Your 2014 Giants: 18th Rotational PQS

Sorry, I missed a few rotations while out on vacation.  Covering the 18th and some prior ones in this installment of the series.


ogc thoughts

The pitching has actually been still going good from a PQS perspective.  Since my last report, the Giants pitching staff has turned in 4 DOM starts out of 5 in each turn of the rotation.  That's 80% DOM for 15 games, over two weeks.  That's superstar status for any player doing this, even better when the rotation as a whole is doing this.

Unfortunately, the Giants have lost 7 of those 12 DOM starts.  Normally, I think there should be no more than 2-3 losses.  Not that the DOM starts have actually been good starts in terms of runs given up, what has happened is that in spite of good peripherals in the game, the other team would end up bunching up their hits or hitting a homer with runners, and scoring a lot of runs.  They have suffered a lot of BABIP bad luck, hits happening at the worse times.

Thus a lot of the DOM PQS starts would not be considered a Quality Start under the old rules on that, at least 6 innings, 3 or less runs.  Still, that is what PQS strives to do, distinguish between whether the pitcher was actually just bad that day or if he was just unlucky.  The Giants pitchers have been massively unlucky lately.

Cain, Lincecum, and Vogelsong had DOM starts in each rotational turns, giving them three.  Hudson had 2 out of 3, but Bumgarner only had 1 out of 3.  And he just had another non-DOM start, he has really been scuffling lately, which is very disappointing given how well he pitched last season per PQS, he was a true ace last season, but this season he's been more a mid-rotation starter, what with all his DIS starts.  Though, to be fair, most teams would be happy to have a mid-starter with his DOM%, heck some teams would be happy period with him being their ace, he only looks bad in comparison with our starters.   But a staff ace normally would be able to keep his DIS% at 10% and under and he is now at 17%.

Overall, Hudson is at 63%, both Bumgarner and Lincecum are at 61%, Cain is at 54%, and Vogelsong is at 56%.  And the total is now at 58% DOM and 14% DIS, very good for pitchers and great for a rotation o be doing this, normally we should be talking about winning streaks, and not June Swoon.

Of course, it doesn't help that the hitters suddenly went cold in June either.  The main culprits over the last month were Morse, Crawford, Pagan/Blanco, Hicks/Panik, and Sanchez hasn't been hitting either, though still driving in runs, he's 5th on the team in the last month (to be precise, 28 days) while being 9th in PA.  In addition, nobody is very hot either, Pence is mildly above what we expect, but everyone else is below or much below.   And Belt hasn't helped either, he has only hit .105/.143/.263/.406, and that includes his game winning homer he hit too.  Looks like he needs to get his batting stroke back too.

It was like the flu, spreading through the team.  First the relievers got it, giving up all those hits and runs, particularly Romo and Machi.  Machi was expected, he was just too good to not have been lucky and waiting for regression, but Romo was very unexpected given how well he had pitched up until the Swoon. Then the starters had their bad patch, where they had few DOM starts, but that was only one turn of the rotation, then while they have had DOM starts, the bad BABIP has been striking them since too.  Then the hitters started struggling to find their bearings, and were probably all trying to hit 5-run homers in every at-bat.   I think it will take a hitter getting white hot, like Posey did in 2010, and that will relax the other hitters enough so that they can be themselves at the plate.

Meanwhile, I think Sabean is going to shock the team with some player move, maybe that will get the players to reset themselves and start playing the way they know how to play the game, like they were doing for the first two months of the season.

As I noted, Arias is on the bubble performance-wise, though a beat reported noted that there's no way he goes as the Giants signed him to a two year contract and still got 1.5 years on it to go.  But when the alternative is losing Adrianza for nothing, I think the Giants will have to consider it.  Still, probably unlikely to happen since Panik is not hitting the ball particularly well consistently, he's down again, and Adrianza is still on the DL, plus Hicks isn't doing much either and would be a cheaper drop, plus Perez could always be sent back to AAA.  But things can change quickly in the next week, you never know.

And then there is Vogelsong, who has pitched well in terms of PQS, but a 3.92 ERA isn't the greatest (but basically the same as Lincecum and better than Cain), and Sabean was kicking the Shark's tire with the Cubs (but never got a call back), and there's still Price available.  Plus Sabean said that nobody is untouchable in the system, so maybe a trade that harks back to the Vida Blue trade, where the Giants gave up, like, 7-8 players in exchange, could net us Price or another ace level starter.  Though the dominoes would fall with a move like that, if Vogie is in the bullpen then where goes Petit or Gutierrez or whoever.