End of an Era: Madison Bumgarner Signs With D-Backs

I heard the news today, about a lucky man who made the grade:  Madison Bumgarner signs with the D-backs for 5 years, $85M, or $17M per season, but with $15M deferred, averages $14M during contract.

Baggarly reported that the Giants went as high as 4 years, $70M.  Baggarly reported that from his talks with Bumgarner before, Arizona was clearly of interest to him because he and his wife loves the area, and has a ranch there, which they can then live at for most of the year now that he works nearby.

Your 2015 Giants: xBABIP

BABIP is Batting Average on Balls In Play, and every hitter has their own level of skill in maintaining that batting average.  People could periodically try to develop an estimator.  Someone associated with Fangraphs gave it a try (here is the article) using BIS batted ball data.  The idea is that tying the likely results given where and how a ball is hit to develop what should have happened given the batted ball would give us a better idea of the underlying BABIP skill of the hitter.  The author provided a link in his article to the data, and below is my thoughts on Giants players and select NL West hitters.

Your 2012 Giants are 81-62: Drowning the D-backs

The D-backs are 10 games behind but have 6 games left with the Giants.  If they can win all 6 games, they would only be 4 games back, still far back with only 13 other games to make up those four games, but close enough to sniff the division title.  And what alternative do they have other than to win and try to be an obstacle in the Giants path to the division title?  Meanwhile, they are getting close to the second wild-card slot as well right now, and sweeping the Giants would put them that much closer to that second slot.  So they should be highly motivated to try to sweep the Giants.

They just had a mano-a-mano series against LA, who also needed to win, and they won both games in the series, beating Kershaw, the Giants Killer.  Still, after a nice win streak when they won five games in a row back at the beginning of June, ending June 10th, they have only been 41-42 since, so they clearly have not done well for a long time, win a few, lose a few, never getting too far from .500 since then.  They need to have an extended period of good play to get into the playoffs but they are only 9-11 in their last 20 (19 games left) and 14-16 in their last 30.  So it has been more that LA was falling back to them than them rising to LA.  And San Diego is only 2.5 games behind them now, but has been playing well for over two months now.  SD might pass up both AZ and LA if those teams don't watch out.

Your 2012 Giants Are Leading: Dumping the D-backs

The Giants have done a good job showing the majors that it was not Melky responsible for their good showing up to now, that it was their team.  Now they are facing their two closest rivals for the NL West Division Title this week, starting with the D-backs.

The Giants lead is so much that the only realistic way the D-backs can win the division now is to win (i.e. sweep), the remaining nine games they have left with the Giants, starting with these three in SF.  Gibson's luck last year (12 games over .500 in one-run games) regressed to the mean this season (10 games below .500 in 2012), so they have been swimming upstream for the most part and not succeeding.  Each Giants win means another nail in the coffin that is their division title hopes, and the Giants could really bury them by winning the series.

Your 2012 Giants are 71-57: Houston and Chicago Got Problems

I'm not going to go in-depth on the next two series because both teams have got a lot of problems winning games (Houston is 6-24 in their last 30 games - and 4-16 at home - Chicago 9-21 in last 30 games- though 11-9 at home in their last 20 games there).  Basically, the Giants ideally need to go 4-2 in the six games, because they will be headed into tough series against NL West teams for the rest of the season.

2012 Giants: June PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of June 2012, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here (unfortunately, they removed the article; this link gets you at least to the PQS definition, read down to middle for details). I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).

Your 2012 Giants: BP's Adjusted Standings Show Giants Well

I just ran into Baseball Prospectus' Adjusted Standings report, where they analyzes all team's win/loss record, and adjusts them based on a a variety of factors, such as Pythagorean (they use the Pythangpat's formula however), the Pythagorean using adjusted runs scored (though I wonder why they don't do one with adjusted runs allowed as well), and lastly one adjusted for quality of competition as well as the other adjustment.

Interesting enough, the Giants should be leading, by about 1-2 games, but over the D-backs, not the D-gers.   The D-gers have been playing above their heads and should be close to, if not under, .500, which is where I opined they would be this season.  Of course, it helps that Kemp is out, but they are also being propped up by pitchers doing better than previously.

Of course, the Giants should be above their Pythagorean:  they are currently 4 games over .500 in 1-run games, which most teams regress to zero, but as my research showed, Bochy is the rare manager who can manage a winning record in 1-run games.  So that regression that BP expects with the first order win percentage probably will not happen.

Still, even with all that, the Giants are about where they are expected to be, statistically.  And the D-backs are the real team to be worried about, as they have been underperforming.  I don't know how they are doing it but for the second season in a row, their pitching staff is in shambles the first couple of months, then somehow they regroup, find some new pitchers and start rising up the standings quickly.

They also have playoff odds.  The Giants are currently at 83.5%, best in the NL.

Your 2011 Giants are 61-47: D-Fanging the D-backs

The Giants had a tough road trip and came out of it 2-4, which is not bad but not great, and still just one win (one run, really, in that extra-inning first game against the Reds, which seemed to sap the Giants will, but had they won, it would have ensured a .500 record on the road, which is any team's goal for the road) away from a good .500 trip, particularly against the Phillies and Reds.

Of course, it ended with a sweep, so it probably feels worse than it really is right now for a lot of Giants fans, particularly since the newest savior, Carlos Beltran,  did not do much of anything yet.  I think fans just need to be patient with everything, which has basically been the mantra over the past few seasons, as the Giants rebuilt, then started winning.

Now they come home for a 10 game homestand, where they can put some distance between themselves and the remaining contender in the NL West division, the Arizona D-backs by winning the series, if not sweeping.  It should be a good one, setting the stage for a rematch with the Phillies right afterward for 4 games, then facing the surprising Pirates.  This is probably THE key homestand of this season, they need to make a good showing against the D-backs and the Phillies.

Click to see the matchups:

Your 2011 Giants are 37-29: Rattling the D-backs

Amazing that the D-backs are the Giants closest competitor right now, but like the 'Dres in 2009, they were actually playing around .500 in the last part of the 2010 season, so I thought that with some prospects doing well this season, they could contend for a while, before falling back.  Of course, SD lasted to the last day of the season, so you never know.

They actually were not doing that well until they added three pitchers to their rotation who have done well for them:  Josh Collmenter, Zach Duke, and Micah Owings.  They have been a collective 7-2 and probably even better team record with them pitching, as they have been doing great.  It is like the D-backs had added three Ryan Vogelsong's to the rotation.  As unlikely it is to get one, it is just as unlikely that the three will continue for the whole season.

Collmenter looks like he could be the real deal.  He has been pretty good in the lower minors, and could just be figuring it out up here, as he has struggle a bit the past couple of seasons down in upper minors.  I can buy that he's just reaching his potential, much like Matt Latos for SD last season.

Now, it could be that Duke and Owings, finally figured it out at age 28, much like Vogelsong figuring it out at age 33.  But that is highly unlikely, just as it was unlikely that Clayton Richards and Wade LeBlanc were top of rotation starters.  And once they start to revert to mean, their record will fall as well, however, both Richards and LeBlanc pitched well to mid-season before reverting, so you never know.

Game 1:  Cain vs. Collmenter

Matt Cain:  Cain had his best start of the year Wednesday, striking out 11 over nine innings, the 13th complete-game effort of his career. Cain had all four pitches working, got the first-pitch strikes he wanted and even aided his own cause with an RBI double.

Joshua Collmenter:  Collmenter continued his string of impressive outings, hurling five-plus innings and throwing 102 pitches as he settled for a no-decision in a 2-0 victory at Pittsburgh on Thursday. Collmenter has allowed just four total runs in his six starts.

Collmenter has never faced the Giants in a start before - 2 shutout innings though in relief - and has a 0.00 ERA at home, a renown hitter's park.  His numbers are good, mind you, in terms of K/BB, but not that good, so at some point he will be giving up some hits and runs there.  In addition, he's not much of a strikeout pitching, so he relies on his defense a lot to handle his BIP.  But he has a lot of infield flies, which contribute to him being a flyball pitcher, but that which results in a lot of runs not being given up.

Matt Cain is having one of his better seasons ever, despite having a higher ERA overall.  He has not done well against AZ in AZ, 4.02 ERA in his career, but his last poor start there was in 2009, with a good start in 2010 and a good start already in 2011.  Have to think he is at the top of his game right now, so this game should be a battle with Collmenter if he continues his home dominance.  But if Collmenter, who has only had two starts at home so far, finally falters, the Giants should win.

Game 2:  Bumgarner vs. Saunders

Madison Bumgarner:  Bumgarner has set new standards for futility. He has absorbed four defeats while allowing one earned run or fewer. The last pitcher to lose that many games despite such stinginess? Teammate Matt Cain in 2007.

Joe Saunders:  Saunders was hurt by the home run in his last outing, a 6-4 loss to the Marlins in Florida. Saunders, who had won his previous three decisions, allowed three homers, accounting for all five of the runs he allowed on 10 hits over six innings.

Joe Saunders has been a great disappointment to the D-backs as a return in the Haren trade.  Good for us, but that could have been seen beforehand, Saunders has never been that good even with the Angels.  He has had a better ERA at home though, amazingly enough, with a 4.03 ERA in AZ.  He has had only one game against SF so far in his career, and the Giants beat him like a rug, 5 R/ER in 6.2 IP in Arizona.

Madison Bumgarner has been great since his early season adjustment period that apparently is a recurring thing for him.  Apparently he cannot get his big body going well until a few weeks into the season.  He has a career 2.28 ERA against AZ, 2.38 ERA for games in AZ, so he has done pretty well against them in his short career.  Should be a win for the Giants unless Saunders figure out the Giants, but that sole game was earlier this season, so it is with this lineup that he was beat (though now Posey and Sanchez are out of the lineup).

Game 3:  Vogelsong vs. Kennedy

Ryan Vogelsong:  Vogelsong's streak of allowing one run or fewer ended at six in a row in his last outing. Vogelsong still owns an ERA of 0.99 in his last seven starts. He's 2-0 with a 3.27 ERA in his road assignments.

Ian Kennedy:  Kennedy battled on a hot, humid South Florida night in his last outing against the Marlins. He picked up the win despite allowing five runs over eight innings. Most of the damage came on back-to-back homers by Gaby Sanchez and Mike Stanton.

Have to give this game to their ace of staff, Kennedy.  As great as Vogelsong has done, got to expect the wheel to fall off at some point.  But until it does, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!

Still, Kennedy is very formidable.  He has a 3.66 ERA in AZ, pitching at home, which is basically the same as his ERA on the road, so he has figured out his home.  And he has a 1.99 ERA against the Giants at home in 3 starts.

Vogelsong will have to have a great start here for the Giants to have any chance of winning.  He has not pitched against AZ this season, and, of course, what he did here previously don't see to have any meaning given how well he is doing this season, but for completeness, he has done very well there, 0.90 ERA over three games from 2004-2006, one start 7 IP, only 1 R/ER.  And that was when he was pitching very poorly.

So maybe a glimmer of hope, but given how good Kennedy has been against the Giants and at home, have to think that D-backs win this game.

Giants Thoughts

A short road trip of 3 games after a nice homestand of 6-4, which is pretty good considering we didn't have Pablo Sandoval, Buster Posey, and Freddy Sanchez over that whole homestand.  It would be nice to come out of it with a series win, but it looks like that hinges on whether Matt Cain and the Giants can win the first game, as the second game looks like the Giants can certainly win, while third game I would have to give to D-backs since Kennedy has been so good - not that Vogelsong hasn't been equally if not not better but I think caution is still necessary regarding what we can expect out of him, particularly up against the other team's ace.  A sweep is possible by the Giants, but not likely given how good Kennedy has been against the Giants previously:  Cain and Bumgarner will need to do the job in this series.

It helps immensely that Pablo Sandoval returns from DL (Conor Gillaspie was sent down) and he hit well for power in the minors, suggesting he should be pretty good for us, sooner or later, giving our offense a huge boost.  In addition, it would take the weight of the offense of Huff's shoulders, and perhaps he will stop swinging so poorly, overall, for this season.  His 4 HR outburst gave some hope, but it appeared to just make him more swing-happy, which just led to more outs.

Thus far this month, only Cody Ross has been our most consistent offensive contributor.  Nobody has really been doing it for the offense, though Miguel Tejada's bat might be finally awakening, and not a moment too soon, now with Freddy Sanchez out.  He has had hits in 8 of 9 games now, plus two consecutive games of 2 doubles, showing power he has not really been showing, so it could be a fluke too.  However, as I've been noting, he has not been fooled that greatly batting, his strikeout rate is still pretty good, and the hope is that the BABIP gods smile on him now as much as it was angry at him earlier in the season.

The question now is that with Sandoval at 3B and Crawford holding SS for now, where would he even start at, unless he can learn how to play 2B relatively quickly.  Bill Hall, who the Giants signed quickly after Sanchez's shoulder injury, looks to get starts at 2B, in any case.  Some speculation I've seen is that given Huff's struggles, he might sit against LHP, with Tejada at 3B and Sandoval at 1B (he started there in one of his rehab starts in the minors).  But seeing that his bat appears to be awakening, I would rather find out how Tejada can handle 2B, I mean, he was a SS before, after all, so he should be able to handle 2B too.

Aubrey Huff has also been on a nice hit streak too, 6 games of 7, after that poor 3 game stretch after his 3-homer game.  The BABIP gods had not been good for him either until recently, but his stretch of good hitting actually extends back to his May 27th game:  only 3 strikeouts in 63 AB, and two of them happened in the oh-fer-streak after the 3-homer game.  If he can continue that nice bit of hitting, things should start to balance out for him, BABIP-wise, and would be a nice combination with Sandoval in the middle of the lineup.

And while Nate Schierholtz has not been hitting that well in June, his strikeout rate is actually about his norm for season and OK, so he's also been beat up by the BABIP gods as well.  I think if Bochy continues to put him in the starting lineup, he will produce, as long as he's not banged up in any way.  I think Bochy is trusting him more, he's been starting him in the 3-spot in a number of lineups.

The key is having Sandoval back in the middle, I think.  Andres Torres has been OK leading off, though it would be nice to get a bit more power, and Tejada has been OK batting 2nd.  Placing Schierholtz 3rd is actually good because you want your low OBP, high SLG guys batting there.  Then Sandoval clean-up and Huff 5th, plus Cody Ross 6th.  That leaves the second baseman 7th and the catcher 8th.  Should be a much better offense once Sandoval is in there, hitting for power and consistently good.

After AZ, get three against A's in Oakland, so like home games, plus they have been struggling mightily, so it would be nice to perhaps sweep them, though a series win is good enough.  Then got the Twins, who have been struggling with injury bug as much as the Giants, and the Indians, who had been great early in the season, but as been terrible lately.  Then Cubs before facing good club again in Tigers.  That's 13 games against clubs that have been hurting lately, Giants need to make some hay against them, especially with Sandoval back, starting with D-backs, since the rotation matchups favor us a little.

Giants Still Look Good to Win NL West Division Title

I still like the Giants chances to win the division and make the playoffs, even with all the injuries.  What some people don't realize is the beauty of the team roster that Sabean has put together for the Giants.  When you have a great starting rotation like the Giants have, and pair it with a great bullpen, you don't need much of a lineup to win with it.  They won a lot of games in 2009 with a poor offense, and a lot more games in 2010 with an average one.  Just mix and match pieces, bring in people until you find the right one, and you can win easily with that great pitching.

It also helps that I don't think much of the other teams in the NL West.  I stated this before the season and I think it still holds now, that the other NL West teams are not that good, even Colorado.  I thought that they might be doing more, but I'm not surprised either, their 2010 season was boosted by a number of outlier performances, particularly Ubaldo Jimenez's sizzling first half, which would need to be replicated somehow this season, either offensively or pitching, before they can hope to beat last season's win total.

And LA has stunk as I had forecasted, as they stunk without Manny even though they had Lilly, and especially with the injuries this season.   They didn't add anyone remotely likely to match Manny's production, so I was laughing when they signed Uribe and took him off our hands.  They really needed Huff's 2010 production, not Uribe's.

And SD was just fooling themselves thinking that they could compete after trading Adrian Gonzalez.  They just brought up one of the guys they traded him for, Anthony Rizzo, who I like and has done well so far, but he's striking out a lot, so I expect the league to catch up with him at some point and cool him off.

But even with that, if the Giants play .500 the rest of the way, which would put the Giants at 85-77, they still need to make up the 8.5 games and go 56-39 to catch up, that's a .589 winning percentage, or 95-96 win season: they weren't good enough to win 95 games with Adrian Gonzalez last season, they aren't going to be good enough to win at a 95 game pace without him this season.  It would be hoping too much for Rizzo to duplicate A-Gon's production, especially at 21.

And I don't think the Giants will play at a .500 rate the rest of the season.  I think they are capable of playing higher than that. With boosts to the offense, due to Sandoval etc, I think the Giants should be able to reach 90 wins again, which should be more than enough to win the division.  Even if they played .500 and ended up 85-77, they should still be in the mix for the title, I just don't think much of the other teams unless one of their young guys come up and suddenly dominate.

Your 2011 Giants: Rattling the Diamondbacks

Wow, that was nice, lost the first game to Kershaw but pulled out the other two for a series win that brings the Giants back to .500 at 6-6.  The Giants end their short home series 4-2, to counter their 2-4 road start.  Now they head out to the road for 6 games, first against D-backs.

Meanwhile, the D-backs have been pretty good considering how poorly their 2010 was.  At 5-6, they are basically a .500 team so far, and they have done it more with their offense than pitching, which is a surprise to me, as I liked their young pitchers that they had up at the end of last season, particularly Hudson and Enright.  And besides Montrero hitting so well, nobody else is really that much of a surprise offensively, so they might be able to keep this going for a while.

Meanwhile, if their pitchers settle down, they could be battling for the title this season, a la 2010's SD.  I was impressed with Kirk Gibson's handling of the club from last season and he appears to still have it.  Odd that so many ex-Giants and now ex-Dodgers end up strongly involved with the D-backs.

I suppose it has to do with spring training being held in Arizona each season, many players settle here (like Matt Williams), but still, lots of other team are here in spring too.  And part of it was that there were a lot of ex-Giants personnel involved with the start-up of the D-backs as well, particularly, one of their top execs, I think his first name was Ralph, but I'm not sure exactly now (anyone?).

Game 1:  Cain vs. Hudson

Matt Cain:  Cain has picked up where he left off last season, opening the year with a pair of quality starts. He recorded 11 consecutive scoreless innings before surrendering his first run of the season in Saturday's win over the Cardinals.

Dan Hudson:  Hudson pitched well in his last outing against the Reds but came away with a loss. He allowed just two runs on three hits over seven innings with both the runs and two of those hits coming in the first inning.

Going to be a tough battle, Hudson is the one starter who has been good so far and he handled the far more lethal Reds offense well, and especially since he did that in Cincinnati.  But Matt Cain has been pretty shut down himself.  He has a career 4.27 ERA against the D-backs in Arizona.  Hudson was projected by Baseball Forecaster to have a 3.53 ERA, Cain a 3.26.  Looks like it will be a toss-up, could go either way.

Game 2:  Zito vs. Saunders

Barry Zito:  Zito showed potential in his first two outings. He yielded three first-inning runs in his season debut at Los Angeles before working five shutout innings. Then he allowed one run in five innings to St. Louis before surrendering three in the sixth.

Joe Saunders:  Saunders' last outing is one he'd rather forget. He struggled to find his release point and wound up allowing six hits and five walks while lasting just three innings. He allowed just two runs in six innings in his first start.

Zito is still looking for his bliss, his rhythm, though he's been pretty shut down for 5 IP before the other team figures him out in the 6th.  And he has been horrible in Chase Field previously, 5.57 ERA in 6 starts there, though his last start there last season, he went 6.0 IP, with 4 hits and 3 walks, and 7 K's and 2 R/ER.

Saunders was great in Arizona last season, but was horrible in his first start this season.  So hard to say what will happen this early.  If Saunders can't get untracked and pitch like he did in his first start, they are not going to find it easy to win.  But the same could be said about Zito.  A positive for Saunders is that he was beat by tough Cincy offense in Chase, and he had handled Cubs OK in Chicago.  He has never faced the Giants, so that could be a plus in his factor.

I would give a lean to Zito for at least pitching effectively for the most part in his two starts so far this season, but this is Arizona's home park and home teams have a slight advantage.  Plus, as noted, Saunders pitched well here in 2010 and his only blemish is being bashed by the Reds in his first start here this season.  I would call it even except that Bochy has let Zito go into the 6th both starts and that's where he faltered, and thus I would expect the same in this game, so I will have to lean in the D-backs favor for this game, under the expectations of a Zito blow-up 5th, 6th inning, at least until he gets himself together.

Game 3:  Bumgarner vs. Enright

Madison Bumgarner:  Bumgarner has worked only eight innings in two starts. Opponents are batting .406 against him. But in his previous outing against Arizona last Sept. 30, he allowed one run in five innings to win a key game in the Giants' drive to the NL West title.

Barry Enright:  Enright has allowed four runs and lasted six innings in each of his first two starts, with the D-backs coming out on the losing end of both. He is looking for his first win since Sept. 1, 2010, against the Padres. He is 0-6 since that outing.

Bumgarner has not been in sync at all during the regular season so far.  He gave up a lot of runs during spring but his peripherals looked great, so I thought he would just continue his dominating ways.  I was wrong.  He was projected at 3.47 ERA, so I wasn't the only one thinking he would continue.  The signs were there, he learned about the importance of conditioning during the off-season, didn't have personal issues take away focus (he got married last off-season and had to deal with the death of his older sister), learned about his mechanics last season that he said he could now self-diagnose and figure out what is wrong.

Enright has been on a bad streak lasting from last season.  What can I say, regressing to the mean can be a bear.  He pitched really well for the D-backs initially, but the scouting reports on him was that he was more a back of rotation starter than mid-to-top, which is how he was last season early on, and this stretch is his payback for all that good luck he had initially.  Still, he's much worse than would be expected, projected at 4.53 ERA, so he might bounce back a bit in this start.  Though I must note his career 6.00 ERA against the Giants at home, in two starts last season.

I have to call it pretty close but with a lean towards Bumgarner.  Madbum has a 1.13 ERA against the D-backs, so that is why I lean towards him, but he's been way off target with his pitches in his previous two starts, and if that continues, this should be a high-scoring game on both sides, leading to a bullpen game, and the Giants have a much better bullpen.

Giants Thoughts

The Giants did what they had to, pulling out two series wins under tough circumstances in both series.  A good sign that the "never say die" attitude from last season is still alive and well.  They will need that later in the season.

Now they head to the road and basically have to hope to win this series with the D-backs.  A win is doable, but not a sure thing, basically we need both Zito and Bumgarner to straighten themselves out of the funk they have been in and give us a good start, as beating Hudson, even with Cain, will be a tough job.

As expected, the Colorado Rockies are the major competitor, with an 9-2 start, and leaving the Giants now by 3.5 games.  Even in the best of circumstances, going into Colorado is a tough proposition, but with them on this hot streak, we are facing a series loss there, making it very important the Giants pull off a series win here in Arizona.

One good sign is that they have used their closer, Street, in 9 of their first 11 games already, which I think is a risky thing given that he missed a large part of last season due to injuries to his shoulder and groin.  He faltered trying to close out today's game and another reliever had to come in and save the game.  If the Cubs can keep things close enough the next 3 games, Street could be all worn out for our series, which would be a plus for us.

As I had noted before the first game, this stretch will be tough on the team, being on the road so much.  That is a natural tendency of the win-loss record to be on the loss side, no matter how good a team is.  So the Giants did a good job of recovering from their dreadful road trip, where they were most probably still looking ahead to the raising of the flag and getting their World Champion rings, and thus were distracted, which is only human to do.  But now all that is out of the way, so there are no more excuses.  And they did well, beating both the Cards and the D-gers at home.

I think some are worried because the Giants are in the middle of the pack with everyone else, where we can end up in last place or 2nd place, depending on how things work out that day.  Everything is fine, it is early in the season, too early to really worry a lot about how far behind you might be, particularly if you are around .500; as long as you are around .500, you know that even if you are far behind anyone, that is pretty much a fluke and that team will return to the pack at some point.  So the key is to stay in the middle (or above) the pack.

And we are in good shape considering the Giants problems so far.  They lost Cody Ross to the DL, as well as Brian Wilson, and now Andres Torres has an injury cloud over his head.  Buster Posey had a cold and wasn't himself to start the season.  The pitching has not been as good as advertised except for Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain.  Brandon Belt didn't compensate for the loss of Ross offensively, and defensively the Giants took a hit with Huff in RF.

We have also had a bit of luck as well.  Torres being out gave Rowand a chance to start and he has delivered so far.  I hesitate to call it luck, because he usually start off a season hot, it has been injuries and lack of physical preparation to last a full season that has costed him a nice overall season's performance.  And Freddy Sanchez has been on fire, he can't continue this pace:  can he?

Overall, I think they have suffered from more bad luck than good and take away just two mistakes in the first D-gers series and the Giants could easily be 8-4 right now.  I think they are good shape heading into this road trip, but still need a couple of starting pitchers to step up another notch or two.  Should be an interesting road trip.

And I would also like to note that the D-gers are going to get it from the Giants the next time the teams meet.  Ted Lilly, who hardly walks anybody, let alone hit batters, hit Posey in his first two ABs of the final game of the series, drawing a warning from the umpires.  They were apparently in retaliation for the two HBP that Juan Uribe got from Lincecum in separate games.

As Bochy noted, that's ridiculous, Lincecum hit Uribe and created a bases loaded situation with the game in the balance in the second instance.  And Lincecum reached out to Uribe and hoped that he realized that it was a mistake for the first instance.  Still they had to head-hunt on one of our top hitters, our clean-up guy.  Matt Kemp better wear padding next time...

2010 Giants: August PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of August 2010, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).

Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). See my explanation down below on methodology plus read the link, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and particularly how low DIS% is so important.

I wholeheartedly recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and learning more about their methods of analyzing baseball. It has been greatly illuminating for me, and if you want to get a taste for it without paying full price, they used to sell their old editions of their annuals on their website for half price or less (plus shipping); but that was before he sold the company off, and I haven't checked recently.

Giants Starters' PQS for 2010 Season

Madison Bumgarner- (46% DOM, 31% DIS; 6:4/13): 4, 4, 3, 4, 1, 5, 5, 0, 1, 2, 4, 0, 3

Matt Cain- (63% DOM, 4% DIS; 17:1/27): 5, 3, 4, 3, 5, 5, 3, 4, 4, 5, 3, 4, 3, 3, 0, 3, 4, 3, 4, 5, 4, 5, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5

Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (56% DOM, 22% DIS; 15:6/27): 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3, 0, 1, 5, 5, 4, 5, 0, 3, 5, 4, 0, 3, 5, 4, 0, 0, 3, 4

Joe Martinez- (0% DOM, 0% DIS; 0:0/1): 3

Jonathan Sanchez - (44% DOM, 22% DIS; 12:6/27): 0, 5, 5, 3, 0, 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 5, 3, 3, 0, 3, 2, 4, 0, 5, 4, 3, 5, 0, 4, 5, 0, 5

Todd Wellemeyer - (30% DOM, 40% DIS; 3:4/10): 2, 0, 0, 3, 0, 4, 2, 4, 5, 0, X

Barry Zito - (44% DOM, 30% DIS; 12:8/27): 5, 3, 4, 5, 3, 4, 1, 4, 3, 1, 5, 2, 4, 4, 0, 5, 1, 0, 5, 3, 3, 5, 4, 2, 1, 0, 0

X = start Wellemeyer was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.

Giants season overall - 49% DOM, 22% DIS out of 76 games counted (65:29/132)
Giants Month of April - 55% DOM, 14% DIS out of 22 games counted (12:3/22)
Giants Month of May - 50% DOM, 21% DIS out of 28 games counted (14:6/28)
Giants Month of June - 42% DOM, 19% DIS out of 26 games counted (11:5/26)
Giants Month of July - 54% DOM, 18% DIS out of 28 games counted (15:5/28)
Giants Month of August - 46% DOM, 36% DIS out of 28 games counted (13:10/28)

August continued July's trend.  Cain and Sanchez were dominating again, while Lincecum and particularly Zito struggled a low.  Just as Bumgarner was a tipping point in July with his great performance then, he had just as bad a month in August, with 3 DIS starts (he had 4 DOM starts in July).  Cain led the staff with 5 DOM starts, Sanchez had 4 DOM in 6 starts, while Lincecum only had 2 DOM starts, and both Zito and Bumgarner only had 1 DOM start.

August was the worse month by far for DIS starts, with 10 in the month:  there was only 19 in the four months prior.  Both Bumgarner and Zito had 3 DIS starts, Lincecum and Sanchez each had 2 themselves (Dirty was Jeckyll and Hyde in August, either very good or very bad).

That staff overall had a DOM of 49% and a DIS of 22%, which is still pretty good both ways, but August was the worse month by far and the Giants have no hope of making the playoffs if that continues.  Starting pitching is the Giants competitive advantage, and if they are not producing, the team will suffer.  Luckily the offense has been improved enough (4.42 runs scored per game in August) to help offset that drop, but not enough. Generally, you want a DIS under 20%, and ideally under 10%, and a DOM over 50%, as a pitcher but our WHOLE staff overall was almost doing what very well starters alone can do in the majors, with a 49% DOM.

What's Good and What's Not

A DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.

If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher).

July 2010 Comments

That's two straight months of Lincecum not being dominating, so yesterday's start is very encouraging for the Giants playoff run.  The Giants chances begin and end with Lincecum being Lincecum.  If you look at his PQS, one can see that while he really did struggle for two games mid-month, he really wasn't that bad the last two starts, in fact, had a 4 DOM start to end August, then a 5 DOM start to begin September.  So maybe it was just a matter of bad luck and perception.

Bumgarner appears to be petering out, basically his starts' quality took a downturn with his first start in August, which is when he passed 130 IP.  That is about how many innings he pitched in 2009 and just under the 141.2 IP he pitched in 2008.  One would think that he being a farmer would have helped him last deeper into the season, but, if you'll recall, Sabean noted that Bumgarner had a busy off-season, what with getting married and all, and his conditioning probably is not as good as it could have been.  Hopefully that is a lesson he takes to heart this off-season, and the Giants teach him how to prepare his arm for a full MLB season.

Cain has been the steady arm in this rotation all season.   Had Lincecum been able to keep up to his prior performance, they would have been a deadly duo in our rotation.  In addition, Cain has raised the bar for himself, he is approaching elite-status, and having two arms like that to start the playoffs will be a major obstacle for whoever we face, assuming we get in.

Zito had been the biggest surprise in the rotation this season, but he has performed very poorly in two of the last three months, ruining his feel good story and threatening to set him back in popularity to prior lows.  Like Lincecum's start yesterday, Zito's start tomorrow is key to whether we will see the good Zito or the bad Zito.  Unfortunately, unlike Lincecum, Zito has been pretty bad for four straight starts, and just been sinking with each performance.  If he keeps on pitching like this, one, it will be very hard for the Giants to make the playofs, and two, if they do make it, he could be the 4th starter (I think Bumgarner will be put in bullpen should the Giants make the playoffs) because Cain and Sanchez have been the team's best starters since July started, and Lincecum is, well, Lincecum.

Sanchez has been hot and cold, up and down, but when you look at his overall performance, he has been good as a starter.  Not the best, but on any particular day, he can shut down the other team cold.  Or they could knock him around pretty good.  Kind of a two steps forward and one step back performance.  Still, that's good for a 4th starter, acceptable for a 3rd starter.  And he has come up big, with 7 DOM starts in his last 11 starts, that is near elite status if he could keep that up over a full season.  If he can keep that up, it will be very tough for any opponent facing Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez at the start of any playoff series.

The offense, after the glorious July, understandably was not as high octane in August.  The good news is that Kung Fu Panda is back, he has his mojo back.  On top of that, Posey has been delivering for the most part, so our heart of the lineup looks great for rest of this decade, assuming Neukom can deliver the money to keep them all.  Huff has a cold spell, but had a nice hot stretch before that, and the offense, as noted, averaged 4.42 runs in August, so it did a pretty good job overall.

Gauntlet Begins:  Road Trip to Hell and Back

Now the Giants go on a tough road trip:  3 in LA, 3 in AZ, 4 in SD.  With 'Dres free-falling - 7 straight losses and 9 out of 12 - the Giants despite a poor homestand (only 5-4, losing to AZ twice hurt) are only 3 games behind SD for the division lead and still only 1.5 games behind the Phillies.  If they can keep up in LA and AZ, taking 3 of 4 in SD would put the Giants only 1 game back.

But that's a tall order for the Giants.  SD now has a homestand equal to the Giants road trip, playing COL, LA, then SF.  Colorado should be tough, they are battling hard to stay relevant in the playoff chase, but now is 7 games back of NL West, 5.5 back of Wild Card.  Still, they are 7-3 in their last 10 games, playing three straight playoff contenders and either winning the series, or coming close against the Giants.  So the streak could continue.

However, LA has not been doing that well either.  It has lost (or tied) almost every series against a playoff contender since the All-Star break, winning just one (Colorado).  And that covers both home and road, so both SD and SF might have an easier time with LA, particularly now that Manny is not on the team.  Still, LA has risen up to the challenge of beating a division foe, 30-18 in NL West so far, so you never know.

And Arizona has found new life under interim manager Kurt Gibson, they are 24-31 under him and 8-4 in their last 12 games.  The new starters they pulled from the minors have done very well so far, taking care of the Giants in SF.  And both Enright and Hudson are scheduled to face the Giants in the last two games in Arizona.  So they will be tough

So the Giants and 'Dres could have two tough series before meeting, and thus should end up around the same, leaving the Giants 3 games back with 4 to play in SD.  If they hope to get into the playoffs, they will have to win that series, not only for where they are in the standings, but also because of what it means if the Giants end up facing San Diego in the playoffs, knowing that SD dominated them all season long. After going 2-9 against SD this season, they need to push the bully back hard with a series win in San Diego, to show that they can beat them in their home town.  A sweep would be nice but not likely, though at 7 straight losses, any continuance of that could crater their confidence and season to go with it.

Your 2010 Giants are 71-57: Time to Crush the Weak D-Backs

Before the series I would have been happy winning the series 2-1 against the Reds and Dusty, but that loss hurt so bad after that magnificent comeback.  However, I blame the umpire for helping cost us the game.  Observers said that he was not calling a strike on any of Zito's curves and was very inconsistent in his strike calls.  The MLB and the umpire's union should be ashamed.

The good news is that everything is all relative, and the Phillies got swept by the lowly Astros, so the Giants are back in the wild card lead by half a game.  And they now play three against the D-backs, while the Phillies play the 'Dres.  Hard to say who to root for, other than I hope that one team or the other sweeps, so that the Giants can gain a lot on the losing team.  Of course, ideally, if we sweep and Phillies sweep, we move to 3 games back of the 'Dres.

Game 1:  Barry Enright vs. Lincecum

MLB Notes:

D-backs:  Enright is alright. The rookie right-hander stood toe to toe with Ubaldo Jimenez on Saturday, yielding one Rockies run in 6 2/3 innings. He has begun his MLB career with 10 straight starts of three runs or less allowed in five or more innings.

Giants:  The losing streak continued for Lincecum in his last outing, when he gave up four runs on six hits in 5 1/3 innings to the Cardinals. In his last outing against the D-backs, Lincecum held them to two runs on nine hits in eight innings.

The Giants just seem to be facing a bunch of good young starters lately.  Enright has done pretty well so far, but oddly enough, has a reverse split, RHH are killing him, while he handles LHH.  If Bochy goes with a strict platoon lineup, he could shut down the Giants.  Luckily, Posey should start, Sanchez too, probably Burrell too, at minimum.

Still, under normal circumstances, Lincecum would be strongly favored in this game, but after losing four games straight for the first time in his career, it is no slam dunk.  Still, looking at his peripherals, if he were really as wild as some are saying, he would not be able to:  1) strike out so many, 2) walk relatively few relative to strikeouts.  Thus I think it is a bit of bad luck and that he'll have a good start sooner than later.  But will it be this start?

I'll just have to call it a toss-up, unsure who either pitcher might do.

Game 2:  Dan Hudson vs. Zito

MLB Notes:

D-backs:  Hudson shut down the Rockies for seven innings on Sunday. He allowed just four hits and, throwing more sliders, struck out nine. In his first five D-backs starts, the rookie righty has gone seven or more innings and yielded three runs or less.

Giants:  None

Another good young starter for the D-backs.  Got him in the Edwin Jackson trade, so they got a pretty good pitcher in return, plus another prospect.  Flew up farm system from low-A to majors last season, had problem with walks earlier with White Sox, but he has been great so far with the D-backs.

Zito will need his A-game for the Giants to have a chance against Hudson.  He had a bad outing in his last start, but has generally been good  in the second half, and he will need it to beat Hudson.  I think it will be a good battle between the two, hard to call.

Game 3:  TBA vs. Cain

MLB Notes:

D-backs:  No notes at this time.

Giants:  No notes at this time.

Cain has pitched very well this season, again, and is doing well in the second half again.  The D-backs were scheduled to start Rodrigo Lopez, based on turn, but for some season he's not listed.  No matter who it is, I would have to lean towards Cain in this one.

Giants Thoughts

The Giants have dominated the series so far, going 7-2, and thus have 9 more games against them, starting with these three.  San Diego has played most of their games and have gone 10-5 so far with 3 more to go.  I think the Giants will need to repeat if they want to have any hope of catching San Diego, but at 6 games back,  they probably need to worry more about winning the Wild Card, which means winning every game that they can, anyhow.  

A sweep would be ideal, but the bad news is that the D-backs are a new team under interim manager Kirk Gibson.  They are 12-12 under him, while 50-78 overall and despite a poor 3-7 in their last 10 games.  The young pitchers are helping a lot, and thus the Giants are unlucky in that they are facing probably their two best starters at the moment, both Enright and Hudson have been very good, particularly Hudson.  Lopez, should we end up facing him, has not been very good.  

So despite their poor record and all, the Giants could very well lose this series, if Enright (4-2) and Hudson (3-1) continue their dominating ways.  The Giants will need to win one of those games if they hope to win the series, as Lopez we should beat with Cain going for us.  He has pitched once here, last season, and was bombed in that start, the Giants should give him a good beatdown if the offense is working.  

It will be interesting to see whether the Giants offense can keep up their scoring prowess during this series.  The extreme heat made the park more of a hitter's park, but as Jon Miller noted, it has been hot before and the Giants never scored so many runs in a series.  And even before that, Sandoval and Sanchez were heating up, Huff too, all the new guys have been hitting well, and Torres has been his relatively steady self, Burrell too, so far in August.  The Giants have averaged 4.61 runs scored this month, but unfortunately, the pitching has given up 4.78 runs allowed per game.  Hence why they are only 11-12 this month.

Thus as interesting as the hitting has been, the starting pitching will need to get themselves squared away, beginning with today's start for Lincecum, and continuing through the rest of the rotation.  The Giants will not be making the playoffs if they continue to give up 4.78 runs per game.  Don't need sabermetrics to see that one.

Your 2010 Giants are 52-43: Kicking D-Backs Back to D-Ground

After a series victory over the D-gers that still leaves the sting of that loss last night, now the Giants need to take another step forward and stomp on the D-backs now and win this series as well.  They have won their last three road series, and they really need to squish the bug and take down the D-backs on the road as well, given how down they have been.  And despite all the great play on their part over the past two weeks or so, we are still 4 games back.

The D-backs are 6-10 under their new manager, D-ger nemesis Kirk Gibson, and just as bad overall.  All of that pain has been on the road, as they have been able to stay around .500 at home.  But they are coming off a series sweep over the Mets, who are still reeling from the beat down the Giants gave them.  Given the Giants are surging and the D-backs not so much overall but nice sweep,  the Giants need to take them down a notch plus pick up another game closer to the 'Dres.

Game 1:  Rodrigo Lopez vs. Cain

MLB Notes:

Giants:  Cain also began the second half on a high note, making only one mistake -- allowing a two-run homer -- in seven stellar innings against the Mets. The win broke a five-start winless drought for Cain who, in his last start against the D-backs, threw a one-hit shutout.

D-backs:  Lopez's issue with the long ball continued on Saturday against the Padres. The crafty righty yielded four in his six-inning start at pitcher-friendly PETCO Park and has allowed 23 total dingers in 19 outings this season. He is 1-2 with a 5.94 ERA in three July starts.

Cain usually goes on a second half tear at some point.  Now would be as good as any.  But he's been generally very good all season, which should be more than good enough to take down Lopez.

Lopez is a journeyman whose journey probably is ending in Arizona.  No pitcher looking for employment the following season would chose Arizona, a hitter's home park, unless they had no other option (or a bad agent).  He has actually been OK on the road, but at home, 4.95 ERA.  But against the Giants he has been truly horrible, three bad starts in his career, horrible start earlier this season, 5 IP, 10 hits, 6 ER, 2 HR.

Should be a Giants win, going away.  I would be very disappointed if we somehow lost this game.  Plus we need to start the series on a good note as that is the only way we could hope to win this series, start off with a win, else we would have to win three.

Game 2:  Edwin Jackson vs. Sanchez

MLB Notes:

Giants:  Sanchez was part of an epic pitching duel against the Mets' Johan Santana in his last outing, taking the no-decision. Sanchez allowed two runs, coming on a ground-rule double and solo homer, and only four other hits in seven innings, striking out five and walking one.

D-backs:  Sunday in San Diego, Jackson allowed four runs on nine hits over 6 1/3 innings. He has allowed at least four earned runs in three straight starts. Walks are a part of the problem: Jackson has issued three-plus free passes in four straight outings.

Jackson has not been doing well with his new team.  But that is mainly because he doesn't pitch well at all in his new home, his road ERA is actually OK (5.63 ERA at home; 4.25 on the road).  He's been wild, but has handled the Giants during his career.  Could be a tough game, but given how poorly he has done at home and in recent games, the Giants should be able to score some runs on him.

Sanchez, as I noted in my LA post, showed a lot of maturity in his last start, which is very encouraging for his future.  He needs to continue that in this start, and he seems up to the task.  However, he has pitched horribly in Chase Field previously.  The good thing is that was then and not now, for in 2009 he pitched well there, with an ERA of 2.25.  Gave up way too many walks, but also struck out a whole lot while keeping the hits to a minimum.

Should be a Giants win, though not as much a gimme as Game 1, given Jackson's history against us.  We need Sanchez to step up again in this start, and that should win it for us.

Game 3:  Ian Kennedy vs. Bumgarner

MLB Notes:

Giants:  In Bumgarner's last outing, the rookie left-hander earned his third win and first against the archrival Dodgers. He allowed two runs -- one earned -- on six hits in 5 2/3 innings, being removed after tiring in the sixth.

D-backs:  Ian Kennedy was solid, not special, on Monday against the Mets, allowing one run on four hits over five innings. He picked up back-to-back wins for the second time this season. The club is continuing to monitor his second-half workload, hence his 86 pitches against New York.

Kennedy has been the opposite of Jackson, pitching really well at home but horribly on the road, 3.32 ERA at home, 4.70 ERA on road.  He's also pitched well against the Giants this year and in Arizona before, 3-hitter with 9 K's.  Of course, this Giants team is different from the one he faced on May 19th, or even the one he faced on May 30th.  The Giants big three, for one, has been HOT in recent games, Huff, Posey, Sandoval has been our Murderer's Row of recent weeks.  And there is no slumping (because he was hurt) Molina or Rohlinger at SS.

Bumgarner has been impressive in his starts so far for the Giants.  Him tiring is not a good sign, the Giants will probably be skipping a start here and there to keep his arm well-rested, probably with Wellemeyer getting those spot starts.  Still, he has done well everywhere he has gone so far, so it would be hard to say otherwise here, except that it IS Chase Field, a hitter's park.  However, this park hurts right-handed power while boosting left-handed power (hence why Adam LaRoche ended up here), which should work to Bumgarner's (and Sanchez's) advantage.

Have to call this a coin-flip.  Kennedy has been great at home, and despite that his ERA has been bad since June began, 4.98 ERA, he has pitched well still at home.  Bumgarner has been great pitching anywhere, the league obviously has not figured him out yet, so we'll just have to ride the wave until it ends.

Where I would have to give us an edge is that their bullpen is pretty bad, outside of Aaron Heilman, and the D-backs have been careful with Kennedy, giving him a pitch count limit.  That has led to him only pitching into the 6th inning in recent starts (last four starts), and forcing them to bring in the bullepn.  This probably gives us an edge in most of these games, that once we get into their bullpen, sometimes they are just adding oil to the fire.

Game 4:  Barry Enright vs. Lincecum

MLB Notes:

Giants:  After two outstanding outings, Lincecum took a step back in his last start, giving up five runs in 4 2/3 innings against the Dodgers. Lincecum struggled in his last outing against Arizona on May 20, giving up five runs on five hits in only five innings.

D-backs:  In his fourth career start Tuesday vs. the Mets, Enright was at his best. The right-hander twirled a career-high eight innings, retiring 14 in a row at one point, and held the Mets to one run (a solo dinger) on five hits. He also struck out a career-high eight.

Barry Enright has been a godsend for the D-backs.  So poorly regarded as a prospect, he didn't even get ranked in their Top 30 prospects by BA (Brandon Webb wasn't highly regarded either, so no shame on that here).  He has pitched very well:  23.2 IP, gave up 20 hits and only 7 walks, rung up 21 strikeouts for an excellent 3.0 K/BB ratio, 2.66 ERA, his only negative was the 3 homers he gave up, and we could blame part of that on windy conditions in Chicago against the Cubs.  And he had a great start his last time out, his first beyond the 6th inning, 8 IP, 5 hits, 1 walk, 8 K's, brilliant outing.  Then again, the Mets has been reeling since facing us after the break.  Still, he shut them down and, more importantly, pitched deep into the game.

However, this is still Tim Lincecum.  Despite Lincecum's struggles, particularly in his last start against LA, I have to think that he'll be good again.  He has handled them OK previously in Chase, 3.81 ERA, but he was knocked around in his earlier outing here against them this season.  But, last start notwithstanding, Lincecum appears to have made changes that enabled him to pitch very well in the two starts previous, so that was a different Lincecum they faced earlier.

If it's Lincecum, then it's win-day, as Krukow likes to say.  Enright has pitched well, but he wasn't that great in the minors (hence the non-ranking by BA) plus he was old for the league for a prospect, so he's been performing way better than could be expected for the majors, and thus could be exposed at some point.  Still, he has been great so far, so we have to give him his due on that end, and probably call it even.  Ultimately, it's Franchise so I would lean towards him.

Giants Thoughts

Nothing could be better about this road trip to Arizona:  we miss Dan Haren.  He doesn't have a great overall ERA but has been great since June started and has been generally great as a pitcher, particularly in his days with the D-backs.  We dodged a bullet missing him on this series, and greatly improves out chances of winning this series.  People don't always realize how much missing the other team's best starters help in winning series (or alternatively, how that bites you in the rear when you end up facing a bunch of top starters).

Overall, it looks like a gimme for the Giants to break even in the series, and likely that they win the series.  But it will be tough beating Kennedy or Enright, so we will need the Giants to step up and beat at least one of them.  It would not have been as necessary to win the series had the Giants swept the D-gers, but still, it is just better to win each series that you can, and this one is one that should happen.

Plus, San Diego will be facing the Pirates over the weekend, so they are probably winning again, we don't want to end up even more games back.  And they have a light schedule for the next few weeks, facing the Pirates and D-backs for 9 games (but also LA for 6).  We need to keep pace.

It would have been nice to sweep the D-gers, but we should be happy with winning the series and putting another game in-between the teams.  We could have just as easily lost the second game and the series with it. And I would add that the offense won that game for us, Lincecum was really bad.  Hopefully the offense can continue chugging along and producing for us, and the pitching can continue to be dominating as it is capable of, as the offense won't be hot forever.  

Your 2010 Giants Thoughts

Whether the Giants make the playoffs or not, you can't really tell whether that will happen to a great degree. You can never tell when the other teams just benefit from someone's outlier performance and aces your team out of the playoff picture. You also can never tell when something bad happens to your team. That's the sad truth that I'm finally getting.

But still, you can assess where they all stand relative to each other and here are the facts as I see them:

• D-gers: Lost Wolf, who pitched great, did not get anyone who could be expected to reliably replace his production, though Vicente Padilla did do well with them at the end of 2009, so maybe (and they did that last year too, replacing Lowe's great production with Wolf; can they do that again? Padilla hasn't pitched that well since his rookie season and around that well since 2003). Manny has laid his gauntlet down and the last time he did that, the Red Sox found him unmotivated enough to feel forced to trade him away, and if I recall right, his stats were down until the trade to the D-gers. And the D-vorce should also affect the team as well, with the owner and the former president, his soon to be former wife, at odds. The divorce of the 'Dres owner caused the current downturn in their chances over the past few years, as they had to cut back on spending on players because of the settlement. The D-gers also benefited from both Hudson and Pierre playing above their career numbers for a while to help boost them up in the early part of the season. Hoping that players play above their heads at any point in the season is not the way to repeat what you did the year before. They won 95 games. I think these conditions should be enough to drop them to 90 wins or lower.
• D-Rox: Lost Marquis, who had a great season with them, and they hope to reduplicate his production by re-adding Jeff Francis who missed all of last season. He pitched horribly for them during the spring. In addition, Huston Street appears to be out, perhaps for the whole season, and they are just praying with his replacement. At 92 wins last season, this should be enough to drop them to 88-90 wins, if not lower.
• 'Dres: They actually looked like they might be on an upswing this season, with prospects like Kyle Blanks and Matt Latos ready to contribute, but the rumors of Adrian Gonzalez being traded just don't seem to go away, so that should make the team play tentatively until he is traded, at which point they have no chance of repeating. At 75 wins last season, they really needed some prospects to come through to reach 90 wins, but if A-Gon is a-gone by mid-season, their chances are gone. And a lot has to go good with their young prospects for them to add another 15 wins, and they don't really have any young pitcher that looks like he'll do that for them, to be that ace, and they traded away Jake Peavey last season, who could have been.
• D-backs: They also have a lot of young bucks, but as nicely as they did in changing up their pitching rotation, they will still need Brandon Webb to come back and be like he was before. He is still recovering and might not pitch for the first month at least. At 70 wins last year, they needed a lot of things to go right, including him coming back and pitching like he used to, for them to do well in 2010, but even though they have a lot of nice young players who probably will develop and advance some this year, jumping from 70 games to 90 games without Webb at full strength looks like a poor bet.

Meanwhile, while people fault the Giants for not doing more for their lineup, they were just falling into the usual fan's Zone of Distortion where if there is any ordinariness in your team, your team sucks. What they don't realize is that when you have a team on the extremes, like the Giants are in terms of preventing runs from scoring, they only need to be ordinary with the lineup to win a lot of games. I have shown this mathematically in my business plan series.

Using various projections of the batting line for the main batting order for the Giants in 2010, the average expected runs scored per game across the six projections - Shandler, Graphical Player, Bill James, CHONE, ZiPS, and Marcel - is 4.49 runs scored per game. If the Giants matched their runs allowed of 2009, or 3.77 runs allowed, the would win 93 games with that runs scored average, which would have been very slightly above average in 2009, and to win 90 games with that offense, their runs allowed could rise to 3.94, which would mean giving up an additional 28 runs during the season. In other words, if the bullpen can be the same as it was last season - and it looks good with Runzler in there all season - one of our starters could be a whole run worse (roughly, over 32 starts) versus 2009 and we should win 90 games if this offense is as bad as most projections have them be.

There are valid reasons it might get worse. Cain had his best season but his FIP was more like how he normally did, implying that he lucked out greatly. However a big assumption for FIP is that Cain is like any other pitcher, doomed to regress to the mean of .300 BABIP that most pitchers who are not knuckleballers or crafty lefties regress to. His BABIP in 2009 was .267, hence why sabers might think he lucked out greatly. However, he already has slightly over 4 seasons under his belt and his career BABIP is .274, only slightly above that. A study found that it takes seven years for a starter to show statistically significantly that he is below, but 4/7ths of the way there, Cain's career numbers are way below the mean that most pitchers regress to.

Another is that Jonathan Sanchez has been inconsistent in his career, and most lefties like that tend to just continue to be like that. Oliver Perez is a great example of that. However, each of his inconsistencies can be explained for 2008 and 2009. In 2008, his first year starting, he gassed out midway through the season, after dominating the opponents to an ERA under 4.00. In 2009, after increasing his stamina during the off-season, he was able to pitch effectively into September, when he did experience some downturn. However, unfortunately the WBC was that year and he pitched with his idol, Johan Santana, and decided to copy a mechanic of Johan, which works for him because he's shorter than Sanchez. Sanchez wouldn't change back until he was taken out of the rotation, and he had his no-hitter in his first start afterward, and in the starts AFTER the no-hitter, he had an ERA in the mid-to-high 3's. He's ready to put in a full season and with a low ERA, but no projection would see that.

Sandoval is viewed by some to regress as well, based on his numbers in the minors. But clearly he is no longer the hitter he was in the minors. He developed homerun power plus has learned some discipline at the plate and has been getting more walks. He also got into better shape over the off-season working diligently at that like he did fielding grounders at 3B during the off-season prior. Plus, it was discovered that he needed glasses, and now he can see the pitches clearly whereas last season he could only see blurs.

Wilson could be viewed by some as having an outlier season as well, but at some point you have to admit that he developed and reached a new level of production. Plus, he decided to add back his curveball, which was considered plus when he was drafted, to his repertoire, so that should help in preventing him from doing that much worse.

I also think that we will get more production out of either Rowand or Renteria or Molina, at minimum, if not more.

• Rowand realized that he needed to get into better physical shape, that he's no longer young enough to get away without doing that. He's actually started both of his two seasons with us hitting great, then was useless to us the rest of the season. If he is in better shape, he should be that much more of a productive hitter.
• Renteria's best stretch hitting last season was that roughly one month in Aug/Sept when he said that he felt no pain, and he hit great then, over 800 OPS. That is the way he hit before when he was hitting well, and he lost that huge chunk that was in his elbow with the surgery, so he could return to the hitter he was before.
• Molina, I think was affected by two factors. One was that he was a father for the first time. Taking care of a child and working takes a lot out of you, and being a catcher, that probably just accelerates that. Second, he had no worthy backup offensively so Bochy just played him until he was spent and couldn't hit. This year, the baby should not be tiring him out as much, plus by the time he is starting to tire, Posey will be brought up to catch 2 games a week, which will keep him more rested and better able to hit as well as he could.

In addition, DeRosa starting in LF will be a good upgrade over the guys we had last season both offensively and defensively. He's amazing, he can play almost any position at a high defensive value while hitting slightly above average overall. His prior UZR/150 at almost any position is good enough to contribute a win every season, on top of whatever he does offensively. He's weak against RHP, but with a lefty taking key starts from him, he can be a highly productive player offensively and defensively.

Huff will cost us a lot of defense at 1B, but is a much better hitter than Ishikawa. I expect to see a lot of defensively switches to bring Ishikawa in near the end, after Huff got his 3-4 ABs, and that combo should both boost our offense over what we got last season, particularly on the road, plus allows the Giants to put Molina lower in the batting order, where he belongs, plus gives us a legit power source batting cleanup. Still, the defensive difference between the two could account for the 28 additional runs given up.

Overall, I see a lot of possibilities of the Giants doing much better than expected by projections, but don't see a lot of huge downsides. Renteria could go bad, but then he would either bat 8th or if he is bad enough, Uribe would take over. Rowand couldn't really get much worse, I don't think. Molina similarly, plus we would have Posey ready to jump in if necessary. DeRosa could do a bit worse than he did in recent seasons and still be better than what we had at LF. Huff could fail, but then we put in Ishikawa and get about what we got last season, no big downside there.

Schierholtz is a possibility, but with Bowker hitting so well, I expect at least one of them hitting well enough to keep the position productive over the season. Maybe Sanchez can't put in a great season, but I think Cain will get close again, Lincecum will be Lincecum, and Zito should be around what he was last season, his velocity appears to be the same and so he should be able to continue to do as well as he did last season, overall.

All this makes me think that winning 90 games should be a strong possibility as long as players produced as projected plus some performing the way I speculated above that they could. And as I showed with the other teams, they should be either around 90 wins or less, giving us a good chance to win the division title and making the playoffs.

And if we make the playoffs, our rotation will be stacked with Lincecum et al, all very dominant pitchers, giving us a good chance to go deep into the playoffs if given the chance.

Your 2009 Giants are not going to be losers: 81 wins

I did not post a series discussion due to a heavy work load, but it worked out well (well, not for Zito) with the Giants winning and reaching 81 wins and guaranteeing that they are not going to have a losing season. And with one more win, they would guarantee ending the season over .500 with a winning record.

If they split the rest of the 12 games, they end up 87-75. They would have to go 9-3 to win 90 games. That seems unlikely given that our starters have started to look ragged, even as the offense has perked up.

Game 2: Cain vs. Doug Davis

The Giants always seem to have problems with Davis, but not this season: they have won two of his three starts against us. As a lefty, the Giants will have to abandon the run producing lineup Bochy has been using against righthanders. Surprise: they are using Franchez's injury to give Frandsen an opportunity to do something. The lineup today is: Velez, Torres, Sandoval, Molina, Uribe, Garko, Rowand, Frandsen, Cain. That's probably our best lineup against LHP.

Cain has pitched OK there (3.88 ERA) but Davis amazingly has pitched well in AZ too, 3.61 ERA this season at home, 4.39 on the road. And 4.08 ERA for his career there, vs. 4.30 career ERA. But Davis has a 4.46 ERA against the Giants lifetime. Odds favor the Giants, but Davis is a good pitcher so you never know if he might have a good game against us, so pretty much a push.

Game 3: Sanchez vs. Kevin Mulvey

Sanchez has a 1.77 ERA in 4 starts this season against AZ. However, 6.05 ERA in Chase in 4 starts and 7 appearances for his career, plus he has come off two straight starts of bad results. Mulvey is a young prospect that they got from the Twins in a trade, nice strikeouts but too many walks and hits for a 9.00 ERA with the D-backs. Yet, he's an OK prospect, and his numbers aren't THAT bad, just his number of hits and homers. Even odds of winning or losing, though Mulvey being a RHP, maybe our lineup can blast him out early.

Giants Thoughts

The wild card looking pretty impossible to get: 4 games back, only 12 left to play; if they simply go 6-6, we have to go 10-2. The good news, if any, is that they play mostly above .500 teams after this series against the Padres: St. Louis, Milwaukee (at 74-76, could theoretically sweep the next three games and be over .500, so I'm counting them), and LAD. Against over .500 teams, they have gone 35-40.

We actually have a winning record against the better clubs, 38-37, they lead because they have dominated the losing clubs while we were merely good. Still, with tougher competition, they could go 5-7 or even 4-8, but even then the Giants would still have to go 8-4. I don't think the Giants has gone 8-4 in any 12 game stretch this season, they have just not been able to sustain any good long win streak.

With the playoffs so improbable, one would hope the Giants might play some of the young players more often. At least Frandsen gets to play 2B, making Renteria sit. And Garko is getting a rare start; he should have really been platooning with Ishikawa, in a rare Ishikawa plays at home and Garko on the road type of split.

That wouldn't have worked over a full season, but with so little of the season left, the Giants probably should have done that, particularly in light of how well Ishikawa hit at home the past week. Given how poorly Garko has hit for his, one has to wonder if that trade costed the Giants a chance at the wild card since Ishikawa at least was hitting very well at home even at the time of the trade, but Garko in 39 AB, 9 starts, 15 games in AT&T has hit .103/.186/.103/.289 there. That has to have costed the Giants in at least 5 of those games.

I wonder how far back we have to be for Posey to get a start? He has gotten three ABs so far and is 1 for 3 with a single and a strikeout. Hopefully they can just give him a lot of starts in the last week of the season. I would also like to see Bowker get a week's worth of starts the last week, and maybe Guzman too at 1B.

What about Runzler and Joaquin? They have done very well in short stints, much like Romo and Hinshaw last season, though both are walking too many so far. Our bullpen look to be even better in 2010, with Wilson, Affeldt, Romo, at least one of Runzler and Joaquin, Medders, Miller, and Valdez.

D-backs Re-Arms: Haren Trade

Now that's an upgrade! I'm a bit late but wanted to post my thoughts on this trade. The Arizona D-backs traded for Dan Haren by giving up nearly half of their 2008 Baseball America Top 10 (#1,3,7,8) - Carlos Gonzalez, Brett Anderson, Aaron Cunningham, and Chris Carter - plus Dana Eveland and Greg Smith, a pair of pitching prospects (Eveland was once #7 on BA Top 10 for the Brew Crew).

The A's get a bundle of top prospects/suspects in their haul for Haren. It reminded me of the Vida Blue trade, young popular pitcher for the A's, traded for a bushel-load of players. But it is a pretty good haul for the Athletics. Eveland has dazzled as a starter in AAA but has struggled in the majors; however, he's still only 24 years old. Greg Smith reached AAA in 2007 and could be ready soon for the majors; he had great command in 2007 (96 K/32 BB in 122 IP). And the BA Top 10 prospects could comprise 2/3rds of the A's outfield in a year or two (Gonzalez and Cunningham), a 1B/DH in Carter, and another starting pitcher (Anderson) to add to Eveland and Smith. Of course, not all of them are going to pan out, but there's a lot to work with here, plus Beane will probably pick up some more prospects when he trades Blanton and Street at some point.

Tim Kawakami took a swipe at the A's for not having a good farm system, when the trade happened, but as I have been noting, when a team is consistently winning for a long period of time, the odds of selecting a good prospect with their first round pick is severely diminished and thus the farm system will get progressively worse over time unless they invest money into the international free agents and/or save up money to select the great prospects who happen to fall down to them in the draft, like when Detroit picked up Porcello, a clear Top 5 pick (if not #1) with their pick - 27th overall - in 2007's draft or Arizona picking up Stephen Drew #15.

Twin Aces

Seems like the D-backs have been reading my thoughts! :^) But, truthfully, I got my "aha" moment from the D-back's Johnson/Schilling pairing for their World Series championship team and cemented it with the D-ger's Koufax/Drysdale pairing during their nice run together.

The D-backs essentially replace Livan Hernandez with Dan Haren, pairing him with Brandon Webb in a duo aces rotation that I've been advocating for the Giants as a way to improve their chances in the playoffs. In particular, they now have two pitchers who can put up good PQS stats. Webb had a 65% DOM/0% DIS in 2007 and that's pretty much what he put up in 2005 and 2006, an amazing run of consistency and domination. Haren was good previously (50%/18% in 2005; 53%/6% in 2006) but elite in 2007 with 74% DOM/3% DIS.

The only negative I can see is that Haren had a huge leap in 2007 that was created by improvement in two areas that might not repeat in 2008: HR/FB about 40% less than normal and a BABIP that was unsustainably low (0.23) in first half of season; when they did not repeat, he had a pretty normal ERA relative to his past career with the A's. In addition, analysis by Baseball Forecaster says that, still, overall, his second half and first half were about the same skill-wise, and similar to his previous two years with the A's, so he probably won't be as good as he looked in 2007 (i.e. Billy Beane sold high on Haren, perhaps very high). Still, he benefits from joining the NL, where he gets to face pitchers, and is hurt by pitching in Arizona, where offense rules. It will be interesting which Haren shows up.

Meanwhile, they have mortgaged their short-term prospects who might have come up and help, but they were all extraneous to the team, as they are set in the OF long-term with Brynes, Young, and Upton, and with this trade they are set in their rotation long term with Webb, Haren, and Owing, with Doug Davis and Randy Johnson as the rest of the rotation (though Johnson's poor health in recent year suggests they will have to use someone from the minors, like Yusmeiro Petit and their new acquisition, Billy Buckner, from the Royals. In addition, they saved a lot of money long term by trading away their closer, Jose Valverde, money they can use to sign their young players long-term.

Speaking of which, I was shocked by the timing of the Valverde trade, clearly they are related, because you don't trade away one of the league's top closers when you think you are World Series worthy. There's no reason to do a trade to get Haren unless you think you close enough to going all the way.

I think the D-backs did what they had to, should do, but that they will be second guessed after the 2008 season if it does not turn out to be as great as 2007, which is my expectation. They were horribly over their expected wins based on their runs scored and allowed, so they would have to duplicate that in 2008 in order to contend because they should have been 79-83, not 90-72, an 11 game swing. Part of that was their ability to close out games, led by Valverde plus a bunch of relievers that I would have to say had career years. They had better hope that Qualls is ready to close.

Plus, as I noted above, Haren will have some obstacles against him repeating 2007 in 2008. His home park is a big question mark, there is 11% more runs scored there than in an average park (according to Bill James Handbook), that pretty much eliminates the advantage of moving to the NL for Haren. His FIP was 3.66, much above his actual 3.07 ERA, though still better than his previous years. But he's just 27 years old in 2008, so these are the years one would expect to see sustained improvement as he enters his peak physical years. But those are pretty strong forces pushing towards an ERA at least in the mid-3's. Still, that's pretty damn good.

Giants Thoughts

As a Giants fan, I cannot help but feel afraid that the D-backs could be the cream of the division for a while, with their combination of vets and a lot of youth, good to great youth. Plus the 'Dres and D'gers appear to have a similar mix of vets and good youth, remaking the NL West from the NL Worst to NL Best. The Giants more than ever need to hold onto Cain and Lincecum this season and then figure out everything else around them. I think that the D-backs will be formidable starting in 2009, with several key young players needing to further develop in 2008, resulting in what their fans would view as a disappointment relative to their great success in 2007.

Still, they are in a much better situation than the Giants. But I must note to those who are down on the Giants because of this, that the D-backs are deeper into their rebuild cycle than we are, they have been rebuilding since 2004 and their rebuild got a big boost of a year or two when Stephen Drew fell to them when they had a relatively bad #15 pick overall. If they had not gotten him, it could have taken another year or two for them to rebuild.

That's a benefit the Giants did not take advantage of when they passed over Porcello and drafted Alderson; nothing against Alderson, I still think that he can be very good, but Porcello was considered among the top picks of the draft and Detroit, who was in the World Series the year before, was able to pick him, subverting what the draft is suppose to be doing, driving talent to the weaker teams. That enabled them to trade Andrew Miller to the Marlins and pick up Cabrera and Willis.

This emphasizes for me even more that the Giants must look towards punting the 2008 season, try out a bunch of young guys and see who can actually play in the majors, select a good HITTING prospect in the June draft, and then look to getting competitive in 2009. Even with our weak offense, our pitching is very good and should only get better, barring any injuries. But it won't be good enough for even this weak offense to be more than a .500 team, so the Giants should look more to the future in 2008, and think ahead to 2009. By then, hopefully the young pitching will have matured enough to be consistently good to great, and we would have picked up another good bat that will boost the offense enough to get the team to and past .500 in 2009.