Brendan Ryan hits .270

Ryan has simplified his swing for 2013. Credit: Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

Ryan literally didn’t hit his own weight in 2012, but that’s not how it has always been. In his first full season in the major leagues, Ryan hit .292 with a .332 BABIP. Sure, the BABIP is a bit high, but it certainly is no indication of a future .194 hitter like he was in 2012. One of the big differences between the Ryan of 2012 and previous years was that he had no luck getting hits from ground balls. His average on line drives was also low which indicates a bit of unluckiness which is supported by his measly .244 BABIP over the season. Common logic tells us that his average will rise back to the mid .200’s. In theory, his adjusted hitting mechanics will cut down on his strikeout rate which has climbed for each of the last two seasons, and his removed bone spur should help him as well. Once you take all these things into consideration, a .270 average from Ryan seems possible.

Blake Beavan doesn’t last the full season in the rotation

If you read my last article, you know that I don’t think much of Blake Beavan. When I look at him, I see a pitcher who pitches to contact but doesn’t know how to get groundballs and doesn’t know how to avoid barrels. His stuff isn’t good enough to bail him out when he makes mistakes, and he tends to make a lot of mistakes. With Erasmo Ramirez, Jeremy Bonderman, Danny Hultzen, and James Paxton all sitting in AAA close to being prepared to pitch in Seattle, I don’t see the Mariners giving Beavan a whole lot of slack this season.

The Mariners are within 4 games of division lead in September

This somewhat bold prediction is derived from a gut feeling more than anything else. My main support for this ascertain is a simple, “why not?” The Mariners are a solid team that, with a little extra production, could win 85 games this year, and the division probably doesn’t have a team good enough to run away with the AL West crown unless the Angels’ rotation over performs. Saying that the Mariners will win the division is a bit too bold for me, but saying that they will be the hunt down the stretch is just somewhat bold enough for my liking.

Michael Saunders has a 25/25 year

Last year, Saunders hit 19 homeruns and stole 21 bases. In 2013, he will likely get more at bats and will probably have much better protection in the batting order. Assuming that he continues to progress as a player, a 25/25 year for Saunders would be a bit surprising but certainly not unrealistic.

King Felix wins his second Cy Young award

Again, why not? There is no doubt that Felix Hernandez has good enough stuff to win the Cy Young, and this year his numbers should get a little help from the games he will pitch against the Astros instead of the Angels. The improved offense should provide a few more wins which will give him some extra votes. Seattle’s stellar defense should also help his case. Even with the fences moving in, Safeco won’t be easy on batters and Felix’ numbers outside of Safeco have never been much worse than at home. In fact, he has allowed more homeruns at home than on the road in several different seasons. The dimensions shouldn’t have a significant impact of the King.

Franklin Gutierrez gets traded

The pieces match up for a trade like this happening. It’s his last year under contract, the Mariners could use to dump his salary, he doesn’t seem to be in the organization’s future, and he could fetch a decent return. It’s a perfect situation for Seattle. It’s not often that a gold glove caliber centerfielder gets traded, but if it is going to happen this summer, it will probably happen to Guti.

Mike Zunino makes his major league debut before the all star break

Zunino is spring training. Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Zunino has thrived in every level of competition he has seen thus far. He will start 2013 on the doorstep of the major leagues, and with nothing more than a defensively inept catcher standing between him and a major league starting job, it doesn’t seem like he’ll have to wait very long to get his major league debut. Prior to the all star break may be a bit optimistic, but it is doable. His ETA will also vary based upon a few other players.

Smoak has a .800 OPS

It seems a bit unrealistic, doesn’t it? Let me lay out a scenario for you. Justin Smoak will replicate his typical walk rate of about 10% while finally posting a somewhat respectable BABIP. With a tad bit of luck, his OBP should sit around .350 in this scenario. In order to achieve his .800 OPS he will need to slug .450. This is a stretch for Smoak, but we know he has made some changes at the plate. If his Spring Training is any indication of his future, a .450 slugging percentage could just barely be in reach. He hit as many doubles in spring training as he did in five months in 2012. If Chris Johnson can reach a .450 SLG%, Smoak should be able to.

The team ERA drops

Considering that Hector Noesi won’t be pitching every five days in 2013, this somewhat bold prediction looks pretty good. I prefer Joe Saunders to Jason Vargas and I think Iwakuma will improve in his sophomore year. With some added experience in the bullpen, the team ERA is prone to drop in 2013.

The season attendance reaches 2,500,000 fans

The club has received a minor facelift, the ballpark has seen some remodeling, the promotions are stellar, and the weather appears to be wonderful; there is no reason why 2,500,000 fans shouldn’t enter Safeco Field for the first time since 2007. Get out and watch some games!

Happy baseball season!

1)      Erasmo Ramirez is a quality major league pitcher

I must start by admitting the fact that Ramirez has only logged 47 innings as a starting pitcher. However, in that time, he posted a 3.24 FIP and a 5.13 K/BB. In that small period of time he also had a 1.0 WAR which is pretty impressive for such a short window of opportunity.

I decided to try to find a pitcher who had thrown a full season with similar statistics to Ramirez in order to get an idea for where his WAR would have been after a full season. The best comparison I could find between Ramirez’ 47 innings and another pitcher’s full season belonged to Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants.

Erasmo Ramirez pitching. Credit: Steven Bisig-USA TODAY Sports

Matt Cain Pitching.

Admittedly, it is not a perfect comparison. For example, Ramirez’ FIP and xFIP were 16 and 30 points better than Cain’s respectively, he walked about .5 less batters per 9 innings, and he did a better job of getting swinging strikes, especially outside the strike zone. On the other hand, Cain allowed slightly fewer line drives and instead got more fly balls and also had a much lower ERA, although we all know that the ERA is an unreliable statistic. If you want to see their stats side by side, feel free to do so here.

Nevertheless, Cain had the closest resemblance to Ramirez last year that I could find. Cain’s WAR in 2012 was 3.8. So, if Ramirez was able to replicate production similar to that of his 47 innings for an entire season, his WAR would have probably been in the 3.5-4.0 range. A 3.5 WAR would have put him in the top 25 in the MLB last year. That’s not bad at all.

Now, let’s evaluate his performance compared to some of the best rookie starting pitchers in baseball last year.

I would say Ramirez matches up nicely compared to these premier rookies. It is also worth noting that the other four pitchers listed here had WARs ranging from 4.7 to 2.5.

2)      Erasmo Ramirez is a better than Blake Beavan

There are so many ways to go about this argument. First of all, Ramirez’ WAR was 250% of Beavan’s, and it took him about a third of the innings Beavan threw to do so. Essentially the only thing Beavan is superior to Ramirez at is that he walks less batters, although barely less. However, the ability to not walk anybody is basically worthless if it comes at the expense of allowing lots of homeruns. Beavan had a HR/9 of 1.36 in 2012 despite getting about half of his starts in quite possibly the best pitchers park in the MLB. Even at home, he averaged over a homerun per nine innings. Not even Jason Vargas gave up that many homeruns in Safeco Field.

Beavan afer giving up a home run this spring. Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Compare Blake Beavan’s 1.14 HR/9 in Safeco Field last year to Ramirez’ .31 HR/9 in Safeco. Not to mention the fact that Ramirez did this while walking almost as few of guys as Beavan while striking out almost twice as many. For more on the Blake Beavan discussion, I would highly recommend this article written by Dave Cameron last June. Although it’s from awhile ago, the points he made are still quite applicable.

Ramirez’ swinging strike rate from last year was exactly twice Beavan’s. In my mind, some of the most revealing statistics about Blake Beavan are his outside the zone swing rate of 31.8% and outside the zone contact rate of 80.9%. Essentially what this means is that he is about average at getting batters to chase pitches outside the zone, but when they do, they make contact about 80% of the time. Now compare Beavan’s 80.9% to Ramirez’ number of 57.8% and the major league average of 68.3%.

No matter what way you look at it, Erasmo Ramirez is a much better pitcher than Blake Beavan.

3)      Erasmo Ramirez is a better than Brandon Maurer

It is a harder to compare Ramirez to Maurer just because Maurer has never pitched past AA. Despite the difference, Ramirez posted better a K/9 and BB/9 in his time as a major league starter than Maurer did in AA Jackson.

There is no doubt that Maurer has looked good this spring, but there is a big difference between spring training and the regular season, and there is an even bigger difference between class AA and the major leagues.

Just look at Danny Hultzen as he made his transition from AA Jackson to AAA Tacoma last year. His FIP jumped from 2.84 to 4.29 and his ERA went from 1.19 to 5.92.

I think that skipping AAA entirely is simply too big of a leap at one time for Maurer to make. Maurer may not be far away from being a solid major league pitcher, but we have already seen that Ramirez is a good pitcher. Why send down the good pitcher to allow a potentially good pitcher to be rushed to the big leagues?

I think that Maurer will be a solid starter down the road, but there is no reason to force him into the big leagues right now when there is a better pitcher already prepared for a MLB starting role.

Overall, I think that Erasmo Ramirez got the short end of the stick this spring. I believe that he is a better pitcher than both Beavan and Maurer, and he deserves to be in Seattle’s starting rotation. I would love to get your take on this issue in the comment section below.

One thing we can look at is who was not featured in a commercial. The team doesn’t want to use players that they think will leave the team during the season, because otherwise they will have to stop running a commercial in July after the player in it is traded. A couple significant players were not used in this year’s batch of ads. The most notable were Kendrys Morales, Justin Smoak, Franklin Gutierrez, and Hisashi Iwakuma.

Morales hitting a spring training homerun. Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Kendrys Morales is on the last year of his contract with the Mariners, so the lack of his presence in a commercial seems to indicate that he may be put on the trading block before the trade deadline. Taking him out of the lineup would provide a plethora of possibilities for other guys like Liddi, Thames, Wells, Bay, Peguero, or even prospects like Zunino or Franklin.

Perhaps if Smoak has a good first half, the Mariners will see Morales as an unnecessary piece for the Mariners and try to swap him for some value at a different position.

That transitions us to our next player who got left out of the advertisements: Justin Smoak. Although Smoak has been named the starter at first base, the fact that he wasn’t used in an ad seems to say that his long term place on this team is not secure. As I wrote a while back, I believe the Mariners are giving Smoak his final chance, and that they won’t be afraid to part ways with him if he doesn’t produce. The commercials this year seem to support that assertion.

Another notable player who failed to make an appearance in the commercials this year is Franklin Gutierrez. This is the last guaranteed year on his contract, but he has a club option for next year. Because of this, we may see Guti traded to a contending team before the trade deadline. His skill sets could make him very valuable to a club like the Yankees, Orioles, Cardinals, or Rangers that have plenty of offense but could use a gold glove caliber center fielder to help their outfield. There is also a chance that the Mariners left him out due to injury concerns, since he seems to be unable to go a month without some type of setback.

Hisashi Iwakuma is the final key player that failed to be featured in a 2013 advertisement. It is quite possible that the language barrier prevented him from participating in a commercial. It doesn’t seem like he would be a likely guy to go on the trade block since he inked a two year contract with the club last year, but he probably will have some trade value; more so than any other Mariner starter besides Felix, at least. Perhaps if some combination of the big four is knocking on the door of the big leagues, Seattle will feel comfortable moving Iwakuma at the deadline.

Probable third starter, Joe Saunders, also didn’t appear in an ad, but this is not surprising since he has essentially no name recognition or marketability in Seattle and is only on a one year contract.

Before putting too much stock in who did and didn’t appear in a 2013 commercial, remember that other factors could have caused players not to participate. Perhaps they don’t feel comfortable in front of the camera, didn’t have the time, or maybe the marketing department just didn’t have an ad that they would fit in to. Regardless, these are just a few things from the commercials to keep in mind as we look towards the season.