The Mariners aren’t a difficult team to understand. On the pitching side, they want to get the ball from James Paxton to Edwin Diaz. When those pitchers aren’t available — which is most of the time — the position players need to hit the crap out of the ball. To this point, it’s worked; while the Mariners have been outscored, they are in at least temporary possession of a wild-card slot, with the lineup owning a 109 wRC+. During a four-game weekend series in Cleveland, the Mariners put up 32 runs, which would be a lot of runs against anyone anywhere.

It shouldn’t surprise you to learn that Robinson Cano has been productive. He’s dramatically cut down his swing rate, causing his walk rate to double. Nelson Cruz, Jean Segura, Dee Gordon — these players, also, were supposed to be good. Yet the best hitter on the team has been none other than Mitch Haniger. In other words, Haniger is doing it again. He’s looking to cement his place as the breakout star of the Segura/Taijuan Walker trade.

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Last Friday, in the second inning against the Rangers, Robinson Cano went where no man, at least no infielder, had gone before.

Cano, the Mariners’ nominal second baseman in this instance, was situated in an alignment in which he began 221 feet from home plate against Joey Gallo. Read the rest of this entry »

On the heels of a pair of injury-shortened seasons, it was a rough spring for Felix Hernandez, who was drilled by a line drive in his first Cactus League start. Fortunately, he bounced back in time to build up his pitch count, and when he takes the mound tonight for the Mariners at Safeco Field, he’ll claim a little slice of history.

Hernandez will be making the 11th Opening Day start of his career, putting him into a tie with CC Sabathia for the lead among active pitchers, and the 10th-highest total since 1908, as far as the Baseball-Reference Play Index now reaches. He’ll also be making his 10th consecutive Opening Day start, moving him into a tie for fourth place with Hall of Famers Walter Johnson and Steve Carlton as well as Roy Halladay.

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Recently, I posted notes on Cleveland ace Corey Kluber to give readers some idea of what a pitcher of such obvious talent looks like on a scouting report. Well, I recently ran into Rockies righty German Marquez — a 55 FV on his final FanGraphs prospect list and a 2.5 WAR pitcher as a rookie (which is a 55) — so here’s a similar rundown.

Marquez’s body looks like it’s backed up a bit, but he was still generating premium velocity with ease, sitting 94-96 with his fastball throughout my viewing. It, along with his low-80s curveball, is comfortably plus, and he threw several 70-grade curveballs. Marquez is clearly working on developing two other pitches — an upper-80s slider and mid-80s changeup — that are both below average right now. The change has promising movement, Marquez just lacks feel for it.

Marquez barely threw anything other than his heater and curve last year and was able to succeed anyway because they’re both excellent. If a tertiary offering is his focus this year, it’s reasonable to expect some growing pains and regression, though this is probably best for his long-term development. His fastball velocity has fluctuated a bit this spring (as low as 92 in other outings), but that’s to be expected.

He’s not technically a prospect, but Rockies righty Jairo Diaz looks poised to make an impact in the bullpen this year. Diaz missed all of 2016 and most of 2017 due to Tommy John, but his stuff has been vicious this spring. In two looks at him, Diaz has been 96-99 with a plus slider in the 87-90 mph range.

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Manny Margot upped his launch angle more than any other player in the second half of the 2017 season. Eno Sarris wrote about that fact in January, and as he did so with data alone, a not-insignificant piece of information remained unaddressed: How purposeful was the change, and what (or who) prompted it?

The answer to the latter question is Johnny Washington. San Diego’s assistant hitting coach made the suggestion, and knowing that “hitting the ball in the air gives you more chances in the gaps,” Margot took it to heart.

The 23-year-old outfielder confirmed that “right around the halfway point” is when he began trying to hit more balls in the air. The ways in which he accomplished that goal were twofold. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the passage of the so-called “Save America’s Pastime” Act, the future of minor-league spending, the endangered status of lower-level independent leagues, Ryan Zimmerman’s spring-training trailblazing, leadoff hitter Aaron Judge, actual likely Opening Day Dodgers starter Matt Kemp, a Zack Greinke anecdote, and Miguel Cabrera’s solution for not knowing teammates’ names, then preview the 2018 Mariners (20:38) with FanGraphs’ Meg Rowley, and the 2018 Rockies (53:35) with Rockies Magazine’s Jesse Spector.

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“The game power plays beneath his raw because Vogelbach’s approach to hitting is often of the Take What You’re Given variety and he’s spraying contact all over the field.”

– Eric Longenhagen

FanGraphs’ lead prospect analyst wrote those words about Dan Vogelbach for last year’s Mariners list and largely echoed them in this year’s version, as well. The appraisal is accurate: Vogelbach has never put up the kind of power numbers that his hulking physique suggests he should.

He’s looking to change that. Seven years after the Cubs drafted him in the second round out of a Fort Myers, Florida, high school — and 20 months after the Mariners acquired him in the Mike Montgomery deal — Vogelbach has decided that what’s always worked for him isn’t working well enough.

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Brendan Rodgers is living up to his billing. Drafted third overall by the Colorado Rockies in 2015 out of a Florida high school, the smooth-swinging shortstop slashed .336/.373/.567 between high-A Lancaster and Double-A Hartford last year. His calling-card bat speed on full display, he crashed 18 home runs in 400 plate appearances.

Rodgers was seemingly born to hit. He’s worked hard to hone his craft, but at the same time, letting his natural talent shine through is his M.O..

“I keep hitting as simple as possible,” explained the talented 21-year-old. “Body movement, stride, how my hands work… everything. I keep all it to a minimum. I try to not make the game harder than it is.”

Mechanically, Rodgers sticks with what he was taught “when he was younger.” He told me that the Rockies haven’t suggested any notable tweaks, and that for him “it’s all about being on time and in rhythm.”

He doesn’t have a leg kick — “just a little stride” — although he did have one back in his formative years. Wanting to feel more balanced, he “shut that down and spread out a little bit,” which he feels helps him stay in his legs better. Approach-wise, he attacks the baseball. Read the rest of this entry »

The Seattle Mariners are making a bold move with their run-prevention model. They’re not changing it (at least not very much), but they are making a defensive change that isn’t without risk. A team built around fly-ball pitchers and ball hawks is planning to play an infielder with no professional outfield experience in center field.

Not surprisingly, the decision to do so was built partly on projections that came from Statcast data. The player in question is 29-year-old Dee Gordon, who has performed exclusively at the shortstop and second base positions since being drafted in 2008.

Earlier this spring, I asked Mariners executive vice president and general manager Jerry Dipoto about the move and how it ties in to his club’s overall approach to keeping runs off the board.

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Jerry Dipoto on Dee Gordon and the Mariners’ run-prevention model: “I’d like to tell you that [the disappointing 2017 season] was mostly health. We were down 80% of our starting rotation, and a few of our everyday players, before we got to the first week of May. That was certainly a big factor. But dating back to 2016, when we first started to re-create our club, I feel like we nailed it in terms of the science. We built around fly-ball-oriented pitchers with an outfield that can go catch fly balls. What we weren’t planning on, along with the health issues, was the home-run explosion over the last two years. A lot of those fly balls ended up going over the fence.

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PEORIA, Ariz. — Dee Gordon is in demand.

On a Tuesday morning, the slight 29-year-old enters the Mariners’ spring clubhouse wearing a black T-shirt, sweats, and — after exchanging words with teammates en route to his locker — a grin, as well. Before even having an opportunity to shed his street clothes, though, he’s pulled away by a Mariners public-relations staffer. Given a cell phone, he’s ushered out of the clubhouse. The reason: a radio request he has agreed to fulfill. He returns some 20 minutes later and, almost immediately, another reporter — this very FanGraphs dot com employee — intercepts him.

After spending the last three years in Miami, Gordon is not accustomed to regular media attention. But he’s a man of interest this spring because the Mariners are asking him to change positions. He was not caught off guard by the move: Marlins executive Michael Hill had alerted Gordon to the possibility of the trade and position change several weeks before the deal was finalized. And when he returned from a trip to the Dominican Republic in early December, Gordon was awoken by a call informing him he was traded. Mariners GM Jerry Dipoto then called to talk about the position change.

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