There was a great deal of hand wringing among Giants fans during the offseason about what the team should do at shortstop. The incumbent, as it were, is Brandon Crawford, who jumped from Single A to the majors in 2011 after Pablo Sandoval broke the hamate bone in his right hand in late April, shifting Miguel Tejada over to third base. Tejada didn’t produce at the plate no matter where he played in the field and was cut in late August. In 220 plate appearances, Crawford posted a paltry .204/.288/.296 but showed value in his glove, recording 6 Defensive Runs Saved in 500+ innings.

Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins were available free agents shortstops. Fans were split on whether the Giants should pursue either one, or both, and if so, for how long and for what kind of money. Never mind the fans, though. Reports suggest the Giants front office never considered a serious offer to either Reyes or Rollins, although they tried to get Willie Bloomquist and thought about bringing back Edgar Renteria. Neither (thankfully) came to fruition.

All the noise over shortstop, however, may have obscured an equally pressing need for the Giants at second base. Freddy Sanchez is in the second year of a two-year deal with the Giants, after joining the team mid-2009 in a trade from the Pittsburgh Pirates. And while Sanchez has been moderately effective when he’s played, he’s had one injury after another, missing big chunks of time.

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Oakland was dealt a moderate blow this month when third baseman Scott Sizemore went down with a season-ending ACL injury. Our very own Jack Moore looked at some of the implications yesterday. With limited depth at the position, as noted by Jack, the A’s now are scrambling to find a replacement and the obvious options are not that enticing. The search may not be all that difficult or hopeless, though, since a cost-effective option can be found in nearby San Francisco.

Conor Gillaspie, 24, was a supplemental first round draft pick (37th overall) in 2008 — the same draft that saw the club acquire catcher Buster Posey with the fifth-overall selection. With 25-year-old Pablo Sandoval, already manning the Giants’ hot corner, Gillaspie is an afterthought who’s set to spend a second straight season at triple-A.

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Athletes that I would call both “fast” and “huge” are relatively common in football. I will try not to embarrass myself by talking about football at length, but take a guy like the 49ers’ Vernon Davis — a very fast tight end who weighs around 250 pounds. Some baseball players are that heavy and heavier, but they are not known as “fast” players. That is obviously connected to the different skills required for “game speed” in the respective sports.

Like many fans, I find “big-boned” baseball players quite entertaining. For example, Adrian Gonzalez and Pablo Sandoval are both wonderful players. Overall, Adrian Gonzalez is probably superior, objectively speaking. However, subjectively, I would much rather watch Pablo Sandoval, and I would be lying if I said that his “body type” had nothing to do with it.

While special events sometimes happen, the big guys in baseball rarely pull off “speed moves,” especially the main move — the stolen base. Leaving the (obvious and no-so-obvious) reasons for this aside, I thought it would be fun to look at the the top stolen base seasons by “big-boned” players in baseball history.

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Our braintrust is hard at work identifying the game’s best pitches for all of your February needs. Now it’s time to uncover some of the worst pitches in the game — with as little snark as possible. Because even the worst pitch in the big leagues is way, way better than most of us can manage. And if a pitcher owns a pitch on this list, they must be doing something else right in order to remain in the big leagues. Either that, or they’re not long for the bigs.

At least identifying poor pitches can be a useful and enjoyable exercise. And you’re supposed to do thirty minutes of that every day, so that’s an extra benefit for us.

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Prospects have never been trendier amongst baseball fans than they are right now. The MLB Draft is now televised, most baseball blogs and online publications now publish at least a Top 10 Prospects list for each organization, and struggling fan bases such as that of the Kansas City Royals have begun to see their attendance rise as their prized minor leaguers begin to reach the majors.

The same can be said for their popularity within major league organizations, too.

Teams have begun pouring so much money into the draft that the new CBA contains specific limitations to curb the spending spree. Teams now often value control years more than overall talent and have become extremely cautious in parting with top prospects to acquire proven talent. This generalization goes for both big-market and small-market franchises, too, which is something that was not often said in previous years.

Which teams have benefited most from homegrown talent in recent years? Which teams have drafted amateur players and developed them into major league talent the best?

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It is a simple question.

What is sabermetrics?

Not the history of it, but what is it, right now? What is, in our nerdiest of lingoes, its derivative? Where is it pointing? What does it do?

Last Tuesday I created no little stir when I listed the 2012 saber teams, delineating them according to their perceived embrace of modern sabermetrics.

Today, I recognize I needed to take a step back and first define sabermetrics, because it became obvious quickly I did not have the same definition at heart as some of the readers and protesters who gathered outside my apartment.

I believe, and this is my belief — as researcher and a linguist — that sabermetrics is not statistics. The term itself has come to — or needs to — describe more than just on-base percentage, weighted runs created plus, fielding independent pitching, and wins above replacement.

Sabermetrics is the advanced study of baseball, not the burying of one’s head in numbers.
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Silly monkey, BRAINS ARE FOR ZOMBIES.

Casey Kotchman is in many ways a man without a home — a player equal parts under-appreciated and over-valued, who irks both old and new schools at the same time. Old school analysts say his defense is amazing, but they cannot quantify it, and in 2011, they claimed his cleared vision meant he finally learned how to aim the ball “where they ain’t,” but he’s still a .268 hitter with little power. The new school says he’s worth about 7.6 runs per season defensively, but worth ~1.1 WAR per 600 PAs — not good — and his BABIP was high 2011, so he should not be able to repeat his success.

Despite his inability to build a consistent following of fans in the baseball outsiders communities, Kotchman seems to have some insider communities very much interested in him, as Tom Tango points out:

Kotchman’s last four teams: Redsox, Mariners, Rays, Indians. Can we say that a team that signs Kotchman is saber-leaning?

Indeed, after spending five and a half seasons on the Angels’ and Braves’ rosters, Kotchman has begun to shuffle around with the Nerdz, most recently signing with the Cleveland Indians. It makes sense too — Kotchman’s lack of power keeps him cheap, and his strong defense keeps him amorphous for the old school teams, while the new schools might have different valuations on Kotchman, they can at least quantify his contributions and better know how he fits.

Then, on Monday, the Houston Astros signed Justin Ruggiano, long-time Tampa Bay Rays outfielder who was never good enough to stick on the Rays’ roster, but who possesses strong defensive chops and above average patience. His lack of power and ~.290 batting average, however, must make him a mystery — or at least an undesirable asset — to the old school teams.

Upon Ruggiano signing with the Astros, a once highly old school team, my reaction was all: “Welp, that’s one more team to compete with” — and then it occurred to me! No only have the Astros entered the realm of, so to speak, saber-minded organizations, but so have the long-backward Chicago Cubs.

Suddenly the league looks very different.

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For those of us who do not watch the transaction wire, anxiously awaiting the Tampa Bay Rays’ next acquisition (I say “us” as a matter of formality, for by the mere presence of this article we can ascertain I am not among those abstainers), last night the Tampa Bay Rays came to terms (terms yet-revealed) with infielder Jeff Keppinger.

The former Houston Astros / San Francisco Giants middle man has already a full litany of research on him. My double-colleague Erik Hahmann (Fangraphs and DRaysBay) examined Kepp and his similarity to also-targeted Ryan Theriot; Marc Topkin — after the signing broke — said “lefty mashaz!” (so to speak); Rob Neyer said “don’t forget he can’t hit righties”; and then Jason Collette said: “Let’s regress those platoon splits.”

Ultimately, the final question must be this: How is Jeff Keppinger — who seemingly shares the same strengths as Sean Rodriguez — in anyway useful to the club?

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Tim Lincecum has done more than enough during his career to merit a big contract. But after reportedly turning down a five-year offer worth “at least $100 million” — and instead opting for a two-year, $40.5 million extension with the San Francisco Giants — it appears Lincecum will wait to sign that huge free-agent deal. Lincecum has been one of the best starters in baseball since his debut — winning back-to-back National League Cy Young awards in his first two full seasons — and he’s definitely in line for a big payday. But given pitchers’ unpredictability, Lincecum’s decision to play the free-agent market could come back to haunt him.

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A year ago, the San Francisco Giants were coming off a shocking World Series victory. A curious side story was that the 2010 season was disappointing on an individual level for their young third baseman Pablo Sandoval, who ended up getting benched in the playoffs to make room for the likes of Juan Uribe and Edgar Renteria. A post-World Series picture of Sandoval settling down in front of a massive ice cream sundae did little to ease concerns about his weight issues. With the leverage of having won the Series “without him,” the team basically ordered him to get his conditioning under control.

Fast forward to this week: while the Giants failed to make the 2011 playoffs, Sandoval himself is coming off of a great “bounce back” season. The same team that seemed to have so many concerns about Sandoval just a year ago, bought out his arbitration years with a three-year, $17.15 million contract. Are the Giants getting a steal or taking on risk unnecessarily?

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