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Lookout Landing

Defense Update

Via THT, we curently stand at -36 plays made. Second-worst is Pittsburgh, at -29, while third-worst is Kansas City, at -21. The difference between the Mariners' and the Blue Jays' defenses so far has been roughly 60 runs, or about 185 runs over a full season.

It's too bad that we promoted Jeremy Reed to play a corner every few days, because I'm kind of curious just how bad this could get without him.

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Comments

Comparing to average, were on pace for ~83 runs lost.
Conversion of 0.74 or 0.8 runs per BIP?
.8

where’s .74 come from?

I was running the math backwards

-36 * 0.8 * 162 / 52 = 90 runs below average

You're right

I messed up on games played. Put in 56 instead of 52.

You'll never get a baseball job with that kind of stupid
or will I...?
At least there won't be any love lost

Right?

ahahaha
I'm not sure I understand that,

and I’m not sure I want to.

Is that vitor artinez?
This is frightening.

DEFENSE MATTERS!!!

Go big or go home

I guess… >:(

It looks like I haven’t missed much over the last couple weeks

Lots of gifs
I like this development
Although not so much the inspiration behind them
I like the inspiration behind them
Sorry, I was just looking at the Raul ones
The ones that don't look like ass are mine.
I'm really impressed with the quality
Check the bottom of the LL images thread.
Yeah, I just found those

I can’t stop watching Jose’s faceplants

Seriously we should trade for Griffey.

We’ve gotta go for the worst all-time defense.

And Michael Young

Let’s trade for Michael Young.

Yuni may actually be worse
That is so very, very depressing.
RZR isn't real high on the Cuban
I love how that nickname is badass when he's on a hot streak and mean and offensive when he's sucking.

Whoever came up with that is awesome.

That would be me.
This team needs Mocock
We'll play Young at third
Worst all-time defensive team?

C Piazza?
1B Richie Sexson
2B Jeff Kent? No one really comes to mind immediately….
3B Miguel Cabrera
SS Hanley Ramirez
LF Raul Ibanez
CF Ken Griffey Jr.
RF Manny Ramirez

well, there's no way this is the worst all-time

it might be close to worse of active players but you have Piazza on there.

Oh yeah he retired.

Forgot about that. All-time I guess doesn’t fit, but it’s probably the worst you could assemble of Current regulars right now.

I'm pretty sure you could do worse than Griffey.
Surely there were people who sucked before the 2000s
Yeah I kind of blew that.

I said all-time then just thought about who I’ve watched recently that have made me want to puke when they play defense.

There are some great players who were or are below average defensively

Rogers Hornsby couldn’t do infield popups. Derek Jeter has bad range. Ted Williams used to pretend to take batting practice in LF.

This should be less like the All-Star team

You shouldn’t get to move Manny to right when he’s always played left.

Manny played RF in Cleveland
Did he?

Oh huh, they had Belle in LF.

I stand corrected.

What the hell? Was that the worst OF defense in history?
Kenny Lofton in center IIRC

so it couldn’t have been the worst

We have Ichiro in center :(
I've heard that Zeke Bonura was a bad firstbaseman.
Dick Stuart, aka Dr. Strangeglove, says "hi".
Maybe the Mariners need to read the Angel's new book,

“How To Win Without Scoring Any Runs.” You guys are not the only frustrated fans out there.

Once again Ichiro rocks!

So you're frustrated

because you’re not winning in a more aesthetically pleasing or balanced fashion?

The last several games have been pitching duels, and decided by a walk off

hit, walk, or homerun. They get kind of frustrating to watch after the first two or three games in a row. You want your players to hit and they are’nt hitting, but the great pitching and defense has kept us up on top. Some of our key offensive players are injured, we have had a lot of injuries, the rookies replacing these guys have had no luck at the plate so far and it is really hurting us. I can’t complain, that’s the way it is, we will be better when we get a few players back and we are still in first place in spite of the situation.

I've never heard anyone complain that winning walk-offs is

‘frustrating.’ Very strange.

Yeah, the Angels have been hit hard by injuries, and it just highlights how much better that team’s offensive core is/was. It’s another sign that people looking at 2007’s team OPS+ numbers or whatever came to some…interesting conclusions about how close the M’s were to the Angels. (I was a victim of this to a degree, though I still thought the angels would cruise to the title).

...?

The Angels have scored 229 runs and allowed 217 and by baseruns they’re about dead even. The Angels have been exactly as good as most of us predicted.

Despite playing w/o Kendrick

or Lackey or Escobar. They’re light-years ahead of a mostly healthy M’s squad.

I forget – how many wins did you think they’d have?

I said they were roughly an 85-87 win team on talent.
Inclusive of the injuries to Escobar/Lackey?

or did the lackey thing happen later?

before the injuries

though it’s to be mentioned that Escobar was never projected for a full season.

How about after the injuries?

Seems like you would have had to have the M’s above that number…

I thought the Angels offense would be much better, though again, some of their current funk is due to the injury to Kendrick. I thought their defense would be a bit better, but it’s generally right where I thought it’d be – middle of the pack. Surprised by their solid infield D.
Anyway, I had them at 89-90 assuming Lackey was only out a month or two. M’s at 85 (whoops).

I didn't re-eval after the injuries

I projected in missing time across the board beforehand. To go back and change that after the fact would have been tampering with the whole point of projecting.

When it is Carlos Quentin getting the walk off homerun, and we lose, is frustrating.
Look at it this way:

Every team will have losses like that. But the bright side? Lackey went 9 innings, and only gave up 3 runs in that time. That’s an amazing performance. After missing all that time to injury, Lackey has come back and pitched like his old self.

Anyway, my point being, don't complain about taking 2 out of 3 in Chicago

and especially don’t complain about it to Mariners fans.

I don't think any Angels fan can complain, even in the least, to Mariners fans

Yeah a few Angels are hurt, but that just highlights the depth of the Angels system. The Mariners have no depth, really. Vlad goes down? Pick three of Sarge Jr, Hunter, Rivera, Anderson, Willits to hold down the fort. Figgins and Kendrick down? You have Izturis, Wood, Rodriguez, and Quinlan to jump in. Yes, none of the subs are as good as the starters, but that’s to be expected. The Mariners don’t really have position prospects that could fill in if a starter went down for a few weeks.

Yes, the Angels aren’t hitting lately. Neither are the Mariners. At least the Angels have been pitching, and their defense isn’t as bad.

I’m not perfectly happy with the current state of the Angels either. Just don’t think you’re going to get a good reaction talking about that with fans who’ve cared about the 2008 Mariners.

You are a closet M's fan!

“Just don’t think you’re going to get a good reaction talking about that with fans who’ve cared about the 2008 Mariners.”

Warning him against complaining to you guys

Not talking about myself. Honestly, I’ve gotten a perverse pleasure from the failings of the 08 Ms.

So have the rest of us

see, you’re just like us!

Welcome aboard!

Needs more disaster

So this is what happens when an Angels fan captains the U.S.S. Mariner!

AHHHHHHHHHH!

And this is what happens when a Mariners fan becomes God and controls the Angels

Man, this needs to happen more!

Or this.

Why is she such a good girl?

When you are given a gift, you have got to share it with the world!

I know

Most of her pics try to cover her cleavage too. I mean come on, at least give us folks a little peak.

Okay, I admit it.

I started watching this show halfway through the season when I found out JLH sported a bigger ass….

This show took place in Seattle

Sign her to be a ball girl. She would be high profile enough to not get hit on by Yuni.

It was probably filmed in Vancouver though.
It was.

She was a total cunt to the crew.

I refuse to believe it
I would say something, but I will hold my tongue.
Unless you can turn it into an Angie Mentink joke

that would probably be for the best.

Really?

She was a no one when Dark Angel first came out. Her only claim to fame was as “the hot girlfriend” from idle hands. How did James Cameron let her get away with that?

A friend of mine's a rigging best boy

so he’s not the sort of person the talent sees working a lot (given that he’s rarely on set when they’re shooting), but his one encounter with Jessica was pretty awful. But that might have been on the Fantastic Four, now that I think of it.

Contrarily, Judi Dench (he worked Riddick) even took meals with the crew.

Judi Dench is a name that just doesn't sound like it belongs to an attractive person.
well, she's old now.

I can’t find any pictures of her when she was young.

Doesn't matter, still awesome.
I was just trying to have a discussion here and respond to the comments on

my comments. No harm done. And as I stated I am not complaining.

I have always been treated reasonably well by the Mariners fans on the few occasions I have posted here. If they want me to leave I imagine they will tell me so. I don’t need an Angel fan telling me whether or not I should be having a discussion with a fan of another team. Thanks.

Uh oh...

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

Damn, I had a level-headed response ready to go

but if someone else is calling for it…

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

Whining about the Angels for a paragraph

and then closing with “not complaining” seems a lot like complaining. And no, I wasn’t saying you shouldn’t complain like I have the authority to tell you stop. Just saying it seems a bit…out of place. Like you’re complaining about a sprained ankle to a guy in full traction. The analogy is lame, I know. But I think you get my point.

Our franchise is in full traction?

I dunno, I thought that was a pretty good analogy.

Yea I was going to say

At least the angels are still in contention. All we have left to root for is getting to draft Strasburg in 2009.

Using that picture of Izturis makes you look like a Monkey.

And not in a good, rally monkey kind of way. Ha,ha.

The rally monkey is not good
Okay

1. The rally monkey is retarded. There is no such thing as good in a “rally monkey kind of way.”

2. I know Izturis looks funny. He has comical features, including his eyebrows. Maybe I chose the picture and the screenname for fun, and not in the attempt at being an internet tough guy?

3. Way to resort to ad hominem attacks. I guess I’ll go cry in the rain and drink lattes.

Oh, I see what you did with #3.

Touche!

You started it. I only came by LL to make one silly comment

and look what you did! You let the dogs out. Too funny, all of you guys.

Sorry guys I guess it was me

Do you have something against Mormons?!

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!

My chart is better.

I win

Or would've if you'd spelled it 'Bacardi'
I didn't make it
Don't go blaming it on JI...
I hope you're happy

I’ve had to talk to someone who thinks the rally monkey is good, and then I had to image search “who let the dogs out.” I have no dignity left.

Well, here's the USS Mariner

hop aboard!

My spidey senses are tingling

What's with all the trolls we've been getting lately?
There's a difference between trolls and regular angels fans.

Trolls know they’re saying something stupid.

Kind of like regular UCLA fans :(
I never did understand the guys who are obsessed with every UCLA sports team

simply because the team is from UCLA

I like two... football and hoops

and I’ll go to softball/baseball if the opportunity presents itself. But that’s about it.

Easy

they have to find something they might be better than USC at besides hoops.

Actually UCLA is probably better at USC in pretty much every sport except for football

When it comes to unmarketable college athletics UCLA is hard to beat

Someone should make a Felix finishing the rally monkey gif
Yeah, there has been a significan amount of troles around here lately.
huzzah new SBN format!

it used to be at least moderately challenging to be a troll. Not any more.

I see what you did there.
I said that to someone this weekend and they got pissed.

I don’t think they knew what I meant.

Really?

I thought this was something that spanned across all cultures.

I didn't think it was a problem.

But he just glared at me and said “yeah, whatever dude”.

Needless to say I didn’t bother wasting my time explaining it to him.

Maybe he was too stupid to know what he even said.
In hindsight, you may be right.

He was kind of a big oaf.

How the hell did this get derailed so bad?

Jesus.

Welcome to Lookout Landing.

Are you new?

Every new thread is not an invitation to go insane
Perhaps we could have a daily "free for all" thread or something.

Just a place to hang out and BS without derailing the more serious threads.

I might have to do this

but it would, of course, be in the diaries section.

That seems fair.

Then you could just tell everyone to “take it to the free/open thread” or something.

Take it! To the free thread

Take it! To the free thread, woh-oh
Take it! To the free thread, it’s not loooooo-oooopus

that thread would probably turn into a discussion about the M's defense
In all fairness, the main randomness of the thread began with the Angels guy bitching about winning on too many walkoffs

it’s not like one of the regulars decided to take us on a trip on the failboat

Although I think we would have derailed eventually, even without the assistance.

I know us Eddie.

His original comment was fairly on-topic
How comments would it take beforer it becomes a full on Post Your Porno thread?
Skipping whole words at this point JI?
at this point?
Demon keyboard again?
nope

not that one

porn for Ms fans?

Was that your mouse scrolling across the screen right at the start?
The Nazis that run this place edited the mouse cirsor out of the badangle gif.
Even he can't save us now.

Although I never wanted him to in the first place.

And I meant that about Bonds.

I’d take Broussard back.

I might replace that with a Red Sox Nation=Bandwagon type sign tonight....
We blame the Mariners.

If they could hold our attention for 5 minutes, maybe we could talk about something related to the team for more than 5 minutes.

Incredibly, it's possible that we talk about the Mariners less during the season (outside of game threads)

then we did in the offseason

That's because we live to speculate.

The most we can do now is dream, and dreams don’t stay on topic very long.

OK so

Our team defense sucks completely sans Beltre, who is already plus 20 runs or something, and Ichiro who is basically playing average center field.

Huge disappointments – Lopez, Yuni, Johjima

The “we knew they’d suck major ass” category – Wlad, Raul, Sexson

Wlad shouldn’t be our starting RF. He’s a circus in the outfield, and he should be sent down to AAA unless he gets DH’d.

Raul can’t play defense, he’s an old man that has value only as a DH.

Sexson can’t play defense, and he has little to no value because his bat is very close to being finished. I wouldn’t even DH him.

Lopez’ defense can probably be corrected, he’s the one guy I think can turn around his season defensively.

Yuni is bloated and cannot play a good defensive SS anymore. He has little value in his bat. Other options need to be explored for next year at this spot too.

Johjima is getting old, and was never very good at throwing out runners anyways. He also lacks at basic catcher skills such as blocking balls in the dirt.

This team has major problems and they will not be solved unless the entire roster gets a major rehaul, and that makes me drink.

Actually we thought Wlad would be league average or so

this disaster has been kind of an unpleasant surprise.

....aaand we're back on topic!

Wlad was expected to be terrible? I’ll admit I didn’t/don’t know much about his history, but was Raul Jr. defense expected from him? I thought he was a young/athletic guy.

I heard he sucked kind of sucked in the outfield in AAA

I figured he’d be pretty bad.

I never heard that he sucked in AAA.

Average defender was what I heard. I’m VERY surprised at his struggles defensively.

I'm not surprised because I never watched him in AAA

What little information I got from his defense wasn’t positive though. I don’t know where you heard he was going to be average.

Churchill

He played CF in the minors on a semi-regular basis and was always considered a decent defender.

Link to PI report projecting Wlad/Clement

But as far as 2008 goes, I expect a lot of ups and downs from Balentien, with several multiple strikeout games to go with his good power.

He’ll play solid defense and won’t clog up the base paths. He may steal a bag on occasion, too.

I’d have to think this is just one of the downs – Adam Jones struggled at first on D when he came up as well.

I seem to remember Cameron saying Wlad was going to suck in the outfield

Maybe not suck, but be below average or something, I don’t have anything to quote from though.

I'll go search the archives because I can't imagine that it wasn't mentioned over there

but I remember the general sentiment around here was that we expected him to be somewhere in the neighborhood of average with plus potential in a corner.

okay so I'm a total noob about defense stats

But I just looked at Balentien’s RZR for this year (do people like/hate RZR?):

56 balls in zone, 45 plays
10 plays out of zone

If we’re expecting him to make 56 plays in his zone, and he misses some in zone but gets 10 out of zone, giving him 55 plays, does that even out? Or am I reading into it too much?

Everytime I watch him field a ball I cringe because he looks like a confused mental patient

That is how I know he sucks

Ok so I read more and the average RF RZR this year is .870

Balentien’s is .804 – not good. I’m still trying to find a metric that will use MiLB numbers to do projections for defense. Any help?

ok so baseball prospectus' FRAA

puts him between -10

In a corner, right?
what the hell

my greater than, less than symbols died. Ok so he’s -2, -7, -10 in the minors, with -7 in RF in 2007.

BP's fielding stats are full of massive fail.

Never use them except as a butt of a joke.

In the last BP lpayer eval book I read

even the authors said they were full of crap.

I think Wlad was expected to be a -10 < x < 0 guy in RF

he’s been worse than that so far, but for the time being I’m going to write that off as nerves and lack of familiarity with the ML ballparks.

GIVE THE BOY A CHANCE PEOPLE

Yuni got what, three years before the verdict?

Is that for 2008 or overall

because I think Wlad has the tools to be an asset in RF. Not a tremendous one, but a 0 < x < +5 type. His range seems fine, but his instincts and route running look problematic so far, but didn’t he get shifted around the OF a lot in the minors? That would explain some of it.

I'd agree

he settled in and looked fine in Tacoma, though this has happened so often now, I’m wondering if success in tacoma is inversely correlated w/ success in Seattle. (Jeremy Reed looked like he’d never played OF before in Tacoma, and looked great in his first go-round in Seattle).

Wlad’s been a CF mostly in the minors, and shifted to RF maybe 2-3 years ago. He’s still played some CF in Tacoma. I think Jeff’s got it though – it’s probably nerves and the ballparks. Adam Jones looked nervous last year here (though to be fair, it didn’t show up in his RZR).

That was for 2008
The Yuni thing really bums me out.

I fully expected him to become one of my favorites, and tried to ignore the rumblings that his defense was not nearly as good as his reputation, but at this point it’s impossible to do so. The thing that makes it even more frustrating is that the front office was smart in their approach towards him. The fact that the front office fails even when they do something smart is annoying to me.

How were they smart in their approach?

If they were smart they’d have kept him away from the buffet tables and McDonald’s. Or the trainer could have done his job and taught him how to keep from getting too muscular/fat/whatever the hell he is now.

That has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

I’m talking about buying out arb years at below market rate.

If he could just be league average defensively, he'd still be a great asset

at the very least, the potential is still there, and with the years left on his deal, there’s no reason he can’t get back to being the player we thought he was. Here’s to hoping, at least.

Depends on if it's a training/diet issue

or if that is just what his body is going to be.

Players almost never regain speed or quickness
Not gonna disagree

and I’m just hoping it was a stupid dietary decision or a conscious decision to try and bulk up (which, btw, hasn’t helped at all) so perhaps the damage is reversible.

Beltre is below average this year

I don’t really get that, and his insane out of zone plays may make up for that. His numbers just look…crazy.

Lopez is still roughly average or -3 < x < +3 sort of range.
Johjima was #1 in caught stealing percentage last year, so clearly he’s been good in the recent past.

Still, the depth of this is startling, and the M’s need to try and understand it. When good players seem to get way worse the longer they’re exposed to Mariner ‘teaching’ – you find out why.
It’d be great to swap out Ibanez, but I’m still having trouble understanding why LF is so damned important to the team DER. The team DER looks like it’s influenced more by Ibanez or Sexson than it is by, say, Lopez, and that doesn’t make any sense.

Could be that we're giving up a lot of flyballs this year
Could be that Lopez is underappreciated
If by "underappreciated," you mean "awesome," then yes, that would be correct
No, not really

Almost dead-on league average in LD/GB/FB/IFFB.

I thought KC was supposed to be a solid fielding team?

Since they can’t hit, after all.

Their middle infield is pretty good.

But their outfield is bad, isn’t it?

Jeff, I noticed that you hadn't started a game thread yet.

Joy-hating buzzkill. I was hoping to kill two threads before the first pitch this time.

I think his plan is to avoid just such a situation.
I know. That was the whole point.
On a purely incidental note: Yes's Tales From The Topographic Oceans: not nearly as bad as you would think.

But not great either.

If Jeff really wanted to be a dick

He would put a limit to the number of game threads

That would raise a ruckus.

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