The Ghosts of Giants Drafts: 1984 Draft

I'm looking to update my draft study with the draft data that Baseball-Reference.com now provides at their excellent website. I get AB and OPS data for all players plus ERA and WHIP for all pitchers, which I just realized is not that good for judging pitchers easily as there is no way to easily assess how long a career they have had, other than by how many games they have won or loss or saved, or tangentially by how many ABs they get. So I will have to re-think whether I will try to update my study now.

If I did update it, it will take a while to compile everything, plus then time to analyze the data, and I thought while I'm collecting the data, I can stroll through memory lane and list some names of past Giants draftees, and give some commentary on what I remember plus what could have been.

1984 Draft

Today, I look at the Giants 1984 draft. This is the first draft where I can remember thinking the Giants blew it. They selected Alan Cockrell when I looked at the next player selected and wonder why they didn't select Mark McGwire. McGwire did so many things at USC and Cockrell, well, he was known more for being a QB, at least, that's what it seemed like to me.

Just think how different things could be had the Giants selected Mark McGwire. For one thing, would the Giants have selected Will Clark, another 1B, the following year? And risked another Willie McCovey/Orlando Cepeda situation? Or more possibly, would they would have corrected a mistake made a few years before when they were unable to sign him and draft/sign Barry Bonds? There were other names right around there, Bobby Witt, Barry Larkin, Pete Incaviglia, but Bonds could have been their choice if we had McGwire already. The main question is would Tom Haller, who didn't sign him the first time (he says its a myth, but reports/rumors back then were that the Giants were $5,000 apart from Bonds, offering $50,000 when Bonds wanted $55,000, and thus Bonds didn't sign and went to school instead).

What if we had Bonds and McGwire in the lineup from 1986 to 1992? Could we have won throughout most of that period? Could we have won it all then? Impossible to know for certain, but think about the possibilities.

Fantasy Baseball

While both started playing in the majors in 1986, Clark played most of the season in the majors, while McGwire was mostly in the minors. However, from 1987 on, they were both regular starters. I won't argue the relative merits of either here, but assume that their impact offensively would have been very similar.

And think how that might have affected the A's. Without McGwire available, their next best choices after him were Shane Mack, Oddibe McDowell, and maybe Scott Bankhead. Would have been quite a drop in value, no? And the Bash Brothers could have been Bonds and McGwire in the Orange and Black.

Then the Giants OF could have been much different for their playoff run. They might not have traded for Candy Maldonado, though at that point, who knows if the Giants were ready to bring Bonds up; however, he did well enough for the Pirates to bring him up in 1986. And he played CF his first season plus part of the next, before settling in LF. That would fit in well with Giants history, Leonard was traded away in 1988, opening LF for Bonds. Meanwhile, he would have played CF with Chili Davis in RF, Gladden was traded to the Twins in 1987. Thus, instead of just having 1993, we could have had something like 1993 from 1987 to 1993.

Believe it or not, Bonds would have been a downgrade from Candy, who had a 127 OPS+ in 1987 vs. Bonds 114 OPS+. But after that, Bonds was on an uptrend while Candy went down, which could have kept the Giants in contention in the period from 1990 and 1992. Who knows, if the team was successful enough, Lurie might have never sold, we might not even have AT&T Park.

Bonds in LF would have ramifications for the 1989 World Series team. Would the Kevin Mitchell trade still have been done? Possible so, because he was a starting 3B when we got him and played mostly 3B for us for the first couple of years. And his range factor and fielding percentage wasn't all that bad there, so it could have worked long-term except then where would Matt Williams play, if not at 3B?

Ah, that's the fantasy I've had since Williams became a regular, what if they kept him at SS? Can you imagine a lineup with Matt Williams, Kevin Mitchell, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds? The only question would be, with Bonds around, would Candy been around? The OF would have been Leonard, Bonds, Davis, with no space for Candy, so would he been traded or even not trade for in the first place?

Still, imagine a lineup with Terry Kennedy catching, Mark McGwire at 1B, Robby Thompson at 2B, Kevin Mitchell at 3B, Matt Williams at SS, Bonds in LF, Brett Butler in CF, and somebody acquired to play RF? Wouldn't that been one of the greatest HR hitting lineups in history?

Still doesn't beat the best "What if" scenario for the Giants, though: what if the Giants had outbid the Braves for Hank Aaron? They were both bidding for his services and just got beat (win some lose some; they barely beat out another team for Willie Mays). Chew on that one for a while.

After Cockrell

The Giants actually did OK with their next pick, selecting Terry Mulholland, whose signature play still plays delightfully in my memory: dribbler to the pitcher firstbase side, and as pitcher and hitter race towards 1B, Mulholland realizes that the ball is stuck in his glove, and he's losing the race to the bag, so he did what he had to do, he threw the glove, with the ball in it, to the firstbaseman to get the out.

But they struck out in the rest of the draft, which, by the way, is not that out of the ordinary for most teams, so that's why it's hard to discern when a team is actually just bad at picking or just dealing with the low odds of the situation. With low odds of finding even useful major league players, teams will find some years to be shutouts. The only drafteee besides Mulholland out of the 26 total picks to experience anything beyond a cup of coffee call-up was Tony Perezchica, who got all of 101 AB. There were two who came up for a cup of coffee: Stu Tate and aforementioned Alan Cockrell also got a taste of the majors as well.

Moving Ahead with Study

P.S. I think I will give it the old college try and see what I can do with the data, even if it's not good for pitchers. With this dataset, I can do more analysis on high school vs. college type of analysis, plus, with my old set of data, I still have the designation of whether they are good, useful, or not, as the case may be, so I can use that as a guide and finetune up or down with the baseball-reference data.

I will still expand the years so that my study is comparable with the Baseball Prospectus study that came after my study. My point, which was not refuted by the Baseball Prospectus study, or any study that I've seen since, is that the distribution of talent availability plus the difficulty in identifying those who will make the majors, makes it very unlikely that any team will find a good major league player with even a late 1st round draft pick. My study found that only approximately 10% of draftees become good major league players out of the picks 21-30 overall in the draft between the years of 1986 and 1998.

Thus, a team could skip a pick, like the Giants did with the Tucker signing, and not materially hurt their development of major league players from their farm system. Given that the team has been almost totally rebuilt from the farm system in the years since provides strong evidence that my conclusion was not incorrect.

Sabean Deserves Chance to Finish Job

That we did it while still trying to win with Bonds is testimony to Sabean's vision for the future. As much as fans like to deride Sabean's efforts and results, and recently a Baseball America writer did just that, find me a better pitching rotation than what we have, made up young pitchers? Of all the trades made, as of right now, did he not keep the right ones when it counted?

And despite the cries of fans over our lack of position player development early this sesaon, our lineup actually looks like it's shaping up nicely over the next few years, with Lewis, Sandoval, Posey, and Villalona being the core hitters, and Burriss, Frandsen, Bowker, looking like OK supplemental hitters, plus Noonan, Fairley, maybe Rodriguez, Gillaspie, also contributing at some point in the near future.

That is why I have been preaching patience with seeing how Sabean's efforts are developing and not throwing the baby out with the bath water. I said I was happy he got a two year extension because then we get a chance to see him develop what we got further. After year one, there are a lot of positives and I'm gladder than ever they kept him.

I'm at the point where I would be willing to give him another two years but managerially there is no need to do that now, the Giants can do that in mid-2009, after another half year of seeing how things turn out. Plus, I now vaguely recall someone saying the Giants have an option on Sabean for 2010, so that would make it even easier if true, use the full 2009 season to see how the team develops and pick up his option at the end of the year if things are still developing nicely, don't if not.

2008 Giants: August PQS

This post has the Giants Pure Quality Start scores for the month of August 2008, PQS as defined in Ron Shandler's Baseball Forecaster annual book and they published the details here. 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).

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).

Basically, you want to see a pitcher's DOM% to be over 40% and ideally over 50%, and you want their DIS to be under 20% and ideally under 10%. For example, Johan Santana has a 76% DOM and 3% DIS in 2006 (2.77 ERA), whereas Orlando Hernandez had a 52% DOM and 28% DIS (4.66 ERA), and Adam Eaton had a 31% DOM and 31% DIS (5.12 ERA). See my explanation down below on methodology plus read the link, there's a nice chart there showing the combination of high DOM% and low DIS%, and particularly how low DIS% is so important.

Giants Starters' PQS for 2008 Season (as of August 31st, 2008)

Matt Cain - (60% DOM, 7% DIS; 18:2/30): 3, 0, 4, 0, 5, 2, 4, 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 5, 3, 4, 5, 5, 3, 5, 3, 5, 3, 4, 4, 4, 3, 5, 3, 4, 2

Kevin Correia - (37% DOM, 26% DIS; 7:5/19): 4, 4, 4, 1, 3, 1, 4, 2, 0, 0, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 4, 0, 4, 2 (did not count start where injured)

Tim "The Kid" Lincecum - (79% DOM, 0% DIS; 22:0/28): 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 3, 3, 5, 5, 2, 3, 5, 4, 3, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4*, 5, 5, 5 (didn't count relief outing as start; * start where he was injured by batted ball, just 2 outs away from DOM 4 game so I gave it to him.)

Pat Misch - (38% DOM, 38% DIS; 3:3/8): 4, 0, 4, 4, 2, 0, 2, 0 (counted relief after Zito since 6 IP)

Matt Palmer - (0% DOM, 67% DIS; 0:2/3): 0, 3, 0

Jonathan Sanchez - (46% DOM, 25% DIS; 11:6/24): 0, 5, 2, 3, 5, 3, 0, 0, 5, 3, 5, 5, 4, 2, 5, 5, 5, 4, 0, 3, 0, 0, 3, 4

Barry Zito - ( 19% DOM, 37% DIS; 5:10/27): 1, 1, 3, 3, 0, 0 (Skip), 4, 3, 2, 4, 4, 0, 1, 1, 0, 4, 2, 5, 2, 3, 2, 3, 1, 3, 3, 3, 0

Giants season overall - 47% DOM, 21% DIS out of 140 games counted (66:29/140)

Giants Month of April - 43% DOM, 30% DIS out of 30 games counted (13:9/30)

Giants Month of May - 61% DOM, 14% DIS out of 28 games counted (17:4/28)

Giants Month of June - 48% DOM, 22% DIS out of 27 games counted (13:6/27)

Giants Month of July - 38% DOM, 19% DIS out of 26 games counted (10:5/26)

Giants Month of August- 45% DOM, 17% DIS out of 29 games counted (13:5/29)

First, some procedural notes. I didn't count Lincecum's relief session as a start, nor did I count it as a start for Valdez, in the D-gers game. I also didn't count Correia's injury start where he only pitched a third of an inning. However, I did count Misch's first outing, in relief of Zito, as a start because he went 6 innings and I felt he deserved it. And I counted Lincecum's start when he was injured by a batted ball, as he was dominating up to that point and only needed two more outs to reach 5 IP and get a DOM 4.

I normally write something about how they did here, but basically it was all Lincecum, all the time, again. Cain had some good starts as did Correia, while the rest of the starters stumbled along or worse; collectively the rest had 1 DOM start, 4 DIS starts out of 11 starts.

Overall, our rotation is top-notch. Lincecum's DOM is still up among the elites of the majors, if not the best in the majors, Cain is up among the best in the majors, even Sanchez is up among the good pitchers in the league, and even Correia is up among the OK pitchers of the league. Overall, our rotation is, as a whole, ranked almost among the best pitchers (best pitchers have DOM 50% and higher).

Zito, however, has been just plain horrible, but that's what happens in a transitional year like this where he had to hit bottom, with a thud, and has been slowly re-building and re-making himself. I don't know his September results yet (though could calc if had the time) but I do know his first two starts were DOM starts and yesterday's start looks like it was a DOM too, so he looks like he is well on his way, particularly since he has been able to up his velocity back up to the 88 MPH range where he needs to be in order to be successful with his stuff, which is evidenced by his ability to strike out at least the innings pitched minus 2 necessary to qualify for a DOM point.

And strikeouts are very important to DOM starts. Strikeouts are a key component to two DOM points - K >= IP minus 2 and K >= twice BB - making it a critical element of a dominating game, PQS-wise. It also makes it harder overall for hits (less AB's to get hits in) and thus is affecting whether the pitcher can keep his hits total equal to or less than his IP. The last two points are not related at all to strikeouts, IP >= 6.0 and HR <>

What's Good and What's Not

A DOM at or above the 40% mark is indicative of good pitching; above 50% is great; above 70% is elite. A low DIS is also indicative of good pitching, just look at the table in the link above showing DOM% and DIS% on the axes. Thus what Correia has done so far in limited starts is still good, and that's why he earned a spot in the starting position for the 2008 season.

If you had to chose a high DOM% or a low DIS%, pitchers tend to have a lower ERA when you have a low DIS% vs. a high DOM% (obviously if you combine both, you have a much better chance of having an elite pitcher). That's how Lowry was able to pitch well last year, keeping his ERA low while still recovering from his strained oblique and being unable to strike out hitters as much as before, he had very few disaster starts until he had his arm problems and got bombed in September, he had a good ERA, in the high 3's until those starts.

August's Comments

Again, normally write more, but since it's so close to the end of the season, I'll only note that the youth movement didn't really do much for the Giants this season until Sandoval and Ishikawa were brought up and both started hitting like they wanted to stay here a long time. That helped the Giants to a winning month for the first time this season and first since late 2007 season (also August) and best winning percentage since April 2007. In addition, Hinshaw and Romo came up and did likewise, they have been very good in the bullpen, and both could in the set-up spots in 2009 if they continue to do well.

So there was a lot more hope for the 2009 season as of end of August 2008. Lewis has established that 2007 was no fluke, he looks like he'll be manning LF for years to come (bunion permitting) as a league average offensively. Sandoval looks like he'll be rotating around 1B, 3B, and C in 2009, perhaps even start at 3B (probably his most regular position in 2009). Ishikawa has put his name back into strong contention for starting 1B. Burriss was also doing well too, eventually leading to being named starting SS, though he will have to fight off all comers in spring training.

Meanwhile, the Giants signed all their top draft picks, Posey, Gillaspie, Kieschnick, and Crawford, who all immediately become top prospects in our talent poor farm system at, respectively, C, 3B, RF, and SS. Our team appeared to be shaping up very nicely when August 2008 ended.

Lastly, I will leave you with this thought: the Giants record this season is basically what it had last season - with 70 wins, they will be right around last year's 71 wins - which means that the Giants basically replaced Bonds great performance in 2007 with a bunch of players contributing equivalent production overall. Through Lincecum, Fred Lewis's manning of LF, Wilson, Sandoval, Valdez/Hinshaw/Romo, Sanchez, Bowker, Burriss, Schierholtz, and now Velez, plus, of course, Aaron Rowand, all those bits of performance basically equaled replacing the run production of Bonds, which was still very good in 2007 (and also made up for horrible performances at SS until August). Chew on that for a while.

MAJOR ANNOUCEMENT ABOUT JT SNOW

As reported by Andy Baggarly, the Giants are poised to make a major announcement concerning JT Snow at 6 PM today. As noted, only Brian Sabean will be at the press conference. Tim Kawakami also opines on what this means in his blog as well. There is nothing currently on sfgiants.com regarding this.

I think both their speculations make some logical sense. If Snow was taking an on-field job, then Bruce Bochy would be there. But with Sabean making the announcement, it must have something to do with what Sabean controls as GM, and nothing much with Snow's current trio of roles as broadcaster, coach, or special assistant to Brian Sabean (well, maybe tangentially that but there is no MAJOR growth that can come out of this position). With the PR department using an ALL CAPS headline, presumably this position is very significant, and not some community-rep or other non-decision-making job.

Baggarly throws out there the thought that perhaps it would be naming Snow as the new manager of the Giants, but notes that this is something that would be more likely to happen after Bill Neukom takes over, not slightly before. Yeah, I agree, not a move that should happen without Neukom and it would happen after he takes over, not before, unless, that is, he wants it done as part of the Magowan era, kind of like how Epstein quit the Red Sox for a while when they got rid of some popular player or something, then miraculously became GM again right afterward.

Kawakami goes a bit more speculative, saying that since Larry Baer isn't there, perhaps Sabean is taking on some of Baer's duties while Snow takes over Sabean's duties, leaving Neukom at top, Sabean/Baer next level, then Snow/Barr the next level. I don't see that happening without Neukom there to oversee the proceedings, too big a change without him and Magowan there.

A logical growth from his current position would be becoming a senior advisor like McCovey, but he's too young I think to take on that type of role plus that would lessen Willie Mac's role publicly being "paired" with Snow. Same goes for being Special Assistant to the GM like Felipe Alou, which is on the GM side of the house.

Looking over the various titles and people in those roles, my wild guess on this is that Snow is being named Director of Player Development. Stanley just got that job last year from Jack Hiatt, when Jack retired, but it says that he has 41 years of professional baseball experience, this being his 42nd, making him at least 60 years old and perhaps as much as 63 years old. He could have a multitude of reasons to leave - family (son and daughter), health perhaps (not saying he has something, just that it could be that at his age) - and obviously Snow has some interest in player personnel issues since he was assistant to Brian Sabean and not to Peter Magowan or anyone else.

Nothing else would warrant an ALL CAP headline, though I do recall some announcement this year getting the big PR push and it was not really much of anything. But still, if Brian Sabean is going to be in the press conference, that has to be a pretty significant move somewhere in his department as GM, else he could sent up Tidrow, Barr, or Evans to make the announcement with Snow instead. This role must be something where Snow is reporting in to Sabean, and the role should be significant enough to warrant a press conference, else it would have been quietly announced like all the additions to the Player Personnel area the last couple of years when Barr, Siegle, Schueler, Creech joined the Giants.

Then again, when Stanley took over for Hiatt, that didn't warrant a press conference either.

The only other position worthy of a press conference would be if JT Snow took over as Director of Player Personnel from Bobby Evans, who, if he's not in the press conference, is moving on to another position somewhere else. Another thought is that perhaps the additional duties Evans took on that were more baseball related than operations related (when Colletti bolted) either didn't appeal to him or he didn't do well there, and they are having Snow join in an equivalent position to Evans where he would be the book-end to Evans, taking on the baseball talent evaluation related duties (assuming he has any). Even then, Evans didn't get a press conference when he was named to this position.