Your 2015 Giants: Rotation Judgement Day

Per the beat writers, the Giants brain trust are spending this off day to discuss the pitching rotation for the near future, when Peavy and Cain come off the DL (Peavy's 30-day rehab is over, so he should be back by weekend; Cain probably one or two rehab starts away, Sabean gave a good report on his last MiLB start).

Your 2014 Giants: World Series Game 5: MadBum > Shields

Vogelsong couldn't get it going, but neither could any of the Royals relievers.  Then Petit shut them down, and that was the game.  Nobody lost their cool (on the Giants, I'm sure all the fans did), and basically almost every hitter contributed something at some point in the game, or seemingly so.  Apparently Sandoval was sick with something and still delivered.  Jon Miller noted that the Giants scored more runs with two outs than any other team in the majors, and they delivered again in the playoffs.

I was wondering why Yost didn't go to Herrera in the 6th, but forgot that he had already pitched almost 60 pitches the past two games (though off day in between), so perhaps that was the reason.  Whatever the reason, Yost had to go to a bunch of middle relievers, and if Giants fans don't trust Machi or Strickland much (though Hunter had a nice 9th inning), I don't think KC fans trust Frasor, Duffy, Finnegan, Collins much either.  Shankbone made the great point on Twitter about Yost leaving in his lefties (Duffy, Finnegan, Collins) to get knocked around like that, couldn't have helped their confidence going forward, something to watch for going forward.

With such a huge lead, Bochy brought in Affeldt in the 7th and Romo in the 8th, and some twitters asked why he would do that.  My best guess is that being down 1-2, he really needed to make sure that the Royals don't feel like they could come back in this game, especially with Affeldt with the lead at 7-4, a couple of baserunners and the tying run comes to bat.  Romo is the bigger question mark, but there's still 6 more outs, and if they should get 3 runs, then they are only down 4 runs in the 9th.

Bochy went for the kill and I'm OK with that.  It's the World Series, got to win the game, especially down 1-2.  Then he went to Stickland in the 9th and he got the final 3 outs, and by then, even if they get 3 runs off him, it would still be a 4 run lead and you bring in your closer (but ideally not).

This is fine with me (I would note that I would have taken out Vogelsong sooner) because we got Bumgarner pitching and he's been lasting into the 7th or 8th inning in each start, and so we maybe only need Casilla to close out the game.  In addition, there is an off day before game 6, giving our bullpen some rest.  At worse, Lincecum can also be used to bridge from the starter to relievers, so he could fill in whatever innings between Bumgarner and Casilla, assuming we are leading.

A-List Affeldt 

What a pitcher!  Many questioned the signing of him (and the other key relievers) to $5M contracts, hopefully they understand now.  He's now at 21 straight appearances without a run given up, only two runs away from Mariano Rivera, who holds the record at 23.

Game 5

Bumgarner has been an ace so far this season, 7+ IP in each start this post-season, lots of great starts, he's been stepping up.

Shields in contrast has not been an ace so far this season, struggling the whole time, with no DOM starts at all, he hasn't been even good at all in the post-season.

We better win this game, as we got Peavy and Hudson going for us in KC.  If the Giants can win Game 5, I think we can get one win from Peavy or Hudson, but I don't believe that we can win two with the two in KC.  It would be a gut punch if we lose.  This is must win, back to the wall again, and I wouldn't want anyone else but Bumgarner starting for us.

And in KC, all hands on deck, particularly Petit, Lincecum, and Bumgarner.  I expect to see quick hooks to stop any potential KC scoring opportunities.  I expect Petit and Lincecum to come in early before too much damage could be done, could see Lopez really early to take down a lefty or two, Romo for taking down a righty or three.

Go Giants!  Go Bumgarner!

The Fickle Finger of Fate

With the news of Matt Cain's finger injury - cutting his finger with a knife - causing him to miss today's start, it brought back a stream of memories of prior Giants finger injuries, but I'm afraid that my memory is not as good as it was before my concussion.  So hopefully someone will fill me in on ones I forgot to include.

Your 2013 Giants: Affeldt Signs 3 Years, $18M

As reported by the media for a while now, Jeremy Affeldt has re-signed with the Giants.  As reported  by Chris Haft (and in other sources as well), it was for 3 years, $18M.  Presumably, it is for $6M per year, but given that last year he got $5M and the Giants budget is already being stretched for 2013, it could be for $5M, $6M, $7M, which Sabean has done before for some contracts.  There was no mention of a signing bonus, nor boosts in contract value for awards that might be won, the details on this contract has been particularly sparse relative to before.

He said he did it for his family, to get financial security.  That refers more to the length of the contract, than the size, as he's already pulled in a lot of money in prior contracts.  He is a West Coast guy, having grown in the Northwest region (Washington), citing that as one of his factors as well.  He also is happy to be returning to his "Giants Family," which is what Pence was talking about in all his sermonizing.  And his actual family gets to continue to live and grow up in the San Francisco Bay Area, it sounds like, which I think is up there in his thinking as well.

ogc thoughts

I think this move had to be done and done first among the Giants free agents.  The Giants bullpen was a great asset last year, but that was in spite of the fact that we lost Brian Wilson for the season and potentially (probably, if we are being realistic, the Beard has been saying you can bet on it that he'll be there opening day) early 2013 too.  Casilla's issues also put a damper on things too, he looked like he would be the new closer after his 2011 season, but his blister (and probable mental issues) took him out of the job and pushed Bochy to go with the committee method until Romo took control by late season.

In addition, as we all know, pitchers are just more fragile in general.  And Romo, as we also all know, has not been a horse before, he has had elbow issues before.  And I was getting worried about him near the end of the season because his quotes were laced with comments about pitching until his arm falls off and how he'll answer the call no matter what.  That was similar to what Wilson was saying in 2010 and 2011, and we subsequently learned that his body was already starting to give out in 2010.

Given any team's need for a shutdown bullpen and Romo's history of questionable health, plus if Affeldt and Romo were gone, that means that we need to rely on Casilla solely as our closer, with only Lopez, Kontos, and Mijares as our set-up men in that case, the Giants had no real choice but to sign Affeldt to the contract terms that Affeldt wanted, which was 3 years (which, to be fair, is what relievers of his ilk has been getting, like League).  We need the redundancy as well as just for the overall quality of the bullpen.  He's a proven reliever, to get someone similar - and I mean similarly accomplished, not a reliever who did well in 2012 - would have cost us the same money.

I don't understand why Giants fans didn't get that last year or this year.  Especially after how 2012 unfolded, I could at least see their argument from last off-season (though I would still pick up his option), but after Wilson went down and Casilla proved not to be the long-term answer, and particularly after how well Affeldt did in the playoffs, I just don't see how anyone cannot see why we had to sign Affeldt.

I think the question boils down to this:  do you want to win another championship or do you want to save money?  I want another championship.

And it is not like the Giants don't have money to spend on him.  A lot of contracts are going off the books.  And while raises take up a lot of that, there is still money to get everything done, that is why Sabean was able to say at the time of Pence's trade that they were planning on signing both he and Melky to long-term deals.  Given the baseball rationale for needing Affeldt, I don't see why the budget could not also handle Affeldt.

Next up is Scutaro, according to media reports.  They are reporting that the Giants are optimistic (Chron), but if Scutaro were close, I would think the Giants would have waited to get him done before announcing Affeldt's deal.  According to the Haft account, Sabean characterized negotiations as "ongoing and upbeat" regarding Scutaro and Pagan.

Unfortunately, I think that this means that Scutaro is listening hard to other offers for the best offer, whereas Affeldt had an idea of what he wanted, and Sabean was willing to meet it.  Jeremy noted (good comment on Sabean's methodology, which I had guessed at before, good to see pointed out here by player):

Once the Giants proved willing to give Affeldt a three-year package, as they demonstrated shortly after the World Series ended, the bargaining essentially ended. 

"The Giants are aggressive," Affeldt said. "They don't sit there and try to lowball and figure out where to get to, if they have an idea of where [your salary] should be. I don't think Sabean messes around a whole lot." 

Affeldt indicated that he could have listened seriously to proposals from other teams. But, as he stated, he didn't have a reason to leave, especially since he and his family like the city, the Bay Area and the ballclub.

Nothing wrong with Scutaro kicking the tires with other teams - it is his right - but it just dampens my hopes of getting him re-signed.

Alternatives to Scutaro

Not that I think that he is totally critical to the Giants success in 2013.  He was certainly the catalyst for our offense in the second half after he joined the team, but expecting him to hit .362/.385/.473/.859 again is not a reasonable expectation.   Much more reasonable was his batting line from the past four seasons playing mostly full-time:  .290/.354/.404/.758.  Theriot hit this after he returned to action after his DL got him healthy and when he got replaced: .287/.345/.345/.679.  Which is basically his career line:  .281/.341/.350/..691.  And both are roughly equal in defensive ability at 2B and SS.  While he is not as good a hitter as Scutaro, is Scutaro worth $5, 6, or 7M more than Theriot?

On top of that, the Giants have two MI who could be pushing for the starting spot starting in spring training 2013.  Nick Noonan had a nice but not breakout season in AAA, but a vast improvement on his 2011 season in AA Richmond.  His batting line was not impressive - .296/.347/.416/.763 - but it is that bad either considering he was only 23 YO for the season and the average age there was 26.7 years for pitchers, meaning they had roughly 3-4 more years of experience over him.  The good news for him is that his contract rate was a nice 83% (85% is what good hitters do, but again, note the age disadvantage for him) and his BB/K ratio was an OK 0.48 (usually want at least 0.50).  If he can further develop in 2013, he could be ready for the majors by mid-season.

Of course, the main person on the radar for 2B is Joe Panik.  He has had a down year both in the Cal League, a hitter's league, as well as the AFL, so far.  Still, he hit a nice .297/.368/.402/.770 for San Jose, and more importantly only had 54 K's in 535 AB (roughly 90% contact rate, great) and had the excellent ratio of 58 BB/54 K, 1.07 BB/K ratio, as only the best hitters can get their BB/K ratio above 1.00, and he has done it two seasons in a row.

If he can maintain that in the majors, he'll be an elite hitter.  In the majors, hitters who can maintain a BB/K ratio of over 1.00 are more likely to hit .300 than not (51% of hitters with BB/K from 1.00 to 1.50 had over .300 BA, only 9% of them had less than .250).  Guys with contact rates of 90%+ averaged .290 in 2011 season.  So far, so good.

He should be in AA for the 2013 season, maybe AAA for 2014, assuming he continues to climb.  With some good hitting, he could be in the majors by mid-season 2014, age 23, or by 2015 season at age 24.  That's still pretty young age to be making the majors.

Between Theriot and the young prospects, the Giants should be covered adequately at 2B for the next couple of years (assuming the Giants are able to re-sign Theriot.

Alternatives to Pagan

Pagan is even easier to replace.  Blanco, while not as good offensively, should be as good or better defensively in CF.  Meanwhile, Pagan had a very nice 2012, but his three year record as a starting OF is .281/.334/.415/.749, which is nice but not $13.8M nice.  Blanco's stats, again like above with Theriot, might not be as good, but is Pagan worth $10M+ more than Blanco?  Blanco's stats in 2012 was very close to his MLB stats:  .244/.333/.344/.676 vs. .253/.349/.331/.680.  At leadoff, the most important factor there is the hitter's OBP, and both of their OBP are virtually the same.

Meanwhile, we can go in a number of different directions for LF.  First off is internally from our own roster.  As much as I like Brandon Belt at 1B, I assume that Posey and Sanchez will be sharing the catcher's duties again and likely push Belt off 1B starts anywhere from 30 to 50 games.  If he is hitting as well as he did last season, the Giants would play him in LF for that many games.  If he's playing in LF that much, maybe it would be better for him to start in LF instead.  In which case, the Giants could look for a free agent 1B, perhaps just a platoon hitting 1B, instead of a LF or CF.

There are other options in the Giants farm system as well.  Had he not gotten injured last season, Roger Kieschnick probably would have gotten a chance to play in the Giants OF last season, after hitting .295/.361/.581/.942 up to his season-ending injury.   Particularly with Schierholtz not doing that well before the Pence trade, and after Melky got suspended.  And he started most of the 2012 season in LF.  He strikes out way, way too much and likely would be even harder to get going in the majors than Belt, but he brings a lot of HR power, plus walks a lot as well.

Another potential option is Francisco Peguero.  While he only hit .272/.297/.394/.691 in AAA, he started the season injured and took a while to get into baseball shape, it appears.  From June on, he hit .308/.327/.411/.738, which better shows his hit tool, and he was only 24 YO in AAA.  Also showing that he might have been struggling all season with leg problems, he only had 1 SB attempt all season in AAA, but in the majors, in his September call-up, where he basically was Huff's pinch-runner, he stole 3 bases with no CS.

None of these options are necessarily better than Pagan, but at $10M or more in extra cost, is he going to produce that much more value?  That is at least debatable.  In addition, there is a multitude of players the Giants can sign to play LF (if Blanco plays CF), starting with their former LF, Melky Cabrera, who should be cheap and the Giants, according to rumors, are open to him returning (I'm OK either way, it is what it is, though I would prefer to move on).  Other names include Scott Hairston (Giants killer previously), Jonny Gomes (grew up in Bay Area, I believe he's a Giants fan), Reed Johnson (Sabean loves flexibility and he plays all three OF positions).  Also, MLBTR has mentioned that the Giants kicked the tires on Torii Hunter (who just signed for 2 years, $26M with Tigers) and Shane Victorino (Flying Hawaiian; love that nickname).

Victorino might be a nice addition at a lower price point given his poor 2012 season, but still strong SB skill. He did not strike out that much, it was in line with prior seasons, plus his walk rate was still within his career range, he might have just had a bad season at age 31.  Previously, as a full-time starter for 6 seasons, he hit .282/.348/.443/.791, and averaged around 32 SB in the past 6 seasons.  And he has been the equal of Pagan and Blanco in defense in CF, and great on the corners.  I think if we can get him for one season at half the money that Pagan is asking for, I would rather have Victorino for a season than Pagan for 2-3 seasons.  He would be a nice bridge to get us to Brown starting in 2014, assuming he does well in Fresno in 2013.

Then, there is 1B (if Belt plays LF) free agents.  I've always like Kila Ka'aihue bat, maybe we can give him a chance to figure it out in the majors.  Carlos Pena has been an OK defensive 1B himself, and provides a lot of HR power and walks.  He probably don't want to split time at 1B though.  Kevin Youkilis would be an intriguing choice, he provides HR power and walks as well, and has never really played a full season and been very part time in recent years, and plays great defense there, plus can play 3B occasionally too.

There are a lot of options other than Pagan.

Your 2012 Giants Are World Champions!!!

Epic!

Wow, what a game!  What a series!  What a season!

If ever there was a team effort for World Series MVP, this was it.  Sure, Pablo Sandoval gave the Tigers a gut punch in the first game with his homers and hit well all through the series, but what got lost among all that is that Barry Zito pitched a great game, to go with his other great game. Without Zito, the march to being the World Champions would have ended seven games ago.

And while Pablo won the game for us in game 1, it was Hunter Pence who scored the first run in the following three games, and without those runs, who knows if we would have scored the runs to win those games, and he drove in the second run in game 2, and the Tigers would have won in regulation in game 4.  And Buster Posey, delivering a key homer once again, that kept the game alive into extra innings.  Of course, Marco Scutaro again was in the middle of the action, driving in the winning run, and I thought it was apropos that he drove in Ryan Theriot, the guy he replaced at 2B, the guy who hit well for us starting at 2B after he healed up on the DL, and helped us bridge from Freddy Sanchez to Scutaro.  And back to the start again, Sandoval stout hitting in the series helped make that happen, as the Tigers had to pitch to Scutaro or face Sandoval with two runners on base.

And what about the defense?  Even though they did not hit particularly well in the World Series, both Angel Pagan and Gregor Blanco were making big plays in the outfield over and over again.  Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt as well in the infield, as well as Scoots.  And, in any case, when they did get hits, they got them in key situations, and really, when you are winning games by 1-2 runs, every run is critical and key.

What about the bullpen?  Tim Lincecum was so dominant in middle relief, probably the best middle reliever ever. Jeremy Affeldt and Santiago Casilla were great in setup.  Sergio Romo was great in closing out games, closing out the finale in exclamation with a called strike three on AL MVP Cabrera!  And that struck out the side.

And, despite little usage in the World Series, George Kontos and Javier Lopez, without their work in the NL series, we would not have been here, at the end, Champions once more.  For those who didn't see the importance of spending $10M on both Affeldt and Lopez should see what happened to the Tigers with their bullpen, to see why we spent that money on proven players who the team's management knew, and could trust and rely on proven performance.

Most of all, the starting pitching:  Barry Zito, Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, Matt Cain.  We got three DOM starts in the World Series, and as I noted in my research before, it is DOM starts by pitchers that helps their team win over 70% of the time.  They had 8 DOM starts between the NLCS and the World Series, helping the Giants win the World Championship.  Not that the Tigers fell down like the Cards did - only one DOM start in the seven games - as the Tigers also had DOM starts, in the last three games, but that is where the hitters come in as well as our pitchers, we scored just enough to win each game.  Hitting, pitching, fielding, everyone contributed their necessary contribution to enable the championship, nothing was too small to be of importance, each was necessary for that glorious second championship in three seasons.

San Francisco Giants:  Team of the 2010's Decade

I've been saying this since the late 2000's, that the Giants had the makings of the Team of the 2010 Decade.  Of course, there is the lovely and great starting pitching to start with, Lincecum, Cain, and, clearly, Bumgarner coming up.  Then Sabean has been great at putting together a great bullpen, as he has been able to for much of his time as GM, when the team is good, he is able to pull the trades to build up a great bullpen.  And they have been almost picture perfect for what Baseball Prospectus' study on success in the playoffs found:  high strikeout pitching staff (check!), great closer (check!), and great fielding defense also (check!).

But you still need some sort of offense.  Before this season, we had to accept imperfections because it took time to develop an offense after concentrating on the pitching for so long.  Talent does not come into any baseball system quick enough via the draft and international free agents to fuel a championship.  The Giants, to their credit, has supplemented well in finding gems among the minor free agents, with Andres Torres, Santiago Casilla, Ryan Vogelsong, Gregor Blanco, and Joaquin Arias coming in and contributing significantly from 2009 to 2012.  That is the to the credit of the Giants scouts.

Meanwhile, the Giants picked up offensive gems along the way, Sandoval, Posey, then Belt, Crawford, and Hector Sanchez.  These they grew along the way, while also picking up pieces like Theriot, Pagan, Blanco.  Then traded for the final pieces to this Epic Championship team, Scutaro and Pence, and they were what drove the offense to the championship, as they outscored the Cards and Tigers by a total of 36-7 in the last seven game, averaging 5.1 runs per game while holding the other team to 1.0 run per game in that stretch, keeping the opponents to 3 runs or under in each of the games in the stretch, reminiscent of their streak in late in the 2010 season.

The Giants, by winning their second World Series Championship in three seasons, has laid strong claim on this decade.  If ownership and management can keep this core going forward, this should not be the last of their championships, and hopefully just the beginning.  We should have the core players to at least mid-decade, and if the money can be ponied up, into the latter half of the decade as well.

Thank You Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy!

And we have Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy to thank for this.  Of course, they could not do it without their top advisers like Dick Tidrow and John Barr, Dave Righetti and Mark Gardner, Tim Flannery and Ron Wotus.  Still, they are the ones who get the public scrutiny.

Sabean, what a masterful job he has done, putting together all the pieces, first with the great pitching staff, then now with the great lineup.  Bochy, what a masterful job he has done, balancing the present and the future while steering the team to another playoff berth, then switching to cut-throat managing, managing as if each game, each win, was necessary to prevent elimination.  And, of course, that paid off in both the Reds and Cards series, as they faced six games of elimination and swept them all.  Hopefully the Naysayers can now see that it is not luck that the Giants won, but through excellent decision making on the parts of Sabean and Bochy.

I am thankful that we have the two of them employed for the Giants and hope that the Giants first moves of the off-season be to sign the two of them to another joint extension.  They have earned it, in spades.

Then I hope the next moves after that, in no particular order, be to sign Posey (ok he should be first), Pence, Pagan to long term contracts.  Plus sign Scutaro, Sandoval, Lincecum, and Affeldt to two year extensions.  I would not mind a long term deal for Belt if possible, Crawford too.

And there is money coming in to fuel all these contracts.  Remember, the new ESPN deal doubles the revenues delivered to teams, adding over $11M to each team's coffers each year.  And revenues from MBLAM has been growing each year, it is one of the great Internet e-commerce success stories so far.   And season ticket holders should expect prices to go up again, as well.  Plus there is usually a windfall from being in the playoffs as well.  Lastly, I'm still hoping the A's will pay at least $100M for the South Bay rights, which will pay for a lot of long-term player contracts.

Congratulations again to the 2012 World Champs, Go Giants!

Your 2012 Giants: Closer by Committee (or Moving Back One Inning?)

Wow, changes were even more drastic than I originally thought.  As reported by all the usual suspects in the SF Bay Area media (here's Schulman's since he originally broke the implications of Affeldt closing first), Santiago Casilla is out as part of the closer by committee scheme that was the apparently impetus for Schulman's spot-on speculation that the Mijares move was tied to having Affeldt being put in closing situations.

The reasoning is still the same, that blister issues is affecting Casilla's effectiveness, but his issues apparently are worse than initially mentioned because he warmed up early in yesterday's game (7th) and was almost immediately shut down due to the blister issue.  I would guess that maybe once he gets healthy, he'll be moved into a more prominent role, but for now, they are resting him as much as possible without DLing him so that he can get healthy while still being available occasionally for bullpen duties.

Instead, for the closer-by-committee scheme, Bochy will now mix and match Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo, and Javier Lopez in the 8th and 9th, with Casilla, Hensley, Kontos, Penny, Mijares handling 6th and 7th, mostly (though clearly getting some late game work, for Penny was seen warming up in last night's game in the 9th).  They say (that is, Affeldt spoke for everyone) that once Bochy explained things, they understood their roles and is behind this closer by committee situation (even though Affeldt had said at the start of this season that he wasn't sure how it works).

The way it works is by matchups, so depending on who is coming up, Bochy might use Romo first one night, Affeldt first another night, Lopez first on some nights, and the mix and matching begins.

The Mystery of Mijares

The Giants were awarded Jose Mijares, handy and productive LOOGY, formerly of the KC Royals (Schulman).  Hank posited that this was related to a move to a closer by committee situation, and he was spot on, as the Giants reported that with Santiago Casilla's blister problem affecting his performance previously, they need to use him more sparingly, in order not to cause the blister to return, so they are going to start using Jeremy Affeldt more often in the closer role.

The curious part of this transaction is that the Royals just handed him over to the Giants, no prospects asked for, and further, none of the teams ahead of the Giants (first all of AL, then NL teams with worse records, which is most of the NL) laid any claim on him first.  So the question is:  what's wrong with Mijares that none of these 20 teams didn't lay claim on him?

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 2011 Giants are 27-19: Fishing for Marlins

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Giants Thoughts

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

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

Your 2010 Giants are 22-21: Picking on the Nats

Losing always hurt.  That's why they play the games.  Every team will face a tough part of the schedule for them and we see whether they sink or swim.  The Giants are facing their bad stretch and we will see if they can battle back or if they fall further back.  Given how they have beaten up on other team's top starters plus have shown the ability to come back in games we have no business getting back into, I think that they will eventually get out of this slide and start winning again.  But until they do, people will be hurting and agitating for change.

Game 1:  Livan Hernandez vs. Todd Wellemeyer

Apparently, from Schulman's reportage, Lincecum's bad start and Wellemeyer's (so far) good home starts saved Wellemeyer from being skipped (or worse) for this start.  In addition, bringing up Santiago Casilla took up the last spot easily available for Eric Hacker, the pitcher who was seriously considered for the call up, who is not on the 40 man at the moment and, thus, bringing up Hacker would require opening up a 40-man spot, that is, resulting in releasing somebody.

Plus, not to be cold, but why not sacrifice Wellemeyer against the Nat's best starter, Livan, instead of throwing our recently struggling ace against the rejuvenated Livan, who, no matter where he has been since leaving the Giants, seem to come up big against us with a well-pitched game?

Despite Wellemeyer doing well at home, I have to give the Nats the edge in this start, as Livan has done well both on the road and at his pitcher's park of a home, as well as at AT&T vs. his career numbers.   Plus, in the past, he has done well when he felt like it, and I think he likes to show up the Giants ever since they basically gave him away to the Expos for basically nothing, just to get rid of him.  Which was a pretty big insult to his ego, I bet.

Game 2:  Luis Atilano vs. Tim Lincecum

Atilano has not pitched well in his brief stay in the majors so far, though he has three wins (showing how untied wins and losses are to ERA).  However, unlike Wellemeyer, he has pitched poorly at home while pitching very well on the road, so he has been tough so far on the road.  However, he's never been that good a prospect (#20 this season on BA's Top 30), so he should regress to the mean on the road at some point.  Against Lincecum, even a struggling one, should give us the edge in winning this game.

Game 3:  Scott Olsen vs. Barry Zito

Which leaves the rubber match of the series.  Both Olsen and Zito have pitched well this season.  Olsen's ERA is much better on the road, but his home peripherals look better (all small samples).  He's only had one bad start in SF.  Meanwhile, Zito had his worse start of the season in his last start, though that appears to mainly be a function of bad luck with balls falling in, else his peripherals didn't look all that bad compared to games earlier in the season.  They seem to be evenly matched, though I would lean towards Zito in this matchup because he usually pitches better at home than on the road.  So, overall, it looks like it can go either way but would have to lean towards the Nats because Olsen has been good before and Zito has just been good this season and had a rough last start and month of May relative to April.

Giants Thoughts

Obviously the biggest thing is the Giants sputtering offense.  For that I blame it on Sandoval's poor month of May.  He has been hitting better lately but not powerfully, and I think the other teams' plan of attack on our offense has been able to take advantage of that lack of power hitting for the month of May.  I also think it may have been related to his health, though as far as I know, he has not been reported to have been sick.

The Cold That Shut Down an Offense?

Ultimately speculation, but I recently tied together some bits of information together.  First, Jonathan Sanchez had a cold that was bad enough to affect his pitching but not enough to have him skip a start.  That was the April 26th and May 2nd starts.  This was according to what I heard on the radio, I believe it was the Bochy pre-game show.  Second, it was revealed during this season that Sandoval and Sanchez are roommates on the road and thus pretty good buddies who hang around with each other (I do not recall exactly where I got that piece of information, however).

Third, Pablo has slumped from April 30 to present, hitting .195/.245/.253/.498 since then.  He has hit .314/.400/.371/.771 from May 14 to today, so basically his slump was from April 30 to May 13th, hitting .115/.130/.173/.303 in that time period.  That was some weak hitting and basically around the time when Sanchez could have passed the old to him and then a slow recovery to health.

Stages from 4/30:
7 games:  .094/.094/.125/.219 in 32 AB/32 PA
5 games:  .150/.182/.250/.432 in 20 AB/22 PA
4 games:  .313/.421/.313/.734 in 16 AB/19 PA
5 games:  .316/.381/.421/.802 in 19 AB/21 PA

I would have to think that the opposing team would have adjusted how they attacked Giants hitters given fear of Pando driving them in.  In April, 4.55 RS avg to April 28th, from April 30th to today, 3.59 RS avg, basically one run less per game.  For the first nine games of his poor hitting since April 29th, the Giants averaged 4.89 RS, showing that the offense was still functioning OK, but since May 11th, the Giants have averaged 2.7 RS as Panda's hitting malaise has affected the team as well.

That seems to reflect their average BB trend.  To April 28th, 3.0 walks per game.  To May 9th, 3.9 walks per game.  From May 11th to today:  2.6 walks per game.

Small sampling but something to consider.

Home is Where the Offense Lives?

Marty Lurie recently tweeted that shaky offenses struggles on the road (I love his addition to the Giants weekend pre and post game shows, though it must be tough on him because in between his shows are Urban's pre-game show, Giants pre-game shows, the game (3-4 hours), Giants post-game show, Urban's post-game show, before finally Lurie's post-game show).  I took a look at the numbers:

Road
Series  RS
  1       6.0 (but extreme hitter's park)
  2       3.7 (but LA and SD are two extreme pitcher's parks)
  3       5.3 (more representative/neutral, if not pitcher's parks for FLA and NYM)
  4       2.4 (two pitcher's parks in OAK and SD, one hitter's park in AZ)

There is not enough to say either way, I would say.  And they have been skewed by many pitcher's parks.

In any case, they are returning home, where they have averaged 4.10 RS per game (vs. 4.05 RS on the road) so there has not been a huge difference so far.

Lineup:  Posey Promotion?

Fans have been agitating for Posey to be promoted, but as the Schulman blog post noted, he's not coming up any time soon.  They want him ready to come up and stay up here on merit plus playing significant time, but Molina, while slumping, is still OK overall and handling the pitching staff well, and Huff appears to have solidified at 1B offensively and defensively.

The big idea for improving the offense right now is to move Franchez from 2B to 3B, Sandoval from 3B to 1B, Huff from 1B to LF, and finally Torres to RF, leaving Bowker and Schierholtz out in the cold and on the bench, at least until Torres cools off, plus Schierholtz will probably see starts against RHP to give Uribe a rest sometimes, as he hasn't really hit for much since taking over SS.

And fans see the inflated numbers Posey is putting up in AAA, but the MLE for that is much lower.  He is currently batting .327/.422/.506/.928 overall, but the level of pitching is nowhere nears that of the majors, which was Sabean's main point in his poorly expressed explanation regarding why Posey was staying down in AAA.  His MLE is only .276/.353/.417/.770, which is good, and slightly better than Molina's current batting line, but which is either an offensive starter nor that much better than what Molina has been hitting for this season.  And it is built on the hot streak he had in early May, as his April numbers MLE was only .286/.351/.381/.732, which is basically what Molina got now, and he has cooled off since then.

Adding him to the lineup might improve the offense, but will not necessarily make the offense good.  And that, to me is the crux of the matter, whether bringing him up is a smart move or a desperate move.  To me, it only seems to be a desperate move, and there is no reason to be desperate now.  There are still a lot of games to be played and we are not that far behind the division leaders right now.  And he has cooled off great recently:  in his last 10 games he has hit .229/.341/.257/.598, with only one double in 35 AB and 10 K's, which is not the batting line of someone who is ready to take on MLB pitching.  And that is his actual line, not his MLE; fans miss details like this when they just eye a hitter's top line in the minors and drool.

Affeldt Hamstring Appraisal

According to Schulman's blog post, Affeldt's hamstring injury which took him out of yesterday's game, plus probably was affecting him during the game, leading to his poor performance, does not look serious and thus should not put him on the DL.  Tests will be done to see if that is true or not.

Our bullpen has been taking a number of hits and losing Affeldt would greatly affect the structure since he's the go-to guy before Wilson.  Runzler would presumably take over the lefty duties, and I would guess that Mota, who is currently doing better, would get the call before Romo, who drew first relief duty in the blow-out the other day.  And obviously it would greatly weaken the bullpen to replace him, unlike losing Medders, where it may have been an improvement with the addition of Bautista.

2010 Spring Transaction Lines: Extensions and Trade

Lots of news and further cuts.

Extensions

The big news is the extensions for Brian Wilson (2 years, $15M) and Jeremey Affeldt (bump up $500K this year, contract for $4.5M in 2011 plus $5M option for 2012 or $500K buyout). The key phrases are cost certainty (Wilson) and holding on to a good player (Affeldt's contract would have been over this season). The worry is that this would make it harder for the Giants to sign the hitter people think the Giants need.

People still worry about the lineup, but as I've been saying for a long while now is that a team built on pitching and fielding excellence - not goodness, but excellence - don't need much of a lineup to win with it. With Sandoval at cleanup (finally) in 2011, and Posey hitting 3rd, we basically only need average type hitters like Schierholt, Rowand, Sanchez, DeRosa filling up the lineup in order to win with our pitching and defense.

Plus, looking over the spreadsheet that Lefty provided, we got 9 players costing around $80-85M, leaving 16 at roughly $400K, pushing it to $85-90M. That leaves roughly $10-15M if they bump to $100M budget, which with a better economy and fast growth from MLBAM should be doable, which could get a good hitter if one happens to be available.

And at some point, we have to take the leap of faith that Neukom will come through with the money as he says he would if Sabean makes the baseball case to boost the payroll beyond the normal range. I'm hoping he has sugar daddies whose pockets he can dip into when the time comes.

Frandsen Traded

Frandsen has been traded (Baggs, Hank, Haft) to the Boston Red Sox for a PTBNL or future cash. Hopefully we get a player, as I still think Frandsen could have done something, but it'll probably be cash. The good news for him is that he'll be with his good buddy, Dusty Pedroia, who he has worked out with for the past 6 off-seasons. And the Red Sox, while apparently doing it out of need as Pedroia is having wrist problems right now, wouldn't have gotten him if they didn't think that he couldn't be a good backup guy, and who knows, maybe give Frandsen a chance too, since there is a DH there as well.

Too bad. As I had ruminated somewhere, Frandsen's window of opportunity was the 2008 season and he blew it when he blew out his Achillies tendon. With Sanchez signed for two years and Noonan possibly ready by the end of that contract, plus Crawford and Burriss could be ready by 2011, and Rohlinger already annointed the next Greg Linton/Steve Scarsone, there was no spot for Frandsen anywhere, and he apparently rubbed Giants management the wrong way with his behavior previously.

Still, I think he can be a usable major leaguer. He hit well all the way up the minors - not great but good for each level - and he hit well in the majors the one time they started him regularly and gave him an extended opportunity (late 2007 season). His low strikeout rate and his walk to strikeout ratio was very good, indicative of a prospect who could hit in the majors. He appears to have a good baseball mind and reminds me a bit of Pete Rose toughness, the average type player with no obvious plus skill (except for the subtle bat discipline) but is fine is all aspects.

And those are the players that the Red Sox (and Padres and A's) like to pick up, the guys who hit well in the minors but were never given a real chance to show what they got in the majors. Hopefully Frandsen will get some sort of chance with the Red Sox.

Wellemeyer Pretty Much Annointed 5th Starter

It was reported a few days ago that Bumgarner has been sent down, leaving just Todd Wellemeyer and Kevin Pucetas battling for the 5th starter spot, but as noted by a number of sources (like Hank) Bochy has all but named Wellemeyer the 5th starter. Pucetas has done very well but when battling against a veteran who is not that old and had done well previously, he pretty much would have had to almost no-hit every appearance and strike out a ton of batters to beat out Wellemeyer when Wellemeyer has done as well as he has with a 1.35 ERA this spring.

Plus, Pucetas did not do well at all in AAA last year. Many a pitcher has had a great spring training and then sucked once he pitched in the majors. So there is no guarantee that he would have well had he won the 5th starter spot. Not that Wellemeyer is a guarantee, but when a player has done it before, it raises the odds greatly that he can do it again if pitching well. So Pucetas is looking at either the long-man role, which would not be necessary if the 5th starter isn't starting, or starting in AAA.

This is where the Frandsen story intersects with this story: Wellemeyer is a non-roster invitee and the Giants need to clear a spot on the roster to include him on the 25 man roster. And as I noted before, to open up a spot would mean dropping someone of value, it would be a cut that hurts at least a little. Frandsen being traded clears a spot.

Coincidentally, most of the reports about Frandsen opening up a spot also pointed out that the Giants might need two spots, one for Wellemeyer and one for Mota. So it looks like Mota is closing in on a middle reliever spot in the bullpen.

Wilson Bringing Out his Curveball, Finally

As Hank Schulman blogged, Brian Wilson, emboldened by (or perhaps felt the responsibility with) his new contract and status, brought out his curveball recently in a game. His curveball, which has been missing during his Giants career, was considered one of his plus pitches when he was drafted by the Giants. With him recovering from TJS when he was drafted, I guess he laid off the curveball (or was told to), plus he saw that TV show where Mariano Duncan showed off his cutter and he fell in love with it, thinking he can be like Duncan and just throw one pitch.

Good. That's a sign of a great player. He has great stuff, 100 MPH capable fastball, good cutter, good slider, and now he's bringing back his curveball, like Lincecum when he added a changeup last season, adding on a new pitch even though he was doing very well with what he already had.

This is unlike Rowand, who signs a huge contract with us but then takes two years to figure out that he should start working out in the off-season and getting into shape for playing the whole regular season. All I can say about that is that at least he is doing it now, when we have the chance to do something to get into the playoffs and maybe go deep into it with the pitching we have.

Luckily, we didn't need his bat that much the past two seasons, though it would have been nice last season as that could have gotten us to the playoffs and given us some playoff experience. But I'm not sure how far we could have gotten last year with the lineup we had. I think we should have a much better chance this season, particularly if we will be able to carry Buster Posey on the bench or starting during the playoffs.

Additional Cuts

Rotoworld.com reported that the Giants optioned Darren Ford to AA Richmond Flying Squirrels and Francisco Peguero to Augusta, plus sent Jesus Guzman and Tony Armas to minor league camp for assignment.

Ford has been the eye-opener this spring, hitting, fielding, and running his way into the hearts of Giants fans. Unfortunately, he's already 24 years old, having spent 3 seasons in Advance A-ball, so he's too old to be considered a good prospect, but if he does well in AA this year, and AAA next year, he would only be 26 years old in 2012 if he makes the majors.

People worry too much about whether a prospect is a good player or not. I mean, of course, we all want that, but we also forget that every team needs their OK players who can play OK at a position for us, while our good players lead the way to the pennant. While I wouldn't mind having a good player at every position, I know that's not realistic either, and if Ford can be a nice leadoff hitter who plays great defense in our enormous CF at AT&T Park, that would be a great and more importantly CHEAP addition to the team.

So, so what if he's old for a level, if he's showing something in spring training, that means he has something that is good enough, and maybe he can do well in AA, then AAA, then the majors.

The guy to look at long-term at CF, though, is apparently Francisco Peguero. The Giants really like him, just added him to their 40 man roster this off-season, and Baseball America ranked him 10th among Giants prospects for 2010. He'll be 22 this June, so he's getting a little old to be a good prospect at Augusta, but if he continues hitting like he did last season, he should move up to San Jose by mid-season. He's got some good speed, plus arm, so he's great defensively in CF, is usually able to put the bat on the ball (though like many, unable to take a walk), but that is OK if he is hitting to get on base (.304 career BA).

Giants Sign Affleldt: 2 years, $8M

The Giants have announced the signing of lefty reliever Jeremy Affeldt, 2 years, $8M. Reports on this at sfgiants.com, Extra Baggs, The Splash (Chron), and SF Chronicle (Schulman).

As Sabean usually does when he has money, he goes out and get the best or one of the best free agents available. That doesn't always work (Benitez for example) but we knew those negatives the moment we got him, whereas from what I've been reading, there is hardly a negative to be found on Affeldt. From what I read among the various reports, Affeldt was considered one of the better free agents to pursue this off-season, one of the two best lefties (Damaso Marte was the other, re-signed by the Yankees), and Fangraphs' Dave Cameron wrote a post called, "Free Agent Bargain: Jeremy Affeldt," arguing that perhaps he was the best available reliever withou consideration for the money he would get, which would make him an even better bargain. And, of course, there was the post I just posted this morning reporting another site's determination that Affeldt was the best choice among the relievers when not pursuing a closer and wanting to avoid giving up your draft pick.

Dave Cameron had this to note about Affeldt:

• "one of the more underrated pitchers in the game..."
• "in 2008, he took a pretty big step forward. His average velocity went from 92.3 MPH a year ago to 94.6 MPH, and his CB saw a similar improvement (going from 76.9 to 79.1). Adding several ticks to both pitches moves him into the power pitcher category, and it showed in his results."
• "His swinging strike rate (data from statcorner.com) jumped from 7.6% last year to 10.8% this year, putting him in the company of guys like Grant Balfour, Joakim Soria, and Kerry Wood." That improved his strikeout rate to 9.19 K/9 and helped reduce his walk rate to 2.87 BB/9, both very good.
• "In a lot of cases, a pitcher will add velocity by switching to a four seam fastball and pitching up in the zone, but that’s not the case here - Affeldt continued to pitch down in the zone, posting a career high 54.4% GB%." That's something I hadn't seen about Affeldt yet, that despite being a power pitcher, he also got a lot of groundballs. That is very similar to what Lincecum does, strikeout a lot as well as get a lot of groundballs. That high GB% leads to a low FB% which leads to fewer HR given up, even though his HR/FB was high in 2008 (partially due to playing in Cincinnati).
• Summary: "Based on 2008, Affeldt has shown an entirely new skillset as compared to his major league career, adding a couple of ticks to both his fastball and curve, which have transformed him into one of the game’s best left-handed relievers. Because his curve is a legitimate second pitch, he shows almost no platoon split, and is equally effective against both LHB and RHBs. His stuff is clearly closer-worthy, and while he has no experience as the 9th inning guy, some smart team would be wise to give him a two or three year contract for setup man money and watch him blossom into one of the game’s best relief aces."
• "There’s a good case to be made that Jeremy Affeldt is the best reliever available this winter, while most of baseball has no idea who he is."

Giants Thoughts

Well, I quoted most of his article, but there was a lot of good stuff there about him. The more I hear about him, the more I like him. I remember him when he was with KC, really up and down, and he was on my radar, but I just didn't have time to analyze all the relievers in detail. So I'm glad other sites did.

Clearly he matured and developed the past couple of seasons and we have him on a relatively economic 2 year, $8M contract, for his age 30 and 31 seasons. That is pretty good considering he's on an uptrend, he's reaching his peak years, and that fall off in performance don't normally happen until ages 33-34

So now the bullpen is Brian Wilson, Jeremy Affeldt, Sergio Romo plus, in the mix, Jack Taschner, Alex Hinshaw, Billy Sadler, Osirus Matos, and, if he is back from injury, Merkin Valdez. And I suppose Yabu too. That's not too bad overall, that was a swift and smart move by Sabean to land Affeldt so quickly. I'm looking forward to 2009!