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Is this the swing of a man with a 98% contact percentage?

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Here's the video of his upper-tank shot against Holland.  The back leg is set at like 30 degrees off the ground, as if you'd set a pike against an incoming warhorse.  The front leg isn't a lot different.  And we hope that he has spikes on the side of his shoe.

We had the privilege of watching Seager's power in spring training:  counting HR's canceled by hail, intersquad, etc., the man hit four or five no-doubt homers down there.  After every blinkin' one of them, people talked about ... the Arizona wind.

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Bill James' paradigm for analyzing hitters -- not THE correct one, but a fresh and valuable camera angle -- is to figure out:

1. How HARD they hit the ball,
2. How often they swing and miss,
3. How many pitches they take, and
4. How often they pull the ball.

We'll save you several thousand words and summarize, but the full data and logic are right here.  If you really want to know who the dangerous hitters are, find the ones who pull the ball in the air.  "When they hit the ball in the air AND PULL IT, a lot of the big hitters bat .500, .600, even .700."  The problem is that batters don't pull the ball in the air very often.

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Seager is rifling the ball down the RF line with authority, and .... hey, amigo.  Had you noticed Kyle Seager's GB/FB numbers?

Power hitters hit the ball in the air.  Had you noticed that Kyle Seager hits a piddling 30% ground balls?  I had not.  Had you noticed that Kyle Seager is a pull hitter in Safeco Field?

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=== KBIZLT ===

Sully pointed out yesterday that, this season, Kyle Seager has only swung and missed once so far.  Here is a breakdown as to why Kyle Seager's swing is ideally suited to hitting .300.

That really is what Albert Pujols does.  Cover the ball like a leadoff hitter does, but swing a lot harder.  Manny Ramirez.  When you get a 70 HIT tool and the guy is swinging this hard, it's beautiful, man.  Only a few hitters, anywhere, do it.  What's in the water at UNC?

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Bill James, in his address to a risk-management Wall Street crowd, picked out one example from his career, to indicate a prediction on which he had unusual confidence:

Occasionally I’ll slip up and give an immediate answer.   A year ago, for example, Theo asked me “How confident are you that Dustin Pedroia will hit what your projections show that he will hit?”   Without thinking about it, I said “Absolutely 100%.”  

I knew three things that caused that to slip out.   First, I knew that our hitting projections for minor leaguers have a very high degree of reliability—much higher than most people assume that they do.   Second, I knew that our projections for Dustin Pedroia were actually very conservative, that he was actually a better hitter than we were saying that he was.  

Third, I knew that, even though Pedroia had hit .191 as a late-season callup in 2006, he had made contact with more than 90% of his swings.  If you swing as hard as he does and you make contact with every swing, how can you possibly fail to hit?

In the sense that James uses above, Kyle Seager's chances to hit are absolutely 100%.

;- )

 ... Seriously, this isn't a fad.  This morning we connected the dots on James' analysis of Dustin Pedroia.  Kyle Seager is an SSI Best Bet, every inch as long a bet as is James Paxton.  

Took me long enough, din't it?  Zdurienick not only drafted Seager against conventional wisdom, but also gave Seager his court summons during Seager's first year in the high minors.

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Each week we grope for a new Seager comp ... Snelling, Carlos Guillen, whoever.  His [KBIZLT + PULL swing] is reminding me, right now, of Don Mattingly.  Remember him, Moe, Lon, Terry?  Got the bat onto the plane of the ball, and then let the bat fly.

Where will Mike Carp play?  Figgins?  Saunders?  Vinnie Catricala?  I don't care.  Just don't give them Seager's spot.

BABVA,

Dr D

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Feb. 7th Tomorrow's News Today Update:  Nightengale says 7 years, $175M.  

Dr. D bracketed the extension at 5/$125M if Felix was feeling like Abraham Lincoln, or 7/$200M if he was feeling a little more assertive.  In either case, he's worth far more.

At 7/$175M, the Mariners get a pretty screamin' deal on the salary -- nine years from now, $25M per year for Christy Mathewson will be wayyyyyyy low.  Felix did get the more years rather than the fewer, but then again, it's hard to speak of it as a loss for fans, that Felix is positioned to go into the HOF in an M's cap.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, ARod.

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Edit again to say, the 7 years *replaces* his current deal, so we're at what, 5 years, $135M.  Yowza.

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=== Talking Points ===

Dr. D has, for some reason that he cannot begin to comprehend, never gotten emotionally attached to Felix.  Nobody in Seattle likes Felix any less than Dr. D does.  That means for me, on a scale of 1-10, Felix rates about a 6 or 7 on the Likeliest To Own Some Dude's Jersey meter.  I bought jerseys for Jack Wilshere and Santi Cazorla; I won't get Felix'.  I enjoy watching Wilshere and Cazorla perform more than I do Felix, and I'm a pretty casual soccer fan.

I have no idea why.  Felix is one of the most likeable athletes you'll ever see.  His game, the five pretzel pitches he throws, is very enjoyable to watch.  He's been ours since he was 16.  Explain to me why I could take him or leave him, somebody.

Point is, I'm not biased in his favor.  Not at all.  If we traded him for Giancarlo Stanton, even steven, I'd be pleased.

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With Stars & Scrubs, you save money on Scrubs SO THAT you can buy Stars at fair-market prices.

A rotisserie champion saves a buck here, a buck there, SO THAT he can have five Felices going against his opponent's four.  

Point is, whatever Felix costs, $25 mill, $30 mill, $35 mill (because of inflation), just pay it.  The rest of your decisions are made AROUND that.  Felix' salary is the given in this roster equation, you feel me?  Move on.  Wrestle with other problems after you put that one in the bank.

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The Mariners just offered Josh Hamilton $25M x 4 years.  Josh Hamilton's value, compared to Felix', is absolutely laughable.  To the Mariners especially!

Felix' value to the Mariners is logically, inescapably, far in excess of $25M and far in excess of 4 years' term.

Years don't matter to the fan or the club here; they only matter to the player.  If Felix is healthy in five years, he's going to re-up anyway.  A million here, a million there, the cost savings in Year 6 is not significant when compared to the overshadowing factor of an injury that makes the entire contract an albatross.

Point is, the Mariners need to (half-heartedly) hold Felix' requests to the minimum possible, and then they need to just pay it.  You as a Mariner fan are (half-heartedly) wanting to hear that the Mariners paid fewer years, and fewer dollars, as opposed to more years and more dollars.  If Felix were to take a 3-year extension, that's the announcement that would be the best-case for you as a fan.  He'll sign another one after that.

Every indication is that Felix won't exploit his value to the full.  You're not talking about a Scott Boras situation here.  Whew.

So you as the discerning SSI consumer can relax and wait for the 5-years-vs-7-years announcement.  If you hear that Felix took 5 years and $125M, you won big.  If you hear that it took 7 years and $200M, shrug, see previous talking point, you win not so big.  You hear anything other than Felix extension, you lose, but that's not likely enough to even worry about.  

You hear Felix for Stanton and three prospects, you also win... wait, that's me, not you.  :- )

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All aircraft carrier SP's -- Verlander, Sabathia, etc -- pose a health risk.  But contenders have them.  You don't get to bring knives to gunfights, not unless you want your 95-loss entrails all over your shoes.

The Felixes, and Sabathias, and Verlanders, the big bubbas with easy velocity and sky-high K rates, pose less health risk than other pitchers do.  James proved a long time ago that as K rates go up, DL rates go down.

BaseballHQ wrung its hands a little this year over Felix' loss of velocity.  What they overlooked is that, with Felix' pretzel pitches, he's an ace whatever his velocity.  He proved that last year.  

The point is, Felix is very safe, relative to other SP's such as Jered Weaver, Danny Haren, Cliff Lee, Tim Lincecum*, Gio Gonazlez, etc.  He's a big hoss who doesn't even need the hossiness to win Cy Youngs.  The hossiness is just buffer territory between him and the danger zone.

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One of Dr. D's most sour sports memories, the Mariners flatly turning down Randy Johnson's request for 3 years, $27M.  And Dr. D missed out on his rightful place in the third deck, spectating the career of one of baseball's twenty greatest all-time legends.

It was the local version of Boston's sale of Babe Ruth in 1919.  And it can realistically be compared to even that tragedy; Johnson was as great a figure in modern baseball as any Babe Ruth could ever be in today's game.

Whatever you do can get you killed, including AND ESPECIALLY being too chickenfeathers.  But obviously the Mariners are not going to repeat this mistake.

Point is, you've got a 300-game winner here, the decade's version of Roger Clemens and Tom Seaver.  Those guys weren't any better than Felix. 

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Most great pitchers really feed off one or two pitches that are truly scary.  Pedro Martinez had three of them.

Felix legitimately has four; this is almost unique in baseball history.  You could not tell me whether Felix' 89 dry spitter is more deadly than his 83 yellow hammer than his 86 vertical "slider."  (The other historical pitcher who comes to mind is a contemporary, Justin Verlander.)

And last year he introduced a pitch that could be worse than any of them:  the Mariano Rivera cut fastball.

Point is, Felix is authentically a historically-great pitcher, and will be great going forward.  When he throws a perfect game, it's not about luck.  It's about a slaughter going on out there.  

Like Pedro, Felix doesn't walk anybody if he chooses not to ... maybe he will throw six perfect games.  ::shrug::  What are your odds on his throwing one in 2013?

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There is nothing in Major League Baseball that is more deliciously Stars and Scrubs than the aircraft-carrier Opening Day Starter.  For me that's the most important, and hardest to get, piece of a baseball dynasty.  Felix Hernandez is the baseball version of Russell Wilson.

Remember back when the Mariners could go toe-to-toe with contenders?  Lou Piniella would schedule his rotations so that Randy Johnson could start series, especially on the road.  If the Mariners are ever going bare-knuckle again, Felix Hernandez will be there to give us dominance in many, many Big Weekend Series.

I forget.  Did Felix win four 1-0 games last year?  Like against NYY, Bos, and Tex, and including the perfecto?

Jack Zduriencik has been 100% decisive from day one.  Felix isn't going to be cashed in; he's going to be the pitcher the Mariners build around.  You can be sure that they understand the fact that they have to give Felix what he wants, so polish up your Felix dance.

Point is, we got the #1 SP, the monster righty who gets you 17-20 wins in March.  Let's get goin' on the rest of the travelin' squad.

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When dolphins find themselves in the kind of trouble that their fellow pod mates can’t help with, what do they do?  As far as I know, there are no dolphin hospitals hanging out beneath the ocean’s surface, so when a dolphin falls victim to something like a fishing hook getting embedded in their fin, it doesn’t seem like there are any options.  But these creatures are smart and at least one of them seems to have figured out that when you end up snagged by a man-made object, the best place to go for help would be the very people that made the thing in the first place.

While a group of divers were out on a tour in Hawaii, taking underwater shots of the manta ray populations there, they were approached by a dolphin with a problem.  A fishing hook and line had become embedded in the creature’s fin and was causing it a bit of an issue.  While they were going about their business, the dolphin approached them and signaled.  It swam around the divers until one of them noticed the foreign object in the fin and made an attempt to help.  For its part, the dolphin was quite cooperative, letting the diver take his time pulling out the hook and cutting the line away.  The whole process took several minutes, after which the dolphin left without fanfare, albeit in a little better shape than when it had showed up.

It’s pretty amazing to me not only that the dolphin knew that these divers could help him with his unique problem, but that it was calm enough to let them go about their work until finished.  Even though removing the hook must have been somewhat painful, it had enough trust in them to realize that the end result was worth the discomfort.  It seems we have yet another sign of dolphins’ ability to reason and of their growing relationship with human beings.

Since the divers were down there filming the manta rays, they happened to have a camera with them and recorded the whole event, which you can check out in the video below: