Last night I was out getting a drink with our own Matthew Kory. His favorite team is the Red Sox. My favorite team is the Mariners. The bar we went to was showing the Mariners game, and while the Mariners were actually winning, that did nothing to stem the tide of jokes at our own expense. They’re two very different teams in two very similar situations — they came in with a lot of hype and promise, some people labeling them World Series contenders, and to this point they’ve more or less sucked. I don’t know which team has been the bigger disappointment. There’s still time yet, but while that means things could get better, that means, also, things could get worse.

The conversation turned to looking ahead. It was just last week I wrote about the meaning of the standings through a couple months, relative to the meaning of the projections. The numbers suggested that the Sox and Mariners would be pretty good. They continue to suggest that, and, my brain knows it should believe that. But it can be difficult to fully accept, when you’re watching a team playing different from the expectations. It feels like a bad team is just a bad team. It feels like a good team has something special going on. There are feelings you’re supposed to feel, and feelings you actually feel. Actual feelings, you could say, are greatly prone to recency bias.

The conversation has led to this post. It’s another post with an assortment of polls, asking for your participation. The idea: do you see something, in the teams you follow, the projections don’t? Do you see reason to doubt the projected records? The polls will ask about five teams: the Red Sox, Mariners, Royals, Cardinals, and Nationals.

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Usually, around this time of year, there still isn’t really much of an active trade market. Not only are teams wrapping up the process of figuring out what they already have — front offices everywhere are dedicated to the draft. Meanwhile, in Seattle, Lloyd McClendon says he’s always being reminded by his analytics department that the team should be okay. And in Arizona, just the other day, Dave Stewart stood by Mark Trumbo, calling him one of the team’s biggest threats. Based on the circumstances, you wouldn’t expect trades, generally. And based on the words, you might’ve figured Trumbo would stay put, and the Mariners would stand pat.

That’s what you get for thinking things. Wednesday afternoon, the following trade was agreed to:

Mariners get:

• Mark Trumbo
• Vidal Nuno

Diamondbacks get:

• Welington Castillo
• Dominic Leone
• Gabriel Guerrero
• Jack Reinheimer

Interestingly, while Arizona is getting the prospects and selling the main piece, they’re currently closer to a playoff spot than Seattle. But that’s kind of Seattle’s whole reason, and Arizona doesn’t fancy itself a real contender just yet. From the Diamondbacks’ perspective, this relieves a roster crunch, with Jake Lamb coming back and forcing Yasmany Tomas somewhere else. And from the Mariners’ perspective, Mark Trumbo feels like one of the most obvious acquisitions in years. He fits the mold, partially based in truth, of being a dinger machine who doesn’t really do anything else. But as easy and fun as it is to snark, that doesn’t make this a bad trade. And as much thump as Trumbo has, that doesn’t make this a big trade. It’s not actually of great significance, nor is it wildly lopsided.

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When I first started getting into sabermetrics, there were a lot of people writing about the stupidity of the bunt. That’s one of the first lessons everyone learns, and, not coincidentally, we’re seeing bunts on the decline, league-wide. More recently, analysts have come to celebrate the bunt. But not the sacrifice bunt — what we want to see more of are bunts against the shift. You could say the play itself is fine; it just requires a certain set of circumstances. Bunting against the shift inspired a whole recurring column at Baseball Prospectus by Ben Lindbergh. It’s a seemingly obvious tactic, that’s also seemingly under-utilized. For now.

So, there are times when it’s smart to bunt. The bunt shouldn’t be eliminated from the game entirely. Sometimes, it’s smart to bunt against the shift. Sometimes, it’s smart to bunt not against the shift, if you’re quick. Sometimes, yes, it’s smart to drop down a sacrifice. And Tuesday night, Kyle Seager demonstrated another sort of intelligent bunt. It didn’t work, but since when do we get wrapped up in the results?

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Wednesday afternoon in Tampa Bay, Felix Hernandez wrapped up a complete-game shutout. It was just his second in the past three seasons, but you shouldn’t let that fool you. He’s one of the best pitchers in baseball — pitching at his peak — and he’s one of those guys where a single underwhelming outing is enough to make people wonder if something might be wrong. People don’t wonder very much these days, though. The two greatest challenges are hitting Felix and not taking Felix for granted.

For the most part, Felix is well understood. Among all of his strengths, the changeup stands out for its movement, for its velocity and for its location. It’s one of the best changeups in the world, and Felix is comfortable throwing it in any count to any hitter. It can be difficult to distinguish from his fastball, which is faster by only a handful of ticks. Everyone, therefore, is familiar with Felix’s main weapon. Fewer people think about another weapon. Felix’s slowest weapon. But he’s going to it with increasing frequency.

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If you just look selectively at some of the names, it doesn’t seem so bad. So far this year, through a little more than a quarter of the season, Robinson Cano has hit about as well as Matt Kemp. He’s hit a little better than Troy Tulowitzki, and a lot better than Carlos Gonzalez and Chase Utley. Those are all names of proven star players! The problem being, they’re star players who’ve sucked. On the one hand, it’s encouraging to see these names near the bottom of the wRC+ list — it’s a good reminder that struggles can be perfectly normal — but that doesn’t make the struggles themselves any easier to tolerate, and in the case of Cano, his problems are among the factors contributing to the Mariners being a disappointment. It’s not that they’ve wasted a month and a half of Nelson Cruz hitting for Barry Bonds power, but they’ve accomplished less than you’d think.

Because of the team expectations, there’s more pressure than there usually is. Because of the enormity of Cano’s contract, there are more eyes on him than there usually are. And because of Cano’s age, there’s a bit more fear than you’d usually figure. The good news is there’s potentially good news. The bad news is we don’t know what to make of it yet.

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From the standpoint of physics, muscle begets bat speed, which begets power.

That part is simple, as physicist Alan Nathan has shown. “A 10% increase in muscle mass can lead to about a 3.8% increase in bat speed,” Nathan found, and that sort of bat speed increase can lead to an increase of 4.3% in batted ball distance.

And so this year, Mariners shortstop Brad Miller decided to put on more weight. Was it about the power? “Oh yeah. I want to get as physical as I can,” Miller admitted before a game with the Athletics this year. So he put on 15 pounds in the offseason and came into the season weighing 220, instead of the 205 he weighed to finish the season in 2014.

We don’t have yearly heights and weights for players, but we do have *a* listed height and weight for each player. Despite being of dubious quality, let’s see how Body Mass Index is related to power factors. Turns out, it is significantly related to many power stats, with Home Runs per Fly Ball providing the cleanest look:

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Coming into the season, you might have had a three-part checklist for Mariners’ lefty James Paxton. Can he throw more high fastballs, can he improve his changeup, and can he hold his velocity and command? We know his curve is good, and most years, he has the big velocity that has turned our attention to him. But these three items sum up the healthy skepticism that still remains, and the pitcher knows all about them.

Jeff Sullivan recommended high fastballs for Paxton because his fastball has rise but he throws it low. Currently the Seattle lefty is showing almost exactly the same whiff and strikeout rates as he showed last year, so maybe he wasn’t listening.

Except that he was! “I do utilize the high fastball, to work off of it, and have the curveball drop off it,” Paxton said of the fact that high fastball release points can help mask a high curveball release point.

But the pitcher also admitted that the high fastball was “probably something I could work into my game a little more effectively.” He’s been trying, as you can see from the fastball heat maps below from Baseball Savant (2014 on the left, 2015 on the right). If you prefer numbers, Paxton has thrown 29% of his fastballs in the top third of the zone this year, up from 25% last year. And his rank with respect to his peers has changed, as he used to be in the 41st percentile for high fastballs, and so far this year, he’s in the 31st percentile.

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Just as I was beginning to work this up, I got an email saying Nelson Cruz had been named the American League Player of the Week, which provides for a very convenient introductory sentence. Over the past seven days, Cruz has posted the highest wRC+ in baseball, by 85 points. Over the past seven days, Cruz has driven in 10 runs, while the Indians have driven in 11. Eight days ago, Cruz slugged a home run. Nine days ago, Cruz slugged a home run, and a couple of singles. All he’s hit have been singles and dingers, and he has almost as many dingers as singles. It’s been a good start for Nelson Cruz.

Which means analysis is obligatory. What’s gotten into Nelson Cruz? The answer is pretty much always “nothing sustainable,” but that’s never stopped us before. Nor does that mean there’s nothing to analyze. Cruz has been almost the entirety of the Mariners’ offense, and lately he’s been hotter than everyone else. Yet, how true is that? And is there anything else going on?

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As baseball fans who happily allow themselves to be consumed by information, we know, automatically, what certain number sequences refer to. Take, for example, 40-40. That’s homers and steals, applying to the rare player both speedy and powerful. 30-100? Homers and RBI, which, whatever, don’t act like you didn’t know. 6-4-3? That’s a run-of-the-mill double play. 2-1? Padres game. It’s all a different language, and we’re fluent in it, even if it isn’t the sort of fluency you’re comfortable declaring on a resume.

But numbers are just numbers, and they can refer to anything. I mean, it’s possible that 6-4-3 could also mean six runs on four hits, with three errors. You just can’t be sure right away. Now, baseball makes this promise: any day at the ballpark, you might see something you’ve never seen before. It’s an element that helps to keep the game fresh, despite 162 repetitions. Not everyone, granted, might appreciate something rare, something historical. Kind of depends what we’re talking about. In this case, we have something appealing only to dorks. Sunday afternoon in Oakland, Mike Zunino and Felix Hernandez of the Mariners turned a 2-1 double play.

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It’s obvious, now, that Taijuan Walker is going to enter the season as a member of the Mariners’ rotation. He survived an offseason of trade rumors and beat out the recently-demoted Roenis Elias, and this is the kind of thing that can happen when you’re a pitcher who allows but a single run in 25 spring innings. There was, though, a point at which it looked like Walker and Elias might share an intense competition. So Walker came out guns a’blazing, immediately throwing a fastball at 95 – 96. Some pitchers use spring training to build up arm strength. Walker began it strong.

Which makes him an interesting guy to analyze. And that, in turn, is facilitated by Walker throwing a lot of spring innings before PITCHf/x cameras. Over those innings, Walker’s allowed nine hits and four walks, to go with 24 strikeouts. It seems like it’s been something of an early breakthrough, with Walker refining his mechanics and adding some depth to a slider. It’s been clear from the day he was drafted that Walker would have a big-league-caliber fastball. Of greater importance has been a changeup, an offspeed weapon for Walker to use against lefties. It just so happens Walker has thrown plenty of changeups this month. It’s been a clear priority, for obvious reasons. What, then, is there to be learned from the evidence?

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