El Lefty Malo is AWESOME: Rowand and Tejada DFAed

El Lefty Malo is AWESOME!  Read his post on what he thought the Giants need to do.

And the Giants appeared to listen to him, though not to the letter (sub Tejada for Cabrera) by DFAing Rowand and Tejada.  Arguably, this is a bigger message sent since Tejada is paid a lot more than Cabrera.  But I think his open pouting and discussion of such regarding the bunt helped Giants management push the button easier on that one.

Rowand's lack of production made his release an easy one, $14M or not, as Baggarly reported that he was openly campaigning for getting out of SF, a circumstance that probably made the decision for Giants management that much more obvious as well.  He has reached the true point of "sunk costs":  at least last season he was a viable talent off the bench, producing some value as a player, and for the first half of this season, but for a number of months now he has been even worse than replacement value.

They were clearly "addition by subtraction" type of moves.  That's nearly $20M wrote off, so Zito could be gone sometime next season as well if he's not producing or even if he's not in the starting rotation, since the Giants could go with Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Sanchez, Vogelsong in the rotation.

Sabean says that he will try to trade both of them today so that they can hook on with a playoff contending team; Rowand is hoping to rejoin the Phillies, but I don't see the Giants doing that one, I don't think that they want to see him haunting them in any way.  I also don't see any team wanting to even give up a low level prospect for either of them, much cleaner to wait for the end of the 10-day period and sign them then.  Nobody will be crying that they didn't pick these players up in time to make the playoff roster, as defiant as Tejada's statement was the other day about contributing to somebody's playoff efforts.  But if Renteria can get a job somewhere, I'm sure Tejada will as well.

Meanwhile, the Giants activated Pat Burrell and purchased the contract of Brett Pill, rewarding his great season so far in AAA, plus his willingness to play a number of different positions.  As much as I would hope that Pill mashes, the history of players his age who hit well but not that great in AAA is not encouraging, they normally don't come up here and do much of anything.  But I wish him all the success he can get, and who knows, he could be the exception to prove the rule.  I certainly would not have thought that Crawford could keep his strikeout rate so low in the majors, or his walk rate so high, so there's always that.

I assume part of this move was to enable Burrell to be available for the playoffs should we be able to fight our way in.  And at this point, you roll the dice and see what you got with Pill, there is really no one else high in the system worth that shot.

Baggarly also noted that there is still an open 40-man spot with this move.  That opens up the possibility of bringing up another player, such as Bill Hall or Marc Kroon.  Sentimentally, I would go with Kroon, but objectively, Hall is probably the more logical move because he can play multiple positions and has been hitting OK in the minors, though not great, at least if he were still a major league caliber hitter.  If he were, he should have been killing the ball.  Still, he's been a major leaguer, and it wasn't that long ago that he was hitting OK (last season), so you might want to take a chance on that.  But at this point, I would go with Kroon, would make great story, might juice the clubhouse by his inspirational story, which Hall would not provide.

Nice offense today, just what this team needs, 4 runs, that is all we ask for, daily, and our pitching can win with that.  Appears that the shock of the move got some of the hitters moving, though really, Jeff Keppinger and Mark DeRosa has been hitting lately, and of course, Pablo Sandoval has usually been hitting.  Fontenot had a nice game too, as did Chris Stewart, whom I've liked since he came up to the majors for us.

However, neither Carlos Beltran or Cody Ross did much of anything to help, though perhaps Ross is now afraid that Burrell will take his ABs away.  Sigh: he should realize that it is his poor hitting that is taking away his ABs, not the OF situation, Bochy would start him a lot if he were hitting as well as he was for most of this season, and not the sad numbers he has put up since Beltran was traded for.   Beltran has been hot for the most part lately, but have been coming up small when we needed him, like in yesterday's game, he could have tied the game with a base-hit and got us back in the game with a timely hit.

And, of course, Madison Bumgarner gave us a great game.  Hopefully it is a start for the rotation, seems like a statement game by him:  try and top this, ladies.

Your 2011 Giants are 27-19: Fishing for Marlins

Just had to post a little something something.  The Giants have been on fire at home, led, of course, by their superlative pitching, particularly their starting rotation, with Ryan Vogelsong pitching along as if he were the phenom we traded about 10 years ago instead of the journeyman pitcher we signed in the off-season.  Another of the great stories of Giants prospects and unproven players coming up and doing well for the team.  Hard to believe it will continue much longer, just out of experience, but just looking at his numbers for the season, hard to believe it won't continue either.  He is looking more and more like the real deal.

Hence, probably, why Brian Sabean recently noted on KNBR (got it from a great Mychael Urban Insider's Notes article) that Zito will not automatically get his place in the rotation back, that he will be competing for that position the moment he begins his rehab session with AAA Fresno.  The scenarios now are: 1) Zito pitches like normal and becomes long man out of the bullpen; 2) Zito pitches well and wins a place in the rotation, either a 5-man or, if they use my idea, 6-man, rotation (and my idea really works well when we have big lead in standings); 3) Zito pitches horribly and maybe something else is found to be wrong and he gets put on 15-man DL, eventually moving to 60-man to open up 40-man roster spot, or if no injury maybe he even gets put on waivers and sent to AAA.

Urban also had a nice rundown for the Marlin's series, in lieu of my rundowns:

The Marlins are coming to town for a three-game set that starts Tuesday, and in addition to being a pretty good threat to the Giants' season-long streak of sellouts, Florida is a legitimate threat to cool everyone's jets on the shores of McCovey Cove.

Tuesday's starter for the Fish, for example, is Ricky Nolasco, who not only is pitching well this season (3-0, 3.32 ERA) but has a lifetime ERA of 1.91 over 28 1/3 innings against San Francisco, and he's 2-0 with a 0.59 ERA at AT&T Park. A pitching reprieve of sorts comes Wednesday in the form of Chris Volstadt (2-3, 5.73 ERA this season), but his career ERA against the Giants over 15 innings is 1.20, and on Thursday the Giants have to contend with Anibal Sanchez, whose career numbers against the Giants are identical to those of Volstadt, and whose pure stuff is obviously no-hit caliber.

The Marlins can swing it a little bit, too; Hanley Ramirez, their biggest star is scuffling, but Gaby Sanchez is a hitting machine, Greg Dobbs has been on fire for much of the year, and Mike Stanton is a budding slugger of the highest order. By no means can the Giants put this bad boy in cruise control for the rest of the homestead before hitting the road (for Milwaukee) again Thursday night.

The Giants offer up Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, so there should be another great series of low-scoring battles for the Giants against the Marlins.  However, some hitters are either heating up or hot in May:  Cody Ross, Nate Schierholtz, Posey, Andres Torres, Aubrey Huff.  I would even toss in Darren Ford and Burriss, in short spurts:  Burriss could easily be an MI starter if he could hit for average power (in terms of ISO) and play plus defense, but so far his biggest fault as a hitter - no power, few walks - is happening as while he is hitting a sizzling .357, but he has no walks and no extra-base hits.  If they can put them all together better, the offense should be heating up runs-wise sooner or later.

Of course, great starting pitching abounds, Cain has a 3.21 ERA in 4 starts in May (2.56 K/BB), Bumgarner has righted himself spectacularly, with a 1.63 ERA in 4 starts in May (3.00 K/BB), and Vogelsong has been equally dominating after his hiccup in his second start this season, compiling 2.01 ERA in 4 starts (2.25 K/BB).  Vogelsong will probably have a regression at some point, his ERA is way better than his K/BB ratio suggests it should be around (though his FIP is still excellent at 2.84, xFIP at 3.38, tERA at 2.75, for the season, versus overall ERA of 1.93).

Giants Thoughts

Been having a lot of thoughts which I've posted at comments around the Giants blogosphere, here are a few I remember plus maybe one or two new ones:

• Buster Posey:  I worry for our wunderkind, been hearing a lot of foul balls to his helmet lately, though I would also note that his hitting for more power kicked in around then as well.  I'll feel better about his hitting once he starts slugging for homers again and stop taking shots to the head.  Giants are also worried, according to Carl Steward for the Merc.  Bochy is quoted there as being concerned, 
• Gary Brown:  Gary's doing superbly now that he's figured out the league, he could get promoted to AA any day now.  I thought that he would prove the skeptics wrong about both his walks and power, and I'm been extremely pleased with his performance.  Some people qualify his performance because he's out of college, but even top hitting prospects start out in advanced A (like Matt Wieters and Buster Posey) then get moved up, and he's hitting as well as either of them did in Advanced A:  Posey hit .326/.428/.540/.967 in 80 games, 291 AB there, with 45 walks and 45 K's for 85% contact rate (241 ISO); Weiters hit .345/.448/.576/1.024 in 69 games, 229 AB there, with 44 walks and 47 K's for 79% contact rate (231 ISO); Brown currently at .378/.451/.559/1.010 in 44 games, 188 AB there, with 17 walks (9 HBP; he is one who takes one for his team, if you look at his college career and pros, he gets a lot of HBP, good percentage of his walks) and 30 K's for 84% contact rate (remember, want to see 85% and above).  His ISO is 181.  This is against pitchers ahead of him, average age is 23.2 YO.
• Jeremy Affeldt:  He seems to be in pretty bad spirits lately and I wonder if they are going to find something physically wrong, DLing him (or even DFA him, it's his last season on his contract, only about $2-3M left on it), and bringing up Marc Kroon.
• Brandon Belt:  His strikeout rate is horrendous right now for AAA, let alone the majors, so even though he's hitting a ton, I don't think the Giants will promote him this season until he either get his strikeouts down to the level he had it in Advanced A-ball and AA (roughly 80% contact rate) or hits a homer every other day (he's not even hitting a lot right now, only 4 in 87 AB).  I think his future path lies in two examples of Giants prospects who hit well in AAA but struck out a lot:  Todd Linden and Matt Williams.  I think more the latter than the former, though, but recall that Matty yo-yo-ed between the majors and AAA for a number of years before figuring it out.  I see no upside to promoting Belt right now, the only thing he is doing extremely well right now is walk and that is not why we need him, we need him to hit for power.  Plus, the longer he's in AAA, the longer Giants have to solve problem of who to DFA in order to put him on the roster.
• Aaron Rowand:  Which brings me to our famous "Gamer" under-producer.  I thought perhaps the ignominy of being benched last season would light a fire under him to win back a starting position, but it only brought more of his "cycling for fitness" program and a new batting stance which looks like he's about to limbo, bobbing up and down, before snapping TO when the pitcher starts his throw.  One person tweeted that it looks "pornographic".  After a nice hot start while on the bench and then taking over when Torres was injured, Rowand has been mired in a very cold slump, and if he does not come out of this soon, I wonder if he might become the odd man out - instead of the rumored Nate Schierholtz - should Belt figure out his strikeout problems in the second half of 2011.  At that point the Giants would "only" owe him between $15-18M, and they might finally decide to either 1) DFA him or 2) trade him to White Sox or Phillies, giving them all of his salary save the MLB minimum, but getting a failing/failed prospect that was a top prospect previously (see Michael Main) out of them for our troubles.  Both teams seem to still like him - just not the salary - and should have a failed good prospect or two to throw our way.
• Emmanuel Burriss:  Although Ryan Rohlinger had been the anointed uber-utility guy for a number of years now, Burriss looks like he's getting the first shot at winning that role now that Mark DeRosa's career appears to have ended prematurely.  And that makes sense, the Giants have some hope that he might become starter at some point, so they are giving him chance to show them what he can now do in majors.  As noted above, he unfortunately appears to have not learned much beyond what he showed before, which would relegate him to utility role.  But according to recent news accounts, he has fully accepted this role and flung himself into it (unlike, I would note, Kevin Frandsen, who could have won such a role in 2010 had he bought into it when he was sent down in 2009 instead of pouting his way into a minor league itinerant lifestyle), so he could be a good guy for us off the bench, a la what Ford has done for us in limited play, though not as spectacular since Ford is faster (FYI:  Baseball America rated Brown as the fastest baserunner, even over Ford.  However, Minor League Baseball Analysts rated Francisco Peguero as being faster than  Brown and Ford isn't even on the list, which might explain why they rated Peguero above Brown on their Top 15 Giants prospect list).  

Nate and Romo Love

There are two misbeliefs out there that I disagree with (at least two that I will tackle in this post :^).  One is that the Giants and Bochy don't like Nate Schierholtz.  The other that Bochy don't like Romo.  The latter is more opinion, less fact, but it is what it is.

Nate the Great

I see a lot of people saying that Bochy doesn't like Nate but I just don't see it.  Looking at his usage pattern in the past, if anything, the Giants have tried multiple times to bend over backward and give him the starting RF job, but he would eventually hit his way out of the lineup, which I've attributed to 1) his penchant for injuring himself and 2) his penchant to continuing to play when he wasn't 100%.

In his first season, 2007, out of the Giants last 25 games, in September, he got into 24 of them, starting 15 of them, for a total of 73 PA/71 AB.   He hit .282/.288/.394/.682, showing some potential.  In 2008, he didn't get a call-up until September, but out of the Giants last 25 games, he got into 19 games, starting 18 of them, for a total of 81 PA/75 AB, hitting .320/.370/.493/.864, showing more of his potential.

In 2009, I think he was out of options, so he was with the team the whole season.  Lewis, Rowand, Winn were the starters so he didn't get a lot of playing time, though still compiling 116 games, 285 AB.  Lewis got a lot of rope, basically not hitting from mid-April to mid-June before Bochy mercifully sat him down, which opened starting time for Nate.

Nate starting getting regular starts on June 11th, and he earned his time over the next 3 weeks, starting in 16 of the next 21 games (playing in all), batting .406/.443/.609/1.052 with 3 HR in 64 AB.  But as hot as he was then, he then cooled off over the next 3 weeks, still starting, 14 out of 19 games (playing in all), but hitting .242/.262/.339/.600 with 1 HR in 62 AB, until he injured himself and went on the DL.  Once he returned, he continued to get starts, starting 15 out of 23 games (playing in 20), but hitting .200/.250/.383/.633, so he fell out of the rotation, only starting 6 of the next 26 games (though playing in 18), hitting .219/.286/.281/.567 with 0 HR in 32 AB.

In 2010, he lost the battle for RF in spring training, but Bowker soon hit his way off the team and organization.  It also helped that Rowand got injured and opened playing time for Nate to show he belonged:  over 3 weeks, he started 16 games out of 17 games, hitting .393/.469/.607/1.076 with 1 HR in 56 AB.

However, he made a diving catch in the first inning of the Phillies game in SF on April 27, 2010, which appears to not affect him immediately as he continued hitting well for the next 7 games, but he admitted this year that his right shoulder severely affected him the rest of the season, particularly after diving back into firstbase on May 19th.  By then he had already been in a horrendous slump - .171/.209/.171/.380 in 11 starts out of 12 games - and the injury took him out of games for two days and out of the lineup for a week.

Once he returned, he started 3 of next 6 games (played in 5), hitting an anemic .091/.286/.091/.377, and after that, from June to the rest of the season, he didn't really get a chance to start again, which made people mad at Bochy and the Giants, but as Nate noted, he couldn't really hit well regularly as his shoulder did not heal because he came back too soon and it never ready got healthy until he stopped doing things over the off-season and worked at getting his shoulder healthy.

So this timeline is why I didn't really believe the rumors that Schierholtz was seriously on the trading block.  Bochy has previously put him into the lineup and kept him there until his poor hitting forced the Giants hand.  And clearly, to me at least, injuries have played a significant part of his cold periods and eventual benching.  As Bochy said in an interview after the 2011 season began, it was a given to him that Nate was coming up with the Giants, never in doubt, though apparently Nate did not know that until nobody told him to pack up.

And that brings me to yesterday's game when I heard about Nate's dive.  I instantly flashed back to all his other diving injuries which led soon to his benching.  I really like Nate as a Giants and been rooting for him since he was clobbering pitchers in the Sally League for Hagerstown, and really loved him when I learned he was a Giants fan, like me, even though we grew up in the East Bay, plus I have college rooting interest as we both "played" baseball at Chabot College (I only took their summer program, thinking I would get into games, but there was maybe 2-3 people showing up, so we ended up spending the whole class feeding the pitching machine to each other; which was ultimately even better as I got to face high velocity pitches for the first time and got an appreciation for the hitters who claimed that they could see the stitches on the ball rotating; it was great just getting to hit over and over like that).

I think the Giants really like Nate's abilities, based on how they have given him the starting job, for the most part, a number of times and let him keep it for a while even while he struggled.  But when Belt comes on the team, it will push one of the outfielders off the team, and it has appeared to me to be Nate all off-season so I was pretty sad thinking about that, as I still think he can be a good regular starter in the majors.  An injury now won't help his case, though if he stinks it up really good, maybe no team will touch him and we can stash him in AAA until 2012.  But his defense is so good that I wholeheartedly believe that another team will pick him up and stash him on their bench, an up and coming team looking for good pieces for their team in 2012.

So I'm rooting hard for Nate right now as this could be his last chance to stick with the team.  He's been hitting very well and if he can continue hitting like this into mid-season, at least to July, that increases the chances that the Giants might decide that the best thing to do would be to DFA Aaron Rowand and eat his contract.  He does not even have to hit for that much to be very valuable to the team given how good his RF defense is.

Our 2012 OF, believe it or not, is actually not that certain.  Pat Burrell and Cody Ross are both free agents, and Andres Torres, as much as I believe in his new batting mechanics and abilities to sting the ball, will still be 34 years old, an age when players abilities often fail them and the end is nye.  So keeping a young guy with potential like Nate would behoove the Giants, I believe.

And then there is Rowand, whose new batting stance is about the weirdest I've ever see a professional hitter use, and I recall Joe Morgan's elbow flap, seen Mel Ott's leg lift, heck, I would even rate it weirder than Gary Brown's jittery batting stance in college.  It looks like he is bending backwards unnaturally then suddenly snaps to the proper normal batting stance once the pitcher starts throwing.  I don't see how he can keep his eye on the ball while his head is moving like that.  Just seems to add another layer of difficulty on his eyes and brains needing to adjust for that head movement while the pitcher is throwing.

Heck, I guess I should be glad, he has been so cold for the past month (from April 18-May 18: .196/.265/.272/.536) that if he continues this for another month or two, the Giants would be hard pressed to release someone as talented defensively as Schierholtz for someone like Rowand who at best is average defensively today and hits worse than Nate.  Rowand could then go mountain biking for another team this off-season.

Romo Usage

Like others I've been concerned about Sergio Romo's usage, or lack thereof, lately.  He clearly have great stats and works well against both righties and lefties.  Yet he has hardly gotten many innings, with Bochy going regularly to Lopez, Ramirez, and even Affeldt, who is having another bad season.  However, Brian Wilson's twisted ankle and walks brought comments that perhaps he's not fully recovered from his oblique strain that DLed him to start the season, so that gave me a thought about how this usage might make sense.

Speculation on my part, but my thought is this:  what if Romo is respected enough by the Giants that they want him around to save Wilson, so to speak?  Now that's not an absolute, as he got into a game the other day in the 8th and then they took him out, though I don't blame Bochy for swapping out to Lopez, he has been lights out versus LHP and the game was in play at that point, I like that Bochy is aggressive in going for the win at key points like that.  Also, you have to give Romo some in-game pitching to keep him sharp.

But given that Wilson has not exactly been his 2010 self since the season started and, if you would recall another oblique injury that lingered (Lowry) all season, a sensible person would be prepared in some way for the possibility that Wilson might not be at his best any particular day and holding back Romo would make sense as a tactic in this scenario.  Plus, who do you want pitching if Wilson has pitched and the game is tied and we could go into extra innings if we don't score in the bottom of the 9th (that's how Wilson got all those wins, pitching when the game was already tied or got tied with him pitching).

Again, just my speculation, but that is what makes sense to me right now given the idea that Wilson might not be 100% yet (or ever) this season.

Another thought I had previously but never got to write on it is that perhaps the Giants are showcasing Santiago Casilla (obviously the DL probably ruined this possibility), Ramon Ramirez, and Javier Lopez as potential mid-season trading pieces.  The Padres picked up Cameron Maybin for two relievers, maybe the Giants can pick up a prospect in trading away a bullpen piece, what with Marc Kroon ready in the minors, Heath Hembree potentially ready by year end, a la Runzler in 2009, or 2012 at the latest.  There is also Dan Otero, returned back to AA after an injury knocked out him out for a large portion of his 2010 season, but previously he was a closer on the rise up the system.  But with how well they have been pitching, it would be hard to trade any of them now, I assume, but if there are arms that they think are ready for the majors, why not?  So I thought I would throw this in.

But really, if Ramirez/Lopez can handle the 8th, why not save Romo to potentially save Wilson and/or pitch well for us into extra innings, giving us two innings (since he's getting more rest, he can pitch longer if necessary)?

A's Series

Yeah, not really up for a full exploration yet, but with Vogelsong vs. Cahill, Lincecum vs. Brett Anderson, Jonathan Sanchez vs. Gio Gonzalez, it could go either way, with an edge to the Giants because they are home.

Had the rainout not happened, the rotation would have been Linecum, Sanchez, Cain and I would think we would have won that series.

I like Vogelsong but Cahill has been lights out this season, hard to bet against him in that matchup, looks like win there.  Lincecum is facing the "worse" starter of the three, and as long as the last start was just the occasional blip all good pitchers have, the Giants should win that one.  Which leaves the last matchup and Sanchez has been good enough most of the season, and the last two games have seen great improvement, only 2 walks total with both games the most IP in a start this season, but Gio has been even better this season, so that is a push, and so is the series.

Good news for the Giants offense is that Andres Torres, Freddie Sanchez, Aubrey Huff, Buster Posey, Nate Schierholtz, and Cody Ross have been relatively hot, on and off, and if they can pull it all together at the same time, the offense will be more than good enough during this short two series homestand if the starting pitching holds up.  I don't care for the A's (or rather, I don't care for their fans so I root to beat the A's) so I feel good that the Giants can pull out a series win, but it's no sure thing and a sweep either way would be improbable.

Go Giants!

Worried vs. Watchful: Bumgarner

I watch a Twitter feed of the term Giants and one of the conversations I saw yesterday was someone amazed by Bumgarner hitting mid-90's, as "everyone" was worried about him last season.  And that got me thinking:  not everyone, I was wondering, watchful and observant, maybe, but not worried.  And I tweeted, not everyone, and someone said OK, 99.5% were.

I think that is where experience and knowledge comes in and allay fears.  I was not worried because he said he was healthy and had been battling this issue since the middle of the prior season.  In addition, Baseball America reported that they were not worried about him either, that young pitchers in their first or second season go through such a period, not necessarily a dead arm, but for some reason young players go through this issue.  That alone makes me think less than 99.5% because BA is so well known and that information was surely passed around.

More importantly, to me, was that he was still very effective even though he had lost velocity, which to me was a sign he was a pitcher already, not just a thrower who relied solely on his velocity to beat hitters.

And it ended up being an issue with his mechanics.  Dick Tidrow showed up like the cavalry (look at his picture and say that isn't appropriate!) and tweaked a few things and suddenly Bumgarner was good to go.

Knowledge Helps

That got me thinking of observations I've made regarding all our homegrown starting pitchers, so I thought I would share them and see if others agree or vehemently disagree or whatever, and perhaps share their observations.

Madison Bumgarner

Naturally, let's start with him.  This appears to be a pattern with Madison:  as much as he may throw off-season, something happens and he starts off the season a bit lost.  In 2009, the reason given was that the Giants were trying to fiddle with his mechanics, as the fear back then was that his cross-body throwing motion might hurt his arm eventually.  It was reported that once he went back to his form from high school, he mowed down everyone.  In 2010, he had not figured out his mechanics issue yet.  But his year, there was neither reason, yet he started slowly again and a bit lost.  He could maybe just be a slow starter and that was masked by other things

Of course, the hard thing to remember is that he's only 21, so he's still got things to learn and will sometimes forget things.  He has been so preternaturally good that one might think that he is perfect, with no flaws.  Pitching is an art, and sometimes key lessons are lost and the player starts throwing instead of pitching.  I think that is what has been happening with Bumgarner and so he starts off each season a little lost until he puts it all together again.

The Baseball America article noted Cliff Lee as a comp and I think that is a good example.  Lee was not good immediately when he made the majors, but he was learning as he was going and once he had that figured out, look out.  Bumgarner appears to have more talent, as he has been pretty good immediately but occasionally loses his way, but he's learning too, and once he gets it all together, watch out.

Matt Cain

And I think that segues nicely to Matty, the Cainer, for as well as he pitched when he joined the majors, watch out once he figured things out.  His problem early on was what one could call a lack of confidence or even too much maturity.  He rightly revered and respected major league hitters as being a step beyond all other hitters, but didn't quite grasp that he was not only their equal, but was generally better.  If anything, he thought too much while pitching.

He showed his no-hit stuff from the beginning and frankly I thought he would be the first Giant since the Count to throw a no-hitter, as he had the stuff and the mentality to do that over a complete game.  But early on, I read about how he didn't really believe in the stuff in his fastball, that was what Matt Morris noted that first season he was with the Giants, and what he was trying to drill into Cain's brain:  trust your stuff.  This was confirmed later by free agent hitters coming in and telling Cain about their perspective hitting against him.  Instead, Matty would rather nibble at the corners and get into hitter's counts when the umpire wasn't giving him those.

That's I think where his preternatural maturity came back to bite him in the rear.  Like Bumgarner, Cain came to the Giants knowing a lot about being a pitcher.  Cain had gotten tutored by a former major leaguer in his hometown, and he absorbed everything well.  So well that he pitched like a mature, wily pitcher instead of a young stud with a heater and stuff daring the batter to try to hit his stuff.  And that would get him in trouble when the umpire wasn't giving him the corner, and he would walk too many batters.

But as one can observe of his career, he made progress in steps.  His first full season was a matter of first getting used to being a major leaguer.  His first half was pretty bad until his turn was skipped and he took a deep breath and calmed down a bit.  OK, a lot, he threw a complete game shutout of the A's in his next start.  After that, he compiled a 3.69 ERA, which was about what he accomplished in 2007 and 2008.  He then took his next step, and had a much lower ERA, which he has done since then.

One can see the progress, generally forward, but as he was learning, a bit of two steps forward and one back occasionally, as one can see from his PQS stats.  His DOM%/DIS% in the first half of 2006 was 38%/38% (remember, DOM% of 40%+ is good, 50%+ is great, 70%+ elite; DIS% of under 20% is good, under 10% elite), but in the second half 67%/7%.  In 2007, he was up and down, H1 was 53%/12%, H2 60%/27%.  In 2008, H1 60%/10%, H2 50%/7%.  In 2009, H1 61%/11%, H2 60%/7%, his first season he had above 60% DOM in both halves.  In 2010, H1 50%/6%, H2 87%/7%, his first season he had below 10% DIS in both halves, which is actually more key in delivering a lower ERA consistently, as it is the blowout disaster starts that really kill a pitcher's ERA.  A pitcher can deliver a decent ERA even if he doesn't get a lot of DOM starts as long as he can avoid the DIS starts as well.

Jonathan Sanchez

Dirty is a good example of how the maturity of both Bumgarner and Cain is so rare, most pitchers are like him in many ways, except that Sanchez has stuff that hitters cannot hit at all.  His problem has been his mind and learning to become a pitcher rather than a thrower.  But what a thrower he is!

Chez is a good example of TINSTAAPP:  There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect.  Everyone knows what that means - either you are good enough or you are not, there is no prospect - but many don't realize the corollary of that is that once a pitcher is ready, the clock is ticking on his effectiveness and longevity, so you don't want to waste his arm down in the minors.  That is why TINSTAAPP theory supports the Giants putting him in the bullpen to start his major league career and keep him there until they thought he was ready to start.

His problem has always been the big inning.  Once things didn't go his way, he crumbled.  He, to use the terms of the Malcolm Gladwell article on choking, switched between implicit and explicit learning, or from muscle memory to thinking about the motion.  When you see great athletes "choke" in pressure situations, they are thinking about the motion, which brings you back to where you were when you were first learning the motion, rather than relying on muscle memory, which is honed by all your practice.  I think that is what has been causing his big innings, he can coast along on muscle memory when everything is fine, he pitches as fine as he has the past year, but once things go bad, then he reverts to something closer to his first two seasons in the majors, 2006-2007.

People don't remember, but Sanchez actually had a very good first season as a starter in 2008, at least until he ran out of stamina.  He had an ERA under 4.00 as late as July 9th and good starts to his July 4th start:  up to that point, his DOM% was 56%, his DIS% was 17%.  Not only that, but after his early season struggles, he strung together a 10 start streak with 8 DOM starts and no DIS starts, which is elite of the elite if one could do that over a season, compiling a 3.23 ERA during that period.  Then his stamina ran out and his season was downhill starting with his July 9th start.  But his early season dominance was why I though 2009 was going to be his breakout year.   But his mind got in his way.

2009 was the year of his no-hitter but that was marred by his horrible performance prior to that no-hitter, which was due to a unfortunate case of hero worship.  That season, he participated in the WBC and got to pitch with his idol, Johan Santana.  He liked Johan's mechanics which he copied in honor of his hero.  Unfortunately, mechanics that works great for someone of Johan's shorter height don't work so well for someone taller like Dirty.  He was horrible until the Giants took him out a start and perhaps he was ready to hear what they had to say, but like Cain, came out blazing, outdoing Cainer by throwing his first complete game, his no-hitter.  He compiled a 3.46 ERA for the rest of the season.

That's why I wasn't too surprised by his 2010, he had shown the potential to do well with his ERA if he were able to focus and take his considerable talent and stuff and shut the other teams down.  He finally put it mostly all together in 2010.  I think that his being able to work with Randy Johnson in 2009 was invaluable in getting his head better together as well, based on the comments I've seen from Randy, Sanchez, and other Giants.

Still, there are areas of potential improvement for 2011.  His PQS shows his potential and progression.  In 2008, H1 he had a great 53%/21% but in H2 it was only 30%/50%.  In 2009, H1 he had his horrible first half, 21%/36%, but in H2 60%/13%.  In 2010, H1 he only had 33%/22% but that just shows how powerful it is to avoid disaster starts, and in H2 he had 67%/13%.

If he can put together a great first half and second half, he could start reaching the heights that Lincecum and Cain has.  So far this season he has 2 DOM starts in 5, for a 40%/0% ratio and 3.21 ERA.  Again, the power of not giving up a disaster start, looks like a great start for Dirty in 2011.

Tim Lincecum

As good as Bumgarner might get or Sanchez is getting close to getting or Cain is right now, Lincecum is the gold standard for the Giants rotation.  But even he has had bumps in the road and areas of growth.

A common repeatable pattern is that when the Franchise is doing something significant for the first time, he gets over amped and overpitches, unable to control and locate his pitches.  His first start in the minors, his first start in major league spring training, his first start in the majors, his first start as opening day starter, I think even his first start as home opening day starter, and his first start in the World Series.  The only one I can think of where he excelled was his first playoff start, against Atlanta, where he was spectacular, though I would put an asterisk next to that one because he had essentially spend the month of September fighting to get to the next round of the playoffs.

And, of course, there were his "lost" months, of which he has not had many, so they are notable, and he wasn't really lost the whole month but for 3 starts in the month. His first one was in June 2007, his second month in the majors.  That was the first time he ever had 3 disaster starts in a row, his confidence was down and he started overthrowing and trying to throw harder when he should lay off and focus on locating his pitches.  The Giants did not skip a start to get him straighten out and he was able to get out of it himself.

And that is one thing many fans don't get, which is the nuance of how much rope the Giants give prospects and young players.  The problem is that the players the fans get upset about are the ones who really aren't that good and so they get less rope.  Or they don't realize that if the player has shown ability in the majors, he gets more rope.

Cain got to mid-May but that was his first full season and he did well in an extended audition the season before.  So did Travis Ishikawa.  Sanchez got to June, but he had shown good ability the season before and thus got more rope.  Lincecum got a lot more rope due to how well he did after his first start, but had his bad streak lasted much longer, they might have finally yanked him.  Just like how Pablo Sandoval got all last season before Bochy took him out in the playoffs.

Meanwhile Brandon Belt didn't get a long rope as he hadn't shown success in the majors before.   And the same goes for all the other Giants prospects that fans cried didn't get a chance.   And in Belt's case, the mitigating factor was that it was clear that the only way Aubrey Huff and he could co-exist on the major league roster was if Huff started at 1B and Belt in the OF.  So they went ahead and sent him down to start that transition immediately rather than let him figure things out up here with the bat.

Back to Big Time Timmy Jim, he then had another bad stretch in May of 2010, when he had three bad starts, for a 8.22 ERA, before straightening out.  Four if you count the start before that streak, as that was four straight starts with 5 walks, but he limited the damage in that start.  Then he had another bad stretch in August of 2010, another three bad starts, 10.38 ERA.

And that's it.  We are so blessed to have him heading up our starting rotation.  For all people can complain about Sabean, they are just looking for the negatives, he has hit grand slams frequently, with Jeff Kent, Jason Schmidt, and now Lincecum (and Cain, Posey, Sandoval, and Bumgarner could soon join the list), which is how a team dominates.  And how the Giants can dominate in the playoffs.

Lincecum and Cain makes an incredible 1-2 punch in the playoffs, aces 1A and 1B.  Cain could probably take on almost any other team's ace, yet Lincecum is better than that and takes care of that ace, while Cain then handles that team's #2, who is usually not ace level.  Then we got Sanchez, who when he is on is capable of ace-worthy status.  And once Bumgarner matures and develops more, we might have another ace on par with Lincecum (only 21, remember).

In addition, as I've noted before, I expect Lincecum to take another step up this season over his Cy Young seasons in terms of PQS.  With a slider to handle left-handed batters to go with his changeup/cutter that handles right-handed batters, plus his fastballs that neither can handle when mixed in right, Lincecum should be dominant in a way that he hadn't been even in his Cy Young years, so I wouldn't be surprised if his ERA was under 2.00, though I wouldn't bet on it either.

And he was basically 80%/6% in those seasons.  He is 80%/0% so far this season and only 2 outs away from 100% DOM.   However, his last start hopefully was an anomaly in that it was his first start ever to have 6 walks.  Something to watch and monitor.

Tiene Tejada?

Per Kevin's comment, I'll address a few player questions, starting with Miguel Tejada.  If he were a young prospect, the fans would probably be all over him:  very low K-rate, 8.1%, OK walk-rate, 5.8%, low but OK BB/K ratio as that is actually high for his career, as his walk rate is near his career (5.8% vs. 6.2%) while his K-rate is improved (8.1% vs. 11.7%).  That's excellent plate discipline.  His extra-base hits per hit is 38% vs. MLB average of 34%, though he's not hitting as many homers as before, by large margin, though I would note players need time to get used to AT&T as a park to hit in.  And his BABIP is .203 vs. a career .295 BABIP and .300 for his three prior seasons.  And he has had a bad start like this before in 2003, even worse numbers overall,

He appears to be suffering from a severe case of bad luck with the BABIP, resulting in his current woes, and that appears to be due to a high ratio of ground-balls and a severe drop in line-drives.

Meanwhile, Brandon Belt struck out 21.7% of the time, which is very high, way below average (MLB average is 18.7%), but which is mitigated by his high walk rate.  However, that walk rate is still not good enough, that is still a very low contact rate.  Also, his extra-base hit ratio is only 20%, which is probably due to a very high amount of ground balls, with a 1.44 GB/FB ratio, even though his line drive percentage is actually good at 18%.  In addition, that extreme groundball slant is worsen by the fact that a large percentage of his flyballs were actually infield fly balls, at 19%.

Thus far, Tejada looks like the better bet to come out of his funk, he is still not getting fooled much by pitches, he's able to make contact with them and hit them somewhere.  And when he connects, he's still getting extra-base hits like he was before, only now they are falling for doubles rather than homers.

Oddly enough, looking at splits, he's actually hit well in SF, .276/.333/.414/.747, with 1 homer, while a poor .157/.185/.235/.420 on the road.  It don't help that 34 of his 54 PA (63%, nearly two-thirds) were in pitchers parks (LA, SD) or a park that hurts right-handers HR power (PIT).  Then he didn't hit in hitters parks at COL and ARI.  However, he probably won't warm up offensively at either Washington (little below average for RHB) or NY Mets (much below average for RHB HR power).  His next chance to warm up on the road is against the Cubs then Rockies in mid-May.

Very Vogelsong

What a nice start for Ryan Vogelsong today!  Pretty much what I was hoping for given how he dominated hitters in AAA then in relief in the majors:  5.2 IP, 4 hits and 2 walks, with 8 K's and 2 ER/R.  That is a 4 PQS start, a DOM start, and he was only one out away from a 5 PQS.  But at 99 pitches in his first start, it was time to take him out.  He now has this nice stat line:  10.1 IP, 7 hits and 2 walks, with 11 K's and 2 ER/R.

At 33 YO, this is a dream start to a dream season for him as he wanted to return back to the Giants, which he repeated noted in various interviews during spring training.  He loved being here and the people here, so when he signed, he didn't ask for a out option to leave the Giants should he not make the majors:  he was where he wanted to be, he said multiple times.

Of course, this was still the Pirates, owner of the second worse offense so far this season in the NL.  He will get a better test in his next start against the Mets in NY, then the D-Rox in SF, his first home start.

I would have still preferred to pitch him on Wednesday and Bumgarner today.  That would have put him in line to start in Washington next, owner of third worse offense, instead of the Mets, then the rest of the starts would be the same team until the end of May, where he now faces St. Louis instead of Milwaukee.

I still worry about what happens to Vogelsong when Zito returns.  Clearly, Zito would regain his spot in the rotation.  Then what happens to Vogelsong?  I don't think the Giants can send him back to AAA without passing him through waivers, but I don't know those rules well enough to know for sure, just my guess.  However, by then, he might earn the long-relief role that Guillermo Mota has.  They could always send Dan Runzler down and shift Mota to short-relief.  Though Runzler has actually done pretty well if you look at his stats other than R/ER:  10 K's in 11.0 IP, only 9 hits and 4 walks, no homers.  Oh, but also, Santiago Casilla would have returned by then, and that would probably result in Runzler going down at that point, so it could become a case of Mota vs. Vogelsong in terms of who to release.

Really Rowand

After his nice game, he's hitting .286/.329/.455/.784, with 8 RBI in 77 AB, 21 games.  High BABIP of .350, so unsustainable, though he did keep that up one season long ago at .345.  Plus, it balances out against his very low .263 BABIP last season, and his career BABIP is .317, so he don't have as much to fall as other hitters, as the average BABIP is around .300.

His K-rate of 20.8 is in line with his career with the Giants so far, though his walk rate is down.  But his extra-base hit ratio is up, as his line drive percentage is at a high 23%.  However, he has a low HR/FB ratio of 3.7% vs. career 8.8%.

His peripherals overall, though, look like they would fit in with any other April he has had in his career as a starter.  And in recent seasons, his BABIP of .350 would fit right in, very close (.414, .413, .333, .333).  As I've noted before, an injury seems to be the key to knocking Rowand off the rails, resulting in poor batting performances that bring down his overall seasonal totals.  His Aprils with SF are actually among his best Aprils in his career, other than the career year he had before he joined the Giants.

Superb Sandoval

Lastly, a look at the Round Mound of Pound, Kung Fu Panda himself, Pablo Sandoval.  As I noted in the last post, his no-doubt homers look to be back in 2009 form, not 2010.  If you look at his peripherals, he looks about the same.  He's actually striking out a little more while also taking more walks, but his BB/K ratio is about the same, a little low though.  He is showing more plate discipline, with 3.64 Pitches/PA so that explains why he's getting more strikeouts and walks, as he is making it deeper into counts now.

He's still not getting as many extra-base hits, but when he does connect, they are going for homers, which means that this high 15% HR/FB ratio probably will fall as we go deeper into the season.  He's hitting a lot more flyballs than ground balls, as well as more line drives, so he's clearly hitting the ball better than he was in 2010 and for more power, so far.

All in all, he is roughly matching his 2009 season, with a .325/.386/.550/.936 batting line (vs. .330/.387/.556/.943 in 2009) and his BABIP is also basically the same as well, at .344 (vs. .350 BABIP in 2009).

I still think he's back, though I understand the skepticism of the doubters, it is only one month.  But there are qualitative factors, like power returning, as shown by the no-doubters, to his 2009 standards, and his peripherals being in line with career norms and thus the question as to what his true career BABIP is.

2010 looks like the outlier.  So far, 2011 is in line with his 2009 results, and not his 2010.  In fact, it is similar to his numbers in 2008 when he first came up, except the power is missing, but it appears that he is making the traditional tradeoff between power and strikeouts:  he is striking out more but hitting more homers.  If you look at his BABIP, 2010 is the season that sticks out as not belonging in his career numbers.  Meanwhile his peripherals have been the same each season, within range of each other and normal fluctuations.

And fortunately he is delivering.  Both Aubrey Huff and Buster Posey were expected to provide more hitting than they have so far.  That should improve as Huff has been exhibiting the same peripherals in terms of walks and strikeouts as he has during his career, his main big problem is his very poor BABIP.  Posey, on the other hand, is striking out a lot more, plus is suffering from a low BABIP vs. last season.  His line drive percentage is down as well.  But as I noted, the Giants have been playing in parts that affect RHB's power more.  Hopefully it is just a matter of there being so many road parks tough on RHB so far, though he's having the opposite problem than Tejada, he's been very good on the road while very bad at home so far.

Burriss Back as DeRosa DLs

Unsurprising given the lack of playing time and the scratched start due to wrist soreness, Mark DeRosa went on the DL to rest his wrist, per the recommendation of the surgeon who operated on his wrist.  The part operated on is fine but for some reason the tissue surrounding it is inflamed.  DeRosa chose to bite the bullet and go on the DL rather than leave Bochy shorthanded many days (I wish Durham would have had enough sense to do that).

DeRosa is such a team player and good example for young players, maybe he can come back as a coach for us some day.  Meanwhile maybe he'll be willing to accept a low deal in the $1-2M range to come back in 2012 and be a super-utility guy, assuming his wrist returns to normal by mid-season and he has a normal batting line for his career.  When healthy and hitting, he's a very valuable cog on the bench of any team hoping to make hay in the playoffs.

To replace DeRosa, Emmanuel Burriss was called up.  Now 26, after two injury plagued seasons that stole valuable development time away from him, he was hitting .344 with a .423 OBP, per Andy Baggerly's notes in the newspaper.  Manny has 15 steals (3 CS) in 16 games, which is more steals than 11 AAA teams had at the moment.  It was also reported by Bochy that the reports on Manny were positive both defensively as well as offensively, which is good because part of his value is that he is suppose to be very good defensively at 2B and adequate at SS.

He also saw time in the OF in AAA this season, as the Giants organizational focus on creating flexibility via players who can play more than 1-2 positions continue.   He, Rohlinger, Neal, and I think Gillaspie too, have played a number of positions in AAA so far this season, and Belt will be adding LF and RF to 1B.

Unlike others, I like Burriss as a hitter and think if given time and development he can be at least average.  He has very good command of the bat, he has not struck out that much in the majors so far, which is a very hard to do in the majors.  That plus good defense at 2B or average defense at SS, plus being a good basestealer, would provide good value on the Giants roster.

He has two major problems.  First is that he don't walk.  Second is that he don't hit for power.  He is basically like Juan Pierre, so there is value there, only it is severely limited by these two problems.  I don't expect him to figure out the walking part, and frankly with his speed and command of the bat, he should have adequate OBP due to a high BABIP coupled with a low strikeout rate.

His bigger problem is his inability to hit for any power at all.  Practically zero in the majors, given his 55 career ISO in the minors.  He was one of the guys who chased away Carney Lansford from the Giants.  He has strong arms and thus the strength to hit for more power, which Carney was trying to get him to do, but basically he was taught to slap at the ball the way Andres Torres was taught.

He probably needs to go through the Giants new video system training program to change his batting mechanics, like Belt and Noonan, so that he can be more like Andres Torres and hit line drives, but he should have been working on that the past season while he was out, plus off-season, and be ready out of the box this season.  But looking at his stats so far in AAA this season, he has a minor uptick in power, so it is not encouraging so far.

Until he solves this, he's going to be a fringe player like Torres was until he changed his batting mechanics using the Ted Williams methods taught in his book, Science of Hitting.  Because of his speed and defense, and ability to play multiple positions, he'll probably hang around as a bench player for a number of seasons.  If he wants to be a starter, he needs to figure out how to hit for more power.  I mean, he makes Juan Pierre look like a power hitter in comparison.

Which would be too bad, Gary Brown and him 1/2 in the lineup, ahead of Belt, Posey, Sandoval, would be quite a good offense, and the Giants might then be able to handle Brandon Crawford or Ehire Adrianza at SS solely for defense.

Your 2011 Giants are 10-8: Home Respite v. Braves

After one inning - if a season were innings, one inning is represented by 18 games - the Giants are in good shape, basically at a 90-72 pace.  But, of course, there is still a lot to be played.

That's why I find it so disappointing to see Giants fans still out there all mad and everything:  chill everyone, the Giants are the World Champs and were put together by Brian Sabean and run by Bruce Bochy.  And if you think they were lucky they won, well, if you are complaining about them now, I am sure if I went back and tracked every comment made by you, you would have traded one of the pitchers away already, and for less than a sack of magic beans (Alexis Rios, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart, among the most common I've seen) and the Giants definitely would not have won had they traded away any of that luscious pitching.

And really, why the long faces, especially after going 4-2 on the start of a brutal stretch of 16 road games in 19 games, winning both series.  Sure, could have actually swept both series, but the Giants did good, really they did.

Now they get to face the Braves for 3 at home, for a short respite, before heading on the road for 10 games.  Though they probably won't face Brooks Conrad, their new manager hasn't been starting him and it would be kind of cruel to give him his first start against the Giants.  Though I suppose it would be a big vote of confidence too, if you look at it another way.  But if he made another mistake, I wonder what the emotional scars on that one would be.

Game 1:  Bumgarner vs. Hanson

Tommy Hanson:  Hanson has been more consistent than he was in his first two starts, but has encountered early-inning troubles in each of his three losses. He recorded nine strikeouts Sunday after registering eight in his first three starts combined.

Madison Bumgarner:  Bumgarner may have turned a corner in his last start at Arizona. He allowed four runs in five innings, but recovered to last 6 2/3 innings. Despite exceeding his career high for innings by over 70 last year, the Giants feel good about his health.

Hanson is probably why the Giants decided to go with Bumgarner instead of Ryan Vogelsong: why feed him to the Braves for his first triumphant return as a starter with the team he wanted to be with?  Instead, with an off day before and after the series, he gets an easier assignment against the Pirates instead, though Bochy has not indicated yet whether Vogelsong will simply take Zito's spot or if he will move Bumgarner into the #4 spot.  But as I noted in my other post, I liked the way the pitchers fell if the Giants keep the pitchers in their order with Vogelsong taking Barry Zito's spot, would have put our better pitchers up against Colorado in future series.

Speaking of Zito, the word is that the sprain of his foot is pretty bad and he will be out at least a month and I saw one mention of up to two months.  Bochy also noted that it is probably for the better because Zito has not been throwing with much velocity (low-to-mid 80's) for his fastball since the accident and now Zito is forced to relax and recover from the shock of that car accident.

Atlanta has been struggling, off to an 8-12 start, so good time to run into them, they should be tough all season with their pitching.  Their new rookie phenom, Freddie Freeman is off to the good start Giants fans were hoping for Brandon Belt, but their 2010 version, Jason Heyward, has been pretty cold, though he's walking a lot and hitting with power.  Their big acquisition, Dan Uggla, has not been hitting at all, worse OPS of their lineup currently.

And that has been the source of their problems, their offense, as their pitching has been as advertised, if not better.  And it should not get better against the Giants, facing Bumgarner, Lincecum, Sanchez.  They should not be scoring a lot of runs this series.

But their pitching is what will keep them in most games.  This is a good battle this game, Madison Bumgarner is like Tommy Hanson, only one year behind.  Both are tall (Hanson 6' 6"; Bumgarner 6' 5") and oddly enough, on how life can twist, Hanson went to high school in California while Bumgarner went to high school in North Carolina, each raised near, relatively, to the team of the other pitcher.  And it is funny how the fates work, had Matt Weiter fallen to the Giants in 2007, as some had projected, Bumgarner most probably would have been chosen by the Braves with their first round pick, instead of Heyward, who I think most teams were passing over as unsignable because both parents are college professors and undoubtedly they told other teams that he was going to school, while secretly wanting the Braves to draft him since their scout was already good friends with their family.  They would have then selected him with the 33rd pick.

Hanson actually had a good outing against the Giants in the playoffs, just got unlucky with the hits and homer, as he struck out 5, only walked one, in 4.0 IP. He has never pitched in AT&T, but has a 2.57 ERA in two starts in Atlanta: 14 IP, 14 K's but only 5 walks.  He dominated one game with 11 K's, wasn't so dominant last season but gave up less runs - funny how that works sometimes - so he has pretty much handled the Giants in his short career so far.

Bumgarner handled the Braves well in the playoffs:  6.0 IP, 6 hits, 2 R/ER, 1 walk, 5 K's, 3.00 ERA.  He has never faced the Braves before in the regular season, but his playoff game should indicate how well he might do as the pressure in that game was much unlike a regular season game, though it was for the series clincher and the Giants would have Lincecum in game 5.

Should be a close game, could go either way, hard to call, and both have been tough on the other team.  I would give the lean to the Braves if Pablo Sandoval is out with his injury again, but would give the lean to the Giants if he is starting, though Hanson has handled Sandoval handily in his career, 0 for 9.  But Sandoval is hitting better this season and hopefully can continue, as Hanson has dominated the Giants hitters over his career.

Game 2:  Lincecum vs. Tim Hudson

Tim Hudson:  Giving up runs again early on Monday against the Dodgers, Hudson surrendered three runs in the first inning, in which Los Angeles batted around. He settled down and gave up only one run and two hits over the next five innings but took the loss.

Tim Lincecum:  Lincecum no-hit Colorado for 6 1/3 innings in his previous outing, the first time since July 9, 2009, that he had gone at least six innings without giving up a hit. This will be his first outing vs. Atlanta since the Division Series.

Battle of the Tiny Tims, one could say, though Hudson is 6' 1", which is not that short for baseball, but I recall talk about him being on the short side.  However, Hudson is now in his mid-30's and he is now a pitcher, as he doesn't strike out many guys anymore but is still able to keep his ERA below 4 every season, though he's currently at 4.05.  In his career, 3.58 ERA against the Giants in SF, in 5 starts, so he's been pretty good, and that is inflated greatly because he has handled them fine in 4 of the 5 starts, that one disaster start many years back really screwed up his ERA.  Aaron Rowand and Buster Posey only ones looking good against him previously.

As well as Hudson has done against the Giants, Lincecum has 2.86 ERA in 8 starts against Braves, but in 4 starts in SF, only 6 ER in 29.0 IP for 1.86 ERA with 31 K's and 9 BB's.  Plus Hudson has never faced Sandoval when he's hitting well, as the Giants now have a 1-2 punch 4-5 with Posey and Sandoval in there against RHP.

Should be a close game, given Hudson's strong outings against the Giants before, but give a strong lean towards Lincecum because he's been that much better against the Braves.  But given how low scoring games go, it could go either way for the most part.  Oh, but I should also mention Lincecum's new slider, which puts more of a lean towards Lincecum, he has been masterful since he perfected it last September, with a below 2.00 ERA since then.

Game 3:  Beachy vs. Sanchez

Brandon Beachy:  Getting his first career win, Beachy got stronger as the night went on Tuesday against the Dodgers. Commanding his fastball the entire game, Beachy pitched six innings, giving up no runs and two hits while walking two and striking out seven.

Jonathan Sanchez:  Sanchez has averaged 11 strikeouts per nine innings. He sailed through his last outing, yielding Dexter Fowler's leadoff double and nothing else for six innings at Colorado.

OK, now I see why Bochy would want to skip Vogelsong:  this alignment gives the Giants the best chance to win the series, with a possibility of a sweep.  Starting Vogelsong would have made just winning the series hard because Hanson is very good and probably would have won that game, then Bumgarner would have hard time against Hudson, and Lincecum would have had a gimme against Beachy.

By skipping Vogelsong, the Giants have a great chance of winning the series against a potential wildcard contender and playoff opponent. Good to put the foot to the neck against someone the Giants could be competing against for a playoff spot.  That is something I've learned to appreciate about Bochy, he knows when playing around with the lineup and pitching is no big deal, causing some fans consternation, but then knows to put the pressure on when it is potentially important.

As nicely as Beachy did against LA, you have to remember that it was only LA.  Still, though, 39 K's in 38.1 IP in his short MLB career (7 career starts) is pretty damn good, and his K/BB is higher this season, though it is all small samples so far, this is his first full season and he only got 3 starts (only 15.0 IP) last season.  And thus far, he handled the Brewer's potent offense well in his first start, but then the Phillies and Marlins whacked him around, before he shut down the D-gers on 2-hitter.  That's two 5 PQS starts out of four starts, no disaster starts so far, this season.

All that is much above what Baseball America and Minor League Baseball Analysts had him pegged as - #3 starter material.  Not sure why he was rated so low though, high K-rates and K/BB ratio, due to very low walk rate, in the minors, would suggest good talent there.  But only his fastball was rated above average, his changeup and slider are average, which is good but not great in the majors.  Oddly enough, his K-rate actually went WAAAY up after conversion from reliever to starter in 2010, when it usually is the other way around, with K-rate going up with switch to relief, due to no need to hold back when relieving.  And both services rate Beachy only 8th in the Braves system.

Sanchez has been as good as hoped so far this season, with a high walk rate the only real negative.  However, he has a bad history with the Braves, 5.82 ERA in 5 games, 3 starts, in AT&T, even worse when you include his starts in Atlanta, and his seasonal stats against them aren't pretty either.  Which makes his masterpiece against them in the playoffs all the more wondrous, because he's never really shown such dominance over them previously, though he had an OK start against them in 2009.

The plus side is that probably most of those starts were with Molina behind the plate and for whatever reason, he and Molina never clicked, whereas he is brilliant with Whitesite (2.69 ERA) or Posey (3.09 ERA) behind the plate, which is another reason why I think he can repeat 2010's performance despite the negatives, such as abnormally low BABIP.  He did have a poor start in his only regular season start with Posey catching, but that as last August when all the pitchers were having their hiccup.  And, of course, there was his brilliant outing in the playoffs with Posey behind the plate.

So, as nicely as Beachy has done and lousy Sanchez has done, it appears that they are pretty evenly matched, but I would give Sanchez the lean for being the home team.

Giants Thoughts

Overall, the Giants look good this series, much better than if Vogelsong was going for them first. They at least have a fighting chance to win this series, which is ideal, both for continuing their streak, as well as their only home series for a while, as they go on the road for three series and ten games afterward.  But a series win is not a sure thing either, the Braves, unsurprisingly, have three very good starters up against us, and the Giants are arguably missing their two best starters, at least in terms of ERA this season, in Derek Lowe and Jair Jurrjens.

After a World Series Championship hangover that yielded poor performances in their first two series against LA and SD, distracting them until they got home and started celebrating and receiving their rings, the Giants have won 4 straight series, and could have come out with sweeps in three of them had they been able to win the rubber game.  That is not too bad considering that both Barry Zito and Bumgarner were not at the top of their game in any start this season so far.

As anticipated, Brandon Belt was the one sent back down when Cody Ross made it off the DL, which is only appropriate because Belt would not have started on the team had Ross not had his injury.  Torres injury made it a possibility that he might last longer, but with Rowand's HBP, that sunk any chance of that, as the Giants needed to keep Ford around in case they need CF help, as they didn't want to put any extra stress on Ross's legs right after he got off the DL.

Many fans were very upset, but it was the right move.  He clearly was not 100% ready to handle major league pitching yet.  Still, it was the right move to bring him up since Ross's injury presented the opportunity to kick his tires and see how he does.  Apparently there is no honeymoon period for Sabean or Bruce Bochy with the Giants winning the World Championship.

Another reason to send him down is that clearly the Giants cannot have Aubrey Huff playing RF full-time, and that is what happens if Belt up here playing 1B, so while he is down there he should be playing in the OF, mostly in RF, but also LF to give flexibility in where the Giants can put him.  After all, Burrell usually comes out for defensive purposes late in the game.

And you know Belt will eventually come back up, though when is the question because his presence on the 25-man roster basically would mean that Nate Schierholtz would be forced off the roster.  Now that he has been put back down in AAA, he could conceivably end up staying in AAA all season, barring another OF injury, until the September call-ups, when any 40-man roster player can be brought up without clearing space on the 25-man.  That would save the Giants from losing Schierholtz, who they might need next season, if only to save money on the roster as the pitchers get big raises, particularly Lincecum.

One of the big question marks for the Braves series is the status of Pablo Sandoval.  He was taken out of the last game in Colorado due to an injury he had taking BP and while the thinking back then is that he should be back for the Braves series, you never know what might happen until he takes BP again in the pre-game warm-ups (he apparently is well and expected to start).

If he is out, that would be a big blow to our chances of winning this series; if he is in, I'm feeling pretty good about the Giants chances, because the pitching cancels each other out, but his bat is currently a difference maker between the two offenses.

Another question mark, in my mind, is Aaron Rowand's arm and hitting.  The Giants have been able to handle Andres Torres out of the lead-off spot with Rowand's hot hitting, but like always, his hot hitting seems to start with good health but stops courtesy of an injury or lingering condition.  Torres will be out a while longer and we need Rowand to continue his hot hitting, which seems to last in short spurts until an injury leads to a decline.

However, helping things out is that Aubrey Huff is starting to heat up, he has 2 homers in his last four games, after starting the season with none in his first 14 games.   He seems to be a slow starter, people forget after his stellar 2010, but his OPS was under 700 late in April, he didn't look anything like the power hitting monster he was later.  As of April 26, 2010, he only had 1 HR up to then in 67 AB/78 PA, 19 games, 18 starts.  But once he started hitting them, they came in droves, he then had 3 HR in the next 5 games, and would continue that pattern in 2010, long stretches of no homers then a bunch in a short number of games.

Also want to give Freddy Sanchez a shoutout for his great start so far.  Could this be how good he is when healthy?  He's been playing with problems in his shoulders the past few seasons.  His BABIP is very high, so most probably it will go down and he will cool off, but one would hope that he would be able to sustain things longer given that he's healthy for the first time in years.

And lastly, the addition of Ross in the lineup over Belt should also yield an improvement in offense.

Your 2011 Giants: Projected 25-man Roster

With the Cactus League portion of Spring Training over, Andy Baggarly posted his projected 25-man roster and I thought I would comment.

Giants Thoughts

A major issue facing the Giants is fitting 26 major league players on a 25 man roster, plus there are players like Brandon Belt and Dan Runzler who deserve to be on the roster, sooner or later. Plus there is Guillermo Moto, who was a good reliever for us in helping the Giants win the 2010 World Series Championship.

Baggarly projects that Mota and Travis Ishikawa will win the last positions.  That means that he expects Brian Wilson to be ready by opening day and that Nate Schierholtz will be gone, probably traded since that is the rumor out there.

The roster Baggarly projects:
SP: Lincecum, Sanchez, Cain, Zito, Bumgarner (5)
RP: Wilson, Affeldt, Romo, Lopez, Casilla, Ramirez, Mota (7)
IF: Posey, Whiteside, Huff, Ishikawa, Sanchez, Fontenot, Tejada, Sandoval, DeRosa (9)
OF: Burrell, Torres, Ross, Rowand (4)

That fits what the Giants have said in the past week or so. One is that they intend to carry 12 pitchers, which brought to a head the issue that there are currently 14 position players signed, and apparently the rumor of trading Schierholtz appears to be real and he'll be the one gone.  There is also the news that Mota had provisionally made the 25-man roster (not sure what exactly that means other than he's on the roster as of right now, but that things could change, though unclear what that change could potentially be).

Consequences of Mota winning the last bullpen spot is that Suppan and Kroon (only Schulman has reported this, Baggarly has not yet) have already said that they won't accept a AAA assignment, while Vogelsong said this organization is where he wants to be and Runzler has another option they can use.

Should Wilson's injury recur, they could hold onto Suppan or Kroon longer, until Wilson returns. I would bet on Kroon, one, because Suppan has not been that impressive, either in spring training or the past few seasons, while Kroon has been a top closer in Japan. To my view, I think this would then buy time for Kroon to prove his worth over others in the bullpen, such as Mota or even Ramon Ramirez, as once Wilson returns, someone will have to leave.

However, I am most disappointed that Schierholtz is projected to be the one going first.  The most obvious position player to go, in my opinion, is Ishikawa, which is hard for me to say because I've been one of the few Giants fan supporters of Ishikawa over his career. Belt looks like the 1B long term, plus Sandoval, among other possible replacements, are in the system, ready to take over 1B.

In an ideal world, I think the Giants want to keep Ishikawa because he proved to be a valuable left-handed power bat off the bench, plus is great defensively at 1B, but that position looks to be covered pretty well going forward.  If they hadn't brought him up early, he might still have an option to be sent down to AAA and brought back in 2012, but unfortunately, they did.  But that's water under the bridge, and the reality is that he's the guy to go first.

As I noted on El Lefty Malo, the Giants should try to keep Schierholtz.  Like Rowand, he is injury prone but when healthy, he was a very productive hitter, a great RF.  We don't know how the OF will look in 2012 and I would prefer to keep him as a cheap potential starter.  Both Ross and Burrell are free agents, and both have to prove that they can continue to hit well, to boot, in 2012.  Torres, as great a story as he is, will be 34 for the 2012 season.  Huff is probably the LF by then, but he, like Burrell, also has to prove that 2010 was not a fluke season plus he'll be 35, just like Burrell.  Age and fluke results are big question marks with these potential starters for us in 2012, and Ross is not yet signed for that season either, although he expressed his strong interest in sticking around.

If Schierholtz is traded, that suggests that the Giants don't think that he'll get over the injury hump and/or that the outfielders coming up the system - Thomas Neal, Francisco Peguero, Gary Brown, Roger Kieschnick - will be ready enough, plus maybe that they are banking that one or two of the older players will still be performing at their high level still.  And that certainly is a possibility, I was thinking more of the worse case scenario with respect to the 2012 OF situation.

Rowand Not As Bad As People Think

As much as people point to Rowand as a sunk cost, they forget that he starts each season hot, when some sort of injury takes him down. As late as August 2008, his OPS was still near 800, which is pretty good offensively for a CF. Same with 2009. Both years, a horrible September ends a season which otherwise was relatively productive for a CF, but a mitigating factor is that he started off each season with some sort of injury, which we don't know whether it affected him later in the season or not. It could also have been that he was out of shape, as he finally started trying to get in shape before the 2010 season, though only via mountain bike riding, so I don't know how that improves his overall baseball fitness, hopefully it does or he'll be doing it for nothing.  We all know 2010, but forget that he took a pitch off his head. He started off hot when he returned but was not productive eventually, and I think that head injury, plus part time play affected his overall performance.

Overall, he has been above the average OPS for a CF for that season in 10 out of the 18 months he has been a Giant.  So he has not been that bad, just not good enough, and given that his defense is not as good as advertised, he was still rated slightly above average by both Fangraph's UZR, as well as Baseball-Reference.com's Rdrs.  That plus his offense being slightly below average (in terms of OPS) makes him an average player, and average players are worth something in baseball.

Of course, I understand that Rowand is not worth $12M per year, which is not what an average players gets, but he's not an unrecoverable cost either when he is about an average player.  He is nothing like Russ Ortiz when the D-backs dropped him, he was having all sorts of injury problems and wasn't even an average starter.  Rowand at least was average, with the caveat that when he's good, he's very good, but when he's bad, he's been very bad.  And that is the impression he leaves with most Giants fans because he ends the season on the steep downside, even though, if you examine his time with the Giants, he's been a valuable player about half the time.  I think injury and lack of conditioning contributed to his problems as a Giant.

Ideal Scenario:  with Ross out, Rowand hits like he has before, forcing himself into the outfield rotation with Burrell, Torres, and Ross when he comes back, plus then Huff should Rowand still be around when Belt is ready to come up.  With Rowand hitting well (hopefully) but healthy because he's playing less often, by mid-season a team will be desperate enough to trade for Rowand to be their starting CF, with the Giants chipping in $9M of the roughly $18M left on his contract.  At which point, the Giants can bring up Brandon Belt.

Or, if Rowand is not hitting well, then the Giants finally release him, knowing that they gave Rowand a good shot to prove himself, and wash their hands by releasing him and bringing up Belt.

Still, ideally, I would rather keep Schierholtz around because I think he can be an average producing RF, even if his HR power does not come, he can produce a lot with hits even though he don't walk much, and, once again, fans fall into the trap that just because he's not a good player, he's not a valuable cog of the team.  Not every starter is average, the way the MLB is set up, it is extremely hard to have every single starter on your team be above average, there will always be players below average.  That is why an potentially average starter like Schierholtz holds value for me.

Ishikawa, while I think he can be a very useful starting 1B for certain teams which gets their offense from other positions, is replaceable by Belt and a number of other players.  He is a useful player off the bench, but the 25-man roster crunch is so severe that if the Giants are unable to unload Rowand, even if he is hitting well, they would lose both Ishikawa and Schierholtz anyway.  I think you try to hold onto Schierholtz, who is relatively more valuable than Ishikawa for the Giants right now, first.

The Giants should hold onto at least one of them, in any case, because they can be valuable power bats off the bench, plus both have been good baserunners in seasons past, particularly Schierholtz, giving the Giants a power/speed/defense lefty combo off the bench.  Frankly, if I had the choice, I would think strongly about whether the Giants really want to hold onto Fontenot, although that would make it very hard for DeRosa to make it into games since an injury to either MI once he is in would force the Giants to play an OF as an MI.

But as the Cody Ross injury shows, sometimes things sort themselves out before you have to make a decision.  In any case, I'm excited that the season will start in a few days.

Go World Champion Giants!!!