I'm going on a rant about BP, feel free to ignore this post if that topic don't interest you. [sorry, forgot about this, been tied up with work, just publishing now, no time to update]
ogc big picture thoughts
As long time readers know, I've been angry about Baseball Prospectus' chapter on the Giants in their 2010 Annual, where they openly asked for Brian Sabean to be fired for not understanding how to build a baseball team. As we all saw, that's about as good a prediction and timing as the Dewey Wins paper that Truman holds up, and IBM's chairman long ago saying that the market for mainframes was at most, five.
And I had no problem with them taking the bold step like that, when they believe wholeheartedly in it, just like I had done already after 2008 season, saying that the Giants were going to be headed into a great competitive period, and would win a championship, as well as being the Team of the 2010's. I may not agree with the conclusion or the message, just like I disagreed with most Giants fans back then, and hated that they were openly hoping he gets replaced, but I knew that I was the lone wolf on this for the most part, as I was the only person I saw on MCC defending Sabean in any way during that period.
BP Wimping Out
But I had a problem that BP then just pretended like they never said such an outrageous thing. They didn't apologize or at least acknowledge how horribly wrong their conclusion was in the 2011 book (I checked out the chapter at the local book store). I would have bought it had there been some sort of acknowledgement, with the 2010 book, I had probably been buying it every season since around 2002, at least. And, of course, they didn't say anything in the 2012 Annual either.
But after the Giants won the World Series again in 2012, and there was still no acknowledgement in their 2013 Annual, I knew that they were never going to say anything, so I didn't even bother looking at their 2015 book. I wasn't going to give one additional penny ever.
I have no problem with boldness of BP, especially to the point where they publicly asked for a GM to be fired, but if you are going to have the balls to publish something as controversial as that, you need to own up to that, grow a pair, and acknowledge that you were wildly wrong with that, and apologize to Giants fans everywhere, because, what if the Giants did heed their recommendation?
BP at it Again
So, the reason for this rant is because BP is at it again, they recently published an article, Let It Eat: Valley of the Giants where they talked about how direction-less the Giants are (I was alerted to this by another Giants fan, @rog61, on Twitter). He quoted from them: "The Giants are 2019's most direction-less franchise."
I'm kind of surprised that they went there, given how Zaidi is associated with Billy Beane/A's and Andrew Friedman/Dodger's, who well known saber-friendly organizations with saber philosophies. I know it's not the same writer, but still, one would think given Z's pedigree that they would give him more rope. Perhaps BP is as biased against the Giants as they have appeared to me, to have been, since I bought their first annual long ago.
This is actually very similar to the article that Ann Killion put up long ago, asking what the Giants direction is, after Bonds was let go, and I answered, "Giants Identity is clearly Pitching." It was pitching, glorious pitching, and that was going to lead us back to winning. Interestingly, if you read through the comments to that post, you'll find that most are very similar to the comments being made today about the Giants. It's been like I've been saying, deja vu for me to see that Giants fans have not learned anything in the past dozen years, and spouting the same things.
Zaidi Said It Loud and Clear: Pitching and Defense
And if BP was paying any attention to what Zaidi has said in his interviews, starting with his intro press conference, they would have understood that Zaidi thinks very much like Sabean does: in a pitcher's park, which results in low-scoring environment, you need to have good defense, both pitching and fielding. He even went as far to say that he wanted to boost the Giants defense, particularly in the corner OF positions. That he did by adding Parra and Pillar to the team.
He has taken a superb defensive team and made it superior. I checked the other day and the Giants were at +31 DRS (Defensive Runs Saved), way ahead of the second place team, which had +16 DRS, and I believe the third place team had +11 DRS. Counting the players who he inherited, the Giants got +23 DRS, which still would have been good for leading the majors in fielding defense, but then he added Pillar, Parra, Solarte, Kratz, adding +8 DRS so far, while letting go free agents like Pence, Hanson, Hundley who, altogether, while Forever Giants, totaled -25 DRS. Thus, his changes have accounted for a change of +33 DRS, and counting for the rest of the 2019 season.
In addition, he has added three interesting RP to the staff, in Nick Vincent, Trevor Gott, and Travis Bergen, and an interesting SP in Drew Pomeranz, as well as retained Derek Holland. And thus far, the pitching staff has a 3.10 ERA (as of games to April 17) with a FIP of 3.72, both very good.
Zaidi's Strategy vs. Tactics
Of course, I didn't read the actual BP article, only the one sentence recap that they are direction-less. But it don't take much to divine what exactly they are talking about. It is about the endless Waiver Roulette that Zaidi has been playing. It is about trading for Joe and Reed, then dumping them while acquiring Pillar and Austin. It is about having a full-up bullpen where nobody can be optioned out to the minors, and on top of that, there's 8 relievers, which means one less seat on the bench for a position player. It's about the only major trade before Pillar being for Trevor Gott, in terms of the roster, the only major signings were Holland and Pomeranz.
As I wrote in another post, not too long ago, none of us know what Zaidi's plans are, exactly. We can make our best guesses, like the blind men holding different parts of the elephant, but there's likely to be crucial information that eludes us, making any projection problematic for now, until a couple of years out, when everything will seem clear.
So, for all the talk from fans about trading Bumgarner for a pot of gold prospects, the Giants could also end up signing Bumgarner to an extension, like the Dodgers just did with Kershaw, 3 years worth, north of $75M for Bum vs. what Clayton got. We just don't know, that's why I think we won't really have a great idea of how good Zaidi is until after his third season: what he does this season, who he choses as the new manager for 2020, and then give Zaidi and his new manager two seasons to show what they can do together, plus probably Bart joining the majors, and maybe Heliot too.
The Known Known
Still, the following makes sense given what he has said and then subsequently done.
One thing he has said (Ray Woodson Podcast) is that with a pitcher's park, your team works mainly in a low-scoring environment, and thus the Giants need to focus on improving their defense, both pitching and fielding. That's the general goal, the framework within which one can see the rest of his moves.
Second is that he keeps on saying that he's going to improve the team, move by move, and sometimes the move might seem inconsequential, but sometimes down the line, they turn out to be good players, like Chris Taylor, like Max Muncy. In addition, this works hand in hand with another motto he has said a couple of times, which is that his type of baseball is about making 51/49 decisions all the time, trusting in your research and beliefs, and following them even when they seem to be going against you. The idea being that the goal is to improve the team, little by little, and eventually, you have enough of those, it becomes significant.
And that's why he didn't want to characterize what he'll be doing as a rebuild or a reset, because each move could be viewed as either a rebuild or a reset. So the acquisition of Pillar could be viewed as a reset type of move, improving the team, but for the short term, whereas the acquisition of Austin could be viewed as a rebuild type of move, improving the team, but he's young, so there's many years of control, and still has some development to go (platoon player, not that great vs. RHP), so we don't know if he's a long term solution or a short term bandaid, much like Joe and Reed.
That's a lot like Sabean. Some years he's loading the gun again and other years, he's talking about looking beyond short term, looking for youth and/or guys who the Giants control for more than one year (both Pillar and Austin are controlled by the Giants multiple years).
Third, in spite of what's been a sad offense, not just this year but also prior years, his focus with his moves so far, at least in terms of the MLB roster, is pitching and defense. Pomeranz is gold if he returns to his 2017 form, Holland too if he repeats 2018 (remember, he started off 2018 slow too, then was great for the rest of the season), and he added to the bullpen, which was already strong (admittedly, he did that expecting to have traded off some pieces during the off-season, which did not happen). Then he added Parra and then Pillar, both superb defensive outfielders, fixing up the OF defense, which was his one specific goal for roster construction that I heard all off-season.
So clearly, Zaidi has been mostly about pitching and fielding defense. The clues are not only out there, it is pretty obvious too, if you look at the team without a jaundiced eye, as BP seems to continue to do, and I think their "Giants Directionless" article will eventually rise to be about as good and timely as their "Fire Sabean" chapter in their 2010 Annual.
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