In some ways, Paxton might be the most desireable pitcher to have in all of baseball. Not that he's Kershaw (yet) or Felix, mind you: But that he's likely pretty close to those guys and he costs us about a buck ninety-eight, which leaves us with a loose $20M to throw at Cano or, say, the real Felix. After the '15 season I'm doing the Seager extension with Paxton. That would take me about 3 seconds to get done. I might do it tomorrow. Guys can't even hit a fly ball against him, for goodness sake.
Scene from opposing teams dugout, as another emasculated enemy batter meekly schlumps down the dugout steps.
Hitting Coach: "Hey stud, that was a durn fine at bat!"
Shell-shocked Orc batter: (with a Thousand Yard Stare, in near slow-motion turns to respond, clearly dazed and confused) "Huh?"
HC: "Durn fine at bat! You ripped that pop up to 2nd!! Flat out killed it! First ball in the air against him all day! Practically a line drive!"
Orc: "It ain't fair, coach. It just ain't fair!"
HC: (Pointing at the destroyed and broken batter bodies littering the Orc dugout) (Oh....and quoting Monty Python, btw) "Look at the bones, mon! Look at the bones!"
Doc, that's our Jimmy! Boy howdy I'm glad he's ours!
When both Elias (my goodness I love what he's about to become) and Walker aren't even in the conversation about who your best young starter type pitcher is (because of the presence of the BC Express), and when Hultzen isn't even in your top three, then you have something pretty ducky as far as young MLB-starter type arms are concerned.
I'm pretty much with you about Taylor: He's got "skills," as they say. There's some Ozzie Smith in his bat. Check it out guys, The Wizard was a fine offensive player. In the 9 seasons from '84-'92 (when he was winning 9 GG's) he was below 95 OPS+ only once. He did it with a bag full of doubles and the ability to walk 70-80 pts. If Taylor has that + glove, and he has that Ozzie bat....then you pencil him in for the next 10 years at SS. There is a bit of an "if" there.....but more and more the M's are behaving as if that "if" can be discounted. Me, too.
And, of course, you're dead on about our Zummie. Feel free, folks, to roll your eyes at his wild swings.....but the dude is a superb receiver and terrific handler...AND he hits 20+ taters. Remember Jerry Grote, Doc (of course you do)? He hit 39 homers in his entire 16 year career!!! His career averages were about ,250-,316-,326, with a homer about every 3 months. He was a heck of a catcher, however. In fact he was a heck of a MLB'er. Some of those Seavers and Koosmans sure liked him. Fans want Piazza's bat behind the plate. Manager's want Bench's (and Grote's) pitch calling, receiving and staff handling skills behind the plate. Zunnie gives us a whole bunch of that. I know there is a current of thought that says he wasn't ready to be a prime-time player, needing more farm club seasoning. I will respecfully disagree. He would always have to go through an MLB learning curve, anyway. Now he's through it...and our young pitchers are all the more well off for it.
Let us agree to partially disagree, however, on Ackley. I am HOPEFUL but that isn't quite CONFIDENT that he's fixed here. I'll take HOPEFUL, I suppose, because he's ours and is going to get 60+ games to show he's real. Last July I wan't anywhere close to hopeful! Go get 'em kid. Find the NC hero that's buried inside. Oh...and shave off that stupid House of David beard! What are we, the Orcs?
Merry Christmas all.
You guys are the best!
Moe
As you know, we live to serve :- )
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This last Thanksgiving, we rejoiced in the fact that the Seattle Mariners were doing their level best to nab one off this list of Stars:
- Justin Upton
- Nelson Cruz
- Matt Kemp
- Yoenis Cespedes
- Evan Gattis
In retrospect, how'd we do? Lessee. Had we rather have
- The 1-year rental at the cost of Hultzen, Marte, Tank, and a sweetener
- The guy with arthritis in two hips
- The blingage and the 104 OPS+
- The kid with Nelson Cruz' slash line, -10 percent, in two partial seasons, spotted?
We got the guy with the 173 Power Index, the healthy and proven guy, for four years, for nothing in trade. In September, the last we saw Nelson Cruz, he was hitting .349/.384/.604. There were a few Mariner DH's who did not. "Hitting," that is. Not .349.
By "a few Mariner DH's" we refer to Kendrys, who hit .183/.276/.355 as we battled for a pennant. Kendrys went -- to the AL Champs -- and Nelson stayed.
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We had a lefty 3 hitter, and a lefty 5 hitter. We grabbed the righty 4 hitter who just blasted 40 home runs, including a screaming meemie at Safeco off a tremendous Felix Hernandez pitch.
The Seahawks and Mariners get any more serious about customer satisfaction, Seattle will wind up honoring Portugal's tradition of joyfully setting the skyscrapers ablaze after every sports season.
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Hisashi Iwakuma in 2014: an xFIP of 2.85. I know a few Scherxers who didn't.
And you can hack into casual conversations on either side of the Pacific, bringing 'Kuma up to total strangers. You could literally go to Haikkido, say "Iwakuma!," pointing to your D-O-V coffee mug, and get smiles and nodding all around. Some things transcend wins and losses.
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My third-favorite thing about James Paxton: he throws 2.4 ground balls for every fastball. That particular saber molecule is not "noise;" batted ball types quickly resolve to true form. Paxton throws clonks, b'lee DAT.
We meant to say "2.4 grounders for every fly ball." But 2.4 grounders per fastball is more to the point.
My second-favorite thing about James Paxton: his "easy velocity." You should see me try to touch 60 at the radar gun: I break blood vessels in my fingers. (Yes, really.)
If he'd qualified, his 94.8 MPH pinwheel fastball would have been easily hotter than that of the #2 lefty in the bigs, Chris Sale (at 93.8). Several times last year he hit 99 MPH, and 98 MPH was nothing unusual. Normally, it occurred late in games.
My first-favorite thing is watching him stand on the mound, wondering if the batter is ever going to get in the box. James Paxton should be an Olympic sport. I know one guy who would watch it.
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Two great things about Kyle Seager: the fact that he is #1 in the majors since 2011, leveraged clutch hitting, and the fact that he's ours. Cheap. As far as the eye can see.
He's the only Mariner who gets truly mean-spirited when down by one run ... and we still have no idea what his voice sounds like. Seager is the Mariner least likely to accidentally head-butt Erin Andrews after a walk-off homer. Also the Mariner most likely to accidentally hit a walk-off homer into an Erin Andrews interview.
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A weird thing about Logan Morrison: Jack Zduriencik traded for him at a time when Jack Zduriencik already had Logan Morrison. No. That was the way Fangraphs put it, "The Mariners Challenge Justin Smoak With Justin Smoak."
The old, anti-hype, Justin Smoak got DFA'ed last September. Well, y'know. Meanwhile, the new, post-hype, Logan Morrison batted .342/.398/.645 last September.
If Morrison goes on to jell into a 120+ index batter -- let's give that a 30-40% "post-hype" chance, as we would if Morrison were an Astro or Ranger or Orc -- then the Carter Capps deal will have been a true masterstroke.
Android 16. I'm tellin' ya. Only an evil genius could have conceived it.
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Danny Hultzen: has Dr. D yet gushed enough that --- > he gets an adoption on this one, the way he kinda did on Paxton? Or do we need another coupla Santana West mapquests on it? It gets tougher and tougher for SSI to draw an opposing crowd ... :: acknowledges applause ::
We kinda forgot him.
So, Life Lesson Time: precious few baseball players get taken high in the draft, fire a 1.97 ERA on a quick tour of the minors, and win the ROY, thirty months after the draft. The tall guy taken ahead of Dustin Ackley, he visited a hospital or two before coronation.
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Robinson Cano: did you ever notice that in Superhero movies, it's always the guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth, vs. the self-made man who clawed his way to the top past all obstacles? Batman vs the Joker (and Bane), Superman vs Lex Luthor, Iron Man vs Obadiah?
And we root for the guy who couldn't lose if he tried? The guy moving three-quarters speed against a desperately-heroically-frantic Everyman? Russell Wilson dancing past agonized gladiators in sublime, aristocratic "ain't no thang" fashion. Our heroes must win, and as befits a scripted character. We put pictures of Che Guevara on our dorm walls, while secretly idolizing Marie Antoinette. It is the way of sport, grasshopper.
We don't know what comic book that Jonezie should submit based on a thinly-veiled Robinson Cano. A Frozone ripoff, probably. The abilities he can't leave out: impervious to bullets, heat, and being monologued.
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Something about Brad Miller I would never have expected: everybody, and by everybody I mean "the jaded Mariner blog-o-sphere," thinks he should play center field. Did you expect that?
Dr. D gives Chris Taylor a much, much better chance of a 90 OPS+ than the other blogs do, and therefore gives Miller a much better chance of being available for CF. Dr. D's camera angle is based on things they don't much grok:
- The KBIZLT analysis,
- The rawhide-tough strike zone battle, ruining tough pitches,
- The minors track record (saber = results matter),
- The way his offensive "game" fits the major league game
If Miller runs around out there in center the way he runs around second base on a gapper, and simply hits what he did in the 2H of 2014, he's going to remind people of a slightly downsized, triples-hitting Josh Hamilton.
Think about it. .270/.330/.465 in Safeco, a "corked" lefty bat with questionable strike zone skills, 1970's-looking player roaming center with a cannon for an arm. Hamilton's little brother, I tell ya.
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Funny thing re Zuumball: everybody pitches great with him on the mound. Granted, this quibble matters naught to us bloggers.
It matters rather more, though, to those whose lives are on the line out there. If Zuumball never in his life advances past his 88 OPS+, he's a championship catcher. 88 is plenty 'nuff for such player, like 88 was plenty 'nuff for Omar Vizquel to hit.
One o' yer alltime great .199-hitting ballplayers, definitely. That's where Bill James came in, in 1977: telling sportswriters that AVG ain't everything.
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A cup of eggnog on Dustin Ackley: he had 2.1 WAR last year, third behind the two Stars. His Base Performance Index (BPX) at the plate the last three years:
- 2012 = 70
- 2013 = 88
- 2014 = 157
- 2014 2H = 205
What? His BPX was 157 last year? Well, yeah: his power index went from about 70 to about 110, his fly balls went up from 27% to 36%, his "expected power index" (xPX) went from 62 to 105, his Runs Created per game went from 3.8 to 5.0.
Here is Tony Blengino's trademark "where did the batted balls go?!" analysis on him. Plot spoiler: he started hitting really good last July.
We're all hoping for that July-August kid who pulled 11 balls in the air -- 7 for homers and 2 for doubles. But if he flatlines at 2.1 WAR, well, we got bigger worries.
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Roenis Elias: 7.9 strikeouts, 3.5 walks, and 0.9 homers, while telegraphing everything, while fearing no one.
Gio Gonzalez in 2010-11 with the A's, the 3+ WAR version of him right before he became the 5 WAR version: 8.2 strikeouts, 4.1 walks, and 0.7 homers.
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Taijuan Walker: Turns out, much to Dr. D's dismay, that you wouldn't trade him for anybody.
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The Two Bullpens: If we all rated the Seahawk defenders 1-9, every single person here would have a different list. Same goes for the Two Bullpens. (Personally I favor Sherman and Maurer; my best college bud insists Earl Thomas is worth twice what Sherman's worth and xFIP goes with Danny Farquhar.)
Without a trace of irony ... the M's could run an 8-man bullpen (rolls eyes), they could cut Carson Smith, and the 1997 Mariners would have given you their best minor leaguer for Smith.
Well, that third clause had a trace of irony. A trace, we sez. Smith would have easily been the best reliever for many M's teams.
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By this point you're wondering how much holiday cheer we've offered and accepted. To which we point you to the Projected WAR Chart. Scoreboard, baby.
Happy Holidays,
Jeff