If you predicted before the season that at the break, the Seattle Mariners would be 49-36, and only a game back in the loss column of the AL West leading Angels, you were probably called crazy. I know I would have called you insane. However, the Mariners have succeeded in proving everyone wrong, and have taken baseball by storm. There have been some key components aiding the Mariners in the first half of the season, most notably our two all-stars, but there has been a lot more to Seattle’s crazy first half than just two players. 

Team MVP’s: Ichiro Suzuki and JJ Putz 

This one’s easy. Without either one of these players, the Mariners likely wouldn’t be where they are today. Both JJ and Ichiro were All-Stars this year (Ichiro won the ASG MVP), and rightfully so. 

Ichiro enters the second half hitting .359/.410/.459 with 23 stolen bases. All of this added to his stellar defense in Center Field equals a dang good player. Ichiro already has 77 Runs Created, and we haven’t even entered the second half yet. 

JJ Putz, so far, is perfect in save opportunities, going 24/24. JJ also has an incredible 0.88 ERA with 44 strikeouts. JJ is a huge piece to a Seattle bullpen that the team relies on so much. Not only is JJ the best reliever on the Mariners, but he’s been the best in the entire league. 

Biggest Surprise: Mike Hargrove’s Resignation 

In the middle of an 8 game winning streak, news breaks that Mike Hargrove will be walking away from the game of baseball, effective immediately. This shocked the whole world of baseball, especially his own team. To this day, it’s unknown exactly what went on to make him quit so suddenly, but John McLaren has so far done a nice job as the new skipper. 

Biggest Offensive Suckfest: Richie Sexson 

Richie has struggled to keep over the Mendoza line this year. The Mariner slugger is not typically a first half hitter, but this has been his worst start in his career. Despite leading the team in homeruns with 15, his .205 batting average has weighed the Mariners (who have the 3rd highest team batting average in the MLB) down. Richie, and the Mariners, hope that the 6′8″ First Baseman can turn it around in the second half, being that he’s vital to our success. 

Biggest Pitching Suckfest: Do I have to pick one!?!? 

Seattle’s starting rotation has been bad. There’s nothing more to it than that. Jeff Weaver got off to a terrible start, Horacio Ramirez had a lot of trouble, and Hernandez, Batista, Feierabend, Washburn, and Baek have all been inconsistent, to say the least. 

Felix has underperformed after coming back from his injury, but has had a couple of stellar outings, including his 1-hitter complete game shutout in Boston. Lucky for us, USSMariner found a serious flaw in Felix: Pitch selection. Apparently, Felix received the report that USSMariner wrote, and changed his pitch selection up a little bit. The next day, he threw 8 innings of 2 hit, shutout ball in a victory over the A’s. This may very well be the turn around point for Felix’s season. 

Multiple pitchers have been shuffled in and out of the rotation due to injury (real or made up), or just plain terrible pitching, including Horacio Ramirez, Jeff Weaver, Felix Hernandez, Ryan Feierabend, and Cha Seung Baek. The only 2 Mariner starters to stay in the rotation all year have been Jarrod Washburn and Miguel Batista. 

Speaking of Washburn and Batista, we have to give credit where credit is due. Washburn has been very solid for a team that desperately needs at least one good starter, posting a 3.72 ERA. Batista has also been alright, despite leading the team in homeruns given up. Batista and Washburn are 1 and 2 on the team in innings pitcher, with just over 100. 

The Mariners need an ace if we’re going to win and make it into October. We’re hoping Felix has figured things out. Until then, though, the Mariners roto is shaky at best. It would be hard to name one WORST pitcher so far, but Jeff Weaver (though he has turned it around since coming back), Ryan Feierabend, and HoRam would rank up there. 

Biggest Strength: Bullpen 

This bullpen is quite possibly the best in the AL. Putz has obviously been lights out, Sherrill has had an all-star worthy year, Morrow has been pretty good, and the guys we called fillers to start the season have actually been solid. Despite losing Rafael Soriano in the off season, this bullpen has really powered our team to victory, and has been the biggest strength of the ball club thus far. 

Team’s Best Off Season Acquisition: Jose Guillen 

The Mariners really didn’t do a lot last off season to make themselves a better club, but Jose Guillen has really been good for the team. He’s one away from the lead on the team in RBI (52, trailing Ibanez) and has all around been a good hitter for us, adding 11 homeruns to the mix too. If you believe in clutch, Guillen has been exactly that. His most notable game this season was probably Hargrove’s last game, where he had a game winning Homerun to win the game. 

Though Guillen has been known in his career as a clubhouse cancer, he’s been fine all year for us. He got along well with Hargrove, and seems to really like this team. Bavasi made a really good move in bringing Guillen in. 

Predicted Second Half Breakouts: Adrian Beltre, Richie Sexson, Felix Hernandez 

Beltre and Sexson are historically second half hitters, and we’re going to need their bats for the stretch run. Felix, despite inconsistency, has had a pretty decent first half too, but I expect him to do much better now that he knows how to mix his pitches. 

Props to: The Catchers 

Catching has been a strong point for the Mariners in the first half, with Kenji Johjima hitting like an All Star, and Jaime Burke following him as best as he could. Johjima is following in last year’s footsteps, and he’s a solid, predictable player. You can count on him to do well all year. 

Burke has been a great surprise. You couldn’t ask for more from a backup catcher. Jaime is sooo much better than Rene Rivera…. Looking back now, it’s hard to believe that we had Wiki Gonzalez, Rene Rivera, Miguel Olivo, and other catchers fighting for the starting job just a couple years ago. 

The M’s are a better team than they have been for years, and it’s certainly been fun watching them up to this point. I can’t help but feel that we’re only going to get better, especially with Sexson and Beltre heating up, and Adam Jones reportedly being called up. The Mariners can make a real run at this. Let’s hope they bring playoff baseball back to Seattle for the first time since 2001. 

Alright guys, I know a lot of you are huge critics of Bill Bavasi, and rightfully so. I am too. But we know that he’s going to make SOME moves before the trade deadline…. But what should he do? You tell us. I’ve opened up a thread at the forums for strictly this subject. It should be fun to talk about. Check it out:

http://marinersmania.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1907

I found an interesting trend this year in the M’s. It seemed that every time the offense scored a whole ton of runs one game, the next day they totally broke off and weren’t able to score much at all. I thought I’d look into this, and it turned out to be true. In the 8 games we’ve won in which we’ve scored 7 runs or more, 7 of the games played the next day were lost.

Why?

You tell me. I can’t figure it out, but it’s pretty sickening.

You may know, you may not; Wlad Balentien is CRUSHING the ball in Tacoma right now.

.380/.430/.648.

Balentien has turned a corner ladies and gentlemen. Striking out less and walking more.

I thought about titling this post “Felix Hernandez.” But then I decided to simplify things and just write his middle name.

The King just took east coast bias, grabbed it by the head, twisted it, stomped on it, crushed it and stuck it straight up Peter Gammons’ ass. I would quickly post Felix’ line for you to read but, well, there’s really nothing to type. CG, SO, 1 H. I’ll leave it at that.

So, what’s the difference between the Felix of last year and the newer version besides for 20 pounds? A lot.

1. A much better pitch sequence.

2. A much more consistent fastball.

3. A very good curveball turned into an amazing curveball. For whatever reason, it disappeared much of last year.

4. Experience.

To be honest, if you asked me at the beginning of last year I would have said, “Yeah, Felix will post a 3.40 ERA and dominate.” Well, I was wrong.  This year, however, I’m going to be right. And I’ll say it now:

The King: 2007 Cy Young.

After seeing the new Felix here is my 2007 prediction: 22-6 (just for the MVP voters, not like W-L actually matters), 2.25 ERA, 210 innings, 235 K, 75 BB

The Mariners are now exactly 4 games into the season, and they stand at second place in the AL West with a .500 record. It’s been an extremely eventful first couple of games for the Mariners. They managed to take the opening series from the Oakland A’s, a team that we couldn’t buy a win from last year. Riding on the King’s back for game 1, they won 4-0, and also took game 2, thanks to a decent start by Jarrod Washburn. The M’s have lost their last two official games to the A’s and Red Sox on terrible outings by Miguel Batista and Jeff Weaver.

Aside from the .500 record, which I’m so far pretty happy with, several things have struck me especially interesting.

- King Felix is THE King and a legit ace this year. All of the doubters can shut up now, and start bowing. Felix was simply DOMINATING on opening day with 12 strikeoutsssver 8 innings with no runs given up, only 3 hits, and 2 walks. The A’s were the 10th hardest team to strike out last year, so Felix wasn’t pitching against a lineup of Richie Sexson’s and Adam Dunn’s. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this again this year, either.  

- Jose Vidro is really bad. We already knew this, but his only hits this year have been bloop singles, and is yet to hit anything hard. It’s safe to say that he’s the worst 3 hitter in the Major Leagues. Oh, and a race between Vidro and Benji Molina would be a close one.

- This pitching staff is going to get KILLED when they aren’t at Safeco. The only starting pitcher I can see doing well is Felix Hernandez. Pitchers like Batista, Washburn, and Weaver are especially screwed. Washburn actually had a good season (3.54 ERA if you just want to look at simple stats) at home, yet a 5.88 ERA away. Even the bullpen hardly has groundball capabilities. This is going to be painful to watch, as usual.

-The Angels are really, really good. The Rangers and A’s aren’t. The funny thing about our division is that any team COULD finish anywhere in the standings. One or two players preforming up to par could mean the difference in 1 or 2 positions in the standings. The Angels could easily finish in first place. But they could also easily finish in last.

- Bill Bavasi accidently signed Jeff Weaver. He must have figured there was only one Weaver left in baseball after Jeff got released by the Angels, and figured that Weaver was Jered. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Jeff only hit 90 twice in his entire game vs. the Red Sox this morning. All of 3 innings, that is.

- Speculation by the Mariners FO (and that Hargrove guy) was that Brandon Morrow would be able to be an effective reliever in the Major right now. Yeah, they were wrong. As much as I love Morrow, he can’t get batters out right now. This is perfectly natural for a guy who pitched one freakin game in the Minor Leagues the year before being called up this year. Morrow NEEDS to be sent down, not because of his preformance right now, but because he really needs to get innings at the Minor League level as a starter. Once again, that’s where Brandon Morrow’s value is.

Seriously, can you guys name another team that would have brought up Brandon Morrow to start the season? I can’t think of any other club that stupid.

- Jose Guillen really doesn’t forget. He faced Brendan Donnely today of the Red Sox, and gave him one of the nastiest stares you will ever see, accompanied by the bench’s both clearing. He really hates these guys, and who could blame him? Let’s just hope he stays mad at the Angels and his former team”mates”, because  we’re gonna see a whole lot of production out of Guillen if he does.

- And finally, I hate snow. You knew I would mention it. It was hell for me personally to see the Mariners game snowed out for 4 days straight on my Spring Break, which leaves me nothing for me to watch on TV. I really wish MLB would do something about the scheduling of early-season games, but I’m sure that would make too much sense, so they won’t.

This brings up the question, how will the Mariners make up these games? I’d hate to have the team travel up there on our only 2 off days we have in common to play a double header, and then fly out that day. This makes 3 games in 36 hours, including 2 flights. Too bad the Indians probably won’t let us move the series to Seattle when they come to visit.

On a lighter note, I get a kick out of the Indians playing their series vs. the Angels in Milwaukee. As mentioned on ussmariner.com, the matchup is, at the moment, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim vs. the Cleveland Indians of Milwaukee.

Well, it’s Opening Night in Major League Baseball, and while I watch the Mets take a 5-0 lead over the World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, I decided I would try to bring back the blog. We were actually getting a ton of views on this blog before the inactivity, but I sort of let it die because I couldn’t figure out how to fix the broken layout. Well, the layout is fixed, and the blog is officially back, as is baseball! The Mariners play their first game against the A’s tomorrow. It will be Felix Hernandez vs. Dan Haren.

We’ll have a game thread going over on the forums, so I suggest you guys go over and check that out. Here’s the link.

I’ll have a couple other entries up here in the upcoming days. Hope to see you all back here as regular readers again!

It’s September, and that means once again it’s September Call Up time! The M’s this morning released a list of players that will join the team when Tacoma’s season ends.

Greg Dobbs (obviously), Adam Jones, Oswaldo Navarro, Francisco Cruceta, Travis Chick, Cesar Jimenez, and TJ Bohn are all coming up when the Rainiers season ends. There are probably others, too. Jason A. Churchill thinks Travis Blackley, Hunter Brown, and Bobby Livingston are all going to be called up as well.

How ’bout Chris Snelling? As I type this, he’s 0-0 in 2 AB with 2 walks. He’s sure doing a good job making up for everyone else’s lack of walks. As of last night, Chris has an OPS of 1.089. That speaks for itself.

Felix Hernandez will probably miss his next start after Sunday. The M’s have an off day on Thursday, so the pitchers will still pitch on 5 days of rest.

I just got back from my 2-week vacation, so that’s why you haven’t heard much of me. But I’m back, and you’re stuck with me now.

EDIT: Ryan Feierabend up as well.

With news coming out yesterday that Japanese pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka will most likely be posted, many fans are left wondering where he’ll land.

According to my source (and if you know me, you’ll know who my source is), the chances of teams landing Matsuzaka breaks down as such: Seattle - 50%, NYY - 20%, NYM - 10%, LAA - 10%, LAD - 10%.

Apparently, Daisuke PREFERS to play in Seattle over New York and the Mariners’ organization is willing to go 25+ million in the bidding war.

What other factors are present? How about the fact that Seattle has a Japanese catcher? Think about it. You’re going over to Japan next year and you’re a pitcher. One team in the entire league has an English speaking catcher (one who you are already friends with - see the WBC). What team is your preference?

Finally, Ichiro. It’s known that he meets with Mr. Yamauchi for a yearly meeting. Don’t you think he’ll bring up Matsuzaka to the Mariners’ owner in his annual meeting? Yeah, I do too.

Ichiro looks bored out there, he’s tired of losing and knows how good of a pitcher Matsuzaka is and will be.

So, the Yankees have what? A check book?

So do we. Plus a Japanese speaking catcher, Ichiro (Japan’s idol), a Japanese owner, the willingness to spend up to 30 million in the bidding process, and we’re Matsuzaka’s preference.

Still don’t think we’re the frontrunner’s to land Matsuzaka?

Dave Cameron over at the USSMariner breaks down the best way to evaluate a pitcher.

Click HERE to read it.

Summed up, only using ERA, WHIP, and BAA are terrible ways to evaluate a pitchers performance
To counter these broad stats, Dave highlights that the six possible outcomes of a pitched ball are:

1. A called strike

2. A swinging strike.

3. A ball

4. A line drive.

5. A flyball.

6. A groundball.

Three of those (a groundball, a swinging strike, and groundball) are all beneficial to a pitcher, the others (a walk, a flyball, and a line drive) are not.
He also states that while 77% of flyballs are recorded for outs and 74% of groundballs are recorded for outs, flyball pitchers are still at a lesser advantage then groundball pitchers.

While flyball pitchers will get the out 3% more of the time, the 23% of the time that they DON’T get an out from a flyball, it’s going for extra bases or a home run.

So, all this being said, let’s see how our very own pitchers break down.

First of all, The King:

LD%: 17.8

GB%: 57.1

K%(calculated as K’s per total batters faced): 21.8%
BB%(calculated as BB’s per total batters faced): 8.5%
FB%: 25.1

Again, as Cameron points out:

For LD%, 17% is good, 20% is average, 23% is bad.

For GB%, 50% is good, 42% is average, 35% is bad.

For K%, 20% is good, 16% is average, 12% is bad.

For BB%, 5% is good, 8% is average, 11% is bad.

For FB%, 32% is good, 36% is average, 40% is bad.

So, where does Felix break down in each category? LD% = good, GB% = great, K% = very good, BB% = average, FB% = great.

Our boy Felix has one of the lower xFIP ERA’s in the league as well. Felix’ “struggles” this year are more a cause of bad luck then bad pitching. He’s still a phenom, he’s still going to win Cy Young’s; there’s nothing to worry about here - except for injury. Though, Felix hasn’t had any problems with injuries in his past.
Now, onto Washburn,

LD%: 17.5 - good
GB%: 40% - below average
K%: 12.9% - bad
BB%: 6.7% - above average
FB%: 42.5% - bad
Jarrod Washburn is a number 4 starter being paid number 2 starter money. His mid-4 ERA this year shouldn’t be a shocker.

Now to the Golden Boy, Gil Meche:

LD%: 16.7 - good
GB%: 43.2 - average
K%: 19.9% - good
BB%: 10.9% - bad
FB%: 40.1% - bad

As you can see, Gil Meche’s only problems are his control and giving up too many flyballs. While there are dominant flyball pitchers that offset their FB% with a great K% like Meche should, they don’t have the terrible walk rate.

When you walk batters and have a FB% that is too high, the flyballs will turn into 2 and 3 run homers rather then solo shots.

Gil Meche is a number 4 pitcher and if he ever put a few things together he could be a #3. It better not be the Mariners paying him to be a number 2 this offseason.

Since these are the only three players with at least a decent shot (Felix and Washburn are both locks) to make the rotation next year, I won’t bother with Baek or Woods.

However, I would like to point out just how amazing our closer has been this year.
JJ Putz breaks down as follows:

LD%: 16.1 - good
GB%: 51.0 - good
K%: 34.6 - simply amazing
BB%: 4.3 - great
FB%: 32.9 - good

JJ Putz’ season is no fluke. That splitter has taken him a LONG way from last year taking his K% from an average 17.4% to an amazing 34.6% and his walk rate has been cut down from 8.9% to 4.3%.

Finally, I’d like to remind you all one more time that FELIX HERNANDEZ IS STILL A PHENOM.