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Masks #1- Chris Roberson’s scripting really doesn’t do much for me, and Alex Ross lost his luster a while ago. I’m not going to say his art is ugly, but his layouts and paneling are definitely feeling kind of jumbled and forced these days. The problem with this title is that instead of feeling like a natural logical progression, it totally feels like Dynamite had all these properties that all just happened to carry guns and wear hats and they knew Ross would have an epic boner to work on them together. “The Shadow AND Green Hornet??!?! I only love old stuff so of course I’m interested!” Trust me, as someone who loves pulp and vintage characters, even I feel like this is a stretch. Plus, yes, of course it makes sense to throw Zorro in with this grouping because….he…too….has a….hat. Dynamite, ladies and gentlemen! Buy one of our fifteen variant covers for this issue because Green Hornet and the Spider are still popular! C

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Thor God of Thunder #2-Pretty Esad Ribic art is pretty. Aaron is definitely building a multi-layer story that’s intriguing, well scripted, and fantastically illustrated. It’s the kind of epic storytelling that this title needs as it’s starting off a relaunch, and I wish more relaunches could understand that. I wish it was longer than twenty pages for the $3.99 price tag, but considering the quality of the art I suppose I don’t have to bitch as much as usual. A-

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Transformers Prime: Rage of the Dinobots #1- So, there’s the IDW continuity (split into two books), the Regeneration continuity that continues from the old Marvel comics, and now this continuity that’s from the current TV show. Feels like some pre-Crisis DC up in here. That’s kind of cool though, because it means you have options. If you don’t watch the current show (I’ve only seen the first season but I really liked it), you aren’t really hurting as it’s a fairly self-explanatory first issue. Autobots and Decepticons leave Cybertron, Dinobots stay behind to break stuff, enter Shockwave. Because you always have to put the Dinobots with Shockwave because that’s just what you do. So yeah, pretty much a by-the-numbers robot smash fest. B

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Aquaman #14- I like Pete Woods but this sort of felt like a rush job. That, or the fact that the work load was somehow split with a Pere Perez and like five separate inkers. That’s……that’s pretty much a rush job. Also? It’s kind of hilarious that Ocean Master is front and center right on the cover, but the entire issue he’s in shadow. He uh…..he sorta has a fairly unique helmet, you guys.  Despite all that, this was pretty much sub-plot development and moving the background along. B

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Jeffy with an info-taining Eleven Thoughts On Charlie Furbush.  How does LL keep coming up with these completely new article templates?  I want the yellow sticky note on the side of your monitor there, captain.

He's more flexible, at the moment, than I am when it comes to Furbush's future career path.  So if you're saturated with the SSI Kool-Aid on Furbush's role in the 'pen, that will give you a va-cation from carbo-nation.

We'll recap SSI's position briefly.  As Dr. D sees it, the "starter's rhythm" is a key factor to consider when choosing roles; you want starting pitchers who can exploit their 3-mile run in order to obtain superhuman levels of finesse and precision as they face the same batter for the third time. 

Bill James put it another way -- three bucks a month, kiddies, for access to baseball's Aristotle -- 

Let’s go back to the issue itself now, the rights and wrongs of bullpen usage.   Even though my old ideas from fifteen years ago may have had nothing to do with the Closer by Committee, those ideas may still have been right, and they may still have been wrong.    Were there things I was wrong about, things that I didn’t understand back then?

                Well. …yeah, there were some things.   I’ll get to them in a minute.   There is a narrative about the failure of the Closer by Committee that goes like this. . .pretend you are hearing Tim McCarver.     It takes a special person to handle the pressure of being The Closer.  It’s one thing to get outs in the 7^th inning when you’re three runs behind.   It’s another thing to be out there on the mound when every man who gets on first is potentially going to cost your team the ballgame.   You’re going to lose the game for your team sometimes.   You have to shake it off and come back the next day and get people out.   Not everybody can handle that.

                To me, that argument is insulting to the players.   I have known very few major league athletes who couldn’t handle the pressure of failing sometimes.

                I reject that argument because I don’t like the argument, but I also reject it because I don’t think it’s generally true.   It’s true sometimes.   There are probably some pitchers who have difficulty with the psychological pressures of pitching constantly in game situations.   I didn’t believe ten years ago, and I don’t believe now, that this is why the Closer by Committee failed.

                As my friend Sam Reich used to say, "If you can pitch in the sixth inning you can pitch in the ninth inning."    But here’s what I really did not understand ten years ago, starting with the broader subject of the sprinter vs. the middle distance runner.  You can run a lot faster in a short sprint than you can run if you are running two or three miles. For the exact same reasons, most pitchers are more effective when they’re throwing 20 pitches in an outing than when they’re trying to throw 130 pitches.     Actually, they’re a lot more effective.  

                It is a simple point with far-reaching implications.    Seventy years ago, I don’t believe that anyone in baseball understood this difference or understood the full implications of it.    It may be that the first person who truly got the implications of this was Casey Stengel, in making a short-outing reliever out of Ryne Duren.

                In 1956, pitching for Vancouver in the Pacific Coast League, Ryne Duren struck out 183 batters in 205 innings.   Not a bad strikeout rate, but pitching for the Yankees in 1958 and 1959 (combined), Duren struck out 183 batters in 151 innings.    When he pitched fewer innings his strikeout rate shot up, even though he was pitching against better hitters.

                As a starting pitcher in the minor leagues, Dick Radatz had ERAs of 3.04, 3.69, 3.79, and 3.50.  Moved to the bullpen in 1961 at Seattle, his ERA dropped to 2.28, and he was on his way toward becoming The Monster. 

                The obvious implication of this is that some pitchers who are not very fast in a two-mile run can run really fast in a sprint.   Therefore, you can get more innings of quality work from more pitchers if you just ask them for a sprint.  

                While the implications of this may seem obvious, it took baseball generations and generations to overcome the resistance to it.    I might argue, radically, that even now we have barely started to overcome the resistance to it.   We still would prefer, if we can, to have one pitcher pitch seven innings—the same mindset that gave baseball, for many years, a preference for distance runners rather than sprinters.    Westill are not at the point where we are comfortable turning the pitching staff into a series of sprints, rather than a two-mile run with a couple of sprints at the finish line.  

                When I was writing the things that I wrote about relievers ten or fifteen years ago, I either did not understand this sprinter/distance runner dichotomy at all, or I had not come to terms with its implications. Sparky Anderson understood it in the 1970s; Whitey Herzog understood it in the 1980s; Tony LaRussa understood it in the 1990s.   The rest of us have struggled to come to terms with it.

                Closers are sort of "super-sprinters" who come into the game when the finish line is so close that you can smell it.    There are advantages that go with being a reliever, as opposed to a starter, and there are advantages that go with being a Closer, as opposed to a piss-ant reliever.   (My text editor is trying to change "piss-ant" to "puissant."  I don’t even know what "puissant" means.)  Anyway, the Closer is in a unique position because, more than anyone else, he knows when he will be coming into the game.   He can manipulate his adrenaline flow, his heart rate and his metabolism to peak at the moment when he is called on.    He can take a nap in the 3^rd and 4^th innings, stir around in the 5^th, play a little light toss in the 6^th, stretch in the 7^th, do some calisthenics in the 8^th, and be ready to fire in the 9^th.    Nobody else can do that.

                Also, the Closer has a more regular schedule than any other reliever.   If he has pitched the last two days in a row, he’s given the third day off (usually).   He knows he has the day off; the manager will tell the press that he probably is not available.    He won’t usually be asked to pitch three innings because the team needs him to.   If he hasn’t worked for a couple of days, he will be given the opportunity to get an inning’s work in even if the team doesn’t need him to.

                Other relievers are given these benefits as the opportunity allows the manager to bestow them, but Closers have priority on them.  This makes Closers different.

                Because they are different, some of them are super-effective.   Records are broken all the time, but there will never be a miler who runs as fast as Usain Bolt.  There are no starting pitchers in history—none—who are effective as Mariano Rivera or Jonathon Papelbon, adjusting for the era and the context.  Because they are sprinting only when they are perfectly prepared for a sprint (overstating it a little), those guys reach a level of effectiveness that no starting pitcher is ever going to match, even Verlander or Pedro Martinez.    Papelbon’s career strikeout rate, per batter faced, is a whopping 32% higher than Verlander’s.

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This means, of course, that in the bullpen you want pitchers CAPABLE of running faster for 1.0 innings than they can for 7.0.  Felix Hernandez probably would not pitch any better in the bullpen, for one inning, than he can in the 6th inning of a Yankee game.  Probably not as well, right?  Starter's rhythm.  Felix probably throws the ball better in the 5th innings of games than he does in the 1st.  With Papelbon, it's the opposite.

Sabermetricians don't fancy this territory:  "How do you create good seasons for your players?", but real baseball people can't afford to ignore it.

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I saw some reader at LL who wondered what Bill James' proof was, that Charlie Furbush has an unnatural, undesirable delivery.  That is a lot like asking what your proof is, that Kam Chancellor can deliver a tackle harder than Ichiro can.  When you are asking for something like that to be proven, you have taken one too many college philosophy classes.

There is such a thing as syllogism only for syllogism's sake, logic as a hobby.  Logic in and of itself is not a goal.  Logic is a means to an end.  Logic is the servant of Truth.  If something else gets you Truth, then use that.

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Furbush's delivery is royally fouled up on ten different levels, and if you have to ask you wouldn't understand.  In the rotation this causes him to be wild in the strike zone, meaning that he centers pitches accidentally.  You would predict that this would cause gopheritis.  In the rotation, Furbush actually has gopheritis.

In the bullpen, Furbush's max-effort delivery still causes him to center pitches, but a particular batter doesn't get 16 pitches that day to wait for one.  Also, in the bullpen Furbush only has to execute two pitches, so his execution is incomparably simpler and more consistent.

Furbush's history as a starter should be seen in one light only:  That he can deliver Scot Shields-type 3 IP outings out of the pen.  That is a huge advantage.  Yes, Furbush used to start.  Yes, Furbush has a rubber arm.  Yes, that means that we have a 3-IP reliever out there.  Yes, that's vunderbar.

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Okay, SSI is convicted on the matter, as are the M's ... the incredibly awesome website Lookout Landing would like to continue to consider the matter.  Fair deal.

Let's move on, though, and ask this question:  just how good IS Charlie Furbush going to be, as a left-handed Scot Shields?

Granted, there are closers who fan 10-12 men per game, and walk 1+.  Charlie Furbush is not like that.  Furbush absolutely will never have the PWR + PRCSN of a Kimbrel, Papelbon, or Nathan.  He is not that good a pitcher.

But on the other hand, Furbush is a 1.0 to 3.0 inning pitcher, and I think he would be perfectly fine throwing 100-130 innings per year.  And Furbush is LEFT HANDED.

It just hit me.  I'd probably rather have Charlie Furbush than Alexi Ogando.  And Scot Shields was probably the 2004 Angel that I was most jealous of.  I thought that Shields was the Angels' stealth MVP.

It's going to take a long time to get used to the idea that Furbush is a stealth Team-MVP candidate.  But in the bullpen, he could be that.

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Jemanji:  Zduriencik looks kind of shrill this winter.  And who could blame him.  If he has decided it's time to stop playing for two years from now, it's okay by me.

Buster Olney, quoted by Grizzly:  Olney says that "industry rivals" view the M's as desperate this winter. That's a little frightening - we saw what happened the last time the M's had a front office in "desperation" mode.  Safe to say those "industry rivals" know a lot more about Jack's mindset and how frantic the club is than we netizens do.

Silentpadna:  Grizzly, I don't think it's safe to say that at all. Industry rivals are known to say things specifically for public consumption. If I'm GM of the Rangers and I sense the M's are about to make any serious in-roads, I might plant a suggestion like that into the rumor mill. That's a big part of the game these days.

Jemanji:  That's part of the game for sure, but I wonder whether savvy GM's aren't looking at Zunino, the Napoli visit, the calls the M's are making to everybody up to and including Randy Johnson, and seriously wondering whether Zduriencik's under the gun.

Zduriencik:  quoted by Baker, trying (um, desperately) to defuse the situation.

“We have some money available, but we’ve also spent some money already,” Zduriencik said. “Some of our arbitration cases are going to take some of that away, the recent signing of (Hisashi) Iwakuma is going to take a little bit away, as well as Oliver Perez. And the other thing that ties into this, in a lot of these sigings that you do, somethimes there are incentives attached. So, you have to budget for the incentives that players could make as well. But just to do a singing to do a singing, I don’t think would be the right thing to do. If it makes sense and it’s what you’re looking for then certainly you have to entertain that and certainly go down every avenue that you can.

The Mariners are obligated to around $2M in potential incentives for 2013.  The Mariners only have five veterans total who are owed anything whatsoever beyond arbitration awards.  Felix can earn $350,000 if he wins EVERYTHING including Cy Young, Gold Glove, and playoff MVP.  Gutierrez can win $50,000 for a Gold Glove.  Ryan can earn $0.75M for 600 plate appearances.  And Ackley's got some incentives.  So yeah, maybe that $2M means that the budget is real cramped, despite what the team president just said about how he wants Josh Hamilton pretty bad.

The line about incentives blows the cover for my man Z.  He's definitely doing damage control here.

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But I do think we’re kind of in a really unique spot here because I think that for the last several years we’ve been trying to put this whole thing together where we’re very young at the big league level, as you guys know. We’re now going to be sittig with — if some of these players don’t make our big league club — we’re going to be sitting with a lot of players on the AAA club a phone call away. And my guess would be several of them, if they don’t make the club out of spring training, we’re going to see another nice group of kids get to the big leagues.

Yeah, we like our kids.  Don't assume we need your player over there in Kansas City or Miami.

Right.  After four years of watching the current kids come up and struggle, Zduriencik's now going to want to re-rack with another set of kids who will come in with 0 AB's and 0 IP's?

Dr. D has nothing against damage control.  He just doesn't expect rival GM's to have a lot of problems seeing through the protests.  They are evidently taken aback by the full-court press that is being applied by a team that does not usually play full court.

Deal with it.  A lot of teams are aggressive in the offseason.  It's weird only in Seattle.

BABVA,

Dr D

Gordon Gross skims over the Paxton series and whacks Dr. D's underhand scoop shot into the cheap seats:

It took Kershaw 4 years in the bigs (granted, 4 young years) to become the Cy Young bundle of C-4 that he's become. His first 3 years?

1: 9 hits, 8.5 K, 4.5 BB per 9
2: 6.5 hits, 9.5 K, 5 BB per 9
3: 7 hits, 9.5 K, 3.5 BB per 9

Years 4 and 5 are where he took off:
4: 6.5 hits, 9.5K, 2 BB per 9
5: 6.5 hits, 9 K, 2.5 BB per 9

Guys with good heat and a good breaker can survive wildness, though - his year 2 and year 3 returns were nothing to sneeze at (ERA+ of 143 and 133 those years).

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You wanna see what Paxton's first two years in the system have been?

1: 7 hits, 12.5 K, 4 BB per 9
2: 8 hits, 9 K, 4.5 BB per 9

Paxton's HR rates are miniscule. He simply can't be squared up, and he'll never pipe you an easy one even when his curve isn't dropping in.

And pitchers with excessive heat and repeatable mechanics tend to get it figured out - it just may require patience.

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Randy Johnson took until year 5 to become the HOF version of himself, but his ERAs were in the 3s from year 2 on. Kershaw's ERAs were great in year 2 and beyond even though he wasn't TOTALLY dominant. Brandon Morrow (a righty, but with a similar arm) took until year 6... but Brandon WILL pipe you a HR ball, and his higher ERAs reflect his ability to be hit. When his walks came down and he couldn't be hit as easily (because he didn't have to throw hittable balls down the chute in hitter's counts) his ERA came down to where it should be.

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Paxton is hard to hit, for either average or power, and I expect him to carry that over to the bigs. In fact, in a league where they'll call the curveball for a strike (a notorious problem in the minors) he'll probably do better-than-expected at carrying that success over.

But if he starts off with high walks.... DON'T FREAK OUT. Price walked 4 per his first year. Bedard? 4.5. Lester 4.5, Gio Gonzalez 5+.... CJ Wilson's walked 4 per for his career, and he's done all right because he's hard to hit.

Odds are, Paxton will walk guys. As Doc said, his foot plant is inconsistent and he's compensating. When he gets it worked out the walks will magically disappear, but even WITH walks he's a TOR starter thanks to what I expect to be low hits and low HRs. Paxton is the sort of arm you deploy knowing that his first 3 years will likely be as your #2 or 3 starter, and his next 3 he may be your ace.

Which is why I don't want to give him up - he can fight a rearguard action while getting the league figured out, and then once he does... boom. And what's fun about this team is we have several pitchers who may be able to do that. We'll see how many we keep to allow them the opportunity. So far Morrow and Pineda have been moved on, and the returns haven't been what we'd hoped at this point.

I would like to see us roll out a couple of those types in the 2013 rotation, though. Felix, Iwakuma, Ramirez, Paxton, and Hultzen could be a formidable rotation with a low disaster-potential. We'd have to keep em around for that to work.

~G

The pre-1993 Randy Johnson wasn't just a guy with high walks.  He was a DISGUSTING MESS mechanically, worse mechanically than most high school kids without the slightest exaggeration.  He had no idea where the ball was going and this had a lot of positives as far as his effectiveness.  

Reading your piece, a lot of these wild lefties come to mind and I wonder even more how a pro scout could overlook them, writing Paxton off as a "career #5 starter command" guy.  This is one of your very best G, which is sayin' a lot.  Just for chuckles, check Randy's front foot in this picture ...

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Sandy Koufax walked 5+ men at ages 23 and 24, running ERA+'s better than average.  He had a transition year at 25, and took over the league at 26.

Johann Santana walked 5+ men at 21 and 4+ men at 23, getting ahold of his mechanics in his 4th partial year in the majors.  He is a milder case statistically, but another reminder that young lefties can look awkward physically.

Bill James has a Wild Man Lefties template, in which he points out that a lot of Koufax / Big Unit types are terrible hitters, make lots of errors fielding, are just very clumsy men.  Sometimes it takes a few years for them to learn how to control their centers of gravity.  

A soft-tossing lefty?  Bill uses the "grace and balance" rule of thumb.  Jamie Moyer looked like a ballet dancer out there, could hold the top of his windup for 5 seconds like a flamingo (or a Japanese pitcher, take your pick).  This leads to the pinpoint control.  But hard-throwing lefties absolutely do not require command OR control in order to succeed.  Not the way that other pitchers do.

They don't always turn out to be superstars, of course.  A guy like Scott Kazmir might not learn to control his release point before his fastball goes.  Still, Kazmir gave his teams three-four years of All-Star performance; it's not like he was a joke.

Erik Bedard his ownself was in this mold of physically graceless, hard-throwing lefty ... man, if only he'd been healthy.

I don't know why I spaced out on this template.  Glad that Gordon didn't.

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You could find any number of kludgy LHP's like this... thing is, Paxton is indeed miles ahead of them in terms of grace and balance.  Paxton has one specific thing to fix, the front foot, and then his mechanics are way plus.  You might recall that Randy Johnson credited this one specific thing -- the front foot -- as his turning point.  He had to be told about it several years on, by somebody outside the Mariners' organization.

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