Your 2017 Playoff Guide: Beat LA!

Obviously, really late, but I had to post this title!  Short rumination on the playoffs rooting interests for this Giants fan.  Plus, as usual, then I expanded to touch on the starting pitching.

[P.S. I added during lunch time of October 24, 2017]

Your 2017 Giants: Melancon signed to 4 years, $62M contract to be Closer

It has been tweeted by a number of places, here is the link to MLBTR which captures all the twists and turns, and details of the deal:  4 years, $62M.  Detail of the contract, per Jeff Passan tweets:   $17M first two years, with player opt-out after two seasons, and it is front loaded with $20M signing bonus, $12M upfront ($8M second year), and guaranteed $34M ($4M and $10M salaries) over first two years.  And if he opts into last two years, they are at $14M each (low, so if he's still closing well, he most likely will opt out).   I'll place more in the comments if there are any more.  Of course, pending his passing a physical with the Giants, but this is generally a gimme, it is generally a done deal by this point.

This easily breaks the record 4 years, $50M that Papelbon got as a closer, but will be easily beat by both Chapman and Jensen when they sign their contracts.   Also, it will put the Giants over the new $195M spending threshold, meaning a third year of overage, which equals a 50% tax on the overage.  I'll calc what my spreadsheet says about this, but this seems about right, there was not a lot of space left in the budget, hence why the Giants are talking about going with Williamson and Parker in LF.  Plus, if a good enough LF in the $1-3M range falls to them in Jan/Feb, I assume that they will take a flier, like they did with Huff in 2010.

Wicked Witch of the West: The Empire Returns

Wow, Boston and LA pulled off the huge trade. as reported by MLB Trade Rumors:  LA receives Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford, and Nick Punto for James Loney and four prospects, Rubby de la Rosa, Alan Webster, Ivan De Jesus, and Jerry Sands.   Apparently Toronto screwed with the deal by claiming Rubby, so he was pulled off waivers and will be traded as a player to be named later in the off-season to complete the trade.  MLB Trade Rumors also provided their take on the prospects.

They also followed up with a post on future obligations.  $189M in 2013 and that does not include arbitration eligible players or pre-arb players (in particular, Clayton Kershaw).   Wow, all the talk about Yankees West appears to be coming true.

Your 2012 Giants: Closer by Committee (or Moving Back One Inning?)

Wow, changes were even more drastic than I originally thought.  As reported by all the usual suspects in the SF Bay Area media (here's Schulman's since he originally broke the implications of Affeldt closing first), Santiago Casilla is out as part of the closer by committee scheme that was the apparently impetus for Schulman's spot-on speculation that the Mijares move was tied to having Affeldt being put in closing situations.

The reasoning is still the same, that blister issues is affecting Casilla's effectiveness, but his issues apparently are worse than initially mentioned because he warmed up early in yesterday's game (7th) and was almost immediately shut down due to the blister issue.  I would guess that maybe once he gets healthy, he'll be moved into a more prominent role, but for now, they are resting him as much as possible without DLing him so that he can get healthy while still being available occasionally for bullpen duties.

Instead, for the closer-by-committee scheme, Bochy will now mix and match Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo, and Javier Lopez in the 8th and 9th, with Casilla, Hensley, Kontos, Penny, Mijares handling 6th and 7th, mostly (though clearly getting some late game work, for Penny was seen warming up in last night's game in the 9th).  They say (that is, Affeldt spoke for everyone) that once Bochy explained things, they understood their roles and is behind this closer by committee situation (even though Affeldt had said at the start of this season that he wasn't sure how it works).

The way it works is by matchups, so depending on who is coming up, Bochy might use Romo first one night, Affeldt first another night, Lopez first on some nights, and the mix and matching begins.

The Mystery of Mijares

The Giants were awarded Jose Mijares, handy and productive LOOGY, formerly of the KC Royals (Schulman).  Hank posited that this was related to a move to a closer by committee situation, and he was spot on, as the Giants reported that with Santiago Casilla's blister problem affecting his performance previously, they need to use him more sparingly, in order not to cause the blister to return, so they are going to start using Jeremy Affeldt more often in the closer role.

The curious part of this transaction is that the Royals just handed him over to the Giants, no prospects asked for, and further, none of the teams ahead of the Giants (first all of AL, then NL teams with worse records, which is most of the NL) laid any claim on him first.  So the question is:  what's wrong with Mijares that none of these 20 teams didn't lay claim on him?

Wouldn't It Be Nice if Brian Wilson Was Our Closer?

Just had to post that. Brian Wilson earned his first save of the 2007 season, second of his MLB career, yesterday. His pitching this year is probably close to what we are going to see during his career, not that many hits given up, but a lot of walks and strikeouts, and probably a lot of saves too. I think he's going to be good, but he's still got to work on his control so that he doesn't walk that many. But given the paucity of closer candidates in our farm system, I think we should just let him take over and see how it goes.

Hennessey Has Been Good

However, that's not fair to Hennessey, who jumped in and has done a credible job as the closer since Benitez was traded. While Hennessey's K-rate is nothing to write home about, he has had excellent control, leading to a good K/BB ratio while in the closer role (heck, it was good even before). Since taking over, he has 11 saves in 29 games, 30.1 IP, 2.97 ERA, 29 H, 10 R/ER, 9 BB, 19 SO, 2 HR, .259/.325/.402/.727 batting line against. That's pretty good, though ideally he would have more K's and a better K/SO, but at least that's over 2 (2.11 but ideally over 2.4).

The Future is Now: Wilson is the Future

I guess he deserves to finish the year out as closer, but I would rather look to the future at this point. We all knew going into the season that Wilson was going to be THE closer at some point, so shift Hennessey back to his set-up position, where he did great at, and let Wilson close. The future is now, let's see what Wilson can do with the job.

Closer Du Jour

The Chronicle today had some interesting news from Brian Sabean about our future closer. To wit, he said that he hopes to pluck his 2008 closer from the current staff and not purse one via free agency or trade: "We would hope so, whether it's Brad Hennessey or someone else as the rest of this season unfolds. It could be the best way to go because we all know how fallible you can be in acquiring a closer.

Towards that end, the Giants will use the rest of 2007 to evaluate Hennessey and Randy Messenger as candidates. This is because "they're both durable and they're both strike throwers." That's always a good characteristic of a pitcher, durable and strike thrower: probably won't last very long if you aren't either. :^)

BPV is the metric Ron Shandler uses to evaluate a pitcher's overall performance. Closers ideally should have BPV greater than 100. Brad Hennessey currently has a 72 BPV and Randy Messenger has 48. Kevin Correia is 46. Vinnie Chulk is 43. Jack Taschner is 51. Hello, Jonathan Sanchez has a BPV of 91. Sanchez appears to be the most qualified to be a closer in this bunch.

The article also mentions a scary item in there: Matt Cain, future closer? There are some (koff - idiots - koff) on the Giants who believe he has the stuff and bulldog attitude to become another Jonathan Papelbon. Hello, he has the stuff and bulldog attitude to be an ace pitcher on the staff, a nice duo with Lincecum, to knock other team's sox off in the playoffs, as I will show soon in a post.

Of course, if we can't find a good closer, perhaps that won't be so crazy an idea in the future, as long as we have a strong rotation overall already. But right now, we only have Cain and Lincecum as ace starters. I love Lowry, but he's a #2 starter in production, though he can dominate in August - if he could do that every month, he could be an ace, heck, he would lead the league.

Plus, why not go with Sanchez instead? He's even more of a fireballer, striking out many more than Cain and he doesn't have the repertoire for a starter yet. Plus his BPV is 91, very near the magic 100 that you want to see in a closer. Just a thought...

Cain Returns!

Speaking of Cain, many have been worried about his drop in strikeouts this year (and rightfully so; I was wondering what was up too, I was worried he was injured or tired from too many pitches last season) and I heard something very interesting during the game. One of the announcers (Kruk I think) noted that Cain has been frustrated with his recent outings so he decided to go back to the way he pitched successfully last year: going for the strikeout, damn the pitch count.

Apparently he has been trying (unsuccessfully) to go longer in games by trying to reduce his pitch count by reducing his strikeouts. That would explain, obviously, his reduction in strikeouts, but also explains his rise in walks (not that he wasn't too much of a walker before) because he was probably nibbling and trying to get the hitters to hit grounders early in the count, but ended up just giving free balls to too many batters, putting him behind in the count.

Well, he was successful today. 7.0 IP, 6 hits, 3 runs/ER, 2 walks, 7 strikeouts, 1 HR, 121 pitches, 74 of them for strikes. That is a 5 PQS game, a dominating start again for him. It was around now that he went on that dominating run of starts last year, so here's hoping he just loves August pitching, much like Lowry and his dominating runs in August.

Cain last year in August: 6 starts, 2.65 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, .234 BAA, 47 K/15 BB (over 3.0 ratio, which is stupendous), 11.3 K/9, 3.6 BB/9 (not great - you want it under 3.0 - but much improved for him).

Lowry for his career in August: 16 starts, 2.33 ERA, 0.99 WHIP, .197 BAA, his only 2 career shutouts, 94 K/33 BB (nearly 3.0 ratio, which, as noted, is stupendous), 7.3 K/9, 2.6 BB/9.

Why anyone would convert someone who can start like that into a closer is beyond me. Sure, a dominating closer can be just as valuable as an ace starter sometimes, but look at the Braves, they let Smoltz start again when he was totally dominating as a closer, and they have been going through a closer conga line since then trying to find an adequate replacement.

We have plenty of pitchers with closer potential in the minors: Brian Wilson, Billy Sadler, Brian Anderson, Merkin Valdez, to name the most prominent ones. Plus Foppert, Griffin, Joaquin are high strikeout pitchers in our farm system. Not every closer material pitcher can start, why waste a pitcher who can be very dominating like Cain as a starter, when we should try all these other candidates (plus others on the rise, Henry Sosa is getting a name for himself) first before considering that.

Plus as long as we are developing and not fighting for a championship, as we appear to be in 2008, just keep him where he is comfortable and, more importantly, wants to be doing. If the team is competitive in the 2009-2012 range and in need of a closer and have plenty of starters, then maybe, but I would still lean towards using someone else as closer instead of Cain. Ridiculous.

Closer du Jour: Hennessey Hits the Spot

As announced on sfgiants.com, Bochy said that Brad Hennessey will be the Giants' first option to close. It was noted that he was a logical successor because he had emerged as the Giants' top setup reliever and had recorded two saves.

In addition:

Bochy added that he might resort to a closer-by-committee system if he feels strongly that another reliever matches up favorably against an opposing lineup or if Hennessey needs rest.

Kevin Correia, Russ Ortiz and Jack Taschner were the pitchers Bochy named to compose that committee. Entering Friday, Correia had recorded a 1.26 ERA in his previous 11 outings, Ortiz was unscored upon in five innings spanning three relief outings, and Taschner has limited opponents to a .192 batting average.

So Hennessey's the closer, except when he's not the closer. Sounds fair enough, basically he gets first dibs to close whenever there is no compelling reason for another reliever to be used instead of him. And these relievers will get a chance to show what they can do in the closer role and allow Bochy to evaluate everyone without a true closer by committee scenario/mess. It will be interesting what happens the first time there is 3 lefties coming to bat with no history with anyone, will Hennessey get the call or Taschner?

And obviously, the title is written in pencil on masking tape, if Hennessey should disappoint at any point for an extended period, the situation will be fluid enough that one of those three might take over. Plus even if he is doing OK, if one of the three just suddenly is getting everyone out, Hennessey might find himself getting more rest than usual.

Particularly since Ortiz has a lot of history with a lot of batters in the league, whereas Hennessey, Correia, and Taschner have very little history with any of the batters. Given his long period of success as a starter, there will be a lot of batters who did not do well against him and Bochy might give him the call over the others to close out a game. I assume this is the out that allows Bochy to use Ortiz more if he proves that he can close again like he did when he was in the minors and college.

Tell Me Something I Didn't Know: Ortiz to Return to Bullpen

The Giants have announced that Ortiz will be coming back to the major league roster in the bullpen. Which is not surprising given how well Lincecum has been doing in the majors and, before that, the minors. As I've been beating the drums on, this helps the Giants bullpen greatly by adding another experienced arm in there, particularly one with closer experience, so perhaps he can beef up the setup situation - not that Hennessey hasn't been very good in that role, but rather that now we should have two very good options to go to in those situations.

However, his role is up in the air right now, could be long relief, could be other situations, according to the article. I think it's going to be like April when Bochy was trying to figure how where everyone's strengths and weaknesses are, and how they respond to certain roles. Ortiz will find himself doing everything, long, short, middle, setup, perhaps even close if Benitez has been used often. As I noted, I hope for him to assert a strong role in the bullpen, perhaps even usurping Hennessey's role.

If he can do that, then he might become the closer we were looking for in spring to take it away from Benitez. I'm hoping the skills he showed before as closer will come to the fore now and he can "close" in setup situations and occassionally in actual closing situations. This would give the Giants an option in case they decide that they want to trade away Benitez - to get something for all the trouble he has caused to the franchise - when there are some desperate teams looking for bullpen help (and you know there will be a number of them) - and maybe pick up a good bat somewhere.

It would also give us an option to go to looking forward should Wilson continue to struggle with his control in AAA Fresno, because there's no way in hell Benitez should be re-signed. But then what do we do for closer if Wilson is not ready? Hennessey has been nice, but I don't look at him right now and think "closer!" And I know Giants fans probably think the same about Ortiz and his penchant to walk guys, but at least he's been in the closer's role before, been very successful doing that, is known to the organization, and should be cheap again next season because the D-backs are still on the hook for $6-7M for the 2008 season, if I remember right.

Who Can It Be Now?

The Giants is being coy about what would happen once Ortiz returns because that will result in someone being sent down. The most obvious choice to me is to send Sanchez back down and become the starter that he should be, so that he can be ready to compete for a starting role next season - or perhaps prove that he belongs in the bullpen. Either way, he hasn't been doing that well in the bullpen up here anyhow.

If the Giants were to go in another direction, there are really only two choices that I can see among the position players: Ortmeier and Frandsen. Given all the blab about how Frandsen was going to come back up quickly and get a lot more play, plus Durham's and Aurilia's recent minor ache and pain that kept them out of the lineup, it would seem that it would not make sense to send back Frandsen.

Meanwhile, Ortmeier is replaceable on the roster. Sweeney and Klesko can play LF, Winn and Lewis can play CF and RF, plus we have already seen Sweeney take RF this season, have seen Feliz in RF a couple of years ago, plus have seen Frandsen take a game or two in the OF as well. Plus Durham could probably do a game in CF without problems as well, people have been talking about how he should be a CF since before he joined the Giants.

Also, look at how little he has been used since both he and Lewis joined the team. Of course, Lewis's hot streak probably has a lot to do with that, but Ortmeier also came up and hit the ground hitting as well. But he still sat, even though there has been a number of LHP starters that Lewis could have been sat down for and allow Ortmeier a turn in RF. So Ortmeier looks like the most logical choice among the position players to send down.

Given the innings the bullpen has been throwing recently, it would seem to make sense to send down Ortmeier, particularly with all the other possible OFs who could play in a pinch and the lack of usage he has been experiencing when Lewis could have sat a game or two to allow Ortmeier an opportunity. But Lewis has grasped the golden opportunity and rung the bell.

I still would prefer to send Sanchez down now. There's still around 3 months left in the minor league season, so he can ramp up his innings pitched and get his arm into starter mode. Also, this stops the ticking on his major league service, so that we don't waste it on bad relief outings and instead on good starts 2008 and beyond. This gives Ortiz more opportunity to throw in the bullpen, as there would be one less option.

Why I Like Ortmeier

Also, I like Ortmeier. As recently as one year ago, he was still considered a prospect who could be a starting corner OF. I believe that playing in Dodd Stadium for the Connecticut Defenders has screwed around with his confidence and that, given time, could return to that state in which he was a good prospect. I think if he can get some extended play in the majors, much like the Giants were going to do for Linden this year, he can become that player again. After all, there must have been something there that Bonds liked a lot for him to help him out in spring training (beyond a photo-op; I don't see Bonds doing something like that to court favor, otherwise he would have kissed up to reporters long ago) when he could have helped out other prospects but didn't.

And what's there not to like? He has double-digit power and, more importantly, he has basepath smarts, which he has converted into a lot of steals, unusual for a big man like him, he could get double-digits in steals as a starter. Thus he would give the Giants a stolen base threat on the bench, which we currently don't have with Klesko, Sweeney, Frandsen, and Alfonzo on the bench (and Linden previously). Thus he would be ideal as Bonds's designated pinch-runner/defensive replacement, then throw him a few bones by giving him starts when Bonds rests.

Like Linden, he was mainly a corner OF but once the Giants started thinking of him as a utility guy, he started getting starts in CF in AAA, and thus could play all OF positions. And he's a switch-hitter too, so he would be useful in pinch-hitting assignments. Besides, once Roberts returns from the DL, he's a platoon guy but Fred Lewis bats left so he would not make sense as a guy to get starts when there is a LHP; however, Ortmeier would. So why not keep him up and get him acclimated to the 5th OF role that Linden was suppose to occupy?