I just got home for working a 16-hour shift. See, I work at the Seattle Team Shop, right across from the Qwest Field Event Center, and people are going crazy getting their Super Bowl gear. At 7:45 am, we were selling people shirts that were still warm from the printers. Anyway...this post is to just warn everyone that posting will be erratic for the next two weeks - maybe longer. Things will certainly be chaotic! I know I'm going to the Mariners' FanFest on Saturday, so there will be a post and pictures from that...but other than that, I'm not sure how much blogging I will be doing. On top of my crazy work schedule, I'm also planning a wedding. So, needless to say, this is a very hectic time for me! It's probably going to be work>sleep>repeat until sometime after the Super Bowl. Not that there's anything to really write about - luckily this crazy time in my life is coming during the slowest point in baseball's off-season! However, when the Super Bowl insanity dies down, pitchers and catchers will start to report to Spring Training, I will have a minor surprise to unveil, and I will have more time to write. But, in the meantime...GO HAWKS!

About a year ago on the Grand Salami blog, I recommended the MLB.tv searchable video service to people. It costs $10 for the offseason, and you have unlimited access to MLB.tv’s video archive. I paid the $10 again this year and I’m pretty bummed out with the service. It’s just not very accurate at all. For example, alot of the clips are out of whack. I tried to look at some of Felix Hernandez’s strikeouts, but very few of them actually worked. Sure, I saw some video – but it wasn’t of Felix striking someone out. In fact, it was rarely of him even pitching! One time it was Ichiro hitting and another time it was a freaking Saturn commercial! WTF? I wanted to watch Jacque Jones grounding out to Yuniesky Betancout, but the clip was of Ryan Franklin pitching to Lew Ford. Sure, there are some really cool things. Want to watch Sexson crush balls out of Safeco Field? No problem. Want to look at all of the times Jeremy Reed was caught stealing, or check out Marcos Carvajal, the new M’s pitcher from the Rockies? You’re a few clicks away. However, if you want to watch Jeremy Hermida hit a grand slam in his first Major Leauge at-bat…you’re shit out of luck. Yeah, it’s fun when it works – but it’s always a toss up. You sit there while the video is buffering, wondering, “Is it going to work this time? Is it going to be the actual clip I’d like to see?” At this point in the off-season, I wouldn’t even recommend subscribing.You’d think that such a huge entity, like MLB, could get their shit together and put together a service that works properly.

Just like most of the blogging community, I'm irritated by the Mariners signing Willie Bloomquist for 2 more years. Granted, it's not a lot of money, but it just goes to show that the M's value certain things differently than an outsider might. It's no secret that the Mariners LOVE Bloomquist. They drafted him twice. He's local, he hustles ("local hustler" just didn't sound right) and he "plays" almost every position. But, c'mon...two years? For comparision's sake, there were 27 players who signed one-year deals yesterday. The only two players who got two-year deals were Mark Teixeira and Willie Bloomquist. Go figure...

“Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything's dying.”

-George Carlin in Baseball and Football

One thing that's not dying is the Seahawks popularity. As much as I hate to admit it, Seattle is a football town. There's no doubt about it. I've been working at a team shop right down between Safeco Field and Qwest Field and it's insane how much more popular the Seahawks are, compared to the Mariners. Sure, the Mariners have drawn extremely well over the past couple years, especially when you consider their horrendous records. However, in Seattle, the M's are (at-best) second rate. I realize that the Seahawks are extremely popular this season because of their success. In fact, I’ve even heard this year’s Seahawks season compared to the 1995 Mariners season, and I bet they are quite similar. Right now, the Seahawks have their flag flying over the Space Needle, a new song written about them and tickets to this year’s playoff game sold out in 10 minutes and are going on eBay for about $200 apiece. It’s easy to tell that, for the Seahawks, things are going well.

But, just for fun, let's look at a few of the differences I've noticed between the Seahawks’ fan base and the Mariners’ fan base...

-The amount of Seahawks fans who dress up for the games is outstanding. At an M’s game, the most dressed up someone will be is wearing a jersey AND a hat. For the Seahawks though, people wear wigs, masks, jerseys and blinking lights. They’re also carrying signs and some have their faces painted. Sure, it’s probably a little over the top…some diehard fans actually wear shoulder pads under their jerseys. When’s the last time you knew of a guy wearing a protective cup to a ballgame?

-Speaking of the fans…Mike Holmgren gave a game ball to the fans and their “12^th Man Advantage” after the Seahawks beat the New York Giants a few weeks ago. “It was loud,” Holmgren told the Tacoma News Tribune. “Our folks were in it from the get-go and they stayed in it until the very end. That was great. That is what you need for a home-field advantage.” The Mariners, on the other hand, had a night last season when fans were encouraged to knit at the ballpark during a game.

Enough said…

520 ballots were cast for this year's induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I always get a kick out of looking at the results each year. Not to see who gets in, mind you. No, I always like looking at the results to see which scrubs ended up getting one or two votes. This year it was Walt Weiss. His career numbers are .258/.351/.326. To me, that just screams Hall of Famer. Move over Willie, Mickey and Babe, here comes Walt! Honestly, this is why ballots should be made public. Who in their right mind voted for Walt Weiss, and why should he be allowed to vote next year? It's ridiculous!

As you can see, my New Year's resolution to "write more" hasn't been going so well. It's now January 10th and this is the first post of the new year. However, I have already read one book and I did floss that one time. But hey, January is a slow month anyway. I will hopefully be posting some pictures from FanFest and I will probably have a cool little thing to announce in the near future. As for the posting goes, I'll make up for it when the season rolls around. Anyway, on to the first post of 2006!

Of course you're familiar with the old saying, "You learn something new everyday." Well, I use that saying, but I ammend it a little bit. I find myself saying, "Wow, you learn something new everyday...on USSMariner.com!"

Yeah yeah, I know I probably sound like a broken record, or a secret USSM PR Machine. But, I'm not...I just speak the truth. It's no secret that I love that Web Site, but there was one really cool thing that I learned there the other day. It was from Dave, but it was burried in the comments to the post about Pat Gillick signing Ryan Franklin. Check it out...

"The spreadsheet I’m working from doesn’t have BB/9 or K/9, but instead has batted ball percentages. These are better, anyways, because per-nine percentages have flaws that reward pitchers who face more batters in an inning.

K/9, for instance, treats double-strikeout-walk-walk-strikeout-flyball to be equally dominant to groundball-strikeout-strikeout, when the second performance is clearly superior. That’s why I prefer to use BB% and K%. If I ever quote extrapolated rates, it will be BB/G or K/G, which come from the Hardball Times site and use the BB/K percentages to adjust to average baserunner totals...."

I never thought of it like that and for such a long time, I've been using K/9 and not realizing its flaws. But, it certainly does make sense.

So, since I wasted hours of my life a few weeks ago looking at the top pitchers based on K/9, let's see how the list looks for pitchers based on K%, shall we?

Rembember, here are the top 10 qualified pitchers, in order, based on K/9: Mark Prior, Jake Peavy, Johan Santana, Brett Myers, Jason Schmidt, Pedro Martinez, John Lackey, A.J. Burnett, Scott Kazmir and Doug Davis.

Now, here are the top 10 qualified pitchers, in order, based on the percentage of batters faced that they fanned: Mark Prior, Jake Peavy, Johan Santana, Pedro Martinez, Brett Myers, Randy Johnson, Josh Beckett, A.J. Burnett, John Patterson and Chris Carpenter.

Wow, that's quite a difference! 4 guys who weren't on the top 10 K/9 list make it to the top 10 list based on K%. I'm not going to do the non-qualified guys because it's more work, I'm tired and face it...you get the point.

Next up...another stat the guys at USSM toss around: Extra Base Hit %!

Here are my resolutions for 2006…

* Write more. Not only do I want to write more for this blog, I would also like to start writing some fiction and stand up comedy.

* Read more. I always joke that I’m much better at buying books than I am at reading them. This year, I would like to lessen the gap. There are many great books on my near-future reading list that I would like to get to in 2006. Starting a book club with Deanna would be fun and would certainly help cross off some of the baseball books on the list. Realistically, if I could read 25 books next year, I would be happy.

* Floss. Yeah, I think this is one of them every year, but this is the year that I will start doing it on a regular basis.

* Watch more baseball. If my fiancé reads this, the wedding might be called off. However, I would like to watch more baseball. We get the baseball package on Direct TV at my house, but I don’t feel like I use it enough. Now that I have TiVo, I will certainly record more games and match-ups I would like to see. Also, I would really like to go to more high school, college and minor league games.

* Interrupt less. This is one of my worst traits and one that frustrates my fiancé the most. I will try my best to not interrupt people so much.

* Lose weight. I need to start working off the 50 pounds I gained during my freshman year of college. My incentive will be to look good at my wedding!

That’s about it. I hope that posting them here will help me stick to them and will make 2006 another great year!

Reading through the comments in some of the latest threads on USSMariner have left me shaking my head. Too often, it seems as though people take what they're getting there for granted. Remember folks, you're getting the best Mariners' information and analysis several times a day, for free! Personally, I read USSMariner so much more frequently than the local fishwrap or the M's official site. Not only do I rely on USSMariner for my M's news and rumors, but I also get interesting insight and powerful statistical analysis. So, everytime someone acts like a douchebag in the comments, I feel bad for the authors. Don't these people realize that it's is a labor of love for the five guys running the site? I do, and therefore I would like to take a second and thank Derek, Dave, Jason, Jeff and Peter for all of the hard work they do to keep the good ship USSMariner afloat. It's the first site I check every morning and the last one I read before I go to sleep at night. My days just wouldn't be the same without it. That being said, I present you with...

*Please note that these are in no particular order and I would also like to note that I'm probably missing some of my favorites. Some of these are ones that stand out to me and others are ones I found sifting through the archives and saying, "Oh yeah...that was a great one!"

1) Derek's Attrition War series

The other day I told you about my conversation with BP’s Jonah Keri when he mentioned that pitchers are generally more successful when they have at least two of the following three traits: a good strikeout rate, a good walk rate, or a good groundball to flyball ratio. So, I did some research and found the pitchers who qualified for the ERA title that succeeded in two out of those three categories. But, since I have been developing a fondness for bullpen construction and because I like doing research, I decided that I would also find out which pitchers, who didn’t qualify for the ERA title, were successful in two of those three categories.

So, to clarify – this section is only dealing with pitchers who pitched less than 162 innings last season. I set the minimum innings for the pitchers at 50, to cut out any guys who might skew the numbers because of their small sample size. Granted, 50 IP isn’t a ton, but I think it will give us numbers that are less likely to be straight-up flukes. I used stats from The Hardball Times and combined stats for pitchers who switched teams during the season.

First, let’s look at strikeout rates. There are 218 pitchers who pitched more than 50 innings but less than 162 innings, so we will only be looking at roughly the top 10% for each category.

Top 20 Non-Qualified MLB Pitchers Based on K/9

Brad Lidge, B.J. Ryan, Rudy Seanez, Francisco Rodriguez, Joe Nathan, Kyle Farnsworth, Brian Fuentes, Ugueth Urbina, Mike Wuertz, Kerry Wood, Mike Gonzalez, Jay Witasick, Francisco Cordero, Jose Valverde, Billy Wagner, Brian Bruney, Ron Villone, Juan Rincon, Rafael Betancourt, Scot Shields and Al Reyes.

Not too many surprises there. It’s mostly filled with top-notch closers. At the top, you’ve got Lights Out Lidge with his MLB-leading 13.11 K/9 and at the bottom of the elite group, there’s Al Reyes and his nothing-to-complain-about 9.62. Sure, there are some guys that might make you say, “Who?” but for the most part it’s the guys you’d expect.

As an interesting side note, if the cutoff was set at 30 IP, instead of 50, the top 10% would have included guys like Bobby Jenks, Damaso Marte, Julio Santana, Scott Dohmann, Greg Aquino, Chris Ray and Roberto Novoa.

Now, same deal, but this time we’re looking at walk rate.

Top 20 Non-Qualified MLB Pitchers Based on BB/9

Roy Halladay, Ben Sheets, Jae Seo, Carl Pavano, Todd Coffey, David Cortes, Chris Reitsma, Todd Jones, Aaron Cook, Julio Mateo, Luis Ayala, David Riske, Trevor Hoffman, David Bush, Bob Howry, Justin Duchscherer, Justin Speier, Chad Cordero, Mariano Rivera and Curt Schilling.

This group ranges from Halladay’s 1.14 BB/9 to Schilling’s 2.12. And folks, it’s time to celebrate…there’s finally a Mariner on one of these lists! Second, remember how I mentioned in the Part 1 that, “…it seems as though relief pitchers, in general, have a higher GB/FB ratio than starting pitchers, but also give up more free passes.”

Now, we’ll see about the groundball part, but look at the list of non-qualified pitchers with good walk rates. Of the 20 pitchers listed, seven of them are starters. Now, I know that’s not the majority or anything, but when you consider that there’s only about 70 starters in the non-qualified group of 218, it’s interesting that 7 made the top 20 for lowest walk rate.

Ok, now on to ESPN’s stats for the GB/FB numbers. Let’s see the group of non-qualified pitchers who made batters kill the most worms!

Top 20 Non-Qualified MLB Pitchers Based on GB/FB

Sergio Mitre, Felix Hernandez, Todd Williams, Aaron Cook, Chien-Ming Wang, Ryan Dempster. Roy Halladay, Chad Qualls, Kameron Loe, Scott Schoeneweis, Brad Thompson, Kirk Saarloos, Rick White, Terry Mulholland, Ryan Drese, Todd Coffey, D.J. Carrasco, J.P. Howell, Todd Jones and Scot Shields.

Now remember, in the first part of this study I didn’t only look at the top tier of pitchers in each category. I also sorted out all the pitchers who were above average according to the numbers on Baseball Prospectus. So, to be fair, let’s see how many pitchers were above average in these three categories. We’ll still be limiting our study to pitchers with more than 50 innings, but less than 162.

And, again, here are the league averages from Baseball Prospectus, for reference:

American League pitchers with an above-average strikeout rate: B.J. Ryan, Francisco Rodriguez, Joe Nathan, Francisco Cordero, Juan Rincon, Rafael Betancourt, Scot Shields, Kelvim Escobar, Ambiorix Burgos, Mike MacDougal, Mariano Rivera, Andy Sisco, Matt Thornton, Justin Duchscherer, Daniel Cabrera, Neal Cotts, Rich Harden, Kiko Calero, Curt Schilling, Huston Street, Felix Hernandez, Joaquin Benoit, Erik Bedard, Chad Orvella, Tom Gordon, Eddie Guardado, Cliff Politte, J.C. Romero, Seth McClung, Justin Speier, Doug Brocail, Jason Frasor, Brendan Donnelly, Jorge Julio, Kevin Gregg, Scott Downs, Roy Halladay, Ted Lilly, Keiichi Yabu, Scott Schoeneweis, J.J. Putz, J.P. Howell, Ervin Santana, Mike Timlin, Alan Embree, Miguel Batista, Brandon McCaarthy, Orlando Hernandez, Jimmy Gobble, Danys Baez and Wade Miller.

National League pitchers with an above-average strikeout rate: Brad Lidge, Rudy Seanez, Brian Fuentes, Mike Wuertz, Kerry Wood, Mike Gonzalez, Jose Valverde, Billy Wagner, Al Reyes, Ryan Dempster, Matt Wise, Akinori Otsuka, Scott Eyre, Derrick Turnbow, Scott Linebrink, Oliver Perez, Dan Wheeler, Trevor Hoffman, Russ Springer, Ryan Madson, Ben Sheets, Gary Glover, Guillermo Mota, Marcos Carvajal, Jim Brower, Tyler Walker, Roberto Hernandez, Duaner Sanchez, Jason Isringhausen, Hector Carrasco, Todd Jones, Robinson Tejeda, Yhency Brazoban, Mike DeJean, Chad Cordero, Ezequiel Astacio, John Grabow, Jason Vargas, Lance Cormier, David Weathers, Byung-Hyun Kim, Adam Eaton, Randy Keisler, Glendon Rusch, LaTroy Hawkins, Randy Wolf, Kevin Correia, Chad Qualls, Aaron Fultz and Giovanni Carrara.

Players who pitched in both leagues and had an above-average strikeout rate: Kyle Farnsworth, Ugueth Urbina, Jay Witasick and Ron Villone.

American League pitchers with an above-average walk rate: Roy Halladay, Carl Pavano, Julio Mateo, David Riske, David Bush, Bob Howry, Justin Duchscherer, Justin Speier, Mariano Rivera, Curt Schilling, Shigetoshi Hasegawa, Doug Waechter, Mike Timlin, Rafael Betancourt, Brandon McCarthy, Kevin Brown, Scott Baker, Joe Mays, Lance Carter, John Wasdin, Eddie Guardado, Alan Embree, Felix Hernandez, Chien-Ming Wang, James Baldwin, Jeremi Gonzalez, Terry Mulholland, Brendan Donnelly, Dustin Hermanson, Ricardo Rodriguez, Chris Spurling, Cliff Politte, Joe Nathan, Aaron Small, Kiko Calero, Travis Harper, Huston Street, Jorge Julio and Matt Guerrier.

National League pitchers with an above-average walk rate: Ben Sheets, Jae Seo, Todd Coffey, David Cortes, Chris Reitsma, Todd Jones, Aaron Cook, Luis Ayala, Trevor Hoffman, Chad Cordero, Chris Hammond, Brad Halsey, Jose Acevedo, Sunny Kim, Billy Wagner, Odalis Perez, Dan Wheeler, Mike Hampton, Brian Moehler, Zach Duke, Brad Thompson, Brian Meadows, John Thomson, Ryan Madson, Chad Qualls, Julian Tavarez, Elmer Dessens, Jose Valverde, Matt Belisle, Kent Mercker, Ezequiel Astacio, Gary Glover, Scott Linebrink, Aaron Fultz, Al Reyes, Woody Williams, Randy Wolf, Brad Lidge, Jeff Fassero, Adam Eaton, Aaron Heilman, Claudio Vargas, Russ Springer, Derrick Turnbow, Tim Stauffer, Geoff Geary, Shawn Estes, Glendon Rusch and Rudy Seanez.

Pitchers who pitched in both leagues and had an above-average walk rate: John Halama, Pedro Astacio, Roman Colon and Darrell May.

American League pitchers with an above-average groundball rate: Felix Hernandez, Todd Williams, Chien-Ming Wang, Roy Halladay, Kameron Loe, Scott Schoeneweis, Kirk Saarloos, Terry Mulholland, D.J. Carrasco, J.P. Howell, Scot Shields, Mike MacDougal, Brian Shouse, Scott Downs, Mariano Rivera, Doug Brocail, J.J. Putz, Sidney Ponson, Steve Kline, J.C. Romero, Daniel Cabrera, Bob Wickman, Kevin Brown, Mike Wood, Ricardo Rodriguez and Carl Pavano.

National League pitchers with an above-average groundball rate: Sergio Mitre, Aaron Cook, Ryan Dempster, Chad Qualls, Brad Thompson, Rick White, Todd Coffey, Todd Jones, Dan Kolb, Scott Erickson, Matt Belisle, Jason Jennings, Bradon Looper, Chris Reitsma, Jason Isringhausen, Akinori Otsuka, Zach Duke, Derrick Turnbow, Jeff Fassero, Mike DeJean and Julian Tavarez.

Pitchers who pitched in both leagues and had an above-average groundball rate: Ryan Drese and Jay Witasick.

So, how many non-qualified pitchers were above average in at least two categories? 61...

American League pitchers who were above average in at least two of the three categories: Joe Nathan, Scot Shields, Mariano Rivera, Justin Duchscherer, Daniel Cabrera, Kiko Calero, Curt Schilling, Felix Hernandez, Eddie Guardado, Cliff Politte, Doug Brocail, Justin Speier, Brendan Donnelly, Jorge Julio, Huston Street, Roy Halladay, Scott Downs, Scott Schoeneweis, J.J. Putz, J.P. Howell, Mike Timlin, Alan Embree, Brandon MacCarthy, Mike MacDougal, Kevin Brown, Carl Pavano, Chien-Ming Wang and J.C. Romero.

National League pitchers who were above average in at least two of the three categories:  Brad Lidge, Rudy Seanez, Jose Valverde, Billy Wagner, Al Reyes, Ryan Dempster, Akinori Otsuka, Derrick Turnbow, Scott Linebrink, Dan Wheeler, Trevor Hoffman, Russ Springer, Ryan Madson, Ben Sheets, Gary Glover, Jason Isringhausen, Todd Jones, Mike DeJean, Ezequiel Astacio, Adan Eaton, Glendon Rusch, Randy Wolf, Chad Qualls, Aaron Fultz, Todd Coffey, Chris Reitsma, Aaron Cook, Zach Duke, Brad Thompson, Matt Belisle, Julian Tavarez and Jeff Fassero.

Pitchers who pitched in both leagues and were above average in at least two of the three categories: Jay Witasick.

So, there you have it. There were 311 pitchers that pitched more than 50 innings in the big leagues last season. 93 of them were above average in at least two of the following three categories: K/9, BB/9 and GB/FB. As I stated last time, obviously a pitcher can succeed without being above-average in two of the three categories. No one’s going to argue that B.J. Ryan (who, you’ll notice didn’t make the list) wasn’t a successful pitcher last season. However, being above average in at least two of those three categories simply makes it easier for the pitcher to be successful. Just think about it like this: Having a good K/9 is necessary because the less batters you allow to put the ball in play, the better the chance you have of them not scoring. Having a good BB/9 is necessary because the fewer batters you give first base to, the fewer chances they have to score. And having a good GB/FB ratio is necessary because less runs are produced on ground balls than on fly balls. That being said, I don’t believe that the three categories are necessarily of equal value. However, looking into that is for another day. And, I know I mentioned that I was thinking about doing one of these posts for minor leaguers, but there’s just so freaking many of them! Plus, they switch teams and leagues so frequently that it’s really overwhelming. I may still attempt it sometime this winter, but don’t hold your breath. If you like these posts and find them as interesting as I do, you’re better off looking forward to a (Not So) Successful Pitchers post and a Successful Pitchers Wrap Up post. Those are more likely to make it onto this fine site. And, if you got this far…thank you and Happy Holidays!