About That Giants Outfield
The San Francisco Giants have made a decent amount of noise this offseason, signing two of the five biggest starting-pitching contracts in free agency this year. Bringing in Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija certainly solidifies a rotation that needed help. Last season, Madison Bumgarner, Chris Heston, and Jake Peavy made just over half (82) of the Giants’ starts and were worth about eight wins above replacement, most of that from Bumgarner. The other 80 starts came primarily from Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Hudson, Matt Cain, and Tim Lincecum, and that group was below replacement level. Bolstering the rotation makes a lot of sense for the Giants, but the team now appears unlikely to pursue a major signing for the outfield, leaving it as the team’s primary weakness.
Having just one weakness instead of two is a positive development for the Giants, but perhaps the brightest spot for the club heading into next season is not their newfound rotation depth, but the return of an emergent infield after some breakout seasons last year from Brandon Crawford, Matt Duffy, and Joe Panik. Add in Brandon Belt, and that quartet in the field more than tripled their production, going from 5.7 WAR in 2014 to 18.1 WAR this past season. The lack of pitching depth and the issues in the outfield kept the Giants out of the playoffs, along with an unusually high bar for entry — if they had won 84 games in 2014, they still would have qualified for the postseason — but their infield was amazing and should be again next year.
The graph below shows the FanGraphs Depth Chart projections for every infield in Major League Baseball (catchers included). As we might expect, the Giants rate very highly.
The Chicago Cubs, with Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Addison Russell, and newly signed Ben Zobrist, look to be the class of MLB when it comes to the infield, but the Giants are not that far behind. There is a decent gap between the Giants and the Josh Donaldson-led Blue Jays. Unfortunately, the outfield is not quite as promising.
Last season, the outfield got off to a poor start when Hunter Pence was injured. Angel Pagan was mostly healthy, but he did not play well. Gregor Blanco was probably the team’s best outfielder, and the only one to top two wins above replacement. Jarret Parker hit six home runs in just 54 plate appearances, although it is probably best to temper expectations for the soon-to-be 27-year-old, unless you want to assume he is the next Matt Duffy, which maybe he is.
That sums up the returning members. Elsewhere, Nori Aoki hit a bit, but he is gone. Marlon Byrd was productive in 154 plate appearances at the end of the season, but he is gone now, too. Justin Maxwell received a decent number of plate appearances, but did not produce and he is gone as well, having signed a minor league deal with the Miami Marlins. We could factor in a bit of addition by subtraction, and give Pence more plate appearances, but at the moment, the Giants are not left with much.
In right field, the Giants have Pence coming back, hopefully for a full season. The right field projections look like this:
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | Bat | BsR | Fld | WAR |
| Hunter Pence | 560 | .267 | .323 | .435 | .328 | 9.1 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 2.3 |
| Mac Williamson | 105 | .251 | .313 | .383 | .304 | -0.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.2 |
| Jarrett Parker | 21 | .234 | .308 | .387 | .304 | -0.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Gregor Blanco | 14 | .261 | .339 | .368 | .310 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Total | 700 | .263 | .321 | .425 | .323 | 8.8 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 2.5 |
Right field is solid. Not a lot to see there. Center field, where Angel Pagan is in the final year of his four-year, $40 million contract, is not so solid.
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | WAR |
| Angel Pagan | 490 | 0.261 | 0.309 | 0.355 | 0.292 | 0.4 |
| Gregor Blanco | 175 | 0.261 | 0.339 | 0.368 | 0.310 | 0.7 |
| Jarrett Parker | 21 | 0.234 | 0.308 | 0.387 | 0.304 | 0.1 |
| Kelby Tomlinson | 14 | 0.248 | 0.299 | 0.320 | 0.275 | 0.0 |
| Total | 700 | 0.26 | 0.316 | 0.359 | 0.296 | 1.2 |
Age and injuries have taken their toll on the 34-year-old outfielder. Out in left field, the situation is a little better, but it is still below average.
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | WAR |
| Jarrett Parker | 329 | 0.234 | 0.308 | 0.387 | 0.304 | 0.6 |
| Gregor Blanco | 301 | 0.261 | 0.339 | 0.368 | 0.31 | 0.8 |
| Brandon Belt | 63 | 0.266 | 0.340 | 0.448 | 0.341 | 0.4 |
| Total | 693 | 0.249 | 0.324 | 0.385 | 0.310 | 1.8 |
Add it all up, and you have a team in the bottom half of outfields despite Hunter Pence’s solid play.
The Giants are currently closer to the last-place Philadelphia Phillies than their rival Los Angeles Dodgers, and they are just as close to replacement level as they are to the third-place Marlins. The team as a whole can make up for this deficiency as it stands. Right now, the projections have them behind the Dodgers by quite a bit (not unlike most teams), but right in the mix with the New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates, and St. Louis Cardinals for a playoff spot.
The Giants do have options, even if their pursuit of Cueto likely takes their payroll to around $165 million. Given that figure, and the way MLB calculates payroll, another major signing is likely to put the Giants over the luxury-tax threshold. While we don’t know for sure what the front office is actively avoiding the tax, given teams’ general reluctance to pay it, it’s probably a safe bet.
With that in mind, and acknowledging the fact that Pagan is the weakest link above, the club’s options are few. There are only three available center fielders projected to exceed one win above replacement (or maybe four if you are feeling generous about Gerardo Parra). Those three are below:
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | Fld | WAR |
| Denard Span | 525 | 0.278 | 0.337 | 0.392 | 0.320 | -1.4 | 2.1 |
| Dexter Fowler | 560 | 0.250 | 0.347 | 0.387 | 0.325 | -10.1 | 1.5 |
| Austin Jackson | 560 | 0.259 | 0.317 | 0.376 | 0.305 | -2.4 | 1.3 |
Fowler had the best year of the three, Span had some hip problems, and Jackson did not get regular playing time after his trade to the Chicago Cubs last season. Fowler looks to be a better fit just based on last season; however, his defensive numbers were not great before last season, playing in the more spacious parks in Houston and Colorado. Based on the larger, more relevant sample size, Fowler might be a tough defensive fit in San Francisco. Jackson has solid range, but of the three players, his bat leaves a little something to be desired. Span’s projections are the best of the three and he likely combines the best combination of offense and defense.
Getting Denard Span instead of a bigger name like Yoenis Cespedes, Alex Gordon, or Justin Upton might not make the same headlines as their pitching moves; however, given the Giants’ needs and the areas in which they can improve, Span has the potential to move the needle in the standings just as much as either pitcher the team just acquired at a fraction of the cost.
Craig Edwards can be found on twitter @craigjedwards.
Signing a bigger name – Cespedes or Upton combined with a salary dump of Pagan would improve the OF and keep the tam below the Luxury Tax threshold.
If only Angel Pagan didn’t have negative trade value.
Have any stud prospects to sell in order to make that salary dump happen?
There is absolutely no change whatsoever in how the Phillies are run.
Bill Giles put the ownership group together with people who think like him 35 years ago. Guess what? Bill Giles is still there. He took part in the hiring of MacPhail and Klentak both. He was at the press conference announcing the hiring of Klentak.
35 Years.
Jim Thome and Cliff Lee
That’s it.
35 Years.
Carlos Ruiz and Maikel Franco, the only two starting quality players signed out of Latin America. Ruiz was signed out of Panama for eight thousand dollars. Need that in numerical form? $8,000- Eight Stacks.
Maikel Franco was signed for $100,000- That’s one hundred thousand American dollars. One hundred Stacks.
The Red Sox paid $63 million to sign Yoan Moncada. The Phillies paid $108,000- to sign both Carlos Ruiz and Maikel Franco.
Two real free agents and two starting position players from Latin America signed for nothing.
The Phillies Way is unchanged. They will sit in the cellar until they collect enough free talent in the MLB Plantation Slave Auction held every June. These young slave/intern players will be exploited to the max by the Phillies bloodsucking ownership cabal. For seven years they will make these bloodsucking criminals massive profits. If a few become fan favorites and the crowds are still huge as they near free agency then they will be signed to short, team friendly deals. If any have slipped through their screening process and turn out to be normal players seeking long contracts they will be demonized and booted out the door.
The Phillies after telling lies to their fan base from 2012 onward finally admitted they were “rebuilding”. The truth of the matter is they are already planning their next rebuild as they conduct this one.
THAT is The Phillies Way.
Google: Kevin Maitan FREE_AEC
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The Giants have two of the biggest reclamation project wins in the majors in recent years with Andres Torres and Gregor Blanco. That is most likely where the effort will come from. I doubt they’ll spend heavily on these 3 candidates as they’ll want too many years, and there just isn’t enough upside (Span, Fowler and Jackson). There are some trade candidates but they will also be expensive in other ways. The Giants will most likely wait for 3 months, see how Angel Pagan is in a contract year, then make an adjustment as necessary. Because they never really prioritize their OF, in the draft or in FA.
This. The Giants will sit tight and hold whatever payroll flexibility they have remaining for a possible acquisition at the trade deadline after they’ve had the first half to assess their needs. If they’re lucky Pagan can bounce back enough to combine with Blanco for at least an adequate stopgap in CF which would give them a lot more options if they can get away with only needing a LF instead. Or they’ll wait even longer and just pick up some waiver wire nobody who will go on to hit 6 HR in the postseason and lead another Giants parade down Market St. Because #evenyearbullshit.
I suddenly trust projections. But only infield projections. I think OF defensive metrics are still to noisy. And they don’t capture how hard it is for OF to hit in our home ballpark.
Isn’t it about as difficult as it would be for an infielder?
😉
Infielders hit in the infield, outfielders hit in the outfield. It’s so obvious
And second basemen hit second.
Could be GiantsFan was thinking power.
Even then, some might consider it a bit weird, given AT&T (formerly PacBell) was home to many a Bonds bomb, including 37 of 73 in the record season, plus the many dingers of infielders Jeff Kent & Rich Aurilia (Others, however, may not agree with the assessment of unfathomability.). But whatever: since Bonds left, the park seems determined to suppress home runs particularly and OBPct generally, while promoting triples & generally not doing much to doubles. Belt in particular would be 30 plus homer producer just about anywhere else.
To the best of my recollection, AT&T on average over the course of the year (with temperature and humidity averaging out) cuts left handed home run power in half, and is neutral for right handed power.
One thing which would help would be platooning Blanco and Pagan in center. Pagan had a huge lefty-righty split and was too tired and aching for a lot of the season when he was playing full time; he was a lot better when he came off the DL. And if Tomlinson, Parker, and Williamson are all given shots in left, one of them may well develop into something, they’re all young and looked promising last year.
Pagan over his career has hit righties better than lefties.
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=of&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=0&type=1&season=2015&month=13&season1=2014&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=3371,3353,9957,2830,1825,2218,6035,8553,4400,3390,1845,3708,2197,3704,3154,9328,211,950,2140,3190&sort=17,d
A right handed platoon lefty from that list seems more likely in my opion.
The obvious platoon choice is Tomlinson: he’s ridiculously athletic, very fast, and should play the position better than any Giant has since in years.
Just a couple of days ago, there was a piece on Rotographs about how Kyle Blanks(minor league deal) may be just as good against LHP’s as Matt Holliday. If you take his SSS numbers from the last two years, he hits RHP’s just as well.
If he can stay healthy, Kyle Blanks is a big time sleeper for LF.
Kyle Blanks is never able to stay healthy.
His career splits are not really wide, but yes he’s better vs LHP. Assuming full health (vs LHP only), then you get what? 150-200 PAs max.
And if we’re going to put faith in SSS, then:
career batting as LF (which is where he’ll need to play):.215/.316/.385
career batting in ATT park: .102/.185/.184
I’m not saying he can’t break out… but I wouldn’t count on it. I know. I draft this guy every year in some league! LOL
Last season, by June 1 Matt Duffy had earned the regular spot at 3B.
In the 2016, June 1 Christian Arroyo will have regular spot in the Giants’ batting order.
The tiny Tyrolian hat with the dinky feather has spoken.
I remember thinking the same thing when the A’s had him. Of course, this means he’ll get 450 at bats and hit 20 homers with SF.
/salt
I am irrationally obsessed with Kyle Blanks. THIS IS THE YEAR!!!
Never been to Austin Jackson’s “bar”, nor any of the others. Which has the most chicks who dig Saber nerds??
Saying Parker may be this year’s Duffy is a terrible analogy. Duffy was a no hit SS who came out of nowhere after being picked in the 18th round. Parker was a 2nd round pick who has hit about the same (and solidly above league average) everywhere he’s played. Todd Frazier is a better speculative upside as a guy who was drafted high, hit around .800 OPS in minors and needed more seasoning than expected.
I think he meant “this year’s Duffy” only in the sense that it would be a surprise if Parker pans out. Obviously they are very different style hitters, which is exactly what makes me more pessimistic about Parker. Duffy at least could always put the bat on the ball consistently, even if it took him till last year to figure out how to do that with any authority. With Parker I just see way too much swing and miss. But I hope I’m wrong.
Duffy was not “no hit” in his second and third/last years in the minors.
When Parker first game up last year, he was taking pitches until he got 2 strikes against him and he was awful. When he came up again, he was swinging early in the count and became a terror. He really was a different hitter. We’ll see what happens when pitchers adjust but he might show what he did late last season was no fluke.
Bochy, Bam Bam and other coaches such as (gulp) Dunston all preach looking for your pitch, being aggressive in the count. Its possible they have made a change to Parker who is a 3 true outcomes type who likes to work counts. While that strategy isn’t especially welcomed on these pages its been quite successful for the Giants, who like to employ themselves some hackers from time to time. Personally I see Parker as too contact challenged to be successful at this, but he did have some early success. I would suspect its more like John Bowker than… er… I don’t have a successful home grown Giants OF to comp to. I’ll just throw up Billy Mueller and show myself out.
Parker explained the difference in an interview near the end of the season (probably just after his 3 homer game), it was typical rookie jitters, basically. He said that when he came up, he was hesitant and thinking too much, and when he got sent back down (plus, it must have made it back to him that management was even quoted in interviews as saying that Parker was plainly not ready), he vowed to not hold anything back, to do what he can do at the plate.
This is very similar to the problems that Ishikawa had, he thought too much at the plate, and that held him back some as well, until he was able to stop thinking and just doing what he could do. It might not be much, but he got his 15 minutes and more, and I doubt very people wouldn’t like to make his salary when he’s in the majors. And he got two rings to boot!
The strategy isn’t too welcome in these pages because, for all the talk about “old school” types being unable to learn, sabers are just as intransigent. Anybody who has read Ted Williams book on hitting will recognize that batting strategy, and it just makes a lot more sense: 1) you swing at pitches that you know you have best success with, 2) you swing less at pitches out of the zone, favoring the count for you the hitter, 3) more batter’s count means more pitches in your zone, whether purposefully or mistakes.
That is the right way to hit, but not everyone knows the right way, and with everyone going “OBP! Walks! OBP! Walks! OBP! Walks!” because of Moneyball and ignorance of Ted Williams, they think the proper thing to do is take pitches, when the whole purpose and value of batting is swinging and getting a hit, because a hit is that much more valuable than a walk, particularly if you can hit for power. All the brainiacs who think strength/size is the same as power in baseball clearly have never seen Ted Williams (he didn’t get the nickname The Splendid Splinter for nothing) and Hank Aaron when they first hitting homers, and all the large, strong looking hitters who were punch and judy hitters in the majors (catchers, generally, come to mind quickly).
Look at Bonds and Williams. They took pitches that they couldn’t do much with. Bonds often said that he would wait all game for his one pitch in his zone that he could do something with, and that’s when he pounced.
And everybody is different. Some people’s sweet zone is other people’s strikeout zone, and some people can hit balls just as well as they can hit strikes. The hitter has to know his strengths and weaknesses and go with his strengths and minimize his weaknesses.
Walks are not the goal: the goal is getting a hit. But sometimes the pitcher won’t give you the chance to get a hit by pitching away from your strengths, and that’s when walks become your friend, as that is your reward for not swinging so much at pitches you can’t do much with.
A lot of walks is not a sign that you are hitting correctly. It could also mean that you are letting very hittable pitches get by you. The hitter needs to make every pitch in your zone count for something on the field of baseball. Getting a walk is the result when you did all you could to get a hit but just not getting your pitch, but neither did you let the pitcher off either, by fouling off his pitches.
I think you hit it on the head – when you watch the giants when they have been good, what you notice that is different from other clubs is solid 2 strike hitting (when they are bad though it is anpther story)and a lot of full counts. Putting the bat on the ball with 2 strikes often is usually an indicator that you were able to squeeze the pitcher into your zone as a hitter rather than vice versa. The other thing is the whole BABIP thing, the giants tend to go gap to gap when they are on. Nowadays sabremetrics is very anti BABIP, mainly because they prioritize power over control. A high BA and BABIP doesn’t necessarily mean a guy was lucky all year – it also shows bat control which is sorely overlooked. AT&T makes you use bat control or bust.
Using Bonds and Williams as examples of great hitters is a no-brainer.
Combining that with the argument that walks are not a sign that “you are hitting correctly” is not using your brain.
At the top of the hitting craft, walks are absolutely a sign that you are an excellent hitter. Bonds’ BB – 2588 (will probably never be broken. Williams’ BB – 2021 (4th all-time). Miguel Cabrera, barring injury, will likely retire in the top 30. Jim Thome cleared 600HR, so he clearly was finding his pitches and swinging, is in the top 10. The list is clear. High walk totals correlate strongly with great hitting (and longevity, of course).
Nice article, timely too, but I got some nits to pick.
First off, though, admittedly can say anything they want to the public, but the Giants managing partner said in their regular presser right after the season ended that the Giants did not want to get into the penalty threshold this season.
My calculations have them within $3M of the threshold right now, so if that is close, they aren’t signing anyone of consequence. My guess at acquisitions is that they already have one – Kyle Blanks – and will pick up De Aza in January.
About the tables, those are my biggest problem with this analysis. I’m assuming you are just the messenger, that you are just providing what ZiPS provided as projections for each position. Still, there are huge problems with that.
First off, you need to provide more nuance than the Giants are in the bottom half of OFs. They were 18th, not far from 15th, which would put them in top half, and the A’s do not look like they are above 6 WAR themselves. At 5.5 WAR, the Giants don’t need to do much to vault firmly into the top half, the Mets are 11th and don’t look more than 6.5 WAR themselves
Furthermore, the projections are not very realistic. They have Pence playing 80% of the RF PA. That translates into almost 130 games. Do you know that he had the longest consecutive game streak going into 2015? He’s been an iron man and if he wasn’t messed up by sitting around for so long by getting his arm broken by Cubs scrub, he probably would have played most of the season. Assuming a more reasonable 150+ games estimate would put his projection more like 2.7 WAR, and drop the Williamson to 0.1, netting out to 2.8, or +0.3 WAR.
Then the elephant in the room in CF. The Giants are not going to put up with Pagan producing at that low a level for 70% of the season. That’s barely beyond replacement level. They have jettisoned $5M+ before, Livan, basically giving him for free to Expos, giving them his salary, Rowand when he still had 1+ season left at $12M AAV, McGehee last season, roughly $5M (short if you want to be exact).
If he’s doing that poorly, he’ll be sat, just like Rowand was sat in 2010 when Torres was clearly better, salary only gets you first dibs, it’s not permanent with Bochy. He would probably get until June to get it straight, at which point, if Blanco is producing at a 2.8 WAR rate in CF, he’ll get to start the rest of the way. That’s 2 months, roughly 1/3, so Pagan will still play some (PH, late game), so we slice his 70% in half to 35%, for 0.2 WAR, but bump Gregor to 50% or double what he’s at, for 1.4 WAR.
Parker’s 0.1 WAR makes it 1.5 WAR (Tomlinson is not playing any CF, based on recent reports). Hmm, that still leaves 84 PA left. If Parker gets it, that’s another 0.4 WAR, and if Blanco gets it, that’s roughly 0.34, so we can call it +0.3 WAR for a total of 1.8 WAR in CF, or +0.6 WAR
In LF, if Blanco is playing mostly in CF, let’s just assume he starts in LF for first two months. He was slotted for 43% of the LF PA, and if he starts the first two months, that’s 33% of the PA, or 78% of projection. He’ll probably still play some, so go with 80% for 0.6 WAR from him, covering 34.4% of playing time. Belt gets 9% of the PA or roughly 15 games there. Posey has basically averaged 30 starts at 1B, leaving only 132 starts for Belt. Historically, that’s roughly what Belt could play, 147 games, so we keep thim at 0.4 WAR.
That still leaves 56.6% of the PA, or 396, for Parker. Frankly, I think Blanks will be getting a lot of the PA, and I think he could be better than Parker there in LF, but he’s not in the projections, so I’ll stick with Parker. Prorating gets us to 0.7 WAR, for a total of 1.7 WAR, -0.1 WAR overall.
All together, that gets the Giants OF to 6.3 WAR, which puts them roughly around 12th in the league.
And that’s not to say that other teams can’t say the same about their numbers, but more to show that it won’t take a lot of mis-projections to swing the Giants from bottom half to first half, and potentially top 10.
At top of this, the Pence projection should be way off. Pence did not have a career decline, he was injured, but the projections put him at 2.3 WAR and not playing much. Per FG, Pence had 5.5 WAR in 2013, then 4.7 WAR in 2014. If we use the FA decline rate of 0.5 WAR that the writers here use for players in their 30’s, that puts Pence at 3.7 WAR minimum in 2016. That would add 1 WAR to the Giants OF, pushing to 7.3 WAR, jumping over the Mets and closing in on #10, Rays.
And in 2015, his WAR/100PA was in between his higher rate in 2013 and lower rate in 2014, so one could argue that his 4.7 WAR in 2014 is his true floor. Adding another WAR would push to 8.3 WAR, making them 9th and close to #8 Astros and #7 Red Sox.
Again, we don’t know which of these are right, but they are possible. But as you can see with these “what ifs”, the Giants OF ranking could vary anywhere from the 18th you currently have them, to 9th, and if Blanks is better than Parker, as I think he could be, they could be 7th. How different your article would be if this were the case!
The same adjustments that you mention in regards to the Giants and OF WAR and playing time would likely need to be made to other teams as well. That might change the ordering of the list, but not likely to a large degree.
Isn’t a safe conclusion that the Giants have a slightly below average outfield?
And had that been the statement he summarized with, I would have been OK with it.
Instead, he wrote: “Add it all up, and you have a team in the bottom half of outfields despite Hunter Pence’s solid play.”
They are much much closer to the bottom (Phillies at 2.4WAR or so) than the top teams (Trout+bodies at 12 WAR, Cutcheons at 11.6WAR, Marlins at 11). Looking at the distribution in the chart they are probably well below average, even if they are somewhat close to the median.
I really really hope you’re right that they won’t put up with Pagan playing terribly for a long time. They sure put up with him playing badly for a long time last season. There seems to be some kind of a feeling being projected that team morale in general will suffer if Pagan is benched for any length of time for any reason less compelling than a broken bone, presumably because he’ll just make everyone’s like miserable. That’s one reason why I would generally suggest platooning him and Blanco. And I have the depressing feeling that Pence may not be an iron man any more. I’m more optimistic actually that one of the kids is going to turn out to be better than expected.
If the Giants had a better alternative in 2015, Pagan would have been benched, but Blanco was already covering for Pence, for the most part, then Aoki was basically out/bad the rest of the year, and Maxwell was terrible for the most part after a great April. Plus, Parker blew his first audition, he noted in an interview that he wasn’t playing the way he could, that he was thinking too much. And Perez started the year injured and wasn’t really healthy until late.
Assuming Pence and Blanco will be healthy in 2016, if Pagan is as bad as projected, and Parker is that good, Bochy would easily make the switch. Oh, he’ll still give Pagan some opps, but look at how Torres was used in 2010, he got the majority of play in CF mid-season. And look at the playoffs: Zito got all the news for being left off the rosters, but Rowand only got 11 PA during the whole playoffs, that’s not even 3 games worth.
Why is Pence not an ironman? He had a broken arm, nothing serious, and when he came back, he hit well. I have no doubt he didn’t know what to do with himself, and that probably led to changes in behavior/practice that led to the strain that shut him down the rest of the season.
I would have no problem with platoon, but that’s not how Bochy manages. And in any case, a healthy Pagan produces way better than Blanco does, give him the job first, then can platoon later (or worse).
Kid to bet on: Williamson, maybe even Arroyo.
Well I certainly hope you’re right and I’m wrong about Pagan’s playing time and Pence’s health (he is getting older, that’s another factor). Also, if you look at Pagan’s splits last year, there was just a huge lefty-righty difference (.603 vs .714 OPS), it wasn’t an issue of healthy or not, Pagan just couldn’t hit from the left side. But I know that Bochy doesn’t think that way.
I think this is exactly right. Parker looks like if he spent much time in the Show, the MLB pitcher gravevine would take maybe a month or so to find umpteen holes in his big swing and he’d soon be off to Japan. He could be Bubba Watson except the friggin’ ball keeps moving.
Williamson looks a solid (in almost every sense) journeyman, but to get serious: the Giants sent Arroyo to the AZ fall league and that has meaning: and he batted over .300 with a .360 OBP, plus he can field. Sure it’s the minors, but he’s freakin’ TWENTY. Players that age who hits like he does stand pretty good chances of going to a decent number of All-Star Games.
I realize this was an article about the Giants, but man, the Phillies are terrible
However, the Braves are planning to give the Phillies a battle for that first pick in 2017. The Braves almost stole that 2016 pick from the Phillies in September.
Philles farm is quite excellent.
If the year was on the calendar was 2009, then yes is would be
a good farm and the Phillies would be set to keep going.
It’s almost 2016 and the farm is just about the entire Phillies franchise. The farm and Maikel Franco.
That’s not much.
They can improve net contributions by better deploying the assets that they already have on the roster (or MiLC with NRI, in the case of Blanks).
Move Belt to LF full-time (with spot starts from Blanks against LHP), Posey to 1B full-time, platoon Blanco and Pagan in CF, and start Susac at C.
Susac getting 500+ PA provides better production than Pagan and Parker being pseudo-regulars. Posey likely gets a boast offensively from playing a less demanding position (and certainly picks up 50-100 extra PA from having to rest less often). The only question is whether Belt’s defense in LF is off-set by Pagan playing CF less often.
I don’t really see Span/Fowler/Jackson as much of an upgrade over a Blanco/Pagan platoon in CF, at least not one that is worth the likely cost of one of those FAs. Unless Jackson comes really cheap on a pillow contract, in which case he makes a better RH platoon-mate than Pagan or Blanks, but I don’t know that he’s a clear upgrade as a full-time player.
The wildcard is Blanco. The main questions is whether he can continue to be a 1.5-2 win player who can handle CF. If so, then I don’t know that the Giants really need another outfielder so long they’re willing to reposition Belt and Posey.
The Giants aren’t willing to reposition Posey and Belt nor should they be. Posey is on a HOF career track as a catcher and has no interest in moving, and Belt is one of the better young cost-controlled 1B in the game coming off his 2nd 4+ WAR season in the past 3 years. Why would you move both to create more PAs for Susac when Susac doesn’t project to be any better at the plate than Pagan or Parker (all projected between 89-97 wRC+ per Steamer) and when you would be creating defensive downgrades simultaneously at 3 positions (C, 1B, and LF)? Wouldn’t the much simpler answer if it comes to it be to just trade Susan for an OF?
“Posey is on a HOF career track as a catcher and has no interest in moving”
That is incorrect. Moving Posey to first eventually has been discussed for several years now. The question is whether to do it a year or two too early or a year or two too late–when “too late” means after another catastrophic injury. Lowering the likelihood of a serious (potentially even career-ending) injury to Posey is the primary benefit of repositioning the Giants as I’ve laid out.
“Belt is one of the better young cost-controlled 1B in the game coming off his 2nd 4+ WAR season in the past 3 year”
He would continue to be a very valuable asset in LF.
“Why would you move both to create more PAs for Susac when Susac doesn’t project to be any better at the plate than Pagan or Parker (all projected between 89-97 wRC+ per Steamer)”
1) Susac’s projection is pretty pessimistic;
2) Parker’s projection is pretty optimistic;
3) Pagan’s overall line will look better if he’s deployed (more appropriately) as a platoon partner against LHP than as a pseudo-regular; and
4) the other major benefit is limiting Pagan’s innings in CF, where he is a defensive liability.
“when you would be creating defensive downgrades simultaneously at 3 positions (C, 1B, and LF)?”
Belt is a defensive downgrade from Blanco certainly, and probably Parker. I don’t see any evidence that going from Belt to Posey at 1B or Posey to Susac at catcher would represent a significant change in either direction.
“Wouldn’t the much simpler answer if it comes to it be to just trade Susan for an OF?”
That’s another option and one that the Giants should explore if they are less concerned about Posey’s health than I am.
Susac’s projects are skewed by his poor hitting in 2015 when he had wrist problems so severe that he eventually had to get surgery to fix it. Assuming he’s healthy, and all indications are that he is, his projections after the 2014 season is probably closer to the truth than this projection that blindly assumes he’ll have wrist problems to the same severe degree as he did in 2015.
Studies have shown that Posey is one of the best pitch framers in the majors, adding a lot of value through the strikes he “steals” for his pitchers, and there is no evaluation I’ve seen that says that Susac is as good a framer as Posey, so I would disagree, strongly, with your assertion that switching to Susac at C would not hurt defensively. According to this, he saved roughly 1.5 wins (15.2 RAA) over the average catcher, more if there is an adjustment for replacement level (don’t know if that is done for defense or not; should though, since do that for hitters, and I think for pitchers). Susac was roughly at 1.8 RAA, so Buster is 13.4 RAA ahead of him, or 1.3 wins. And Buster is considered a pretty good defensive catcher beyond framing, so Susac would need to be that much better to catch up on his deficit in pitch framing.
And some would make him MVP for it: http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/newsstand/discussion/buster_poseys_pitch_framing_makes_him_a_potential_mvp_fivethirtyeight
And while I would love to encase Posey in carbonite and never let him catch again, he loves catching enough to keep on doing it. The research is that defense declines gently as the C enters 30, and he’s 29 next season, but that a career ending decline will come in the early 30’s (see Yadier’s 2015), so I have to think the plan is to prep Susac to take over (and he was positive in framing in 2014, vs. negative in 2013) in a couple of years or so.
Plus, defensively, for some odd reason, Belt is wonderful at 1B but quite bad in LF.
Aviato, why is that odd? Belt is a 1B. Don’t you think most 1B would be pretty terrible in LF?
The Giants have had been unusually lucky with their 1B in the OF experiments over recent years (Huff, Morse, Ishikawa, Belt) but I don’t think that’s anything they should want to press. If they did decide to move Posey full time to 1B and they really wanted to turn Belt into an OF then they’d be far better off trading him for a real one.
I’m just saying that Belt is quite possibly the best defensive 1B in the NL. As such, most casual fans, like walt526 above, would assume that he could at least play a passable LF. He can’t though. At all, really. Perhaps that’s just odd to me.
At some stage they’re going to have to move Posey. No one keeps catching their whole career unless their career is significantly shorter than Posey’s is going to be. Aside from this, although Posey’s a great defensive catcher, his career OPS is 42 points higher when he plays first (presumably because his mind is less distracted when he’s batting). The problem is that Susac was lousy last year (and he’s much worse defensively than Posey). His WAR was 0.0. At some stage they’re going to have to get a serious catcher to replace Posey so that he can move to first. That time could in principle come in two years when Belt becomes a free agent and something has to give (if they sign him, he’ll have to move to the outfield eventually to make space for Posey, if they don’t, they’ll need a catcher right away to replace Posey).
Re: “presumably because his mind is less distracted when he’s batting”
I am fairly confident it has more to do with physical workload of demanded of catchers as opposed to mental distractions. Also while not extremely so, Posey does get more AB at 1B vs LHP than RHP
Posey’s OPS as a 1B is higher because he gets more of his starts at 1B vs. LHP (so that Bochy can rest Belt at the same time for platoon reasons) and because Posey for his career has always destroyed lefties. If you made him the every day 1B vs. RHP also you’d see that positional OPS difference disappear pretty quickly.
Hmm, I can’t figure out how to get those stats on Fangraphs, do you know how to do this?
Splits within splits are not easy to find. I’m not really going that as much as from my own knowledge as a Giants fan watching all the games. As soon as I see a starting lineup with Posey at 1B and Belt out I assume a lefty is starting for the other team and more often than not that is the case. Which of course makes perfect sense when you look at their splits. Versus righties there is basically no advantage to subbing Posey for Belt (so why not just give Posey the day off if he needs a break from catching?) whereas vs. lefties there is a huge one. So it’s only natural that Posey’s positional OPS difference is going to reflect that.
And btw most HOF catchers do in fact catch their entire careers. So I don’t buy at all this notion that it’s inevitable that Posey has to be moved. I don’t think he wants to, and barring an injury that gives him no choice I don’t think he’s ever going to. Which I believe makes the entire discussion on this moot.
any idea why is steamer so down on pence? last 3 yrs wOBA:
2013: .356, 2014: .341, 2015: .347
for 2016 steamer projects .328 and 2.3 WAR in 600PA
if they projected fewer PA I would get that, but shouldn’t pence be projected for 3-3.5 WAR?
steamer is also down on crawford (.298 wOBA in 550PA) but that I understand since 2015 was so much better offensively than his track record.
Do they assume worse production after an injury (other than fewer games/PAs)? wRC+ looks a tad low even after assuming some aging I think, and Hunter probably over performed in recent past on defense unless we think he actually gained a ton of range at age 30.
Maybe I missed it…..but as bad as Pagan was offensively, he may have been worse defensively and I didn’t notice any comments about it. I don’t quite get why the Giants are so firmly in his camp as the leadoff hiting center fielder again. He was truly awful last year! And by the way, I’m a Giants fan, hardcore…and I hope the next person talking about even years and championships ends up in an outhouse that’s run into by a tractor trailer. Just channelling my inner George Carlin.
There’s clearly some psychological problem here. It makes no sense if the purpose of the team is to win. My feeling based on no clear evidence is that people on the Giants are afraid of the psychological effect being benched will have on Pagan (he’ll be more devastated than the average player would be) and the psychological effect which his reaction would have on the team.
Pagan was awesome after he came back from the DL in September: he slashed .282/.353/.437 with 3 hr and 6 sb and looked fine in the field. I was paying attention because I grabbed him as a desperation-move waiver wire pickup in a very deep lf/cf/rf fantasy league (the kind where you just need anyone who’s playing every day) and he basically won me the title (with an assist from Tommy Pham).
Just saying that with a player like Pagan it’s always about managing injuries and if he’s capable they’ll run him out there and he may even do well, he’s remade his career before, and as mentioned above it’s a contract year for him.
Mike Trout is projected for more wins alone than 25 teams’ outfields.
G-Men are going to get Cespedes. He loves SF, even lived there when he played for The Crimeland Athletics. Mark my word, Cespedes will sign with the Giants and they will will their 4th ring.
great fit! too bad we don’t have the money to sign him.