Point Blank – September 2
Is the Seattle OL Super Bowl caliber (Camp Questions #20)…Don’t sleep on The Tribe (like others have)…Getting in play early, again, in Wrigley…
Lost amidst much of the post-game analysis of the Seattle/New England Super Bowl finish, the goal line sequence perhaps being the most heavily commented upon in the history of the Sports Mediaverse, is that the Seahawk OL in 2014 was not very good. The question is whether or not some shifting around has made them any better this season.
The weaknesses of the OL last year were not easy to see statistically, largely because of the talents of Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch. Wilson’s mobility made it possible to escape what was a consistent pass rush against him, and one of the truly misleading statistics in terms of evaluating an OL are his 118 rushes for 849 yards, a nifty 7.2 per attempt. Many of those plays had little to do with the OL being strong; the designed runs were mostly geared to fool the opposing defenses, while avoiding a sack and turning it into a positive gain is one of the most difficult tracking situations of all. So how about this – even with his mobility in the pocket, the Seahawks were #24 in adjusted sack rate according to Football Outsiders. With a less mobile QB they might have threatened to finish dead last.
Was this a group that was much better at excavating holes on running plays? Not really. There were 43 RBs that had at least 100 carries last year, and Lynch rated #22 in yards before contact at 2.2. It was in his finishing #2 in yards after contact (2.5), that the production levels got built to their high level. Much like Wilson, his abilities made the OL look better than it was.
Now fast forward to this season, and there is a much different look -
Super Bowl Current
LT Okung Okung
LG Carpenter Britt
C Unger Nowak
RG Sweezy Sweezy
RT Britt Gilliam
The question is are they any better. Nowak has never started an NFL game. Britt has never started a game at guard. Gilliam was not drafted, and played a little at tackle, guard and TE last year (remember that playoff TD vs. Green Bay), but has never started. They gave him 59 snaps vs. San Diego last week, just so he could have the conditioning of playing a full NFL game.
How has this group fared so far in the pre-season? Again results should be taken with a grain of salt, but the first team offense has not reached the end zone yet. Not exactly the way to build confidence. OL coach Tom Cable tried to talk a good game this week, but notice the trepidation in his words – “I’m really excited about where we are going. I think this might be, before it’s all said and done, the best group I’ve had. So we’ll see how it all plays out.”
I will be spending significant time in the early season watching this group closely, especially those added metrics that focus specifically on how well the OL is playing, and not the abilities of Wilson and Lynch to make things happen. But a group that starts two players that were not drafted, and another that was taken until the 7th round, may not have a huge amount of upside.
Don’t sleep on The Tribe (like others have)…
There was some good back and forth with two of the sharper baseball minds around yesterday, Russ Culver taking a break from looking for the best way to short Trump futures (just an assumption on my part, without any direct evidence), and Eric Strasser, pausing from his process of filing every single call-up away as the rosters expand. It focused on an article from Jeff Passan at Yahoo Sports, that broke down the remaining schedules for teams that are over .500. And yes, the author explained why it was limited to those over .500, since only Oakland is more than 10 games out of the Wild Card race in the American League. You can’t fault him for using that methodology to shorten the list. But lurking in the shadows of .500 right now is a team that is not only interesting in terms of getting to October, but also making something happen should they be there – the Cleveland Indians.
Cleveland has underachieved offensively this season, and it has been a moribund summer of glovework in the field. But the Indians are playing their best ball right now, and it is because of the talent in their starting rotation that not only can they hang around; come playoff time they would not back down from anyone. The key is the immediate cycle ahead – after they leave Toronto it will be 10 straight games against the White Sox and Tigers, and that is where the door opens for them to make a run.
Here is what you should like, especially after Terry Francona made some recent positive comments about Carlos Carrasco, who is currently on the DL ("Watching him throw his bullpen yesterday, he's OK, he's just a little bit stiff after. I was glad they did the MRI. Sometimes when you give MRIs to pitchers, you have to be careful because anybody that's thrown a baseball can have something wrong in there. But his was very clean. We were thrilled.") The top three of the Cleveland rotation can math up awfully well to just about any opponent, and if Carrasco indeed comes back healthy, might one argue that their options for the play-in game run deeper than the Yankees, their most likely opponent? Let’s look at the season allowances, and AL rank, for that top trio -
ERA AL FIP AL
Kluber 3.41 #12 2.86 #5
Salazar 3.27 #10 3.52 #12
Carrasco 3.53 #15 2.79 #4
There is also the depth of Trevor Bauer, inconsistent but talented, and Josh Tomlin, who sports that superb combination of 8.9 K/9 and 0.7 BB/9 through his first four starts, but is still a difficult read because BABIP, LOB% and HR/FB% are all floating around at extreme outliers. Should the Tribe get to the play-in game, and advance beyond it because of having a better starter, then that top trio makes for some interesting matchup scenarios the rest of the way.
If there is a drawback to the remaining schedule it is that Cleveland only gets a chance to make up direct ground on one team ahead of them – there are seven games vs. the Twins, four at home. They will need help from others, especially with Texas having a favorable schedule. But this is not a team that should be left out of discussions right now, and you just might catch some books asleep at the wheel on their Futures pricing.
In the Sights…
On Tuesday there was a decent underdog return to be had getting behind the Reds with an advantage in the early stages with a better starter than the Cubs, buoyed by the fact that facing a rival in contention was putting life into a team that might otherwise be flat. This afternoon much of that same formula is in play, so #953 Cincinnati First Half is again a fit at the price point.
The pitching forms this morning will show Raisel Iglesias with a 3-6/3.92 season, compared to 7-6/3.42 for Jason Hammel, but those numbers are stale. If you focus on how these two performed in August the gap is significant -
ERA FIP
Iglesias 2.27 3.08
Hammel 4.88 5.17
Iglesias has thrown the ball remarkably well over this stretch, with more than twice as many Ks (45) as Hits allowed (20), and he has not had a higher count of Hits than Ks in any of his last eight starts. It has stayed off of the radar because the dice of offensive support have not rolled well for him – the Red have scored just one run over his last three outings, and in five of his last seven it has been one or zero. But they have brought some energy to this series, and can make things happen vs. Hammel, who has not worked into the seventh inning since early July, and does not appear to be at full health. On a day in which getting outs without contact being made will be important (warm with a hitter’s wind), the Iglesias early edge is substantial.
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