The Curious Case of Ariel Miranda

When it comes to starting pitchers, Ariel Miranda is the best luck the Mariners have had in the past decade.

Okay, it’s out there. I said it.

At first, this claim comes off as absolutely absurd. Ariel Miranda? Ariel Miranda is by no means a revelation of a baseball player. He currently posts a 3-2 record (fine) with a 4.28 ERA (fine). He has been squeezed into the Mariners’ rotation because of injuries, not because of talent.

He is a lefty who throws straight, low-90s fastballs that make right-handed hitters like Mike Trout salivate when they see them. Miranda is the definition of a replacement-level starter. He hasn’t been brilliant.

But he also hasn’t been bad. And from a guy who has had 19 starts essentially forced upon him because of the incredible number of pitchers that have found a place on the Mariners’ DL, “not bad” honestly translates into “pretty darn good.” It would be greedy for us as Mariner fans to expect Ariel Miranda to go out and be fantastic every single outing.

Yet on Friday evening, Miranda was exactly that. He threw 7 innings of 4-hit, 1-run ball: a start that definitely qualifies as a fantastic outing. But what was even more amazing than Miranda’s performance was the reaction of the Mariner fanbase – in that there hardly was one. Nobody seemed overwhelmingly surprised by the lefty’s gem. Yes, people applauded his effort (and yes, the Ners wound up losing the game 2-1 in extras), but for the most part, we fans were not all that taken aback in the slightest. Why? Because we’ve seen Ariel do that before. Three times already this season he has gone 7+ innings: once giving up 2 runs, once giving up 1, and once tossing 7 innings of shutout ball.

Yet a deep dive into the curious case of Ariel Miranda proves that he has gone far beyond an occasional brilliant outing since coming to Seattle, and has actually been an indispensably key addition to the Ners. He may go completely unnoticed by most; his name sounds like a Disney Mermaid Princess (we at MM call him the Ner-Man); but the fact remains that the Mariners are incredibly lucky with what they have gotten out of this aged Cuban lefty.

I need not remind the Seattle fanbase of the team’s current injury situation. One aching shoulder, a strained right forearm, another achy shoulder, and a “soggy” arm has picked apart the Ners’ starting rotation, leaving only Yovani Gallardo from the original 5. And while such gaping holes are by no means a good thing (nor was Yovani’s last outing), what such gaping holes are good for is offering a place for young/relatively new arms to step up and show what they’ve got. Ryan Rowland-Smith put it perfectly in a recent broadcast: these vacancies are essentially auditions for spots on the roster, if not in the rotation.

Thus far in 2017, most of these auditions – as to be expected – have gone awry. Chase De Jong’s audition lasted 4 starts, in which he went 0-2, gave up 17 runs in 19 innings, and was therefore optioned back to Tacoma this past Wednesday. Dillon Overton lasted only 3.1 innings in his one start (and scuffled through another few rough innings in Saturday’s disaster). Chris Heston gave up 7 runs in 3 innings yesterday, and his era is now over 21.60.

A few auditions have surprised, however. After being okay-I-guess in his first start, Christian Bergman was golden in his last outing, throwing 7.1 innings of shutout ball in a much-needed win against the Athletics on Wednesday. Young Ryan Weber looked decent in his one start as well, at least until he had to leave the game with yet another DL-landing injury.

But nobody – nobody has been more valuable than Ariel Miranda.

When Drew Smyly went down with his weird flabby arm injury just days before the season began, The Ner-Man slid into the #5 spot quietly – and has since proceeded to rise quietly. (With Yovani being all sorts of bad on Saturday, I think it’s fair to say that Miranda is our current #1 at this point in time). As previously mentioned, Ariel has not been brilliant; he has not blown teams away in outing after outing. But what he has done is given the Mariners a good chance to win in nearly every game he has pitched in…a statistic we will end this article with.

To gain a better perspective of how lucky the Mariners have been with Miranda, we must first recognize the manner in which he came to the ballclub. Ariel was not brought on to be “the fix” in any way whatsoever – he was not an off-season signing, was not the main desire of a trade, and was not really expected to do much when he arrived in Seattle.

Instead, Ariel Miranda was an afterthought. He was the archetypal return-piece of the trade-deadline deal that sent Wade Miley to the Baltimore Orioles on July 30th of last year; the okay-I-guess-we’ll-take-this-guy part of a flip that was far more a salary dump for the Mariners than it was a desire to get Miranda.

At the mark of the deadline last year, the Ners were 51-52, and very much looking at the playoffs from the outside. Baltimore, meanwhile, was 59-45 and wanting to add a solid lefty to their rotation in hopes of pushing the team over the hump and into October. Wade Miley had just thrown his best start of the year for Seattle (7 innings of 1-hit ball at Wrigley Field against the soon-to-become World Champion Chicago Cubs), and the Orioles began to eye him. The Mariners loved the idea, for it meant that Baltimore would take over paying Miley’s $6-million contract. Seattle didn’t give a shit who they received in return – honestly, “cash considerations” or a “player-to-be-named-later” would not have been surprising at all. This deal was about dumping Miley’s salary, not about receiving anyone in return.

Ipso Facto: Ariel Miranda was not the point of this trade.

He was a total no-name when the deal went down, having pitched in just one game for the Orioles in 2016 (his MLB debut), in which he came on in relief and gave up 3 runs in 2 innings in a 9-4 loss (weirdly) against the Seattle Mariners. To further emphasize his anonymity, Looking Landing published an article titled “Who the Heck is Ariel Miranda?” when the Miley trade was announced. The Ner-Man was 27 at the time, which was far too old to be considered “prospect” material in any way. In a season that was on the verge of dying completely, Ariel Miranda was a low-risk addition to the team: he might eat some innings, yeah, but if he failed, it wouldn’t really matter, since the Mariners hadn’t invested in him in the slightest. The M’s tossed him into a relief role in an extra-inning ball game, and then slotted in him into a couple of starts…

…and Ariel Miranda finished the season 5-2 with a 3.38 ERA and 0.8 WAR.

TIMEOUT. What? The Mariners were just one game over .500 when Miranda arrived in Seattle – yet they finished 2016 34-25 and missed October by only two (but felt like one) games…and surprisingly, Ariel Miranda played a large part in this season-ending surge. As has already been mentioned in this article: he never blew teams away, but he regularly gave the M’s a solid (if not great) chance of winning a ballgame. He continues to do exactly this today.

Do you realize how lucky the team got with him? If more proof is needed, let’s take a brief look at the other pitchers that Seattle acquired in a similar light as Miranda over the past decade. Some of these were salary dumps (like Miranda); some were actual investments in a future (unlike Miranda), but each came via a trade deadline move without much hope of immediate impact. I’ll lay out some facts, and let you decide how effective they were.

Luke French

Acquired: July 31, 2009

From: Detroit Tigers

Player Acquired For: Jarrod Washburn

Pitched for Seattle: 2009-2010

French’s 2009 Mariners oddly resembled Miranda’s 2016 Mariners: the team was sputtering near the deadline, dumped a starter’s salary onto a potential-playoff team, and then randomly made a surge at the end of the season.

The difference? Luke French was nowhere near the beneficial addition that Ariel was. By the time the Washburn deal went down, French had already made 5 starts with the Tigers, among a smattering of random bullpen appearances. In that span, he was 1-2 with a 3.38 ERA – which honestly, is totally fine for a replacement-level pitcher. When he came to Seattle, he proceeded to go 3-3 (okay) with a 6.63 ERA (bad) and -0.9 WAR (very bad) during the remainder of the 2009 season. When Miranda came to Seattle in 2016, he went 5-2 (great) with a 3.38 ERA (good) and 0.8 WAR (great).

Blake Beavan

Acquired: July 20, 2010

From: Texas Rangers

Players Acquired For: Cliff Lee & Mark Lowe

Pitched for Seattle: 2011-2014

Beavan was one of those players who the Mariners actually thought might help them one day. He was one of two “prized pieces” of the famed Cliff Lee deal (the other being Justin Smoak, yay), in which the Mariners sent the ace lefty to Texas after having him for only 3.5 months of a horrid season (thanks, Eric Byrnes). Outside of getting Lee’s contract off their hands, the Mariners completed this deal because they truly saw potential in (if not had expectations for) Beavan and Smoak, and tried to develop them a bit in the minors.

Beavan therefore spent the remainder of 2010 in Tacoma, but popped up to the bigs the following year for 15 games, in which he went 5-6 with a 4.27 ERA. In the three years that followed, he made 29 starts for the Ners, went 11-14 with an ERA that was pretty much always above 5.00. Despite the Mariners acquiring him with actual hope, Beavan was very much underwhelming.

Charlie Furbush

Acquired: July 30, 2011

From: Detroit Tigers

Players Acquired For: Doug Fister & David Pauley

Pitched for Seattle: 2011-2015

Yet another dismal Mariners season (67-95) turned into yet another trade deadline deal, which meant that the Ners got yet another afterthought pitcher. In this case, it was Charlie Furbush, a lefty who had been 1-3 for Detroit before coming to Seattle. Eager for arms in any way possible, the M’s forced 10 starts upon Furbush after acquiring him, using him as a crutch for a damaged rotation to help the team limp into the off-season. Charlie was very bad: he went 3-7 with a 6.62 ERA and -0.9 WAR. Need that Miranda line again? Oh yea – he was 5-2 with a 3.38 ERA & 0.8 WAR.

Adrian Sampson

Acquired: July 31, 2015

From: Pittsburgh Pirates

Player Acquired For: J.A. Happ

Pitched for Seattle: 2016

Adrian Sampson (who?) is the perfect way to show how underwhelming and ineffective the afterthoughts of trade deadline deals can be – AKA what Ariel Miranda could have been. The fact that you probably have zero-to-little recollection of Sampson is proof of this.

The Mariners gave him some time to develop in AAA first, however, where he was incredibly meh and went 2-4 with a 7.28 ERA in 7 games. Sampson made one start for the Ners the following year (his audition), in which he went 4.2 innings, gave up 4 runs, and took the loss. He was then sent back down to Tacoma, is still there, and was doing before his arm essentially exploded...? I dunno, he was 7-4 in 13 games for the Rainiers last year.

Zach Lee

Acquired: June 19, 2016

From: Los Angeles Dodgers

Player Acquired For: Chris Taylor

Pitched for Seattle: N/A

Zach Lee was a complete and utter dumpster fire. When he arrived in Seattle, Lookout Landing described him as a “former top prospect” in the Dodgers’ system, and a starter who gave the Ners some “much needed depth” to yet another damaged rotation.

But Zach Lee sucked. The M’s figured they’d give him a warm-up in Tacoma before adding this “much needed depth” to the ballclub – and he imploded completely. In 14 games for the Rainiers, Lee went 0-9 with a 7.39 ERA. Woof. His abysmal numbers in AAA therefore (understandably) meant he never pitched for the Mariners (no image even exists of him in a Seattle jersey), and he is now buried somewhere in the Padres organization.

Ariel Miranda

Acquired: July 30, 2016

From: Baltimore Orioles

Player Acquired For: Wade Miley

Pitched for Seattle: 2016-???

Over the past 10 years, the unfortunate realities of French, Beavan, Furbush, Sampson, and Lee show how often starters acquired as afterthoughts of trade-deadline-deals end up having minimal (if not zero) positive effect on the team they go to. Their cases therefore show that Ariel Miranda is the best luck the Mariners have had with a starter for (at least) the past decade. They expected almost nothing from him – and he has given them almost nothing but quality.

I’ve already elaborated on Miranda’s fabulous addition to the 2016 Mariners team that almost – almost made the playoffs. In his career as a Ner, Ariel has started 19 games, posted an 8-4 record, a 3.88 ERA, and a total WAR of 1.3. His current 2017 WAR of 0.5 is second highest of all Mariners starters this year – behind only Paxton’s astounding 1.7 WAR. And while these numbers are pretty darn good, as previously mentioned, what has made Miranda so beneficial to the Mariners is the regularity in which he gives the team a good chance to win the game he pitches in.

If you judge such feats by having your starter go at least 5 innings (qualify for a win) and give up 3 or fewer runs (quality start material), Ariel Miranda has done this in 13 of his 19 starts. Perspective: over his past 19 starts, Félix Hernández has had 10 such outings.

I am not saying that Ariel Miranda is better than or should even be seriously compared to The King – dear god, no. But what I am saying is that the Mariners got really, really lucky with Miranda. He was an afterthought of the Miley deal: a low-risk, anonymous addition to a team that expected nothing out of him. And yet he has shown to be consistently effective, if not consistently good. I, personally, feel that the Ner-Man has proven himself deserving of a spot in the team’s rotation – even if everyone gets healthy again. He has passed his “audition” with flying colors.

#Pitching #StatisticalAnalysis