Giants PQS: updated to July 31st

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the 2006 season as of games played to July 31st, as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book.

Giants Starters' PQS for 2006 Season (as of July 31st, 2006)

Matt Cain - (19 starts: 42% DOM, 32% DIS ): 3, 4, 1, 4, 5, 0, 1, 3, 3, 3, 0, 4, 5, 0, 5, 0, 4, 4, 3
Brad Hennessey - (6 starts: 17% DOM, 17% DIS): 3, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4
Noah Lowry - (16 starts: 25% DOM, 25% DIS): 3, 1, 3, 2, 5, 2, 3, 0, 2, 4, 3, 2, 0, 5, 4, 1
Matt Morris - (21 starts: 43% DOM, 14% DIS): 3, 4, 3, 1, 4, 1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 4, 5, 4, 3, 5, 5, 2, 5, 3, 0, 3
Jason Schmidt - (21 starts: 67% DOM, 0% DIS): 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5
Jamey Wright - (20 starts: 30% DOM, 20% DIS): 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 4, 5, 4, 0, 3, 0, 3, 3, 2, 2, 4, 4, 1, 2

Giants overall - 41% DOM, 17% DIS out of 103 games started

NOTE: I think technically, under the system, Lowry's first start and Morris' start where he promptly got ejected, should count against their totals, but I think under the extenuating circumstances, they should not, basically because this system tries to ferret out how the good performances by a starter and none of those games were zeros because of a poor performance. Lowry got injured early in the game; and Morris got ejected early in the game.

Latest Comments

The Giants starters overall have been pitching well in their games. A DOM near or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great and above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching. So, generally, the Giants pitching has been doing OK this season and has been bordering on good overall. The rotation has finally jumped into the 40% range where pitchers are considered to be better:

1. Schmidt has been very dominating for the first half of the season and he has returned to near elite status, nearly joining those with a DOM greater than 70%. And he has not even had one disaster start yet. He's returned to his dominating ways in time to become a free agent. Sabean has said that the Giants are looking to try to re-sign Schmidt in the off-season but I'm not sure if it's to honestly try and re-sign him or to get the draft picks in compensation. According to trade deadline news, Sabean fielded offers from other teams but was not actively pursing deals, for Schmidt. He is still staying with the company line that they will try to re-sign him but they would be happy to take two draft picks for himas compensation as well.
2. Morris has regressed in his three games since the All-Star break, apparently he was put all out of sync by the break, he has brought his DOM% down to 43% from 47%, but which is still his range (40-49%) for the last few years of his career, after he had his arm problems and had to become more of a finesse pitcher. Being a hyper-competitive personality, he probably was too amped up to control his pitches early on - I noticed that he couldn't really strike out a lot of batters, not even once in a while, like he did in previous seasons, earlier in the season. So it seem like the rest was too much for him, hopefully he can get himself back on track with his next start.
3. Lowry, despite apparently doing well so far (ERA) in the first half, it was just OK as the underlying PQS metrics says he is lacking in quality. Even in the seemingly well pitched games recently, he could not strike out the required number to get a PQS point until recently, when he had two nice games, but last night he regressed again. Until that short 2 game streak, he had not been himself at any point this season and we need him to straighten things out after the break because we need him to be the dominating pitcher of 2005 in the playoffs, should we make it. Hopefully yesterday was just one of those days and he can continue on his upward climb..
4. Matt Cain was doing well early, with a few dominant starts, but maybe the lack of overt success (i.e. wins and low ER) got to him and he started messing around with his mechanics or something, leading to all the disaster starts. However, after skipping one start to work on his mechanics, along with a relief outing, he has pitched much better since then. His first 1-hitter was particularly good, though it didn't qualify as a dominating start because of the high number of walks and relatively low strikeouts, but that was against an Oakland team built to do exactly that so that probably wasn't all his fault. However, he was outstanding in his second 1-hitter (though "only" 8 IP). Unfortunately, he ended the first half with a fizzle as he sandwiched a nice game on July 1st with two stinkers on June 25 and July 6. The time off appears to have not affected him and if anything, he is becoming more consistent in his PQS. Historically, he has improved as he gained experience with the league he was in, the Giants would have some awesome foursome if Schmidt, Morris, Lowry, and Cain can be cooking Dominating starts regularly, particularly in the playoffs.
5. Wright was doing as well as could be expected, but he has fallen back to bad habits or something in June/July and has not recovered yet. Still, he is as advertised, someone who can deliver about 30-39% dominating starts (he would be 35% now if not for an umpire's mistake), an average pitcher who will have his ups and downs - I had been hoping, per pre-season posts, that he could be more than that with San Francisco, pushing himself up to the 40-49% range that marks a good pitcher but so far he has not been able to deliver that yet. Maybe it takes a while for pitchers to get used to AT&T Mays Fields like the way batters have to spend some time there to get used to hitting there: on the road, he has a 4.01 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, and .259 BAA, whereas at home he has a 6.27 ERA, 1.62 WHIP, and .311 BAA. Fortunately, he's only the fifth starter and he has done well enough that he or Hennessey can be traded away with little risk to the rotation.

The rotation is shaping out OK. Schmidt has been on a tear for a while now and Wright, Cain and Lowry has been coming around lately. Morris needs to get back to where he was just a month ago, rest does not seem to be good for him. However, Lowry and Wright has been up and down, they need to get more consistent and fast, the season is heading towards the stretch run and they are still figuring things out. Hopefully Lowry can have an August much like last season (not too much to ask for :^) and Wright can show the stuff he supposedly has a lot of and get confidence in it - heard in one of the Giants chats that he has some of the best stuff but lack the confidence in it because of his results thus far in his career.

But the Giants should be getting good performances overall going forward. With all the key hitters back in the lineup, the Giants could start climbing up the NL Western division again towards first place over the next few weeks; despite the 8 game losing streak, they are still within striking distance. Particularly with Winn entering the 2nd half, when he usually starts to turn things on, historically, during his career, and Bonds and Alou hopefully staying in the lineup together and not stupidly get thrown out of a game, like Moises last nigh. In addition, Durham has been making up for his poor start, burning up the league for a while now.

We just need Vizquel and Feliz to continue doing what they had been doing plus get Hillenbrand to just hit his career numbers, and the offense should start pounding the other teams regularly. I still think the team can and will take the NL West pennant, but time is starting to run out, with less than two months left in the season, it is time to put up or shut up, particularly Mr. Benitez who can spew off at the mouth but not back it up on the mound. Keep your statements to your performance off the mound and fans will be more than happy.

Methodology Explanation

Please look at my link to the side for my explanation of Baseball Forecaster's methodology.