Kuzul

When the Seattle Mariners signed Chone Figgins they expected that he’d be an offensive upgrade over Adrian Beltre. Little did the fans know that he’d play second base instead of third base, where he’d made a home in the past two seasons with the Angels.

Figgins’ fielding aside, he’s had a significant drop off in production since becoming a Mariner. And while expectations have been of high-level production have made Figgins a frequent scapegoat, he seems to have taken on some of the fan disappointment that should be aimed at Jose Lopez, who has taken Beltre’s place at the hot corner. The truth is that Figgins has been about equal to the 2009 version of Beltre with the bat, though his transition to second base hasn’t been one to be characterized as successful.

Figgins is a player that relies pretty heavily on balls in play turning into hits. He doesn’t frequently hit the ball with much authority, with only 32 home runs in almost 4,700 plate appearances, and only 220 doubles and triples, several of which were assuredly helped by his foot speed rather than his bat speed. While Figgins .305 BABIP comes in at an above-league-average mark in 2010, he’s actually taken a pretty significant hit on what may be considered his true talent, a career BABIP of .337.

What is Figgins doing wrong?

Analyzing Figgins BABIP goes beyond just the number. 2006 was the only other season in which Figgins posted a BABIP under .333, and unsurprisingly, that was also the only other year where he hit less than 22 percent line drives. Line drives rate is kind of a convoluted stat, as scorer bias could play a role in the rate, and it’s not always steady from year to year. However, a generally accepted truth is that while line drives may be subjective, what is considered a line drive by most score keepers is also very likely to be a hit.

Figgins career BABIP on line drives, which he hits at a 23.2 percent rate for his career, is .725. In 2010, Figgins has doubled down on decreased rate, reaching base on less line drives, while hitting them at a lower rate, with a BABIP on line drives of .695.

Figgins has hit 82 line drives this year. If he’d hit 23.2 percent line drives instead of 20, he’d have 95 line drives. If he’d performed up to his career BABIP average on line drives he’d have accrued 12 more hits this season. That’d equate to a .271 batting average, rather than the .249 he’s presently sporting.

As a guy without a lot of power and a propensity for contact, one may assume that Figgins reaches base on a lot of infield hits. The reality is that Figgins’ 18 infield hits this season mark his highest output since 2004. That said, his BABIP is only three points lower than his career average on ground balls. On fly balls however, his BABIP is about 20 points lower.

Teams could be playing Figgins differently in Safeco, where his already low-level threat of clearing the outfielders may be reduced by unfriendly hitting conditions, but more likely is that he’s simply been unlucky on fly balls this year.

So if we believe that Figgins is simply unlucky in 2010, something around a .270/.350/.330 line seem more realistic in 2011.

The most interesting part of Figgins’ offseason however, is whether or not he’ll ultimately make the switch back to third base. Jose Lopez appears likely to be non-tendered, and the Mariners have Dustin Ackley waiting to take over at second base. Ackley is a walk machine with great speed and developing power. His strikeout rates are incredible in the minors considering that he walks so frequently, and his .165 ISO in AAA is a promising power rate.

Figgins posted two straight 17+ UZR/150 seasons at third base. According to UZR, he was MLB’s second-best fielding third baseman, behind only Evan Longoria (and ahead of Beltre) from 2008-09. Presuming that he hasn’t forgotten how to play the position, a shift back to third may prove highly beneficial for the Mariners, where even half that defensive production would basically give Figgins an extra 2 WAR without including his batting numbers. If he regresses to the mean at the plate the team could easily be looking at a four win player where they’re presently boasting a replacement level player in Jose Lopez. If Ackley is worth a win (which is a modest, realistic expectation), it would be a total 5 WAR gain.

Figgins is set to make $26 million in the next three seasons, and could vest his $9 million option with 600 plate appearances in 2013. The Mariners may have had the opportunity to trade him at the deadline, but declined to. That opportunity likely won’t exist this offseason.

Lopez seems likely to be non-tendered in the offseason. While his transition to third base went very well defensively (6.4 UZR/150), his year at the plate has gone equally poorly. Lopez has been criticized for being a dead-pull hitter, impatient at the plate, and lacking the power that his weight gain should have fostered. His ISO is at an all-time low (.087), while his walk rate remains below four percent, and he’s seen less pitches per plate appearance than ever before (3.41). He’s shown little willingness to work on his game, and it’s possible that the book is finally out on Lopez. The pull hitter has seen more curveballs and changeups this season than any other, and is performing at the worst rate of his career on each pitch. He’s seeing more pitches outside the zone this season than ever before, but also swinging at the highest percentage of pitches outside the zone he ever has.

And it is very likely that if Chone Figgins were to hit the free agent market this season as a third baseman, he’d be the best third baseman on the market apart from the productive reincarnation of Adrian Beltre.

The Mariners may have bought high on a volatile asset in the soft-hitting Figgins, but if his luck returns in 2011, and he returns to third base, the Mariners should see a positive shift in total production.

Other Fixing the 2011 Mariners profiles

Ted Lilly

Ramon Hernandez

Michael Saunders

Colby Rasmus

Adam Dunn

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This article and other ones like it can be found on North and South of Royal Brougham.

The Mariners have been awful this season. As laid out by USS Mariner, the Mariners will likely need to improve several positions in 2011 in order to have a viable roster to compete. In the same article, Dave Cameron points out that the team will likely only have a little over $10 million to spend on free agency.

The article was written in mid-June, and since then the team has traded Mark Lowe (who went in the Cliff Lee deal), and his $1.15 million, and potential slight raise, are off the books. If we assume that Lowe would make $1.25 million in 2011 (perhaps a modest estimate) that means that the Mariners in fact will have close to $12 million to spend on free agency.

Like many of Jack Zduriencik’s shrewdest acquisitions, Lilly is a pitcher that lives and dies by pitching fly balls that don’t leave the yard. Lilly’s 50.4 percent fly ball rate hardly describe a groundball pitcher, and his 9.4 HR/FB percentage are about 1.5 percent above league average.

Lilly has pitched in the National League, often considered the little brother to the American League, for the last four years. And while not facing the DH has certainly helped Lilly’s stats, pitching in Wrigley Field simply couldn’t have. In terms of park factors, Wrigley rates at a 111 in favor of hitters (anything over 100 favors hitters) in 2010, it matches the 111 mark in 2009, and 105 in 2008, good for a multi-year rating of 108. Safeco comes in at 96, 97, 97, good for a multi-year rating of 97.

Those three years however, have represented Lilly’s three lowest xFIP’s since 2003, when he pitched in Oakland. So what is the 35 year old doing differently?

For this article, we’ll examine the possibility of the team signing Ted Lilly.

Lilly has throw his fastball less frequently in each of those three seasons than he has since 2004 (48.9 percent, 51.1, 53.9 respectively, compared to 52 percent in 2004, and close to or greater than 55 percent in most other seasons). He’s also throwing his curve-ball less, after throwing the hook about 16 percent of the time from 2003-2007, he’s thrown it 11.3, 11.3, and 8.4 percent in each respective year.

Lilly has replaced the former two pitches by throwing his slider more frequently. He’s thrown his slider 23.7, 25.9, 21.6 percent in past three respective seasons, up from a career high of 15.4 percent in 2006. In 2008 his slider was worth 2.66 runs per 100 pitches according to Fangraphs pitch type values. His fastball, which sat under one run per 100 pitches in most seasons before, plummeted to -0.92 runs per 100 pitches, though his change up had a positive value for the first time in 2003.

In subsequent seasons his slider has decreased in value, but it has greatly improved his fastball and curveball values, while still maintaining a positive change up.  The alteration of repertoire has manifested itself tangibly in terms of infield fly balls. This season, Lilly’s IFFB percentage sits at around 21 percent, compared to around a 13 percent league average.

Part of the philosophy that has made Jason Vargas so successful in Safeco Field is that while Safeco favors left-handed hitters, Vargas’ left handedness helps to neutralize those effects, while the cavernous park helps those flyballs elude the stands, and also help to neutralize righties.

Lilly hasn’t statistically neutralized lefties since throwing his slider more, but the trend may have more to do with the park he played in than the pitches he threw. In years leading up to his time with the Cubs, Lilly’s HR/FB ratio was higher against righties than lefties. Since Lilly started throwing his slider more often, it’s been the opposite.

Tom Gorzellany, a lefty for the present Cubs had pretty conventional platoon splits in terms of righty-lefty HR/FB  2008, his last season with 100 innings before joining the Cubs. This season, his ratio has flip-flopped just like Lilly’s.

So if we assume that Lilly’s problems against lefties are more a product of Wrigley than ability, it’s conceivable that it would reverse upon re-entering a more neutral park. And Safeco’s deep left-center power alley could also conceivably help to sustain his present effectiveness against righties.

In Lilly, the Mariners would have a pitcher who averages about two more strikeouts than Vargas per nine innings for his career, while walking about the same amount.

But what is Lilly worth on the open market? In 2007 as a player entering his age 31 season, Lilly signed a four-year, $40 million contract. Since then, the economy has struggled, and teams are way less likely to spend on long term contracts for players in their mid-30s. However, according to Fangraphs WAR values, Lilly’s contract has been recession proof.

The veteran lefty has been worth $50.8 million and counting over the course of his contract. Lilly has been good for 8.2 WAR and counting in the past three seasons.

Last year an age 34 Doug Davis, who was worth 6.5 WAR in the three years leading up to free agency, signed a one year contract worth $5.25 million (including $1 million buyout on mutual 2011 option).

An age 33 Randy Wolf, worth 6.7 WAR in the preceding three seasons inked a three year, $29.75 million contract.

Davis and Wolf represent perhaps completely opposite ends of the spectrum. Wolf was coming off of three straight seasons in which he’d played under one-year deals, while Davis had just reached the end of a three-year deal he’d signed in Arizona. Wolf’s WAR had increased in each season, leading to a 3.0 WAR in 2009, while Davis’ WAR had descended to a 1.7 mark, close to where Lilly sits with a month to go in 2010.

Wolf was a type A free agent entering the 2010 offseason, while Davis was a type B. Lilly is presently projected to be a type A free agent, though the same Dodgers that declined to offer Wolf arbitration, thus forgoing draft pick compensation, presently possess the rights to Lilly.

The reality is that being a year older than Davis, and two years older than Wolf when they signed their deals, Lilly will face less suitors.

A two-year, $14 million pact may be reasonable for both sides. Lilly’s value hasn’t been less than $7 million in a season since 2005, but his age may preclude him from receiving top dollar. The Mariners should be confident that a change in venue will help Lilly stave off father time, while Lilly’s camp will likely understand his open market value.

It only takes one team to perceive Lilly’s value significantly higher to foil the Mariners plans, but Lilly should definitely be considered this offseason.

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I’m a Mariners fan, and also a Cubs fan. People that know me are well aware of this. I can often be seen at work with a dirty Cubs hat, and a similarly dirty Mariners t-shirt on at the same time. Baseball is my favorite sport, and for whatever reason, the only sport where I hold two allegiances.

If the Mariners and Cubs were ever both in either the National or American League, I’d have to make a touch decision as to who to root for. But until Tuesday, when the Cubs made their first appearance in Safeco Field, I’ve never had to make the distinction.

Tuesday was the also the first time I’d ever seen the Cubs live, but not for lack of trying. Last July I went to Atlanta to reunite with a friend of mine from elementary school that I hadn’t seen since the end of junior high. It was my birthday present from my mom, and along with the trip, she’d bought us two tickets to the Cubs game against the Braves.

Carlos Zambrano was scheduled to start (he’s my favorite present Cub) and it seemed as though the baseball gods had given me the perfect scenario for watching my first ever Cubs game.

But you see, the Cubs and I have had an oft-ill-fated relationship. As a youth, I loved Dusty Baker. I said several times that I wanted him to manage the Mariners. When I really started to get into the Cubs more heavily, it was because I’d watched the highlights of Kerry Wood’s 20 strikeout game. Wood’s history of arm injuries is no secret, and suffice to say, I feel like I levied my own curse against the team.

Then Baker stepped in, a happy day.

My bad luck didn’t end there. Halfway through my sophomore baseball season, Mark Prior made his debut. I was fascinated by how smoothly he moved all of the moving parts in a pitching motion. I pitched, and apart from the dreaded “Inverted W,” I tried to emulate him (and Joel Pineiro, for what it’s worth).

He quickly became my favorite player in all of baseball. I copied the deliberate move to the plate he made with his legs, and his arm angle. I began to use my own curveball in the way he did. Rather than throwing it for a called strike, I threw it in the dirt for a swinging strike. I learned to throw a change up.

Two years later his arm would basically spontaneously combust, and his since-derailed career hasn’t found the tracks since 2006.

The baseball gods don’t like me liking the Cubs. So why would my trip to Atlanta be any different?

It was obnoxiously warm and obscenely muggy my entire time in Atlanta. I had really good company, but I could take a shower, step outside, and have a lather of sweat almost immediately. I’ve spent very little time outside the Seattle area in my lifetime, and most of that time was spent in a similarly moderate climate. But it is great baseball weather.

Two hours before game time there were clouds in the sky.

Because my mom knows her son, and knows the type of friends he keeps, she also got us reservations at a hotel in town. She didn’t want us drinking and driving, and if anything characterizes my trip to Georgia, it’s the countless empty pint glasses and cans of the most average beer money can buy.

On the freeway it started to rain. Once we got into town it started to pour.

There is rain in Seattle, and a lot of it. But our rain spreads out over time. In Atlanta, apparently, when it rains it fills the street with six inches of water in a matter of minutes. I needed to use the bathroom when we got into town, but I may have had to swim to any convenience store, so I held it.

Sitting in the hotel bar, too many beers deep for that time of the day, we found out the game was cancelled.

So when I sat down in my right field seats at Safeco on Tuesday (bleachers are the best seats in any house, in my opinion), not a cloud in the sky, I was ready to find out that a storm front was coming and the roof was malfunctioning.

What I wasn’t ready for, though, was the miserable feeling of sitting in the stands and rooting against my own team. You see, for the first time in my life, I’d adorned the opposing team’s colors.

With the same Carlos Zambrano jersey as I’d worn in Atlanta, I sat in a sea of Mariners fans, with whom I’ve shared many sober victories, and many less-sober losses, and was the enemy.

I was with some of the best company I’ve ever been to a baseball game with, a Mariners fan, and was clapping in her face in the first inning when Marlon Byrd singled to lead off the game.

But when Franklin Gutierrez hit a home run to scored the only two runs of the game, I was halfway out of my seat when my eye caught the blue pinstripes on my jersey, and my mind remembered the half-dozen Cubs fans to my left, and I sat back down. It was awful.

I had said before the game that the pitching matchup favored the Cubs. Ryan Dempster’s biggest problem was the home run, and the Mariners are really bad at hitting home runs. And the Cubs mash left-handed pitching, and Jason Vargas is left-handed.  

Well the Cubs didn’t mash Vargas, and Dempster gave up a home run. I went home a loser.

The following day, I watched the Cubs try to figure out Cliff Lee. No easy task, but yet another lefty that seemed beatable for them. Randy Wells is a pitcher who the Mariners should struggle with. He doesn’t walk many hitters, and his platoon splits don’t indicate he’s completely unable to get left-handed hitters out.

Again, my theory was worthless. The Mariners reeled off six runs and ten hits against Wells in six innings. Lee completed the game, in what may be his last start in blue and teal. But at least, for this game, I was wearing the victorious colors.

Then, for Thursday’s game, I left my house for work in the seventh inning with the scored tied. When I arrived at work, it was the 11th inning, still tied. We had a 401k meeting, and afterwards I was informed that the Mariners had lost to the Cubs in the 13th.

That my investment portfolio has begun to bounce back held no candle to the fact that I’d missed the only Cubs victory I’d have had the opportunity to see live to this point in my life.

But what really sucks is that the Cubs have a reasonable chance of making the playoffs, but with an ugly series loss against the Mariners, those chances just got dimmer. 

I guess the baseball gods want me in Wrigley, though my present record with Cubs luck may make the fans’ opinions slightly different. 

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Ken Griffey Jr. is my version of The Beatles.

For every generation there are cultural phenomena that don’t resonate with their predecessors and go unappreciated by their successors.

I spent about two hours attempting to write a fitting sendoff for Junior the morning after he retired.

I explained the inaccurate parallel between the end of a great player’s career and a funeral. I explained how I’d begun writing an article disagreeing with Dave Cameron’s USS Mariner entry entitled Respect , and that when Mike Sweeney began hitting everything out of the yard he killed my best argument for Junior remaining a Mariner.

I used the same tired clichés and comparisons between Junior and Babe Ruth that I’ve used a half dozen times each since Junior returned to Seattle, once with the Reds and eventually as a Mariner.

Then I realized, I no longer had to defend Junior using specifics. His career as a player is over, and no matter where a player falls or how far overdrawn his career was, or how terribly it ended, the debate is truly moot at this point.

As reality sinks in that we’ve seen the last of Junior on the field, dozens of articles reflecting on a great career have surfaced.

I don’t want to do that.

The reason I compare Junior to The Beatles is that I don’t like The Beatles.

I’m not a music guy per se, but I’ve got enough knowledge to avoid looking like a jerk in most social settings.

I’m obsessed with sports. I like listening to music.

That stated, I don’t like arguing about music for the simple fact that in almost all cases, I’m in over my head. The same way many of my friends’ brains spin when I reel off a handful of acquirable prospects the Mariners could receive in a Cliff Lee trade, my brain scrambles when they name obscure B-sides from indy bands I’ve never heard of.

But I’ve developed an escape hatch for uncomfortable music-related conversations, specifically, Beatles-related conversations.

“I don’t care for their music personally, but I respect what they did for music”

What the hell does that even mean?

I don’t know enough about music to make that statement. I didn’t grow up in the 1960s or 70s, I’ve never seen The Beatles live. In fact, the only Beatles album I’ve ever purchased was “One,” an album of chart-toppers that I bought for my dad.

Not only can I barely remember the names of any songs on the album, I’ve never listened to it, unless it was the music I ignored while I rode in his truck.

But you see, I’m not a bad person for not liking The Beatles (some of my friends may argue this). I just didn’t live The Beatles. I think that “I Want to Hold Your Hand” sucks and I don’t understand why it inspired so much enthusiasm and passion from men and women alike in that timeframe.

Even in retrospect, I’m confident that I could listen to that song a million times, and I’d never understand the passion.

Passion isn’t cultivated overnight. While the seed of passion may have an anniversary date for its planting, its growth and the final product take years to mature.

So when we realize that fans come in waves, there is often posturing, and a veritable display of resumes somehow displayed and quantified by years as a suffering fan.

1995. 1997. 2000. 2001. 2009.

The former four years respresent Mariners playoff appearances, while the latter represents the first year of Jack Zduriencik’s tenure in Seattle, which may eventually lead to years before Zduriencik became the team’s general manager being referred to as B.Z. (Before Zduriencik), provided he can weather the present Mariners struggles.

The truth is that while I aspire to quantify all of my sentiments towards a player and team using logical means, my love for Junior knows no logic.

For all intents and purposes, I’m no different than the 1960s teenage girl with a Paul McCartney poster on her bedroom wall who convinced her parents to let her stay up late to watch The Beatles’ United States debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

I was nearly three years old when Junior made his MLB debut. As far as my memory dates back, Junior may as well be named Abner Doubleday, because I know no baseball without him.

It’s awful to watch a star slowly stop shining. But in many ways it is worse to be involuntarily stuck remembering when the star shined at its brightest.

I don’t know when Dave Cameron became a Mariners fan. I don’t know when much of the fan base became Mariners fans.

I do know that there was a large portion of the fan base that didn’t support Junior in the waning days of his career. At this point, there is no point in arguing the validity of such contrition.

If you didn’t catch the fever, you never will. There aren’t adequate words to describe the impact Junior had on the lives of people around my age.

For those that don’t understand the blind devotion of myself or others like me, you never will. But I understand that you don’t understand. Passion is hard to convey on replay.

Most of all though, Junior did it the right way. Call it fear of abandonment, but I hitched my wagon to perhaps the lone remaining clean cowboy.

While seemingly everyone else’s favorite baseball player was being named in the Mitchell Report, or by Jose Canseco, the only ink that Griffey received was on his ever-growing medical chart.

And while it’s become common place to think of “what could have been” when it comes to Junior’s career and injury history, the truth is, that while it may have lasted longer than many, Junior’s career is more aptly described as “what should have been.”

Players become injury prone and less productive as they grow old. And we want our athletes to believe, no matter what permanent hurdles, or inevitable obstacles they face, that they are one solid contact away from finding their groove and returning to form.

So in the ultimate modern day baseball story, it was Don Wakamatsu, a man who has managed baseball more than ten times less years than Griffey has played at the highest level, who may have told Junior his time was over.

It was an imperfect ending to an amazing career. But if 40 is the new 30, and 30 is the new 20, then in the age of steroids and scandal, imperfect but clean is the new perfect.

Hell of a career Junior, I’d have been there if it lasted another 22 years. 

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