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The lineup's has got only 3 above average hitters, one of whom is completely unreliable, and no power to speak of. For a team reliant on run prevention, the rotation after Hernandez/Lee isn't impressive.
They badly need a 1B and a LF who can hit, and another reliable SP.
Should be a wild 4-way race in the AL West.
Kind of interesting that ZiPS has Ichiro with more career hits than Griffey.
I would put M's and Angels above Rangers now (sorry), though not by a massive amount. I rather have the Rangers bullpen than the Mariners bullpen, but the Rangers offense isn't overwhelming. I can see all 3 teams possibly winning 90 games, but the Mariners and Angels being more likely.
The A's, I really don't see in the race.
Some points to remember:
1.) The Mariners' 1B situation is still unresolved. Branyan was mooted as a returning FA by most, but he and his bad back (which took him out for the last 6 weeks of '09) are holding out for a two year deal that the Mariners are unwilling to give him. I think it's still more likely than not that he returns (probably on a 1 yr + vesting/mutual option deal) but I could also see the M's going after someone like Mat Gamel from the Brewers instead. The eventual result is going to matter a lot in calculating the team's offense: Branyan was nearly a one-man offense for the M's during the first half of the season last year, and in such a power-starved lineup he'll be missed.
2.) League/Morrow: League may well be the "big bullpen arm" we're looking for, assuming his '09 is repeatable. League's heavy reliance on a new "splange" pitch last year actually bodes well for this, or at least as well as any datum can given the volatility of relievers. See Matthew Carruth at Lookout Landing for more on this. As for Morrow going out, I'd be interested in seeing how ZiPS projects him, with the understanding that he's going to be switching back to the starter role in Toronto. My suspicion is that it will not go well given Morrow's complete lack of quality secondary pitches, but who knows? Stranger things have happened.
3.) Screw ZiPS, Szymborski. Ichiro's getting to 3,000, and he's gonna do it in a non-embarrassing way. I know this is true because I dearly wish it to be so.
4.) I love Jack Zduriencik.
He has always nasty stuff, though. It's fun to watch when batters swing and miss.
Edit: I'm not saying you guys are wrong, just that it's amusing.
That would be the alphabet, backwards.
Hmm, no mention of nickname in #12. So I'm not sure of the Coke rules here.
It's crazy...and I like it. A little.
But it's like that poker game where you've quickly drunk all the liquor and you have to make the call: do we stop now or make another trip to the liquor store?
Crazy Z! Make the second trip! Jason Bay may be another way of saying Richie Sexson, but there's just gotta be more OPS here. Plus, Bay's Canadian, which I hear is close to Seattle.
Ideally, this team would sign Elmer Flick or Paul Waner, but I hear they're dead. Ross Youngs too. It's a shame.
So Bay or something like him might be the only 2010-era facsimile available. Make it happen, Crazy Z.
Felix's comps are a real cautionary tale.
The A's, I really don't see in the race.
Which I assume means ZiPS will project them to 94 wins. :-)
EDIT: and who plays C on the Ms?
I bet you're looking at the wrong Estalella!
I feel old.
And I know it's hitting-based and therefore sensible, but the Endy Chavez -- Larry Biittner comp amuses me. I might have had more defensive range and baserunning speed than Biittner.
Rob Johnson, with Adam Moore backing him up. Not the best situation but maybe Moore will break out. They also signed Eliézer Alfonzo to a minor league deal in case Johnson is not recovered from the 3 surgeries he had in October in time to begin the season, or if Moore isn't ready.
These sound like the fictional players that computer games fill yoru minor league roster out with.
Mr. Zips is an warped, bitter old man, kinda like Mr. Potter in Its A Wonderful Life. We all hope that one day he will come around to our worldview where everyone should be projected to have a breakout season. Especially the players on our fantasy teams.
As we can see, ZIPS does in fact address breakout and breakdown seasons, which is the whole point of the ODDIBE stuff.
and uhhh, I take it that ZIPS think Felix will run away with the Cy Young (which wouldn't surprise to be sure)
I found Bedard's top 3 comps most amusing considering that Langston and Randy Johnson were once traded for each other.
Well, he's been better than that 2 of the last 3 years, including 2009 with his constantly injured arm. Bedard is a great pitcher.
and uhhh, I take it that ZIPS think Felix will run away with the Cy Young (which wouldn't surprise to be sure)
ZiPS has Felix leading the league in ERA, just nudging out Greinke (I don't have all projections done, but I did all the contenders for ESPN Mag - I figured I didn't need to project Jeremy Sowers or Gio Gonzalez for that task).
ZiPS sees the AL Cy as a 5-pitcher race of Felix, Greinke, Lee, Sabathia, and Vazquez. Then a significant dropoff to the next tier of Verlander, Shields, Beckett, Garza, Lackey, Lester.
Is that a typo on Jose Lopez's defense at 2B? I thought he was regarded as fair to average defensively.
Um...6.5?
(What?)
And Ichiro is certainly a player who has never seen historical norms eye to eye.
It looks like with Cameron and Scutaro, Ichiro is another point of disagreement between ZiPS and CHONE. .742 vs. .782 OPS!
CHONE's .306 is pretty hard to take. PECOTA's 2009 was pretty awesome - 292/338/359. Seriously.
I get that the problem is that Ichiro is radically different from almost any other baseball player ever, and so the failure to project Ichiro is a failure internal to baseball projections. That is, one of the basic presumptions of projection is that MLB ballplayers are like each other and historical data is robustly useful for thinking about how players will perform in the future. This base presumption is less true for Ichiro than it is for any other player in baseball.
It suggests that the project of using comparable players as the projection engine is a failure. The simplest engine does Ichiro better.
Actually, has he? Is there somewhere I can go to find historical projection data for players? Ichiro's PECOTA, CHONE and ZiPS for, say, the past five years? (Well I can find ZiPS here easily enough.) I know I should already know the answer to this question, but I don't.
2008 Ichi = .310 .361 .386
Thanks!
2008 Ichi = .310 .361 .386
What is your point?
I mean that as a serious question that I would love to see an answer to. What point were you trying to make?
Projections regularly expect Ichiro to disappoint, so ONE YEAR, when he has the worst season of his career, they are pretty close? What does that prove? How does that help any useful discussion?
That is about as stupid as Prospectus regularly predicting the end of the Braves titles. Sure enough, they were right eventually, but that didn't change the fact that they were completely wrong
Well, I'd hazard that it was a response to the post IMMEDIATELY prior to it. Where Esoteric said:
So, yeah. Seems like a pretty reasonable contribution to the discussion, doesn't it?
2005 Actual: 303/350/436
So make it two years.
Year ZiPS Actual
2004 325/373/436 372/414/455
2005 343/390/436 303/350/436
2006 319/366/429 322/370/416
2007 319/366/413 351/396/431
2008 322/372/404 310/361/386
2009 304/354/383 352/386/465
The thing is, Ichiro's not really all that consistent. If he'd stop alternating 105 and 125 OPS+ seasons, projection systems would nail him better.
ZiPS has completely whiffed on Ichiro twice, undersold him by a little once, oversold him by a little twice, and nailed him once.
Doesn't seem too bad. I might take the over on 2010, but I wouldn't be all that confident...
I know that, but to pick the worst year of guy's career and just throw the results of that out there vs the ZIPS doesn't really get us out there. Talk about cherrypicking and outliers and what not.
I'm not "cherrypicking," I am posting a direct response to a direct claim. The claim was that Ichro "obliterates" his projection "every single year." Those last three words were placed in italics, for emphasis. He then went on to ASK us readers if his claims were true. I thought it prudent to show that, actually, they failed to be true even as recently as two seasons ago. How quickly we forget.
The claims of "cherry picking" are just silly in this context. It's like:
A) "There is no such thing as cats!!"
B) "Then what's that?" *points to a cat*
A) You're cherry-picking!
Wow, two arguments for me in one night? At least you didn't challenge me to a fight...
Is ZiPS not loving it some Brett Anderson?
(Am I hoping for too much?)
I love it when people say 'fair enough' and then continue to willfully misunderstand the point.
You know what else Shock didn't help us understand? How to build a unified field theory. Disputing the assertion that Ichiro beat ZIPS every year gets us no closer to developing cold fusion. Even more, it does very little to establish the most effective way of ensuring that young pitchers stay healthy.
I'm extremely angry about this failure.
Does Hannahan have the arm to play SS? Given his defensive chops at 2B and 3B, he would make a very nice utility IF if he can play a passable SS.
Could you tell us what park factors and league run environments you're using for 2010 (or link me to where you do)? Thanks. It looks the same Mariner ERA is worth about 3 more points in ERA+ in 2010 than in 2009.
Define rarely
/Jerry Seinfeld
Any clue when that will be appearing in the ESPN Mag?
-- MWE
No, actually. I never think to ask useful questions like that.
King Felix is one amazing dude. Why, he's projected to start more games than he appears in!
Recent signings?
In the AL last year, the spread between the top offense and the bottom offense was 275 runs and the best offense was 134 runs better than the average one. Meanwhile, the spread between the best defense and the worst was 135 runs (measured with UZR, the preferred defensive metric of many Mariner blogs) and the best was 87 runs better than average (the average team UZR in the AL last year was -1.2).
Doesn't this imply that offense is more valuable than defense because the effect defense has on runs is smaller than the effect offense has on runs? If not, why not?
The Mariners, by the way, were first in defense and last in offense.
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