RealGM

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2009 5:39 pm**

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2069 ... son-so-far

The biggest apparent weakness of the Mariners has been their offense. The Mariners as a team are second to last in the American League in On-Base Percentage, Slugging Percentage, and OPS.

The Mariners currently have the worst walk percentage in the American League. Collectively, Mariners hitters have not been as patient at the plate as they should be.

How has the team been performing well, despite having one of the Major League’s worst offenses? Well there are two answers to that question: pitching and outfield defense. The Mariners currently have the best outfield UZR (an advanced stat that measures defense).

The team needs to find better infield defense, and that issue seems to have fixed itself in recent events. Yuniesky Betancourt who was statistically the worst shortstop defensively, has landed on the disabled list with Ronny Cedeno taking his spot.

Unlike their division counterparts, the Mariners have a solid starting rotation and an outfield defense that they can count on. If the Mariners can rely on these two strengths coupled with modest improvements to their plate discipline and infield defense, they might find themselves playing more than 162 games this season.

Posted: **Fri Jun 26, 2009 7:21 pm**

That's an interesting link, thanks. One little nit:

Not only are the Mariners swinging away at a high rate, they are also swinging at a large amount of baseballs, outside of the zone. If the team as a whole just was a little more patient at the plate, the offense I believe would start to see better results.

Not exactly. Plate discipline and strike zone judgment have been conflated in a lot of people's minds because they both correlate with walks, but there's a difference. A good example of a player who has little patience but great strike zone judgment is Vladimir Guerrero in his prime -- he swung a lot and didn't walk much, but his understanding of the strike zone was illustrated by his Z-Swing% of close to 90%. (Compare that with players known for being patient, like Jason Kendall and Brian Giles, with Z-Swing% in the 50-60% range and O-Swing% in the teens.)

A closer-to-home example is Yuni's sudden spike in walks (relatively speaking) in May after not walking a single time in April. He was more patient, but he reduced his swinging percentage for both pitches in the zone and pitches outside the zone. The result was a few more walks but it didn't mean he became a better hitter overall; his OBP actually declined in May. Yuni was more patient and took more pitches, but it didn't mean he had any more of a clue at the plate.

As between those two qualities -- patience and strike zone judgment -- the latter is more important, and the M's can't just turn it on by swinging less.

RealGM

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