There was only going to be seven in my series. But I decided to add a bonus additional one because of my recent interaction with a troll (he/she called themselves that).
He/she said that he/she is a realist and that I'm just rationalizing my thoughts on why I think the Giants can be competitive in 2024. Thinking through this, I realized that much of what the downcast Giants fans are doing are rationalizations of their unhappiness with the team.
ogc thoughts
This troll clearly didn't understand what rationalizing meant. He/she thought that because I had reasons backing up my logic, I was rationalizing. But that's what being realist means, you take the good and the bad, and you use facts and logic to come to a conclusion. Argue with the facts, but the conclusion is the same as long as the facts are the same. But as I've learned, many bullies tend to project their weaknesses onto others, accusing them of it when they are the one with that weakness.
Given this, and given that I was working on this series, my brain made the connection and saw that much of the complaints are rationalizations by the Zaidi Haters.
Other Teams Are Better!
I thought I would start with this one, since my last post in this series talked about this. Giants fans have been rationalizing their disdain for the 2024 Giant because they look at other teams successes, like the Dodgers, Padres, Braves, and Rangers. Look how great they are today! Why didn't Zaidi do similarly with the Giants?
As I outlined in my last post of the series, these fans are only looking at the results today, without looking at the actual situation faced by the BOps Leaders of those teams when they took over, or looking at the pain some of those teams had to go through before reaching the shiny success these fans covet so badly. The reality is that these teams went through a similar period of transition like what the Giants are going through right now, but these fans act as if their great results now just magically happened without any pain for their fans. Many of these leaders would have been fired by these Giants fans before they became successful with their plans, as most plans take time and pain before they pay off.
Giants are a .500 club
One rationalization fans have been doing is about the Giants being a .500 club throughout Zaidi's tenure, and not making any progress, and thus they think he has no plan. Seems to be realist enough, that's objectively true. But that's missing the bigger picture.
From 2018-2019, the Giants were 9th or 10th in Runs Allowed, 7th to 9th in ERA, and 13th to 14th in Runs Scored. From 2021-23, the Giants were 2nd, 7th, and 3rd in ERA, and 2nd, 7th, 14th in Runs Scored. The Giants had nothing particularly good when Zaidi started. He has rebuilt the pitching staff so that it has ranked 2nd and 3rd in the past three seasons. So while the team is still around .500, one important (one could argue most important, and I do) segment of the team is producing elite results, and that's progress.
And he continues to try to improve the staff, trading out DeSclafani and grabbing for the gold ring in Ronnie Ray. And even more recently, signed Hicks to be a starter but on a good setup reliever priced deal. Moreover, in a recent interview with Tim Kawakami, Zaidi said that Harrison isn't being traded, that he's what all teams want, and that he'll be leaning on the young prospects in the system more than on veterans, in the coming seasons. And even more recently, committed to giving the young pitching prospects the opportunity to win 26-man roster spots.
Free Agents Avoiding SF
How's this for rationalization: free agents are avoiding the Giants because of S.F.'s reputation? Many like to point out the crime and homeless situation. These people expose their political bias with their commentary on this, more so than their knowledge of the situation.
The reality is that every free agent has a preference for where they want to go, and nobody can control that. Given that we don't know exactly why top free agents have avoided the Giants up to now, any reason given is rationalization biased by what that person thinks is the problem. And throwing up crime and homelessness is a sign of their bias, because LA has even worse issues with these societal ills than SF, as well as many other cities.
What we do know is that 1B Sabean pursued hard, Carlos Lee, chose Houston because he had a huge ranch there, and wanted to live near it. The Giants were willing to offer even more money, but the player via the agent said that he got what he wanted from the Astros, don't bother.
We also know that the Giants outbid the Cubs for Greg Maddux, and he was going to chose the Giants, but the Giants were vetoed by his wife, for whatever reasons she may have had.
More recently, Yamamoto noted in his signing press conference that "If the Dodgers had not been pursuing him, there was a good chance San Francisco could have been his destination."
And we pretty much know now that Judge, Ohtani, and Yamamoto signed with the club they wanted to sign with (unfortunately, the Dodgers were the team Yamamoto liked when he was younger, not the Giants).
We Could Have Signed Gausman!
Zaidi Hater Club members bring this up all the time. They list a variety of reasons why he should have been signed by the Giants: he learned new pitches with the Giant, he wasn't used as much earlier in his career, he's not that old, etc. The only reason Gausman gets brought up all the time is because he's the rare free agent that worked out great.
All the reasons I see people saying that he was a good bet is just rationalization, because we could have listed all the same rationalizations about Ray Durham, but he instead was an injury magnet his whole time with the Giants. And for all the complaints about not signing free agents, especially mid-range ones like Gausman, they seem to have forgotten Cueto, Samardzija, Melancon, Benitez, Rowand, Renteria, even Hunter Pence, his was ugly by the end too (and, really, Cain, Lincecum, Belt, and Crawford, as well).
And the problem is that these people are narrowly focused on winning in 2022 and 2023. Gausman would have made the Giants a better team, but these people would still be complaining because they would still only be a couple of games above .500, and still would not have gotten the last wild card spot had they signed Gausman. And hindsight drives this stance, for if he had sucked, they would have moved on to their next rationalization. But because he has done well, they can point to him, as if they have a magically crystal ball that tells them which free agents will stay healthy and perform well.
All signing Gausman would have done is spend money the Giants didn't need to spend yet, as the team has been preparing itself to contend when Kyle Harrison was ready. That's why they went out and signed Correa last offseason, to prepare the team to compete once Harrison was ready. That's why they are spending all this money this offseason on younger players like Lee and Hicks, so that they are acclimated to the team in 2024 and ready to join Harrison as he (hopefully) takes the ace mantle in 2025. And getting a potential ace starter to juice the rotation in 2025, with Webb and Harrison (Cobb is old already, and with his surgery, even his 2024 isn't assured, although the surgery appears to be a success).
Meanwhile, had Gausman been signed, the Giants likely wouldn't have made the playoffs in 2022 or 2023, and these people would still be complaining about Zaidi, only they would have one less thing to point out.
Five Years!
Another rationalization for fans is that Zaidi has had five years to fix the farm system, and there has been no progress. That also seems to be realist enough, it's objectively true that in his five seasons, only Bailey has produced much from his picks, and will his hitting hold up, as some critics note?
First off, you can't get young signing free agents, generally, most offseasons, you get younger (and hopefully better) via the draft. Zaidi's first draft was in 2019, which means it has only been four years since his first try at improving things. And 2019 has not gone well at all. And based on the probabilities that I found with the draft study I did, 75% of the time, teams picking the same picks would have ended up with nobody good.
But 2020 has already been a smashing success! They have their next catcher for the rest of the decade in Patrick Bailey! He was so good in roughly three quarters of a season, that he still led the majors in a number of key catching metrics, or was close to the lead, and was a finalist for the Gold Glove award.
On top of that, Kyle Harrison has been doing spectacularly well at every level, even though he was always 3 to 6 years younger, then he was good in almost everything in the majors (unfortunately poor at one of the most important things, giving up homers, but most pitchers can and have figured it out enough that there is a rule about homers for pitchers, one every ten fly balls) while 8 years younger. If he proves to be a future ace, it will be a draft for the ages.
Then there's also Casey Schmitt, who looks good enough defensively at 3B and other positions that he can be a good utility guy, and perhaps a starter if he can get his bat going. So the 2020 draft is looking to be one of the better ones in Giants history.
The draft in 2021, 2022, 2023 all have interesting prospects, but it has only been two years, at most, since they were drafted, which is not enough time to evaluate whether they are successes or not. None of the haters acknowledge this fact, showing their lack of knowledge of the reality of prospects in the baseball draft: Prospects can take up to 4 to 6 years to figure out how to be good in the majors.
So the reality is that it hasn't been five years yet, and, more importantly, Zaidi and his FO looks more like a success than failure, thus far, with a Gold Glove caliber starting catcher for the next decade, and potentially an young ace who would head the rotation for five to ten years, once he gets going.
Giants Don't Draft Well
Speaking of the draft, rationalization of the Giants history of drafting comes up with the mention that the Giants hasn't drafted a starting OF forever, or that the Giants haven't drafted a starting player in over a decade, blaming the Giants FO.
The reality is that drafting is very hard. Over 50% of the #1 overall picks have failed to reach 18.0 bWAR in the 50 years I studied. If a team is playoff competitive, then the odds drop to 11% and 5%, depending if you are a good playoff club or not.
So, for example, just based on the odds I found in my draft study, for Zaidi's 2019 picks, just based on history, 75% of teams with those picks would end up without finding a good player. Here are all the odds of not finding a good player for Zaidi's drafts:
- 2019: 75%
- 2020: 67%
- 2021: 75%
- 2022: 84%
- 2023: 75%
So, clearly, for any individual draft, the odds are highly against a team finding a good player. With the above, basically Zaidi will find a good player about every four drafts.
On top of that, as noted above, it takes most prospects 4 to 6 years to become a good player in the majors. So, even if Zaidi had hit in his first draft, it might not be until 2023-25 before he becomes good. If he instead finds the guy in 2022, his fourth draft, then that good player might not produce until 2026 to 2028.
So, if you want to be sure about Zaidi's draft acumen, you have to wait until 2026 to 2028 to see who has produced well enough to be considered good. Thus, you have to try to read the tea leaves with every season.
The biggest tea leaves is Kyle Harrison. He has impressed with every season he's been with the Giants. His strikeout rates are so elite that his high walk rate is actually okay, he can win with that ratio in the majors. Moreover, he produced well enough in the majors in his first try.
But he might still need time, both Lincecum and Cain needed a full season to put it all together. Bumgarner, however, was good from the get go, so it varies. And, of course, Foppert, Williams, Ainsworth, Lowry all flamed out for one reason or another, despite good stats rising up the minors. So you have to straddle between the good and the bad that might happen.
Hence why I give Zaidi a good score so far in drafting, even though it's still too early to fully say.
- 2019: so far, he has struck out, nobody really looks viable yet, but there are some possibilities in Tyler Fitzgerald, Grant McCray, and Trevor McDonald (again, only 25% chance of finding a good player)
- 2020: Patrick Bailey and Kyle Harrison looks like hits, and we'll see if they are extra baggers. Harrison looks like a future good player, Bailey looks to be at least a useful player, and very possibly a good player (he's only 25 YO next season, projected at 2.4 and 2.8 WAR by ZiPS and Steamer, two best known projection systems, and with some growth, should be close to the threshold I use for Good players, which is 18.0 WAR, when he reaches free agency, though I expect the Giants to sign him to a long term contract before that happens, perhaps even as soon as this spring). Casey Schmitt looks like he can be serviceable as a great defensive utility player, and potentially a starter if he can figure out hitting. The rest have some good and bad points, and are all still possibilities, like RJ Dabovich and Ryan Murphy.
- 2021: Highlights include Mason Black, Vaun Brown, and Landen Roupp. Black did really well in AA last season as 23 YO, and rose to AAA and did okay there, good ERA but too wild, and most importantly, continued to strike out a ton of hitters at every level he was at, double digits as a pro, and good walk rates until he reached AAA. He should be reaching the majors in 2024 or 2025, likely due to too many injuries if 2024, but I can see him forcing his way up in 2025, he's been a force in striking out guys.
- 2022: Carson Whisenhunt is one to watch here, MLB Pipeline ranked him 70th overall. He was only 22 YO in his first full pro season and rose from A-ball to AA, registering a 3.20 ERA in AA, along with a 12.4 K/9 and 2.45 K/BB (high 5.0 BB/9 in AA, but low 2.6 and 2.8 in A-ball and Advanced A, before that), and an overall 2.45 ERA in 2023. Prospects making AA or higher by 22 are one to watch, generally. And Wade Meckler has already made the majors. Reggie Crawford and Hayden Birdsong are ones to watch as well. Birdsong also made AA, and he was only 21 YO, but didn't do particularly well (7.04 ERA), but struck out a ton (12.9 K/9) and while walking too many, a 2.54 K/BB ratio is good. Crawford is a two way, but more likely to be a pitcher.
- 2023: It's very early to say for certain, but Bryce Eldridge had a good pro start (already ranked for one of the top prospects in EV last season, and he just got out of high school), and Walker Martin got a huge bonus, so he'll be interesting to follow as well.
- IFA: I'm including this although it is not a draft, he did sign International Free Agents. Rayner Arias is one very interesting prospect who massively produced in his first season as a Giant. There are others like Aeverson Arteaga, Diego Velasquez and Adrian Sugastrey.
Another reality is that while the Giants haven't drafted a starting OF since Chili Davis, these people are ignoring Will Clark, Robbie Thompson, Matt Williams, John Burkett, Matt Cain, Noah Lowry, Tim Lincecum, Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Joe Panik, and Logan Webb. And especially ignoring 3 in 5, you don't have that without some excellent drafting.
It's getting so bad with their rationalization that they are now retconing the great drafts that Sabean had and crediting it to luck!!! As I've shown in my posts on the draft, Sabean has beaten the odds over a long period of time, as well as hundreds of drafted personnel. If anything, understanding how bad the odds are in drafting good players, it is much easier for me to point out and prove that these bad drafts are just the odds facing teams.
Let's take Zaidi's drafts as I outlined above the odds were very likely that each individually would end up with no good players selected. The odds of these five drafts ending up with no good players is still 23.7%!!! That's one quarter of the time that teams would end up with nothing over five drafts! And it can take up to his 11th season to see for certain that he didn't find and develop a good player.
And as I noted, Harrison, from just his second draft, looks good enough to be his first good player drafted. Eldridge, although just out of high school and little pro experience, he still was on the leaderboard for EV, even higher than Marco Luciano, who was also in the top 10 (Eldridge was 5th, Luciano was 8th). Whisenhunt only has one full pro season, and already is in the Top 70, and was ranked 6th among LHP by MLB Pipeline, and was noted as having the best changeup in the minors (the article also noted that Harrison has the highest ceiling among the LHP, and he has the best fastball), so he's another one to highlight as a potential good player. And Birdsong reached AA at age 21 YO, and Black wasn't that far behind our top prospects, reaching AA at age 23, then AAA also at age 23, and producing good ERA's in both leagues.
Sure, prospects need to prove themselves, but at the same time, you have to give him credit for finding, targeting, signing, and developing Harrison to get to this point where he has succeeded in showing ace level performances all through the minors, and had a nice start to his major league career. And Whisenhunt played at three different minor league levels, reaching AA in his first season, and still did well at that level, so he could be reaching the majors in 2024, and should reach by 2025. And Eldridge at only 18 YO, was on the leader board that covers all of the minors, beating out college draftees and experienced minor league hitters who presumably has much more experience and expertise, being 3-10 years older.
So, while it's too early to say that Zaidi's drafts are bad, there's plenty of reasons to think that he's found at least one good player already, and perhaps as many as three, if Eldridge and Whisenhunt continues to perform well and rise up the minors to the majors. Then there's Birdsong and Black to consider as possibles as well.
Realist, Not Rationalist
Being a realist, which I've tried to be for all of my over 50 years as a Giants fan, I try to take account of all the good AND the bad when evaluating the Giants chances. Even when my friends in elementary school was sure the Giants were going to win, I told them that they weren't (the 70's was a sad period to be a Giants fan, but I loved every minute I stayed up late at night, even on school nights - sorry Mom! - listening to the game with my transistor radio under my pillow, then the Jerry Gordon Golden Age of Comedy would come on afterward, and I would stay up even later), just as when fans were down on Sabean and the Giants, I said that they would be the Team of the 2010 Decade. An analyst can't just look at just the bad or just the good, they have to see both sides, and make their best judgement using the latest theories.
My wife says I have to be right all the time, but my more nuanced take on myself is that I want to be right (or put another way, perfect) all the time, but realized the futility of that when I was in college, and that's when one of my Mom's advice came to the fore: "Whatever choices you make at any time, you did the best you could do." And then my corollary that I added to that was "If you don't like the results, learn from it so that you can do the right choice in the future."
So I won't make a big deal if I can be proven wrong, I happily learn, change my opinion, and move on, and that is partly why I even bother to use social media, to see if I'm totally off or if my position can be hardened through social discourse. Hopefully I'm getting better over the years of analyzing baseball and the Giants, and I know I'm not always right, but hopefully I'm learning and improving with any unit of time you want to measure.
For example, I dipped into the past to read a few posts I have written on Zaidi. I think this early one about what Giants fans aren't understanding about Zaidi is a good one to show what I mean. I think it was a very realistic take on Zaidi, one that still mostly holds today. I think that it captured Zaidi's MO very well and he's still executing on that today, to the consternation of many.
Only thing I would add is that for long term deals, he's looking more for difference makers who are still ideally in their 20's, such as Correa would have been had he been diagnosed as healthy long term. If he was able to produce to that $360M contract, he would have produced 5-8 WAR in 2023, and that would have put the Giants into playoff range, 84-87 wins, especially given that it likely would have meant that Crawford, who was horrible at SS in 2023, likely would not have gotten so much playing time in 2023 (he was -1.3 bWAR, so that might be another win). Of course, he didn't produce to that level for the Twins, unfortunately for them. That also applies to Lee and Hicks, lesser deals, but with hopes of them producing at good to great levels if given the right circumstances and opportunities.
Wasn't Realistic about Bart and Ramos, Though
I was wrong about the next wave being in a couple of years with Bart and Ramos. It was a case of prospects being hard to project when there are a lot of question marks about them, especially as far down the minors as they were, as well as a case of they unfortunately were the only two worth touting at that time, as two first round drafts who initially did well. I clearly screwed up here.
That's also a case of my relying on my older stats on the draft, in the first study I did (where I thought it was still good odds for Top 5 overall picks, 43% success rate=57% failure rate to be good), whereas my latest study showed that even #2 overall picks fail to be good over 70% of the time, so I have been much more circumspect in my projections since I released that study, as well as wanting to see more from the prospect before relying on Top 100 rankings (Bart ranked pretty high, in my fantasy baseball league play, I learned that even Top 40 prospects were very iffy, that things only got more certain in the Top 20, which is where Bart was back then, but was still iffy, which I should have known, seeing many #1 overall Top 100 prospects flame out badly).
I feel surer about Harrison's case as the anointed prospect upon which they plan to rebuild with. Unlike Bart or Ramos, he has performed very well in his peripherals (particularly K/9 and K/BB) at every level of the minors he's been at, and has performed well in the majors, for a 21 YO rookie. And not just performed, but he has been elite, for example, he has the second most strikeouts in the minors over the past three seasons (and likely would have been first if he didn't get promoted to the majors in 2023, or if his innings usage wasn't suppressed), and he's been the top ranked LHP for two years running now, and rated as having the best fastball in this class.
2024 was his first season without a great ERA, but it was still a season of growth. In his first six starts, he was very wild, in 15.2 IP, he had 21 (!) walks vs. 27 strikeouts (12.1 BB/9, 15.5 K/9, 1.29 K/BB, which is a very poor ratio). From his 7th start to the majors, he had 11 starts, 40.2 IP, 23 BB, 65 K (5.1 BB/9, 14.4 K/9, 2.83 K/BB, which is a good ratio). Then he reached the majors and in 7 starts, he had stellar peripherals of 2.9 BB/9, 9.1 K/9, and 3.18 K/BB (average for NL is 2.57), and he did this as a 21 YO rookie with minimal (84.0 IP in AA and 66.1 IP in AAA before reaching majors) experience in upper minors. I mean, he dominated MLB hitters to the tune of 9.1 K/9 (better than average) while he was 8.2 years younger on average.
Bart I gave too much credit to his making the Top 100 rankings. I forgot that these rankings typically give too much credit to where they were drafted. He's likely to be traded away near the end of spring training, as he doesn't have any options left, and should be held throughout spring training before unloading him for another team's project, in case there's an injury to Bailey or Murphy. He still have potential value because he was showing improved defensive value, but the Giants don't have the time or need to work on improving him, and other teams who are rebuilding could use a prospect like him to give opportunity to, in order to see if he can blossom with them. He does have decent power, if he could ever tap into it.
Ramos, I fell in love with him too fast (it happens!), when he did so well in his first full season in Augustus, then did well again in San Jose, without accounting for his age difference, which is important in evaluating prospects. When I wrote that, it was still early, and he was projecting well, plus 2020 probably set him back at least one season. Sometimes things out of your control happens.
You never know what obstacles that might fall in front of your lead guys (Foppert, Williams, Lowry), and then you hopefully can pivot to other players, like Harrison and Luciano (Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Posey), and then suddenly a Bailey appears (Sandoval and Belt). Plans are made to be broken, because no plan ever goes as planned, that's why being agile has been the mantra for the past decade or two, so if a prospect falters (Ramos), hopefully a prospect rises to take his place (Luciano), without losing too many seasons.
Thoughts on Heliot Ramos for 2024
I still believe that Ramos can be a nice starter, but how good is the question. I still believe he can be a good starter, though, based on how well he hit in AAA in 2023. Here's what I would analyze now based on Ramos' performances:
- 2018: he was -3.4 years younger than the league average (roughly 3-4 years younger than most players), and hit .709 OPS as an 18 YO player. That's not a high OPS, but if you look at prior seasons, 18 YO's who can hit at least .700 OPS in A-ball often did well in the majors. I was basing most of my thoughts on this, but should have tempered my opinion since he did struggle with striking out, as well as not performing that well relative to the league.
- 2019: he killed in San Jose, .885 OPS, where he was only -3.5 years younger, but struggled at .742 OPS in AA, where he was -5.1 years younger
- 2020: lost a season of development, as well as enough practice to maintain skills, I would suggest
- 2021: hit okay .756 OPS in AA (-2.9 years; average NL LF/RF hit .770 OPS; I think missing 2020 required him made him inconsistent, he would hit well then be cold, he's been good when this close in age to the league average) but only .722 OPS in AAA (-5.7 years younger; here's where another of my errors kicks in, I forgot about how much older AAA and the majors are)
- 2022: hit only .654 OPS in AAA (-4.7 years), he's still only 22 YO though, and the best prospect typically make AA by age 22, so he's ahead of development schedule by that metric
- 2023: hit a great .928 OPS in AAA (-3.6 years), he's only 23 YO but still -5.2 years in the majors, where he hit poorly again.
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