… like: What’s Buster Posey’s favorite food? And: Why doesn’t Barry Zito throw harder?
These questions are particularly burning because people sought answers to them and found my site in lieu of what they were seeking. At least that’s what my fancy Blogger “Stats” told me. Unfortunate, I know.
I guess I’ll give it my best in the event these two – unless, it was one person with each of these pertinent, brilliant questions – return for the answer. You know, because maybe each of them is a glass half full type.
So, what is Buster’s favorite food… in the whole wide world? I think this is fairly obvious, but we’ve already headed down this path so…
Posey’s favorite food is belt-high fastballs on the outer half of the plate. As Brian Wilson would say: Posey finds them particularly delicious.
Finally: Why doesn’t Zito throw harder? Great question. Simple answer. He can’t.
Ok, so maybe those weren’t the answers they were looking for. You just can’t please everyone. But for those of you that found this an utterly ridiculous waste of time, I do have some recourse.
Brandon Belt had three hits in his first start this spring today. He punched a single to center to score Travis Ishikawa. Then, directly following that and displaying his athleticism, he scored from first on a hit-and-run double by Brad Eldred. Later, he smashed a three-run double to right center field. For an encore, he clubbed an opposite-field double off of the base of the left-center field wall. So there’s that. Delicious.
Notice how I didn’t say he “belted” any of those pitches? I’ll refrain for now. Personally, I prefer to hear Duane Kuiper bellow that when he hits his first big league home run.
Insightful baseball analysis for the casual crowd, Moneyball masses and you, the Third and King crew
Showing posts with label Buster Posey. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buster Posey. Show all posts
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Buster Posey anchors Giants’ offense
First, the rules…
The rule is that every conversation about the Giants’ offense starts and stops with Buster Posey. The second rule is that the rules will undoubtedly change and they’ll change at the time of my choosing. Glad we have that squared away.
I said I might do a follow up post about players’ projections following my previous installment at Paapfly: Baseball Prospectus is bullish on Giants. I’d like to make good on that promise here and now.
As you might expect, rather, as you would expect – this is assuming that you were paying any attention to the ever important rules I’ve outlined above, while also assuming* they have not changed – we start with Posey.
*Rule of thumb: Don’t assume anything.
Posey took home the Rookie of the Year award in the Senior Circuit for the 2010 season, edging another eminently talented fellow named Jason Heyward. I’m happy to report that Baseball Prospectus (BP) again expects Posey to perform at a high level.
They are projecting him to hit .289/.358/.462 – meaning average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage – which isn’t far off from his .305/.357/.505 line from a year ago. What you can take from that is they don’t expect Posey to hit for as much power as he did a year ago (given the 43 point drop in slugging), but do expect him to draw a few more walks. Over 500 plate appearances (PA), their guess is 16 home runs for Buster. For what it’s worth, he hit 18 in 443 PA in 2010.
Baseball Prospectus has their own way of doing things and project 3.6 Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) for Posey. To be honest, I’m not very well versed in their system because it’s not free and I grew up on (read: learned about a year ago on) FanGraphs. But I don’t think anyone on their site would be upset if I said WARP is more or less their version of Wins above replacement (WAR). In any case, you might assume a 3.6 WARP isn’t much, but it’s pretty darn good considering their only projected 5.0+ WARP position player is Albert Pujols.
Before you ask, allow me: Will Posey really lose long-ball power, not hit .300 and walk more? Maybe, maybe not, but I certainly have no problem with what they’ve provided. I think him drawing more walks is an excellent bet. I also think he’s likely to hit in a band around .300, meaning perhaps a bit higher or lower. In terms of pop, I can see it going either way. He could hit about as many home runs, a few more, or a few less. None of the three would shock me.
He’s an excellent hitter but he’s not likely to be a 30 home run guy in my opinion; he’s more likely to fall in the high-teens to mid-twenties if all is going as we expect. With the quality on-base percentage (OBP), ability to hit for a good average and the simple fact that he’s a catcher and they traditionally don’t hit at all, that’s excellent production for a catcher.
This is an excellent place for me to say something that I’ve been meaning to. For those of you who think Posey should move to shortstop – I’ve seriously read or heard this a number of times, believe it or not – to third base, or to first base: stop. I mean it: please stop.
After Posey, BP is particularly optimistic about Pablo Sandoval. This is excellent news. It’s also a great time to drop a wonderful nugget from the awesome Craig Calcaterra, who just so happens to be watching the Giants’ first spring training game this morning:
Not knowing just exactly in how good of shape Pablo would be for the season, BP has Sandoval at a 3.0 WARP with a line of .299/.346/.464 with 17 home runs. That’s far better than his 2010, though of course not near the production he had in 2009. Here’s the thing with Pablo though: the sky is sort of the limit. With his lost weight, added strength and no doubt improvement in agility, he should improve in all facets of the game. I want to curb my optimism some, but I’m feeling extremely encouraged about this young man right now.
If his bat once again plays in the middle of the order with Posey and at some point, Brandon Belt – more on him later – the Giants’ offense shouldn’t have too much trouble accomplishing what’s needed to win: mediocrity. That’s right folks, when you have stellar pitching in both your rotation and bullpen, you win a lot of games by merely scoring a league average number of runs. You can even win a World Series.
I won’t get into too much detail, but others of note are Andres Torres, projected to hit .251/.320/.412. The projection isn’t a surprise, but I’ll take the over on that. He’s also the only player projected to steal double-digit stolen bases (20). They see a sharp decline in Aubrey Huff (.263/.336/.431) – no surprise there, he’ll have to prove 2010 wasn’t a fluke. They aren’t expecting much from Mark DeRosa after two wrist surgeries. In short: 127 lack-luster plate appearances. Rounding out the rest are Pat Burrell (.232/.342/.418 and 1.0 WARP), Cody Ross (.259/.313/.429 and 1.6 WARP) and Miguel Tejada (.269/.306/.375 and 1.4 WARP).
I know, I know, it feels like I’m rushing. That’s because I am. I want to get to Brandon Belt. I hinted in my previous piece that Belt is projected to produce the second best line on the Giants. They have him at .269/.359/.456. That there’s good stuff. Belt put up a prodigious minor league campaign in his first as a professional last season. It was huge. Anyway, if you want a real life example of how a season with a similar line and excellent defense at first base might look, look no further than Ike Davis’ 2010. He was a down-ballot Rookie of the Year candidate last year. He’s not a star, but he’s better than James Loney.
Davis hit .261/.351/.440 with a .345 weighted on-base average (wOBA) and was worth 3.4 wins because he was also playing excellent defense at first base, just as Belt is expected to do. What’s more, he’s another tall left-handed hitter at 6’4”. Belt’s projected line is slightly better than Davis’ and probably worth something like a .350 wOBA. That’s not great for a first baseman – it is better than league average – but when coupled with very good defense is perfectly playable. Also, it’s a lot more than you should ever ask from a rookie.
It’s worth pointing out that what BP is saying is essentially that Belt should be a better player in 2011 than Aubrey Huff. It’s far too early to know that for sure. Belt is still nothing but a prospect, though a top one, and Huff is still a player that had a resurgent season in 2010, though he’s not getting any younger. What’s probably assured in all this is the fact that Belt would be a defensive upgrade from Huff and that Huff would be no worse in left than Burrell; he might be better. Food for thought.
Unfortunately, here’s an enormous stick in the spoke, gum on the roller blade, sugar in the gas tank. Will Belt make his way to San Francisco at some point this season? BP says he’ll only take 100 plate appearances, but that seems ridiculous to me. No, while I don’t believe Sabean will dare give Belt a start on opening day, I do believe he’ll be up just as soon as one of three things happen: 1) his service time is no longer an issue, i.e. around May, 2) the Giants’ offense is running on fumes and needs a bump or 3) he’s obliterating the ball so absurdly in Fresno that Sabean has no choice but to cave to the cries for his summon.
I prefer option three, personally. Sounds awesome. But we’ll all just have to wait and see. Baseball Prospectus is about as optimistic about the Giants as they have been in years, so I’m told. So I’m told, last year they recommended Brian Sabean’s dismissal. Right or wrong, their enthusiasm for this year’s squad seems genuine and far less obligatory given their status as defending champs. It should be another exciting year. That’s really all you can ask for.
Finally, the rules have not changed and we’re still technically talking the Giants’ offense. So: Buster Posey.
I’ll make no promises here to dabble in BP’s projections on the pitching. I won’t say I won’t take a look at them either. But it’s just not as interesting to me, for whatever reason. Suffice to say, the holistic take on the pitching staff is that it’s very, very good.
The rule is that every conversation about the Giants’ offense starts and stops with Buster Posey. The second rule is that the rules will undoubtedly change and they’ll change at the time of my choosing. Glad we have that squared away.
I said I might do a follow up post about players’ projections following my previous installment at Paapfly: Baseball Prospectus is bullish on Giants. I’d like to make good on that promise here and now.
As you might expect, rather, as you would expect – this is assuming that you were paying any attention to the ever important rules I’ve outlined above, while also assuming* they have not changed – we start with Posey.
*Rule of thumb: Don’t assume anything.
Posey took home the Rookie of the Year award in the Senior Circuit for the 2010 season, edging another eminently talented fellow named Jason Heyward. I’m happy to report that Baseball Prospectus (BP) again expects Posey to perform at a high level.
They are projecting him to hit .289/.358/.462 – meaning average/on-base percentage/slugging percentage – which isn’t far off from his .305/.357/.505 line from a year ago. What you can take from that is they don’t expect Posey to hit for as much power as he did a year ago (given the 43 point drop in slugging), but do expect him to draw a few more walks. Over 500 plate appearances (PA), their guess is 16 home runs for Buster. For what it’s worth, he hit 18 in 443 PA in 2010.
Baseball Prospectus has their own way of doing things and project 3.6 Wins Above Replacement Player (WARP) for Posey. To be honest, I’m not very well versed in their system because it’s not free and I grew up on (read: learned about a year ago on) FanGraphs. But I don’t think anyone on their site would be upset if I said WARP is more or less their version of Wins above replacement (WAR). In any case, you might assume a 3.6 WARP isn’t much, but it’s pretty darn good considering their only projected 5.0+ WARP position player is Albert Pujols.
Before you ask, allow me: Will Posey really lose long-ball power, not hit .300 and walk more? Maybe, maybe not, but I certainly have no problem with what they’ve provided. I think him drawing more walks is an excellent bet. I also think he’s likely to hit in a band around .300, meaning perhaps a bit higher or lower. In terms of pop, I can see it going either way. He could hit about as many home runs, a few more, or a few less. None of the three would shock me.
He’s an excellent hitter but he’s not likely to be a 30 home run guy in my opinion; he’s more likely to fall in the high-teens to mid-twenties if all is going as we expect. With the quality on-base percentage (OBP), ability to hit for a good average and the simple fact that he’s a catcher and they traditionally don’t hit at all, that’s excellent production for a catcher.
This is an excellent place for me to say something that I’ve been meaning to. For those of you who think Posey should move to shortstop – I’ve seriously read or heard this a number of times, believe it or not – to third base, or to first base: stop. I mean it: please stop.
After Posey, BP is particularly optimistic about Pablo Sandoval. This is excellent news. It’s also a great time to drop a wonderful nugget from the awesome Craig Calcaterra, who just so happens to be watching the Giants’ first spring training game this morning:
It’s been written several times already, but seeing Pablo Sandoval up close really brings home how much damn weight he has lost. He doesn’t merely look good for a fat guy. He looks good. And it’s not just fat. His shoulders and arms are fairly awesome. And it may or may not be worth noting that he love, love, loves to sing aloud and dance some to his iPod.Please do read the whole post from Craig. It’s funny. It’s about the Giants. What’s not to like?
Not knowing just exactly in how good of shape Pablo would be for the season, BP has Sandoval at a 3.0 WARP with a line of .299/.346/.464 with 17 home runs. That’s far better than his 2010, though of course not near the production he had in 2009. Here’s the thing with Pablo though: the sky is sort of the limit. With his lost weight, added strength and no doubt improvement in agility, he should improve in all facets of the game. I want to curb my optimism some, but I’m feeling extremely encouraged about this young man right now.
If his bat once again plays in the middle of the order with Posey and at some point, Brandon Belt – more on him later – the Giants’ offense shouldn’t have too much trouble accomplishing what’s needed to win: mediocrity. That’s right folks, when you have stellar pitching in both your rotation and bullpen, you win a lot of games by merely scoring a league average number of runs. You can even win a World Series.
I won’t get into too much detail, but others of note are Andres Torres, projected to hit .251/.320/.412. The projection isn’t a surprise, but I’ll take the over on that. He’s also the only player projected to steal double-digit stolen bases (20). They see a sharp decline in Aubrey Huff (.263/.336/.431) – no surprise there, he’ll have to prove 2010 wasn’t a fluke. They aren’t expecting much from Mark DeRosa after two wrist surgeries. In short: 127 lack-luster plate appearances. Rounding out the rest are Pat Burrell (.232/.342/.418 and 1.0 WARP), Cody Ross (.259/.313/.429 and 1.6 WARP) and Miguel Tejada (.269/.306/.375 and 1.4 WARP).
I know, I know, it feels like I’m rushing. That’s because I am. I want to get to Brandon Belt. I hinted in my previous piece that Belt is projected to produce the second best line on the Giants. They have him at .269/.359/.456. That there’s good stuff. Belt put up a prodigious minor league campaign in his first as a professional last season. It was huge. Anyway, if you want a real life example of how a season with a similar line and excellent defense at first base might look, look no further than Ike Davis’ 2010. He was a down-ballot Rookie of the Year candidate last year. He’s not a star, but he’s better than James Loney.
Davis hit .261/.351/.440 with a .345 weighted on-base average (wOBA) and was worth 3.4 wins because he was also playing excellent defense at first base, just as Belt is expected to do. What’s more, he’s another tall left-handed hitter at 6’4”. Belt’s projected line is slightly better than Davis’ and probably worth something like a .350 wOBA. That’s not great for a first baseman – it is better than league average – but when coupled with very good defense is perfectly playable. Also, it’s a lot more than you should ever ask from a rookie.
It’s worth pointing out that what BP is saying is essentially that Belt should be a better player in 2011 than Aubrey Huff. It’s far too early to know that for sure. Belt is still nothing but a prospect, though a top one, and Huff is still a player that had a resurgent season in 2010, though he’s not getting any younger. What’s probably assured in all this is the fact that Belt would be a defensive upgrade from Huff and that Huff would be no worse in left than Burrell; he might be better. Food for thought.
Unfortunately, here’s an enormous stick in the spoke, gum on the roller blade, sugar in the gas tank. Will Belt make his way to San Francisco at some point this season? BP says he’ll only take 100 plate appearances, but that seems ridiculous to me. No, while I don’t believe Sabean will dare give Belt a start on opening day, I do believe he’ll be up just as soon as one of three things happen: 1) his service time is no longer an issue, i.e. around May, 2) the Giants’ offense is running on fumes and needs a bump or 3) he’s obliterating the ball so absurdly in Fresno that Sabean has no choice but to cave to the cries for his summon.
I prefer option three, personally. Sounds awesome. But we’ll all just have to wait and see. Baseball Prospectus is about as optimistic about the Giants as they have been in years, so I’m told. So I’m told, last year they recommended Brian Sabean’s dismissal. Right or wrong, their enthusiasm for this year’s squad seems genuine and far less obligatory given their status as defending champs. It should be another exciting year. That’s really all you can ask for.
Finally, the rules have not changed and we’re still technically talking the Giants’ offense. So: Buster Posey.
I’ll make no promises here to dabble in BP’s projections on the pitching. I won’t say I won’t take a look at them either. But it’s just not as interesting to me, for whatever reason. Suffice to say, the holistic take on the pitching staff is that it’s very, very good.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Buster Posey Wins NL Rookie of the Year award
The Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) has spoken, and Buster Posey is National League Rookie of the Year. Posey is the first Giant to win the award since John “The Count” Montefusco took the honors in 1975.
I would first off like to say that Jason Heyward was as deserving as Buster for the NL Rookie of the Year award. He had an absolutely phenomenal season at age 21, and had he not injured himself midseason which 1) made him lose time and thus reduced his overall counting stats and 2) pulled down his peripherals such as slugging percentage and on-base percentage when he was playing hurt, he likely would have won the award.
I’d also like to congratulate Yasushki Kikuchi of Kyodo News in Los Angeles for leaving Posey off of the ballot completely – he voted 1) Gaby Sanchez, 2) Jason Heyward and 3) Jaime Garcia. I’m not sure if it was a Dodgers bias or pure lack of imagination, but either way this is pretty ludicrous, Of course, the fact that Posey missed a lot of time due to “seasoning” in the minors is defensible. It won’t win you the case, but the jury might at least order lunch while deliberating.
Along the same twisted lines, Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette left off Jason Heyward when he voted 1) Buster Posey, 2) Neil Walker and 3) Jose Tabata – the latter two both Pirates. It’s not a terrible thing, in theory, to show the players you cover a little bit of love by giving them some votes in the award balloting. For example, Andy Baggarly gave a tenth place vote to Jeremy Affeldt in 2009 in the MVP balloting after his ERA, holds and the like seemed to indicate Affeldt had had an excellent season. As it turns out, Affeldt was exceedingly lucky but you can see why Baggs threw him a bone. But, in the RoY balloting you can only vote three times, and so the second and third place votes definitely count and do add up to the point that they can impact the result of the voting. I think Dejan was a little overzealous here, to put it mildly. There’s nothing defensible here.
And as long as the writers are making the call on the awards, we’ll continue to see perplexing votes such as abovementioned examples. Luckily, the end result was sound in this case.
What most likely brought Posey the hardware over Heyward were the usual subjects (read statistics). Voters tend to focus on batting average, home runs and runs batted in. Posey tied Heyward with 18 home runs, his RBI total of 67 trailed Heyward by just 5 and he handedly bested Heyward’s average by hitting .305 while Heyward finished at .277. What’s more, Posey certainly got some extra points for being a catcher*. This is the “traditional” statistics argument for Posey.
*Buster only caught about 75% of the games he played, because he was splitting time with Molina (at best) until Bengie was traded away to Texas on July 1st.
A lot of the sabermetric community preferred Heyward over Posey, but ultimately agreed neither would be a bad choice. My personal opinion was pretty much split. I wouldn’t have been bothered so long as either Heyward or Posey won, though I was certainly pulling for Posey.
Jason Heyward had an outstanding season. Most impressive was his walk rate of 14.6% and .393 OBP, which are truly great for any player let alone a rookie. His .456 slugging percentage wasn’t terrific but was plenty good enough when coupled with his on-base percentage, making his OPS .849 and propelling his weighted on-base average to a stellar .376. But as is often the case with a very high walk rate – not including freaks like Bonds, Pujols and Mauer – along with it came a lot of punch outs. Heyward struck out nearly 25% of the time, but I fully expect him to improve in this category as he learns each pitcher’s out pitch and specifically how they are trying to put him away.
On top of his top-notch offensive debut, Heyward played quality defense in right field as measured by most advanced statistics. Fangraphs had his UZR decently above average at 4.8, bringing his total Wins Above Replacement (WAR) to 5.0. That’s enough to make him a great choice for RoY as one of the better all around players in the league, already, but in 2010’s crowded voting it wasn’t enough to earn him the award.
Buster Posey showed up on May 29th, started hitting immediately and never really stopped. In July, he completed a 21-game hitting streak and won Player of the Month honors. This explosion came on the heels of Giants’ GM, Brian Sabean, unloading the San Francisco’s catcher of the past few years, Bengie Molina, and paving the way for the Giants’ run for the postseason – and how can we forget, an eventual World Series Championship – with Buster as the fulltime backstop.
When all was said and done, Posey hit .305 with a .357 OBP and .505 SLG (.862 OPS). He trailed Heyward in on-base percentage pretty considerably, so his wOBA – which attempts to properly weight each hitting outcome and weights on-base percentage higher than slugging – was lower at .368. Posey played the much more difficult position of catcher and gets credit for that too. He threw out 37% of would-be base stealers, a very solid percentage and light years better than Molina. Overall, Fangraphs considered Posey to be 3.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), a very strong number considering his almost June promotion.
Though the writers couldn’t have known what Posey or the Giants would do in October – and one unforgettable, glorious day in November – it seems a fitting end to the Giants’ (and Posey’s) season.
On May 29, 2010, the Giants finally brought up Gerald “Buster” Dempsey Posey. Bay Area fans believed (and hoped) Posey would be the savior for an offense that wasn’t doing much, and he wouldn’t disappoint – though he’d have some help along the way. Thanks Pat “the Bat” Burrell. Posey was drafted fifth overall in the 2008 draft coming out as a Golden Spikes award winner from Florida State. He was also given a huge $6.2 mil bonus. Since his professional debut, he’d been steeping in the minors – with the exception of a regrettable 2009 call-up that included rotting on the bench – to the tune of: .333 AVG, .427 OBP, .542 SLG and .995 OPS. He’d walked 98 times to just 102 strikeouts and thrown out 45% of would-be base stealers.
In his 2010 debut, he went 3 for 4 and drove in 3 runs. He played a pretty good first base – making more than one great play with his arm – and a little catcher until, on July 1, the Giants shipped Molina to Texas. Posey responded by ripping off a hard 21-game hit streak, blistering balls all over the diamond and hitting .417 with a .466 OBP, .699 SLG, .1.165 OPS, and 7 home runs. He suddenly wasn’t just a compliment to the lineup; he was literally the heart of it and batting cleanup
In September, Posey caught the hottest staff in baseball. In fact, the Giants’ pitchers weren’t just hot, they were historic. In 232.1 innings, they had a 1.78 ERA, a 4.03 strikeout to walk ratio, and held opponents to a minute .524 OPS. Remarkably, they went just 18-8. Also in September, they went 23 straight games giving up 4 runs or fewer, tying the second longest streak since 1920. Posey also hit 8 home runs between September and the 3 games in October. The eighth was a solo shot in the eighth inning of the final game of the season, extending the Giants lead to three runs and all but finishing off the Padres with Wilson warming. Soon after, he caught the final strike as Will Venable couldn’t connect and charged the mound to jump into Wilson’s arms. I believe that moment was a lasting image for Rookie of the Year voters.
Eight days later, October 11th, he ran towards Wilson as they beat the Braves to move on to the NLCS. Twelve days later he ran towards Wilson once more as Ryan Howard stood looking – pun very much intended – and the Giants won the pennant. In that series, he had an epic 4-hit, 2 double night capped by an opposite-field double off of Roy Oswalt after going down 0 and 2. And finally on November 1st, Posey ran towards Wilson one last time in the 2010 season as the Giants clinched their first World Series title in San Francisco history by taking down the AL favorites, the Rangers, an image that was beautifully captured for the cover of Sports Illustrated. One night earlier, he back-spun an outside pitch off of O’Day that, like Giants fans had witnessed a few times before, went and went until it cleared the center field fence.
The Giants have taken home a lot of hardware in San Francisco but never a ring. This year they grabbed a ring and now Posey winning Rookie of the Year honors is simply the cherry on top.
All stats grabbed from Fangraphs.com
I would first off like to say that Jason Heyward was as deserving as Buster for the NL Rookie of the Year award. He had an absolutely phenomenal season at age 21, and had he not injured himself midseason which 1) made him lose time and thus reduced his overall counting stats and 2) pulled down his peripherals such as slugging percentage and on-base percentage when he was playing hurt, he likely would have won the award.
I’d also like to congratulate Yasushki Kikuchi of Kyodo News in Los Angeles for leaving Posey off of the ballot completely – he voted 1) Gaby Sanchez, 2) Jason Heyward and 3) Jaime Garcia. I’m not sure if it was a Dodgers bias or pure lack of imagination, but either way this is pretty ludicrous, Of course, the fact that Posey missed a lot of time due to “seasoning” in the minors is defensible. It won’t win you the case, but the jury might at least order lunch while deliberating.
Along the same twisted lines, Dejan Kovacevic of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette left off Jason Heyward when he voted 1) Buster Posey, 2) Neil Walker and 3) Jose Tabata – the latter two both Pirates. It’s not a terrible thing, in theory, to show the players you cover a little bit of love by giving them some votes in the award balloting. For example, Andy Baggarly gave a tenth place vote to Jeremy Affeldt in 2009 in the MVP balloting after his ERA, holds and the like seemed to indicate Affeldt had had an excellent season. As it turns out, Affeldt was exceedingly lucky but you can see why Baggs threw him a bone. But, in the RoY balloting you can only vote three times, and so the second and third place votes definitely count and do add up to the point that they can impact the result of the voting. I think Dejan was a little overzealous here, to put it mildly. There’s nothing defensible here.
And as long as the writers are making the call on the awards, we’ll continue to see perplexing votes such as abovementioned examples. Luckily, the end result was sound in this case.
What most likely brought Posey the hardware over Heyward were the usual subjects (read statistics). Voters tend to focus on batting average, home runs and runs batted in. Posey tied Heyward with 18 home runs, his RBI total of 67 trailed Heyward by just 5 and he handedly bested Heyward’s average by hitting .305 while Heyward finished at .277. What’s more, Posey certainly got some extra points for being a catcher*. This is the “traditional” statistics argument for Posey.
*Buster only caught about 75% of the games he played, because he was splitting time with Molina (at best) until Bengie was traded away to Texas on July 1st.
A lot of the sabermetric community preferred Heyward over Posey, but ultimately agreed neither would be a bad choice. My personal opinion was pretty much split. I wouldn’t have been bothered so long as either Heyward or Posey won, though I was certainly pulling for Posey.
Jason Heyward had an outstanding season. Most impressive was his walk rate of 14.6% and .393 OBP, which are truly great for any player let alone a rookie. His .456 slugging percentage wasn’t terrific but was plenty good enough when coupled with his on-base percentage, making his OPS .849 and propelling his weighted on-base average to a stellar .376. But as is often the case with a very high walk rate – not including freaks like Bonds, Pujols and Mauer – along with it came a lot of punch outs. Heyward struck out nearly 25% of the time, but I fully expect him to improve in this category as he learns each pitcher’s out pitch and specifically how they are trying to put him away.
On top of his top-notch offensive debut, Heyward played quality defense in right field as measured by most advanced statistics. Fangraphs had his UZR decently above average at 4.8, bringing his total Wins Above Replacement (WAR) to 5.0. That’s enough to make him a great choice for RoY as one of the better all around players in the league, already, but in 2010’s crowded voting it wasn’t enough to earn him the award.
Buster Posey showed up on May 29th, started hitting immediately and never really stopped. In July, he completed a 21-game hitting streak and won Player of the Month honors. This explosion came on the heels of Giants’ GM, Brian Sabean, unloading the San Francisco’s catcher of the past few years, Bengie Molina, and paving the way for the Giants’ run for the postseason – and how can we forget, an eventual World Series Championship – with Buster as the fulltime backstop.
When all was said and done, Posey hit .305 with a .357 OBP and .505 SLG (.862 OPS). He trailed Heyward in on-base percentage pretty considerably, so his wOBA – which attempts to properly weight each hitting outcome and weights on-base percentage higher than slugging – was lower at .368. Posey played the much more difficult position of catcher and gets credit for that too. He threw out 37% of would-be base stealers, a very solid percentage and light years better than Molina. Overall, Fangraphs considered Posey to be 3.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), a very strong number considering his almost June promotion.
Though the writers couldn’t have known what Posey or the Giants would do in October – and one unforgettable, glorious day in November – it seems a fitting end to the Giants’ (and Posey’s) season.
On May 29, 2010, the Giants finally brought up Gerald “Buster” Dempsey Posey. Bay Area fans believed (and hoped) Posey would be the savior for an offense that wasn’t doing much, and he wouldn’t disappoint – though he’d have some help along the way. Thanks Pat “the Bat” Burrell. Posey was drafted fifth overall in the 2008 draft coming out as a Golden Spikes award winner from Florida State. He was also given a huge $6.2 mil bonus. Since his professional debut, he’d been steeping in the minors – with the exception of a regrettable 2009 call-up that included rotting on the bench – to the tune of: .333 AVG, .427 OBP, .542 SLG and .995 OPS. He’d walked 98 times to just 102 strikeouts and thrown out 45% of would-be base stealers.
In his 2010 debut, he went 3 for 4 and drove in 3 runs. He played a pretty good first base – making more than one great play with his arm – and a little catcher until, on July 1, the Giants shipped Molina to Texas. Posey responded by ripping off a hard 21-game hit streak, blistering balls all over the diamond and hitting .417 with a .466 OBP, .699 SLG, .1.165 OPS, and 7 home runs. He suddenly wasn’t just a compliment to the lineup; he was literally the heart of it and batting cleanup
In September, Posey caught the hottest staff in baseball. In fact, the Giants’ pitchers weren’t just hot, they were historic. In 232.1 innings, they had a 1.78 ERA, a 4.03 strikeout to walk ratio, and held opponents to a minute .524 OPS. Remarkably, they went just 18-8. Also in September, they went 23 straight games giving up 4 runs or fewer, tying the second longest streak since 1920. Posey also hit 8 home runs between September and the 3 games in October. The eighth was a solo shot in the eighth inning of the final game of the season, extending the Giants lead to three runs and all but finishing off the Padres with Wilson warming. Soon after, he caught the final strike as Will Venable couldn’t connect and charged the mound to jump into Wilson’s arms. I believe that moment was a lasting image for Rookie of the Year voters.
Eight days later, October 11th, he ran towards Wilson as they beat the Braves to move on to the NLCS. Twelve days later he ran towards Wilson once more as Ryan Howard stood looking – pun very much intended – and the Giants won the pennant. In that series, he had an epic 4-hit, 2 double night capped by an opposite-field double off of Roy Oswalt after going down 0 and 2. And finally on November 1st, Posey ran towards Wilson one last time in the 2010 season as the Giants clinched their first World Series title in San Francisco history by taking down the AL favorites, the Rangers, an image that was beautifully captured for the cover of Sports Illustrated. One night earlier, he back-spun an outside pitch off of O’Day that, like Giants fans had witnessed a few times before, went and went until it cleared the center field fence.
The Giants have taken home a lot of hardware in San Francisco but never a ring. This year they grabbed a ring and now Posey winning Rookie of the Year honors is simply the cherry on top.
All stats grabbed from Fangraphs.com
Monday, November 8, 2010
SF Giants Offseason Blueprint
Giants Free Agents (FA): Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe, Pat Burrell
Out-of-House Available FA: Carl Crawford, Adrian Beltre, Jayson Werth, Victor Martinez, Adam Dunn, Johnny Damon, Carlos Pena, Lance Berkman
Early Trade Targets: David DeJesus, Dan Uggla, Jason Bartlett, Stephen Drew
The Giants won the World Series in 2010, and now I am reluctantly going to delve into what lay ahead for 2011. I’d very much like to bask in this longer but reality has set in. What’s more, all players became FA just five days after the World Series this year, effectively ending the period in which teams could exclusively negotiated with their own FA – I believe it had previously been a full 14 days – so it’s quite literally already open season. Mike Murphy had barely gotten a chance to finish the champagne soaked laundry – there’s zero doubt it smelled something horrid and yet something beautiful when he got around to it, drenched in equal parts sweat and victory, because Murphy had been doing the Giants’ laundry since they came to the City in 1958 and not once had his last load of the season been sopping with alcohol – when the heroes of the 2010 season like Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff, and the heroes of the NLCS and World Series, Juan Uribe and MVP Edgar Renteria, became free agents.
And no sooner than could these players sit back, smile, and reflect on what they’d done, they were already being surveyed, their stats prodded and their futures discussed by the Giants’ front office. And who can blame them? It’s not a matter of, “What have you done for me lately?” It’s a matter of, “What can you do for me next year, and the year after?” Such is life in the business of baseball, when plan C first baseman put up MVP numbers for four months and finish a top 10 NL player on a slight salary of just $3 million, and former Cy Young award winning, $126 million dollar starters don’t even make the postseason roster.
PITCHING (STARTERS and PEN)
In terms of pitching, the Giants are the envy of pretty much every team in the Major Leagues. It was interesting to see the opposing teams fans and writers wonder, “Where did our hitters go?” all postseason long. They didn’t go anywhere; the Giants’ staff simply shut them down. They owe their World Series rings to this.
The Giants will throw out one of the best five-man rotations in baseball in 2011. Their top four are all homegrown – as everyone should be well aware of by now following the World Series – and are extraordinary in one or more of the most important factors to pitch effectively.
Lincecum is dominant and my pick to reclaim his Cy Young crown in 2011. He limits the long ball, decently keeps walks down and – armed with one of the best strikeout pitches in the game, his changeup – is the class of the Senior Circuit in terms of striking out batters (10.07/9 IP career). And the slider he showcased in September and October (and November) will only help him to sustain his dominance, along with a new found motivation to condition hard. Cain is a solid number two starter on this staff, and would be number one for more than a few franchises. He did substantially better at not walking batters in 2010 (2.46/9 IP) and continued to strike out batters at an above average rate (7.13/ 9). What’s more, he has held batters to a suspiciously low average on balls in play (.274 career BABiP). That’s a sample of over 1,000 innings and something tells me he’ll continue the trend. His fly ball style works well in AT&T, but he pitches well on the road, too. Twenty-one year old Madison Bumgarner will likely surpass Jonathan Sanchez as the next reliable starter. It looks like he’s going to strike out just enough batters (7.14/9 IP career), at worst, and continue to limit the long ball decently and walk very few (2.11/9 IP in ’10). He’s a very rare breed in that he is a funky, three-quarter lefty that throws across his body but manages to throw a pretty hard fastball (91.3 MPH average), and most miraculously, he’s a strike thrower. If his fastball stays where it’s at or even increases a tick, and he sharpens his changeup and slider as strikeout pitches, he may well reach his number one starter ceiling. The Giants’ fourth starter, Sanchez, has the ability to throw a no hitter on any given evening. He’s always going to walk too many batters but his ability to strike out so many batters (9.41/9 IP career) gets him out of trouble, making him one of the very best four starters in baseball.
And then there’s Barry Zito. When discussing him, it’s very important to take his contract ($126 million) and throw it out the window. If you’re able to do that, you’ll see that Zito is one of the best five starters in baseball and hasn’t missed a start since little league. He’s more than likely going to throw 200 or so mediocre innings and smile each time he checks his bank account. But when the rest of the league is playing “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” at the end of Spring Training to pick a fifth starter, the Giants won’t be – and that’s worth something.
These five starters posted a combined WAR of 15.8 in 2010, or a 3.16 on average, and Bumgarner was only the fifth start for half the season. If he’d pitched 200 innings with similar numbers, he’d have finished with a WAR of 3.7, bringing the Giants’ 2010 rotations cumulative WAR to 17.5, or 3.5 on average. That would have been the equivalent of having the 2010 version of Johan Santana pitch each day – granted, not the Cy Young version – and something tells me that gives your ballclub a decent shot to win.
The Giants have a shutdown bullpen with lots of weapons. Brian Wilson (11.21 K/9, 3.13 BB/9, ratio 3.58, .36 HR/9, 2.19 FIP. 2.7 Wins Above Replacement) is the type of closer that everybody wants but no team really wants to pay for in terms of salary and draft picks, and for good reason. But much like the core of starters San Francisco has, he’s homegrown and developed and still relatively cheap, though he’ll go through arbitration once again this winter. He’s one of the best closers in the league. He’s fearless, throws strikes, gets lots of punch outs and rarely gives up dingers. Romo will continue to spin Frisbee sliders, strike out batters and throw tons of strikes (10.16 K/9 and 5.0 K/BB). The Giants will have three decent lefties in Lopez, Runzler and Affeldt, though there’s some talk to make Runzler a starter. And they’ll have Santiago Casilla back as well, with the option to retain Chris Ray and Ramon Ramirez to round out the bullpen. Sabean will have very little worrying to do over his arms. And given the volatility of relievers, Sabean will have a few interesting and somewhat promising arms to pick from in the minor leagues.
OFFENSE (and DEFENSE)
I feel very confident in saying the Giants are comfortably set at 4 of 8 everyday positions. They will have NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey – I hope; not that he will be there, he will be, but that he’ll be reining NL RoY – as catcher for 2011 and far, far beyond. They will have Andres Torres (who is arbitration eligible) in center field and batting leadoff. Hopefully, he continues to stay healthy and put up Wins Above Replacement (WAR) north of 4.0, because I think it’d be greedy to hope he repeats his 6.0 WAR from 2010. The Giants will return second baseman Freddy Sanchez and hope for a full season of quality defense and streaky offense. The Giants will also more than likely place NLCS Most Valuable Player, Cody Ross, in right field. His October heroics notwithstanding, Ross was an average hitter in 2008 and 2009 but struggled in 2010. He’s averaged a decent 2 Wins Above Replacement the past two seasons. He has a little bit of pop and can play above average D in either corner outfield spot, including within the tricky AT&T, as well as fill in at center field without hurting the team too much.
Third base is a position that is a question mark at this point. It’s hard to imagine the Giants might have an MVP caliber player at the position, or if not, a player that can’t play the position defensively or carry his weight with the bat. But then that’s the exact position they’re in. If Pablo Sandoval was able to make the necessary lifestyle changes and get himself into shape, he could easily be the middle of the order bat he was in 2009. If not, he could easily find himself as a bench player or a minor leaguer trying to claw his way back to the show. It’s probably also not out of the question for the Giants to move Pablo to a team willing to take the risk on him and give something valuable in return. I’ll bet the Diamondbacks would take Pablo for Stephen Drew, and the Giants sure need a shortstop. But this is the type of trade you hate to do, because Pablo could very well return to form and terrorize them for the next 8-10 years for an in-division team. Another possibility would be moving Panda for Dan Uggla. That would be assuming Uggla doesn’t take an extension from Florida – he already turned down 4 years, $48 million – and that would potentially be an awful lot to give up for a free agent to be.
The Giants have three positions that need to be filled by free agents or in-house options. One such position is left field. Pat Burrell could return but likely isn’t an everyday player any longer. The Giants also have Mark DeRosa returning from wrist surgery, but it’d be more than foolish to assume he can immediately return to being a quality player and meaningful presence in the lineup. I like him better as a super-utility type. The FA market contains Carl Crawford (.378 wOBA, 19 HR, 47 SB, 6.9 WAR)*, Jayson Werth and Johnny Damon among others. Crawford would fit beautifully into the Giants’ lineup and immediately make their pitchers even better with breathtaking outfield defense (to go with Torres and Ross); very few balls would be dropping. He’d very easily slide right into the three spot in the order, instantly making the Giants more athletic while providing extra base power and installing a huge stolen base threat. But, in all likelihood Crawford will be too expensive – he’ll likely take home greater than $100 million – for the Giants to stomach and will sign elsewhere.
*Crawford is sort of a 1992, Barry Bonds lite. He has power (though not as much). He gets on base (though not as much). He can steal 40 bases. He plays remarkable defense in left field. He’s very, very similar to pre-juiced Barry Bonds, though very obviously not on the same level. But who is?
Jayson Werth does a lot of things the Giants could use. He could slip into right field and middle of the order, making room for Ross in left. He hits for power, runs the bases well, is patient and is a good defender. That being said, he apparently hates hitting at AT&T and the Giants prefer a left handed bat. He’ll command a Jason Bay like contact of 4 years, $60 million as a floor and have lots of action from teams like the Red Sox. Furthermore, he’s had some pretty significant splits while hitting in the hitter haven Citizens Bank Park. Having witnessed the enormous drop off of Aaron Rowand first hand, it seems unlikely the Giants would go back to the stove after being burned once. Both Werth and Crawford would cost them their first round draft pick.
It seems likely the Giants would at least explore a trade for David DeJesus again. DeJesus was injured just before the deadline in 2010, and apparently, the Giants were somewhat close to acquiring him at the time. I have little doubt the Giants would wait to see DeJesus in the spring to see how he’s recovering from the torn thumb ligament before pulling the trigger on such a trade. Also, like Uggla, he’ll be a free agent after the 2011 season and thus a hefty price in prospects would likely deter Brian Sabean and the ownership.
The Giants also have a hole to fill at shortstop, and it won’t be easily patched. The Giants’ only in-house options are Brandon Crawford and Ehire Adrianza, and neither is ready. Crawford probably isn’t going to hit enough at the major league level but is a good defender. He hurt himself midseason in 2010 and really hasn’t hit at all since reaching AA before the All-Star break in 2009. Adrianza has moved up a level in each of the last two seasons – he’ll likely start in AA in 2010 – but isn’t near ready with the bat. He may one day be an eight-hole hitter and fantastic defender, but he’s at least a year away.
The Giants’ best option might be potentially departing, NLCS hero, Juan Uribe. Uribe is a plus defender at third but just average at shortstop. He doesn’t have the speed and quickness to field the position and, making matters worse, has shown some wear and tear while playing every day the past season and a half. He often makes up for lack of quickness with a strong arm, but it’s not nearly enough to make him a great defender. Offensively, he will do enough to justify his defense. He can really run into mistakes and hit 24 homeruns in 2010. He’s an all or nothing type hitter and doesn’t get on base nearly enough, making him a frustrating hitter to watch when he’s slumping.
He may well be the best option because the market is barren otherwise. Orlando Cabrera, Cesar Izturis, the Giants’ own Edgar Renteria, Miguel Tejada, Adam Everett and Cristian Guzman head a lackluster class. The Giants’ best option is probably to sign Uribe and hope for the best. Otherwise, I think the Giants will probably have to acquire something via trade. I really like Stephen Drew and would imagine he could be had, but the price would likely be steep.
Finally, the Giants need a first baseman and they and Aubrey Huff have a mutual interest to hook back up, but Huff has every right to explore the FA market. This will be his last chance to earn some bread for his family (and new baby). If Huff is offered something beyond 2 years from another organization, the Giants should move on. Why? Because the Giants have one of the best first base prospects – see my previous post – in Brandon Belt. They could easily slide Belt in now if absolutely necessary, or at worst, sign someone like Lance Berkman to fill in as long as he’s mildly productive and healthy (and cheap). Belt will cost league minimum and is receiving rave reviews from scouts in the Arizona Fall League. If they went this route, they could save money for a big splash acquisition like Carl Crawford. This is unfortunately one of those things where the Giants have to be careful to not get nostalgic with a player that helped bring them their first World Series Championship after 52, often painful years in the City by the Bay. Huff had a career year, forgive me for saying this, but let’s maybe quit while we’re ahead on this one.
QUICK NOTES
Other big names out there Victor Martinez, Carlos Pena, Adam Dunn and Adrian Beltre. Martinez would be an interesting addition. Stick with me here. Martinez could slide into a starting role at first base and play catcher when Posey needs a rest. This would make for an interesting situation where the Giants could forego keeping a backup catcher – meaning the punchless Eli Whiteside – and keep both hitters in the lineup every day. Unfortunately, I think Martinez will command too many years and he would only block Brandon Belt. The same blocking logic goes for Carlos Pena and Adam Dunn. Adrian Beltre put up MVP like overall numbers for Boston while hitting both at home and on the road. His premier defense and solid bat will probably net him the 3-4 year deal he was seeking last winter. He’d be an interesting sign for the Giants in that he could man third and push Pablo over to first, where his glove would play better. But, again, this would only block a productive hitter in Brandon Belt one way or the other eventually. Belt, Beltre and Sandoval would simply be one too many corner infielders. The final wild card in this regard, though, is that the Giants have toyed with Belt in the outfield. But his future is at first base, or at least should be.
The Giants have a difficult offseason ahead. Figuring out what to do with Pablo Sandoval is going to give them a headache all winter long. If Uribe bolts (and even if he doesn’t), shortstop is going to try the Giants’ intelligence (and Lady Luck). They have so many pieces to get right back into the playoffs in 2011. But, mark my words, if mistakes are made on contracts and player personnel and the Giants are struggling in 2011, the reprieve from ridicule and conditional, sincere love for Brian Sabean will disappear like seashells from a vicious beach, and there will be plenty of venom for Razor and Mr. T, F.P. Santangelo, and Marty Lurie on KNBR 680 to wade through again. Such is the nature of sports, and especially of sports talk radio.
Stats provided by Fangraphs
Out-of-House Available FA: Carl Crawford, Adrian Beltre, Jayson Werth, Victor Martinez, Adam Dunn, Johnny Damon, Carlos Pena, Lance Berkman
Early Trade Targets: David DeJesus, Dan Uggla, Jason Bartlett, Stephen Drew
The Giants won the World Series in 2010, and now I am reluctantly going to delve into what lay ahead for 2011. I’d very much like to bask in this longer but reality has set in. What’s more, all players became FA just five days after the World Series this year, effectively ending the period in which teams could exclusively negotiated with their own FA – I believe it had previously been a full 14 days – so it’s quite literally already open season. Mike Murphy had barely gotten a chance to finish the champagne soaked laundry – there’s zero doubt it smelled something horrid and yet something beautiful when he got around to it, drenched in equal parts sweat and victory, because Murphy had been doing the Giants’ laundry since they came to the City in 1958 and not once had his last load of the season been sopping with alcohol – when the heroes of the 2010 season like Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff, and the heroes of the NLCS and World Series, Juan Uribe and MVP Edgar Renteria, became free agents.
And no sooner than could these players sit back, smile, and reflect on what they’d done, they were already being surveyed, their stats prodded and their futures discussed by the Giants’ front office. And who can blame them? It’s not a matter of, “What have you done for me lately?” It’s a matter of, “What can you do for me next year, and the year after?” Such is life in the business of baseball, when plan C first baseman put up MVP numbers for four months and finish a top 10 NL player on a slight salary of just $3 million, and former Cy Young award winning, $126 million dollar starters don’t even make the postseason roster.
PITCHING (STARTERS and PEN)
In terms of pitching, the Giants are the envy of pretty much every team in the Major Leagues. It was interesting to see the opposing teams fans and writers wonder, “Where did our hitters go?” all postseason long. They didn’t go anywhere; the Giants’ staff simply shut them down. They owe their World Series rings to this.
The Giants will throw out one of the best five-man rotations in baseball in 2011. Their top four are all homegrown – as everyone should be well aware of by now following the World Series – and are extraordinary in one or more of the most important factors to pitch effectively.
Lincecum is dominant and my pick to reclaim his Cy Young crown in 2011. He limits the long ball, decently keeps walks down and – armed with one of the best strikeout pitches in the game, his changeup – is the class of the Senior Circuit in terms of striking out batters (10.07/9 IP career). And the slider he showcased in September and October (and November) will only help him to sustain his dominance, along with a new found motivation to condition hard. Cain is a solid number two starter on this staff, and would be number one for more than a few franchises. He did substantially better at not walking batters in 2010 (2.46/9 IP) and continued to strike out batters at an above average rate (7.13/ 9). What’s more, he has held batters to a suspiciously low average on balls in play (.274 career BABiP). That’s a sample of over 1,000 innings and something tells me he’ll continue the trend. His fly ball style works well in AT&T, but he pitches well on the road, too. Twenty-one year old Madison Bumgarner will likely surpass Jonathan Sanchez as the next reliable starter. It looks like he’s going to strike out just enough batters (7.14/9 IP career), at worst, and continue to limit the long ball decently and walk very few (2.11/9 IP in ’10). He’s a very rare breed in that he is a funky, three-quarter lefty that throws across his body but manages to throw a pretty hard fastball (91.3 MPH average), and most miraculously, he’s a strike thrower. If his fastball stays where it’s at or even increases a tick, and he sharpens his changeup and slider as strikeout pitches, he may well reach his number one starter ceiling. The Giants’ fourth starter, Sanchez, has the ability to throw a no hitter on any given evening. He’s always going to walk too many batters but his ability to strike out so many batters (9.41/9 IP career) gets him out of trouble, making him one of the very best four starters in baseball.
And then there’s Barry Zito. When discussing him, it’s very important to take his contract ($126 million) and throw it out the window. If you’re able to do that, you’ll see that Zito is one of the best five starters in baseball and hasn’t missed a start since little league. He’s more than likely going to throw 200 or so mediocre innings and smile each time he checks his bank account. But when the rest of the league is playing “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” at the end of Spring Training to pick a fifth starter, the Giants won’t be – and that’s worth something.
These five starters posted a combined WAR of 15.8 in 2010, or a 3.16 on average, and Bumgarner was only the fifth start for half the season. If he’d pitched 200 innings with similar numbers, he’d have finished with a WAR of 3.7, bringing the Giants’ 2010 rotations cumulative WAR to 17.5, or 3.5 on average. That would have been the equivalent of having the 2010 version of Johan Santana pitch each day – granted, not the Cy Young version – and something tells me that gives your ballclub a decent shot to win.
The Giants have a shutdown bullpen with lots of weapons. Brian Wilson (11.21 K/9, 3.13 BB/9, ratio 3.58, .36 HR/9, 2.19 FIP. 2.7 Wins Above Replacement) is the type of closer that everybody wants but no team really wants to pay for in terms of salary and draft picks, and for good reason. But much like the core of starters San Francisco has, he’s homegrown and developed and still relatively cheap, though he’ll go through arbitration once again this winter. He’s one of the best closers in the league. He’s fearless, throws strikes, gets lots of punch outs and rarely gives up dingers. Romo will continue to spin Frisbee sliders, strike out batters and throw tons of strikes (10.16 K/9 and 5.0 K/BB). The Giants will have three decent lefties in Lopez, Runzler and Affeldt, though there’s some talk to make Runzler a starter. And they’ll have Santiago Casilla back as well, with the option to retain Chris Ray and Ramon Ramirez to round out the bullpen. Sabean will have very little worrying to do over his arms. And given the volatility of relievers, Sabean will have a few interesting and somewhat promising arms to pick from in the minor leagues.
OFFENSE (and DEFENSE)
I feel very confident in saying the Giants are comfortably set at 4 of 8 everyday positions. They will have NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey – I hope; not that he will be there, he will be, but that he’ll be reining NL RoY – as catcher for 2011 and far, far beyond. They will have Andres Torres (who is arbitration eligible) in center field and batting leadoff. Hopefully, he continues to stay healthy and put up Wins Above Replacement (WAR) north of 4.0, because I think it’d be greedy to hope he repeats his 6.0 WAR from 2010. The Giants will return second baseman Freddy Sanchez and hope for a full season of quality defense and streaky offense. The Giants will also more than likely place NLCS Most Valuable Player, Cody Ross, in right field. His October heroics notwithstanding, Ross was an average hitter in 2008 and 2009 but struggled in 2010. He’s averaged a decent 2 Wins Above Replacement the past two seasons. He has a little bit of pop and can play above average D in either corner outfield spot, including within the tricky AT&T, as well as fill in at center field without hurting the team too much.
Third base is a position that is a question mark at this point. It’s hard to imagine the Giants might have an MVP caliber player at the position, or if not, a player that can’t play the position defensively or carry his weight with the bat. But then that’s the exact position they’re in. If Pablo Sandoval was able to make the necessary lifestyle changes and get himself into shape, he could easily be the middle of the order bat he was in 2009. If not, he could easily find himself as a bench player or a minor leaguer trying to claw his way back to the show. It’s probably also not out of the question for the Giants to move Pablo to a team willing to take the risk on him and give something valuable in return. I’ll bet the Diamondbacks would take Pablo for Stephen Drew, and the Giants sure need a shortstop. But this is the type of trade you hate to do, because Pablo could very well return to form and terrorize them for the next 8-10 years for an in-division team. Another possibility would be moving Panda for Dan Uggla. That would be assuming Uggla doesn’t take an extension from Florida – he already turned down 4 years, $48 million – and that would potentially be an awful lot to give up for a free agent to be.
The Giants have three positions that need to be filled by free agents or in-house options. One such position is left field. Pat Burrell could return but likely isn’t an everyday player any longer. The Giants also have Mark DeRosa returning from wrist surgery, but it’d be more than foolish to assume he can immediately return to being a quality player and meaningful presence in the lineup. I like him better as a super-utility type. The FA market contains Carl Crawford (.378 wOBA, 19 HR, 47 SB, 6.9 WAR)*, Jayson Werth and Johnny Damon among others. Crawford would fit beautifully into the Giants’ lineup and immediately make their pitchers even better with breathtaking outfield defense (to go with Torres and Ross); very few balls would be dropping. He’d very easily slide right into the three spot in the order, instantly making the Giants more athletic while providing extra base power and installing a huge stolen base threat. But, in all likelihood Crawford will be too expensive – he’ll likely take home greater than $100 million – for the Giants to stomach and will sign elsewhere.
*Crawford is sort of a 1992, Barry Bonds lite. He has power (though not as much). He gets on base (though not as much). He can steal 40 bases. He plays remarkable defense in left field. He’s very, very similar to pre-juiced Barry Bonds, though very obviously not on the same level. But who is?
Jayson Werth does a lot of things the Giants could use. He could slip into right field and middle of the order, making room for Ross in left. He hits for power, runs the bases well, is patient and is a good defender. That being said, he apparently hates hitting at AT&T and the Giants prefer a left handed bat. He’ll command a Jason Bay like contact of 4 years, $60 million as a floor and have lots of action from teams like the Red Sox. Furthermore, he’s had some pretty significant splits while hitting in the hitter haven Citizens Bank Park. Having witnessed the enormous drop off of Aaron Rowand first hand, it seems unlikely the Giants would go back to the stove after being burned once. Both Werth and Crawford would cost them their first round draft pick.
It seems likely the Giants would at least explore a trade for David DeJesus again. DeJesus was injured just before the deadline in 2010, and apparently, the Giants were somewhat close to acquiring him at the time. I have little doubt the Giants would wait to see DeJesus in the spring to see how he’s recovering from the torn thumb ligament before pulling the trigger on such a trade. Also, like Uggla, he’ll be a free agent after the 2011 season and thus a hefty price in prospects would likely deter Brian Sabean and the ownership.
The Giants also have a hole to fill at shortstop, and it won’t be easily patched. The Giants’ only in-house options are Brandon Crawford and Ehire Adrianza, and neither is ready. Crawford probably isn’t going to hit enough at the major league level but is a good defender. He hurt himself midseason in 2010 and really hasn’t hit at all since reaching AA before the All-Star break in 2009. Adrianza has moved up a level in each of the last two seasons – he’ll likely start in AA in 2010 – but isn’t near ready with the bat. He may one day be an eight-hole hitter and fantastic defender, but he’s at least a year away.
The Giants’ best option might be potentially departing, NLCS hero, Juan Uribe. Uribe is a plus defender at third but just average at shortstop. He doesn’t have the speed and quickness to field the position and, making matters worse, has shown some wear and tear while playing every day the past season and a half. He often makes up for lack of quickness with a strong arm, but it’s not nearly enough to make him a great defender. Offensively, he will do enough to justify his defense. He can really run into mistakes and hit 24 homeruns in 2010. He’s an all or nothing type hitter and doesn’t get on base nearly enough, making him a frustrating hitter to watch when he’s slumping.
He may well be the best option because the market is barren otherwise. Orlando Cabrera, Cesar Izturis, the Giants’ own Edgar Renteria, Miguel Tejada, Adam Everett and Cristian Guzman head a lackluster class. The Giants’ best option is probably to sign Uribe and hope for the best. Otherwise, I think the Giants will probably have to acquire something via trade. I really like Stephen Drew and would imagine he could be had, but the price would likely be steep.
Finally, the Giants need a first baseman and they and Aubrey Huff have a mutual interest to hook back up, but Huff has every right to explore the FA market. This will be his last chance to earn some bread for his family (and new baby). If Huff is offered something beyond 2 years from another organization, the Giants should move on. Why? Because the Giants have one of the best first base prospects – see my previous post – in Brandon Belt. They could easily slide Belt in now if absolutely necessary, or at worst, sign someone like Lance Berkman to fill in as long as he’s mildly productive and healthy (and cheap). Belt will cost league minimum and is receiving rave reviews from scouts in the Arizona Fall League. If they went this route, they could save money for a big splash acquisition like Carl Crawford. This is unfortunately one of those things where the Giants have to be careful to not get nostalgic with a player that helped bring them their first World Series Championship after 52, often painful years in the City by the Bay. Huff had a career year, forgive me for saying this, but let’s maybe quit while we’re ahead on this one.
QUICK NOTES
Other big names out there Victor Martinez, Carlos Pena, Adam Dunn and Adrian Beltre. Martinez would be an interesting addition. Stick with me here. Martinez could slide into a starting role at first base and play catcher when Posey needs a rest. This would make for an interesting situation where the Giants could forego keeping a backup catcher – meaning the punchless Eli Whiteside – and keep both hitters in the lineup every day. Unfortunately, I think Martinez will command too many years and he would only block Brandon Belt. The same blocking logic goes for Carlos Pena and Adam Dunn. Adrian Beltre put up MVP like overall numbers for Boston while hitting both at home and on the road. His premier defense and solid bat will probably net him the 3-4 year deal he was seeking last winter. He’d be an interesting sign for the Giants in that he could man third and push Pablo over to first, where his glove would play better. But, again, this would only block a productive hitter in Brandon Belt one way or the other eventually. Belt, Beltre and Sandoval would simply be one too many corner infielders. The final wild card in this regard, though, is that the Giants have toyed with Belt in the outfield. But his future is at first base, or at least should be.
The Giants have a difficult offseason ahead. Figuring out what to do with Pablo Sandoval is going to give them a headache all winter long. If Uribe bolts (and even if he doesn’t), shortstop is going to try the Giants’ intelligence (and Lady Luck). They have so many pieces to get right back into the playoffs in 2011. But, mark my words, if mistakes are made on contracts and player personnel and the Giants are struggling in 2011, the reprieve from ridicule and conditional, sincere love for Brian Sabean will disappear like seashells from a vicious beach, and there will be plenty of venom for Razor and Mr. T, F.P. Santangelo, and Marty Lurie on KNBR 680 to wade through again. Such is the nature of sports, and especially of sports talk radio.
Stats provided by Fangraphs
Monday, November 1, 2010
Madison Mutes Texas, Giants up 3-1
After a postseason of walks and important singles, Huff finally pumped a pitch and Tommy Hunter sure gave him a good one to do just that. But then again, Andres Torres and Freddy Sanchez combined to work him to death in the top of the third inning which may have helped, and by the time Huff Daddy stepped up to the plate, Hunter was ripe for the picking. He threw an 86 MPH cutter across the middle of the plate, just ever so slightly towards the inner half, and Huff took care of the rest. The only question was fair or foul, and had they been in San Fran you bet that pearl would be wet. The Giants led 2-0 and it was the big blow they would need to restore their confidence and carry them the rest of the muggy evening.
One of the most promising signs of the evening was one swing off the bat of the Giants’ – lets say it together – 23 year old rookie, cleanup-hitting catcher. When he stepped up to the plate in the eighth against Darren O’Day for yet another battle, I texted to a friend: “I wish Posey would wake up. His at bats have been dreadful. He’s trying to pull everything and it doesn’t make any sense. His strength is opposite field and yet he’s trying to yank everything.” Moments later, Buster displayed the brilliance of his developing talents and of glorious backspin in one swing. O’Day left a changeup in the top quarter of the strike zone – in case you didn’t know, terrible place for a changeup – and Buster belted it to center for a solo shot. It sure would have been nice to hear a real homerun call, you know, one by Kuiper. Oh well. It reminded me a great deal of a homerun Buster hit off of Andrew Cashner in the eighth inning of a critical game at Wrigley in September. That night hard luck Matt Cain had battled a resurgent Carlos Zambrano to a stalemate through six and was removed because the Giants were desperate for runs. The solo shot by Posey in the eighth would be the only run of the game as the Giants won 1-0. His homerun that night traveled 418 feet to center field, and his blast traveled 419 feet to center on this Halloween night. When Posey’s going good that’s exactly what he does, and I’m hoping that’s a sign for tomorrow’s 2010 version of November baseball. The graph below illustrates Posey's ability to hit for power to all fields, where 10 of his 18 homeruns were to center or right field.
But the real story tonight was Madison “Young Hickory” Bumgarner* of Hickory, North Carolina. A reader recently informed me that was the nickname of James K. Polk – I hadn’t realized it –who was given the nickname for being a particular protégé to Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson. This tenacious 21 year old Bumgarner, who by my novice observation is about as fearless as the original Hickory, started the evening having already thrown 216 total innings in 2010 (including at AAA Fresno) and hadn’t pitched more than 151 innings in a season ever; he did that in 2009.
*The Giants used to punt 1st round draft picks for aging hitters like Michael Tucker. That trend is no more. Their four postseason starters are homegrown, drafted and developed by San Francisco. Their second baseman, who flashed the leather brilliantly on this night, was acquired by trading Tim Alderson, another 1st round pick. Posey was of course the fifth overall selection in 2008. Their bearded closer they got in the 24th round of the 2003 draft out of LSU because he had a big arm but needed Tommy John and would require a hefty bonus. That one worked out, too.
At the end of 2009, he came up to make an emergency start when Tim Lincecum had a stiff back and couldn’t make it. It was cause for four-alarm panic in San Francisco, but at least we’d get a chance to see this kid we’d heard so much about already pitch live. Bumgarner pitched fine, he gave up two runs (on two solo shots) in 5.1 innings and got the no decision. But, Madison topped out at about 88-90 MPH and confirmed what many (obsessed) Giants fans had been reading. The reports from the minor leagues were not good. Bumgarner was still getting outs and competing, he was still not walking many batters which is one of his greatest strengths, but he was also not popping the catchers mitt with a mid-90’s heater and he was not striking out many batters. That’s what he was throwing in Spring Training in 2009 what he garnered compliments from Manny Ramirez. But over the course of his second professional season, his fastball disappeared. He was still pretty successful, but the way he was doing it wasn’t exactly overwhelming.
In 2008, Bumgarner made his professional debut in the Class A Sally League and threw 141.2 innings. He struck out 164 batters (10.42/9) and walked just 21 (1.33), while giving up just 3 homeruns (.19). That left him with a 15-3 record, a 1.46 ERA and the honor of Minor League Pitcher of the Year. He was instantly an untouchable prospect and being groomed for the Big Club’s rotation by the Giants. He was overmatching the Class A hitters like a man among boys, and his 6’4”, 220 lb frame doesn’t make it difficult to imagine.
Many Giants fans hoped that Bumgarner’s arm simply tired throughout 2009 and that he’d show up in the spring in 2010, flash his plus fastball and control and skate his way into the rotation. Instead, his velocity hadn’t returned and he was blasted in Spring Training. Suddenly onlookers began to worry he was injured. It’s happened countless times before. A phenomenal pitching prospect rockets through the minors, gets hurt along the way and is never heard from again.
Bumgarner was sent to AAA Fresno and continued to get rocked through three starts. His replacement in the Major Leagues was Todd Wellemeyer, and he would need replacing of his own soon enough, that is once the Giants came to the realization that any success he was having was as hollow as a termite infested tree. And then, Giants instructor and pitching guru Dick Tidrow had a bullpen session with Madison and he was back on track. His mechanics had been muddied somehow along the way and he needed a tweak to get him back where he was. Over the next couple months, Madison regained his control and started dispatching minor league hitters again.
Fast-forward to Halloween 2010. Sometime in August or September, Bumgarner started to get his fastball back. What’s more, he’d gotten a better idea of how to pitch through his struggles – does this remind anyone of Tim Lincecum’s struggles this season? On Halloween night with (much) of the country watching, in a pivetol game 4 of the World Series, Bumgarner once again flashed his talent and everything he learned when his fastball abandoned him, and he showed that he was a better pitcher because of it. It’s a beautiful thing when a plan comes together.
Madison threw 106 pitches on the night and 69 strikes (65%). The big key for him was changeup and slider command. He was able to five total swing and miss strikes with those offerings. He threw 16 of 21 changes for strikes (76%) and 18 of 25 sliders (72%). He averaged 91 mph with his four seam fastball (topping at over 94 mph) and located it on both sides of the plate. I recall specifically, when McCarver mentioned that Kinsler was an inner half feasting type hitter. No sooner did those words fly out of his mouth was Bumgarner pounding him on the insider corner with a fastball for a strike. Bumgarner pitched fearlessly and was rewarded for it.
His best work came against Vladimir Guerrero. In the second, he struck him out with a 92.5 mph fastball perfectly placed on the insider corner, up at the hands. In the fourth with a runner on, he struck him out with an 82 mph changeup off the plate. Guerrero’s swing was extremely awkward. And in the seventh after a baffling error by Juan Uribe, he struck him out with an 82 mph slider that he, again, looked far from comfortable swinging at. It was almost as if after the first strikeout he kept waiting for that inside fastball again, and it just never came. His final line was impressive: 8 IP, 3 hits (all singles), 2 BB and 6 K’s.
In the ninth, closer Brian Wilson needed just 11 pitches while throwing 8 strikes to finish Texas off. He decisively handled the Rangers’ Josh Hamilton which was particularly impressive. He threw a 93 mph fastball for a called strike. Then he threw a devilish, biting slide piece at 84 mph that many believe must be some type of hellish curveball. Hamilton miraculously tipped it for a foul strike two. Finally, he threw a 96 mph fastball way up and out of the zone but Hamilton just couldn’t resist, swinging and missing and giving the Giants the 3-1 lead in the series. The Rangers got the chance to flash their shiny closer in game 3, and the Giants did in game 4. It had this Giants fan smiling and the Rangers hitters (and fans) fearing the beard.
Also of note, the Giants averaged 4.6 pitches per plate appearance. They averaged just 3.74 during the regular season, and no, that’s not good. Andres Torres went 3 of 5 with two doubles, including a huge one while batting right handed. This is a good sign because he’s been swinging a hot bat lately from both sides of the plate lately, and he’ll be facing left handed Cliff Lee tomorrow as the Giants attempt to clinch, and Torres gave him trouble last go ‘round in game 1. And their creaky shortstop, Edgar Renteria, had three hits too. This may well be his farewell performance and I can't think of a better way for a gem of a ballplayer to head out as the curtians close.
The Giants are up 3-1 going into a Game 5 in Texas with their ace on the hill and their adoring fans at their backs. They have 3 games, 1 in Texas and 2 in San Francisco if necessary, to make history and give Giants fans a long awaited parade down Market Street. I may only be 25, but I was around in 2002 and I’ve been around long enough to know these opportunities don’t arise very often – someone can try telling that to rookies Bumgarner and Posey when this is all over. The Giants are making just their fourth trip to the Fall Classic since coming west, and the thought that their on the doorstep of ending the heartbreak after all the torture this season is giving me the chills.
Pitch data from Brooks Baseball PitchFX.
One of the most promising signs of the evening was one swing off the bat of the Giants’ – lets say it together – 23 year old rookie, cleanup-hitting catcher. When he stepped up to the plate in the eighth against Darren O’Day for yet another battle, I texted to a friend: “I wish Posey would wake up. His at bats have been dreadful. He’s trying to pull everything and it doesn’t make any sense. His strength is opposite field and yet he’s trying to yank everything.” Moments later, Buster displayed the brilliance of his developing talents and of glorious backspin in one swing. O’Day left a changeup in the top quarter of the strike zone – in case you didn’t know, terrible place for a changeup – and Buster belted it to center for a solo shot. It sure would have been nice to hear a real homerun call, you know, one by Kuiper. Oh well. It reminded me a great deal of a homerun Buster hit off of Andrew Cashner in the eighth inning of a critical game at Wrigley in September. That night hard luck Matt Cain had battled a resurgent Carlos Zambrano to a stalemate through six and was removed because the Giants were desperate for runs. The solo shot by Posey in the eighth would be the only run of the game as the Giants won 1-0. His homerun that night traveled 418 feet to center field, and his blast traveled 419 feet to center on this Halloween night. When Posey’s going good that’s exactly what he does, and I’m hoping that’s a sign for tomorrow’s 2010 version of November baseball. The graph below illustrates Posey's ability to hit for power to all fields, where 10 of his 18 homeruns were to center or right field.
 |
| Compliments of Hit Tracker |
But the real story tonight was Madison “Young Hickory” Bumgarner* of Hickory, North Carolina. A reader recently informed me that was the nickname of James K. Polk – I hadn’t realized it –who was given the nickname for being a particular protégé to Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson. This tenacious 21 year old Bumgarner, who by my novice observation is about as fearless as the original Hickory, started the evening having already thrown 216 total innings in 2010 (including at AAA Fresno) and hadn’t pitched more than 151 innings in a season ever; he did that in 2009.
*The Giants used to punt 1st round draft picks for aging hitters like Michael Tucker. That trend is no more. Their four postseason starters are homegrown, drafted and developed by San Francisco. Their second baseman, who flashed the leather brilliantly on this night, was acquired by trading Tim Alderson, another 1st round pick. Posey was of course the fifth overall selection in 2008. Their bearded closer they got in the 24th round of the 2003 draft out of LSU because he had a big arm but needed Tommy John and would require a hefty bonus. That one worked out, too.
At the end of 2009, he came up to make an emergency start when Tim Lincecum had a stiff back and couldn’t make it. It was cause for four-alarm panic in San Francisco, but at least we’d get a chance to see this kid we’d heard so much about already pitch live. Bumgarner pitched fine, he gave up two runs (on two solo shots) in 5.1 innings and got the no decision. But, Madison topped out at about 88-90 MPH and confirmed what many (obsessed) Giants fans had been reading. The reports from the minor leagues were not good. Bumgarner was still getting outs and competing, he was still not walking many batters which is one of his greatest strengths, but he was also not popping the catchers mitt with a mid-90’s heater and he was not striking out many batters. That’s what he was throwing in Spring Training in 2009 what he garnered compliments from Manny Ramirez. But over the course of his second professional season, his fastball disappeared. He was still pretty successful, but the way he was doing it wasn’t exactly overwhelming.
In 2008, Bumgarner made his professional debut in the Class A Sally League and threw 141.2 innings. He struck out 164 batters (10.42/9) and walked just 21 (1.33), while giving up just 3 homeruns (.19). That left him with a 15-3 record, a 1.46 ERA and the honor of Minor League Pitcher of the Year. He was instantly an untouchable prospect and being groomed for the Big Club’s rotation by the Giants. He was overmatching the Class A hitters like a man among boys, and his 6’4”, 220 lb frame doesn’t make it difficult to imagine.
Many Giants fans hoped that Bumgarner’s arm simply tired throughout 2009 and that he’d show up in the spring in 2010, flash his plus fastball and control and skate his way into the rotation. Instead, his velocity hadn’t returned and he was blasted in Spring Training. Suddenly onlookers began to worry he was injured. It’s happened countless times before. A phenomenal pitching prospect rockets through the minors, gets hurt along the way and is never heard from again.
Bumgarner was sent to AAA Fresno and continued to get rocked through three starts. His replacement in the Major Leagues was Todd Wellemeyer, and he would need replacing of his own soon enough, that is once the Giants came to the realization that any success he was having was as hollow as a termite infested tree. And then, Giants instructor and pitching guru Dick Tidrow had a bullpen session with Madison and he was back on track. His mechanics had been muddied somehow along the way and he needed a tweak to get him back where he was. Over the next couple months, Madison regained his control and started dispatching minor league hitters again.
Fast-forward to Halloween 2010. Sometime in August or September, Bumgarner started to get his fastball back. What’s more, he’d gotten a better idea of how to pitch through his struggles – does this remind anyone of Tim Lincecum’s struggles this season? On Halloween night with (much) of the country watching, in a pivetol game 4 of the World Series, Bumgarner once again flashed his talent and everything he learned when his fastball abandoned him, and he showed that he was a better pitcher because of it. It’s a beautiful thing when a plan comes together.
Madison threw 106 pitches on the night and 69 strikes (65%). The big key for him was changeup and slider command. He was able to five total swing and miss strikes with those offerings. He threw 16 of 21 changes for strikes (76%) and 18 of 25 sliders (72%). He averaged 91 mph with his four seam fastball (topping at over 94 mph) and located it on both sides of the plate. I recall specifically, when McCarver mentioned that Kinsler was an inner half feasting type hitter. No sooner did those words fly out of his mouth was Bumgarner pounding him on the insider corner with a fastball for a strike. Bumgarner pitched fearlessly and was rewarded for it.
His best work came against Vladimir Guerrero. In the second, he struck him out with a 92.5 mph fastball perfectly placed on the insider corner, up at the hands. In the fourth with a runner on, he struck him out with an 82 mph changeup off the plate. Guerrero’s swing was extremely awkward. And in the seventh after a baffling error by Juan Uribe, he struck him out with an 82 mph slider that he, again, looked far from comfortable swinging at. It was almost as if after the first strikeout he kept waiting for that inside fastball again, and it just never came. His final line was impressive: 8 IP, 3 hits (all singles), 2 BB and 6 K’s.
In the ninth, closer Brian Wilson needed just 11 pitches while throwing 8 strikes to finish Texas off. He decisively handled the Rangers’ Josh Hamilton which was particularly impressive. He threw a 93 mph fastball for a called strike. Then he threw a devilish, biting slide piece at 84 mph that many believe must be some type of hellish curveball. Hamilton miraculously tipped it for a foul strike two. Finally, he threw a 96 mph fastball way up and out of the zone but Hamilton just couldn’t resist, swinging and missing and giving the Giants the 3-1 lead in the series. The Rangers got the chance to flash their shiny closer in game 3, and the Giants did in game 4. It had this Giants fan smiling and the Rangers hitters (and fans) fearing the beard.
Also of note, the Giants averaged 4.6 pitches per plate appearance. They averaged just 3.74 during the regular season, and no, that’s not good. Andres Torres went 3 of 5 with two doubles, including a huge one while batting right handed. This is a good sign because he’s been swinging a hot bat lately from both sides of the plate lately, and he’ll be facing left handed Cliff Lee tomorrow as the Giants attempt to clinch, and Torres gave him trouble last go ‘round in game 1. And their creaky shortstop, Edgar Renteria, had three hits too. This may well be his farewell performance and I can't think of a better way for a gem of a ballplayer to head out as the curtians close.
The Giants are up 3-1 going into a Game 5 in Texas with their ace on the hill and their adoring fans at their backs. They have 3 games, 1 in Texas and 2 in San Francisco if necessary, to make history and give Giants fans a long awaited parade down Market Street. I may only be 25, but I was around in 2002 and I’ve been around long enough to know these opportunities don’t arise very often – someone can try telling that to rookies Bumgarner and Posey when this is all over. The Giants are making just their fourth trip to the Fall Classic since coming west, and the thought that their on the doorstep of ending the heartbreak after all the torture this season is giving me the chills.
Pitch data from Brooks Baseball PitchFX.
Friday, October 29, 2010
W: CAIN, L: Wilson, S: Washington; Giants up 2-0
As it turned out, the Giants handled the Rangers decisively on Thursday night, but that was only after the Rangers’ relief corps turned the bottom of the eighth into a full blown walk-a-thon. It started out inauspiciously enough, and it indeed looked as if the Giants’ pitch-black bearded closer would need to come out to The Rolling Stones’ “Paint it Black – well, if Andy Baggarly had his way anyway, he’d more likely come out to his usual House of Pain – to get three outs in the top of the ninth before the Rangers plated two to secure the win for the steady Matt Cain. Steady, not brilliant and not dominant if you ask Rob Neyer or probably more than a few sabermetricians anyway – more on this later. If not for Ron Washington deciding that saving his flame throwing left handed closer Neftali Feliz in case the Rangers not only tied the game in the ninth but went ahead creating a hypothetical save situation* for him, the story of the game would have been Matt “Big Sugar” Cain. And really, it still is.
*Washington’s use of his pen was truly inexcusable tonight, but it worked out to the Giants’ benefit so I won’t spend too much time on it. I will say that he’s become a bit of a punching bag in the statistical crowd, an honor he’s earned for deploying his relievers in an ever peculiar manner throughout the postseason, most notably not using his closer almost ever. There’s no evidence that the Rangers would have ever scored so, as Rob Neyer pointed out, it became a moot point. At least he got one decision right in Game 2, i.e. to not put the creaky Vlad in right field again which saved the Rangers at least twice on balls put into play by the Giants.
Though the final score was 9 to 0, the game was actually one of the real pitchers duels the Giants and their fans are accustomed to. The game was all zeroes for four innings, 1-0 for two innings and 2-0 for one inning to take us to the eighth. But after the Giants and Cain got their shutdown inning in the top half – with an assist from Javier Lopez continuing his dominant October by retiring Josh Hamilton – all hell broke loose. Well, not right away but soon thereafter. I’ll get to that.
In Cain’s seven and two-thirds of work, he gave up four hits, two walks (1 intentional to face the pitcher in a key situation) and struck out a mere two. He stuck with mostly three pitches on the night of the 98 he threw. He threw 53 four-seam fastballs (54%), 23 changeups (23%), 21 sliders (21%) and 1 curveball (1%). Like Lincecum, he opted to stay off the fastball in terms of how often he usually throws it – he’s thrown 66% heaters in his career. He stole first pitch strikes time and time again with both his changeup and especially his slider, while also mixing in the fastball which he had command of on both sides of the plate. You’ll see from the plot below that while he didn’t throw as many fastballs as he typically does, he didn’t stray from his strength. Cain is a high fastball type pitcher, and he’s effective that way. It’s the reason he’s a fly ball pitcher as opposed to inducing ground balls a plenty and why he’s so suited for AT&T Park.
According to FOX’s beloved broadcasters McCarver and Buck, Ron Washington would say before the game that Matt Cain “has power, and we like power.” Well, Cain’s power fastball up in the zone certainly could have been a concern for him or could have had him contemplating a change in approach. But as the graph clearly shows, the unintimidated Cain delivered his heater in the upper half of the zone while largely keeping it on the corners, and kept his slider and changeup down and below the strike zone where each of those offerings are most effective. While Cain didn’t flash the swing and miss brilliance his teammate Tim “The Freak” did in his 14 strikeout, 31 swing and miss strikes gem against the Braves, he did evenly distribute 9 swing and miss strikes between all three of his pitches.
The one blemish on Cain’s evening – and it would become a real break rather than a blemish ultimately – was a fastball he left up and out over the plate that Ian Kinsler crushed to center. I can say with the utmost confidence that viewers won’t see so near a homerun (without actually being one) ever again. Even more incredible, it was the Catch-22 of near homeruns. The ball hit the very top of the padded center field wall with great force when the backspin of the ball which carried it so far in the first place returned it to the field. Talk about bitter sweet. Had the ball cleared the fence, the Rangers would have led 1-0. Instead, Cain – the bulldog he is – stranded Kinsler exactly where he stood at second in disbelief when he coaxed a lineout and two groundouts, snatching the momentum from the Rangers.
The Giants immediately capitalized on the captured momentum when Edgar Renteria connected on what was really a pretty good pitch, an up and in fastball which he deposited into the left field bleachers for a solo home run, igniting the crowd. And with the way Cain had been pitching and the misfortune that was the double by Kinsler, it must have felt like a grand slam. C.J. Wilson had been excellent otherwise, and truthfully, had pitched a lot like Cliff Lee was supposed to have. He dropped 0-0 curveballs in for strikes over and over and kept the Giants at bay for most of the night. For a pitcher with a reputation for spotty command he sure didn’t look the part.
Cain again got into some trouble in the sixth when he gave up back to back singles followed by a wild pitch to put runners on second and third with one out. But he got Cruz – who was having a rough night taking the only two punch outs from Cain – to foul out and Kinsler to fly out. After Cain threw down another 1-2-3 inning in the seventh he got the insurance run he coveted after Ross walked, the Giants chased Wilson with a blister, and Juan Uribe blooped him in with a single. Time was running out for Texas.
As I promised earlier, I will now describe the two-out nightmare that was the bottom of the eighth (for Texas) but a huge relief and rare chance to relax for San Franciscans. There was definitely some eighth inning weirdness in this one. But first, Daniel O’Day struck out Andres Torres and especially Freddy Sanchez in convincing fashion. Up came Buster Posey, who had looked lost in general at the plate thus far in the series. He was 0 for 3 to this point in the game with two strikeouts. The hardest contact he’d made was when his bat cleanly struck one of the green seats in the first few rows near the dugout after he’d wung his wood and struck out in parallel. Posey ended up showing the beauty of his approach by reaching out and poking a ball to center for a single, and though the Rangers didn’t know it yet, their doom had begun.
Washington went to left handed reliever (and young, baby faced) Derek Holland to get the lefty on lefty match-up he desired. Wash could just as easily had his closer warming considering the game was close and keeping the deficit at just two would be pivotal were a comeback to be staged in the ninth. But he didn’t. What unfolded to the delight of Giants fans must have been a dose of torture to Texans.
Holland was, in a huge understatement, erratic. Of the 13 pitches he threw, 12 were balls. That plated one, but there were still two outs and the Rangers’ closer was still available and rested. In came Mark Lowe by Washington’s choice. Lowe made it more interesting but ultimately walked in another before giving up a 3-2, back breaking, two run single to Edgar Renteria. Washington dug into his bag ‘o relievers once more and pulled out Michael Kirkman. Kirkman turned out to be the right man for the job, apparently, because he didn’t walk anyone and struck out Freddy Sanchez… after giving up a two run triple to pinch hitter Aaron Rowand and a double to Andres Torres. And as I mentioned, this all – every bit of it – occurred with two outs.
By this time Brian Wilson’s tattooed right arm had become as unnecessary as it was ice cold. Mota came in to log his first postseason inning and retired the Rangers in order to give the Giants the two to nothing lead in the series. The Giants fans erupted, celebrated, and most importantly felt one step closer to that which once was thought to be incomprehensible. But this team of random LEGO’s? ‘Fraid so, America.
More on Cain: A few paragraphs back, I eluded to the fact that many statistically inclined baseball onlookers think Cain is much luckier than he is dominant – Rob Neyer recently wrote about it. There’s a compelling school of thought among them, and in most cases I myself am among them, that a pitcher can only control three variables: homeruns, walks and strikeouts. Meaning, when a pitcher allows the ball to be put into play, he has no control over whether or not an out will be recorded. And so, a statistic exists – and which I myself use pretty often – called FIP or Fielding Independent Pitching. FIP is determined using walk rate, strikeout rate and homerun rate and is scaled to look like ERA or Earned Run Average, which everyone is familiar with. When a pitchers FIP is higher than his ERA, there’s evidence that the pitcher benefited from good defense and good luck, when FIP is lower than ERA the opposite. There’s overwhelming evidence this is true and FIP is a great predictor of future ERA. For example, I’ll confidently submit that Trevor Cahill of the A’s with the 2.97 ERA will not have an ERA below 3.00 next season. I’m so confident in that assertion that I bet a friend $20.
Well, Matt Cain has an ERA well below his FIP in 2010… and 2009, and 2008 and 2007. Over his career of roughly 1,100 innings, his career ERA (3.45) is approaching half a run better than his career FIP (3.84) because he’s done exceptionally well at holding batters to a poor average on balls put into play (BABiP). Cain’s is .274 in his career, much lower than the league average of around .300. I’ll leave it at this: the great debate is, does Cain have some magical, unexplainable ability to induce weak contact, when 99% of professional pitchers simply have no control over such things?
Such pitchers do exist, though they are rare. Tom Seaver was one and the active and brilliant Mariano Rivera another. And having watched Cain pitch from 21 years old to 26, I have no issue saying I believe he is among these magical few. I hope I’m right but at least a few more years are probably needed to confirm or obliterate my perception. It may well be my bias as a bleeding, die hard Giants fan coming through, but who can blame me?
To conclude this blog: After Cain’s similarly fantastic Game 3 win against the Phillies in the NLCS, irreplaceable Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly said it better than anyone before him after Cain came off the bump following eight mesmerizing innings of shutout ball:
“And yes, Cain walked off. He didn’t leap or jog. He took no pleasure in the moment with a roundhouse punch or a fist pump or even a smile. He exited like a grim town sheriff after shooting the bad guys.
Then he simply gave a firm handshake to catcher Buster Posey, who waited for him at the rail with an admiration so palpable, the kid might as well have asked for an autograph.
The town was safe for another day.”
It seems beat writers can be swayed by “Big Sugar’s” romance, too.
*Washington’s use of his pen was truly inexcusable tonight, but it worked out to the Giants’ benefit so I won’t spend too much time on it. I will say that he’s become a bit of a punching bag in the statistical crowd, an honor he’s earned for deploying his relievers in an ever peculiar manner throughout the postseason, most notably not using his closer almost ever. There’s no evidence that the Rangers would have ever scored so, as Rob Neyer pointed out, it became a moot point. At least he got one decision right in Game 2, i.e. to not put the creaky Vlad in right field again which saved the Rangers at least twice on balls put into play by the Giants.
Though the final score was 9 to 0, the game was actually one of the real pitchers duels the Giants and their fans are accustomed to. The game was all zeroes for four innings, 1-0 for two innings and 2-0 for one inning to take us to the eighth. But after the Giants and Cain got their shutdown inning in the top half – with an assist from Javier Lopez continuing his dominant October by retiring Josh Hamilton – all hell broke loose. Well, not right away but soon thereafter. I’ll get to that.
In Cain’s seven and two-thirds of work, he gave up four hits, two walks (1 intentional to face the pitcher in a key situation) and struck out a mere two. He stuck with mostly three pitches on the night of the 98 he threw. He threw 53 four-seam fastballs (54%), 23 changeups (23%), 21 sliders (21%) and 1 curveball (1%). Like Lincecum, he opted to stay off the fastball in terms of how often he usually throws it – he’s thrown 66% heaters in his career. He stole first pitch strikes time and time again with both his changeup and especially his slider, while also mixing in the fastball which he had command of on both sides of the plate. You’ll see from the plot below that while he didn’t throw as many fastballs as he typically does, he didn’t stray from his strength. Cain is a high fastball type pitcher, and he’s effective that way. It’s the reason he’s a fly ball pitcher as opposed to inducing ground balls a plenty and why he’s so suited for AT&T Park.
 |
| PitchFX courtesy of Brooks Baseball |
The one blemish on Cain’s evening – and it would become a real break rather than a blemish ultimately – was a fastball he left up and out over the plate that Ian Kinsler crushed to center. I can say with the utmost confidence that viewers won’t see so near a homerun (without actually being one) ever again. Even more incredible, it was the Catch-22 of near homeruns. The ball hit the very top of the padded center field wall with great force when the backspin of the ball which carried it so far in the first place returned it to the field. Talk about bitter sweet. Had the ball cleared the fence, the Rangers would have led 1-0. Instead, Cain – the bulldog he is – stranded Kinsler exactly where he stood at second in disbelief when he coaxed a lineout and two groundouts, snatching the momentum from the Rangers.
The Giants immediately capitalized on the captured momentum when Edgar Renteria connected on what was really a pretty good pitch, an up and in fastball which he deposited into the left field bleachers for a solo home run, igniting the crowd. And with the way Cain had been pitching and the misfortune that was the double by Kinsler, it must have felt like a grand slam. C.J. Wilson had been excellent otherwise, and truthfully, had pitched a lot like Cliff Lee was supposed to have. He dropped 0-0 curveballs in for strikes over and over and kept the Giants at bay for most of the night. For a pitcher with a reputation for spotty command he sure didn’t look the part.
Cain again got into some trouble in the sixth when he gave up back to back singles followed by a wild pitch to put runners on second and third with one out. But he got Cruz – who was having a rough night taking the only two punch outs from Cain – to foul out and Kinsler to fly out. After Cain threw down another 1-2-3 inning in the seventh he got the insurance run he coveted after Ross walked, the Giants chased Wilson with a blister, and Juan Uribe blooped him in with a single. Time was running out for Texas.
As I promised earlier, I will now describe the two-out nightmare that was the bottom of the eighth (for Texas) but a huge relief and rare chance to relax for San Franciscans. There was definitely some eighth inning weirdness in this one. But first, Daniel O’Day struck out Andres Torres and especially Freddy Sanchez in convincing fashion. Up came Buster Posey, who had looked lost in general at the plate thus far in the series. He was 0 for 3 to this point in the game with two strikeouts. The hardest contact he’d made was when his bat cleanly struck one of the green seats in the first few rows near the dugout after he’d wung his wood and struck out in parallel. Posey ended up showing the beauty of his approach by reaching out and poking a ball to center for a single, and though the Rangers didn’t know it yet, their doom had begun.
Washington went to left handed reliever (and young, baby faced) Derek Holland to get the lefty on lefty match-up he desired. Wash could just as easily had his closer warming considering the game was close and keeping the deficit at just two would be pivotal were a comeback to be staged in the ninth. But he didn’t. What unfolded to the delight of Giants fans must have been a dose of torture to Texans.
Holland was, in a huge understatement, erratic. Of the 13 pitches he threw, 12 were balls. That plated one, but there were still two outs and the Rangers’ closer was still available and rested. In came Mark Lowe by Washington’s choice. Lowe made it more interesting but ultimately walked in another before giving up a 3-2, back breaking, two run single to Edgar Renteria. Washington dug into his bag ‘o relievers once more and pulled out Michael Kirkman. Kirkman turned out to be the right man for the job, apparently, because he didn’t walk anyone and struck out Freddy Sanchez… after giving up a two run triple to pinch hitter Aaron Rowand and a double to Andres Torres. And as I mentioned, this all – every bit of it – occurred with two outs.
By this time Brian Wilson’s tattooed right arm had become as unnecessary as it was ice cold. Mota came in to log his first postseason inning and retired the Rangers in order to give the Giants the two to nothing lead in the series. The Giants fans erupted, celebrated, and most importantly felt one step closer to that which once was thought to be incomprehensible. But this team of random LEGO’s? ‘Fraid so, America.
More on Cain: A few paragraphs back, I eluded to the fact that many statistically inclined baseball onlookers think Cain is much luckier than he is dominant – Rob Neyer recently wrote about it. There’s a compelling school of thought among them, and in most cases I myself am among them, that a pitcher can only control three variables: homeruns, walks and strikeouts. Meaning, when a pitcher allows the ball to be put into play, he has no control over whether or not an out will be recorded. And so, a statistic exists – and which I myself use pretty often – called FIP or Fielding Independent Pitching. FIP is determined using walk rate, strikeout rate and homerun rate and is scaled to look like ERA or Earned Run Average, which everyone is familiar with. When a pitchers FIP is higher than his ERA, there’s evidence that the pitcher benefited from good defense and good luck, when FIP is lower than ERA the opposite. There’s overwhelming evidence this is true and FIP is a great predictor of future ERA. For example, I’ll confidently submit that Trevor Cahill of the A’s with the 2.97 ERA will not have an ERA below 3.00 next season. I’m so confident in that assertion that I bet a friend $20.
Well, Matt Cain has an ERA well below his FIP in 2010… and 2009, and 2008 and 2007. Over his career of roughly 1,100 innings, his career ERA (3.45) is approaching half a run better than his career FIP (3.84) because he’s done exceptionally well at holding batters to a poor average on balls put into play (BABiP). Cain’s is .274 in his career, much lower than the league average of around .300. I’ll leave it at this: the great debate is, does Cain have some magical, unexplainable ability to induce weak contact, when 99% of professional pitchers simply have no control over such things?
Such pitchers do exist, though they are rare. Tom Seaver was one and the active and brilliant Mariano Rivera another. And having watched Cain pitch from 21 years old to 26, I have no issue saying I believe he is among these magical few. I hope I’m right but at least a few more years are probably needed to confirm or obliterate my perception. It may well be my bias as a bleeding, die hard Giants fan coming through, but who can blame me?
To conclude this blog: After Cain’s similarly fantastic Game 3 win against the Phillies in the NLCS, irreplaceable Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly said it better than anyone before him after Cain came off the bump following eight mesmerizing innings of shutout ball:
“And yes, Cain walked off. He didn’t leap or jog. He took no pleasure in the moment with a roundhouse punch or a fist pump or even a smile. He exited like a grim town sheriff after shooting the bad guys.
Then he simply gave a firm handshake to catcher Buster Posey, who waited for him at the rail with an admiration so palpable, the kid might as well have asked for an autograph.
The town was safe for another day.”
It seems beat writers can be swayed by “Big Sugar’s” romance, too.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Well, that was easy
Anyone who thought the Giants would clinch on Friday evening and take away all of the torture, well, they probably didn’t watch this team all season long. The Giants very fittingly took the NL West crown in game 162 in typical fashion:
Jonathan Sanchez* couldn’t go six (6) innings – like more or less usual – but didn’t give up the big hit or really much other than the typical handful of walks. He punched out five along the way and gave way to the pen. What’s more, after 34 starts, someone – Matt Latos, who better? – finally grooved one into Chez’ down and in softball sized – which was aptly pointed out by Krukow – whack me zone, which he stroked for a pivotal triple. Freddy Sanchez hit an up the middle, money two out knock to drive him in; Huff smacked the next pitch for an opposite field, run scoring double.
*It was hotly debated, by myself included, whether or not Jonathan Sanchez should be traded for a “bat.” Sabean opted against it; Sanchez pitched the Giants to the division title in the biggest game of his career and their season; Sanchez finished the 2010 season with the lowest ERA on the highly touted starting staff
After Bochy hooked ‘em, as he so often does, he went directly for the affectively wild Santiago Casilla. Casilla had a very usual, multiple inning outing and punched out two. Ramon Ramirez punched out his only batter; Lopez induced a weak popup from the only competent Friars hitter, Adrian Gonzalez, and Romo quickly dispatched the two batters he faced, including a punch out on that patented sweeping slide piece.
Buster Posey barely knocked out a semi top-spinned ball to left field for some comfort for his lights out closer, B-Wheezy – not that he needed it.
And finally, Wilson came out with his Keith Hernandez, Just for Men inspired playoff hockey beard to “Fear the Beard” chants and signs, two buttons down and jersey flapping; his shoes were orange and 51% sharpied black, and his ducktail Mohawk peaking just below his cap. He had that characteristic crazy gaze in his eyes, and between each pitch he widened his stance and stretched his back as he lowered his head to the dirt in Mike Mussina reminiscence. Wilson was like the eye of the storm in a sea of orange; he punched out Will Venable, conjuring up thoughts of 1997 and the late man whose save record he tied in that moment. It was perfect.
Notable Roster Transactions along the way
December
12/29 – Mark DeRosa signed
January
1/5 – Juan Uribe (smartly) signed
1/13 – Aubrey Huff (head-scratchingly, at the time) signed**
1/21 – Santiago Casilla signed
1/22 – Bengie Molina (mind bogglingly) signed
March
3/23 – Madison Bumgarner (shrewdly) optioned to AAA Fresno
April
4/2 – Buster Posey (regrettably) optioned to AAA Fresno
4/5 – Andres Torres makes opening day roster
4/15 – Fred Lewis traded to Jays
May
5/17 – Mark DeRosa (finally) optioned to 15-day DL
5/19 – Freddy Sanchez activated from 15-day DL
5/21 – Brandon Medders (mercifully) placed on 15-day DL
5/29 – Buster Posey (thank god-ly) recalled from AAA Fresno
June
6/4 – Pat Burrell – signed 5/29 – called up from AAA Fresno
6/11 – Todd Wellemeyer (at long last) placed on 15-day DL
6/26 – Madison Bumgarner recalled (just in time) from AAA Fresno
July
7/1 – Giants trade Bengie Molina (and pave the way for Posey)
7/31 – Giants acquire Javier Lopez and Ramon Ramirez via trade
August
8/13 – Giants acquire Jose Guillen via trade
8/23 – Giants claim Cody Ross off waivers
8/31 – Giants acquire Studded Red Thong by uncertain means***
**Huff daddy was supposed to be washed up, everyone seemed to agree. Well, he was not. Bravo, Sabean.
***Aubrey Huff wears the acquisition in the clubhouse and posits it will propel the Giants to go 20-10 the rest of the way, which remarkably comes to fruition.
Too much to list: Renteria played the DL hokie pokie throughout 2010
My predictions – and/or hope(s) – for the postseason roster
Rotation: Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner
Lineup: Torres, Sanchez, Huff, Posey, Burrell, Uribe, Ross (this will be Guillen), Sandoval
Subs: Guillen (will be Ross), Schierholtz, Fontenot, Renteria, Ishikawa, Whiteside
Pen: Wilson, Romo, Casilla, Ramirez, Lopez, Runzler, Zito
Perhaps I will elaborate more later on roster decisions. For now, I will only mention that the fact that Atlanta has a lefty-centric middle of the lineup will lend to Bochy keeping more lefty relievers, and the existence of two lefties in the Braves' back end of the pen will be a consideration for bench bats.
Thursday is the day. Tim Lincecum versus Derek Lowe @ AT&T Park. The true roster decisions will be known soon enough – when the hangover subsides – and there’s still much work to do.
Jonathan Sanchez* couldn’t go six (6) innings – like more or less usual – but didn’t give up the big hit or really much other than the typical handful of walks. He punched out five along the way and gave way to the pen. What’s more, after 34 starts, someone – Matt Latos, who better? – finally grooved one into Chez’ down and in softball sized – which was aptly pointed out by Krukow – whack me zone, which he stroked for a pivotal triple. Freddy Sanchez hit an up the middle, money two out knock to drive him in; Huff smacked the next pitch for an opposite field, run scoring double.
*It was hotly debated, by myself included, whether or not Jonathan Sanchez should be traded for a “bat.” Sabean opted against it; Sanchez pitched the Giants to the division title in the biggest game of his career and their season; Sanchez finished the 2010 season with the lowest ERA on the highly touted starting staff
After Bochy hooked ‘em, as he so often does, he went directly for the affectively wild Santiago Casilla. Casilla had a very usual, multiple inning outing and punched out two. Ramon Ramirez punched out his only batter; Lopez induced a weak popup from the only competent Friars hitter, Adrian Gonzalez, and Romo quickly dispatched the two batters he faced, including a punch out on that patented sweeping slide piece.
Buster Posey barely knocked out a semi top-spinned ball to left field for some comfort for his lights out closer, B-Wheezy – not that he needed it.
And finally, Wilson came out with his Keith Hernandez, Just for Men inspired playoff hockey beard to “Fear the Beard” chants and signs, two buttons down and jersey flapping; his shoes were orange and 51% sharpied black, and his ducktail Mohawk peaking just below his cap. He had that characteristic crazy gaze in his eyes, and between each pitch he widened his stance and stretched his back as he lowered his head to the dirt in Mike Mussina reminiscence. Wilson was like the eye of the storm in a sea of orange; he punched out Will Venable, conjuring up thoughts of 1997 and the late man whose save record he tied in that moment. It was perfect.
Notable Roster Transactions along the way
December
12/29 – Mark DeRosa signed
January
1/5 – Juan Uribe (smartly) signed
1/13 – Aubrey Huff (head-scratchingly, at the time) signed**
1/21 – Santiago Casilla signed
1/22 – Bengie Molina (mind bogglingly) signed
March
3/23 – Madison Bumgarner (shrewdly) optioned to AAA Fresno
April
4/2 – Buster Posey (regrettably) optioned to AAA Fresno
4/5 – Andres Torres makes opening day roster
4/15 – Fred Lewis traded to Jays
May
5/17 – Mark DeRosa (finally) optioned to 15-day DL
5/19 – Freddy Sanchez activated from 15-day DL
5/21 – Brandon Medders (mercifully) placed on 15-day DL
5/29 – Buster Posey (thank god-ly) recalled from AAA Fresno
June
6/4 – Pat Burrell – signed 5/29 – called up from AAA Fresno
6/11 – Todd Wellemeyer (at long last) placed on 15-day DL
6/26 – Madison Bumgarner recalled (just in time) from AAA Fresno
July
7/1 – Giants trade Bengie Molina (and pave the way for Posey)
7/31 – Giants acquire Javier Lopez and Ramon Ramirez via trade
August
8/13 – Giants acquire Jose Guillen via trade
8/23 – Giants claim Cody Ross off waivers
8/31 – Giants acquire Studded Red Thong by uncertain means***
**Huff daddy was supposed to be washed up, everyone seemed to agree. Well, he was not. Bravo, Sabean.
***Aubrey Huff wears the acquisition in the clubhouse and posits it will propel the Giants to go 20-10 the rest of the way, which remarkably comes to fruition.
Too much to list: Renteria played the DL hokie pokie throughout 2010
My predictions – and/or hope(s) – for the postseason roster
Rotation: Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner
Lineup: Torres, Sanchez, Huff, Posey, Burrell, Uribe, Ross (this will be Guillen), Sandoval
Subs: Guillen (will be Ross), Schierholtz, Fontenot, Renteria, Ishikawa, Whiteside
Pen: Wilson, Romo, Casilla, Ramirez, Lopez, Runzler, Zito
Perhaps I will elaborate more later on roster decisions. For now, I will only mention that the fact that Atlanta has a lefty-centric middle of the lineup will lend to Bochy keeping more lefty relievers, and the existence of two lefties in the Braves' back end of the pen will be a consideration for bench bats.
Thursday is the day. Tim Lincecum versus Derek Lowe @ AT&T Park. The true roster decisions will be known soon enough – when the hangover subsides – and there’s still much work to do.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Resilient Giants Raze the Purple Triceratops
Sure, a sweep would have been nice. But how can you complain about (merely) taking a pivotal series at Coors? The correct answer is that you cannot. Coors has quite simply been a mile-high, house of horrors. And who knows, maybe it will be less of one now that Major League Baseball – being reactionary instead of proactive as usual – has finally taken a step to make sure the humidor is used properly.
There’s absolutely no evidence that the Rockies have not been doing this all along. But, to say that the Rockies’ integrity alone would preclude them from tampering with the process is idiotic. If baseball’s history has taught us anything, it’s that the general rule in the game is that cheating isn’t cheating unless you’re caught. This is the same sport where sign stealing is practically encouraged, and rampant steroid use was wholly ignored for nearly two decades. MLB’s apathy to intervene with steroids is close enough to encouragement, especially considering the motivation for inaction they had given the role steroids played in reviving the game in 1998. So if the Rockies weren’t slipping in some non-humidor balls while nobody was watching, they weren’t trying. The more I ponder, the more convinced I am they were cheating and succeeding. For this reason, I’ll move on to avoid being too presumptuous.
All the credit has to go to Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain. The way these two absolutely sawed through the entire Purple lineup – which includes the torrid Tulo and the Goliath that Gonzalez is at home – was incredible. Lincecum gave up two hits, zero walks and one run (on a dunk) through eight, with nine K’s. Cain had a no hitter going with one out in the eighth before Uribe double clutched a more or less routine grounder to end his bid. If you understand that the game sandwiched in between these two, the 10-9 shattering loss in ten, is the more typical Coors game; you start to realize how impressive the Giants’ young aces efforts were.
The resilient Giants rebounded from that crushing loss just like they’ve done time and time again this season. They got up the next day and played as if they had no memory of it. I think this must be the strength of Bochy’s management of this team. He talked Freddy Sanchez into taking the field with a bum right arm, and he promptly responded by crushing an 0-2 fastball just inside the left field (fair) pole. Bravo, Boch.
I do have one gripe about the series, though. Hindsight is 20/20, but I felt there were some questionable bullpen decisions in the Saturday night loss. For one, I think replacing Zito with Chris Ray in the 5th was indefensible. Not that Zito was replaced, but that it was by Ray. Ray’s not a good reliever and despite it still being early, that was a big spot in the game. Ray rather expeditiously gave up a two run job to Tulowitzki and a triple to Melvin Mora. This season Ray is striking out 5.19 per nine and walking 4.33 per nine. That’s atrocious. While his ERA is a palatable 3.98, his .251 BABIP and 4.63 FIP and 5.43 xFIP proves it’s all smoke and mirrors. Bochy’s use of Ray, as well as the extension given to Affeldt prior to this season, proves their evaluation of relievers (especially) leaves much to be desired. I think the scouting they do must be top notch because they’ve hit the mark so often. On the other hand, I think they’re pretty clearly missing the mark when it comes to the numbers (i.e. statistics) game. Affeldt’s 2009 numbers were very much a facade, but that didn’t stop the Giants from extending him for two more seasons.
There’s much to talk about with six games remaining. There’s the prospect of altering the rotation or not. There’s certainly merit to the arguments for both. I’ll leave this discussion for the comments section. Also, there is the possibility that both Torres and now Sanchez are inactive indefinitely. This is bad news all around. Ross is turning it on which makes it non-disaster not getting Torres back. On the other hand, his fantastic catch – which unfortunately re-aggravated his injury – as well as his HR make the potential loss of him an enormous bummer. The presence of Fontenot makes the potential loss of Sanchez (also) non-disaster. But when you consider to defense he has played and his 5 HR and .900 + OPS in September, well that sucks too.
This team has been very troubling to watch but also incredibly exciting and overwhelmingly fun to watch. Regardless of what happens, it’s been a season to remember and the Giants are in the driver’s seat and Posey’s NL RoY chances are still very much alive. It feels pretty swell.
All stats provided by Fangraphs
With the Giants in playoff contention and getting a lot (or more than usual) media attention, here are some links:
Neyer asks: Did Giants Blow it with Buster Posey?
Neyer revisits Buster Posey's Triple-A stay
Fangraphs: Cain Buries Colorado
Fangraphs: Giants on the Mound
There’s absolutely no evidence that the Rockies have not been doing this all along. But, to say that the Rockies’ integrity alone would preclude them from tampering with the process is idiotic. If baseball’s history has taught us anything, it’s that the general rule in the game is that cheating isn’t cheating unless you’re caught. This is the same sport where sign stealing is practically encouraged, and rampant steroid use was wholly ignored for nearly two decades. MLB’s apathy to intervene with steroids is close enough to encouragement, especially considering the motivation for inaction they had given the role steroids played in reviving the game in 1998. So if the Rockies weren’t slipping in some non-humidor balls while nobody was watching, they weren’t trying. The more I ponder, the more convinced I am they were cheating and succeeding. For this reason, I’ll move on to avoid being too presumptuous.
All the credit has to go to Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain. The way these two absolutely sawed through the entire Purple lineup – which includes the torrid Tulo and the Goliath that Gonzalez is at home – was incredible. Lincecum gave up two hits, zero walks and one run (on a dunk) through eight, with nine K’s. Cain had a no hitter going with one out in the eighth before Uribe double clutched a more or less routine grounder to end his bid. If you understand that the game sandwiched in between these two, the 10-9 shattering loss in ten, is the more typical Coors game; you start to realize how impressive the Giants’ young aces efforts were.
The resilient Giants rebounded from that crushing loss just like they’ve done time and time again this season. They got up the next day and played as if they had no memory of it. I think this must be the strength of Bochy’s management of this team. He talked Freddy Sanchez into taking the field with a bum right arm, and he promptly responded by crushing an 0-2 fastball just inside the left field (fair) pole. Bravo, Boch.
I do have one gripe about the series, though. Hindsight is 20/20, but I felt there were some questionable bullpen decisions in the Saturday night loss. For one, I think replacing Zito with Chris Ray in the 5th was indefensible. Not that Zito was replaced, but that it was by Ray. Ray’s not a good reliever and despite it still being early, that was a big spot in the game. Ray rather expeditiously gave up a two run job to Tulowitzki and a triple to Melvin Mora. This season Ray is striking out 5.19 per nine and walking 4.33 per nine. That’s atrocious. While his ERA is a palatable 3.98, his .251 BABIP and 4.63 FIP and 5.43 xFIP proves it’s all smoke and mirrors. Bochy’s use of Ray, as well as the extension given to Affeldt prior to this season, proves their evaluation of relievers (especially) leaves much to be desired. I think the scouting they do must be top notch because they’ve hit the mark so often. On the other hand, I think they’re pretty clearly missing the mark when it comes to the numbers (i.e. statistics) game. Affeldt’s 2009 numbers were very much a facade, but that didn’t stop the Giants from extending him for two more seasons.
There’s much to talk about with six games remaining. There’s the prospect of altering the rotation or not. There’s certainly merit to the arguments for both. I’ll leave this discussion for the comments section. Also, there is the possibility that both Torres and now Sanchez are inactive indefinitely. This is bad news all around. Ross is turning it on which makes it non-disaster not getting Torres back. On the other hand, his fantastic catch – which unfortunately re-aggravated his injury – as well as his HR make the potential loss of him an enormous bummer. The presence of Fontenot makes the potential loss of Sanchez (also) non-disaster. But when you consider to defense he has played and his 5 HR and .900 + OPS in September, well that sucks too.
This team has been very troubling to watch but also incredibly exciting and overwhelmingly fun to watch. Regardless of what happens, it’s been a season to remember and the Giants are in the driver’s seat and Posey’s NL RoY chances are still very much alive. It feels pretty swell.
All stats provided by Fangraphs
With the Giants in playoff contention and getting a lot (or more than usual) media attention, here are some links:
Neyer asks: Did Giants Blow it with Buster Posey?
Neyer revisits Buster Posey's Triple-A stay
Fangraphs: Cain Buries Colorado
Fangraphs: Giants on the Mound
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Four Teams, Two Spots (and the NL RoY Race)
Each one of these rookies has been phenomenal in their own right. Heyward has played a nice right field and is hitting for solid average (.286), moderate power (.475 SLG) and is getting on base like a mad man (.401 OBP), something that rookies have rarely done. Buster Posey is hitting for an extremely high average (.324), getting on base at a very nice rate (.373) and hitting for much more power than could have been expected (.522 SLG), both this soon and also in terms of his long term potential. Furthermore, Posey is playing the integral position of catcher, and catching the staff with the best ERA in baseball no less. What’s more, the Giants have amassed an astounding ERA thus far in the pivotal September pennant race. Posey is thus far out OPS’ing Heyward .895 to .876, but this could change within a matter of days. Plus, Heyward has the slight wOBA edge given his higher OBP, 3.85 versus .382.
Heyward:
BR = 4.6 WAR in 132 G
FG = 4.6 WAR in 132 G
WAR Average = 4.6
1 W per 29 games played according to Baseball Reference
1 W per 29 games played according to Fangraphs
1 W per 29 games played, average
Posey:
BR = 2.8 WAR in 97 G
FG = 3.9 WAR in 97 GWAR Average = 3.35
1 W per 35 games played according to Baseball Reference
1 W per 25 games according to Fangraphs
1 W per 29 games played, average
Isn’t this interesting? On a per game basis, if we give 50% weight to baseball reference’s and 50% to Frangaphs’ figures, Posey and Heyward have provided the exact same WAR on a per game basis with 1 win every 29 games. Heyward has provided more cumulative WAR because he’s played in more games. My conclusion is this: Right now it’s more or less a dead heat. The voters are going to focus on counting stats and batting average. They are also going to put a great deal of weight on where their teams ended the season, in postseason or at home watching. Both of these players will have a great deal to do with how their teams finish. Still, they could both play horribly and both still get in, or both play phenomenally (a word that suits them both) and it end up that neither the Braves nor Giants get in. But this seems unlikely to me. In my humble opinion, if there was ever a year where a Co-NL Rookie of the Year award was appropriate, it would be 2010 with all the talent that has flushed the league this season. There’s probably (if not certainly) no right or wrong answer. I won’t hesitate to say it should be Posey – a biased opinion no doubt – but they’re singing a different tune down south, and have been so since their guy started breaking windshields in Spring Training. The fact that they played one another in the 2005 Georgia AAAA State Championship back in high school only adds to the intrigue.
Playoff Picture …
It’s probably (really) safe to say the Reds and Phillies are in, and there are four teams fighting for the final two spots. Here are the opponents’ average run differentials (OARD), etc. for each of these teams.
Giants (OARD = 0.36), 6 Home 5 Away - @ CHC for 2. Lead division by ½ game, potentially ½ back of WC
Braves (OARD = 28.30), 6 Home 4 Away - @ PHI for 1. Trail division by 5 games, 1 game up in WC
Padres (OARD = 19.33), 7 Home 5 Away - @ LAD for 2. Trail division by ½ game, 1 game back in WC
Rockies (OARD = 21.50), 6 Home 6 Away - @ AZ for 2. Trail division by 2 ½ games, 3 ½ games back in WC
The Giants have themselves in nice position. For one, they currently lead the division. Also, they are only ½ back from the Braves (and zero in the loss column), which is another path to the playoffs should SD or COL catch them. That being said, position means nothing if they don’t play well and continue to pitch great while praying for a few runs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)