Your 2026 Giants: Lineup Roster-bations

I like ZiPS projections for doing analysis for the upcoming season for the Giants.  For about a dozen years, I would collect a variety of projections from sources, and I found that ZiPS generally were in the middle.  Baseball Forecast would often be on the higher side, while Steamer would be on the lower side.  The ZiPS methodology is pretty rock solid as well, as it calculates decile percentile projections, and his reviews of prior year percentile projections find that roughly 50% of players projected beat their 50th percentile projections, and so on, up to 10% beating their 90th percentile and down to 90% beating their 10th percentile projections. No wonder pro teams pay him for consulting services.

Another tool I like is the Lineup Analyzer that Baseball Musings designed based on research from others.  It utilizes the regression analysis of long term batting lineup data that the researcher provided (I was able to confirm the analysis still worked by inputting the NL lineup data and comparing it with the actual, and it was always close back then), to calculate the runs scored by the OBP and SLG of each hitter of the lineup, and after you input a lineup of hitters with their projections for the new season, it can analyze which lineups maximizes the runs scored by this particular lineup.  

That’s how the concept of batting the pitcher 8th came about, as this analysis showed that to maximize runs scored, placing even your worst position player hitter 9th would improve scoring by placing additional runners for the top of the order to drive in.  Tony LaRussa was one MLB manager who took this to heart and batted his pitchers 8th.  

I thought I would take the expected Giants position starters (since there is not much competition there this year), input their projections, and see what the best lineup would be.

Your 2025 Giants: At the All Star Break

I thought I would write up some thoughts during the break.

Your 2024 Giants: Rotation Dominance, is it Enough? Maybe

Now that we have seen Robbie Ray grunt through a few starts, and see the benefits of having a good rotation, along with the fact that the Giants have a weaker schedule now (due to having a tougher schedule earlier), and the Cobb trade opening up the rotation for Birdsong, I thought I would run through some possibilities.

Your 2024 Giants: Second Half Musings

With the second half starting up, and talking with other fans, some thoughts came up.

Your 2018 Giants: Chances Are

The way I wear my silly grin, I liked the Giants chances before the injuries, but with the injuries to Bumgarner and Samardzija, it is all hands on deck, but still, I like our chances.

Your 2018 Giants: Big Six Questions A.B.I. (After Bumgarner Injury)

Normally this is done earlier in Spring Training and I would forget to do them as well, but after losing Samardzija and Bumgarner on successive days, seems like the thing to do now.

Your 2017 Giants: Chances Are Awfully Good With Starting Rotation

I have normally done a huge review of what I think the Giants would do in the season (and generally before the season starts), but I've been busy.  But it's not like I turned off my brain to all this, just that I don't have all the time to get it all out there like I used to.  So I'm breaking this up into parts, where I'll discuss what I'm thinking about your 2017 Giants.  In this installment, I'm talking about how good the Giants chances are for making the playoffs and going deep, as well as the starting rotation, where it all begins for the Giants in this dynastic period.

Your 2016 Giants: Wild Card Playoff Game vs. Mets

On Wednesday, the Giants will face the Mets on the road in NY:  Bumgarner vs. Thor.

Thoughts After Cueto Signing Press Conference

With the Cueto press conference introducing him (accounts by Pavlovic and Baggarly), news about the details of his contract came out.  Wow, complicated:

• 2016:  $15M
• 2017:  $21M
• 2017-2021:  $5M bonus, paid $1M annually, but apparently only one if he opts out
• 2017 Opt-out:  If he exercises it, he gets $5M buyout.  Else...
• 2018-2021:  $21M
• 2022:  Team option for $22M, and if not exercised, he gets bought out for $5M

Through all those complications, if he opts out after 2017, he will have received $46M in total:  salaries for 2016-17 of $36M, bonus of $5M, and $5M buyout.   He can be traded, but gets $500K for the first trade, $1M for the second.

According to the press conference, they did an MRI and found nothing wrong, that the flexor problem he had earlier in the year was fully healed.  And obviously he passed his physical.  And while Sabers hate the word, chemistry was also inferred.

Pavlovic:

The elbow issues limited Cueto’s market, but the Giants aren’t concerned. He missed a start while in Cincinnati last season because of a flexor tendon strain, but an MRI during the season came back clean and Evans said an MRI the Giants took on Thursday came back clean. “His elbow looks great,” Evans said. “It really looked good.” 

 Baggarly:

The Giants investigated those risks, and deemed them sufficiently minimal. Cueto underwent an MRI exam as part of Wednesday’s physical, and GM Bobby Evans said the right-hander’s elbow “looks great, really good.” 

The missed turn in May that caused him to skip a start and led to so much concern from clubs this winter? A mild flexor strain, said Evans, adding that a contrast dye injection was the only reason Cueto missed one start. The checkered performances following the late-July trade to Kansas City? An inevitable adjustment to a new team and catcher, agent Bryce Dixon said. 

Baer said the front office contacted several of Cueto’s former coaches with the Reds and Royals, and came back with a positive assessment of his personality, passion and clubhouse demeanor. 

So what, exactly, allowed them to move past those ghosts [of Zito Past]? “It’s a fair question,” Baer said. “What we really saw was, if you have five strong (in the rotation), plus (Chris) Heston … we think it just gives us the best chance to win. It changes the bullpen equation. We don’t have to overtax the bullpen, which is one thing that might have happened last year. 

“We did a really thorough war room analysis and everybody said" [Cueto was the free agent to get. (cribbed this from the televised press conference and inserted here)]

“And the other thing, as Cueto’s name was out there, a lot of calls were made and he came through as a huge plus-guy in the clubhouse. A huge plus teammate. Huge plus. That was really important, too.

Also, Haft has some info regarding Cueto's workout regiment, showing how much a competitor he is and how fitness conscious he is:

Based on the testimony of Jeff Brantley, the former Giants right-hander who scrutinized Cueto as a Reds broadcasting commentator, Cueto works ceaselessly to match the achievements of Marichal and other greats. "He's a high-end competitor," Brantley said. 

Don't be fooled by Cueto's thick frame, Brantley advised. "If you take a look behind the scenes and watch his workout regimen, it's about as professsional as you can get," Brantley said. 

"There's not too many starting pitchers out there who run 'stadiums [up and down the aisles of an entire ballpark].' He runs them until he's blue in the face."

Bochy was a noted driver for this move, and how it would work:

“Bochy said get me another 200-inning starter and I’m good,” team president and CEO Larry Baer said. “I’ll figure out left field … It’s our recipe: Pitching, defense and sprinkle in position players where we can.” 

Sounds like LF will not be a high priority either going forward, barring a free agent desperate for something.   Still:

Although the Giants doubled down on pitching this winter, Evans said he remains involved on “all levels” of a free-agent outfield market that remains slow to develop. Evans wouldn’t say how much wiggle room remained in the budget, but the Giants expect their payroll plus benefits to exceed $189 million and thus would pay into the competitive balance tax for the second consecutive year.

But there's a 30% premium now with the next bit of news, which is that Baer noted that the Giants had went pass the payroll threshold and will be paying the tax this season.  At 30% tax, any additional salaries added on would effectively cost the Giants at 130%, or, in other words, for every $10M added, $3M of tax is collected.

Baer noted that the development of homegrown stars like Matt Duffy and Joe Panik made this offseason spending spree possible. Counting the Brandon Crawford extension, the Giants -- resigned to paying the competitive balance tax for a second straight year -- have committed $295 million to three players over the past month. Cueto’s deal is by far the biggest, and it’s a complicated one.

And a word about Lincecum:

Evans acknowledged that filling up the five-man rotation “does put us potentially in a difficult spot” to re-sign Tim Lincecum, who is looking to start again and will showcase himself in January. “But in the meantime, we’re not ready to come to any landing there right now. He’s done a lot for the franchise, he means a lot to the organization and we’ll let that play out over time.”

I interpreted that to mean that the Giants are interested in bringing back Lincecum as the long reliever if he don't sign with someone as a starting pitcher, else they would have just said "adios" like they did with Vogelsong because there are no more spots in the starting rotation.   That would put Heston into AAA to work on whatever it was that they intimated that they would have him work on when discussing the options with him.

Speaking of Vogelsong, he just signed with the Pirates, $2M contract with $3M in incentives.  Don't know details, but basically he's signed to a cheap deal where he'll probably have a role like he had with the Giants last season, and if he ends up starting a lot of games, get his incentives, I would bet.  Good luck to him, he's been a great Giant and we'll always remember everything he's done for us.

Lastly, interesting news to come out (via Pavlovic) was that apparently the team Greinke was close to selecting was the Giants, not the Dodgers as most (including me) assumed.  Apparently the Giants brass got the impression from meeting him that he was leaning towards the Giants.  Greinke impressed by asking about prospects that not everyone in attendance was aware of.  In their meeting, he blew everyone away with his knowledge of the Giants.

This could tie in with the information I read about how upset he was about Puig in the clubhouse.  This could have been akin to the Kent-Bonds situation for the Giants after 2002, where the free agent was not returning to the former team for any price because of a tense situation he has with another star on the team.  Given how Greinke is clearly a GATE student type (smart, but socially a bit awkward, and in his case, bordering on insensitive), it would not surprise me if he just wanted to get away from the LA situation, as Puig is apparently not going anywhere.  

Your 2015 Giants: Some Thoughts Looking at the Standings

I was looking at the standings, seeing how difficult it is for the Giants to climb out of the hole that they are in, and I had some thoughts, which are below.

Your 2015 Giants: Playoff Hopes Swept Away For Most

My thoughts following horrendous sweep by The Evil Ones (tm).

Your 2015 Giants: Beat LA!

The game has already started but I don't think that changes much that I'll say here.

Your 2015 Giants: Road Trip Gauntlet Over

Thought I would share some thoughts after this tough road trip.

Your 2015 Giants: Cub's Sweep Aftermath

A lot of fans (and beat reporters) are up in arms after the Cub's sweep, with talk about being "brave" when Peavy notes that the team is not panicking.

Your 2015 Giants: The August Gauntlet

{Note:  I had this written up for publication before Friday's game, but then the Leake trade happened.  Apologies in advance for any numbers not updated to current figures as of publication, I'll update where I can.}

Every year, the Giants have a schedule full of games in August, leaving only two days off the whole month.  That's why I've been suggesting a modified 6-man rotation during this period, to give our SP regular rest.  This season, people are also worried because the Giants are facing teams who are all contenders:  Rangers, Braves, Cubs, Astros, Nationals, Cards, Pirates, Dodgers, during the month of August (only the Braves are too far out of a playoff spot).  That would be 27 out of 30 are contenders.  Plus 18 of 30 (I'm including the Rangers first game of the series) are on the road.

The following was a comment I posted on Raising Matt Cain, and expanded (as I am wont to do) because I tweak.  Plus, then, you know, the Leake trade happened, so this post got delayed to today instead, with some final tweaks.

Your 2015 Giants: Second Half Thoughts

Given that this is often considered the halfway point for the season, I thought I would write about some current topics and thoughts on the second half, as well as playoff thoughts.

Your 2014 Giants: Beating the Better Teams

One thing I've been seeing in the media lately is "the Giants got to start beating the winning teams."  Thought I would look into that.

Your 2014 Giants: Coasting Along

The Giants are 43-25 and the Dodgers are 36-33.  How far ahead are we?

Your 2013 Giants: Fanatics, Keep Your Dawber Up

After the nice run of wins, these two losses probably returns some to their prior glass is half empty mental state.  And I am starting to understand this phenomenon, why Giants fans get so down on the team even though the past four seasons have been the most successful period in San Francisco Giants franchise history, and among the best in Giants franchise history:  it is media driven.

It started long before it became a trend, with the bad road losses, when the Giants were 8-8 on the road previously and it was fully acknowledged that it was oddities to lose to Toronto and Colorado like that.  And it has spiraled downward, justifiably, ultimately, as the team succumbed to injuries that followed - which is the sole reason for the downturn, not that road trip.  Enough that one beat writer, who had not written for a long time on his blog, suddenly decided that the season was over, that it was time to give up.

And now, after a nice streak of wins, you get one loss to the D-backs, after a well-pitched game by Bumgarner, you get another beat writer talking about how the Giants don't have much of a chance of winning the division, because we would need to beat both the D-backs and D-gers to get the division title, and we are in even worse position to try to get either of the wild cards.

Your 2013 Giants: Not the Time to Give Up

I totally disagree with the idea that it is time to give up on the Giants season. The Giants are only 6.5 games out. They were similarly out in August in 2010, if I remember right, and we still got the rest of July and parts of August to reach that point.

The Giants have been decimated by injuries to their offense, and then the pressure of trying to make up for the losses in the lineup. For the past two months, we had been either missing or getting poor performances from three of our top five hitters, Pagan, Scutaro, Sandoval.

Blanco has been OK batting leadoff, but Sandoval has still been rehabbing from his DL, like he did in 2011 and 2012, it takes him 2-4 weeks to get his first homer after returning, then he turns up the power. He just hit a homer last night, so that could be the sign of a hot streak for him. That would help the offense greatly, Pence was carrying the offense for a while, before the pressure got to him too.   Crawford has started hitting too, after playing with his finger injury from sliding into secondbase. 

The pitching might not be as good as seasons' past but still good. Cain hasn't been the same since his Perfect Game and I'm not sure if he'll ever reach his prior standards, but he's still been good, just not in his last two games. Extended rest - and lowered pitch counts -  should help him. Lincecum has been pitching better in his last four starts, just giving up a few too many key hits. He cleared his mind last season during ASB, leading the rotation in ERA for most of the second half before his stamina left him in his last starts. I expect him to be better too with rest, but more for his mind. Gaudin has been very good so far, been a find like Vogelsong was. And Zito is Zito, he was up to start the season, been down recently, I expect him to be up again soon as well.  And Vogie sounds like he's coming back early and does not feel any difference in his pitching, which is good.

The relievers haven't been the same since Casilla went on the DL. And no wonder, most teams losing their key right-handed set-up man will suffer, as there is not always that backup who could take his place. I was hoping Kontos could rise to the occasion, but so far nobody has, even Affeldt has been off. I wonder if he's still using that brace that was helping him last season - if not, maybe he should think about it.  But Casilla is getting close to returning, and that should return the bullpen to its normal configuration in the second half.

People note how bad they have been since mid-May but neglected to note that at that point, they were 8 games over .500 after only 6 weeks of play. Once we get some key pieces back onto the roster and performing as expected, we can return to some semblance of that team.

It is easy to rip into a team when things are not going well, but it was injuries that tipped this team into this morass, then over trying to make up for the losses of personnel and performance. Key people are returning and that should help a lot, as well as getting all those home games to start the second half.

Also, I would rather not trade Lincecum or Pence, two names popping up a lot as trade targets given how the Giants might be in a selling mode with the losing.

I still hope the Giants keep Lincecum, he's actually been pretty good overall, just giving up the wrong pitch at the wrong time. He fixed it last year, and I think he can fix it during the ASB this year. And I think he can be a super-reliever for us at some point in the future, capable of pitching a long game one night then returning the next night to shut down a rally as a set-up man, with little warmup, plus close when the closer had too many games or if the closer is not doing well, and reliever the closer, but if we trade him, he'll probably do that for another team.  I want him doing it for us.

And given how up and down Sandoval has been, I hope the Giants resign Pence as well, given that he sounds like he wants to stay here, that would give our offense more stability, I think.  I think Belt and Crawford will be improved as well, so that helps, but I think the money is there for Pence and Pence has been a pretty good player overall for his career and for us, he was carrying the team for the first couple of months before his downturn.  He gives us more in the lineup, I think, though with the possibility that Belt might be our starting LF at some point in the future, and maybe Brown or Peguero might push Pagan to RF in the next year or two, the Giants might be leaning towards not retaining Pence to keep space open for top prospects.

If there is anyone I would think about trading, it would be Lopez.  Not that he hasn't been good or that he's done anything wrong, just more that we have a lot of lefty relievers now, and trading him would clear $5M off the payroll, while giving Mijares a chance to take over an important role.  Affeldt and Mijares would be a good pair of lefties, we have gone with two lefties before. 

Now is not the time to give up yet on the Giants. That time may be close, perhaps as close as the start of August, but not yet.  Plenty of season to see before we can officially give up, I believe.