It's as if they have to make up in one swing for all the deficiency that surrounds them. They have to PROVE something THIS at bat. Smoak is the most aggregious. Last night's game, the contrast between Beltre and Smoak, each in their own crucial at bat, highlights the problem. Can't remember all the particulars, but what I DO remember is Smoak swinging out of his shoes and striking out while Beltre, who was prone to swing out of his shoes while with the M's, calmly sent a decent line drive base hit up the middle despite being somewhat jammed on the pitch. The Rangers capitalized, the Mariners capitulated.
I see this syndrome over and over. Once in awhile an M serves a pitch away to the opposite field for a base hit, an obvious strategy given the way the pitcher is attacking him. He's rewarded with a base hit. But within a game or so he's back to flailing, trying to pull outside pitches. And he's WAY out in front of changeups, nearly falling over himself in his self-immolating greed.
MLB hitting is discipline. It seems to me, again as a group, that M's hitters are opportunistic hitters. They are mistake hitters. Some are such bad hitters that as opportunists they too often STILL can't hit the pitch of opportunity when it is given to them (Smoak). But I digress. MLB hitting is discipline. The discipline to learn the strike zone, the pitchers, and the situations, and to capitalize on one's knowledge by selecting hittable pitches and doing something with them. This allows one's natural hitting skills to thrive. The M's seem to rely almost solely on their natural hitting skills and they get eaten alive, as if half the pitchers in MLB are Felix.
This undisciplined lot may get some wins here and there and for brief periods even look good. But for the long haul they are simply overmatched in their approach, overmatched before they even start the game.
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Have you ever played Rock-Paper-Scissors with a good AI algorithm? Like this one? It's an enlightening, and scary, experience.
The first time through, your chances are absolutely even. But as time goes on, the AI will start cataloguing trends about your preferences that are completely opaque to you.
By iteration 80, the computer will be saying things like "I notice you don't like to repeat Scissors after losing with Scissors, if your most recent win was with Paper." Even after iteration 20 it is already smirking at you:
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I/O: Jason Churchill with the heat charts on Brad Miller and Kyle Seager.
CRUNCH: Sound analysis. Miller and Seager, both, want to plant the back leg and pull the ball in the air. The pitchers go off the plate, away, especially with soft stuff. Miller and Seager, if they get stubborn about hoping for "mistakes" (as was true of the 3-run shot Friday), get "greedy" and deserve their fates.
Miller's strike zone chart, from his own point of view, with Blue the least-used and Red the most-used:
The question left unanswered: how do Miller and Seager "punish" such a distorted approach by the pitchers?
Bear in mind that any MLB hitter is perfectly capable of --- > looking for a pitch "in a certain spot."
Ichiro would do this: if you didn't like the way he lined singles between SS and 3B, and you came up-and in, then --- > he would step up the 1B line, ready to tomahawk that pitch for a home run. Glare in at Ichiro, smirk at him, tell him "You can't deal with this, feeb," and you'd get a 105-MPH tee shot back the other way. It's operant conditioning. You stop doing it after the first few humiliating experiences.
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If the pitchers are routinely going > to Ackley, Miller, and Seager, I got no earthly idea why they aren't occasionally stepping into the plate and hitting 3-irons off the left-center fence.
Look, kiddies. Jason's heat zone looks about the size of the rear pullup door on a box truck. In reality, that pitch is coming through a REALLY small area, about the size of an 8.5 by 11" notebook folded open. There's no reason for the enemy pitching to win the Rock-Paper-Scissors game 90% of the time, the way they do.
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I've had the feeling, since about the 1998 season, that the Mariners' coaching staff gets routinely slaughtered by all the other ballclubs' Rock-Paper-Scissors apparatuses. The technical coaching, the guy who whispers "Hey, look for an outside fastball from this guy after he misses with a fork," that seems totally gone since Lou.
Robinson Cano is not subject to this problem; he's got his own self-contained R-P-S algorithm. So does Corey Hart. It's interesting that GM Pat Gillick imported 9,000 guys who had their own R-P-S algorithms.
Why can't the M's ever get a Tony La Russa type, a guy who gives the M's an advantage in the R-P-S game? I dunno. I do know that, early on in 2014, I notice no advantage accruing to our side.
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The Rock-Paper-Scissors machine is a lot of fun. Try 100 games. And ponder where you are going to be, relative to computers, a few years on.
If you can do better than my quickie +4 =9 -7 score, especially over a longer system of trials, don't be afraid to rub my nose in it. And you may be just the guy to lead off for Lloyd McClendon!
BABVA,
Dr D
Comments
I have the same observation. Greed is easy to exploit for a pitcher, too. And it's been like this for a looooong time. The players change and the approach remains the same.
Brad Miller looks a lot like Jose Lopez; Almonte doing his best Yuni impersonation. Ackley, meet Reed.No real need to throw them strikes. They will get themselves out.
After we got splashed by Collin Freaking McHugh at home for 12 K's, McClendon had this to say:
"He was a little different than the scouting report we got. He was 94 (miles an hour) with a pretty good cut slider," Seattle manager Lloyd McClendon said.
Then there was this gem from the AP recap:
Before the game, Houston coach Bo Porter characterized McHugh as a "pitch to contact guy," but the Mariners made almost no contact.
The only comparison that bears any resemblance in Miller, who in his struggles has become a fastball-hunting guess hitter. Almonte isn't close to being Yuni. He sees tons of pitches, he just has severe contact issues IN THE ZONE with 2 strikes. Ackley almost never swings outside the zone.
the A's don't have advance scouting either. McHugh dominated them.
14 wins, 10 ties, 9 losses to the AI in my first try.
The M's only have 4 regulars with an OBP of .300+, and they are 4 of the top 5 sluggers, too, so it's not exactly an embarrassment of riches in the choice for lead off hitter. I guess I would go with this lineup against righties:
1. Saunders
2. Seager
3. Cano
4. Hart
5. Smoak
6. Zunino
7. Miller
8. Ackley
9. Almonte
Against lefties, I would go:
1. Saunders (CF)
2. Seager
3. Cano
4. Hart
5. Smoak
6. Zunino
7. Romero
8. Miller
9. Ackley
However, it does appear that they are terminally slow to learn. They fix problems eventually from case to case, but it takes them way...way...WAAAYYY...too long.
A couple interesting reads from ex-GM of the Chicago Bears, on the topic of what makes a good NFL organization (and where bad ones fall down). Football focused, but a lot of the same dynamics are universal to sports I'd think. Certainly sheds more light on what has made the Seahawks so successful.
One line I thought was quite relevant to the M's: "The real test of an organization is how it handles talented players who aren’t ready to play. This can be the beginning of the end for some organizations, yet the secret code for the success of other organizations."
http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/The-battle-within.htmlhttp://www.nat.......
I'd say that beats your 4-9-7 mark. :D
How long do you suppose you could stay in the black against the AI? :- )
Superb links BSR. In fact I pinched some Angelo quotes for a piece in the Ft. Lewis Ranger.
Thanks mucho.