I have written before about why I love Bochy and Bumgarner getting named, so early, even before the first game of spring training, as the opening day starter, just reminded me all over again.
These are just my opinions. I cannot promise that I will be perfect, but I can promise that I will seek to understand and illuminate whatever moves that the Giants make (my obsession and compulsion). I will share my love of baseball and my passion for the Giants. And I will try to teach, best that I can. Often, I tackle the prevailing mood among Giants fans and see if that is a correct stance, good or bad.
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Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Your 2014 Giants: Barry Bonds is Coming To Town!
As reported by our great beat writers (links to the right), Barry Bonds will be coming to the Giants spring training camp this year. As another writer (I think Yahoo) noted, he will conveniently arrive after his ol' buddy Jeff "Motorcycles Are the New Truck" Kent leaves the camp after his stint as instructor is over. The writer also interviewed Kent and, of course, he said something quite convoluted which basically bashes Bonds by what's not being said than by what's being said. Which means the same old, same old thing, as Kent is great for a quote for the media again and for bashing Bonds in some way. Still, both were great players in their own rights, and it's nice that both are coming in, unpaid, and helping out the current players.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
MLB Trade Rumors Apparently Censors When They are Wrong
As I am wont to do, I read baseball news widely and was reading this post on MLB Trade Rumors, when I came to disagree with the writer's position on free agent Brandon Lyon. I proceeded to check into his stats, made a comment, which he replied to a semi-rude way to reinforce his point, at which point I dug into Lyon's numbers more deeply and realized some things very quickly and left my comment there. It got deleted.
So then I answered again, asking if this is MLBTR's new official policy and wondered if my comment would be deleted again. It was. Not only that, but he also banned me from being able to comment on their site. So I guess it is their new official policy to censor comments that disagrees with the writer, and in fact, made him look bad, whenever they feel like it.
Here is basically what I said: I disagreed with the writer's comment of "a somewhat positive spin" regarding Lyon, because his stats, for a reliever, isn't very good. Then once he replied with some more positive data on him, I found some other things to reinforce my point that Lyon isn't that good a reliever, which I took to be his meaning regarding "a somewhat positive spin" and his subsequent reply making more positive statements about Lyon's prospects.
And Lyon isn't really that good a relief option right now. For one thing, Lyon's K/9 has been subpar his whole career, that's not what you want to see from a good reliever. He had only good one year, in 2012, the year that probably got the writer thinking that Lyon was still good, since he noted the positive spin (else why note it?). However, that was his only season EVER in his career where he had an above par K/9. I posited that him being injured the year before and missing a lot of the season rested his arm and he was stronger in 2012, but then regressed back to normal in 2013. In any case, his K/9 in all his other seasons were in the low 6's, nothing really to build a strong bullpen around (though he could be an OK complementary piece).
Worse, his BB/9 when from good to bad starting in 2009, going from roughly 3.0 BB/9 to mid-3 BB/9 since. That, coupled with his poor K/9 has resulted in very subpar (though OK for a reliever) K/BB of near but under 2.0 K/BB ratios, which is what you want your pitchers to be at or above, if you are trying to build a good bullpen. You don't build a good bullpen by signing pitchers who can't beat 2.0 K/BB easily.
And he has not been a good reliever for a long time now, not by any sabermetric analysis, as relievers seasons are small sample sized and require looking at multiple seasons to see where his actual talent level is. And he wasn't all that good early in his career, only that he was forced into closing and doing OK in that role, and once his BB/9 got worse in 2009 - and more importantly, stayed worse - he's been a sub-par reliever since.
To conclude, for the temerity of first commenting that he was wrong by presenting his advanced metrics as "a somewhat positive spin", he deleted me, then second questioning MLBTR, he actually went ahead and terminated my commenting ability on their website.
ogc thoughts
Try and delete this comment, MLBTR! I've supported MLBTR with a lot of comments over the years, and as my loyal readers know, I don't comment without some statistical evidence of my position (or I would plainly state that this is my opinion). I guess they are feeling pretty high on their horse nowadays and feel like they can just ban people who disagree and catches them on their errors left and right.
As I've noted before, I have never deleted a comment off my site, not even that vile, denigrating, over the top, beat down that Roger left here one time regarding my analytical abilities and ability to hold a job based on those abilities, except for ones where I didn't want the language left here on my system since there could be children reading. For those, I copied the comment, noted my deletion and replacement, and took out the offending language with X's, I think, or perhaps "shoot" or "fudge", as the case may be.
I'm ashamed of MLBTR's behavior, not that they would care since they are so high and mighty now, but just to note, in case that wasn't clear. When I'm wrong, I'll admit it, openly, in the same place it was exposed, I don't feel the need to be right, I only feel the need to know the truth, whatever it may be.
So then I answered again, asking if this is MLBTR's new official policy and wondered if my comment would be deleted again. It was. Not only that, but he also banned me from being able to comment on their site. So I guess it is their new official policy to censor comments that disagrees with the writer, and in fact, made him look bad, whenever they feel like it.
Here is basically what I said: I disagreed with the writer's comment of "a somewhat positive spin" regarding Lyon, because his stats, for a reliever, isn't very good. Then once he replied with some more positive data on him, I found some other things to reinforce my point that Lyon isn't that good a reliever, which I took to be his meaning regarding "a somewhat positive spin" and his subsequent reply making more positive statements about Lyon's prospects.
And Lyon isn't really that good a relief option right now. For one thing, Lyon's K/9 has been subpar his whole career, that's not what you want to see from a good reliever. He had only good one year, in 2012, the year that probably got the writer thinking that Lyon was still good, since he noted the positive spin (else why note it?). However, that was his only season EVER in his career where he had an above par K/9. I posited that him being injured the year before and missing a lot of the season rested his arm and he was stronger in 2012, but then regressed back to normal in 2013. In any case, his K/9 in all his other seasons were in the low 6's, nothing really to build a strong bullpen around (though he could be an OK complementary piece).
Worse, his BB/9 when from good to bad starting in 2009, going from roughly 3.0 BB/9 to mid-3 BB/9 since. That, coupled with his poor K/9 has resulted in very subpar (though OK for a reliever) K/BB of near but under 2.0 K/BB ratios, which is what you want your pitchers to be at or above, if you are trying to build a good bullpen. You don't build a good bullpen by signing pitchers who can't beat 2.0 K/BB easily.
And he has not been a good reliever for a long time now, not by any sabermetric analysis, as relievers seasons are small sample sized and require looking at multiple seasons to see where his actual talent level is. And he wasn't all that good early in his career, only that he was forced into closing and doing OK in that role, and once his BB/9 got worse in 2009 - and more importantly, stayed worse - he's been a sub-par reliever since.
To conclude, for the temerity of first commenting that he was wrong by presenting his advanced metrics as "a somewhat positive spin", he deleted me, then second questioning MLBTR, he actually went ahead and terminated my commenting ability on their website.
ogc thoughts
Try and delete this comment, MLBTR! I've supported MLBTR with a lot of comments over the years, and as my loyal readers know, I don't comment without some statistical evidence of my position (or I would plainly state that this is my opinion). I guess they are feeling pretty high on their horse nowadays and feel like they can just ban people who disagree and catches them on their errors left and right.
As I've noted before, I have never deleted a comment off my site, not even that vile, denigrating, over the top, beat down that Roger left here one time regarding my analytical abilities and ability to hold a job based on those abilities, except for ones where I didn't want the language left here on my system since there could be children reading. For those, I copied the comment, noted my deletion and replacement, and took out the offending language with X's, I think, or perhaps "shoot" or "fudge", as the case may be.
I'm ashamed of MLBTR's behavior, not that they would care since they are so high and mighty now, but just to note, in case that wasn't clear. When I'm wrong, I'll admit it, openly, in the same place it was exposed, I don't feel the need to be right, I only feel the need to know the truth, whatever it may be.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Friday, February 14, 2014
Your 2014 Giants: MiLBA 2014 Arrived!
Happy First Day of Spring Training! I just got my Minor League Baseball Analyst annual for 2014 and wanted to share. And Haft reported on his blog that Sandoval looked real good (for him), and Pavlovic also reported that Sanchez learned his lesson and that Hudson is fine physically, running and doing everything without thinking about it, and is nearly 100%.
Monday, February 03, 2014
Your 2014 Giants FanFeast
The Giants had their annual FanFest and Baggerly, Schulman, Pavlovic, and Haft posted good bits of info (I would just link, but some spread it out over a number of posts, so find their links to the right if you don't already have them bookmarked, THE sources to go to for comprehensive Giants info).
Saturday, February 01, 2014
Your 2014 Giants: Timmies Talking
Now this is exactly what I was hoping for when Hudson signed. Baggarly reported this quote from Lincecum regarding what he would ask Hudson:
This is what I was hoping to hear about after Hudson was signed. This is in line with what the Giants did before in signing Morris (to mentor Cain) and Johnson (to mentor Sanchez, and probably Lincecum too), so this is probably something they thought of when pursuing him, and perhaps part of the calculus in giving Lincecum the money he got. Cain talked often about what he learned from Morris, even after Morris was gone.
And the timing was right. Atlanta decided to let Hudson go, and Lincecum needs help. He's making his chances, but there is more that can be done. And Hudson, wow, I knew he was good, but when I looked at his career numbers, he has been amazingly consistent. Roughly 3.5-ish ERA for his career, roughly 3.5 ERA before TJS, roughly 3.5 ERA after TJS, without skipping a beat. That type of consistency bespeaks his ability to adjust as hitters adjust, as his velocity declined, as his skills declined, as his body declined, and he basically found a way to be successful, despite anything the fates threw at him.
That's partly why I'm pretty confident that his ankle injury was just another bump on the road, another obstacle that he will figure out how to get the most of what he got left. He's too much of a professional to sign a contract if he's not feeling good and so far all the reports are that his recovery is right on track. And while you never know for certain - cough, DeRosa - broken ankles are not an unusual injury to get over, nothing exotic to get over, pretty cut and dried, at least to me.
And that's why I'm excited that Lincecum wants to pick from Hudson's brain his repertoire of tricks he has learned over his long career. If he can learn the sinker and how to pitch when he does not have his best stuff, I think that will more than pay for Hudson's contract AND Lincecum's contract TOGETHER. Timmies, please make it so.
“How do you throw your sinker!” Lincecum said. “Now I only throw a two-seamer that runs over the plate.”
Lincecum went on to say that he’d ask Hudson, the majors’ active leader with 205 wins, how he goes about his business when he isn’t getting results.
“When he doesn’t feel at his best, what did he turn to?” Lincecum said. “What made him feel he had a leg to stand on?”ogc thoughts
This is what I was hoping to hear about after Hudson was signed. This is in line with what the Giants did before in signing Morris (to mentor Cain) and Johnson (to mentor Sanchez, and probably Lincecum too), so this is probably something they thought of when pursuing him, and perhaps part of the calculus in giving Lincecum the money he got. Cain talked often about what he learned from Morris, even after Morris was gone.
And the timing was right. Atlanta decided to let Hudson go, and Lincecum needs help. He's making his chances, but there is more that can be done. And Hudson, wow, I knew he was good, but when I looked at his career numbers, he has been amazingly consistent. Roughly 3.5-ish ERA for his career, roughly 3.5 ERA before TJS, roughly 3.5 ERA after TJS, without skipping a beat. That type of consistency bespeaks his ability to adjust as hitters adjust, as his velocity declined, as his skills declined, as his body declined, and he basically found a way to be successful, despite anything the fates threw at him.
That's partly why I'm pretty confident that his ankle injury was just another bump on the road, another obstacle that he will figure out how to get the most of what he got left. He's too much of a professional to sign a contract if he's not feeling good and so far all the reports are that his recovery is right on track. And while you never know for certain - cough, DeRosa - broken ankles are not an unusual injury to get over, nothing exotic to get over, pretty cut and dried, at least to me.
And that's why I'm excited that Lincecum wants to pick from Hudson's brain his repertoire of tricks he has learned over his long career. If he can learn the sinker and how to pitch when he does not have his best stuff, I think that will more than pay for Hudson's contract AND Lincecum's contract TOGETHER. Timmies, please make it so.