…because you come here for the super clever post titles. No one has ever played off of the Melk/milk thing before, right?

Melky Cabrera is at it again. After a disastrous 2010 season in Atlanta, the Melk-Man (BOOM! It’s like MILK-Man, get it?) bounced back for a career year with the Royals in 2011. He was a good bet to regress, right? The Royals, who had Lorenzo Cain on deck, traded Cabrera to the Giants for much-needed pitching help in the form of one Jonathan Sanchez. So, how’s that going? It actually seemed like a fair need-for-need trade at the time, but while Sanchez has crashed, burned, and gotten hurt in Kansas City, Cabrera has been on fire in San Francisco. He’s been so good so far this season, that the team is reportedly already considering an in-season extension. Is Cabrera a different player than he used to be? How much would a reasonable extension be?

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Right-hander Ryan Vogelsong proved to be one of the feel-good stories of the year in 2011.

The 34-year-old owned an unsightly career 5.86 ERA through 315 major-league innings with the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates coming into the 2011 season. He then seemingly flipped a switch and handcuffed the league with a 2.71 ERA and 3.67 FIP over 179.2 innings for the Giants and became a key part of their starting rotation.

That success has trickled into the 2012 season. Vogelsong tossed 7.1 innings against the Dodgers on Tuesday evening, surrendering only one run on eight scattered hits and one strikeout. That lowered his season ERA to 2.94 and his FIP to 3.51, both of which are better than average in the National League thus far in 2012.

Moving forward, though, this rags-to-riches story has some significant hurdles to overcome.

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Led by Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval, the San Francisco Giants offense has actually been decent this year. Their 95 wRC+ ranks them 8th in the National League, thanks in large part to the contributions of Buster Posey (.342/.400/.575) and Pablo Sandoval (.316/.375/.537). Melky Cabrera has been good, and the team has gotten production from the Brandon Belt/Brett Pill platoon when they’ve played, but the offense has been driven by the consistent thumping of Posey and Sandoval.

Their depth is about to be tested, however, as Hank Schulman is reporting that Sandoval has a broken hamate bone in his wrist. He had this same issue last year – only this year, it’s the other hand – and he missed 41 games over six weeks while recovering from the injury.

The effects of the injury seemed to linger even after he returned, however. Here are his monthly wRC+ splits from last year:

April: 147
May: DL
June: 77
July: 149
August: 124
September: 209

Hand and wrist injuries are notorious power sappers, and Sandoval had just five extra base hits in 70 plate appearances in June. His power returned in the second half, and he was one of the best hitters in baseball down the stretch, so this shouldn’t derail him for the whole season, but if last year is any indicator of how the injury will affect him, this will likely be a problem for him until the All-Star break.

So, for the next couple of months, the Giants are going to have to get their offense elsewhere. Conor Gillaspie is expected to be recalled to take his place on the roster, but the Giants might need to look outside the organization for additional help. Perhaps the logical place to look would be for a player who can play both third base and shortstop, giving them the flexibility of replacing Brandon Crawford with the new acquisition once Sandoval returns. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ned Colletti was already on the phone offering Juan Uribe back to the Giants…

Yesterday, it took Los Angeles Dodgers manager Clint Hurdle Don Mattingly* approximately 40 seconds — depending on where you start and stop your timer — to argue The Worst Call of the Season. Meanwhile, in St. Louis, it took the umpiring crew about 2 minutes and 50 seconds to gather in the infield, discuss Carlos Beltran’s hit, reconvene in their underground video review chamber, and then return to announce a home run.

* All white guys look the same to me.

Getting the calls wrong in baseball takes time. Managers — depending on their personality, the game situation, and the offense — take different amounts of time arguing both bad and good calls. The arguing, for the most part, exists because of uncertainty. My lip-reading skills inform me most arguments follow this general pattern:

Manager: “Did you really see X event?”

Umpire: “Most certainly did I see X event.”

Manager: “That statement you just made right there is tantamount to the excrement of bovines.”

Umpire: “You are ejected.”

Recent evidence suggests, however, that despite these conflicts resulting from close calls, instant replays still take more time than good ol’ fashioned shout-spittin’ matches.

Evidence furthermore suggests that in the time it takes to get in a healthy workout, a normal person could empty approximately ten Squeeze Cheese cans directly into his or her porcine gullet.

Which is to say: Quicker is not always better.

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Way out in the National League West, the much-mocked Barry Zito and the much-debated Trevor Cahill are both off to good starts. Both players got their starts with the Oakland As before moving the to National League. Of more interest is that both players have, at different times, been held up as examples of pitchers for whom DIPS stats like FIP are inadequate. Without getting into lengthy discussions of each pitcher or the whole debate about DIPS (of which FIP is just one variety), let’s take a look at Zito and Cahill’s early-season performances with a glance at their past performances and see if there is anything of interest.

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“Without a mustache, a man must make a name for himself with a bat.”
–Ghandi

Since time forever, Chicago Cubs broadcaster Bob Brenly has joked good-humor’dly about how terrible a hitter he was. For years, I had just taken him at his word, assumed that Bob Brenly was the worst worst hitter ever — a hitter whose home runs came on windy days, whose singles bounced ten times before leaving the infield, and whose walks came only on failed beanings.

But that is simply not true. Recently Mr. Brenly remarked he wanted to see an advanced stat that said he was a good hitter. I’ll give him three.
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In the top of the fifth of what became an extra-inning win last Friday night, the Giants were ahead a run. Barry Zito was 100 pitches in and had been lucky to escape the top of the fifth with one run after he allowed two singles, a walk and a home run. Manager Bruce Bochy therefore sent the team’s best available right-handed hitter to the plate to pinch hit for his starter.

Matt Cain.

In the top of the ninth inning of what became a walk-off loss last Saturday night, the Giants needed any run they could get. Once Terry Collins put the Mets’ best left-hander on the mound, Tim Byrdak, lefty Brandon Crawford didn’t perhaps provide the Giants with their best chance. Bruce Bochy sent one of his two remaining right-handed hitters to the plate — backup catcher Hector Sanchez. The Giants ended up tying the game, and needed a middle infielder with Crawford out. With Manny Burriss already in the game, Bruce Bochy moved Burriss to shortstop and put his best remaining option at second base.

Aubrey Huff.

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Ivan Rodriguez is reportedly slated to announce his retirement from baseball today. There will be much written about his impressive career, and much of it will focus on whether or not he will get into the Hall of Fame, even though his numbers pretty obviously warrant it. Personally, I think that sidesteps the issue of how such a great player had not one but two lame nicknames: “Pudge,” which would not be so bad if it had not already been used; and “I-Rod,” which involved the incredibly annoying “first initial-first syllable” lazy nicknaming thing. It makes it hard to give this post a decent title.

Rather than looking at a career overview, let’s focus on a few particular moments: Rodriguez’ three biggest in-game hits according to Win Probability Added (WPA).

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Last night, in the eleventh inning of a scoreless, priceless piece of pitching between the Giants and Phillies, Brandon Belt came to the plate with one out. The situation was surprising. Here was the left-handed Opening Day first baseman, then platoon caddy backup first baseman, then bench piece — coming in against a left-handed reliever with the game on the line.

The results turned out well for the Baby Giraffe and the Giants — his single started the game-winning rally — but the moment itself brought to mind all the anti-Belt arguments that have been thrown the first baseman’s way over the past two seasons.

In some ways, these reasons given for his lack of playing time represent straw men. We weren’t in the front office, or the dugout, or next to the batting cage, when they were proffered by his coaching staff or front office suit. Each of those arguments was relevant in that eleventh-inning at-bat, however. Unraveling the twine that holds them together seems to produce even more straw men, but the overall picture becomes clear as each single argument gets cloudier.

Is there really any good reason to keep Brandon Belt from regular playing time?

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After getting drilled for four runs in the first inning by the Phillies last night, the ever-growing worry surrounding Tim Lincecum reached a fever pitch. As Chris Cwik noted last week, his velocity continues to trend downwards in a pretty dramatic fashion, and he’s now getting hit on a regular basis while throwing 90 MPH fastballs. The combination of diminished velocity and poor performance are assumed to be signs of a larger problem. As the theory goes, they might not be conclusive by themselves, but together, they suggest that there’s something seriously wrong.

History, however, suggests that jumping to that kind of conclusion may very well be premature.

Tim Lincecum is not the first pitcher to start the season without his best fastball, and he’s not the first pitcher to get hit hard while showing reduced velocity. To look at how predictive previous situations have turned out to be, I went back to our monthly leaderboards starting in 2008 and looked for situations where a pitcher posted high BABIP and/or HR/FB rates in April while also showing significantly reduced velocity, and yet had posted BB/K/GB numbers that suggested that they were still capable of getting Major League hitters out. In other words, pitchers who were pitching like Lincecum is now. Here’s what I found.

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