Consistency in Starting Pitching Key to Repeated Playoff Success

I tweeted a lot of this, and then realized it would be better if I wrote a post on my blog.  :^)

Andy Baggarly tweeted:

Reds were NL's highest scoring team last year. Bumgarner facing their A lineup. And he's thrown 3 perfect innings thus far w/4 strikeouts.

Madison Bumgarner handling Reds easily is prime example of what I've been blogging about for years now, pitching is better than hitting in terms of consistency.

Ace Starting Pitchers' Consistency
That is, for ace level pitchers, consistency is something you can rely on relative to hitters. It goes back to the old metric, the Quality Start, and how many a pitcher gets. I've been studying PQS, Pure Quality Start, a new saber version of the Quality Start created by Baseball Forecaster, on my site, and if you look at starting pitchers, you see that the elite aces consistently (again, relative to hitters) have quality starts. 

Consistently a large percentage of starts, 50% minimum by my eyeball for the best starters, the best, elite Ace starters like Tim Lincecum in the 70%+ range, are quality starts for the best pitchers.  That is the closest you can get to consistency in baseball.  Hitters go on hot and cold streaks, but even the best hitters can have a poor week or two or three.  That is what dogged Barry Bonds reputation for years until 2002's playoffs.  And when a series is over in a week to 10 days, any hitter can be rendered impotent by the opposing team.

Consistency in the short term, however, is much more likely with ace-level starting pitchers like Lincecum, Matt Cain, and looking good for Bumgarner (and hopefully Zachary Wheeler once he develops fully).  When your team can count on you to throw a quality start every 2 out of 3 starts (or 67% dominant starts - DOM - per PQS terminology, only elites do that), even against good scoring teams, that is very good reliability and consistency.  If you have a rotation like that, you can count on a quality start in 3-4 out of 5 games, 4-5 out of 7 games.

And teams compile a great record in DOM games.  Baseball Forecaster compiled stats on DOM and found the ERA to be 2.39.  As you can see in my study (side bar) about pitching wins and losses, the Giants were 65-23 when they held the other team to 3 runs or less and in the NL, 908-278.  It is not like basketball or football, where the best teams can win 90% of the time, but that works out to 74% of the time (65/88) for the Giants, 77% of the time for NL teams, which is dominating for baseball.

Of course, that winning percentage assumes some average to bad pitchers in the mix for the other team, but at minimum, it sets a very high standard for the opposing team to match up with the Giants playoff pitching rotation.  And not many teams lineups will pass through our gauntlet of ace-level starting pitchers easily.

BP Research Confirms Starting Pitcher Dominance
And this is confirmed by Baseball Prospectus' study of Playoff Success in their Baseball Between the Numbers book (for some reason it is out of print already).  When they examined the correlation between having three good starters and winning in the playoffs, it was one of the most significant that they found, among the metrics they examined.  And this correlation was even stronger when the team has a good overall starting rotation:  the only metrics stronger was having a good closer (per their WRXL reliever metric) and yielding a low opposing team batting average (which is best accomplished by having a very high K/9).  Their study shows the competitive advantage of having a great rotation.

And the PQS DOM stats shows the mechanics of how that works out when a team has that advantage.  The top pitchers are much more consistent in throwing a DOM start (yes, we all know this intuitively, but the PQS DOM stats gives a number to it).  When you have a rotation of them, you have a great chance to win roughly two-thirds of those starts.  Again, it is not like football or basketball, but that is dominating for baseball.  Compared to, say, simply a good rotation, where you only get DOM starts in roughly 40% of the starts.

Having such a good rotation won't win you series every season you get into the playoffs.  But it surely improves your chances of advancing greatly when you consistently get DOM starts in 67% (or more) of the starts vs. 40% of the starts for a simply good rotation.

Not Just Great Starts, Avoiding Bad Starts
And it helps not only in terms of more DOM games, but it also helps in reducing DIS (or disaster) starts.  When a pitcher has a disaster start, in their study, they had a 11.19 ERA.  That pretty much guarantees a loss for your team.  Good pitchers still have disaster starts (DIS) sometimes.  Sanchez had 18% last season, Bumgarner had 22%.  Elite pitchers like Lincecum and Cain had  DIS% of 18% and 6%, respectively (Lincecum had off year, had DIS% of 6% in 2009, 0% in 2008).

Thus, by having a good to great starter with high DOM%, you increase your chances of a well pitched start.  But the flip side of that is that also means less starts where you can possibly have a DIS start.  Those who can keep their DIS starts at a below 20% rate are among the best in the majors, and those below 10% are the elite.

PQS analysis, both DOM% and DIS%, helps to explain how having so many good starters in your rotation gives your team a competitive advantage in the playoffs.  Great DOM% makes it easier to win any particular start of the pitcher, but great DIS% also keeps your team in the game by keeping the score close, and giving them the opportunity to win a tight game.  The more DIS starts you have, the more games you pretty much automatically lose.

The Ying-Yang of Dirty:  Why I Wanted to Keep Him
Jonathan Sanchez is an example of how inconsistency, particularly a poor DIS, hurts a starter's ERA.  Over the past three seasons, he has been 45%Dom/31%DIS in 2008 (5.01 ERA), 41%DOM/24%DIS in 2009 (4.24 ERA), and 48%DOM/18%DIS in 2010 (3.07 ERA).  Clearly, progress with reducing DIS starts has helped his ERA, even though his percentage of DOM starts have not really increased.

Here is why I have been a Sanchez supporter over the years when people want to trade him.  In 2008, first half, he was 53%DOM/21%DIS, which put him among the best starters in the majors, before tiring out in the second half.  He screwed up his mechanics early in 2009, but in the second half, when he was going good, he had a 60%DOM/13%DIS.  In 2010, he had no excuse for his poor first half (33%DOM/22%DIS) but he turned it on by walking his talk with a stellar 67%DOM/13%DIS in the second half.  As I noted, 70%+ is what the elite starters do.

If he can do that consistently over a whole season, you got yourself an elite starter to go with Lincecum and Cain.  If he didn't tire out during the playoffs, we might have won series in less total games played.  If he does do that consistently, he would fit right in between Lincecum and Cain in terms of DOM/DIS PQS proportions.

This is why I argued to keep him while people were asking me when we should trade a starting pitcher to get a hitter.  He could be an elite starter, and is for long stretches of the season, though not over an entire season yet.   That makes our rotation that much more powerful a gauntlet for the other team to get through in the playoffs.

My Serious Doubts About Giants Insider(s)

Recently there was a huge controversy about Barry Zito in the SF Chronicle.  Bruce Jenkins wrote that a Giants insider told him the following:

... here's a message to all those fans who have seen enough of Zito: He's walking a very fine line within the organization.

A source close to the team indicated Tuesday that there is "exasperation" with Zito, that his status as the No. 5 starter is "definitely not safe," and that the team would even consider buying out his expensive contract before Opening Day if that's what it takes to say farewell.

Zito has the rest of spring to either resurrect his worth to the Giants or show an opposing team that he'd be valuable in a trade, according to others familiar with the situation.

That just brought out a lot of Giants fans out of the woodwork agreeing and saying we should just move on and get rid of Zito.

Giants Thoughts

I had wrote about Giants fan's misconceptions about Zito previously when this happened, but didn't really address the issue about the insider much previously.  But it really bothered me and a column on The Crazy Crabbers about fans giving Sabean and the Giants a honeymoon period got me thinking further on it.  Here is what I wrote there:

I think the problem for a lot of people is that they have believed that they know better than Sabean, when they should just be quiet and let Sabean and the Giants do their stuff, they are the people who need to give the Giants a honeymoon period.

I think it's legit to complain if there is anything that don't make sense, but a lot of people complain about something when there is nothing to complain about. Like the whole Zito controversy, once that came out, they leapt upon it like starving rats on a crust of bread, and talked about dropping Zito for nothing, just to be rid of him, and would rather start someone unproven like Tanner or over the hill, like Suppan, instead.

If there was any proposed move this off-season that would jeopardize the Giants chances to repeat the greatest, it is the proposed move of releasing Zito for nothing. Not only would we not have gotten as a good a performance from the replacement, most likely, but the odds would be great that one of our competitors, particular the Dodgers, who seem to love collecting Giants castoffs (perhaps because Colletti don't trust Dodger scouts?), and the Padres, as Zito is from the San Diego area and lives in the LA area. He would sign for the minimum with them and provide pretty good performance at little cost.

So not only would those fans (and apparently a Giants insider or more) shoot themselves in the foot for the team repeating in that regard, they then boost the chances of one of our competitors at the same time, as Zito would be one of the better starters for the Padres and an improvement over in the #5 spot for the Dodgers, pushing them up while also pushing us down.

Then again, these are the same people who, at one point or another, suggested that the Giants should do one of the following or the team is doomed and/or stupid: 1) trade Lincecum for Rios, 2) trade Cain for Prince Fielder or Rios, because he's a "loser", 3) trade Dirty for Corey Hart, 4) trade Bumgarner for offense, 5) select hitter instead of Bumgarner in the draft, or 6) select Smoak instead of Posey in the draft. Any of those happen, I'm pretty sure the Giants don't win the World Series championship in 2010, yet they still think they are smarter than Sabean.

That just sticks in my craw:  that this was planted by an insider with the media.  Most people who wrote about this agree that a Giants insider leaked this in order to motivate Zito to do better.

Release the Insiders Instead
The Giants hopefully will clean out their organization of such insiders who don't understand the Giants or baseball that well.  I have gone over how stupid a move it would be to do this from a baseball standpoint.  What I realize more and more in connecting the dots is that this insider is possibly in a position of authority or influence, and thus the Giants might actually be considering this stupid move.

Worse, if this was just a stunt to motivate Zito, I'll bet now that person is (or persons are) patting themselves on the back because Zito has been great ever since then.  However, it was and still is the wrong move, Zito frankly has a fragile ego and he has not dealt well with the stress and expectations that the contract placed upon his shoulders.  He only started figuring out how to handle it emotionally at the end of the 2008 season, after nearly two years after signing.

Adding more stress and strain is maybe a good move with a young man still learning to be a major leaguer, it could be something he builds off of, but for someone like Zito who is already on the downside of his career, this could be something that shoves him closer to his retirement.  Why risk that when we still owe him so much money?

And the thing is, as I noted in the other post, Zito is actually very valuable to us right now given our rotation, he gives us a solid rotation, top to bottom, something probably 26-27 other teams would love to have, is reliable for a full season of starts plus roughly 200 IP.  Ask the Twins if they would rather go with Francisco Liriano's up and down Russian Roulette with their ace starter, they might prefer Zito's constancy and reliability.  Or how about the Brewers who just lost their ace Zach Greinke (he hurt himself playing pick-up basketball).

I'm just counting my blessings that Zito was not affected this time.  We might not be so lucky the next time the Giants insider speaks again.

Serious Doubts About Giants Management
This is my first serious doubts about Giants management since Peter Magowan retired.  I have been generally positive towards Giants management over the past few years because, whether they actually had a plan, a Giants Way, or not, I liked the direction the franchise was headed in and the pieces that were being put into place.  And I do believe that they have a plan, but that we are just not privy to all the details.

At minimum, Sabean has been saying for years now (I believe since the 2002 World Series, at minimum) that baseball was undergoing one of their foundational shifts that happens about once every generation, and that the game would be moving towards pitching, fielding, and speed, and that this would be their general template for success in the future.  And it appears that they have executed on that plan very well up to now, not without hiccups, but the best plans work around hiccups and handle multiple scenarios in order to maximize the chance for success.  Their 2010 World Series Championship is excellent proof that their plan is succeeding at a high level.

But this leak is shaking my confidence.  At minimum, this means that there is an insider who thinks that he can shake players up by going anonymously through the media.  This "success" with Zito will only embolden this person to do more of this sniping through the media.  Who knows what other idiotic statement this person might make in the future that screws up one of our players, or worse, perhaps insults one of our top stars into not wanting to sign up long-term with us.

What If This Causes Lincecum to Not Want to Sign Long-Term with Giants?
For all we know, one of our young stars (Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez) might sympathize with Zito and decide that they don't want to be with the team long-term where insiders can snipe without penalty in the press like this.  Players are funny in that way, they will circle the wagons when management comes after one of their own, even if they might understand the point of management, given that Zito is the highest paid and yet did not throw one pitch during the playoff run.  Admittedly, I'm not privy to inside info, so maybe management has already spoken.

Worse case scenario, this insider is high up the food chain in a position of authority, or really bad, is one of the guys making decisions.  If this is so, what type of horrendous decisions might be made in the future with respect to the Giants?  This leak does not generate confidence on my part that Giants management got it all together or is as united as they had appeared to be.

This instead makes me think one or more of them got a big swelled head after winning the 2010 World Series Championship and think that they can do no wrong.

I Will NOT Ignore Stupid Moves, I Will Point Out the Emperor's New Clothes
If that is what they think, they are wrong, they can do a lot of harm, and while I believe the Giants are currently positioned very well for making the 2010's the Decade of the Giants, I think stupid moves can be made that will ruin our chances of accomplishing such a lofty goal and title.  And championship or not, I will point out such stupid moves as I see them and I know other bloggers and fans will do the same.

They do not get carte blanche with me, no honeymoon period.  I lived through the 70's, 80's, and heck, the 90's and 2000's, and I want them to strike while the iron is hot and win as many championships as they can and do the best that they can.  I believe that they are in an excellent position to add at least one more championship this decade, and could win more depending on how things work out with top prospects Brandon Belt, Zack Wheeler, Gary Brown, Charlie Culberson, Thomas Neal, Francisco Peguero, Ehire Adrianza, Brandon Crawford, Nick Noonan.  I do not want that window of opportunity jeopardized in any way.

My Confidence in Management is Shaken
This Zito sniping incidence could just be the first such incidence.  Zito's improved performance might convince this person that this is the way to do things in the future.  It is not, players don't like getting blasted in the press, particularly by management or insiders, and if Sabean's administration gets that reputation, free agents, whether outside or inside, will try to avoid the Giants when they can.

For the first time in a while, I am worried about our team's future, and for me that sucks because I should still be high from the World Championship that the Giants won in 2010.  This media snipe against Zito was a stupid move and because it appears to have worked, we might see more stupid moves like this.  The scarier thing is that this might be someone in management and is a sign of future stupid moves.

To Restore my Shaken Confidence, Neukom Would Have to Speak Up
Until Neukom comes out and says something publicly about this, and perhaps take some action, even if unknown action, the silence besides both Sabean and Bochy publicly stating that there is no such insider feelings tells me a number of things.

First, Neukom's silence is tantamount to agreeing with the sniper, particularly since no action has been taken that we are aware of.  If this is something not condoned under his watch or in his organization, then he either publicly would have said it already, or it would have leaked out that he said it internally and quietly.

Second, no action means that the sniper will feel free to do this again, because there was no consequence to his or her action.  And again, it is the same as supporting the sniper.

Third, there will be some players who view this the same way I do.  The team would have poisoned their relationship, or in the case with younger players, their budding relationship, with their most prized assets.  That is no way to run an organization, not for long-term success.

It might work in the short term, but any disrespect directed towards players by management will probably not be forgotten by the players, it could bite management in the ass at some inconvenient point in the future, like when trying to negotiate a long-term extension with one of our young stars.

That player could legitimately ask management if something embarrassing like that might happen to him once he sign a big contract.  And Giants' management would be able to say that only Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy spoke out about it, not anyone else.  No player would want that to happen, so then the Giants' price for an extension with that player could go up at that point if they decide that they might want to check out free agency and ask for more to sign on.

Why would this Giants insider risk all these negative consequences?  Does this person want our team to implode?  Team chemistry is very hard to concoct, but the 2010 Giants had that wonderfully in spades.  Hopefully this will not disrupt that chemistry or harm us in any way in the future.  But I worry that this could backfire at some point in the future.

Your 2010 Giants are 18-15: Licking Our Wounds, Facing the 'Stros

Well, that couldn't have gone any worse.  And we get to face them again in SD at the start of the next road trip, after this series with the Houston Astros.  And this time we were not reeling from the loss of Rowand from the top of the lineup, replaced by an wholly ineffective Eugenio Velez.  Luckily, the Giants have been so damn good against other teams - 18-9 record against everyone else - that we are still 3 games over .500, though now only 1.5 games ahead of the surging D-gers.

But that's the NL West every year in recent years.  One teams charges to the top, other's charge up and down, usually there are changes in the leader.  It is up and down all year, very disorienting sometimes.  But do you want to be the pilot spiraling downward with no sense of the ground or the one who is oriented relative to the ground?

We still have one of the best pitching staffs around.  The offense, while clueless so far against San Diego, particularly Matt Latos, felony vandalist (idiotically flung a ball into a public parking area in SF, where people walk to and from the park, particularly people like the family of ballplayers, and luckily - well, not for the owner of the car - all it did was destroy the sun roof of the new car of one of the Giants announcers, Dave Flemming), has been pretty good otherwise against the rest of the NL, at least the NL we have faced so far.  So now we face the Astros at home.

Game 1:  Felipe Paulino vs. Wellemeyer

My recent discussion with Boof reminded me that I'm no staunch supporter of Bochy - I like most things but am afraid that he won't have what it takes to get us that World Series Championship - and this bothered me.  The talk early this week was the possibility of skipping Wellemeyer in the rotation and starting Lincecum on Friday.  Which is fine, then we have our three best starters going against Houston.  But then I find out that even if they start Lincecum on Friday, they would still start Wellemeyer on Saturday, to keep the other starters on schedule for rest.

Then why even think about doing this?  The whole thing would only give Lincecum one less day of rest and Wellemeyer one more day.  That goes totally against what Bochy said earlier about giving Lincecum and the other young starters plenty of rest to keep them fresh later in the season.  And, frankly, as far as I'm concerned, Wellemeyer is dead man walking, holding the spot warm for Bumgarner later in the season (and which I was hoping for since we signed Wellemeyer).

Plus, which would you rather do, have Lincecum face Paulino and Wellemeyer face Oswalt?  That would assure one win and one loss.  Whereas with this configuration, we have a good chance of winning both.

Paulino is 0-5, 4.67 ERA, walking way too many batters.  Wellemeyer has even worse looking ERA but the key thing is he's pitching at home, where he has a 3.31 ERA so far.  And the one time Paulino pitched here, he was bombed for 9 runs in 2 innings, by our poor offensive team from last season.  Have to lean in the Giants favor here for this game.

Game 2:  Roy Oswalt vs. Lincecum

Oswalt righted himself after losing to the Giants, he's got a 2.63 ERA now, but he's facing Tim Lincecum, with a 1.86 ERA overall, 2.01 ERA at home this season (and wow, he's been basically the same home or road his whole career).  And it is not like Oswalt did that poorly in his game against us, it was not like we owned him, it was just that Lincecum owned Houston.  Plus, Oswalt has not done well in AT&T, 4.39 ERA, good K/BB, but poor K/9 and thus a lot of hits.  He's good, but Lincecum is better, but still, he's good, so I would lean towards the Giants as this is certainly no gimme, even if it is a Lincecum day.

Game 3:  Brett Myers vs. Zito

Myers has also righted himself after losing to the Giants, he's got a 3.52 ERA now.  Zito has been nothing short of amazing this season, but he was back to his old ways in his last start.  Has the wheel gone off that bandwagon?  I don't think so, I think Zito should have a good start.

However, he'll need to because Myers has pitched pretty well against the Giants in SF.  Only two games, but if you look at his K/BB and K/9, he has been dominating.  He pretty much shut them down in his last time here and the one where he was bombed the prior start, it just looks like one of those days where the balls just fell in (or perhaps Pat Burrell was playing LF), as he still struck out 6 in those 4 IP.

I think the rubber game is a toss-up, both pitchers should be going good, plus Myers is a LHP, and the Giants have been scuffling against lefties lately.

Giants Thoughts

After the tough sweep at the hands of the 'Dres, the Giants get another tough series against the Astros.  Still, they have a good enough chance of winning the series, though also a good chance they might lose.  It looks like it could go either way, but I lean towards the Giants because we have a good chance of winning the Paulino start and strong possibilities of winning the Oswalt start.  And we will need a series win because we face the 'Dres for a two game road trip after the Houston series, and Sanchez gets to face Latos again (three's a charm, hopefully, for us).

DeRosa is expected to sit out this series.  He has gotten a cortisone shot to help the nerve problem calm down and the timetable right now is to see where it is at on Sunday.  If it's not getting better, he'll probably go on the DL.  Baggarly reports on it here and Schulman here, and it sounds like the Giants are not even sure if surgery is needed to fix things up, at least not immediately (it does sound like there is a "good chance" that it will happen eventually).  Sounds like the Giants are going to try all options up to re-doing the surgery to get DeRosa contributing this season.

I really like Schulman's take on it, I think he nailed it.  Every signing involves risks and obviously the Giants have lost their bet so far.  But the game isn't over yet, in their view, whereas most people act like the two years are up already and we are ready to judge.

With DeRosa out, Bowker and Torres look to be getting starts based on a platoon basis, though I assume that if Bowker is hitting well, Bochy will keep starting him.  I do like how Bochy handles his hitters in general, unlike fans who bury a player forever or fall in love with another, I have not seen Bochy do this much, though many fans think he does.  He gives his players chances to play, even if he hasn't delivered this season, based on prior good performances.  But if the players cold, he will give others the opportunity to start and see what they can do.  He can't help it sometimes if everyone is slumping, he goes with the vet.  I would too, that is proven prior performance.  For the young guys, you give them rope but at some point you have to look elsewhere if they are not performing, and particularly if suddenly someone else is performing.

If he really had anything against using Bowker, as some have commented at sites I go to, he would not have been getting occasional chances to do something, he would not have gotten the chances to deliver in key pinch-hitting spots, and would not have gotten the start yesterday.   I'm still hopeful for Bowker to deliver, but with Schierholtz hitting, I would give him the job too.  Whoever is delivering, whoever wants it more, whoever, it seems for our young Giants, isn't pressing more.

ogc'ed:  Defending Sabean

As I noted in my comments, can't be more succinct than DrB in his comment on his site here.  Also, I liked what some guy wrote on MLBTR, he said he was "ogc'ed" when I replied to a comment of his:  so I recently ogc'ed someone on Extra Baggs:


Defending Sabean is easy:  Best rotation in the majors once Bumgarner is ready, by far, 1 to 5, possibly one of the best rotations in a generation or two (I can only think of the Orioles rotation in late 60's and early 70's), great bullpen with possible improvements lurking in the minors, we have potentially one of the best hitters of his generation in Sandoval and Posey looks to be just as good and at catcher, they should make our middle of lineup look great from 2011-2015 at least, and there are a lot of good prospects in the minors who could become solid cogs on the team of the '10s, Belt, Noonan, Kieschnick, Crawford, Neal, Sosa, Gillaspie, Joseph, Adrianza, Peguero, RafRod, Stoffel, Dominguez, Perez, Pill, Tanner, Bond.

You don't throw out the baby just because the diaper is dirty.  And if your GM isn't making mistakes, he's not trying hard enough to win, there are going to be mistakes made because the process is imperfect, humans are imperfect.  You have to look at the big picture and know which mistakes are forgivable and which are not.

The rotation could be the equal to the Giants lineup of the 60's and the Bonds prime lineups, and studies by Baseball Prospectus and The Hardball Times show that it is pitching and fielding that gives a team a competitive advantage in the playoffs, that offensive might provides no advantage in the playoffs.

Offense is not a core competency, for those of you into business strategy, it is just hygiene, for those of you into Geoffrey Moore, of Crossing the Chasm fame:  something your business needs to function but not critical to the long term success of your company.  And for that Moore recommends that you outsource that function, which, in baseball, means you go to hire free agents.

But unfortunately, this is not like a grocery store, when you need a great hitting OF, all there is is a great hitting 1B and maybe he doesn't want to play in SF.  So rebuilding an offense is never a quickie, it takes time to do that so that the offense is good enough to win with the great pitching you have put together.   Fans need to be patient with the process.


I can only imagine that Bobby Cox probably got all these comments while he was rebuilding the Braves.  6 years of wretched losing, the Giants only had about two years plus two more years of bad enough losing.  But it takes time to rebuild correctly.

And look at how he rebuilt them.  The hitters come and go for the most part but was anchored by Chipper Jones all those years.  Sandoval is hopefully that hitter for us, but it could be Posey too.

But it was their pitching that carried those teams, that was their identity.   And what a rotation that was, especially once they signed Maddux:  Maddux, the premier pitcher of his time, Glavine, and Smoltz.

We have our Maddux in Lincecum, then have Cain, Sanchez, and Zito as well, if he can continue pitching like this, well, that is a huge bonus.  Plus we have Bumgarner who should be joining soon enough.  And Wheeler looks to be good as well.

The Giants are set to be one of the dominant teams of the 2010's and all you Sabean Naysayers can do is sturm und drang about past mistakes.  They happened:  get over it.  Open up your eyes and see the team as if you were looking for a team to follow for the first time and you didn't know what a GM is.  Then maybe you will focus on the most important point:  the Giants have a great team and a great future.