The Giants have settled on their 25-man roster for Opening Day (OD):
- SP: Bumgarner, Holland, D-Rod, Samardzija, Pomeranz
- RP: Smith (closer), Melancon, Watson, Dyson, Moronta, Vincent, Bergen, Gott
- C: Posey; Kratz
- IF: Belt, Panik, Longoria, Crawford; Solarte (backup MI/SS), Joe, Sandoval
- OF: Parra, Duggar, Reed (Joe, Solarte, Belt are expected to play LF at times; Reed backup CF)
To clear 40-man roster spots for Vincent, Solarte, and Parra, the Giants DFAed Hanson, Williamson, and Tom Murphy, the C they recently picked up from the Rockies in the continuing series of Zaidi Waiver Roulette.
With the mad dash of other teams waiving players, presumably the Giants are hoping that these players will slide through unclaimed. I see that with Hanson, but expect Williamson to be claimed by somebody, he was just too good last season not for someone to want to see if they can find that in him; Murphy could go either way, but I like him, hope we can keep him.
With the mad dash of other teams waiving players, presumably the Giants are hoping that these players will slide through unclaimed. I see that with Hanson, but expect Williamson to be claimed by somebody, he was just too good last season not for someone to want to see if they can find that in him; Murphy could go either way, but I like him, hope we can keep him.
I think the Giants will be able to be .500 or higher in 2019, with the playoffs unlikely but not surprising, should it happen, there is talent in the roster. Here is my thinking on that.
First off, the Giants lost significant time from their Top 14 roster positions (8 starting lineup/5 starting pitchers/1 closer), almost all of them had injuries and all of them had bad or incomplete (not sure how to categorize McCutchen no longer being around after being traded) performances. On top of that, a good number of replacements (Williamson, Duggar, Sandoval, Strickland) also had significant injuries. How often does that happen?
Nevertheless, even with all the missing DL time and/or poor performances due to playing with injuries (Posey, Belt, Crawford, Cueto, Samardzija), the Giants were still at .500 at the beginning of September, 68-68.
This is even with poor leadoff choices by Bochy (a shuffling of his choices would have yielded 3-5 more wins, as I wrote about last fall) and the usage of Cueto and Shark in July (1-5 team record) when they clearly should have been shut down instead. Without those errors, the Giants would have been around 72 to 75 wins at the start of September, which would have put them in the thick of the NL West division pennant race at the start of September.
This is even with poor leadoff choices by Bochy (a shuffling of his choices would have yielded 3-5 more wins, as I wrote about last fall) and the usage of Cueto and Shark in July (1-5 team record) when they clearly should have been shut down instead. Without those errors, the Giants would have been around 72 to 75 wins at the start of September, which would have put them in the thick of the NL West division pennant race at the start of September.
Hence, the team has the skills to be .500, they did that even with all those obstacles in 2018, and with the depth of 2019 via Waiver Roulette, should end up with a winning record, and be challenging for the division title.
Per Metrics, Been Good Enough, Now Need to do it Over Full Season
Here's another view of the potential for the 2019 team.
After the pitchers struggled early on, they settled down by June, and from June to August, they averaged 3.68 runs allowed per game. And this included the bad pitching that Cueto, Samardzija, and Stratton had in that period, when they were struggling with their issues.
Meanwhile, the offense, even with some injuries and poor performances, averaged 4.14 runs scored to the end of June, when injuries to Belt and Crawford, as well as Longoria's struggles after returning from his HBP, on top of Posey's struggles with his hips, sunk the offense from that point on.
If the team can sustain a 4.14 RS for 6 months (from 3 months, through health and deeper depth of talent) and the pitching can sustain that 3.68 RA for 6 months (from 3 months, through improvements of Pomeranz over Stratton - who had 5.02 ERA - and Samardzija over Suarez - who had 3.63 ERA - with Suarez ready to jump in if Shark falters for any reason, and through depth of Anderson, Adon, Blach, and Beede, if necessary; plus a stronger bullpen), that works out to a winning percentage of .554 or a 90 win season.
Here's another way to look at the offense. Opening Day's lineup, using ZIPS projections, would average 4.03 RS over a season. That's with Duggar .317/.360, Posey .363/.407, Panik .337/.394 (as well as Joe's .307/.350 and Reed .321/.350; Reed hit really well in IL in 2018, similar to Aaron Hicks in 2015, suggests greater than .700 OPS potential). Don't take that much more to increase by 0.11 RS (works out to only 18 more runs per season, over 162 games).
Here's another way to look at the offense. Opening Day's lineup, using ZIPS projections, would average 4.03 RS over a season. That's with Duggar .317/.360, Posey .363/.407, Panik .337/.394 (as well as Joe's .307/.350 and Reed .321/.350; Reed hit really well in IL in 2018, similar to Aaron Hicks in 2015, suggests greater than .700 OPS potential). Don't take that much more to increase by 0.11 RS (works out to only 18 more runs per season, over 162 games).
Hence why I've been saying that it would not be surprising if they make the playoffs, the talent is there, now they need to be more consistent over a full season.
2019 Improvements
For 2019, many things have been improved upon over 2018.
The most important improvement is hopefully Duggar proving to be good enough for Bochy to not have to think about who is leading off. As I analyzed last season, Bochy did horribly with his leadoff choices, collective .270 OBP (outside of McCutchen, whom he, ahem, installed soon after I posted that analysis), and had he taken his lineups, simply moved his leadoff choice to 7th and moved everyone else up one (i.e. basically the current talent), the lineup would have added 3-5 more wins (the lineup even sub-performed relative to projected, resulting in the 2 game spread). Duggar reaching .317 OBP, which is still below average for a leadoff hitter, would still add 2 wins roughly over last year's lineup, him reaching NL average of .334, adds another win or so).
Today's OD lineup seems to be a sign that Zaidi is now making his "suggestions" for lineup optimization. One of my biggest pet peeves with Bochy's lineups has been his insistence to bat a high OBP guy 3rd, I guess under the theory that it gets your clean-up hitter up in the first inning, which is an old school thought. Many studies, in particular, by the authors of The Book, as well as the lineup calculator's run values for OBP and SLG by lineup position, show that you want, from your best 5 hitters, the guy who is low OBP/high SLG, and the perfect guy for that is Longoria among the Giants best hitters, as Duggar, Panik, Posey, and Belt are high OBP guys. In 2018, the most common 3rd place hitter was McCutchen, by far (though to be fair Longoria was second, but only 47, roughly quarter of the games vs. Cutch's 73, almost half), and he was arguably the team's best hitter in 2018, at least over the full season.
On top of that, many studies over the years have said found that while there were not many conclusions that they could come to, the one regular conclusion is that teams should bat their best hitter 2nd in the lineup, as his high SLG could drive in the leadoff guy, and his high OBP would give middle of the lineup guys better opportunities to drive in runs. Thus, right now, it would be logical to bat Belt second in the lineup. In 2018, Panik had the most, but just slightly ahead of Posey, Belt, and McCutchen. And I would note that Belt batted second today although the Giants faced a LHP.
Another improvement for the Giants is the installation of Duggar as starting CF. In his short time in CF in 2018, he still ranked Top 30 overall in the majors in Outs Above Average. Projecting that over a full season, he would have ended up Top 5. From the DRS view, outside of Duggar, the other Giants CF were -11 Rdrs, which is roughly what is considered to be a full season's worth of CF playing time. Duggar had 4 Rdrs in his short time, and that projects out to +14 Rdrs over a full season, which works out to a 2.5 wins improvement. This is why I was clamoring last season for Duggar to be brought up in May, even if he was struggling hitting, because his defense would make a huge difference over what we had. So the Giants could have been even better in 2018.
The rotation should also be improved. Let's suppose Bumgarner does exactly the same (3.26 ERA after returning in June, and arguably, if healthy, he should be better, since he said his hand grip was weakened in 2018, but for sake of argument, just the same). Same with Holland, who, as I noted in a post before the season began, that I thought that Holland was ready to breakout with a good season, if given some rest in the middle, which the Giants did. His previous seasons showed signs that with rest, he was good, only not for very long, but that he was improving every season, stretching out.
People are focused on D-Rod not repeating his 2.81 ERA, but forget about all the other horribleness that was happening as well. For June to August, here are the rest: Suarez had 3.63 ERA in 17 starts (which was good), Stratton had 10 starts, 5.02 ERA, Blach 1 start, 4 ER in 4.0 IP, Cueto 4 starts, 6.86 ERA, Shark 2 starts, 5.00 ERA, and, of course, D-Rod 2.46 ERA in 14 starts. That worked out to a 3.92 ERA overall.
So we don't need D-Rod repeating greatness, what we need to reduplicate the goodness of June to August are Bum and Holland repeating what they did in 2018, while Pomeranz, Samardzija, and D-Rod collectively have a 3.93 ERA. Shark's FIP in 2016-17 was slightly better than that, and D-Rod FIP was slightly better than that too in 2018 overall. Pomeranz just need to be around that as well for the starting pitcher to be equal to their 2018 June-August great period. Given his nice spring, and his great ERA from 2015-2017 when healthy, that looks very possible as well.
And then there is the probability that Bumgarner and Holland might be better in 2019. MadBum noted his weak grip hurting his pitching after returning. That would explain his big jump in walks, as well as drop in strikeouts. Holland never mentioned this, but one analyst on Twitter (FG?) noticed that Holland was struggling some early in the 2018 season, but after he changed his positioning on the pitching rubber, moving from the middle of the rubber to the left quarter, he pitched much better, and his ERA from June on was 2.87)
The 2018 outfield was not very impressive, that is for sure, but even with their overall ineptness, the offense was functional for the first half of the season. Overall, for the season, the OF had an average of .680 OPS, even with McCutchen's good hitting. Duggar is forecasted by ZIPS at .677, Joe at .657, and Reed at .671, which is almost the same. So at worse, even with McCutchen gone, the OF in 2019 appears to be roughly the same offensively per projections, but greatly improved defensively due to both Duggar and Reed being excellent glove men. Reed showed off his arm during the spring, even in his short time with the Giants, throwing out a runner at 3rd.
Another thing that people forget is that no matter what, you got hitters who will be batting 7th and 8th, and they aren't going to be that good. People like to rage on about every position, but the fact is that every lineup has a bad hitter, few teams are good up and down, generally (and those generally sacrifice pitching and fielding, and my business plan shows how important those are). So, yes, Joe and Reed look bad compared to the average LF or RF, or even CF, but that's not where they are batting, they should be batting near the bottom of the order. And in the NL in 2018, the 7th hitter hit .705 OPS and the 8th hitter hit .661. Between the two, they average .683; Reed batting 7th at .671 and Joe 8th at .657 would be nearly average in the NL. Of course, Joe batted 6th, Reed 7th, and Panik 8th, probably because Bochy wanted to protect the two, as batting 8th is hard, but that's another issue. They should be okay players in the lineup, not very detrimental, if used properly.
Then there's the main guys. Posey was hampered by his hips, yet was still a good hitter, so one would think he would be better in 2019, or at minimum, no worse, given age. Belt was heading to his best season ever, validating his vow to stick with his best batting mechanics no matter what in 2018, only to be sidelined by appendicitis and hurt by a knee injury. Zaidi's depth should give him more rest, and allow the Giants to take him out when he's hurting, and heal him up. Similarly with Crawford, he was over 900 OPS mid-season, but that knee injury ruined his seasonal numbers. Again, depth should help in two ways, rest and replacement. Longoria was hampered by injury, as well as his inability to hit at home, but he reported to spring in good spirits, vowed not to let the park get to him. Panik apparently Lincecumed himself the past couple of years, changing his body without realizing the consequences to his athleticism, but got himself fit for this spring, and looked good and spry, as well as hit well.
Biggest Roster Controversy: Williamson vs. Sandoval
Some are upset about losing Williamson, and many feel that it was Sandoval who is the reason, noting the duplication of skills between Sandoval and Joe. They point out his breakout 2018 start of the season, and the possibilities that he'll be hitting 20+ homers for another team. And how Sandoval is old, and Williamson is young. However, then he ended up basically where his career average was in 2018, and didn't hit much of anything in spring 2019.
I'm upset too about losing Williamson, because of that power potential. But it wasn't just Zaidi deciding this, the same coaches and staff from last season had input on that as well. I'm sure if they thought there was a high chance of him repeating last season, then they would have probably found some way to keep him. But they didn't. Same with Stratton, whom I also was expecting to make the 2019 roster.
In addition, it seems like people aimed their anger at Sandoval, when, really, it was the 8-man bullpen that caused this roster crunch. The real roster calculus was Williamson vs. Vincent, Gott, or Bergen (and I want to keep the pitchers too). Or, if you want to chose a position player crunch, how about the player who appears to have literally taken Mac's place: Connor Joe, who played LF on OD (I also like him and Reed too). Instead, they focused on the one guy who provided offensive value last season.
Sandoval keeps getting disparaged, but his .727 OPS last season was average, as the NL average was .722 OPS. In addition, the average PH had a .642 OPS, so he was better than the average bat. And the average DH in the NL hit .719, again, Pablo was right about average. His defense is not the best, but the Giants have less players in the mode of 1B/3B/utility who can hit NL average than players who have power in the OF, with Shaw looking like he could finally break out this season, and Ramos with a breakout year in SJ could be seeing MLB by 2020-21. And Mac will be 29 YO soon, no spring chick himself.
So, I understand the angst over losing Williamson, he's still an interesting lottery ticket, but if it is In Zaidi We Trust, then you have to trust that he's just not seeing anything close to what we had seen before, and decided to move on. He's very collaborative so it's not like it's just his opinion, it's a cumulative decision (I'm avoiding consensus, because he's making the decision, ultimately).
As he has noted before, his goal is to reach the point where each move causes heartburn, and this one caused a lot. But Mac got his chances this spring, the most plate appearances in the OF, as well as for the entire team, and he hit .608 OPS. I saw someone note that he got sent down last season after a great spring, only because he had options still, but that's not accurate, he got sent down in spite of the great spring because he had not done anything like that before, and one good spring doesn't mean that the Giants will get rid of another position player on the roster for me, he had to go down and prove he was good.
Also, this move ultimately will be a good litmus test. Sabean did not make the wrong decision much when he was fully in charge, but Evans had a bunch of misfires that cost him his job. Moves like Mac and Stratton will help us evaluate how good Zaidi is in judging talent, which is a great reason why I'm happy he didn't hire a GM, and is doing everything himself, it gives us a clearer picture of what his decision making is (everything) rather than a mix of decision makers, had he hired a GM. These moves are really all on him and his thinking. I still like Stratton's elite curveball and Mac potential to bash, but understand the decisions made; just would have went another way, is Vincent really so good as a reliever to let go of Stratton, who provides good SP depth, or Mac, who might just need more time to recover from his concussion (see the video, I still think he's lucky he didn't break his neck). So these are great tests of whether Zaidi is any good at collecting info and executing correctly on them.
Overall
Hopefully you see all the preponderance of evidence above that the Giants team was at least a .500 team in 2018, and since most of that team is still around, minus a variety of poor offensive/defensive players, plus the addition of a number of stronger defensive players, along with depth, with a huge lottery ticket in Pomeranz (who, if he pitches well, could be a co-ace with Bumgarner, giving us the formula), the team is likely to be a .500 or winning team in 2019, even with all the injuries that happened last season, because the depth this season should help moderate the drop in performance that hurt the team in the second half, particular in September.
And if Pomeranz can be a co-ace, along with Duggar being an elite leadoff hitter (.350+ OBP), along with the depth, the Giants should be competing for a playoff position, and maybe the division title, as well, depending on how well the other teams do. This would take some doing, but neither are impossibilities either. However, more likely the season will be like 2009, competitive but not playoff bound.
People are focused on D-Rod not repeating his 2.81 ERA, but forget about all the other horribleness that was happening as well. For June to August, here are the rest: Suarez had 3.63 ERA in 17 starts (which was good), Stratton had 10 starts, 5.02 ERA, Blach 1 start, 4 ER in 4.0 IP, Cueto 4 starts, 6.86 ERA, Shark 2 starts, 5.00 ERA, and, of course, D-Rod 2.46 ERA in 14 starts. That worked out to a 3.92 ERA overall.
So we don't need D-Rod repeating greatness, what we need to reduplicate the goodness of June to August are Bum and Holland repeating what they did in 2018, while Pomeranz, Samardzija, and D-Rod collectively have a 3.93 ERA. Shark's FIP in 2016-17 was slightly better than that, and D-Rod FIP was slightly better than that too in 2018 overall. Pomeranz just need to be around that as well for the starting pitcher to be equal to their 2018 June-August great period. Given his nice spring, and his great ERA from 2015-2017 when healthy, that looks very possible as well.
And then there is the probability that Bumgarner and Holland might be better in 2019. MadBum noted his weak grip hurting his pitching after returning. That would explain his big jump in walks, as well as drop in strikeouts. Holland never mentioned this, but one analyst on Twitter (FG?) noticed that Holland was struggling some early in the 2018 season, but after he changed his positioning on the pitching rubber, moving from the middle of the rubber to the left quarter, he pitched much better, and his ERA from June on was 2.87)
The 2018 outfield was not very impressive, that is for sure, but even with their overall ineptness, the offense was functional for the first half of the season. Overall, for the season, the OF had an average of .680 OPS, even with McCutchen's good hitting. Duggar is forecasted by ZIPS at .677, Joe at .657, and Reed at .671, which is almost the same. So at worse, even with McCutchen gone, the OF in 2019 appears to be roughly the same offensively per projections, but greatly improved defensively due to both Duggar and Reed being excellent glove men. Reed showed off his arm during the spring, even in his short time with the Giants, throwing out a runner at 3rd.
Another thing that people forget is that no matter what, you got hitters who will be batting 7th and 8th, and they aren't going to be that good. People like to rage on about every position, but the fact is that every lineup has a bad hitter, few teams are good up and down, generally (and those generally sacrifice pitching and fielding, and my business plan shows how important those are). So, yes, Joe and Reed look bad compared to the average LF or RF, or even CF, but that's not where they are batting, they should be batting near the bottom of the order. And in the NL in 2018, the 7th hitter hit .705 OPS and the 8th hitter hit .661. Between the two, they average .683; Reed batting 7th at .671 and Joe 8th at .657 would be nearly average in the NL. Of course, Joe batted 6th, Reed 7th, and Panik 8th, probably because Bochy wanted to protect the two, as batting 8th is hard, but that's another issue. They should be okay players in the lineup, not very detrimental, if used properly.
Then there's the main guys. Posey was hampered by his hips, yet was still a good hitter, so one would think he would be better in 2019, or at minimum, no worse, given age. Belt was heading to his best season ever, validating his vow to stick with his best batting mechanics no matter what in 2018, only to be sidelined by appendicitis and hurt by a knee injury. Zaidi's depth should give him more rest, and allow the Giants to take him out when he's hurting, and heal him up. Similarly with Crawford, he was over 900 OPS mid-season, but that knee injury ruined his seasonal numbers. Again, depth should help in two ways, rest and replacement. Longoria was hampered by injury, as well as his inability to hit at home, but he reported to spring in good spirits, vowed not to let the park get to him. Panik apparently Lincecumed himself the past couple of years, changing his body without realizing the consequences to his athleticism, but got himself fit for this spring, and looked good and spry, as well as hit well.
Biggest Roster Controversy: Williamson vs. Sandoval
Some are upset about losing Williamson, and many feel that it was Sandoval who is the reason, noting the duplication of skills between Sandoval and Joe. They point out his breakout 2018 start of the season, and the possibilities that he'll be hitting 20+ homers for another team. And how Sandoval is old, and Williamson is young. However, then he ended up basically where his career average was in 2018, and didn't hit much of anything in spring 2019.
I'm upset too about losing Williamson, because of that power potential. But it wasn't just Zaidi deciding this, the same coaches and staff from last season had input on that as well. I'm sure if they thought there was a high chance of him repeating last season, then they would have probably found some way to keep him. But they didn't. Same with Stratton, whom I also was expecting to make the 2019 roster.
In addition, it seems like people aimed their anger at Sandoval, when, really, it was the 8-man bullpen that caused this roster crunch. The real roster calculus was Williamson vs. Vincent, Gott, or Bergen (and I want to keep the pitchers too). Or, if you want to chose a position player crunch, how about the player who appears to have literally taken Mac's place: Connor Joe, who played LF on OD (I also like him and Reed too). Instead, they focused on the one guy who provided offensive value last season.
Sandoval keeps getting disparaged, but his .727 OPS last season was average, as the NL average was .722 OPS. In addition, the average PH had a .642 OPS, so he was better than the average bat. And the average DH in the NL hit .719, again, Pablo was right about average. His defense is not the best, but the Giants have less players in the mode of 1B/3B/utility who can hit NL average than players who have power in the OF, with Shaw looking like he could finally break out this season, and Ramos with a breakout year in SJ could be seeing MLB by 2020-21. And Mac will be 29 YO soon, no spring chick himself.
So, I understand the angst over losing Williamson, he's still an interesting lottery ticket, but if it is In Zaidi We Trust, then you have to trust that he's just not seeing anything close to what we had seen before, and decided to move on. He's very collaborative so it's not like it's just his opinion, it's a cumulative decision (I'm avoiding consensus, because he's making the decision, ultimately).
As he has noted before, his goal is to reach the point where each move causes heartburn, and this one caused a lot. But Mac got his chances this spring, the most plate appearances in the OF, as well as for the entire team, and he hit .608 OPS. I saw someone note that he got sent down last season after a great spring, only because he had options still, but that's not accurate, he got sent down in spite of the great spring because he had not done anything like that before, and one good spring doesn't mean that the Giants will get rid of another position player on the roster for me, he had to go down and prove he was good.
Also, this move ultimately will be a good litmus test. Sabean did not make the wrong decision much when he was fully in charge, but Evans had a bunch of misfires that cost him his job. Moves like Mac and Stratton will help us evaluate how good Zaidi is in judging talent, which is a great reason why I'm happy he didn't hire a GM, and is doing everything himself, it gives us a clearer picture of what his decision making is (everything) rather than a mix of decision makers, had he hired a GM. These moves are really all on him and his thinking. I still like Stratton's elite curveball and Mac potential to bash, but understand the decisions made; just would have went another way, is Vincent really so good as a reliever to let go of Stratton, who provides good SP depth, or Mac, who might just need more time to recover from his concussion (see the video, I still think he's lucky he didn't break his neck). So these are great tests of whether Zaidi is any good at collecting info and executing correctly on them.
Overall
Hopefully you see all the preponderance of evidence above that the Giants team was at least a .500 team in 2018, and since most of that team is still around, minus a variety of poor offensive/defensive players, plus the addition of a number of stronger defensive players, along with depth, with a huge lottery ticket in Pomeranz (who, if he pitches well, could be a co-ace with Bumgarner, giving us the formula), the team is likely to be a .500 or winning team in 2019, even with all the injuries that happened last season, because the depth this season should help moderate the drop in performance that hurt the team in the second half, particular in September.
And if Pomeranz can be a co-ace, along with Duggar being an elite leadoff hitter (.350+ OBP), along with the depth, the Giants should be competing for a playoff position, and maybe the division title, as well, depending on how well the other teams do. This would take some doing, but neither are impossibilities either. However, more likely the season will be like 2009, competitive but not playoff bound.
They traded Murphy today. Got some young RHP from the DSL in return. Don't remember all the details.
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