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Series Preview: Oakland Athletics @ Seattle Mariners

Seattle: 63-61
Oakland: 55-68

SUMMARY

MARINERS ATHLETICS
EDGE
HITTING (wOBA)
-75.2 (27th)
-44.7 (24th) OAK
FIELDING (UZR)
56.4 (2nd)
14.1 (11th) SEA
ROTATION (pRAA)
-17.8 (23rd)
-5.7 (16th) OAK
BULLPEN (pRAA)
-27.8 (29th) 45.3 (1st) OAK
OVERALL(RAA)
-64.4 9.0 Oakland







Stupid Indians. Feels like they have our number this year, maybe it's revenge for Mike Hargrove.

Wow has Oakland played better than us this season. Their bullpen has been both deep and fantastic, while ours has been injury ridden, short and crap. A couple more dropped series and we start heading toward that protected first round draft pick territory. I wonder if there's a significant marketing and/or financial motivation for the team to finish above .500. It certainly sounds better to come back from a 61-win season and say they either finished above .500 or improved by 20 games, or what have you.

16 game improvement just does not have quite the emotional impact.

 

GAMES

Game 1: Ian Snell vs. Vin Mazzaro
Game 2: Ryan Rowland-Smith* vs. Brett Anderson*
Game 3: Lucas French* vs. Gio Gonzalez*

Who are these plucky Athletic starters? Vin Mazzaro made some waves with his first couple outings being the no-runs allowed type, but that was wasted hype as the walks and line drives would have illustrated. Since then, Mazzarro has given up runs and fallen off the latest young Oakland starter news machine and become another solidly just worse than average pitcher, which for a 22-year-old, is intriguing.

Anderson looks like the real deal and at just 21 years of age and with limited professional experience, a Mariners fan has to worry about him further developing his command and getting better going forward. His slider is a real weapon.

Gio Gonzalez can miss a ton of bats. He also misses the strike zone a lot and also has displayed a poor habit of getting his pitches knocked well beyond that demarcation thingy in the outfield. So far in his starting Major League career, one in every 20 batters that he has faced has hit a home run.

0 recs  |  36 comments

Comments

Can Saunders catch a fucking break. Seems like 60-70% of the league now consists

of lefty starters.

What should the Mariners record be given an overall RAA of -64.4?
Worse
Am I doing this right?

Average team would have 62 wins after 124 games (.500 ball).
5 runs = 1 win
-64.4 RAA = 13 wins

RAA says we should have 62 – 13 = 49 wins and 75 losses (.395 ball)

I believe a win is ten runs.
A little trickier

but you can use the pythag to figure it out.

Win% = 1 / (1 + a^2)

a = Runs Allowed / Run Scored

(You can use different exponents but 2 is about right)

Runs Allowed = Average Runs Allowed – pRAA(defense) – pRAA(fielding)
Runs Scored = Average Runs Scored + pRAA(offense)

Average Runs Allowed = Average Runs Scored = ~574

Expected Win% = .440
Expected Record = 54.5-69.5
Final Expected Record = 71 – 90
Actual Record = 63-61
-64.4 RAA ~ 8.5 wins

If you use 1.81 as the exponent instead of 2, you gain about 0.7 wins. Either way, it doesn’t look that pretty.

Who are these A's starters?...

A’s fans are probably asking the same question about our starters.

Beats me, but I bet they kick our asses.
We're not finishing .500 are we?
It is indeed unlikely that we finish exactly 81-81
We can still hope for a cockpunch record
I will be doing a writeup on this soon.

I think the odds favor Robert now.

Yeah, we need an update on that.
Long story short, 9 games left

Robert needs the Ms to win 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 of them.

Which means cockpunch for

0, 6, 7, 8 or 9 wins.

I'm confused.

What does the “9 games left” mean?

Until the bet is decided.

End of play, 8/31.

THE ENTIRE SITE WILL TREMBLE AT MY MIGHT
NOT IN THE SPIRIT OF THE QUESTION
Hey look we improved by 6 runs last series.
Are the Royals the only team with a worse overall RAA?
I'd rather the team finish over .500.

Then, at the very least, they can call the Sweeney/Griffey clubhouse chemistry project a rousing success. Plus, it’s nice to think that next year’s team will be better.

No, because then they'll both be back.
I'm hoping Griffey's newfound sense of humility and self-awareness

will speak to him louder than anything and tell him “yeah, dude, you’re done – go play golf”.

While I don't disagree with this:
16 game improvement just does not have quite the emotional impact.

I have a feeling that the legacy (which is a bit over-dramatic but I don’t feel like trying to come up with a better word) of this season is already pretty much set; most people realize that this year’s team is world’s better than last year’s, and if the Mariners go ahead and suck the rest of the season (which seems unlikely given how much better the roster is now than it was to start the year) most fans will consider this season a rousing success no matter where the team ends up in the standings.

My god, the bullpen doesn't feel as bad as pRAA states it is. I must not be paying attention.

Apart from a spate of recent Aardsma blown saves… and Morrow being Morrow earlier this season… and Corcoran… it just never felt that profoundly horrible.

I always find myself complaining about men left on base, and the offense overall, much more than I do about blown saves.

I must have bought into the whole gladiator helmet mythology or something.

Remember that this methodology isn't results based

The bullpen isn’t seen as a problem because they’ve got a fine ERA (or at least they did), didn’t blow many saves, etc.
How they look in a defense/luck neutral view is quite different, however.

The bullpen isn’t as good as their ERA would indicate, but their results won’t be as bad as the pRAA indicates either – these guys don’t pitch in a defense/park-neutral environment, they pitch for Seattle.

They've also been giving up a lot of HR's.
I love the FSN ads for this series.

because I know when I think about Oakland, my first thought is Nomar Garciaparra.

He hasn't retired yet?
He reminds me of an olden time when I didn't hate the Red Sox because all their fans were actual fans.
Lineup (Holy crap)

Per Divish

Franklin Gutierrez CF
Russell Branyan 1B
Jose Lopez 2B
Ken Griffey Jr. DH
Bill Hall RF
Kenji Johjima C
Jack Hannahan 3B
Jack Wilson SS
Michael Saunders LF

Oh shit, Ichiro had better not be seriously hurt.
Everyone says "tightness" in the calf.

Wak says Ichiro is day-to-day.

Yeah, I've just seen the Divish update

Not likely to play ’til Weds.

SMACKLEY TIME!

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