The World Champion San Francisco Giants
The last WPA graph of the 2012 season.
Source: FanGraphs
Congratulations on a fantastic season to the Giants organization, their players, and their fans.
Archive for Giants
Ryan Vogelsong and the Pitches that Won the Game
You think of the Tigers and first and foremost you think of Justin Verlander, Prince Fielder, and Miguel Cabrera. You think of the Tigers on a day that Verlander isn’t pitching and you think of Fielder and Cabrera. There are other guys on the roster — lots of them! — and some of them are good, but Fielder and Cabrera are the big offensive guns. They’re the players the Tigers most want in the spotlight in important situations.
The Tigers lost Game 3 of the World Series on Saturday, and now they have to win four in a row if they want to take the title. They lost not because the Giants lit them up, but rather because they very much didn’t light the Giants up. The story right now, depending on your perspective, is either the Giants’ run prevention or the Tigers’ miserable run production, and Saturday saw the Tigers blow what opportunities they generated. Worse, opportunities were blown by both Fielder and Cabrera. The Tigers got the bats they wanted up in the situations they wanted, and still they got shut out by Ryan Vogelsong and the San Francisco bullpen.
Marco Scutaro and the Curious Take
Let’s face it: try as you might, you can’t really help the things that stick with you. What I remember most vividly from visiting the Acropolis so many years ago is an Offspring song I was listening to. What I remember most about attending a Montreal Canadiens home game is the in-arena Youppi! exhibit. And something I can’t shake from Thursday night’s Game 2 of the World Series is a fastball that was taken by Marco Scutaro for strike three in the bottom of the eighth. Plenty of things happened in the game and Scutaro’s at-bat was of little ultimate consequence, but I keep seeing that pitch over and over. Forgive me, but now I’m going to write about it.
I think I’ve established that I have something of a fascination for Marco Scutaro, and how difficult it is to get him to swing and miss. At no point on Thursday did Scutaro swing and miss — he hardly ever does — but he did strike out, and that’s also weird, if less so. Weirder still was how he struck out. Dave Cameron expressed surprise, too, in the live chat, so I know I’m not the only one. Let’s review the events.
Madison Bumgarner Not Outstanding, Yet Outstanding
For a while, there was every reason to believe the Giants would look forward to having Madison Bumgarner start in the playoffs. Bumgarner was a very good starting pitcher, and teams like to have very good starting pitchers start for them come playoff time. Then Bumgarner started to wear down, or — if you don’t like that explanation — Bumgarner just started pitching a lot worse. His repertoire got worse, his results got worse, and there was a question of whether Bumgarner would start at all in the World Series. He was ultimately given the start in Game 2, but nobody really knew what to expect. The Giants had talked about a promising mechanical tweak, but Bumgarner was still coming off some lousy performances at the wrong times.
So, naturally, Bumgarner was terrific Thursday night. His box-score results, at least, were terrific, and though it was thanks to an impressive relay that Bumgarner managed to keep the Tigers completely off the board, even a slightly worse performance might’ve meant a Giants loss. Instead, in large part thanks to Bumgarner, the Giants hold a commanding series lead as everybody transitions to Michigan. Bruce Bochy, they say, can’t do any wrong right now. Everything he touches turns to figurative, strategic gold.
Barry Bonds and the 2002 World Series
Ten years ago tomorrow, Barry Bonds went 1-for-3 with a walk in Game Seven of the 2002 World Series against the Anaheim Angels. It was the first time since Game One that Bonds failed to reach base at least three times. The Giants lost 4-1.
Bonds’s ravaging run through the 2002 postseason was mesmerizing. Through 10 games in the first two playoff rounds, Bonds homered four times and walked 14 more; he carried a .286/.500/.786 playoff line into the World Series.
The Two Doug Fisters
The big mystery in Thursday night’s Game 2 of the World Series is what the Giants might get from the struggling Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner posted strong overall numbers this year, but he seemed to wear down. Now the Giants say they’ve worked on a mechanical tweak and he should be more effective. It’s certainly intriguing, although one recalls that the Tigers said they worked on a mechanical tweak with Jose Valverde, and then Valverde did what he did in Game 1. Sometimes it’s nonsense. Sometimes it’s not nonsense, but it doesn’t make much of a difference. It’s a mystery, basically, again.
Less of a mystery is what the Tigers might get from Doug Fister. As Justin Verlander and Barry Zito have established, there’s always mystery when you’re talking about individual starts, but Fister is more of a known entity at the moment than Bumgarner is. Fister’s just a guy who’s quietly become one of the better right-handed starting pitchers in all of baseball. As bad as the Tigers might feel about losing a Verlander start, they have the consolation of knowing the rest of their starting rotation is really good, too.
Pablo Sandoval and Hittable Pitches
I think my favorite fun fact Wednesday night came from Sam Miller on Twitter. The Giants, of course, hit only 31 home runs at home all season long, far and away the fewest in baseball. Only three Giants players hit at least three. Granted, those totals were seven, seven, and five — not three, three, and three — but this provided some context. It was more or less within this context that Pablo Sandoval went deep three consecutive times to start off Game 1 of the World Series. And he did it in late October in a game started by Justin Verlander. Maybe a little more impressive than Albert Pujols homering three times in a playoff game in Texas in a game started by Matt Harrison. Apparently I’ve decided to support Sandoval’s performance by denigrating other, similar performances.
In a game where the story was supposed to be about the mismatch between Verlander and Barry Zito, it was Sandoval who completely stole the show, and it was Sandoval who seemed to get Joe Buck legitimately excited with dinger number three. He hit one out to center, he hit one out to left, and then he hit one out to center again. Sandoval would finish 4-for-4, singling off Jose Valverde, but if anything, considering the rest of the night, Valverde successfully kept Sandoval in check. It might’ve been the highlight of Valverde’s Game 1 appearance.
Justin Verlander’s Location Problem
Headed into last night, the Tigers were the favorites to win the World Series in large part because they had Justin Verlander, and people tend to favor teams who have ace starters in the playoffs. Last night, however, Justin Verlander did not pitch like an ace, and the Giants jumped on him for five runs in four innings of work – as many as he’d allowed in his previous seven starts combined.
So, what went wrong for Verlander last night? At the risk of oversimplification, his problems can essentially be traced to two factors:
1. Bad location
2. Good hitting
Does Lincecum Have A Future In The Bullpen?
Tim Lincecum pitched out of the bullpen again for San Francisco in their Game One victory over the Tigers. It’s starting to feel natural. Perhaps it’s because the Lincecum we’ve seen out of the bullpen bears a much starker resemblance to the Lincecum of lore than the one we’ve seen out of the rotation this season.
After rolling through 2.1 perfect innings (including five strikeouts) in Game One, Lincecum now owns a 0.84 ERA and 0.75 FIP out of the pen thanks to this fantastic line:
10.2 IP, 3 H, 0 HR, 1 R, 1 ER, 14 K, 1 BB
With Lincecum’s lone start a dud — 4.2 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 K in the Game Four NLCS loss to St. Louis — it’s time to ask the question (again): Does Tim Lincecum belong in the bullpen?
Barry Zito’s Cumulative Value After Those Gems
by Eno Sarris
October 25, 2012
Barry Zito hasn’t been worth the $99 million that the Giants have paid him since he signed his seven-year, $126-million contact in 2007. Obvious, maybe, since the contract is the bogeyman of pitcher contracts. But could you change assumptions about some of his value over the contract so far and make the 34-year-old lefty worth almost as much as nine figures? Especially after his last two postseason starts?