypothesize it. :- )
Thankfully, we can challenge the premise that the M's are doomed to lower BABIP than their opponents. Last year, the M's lost the BABIP war, but by only .292 to .298; in 2014 the figures were .290 to .275 in their favor; in 2013 they lost the BABIP by .279 to .303. And of course 2014 was the year they were 87-75.
Sure feels like they're losing the luck battle this year, is 'cause they are. .224 to .299, never mind the RISP luck.
a couple reactions seeing it from the stands
0-11 vs LHP, which was always the great concern.
8-16 vs RHP....with a BABIP of .778. Hard to imagine THAT continuing.
However I have read a couple comments on other sites about how bad the balls/strikes calls were again.
How bad was it?
Taijuan -3 strikes taken away, with +1 strike given to him ... three or four more verrry close pitches called balls. IMAGE
A.J. Griffin with -2 or -3 taken away from him, +2 or +3 strikes given ... four or five very close pitches called balls. IMAGE
Probably in this case the starters were treated pretty equally by the ump. Good Q's Rain :- )
Good stuff Diderot.
... yes, I agree that Leonydas is not a roto trade target. :- ) Just acknowledging the early returns going against me.
