Seattle: 9-7
Chicago: 5-11
| MARINERS | Δ Ms | WHITE SOX | EDGE | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HITTING (wOBA) |
-6.0 (20th) | 4.1 | -16.3 (29th) | Seattle |
| FIELDING (?) | 13.9 (2nd) | 3.9 | -4.4 (26th) | Seattle |
| ROTATION (tRA) |
-4.0 (23rd) | 3.9 | -4.1 (22nd) | Chicago |
| BULLPEN (tRA) |
-2.7 (24th) | -1.5 | 10.5 (2nd) | Chicago |
| OVERALL(RAA) |
1.2 | 10.4 | -14.3 | SEATTLE |
I was torn between sticking with Plus/Minus for the defensive ranking and going back to UZR now that UZRs are up, but then I noticed the huge disparity between the two systems so far this season (yeah, it's early) and with the issues brought up with UZR recently, I decided I was a bit more comfortable with +/-. And then I saw what +/- has listed for the Mariners' defense so far. 23 runs above average? Really? I know we're good and all, but that's a bit too insane. What I've have decided to do then is just average the two and determine ranks by (DRS + UZR) / Innings. Got a better idea?
Boy the White Sox position players have been bad. Shockingly, their best hitter so far has been Andruw Jones. Not shockingly, one of their worst has been Juan Pierre. If not for the decaying corpse of A.J. Pierzynski's power, Pierre would be worst.
Ian Snell's start gets pushed back to face the Royals, which normally would sound like a no-brainer decision. Pitch against the White Sox in the hitting friendly confines of Chicago or face the Royals in Kansas City? You would default to the first choice, but so far in 2010 it's the Royals who have been hitting and the White Sox who can't hit worth a lick. Then again, the Royals have been hitting almost solely because of the production from Scott Podsednik and Jose Guillen so, yeah, I wouldn't be flying to Vegas to bet the over on the Royals runs scored for the season just yet.
Boy I wish we could get to face Jake Peavy, he's flat out awful right now. On the plus side, we don't face both Mark Buerhle and John Danks who have been the lone above average starters for the White Sox so far in 2010. Meanwhile, J.J. Putz has a tRA of 0 with 10 strikeouts, zero walks and zero home runs allowed. He's also lost another mile per hour off his fastball and he's throwing his splitter almost 40% of the time now, about twice as often as he threw it as a Mariner during his heyday. So you know, that's only a good sign for the future.
Chicago's park is a home run haven and we're tossing out three mostly fly ball pitchers so they really need to be on their games and limit walks, keeping runners off base when they can so that the eventual home runs allowed do as little damage as possible.
It would be nice to see Rowland-Smith turn in a good start since he's been scuffling a little this year. He isn't going to get much help from lefties in the lineup though as he's going to face a starting squad throwing eight righties out there. The only lefty is Juan Pierre who RRS could get out if he was throwing with his feet, so it doesn't really matter which side of the plate Pierre stands on. Also, Juan Pierre is DHing. You know how much you guys disagree with some of the stuff Don Wakamatsu does? It could be worse! A lot worse!
Get well soon, Milton Bradley. Get lost, Mike Sweeney.
| Ryan Rowland-Smith | Doug Fister | Jason Vargas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Gavin Floyd | Freddy Garcia | John Danks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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0 recs | 54 comments
Chicago's only non-negative is their bullpen? Not a good place to be.
And am I the only one who thinks of Gavin Floyd as the right-handed Joe Saunders?
lailaihei - April 23, 2010
You aren't anymore!
I just looked them both up on Fangraphs and their lines are ridiculously similar from batted ball data to BABIP, FIP, xFIP, WAR…
Floyd appears to throw his breaking pitches more at the expense of his change up; his curve and slider combine for 38.1% of his pitches to a mere 6.3% for his change. Saunders, on the other hand, throws his breaking stuff only 16.6% of the time and his change 20.9% of the time. This discrepancy can likely be explained by pitch selection based on handedness of both the pitchers and the batters they face.
Frickin’ weird.
harkening - April 23, 2010
Floyd is better
He can throw a couple pitches that don’t suck.
OlSalty - April 23, 2010
On the topic of Kansas City's hot streak:
Even Yuni is playing above his head offensively. A career .297 wOBA guy is posting a league average .331 with .309/.333/.436 slash line . Crazy. Both UZR and +/- have him as a -1 defender so far this year, though. Hilarious.
With regards to this series and the ChiSox, how much regression do we expect (over the course of the year) toward being better? I realize going in we have this projection favoring the Mariners, but if the Sox take a step toward their true talent level, are they legitimately contending with us? Blowing us out of the water? Losing, just not as bad?
harkening - April 23, 2010
That's why you play the games.
We’ll find out.
b_rider - April 23, 2010
About 3 games worse than us on true talent coming into the season
Matthew - April 23, 2010
Thanks.
So, we can project our TTL > their TTL. I knew they were playing bad, so regression helps them…but even if they play at that level, they’re still (nominally) worse than us, assuming projections are accurate.*
*This is a huge assumption.
harkening - April 23, 2010
I wouldn't think it would be as simple as going just on true talent
since a lot of the M’s projected wins came from Felix and Lee, neither of whom will be pitching in the series.
I Lick Squirrels - April 23, 2010
Point taken.
harkening - April 23, 2010
What are the "issues" UZR?
I guess I’m out of the loop. Is there an article somewhere I should read?
JeffJ254 - April 23, 2010
*with UZR
JeffJ254 - April 23, 2010
MGL just supplemented the data with park factors.
As a rough example, this increased Jason Bay’s UZR in Fenway from something like -15 to +2. That’s a huge leap, even accounting for the monster. Basically, there’s an issue as to whether the parks are properly evaluated and therefore if the final numbers are reliable.
harkening - April 23, 2010
And Colin Wyers and Mike Fast looked at YTY correlation for UZR amongst players who'd switched teams
and found, essentially, that there wasn’t any.
marc w - April 23, 2010
Was this addressed by the change in park factors?
or did that study come after the changes were already implemented?
Matthew - April 23, 2010
I believe the study came before
Jeff Sullivan - April 23, 2010
It did come before
OlSalty - April 24, 2010
I have a feeling that Gutierrez will go on a HR streak
He has been hitting the ball a lot harder the past 2-3 games (as opposed to the groundballs between short and 3rd that his .393 has been built on so far).
With the ChiSox slumping (which usually means regression can come at any time) and the Mariners hitters still below talent level (Figgins, Lopez, and Bradley have been sleeping, with only Gutierrez hot), there are a lot to watch for.
My predictions are RR-S will get the win, Fister will get the loss, Vargas will get the no-decision-win. Figgins will hit a lot of singles, Lopez will hit 2 homeruns, Bradley will hit a lot of doubles, Gutierrez will slump but hit his first homerun.
Allen Wu - April 23, 2010
Drayer says it's raining in Chicago.
Goose - April 23, 2010
Aw crap
Allen Wu - April 23, 2010
Weather channel forecast has precipitation at a 70-75% chance.
It’s supposed to clear by 6pm, and then thunderstorms over night—how soon the storms move in behind the rain is what will determine whether we get a game or not.
harkening - April 23, 2010
Fascinating hour by hour chart from TWC:
Link.
Apparently, they’re projecting a 3 hour gap of no rain. That gap? 7pm-10pm. Typical game time. Awesome.
harkening - April 23, 2010
But it would really suck if they're off by half an hour
And it starts pouring rain in the 7th.
Allen Wu - April 23, 2010
If we're winning, I'm fine with that.
5+ innings is an official game. Woo playoffs!
harkening - April 23, 2010
I just don't like games that end prematurely (unless it's like a blowout)
Other than that, if we win then I have no complaints.
Allen Wu - April 23, 2010
I like winning
seattlebruin - April 23, 2010
Don't we all
Allen Wu - April 23, 2010
I sure hope this happens
then I won’t have to miss anything to watch the hockey.
Eyeball Kid - April 23, 2010
If we have another doubleheader at the Cell this year, I will not be enthused
That is an experience I would most certainly like to never relive.
cwel87 - April 23, 2010
I had a hell of a lot of fun psyching out Paul Konerko at the Felix game. Oh, it was beautiful.
esoteric - April 23, 2010
Meanwhile, viewers on basic MLB.tv had to deal with approximately 6 hours of Hawk Harrelson within a ten-hour timeframe
It was a pretty traumatizing experience.
cwel87 - April 23, 2010
I think every day should be a double header.
I don’t really know what to do with a day off and no baseball until the evening.
Bballpitcher2 - April 23, 2010
Also, I enjoy havoc-ridden pitching staffs.
Bballpitcher2 - April 23, 2010
Ahhhh, the Jakubauskas/Felix twin bill.
Now THAT’S pitching.
(Jakubauskas recalled by Pittsburgh today, and recalled by me often).
marc w - April 23, 2010
Aw man,
They should have put a retractable roof on that sucker. All good stadiums have retractable roofs. They also should have put a Dave Niehaus in that sucker. All bad announcers say “Hegone!” and “You can put it on the boooooaaaaaard…..YES!”
Bballpitcher2 - April 23, 2010
First time I heard "Hegone!", I was like is this guy for real?
Allen Wu - April 23, 2010
HEGAWN
Hedumbass.
cwel87 - April 23, 2010
I'm embarrassed for even being in the room when I hear that guy.
Bballpitcher2 - April 23, 2010
Sorry if it's been asked/answered before, but what does SP mean in the pitcher charts at the end?
mark2 - April 23, 2010
Average speed of the pitch
OlSalty - April 23, 2010
Speed
Graham MacAree - April 23, 2010
Jamie Moyer is the only player in the history of the league with a negative SP stat.
Bballpitcher2 - April 23, 2010
Tim Wakefield.
cwel87 - April 23, 2010
Touche.
Bballpitcher2 - April 23, 2010
Because he threw backwards?
killer_ewok18 - April 23, 2010
It will be nice to see if our offense can benefit from U.S. Cellular Field,
But on the opposite side, I’m a little weary of Doug Fister pitching in it.
killer_ewok18 - April 23, 2010
We're throwing out three guys who give up some fly balls
so we’ll see.
seattlebruin - April 23, 2010
Yeah, that's true
Hopefully the Sox won’t decide to break out of their hitting slump this weekend.
killer_ewok18 - April 23, 2010
Every day is a gamble in a bangbox.
Until we get Lee and/or Bedard back.
Bballpitcher2 - April 23, 2010
A bangbox?
R…rowr?
marc w - April 23, 2010
Jeff kindly answered some of my Mariner related questions
and I share simulation results (with graph!) at this White Sox blog here. (PIMPAGE!)
erik - April 23, 2010
I was going to fanshot this and forgot :(
Sorry Erik. But also, you’re welcome, Erik!
Jeff Sullivan - April 23, 2010
I should have fanshotted it.
Matthew - April 23, 2010
Was a great piece, Matthew
I enjoyed your answers
Graham MacAree - April 23, 2010
saright.
thank you again. And I should say, LL is my favorite team specific blog of a team I don’t follow.
erik - April 23, 2010
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