Note that this is not a defense of the front office. For one thing, the last thing I need is to be labeled an apologist, and for another, I think we all know the front office was never satisfied. Jack would say time and time again over the course of the winter, and still into the season, that he and his office buddies were still looking for another bat. It's my belief the FO thought this offense was one bat away the whole time.
Rather, this is a defense of the projections, and of myself - two figures that spent February and March telling you this offense would be fine. Not great, or even necessarily good, but fine, in that it would score enough runs to give the M's a chance to win enough games. I was firmly of the belief that this team could contend with the offense it had lined up.
Now, of course, I look silly, because the M's are on pace to score just 551 runs, which I believe would be the lowest total in modern baseball history. The run prevention - the M's are on pace to allow 693 - has been there, for the most part. But the offense has been held to zero, one, or two runs on 33 occasions, and that's just entirely too feeble for a team with dreams of October. That's too feeble for a team with dreams of a competitive July. This team hasn't scored. For an impressive number of reasons, this offense just hasn't produced.
But let's examine the why. Let's figure out why this offense hasn't done anything. Is it because, the way it was constructed, it was never going to do anything? Or is it something else entirely?
Truthfully, this is really quite simple:
1B: .567 OPS
2B: .613 OPS
3B: .603 OPS
DH: .513 OPS
There are your big four. The team hasn't gotten a ton out of its shortstops or catchers, either, but it was never expected to. Those were always going to be light-hitting positions.
This isn't new to any of you, but it's worth examining just how much has gone wrong. Of note:
There's bad hitting, and then there's worse hitting than any reasonable person would expect. Kotchman has produced at the lowest level of his career. Figgins has produced at the lowest level of his career. Lopez has produced at the lowest level of his career - even lower than when he was a 20 year old rookie. Bradley has produced at the lowest level of his career. And Griffey produced at the lowest level of his career.
That's five career-worst performances, four of them from guys we were counting on to be regulars. The oldest of the four is 32 year old Figgins, who is one of the best pure athletes in the game. Those are career-worst performances that came completely out of nowhere.
The problem, as I see it, is not in the style. It's not in the players. It's in how the players have performed. There's a difference. That the Mariners haven't been able to score is not an indictment of the kind of offense they put together. It's an indictment of the offense they wound up having.
As has been pointed out on several occasions, the Mariners' intended style of play can work. The light-hitting A's are 37-40, and they've received a combined 11 starts from Brett Anderson and Justin Duchscherer. The Giants are 40-34 with a below-average offense. And most famously, the Padres are 45-30, two games behind the Yankees for the best record in baseball, with a .681 team OPS. All three of these teams have gotten by with poor lineups because, plain and simply, they haven't allowed many runs. The approach works. Ultimately, it really is just about outscoring your opponent, no matter how many runs you do or don't put up on the board.
This offense has been bad, but who saw it coming? Who honestly saw it coming? Who honestly saw Casey Kotchman, Jose Lopez, Milton Bradley, Chone Figgins, and Ken Griffey Jr. all having the starts that they had? You can point to each one individually and say that maybe there were warning signs, but all five? That's silliness. They were expected to produce. There was nothing wrong with the expectations. They haven't produced.
I've seen the argument advanced that maybe these guys have put too much pressure on themselves without an imposing bat in the middle of the order. The pressure, it's suggested, got to them, and caused them to underproduce. This is an unfalsifiable argument. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's not. It certainly couldn't have been predicted, and I question the argument's veracity. If you want to say "hey this offense would be better if it had someone better," that's fine, on account of duh. But we just don't know enough about individual influence on other players to say whether this is accurate, and gun to my head, I'd say the bulk of the pressure felt by the players didn't come as the result of the offense struggling, but rather as the result of the players struggling individually. In other words, I don't think Bradley felt pressure because Figgins wasn't producing. I think Bradley felt pressure because Bradley wasn't producing.
And then we don't know what that pressure actually means, or how it manifests.
The 2010 Seattle Mariners haven't hit. This has proven to be their undoing, as an historically impotent offense has pulled the team down to a last-place record. Let's not, however, rip the math. Let's not drag the projections through the mud. There was nothing wrong with the math. There was never anything wrong with the math. If the Mariner hitters were simply performing as they've always performed, the team would still be alive.
They haven't, and it's not.
5 recs | 67 comments
It's just crazy how the Mariners came away with no pleasant surprises on offense while also having career worst seasons from the players you mentioned.
According to Fangraphs, the M’s only have 5 players with positive production from their bats: Bard, Langerhans, Sweeney, Gutierrez, Ichiro. Of course, only two of those guys have played everyday. Bard and Langerhans, hardly at all.
Meanwhile the Giants have had a very big season from Aubrey Huff, and Andre Torres 9.3 for batting would be 2nd on our team behind Ichiro. They have 9 players with positive offensive contributions. So despite poor offensive seasons from Molina and Sandoval and Rowand, they are getting something out of Uribe and Renteria and even Pat Burrell – so far.
The Padres only have 6 players with positive batting scores, but Adrian Gonzalez is a beast unlike anyone we have on our team. Also the negative scores from Kotchman, Lopez, and Griffey on offense would be the three worst scores on the Padres by far and if you combined the Padres and Mariners, 8 of the worst 10 bats would be M’s.
I will finish this by saying I’m still trying to understand those scores myself and they are affected I would assume by park and opposition, which I wouldn’t think is quite shown in those scores yet.
Overall I think its safe to assume that the Mariners: A.) Didn’t get any surprisingly good performances outside of Mike Sweeney in a limited role. B.) Don’t have a star power bat. C.) The bottom of our barrell on offense is so very low that it brought the team as a whole down. As you said these aren’t below average seasons, they are career worst years from guys who have been around the league for a very long time. The plan was sound, nobody could have expected it to be this bad.
I’m not happy with people who want Mariner fans to admit that they were so very wrong about the team before the season. There is a difference between being wrong and being disappointed. They should have been better than this.
Kenneth Arthur - June 28, 2010
Nor did anyone call the demise of RRS or the ineptitude of the bullpen
or Cliff Lee being out for a month or Bedard not pitching until early July (ok, maybe a few called that). These things have, along with the abysmal offense, in their own way contributed to our downfall.
To me, pre-season “worst case scenario” was key players underperforming while the rest of the AL West skyrockets away…I couldn’t even imagine all of the injuries and individual ineffectiveness that was in store.
And if anyone tells you they called that…you can wave them away dismissively, for you know they are lying.
Omerta - June 28, 2010
Or they're extreme pessimist.
Slurvey - June 28, 2010
They're the same people that knew the Padres would be in first place.
Kenneth Arthur - June 28, 2010
Some of your posts have a message, like this one. I'm always curious as to where some of these come from
If you’re picking up on a general vibe either from the LL community or sports communities and sportswriters at large, or a specific conversation? I’m not nitpicking or complaining, just curious. Especially on this topic, it’s popped up in a few conversations with neighbors and such recently.
Kermit. - June 28, 2010
This is a response to a general vibe that came to a head with Baker's response to the Branyan acquisition
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
This appears to be a tough subject for some people to wrap their heads around.
Kind of odd how a person can get so obstinate. Kind of boiled it down to poker, variance, and the definitions of prediction and projection. Still didn’t do the trick, but then I could be bad at persuasive argument.
Kermit. - June 28, 2010
It's the bootstrap response that boggles my mind. Not many places to go from there.
Kermit. - June 28, 2010
DH: .513 OPS
That’s just unfathomably bad. DH is the easiest position to fill, and the M’s DHs have collectively been significantly worse than any other hitter in MLB.
urchman - June 28, 2010
I like how we haven't had a good DH in forever
Easiest position to fill my shoe!
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
The steaming pile that our DHs have left would easily fill all the shoes you own.
abender20 - June 28, 2010
Don't be so modest. No one can fill your shoe.
It’s like Schrodinger’s Cat: Sullivan’s Unfillable Shoe.
lemonverbena - June 28, 2010
At what point do you look to coaching?
It is my understanding that pitching and hitting coaches don’t make much of a difference in baseball, but I was wondering when you might look to coaching.
I was thinking about what the odds are that you would have this kind of team wide underperformance based on chance alone. It doesn’t seem like this is just every player getting unlucky on BABIP at the same time. This is a significant number of players hitting much worse than they’ve ever hit before.
Do we have to chalk it up to bad luck, or are there identifiable causes to investigate first?
Snuffleupagus - June 28, 2010
fire the hitting coach again
because that worked so well the last 10 times they did it.
Paul AB - June 28, 2010
Hire Edgar
We just need more ’95 mojo.
Snuffleupagus - June 28, 2010
He already has a good day job running a profitable company.
Sec 108 - June 28, 2010
I really don't want to hire Edgar in a coaching capacity.
What if you have to fire him? Do you really want to fire Edgar Martinez?
Two Rs and Two Ls - June 28, 2010
Edgar could never teach someone to hit with one eye, any more than Ichiro could teach whatever the fuck it is that he does
lemonverbena - June 28, 2010
I have no quabble with the projections outside of that for Griffey.
Chone had him down for a .304 wOBA, which after watching him toward the end of last year, seemed high (!!!). I remember thinking that he would probably be sitting around .275 (again, !!!) given that he was both unable to get bat speed or run. Griffey being awful was predictable.
The rest of those guys all collapsing? Nuts.
abender20 - June 28, 2010
Yeah, Griffey was easily the most predictable
but then, Griffey also should’ve barely been playing. That one’s on the coaching staff.
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
The coach effect
I’ve read Baseball Between the Numbers and I understand the argument against assigning blame for poor performance to coaches or managers…but isn’t this kind of season the sort of statistically inexplicable phenomenon that you would look for if you wanted to prove that managers and coaches can have a measurable effect? Four young players, all simultaneously having the worst year of their career sure looks like something more than a coincidence, or a statistical outlier. Minimally…it’s not crazy to look for other explanations.
I don’t really have an axe to grind bout Wak or the hitting coaches we’ve had here…I just think it’s counterintuitive to think these highly paid professionals have no impact on the men they lead and advise, and hope at some point it will be possible to quantify it.
The problem with this post is that it basically says these guys didn’t hit…because they didn’t hit. I’m not sure you can defend projections here. The projection systems abjectly failed to allow for this possibility even on the lowest end of their projections. That’s called failure. If you can’t admit that you’re playing the same “unfalsifiability” game of those who blame this stuff on coaching, or chemistry, or psychology or whatever.
If projections have meaning, there has to be a set of circumstances under which they can be said to have failed. Is this not one of those sets of circumstances?
By the way…I was totally bought in to the team the M’s were building (with the same trepidation around guys like Kotchman and Byrnes that a lot of people had). I really, really thought we would be around league-average in run production, or a little below. Something that current systems of projecting player performance cannot quantify…who knows what…has gone horribly wrong with this team’s bats.
short - June 28, 2010
What?
First of all, there’s no way to prove it’s the coaches fault.
More importantly, “I’m not sure you can defend projections here. The projection systems abjectly failed to allow for this possibility even on the lowest end of their projections.”
Where the hell do you get this from? Did you look at each projection’s 5th percentile?
Matthew - June 28, 2010
Isn't there a way to do this?
Snuffleupagus - June 28, 2010
Wow, that was a failed blockquote
Snuffleupagus - June 28, 2010
What it comes down to is that there are a million different variables
…so it’s impossible to isolate the coaching staff. And doing so assumes that the players’ failures all share a common element, which may not even be true.
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
Would we be just as ok with this team again in 2011?
I think that’s the money question on this topic.
Are we going to conclude that the projections were accurate, and that this year was a fluke, or are you saying that there are sources outside the projections that screwed up the results, but we’re just not sure what they are.
It seems like the second one is what you’re saying, and that feels unnerving to me. I think that’s why I have a desire to point at ‘coaches,’ because at least that’s an explanation that can result in action.
Snuffleupagus - June 28, 2010
I wouldn't say the projections were accurate
I’d say they were perfectly reasonable at the time, and nobody could’ve predicted what would happen.
But this post isn’t about individual player projections anyway. It’s about the team projections, and how the style of offense the Mariners built really can work, despite the evidence to the contrary.
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
No the point was these guys CAN/SHOULD OF hit but they didn't.
Slurvey - June 28, 2010
Perhaps I was unclear
The individual player projections failed, at least in that several players underperformed their mean projections. That, of course, isn’t necessarily a failure, as projections project a broad array of outcomes and underperformance is just as likely as overperformance, but anyway.
The team projections did not fail. Here I’m referring to the projections that said, given standard player productivity, our offense would be fine. I believe that these projections were correct. It’s just that the inputs wound up being quite a bit different than we expected them to be.
This post was not intended to examine why the various players have underachieved. That is a whole other topic. Five other topics, really.
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
I made the mistake
of conflating “projections” and “predictions” in my comment when I say the projections failed. By the “low end” I was thinking of the kinds of numbers you see on Fangraphs for hitters. The lower projections for the five players mentioned still aren’t as bad as they’ve been, clearly. I actually haven’t seen the team runs scored projections broken down by percentile, just the mean values.
Sorry for talking out my ass on that one.
short - June 28, 2010
Think back to Cliff Lee's debut
The M’s were 11-11, 1 game out of first. We had officially “weathered the Cliff Lee injury” and were poised to take over the division lead that very night. We lost Lee’s debut 2-0 to Texas, the start of an 8 game losing streak. What gives?
There’s a reason they actually play the games rather than just award the World Series based on who “projects” to be the best team. Baseball involves human beings who are unpredictable, who have real emotions and real flaws.
shuswapslugger - June 28, 2010
I fail to see how this is relevant to the topic at hand
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
Just using it as an example of how the game is unpredictable and you can only "project" so far
shuswapslugger - June 28, 2010
We're all aware of that
That’s why we have Open Game Threads, and not Open Office Threads.
That doesn’t change the point that a team can win with good run prevention and a mediocre offense.
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
I'm going to put up an Open Office Thread in which I critique the office supply purchases of the M's
Off-brand Post-it notes will never get the job done.
pdb - June 28, 2010
Again I don't think that's news to anybody here
you have to understand that phrases like “There’s a reason they actually play the games rather than just award the World Series based on who "projects" to be the best team” will incite a lot of anger around here, because nobody has ever suggested or will ever suggest that is not the case.
pdb - June 28, 2010
wow thanks for that no one here knew that
pdb - June 28, 2010
Thank you Joe Morgan
bluemax - June 28, 2010
Human beings play baseball? What!
Poochie - June 28, 2010
Human beings, Ichiro and Alexei Ramirez.
Eyeball Kid - June 28, 2010
Ichiro is not a human being. To quote Ivan Drago, he's a piece of iron.
RustyJohn - June 28, 2010
it's almost like that's what the professor meant!
pdb - June 28, 2010
Ichiro doesn't "play" baseball.
Children play; Ichiro does.
ThomasG - June 28, 2010
Don't forget Khalilbot
Bearskin Rugburn - June 28, 2010
551 probably WOULD be the lowest total in modern history...but lucky for us...!
The Pirates are even worse than we are!
They project to 529 runs.
HititHere - June 28, 2010
Isn't it more like an extrapolation than a projection?
baetown415 - June 28, 2010
This posting is based upon reason and logic. Therefor, I shall fail to acknowledge it.
RustyJohn - June 28, 2010
It was going to take years to rebuild this offense into a merely competent one.
That much we all knew. To an extent I don’t think any one of us were pessimistic enough at the beginning of the year to predict such a demise but I also think that there were more than enough of us to realize that things could get very bad very quickly. To that end, this season’s historic ineptitude hasn’t surprised me as much. I think we all knew riding our offense on the backs of such unreliable players – whether in performance (Lopez, Kotchman, Griffey) or temperament (Bradley) – could result in more than one failing, causing the entire offense to tailspin.
The problem I had with many of the early-season team projections was that it did not place enough emphasis (or so I though) on the worst-case scenario. It didn’t take into account that the Mariners had a lack of depth, not only on the 25-man roster, but systematically as well. Simply put this team didn’t have enough talent to make up for more than one player failing at once, whether it be through direct production (i.e. plug in a minor leaguer) or through secondary means such as trading for help as soon as it became obvious it was necessary. I know Dave and LL were pretty critical of this failing but, as far as mainstream prognostication went, people were too smitten over defense and Cliff Lee to take a real critical look at this organization from the bottom up.
I still like the direction in which this team is heading and I praise Zduriencik for not panicking and making a trademark Dayton Moore-quality shortsighted move just to live up to (self-perceived) expectations.
ThomasG - June 28, 2010
No one was too smitten with Lee/defense to look critically at the team
I think you’re overanalyzing. No projections would point to the M’s winning 116 in 2001. Nor would any projections point to the utter incompetence of the offense in 2010.
Projections summarize the most likely outcomes. The offense scoring 551 is a fringe scenario that projections would never, ever predict. We knew all along that this would likely be a very good or very bad team, but even “very bad” doesn’t project the entire roster to suck simultaneously.
The bottom line is that too many guys sucked with no premeditated, advance signs of impending-suckiness. If anyone says they projected THIS level of ineptitude from the offense, they are lying or got lucky…because there was no quantitative data to support such an argument in February.
HititHere - June 28, 2010
It's interesting that you should talk about most likely outcomes and then:
.
Yeah. Most people projected the team to be roughly average but contend due to a weak AL West.
abender20 - June 28, 2010
I agree with most of this.
But the problem was never with the projections themselves. The problem was with a marginally optimistic projection offensively coupled with high external expectations. Hence the reason for a post like this.
That’s where I had a problem with some of the earlier projections in that I thought it didn’t give enough weight to the likelihood of offense being very bad if 2-3 of the aforementioned players sucked out or had early-season struggles. Like Dave mentioned prior to the start of the season, the roster construction was not optimal to witstand multiple injuries/general suckitude nor did the organization have enough depth to make up for it.
ThomasG - June 28, 2010
So I'm curious what people are thinking now
If the pre-season projections were valid, we should expect the M’s to play about .500-ish the rest of the way, right? Is that what people are feeling now, or have your expectations changed because of the last 3 months?
nathaniel dawson - June 28, 2010
Mine have changed.
Lopez is awful. I think he’s broken. Bradley has declined a lot. RRS has been terrible and though I think he’s fixable I’m not convinced it will happen this year.
Aaron Campeau - June 28, 2010
Depends on the front office
If the M’s are sellers at the trade deadline (and it looks like they will be) and start “playing for the future”, a .500 record is likely on the optimistic side.
cyberwulf - June 28, 2010
They were valid at the time, but now have changed
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
Solely due to player moves, such as Snell/Byrne/Griffey/Branyan? Or are there other reasons as well?
Kermit. - June 28, 2010
We have another half season worth of data
Matthew - June 28, 2010
What I should have said is "now have changed a little"
Half a season doesn’t make a ton of difference, but it does make a difference.
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
Also, for the record
the M’s are 17-18 since May 19th.
Jeff Sullivan - June 28, 2010
That 3-15 stretch before that sure was fun.
Sec 108 - June 28, 2010
Let's not forget something about projections
These projections are for a player’s performance over the entire season. We are picking a point within the season based on the team’s, and certain players’, poor performances and then saying “look, everyone’s underperforming their projections!” So another good reason not to blame the projections is that we don’t actually know what the players’ final lines will be (and though they probably won’t be good, we would certainly expect them to regress over the remaining games).
cyberwulf - June 28, 2010
Believe Big!
Big drops in expectations!
E2ESQUARE - June 28, 2010
Even the Mariners have shown that the formula can work.
The team just came off a 6-game winning streak featuring poor run production and excellent run prevention. Granted that’s an extreme example.
The story of the season is that the overall production from players who have, at least in the beginning, exceeded expectations was grossly weighed down by underperformance.
But the reason for said underperformance is curious which makes the Russell Branyan reacquisition intriguing. Is it the spark needed to reignite the offense (by helping to improve the performance of other players trying to do too much) Or is it simply just an unnecessary marginal improvement? It’s something that I’d like to keep an eye on.
ThundaPC - June 28, 2010
And of course, when those underperformers start hitting better,
as they’re almost certain to, you’re going to hear a lot of people claim that it’s because they now have Branyan around. To take the pressure off, to give them better pitches to hit, he ignites the offense, etc. It would be, to steal Jeff’s line, an argument that’s impossible to falsify. And quite possibly correct, for all we know.
nathaniel dawson - June 28, 2010
National League!
Matthew - June 28, 2010
Unfalsiable arguments
I don’t think that the “pressure” argument is any more unfalsiable than arguments like luck. I just think that we haven’t got very good methods for evaluating the impact that the presence of one hitter might have on another hitter in the same lineup. Someday, we might call that “pressure”.
Gekko Mojo - June 28, 2010
Luck is a falsifiable argument
When someone notes that Player A has a career babip of .320 while posting a .256 babip on the season in an argument that Player A has been unlucky and will likely start getting better results, those are falsifiable points.
OlSalty - June 28, 2010
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