Seattle: 33-51
Tigers: 42-42

GAMES

Game 1: Carlos Silva vs Justin Verlander
Game 2: Erik Bedard* vs Kenny Rogers*
Game 3: R.A. Dickey vs Armando Galarraga
Game 4: Ryan Rowland-Smith* vs Nate Robertson*

Justin Verlander's first eight starts: 49IP, 30K, 28BB+HBP, 7HR
Justin Verlander's last nine starts: 59IP, 48K, 25BB+HBP, 3HR

Of course, two of those nine starts were against us and another three against the dregs of the NL West, so take it for what it's worth, but his velocity has also returned partially so if he was battling an injury at the start of the season he seems recovered from it at this point.

Kenny Rogers has reached the end of the line. His strikeout rate has plunged and his walks risen to the point that he's walked more than struck out on the year and in addition his groundball peak of last year has regressed heavily down to 43% from the 50% local maxima of 2007.

Armando Galarraga is nearly the epitome of average American League starting pitcher if it weren't for his .233 BABIP. Nate Robertson is exceedingly close to the being the same pitcher Galarraga is except with the opposite luck, victim to a .353 BABIP. Here's how similar they are:

Pretty similar huh?

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In Scott Miller's piece that presented the Larson and Gillick rumor, he also argues that trading Ichiro would help re-tool the Mariners. Well, duh Scott. Anyways, asked about it, Ichiro responded (emphasis mine):

"I haven't heard that, but what I think about it is that when things are not going well, many people have different ideas, and that's only natural. If a crow has thought it, it would surprise me. But since it's human beings, it does not surprise me."

And about the package the Mariners might get in return?

"All those younger prospects people talk about, I'd probably have more youthful movements than them," he said, smiling. "The way I move probably would be younger."

Awesome and true.

Now that you are all up to speed on tRA (see related link) (and if you're not, feel free to keep asking questions, no matter how dumb you think they might be.) it's time for some more leaderboards. You've already seen some of the individual boards, so this time, let's look at pitching units (defined as starters or relievers) instead.

First off, some league wide numbers to provide that juicy, vine-ripened, context.

O-xO = Outs - eXpected Outs: A positive number means more outs were record than the underlying numbers would suggest (good luck). A negative number means the opposite.

You see the expected difference between relievers and starters here; a smaller gap in the AL than in the NL last year, but not a significant difference. On to exploring some of the best and worst units from 2007.

BEST ROTATIONS IN 2007

1. San Diego Padres, 4.35: Jake Peavy was awesome as you all know but behind him, Greg Maddux had a fabulous year at preventing baserunners from getting on via the walk at just and he kept the ball on the ground often enough to post an xFIP just above 4. Chris Young was a watered down version of Jake Peavy with loads of Ks, but more walks and yet despite a disgusting sub-30% GB rate, a lower overall HR rate than Peavy and his 44% GB rate. It was incredibly fluky, but tRA doesn't care (tRA* would).
   
2. Anaheim Angels, 4.54: The Angels weren't so much lead by greatness as deep in above average as John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar and Jered Weaver all had tRAs just above 4 (again with HR/FB playing a big role in this) which helped cancel out the crappiness of Ervin Santana, Bartolo Colon and Joe Saunders.
   
3. Los Angeles Dodgers, 4.55: The Dodgers had just a ridiculous pitching staff top to bottom fronted by three main prongs. Brad Penny who posted a 3.03 ERA managed it thanks largely to a (you guessed it) flukey low HR/FB ratio of just 4.7%. Make no mistake though, Penny was good regardless with a 4.38 xFIP. Derek Lowe saw a staggering 16.5% of FB leave for HRs, but thanks to his incredible 65% GB rate, that still translated to under 1 HR/G. Chad Billingsley added his own unique aspects with the, by far, highest strikeout and walk rates and lowest GB rate of the trio, though still a healthy 41%.
   
4. Cleveland Indians 4.55: It certainly helps to have a pair of 200+ IP horses up top that are both awesome. Dare I say a 1-2 punch even? Sabathia logged 241 IP of 8.3/1.5/0.8 pitching with a batted profile to back it up. Carmona went the Derek Lowe route except without the extra homeruns and reaped the benefits. Behind those two, Paul Byrd and Jake Westbrook were mediocre but not crippling.
   
5. Boston Red Sox, 4.58: Josh Beckett was legitimately awesome with a 3.27 tRA, but other than that, nobody on the Sox was outstanding, they just avoided having a boat anchor weigh them down with Matsuzaka, Wakefield, Schilling and Tavaras hovering in the range of 4.5-5.0 tRAs.
   

Lost a one-game playoff for the playoffs; made playoffs; finished fourth in tough division; made playoffs, made playoffs. Combined record: 457-354 (56.4%). Having a good rotation is a huge boon for a team toward playing games in October.

WORST ROTATIONS IN 2007

1. Washington Nationals, 6.08: Quick! Name the pitchers that started more than 10 games for the Nationals last year! How many did you get? They were Matt Chico, Jay Bergmann, Mike Bacsik, Shawn Hill, Tim Redding, Jason Simontacchi and Joel Hanrahan. Matt Chico is the only one who made more than 30 starts and he posted a 6.26 tRA. Jay Bergmann and Mike Bacsik are the only other two to make more than 20 and while Bergmann was decent (4.89), Bacsik is now back in AAA.
   
2. Florida Marlins, 5.94: Dontrelle Willis. Scott Olsen. Sergio Mitre. Byung-Hyun Kim. Rick VandenHurk. That was the Marlins rotation.
   
3. Texas Rangers, 5.73: Perhaps the only surprise here is that the Rangers weren't worse. They had a miserable rotation last year full of pitchers who walked a lot and didn't miss many bats. Park factors help scale this back somewhat, but not enough to hide how atrocious they were.
   
4. St. Louis Cardinals, 5.51: Adam Wainwright was good and then there was Kip Wells, Anthony Reyes, Braden Looper and Brad Thompson to muck it all up.
   
5. Kansas City Royals, 5.37: Gil Meche was solid enough, but while Zack Greinke looked good, he allowed line drives at a high rate, leading to a tRA barely above average which didn't help enough to overcome luminaries like Odalis Perez and Jorge de la Rosa.
   

Combined record: 366-444 (45.2%). Probably not as bad as you suspected? Interestingly, teams 6-8 on this list are: Detroit (88 wins), Philadelphia (89 wins) and Seattle (88 wins). Just as having a great rotation is a huge help, it's also no guarantee and vice versa.

BEST BULLPENS IN 2007

1. Cleveland Indians, 3.91: The dueling Rafael's, Betancourt and Perez were just lights out for the Indians; enough even to outweigh the damage done by Joe Borowski.
   
2. Atlanta Braves, 3.99: Peter Moylan came out of nowhere to give Atlanta 90 great innings and oh yeah, it helps when you get to fleece teams out of the likes of Rafael Soriano and Mike Gonzalez.
   
3. Milwaukee Brewers, 4.10: The Brewers have felt the departure of Francisco Cordero as he helped them to one of the better bullpens in 2007 and without him, they've fallen to one of the worst in 2008.
   
4. Los Angeles Dodgers, 4.13: Takashi Saito and Jonathan Broxton dominated with good support from Rudy Seanez and Joe Beimel.
   
5. Toronto Blue Jays, 4.17: That white guy was especially good, but the nowhere near as good as the other white guy, followed closely by the third white guy.
   

WORST BULLPENS IN 2007

1. Tampa Bay Devil Rays, 5.66: How bad was this bullpen? They have 60+ innings to Brian Stokes and his 7.07 ERA, 40 IP to Shawn Camp and his 7.20 ERA. They had two pitchers, TWO, with an ERA under 4.89 in their pen.
   
2. Cincinnati Reds, 5.33: Thank you Mike Stanton, Todd Coffey, Victor Santos and Kirk Saarloos. Combined they threw 200.3 innings in 2007. So far in 2008, the four of them has thrown 23 innings at the big league level.
   
3. New York Yankees, 5.03: Joba Chamberlain is the most-remembered part of this unit, but it also featured an off year from Mariano Rivera and significant time from Sean Henn, Brian Bruney, Edwar Ramirez, etc.
   
4. Philadelphia Phillies, 5.03: Brett Myers, Antonio Alfonseca, Tom Gordon's expiring body and Geoff Geary combined to do much harm and in case that wasn't enough they gave 39 innings to Jose Mesa.
   
5. Baltimore Orioles, 5.00: The unit we all made fun of last year. The Orioles spent a ton to assemble it, relying on "proven veterans" who promptly shit the bed because, as anyone who valued more than years experience would have told Baltimore, they didn't have actual talent.
   

Possibly our own planet.

Last night, we saw the Aztec Whistles of Death.

Now, behold, the sounds of Earth itself. Caution, turn your speakers down. Also, the flash player they use sucks, so I recommend using IE and letting it sit there, it will start eventually.

While the Aztec Whistles were creepy, I think these Earth sounds best represent what listening to Death Static was like for those that missed out on it. Only if you had to listen to it 17-18 times every night. Perhaps now you can understand our trauma.

Seattle: 31-50
Blue Jays: 40-43

GAMES

Game 1: R.A. Dickey vs Roy Halladay
Game 2: RYAN ROWLAND-SMITH vs Jesse Litsch
Game 3: Jarrod Washburn* vs Dustin McGowan

We missed Halladay last time around so it'll be good to catch him this time around and for some reason a pairing of Dickey and Doc seems so perfect. Anyways, Halladay's been a beast this season as some of you are aware, having tossed more innings than anyone in baseball and holding an impressive 100-19 K to BB ratio. Halladay's missing more bats this year but that has come at a slight cost of groundballs, however he still remains above average in that area and is overall one of the best pitchers in baseball.

Jesse Litsch has taken a big step forward as a pitch-to-contact guy this season, and although that's likely to cause rolled eyes around these parts, it's a pretty smart idea when you have a defense as good as Toronto's (one of the best in the majors). He's missing the zone a lot less often than in 2007, but most of those pitches are ending up in play rather than as strikes in the catcher's glove. It just goes to show what happens when you pair good defense with low walk totals.

Since the last time we faced McGowan his results have regressed toward where we would expect them to. Though his groundball rate is still severely down from the previous season, his homeruns are less flukeishly low (though still low) and his hits and line drive rate have come back toward 2007 as well. Overall, he's a somewhat wild pitcher with good stuff that sometimes can do a good job at keeping the ball on the ground. All in all, a good middle of the rotation pitcher.

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Part 1 is here; now on to part 2, pitch types and location. What about pitch types? This is the juicy stuff.

These types come from MLBAM's algorithm so take them with a bit of a grain of salt. I have done some editing based on results found by Mike Fast to better group the pitches. In general, it recognizes fastballs and curveballs well, does a reasonable job on sliders and an okay job on changeups.

Now, the league averages here aren't going to be as useful as previously because not all possible outcomes are available to each pitcher. It's not really noteworthy that Erik Bedard throws way less than average sliders and way more than average curveballs because, well, he throws a curve and doesn't throw a slider.

However, the comparison is useful for one pitcher in particular and it's why I included it: Felix. Felix has all four of these pitches at his disposal and all four are plus or better pitches. So with a vast array of weapons to choose from, someone, for the love of Hermes, please tell me why he's chucking fastballs up there nearly 60% of the time? No, you know what? I don't care why he's doing it, just make him stop.

The other revelation to me, although I know I knew this subconsciously, is that all the other starters are essentially two-pitch pitchers. Batista has a slider, Bedard a curve, Silva a change and Wash a changeupy sort of thing. For all the talk we've heard over the years from the M's brass about a pitcher needing a third pitch to survive two or three times through a lineup they've managed to assemble a rotation by choice (meaning FA sign or trade) that is 100% composed of two-pitch pitchers. These people cannot get fired fast enough. Lets move on to the league as a whole. Just the top five this time because the bottom wouldn't make any sense.

Johan is basically just fastball-changeup and he throws his fastball less often than Felix. Learn from your countryman Felix. Not in the giving up grand slams part (!!!), but in the pitch mixture part. Bedard really seems like he would benefit from more curveballs and I ponder if his various injuries might be encouraging him to go with fastball more often to avoid extra twisting in the back and hip areas.

Wakefield is obvious, but I'm not sure what is comprised under the Other category for the other pitchers. I'm pretty sure Rich Harden is a fastballl-changeup guy 90% of the time so I think it's just MLBAM's algorithm choking on changeups, but I cannot be sure without doing an in depth look into it which I don't plan on doing.

Finally, a look directly at where these pitches are going. The league (with the Ms subtracted out) first. Against LHB on the left, against RHB on the right:

Figure 1: League vs LHB	Figure 2: League vs RHB
An unsurprising pattern to both sides, but still some special areas to point out. Left handed batters face an odd umpire bias that has pitches off the outside part of the plate often called a strike. It's a prevalent and well-documented bias so it would not surprise me in the least if pitchers were aware of it and were trying to paint that area, causing the biggest red splotch that you see in Figure 1. Beyond that, we also see some notions of going up and in to lefty hitters and in general staying out of the down-and-in wheelhouse. The right-handed plot is far more focused with pitchers staying completely away from the inside half and trying to go outside. I would have thought there would be more vertical variance than there is, pitchers trying to get hitters to chase up or low, but instead it seems they try to stay at the same eye level and get the hitter to swing at pitches they cannot reach.
And here's for the Ms
Figure 3: Ms vs LHB	Figure 4: Ms vs RHB

Figure 3, against LHB, is just a dimmer representation of what we see for the entire league. However in figure 4 we see a bit of a difference with a relatively higher concentration of pitches going for the inner half. We'll have to check back at the end of the year when we have a bigger sample, but could this be a manifestation of the always annual pitching coach mantra that "this year we're going to pitch inside!"?

Miguel Batista has thrown 41.7% of his pitches for a ball. That's not Dontrelle Willis bad, but it is worse than any single season in Daniel Cabrera's career (41.4% in 2004).

From Aaron Sele in 2005 to Joel Pineiro in 2006 to Horacio Ramirez in 2007 and now Miguel Batista in 2008; this team just cannot escape epic suck in the rotation. Karmic payback for 2001-3 I suppose.

Seattle: 28-50
Padres: 32-47

GAMES

Game 1: Jarrod Washburn vs Randy Wolf*
Game 2: Carlos Silva vs Cha Seung Baek
Game 3: Somebody vs Jake Peavy

Randy Wolf is posting the highest strikeout rate of his recent career while lowering his walk rate from 2007 while tossing more innings than every pitcher on the Mariners aside from Felix Hernandez. Randy Wolf was signed on a one-year deal for under $5 million guaranteed. Too bad nobody thought of that last winter.

The results don't show it, but Chasizzle has done himself quite well in San Diego so far with a fantastic 3.24 tRA in the rotation and a 2.84 FIP. This team gave him away for nothing because they saw more value in Miguel Batista. Incredible. I'm glad this team fired Bavasi before he traded Adrian Beltre to Baltimore for Melvin Mora citing Mora's higher RBI totals as proof that he performs in the clutch.

Everyone has fluke performances, it's not limited to just average or worse pitchers. In fact, there's really no one true dominant pitcher out there anymore who is far and away above everyone else like Pedro was a decade ago or Johan was a few years ago. To that end, take someone like Jake Peavy. Peavy is legitimately awesome, one of the best pitchers in baseball, but his 2007 was flukey just like Washburn's 2005 and this season has seen his core stats return to their established levels. That still leaves him a fantastic pitcher, just not the dominant one he was last season.

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Well, it took about a month longer than we were internally told, and granted that was a beta date, but it's finally here! Gameday, and more importantly, PITCH f/x in three dimensions.

Pan around the entire field. See the entire pitch trajectory from any angle. Zoom, whatever.

Go check it out right now.

This might sound crazy, especially given Derek's recent post at USS Mariner, but here goes anyways. Willie Bloomquist has been the best shortstop on the team so far in 2008.

OFFENSE: Yes, Willie has no power; none whatsoever. He has 20 hits on the year, all singles and a meager .626 OPS. Turns out that for now it doesn't really matter. Why? Because he has 13 walks in just 90 PA which is a higher pace than any Mariner hitter probably since Edgar in 2003. You can compare Yuni's slugging percentage (.401) to Willie's (.260) all you want, and it's a completely valid criticism, but I'm going to come back at you with .367 to .287. That's Willie's OBP compared to Yuni's. Walks matter! Yuni has four of them in 277 PA which is ONE TENTH the rate that Willie has so far in 2008.

Pick your stat. EQA? Willie's at .254 to Yuniesky Betancourt's .239. Runs Created? A lineup of Bloomquist's scores 4.0 runs a game while a lineup of Betancourt's scores just 3.4. Incidentally, the Mariner lineup in realtiy has scored just 4.01 runs per game. Getting on base in the single most important thing a hitter can do and Willie's nearly 30% better at it than Yuni. Is that sustainable? Probably not, though Willie's contact rate is up this year, but I find it interesting nonetheless.

DEFENSE: We've been harping on it for awhile now, but Yuni's defense has regressed worse than Miguel Batista's pitching. He stands near or at the bottom of shortstops at both making plays in zone and making plays out of zone. He's always had trouble with the routine but when he first came up in 2005 and in 2006 he would make up for that with terrific range, getting to and at least stopping balls that Derek Jeter doesn't even reach in his most frenzied ESPN-induced self-glory dreams. Those days are gone. Long gone.

Now, is Willie an upgrade? We cannot really know. Ironically since the team loves moving Willie around so much on the field, we have nothing even approaching an adequate sample size on his defense anywhere. And we cannot even take the fact that the team plays him at multiple positions to speculate that his defense is passable because this team intentionally started an outfield consisting of Ibanez-Ichiro-Morse earlier this year. However, it's a fair bet to say that Willie is at least not a butcher at short. You can usually visually spot those and since right now Yuni actually is a butcher and Willie's probably not...

OVERALL: It's also worth something that Willie's baserunning is better than Yuni's. Not worth much, but it's something. The rumblings have been that the team moved Ichiro to right field in order to open up a spot in center for Willie and Reed to play (why couldn't they just play in right?) primarily in order to showcase Willie for a trade. I hope it's true because getting anything in return for Willie would be high hilarity, but if you are trying to showcase him, would showcasing him at shortstop a few games a week help? Or would that damage Yuni's potential trade value more than it helps Willie's?

What could Yuni do to rectify his lowly performance thus far in 2008? In a word, bootcamp. When he does play I want him on the Loafie hitting plan where he's not allowed to swing until there's at least one strike on him. If he happens to not be playing that day, I'm having him skip all drills and just run foul poles over and over and over and over. And then over some more. He needs to do whatever possible to regain at least 2006-era range. We can use the second half of the season to see if he's going to be useful going forward. If so, great. If not, hope our new savvy GM come winter can lure some less wonderful GM into buying into the high average, defensive rep and team-friendly contract and make away with some players at other holes we need to fill and go free agent shortstop shopping.