The Giants recently said that they might keep an additional position player instead of a 12th pitcher because the starters have been good about pitching long. It just struck me: could they keep up Ishikawa and return Hennessey to start in the minors when Niekro return from the DL on Tuesday.
Obviously they like him enough to call him up twice now. Plus today he gets the start when Sweeney could have started, or even (sigh) Vizcaino, since the starter is a tough lefty. Given Bonds need for rest and Alou out on DL, Sweeney has been getting those starts in LF, forcing the Giants to have to play Vizcaino at 1B. It's better to give prospects experience than to play an old retread middle infielder out of position at 1B, but I know I'm preaching to the choir here.
Another reason to keep Ishikawa is, frankly, Niekro's tendencies. One is his tendency for injuries. If Ishikawa is sent down, the Giants must wait 10 days to get him back, if they wanted him. What if Niekro's injury recurs or isn't quite healed fully yet, he also tends to linger in his injuries. Another tendency is he tends to not come back so fast when he gets off the DL. By keeping Ishikawa now, particularly while the bullpen is well rested - who knows if this continues or happens again - the Giants could platoon him and Niekro, easing Niekro back into the flow, giving him more time to heal, while maximizing his ABs by starting him only against LHP, which he murders. By the time they need bullpen help again, hopefully Niekro is back to the way he was hitting before the injury and the Giants can option Ishikawa down.
However, Ishikawa was not the one called up when Niekro initially went on the DL. They instead called up Frandsen, essentially to take Vizcaino's place, since the Giants plan was for Vizcaino to share 1B with Sweeney and playing frequently. So there was some reason why they chose to do that first.
But there could have been good (for Ishikawa) reasons for the initial snub. One could have been the strong pitching at St. Louis vs. the youngsters that Colorado will be throwing out. So that would be a good reason. Another could have been they thought Vizcaino would have been OK on a temporary basis but found that it wasn't working. That would be another good reason. Of course, it could be that the Giants were not sure he was ready and didn't want to rush him up again, but Vizcaino's poor hitting forced them to at least try.
Whatever the reason, good or bad, I am glad that they are giving him another shot up here and that they are starting him this time. He's obviously making the most of his chances, he went 3-4 tonight with his first extra-base hit (double) and his first RBI and had 3 RBI for the game. That's on top of going 1-2 previously. Plus he did this against a left-handed pitcher, which was odd since he's a lefty, but I'm taking it.
I am hoping he is the future of the Giants and the sooner we can get him up and running, the sooner the post-Bonds era can start because who says that it can't start with Bonds still around, maybe they can give the team a boost with their youthful energy. Niekro kills LHP, Ishikawa probably kills RHP, I love the long ball and Ishikawa can crush them, I saw one he hit at San Jose just fly off his bat for a long homerun, he has a lot of power, despite what the announcers (Flem and Jon) said about his power just developing last season, he was hitting them in 2004 as well. That would give us good power off the bench, depending on who is starting, plus Ishikawa is a good defensive 1B.
And what a game today, Giants win 9-0, plus hit their best hitter, Holliday after Bonds was plunked earlier. I don't want people hurt but they are asking for it. This is baseball, dang it! Go Giants!!!
Martin, I haven't seen Ishikawa play, but I think he was only hitting 265 at Conneticut. Do you have his LH, RH splits?
ReplyDeleteYeah, he's not hitting that well in the EL, but that's a pitcher's league so it is deflated a bit as well. And Norwich's park factor is 978 according to BP, so it's a pitchers park in a pitchers league.
ReplyDeleteHis splits right now favor LHP if you use OPS, RHP if you use AVG and OBP, but there's still small sample skewing for his 2006 stats, he was in the majors then out for injury for a while.
I based my comment on his killing RHP because of a couple of things. One is that if he were doing well against LHP, his stats in the minors should be better because if he does well against LHP, then his overall stats should be pretty good since his RHP should be good as well (I know there are the occassional reverse platoon but generally speaking). Another is that I've read one analyst said that he's a potential platoon 1B, which means he has problems hitting LHP.
However, again, small sample, but he hit the LHP on Friday pretty well and been doing well in EL so far, so if he has improved in that way, that bodes well for the future as that was one of his weaknesses before.
It'll be hard to send him down if he continues to hit well, but Niekro had a nice day in extended spring training yesterday so they might send him down and bring up someone else. However, I think it would be prudent to keep him up until they are sure Niekro is back to hitting, particularly since Ishikawa is hitting and they can make due with one less reliever at the moment.
I think platooning young hitters, until they learn the strike zone and learn to hit major league pitching is a good idea. Ideally, I suppose, you platoon a young guy (Neikro) with an older or parttime guy (Sweeney). But if another young guy forces his way into the mix, I don't see anything wrong with platooning 2 young guys. Obviously, if they both develop, and both learn to handle both sides of the pitching rubber, then you have to deal with that - but that is a great problem to have. So, I would like to see Neikro and Ishi platoon unless and until Ishi goes in the tank, then send him down. It certainly will aid in his development, even if he is sent down.
ReplyDeleteAne, Martin, thanks for looking up Ishi's splits.