Giants PQS: Updated to August 31st

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

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

Matt Cain - (25 starts: 48% DOM, 28% DIS ): 3, 4, 1, 4, 5, 0, 1, 3, 3, 3, 0, 4, 5, 0, 5, 0, 4, 4, 3, 5, 5, 0, 3, 5, 5
Brad Hennessey - (9 starts: 11% DOM, 11% DIS): 3, 2, 3, 1, 2, 4, 3, 2, 2
Noah Lowry - (21 starts: 33% DOM, 19% DIS): 3, 1, 3, 2, 5, 2, 3, 0, 2, 4, 3, 2, 0, 5, 4, 1, 4, 4, 3, 4, 3
Matt Morris - (27 starts: 52% DOM, 15% DIS): 3, 4, 3, 1, 4, 1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 4, 5, 4, 3, 5, 5, 2, 5, 3, 0, 3, 5, 1, 4, 4, 4, 4
Jason Schmidt - (27 starts: 59% DOM, 4% DIS): 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 2, 5, 3, 2, 0
Jamey Wright - (21 starts: 29% DOM, 19% DIS): 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 4, 5, 4, 0, 3, 0, 3, 3, 2, 2, 4, 4, 1, 2, 2

Giants overall - 43% DOM, 17% DIS out of 130 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 very 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 stayed in the 40% range with their generally good pitching, especially Lowry and Cain, where pitchers are considered to be among the better starters:

1. Schmidt has been very dominating for the first half of the season but he slipped a big notch in August, not only did he earned less DOM starts, but he had his first DIS start. Worse, he has been on a decline the past three games and generally since his second start of August when he got his first 2 of the season. This is good and bad. Bad, obviously, because we need him to be pitching well if we hope to get into the playoffs and if we hope to advance in the playoffs. Good as this could get teams to think twice before offering Schmidt elite money (greater than $15M per season) and we might be able to get him back at a lower salary per season. I would still rather he pitch great, if I had my druthers.
2. After Morris regressed in his three games since the All-Star break, he has been pretty dominating, with 5 DOM starts and 1 DIS start out of 6, making me a bit clairvoyant in my last update (or just plain lucky - I'm leaning towards the latter). Unfortunately, the results have not been there, he has been giving up a lot more runs than could be expected, given his DOM starts. Hopefully he can continue to pitch well in September and the results will even out, meaning he should win a bunch of games to make up for the lack of wins in August despite his good PQS pitching.
3. Lowry had a typical August for him: dominating! But the offense was not able to pick it up for him and he only won 2 games when he should have won 4, easily, all 5 if the offense was mildly good that game. Unfortunately, he regressed in his first start of September and had a horrible start. The Giants should just give him a special calendar where every month of the baseball season is August.
4. Matt Cain turned it on in August as well, with 4 DOM starts in 6 and all the DOM starts were 5's. In 37.1 IP in August, 32 hits, 15 walks, 47 strikeouts, 2 HR, 2.65 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, .234 BAA. An added plus is that he didn't turn into a pumpkin in September, having another DOM start today against the Cubs.
5. Wright and Hennessey split the 5th spot in August, with Hennessey getting most of the starts. Neither did well enough, in my opinion, to warrant keeping either in the rotation. Sanchez should be put in the rotation when the 5th spot comes up, with Hennessey coming in should Sanchez have a short outing.

The rotation is shaping out OK. Schmidt has finally started to falter but Cain, Morris, and Lowry has picked up the slack. As noted, neither Wright nor Hennessey did particularly bad or good. Hopefully Schmidt can right himself after about a month's worth of bad starts as Lowry seems to be out of his zone again. I think Cain's youth is paying off right now as he is probably stronger than the older players, particularly those who used to use amphetamines to stay strong in the last two months of the season. Morris has been pitching well, but, for example, the bullpen turned a great looking start into a horrible looking one, or the other team would bunch their hits into one big inning. Hopefully Sanchez can come in and inject some energy into the rotation and the team and get us on another good win streak, but thus far the Giants have not strangely silent on when he will start, saying only that he would be in the bullpen over the weekend. However, it would be odd for them to pointedly move him back to the minors to give him starts and then not start him in September. Expect it to happen, it will.

What will happen? Who knows, the way the offense has been going. I'm hoping Winn will finally get hot and ignite the offense from the top of the order, that's been the two cyclinders that have been missing all season long, making our 8 cyclinder potentially high performance offense limp along thus far. I still think they can get into the playoffs but it is going to be nip and tuck, it is no sure thing, either way.

Methodology Explanation

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