Seventh Inning Stretch: I'm Going On Hiatus

As you may or may not remember, I've been out of work for a long while.  The good news is that I found a new position and been gainfully employed for over a month now.  Yea!  Big thank you to all of you who supported me, it helped me get through everything.

The better news is that it's a pretty exciting position for me, with a company I've admired for a long time, learning about the latest and greatest in new IT technology, while taking a position in an industry I've long studied:  I'm now an outsourced resource.

Though my joy at finally working again is tempered greatly by the fact that the coronavirus has put a ton of people out of work, has put too many people into the ground, and has changed life irreversibly, as much as some people hope for a return to what we had before, our lives have been changed permanently.  And now we have the long needed protest over the treatment of African Americans in our society.  Hopefully life will be much better for everyone, no matter of color or any other criteria that people use to discriminate, and so I stand with my fellow people of color, as I recall my Mom's stories of racism during her life.  

ogc blog news

So, on a lighter note, my blog news:  my blog is going on hiatus indefinitely.  I was not able to find a job that relied on me to do what I've honed to a sharp edge over the past 25 years (I came close to one, the hiring manager even said the next step was to interview at their offices, and then radio silence followed by strict legalese stating that they are not interested and I can't even ask why or what happened; of course, it was a law firm), so I found one where I could use my skills, but in a very focused way than I had before (and I'm excited to go in this new direction!), but has required me to learn all this great new technology (fun!) and new skills (sales!) and thus I'm working day and night to ramp up to take on new duties I've never done really done on a daily basis before, but I'm excited to try my hand at.  I think I'll be really good at it and be able to prove my value going forward, but it's like starting my career over again, I have so much to learn before I'm productive.

As a result, that greatly limits my free time, as I'll be expected to work extra hours as necessary as project deadlines are reached.  And I would rather spend any extra time beyond that with my wife and family, than write on baseball and the Giants.  It's an easy choice, one I didn't have to make in my prior jobs, which didn't require much overtime except on rare occasions.  In addition, I was also more driven 15 years ago, because the Giants had not won a championship yet, and I believed fervently that Sabean was the right person to get us there, but everyone else thought I was wearing tin-foiled hats while typing this ini my basement in my spare time.  

I do have some posts started up, and if I find the time, may finish them up, but that will be infrequent, most likely.  This is likely it for a while, even if the season starts up.  And with a short season, I would not be surprised if Zaidi is caught short on pitching talent (ahem, like needing a pitcher like Bumgarner) if the Giants can stay close, or even make the playoffs.  And I expect a bigger playoff set-up, with 8 teams from each league (not assuming NL and AL, right now teams appear to be organized by their spring training relative locations) or 16 teams in total, perhaps playing round robin to reach the next level of the playoffs.  And it looks the DH is here to stay in the NL.

ogc rambling thoughts

Since I'm going to be gone for a while, and I'm not sure for how long (and, of course, with the coronavirus, we don't even know when baseball will return, and in what shape - boo! DH! - or form), I thought I would ramble on free form for my last post for a while, a classic ogc type of post.

Baseball is Probably Back, But for How Long?

First of all, I'm all for baseball coming back - lifting spirits and all that - but I don't see how there won't be a coronavirus outbreak at some point during the season.  Basketball has the best chance because there's much less players and coaches involved, and even there I don't know that an outbreak won't happen there either.  Just think of all the possible contact points they have, from the players, coaches, assistants, then all the people supporting them, from waiters, maids, and everything else necessary to keep things going.  For the NBA, it helps to be at DisneyWorld, where they already hire people who are a bit on the obsessive side, I mean, they keep their streets majorly clean given the number of people walking through every day.

My my my my Corona(virus)

I've been studying the Coronavirus a lot in my spare time leading up to my hiring, and facts are facts.  This virus spreads as easily, if not easier, than the common cold.  Maybe it is "only" as deadly as the flue, but comparing it to the flu is idiotic because everyone has some level of protection to the flu, due to prior exposure, and good enough protection if they get their annual flu shot.   This is nothing like the flu in that important key way.

Everybody can be infected by COVID-19 (technically, that's the name of the symptoms, but everyone calls it that; it should technically be called something like SARS-CoV-2, if you want to be proper), and we don't know what our body's reaction will be until we catch it, it's like Russian Roulette with your body and health, because while maybe 1% die from it, 10-20% of the infected suffers severe health problems, like that actor who has already had a leg amputated.  And if you have anybody 50 and over in your life that you would rather not kill or maim anytime soon (especially if they have any current on-going health issue, like heart disease or prior lung issues), maybe consider them when you go in and out, because they are the sick part of the herd that will be caught by the corona-cheetah-virus and brought down.  

So wear a mask when you are going out anywhere you are going to end up in a building with other people, because the air circulates and because people can be stupid:  my wife and I went to a Costco in February, we were aware, but not mega-wary, when someone rude just coughed into our airspace as we turned an aisle; we both started having a dry cough at around the same time five days later, and we did suffer some ailments, but nothing more than what a cold would cause, and it wasn't serious, just bothered for a day (I had a fever, my wife had a slight cough).  So who knows what we caught, back then testing was only for the really sick, and even now, I see $7,000 price tags for testing.  Since then we have been wearing masks whenever we go shopping, and even strip out of our clothes when we get home, just to be extra safe, as I'm in the age danger zone.

And life as we knew it is gone.  Because there has never been a vaccine created for coronavirus (the common cold is a cousin) that has been successfully mass manufactured (apparently one was developed for the original SARS, but by that time, nobody was sick with it anymore, so it couldn't be properly tested), so who knows when one will be developed.  The best experts say within 18 months, but that's just an educated guess.  And without a vaccine, all of our daily interactions that we took for granted before is basically impossible without potentially passing on the virus to one another.  

Even if the government had been smart enough to start doing something about it in January when it first came out, without a vaccine, there is no way to return to our prior life.  But probably 100,000 people would still be alive, had it been taken serious early on.  Especially if we had someone implanted in the Chinese. CDC, like we did until mid-2019, that person could have alerted the US Government that the outbreak started, and not find out later in late January with. everyone else.  Even at that point, manufacturers could have been mobilized to produce testing kits, because that's the only way to monitor the disease right now, and to try to nip it in the bud before it spreads again to new contacts.  We still don't even have that.  And don't get me started about the Keystone Kops routine we've been seeing as our Federal response.  

So be safe out there!  Because you don't know who'll be coming around the corner.

Back to Baseball 2020

In any case, both sides are battling over money, so we might not even have any baseball this season.  Which would be a shame, since it would be nice, but not surprising, as most reports were already noting that the players union was raring for a potential strike when the next CBA is negotiated, and this would be as good a time to strike as any, less money at stake right now, given the coronavirus would have lessened salaries anyway.  And yet, as I noted above, not sure how you keep up to 2,000 people in a bubble with no outside contacts to start a cluster of infections...

But they can somehow dodge those bullets, the playoffs probably will be very interesting to see.  I expect totally different set-ups, with this season set to be very different, may as well experiment with different ways of playing the playoffs, and see how fans and the public reacts.  At least that's the smart thing to do.

Pitchers Can Hit, They Just Refuse to Try

And, really, universal DH?  Are we going the way of football soon, with offensive and defensive teams?  Because there's a lot of guys who aren't good defensively as well as offensively.  Sure, pitchers hurt themselves hitting.  You know why?  Because many (most!)  of them don't practice hitting or running the bases.  Easy solution:  you make it part of their training and work day.  

Look at Bumgarner.  He was pretty bad early in his career, then he finally decided to have some pride in not looking bad up there, and started to try to hit, and his stats went up a lot when he did.  He added about 1 bWAR per season with his hitting, something Farhan Zaidi probably didn't account for when he decided that Gausman and Smyly are adequate replacements for Bumgarner's production (1 WAR is roughly $10-12M, depending on how much this season drops pricing).  

So my viewpoint is if the pitcher really cares about winning, he'll get off his behind and learn how to properly hit.  Many of them were the best hitters on their teams as they rose through the amateur ranks. Some of them continued to be two-way into High School and College.  As I showed with my analysis before, a pitcher can easily add a win to their totals each season just by being as good as one of the worse shortstops and catchers around (I used Neifi, I think), changing an average 16-16 starting pitcher to a 17-15 starting pitcher, and a 160-160 career pitcher (over 10 years) to a 170-150 career pitcher.  

What's the big deal, it's only one win per season?  If you build your rotation with this in mind, you change an average 81-81 overall team to a 86-76 competitive team, without improving your player development to find better players (other than pitchers who can hit mediocrely, for a position player).  You are then competitive for the playoffs every season, just with average pitching and hitting (a .500 team improved with pitchers who hit mediocrely) as historically, 86-90 wins gets you into the playoffs, either via wild card or the division title (recent seasons being an outlier so far; it's been true to 2017 playoffs).  Just by being as good as an average team, and then adding in a key skill:  starting pitchers hitting.  

Given all the talk about easy ways to greatly improve a team that analytics bring, this has been a real solution, and relatively easy to implement:  just make your pitchers hit from the low minors, set the expectations that they are expected to hit like a major league, that is, if you care about winning and getting every last edge....  And that's not 2% better, that's 6% more wins better, for very little investment or change to your team's player development and scouting departments.  So Zaidi is missing out on a cheap way of adding a win to the team.

Zaidi Status:  Neutral For Now, But Negative Trending

Speaking of Zaidi, of course, it's too early - I was not for (nor against) Bochy until he sat Rowand down for Torres, and I was not all in until he left Zito off the playoff roster (given Zito's book, I'm even more impressed with Bochy that he could keep Zito productive to 2012, what a master class of player handling) - but his decision to let Bumgarner go was a huge negative for me.

I was worried when he was hired that the Dodger's handling of pitchers would be brought up here, and that seems to be happening, though it's only been roughly a season so far, and he was given a lot of starters like Cueto and Samardzija that he had to stick with.  I liked the pickup of Pomeranz last season, and view Smyly in the same mode.  But to pick Gausman over Bumgarner, that just sticks in my craw.

Still, we'll see what he does in the entirety of his contract before I say nay to him.  But unlike many who act like suck-ups and praise him for every little thing he does, I still need to see more before I'm convinced that he's the guy who can lead us to our next championship.  And he gets a black mark from me for his lack of interest in re-signing Bumgarner, other than his perfunctory bids to sign him.  He was only pushing up the price, he was not interested in signing Bumgarner.

Bummed Over Bumgarner

I get not being tied emotionally to one player.  I was sad to let Will Clark go, but I was able to (though in retrospect, he would have been a better signing than Robby Thompson; that's life!).  I loved Matt Williams, gave up baseball for a while when the strike cost him a chance to reach 60 homers, but was very happy with the trade, once I saw we got Jeff Kent and analyzed what he could bring to us (didn't know he would be that good, but I saw his potential if he was played regularly) along with other pieces that helped.  I loved Matty but he was just getting injured too often.  

But Bumgarner was probably the KEY component to winning 3 in 5.  At 20 YO, he stood up and gave a great pitching performance in his first World Series, as well as pitching great during his first season.  In 2012, after his stumble caused Bochy to skip a NLCS playoff start, he had another great World Series start.  And we know what greatness he showed in 2014.  Honestly, if it was a choice of Posey vs. Bumgarner, I would chose Bumgarner.  But it's not.

To boot, he signed for only $85M for five seasons, with deferred money involved.  Probably would have required closer to $100M, because of Cali taxes, but that's still under $20M per season for a pitcher who has done so much for the franchise, and perhaps could do some more on a potential Hall of Fame career.  Could have just signed everybody that he did, along with Bumgarner, then pull a Livan and trade either Cueto or Samardzija (probably the latter), with some cash to a team that could use them.  Now he could be another Gaylord Perry, having a great career after us.  

And Bumgarner is likely to be worth his contract or more.  His contract reflects his past few years, years affected by factors.  First the bike injury and recovery.  Then the finger injury and recovery.  Then his first healthy year, it appears he lost stamina from the prior injuries taking away from his regimen.  He had a 3.66 ERA in his first 22 starts, but then a 4.32 ERA in his last 12 starts, which would have been much higher had his BABIP not been .254 in those starts.  That was roughly like Samardzija's 3.52 ERA, which was valued at 3.1 bWAR, and using 0.5 WAR step downs, that works out to 8.0 bWAR expected production over the 5 years of the contract, or roughly $100M.  

To be fair, if he wasn't saddled with Cueto AND Samardzija, maybe Zaidi would have signed Bumgarner (probably not though).   And to be fair to Evans, he did trade Samardzija but Shark vetoed that trade.  Still, one, I can't believe Zaidi couldn't understand why Bumgarner is an exception, and two, I can't believe Giants ownership didn't make Bumgarner the exception when Zaidi was hired.  In any case, Zito's contract was a much bigger albatross, and yet he didn't make winning impossible to do from 2009 to 2014.  So, legacy contracts is not a real excuse, it's been done before and he gets no medal from fans for saving $X million dollars by not signing someone.  

Owners Need to Remember Where They Belong

I am aware that there are owners who were against Bumgarner getting a big contract because of the dirt bike injury - that didn't happen, Bum probably would have been signed to a long term extension before Zaidi came around.  Poor rich men, crying with their silver spoons, it's not about you, it's about the legacy of the San Francisco Giants, while you will be a footnote in the history of Giants baseball.

I get that they probably knew that he was roping calves in a secret identity.  I normally am against players being stupid with their livelihood, but that just adds to his Paul Bunyon-esque character and mystique, and, of course, I would insist in the contract that he loses any salary due to injuries suffered doing any non-baseball sports, that's fair too.  Like with Sandoval, it has to fit for the Giants, I'm not for signing a player at any cost, but Bumgarner wanted to come back, and worked with the team he did target to get a deal done. Too bad Zaidi was too myopic to not at least see what happens.

Losing Bumgarner Made Me Lose Desire to Write

So this is probably a factor in my decision as well, now that I'm venting.  This non-signing of a Giants Legend just really bothered me.  It's not like we'll necessarily be competitive anytime soon.  Bart was probably a year away from taking over the starting duties from Posey, Ramos one to two years from breaking through, Luciano about 2-3 years away.  Bumgarner every five games would be a tonic to losing, much like Bonds was.  

On the other hand, we don't know how great any of these top prospects are, maybe they excel like other top prospects.  Bart has bashed extensively in his spring training runs so far.  Both Ramos and Luciano have produced at levels and ages relative to level similar to top prospects like Acuna and others, so who is to say that this team can't be competitive by 2022 at the earliest, as both reaches the majors by then?  At that point, Bumgarner would only be in year 3 of his contract, likely still producing at least average production, if not more, I see him out producing Zito easily at the same ages.  

Giants Development is All Hitting, Little Ace Pitching

And where is the Giants ace pitching?  Can't win without pitching, and while I like Webb, Hjelle, Menez, Corry, Beede too, but he'll be really old by the time he recovers, but that's not winning any divisions, let alone championships.  I mean, Jonathan Sanchez was the low man on the 2010 team, is there even a Jonathan Sanchez level pitcher on near future rosters, let alone a Lincecum, Cain, or Bumgarner?  

Does he think he can trade for them like Astros and Dodgers?  Or does he think he can shine up some former clunkers and get ace quality performances out of them, like the Astros?  (which still wasn't enough, so they cheated)  His cupboard is bare, and, yes, part of that is on Evans and the prior regime.  

But this lack of pitching firepower was evidence last season and the first pitcher drafted was in the 8th round, and if you ignored the first 8 picks, it took to Round 28 before the total number of pitchers matched the number of position player drafted.  I guess he hopes to trade, but the sad fact is that generally teams when they trade with you, they saddle you with a player who they know have some flaws that they can't fix, or old veterans who will soon fade away, you don't get those Lincecums, Cainers, Bumgarners.  Still, only one draft, with soon another happening, maybe he'll go another way.  

Then there is the Dodger's Way, relevant since he came from there:  sign up a million injured pitchers and mix and match them to get a functional rotation.  Which works for the regular season, not so much during the playoffs.  It's one thing to be efficient, but it's another thing to be effective.  It seems to me that these analytic teams focus too much on being efficient, when being effective is actually the crucial thing, when you are trying to win a World Series.  Sure, be efficient, but not at the cost of effectiveness.

Analytical Handling of Pitching Sucks

Just look at the whole Rich Hill usage in the playoffs, they just cut him off at 18-19-20 batters automatically.  That's just not how humans work, maybe be aware at that many batters, but if he's not in trouble, let him pick up a few more outs.  Or start using AI API's, like Google's Vision AI, load up each pitch he throws, label as when he was effective, or when he's not, and the AI might be able to discern when he's starting to labor.

Reminds me of the whole Dusty taking Ortiz out in Game 6 of the World Series, which looks even more horrible in light of the news afterward that Nen's rotator cuff was basically dead and useless, he needed to get every out Ortiz could get.  Dusty is a good manager, but he lost that series by 1) taking Ortiz too late in Game 2 (we lost 10-9, so if he was pulled earlier, could have won that game and the Series by Game 5) and then 2) taking Ortiz out too soon in Game 6.  

Reminds me of the whole PAP system that Baseball Prospectus set up.  It's ridiculous to look at pitchers fatigue solely by the number of pitches they had thrown.  I get that 100 seems to be the point where pitchers get fatigued.  That should be a warning signal, not an absolute cut off because each human is different.  

I would prefer the Giants identify the most effective and healthy ways of pitching.  Zaidi made a great start by hiring that guy from Driveline, Matt Daniels, I'm sure he's setting up procedures and processes to help Giants prospects throw correctly.  I was extremely happy about him being hired, I saw other teams picking up Driveline instructors, but hitting, and I was elated to see Zaidi hire someone with the experience of Daniels to help with all this.  I was also excited to see the hiring of Brian Bannister, whose career I followed, and who has a well known interest in sabermetrics.  I think where the new advances come will be from major league pitchers using sabermetrics from their understanding as a practitioner, and heading into new discoveries.  

But don't stop there.  Maybe start cataloging and collecting Dick Tidrow's pearl of wisdom.  Talk to other pitching experts, like Nolan Ryan, Mike Marshall, Tom House, and others.  And especially learn about Johnny Sain's techniques, by consulting with his disciple, the Braves old pitching coach, Leo Mazzone.  

Pitching is the Way to Championships

The Giants under Sabean and Tidrow had the formula:  pitching, pitching, and more pitching.  I wrote all about that over the past 15 years, and I have it in my business plan, which is linked at the side of my blog.  It's not the most efficient way, as pitchers break down due to hangnails, blisters, and torn finger nails.  But if you want to maximize your chances in the playoffs, you want to have a great pitching staff, and ideally one that can strike out a lot of hitters.  

And you need guys with the guts to stand up when the pressure is there.  Unfortunately, you can't really know that until the pitcher pitches in the playoffs and you get a good gauge from his performance there.  So I like that the Giants try to get their top prospects into playoff situations when they can, and try to load up certain teams, like the San Jose Giants, to get that experience for them.  

Because some pitchers seize up in the big moments.  Peavy was a good pitcher in the regular season, he threw a lot of quality games out there for us, but when he was in the playoffs, he was unable to repeat that performance.  Kershaw is probably the best pitcher of his generation, but his playoff performances suggest a lack of inner fortitude.  Bumgarner, on the other hand, not only repeated, but seemed to rise to the occasion.  

Yes, small sampling involved, that's why I used the term "seemed".  At minimum, what he did in the playoffs was not surprising based on his regular season performances.  That's what I believe has been the problem with most studies of the phenomenon of clutch:  the ones I've seen tried to look for better performances in high pressure situations, when what they should have been looking for is guys who can play the same in high pressure situations as they do in no pressure situations.   And Bumgarner did.

And that's what dismayed me about Zaidi pass on Bumgarner.  Maybe we don't get into the playoffs in the next couple of years, but what if our young prospects soar?  Then we are stuck with guys we have no idea how they are going to deliver in the playoffs, whereas we know Bumgarner will.   

Zaidi Drafting Has Not Impressed Me

I can't believe it.  Not only did he draft another position player, he drafted another catcher!  As I was just writing above (been writing this over the past month or more, just been busy), it is pitching that will yield the players you want, nay, need, to help maximize your chances of winning a championship.  And while he did eventually select more pitchers than hitters, he spent his best bullets on hitters, selecting a C with his first round pick #13 and a 3B with his second round pick #49.  

It's like the old joke of searching for a lost quarter under the lamppost:  the punch line is that the goal (the quarter) is in the dark where he wasn't looking.  As I've analyzed and reported, in my blog and collected in my business plan, you maximize your chances of winning a championship by having great pitching, so even though pitchers are inherently more risky, and much more likely to bust because of health issues, they are the ones you take risks for, because of their scarcity, because of their overall value in short series, because of their overall value in a game.

People like to point out that hitters are more valuable because they generally produce more since, as they like to say, play 162 games, while pitchers pitch, at most today, 200 innings (out of a possible 1,458 roughly, at 9 innings per game).  And that seems true, for example, Cody Bellinger had 9.1 bWAR and the five were hitters, before the first pitcher, Jacob deGrom, with 8.2 bWAR.

But let's dig into the numbers exactly.  Bellinger played 156 games while deGrom started 32 games:  yep, hitters are more valuable, just like they say.  But wait:  that means Bellinger averaged 0.06 bWAR per game played, while deGrom averaged 0.26 bWAR per game started, over four times the value produced by any one hitter.  Which means that in any game that elite pitcher is pitching, he's contributing around half the WAR, just by himself, making him the most valuable player in any game played.

Missing My First Draft in 14 Years

I just realized that this was the first draft I missed in 14 years.  My first one was in 2006 and memorable because I was hoping that Lincecum would fall to us.  While he was highly valued, his slim physique scared off teams, viewing him as only valuable as a reliever.  Ironically, a pitcher with a pitcher's body was drafted before him and ended up being mostly a reliever (221 relief appearances vs. 113 starts), and it looks like he was fragile, as he had only one full season starting, and relieved only once with more than 50 games in a season, over 12 seasons as a major leaguer.

He was being tied to many of the teams picking atop the draft, KC and Tampa Bay in particular, but Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com had him falling in the middle of the first round, having the Giants pick up some horse of a pitcher (I think Boston drafted him, ah yes, Daniel Bard; he was touted for looking like the type of horse-like pitchers Tidrow loved; later, Tidrow revealed that he told Sabean to not bother scouting Lincecum because he didn't want other teams to know that the Giants coveted Lincecum) and I recall hoping that Kyle Drabek would fall to us, as he was a two-way player, never dreaming that Lincecum would make it to us.  But with Mayo's prediction that he would fall to the teens if he fell through the top, I sat listening to the draft, and hoping he would fall to us.  I remembered exulting when he was drafted. I didn't care that teams hated his size, I just felt that a potential #1 pick falling to us, while high risk, is high reward as well.  

His drafting by the Giants could be seen as pay-back by the fates to Tidrow for the Giants being cheap 9 drafts earlier.  Back in that draft, Tidrow wanted this local kid, but the cheap Giants owners did not want to pay that much, so they ended up drafting Tony Torcato instead of CC Sabathia (heard the story from Shankbone, a great blogger analyst who took a break).  Penny wise, pound foolish, as the saying goes.  So 8 years latter, the Indian draft this skinny kid from Washington State, late in the draft, hoping to land one, but they were only willing to go to $400,000 but the kid wanted a cool million, and the next season, while he missed out on being the first pick, he still got $2,025,000 from the Giants.  Big Time Timmy Jim!

Next One was Just as Memorable

For the next draft, I recall hoping that Matt Weiters would fall to us.  We needed a top end catcher, and there was talk that he might fall in the draft as a Boras client demanding too much.  After him, I was hoping to get Beau Mills.  So when the Giants drafted Bumgarner, who I had not heard much of, I was upset, as I wanted Mills.  Still broadcasting only audio, an interview with Sabean and Tidrow came on, and I can still remember it like it was yesterday.

Of course, they said the typical things any GM would say about prospect drafted, but then he said this shocker:  "We expect him to make the majors in two years."  Only the very top prospects do that, and so that's pretty rare and a lot of pressure to put on a young player, especially all the way down to the 10th overall pick, let alone first pick overall, and yet, there it was, he publicly said that.  And dang if Bumgarner didn't do that feat.  

Tidrow had a story about Bumgarner too, revealed later.  A scout watching Bum was being talked up by another team's scout, trying to learn more about the Giants thoughts about Madison.  Tidrow showed to view things, but left quickly, so the scout was asked by the other team's scout, "He hated Bumgarner's cross body throwing motion, didn't he?"  Later, Tidrow and the Giants scout met, and he said "I love him."  

He then saved Bumgarner's career by going down to help him get the kinks out when he was horrible to start the season. Bumgarner acknowledged that debt he owed, he said that when he was drafted, he had no idea what his ideal mechanics were and the Giants taught him what they were so that he could reduplicate it over and over.  

This is what I'm hoping that Zaidi's hiring of Daniels and Bannister will do, institute training and pitcher development that helps each pitcher figure out their best pitches, both for effectiveness as well as health of their arms. I still believe that is why Wheeler was traded, they tried to fix his mechanics, but he didn't do well for the Giants doing that, so when he was traded, he went back to his effective mechanics, but soon enough, he had TJS to fix his arm.  

Thank You Brian Sabean

I guess I love MadBum too, seeing how I'm upset that he's no longer with the Giants.  I get that the Giants need to be more analytical, but analytics have been in the majors for almost 20 years now, and how many championships have the best known analytical teams won?  Basically Boston, and I guess the Cubs (I don't count Astros since they cheated to win).  The A's, Rays, Pirates, and others have failed to win it all.   The only GM to have as many championships that Sabean had with the Giants is Brian Chapman, who won his titles on the backs of Jeter, Rivera, Pettitte, Williams, core guys who was scouted and drafted by, who else, Brian Sabean.

And a GM hated by his fanbase almost from the moment he took over the job, and he's still being denigrated by many in that fanbase, bringing up mistakes like Jose Guillen, chalking up to extreme luck that Cody Ross was even on the team, and stuff like that. Sabean won 3 championships using the well known formula (and proven formula, see Baseball Prospectus' analysis of World Series champions) of great pitching and defense.  These are the typical dog whistles of Sabean Naysayers (Neifi, Uggla, Cabrera, etc.) who like to point out his negatives while avoiding the elephant in the room:  who else has won 3 championships during this stewardship of the Good Ship Giants?  Heck, in the history of the National League?

Then I see many of these same people sucking up to Zaidi constantly on social media.  Whereas there was a mountain of evidence that Sabean was and is a great GM, even before 3 in 5, they take every chance to take a shot at him for the years since 2014, they practically drool over themselves praising Zaidi, saying they believe.  I like Zaidi a lot, and I'm rooting for him to do well, but I'll praise him when I see him doing good things, he's only been on the job for a year and a half, and hasn't really done much to impress me other than revving up the pitching side of player development, which has me excited but underwhelmed because he then feeds in back of draft pitchers into the mix.  

Sabean showed that he knew what he was doing from the get-go, making that crucial trade for Kent.  People point to that as luck, but that's how it works in reality.  Zaidi talks about the drive to make 51/49 decisions, of getting better all the time, through analytics.  Analytics is a boon to society because it makes processes more efficient and effective, while automating, but it doesn't mean that analytics is better than any human, necessarily, at least not yet, other than playing Go.  

Sabean has been making these 51/49 decisions that resulted in 3 World Championships, of giving players he thought maybe had something left, a chance to show it, and yes, many of them failed, but guys like Renteria, Torres, Burrell, Huff, Petit came through when the time came, for three championships.  I don't see these Zaidi lovers mention the Joe/Reed experiment that was worse than any of the complaints abouut Sabean picking up a veteran, that's exactly the vein of Zaidi's philosophy, using your methodology and analyses, if 51% of the time you think you'll be successful, go for it.  

That's what these "fans" should be focusing on, not whether Guillen was in the lineup (he actually was good for 6 weeks before 2 zero weeks) or that Uggla got a short and ugly tryout, but whether the team is better off on the whole with all the moves made:  for Sabean, it resulted in 3 in 5.  It seems that for these people, the glass isn't even half empty, they don't seem to understand that nobody in the history of GM's is perfect, or that focusing on his mistakes is not the right way to honor his legacy, heck, not the right way to go through life.  What does the big picture look like, beyond the mistakes that horrify you?  What does it matter if the result is a championship?  And if 3 in 5 is luck, then what is all the one and dones?  Or the never was, like most of the analytical teams?  

Thanks Sabean, these fans don't deserve you.  

Epilogue

I feel I should say thank you to all those who read my blog.  I started it with the simple hope that others find what I find interesting as well.  Because I have learned a lot, and wanted to share, it felt like a waste not to share.  Hopefully you enjoyed my sharing.

That's the ant part of my personality.  I got into ants when I was in the third grade (you know, one of those dig up a nest and put them into a jar school projects) and got obsessed, so my parents got me a book on ants.  I loved the fact that each ant is devoted to the colony, and of making everything better for the colony, and defending the colony if necessary.  Hopefully I was able to be a good contributing ant to this Giants fan colony.

Obviously, obsession is part of why I did what I did, along with the compulsion.  Did not show myself off to the best I could be, sometimes in social media, but I have learned to let go of some things,  and been a better version of myself all the time.  That's all anyone can do, getting better all the time.  

Someone once got mad at me for using these terms in my handle.  Yes, I've never been diagnosed.  But I knew of my oddities growing up, and I recognized them when I saw people with this on TV, particularly once Monk became a series, and I could see all my tics and habits.  I saw it even more when my children's school held classes to help parents of gifted and talented children understand them better, it also helped me understand myself better.  I still recognize the naive part of me that believes the best of everyone, and I've learned the hard way that life isn't always fair or just, or that everyone I interact with is nice.  

Still, I'm grateful for the life I have, and wish everyone the best, as always.

Phoenix Rising

While writing the above, I saw a bit of the Phoenix rising happening with me.  My passion started with the fear that Giants fans could somehow force through public opinion, the firing of Brian Sabean.  With each championship, the fear has lessened, until it is a low roar (there are still people dissing him!).  Through the ashes of that passion, I see my next grand project, which I'll tackle at some point, once I learn how to use advanced analytics tools to do it:  the understanding of how to maximize the chances of a World Series championship. 

I would think that would be of the most interest, yet the last ones I've seen were from around 15 years ago, by Baseball Prospectus and a writer on Fangraphs/The Hardball Times.  If you have seen a more recent one, please share the link in the comments below.  I would love to read it.

But the gist of the two studies were remarkably the same, in spite of two different methodologies.  

• BP used a valuing function, granting more points the deeper you go into the playoffs.  And then they did a regression analysis showing the correlation between various offensive and defensive (pitching and fielding), and they found that there was only one offensive metric that even shows a slight possibility of significance, stolen base attempts (which correlates with team speed, with correlates with team defense and extra base hits), whereas there were many pitching and fielding metrics correlating, so BP narrowed it down to three key metrics:  pitching staff strikeout rate, best reliever (closer usually) metric, and fielding metric.  
• FG compared each playoff series pairing, metric against metric, capturing the record of the team winning the series.  Over all teams, there was too much noise, but when there is a separation, then there is a clear dichotomy:  teams with superior pitching and fielding metrics won the vast majority of the time, and the teams with superior offense was still noisy, basically .500.

Thus both studies found that if you want to go deep into the playoffs, you do so with superior pitching and fielding.

When I have time again (again, don't know when), I'm going to find a good collection of data to use for the analysis, maybe BP if it is still free, since they seem to standardize the metrics for historical comparison, in which case, I would try to find some AI/Machine Learning tool to try to cluster teams together, or if no such standardized dataset exists for free, I'll reduplicate the FG study using FG data set, probably, which was relatively easy to duplicate, just comparing common team metrics for each playoff pairing, then finding a level of separation that looks at the most separated teams.  I hope to learn how to use a cloud data analytics tool at some point, particularly AI/ML, so whenever that happens.

I'm also open to ideas for my next project.  Just suggest them below.  Or if you ever have any questions on the current Giants team that you would like to see answered, just comment on any blog post, and that comment would be sent to me, and I'll see what I can quickly do.  I'll be around, but I can't guarantee when I'll be able to take on an interesting question, but if I have time, I'll be sure to chip in, and if not, say that I'm busy, maybe later.

I wish health to everyone, stay safe, all the best to you all!  I'll see you on Twitter occasionally.  Take care and thank you for reading.