BABIP is Batting Average on Balls In Play, and every hitter has their own level of skill in maintaining that batting average. People could periodically try to develop an estimator. Someone associated with Fangraphs gave it a try (here is the article) using BIS batted ball data. The idea is that tying the likely results given where and how a ball is hit to develop what should have happened given the batted ball would give us a better idea of the underlying BABIP skill of the hitter. The author provided a link in his article to the data, and below is my thoughts on Giants players and select NL West hitters.
Showing posts with label D-Rox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label D-Rox. Show all posts
Friday, May 08, 2015
Monday, September 17, 2012
Your 2012 Giants Magic Number is 9 With a Four Gamer Against Colorado
Wow, could not be better set up: the Giants want to reduce their magic number by a lot and we get to face the Rockies for four games, against their 4-man rotation with 75 pitch limit experiment going on. It does not appear to be working, if you look at the probable pitching matchups, their pitchers description notes how their pitchers are giving up at least 4 runs in their outings, this in spite of their limit on pitches, which generally has meant that they only pitch around 4-5 innings (4 or less when not doing well).
That's why I'm taking it easy with this series preview. Please go to the link above for the text I've been copying into my blog post, and you'll see the sad parade of Rockies starting pitchers, in fact, we get to see their whole rotation, versus our top four starters right now, Bumgarner, Lincecum, Cain, and the amazing Zito, who is pitching his way in (and Vogelsong pitching his way out) of the playoff roster. If we don't win this series, then we got problems bigger than figuring out the playoff rotation.
The Rockies are 5-10 in September and sinking like a rock, though I would note that they actually had a winning month in August, so that is a surprise (16-13) but an anomaly, as they were 10-18 in May, 9-18 in June, 7-17 in July. In fact, it was their only winning month of the season, so the rotation was working for that month before letting down in September. They also dealt the remaining division title contenders a blow at home, winning three straight series against LA, SD, and SF in August. However, that was after a post-ASB malaise, losing series against Phillies, Pirates, Reds, Cards, Giants, before straightening out in the next homestand, winning 5 of 7. Their winning month was built on sweeping the Brewers and Mets, basically, plus winning a series in LA.
And they have helped greatly in getting the Giants into the position where they are now: they are 5-6 against AZ, 8-7 against LA, but 4-10 against SF. They are responsible for 2.5 games of our lead over AZ and 3.5 games of our lead over LA. And with these four games, perhaps more.
I'll cover the Giants pitching since that is our rooting interest.
Madison Bumgarner has a 1.04 ERA against Colorado in 4 starts at home. 22 K, 6 BB, in 26.0 IP, excellent ratios there, so that dominance was earned. But wow, lots of them have hit Madison well (in Colorado clearly), Car-Gon (1.213 OPS in 25 PA), Pacheco (.357/.357/.429/.786 in 14 PA), Rosario (.300/.364/.500/.864 in 11 PA), Nelson (.556/.556/.556/1.111 in 9 PA), Colvin (2 for 6 with triple), Rutledge (.833 OPS in 6 PA due to HR), McBride (2 for 4). The question seems more like who HASN'T hit him well in his career. Yet his sterling record against them at home, clearly not against this bunch of Rockies, they battered Bumgarner in Coors, clearly.
Tim Lincecum has a 3.16 ERA against the Rockies in 9 starts in SF. Of course, history does not mean as much since Timmy is different this season than prior seasons, though better now than earlier in the season. Car-Gon (1.027 OPS in 44 PA), Rosario (.667/.778/.1.500/2.278; wow, 4 for 6, two doubles, HR, 3 walks, only one K, he has owned Big Time Jimmy Tim), Nelso (2 for 3 with 2 walks), else he has done OK but not shutdown with others.
Matt Cain has a 3.24 ERA in 16 starts against the Rockies at home. He has walked a lot of Rockies, so his good ERA looks overstated as to his dominance, but after 16 starts, that pretty much means that what you see is what you get, he just dominates them in SF. And he owns Car-Gon (.133/.250/.133/.383 in 36 PA) and most of their lineup. Francis, who is a pitcher, is the only hitter with more than 4 PA to have a good OPS against him. But LeMahieu was 2 for 3 with a HR for a great batting line (probably in Colorado, though).
Barry Zito brings up the rear, literally and figuratively, but not against the Rockies, he has a 2.05 ERA in 9 starts and 1 relief appearance against the Rockies in SF. He has 55 strikeouts and only 19 walks for a stellar 2.9 K/BB ratio, in 65.2 IP. And he just owns them, he has a 2.59 ERA in Colorado, probably one of the few pitchers in history to do that, and he has had 8 starts and 1 relief appearance there, so it is no fluke, there will always be a pitcher who seems to own a team and they appear to be his bitch. Still, he does have trouble with certain hitters: Car-Gon (surprise, surprise: .308/.333/.500/.833 in 27 PA), Giambi (old teammate has owned him, .235/.480/.647/1.127 in 25 PA), Hernandez (another old teammate, .333/.455/.444/.899), plus Colvin (2 for 4 with HR), Pacheco (2 for 4), Rutledge (1 for 3, double), and LeMahieu (1 for 1, with walk).
And this will be a test of Bochy's theory, in an interview yesterday, that home has hurt the Giants offense more than the opposition. The lineup appears to be pretty steady now, set mostly in stone from up top, barring injuries, so it should be a fair enough test (though obviously small samples). Can they continue that well-oiled offensive weapon that they exhibited on the road? I think if Sandoval and Pence can start hitting, everything will be fine, the offense would continue to carry the team during this homestand. When you got a hit parade going, it could be like that conga-line scoring scene in the classic Bugs Bunny baseball short.
ogc Thoughts
I actually like the Rockies' pitching rotation idea. Pitchers usually kill in their first couple of times though the rotation, it is usually after that gets to some, as they begin to tire, as well as get familiar to the hitters. Also, by limiting the pitches, you free the pitcher for two positives, one is that he does not have to save as much for later, so presumably you can hump it up like a reliever and get more strikeouts, and the other is that you forcefully change the pitcher's thinking to focus on not getting the strikeout, but being more efficient in getting out of innings, as the less pitches you throw in an innings, the deeper into the game the starting pitcher could go. On top of that, relievers tend to be better than starters (due to the lack of need to save it for later), so if you put that together, that theoretically should yield better games pitched.
However, it has not worked out in execution for them. I think that this scheme might take a while to get used to, which takes them out of their routine, causing poorer results early on, then as to their recent problems, well, it can only work so well against better, more talented playoff contending teams. Plus, they have been losing for a long time, even before this scheme, meaning they aren't all that good, though I would note that they did have their only winning month of the season, August (16-13), using this rotation. I'm not sure when it started, but it would be interesting to track the Rockies record since it started. Oh, and I just noticed, they went to a five man rotation when Chacin rejoined the rotation on August 21st.
Looking at their games rest stats in baseball-reference.com's game log for pitchers, it appears that they first started up the 4 man rotation scheme on June 23rd. Assuming that was the beginning of their journey, they were 36-59 at that point, .379 winning percentage, but have been 22-28 since, .440 winning percentage. That was a 61 game seasonal win rate before, versus a 71 game seasonal win rate after. They actually reached 18-18 on September 2nd with their win over San Diego, but then lost series to the Braves (3 of 4), Phillies (swept in 3), Giants and SD. And they benefited by sweeping the Brewers and Mets in August (3 and 4 games, respectively).
Either way, I see this as a win for them (much like I was advocating for lesser prospects like Ortmeier to get starts back a few years ago, which MCC-ites didn't understand). If it works out, you have another weapon you can use, another tactic. If it don't work out, you lose a lot of games, which sets you up nicely for good draft position in the following draft. That is how teams should approach rebuilding, people think that prospects like Ortmeier are not worth the try but at that point of the rebuilding, you find out for sure that he's not really all that, give him a shot, and you win either way.
They currently have the third worse record in the majors, and 6 games "ahead" of Miami, who holds the 6th draft pick right now, so they are pretty much assured of getting a Top 5 pick in the draft, which should be the goal of any team suffering from a losing season. Once you know you are out of it, you should tank the season as best as you can without losing the ticket buying public, so that you can get into a Top 5 draft pick slot, where the odds are best for finding a good player, from my study of the draft.
Magic Nine
The Giants magic number is 9 and could be chopped at least almost in half with a win in the series (which means at least 3 wins plus assuming LA lose at least one game against the Nats in DC, where they have a stellar 44-27 record). Even if the Giants split (drop 2 off the magic number), given how poorly LA has played A.M. (After Melky) and how well the Nats have played, they look likely to lose two in D.C., which would also give us a drop of 4 off the magic number after this series, reducing us to a magic number of 5 after this series. So I would be disappointed if the magic number did not drop to at least 6, and I think we have reasonable expectations that 5 is relatively easily attainable too. And that should just about eliminate the D-backs in this series.
Right now, if the playoff rotation was to be selected now, I can see the Giants bringing along all five starters, but that the playoff rotation will only have the first three starters written in stone, Bumgarner, Lincecum, Cain. If game 4 was a potential loser for us, I can see Bochy pushing Bumgarner to start with less rest between starts; else, I would see Zito starting, with Bumgarner in the deciding 5th game.
However, I expect Bochy to fiddle around with the rotation when it comes time for the playoffs, should we make it in. Particularly since the rest for the division winners get in order to allow the wild card teams to play for a playoff spot. If we go by seasonal ERA, it would be Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Zito. But if you go by ERA after the ASB, it would be Lincecum, Bumgarner, Cain, Zito. I have to think Bochy will go with his 2010 rotation of Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner to start, then Zito or Vogelsong or Lincecum for the 4th game, depending on the situation and how his gut feels (and he has a good gut, one of the few managers in major league history to be statistically significantly above .500 in 1-run games, from my estimation).
Rosterbation
One of the beat writers note that Bochy will have a hard job winnowing down the current 37 man roster to the 25-man playoff roster, but I think most of the spots are already taken.
For the pitching, it is really easy, I think these pitchers already have spots: Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Romo, Lopez, Affeldt, Casilla, Kontos, Mota, Mijares, and Hensley should get one if he pitches effectively in the rest of the season, as he was very good until he went bad. That's 11 spots right there.
Among the position players, the lineup is assured: Pagan, Scutaro, Sandoval, Posey, Pence, Belt, plus Crawford and Arias at SS, and Blanco and Nady in LF. That's 10. Then the bench of Sanchez and Theriot, and Huff also looks like he has earned a spot with his great hitting off the bench. That's 13 spots for the position players. And barring injury (and that is a potential question, as Blanco has a bad shoulder, Pagan a bad back, Sandoval has had hamstring problems, Nady too, plus Huff is a big question mark period), I don't see who else might get a spot, maybe Pill, but at this moment, nobody else has really shown enough to warrant a deep look, these are the 13, unless the Giants want to carry more pitchers, but even there, there is not that many borderline choices.
That leaves one spot that is in question, and it is most likely a pitcher.
So I don't think that it is all that hard a task to reduce the roster down, for the majority of the players in the mix are not really contenders for a spot. I would say that it will come down to Zito vs. Vogelsong for the last spot, with Vogelsong getting the nod for general excellence and experience relieving, but that if he can't get back to a semblance of good pitching in his final starts of the season, Zito probably wins that spot, as he has spot relieved before, and, in fact, volunteered for one with the Giants.
And if both are pitching well by the time the playoffs come, I can possibly see Hensley being pushed out of a playoff roster spot to accommodate both of them on the roster. As nicely as Hensley has done, even when he was performing well, his walk rate was sky high.
That's why I'm taking it easy with this series preview. Please go to the link above for the text I've been copying into my blog post, and you'll see the sad parade of Rockies starting pitchers, in fact, we get to see their whole rotation, versus our top four starters right now, Bumgarner, Lincecum, Cain, and the amazing Zito, who is pitching his way in (and Vogelsong pitching his way out) of the playoff roster. If we don't win this series, then we got problems bigger than figuring out the playoff rotation.
The Rockies are 5-10 in September and sinking like a rock, though I would note that they actually had a winning month in August, so that is a surprise (16-13) but an anomaly, as they were 10-18 in May, 9-18 in June, 7-17 in July. In fact, it was their only winning month of the season, so the rotation was working for that month before letting down in September. They also dealt the remaining division title contenders a blow at home, winning three straight series against LA, SD, and SF in August. However, that was after a post-ASB malaise, losing series against Phillies, Pirates, Reds, Cards, Giants, before straightening out in the next homestand, winning 5 of 7. Their winning month was built on sweeping the Brewers and Mets, basically, plus winning a series in LA.
And they have helped greatly in getting the Giants into the position where they are now: they are 5-6 against AZ, 8-7 against LA, but 4-10 against SF. They are responsible for 2.5 games of our lead over AZ and 3.5 games of our lead over LA. And with these four games, perhaps more.
I'll cover the Giants pitching since that is our rooting interest.
Madison Bumgarner has a 1.04 ERA against Colorado in 4 starts at home. 22 K, 6 BB, in 26.0 IP, excellent ratios there, so that dominance was earned. But wow, lots of them have hit Madison well (in Colorado clearly), Car-Gon (1.213 OPS in 25 PA), Pacheco (.357/.357/.429/.786 in 14 PA), Rosario (.300/.364/.500/.864 in 11 PA), Nelson (.556/.556/.556/1.111 in 9 PA), Colvin (2 for 6 with triple), Rutledge (.833 OPS in 6 PA due to HR), McBride (2 for 4). The question seems more like who HASN'T hit him well in his career. Yet his sterling record against them at home, clearly not against this bunch of Rockies, they battered Bumgarner in Coors, clearly.
Tim Lincecum has a 3.16 ERA against the Rockies in 9 starts in SF. Of course, history does not mean as much since Timmy is different this season than prior seasons, though better now than earlier in the season. Car-Gon (1.027 OPS in 44 PA), Rosario (.667/.778/.1.500/2.278; wow, 4 for 6, two doubles, HR, 3 walks, only one K, he has owned Big Time Jimmy Tim), Nelso (2 for 3 with 2 walks), else he has done OK but not shutdown with others.
Matt Cain has a 3.24 ERA in 16 starts against the Rockies at home. He has walked a lot of Rockies, so his good ERA looks overstated as to his dominance, but after 16 starts, that pretty much means that what you see is what you get, he just dominates them in SF. And he owns Car-Gon (.133/.250/.133/.383 in 36 PA) and most of their lineup. Francis, who is a pitcher, is the only hitter with more than 4 PA to have a good OPS against him. But LeMahieu was 2 for 3 with a HR for a great batting line (probably in Colorado, though).
Barry Zito brings up the rear, literally and figuratively, but not against the Rockies, he has a 2.05 ERA in 9 starts and 1 relief appearance against the Rockies in SF. He has 55 strikeouts and only 19 walks for a stellar 2.9 K/BB ratio, in 65.2 IP. And he just owns them, he has a 2.59 ERA in Colorado, probably one of the few pitchers in history to do that, and he has had 8 starts and 1 relief appearance there, so it is no fluke, there will always be a pitcher who seems to own a team and they appear to be his bitch. Still, he does have trouble with certain hitters: Car-Gon (surprise, surprise: .308/.333/.500/.833 in 27 PA), Giambi (old teammate has owned him, .235/.480/.647/1.127 in 25 PA), Hernandez (another old teammate, .333/.455/.444/.899), plus Colvin (2 for 4 with HR), Pacheco (2 for 4), Rutledge (1 for 3, double), and LeMahieu (1 for 1, with walk).
And this will be a test of Bochy's theory, in an interview yesterday, that home has hurt the Giants offense more than the opposition. The lineup appears to be pretty steady now, set mostly in stone from up top, barring injuries, so it should be a fair enough test (though obviously small samples). Can they continue that well-oiled offensive weapon that they exhibited on the road? I think if Sandoval and Pence can start hitting, everything will be fine, the offense would continue to carry the team during this homestand. When you got a hit parade going, it could be like that conga-line scoring scene in the classic Bugs Bunny baseball short.
ogc Thoughts
I actually like the Rockies' pitching rotation idea. Pitchers usually kill in their first couple of times though the rotation, it is usually after that gets to some, as they begin to tire, as well as get familiar to the hitters. Also, by limiting the pitches, you free the pitcher for two positives, one is that he does not have to save as much for later, so presumably you can hump it up like a reliever and get more strikeouts, and the other is that you forcefully change the pitcher's thinking to focus on not getting the strikeout, but being more efficient in getting out of innings, as the less pitches you throw in an innings, the deeper into the game the starting pitcher could go. On top of that, relievers tend to be better than starters (due to the lack of need to save it for later), so if you put that together, that theoretically should yield better games pitched.
However, it has not worked out in execution for them. I think that this scheme might take a while to get used to, which takes them out of their routine, causing poorer results early on, then as to their recent problems, well, it can only work so well against better, more talented playoff contending teams. Plus, they have been losing for a long time, even before this scheme, meaning they aren't all that good, though I would note that they did have their only winning month of the season, August (16-13), using this rotation. I'm not sure when it started, but it would be interesting to track the Rockies record since it started. Oh, and I just noticed, they went to a five man rotation when Chacin rejoined the rotation on August 21st.
Looking at their games rest stats in baseball-reference.com's game log for pitchers, it appears that they first started up the 4 man rotation scheme on June 23rd. Assuming that was the beginning of their journey, they were 36-59 at that point, .379 winning percentage, but have been 22-28 since, .440 winning percentage. That was a 61 game seasonal win rate before, versus a 71 game seasonal win rate after. They actually reached 18-18 on September 2nd with their win over San Diego, but then lost series to the Braves (3 of 4), Phillies (swept in 3), Giants and SD. And they benefited by sweeping the Brewers and Mets in August (3 and 4 games, respectively).
Either way, I see this as a win for them (much like I was advocating for lesser prospects like Ortmeier to get starts back a few years ago, which MCC-ites didn't understand). If it works out, you have another weapon you can use, another tactic. If it don't work out, you lose a lot of games, which sets you up nicely for good draft position in the following draft. That is how teams should approach rebuilding, people think that prospects like Ortmeier are not worth the try but at that point of the rebuilding, you find out for sure that he's not really all that, give him a shot, and you win either way.
They currently have the third worse record in the majors, and 6 games "ahead" of Miami, who holds the 6th draft pick right now, so they are pretty much assured of getting a Top 5 pick in the draft, which should be the goal of any team suffering from a losing season. Once you know you are out of it, you should tank the season as best as you can without losing the ticket buying public, so that you can get into a Top 5 draft pick slot, where the odds are best for finding a good player, from my study of the draft.
Magic Nine
The Giants magic number is 9 and could be chopped at least almost in half with a win in the series (which means at least 3 wins plus assuming LA lose at least one game against the Nats in DC, where they have a stellar 44-27 record). Even if the Giants split (drop 2 off the magic number), given how poorly LA has played A.M. (After Melky) and how well the Nats have played, they look likely to lose two in D.C., which would also give us a drop of 4 off the magic number after this series, reducing us to a magic number of 5 after this series. So I would be disappointed if the magic number did not drop to at least 6, and I think we have reasonable expectations that 5 is relatively easily attainable too. And that should just about eliminate the D-backs in this series.
Right now, if the playoff rotation was to be selected now, I can see the Giants bringing along all five starters, but that the playoff rotation will only have the first three starters written in stone, Bumgarner, Lincecum, Cain. If game 4 was a potential loser for us, I can see Bochy pushing Bumgarner to start with less rest between starts; else, I would see Zito starting, with Bumgarner in the deciding 5th game.
However, I expect Bochy to fiddle around with the rotation when it comes time for the playoffs, should we make it in. Particularly since the rest for the division winners get in order to allow the wild card teams to play for a playoff spot. If we go by seasonal ERA, it would be Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong, Zito. But if you go by ERA after the ASB, it would be Lincecum, Bumgarner, Cain, Zito. I have to think Bochy will go with his 2010 rotation of Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner to start, then Zito or Vogelsong or Lincecum for the 4th game, depending on the situation and how his gut feels (and he has a good gut, one of the few managers in major league history to be statistically significantly above .500 in 1-run games, from my estimation).
Rosterbation
One of the beat writers note that Bochy will have a hard job winnowing down the current 37 man roster to the 25-man playoff roster, but I think most of the spots are already taken.
For the pitching, it is really easy, I think these pitchers already have spots: Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Romo, Lopez, Affeldt, Casilla, Kontos, Mota, Mijares, and Hensley should get one if he pitches effectively in the rest of the season, as he was very good until he went bad. That's 11 spots right there.
Among the position players, the lineup is assured: Pagan, Scutaro, Sandoval, Posey, Pence, Belt, plus Crawford and Arias at SS, and Blanco and Nady in LF. That's 10. Then the bench of Sanchez and Theriot, and Huff also looks like he has earned a spot with his great hitting off the bench. That's 13 spots for the position players. And barring injury (and that is a potential question, as Blanco has a bad shoulder, Pagan a bad back, Sandoval has had hamstring problems, Nady too, plus Huff is a big question mark period), I don't see who else might get a spot, maybe Pill, but at this moment, nobody else has really shown enough to warrant a deep look, these are the 13, unless the Giants want to carry more pitchers, but even there, there is not that many borderline choices.
That leaves one spot that is in question, and it is most likely a pitcher.
So I don't think that it is all that hard a task to reduce the roster down, for the majority of the players in the mix are not really contenders for a spot. I would say that it will come down to Zito vs. Vogelsong for the last spot, with Vogelsong getting the nod for general excellence and experience relieving, but that if he can't get back to a semblance of good pitching in his final starts of the season, Zito probably wins that spot, as he has spot relieved before, and, in fact, volunteered for one with the Giants.
And if both are pitching well by the time the playoffs come, I can possibly see Hensley being pushed out of a playoff roster spot to accommodate both of them on the roster. As nicely as Hensley has done, even when he was performing well, his walk rate was sky high.
Monday, September 10, 2012
Your 2012 Giants are 79-61: Recking the Rockies
Sorry, but I got a lot of work, so this one will be a quickie. But once you see the stats, hopefully you can see why.
Friday, June 03, 2011
Your 2011 Giants are 31-25: Home at Last, Now Beat D-Rox
Wow, that trip was looking like it was going to be the worse. Losing Posey was obviously a huge downer and I was worried that the team would sleepwalk through the road trip because of that. And they did look a bit like that in Milwaukee losing 2 of 3, but then it appears now that Brandon Crawford's slam woke the team up a bit, and they came into St. Louis and won 3 of 4, ending their road trip with a 4-3 record, which is great for the road, as the vast majority of teams end up under .500 on the road for the season. Any winning road trip is a good accomplishment.
Now they get to play at home for a nice 10 game homestand and 16 of 22 at home, plus 3 of those road games are in Oakland, so you can make the case that they are home for 19 of the next 22 games. Playing on the road has been what has been keeping the Giants record down significantly relative to the other teams in the NL West: they have had only 21 at home vs. 35 on the road. They will get 10 of those games back now, bringing them close to 50-50, but still under by 4. Given how hurting their offense has been, yesterday's game notwithstanding, a 6-4 homestand would be nice to get.
And up first are the D-Rox.
Game 1: Nicasio vs. Cain
Juan Nicasio: Nicasio, displaying a mid-90s fastball and a fearlessness that impressed the Rockies' brass throughout his Minor League career, held the Cardinals to one unearned run in seven innings in his Major League debut -- a win last Saturday.
Matt Cain: After a solid early April, Cain is just 1-4 with a 4.80 ERA in his past eight starts. He acknowledges he is giving up too many two-out runs, including three in six innings in his last outing at Milwaukee.
Somehow, Nicasio was only the D-Rox's 8th best prospect according to Baseball America's pre-season rankings, but his numbers in the minors have been amazing. Still, he was doing all that while just about at the average age for the league, so it's not like when Bumgarner was doing even better at a younger age, but still impressive, I think. Since he just had his first start and it was great, not really much to say other than he's a RHP and thus we will see our LHB lineup: Torres, Tejada, Sanchez, Huff, Schierholtz, Ross, Crawford, Whiteside.
Don't worry about Matt Cain. Again with the win-loss, but his ERA is totally inflated: his last 5 starts were DOM starts (where his PQS was 4 or 5), so he has been fine for the most part, just suffering from some bad baseball luck. And even when he is going good, he's going to pick apart what he is doing wrong. The Cainer is doing fine, thank you.
Still, fastball and fearlessness suggests that our offense might not do too much against him. Hopefully Huff is over his big contract and starting to be himself: four homers in two games is a pretty good start towards that.
However, Cain has been super this season so far, 78% DOM/9% DIS, that is what elite pitchers put up, and for elite pitchers, when they start, you expect to win. Give slight edge to Giants for Cain and playing at home, but I don't know how many times unknown pitcher comes in and shuts down the Giants (though they finally did nicely against the Cards' unknown pitcher yesterday).
Game 2: Chacin vs. Bumgarner
Jhoulys Chacin: Chacin was plagued by a rocky start in his last outing, giving up three runs on four hits in the first inning against the Cardinals. The right-hander has pitched well in his career against the Dodgers, posting a 4-3 record with a 2.40 ERA.
Madison Bumgarner: Bumgarner has recorded seven consecutive quality starts, posting an ERA of 2.12 in that stretch. Yet he believes he hasn't established full consistency. Bumgarner has struggled at home, where he's 0-2 with a 5.49 ERA.
Don't know why the guy is talking about the D-gers, Chacin is playing the Giants, dammit! :^) Chacin is arguably the D-Rox's best starter right now, he has continued doing what he did last season, which is spin great starts. He has had 5 straight DOM starts and has had only DIS start all season, out of 11 starts.
But he's facing Bumgarner, who has had a nice string of DOM starts since flailing early in the season. He has only pitched once in SF, spinning a great one-hit shutout for 7 IP. And he has held the Giants to a 3.21 ERA in Colorado as well. With so few outings, the best I can say is that Huff has 2 HR in 9 AB against him (also 3 K's).
This is going to be a battle between two great young pitchers with something to prove about taking on the other team's good pitchers. Should be a great battle, could go either way, a push.
Game 3: Hammel vs. Vogelsong
Jason Hammel: Hammel's hard-luck season took a worse turn in his last start, a loss to the Dodgers on Monday night. Hammel gave up 10 hits and seven runs in 4 2/3 innings, but most of the hits were of the soft variety.
Ryan Vogelsong: Vogelsong will be pleased to return to AT&T Park, where he has allowed one earned run in 23 2/3 innings spanning four appearances (three starts). That's a remarkable 0.38 ERA. Yet Vogelsong is only 1-1 at home due to insufficient run support.
Hammel has not really pitched that well on the road (or frankly, at home either) during this career. His nice season so far appears to be an improvement both home and road vs. career, but he's not really doing that well from a K/BB basis, so I have to think that he's been lucky so far on the road. He has pitched well in SF before, though, 4 starts, 2.66 ERA, 3.3 K/BB. And he pitched well here last season, 6.2 IP, 5 K's, 1 R/ER.
Vogelsong has been a miracle, plain and simple. He amazingly has kept up with the staff in terms of DOM/DIS and nothing in his current numbers suggest that this is an illusion, but his career numbers totally suggest that he is pitching way over this head right now. How can a pitcher who struggled so much in the minors last season that he got dropped by two teams suddenly become an elite starter (over 7 starts) at the major league level?
Well, I don't look gift horses in the mouth (Giants already have stated that Zito is not guaranteed a starting job when he returns, that he is pitching now to win that job back) and will assume he will continue to do well until he doesn't. I was going to call this game for the Giants because of how well Vogelsong has been pitching and my low opinion of Hammel, but it goes both ways, somehow Hammel has had the Giants number the past two seasons, so I'll have to call this a push also, with lean towards Giants for home advantage.
Giants Thoughts
We are now 4-4 in the post-Posey period (though much of that was on road so strong bias to .500), and luckily enough, Pablo Sandoval was impressive in his batting practice yesterday, so he'll be headed to San Jose today for a few games to get his timing back, then to Fresno for a couple there, before rejoining us. He could be back sometime next week then, depending on how it goes.
That could spell the end of the Miguel Tejada era, if you can even call it that, as he has not hit at all for any stretch of time, really. Crawford has shown a good enough offense (in fact, good so far) plus his sooo good of a defense (he was considered MLB ready defensively when he was drafted) that he's probably going to hold the starting job for at least until Panda returns and a while longer, probably, though he has cooled off considerably (I know SSS) since hitting a grand-slam homer in his first major league game (one of six in MLB history, second Giants after Bobby Bonds).
Still, Tejada most probably will be kept at least until the end of June, if I had to bet. As nicely as Burriss has done, he still hasn't hit one extra-base hit or a walk, so despite a nice .286 batting average, he has a horrible .572 OPS, which is not much more than what Tejada has been providing. So I think that Burriss is the one going down when Sandoval returns. However, if Crawford can continue hitting OK until Fontenot returns and Tejada continues to hit this poorly, Miguel could get DFAed at that point.
The Giants are leading the NL West by half a game but not over who anyone would have thought before the season: D-backs. Colorado is actually 4.5 games behind us and if we win this series, would push them further back. A sweep would put them back 7.5 games and put a real crimp on their contention plans, but unless Huff keeps on hitting so many homers, that's probably not going to happen.
D-backs Are Dyno-mite!
I was worried about the D-backs because they actually ended the 2010 season well (relatively) with Gibson managing them, and had a number of young starters doing well for them, though above their heads a bit. I considered them to dark horse to challenge the Giants because of that and because I thought the D-gers did not do enough to replace Manny's production (they haven't) plus Uribe, their big acquisition in the off-season, has mainly stunk for them and the 'Dres killed their chances to compete by trading A-Gon.
And really, their starting pitching has mostly stunk, so it was not even that pushing them upward right now. It is equal parts of nice starts from a trio unexpected to start for them - Joshua Collmenter, Zach Duke, and Micah Owings - and hitters doing better than expected - Juan Miranda, Ryan Roberts - plus a lights out bullpen. In fact, they already DFAed near-perfect-gamer Armando Galarraga and dropped Barry Enright from their rotation. And I have to think that Joe Saunders spot in the rotation is slipping away as well. That's three of their opening day starters.
It also helped that they swept the falling Astros on the road and swept the equally bad Twins at home. But I have to give them props for doing that to teams you hope to do that plus they also took two of two from the Braves, won series against the D-Rox (3 of 4!) and Marlins as well, in recent series. So it has not totally been flukes.
They have had a slight home advantage (3 more at home plus 3 more to make 6 above) that won't equalize until the All-Star break, so that has helped, as well as the Giants strong road schedule, so if things play out as it has been playing, the Giants should pull away from them a bit by the ASB. But they are playing a number of under .500 teams to then as well, so we will see how that plays out. Though luckily for us they are playing the Marlins, Indians, White Sox, and Cards as well, plus Giants. I think the Giants should be able to slowly move ahead as the home/road imbalance equals for the Giants.
Nicknames Are Cool With Me
I've seen some people say that they are sick of the nicknames, but then lump Panda into the mix. In the history of baseball, nicknames have made the game: it isn't quite the same if I'm talking about George Herman Ruth instead of Babe Ruth. And my youth wouldn't have been quite the same without John "the Count" Montefusco. And Panda came organically, as well as making a lot of sense, if you ever saw the Kung Fu Panda movie and heard a Sandoval interview.
The outrage, which I understand and agree with generally, is how some sportscasters have to force a nickname on almost every player. That I can live without. But don't diss the good ones, like Panda. And it creates great marketing too, I think, and remember: every panda hat sold means the Giants can do more with their baseball team.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Your 2011 Giants: Rocking D-Rox
The Giants pull off a series win in Arizona but fans are left with the bitter taste of "what if" when the Giants came within a number of outs of a sweep. It sucks when life twists like that but these fans didn't mind it so much when the Giants nearly lost the series to the D-gers or came within an eyelash of potentially losing the series to the Cards, as those could have twisted away from us as well, but instead twisted back to us. Can't win them all, we got a series win in a division foe's homepark. It's all good.
Now they face the rampaging D-Rox, 12-3 and leading the Giants by 4 games. They have benefited greatly from the rampaging Troy Tulozitski, 7 HR in 15 games, and the great offense from Jonathan Herrera (1.115 OPS vs. .695 from last season, and minors record unbesmirched by any good offensive stats) and Chris Iannetta (.992 OPS, is he finally figuring things out?), plus Jhoulys Chacin ace pitching so far, 1.64 ERA, but only 14 K's in 22.0 IP, suggesting he's also pitching above his abilities right now. Unless they think that Tulo is going to hit 75 HRs and Herrera suddenly becomes a hitting god, and Chacin can keep up a stellar ERA without a stellar K/9 rate or K/BB ratio, this should cool down eventually.
However, that does not mean that they will necessarily cool down for the Giants quite yet.
Game 1: Lincecum vs. Rogers
Should be Happy Lincecum Day, anything less would be a total disappointment and upset. He has a 3.86 ERA here, but in 8 career starts, 49.0 IP with 52 K's and only 21 BB's (2.48 K/BB is great, suggesting bad luck with his ERA so far in his park), a great 0.73 HR/9 here. Thus far this season, 1.86 ERA (below 2.00 ERA in regular season since he figured out his new slider), 3 starts, 19.1 IP, 22 K's vs. only 4 BB's (one IBB) for a stupendous 5.50 K/BB ratio (good pitchers > 2.0 K/BB, very good pitchers > 2.4). With his new slider plus great changeup, he has upped his K/9 back up, to 10.2, but more importantly pushed his BB/9 down to a stellar 1.9, whereas he was merely OK previously, maybe a little too wild (want BB/9 <= 3.0).
Game 2: Sanchez vs. Jimenez
Sanchez has a 4.46 ERA in 4 starts in Colorado, 5.26 ERA career, and his progress against them is exemplified by the drop in ERA against them over his career, culminating in a 6.0 IP shutout with 9 K's against them last season. He will need to do something close to that again if the Giants hope to win against Colorado on their Happy Ubaldo Day.
Ubaldo has numbers against the Giants that suggest that perhaps the rumor of the D-Rox screwing around with the humidor balls is true, as the Giants basically accused them of last season. We all know that Coors is a hitters park like no other in the history of baseball. Offensive numbers are skewed significantly upward, pitching numbers are skewed significantly worse too. Ubaldo actually has a much BETTER ERA against the Giants at home than in SF.
Assuming Jimenez is his normal self - I am wondering if his great first half of 2010 was just a fluke, his 3.80 ERA second half fits right in with his ERA in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, but his PQS was great in 2009 and 2010 (79% DOM/12% DIS in 2009, 82% DOM/6% DIS in 2010) suggesting a new plateau and rise to eliteness - Sanchez will have quite a battle on his hands. Sanchez's second half PQS results are almost Jimenez's equal (60%/13% and 67%/13%) but he has been horrible PQS-wise the past two first halves. Which Sanchez will show?
The Giants clearly needs the better Sanchez to show up got them to have a chance of beating the D-Rox and Jimenez. They need the Sanchez who shut out the D-Rox last season. He is one third of an inning away from three straight DOM starts, just missing in the team's home opener this season, which could have amped up his adrenaline a bit, but he has been striking out a storm while keeping his walks under relative control. So he has been pitching very well so far this season, so unless the humidor balls do funny things, this should be a tight battle between two very good pitchers who have figured out how to pitch among the very best in the league.
I have to give the lean to Ubaldo, though, because they are at home and he has had a great record so far against the Giants at home. However, if Ubaldo is a bit rusty from his layoff, then Sanchez and the Giants would have a good chance of winning this game.
Game 3: Cain vs. de la Rosa
And believe it or not, he might have taken another one step upward after his magnificent run through the playoffs. There have been a number of quotes of Cain this season talking about how he has been taking his experiences from the playoffs and applying them now during the regular season, remembering that confidence he felt back then. That could put him into the elite status among starters, if he can attain that consistency over an entire season. He is already ridiculously consistent - the key to consistently low ERAs is to limit Disaster starts and keep your DIS% below 10%, something he has done the past three seasons now.
One of his problems in the past was his lack of confidence in himself and his stuff. Matt Morris touched on this before and I recall Giants batters mentioning it before, that Cain didn't really trust that his stuff is good enough to get major league hitters out, so he would rely a lot on nibbling on the corners and basically pitch afraid that the hitter will hit him. They had to work a lot and hard at getting him to understand that. I think that is what contributed to his high walk rates early in his career. But that has dropped almost every season now, and he is now reaching elite status there, with a 2.5 BB/9 last season and even better 1.9 BB/9 this season, albeit in only 3 starts so far.
Not too bad for a "loser" that many Giants fans wanted to trade away for a bag of magic offensive beans (Alexis Rios, Prince Fielder, among others). If we could take away the ability to comment on the internet from everyone who wanted to trade Matt Cain, you would probably wipe out 80-90% of the Sabean Naysayers still polluting the commentary on the Giants (I just saw someone complaining vociferously about Sabean on Extra Baggs just yesterday, so I know they are still around). They don't even realize how bad the team would be right now if the Giants had listened to their recommendations on what to do with the team (besides all the "Let's get Pujols by giving away lousy prospects" nonsense trade ideas).
Sabean is not perfect, but he has been in terms of deciding who to keep and who to trade away among the prospects that have passed through his hands. Signing free agents and drafting prospects are a crapshoot in terms of results, but knowing who to keep and who to get rid of is where a GM separates himself from the rest of the pack. Sabean et al have thankfully decided that Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo, Runzler, Posey, and Sandoval were keepers, barring any ludicrous overpay in trade offers (which never came).
Jorge de la Rosa has pitched very well this season so far, 3.18 ERA, but I have to think the wheels come off at some point. His K/9 dropped while his BB/9 stayed about the same, so his K/BB has fallen below the 2-ish that he has been at during his career as a starter. Plus, his BABIP is way too low (.200), unsustainable, and his HR/9 is way below his career norms. And that is the idea behind small sample size, he's only had 3 starts so far. In any case, even if he is as good as he has been, Cain has been that much better. Giants should win this game.
Giants Thoughts
I was thinking about this over the weekend, but the Giants, while disappointing fans with their start so far, has not really been on all 8 cylinders yet. Posey was sick with a virus early on, so he wasn't hitting. Huff might finally be getting untracked now, having hit his first homer of the season. Of course, both Ross and Torres have been out with injuries, and Belt has not been hitting at all. Hank Schulman tweeted that scouts are saying that he needs more seasoning in AAA (love his new photo on Twitter). And nobody is producing at the monster production that Colorado is getting from Tulo, Iannetta and Herrera (and CarGon has been back to his pre-2010 model so far, dampening their offense and increasing my conviction that their big contract with him will be more albatross than boon), though Rowand is doing great so far while both Torres and Ross are out, just not as great as those D-Rox.
And as well as Lincecum, Sanchez, Cain has been doing, Barry Zito and Madison Bumgarner have been very disappointing. Zito, frankly, I think he should have just been put on the DL after the car crash and told to rest up and feel better. Bochy alluded to as much in his comments after Zito was placed on the DL for his foot sprain, his first DL stint in 12 years as a major leaguer, his first start missed due to injury coming up this Friday.
I have to wonder if the "freak" foot sprain was just something that was undetected or weakened after Zito's horrific car crash (what is it about LA drivers trying to kill major league pitchers?) and who knows what else is undetected, given his sudden drop in velocity to the low 80's during the regular season. I know when I was blindsided by a red-light runner, I too was lucky to come out of it without anything broken, but was extremely shaken up and I had aches and pains for a while, so I took it easy physically for a while. Not so easily said for a major league pitcher starting the regular season.
Bumgarner is the most disappointing, because there is no reason why he is not performing so far. He is not striking out many, while walking many and giving up a lot of hits. If he wanted to show the Giants that he was worth the money he was asking for, he's going about it the wrong way. He is just justifying why he did not get near the money that Posey got.
Perhaps he has more hurt feelings than he let on when interviewed about that salary disagreement (not really dispute since Giants could just force a salary on him) and that has affected his play. It was not that long ago that he chucked the ball far and into the stands after all 6' 6" of him got angry at an umpire's call. Sometimes it is two steps forward and one step back when it comes to maturity.
Looking at his stats, his LD% is way high, hitters are just raking him, he is not fooling anyone, as suggested by his low K/9 so far and his high HR/9 and HR/FB. His velocity for his pitches so far are about the same as last year, though oddly enough, there are a huge number of pitches so far (40.8%) that are recorded as unknown so far. His curveball and changeup were his out pitches in 2010, but not so much in 2011, so that seems to be the biggest problems so far, plus his slider went from average to horrible. He had one disaster start to start the season and was not that far away from having three disaster starts in a row, he barely missed accomplishing that dubious feat.
The Giants for the most part, are not performing that much better than could be expected. Sure the Top 3 starters will probably do worse, but the offense should likely improve as Huff and Burrell return to normal career performance range and Torres and Ross returns from the DL and Belt gets returned to AAA to final seasoning. The key to being a division title contender right now is Bumgarner returning to ace-like performances, and there is nothing to like so far in his performance so far.
Meanwhile, Colorado has benefited from great performances, particularly Tulo's 7 HR in 15 games but also stout starting pitching that is much better than prior performances indicate, though they were handicapped by Ubaldo being out. San Diego has benefited by Nick Hundley's sudden Johnny Bench impression and Aaron Harang turning back the clock a few seasons with his 3-0 record and 1.50 ERA, plus a shutdown bullpen that can't last much longer, though handicapped by Mat Latos being out. Arizona has benefited from Miguel Montrero and Ryan Roberts sudden Albert Pujols impersonations, with OPS over 1.000 but suffered from pitching that is totally underperforming, though they would not necessarily win had their team performed to expectations. And LA I have not thought much of either, but they have had a number of injuries and underperformers, and so are the only team that might rebound at some point this season, assuming players return from the DL OK, plus Ted Lilly and Juan Uribe righting themselves, among others.
Which brings us to this series. If the Giants can sweep, they would bring themselves to just 1 game behind the D-Rox. If they can win 2 of the 3 games, they would end up 3 games behind. So clearly it would behoove the Giants to sweep this series.
And it looks possible. Lincecum should be able to beat Rogers. Cain should be able to beat de la Rosa, though that is not as much a sure thing as Lincecum. Sanchez is capable of being Jimenez, mano-a-mano, and if Jimenez is having any problems getting back into the swing of things, Sanchez should be able to beat the D-Rox. Not a sure thing, but I would not be surprised either.
Now, it is possible the Giants could lose the series. Their pitchers could have a game of their career while the Giants pitchers falter after a good start to the 2011 season. That does happen sometimes. But for once, I feel that the Giants are competitive in trying to win this series and have a pretty good chance of at least pulling 2 of 3 of the games, whereas previously, playing in Coors was like a horror maze of mirrors. They don't usually match up so well against the D-Rox but we got our best starters against some of their not as good (we avoid Chacin, luckily) and can their hitters really continue hitting THAT well?
And I would guess not. Besides Kershaw and Billingsley, the D-Rox have faced a long stretch of starters who are not aces: Maholm, Ohlendorf, Morton, McDonald, Pelfrey, Niese, Dickey, Capuano, Coleman. And Garza and Dempster have been aces in season's past, but have been horrible this season. And they had 4 games against the Pirates and 4 games against the woebegone Mets. Now they are facing three of the best in the majors, in a row, each having a different expertise: Lincecum with fastball, changeup, slider deadly combo, Sanchez with pitches that batters just naturally swing at and miss, Cain with his no-hit stuff and pinpoint location.
And the Giants offense might get ignited playing in Coors hitter's haven. Lets see if Belt can pad his stats here. If not, he's might find himself going down when Ross returns, instead of later when Torres return. However, the Giants have usually tended to give their young prospect hitters at least a month to show what they can do as a regular starter before they make their decision on what to do next, so he probably has at least until Torres is recovered to start worrying about going back down.
Go Giants!!!
Now they face the rampaging D-Rox, 12-3 and leading the Giants by 4 games. They have benefited greatly from the rampaging Troy Tulozitski, 7 HR in 15 games, and the great offense from Jonathan Herrera (1.115 OPS vs. .695 from last season, and minors record unbesmirched by any good offensive stats) and Chris Iannetta (.992 OPS, is he finally figuring things out?), plus Jhoulys Chacin ace pitching so far, 1.64 ERA, but only 14 K's in 22.0 IP, suggesting he's also pitching above his abilities right now. Unless they think that Tulo is going to hit 75 HRs and Herrera suddenly becomes a hitting god, and Chacin can keep up a stellar ERA without a stellar K/9 rate or K/BB ratio, this should cool down eventually.
However, that does not mean that they will necessarily cool down for the Giants quite yet.
Game 1: Lincecum vs. Rogers
Tim Lincecum: His last time out wasn't a premium performance, but with the help of Brian Wilson, the Giants got the win. Lincecum threw 5 1/3 innings, allowed six hits and departed with a 4-3 lead after falling behind 3-0, but didn't get the decision.
Esmil Rogers: Rogers gave up three runs on seven hits and four walks in 5 2/3 innings against the Mets on Wednesday. Rogers teetered all game, but never gave up more than one run in an inning and worked out of traffic to emerge with the win.Clearly, the D-Rox are so afraid of Happy-Lincecum-Day that they dared not risk losing the occasion of the return of their ace, Ubaldo Jimenez, to the greatness that is Big Time Timmy Jim, so they moved Ubaldo's return back a day and throw up a sacrificial lamb, Esmil Rogers, who has a lifetime 7.07 ERA against SF, 5.40 ERA in 2 starts against SF (both in SF), and has given up 5 runs in 4.0 IP in Colorado vs. the G's. They are clearly giving up on this game and betting that Ubaldo will have a much better chance of beating Sanchez in Game 2, splitting the series and basically try to avoid a series sweep since they face Matt Cain in Game 3.
Should be Happy Lincecum Day, anything less would be a total disappointment and upset. He has a 3.86 ERA here, but in 8 career starts, 49.0 IP with 52 K's and only 21 BB's (2.48 K/BB is great, suggesting bad luck with his ERA so far in his park), a great 0.73 HR/9 here. Thus far this season, 1.86 ERA (below 2.00 ERA in regular season since he figured out his new slider), 3 starts, 19.1 IP, 22 K's vs. only 4 BB's (one IBB) for a stupendous 5.50 K/BB ratio (good pitchers > 2.0 K/BB, very good pitchers > 2.4). With his new slider plus great changeup, he has upped his K/9 back up, to 10.2, but more importantly pushed his BB/9 down to a stellar 1.9, whereas he was merely OK previously, maybe a little too wild (want BB/9 <= 3.0).
Game 2: Sanchez vs. Jimenez
Jonathan Sanchez: Sanchez came up big vs. the Dodgers in San Francisco, tossing six innings while allowing three earned runs on seven hits, walking two and striking out nine in a 4-3 win. The Giants have won two of his first three starts.
Ubaldo Jimenez: Jimenez looked nothing like himself on Opening Day, but he was pitching through a cut cuticle on his right thumb. The injury forced him to the disabled list. Jimenez's fastball touched 97 mph during a rehab start.Sanchez gets the big matchup this series, and it will be another chance to step up to the challenge and opportunity and show that he has further progressed as a major leaguer. He took a number of big steps last season, culminating with his great start and win against the 'Dres to win the NL West Division title, showing further growth in maturity and confidence. He has actually pushed his peripherals up this season, to 13.0 K/9 (career 9.5 K/9; high as starter 9.8 K/9), to 3.8 BB/9 (4.6 BB/9 career; best as starter 4.3 BB/9), to 3.43 K/BB (remember, very good is 2.4 K/BB), and I know it is all small samples so far, only 3 starts, and despite that progress, has only been averaging 5.5 IP so far, probably due to the increase in K's.
Sanchez has a 4.46 ERA in 4 starts in Colorado, 5.26 ERA career, and his progress against them is exemplified by the drop in ERA against them over his career, culminating in a 6.0 IP shutout with 9 K's against them last season. He will need to do something close to that again if the Giants hope to win against Colorado on their Happy Ubaldo Day.
Ubaldo has numbers against the Giants that suggest that perhaps the rumor of the D-Rox screwing around with the humidor balls is true, as the Giants basically accused them of last season. We all know that Coors is a hitters park like no other in the history of baseball. Offensive numbers are skewed significantly upward, pitching numbers are skewed significantly worse too. Ubaldo actually has a much BETTER ERA against the Giants at home than in SF.
Ubaldo vs. GiantsSo despite a much better HR/9 at AT&T, he has a signficantly better ERA at home against the Giants in his career so far.
at home: 2.68 ERA, 47.0 IP, 14 walks, 35 strikeouts, 0.77 HR/9, 7 starts
on road: 3.60 ERA, 45.0 IP, 18 walks, 42 strikeouts, 0.40 HR/9, 7 starts
Assuming Jimenez is his normal self - I am wondering if his great first half of 2010 was just a fluke, his 3.80 ERA second half fits right in with his ERA in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009, but his PQS was great in 2009 and 2010 (79% DOM/12% DIS in 2009, 82% DOM/6% DIS in 2010) suggesting a new plateau and rise to eliteness - Sanchez will have quite a battle on his hands. Sanchez's second half PQS results are almost Jimenez's equal (60%/13% and 67%/13%) but he has been horrible PQS-wise the past two first halves. Which Sanchez will show?
The Giants clearly needs the better Sanchez to show up got them to have a chance of beating the D-Rox and Jimenez. They need the Sanchez who shut out the D-Rox last season. He is one third of an inning away from three straight DOM starts, just missing in the team's home opener this season, which could have amped up his adrenaline a bit, but he has been striking out a storm while keeping his walks under relative control. So he has been pitching very well so far this season, so unless the humidor balls do funny things, this should be a tight battle between two very good pitchers who have figured out how to pitch among the very best in the league.
I have to give the lean to Ubaldo, though, because they are at home and he has had a great record so far against the Giants at home. However, if Ubaldo is a bit rusty from his layoff, then Sanchez and the Giants would have a good chance of winning this game.
Game 3: Cain vs. de la Rosa
Matt Cain: Cain continued his outstanding run by working into the seventh of a win vs. the D-backs, allowing a run on four hits. So far he's given up only three runs in 19 innings, after a postseason in which he didn't allow an earned run in three starts.
Jorge de la Rosa: De La Rosa left his first two starts relatively early because of blister issues on his left middle finger, but he pitched into the seventh Thursday, throwing 116 pitches and allowing four runs on five hits and four walks.As great as the Giants pitchers were in 2010, the top three have actually raised things up a notch in the early season so far for the Giants. Cain has been superb, as noted in the comment above. Cain has a 3.38 ERA against the D-Rox in 9 starts here in his career. This is punctuated by his 4 starts here the last two seasons, 1.86 ERA, and the step up he took in 2009-2010.
And believe it or not, he might have taken another one step upward after his magnificent run through the playoffs. There have been a number of quotes of Cain this season talking about how he has been taking his experiences from the playoffs and applying them now during the regular season, remembering that confidence he felt back then. That could put him into the elite status among starters, if he can attain that consistency over an entire season. He is already ridiculously consistent - the key to consistently low ERAs is to limit Disaster starts and keep your DIS% below 10%, something he has done the past three seasons now.
One of his problems in the past was his lack of confidence in himself and his stuff. Matt Morris touched on this before and I recall Giants batters mentioning it before, that Cain didn't really trust that his stuff is good enough to get major league hitters out, so he would rely a lot on nibbling on the corners and basically pitch afraid that the hitter will hit him. They had to work a lot and hard at getting him to understand that. I think that is what contributed to his high walk rates early in his career. But that has dropped almost every season now, and he is now reaching elite status there, with a 2.5 BB/9 last season and even better 1.9 BB/9 this season, albeit in only 3 starts so far.
Not too bad for a "loser" that many Giants fans wanted to trade away for a bag of magic offensive beans (Alexis Rios, Prince Fielder, among others). If we could take away the ability to comment on the internet from everyone who wanted to trade Matt Cain, you would probably wipe out 80-90% of the Sabean Naysayers still polluting the commentary on the Giants (I just saw someone complaining vociferously about Sabean on Extra Baggs just yesterday, so I know they are still around). They don't even realize how bad the team would be right now if the Giants had listened to their recommendations on what to do with the team (besides all the "Let's get Pujols by giving away lousy prospects" nonsense trade ideas).
Sabean is not perfect, but he has been in terms of deciding who to keep and who to trade away among the prospects that have passed through his hands. Signing free agents and drafting prospects are a crapshoot in terms of results, but knowing who to keep and who to get rid of is where a GM separates himself from the rest of the pack. Sabean et al have thankfully decided that Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo, Runzler, Posey, and Sandoval were keepers, barring any ludicrous overpay in trade offers (which never came).
Jorge de la Rosa has pitched very well this season so far, 3.18 ERA, but I have to think the wheels come off at some point. His K/9 dropped while his BB/9 stayed about the same, so his K/BB has fallen below the 2-ish that he has been at during his career as a starter. Plus, his BABIP is way too low (.200), unsustainable, and his HR/9 is way below his career norms. And that is the idea behind small sample size, he's only had 3 starts so far. In any case, even if he is as good as he has been, Cain has been that much better. Giants should win this game.
Giants Thoughts
I was thinking about this over the weekend, but the Giants, while disappointing fans with their start so far, has not really been on all 8 cylinders yet. Posey was sick with a virus early on, so he wasn't hitting. Huff might finally be getting untracked now, having hit his first homer of the season. Of course, both Ross and Torres have been out with injuries, and Belt has not been hitting at all. Hank Schulman tweeted that scouts are saying that he needs more seasoning in AAA (love his new photo on Twitter). And nobody is producing at the monster production that Colorado is getting from Tulo, Iannetta and Herrera (and CarGon has been back to his pre-2010 model so far, dampening their offense and increasing my conviction that their big contract with him will be more albatross than boon), though Rowand is doing great so far while both Torres and Ross are out, just not as great as those D-Rox.
And as well as Lincecum, Sanchez, Cain has been doing, Barry Zito and Madison Bumgarner have been very disappointing. Zito, frankly, I think he should have just been put on the DL after the car crash and told to rest up and feel better. Bochy alluded to as much in his comments after Zito was placed on the DL for his foot sprain, his first DL stint in 12 years as a major leaguer, his first start missed due to injury coming up this Friday.
I have to wonder if the "freak" foot sprain was just something that was undetected or weakened after Zito's horrific car crash (what is it about LA drivers trying to kill major league pitchers?) and who knows what else is undetected, given his sudden drop in velocity to the low 80's during the regular season. I know when I was blindsided by a red-light runner, I too was lucky to come out of it without anything broken, but was extremely shaken up and I had aches and pains for a while, so I took it easy physically for a while. Not so easily said for a major league pitcher starting the regular season.
Bumgarner is the most disappointing, because there is no reason why he is not performing so far. He is not striking out many, while walking many and giving up a lot of hits. If he wanted to show the Giants that he was worth the money he was asking for, he's going about it the wrong way. He is just justifying why he did not get near the money that Posey got.
Perhaps he has more hurt feelings than he let on when interviewed about that salary disagreement (not really dispute since Giants could just force a salary on him) and that has affected his play. It was not that long ago that he chucked the ball far and into the stands after all 6' 6" of him got angry at an umpire's call. Sometimes it is two steps forward and one step back when it comes to maturity.
Looking at his stats, his LD% is way high, hitters are just raking him, he is not fooling anyone, as suggested by his low K/9 so far and his high HR/9 and HR/FB. His velocity for his pitches so far are about the same as last year, though oddly enough, there are a huge number of pitches so far (40.8%) that are recorded as unknown so far. His curveball and changeup were his out pitches in 2010, but not so much in 2011, so that seems to be the biggest problems so far, plus his slider went from average to horrible. He had one disaster start to start the season and was not that far away from having three disaster starts in a row, he barely missed accomplishing that dubious feat.
The Giants for the most part, are not performing that much better than could be expected. Sure the Top 3 starters will probably do worse, but the offense should likely improve as Huff and Burrell return to normal career performance range and Torres and Ross returns from the DL and Belt gets returned to AAA to final seasoning. The key to being a division title contender right now is Bumgarner returning to ace-like performances, and there is nothing to like so far in his performance so far.
Meanwhile, Colorado has benefited from great performances, particularly Tulo's 7 HR in 15 games but also stout starting pitching that is much better than prior performances indicate, though they were handicapped by Ubaldo being out. San Diego has benefited by Nick Hundley's sudden Johnny Bench impression and Aaron Harang turning back the clock a few seasons with his 3-0 record and 1.50 ERA, plus a shutdown bullpen that can't last much longer, though handicapped by Mat Latos being out. Arizona has benefited from Miguel Montrero and Ryan Roberts sudden Albert Pujols impersonations, with OPS over 1.000 but suffered from pitching that is totally underperforming, though they would not necessarily win had their team performed to expectations. And LA I have not thought much of either, but they have had a number of injuries and underperformers, and so are the only team that might rebound at some point this season, assuming players return from the DL OK, plus Ted Lilly and Juan Uribe righting themselves, among others.
Which brings us to this series. If the Giants can sweep, they would bring themselves to just 1 game behind the D-Rox. If they can win 2 of the 3 games, they would end up 3 games behind. So clearly it would behoove the Giants to sweep this series.
And it looks possible. Lincecum should be able to beat Rogers. Cain should be able to beat de la Rosa, though that is not as much a sure thing as Lincecum. Sanchez is capable of being Jimenez, mano-a-mano, and if Jimenez is having any problems getting back into the swing of things, Sanchez should be able to beat the D-Rox. Not a sure thing, but I would not be surprised either.
Now, it is possible the Giants could lose the series. Their pitchers could have a game of their career while the Giants pitchers falter after a good start to the 2011 season. That does happen sometimes. But for once, I feel that the Giants are competitive in trying to win this series and have a pretty good chance of at least pulling 2 of 3 of the games, whereas previously, playing in Coors was like a horror maze of mirrors. They don't usually match up so well against the D-Rox but we got our best starters against some of their not as good (we avoid Chacin, luckily) and can their hitters really continue hitting THAT well?
And I would guess not. Besides Kershaw and Billingsley, the D-Rox have faced a long stretch of starters who are not aces: Maholm, Ohlendorf, Morton, McDonald, Pelfrey, Niese, Dickey, Capuano, Coleman. And Garza and Dempster have been aces in season's past, but have been horrible this season. And they had 4 games against the Pirates and 4 games against the woebegone Mets. Now they are facing three of the best in the majors, in a row, each having a different expertise: Lincecum with fastball, changeup, slider deadly combo, Sanchez with pitches that batters just naturally swing at and miss, Cain with his no-hit stuff and pinpoint location.
And the Giants offense might get ignited playing in Coors hitter's haven. Lets see if Belt can pad his stats here. If not, he's might find himself going down when Ross returns, instead of later when Torres return. However, the Giants have usually tended to give their young prospect hitters at least a month to show what they can do as a regular starter before they make their decision on what to do next, so he probably has at least until Torres is recovered to start worrying about going back down.
Go Giants!!!
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Your 2011 Giants Offense: Together, They Are Giants
The Giants offense is often maligned, and rightfully so in recent years. That is one of the biggest complaints of the offseason, that the Giants did "nothing" to improve, particularly in the offense. That is just not true, just because you kept the same players as you ended the season does not mean that you did "nothing" to upgrade the offense. Particularly if they would have examined the projections and the actual 2010 Giants stats, one would clearly see that the Giants did not stand pat, they didn't stand pat mid-2010 and those changes reverberate in the 2011 team roster and lineup.
These are the Giants overall offensive production by position from 2010:
What people are missing is that there was a lot of non-productive PA in 2010 that went to people no longer with the team or who won't be playing there much in 2011. The infield has plenty of upside. Bengie Molina spent a lot of time at C, 212 PA, bringing down the stats with his .264/.321/.342/.663 batting line. Buster Posey should hit much better than .274/.333/.430/.764. Both Travis Ishikawa and Pablo Sandoval stunk up 1B offensively in 2010, 161 PA, but neither should do as much in 2011. Juan Uribe hurt 3B with his 88 PA and .215/.295/.329/.625 batting line. In addition, Pablo Sandoval should do much better than his .268/.323/.414/.737 at 3B in 2010. He is in Kung Fu Fighting form this spring and I hope the Giants can sign him to an extension this spring.
The outfield also has upside. Aaron Rowand had 332 PA in CF, batting .230/.278/.369/.647; Andres Torres would have to fall a lot from his overall .268/.343/.479/.823 batting line and .264/.321/.489/.810 in CF to not improve on the .250/.304/.434/.738 we got from CF in 2010. And as down a season Cody Ross the Boss had in 2010 before joining the Giants, it still wasn't as bad as the overall .246/.314/.393/.708 we got in RF in 2010, and that includes Ross' .353/.353/.529/.882 he added to the RF mix. Even in a down year he hit .269/.322/.413/.735 and his strikeout and walk rates were right in line with his prior good seasons. What was missing, for some reason, was his power, his ISO, XBH%, X/H% were all down, same for his HR/FB until he joined the Giants, but even with that boost, his XBH% was not that great with the Giants.
The only spot that is looking like a pretty sure regression to the mean is LF with .264/.365/.485/.850, only because it is so high and Pat Burrell was just so bad before joining the Giants. However, I would note that Burrell's .266/.364/.509/.872 for the Giants in 2010 is basically that which he delivered in Philly's offensive homepark prior to his Tampa Bay crash and burn:
The Giants Did Not Stand Pat
The Giants are not standing still, or worse yet, regressing. Sure, there are some regressions, but for the most part, they are mild. Few project Huff to beat that 1B batting line, but most have him right around .800 OPS, so I would call that a push. Same for Freddy Sanchez at 2B, most have his just under the .734 OPS 2B delivered in 2010. Same goes for SS and Miguel Tejada, again, just under the .736 OPS SS delivered in 2010.
However, Buster Posey is projected to easily beat .800 OPS in 2011 and despite Pablo Sandoval's poor 2010, most projections still have him producing easily over .800 OPS in 2011. Both would be huge jumps over 2010. Same for Andres Torres in CF, most projections are for high 700 or around 800 OPS in 2011, also a huge jump on 2010's CF. Cody Ross is projected for mid-700 OPS in 2011, a big boost over 2010's RF totals. Any one of these improvements would make up for the projected loss in LF and the slight drops in the infield positions. Plus then there is Brandon Belt coming up something mid-season if he's an improvement. People are missing these huge improvements over 2010's overall offense while focusing on the older players plus not realizing that there is not much regression versus what the Giants produced at those positions in 2010.
Run Score Per Game Improvement
I plugged in the OBP and SLG, projected by a number of different well known sources of such information, into the lineup calculator and the majority of them have the team much improved over their 4.30 RS/game in 2010:
Bill James = 4.74 (been known to be high)
Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler) = 4.56 (I like their system because it takes age and minors into account)
ZIPS = 4.52
Marcel = 4.46
Baseball Prospectus = 4.28 (no wonder they don't like Giants every year, it seems, and demanded that Brian Sabean be fired in their 2010 annual; I wonder what they will put in their 2011 annual)
With the Giants 3.77 RA that they had in 2009 (assuming some sort of regression from 2010's 3.60 RA), the Giants would win 90 games with BP's low 4.28 RS/game and 96-7 games with Bill James calculated RS. With Shandler/ZIPS mid forecast: 93-94 wins in 2011. And if the Giants pitching hold up the way I think they will, and repeat their 3.60 RA from 2010 (remember, there is potential for improvement because of the loss of Wellemeyer and the poor relievers), that works out to 93 wins, 99-100 wins, and 96-97 wins.
Projections Are Naturally Conservative
I would note that these projections' assumptions include areas for upside because projections are naturally conservative in nature. An average Pablo Sandoval, for example, is projected. If he returns to Pandoval of 2009, that is another boost to RS and wins (2 addition wins with ZIPS projections plus another win with move to #3 position, pushing to 99 wins). Same for Burrell and Huff. If either or both return to 2010's form, those are boosts to the RS and wins as well and probably adds about 1-2 wins as well. Same for Posey, if he hits more like his mid-season form than second half form, that would add 1-2 wins as well.
Then there is the wildcard in the lineup: Brandon Belt. He is not even in the lineup and most projections have him over 800 OPS. If he comes up and delivers that, he could take over 1B, shove Huff to the OF, and either Burrell or Ross out of the starting lineup (Torres or Huff as well if either isn't producing). It could become like last year's "every day is a new lineup" situation. That would also add 1-2 win, particularly considering how well he fields 1B.
And remember, these projections include the projected drops for the older players, so if the players do not drop in performance as the projections assumes older players will, those will be improvements as well. Plus, if Belt crushes AAA, that could even force Cody Ross out of the starting lineup, as someone (between Huff and Belt) would move into LF, pushing out Burrell,
However: Not For 162 Games
Of course, the caveat here is that this will not be our lineup for 162 games. Posey is not going to start every game, they will need to give him some rest during the season where Whiteside will start, and will of course bring the RS down. He might not even meet his projections, he only hit .283/.340/.472/.812 in the second half (which could have been because of the stamina problem he had in 2010, as the Giants had said he might, and which he talked about in a recent interview, but what if it was not, that it was his true level?). The older guys like Huff, Sanchez, Burrell, Tejada, and Torres could suddenly become injury prone, like we saw with Durham and Renteria. Sandoval could hit more potholes that sets him back to 2010's form. That would reduce the number of wins by 1-2, maybe more if a lot of hitters are under-performing.
Offense Looks Ready to Produce 90-100 Wins and More Importantly Win NL West
Still, given how high the projections are on the Giants offense, which, combined with the pitching of 2008 or 2009, still leads to 90-100 wins, the team looks capable of withstanding some injuries and poor performances and still win enough games to easily win the division. 90 wins looks like a gimme for this Giants team, even with injuries, and yet the teams below them did not do much to improve themselves and only SD had 90 wins out of them in 2010 and while they added nice pieces, really, they got rid of A-Gon and I think that is all you have to say about their chances, but then on top of that they lost Garland and didn't get anyone who should replace that great performance, they are hoping Harang rebounds, but the odds don't look good there.
The other two pretenders - LA and COL - are flawed in ways that many miss. The way people are blind to the Giants offensive improvements over 2010, they are similarly blind to the D-gers lack of offensive improvements now that they are Manny-less. Colorado stood pat as well, but because many of their players are young, the assumption is onward and upward, but can they make up so many games behind (8 wins, according to Pythagorean) based on that?
LA's Offense Suspect, Not Giants
Many are touting the D-gers because of all the pitching they added (though they just lost one in Vicente Padilla), and yes, they did improve their pitching signing Ted Lilly and Jon Garland, but just because they now have a pretty good rotation (still not up there with the Giants, in my opinion) does not absolve them of not improving their offense, which nobody picks up on and yet harangues the 2011 Giants over and over again when that is not even true. It is like people's impression of offense is based on how the team was in early 2010. Adding Juan Uribe is an improvement at 2B for the D-gers, but the Giants have equal if not better chances to improve with Huff, Burrell, Sandoval, and Posey. And he is certainly no replacement for Manny Ramirez, and neither is Jay Gibbons or Marcus Thames.
And nobody is looking at the post-Manny D-ger offense: in the second half of 2010, they averaged 3.30 runs scored per game! Even the Giants pitching can't win with that putrid an offense. And as I noted, the D-gers didn't really add anyone really good to their lineup, Uribe is a nice cog, but nothing more, they needed someone like Huff or Burrell in the lineup, not Uribe. Right now James Loney is their projected #5 hitter, and he would be pushed down to 7th or 8th in the Giants lineup.
Colorado Has A Lot of Games to Make Up, Yet Also Stands Pat
I don't see anyone saying that Colorado is standing pat, but they basically are like the Giants, doing that. I understand that because they have a young lineup, there is upside, plus they have Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez. Same for the rotation and pitching staff in whole. However, they are depending on both Tulo and CarGon to hit like that again, plus lost Miguel Olivo, who hit much better than Iannetta, so the rest of the lineup will have to make up for that, though perhaps Jose Lopez might do that at 2B. Still, Todd Helton isn't getting younger either, if people are going to blast the Giants older vets. And Brad Hawpe is now 32, if he even still have a role.
And the pitching is relying on starters who either need to rebound or prove that 2010 wasn't a fluke. Jason Hammel and Aaron Cook had pretty bad years, yet to match the Giants rotation (probably Zito and Bumgarner), both would have to do much better PLUS Ubaldo Jimenez would have to repeat his year, which he couldn't even do in the second half: 2.20 ERA first half, 3.80 ERA second half.
And as well as Jhoulys Chacin did, his K/BB isn't as superlative as his 3.28 ERA, suggesting some regression in 2011. Looking at his splits, he had a 4.09 ERA with .299 BABIP in the first half, 2.24 ERA with .278 BABIP in the second half, but virtually identical K/BB of 2.29 and 2.23, respectively. In other words, his great season was largely the result of a lowered BABIP, and he will have to prove that he's one of the rare pitchers who can do that consistently. Obviously, the odds are against him.
On top of that, only Jimenez pitched a full season in 2010, though Hammel was close with 30 starts. The rest will be stretched in 2011 to pitch a full 32 game season. And their #3 starter, Jorge de la Rosa, is roughly equal to Barry Zito, arguably the worse starter in the Giants rotation. And he has only pitched a full season in 2009 plus 2010 was his best season ever in six seasons, career 5.02 ERA, so he would be hard pressed just to match Zito in 2011 most probably.
On top of that, they need to make up 8 wins in performance when you look at Pythagorean. The Giants were at 94 while the Rox were at 86. As good a crop of young players they got, they stood pat needing to make up 8 wins, while assuming repeat peak performances and that the older players don't decline drastically.
Giants Have Risk Mitigation Backup Plans
The Giants look very capable of beating out the main NL West contenders. Their conservative projections for the lineup already adds up to 90+ wins, get a few probable plus production from Sandoval, Posey, Huff, Burrell, and that puts him ahead of last year's win total. Meanwhile, the other teams have not addressed the weaknesses that they had and/or are hoping for good performances in order to compete, and that is a house of cards that falls down if their hoped for good performance don't come, there is no backup plan for them.
The Giants, on the other hand, has a number of backup plans. Their rotation is so good overall that they could lose anyone and not be set back as badly as, say, St. Louis or Phillies would. With a poor #5 overall - Randy Johnson, Ryan Sadowski, Joe Martinez, and Brad Penny - in 2009, they still had a 3.77 RA/game. They can easily pick up a #5 type starter for peanuts and try to upgrade with a mid-season trade. Relievers, they got Mota, Dan Runzler, Marc Kroon, Waldis Joaquin, and others waiting in AAA.
The only position where the Giants would be stuck is at catcher and cleanup should Posey ever be out. 1B could field Huff, Belt, Sandoval, DeRosa, in that order. 2B, Franchez, DeRosa, then probably Culberson or Crawford. 3B, Sandoval, DeRosa. SS would probably field Crawford after Tejada, but really not expecting much out of SS offensively right now, so shouldn't be big drop, Tejeda looks like #8 hitter if Sandoval gets bumped to #3 with his hitting returning. And obviously, we have a lot of candidates in the outfield, Torres, Burrell, Ross, Huff, Belt, DeRosa, Schierholtz, Rowand, Ishikawa, Thomas Neal.
The Giants are covered in a lot of different situations. This is the risk mitigation strategy that they have been using the past couple of seasons
These are the Giants overall offensive production by position from 2010:
| Split | tOPS+ | sOPS+ | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| as C | .274 | .333 | .430 | .764 | .293 | 109 | 117 |
| as 1B | .291 | .357 | .457 | .815 | .322 | 123 | 103 |
| as 2B | .283 | .338 | .396 | .734 | .320 | 102 | 104 |
| as 3B | .262 | .321 | .401 | .722 | .289 | 98 | 95 |
| as SS | .260 | .318 | .419 | .736 | .282 | 102 | 112 |
| as LF | .264 | .365 | .485 | .850 | .292 | 133 | 121 |
| as CF | .250 | .304 | .434 | .738 | .294 | 101 | 100 |
| as RF | .246 | .314 | .393 | .708 | .282 | 94 | 81 |
| as DH | .091 | .167 | .227 | .394 | .059 | 8 | 4 |
| as P | .122 | .144 | .135 | .278 | .210 | -22 | 60 |
| as PH | .262 | .343 | .401 | .744 | .305 | 105 | 133 |
| as Infield | .274 | .334 | .421 | .754 | .301 | 107 | 106 |
| as Outfield | .253 | .328 | .437 | .764 | .289 | 109 | 100 |
| at Def. Pos. | .267 | .323 | .420 | .743 | .298 | 104 | 108 |
| at Off. Pos. | .266 | .340 | .434 | .773 | .296 | 112 | 100 |
What people are missing is that there was a lot of non-productive PA in 2010 that went to people no longer with the team or who won't be playing there much in 2011. The infield has plenty of upside. Bengie Molina spent a lot of time at C, 212 PA, bringing down the stats with his .264/.321/.342/.663 batting line. Buster Posey should hit much better than .274/.333/.430/.764. Both Travis Ishikawa and Pablo Sandoval stunk up 1B offensively in 2010, 161 PA, but neither should do as much in 2011. Juan Uribe hurt 3B with his 88 PA and .215/.295/.329/.625 batting line. In addition, Pablo Sandoval should do much better than his .268/.323/.414/.737 at 3B in 2010. He is in Kung Fu Fighting form this spring and I hope the Giants can sign him to an extension this spring.
The outfield also has upside. Aaron Rowand had 332 PA in CF, batting .230/.278/.369/.647; Andres Torres would have to fall a lot from his overall .268/.343/.479/.823 batting line and .264/.321/.489/.810 in CF to not improve on the .250/.304/.434/.738 we got from CF in 2010. And as down a season Cody Ross the Boss had in 2010 before joining the Giants, it still wasn't as bad as the overall .246/.314/.393/.708 we got in RF in 2010, and that includes Ross' .353/.353/.529/.882 he added to the RF mix. Even in a down year he hit .269/.322/.413/.735 and his strikeout and walk rates were right in line with his prior good seasons. What was missing, for some reason, was his power, his ISO, XBH%, X/H% were all down, same for his HR/FB until he joined the Giants, but even with that boost, his XBH% was not that great with the Giants.
The only spot that is looking like a pretty sure regression to the mean is LF with .264/.365/.485/.850, only because it is so high and Pat Burrell was just so bad before joining the Giants. However, I would note that Burrell's .266/.364/.509/.872 for the Giants in 2010 is basically that which he delivered in Philly's offensive homepark prior to his Tampa Bay crash and burn:
| Year | Tm | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | PHI | .281 | .389 | .504 | .892 | 128 |
| 2006 | PHI | .258 | .388 | .502 | .890 | 122 |
| 2007 | PHI | .256 | .400 | .502 | .902 | 128 |
| 2008 | PHI | .250 | .367 | .507 | .875 | 125 |
| 2009 | TBR | .221 | .315 | .367 | .682 | 81 |
| 2010 | TOT | .252 | .348 | .469 | .817 | 119 |
| 2010 | TBR | .202 | .292 | .333 | .625 | 74 |
| 2010 | SFG | .266 | .364 | .509 | .872 | 132 |
The Giants Did Not Stand Pat
The Giants are not standing still, or worse yet, regressing. Sure, there are some regressions, but for the most part, they are mild. Few project Huff to beat that 1B batting line, but most have him right around .800 OPS, so I would call that a push. Same for Freddy Sanchez at 2B, most have his just under the .734 OPS 2B delivered in 2010. Same goes for SS and Miguel Tejada, again, just under the .736 OPS SS delivered in 2010.
However, Buster Posey is projected to easily beat .800 OPS in 2011 and despite Pablo Sandoval's poor 2010, most projections still have him producing easily over .800 OPS in 2011. Both would be huge jumps over 2010. Same for Andres Torres in CF, most projections are for high 700 or around 800 OPS in 2011, also a huge jump on 2010's CF. Cody Ross is projected for mid-700 OPS in 2011, a big boost over 2010's RF totals. Any one of these improvements would make up for the projected loss in LF and the slight drops in the infield positions. Plus then there is Brandon Belt coming up something mid-season if he's an improvement. People are missing these huge improvements over 2010's overall offense while focusing on the older players plus not realizing that there is not much regression versus what the Giants produced at those positions in 2010.
Run Score Per Game Improvement
I plugged in the OBP and SLG, projected by a number of different well known sources of such information, into the lineup calculator and the majority of them have the team much improved over their 4.30 RS/game in 2010:
Bill James = 4.74 (been known to be high)
Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler) = 4.56 (I like their system because it takes age and minors into account)
ZIPS = 4.52
Marcel = 4.46
Baseball Prospectus = 4.28 (no wonder they don't like Giants every year, it seems, and demanded that Brian Sabean be fired in their 2010 annual; I wonder what they will put in their 2011 annual)
With the Giants 3.77 RA that they had in 2009 (assuming some sort of regression from 2010's 3.60 RA), the Giants would win 90 games with BP's low 4.28 RS/game and 96-7 games with Bill James calculated RS. With Shandler/ZIPS mid forecast: 93-94 wins in 2011. And if the Giants pitching hold up the way I think they will, and repeat their 3.60 RA from 2010 (remember, there is potential for improvement because of the loss of Wellemeyer and the poor relievers), that works out to 93 wins, 99-100 wins, and 96-97 wins.
Projections Are Naturally Conservative
I would note that these projections' assumptions include areas for upside because projections are naturally conservative in nature. An average Pablo Sandoval, for example, is projected. If he returns to Pandoval of 2009, that is another boost to RS and wins (2 addition wins with ZIPS projections plus another win with move to #3 position, pushing to 99 wins). Same for Burrell and Huff. If either or both return to 2010's form, those are boosts to the RS and wins as well and probably adds about 1-2 wins as well. Same for Posey, if he hits more like his mid-season form than second half form, that would add 1-2 wins as well.
Then there is the wildcard in the lineup: Brandon Belt. He is not even in the lineup and most projections have him over 800 OPS. If he comes up and delivers that, he could take over 1B, shove Huff to the OF, and either Burrell or Ross out of the starting lineup (Torres or Huff as well if either isn't producing). It could become like last year's "every day is a new lineup" situation. That would also add 1-2 win, particularly considering how well he fields 1B.
And remember, these projections include the projected drops for the older players, so if the players do not drop in performance as the projections assumes older players will, those will be improvements as well. Plus, if Belt crushes AAA, that could even force Cody Ross out of the starting lineup, as someone (between Huff and Belt) would move into LF, pushing out Burrell,
However: Not For 162 Games
Of course, the caveat here is that this will not be our lineup for 162 games. Posey is not going to start every game, they will need to give him some rest during the season where Whiteside will start, and will of course bring the RS down. He might not even meet his projections, he only hit .283/.340/.472/.812 in the second half (which could have been because of the stamina problem he had in 2010, as the Giants had said he might, and which he talked about in a recent interview, but what if it was not, that it was his true level?). The older guys like Huff, Sanchez, Burrell, Tejada, and Torres could suddenly become injury prone, like we saw with Durham and Renteria. Sandoval could hit more potholes that sets him back to 2010's form. That would reduce the number of wins by 1-2, maybe more if a lot of hitters are under-performing.
Offense Looks Ready to Produce 90-100 Wins and More Importantly Win NL West
Still, given how high the projections are on the Giants offense, which, combined with the pitching of 2008 or 2009, still leads to 90-100 wins, the team looks capable of withstanding some injuries and poor performances and still win enough games to easily win the division. 90 wins looks like a gimme for this Giants team, even with injuries, and yet the teams below them did not do much to improve themselves and only SD had 90 wins out of them in 2010 and while they added nice pieces, really, they got rid of A-Gon and I think that is all you have to say about their chances, but then on top of that they lost Garland and didn't get anyone who should replace that great performance, they are hoping Harang rebounds, but the odds don't look good there.
The other two pretenders - LA and COL - are flawed in ways that many miss. The way people are blind to the Giants offensive improvements over 2010, they are similarly blind to the D-gers lack of offensive improvements now that they are Manny-less. Colorado stood pat as well, but because many of their players are young, the assumption is onward and upward, but can they make up so many games behind (8 wins, according to Pythagorean) based on that?
LA's Offense Suspect, Not Giants
Many are touting the D-gers because of all the pitching they added (though they just lost one in Vicente Padilla), and yes, they did improve their pitching signing Ted Lilly and Jon Garland, but just because they now have a pretty good rotation (still not up there with the Giants, in my opinion) does not absolve them of not improving their offense, which nobody picks up on and yet harangues the 2011 Giants over and over again when that is not even true. It is like people's impression of offense is based on how the team was in early 2010. Adding Juan Uribe is an improvement at 2B for the D-gers, but the Giants have equal if not better chances to improve with Huff, Burrell, Sandoval, and Posey. And he is certainly no replacement for Manny Ramirez, and neither is Jay Gibbons or Marcus Thames.
And nobody is looking at the post-Manny D-ger offense: in the second half of 2010, they averaged 3.30 runs scored per game! Even the Giants pitching can't win with that putrid an offense. And as I noted, the D-gers didn't really add anyone really good to their lineup, Uribe is a nice cog, but nothing more, they needed someone like Huff or Burrell in the lineup, not Uribe. Right now James Loney is their projected #5 hitter, and he would be pushed down to 7th or 8th in the Giants lineup.
Colorado Has A Lot of Games to Make Up, Yet Also Stands Pat
I don't see anyone saying that Colorado is standing pat, but they basically are like the Giants, doing that. I understand that because they have a young lineup, there is upside, plus they have Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez. Same for the rotation and pitching staff in whole. However, they are depending on both Tulo and CarGon to hit like that again, plus lost Miguel Olivo, who hit much better than Iannetta, so the rest of the lineup will have to make up for that, though perhaps Jose Lopez might do that at 2B. Still, Todd Helton isn't getting younger either, if people are going to blast the Giants older vets. And Brad Hawpe is now 32, if he even still have a role.
And the pitching is relying on starters who either need to rebound or prove that 2010 wasn't a fluke. Jason Hammel and Aaron Cook had pretty bad years, yet to match the Giants rotation (probably Zito and Bumgarner), both would have to do much better PLUS Ubaldo Jimenez would have to repeat his year, which he couldn't even do in the second half: 2.20 ERA first half, 3.80 ERA second half.
And as well as Jhoulys Chacin did, his K/BB isn't as superlative as his 3.28 ERA, suggesting some regression in 2011. Looking at his splits, he had a 4.09 ERA with .299 BABIP in the first half, 2.24 ERA with .278 BABIP in the second half, but virtually identical K/BB of 2.29 and 2.23, respectively. In other words, his great season was largely the result of a lowered BABIP, and he will have to prove that he's one of the rare pitchers who can do that consistently. Obviously, the odds are against him.
On top of that, only Jimenez pitched a full season in 2010, though Hammel was close with 30 starts. The rest will be stretched in 2011 to pitch a full 32 game season. And their #3 starter, Jorge de la Rosa, is roughly equal to Barry Zito, arguably the worse starter in the Giants rotation. And he has only pitched a full season in 2009 plus 2010 was his best season ever in six seasons, career 5.02 ERA, so he would be hard pressed just to match Zito in 2011 most probably.
On top of that, they need to make up 8 wins in performance when you look at Pythagorean. The Giants were at 94 while the Rox were at 86. As good a crop of young players they got, they stood pat needing to make up 8 wins, while assuming repeat peak performances and that the older players don't decline drastically.
Giants Have Risk Mitigation Backup Plans
The Giants look very capable of beating out the main NL West contenders. Their conservative projections for the lineup already adds up to 90+ wins, get a few probable plus production from Sandoval, Posey, Huff, Burrell, and that puts him ahead of last year's win total. Meanwhile, the other teams have not addressed the weaknesses that they had and/or are hoping for good performances in order to compete, and that is a house of cards that falls down if their hoped for good performance don't come, there is no backup plan for them.
The Giants, on the other hand, has a number of backup plans. Their rotation is so good overall that they could lose anyone and not be set back as badly as, say, St. Louis or Phillies would. With a poor #5 overall - Randy Johnson, Ryan Sadowski, Joe Martinez, and Brad Penny - in 2009, they still had a 3.77 RA/game. They can easily pick up a #5 type starter for peanuts and try to upgrade with a mid-season trade. Relievers, they got Mota, Dan Runzler, Marc Kroon, Waldis Joaquin, and others waiting in AAA.
The only position where the Giants would be stuck is at catcher and cleanup should Posey ever be out. 1B could field Huff, Belt, Sandoval, DeRosa, in that order. 2B, Franchez, DeRosa, then probably Culberson or Crawford. 3B, Sandoval, DeRosa. SS would probably field Crawford after Tejada, but really not expecting much out of SS offensively right now, so shouldn't be big drop, Tejeda looks like #8 hitter if Sandoval gets bumped to #3 with his hitting returning. And obviously, we have a lot of candidates in the outfield, Torres, Burrell, Ross, Huff, Belt, DeRosa, Schierholtz, Rowand, Ishikawa, Thomas Neal.
The Giants are covered in a lot of different situations. This is the risk mitigation strategy that they have been using the past couple of seasons
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