Giants 2008: Work In Progress

Sorry it's been a while everyone, but my kids' great-grandmother passed away and we needed to go to the funeral and take care of other things.

Giants 2008: DOA?

Speaking of funerals, most Giants fans have been writing the Giants 2008 epithet already - "DOA" - and I would be personally happy with that. My underlying objective, which I don't think I've made explicitly clear up to now, is to earn another Top 5 draft pick with a pretty lousy 2008. In other words, a rebuilding year. This philosophy has driven much of my thoughts on what the Giants should be doing at each position and how they should approach any trade proposals. So I've been wanting to post my collective thoughts on my master plan for the 2008 Giants.

Starting Lineup

There are some clear starters. Molina at C. Vizquel at SS. Roberts/Davis platoon in LF. Rowand in CF. Winn in RF.

I was initially not happy about Rowand's addition, when I first heard the news, because I wanted Schierholtz to start in RF, but after thinking through everything and looking over Rowand's career stats, I'm pretty happy with his acquisition. His contract size is that for an average OF, but if he can hit like 2004/2007, we have an above average OF for an average salary. And even if he is average, with the 10%+ salary inflation of the past number of years, he'll be cheap at the end of the contract, salary-wise, so he could decline in performance and still be reasonably priced. More importantly, the Giants management HAD to HAVE a better hitter in the lineup, and better signing one than trading Lincecum or Cain for one.

I think Durham should start at 2B initially with Frandsen starting at 3B. If Durham returns to normal, he should be tradeable for a nice prospect mid-season, and Frandsen then starts at 2B and Aurilia at 3B. If Durham sucks, then bench him and Frandsen then starts at 2B and Aurilia at 3B. I would be OK with signing Morgan Ensberg, he has a nice history as a hitter and fielder, but prefer giving Frandsen playing time, however it happens. Also, we might be able to flip Ensberg for a nice prospect mid-season if he returns to his former levels of production.

I think Ortmeier should start at 1B. I like him and think he can do well if given the chance, but realize that his career numbers suggest otherwise. If he plays well enough - something in the high 700 OPS range - plus provide power like last season (about 25 AB/HR) and get to steal some bases, great. If he flops as most seem to expect, that's OK, Aurilia could start playing more.

What people are forgeting is that flopping can be good too, in that our offense doesn't do well and we lose games and get better draft position. I think Ortmeier and Frandsen can do OK for us at 1B and 3B, and that Durham can return to some performance level at 2B, but even if they don't we don't lose much money or prospects in trying to obtain players who would be better than they are in performance AND we get better draft position.

I would like to see Randy Winn traded to a contender. People seem to prefer trading Roberts and keeping Winn, but I don't see why. First, Winn is the better player, has a very reasonable contract, and would return more in a trade. Second, he plays a lot of games, but we have a lot of OF prospects who needs playing time; keeping Roberts gives these other players more playing time because he's a platoon player and is prone to injuries. Third, people seem to be forgetting that we don't have any player other than Roberts who makes sense as a leadoff hitter. Winn was never a leadoff hitter and the next most obvious hitter would be Rowand but we need him hitting in the middle of the order. Most importantly, trading Winn opens a position for Schierholtz in RF, whereas trading Roberts would probably push Davis out of playing time, as Schierholtz should start full-time, was would Rowand and Winn.

Starting Pitching

As I've been advocating for a long time now, the Giants centerpiece going forward should be their starting rotation, with Cain and Lincecum as the core, key top of rotation pitchers for the time being. If we are lucky enough to have more aces come up, then we can think about trading one of them for a hitter, but for now, we should keep Cain and Lincecum for their full six years, minimum.

Obviously, Zito's going nowhere with his monster contract, but I'm not worried about him. Sure, his peripherals stink, but he's capable of pitching well without great peripherals, as he showed in Oakland his last two years there, and as he showed at the end of the 2007 season once he settled down and stopped trying to be an ace and just be himself (something like a 4.11 ERA in the second half). People need to get past his salary and look at his position in the rotation: he's probably the one of the best #3 starter in the majors.

And while I've been pushing to trade Lowry, I'm more than happy to keep him as I think he's shown that he's capable of pitching well even with bad peripherals too. He has been able to keep his ERA in the sub-4 region for much of his career - except for when he tried to pitch with an injury in September 2006, ruining his sub-4 ERA he had prior to that month - and only top of rotation pitchers are able to keep their ERA in that range. I won't argue with anyone (that means you Boof! :^) about whether Lowry is one or not, but if he can deliver another sub-4 ERA season in 2008, he should be the best #4 starter in the majors by a wide margin.

That leaves #5. Correia was outstanding in his 2007 starts and should have the inside track to taking that position. Sanchez and Misch will also contend, plus if Lowry does get traded, both would get a shot at replacing him. I love both Sanchez's and Misch's high K/9 in AAA and above, so I think the Giants should definitely keep the two of them starting in 2008, even if in the minors, but given management's history, they probably will end up in the MLB bullpen in 2008. I think people should keep an eye out for Misch, he's just waiting for an opportunity I think.

Bench

Given that I view 2008 as a rebuilding year where we should try to get a Top 5 draft pick for 2009, I just want to fill it with farmhands, no new vets. Alfonso or Rodriguez as backup catcher. Aurilia as backup for the entire infield, plus ready to start at 1B or 3B. Probably Eugenio Velez to backup 2B and OF, maybe SS. Then Schierholtz and Rajai Davis in the OF.

However, the Giants will probably keep Lewis as backup and start Schierholtz in AAA, give him more seasoning plus keep him in a starting role. Unless Winn or Roberts is traded, then Nate's in the majors.

Bullpen

I like the bulllpen overall. Brian Wilson closing, with Tyler Walker and Brad Hennessey set-up. Steve Kline and Jose Capellan as loogies (sorry Taschner). Vinnie Chulk should also make it. Then Messenger, Taschner, Threets, Sanchez, Misch, Sadler, Anderson battle for the last spot.

2008 Giants

People are clearly right that losing Bonds is huge, but we had a bad luck of the draw year in 2007. Looking at the stats, I realized that when Durham hit 5th, he had a really horrible OPS, but in other lineup positions, he hit better. So when Bonds was in the lineup, he often had Durham hitting 5th behind him, leading to the anomaly where the Giants only scored 4.0 runs per game with him in the lineup and 4.7 runs without him, resulting in a 4.2 runs per game average overall. Using the lineup calculator, I estimate that Durham's poor hitting costed the Bonds lineup 0.4-0.5 runs per game.

Plus there were a couple of lucky double-digit blowouts without Bonds. Without those, the Bonds-less lineup dropped to 4.4-4.5 runs per game. I think with Rowand's addition and either Durham's return or Frandsen's ascendency, the current lineup can keep scoring in the 4.2-4.3 runs range, which combined with our stellar starting rotation and improving bullpen (runs allowed around 4.4 in 2007, development and improvement should drop that to 4.2-4.3 in 2008) , should return us to the .500 level, a level, I would add, that we would have been near anyhow in 2007, had the team performed to Pythagorean levels - they should have won 77 games in 2007, and switching 4 of those losses would return us to .500. As Bill James noted before, teams who underperform one year tend to move in the other direction (i.e. get lucky) in the subsequent year.

.500 is Death

But as Billy Beane recently said, it's better to be either contending or doing poorly, because it is death to be in the middle. That fits in with what my research showed about the probability of selecting good players via the draft and my study of how teams have returned to winning ways after losing for a number of years. It is basically what my Phoenix Theory of Rebuilding entails: in order to rebuild efficiently and effectively, you need to shift quickly from contending to sucking, pick up some Top 5 draft picks for at least 2 seasons, then start trying to contend again by signing premiere free agents to fill positions of need. That means jettisoning useful major leaguers, like Barry Bonds, and playing more of your prospects in important starting roles.

And that means not signing middling talent via free agency, only signing above average talent at a reasonable price. Acquiring middling talent via free agency doesn't do anything for you other than use up your payroll. We've seen this with the Giants since they passed up on trying to sign top players like Vlad or Carlos Beltran. As I wrote the season they could have pursued Vlad, with limited payroll, the Giants could either spend a little here and there on mediocrity to fill out the roster, or they could swing for the fences and sign a Vlad. Or fill in the appropriate name after that, like Beltran, Ordonez, etc.

There's no way the Giants can compete effectively in 2008 and win it all unless the players all reach their potentials together in one year, very unlikely. Thus give Ortmeier and Frandsen a chance to start, plus hopefully Schierholtz. Give Wilson a chance to close. Don't sign any expensive free agents (anything over $2-3M per season) and pour money into the international market, look into Japan, China, Taiwan, look deeper in the Carribean. Try to outbid other teams for international prospects even if they think the player isn't worth that much, just focus more on getting good prospects to sign with us. I see other teams getting good prospects for under $1M, we should be getting those prospects instead if money is all they are looking for, we can overpay a little, we must overpay, to add talent to the system.

All the worries I've seen on other sites and other fans are really just alternate forms of "shifting the deck chairs on the Titanic" type of moves. They pooh-pooh Ortmeier at 1B, Frandsen at 3B, etc. Unless some team gives us some great prospects for Lowry and/or Sanchez (which is possible in his case, the Mets reportedly offered Carlos Gomez for him once), our offense will not be good enough to be strongly competitive, to be World Series caliber, unless we get lucky on the level that the D-backs got lucky in 2007, which is very lucky.

In addition, .500 teams get a draft pick in the middle of the draft round, where the odds are still greatly against you finding a good player there, unless Boras has scared teams away again from a prospect (like Porcello last season, Hochvear previously, etc.), in which case the Giants should sign him and pay him what he wants. Getting draft picks in the middle of the round dooms you to a long and unproductive draft replenishment of talent.

You need to get Top 5 picks to really speed up the rebuilding process, it increases the odds of finding a good player multi-fold over the middle of the draft, and especially over the end of the first round, where winners pick. We lucked out with Lincecum (who really should have been a top 5 pick), hopefully we will luck out with our #5 pick in 2008, and I am hoping we can get another top 5 pick for 2009 by losing in 2008. Those picks will go a long way to making the Giants team strong in the 2010-2012 time frame, particularly with Villalona coming up around then.

And the cheapest and best way to do that is to play all of our prospects who show some potential in 2008 and jettison all the veteran players who are blocking a viable prospect, first Bonds, but also Winn, Durham, and Kline. Unfortunately, Durham is not tradeable, so the odds are we will be stuck with him, so we may as well start him and hope he returns to career form and thus be tradeable for a nice prospect, which again builds for the future. At least Frandsen will be able to start at 3B, else I would be for dumping Durham immediately, Frandsen should be starting somewhere.

Roberts might be blocking a viable prospect like Fred Lewis, but I think one of the problems the 1970's and 1980's Giants had was that they did not have a lot of vets there long enough to teach the youngsters how to play the game, and given the speed we have in our system, I think Roberts should be kept to help our young players adjust to the majors and more importantly teach them something about stealing as well. Having him for multiple seasons will allow him to influence our speedburners.

All in all, 2008 should be a rebuilding year. If the youngsters can perform well and we have a .500 season, that's great, because that means we have additional talent as building blocks for 2009, and perhaps are one good player away from competing again. If the youngsters don't perform well, as many Giants fans suspect, we'll have a crappy season from a winning viewpoint but a great year from a drafting viewpoint. Either way, the Giants would be advancing in 2008, either via a great draft pick or by identifying additional viable major league hitters and pitchers who could contribute in 2009 and beyond.

That, to me, would be a successful 2008 season. Hoping and manuevering for more, for a competitive season, is unrealistic, and worse, it would stall the rebuilding process that we need to go through in 2008 in order to hopefully return to competitiveness quickly so that we don't waste too many seasons of Cain and Lincecum to rebuilding efforts. Acquiring veteran players who hold back prospects only slows down the rebuilding, which ends up wasting another season of Cain and Lincecum together. We must rebuild as quickly as possible.