I was listening to the Krukow morning show today and it was noted that Klesko, having been out for almost the entire 2006 season, would take a while to get into baseball shape. I had noted in a recent post that he had turned things up a notch in May and I thought it would be good to note his first home run hit yesterday, a splash hit, nonetheless, which shows conclusively that the Klesko that Bochy said he would be - from before all his shoulder problems - appear to be back, it takes quite a hit to get a splash hit, so it is very encouraging that he mashed one like that, it is like a harbinger of his return to past prowess.
His problems started in 2003, dropping his OPS from the elite 900+ level to the still good but relatively ordinary 800 OPS level. He had a genetic problem where his shoulder bone, both of them, eventually became bone on bone, a very painful condition, that was solved one at a time, first one shoulder then the next in 2005/6 (not sure when exactly the surgery was, but he was out almost all of the 2006 season.
He was hitting poorly the first month, in April, .282/.333/.359/.692, with only a double and triple and 3 BB/9 K, but with his big game yesterday, he is now hitting .289/.373/.489/.861 for the month of May with 6 BB/4 K, 4 doubles, a triple, and a HR. If he can get another 2+ HR the rest of the month, I think that would be a great sign that he is back to his former level of hitting.
If Klesko's Back
If he is back to his former 900 OPS level of hitting, about a batting line of .290/.385/.520/.905 with 25+ homer power (20 AB/HR rate), then my master plan that I was espousing before the season can come true, only delayed by about two months. At 900 OPS, or even the 850 OPS, and particularly his high OBP, he could take on the JT Snow role a few years back, batting 2nd, like he did last night, or 3rd, and getting on base and driving in runs.
He would basically get 1B starts against RHP unless Bonds is resting, then he could play LF sometimes (or Ortmeier would get a start), it could open up the possibility I noted in spring where Bochy could decide to play Ortmeier (Linden originally) in LF, Klesko at 1B, and Aurilia at 3B, or he could decide to play Feliz at 3B, Aurila at 1B, and Klesko in LF. Now you can even throw Frandsen in the mix for 3B.
After Feliz's great defense at 3B the last few nights, I think people can see the value he brings defensively, but if Aurilia can hit around 800 OPS and Feliz is struggling around the low-to-mid 700's, then the falloff, though probably slight since Aurilia was a SS previously, would be worth the additional hitting that Aurilia can provide. And Aurilia was right around there most of April until that stiff neck problem caused his hitting to fall like a boulder in a road runner-coyote cartoon - through the ground - so he could find himself sitting as well while Feliz plays. It depends on who has the hot hand at the moment.
Also, with Vizquel's struggles at the plate - he's now hitting a Neifi-ish .235/.264/.265/.529 in May after a 1 for 19, 2 for 23 skid, after going 14 for 40 at the start the month, May 3rd - I can see situations where Aurilia would play SS, particularly if Klesko ends up taking up all the RHP ABs at 1B, the Giants would then slide Aurilia over to play SS and 3B more often, depending on matchups, though Vizquel and Feliz will probably still see most of the ABs at those positions, particularly Vizquel.
As much as I would like to see Frandsen more, clearly Bochy is only giving Frandsen about one start a week, and Aurilia will probably see most of the "rest" games for Vizquel and Feliz. Hopefully the Giants will notice that when he starts a game, he is 8 for 19, with a walk, double, and triple, .421/.450/.579/1.029 thus far (OK, only 4 starts but still :^).
Still, the main thing is whether Klesko is back to his former self or not, and in April, one would say "no" but he's swinging the bat great in May and also has been hitting very well in SF, despite the fact that he's a lefty and lefties often get screwed batting there. If he can bring a 900 OPS bat to our lineup, he would be the good hitter Giants fans have been clamoring for since the season started and, I think, should be good enough to push our offense to the next level of performance.
Already, with him hitting like this, the Giants are averaging 5.7 runs per game in May (really only 5.2 runs per game, taking out the 15 run game that skews things greatly) and this with Bonds going through his big slump of the season. Still, they have scored 6 runs or more seven times this month, out of 20 games, and only went 5-2, they really should win any game they score 6 runs in, so that's on the pitching for that. But they also had five games scoring 2 or less runs, so that's on the offense there, we went 1-4 in those games. For games where we scored 3, 4, 5 runs, we went 3-5 so that's about right, you expect to go .500 in those games, that's close enough.
Showing posts with label Ryan Klesko. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ryan Klesko. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Aurila vs. Klesko and the Closer Situation
I've been doing most of my lurking in recent months at El Lefty Malo and thought I would post some stuff here that I had posted there today.
Aurilia vs. Klesko
Someone complained about Bochy playing Aurilia too much over Klesko. So I posted my reply:
I would give Bochy the benefit of the doubt regarding Aurilia/Klesko. Frankly, Klesko was weak hitting until recently and even now he's not hit for much power.
He hit .282/.333/.359/.692 in April and thus didn't see as many games as we might have hoped for, but had put the heat on this month and gotten more play. He is hitting an OK .333/.419/.444/.864 in May thus far.
But still only a 111 ISO for the month, which is very little power. And that's the role we were mainly looking from him, though his high career OBP looks good in replacement of Bonds.
Aurilia, on the other hand, started out very hot, his OPS was in the 800's and reached 908 on April 19, but then cooled off since then. Still, he still has 12 XBH to Klesko's puny 4, and the only HR of the pair, in only double the ABs.
Unfortunately, Aurilia has been colder than Finley's bat since his hot streak, so he should start seeing more rest days coming up.
In fact, in 24 games in April, he played in all 24 and maybe started 22 of them (only 2 games with less than 3 PA), whereas in May, he has played in 12 of 14 games, but got 3 PA or more in 9 of them. So he has already been reduced from 22 starts in 24 in April, to 9 starts in 14 in May.
And if his bat continues to be this cold, and Klesko, Feliz (.280/.321/.460/.781 in May), and Frandsen (.471/.500/.647/1.147 since he returned plus two great starts) hot, he's probably going to see even less.
And Klesko has actually been killing LHP, not RHP, which is the reverse of what one should expect of this platoon hitter:
v.LHP: .429/.556/.429/.984
v.RHP: .288/.344/.390/.734
That's a pretty sad performance for a hitter who had killed RHP before, I wish I could see his RHP splits by month to map his progress (or lack thereof). This is a poor sign of future performance, his LHP hitting should go down a lot, and his RHP hitting has been anemic. He needs to boost up his RHP or he could find himself Lindened this season too.
Closers On the Roster
Next, I commented about who would close should Benitez be traded at some point. I also got a dig in on someone who suggested that we do the Papelbon in Boston thing with Lincecum:
Who let the Dodger/A's fan in here? Lincecum's no closer!!! He starts!!!
I think the best short-term option is Russ Ortiz. He was a closer while coming up our system and I think he closed in college too. That was a long time ago, but I don't think that should matter, should be like riding a bike in terms of attitude and personality for it.
Whether he still has the stuff he had then is the matter, and he claims that he's got it back, and the Giants evidently believe that too, so put him there if he's not starting, seems like a good reward for playing down his Wally Pipp role with Lincecum, and being classy about it.
The best long term on the roster in the pen is probably Hennessey once he gets used to it. Let him set up this year, then Ortiz will go free agent and maybe leave, and Hennessey would be first in line for it. But he would have to fight off Correia, Sadler, and whoever else looks good in spring. And should Ortiz fail in his try, then these guys will be battling for that opportunity, should it present itself.
I like Misch too. I think all the pitchers down below get chances to save, seems like every starter in Augusta has a save. He probably don't get many opps, if any, to save, with Wilson and Sadler there, but he's doing so well, I would just put him in there and see what he can do.
Addendum
By roster, I assume the premise was who would the Giants chose right now based on the stats right now. No one in the minors are really doing that well except for Misch, among the usual suspects (Sadler, Wilson, Valdez - and he's not even back pitching yet, as far as I know).
And by long term, I think Hennessey has shown the most as of right now. I still hope that Wilson fulfills his potential as was projected for him, and become the closer of the future for us, much like Accardo is doing it in Toronto, sadly, or Aardsma in Chicago, but he's still giving up too many walks in AAA.
Yeah, Aardsma and Accardo are doing well in their new homes. I still think that the Giants had to do those moves at the time, to boost their still alive chances to make the playoffs. Hawkins pitched well for us while he was with us, and Kline, who we got for him, has been good as well. Williams, meanwhile, has bounced from organization to organization, and was in the starting 5 for the Nats this season, but just went on the DL, which is just as well, he was doing pretty crappy from what I remember. Aardsma has been doing nicely for the ChiSox, but it took him around 3 years to figure things out and meanwhile we've gotten good performances out of Hawkins and Kline (plus Lincecum's immortal words, "Take off your sweater next time," when Kline came up - nude - and gave a big bear hug to Tim while reporters were interviewing him after his first career win).
Hillenbrand was a horrible addition and it hurts from that standpoint in trading away Accardo. But you have to give to get and Hillenbrand is a professional hitter so the concept of getting him was the right concept for us at the time because 1B was killing us offensively, and while Hillebrand was not the greatest hitter, his career differential (and season) over our 1B choices was significant enough to take the leap. Not every trade is going to work out great, if you don't take any risks, you cannot never get the rewards (Kent, Burks, Schmidt).
However, the trade worked for us in that Chulk is still around and he has been a good reliever for us. While he's not the closer material that Accardo was and is, the point is that he is a perfectly good reliever, good enough to earn first chance at the setup position before blowing it but he's been good since. So at least we still have something to show for losing Accardo, Chulk mitigated the risk of losing Accardo for Hillenbrand so that if we lost Hillenbrand, it was not a total loss, like it was in the trade with Minnesota (another trade good in concept).
Still, the point of the trades is also that even a farm system as maligned as the Giants can keep producing viable relief prospects to replace the ones traded away. Perhaps not as good as the ones traded away - that is yet to be seen, Wilson was much more successful and quicker in the minors coming up than Aardsma or Accardo, plus there was the expectation that Valdez would be coming up soon - but the Giants have a bullpen full of players they drafted and developed plus two - Kline and Chulk - who they got trading other bullpen prospects. Only Benitez is not somehow related to the Giants' farm system.
Bochy Ball
The questioning of Bochy's usage of Aurila and Klesko got me thinking about how Bochy has been doing as manager of the Giants. I've been pretty happy with him thus far. Don't really have many things I can complain bitterly about.
As noted, I think he has been handling the Aurilia/Klesko situation well. I also liked how he sat Feliz down and been playing Aurilia at 3B, until Feliz started hitting. Hopefully Frandsen will get some starts at 3B too.
Speaking of Franny, that's one thing I wished he did better and allowed Frandsen more playing time at the beginning of the season. However, I understand why things went down the way it did. I think Bochy wanted to see how the vets played first, this being his first season with them. It is one thing to look at their stats and see them from the other dugout, another to spend every day with them and dealing with them. Thus Frandsen probably wasn't going to be seeing much time early on.
Normally, this would mean leaving Frandsen in the minors and having someone else on the roster. But in recognition of Frandsen's future with the team, Bochy kept him on the team and let him experience opening day and home opening day. Then they sent him down since he got rusty, get his confidence back with some swell hitting, and brough him back with the intention so use him more, now that Bochy has a better feel for his vets.
Like Feliz. I was impressed that he embarrassed Feliz in front of everyone and pitched batting practice to him and yelling at him to hit to the other side and yelling at him like he was a freaking little leaguer, learning how to hit. Then he benched Feliz a few times, playing Klesko at 1B and Aurilia at 3B. Unbelievably, Feliz has responded to Bochy, after a cold April where he hit .236/.257/.486/.743 with 14 K/2 BB in 72 AB, during May he is hitting .280/.321/.460/.781 with, incredibly, 3 K/3 BB in 50 AB.
Here's the perspective on his achievement this month so far (still only half over). In 22 months of at least 50 AB in the month, excluding this month (meaning out of 21 months), there has only been 1 month out of the 21 where he had less than 10 strikeouts, his first month with over 50 AB when he had 9 strikeouts. He only has 3 this month!!!. In contrast, he has had 15 out of 21 months where he had 15 or more strikeouts, and a number of them over 20.
Then there is the bullpen. Bochy came in with a reputation of creating these wonderful bullpens, of getting these nondescript pitchers who didn't do much of anything before and getting them to perform well. The classic example of this was Cla Meredith, who the 'Dres got last season as a throw in when they traded Mirabelli to the Red Sox. He was lights out and great, pitching for Bochy.
This season, the bullpen went into the season highly maligned, with our best hope for performance, Brian Wilson, sent down to AAA due to poor performance in spring training when he was pretty much guaranteed a spot in the bullpen and was in the running to become either setup man or closer if he did well enough (if he did well, I suspect the Giants might have traded Benitez; that can still happen just before the trade deadline if Benitez is pitching well enough and enough of our bullpen was performing well enough to have candidates for closer). I was one of the few who thought our bullpen would be OK, but I will admit I had my moments when I wondered too. But they have come through for the most part:
I have to think that the Giants will keep Lincecum around in almost any circumstances, other than getting totally blown out and looking like a total rookie. Even if he has a middling start, he has nothing to prove in AAA and Ortiz has already shown publicly that he can accept going to the bullpen if Lincecum is starting. Plus, Ortiz is an experienced bullpen guy and if he really has his stuff back, as he says it has, then he should be even better in relief for us, in long relief and potentially in setup and closing situations because he was a closer while coming up through our farm system.
So Bochy has done a good job thus far with the bullpen, both numbers and handling. He has left in pitchers so that he was not going strictly L/L or R/R no matter what. He has allowed Taschner to take on RHH and is open to having Benitez come in the 8th and pitching over an inning. This shows confidence in the relievers and puts less stress on them by not having them come into the game just for a batter and warming up every game. The pitchers have responded by pitching to their capabilities, they are all around what their career numbers would tell you, maybe a little better.
This is a huge difference over how Alou handled the bullpen and it appears to be working better. And yet Bochy does not shy away from using relievers, his usage of relievers are up there among the league leaders in the NL, but his handling of them does not appear to burn them out like Felipe did. And the bullpen has been very positive in their statements over how Bochy has been handling them, without knocking Alou. However, Krukow, in his morning show, while not criticizing Alou, per se, noting that it is just a matter of differing managerial styles, did say that he likes the way Bochy handles the bullpen and thinks that things are now better for the relievers in terms of stress on their arms.
Aurilia vs. Klesko
Someone complained about Bochy playing Aurilia too much over Klesko. So I posted my reply:
I would give Bochy the benefit of the doubt regarding Aurilia/Klesko. Frankly, Klesko was weak hitting until recently and even now he's not hit for much power.
He hit .282/.333/.359/.692 in April and thus didn't see as many games as we might have hoped for, but had put the heat on this month and gotten more play. He is hitting an OK .333/.419/.444/.864 in May thus far.
But still only a 111 ISO for the month, which is very little power. And that's the role we were mainly looking from him, though his high career OBP looks good in replacement of Bonds.
Aurilia, on the other hand, started out very hot, his OPS was in the 800's and reached 908 on April 19, but then cooled off since then. Still, he still has 12 XBH to Klesko's puny 4, and the only HR of the pair, in only double the ABs.
Unfortunately, Aurilia has been colder than Finley's bat since his hot streak, so he should start seeing more rest days coming up.
In fact, in 24 games in April, he played in all 24 and maybe started 22 of them (only 2 games with less than 3 PA), whereas in May, he has played in 12 of 14 games, but got 3 PA or more in 9 of them. So he has already been reduced from 22 starts in 24 in April, to 9 starts in 14 in May.
And if his bat continues to be this cold, and Klesko, Feliz (.280/.321/.460/.781 in May), and Frandsen (.471/.500/.647/1.147 since he returned plus two great starts) hot, he's probably going to see even less.
And Klesko has actually been killing LHP, not RHP, which is the reverse of what one should expect of this platoon hitter:
v.LHP: .429/.556/.429/.984
v.RHP: .288/.344/.390/.734
That's a pretty sad performance for a hitter who had killed RHP before, I wish I could see his RHP splits by month to map his progress (or lack thereof). This is a poor sign of future performance, his LHP hitting should go down a lot, and his RHP hitting has been anemic. He needs to boost up his RHP or he could find himself Lindened this season too.
Closers On the Roster
Next, I commented about who would close should Benitez be traded at some point. I also got a dig in on someone who suggested that we do the Papelbon in Boston thing with Lincecum:
Who let the Dodger/A's fan in here? Lincecum's no closer!!! He starts!!!
I think the best short-term option is Russ Ortiz. He was a closer while coming up our system and I think he closed in college too. That was a long time ago, but I don't think that should matter, should be like riding a bike in terms of attitude and personality for it.
Whether he still has the stuff he had then is the matter, and he claims that he's got it back, and the Giants evidently believe that too, so put him there if he's not starting, seems like a good reward for playing down his Wally Pipp role with Lincecum, and being classy about it.
The best long term on the roster in the pen is probably Hennessey once he gets used to it. Let him set up this year, then Ortiz will go free agent and maybe leave, and Hennessey would be first in line for it. But he would have to fight off Correia, Sadler, and whoever else looks good in spring. And should Ortiz fail in his try, then these guys will be battling for that opportunity, should it present itself.
I like Misch too. I think all the pitchers down below get chances to save, seems like every starter in Augusta has a save. He probably don't get many opps, if any, to save, with Wilson and Sadler there, but he's doing so well, I would just put him in there and see what he can do.
Addendum
By roster, I assume the premise was who would the Giants chose right now based on the stats right now. No one in the minors are really doing that well except for Misch, among the usual suspects (Sadler, Wilson, Valdez - and he's not even back pitching yet, as far as I know).
And by long term, I think Hennessey has shown the most as of right now. I still hope that Wilson fulfills his potential as was projected for him, and become the closer of the future for us, much like Accardo is doing it in Toronto, sadly, or Aardsma in Chicago, but he's still giving up too many walks in AAA.
Yeah, Aardsma and Accardo are doing well in their new homes. I still think that the Giants had to do those moves at the time, to boost their still alive chances to make the playoffs. Hawkins pitched well for us while he was with us, and Kline, who we got for him, has been good as well. Williams, meanwhile, has bounced from organization to organization, and was in the starting 5 for the Nats this season, but just went on the DL, which is just as well, he was doing pretty crappy from what I remember. Aardsma has been doing nicely for the ChiSox, but it took him around 3 years to figure things out and meanwhile we've gotten good performances out of Hawkins and Kline (plus Lincecum's immortal words, "Take off your sweater next time," when Kline came up - nude - and gave a big bear hug to Tim while reporters were interviewing him after his first career win).
Hillenbrand was a horrible addition and it hurts from that standpoint in trading away Accardo. But you have to give to get and Hillenbrand is a professional hitter so the concept of getting him was the right concept for us at the time because 1B was killing us offensively, and while Hillebrand was not the greatest hitter, his career differential (and season) over our 1B choices was significant enough to take the leap. Not every trade is going to work out great, if you don't take any risks, you cannot never get the rewards (Kent, Burks, Schmidt).
However, the trade worked for us in that Chulk is still around and he has been a good reliever for us. While he's not the closer material that Accardo was and is, the point is that he is a perfectly good reliever, good enough to earn first chance at the setup position before blowing it but he's been good since. So at least we still have something to show for losing Accardo, Chulk mitigated the risk of losing Accardo for Hillenbrand so that if we lost Hillenbrand, it was not a total loss, like it was in the trade with Minnesota (another trade good in concept).
Still, the point of the trades is also that even a farm system as maligned as the Giants can keep producing viable relief prospects to replace the ones traded away. Perhaps not as good as the ones traded away - that is yet to be seen, Wilson was much more successful and quicker in the minors coming up than Aardsma or Accardo, plus there was the expectation that Valdez would be coming up soon - but the Giants have a bullpen full of players they drafted and developed plus two - Kline and Chulk - who they got trading other bullpen prospects. Only Benitez is not somehow related to the Giants' farm system.
Bochy Ball
The questioning of Bochy's usage of Aurila and Klesko got me thinking about how Bochy has been doing as manager of the Giants. I've been pretty happy with him thus far. Don't really have many things I can complain bitterly about.
As noted, I think he has been handling the Aurilia/Klesko situation well. I also liked how he sat Feliz down and been playing Aurilia at 3B, until Feliz started hitting. Hopefully Frandsen will get some starts at 3B too.
Speaking of Franny, that's one thing I wished he did better and allowed Frandsen more playing time at the beginning of the season. However, I understand why things went down the way it did. I think Bochy wanted to see how the vets played first, this being his first season with them. It is one thing to look at their stats and see them from the other dugout, another to spend every day with them and dealing with them. Thus Frandsen probably wasn't going to be seeing much time early on.
Normally, this would mean leaving Frandsen in the minors and having someone else on the roster. But in recognition of Frandsen's future with the team, Bochy kept him on the team and let him experience opening day and home opening day. Then they sent him down since he got rusty, get his confidence back with some swell hitting, and brough him back with the intention so use him more, now that Bochy has a better feel for his vets.
Like Feliz. I was impressed that he embarrassed Feliz in front of everyone and pitched batting practice to him and yelling at him to hit to the other side and yelling at him like he was a freaking little leaguer, learning how to hit. Then he benched Feliz a few times, playing Klesko at 1B and Aurilia at 3B. Unbelievably, Feliz has responded to Bochy, after a cold April where he hit .236/.257/.486/.743 with 14 K/2 BB in 72 AB, during May he is hitting .280/.321/.460/.781 with, incredibly, 3 K/3 BB in 50 AB.
Here's the perspective on his achievement this month so far (still only half over). In 22 months of at least 50 AB in the month, excluding this month (meaning out of 21 months), there has only been 1 month out of the 21 where he had less than 10 strikeouts, his first month with over 50 AB when he had 9 strikeouts. He only has 3 this month!!!. In contrast, he has had 15 out of 21 months where he had 15 or more strikeouts, and a number of them over 20.
Then there is the bullpen. Bochy came in with a reputation of creating these wonderful bullpens, of getting these nondescript pitchers who didn't do much of anything before and getting them to perform well. The classic example of this was Cla Meredith, who the 'Dres got last season as a throw in when they traded Mirabelli to the Red Sox. He was lights out and great, pitching for Bochy.
This season, the bullpen went into the season highly maligned, with our best hope for performance, Brian Wilson, sent down to AAA due to poor performance in spring training when he was pretty much guaranteed a spot in the bullpen and was in the running to become either setup man or closer if he did well enough (if he did well, I suspect the Giants might have traded Benitez; that can still happen just before the trade deadline if Benitez is pitching well enough and enough of our bullpen was performing well enough to have candidates for closer). I was one of the few who thought our bullpen would be OK, but I will admit I had my moments when I wondered too. But they have come through for the most part:
- Hennessey: 3.00 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, .247 BAA, 77% inherited left on (10/13);
- Benitez: 3.55 ERA, 1.50 WHIP, .245 BAA, 40% left on (2/5);
- Kline: 3.72 ERA, 1.66 WHIP, .341 BAA, 89% left on (8/9);
- Chulk: 3.78 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, .297 BAA, 40% left on (4/10);
- Taschner: 3.97 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, .179 BAA, 69% left on (11/16);
- Correia: 4.34 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, .209 BAA, 33% left on (1/3);
- Sanchez: 5.68 ERA, 1.89 WHIP, .286 BAA, 50% left on (2/4);
- Overall: 3.82 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 63% left on (38/60).
I have to think that the Giants will keep Lincecum around in almost any circumstances, other than getting totally blown out and looking like a total rookie. Even if he has a middling start, he has nothing to prove in AAA and Ortiz has already shown publicly that he can accept going to the bullpen if Lincecum is starting. Plus, Ortiz is an experienced bullpen guy and if he really has his stuff back, as he says it has, then he should be even better in relief for us, in long relief and potentially in setup and closing situations because he was a closer while coming up through our farm system.
So Bochy has done a good job thus far with the bullpen, both numbers and handling. He has left in pitchers so that he was not going strictly L/L or R/R no matter what. He has allowed Taschner to take on RHH and is open to having Benitez come in the 8th and pitching over an inning. This shows confidence in the relievers and puts less stress on them by not having them come into the game just for a batter and warming up every game. The pitchers have responded by pitching to their capabilities, they are all around what their career numbers would tell you, maybe a little better.
This is a huge difference over how Alou handled the bullpen and it appears to be working better. And yet Bochy does not shy away from using relievers, his usage of relievers are up there among the league leaders in the NL, but his handling of them does not appear to burn them out like Felipe did. And the bullpen has been very positive in their statements over how Bochy has been handling them, without knocking Alou. However, Krukow, in his morning show, while not criticizing Alou, per se, noting that it is just a matter of differing managerial styles, did say that he likes the way Bochy handles the bullpen and thinks that things are now better for the relievers in terms of stress on their arms.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Your 2007 Giants: Big 6 Questions
Ol' Big 6 himself, Christy Mathewson must be grinning from ear to ear with the Giants new centerpiece of Zito, Cain, and, eventually, Lincecum, and possibly Sanchez. The Giants have rarely had two top guns leading the rotation: Mathewson and Iron Man Joe McGinnity, Mathewson and Rube Marquard, Carl Hubbell and Hal Schumaker (yeah, I did't know him either), perhaps the 1954 rotation of Johnny Antonelli, Ruben Gomez, Sal Maglie, and Don Liddle, then during my era, Marichial and Perry, Reuschel and Garrelts (made me think of Laurel and Hardy), Burkett and Swift, Schmidt and Rueter. Yeah, kind of reaching at the end there...
This is my annual Q&A on factors that I believe are critical in any scenario regarding the Giants success in the upcoming season, from highest to lowest.
Q1: Barry Good or Barry Bad
I've written a number of posts on Bonds and he is still the stick that stirs the Giants offensive chances, centerpiece or no centerpiece. Clearly, there is no precedence for a 42 year old, and soon to be 43 year old hitter, to continue to still be at the top of his game enough to be among the league's best hitters. Ted Williams probably could have done it if he felt like it, but he didn't try. Most hitters succumb to age and fade away before they reach their late 30's, let alone 40's.
Here are some publicly available projections on the web for Bonds, scroll down to the section for 2007. They expect around 329 AB, 444 PA (approximately since not all project HBP, SF, SH), 24 HR (meaning he's expected to pass Aaron by season's end), 74 runs, 64 RBI, .283/.468/.568/1.036. Plus throw in 3-4 steals. Not too shabby for anyone at any age, let alone 42-43.
He seems to be healthy and doing well in spring training. He is being moved to the third spot and we'll see how it goes. We'll never know how bad this move really is, but theories range from this being a non-move to one that will hurt the Giants ability to maximize their scoring opportunities. From my post here, I believe that this is going to hurt them.
However, the lineup seems to be pretty balanced, top to bottom, with no true under .700 OPS baddies (Perez) but not many goodies above .800 (Durham, Bonds), so maybe the point about where Bonds bat is relatively a non-factor. All the other regulars have been in the .700 OPS club and while that is not great for middle of lineup type of guys - 3, 4, 5, 6 - Bonds and Durham occupy two of the spots and a third, Klesko/Aurilia, could combine to be over .800 if Klesko is back to "normal" (more on that later).
Bonds has been pretty good - except for his knee incident that started everything - about avoiding injuries so it is pretty much him against Father Time, and Bonds has been beating him bad for years now. And while the circumstantial evidence that he was an abuser of performance enhancement drugs has been significant, I think if he has another good season that builds upon last season, he has to put some doubters on edge regarding how much steroids/HGH really helped him during his out-of-the-world streak.
Given that Jason Grimsley was harangued by G-men to try to entrap Barry Bonds into giving it all up, showing how desperate they are to get Barry, clearly the government is being driven by certain people who have Barry in their cross hairs. I would bet that Barry and his home has been under surveillance since Balco blew wide open and that any and all packages that are headed to Barry are examined to the greatest degree possible and that anyone associated with Barry will feel the prying eyes of the government to see if they might be involved as well. And thus far, nothing.
So if Barry can ignore all the other "stuff" and hit as well as the projections, that is the minimum requirement for the Giants offense to be OK. Without him, it is very improbable, if not impossible, and the season will sink pretty fast, much like 2005.
Q2: Klesko Good or Klesko Bad
As I have noted in posts like these, I think Klesko can be the magic sauce that makes the Giants offense move from just OK with Bonds to be above average. He could be the Ellis Burk addition of 2007, making the offense that much better. But will he?
Bochy says that Klesko is back to the Klesko of old. If so that is pretty potent. His decline started in 2003 and given that he was entering into his 30's, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Still, in his decline, with congenital problems with his shoulder where there is bone on bone contact, he was still a better hitter than any other hitter on the Giants other than Barry and Ray-Ray: he hit .263/.370/.440/.809 with 26 AB/HR and still a great eye, with his BB/K ratio at 0.93 (best hitters are above 1.00). The year prior to that season, he hit .300/.387/.537/.924 with 19 AB/HR and 0.88 BB/K, and that's very good.
If so, that means that there is not that great a drop in the offense when the annointed LF is in the lineup for when Barry isn't playing - Barry projected 1.036 OPS, Klesko last great year .924 OPS. That's better than inserting in sub-.700 Steve Finley into the lineup (he recently realized that no one thinks of him as a starter so he accepted a job as a backup somewhere) whenever Barry or Moises sat.
On a side but related note, people talk about the drop in offense now that we lost Moises, but really, with him missing so many games, it was really MoiseLey who played "RF" and MoiseLey combined was only a mid .700 hitter at best. The additions of Roberts, Klesko, and Aurilia I think will more than make up for the losses of Alou, Finley, Hillenbrand, Niekro, in the lineup, just because of how bad those other (and still another to be discussed, Winn) hit in 2006.
And, in addition, if he is hitting that well, he's probably the starting 1B against RHP, which makes Bochy's decision become "who plays 3B, Aurilia or Feliz?" And if Aurilia is hitting like he did last season (above .800), it is probably him, but if he is hitting like he was before (.700's or less), then it becomes whoever between Feliz and him are hitting well at the moment. And Feliz is actually an acceptable offense at 3B when he is fresh - his hitting takes a huge dip from the first half to the second half - so Aurilia could find himself sitting much more than he thought he might when he thought he was the starting 1B.
However, as much as I like Frandsen, I can see Aurilia taking over for Vizquel a lot during the season because Vizquel has been in the habit of hitting around .700 every other year for a number of years - like his body tires out or something before recovering - and he's due for 2007. If he's hitting that poorly, I can see Aurilia getting a number of starts there "to keep Vizquel fresh and to give Aurilia starts since Klesko is getting most 1B starts."
Q3: Morris/Lowry Good or Morris/Lowry Bad
As I've written in a number of posts regarding the starting rotation, I think that it is best to view Lowry and Morris as a tandem pair for the #3 and #4 spots in the rotation. And despite their problems last season, I think that both can return to their former performance levels of prior years. According to research on starting pitchers (In The Hardball Times) they both pitched as well any #3 and #4 starter in 2006, despite their problems. If both are healthy, they both should pitch much better than that.
But will both do that? While there is a possibility that happens, the more conservative move is to assume that one will do so and the other will pitch like 2006 (I don't think that it is likely that both perform like in 2006).
The reasons why Lowry should pitch well is that when he was healthy, in 2005 and 2006, he was able to pitch at a high 3 ERA performance level, for a year and a half, which is #2 starter performance. His performance did not lag with repeated exposure to hitters, in fact, he had his patented late season surge (around August) both years, showing that when he is on, he is totally dominating. There is a physical reason for his poor 2006 season - his strained oblique muscle in his first start of the season - and if you look at his key indicator stats month by month (K/9, BB/9, K/BB), they improve month by month until he had his injury in September, when the wheels came off. He even had his August surge too. In fact, his good walk rate remained good during his struggles, which allowed him to continue to do relatively well, but his strikeout rate plummetted. You can do OK like that but not as well as Lowry was before.
The only question mark is whether he is fully recovered and that is where it gets less likely for him to do well. I recently read that he is still experiencing something with that oblique muscle, which had caused him to change his throwing mechanics, and which obviously affects his pitches. But he has been throwing much better this spring, so I expect him to hit the ground running when the season starts.
Morris is a controversial area for Giants fans. People see his salary and think, nay, demand, that he should be a top of the rotation starter. Yeah, it stinks to pay so much for so little, thus far. However, instead, I think fans should focus on what he can do in the context of the Giants rotation. He is nominally the 4th starter based on his stats from last season. Unfortunately, he had so many things going on that it is hard to read what exactly to expect from him in 2007.
Of course, I think I see, but others disagree, so I'll note them again here. First, Morris pitched poorly in the beginning of the season and a number of people (including myself) attributed that to being overamped trying to pitch well to justify his new contract and to please the fans. But even if you don't give him that, he pitched well enough to drive his ERA down to the low 4 area, #2 starter area, by mid-July. He then bounced around the mid-to-high 4 ERA range after that until September when his ERA blew up because of the mysterious rib injury that he suffered somewhere, somehow, sometime in August or perhaps even July. In any case, his ERA was still in the mid-4 range when August ended. Thus, even with all the problems Morris had last year, until his rib injury kicked in in September, he was pitching like a #2/3 starter overall.
That is a huge advantage over other teams if your #4 starter is pitching like a #3 and your #3 starter (Lowry) is pitching like a #2 starter. And keeping the runs given up down is key to the Giants winning because the offense is not too good but not too bad either, with only Bonds as the clearly above average player, and Durham and Klesko as possibly better than average. In addition, there will be platooning most probably with Roberts (Linden) and Klesko (Aurilia and Bonds), so that will help the offense be more balanced against LHP as well as RHP.
One of my problems in my previous analysis of what is going to happen in a season is that while I think it is a higher probability that each of the players does well, however, cummulatively, I should be ratcheting down the good expected outcomes, since by random chance, there will be poor performances popping in. So instead of saying that both will pitch like a #2 in 2007, which I think both have a good chance of doing, individually, I examine the odds of the two of them pitching like a #3 and #4 starter in 2007, and I think it's likely that one of them will be able to pitch like a #2, with the other pitching at least like a #3 starter (ERA below 4.84). Even in their poor 2006 season, both pitched like a #3 and #4 starter, so I don't think that it is much of a stretch to say that the two, in tandem, will pitch like a #2 and #3 starter, which would be an advantage over most other teams in the middle of the rotation.
Add to that the great spring of Russ Ortiz, who is capable of #2 starter performance but is slotted #5, and among the three of them, I don't see why we cannot expect at minimum a #2, #3, and #4 type of performance from our #3, #4, and #5 starters. Obviously, if everything went our way, the Giants could potentially have 3 #2 type performance from these three starters, and hence why I've been saying that the Giants have a good chance of winning the division and doing some damage in the playoffs, because when you have dominating pitching from your starting staff, as a whole, that's when the value of pitching outweights the hitting of individual position players who play everyday.
Q4: Cain Ace or Cain Sophomore Jinx
I have written about Cain's change in 2006 season in a number of posts plus here is a a quote from an artice on Cain on sfgiants.com that really made me fall in love with him:
Clearly, I don't think that Cain will have much problems pitching like an ace in 2007, but again that is not a conservative stance. So instead I use his 2006 season as a model for 2007. Will he have a sophomore jinx?
Looking at his 2006 season, he got better as the season went along, showing that while hitters might have been learning about him through repetition, Cain learned even more about the hitters and did even better. I would say that the odds favor that he should do at least what he did in 2006, that he will not regress from where he was last season, and he was a #2 with his 4.16 ERA. Obviously, the upside is that he attain full-blown ace status (which would happen if he repeats his second half 3.38 ERA).
Like with Morris and Lowry, I have been pairing up Cain with Zito when viewing performances overall, and I think that while both are capable of ace status, I think it is conservative to say that out of Cain and Zito, one will be an ace (ERA under 3.78) and the other will be a #2 (ERA under 4.31). The average NL ace had an ERA of 3.51 and average #2 had an ERA of 4.04, and that is not something to bet on as Zito hasn't reached 3.51 in ages and it is too much to expect Cain to do that (yet, that is). But I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that both should have ERAs in the high 3, which is about what you get when you average the average ace with the average #2 starter (ERA of 3.78 to be exact), so I think the Giants will be covered overall there with Cain and Zito in comparison with other #1/#2 tandems.
Q5: Zito Good Enough or Zito Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail
I've posted a number of articles about the Giants $126M man (that's some inflation over the $6M man :^), since the Giants signed him to his lucrative contract. After his funky introduction to the Giants - "here's my new pitching motion, hope you love it" - he has been quietly good all spring, pitching like Zito has shown that he can, but with some tweaks and improvements. From what I've read since he was signed, Zito is like the pitching equivalent to Barry Bonds in terms of nutrition, working out, and trying to find that extra edge that will give you an advantage over the other team.
That gives me encouragement that the long contract won't be an albatross on the Giants payroll the way that Nen's contract, Alfonzo's contract, or Benitez's contract, were. As I had noted before, given the inflation rate of salaries, particularly pitcher's salaries, because Zito's contract starts out low initially, the average pitchers's salary will have caught up with Zito's high priced portion of the contract and thus, as long as Zito can pitch like an average pitcher, like a #3 type pitcher, the Giants will be OK as long as he is healthy and can pitch. And given his track record and maniacal devotion to being the best physically and mentally, that seems like there's a good chance that he can do that.
In addition, I just realized that even if he starts scuffling by the end of his long contract, the Giants should be covered pretty well by then because of Sabean's (and Tidrow's) focus on pitching. Over the intermediate term, the Giants should have a rotation full of cheap starters and relievers: Cain, Lowry, hopefully Lincecum and Sanchez too, then the crop of relievers here and coming up. As expensive Zito's contract will be, that would be made up by how cheaply we will be paying for starting pitching for our other young starters and relievers. Potentially, our whole pitching staff could be paid less in aggregate than Zito alone, starting midway through the contract.
Then there is the matter of how well Zito will pitch. In this case, the future can wait, what can he do for us right now. As much as saber-theory hate pitchers like Zito, Ortiz, Rueter, they were successful for a long time doing what they were doing. So you cannot blanket apply those princicples on Zito, as I learned soon after looking at Zito sabermetrically. He just plain makes hitters unable to get hits off of him and that makes up for his walks, flyballs turning into HR, and low strikeout rate.
Even without that, just statistically, while his stats do not scream "best contract ever given a starting pitcher ever" nor do they look like Cy Young type of seasons, they have been still pretty good, in the 3's for the most part, and that is great to have in your rotation, where you plug him in and can expect something in the 3's. And that's what I expect, particularly since ERA's are typically lower in the NL than the AL, which makes a lot of sense since there is that easy prey, the pitcher, waiting in the 9th spot, an easy out for the most part, in fact an easy strikeout as well. Unless there is an injury of some sort, I expect Zito to do well and deliver a high 3 ERA at minimum, and potentially something in the mid-3's, which would be just awesome, when paired with Cain, as I noted above in the Cain section.
With Zito/Cain paired as well as any team's #1/#2 and Lowry/Morris/Ortiz looking capable of at least a #2/#3/#4 performance out of the #3/#4/#5 slots, the Giants starting pitching will keep the Giants in a lot of games. With an average or perhaps better offense, the Giants can win a lot of games if the starting rotation can pitch like they are capable of.
Q6: Randy Winn Good or Randy Winn Bad
Randy Winn can be a key part of the offensive equation. He is, right now, an odd puzzle piece of the lineup where you don't know where to put him. Leadoff is taken by Roberts and Vizquel owns #2. Bonds just took #3, which is one that I thought would have been good to have Winn at, which means Durham is #4. You obviously don't bat Winn 5th, so that leaves #6, 7, and 8, and right now Bochy seems to want to bat him 8th. And if he hit like he did in 2006, particularly the second half, that's exactly where he should be hitting.
However, I believe his second half of 2006 was as flukey as his 2005 with us, when he suddenly became Barry Bonds for a month. As I noted in another post, if you look at his 2005-2006 stats together, they look like any other season he has had for most of his career, once he became a starter. Look at the splits 1st half vs. 2nd half: .275/.345/.440/.785 with 8 HR in 298 AB vs. .247/.289/.349/.638 with 3 HR in 275 AB. The first half is vintage Winn, the second, a horrible mess. So I think he will return to have a regular Winn type of season, about what he did in the first half of 2006, only over a full season.
And that will be critical to the lineup because then there will not be any sucking hole in the lineup with a sub-700 OPS starter. Last year, Finley, Winn, Alfonso (after first month), Feliz (all of the second half of the season), and the 1B, were batting somewhere in the 600's OPS, just killing the offense. This season, however, we got Roberts, Vizquel, Bonds, Durham, Aurilia/Klesko, Molina, Feliz, and Winn, there should not be one bat under 700 in the bunch, though Vizquel might be right there at 700 all season. And Linden and Frandsen appear ready to hit above that when they come in and spot-start.
As much as people say that Durham won't hit like that again, he has consistently been an above 800 hitter for a long while now - I think 2006 balances his 2005 - and as long as he hits around 820-850 OPS, he will be fine. Roberts could be affected by AT&T but he's never been much of a HR hitter, so I think his hitting there will be fine, despite being a LHH. Vizquel should be at least 700, and with Bonds now hitting behind him, that could help him out and get him more good pitches to hit. Bonds will be Bonds. I think Klesko will force his way into a platoon in the lineup and that Bochy will be playing Aurilia all around the infield (though that will take starts away from Frandsen), particularly at 3B if Feliz falters again. Feliz will play as long as he hits - and a 790-ish OPS is nothing to sneeze at - but with Aurilia and Frandsen around, he's going to sit if he isn't hitting that, so the offense will still be OK if he messes up. Molina has been a consistent 700's range OPS so I don't think he'll be a problem.
So that leaves us with Winn. As I noted, he really stunk in the second half. But that is one half out of many seasons of good play, where he had a high 700, 800-ish OPS most seasons. If the second half of 2006 is the real Winn, then the lineup could be in trouble, because while Linden might be a good replacement for Winn, he's also backing up CF plus LF sometimes, if Klesko plays 1B and Aurilia or Feliz is sitting. He can only play one position at a time. Thus it is a key factor if Winn can return to his former form, else the dominos start falling.
Particularly coming out of the 8th spot, he could be acting as the Giants bottom of the lineup lead-off hitter, getting on base and starting a rally in front of the top of the lineup. He gets on base, get to 2B via steal or pitcher sacrifice, then Roberts, Vizquel, and Bonds get a shot at driving him in. In addition, if his bat returns, he will be driving in runs as well from that position, for when the guys ahead of him are getting into scoring position. Most teams have a crappy hitter in 8th, if he hits like he is capable, .750-.800 range, then the Giants would have one of the best 8th place hitters around.
Giants in 2007
I normally publish a huge evaluation of the Giants lineup and pitching each season but I'm just too far behind in my work to do so this year. But I've done a lot of the basic work involved with that, so I've been writing to those facts in my posts, including this one.
The lineup, while not Murderer's Row, they are potentially OK to good (.750-.800 OPS) up and down the lineup. Plus there will not be many weak spots vs. RHP or LHP because platooning will put our best hitters in against the starting pitcher, unlike previous years when there were players who should have been platooned. The lineup will be as balanced as it has ever been and I think they can score just enough runs to support our starting rotation, scoring in the 4.5 runs, perhaps more, range. That's plenty if the starting rotation is as good as I think it could be, conservatively.
Meanwhile, the starting rotation could potentially be filled with #2 starter type of performances, high 3, low 4, and if they can do that, the Giants will not only have a winning record but could win the division. I think the Dodgers, despite their big signings, went backwards getting Pierre for the top of their lineup. He's going to kill rallies with his mega-low OBP (low relative to other top of lineup hitters). The Padres are betting on improved performances to maintain what they had last season, but have a rookie manager, who will make rookie mistakes sometimes, no matter how prepared he thinks he is. The D-backs are relying on too many youngsters, they would all basically have to do well for them to win. And Colorado I will worry about when they give me something to worry about.
Even if the rotation don't do that well, I think Cain and Zito will be able to do in aggregate as well as or better than most #1/#2 pairings. Then with Lowry, Morris, and Ortiz, I do not think that it is too much of a stretch to think that getting #2, #3, #4 type performances from the group of them is likely, and that would still keep the Giants competitive all season, even with our offense, even with our bullpen.
Our bullpen is a big area of worry, but, as much as I hate Benitez and think that he is not that good a person, the main thing is that when he is healthy and on, he's dominating, and he has been dominating all spring. Unfortunately, some players we were expecting more out of has not been delivering, but I think that the Giants have enough bodies in the minors that they can rotate relievers in and out for the first few months of the season and not seriously damage their chances of winning games, particularly with Bochy wanting to go to Benitez for more than one inning and Molina getting Benitez to concentrate on just getting guys out quickly and keeping his pitch count down (which he hopefully is working with Cain, Zito, and Ortiz on, as well).
Also, the setup men seem to be OK. Kline will be quietly good and Chulk I liked, his stats in Toronto were good, but I think the manager there just don't know what he is doing, so the main problem will be in middle relief. But you normally bring them in when the game is sort of out of hand anyway, so the odds of winning is usually slim at that point anyhow. And while some people say that our rotation is not innings eaters, I think all of them are capable of pitching 200 IP, which is 1000 IP out of 1400 or so IP. That basically leaves the 8th and 9th to pitch, normally, so for the close games, you bring out the big guns, but if the Giants have a good lead, you bring in the question marks and see if they can get out of the inning, allowing you to save your best relievers. If not, then you bring in the calvary to save the day, particularly with Benitez pitching more than 1 inning occassionally.
Thus, overall, I think the Giants will do well all season, and stay competitive for the lead. If the starting rotation is as good as I think it could be potentially, I think the Giants have a chance to not only win the division title, but to go deep into the playoffs. How can they not if the rotation is really balanced and all pitches like #2 starters? Just like a balanced lineup means no weak spots offensively, having a balanced rotation will mean no weak spots there either, and the back end of the rotation will easily take care of other teams's #3, #4, and #5 starters regularly. The bullpen, while weak, is strong enough where it counts: closer and set-up relievers. I think that it can be a good season in 2007 as long as the question marks above is answered positively, else the scenario is that we'll have another bad year like 2005 and 2006 and Sabean's job in danger (but that's a story for another post).
This is my annual Q&A on factors that I believe are critical in any scenario regarding the Giants success in the upcoming season, from highest to lowest.
Q1: Barry Good or Barry Bad
I've written a number of posts on Bonds and he is still the stick that stirs the Giants offensive chances, centerpiece or no centerpiece. Clearly, there is no precedence for a 42 year old, and soon to be 43 year old hitter, to continue to still be at the top of his game enough to be among the league's best hitters. Ted Williams probably could have done it if he felt like it, but he didn't try. Most hitters succumb to age and fade away before they reach their late 30's, let alone 40's.
Here are some publicly available projections on the web for Bonds, scroll down to the section for 2007. They expect around 329 AB, 444 PA (approximately since not all project HBP, SF, SH), 24 HR (meaning he's expected to pass Aaron by season's end), 74 runs, 64 RBI, .283/.468/.568/1.036. Plus throw in 3-4 steals. Not too shabby for anyone at any age, let alone 42-43.
He seems to be healthy and doing well in spring training. He is being moved to the third spot and we'll see how it goes. We'll never know how bad this move really is, but theories range from this being a non-move to one that will hurt the Giants ability to maximize their scoring opportunities. From my post here, I believe that this is going to hurt them.
However, the lineup seems to be pretty balanced, top to bottom, with no true under .700 OPS baddies (Perez) but not many goodies above .800 (Durham, Bonds), so maybe the point about where Bonds bat is relatively a non-factor. All the other regulars have been in the .700 OPS club and while that is not great for middle of lineup type of guys - 3, 4, 5, 6 - Bonds and Durham occupy two of the spots and a third, Klesko/Aurilia, could combine to be over .800 if Klesko is back to "normal" (more on that later).
Bonds has been pretty good - except for his knee incident that started everything - about avoiding injuries so it is pretty much him against Father Time, and Bonds has been beating him bad for years now. And while the circumstantial evidence that he was an abuser of performance enhancement drugs has been significant, I think if he has another good season that builds upon last season, he has to put some doubters on edge regarding how much steroids/HGH really helped him during his out-of-the-world streak.
Given that Jason Grimsley was harangued by G-men to try to entrap Barry Bonds into giving it all up, showing how desperate they are to get Barry, clearly the government is being driven by certain people who have Barry in their cross hairs. I would bet that Barry and his home has been under surveillance since Balco blew wide open and that any and all packages that are headed to Barry are examined to the greatest degree possible and that anyone associated with Barry will feel the prying eyes of the government to see if they might be involved as well. And thus far, nothing.
So if Barry can ignore all the other "stuff" and hit as well as the projections, that is the minimum requirement for the Giants offense to be OK. Without him, it is very improbable, if not impossible, and the season will sink pretty fast, much like 2005.
Q2: Klesko Good or Klesko Bad
As I have noted in posts like these, I think Klesko can be the magic sauce that makes the Giants offense move from just OK with Bonds to be above average. He could be the Ellis Burk addition of 2007, making the offense that much better. But will he?
Bochy says that Klesko is back to the Klesko of old. If so that is pretty potent. His decline started in 2003 and given that he was entering into his 30's, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Still, in his decline, with congenital problems with his shoulder where there is bone on bone contact, he was still a better hitter than any other hitter on the Giants other than Barry and Ray-Ray: he hit .263/.370/.440/.809 with 26 AB/HR and still a great eye, with his BB/K ratio at 0.93 (best hitters are above 1.00). The year prior to that season, he hit .300/.387/.537/.924 with 19 AB/HR and 0.88 BB/K, and that's very good.
If so, that means that there is not that great a drop in the offense when the annointed LF is in the lineup for when Barry isn't playing - Barry projected 1.036 OPS, Klesko last great year .924 OPS. That's better than inserting in sub-.700 Steve Finley into the lineup (he recently realized that no one thinks of him as a starter so he accepted a job as a backup somewhere) whenever Barry or Moises sat.
On a side but related note, people talk about the drop in offense now that we lost Moises, but really, with him missing so many games, it was really MoiseLey who played "RF" and MoiseLey combined was only a mid .700 hitter at best. The additions of Roberts, Klesko, and Aurilia I think will more than make up for the losses of Alou, Finley, Hillenbrand, Niekro, in the lineup, just because of how bad those other (and still another to be discussed, Winn) hit in 2006.
And, in addition, if he is hitting that well, he's probably the starting 1B against RHP, which makes Bochy's decision become "who plays 3B, Aurilia or Feliz?" And if Aurilia is hitting like he did last season (above .800), it is probably him, but if he is hitting like he was before (.700's or less), then it becomes whoever between Feliz and him are hitting well at the moment. And Feliz is actually an acceptable offense at 3B when he is fresh - his hitting takes a huge dip from the first half to the second half - so Aurilia could find himself sitting much more than he thought he might when he thought he was the starting 1B.
However, as much as I like Frandsen, I can see Aurilia taking over for Vizquel a lot during the season because Vizquel has been in the habit of hitting around .700 every other year for a number of years - like his body tires out or something before recovering - and he's due for 2007. If he's hitting that poorly, I can see Aurilia getting a number of starts there "to keep Vizquel fresh and to give Aurilia starts since Klesko is getting most 1B starts."
Q3: Morris/Lowry Good or Morris/Lowry Bad
As I've written in a number of posts regarding the starting rotation, I think that it is best to view Lowry and Morris as a tandem pair for the #3 and #4 spots in the rotation. And despite their problems last season, I think that both can return to their former performance levels of prior years. According to research on starting pitchers (In The Hardball Times) they both pitched as well any #3 and #4 starter in 2006, despite their problems. If both are healthy, they both should pitch much better than that.
But will both do that? While there is a possibility that happens, the more conservative move is to assume that one will do so and the other will pitch like 2006 (I don't think that it is likely that both perform like in 2006).
The reasons why Lowry should pitch well is that when he was healthy, in 2005 and 2006, he was able to pitch at a high 3 ERA performance level, for a year and a half, which is #2 starter performance. His performance did not lag with repeated exposure to hitters, in fact, he had his patented late season surge (around August) both years, showing that when he is on, he is totally dominating. There is a physical reason for his poor 2006 season - his strained oblique muscle in his first start of the season - and if you look at his key indicator stats month by month (K/9, BB/9, K/BB), they improve month by month until he had his injury in September, when the wheels came off. He even had his August surge too. In fact, his good walk rate remained good during his struggles, which allowed him to continue to do relatively well, but his strikeout rate plummetted. You can do OK like that but not as well as Lowry was before.
The only question mark is whether he is fully recovered and that is where it gets less likely for him to do well. I recently read that he is still experiencing something with that oblique muscle, which had caused him to change his throwing mechanics, and which obviously affects his pitches. But he has been throwing much better this spring, so I expect him to hit the ground running when the season starts.
Morris is a controversial area for Giants fans. People see his salary and think, nay, demand, that he should be a top of the rotation starter. Yeah, it stinks to pay so much for so little, thus far. However, instead, I think fans should focus on what he can do in the context of the Giants rotation. He is nominally the 4th starter based on his stats from last season. Unfortunately, he had so many things going on that it is hard to read what exactly to expect from him in 2007.
Of course, I think I see, but others disagree, so I'll note them again here. First, Morris pitched poorly in the beginning of the season and a number of people (including myself) attributed that to being overamped trying to pitch well to justify his new contract and to please the fans. But even if you don't give him that, he pitched well enough to drive his ERA down to the low 4 area, #2 starter area, by mid-July. He then bounced around the mid-to-high 4 ERA range after that until September when his ERA blew up because of the mysterious rib injury that he suffered somewhere, somehow, sometime in August or perhaps even July. In any case, his ERA was still in the mid-4 range when August ended. Thus, even with all the problems Morris had last year, until his rib injury kicked in in September, he was pitching like a #2/3 starter overall.
That is a huge advantage over other teams if your #4 starter is pitching like a #3 and your #3 starter (Lowry) is pitching like a #2 starter. And keeping the runs given up down is key to the Giants winning because the offense is not too good but not too bad either, with only Bonds as the clearly above average player, and Durham and Klesko as possibly better than average. In addition, there will be platooning most probably with Roberts (Linden) and Klesko (Aurilia and Bonds), so that will help the offense be more balanced against LHP as well as RHP.
One of my problems in my previous analysis of what is going to happen in a season is that while I think it is a higher probability that each of the players does well, however, cummulatively, I should be ratcheting down the good expected outcomes, since by random chance, there will be poor performances popping in. So instead of saying that both will pitch like a #2 in 2007, which I think both have a good chance of doing, individually, I examine the odds of the two of them pitching like a #3 and #4 starter in 2007, and I think it's likely that one of them will be able to pitch like a #2, with the other pitching at least like a #3 starter (ERA below 4.84). Even in their poor 2006 season, both pitched like a #3 and #4 starter, so I don't think that it is much of a stretch to say that the two, in tandem, will pitch like a #2 and #3 starter, which would be an advantage over most other teams in the middle of the rotation.
Add to that the great spring of Russ Ortiz, who is capable of #2 starter performance but is slotted #5, and among the three of them, I don't see why we cannot expect at minimum a #2, #3, and #4 type of performance from our #3, #4, and #5 starters. Obviously, if everything went our way, the Giants could potentially have 3 #2 type performance from these three starters, and hence why I've been saying that the Giants have a good chance of winning the division and doing some damage in the playoffs, because when you have dominating pitching from your starting staff, as a whole, that's when the value of pitching outweights the hitting of individual position players who play everyday.
Q4: Cain Ace or Cain Sophomore Jinx
I have written about Cain's change in 2006 season in a number of posts plus here is a a quote from an artice on Cain on sfgiants.com that really made me fall in love with him:
"That's going to come sooner or later, hopefully," said Cain, appearing intrigued by the possibility of achieving a no-hit milestone. "You want to be able to do that once."
Cain also possesses an aptitude that has hastened his improvement. When he's presented with something new, said Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti, "you don't have to tell him twice."Thus, when Cain answers a question about how his perspective has changed now that he's in his third big-league camp, his well-worn response sounds more genuine than hackneyed. He truly understands the pitfalls of complacency, although the notion that he won't make the season-opening rotation is ludicrous.
"I have to compete like usual," said Cain, who finished 13-12 with a 4.15 ERA last season and tied for fifth in the National League Rookie of the Year balloting. "There are always guys coming in here kicking to come up. I feel like I always have to perform to earn my spot."
After all, Cain was among those ambitious prospects not long ago. "You've
got guys who want to come up as badly as you did at that time," he said.
Clearly, I don't think that Cain will have much problems pitching like an ace in 2007, but again that is not a conservative stance. So instead I use his 2006 season as a model for 2007. Will he have a sophomore jinx?
Looking at his 2006 season, he got better as the season went along, showing that while hitters might have been learning about him through repetition, Cain learned even more about the hitters and did even better. I would say that the odds favor that he should do at least what he did in 2006, that he will not regress from where he was last season, and he was a #2 with his 4.16 ERA. Obviously, the upside is that he attain full-blown ace status (which would happen if he repeats his second half 3.38 ERA).
Like with Morris and Lowry, I have been pairing up Cain with Zito when viewing performances overall, and I think that while both are capable of ace status, I think it is conservative to say that out of Cain and Zito, one will be an ace (ERA under 3.78) and the other will be a #2 (ERA under 4.31). The average NL ace had an ERA of 3.51 and average #2 had an ERA of 4.04, and that is not something to bet on as Zito hasn't reached 3.51 in ages and it is too much to expect Cain to do that (yet, that is). But I don't think it is too much of a stretch to say that both should have ERAs in the high 3, which is about what you get when you average the average ace with the average #2 starter (ERA of 3.78 to be exact), so I think the Giants will be covered overall there with Cain and Zito in comparison with other #1/#2 tandems.
Q5: Zito Good Enough or Zito Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail
I've posted a number of articles about the Giants $126M man (that's some inflation over the $6M man :^), since the Giants signed him to his lucrative contract. After his funky introduction to the Giants - "here's my new pitching motion, hope you love it" - he has been quietly good all spring, pitching like Zito has shown that he can, but with some tweaks and improvements. From what I've read since he was signed, Zito is like the pitching equivalent to Barry Bonds in terms of nutrition, working out, and trying to find that extra edge that will give you an advantage over the other team.
That gives me encouragement that the long contract won't be an albatross on the Giants payroll the way that Nen's contract, Alfonzo's contract, or Benitez's contract, were. As I had noted before, given the inflation rate of salaries, particularly pitcher's salaries, because Zito's contract starts out low initially, the average pitchers's salary will have caught up with Zito's high priced portion of the contract and thus, as long as Zito can pitch like an average pitcher, like a #3 type pitcher, the Giants will be OK as long as he is healthy and can pitch. And given his track record and maniacal devotion to being the best physically and mentally, that seems like there's a good chance that he can do that.
In addition, I just realized that even if he starts scuffling by the end of his long contract, the Giants should be covered pretty well by then because of Sabean's (and Tidrow's) focus on pitching. Over the intermediate term, the Giants should have a rotation full of cheap starters and relievers: Cain, Lowry, hopefully Lincecum and Sanchez too, then the crop of relievers here and coming up. As expensive Zito's contract will be, that would be made up by how cheaply we will be paying for starting pitching for our other young starters and relievers. Potentially, our whole pitching staff could be paid less in aggregate than Zito alone, starting midway through the contract.
Then there is the matter of how well Zito will pitch. In this case, the future can wait, what can he do for us right now. As much as saber-theory hate pitchers like Zito, Ortiz, Rueter, they were successful for a long time doing what they were doing. So you cannot blanket apply those princicples on Zito, as I learned soon after looking at Zito sabermetrically. He just plain makes hitters unable to get hits off of him and that makes up for his walks, flyballs turning into HR, and low strikeout rate.
Even without that, just statistically, while his stats do not scream "best contract ever given a starting pitcher ever" nor do they look like Cy Young type of seasons, they have been still pretty good, in the 3's for the most part, and that is great to have in your rotation, where you plug him in and can expect something in the 3's. And that's what I expect, particularly since ERA's are typically lower in the NL than the AL, which makes a lot of sense since there is that easy prey, the pitcher, waiting in the 9th spot, an easy out for the most part, in fact an easy strikeout as well. Unless there is an injury of some sort, I expect Zito to do well and deliver a high 3 ERA at minimum, and potentially something in the mid-3's, which would be just awesome, when paired with Cain, as I noted above in the Cain section.
With Zito/Cain paired as well as any team's #1/#2 and Lowry/Morris/Ortiz looking capable of at least a #2/#3/#4 performance out of the #3/#4/#5 slots, the Giants starting pitching will keep the Giants in a lot of games. With an average or perhaps better offense, the Giants can win a lot of games if the starting rotation can pitch like they are capable of.
Q6: Randy Winn Good or Randy Winn Bad
Randy Winn can be a key part of the offensive equation. He is, right now, an odd puzzle piece of the lineup where you don't know where to put him. Leadoff is taken by Roberts and Vizquel owns #2. Bonds just took #3, which is one that I thought would have been good to have Winn at, which means Durham is #4. You obviously don't bat Winn 5th, so that leaves #6, 7, and 8, and right now Bochy seems to want to bat him 8th. And if he hit like he did in 2006, particularly the second half, that's exactly where he should be hitting.
However, I believe his second half of 2006 was as flukey as his 2005 with us, when he suddenly became Barry Bonds for a month. As I noted in another post, if you look at his 2005-2006 stats together, they look like any other season he has had for most of his career, once he became a starter. Look at the splits 1st half vs. 2nd half: .275/.345/.440/.785 with 8 HR in 298 AB vs. .247/.289/.349/.638 with 3 HR in 275 AB. The first half is vintage Winn, the second, a horrible mess. So I think he will return to have a regular Winn type of season, about what he did in the first half of 2006, only over a full season.
And that will be critical to the lineup because then there will not be any sucking hole in the lineup with a sub-700 OPS starter. Last year, Finley, Winn, Alfonso (after first month), Feliz (all of the second half of the season), and the 1B, were batting somewhere in the 600's OPS, just killing the offense. This season, however, we got Roberts, Vizquel, Bonds, Durham, Aurilia/Klesko, Molina, Feliz, and Winn, there should not be one bat under 700 in the bunch, though Vizquel might be right there at 700 all season. And Linden and Frandsen appear ready to hit above that when they come in and spot-start.
As much as people say that Durham won't hit like that again, he has consistently been an above 800 hitter for a long while now - I think 2006 balances his 2005 - and as long as he hits around 820-850 OPS, he will be fine. Roberts could be affected by AT&T but he's never been much of a HR hitter, so I think his hitting there will be fine, despite being a LHH. Vizquel should be at least 700, and with Bonds now hitting behind him, that could help him out and get him more good pitches to hit. Bonds will be Bonds. I think Klesko will force his way into a platoon in the lineup and that Bochy will be playing Aurilia all around the infield (though that will take starts away from Frandsen), particularly at 3B if Feliz falters again. Feliz will play as long as he hits - and a 790-ish OPS is nothing to sneeze at - but with Aurilia and Frandsen around, he's going to sit if he isn't hitting that, so the offense will still be OK if he messes up. Molina has been a consistent 700's range OPS so I don't think he'll be a problem.
So that leaves us with Winn. As I noted, he really stunk in the second half. But that is one half out of many seasons of good play, where he had a high 700, 800-ish OPS most seasons. If the second half of 2006 is the real Winn, then the lineup could be in trouble, because while Linden might be a good replacement for Winn, he's also backing up CF plus LF sometimes, if Klesko plays 1B and Aurilia or Feliz is sitting. He can only play one position at a time. Thus it is a key factor if Winn can return to his former form, else the dominos start falling.
Particularly coming out of the 8th spot, he could be acting as the Giants bottom of the lineup lead-off hitter, getting on base and starting a rally in front of the top of the lineup. He gets on base, get to 2B via steal or pitcher sacrifice, then Roberts, Vizquel, and Bonds get a shot at driving him in. In addition, if his bat returns, he will be driving in runs as well from that position, for when the guys ahead of him are getting into scoring position. Most teams have a crappy hitter in 8th, if he hits like he is capable, .750-.800 range, then the Giants would have one of the best 8th place hitters around.
Giants in 2007
I normally publish a huge evaluation of the Giants lineup and pitching each season but I'm just too far behind in my work to do so this year. But I've done a lot of the basic work involved with that, so I've been writing to those facts in my posts, including this one.
The lineup, while not Murderer's Row, they are potentially OK to good (.750-.800 OPS) up and down the lineup. Plus there will not be many weak spots vs. RHP or LHP because platooning will put our best hitters in against the starting pitcher, unlike previous years when there were players who should have been platooned. The lineup will be as balanced as it has ever been and I think they can score just enough runs to support our starting rotation, scoring in the 4.5 runs, perhaps more, range. That's plenty if the starting rotation is as good as I think it could be, conservatively.
Meanwhile, the starting rotation could potentially be filled with #2 starter type of performances, high 3, low 4, and if they can do that, the Giants will not only have a winning record but could win the division. I think the Dodgers, despite their big signings, went backwards getting Pierre for the top of their lineup. He's going to kill rallies with his mega-low OBP (low relative to other top of lineup hitters). The Padres are betting on improved performances to maintain what they had last season, but have a rookie manager, who will make rookie mistakes sometimes, no matter how prepared he thinks he is. The D-backs are relying on too many youngsters, they would all basically have to do well for them to win. And Colorado I will worry about when they give me something to worry about.
Even if the rotation don't do that well, I think Cain and Zito will be able to do in aggregate as well as or better than most #1/#2 pairings. Then with Lowry, Morris, and Ortiz, I do not think that it is too much of a stretch to think that getting #2, #3, #4 type performances from the group of them is likely, and that would still keep the Giants competitive all season, even with our offense, even with our bullpen.
Our bullpen is a big area of worry, but, as much as I hate Benitez and think that he is not that good a person, the main thing is that when he is healthy and on, he's dominating, and he has been dominating all spring. Unfortunately, some players we were expecting more out of has not been delivering, but I think that the Giants have enough bodies in the minors that they can rotate relievers in and out for the first few months of the season and not seriously damage their chances of winning games, particularly with Bochy wanting to go to Benitez for more than one inning and Molina getting Benitez to concentrate on just getting guys out quickly and keeping his pitch count down (which he hopefully is working with Cain, Zito, and Ortiz on, as well).
Also, the setup men seem to be OK. Kline will be quietly good and Chulk I liked, his stats in Toronto were good, but I think the manager there just don't know what he is doing, so the main problem will be in middle relief. But you normally bring them in when the game is sort of out of hand anyway, so the odds of winning is usually slim at that point anyhow. And while some people say that our rotation is not innings eaters, I think all of them are capable of pitching 200 IP, which is 1000 IP out of 1400 or so IP. That basically leaves the 8th and 9th to pitch, normally, so for the close games, you bring out the big guns, but if the Giants have a good lead, you bring in the question marks and see if they can get out of the inning, allowing you to save your best relievers. If not, then you bring in the calvary to save the day, particularly with Benitez pitching more than 1 inning occassionally.
Thus, overall, I think the Giants will do well all season, and stay competitive for the lead. If the starting rotation is as good as I think it could be potentially, I think the Giants have a chance to not only win the division title, but to go deep into the playoffs. How can they not if the rotation is really balanced and all pitches like #2 starters? Just like a balanced lineup means no weak spots offensively, having a balanced rotation will mean no weak spots there either, and the back end of the rotation will easily take care of other teams's #3, #4, and #5 starters regularly. The bullpen, while weak, is strong enough where it counts: closer and set-up relievers. I think that it can be a good season in 2007 as long as the question marks above is answered positively, else the scenario is that we'll have another bad year like 2005 and 2006 and Sabean's job in danger (but that's a story for another post).
Friday, January 05, 2007
Giants Run Element
I was reading this article on this blog, The Baseball Analysts, where they described an old technique of Bill James for determining the type of hitter you got and where you would want to put him in the lineup, based on his Run Element, which was a metric that Bill James created to determine this trait. Here is the quote from an old Bill James Baseball Abstract describing this metric:
I took all the players who will and might play for the Giants in 2007 and calculated their 2006 Run Element (for Klesko, I used his 2005 stats) and here is the table (I tried the HTML from Google Docs again and the spacing was even worse! So back to the lame table format):
Giants - Run Element
Roberts - 2.00
Vizquel - 1.48
Bonds - 1.17
Klesko - 1.04
Sweeney - .82
Winn - .75
Linden - .71
Ellison - .54
Durham - .48
Niekro - .39
Aurilia - .39
Feliz - .31
Frandsen - .30
Molina - .25
Alfonzo - .18
Giants Lineup Construction
Well, we all knew Bonds should be batting in the middle. Klesko is a bit of a no-brainer too, so hopefully he has returned to his old self, which is what Bochy is selling us, so hopefully he is right, as Klesko would strengthen our 1B (and additionally 3B because then Feliz will probably see less ABs if Klesko returns to his old self and pushes Aurilia to 3B). Looks like Winn is the most obvious choice for batting 3rd, still he is suppose to be able to run well, but, as I noted, Bochy has thus far suggested Aurilia.
[Side note/thought, but as the lineup spot calculation I had did before and other lineup analysis have shown, the #3 spot is not as important to the offense as the #1, #2, #4 or #5 spots. The article I linked above quoted Bill James's discussion and he basically came to the same conclusion using his analysis.]
Unfortunately, we don't really have any good candidates for hitting 5th and, relatedly, 6th. Based on the run element methodology, Durham is not a very good candidate for a #5 hitter because of his low 0.48 run element. Randy Winn would make a better candidate with his 0.75 and Linden would even be better with his 0.71.
Even more unfortunately, our lineup have a lot of low run element hitters - Durham, Aurilia, Feliz, and Molina - but we only have one 8th spot. Durham is probably the best runner of the bunch (and probably the best hitter too), so he would probably be the best choice to hit 3rd if you believe in the run element philosophy.
Best Giants Lineup Using Run Element Method
This is the best Giants lineup that I could come up with, based on my reading of the article and following what Bill James advised:
If Klesko is hitting like he had in the past, even his poor (for his career) 2005 season, this would be a pretty good lineup:
Thus far, he has been hurt but not especially so, by SF: in 45 games, 164 AB, only 3 HR, but .268/.342/.415/.757 is not that bad plus he was facing mainly the good Giants pitching staff of the first half of this decade, not the rotation/bullpen of the past couple of years, and most of his ABs where when AT&T Mays Field was a pitchers park, not the neutral park it has been the past few seasons (which I attribute partly to San Diego's even more pitching oriented PETCO Park, though that moderated in 2006 due to their changing the field's dimensions and partly to hitters finally figuring out the park, much like Giants hitters had to go through their learning curve at their new park in 2000 and Grissom, Durham, Alfonzo, and Pierzitski when they joined the team). He is only off his career OPS by about 100 points and .757 is good, though not great.
However, Mark Sweeney just couldn't figure out AT&T Mays Field last year. He had horrible splits between home and road: only .228/.282/.283/.565 at home (145 AB!) vs. his normal .281/.385/.509/.894 on the road. And I noted that Pierzitski was horrible his first month or so with the Giants, hitting very poorly. Tucker also hit poorly his first month, before turning on fire. So we will see if Klesko has a similar adjustment period or not.
But since his stats have not been that bad thus far in SF, hopefully any adjustment period is short. Grissom, while a righty, had been labeled a poor hitter while with LA, but his AT&T numbers were good (while his LA numbers were horrible; ya hear that Pierre? Juan has a career mark of .281/.333/.331/.664 in LA; enjoy that sucking noise you hear, LA!) and when he joined the Giants, he had no problems adjusting at all and hit his normal high .700 OPS he normally did, when not playing in LA. Hopefully Klesko can hit the ground running.
Klesko Could Be Key to Good Giants Offense
While the acquisition of Bonds is clearly the best move for the offense, followed by Durham, the key tipping point acquisition for the offense, which turns it from average to good, might well be Klesko and whether he has recovered like Bochy (and the Giants) think he has. Bochy noted when Klesko was signed that Klesko looked like his old power-hitting self the final two weeks of the 2006 season for the Padres - he was finally healthy after having the AC joint on his left shoulder surgically repaired (this was from Chron). ESPN added further that Bochy liked how Klesko was hitting batting practice late in the season and quoted him "It looked like the Ryan Klesko I knew two or three years earlier." 2-3 years ago, Klesko was a mid-800 OPS hitter, which would be great for a 5th place hitter, plus more importantly, his OBP was in the high .300's back then.
Klesko also noted that he wouldn't have come back to play baseball, and would have retired, if he didn't feel good, as when he is healthy, he has power and can get on base. If he can do both, he would be a crucial addition because he is more a true #5 hitter than Durham is and would free Durham to bat 3rd plus more importantly, push Aurilia out of the #3 spot and down lower in the order. And Klesko hitting like the Klesko of old would give us a big RBI guy that we could use in the 5th spot.
Also, Klesko hitting like old would probably put the competition for playing time between Feliz and Aurilia, and Feliz will probably lose that competition and spend more time on the bench than he or his agent was planning. And when Bonds is sitting, the competition becomes Feliz vs. Linden and if Linden can hit like he did in 2006, he should get the starts. And if this plays out like I've just laid out, by mid-season, the Giants might be in the position to trade Feliz off to another team to drop his salary plus maybe pick up a decent prospect (we got a decent one for Tucker) if the other team desperately (we are talking about Feliz, after all) need a 3B after an injury to their starting 3B.
Let all Giants fans bow our heads down now and pray now for Klesko to return to his past form of .800 OPS hitting. For he is probably the key to the Giants having a good offense in 2007, as it looks pretty average otherwise, and if he can hit, he can play 1B and let Aurilia and Feliz battle it out for 3B. And don't get too hung up on Feliz's high salary, what's done is done and unfortunately, the Giants didn't have any better choices on the market other than Aurilia (but unfortunately they could not get a good 1B before they signed Feliz). Ideally and hopefully we can flip Feliz for a prospect by mid-season (when he should still be hitting: 2006 pre-ASG .274/.306/.486/.792; post-ASG .202/.248/.348/.596. That's a pattern for the past two seasons - 2005 pre .276/.315/.438/.753; post .217/.271/.402/.672 - when he has been a fulll-time player - and NOW he thinks he should get in shape, sheesh!)
Run element ratio divides the parts of secondary average into that which is valuable early in the inning, valuable for scoring runs (walks and stolen bases) and that which is valuable late in the inning, or valuable for driving in runs (power). The formula is (SB+BB)/(TB-H). If a player is over 1.00, then generally speaking you want him up early in the inning. If he is under 1.00, then he is more valuable later in the inning. Vince Coleman's career run element ratio is 4.4, meaning that he has little use except as a leadoff man; Don Mattingly's is .38, meaning that he is much more valuable later in the inning.You can read the rest of the article to get the author's stats on the MLB and his discussion, but I'll just focus just on the Giants, old and new, who appeared on the lists.
- Dave Roberts (2.00): He was 4th in the majors, making him one of the premier leadoff men in the majors.
- Omar Vizquel (1.48): He was 15th in the majors, so he would make a good leadoff hitter as well, which I had noted before when constructing lineups - with his lack of power, it would have made more sense to bat him leadoff and have Randy Winn bat 2nd where his extra power could drive in Vizquel, instead of being wasted batting behind the pitcher and #8 spot.
- Shea Hillenbrand (.239): He had the 6th worst run element in the majors in 2006. These are the odd-ball hitters, good enough to drive in runs but bad enough hitters that you don't want them batting 3/4/5. Which we Giants fans already knew about Shea.
- Benjie Molina (.253): He had the 7th worst run element. So I guess he'll take Shea's spot. Luckily, whereas Shea would sometimes hit higher in the lineup, Bochy already has Molina and Feliz slotted for the bottom of the order, where these low run element types should hit. Unfortunately, we also have...
- Pedro Feliz (.306): He had the 10th worst run element. As noted, Bochy is batting him at the bottom and traditionally managers would bat the catcher 8th, but Molina at least has a rep for driving in guys whereas they sort of fall into Feliz's lap, plus Molina is the better hitter, OPS-wise, so I am hoping Molina bats 7th and Feliz bats 8th.
- Rich Aurilia (.385): He had the 19th worst run element. Epps! Thus far, talk has been about batting Aurilia 3rd.
I took all the players who will and might play for the Giants in 2007 and calculated their 2006 Run Element (for Klesko, I used his 2005 stats) and here is the table (I tried the HTML from Google Docs again and the spacing was even worse! So back to the lame table format):
Giants - Run Element
Roberts - 2.00
Vizquel - 1.48
Bonds - 1.17
Klesko - 1.04
Sweeney - .82
Winn - .75
Linden - .71
Ellison - .54
Durham - .48
Niekro - .39
Aurilia - .39
Feliz - .31
Frandsen - .30
Molina - .25
Alfonzo - .18
Giants Lineup Construction
Well, we all knew Bonds should be batting in the middle. Klesko is a bit of a no-brainer too, so hopefully he has returned to his old self, which is what Bochy is selling us, so hopefully he is right, as Klesko would strengthen our 1B (and additionally 3B because then Feliz will probably see less ABs if Klesko returns to his old self and pushes Aurilia to 3B). Looks like Winn is the most obvious choice for batting 3rd, still he is suppose to be able to run well, but, as I noted, Bochy has thus far suggested Aurilia.
[Side note/thought, but as the lineup spot calculation I had did before and other lineup analysis have shown, the #3 spot is not as important to the offense as the #1, #2, #4 or #5 spots. The article I linked above quoted Bill James's discussion and he basically came to the same conclusion using his analysis.]
Unfortunately, we don't really have any good candidates for hitting 5th and, relatedly, 6th. Based on the run element methodology, Durham is not a very good candidate for a #5 hitter because of his low 0.48 run element. Randy Winn would make a better candidate with his 0.75 and Linden would even be better with his 0.71.
Even more unfortunately, our lineup have a lot of low run element hitters - Durham, Aurilia, Feliz, and Molina - but we only have one 8th spot. Durham is probably the best runner of the bunch (and probably the best hitter too), so he would probably be the best choice to hit 3rd if you believe in the run element philosophy.
Best Giants Lineup Using Run Element Method
This is the best Giants lineup that I could come up with, based on my reading of the article and following what Bill James advised:
- Roberts
- Vizquel
- Durham
- Bonds
- Winn
- Aurilia
- Molina
- Feliz
When Roberts is sitting against LHP, Linden plays RF and Winn plays CF:
- Vizquel
- Winn
- Durham
- Bonds
- Linden
- Aurilia
- Molina
- Feliz
If Klesko is hitting like he had in the past, even his poor (for his career) 2005 season, this would be a pretty good lineup:
- Roberts
- Vizquel
- Durham
- Bonds
- Klesko
- Winn
- Aurilia
- Molina
Thus far, he has been hurt but not especially so, by SF: in 45 games, 164 AB, only 3 HR, but .268/.342/.415/.757 is not that bad plus he was facing mainly the good Giants pitching staff of the first half of this decade, not the rotation/bullpen of the past couple of years, and most of his ABs where when AT&T Mays Field was a pitchers park, not the neutral park it has been the past few seasons (which I attribute partly to San Diego's even more pitching oriented PETCO Park, though that moderated in 2006 due to their changing the field's dimensions and partly to hitters finally figuring out the park, much like Giants hitters had to go through their learning curve at their new park in 2000 and Grissom, Durham, Alfonzo, and Pierzitski when they joined the team). He is only off his career OPS by about 100 points and .757 is good, though not great.
However, Mark Sweeney just couldn't figure out AT&T Mays Field last year. He had horrible splits between home and road: only .228/.282/.283/.565 at home (145 AB!) vs. his normal .281/.385/.509/.894 on the road. And I noted that Pierzitski was horrible his first month or so with the Giants, hitting very poorly. Tucker also hit poorly his first month, before turning on fire. So we will see if Klesko has a similar adjustment period or not.
But since his stats have not been that bad thus far in SF, hopefully any adjustment period is short. Grissom, while a righty, had been labeled a poor hitter while with LA, but his AT&T numbers were good (while his LA numbers were horrible; ya hear that Pierre? Juan has a career mark of .281/.333/.331/.664 in LA; enjoy that sucking noise you hear, LA!) and when he joined the Giants, he had no problems adjusting at all and hit his normal high .700 OPS he normally did, when not playing in LA. Hopefully Klesko can hit the ground running.
Klesko Could Be Key to Good Giants Offense
While the acquisition of Bonds is clearly the best move for the offense, followed by Durham, the key tipping point acquisition for the offense, which turns it from average to good, might well be Klesko and whether he has recovered like Bochy (and the Giants) think he has. Bochy noted when Klesko was signed that Klesko looked like his old power-hitting self the final two weeks of the 2006 season for the Padres - he was finally healthy after having the AC joint on his left shoulder surgically repaired (this was from Chron). ESPN added further that Bochy liked how Klesko was hitting batting practice late in the season and quoted him "It looked like the Ryan Klesko I knew two or three years earlier." 2-3 years ago, Klesko was a mid-800 OPS hitter, which would be great for a 5th place hitter, plus more importantly, his OBP was in the high .300's back then.
Klesko also noted that he wouldn't have come back to play baseball, and would have retired, if he didn't feel good, as when he is healthy, he has power and can get on base. If he can do both, he would be a crucial addition because he is more a true #5 hitter than Durham is and would free Durham to bat 3rd plus more importantly, push Aurilia out of the #3 spot and down lower in the order. And Klesko hitting like the Klesko of old would give us a big RBI guy that we could use in the 5th spot.
Also, Klesko hitting like old would probably put the competition for playing time between Feliz and Aurilia, and Feliz will probably lose that competition and spend more time on the bench than he or his agent was planning. And when Bonds is sitting, the competition becomes Feliz vs. Linden and if Linden can hit like he did in 2006, he should get the starts. And if this plays out like I've just laid out, by mid-season, the Giants might be in the position to trade Feliz off to another team to drop his salary plus maybe pick up a decent prospect (we got a decent one for Tucker) if the other team desperately (we are talking about Feliz, after all) need a 3B after an injury to their starting 3B.
Let all Giants fans bow our heads down now and pray now for Klesko to return to his past form of .800 OPS hitting. For he is probably the key to the Giants having a good offense in 2007, as it looks pretty average otherwise, and if he can hit, he can play 1B and let Aurilia and Feliz battle it out for 3B. And don't get too hung up on Feliz's high salary, what's done is done and unfortunately, the Giants didn't have any better choices on the market other than Aurilia (but unfortunately they could not get a good 1B before they signed Feliz). Ideally and hopefully we can flip Feliz for a prospect by mid-season (when he should still be hitting: 2006 pre-ASG .274/.306/.486/.792; post-ASG .202/.248/.348/.596. That's a pattern for the past two seasons - 2005 pre .276/.315/.438/.753; post .217/.271/.402/.672 - when he has been a fulll-time player - and NOW he thinks he should get in shape, sheesh!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)