A couple weeks ago, when we were recording a podcast, Matthew and I were talking about all the reasons Mariners fans have to be pretty optimistic about the season ahead. This might've been before we actually pressed "record" so I don't know if you heard this conversation, but I remarked to Matthew that I wanted to write a post about Justin Smoak. Then some time after the podcast I went through the Lookout Landing archives and found out that I wrote the post I wanted to write about Smoak last October. For many writers, this would be a deterrent. I'm going back to the well anyway. Who remembers shit from last October? Obviously I do not. So let's talk about Justin Smoak.
I've had Smoak on my mind ever since the podcast. Then I read this article from Larry Stone a few days ago. Remember, Smoak started strong last year before slipping into a ghastly slump, and we heard talk about thumb injuries. At the time, Smoak and the Mariners downplayed the significance, suggesting that Smoak was just caught in-between, or something. They all but said the injuries weren't a big deal. Now, in Stone's article, we have what I think is the first acknowledgment that the injuries were a big deal. As we figured. Some quotes:
"Yeah, it was bad," [Smoak] said. "I get jammed and my right thumb was messed up. Then I take a bad hop off the left thumb, and it was that big around (making a wide circle gesture) and I couldn't move it. It's hard to hit when you don't have your hands."
"I still felt I could play," [Smoak] said. "I knew I had one swing every time I went up to bat. I knew I wasn't going to swing three or four times. One swing is all I had."
Smoak didn't want to say too much, because he didn't want to go on the DL. The Mariners didn't want to say too much, because they didn't want opposing teams to try to take advantage. So we wound up with Smoak and the Mariners sticking it out, and Smoak not contributing at all. I mean that. I mean that Justin Smoak barely contributed at all while he was playing hurt.
It seems so obvious now that Smoak should've gone on the disabled list. I recall it being pretty obvious back then. He couldn't do anything. What makes it tricky is that we don't know how Smoak actually felt. The quote above is pretty grim, but if Smoak thought that he could play and help out, I guess he should've gotten some time to battle. He shouldn't have gotten as much time as he did. Once it became clear that Smoak couldn't drive the ball, he should've gotten a rest.
But what's important now isn't how Smoak was managed last season. That's last season's issue. What's important is figuring out what he is as a player. I put this in the last post about Smoak, but the numbers below say so much. Assuming an accurate injury window:
2011, Healthy: .270/.360/.470 (367 plate appearances)
2011, Injured: .130/.213/.176 (122 plate appearances)
The 2011, Healthy line comes with a .309 batting average on balls in play. That's probably a little high for a player like Smoak, but not significantly so. It's well within the expected range.
You take away the time that Smoak was playing with bad thumbs - the time that he had "one swing" every time he went to the plate - and he was a very good hitter. He wasn't a great hitter, even when you account for the ballpark, but he was a solid one, and at the age of 24. That's solid, with upside. That's more like the guy the Mariners thought they were getting when they traded Cliff Lee.
Because I'm a Mariners fan who wants the Mariners to be good, I might be a little too ready to accept the thumb injuries as an explanation. Maybe it wasn't about the thumbs. Maybe it was about something else. Maybe it was about something mental. Maybe it wasn't about anything. But then, doesn't it just make so much sense? If Smoak's thumbs hurt, wouldn't that affect his swing? If we know that Smoak's swing was affected by thumb injuries, isn't it fair to assume that his performance while hurt isn't representative of his true talent?
It's kind of like the Franklin Gutierrez situation. Gutierrez is, apparently, oodles better than he was last year, physically. He has his weight, strength and endurance back. His problems in 2011 had to do with his reduced strength and endurance. If he's back, am I really getting ahead of myself if I assume that Gutierrez will be way more productive? Felix is in better shape, but I don't really care. Mike Carp is in better shape, but I don't really care. I don't see how those things could have a significant effect on performance. It's really easy to see how a healthy Smoak and a healthy Gutierrez could take a statistical leap forward.
I don't mean to ignore or downplay the significance of Justin Smoak losing his father early in the season, by the way. That, obviously, is far more important than anything else from a lot of perspectives. But from an insensitive "how are the baseball players going to perform?" perspective, I don't know what to make of that. I don't know how losing a loved one might change one's performance. I do have a pretty good idea of how having hurt thumbs might change one's performance.
In Justin Smoak, I don't think the Mariners have a blossoming superstar. I doubt that Smoak ever bats .300. I doubt that Smoak ever slugs .550, or gets on base 40 percent of the time. But in Justin Smoak, I think the Mariners have a far better hitter than his 2011 numbers would suggest. He doesn't even necessary have to improve in 2012 to be good. I think he just needs to be healthy. And if he does improve further, well, terrific. He's young. He's recently been a top prospect. Young, recent top prospects frequently improve.
I have fewer questions going forward about Justin Smoak as a hitter than I have about Mike Carp as a hitter. Carp's coming off a season in which he struck out a lot and posted a higher BABIP than he's going to continue to post. I don't know quite what to make of Carp. I think I know more of what to make of Smoak. I think he's good. I think he's good, now. And I think he could get better. Smoak's a guy you should be excited about, and hopefully a year from now people will be over wanting the Mariners to bring in a slugging first baseman, because they'll already have one.
Here is an open thread for the press conference and any other related material you want to discuss. The talking scheduled to begin at 2pm local time. Live cast links:
King5 (video + audio)
Kiro7 (video + audio)
710 ESPN (audio)
Seattle.gov (video + audio)
I note that, removed a bit in time from the initial surprise of such progress in discussions, this is after all only talk about a new arena. There aren't teams yet, nor are they guaranteed. I think both the NBA and NHL should want to be in Seattle. I have total faith that the market here is better than currently inhabited markets. However, neither league is likely to expand and relocation still do have to go through the commissioners. So there's still David Stern and Gary Bettman in the way. I mean, what could go wrong with those two involved, right?
Still, this is new development and gaining teams in those leagues would be a significant boon to the neighborhood economy. Roughly they'd go from 100 distinct sporting event days per year to about 150. I'm collecting some select quotes and statements below the fold.
I try to remain skeptical while not pessimistic about news. I prefer actions to words as words can be deliberately used for manipulation whereas actions, well those can be manipulative too, but the action still gets done. In the baseball world, this is nowhere more apparent than in managerial quotes, which I highlighted last summer. It's also readily seen with offseason rumors. You are all probably going to be saner if you just chill and wait for actual moves to occur rather than stressing out over tadpoles that will never develop into frogs.
Such has been my stance on the arena talks that have leaked recently and the inevitable hopes for a rekindled NBA and new-to-Seattle NHL teams. However
BREAKING: Source tells me press conference scheduled at #Seattle City Hall to announce deal on new sports arena complex...
— Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) February 16, 2012
this might start being worth paying attention to.
[17:51 UPDATE]: Seattle Times chips in with a short piece backing up, but not confirming, that talks are close. News conference scheduled for 2pm tomorrow.
From Baker, the other day:
The one bit of news Wedge did let drop is that he's leaning heavily towards Jason Vargas starting the second game in Japan against the Oakland Athletics.
"We're probably looking at Vargas right now in regards to the first couple of games,'' Wedge said.
From a Brad Lefton feature on Hisashi Iwakuma:
"I found [Jack Zduriencik] a funny and engaging guy, easy to talk to," Iwakuma recalls. "He told me the team was opening the season in Japan and he'd like to see me start one of those games. I really appreciated that."
Option 1
Iwakuma over Felix for the season opener! The Mariners were genuine!
Option 2
Iwakuma starts one of the exhibition games in Japan. The Mariners were not ungenuine.
Option 3
DECEIT
The good news passed along in Lefton's piece is that Iwakuma says his shoulder is fine now after getting injured last season. But then Justin Smoak said he was fine while his batting average plummeted to .218 so maybe everybody's just a big fat liar.
You might not be able to tell, but I'm currently trapped in a rabbit hole of PITCHfx data. Have been for a few days. It's what led to that post about the worst swings. All I want to do is look up things and then find them in video and make .gifs of them if they're interesting. It's all I've been able to think about. It's hard to think about anything else, because compared to PITCHfx data, nothing else matters. In baseball. Other things do matter in regular life, like eruptions and eruption warning systems.
This is a post of .gifs, inspired by research into PITCHfx data. I can't help it. Maybe it will be the last one for a while. It probably will not, since, again, rabbit hole. It's not like spring training's going to get interesting for a few weeks anyway, and you should know that I said "interesting" out loud all sarcastic-like. I said it so sarcastically that I heard a sarcasm detector explode down the street. I live in a neighborhood of scientists.
These .gifs show bad pitches that Ichiro turned into hits. Each of these pitches shows up in the data as being more than two feet away from the center of the strike zone. Hold your hands out in front of your face. Estimate two feet between them. That's a big distance. Especially if you're a bad visual estimator. Two feet is a long way away from the center of the strike zone.
On the one hand, these are .gifs of Bad Ichiro. On the other hand, these are .gifs of Regular Ichiro, doing something that few other players can do. More importantly, these are .gifs of baseball, and they're .gifs in which the Mariners aren't doing horrible things, so I consider this a step up from Friday.
To the singles! And keep an eye out for Yuniesky Betancourt, without whom one of these .gifs would not have been made.
Popular way to refer to occasion:
Pitchers and catchers report to spring training.
Not popular way to refer to occasion:
Pitchers and catchers have entire bodies physically examined.
Very unpopular way to refer to occasion:
Mariners insist that Felix Hernandez sees doctor.
I don't intend to bury Matthew's post below, nor do I feel like a whole lot has to be said about today anyway. Mariners pitchers and catchers are in Arizona, and today they got looked at. All of them were presumably given a clean bill of health. Maybe one of them was given a clean bill of health and has tuberculosis. Doctors don't know everything. Soon, pitchers will pitch to catchers. Some other position players are already in Arizona, too, and they've been doing position player-y things.
I don't think the day that pitchers and catchers report to spring training ought to be a holiday, like so many people say they do. I'm guessing those people are only half-serious. The day that pitchers and catchers report does not mark the return of baseball. There will not be baseball tomorrow. There will not be baseball in a week. There will not be baseball, the way we want there to be baseball.
But I think what this day stands for is the return to thinking about baseball in terms of the day-to-day. It's still the offseason, in that it isn't the season, but we're not thinking about big roster moves. We're not thinking about trade options, or how the Mariners might look in 2014, or anything like that. It's time we start thinking about the day's events, and what they might mean for tomorrow's events.
Welcome back to the routine. It's probably going to take you a little while to adjust. It's kind of spring training for everybody.
Earlier Thursday, Ken Rosenthal published a column about how the Mariners ought to move Chone Figgins back to leadoff. This post is not intended as a direct response to what Rosenthal wrote, since I've heard the idea from a number of people, but there will necessarily be some overlap.
Chone Figgins has a bad contract. At first, it was not a bad contract. Or maybe it has always been a bad contract, but at first, we didn't believe that it was a bad contract. Figgins looked like a useful and valuable player to have. Then he became Chone Figgins as we understand him today. The Chone Figgins with a bad contract.
The Mariners are not alone in having a bad contract. Without checking, I'm going to assume that every team in baseball has at least one bad contract. Not all bad contracts are created the same, and Figgins' contract is worse than some other bad contracts. But it's also better than some other bad contracts. Hey there, Vernon Wells, won't you please stay a while? I would like to discuss your bad contract. Or as you call it, your super awesome unbelievably amazing contract.
Figgins, needless to say, has not turned out. When you have a player in Figgins' position, there are people who think the team should just cut its losses and eat the rest of the contract. There are other people who are okay with keeping the player around, but know that his best days are behind him. And there are still other people who insist on the possibility of a revival.
A player with a bad contract was given a big contract for a reason, right? Who's to say players can't rebound?
You and I probably figure that Chone Figgins is a lost cause, and that his greatest hope now is becoming a utility guy of moderate use. But something I've heard from several people, most recently Rosenthal, is that Figgins might bounce back if he's returned to the leadoff slot, where he hit with the Angels. Chone Figgins is a leadoff guy. The Mariners didn't let him hit leadoff. No wonder he's fallen flat!
It's an appealing concept, because the idea of Figgins being good again would change so many things. I guess it wouldn't change that many things, but it would change at least one thing, and presumably a handful of others. Chone Figgins coming back from the dead would be a miracle, just as anybody coming back from the dead would be a miracle.
But pardon me if I think that sounds a little too simplistic. A little too easy. To assert that Figgins could rebound as the leadoff guy is to assert that this has been a matter of psychology, not tools, and to assert that the difference between batting first and batting second is so great that it made Figgins sufficiently uncomfortable that he became a bad player.
There's no doubt in my mind that Figgins believes he could be better as leadoff. Figgins kind of has to believe that. He has to believe he can be fixed. And the last time he was good, he was leadoff. The two are connected in his mind. To Figgins, the thing that changed between Anaheim and Seattle is his spot in the batting order, so that must have a lot to do with his struggles.
But there are times when I believe in a player's explanation, and there are times when I don't. I want Figgins to be good. I want him to succeed as a Mariner, because of course I do. But I can't bring myself to buy this one.
Look at some of the lines in Rosenthal's article. It's said that batting second presents a different kind of challenge. It's said that batting second behind Ichiro presents a uniquely different kind of challenge. Perhaps Figgins has struggled because he's tried to adapt to that. But:
"It would be great to go back to leadoff and do that again," Figgins said. "If not, I have to change my mindset as a '2' hitter. I haven't really changed my mindset to be a '2' hitter. I've stuck with being a patient hitter."
Figgins hasn't changed his mindset after two years. He's "stuck with" being the hitter that he was. Except in terms of results. The results have been way worse.
So maybe it's sticking with that old approach that's gotten him in trouble? That seems to be the sentiment.
"Being in that spot and understanding that Ichiro is an aggressive player - that's what makes him great - I need to understand that when he is aggressive, I need to be aggressive, too," Figgins said. "A lot of times I get behind in the count too much."
First-pitch Strikes:
2009: 57%
2010: 58%
2011: 57%
Behind 0-1:
2009: 49%
2010: 50%
2011: 50%
Two-strike counts:
2009: 53%
2010: 51%
2011: 51%
In 2009, after getting ahead 1-0, Figgins batted .333. After falling behind 0-1, he batted .259. The last two years, after getting ahead 1-0, Figgins has batted .251. After falling behind 0-1, he's batted .212. This is about more than getting ahead and falling behind. This is about quality of contact.
Something else we can look at - what about when Figgins hasn't been hitting directly behind Ichiro? When leading off an inning in 2009, Figgins batted .275. When leading off an inning over the last two years, Figgins has batted .213. When leading off an inning, Figgins hasn't had to be in the mindset of a No. 2 hitter. It hasn't mattered. He's been bad.
I get uneasy about these things. On this matter, I have one opinion. Baseball people involved, and baseball people not involved, probably have another opinion. A lot of them probably do, at least. And I'm not so confident in myself that I think I know more about how baseball works than they do. If baseball people think that Chone Figgins could bounce back by being returned to the leadoff slot, we can't just ignore that outright.
But color me skeptical. I won't be mad if they try. There's probably not a lot of harm in trying, when Figgins plays. Again, one figures the Mariners aren't even getting within sniffing distance of the playoffs, making this a development and experiment season. Batting Figgins leadoff would be an experiment. But I've done a lot of experiments. Even the ones where I know how they're supposed to work out, they haven't always worked out. If Figgins' problem this whole time has been batting order position, we can learn from that, but chances are it's not that simple. It so infrequently is.
This post does not really have anything to do with the Mariners. Not every post needs to have anything to do with the Mariners, just because this is a Mariners blog. Stop being so one-track minded. I did. And now I'm writing this post.
There's lots of buzz that Seattle is working hard to get an NBA team and an NHL team. We've heard such buzz before, but it's seemed unusually intense of late. They wouldn't be getting a new NBA team or a new NHL team. Presumably, they would be getting the Sacramento Kings and the Phoenix Coyotes, respectively. There's no guarantee that Sacramento moves, and there's no guarantee that Phoenix moves, but my admittedly limited understanding is that their current situations could be best described with a word rhyming with brother-sucked. Actually that's gross. 'Nother-lucked. There we go, kind of!
Matthew and I talked about this on the podcast we recorded this morning (stay tuned brother-suckers). Let's go and get ahead of ourselves. Let's say Seattle gets an NBA team, and let's say Seattle gets an NHL team. I'm assuming that the NBA team would be called the Sonics, or the SuperSonics. I'm also assuming that, if it wouldn't, whatever, I don't care about basketball. What of the NHL team? What would the hockey team be called?
You wouldn't keep them as the Coyotes. They wouldn't be starting over from scratch as a roster, but they'd be starting over from scratch as a franchise. You wouldn't want to go back to the Metropolitans, since there's already another Metropolitans in baseball, and also that name sucks. As I talked about in the podcast and since I'm not above using ideas over again, 'Lahar' is a non-starter and 'Canucks' would be hilariously dickish but probably forbidden.
So, what are your ideas? If you were in charge for some reason, what would you name the hockey team? Why would you name it that? If offering a suggestion, please also offer an explanation.
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