Molina Teleconference and Sanchez Shoulder Surgery

Molina has been officially signed by the Giants and there was a press conference earlier today. Reports from Baggarly's blog (and his news account) and John Shea of the Chronicle. Here are key points covered, including the surprising news that came out of a KNBR interview last night with Bruce Bochy, where he casually noted that Freddy Sanchez had shoulder surgery about a month ago and is on the bubble for making the start of the season.

• Molina is officially a Giant, signing a $4.5M contract. Bengie noted that the Mets never offered a multi-year contract, else he probably would have took it, and only offered him a $5.0M contract (my note: most reports had it at $5.5M), so he decided that he would rather be where he was comfortable than get $500K more (my note: but apparently did not mention the $1.5M option that he could earn that most sources reported). He also said that he expects the Giants to be making the playoffs, unlike the Mets. He believes the Giants are "very, very close" to making something special happen.
• Nice quote: "The plan is to move him down in the lineup, possibly sixth. "I never considered myself a fourth hitter. I thought I was doing them a favor," said Molina, adding he'll bat wherever manager Bruce Bochy wants him. "I can hit behind the pitcher if he wants me there."
• Molina said he texted Posey and assured him that he wasn't there to take his job (though probably he did, unless the Giants signed another starting catcher) and offered to be there for him for anything. Posey then called back and they chatted. Sabean reiterated that Posey needed more seasoning in the minors, though he didn't rule out Posey starting the season as the backup catcher. Bu the expectation is that he'll get to start everyday in AAA and continue his learning with Steve Decker (former Giants catcher) who is now Fresno's manager (moving up the farm system). Baggarly noted that it's possible he will receive a promotion at some point this season. Molina said, "I said I'm happy to help out with whatever he needs. If they want to bring him up and do their thing, hey, I understand."
• Sanchez had left shoulder surgery on December 23rd. The Giants Dr. Akizuki, who is on their staff, repaired a torn labrum and cleaned up an arthritic AC joint arthroscopically. Apparently the Giants did 4 MRIs on him before signing him, but like the medical shows, missed the torn labrum, which went unnoticed until Sanchez started swinging a bat again. He is expected to be out 10-12 weeks, meaning that Opening Day is in doubt, but the expectation is that he'll be 100% once he does take the field. I can understand the mistake, but when so many of them are being made, it makes you wonder what is going on with our training staff. The good news is that Sanchez is working his butt off to make opening day and it is encouraging thus far.
• Juan Uribe is our starting 2B until Sanchez gets back. That's why we signed him, insurance in case some regular is unable to start or needs a rest. I was hoping the Giants might play DeRosa there instead and let two young players start in the OF, but I can see the merits of keeping DeRosa out in LF since he doesn't have the most experience out there (though over a season's worth of games in the OF).
• They reported that both Burriss and Renteria were doing well. Renteria told the Giants that he's excited about where he's at. Hopefully that will translate to his hitting like he did when he was a plus hitter, that would be a boon to our offense.
• The Giants DFAed Jesus Guzman to clear space for Molina. Sabean noted that any other acquisitions would come on minor league contracts with invitations to spring training, including additional right-handed relievers.

Giants Thoughts

Unlike many others, I have no problem with the signing, particularly since it would give Posey more time to get more experience in the minors. It should also give us one more year of control over him, plus the learning he would have done in 2010 would have costed us one year of control, while now he will get some of that learning in AAA before hopefully getting called up in July or August (or even September), and getting to play a little backing up Bengie plus learning from Molina.

I'm upset about Sanchez but I'll get over it (unlike others). He should only be out for two weeks, and that should not kill our chances of winning while he is out, because Uribe is a good enough replacement. Hey, one year Schmidt was out until May, and we came back and started winning and had a good year. As long as we don't fall too far behind while he is out, we should be OK.

Still, something has got to be done about the training staff, we seem to have all these unknown medical conditions that creep up on us, starting around when Bonds knee that was suppose to keep him out for a little while instead kept him out almost all season.

Guzman: hey, thanks for the excitement you gave us for a little while, good luck.

2009 Giants: Facing the Mariners

Tough series in SD, it was pretty much a worse case scenario. Now the Giants have lost 3 in a row, getting swept by the lowly 'Dres and have lost 7 of 8, to fall to 19-21, and the KNBR morning show, or specifically Paulie Mac, is in a huge snit over the offense. And it don't look to get any better going forward, we face two of Seattle's best starters, Washburn and King Felix, and basically a rookie who has pitched well thus far this season.

The sky is now not suddenly falling. The offense is what it is, it is not as good as other teams. We've all known this. However, as it has shown so far this season, it doesn't need to be with the pitching we got in order to be competitive, which we have been for the most part, being around .500 for the most part all season.

Sure, I would rather be winning hand over fist, and challenging for the title. But that is not the goal for this season. Neukom has said this for a long while now: the goals for the team are that we're going to be competitive in 2009, contending in 2010. We are competitive, as a team. Anything beyond that - like our recent run at LA - is the gravy on top.

Game 1: Randy Johnson vs. Jason Vargas

Johnson has been too inconsistent, and basically bad, to hope to come out with a win. However, he's facing basically a rookie, who you never know how they will do, though Vargas has pitched well enough in his first two starts, after starting the season in the minors, and relieving when he was first called up. He's not going to last long, probably, only going 5 IP in each of those two starts, so we should see the bullpen, which has been pretty good overall. We would have to get to him early to get the worse relievers to come up, otherwise they have a good relieving corps, led by, of all people, former Giant David Aardsma, who seems to have finally figured it out, after all these years. Still, I have to think this is probably a loss.

Game 2: Matt Cain vs. Jarrod Washburn

On the surface, it looks like this should be a tough game, both have roughly the same ERA. However, he has had two bad starts in a row, so that gives some hope. In addition, he hasn't pitched well in SAFECO since joining the team, so there is that too. However, he might have suffered from the yips, since last year was his first season with the team. And he is improved this year at home. It would seem that we have a better than 50/50 chance to win, but not much better than that, so it's basically a coin toss.

Game 3: Barry Zito vs. Felix Hernandez

This would have looked like a sure loss previously, but with Zito's resurgence, it is at least a tough game now. Plus, King Felix hasn't been so royal lately, giving up 6 runs in 3 of his last 4 starts (though no runs in the other game). And he gave up 5 runs to the A's, who have been similarly challenged offensively as the Giants. Like the Cain start, it would seem that we have a better than 50/50 chance to win, but not much better than that, so it's basically a coin toss.

Giants Thoughts

The Giants look like they are probably facing another series loss, with a strong chance to be swept again. A big factor for us this weekend is whether Jesus can save our offense: Jesus Guzman, that is.

Guzman was brought up yesterday, as the Giants sent down Steve Holm again; Pablo Sandoval is the backup catcher once again. I view the call-up of Guzman as a concession to fans, though it's also could be because Schierholtz hadn't been able to do well in his part time role thus far. Ideally, we would have used the DH to give Schierholtz more consistent ABs to see what he can do.

Instead, now we will see Guzman in that role, though I noticed talk of having Molina DH in the third game, which would mean Sandoval catches, and Guzman would have to play a position, probably either 1B or 3B. Since King Felix is a RHP, I would have to think Guzman plays 3B, his position from last year, while Ishikawa plays 1B, but if the Giants decide otherwise, Ishikawa might not even get one start in Seattle, his hometown, as the first two starters are tough lefties. Not that he has deserved it, but just saying.

As I've noted elsewhere, Guzman's topline numbers are nice, but his MLE is no better than what Ishikawa put up last season in AAA in similar amount of AB's. If he's replacing Aurilia in the platoon at 1B, then that is OK with me, but for now, it should be a platoon between Ishikawa and Guzman, and should Guzman just rakes, then Ishikawa could find himself with less and less starts, unless he can start hitting with the power he has done previously.

It could be time for our offense to light up. We were challenged in SD, as it is an extreme pitcher's park, and we faced two pitchers who have been a nemesis for us, in Young and Gaudin. And Correia, as much as Giants fans sometimes deride him, he was a good starter for us often enough that I respect his abilities. He had a good game, you just have to tip your hat to him, that is going to happen.

However, a number of hitters have been either heating up or been hot, until SD that is. Rowand has taken to the leadoff spot and been raking. Sandoval had been on a tear for a while, one difficult series in SD is no reason to think he's cooled off. Ishikawa had been on a mini-streak of getting on base and some hitting, until yesterday's game. Winn and Lewis have been on a streak as well. And Molina has been, well, big money lately. I think this series will be a better indication of the offense than the SD series, even though we are facing tough pitchers in this series too.

And people would not have such consternation right now if one player had done his job: Brian Wilson. He has a 9.53 ERA, three losses and two blown saves in his past six appearances. Had he done his job, two of those losses would have probably been wins and we'd be 21-19 right now, and fans would not be grabbing for their pitchforks.

And really, is 19-21 the end of the world? The team will go through bad streaks, it not really that good. And we all knew this going in. Sure, it does not feel good when the pitching does well and the offense doesn't back them up. However, a number of the losses were because the pitching let us down when the offense did well, including knocking out Johan Santana early. I didn't recall hearing a call to revamp the whole starting rotation because of that one bad streak there. This is just a bad streak for the offense, and since it's not that good, there will be more of those than for the starting rotation. Still, the rotation had that bad streak early in the season, and just had another bad streak. It will happen.

Give Ishikawa and Burriss More Time

I wrote the below in El Lefty Malo's post on his thoughts for May. I discussed why we should stick with Ishikawa and Burriss instead of bringing up Guzman and Frandsen, as much as I like Franny and want him up here:

About Guzman, given that his defense has been a huge problem up to now plus the A's could just have him DH, I cannot imagine that his defense at 1B could be any good so quickly. If it was that easy to do, then why wasn't it done long ago?

His defensive weakness has been known for a long time, and his bat has been known as well. He had his first big season in 2007 and played 1B there for 5 games, mostly playing 2B, 3B, LF, and DH. Seems clear to me that the opinion so far is that his bat won't play at 1B. As nice as his numbers are in AAA so far, the MLE is .269/.286/.462/.748, which is better than Ishikawa right now but not really 1B-worthy. And Ishikawa's MLE in Fresno was .267/.313/.568/.881 in 2008 with more AB's.

About Ishikawa, I understand the concern, but he had a 8 game span at the end of April (4/19 to 5/1) where he hit .348/.407/.435/.842, so it is not like he's been totally lost the whole time he's been up here. And don't forget how many homers he hit in spring training.

Now, I'm not saying to leave him in there all year, but given how badly AT&T affects left-handed hitters, particularly their power, plus hitters in general, and the fact that he has only gotten 7 starts on the road, with 4 of them at notorious pitchers parks (Dodger and PetCo), he hasn't really gotten a lot of good chances (only 3 starts in regular ballparks) to show what he is capable of.

And as much as I would love to see Frandsen starting at 2B, the same applies with Burriss.

And it won't get much better this month, with another 6 games in LA and SD, plus 3 in Seattle, another pitcher's park.

Still, you wonder about flukiness of small samples. For example, Ishikawa's hit .270/.317/.378/.695 at home, which, not great but better than his overall numbers. But that double the other day was 1-2 feet away from a homer, and would probably have been a homer in another park. Changing the double to a homer, he would be hitting .270/.317/.432/.749 at home, which is much better, and doable with great defense (so far his UZR/150 is 22, meaning he's worth 2.2 wins on defense if he continues playing at this high a level of defense; that's excellent).

The reason his numbers look really bad is that he's hitting .120/.154/.120/.274 on the road. Given his minor league numbers, that's the outlier, not his numbers in AT&T. And in those 7 starts he has faced Shawn Hill, Jake Peavey, Chris Young, Chad Billingsley, Max Scherzer, Jon Garland, and Ryan Dempster. Except for Hill, that's a pretty tough group of starters to be up against, he wouldn't be the first hitter to do poorly against that group.

And it is not like we have an obvious replacement ready to take over right now. I think the first choice to bring up has to be Dallas McPherson once he is ready to play and get up to speed in AAA offensively. I think whenever he is ready, then Ishikawa has to start looking over his shoulder.

But since I view 2009 as more of a learning year where we learn what our players are capable of, I would give Ishikawa at least to the end of May, and I would lean strongly towards giving him until the end of the road trip that ends on June 11th in Arizona. By then he should have plenty of ABs to be evaluated on, another few road trips to show what he got outside of SF. That's when the small samples should start evening out, if its ever going to even out.

Many players have had a bad month of April, only to do well the rest of the season. The vast majority of those players are the vets who are given the benefit of the doubt because they are vets, as most prospects just get sent down and don't get the chance to do well (or not) for the rest of the season in the majors.

If Villalona was ready to come up, then I might feel differently, but Guzman, I suspect, will be Velez with power instead of speed at 1B and with the same glove, and thus McPherson is the best guy we got to put there but he's not even playing AAA yet, is he? So I would just given Ishikawa a lot of games and see what he can do. He did nicely last season, let's see if he can recover this season. If not, move on.

Burriss is a little different in that he has options still (Ishikawa has none), doesn't provide a skill lacking on the team (Ishikawa has power), and has a replacement in AAA who conceivably is as good as he is overall (Frandsen has better offense but worse defense; speaking of which, Burriss' UZR/150 is -3.7, so he has poor offense and defense this year, though must note he had great UZR/150 in 2008). However, he has been hitting lately, so I would be inclined to keep him around as long as Ishikawa, to the end of that road trip, before bringing up Frandsen. That should be enough time for him to figure things out too.

Early Season Small Sample Fluctuations

The issue with small samples can be illustrated by how quickly things can change early in the season. Rowand, as late as April 29 was hitting a very nice .283/.358/.450/.808 overall. In the space of 4 games and a 0-for-15 skein, he dropped to .228/.299/.367/.666. I didn't see many complaining about Rowand for much of April, but once he hit this bad patch, I see a bunch of people complaining about him. But if he duplicates what he hit in his first three games of the season, he'll be back up to .267/.316/.460/.776, which is good for a CF, particularly one hitting lower in the batting order, where you want more power.

That's why it's better to try to focus on how the hitter is doing relative to his past performance, in terms of walks, strikeouts, and walks to strikeouts. As we all learned from DIPS theory, hits is related more to luck regarding the opposing defense, so as long as he seems to be going OK in terms of those ratios, then his batting skill level appears to be OK and he'll be better once things even out.

So, in Rowand's case, he has a career .321 BABIP, but his BABIP is currently .267, showing that he's suffering from a ton of bad luck right now. Luckily, according to what I read from Extra Baggs, Rowand knows he's swinging well but just suffering from bad luck, so he's keeping things going the same. Meanwhile, he's right in range for his career, with 21.5% K% vs. 19.7% K% for his career, and is high in walks with 8.0% BB% vs. 5.8% BB% for his career (BB/PA). Which means he's doing well with a 41.2% BB/K ratio vs. 32.7% BB/K for his career.

With a career average BABIP, he would be hitting .268/.339/.414/.753 right now. Not great but certainly within expected fluctuations for his career stats, and in line with what he did last season. As others have noted before, people's complaints sometimes tell more about them than what they are complaining about.

Information on Prospects: Posey, Sandoval, Bumgarner

Got some news on a number of prospects.

BA Jim Callis High On Giants

Jim Callis of Baseball America listed his Top 10 NL prospects for 2009 and both Bumgarner and Posey are on the list, in fact, was in the Top 4:

• Madison Bumgarner was 2nd behind Pedro Alvarez: "Showed much more polish than expected in first full season, led minors with 1.46 ERA."
• Buster Posey was 4th behind Colby Rasmus: "Has the tools to become the NL's version of Joe Mauer." Wow, that would be great! Mauer has been a great catcher, both defensively and offensively, with lack of HR power his only negative point.

BA Info on Venezuela League

The prospect notebook, which covers just a few prospects, includes information on two of the Giants prospects, Jesus Guzman (3B/2B) and Pablo Sandoval (C/1B/3B):

• Jesus Guzman is a recent free agent signing. He was with the A's minor league team in 2008 and did great, plus the A's wanted to re-sign him, but apparently they were unwilling to invite him to the big league camp this spring training, whereas the Giants offered that. It notes that "Guzman is a legitimate prospect who has pulverized pitchers in Venzuela." You have to take the stats with a grain of salt because the run environment rose from an average of 4.3 runs per game in 2007 to 5.3 runs per game in 2008, a huge improvement. Still, he batted .349/.435/.616, ranking second in OPS, fifth in OBP, and third in slugging, plus led the league in extra-base hits, runs scored, hits, and ranked third in home runs. He also recorded 67 RBIs, breaking the previous league record of 65 RBIs set in 1973-74. They note that he "is still a work in progess. With Midland, Guzman made nine errors in 49 games at third base and eight errors in 31 games at second. But the bat? He's making believers out of those who see him." They quote one scout: "That kid, out of nowhere, has made himself into a major league hitter. I don't think he's going to go play right now - he's still in the learning process. But he's got maturity at the plate and more patience than he used to have... now he just looks awesome."
• Pablo Sandoval was the only player with a higher OPS than Guzman in Venezuela. Sandoval hit .396/.449/677, mostly at 1B with a few games at third. Sandoval led the league in batting average and slugging, was fourth in OBP and tied for fourth with 12 homers. He noted that "Sandoval offers a hard-to-find combination of a player who is difficult to strike out but who also comes with a serious power stroke from both sides of the plate. While many power hitters have longer swings, Sandoval's short stroke and ability to hit all types of pitches allow him to hit for average, and his strength gives him the power to hit the ball out of the park to all fields."

Pablo Lights Up the Clubhouse

Joan Ryan, formerly with the Examiner/Chronicle, has been writing in a blog while also serving as media consultant to the team. Since right around Christmas, she has been writing in the blog, Inside the Giants Clubhouse. I always enjoyed her writing at the SF papers and was bummed that she had left sports reporting to write on more general matters, and so I am excited by her return to reporting on the Giants with much improved access to the clubhouse now that she's an employee rather than a reporter.

Just the other day, she wrote on Pablo Sandoval in her blog. It was wide-ranging, covering his life history and circumstances, and included information about him on the Giants:

Sandoval, as you know, lit up the clubhouse as soon as he arrived. He is one of
those people who make you smile just to look at them. He carried himself like a
veteran on the field - particularly, of course, at the plate -- but in the
clubhouse and even during pregame warm-ups, he was like a kid who sneaked in
through a hole in the fence and can't believe no one has tossed him out yet.
Everyone loves him. A few weeks after Sandoval's arrival, Zito already was
calling him his favorite player.

Amazingly, he lived a middle-class life much like any American, but just loved sports and pursued his dream hard like any of us would have had we any baseball talent. He grew up idolizing Omar Vizquel, playing shortstop. According to Bochy, he was playing 3B when the Giants signed him (so he has had more experience at the hot corner than just playing for us briefly).

Lucky for him, he had an older brother who was already a professional ballplayer, else his parents might not have let him sign with the Giants at 16, as they stressed education rather than sports. His two other older brothers are in other professions, one a police officer, the other a criminal attorney.

He was basically raised by his grandmother, as both his parents were busying working, his father in management and his mother running a company that sells electronics. He has a wife and one-year-old daughter, Yoleadny Carolina.

Non-Roster Invites to Big League Spring Training Camp

Buster Posey was among the non-roster invitees to the big league spring training camp. The team considers the highly touted catcher to be on the "fast track" and feel that he could learn from exposure to our roving catching instructor Brian Harper, Major League bullpen catcher Bill Hayes, and manager Bruce Bochy, a former catcher. The aforementioned Jesus Guzman is also among them, as noted above as the reason he joined the Giants. Kevin Pucetas, the most spectacular pitcher of the year in 2007, will also be participating in his first Major League camp. He has a three year professional record of 32-7 with a 2.35 ERA. Two other familiar faces are Scott McClain and Ivan Ochoa.

Other invitees (first six with major league experience) are:

• Francis Beltran, RHP
• Brandon Medders, RHP
• Justin Miller, RHP
• Eli Whiteside, C
• Josh Phelps, 1B/OF
• Andres Torres, OF
• Todd Jennings, C (fourth camp)
• Jake Wald, IF (third camp)
• Jackson Williams, C (second camp in row)
• Ronnie Ray, RHP (first camp)
• Matt Downs, 2B/3B (first camp)

Miller was a pretty good reliever in recent years, so he could bolster the bullpen in 2009. Phelps has been a big hitter in the minors and looking for a chance. He could platoon with Ishikawa or Bowker at 1B in 2009. Matt Downs has risen fast up the farm system and has bit of HR power. He is a fanboy favorite; I like him too, just not as much, though I am hopeful.