He Ain’t Having That: Buster is Bold and Decisive

Buster Posey hasn’t been too bold in this offseason, other than boldly doing nothing much, but his leadership so far has been marked by decisive moves that shows his need for speed, when he can step up.

Your 2025 Giants: Post Mortem

The Giants Front Office did their annual past season (they call it postseason, but I associate that with the playoffs) press conference, which is available on YouTube. Posey doubled down on and reiterated what he said in last year’s press conferences about the Giants strategy:  pitching and defense.  He also said it again in this NBC Sports snippet.  

He said the Giants this offseason will focus on starting pitching, noting how he thought they had SP depth at the start of the season and learned the adage that you never can have enough pitching. He also noted that they will pursue bullpen help as well.  

Your 2025 Giants: Why?!?

I’ve been wondering the same thing:  why?  I posted a comment on The Athletic, then copied and modified it here, then went further and discussed 2026 implications.

Your 2025 Giants: Buster's Blockbuster Trade for Devers

As announced by the Giants, they have traded for Boston's Rafael Devers, acquiring him in a package headlined by once and future ace, SP Kyle Harrison, SP/RP Jordan Hicks, and prospects OF James Tibbs III and reliever Jose Bello.

Devers (only 28 YO) is in the second season of a ten-year, $313.5M contract, covering him up to age 36 YO season, and there is about $250M left on it.  He hit .272 with 15 HR and 58 RBI in 73 games for the Red Sox this season and has been a great hitter (.859 OPS) for his career with the Red Sox (8.5 seasons).  

Hey Buster!!! My Giants Business Plan

This provides easy access to my Giants business plan and captures what I've been discovering and saying are the best ways to run a baseball team for competitive advantage and, in particular, to be more successful in the playoffs, and particularly, ways that has made winning the World Series more likely.  The Giants have followed a good portion of this plan, though not all.  

Zaidi followed much of it, but did not have enough successes to get to finish his contract, which had another year to go.  My kinder side wonders if the Giants replaced him because he was hospitalized, twice, near the end of the 2024 season.  But unforced errors like the furor in hiring Kapler and the waiver wire musical chairs, ate away at public and internal support, and he got replaced by Buster Posey, who installed Zack Minasian as his GM and right hand operational man, who has had GM level experience when he was with Milwaukee.

I'm happy with the ascension of Buster Posey to be the President of Baseball Operations because the strategy and tactics he talked about in his interviews so far is exactly what I think the team needs to be competitive in the playoffs:  elite pitching and defense, which leans into the park that they have.  He will also emphasize intangibles like character and make up.  

[Note:  I've re-written the original starting post to be addressed to Buster Posey, new President of Baseball Operations of the San Francisco Giants, but the original series of links were to Bill Neukom, soon after he was hired, with additional ones after Zaidi was hired.]

Your 2025 Giants: New Front Office Leaders - Buster and Zack

As most Giants fans know, Buster Posey was named to replace Farhan Zaidi as President of Baseball Operations. In that announcement he noted that Pete Putilla would no longer be the GM, and is being reassigned (to what, no news so far).  He recently promoted Zack Minasian, who was the Giant's Pro Scouting Director, to be his GM, his right hand man to execute their strategies.  

I wrote on this in my last post, but wanted to cover that and other thoughts here.  These are two good articles highlighting what Posey is thinking about what the Giants strategy is under his leadership:  Chronicle and MLB (capttures their vision).  There are nice quotes from Bailey and Chapman as well.

“I think it’s a huge advantage that we have this blueprint from not too long ago on what works in this ballpark,” said Zack Minasian, who was introduced as Posey’s new general manager on Friday. “Buster’s talked about [it]: We’re going to pitch, we’re going to play good defense and we’re going to find ways to score runs. Having position players that can beat you in a variety of ways is very important in this ballpark. It’s pretty simple. It starts on the mound and then having the right players defending to help the pitcher every given day and just scratch and claw every run we can get.”

As Posey said in his initial press conference, they will take advantage of the park by winning with pitching and defense.  

Your 2024 Giants: Why Six Years Is Not Enough (also: Posey/Minasian)

[Wrote most of this in mid-October, just never got around to finishing until today's announcement of Zack Minasian as the new GM, so I've added some comments about that]

Just read an article on Fangraphs, written a while ago, regarding how long draft prospects take to reach the majors.  It was going to be a key rebuttal regarding the six years people have been complaining that Zaaidi’s had enough time to rebuild the team. Then reality took a left turn.

I was taking off for a vacation in SoCal, to visit my daughter, and was away from my phone since I was driving my wife and I down.  So after we checked in, I checked my phone and my brother who also follows the Giants text me "Posey!"  And I'm wondering what happened.  Then I see The Athletic notifications of articles about Zaidi being replaced by Posey.

So, now, after he’s been fired and replaced by Posey, instead this post will simply be a learning experience for those who don’t understand the player development process very well (which, based on the vast majority of people commenting on The Athletic, is a vast majority of Giants fans; which aligns well with what I experienced when defending Sabean back in 2007-2010).

Your 2018 Giants: 6 of the SI Top 100

This should be a short one!

SI just published their SI 100 Top MLB players, and the Giants had two among 21-50 - Posey #29 and Bumgarner #36 - and four among 51-100 - Longoria #67, Crawford #79, Belt #82, Cueto #89.  The average team would have 3.33 players on the list, and the Giants had 6.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers had 3 of the Top 21 - Kershaw #7, Seager #17, Turner #21 - plus Bellinger #40, Jansen #62, and Taylor #64.

Together, the two NL West clubs had 12 out of 100.  The D-backs also had four on the list:  Goldschmidt #10; Greinke #24; Pollack #55; Ray #98.  The Rockies had 3:  Arenado #8; Blackmon #28; LeMahieu #86.

Other clubs with at least 6:

• Astros (7):  Altuve #2; Correa #9; Verlander #19; Springer #27; Reddick #66; Bregman #69; Keuchel #71
• Cubs (7):  Bryant #3; Rizzo #23; Darvish #53; Lester #70; Hendricks #72; Quintana #80; Contreras #91
• Indians (6):  Kluber #11; Lindor #15; Ramirez #26; Carrasco #31; Encarncion #76; Miller #81
• Nationals (7):  Scherzer #4; Harper #12; Strasburg #25; Rendon #33; Turner #38; Murphy #77; Gonzalez #84
• Red Sox (6):  Betts #6; Sale #20; JD Martinez #61; Kimbrel #63; Bradley Jr #74; Price #94
• Yankees (6):  Stanton #13; Judge #14; Sanchez #48; Gardner #56; Severino #59; Gregorius #83

Your 2018 Giants: Posey's Framing Decline

I was wondering about whether a catcher's framing ability had any effect on Watson, so I dug into the pitch framing numbers on StatCorner.  Below was what I found.

Giants Ways of Winning in the Playoffs

I ran across an article that captures some of what the Giants did to win 3 of 5.   I commented there and wanted to capture that here.  Below is my comment, plus additional stuff, as I am wont to do.

Your 2017 Giants: First Post-Season Presser

Ah, just like old times, when the Giants hold their first press conference after the end of their season, and the team is off a horrible season.  For a long while, Tim Kawakami had been posting the transcript and making it easy for anyone to see what exactly was said, saving me from having to listen/rewind the whole press conference to capture everything.  But he's off doing new things behind new paywalls (so maybe he did provide), and I don't feel like capturing EVERY word exactly anymore :) so like I have since my blog started, I will go over all the questions and answers said, and provide my own commentary (or snarkiness, as the case may be :).

Your 2016 Giants: The Three Ami-Gold Glovers

As reported by various news outlets (Haft, Pavlovic, Schulman; I would include Baggarly, but since the SJ Mercury changed to no RSS feed, it's not easy to grab, as these three were), three Giants won Gold Gloves:  Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford, and Joe Panik.

• Schulman reported:  "The winners were announced on ESPN on Tuesday afternoon. Posey, Crawford and Panik were selected in a vote of National League managers and coaches who could not choose their own players, in combination with a defensive index created by the Society for American Baseball Research."
• As Pavlovic reported, this is the first time since 1994 that the Giants won 3 Gold Gloves in a season.  Bonds, Lewis, and Williams won it that year.   As Haft noted, this is the most since 4 Giants won gold gloves in 1993:  Bonds, Manwaring, Williams, Thompson.  And Schulman noted that the Giants and Rangers were the only teams to win three in 2016, and that 1993, 1994, and 2016 are the only seasons the Giants won 3 or more Gold Gloves.
• This is Posey's and Panik's first Gold Gloves.  Posey's win broke Yadier Molina's eight year streak and he was the first Giants catcher to win it since Matheny won it in 2005.   Panik won in spite of only playing 127 games (and starting only 118, per Schulman), which suggests that, with health, he could put up a streak at 2B.  However, one of the guys he beat out, DJ LeMahieu, had won in 2014 and, per Schulman, is "widely viewed as the best defensive second baseman in the league."  He and Robby Thompson are the only Giants secondbasemen to win a Gold Glove (no Tito?).  
• This was Crawford's second Gold Glove, which was made easier when his top competitor, Andrelton Simmons, was traded to the AL, but he got a new strong competitor in Addison Russell, who the A's stupidly traded away to the Cubs.  Pavlovic:  "This season he had to hold off Cubs rookie Addison Russell, who tied Crawford with 19 Defensive Runs Saved and led in SDI. Crawford had the support of opposing coaches and managers who have spent years watching him pull outs from thin air. "
• Schulman noted:  "Crawford and Panik compose the first double-play combo to win in the NL since the Cardinals’ Edgar Renteria and Fernando Viña in 2002."
• Pavlovic provided numbers that backed Posey:   "He led all catchers with 12 Defensive Runs Saved and was a runaway winner in the SABR Defensive Index, which makes up about a quarter of the vote. Posey finished with 15.2 SDI, far ahead of second-ranked Yasmani Grandal (5.9) and Molina (0.7)."  He noted that the Giants were disappointed that Posey did not win last season, but it has historically been hard to unseat the incumbent, especially someone like Molina, who won for so many years.  These numbers could no longer deny the breakthrough for Posey.  
• Similarly for Panik:  "Panik got a boost from SDI, finishing at 8.5, two points ahead of the next best second baseman."
• This adds to the trophy case for Posey and Crawford, and starts one for Panik:
• Pavlovic:  "The award is the first major one for Panik and gave Crawford two to go along with his 2015 Silver Slugger Award. Crawford said he was happy to hear Posey added another item to an overflowing trophy case. “I think it was the one award that he hadn’t won,” he said. Through eight big league seasons, Posey has an MVP, three Silver Slugger Awards and a Rookie of the Year Award. Like Panik, he finally has that coveted Gold Glove, too. "
• All three noted that they had always focused on defense, from their earliest days.  Which is not surprising given that they all three started out as SS, which is a position that most coaches drill into their heads to be good defensively.  

Your 2016 Giants: They're Down, They're Really Down

(oops, had wrote this on 4/21, intending for it to publish late that night, but for some reason still had it open and unpublished until now).

The Giants just lost their fifth straight game, and 8 of the last 9 games, sinking to 7-10.  Giants fans are moaning everywhere.

Your 2015 Giants: End of Season Presser

The Giants held their end of season press conference on the Monday after the last game.   Unfortunately, none of the beat writers wrote up the transcript of what was said, nor was the full video made available by the Giants or CSNBA.   The Giants did provide a summary video that seems to capture a lot of what was reported by the beat writers and CSNBA did have a number of snippets, which perhaps, altogether, might be the entire conference.

• Haft's report
• Pavlovic's report
• Chronicle's report
• Baggarly's report

Note:  I was going to work on this earlier but then my back went out with a massive sneeze - I was crawling around on all fours for the next two days, walking around like a 100 year old for another week, still dealing with the pain still - and so apologies for taking so long to get to this.

Your 2015 Giants: Road Trip Gauntlet Over

Thought I would share some thoughts after this tough road trip.

Your 2015 Giants: Big Reason Giants Don't Want to Move Posey Just Yet ... And Yet, Susac!

I'm not sure exactly how I ran across this, but BP studied catcher framing in this article.

ogc thoughts

There are three interesting data points that were interesting to Giants fans regarding Buster Posey.

Buster Rules!

As one of the best strike framers today.  Despite playing roughly 4 seasons worth of catching so far, because of that devastating, even worse than NFL nasty hit in 2011, he had 71 Called Strikes Above Average, good for a tie with Mauer for 16th place, covering 1988-2014 (or the last 27 seasons, so a fair amount of history; wish authors would have given us total number of catchers captured in their analysis).  And if you look at his catching defensive stats, you will find that resulted in 80.6 runs (or roughly 8-9 wins or roughly 2 wins per season, a huge defensive contribution just from one area).

The stats in his profile don't match what is in the article, but making rough guesses, he is adding around 25 CSAA per season.  So in 3 seasons, he would be 9th (depending what Ross does), which would take him up to his 30 YO season.  Looking at his stats and those of others still playing at the top of the list, he's one of the best in the past three seasons (except for Lucroy, though Lucroy's 2014 was much reduced versus previous seasons), even better than Yadier and Martin.  Good reasons to keep him catching.

But So Does Aging

Looking at the Framing Aging Curve, however, most players his age are headed into a slight decline (and I would bet is a mix of guys who stay as good as they had been and guys either injured - they are catchers after all - or suffered physical declines, which led to the slight decline overall), and then at 30, there is a steep decline in the ability to frame, which suggests that as catchers' physical peak is over and physical decline happens, their ability to frame to gain strikes declines quickly.  Doesn't mean he will, but it would mean that he would be defying history of catchers captured in that study.

And this result, especially given the defensive value this provides, some 3-4 wins added (and this is defensive, so the effect is multiplied due to Pythagorean) for the best players, suggests that aging older catchers need to be replaced with younger starters who are good framers as soon as their framing skills decline in their 30's, though some do keep doing well, like Jose Molina.

But age appears to be a powerful factor in decline in the ability to frame (i.e. steal) strikes:

• Jose's brother Yadier hit his decline at age 31, though I would note that he had a poor year at age 26 then reverted back to goodness, and age 31 was last season for him;  then again, his FRAA was negative for two consecutive seasons, so this could be it for him defensively.  
• McCann hit his decline at age 29, two years going down now.  
• Lucroy, who appears to be among the best in his era, had a poor season last year at age 28 (I would note here how Yadier bounced back so perhaps just a glitch).   
• AJ Pierzynski was washed up defensively by his 30's, and retroactively, BP has his FRAA as horrible his whole career, so they must have decided their research back then showing him to be good defensively was not correct, making the trade look even more stupid and more likely, in my eyes, that Colletti was the one who instigated that trade, not Sabean.  
• Russell Martin didn't have a steep drop but has been gentling getting worse in framing starting at age 29 (which was within career range, but not the last two seasons).  
• Mauer has never been a top catcher at framing strikes, but he's been good enough to save about a one win per season, and his decline appears to have started at age 29, which covers the last two seasons.  

2015 is Posey's 28 YO season.  As I've shown above, all the top catchers above him which has this type of data has shown declines in their ability to frame strikes somewhere in the 29-31 age range.   That suggests that his decline in this ability could be starting in the 2016-2018 time frame.

Susac to the Rescue

The authors also analyzed AAA and AA catchers, and guess who popped up on the lists?  Susac.  He was tied for third with 14 CSAA runs, all the other guys were older than he, and a couple of the guys ahead of him were much older than he was.   And he did that catching 56 games in AAA since he spent significant time in the majors (unfortunately, didn't do as well in majors in gaining strikes, in fact, lost a few, though basically at 0).  Extrapolate that to Posey's catching, and they were roughly the same on a seasonal basis.  Of course, it was only AAA, but he is apparently on his way defensively,

I think that this article makes the case for what I've been suggesting as the way to handle the catching situation over the next few years.  We should have Susac spend 2015 working on all his catching defensive abilities, which is his 25 YO season.  Then for 2016-2020, the Giants should have Posey and Susac (assuming he can hit well enough at MLB level, something he has shown so far, but will need to prove he can sustain; I believe he can) as co-starters at C and another position on the field.  1B probably works best, but if they can handle 3B, all the better, as then we can keep Belt at 1B.

Posey at one point will decline defensively during this period, and Susac would be wasting his prime strike framing years being a backup, better to trade him and pick up a good veteran than do that, if he's not a starter.  By sharing the catching duties, Posey gets less wear and tear, hopefully enabling him to extend his effectiveness in framing pitches as he gets older, while Susac gets quality time at starting catcher (though not full, albeit) and by saving his legs in his youth, perhaps he'll last longer as a good defensive catcher deeper into his 30's.  Look at how Jose Molina was able to keep doing well deep into his 30's being a half-time/part-time catcher.

Your 2014 Giants: World Series Game 3: Nobody More Ready

That's reassuring words to hear from our starting pitcher, Tim Hudson (tweet from Pavlovic):

What I've hoped and dreamed for my whole career is finally here. There's not going to be anybody on field more ready than I am."

Also, had to share this great picture of Buster, beautiful:

ogc thoughts

Not a lot of positives from the game.  Peavy had a DIS start, just could not throw strikes to save him life, but was able to limit the damage until that fateful inning.  Of course, he got help from Machi and Strickland to burn the rest of the structure.  The hitters was able to get a lot of hits, but never the one to open the game up for us.  Bochy again was sub-optimal in using the pen, taking a close game and blowing it apart with Machi and Strickland.  Even the one positive, Lincecum's outing, turned into a negative when he felt tightness in his back (reports today I see on twitter notes that he's OK and probable for tomorrow, pending MRI results).

But, as I noted in the Cards series, I'm sad we lost game 2, but I didn't think that they would go the whole series without a loss.  Lick our wounds, come back fighting in Game 3.

Pondering Peavy

And I was worried about that because Peavy has not been very dominating in the playoffs.  He can limit the damage for the most part, but then the manager saves him by taking him out early.  Frankly, I would have took out Peavy sooner, after he gave us 5 OK innings.  At that point, he had only given up 2 runs, but had walked two while only striking out one.  That's a 2 PQS, not good, not bad, though close to bad, and much like he had done previously.  Leaving him in dropped his PQS into disaster territory.

So first, I'm wondering, should the series go to 6 games, do we start Peavy?  I think if Petit hasn't pitched much up to that point, we might see him start game 6 over Peavy.  Bochy has skipped a pitcher before during the playoffs, like they did with Bumgarner in 2012, so it is not unprecedented.   And really, I would even go with Lincecum paired with Petit even if Petit had pitched and could only give a couple of innings relief.  Peavy has shown nothing in his playoff career, and now I'm seriously considering changing my mind about re-signing him for 2015, though we still need a starter for 2015 (though that could be Petit instead, with Bumgarner, Cain, Hudson, and Lincecum, who hopefully will be better after an off-season getting back his old mechanics by working with his dad).

Sticking With Strickland

It's not called learning pains for nothing.  Some people just have it immediately, like K-Rod did, but for whatever reasons, Strickland is struggling.  I wouldn't mind if Bochy uses him again, but obviously got to chose the spots.

I still believe in his talent.  He has only 12.1 IP in his MLB career, 5.1 IP of which were in the playoffs.  His baptism in fire.  But 9 K's in 7 IP with only 5 hits and zero walks in the regular season, 32.5 IP in AA, with only 25 hits and 4 (!) walks vs. 48 K's for a 12.00 K/BB ratio (remember 2 is good and you want at least 2.4 from your best pitchers;  so yeah, that's elite, that's like Bumgarner's ratio in high school, Madison's best as pro was in Augusta with a 7.81 K/BB).  That's a 12.1 K/9 and 1.0 BB/9 for Hunter in AA.

And his blow-up reminds me of another Giant:  Bumgarner.  I'll never forget about him flinging the ball out of the stadium in AAA early in the 2010 season when he got really angry, I think at an umpire's bad call.  Need that type of passion during the game, as well as "move on" attitude afterward, to be an effective closer, and he apparently has this quality.

No Mas Machi

I usually applaud Bochy for his moves, but I felt that he was late in his changes again.  As noted above, I would have took out Peavy after he got 5 good innings out of him, plus then this would have let Machi pitch with no runners on, especially since he has not really had a clean appearance so far this season except for his first one out relief appearance.  Since then it has been a hit parade, as well as run parade.

Instead, he faced two runners on with no outs and gave up another hit.  I think Bochy is better off using Machi in low pressure situations, he's obviously battling some sort of nerves, it happens to the best of us, same as Strickland.  But after this amount of time, I think you use him in garbage time and big leads, if he gets in trouble, stop him quick and bring in the Big Boys, Affeldt, Romo, Lopez, and Casilla.

Liking Lincecum

I'm not sure what the issue was with not using Lincecum, unless he was suffering from some sort of extreme fatigue or something, or working on mechanics (but then why carry him when Kontos could have contributed).  But I still believe in Timmy and he delivered almost two innings of dominance when his back stiffened, and he had to leave the game.

Report from Baggarly is that he has suffered issues like this since high school, when he had his growth spurts and they would come and go, but never linger.  His MRI, just for precaution, came out clean as well.  He threw a normal session today and said that he felt normal and declared himself ready for Game 3 use.  Remember his rubber arm, as I agree with Baggarly that he has moved ahead of Machi and Strickland on the bullpen totem pole, you might see Lincecum bridge the middle innings as necessary in the rest of the games, he says that he can go every day.  Good time to test this out given Machi, Strickland, and Peavy's problems getting hitters out.

In Bochy I Trust

I've been a bit concerned about Bochy's bullpen usage during these playoffs, and I don't think the leopard has changed his spots, so I have been thinking that Bochy needed to see how much he can depend on Machi and Strickland during the playoffs, and the only way to do that is to use them.  Same with Peavy.  They all let him down, and, thinking back, most players have delivered for the most part, and when not, apparently there was something to fix, and they bring him back fine, like Bumgarner in 2012.  Meanwhile, he didn't need to use Lincecum, so why tire him out when you can run other guys out there, but when he needed him to eat innings yesterday, he did.

So, if this theory is correct, we should see a drastic change in bullpen usage going forward.  Lincecum would be used like he was in 2012, every game if necessary.  Machi and Strickland will get to face 1-3 batters, see how it goes, start them in a clean inning.  Bochy has been the master of the bullpen for ages now, and still, most of the time this off-season, so my best guess is that he's testing to see who he can rely on.

Happy with Huddy

He has come through for us this post-season.  Two DOM starts, and I am encouraged by this because it was exactly what he did early in the season when he was healthy and well rested.  It's been what he's been doing for the last 13 seasons, methodically, professionally, La Machine.  3.57 ERA this season, 3.45 ERA for his career, 3.38 ERA since his TJS.  This is why I wanted the Giants to sign him, and he has delivered in spades.

Here is what I wrote in my other post:

Game 3 is also a bit of a toss-up, based on DOM, but I give the edge to the Giants.  Both pitchers have similar DOM% for the season, but while Hudson has two DOM starts so far in the post-season, Guthrie has none, not even getting a start in the ALDS, and throwing a 2 PQS in the ALCS, where he only had 2 K's in 5 IP but 2 BB's.   

But it is the World Series, the first for Hudson.  Of course, he beat the pressure in the NLCS and had a 4 PQS start there, winning his start.  And he was masterful, with 5 K's and 0 walks in 6.1 IP.  Again, could be a turning point for the Giants here, again, as Bochy understands must wins.

I still think we have the edge on paper, but as the saying goes, that's why we play these games.  Another positives are these (tweets from Baggarly):

Tim Hudson said he's physically and mentally ready to pitch the biggest game of his life.
— Andrew Baggarly (@CSNBaggs) October 24, 2014

Hudson wouldn't go into specifics on all that went into his hip rehab, but clearly there was a lot. "Medicine's a beautiful thing," he said.
— Andrew Baggarly (@CSNBaggs) October 24, 2014

Basically, Hudson was on a downward trend with his PQS after he skipped a start earlier this season, finally getting worse and worse until his last start of the season.  By that point, it was reported that he had been battling some sort of hip issue.  Without a skipped start, but with the medicine,  he has had three straight DOM starts.  And with 10 days of rest, he should be well rested again.

So it should be a good game on our side.  Not as sure a thing for Guthrie, but he's been good in the regular season, and perhaps his first playoff start was just a fluke and he delivers.  But I like our chances, it was Hudson who led us in the early going, not Bumgarner, who was struggling a bit with the heavy mental load of being the ace (he had been aces for a long time until then, a machine; he's been a machine since the beginning of May).

Plus, our hitters are pretty good at avoiding strikeouts and getting walks, and Guthrie is particularly susceptible to left-handed hitters, of which we have a lineup full of them, plus Posey and Pence who hit RHP and LHP almost equally well, and he already have trouble striking out hitters in general, so the Giants should be putting a lot of balls into play against him, much like KC against Peavy.

I feel pretty good about this game, Go Giants!

Your 2014 Giants: World Series: Game 2

Giants win game 1 behind Bumgarner's DOMinating start, 5 PQS.  But the offense, with Pence's 2-run homer, gave him all the support he would need:  a factoid on Twitter noted that team has been 60-3 behind Bumgarner when he's been given a 3 run lead.  There was a nice article on him in the NY Times.  And I guess this simulation has been proven wrong, KC will not win the first game (SF wins game 3 on a BCraw homer though, so that can still come true).

Your 2014 Giants: Frantic Fans

The season is early yet and I've seen despondent fans upset over a variety of players.  I thought I would go through some of them.

ogc thoughts

Things got tough, but really, it is just early season where the slightest losing streak starts the Chicken Littles squawking that the sky is falling.

Starting Rotation

Rough start, but things are turning around after initial hiccups.  Overall, their PQS is 40% DOM/28% DIS.  40% is good but not great and great is what gets us into the playoffs. It was in the 60% range when we were winning titles.  28% DIS is horrible, it has to be in the teens for us to get into the playoffs, most probably.  However, if you remove that first five starts, where there was a lot of disaster starts, we are at 45% DOM/20% DIS, which is better but not there yet.  Still, on the right trend, but plenty of games to be played still, 137 to be exact in the regular season, no need to panic.

Leading the team, no surprise, is Hudson at 60% DOM and 0% DIS.  Cain, Bumgarner, and Lincecum each are at 40% DOM (Cain is at 20% DIS, the other two at 40% DIS).  Vogelsong has only 20% DOM and 40% DIS.

Why did I remove the first starts?  Players are human, and first starts, particularly opening day starts, can put the jitters into the best of us, like Bumgarner.  Since that first start, Bumgarner is 50% DOM/25% DIS, Cain 50% DOM/0% DIS, Hudson 50% DOM/0% DIS, Lincecum 50% DOM/50% DIS, and Vogelsong 25% DOM/25% DIS.  All looking much better and gives a hint at what they are capable of if there was an early hiccup, which I believe it was.  But when the hiccup happens in start 1 instead of start 21, then people get their feathers ruffled.

Starting Over

I'll use that as a jumping point into Lincecum and Sandoval.  I've giving each a lot of rope right now.  Both are trying to change how they play baseball.  And as I've noted before in my references to Malcolm Gladwell's article about learning and where sports is a key topic area, when a player is learning, he's lost a lot of muscle memory and he's trying to get to a level of muscle memory where he can just act and not think about what he should do next.  I don't know when it will end but both are clearly working hard to improve their command so that their walks are more indicative of a good player (low for a pitcher, high for a hitter).  And both are in a good spot right now with that peripheral.

In Lincecum's case, he's trying to be more precise with his pitches, getting more strikes while avoiding balls.  His previous low in a season was 2.7 BB/9 and he is at 3.5 BB/9 for his career.  So far this season, he's at 2.1 BB/9.  As a result, he's at his highest K/BB for his career, 4.50 this season, high of 3.84 previously.  The best pitchers are at 2.4 and higher.  He should be fine if he can continue this high K/BB ratio.

However, when you are learning to do something new, mistakes are more often, and thus his HR/9 is at 2.1 right now and H/9 is at 12.6.  At least he is improving, as in his last three starts:  1.1 HR/9, 12.1 H/9, while 2.9 BB/9 and only 8.6 K/9 but still 3.00 K/BB, for a 3.45 ERA.  But clearly, as his last start showed, he's still working out the kinks.  But I would say that things are promising for him, and we can tolerate this while we are winning.  I expect a good season out of him eventually, but it would have been foolhardy to think that there wouldn't be any bumps in the road.

In Sandoval's case, apparently this is the season he listens to other people.  He has already said that he lost weight his off-season because Posey (among others) came to him and told him he needed to get into shape to best help the team, and so he did.  In addition, there has been many references to his talk with Miguel Cabrera, a fellow Venezuelan, where Miguel worked with him extensively and gave him a lot of coaching.  And his coaching hasn't ended, a recent blog post noted that Bam Bam is still working on him, so he's not out of the tunnel yet, he's still learning.  But he has taken a lot more walks that he normally would not have gotten, but he has also struck out a lot more too.  Again, I expect a good season out of him eventually, and as it seems to always be with the Panda, there are bumps in the road.

Slumping

And fans have been up and down on a number of hitters, from Sandoval to Pence, to Posey and now Belt.  Well, early in the season, it's easy to be whiplashed by the ups and downs of any number of players.  Pence is clearly on the up now, after being in the downs for a long time.  And the others have had their downs more lately, after starting hot.

The good sign for Pence, as well as Posey, is that both were not striking out that much, making contact with pitches, while also getting a lot of walks.  In fact, perhaps Pence was in learning mode too early on, as his SO% is very low 13.8% vs. previous low of 16.0% in 2010 and career 18.2% SO%, and his BB% is 11.9% vs. previous seasonal high of 9.0% in 2009 and career 7.5% BB%.  This is the closest Pence has been in his career to 1.00 BB/K, which only the best hitters achieve, plus the best contact rate in his career, at 84%, almost at the 85% contract rate the best hitters reach.

Posey is at 84% contact rate as well.  His SO% is at 14.3% for the season, very close to his career 13.8% and his 11.0% BB% is up there for the past two seasons, 11.3% in 2012 and 10.1% in 2013, leaving him at a very good BB/K ratio and good for his career.  His main issue appears to be his BABIP of .226 for the season, whereas his career is .330 and in full seasons like 2010 and 2013, his BABIP was in the .310-.315 range.  It appears that the BABIP gods are giving him payback for his great 2012 season where he had a .368 BABIP.  Given his good peripherals, I would not worry about Posey.

I wouldn't worry too much about Belt either.  As badly as he did over the weekend, for the past 2 weeks, he's still hitting .255/.314/.404/.718.  Mind you, that includes his golden sombrero yesterday and a horrid oh-fer-12 with 9 K's weekend series with the Indians.  That stuff happens sometimes and it looks worse when there hasn't been much season to base your impressions on.  But how soon people forget that at the beginning of the Cleveland series, his overall batting line was .299/.337/.563/.900.  As quickly as he stunk up the joint, he had been our top hitter for the first 22 games of the season, even during the streak where the offense wasn't doing much of anything, except, that is for him, who hit .367/.424/.500/.924 from April 15th to 22nd, while the team only scored 15 runs in those 8 games.  How soon fans forget and start crying like Chicken Little!

Meanwhile...

The other starters (Hicks, Crawford, Morse, Pagan) have pretty good overall offensive numbers (all at or above 134 OPS+; in fact, only Sandoval is low for his position, the next lowest is Pence at 123 OPS+ which is pretty good, a lineup with 7 hitters at 120+ OPS+ is going to score a lot of runs) and the bullpen, except for occasional hiccups, like yesterday, has been stellar, with a 2.13 ERA (and the starters have been OK with a 4.02 ERA).   Only the bench players have been struggling to hit, but Adrianza has a .909 OPS in 12 games as a sub (his 3 hit game helped a LOT though) and Blanco .708 OPS in 18 games as a sub.

So, overall, starting pitching could be a lot better but is at least good so far and improving, the hitting, while giving us a monster roller coaster ride, is actually in pretty great shape and should be good for the season, barring multiple injuries, and our bullpen has been superb, as it has usually been for most Sabean GMed teams.  Only our bench leaves things to be desired, but it is early for them and SSS really hurts badly early in the season for reserves.

Lookin' Goood!

Thus, no need for despondency, and not just because of the small winning streak we have, but because of all the facts above.  The sky was not falling, and still is not falling.  Keep the faith, the team has a strong offense that should keep the runs coming most times and the pitching should be good enough to keep enough runs from not scoring to keep the wins coming.  And the fielding defense is much improved this season, helping the pitching, at 12 DRS so far, which would be 78 DRS for the season, or roughly 8 wins gained from our defense, whereas last season we barely gained half a win.  I still like my prediction of 90+ wins and not being surprised if they end up at or above 95 wins.

Your 2014 Giants: Defense Rising

I was just perusing the Giants defensive numbers (I was curious if Perez registered; nope) and thought I would write about their defense at, admittedly, a very early part of the season, but lots of interesting notes, I think.