Optimism: In the Eye of the Beholder

Many commenters have called me optimistic over the years.  When I was a frequent contributor at McCovey Chronicles (until I was driven away by the Naysayers), there was a regular (who I think is a mod, bad memory but I think his handle was Goofus), who would ask "I need to hear something good about the Giants:  ogc?"  (and he meant it in the nicest way possible)  I've been called Pollyanna for my efforts as well.

I can see why people see me that way, but I've been blessed/cursed with the ability/need to see all the sides of the story, no matter the situation.  And that helped me survive my dad passing away when I was young and has served me well all my life.  But the curse is that some view me as wishy-washy because of that.

However, I can live with the messiness that is life, there is the good, the bad, and the ugly, this is not something others with OCD tendencies can do.  For those with long memories, I view myself much like Marvel Comic's character, the Watcher, in observing the Giants (except that I'm rooting for the Giants, while the Watcher is stoic).

What this reminds me of is a common conundrum in business investing.  Sometimes, the key difference between whether one person/company invests while another avoids is because where one sees risk, the other sees opportunity.  It is not necessarily a matter of risk tolerance either, though that is a huge factor in a lot of situations, but there are cases where success and failure swings clearly on the point of view of the observer, their perspective of the situation.

Lets take the Giants, for example, since this is a Giants blog :^).  I have been seeing a lot of negative talk in the media.  And I understand that, the Giants are in a bad stretch of losing right now, and to teams they should to beating.  I could point out names but really, most of the Giants media are beating the negative drum.  Same for Giants fans, but that seems to go without saying, unfortunately.

Again, I understand that.  It's never good to be losing 17 out of 24 games.  To lose games that you should be winning.  To watch good pitchers suddenly lose it and cost us the game.  To watch hitters not produce.  I get that.

But I've also been following baseball for 40 years now (whew, just realized that!).  Plus, I love history, so I've read about (and perused through baseball-reference.com) a lot of baseball pennant chases and epic successes and fails on the playoff front, like the Boston Braves in 1914 or the 1964 Phillies, or more recently, the Rockies with their late season drives or the Padres last season.  So I've both seen a lot plus know a lot.

Two games behind is nothing.  A lead like that can disappear in two days.  We know it and we've seen it (like last season for the Giants or really any season, any team).

We've also seen teams go from good to bad to good again.   We know it and we've seen it (like last season for the Giants or really any season, any team).

Lots of Giants fans see "losing, losing, and more losing" and they lose their heads and say the sky is falling.  I've seen it many times over the years, I've seen it last year and this year.  They have a terrible angst about losing, from June Swoons to worries about the offense, "the bad son", while the pitching, "the good son", is totally ignored.

Great Pitching Makes Winning Easier

We have a lot of great pitching.  Maybe they are tired from the long extended run in 2010.  Probably not, at least overall, as my data showed about how the pitching is doing in August.  They certainly have been more inconsistent than they have been this season, but then again, they were very insistent last season as well, until they righted the ship and dominated in September and October.  Doesn't mean it will happen now, but they are great pitchers and have accomplished a lot, including their streak of 18 straight games with 3 runs or less given up, 23 straight games with 4 runs or less given up, that they did in September of last season.

That's not optimism.  That's a fact:  we have great pitching.  Great pitching keeps us in a lot of games.  Sure, they will cough up games like they did yesterday, or when BWeez blew his save.  But more often than not, they have done the job for us.  Plus, the better the pitchers, the less the offense has to do in order to win.

Doesn't mean that they will do it for us this month or this season, I totally agree.  But it won't stop me from enjoying these games in September.  Baseball is meant to be enjoyed.  Else why get so passionate about it?

Media:  Nattering Nabobs of Negativism

I think the media is at fault for at least part of that.  That seems to be how the media operates, I've learned.  Whether the stock market (with the quarter to quarter obsession that investors generally have) or baseball, where all they can write about is the here and now negativeness.

Honestly, I find that to be very knee-jerk reactionary.  I hate the swings from the highs to the lows - unless it is warranted.  But I saw that a lot in investing, a stock with no news at all could lose or gain 10 percent in a short period of time, just because people were nervous or not.

It could be bad news about the economy.

Followed by good news.

Followed by bad news.

Followed by good news.

One could get whiplash following all that.  I see the similarities in baseball.

It is all about "what are you doing now".  Bad quarterly earnings report?  Totally negative investor vibe and stock losses.  Bad losing streak?  Total negative fan vibe, lots of bitching and moaning.

Even Keel

If you are like that, my blog is not for you.  I try to steer an even keel, but will be positive when warranted, negative when warranted.

An optimist, to me, is someone who thinks positively about the situation without considering the negatives.  That is the heart of the definition of optimist: a person disposed to take a favorable view of things."  I don't view myself that way.

If I were a doctor, I would be a horrible doctor in that I would tell people when there is no hope.  I see no gain from sugar-coating the reality.  My bluntness has been softened by years of socializing, but that's where my brain goes to first.

I present the positives mainly because the negatives are all out there and part of my assumption is that my readers know all about the negatives there, that they are savvy enough fans who do not need me to hold their hand, that they are looking for that extra edge in understanding the Giants chances for making the playoffs.

If there were relentless optimism out there, I would point out the negatives, like, we only have 4 healthy starters right now, Wilson might not get healthy anytime this season, Beltran too, someone has noticed Pablo getting fatter, we have no reliable lead-off hitter, and our offense is still sputtering.

Pitching Staff Rules!

Still, overall, there is our lovely starting pitching and great bullpen. As it showed to great effect last season and this season, we can win a lot of games despite poor offense. They averaged 3.66 RS per game the last month, yet the team still went 19-10 because they only allowed 2.07 runs per game that last month. The Pythagorean on that is 21-8, so they actually underperformed.

So about yesterday's loss by the Giants. People forget that Cain is human. People forget, but he lost a key game for us in the final series against the 'Dres last season, he did not come through for us. Of course, he really came through for us in the playoffs, spinning 21.1 IP of pure shutout gold for us in 3 starts.

That's the key to the Giants pulling the division title out of the hat this season, yeah, sometimes our pitching sucks, but more often than not, they come through big time, like the 9.1 IP of shut-out relief by the bullpen the other day or Lincecum giving up only one run in his loss.

Still, if you want to focus on the negative, the pitching has not been doing its job lately, and for a long while. Since July 3rd, the pitching had kept the opposition from scoring more than 3 runs only 23 out of 45 games, per my metric on the side. They have only been 23-22 in keeping the opposition from scoring 4 runs or more. That is why they have been 20-25 since then.

Enjoy the Ride, Enjoy the Season

Will our heroes come through? That is the drama that I enjoy, whether we make the playoffs or not. Of course, I'll be bummed, but I will have the shiny and great pitching staff plus blossoming middle lineup (Sandoval, Posey, Belt) to keep me warm for the next few seasons. As well as a shiny 2010 World Championship trophy!

So enjoy the pennant chase, Giants fans.  That is something Pirates and Royals fans have not enjoyed for nearly a generation now.

Enjoy our great pitching.  This is something that does not come around often, but when it does, you have to enjoy it.  You can bitch all you want about the offense, but remember this:  baseball is a zero sum game, any improvements in offense would have come at a cost to our pitching (and perhaps fielding too; see Keppinger).    

Think about all the fans who wanted to trade away Cain.  Think about all the fans who wanted to trade away Lincecum.  Think about all the fans who wanted to break up the pitching in order to get the offense.  Think about what won us our championship:   it was our pitching, period.

Mistakes are a Given: It is What You Do to Make up For Them

When pitching is this good, you don't need good offense, you don't even need average offense, though, obviously, that is preferable.  I would love to have great offense, but accept that this is the cost of having a great pitching staff.  The people who all point to the mistakes on offense that have occurred over the years are more OCD than I am:  mistakes will happen.

The key in any business is:  how does your strategic plan still function when mistakes are made?  Is it flexible enough to handle tactical issues, like a lot of injuries, or unexpected poor performances?

People write off unexpected good performances as luck, but the fact of the matter is that in life, there will always be unexpected good and bad performances, and they tend to balance out over time.  It has nothing to do with luck, it has to do with there being a balance in life.  Many view the unexpected good as luck, but that is how the baseball bounces sometimes, one player's good luck is another player's bad luck.  I see people noting the good luck of Burrell hitting well for us last season, but they then ignore the bad luck of Panda being Pablo instead.

And as much as injuries have hurt the Giants this season, I think that last year was very injury marred as well.  DeRosa was basically done before the season began, too bad he was too stubborn to see that and ended up starting a bunch of games before DLing.  Renteria was never really that healthy until his tendon snapped off.  Molina suffered from injuries from foul balls in May that he never recovered from, he was hitting .880 on May 12th then faded from there.  Schierholtz was injured early and he reported afterward that he came back too soon and never really fully recovered.  Franchez was injured early too and missed a number of games.  Rowand was hit in the face with a HBP, and while he hit well once he came back, he has not been the same since, he at least in his first two seasons hit well for 3-4 months before disappointing, but he hasn't been good for any extended period.  Torres missed a lot of the pennant race with his appendicitis.  Guillen was hitting .800 OPS for us for 6-7 weeks until his neck problem made him horrible for the last 1-2 weeks of the season.

There were pitcher injuries too.  Wellemeyer was injured.  Affeldt missed a while on the DL.  Runzler suffered a bad injury as well.  If I recall right, Ray also had some sort of injury.  Mota made the DL once, as well.

So it is not like we were "lucky" about injuries last season, we had a fair number of significant injuries, losing our starting LF, RF, CF, SS, 2B, plus our 3B and C were affected but not DLed, as well as a key set-up reliever, for parts of the season (most for DeRosa and Renteria, I would throw Schierholtz and Sandoval in there too).

The key is having such a good pitching staff that you can ride out a lot of problems.  When your pitching is that good, you don't need to pay that much to other teams for offense, as even average offense would actually be valuable to you.  You can make a lot of mistakes there and still win a lot of games.  Injuries in your pitching staff is covered when a good pitching is missing.  You just have to kiss a few frogs along the way.  Despite not having Wilson or Romo, the relievers have been pretty good in their stead, it hasn't been catastrophic, though they certainly could have used Wilson in yesterday's game.

Giants Appear to be Set for Future

The plan is generally working, which the Naysayers refuse to acknowledge.  Of course, that is barring catastrophic injury, but even then, we have so many that we might even be able to ride out the loss of one good pitcher.

The Giants have been averaging roughly 90 wins the past three seasons (including this one).  At some point, they must realize that luck is not the reason for all this success.  I think they are just being pig-headed, but only the truly dense can believe that they can explain away three seasons of 90 wins average as luck.  But I'm patient, I expect this to continue, then they will have no more excuses.

Not only is it working, but with a lot of young hitters coming up, the lineup looks to be cheap and good, not just average, within a couple of years, especially once Gary Brown or Francisco Peguero come up and become our lead-off hitter, while the middle is filled with Sandoval, Posey, and Belt.  That plus our pitching, assuming Neukom ponies up the money to keep everyone (which will be tough with Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Wilson, Sandoval, Posey getting big dough soon), should make the 2010's the Decade of the Giants, the Team of the 2010's.