A key component to the strategy is preventing runs from scoring, both via pitching and fielding. Baseball is tough enough to win without giving away runs via errors or unforced leadoff walks that eventually score. The Hardball Times showed in a past article that each run given up results in an exponential rise in the number of runs scored to maintain the same winning percentage.
For example, to contend for a division regularly, you need to win at around a .556 percentage, or 90 wins per season. If a team can keep their runs allowed at 4.00, they need to socre 4.5 runs per game to regularly contend. Here is a table of what happens as runs allowed rises from 4.00 to 5.00:
RA RS NL 2007 Rank
4.0 4.47 13-14
4.1 4.58 9
4.2 4.70 8
4.3 4.81 8
4.4 4.92 6
4.5 5.03 3
4.6 5.14 3
4.7 5.25 3
4.8 5.37 2
4.9 5.48 2
5.0 5.59 1
As one can see, for every extra 0.1 runs allowed, the team needs to score slightly more than 0.11 runs in order to win 90 games in a season.
I also provided where that offense would have ranked in 2007 in the NL on a runs scored basis. Clearly, 4.5 runs allowed is the tipping point, once a team goes below that, their offense no longer has to be in the top 3. From 4.1 to 4.4 the team still has to be in the middle of the pack, about average offensively, from 4.58 to 4.92 runs scored per game. However, if you can get your team's overall runs allowed to the 4.0 runs allowed range, then your team can win with a poor, bottom of the league offense.
And the Giants are not far from either. The Giants when I calculated this about a week ago, were averaging 4.6 runs allowed per game and 4.1 runs scored per game. However, according to the Merc, they averaged 4.5 runs in May and 4.9 runs scored in June, once Bocock was gone, essentially, plus Roberts' nearly zilch start. While the runs allowed numbers clearly are bad, if you remove the starts Misch has had, the team average is only 4.24. The team averaged 4.5 runs allowed in Correia's first four starts, and he did very well last season, so the team should be better with Correia instead of Misch in the rotation and the offense is better as well, so the Giants could play around .500 for the rest of the season if the offense and pitching can continue to do as well.
Thus, having the best defense around is one key to winning, each run given up has exponential consequences on the need for runs scored, each run you keep from scoring means that you need to have as good an offense in order to be competitive.
I was expecting a plan to accomplish this improved team defense and you failed to provide one. All you did is make an arguement that it is needed. Dah!
ReplyDeleteWell, first of all, obviously, I cannot predict what happens in the future. If you are expecting that, well, I don't know how you could have gotten that opinion from reading my blog.
ReplyDeleteThat said, strategy discusses the direction the team should take, not the tactics done to achieve the strategy, which is what you are looking for. As I stated, I am discussing the strategy right now.
As I also noted, I have written a lot already, just not enough time to input. Later, I will get into the gap analysis and discuss some of the tactics that you wanted to see.
But there's only so much I can foresee for certain, there is no supermarket where you can go in and say "I will have a good hitting gold glove SS and give me that power-hitting 3B over in that corner." Nor can I predict whether another team would be willing to give me such a player if I give him one of our prized pitchers. I mean, Toronto thought they were doing us the favor by offering Rios for Lincecum; if that is all the market thought he was worth, then there is no use trading him.
Same for all the talk about trading Cain or Lincecum, they say it like it will magically make us competitors. No, it will just move one finger plugging up the hole in the leaking dike to another hole, there will still be holes everywhere. There is no quick fix to the Giants, trading one of prized pitchers won't do that.
So my plan is simply more of a strategy, a guide to what the team should be looking to doing, plus I will go over where the team is lacking relative to the plan. Where I can, I will discuss upcoming free agents who might fit the bill, but with teams signing up their best young players long-term, you can't really count on them being there when the free agent bell rings. You mainly will have older expensive guys, much like the guys the Giants have been signing since 2002 World Series ended.
So if you are expecting me to say "we will magically get this player who plays good defense and hits well", then I suggest you skip the rest of these posts, as you will be sorely disappointed.
All I'm really trying to do is present my vision of how to build a ballclub, based on the research I've seen and done myself. I have no expectations that Neukom will ever read this, but use it as a device for my writing.
And based on this strategy, where I think the Giants are, relative to attaining this vision. I think the Giants are very close.
Getting mistakenly upset about the pick of Posey got me thinking more about this whole issue, and drove me to write this up. If Neukom weren't taking over the job, it would probably be "Hey Magowan".
In any case, sorry to disappoint you, but you can skip the next few weeks as I slowly get this plan out there.
Ok. Sorry. I misunderstood what you ment by stratagy.
ReplyDelete