After the Giants early offensive struggles (albeit, against one of the top rotations in the majors in one of the more extreme pitcher's parks in the majors), many were shouting, "The Giants Offense sucks! The offense sucks!" I disagree.
Showing posts with label starting lineup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label starting lineup. Show all posts
Friday, April 06, 2018
Thursday, October 20, 2016
Your 2016 Giants: Post-Season Presser
The Giants post-season press conference was held last Thursday after the last playoff game on Tuesday. Reports from the beat writers:
- Andy Baggarly and Mercury News: closer; coaches; power
- Hank Schulman: closer and other news; coaches
- Chris Haft: free agents; bullpen and other news; coaches
- Alex Pavlovic: free agents; closer; coaches; injuries and other news
Monday, January 11, 2016
Your 2016 Giants: Steamer Projections
Some lineup and pitching staff analysis based on the current Steamer projections and expected team roster.
Monday, August 03, 2015
Your 2015 Giants: The August Gauntlet
{Note: I had this written up for publication before Friday's game, but then the Leake trade happened. Apologies in advance for any numbers not updated to current figures as of publication, I'll update where I can.}
Every year, the Giants have a schedule full of games in August, leaving only two days off the whole month. That's why I've been suggesting a modified 6-man rotation during this period, to give our SP regular rest. This season, people are also worried because the Giants are facing teams who are all contenders: Rangers, Braves, Cubs, Astros, Nationals, Cards, Pirates, Dodgers, during the month of August (only the Braves are too far out of a playoff spot). That would be 27 out of 30 are contenders. Plus 18 of 30 (I'm including the Rangers first game of the series) are on the road.
The following was a comment I posted on Raising Matt Cain, and expanded (as I am wont to do) because I tweak. Plus, then, you know, the Leake trade happened, so this post got delayed to today instead, with some final tweaks.
Every year, the Giants have a schedule full of games in August, leaving only two days off the whole month. That's why I've been suggesting a modified 6-man rotation during this period, to give our SP regular rest. This season, people are also worried because the Giants are facing teams who are all contenders: Rangers, Braves, Cubs, Astros, Nationals, Cards, Pirates, Dodgers, during the month of August (only the Braves are too far out of a playoff spot). That would be 27 out of 30 are contenders. Plus 18 of 30 (I'm including the Rangers first game of the series) are on the road.
The following was a comment I posted on Raising Matt Cain, and expanded (as I am wont to do) because I tweak. Plus, then, you know, the Leake trade happened, so this post got delayed to today instead, with some final tweaks.
Monday, January 19, 2015
Your 2015 Giants: Aoki is A-OK With Me
The Giants reportedly signed Nori(chika) Aoki, formerly with the KC Royals, to come over to the clubhouse across from them in the World Series, to be the Giants starting LF, as the Giants appear to view Blanco as a valuable 4th OF (as reported by Chron). He has mostly played RF during his MLB career, spanning the last three seasons (not sure what he mostly played in Japan, but given that he played his last season there in CF, presumably he was a CF in Japan). He has mostly led off for his teams (occasionally batted second too), but the Giants appear to favor him batting 7th (Blanco's usual spot), though he would lead off when Pagan gets a game off.
He gets a $4M contract for 2015 (age 33 season), with $1.5M in incentives that he can earn, plus a team option for 2016 for $5.5M (also with $1.5M in incentives) or a $700K buyout. MLBTR reports that he took less years and money so that he could get more playing time playing for a contender, and he liked the idea of living in SF) .
ogc thoughts
Great acquisition by the Giants, as now we have a great backup (career .353 OBP both overall and batting leadoff) for lead-off should Pagan hit the DL again. He has averaged 22 SB per season, and 25 SB over a 162 game season. Makes great contact, over 90%, plus his K/BB ratio is a hair over 1.0, which is great, he is a hitter in the mode of Scutaro: high BA, high OBP, low SLG/ISO. That is great for both leadoff and batting second, which Aoki has mostly been doing during his MLB career.
He is kind of a reverse Blanco in that he has hit LHP better than RHP as a major leaguer. Yet he's the starter and Blanco is the backup, and I would attribute that to Blanco never figuring out how to be himself when he's leading off. He lets the pressure gets to him up there, whereas he's been a good (i.e. average) hitter batting lower in the lineup, 5, 6, 7. If he could just do what he does lower in the lineup, he'll be a starter and could get a nice longer-term contract.
Personally, if Aoki is the starter, I would rather just go with Aoki at leadoff now, instead of Pagan, since he has a low SLG, and use Pagan in the middle of the lineup, like 3rd, where he has hit before, giving us a couple of speedsters hitting ahead of Posey, Pence, Belt, for them to drive in, with Pagan having the ability to drive in guys as well. Pagan has said he's fine anywhere in the lineup, as long as he is in the lineup, though that could have been for show. Aoki has been healthy so far as a major leaguer, for the most part, with just the one DL in late June last season, with a left groin strain, so he would be more likely to provide stability up top.
And if we are going to bat Aoki in the bottom of the lineup (frankly, I don't agree with all the talk so far, as Bochy noted hitting McGehee anywhere from 4th on down, and I think it would be better to mix up 6/7/8 among McGehee, Aoki, and Crawford, depending on who the starter is, and what they have in the bullpen), it might be better to bat him 8th because then he could function as a secondary leadoff hitter, heck, bat him 9th and the pitcher 8th, to put another speedster ahead of the top of the lineup. But as we all know, this is probably all for naught, as Bochy's talk ahead of the season will typically yield to what his gut (and circumstances) tell him to do later in the season.
On the financial analysis side, it's a pretty good deal even at what he produced last season, where he was at 1.0 WAR (WAR is being priced around $7M per WAR right now, so he's getting paid at around 0.7 WAR production), but if he reverts to his 2012-13 rate of 3+ WAR, the Giants got a huge bargain plus can keep him for 2016 as well. The main difference appears to be his defense, he was kinda good in Milwaukee, but horrible with KC, resulting in the wide swing. And so far, wide swings like that is common, it's not uncommon to see players rate well then swing around up and down, like BABIP does.
But if you want to go by performance, he's been good in 2012-13, poor in 2014, which could be a result of him playing with a pulled groin muscle, which would cut into his speed and ability to cover as much as he used to, resulting in lowered defensive stats. Then again, while rWAR has his defense good then bad, fWAR has his defense bad then OK, so who knows? UZR has an opposite assessment of his fielding relative to DRS and that other metrics that Baseball-Reference.com uses.
Oh, and by fWAR, he's been roughly average WAR (slightly over) each season for the past three seasons. That is probably part of the reason Fangraphs thinks the Giants got a bargain (right near end of article; though this other Fangraph article calls it "a steal"). An average player is earning around $12-14M per season right now, and the Giants could retain him for $12.5M over the next two seasons, or roughly half his production value of the past three seasons per fWAR.
The Fangraphs article mentions something that has been noted before: the Giants are powerless. To be more precise (as I am wont to do), the article notes the Giants lack of homerun power. But it is not like they have no power, for while they lack overall HR power, they make up for it with other power, as shown by ISO. Belt, Posey, and Pence are good power hitters, with pretty high ISO, plus Crawford is right around average power and Pagan a bit behind. It is McGehee, Panik, and Aoki who are powerless. And I would note again, the BP study of linkage between a team's offensive profile and success in the post-season found that there is no correlation between power hitting, whether HR or otherwise, with deep post-season runs. So while this is interesting as a talking point, because of fans' preoccupation with dingers, for us Giants fans, the more relevant fact is that it won't hurt our chances to win another trophy.
The Giants, having their defensive focus, hopefully can help him be good defensively (they have been able to coax good defensive years out of Burrell and Huff in the OF, per advanced fielding metrics), which would mean a huge bargain for the Giants in terms of WAR, because of how well he bats. Appears that they have learned from the Huff deal: if you are giving a player an opportunity to make good on returning to prior goodness, get a team option so you don't have to pay through the nose in order to retain him for another season, in case the first one was a fluke. Though as noted above, Aoki took a lesser deal (less years and money) in order to get more playing time with a contender (plus he likes the idea of living in SF).
But again, the greater deal for the Giants is that they got a great leadoff option in Aoki should anything drastic happens to the lineup, that is a great risk mitigation move on the part of the Giants. Pagan going out has obviously been a huge problem, both in 2013 and 2014. But losing other players in the lineup could mess things up, at which point, Aoki could take over leadoff duties, and Pagan could hit in a run-producing role, should something happen there. Great depth for the 25-man roster and lineup, depth at leadoff that we haven't had in years (heck, there were years where we wondered who would lead off: remember Dusty pushing Shinjo into the leadoff spot?).
Rosterbation
The roster seems pretty set now, with only a few positions open for competition. The starting lineup appears to be Pagan, Petit, Posey, Belt, Pence, McGehee, Aoki, Crawford (my best guess at the Giants expected lineup, at the moment). The starting rotation appears to be Bumgarner, Cain, Hudson, Peavy, Lincecum, with Petit as 6th starter/long relief. The bullpen is Casilla (presumably still closer), Romo, Affeldt, Lopez, Machi, Kontos/Strickland/Okert/Cordier. The bench is Hanchez/Susac, Arias, Adrianza, Blanco, Perez/Ishikawa.
One thing that Sabean has been trying to do in the recent era of competitive play, is something I call risk mitigation in terms of roster construction. He's been talking about this for a long time, talking about the flexibility that certain players provide because they can play multiple positions, and well enough, guys like Winn, DeRosa, Melky, Pagan, Blanco, Arias. That gives the team the opportunity to move players in the lineup, like a Rubik's Cube, shifting without losing a huge step, as most teams need to do when they lose someone important to the lineup.
As I noted, Aoki is a key addition in this risk mitigation scenario as the backup leadoff hitter, in case Pagan is lost again, for any reason, during the 2015 season. This is important because Pagan has played only one full season (2012) out of the last four seasons, missing large parts of three seasons. It is also important because Blanco has proved to not be able to hit consistently well as a leadoff hitter for us during that timeframe.
He actually outhit Pagan for the first month plus after taking over in 2013, but when the bottom dropped out of the lineup, he was caught in the undertow, and started to try hitting 5-run homers to make up for that, dooming his efforts. And that is what has costed him during this career, being unable to hit within his abilities instead of trying to hit according to what he thinks he should be hitting when leading off.
I think he would have been fine as our starting LF, batting 7th, but if Pagan is gone, he would be the logical leadoff guy again, and we've been there, done that, we know that don't work. He's just too valuable as a 4th OF who would not be as huge a drop from the starting OF, because of his great defense. With Aoki in place as the replacement leadoff hitter, Blanco can step in for Pagan and bat in Aoki's 7th place position, with little dropoff in overall production.
Same with other players. Arias at 3B, he's been even better than Sandoval defensively there, while OK offensively. Sandoval being out and replaced by Arias would result in minimal reduction in overall production for the Giants in seasons past. He and Adrianza would also be good enough for a while at 2B, while Adrianza would be good enough at SS should Crawford end up injured again, instead of Bochy simply playing him, as he did in 2013, having Adrianza around could enable the Giants to DL Crawford and let him heal properly and more quickly.
Same with Petit in the starting rotation, he probably would have been fine in that role for 2015, but given the fragility of pitchers (TINSTAAPP), it behooves a team built on pitching and fielding to be able to substitute in Petit when necessary, unlike the Bridegrooms, who, while they had a boatload of starting pitchers that they could go to, they were of the ilk of Maholm, Hernandez, and Correia, they altogether were 5-8 (11-14 overall) with a collective 5.22 ERA in 25 starts.
That type of pitching just eats innings, it leaves a team in poorer position, had Bochy been as good in one-run games as on average, the Giants would have ended up with more wins and won the division. Starting pitching depth is not the most important factor, quality replacement starting pitching is. Petit is quality replacement and he can keep the position warm until the Giants can trade for someone like Peavy.
And, of course, we still have multiple closers, good backup there. Casilla looks likely to continue to be the closer, but we got Romo back, and obviously he was a closer before. And while he's never been a closer for us (except perhaps briefly, when Bochy said he was going to a committee but still mostly just used one guy, whether Casilla or Romo), Affeldt probably would do a great job for us there as well, if necessary. And we have had this trio now since 2010.
Need for Another Starting Pitcher
The Giants have continually been mentioned in rumors, even after the Peavy signing, for a starting pitcher. For example, Shields. Not sure what that would have meant for the rotation because we already had five starters and the Giants have already said that Lincecum was a starter. The only way another starter would work, from what I can figure out, is if the Giants went with my idea that I've been mentioning in comments and posts regarding going with a 6-man rotation, in order to lessen the strain on your aces' arm, and the staff in general.
Clearly, post-season work both adds on strain on the arm, while shortening the off-season for rest and recovery. Having a 6-man rotation means that the average starter gets 27 starts (at 6 IP average that's only 142 IP, at 7 IP, 189 IP). Plus, it gives the manager the ability to skip someone's start occasionally, which pushes up the other starters up a day, while giving the pitcher a 12-14 day blow to rest or work on stuff. Or they could go with the top 5 for a month or so, then sometime in May, go to the 6-man rotation. I think that there are many benefits to having a 6-man rotation, but the negative here is that then there is one less man on the bench, either position player or reliever. And that would limit Bochy's potential moves, and flexibility in strategy.
I think one way this could work is if the team had a position player who could also pitch relief, like if he pitched only to eat innings in a big blowout type of game. A guy like Brooks Kieschnick. I know this is risky, and I'm not suggesting that Posey be the guinea pig, but Buster was a closer in college, and there are other position players who played duo roles like that. Being able to bring in somebody like that would given the manager another weapon to rely on, assuming the Giants develop the guy's pitching as well as his hitting and fielding.
If you have an alternative idea for why the team is looking for another starting pitcher, even one as good as Shield, I would love to hear it. Replacing Lincecum is one idea I've seen, but then that means he's in the bullpen or traded for nothing much (plus the Giants would have to cover most of his salary, that would seem to be a waste). Some might say to replace Hudson, but what if he recovers as advertised and is ready for the start of the 2015 season? Seems we are back to replacing Lincecum. Backup for Cain is another possible reason, but again, if Cain is good to go, we are back to replacing Lincecum. Or the 6-man rotation.
Arbitration Follies
The Chronicle article also noted the arbitration situations for the players eligible and who had not agreed to deals yet. Petit agreed to a one year deal for $2.1M before figures got exchanged. Also, subsequent to that article, the Giants (per MLBTR) agreed to a two year deal with Blanco for $3.6M in 2015, and $3.9M in 2016, covering his remaining arbitration years. He had asked for $4.0M and the Giants had offered $3.3M, so the Giants roughly hewed to their formula of signing some arbitration players to a two year contract with first the Giants offer, then the player's asking salary. He got $200K more overall, bumped up in 2015, while taking slightly less in 2016.
The remaining players and the offer and asks:
I do not expect McGehee to get a two year deal. So he'll probably get somewhere in near the middle ($4.7M is exact middle).
Crawford I can see getting a two year deal, maybe even three years to cover his entire arbitration eligibility. Honestly, the Giants offer looks to be on the low side. Using the 40% rule of thumb for the first year arbitration value, that only values him at $6.0M or roughly a 1 WAR player. His ask puts him at $10M per season. Maybe 2 years at $2.5M/$4M, or 3 years at $3M/$4M/$6M.
Belt might be the second arbitration meeting to happen (AJP being the first). The two sides have been contentious before. Apparently the Giants offer is only $100K above his salary last season, from what I read in comments somewhere. Then again, it was a wasted season, as he didn't play very much of the season, plus his batting line went down, as his BA and walk rate plunged, while his strikeout rate went up. At least they didn't ask for a pay cut, as some teams have done in this situation before. His agents appear to be like Lincecum's, looking to avoid committing long-term to anything because they expect the player to have an even better season and really knock the ball out of the park in the next round of arbitration.
I can't really see the Giants getting a $3M/$4.5M two year deal. $4M and $6M is obviously more realistic (mid-point is $3.75M, and the Giants sometimes round upward a few hundred grand for the better players), but I don't really see it happening. I only expect a one year deal, probably just short of $4M, as Belt and his agents continue to bet on a breakout year from him. Don't blame them.
I would love to sign him to a three year deal to cover his arbitration years, plus maybe option a free agent year, as I think he's capable of great things and be Votto-lite, but I don't think his side will allow it. I wouldn't either, if I were his agent.
But as a player gets deeper into arbitration - this is Belt's second of four - money is starting to get kind of big (it's all relative in baseball), and you never know how much a player is willing to take, just for the security, even if he might be leaving money on the table. $10M could tempt some players. Throw in a third year at, say, $8M, and the player might bite, $18M is a lot to turn down, especially given Belt's injury prone ways while batting, with two HBP broken hands in four seasons. Round it up to $20M, and that might get a player willing to sign up. We'll see, it'll be interesting either way.
He gets a $4M contract for 2015 (age 33 season), with $1.5M in incentives that he can earn, plus a team option for 2016 for $5.5M (also with $1.5M in incentives) or a $700K buyout. MLBTR reports that he took less years and money so that he could get more playing time playing for a contender, and he liked the idea of living in SF) .
ogc thoughts
Great acquisition by the Giants, as now we have a great backup (career .353 OBP both overall and batting leadoff) for lead-off should Pagan hit the DL again. He has averaged 22 SB per season, and 25 SB over a 162 game season. Makes great contact, over 90%, plus his K/BB ratio is a hair over 1.0, which is great, he is a hitter in the mode of Scutaro: high BA, high OBP, low SLG/ISO. That is great for both leadoff and batting second, which Aoki has mostly been doing during his MLB career.
He is kind of a reverse Blanco in that he has hit LHP better than RHP as a major leaguer. Yet he's the starter and Blanco is the backup, and I would attribute that to Blanco never figuring out how to be himself when he's leading off. He lets the pressure gets to him up there, whereas he's been a good (i.e. average) hitter batting lower in the lineup, 5, 6, 7. If he could just do what he does lower in the lineup, he'll be a starter and could get a nice longer-term contract.
Personally, if Aoki is the starter, I would rather just go with Aoki at leadoff now, instead of Pagan, since he has a low SLG, and use Pagan in the middle of the lineup, like 3rd, where he has hit before, giving us a couple of speedsters hitting ahead of Posey, Pence, Belt, for them to drive in, with Pagan having the ability to drive in guys as well. Pagan has said he's fine anywhere in the lineup, as long as he is in the lineup, though that could have been for show. Aoki has been healthy so far as a major leaguer, for the most part, with just the one DL in late June last season, with a left groin strain, so he would be more likely to provide stability up top.
And if we are going to bat Aoki in the bottom of the lineup (frankly, I don't agree with all the talk so far, as Bochy noted hitting McGehee anywhere from 4th on down, and I think it would be better to mix up 6/7/8 among McGehee, Aoki, and Crawford, depending on who the starter is, and what they have in the bullpen), it might be better to bat him 8th because then he could function as a secondary leadoff hitter, heck, bat him 9th and the pitcher 8th, to put another speedster ahead of the top of the lineup. But as we all know, this is probably all for naught, as Bochy's talk ahead of the season will typically yield to what his gut (and circumstances) tell him to do later in the season.
On the financial analysis side, it's a pretty good deal even at what he produced last season, where he was at 1.0 WAR (WAR is being priced around $7M per WAR right now, so he's getting paid at around 0.7 WAR production), but if he reverts to his 2012-13 rate of 3+ WAR, the Giants got a huge bargain plus can keep him for 2016 as well. The main difference appears to be his defense, he was kinda good in Milwaukee, but horrible with KC, resulting in the wide swing. And so far, wide swings like that is common, it's not uncommon to see players rate well then swing around up and down, like BABIP does.
But if you want to go by performance, he's been good in 2012-13, poor in 2014, which could be a result of him playing with a pulled groin muscle, which would cut into his speed and ability to cover as much as he used to, resulting in lowered defensive stats. Then again, while rWAR has his defense good then bad, fWAR has his defense bad then OK, so who knows? UZR has an opposite assessment of his fielding relative to DRS and that other metrics that Baseball-Reference.com uses.
Oh, and by fWAR, he's been roughly average WAR (slightly over) each season for the past three seasons. That is probably part of the reason Fangraphs thinks the Giants got a bargain (right near end of article; though this other Fangraph article calls it "a steal"). An average player is earning around $12-14M per season right now, and the Giants could retain him for $12.5M over the next two seasons, or roughly half his production value of the past three seasons per fWAR.
The Fangraphs article mentions something that has been noted before: the Giants are powerless. To be more precise (as I am wont to do), the article notes the Giants lack of homerun power. But it is not like they have no power, for while they lack overall HR power, they make up for it with other power, as shown by ISO. Belt, Posey, and Pence are good power hitters, with pretty high ISO, plus Crawford is right around average power and Pagan a bit behind. It is McGehee, Panik, and Aoki who are powerless. And I would note again, the BP study of linkage between a team's offensive profile and success in the post-season found that there is no correlation between power hitting, whether HR or otherwise, with deep post-season runs. So while this is interesting as a talking point, because of fans' preoccupation with dingers, for us Giants fans, the more relevant fact is that it won't hurt our chances to win another trophy.
The Giants, having their defensive focus, hopefully can help him be good defensively (they have been able to coax good defensive years out of Burrell and Huff in the OF, per advanced fielding metrics), which would mean a huge bargain for the Giants in terms of WAR, because of how well he bats. Appears that they have learned from the Huff deal: if you are giving a player an opportunity to make good on returning to prior goodness, get a team option so you don't have to pay through the nose in order to retain him for another season, in case the first one was a fluke. Though as noted above, Aoki took a lesser deal (less years and money) in order to get more playing time with a contender (plus he likes the idea of living in SF).
But again, the greater deal for the Giants is that they got a great leadoff option in Aoki should anything drastic happens to the lineup, that is a great risk mitigation move on the part of the Giants. Pagan going out has obviously been a huge problem, both in 2013 and 2014. But losing other players in the lineup could mess things up, at which point, Aoki could take over leadoff duties, and Pagan could hit in a run-producing role, should something happen there. Great depth for the 25-man roster and lineup, depth at leadoff that we haven't had in years (heck, there were years where we wondered who would lead off: remember Dusty pushing Shinjo into the leadoff spot?).
Rosterbation
The roster seems pretty set now, with only a few positions open for competition. The starting lineup appears to be Pagan, Petit, Posey, Belt, Pence, McGehee, Aoki, Crawford (my best guess at the Giants expected lineup, at the moment). The starting rotation appears to be Bumgarner, Cain, Hudson, Peavy, Lincecum, with Petit as 6th starter/long relief. The bullpen is Casilla (presumably still closer), Romo, Affeldt, Lopez, Machi, Kontos/Strickland/Okert/Cordier. The bench is Hanchez/Susac, Arias, Adrianza, Blanco, Perez/Ishikawa.
One thing that Sabean has been trying to do in the recent era of competitive play, is something I call risk mitigation in terms of roster construction. He's been talking about this for a long time, talking about the flexibility that certain players provide because they can play multiple positions, and well enough, guys like Winn, DeRosa, Melky, Pagan, Blanco, Arias. That gives the team the opportunity to move players in the lineup, like a Rubik's Cube, shifting without losing a huge step, as most teams need to do when they lose someone important to the lineup.
As I noted, Aoki is a key addition in this risk mitigation scenario as the backup leadoff hitter, in case Pagan is lost again, for any reason, during the 2015 season. This is important because Pagan has played only one full season (2012) out of the last four seasons, missing large parts of three seasons. It is also important because Blanco has proved to not be able to hit consistently well as a leadoff hitter for us during that timeframe.
He actually outhit Pagan for the first month plus after taking over in 2013, but when the bottom dropped out of the lineup, he was caught in the undertow, and started to try hitting 5-run homers to make up for that, dooming his efforts. And that is what has costed him during this career, being unable to hit within his abilities instead of trying to hit according to what he thinks he should be hitting when leading off.
I think he would have been fine as our starting LF, batting 7th, but if Pagan is gone, he would be the logical leadoff guy again, and we've been there, done that, we know that don't work. He's just too valuable as a 4th OF who would not be as huge a drop from the starting OF, because of his great defense. With Aoki in place as the replacement leadoff hitter, Blanco can step in for Pagan and bat in Aoki's 7th place position, with little dropoff in overall production.
Same with other players. Arias at 3B, he's been even better than Sandoval defensively there, while OK offensively. Sandoval being out and replaced by Arias would result in minimal reduction in overall production for the Giants in seasons past. He and Adrianza would also be good enough for a while at 2B, while Adrianza would be good enough at SS should Crawford end up injured again, instead of Bochy simply playing him, as he did in 2013, having Adrianza around could enable the Giants to DL Crawford and let him heal properly and more quickly.
Same with Petit in the starting rotation, he probably would have been fine in that role for 2015, but given the fragility of pitchers (TINSTAAPP), it behooves a team built on pitching and fielding to be able to substitute in Petit when necessary, unlike the Bridegrooms, who, while they had a boatload of starting pitchers that they could go to, they were of the ilk of Maholm, Hernandez, and Correia, they altogether were 5-8 (11-14 overall) with a collective 5.22 ERA in 25 starts.
That type of pitching just eats innings, it leaves a team in poorer position, had Bochy been as good in one-run games as on average, the Giants would have ended up with more wins and won the division. Starting pitching depth is not the most important factor, quality replacement starting pitching is. Petit is quality replacement and he can keep the position warm until the Giants can trade for someone like Peavy.
And, of course, we still have multiple closers, good backup there. Casilla looks likely to continue to be the closer, but we got Romo back, and obviously he was a closer before. And while he's never been a closer for us (except perhaps briefly, when Bochy said he was going to a committee but still mostly just used one guy, whether Casilla or Romo), Affeldt probably would do a great job for us there as well, if necessary. And we have had this trio now since 2010.
Need for Another Starting Pitcher
The Giants have continually been mentioned in rumors, even after the Peavy signing, for a starting pitcher. For example, Shields. Not sure what that would have meant for the rotation because we already had five starters and the Giants have already said that Lincecum was a starter. The only way another starter would work, from what I can figure out, is if the Giants went with my idea that I've been mentioning in comments and posts regarding going with a 6-man rotation, in order to lessen the strain on your aces' arm, and the staff in general.
Clearly, post-season work both adds on strain on the arm, while shortening the off-season for rest and recovery. Having a 6-man rotation means that the average starter gets 27 starts (at 6 IP average that's only 142 IP, at 7 IP, 189 IP). Plus, it gives the manager the ability to skip someone's start occasionally, which pushes up the other starters up a day, while giving the pitcher a 12-14 day blow to rest or work on stuff. Or they could go with the top 5 for a month or so, then sometime in May, go to the 6-man rotation. I think that there are many benefits to having a 6-man rotation, but the negative here is that then there is one less man on the bench, either position player or reliever. And that would limit Bochy's potential moves, and flexibility in strategy.
I think one way this could work is if the team had a position player who could also pitch relief, like if he pitched only to eat innings in a big blowout type of game. A guy like Brooks Kieschnick. I know this is risky, and I'm not suggesting that Posey be the guinea pig, but Buster was a closer in college, and there are other position players who played duo roles like that. Being able to bring in somebody like that would given the manager another weapon to rely on, assuming the Giants develop the guy's pitching as well as his hitting and fielding.
If you have an alternative idea for why the team is looking for another starting pitcher, even one as good as Shield, I would love to hear it. Replacing Lincecum is one idea I've seen, but then that means he's in the bullpen or traded for nothing much (plus the Giants would have to cover most of his salary, that would seem to be a waste). Some might say to replace Hudson, but what if he recovers as advertised and is ready for the start of the 2015 season? Seems we are back to replacing Lincecum. Backup for Cain is another possible reason, but again, if Cain is good to go, we are back to replacing Lincecum. Or the 6-man rotation.
Arbitration Follies
The Chronicle article also noted the arbitration situations for the players eligible and who had not agreed to deals yet. Petit agreed to a one year deal for $2.1M before figures got exchanged. Also, subsequent to that article, the Giants (per MLBTR) agreed to a two year deal with Blanco for $3.6M in 2015, and $3.9M in 2016, covering his remaining arbitration years. He had asked for $4.0M and the Giants had offered $3.3M, so the Giants roughly hewed to their formula of signing some arbitration players to a two year contract with first the Giants offer, then the player's asking salary. He got $200K more overall, bumped up in 2015, while taking slightly less in 2016.
The remaining players and the offer and asks:
- Belt: $3.0M/$4.5M
- Crawford: $2.4M/$3.95M
- McGehee: $4.0M/$5.4M
I do not expect McGehee to get a two year deal. So he'll probably get somewhere in near the middle ($4.7M is exact middle).
Crawford I can see getting a two year deal, maybe even three years to cover his entire arbitration eligibility. Honestly, the Giants offer looks to be on the low side. Using the 40% rule of thumb for the first year arbitration value, that only values him at $6.0M or roughly a 1 WAR player. His ask puts him at $10M per season. Maybe 2 years at $2.5M/$4M, or 3 years at $3M/$4M/$6M.
Belt might be the second arbitration meeting to happen (AJP being the first). The two sides have been contentious before. Apparently the Giants offer is only $100K above his salary last season, from what I read in comments somewhere. Then again, it was a wasted season, as he didn't play very much of the season, plus his batting line went down, as his BA and walk rate plunged, while his strikeout rate went up. At least they didn't ask for a pay cut, as some teams have done in this situation before. His agents appear to be like Lincecum's, looking to avoid committing long-term to anything because they expect the player to have an even better season and really knock the ball out of the park in the next round of arbitration.
I can't really see the Giants getting a $3M/$4.5M two year deal. $4M and $6M is obviously more realistic (mid-point is $3.75M, and the Giants sometimes round upward a few hundred grand for the better players), but I don't really see it happening. I only expect a one year deal, probably just short of $4M, as Belt and his agents continue to bet on a breakout year from him. Don't blame them.
I would love to sign him to a three year deal to cover his arbitration years, plus maybe option a free agent year, as I think he's capable of great things and be Votto-lite, but I don't think his side will allow it. I wouldn't either, if I were his agent.
But as a player gets deeper into arbitration - this is Belt's second of four - money is starting to get kind of big (it's all relative in baseball), and you never know how much a player is willing to take, just for the security, even if he might be leaving money on the table. $10M could tempt some players. Throw in a third year at, say, $8M, and the player might bite, $18M is a lot to turn down, especially given Belt's injury prone ways while batting, with two HBP broken hands in four seasons. Round it up to $20M, and that might get a player willing to sign up. We'll see, it'll be interesting either way.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Your 2012 Giants: Game 4 of the NLCS
Wow, Cain pitched a DOM game and Lohse had a DIS game, and we still lost. Based on PQS, we should be ahead 2-1, not behind 1-2: that's baseball. My study of PQS found that generally the team with better starting pitching generally won the game, generally won the series, but as we all know, BABIP can really help some teams and hurt other teams. And we got hurt, both ways, in yesterday's game.
Looking at the ER, one might have thought the opposition about the two starters. When Lohse needed to quell an uprising, he did, while Cain made the wrong pitch to the wrong batter, but was otherwise superb. Take that pitch and result out, and it's still tied 1-1, bottom of the ninth. Add a key hit in almost any inning, and the Giants win.
Coincidentally, this is reminiscent of the first game with the Reds, when Cueto went down: when Beltran went down with his knee injury, I thought, alright, that improves our chances, then when I found out it was Carpenter taking over, I got all worried before he was 4 for 4 against Cain during his career, and worried that might be the key to the game. And like Cueto going down, Beltran going down helped our opponent, rather than helped us. But if he's out for the series - no news yet, but it sounds like it is not that serious, day to day, but it has been something bothering him all season, so who knows - Carpenter's very, very, very, very poor defense in RF should hurt them at some point. He could be the Brooks Conrad of this series.
I happened to be able to see the last part of the game on TV and when I saw Carpenter, I couldn't believe how puny looking he looks (wow, TV sure does shrink people, he's 6' 3" and 200 lb according to baseball-reference.com; he looked like this slim guy on TV), and yet he took Cain yard. As much as I want to blame the offense for not doing more with all the hits and walks they produced, Cain should also take blame for letting this slight of build non-homerun hitter - he only had 6 HR in 296 AB during the season - beat us. He wasn't even that good a prospect in the minors, old for the league, didn't hit for that much power, struck out a little too much, but did walk a ton, he's a Moneyball type hitter in that way.
Looking at the ER, one might have thought the opposition about the two starters. When Lohse needed to quell an uprising, he did, while Cain made the wrong pitch to the wrong batter, but was otherwise superb. Take that pitch and result out, and it's still tied 1-1, bottom of the ninth. Add a key hit in almost any inning, and the Giants win.
Coincidentally, this is reminiscent of the first game with the Reds, when Cueto went down: when Beltran went down with his knee injury, I thought, alright, that improves our chances, then when I found out it was Carpenter taking over, I got all worried before he was 4 for 4 against Cain during his career, and worried that might be the key to the game. And like Cueto going down, Beltran going down helped our opponent, rather than helped us. But if he's out for the series - no news yet, but it sounds like it is not that serious, day to day, but it has been something bothering him all season, so who knows - Carpenter's very, very, very, very poor defense in RF should hurt them at some point. He could be the Brooks Conrad of this series.
I happened to be able to see the last part of the game on TV and when I saw Carpenter, I couldn't believe how puny looking he looks (wow, TV sure does shrink people, he's 6' 3" and 200 lb according to baseball-reference.com; he looked like this slim guy on TV), and yet he took Cain yard. As much as I want to blame the offense for not doing more with all the hits and walks they produced, Cain should also take blame for letting this slight of build non-homerun hitter - he only had 6 HR in 296 AB during the season - beat us. He wasn't even that good a prospect in the minors, old for the league, didn't hit for that much power, struck out a little too much, but did walk a ton, he's a Moneyball type hitter in that way.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Your 2012 Giants: Key Series Vs. Nats
This is a key series, not just because the Nats are the best team in the majors right now, not just because they swept us in DC, not just because we might end up facing them in the playoffs and thus need to show we can take them on, but also because the Dodgers are facing a tough stretch, playing the Pirates and Braves on the road for seven games, both good teams and tough series to win, and thus we want to put more distance between us and them, and that starts with us winning the series against the Nats plus then needing to beat the Padres in SD, which is harder since they have been hot lately.
Especially since after these two series, the Giants face the Dodgers for 3 in LA right after that, and they will be wanting to beat us and retake the NL West division lead. Put enough games between us, and they will have a harder time doing that, but with a slim 1 game lead, that disappears with a Dodger's series win, 2-1. Luckily, the Giants will be the rested team in LA, a short trip from SD the day before, while LA will be flying the red-eye from Atlanta to LA after their series, so that hopefully will help us out with beating LA in LA, as the Giants will be more like the home team than road team, in terms of rest.
This is also key because the Giants new offense will be on display with Pablo Sandoval's return to the lineup, and up against the Nats three best starters, Gonzalez, Zimmerman, and Strasburg, while the Giants throw out Vogelsong, Bumgarner, Lincecum. Seems like Bochy has scheduled the rotation just right for this series, Vogie has been our best and most consistent starter this season, Bumgarner has been arguably one of our best starters, and Lincecum has returned, thus far, to his prior goodness, and been the best pitcher among himself, Cain, and Zito since the All-Star break.
ogc Lineup Thoughts With Pablo Returning
I had written the other day that I would reduce my respect for Bochy if he batted Pence 6th, but I'm coming to the realization that batting Pence 6th is more a result of our luxury of having so many good hitters to put in the lineup, than any deficiency in Bochy's thinking. So I was wrong there, I believe now.
With the way Scutaro has been hitting for us in the 2-hole, particularly given his skills in making contact and avoiding strikeouts, and being able to extend the AB, it would be a shame to take him out of that spot. On top of that, Cabrera has been great batting third for us, and Bochy don't like to move hitters having success in a certain spot in the lineup. Yet, at the same time, Cabrera has batted in the 2-hole a lot in the past two years and been successful there as well.
So, Pagan/Scutaro/Cabrera/Posey/Pence/Sandoval or Pagan/Cabrera/Sandoval/Posey/Pence/Scutaro or Belt, that's a great problem to have.
Back to the Future Offense?
On top of this, Belt has been hitting very well in terms of both contact (that is, avoiding strikeouts) and putting up a nice batting line, so with Pablo returning to the lineup, it is possible that we are adding two middle of lineup bats in Belt and Pablo, to the trio of Cabrera, Posey, and Pence, which has the potential to set off the fireworks for our offense for the rest of the season, once Pablo gets his bat back to normal.
And that should greatly appeal to the offense-minded fans that still make up a large percentage of Giants fans. If all the hitters are doing what we think they are capable of, we could have an offense as good as or better than the great Giants offenses led by Bonds and Kent in the early 2000's, especially the ones with Burks. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but think about how well the offense has been on the road, especially after we added Pence to the lineup (and he really hasn't started hitting yet, like he could), then adding a Kung Fu Panda bat plus a Belt finally arriving bat, and that would make our offense very high octane, I believe.
Of course, if Pablo needs a while to get his bat back or Belt loses his mojo again or Cabrera and/or Posey finally cools off too much or Pence never takes off, then the offense will be more reminiscent of recent poor offenses than of Bonds/Kent era offense, but if the bats are all producing like their potential, we at least can dream about it, which is something we probably haven't been able to do since 2002 ended on a down note.
Naysayers Losing Grasp of Their Last Strands of Their Stance
I find this to be a very exciting time to be a Giants fan. It is also a time where the Sabean Naysayers last vestiage of semi-rational Sabean hatred should be falling away.
First they said that Sabean couldn't build a team, that he was lucky that Bonds made up for all his errors along the way. They held onto that for a long time, almost from when he became GM to 2009 when Lincecum and Cain started wowing everyone, and particularly after Bumgarner showed his mettle in 2010, and put the final nail into that idea with Vogelsong's emergence, as Sabean found cheap parts in Casilla, Lopez, Ramirez, Vogelsong, to fill in the pitching staff. And this took them a while to see, even though it was clear that back in 2007, when the Giants said good-bye to Bonds, that the Giants future was all about pitching, pitching, and more pitching (which was my reply to a media reporter's question of what is next for the Giants after Bonds, as it was not so clear to that reporter).
So thus they finally admit that Sabean can indeed build up a good pitching staff, and particularly a good pitching rotation, but still they think that he doesn't know how to build an offense.
And actually, even that has not really been that true for us observers who could see into the future based on the players the Giants had in their farm system. It was already promising once Pablo was producing in the majors and Posey clearly was a major leaguer hitter, even in the minors, in 2009. Then particularly in 2010, as Posey showed that he belonged among the elite hitters. Also, the drafting of Brown gave us a nice potential leadoff guy and Belt's charge up the minor leagues to shock and awe the prospect hounds, gave us four guys now to envision as the core of our lineup going forward, as early as late in the 2010 season, with Posey and Belt hitting well, and the signing of Brown. But I understand why the doubts continued, just wanted to point out that the future was already seeable early on to those without blinders on.
Today, the Giants control Posey, Sandoval, Pence, Belt into at least 2013, and Pence is amenable to a long term deal while the Giants said that both he and Cabrera can be fit into the budget in 2013 and beyond. Brown is handling AA just fine now, after a long period of adjustment, and still look on target to join the Giants in the 2013-14 time period as our long awaited - since Brett Butler - lead-off CF who can hit, get on base, steal a lot of bases, and play great defense. He also has the potential to hit for good power as well, which I find to be a great potential bonus.
That's a very good number of hitters who are potentially under control for the long-term, even more so if the Giants are able to sign Cabrera to a long-term deal this off-season.
Posey, Sandoval, Pence makes a great middle lineup by themselves. If we can add Cabrera, he would be a great #2 hitter for us and #3 on the days Posey is out of the lineup, as everyone moves down. If Belt finally figures out how to be consistently good in 2013 - and he might have just done that, albeit small samples for now - he would also be a middle lineup capable hitter who can hit 2nd or 6th equally well, and if he can do that, we could afford to make Cabrera our leadoff guy in 2013, until Brown is ready do take over the leadoff spot.
On top of that, we have a number of prospects who potentially could add to this bounty of offense. Panik is another hitter who looks good for top of the lineup, particularly #2, and he could play 2B or SS, as necessary. In addition, Noonan is having a breakout year as his skills developed the way some of us hoped, recognizing that his age relative to the league has put him in a big disadvantage all these years. He is also a middle infielder, and could slot nicely in the #2 spot as well, so that gives us a lot of risk mitigation regarding 2B long-term, plus SS too.
And we could move a lot of pieces around as well. Posey could move to 1B, but I think that he could be doable in LF should the need comes, should Hector prove capable as a starting catcher. Plus, there is Andrew Susac as well, as a potential starting C. Pablo could also play 1B, but right now the only 3B who might come up is Duvall, who has a lot of power, but not a lot of other qualities, so he's a long-shot right now. So Sandoval looks like our 3B for the foreseeable future. That's the infield, pretty much set.
The outfield has moving pieces as well, but not as many, hence all the trades Sabean made. Belt is known for his great defense at 1B but all the defensive metrics rated him just as good in LF in 2011, despite that being his first time in the pros playing there, so I think he would be fine in LF should the need ever arises. Kieschnick had a nice season in AAA this year until his season-ending injury, and unfortunately, that has been his bugaboo in his career, the injury bug, much like Nate. But with Pence potentially around long-term, we can wait and see how he turns out. And, of course, Brown looks like he could provide at least average production in CF just from his defense there, with his offense being a potential plus, much like Crawford. And if Pence and/or Cabrera can be signed long-term, our OF looks set as well.
All in all, the Giants offense really is looking good, and hopefully soon, will take away the Naysayers last complaint about team building, though they will always have free agency signings as their flaw to point out.
But when he can build a team like this, I think that would just be picky.
And the future still looks good. Beyond all the lineup long-term, we have Cain and Bumgarner signed long-term, and I have to believe that Lincecum wouldn't want to leave what he got here. Vogelsong looks like he can last a good number of years, and in any case, being a back of rotation guy, don't really have to produce so much to be valuable for us in the back. And at some point when one of them is injured or non-productive, someone among Heston, Kickham, Crick, Blackburn, Stratton, Agosta should be ready to ascend to the major league rotation, if not someone out of the blue, as has happened before for the pitching. And there is still Surkamp, assuming he recovers from his injury (though he has been injury prone for good parts of his career, that has slowed down his development).
This is good times for the Giants and their fans.
Especially since after these two series, the Giants face the Dodgers for 3 in LA right after that, and they will be wanting to beat us and retake the NL West division lead. Put enough games between us, and they will have a harder time doing that, but with a slim 1 game lead, that disappears with a Dodger's series win, 2-1. Luckily, the Giants will be the rested team in LA, a short trip from SD the day before, while LA will be flying the red-eye from Atlanta to LA after their series, so that hopefully will help us out with beating LA in LA, as the Giants will be more like the home team than road team, in terms of rest.
This is also key because the Giants new offense will be on display with Pablo Sandoval's return to the lineup, and up against the Nats three best starters, Gonzalez, Zimmerman, and Strasburg, while the Giants throw out Vogelsong, Bumgarner, Lincecum. Seems like Bochy has scheduled the rotation just right for this series, Vogie has been our best and most consistent starter this season, Bumgarner has been arguably one of our best starters, and Lincecum has returned, thus far, to his prior goodness, and been the best pitcher among himself, Cain, and Zito since the All-Star break.
ogc Lineup Thoughts With Pablo Returning
I had written the other day that I would reduce my respect for Bochy if he batted Pence 6th, but I'm coming to the realization that batting Pence 6th is more a result of our luxury of having so many good hitters to put in the lineup, than any deficiency in Bochy's thinking. So I was wrong there, I believe now.
With the way Scutaro has been hitting for us in the 2-hole, particularly given his skills in making contact and avoiding strikeouts, and being able to extend the AB, it would be a shame to take him out of that spot. On top of that, Cabrera has been great batting third for us, and Bochy don't like to move hitters having success in a certain spot in the lineup. Yet, at the same time, Cabrera has batted in the 2-hole a lot in the past two years and been successful there as well.
So, Pagan/Scutaro/Cabrera/Posey/Pence/Sandoval or Pagan/Cabrera/Sandoval/Posey/Pence/Scutaro or Belt, that's a great problem to have.
Back to the Future Offense?
On top of this, Belt has been hitting very well in terms of both contact (that is, avoiding strikeouts) and putting up a nice batting line, so with Pablo returning to the lineup, it is possible that we are adding two middle of lineup bats in Belt and Pablo, to the trio of Cabrera, Posey, and Pence, which has the potential to set off the fireworks for our offense for the rest of the season, once Pablo gets his bat back to normal.
And that should greatly appeal to the offense-minded fans that still make up a large percentage of Giants fans. If all the hitters are doing what we think they are capable of, we could have an offense as good as or better than the great Giants offenses led by Bonds and Kent in the early 2000's, especially the ones with Burks. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but think about how well the offense has been on the road, especially after we added Pence to the lineup (and he really hasn't started hitting yet, like he could), then adding a Kung Fu Panda bat plus a Belt finally arriving bat, and that would make our offense very high octane, I believe.
Of course, if Pablo needs a while to get his bat back or Belt loses his mojo again or Cabrera and/or Posey finally cools off too much or Pence never takes off, then the offense will be more reminiscent of recent poor offenses than of Bonds/Kent era offense, but if the bats are all producing like their potential, we at least can dream about it, which is something we probably haven't been able to do since 2002 ended on a down note.
Naysayers Losing Grasp of Their Last Strands of Their Stance
I find this to be a very exciting time to be a Giants fan. It is also a time where the Sabean Naysayers last vestiage of semi-rational Sabean hatred should be falling away.
First they said that Sabean couldn't build a team, that he was lucky that Bonds made up for all his errors along the way. They held onto that for a long time, almost from when he became GM to 2009 when Lincecum and Cain started wowing everyone, and particularly after Bumgarner showed his mettle in 2010, and put the final nail into that idea with Vogelsong's emergence, as Sabean found cheap parts in Casilla, Lopez, Ramirez, Vogelsong, to fill in the pitching staff. And this took them a while to see, even though it was clear that back in 2007, when the Giants said good-bye to Bonds, that the Giants future was all about pitching, pitching, and more pitching (which was my reply to a media reporter's question of what is next for the Giants after Bonds, as it was not so clear to that reporter).
So thus they finally admit that Sabean can indeed build up a good pitching staff, and particularly a good pitching rotation, but still they think that he doesn't know how to build an offense.
And actually, even that has not really been that true for us observers who could see into the future based on the players the Giants had in their farm system. It was already promising once Pablo was producing in the majors and Posey clearly was a major leaguer hitter, even in the minors, in 2009. Then particularly in 2010, as Posey showed that he belonged among the elite hitters. Also, the drafting of Brown gave us a nice potential leadoff guy and Belt's charge up the minor leagues to shock and awe the prospect hounds, gave us four guys now to envision as the core of our lineup going forward, as early as late in the 2010 season, with Posey and Belt hitting well, and the signing of Brown. But I understand why the doubts continued, just wanted to point out that the future was already seeable early on to those without blinders on.
Today, the Giants control Posey, Sandoval, Pence, Belt into at least 2013, and Pence is amenable to a long term deal while the Giants said that both he and Cabrera can be fit into the budget in 2013 and beyond. Brown is handling AA just fine now, after a long period of adjustment, and still look on target to join the Giants in the 2013-14 time period as our long awaited - since Brett Butler - lead-off CF who can hit, get on base, steal a lot of bases, and play great defense. He also has the potential to hit for good power as well, which I find to be a great potential bonus.
That's a very good number of hitters who are potentially under control for the long-term, even more so if the Giants are able to sign Cabrera to a long-term deal this off-season.
Posey, Sandoval, Pence makes a great middle lineup by themselves. If we can add Cabrera, he would be a great #2 hitter for us and #3 on the days Posey is out of the lineup, as everyone moves down. If Belt finally figures out how to be consistently good in 2013 - and he might have just done that, albeit small samples for now - he would also be a middle lineup capable hitter who can hit 2nd or 6th equally well, and if he can do that, we could afford to make Cabrera our leadoff guy in 2013, until Brown is ready do take over the leadoff spot.
On top of that, we have a number of prospects who potentially could add to this bounty of offense. Panik is another hitter who looks good for top of the lineup, particularly #2, and he could play 2B or SS, as necessary. In addition, Noonan is having a breakout year as his skills developed the way some of us hoped, recognizing that his age relative to the league has put him in a big disadvantage all these years. He is also a middle infielder, and could slot nicely in the #2 spot as well, so that gives us a lot of risk mitigation regarding 2B long-term, plus SS too.
And we could move a lot of pieces around as well. Posey could move to 1B, but I think that he could be doable in LF should the need comes, should Hector prove capable as a starting catcher. Plus, there is Andrew Susac as well, as a potential starting C. Pablo could also play 1B, but right now the only 3B who might come up is Duvall, who has a lot of power, but not a lot of other qualities, so he's a long-shot right now. So Sandoval looks like our 3B for the foreseeable future. That's the infield, pretty much set.
The outfield has moving pieces as well, but not as many, hence all the trades Sabean made. Belt is known for his great defense at 1B but all the defensive metrics rated him just as good in LF in 2011, despite that being his first time in the pros playing there, so I think he would be fine in LF should the need ever arises. Kieschnick had a nice season in AAA this year until his season-ending injury, and unfortunately, that has been his bugaboo in his career, the injury bug, much like Nate. But with Pence potentially around long-term, we can wait and see how he turns out. And, of course, Brown looks like he could provide at least average production in CF just from his defense there, with his offense being a potential plus, much like Crawford. And if Pence and/or Cabrera can be signed long-term, our OF looks set as well.
All in all, the Giants offense really is looking good, and hopefully soon, will take away the Naysayers last complaint about team building, though they will always have free agency signings as their flaw to point out.
But when he can build a team like this, I think that would just be picky.
And the future still looks good. Beyond all the lineup long-term, we have Cain and Bumgarner signed long-term, and I have to believe that Lincecum wouldn't want to leave what he got here. Vogelsong looks like he can last a good number of years, and in any case, being a back of rotation guy, don't really have to produce so much to be valuable for us in the back. And at some point when one of them is injured or non-productive, someone among Heston, Kickham, Crick, Blackburn, Stratton, Agosta should be ready to ascend to the major league rotation, if not someone out of the blue, as has happened before for the pitching. And there is still Surkamp, assuming he recovers from his injury (though he has been injury prone for good parts of his career, that has slowed down his development).
This is good times for the Giants and their fans.
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Your 2012 Giants: Hunter Pence Trade
Sorry I'm late on this, but I was offsite at work and then travelling back, stuck in the airport, when all this happened, not getting back home until 2AM. Here are reports from Baggs, Hank, Pavlovic, and Haft. Also, there is an interesting backstory on the Giants pursuit of Pence by CSN Bay Area's Rael Enteen and one by Schulman.
The deal is the Giants get Hunter Pence and cash (but not that much, I recall one report noting $2M total for both Scutaro and Pence, so maybe a $1M?) for Nate Schierholtz, Tommy Joseph, and Seth Rosin.
The deal is the Giants get Hunter Pence and cash (but not that much, I recall one report noting $2M total for both Scutaro and Pence, so maybe a $1M?) for Nate Schierholtz, Tommy Joseph, and Seth Rosin.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Your 2010 Giants are 2010 WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS: After the Bliss
It is all still sinking in. The glory of it. The joy of it!
While the game was going, I was anxiously nervous, but not worried, as I've been for a while now. I had gotten used to the magic that the Giants would somehow win 2 of 3, and that the losses along the way were just part of the process, just as the wins were too. So the losses did not bother me much, we still had the rest of the series or had already won that series. And like that tired marathon racer, the Giants fell across the line and won the race to the NL West title.
So as Lincecum dueled with Lee, like a good novel, like a good thriller movie, I was anxious as the drama built up, pitch by pitch, inning by inning, until the 7th inning began. First, of course, for this season, this playoffs, Cody Ross singles to get on firstbase. Second, Uribe singles for runners on firstbase and secondbase, first time in the game that either team had a runner in scoring position.
Huff's Beautifully Placed Bunt
Then Huff, oh my gosh, Huff Daddy Rally Thong, our big hitter and RBI during the season, surprises the WORLD by dropping the most beautiful bunt, he almost got a hit with that, if not for a great play by Lee, but the more important thing is he did the job, he got the runners to second and third. It wasn't surprising to hear that it was his first sacrifice bunt in the season, but not only that, it was his first sacrifice bunt in his MLB CAREER EVER! You give the best bunters in the game today 10 good pitches to make as good a bunt and they probably couldn't do it 10 times, it was not that easy to do.
The more surprising thing is, and I heard this on KNBR radio, in early September (recall person saying Sept. 1), Bochy pulls Huff aside, said that he's not sure he'll ever call for it, but since Huff might be batting down in the order against a LHP, might give him the call to do it. In an interview after the clinching game, Huff said that even if Bochy didn't order the bunt, he would have done it anyway. And that bunt was masterfully done.
That epitomizes the Aubrey Huff that Giants fans have fallen in love with this season. They said that he's pretty bad on defense, and he works his thong off so that he wasn't half bad. The way Burrell was coming out for Schierholtz for most of the season, that was suppose to be the plan for Huff and Ishikawa, only Huff played defense well enough that Bochy did not do that in every game played. I do not doubt that he worked hard to be able to drop that bunt.
Connection with 1962 World Series
I doubt I was the only one thinking of this, but when he dropped that bunt, I immediately thought of how Felipe Alou failed to bunt in a similar situation in 1962's World Series, and how that taught him a lesson in being prepared for anything, of knowing the fundamentals. Felipe has talked of this moment often and the story was reported again for this World Series. I'm sure Huff knows the story as well, and maybe that gave him added motivation to learn to bunt well. Still, I think he would have done the work anyway (just like he would have bunted anyway), he's just that type of player.
Anyway, when Huff was successful at the bunt, I immediately thought of the connection with 1962 and how it was like we went back in time to redo the moment and this time the batter was successful bunting instead of failing, and it seemed like something was going to happen.
Burrell would have made the story great, I thought, took out because he wasn't hitting and especially because he was striking out all the time. Unfortunately, he could not deliver, though he battled Lee for so many pitches that I thought he was going to get to lee, he struck out - again. Then Edgar Renteria strode to the plate...
Renteria 3-Run Blast: It is Gaaawwwn!
I'll never forget Dave Flemming's classic call on that homer. The emotion in his voice makes me weepy now, hearing it again. I was screaming my head off, fist pumping, giving off random yells for the next few minutes. I couldn't believe it, the Giants led 3-0, and we only needed 9 more outs.
Renteria had apparently jokingly told other players (such as Torres) that he was going to hit one out before the game, so he proved prophetic nonetheless. He said that Burrell's AB was critical because it allowed him to see a bunch of Lee's pitches and he decided to focus on Lee's cutter to swing at. His swing was a thing of beauty, and the ball just looked so good coming off the bat too. And he got enough of it that it went over the fence.
Timmy made me nervous with his 7th, but he calmed down (he admitted he was a bit amped by the homer), and shut the Rangers down the rest of the way in the 7th and 8th. At only 106 pitches, he probably would normally be given the chance to close it down. As some said, he earned that honor, but this is why I've been so supportive of Bochy during the playoffs, he played it to win, and to do that, you go all in with your closer, who is fresh and pretty much shut down lately. People forget, too, that Lincecum is only human, and he and the other starters are going far beyond the IP he had done previously. Some of them were running on fumes.
Pandamonium
Wilson, as he has in the latter part of the season, shut down the Rangers in order, none of the drama people are used to in his prior incarnation. Somewhere, in the latter part of the season, it just clicked for him. Wish I knew when the Beard started up, but he suddenly just started becoming The Machine, getting outs without a lot of the drama that giving up runners generates. Nen-like, even.
I was shopping with my wife and daughter (she's going on a Girl Scout backpacking outing and need equipment), so I brought my portable radio so that I could listen while shopping, but it failed me in the Target store, missing the drama (luckily) but held in suspense, because Timmy had just gave up the homer and was in the process of walking Kinsler.
But as fate would have it, the next store was Costco, and as we stroke into the store, the game was being played on one of their big screen TVs, and the bottom of the 9th was starting, so I stayed and watched to the clinching strikeout of Nelson Cruz. I gave out a yelp, among the people who were suddenly my friends, and hugged my daughter, who stayed and watched with me while my wife was away.
It was so great getting to see that joyous celebration and not just listen to it. I wish Fox would have followed it live, it was neat that they repeated the scene, over and over again, from seemingly each of the cameras they had operating at the game, but after a while, I just really wanted to see the live celebration, but then they cut to a commercial and reality returned and I had to go shopping.
Giants Random Thoughts
I have been reveling in the joy that I'm experiencing now that my Giants are World Series Champions. I've been reading articles and watching videos, and my reaction to the win was actually pretty understated. I was so pumped by Renteria's homer, I was screaming and yelling for a while, but as the game wound down, the win seemed anti-climatic somehow. But I would now be reading or watching, and something would hit me randomly, and I would get all weepy with joy. I expect this to last a while.
This was a team effort. That was clear by the new hero every night, and yet certain names would continually pop up: Torres, Sanchez, Huff, Posey, Burrell, Ross, Uribe, and now Renteria. And, of course, the pitching staff epitomizes the team concept, each pitcher can only take care of what they can, then let another pitcher try to do the same, and win. Having a Tim Lincecum is great (Cliff Lee), but how much better is it having Matt Cain (Colby Lewis), and then there is Jonathan Sanchez (CJ Wilson), and then the coup de grace, we also have Madison Bumgarner (no answer). Then you have the bullpen, because no starter finishes all their games now, Cainer had 4 and people are amazed. And THEN you have BWills, Fear the Beard, The Machine, and he shut down the opposition.
This team reminded me of the 1990 Reds, a team that didn't have any superstars, had a lot of players who had career years that you couldn't expect to do ever again. Of course, we do have Timmy, 2-time Cy Young winner, but he had a down season (for him) in 2010. This thought came to me during the end of the season, and it still seems like it is something that still fits, now that they won.
Off-Season: Sign 'em Up!
Now comes the hard work of figuring out who stays and who goes, plus who wants to go. Huff is probably the number one priority and I just don't see him not signing with the Giants. He "only" got a 2-year, $16M contract in his last big contract, and he was three years younger. I don't see how he doesn't sign a 2-year, $12M contract like Franchez and DeRosa did.
Number two is Cody Ross, and the Giants control him for one more year of arbitration, so it should be easy to get him on board. I don't see him going to arb, the Giants are usually fair, and he is like Cinderella, with the pumpkin ride and dancing with royalty now, he will want to be here. He made around $4.5M in the 2010 season and reports had him at $6M for arb in 2011. But with his down year in 2010, I think somewhere in the $5M range is probably what he gets. The team needs power and he can provide it, I see him being like the Jeff Kent acquisition, not that he's as good, but he has shown power before and should be able to deliver it for us in RF in 2011.
Number three is Pat Burrell. He has already said that he's willing to come back as a bench player in 2011. I don't see him changing his mind, though the Giants might have other plans for him eventually and start him again. And if he's willing to be a bench player, that means he's only looking for $1-2M in salary. He should be a slamdunk.
However, I'm not sure how this works in the outfield. It actually works best if Burrell is on the bench, as the Giants will have Torres, Ross, Rowand, and Schierholtz battling for the starting spots. Nate could be odd man out or maybe in a platoon with Rowand, perhaps. Then there is 1B and if the Giants go with Ishikawa at 1B, then Huff would be in the OF for sure. Lots of decisions to be made.
Shortstop is another area. Renteria is certainly not getting his option picked up. He might be good as a utility MI for $1-2M, but I doubt he would want to do that, he has his money, he has his business ventures, he'll probably want to retire up on top, and move on to the businesses he wants to do. Uribe is probably going to be offered more by another team than the Giants are willing (able?) to pay.
The Giants could go with Brandon Crawford, as his D has gotten rave reviews, while his O hasn't, as a lineup with Torres, Sanchez, Huff, Posey, Ross, Burrell, Sandoval, SS is actually pretty good, particularly if Sandoval started hitting like Pandoval again. That would save money as well as give a prospect a chance to start. There is also Emmanuel Burriss as well, though most had him pegged as a 2B in the majors.
The pitching rotation, as I noted in a prior post, is set for years. The bullpen is pretty much set for 2011, with the only probable change being Mota being let go as a free agent, as the Giants still have Chris Ray from the Molina trade and still control his contract, I think he's up for arb.
It was also announced that Dan Runzler will be tried at starting pitcher for 2011, so he's out of the bullpen now and will be the emergency starter in training in 2011, as the Giants traded away Pucetas and Martinez and don't really have anyone high in the system who might be able to step in, just in case of injury.
Re-Peat? Three-Peat? Quad-Peat?
So most of the Giants keys to the playoffs should be back next season, and there are a lot of situations that suggest improvement. The Giants were winning at over a 2 of 3 pace after Posey took over, for half a season and into the playoffs. He'll be starting all season in 2011. Sandoval should be back to normal now that his personal travails are over. We'll have Torres for a full season too. Probably Burrell too. Bumgarner definitely, and a newly mature Jonathan Sanchez will be dealing for more of the season than he was in 2010, when he seemed up and down until September and DeRosa gave him that tip. Lopez and Ramirez all season, plus Affeldt look like his old self by the end of the season, if he can approach his 2009 form, that would be a great addition. I think Ray can be helpful in the setup situation as well. And, of course, Cody Ross all season. There is no reason right now to think that 2011 couldn't be a similar season.
Now that the Giants got their first World Series championship, now I want more. I think we have the base core of players who can lead us to multiple trip to the big show during the 2010's, as I've been writing here for a while. With our pitching, we should be able to seal the deal at least another time or maybe two. The A's and their fans have been flaunting their championships for many years now, and we need three more to catch up, four to pass. Of course, most of them happened 40 years ago and the last one 20 years ago, so they are like the Raiders, living on former glories. Maybe they'll have better luck in San Jose. In any case, I think we can come closer but that's a tall order to catch up and to pass. Nonetheless: Go Giants!
While the game was going, I was anxiously nervous, but not worried, as I've been for a while now. I had gotten used to the magic that the Giants would somehow win 2 of 3, and that the losses along the way were just part of the process, just as the wins were too. So the losses did not bother me much, we still had the rest of the series or had already won that series. And like that tired marathon racer, the Giants fell across the line and won the race to the NL West title.
So as Lincecum dueled with Lee, like a good novel, like a good thriller movie, I was anxious as the drama built up, pitch by pitch, inning by inning, until the 7th inning began. First, of course, for this season, this playoffs, Cody Ross singles to get on firstbase. Second, Uribe singles for runners on firstbase and secondbase, first time in the game that either team had a runner in scoring position.
Huff's Beautifully Placed Bunt
Then Huff, oh my gosh, Huff Daddy Rally Thong, our big hitter and RBI during the season, surprises the WORLD by dropping the most beautiful bunt, he almost got a hit with that, if not for a great play by Lee, but the more important thing is he did the job, he got the runners to second and third. It wasn't surprising to hear that it was his first sacrifice bunt in the season, but not only that, it was his first sacrifice bunt in his MLB CAREER EVER! You give the best bunters in the game today 10 good pitches to make as good a bunt and they probably couldn't do it 10 times, it was not that easy to do.
The more surprising thing is, and I heard this on KNBR radio, in early September (recall person saying Sept. 1), Bochy pulls Huff aside, said that he's not sure he'll ever call for it, but since Huff might be batting down in the order against a LHP, might give him the call to do it. In an interview after the clinching game, Huff said that even if Bochy didn't order the bunt, he would have done it anyway. And that bunt was masterfully done.
That epitomizes the Aubrey Huff that Giants fans have fallen in love with this season. They said that he's pretty bad on defense, and he works his thong off so that he wasn't half bad. The way Burrell was coming out for Schierholtz for most of the season, that was suppose to be the plan for Huff and Ishikawa, only Huff played defense well enough that Bochy did not do that in every game played. I do not doubt that he worked hard to be able to drop that bunt.
Connection with 1962 World Series
I doubt I was the only one thinking of this, but when he dropped that bunt, I immediately thought of how Felipe Alou failed to bunt in a similar situation in 1962's World Series, and how that taught him a lesson in being prepared for anything, of knowing the fundamentals. Felipe has talked of this moment often and the story was reported again for this World Series. I'm sure Huff knows the story as well, and maybe that gave him added motivation to learn to bunt well. Still, I think he would have done the work anyway (just like he would have bunted anyway), he's just that type of player.
Anyway, when Huff was successful at the bunt, I immediately thought of the connection with 1962 and how it was like we went back in time to redo the moment and this time the batter was successful bunting instead of failing, and it seemed like something was going to happen.
Burrell would have made the story great, I thought, took out because he wasn't hitting and especially because he was striking out all the time. Unfortunately, he could not deliver, though he battled Lee for so many pitches that I thought he was going to get to lee, he struck out - again. Then Edgar Renteria strode to the plate...
Renteria 3-Run Blast: It is Gaaawwwn!
I'll never forget Dave Flemming's classic call on that homer. The emotion in his voice makes me weepy now, hearing it again. I was screaming my head off, fist pumping, giving off random yells for the next few minutes. I couldn't believe it, the Giants led 3-0, and we only needed 9 more outs.
Renteria had apparently jokingly told other players (such as Torres) that he was going to hit one out before the game, so he proved prophetic nonetheless. He said that Burrell's AB was critical because it allowed him to see a bunch of Lee's pitches and he decided to focus on Lee's cutter to swing at. His swing was a thing of beauty, and the ball just looked so good coming off the bat too. And he got enough of it that it went over the fence.
Timmy made me nervous with his 7th, but he calmed down (he admitted he was a bit amped by the homer), and shut the Rangers down the rest of the way in the 7th and 8th. At only 106 pitches, he probably would normally be given the chance to close it down. As some said, he earned that honor, but this is why I've been so supportive of Bochy during the playoffs, he played it to win, and to do that, you go all in with your closer, who is fresh and pretty much shut down lately. People forget, too, that Lincecum is only human, and he and the other starters are going far beyond the IP he had done previously. Some of them were running on fumes.
Pandamonium
Wilson, as he has in the latter part of the season, shut down the Rangers in order, none of the drama people are used to in his prior incarnation. Somewhere, in the latter part of the season, it just clicked for him. Wish I knew when the Beard started up, but he suddenly just started becoming The Machine, getting outs without a lot of the drama that giving up runners generates. Nen-like, even.
I was shopping with my wife and daughter (she's going on a Girl Scout backpacking outing and need equipment), so I brought my portable radio so that I could listen while shopping, but it failed me in the Target store, missing the drama (luckily) but held in suspense, because Timmy had just gave up the homer and was in the process of walking Kinsler.
But as fate would have it, the next store was Costco, and as we stroke into the store, the game was being played on one of their big screen TVs, and the bottom of the 9th was starting, so I stayed and watched to the clinching strikeout of Nelson Cruz. I gave out a yelp, among the people who were suddenly my friends, and hugged my daughter, who stayed and watched with me while my wife was away.
It was so great getting to see that joyous celebration and not just listen to it. I wish Fox would have followed it live, it was neat that they repeated the scene, over and over again, from seemingly each of the cameras they had operating at the game, but after a while, I just really wanted to see the live celebration, but then they cut to a commercial and reality returned and I had to go shopping.
Giants Random Thoughts
I have been reveling in the joy that I'm experiencing now that my Giants are World Series Champions. I've been reading articles and watching videos, and my reaction to the win was actually pretty understated. I was so pumped by Renteria's homer, I was screaming and yelling for a while, but as the game wound down, the win seemed anti-climatic somehow. But I would now be reading or watching, and something would hit me randomly, and I would get all weepy with joy. I expect this to last a while.
This was a team effort. That was clear by the new hero every night, and yet certain names would continually pop up: Torres, Sanchez, Huff, Posey, Burrell, Ross, Uribe, and now Renteria. And, of course, the pitching staff epitomizes the team concept, each pitcher can only take care of what they can, then let another pitcher try to do the same, and win. Having a Tim Lincecum is great (Cliff Lee), but how much better is it having Matt Cain (Colby Lewis), and then there is Jonathan Sanchez (CJ Wilson), and then the coup de grace, we also have Madison Bumgarner (no answer). Then you have the bullpen, because no starter finishes all their games now, Cainer had 4 and people are amazed. And THEN you have BWills, Fear the Beard, The Machine, and he shut down the opposition.
This team reminded me of the 1990 Reds, a team that didn't have any superstars, had a lot of players who had career years that you couldn't expect to do ever again. Of course, we do have Timmy, 2-time Cy Young winner, but he had a down season (for him) in 2010. This thought came to me during the end of the season, and it still seems like it is something that still fits, now that they won.
Off-Season: Sign 'em Up!
Now comes the hard work of figuring out who stays and who goes, plus who wants to go. Huff is probably the number one priority and I just don't see him not signing with the Giants. He "only" got a 2-year, $16M contract in his last big contract, and he was three years younger. I don't see how he doesn't sign a 2-year, $12M contract like Franchez and DeRosa did.
Number two is Cody Ross, and the Giants control him for one more year of arbitration, so it should be easy to get him on board. I don't see him going to arb, the Giants are usually fair, and he is like Cinderella, with the pumpkin ride and dancing with royalty now, he will want to be here. He made around $4.5M in the 2010 season and reports had him at $6M for arb in 2011. But with his down year in 2010, I think somewhere in the $5M range is probably what he gets. The team needs power and he can provide it, I see him being like the Jeff Kent acquisition, not that he's as good, but he has shown power before and should be able to deliver it for us in RF in 2011.
Number three is Pat Burrell. He has already said that he's willing to come back as a bench player in 2011. I don't see him changing his mind, though the Giants might have other plans for him eventually and start him again. And if he's willing to be a bench player, that means he's only looking for $1-2M in salary. He should be a slamdunk.
However, I'm not sure how this works in the outfield. It actually works best if Burrell is on the bench, as the Giants will have Torres, Ross, Rowand, and Schierholtz battling for the starting spots. Nate could be odd man out or maybe in a platoon with Rowand, perhaps. Then there is 1B and if the Giants go with Ishikawa at 1B, then Huff would be in the OF for sure. Lots of decisions to be made.
Shortstop is another area. Renteria is certainly not getting his option picked up. He might be good as a utility MI for $1-2M, but I doubt he would want to do that, he has his money, he has his business ventures, he'll probably want to retire up on top, and move on to the businesses he wants to do. Uribe is probably going to be offered more by another team than the Giants are willing (able?) to pay.
The Giants could go with Brandon Crawford, as his D has gotten rave reviews, while his O hasn't, as a lineup with Torres, Sanchez, Huff, Posey, Ross, Burrell, Sandoval, SS is actually pretty good, particularly if Sandoval started hitting like Pandoval again. That would save money as well as give a prospect a chance to start. There is also Emmanuel Burriss as well, though most had him pegged as a 2B in the majors.
The pitching rotation, as I noted in a prior post, is set for years. The bullpen is pretty much set for 2011, with the only probable change being Mota being let go as a free agent, as the Giants still have Chris Ray from the Molina trade and still control his contract, I think he's up for arb.
It was also announced that Dan Runzler will be tried at starting pitcher for 2011, so he's out of the bullpen now and will be the emergency starter in training in 2011, as the Giants traded away Pucetas and Martinez and don't really have anyone high in the system who might be able to step in, just in case of injury.
Re-Peat? Three-Peat? Quad-Peat?
So most of the Giants keys to the playoffs should be back next season, and there are a lot of situations that suggest improvement. The Giants were winning at over a 2 of 3 pace after Posey took over, for half a season and into the playoffs. He'll be starting all season in 2011. Sandoval should be back to normal now that his personal travails are over. We'll have Torres for a full season too. Probably Burrell too. Bumgarner definitely, and a newly mature Jonathan Sanchez will be dealing for more of the season than he was in 2010, when he seemed up and down until September and DeRosa gave him that tip. Lopez and Ramirez all season, plus Affeldt look like his old self by the end of the season, if he can approach his 2009 form, that would be a great addition. I think Ray can be helpful in the setup situation as well. And, of course, Cody Ross all season. There is no reason right now to think that 2011 couldn't be a similar season.
Now that the Giants got their first World Series championship, now I want more. I think we have the base core of players who can lead us to multiple trip to the big show during the 2010's, as I've been writing here for a while. With our pitching, we should be able to seal the deal at least another time or maybe two. The A's and their fans have been flaunting their championships for many years now, and we need three more to catch up, four to pass. Of course, most of them happened 40 years ago and the last one 20 years ago, so they are like the Raiders, living on former glories. Maybe they'll have better luck in San Jose. In any case, I think we can come closer but that's a tall order to catch up and to pass. Nonetheless: Go Giants!
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
2010 Giants: July PQS
This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of July 2010, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.
This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).
Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). See my explanation down below on methodology plus read the link, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and particularly how low DIS% is so important.
I wholeheartedly recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and learning more about their methods of analyzing baseball. It has been greatly illuminating for me, and if you want to get a taste for it without paying full price, they used to sell their old editions of their annuals on their website for half price or less (plus shipping); but that was before he sold the company off, and I haven't checked recently.
Giants Starters' PQS for 2010 Season
Madison Bumgarner- (71% DOM, 14% DIS; 5:1/7): 4, 4, 3, 4, 1, 5, 5
Matt Cain- (57% DOM, 5% DIS; 12:1/21): 5, 3, 4, 3, 5, 5, 3, 4, 4, 5, 3, 4, 3, 3, 0, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4
Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (59% DOM, 18% DIS; 13:4/22): 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 0, 1, 5, 5, 4, 5, 0, 3, 5, 4, 0, 3, 5
Joe Martinez- (0% DOM, 0% DIS; 0:0/1): 3
Jonathan Sanchez - (38% DOM, 19% DIS; 8:4/21): 0, 5, 5, 3, 0, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 3, 3, 0, 3, 2, 4, 0, 5, 4, 3
Todd Wellemeyer - (30% DOM, 40% DIS; 3:4/10): 2, 0, 0, 3, 0, 4, 2, 4, 5, 0, X
Barry Zito - (50% DOM, 23% DIS; 11:5/22): 5, 3, 4, 5, 3, 4, 1, 4, 3, 1, 5, 2, 4, 4, 0, 5, 1, 0, 5, 3, 3, 5
X = start Wellemeyer was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.
Giants season overall - 50% DOM, 18% DIS out of 76 games counted (52:19/104)
Giants Month of April - 55% DOM, 14% DIS out of 22 games counted (12:3/22)
Giants Month of May - 50% DOM, 21% DIS out of 28 games counted (14:6/28)
Giants Month of June - 42% DOM, 19% DIS out of 26 games counted (11:5/26)
Giants Month of July - 54% DOM, 18% DIS out of 28 games counted (15:5/28)
July was another flip-flop. Cain and Sanchez went back to dominating, while Lincecum and Zito struggled a bit. The key difference to a 20-8 month is that Bumgarner was tied for the staff lead in DOM games with Cain at 4 starts each. That is a significance difference between a .500 month going 15-13 or 14-14 and the 20-8 month they had, that plus the offense. As noted, Bumgarner and Cain had 4 DOM starts each, Sanchez had 3 DOM in 5 starts, while both Lincecum and Zito had 2 DOM starts each. .
That staff overall had a DOM of 50% and a DIS of 18%, which is pretty good both ways, and had their best month since April. Generally, you want a DIS under 20%, and ideally under 10%, and a DOM over 50%, as a pitcher but our WHOLE staff overall was almost doing what very well starters alone can do in the majors, with a 49% DOM. Having Bumgarner made a huge difference to the overall staffs production in PQS.
What's Good and What's Not
A DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.
If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher).
July 2010 Comments
I covered a lot of this in the trade post I wrote a couple of days ago, so I'm not going to do much here. The key is that the offense is now situated pretty well with Torres leadoff, Huff third, Posey third, and Uribe, Burrell, and Sandoval tag teaming 5th. If Sandoval can get back to his care-free ways, we will have a pretty good offense going for us, and leave the other teams in the dust. Plus, of course, the pitching needs to continue doing its major league best in keeping runs from scoring, which it has done for a long while now successfully.
I'm a little worried about Lincecum, but with Bumgarner doing so well, we still had a great month in July despite Lincecum not really pitching that well overall, who would have ever thought that possible? I've heard somewhere that he stopped doing a lot of the exercises and routines that he did during his amateur years that got him here, and have to believe that this is the reason for his drop in velocity. Hopefully he will start listening to his dad again and start those exercises again. If he can regain even part of that velocity back, we could probably glide into the playoffs on the backs of our pitchers.
This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).
Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). See my explanation down below on methodology plus read the link, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and particularly how low DIS% is so important.
I wholeheartedly recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and learning more about their methods of analyzing baseball. It has been greatly illuminating for me, and if you want to get a taste for it without paying full price, they used to sell their old editions of their annuals on their website for half price or less (plus shipping); but that was before he sold the company off, and I haven't checked recently.
Giants Starters' PQS for 2010 Season
Madison Bumgarner- (71% DOM, 14% DIS; 5:1/7): 4, 4, 3, 4, 1, 5, 5
Matt Cain- (57% DOM, 5% DIS; 12:1/21): 5, 3, 4, 3, 5, 5, 3, 4, 4, 5, 3, 4, 3, 3, 0, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4
Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (59% DOM, 18% DIS; 13:4/22): 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 0, 1, 5, 5, 4, 5, 0, 3, 5, 4, 0, 3, 5
Joe Martinez- (0% DOM, 0% DIS; 0:0/1): 3
Jonathan Sanchez - (38% DOM, 19% DIS; 8:4/21): 0, 5, 5, 3, 0, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 3, 3, 0, 3, 2, 4, 0, 5, 4, 3
Todd Wellemeyer - (30% DOM, 40% DIS; 3:4/10): 2, 0, 0, 3, 0, 4, 2, 4, 5, 0, X
Barry Zito - (50% DOM, 23% DIS; 11:5/22): 5, 3, 4, 5, 3, 4, 1, 4, 3, 1, 5, 2, 4, 4, 0, 5, 1, 0, 5, 3, 3, 5
X = start Wellemeyer was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.
Giants season overall - 50% DOM, 18% DIS out of 76 games counted (52:19/104)
Giants Month of April - 55% DOM, 14% DIS out of 22 games counted (12:3/22)
Giants Month of May - 50% DOM, 21% DIS out of 28 games counted (14:6/28)
Giants Month of June - 42% DOM, 19% DIS out of 26 games counted (11:5/26)
Giants Month of July - 54% DOM, 18% DIS out of 28 games counted (15:5/28)
July was another flip-flop. Cain and Sanchez went back to dominating, while Lincecum and Zito struggled a bit. The key difference to a 20-8 month is that Bumgarner was tied for the staff lead in DOM games with Cain at 4 starts each. That is a significance difference between a .500 month going 15-13 or 14-14 and the 20-8 month they had, that plus the offense. As noted, Bumgarner and Cain had 4 DOM starts each, Sanchez had 3 DOM in 5 starts, while both Lincecum and Zito had 2 DOM starts each. .
That staff overall had a DOM of 50% and a DIS of 18%, which is pretty good both ways, and had their best month since April. Generally, you want a DIS under 20%, and ideally under 10%, and a DOM over 50%, as a pitcher but our WHOLE staff overall was almost doing what very well starters alone can do in the majors, with a 49% DOM. Having Bumgarner made a huge difference to the overall staffs production in PQS.
What's Good and What's Not
A DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.
If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher).
July 2010 Comments
I covered a lot of this in the trade post I wrote a couple of days ago, so I'm not going to do much here. The key is that the offense is now situated pretty well with Torres leadoff, Huff third, Posey third, and Uribe, Burrell, and Sandoval tag teaming 5th. If Sandoval can get back to his care-free ways, we will have a pretty good offense going for us, and leave the other teams in the dust. Plus, of course, the pitching needs to continue doing its major league best in keeping runs from scoring, which it has done for a long while now successfully.
I'm a little worried about Lincecum, but with Bumgarner doing so well, we still had a great month in July despite Lincecum not really pitching that well overall, who would have ever thought that possible? I've heard somewhere that he stopped doing a lot of the exercises and routines that he did during his amateur years that got him here, and have to believe that this is the reason for his drop in velocity. Hopefully he will start listening to his dad again and start those exercises again. If he can regain even part of that velocity back, we could probably glide into the playoffs on the backs of our pitchers.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Your 2010 Giants are 22-16: Back to D-Backs
The Giants get out of San D with a much needed victory, done in stunning fashion, a 2-run BOMB by Andres Torres, a key 2-run hit by Matt Downs, then what proved to be even more key RBI by Velez. I had a double take on the game last night because suddenly I heard the distinct rally call for the Giants BUT THEY WERE IN PETCO, but according to Baggarly's account, San Diego was so excited by their division leading 'Dres that they could only muster less than 13,000 fans in attendance, and most of the 'Dres fans left once the game reached extra innings and it was mostly Giants fans left. It was quite the inspiring, come from behind wins that sometimes ignites teams, or at the least give them the confidence that they can do this in the future.
Now the Giants get to face the D-backs at a key point, while the D-backs is reeling a little. The D-backs came off a 7 game losing streak by winning 2 of 4 afterward, losing yesterday (hopefully in practice for the Giants :^). They are last in the NL West and they are worse at home than on the road, having lost six in a row at home and coming back home from a road trip. Seems like a time for the Giants to make hay, particularly after the exciting ending to the COME FROM BEHIND WIN OVER THE PADRES, but we get two tough pitchers facing us for the D-backs.
Game 1: Ian Kennedy vs. Wellemeyer
Kennedy was one of the two key pitchers they picked up in their big trades in the off-season (Edwin Jackson is the other one). While Jackson has been horrible, Kennedy has been everything they were hoping for, 3.58 ERA, 7.2 K/9, 3.08 K/BB. Excellent, he is fulfilling what the prospect hounds projected for him.
Amazingly, he has been better at home than on the road, incredibly good: incredible because Chase Park is a known hitter's paradise (hence why Adam LaRoche turned down more money from the Giants to play here instead *loser*). Last season, Bill James had the park factor for runs at 119, for the past three seasons, 115. Both slightly behind Colorado's park factors (that tells you right there how good that park is for hitters).
So unless he's got the perfect pitch for the park (in which case we are in deep trouble going forward), he should be due for a regression to the mean when a team tattoos him mercilessly. To his credit, he held the high scoring Phillies and Brewers down, though oddly he had the most trouble with the 'Dres in his other home game. Yes, three games is extreme small samples, but still that is what he has accomplished so far.
He has had two bad starts so far out of eight, one against the D-gers in LA and the other against Cubs in Chicago. One odd (LA, pitcher's park), the other expected (Chicago's park is third behind Arizona in park factor for runs).
The key thing to note, I suppose, is that despite pitching well in general, he has a lot of no-decisions as his team was either unable to score enough to win games for him (at least in time for him to get the win) or the bullpen blew the game for him (or both).
That appears to be our best hope of beating him because Wellemeyer has been horrible on the road and now he's pitching in a hitter's Mecca. I have to think that barring any miracles, the D-backs should win this game.
Game 2: Rodirigo Lopez vs. Lincecum
Lopez, however, has been a rambling journeyman, after a great first season with the Orioles in 2002, he has been trying to recapture that magic ever since, plus hasn't had a full-time regular starting job since 2006 season ended, but unable to do it until now, at 34 YO, in an extreme hitter's park, carrying a 3.81 ERA. And he has done worse at home, 4.50 ERA vs. 3.12 on the road (4 starts each), so at least that makes some sense.
Looks like it should be a Wincecum Day, though the clouds on that is that Lincecum was not sharp in his last start, so the question is whether that will carry over to this start or was just an aberration. With a DOM of 80%+ the past two seasons, that start should just be an aberration, plus while that start was not a DOM start, his PQS was still 3, he was only one strikeout away from a 4 PQS start.
Giants Thoughts
While one would not see Kennedy and Lopez and think "Arizona's two best starters", they are currently the two leaders in ERA on the team. Haren has been bashed around, Jackson, as I noted, has not transitioned well, and their 5th starter is Kris Benson ('nuff said!). Here would have been a better spot (if an off day afforded it) to swap the starts, the Giants could possibly sweep had it been Lincecum followed by Wellemeyer facing Kennedy and Lopez. Still, Kennedy is due any day to implode at home, why not us? We have beat up on good pitchers for most of this season.
The big news is that Freddie Sanchez has been activated for today and the logical presumption is that he will be starting at 2B. Bochy was uncommitted, but come on, if you are bringing him up, you got to start him, right? He was also not sure where to bat him, 2nd or 3rd. With Torres doing well batting 2nd, Bochy is thinking of maybe batting Sanchez third and moving Panda to clean-up (where I think he belongs anyhow).
Part of that, at least for today, is that Bochy is resting Huff and giving a start to Ishikawa. Nice gift, hitting in an extreme hitter's park. But he has been good in the press, has said all the right things and been patient, at least publicly, with his lack of playing. And given how well Huff has hit and fielded, he's hopefully smart enough to see that Huff deserves to play most of the time. So he deserves a gift like this (next one in Colorado?).
We have been wasting Sandoval batting third. Sanchez batting third is not ideal to me, but I'll take it if that means that Sandoval is batting cleanup. Besides, Rowand and Torres have been doing well in the top two spots, though I wouldn't mind a flip-flop of that too and have Torres leading off and Rowand batting 2nd.
Torres, Rowand, Sanchez, Pandoval, Uribe, Molina, Ishikawa, and Schierholtz. Nate has cooled off a lot since his 3 hit game a couple of weeks ago, so put him back to where he has hit better. The good thing to note is that despite not hitting well right now, even when he's not hitting, he's striking out at a low rate (10%) so I would just keep playing him since his defense is so good that it helps make up for the lack of hitting, and when the balls start falling in again (BABIP .206).
Likewise, Sandoval has not been striking out a lot either during his May funk, at least until his 2 strikeout game in the extra-inning win over the 'Dres. I've been wondering if the fiddling around with his hitting affected him this month, causing him to not know how to get out of his funk, whereas previously he would just swing and hit and all would be good. Sometimes you don't want to fiddle with your golden goose.
Or it could just be a really unlucky streak (.190 BABIP versus his career .342) that he will just have battle out of it. This is his first big slump, though I would note that he had a similar bad streak at the start of the 2009 season that most fans forgot about (though not as deep). It might take something as simple as moving him to clean-up to break him out of his funk, hopefully.
Meanwhile, on the farm, Bumgarner continues to amaze, in a similar fashion to his 2008 start, where he was horrible initially, but then put it together to have an spectacularly season after all. There was a nice article on him on MiLB.com, where he explained that two changes helped to change his season around. The first was a mechanical change that worked and boosted his confidence as it added back velocity, pushing his fastball back to the low-90's. The second was adding a cutter to his repertoire, which he said was his best pitch in the two games he used it in game situations. He also mentioned that his curveball was working well.
On the other hand, Posey has cooled off from his hot streak during the first 12 days of May. In his last 6 games, he is hitting .238/.333/.286/.619 in 21 AB. Still, he's hitting .339/.446/.645/1.091 for the month of May which is pretty good. Hopefully, the Giants keep him down there to hone his defensive skills, plus with Molina and Huff doing OK, they don't need Posey up here. I expect they will ride the Torres horse until his bat cools off, and hopefully they start giving Bowker starts to try to get his bat started, if he can just translate what he did for AAA up here, that would make our offense much better.
Now the Giants get to face the D-backs at a key point, while the D-backs is reeling a little. The D-backs came off a 7 game losing streak by winning 2 of 4 afterward, losing yesterday (hopefully in practice for the Giants :^). They are last in the NL West and they are worse at home than on the road, having lost six in a row at home and coming back home from a road trip. Seems like a time for the Giants to make hay, particularly after the exciting ending to the COME FROM BEHIND WIN OVER THE PADRES, but we get two tough pitchers facing us for the D-backs.
Game 1: Ian Kennedy vs. Wellemeyer
Kennedy was one of the two key pitchers they picked up in their big trades in the off-season (Edwin Jackson is the other one). While Jackson has been horrible, Kennedy has been everything they were hoping for, 3.58 ERA, 7.2 K/9, 3.08 K/BB. Excellent, he is fulfilling what the prospect hounds projected for him.
Amazingly, he has been better at home than on the road, incredibly good: incredible because Chase Park is a known hitter's paradise (hence why Adam LaRoche turned down more money from the Giants to play here instead *loser*). Last season, Bill James had the park factor for runs at 119, for the past three seasons, 115. Both slightly behind Colorado's park factors (that tells you right there how good that park is for hitters).
So unless he's got the perfect pitch for the park (in which case we are in deep trouble going forward), he should be due for a regression to the mean when a team tattoos him mercilessly. To his credit, he held the high scoring Phillies and Brewers down, though oddly he had the most trouble with the 'Dres in his other home game. Yes, three games is extreme small samples, but still that is what he has accomplished so far.
He has had two bad starts so far out of eight, one against the D-gers in LA and the other against Cubs in Chicago. One odd (LA, pitcher's park), the other expected (Chicago's park is third behind Arizona in park factor for runs).
The key thing to note, I suppose, is that despite pitching well in general, he has a lot of no-decisions as his team was either unable to score enough to win games for him (at least in time for him to get the win) or the bullpen blew the game for him (or both).
That appears to be our best hope of beating him because Wellemeyer has been horrible on the road and now he's pitching in a hitter's Mecca. I have to think that barring any miracles, the D-backs should win this game.
Game 2: Rodirigo Lopez vs. Lincecum
Lopez, however, has been a rambling journeyman, after a great first season with the Orioles in 2002, he has been trying to recapture that magic ever since, plus hasn't had a full-time regular starting job since 2006 season ended, but unable to do it until now, at 34 YO, in an extreme hitter's park, carrying a 3.81 ERA. And he has done worse at home, 4.50 ERA vs. 3.12 on the road (4 starts each), so at least that makes some sense.
Looks like it should be a Wincecum Day, though the clouds on that is that Lincecum was not sharp in his last start, so the question is whether that will carry over to this start or was just an aberration. With a DOM of 80%+ the past two seasons, that start should just be an aberration, plus while that start was not a DOM start, his PQS was still 3, he was only one strikeout away from a 4 PQS start.
Giants Thoughts
While one would not see Kennedy and Lopez and think "Arizona's two best starters", they are currently the two leaders in ERA on the team. Haren has been bashed around, Jackson, as I noted, has not transitioned well, and their 5th starter is Kris Benson ('nuff said!). Here would have been a better spot (if an off day afforded it) to swap the starts, the Giants could possibly sweep had it been Lincecum followed by Wellemeyer facing Kennedy and Lopez. Still, Kennedy is due any day to implode at home, why not us? We have beat up on good pitchers for most of this season.
The big news is that Freddie Sanchez has been activated for today and the logical presumption is that he will be starting at 2B. Bochy was uncommitted, but come on, if you are bringing him up, you got to start him, right? He was also not sure where to bat him, 2nd or 3rd. With Torres doing well batting 2nd, Bochy is thinking of maybe batting Sanchez third and moving Panda to clean-up (where I think he belongs anyhow).
Part of that, at least for today, is that Bochy is resting Huff and giving a start to Ishikawa. Nice gift, hitting in an extreme hitter's park. But he has been good in the press, has said all the right things and been patient, at least publicly, with his lack of playing. And given how well Huff has hit and fielded, he's hopefully smart enough to see that Huff deserves to play most of the time. So he deserves a gift like this (next one in Colorado?).
We have been wasting Sandoval batting third. Sanchez batting third is not ideal to me, but I'll take it if that means that Sandoval is batting cleanup. Besides, Rowand and Torres have been doing well in the top two spots, though I wouldn't mind a flip-flop of that too and have Torres leading off and Rowand batting 2nd.
Torres, Rowand, Sanchez, Pandoval, Uribe, Molina, Ishikawa, and Schierholtz. Nate has cooled off a lot since his 3 hit game a couple of weeks ago, so put him back to where he has hit better. The good thing to note is that despite not hitting well right now, even when he's not hitting, he's striking out at a low rate (10%) so I would just keep playing him since his defense is so good that it helps make up for the lack of hitting, and when the balls start falling in again (BABIP .206).
Likewise, Sandoval has not been striking out a lot either during his May funk, at least until his 2 strikeout game in the extra-inning win over the 'Dres. I've been wondering if the fiddling around with his hitting affected him this month, causing him to not know how to get out of his funk, whereas previously he would just swing and hit and all would be good. Sometimes you don't want to fiddle with your golden goose.
Or it could just be a really unlucky streak (.190 BABIP versus his career .342) that he will just have battle out of it. This is his first big slump, though I would note that he had a similar bad streak at the start of the 2009 season that most fans forgot about (though not as deep). It might take something as simple as moving him to clean-up to break him out of his funk, hopefully.
Meanwhile, on the farm, Bumgarner continues to amaze, in a similar fashion to his 2008 start, where he was horrible initially, but then put it together to have an spectacularly season after all. There was a nice article on him on MiLB.com, where he explained that two changes helped to change his season around. The first was a mechanical change that worked and boosted his confidence as it added back velocity, pushing his fastball back to the low-90's. The second was adding a cutter to his repertoire, which he said was his best pitch in the two games he used it in game situations. He also mentioned that his curveball was working well.
On the other hand, Posey has cooled off from his hot streak during the first 12 days of May. In his last 6 games, he is hitting .238/.333/.286/.619 in 21 AB. Still, he's hitting .339/.446/.645/1.091 for the month of May which is pretty good. Hopefully, the Giants keep him down there to hone his defensive skills, plus with Molina and Huff doing OK, they don't need Posey up here. I expect they will ride the Torres horse until his bat cools off, and hopefully they start giving Bowker starts to try to get his bat started, if he can just translate what he did for AAA up here, that would make our offense much better.
Monday, April 26, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, April 05, 2010
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):
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.
- 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)
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.
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:
- Aaron Rowand CF
- Edgar Renteria SS
- Pablo Sandoval 3B
- Aubrey Huff 1B
- Mark DeRosa LF
- John Bowker RF
- Bengie Molina C
- 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.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Report: Molina signs with Giants for $4.5M
Breaking news, here is the link, which I found on McCovey Chronicles. Quite a scoop for CBS-KPIX!
Giants Thoughts
Obviously, this means Buster Posey will be in AAA for most of the season, at least the early part, and Molina/Whiteside will be our backstops for the first half of 2010. Posey could then come up mid-season and Molina would be either sharing the starting position with him, or traded away with Posey taking over (probably not traded though, just noting the possibility).
This is exciting news, as I like Molina, but the caveat is that his OPS dipped a lot last season. Hopefully that is because he became a father for the first time and was missing a lot of sleep because he was kept busy taking care of the baby. If he can return to his former level of performance, plus provide a nice bat in the 6th spot (I think it'll be Huff 4th, DeRosa 5th, and Molina 6th), oh what the heck:
1) Rowand
2) Sanchez
3) Sandoval
4) Huff
5) DeRosa
6) Molina
7) Renteria
8) Schierholtz
They might swap Renteria and Schierholtz since Renteria is the vet and would be better able to handle batting 8th more than a prospect. Heck, if Renteria is healthy, he could bat 6th and Molina 7th or 8th.
This probably also means that the Giants are done signing hitters. Despite what people say about the Giants management, they have tried to give their young hitters a chance to prove themselves, and with this move, only RF is unspoken for, with Schierholtz the expected winner but battling with Bowker, who should give him a good run for the money, particularly if he can continue to get on base like he did in AAA.
However, that does not preclude picking up some hitters via a minor league contract. One hitter in particular I would hope the Giants kick the tires on is Eric Byrnes, who was recently let go by the D-backs, despite the $11M that they still owe him for 2010. He would be a much better backup than Andre Torres: while also playing all the OF positions and a RHH, Byrnes is a much better hitter, hits for more power, steals bases much better than Torres (much higher success rate in majors, 85%, than Torres compiled in minors, 75%), the only thing Torres is better is defense and at least Byrnes have been a good defensive outfielder when healthy.
And that is the key, whether he is healthy. But he should be willing to take a minor league contract so that the Giants don't have to clear a spot for him on the 40-man roster because he's getting $11M from the D-backs anyway. Plus, the Giants are his childhood team, it would be a dream come true for him to make the team.
And if healthy, he should be able to give Torres a run for the money in spring training for a backup position, which he acknowledged in a recent interview in the Chronicle is what he is now given the past two years, a backup. And if he made the Giants, he would be able to provide both power, speed, and defense off the bench, and across the OF, as he could play all three positions.
In addition, he could push Rowand in 2010. If healthy, he could take over starting in CF for long stretches if Rowand gets into one of his deep slumps again, like he did in 2008 and 2009. At minimum, Bochy could give Rowand the rest he said he wanted to give him more of in 2010 by starting Byrnes in CF.
And Torres, despite the fanboy love he has engendered with a subset of Giants fans, is not going to repeat his 2009 performance. He struck out like he was a power hitter and his BABIP was unsustainable even for the best hitters in MLB history, let alone a backup journeyman like Torres. Byrnes, if healthy, would be a better backup, by heads and shoulders over Torres.
But, if you haven't guessed yet, Byrnes has to prove to be healthy.
Giants Thoughts
Obviously, this means Buster Posey will be in AAA for most of the season, at least the early part, and Molina/Whiteside will be our backstops for the first half of 2010. Posey could then come up mid-season and Molina would be either sharing the starting position with him, or traded away with Posey taking over (probably not traded though, just noting the possibility).
This is exciting news, as I like Molina, but the caveat is that his OPS dipped a lot last season. Hopefully that is because he became a father for the first time and was missing a lot of sleep because he was kept busy taking care of the baby. If he can return to his former level of performance, plus provide a nice bat in the 6th spot (I think it'll be Huff 4th, DeRosa 5th, and Molina 6th), oh what the heck:
1) Rowand
2) Sanchez
3) Sandoval
4) Huff
5) DeRosa
6) Molina
7) Renteria
8) Schierholtz
They might swap Renteria and Schierholtz since Renteria is the vet and would be better able to handle batting 8th more than a prospect. Heck, if Renteria is healthy, he could bat 6th and Molina 7th or 8th.
This probably also means that the Giants are done signing hitters. Despite what people say about the Giants management, they have tried to give their young hitters a chance to prove themselves, and with this move, only RF is unspoken for, with Schierholtz the expected winner but battling with Bowker, who should give him a good run for the money, particularly if he can continue to get on base like he did in AAA.
However, that does not preclude picking up some hitters via a minor league contract. One hitter in particular I would hope the Giants kick the tires on is Eric Byrnes, who was recently let go by the D-backs, despite the $11M that they still owe him for 2010. He would be a much better backup than Andre Torres: while also playing all the OF positions and a RHH, Byrnes is a much better hitter, hits for more power, steals bases much better than Torres (much higher success rate in majors, 85%, than Torres compiled in minors, 75%), the only thing Torres is better is defense and at least Byrnes have been a good defensive outfielder when healthy.
And that is the key, whether he is healthy. But he should be willing to take a minor league contract so that the Giants don't have to clear a spot for him on the 40-man roster because he's getting $11M from the D-backs anyway. Plus, the Giants are his childhood team, it would be a dream come true for him to make the team.
And if healthy, he should be able to give Torres a run for the money in spring training for a backup position, which he acknowledged in a recent interview in the Chronicle is what he is now given the past two years, a backup. And if he made the Giants, he would be able to provide both power, speed, and defense off the bench, and across the OF, as he could play all three positions.
In addition, he could push Rowand in 2010. If healthy, he could take over starting in CF for long stretches if Rowand gets into one of his deep slumps again, like he did in 2008 and 2009. At minimum, Bochy could give Rowand the rest he said he wanted to give him more of in 2010 by starting Byrnes in CF.
And Torres, despite the fanboy love he has engendered with a subset of Giants fans, is not going to repeat his 2009 performance. He struck out like he was a power hitter and his BABIP was unsustainable even for the best hitters in MLB history, let alone a backup journeyman like Torres. Byrnes, if healthy, would be a better backup, by heads and shoulders over Torres.
But, if you haven't guessed yet, Byrnes has to prove to be healthy.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Huff Aftermath: Batting Cleanup, Merkin DFAed
In the aftermath of the news that Huff was signed, in his press conference after he was offically signed (as reported by many, but here's a link to Baggarly's version which was more comprehensive) a number of things were announced. Plus, today, it as reported by the Chronicle's John Shea that Merkin Valdez was DFAed to open up a spot for Huff. In the conference call:
As I noted, I like the deal, though I would have gone with Ishikawa, but Huff is more of a sure bet to produce at 1B and is a proven cleanup hitter and that is what we need. And he has been OK defensively at 1B, and playing everyday there should help him improve there as well. He seems like a nice guy, a jokester, from the snippet of the interview he gave on the Razor and Mr. T show on KNBR yesterday, so he should add to the clubhouse I think.
Valdez, as much as I would like to give him another chance, he had a horrible 2009 season and he was already off the team possibly anyhow with Waldis Joaquin's emergence. The bullpen was already set with Wilson, Affeldt, Romo, Runzler, Medders, and a longman, either Martinez or Pucetas. Valdez would have been competing with Joaquin for that last spot. And if we could get another good reliever, that would make the bullpen unit pretty bullet-proof.
The lineup, as I noted, with Sandoval 3rd and Huff 4th does not suffer much if any from the switch, depending on the forecaster used. Bill James forecast results in a 4.6 RS lineup while the CHONE forecast results in a 4.5 RS lineup. The former with last year's defense results in 95 wins, the latter in 93 wins.
El Lefty Malo feels that the defense overall cannot be the same but I don't agree entirely or rather that I think that is missing the Big Picture. Fielding is worse, but I think the pitching staff overall can improve or at least mitigate the loss in fielding. And the bigger picture is that the offense, at even 4.50 runs vs. the 4.06 of last season, would score an additional 71 runs. I don't think the defense would be that much worse, last year they gave up 377 runs, that would be almost 20% increase in runs allowed to negate the gains in offense. I can see losing 1 win for DeRosa, 2 wins for Huff, and 1 win for the rest defensively for 4 wins lost or 40 runs, roughly 10% increase.
Given all that, I think 90 wins is a good target for the Giants to shoot for and reach and be competitive for the division title:
- Big news: Huff is batting cleanup. I guess they don't want to pressure Sandoval and according to the lineup analyzer, that switch won't cost the offense much, if any. Huff is also viewed as a legit cleanup hitter, based on what he has done in his career.
- As expected, he'll be the starting 1B which sets the starting defense with Sandoval at 3B, DeRosa in LF, and Uribe, as expected, in his super-utility but really super-backup in case anybody is injured or performing badly.
- Also big news: Huff is playing everyday. I'll bet it's a concession to him to get him to sign plus they don't really have a platoon partner to go with him, and even if they did, then they would have to explain why they are keeping Ishikawa on the roster. And as Bochy noted, he doesn't envision it being a platoon, but I would note that things will change in the regular season based on circumstances.
- Top five hitters: Rowand, Sanchez, Sandoval, Huff, DeRosa. Bochy prefers his best all-around hitter batting third (the lineup analyzer would disagree about putting Sandoval third, as that leads to less runs being batted in - probably because a large percentage of the time he will come to bat with two outs already and nobody on or man on 1B - though more runs scored, because of the hitters behind).
- Baggerly hit the nail on the head that Valdez was the player designated (he's not gone until another team claims him) since Sabean said that he is next working on a free-agent reliever.
- The savings on Huff relative to the 2 year, $17M reported offer for LaRoche opens up payroll to get other free agents. Sabean noted, "It was a good twist of fate as things turned out where other avenues ended up not being pursued. This ended up being our best option and we’re glad it turned out this way.” From what I read somewhere, the Giants did not consider Huff until after LaRoche turned down their offer, and was pleasantly surprised when they investigated Huff. More Sabean: "The more we examined what he has done and what we need, we thought this would be a good fit. He’s a fourth hitter who’s been a run producer and quite frankly he’s got the track record we were looking for. Even in a down year he drove in 85 runs which is something we needed. I just saw him in Arizona. He looks in good shape, ready to go.”
- Sabean said the Giants are still looking for a catcher and a reliever, but doesn't "anticipate" signing another starting pitcher to allow Bumgarner to begin in AAA. "I don't know that the fifth starter will fit the bill as much as there might be some interesting relief choices to give us more presence." Bumgarner looks ready and by TINSTAAPP, once a pitcher is ready, it is a waste of his arm to have him throw in the minors. Still, there was talk of him being a reliever, so I would say that there is some odds that the Giants might change course and sign a starter and have Bumgarner pitch in relief.
- Sabean is convinced a catcher will fall to the Giants: "The catcher's market is remarkably still evolving. There will probably be somebody left without a place to go that we can turn to. We are willing to go to (rookie Buster) Posey but we are keeping an open mind. We’ll revisit as we go along."
- Bochy noted that RF is an open competition and Schierholtz and Bowker were mentioned while Lewis was not. Makes sense, Lewis was not very good looking defensively in LF (if statistically good because he's competing against a lot of stiffs in LF) and RF is even tougher.
As I noted, I like the deal, though I would have gone with Ishikawa, but Huff is more of a sure bet to produce at 1B and is a proven cleanup hitter and that is what we need. And he has been OK defensively at 1B, and playing everyday there should help him improve there as well. He seems like a nice guy, a jokester, from the snippet of the interview he gave on the Razor and Mr. T show on KNBR yesterday, so he should add to the clubhouse I think.
Valdez, as much as I would like to give him another chance, he had a horrible 2009 season and he was already off the team possibly anyhow with Waldis Joaquin's emergence. The bullpen was already set with Wilson, Affeldt, Romo, Runzler, Medders, and a longman, either Martinez or Pucetas. Valdez would have been competing with Joaquin for that last spot. And if we could get another good reliever, that would make the bullpen unit pretty bullet-proof.
The lineup, as I noted, with Sandoval 3rd and Huff 4th does not suffer much if any from the switch, depending on the forecaster used. Bill James forecast results in a 4.6 RS lineup while the CHONE forecast results in a 4.5 RS lineup. The former with last year's defense results in 95 wins, the latter in 93 wins.
El Lefty Malo feels that the defense overall cannot be the same but I don't agree entirely or rather that I think that is missing the Big Picture. Fielding is worse, but I think the pitching staff overall can improve or at least mitigate the loss in fielding. And the bigger picture is that the offense, at even 4.50 runs vs. the 4.06 of last season, would score an additional 71 runs. I don't think the defense would be that much worse, last year they gave up 377 runs, that would be almost 20% increase in runs allowed to negate the gains in offense. I can see losing 1 win for DeRosa, 2 wins for Huff, and 1 win for the rest defensively for 4 wins lost or 40 runs, roughly 10% increase.
Given all that, I think 90 wins is a good target for the Giants to shoot for and reach and be competitive for the division title:
- The D-gers lost Wolf, a major cog of their rotation and they should not be able to replace him easily. Pineiro is the best remaining and at his career numbers, the D-gers give up 28 more runs or 0.17 per game, which will cost them about 4 wins, putting them around 91. If they don't get him, then they lose even more and Manny isn't getting any younger either and Pierre, as horrible as he can be, was a good replacement for Manny in 2009 but now he's gone.
- Colorado lost Jason Marquis, second best starter on their rotation, but bring back Jeff Francis, who missed all of 2009, and wasn't as good as Marquis before that and he'll be 29 in 2010. That should cost them a couple of games, which would put them at 90 wins.
- Arizona made a whole bunch of changes (including reportedly signing LaRoche for $5.5M) plus will be adding back two players out in 2009 in Webb and Jackson. Still, they only won 70 games in 2009, I don't really see them adding 20 games even with their additions (and losses, they traded away two good young pitchers as well as got two older but still young starters in Jackson and Kennedy).
- The 'Dres could surprise in 2010, I like their young players coming up, they are waiting for them to firm up and produce, they could be competitive and they won 75 games last season, not far from a .500 season. But I don't see them competing either without much better pitching, which is not a forte of their farm system.
Our main competitors lost major cogs in their pitching rotations while adding no one of consequence yet while the Giants lost no major cogs (Molina might have been our cleanup hitter, but he was a drag on our offense) plus might gain one or two (Huff, DeRosa, Posey, Bumgarner, Sanchez), but many don't think the Giants can compete?
If you can't be satisfied with an 88 win season with possibilities for better after a number of losing seasons, just because we ended up in 3rd, I can't help you. I am going to enjoy the 2010 season, I am going to enjoy the next decade, as the Giants have the ingredients to be competing during this decade, the 10's. In baseball today, that is the best you can ask for, to be competitive year in, year out, and if you can't realize that and enjoy the team, oh well, too bad for you.
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