I don't have a lot of time to write before the start of the playoffs with the Cubs, so I took a comment I left on baseball monk a few days ago, and repurposed here, of course, with new edits, as I was also writing in reply to the original article.
Showing posts with label Jonathan Sanchez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jonathan Sanchez. Show all posts
Friday, October 07, 2016
Saturday, December 24, 2011
2011 Giants: September PQS and Final Stats
Sorry for the delay, but this slipped my mind. Then I wrote it and didn't find time to post it until now. Happy Holidays!
This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of September 2011, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this, which I've provided a link to). Plus, I think it has a lot to offer for understanding our pitching and how that translate into competitive advantage for the Giants. Regular readers can skip to the next orange titled 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).
Click on title to get full post
This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of September 2011, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this, which I've provided a link to). Plus, I think it has a lot to offer for understanding our pitching and how that translate into competitive advantage for the Giants. Regular readers can skip to the next orange titled 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).
Click on title to get full post
Monday, November 07, 2011
It's Begun: Giants Trade Dirty for Melky Cabrera
Just read the news, oh boy: Hank Schulman blogged that the KC writer tweeted that Jonathan Sanchez has been traded for CF Melky Cabrera. He was able to confirm it. There is also an article on Yahoo on it as well, which reported that Ryan Verdugo was also included in the trade.
Giants Thoughts
Not too surprising because Sabean in recent interviews noted that the Giants might have to trade a starting pitcher. That leaves the rotation at Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, and Barry Zito, with Eric Surkamp as the first guy up in case of need. I also didn't think that Zito would end up in the bullpen as some had suggested, no way that would happen. His greatest value is as a starter, particularly if he can return to his 2009-10 form, which was pretty good.
This also made sense because Sanchez was the most obvious to trade, in terms of value in return as well as lack of future value, because of his agent, Scott Boras. Lincecum, Cain, and Bumgarner look like keepers, if at all possible, while Vogelsong and Zito would not yield much in trade, if anything in Zito's case.
This is a great trade assuming the Melky continues hitting the way he did in 2011, a breakout offensive season for him. He plays CF, his OBP is decent enough for leadoff, and he has some speed judging by his SB, he just needs to hone his skill down to achieve a higher success stealing rate, which the Giants appear capable of doing, they were able to improve Randy Winn's percentage in his time here.
His agent is NOT Scott Boras, so we might even be able to sign him long-term, and his hitting is good enough to move to the corners if necessary. As much as I love Nate Schierholtz and believe in Brandon Belt, they both still need to prove themselves. As do Melky as well, for that matter. And his defense could be below average in CF while above average on the corners, according to Baseball-Reference.com, so that fits with him holding CF until Gary Brown is ready.
Another nice thing about him is that 2012 will be his 27 YO season, so he is headed into his prime years, potentially with us, if we end up signing him to a longer term contract, maybe an extension into his first or second year of free agency, which would still leave him at around 30 for his first big free agent contract, two good seasons won't necessarily get him that kind of big money.
Verdugo I think is thrown in because of the injuries that Sanchez had in 2011 that reduced his value a bit, as that leaves a question mark on his 2012 season. Also, Sanchez is 29 next season, so he is a bit older then Melky, so that also justifies giving up another player. I can live with that. Verdugo struck out a lot but also walked a lot, and was a bit old for AA. And the Giants have been very good in deciding which pitchers to give up in trades so far.
I like this trade a lot. Clears up the CF situation, he's a pretty good player in exchange for a pretty good pitcher, he's a good hitter, and can play all OF positions, which gives Bochy a lot of flexibility in setting the lineup, depending on who is hitting and who is not (or injured). Don't really see any need to sign any other OF now, OF appears to be set at Belt/Torres, Cabrera, Schierholtz, unless, of course, they somehow sign Carlos Beltran.
Giants Thoughts
Not too surprising because Sabean in recent interviews noted that the Giants might have to trade a starting pitcher. That leaves the rotation at Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Ryan Vogelsong, and Barry Zito, with Eric Surkamp as the first guy up in case of need. I also didn't think that Zito would end up in the bullpen as some had suggested, no way that would happen. His greatest value is as a starter, particularly if he can return to his 2009-10 form, which was pretty good.
This also made sense because Sanchez was the most obvious to trade, in terms of value in return as well as lack of future value, because of his agent, Scott Boras. Lincecum, Cain, and Bumgarner look like keepers, if at all possible, while Vogelsong and Zito would not yield much in trade, if anything in Zito's case.
This is a great trade assuming the Melky continues hitting the way he did in 2011, a breakout offensive season for him. He plays CF, his OBP is decent enough for leadoff, and he has some speed judging by his SB, he just needs to hone his skill down to achieve a higher success stealing rate, which the Giants appear capable of doing, they were able to improve Randy Winn's percentage in his time here.
His agent is NOT Scott Boras, so we might even be able to sign him long-term, and his hitting is good enough to move to the corners if necessary. As much as I love Nate Schierholtz and believe in Brandon Belt, they both still need to prove themselves. As do Melky as well, for that matter. And his defense could be below average in CF while above average on the corners, according to Baseball-Reference.com, so that fits with him holding CF until Gary Brown is ready.
Another nice thing about him is that 2012 will be his 27 YO season, so he is headed into his prime years, potentially with us, if we end up signing him to a longer term contract, maybe an extension into his first or second year of free agency, which would still leave him at around 30 for his first big free agent contract, two good seasons won't necessarily get him that kind of big money.
Verdugo I think is thrown in because of the injuries that Sanchez had in 2011 that reduced his value a bit, as that leaves a question mark on his 2012 season. Also, Sanchez is 29 next season, so he is a bit older then Melky, so that also justifies giving up another player. I can live with that. Verdugo struck out a lot but also walked a lot, and was a bit old for AA. And the Giants have been very good in deciding which pitchers to give up in trades so far.
I like this trade a lot. Clears up the CF situation, he's a pretty good player in exchange for a pretty good pitcher, he's a good hitter, and can play all OF positions, which gives Bochy a lot of flexibility in setting the lineup, depending on who is hitting and who is not (or injured). Don't really see any need to sign any other OF now, OF appears to be set at Belt/Torres, Cabrera, Schierholtz, unless, of course, they somehow sign Carlos Beltran.
Friday, September 02, 2011
2011 Giants: August PQS
This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of August 2011, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this, which I've provided a link to). Plus, I think it has a lot to offer for understanding our pitching and how that translate into competitive advantage for the Giants. Regular readers can skip to the next orange titled 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).
Click on title to get full post
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).
Click on title to get full post
Monday, August 15, 2011
Your 2011 Giants are 66-55: Beating the Braves
The Giants winning formula is pitching, pitching, and more pitching. It is kind of like the example people use about the power of time: at first it was no big deal, but drop after drop of water, you can have the Grand Canyon.
Our pitching wears down other teams, pitch by pitch, start by start, series by series. But that is not a perfect formula, so there will be hiccups, they are human beings. Also, as in life, sometimes the other team is just better than you are. Still, I love our chances in any series. And in baseball, that is really all you can realistically hope for (unless you are the Yankees, generating 2-4 times the revenues of anyone else, giving them a huge advantage in making the playoffs).
So I am relatively chillaxed compared to other Giants fans even though we are two games back and coming into Atlanta to face the mighty Braves and their super-hot hitter, Uggla, plus superb rotation. The Giants have been a pretty good team this season, particularly in 1-run games, and the offense is showing signs that it might be coming out of their collective funk that they have been in since the big trade for Beltran slowed it down greatly. Like a boiling pot, first one batter heats up, then another, then back to the first, then another and another. And the pitching, after a big hiccup in early August appears to have corrected themselves. And hopefully they can continue, because, as Elvis once sung, "It's now or never", as there is not that much season left.
Please Click on the Title for Full Post
Our pitching wears down other teams, pitch by pitch, start by start, series by series. But that is not a perfect formula, so there will be hiccups, they are human beings. Also, as in life, sometimes the other team is just better than you are. Still, I love our chances in any series. And in baseball, that is really all you can realistically hope for (unless you are the Yankees, generating 2-4 times the revenues of anyone else, giving them a huge advantage in making the playoffs).
So I am relatively chillaxed compared to other Giants fans even though we are two games back and coming into Atlanta to face the mighty Braves and their super-hot hitter, Uggla, plus superb rotation. The Giants have been a pretty good team this season, particularly in 1-run games, and the offense is showing signs that it might be coming out of their collective funk that they have been in since the big trade for Beltran slowed it down greatly. Like a boiling pot, first one batter heats up, then another, then back to the first, then another and another. And the pitching, after a big hiccup in early August appears to have corrected themselves. And hopefully they can continue, because, as Elvis once sung, "It's now or never", as there is not that much season left.
Please Click on the Title for Full Post
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Your 2011 Giants are 62-49: Pheeling it, Beat the Phillies
The Giants came out of a tough series with the D-backs with one win out of three, with the distinct possibility of getting swept out of first place, before they scored 4 runs in the game and put that thought out of mind, and obliterated it with another 4 run inning to take 8-0 lead. Vogelsong not only stopped a losing streak again (7-1 after Giants losses), but had his first DOM start in a while, which is good too.
So any momentum and boosted confidence they might have gotten from beating the Giants two aces dissipated into the SF Bay mist, as it sinks into their head that they were shut down totally by the Giants #5 starter. So now they have to view themselves as lucky that they beat the two aces, instead of feeling, as some said, like they had done their job. Winning two of three on the road is good, but each loss to the Giants is a two game difference in the standings. They really needed to win that last game and achieved the sweep, though it will help that they are headed home now for a nice home stand against losing teams.
Bring on the Phillies!
So any momentum and boosted confidence they might have gotten from beating the Giants two aces dissipated into the SF Bay mist, as it sinks into their head that they were shut down totally by the Giants #5 starter. So now they have to view themselves as lucky that they beat the two aces, instead of feeling, as some said, like they had done their job. Winning two of three on the road is good, but each loss to the Giants is a two game difference in the standings. They really needed to win that last game and achieved the sweep, though it will help that they are headed home now for a nice home stand against losing teams.
Bring on the Phillies!
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
2011 Giants: July PQS
This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of July 2011, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this, which I've provided a link to). Regular readers can skip to the next orange titled 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).
Click on title to get full post
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).
Click on title to get full post
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
2011 Giants: June PQS
This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of June 2011, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next orange titled 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).
What's Good and What's Not
From my observations, a DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.
Madison Bumgarner- (63% DOM, 19% DIS; 10:3/16): 0, 2, 3, 0, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 0, 5
Matt Cain- (82% DOM, 6% DIS; 14:1/17): 4, 4, 3, 0, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5
Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (76% DOM, 12% DIS; 13:2/17): 4, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 0, 4, 4, 4, 3, 0, 4, 5, 5
Jonathan Sanchez - (53% DOM, 13% DIS; 8:2/15): 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 2, 3, 4, 0, 0
Ryan Vogelsong - (75% DOM, 17% DIS; 9:2/12): 4, 0, 4, 4, 5, 4, 2, 5, 4, 5, 4, 1
Barry Zito - (33% DOM, 33% DIS; 1:1/3): 5, 1, X, 3
X = start Zito was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.
Giants season overall - 68% DOM, 15% DIS out of 81 games counted (55:12/81)
Giants Month of March/April - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
Giants Month of May - 79% DOM, 7% DIS out of 28 games counted (22:2/28)
Giants Month of June - 68% DOM, 18% DIS out of 28 games counted (19:5/28)
June ended up averaging what the Giants did previously, essentially. Again, a 68% DOM, 15% DIS pitcher is a one of the best pitchers in the league, and the Giants are doing that collectively as a rotation. They did not do as great as they did in May, but luckily the offense reverted closer to their prior performance expectations, so they ended up with an even better month, 17-11, than May.
The staff was led by Cain in June, as he was perfect: 6 DOM starts out of 6. Lincecum, Vogelsong, and Bumgarner each had 4 DOM starts. Sanchez, showing that something was wrong with him, after 7 DOM starts and 0 DIS starts in 10 starts to start the season, he only had 1 DOM and 2 DIS starts in 5 starts in June, before he finally admitted something was wrong and was DLed. Zito at that point came back off the DL and had a nice start, he was only an additional strikeout or one less walk away from a DOM start; personally, I would give him a DOM start for that one, as he is statistically proven to be a pitcher with the ability to keep his BABIP down below the mean of .300, so if shifting one of his walks over to hits still keeps his hits equal to or less than his IP, I think that would be fair, because such pitchers tend to walk more and strikeout less relatively.
Amazingly, Vogelsong has still not been a weak link so far in this super-rotation. His 75% DOM/17% DIS would rank among the best in the majors, yet he is rightfully a back of rotation guy in the Giants rotation. Of course, as I noted last month, it is doubtful that a journeyman pitcher like Vogelsong will continue to pitch like this for a whole season, but even if he were to fall back to mediocrity, where he is simply OK, this rotation would still be great. If the pitching staff can continue this for the season, even if the offense don't get much better other than Pablo Sandoval returning to the lineup (which he did in June and has been hot for a couple of weeks now), I don't see any reason why the Giants cannot reach the 90+ wins necessary to get into the playoffs.
June 2011 Comments
To quote myself from last month: "Wow, to think the Giants starting pitchers could improve on last year's performance. Amazing!" That was with Dirty's very poor month and Zito's return, and Lincecum's mini-June-swoon. Unfortunately, July could be the worse month of the season, for a number of reasons.
First, Lincecum's June swoon might be extending to July, though an unverified rumor by a commenter in Extra Baggs noted that might be because the Giants players were out late gambling in Detroit, including The Kid. Honestly, wouldn't surprise me, although many other commenters think that person was a troll. He has shown lack of judgement before. In addition, he did not fly ahead as the first starter of the homestand normally does at the end of the trip, which would have given him extra time to adjust back to our time zone, as Detroit is three time zones away.
As before, we will have to wait and see, but frankly, that first July start appears to be more a case of the BABIP gods giving to the hitters, rather than taking away; for Timmy, he's not like Cain or Zito, his BABIP is around the mean. Plus, he had 3 DOM starts at the end of June, so perhaps we should cut him a break, he's going to have non-DOM starts occasionally, and it wasn't like he had a disaster start. Still, maybe it is the start of another bad skein, so you never know. Appears that my thought that he might have a below 2 ERA is not going to happen.
Secondly, Zito has returned to the rotation, replacing Sanchez. Dirty had been aces to start the season, not perfect, but 70% DOM/0% DIS in 10 starts is great. Zito rarely puts up anything close to that nowadays, even with his reported reverting to his Cy Young repertoire with no slider, to give his curveball more UMMPH (relatively). He has been good, but not great, which is actually great to have in the back of the rotation. That will bring the rotation down overall as well.
Third, we can't expect Cain to have another perfect month in DOM, he was 6 of 6 in June. Can we?
Lastly, the biggest issue is Vogelsong. His career performance suggests strongly that this should not be happening. Still, he had a DOM start to begin July, and has only had the rare hiccup so far in the 2011 season, he's been keeping up with Lincecum, amazingly. So until he starts regressing, enjoy the ride. And what a sweet ride it has been!
Offense Rising, Led by a Slimmer Panda
Meanwhile, while the pitching might regress, the hitting is perking up, led by Kung Fu Panda 2. After roughly two weeks (June 14-25) of finding his way, where he hit 10-45 in 11 games with no extra-base hits (.222/.239/.222/.461; although he did get a hit in 10 of 11 games and thus was one hit away from an 11 game hit streak), he had an extra-base hit and multi-hit game on June 26 and been leading the team offensively since then: .366/.395/.780/1.175 in 9 games, 8 doubles, 3 homers, 15 game hitting streak (and he has a hit in 19 of the 20 games he's been back), and, even more impressively, he has a 9 game extra-base hitting streak, with at least an extra-base hit in each game.
The Giants have averaged 5.6 runs scored since Panda started hitting the way he can. Over the season, the Giants team has averaged 3.98 runs scored in games where Sandoval played in, 3.86 runs scored in games where he started. As impressive as that sounds, especially compared to the Giants overall 3.63 runs scored overall, the Giants have only been 21-21 in games in which Pablo started, meaning that they have been 27-17 when he was either out on the DL or sitting on the bench to start the game. And they have only been 5-4 since he started hitting for extra-base hits.
Also, unfortunately, the other hitters have been on and off. Huff and Ross, while having a nice June overall, were up and down. And Ross might be down going forward, as he tweaked his hamstring again.
Luckily, Schierholtz and Crawford has been hitting well lately, and both Whiteside and Stewart had been hitting well in June. Tejada has had some good games as well, as well as power that has been returning, with two homers in the past week or so.
Chris Stewart in last 9 games has hit .261/.346/.391/.737, with 3 doubles, which is very nice when added to the his good defense. As I noted in comments in the blogosphere, I like Stewart's bat, he had kept his strikeout rate low in the minors, while walking a good bit, so suggests that he might eventually be an OK bat in the majors. Particularly in light of the fact that catchers' offense usually is the last to mature and develop, as they typically are focused on the defensive side of their performance mostly. At 29 YO, his bat should be perking up sometime soon, if not already.
In any case, if the Giants hope to run a better offense, they need to figure out their leadoff problem. Torres isn't doing it and Rowand has been, well, Rowand. If either can get hot like they've done before, that would cure a lot of ills that the offense has been having in terms of scoring regularly and well. Sandoval can stay hot for a while, but the others will have to start carrying their weight, particularly Aubrey Huff.
According to a post on Baseball Analytics, Huff's problem this season has been him swinging at low pitches in the zone, as he kills pitches high in the zone, like last season and 2008. His problem in 2009 and 2011 has been entirely due to his swinging at pitches low in the zone. Maybe if you can pass the word on to Huff, he might start looking like his 2010 self instead of his 2009 self.
Still, since May 27th's game, he has not been striking out crazy, like he was earlier in the season, so perhaps he has already figured that out and just been suffering from bad BABIP luck. And he has 5 walks in his last 8 games, vs. 3 strikeouts, suggesting poor BABIP luck as his culprit in recent games, as he was hitting well just before that for a couple of weeks. A hot Huff and Panda would cure a lot of offensive problems, as well.
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).
What's Good and What's Not
From my observations, a DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.
Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). Read the link, as I noted, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and there you can see particularly how s low DIS% is so important to a low ERA.
If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher). But I think when the DOM% is high enough, you win more by choosing a high DOM% over a low DIS%, as there are more high quality games pitched overall.
I wholeheartedly recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and learning more about their methods of analyzing baseball. It has been greatly illuminating for me, and if you want to get a taste for it without paying full price, they used to sell their old editions of their annuals on their website for half price or less (plus shipping); but that was before he sold the company off, and I haven't checked recently.
Giants Starters' PQS for 2011 SeasonMadison Bumgarner- (63% DOM, 19% DIS; 10:3/16): 0, 2, 3, 0, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 0, 5
Matt Cain- (82% DOM, 6% DIS; 14:1/17): 4, 4, 3, 0, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5
Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (76% DOM, 12% DIS; 13:2/17): 4, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 0, 4, 4, 4, 3, 0, 4, 5, 5
Jonathan Sanchez - (53% DOM, 13% DIS; 8:2/15): 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5, 2, 3, 4, 0, 0
Ryan Vogelsong - (75% DOM, 17% DIS; 9:2/12): 4, 0, 4, 4, 5, 4, 2, 5, 4, 5, 4, 1
Barry Zito - (33% DOM, 33% DIS; 1:1/3): 5, 1, X, 3
X = start Zito was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.
Giants season overall - 68% DOM, 15% DIS out of 81 games counted (55:12/81)
Giants Month of March/April - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
Giants Month of May - 79% DOM, 7% DIS out of 28 games counted (22:2/28)
Giants Month of June - 68% DOM, 18% DIS out of 28 games counted (19:5/28)
June ended up averaging what the Giants did previously, essentially. Again, a 68% DOM, 15% DIS pitcher is a one of the best pitchers in the league, and the Giants are doing that collectively as a rotation. They did not do as great as they did in May, but luckily the offense reverted closer to their prior performance expectations, so they ended up with an even better month, 17-11, than May.
The staff was led by Cain in June, as he was perfect: 6 DOM starts out of 6. Lincecum, Vogelsong, and Bumgarner each had 4 DOM starts. Sanchez, showing that something was wrong with him, after 7 DOM starts and 0 DIS starts in 10 starts to start the season, he only had 1 DOM and 2 DIS starts in 5 starts in June, before he finally admitted something was wrong and was DLed. Zito at that point came back off the DL and had a nice start, he was only an additional strikeout or one less walk away from a DOM start; personally, I would give him a DOM start for that one, as he is statistically proven to be a pitcher with the ability to keep his BABIP down below the mean of .300, so if shifting one of his walks over to hits still keeps his hits equal to or less than his IP, I think that would be fair, because such pitchers tend to walk more and strikeout less relatively.
Amazingly, Vogelsong has still not been a weak link so far in this super-rotation. His 75% DOM/17% DIS would rank among the best in the majors, yet he is rightfully a back of rotation guy in the Giants rotation. Of course, as I noted last month, it is doubtful that a journeyman pitcher like Vogelsong will continue to pitch like this for a whole season, but even if he were to fall back to mediocrity, where he is simply OK, this rotation would still be great. If the pitching staff can continue this for the season, even if the offense don't get much better other than Pablo Sandoval returning to the lineup (which he did in June and has been hot for a couple of weeks now), I don't see any reason why the Giants cannot reach the 90+ wins necessary to get into the playoffs.
June 2011 Comments
To quote myself from last month: "Wow, to think the Giants starting pitchers could improve on last year's performance. Amazing!" That was with Dirty's very poor month and Zito's return, and Lincecum's mini-June-swoon. Unfortunately, July could be the worse month of the season, for a number of reasons.
First, Lincecum's June swoon might be extending to July, though an unverified rumor by a commenter in Extra Baggs noted that might be because the Giants players were out late gambling in Detroit, including The Kid. Honestly, wouldn't surprise me, although many other commenters think that person was a troll. He has shown lack of judgement before. In addition, he did not fly ahead as the first starter of the homestand normally does at the end of the trip, which would have given him extra time to adjust back to our time zone, as Detroit is three time zones away.
As before, we will have to wait and see, but frankly, that first July start appears to be more a case of the BABIP gods giving to the hitters, rather than taking away; for Timmy, he's not like Cain or Zito, his BABIP is around the mean. Plus, he had 3 DOM starts at the end of June, so perhaps we should cut him a break, he's going to have non-DOM starts occasionally, and it wasn't like he had a disaster start. Still, maybe it is the start of another bad skein, so you never know. Appears that my thought that he might have a below 2 ERA is not going to happen.
Secondly, Zito has returned to the rotation, replacing Sanchez. Dirty had been aces to start the season, not perfect, but 70% DOM/0% DIS in 10 starts is great. Zito rarely puts up anything close to that nowadays, even with his reported reverting to his Cy Young repertoire with no slider, to give his curveball more UMMPH (relatively). He has been good, but not great, which is actually great to have in the back of the rotation. That will bring the rotation down overall as well.
Third, we can't expect Cain to have another perfect month in DOM, he was 6 of 6 in June. Can we?
Lastly, the biggest issue is Vogelsong. His career performance suggests strongly that this should not be happening. Still, he had a DOM start to begin July, and has only had the rare hiccup so far in the 2011 season, he's been keeping up with Lincecum, amazingly. So until he starts regressing, enjoy the ride. And what a sweet ride it has been!
Offense Rising, Led by a Slimmer Panda
Meanwhile, while the pitching might regress, the hitting is perking up, led by Kung Fu Panda 2. After roughly two weeks (June 14-25) of finding his way, where he hit 10-45 in 11 games with no extra-base hits (.222/.239/.222/.461; although he did get a hit in 10 of 11 games and thus was one hit away from an 11 game hit streak), he had an extra-base hit and multi-hit game on June 26 and been leading the team offensively since then: .366/.395/.780/1.175 in 9 games, 8 doubles, 3 homers, 15 game hitting streak (and he has a hit in 19 of the 20 games he's been back), and, even more impressively, he has a 9 game extra-base hitting streak, with at least an extra-base hit in each game.
The Giants have averaged 5.6 runs scored since Panda started hitting the way he can. Over the season, the Giants team has averaged 3.98 runs scored in games where Sandoval played in, 3.86 runs scored in games where he started. As impressive as that sounds, especially compared to the Giants overall 3.63 runs scored overall, the Giants have only been 21-21 in games in which Pablo started, meaning that they have been 27-17 when he was either out on the DL or sitting on the bench to start the game. And they have only been 5-4 since he started hitting for extra-base hits.
Also, unfortunately, the other hitters have been on and off. Huff and Ross, while having a nice June overall, were up and down. And Ross might be down going forward, as he tweaked his hamstring again.
Luckily, Schierholtz and Crawford has been hitting well lately, and both Whiteside and Stewart had been hitting well in June. Tejada has had some good games as well, as well as power that has been returning, with two homers in the past week or so.
Chris Stewart in last 9 games has hit .261/.346/.391/.737, with 3 doubles, which is very nice when added to the his good defense. As I noted in comments in the blogosphere, I like Stewart's bat, he had kept his strikeout rate low in the minors, while walking a good bit, so suggests that he might eventually be an OK bat in the majors. Particularly in light of the fact that catchers' offense usually is the last to mature and develop, as they typically are focused on the defensive side of their performance mostly. At 29 YO, his bat should be perking up sometime soon, if not already.
In any case, if the Giants hope to run a better offense, they need to figure out their leadoff problem. Torres isn't doing it and Rowand has been, well, Rowand. If either can get hot like they've done before, that would cure a lot of ills that the offense has been having in terms of scoring regularly and well. Sandoval can stay hot for a while, but the others will have to start carrying their weight, particularly Aubrey Huff.
According to a post on Baseball Analytics, Huff's problem this season has been him swinging at low pitches in the zone, as he kills pitches high in the zone, like last season and 2008. His problem in 2009 and 2011 has been entirely due to his swinging at pitches low in the zone. Maybe if you can pass the word on to Huff, he might start looking like his 2010 self instead of his 2009 self.
Still, since May 27th's game, he has not been striking out crazy, like he was earlier in the season, so perhaps he has already figured that out and just been suffering from bad BABIP luck. And he has 5 walks in his last 8 games, vs. 3 strikeouts, suggesting poor BABIP luck as his culprit in recent games, as he was hitting well just before that for a couple of weeks. A hot Huff and Panda would cure a lot of offensive problems, as well.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Your 2011 Giants are 39-30: Playing the A's at Home Away From Home
I expect O.Co Coliseum to be orange in envy, as Giants fans should take over the stadium, as it has done to many teams since our glorious 2010 World Championship (heck, fans did it to San Diego at the end of last season too!).
Are the A's serious? They are putting up a rookie who had a lousy first outing up against Big Time Jimmy Tim, another nobody up against Dirty, then their flailing ace against Cainer. I would be upset if there is not a series win and a sweep should not be out of the question, the A's have lost a lot recently, so not like the 2010 Giants. It is all here, at this link, of Probable Pitchers for the series.
They had lost 9 in a row with Geren, the first with Melvin for a 10 game losing streak, but has been .500 since then for new manager Bob Melvin, though that is because they got to play the KC Royals at home, if that is not a recipe for winning a series, I don't know what is (they have played roughly .333 on the road, which is the winning percentage of winning one game out of three on the road).
The A's have actually been OK at home, playing .500, but then again, they are facing the Giants top three starters, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez, and Matt Cain. And they are sending up two rookies like lambs to the slaughter. Graham Godfrey gave up 5 runs in 4.1 IP while walking 2 and striking out only two. Even a struggling Lincecum should be able to get a win against him. Guillermo Moscoso has a 3.91 ERA, but in 25.1 IP, he has 11 walks and 11 strikeouts, he's been living on some luck or has a pitch that can really induce a lot of popups. That type of pitcher sometimes do give the Giants fits, but Dirty has been very good this season. The Giants should win the first two games of the series.
The Trevor Cahill game is the only one that they have a good chance of winning. He has basically given up only one run per start to the Giants, his ERA is 1.37 in his career, two starts at home, one start in SF earlier this season.
Unfortunately for the A's the Cainer has had some of his best performances against them, 2.30 ERA career, 1.38 ERA in the Coliseum, including two shutouts in three starts. I would call it even for that game.
Giants Thoughts
In another universe, I probably would have become one of those Giants fans who support the A's too, but the meanness of A's fans have burned that bridge long ago (Giants are going to be The Team of the 2010's, put that in your green and yellow hats and smoke it!). I would be happy if they moved away, even happier if they would move to the South Bay and pay the Giants around $100M for those rights - they never rightfully paid the Giants for entering their territory in the first place in the 1960's anyway, they really should not have any rights to the SF Bay Area. It would only be right if they ponied up that money (or assets) to the Giants now for the rights to the South Bay. And then the Giants could use that money to keep Lincecum around longer, win-win.
The Giants better win the series, that is all I can say, and it would be even better if we can sweep them and show them how much of a sham all those reporters talking up the 2011 A's as a repeat of the 2010 Giants. Not even, Billy Beane has no real strategy for winning and Mr. OBP does not even follow the advice of the organization that he was happily quoted for, Baseball Prospectus, on how to be successful deep into the playoffs.
Meanwhile Brian Sabean, who Baseball Prospectus BEGGED the Giants to fire before the 2010 season, has basically followed the formula that BP (and THT) had laid out as the way to win in the playoffs: defense, particularly pitching, with high K/9 pitching staff and a great closer. Beane still does not get that a closer is a key part of a winning team, he has been using his stale old-saber theory that closers were replaceable cogs that are easily replaced. Sabers who think that is so just don't understand that there is a lot of the game that you can't quantify, this is no fantasy baseball league, these are real people.
Go Giants!
Are the A's serious? They are putting up a rookie who had a lousy first outing up against Big Time Jimmy Tim, another nobody up against Dirty, then their flailing ace against Cainer. I would be upset if there is not a series win and a sweep should not be out of the question, the A's have lost a lot recently, so not like the 2010 Giants. It is all here, at this link, of Probable Pitchers for the series.
They had lost 9 in a row with Geren, the first with Melvin for a 10 game losing streak, but has been .500 since then for new manager Bob Melvin, though that is because they got to play the KC Royals at home, if that is not a recipe for winning a series, I don't know what is (they have played roughly .333 on the road, which is the winning percentage of winning one game out of three on the road).
The A's have actually been OK at home, playing .500, but then again, they are facing the Giants top three starters, Tim Lincecum, Jonathan Sanchez, and Matt Cain. And they are sending up two rookies like lambs to the slaughter. Graham Godfrey gave up 5 runs in 4.1 IP while walking 2 and striking out only two. Even a struggling Lincecum should be able to get a win against him. Guillermo Moscoso has a 3.91 ERA, but in 25.1 IP, he has 11 walks and 11 strikeouts, he's been living on some luck or has a pitch that can really induce a lot of popups. That type of pitcher sometimes do give the Giants fits, but Dirty has been very good this season. The Giants should win the first two games of the series.
The Trevor Cahill game is the only one that they have a good chance of winning. He has basically given up only one run per start to the Giants, his ERA is 1.37 in his career, two starts at home, one start in SF earlier this season.
Unfortunately for the A's the Cainer has had some of his best performances against them, 2.30 ERA career, 1.38 ERA in the Coliseum, including two shutouts in three starts. I would call it even for that game.
Giants Thoughts
In another universe, I probably would have become one of those Giants fans who support the A's too, but the meanness of A's fans have burned that bridge long ago (Giants are going to be The Team of the 2010's, put that in your green and yellow hats and smoke it!). I would be happy if they moved away, even happier if they would move to the South Bay and pay the Giants around $100M for those rights - they never rightfully paid the Giants for entering their territory in the first place in the 1960's anyway, they really should not have any rights to the SF Bay Area. It would only be right if they ponied up that money (or assets) to the Giants now for the rights to the South Bay. And then the Giants could use that money to keep Lincecum around longer, win-win.
The Giants better win the series, that is all I can say, and it would be even better if we can sweep them and show them how much of a sham all those reporters talking up the 2011 A's as a repeat of the 2010 Giants. Not even, Billy Beane has no real strategy for winning and Mr. OBP does not even follow the advice of the organization that he was happily quoted for, Baseball Prospectus, on how to be successful deep into the playoffs.
Meanwhile Brian Sabean, who Baseball Prospectus BEGGED the Giants to fire before the 2010 season, has basically followed the formula that BP (and THT) had laid out as the way to win in the playoffs: defense, particularly pitching, with high K/9 pitching staff and a great closer. Beane still does not get that a closer is a key part of a winning team, he has been using his stale old-saber theory that closers were replaceable cogs that are easily replaced. Sabers who think that is so just don't understand that there is a lot of the game that you can't quantify, this is no fantasy baseball league, these are real people.
Go Giants!
Thursday, June 02, 2011
2011 Giants: May PQS
This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of May 2011, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.
This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).
What's Good and What's Not
From my observations, a DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.
Madison Bumgarner- (56% DOM, 18% DIS; 6:2/11): 0, 2, 3, 0, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 4, 5
Matt Cain- (78% DOM, 9% DIS; 8:1/11): 4, 4, 3, 0, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4
Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (89% DOM, 9% DIS; 9:1/11): 4, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 0, 4, 4
Jonathan Sanchez - (70% DOM, 0% DIS; 7:0/10): 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5
Ryan Vogelsong - (71% DOM, 14% DIS; 5:1/7): 4, 0, 4, 4, 5, 4, 2
Barry Zito - (50% DOM, 50% DIS; 1:1/2): 5, 1, X
X = start Zito was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.
Giants season overall - 68% DOM, 13% DIS out of 53 games counted (36:7/53)
Giants Month of March/April - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
Giants Month of May - 79% DOM, 7% DIS out of 28 games counted (22:2/28)
If you want to see why the Giants were 16-12 in May despite their anemic offense, which was bookended by losing Pablo Sandoval for 5-6 weeks at the start of the month and Buster Posey for the season at the end of the month, you can just look at that May stat: 79% DOM, 7% DIS. As I try to make clear above, only the most elite pitchers in the majors do that. We are talking Lincecum, Cliff Lee, and Roy Halladay elite. Yet the Giants staff did that as a unit in May.
And there is not a lot of reason to believe that they can't continue something close to that for the rest of the season, barring any injury. Lincecum, as I've been touting all off-season, has been using not only his new pitch, but his new physique and stamina, to return to Cy Young caliber pitching. Cain, as I noted in the off-season as well, appeared ready to take another step upward and has so far, by dropping his DIS a lot and upping his DOM to elite levels. Sanchez too. Bumgarner, after his horrible start, has been pitching at elite levels, arguably the best of the starters in May, he had 4 5-PQS starts in May, tied with Sanchez; Lincecum and Cain each had "only" two.
Even Vogelsong has not been a weak link so far in this super-rotation. His 71% DOM/14% DIS (and 67% DOM/17% DIS in May) would rank among the best in the majors, yet he is rightfully the back of rotation guy in the Giants rotation. Of course, it is doubtful that a journeyman pitcher like Vogelsong will continue to pitch like this for a whole season, but even if he were to fall back to mediocrity, where he is simply OK, this rotation would still be great, at roughly 70% DOM/15% DIS. If the pitching staff can continue this for the season, even if the offense don't get much better other than Pablo Sandoval returning to the lineup, I don't see any reason why the Giants cannot reach the 90+ wins necessary to get into the playoffs.
May 2011 Comments
To quote myself from last month: "Wow, to think the Giants starting pitchers could improve on last year's performance. Amazing!" Make that last month's performance! The Giants sure outdid themselves in May. No wonder the Giants have already announced that Zito is not guaranteed a starting spot when he is ready to re-join the team, Vogelsong has been great so far, certainly better than Zito has been for the Giants in almost any 7 game stretch of starts, other than the beginning of last season.
And as good as they were in April, there were hiccups, but in May, there were only the rare hiccup, only mainly great performances which for the most part is the norm for our starters. All that contributed to their 16-12 record.
Again, to quote myself from last month: " I wouldn't be surprised if Lincecum eventually ends with an ERA under 2.00, and at worse he should have another Cy Young caliber season." I knew I was pushing it with that statement, but I still feel very good about it possibly happening, barring injury. I think he is just that good.
Superlatives fail me, but this is the culmination of what I've been preaching ever since a reporter asked in a column what the Giants will be about after Bonds: it's simple, pitching, pitching, and more pitching.
And either you get it or you don't, I'm learning. Despite all the great pitching and winning the Giants have been doing, the Naysayers are all up in arms over the Giants and, basically, about how smart they are and Giants management isn't. Again, to repeat myself from last month, we are missing Sandoval, a key component of our offense in April, and now are also missing Posey. And Aubrey Huff, after a brief warm-up in the middle of May, has reverted to his prior struggles. It seems like he's thinking too much instead of "see ball, hit ball" mind-set he needs to adopt. That's our entire middle of lineup offense.
Given the offensive struggles, we will need our starters to continue their superlative pitching. Pablo could be returning as soon as next week's homestand, so that will give the offense a boost, but he won't be able to do it alone. Huff and some of the other vets will need to start hitting, plus not be so hot and cold, which Ross and Freddy Sanchez have been. The young players have been giving the team a needed lift, so that has helped a lot. Still, the pitching looks to be similarly great in June, so the offense won't have to do that much more for the Giants to stay at or near the top of the NL West.
And the surprising D-backs are currently the leader in the Wild Wild NL West. I just don't see Juan Miranda and Ryan Roberts continuing to hit like that, nor Josh Collmenter or their bullpen to pitch so lights out as they have. Once they start regressing to their mean, the team will start falling off the pace. Plus, once the Giants catch up on their home games vs. road games, they should also start to pull away a bit, as well.
Trading Jonathan Sanchez
Again, something I covered last month, but now perhaps a bit more urgent because of the loss of Buster Posey and the lackluster offense. Instead of a package of prospects, perhaps it would be better to swap him for current offensive muscle. Though ideally, I would still prefer to get a younger guy who we control for more years.
Not that it has to be done, as I do like Sanchez a lot. But given that we will be losing him sooner or later - Boras is his agent - a trade will yield much more value - as well as sooner - than any draft pick compensation we might get for him. It would be most prudent for the team to do it this year rather than next year as they will get a lot more this season. And Vogelsong's emergence makes a trade a much better alternative than it sounded when I first broached the topic last month, particularly with Barry Zito returning to the team sometime in June most probably: trade Sanchez, get some good prospects, slot in Zito into the rotation.
Ultimately, it comes to whether you take a very short term view versus a long term view. While the Giants clearly would be a much better team with Dirty than not, that is not a guarantee that once the Giants made the playoffs, that they will sweep through the other teams with him. As great as our pitchers were, we were very close to losing the opening playoff series to Atlanta. Had they had Chipper Jones, they might have.
That is why I prefer to take the long view. Again, I am thinking of something along the lines of the Dan Haran trade, though I don't think we can get the quantity, I am looking more for quality. The A's trade for Matt Holliday would be another similar deal to mimic, getting a top prospect like CarGon but instead of MLB players like Huston Street or Greg Smith, give me more middling prospects, as Holliday was more established and proven than Dirty.
And I am looking to leverage a rare resource as a top of rotation starter that Sanchez is demonstrating that he could be for someone by trading him mid-season, around June or July, when teams are desperate for that one piece for their rotation, much like Texas' trade for Cliff Lee last season (another trade similar to what I'm talking about). Or maybe an up and coming team looking to boost their chances in 2012 after building off a promising 2011.
And, again, I would not make the trade just to make the trade. It has to be equal or better value in return for him, at least for this season. But I think to get good value for him, relative to what we would receive in draft picks, we would need to trade him no later than this coming off-season. And it never hurts to have your options open and know what the opportunity is.
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).
What's Good and What's Not
From my observations, a DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.
Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). Read the link, as I noted, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and there you can see particularly how s low DIS% is so important to a low ERA.
If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher). But I think when the DOM% is high enough, you win more by choosing a high DOM% over a low DIS%, as there are more high quality games pitched overall.
I wholeheartedly recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and learning more about their methods of analyzing baseball. It has been greatly illuminating for me, and if you want to get a taste for it without paying full price, they used to sell their old editions of their annuals on their website for half price or less (plus shipping); but that was before he sold the company off, and I haven't checked recently.
Giants Starters' PQS for 2011 SeasonMadison Bumgarner- (56% DOM, 18% DIS; 6:2/11): 0, 2, 3, 0, 5, 5, 5, 5, 3, 4, 5
Matt Cain- (78% DOM, 9% DIS; 8:1/11): 4, 4, 3, 0, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 4, 4
Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (89% DOM, 9% DIS; 9:1/11): 4, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 0, 4, 4
Jonathan Sanchez - (70% DOM, 0% DIS; 7:0/10): 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4, 3, 5, 5, 5, 5
Ryan Vogelsong - (71% DOM, 14% DIS; 5:1/7): 4, 0, 4, 4, 5, 4, 2
Barry Zito - (50% DOM, 50% DIS; 1:1/2): 5, 1, X
X = start Zito was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.
Giants season overall - 68% DOM, 13% DIS out of 53 games counted (36:7/53)
Giants Month of March/April - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
Giants Month of May - 79% DOM, 7% DIS out of 28 games counted (22:2/28)
If you want to see why the Giants were 16-12 in May despite their anemic offense, which was bookended by losing Pablo Sandoval for 5-6 weeks at the start of the month and Buster Posey for the season at the end of the month, you can just look at that May stat: 79% DOM, 7% DIS. As I try to make clear above, only the most elite pitchers in the majors do that. We are talking Lincecum, Cliff Lee, and Roy Halladay elite. Yet the Giants staff did that as a unit in May.
And there is not a lot of reason to believe that they can't continue something close to that for the rest of the season, barring any injury. Lincecum, as I've been touting all off-season, has been using not only his new pitch, but his new physique and stamina, to return to Cy Young caliber pitching. Cain, as I noted in the off-season as well, appeared ready to take another step upward and has so far, by dropping his DIS a lot and upping his DOM to elite levels. Sanchez too. Bumgarner, after his horrible start, has been pitching at elite levels, arguably the best of the starters in May, he had 4 5-PQS starts in May, tied with Sanchez; Lincecum and Cain each had "only" two.
Even Vogelsong has not been a weak link so far in this super-rotation. His 71% DOM/14% DIS (and 67% DOM/17% DIS in May) would rank among the best in the majors, yet he is rightfully the back of rotation guy in the Giants rotation. Of course, it is doubtful that a journeyman pitcher like Vogelsong will continue to pitch like this for a whole season, but even if he were to fall back to mediocrity, where he is simply OK, this rotation would still be great, at roughly 70% DOM/15% DIS. If the pitching staff can continue this for the season, even if the offense don't get much better other than Pablo Sandoval returning to the lineup, I don't see any reason why the Giants cannot reach the 90+ wins necessary to get into the playoffs.
May 2011 Comments
To quote myself from last month: "Wow, to think the Giants starting pitchers could improve on last year's performance. Amazing!" Make that last month's performance! The Giants sure outdid themselves in May. No wonder the Giants have already announced that Zito is not guaranteed a starting spot when he is ready to re-join the team, Vogelsong has been great so far, certainly better than Zito has been for the Giants in almost any 7 game stretch of starts, other than the beginning of last season.
And as good as they were in April, there were hiccups, but in May, there were only the rare hiccup, only mainly great performances which for the most part is the norm for our starters. All that contributed to their 16-12 record.
Again, to quote myself from last month: " I wouldn't be surprised if Lincecum eventually ends with an ERA under 2.00, and at worse he should have another Cy Young caliber season." I knew I was pushing it with that statement, but I still feel very good about it possibly happening, barring injury. I think he is just that good.
Superlatives fail me, but this is the culmination of what I've been preaching ever since a reporter asked in a column what the Giants will be about after Bonds: it's simple, pitching, pitching, and more pitching.
And either you get it or you don't, I'm learning. Despite all the great pitching and winning the Giants have been doing, the Naysayers are all up in arms over the Giants and, basically, about how smart they are and Giants management isn't. Again, to repeat myself from last month, we are missing Sandoval, a key component of our offense in April, and now are also missing Posey. And Aubrey Huff, after a brief warm-up in the middle of May, has reverted to his prior struggles. It seems like he's thinking too much instead of "see ball, hit ball" mind-set he needs to adopt. That's our entire middle of lineup offense.
Given the offensive struggles, we will need our starters to continue their superlative pitching. Pablo could be returning as soon as next week's homestand, so that will give the offense a boost, but he won't be able to do it alone. Huff and some of the other vets will need to start hitting, plus not be so hot and cold, which Ross and Freddy Sanchez have been. The young players have been giving the team a needed lift, so that has helped a lot. Still, the pitching looks to be similarly great in June, so the offense won't have to do that much more for the Giants to stay at or near the top of the NL West.
And the surprising D-backs are currently the leader in the Wild Wild NL West. I just don't see Juan Miranda and Ryan Roberts continuing to hit like that, nor Josh Collmenter or their bullpen to pitch so lights out as they have. Once they start regressing to their mean, the team will start falling off the pace. Plus, once the Giants catch up on their home games vs. road games, they should also start to pull away a bit, as well.
Trading Jonathan Sanchez
Again, something I covered last month, but now perhaps a bit more urgent because of the loss of Buster Posey and the lackluster offense. Instead of a package of prospects, perhaps it would be better to swap him for current offensive muscle. Though ideally, I would still prefer to get a younger guy who we control for more years.
Not that it has to be done, as I do like Sanchez a lot. But given that we will be losing him sooner or later - Boras is his agent - a trade will yield much more value - as well as sooner - than any draft pick compensation we might get for him. It would be most prudent for the team to do it this year rather than next year as they will get a lot more this season. And Vogelsong's emergence makes a trade a much better alternative than it sounded when I first broached the topic last month, particularly with Barry Zito returning to the team sometime in June most probably: trade Sanchez, get some good prospects, slot in Zito into the rotation.
Ultimately, it comes to whether you take a very short term view versus a long term view. While the Giants clearly would be a much better team with Dirty than not, that is not a guarantee that once the Giants made the playoffs, that they will sweep through the other teams with him. As great as our pitchers were, we were very close to losing the opening playoff series to Atlanta. Had they had Chipper Jones, they might have.
That is why I prefer to take the long view. Again, I am thinking of something along the lines of the Dan Haran trade, though I don't think we can get the quantity, I am looking more for quality. The A's trade for Matt Holliday would be another similar deal to mimic, getting a top prospect like CarGon but instead of MLB players like Huston Street or Greg Smith, give me more middling prospects, as Holliday was more established and proven than Dirty.
And I am looking to leverage a rare resource as a top of rotation starter that Sanchez is demonstrating that he could be for someone by trading him mid-season, around June or July, when teams are desperate for that one piece for their rotation, much like Texas' trade for Cliff Lee last season (another trade similar to what I'm talking about). Or maybe an up and coming team looking to boost their chances in 2012 after building off a promising 2011.
And, again, I would not make the trade just to make the trade. It has to be equal or better value in return for him, at least for this season. But I think to get good value for him, relative to what we would receive in draft picks, we would need to trade him no later than this coming off-season. And it never hurts to have your options open and know what the opportunity is.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
2011 Giants: April PQS
This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of April 2011 (plus a game from March), PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.
This is the Quality Start with a sabermetric DIPS twist, and it gets really easy to calculate once you get used to it. I don't think it's the end all or be all, but then nothing really is that. It is, as I like to say, another piece of the puzzle. A dominating start is scored a 4 or 5 and a disaster start is scored a 0 or 1. DOM% is the percentage of starts that are dominating, DIS% is the percentage of starts that are disasters (any start under 5.0 IP is automatically a 0, or disaster).
What's Good and What's Not
From my observations, a DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.
Madison Bumgarner- (20% DOM, 40% DIS; 1:2/5): 0, 2, 3, 0, 5
Matt Cain- (60% DOM, 20% DIS; 3:1/5): 4, 4, 3, 0, 5
Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (83% DOM, 0% DIS; 5:0/6): 4, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5
Jonathan Sanchez - (50% DOM, 0% DIS; 3:0/6): 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4
Ryan Vogelsong - (100% DOM, 0% DIS; 1:0/1): 4
Barry Zito - (50% DOM, 50% DIS; 1:1/2): 5, 1, X
X = start Zito was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.
Giants season overall - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
Giants Month of March/April - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
The Giants pitchers continued to do well, carrying over their collective goodness from last season. Led by Tim Lincecum's 5 DOM starts, their 56% DOM as a group is excellent - remember, great pitchers have DOM of 50% or better and they are doing it as a group. Their 20% is good as well.
And they may even get better. Bumgarner was lost for much of April. After 4 starts, he had 2 DIS starts and 0 DOM starts. Now he has had two consecutive 5 PQS DOM starts. After walking a lot of people and more importantly, not striking out that many either at the same time, he shut things down and in those two DOM starts he had 2 walks and 14 strikeouts.
Plus Vogelsong had a nice first start, though very poor second start now. If he can keep up the good pitching he did in the minors, which he did in his first start, he should be able to at least duplicate what Zito delivered last season. But he had a really bad second start, so it is not clear what we got with him yet, lightening in the bottle or the career MLB journeyman pitcher.
Those could push the staff up above 60% DOM and below 20% DIS. Lincecum has returned to his Cy Young level of DOM and DIS: above 80% DOM and below 10% DIS. Cain has been his usual good self, with the occasional hiccup. Given his playoff run, I can see Cain making another leap in DOM/DIS this season, perhaps join Lincecum in a Cy Young caliber season.
Also importantly, Sanchez despite not having great control plus battling a flu in a recent start or two, has ZERO disaster starts, plus 50% DOM. He could be another key change in the rotation relative to last season, he still hasn't put together two great halves of a season, he has been great one half, and lost in the other half, for the past three seasons. While his old wild self so far this season, he has been unlike his usual self by limiting the scoring that could happen, and shutting down the other team despite the walks. Of course, part of that is his still high rate of strikeouts.
March/April 2011 Comments
Wow, to think the Giants starting pitchers could improve on last year's performance. Amazing!
Of course, there were hiccups. Zito is on the DL for the first time in his career, and frankly, given how close it was to his massive car accident, where he literally was seconds away from dying in the crash, I have to think that there was underlying trama that didn't manifest itself until he started to punish his body in the inhuman way that pitchers do (very unnatural motion overall). And Bumgarner was lost for his first four starts. Plus Sanchez, as nicely as he has done, he's also clearly not at the top of his game, he's not going deep into games and walking a lot of batters as well.
Still, they are our jewels. As I've been saying this season, I wouldn't be surprised if Lincecum eventually ends with an ERA under 2.00, and at worse he should have another Cy Young caliber season. He has gotten off to a great start towards that. Sanchez has been able to battle through problem areas that would have sunk him, the team, and his ERA previously. If one were to look at just his numbers, you would miss the accomplishment he did when viewed by PQS stats. Cain has been his usual steady self, and I'm hopeful that he might be able to take it up another step in 2011, after his stout performance in the playoffs after his hiccup against San Diego in his last 2010 regular season start.
Zito, well, he'll never match his salary, but as a starter in the rotation, if he can recover from his injuries well enough (assuming the accident caused multiple problems) to return to his 2009-2010 form, I think he would be a fine part of our rotation. And if you look, he gutted up and threw a 5 PQS DOM start in his first start of the season, right after the accident. I'm hoping he'll be fine once he returns. Vogelsong, meanwhile, I don't think either start is what we can expect, but something close to Zito I think is possible in the short run, before other teams catch up with him. And Bumgarner is back with a vengence, and back so completely that he had two 5 PQS starts in a row after huge struggles just trying to throw a strike.
Trading Jonathan Sanchez
Part of the difficult tasks a GM has is managing the turnover of talent in the organization, particularly in respect to free agents. As I've tried to make clear in my posts, my analysis of the draft convinces me that getting the signing team's first round draft pick plus supplemental draft is nowhere close to the value of a truly good player. First off, the odds of those picks becoming a good player is roughly less than one of six chances. That is, very lousy odds. Second of all, these picks, even if they were to develop, normally it takes 3-5 years for the player to make the majors after being drafted.
I've mentioned the trading of Sanchez and was called out for it in the comments since I've been one of the main proponents among the Giants bloggers for keeping them together. The difference now is the fact that he'll be going free agent soon, after the 2012 season and that you get more for a player when there is at least a year's worth of control over the player. And as I led off with, you don't really want draft picks for a good player.
And as I've been saying for years now, Sanchez has the abilities to be a good, maybe great, pitcher. That is why I was so adamant about not trading him, mainly because I did not expect the other team to pay value equal to as if they considered Sanchez to be a good, maybe great pitcher. He finally put it together enough last season, and I'm hoping he continues this season - so far so good.
So now is the time to start kicking the tires to see what his value in the trade market now, with the idea of trading him away sometime in the second half of 2011. I am thinking something along the lines of what the D-backs gave up to the A's for Dan Haren or what the A's gave up to the D-Rox for Matt Holliday. Those trades yielded players who were able to contribute at the major league level within 1-3 years, in COL's case, immediately with Street.
That is a much better yield in trade than getting draft picks, as it gives you prospects who are closer to the majors (or maybe in the majors already) and much more likely to be good in the majors than the picks you would get for him. Of course, negotiating an extension is a possibility, but most clients of Scott Boras typically do not agree to an extension, they make it very clear that they are going on the free agent market ASAP. That is why it is imperative to get the ball rolling by mid-season to see what value he has out there in the trade market.
Of course, battling for the title bears consideration. Obviously being around the lead for NL West is part of the equation and if we should be leading mid-season, more consideration. Also, how well Vogelsong does in place of Zito bears consideration as well. I think we can take the trade off of losing Sanchez and replacing with Vogelsong if Ryan pitches more like his first start. Furthermore, how well Eric Surkamp is doing in the minors is a strong factor as well, if he continues to dominate like this and advances to AAA by mid-season, he could be ready to move up by the end of the season, and thus Vogelsong would only need to be able to pitch well for July and August. And, of course, if no other team values him enough to give a big package of prospects, then it would be better to keep him.
So there are a lot of factors I would consider before making a trade of Sanchez for prospects. I would not make the move lightly. In addition, we don't necessarily have to trade Sanchez during the season, he could be traded in the off-season, like Matt Holliday was, and that should also yield some good value in trade was well.
What I want is Sabean to be kicking that idea around with other teams who might want a good pitcher like Sanchez either this season or in the off-season and set the grounds to make a trade quickly when the Giants are ready to pull the trigger. And if things work out positively as the scenarios I laid out above, the sooner we should consider trading him, particularly if the package is equal to or better than the trades noted above.
Sky is Falling (Again)
Giants fans all over are slobbering all over the Jose Reyes to Giants rumor, after a brief period of near zero offense. Reminds me of the same old broken record from the past few years, of their desperate need to improve the offense at all costs (that is, trading a good pitcher would solve our problems). The pitcher most are trying to ditch this time is Zack Wheeler, adding him to the long line of pitchers these Naysayers have wanted to trade in order to improve the offense: Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez. Heck, some are thinking that trading Sanchez would be worth it.
First off, it is like these people aren't aware of the current situation, that we are missing our lead-off guy who sparked many rallies last season, Andres Torres, that we are missing our re-newed Pablo Sandoval, who was knocking the pants off the ball again this season, after clearing his mind of his personal problems, and his belly of 30-40 pounds, and that the heart of our lineup, both Huff and Posey, have not been hitting up to expectations. Torres should be back by the end of the week, putting pressure on the bases up top, getting Huff and Posey better pitches, undoubtedly.
Second, these people don't realize that our payroll will get top heavy fast just with the players we have now, Lincecum and Cain will be getting huge raises, that is, if you want to keep them, but if we add Reyes and sign him to a monster contract now (and there is no reason not to once you give up Wheeler and/or Dirty), you just hurt the Giants ability to retain one of the two, most probably Lincecum. So people aren't realizing that this would mean that we are essentially trading a future Lincecum in order to get Reyes.
Third, Jose Reyes has not even been the Jose Reyes these people think of the past two seasons. He has been on the DL extensively the past two seasons, at ages 26 (basically missing most of 2009) and 27, so I have to question whether he won't be getting injured regularly once we sign him to a huge 5-6-7 year contract at $100M+. I think Hyperthyroidism is a serious internal problem, to me, a life-long issue that needs to be managed.
People also need to remember that we are near the end of a long 10 game road trip and the end of 16 road games out of 19. The Giants are 9-6 in this stretch on the road and has already assured a winning record with their win today. And they ensured at least a .500 record for the 10 games by winning today, and could end up with a winning record by sweeping the Mets.
Of course, getting swept by Atlanta at home didn't help matters, but the main things to remember is that the Giants are actually doing OK on the road in this stretch, despite the offensive hiccups, as most teams aim to be .500 on the road and win roughly 2 of 3 at home, to get into the playoffs. In 2010, only these teams ended up at or above .500 in NL: Phillies, Giants, Reds, 'Dres, though I would throw in Cubs at 40-41 in there too. The Giants were 43-38 on the road in 2010.
And as noted above, we have been missing Torres and then Sandoval out of the lineup. And whenever the Giants lose an important cog out of the lineup, it is like a gut punch, and the offense suffers, only scored 4 runs in three games after he was placed on DL. When Torres went out, only scored 1 run in each of next two games, before returning to normal. Still, after the Pittsburgh series, the offense had scored 4 or more runs in 13 out of 24 games (13-11).
In addition, it's only just a few days out of April. Waaay too soon to panic, particularly if we are around .500 after spending so many days on the road so far this season. That weighs heavily on our overall record and is why we are around .500, so we are actually in pretty good shape. What we can't do is start losing series at home against teams we should be beating.
But it is too soon to panic and we should see what the offense can do when we have Torres back in the lineup, as Pablo won't be back for another 4-6 weeks (maybe 7, as Sandoval has been tweeting 7 weeks for his return) and Mark DeRosa could take his place in a week or two. Torres is suppose to be back by the time they return home, but right now there is some worry that he might not be ready by then. But as long as we are holding our own on the road now, and winning when we get home, we will be fine.
Lincecum Franchise Leader in Double Digit Strikeout Games
Not in April but with his 12 strikeouts today against the Mets, he now has the most double digit strikeout games in the entire history of the Giants franchise. That included the former leader, Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, former #2, Jason Schmidt, another Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell who was famous for striking out the top 3 AL hitters in an All-Star game. THE MOST. And he's hasn't even finished four full seasons with us yet.
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).
What's Good and What's Not
From my observations, a DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes.
Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). Read the link, as I noted, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and there you can see particularly how s low DIS% is so important to a low ERA.
If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher). But I think when the DOM% is high enough, you win more by choosing a high DOM% over a low DIS%, as there are more high quality games pitched overall.
I wholeheartedly recommend buying Baseball Forecaster and learning more about their methods of analyzing baseball. It has been greatly illuminating for me, and if you want to get a taste for it without paying full price, they used to sell their old editions of their annuals on their website for half price or less (plus shipping); but that was before he sold the company off, and I haven't checked recently.
Giants Starters' PQS for 2011 SeasonMadison Bumgarner- (20% DOM, 40% DIS; 1:2/5): 0, 2, 3, 0, 5
Matt Cain- (60% DOM, 20% DIS; 3:1/5): 4, 4, 3, 0, 5
Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (83% DOM, 0% DIS; 5:0/6): 4, 5, 3, 5, 4, 5
Jonathan Sanchez - (50% DOM, 0% DIS; 3:0/6): 3, 4, 4, 3, 3, 4
Ryan Vogelsong - (100% DOM, 0% DIS; 1:0/1): 4
Barry Zito - (50% DOM, 50% DIS; 1:1/2): 5, 1, X
X = start Zito was injured in and had to leave the game. I don't include these in my analysis.
Giants season overall - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
Giants Month of March/April - 56% DOM, 20% DIS out of 25 games counted (14:5/25)
The Giants pitchers continued to do well, carrying over their collective goodness from last season. Led by Tim Lincecum's 5 DOM starts, their 56% DOM as a group is excellent - remember, great pitchers have DOM of 50% or better and they are doing it as a group. Their 20% is good as well.
And they may even get better. Bumgarner was lost for much of April. After 4 starts, he had 2 DIS starts and 0 DOM starts. Now he has had two consecutive 5 PQS DOM starts. After walking a lot of people and more importantly, not striking out that many either at the same time, he shut things down and in those two DOM starts he had 2 walks and 14 strikeouts.
Plus Vogelsong had a nice first start, though very poor second start now. If he can keep up the good pitching he did in the minors, which he did in his first start, he should be able to at least duplicate what Zito delivered last season. But he had a really bad second start, so it is not clear what we got with him yet, lightening in the bottle or the career MLB journeyman pitcher.
Those could push the staff up above 60% DOM and below 20% DIS. Lincecum has returned to his Cy Young level of DOM and DIS: above 80% DOM and below 10% DIS. Cain has been his usual good self, with the occasional hiccup. Given his playoff run, I can see Cain making another leap in DOM/DIS this season, perhaps join Lincecum in a Cy Young caliber season.
Also importantly, Sanchez despite not having great control plus battling a flu in a recent start or two, has ZERO disaster starts, plus 50% DOM. He could be another key change in the rotation relative to last season, he still hasn't put together two great halves of a season, he has been great one half, and lost in the other half, for the past three seasons. While his old wild self so far this season, he has been unlike his usual self by limiting the scoring that could happen, and shutting down the other team despite the walks. Of course, part of that is his still high rate of strikeouts.
March/April 2011 Comments
Wow, to think the Giants starting pitchers could improve on last year's performance. Amazing!
Of course, there were hiccups. Zito is on the DL for the first time in his career, and frankly, given how close it was to his massive car accident, where he literally was seconds away from dying in the crash, I have to think that there was underlying trama that didn't manifest itself until he started to punish his body in the inhuman way that pitchers do (very unnatural motion overall). And Bumgarner was lost for his first four starts. Plus Sanchez, as nicely as he has done, he's also clearly not at the top of his game, he's not going deep into games and walking a lot of batters as well.
Still, they are our jewels. As I've been saying this season, I wouldn't be surprised if Lincecum eventually ends with an ERA under 2.00, and at worse he should have another Cy Young caliber season. He has gotten off to a great start towards that. Sanchez has been able to battle through problem areas that would have sunk him, the team, and his ERA previously. If one were to look at just his numbers, you would miss the accomplishment he did when viewed by PQS stats. Cain has been his usual steady self, and I'm hopeful that he might be able to take it up another step in 2011, after his stout performance in the playoffs after his hiccup against San Diego in his last 2010 regular season start.
Zito, well, he'll never match his salary, but as a starter in the rotation, if he can recover from his injuries well enough (assuming the accident caused multiple problems) to return to his 2009-2010 form, I think he would be a fine part of our rotation. And if you look, he gutted up and threw a 5 PQS DOM start in his first start of the season, right after the accident. I'm hoping he'll be fine once he returns. Vogelsong, meanwhile, I don't think either start is what we can expect, but something close to Zito I think is possible in the short run, before other teams catch up with him. And Bumgarner is back with a vengence, and back so completely that he had two 5 PQS starts in a row after huge struggles just trying to throw a strike.
Trading Jonathan Sanchez
Part of the difficult tasks a GM has is managing the turnover of talent in the organization, particularly in respect to free agents. As I've tried to make clear in my posts, my analysis of the draft convinces me that getting the signing team's first round draft pick plus supplemental draft is nowhere close to the value of a truly good player. First off, the odds of those picks becoming a good player is roughly less than one of six chances. That is, very lousy odds. Second of all, these picks, even if they were to develop, normally it takes 3-5 years for the player to make the majors after being drafted.
I've mentioned the trading of Sanchez and was called out for it in the comments since I've been one of the main proponents among the Giants bloggers for keeping them together. The difference now is the fact that he'll be going free agent soon, after the 2012 season and that you get more for a player when there is at least a year's worth of control over the player. And as I led off with, you don't really want draft picks for a good player.
And as I've been saying for years now, Sanchez has the abilities to be a good, maybe great, pitcher. That is why I was so adamant about not trading him, mainly because I did not expect the other team to pay value equal to as if they considered Sanchez to be a good, maybe great pitcher. He finally put it together enough last season, and I'm hoping he continues this season - so far so good.
So now is the time to start kicking the tires to see what his value in the trade market now, with the idea of trading him away sometime in the second half of 2011. I am thinking something along the lines of what the D-backs gave up to the A's for Dan Haren or what the A's gave up to the D-Rox for Matt Holliday. Those trades yielded players who were able to contribute at the major league level within 1-3 years, in COL's case, immediately with Street.
That is a much better yield in trade than getting draft picks, as it gives you prospects who are closer to the majors (or maybe in the majors already) and much more likely to be good in the majors than the picks you would get for him. Of course, negotiating an extension is a possibility, but most clients of Scott Boras typically do not agree to an extension, they make it very clear that they are going on the free agent market ASAP. That is why it is imperative to get the ball rolling by mid-season to see what value he has out there in the trade market.
Of course, battling for the title bears consideration. Obviously being around the lead for NL West is part of the equation and if we should be leading mid-season, more consideration. Also, how well Vogelsong does in place of Zito bears consideration as well. I think we can take the trade off of losing Sanchez and replacing with Vogelsong if Ryan pitches more like his first start. Furthermore, how well Eric Surkamp is doing in the minors is a strong factor as well, if he continues to dominate like this and advances to AAA by mid-season, he could be ready to move up by the end of the season, and thus Vogelsong would only need to be able to pitch well for July and August. And, of course, if no other team values him enough to give a big package of prospects, then it would be better to keep him.
So there are a lot of factors I would consider before making a trade of Sanchez for prospects. I would not make the move lightly. In addition, we don't necessarily have to trade Sanchez during the season, he could be traded in the off-season, like Matt Holliday was, and that should also yield some good value in trade was well.
What I want is Sabean to be kicking that idea around with other teams who might want a good pitcher like Sanchez either this season or in the off-season and set the grounds to make a trade quickly when the Giants are ready to pull the trigger. And if things work out positively as the scenarios I laid out above, the sooner we should consider trading him, particularly if the package is equal to or better than the trades noted above.
Sky is Falling (Again)
Giants fans all over are slobbering all over the Jose Reyes to Giants rumor, after a brief period of near zero offense. Reminds me of the same old broken record from the past few years, of their desperate need to improve the offense at all costs (that is, trading a good pitcher would solve our problems). The pitcher most are trying to ditch this time is Zack Wheeler, adding him to the long line of pitchers these Naysayers have wanted to trade in order to improve the offense: Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez. Heck, some are thinking that trading Sanchez would be worth it.
First off, it is like these people aren't aware of the current situation, that we are missing our lead-off guy who sparked many rallies last season, Andres Torres, that we are missing our re-newed Pablo Sandoval, who was knocking the pants off the ball again this season, after clearing his mind of his personal problems, and his belly of 30-40 pounds, and that the heart of our lineup, both Huff and Posey, have not been hitting up to expectations. Torres should be back by the end of the week, putting pressure on the bases up top, getting Huff and Posey better pitches, undoubtedly.
Second, these people don't realize that our payroll will get top heavy fast just with the players we have now, Lincecum and Cain will be getting huge raises, that is, if you want to keep them, but if we add Reyes and sign him to a monster contract now (and there is no reason not to once you give up Wheeler and/or Dirty), you just hurt the Giants ability to retain one of the two, most probably Lincecum. So people aren't realizing that this would mean that we are essentially trading a future Lincecum in order to get Reyes.
Third, Jose Reyes has not even been the Jose Reyes these people think of the past two seasons. He has been on the DL extensively the past two seasons, at ages 26 (basically missing most of 2009) and 27, so I have to question whether he won't be getting injured regularly once we sign him to a huge 5-6-7 year contract at $100M+. I think Hyperthyroidism is a serious internal problem, to me, a life-long issue that needs to be managed.
People also need to remember that we are near the end of a long 10 game road trip and the end of 16 road games out of 19. The Giants are 9-6 in this stretch on the road and has already assured a winning record with their win today. And they ensured at least a .500 record for the 10 games by winning today, and could end up with a winning record by sweeping the Mets.
Of course, getting swept by Atlanta at home didn't help matters, but the main things to remember is that the Giants are actually doing OK on the road in this stretch, despite the offensive hiccups, as most teams aim to be .500 on the road and win roughly 2 of 3 at home, to get into the playoffs. In 2010, only these teams ended up at or above .500 in NL: Phillies, Giants, Reds, 'Dres, though I would throw in Cubs at 40-41 in there too. The Giants were 43-38 on the road in 2010.
And as noted above, we have been missing Torres and then Sandoval out of the lineup. And whenever the Giants lose an important cog out of the lineup, it is like a gut punch, and the offense suffers, only scored 4 runs in three games after he was placed on DL. When Torres went out, only scored 1 run in each of next two games, before returning to normal. Still, after the Pittsburgh series, the offense had scored 4 or more runs in 13 out of 24 games (13-11).
In addition, it's only just a few days out of April. Waaay too soon to panic, particularly if we are around .500 after spending so many days on the road so far this season. That weighs heavily on our overall record and is why we are around .500, so we are actually in pretty good shape. What we can't do is start losing series at home against teams we should be beating.
But it is too soon to panic and we should see what the offense can do when we have Torres back in the lineup, as Pablo won't be back for another 4-6 weeks (maybe 7, as Sandoval has been tweeting 7 weeks for his return) and Mark DeRosa could take his place in a week or two. Torres is suppose to be back by the time they return home, but right now there is some worry that he might not be ready by then. But as long as we are holding our own on the road now, and winning when we get home, we will be fine.
Lincecum Franchise Leader in Double Digit Strikeout Games
Not in April but with his 12 strikeouts today against the Mets, he now has the most double digit strikeout games in the entire history of the Giants franchise. That included the former leader, Hall of Famer Christy Mathewson, former #2, Jason Schmidt, another Hall of Famer Carl Hubbell who was famous for striking out the top 3 AL hitters in an All-Star game. THE MOST. And he's hasn't even finished four full seasons with us yet.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Worried vs. Watchful: Bumgarner
I watch a Twitter feed of the term Giants and one of the conversations I saw yesterday was someone amazed by Bumgarner hitting mid-90's, as "everyone" was worried about him last season. And that got me thinking: not everyone, I was wondering, watchful and observant, maybe, but not worried. And I tweeted, not everyone, and someone said OK, 99.5% were.
I think that is where experience and knowledge comes in and allay fears. I was not worried because he said he was healthy and had been battling this issue since the middle of the prior season. In addition, Baseball America reported that they were not worried about him either, that young pitchers in their first or second season go through such a period, not necessarily a dead arm, but for some reason young players go through this issue. That alone makes me think less than 99.5% because BA is so well known and that information was surely passed around.
More importantly, to me, was that he was still very effective even though he had lost velocity, which to me was a sign he was a pitcher already, not just a thrower who relied solely on his velocity to beat hitters.
And it ended up being an issue with his mechanics. Dick Tidrow showed up like the cavalry (look at his picture and say that isn't appropriate!) and tweaked a few things and suddenly Bumgarner was good to go.
Knowledge Helps
That got me thinking of observations I've made regarding all our homegrown starting pitchers, so I thought I would share them and see if others agree or vehemently disagree or whatever, and perhaps share their observations.
Madison Bumgarner
Naturally, let's start with him. This appears to be a pattern with Madison: as much as he may throw off-season, something happens and he starts off the season a bit lost. In 2009, the reason given was that the Giants were trying to fiddle with his mechanics, as the fear back then was that his cross-body throwing motion might hurt his arm eventually. It was reported that once he went back to his form from high school, he mowed down everyone. In 2010, he had not figured out his mechanics issue yet. But his year, there was neither reason, yet he started slowly again and a bit lost. He could maybe just be a slow starter and that was masked by other things
Of course, the hard thing to remember is that he's only 21, so he's still got things to learn and will sometimes forget things. He has been so preternaturally good that one might think that he is perfect, with no flaws. Pitching is an art, and sometimes key lessons are lost and the player starts throwing instead of pitching. I think that is what has been happening with Bumgarner and so he starts off each season a little lost until he puts it all together again.
The Baseball America article noted Cliff Lee as a comp and I think that is a good example. Lee was not good immediately when he made the majors, but he was learning as he was going and once he had that figured out, look out. Bumgarner appears to have more talent, as he has been pretty good immediately but occasionally loses his way, but he's learning too, and once he gets it all together, watch out.
Matt Cain
And I think that segues nicely to Matty, the Cainer, for as well as he pitched when he joined the majors, watch out once he figured things out. His problem early on was what one could call a lack of confidence or even too much maturity. He rightly revered and respected major league hitters as being a step beyond all other hitters, but didn't quite grasp that he was not only their equal, but was generally better. If anything, he thought too much while pitching.
He showed his no-hit stuff from the beginning and frankly I thought he would be the first Giant since the Count to throw a no-hitter, as he had the stuff and the mentality to do that over a complete game. But early on, I read about how he didn't really believe in the stuff in his fastball, that was what Matt Morris noted that first season he was with the Giants, and what he was trying to drill into Cain's brain: trust your stuff. This was confirmed later by free agent hitters coming in and telling Cain about their perspective hitting against him. Instead, Matty would rather nibble at the corners and get into hitter's counts when the umpire wasn't giving him those.
That's I think where his preternatural maturity came back to bite him in the rear. Like Bumgarner, Cain came to the Giants knowing a lot about being a pitcher. Cain had gotten tutored by a former major leaguer in his hometown, and he absorbed everything well. So well that he pitched like a mature, wily pitcher instead of a young stud with a heater and stuff daring the batter to try to hit his stuff. And that would get him in trouble when the umpire wasn't giving him the corner, and he would walk too many batters.
But as one can observe of his career, he made progress in steps. His first full season was a matter of first getting used to being a major leaguer. His first half was pretty bad until his turn was skipped and he took a deep breath and calmed down a bit. OK, a lot, he threw a complete game shutout of the A's in his next start. After that, he compiled a 3.69 ERA, which was about what he accomplished in 2007 and 2008. He then took his next step, and had a much lower ERA, which he has done since then.
One can see the progress, generally forward, but as he was learning, a bit of two steps forward and one back occasionally, as one can see from his PQS stats. His DOM%/DIS% in the first half of 2006 was 38%/38% (remember, DOM% of 40%+ is good, 50%+ is great, 70%+ elite; DIS% of under 20% is good, under 10% elite), but in the second half 67%/7%. In 2007, he was up and down, H1 was 53%/12%, H2 60%/27%. In 2008, H1 60%/10%, H2 50%/7%. In 2009, H1 61%/11%, H2 60%/7%, his first season he had above 60% DOM in both halves. In 2010, H1 50%/6%, H2 87%/7%, his first season he had below 10% DIS in both halves, which is actually more key in delivering a lower ERA consistently, as it is the blowout disaster starts that really kill a pitcher's ERA. A pitcher can deliver a decent ERA even if he doesn't get a lot of DOM starts as long as he can avoid the DIS starts as well.
Jonathan Sanchez
Dirty is a good example of how the maturity of both Bumgarner and Cain is so rare, most pitchers are like him in many ways, except that Sanchez has stuff that hitters cannot hit at all. His problem has been his mind and learning to become a pitcher rather than a thrower. But what a thrower he is!
Chez is a good example of TINSTAAPP: There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. Everyone knows what that means - either you are good enough or you are not, there is no prospect - but many don't realize the corollary of that is that once a pitcher is ready, the clock is ticking on his effectiveness and longevity, so you don't want to waste his arm down in the minors. That is why TINSTAAPP theory supports the Giants putting him in the bullpen to start his major league career and keep him there until they thought he was ready to start.
His problem has always been the big inning. Once things didn't go his way, he crumbled. He, to use the terms of the Malcolm Gladwell article on choking, switched between implicit and explicit learning, or from muscle memory to thinking about the motion. When you see great athletes "choke" in pressure situations, they are thinking about the motion, which brings you back to where you were when you were first learning the motion, rather than relying on muscle memory, which is honed by all your practice. I think that is what has been causing his big innings, he can coast along on muscle memory when everything is fine, he pitches as fine as he has the past year, but once things go bad, then he reverts to something closer to his first two seasons in the majors, 2006-2007.
People don't remember, but Sanchez actually had a very good first season as a starter in 2008, at least until he ran out of stamina. He had an ERA under 4.00 as late as July 9th and good starts to his July 4th start: up to that point, his DOM% was 56%, his DIS% was 17%. Not only that, but after his early season struggles, he strung together a 10 start streak with 8 DOM starts and no DIS starts, which is elite of the elite if one could do that over a season, compiling a 3.23 ERA during that period. Then his stamina ran out and his season was downhill starting with his July 9th start. But his early season dominance was why I though 2009 was going to be his breakout year. But his mind got in his way.
2009 was the year of his no-hitter but that was marred by his horrible performance prior to that no-hitter, which was due to a unfortunate case of hero worship. That season, he participated in the WBC and got to pitch with his idol, Johan Santana. He liked Johan's mechanics which he copied in honor of his hero. Unfortunately, mechanics that works great for someone of Johan's shorter height don't work so well for someone taller like Dirty. He was horrible until the Giants took him out a start and perhaps he was ready to hear what they had to say, but like Cain, came out blazing, outdoing Cainer by throwing his first complete game, his no-hitter. He compiled a 3.46 ERA for the rest of the season.
That's why I wasn't too surprised by his 2010, he had shown the potential to do well with his ERA if he were able to focus and take his considerable talent and stuff and shut the other teams down. He finally put it mostly all together in 2010. I think that his being able to work with Randy Johnson in 2009 was invaluable in getting his head better together as well, based on the comments I've seen from Randy, Sanchez, and other Giants.
Still, there are areas of potential improvement for 2011. His PQS shows his potential and progression. In 2008, H1 he had a great 53%/21% but in H2 it was only 30%/50%. In 2009, H1 he had his horrible first half, 21%/36%, but in H2 60%/13%. In 2010, H1 he only had 33%/22% but that just shows how powerful it is to avoid disaster starts, and in H2 he had 67%/13%.
If he can put together a great first half and second half, he could start reaching the heights that Lincecum and Cain has. So far this season he has 2 DOM starts in 5, for a 40%/0% ratio and 3.21 ERA. Again, the power of not giving up a disaster start, looks like a great start for Dirty in 2011.
Tim Lincecum
As good as Bumgarner might get or Sanchez is getting close to getting or Cain is right now, Lincecum is the gold standard for the Giants rotation. But even he has had bumps in the road and areas of growth.
A common repeatable pattern is that when the Franchise is doing something significant for the first time, he gets over amped and overpitches, unable to control and locate his pitches. His first start in the minors, his first start in major league spring training, his first start in the majors, his first start as opening day starter, I think even his first start as home opening day starter, and his first start in the World Series. The only one I can think of where he excelled was his first playoff start, against Atlanta, where he was spectacular, though I would put an asterisk next to that one because he had essentially spend the month of September fighting to get to the next round of the playoffs.
And, of course, there were his "lost" months, of which he has not had many, so they are notable, and he wasn't really lost the whole month but for 3 starts in the month. His first one was in June 2007, his second month in the majors. That was the first time he ever had 3 disaster starts in a row, his confidence was down and he started overthrowing and trying to throw harder when he should lay off and focus on locating his pitches. The Giants did not skip a start to get him straighten out and he was able to get out of it himself.
And that is one thing many fans don't get, which is the nuance of how much rope the Giants give prospects and young players. The problem is that the players the fans get upset about are the ones who really aren't that good and so they get less rope. Or they don't realize that if the player has shown ability in the majors, he gets more rope.
Cain got to mid-May but that was his first full season and he did well in an extended audition the season before. So did Travis Ishikawa. Sanchez got to June, but he had shown good ability the season before and thus got more rope. Lincecum got a lot more rope due to how well he did after his first start, but had his bad streak lasted much longer, they might have finally yanked him. Just like how Pablo Sandoval got all last season before Bochy took him out in the playoffs.
Meanwhile Brandon Belt didn't get a long rope as he hadn't shown success in the majors before. And the same goes for all the other Giants prospects that fans cried didn't get a chance. And in Belt's case, the mitigating factor was that it was clear that the only way Aubrey Huff and he could co-exist on the major league roster was if Huff started at 1B and Belt in the OF. So they went ahead and sent him down to start that transition immediately rather than let him figure things out up here with the bat.
Back to Big Time Timmy Jim, he then had another bad stretch in May of 2010, when he had three bad starts, for a 8.22 ERA, before straightening out. Four if you count the start before that streak, as that was four straight starts with 5 walks, but he limited the damage in that start. Then he had another bad stretch in August of 2010, another three bad starts, 10.38 ERA.
And that's it. We are so blessed to have him heading up our starting rotation. For all people can complain about Sabean, they are just looking for the negatives, he has hit grand slams frequently, with Jeff Kent, Jason Schmidt, and now Lincecum (and Cain, Posey, Sandoval, and Bumgarner could soon join the list), which is how a team dominates. And how the Giants can dominate in the playoffs.
Lincecum and Cain makes an incredible 1-2 punch in the playoffs, aces 1A and 1B. Cain could probably take on almost any other team's ace, yet Lincecum is better than that and takes care of that ace, while Cain then handles that team's #2, who is usually not ace level. Then we got Sanchez, who when he is on is capable of ace-worthy status. And once Bumgarner matures and develops more, we might have another ace on par with Lincecum (only 21, remember).
In addition, as I've noted before, I expect Lincecum to take another step up this season over his Cy Young seasons in terms of PQS. With a slider to handle left-handed batters to go with his changeup/cutter that handles right-handed batters, plus his fastballs that neither can handle when mixed in right, Lincecum should be dominant in a way that he hadn't been even in his Cy Young years, so I wouldn't be surprised if his ERA was under 2.00, though I wouldn't bet on it either.
And he was basically 80%/6% in those seasons. He is 80%/0% so far this season and only 2 outs away from 100% DOM. However, his last start hopefully was an anomaly in that it was his first start ever to have 6 walks. Something to watch and monitor.
Tiene Tejada?
Per Kevin's comment, I'll address a few player questions, starting with Miguel Tejada. If he were a young prospect, the fans would probably be all over him: very low K-rate, 8.1%, OK walk-rate, 5.8%, low but OK BB/K ratio as that is actually high for his career, as his walk rate is near his career (5.8% vs. 6.2%) while his K-rate is improved (8.1% vs. 11.7%). That's excellent plate discipline. His extra-base hits per hit is 38% vs. MLB average of 34%, though he's not hitting as many homers as before, by large margin, though I would note players need time to get used to AT&T as a park to hit in. And his BABIP is .203 vs. a career .295 BABIP and .300 for his three prior seasons. And he has had a bad start like this before in 2003, even worse numbers overall,
He appears to be suffering from a severe case of bad luck with the BABIP, resulting in his current woes, and that appears to be due to a high ratio of ground-balls and a severe drop in line-drives.
Meanwhile, Brandon Belt struck out 21.7% of the time, which is very high, way below average (MLB average is 18.7%), but which is mitigated by his high walk rate. However, that walk rate is still not good enough, that is still a very low contact rate. Also, his extra-base hit ratio is only 20%, which is probably due to a very high amount of ground balls, with a 1.44 GB/FB ratio, even though his line drive percentage is actually good at 18%. In addition, that extreme groundball slant is worsen by the fact that a large percentage of his flyballs were actually infield fly balls, at 19%.
Thus far, Tejada looks like the better bet to come out of his funk, he is still not getting fooled much by pitches, he's able to make contact with them and hit them somewhere. And when he connects, he's still getting extra-base hits like he was before, only now they are falling for doubles rather than homers.
Oddly enough, looking at splits, he's actually hit well in SF, .276/.333/.414/.747, with 1 homer, while a poor .157/.185/.235/.420 on the road. It don't help that 34 of his 54 PA (63%, nearly two-thirds) were in pitchers parks (LA, SD) or a park that hurts right-handers HR power (PIT). Then he didn't hit in hitters parks at COL and ARI. However, he probably won't warm up offensively at either Washington (little below average for RHB) or NY Mets (much below average for RHB HR power). His next chance to warm up on the road is against the Cubs then Rockies in mid-May.
Very Vogelsong
What a nice start for Ryan Vogelsong today! Pretty much what I was hoping for given how he dominated hitters in AAA then in relief in the majors: 5.2 IP, 4 hits and 2 walks, with 8 K's and 2 ER/R. That is a 4 PQS start, a DOM start, and he was only one out away from a 5 PQS. But at 99 pitches in his first start, it was time to take him out. He now has this nice stat line: 10.1 IP, 7 hits and 2 walks, with 11 K's and 2 ER/R.
At 33 YO, this is a dream start to a dream season for him as he wanted to return back to the Giants, which he repeated noted in various interviews during spring training. He loved being here and the people here, so when he signed, he didn't ask for a out option to leave the Giants should he not make the majors: he was where he wanted to be, he said multiple times.
Of course, this was still the Pirates, owner of the second worse offense so far this season in the NL. He will get a better test in his next start against the Mets in NY, then the D-Rox in SF, his first home start.
I would have still preferred to pitch him on Wednesday and Bumgarner today. That would have put him in line to start in Washington next, owner of third worse offense, instead of the Mets, then the rest of the starts would be the same team until the end of May, where he now faces St. Louis instead of Milwaukee.
I still worry about what happens to Vogelsong when Zito returns. Clearly, Zito would regain his spot in the rotation. Then what happens to Vogelsong? I don't think the Giants can send him back to AAA without passing him through waivers, but I don't know those rules well enough to know for sure, just my guess. However, by then, he might earn the long-relief role that Guillermo Mota has. They could always send Dan Runzler down and shift Mota to short-relief. Though Runzler has actually done pretty well if you look at his stats other than R/ER: 10 K's in 11.0 IP, only 9 hits and 4 walks, no homers. Oh, but also, Santiago Casilla would have returned by then, and that would probably result in Runzler going down at that point, so it could become a case of Mota vs. Vogelsong in terms of who to release.
Really Rowand
After his nice game, he's hitting .286/.329/.455/.784, with 8 RBI in 77 AB, 21 games. High BABIP of .350, so unsustainable, though he did keep that up one season long ago at .345. Plus, it balances out against his very low .263 BABIP last season, and his career BABIP is .317, so he don't have as much to fall as other hitters, as the average BABIP is around .300.
His K-rate of 20.8 is in line with his career with the Giants so far, though his walk rate is down. But his extra-base hit ratio is up, as his line drive percentage is at a high 23%. However, he has a low HR/FB ratio of 3.7% vs. career 8.8%.
His peripherals overall, though, look like they would fit in with any other April he has had in his career as a starter. And in recent seasons, his BABIP of .350 would fit right in, very close (.414, .413, .333, .333). As I've noted before, an injury seems to be the key to knocking Rowand off the rails, resulting in poor batting performances that bring down his overall seasonal totals. His Aprils with SF are actually among his best Aprils in his career, other than the career year he had before he joined the Giants.
Superb Sandoval
Lastly, a look at the Round Mound of Pound, Kung Fu Panda himself, Pablo Sandoval. As I noted in the last post, his no-doubt homers look to be back in 2009 form, not 2010. If you look at his peripherals, he looks about the same. He's actually striking out a little more while also taking more walks, but his BB/K ratio is about the same, a little low though. He is showing more plate discipline, with 3.64 Pitches/PA so that explains why he's getting more strikeouts and walks, as he is making it deeper into counts now.
He's still not getting as many extra-base hits, but when he does connect, they are going for homers, which means that this high 15% HR/FB ratio probably will fall as we go deeper into the season. He's hitting a lot more flyballs than ground balls, as well as more line drives, so he's clearly hitting the ball better than he was in 2010 and for more power, so far.
All in all, he is roughly matching his 2009 season, with a .325/.386/.550/.936 batting line (vs. .330/.387/.556/.943 in 2009) and his BABIP is also basically the same as well, at .344 (vs. .350 BABIP in 2009).
I still think he's back, though I understand the skepticism of the doubters, it is only one month. But there are qualitative factors, like power returning, as shown by the no-doubters, to his 2009 standards, and his peripherals being in line with career norms and thus the question as to what his true career BABIP is.
2010 looks like the outlier. So far, 2011 is in line with his 2009 results, and not his 2010. In fact, it is similar to his numbers in 2008 when he first came up, except the power is missing, but it appears that he is making the traditional tradeoff between power and strikeouts: he is striking out more but hitting more homers. If you look at his BABIP, 2010 is the season that sticks out as not belonging in his career numbers. Meanwhile his peripherals have been the same each season, within range of each other and normal fluctuations.
And fortunately he is delivering. Both Aubrey Huff and Buster Posey were expected to provide more hitting than they have so far. That should improve as Huff has been exhibiting the same peripherals in terms of walks and strikeouts as he has during his career, his main big problem is his very poor BABIP. Posey, on the other hand, is striking out a lot more, plus is suffering from a low BABIP vs. last season. His line drive percentage is down as well. But as I noted, the Giants have been playing in parts that affect RHB's power more. Hopefully it is just a matter of there being so many road parks tough on RHB so far, though he's having the opposite problem than Tejada, he's been very good on the road while very bad at home so far.
Burriss Back as DeRosa DLs
Unsurprising given the lack of playing time and the scratched start due to wrist soreness, Mark DeRosa went on the DL to rest his wrist, per the recommendation of the surgeon who operated on his wrist. The part operated on is fine but for some reason the tissue surrounding it is inflamed. DeRosa chose to bite the bullet and go on the DL rather than leave Bochy shorthanded many days (I wish Durham would have had enough sense to do that).
DeRosa is such a team player and good example for young players, maybe he can come back as a coach for us some day. Meanwhile maybe he'll be willing to accept a low deal in the $1-2M range to come back in 2012 and be a super-utility guy, assuming his wrist returns to normal by mid-season and he has a normal batting line for his career. When healthy and hitting, he's a very valuable cog on the bench of any team hoping to make hay in the playoffs.
To replace DeRosa, Emmanuel Burriss was called up. Now 26, after two injury plagued seasons that stole valuable development time away from him, he was hitting .344 with a .423 OBP, per Andy Baggerly's notes in the newspaper. Manny has 15 steals (3 CS) in 16 games, which is more steals than 11 AAA teams had at the moment. It was also reported by Bochy that the reports on Manny were positive both defensively as well as offensively, which is good because part of his value is that he is suppose to be very good defensively at 2B and adequate at SS.
He also saw time in the OF in AAA this season, as the Giants organizational focus on creating flexibility via players who can play more than 1-2 positions continue. He, Rohlinger, Neal, and I think Gillaspie too, have played a number of positions in AAA so far this season, and Belt will be adding LF and RF to 1B.
Unlike others, I like Burriss as a hitter and think if given time and development he can be at least average. He has very good command of the bat, he has not struck out that much in the majors so far, which is a very hard to do in the majors. That plus good defense at 2B or average defense at SS, plus being a good basestealer, would provide good value on the Giants roster.
He has two major problems. First is that he don't walk. Second is that he don't hit for power. He is basically like Juan Pierre, so there is value there, only it is severely limited by these two problems. I don't expect him to figure out the walking part, and frankly with his speed and command of the bat, he should have adequate OBP due to a high BABIP coupled with a low strikeout rate.
His bigger problem is his inability to hit for any power at all. Practically zero in the majors, given his 55 career ISO in the minors. He was one of the guys who chased away Carney Lansford from the Giants. He has strong arms and thus the strength to hit for more power, which Carney was trying to get him to do, but basically he was taught to slap at the ball the way Andres Torres was taught.
He probably needs to go through the Giants new video system training program to change his batting mechanics, like Belt and Noonan, so that he can be more like Andres Torres and hit line drives, but he should have been working on that the past season while he was out, plus off-season, and be ready out of the box this season. But looking at his stats so far in AAA this season, he has a minor uptick in power, so it is not encouraging so far.
Until he solves this, he's going to be a fringe player like Torres was until he changed his batting mechanics using the Ted Williams methods taught in his book, Science of Hitting. Because of his speed and defense, and ability to play multiple positions, he'll probably hang around as a bench player for a number of seasons. If he wants to be a starter, he needs to figure out how to hit for more power. I mean, he makes Juan Pierre look like a power hitter in comparison.
Which would be too bad, Gary Brown and him 1/2 in the lineup, ahead of Belt, Posey, Sandoval, would be quite a good offense, and the Giants might then be able to handle Brandon Crawford or Ehire Adrianza at SS solely for defense.
I think that is where experience and knowledge comes in and allay fears. I was not worried because he said he was healthy and had been battling this issue since the middle of the prior season. In addition, Baseball America reported that they were not worried about him either, that young pitchers in their first or second season go through such a period, not necessarily a dead arm, but for some reason young players go through this issue. That alone makes me think less than 99.5% because BA is so well known and that information was surely passed around.
More importantly, to me, was that he was still very effective even though he had lost velocity, which to me was a sign he was a pitcher already, not just a thrower who relied solely on his velocity to beat hitters.
And it ended up being an issue with his mechanics. Dick Tidrow showed up like the cavalry (look at his picture and say that isn't appropriate!) and tweaked a few things and suddenly Bumgarner was good to go.
Knowledge Helps
That got me thinking of observations I've made regarding all our homegrown starting pitchers, so I thought I would share them and see if others agree or vehemently disagree or whatever, and perhaps share their observations.
Madison Bumgarner
Naturally, let's start with him. This appears to be a pattern with Madison: as much as he may throw off-season, something happens and he starts off the season a bit lost. In 2009, the reason given was that the Giants were trying to fiddle with his mechanics, as the fear back then was that his cross-body throwing motion might hurt his arm eventually. It was reported that once he went back to his form from high school, he mowed down everyone. In 2010, he had not figured out his mechanics issue yet. But his year, there was neither reason, yet he started slowly again and a bit lost. He could maybe just be a slow starter and that was masked by other things
Of course, the hard thing to remember is that he's only 21, so he's still got things to learn and will sometimes forget things. He has been so preternaturally good that one might think that he is perfect, with no flaws. Pitching is an art, and sometimes key lessons are lost and the player starts throwing instead of pitching. I think that is what has been happening with Bumgarner and so he starts off each season a little lost until he puts it all together again.
The Baseball America article noted Cliff Lee as a comp and I think that is a good example. Lee was not good immediately when he made the majors, but he was learning as he was going and once he had that figured out, look out. Bumgarner appears to have more talent, as he has been pretty good immediately but occasionally loses his way, but he's learning too, and once he gets it all together, watch out.
Matt Cain
And I think that segues nicely to Matty, the Cainer, for as well as he pitched when he joined the majors, watch out once he figured things out. His problem early on was what one could call a lack of confidence or even too much maturity. He rightly revered and respected major league hitters as being a step beyond all other hitters, but didn't quite grasp that he was not only their equal, but was generally better. If anything, he thought too much while pitching.
He showed his no-hit stuff from the beginning and frankly I thought he would be the first Giant since the Count to throw a no-hitter, as he had the stuff and the mentality to do that over a complete game. But early on, I read about how he didn't really believe in the stuff in his fastball, that was what Matt Morris noted that first season he was with the Giants, and what he was trying to drill into Cain's brain: trust your stuff. This was confirmed later by free agent hitters coming in and telling Cain about their perspective hitting against him. Instead, Matty would rather nibble at the corners and get into hitter's counts when the umpire wasn't giving him those.
That's I think where his preternatural maturity came back to bite him in the rear. Like Bumgarner, Cain came to the Giants knowing a lot about being a pitcher. Cain had gotten tutored by a former major leaguer in his hometown, and he absorbed everything well. So well that he pitched like a mature, wily pitcher instead of a young stud with a heater and stuff daring the batter to try to hit his stuff. And that would get him in trouble when the umpire wasn't giving him the corner, and he would walk too many batters.
But as one can observe of his career, he made progress in steps. His first full season was a matter of first getting used to being a major leaguer. His first half was pretty bad until his turn was skipped and he took a deep breath and calmed down a bit. OK, a lot, he threw a complete game shutout of the A's in his next start. After that, he compiled a 3.69 ERA, which was about what he accomplished in 2007 and 2008. He then took his next step, and had a much lower ERA, which he has done since then.
One can see the progress, generally forward, but as he was learning, a bit of two steps forward and one back occasionally, as one can see from his PQS stats. His DOM%/DIS% in the first half of 2006 was 38%/38% (remember, DOM% of 40%+ is good, 50%+ is great, 70%+ elite; DIS% of under 20% is good, under 10% elite), but in the second half 67%/7%. In 2007, he was up and down, H1 was 53%/12%, H2 60%/27%. In 2008, H1 60%/10%, H2 50%/7%. In 2009, H1 61%/11%, H2 60%/7%, his first season he had above 60% DOM in both halves. In 2010, H1 50%/6%, H2 87%/7%, his first season he had below 10% DIS in both halves, which is actually more key in delivering a lower ERA consistently, as it is the blowout disaster starts that really kill a pitcher's ERA. A pitcher can deliver a decent ERA even if he doesn't get a lot of DOM starts as long as he can avoid the DIS starts as well.
Jonathan Sanchez
Dirty is a good example of how the maturity of both Bumgarner and Cain is so rare, most pitchers are like him in many ways, except that Sanchez has stuff that hitters cannot hit at all. His problem has been his mind and learning to become a pitcher rather than a thrower. But what a thrower he is!
Chez is a good example of TINSTAAPP: There Is No Such Thing As A Pitching Prospect. Everyone knows what that means - either you are good enough or you are not, there is no prospect - but many don't realize the corollary of that is that once a pitcher is ready, the clock is ticking on his effectiveness and longevity, so you don't want to waste his arm down in the minors. That is why TINSTAAPP theory supports the Giants putting him in the bullpen to start his major league career and keep him there until they thought he was ready to start.
His problem has always been the big inning. Once things didn't go his way, he crumbled. He, to use the terms of the Malcolm Gladwell article on choking, switched between implicit and explicit learning, or from muscle memory to thinking about the motion. When you see great athletes "choke" in pressure situations, they are thinking about the motion, which brings you back to where you were when you were first learning the motion, rather than relying on muscle memory, which is honed by all your practice. I think that is what has been causing his big innings, he can coast along on muscle memory when everything is fine, he pitches as fine as he has the past year, but once things go bad, then he reverts to something closer to his first two seasons in the majors, 2006-2007.
People don't remember, but Sanchez actually had a very good first season as a starter in 2008, at least until he ran out of stamina. He had an ERA under 4.00 as late as July 9th and good starts to his July 4th start: up to that point, his DOM% was 56%, his DIS% was 17%. Not only that, but after his early season struggles, he strung together a 10 start streak with 8 DOM starts and no DIS starts, which is elite of the elite if one could do that over a season, compiling a 3.23 ERA during that period. Then his stamina ran out and his season was downhill starting with his July 9th start. But his early season dominance was why I though 2009 was going to be his breakout year. But his mind got in his way.
2009 was the year of his no-hitter but that was marred by his horrible performance prior to that no-hitter, which was due to a unfortunate case of hero worship. That season, he participated in the WBC and got to pitch with his idol, Johan Santana. He liked Johan's mechanics which he copied in honor of his hero. Unfortunately, mechanics that works great for someone of Johan's shorter height don't work so well for someone taller like Dirty. He was horrible until the Giants took him out a start and perhaps he was ready to hear what they had to say, but like Cain, came out blazing, outdoing Cainer by throwing his first complete game, his no-hitter. He compiled a 3.46 ERA for the rest of the season.
That's why I wasn't too surprised by his 2010, he had shown the potential to do well with his ERA if he were able to focus and take his considerable talent and stuff and shut the other teams down. He finally put it mostly all together in 2010. I think that his being able to work with Randy Johnson in 2009 was invaluable in getting his head better together as well, based on the comments I've seen from Randy, Sanchez, and other Giants.
Still, there are areas of potential improvement for 2011. His PQS shows his potential and progression. In 2008, H1 he had a great 53%/21% but in H2 it was only 30%/50%. In 2009, H1 he had his horrible first half, 21%/36%, but in H2 60%/13%. In 2010, H1 he only had 33%/22% but that just shows how powerful it is to avoid disaster starts, and in H2 he had 67%/13%.
If he can put together a great first half and second half, he could start reaching the heights that Lincecum and Cain has. So far this season he has 2 DOM starts in 5, for a 40%/0% ratio and 3.21 ERA. Again, the power of not giving up a disaster start, looks like a great start for Dirty in 2011.
Tim Lincecum
As good as Bumgarner might get or Sanchez is getting close to getting or Cain is right now, Lincecum is the gold standard for the Giants rotation. But even he has had bumps in the road and areas of growth.
A common repeatable pattern is that when the Franchise is doing something significant for the first time, he gets over amped and overpitches, unable to control and locate his pitches. His first start in the minors, his first start in major league spring training, his first start in the majors, his first start as opening day starter, I think even his first start as home opening day starter, and his first start in the World Series. The only one I can think of where he excelled was his first playoff start, against Atlanta, where he was spectacular, though I would put an asterisk next to that one because he had essentially spend the month of September fighting to get to the next round of the playoffs.
And, of course, there were his "lost" months, of which he has not had many, so they are notable, and he wasn't really lost the whole month but for 3 starts in the month. His first one was in June 2007, his second month in the majors. That was the first time he ever had 3 disaster starts in a row, his confidence was down and he started overthrowing and trying to throw harder when he should lay off and focus on locating his pitches. The Giants did not skip a start to get him straighten out and he was able to get out of it himself.
And that is one thing many fans don't get, which is the nuance of how much rope the Giants give prospects and young players. The problem is that the players the fans get upset about are the ones who really aren't that good and so they get less rope. Or they don't realize that if the player has shown ability in the majors, he gets more rope.
Cain got to mid-May but that was his first full season and he did well in an extended audition the season before. So did Travis Ishikawa. Sanchez got to June, but he had shown good ability the season before and thus got more rope. Lincecum got a lot more rope due to how well he did after his first start, but had his bad streak lasted much longer, they might have finally yanked him. Just like how Pablo Sandoval got all last season before Bochy took him out in the playoffs.
Meanwhile Brandon Belt didn't get a long rope as he hadn't shown success in the majors before. And the same goes for all the other Giants prospects that fans cried didn't get a chance. And in Belt's case, the mitigating factor was that it was clear that the only way Aubrey Huff and he could co-exist on the major league roster was if Huff started at 1B and Belt in the OF. So they went ahead and sent him down to start that transition immediately rather than let him figure things out up here with the bat.
Back to Big Time Timmy Jim, he then had another bad stretch in May of 2010, when he had three bad starts, for a 8.22 ERA, before straightening out. Four if you count the start before that streak, as that was four straight starts with 5 walks, but he limited the damage in that start. Then he had another bad stretch in August of 2010, another three bad starts, 10.38 ERA.
And that's it. We are so blessed to have him heading up our starting rotation. For all people can complain about Sabean, they are just looking for the negatives, he has hit grand slams frequently, with Jeff Kent, Jason Schmidt, and now Lincecum (and Cain, Posey, Sandoval, and Bumgarner could soon join the list), which is how a team dominates. And how the Giants can dominate in the playoffs.
Lincecum and Cain makes an incredible 1-2 punch in the playoffs, aces 1A and 1B. Cain could probably take on almost any other team's ace, yet Lincecum is better than that and takes care of that ace, while Cain then handles that team's #2, who is usually not ace level. Then we got Sanchez, who when he is on is capable of ace-worthy status. And once Bumgarner matures and develops more, we might have another ace on par with Lincecum (only 21, remember).
In addition, as I've noted before, I expect Lincecum to take another step up this season over his Cy Young seasons in terms of PQS. With a slider to handle left-handed batters to go with his changeup/cutter that handles right-handed batters, plus his fastballs that neither can handle when mixed in right, Lincecum should be dominant in a way that he hadn't been even in his Cy Young years, so I wouldn't be surprised if his ERA was under 2.00, though I wouldn't bet on it either.
And he was basically 80%/6% in those seasons. He is 80%/0% so far this season and only 2 outs away from 100% DOM. However, his last start hopefully was an anomaly in that it was his first start ever to have 6 walks. Something to watch and monitor.
Tiene Tejada?
Per Kevin's comment, I'll address a few player questions, starting with Miguel Tejada. If he were a young prospect, the fans would probably be all over him: very low K-rate, 8.1%, OK walk-rate, 5.8%, low but OK BB/K ratio as that is actually high for his career, as his walk rate is near his career (5.8% vs. 6.2%) while his K-rate is improved (8.1% vs. 11.7%). That's excellent plate discipline. His extra-base hits per hit is 38% vs. MLB average of 34%, though he's not hitting as many homers as before, by large margin, though I would note players need time to get used to AT&T as a park to hit in. And his BABIP is .203 vs. a career .295 BABIP and .300 for his three prior seasons. And he has had a bad start like this before in 2003, even worse numbers overall,
He appears to be suffering from a severe case of bad luck with the BABIP, resulting in his current woes, and that appears to be due to a high ratio of ground-balls and a severe drop in line-drives.
Meanwhile, Brandon Belt struck out 21.7% of the time, which is very high, way below average (MLB average is 18.7%), but which is mitigated by his high walk rate. However, that walk rate is still not good enough, that is still a very low contact rate. Also, his extra-base hit ratio is only 20%, which is probably due to a very high amount of ground balls, with a 1.44 GB/FB ratio, even though his line drive percentage is actually good at 18%. In addition, that extreme groundball slant is worsen by the fact that a large percentage of his flyballs were actually infield fly balls, at 19%.
Thus far, Tejada looks like the better bet to come out of his funk, he is still not getting fooled much by pitches, he's able to make contact with them and hit them somewhere. And when he connects, he's still getting extra-base hits like he was before, only now they are falling for doubles rather than homers.
Oddly enough, looking at splits, he's actually hit well in SF, .276/.333/.414/.747, with 1 homer, while a poor .157/.185/.235/.420 on the road. It don't help that 34 of his 54 PA (63%, nearly two-thirds) were in pitchers parks (LA, SD) or a park that hurts right-handers HR power (PIT). Then he didn't hit in hitters parks at COL and ARI. However, he probably won't warm up offensively at either Washington (little below average for RHB) or NY Mets (much below average for RHB HR power). His next chance to warm up on the road is against the Cubs then Rockies in mid-May.
Very Vogelsong
What a nice start for Ryan Vogelsong today! Pretty much what I was hoping for given how he dominated hitters in AAA then in relief in the majors: 5.2 IP, 4 hits and 2 walks, with 8 K's and 2 ER/R. That is a 4 PQS start, a DOM start, and he was only one out away from a 5 PQS. But at 99 pitches in his first start, it was time to take him out. He now has this nice stat line: 10.1 IP, 7 hits and 2 walks, with 11 K's and 2 ER/R.
At 33 YO, this is a dream start to a dream season for him as he wanted to return back to the Giants, which he repeated noted in various interviews during spring training. He loved being here and the people here, so when he signed, he didn't ask for a out option to leave the Giants should he not make the majors: he was where he wanted to be, he said multiple times.
Of course, this was still the Pirates, owner of the second worse offense so far this season in the NL. He will get a better test in his next start against the Mets in NY, then the D-Rox in SF, his first home start.
I would have still preferred to pitch him on Wednesday and Bumgarner today. That would have put him in line to start in Washington next, owner of third worse offense, instead of the Mets, then the rest of the starts would be the same team until the end of May, where he now faces St. Louis instead of Milwaukee.
I still worry about what happens to Vogelsong when Zito returns. Clearly, Zito would regain his spot in the rotation. Then what happens to Vogelsong? I don't think the Giants can send him back to AAA without passing him through waivers, but I don't know those rules well enough to know for sure, just my guess. However, by then, he might earn the long-relief role that Guillermo Mota has. They could always send Dan Runzler down and shift Mota to short-relief. Though Runzler has actually done pretty well if you look at his stats other than R/ER: 10 K's in 11.0 IP, only 9 hits and 4 walks, no homers. Oh, but also, Santiago Casilla would have returned by then, and that would probably result in Runzler going down at that point, so it could become a case of Mota vs. Vogelsong in terms of who to release.
Really Rowand
After his nice game, he's hitting .286/.329/.455/.784, with 8 RBI in 77 AB, 21 games. High BABIP of .350, so unsustainable, though he did keep that up one season long ago at .345. Plus, it balances out against his very low .263 BABIP last season, and his career BABIP is .317, so he don't have as much to fall as other hitters, as the average BABIP is around .300.
His K-rate of 20.8 is in line with his career with the Giants so far, though his walk rate is down. But his extra-base hit ratio is up, as his line drive percentage is at a high 23%. However, he has a low HR/FB ratio of 3.7% vs. career 8.8%.
His peripherals overall, though, look like they would fit in with any other April he has had in his career as a starter. And in recent seasons, his BABIP of .350 would fit right in, very close (.414, .413, .333, .333). As I've noted before, an injury seems to be the key to knocking Rowand off the rails, resulting in poor batting performances that bring down his overall seasonal totals. His Aprils with SF are actually among his best Aprils in his career, other than the career year he had before he joined the Giants.
Superb Sandoval
Lastly, a look at the Round Mound of Pound, Kung Fu Panda himself, Pablo Sandoval. As I noted in the last post, his no-doubt homers look to be back in 2009 form, not 2010. If you look at his peripherals, he looks about the same. He's actually striking out a little more while also taking more walks, but his BB/K ratio is about the same, a little low though. He is showing more plate discipline, with 3.64 Pitches/PA so that explains why he's getting more strikeouts and walks, as he is making it deeper into counts now.
He's still not getting as many extra-base hits, but when he does connect, they are going for homers, which means that this high 15% HR/FB ratio probably will fall as we go deeper into the season. He's hitting a lot more flyballs than ground balls, as well as more line drives, so he's clearly hitting the ball better than he was in 2010 and for more power, so far.
All in all, he is roughly matching his 2009 season, with a .325/.386/.550/.936 batting line (vs. .330/.387/.556/.943 in 2009) and his BABIP is also basically the same as well, at .344 (vs. .350 BABIP in 2009).
I still think he's back, though I understand the skepticism of the doubters, it is only one month. But there are qualitative factors, like power returning, as shown by the no-doubters, to his 2009 standards, and his peripherals being in line with career norms and thus the question as to what his true career BABIP is.
2010 looks like the outlier. So far, 2011 is in line with his 2009 results, and not his 2010. In fact, it is similar to his numbers in 2008 when he first came up, except the power is missing, but it appears that he is making the traditional tradeoff between power and strikeouts: he is striking out more but hitting more homers. If you look at his BABIP, 2010 is the season that sticks out as not belonging in his career numbers. Meanwhile his peripherals have been the same each season, within range of each other and normal fluctuations.
And fortunately he is delivering. Both Aubrey Huff and Buster Posey were expected to provide more hitting than they have so far. That should improve as Huff has been exhibiting the same peripherals in terms of walks and strikeouts as he has during his career, his main big problem is his very poor BABIP. Posey, on the other hand, is striking out a lot more, plus is suffering from a low BABIP vs. last season. His line drive percentage is down as well. But as I noted, the Giants have been playing in parts that affect RHB's power more. Hopefully it is just a matter of there being so many road parks tough on RHB so far, though he's having the opposite problem than Tejada, he's been very good on the road while very bad at home so far.
Burriss Back as DeRosa DLs
Unsurprising given the lack of playing time and the scratched start due to wrist soreness, Mark DeRosa went on the DL to rest his wrist, per the recommendation of the surgeon who operated on his wrist. The part operated on is fine but for some reason the tissue surrounding it is inflamed. DeRosa chose to bite the bullet and go on the DL rather than leave Bochy shorthanded many days (I wish Durham would have had enough sense to do that).
DeRosa is such a team player and good example for young players, maybe he can come back as a coach for us some day. Meanwhile maybe he'll be willing to accept a low deal in the $1-2M range to come back in 2012 and be a super-utility guy, assuming his wrist returns to normal by mid-season and he has a normal batting line for his career. When healthy and hitting, he's a very valuable cog on the bench of any team hoping to make hay in the playoffs.
To replace DeRosa, Emmanuel Burriss was called up. Now 26, after two injury plagued seasons that stole valuable development time away from him, he was hitting .344 with a .423 OBP, per Andy Baggerly's notes in the newspaper. Manny has 15 steals (3 CS) in 16 games, which is more steals than 11 AAA teams had at the moment. It was also reported by Bochy that the reports on Manny were positive both defensively as well as offensively, which is good because part of his value is that he is suppose to be very good defensively at 2B and adequate at SS.
He also saw time in the OF in AAA this season, as the Giants organizational focus on creating flexibility via players who can play more than 1-2 positions continue. He, Rohlinger, Neal, and I think Gillaspie too, have played a number of positions in AAA so far this season, and Belt will be adding LF and RF to 1B.
Unlike others, I like Burriss as a hitter and think if given time and development he can be at least average. He has very good command of the bat, he has not struck out that much in the majors so far, which is a very hard to do in the majors. That plus good defense at 2B or average defense at SS, plus being a good basestealer, would provide good value on the Giants roster.
He has two major problems. First is that he don't walk. Second is that he don't hit for power. He is basically like Juan Pierre, so there is value there, only it is severely limited by these two problems. I don't expect him to figure out the walking part, and frankly with his speed and command of the bat, he should have adequate OBP due to a high BABIP coupled with a low strikeout rate.
His bigger problem is his inability to hit for any power at all. Practically zero in the majors, given his 55 career ISO in the minors. He was one of the guys who chased away Carney Lansford from the Giants. He has strong arms and thus the strength to hit for more power, which Carney was trying to get him to do, but basically he was taught to slap at the ball the way Andres Torres was taught.
He probably needs to go through the Giants new video system training program to change his batting mechanics, like Belt and Noonan, so that he can be more like Andres Torres and hit line drives, but he should have been working on that the past season while he was out, plus off-season, and be ready out of the box this season. But looking at his stats so far in AAA this season, he has a minor uptick in power, so it is not encouraging so far.
Until he solves this, he's going to be a fringe player like Torres was until he changed his batting mechanics using the Ted Williams methods taught in his book, Science of Hitting. Because of his speed and defense, and ability to play multiple positions, he'll probably hang around as a bench player for a number of seasons. If he wants to be a starter, he needs to figure out how to hit for more power. I mean, he makes Juan Pierre look like a power hitter in comparison.
Which would be too bad, Gary Brown and him 1/2 in the lineup, ahead of Belt, Posey, Sandoval, would be quite a good offense, and the Giants might then be able to handle Brandon Crawford or Ehire Adrianza at SS solely for defense.
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