Your 2026 Giants: Position Possibilities

In my last post, I covered what I would like to see prioritized by the Giants with free agents.  In this post, I want to cover the Giants lineup and position possibilities.

Your 2026 Giants: Jung Hoo Lee

There is a chasm between Giants fans about Jung Hoo Lee.  Some believe, but others saw some bad plays on his part (especially his bonehead throwing a live ball into the stands) plus his okay but not great hitting over the season, and just want to move on already, some moving him to LF, others trading him. 

ogc thoughts 

As I did with Bailey and Eldridge, I think Jung Hoo Lee could be a player who could provide at last another win to the 2026 Giants.  The Giants ended up at roughly average in CF in 2025, with -0.3 WAA, which is roughly 1.7 bWAR.  Jung Hoo Lee had 1.8 bWAR.

Lee Acclimation Season

Because of his season ending injury in 2024, 2025 was Lee’s first full MLB season. And, as expected, he struggled with adjusting to MLB pitching, just as other KBO hitters struggled.  Like his buddy, Ha-Seong Kim did with the Padres. 

He started out great his first month of this season, hitting really well for a couple of weeks, but then hit a really bad patch after three weeks and yo-yo-ed.  From April 19 to May 20, he hit .222/.246/.342/.588. Then from May 21 to June 11, he hit .274/.378/.403/.782.  The next dip from June 12 to July 7 was a sad .141/.236/.231/.467.  Altogether, a very average .243/.309/.395/.704, where the average NL CF hit .243/.303/.386/.690. 

But from July 8th, over 63 games, with no really long bad stretches, he hit a great .299/.355/.424/.779.  Which hopefully is similar to what his buddy Kim did for the Padres.  Kim produced 2.1 bWAR in 2021, batting .202/.270/.352/.622 (so basically for his defense), then improved to 5.0 bWAR in 2022.  Lee ended at 1.8 bWAR in 2025, though in his case, it was for his hitting, even as low as it was, because his defense was below average.  If he can hit that well for a whole season, that should add at least a win.

Some of that potential is captured in StatCast. Looking at his StatCast expected stats, Lee’s expected Battng Average in 2025 was .283, 88th percentile in the majors, and expected Slugging Percentage was .391, which was only 26th percentile.  His walks added .061 to his BA to get to OBP, which means he should have been roughly .283/.344/.391/.735, which is above average in the majors, and especially for CF.  

So just getting his defense to average could add another win, and if he can continue to hit in the high 700’s OPS, that could be at least another win, so maybe one or two additional wins. 

Vitello Effects

With Vitello taking over, that could help with improving his defense, which seems to be one of Vitello’s abilities with college players, and hopefully he can help Jung Hoo Lee improve himself defensively.  At minimum, I have to believe that Vitello has been all about pitching and defense at UT, because Posey has been repeating that as a mantra about how he envisions his Giants competitive strategy, and thus has been working on helping college players reach their potential defensively.  And Vitello started out his coaching career as a pitching coach.

Because, at the core of what Vitello was tasked with at UT, he is a Professor of Baseball.  He might have access now to the best amateur prospects to recruit, but when he first started up at UT, he had inherited a mediocre team which didn’t help in his recruitment, so he (and his team of coaches), out of necessity, had to teach players to reach their potential (and exceed them sometimes), both offensively and defensively, in order to build up the program to be the powerhouse it is today.  Analytics is at the core of what Vitello has achieved, and it must have helped players both offensively and defensively to reach their potentials. 

I assume these are what most attracted Posey to hiring Vitello:  

• the analytics that helped players so broadly, plus 
• his ability to communicate such insights to ball players so that they can execute on these insights on the baseball field (a huge challenge for any analytics program), and 
• also his ability to lead his team to be more than the sum of their parts, and 
• be cohesive and aligned to the goal of winning.  

Your 2024 Giants: Where the Roster Stands Today

I posted this comment, and given all the work I put into it, I'm posting it here.  I, of course, added some more content (I tinker constantly) and added headings.  Also, the Giants signed Jordan Hicks in the meantime, so I added some thoughts on that, but didn't add to existing projections to give more buffer for the projection I'm making.

I analyzed where I think the Giants are improved in 2024 vs. 2023, and how many wins that should translate into, and whether they can make the playoffs.

Your 2022 Giants: Top Defensive Teams Can Win with sub-par offense, and cheaper

Seeing complaints about the Giants offense and how they should have went out and signed a big bat hitter. 

And while I wanted them to sign Seiya Suzuki, especially at the contract that the Cubs signed him to, for whatever reasons (per Baggarly, there were other non-baseball factors), I at least can understand why he chose to do what he did. So I decided to revisit the scenario of going with strong defense: strong pitching paired with strong fielding, and show the magic of having great pitching and fielding.

Your 2019 Giants: Epic Beat LA Walk Off, Status Update

I wrote the below as a comment to The Athletic's column on the Dodger walk-off win, noting my belief that the Giants can still get above .500 by the end of the season.  Tweaks and improvements abound.

Your 2018 Giants: Giants Offensive Offense

I see a lot of complaints about the Giants offense, so here's my post with my opinions on what is happening.  And, of course, other random tangential thoughts.

And, of course, it took too long to finish.  The data is as of games to September 9th.

Your 2018 Giants: Bochy's Bad Offense

I frequent The Athletic's Giants articles a lot now for comments.  Lots of people are complaining about the offense.  Rightfully, per my 4 or more runs Win/Loss metric, the offense is barely above .500 in providing 4 runs or more in a game.  So I dug into the stats, here are the results.

Your 2018 Giants: Offense Greatly Improved

After the Giants early offensive struggles (albeit, against one of the top rotations in the majors in one of the more extreme pitcher's parks in the majors), many were shouting, "The Giants Offense sucks!  The offense sucks!"  I disagree.

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 2015 Giants: On the One Hand, Obvious, On the Other, Not So Obvious

I think that we all know that there are platoon differences, and understand the strategic and tactical issues involved that with.  Bringing in the same-handed pitcher to face a dangerous batter.  That's how Loogies were born.

But I've never seen anyone take the next step with that thought from the other side, the lineup.  As usual, the below started as a comment (Shankbone!) and I tweaked it from there.

Your 2015 Giants: What the Offense Needed Was A Belt of Belt Belting

I commented elsewhere on Brandon Belt's contributions, making it into a post here (with updates, natch!)

Your 2015 Giants: Perhaps the Giants Do Have an Offensive Type: Strikeout Avoidance

Baseball America published a study on team with the lowest strikeout rates by their hitters, and found that five teams - Cardinals, Giants, Royals, Rangers, Tigers - had the lowest strikeout rates over the 2010-2014 period and won 9 of the 10 league championships over that period.

ogc thoughts

First study I've seen to find correlation between offense and winning.  However, as I commented on there (and someone else), study size is probably an issue, it might be holding now, but not so much over history, perhaps.  Also, as I noted, both BP's (Baseball Prospectus) and FG's (Fangraph) studies, which studied a long period of time, found that offense has no correlation with winning.  Still, don't mean that there could not be some correlations over periods of time, just not over history.

The Giants over this period has definitely focused on hitters who minimize strikeouts. Sandoval, Posey, Blanco, Stewart, Arias, Panik (he also walks a lot while striking out less) and even Belt and Crawford, when they are on (I studied their strikeout rates over 10, 20, 30 game intervals a couple of years ago), could get their strikeout rate down, resulting in contact rates above 85%. And players they traded for or signed as free agents, like Freddie Sanchez, Angel Pagan, and Marco Scutaro, in particular, and now Aoki and McGehee. Only Pence, Morse, and Belt were the free swingers in this lineup for the last few years, I think, piling up the strikeouts at times, and even Pence wasn't that bad.  And of course, Burrell before that (Huff was actually a good hitter in terms of strikeout rate in 2010 and before, and so he would be included in the list of good contact hitters) and Torres, for his improvements over before, wasn't that great at avoiding strikeouts.

One thing I found interesting that that while OBP was much better than batting average in terms of correlation with winning on the offensive side, as sabermetrics has basically denigrated the value of batting average to the extent that most newbie sabers treat BA with disdain, on the defensive side, batting average had almost as high a correlation as OBP, and both were considered strong correlations.  Then again, on the defensive side, all the metrics were strong in the 2010-2014 period except for HR/PA.

Lack of Homeruns Does Not Mean a Team is Weak or Can't Win

Thus, the media's strong preoccupation with the long ball - be honest, how many articles have you seen regarding the Giants lack of HR hitting as a key weakness on this team, and heck, for many prior Giants teams during this golden era - is misplaced.  Hitting a lot of homers has a weak correlation with winning.  And this is something both the BP and FG studies noted as well, that there was no connection between the number of homers hit by a team and how well they did in the playoffs.   Girls may dig the long ball, but the trophies don't necessarily end up with the guys hitting them.

The Very Strong correlation, for both offense and defense, at least in this new defensive era, is with winning and SO/BB.  It is very significant offensively (-0.72 vs. next highest correlation of 0.58 for OBP) and still pretty significant defensively (0.73 vs. -0.67 for OBP and 0.61 for SO%).

The Giants have appeared to be focusing on getting such pitchers and hitters.  Bumgarner had a wonderful SO/BB ratio in high school and continued it into pros.  Strickland, Law, and Okert exhibit such great ratios as well.  Cain and Lincecum once had very high ratios, dropping in recent years, but there are indications they should revert to prior performances in 2015.  Both Hudson and Peavy have had good ratios as well.  Among the hitters, Posey, Susac, Belt, Crawford, Scutaro, and Panik have shown this skill in the majors, and Adrianza showed it in the minors in a couple of seasons.

Your 2015 Giants: Back to Back Jack

Spring is in the air...

And I'm on jury duty.  I've actually written up a lot of stuff for all the player positions, and I'll get to them when I get the chance, but I thought I would jump to my conclusions about the 2015 Giants chances first, and go from there.  I've already covered the starting rotation, and hope to get through the rest of the roster eventually, but honestly, this trial got me depressed and sad - I've been ill since it began, and feel very sick when I start the week and experienced massive headaches when I end the week (FYI, I very rarely experience headaches; also, maybe I'm getting used to it, but no headache last week, and I'm feeling better this week) - so I'll get to them when I'm able.

Your 2014 Giants: World Series: Royals

Wow, the Giants are in the World Series!  How many of us were thinking, sure, no problem, during the depths of the June Swoon?  Probably just 25 plus the coaches.

I still thought that they had the talent (before the season, I thought a 95-100 win season was not out of the question, and that looked pretty good until June), but sometimes when you go into a deep dive, you don't have enough time to get back up.  So it was obvious to me, their talent, whether they made it to the playoffs or not.  Though, as I noted on Shankbone's, I've been eerily calm about the team, I just felt really good about this team.  I still do.

ogc thoughts

The Giants are going with the same 25 man roster they had in the NLCS.  So Lincecum, despite not being used so far, is still considered a valuable option to have in emergency, but not good enough when things are tight and we need a shut down reliever, like we did in 2012.

The Royals have swapped out Colon for Nix, a swap of utility MI.  They are only carrying 11 pitchers, enabling them to hold onto their pinch-runners.  They are carrying only their best pitchers, with only Guthrie with an ERA above 4 and three lefties in the bullpen with Duffy, Collins, and Finnegan.  Collins probably made the roster because he's a lefty (3.86 ERA 4.80 FIP), since the Giants lineup is very left-oriented.

I've been looking at the teams and below are my thoughts.  Mostly, I think we have a good chance at a third trophy, but the BABIP gods could decide otherwise.

The starting pitching is about the same, I believe, though perhaps Guthrie and Vargas gets swapped.  Game:

1. Bumgarner 67% DOM vs. Shields 65% DOM
2. Peavy 67% DOM with Giants vs. Ventura 60% DOM
3. Hudson 47% DOM vs. Guthrie 53% DOM (KC TBA, making guess from ALCS)
4. Vogelsong 52% DOM vs. Vargas 53% DOM (KC TBA, making guess from ALCS)  

First off, I would note that in the ALCS, only Vargas actually pitched a DOM start.  None of the other three did, and the only reason they won was because the O's pitchers were worse.  They averaged 2.75 PQS while the O's averaged 1.5 PQS, as they had two DIS starts from their top two starters.

Not that the Giants were all that much better (2.4 PQS vs. 2.2).   I think Vogie finally just had a bad start, that is going to happen to any good starter, he was BABIPed, but he's had so many successes that I think he's OK in pressure situations like the World Series.  We were lucky to win that game given how well Wainwright pitched, but then we got to the weak link:  Matheny insisted on using Wacha, do or die, in the bottom of the 9th.  Not the closer, not any other trusted bullpen reliever, the one guy he hadn't used at all during the playoffs, kind of like he felt he owed it to Wacha to give him an appearance.   And even after putting two men on base, he didn't bring in anyone else to shut down the rally.  And Peavy has never had a DOM start in the playoffs, so there is that too.

The Scheduled Starting Pitchers

Game 1 will be a toss up, because both pitchers will probably be shutdown.  However, I would note that Shields was not that great in his O's start, lots of hits given up, presumably BABIP though, but only struck out 3 in 5 IP.  But in the playoffs, you have to wonder if they are not performing up to snuff because of the pressure.  Because of this I give Bumgarner the edge over Shields in any matchup they may have.

Game 2 will be a toss up, mainly because I'm not sure either pitcher can stand up to the pressure.  Peavy has never had a DOM start ever in the playoffs.  Thus Venture is up on him, throwing a DOM start against the Angels.   Still, Ventura had a 2 PQS in this ALCS start, as he was very wild, didn't give up that many hits but walked 3 and only struck out 3 in 5.2 IP.  Our patient hitters could eat him up while our hackers could drive him crazy as he throw a bad pitch to Pablo and watches it fly away, far away.  I think this is a game where you wait for the first pitcher to blow up, then the other team will preserve the lead by taking out their starter the moment there is trouble and have their bullpen save the game.  This game can go either way, but I would note that Bochy is comfortable bringing in his relievers at any time in the game, even if the starting pitcher hasn't reached 5 IP yet, whereas Yost has mostly defined roles for his relievers, with Herrera his 7th inning guy (sometimes 6th), Davis his 8th, and Holland his 9th, and probably roles for everyone else too, that is the thing often said about relievers, they like to know what their role is and when they might be used.

Both pens are strong, KC has 3.27 ERA while SF has 3.01 ERA.  KC is better with 8.7 K/9 but SF better with 2.95 K/BB.  And both teams are bringing only their best pitchers, for the most part (I still think Kontos deserves a spot, but who gets dropped, Lincecum? Another bench player?  So I understand, but feel bad for him).   Their bullpen might be our equals in terms of talent, if not better.  But our bullpen is working on a string of scoreless appearances going back to the 2010 playoffs, so the Royals will need to better that.

Plus, while their bullpen has a lot of live arms, the Giants have hitters who love fastballs.  There recently was a list of hitters with homers on pitches over 95 MPH and Pence, Sandoval, Posey, Belt, and Crawford showed up on that list.  So while their relievers can bring it, our hitters have been able to hit it, as well.  We'll see who wins there.

The difference might be the offense.  KC's offense was at 4.02 RS/game, below average in the AL.  SF's offense was at 4.10 RS/game, above average in the NL, and they were handicapped by not having an offensive 2B most of the season and not having Belt in the lineup most of the season, as well as having no DH to boost up their RS totals, unlike the Royals.  Meanwhile, we will have a functioning DH in Morse, to help make our offense even better.

Game 3 and 4 starters for KC has not been announced.  Both Guthrie and Vargas had similar DOM/DIS in the season, but Vargas has been much more successful during these playoffs, with two DOM starts so they could be flopped from the order they were in the ALCS, but I'm sticking with that order below.  In addition, I suspect that should the Royals find themselves in a must-win game in Game 4, that Yost would push Shields up a day to Game 4, to face Vogelsong.

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.

Here is a quote from him (Baggerly) and a big part of why I love him as our manager (besides the winning):

''You're always learning from your past experiences, whether it's during the season or postseason. The one thing I think I've learned is it's different, the postseason. It's not the regular season,'' Bochy said. ''You don't have that margin of error to make up for these games. You lose a game in May, and you still have 100-plus games to make that up.''

In other words, as I've been trying to illustrate this off-season, almost every game of the playoffs is a must win game, but obviously, someone has to lose.  Bochy has just done a better job of not being the one to lose, he has understood that each game is an entity to itself and thus you throw out all the stops to win that game, then worry about the next game tomorrow.

Game 4 is again a match-up of equals, both DOMs are close to each other again, but again, I think we got the slight edge.  Vogelsong had a DIS start, but he had a five game streak of post-season starts with 1 run or less, including a great game against the Nats in the NLDS.  Vargas was a bit lucky with the BABIP, giving up only 2 hits in 5.1 IP and striking out 6, but he also walked 3 batters, a high walk rate, but did have a DOM start, 4 PQS.  But it seems to me that again, the Giants can exploit his wildness, as indicated by his 3 walks.  But he has two DOM starts in the playoffs so far, so you got to respect that.  And if the Royals do swap, and put him in Game 3 instead, that would make it tough for Hudson to win, it would be a coin flip.

Again, our hitters are very patient hitters, willing to work the walk if they have to, to put pressure on the pitcher, to put pressure on the fielders (because our team has not been striking out that much in the playoffs), to allow their compatriot batting next to be the hero of that particular game.  That has a trait across all our World Series teams, there has not really been one hero, even if there are MVPs, there has usually been one guy after another stepping up to save the day for our team.

Because our hitters are patient and don't strike out too much, starting pitchers' pitch count goes up faster, thus pushing their opponents to have to go to their middle inning pitchers first, before having to face KC's three-headed monster of Herera, Davis, Holland 7, 8, 9.  They also have Frasor, Duffy and Finnegan, who have all been great.  So they have a pretty good bullpen too, middle to end, perhaps better than our bullpen, they remind me of the 2012 Giants in that overall their bullpen numbers are pedestrian, but they aren't carrying those bad relievers, they just got the ones who are very good.  Looks like we will need to get to their starters for big runs first and then need to outlast their strong bullpen.

Their hitters are also tough like the Giants, not striking out much, putting balls into play a lot.  However, unlike the Giants, they do not walk much.  I think that this plays into the Giants pitchers' happy zone.  Our pitchers frequently throw strikes and get them, particularly Bumgarner and Petit.  The other pitchers don't strike out a lot, but operate with a lot of BABIP, which our fielders are used to doing anyway, and like the Royals, rarely make mistakes that the other team capitalizes on.

One stat I've had a laugh at is the one about how the Royals weren't homerun hitters during the regular season, but they have been during the playoffs, and therefore that is an advantage for them.  The Giants pitchers are not strikeout guys for the most part, but what they are is good homerun preventers.  That was documented in a Fangraphs study a while back, how no matter what personnel or year, the Giants have been pretty good at avoiding giving up homeruns.  Of course, this playoff month has seen a lot of homers, but they have mostly been because Strickland apparently had been tipping his pitches.

Fangraph analysis found that the Giants hitters have a general advantage as well:

By the pitch type values, at least, it looks like the Giants’ hitters are equipped to handle the fastballs of the Royals’ staff. And the Royals’ hitters may have trouble with the Giants’ breaking balls. These are general statements, hopefully made more believable by focusing on a larger sample. 

Thus, I think the series will hinge on how well each starter does for their team.  According to this MLB.com article, their starting pitchers have struggled so far in the playoffs:

Solid starting pitching has been a strength for the Royals this season, but staff ace James Shields (5.63 ERA) has struggled in the postseason, No. 2 manYordano Ventura showed diminished velocity and left his ALCS start with shoulder tightness, and the Royals have had to be careful enough with Danny Duffy's innings that he has been kept out of the rotation altogether this October.

Thus they are relying a lot on Vargas and Guthrie to come through.  Vargas has done well in these playoffs with two DOM starts, but Guthrie only got the one start and only a 2 PQS, because he didn't strike out too many batters (just 2).

Where our staff, at least during the regular season, has done much better than the Royals is in the percentage of Disaster starts.  Even mediocre pitchers can sustain a lower ERA (like Hennessey) by avoiding the disaster starts.  A DIS start really skews things and jumps the ERA up.  While Shields and Bumgarner were basically the same, Peavy/Hudson/Vogelsong averaged roughly 12-13% DIS starts, while the Royal's Ventura/Guthrie/Vargas averaged roughly 20%.  And 80-90% of the time you have a disaster start and the other team don't, you lose.

So far this post-season, KC in their 8 games has a 63% DOM and 0% DIS, while SF has in their 10 games, 60% DOM and 20% DIS.  SSS rules as usual, but KC's staff was not that good at avoiding the DIS start in the regular season.  But they are looking due for at least one DIS start.  A thin margin for the Giants, but if they can get that advantage, that is often enough for a series win, tipping it in their favor.  Because, as I've been saying often this post-season:  every game is a must win.

I would caveat, on the Giants side, that Peavy, had he been allowed to go another inning, and did that OK, he probably would have gotten a 2 PQS, it was just that it was a run-scoring opportunity, which Bochy cashed in but it was for naught because the Giants ended up losing 5-4.  So he was not that bad, but wasn't that good either, which is the theme of his playoff career.

Vogelsong, however, was plain bad, but mostly hurt by BABIP.  Still, Peavy has no DOM playoff games to his credit, whereas this was the first blip on Vogelsong's post-season career, in 7 starts, 3 DOM, only 1 DIS, for 42% DOM and 14% DIS, and 1 or less runs given up until this last start (DIS starts will do that to you).  However, that is not as good as Vogelsong has done in the regular season for us, so he could be feeling the pressure during crunch time as well.

I think our success in this World Series will revolve around how well our starters do relative to the Royal's starters, much like the Orioles losing to the Royals, rather than the Royals beating the Orioles.  The ones who can laid down a DOM start on the throat of the other team will help lead his team to the trophy.  Bumgarner looks likely, but he faltered against Wainwright the second tie.  Peavy just has never had one DOM start.  Perfect time for one.  Hudson has been seemingly rejuvenated this post-season, with two DOM starts, much like he was laying down early this season.  He's getting a lot of rest again leading into the Game 3 start, so

With similar enough starters, lineup, bullpen, defense, the big advantage the Royals have over the Giants are their speed and willingness to use it to try to disrupt the Giants defense, as well as gain an extra base.   Posey is a good catcher, able to throw out runners with his strong arm, but our pitchers have not always been the best at holding runners.  Hopefully our pitchers can keep their cool, and just focus on pitching while trying to keep the runner close enough to 1B so that Posey can have a chance to throw the runner out.

This might set the stage and foundation for what we will see in this World Series, if they keep the Giants off-balance, the Royals could force the issue and take over the series.  This is the only way I can see the Royals for sure making the Giants look bad, is via a cartoon samba across the basepath to score runs, as they haven't really faced such an offense before except for the Royals, and, er, we got beat Royally.

And that might be our saving grace there, losing all three to them already.  They can't help but feel subconsciously over confident from doing that.  It is just human nature, even though I see some of them saying the right things.

Meanwhile, never bet against our Giants when their backs are against the wall or when they have been embarrassed like that.  Like Panik studying how to hit the best cutter in baseball, to Posey prepping the pitchers on the opposing teams hitters, to the Giants advanced analytics team positioning our fielders at just the right spot most of the time, the Giants overall seem like a team that likes to prepare extra well for the other team.  And while not every team without experience screws up, KC didn't exactly do all that well either in the ALCS, their pitching let them down, and if it wasn't for the Oriole's pitching doing worse, the story might be about the orange and black facing the black and orange.  I also see the Giants pinch-hitting options being denigrated, but Susac and Duffy did well after their first month of adjustments, plus Perez has been good in stretches as well, and Arias was on fire at the end of the season.

An article I was reading about how good the Royals are noted how they are proof that you don't need two aces to get through the playoffs and reach the World Series.  What it is proof of is that when you got two teams who don't have multiple aces, somebody has to win the series, two aces or not.  That's obvious, on the face of it, but nobody seems to notice that is the reality.  The point about having multiple aces is to maximize your team's chances of making it through the playoffs, go deep, and get into the World Series.

While the Giants do not have aces this season, in prior runs, they did have them, in terms of performances, in Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner in 2010, Cain, Bumgarner, Vogelsong in 2012.   I think Bumgarner and Hudson look ready to give us that DOM start, and hopefully Vogelsong can do it too.  Hudson got plenty of rest between starts which has got to help him, and I'm hoping it helps Vogelsong as well.  Peavy has not had one DOM start in the playoffs ever, so this would be a great time for at least one, if not two.   As my study has shown, the starting pitcher's performance in the game makes a huge difference in whether a team wins or not.

Baseball Prospectus published a preview of the World Series.  It notes that the Giants don't give away many outs, being first or near the top in a number of categories like fewest outs on the bases.  Yost's lack of usage of pinch-hitters, but frequent use of pinch-runners.  Bumgarner's four-seam fastball being one of the few "80" pitches in the league, and arguably getting better with each start.  Opponents this October are hitting .132 against the four-seamer with a .132 SLG, meaning zero ISO.  Shields leaning heavily on the cutter, which is the pitch Panik hit a homer off of Wainwright because of the work he put in studying Bill Mueller hitting a homer of Mariano Rivera.  The author also noted that his cutter has been elevating it more than usual, with three homers, as he's been hit fairly hard, so that's something to watch out for too.

Scenario Thinking

I was reading Kawakami's column analyzing the World Series - he picked the Giants in 6 games - and I realized that such an exercise would not have any value if I take a scenario approach to it.

And the theme, much as it has been this post-season, pivots on what happens in Game 1.  I think Bumgarner is going to have the game of his life.  He has risen to the occasion so very often, and has two shut-outs already in the previous World Series.  I expect him to win Game 1 and Game 5 - which is what Kawakami thinks too - which reduces it to winning two games in five for Peavy (2 games), Hudson (2 games), Vogelsong (1 game).  I also think that the Royals, so used to running over the other teams in the playoffs that a loss would put that seed in their mind, and the Giants would win in 4 or 5 games, mainly because they have Petit in reserve in the likelihood that a starter has a rough and/or short start, then Lincecum, who should be very rested by now.  I'm about 80% sure he'll win, both because he'll pitch well, as well as Shields will give it up at some point.

In the scenario that the Giants lose Game 1, I still think that the Giants will win in 6 or 7 games.  Overall, the Royals staff did not rise to the occasion in the ALCS, they just did well enough to beat the Orioles, but the Royals did not beat the Orioles, the Orioles lost to the Royals, as their starting pitching let them down.  And if they struggled to rise to their seasonal potential in the ALCS, I suspect they will struggle some, as a group, in the World Series.  They also had issues with DIS starts in the regular season as well, the World Series could amplify that tendency.

For, as I've documented here before, prior research found that offense demonstrated during the season don't correlate with playoff success (BP and THT).  It is good pitching and fielding that correlates.  Thus, it is up to each team's starters and relievers to dictate the action.

I had forgotten to check, but Shields has been mostly a mess starting in the playoffs (Fangraphs has a blog on this too, found it after writing this).  He does have some DOM starts to his credit:  in 9 starts, 4 DOM and 2 DIS or 44% DOM/22% DIS.  However, he has held opponents to three runs allowed or less only four of those starts, meaning he has given up four or more runs in five of those starts.

All the other Royals are playoff newbies.  Vargas has risen to the occasion with two DOM starts.  Ventura had a DOM in the ALDS but a 2 PQS in the ALCS.  Guthrie didn't even get a start in the ALDS and had a 2 PQS in the ALCS as well.  As much as it's said that experience is not key in the World Series, it is if the pitcher's can not handle the adrenaline rush in the early part of the game, and they make all sorts of location mistakes.  And given what happened in the ALCS, I have to think that at least one if not two of the Royal's starters will falter in their first World Series start.  That should be enough to win it again for the Giants.

However, if their starters step up and pitch to how well they did in the regular season, it will be a battle between the two teams that will be epic, particularly if Shields step up against Bumgarner, and the Championship will pivot on one key play/mistake being made at some point during the series, creating another Series hero.

Go Giants!  Win us another championship!  #ChampionBlood #ThreeIsANiceNumber

Your 2014 Giants: NLCS Game 3: Ishikawa and The Universe Returning the Favor

My thoughts after game 3 of the NLCS.

ogc thoughts

Wow, what a game of ups and downs, much like Game 2, only, of course, way better as we won.

It was like the Ghost of Candlestick came over to AT&T for a visit, to show these people how the good old days were.  Both Ishikawa's and Wong's hits were batted down from the heavens, back into the reality of the field, where they got a double and triple, respectively.  Else Ishi would have had a grand slam, and maybe THAT would have got the Cards down enough to give up.

Instead, Lackey was somehow able to regroup, find the right mechanics, and basically shut down the Giants for the rest of his start, with only a HBP with Sandoval and a single, by all people, by Hudson.  That allowed the Cards to claw their way back to a tie, with that homer Hudson gave up (I would have took him out after 6, he was tiring already; as it was Affeldt pitched a couple of innings anyway with only 16 pitches).

But the bullpen held on and eventually the offense put up enough (walk and hit) to finally find that weak link in the Cards, and get that winning run, a walk off bunt, another new entry in the annals of odd ways the Giants score runs, and there have been many, including one just the other day when Duffy scored from second on a wild pitch walk.

Ishi-Pow-wa

I see all the articles about Ishikawa and the wonder involved with him doing well, but I'm not surprised.  He is an MLB hitter against RHP.  It is LHP which makes him a platoon player.  But he plays great defense at 1B and, so far, passable defense in LF, so he would make a good bench player for some team.

Against RHP:   .262/.328/.408/.735, 21 Homers in 780 AB (37 AB/HR or 15-20 HR season).  So it was not surprising to me that he hit that 3-run double, he has a lot of power that will show up now and again.

And he adds a win solely on defense at 1B.  And in his prime, two wins.

But the problem is that:  1) he's not a great enough hitter vs. RHP to make up for his poor LHP batting line and 2) he's not a great enough hitter for a firstbaseman that people understand his value to a team.

He would be a fine platoon player where you got a RHH to take his LHP starts, which is what I was hoping for in 2011 when Belt instead made his debut and won the job.   He is perfect for teams where they get 1B-quality bat production from another spot (like the Giants with Posey at C) or teams where they get OK to good production up and down the lineup (like the Giants do), his bat is fine in the 7th or 8th spot, in fact, against RHP, he is probably much above average for the 8th spot, a clear advantage.

People need to get over looking at how a hitter hits relative to players at his position, they need to focus on the overall lineup, and where he hits.  As long as a team got capable hitters batting 3/4/5, Ishi is great batting in the bottom of any team's lineup, he can work the walk a lot of times, while giving the ball a charge now and again, like yesterday.

I've been saying that Belt should just move to LF and let Ishikawa semi-platoon with Posey/Hanchez/Susac at 1B (extra catcher would start at 1B vs. LHP, plus when Posey needs a blow at 1B, he starts there no matter who is throwing).   But with his fine work in LF (and further practice in spring training), I'm thinking that he could be a fine platoon partner starting in LF with, say, Perez) or a fine bench player who can play 1B or LF should there be injuries, but meanwhile, he can provide power and patience off the bench against RHP.

Unfortunately, he probably don't work for us on the bench in 2015.  Blanco is one OF.  Presumably the Giants will sign someone (Morse?) to start in LF.  Do we match up Ishi with Blanco as backup OF, or a RHH like Perez?  Probably the latter.  MI bench would be Arias and Adrianza (I would rather Duffy get full time play in AAA to see if he can further develop into a starting player;  part of me is hoping the Giants give him a shot at 3B should Pablo, most likely, chose to leave).  Backup catcher would be battle between Hanchez and Susac, though the Giants probably prefer Susac start full-time in AAA and prep to take over starting role.  And if they platoon in LF, Blanco would be the better choice to go with Perez than Ishikawa, though I suppose that means there is still a spot in the outfield for Ishikawa to play LF, since Blanco and Perez would be able to handle all three OF positions.

Hudson Waning

I would have took Hudson out after six innings.  It seemed like he was tiring and he was giving up runs.  Normally in such a situation, Bochy usually has the quick trigger finger and go to a reliever, but perhaps it is telling that he chose to risk continuing in spite of the signals, in order to avoid Machi and Strickland, the main 7th inning guys, then skipped them and used Affeldt for 1.2 IP instead.  Two years ago, it would have been Lincecum going 2 innings and then Bochy would hand the ball to the closer.  Why is Lincecum not pitching?

And this is after getting a lot of rest before this start, like 9 days or so.  Which led to his great start of the game.  But he wore down quickly as the game progressed.  I don't know how he'll last more than 4-5 innings should we need him in game 7, should we need to play that game.   I'm not sure I would want him starting in the World Series as our #3 unless we can avoid game 7 and win in 5-6 games, so that he would have a ton of rest again before his next start, and be able to last at least to mid-game before tiring.

And luckily the bullpen came in and shut down the Cards until we could score.

Universe Pay Back

Of course, many people are agog over the bunt-error walk-off that won the game for us.  And rightly so, it is a pretty odd way to win.  Still, the way I see it, it was just the Universe paying us back for the Bumgarner error in Game 3 of the NLDS.   We lost that game because of the error, which cost the Giants a sweep and another day of rest.

That's What I'm Talking About

Tracy Rigolsby, award winning baseball columnist (formerly following Rockies, now national columnist), wrote this article, which captures a lot of what I've been writing about the Giants in the past and recently:

And the bottom line is that it all comes about because San Francisco is playing winning baseball. 

They are able to take advantage of another team's mistakes because they are in position for that mistake to make a difference. 

"We're down three, four runs, none of this matters," said Bochy. "When you are in a game like this, the idea is to put pressure on as much as you can. Force that other team to have to execute. The game is different this time of year. Everything is magnified." 

Even the pressure. 

There's so little margin for error in October. This is no longer that 162-game marathon. There's no second chance by grabbing a Wild Card spot to force your way into the postseason. The Giants have done that, but now the margin for error has been narrowed.

And:

"This time of year, there's not much room for error," said Bochy. 

And San Francisco isn't a team that is going to blast away, at least not so far this October. The Giants have hit only two home runs in this year's eight postseason games. 

"Believe me," said Bochy, "I love home runs. But it is all about execution. If you don't hit home runs, you better do the little things, which we do. You've got to keep the pressure on those other guys." 

Most of all, though, Bochy loves winning. 

The Giants keep finding a way to claim wins this postseason. 

It's not always pretty. 

"But," said Bochy, "there aren't any ugly wins."

And not just this postseason, but in 2010 and 2012 too.  The Giants keep the game close most of the time, with great pitching from their starters and, lately, in particular their relievers, plus stellar defense (or even so), keeping the other side from getting that extra run that they need to win, while holding the fort so that our offense can finally scratch out that extra run that we need.

As Crawford notes in the video accompanying this article (bunch of interview sound bites from many players, nice listen if you got time), the Giants play these games as if it was the regular season, and so they try to have fun.  If your guys are executing and performing, then it becomes a game of chicken between the teams where you wait for the weak link in the chain to break, whether Conrad in 2010 or Carpenter in 2012 or Choate 2014.  Much like that 18 inning game against the Nats, our relievers held the line until the Nats had to use a reliever who made a mistake pitch to Belt.

Miller's Crossing

There is an interesting article on Shelby Miller on Fangraphs.  It discusses how he seems to be throwing more high fastballs.  It also notes that whatever changes he has made, he has not really been that effective with it most of the year, until lately.

He pitched nicely against the Bridegrooms, though not great, giving up 3 walks in 5.2 IP, and only striking out 4, but giving up two runs.  So he continued to do OK, continuing his year end jump in performance noted in the article.  In fact, he was not that great until September, when his K/9 went up to 7.7 and K/BB jumped to 5.2 (from the poor under 2's he was putting up all year).

It appears that he got lucky in September.   His playoff start is more in line with the work he was doing earlier in the season:  less K, more BB, lousy K/BB.   He was also extremely lucky with the BABIP in September as well, low 200's.  Prior to September, he was pitching like a #4 starter, 4.19 ERA, 6.0 K/9, 1.49 K/BB.  And his FIP showed that, 4.54 vs. his 3.74 ERA, he's been lucky with the BABIP this season for the most part.

And his penchant for high fastballs intersects with two Giants players who will hit the high fastball, every now and again, into the seats:  Panda and Pence.  So those matchups will be interesting during today's game.

And beyond them, he's a guy a bit on the wild side generally, while not striking out a lot of guys, so our other hitters, like Blanco, Panik, Posey, Belt, Crawford, Ishikawa, they are guys who know how to take a walk, and a couple are good at avoiding the strikeouts too.   On top of that, LHH has the advantage over him, they get more hits, and hit for more power, while walking more and striking out less.   And Posey hits RHP as well as he does LHP.

VogelStrong

Meanwhile Vogie just set a record in playoff history by pitching five games and giving up only 1 run or less in each outing.  Hopefully the rest did him good still, unlike Hudson yesterday, who appeared to tire at the end there (in an interview, he said he was still strong; but everything is relative).   Looks to me that if Vogie can keep the Cards offense corralled again, Miller looks like a pinata waiting to explode into a bunch of runs at some point during the game, the Giants bats just need to keep the pressure on.

Hitters Weak

Don't know if the hitters are tired or the other teams been pitching well against them, but nobody on the team is hitting for much power.  Top ISO:  Crawford 138, Belt 120, nobody else is even over 100, Sandoval is next at 93 ISO.  And OPS, Oh Poy Sonny, only Belt has a good one, .949 OPS, Panda next at .728, Posey .684, Ishikawa .683, Panik .648.  Pretty anemic.  And the bench has not done too much so far (in particular Arias, he has actually played very little so far).

Somebody needs to pick the power up.  Posey is battling like he is tired, which he probably got after catching 18 innings in the second game against the Nats.  Both Panda and Pence look like they are just not getting lucky, both have good enough strikeout rate, while walking a fair amount too, which leads to a lot of BIP.

In fact, that is what this team has been doing, putting the ball in play.  Panik leads the bunch with only 1 K in 33 AB.  But most of the hitters are right in that optimal minimum range of 15-20% strikeouts, Belt (5 K's in 32 PA), Posey (only got 2 himself), Panda (6 K's in 35 PA), Pence (5/32), Blanco (2/36), Ishi (3/20).   Only Crawford is striking out a lot, 8 in 32 AB.

And everybody got at least 2-3 walks (a lot since most are in the 30-35 PA range), with Belt having 6 walks.   Given how good he is hitting and getting on base, maybe Bochy should move him up to batting second and make Panik the leadoff guy, because Blanco is not doing it, .125/.200/.125/.325.  That's largely bad BABIP (.133) but sometimes hitters make themselves like that.

But that's sometimes what the other teams pitchers make the hitters look like.  Miller appears to be a weak link in their rotation compared to the Giants.  Hopefully guys will knock the ball around against Miller and knock him out of the game early.

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.

Media's Biased Influence, Once Again

One of my pet peeves about the media is that they bias their writing, which either influences the audience to feel a certain way, and/or caters to that stance.  As usual, the Giants offense is good boy that gets punished.

One reporter notes, "Given eight innings against one of the league's worst bullpens, the Giants couldn't overcome a deficit..."  It was 8-0 and they scored 5 runs in 8 innings.  Even Murderer's Row Yankees rarely overcame an 8-0 deficit, though (had to count them) they had an amazing 35 games out of 152 where they scored 9 or more runs (not going to check how many 8 run deficits are overcome by a team).  And that's a 5.63 ERA on the part of the bullpen, not exactly stellar.


Another newspaper similarly headlined that the Giants couldn't overcome Barry Zito's start, like that is the offense's fault.

They scored 5 runs, which is plenty enough to win most games.  There aren't any team today that can regularly overcome an 8-0 deficit.  Even the best offense would have trouble scoring 9 runs, while down 8 runs.  The offense did well to do what they did.  The headline should have been more about Zito's poor start exacerbated by poor defense, not about the offense not overcoming an 8-0 deficit.

The biggest comeback win this season was 6 runs in the NL.  Only 47 of the 706 games played in the NL this season even had one team score 9 runs, let alone come back from an 8-0 deficit.  The Giants offense did a great job coming back.  At least the Chronicle acknowledged that, noting "never-say-die" spirit.

Giants Showing More Offensive Fight

That's what I've been saying since Matt Cained the D-backs with his 2-run double and broke up that doubleplay, the Giants have been showing a lot more fight, either winning the games or at least coming back despite being behind, though there have been plenty of games where they overcame deficits to win.  Cain showed the offense how it's done, and he has won his last two starts because of the offense, not in spite of it, as he hasn't been quite the Cain we know and love.

This is the spirit a team needs to win their division and go deep into the playoffs.  I'm still hoping that the May 12th game was the turning point for our team.  So far, it has been.

Fan(tasy) vs. Realist(ic)

I see a lot of moaning about the offense, and the fan in me get it, I would love to have a great offense too.  Why waste this beautiful, wonderful, great pitching?  We could be way ahead of the NL right now!  Lets get - insert great hitter - now!

But the realist in me understands that in baseball, as in most parts of life, you have to make choices.  Hard choices because we live in a resource constricted universe.  What people forget is that we would not have this beautiful, wonderful, great pitching right now, if the Giants had built up a beautiful, wonderful, great lineup.

Instead of Matt Cain, maybe they picked Sergio Santos instead.  Instead of Tim Lincecum, maybe they went ahead and trade him for Alexis Rios, as many Giants fans wanted.  Instead of Madison Bumgarner, they pick Jason Heyward (or worse, Beau Mills, or even Matt Dominguez), as many Giants fans wanted.  Instead of Jonathan Sanchez, they went ahead and traded him for Cory Hart.  Heck, instead of Buster Posey, who is out injured, they picked Justin Smoak, as many Giants fans wanted (and in fact argued the Giants made a mistake selecting Posey over Smoak).

But can anyone imagine the Giants winning the World Series with any (or all) of these replacements?  And are these fans, who think they know better, the right people to listen to for what the Giants should or should not do, when they don't even acknowledge that their alternative decisions would have been disastrous for the Giants 2010 World Championship?

I find it delusional that many of these fans think that Sabean was lucky, when I see it as that WE Giants fans are lucky these delusional fans were not in charge as GM.  Maybe Sabean was lucky, but it was his moves that put the Giants in position to take advantage of that luck.  Every World Championship team is built on some luck, no team is going to go all the way without a good modicum of luck.  But it is the teams that put themselves into position to take advantage of the situation that can win it all.  These fans would have traded away essential pieces of the championship team without knowing it at that time.  Sabean keep them all, that is not luck, that is prescience.

Meanwhile, these fans ultimately would have ended up managing the Giants into the non-playoff participating role in 2010, still hoping to win it all in their alternative universe.

The realist in me appreciates what Sabean has done for the Giants.  It is good for the soul to at least take that step and not attribute it all to luck, one, because it was NOT all luck (again, he KEPT all those players that people wanted to trade), and two, to diminish his accomplishment as luck is to diminish the accomplishment of all the Giants who contributed to that championship (again, I dare any of them to say that to a Giants player's face and see what happens) and to basically dismiss all past and future championships as shams because it is based on luck.

That is the logic that these people appear incapable of comprehending, instead, they would rather hurl invectives at me.  To say that 2010 was just luck means that all prior and future championships are luck, as every team in baseball history have elements of what these fans call luck.  And if you really, truly, feel that way, then why bother following baseball?  Roll the dice, draw a card, it is all luck, right?

Rebuilding Takes Time

What these fans also don't realize is that rebuilding takes time, a much longer time than, seemingly, they are willing to accept.  A team cannot rebuild so that one moment it is a loser, then the next moment, it is a winner.  Just like a baby is not a full grown man, one moment to next, there is all that messy in-between development time, where there is a lot of two steps forward and one step back.

And some parts will advance faster than other parts.   Sabean's apparent strategy is to build a strong pitching staff and keep it going, then add on to the offense as available.  With the pitching staff pretty much set a few years ago, the team's draft philosophy shifted and focused more on position players (while still drafting more pitchers than hitters, even though rosters built the other way).

And what people don't realize is that the lineup is coming along great.  Posey at catcher ( or Hector Sanchez or Andrew Susac as eventually replacement).  Brandon Belt at 1B (or Tommy Joseph), Joe Panik at 2B (or Charlie Culberson), Sandoval at 3B, Brandon Crawford at SS (or Nick Noonan or Ehire Adrianza), Thomas Neal in LF (or Francisco Peguero), Gary Brown in CF, Schierholtz in RF (or Rafael Rodriguez or Charlie Jones or Jarrett Parker).  We got a leadoff hitter in Brown, nice #2 hitter in Panik, middle of order presence from Posey, Belt, Sandoval, and maybe even good to great hitting from bottom of order.  And it will be here in a couple of years.  Except in the alternative universe where the fans trade away everyone to win this season.

Big Picture Needed

Fans need to take a good look at the big picture.  With Bill Neukom's wealth (Baggarly reports in his great book, Band of MiSFits, that he has $600M+; must buy book for any Giants fan, FYI) helping to keep most of our pitchers into their free agent years, and great looking arms coming up in Zach Wheeler and Eric Surkamp, the Giants should be set at pitching for the rest of this decade.  And not just set, but set to be one of the top teams in run prevention (they have been #1 or #2 two years in a row in MLB now, and look good for third time this year).

But trading just to get a boost this season, reduces the production we get from that unit going forward (unlike my suggestion that we trade Dirty to get a big bundle of prospects, which would seed our future seasons and make those teams much more winnable).  As I noted in a post before, winning the World Series, even in the best of circumstances, depends on a lot of baseball luck involved to win everything, betting on this season at the cost of future seasons makes sense if you don't think you will be able to win in future seasons.

However, it does not make sense when the Giants are set up like we are to have great pitching for the rest of this decade.   Why cost us a chance to win it all in multiple years in the future on the off chance we win it this season?

Particularly since research, and not just regular research, but from two of our top sabers out there, Baseball Prospectus and The Hardball Times, found that additional offense does not improve your chances of winning in the playoffs.  Thus, what most fans do not realize, which this realist does, is that by trading pitching for hitting, you in essence reduced your chance of winning in the playoffs and winning the World Series, as counter-intuitive as that may seem.  And that is the big picture.

Just Enough

So your first step is to build up a great pitching staff and then keep it humming for as long as you can.  Your second step is to rebuild the offense, piece by piece.  Yes, mistakes have been made, but which team hasn't?  A great pitching staff mitigates mistakes because they are much more efficient in winning games than the average team.

Let's try an example.  A league average team would have a 4.19 RA/G right now.  To be at a .500 record, the would need to score 4.19 runs/game.  The Giants, with a 3.53 RA/G right now, only needs to score 4.03 runs/game to win at a 90-72 winning percentage.  If they can achieve that, they will end up with an 89-73 record this season.

The Giants in 2009 had an overall 4.06 RS/G.  It was achieved with this batting order performance:

Batting 1st:  .258/.312/.404/.717
Batting 2nd: .251/.299/.333/.632
Batting 3rd:  .283/.337/.460/.797
Batting 4th:  .288/.316/.472/.788
Batting 5th:  .252/.321/.377/.697
Batting 6th:  .251/.303/.361/.665
Batting 7th:  .282/.336/.457/.793
Batting 8th:  .254/.307/.373/.680

As we can see, it did not take a lot to score over 4 runs per game.

And even if they continue their low scoring now, they should still end up around 84-78, which in this NL West, would still be competitive for the title and perhaps still win it.

Not More of the Same

And that is where fan veers away from realist:  assuming that what has happened up to now represents what will happen going forward.  That is not realistic given that there are a lot of players who were either missing during large parts of that period (Sandoval, Ross) or will be missing going forward (Posey, Franchez).

A big problem with the offense right now is that most players aren't hitting.  Only guys regularly hitting in June has been Cody Ross and Aubrey Huff, out of the regulars, and Pat Burrell and Bill Hall, among guys who are not regulars.  Really hurting our offense is the catcher, Emmanuel Burriss, Brandon Crawford, and Pablo Sandoval, who has not been hitting that well since coming off the DL, though he had a nice start.  All of them are killing the offense right now.  Even Schierholtz has been holding back the offense a bit, though he's been OK enough to stick in there.

And given Bochy's tone, I expect things to change sooner than later.  There is something up with Andres Torres right now, he is just not hitting right, though taking a lot of walks, which is good.  I think we see more platooning with Cody Ross in CF.  Cody, however, will play in a corner spot when not in CF.  And Burrell and Schierholtz will battle over the rest.

As much as I love Brandon Crawford's defense, hitting .169/.222/.220/.443 so far in June just doesn't make up for that.  I can see Bochy going with Tejada more and more often as Crawford continues to struggle.  And I think Bill Hall is the regular 2B going forward, unless there is a trade (Baggarly reported a rumor that Giants spoke to A's about Mark Ellis; he just came back from injury but they brought up Jemile Weeks, and he has sparked them with great hitting).  I think Burriss saw the writing on the wall and that is why he has been sleepwalking on the field.  Plus, he has got to realize that hitting .216/.256/.216/.473 in June doesn't cut it either.

Lastly, I still believe in Kung Fu Panda.  Sandoval will snap of out his slump in a big way soon, but until he does, the offense will suffer with one of their main guys not hitting, don't matter which team it is, if your middle guy isn't hitting, you will suffer.

Losing the Battle, Winning the War

So I understand the angst about getting swept by the A's.  Hey, I wanted the Giants to do the sweeping.  But you lick your wounds, tip your cap, and understand that baseball works like that, particularly against a poor offense like the Giants have.

But people forget that even our best offense, the 2000 Giants, got shut out by a Mets journeyman pitcher who by rights the Giants offense should have pounded.  It happens.

The realist in me sees that the team is still in great position, leading the NL West still, despite the sweep.  Yes, it will be tough beating the hot Twins, but they have been horrible on the road this season.  And they built their win streak off a long homestand, against some weak teams, plus beat some weak teams before that as well on the road.

Also, their hot streak has been built a lot on the back of one hot player, Michael Cuddyer.  Nobody else has been doing that great, though there are lot of good contributions from Drew Butera, Alexi Casilla, Luke Hughes, Delmon Young.  He will eventually cool, and the Giants got three pitchers who can cool bats in Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, and Tim Lincecum.

Looking beyond, the Giants are still 10 home games behind road games.  Once that balances out, that will improve the Giants record while bringing others down (as most other teams lose more on the road than the Giants do).  They will play 13 of the next 20 at home too, which brings us up to the All-Star break, and even things out (though they go on road for four right afterward and are on the road for 10 of 16).  And while they are ahead of their Pythagorean, they were behind by 2 games last season: some seasons it giveth, others it taketh away.

More importantly, as long as they lead the division or are within spitting distance (5 games), the Giants don't need to do anything more than tweak the team to stay in contention, as long as they have and keep this beautiful, wonderful, great pitching.  Sabean just needs to keep some trade irons hot in the fire, in case they need to make a change to shake things up (like at catcher right now).  And once Torres and Sandoval start hitting more like normal, the offense should perk up.  And betting against Tim Lincecum turning things around is usually a poor bet.

That is what the realist does, assess the current situation, balance the future and present needs, and realize that a baseball team will have hot streaks and cold streaks and that there is no need to cry that the sky is falling every time your team loses a few games.  Because that great pitching is still there and will return, and the hitters will return enough at some point to make that pitching pay off and win.

Though I don't blame it all on the fans.  The media is partly to blame for instilling in the public the tendency for short attention and focusing on the bad.  It is not that interesting to write that the team is doing fine, just hitting a bad patch, or that it is winning it all.  Nor is it as lucrative, either, for if you cater to the crowd, you sell more newspapers, website views, etc.  And drama sells.  Also, it don't take much analysis to say that the Giants are losing games and hammer on the offense, another to say that the team is in good position for doing well this season and making the playoffs and that the offense is still good enough to win the division title this season and make the playoffs.

Why 2011 Giants Look Good Still for Repeating NL West Division Title

Many Giants fans are worried about the Giants offense.  But, there is no real reason to, it was never our offense that drove the success of the Giants from 2009-2011 (and really since post-ASG 2008 when the team was .500 from July 22 on; they were 40-58 prior to that), it has been our pitching.

Our wonderful, young, homegrown, and ignored pitching.

Homegrown and Young

Oh, yeah, Lincecum would get a lot of attention - Cy Young's have a way of doing that - but really, the vast majority of Giants fans have ignored the pitching.  There were many complaints about the age of the team, but we have had mostly young pitchers on our staff, it was just the lineup that was old, mainly because we had no young hitters to bring up.

Now the Sabean Naysayers would say that this was his fault.  And yeah, I can go for that, as long as they would acknowledge that he had to focus on pitching.  The draft is no way to re-build a team on the quick.  There is no Bill Walsh miracle draft of finding 6-7 starters for the next year team from your latest draft.  Baseball is totally different in that not only does it take years for draftees to graduate to the majors, very few of them do.  And when you are winning, fewer still because the odds of finding a good player when you are winning is roughly one quarter that of when you are one of the worse team in the majors.

So when confronted with scarce resources, he did what one has to, have a strategy to manage that.  Most teams don't, but the Giants focused on pitching, pitching, and more pitching, then once they got that going, been focusing on hitting, hitting, and more hitting, though keeping some pitching in the pipeline as well.  I think that is a sound strategy and one that he has executed well.

Complaints that there were not that many homegrown talents, but as I noted, our main producers in the pitching staff was predominantly homegrown:  Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo.  And really, these people don't even know that most teams don't even have that many homegrown players on their 25-man roster, the Giants are probably one of the teams with the most homegrown players (signed and developed):  last season they had basically 10, including Posey, Sandoval, Schierholtz, Ishikawa, Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo.  And Belt, Crawford, Brown, Neal, and Panik look to be joining sooner or later.

Complaints about the offense, but as I showed in my business plan, when you have a great defense - pitching and fielding combined - you don't need to have even an average offense, even a lousy offense would be able to win with this pitching and fielding.

Offense Just Needs To Be Enough

At 38-29, the Giants just need to go 48-47 over the rest of the season to end up at 86-76.  That would have been enough to win the NL West last season if you took Adrian Gonzalez out of the SD lineup.  And none of the NL West teams have improved, in my estimation, from what they were in 2010, if anything, there are a lot of regression, whether due to trades (Manny, A-Gon) or over-performances (CarGon, Ubaldo; Duke, Owings, Roberts), which will bring down their record in 2011.  Plus, I think the Giants can do even better over the next 95 games.

The defense - pitching and fielding - has been yielding 3.55 runs allowed per game this season. And they should be able to continue at near this rate for the rest of the season, despite Vogelsong's over-performance, as they were at 3.60 RA last season.

Using the Fangraphs rest of season projections for the probable starting lineup, I get that the lineup would average 3.97 runs scored per game.  That works out to a .547 winning percentage, meaning the Giants would end up 52-43, for a final record of 90-72.  Even if the team regressed to 3.60, that still leaves the Giants at 89-90 wins.

And that assumes that Sandoval is only a .297/.350/.478/.838 hitter, as projected.  He is currently hitting .310/.375/.517/.892 and if he continues doing that, it should add one more win, pushing us to 91-71.  And if he hits closer to his .330/.387/.556/.943 of 2009, that would add another win, pushing us to 92-70.

What people forget is that projections just blindly apply stats, and includes what Panda did in 2010 as being representative of his talent level, when he clearly suffered offensively whenever something happened in his life, whether finalizing his divorce or dealing with the fact that his mother almost perished in the San Bruno pipeline blast.  I would bet that he will end the season closer to his current batting line than the projected batting line.

That also assumes we only get putrid offense from the catching and shortstop positions (Whiteside and Crawford).  The catching, well, it is what it is, until the Giants do something about it, whether via a trade or promoting Hector Sanchez, who they suddenly promoted to AAA recently, even though he wasn't doing that particularly well in San Jose, and which I speculate is in preparation for bringing him up to the majors at some point (of course, if he don't hit that well, then experiment over).  Crawford, however, has shown some ability to hit better than forecasted (.224/.290/.341/.631) in his small samples of hitting so far.  If he can keep his average around .700 OPS, that would add another win as well.

Now, with the good, there is the bad, which is what if Ryan Vogelsong suddenly turned back into the pumpkin that he was previously and not the shiny carriage he has been this season for us.  Given his success so far, I have to think that while he won't continue as well, he looks like he'll be a darn good enough #5 starter for us.  But if not, having Zito return to where he was the past two seasons would help towards the #5 spot not cratering for us, like it has for other teams that lost a good starting pitcher.

Giants Look Good for NL West Crown

All in all, I think the Giants are in good shape for repeating as NL West Division champs.  Their pitching is great as usual.  Their defense improved with Schierholtz in RF, Ross in LF, Crawford at SS, and slimmer Sandoval at 3B.  Even if the offense does not turn on, a .500 record for the rest of the season should keep us aloft enough to win the division at 86 wins, as none of the other NL West teams, as I had projected pre-season, are doing it, and the D-backs are doing it with over-performances so far, and I think Collmenter's blow-up yesterday is just the beginning of them sliding back to the rest of the other teams in the division standings.

And once the Giants are in the playoffs, their pitching is going to be good enough to keep us in games long enough to win a good number.  We might not repeat as World Series Champs - as I noted in a post pre-season, most champs don't repeat, not just from history, but from just understanding how the playoff system works via probability - but we should be able to give it a good run again, particularly if Sandoval can return to his 2009 form, as I think our offense will be that much better with him in there, taking the pressure off Huff, Ross, and others.

Go Giants!

Your 2011 Giants Offense: Together, They Are Giants

The Giants offense is often maligned, and rightfully so in recent years.  That is one of the biggest complaints of the offseason, that the Giants did "nothing" to improve, particularly in the offense.  That is just not true, just because you kept the same players as you ended the season does not mean that you did "nothing" to upgrade the offense.  Particularly if they would have examined the projections and the actual 2010 Giants stats, one would clearly see that the Giants did not stand pat, they didn't stand pat mid-2010 and those changes reverberate in the 2011 team roster and lineup.

These are the Giants overall offensive production by position from 2010:

Split	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	BAbip	tOPS+	sOPS+
as C	.274	.333	.430	.764	.293	109	117
as 1B	.291	.357	.457	.815	.322	123	103
as 2B	.283	.338	.396	.734	.320	102	104
as 3B	.262	.321	.401	.722	.289	98	95
as SS	.260	.318	.419	.736	.282	102	112
as LF	.264	.365	.485	.850	.292	133	121
as CF	.250	.304	.434	.738	.294	101	100
as RF	.246	.314	.393	.708	.282	94	81
as DH	.091	.167	.227	.394	.059	8	4
as P	.122	.144	.135	.278	.210	-22	60
as PH	.262	.343	.401	.744	.305	105	133
as Infield	.274	.334	.421	.754	.301	107	106
as Outfield	.253	.328	.437	.764	.289	109	100
at Def. Pos.	.267	.323	.420	.743	.298	104	108
at Off. Pos.	.266	.340	.434	.773	.296	112	100

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/1/2011.

What people are missing is that there was a lot of non-productive PA in 2010 that went to people no longer with the team or who won't be playing there much in 2011.  The infield has plenty of upside.  Bengie Molina spent a lot of time at C, 212 PA, bringing down the stats with his .264/.321/.342/.663 batting line.  Buster Posey should hit much better than .274/.333/.430/.764.  Both Travis Ishikawa and Pablo Sandoval stunk up 1B offensively in 2010, 161 PA, but neither should do as much in 2011.  Juan Uribe hurt 3B with his 88 PA and .215/.295/.329/.625 batting line.  In addition, Pablo Sandoval should do much better than his .268/.323/.414/.737 at 3B in 2010.  He is in Kung Fu Fighting form this spring and I hope the Giants can sign him to an extension this spring. 

The outfield also has upside.  Aaron Rowand had 332 PA in CF, batting .230/.278/.369/.647; Andres Torres would have to fall a lot from his overall .268/.343/.479/.823 batting line and .264/.321/.489/.810 in CF to not improve on the .250/.304/.434/.738 we got from CF in 2010.  And as down a season Cody Ross the Boss had in 2010 before joining the Giants, it still wasn't as bad as the overall .246/.314/.393/.708 we got in RF in 2010, and that includes Ross' .353/.353/.529/.882 he added to the RF mix.  Even in a down year he hit .269/.322/.413/.735 and his strikeout and walk rates were right in line with his prior good seasons.  What was missing, for some reason, was his power, his ISO, XBH%, X/H% were all down, same for his HR/FB until he joined the Giants, but even with that boost, his XBH% was not that great with the Giants.

The only spot that is looking like a pretty sure regression to the mean is LF with .264/.365/.485/.850, only because it is so high and Pat Burrell was just so bad before joining the Giants.  However, I would note that Burrell's .266/.364/.509/.872 for the Giants in 2010 is basically that which he delivered in Philly's offensive homepark prior to his Tampa Bay crash and burn:

Year	Tm	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	OPS+
2005	PHI	.281	.389	.504	.892	128
2006	PHI	.258	.388	.502	.890	122
2007	PHI	.256	.400	.502	.902	128
2008	PHI	.250	.367	.507	.875	125
2009	TBR	.221	.315	.367	.682	81
2010	TOT	.252	.348	.469	.817	119
2010	TBR	.202	.292	.333	.625	74
2010	SFG	.266	.364	.509	.872	132

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 3/1/2011.

The Giants Did Not Stand Pat

The Giants are not standing still, or worse yet, regressing.  Sure, there are some regressions, but for the most part, they are mild.  Few project Huff to beat that 1B batting line, but most have him right around .800 OPS, so I would call that a push.  Same for Freddy Sanchez at 2B, most have his just under the .734 OPS 2B delivered in 2010.  Same goes for SS and Miguel Tejada, again, just under the .736 OPS SS delivered in 2010.

However, Buster Posey is projected to easily beat .800 OPS in 2011 and despite Pablo Sandoval's poor 2010, most projections still have him producing easily over .800 OPS in 2011.  Both would be huge jumps over 2010.  Same for Andres Torres in CF, most projections are for high 700 or around 800 OPS in 2011, also a huge jump on 2010's CF.  Cody Ross is projected for mid-700 OPS in 2011, a big boost over 2010's RF totals.  Any one of these improvements would make up for the projected loss in LF and the slight drops in the infield positions.  Plus then there is Brandon Belt coming up something mid-season if he's an improvement.  People are missing these huge improvements over 2010's overall offense while focusing on the older players plus not realizing that there is not much regression versus what the Giants produced at those positions in 2010.

Run Score Per Game Improvement
I plugged in the OBP and SLG, projected by a number of different well known sources of such information, into the lineup calculator and the majority of them have the team much improved over their 4.30 RS/game in 2010:

Bill James = 4.74 (been known to be high)
Baseball Forecaster (Ron Shandler) = 4.56 (I like their system because it takes age and minors into account)
ZIPS = 4.52
Marcel = 4.46
Baseball Prospectus = 4.28 (no wonder they don't like Giants every year, it seems, and demanded that Brian Sabean be fired in their 2010 annual; I wonder what they will put in their 2011 annual)

With the Giants 3.77 RA that they had in 2009 (assuming some sort of regression from 2010's 3.60 RA), the Giants would win 90 games with BP's low 4.28 RS/game and 96-7 games with Bill James calculated RS.  With Shandler/ZIPS mid forecast:  93-94 wins in 2011.  And if the Giants pitching hold up the way I think they will, and repeat their 3.60 RA from 2010 (remember, there is potential for improvement because of the loss of Wellemeyer and the poor relievers), that works out to 93 wins, 99-100 wins, and 96-97 wins. 

Projections Are Naturally Conservative
I would note that these projections' assumptions include areas for upside because projections are naturally conservative in nature.  An average Pablo Sandoval, for example, is projected.  If he returns to Pandoval of 2009, that is another boost to RS and wins (2 addition wins with ZIPS projections plus another win with move to #3 position, pushing to 99 wins).  Same for Burrell and Huff.  If either or both return to 2010's form, those are boosts to the RS and wins as well and probably adds about 1-2 wins as well.  Same for Posey, if he hits more like his mid-season form than second half form, that would add 1-2 wins as well.

Then there is the wildcard in the lineup:  Brandon Belt.  He is not even in the lineup and most projections have him over 800 OPS.  If he comes up and delivers that, he could take over 1B, shove Huff to the OF, and either Burrell or Ross out of the starting lineup (Torres or Huff as well if either isn't producing).  It could become like last year's "every day is a new lineup" situation.  That would also add 1-2 win, particularly considering how well he fields 1B.

And remember, these projections include the projected drops for the older players, so if the players do not drop in performance as the projections assumes older players will, those will be improvements as well.  Plus, if Belt crushes AAA, that could even force Cody Ross out of the starting lineup, as someone (between Huff and Belt) would move into LF, pushing out Burrell,

However:  Not For 162 Games
Of course, the caveat here is that this will not be our lineup for 162 games.  Posey is not going to start every game, they will need to give him some rest during the season where Whiteside will start, and will of course bring the RS down.  He might not even meet his projections, he only hit .283/.340/.472/.812 in the second half (which could have been because of the stamina problem he had in 2010, as the Giants had said he might, and which he talked about in a recent interview, but what if it was not, that it was his true level?).  The older guys like Huff, Sanchez, Burrell, Tejada, and Torres could suddenly become injury prone, like we saw with Durham and Renteria.  Sandoval could hit more potholes that sets him back to 2010's form.  That would reduce the number of wins by 1-2, maybe more if a lot of hitters are under-performing.

Offense Looks Ready to Produce 90-100 Wins and More Importantly Win NL West
Still, given how high the projections are on the Giants offense, which, combined with the pitching of 2008 or 2009, still leads to 90-100 wins, the team looks capable of withstanding some injuries and poor performances and still win enough games to easily win the division.  90 wins looks like a gimme for this Giants team, even with injuries, and yet the teams below them did not do much to improve themselves and only SD had 90 wins out of them in 2010 and while they added nice pieces, really, they got rid of A-Gon and I think that is all you have to say about their chances, but then on top of that they lost Garland and didn't get anyone who should replace that great performance, they are hoping Harang rebounds, but the odds don't look good there.

The other two pretenders - LA and COL - are flawed in ways that many miss.  The way people are blind to the Giants offensive improvements over 2010, they are similarly blind to the D-gers lack of offensive improvements now that they are Manny-less.  Colorado stood pat as well, but because many of their players are young, the assumption is onward and upward, but can they make up so many games behind (8 wins, according to Pythagorean) based on that?

LA's Offense Suspect, Not Giants

Many are touting the D-gers because of all the pitching they added (though they just lost one in Vicente Padilla), and yes, they did improve their pitching signing Ted Lilly and Jon Garland, but just because they now have a pretty good rotation (still not up there with the Giants, in my opinion) does not absolve them of not improving their offense, which nobody picks up on and yet harangues the 2011 Giants over and over again when that is not even true.  It is like people's impression of offense is based on how the team was in early 2010.  Adding Juan Uribe is an improvement at 2B for the D-gers, but the Giants have equal if not better chances to improve with Huff, Burrell, Sandoval, and Posey. And he is certainly no replacement for Manny Ramirez, and neither is Jay Gibbons or Marcus Thames.

And nobody is looking at the post-Manny D-ger offense:  in the second half of 2010, they averaged 3.30 runs scored per game!  Even the Giants pitching can't win with that putrid an offense.  And as I noted, the D-gers didn't really add anyone really good to their lineup, Uribe is a nice cog, but nothing more, they needed someone like Huff or Burrell in the lineup, not Uribe.  Right now James Loney is their projected #5 hitter, and he would be pushed down to 7th or 8th in the Giants lineup.

Colorado Has A Lot of Games to Make Up, Yet Also Stands Pat

I don't see anyone saying that Colorado is standing pat, but they basically are like the Giants, doing that.  I understand that because they have a young lineup, there is upside, plus they have Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez.  Same for the rotation and pitching staff in whole.  However, they are depending on both Tulo and CarGon to hit like that again, plus lost Miguel Olivo, who hit much better than Iannetta, so the rest of the lineup will have to make up for that, though perhaps Jose Lopez might do that at 2B.  Still, Todd Helton isn't getting younger either, if people are going to blast the Giants older vets.  And Brad Hawpe is now 32, if he even still have a role. 

And the pitching is relying on starters who either need to rebound or prove that 2010 wasn't a fluke.  Jason Hammel and Aaron Cook had pretty bad years, yet to match the Giants rotation (probably Zito and Bumgarner), both would have to do much better PLUS Ubaldo Jimenez would have to repeat his year, which he couldn't even do in the second half:  2.20 ERA first half, 3.80 ERA second half. 

And as well as Jhoulys Chacin did, his K/BB isn't as superlative as his 3.28 ERA, suggesting some regression in 2011.  Looking at his splits, he had a 4.09 ERA with .299 BABIP in the first half, 2.24 ERA with .278 BABIP in the second half, but virtually identical K/BB of 2.29 and 2.23, respectively.  In other words, his great season was largely the result of a lowered BABIP, and he will have to prove that he's one of the rare pitchers who can do that consistently.  Obviously, the odds are against him. 

On top of that, only Jimenez pitched a full season in 2010, though Hammel was close with 30 starts.  The rest will be stretched in 2011 to pitch a full 32 game season.  And their #3 starter, Jorge de la Rosa, is roughly equal to Barry Zito, arguably the worse starter in the Giants rotation.  And he has only pitched a full season in 2009 plus 2010 was his best season ever in six seasons, career 5.02 ERA, so he would be hard pressed just to match Zito in 2011 most probably.

On top of that, they need to make up 8 wins in performance when you look at Pythagorean.  The Giants were at 94 while the Rox were at 86.  As good a crop of young players they got, they stood pat needing to make up 8 wins, while assuming repeat peak performances and that the older players don't decline drastically.

Giants Have Risk Mitigation Backup Plans
The Giants look very capable of beating out the main NL West contenders.  Their conservative projections for the lineup already adds up to 90+ wins, get a few probable plus production from Sandoval, Posey, Huff, Burrell, and that puts him ahead of last year's win total.  Meanwhile, the other teams have not addressed the weaknesses that they had and/or are hoping for good performances in order to compete, and that is a house of cards that falls down if their hoped for good performance don't come, there is no backup plan for them.

The Giants, on the other hand, has a number of backup plans.  Their rotation is so good overall that they could lose anyone and not be set back as badly as, say, St. Louis or Phillies would.  With a poor #5 overall - Randy Johnson, Ryan Sadowski, Joe Martinez, and Brad Penny - in 2009, they still had a 3.77 RA/game.  They can easily pick up a #5 type starter for peanuts and try to upgrade with a mid-season trade.  Relievers, they got Mota, Dan Runzler, Marc Kroon, Waldis Joaquin, and others waiting in AAA.

The only position where the Giants would be stuck is at catcher and cleanup should Posey ever be out.  1B could field Huff, Belt, Sandoval, DeRosa, in that order.  2B, Franchez, DeRosa, then probably Culberson or Crawford.  3B, Sandoval, DeRosa.  SS would probably field Crawford after Tejada, but really not expecting much out of SS offensively right now, so shouldn't be big drop, Tejeda looks like #8 hitter if Sandoval gets bumped to #3 with his hitting returning.  And obviously, we have a lot of candidates in the outfield, Torres, Burrell, Ross, Huff, Belt, DeRosa, Schierholtz, Rowand, Ishikawa, Thomas Neal.

The Giants are covered in a lot of different situations.  This is the risk mitigation strategy that they have been using the past couple of seasons