Among the comments made by Jerry Dipoto in his conversation with David Laurila at the recently concluded GM meetings, one finds a fascinating statement by the new Mariners general manager on the topic of identifying undervalued offense, and nine things that successful hitters do.

We’ve defined a nine-point criteria of what we believe a quality at-bat consists of. If you do those things, you can play here.

What a delicious quote. What could those nine points be?

Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the difference between now and the trade deadline. At the trade deadline, when the Twins went out and picked up Kevin Jepsen, I shrugged and kept thinking about other, potentially bigger things. I forgot about the move five minutes after I learned about it. Now, this is a whole post about the Mariners going out and picking up Joaquin Benoit from the Padres. Not that Benoit and Jepsen are identical, but they belong in the tier of second- or third-class moves. As such, I’m sure many of you couldn’t care less about this, but before you go away, let me tell you — Benoit remains one interesting reliever. Good relief pitching is en vogue at the moment, and while Benoit will be 39 next July, he doesn’t seem to be on the verge of anything but another strong 65 innings.

Benoit is going to cost $7.5 million. The Mariners got him from San Diego for Enyel De Los Santos and Nelson Ward, and while De Los Santos is a young one with a big arm, there’s a reason those are two unfamiliar names. Neither is likely to do anything at the highest level; Benoit is likely to go another season or three. For the Padres, there’s nothing wrong with shedding salary and adding a live-armed project. But, necessarily, this is more interesting from the Mariners’ side. As long as Benoit has pitched, he still seems capable of keeping opponents off base.

Read the rest of this entry »

Since we don’t have much more than velocity readings from Japan, it can be difficult to rely on anything but scouting reports when evaluating pitchers coming over from Nippon Professional Baseball. And now that 27-year-old Kenta Maeda is once again rumored to be coming to America through the posting system, we’re once again left wondering how to place him in context.

We have his Japanese strikeout and walk rates, which we can compare to recent postings to find comparable countrymen. We also have his velocity readings and a general sense of the quality of his pitches that we can use to compare him to pitchers beyond just ones that have come from Japan. We even have one game of PITCHf/x data to help us look at the movement of his pitches.

And the few comparable players we produce might be the best we can do from out here in the public sphere.

Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball’s hot stove season got off to an uncharacteristically early start this time around, as the Rays and Mariners made a “challenge” type of trade, centering around two young, inexpensive players with plenty of years of control remaining, shortstop Brad Miller and starting pitcher Nate Karns. I agree with most of Dave Cameron’s thoughts in the immediate wake the trade: one’s opinion of this deal largely depends on whether one believes Miller is truly a regular shortstop, and whether ones believe Karns is a long-term rotation fixture.

While there are no absolutes in the projection of either player’s future, and there are other players in the deal who will eventually impact the net result, this trade will likely come down to Miller vs. Karns. What does the weight of the evidence suggest at this point in time regarding those two players?

Read the rest of this entry »

Four days. It took MLB all of four days to bring us the first transaction of the off-season, as the Mariners and Rays got together on a six player trade that ships some interesting players in both directions. The full trade, as announced on Thursday evening.

Tampa Bay receives:

SS Brad Miller
1B Logan Morrison
RHP Danny Farquhar

Seattle receives:

RHP Nate Karns
OF Boog Powell
LHP C.J. Riefenhauser

While this is a six player deal, for simplicity, we can mostly break this down into three one-for-ones.

Read the rest of this entry »

Zack Greinke’s changeup may only seem different this year. By the stats, it drops a bit more and it’s harder, sure. But if you ask the pitcher, the pitch itself hasn’t changed much. “I throw it more this year,” he said when I asked him what was different about it.

If the systems have the change dropping more this year — estimates run from about a half inch to an inch more drop this year over previous years — there might be something else going on. The systems might be grabbing bad changeups and classifying them as sinkers, while calling the bendier pitches changeups.

Read the rest of this entry »

There is no one single way to be good at baseball, which is part of why it’s so amazing. Just last week we peeked into the mind of a man with one of the lowest swing rates in baseball when we asked Joey Votto how he does it. And this week? Let’s ask Adrian Beltre.

“I’m probably the opposite,” Beltre laughed when he heard Votto’s name. “I’m thinking swing first and take second. I don’t have that discipline.”

It’s hard to argue with him, but he has been a top-ten all-time third baseman. “It’s probably not the way to do it,” he said with that trademarked smile, “but it has worked for me.”

Read the rest of this entry »

To say Edgar Martinez knows hitting would be to state the obvious. The Seattle Mariners legend slashed .312/.418/.515 between 1987 and 2004, and he won a pair of batting titles along the way. He ranks 21st all-time in OBP and is 44th all-time in adjusted OPS.

Martinez is now entrusted with getting the most out of Mariners hitters. The should-be Hall-of-Famer took over as the team’s hitting coach in late June after beginning the season as a roving instructor. It’s a challenging job. Seattle ranks 11th in the American League in runs scored, and several players are falling short of expectations.

Martinez talked about the art of hitting — and how he evolved during his career — earlier this summer. Read the rest of this entry »

Talking to Erasmo Ramirez is refreshing. He always has a smile on his face. Life is fun for him — especially now. He’s having the best season of his career in Tampa Bay. It turns out that changing the use of his slider has been a big part of that success. And certain aspects of his slider may provide a roadmap for other pitchers that should make the same move.

His best pitch is his changeup — “it’s the best one to take me out of troubles,” the pitcher admitted to me — but it’s not good enough to throw every single time. “I try to stay away from it, and show the hitters I’m going to throw every pitch I have in my arsenal,” Ramirez said of his pitching mix.

The grip for the change thrown by Erasmo Ramirez, which has the seventh-best swinging strike rate in baseball (min. 400).

The breaking balls haven’t been great. Even as Tony Blengino waxed positively on the pitcher recently, he admitted that “his breaking balls needed reps” coming up. Ramirez this year has been using his curve less (“I’ve been trying to stay away from it, unless I have it rolling.”) but a key change in his slider usage has been huge.

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a rocky, inconsistent year for the Seattle Mariners, for whom much was expected by many. They are likely to finish more than a couple games below .500, comfortably out of the very attainable second wild-card position. The stunted development of many of their young, homegrown players, including Mike Zunino and the since departed Dustin Ackley, was a major factor. Early on, it looked like Taijuan Walker, who just recently turned 23, was part of the problem. Around Memorial Day, he began to look like part of the solution. Which version of Walker is the one we can expect to see moving forward?

I was a member of the Mariner front office in 2010, and had extensive involvement in the amateur draft. We did not have a first-round selection that year, but did possess a sandwich-round pick, received as compensation for the loss of Adrian Beltre. As one might expect, our draft board was shot full of holes as our turn approached. We thought very highly of Walker; he was in the top 15 of our board. He was joined there by a couple of other righ-handed pitchers, Aaron Sanchez and Asher Wojciechowski, followed by a bunch of blank spaces where other draft magnets had once resided. The Blue Jays had a bunch of compensation picks that year, and selected both of those guys before our turn arrived.

We were thrilled to select Walker. Great athlete, multi-sport star, easy velocity with feel for his curve ball, very few miles on his arm. As an added bonus, he didn’t turn 18 until August of his draft year. When you’re dealing with a projectable high school athlete, in particular, those few months are actually a pretty big deal. The product of Yucaipa HS in Southern California wasn’t a sure thing, with little track record to speak of, even by high school standards, but the raw materials suggesting potential stardom were certainly in place.

He dominated from the get-go in the minors, breaking camp at full-season Low-A Clinton in his first full pro season. Each year, I compile my own ordered minor-league lists of top full-season-league position-player and starting-pitcher prospects based on performance and age relative to league and level. These basically serve as follow lists, with the orders then tweaked based on traditional scouting methods. Walker ranked in the top 20 in each of his four minor-league seasons, peaking at #7 following the 2013 season. This combination of upside and consistency marked him as a likely major-league star.

Read the rest of this entry »