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TALKING POINTS MEMO

John Dewan has the Mariners' defensive runs saved by position:  +9 LF, +14 CF, +8 LF.  Every other team in the AL has at least one bad or mediocre outfield position.  The M's have easily the best all-around defensive outfield in the league.

This in turn allows them to Moneyball themselves into a "market inefficiency" with starting pitchers who throw fly balls in Safeco.  Andrew Moore has a ridiculous fly ball rate.  Ariel Miranda may be even more extreme in deserved fly ball ratio; the M's (and he) have a plus record in Miranda's starts despite 27 homers in 126 innings.  There have been Tacoma Rainiers like Christian Bergman who scuffled into decent performances because of the synergy.  No doubt the outfield will run down a lot of Marco Gonzales' mistakes and could make the difference for him psychologically.  If he's any good, of course :- )

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Their throwing arms! are the icing on the cake.  Heredia gets all sorts of credit for a plus arm.  Fangraphs has Jarrod Dyson for +8 runs saved with his arm; that counts throws he doesn't make, where runners avoid testing him.  Dyson has made a couple-three especially cool throws the last week, important throws.  And Leonys Martin?  He made a throw from deep RF to nail one runner, a 95 MPH throw on the fly just like that one Ichiro made in 2001 ... except, I've got to admit, Ichiro was coming in on a groundball single.  Martin did it flatfooted, almost, on a deep sac fly.

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Krueger said something interesting.  He said, you put him under bright lights and truth serum and he takes Guillermo Heredia over any other M's outfielder.

Not me.  I've got Haniger as a Best Bet still.  But the point is well taken.

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We all know that Ben Gamel isn't going to finish in the top 10 for AVG the next ten seasons.  But, man, you gotta love his ability to take a close pitch, and his knack for hitting 15-degree fliners to all fields.  The kid is still learning.  He's got 2.0 WAR in 86 games and that's despite a rather weird -5 runs defensively.

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Blowers pointed out that the M's played a strange variation of their infield shift Thursday.  Robbie Cano played his normal position at 2B, maybe shaded up the middle, and Jean Segura (!?) played the rover in front of the right fielder.  The reason was to take pressure of Cano's legs.

Is it just me or is Robinson Cano -the- biggest second baseman you've ever seen?  He looks like a football linebacker to me.  It's a bit of cognitive dissonance that he can play 2B with the cat-quick athletes that populate the position.  But!  UZR has him exactly average for defense this year, +0.0, and almost exactly even over the last five years as a whole.

It's a position scarcity benefit.  When your #3 batter plays middle infield, you've got all sorts of play in the steering wheel at the bat positions.  The M's are taking full advantage, but it starts with Robbie.  It's a fun team to watch.

Enjoy,

jemanji