2015 Giants: September and Final PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of September 2015 and for the season, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here (unfortunately, they removed the article; this link gets you at least to the PQS definition, read down to middle for details). I wrote on this first in 2006 (wow, 10th year of this!) and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

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

2015 Giants: August PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of August 2015, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here (unfortunately, they removed the article; this link gets you at least to the PQS definition, read down to middle for details). I wrote on this first in 2006 (wow, 10th year of this!) and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

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

2015 Giants: July PQS

Whoa!  Just realized while preparing for the August version that I had neglected to create a July version.

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of July 2015, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here (unfortunately, they removed the article; this link gets you at least to the PQS definition, read down to middle for details). I wrote on this first in 2006 (wow, 10th year of this!) and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

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

2015 Giants: June PQS

Happy Fourth of July!

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of June 2015, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here (unfortunately, they removed the article; this link gets you at least to the PQS definition, read down to middle for details). I wrote on this first in 2006 (wow, 10th year of this!) and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

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

Your 2015 Giants: After 15 Turns of the Rotation

My report on the Giants starting pitching based on PQS data.

Your 2015 Giants: Rotation Judgement Day

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

2015 Giants: May PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of May 2015, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here (unfortunately, they removed the article; this link gets you at least to the PQS definition, read down to middle for details). I wrote on this first in 2006 (wow, 10th year of this!) and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

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

2015 Giants: April PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of April 2015, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here (unfortunately, they removed the article; this link gets you at least to the PQS definition, read down to middle for details). I wrote on this first in 2006 (wow, 10th year of this!) and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

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

Your 2015 Giants: PQS After (nearly) Three Turns of the Rotation

I was not planning on writing anything regarding PQS this early, but with the losing and the fans' angst, I thought I would look into it.  Plus, with LA coming up, thought I would combine the two.

ogc thoughts

Again, the Giants starting rotation starts out slow, as they did in 2014 as well.  This time, it's Heston being the dominant starter (last year it was Hudson), with 3 DOM starts out of three.  Unfortunately, the others only have two DOM starts among them.

But it's not like the others were all bad.  Lincecum has 1 DOM and 1 MID, for a 50% DOM/0% DIS.  Hudson had two MIDs until his start today, where he had another MID but got BABIPed badly, so he is 0% DOM/0% DIS (but would probably have gotten a DOM today had he not thrown so much because of that one inning.    Bumgarner had one of each in his three starts, for a 33% DOM/33% DIS.  

It was really two starters who really stank, Peavy and Vogelsong.  Peavy had two DIS starts after talking his way out of not being placed on the DL, until he finally admitted he wasn't doing the team any good by not DLing and getting himself 100% healthy.  I understand the value of guttiness, but now was not the time for that, even if he just signed a new contract, he should have took the DL since we had starters in reserve for this type of situation.  On top of that, Vogelsong had a really bad start in place of Peavy's first start, and really hasn't pitched well in any appearance this season, he's been worse than gasoline, more like jet fuel.  

And here are some odd similarities between 2014 and 2015, even though there are a number of new members of the rotation.  In both seasons, the ace (#1) starter was up and down to start the season.  The second starter has not been his normal self, and eventually been DLed.  The third starter have seen a nice surprise, wasn't sure what to expect, but he came out dominating.  The fourth starter has been middling.  The only difference is the fifth starter has been better than last year.  

And the losing streak had a fair bit of bad luck in there too.  We lost the two DOM starts in that eight game losing streak.  And there were three MID starts. Plus the three DIS starts, which we rightly lost.  Instead of 0-8, most of the time, probably should have been 3-5 in that streak, winning three of the five DOM or MID starts.  That would have changed our record from 4-10 to 7-7, and even just winning the two DOM starts would have meant a 6-8 record, changing gloom and doom 6 games back to 3 game back mehness.

I'm Not Worried

I don't feel good, like everyone else.  It is never good to be 6 games back.  

But I'm not worried.  We still have 148 games to play.   A LOT can still happen.  We can still win 90 games, we still can get into the playoffs.  To reach 90 wins, the Giants only need to play at a .581 win pace to reach that.   This team has done it before with the majority of these players.  

One good win streak and we are back into the playoff race.  We have seen this back and forth action in terms of the NL West standings for years now, one or two teams will get off to a great start, but then they hit their bad patch, while the others who had bad were now good, and catch up, changing up who the leaders are during the season.  The Giants can be that team.

It is not good that Pence and Cain is still not ready to resume physical activity, but, at least for Pence, it should not be much longer.  Hunter broke his arm, but none of it was displaced, it is just a matter of time before he's back in the lineup and all that would be forgotten.  

As I noted above, the pitching hasn't been all that bad, based on their sabermetric performances per PQS.  It has certainly not been good, a 36% DOM is never good, but good starts at 40% and goes from there.   And they were similarly poorly performing last season as well, that was masked by the hot offense we had at the start of last season, but then turned it on by mid-to-late April, and that carried the offense for a long while, until June.

And we have had good pitching.  Bumgarner, would be foolish to think he's going to be like this all season.  He'll snap out of it, like he did last season when he stumbled to start the season.  Hudson and Lincecum has been OK up to now, showing some flash, but more importantly, not giving in and throwing up a disaster start.  And Heston has been a god-send thus far, can't expect him to be this good all season, but based on what he's done at each level rising up the minors, he's a battler with success at every level now, so you can't bet against him either.   

And that's the formula the Giants used in 2009 to 2014 to deliver good PQS performances each season that helps drive winning streaks.  You have the ace, you have three good contributors, and then you have the 5th starter who stinks up the place.   That will kick in soon once Bumgarner finds his bliss, like he has in seasons past, and give us the ace to go with the other good performers.  

Peavy Replacement Starter and When

Bochy has not given a hint yet who will get the last rotation spot in place of Peavy, other than to say probably either Vogelsong or Petit.  Looking at the 40-man roster makes that statement look clear:  they have no 40 man starting pitcher waiting in the minors.  If they want to bring up, say, Braulino Lara, who has done very well in two AAA starts so far, or old vet Kevin Correia, who they recently picked up, they would have to drop somebody that they have held onto very strongly so far.  Cordier and Parker are probably the next guys on the list, but the Giants have steadfastly held onto them so far.  

Bochy has also said that he's not adjusting the rotation by moving Heston up a start to pitch against the LADdies.  That makes sense, as then he would be pitching the potential rubber game against our hated rivals.  That would be a lot of pressure to put on the young rookie, a lot to put on his shoulders.  It would also have the stink of desperation, which a lot of fans have been giving off, but not something that Bochy would ever do this early in the season.  So Vogie or Petit would be taking that Peavy start against LA.

Thinking it over, seems to me that there are two scenarios that could affect the decision, which I expect to be announced after the second game of the series.  While it is too early to have a must win, if the Giants are in position to win the series, I think that Bochy would start Petit.  He has pitched much better than Vogelsong so far this season, and better than him the past two seasons, when Petit is given the mantle of "starter in the rotation" and not "replacement starter".  If the series is tied 1-1, I can see Petit being given the start, to go for the win.

On the other hand, if either team has already won the series by winning the first two games, then I can see Bochy giving Vogelsong the start.   At this point, he got nothing to lose by starting Vogelsong. Perhaps Vogie has been struggling to get into his relief role.  That happens to most pitchers, it seems like, I've read that comment too often to not believe that until a pitcher accepts his relief role, he can't do well as a reliever, because part of him still thinks he is a starter.  So putting him in the rotation in place of Peavy would at least place him back in a familiar role, and hopefully relax him enough to do well again.

And that circumstance, Vogie in the starting rotation relaxing him, might just be the factor that makes him the starter no matter what.  However, that was true even before Peavy got DLed, and up to now, Bochy had been deferring to Vogie's veteranness and making him the starter while keeping Petit in his great role out of the bullpen.  But instead of going there immediately, Bochy first said that they would need to think about it, then said that it would be either Vogie or Petit.  So hence why I tried to divine what circumstances could be driving Bochy's decision making.  It will be interesting to see how and who he choses.

LA Due to Cool Off

Plus, the Bridegrooms have been riding a bunch of hot streaks.  A-Gon is not going to hit so many homers and doubles.  A-Gon and Kendrick's BABIP is going to regress to career means as well.  Pederson is striking out way too much to keep up his hitting or .474 BABIP.  And Peralta is not going to be able to keep up being a good closer, his last very good season was in 2011 and he's 39 YO, not likely to get better suddenly, he's more likely to regress to his 3.79 ERA over his past three seasons.  

This is as good a time for them to return to reality.  Streaks like this rarely last more than a couple of weeks, and they have a bunch of players just playing above their talents, and these guys have good talent, just not good enough to do something that no player in the history of the majors has ever done, having such high BABIPs.  Plus, getting to play at home for 9 of their first 12 games (and the 3 road games were in AZ, hardly much of a trip and they even got an off day before the short trip), helped them a lot, I would have to think, they got to stay home and get comfortable.   Today is their third off day already.  So a lot of things have gone their way, and good times don't last forever.

Giants Get A Rest

Plus, they'll be in SF, which gives us some home advantage as well, as bad as we've been doing.  There must be some reason why the MLB starts each team slowly in April.  As much as players complain that they don't need that much spring training or that much rest, there is always a lot more days off in April than there is in August and September.  That is why a lot of teams skipped their 5th starter in April in years past and didn't bring him in until May, all the days off enabled that.  I view them as opportunities to rest and allow the players to get back into the swing of things, as well as a day to get their mind off things.

But the Giants have just had a 14 day stretch where they started the season and didn't have a rest until today.  Many teams already had two days of rest already and I read that the Cards will have their 4th day of rest tomorrow, plus as noted, today is the Dodger's 3rd day of rest already.  The Giants, meanwhile, had three travel days with no off days plus no off days.  It is almost like the MLB did that on purpose, the Giants being on the road should have gotten more days off, while the Dodgers, being mostly at home, should have had zero days off.  

So whether it's mental or physical rest that players need this early in the season, the Giants players have gotten no rest at all, which has not helped to change their mind set once the badness started to flow.  I expect the players to get refreshed some with today's off day and be better able to battle LA the next three days.  Hopefully they can get out of whatever bad habits they have gotten into, hit the mental reset button, and come out great tomorrow.

Go Giants!  Buck the Bridegrooms!

Your 2014 Giants: Playoff PQS Analysis

I was just looking at the Giants stats when I realized that I had not done the Giants 2014 Playoffs PQS analysis.  So here it is.

Your 2015 Giants: Back to Back Jack

Spring is in the air...

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

2014 Giants: September PQS and Final Stats

(Apologies for the delay, had most of the post done before we won the championship, except for the ending comments, but then forgot about it.  I normally go over other stuff in my comments afterward, but seems like a good place and time to discuss the 2015 rotation, and gather up all my thoughts that I've been putting out in comments across other places)

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of September 2014, plus the final stats for the season, with PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here (unfortunately, they removed the article; this link gets you at least to the PQS definition, read down to middle for details). I wrote on this first in 2006 and have compiled their stats on a regular basis, so I'm continuing it this season for continuity and historical comparison (there is the "PQS" label that you can click to see the old posts on this). Regular readers can skip to the next section.

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

Your 2015 Giants: Rotation

I see a lot of consternation with the Giants rotation and the depth.  The great blog Raising Matt Cain has had some comments about this (like this one).

ogc thoughts

The rotation right now is Bumgarner, Cain, Hudson, Peavy, Lincecum, with Petit as long man/6th starter.

Madison Bumgarner

Most are not worried about him except for the 270+ inning he threw in 2014.   While it is true that Bumgarner has never thrown that many innings before (covering 4,000+ pitches), something else one has to consider is that in 2010, he threw 3,393 pitches between the minors and majors, while still keeping up with his routine of throwing on the side:  every day!  Pitchers in the majors, he discovered, did not throw every day, in order to conserve strength for their starts, and at some point he decided that he should do the same thing too.

So it is very probable that Bumgarner has already thrown more than 4,000 pitches in a season before, in 2010 when you include his throwing every day, and he did not have any problems with that then, and thus he should not have any problems with it in 2014.  And who is kidding who, while he might not throw every day, I would bet that he still throws more than most pitchers do between starts.  Furthermore, many pitchers have thrown over 300 innings and had long careers in the past.  And look at the guys who have the bodies to handle that type of work - Feller, Ryan, Clemens - Bumgarner has the type of body that I would categorize as "farm boy" who seem to be able to handle the workload jess fine sir.

So while I understand the concern, there are mitigating factors as to why it is not a problem.  Though, really, this is the least of anyone's worries, I'll note.

Matt Cain

Obviously, people are worried about his recovery from elbow and ankle surgery.  I'm not sure exactly why.

For me, the major danger from these surgeries is the possibility of infection and of a mistake being made.  We are past the point of infection as it should have healed over by now.  And if there was any mistake, it should have been obvious to Matt by now because he should have started his off-season throwing program by now and there would be talk about him possibly needing to go under the knife again.  So neither of these should be in play anymore.

That then leaves the irrational fear that surgery means something could have changed for the worse.  It didn't, it changed for the better, as he had the chips removed from his elbow, which is very minor (relatively) surgery as arthroscopy is minimally invasive, which he's been dealing with since forever and the bone spurs on his ankle.  It is not like they did some structural change or move body parts around (like in TJS).  Despite these long term impediments, he has pitched very well as a major league pitcher for his whole career.

So my minimum expectations is that he'll return to prior goodness, the Cain we have known and loved during this extended period of competitiveness, 2009-2013.  And, as a possible bonus, perhaps be better than ever, now that he's not impinged in any way now.  And I realize that he was pretty good before, and perhaps I'm being too simplistic, but basically he was healthy before but pitched well in spite of the chips being in the way sometimes, but now he has no chips to worry about, but still has healthy as before.  Seems obvious to me that he should at minimum return to prior goodness.

Tim Hudson

I can see the fear that people are having, due to him getting surgery at age 40, and especially on the ankle that was horribly broken not that long ago.  Again, I'm not seeing why the fear is so large.

Yes, surgery can be dangerous.  It should be a number of weeks for the sutures to heal, so infection is still a possibility, but at under 1%, it is very uncommon and unlikely.  So surgery today, while not 100%, is generally safely done.

And bone spurs are not that big a deal to be operated on (same thing Cain got done too).  This is a relatively common and easy surgery, from what I understand.  Arthroscopy has made such surgery much safer, as it is minimally invasive, speeding recovery time as well.  Roughly 80% of such a simple problem have good or excellent results.  So while there is a chance of a problem, it is more likely that he will be OK.

In addition, two factors mitigate any issues regarding delaying Hudson's start of the season.  First of all, many teams operate with only four starters for the first month or so, and the Giants could chose to do that.  They have generally not done that in recent years, especially after a playoff season, but could.  Secondly, they have Petit around to take up the slack, should the Giants chose to go with a 5-man rotation to start the season, until Hudson is ready.   And Petit has done well when placed in the rotation and not an emergency starter, as I get into below.

Jake Peavy

For Peavy, his prior stretch of poor performance, particularly punctuated by his very bad first half of 2014, when he lost, like, 9 starts in a row, then lost his first one with the Giants, has scarred Giants fans memories, overshadowing his great performance with us.   They fear that the first half is more representative of his future than the second half with us.

I don't share that concern.  If you look at Peavy's PQS stats, over the past 4-5 seasons, he's been very good at putting up high DOM% (i.e. quality starts) and not throwing a lot of disaster starts.  Except, that is, for the first half in 2014, when he wasn't doing as well.  That's why I place my bet on Peavy's performance with us being the real deal and not the first half, as the first half is the anomaly over the past few years and not the second half.  And pitchers with great PQS stats, while no guarantee that they will have great stats, generally end up with great stats.

If you look at his stats, the bad years appear to be a correction, regression to the mean.  His career ERA and FIP are almost exactly the same.  However, in recent years, his FIP has been less than his ERA.  In his bad seasons, the FIP has been much less than his actual ERA, except for the first half of 2014, which again is the outlier in the whole period.   Something to be concerned about, sure, since we don't have any idea why he was bad for that period of time, but since he returned to his prior goodness with us (he reported that he really loved working with Posey and Susac, and basically he waited for the Giants to come to him, instead of moving on when the Giants were pursuing Lester), I am not as worried about this struggles in the first half ow 2014.

Here is the only thing I can see to be concerned about, and perhaps this explains his first half struggles.  Peavy is at the age where his velocity will eventually decline and he will need to adjust.  And his K/9 has been dropping down in recent years.   Whereas he's been superior for years, he's now down to average range at 6.6 K/9 with us last season.

However, he's already dealt with this before, his K/9 was very high until age 29, when probably whatever physical problems that kept him out of games started to crop up, and so his K/9 went down from 2009-2013, as he adjusted so that he can pitch and stay healthy.   And in spite of the lower K/9, he kept his K/BB at the same level, 3.44 K/BB from 2004-2009, 3.52 K/BB from 2010-2013.

But now it's gone down again, and it would be my speculation that his time with Boston was when he was struggling to adjust to this new reality, and his time with the Giants was when he figured out how to continue to pitch well in spite of this.  He's always been good at keeping walks down while striking out a lot so that his K/BB is still high, as I showed above.  His time with Boston has a much lower K/BB, 2.23, but with the Giants he's back to 3.41 K/BB, in line with what he had done previous.   Again, his time with Boston was the anomaly.

It is very similar to Hudson's career arc.  Circumstances change, but Peavy and Hudson have adjusted to keep their K/BB at a very good level, even as their K/9 goes down.  So barring the usual concerns about a pitcher his age, I think his time with Boston is the outlier, not his time with SF.

Tim Lincecum

Lincecum has a three year record of poor performances:  or does he?  Every season, he has had an extended period of very strong pitching:  the second halves of 2012 and 2013, and in 2014, he had a 3.65 ERA as late as mid-to-late July (when he saved that game).   And his PQS also shows that his performance during that period has actually been good in one very important aspect:  his DOM% is still very high.

Tim's problem the past few years has been his disaster starts.  That is one nuance I've learned in studying this statistic, that a pitcher's ERA can still be good, even if he don't have many quality starts, as long as he's avoiding disaster starts too.  Brad Hennessey was rarely good for us, but he was rarely bad too, and as a result, he could be a serviceable starter like that.  That got me to looking for other pitchers like that, he has mostly what I call MID starts - neither DOM nor DIS, 2 or 3 PQS - and I found that a pitcher can be mediocre even if he can't dominate the other team, as long as he can avoid disaster starts as well.  However, Tim has been horrible in avoiding disaster starts in recent seasons, even as he's been good at throwing dominant starts as well.

This is why I think that Lincecum's father returning to his prior role of game-by-game coach will help Tim return to being a good pitcher again.  Not necessarily Cy Young good, since he's older and not striking out as many, though I would not take that off the table either, frankly since he's been very good over longish stretches, for example, he had a 3.11 ERA over an 18 game stretch from April 15 to July 20 last season.

Some worry that Lincecum would not be able to integrate his Dad's instruction into games.  I totally agree that it is up to Lincecum, but feel that this is not a concern.  This is a nice article (which is mostly a cut and paste of e-mails Chris sent to the blog’s author) with his father describing what he did with his son.   Tim has been throwing with his Dad’s instructions since age 8. He’s been off the tether since age 26 for a total of five seasons now, after getting instruction and game-by-game advise and instruction for 18 seasons before that.  While I agree that he would need to be able to take the instruction into games, given that this is something he has been internalizing starting 23 years ago.

In addition, it hasn’t been like he forgot everything even in 2014 (based on the long stretch of good pitching overall), it seems to me that the key areas his father can help in is diagnosing when he is not following his father’s methodology/mechanics and what he needs to do to get back to where his father wants him to be. As I tried to show above, his problem the past few years have not been being able to throw nice starts regularly, but that when he gets lost mechanically, he’s bad for a long time until he fixes it, resulting in a lot of disaster starts.

So I think that it's clear that he don’t know exactly why and how his mechanics work, but appears capable of working on it until he gets it back into good shape.  However, then, meanwhile, he’s horrible, like a batting practice pitcher, until he does figure it out.  Hopefully his father’s coming back and helping game-by-game will lessen the severity and the duration of these down spells.

But I would note here that even when Dad was around, he had bad months where he was not very good, so it’s not all manna from the heavens. Still, lets say that the first 20 games of 2014 was his talent level (that’s all the starts up to the save game, then he went from very good to very bad, so it appears to me that changing up his routine caused him to change a key mechanical motion, as he didn’t have another good start for the rest of the season): he had a 3.68 ERA during that stretch of bad and good.  I would take that from our 5th starter any day.

I’m not looking for him to be Cy Young Timmy, but given that he’s not far from OK to good performances, hopefully his Dad can help him maintain that consistency over a full season instead of roughly half a season, as he has in recent seasons.  It is not a slam dunk, but I'm glad the Giants are still giving him a chance.

While I think that Petit right now is better, $18M or no $18M, I think that the Giants need to give Lincecum a chance to show what he can do now that his Dad is helping him again with his mechanics, and keeping it tuned.  Even when he was winning Cy Youngs, there would be a month where he would go off the rails and there would be regular reports that he would lose his mechanics and need his father to help him get back to where he should be. And even in his poor last few seasons, he actually pitched well for around half the season, it would just be that he would blow up at some point in the season, and just lose it, ruining his overall seasonal results.

So I like the Giants position right now that Linceum is the starter and Petit is the long reliever/6th starter. It allows him to keep face, while the Giants use spring training to assess where Timmy is now and how productive he can be in 2015. Petit as the starter with Lincecum in the bullpen is an option that could still be done mid-season (or when necessary) without harming irreparably, their playoff chances. Meanwhile, the Giants can see if working with his Dad will help him reach prior heights, as the Giants don’t need Linecum to be a Cy Young winner again for them to win the division, they just need him to be pretty good, like he has been in long stretches even in recent seasons.

The risk/reward is too high for the Giants not to start Lincecum.  And the logic for why he should return to goodnes, as I laid out above, makes a lot of sense to me.  Despite his poor seasonal results, he has still been a dominant starter and for long stretches.  It has been when he was lost mechanically when his seasonal results suffered.  And his father is the one who knows his form so well that he can tell what is wrong just from hearing what the announcer is seeing over the radio.  Now, his father will be helping him again, as he did in 2009 and for the nearly two decades before that.  Seems like an easy equation to understand.

Yusmeiro Petit

Some fans still don't think much of Petit.  They look at his overall results or question his abilities because the Giants have thus far been reluctant to put him permanently into the rotation.  Other fans think that Petit should be in the rotation.  While I would love to put Petit into the rotation, as I noted above, I like what the Giants are doing.

First off, Petit, when he's been placed in the rotation and not thrown into a start cold, has been a very good starting pitcher.  As a starter at the end of the 2015 season, he was 67% DOM and 17% DIS in 6 starts.  When just thrown into starts in 2015, he had a 33% DOM and 17% DIS, a much lower performance.  In 2014, when placed into the rotation, he had a 57% DOM and 14% DIS in the 7 starts.   Between 2013-2014, when in the rotation, he had 13 starts, with a 3.74 ERA, 9.8 K/9 and 1.8 BB/9 for a great 5.4 K/BB, 62% DOM and 15% DIS.  He's been consistently good when placed into the rotation, so that is not a worry for me.

Some question his abilities because the Giants didn't simply put him in the rotation, instead of resigning Peavy or replacing Lincecum.   I don't view it as the Giants being really reluctant to give him a rotation slot, but more as the Giants being really reluctant to not have a backup starter who can deliver the goods as well or better than the starters in the rotation.   That is quite a competitive weapon to have, and on the cheap.

Most teams losing one of their top starters in the rotation usually can kiss the season goodbye (see Twins with Francisco Liriano). If the Giants lose anyone, per the prevailing worries right now (as per above, Bumgarner's innings, Cain's surgery, Hudson's surgery, Peavy's up and down season, Lincecum's poor stretch of seasons), then they can swap in Petit while they try to get the afflicted pitcher back into playing shape.  Or finish the season for him.  

However, it's not very fair to Petit since he probably could be a very good starter for somebody right now and perhaps he could take his return to long relief as a negative.  I mean, not only was he one out away from a perfect game, but also has the record for the longest stretch of consecutively retired batters and which is unique in that he did this as a reliever, mostly, whereas it has usually been starters over two games.  He did it over an 8 game stretch of games.   And not only is his K/9 superior but his walk rate is very low too, for a stupendous K/BB ratio.

However, it's a glass half full situation, because before the Giants took him on and developed him, he was relegated to pitching in the Mexican League previously.  He probably wouldn't be in this position without them, as nobody was willing to give him a chance.  And thus he's probably just happy to be in the majors and earning a great living.

And it's a matter of patience, as Hudson will probably be leaving the rotation after the season, at which point Petit will be the most likely replacement, assuming he can beat out our young prospects like Crick and Blackburn, or maybe even Beede, for the starting spot.  And he's been waiting for a long time anyway, and traveled the life of a journeyman, much like Vogelsong, so he is more likely to be appreciative of the opportunity to pitch in the majors, versus unhappy over not starting full-time.

Starting Rotation

So I see the worries that people have, but I think that they are overly worried.  It is almost like any negative is the end of the world.  It's not and worrying about it does not make the worry any likelier.   Bumgarner is built like the horses that he handles and built himself up to be able to absorb throwing so many pitches.  After all, he's the guy who had Hall of Fame as his long-term goal as a senior in high school.  And the Giants are likely to lessen his load this season by pulling him out sooner.

The other worries are bigger, but still not as bad as people make it out to be.  Cain and Hudson were operated on with minimally invasive techniques, and should be back to normal eventually.  Peavy's outlier was his time with Boston, not the other way around, and he should be back to his prior levels of performance.  And Lincecum, even if his father is no help, can, at worse, eat a lot of innings for us, like he's done the past few seasons, and at a competent 5th starter performance level, while giving us valid and good hope that he might actually be good this season with his Dad's help.

And while I don't think any of these worries individually are particularly worrisome, I think that the odds of one of the five happening, including adding in the fact that they are pitchers, make it very likely that one of them will have some sort of issue come up, whether one of the worries or something out of the blue (like Vogelsong getting HBP in 2013 and getting put on the DL).   And that's where having a pitcher like Petit, ready to step in without losing a step (or perhaps gaining a step) is so powerful and why it was good that the Giants decided to keep him in the long relief role and keep Peavy and Lincecum in their roles.  That's risk mitigation up the wazoo, for me, and part of me wonder if we might eventually sign Vogelsong in the future to take on that role, when he's ready for it.

Your 2014 Giants: World Series Game 7: For All The Marbles

Jake Peavy...  nuff said...

ogc thoughts

Ugh, exactly what I was afraid of, Peavy implosion. Any interest I had in re-signing Peavy is pretty much gone.  Once I found out that Peavy had his hand injury, I was hoping that Bochy would be shelved and that Petit would start instead.

I know Petit didn't do well, but I think he does better coming into an inning clean, he does not really have a lot of experience coming in with runners on and the need to stifle a rally.  He could have been ampped up and that could have accounted for this result (not that he's world beating all the time, but he didn't sound like his normal self today).  I would have preferred Lopez coming in at that point, he was warming up anyway and used to such pressures.

I think we could have won this game had Peavy been a good teammate and took one for the team and gave up his start so that Petit could start.  Even better, I wish Bochy would have done what he had done previously and just sat Peavy down for the good of the team, and started Petit instead.   I don't think we lose 10-0 with Petit starting, thought probably still lose, but you don't know how the offense was affected being down 7-0 like that so early.

And there was not really anything positive in this massacre shutout.  All the relievers gave up at least a run, this was almost as bad as the Royals Game 4, except for Vogelsong, who actually contributed a shutout inning, Petit was finally hit against and Strickland gave up another homer.  Hopefully Strickland's confidence didn't take too big a hit with this post-season, I still think he can do amazing things for us in the future, but this was a pretty big bump in the road for him.

The offense was shutdown, but, again, Ventura survived his wildness and the BABIP gods looked down on him nicely.  He walked 5 and only struck out 4 in his 7 innings, so the Giants made a lot of contact, but once again they weren't falling in.

Game 7

This is why I advocate having multiple aces as an optimal way to advance in the playoffs.  I thought Peavy could be that guy, but while he's that in the regular season, he's never been in the playoffs and still hasn't. Had Cain been his normal self, we would have him in Game 2 and 6, and instead of two losses, at least one would have been a win and we would be champions right now.  Or had Lincecum decided that a $35M contract was reason enough for him to reconcile with his father and get his mechanics back to where it was when he was winning Cy Youngs, I could not believe the news when this was reported.   We needed another pitcher to step up with Bumgarner and so far, in the World Series, nobody has.

So it's up to Hudson to step up where nobody else had.  He has actually pitched well this post-season, the second best to Bumgarner.  He had DOM starts in the NLDS and NLCS, and probably could have had one in the first World Series game except that he was ampped up in the early innings but then settled down for an OK 3 PQS start, but unfortunately, that was not enough to beat the Royals.   If I had to bet, I would bet that he would deliver.

But as the Philliers learned in 2011, just because you have a DOM start does not mean that you will win.

Luckily (and Eric Byrnes said on the radio that he felt good about game 7, but not game 6), Guthrie is the opposing pitcher, and while he's been good at delivering DOM starts in the regular season, he has had two straight 2 PQS starts, and in both cases, he hardly struck out anyone.  So I don't think he's likely to deliver a DOM start, though perhaps nerves got to him in his first World Series start and he'll deliver.  In any case, he's also been able to limit the damage so far in the playoffs, so even if he don't deliver a DOM, if he can pitch like he has and just get to HDH, that could be good enough for them to win.

This is for all the marbles, and things are too much in the air to make a good guess at the results.  Both starting pitchers could do well, or maybe not.  Both bullpens have plenty of rest.  Both lineups are dangerous.  We just need the men in orange and black to perform and deliver.

Who will step forward for the Giants?  Perhaps Posey can step up?  Perhaps another Giants hitter can take over?

Ideally, Hudson will deliver a great DOM start, much like he did early in the season and early in the playoffs, and then I'll take my chances.

But if we are to win, we'll need someone to deliver a special moment of some sort, whether it be like Renteria's homerun or Sandoval's three homer game, or Ishikawa's three-run walk-off homer, some sort of lifting of his teammates to the finish line, to the World Championship.  Or perhaps a Hudson special delivery.

That's what I'm hoping for.

Go Giants!   Get us our third trophy in five years!  #ThreeIsAGoodNumber

Your 2014 Giants: World Series Game 4: Must Win!

Oy! Giants lose 3-2, and is now down 1-2 in the World Series.  Worse, the bullpen gave up the winning run, with our LOOGY facing their top lefty, and allowing the inherited runner to score what proved to be the winning run.  Moreover, our hitters was unable to hit a hitter who couldn't throw a strike three past anyone.  He relied on his fielders and they did not let him down, catching all the batted balls the Giants hitters smashed.

ogc thoughts

Hudson was unable to get his nerves ready for the start of the game, and was immediately scored upon.  But he calmed down by the second inning and was OK until the 6th inning.  He pitched well enough but not dominantly.  He ended with a 3 DOM.  OK, but not good enough.

Guthrie wasn't better, he had a 2 DOM, so technically he pitched worse.  But that's the way the baseball bounces sometimes.  Then the new KC drug, HDH, shut down the Giants the rest of the way, though Herrera had a hiccup and like Lopez, gave up a run too, so they are not invulnerable.

Game 4 is a must win.  Vogelsong is scheduled and probable.  I wrote about him and Vargas in the first post for the World Series but I'm too depressed to go find it and paste it here.  Basically, Vogelsong has been good but not great in the playoffs, DOM-wise, but as noted in the media, he tied some sort of record by allowing 1 or less runs in his first five playoff starts, until his last start.  We need him to return to his prior goodness.

Especially since Vargas has been pitching like an ace, and throwing DOM at the opposing teams.

So Game 4 does not look good.  Of course, maybe I'm more nervous because this is the first since since 2002 where the Giants were behind in the World Series, first time ever with Bochy.  Hopefully Pence will have an inspiring speech to rally the troops again.

There is some talk about pitching Bumgarner on short rest but it's not happening unless the game is rained out and pushed to Sunday, I think.  We are in a tight spot, but no tighter than we were in 2012.  But we need some guys to step up.

Your 2014 Giants: World Series Game 3: Nobody More Ready

That's reassuring words to hear from our starting pitcher, Tim Hudson (tweet from Pavlovic):

What I've hoped and dreamed for my whole career is finally here. There's not going to be anybody on field more ready than I am."

Also, had to share this great picture of Buster, beautiful:

ogc thoughts

Not a lot of positives from the game.  Peavy had a DIS start, just could not throw strikes to save him life, but was able to limit the damage until that fateful inning.  Of course, he got help from Machi and Strickland to burn the rest of the structure.  The hitters was able to get a lot of hits, but never the one to open the game up for us.  Bochy again was sub-optimal in using the pen, taking a close game and blowing it apart with Machi and Strickland.  Even the one positive, Lincecum's outing, turned into a negative when he felt tightness in his back (reports today I see on twitter notes that he's OK and probable for tomorrow, pending MRI results).

But, as I noted in the Cards series, I'm sad we lost game 2, but I didn't think that they would go the whole series without a loss.  Lick our wounds, come back fighting in Game 3.

Pondering Peavy

And I was worried about that because Peavy has not been very dominating in the playoffs.  He can limit the damage for the most part, but then the manager saves him by taking him out early.  Frankly, I would have took out Peavy sooner, after he gave us 5 OK innings.  At that point, he had only given up 2 runs, but had walked two while only striking out one.  That's a 2 PQS, not good, not bad, though close to bad, and much like he had done previously.  Leaving him in dropped his PQS into disaster territory.

So first, I'm wondering, should the series go to 6 games, do we start Peavy?  I think if Petit hasn't pitched much up to that point, we might see him start game 6 over Peavy.  Bochy has skipped a pitcher before during the playoffs, like they did with Bumgarner in 2012, so it is not unprecedented.   And really, I would even go with Lincecum paired with Petit even if Petit had pitched and could only give a couple of innings relief.  Peavy has shown nothing in his playoff career, and now I'm seriously considering changing my mind about re-signing him for 2015, though we still need a starter for 2015 (though that could be Petit instead, with Bumgarner, Cain, Hudson, and Lincecum, who hopefully will be better after an off-season getting back his old mechanics by working with his dad).

Sticking With Strickland

It's not called learning pains for nothing.  Some people just have it immediately, like K-Rod did, but for whatever reasons, Strickland is struggling.  I wouldn't mind if Bochy uses him again, but obviously got to chose the spots.

I still believe in his talent.  He has only 12.1 IP in his MLB career, 5.1 IP of which were in the playoffs.  His baptism in fire.  But 9 K's in 7 IP with only 5 hits and zero walks in the regular season, 32.5 IP in AA, with only 25 hits and 4 (!) walks vs. 48 K's for a 12.00 K/BB ratio (remember 2 is good and you want at least 2.4 from your best pitchers;  so yeah, that's elite, that's like Bumgarner's ratio in high school, Madison's best as pro was in Augusta with a 7.81 K/BB).  That's a 12.1 K/9 and 1.0 BB/9 for Hunter in AA.

And his blow-up reminds me of another Giant:  Bumgarner.  I'll never forget about him flinging the ball out of the stadium in AAA early in the 2010 season when he got really angry, I think at an umpire's bad call.  Need that type of passion during the game, as well as "move on" attitude afterward, to be an effective closer, and he apparently has this quality.

No Mas Machi

I usually applaud Bochy for his moves, but I felt that he was late in his changes again.  As noted above, I would have took out Peavy after he got 5 good innings out of him, plus then this would have let Machi pitch with no runners on, especially since he has not really had a clean appearance so far this season except for his first one out relief appearance.  Since then it has been a hit parade, as well as run parade.

Instead, he faced two runners on with no outs and gave up another hit.  I think Bochy is better off using Machi in low pressure situations, he's obviously battling some sort of nerves, it happens to the best of us, same as Strickland.  But after this amount of time, I think you use him in garbage time and big leads, if he gets in trouble, stop him quick and bring in the Big Boys, Affeldt, Romo, Lopez, and Casilla.

Liking Lincecum

I'm not sure what the issue was with not using Lincecum, unless he was suffering from some sort of extreme fatigue or something, or working on mechanics (but then why carry him when Kontos could have contributed).  But I still believe in Timmy and he delivered almost two innings of dominance when his back stiffened, and he had to leave the game.

Report from Baggarly is that he has suffered issues like this since high school, when he had his growth spurts and they would come and go, but never linger.  His MRI, just for precaution, came out clean as well.  He threw a normal session today and said that he felt normal and declared himself ready for Game 3 use.  Remember his rubber arm, as I agree with Baggarly that he has moved ahead of Machi and Strickland on the bullpen totem pole, you might see Lincecum bridge the middle innings as necessary in the rest of the games, he says that he can go every day.  Good time to test this out given Machi, Strickland, and Peavy's problems getting hitters out.

In Bochy I Trust

I've been a bit concerned about Bochy's bullpen usage during these playoffs, and I don't think the leopard has changed his spots, so I have been thinking that Bochy needed to see how much he can depend on Machi and Strickland during the playoffs, and the only way to do that is to use them.  Same with Peavy.  They all let him down, and, thinking back, most players have delivered for the most part, and when not, apparently there was something to fix, and they bring him back fine, like Bumgarner in 2012.  Meanwhile, he didn't need to use Lincecum, so why tire him out when you can run other guys out there, but when he needed him to eat innings yesterday, he did.

So, if this theory is correct, we should see a drastic change in bullpen usage going forward.  Lincecum would be used like he was in 2012, every game if necessary.  Machi and Strickland will get to face 1-3 batters, see how it goes, start them in a clean inning.  Bochy has been the master of the bullpen for ages now, and still, most of the time this off-season, so my best guess is that he's testing to see who he can rely on.

Happy with Huddy

He has come through for us this post-season.  Two DOM starts, and I am encouraged by this because it was exactly what he did early in the season when he was healthy and well rested.  It's been what he's been doing for the last 13 seasons, methodically, professionally, La Machine.  3.57 ERA this season, 3.45 ERA for his career, 3.38 ERA since his TJS.  This is why I wanted the Giants to sign him, and he has delivered in spades.

Here is what I wrote in my other post:

Game 3 is also a bit of a toss-up, based on DOM, but I give the edge to the Giants.  Both pitchers have similar DOM% for the season, but while Hudson has two DOM starts so far in the post-season, Guthrie has none, not even getting a start in the ALDS, and throwing a 2 PQS in the ALCS, where he only had 2 K's in 5 IP but 2 BB's.   

But it is the World Series, the first for Hudson.  Of course, he beat the pressure in the NLCS and had a 4 PQS start there, winning his start.  And he was masterful, with 5 K's and 0 walks in 6.1 IP.  Again, could be a turning point for the Giants here, again, as Bochy understands must wins.

I still think we have the edge on paper, but as the saying goes, that's why we play these games.  Another positives are these (tweets from Baggarly):

Tim Hudson said he's physically and mentally ready to pitch the biggest game of his life.
— Andrew Baggarly (@CSNBaggs) October 24, 2014

Hudson wouldn't go into specifics on all that went into his hip rehab, but clearly there was a lot. "Medicine's a beautiful thing," he said.
— Andrew Baggarly (@CSNBaggs) October 24, 2014

Basically, Hudson was on a downward trend with his PQS after he skipped a start earlier this season, finally getting worse and worse until his last start of the season.  By that point, it was reported that he had been battling some sort of hip issue.  Without a skipped start, but with the medicine,  he has had three straight DOM starts.  And with 10 days of rest, he should be well rested again.

So it should be a good game on our side.  Not as sure a thing for Guthrie, but he's been good in the regular season, and perhaps his first playoff start was just a fluke and he delivers.  But I like our chances, it was Hudson who led us in the early going, not Bumgarner, who was struggling a bit with the heavy mental load of being the ace (he had been aces for a long time until then, a machine; he's been a machine since the beginning of May).

Plus, our hitters are pretty good at avoiding strikeouts and getting walks, and Guthrie is particularly susceptible to left-handed hitters, of which we have a lineup full of them, plus Posey and Pence who hit RHP and LHP almost equally well, and he already have trouble striking out hitters in general, so the Giants should be putting a lot of balls into play against him, much like KC against Peavy.

I feel pretty good about this game, Go Giants!

Your 2014 Giants: 32nd Rotational Turn

The Giants 32nd Rotation PQS analysis.

Your 2014 Giants: 31st Rotational Turn

The Giants 31st Rotation PQS analysis.

Your 2014 Giants: 30th Rotational Turn

The Giants 30th Rotation PQS analysis.

Your 2014 Giants: 29th Rotational Turn

The Giants 29th Rotation PQS analysis.