Belt Tightening

I find that there are a number of positions regarding Belt that seems to pervade Giants fans.  And like a Venn diagram, many fans hold many of these positions.

Prospecting as Science

The first stance seems to consider prospecting to be a science.  And there are two angles on this.  The most pervasive one is the "Belt is a proven hitter, he should be starting," with the underlying assumption that the person holding this opinion knows that Belt is a proven hitter.

Prospecting is still very much an art.  An art that while fans can hold the right opinion sometimes, most of the time, they don't really know that much.  Not that they can't hold their opinion, I certainly will hold onto my opinion, and I know I'm no expert, nor do I think it is a science.

But a lot of these fans seem to think that prospecting is a science apparently perfected by themselves and they are right and everyone else is wrong:  #FreeBelt!

Prospecting as Science, Corollary

A corollary to this first stance, the second angle on this, is that while the fan is not the expert on prospecting, they assume that the Giants have perfected the science of prospecting.  If that were true, there would never be a mistake made on any trade, any prospect let go, any free agent signing, really, since if you extend that out further, it should mean that free agent assessment should be perfect too.

Again, prospecting is still very much an art, still a very human process where mistakes can and will be made, the question is how much.  To which, I would note that during the Sabean era, he had not really traded away any prospect that Giants fans should regret:  Francisco Liriano is probably the best, in terms of best season performed, but his injury history is why he was let go in the first place; in terms of long term value, Keith Foulke is probably the best traded away, which is not too bad a record for a GM with such a long history as GM.

Teams still cannot say for certain how a player will turn out.  Neither can fans, no matter how vociferously they complain about their team in the Internet.  You can say that odds favor a player, but ultimately, you cannot say for certain that any particular prospect is sure thing, there are levels of gray to each prospect could derail any prospect.

And teams, as supported by scouts and coaches, can only foresee so much.  There are often depths to a prospect that is unseeable until they step into the box in a major league game or take the mound.

Why Prospects Fail

There are various reasons why a prospect might fail to do as well as one hoped, based on their minor league performance and talent assumption by the various prospect ranking experts, like Baseball America.

First and most of all, there is a huge leap in talent moving from AAA to the majors.  The pitchers are that much better at avoiding mistakes and throwing strikes, so the guys a hitter might have feasted on in AAA are much fewer in the majors.   And the hitters are that much better at hitting mistakes and avoiding balls, so the guys a pitcher might have dominated in AAA are much fewer in the majors.

Another is that there is a mental leap that has to be made by the prospect, even if he has the talent to be a major leaguer.   I don't know how many prospects I have read about where it is said about him, "He thinks too much" or "He just needs to stick to 'see ball, hit ball'" or "He just needs to trust his stuff and throw his pitch."  I don't know how many times I have read prospect quoted as saying "I started hitting once I left behind my error/bad AB/bad pitch/ bad anything before and focused on being in the moment, and not forcing things".

One particular example I remember is Travis Ishikawa, who had a number of instances of needing help to move forward.   He was struggling in AA, particularly with Dodd Stadium screwing with his head (I still think that stadium helped kill some of our marginal prospects hopes of figuring it out and making the majors), and he took the religious route and decided to put himself in God's hands and not think about it. He went from struggling to get above .700 OPS in 2006-2007 to hitting .291/.382/.462/.843 in AA and .310/.370/.737/1.107 in AA in 2008, and hitting well in the majors, .274/.337/.442/.768, in about two months of play.

Then in his big chance in 2009, he was blowing it, hitting .188/.250/.248/.496 up to May 10th, at which point Bochy said that Travis wasn't going to start regularly anymore, and that kick in the ass got him going, he got over his mental issues and started hitting, in fact, Bochy didn't sit him during that period, only when Pablo could only play 1B due to an injury.  From May 11th to when they got Garko and benched Ishikawa again, Travis hit .307/.350/.487/.837 with 7 HR in 150 AB.

All in all, prospects will do well in the minors and despite this flaw or that flaw that might appear to exist, they get the call up to the majors and then the petrie dish that is the MLB will either support that prospect or kill his prospects.  It is just like in nature, you shove the baby bird out of the nest and either they fly or they don't, it is pretty much simply like that.  Except for the dire results if the prospect does not fly, he just gets sent back down to the minors to try to figure it out again.  That does not mean that the team was wrong to bring up the prospect, he appeared to be ready, and he proved not to be.

Huff Haters and Huff Haters in Non-Hater's Clothes

Then there are those who just hate Huff and would rather start Belt irregardless.   The open haters are clearly obvious.  To those I would note that Huff batting peripherals in 2011 was not much worse than 2010's and not that out of line with his career numbers, though I will admit there was a slight but clear decline.  Still, he's a career .800+ OPS hitter, and when he is right, he will hit.   You just don't shove that aside for an unproven - and that is what Belt is right now - major league hitter.

Then there are those who say they don't hate Huff, but list a number of reasons not to like him and prefer Belt over him.  Lack of upside is one I've seen, and to that I say, show me a guarantee that Belt would hit .800+ OPS if he were given 600 AB.  Just because he is a young highly ranked prospect does not mean that he will ever hit .800+ OPS.  There was never any upside to Andy Marte, Andy LaRoche, Sean Burroughs, and various other hitters who were as highly ranked as any prospect and could never put it together.  And people are still waiting for Delmon Young to show the upside that he supposedly had, he's been good enough to be a major leaguer, but he is not the star that everyone expected him to be, not even close.

Another I've seen is that Belt is supposedly heads and shoulders better defensively than Huff.  According to the Fielding Bible's stats, Huff was good for 6 runs saved in 2010 at 1B, in 821 innings played there and in 2011, he was good for 4 runs saved in 1032.2 innings played there.  Belt had 1 run saved in 203 innings there, or roughly 5 runs saved rate in 1015 innings, which is basically the save defensive rate or marginally better, but certainly not a reason to play him over Huff at 1B.  If Belt wants to start, he needs to outhit Huff or Schierholtz or Pagan, it is pretty much that right now (Cabrera's hitting too good to think about outdoing him, and Blanco hasn't really gotten a chance yet, I don't think).

Free Belt:  To Go to AAA

As I noted, I have an opinion too about Belt.  If it were up to me, I would have just put Belt into AAA.  But I can see why the Giants put him on the 25-man roster, he hit so well during spring that fans would have mutinied had they done that.   But I've seen too many Randy Elliott-type of performances to be too overly impressed by spring stats.

In particularly, looking at Belt's spring stats, his BABIP was unsustainably high, nobody could do that over a full season, even the fastest players and best hitters.  So I adjusted his overall batting line stats down to a more reasonable BABIP level and I basically came down to a batting line in 2012 spring that was very much like his batting line in 2011, with similar batting peripherals.

If you'll remember, with his peripherals in 2011, he went on to have a pretty bad major league batting line, the only shining part of it was his home run rate and total.

The way I see it, it is very simple equation supporting my opinion:  Brandon Belt has not figured out yet how to avoid striking out in AAA, so how can he hope to avoid striking out in the majors?  AAA pitchers cannot pitch to spots and they make a lot of mistakes, which apparently Belt can handle very easily, as we can see from his batting line in AAA that makes many fans drool.  But he also struck out over 30% of the time in the minors as well.  If AAA and AAAA pitchers can school him a large percentage of the time, then just imagine how badly major league pitchers can school him!

Now, he can walk a lot and hit for homerun power, so he could become a Rob Deer type of player at 1B, except with great defense:  low batting average (due to high strikeout rate), high-ish OBP (due to low batting average but with high walk rate), and high enough SLG and OPS to play 1B OK, 800-ish OPS, which, by the way, we can already hope to get from Huff at 1B.  Aye, but there's the rub:  who among the Giants fans wanting Belt to start at 1B regularly even know who Rob Deer is?  Do you want a Rob Deer, or would you rather have a, say, Joey Votto, who plays good 1B defense, runs the bases well enough to steal a fair amount (which Belt did in the minors and he was on pace for around 10 SB in 2011 had he played a full season) , plus have a monster batting line?  Got your attention now?

That is what I want from Brandon Belt, a difference making offensive 1B playing great defense as well. He's not going to do that until he figures out how to avoid strikeouts from AAA starting pitchers.  So put him down there, quit listening to the fans rushing AT&T Park with their pitchforks and torches, and tar and feathers, and let him first figure out the pitchers down there while the coaches work with him on his batting stance to fix that hole that apparently all major league pitchers brag about in the major league bathrooms, writing it up on the walls, because Belt has rarely ever performed consistently well in the majors over an extended time yet.

OT Sidenote:  Just want to Bitch a Little

I see a lot of reporters crediting this site or that blog author for noting some historical fact, like 1-hitters or home runs hit or whatnot, but for the past 6-9 months, I've been seeing more and more of our local reporters noting the Giants record when the team scores 4 runs.  Well, I have been covering that fact here at my site for the past few seasons and I have not seen any credit given me, which bugs me a little.

Obviously, I don't need to see it every time, as that would be weird, but it would have been nice to have been mentioned once in print by somebody, and I read almost everything (probably 99%) written or blogged about by all the local scribes, so I'm pretty sure I didn't miss it, plus I assume somebody here would have noted a mention to me, had I missed it.  

Not a big deal, but given that journalists are held to higher ideals about crediting sources and all that, I'm just disappointed in the lack of professionalism on their part, considering since they did give credit in other instances.  I mean, if all us bloggers were equally screwed, that, at least, would be equally unfair.

Just a bit grumpy, so perhaps that is it:  my teeth and chin took a header into my concrete driveway yesterday during lunch, as I slipped on it.  There is a distinct smell to teeth shattering on the pavement.  I scraped one hand in the process, and hurt something in my other wrist (it don't hurt when I press and rub all around it, but when I maneuver my hand, I feel pain in my wrist area).  I have a huge goose egg under my chin, making me an Asian Jay Leno for a few days (that is blood red, so I'm a beauty in public).  And when I look in the mirror, I feel like I'm 10 years old and singing, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth...."

Amazingly, no bone broken (my record is still intact, even if my front teeth are not) and apparently no concussion, or at least nothing strong enough for the doctor to tell me to avoid falling asleep.   I definitely should not (and did not) drive yesterday, but today, I think could have done it.   I think I bruised the bone structure between my mouth and nose, as it hurts to blow my nose.  I spit out a lot of blood immediately afterward but not too much bleeding the rest of the time.

Considering what could have happened, I think I was pretty lucky, probably because it happened so fast that I had no time to brace myself, which probably would have been worse for my teeth, face, and bones, particularly in my arms/hands.

I feel pretty good (except when my tongue touches where my tooth used to be, I probably lost a quarter of it; it also got shoved to a different angle, I think) overall, except when I rub/blow my nose and occasionally reaching for something with that hand (or moving it around), and I actually hurt more from doing a lot of pushups the other day, when I was out on a business trip and unable to sleep, so I did a lot of pushups to try to tire myself out (didn't work), and my arms/pecs just ache!

Oh Zito, My Zito

What the hell, I'll comment on Barry Zito, since Shankbone was surprised I didn't gloat (he noted that on DrB's).  Nothing to gloat about really, in my mind.  This is what I expect from him, there will be days where he just dominates the other team into a few hits but few strikeouts too, and there will be days he just gets hit all over the place.  That's BABIP at work, at the hands of the baseball gods who giveth and taketh away, at will.   He just happened to not walk anyone, so his pitch count was low enough to get the complete game this time.

I'm happy as hell he didn't walk many, and if he can continue to do that, that would be great.  It would have been even better if he had struck out 9-10 batters like Cain did (1-hit, 11 K's, what dominance!), though he has done that before too.  I'll maybe gloat if he's still doing great at the All Star Break, but expect his normal ups and downs, which is great for us back in the rotation (just not for the money he is paid).