I got two lovely comments left late last night by Anonymous (timestamp shows that both were by the same person) that I would like to respond to:
"This blog is horrible and so is your mother who sucked my c*ck last night."
Yeah, it is pretty horrible to some, but then, that's the beauty of the internet, I get to publish all the stuff I want and people are free to ignore it. Or not.
Also, you must feel really good because my mother was cremated.
"This blog is the worst Giants blog I have ever seen. It's so bad that I am seriously thinking about investing a few bucks into some bumper stickers that say "obsessivecompulsivegiants is a c*ck-sucking f*gg*t. For a free blow job, visit his lame ass blog" and then slap them on random cars in a Wal-mart parking lot."
Good luck on that because I find that most places cannot handle such a long name. I think you will probably need to get at least three bumper stickers to fit all that in. Actually, that's probably going to need four of them.
Please invest, though, the country needs people spending to get out of this economic funk. Just spend all your savings and retirement funds and get 666 of those bumper stickers, that will jump-start somebody's business for a day.
And say "Hi" to everyone at MCC for me, thanks!
OGC Thoughts
These came in just before 1:30AM last night. He was aware that what he does might get traced, as he used an unknown ISP to hide his tracks.
Apparently he likes to use Apple Macintosh: hey, we have something in common, I've loved Apple since it came out with an Apple 2. I still have my AppleFest t-shirt, it's still in pretty good condition considering its age and times I wore it. Good times.
And speaking of good times, wasn't it great about the Giants winning the 2010 World Series Championship? I still play my recordings of the calls (still brings a tear to my eye when Dave Fleming's voice cracks), I love the Michael Franti re-do of his song "Say Hey" into Giants oriented lyrics. And I still wear my World Series t-shirts almost every day (sometimes I have to meet people). My wife hates it when I wear the one with the big gaudy World Series ring on the front. And I see my Giants Championship memorabilia everyday in my office. The trophy sure looks so shiny and perty (found nice placard with photo quality picture of the trophy).
I will pray for your soul, anonymous, because you will need it. And I'm not even a religious person, but I'll make an exception for you and all like you who feel the need to post such filth.
Happy Holidays and Best Wishes to all for a Happy, Healthy, and Prosperous New Year!
OGC,
ReplyDeleteContinuing a discussion from yesterday re. letting starters who are having good games finish vs bringing in your closer to start the 9'th inning:
The game evolves for a reason. Successful managers from the 1970's such as Sparky Anderson and Dick Williams discovered that a lot of games were lost because starters collapsed at the end of a well pitched game. This was likely due to two factors: 1. Fatigue 2. Most pitcher's performance deteriorates on a direct correlation with how many times he has been through the batting order in the game.
These managers discovered that they could "Save" these lost wins by bringing in a fire-breathing, foot pawing monster with a fastball 5-6 MPH faster than what the hitters were used to seeing, or something else different like the split-fingered fastball, to get those last 3-6 outs.
As time went on, data started coming out about pitch counts and their impact on pitcher injuries which accellerated the trend and ushered in the addition of set up men.
The latest trend was brought in by managers like Tony LaRussa and our own Bruce Bochy who looked at split data and realized that in most cases LHP's are more likely to get LH batters out and RHP's are more likely to get RH batters out. The last 2-3 innings of the game are now measured in outs rather than by innings. Decisions are made based on the best combination of pitchers to get those last 6-9 outs and are often influenced by how the lineup is stacked by handedness. We saw how effective this strategy was in the Giants championship run through the playoffs.
What's next? I think the next breakthrough will be taking the best relief pitcher and using him in the highest leverage situations rather than strictly as a closer with the L-R split game extending into the 9'th inning. I could be wrong about that, but I think we were starting to see the tip of that iceburg with the way Bochy wasn't afraid to bring Wilson into games in the 8'th inning when the game had to be saved right there.
Excellent rundown of the history and change in usage of relievers, DrB. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI agree that the use of relievers in high leverage situations is the next evolution in the use of closers. Sabers have been talking about this for years now, including Bill James, that the top relievers are being wasted by saving games where there was less need for saving, 2-3 run leads with no runners, while key pitching situations in the 7th and 8th that could turn the tide could use the closer being put in there instead.
Bochy does appear to be among the first of managers to start using closers in 1+ IP saves situations and I know I applauded that during the season.
I also was very supportive of the Affeldt acquisition just for this reason: there were many baseball analyst websites that said that Affledt was closer-like in ability and would be a good buy-low opportunity to obtain a potential closer. For us, I imagined that he would then help cover the key high leverage situations that occur in the 7th or 8th, then Wilson can come in the 8th in case Affeldt faltered there. I felt it was a key move of that off-season, picking him up.
I think tag-team closer-duos (at minimum, Romo appears ready to join the duo) will be part of this evolution and breakthrough that you discussed here. I think both will be key components of the handling and staffing of bullpens going forward.
And just like how I like the staffing of essentially ace level starters throughout the rotation, I think that the bullpen can be similarly staffed with closer level relievers to minimize hiccups in the relief process and save more winnable games.
With Sabean's and the Giants focus on picking up more pitching than other teams, they can execute such a strategy better than other teams.
Thanks again DrB, I so much prefer discussing this than other things.
ReplyDeleteAnd I love your review of the Top Giants prospects of 2010, people who haven't checked it out yet should:
http://whenthegiantscometotown.blogspot.com/
Lots of good discussions and information about their 2010 performances.
Hey, looks like you and I pretty much agree on the reliever thing too. Thanks for the props. Keep up the good work on your blog.
ReplyDeleteI agree that having closers come it for damage control earlier in the game makes a lot of sense. I never really understood why closers can only pitch in the ninth inning.
ReplyDeleteAlong the line of changes, I remember when teams used to carry only 10 pitchers as the norm, sometimes only 9. Now, 11, 12, and even 13 are carried. We saw how it hampered the Giants in a couple of games last year. Would MLB consider expanding the roster to 26 players, or even 27? Would this be a bargaining chip that MLB give to the Union in exchange for salary cap?, for rookie salary cap? for international draft? This is pure speculation on my part.
Along the same line, the other trend is toward roster flexibility. The Giants are again at the leading edge of this trend. Given that you now have only 13 position players, premium will be given to players that can play multiple positions. Minor league players will be asked to play other positions (a la Belt, Posey, Rohinger). Taking that to an extreme, would positional players be asked to pitch in emergency mop up? Should pitchers be asked to pinch hit/run, or even play backup positions on a semi-regular basis. Would you expect Belt, McBryde, etc. to pitch in the future? Would you expect Bumgarner and Cain to pinch hit on a regular basis? Will Ishikawa be the last of his kind? Will Tony Pena Jr. type start showing up in the major league? Does the axiom that pitchers can only pitch and do nothing else still make sense?
Anon,
ReplyDeleteThose are all good thoughts and great point about the Giants being on the leading edge of position flexibility.
Anon, I've wondered that too and the best I can come up with is the simplest: LaRussa had great results doing that with Eckersley and generally the followers who are more into saving their jobs than finding the best way to do things just followed his lead.
ReplyDeleteAs DrB noted, good thoughts and points. I have read about talks about expanding the rosters, and yes, I think it has been noted as a bargaining chip in exchange for a variety of things the MLB wants at that time or whatnot. But yeah, basically speculation for the most part, I think.
I agree that the Giants are at the leading edge of roster flexibility. Some of the things you note, however, has been done already. Lowry was regularly used as a pinch-runner. Players like Belt has been tried at different positions to get him into the majors faster or when two players only play same position: see McCovey and Cepeda for one great example, also Mark McGwire started in the majors as 3B before moving to his natural 1B position. Rohlinger is playing many positions because the Giants see him as a utility player and preparing him for that. Position players have been doing mop-up pitching duty forever: Jose Canseco famously injured himself pitching mop-up. And Posey is a special case because they want to keep his bat in when not playing C.
I would expect Bumgarner to pinch hit on a regular basis, because he seems like a good hitter. Cain only if you need HR power, but otherwise, I don't recall him being THAT good.
What I've been hoping to see is something like in college where position players regularly pitched too. Basically like Brooks Kieschnick was doing, playing positions while also pitching. Tony Pena Jr. could do that, swapping out to SS or 2B to, say, allow a LOOGY to pitch to a batter, then moving back to pitching.
There are a lot of pitchers who were their team's best hitter coming up in Little League, I can't imagine that this talent just goes away, just lays fallow, except for pitchers like Bumgarner who understand that is another weapon they can use to win the game.
As I posted long ago, a pitcher who can hit as well as a replacement level player can change a loss into win, which would change a 160-160 pitcher over 10 seasons to a 170-150 pitcher, just from that one thing. That can be the difference between an average pitcher and a good one, a good one and a elite one, in terms of wins and losses.
I think the better example of a position player in our system who might pitch is Wendell Fairley. He was a pretty good pitcher in high school and has been struggling in the minors, though as DrB noted, he's starting to show some growth and development lately.
When you have been a pitcher - and a good one - to high school or college (Posey was closer on his college team, I think) - I can not imagine that they would stop doing some practice in the pros, just because there was something about that that they loved doing. These are the position players who might conceivably pitch regularly (though not Posey at the C position, maybe if he were playing 1B, and then maybe still not because he's one of the team's best players, that would be viewed as risky to do).
ogc, keep up the good work. appreciate your insight and the dialouge we can have about giants talk. dont let them get you down and dont feel an obligation to respond. God bless you man. looking forward to another exciting season cheering on our team.
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