Moyer Might Finally Act His Age

So Jaime Moyer might finally be finished.

Pitching in a winter Mexican league attempting to embarrass yet more hitters with 68 mph changeups and land a big league gig, he apparently blew up his elbow again, and team manager Moises Alou thinks the jig is finally up.

I had kind of secretly hoped that maybe Moyer might entertain coming back to the M's on some kind of yay-Seattle-farewell-tour and not only mentor some of the kids, but probably hold down the 3rd or 4th best starter on the staff seat.

He's 48 years old this month, my God...seriously, what a career.  He's been pitching for 25 years, has 267 wins, and over FOUR THOUSAND innings pitched - and let's face it, he's done almost all of it with smoke and mirrors.

Jaime Moyer - you are an inspiration to everyone in the world with a shitty fastball and a ton of desire.  I'll forever teach my kids that the greatest pitch you can learn is the changeup because of you.

If I run into you on Magnolia hill somewhere, I hope you let me buy you a beer.

Analyzing Aaron Hill Using Jack Moore's Four Factor Method

via Xtranormal.





You really should read the article, as Moore's stuff is really quite excellent.  But I just couldn't help myself...

New Fantasy Baseball Site

I'll be contributing over at RotoHardball where you can find all sorts of fantasy-baseball-related fun.  The site is new, so there's not much in the way of content yet, but it will build quickly in the coming weeks.  It's on the SB Network, which has some really handy tools, and it's geared towards fan participation.  It's not FanGraphs and it's not Rotowire, but it probably meets somewhere in between.  Not heavy duty geekdom, but plenty of nerdiness yet hopefully always well defined.  Feel free to check it out.

The Log will motor on, of course, and our efforts to survive an offseason fraught with disappointment will not go unnoticed...

Betting Against the Team You Love

So I might be late to the game on this one, but this guy is a Pirates fan and was so disgusted by their talent pool, that he decided to bet $20 bucks against them in every one of the162 games that they played.  It turned out to be a pretty good run for him, of course - as he turned about a 10% return on investment  (definitely follow this link to the spreadsheet because it contains pretty hilarious game by game comments that any Mariner fan would relate to).

Considering the Buckos lost 105 games, you'd figure he would have done much better, but it turns out Vegas knew how bad they were too and the odds really worked against him getting big paydays.  Anytime your team is -180 versus the Diamondbacks, you know there's something horribly wrong.

Wedgie

Get used to this look on his face.

But other than that, yay!

Bobby V = Mariner Blue?

I'm surprised by this

This is after he interviewed with the M's on Monday too. Perhaps he liked what he saw, or maybe he was just mesmerized by Jack Z's shiny head.

Or, maybe he just wants to re-live the glory days...

Boy Wonder

For years, Paul and I have referred to Roy Oswalt as "BW" - or "Boy Wonder".  With that in mind, I couldn't not post this:

M's Managerial Candidates: odds

Bobby Valentine 3-2
Eric Wedge 5-1
John Gibbons 10-1
Cecil Cooper 18-1
Ted Simmons 200-1
Lloyd McClendon 1000-1

I don't think Valentine will take the job - I think he's going to wind up in Florida.  He's too established right now to want to suffer through a 100 loss season.  Why bother when you could just broadcast for ESPN and be everybody's cuddly grandpappy color announcer?  If Florida and Seattle both offer him the job, he goes to Florida.  Only way he comes to Seattle is if he has literally nothing better to do or they decide to make him some kind of financial offer he can't refuse. 

I'd personally like to see Eric Wedge get hired. He's kind of got that Lou Piniella fiery thing going, he seems to be a real player-advocate kind of guy, his worst year was pretty flukey and hey, who wouldn't love to see him show up in Spring Training with a "Fuck Milton Bradley" T-shirt on?  M's could sell a million of those.

Gibbons too mean. Cooper is too nice. Simmons won't get an interview. McClendon would be a friggin disaster.

Two possible Mariner pitching targets

I have absolutely no insider knowledge whatsoever, but I read things.  I read a lot of things.  Then I read things like this and think, Chris Young, for all his hurt-shoulder-ness, is better than 80% of the current Mariner rotation, and therefore someone in blue should be interested.

So some quick thoughts about Chris Young.  Yes, he gets hurt.  A lot.  When he's good, he can be very good (3.4 and 3.7 WAR in 2005, 2007) and when he's hurt, he's still better than Doug Fister and Ryan Rowland Smith as long as he can get on the field.

He's an extreme-extreme flyball pitcher and has benefited greatly from playing in San Diego where his home/road splits almost make you want to platoon him only at Petco.  But for that reason, he should probably only play in San Diego, Seattle, and maybe Detroit.  He would be a good fit for the Safe though, for sure.  He's usually a good strikeout guy, not because he throws particularly hard, but because he's delivering not from 60 feet 6 inches, but probably closer to 50 feet 6 inches since the dude is a toothpick from 7 feet tall.

He signed a 4 year, 14.5 million dollar deal with SD in 2007 and if you didn't follow the link above, they're turning down his 8.5 mil option in 2011 with hopes of getting him on the cheap going forward, which comes as little surprise to anyone.


The problem of course is the M's would have to overpay.  If the Padres only offer him a one year with incentives and a team option, well maybe the M's could have the benefit of offering him added security in a two year deal or something.  I don't know.  All I know is Chris Young is probably a pretty good risk for a team that is going to be desperate for pitching, and he really shouldn't cost all that much.

Second, is Aaron Harang who will be a free agent after Cincy almost assuredly buys out his 12-plus mil option at $2 mil.

Surprisingly, Harang is just a a year older than CY and will turn just 33 in May.  It seems like he should be 40 by now. 

Harang gives up a lot of hits, he gives up a lot of homers, and he's become an increasingly fly ball pitcher.  But for a guy who won exactly 6 games in each of the 2008 and 2009 seasons, his xFIP was 4.18 and 3.95, respectively which would be good for 2nd best on the Mariner staff (not including Cliff Lee).  He didn't benefit at all from Great American Ballpark, his strand rate was uncharacteristically low and his BABIP uncharacteristically high in 2010.  I don't know that you could categorically call him a "bounce back candidate" but objectively, he should be a pretty productive pitcher in 2011 for someone - and the bigger the ballpark, the better.

I really don't know what it would take to sign a guy who is coming off three awfully disappointing seasons using wins and ERA as your guide.  Would he take a one year with option in order to try and right the ship and get a multi-year thereafter?  Maybe.  Float the Levinson brothers a $4 mil figure, and tell them that they should be happy they didn't have to pay for Milton Bradley's therapy (who they also represent) and maybe they'll put in a good word with Harang.


What's more, if signed, he would undoubtedly create chaos among opinions about the ugliest Mariner after Jack Wilson reigned as king for two straight years.

I know there has been much said about the offensive needs of the 2011 Mariners, and oh-my-God are those needs great, but going into the season with Jason Vargas as your #2 starter is just damned terrifying.  I'm all for player development, but anyone who thinks Luke French, Doug Fister, or Hyphen are going to develop into front of the rotation type guys are fooling themselves.  The Mariners have a #1 ace and about ten #5 starters as options.  Let's try to creatively pepper in a #3 or #4, shall we?

CC vs. Felix

There's no way I could have said it better myself - found at Tim Marchman's site "Improve Conditions" - so I'll just put the whole post below...

The other day I was trying to think of a way to argue that CC Sabathia is better than Felix Hernandez that didn’t involve pointing out that Sabathia has won more games, because it would be clever and thus virtuous.

Sabathia has pitched less, struck out fewer batters, walked more, given up more hits and home runs, pitched seven or more innings less frequently and pitched eight or more much less frequently. He’s faced easier competition, having pitched nine games against teams in contention right now against Hernandez’s 14, and worked in front of a better defense, as New York leads Seattle in turning batted balls into outs. He may have pitched in worse weather. I don’t know that he has. If it he has it would be a point for him.

A credible case for Sabathia will have to work, then, from one of two points. The first would be essentially aesthetic, grounded somehow in the experience of watching them.

I’ve seen both Sabathia and Hernandez a lot this year, including in person. Sabathia is basically a man of pitcherly virtues; he moves the ball around a lot, hits the catcher’s glove just so, throws a lot of different pitches, throws each of them in different registers and maintains a certain rhythm, so that hitters stay slightly jumpy. His main strength is that he more or less never has a bad start. He’s Mark Buerhle with more gifts from God.

Hernandez mauls people. He may as well be throwing marbles and bowling balls for all the chance anyone has to really crack him. Half the time he looks as if he’s one whispered suggestion away from ripping the batter’s arm out of the socket and using it to beat him to death. I don’t think the idea that he’s somehow less ace-like than Sabathia is supportable.

This leaves the second point, which would be that New York is world capital of politics, finance, the arts and baseball while Seattle is a miserable shithole full of sad, small people living unimportant lives, so that what happens in one place counts for more than what happens in the other. I don’t know if this is a position you can really argue someone out of. The best you can do is encourage them to really own it. (Incidentally, people who argue this point, no matter how many euphemisms they use, always sound to me like Mark E. Smith in ‘The Classical’: ‘HEY THERE FUCKFACE!! HEY THERE FUCKFACE!! There are twelve people in the world! The rest are paste!’)

All this so, the most interesting thing about the Cy Young race is probably just how little credit Hernandez is getting for even running up a winning record while being supported by a lineup that may as well comprise two winos drinking Sterno strained through stale bread, a Mongolian who learned how to hit by playing Bases Loaded, Alan Partridge, and five cardboard cutouts of Ski Melillo. The following teams had better offenses than this year’s Mariners:

—1983 Seattle Mariners. Scored 3.44 runs per game in a league scoring 4.48. Their main leadoff hitter was Spike Owen, who hit .196/.257/.271; primary catcher Rick Sweet hit for the exact same OPS; nine players had OBAs worse than .260 in at least 50 ABs.

—1992 California Angels. Scored 3.57 runs per game in a league scoring 4.32. Their best hitting regular, by far, was (of all people) Chad Curtis, who maintained a robust 100 OPS+. After him it was probably Luis Sojo, who brought a .299 OBA, or Luis Polonia. (Did you know the Torre dynasty was forged in the Rodgers-Wathan crucible? I didn’t...)

—1999 Minnesota Twins. Scored 4.26 runs per game in a league scoring 5.18. This was the year when Doug Mientkiewicz hit .229/.324/.330 from first base in 118 games, while Cristian Guzman rocked an OPS+ of 38 in 131 games. Famously couldn’t find playing time for David Ortiz coming off a year when he hit .277/.371/.446 in 86 games at age 22.

—2003 Detroit Tigers. Scored 3.65 runs per game in a league scoring 4.86. Of their many impressive accomplishments, I was always most taken by this: This team ran out Dean Palmer for 100 ABs where he posted an OPS+ of 12. Also of interest: Both Andres Torres and Omar Infante played for the aught-three Tigers, raising the question of whether this team was as great a source for 2010 what the hell performances as the 1992 Angels were for gritty Torre Yankees.

The Mariners are scoring 3.23 runs per game in a league scoring 4.47. The one American League team I can identify that has had a worse offense since the adoption of the designated hitter rule was Toronto in 1981, and even that’s arguable. Consider for example that the Mariners have scored two or fewer runs in 45 per cent of their games, which is actually worse than what the Blue Jays did even though they’re playing in a much higher run environment.  (My favorite wacky Mariners statistic, by the way: They’ve given 57 per cent of their plate appearances to players with OBAs of .303 or below.)

I don’t know if Hernandez should win the Cy Young over Sabathia. Awards are what you make them and voting for someone because everything and everyone outside of New York is insignificant makes as much sense as anything else. I do know that if Hernandez doesn’t get the Cy he ought to get a medal and a parade. 11-10 on a team more impotent than the 1999 Twins? That’s ridiculous. Lefty Grove wouldn't have cracked .500 with these jokers.

Good stuff.  Thanks Tim.