Bonds and the Home Run Derby

I'm getting sick and tired about all the crying over Barry not competing in that competition. He is doing what he has always done: protect the fans who follow his every move. This is equivalent to him not always going all out, whether running out a ground out or going for the spectacularly dangerous plays in the outfield - he has always tried to watch out for his health because he realized that one particular play may or may not matter in the game, but him playing the rest of the season does.

How is this so? One, if he competes, he's not resting, he's working hard to hit homers, over several hours. That weakens him for the regular season which will start a few days from now, on Friday. As he has noted, he's 42 years old, he has to conserve his energy for the regularl season.

Two, if he competes, he has to change his stroke to try to launch homers. A number of players have talked about how doing that changes their stroke subtlely, but surely, making it hard for them to hit well once the regular season start. Wouldn't that be great if he suddenly couldn't hit homers for a long way, while he gets his stroke back, we went through an long homerless streak in May when he lost his stroke back then.

Three, this is just an exhibition, there is nothing to gain from him competing in it other than making a few fans happy, fans who don't really care to see him hit homers in the regular season, fans who don't really care about the Giants then. Even if the season sucks, I want the team battling to the bitter end, because you never do know, you can battle back from the abyss that they are in, but you can't if your best hitter is affected in any way because of a meaningless exhibition.

The exception, I believe, is the All-Star Game itself. Yes, it is an exhibition. And yes, Sir Seilig has made it "meaningful" by having the winning league win home advantage, but that's just an artifice. The game itself is for the fans and Bonds was voted in, so he does owe it to the fans to show up for that and play. That is the history of this game and he understands the significance to him fulfilling his obligation for that and playing, plus, really, it adds to your historical value as a player as well, he understands things like this matter later, after your career is over. Plus, it is SF, his hometown, his team growing up.

Four, it seems to me that the fans complaining most about it have something to gain. One I heard on KNBR complained bitterly about it, then casually noted that he was kayaking during the exhibition so he would benefit if Bonds hits one to him. And I'm sure the fans holding tickets for that who wanted to sell them were hoping he would play in it and drive the price up that much.

Five, who gives a flying fig about the homerun contest? I certainly don't. Maybe after it has built up a tradition, but really, who really cares right now? I care about the All-Star game, I like getting bragging rights, the NL used to dominate the AL when I was growing up, and I am not happy that the AL now dominates, though there seems to be a cycle to that. The homerun contest is more about how lucky you are in the pitcher you get, whether he can throw meaty strikes or he is just wild and you cannot do anything with them. The All-Star game itself is a competition.

Now, if it was Roger Clemens throwing pitches to Barry Bonds in a homerun contest, I think that would be interesting, 12 pitches, mano-a-mano, and of course Clemens is trying to strike him out. Competition like that would be interesting (not as interesting after interleague play but still interesting). But that's never going to happen.

So I'm glad Barry still thinks about what really matters, the regular season, him playing his best, which means him playing at his healthiest. Some critics say that this is not fan friendly, but it is only not friendly to baseball fans who are watching the All-Star festivities - it is very friendly to the fans that mean the most to him: his fans and fans of the San Francisco Giants.

Lewis Helping Cain Again

Cain won today for just the 3rd time this season and the deciding factor today was the same as it was with his 2nd win of the season: Fred Lewis. Today, Lewis hit a grand slam to help lead the offense to victory, on a day that Cain did not have his best stuff: 5.2 IP, 9 hits, 4 R/ER, but 2 BB with 6 K's, no HR. Thus far this season, Cain hasn't even won on the days he had his best stuff, facing the other team's best pitchers, but today he got Belisle, he of the 5+ ERA (as I had noted yesterday), and got away with it, particularly after the Reds combustible bullpen came in and gave up 4 more runs.

Cain was quoted as saying that he felt that something big was going to happen when Lewis was up. And Lewis delivered again, with his grand slam homer, his second of the season already, becoming the first San Francisco Giants rookie to hit two grand slams in a season (stat from sfgiants.com and SF Chronicle) and third in franchise history (from Chron), with Babe Young in 1940 the first and Daryl Spencer in 1953 the second, and Michael Tucker is the last Giants to hit two in a season, in 2005. Bonds noted when Lewis returned to the dugout, "You only swing on holidays," refering to Lewis hitting a grand slam and for the cycle on Mother's Day this year, May 13, which helped Cain get his aforementioned second win of the season.

Lewis Looking Like Position Prospect People Have Been Crying For

Lewis also banged out two singles, going 3 for 4 for the day, with 1 run and 4 RBI. Since returning from the DL, in two starts, he is 5 for 8, double, HR, 4 runs scored, 4 RBI, 1 BB, 1 SO. He is now batting .273/.333/.444/.778 in 99 AB with 3 HR. In a full 600+ AB season, if he continued at this rate, he would have 138 runs, 162 hits, 24 2B, 12 3B, 18 HR, 128 RBI, 72 BB, 120 K's, 18 SB. Like I noted in a post before, not too shabby, people like to put down the Giants for not developing position players - and rightfully so - but Lewis has been doing very well in his time with us here, basically doing what we had been hoping from Todd Linden for all these years.

Bochy says that he will fit Lewis in and with all the consecutive games played over the next two months that I noted yesterday, he will have to. But Bonds usually gets about a game of rest per week, so that gets Lewis one game per week. And Roberts normally sits against LHP, so perhaps Lewis gets one, maybe two starts a week from that. And Winn has not been hitting again in June, after being on fire in May, so he might see a game of rest per week because of that. That basically gives Lewis about half the starts per week, which would (over a full season) be the equivalent of giving Lewis about 300-400 ABs per season, which is pretty good. Plus with all those consecutive games played, Bonds might see more rest than usual, perhaps 2 per week during the next two months. That would edge Lewis more towards 400 AB.

As I noted in a post recently, people, particularly newspaper columnists love to crack upon Sabean for not developing position prospects, but Lewis is begining to show that maybe Sabean might have known a little something about doing that, that his digging up Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada while with the Yankees was not a fluke. And it is convenient when the stats are not all in to deride him, plus nice to ignore that the prospects you tout as better are no better than Lewis, Schierholtz, Ortmeier or Frandsen.

And I'm not saying that Lewis is it, only that he's been doing well up to now. Maybe he starts failing as teams learn him. Maybe he hits better once he learns the other teams. But there is now some evidence that the Giants oh-fer-years stretch of no good position prospects may finally be broken and the critics need to at least acknowledge that and not go for the easy dig at Sabean, you need to show the whole picture.

Teams Need Pitching Prospects Too

As well, they should stop fixating on the lack of position prospects when other teams have a lack of pitching prospects and the Giants have a multitude of them. Every team needs not only position players but a pitching staff to help them win games. If you are going to focus on other teams' position prospect, then at least look at the whole picture and compare our pitching staff, almost solely developed, with how many pitchers the other teams are developing. I don't know for sure, but I believe that the Giants will compare favorably with any team, what with Cain, Lowry, and Lincecum, plus Sanchez, Hennessey, and Correia.

And I still believe a pitching mainly focus is a good strategy. Pitchers can fill 12 spots in your roster. And typically any of those 12 spots. If you draft a player, you might draft a SS, but end up with a CF, RF, 2B, or 3B. Same with any other position. So you never can really draft for position need, you can only draft for best talent and hope that they fill a spot you need, else you have to trade anyway for what you need.

But with pitching you build up the pitching staff to a critical point, then every good prospect that makes it up either improves the pitching staff or is good enough to be traded for other team's position prospects. And every team can use pitchers. Rangers had a good stretch with 1B, Teixiera, Hafner, Adrian Gonzalez, but had to trade off two of them, and didn't get much good return on them, because not everyone can use a DH hitter like Hafner, and they just blew that trade with San Diego, they got fleeced.

Breaking Down the Draft: Alderson and Fairley

Carlos Gomez continued his coverage of the draft picks while I was away. This article covered picks 21-30, and was published at The Hardball Times, which I RSS for easy checking.

#22, RHP Tim Alderson

He doesn't think his mechanics are ideal, but he does several things very well that he does like.

• He "does an excellent job of leading with the hips, while his back shoulder stays over the rubber."


• He "has an explosive stepover that kickstarts his hips and body into that aggressive, yet slightly abrupt finish."


• "I've always believed that pitchers who exhibit very aggressive movements with their lower bodies tend to be more effective with their offspeed pitches. I believe that this is because the hitter starts "gearing up" in response to what the body suggests the pitcher is going to throw (in Alderson's case, it looks like he's about to throw a 120-mph fastball). So anyway, I'd encourage Alderson to pick up a good changeup ASAP."


• "I tend to give a pass to quirky pitchers even if their mechanics are a little questionable. It's no secret that I like sidearmers, submariners, knuckleballers and pitchers with unconventional release points like Eddie Degerman. Consider this clip...[clip of Alderson from behind home plate] Doesn't that just look tough to pick up?"

From that video, yeah, it does look tough to pick up, he has a three-quarter arm slot. But I'm not that hip on evaluating pitchers, so I wouldn't on what I say. :^)

Carlos ends with this: "Risky pick? Absolutely. I'm not sure that Alderson makes it as a starter, but I like this pick here." Well, Tidrow said that Alderson might make it up in two years, so by then we should still have Zito, Cain, Lincecum, Lowry, and Sanchez in the rotation, and perhaps Bumgarner in the mix too, since that's his timetable too, so if Alderson is slated for the bullpen, he has a better chance of making that right now than of starting.

#29, OF Wendell Fairley

Carlos likes this pick over who the Twin picked #28, Ben Revere, saying they should have picked him instead. Looking over the two videos, even I, a non-expert, can see that Fairley has a much better swing. Some notes:

• "This was the Giants' third pick in the first round and I'm pretty sure that by this time they were thinking of the budget." My comment: yes, one would think that, but the Giants spent more on prospects last year, with Lincecum at $2M and Villalona at $2.1M, for $4.1M; Bumgarner probably will get around $2M, Alderson around $1.5M, and Fairley around $1.0M, for $4.6M. Also, there's the players in the supplemental, but two have already signed and the third is a college senior, so they were probably cheap signs, and we had a 3rd and 4th round picks in 2006, but none until 5th round this year, so that cancels out some bonus there as well.


• "...Fairley is a good athlete with a simple, repeatable swing. He may have to tweak it a little bit depending on what the Giants want out of him, but it seems like he has a decent approach at the plate." From what I gather from the USA Today mini-profile of Fairley, he digs the long ball, so I would have to assume he wants power.


• "He tends to get a little out in front and reach for pitches, with his hands out ahead of his body a little too much. He won't hit with huge power with this swing, but the potential is there." Which is good because Fairley likes "watching the ball get up there."


• "The best thing about Fairley is that he is a five-tooler that doesn't need a major swing overhaul in order to hit at the next level. " Sounds great to me!

Carlos concludes with "Considering the Giants' situation, I really like this pick here. Good upside."

I also asked Carlos for more comment on what Fairley needs to do to improve his power. His comment was:

• "If he is going to hit for big power, he has to develop more lift in his swing and also learn to "Stay behind the ball" better. Watch Russell, the Cards pick in round 4 [This is in his 4th part of his series, he is the first player examined, #31 in the article, 142nd pick overall]. True, his swing has too much of an uppercut plane to it, but watch how his upper body tilts back while he's hitting against his front side. Fairley needs to develop that swing plane (although not as steep as Russell) and stay "behind the ball". A great example of "Staying behind the ball"? Your own BarryBonds..."

Lastly, he also mentioned that he will evaluate Nick Noonan and Charlie Culberson, two of the Giants picks from the supplemental first round, in his final 5th part of his series examining players picked in the amateur draft last month. I'm looking forward to reading about his comments.

Happy 4th of July!