- Catcher: Posey; Hundley (FYI, I was mistaken before, he's not Hot Rod's son, sorry)
- Infield: Belt, Panik, Nunez, Crawford; Gillaspie, Hill
- Outfield: Parker, Span, Pence; Hernandez and Marrero
- Starting Pitchers: Bumgarner, Cueto, Moore, Samardzija, Cain
- Relievers: Melanco, Strickland, Law, Kontos, Gearrin, Ramirez, with Blach as the long reliever, but also sometimes short stints too, per Bochy
ogc thoughts
As most probably saw before camp, most of the spots were filled the way as expected. I'll run though my thoughts on the ones that didn't or wasn't clear what was happening.
One of the bigger surprises, to me, was that Rollins did not win a spot. His poor performance before should have clued me in, but his poor performance this spring, plus Hill hitting well enough (Tomlinson too), pushed him out.
One of my hopes for the spring was that Morse would win the 5th OF spot, and he accomplished that, but unfortunately, as it often has for him in his career, he suffered another injury and will be rehabbing in the minors instead. His loss is Marrero's gain, though Marrero's 8 homers was a very good reason why he's on the team too, the Giants want some power off the bench. It also sounds like he and Parker will be platooning some, as well, plus he might see some time at 1B as well.
I was not surprised that Cain won the 5th starter spot, as his contract size and his return to goodness last season before the hamstring took him out made him likely to win just by showing progress during the spring. Blach, unsurprisingly won the long relief spot, as his consolation prize for a good spring.
I was surprised to see Okert get sent down, but Ramirez had a spring to suggest that he's back to his prior goodness from early in his career, after years of injuries and recovery, and there was no one else more logical to send down via options. This gives the Giants good depth in the bullpen should there be injuries (and there will be) down along the line.
Sorry to see that Shankbone let his blog site expire, though not surprised, since any sighting of a new post from him became so rare as to bear comparison with the passenger pigeon or coelacanth on the Endangered Species list. Also very sorry to have Carmot disappear.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the good work staunchly, ogc!
I was glad, myself, to see Morse and Rollins disappear: I want to see the team look to the players who may represent its future rather than its ad hoc reliance on stop-gaps. In the same spirit I wish Tomlinson had won out over Hill, though I can understand the prudence of keeping both as they did; and ditto with Okert / Gearrin.
Oh, WOW, thanks for letting me know! Yeah, I'm going to miss Shankbone's commentary and analysis. But I can empathize, he has young children and you only have so much time to spend on things. Too bad he had to have his own website, now all his comment is off the internet (well, some of it will still be on the Internet Archive, or Wayback Machine, hopefully). I guess he won't be like Lefty Malo and spring up a post once or twice a season now.
DeleteI'm not surprised that Carmot quit. He did himself no favors with his comments on other websites. I gave him my help and opinion, after he asked for it, and he was not welcoming in any way in response. Good luck to him, I think I would have been like that myself had I not had caring teachers and parents and friends who helped guide me to the path I took.
I will admit that I'm not as into this anymore either. Part of that is that I have not been physically well for a long while now. Not that I'm death bed or anything like that, but I've been running at 80% for a while now.
Part of my tremendous drive previously was to bring more Giants fans into what I saw was a good period for the Giants, as the mis-analysis of Brian Sabean was poisoning their impression of what was going on with the Giants. Also, because of this poisoning, I was afraid that management might heed popular opinion and sacrifice him just to get fans off their social media back, especially since the main/major Giants watering hole was a black hole of despair.
Another part was that even after the first and second championships, there were still doubters. The poisoning was deep in their souls. So that gave me some drive as well.
But after the third one, I realized that anybody still doubting, well, some people will never change, I realized.
Part of the reason I'm not as into it is perhaps I made it a drag on myself. I had created a workflow for collecting more info on starting pitchers that was making it hard on me to collect that information, although it expanded greatly what I could analyze. I actually stopped collecting the data near the end of last season and still haven't finished up that collection.
But I still finished up my normal analysis using my tried and true way: doing it by eye and hand. So I still have a drive to continue, but just hasn't been as into it as before.
One of my goals this season is start using what I learn with R to analyze baseball data. I actually had found some data from one class, and I was going to work on that, but never got around to it. Perhaps with Giants data, I'll have more drive to finish the project.
Of course, one goal from the past few years is updating my draft analysis project. I had collected a couple of decades of data from Baseball Reference, but never got around to doing deeper analysis. After about 4-5 years, that data is stale now, and collection is a bear, so I might see how much it would cost to get the data from them.
At minimum, I'm keeping up my PQS, and with that, my commentary on the team. My passion for the team won't die (unlike my Giants mugs... :( ). And any big news, I'm sure I'll opine on it. Don't know how DrB keeps it up, but good for him, he's a great source for Giants info.
I like thinking about the future too, but I want the best 25-man roster too. So if Morse was deemed the better player, I want him on the roster.
DeleteBut given what Marrero did in spring, I'm not unhappy to see him get a chance to show off what he can do. Parker wasn't supposed to platoon, but I'm glad they are in order to give Marrero a better chance to perform.
I see what you say about Tomlinson, and I can see him reaching the point soon of "what do I have to do to stay on the MLB roster?" I assume the Giants kept Hill for internal depth, so that we have Arroyo and Tomlinson available in the minors should anything happens to our middle infield or 3B.
I was not aware it was Okert vs. Gearrin. My impression from the news was that it was down to Okert, Osich, and Ramirez. Again, options and depth is what I think the Giants are utilizing here. And really, if Ramirez is anything like he was when he was great, you have to keep him. And Gearrin is supposed to be the new version of Romo, so I didn't really see him going either.
Okert is great depth, and given the shorter DL this season, I expect the Giants to give relievers breathers during the season and yo-yo Okert and Osich up and down to accommodate that strategy.
I was a bit shocked that Ray Black and Ian Gardeck were DFAed (the Giants needed spots for Marrero, Hill, and Ramirez; they also put Smith on the 60-day DL to clear a spot).
ReplyDeleteBut if they need space, I guess they were good gambles, Black because his walk rate is so high and Gardeck because he's coming back from TJS, plus both are already 26 YO and neither has done much of anything in the upper minors, if at all in Gardeck's case, and thus other teams might not want to take a chance on them with a 40-man roster spot.
But if a lower division team has a spot open, they might pick up one of them, like the Padres taking Jake Smith from us last season.
We'll see, but neither would be a huge lost either, at this moment. Black is so wild, and unlike Crick, never had a history of controlling it enough to get by. Gardeck was pretty old already with his SJ performance, and not that much of any outlier for K/9. Still, I had some hope for Gardeck, as I still did for Crick, not that I saw that he would improve so much this spring, but just that I had not given up yet, unlike most Giants fans.
Crick had success before, as I've tried to illuminate with my posts on his successes, and his extreme wildness the past season was too off the charts for me to not think that perhaps he was trying too hard to change to a reliever. It had the feel of the symptom I've written about before when a player feels pressure and reverts back to their learning mode and look helpless. But I'm no expert, it is just my speculation, so we'll see on whether he can keep it going.