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The Shout Box isn't ideally suited to a comprehensive discussion. So here's a thread. As you know, we live to serve.
A fascinating idea was tossed into the Shout Box (?!). It gained surprising traction, the suggestion that you have to be lucky to get two years in a row of great pitching. Let's start with a compliment for such a provocative idea, that it immediately gained lots of interest and lots of agreement.
SSI is here as a think tank; allow Dr. D to infuse his own take here, again with admiration for the profound suggestion that is, in his opinion, missing a key point or two. We don't mean to sound confrontational. We're just in a big hurry right now ... have at me in the comments, thou varlet :- )
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It is worth knowing, that a 115 ERA+ is not EASY to replicate.
But the first problem is that this is the kind of study that ALWAYS winds up comparing apples to oranges. If you look for oranges that are truly comparable to the 2014 Mariners:
If you match this situation to the M's, to "research" past precedents, then your "sample size" (sic) will be maybe 2 other teams. It's essentially impossible to run this kind of study convincingly.
(I'm guessing that if you did find these oranges, they woulda done pretty blinkin' good the next year. Mostly because of the depth and the environment.)
A friend of ours went into the doctor's with a medical issue ... he brought in this and that prognostic study to ask the doctors about. His wife interjected "These studies are mainly about 80-year-old people with this handicap, and that handicap, and the other, all completely different from my husband's. Why can't we get any studies about 40-year-old athletes with positive mindsets and all these other advantages, X and Y and Z? Wouldn't my husband show much better success probability if you compared him to other people more like him?"
You can guess the doctor' replies. "If we tried that, then we would have a study with three people in it."
Essentially it wasn't possible to triangulate the prognosis.
This is a problem that fatally flaws the investigation. Player comps are one thing! But you're not going to find teams truly similar to the 2014 Mariner team, with all those moving parts in convergence. And therefore when you try to apply the general to the specific, you're comparing Chone Figgins to Robinson Cano. We wouldn't attempt it.
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The second problem is: We already knew about the Plexiglas Principle, the idea that all 90-win teams, as a group, tend back towards 80 wins. Felix could get hurt, as Greg Maddux coulda gotten hurt. Does that mean I shouldn't try to build a team that goes to the playoffs more than once?
Don't over-weight this little Plexiglas Principle. You might as well say, "It's hard to stay good." Sure! But some teams do stay good, don't they? In every sport.
It wasn't a lucky dice roll that allowed the Hudson-Zito-Mulder A's to rack up a series of 120 ERA+'s. It wasn't a probability curve that put those teams in the playoffs 4 straight years. As Gordon pointed out, it wasn't dice rolls [or defense!] that made Greg Maddux, and Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz, Hall of Famers.
Supposing you did --- > tenaciously cling to the idea that the Zito A's had good defense. What does that prove, that those SP's weren't great? :- )
What, are we saying that there is no such thing as a lockdown Big Three that stays together a few years?
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Sure, it's hard to stay good. But that's got to be your goal, now doesn't it? That's your challenge. The Seahawks have a great defense, with great players. They want to be great again. I'd rather attempt to be great with Richard Sherman and Bobby Wagner, than attempt to be great with the Raiders' players.
And if I want an elite pitching staff in 2015, I'd rather start with Felix, K-Pax and 9 Carson Smiths than with Miguel Batista and Jarrod Washburn.
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Last thing. If you've got 15 players who rank 6 out of 10, that's hard to improve. But if you've got a bunch of great players and a bunch of terrible ones, that's easy to improve.
The M's need a coupla bats.
Good discussion,
Dr D
We all know bullpen guys have up and down years, and though we had a REALLY GOOD one this year... I think Jack needs a lefty flamethrower for the 8th inning to help round out the bullpen next year. Rhodes probably is not coming out of retirement, but I sure would like to get Andrew Miller.
1) Yes, I'm aware that it's not possible to get precise matches to the Mariners of 2014. That this makes my analysis limited i what it can tell us. A couple of thoughts though:
1) Bullpens are always (that's A-L-W-A-Y-S!) volatile. And I do mean always. Like...every blinkin' time. Axiomatically. DOGMATICALLY. :) Bullpens are volatile. Period. How many of the guys in this current bullpen had years far superior to what we expected coming into the season? Rodney, Wilhelmson, Medina, Biemel (!) - any others? How many of them will repeat that next season? 1...maybe 2 if we're lucky? How many of the guys we rely on for production that we got will have the same good year next year? Maurer has been hittable lately. Leone is nothing truly special. Furbush is erratic, Farquhar is frequently literally brainless up there. This team has lots of good bullpen arms...but our bullp[en ran a 2.50 ERA for the SEASON. If you go into 2015 counting on that again...you ignore history.
2) If our ballpark is such a huge factor for producing lots of awesome pitchers...why have our ERA+ (which are corrected - imperfectly, but still - for park context) been between 91 and 107 every single year except this one and 2001/2003 since the move to the new park? If the context were good for pitching to such an extent that we should consider it a warping factor even in a park-neutralized statistic, why haven't we had consistent success developing pitchers?
3) And yes...the early-2000s As had well above average defense - that was an underreported piece of moneyball. Mark Ellis, Terrance Long, Miguel Tejada, and Eric Chavez were all fabulous fielders, they always had a good game-caller behind the plate and they always run out the hitters when it was a K pitcher and the fielders when it was not.
4) And finally - is our rotation as bulletproof as you make it sound here? I think most heartily not. Iwakuma is a dead man walking IMHO. Elias will probably have sophomore struggles with his command as many lefties of his ilk do (and he wasn't elite in 2014 anyway), we won't get a repeat performance from Chris Young, and don't have any real depth behind the starting five now (Sorry...E-Ram doesn't count and neither does Wilhelmson until he proves it). We'll need Walker and Paxton to be healthy all year with our current rotation or the guy who takes their place will be a disaster.
And finally...there is King Felix - we don't need Felix to get hurt to make us worse...he just had a career year - we know he's good and will continue ot be good...but if he does NOT manage to string together seventeen (17!) UQS in a row...he's worse than he was this year. :) Y'feel me?
Said all of that to say - I actually take umbrage at the notion that my argument was an imperative NOT to try to build a winner. It was the OPPOSITE. The Mariners will be tempted to say "we have a contender now! - let's just keep our guys in house and count on the kids to get better!" And I'm tellig them right now that if they do this...they won't win 80 games next year, let alone the 88 you need to be in the WC hunt. We need to add 100 runs on offense to be competitive in 2015. That is the goal.
The Mariners are in the fairly rare position of having two TOR arms (and Elias as a MOR) coming up at the exact same time. The As had something pretty close to this, with Hudson showing up in 99 (IIRC) and Zito and Mulder dropping in for 2000. In 2001-2003, their ERA+ went 122, 106, 123 - showing off that volatility that Matt spoke of. But pitching's volatile - I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. I'd still rather run a Big Three out there and take my chances with that kind of volatility.
The Giants had it too, but stretched it out. They dropped Cain into the rotation in 2006, Lincecum in 2007 along with Barry Zito, Unfortunately for them, Zito fell apart instead of being a legit Big Three-er, and Sanchez flamed out. They had to wait for Bumgarner in 2010, and then wound up winning two titles. Even with just the big two of the Freak and Cain, though, they were pretty special. ERA+, 2009 to 2011: 120, 117, 109. Then a funny thing happened - the offense they'd been building to support such a great pitching staff matured and they won that second title more with their bats than their arms. Even as the staff faltered, the offense picked up the slack.
The Mariners need to build their offense. The arms should be good, but we can't count on them all being phenomenal again. Even the greats have down years (Felix isn't always a 160 ERA+ pitcher). I think we have enough arms to throw at the problem, especially in the pen, to offset that sort of general volatility. If Maurer struggles, we have Smith and Brazis and whomever to patch that leak with. I would have no problem trading some 'penners like Medina in a package for one of those bats we need, either. We can backfill.
But nothing makes a young-but-potentially-great rotation struggle like the idea of never getting run support. Felix and Kuma can handle that. They've been around a while. I don't expect Walker and Paxton to like getting a billion no-decisions and 2-1 losses. Not with equanimity.
We have the chance to build a real year-after-year contender here. Let's not blow that by making rookies our only salvation, either on the staff or in the lineup.
I expect us to get a vet arm again, a la Young. I want another vet lefty, a la Biemel. And I'd like two bats. One very good one and one average-ish would be fine, honestly. Maybe we have to trade a pitcher like Elias to get said bat. Nothing says the kids we have now will all still be here in February for Spring Training.
But there's a lot to build on. If the Ms call the process complete and just wait for the roof to stop leaking on its own, we'll be in trouble. I don't think any of us think that this exact team is the best contender we can put together for 2015.
I would like to see our opponents cringe in anticipation rather than sigh in relief when they see our offseason. The time for the nice day at the ballpark and a miserable product on the field is over. Let's go try to win something, shall we?
~G
I just gotta think that the latest meltdowns by our big two are in part due to the need to be perfect every time out. It has to force them into pitching in a way that a Verlander or a Tanaka doesn't have to. Felix feels he needs to be perfect every single start, or he lets the team down. That's mental stress, and keeps him from experimenting on improving his game even more by trying and perfecting new things.
I am angry at the front office for its half-hearted approach to solving the offense. And on top of the putridness of those parts they brought in: Morales and Denorfia and Jackson, we were unable to both make the playoffs or give prospects at bats. Jackson was OK, there was no way to know he would falter at the plate. But the other two were sucking before they arrived. No way to sugarcoat it, and apparently no way to deal with the possiblilty that this might happen (like collecting a Willingham as well, for example. And, let's face it, none of the target (Zobrist, Byrd) would have produced noticably better based on their August-September stats The only positive here is we didn't lose Choo, Cabrera, Fister and Jones to get, as the Bone might put it: junk, junk and more junk. I'll give Z props for that. He didn't panic. But he didn't produce, either. He did, however, praise ownership for its willingness to spend money. Fine. Then it's your fault, Jack. And so far as a nice day at the ballpark...you failed there as well. If you want to watch pitching, you stay home and watch it on TV. You go to the ballpark to watch offense. And this offense was boring as all get out. Not worth the money at all.
They darn well better fix the offense. It's inexcusable to have a DH who gets outhit by Brendan Ryan.
And hopefully, Doc knows that I'm not trying to start trouble/be combative. My basic point was that ew had a max-upside pitching season until the last two weeks and still missed the play-offs...if we have any delusions of making it this far again, we have to do more than return the same team to the field in 2015...we need to get better to expect to stay AS good...a lot better to expect to get better. You said it better than I did, though, G.
I always hear folks a lot more knowledgable than me declare that it's not the number of pitches or innings that wear a pitcher down as much as the number of stress pitches and stress innings. If true, it stands to reason that M's pitchers would be wore down to a nub by now.
in SPADES.
No way to prove it, but in my eyes the immense pressure put on this pitching staff to carry a(nother) woeful offense finally took it's toll after September 6th. I'll bet McClendon anticipated this problem, and it's part of the reason he kept finding ways to get extra rest for all his pitchers. It was not just Elias and his IP limit. It was Felix, and Kuma too. He even went so far as to stock his bullpen with extra bodies so he could pull any SP, including Felix, after 7 IP. Despite his best efforts, the staff cracked under the pressure. Felix was throwing WP's left and right in his last few starts. He was overthrowing whenever crunch time came.
At least, in season. It's more crucial than ever that teams gather all the vets they need in the offseason, and rely more on internal promotions during the season, or AAAA vet stashes. Morales was not the right piece, but MOST of the available pieces were not the right piece, as you say. Better to not need to trade for a plus hitter at the deadline when then only teams who are REALLY out of it are unlikely to have one of those they are willing to part with.
Let's try to fix the offense in December, not July, huh?
~G
Too many teams in it to pull a decent mid season trade. This will very likely drive the free agent market up, I suspect, but I'm fine with that. Mid-season rentals are such a crapshoot anyway. It's interesting that Alex Rios never left the Rangers.I wonder what they were asking for him.
... That Paxton's and Felix' last outings, you could tell that they felt like they had to throw shutouts.
sigghhhh
Was going to concede a few of Matty's points, that Felix and Paxton weren't going to reproduce their ERAs, that you can't get a perfect storm in the bullpen again, etc...
As it turns out, the ERA+ has nosedived from 125 to 115 and the ERA from 3.01 to 3.23. This in what ... a week?
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That said, the 116-win Mariners had the ERA of 3.51. The M's don't have to run a 3.01 ERA in order to retain elite pitching.
Partly because I feel like Rodney will fall off the rails and we'll be slow to fix that issue. With good setup men it won't be a huge deal, though. More issues with Kuma are of bigger concern., hence my expectation that we hedge our bets with a vet of some sort, maybe start Elias in the minors til that vet blows up. And that assumes Elias is healthy (no, I do not trust the Ms medical staff when it comes to those sorts of judgments).
But still: Felix, Paxton and Walker should front a good staff. Elias and Kuma in some combo make up a good #4, so we're looking for a #5 starter - which very well may be Wilhelmsen if we don't look outside. I have to like that rotation.
The bullpen has 15 potential GOOD arms in it. Hitting has gone down since the Roid Era so a 3.50 ERA doesn't go as far as it used to, but I expect to be back in the low-3s again.
The Mariners still haven't given up 550 runs on the season yet, which is 2nd lowest in the Majors. We may not do THAT again, but anything 600 and below puts us in contention with even a decent offense (there are 10 or 12 teams in that range and below). Nobody will score even 800 runs this year, and league average is 640. We're at 617 - with THIS offense that was near-useless for large swaths of the season.
Like I said: we're right there.
The right move puts us over the top. If Jack can't find the right move, it's on him at this point. I said 2016 looked nice before we added Cano, and it still looks nice with internal adds and the like.
But getting us to the playoffs in 2015 is a GM move, not a player development one. Show me, Jack.
~G
Had Morales accepted the QO or re-signed with the M's in the last off-season, we could have reasonably expected something like the 2013 version, or even better. We got none of that with the July 2014 version. Now the best he'll see is an incentive laden contract with some AL team. Maybe our best options are equitable trades with teams wanting our excess players going for theirs.
"getting us to the playoffs in 2015 is a GM move, not a player development one."
Exactly. About as succinct as you can put it.
G-Man ... I also worry about Rodney, Kuma and Elias - something about Paxton being out 6 weeks per Mariner Med staff and showing up almost 4 months later.... and add on what Matt said about Felix dropping off some... and as much as we like Paxton, I highly doubt he runs an ERA under 2.00 for half a season.... and regardless of how GREAT Walker looked tonight, he will have growing pains during the season next year too...
Thus, I really feel the Mariners NEED a number 2/3 starter on a two year deal, since we have no idea if Kuma will be signed for 2016 or if Hultzen will actually make it back by then... Guys like Beckett, Santana, Liriano, and if they become available - Burnett, Haren, Happ are all interesting, and SHOULD be available for less than 3 years guaranteed.... and maybe though I'm not quite sure about just resigning Young yet... but not ruling it out yet.
While I do appreciate Homeless Joe and his contribution this year, I STRONGLY believe Jack must get another lefty reliever. If we could some how get Andrew Miller - something we do not have coming up through our arm system - that would greatly help the young starters and stabilize the pen WHEN Rodney falters... and despite that this group was completely awesome this year, our bullpen still has a lot of inexperienced kids in it. A veteran who knows Lloyd and Rodney - like Miller, should be a big help to educating, calming the kids and nailing down a few extra wins like the Royals and Orcs bullpens have done for the past few years.
Lastly, the Mariners should have $20+ million to spend this off season after extending Seager, and we know they will not spend it all on one player so... I hope they spend it wisely.
Who would love to add two impact bats? Me!
But then I consider this: between 2003 and 2012, average runs scored per game were 4.6. Last year that fell to 4.17. And now, almost concluded, 2014 is at 4.07. If that's not falling off a cliff, it's certainly rolling down a very steep hill.
So the most prized asset in baseball is hitting, particularly the kind that most predictably produces runs. So surely, with enough assets, there must be solutions. But then I look at the list of free agent hitters. Then I consider what ransom a team with an excess of hitting can extract--and it's depressing. There are no easy answers--except maybe one.
If I'm Jack, when the last pitch of the season is thrown on Sunday, I'm standing outside the visitors clubhouse at Chavez Ravine and waiting for a guy to come out, whose arm I immediately grab--Michael Cuddyer. Yes, I know his age...and I know his injury history...but I also know his wrc+ the last two years--138 last year, and 154 this year. Surely playing in Denver has boosted that--but not by so much that he wouldn't instantly be the best right handed hitter in my lineup...and an everyday solution to the DH issue.
The Colorado outfield is crowded...they've got no DH...and no NL team can risk running him out on the field regularly. In my mind, he's the stepping stone. Get that done, then you can spend the rest of the winter wondering how much extra you need to spend (dollars or players) to upgrade the outfield. What right-handed hitter out there is a likely upgrade over Ackley or Saunders? Or maybe it's just a RH platoon guy for one of them.
Either way, Cuddyer is the next step to the promised land. (And given his Clemente nomination for the Rockies, he is perfect for the ethos of our front office).