Your 2010 Giants are 47-41: The Metropolitans

After that lovely road trip, the Giants get to start the second half with four against the Mets at home, before heading off to the road again (and with no rest until early August).

Game 1:  R.A. Dickey vs. Lincecum

MLB Notes:

Mets:  Dickey will be looking to get back to winning games. The knuckleballer has lost two of his past three starts, and the Mets lost all three times. Dickey had previously won six consecutive outings.

Giants:  Lincecum finished the half on a high note, allowing one run on four hits in seven innings at Milwaukee in a 15-2 victory. The NL leader in strikeouts fanned 10 in the game, marking the fifth time this season he has reached double digits, and the 24th time in his career.

Dickey has been great this season, but better at home (2.00 ERA) than on the road (3.32 ERA), though still pretty good.  A knuckleballer you can't really tell how he's going to do any particular day.  One would think that he would have his way with our free swingers, but you never know.  Should be a tough game for Lincecum, but he got a lot of rest (didn't pitch in the All-Star game) so he should be good to go.  I would call it even with an edge to Lincecum because of his past dominance.

Game 2:  Jon Niese vs. Zito

MLB Notes:

Mets:  Niese has arguably been the Mets' best pitcher since coming off the disabled list on June 5. He let up three runs in 7 2/3 innings against Cincinnati his last time out, but took his first loss since coming back from the hamstring injury.

Giants:  This begins Zito's time of year. He's 75-40 with a 3.42 ERA in the second half during his career, vs. 65-70, 4.18 in the first. He's endured frustration in his past two outings, blowing a 7-1 lead on July 3, then being removed after 4 2/3 innings with a 6-2 lead on July 8.

I think the days off helped Zito cleanse his mental pallette, and he'll, as noted, start his "time of year."  Still, Niese is pretty good himself, so I would call this game a push between the two teams with a lean towards the Mets since Niese has been doing well and Zito has been struggling.

Game 3:  Mike Pelfrey vs. Cain

MLB Notes:

Mets:  After a tremendous start to the season, Pelfrey has failed to complete five innings in each of his past three starts and failed to log a quality start in four of his last five. Pelfrey let up three runs in 7 1/3 innings against the Giants earlier this season.

Giants:  Cain, who takes pride in his durability, has maintained his workhorse status by pitching a club-high 121 1/3 innings. Assuming Cain makes 33 starts, as he did last season, he's on pace for 222 1/3 innings, exceeding his career high of 217 2/3 which he hit in 2008 and '09.

Again, two good pitchers, head to head.  Have to call it even as well.  Pelfrey and Cain have not been doing well in recent starts, been inconsistent.  However, I would give Cain the lean because Pelfrey, during his career, has been horrible on the road, and even this season he is worse on the road, though still pretty good. 

Game 4:  Johan Santana vs. Sanchez

MLB Notes:

Mets:  Santana will bring a streak of 16 consecutive scoreless innings into this game, and he has won each of his past two starts. Santana let up four runs over 7 2/3 innings against San Francisco on May 8.

Giants:  Sanchez is striving to reach double digits in victories for the first time in his career. Last season, he didn't win his seventh game until Sept. 23. Sanchez remains capable of dominance, allowing an average of 7.03 hits while striking out 9.03 batters per nine innings.

I have to give this game to the Mets and Santana.  Not just because he's been one of the best pitchers of the last 10 years.  Not just because of his 2.98 ERA.  Not just because he brings a streak of 16 consecutive scoreless innings.  

I have to give it to Mets because it is Sanchez starting.  Not because his ERA is worse.  Not because he's been inconsistent and hasn't pitched well in recent starts.

But because Santana is Sanchez's idol.  Sanchez screwed up his mechanics last season because he had to imitate his idol's mechanics.  However, because he's several inches taller than his idol, that just screwed him up so bad that he didn't fully fix his mechanics until his no-hitter. 

He will want to do his best against Santana, his hero.  However, Sanchez's history suggests that when the pressure is on, he wilts a lot.  Like starting the home opener this season. 

Have to give this game to the Mets, though since the Giants hit Santana hard last time, there is the chance that with Posey around now, maybe they will hit him harder and we score a lot of runs off him.  But given his history of good pitching, I have to chalk up that bad outing to the luck of the draw, and now they get to face his normal goodness.

Giants Thoughts

The Giants look like they will have a very tough series against the Mets, facing so many pitchers who have pitched well this season.  But the Giants counter with four of their own.  It looks like it will be a pretty even battle, probably ending in a draw, but there is also a chance that we might end up losing 1-3.  I think the Giants need to take 3 out of 4 to make a statement on the second half.  Hopefully they can carry the momentum that they had from the road trip into this series.  Even better would be if Posey could continue hitting bullets.

Sabean on the Giants

Baggarly blogged on Sabean's midseason assessment. Many there were outraged by Sabean's comment about the pitching.

People need to improve their reading skills.

Sabean did not say that the pitching is not good, he said that the pitching has not been as “advertised” and that they have been “disappointing”.

He noted these deficiencies:

“Too many deep counts, we leave the defense on the field too long, too many pitches per inning.”

“We’ve got to throw more strikes. We’ve got to pitch more to contact. One of the things you can do for your defense is get them off the field, and we haven’t been able to do that.” [FYI: I fixed that to say "defense" not "offense"]

“And when you’re going through a spot when you aren’t swinging the bat, you’ve got to have some people putting up zeros or have one- or two-run games. And we haven’t had that. It’s been disappointing.”

He never said that the pitching was not good, just that it didn’t do what he thinks they are capable of. I think that is a fair assessment.

Offensive Improvement


Meanwhile the offense has done a lot better in improving than the pitching/fielding (defense):

Offense 2009: 4.06 runs scored per game (league average 4.43)
Offense 2010: 4.44 runs scored per game (league average 4.39)

Runs Allowed 2009: 3.77 runs allowed per game
Runs Allowed 2010: 3.75 runs allowed per game

A lot of that happened on the road trip, particularly against the Brew Crew, but still, I think it is indicative of the improvement in the team over last season. 

Big Difference for Second Half:  Bumgarner is now Fifth Starter

That said, I think the change to Bumgarner provides a huge boost to the rotation and pitching going forward. The Giants were 4-8 with other 5th starters, but the core group we have now were 43-33. At that winning percentage rate for the rest of the season, we end up at 89 wins, by going 42-32.

I think the change to Posey (and relatedly Ishikawa) will add at least one or two wins (versus what we were getting from Molina before), pushing us to 90-91 wins, if not more considering that our pitching staff has historically pitched better in the second half.

And that does not account for the possibility of Pablo returning to his former goodness, nor that Torres will get relatively more ABs than Rowand going forward. 

If everyone else could just continue doing what they did, and only Huff was really performing above expectations (but still in line with what he has done before, so not that bad an outlier) and many were below, then the Giants should be able to finish the season with 90+ wins.  Whether that will be enough to win the NL West is debatable.  As I have tried to analyze, it appears that LA and SD should fall short of 90 wins if they don't add someone who performs. 

I haven't tried looking at Colorado - and that will have to happen another day - but I noticed in another post that they have a very poor record when Ubaldo was not starting and he's starting to come back to human status in recent starts, which should counter the boost they get when Tulowitski returns to their lineup, but they should get an overall boost from Street returning as well.  They are currently on pace for 90 wins.

What Is Needed to Get Into Playoffs:  At Least 90 Wins


An analysis I did before found that the runner-up to the Wild Card team typically did not have 90+ wins.  In the 14 full seasons with the current playoff format, since 1996, there has only been 4 seasons where the runner-up won 90 games or more.  That seems to be a dividing line.

To win the WC or NL West, that is, to get into the playoffs, an NL West team had to win at least 90 games.  90 wins got you into the playoffs 7 of the 14 times, which is 50% of the time.  91 wins got you in 8 of 14, 92 got you in 11 of 14. 

I think 90 wins seem like the probable ending for the Giants season right now.  And it seems like the other teams will be right around there as well.  They will need some boost to get them over the 90 win hump and into the playoffs.

How The Giants Can Get to 90-92 Wins

First off, if they can just continue doing what they have done, only being more consistent in scoring runs, they can do it.  At 4.44 RS and 3.75 RA, that works out to a 92.5 win season in 162 games, or roughly 92-93 wins.  Their win total now is short of that potential (though mainly, I'll bet, because of the 18 runs the scored on the Brewers; and that appears to be true, without that game, they have a 4.29 RS, which is only a 90 win rate with our current pitching/fielding), and thus regression could bring them back to the 90-92 win pace. 

Other scenarios for the team to get a boost into the playoffs :

• The most likely boost is that our pitchers typically pitch better in the second half, particularly Zito and Cain.  Lincecum, having a down year so far (all relative, of course, to his stellar prior years), could also perk up as well.  Sanchez has been up and down, but has not had a stretch yet where he is totally dominating, which he has had in his past two seasons (in 2008, it was in May/June, if I remember right, in 2009, it was after his no-hitter).  Though these are countered by the fact that Bumgarner could get shut down at some point, resulting in Wellemeyer starting, which would be OK if the spot start is in SF.  Still, he'll be probably starting most of the second half, whereas Wellemeyer was starting most of the first half, so that is a boost in itself.
• Clearly, if Posey can continue to hit at an elite level for the whole second half, that would be a huge boost to the lineup, particularly if Huff continues to hit at an elite level (if Huff doesn't, then Posey would just be replacing Huff's production).  That is not a given, his numbers in the minors do not suggest that he will continue to hit like this.  Still, he has accomplished it so there is some ability to do that at least occasionally, regularly if he can figure out how to do that all the time.  Amy Gutierrez of CSN Sports tweeted (@AmyGGiants)  that "Posey has 25 RBI in 38 gms. Only 2 other SF Giants had at least 25 RBI in 1st 40 gms of their rookie yr..Cepeda & McCovey (Elias)".   Pretty good company and odd that all three are players who played mostly 1B but also at other positions, though eventually Posey will mainly play C.  
• Another possible boost is that the effect of the Molina trade is that we swapped out Molina's .644 OPS for whatever Ishikawa can deliver.  Except for that bad start to the 2009 season going into May 10 (he hit .280/.350/.424/.774 after his early struggles), Ishikawa has been around the high .700 OPS level for his career.  Even with that bad stretch, he still has 14 HR in 510 AB with an OPS of .758 during his career.   If Ishikawa can continue that, that would be a good boost to the team offensively plus his defense at 1B can add a win by itself.  Luckily he wasn't traded or released as some had been agitating for, for years for some.
• A hoped for boost is a return of Kung Fu Panda's bat.  Recent rumors had a possible divorce distracting him, and in any case, his weight has become an issue again.  Bay City Ball had a nice analysis in a recent post, where he found that Sandoval has been walking and striking out at the same rate, as well as swinging and making contact, but it is his ISO and BABIP that took a big hit this season, which has costed him.  That makes a lot of sense.  Whatever is bothering him is causing him to just miss on the pitches, resulting in less force and power.  That means less balls driven to the outfield and dropping for hits, resulting in a lower BABIP (as these balls are caught instead), and less hits that become extra-base hits, particularly homers.  But his underlying skill in judging the strike zone - in his own inimitable Panda way - remained.  If he can figure out how to start swinging for power again, the Kung Fu Panda's mojo - and hitting - would return in full force.  FYI, very insightful analysis there at Bay City Ball, good site to go for advanced sabermetric analysis of Giants issues.  It is the site that I wish I could do, Chris has done a good job there.
• Not as significant a boost, but I think if Chris Ray can return to his former closer goodness, he would settle down the 8th inning set-up situation greatly, and make leads that we carry into the 8th be locked-down wins.  That is something that we mostly had in 2009 with Affeldt doing his thing, but which he's been struggling with until recently.  And if he can return to his prior goodness - and he has a nice string of good outings for a while now - he and Ray and Romo would be a really good bridge from the starter's 6-7 innings to closing for the win by Wilson.
• Not too much mention of Bowker, but he's been hitting up a storm down there in Fresno.  He has suffered from the jitters of thinking too much when he's up in the majors, but if he can figure out how to calm himself down (and this has been Ishikawa's problem as well, which he solved via his faith), he could be a left-handed bat that could help the lineup against RHP that Sabean said we needed.  Schierholtz is another option and he has been getting opportunities lately, but he has not been doing much with his chances.  Still, if he gets hot after the second half starts, he could keep Bowker down in Fresno for the rest of the second half.

Your 2010 Giants are 22-18: Licking Wounds Again, But in O-Town; Gamer-tude?

You hate to lose games like that, but when the home umpire appears to be drunk or high - there is no other explanation for what the announcers reported, a moving, ever-changing strike zone - sometimes you end with up with the sharp end of the stick in the eye.  It happens, move on, act like you've lived a little, as Gary Radnich likes to say.

But the stats are ugly, the Giants are 18-6 outside of the NL West, 4-12 playing our NL West rivals.  We are singlehandedly keeping them in the race for the pennant, even playing even with them would put them squarely behind us instead of third.  Still, we are only 1.5 games behind so it's not like it's the end of the world, unlike all the pitchforks and lynch mobs that permeates most Giants boards.

Now the Giants get to return home, but play on the road:  yes, it is time for interleague play against the A's.  The A's are also reeling from a 2-game sweep too, so one team is going to get well at the expense of the other today.  The A's have been having their problems, after a nice start, and are now 4 games back, hardly anything to worry about this early in the season, but still it will take a while to get back to the top.  I wonder if Giants fans will outnumber the A's at their park, like they did in San Diego the other day, the A's attendance has been poor and so there will be a lot of seats available for Giants fans to buy and attend.

Game 1:  Trevor Cahill vs. Zito

Part of the A's young core of pitchers, Cahill is only 22 YO, and doing pretty well, though not a league leader yet.  He has progressed this season, but his K/9 is absolutely horrible, there have rarely been any pitchers who can survive in the majors with a sub-5 K/9 (4.5 last season, 4.0 this season).   He has typically pitched better at home, but only has one start at home so far, albeit a shutout, because it appears he missed the early part of the season as he only has 4 starts so far and most have around 9.

Zito has done poorly against the A's since moving to the Giants, so the outcome of this game will hinge greatly on whether the new, improved Zito 2010 shows up or his prior self.  Pressure situations like this often cause pitchers to amp up and lose their command of pitches, though the pressure is usually all internal, because it's his old team.  He says he's fine, that it is old now, as the players he knew are gone and the treatment he got from A's fans when he did return, plus it's been so many years now.  I think the new Zito shows up, but Cahill's pretty good at home usually so it will be a tight battle, though I lean towards Cahill since he's done well at home, he's a pitcher (not a fireballer) and the Giants seem to flail against the non-fastballs.

Game 2:  Gio Gonzalez vs. Cainer

I guess the Giants lucked out with the A's, missing the starters with the best ERAs, as Gio Gonzalez has the best ERA of the three facing the Giants and he has the fourth best ERA out of the starters who has at least 4 starts so far.  Injury has taken away two, and the Giants miss facing Mr. Perfect Game, Dallas Braden.  

The oft-travelled Gonzalez, who has had two different stints with White Sox, sandwiched by a year with the Phillies, is still only 24 YO for this season.  He has improved each season, in terms of ERA, but appears to be lucking out with his BABIP this season plus he has suffered a sharp drop in his K/9, which while still good at 7.9, is not in the 9.0+ range it was before.  Now some players ratchet back that to get better command, but his walk rate, while down, isn't good yet (still over 4 BB/9) and his K/BB ratio is worse than last season.

He is slightly better at home this season, but he was worse before, which is odd because their park is a pitcher's park.  Cain, on the other hand, has improved his road numbers the past couple of seasons to be almost even with his home numbers, so this should be a good game, a tight battle as well.  What could be the tipping point is that he's a lefty and the Giants have been vulnerable to them, though they handled Cole Hamels fine, and that he has made adjustments and is pitching a bit better in May in terms of peripherals, despite his poorer ERA.

Game 3:  Ben Sheets vs. Sanchez

The A's ten million dollar man has not been earning his pay:  5.66 ERA, striking out less, walking more, giving up more homers and hits.  The good news on him, from the A's perspective, is that his BABIP is high, .331.  And, he's been pitching very well at home, he's mainly been hammered on the road.  However, he was beat upon by the lowly Mariners in his last home start, though he started looking like the Sheets of old in his prior two starts where he got 8 K's each.   He did miss all of last season, so a transition period, even with spring training, is probably to be expected.  Was his last start just a bump on the road to returning to his dominant old self?  Possibly.

Dirty has had a better month in terms of peripherals but a regression to the mean on homers has costed him in terms of ERA, doubling his April results, basically.  He has pitched well in the Coliseum before, and after two horrible starts when he was suffering from a cold, he has pitched well in sabermetric terms.  This should be another battle.

Giants Thoughts

This series seem like a toss-up.  Each are pretty evenly matched, so the edge probably belongs to the home team, the A's.  This should be another test of the Giants resolve, of their gamer-tude.  Yesterday was a horrible game.  Will that linger into this first game and result in a bad loss, which would set up a series loss?  Or will they pick themselves off the ground and battle again?

Gamer-Tude

Given that the Giants have been doing well this season and the A's have not, I'm leaning towards a series win for the Giants.  I think we are seeing a new Zito, he's been showing gamer-tude all season.   Cain started showing Gamer-Tude last season.  And Sanchez, I think, is getting there.

The offense too has been showing signs of this too this season.  Beating good pitchers like Oswalt, Halladay, Myers.  Scoring a lot of runs too.  The Giants have scored at least 4 runs 24 times this season, 5 or more runs 20 times.  And the Giants were 66-15 when they scored at least 4 runs last season, 54-8 when they score 5 or more runs.  Their pitching and fielding don't need that many runs to win at a great rate, even at 3 runs they were 10-10 last season.

So far this season, the offense is 24-16 in terms of scoring at least 4 runs in the game.  The pitching and fielding are 27-13.  If we removed Wellemeyer's starts:  24-8.

Well, A-Maybe We'll Go Mit Hacker

Hank Schulman had a scoop that the Giants are close to removing Wellemeyer from the rotation (not sure if he would even stay as long-reliever) and are considering Eric Hacker, a free agent pickup who has been doing great in AAA.  At only 27 YO, he's not old enough to think that age and experience is why he's dominating down there - 7-1, 2.20 ERA, 45 IP, 38 K, 12 BB - and his MLE translates to an ERA of around 3.00, so he's doing very well so far.  

He once was a Yankee's farmhand and was with both the Yankees and Pirates last season (acquired by trade).  He a quick call up with the Pirates last season, doing nothing much, and I guess he became a 6 year minor league free agent and signed with the Giants over the off-season.  Appears to be a ground-ball type pitcher from his minor league stats.  Was never one to strike out a lot, did his job by avoiding walks and flyballs.

Bumgarner has not been ruled out, but I have to think that the Giants would rather keep him in the minors to get his mechanics straight.  While good since figuring out his mechanical problem, and great since adding a cutter two starts ago, I would rather he stay in the minors and get his mechanics going good before we call him up.  

Meanwhile, that allows us to try out Hacker, and if he fails, Pucetas, but if either does well, that gives us another trading chip or at least a qualified backup in the minors should one of our starters should go down for whatever reason.  

The main problem with Hacker is that he's not on our 40 man roster and we have no space on it anymore after Denny Bautista was called up (I believe he took Lewis' spot).  One alternative, I believe, which I think would be most likely, is moving Burriss to the 60-day DL, which would allow us to add a player to the 40 man.  DeRosa getting wrist surgery would also put him him on the 60-day DL.  Of course, depending on how they feel about Wellemeyer, they could possibly DFA him if they decided that this was all they wanted from him.  Alex Hinshaw is another possibility, he hasn't done well in AAA this season, and I read somewhere that he was on the bubble regarding the 40-man in previous discussions about who to drop.  I view this as unlikely since they could move Burriss, but you never know when they have decided they had enough, like when they let go of Billy Sadler.

Pucetas is already on the 40 man so promoting him would not require a move.  But since the scuttlebutt is regarding Hacker, they must have thought through what they might have to do to get him on the roster before considering him so seriously.

Six-Man Rotation

Plus, as I've been advocating in my comments recently at other sites (and maybe here), I think the Giants should seriously consider a 6-man rotation in August, particularly if we are leading the division by a good margin, but even if they are not.  There are 28 games in the 31 days of August, only 3 days of rest.  And there are 17 games in 17 days after the All-Star break, so perhaps they should consider doing that after the All-Star break, that's only 3 days of rest in those roughly 6-7 weeks (plus they play on Sept. 1st as well).  A 6 man rotation would simulate giving the starters an extra day of rest that they were getting in April when there is a day off and you are going with a 5 man rotation.   

I wouldn't consider this except that the Giants have a Madison Bumgarner in the minors, who should do well once he gets up to the majors.  If we were adding two mediocre starters to the rotation, then that would just hurt our chances of making the playoffs.  But adding Bumgarner and if he works out as well as Cain did when he first came up (and as well as Bumgarner did briefly last September), if anything, that would improve the rotation overall because the 6th starter, whether Hacker, Pucetas, Wellemeyer, or even Sosa or whoever (sign Pedro or Smoltz?), would get less starts overall than a 5th starter for another team would get.  Plus, this would shift our rotation against other teams so that our top pitchers will regularly face the other team's poorer starters in the back of their rotation, whereas most of our starters can hold their own against the other team's ace or #2.

That would reduce the load on our top starters (Lincecum, Zito, Cain) by 3 starts.  With 78 games after the All-Star Break, they would get 16 starts, while Sanchez and #5 would get 15 starts.  With 6 starters, they all get 13 starts, saving 20-25 innings off their arms, while also giving Bumgarner a chance to start in the majors and the #6 starter a chance to show something, whether new prospect or old vet free agent.  That would reduce the load on Lincecum's and Cain's arms from 220+ IP to around 200 IP.

This will keep our young starters' arms fresher for the playoffs plus would reduce the stress on their arms overall for the season so that it would not affect their performance as much in 2011.  Getting into the playoffs can add a lot of innings to the pitcher's seasonal total.  Sabathia had 5 extra starts and 36.1 IP added.  Krukow has noted before that it puts a strain on a pitcher's arm to jump more than 25 IP from one season to the next, that such a jump could cause performance problems the following season.  

Using a 6-man rotation would reduce the projected IP load on both Lincecum and Cain to within 25 IP of last season's totals, I believe.  In addition, it would give valuable experience to Bumgarner.  Plus, give opportunities to start to other prospects or to a vet looking for another ring and another payday in 2011.  This works on a lot of different dimensions, and if Bochy went with the pitching batting 8th lineup yesterday, going with a 6-man rotation would be right up that alley.

AL Advantage:  DH

Our lineup against Oakland should be adequate this season, unlike season's past.  AL teams have an advantage over NL teams in that they have a full-time DH who is a good hitter (last season, third best hitting line in AL), whereas most NL teams have bench players who are not as good.  With Bowker, Downs, and Ishikawa on the bench, players who are capable of doing OK in the DH spot, I think we should be OK, though Bowker is probably starting since Schierholtz is day-to-day with a bad shoulder.

Training Staff Again

Maybe it is just a fan's mis-perception, but the Giants seem to suffer from so many physical maladies that linger until they finally sit down and maybe even DL.  The latest is Nate Schierholtz, who suffered a shoulder injury on that day against the Phillies when he gunned down two runners at 2B.  He has been in a horrible slump since then, but apparently it has been that shoulder, which has gotten worse since then, and now he's finally sitting and is day-to-day.  The DL was not mentioned, but I have to assume it's a possibility if it has gotten worse after two weeks and in any case, he needs a least a couple of more days off.

Presumably, with Torres already starting and Bowker hitting that homer last night, while Nate is out, Torres will play RF and Bowker probably will platoon with Downs in LF (guessing, once Franchez returned, Bochy said that Downs would not be forgotten, that he would see time at 3B and LF).   Cahill and Sheets are RHP while Gio is a LHP.   I guess that means Ishikawa could get the call to DH the whole series, or maybe get to start while Huff is the DH, to give him some rest, plus he's the pro at DH-ing.  

Your 2010 Giants: Deja Vu All Over Again: Who's Their Dre-ddy?

Nothing like a sweep to get the nasty taste of getting swept by the 'Dres out of your mouth. Them getting swept by the D-gers is nice too, though that keeps the D-gers only 1.5 games behind us and 2.0 games out of the lead. I don't like the D-gers winning, but when you sweep, you gain on somebody and that's good.

Now they get to face the 'Dres again, but on their home turf, get another chance to slay the monster in the closet. Every year there always seem to be a team that, for whatever reason, just beats up on the Giants. The 'Dres has been that team this year. Solving beating them would do wonders for not only our record but for getting into the playoffs. The Giants are 21-9 outside of playing them, though to be fair, outside of Houston too, they are 15-9. With only a two game series, it would take a sweep to gain anything, and it will be a tough series again.

Game 1: Clayton Richard vs. Matt Cain

Hard to tell what's going to happen with Richard. He was not a heralded prospect in the minors, only getting prospect status late in his minor league career, jumping to #5 in 2009 ChiSox Top 30 by Baseball America. As BA noted, he "rarely was considered more than a fringe prospect before 2008." But with a sinker that can get a lot of groundballs, he was able to take leaps and bounds and has been a good pitcher over the 2009-10 seasons in the majors with his stuff. But Minor League Baseball Analyst only rated him a #5 starter and BA wondered if he'll be better off as a reliever.

Still, he has been doing well, and if anything, has been very unlucky against left-handed batters this season. His low K/9 and K/BB (plus high BB/9) is countered by his strong 1.78 GB/FB ratio. The key plus for him is his low HR/FB he's had so far this season, only 2.7% vs. 10.9% his past two seasons (11.3% with San D last season), so unless Bud Black has figured out a way for Richard to be unlike any other pitcher in the majors, that imbalance in homers hit per flyball should correct itself this season. However, that does not mean the Giants will be the one to correct that.

He's a better pitcher at home but Cain has been a good pitcher on the road the past two seasons, so like last week, this should be a good matchup, may the better man win (of course, that means Cain :^). I think I would lean towards Cain though, he has dominated in San Diego previously, and as I noted, he's improved on the road, and Richard should be expecting regression in homers sooner or later.

Game 2: Mat Latos vs. Jonathan Sanchez

Latos, on the other hand, has been a highly touted prospect, BA had him #2 last season on the Dres' Top 30 and Minor League Baseball Analyst rated him a future #2 starter. However, BA noted that his "questionable maturity" caused him to fall in the draft but that his "raw stuff is ridiculously good." (which manifested itself in last week's thrown ball breaking Dave Flemming's car's sunroof, which could have severely hurt or killed someone; about as smart as people who fire their guns into the air when celebrating) They also noted that "he ends to reject structure, lacks a commitment to improve and rubs teammates the wrong way with his flippant attitude." (if I didn't mention it, the reason he throw the ball out of the ball park was because fans in the stands were yelling at him to throw them a souvenir ball and he thought it was funny to throw it to them like he's doing them a favor but throw it over their heads instead, out of reach).

But immature adolescents can do well in the majors and he has, which probably justifies his behavior in his mind. And his minor league stats seem to support his performance in the majors thus far. He gets a ton of ground balls, as well as also getting a lot of infield flies as well, so his low BABIP will not necessarily regress over time. He has also been unlucky with the long-ball this season, so that regression will help him greatly, as it's at 15.2% HR/FB when the mean is 10%.

However, while his ERA is better at home, he's shown much better peripherals on the road. His minors suggest that he's not as good as he has been on the road nor as bad as he's been at home. But he's been on a good streak, with consecutive shutouts (2 hitter and 1 hitter), so he's probably going to be tough again.

But so will Sanchez, who has pitched very well against the 'Dres - he seems to have their number - and so it should be another great battle, hard to say who would win, but given Latos two great games, have to lean towards him.

Giants Thoughts

So there will likely be a split this series, but given our bad streak so far against them, we could get swept again. That's baseball sometimes, just goes back and forth for a team, and some team for some reason got your number.

But the Giants has been good overall against the other teams, winning series against teams we might face in the playoffs if we make it (Braves, Colarado, Marlins, Phillies, Cards), and luckily has beaten up on the Astros, which makes up for for their futility so far with San Diego.

Plus, outside of the Giants, San Diego is only 16-15. So, as the season progresses, I expect us to pull away from the 'Dres, as their pitching staff gets off their hot streak, reverting closer to their career numbers, and their poor offense costs their good but not great pitching to lose games.  I like Kevin Correia, but if he's the ace of your staff, you are going to fall back down to reality at some point.

Their dominance of the Giants is the only thing keeping them in the race so far, just one win in each series by the Giants would have resulted in the Giants leading SD by 3.5 games and simply one win period would mean a 1.5 game lead.  The change due to one game is huge.

Though if their hitting prospects like Blanks and Venable starts to hit, their offense would perk up a lot, and they probably miss Everth Cabrera a lot, though he had not done much this season so far before going on the DL.  A-Gon has also been a bit cold too, him heating up would boost things as well.  Nobody has really been hitting well, it is all their wild base stealing that has propped up their lousy offense enough to win games with their good pitching.  Their numbers look amazingly like the 2009 Giants, except that they don't have anybody in their rotation to compare with Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez, Garland has been lucky this season with them, only Latos look like he would be comparable in terms of talent and abilities.

Meanwhile, the hot D-gers, on a 7 game win streak, should get a kick in the gut if/when Andre Ethier goes on the DL for a broken pinkie. I don't see how he can hit with it, in an ESPN article, he noted that he uses the pinkie as a leverage point in his swing, plus, as Torre mentioned, in any case, he will have to have the finger in a splint. I don't see how any hitter can hit with his finger immobilized in a splint, and further, I would think that would invite a lot of inside fastballs up on his hands.

So, again, the Giants get another chance to make a statement by taking two games from the 'Dres. The Panda, in particular, will have to come out of hibernation and start kung fu-ing the ball again.  He appears to be warming up a little the past week, but needs to bring back the power to his swing.  The key thing is that during his cold streak, at least he hasn't been striking out a lot, he's been very good in terms of not striking out a lot, the problem has been that his batted balls have not been falling in like it used to.  His .173 BABIP will not persist.  And in the past week, his strikeout rate went down and he got his first walk in a while.

It also appears that Freddie Sanchez, who has been hitting well in the minors, will get called up today while DeRosa gets DLed.  That would push Downs out of the lineup but hopefully will solidify our #2 spot in the lineup, which has been in flux since Renteria went on the DL (he should be coming off soon himself).  Downs had done well initially but his batting line has been falling in recent games, so the switch would be a good time to do.  Downs saved us when we lost Renteria, so he did well for us.  

While I'm not still sold on Torres, he has been great taking over the starting spot in LF in DeRosa's absence - appears that the Giants are not sold that Bowker is ready yet - and his numbers this year is basically the same as last year.  He has been killing LHP pitching again, but amazingly has been holding his own against RHP.  If he starts regularly against RHP, though, his overall batting line will fall as he's still facing more LHP than RHP and a starter typically faces RHP 3 times as much as LHP.  Still, ride him while he's hot and see how far he can go.

In any case, Schierholtz has cooled off since his 3 hit game, and he will need to heat up again in the next week or two, or he'll go back to sharing the RF job with Bowker.  Hitting in an extreme pitcher's park like SD will not help, nor against two hot pitchers.  But then two games in Arizona should help.  I've been rooting for Nate for a long while now, but he'll need to start hitting to keep the job, he can't get hot for two weeks then go cold for two weeks, like he did last season, if he hopes to hold the starting job.  But as long as Bowker hasn't figured it out either, neither will have a tight hold on the job.  Ideally, though, at least for the long run, both starts hitting, having too many good hitters is always a good problem to have.

I still don't care for Molina batting 4th but with Sanchez back, the lineup probably will be:  Rowand, Sanchez, Sandoval, Molina, Huff, Uribe, Schierholtz, and Torres.  Sandoval should really be our cleanup hitter, a better lineup for right now would probably be this, putting speed up top:  Torres, Sanchez, Schierholtz, Sandoval, Huff, Rowand,  Molina, Uribe.  Uribe has been cold since taking over SS, and I think Schierholtz would see more fastballs hitting ahead of Sandoval and Huff.  Plus, the #3 hitter, unlike conventional baseball theory, is not a key hitting spot, OBP is wasted there, according to The Book, by TangoTiger, MGL and Patroit, the 5th best hitter should go there.  So you could swap Uribe and Schierholtz then, depending on who you think is better, or even put Molina there is you think he is better.  What they found is that the #3 hitter often comes up in situations where there are already two outs, so getting on base is not as valuable there, in terms of scoring runs overall.

What was not discussed was how valuable it is to score first in a game.  I'm not sure how to research this, but I recall a stat somewhere that said that Giants did well when they scored first.  Looking at their record when leading, once they get the lead, the Giants have held it for the most part.  Bochy likes to bat Sandoval 3rd because then he would be sure to bat in the first inning and maybe get something started.  But I just think he'll be more valuable driving in the runs from the 4-spot.

Your 2010 Giants are 18-15: Licking Our Wounds, Facing the 'Stros

Well, that couldn't have gone any worse.  And we get to face them again in SD at the start of the next road trip, after this series with the Houston Astros.  And this time we were not reeling from the loss of Rowand from the top of the lineup, replaced by an wholly ineffective Eugenio Velez.  Luckily, the Giants have been so damn good against other teams - 18-9 record against everyone else - that we are still 3 games over .500, though now only 1.5 games ahead of the surging D-gers.

But that's the NL West every year in recent years.  One teams charges to the top, other's charge up and down, usually there are changes in the leader.  It is up and down all year, very disorienting sometimes.  But do you want to be the pilot spiraling downward with no sense of the ground or the one who is oriented relative to the ground?

We still have one of the best pitching staffs around.  The offense, while clueless so far against San Diego, particularly Matt Latos, felony vandalist (idiotically flung a ball into a public parking area in SF, where people walk to and from the park, particularly people like the family of ballplayers, and luckily - well, not for the owner of the car - all it did was destroy the sun roof of the new car of one of the Giants announcers, Dave Flemming), has been pretty good otherwise against the rest of the NL, at least the NL we have faced so far.  So now we face the Astros at home.

Game 1:  Felipe Paulino vs. Wellemeyer

My recent discussion with Boof reminded me that I'm no staunch supporter of Bochy - I like most things but am afraid that he won't have what it takes to get us that World Series Championship - and this bothered me.  The talk early this week was the possibility of skipping Wellemeyer in the rotation and starting Lincecum on Friday.  Which is fine, then we have our three best starters going against Houston.  But then I find out that even if they start Lincecum on Friday, they would still start Wellemeyer on Saturday, to keep the other starters on schedule for rest.

Then why even think about doing this?  The whole thing would only give Lincecum one less day of rest and Wellemeyer one more day.  That goes totally against what Bochy said earlier about giving Lincecum and the other young starters plenty of rest to keep them fresh later in the season.  And, frankly, as far as I'm concerned, Wellemeyer is dead man walking, holding the spot warm for Bumgarner later in the season (and which I was hoping for since we signed Wellemeyer).

Plus, which would you rather do, have Lincecum face Paulino and Wellemeyer face Oswalt?  That would assure one win and one loss.  Whereas with this configuration, we have a good chance of winning both.

Paulino is 0-5, 4.67 ERA, walking way too many batters.  Wellemeyer has even worse looking ERA but the key thing is he's pitching at home, where he has a 3.31 ERA so far.  And the one time Paulino pitched here, he was bombed for 9 runs in 2 innings, by our poor offensive team from last season.  Have to lean in the Giants favor here for this game.

Game 2:  Roy Oswalt vs. Lincecum

Oswalt righted himself after losing to the Giants, he's got a 2.63 ERA now, but he's facing Tim Lincecum, with a 1.86 ERA overall, 2.01 ERA at home this season (and wow, he's been basically the same home or road his whole career).  And it is not like Oswalt did that poorly in his game against us, it was not like we owned him, it was just that Lincecum owned Houston.  Plus, Oswalt has not done well in AT&T, 4.39 ERA, good K/BB, but poor K/9 and thus a lot of hits.  He's good, but Lincecum is better, but still, he's good, so I would lean towards the Giants as this is certainly no gimme, even if it is a Lincecum day.

Game 3:  Brett Myers vs. Zito

Myers has also righted himself after losing to the Giants, he's got a 3.52 ERA now.  Zito has been nothing short of amazing this season, but he was back to his old ways in his last start.  Has the wheel gone off that bandwagon?  I don't think so, I think Zito should have a good start.

However, he'll need to because Myers has pitched pretty well against the Giants in SF.  Only two games, but if you look at his K/BB and K/9, he has been dominating.  He pretty much shut them down in his last time here and the one where he was bombed the prior start, it just looks like one of those days where the balls just fell in (or perhaps Pat Burrell was playing LF), as he still struck out 6 in those 4 IP.

I think the rubber game is a toss-up, both pitchers should be going good, plus Myers is a LHP, and the Giants have been scuffling against lefties lately.

Giants Thoughts

After the tough sweep at the hands of the 'Dres, the Giants get another tough series against the Astros.  Still, they have a good enough chance of winning the series, though also a good chance they might lose.  It looks like it could go either way, but I lean towards the Giants because we have a good chance of winning the Paulino start and strong possibilities of winning the Oswalt start.  And we will need a series win because we face the 'Dres for a two game road trip after the Houston series, and Sanchez gets to face Latos again (three's a charm, hopefully, for us).

DeRosa is expected to sit out this series.  He has gotten a cortisone shot to help the nerve problem calm down and the timetable right now is to see where it is at on Sunday.  If it's not getting better, he'll probably go on the DL.  Baggarly reports on it here and Schulman here, and it sounds like the Giants are not even sure if surgery is needed to fix things up, at least not immediately (it does sound like there is a "good chance" that it will happen eventually).  Sounds like the Giants are going to try all options up to re-doing the surgery to get DeRosa contributing this season.

I really like Schulman's take on it, I think he nailed it.  Every signing involves risks and obviously the Giants have lost their bet so far.  But the game isn't over yet, in their view, whereas most people act like the two years are up already and we are ready to judge.

With DeRosa out, Bowker and Torres look to be getting starts based on a platoon basis, though I assume that if Bowker is hitting well, Bochy will keep starting him.  I do like how Bochy handles his hitters in general, unlike fans who bury a player forever or fall in love with another, I have not seen Bochy do this much, though many fans think he does.  He gives his players chances to play, even if he hasn't delivered this season, based on prior good performances.  But if the players cold, he will give others the opportunity to start and see what they can do.  He can't help it sometimes if everyone is slumping, he goes with the vet.  I would too, that is proven prior performance.  For the young guys, you give them rope but at some point you have to look elsewhere if they are not performing, and particularly if suddenly someone else is performing.

If he really had anything against using Bowker, as some have commented at sites I go to, he would not have been getting occasional chances to do something, he would not have gotten the chances to deliver in key pinch-hitting spots, and would not have gotten the start yesterday.   I'm still hopeful for Bowker to deliver, but with Schierholtz hitting, I would give him the job too.  Whoever is delivering, whoever wants it more, whoever, it seems for our young Giants, isn't pressing more.

ogc'ed:  Defending Sabean

As I noted in my comments, can't be more succinct than DrB in his comment on his site here.  Also, I liked what some guy wrote on MLBTR, he said he was "ogc'ed" when I replied to a comment of his:  so I recently ogc'ed someone on Extra Baggs:


Defending Sabean is easy:  Best rotation in the majors once Bumgarner is ready, by far, 1 to 5, possibly one of the best rotations in a generation or two (I can only think of the Orioles rotation in late 60's and early 70's), great bullpen with possible improvements lurking in the minors, we have potentially one of the best hitters of his generation in Sandoval and Posey looks to be just as good and at catcher, they should make our middle of lineup look great from 2011-2015 at least, and there are a lot of good prospects in the minors who could become solid cogs on the team of the '10s, Belt, Noonan, Kieschnick, Crawford, Neal, Sosa, Gillaspie, Joseph, Adrianza, Peguero, RafRod, Stoffel, Dominguez, Perez, Pill, Tanner, Bond.

You don't throw out the baby just because the diaper is dirty.  And if your GM isn't making mistakes, he's not trying hard enough to win, there are going to be mistakes made because the process is imperfect, humans are imperfect.  You have to look at the big picture and know which mistakes are forgivable and which are not.

The rotation could be the equal to the Giants lineup of the 60's and the Bonds prime lineups, and studies by Baseball Prospectus and The Hardball Times show that it is pitching and fielding that gives a team a competitive advantage in the playoffs, that offensive might provides no advantage in the playoffs.

Offense is not a core competency, for those of you into business strategy, it is just hygiene, for those of you into Geoffrey Moore, of Crossing the Chasm fame:  something your business needs to function but not critical to the long term success of your company.  And for that Moore recommends that you outsource that function, which, in baseball, means you go to hire free agents.

But unfortunately, this is not like a grocery store, when you need a great hitting OF, all there is is a great hitting 1B and maybe he doesn't want to play in SF.  So rebuilding an offense is never a quickie, it takes time to do that so that the offense is good enough to win with the great pitching you have put together.   Fans need to be patient with the process.


I can only imagine that Bobby Cox probably got all these comments while he was rebuilding the Braves.  6 years of wretched losing, the Giants only had about two years plus two more years of bad enough losing.  But it takes time to rebuild correctly.

And look at how he rebuilt them.  The hitters come and go for the most part but was anchored by Chipper Jones all those years.  Sandoval is hopefully that hitter for us, but it could be Posey too.

But it was their pitching that carried those teams, that was their identity.   And what a rotation that was, especially once they signed Maddux:  Maddux, the premier pitcher of his time, Glavine, and Smoltz.

We have our Maddux in Lincecum, then have Cain, Sanchez, and Zito as well, if he can continue pitching like this, well, that is a huge bonus.  Plus we have Bumgarner who should be joining soon enough.  And Wheeler looks to be good as well.

The Giants are set to be one of the dominant teams of the 2010's and all you Sabean Naysayers can do is sturm und drang about past mistakes.  They happened:  get over it.  Open up your eyes and see the team as if you were looking for a team to follow for the first time and you didn't know what a GM is.  Then maybe you will focus on the most important point:  the Giants have a great team and a great future.

Unbelievable! DeRosa's Wrist Surgery "Total Failure" But Risk Mitigation Key

According to reports from sfgiant.com and Extra Baggs, Mark DeRosa reinjured his wrist again, possibly a few weeks ago when Adam Wainwright hit him with pitches, possibly reaggravating it with "countless extra rounds of batting practice" as DeRosa worked to get his batting stroke back  In any case, an MRI showed that his ligaments were "flapping all over the place again".  He is not sure if surgery is best now or after the season is over.

Giants Thoughts

This is a recurring theme that I've been writing about for a while:  somehow the training staff is missing stuff like DeRosa's, Freddie Sanchez's injuries, Pablo Sandoval's poor vision, Edgar Renteria's elbow, Dave Roberts numerous injuries, Barry Bonds' knee, Noah Lowry's problems (which his agent said they might sue the Giants over, but so far no legal action), Edgardo Alfonzo's back problems, etc.

I understand calculated risks concerning players recovering from injuries, and perhaps the Giants have had a bad streak lately, but still, there have been a lot of problems the Giants have been having with injured players. And so I think it is OK to question what the training staff is doing.  It gets a lot of praise in the press and from the team, but the Giants have been missing a lot of problems with free agents as well as players on the team.  That is a huge dichotomy that needs to be explained to the fans.

Risk Mitigation At Work

Luckily, planning mitigates this problem.  The theme this season is taking risks on veteran players with question marks while having prospects who could be close to figuring things out.  DeRosa is definitely resting this series against the 'Dres and is pondering whether to operate now in order to be sure he will be ready for the 2011 season or play with the injury, which he was able to do, but not satisfactorily, in my opinion, last season for the Cards.

I think they should operate and get past all the possible obstacles to get him ready for the 2011 season, particularly since continuing to play would only yield a subpar DeRosa at best.  I prefer trying to get a fully functional DeRosa for the 2011 season than to struggle with a subpar DeRosa in 2010, then try to operate again and maybe have a subpar DeRosa in 2011 as well.  If they do it now, they hopefully can catch any other problems along the way and make sure that he's ready and healthy to play at 100% for the 2011 season.

Meanwhile, should he be out for the season, we have Bowker who actually has been hitting well lately.  And it appears that he would platoon with Torres in LF, should DeRosa be out for the season.   The two together should be effective in LF, as Bowker hits RHP better and Torres rakes against LHP.  And both have been good defensively in the OF.

And that theme of risk mitigation has recurred over and over again this season, unfortunately.  First Sanchez out until who knows when, but Uribe has been great in his stead.  Then there was Rowand out, and that was the one position we did not have a ready replacement for (at least in my opinion, I've never been a Velez fan, and he unfortunately did what I thought he would), so we struggled while he was out.  Renteria was next and that moved Uribe to SS and allowed Downs to start regularly.  And now DeRosa looks to be out and Bowker is there to try to pick it up in his stead.

Risk Mitigation Has Worked So Far

And that has worked for the most part this season.  The offense has been regularly churning out runs, except for that first week trying to figure out who would take over for Rowand.  They have averaged 4.67 runs scored per game for the season.  And if you take out that bad 7 game stretch while they struggled without him, the team has averaged 5.61 runs scored when the offense was working.

People may not like signing all these players because of the risks, but by getting all these vets, the Giants have a lot of players who they can mix and match in order to keep the offense running.  And that has worked despite all the various players going on the DL and the injuries that don't DL but certainly hampers things.  If they did not sign these players, Bowker's failure to start the season well could have killed the offense, as well as Sanchez and Renteria being on the DL, and now we will see how it works with DeRosa's injury.  And Molina sustaining his injury, should he need the DL, would have had Posey come up.

Young players will not produce for sure.  Even the best ones can end up struggling to figure out major league pitching.  Vets are a better bet overall, but you risk age-related injuries and performance declines.  By having the vets as the starters but young players as backup, as well as other backups (like Uribe), you reduce the risk that any one particular injury would hamper your team's offense.

But Depth Only Goes So Far

But you can only have so much depth.  No team can provide multiple levels of coverage, other than the Yankees and maybe Boston and the Mets.  So the Giants have been stretched thin with all the players on the DL, and it will be tested severely if DeRosa is declared out and Bowker is the starter for sure in LF, though platooning with Torres.

Unfortunately, a lot of the young prospects who might be considered for the jump to the majors from AA have not been hitting well.  In AAA, two of the three (Downs and Rohlinger) are up now and Posey has been declared not ready for the majors by Sabean recently.

There is also Joe Borchard, as a commenter noted, but he is 31 years old, plays corner OF so far, so perhaps he can be given the call-up, except he's not on our 40 man and we have no open slots so we would lose someone, and he is not hitting so well that he will be sure to do well in the majors.  31 year olds are suppose to hit that well, he is a classic AAAA player.  And the last time he was considered a good prospect was in 2003.

The only other hitter of note in the farm system close enough to maybe consider is Brandon Belt, but he's only in Advanced A San Jose and he only plays 1B where Huff has been doing well for us.  He should be promoted to AA Richmond soon, within the next month, since he has been absolutely hot for the Little Giants.  If he can continue to hit, he could be up with the Giants by late 2011 or be the starter in 2012 at 1B. He is left-handed and skilled defensively at 1B too.  And he did not strike out that much in San Jose and walked a lot, so that bodes well for him doing well in AA when he gets the promotion.

So the Giants are stretched thin now, particularly if DeRosa goes on the DL before Sanchez rejoins the team. They have pushed it to the limits so far.  And now we will need Bowker to start hitting, but the silver lining is that even if he doesn't hit, neither has DeRosa, and the team has been scoring runs pretty easily despite that, so perhaps with no pressure to produce, unlike the pressure he probably felt when he was starting in RF to start the season, he might relax and show us the hitter he was in AAA last season.

I would really like to see Bowker get most of the starts in LF while DeRosa is out, whether resting or DLed.  I wanted to see Bowker get to start in 2010 anyway, but did like the DeRosa signing if he was the hitter he is when he is healthy.  That is a sure upgrade if he's healthy and he can play multiple positions well.  But you have to take some risks, and now we at least have Bowker in reserve.  Now we need him to deliver some extra unexpected offense.

Your 2010 Giants are 10-8: Phooling the Phillies

Well, after the free fall many fans were going through with the Giants first encounter with any difficulties, it is not surprising that many fans were not that happy with the Giants taking two of three from the Cards behind two great pitching performances from Lincecum and Zito.  The Giants only scored 6 runs but won the series by only giving up 3 runs.  And, of course, 3 of those runs were given to the Giants, two were unearned and the third scored on a wild pitch.

Still, the Giants went mano-a-mano with the Cards, our three top pitchers against three of their best (they have a better rotation than us, their 5th starter, Jaime Garcia, had a 0.69 ERA when he faced us first, then Wainwright's 1.50 ERA, and finally Penny's 1.29 ERA), and we came up on top 2-1.  Sure, some runs were given to us, but that's just evening out the bad streak we had during the losing streak, where the balls were not falling in nor were calls coming our way (like Bowker's infield single that was ruled an out and neither he nor the 1B coach argued against the call).

Now the gauntlet continues the Giants face the Phillies.

Game 1:  Roy "Doc" Halladay vs. Jonathan Sanchez

How cool is it that we could be facing one of the best starters in the majors in Halladay with our #4 starter and still have a fair chance at winning the game?

However, the Giants most likely will lose this start, it is, after all, Halladay and as nice as Sanchez has done this season, Halladay has a 0.82 ERA and was among the top pitchers in the AL for years before moving to the NL this season.  Plus, stuck with a loser for years, this is his first taste being with a team expected to win their division and to go deep into the playoffs, so I expect him to be focused almost every game.  Still, Doc is 0-1 with a 7.71 ERA in two career starts against the Giants (though they were in 2002 and 2004, when we still had a Barry Lamar Bonds in our lineup), with one start in SF in 2004, so there is that.

Game 2:  Jamie Moyer vs. Todd Wellemeyer

That works out nicely for Wellemeyer, as he avoids facing Halladay or Hamels.  Plus Moyer has a 5.00 ERA and age appears to finally be rearing its ugly head with Moyer, who is 47 years old for this season.  With two of the past three seasons with an ERA around 5, that appears to be his talent level now.

However, the Phillies are the #1 team in runs so far this season, and I do not expect Wellemeyer to suddenly figure things out against the best offense in the NL.  Plus, Moyer's peripherals are actually OK (11 K/4 BB in 18 IP with 19 hits), it is just that he has given up too many homers (3 in 3 starts) so the odds favor that he regress in this regard and that combined with an antsy Giants lineup ready to swing aggressively, and yet not have much power, will probably result in a loss.

Game 3:  Cole Hamels vs. Tim Lincecum

Though Hamels has had a tough season so far (5.11 ERA), he was still the Series MVP in 2008 and been a great pitcher for much of his career.  Luckily we have our two-time Cy Young winner going against him.  The Giants should win.

Giants Thoughts

The Giants look like they will lose this series.  It would be a tough first two games, and while The Kid has been great so far and Hamels has not, both has regression kicking in at some point, which could make their start a tough game to win as well, though you have to favor Lincecum based on the season thus far plus career results.

The Giants offense has been struggling lately and there should be a big lineup shakeup soon, particularly with Velez's frozen deer in the headlights performance at leadoff (see how bad the offense is when the leadoff guy isn't getting on base at all?  The same thing happened in previous seasons when we had Dave Roberts up there and, apparently too injured to perform at all).

There was talk about moving Schierholtz to the lead-off spot, but with Torres recent heating up, punctuated by his 3 hit game, Bochy at best would lead off with Torres and bat Schierholtz second.  However, I expect Schierholtz to still be down in the lineup, as Bochy (and other fans) seems to believe in Torres but he's basically been cold all season until his 3 hit night last night (though that is at least a modest 5 game hit streak, but really not that awesome except for the 3 hits, as the other one hit games, to me, is not that grand a hit streak), whereas Schierholtz has been doing it mostly once he got to start some, much like he did last season when he got to start regularly.

With a righty tonight, hopefully that puts DeRosa at 2B and Bowker in LF, Torres in CF, and Schierholtz in RF and a lineup of roughly Torres, Renteria, Sandoval, Huff, DeRosa, Molina, Schierholtz, Bowker (though I would probably prefer Torres, DeRosa, Sandoval, Huff, Schierholtz, Molina, Bowker, Renteria; and there is the chance that Huff sits in favor of Ishikawa as Huff has not done well at all against Halladay during his career, which would change the lineup even more).

With two lefties after that, it is probably Torres, Renteria, Sandoval, Huff, DeRosa, Molina, Uribe/Schierholtz, Schierholtz/Downs, depending on whether Uribe is available or not (though I would probably prefer Torres, DeRosa, Sandoval, Huff, Schierholtz, Molina, Uribe/Downs, Renteria).  Oddly, Schierholtz's unusual success against LHP will get his the starts when lefties are starting, in an odd platoon with Bowker in RF until the Giants decide that Bowker has had enough rope that he earned with his spring training performance.

Until we get a hitter or two producing regularly in the #1/#2 positions of the lineup, we are not going to be scoring that many runs.  And unfortunately, Renteria has hit a very cold streak once his shoulder bursitis started acting up again and none of the replacements of Rowand has been able to do anything at leadoff, and Torres had his three hits batting 8th yesterday.  Add to that we are facing a good team again, it looks like we'll be only scoring 6-9 runs this series but this time giving up more runs to the #1 scoring team in the NL.

It will be a tough series, with some chance of being swept, but with our series win against the Cards, we should end up 3-3 at home after this series, and that would be great against the two leading clubs in the NL, both very likely to make the playoffs in 2011.  Then we face D-Rox at home, and they have not been doing well at all, and if we can eke out a series win there, could end the homestand 5-4, which is pretty good against three tough teams.

I think we just need someone up top to heat up some, and it might take until Rowand is back in the lineup for that to happen.  He is first available to rejoin the team on May 2nd, which is next Sunday, the last game against Colorado at home before starting a road trip.

There is still grumblings by many fans to bring up Buster Posey, but as I've noted, he's not exacting burning up the PCL (though doing well).  They key is that we are still winning and still only one game behind the leader, the surprising San Diegans, though given how well they ended last season, I was afraid of what they might do if some of their prospects started producing this season.  As long as we are relatively close, there is no need to bring up anybody.  We need to keep them down in the minors, first to ensure that we have another season of control over them (and that should happen soon), and secondly, though not as importantly, we avoid them going super-two on his and get another year of arbitration on us.

However, this is not a concern of Giants management, as Sabean has noted in a recent interview that the major league club's needs, as well as the prospect's readiness, will outweigh any monetary or control concerns regarding when a prospect is brought up.  People have been worried about the budget, particularly in future years when Cain's big contract extension kicks in, but I believe this is where Neukom's promise to get the money necessary to implement good baseball decisions will come in, not in signing the big free agents, but in keeping our big free agents from leaving the team.

In other news, Freddy Sanchez just got into his first practice game and could be up to join the team finally within two weeks.  While Uribe has done well playing 2B in Sanchez's stead, I don't expect him to continue to hit well indefinitely.  His career numbers are bad enough that he should cool off at some point.  And it has already, as after a nice hot 5 game start, in the last 12 games, his batting line is .268/.311/.463/.775, which is still OK for a 2B, but not as gaudy as his overall .310/.373/.483/.856 would make people think they are getting with him in the lineup.

However, that is better than what Renteria has been doing recently (due to bursitis in his shoulder; if it's not one thing, it's another thing), so I expect to see Renteria sit more once Sanchez is back with Uribe starting, plus Sanchez will probably still not be 100%, so I expect to see Uribe in the lineup 1-4 times each week, taking starts away from Renteria and Sanchez, depending on the pitching matchups and how either are doing at the moment, and how Uribe is doing.  Shoot, Uribe could usurp Renteria's starting SS role if Renteria don't get better by the time of Sanchez's return in two weeks.

And if Bowker can heat up soon (well, really, now), DeRosa might get starts at 2B as well with Bowker starting in LF, though with the way Bowker is hitting now, I don't see how he isn't the guy to be sent down when Sanchez returns.  Heck, he might even get send down first when Rowand returns, as Downs already has 2 hits and bats righty, which is a missing ingredient on the team right now.

Your 2010 Giants are 8-7: Dodging Some Cards

A large proportion of the Giants fan base are in a tailspin over this road trip, and particularly the 3 game sweep by the lowly (but now leading) 'Dres.  However, at the start of the season, if a Giants fan were told the following, we would be "OK, that sounds about right":

• The Giants are 8-7
• The pitching has been great
• The offense has failed the pitching on numerous occasions
• Panda is our leading hitter; Lincecum is our leading pitcher
• Bowker and Wellemeyer have been struggling to perform

I'm not saying that everything's great but I am also not saying that it's the end of the world, as one bad stretch caused a lot of the Sabean Naysayers to crawl out into the daylight and complain their familiar drone.

The problem seems pretty clear, as far as the recent drop in offense:  nobody was getting on base ahead of Pablo, killing potential rallies and opportunities to score first and put the other team on their heels.

As I discussed in a previous post, I like to look at what I call Offense Wins and Pitching Wins (more accurately, it is defense, but I think pitching is the key to our wins in that regard), where if the offense scores 4 runs or more are counted as offense wins and if the pitching can keep the runs allowed to 4 runs or less are counted as pitching wins.

Offense Wins:  9-6
Pitching Wins:  11-4

So, overall, both have done well, but with small samples, the mix ended up as 8-7 instead, with the 10-8 loss to the D-gers the most egregious blown opportunity.

Unfortunately, they cannot hope to get much better soon, even though they start a 9 game homestand, as they are facing the Cards, Phillies and Colorado.

Game 1:  Jaime Garcia vs. Tim Lincecum

Jaime has been on the verge of breaking out and appears to be doing it this season:  0.69 ERA so far this season.  However, his K/BB ratio is only 2.0 and his K/9 is only 6.9 K/9, and the key to his success is that his BABIP is .152, so he should eventually regress to the .300 mean.  However, he's been doing it with extreme amounts of ground balls (3.14 this season).  However, a look at his minor league stats suggest that he is not one to avoid the .300 regression to the mean (.308 BABIP career minors).

And, of course, he's going up against the one pitcher (probably) that has an even lower ERA in Lincecum.   Still, the offense has been sputtering and thus it should be a low scoring game all around and Bochy will need to do something to shake things up and get the offense going.  Yesterday, he moved DeRosa up to the #2 spot, and he got two hits there, but then the rest of the lineup was cold except when Pablo hit that huge (though solo) homer.

In addition, Garcia is a LHP, and the Giants have been struggling against them.  This probably means and OF of DeRosa, Torres, Schierholtz and IF of Sandoval, Renteria, Uribe, and Huff.  The good news is that Huff has been hitting very well at home as well as against LHP, and Schierholtz has been hitting LHP well too.  Unfortunately, the offense will probably be crippled by Torres and Renteria up top, as neither have been doing the job for most of this short season so far.

Bochy will probably leave Torres leading off because there is no prototypical  guy, but maybe he'll go with DeRosa #2 again because of his success yesterday and place Renteria 8th.  Or even Renteria leadoff and Torres 8th, that might be better right now, Torres has done nothing so far, even less than Renteria has since his hot streak, and that takes some doing.  We should win but the way things are going, I would put it even.

Game 2:  Adam Wainwright vs. Barry Zito

Wainwright had an incredible season in 2009 and yet has improved on that with a 1.50 ERA.  Zito had an amazing season (for himself) in 2009, and yet has improved on that in 2010 with a 1.86 ERA.  It's going to be a tough battle between two pitchers who are very on so far.  First one to blink is the loser, but given that they have Albert Pujols on their side, I would have to lean towards the Cards in this match-up.

Game 3:  Brad Penny vs. Matt Cain

Brad Penny continues the gauntlet:  1.29 ERA thus far.  Cain has been his normal good self, with a 3.86 ERA, which suggests that we could end up on the short end of the stick here.  Still, Penny is not THAT good, and Cain has actually improved on his walk rate over last year, so this should also be a good battle.

Giants Thoughts

Normally, going back home would cure what ails for a team, but the Cards are no ordinary opponent, with a pitching staff that is humming along even better than our rotation (see how their #5 Jaime Garcia is doing versus our's) and a lineup that includes Pujols and Holliday.  Things do not look good for this series and the Phillies follow them, then Colorado.  At least Colorado is muddling along like we are, so they will probably be our best beat to break out of our current offensive funk.  The Giants would be lucky to finish 3-3 against the Cards and Phillies, then hopefully can grab 2 of 3 from the D-Rox.

The Giants need somebody in the lineup to step forward and break the team out of its funk.  Ideally, it would be someone atop the lineup.  A hotter Huff would work too, but he's been about what we could hope for, so that is why I think someone up top needs to heat up, who would then be followed by Sandoval and Huff.  Schierholtz has been hot, but his contributions have been muted by a bottom of lineup position.  If he were moved up and he stayed hot, that could be the trigger we need.

Some, predictably, are clamoring for Posey to join the team.  The problem is that we need a CF.  In addition, he is not doing that well in the minors, at least not well enough to say he's a sure thing to hit well in the majors immediately.  His MLE is .291/.361/.400/.761, which is good if he were catching, adequate most anywhere else, and borderline at 1B (Huff is hitting slightly better at .268/.369/.411/.780).  He is no cure-all for our offense, and could hobble it further if he struggles in his initial games like Matt Wieters did last season.

The CF who are the closest are Ben Copeland, Mike McBryde, and Darren Ford.  None of them are hitting particularly well, though Ford looks like he's perking up.  Copeland is doing OK for AAA; those numbers would be more than acceptable if he were able to duplicate them in the majors, but most likely it will take a steep plunge.  McBryde is horrible for any league.  Ford can't even hit what Copeland is hitting and he's at a lower level hitting against easier pitching.  Apparently his great spring is not translating to AA.  Plus Copeland and McBryde are not on the 40-man roster either.

I don't know how Schierholtz or Bowker would work off defensively in CF, but Nate has some speed (he has stolen double digit bases regularly in the minors) and Bowker played CF in AA and was positive defensively there in around 20+ games played.  DeRosa, Bowker, Schierholtz might be better than starting Velez or Torres in CF and the leadoff spot right now.

In any case, I would rather see Bowker get regular ABs based on what he did in AAA last season than to give it to a journeyman like Torres or a player who hasn't done it at any level consistently for a season, like Velez, while Rowand is out (can be back May 2nd I believe).  I'm still not sure where all the love is coming from for Velez, some see him as a 5-tool guy but I've really only seen the one tool, speed and SB, and even there he is borderline bad, 73% success rate, so he's not even using his speed correctly.

However, we will probably see a lot more of Velez, Torres, and probably Bowker too, because when Sanchez is finally ready to start at 2B, the Giants will need to drop someone off the 25 man roster, and they are the prime candidates right now.  Velez (according to Baggarly) still has an option;  so does Bowker.  Torres would have to be exposed to waivers, but I doubt anyone would claim him right now.

Your 2010 Giants: Opening Day 25-man Roster

The Giants have announced their 25 man roster (Baggarly had it here and the Chron here; additional positions in parenthesis):

Starting Pitchers (5)

Tim Lincecum RHP
Barry Zito LHP
Matt Cain RHP
Jonathan Sanchez LHP
Todd Wellemeyer RHP

Relief Pitchers (7)

Brian Wilson Closer
Jeremy Affeldt LHP-Setup
Brandon Medders RHP
Guillermo Mota RHP
Sergio Romo RHP-Setup
Dan Runzler LHP
Waldis Joaquin RHP

Catchers (2)
Bengie Molina C
Eli Whiteside C

Infielders (5)
Aubrey Huff 1B (LF/3B)
Travis Ishikawa UT (1B/LF)
Edgar Renteria SS
Pablo Sandoval 3B (1B/C)
Juan Uribe 2B (3B/SS)

Outfielders (6)
Mark DeRosa LF (2B/3B/1B/SS/RF)
Aaron Rowand CF
John Bowker RF (LF/1B)
Nate Schierholtz UT (RF/LF/CF)
Andres Torres UT (CF/LF/RF)
Eugenio Velez UT (LF/CF/RF/2B)

The Giants DLed Freddie Sanchez, Fred Lewis, and Emmanuel Burriss, plus assigned Denny Bautista to AAA, to get the roster down to 25 men.

Giants Thoughts

The Giants had mild surprises regarding the final 25 man and starting lineup, though it was no surprise considering how well they did.

Waldis Joaquin took the last spot in the bullpen, edging out if you will, Kevin Pucetas. The Giants announced that they wanted Pucetas ready in the minors in case the Giants needed a starter. I would add that given Pucetas' overall poor season in 2009, they probably wanted him to show that his spring would carry forward to the regular season in AAA. Plus Joaquin used to be a starter not too long ago, so he could probably take long relief duty if necessary.

In any case, Joaquin had a good spring. Surprisingly, he didn't strike out too many (only 3 in 13.2 IP) but still did well, walking only 1 batter. Walking batters had alway been a problem for him in the minors, and his brief time in the majors last season. The great thing was that he was getting a lot of ground balls, his GO/AO ratio was a stellar 3.75 (1.0 means you give up as many grounders as fly outs).

The way I viewed it, the Giants has been conscious about rewarding their young pitchers when possible. That is why they dropped Steve Kline a couple of years ago, to make space, I believe, for Merkin Valdez. And this year, with the way Denny Bautista pitched, if the Giants were really as vet focused as some claim, Denny would have won this spot and not Joaquin. I'm glad that they are giving Waldis a shot, he was a hot prospect previously, before his injury, so it is nice that he has recovered and made the majors. He's only 23.

John Bowker took the last starting spot that was open, RF, pushing out Nate Schierholtz. What can you say, Bowker, despite being written off for competition for RF before the competition even began, had a great spring and first forced himself into the competition, then probably won it long ago with Schierholtz's struggles, and continued to hit well to the end, hitting a homer.

My only caveat is that Ishikawa had a similar spring last season and came out cold for the first one and a half months. He, like Bowker, had a breakout year in the minors the year before, unlike any season he had before. In Bowker's plus column, his peripherals were great in that he took more walks than strikeouts, though he did still strike out too much, but was very close to what you want to see (64 vs 55 or 17.5% vs. 15%). The minus is that he came to the majors, after hitting that well in the minors, just like Ishikawa, but unlike Ishikawa, didn't do that well, reverting back to his bad habits of before.

Given how well he hit in spring and 2009, hopefully he solved whatever demons that causes him to choke in the majors and not hit that well. A Bowker hitting like he did in spring and 2009 would be a HUGE boost to our offense and our chances in 2010. If I could re-do my Big 6 Questions for 2010, I would add Bowker doing well as a starter as a wild-card that could make up for one of the questions going south.

Schierholtz actually had an OK spring overall, .262/.304/.507/.811, which is slightly above average for a RF. It is just that Bowker had an outstanding spring. Still, I hope there will be games against RHP where DeRosa would play 2B, Bowker LF, and Schierholtz RF (or even Uribe at 2B, though I would prefer DeRosa's bat instead). And hopefully Nate will still get to see a good amount of action anyhow, DeRosa is not the best against RHP, that is his weakness, so hopefully Nate will get some regular play via this route. There is also starting DeRosa at 1B in place of Huff to get Schierholtz in. Then there's Renteria getting a rest, Uribe playing SS, DeRosa 2B, and Schierholtz in LF. The Rubik's cube roster of the Giants can go crazy this season.

And, defensively, while Schierholtz was great last year, at least Bowker, albeit, in very little play, did well in the OF, and for his career is about half a win better than average. That surprised me, as I thought he was below average and looking at the available defensive stats, he wasn't that good in 2008.

But in according to the defense stats in Minor League Splits, he was actually very good defensively in RF in the minors in previous years, as it was his defense in LF that was not so good. So RF is actually where he played best in the minors, it was LF where he had troubles, though he did very well in limited time in LF in the majors in 2009. So we might not even take as big a hit on defense as feared, though still, Schierholtz was not just good, but basically as good as Winn in RF, which is a high standard, in terms of UZR/150. CHONE's projection, as shown in Fangraphs, has both of them getting about the same amount of ABs, and have their projected defensive values being very similar, but with Bowker doing much better offensively than Schierholtz, about half a win better.

Bochy would not divulge how the starting lineup would be with Bowker in there as the starting RF, other than he would not be batting 8th like Schierholtz would have. Ishikawa batted 6th last season, so here is how the lineup would look if Bowker got 6th, given what we have seen with the predicted lineup so far:

1. Aaron Rowand CF
2. Edgar Renteria SS
3. Pablo Sandoval 3B
4. Aubrey Huff 1B
5. Mark DeRosa LF
6. John Bowker RF
7. Bengie Molina C
8. Juan Uribe 2B

I was iffy, going either way regarding Molina and Bowker, but last year Ishikawa hit 6th with Rowand 7th, so I think that this is what the lineup will be today. Using CHONE's forecast, I have the addition of Bowker adding about 5 runs of offense, or half a win, to the Giants chances with this lineup. Of course, that does not account for defense, but given that CHONE's forecast is very similar for both, the gain in offense offsets the loss in defense by a lot. However, ZiPS had Schierholtz hitting better than Bowker, so there is a loss in offense using that projection. For Marcel too. However, Shandler has Bowker adding 2 full wins with Bowker's offense.

Looking at the lineup projections, I still would like to see a lineup of DeRosa 2B, Bowker LF, Schierholtz RF, because Uribe is not projected to be as good as Schierholtz as a hitter. For the Giants to maximize the lineup based on projections, they should think about going with this arrangement instead of going with Uribe at 2B, particularly against RHP but also against some LHP as well, as Nate has hit some well in the past. The plain fact is that Uribe has never been that good a hitter, he's a tweener, which is good if you are the first line of replacement, but not if you are mainly starting. Plus, we know what Uribe can do, so it would be nice to give Schierholtz a chance to show what he can do, knowing he's the starter, leaving it in his hands.

I'm More Than Ecstatic: And Cain Makes Three - Cain Signs Extension

Reports from Baggs, sfgiants.com, and Hank say that the Giants have signed Matt Cain to a contract extension. Some call it a three year extension, but really, it keeps his current year salary the same ($4.25M), gives him a bump upward in the last year of the contract ($7M plus $1M signing bonus for 2011), which was a vestable option year (nearly $2M raise over the $6.25M vestable option that has escalators and stuff), and $15M for his first year in free agency, which is 2012. They held off of announcing the official signing of Jeremy Affeldt and Brian Wilson which had been leaked out before last week, in order to announce all three signings over the weekend.

As Brian Sabean noted, "It's our window. ... To have these guys for [2012] now. The comfort in knowing that they are going to be in Giants uniforms helping us win games is a statement in itself. It seems fitting. It seems the right thing to do it. Having said that, if we didn't get business done in spring training, we would have halted [the negotiations]. We didn't want it to be a distraction." Sabean noted that they started the talks during the off-season, then started in earnest with everyone at the start of March. Sabean also noted, "We have cost certainty and the fans have the comfort of knowing these guys are going to be in Giants uniforms helping us win games."

Baggarly had a quote with Cain regarding the deal on his blog and Schulman in his article, where Cain discusses how happy he and his wife were with the deal. Cain said, "I think it shows some appreciation of all the things I've done for the Giants, but I also think it shows the way they run the organization. It's a great situation where we could do something for both sides. Me and [wife] Chelsea are more than ecstatic about doing this."

Baggarly wrote in his blog:

So the Giants could be looking at a dynastic staff, which is partially what motivated Cain to re-up. He’s not the type to seek his own glory as a No.1 elsewhere. He’s never begrudged “living under Timmy’s shadow” the past couple seasons. On the contrary, he said he loves the competition.

“Obviously, the best I got to see were the big three in Atlanta,” Cain said. “We saw it in Oakland with Zito, Mulder and Hudson. It builds us all up. I feel we all share the leadership every time we go out there and pitch.”

“That’s what we’ve been talking about all spring training, that all of us love playing together and really feed off each other. We’ve got great chemistry and that shows with them being able to do these deals. They see this core group and they want to keep these guys together.” "

Baggarly noted in the article:

Cain said he had no reservations about signing away his first year of free agency. He hadn't thought ahead about testing the market, nor was he motivated by the thought of going to another club where he could escape Tim Lincecum's shadow and be the staff ace

"When you see a group of pitchers stay together like that "... it builds us all up," said Cain, citing the 1990s-era Atlanta Braves and the Oakland A's staffs with Barry Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder. "I feel we all share the leadership every time we go out there and pitch."

Lincecum and No. 4 starter Jonathan Sanchez won't be eligible for free agency until after the 2013 season.

"It's amazing to watch these guys throwing seven shutout innings every night," Wilson said. "Every player strives to be part of an organization that values you. "... You work even harder to maintain it and go for the next one. I'll try to be a Giant for the rest of my career."

How wide could this window open for the Giants? Sabean was hesitant to say it could match the unprecedented run the club made from 1997-2003 behind Bonds.

"This group would really have to step it up," Sabean said. "Having said that, maybe last year was the beginning of a run the pitching staff will help to carry. We'll have to figure out more offense in and around this."

They will need much of that offense to come from the farm. The Giants forecast to have limited financial flexibility, particularly in 2012 when Cain and Zito will make $35 million and Tim Lincecum could be due another huge number in arbitration. Aware that his rotation could become a budget killer, Sabean said he's hoping the organization's young hitting prospects will pan out.

As for the risk of investing in pitching?

"It's not like we're giving four- or five-year deals," Sabean said. "We're past that. They're short-window deals that you'd expect both parties would make out."

Schulman wrote:

In all, ownership agreed to shell out $43.5 million above its previous commitments to Cain, Affeldt and Wilson. The team gains cost certainty while risking guaranteed money to pitchers who might get hurt. The pitchers enjoy that guaranteed money against the risk of leaving more dollars on the table in arbitration and free agency. ...

Cain also said he and his teammates want to be together well into the future.

"We really feed off each other," he said. "We feel we've got great chemistry with everybody. We love this, the fact that we'll be able to play with Wilson the next couple of years, Zito, Timmy, all these guys."

Cain compared the continuity of the Giants' rotation now to the Braves' trio of Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine, and the A's big three of Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder.

Wilson, whose 79 saves the last two seasons rank fourth in the majors, said, "Oh, sweet," when told all the deals were done. He pledged to work harder than ever so he can earn another contract "and try to be a Giant for the rest of my career."

Giants Thoughts

Dynastic staff is what I've been talking about the Giants rotation. I'm been writing for a while now about how pitching is our future (since the Giants said that Bonds was no longer our future, one of the Mercury columnist wondered what next and I noted that it's clearly pitching) and how powerful it is to have a pitching rotation that can dominate the other teams in a series, when they have a high PQS DOM%. And now we have all the major pieces covered to 2012 plus still control Lincecum and Sanchez to 2013.

Some are not happy because of the restrictions on the payroll budget due to these guaranteed monies. But at some point, you have to realize that this was coming along with the success of our pitchers, that at some point they are going to get paid big money. And that the Giants management realized that.

I think that Neukom's stance with Sabean regarding the budget, that he should not feel constrained by the budget when bringing baseball recommendations to Neukom, shows that he understood this budget dynamic, punctuated by Zito's huge contract and then Rowand's contract.

But people forget that by 2011, the year some are worried about the Giants payroll, the Giants only have two more seasons of Rowand's salary and three more of Zito (highly unlikely his team option will be picked up nor that he earn the vesting by averaging 200 IP over any stretch). And that by the end of the 2011 season, that's only one season of Rowand and two of Zito remaining, making their contracts easier to trade off if the Giants pony up some money to push their final cost to the other team down to more reasonable levels. And who knows, if Rowand is as improved as he appears to be this spring - after finally figuring out that he should get in shape to earn his money - and if Zito can continue his great second half of 2009 into 2010 and 2011, the Giants could make the trade easily, again with some money added in, but which would save a huge chunk of money for our young players due raises.

In addition, Neukom should not offer to extend the payroll if he wasn't serious, because that would be seriously bad PR for Sabean to say this publicly and it don't happen and we end up trading someone good just to save money. Reportedly they were kicking the tires on Manny Ramirez when the D-gers were trying to re-sign him, which would have meant a bump in the budget of up to $20M that season (I think they were a little under budget at that time).

That is a serious bump of money to allow, even for only one season, so Neukom has a sugar daddy somewhere he can tap into easily for that big coin because from my observation of how much money he supposedly made off Microsoft stock, money he has invested in owning a big chunk of the Giants, and donations he and his wife have made to universities, he should not have a lot of money left (well, plenty for you and me but not to cover that) to cover such a big bump upward.

Other Giants News and Thoughts

Speaking of Neukom, there was a nice article on him on sfgiants.com recently. He talked about this plans for the Giants, both present and future, and about The Giants Way. Part of this way is that they are investing in helping their prospects and players stay in better shape and conditioning, hiring staff and buying equipment:

"The baseball's got to speak for itself because there are so many variables," he said. "We're investing in homegrown talent. We have this very clear strategy, which is better conditioning, better prepared, more clear-headed people playing baseball, and we want to get to a sustainable level of exciting baseball played the right way. After that, we'll have to see what happens."

Neukom raved about the team's mini-camp in January and how much he was impressed with the players' condition when they arrived for Spring Training. ...

"We're at a stage now where we are strong enough to think we don't have to rush [Minor League players] ahead of schedule," he said. "Traditionally, you think in terms of the best and most talented prospects, baseball people would want him to spend probably four years in the Minors before he was ready to come up and contribute at the Major League level.

"It varies from player to player and team to team. We don't want to be desperate. We don't want to rush kids ahead of when they should be coming up, and I think we're in that situation." ...

Neukom said he has spoken to fans and has answers for those who have questions about the team's approach.

"I tell them our goal is a medium-term, long-term goal," he said. "The immediate step was getting the Giants to play winning baseball and to build on that increasingly from homegrown talent and become the kind of team that contend year in and year out. Nobody can have a strict timetable on that."

Finally, we are working to get all our prospects in shape and a good state of mind to focus on baseball. One step at a time. And a great commitment to bulding up the farm system and using that as a key component of keeping the team strong now and in the future. Assuming the team continues to win, that means going after players who fell in the draft because of concerns over how much they want in bonus and paying much over slot for them (which they appear to have had no problem with previously, going way over for Posey and Wheeler) and going after the top Latin American talent out there, preferably hitters as they seem to be better bets relatively (and which is the way they have been doing it, as Villalona and RafRod are the two big signings plus the Giants were in on a couple of other position prospects as well before losing to other clubs).

In other news, Todd Wellemeyer should get announced as the 5th starter. Also, I heard Schulman on KNBR over the weekend (I really liked him on radio, I enjoyed that a lot, he should do a lot more of that on KNBR, I hope) and he covered his blog on the 25-man roster that I wrote about the other day. He made his point that the Giants don't want to put additional stress on their young starter's arm early in the season by giving them additional games, so Wellemeyer will be taking his 5th starter starts which means the Giants will need a long relief guy to be there, which in his thinking would mean Pucetas. And I agree that it is likely that Pucetas will win that role because of how well he had done in spring until his outing this weekend, which ultimately wasn't that bad as he recovered to give us three innings.

However, Schulman also noted that Henry Sosa is being given the opportunity to make the team - a good sign is that he's still with the team - and Sosa has experience as a starter but looks to be a reliever long-term because he's a high effort thrower who has been battling physical problems, and relief would put less stress on him. Sosa has had a great spring as well and would not cost the Giants a 40-man slot because he's already on it (unlike, say, Denny Bautista; the Giants do have two spots open now with the Frandsen trade, but Wellemeyer and Mota appear to have them locked up, Wellemeyer particularly so). So the Giants could decide to bring him up to be the long reliever and sent Pucetas down to AAA to be ready to start if we need it.

I think that is a strong possibility. Pucetas wouldn't be prepared to take a starter's spot if he's pitching long-relief for us. Of course, Bumgarner is probably the first line of defense there, and Pucetas could be sent down at that time to be prepared in case there is another need for a starter. But Pucetas did not do that well last season in AAA, he had a couple of good months early but overall was not that great, and in particular could not strike out very many hitters.

So he still has something to prove in terms of dominating hitters at a higher level, he could have been very lucky this spring (that is why scouting is so much more important than just eyeing the stats like I and others do - but then again, that is all that is available to me). I can see the Giants wanting to see him do well for a season in AAA and be ready to start for them as necessary during the season, while Sosa be our long-guy. That could lead to Sosa joining middle relief next season while Pucetas then take the long reliever role, assuming he does well in AAA this season plus beat out Joe Martinez next spring.

In addition, Baggarly noted that Fred Lewis has been complaining about a rib injury problem, so I smell an extended stint for Lewis on the DL, while the starting RF situation sorts itself out on the 25-man roster in the meanwhile. Schierholtz has been struggling - again unfortunately - and with Bowker's sudden surge (I would note that he wasn't doing that great until those few games, so it would seem odd that Bowker could win the position with just a couple of good games of hitting when not doing that great before), there has been a lot of news about Schierholtz still battling to win the RF spot, and now with Bowker's surge, the Giants might visit Bowker starting in LF while DeRosa starts in RF (which someone else noted DeRosa hasn't played any of this spring, but I would note that he played RF a bit in previous seasons - and well usign UZR/150 rating - and didn't get many/any starts in LF prior to this season, which hasn't even started yet).

Sabean also discussed extensively about Nate's struggles, which can't help him either. Still, that's life as a major leaguer, and the sooner Schierholtz gets used to all that, the sooner he can show what he got at the major league level. He needs to stop tinkering and just do the old rule of: see ball, hit ball, and not complicate it with whether to use batting gloves or not, and so forth.

In any case, if Lewis is on the DL, then the Bowker and Schierholtz (and Torres too I suppose, and maybe Velez too) situation will unfold and perhaps the Giants will put Lewis back on the 25-man roster and move someone else off, instead of trading him. Or by then some other team might be a bit more desperate for an OF capable of starting and give us a better prospect for him.