Your 2010 Giants: April, Play Ball!

The goal, says Brian Sabean, is for the Giants to get off to a hot start. Or at least a hotter start than prior years, as each season started with a stumble, with a huge losing streak, losing roughly 6 games in the loss column. In prior years, Dave Roberts, as nice a guy as he is, killed the top of the lineup trying to play when he was clearly injured. Last season, no one to blame as specific as that, just a collective "ooops!". Sabean is looking for a winning record in April and May.

In April, there are 9 road games to start the season, out of the first 15, so there is the potential to stumble out the chute again. They are facing Houston, then later LA and SD on the road, while facing the Braves and Pirates at home. Yeah, they don't face NL West teams until their 10th game of the season. The Braves should be tough, and they bring along their wunderkind, Jason Heyward, but the Pirates, not so much.

But in the last week, roughly, the Giants play 7 games at home, giving them 13 home games and 9 road games out of 22 total games played in April. Thus to finish April with a winning record, they would need to go 12-10. However, those 7 home games (9 in total extending into May) will be tough games, facing the Cardinals, the Phillies, then the D-Rox.

It will be tough to even break even in April. To win 10 in April, the Giants would need to win one game in each series plus win at least two series plus the first one against Colorado, or win three series. Counting as series wins both Pittsburgh and San Diego, plus winning the first from Colorado, assuming that our rotation will face their counterpart in each series, that would mean:

• @Houston 1-2: I don't like Houston, but they are probably tough at home, plus it's Lincecum vs. Oswalt, Zito vs. Wandy Rodriguez, and Cain vs. Brett Myers. It'll be tough to win 2 of 3, unless Myers' physical problems affect him, as they played well at home last season, despite ending up way below .500.
• Braves 1-2: Tough team expected to do well in 2010 and maybe win the NL East. Sanchez vs. Hudson, Wellemeyer vs. Kenshin Kawakami, Lincecum vs. Derek Lowe (who got blasted today by Pirates). Hudson is tough, Kawakami was called "the best 5th starter" by one columnist (albeit Atlanta columnist), but Lincecum looks to beat Lowe. Had Hudson not been there, I think I would have given it to Sanchez, but he's going to have to do well to win this. The Braves overall rotation looks to be as good or better than the Giants, at least until Bumgarner joins the rotation.
• Pirates 2-1: We got Zito vs. Ohlendorf, Cain vs. Maholm, and Sanchez vs. Morton, and it's the Pirates and we are home, so 2-1 seems very doable, and we could maybe sweep.
• @LA 1-2: I think that they and Colorado will be our toughest competitors for the 2010 season. Wellemeyer, Lincecum, and Zito spells trouble for me.
• @SD 2-1: They can have a tough lineup, depending on how the young guys do and whether they still have A-Gon around. Still, Cain vs. Correia, Sanchez vs. Richard, Wellemeyer vs. Latos, I have to like our chances to win the series.
• Cards 1-2: Going to be tough, Lincecum vs. Carpenter, Zito vs. Wainwright, Cain vs. Penny, there is the significant possibility of getting swept.
• Phillies 1-2: They are the World Champs and picked up Halladay, arguably one of the best pitchers of the 2000's. Sanchez vs. Happ, Wellemeyer vs. Moyer, Lincecum vs. Hallday, again there is the distinct possibility of being swept.
• Colorado 1-0: Zito starting against Aaron Cook, so that is not necessarily good, but I'm giving this to the Giants, they are at home and the two of them are a push, talent-wise, I think. Given the negative tint to the last two series, I was going to switch this to a loss, but I think Zito should be able to take on Cook at home.

In total, that ends up being a 10-12 month, with a possibility of going worse. Not great start, but not something that would kill our chances. We could have been looking at a winning start if we didn't face both the Cards and Phillies at the end of the month, plus we are facing some tough clubs on the road, that perhaps we would win at home.

Of course, this is all very rough estimation, the Giants haven't played one inning yet, and at most one game for the other teams, so if the Giants can get off to a fast start, say if Myers problems flare up in the meantime or Cain takes him on and beats Myers, or better if Zito can man up and do well against Wandy - tall order though, Wandy was untouchable at home last season - then we could turn around the month early on. Plus, you never know when a tough team could suddenly be easy to take on if things don't work out for them early on.

But taking a view with a rough idea of how the pitchers we face might do, it looks to be another tough month for the Giants. However, it does not look like it should be a disastrous month, though we will have to watch at in the last week of the month. If Sanchez and Zito can continue what they did in the second half of 2009, the month will perk up, but I'm assuming something up and down like 2009 overall, which would mean a tough month for us. And if Wellemeyer can pitch like he did in 2008, that would swing things around for us in the back of the rotation, I used his 2009 to project how we might fare in April.

Your 2010 Giants: Opening Day 25-man Roster

The Giants have announced their 25 man roster (Baggarly had it here and the Chron here; additional positions in parenthesis):

Starting Pitchers (5)

Tim Lincecum RHP
Barry Zito LHP
Matt Cain RHP
Jonathan Sanchez LHP
Todd Wellemeyer RHP

Relief Pitchers (7)

Brian Wilson Closer
Jeremy Affeldt LHP-Setup
Brandon Medders RHP
Guillermo Mota RHP
Sergio Romo RHP-Setup
Dan Runzler LHP
Waldis Joaquin RHP

Catchers (2)
Bengie Molina C
Eli Whiteside C

Infielders (5)
Aubrey Huff 1B (LF/3B)
Travis Ishikawa UT (1B/LF)
Edgar Renteria SS
Pablo Sandoval 3B (1B/C)
Juan Uribe 2B (3B/SS)

Outfielders (6)
Mark DeRosa LF (2B/3B/1B/SS/RF)
Aaron Rowand CF
John Bowker RF (LF/1B)
Nate Schierholtz UT (RF/LF/CF)
Andres Torres UT (CF/LF/RF)
Eugenio Velez UT (LF/CF/RF/2B)

The Giants DLed Freddie Sanchez, Fred Lewis, and Emmanuel Burriss, plus assigned Denny Bautista to AAA, to get the roster down to 25 men.

Giants Thoughts

The Giants had mild surprises regarding the final 25 man and starting lineup, though it was no surprise considering how well they did.

Waldis Joaquin took the last spot in the bullpen, edging out if you will, Kevin Pucetas. The Giants announced that they wanted Pucetas ready in the minors in case the Giants needed a starter. I would add that given Pucetas' overall poor season in 2009, they probably wanted him to show that his spring would carry forward to the regular season in AAA. Plus Joaquin used to be a starter not too long ago, so he could probably take long relief duty if necessary.

In any case, Joaquin had a good spring. Surprisingly, he didn't strike out too many (only 3 in 13.2 IP) but still did well, walking only 1 batter. Walking batters had alway been a problem for him in the minors, and his brief time in the majors last season. The great thing was that he was getting a lot of ground balls, his GO/AO ratio was a stellar 3.75 (1.0 means you give up as many grounders as fly outs).

The way I viewed it, the Giants has been conscious about rewarding their young pitchers when possible. That is why they dropped Steve Kline a couple of years ago, to make space, I believe, for Merkin Valdez. And this year, with the way Denny Bautista pitched, if the Giants were really as vet focused as some claim, Denny would have won this spot and not Joaquin. I'm glad that they are giving Waldis a shot, he was a hot prospect previously, before his injury, so it is nice that he has recovered and made the majors. He's only 23.

John Bowker took the last starting spot that was open, RF, pushing out Nate Schierholtz. What can you say, Bowker, despite being written off for competition for RF before the competition even began, had a great spring and first forced himself into the competition, then probably won it long ago with Schierholtz's struggles, and continued to hit well to the end, hitting a homer.

My only caveat is that Ishikawa had a similar spring last season and came out cold for the first one and a half months. He, like Bowker, had a breakout year in the minors the year before, unlike any season he had before. In Bowker's plus column, his peripherals were great in that he took more walks than strikeouts, though he did still strike out too much, but was very close to what you want to see (64 vs 55 or 17.5% vs. 15%). The minus is that he came to the majors, after hitting that well in the minors, just like Ishikawa, but unlike Ishikawa, didn't do that well, reverting back to his bad habits of before.

Given how well he hit in spring and 2009, hopefully he solved whatever demons that causes him to choke in the majors and not hit that well. A Bowker hitting like he did in spring and 2009 would be a HUGE boost to our offense and our chances in 2010. If I could re-do my Big 6 Questions for 2010, I would add Bowker doing well as a starter as a wild-card that could make up for one of the questions going south.

Schierholtz actually had an OK spring overall, .262/.304/.507/.811, which is slightly above average for a RF. It is just that Bowker had an outstanding spring. Still, I hope there will be games against RHP where DeRosa would play 2B, Bowker LF, and Schierholtz RF (or even Uribe at 2B, though I would prefer DeRosa's bat instead). And hopefully Nate will still get to see a good amount of action anyhow, DeRosa is not the best against RHP, that is his weakness, so hopefully Nate will get some regular play via this route. There is also starting DeRosa at 1B in place of Huff to get Schierholtz in. Then there's Renteria getting a rest, Uribe playing SS, DeRosa 2B, and Schierholtz in LF. The Rubik's cube roster of the Giants can go crazy this season.

And, defensively, while Schierholtz was great last year, at least Bowker, albeit, in very little play, did well in the OF, and for his career is about half a win better than average. That surprised me, as I thought he was below average and looking at the available defensive stats, he wasn't that good in 2008.

But in according to the defense stats in Minor League Splits, he was actually very good defensively in RF in the minors in previous years, as it was his defense in LF that was not so good. So RF is actually where he played best in the minors, it was LF where he had troubles, though he did very well in limited time in LF in the majors in 2009. So we might not even take as big a hit on defense as feared, though still, Schierholtz was not just good, but basically as good as Winn in RF, which is a high standard, in terms of UZR/150. CHONE's projection, as shown in Fangraphs, has both of them getting about the same amount of ABs, and have their projected defensive values being very similar, but with Bowker doing much better offensively than Schierholtz, about half a win better.

Bochy would not divulge how the starting lineup would be with Bowker in there as the starting RF, other than he would not be batting 8th like Schierholtz would have. Ishikawa batted 6th last season, so here is how the lineup would look if Bowker got 6th, given what we have seen with the predicted lineup so far:

1. Aaron Rowand CF
2. Edgar Renteria SS
3. Pablo Sandoval 3B
4. Aubrey Huff 1B
5. Mark DeRosa LF
6. John Bowker RF
7. Bengie Molina C
8. Juan Uribe 2B

I was iffy, going either way regarding Molina and Bowker, but last year Ishikawa hit 6th with Rowand 7th, so I think that this is what the lineup will be today. Using CHONE's forecast, I have the addition of Bowker adding about 5 runs of offense, or half a win, to the Giants chances with this lineup. Of course, that does not account for defense, but given that CHONE's forecast is very similar for both, the gain in offense offsets the loss in defense by a lot. However, ZiPS had Schierholtz hitting better than Bowker, so there is a loss in offense using that projection. For Marcel too. However, Shandler has Bowker adding 2 full wins with Bowker's offense.

Looking at the lineup projections, I still would like to see a lineup of DeRosa 2B, Bowker LF, Schierholtz RF, because Uribe is not projected to be as good as Schierholtz as a hitter. For the Giants to maximize the lineup based on projections, they should think about going with this arrangement instead of going with Uribe at 2B, particularly against RHP but also against some LHP as well, as Nate has hit some well in the past. The plain fact is that Uribe has never been that good a hitter, he's a tweener, which is good if you are the first line of replacement, but not if you are mainly starting. Plus, we know what Uribe can do, so it would be nice to give Schierholtz a chance to show what he can do, knowing he's the starter, leaving it in his hands.

Your 2010 Giants Thoughts

Whether the Giants make the playoffs or not, you can't really tell whether that will happen to a great degree. You can never tell when the other teams just benefit from someone's outlier performance and aces your team out of the playoff picture. You also can never tell when something bad happens to your team. That's the sad truth that I'm finally getting.

But still, you can assess where they all stand relative to each other and here are the facts as I see them:

• D-gers: Lost Wolf, who pitched great, did not get anyone who could be expected to reliably replace his production, though Vicente Padilla did do well with them at the end of 2009, so maybe (and they did that last year too, replacing Lowe's great production with Wolf; can they do that again? Padilla hasn't pitched that well since his rookie season and around that well since 2003). Manny has laid his gauntlet down and the last time he did that, the Red Sox found him unmotivated enough to feel forced to trade him away, and if I recall right, his stats were down until the trade to the D-gers. And the D-vorce should also affect the team as well, with the owner and the former president, his soon to be former wife, at odds. The divorce of the 'Dres owner caused the current downturn in their chances over the past few years, as they had to cut back on spending on players because of the settlement. The D-gers also benefited from both Hudson and Pierre playing above their career numbers for a while to help boost them up in the early part of the season. Hoping that players play above their heads at any point in the season is not the way to repeat what you did the year before. They won 95 games. I think these conditions should be enough to drop them to 90 wins or lower.
• D-Rox: Lost Marquis, who had a great season with them, and they hope to reduplicate his production by re-adding Jeff Francis who missed all of last season. He pitched horribly for them during the spring. In addition, Huston Street appears to be out, perhaps for the whole season, and they are just praying with his replacement. At 92 wins last season, this should be enough to drop them to 88-90 wins, if not lower.
• 'Dres: They actually looked like they might be on an upswing this season, with prospects like Kyle Blanks and Matt Latos ready to contribute, but the rumors of Adrian Gonzalez being traded just don't seem to go away, so that should make the team play tentatively until he is traded, at which point they have no chance of repeating. At 75 wins last season, they really needed some prospects to come through to reach 90 wins, but if A-Gon is a-gone by mid-season, their chances are gone. And a lot has to go good with their young prospects for them to add another 15 wins, and they don't really have any young pitcher that looks like he'll do that for them, to be that ace, and they traded away Jake Peavey last season, who could have been.
• D-backs: They also have a lot of young bucks, but as nicely as they did in changing up their pitching rotation, they will still need Brandon Webb to come back and be like he was before. He is still recovering and might not pitch for the first month at least. At 70 wins last year, they needed a lot of things to go right, including him coming back and pitching like he used to, for them to do well in 2010, but even though they have a lot of nice young players who probably will develop and advance some this year, jumping from 70 games to 90 games without Webb at full strength looks like a poor bet.

Meanwhile, while people fault the Giants for not doing more for their lineup, they were just falling into the usual fan's Zone of Distortion where if there is any ordinariness in your team, your team sucks. What they don't realize is that when you have a team on the extremes, like the Giants are in terms of preventing runs from scoring, they only need to be ordinary with the lineup to win a lot of games. I have shown this mathematically in my business plan series.

Using various projections of the batting line for the main batting order for the Giants in 2010, the average expected runs scored per game across the six projections - Shandler, Graphical Player, Bill James, CHONE, ZiPS, and Marcel - is 4.49 runs scored per game. If the Giants matched their runs allowed of 2009, or 3.77 runs allowed, the would win 93 games with that runs scored average, which would have been very slightly above average in 2009, and to win 90 games with that offense, their runs allowed could rise to 3.94, which would mean giving up an additional 28 runs during the season. In other words, if the bullpen can be the same as it was last season - and it looks good with Runzler in there all season - one of our starters could be a whole run worse (roughly, over 32 starts) versus 2009 and we should win 90 games if this offense is as bad as most projections have them be.

There are valid reasons it might get worse. Cain had his best season but his FIP was more like how he normally did, implying that he lucked out greatly. However a big assumption for FIP is that Cain is like any other pitcher, doomed to regress to the mean of .300 BABIP that most pitchers who are not knuckleballers or crafty lefties regress to. His BABIP in 2009 was .267, hence why sabers might think he lucked out greatly. However, he already has slightly over 4 seasons under his belt and his career BABIP is .274, only slightly above that. A study found that it takes seven years for a starter to show statistically significantly that he is below, but 4/7ths of the way there, Cain's career numbers are way below the mean that most pitchers regress to.

Another is that Jonathan Sanchez has been inconsistent in his career, and most lefties like that tend to just continue to be like that. Oliver Perez is a great example of that. However, each of his inconsistencies can be explained for 2008 and 2009. In 2008, his first year starting, he gassed out midway through the season, after dominating the opponents to an ERA under 4.00. In 2009, after increasing his stamina during the off-season, he was able to pitch effectively into September, when he did experience some downturn. However, unfortunately the WBC was that year and he pitched with his idol, Johan Santana, and decided to copy a mechanic of Johan, which works for him because he's shorter than Sanchez. Sanchez wouldn't change back until he was taken out of the rotation, and he had his no-hitter in his first start afterward, and in the starts AFTER the no-hitter, he had an ERA in the mid-to-high 3's. He's ready to put in a full season and with a low ERA, but no projection would see that.

Sandoval is viewed by some to regress as well, based on his numbers in the minors. But clearly he is no longer the hitter he was in the minors. He developed homerun power plus has learned some discipline at the plate and has been getting more walks. He also got into better shape over the off-season working diligently at that like he did fielding grounders at 3B during the off-season prior. Plus, it was discovered that he needed glasses, and now he can see the pitches clearly whereas last season he could only see blurs.

Wilson could be viewed by some as having an outlier season as well, but at some point you have to admit that he developed and reached a new level of production. Plus, he decided to add back his curveball, which was considered plus when he was drafted, to his repertoire, so that should help in preventing him from doing that much worse.

I also think that we will get more production out of either Rowand or Renteria or Molina, at minimum, if not more.

• Rowand realized that he needed to get into better physical shape, that he's no longer young enough to get away without doing that. He's actually started both of his two seasons with us hitting great, then was useless to us the rest of the season. If he is in better shape, he should be that much more of a productive hitter.
• Renteria's best stretch hitting last season was that roughly one month in Aug/Sept when he said that he felt no pain, and he hit great then, over 800 OPS. That is the way he hit before when he was hitting well, and he lost that huge chunk that was in his elbow with the surgery, so he could return to the hitter he was before.
• Molina, I think was affected by two factors. One was that he was a father for the first time. Taking care of a child and working takes a lot out of you, and being a catcher, that probably just accelerates that. Second, he had no worthy backup offensively so Bochy just played him until he was spent and couldn't hit. This year, the baby should not be tiring him out as much, plus by the time he is starting to tire, Posey will be brought up to catch 2 games a week, which will keep him more rested and better able to hit as well as he could.

In addition, DeRosa starting in LF will be a good upgrade over the guys we had last season both offensively and defensively. He's amazing, he can play almost any position at a high defensive value while hitting slightly above average overall. His prior UZR/150 at almost any position is good enough to contribute a win every season, on top of whatever he does offensively. He's weak against RHP, but with a lefty taking key starts from him, he can be a highly productive player offensively and defensively.

Huff will cost us a lot of defense at 1B, but is a much better hitter than Ishikawa. I expect to see a lot of defensively switches to bring Ishikawa in near the end, after Huff got his 3-4 ABs, and that combo should both boost our offense over what we got last season, particularly on the road, plus allows the Giants to put Molina lower in the batting order, where he belongs, plus gives us a legit power source batting cleanup. Still, the defensive difference between the two could account for the 28 additional runs given up.

Overall, I see a lot of possibilities of the Giants doing much better than expected by projections, but don't see a lot of huge downsides. Renteria could go bad, but then he would either bat 8th or if he is bad enough, Uribe would take over. Rowand couldn't really get much worse, I don't think. Molina similarly, plus we would have Posey ready to jump in if necessary. DeRosa could do a bit worse than he did in recent seasons and still be better than what we had at LF. Huff could fail, but then we put in Ishikawa and get about what we got last season, no big downside there.

Schierholtz is a possibility, but with Bowker hitting so well, I expect at least one of them hitting well enough to keep the position productive over the season. Maybe Sanchez can't put in a great season, but I think Cain will get close again, Lincecum will be Lincecum, and Zito should be around what he was last season, his velocity appears to be the same and so he should be able to continue to do as well as he did last season, overall.

All this makes me think that winning 90 games should be a strong possibility as long as players produced as projected plus some performing the way I speculated above that they could. And as I showed with the other teams, they should be either around 90 wins or less, giving us a good chance to win the division title and making the playoffs.

And if we make the playoffs, our rotation will be stacked with Lincecum et al, all very dominant pitchers, giving us a good chance to go deep into the playoffs if given the chance.