My Serious Doubts About Giants Insider(s)

Recently there was a huge controversy about Barry Zito in the SF Chronicle.  Bruce Jenkins wrote that a Giants insider told him the following:

... here's a message to all those fans who have seen enough of Zito: He's walking a very fine line within the organization.

A source close to the team indicated Tuesday that there is "exasperation" with Zito, that his status as the No. 5 starter is "definitely not safe," and that the team would even consider buying out his expensive contract before Opening Day if that's what it takes to say farewell.

Zito has the rest of spring to either resurrect his worth to the Giants or show an opposing team that he'd be valuable in a trade, according to others familiar with the situation.

That just brought out a lot of Giants fans out of the woodwork agreeing and saying we should just move on and get rid of Zito.

Giants Thoughts

I had wrote about Giants fan's misconceptions about Zito previously when this happened, but didn't really address the issue about the insider much previously.  But it really bothered me and a column on The Crazy Crabbers about fans giving Sabean and the Giants a honeymoon period got me thinking further on it.  Here is what I wrote there:

I think the problem for a lot of people is that they have believed that they know better than Sabean, when they should just be quiet and let Sabean and the Giants do their stuff, they are the people who need to give the Giants a honeymoon period.

I think it's legit to complain if there is anything that don't make sense, but a lot of people complain about something when there is nothing to complain about. Like the whole Zito controversy, once that came out, they leapt upon it like starving rats on a crust of bread, and talked about dropping Zito for nothing, just to be rid of him, and would rather start someone unproven like Tanner or over the hill, like Suppan, instead.

If there was any proposed move this off-season that would jeopardize the Giants chances to repeat the greatest, it is the proposed move of releasing Zito for nothing. Not only would we not have gotten as a good a performance from the replacement, most likely, but the odds would be great that one of our competitors, particular the Dodgers, who seem to love collecting Giants castoffs (perhaps because Colletti don't trust Dodger scouts?), and the Padres, as Zito is from the San Diego area and lives in the LA area. He would sign for the minimum with them and provide pretty good performance at little cost.

So not only would those fans (and apparently a Giants insider or more) shoot themselves in the foot for the team repeating in that regard, they then boost the chances of one of our competitors at the same time, as Zito would be one of the better starters for the Padres and an improvement over in the #5 spot for the Dodgers, pushing them up while also pushing us down.

Then again, these are the same people who, at one point or another, suggested that the Giants should do one of the following or the team is doomed and/or stupid: 1) trade Lincecum for Rios, 2) trade Cain for Prince Fielder or Rios, because he's a "loser", 3) trade Dirty for Corey Hart, 4) trade Bumgarner for offense, 5) select hitter instead of Bumgarner in the draft, or 6) select Smoak instead of Posey in the draft. Any of those happen, I'm pretty sure the Giants don't win the World Series championship in 2010, yet they still think they are smarter than Sabean.

That just sticks in my craw:  that this was planted by an insider with the media.  Most people who wrote about this agree that a Giants insider leaked this in order to motivate Zito to do better.

Release the Insiders Instead
The Giants hopefully will clean out their organization of such insiders who don't understand the Giants or baseball that well.  I have gone over how stupid a move it would be to do this from a baseball standpoint.  What I realize more and more in connecting the dots is that this insider is possibly in a position of authority or influence, and thus the Giants might actually be considering this stupid move.

Worse, if this was just a stunt to motivate Zito, I'll bet now that person is (or persons are) patting themselves on the back because Zito has been great ever since then.  However, it was and still is the wrong move, Zito frankly has a fragile ego and he has not dealt well with the stress and expectations that the contract placed upon his shoulders.  He only started figuring out how to handle it emotionally at the end of the 2008 season, after nearly two years after signing.

Adding more stress and strain is maybe a good move with a young man still learning to be a major leaguer, it could be something he builds off of, but for someone like Zito who is already on the downside of his career, this could be something that shoves him closer to his retirement.  Why risk that when we still owe him so much money?

And the thing is, as I noted in the other post, Zito is actually very valuable to us right now given our rotation, he gives us a solid rotation, top to bottom, something probably 26-27 other teams would love to have, is reliable for a full season of starts plus roughly 200 IP.  Ask the Twins if they would rather go with Francisco Liriano's up and down Russian Roulette with their ace starter, they might prefer Zito's constancy and reliability.  Or how about the Brewers who just lost their ace Zach Greinke (he hurt himself playing pick-up basketball).

I'm just counting my blessings that Zito was not affected this time.  We might not be so lucky the next time the Giants insider speaks again.

Serious Doubts About Giants Management
This is my first serious doubts about Giants management since Peter Magowan retired.  I have been generally positive towards Giants management over the past few years because, whether they actually had a plan, a Giants Way, or not, I liked the direction the franchise was headed in and the pieces that were being put into place.  And I do believe that they have a plan, but that we are just not privy to all the details.

At minimum, Sabean has been saying for years now (I believe since the 2002 World Series, at minimum) that baseball was undergoing one of their foundational shifts that happens about once every generation, and that the game would be moving towards pitching, fielding, and speed, and that this would be their general template for success in the future.  And it appears that they have executed on that plan very well up to now, not without hiccups, but the best plans work around hiccups and handle multiple scenarios in order to maximize the chance for success.  Their 2010 World Series Championship is excellent proof that their plan is succeeding at a high level.

But this leak is shaking my confidence.  At minimum, this means that there is an insider who thinks that he can shake players up by going anonymously through the media.  This "success" with Zito will only embolden this person to do more of this sniping through the media.  Who knows what other idiotic statement this person might make in the future that screws up one of our players, or worse, perhaps insults one of our top stars into not wanting to sign up long-term with us.

What If This Causes Lincecum to Not Want to Sign Long-Term with Giants?
For all we know, one of our young stars (Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez) might sympathize with Zito and decide that they don't want to be with the team long-term where insiders can snipe without penalty in the press like this.  Players are funny in that way, they will circle the wagons when management comes after one of their own, even if they might understand the point of management, given that Zito is the highest paid and yet did not throw one pitch during the playoff run.  Admittedly, I'm not privy to inside info, so maybe management has already spoken.

Worse case scenario, this insider is high up the food chain in a position of authority, or really bad, is one of the guys making decisions.  If this is so, what type of horrendous decisions might be made in the future with respect to the Giants?  This leak does not generate confidence on my part that Giants management got it all together or is as united as they had appeared to be.

This instead makes me think one or more of them got a big swelled head after winning the 2010 World Series Championship and think that they can do no wrong.

I Will NOT Ignore Stupid Moves, I Will Point Out the Emperor's New Clothes
If that is what they think, they are wrong, they can do a lot of harm, and while I believe the Giants are currently positioned very well for making the 2010's the Decade of the Giants, I think stupid moves can be made that will ruin our chances of accomplishing such a lofty goal and title.  And championship or not, I will point out such stupid moves as I see them and I know other bloggers and fans will do the same.

They do not get carte blanche with me, no honeymoon period.  I lived through the 70's, 80's, and heck, the 90's and 2000's, and I want them to strike while the iron is hot and win as many championships as they can and do the best that they can.  I believe that they are in an excellent position to add at least one more championship this decade, and could win more depending on how things work out with top prospects Brandon Belt, Zack Wheeler, Gary Brown, Charlie Culberson, Thomas Neal, Francisco Peguero, Ehire Adrianza, Brandon Crawford, Nick Noonan.  I do not want that window of opportunity jeopardized in any way.

My Confidence in Management is Shaken
This Zito sniping incidence could just be the first such incidence.  Zito's improved performance might convince this person that this is the way to do things in the future.  It is not, players don't like getting blasted in the press, particularly by management or insiders, and if Sabean's administration gets that reputation, free agents, whether outside or inside, will try to avoid the Giants when they can.

For the first time in a while, I am worried about our team's future, and for me that sucks because I should still be high from the World Championship that the Giants won in 2010.  This media snipe against Zito was a stupid move and because it appears to have worked, we might see more stupid moves like this.  The scarier thing is that this might be someone in management and is a sign of future stupid moves.

To Restore my Shaken Confidence, Neukom Would Have to Speak Up
Until Neukom comes out and says something publicly about this, and perhaps take some action, even if unknown action, the silence besides both Sabean and Bochy publicly stating that there is no such insider feelings tells me a number of things.

First, Neukom's silence is tantamount to agreeing with the sniper, particularly since no action has been taken that we are aware of.  If this is something not condoned under his watch or in his organization, then he either publicly would have said it already, or it would have leaked out that he said it internally and quietly.

Second, no action means that the sniper will feel free to do this again, because there was no consequence to his or her action.  And again, it is the same as supporting the sniper.

Third, there will be some players who view this the same way I do.  The team would have poisoned their relationship, or in the case with younger players, their budding relationship, with their most prized assets.  That is no way to run an organization, not for long-term success.

It might work in the short term, but any disrespect directed towards players by management will probably not be forgotten by the players, it could bite management in the ass at some inconvenient point in the future, like when trying to negotiate a long-term extension with one of our young stars.

That player could legitimately ask management if something embarrassing like that might happen to him once he sign a big contract.  And Giants' management would be able to say that only Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy spoke out about it, not anyone else.  No player would want that to happen, so then the Giants' price for an extension with that player could go up at that point if they decide that they might want to check out free agency and ask for more to sign on.

Why would this Giants insider risk all these negative consequences?  Does this person want our team to implode?  Team chemistry is very hard to concoct, but the 2010 Giants had that wonderfully in spades.  Hopefully this will not disrupt that chemistry or harm us in any way in the future.  But I worry that this could backfire at some point in the future.

Bad Idea I Heard: DFA Rowand and Start Torres

I heard this idea on the radio the other day and I won't embarrass this host but wanted to address this idea that I've seen fans put out there before, which is to eat Aaron Rowand's contract and start Torres instead.  It is a pretty dumb idea.

The usual supporting arguments typically involve pointing out Arizona's eatting of Eric Byrnes' contract and before that, of Russ Ortiz's contract.  They ate around $10M or so in each case.  So they point to Rowand's $12M contract for this season and say that the Giants should DFA him and play Torres instead.

First, they are forgetting that the Giants have another 2 years on the contract after this season.  So they are not dropping a $12M contract, they are basically dropping $30M+.   That's not going to happen.  Maybe in Rowand's 5th season, if he's doing really poorly and there's someone better, but that's not going to happen this season.

Second, that is the other thing missed by these people, that there has to be somebody better.  Torres is better right now, but over the past 8 seasons, Rowand has been much better overall.  Maybe Torres is figuring things out at a late age, that is always possible, for the reasons the newspapers give, that he was a runner learning baseball for the first time in college.  But at age 32, that's still 14 years already and he's finally figuring out how to hit?

Color me skeptical.  I need more than a little over a month's worth (basically April 18th to current) of good play this season to feel comfortable saying that, as his nice batting line last season was accompanied by a horrid strikeout rate that most hitters cannot support.  This season is much better, much improved in both walks and strikeouts this season, but he's still striking out a little too much, and that's really one month of performance, hitters can do that in short streaks.  Plus, his BABIP was very high last season, higher than what most hitters can support, though there are some hitters that can do that, typically fast guys like Torres.

Nothing in his past suggests that he can do this over a full season.  Basically people are taking a leap of faith that he can do this regularly as a starter.  That is no way to run a team.  At least not a good way.

There is nothing wrong with starting him while he's hot, though.  I believe in playing the hot hitter.  But that does not mean that you DFA a player who can still play MLB level baseball while keeping this currently hot journeyman.  That is no way to manage either.

That brings me to my third reason:  DFAing Rowand, even if you think that Torres is demonstrably better makes no sense at all from an asset management viewpoint.   What if Torres gets injured?  What if his hot hitting ends (like it did for Rowand) and he's sudden the cold hitter?  Then who would you play in CF?  There is no one in the minors hitting well and playing CF right now.  It would be Bocock Part II.

In addition, Rowand, while not currently hitting as well as the average CF in the NL, isn't exactly a replacement level player either.  He would be a good player on any bench, he plays good defense in the OF, can hit a homer now and again, can go on nice hitting sprees when his body is up for it, particularly if he's sitting on the bench.  Yes, his contract is a sunk cost, but if he's still better than who you can put on the bench, you may as well carry him on the bench in case you need him.

And it is not just CF, there is still LF and RF, and DeRosa is no guarantee to return AND be good, plus neither Bowker or Schierholtz have hit consistently enough to keep a starting OF job yet, though good enough to get frequent chances at it.  Rowand could be a better alternative than one of those OFs, and move around like Randy Winn did, though since the defense stats show him to be good in CF this season, I would move Torres around since he's been doing that anyway.

So no, DFAing Rowand and starting Torres is not a smart thing to do.  I'm surprised the host said that, he seems smarter than that generally.  I will chalk it up to having a mic in your hand:  sometimes you just say something in the spur of the moment that looks bad later on.  No excuse for the posters who proffer up this idea on-line though, they have plenty of time to put some thought into it.

This is just like the love Uribe has been seeing both last season and this season, but nobody realizes that since May 1st he has only been hitting .224/.325/.358/.683.  He and Torres are good coming in and providing some pep to the offense when somebody is out, but there is a reason why neither one was a starter when the Giants signed them.  They will cool off and then you need to have other bodies on the bench who can step in.

Evaluating Zito Plus Wanting More

Yet another column comes out extolling the virtues of just dumping Zito's nearly $100M in contract value, in the belief that it would help out the rotation (I just got done praising him and he done gone and annoyed me again...). Let's examine that issue, but without all the emotional baggage that his contract brings.

First off, if you look through his game log, sure, there are a lot of games where he is not that good. He has not been that dominating this season, and had a large number of disaster starts. As my study of PQS shows, pitchers high ERA is often the result of a large number of disaster starts and even good pitchers need to minimize their disaster starts (check my labels for PQS for more explanation of this concept) to keep their ERA relatively low.

However, more importantly, you need to look at his gamelog for how many games where he gave up 3 runs or less as the starter, as those are the starts we have the most chance of winning. By that measure, he had 10 starts where he allowed 3 runs or less, so the team should have been 10-8 in his 18 starts. Not worth $18M, but it is still a pretty good record for the 4th starter of the rotation. That the Giants have gone 8-10 in his starts is not entirely his fault: the team is only averaging 3.26 runs scored per game in support of Zito.

The problem is that many people just look at Zito and his salary and then compare him with what top pitchers should be doing. We should not do that because that is not his role on our team, even at his career better seasons, he would not be more than our third or fourth starter, and if Sanchez can consistently pitch well, he could be our fifth starter.

Even when they compare him properly with other #4 starters, the point is not what other team's #4 starters can do, but what our starter options can do.

One complaint was that Zito was "nightmarish" against the 'Dres and Nationals, going 0-4 with a 5.75 ERA. But when you look at those starts, he had two horrible starts, April 10th, 4 runs in 4 IP, and his last, 9 runs in 4.1 IP; one so-so start on May 13th against the Nats, 4 runs in 6.1 IP; and two gems, April 22nd, 0 runs in 7.0 IP, and May 19th, 2 runs in 8.0 IP. I don't think it is Zito's fault that he got a no-decision on one and a loss in the other, of the two gems.

And it all goes to show my common complaint this season about people who are complaining about players: they don't say much while he is doing OK, but jump on the bandwagon when things go south. As late as June 10th, Zito still had a 4.09 ERA, and after his gem on June 7th, his ERA was a respectable 4.43. But he has one bad game and he is jumped upon for his 5.01 ERA, which now does not compare favorably with other #4 starters, but was really good comparatively just a month ago.

Which brings me back to the complaint about his record against the two worst teams, San Diego and Washington. Before that bad last start, he had two good games, one so-so, and one bad game, and he should have been 2-1, maybe 2-2. Really, the complaint is about the 'Dres because only one of the five starts were against Washington, and Zito gave up 4 runs in 6.1 IP, which is not nightmarish, as the Nats are actually an average offensive team.

So let's take a look at the starts, one by one:

1. April 10th, 4 ER in 4.0 IP, Overall 9.00 ERA.
2. April 22nd, 0 ER in 7.0 IP, Overall 3.27 ERA.
3. May 19th, 2 ER in 8.0 IP, Overall 2.84 ERA.
4. July 12th, 9 ER in 4.1 IP, Overall 5.79 ERA.

So yeah, there were two nightmarish starts but he was damn good in his two other starts. His bad ERA overall does not mean he was just beat up all over the place, you have to look at his individual starts to get a better sense of what is going on.

Looking at Zito's stats, he has mainly been in the 4 ERA range, and for #4 starter, that is pretty good. Other team's middle of rotation starters are normally in the 4 ERA range. And as nicely as Sadowski has done so far, I would not walk so far out on a limb and say that Sadowski can deliver that reliably year in year out, which would be the only reason I would be for pushing Zito out of the rotation.

Zito has been much improved overall this season. He is striking out a lot more batters and walking less batters as well. That is because he has been able to regain the effectiveness of the separation in speed between his fastball and his curveball by gaining a key 2-3 MPH on his fastball. Maybe he is not worth his contract, but for what he does as a pitcher, he fits in nicely with our rotation this season where he was, as the #4 starter. That is all that really matters, how he fits on our team.

This might be different next year, when Bumgarner and maybe Alderson will be ready for the majors, but for now, he is fine where he is and is a useful contributor to the team's success. And if he can continue his past pattern of pitching well in the second half, his overall ERA for 2009 will look very nice, and if he can continue it into 2010, then he could be tradeable as soon as mid-year 2010.

Wanting More

I was listening to KNBR while driving and someone was passionately dissing Giants management, saying that they don't want to win it all, that he didn't have any confidence that Giants management will keep the nucleus of the team together, so why not trade off some of their four Top 50 prospects and get Halladay now, to win it this year.

This was so wrong in so many ways that I had to respond.

First, Sabean was the one who kept the nucleus of this team, the one we have right now, together. He could have traded off any or many of them previously in order to help Bonds win the World Series once during his career. But he didn't, for the most part.

If they didn't want to win it all, they wouldn't have bothered to spend $6.1M on Posey last year, they could have gotten away with drafting someone else and paying at least half as much. They wouldn't have bothered to spend over $4M together to sign Villalona and Rodriguez. They wouldn't have bothered to go over slot to sign Lincecum. Or Bumgarner.

And trading away our Top 50 prospects today would kill our next few seasons, particularly if Posey was traded away. He's our future catcher. If he's traded, then Sandoval's our catcher, but now we have no 3B. In addition, playing catcher would definitely take away from his offense, both because he won't be playing as many games as he would at 3B, plus there is a physical toll as well. Our rotation is good now, but with Bumgarner and Alderson (plus Sanchez), it could be marvelous.

In addition, most of our high salary contracts will be gone by the time Lincecum is arbitration eligible and really pulling in the money. We will have a lot of budget to pay him. I expect a long term contract but even if not, we will still be signing him to less than market value out to 2013. And we have Cain signed to a cheap contract to 2011. Both things he didn't know but still he felt he knew much more how to better run the Giants.

Halladay is good but Bumgarner could be as good as he is for the next 6 seasons, plus Posey will be a middle of lineup hitter for us as well. But he would rather mortgage our future to try to win this year. I think that's idiotic, particularly since another team could get red hot (like Colorado did after Tracy took over) and pass us up like nothing. Then we would have mortgaged the future but don't even get the present.

Be patient, look like you've supported a winning team before, and enjoy the next 6-8 seasons as our young players rise and add to the mix. It looks like it's going to be good.

Prospects and Confidence

I've been talking for over two years now about how playing at Dodd Stadium could prey on the confidence of prospects who are forced to play at a home park where their SLG and ISO is reduced 30-40% by the park. Many disagreed, few (if any, don't recall any) supported me. But I ran into an industry opinion that supports my assertion.

Depodesta And the A's

As I noted before, Paul Depodesta has started up a blog called "It Might be Dangerous... You Go First" and yesterday he wrote about his thoughts and experiences regarding the decision of bringing up a prospect. Here is what a baseball industry expert and insider (and former GM) wrote about how even the most confident prospect need to get his confidence stroked:

There are examples at nearly every level. During spring training of 2003, Nick
Swisher was having a monster camp. After being drafted in 2002 he had finished
the season in High-A ball, and the plan all winter was to start him back there.
Due to his great spring, some people starting pushing for Nick to go to AA even
though he didn't even have a year's worth of minor league at-bats yet (I'm sure
I was one of them). I specifically remember Keith Lieppman, the Farm Director of
the A's, saying, "If he goes to AA and struggles to the point where we have to
send him back to A ball, I won't even know where to begin to pick up the
pieces." Nick Swisher was not a guy who lacked for confidence, by the way. So,
Nick started back in A ball, killed it, moved to AA, and so on.

I'll never forget Keith making that stand, especially considering his experience in player development is second to none. We all want to get our players to the big leagues as quickly as possible, but we also need to be as prudent as possible (and Keith needed to remind us in that situation), because when the players get there we
want to succeed. Not survive. Succeed.

This is basically what I've been writing about sending prospects to Dodd. The Giants apparently agree with me now, as their best prospects has been leapfrogging AA to AAA this season, in order to avoid that park. Now I've found this example.

End the horrors for our hitting prospects NOW!

Things Are Amiss Adminstratively Still

The Giants in the offseason had hired someone senior and experienced to help them out administratively (I wrote on it but don't remember his name right now) because Bobby Evans or whoever it was made all sorts of mistakes that caused the contracts to not be signed by any of the players until that language was cleared up. After the hire, there was no more mention of this problem and it was apparently resolved quickly.

However, there was a blurb in the Chron today that the Giants had "misstated the rule regarding Todd Linden's future. If he is not traded within a 10-day period that began Thursday, he must clear waivers before the Giants can outright him to Triple-A Fresno." I think the original statement had stated that he would be put on waivers during that period too, which would allow the Giants to outright him to AAA after 10 days, not this corrected 10 days plus waiver period (3 days?).

Shouldn't that have been something relatively easy to know and handle? It isn't the first time a player has been DFAed, in fact, Niekro was DFAed just recently. Should this be boilerplated somewhere?

Just a thought about their administrative problems, I hope it's not a sign of an underlying problem, that can screw things up quickly if we are losing prospects due to technicalities.