Archive for San Francisco Giants

Prior to tonight‘s game, Octavio Dotel stated the obvious. Asked about his team trailing the World Series two-games-to-none, the Tigers reliever said, “We need to win tonight.”

They didn’t win, and that puts them on the brink. With a 2-0 victory behind the pitching of Ryan Vogelsong, Tim Lincecum and Sergio Romo, the Giants are now one game away from the franchise’s seventh title. It would be the seventh time the Tigers have advanced to the World Series and fallen short.

Vogelsong’s performance wasn’t artistic, but it was historic. In 1937, the Yankees captured the first three games of the World Series with their starting pitchers earning wins while allowing one run or less. The Giants became the second team to turn the trick, with Barry Zito, Madison Bumgarner and Vogelsong doing the honors.

It isn’t like the Tigers didn’t have their chances. They threatened in the first inning, but Prince Fielder grounded into an inning-ending double play with two runners on. It has been a frustrating postseason for the well-compensated slugger. He has one hit in 10 World Series at bats after going just 4-for-17 in the ALCS and 4-for-21 in the ALDS.

In the third inning, rookie Quintin Berry grounded into a two-on, inning-ending double play. In the fifth inning, the Tigers loaded the bases only to have Berry strike out and Miguel Cabrera pop to shortstop. Cabrera has reached base in all 23 games he has played in a Detroit uniform, but in one of the key at bats of the Series he was bested by a pitcher who didn‘t have his best stuff The Giants right-hander allowed nine base runners in five-and-two-third innings. None scored.

“We had him on the ropes a few times,” said Tigers manager Jim Leyland after the game. “We just couldn’t get the killer blow.”

The Giants offense did just enough. In the second inning, Gregor Blanco tripled in a run and proceeded to score on a bloop single by Brandon Crawford. Blanco is now 5-for-8 lifetime against Tigers starter Anibal Sanchez, including a pair of three-baggers.

“He just threw me a pitch to hit and I was able to do some damage with it,” said Blanco. “But to tell you the truth, this was just one game. Tomorrow, after 27 outs, if we win, then we’ll celebrate. Until that happens, we have to maintain our focus.”

Sanchez, who fanned eight over seven strong innings, showed plenty of focus in becoming just the third Venezuelan-born pitcher to start a World Series game [Freddy Garcia and Les Straker are the others]. He deserved a better fate, but his teammates have suddenly become as offensively-anemic as the Yankees were in the ALCS. The Tigers have now gone 18 innings without scoring and have crossed the plate in just two of the last 27.

The Giants, meanwhile, are on a roll. Bruce Bochy’s team has not only pitched shutouts in three of the last four games, they haven’t trailed in 54 innings. Barring a reversal of fortune, they’re poised to close out the Series. If the Tiger are to prevent that from happening, they have one choice.

“The key for us is to win tomorrow,” said Fielder. “And then the next day and the next day and the next day. We can’t lose.”

As you know by now, Melky Cabrera failed a drug test and was suspended for 50 games yesterday for using synthetic testosterone during the best season of his career. Cabrera will miss the rest of the Giants’ regular season, but he’s already been worth 4.5 WAR to the Giants, and some people within the game are grumbling that a mere 50 game suspension isn’t enough of a deterrent to prevent ballplayers from taking performance-enhancing drugs. If it isn’t an effective deterrent, is it an adequate punishment?

Kirk Gibson, the manager of the Diamondbacks, was outspoken yesterday. “Obviously, there’s not a big enough deterrent if it continues,” he told the Arizona Republic. “I think it should be a minimum of a year (for a first positive) and after that it should just be banned.” So what kind of suspension would adequately deter players from using banned drugs?
Read the rest of this entry »

San Francisco’s front office may have a spotty record when it comes to trades and the free-agent market, but the same can’t be said of their efforts in amateur scouting and player development. The Giants have a solid core of homegrown talent — with reinforcements on the way — and in recent years much of the credit goes to John Barr. A member of the Professional Baseball Scouts Hall of Fame, Barr has been in charge of the Giants’ drafts since 2008.

——

Barr on draft philosophy and trends: “This is what I’ve focused on for 28 years of my life. I’ve been in involved in the draft — and have been in the draft room — every year since 1985.

“From a standpoint of changes over that time… let me first say that you still have to draft good players and they have to be mentally and physically ready to go out. You’re still trying to draft the best players, because you’re trying to add value to your organization. That allows your general manager to have the flexibility to either decide to continue the development of that player — and then have him go to the big leagues for you — or put him in a trade to bring back talent. You can’t draft solely on what the major-league team may need, because that need will change over time as players go through the system.

“That said, there are trends [in the industry]. Read the rest of this entry »

A handful of Hall of Famers were in attendance at the Dallas Hilton Anatole when it was announced that Ron Santo would be joining their exclusive club. Among them was Juan Marichal, who took a few minutes to talk about one of his stylish contemporaries, fellow right-hander Luis Tiant. Among the Golden Era Committee candidates who fell short of election, Tiant won 229 games over a career that spanned 19 seasons. Marichal, who entered the Hall in 1983, won 243 from 1960-1975.

——

Marichal on Tiant: “I played with Luis in 1974. He was the type of player who gave 150 percent every time he went to the mound. It’s sad that I haven’t seen him going in [the Hall of Fame]. He deserves it. It’s too bad that only Ron Santo got in.”

On Tiant‘s style compared to his own: “I used to kick my leg, he used to turn his back. I used to love to watch him pitch. I was very aggressive in the way I attacked hitters and he was that type of pitcher. He had great command, good control, good knowledge of the strike zone. He turned the hitters off by doing that — by turning his back to them. Hitters don’t like to see that.

“[Pitching backwards] was also his style. That’s why he was so great. A hitter couldn’t sit down and wait for one pitch, because they didn’t know what was going to come. I was similar. If we knew that a guy was a high ball hitter, or a breaking ball hitter or a fastball hitter, we had an edge.”

On the secret to his success: “When I was on the mound, what was in my mind was to try to a good job. To do that — to give 100 percent on the field — you have to be in great shape. That was my thought. If I was in good shape, I would be able to do a good job. That’s why [I was able to throw so many pitches]. Maybe it was the way I grew up. I walked a lot and I threw rocks.”

Ron Fairly was a better player than you probably realize. In 21 major-league seasons he hit .266/.360/.408, with 215 home runs, while spending the prime of his career in an extreme pitcher’s park, in an extreme pitcher’s era. Overshadowed by big-name teammates, he quietly helped the Dodgers to World Series titles in 1959, 1963 and 1965.

Fairly is also a good storyteller  — especially when the stories pertain to the Dodger-Giants rivalry. When Juan Marichal attacked John Roseboro with a bat, Fairly was there. Ditto when Sandy Koufax was dominating hitters, and Don Drysdale was knocking them down. What did it feel like to get drilled in the back by Bob Gibson? What hitting advice did he get from Ted Williams? What did Duke Snider say about Roy Campanella? Well, now you’ll know.

——

David Laurila: You had a productive a career that looks even better after accounting for era and park factors. Were you underrated?

Ron Fairly: “I think everybody feels that maybe they weren’t appreciated as much as they should have been for the contributions they made to ball clubs. I think it goes without saying. A lot of players feel that way.

“I think my numbers would certainly be better today. I played in an era — the 1960s — that might have been the most difficult in which to make your living, as a hitter, of any in the history of the game of baseball. I played in Dodger Stadium, which was a big ballpark where the ball didn’t carry very well. It doesn’t take many [lost] hits during the course of a season for your average to drop a little bit, and you weren’t going to have as many home runs or RBIs there.”

Laurila: Sandy Koufax put up his numbers in that same environment. While he was obviously a great pitcher, was he maybe a little overrated? Read the rest of this entry »

These game notes are offered with supreme humility.

San Francisco at Philadelphia | 8:19pm ET
Starting Pitchers
Giants: Jonathan Sanchez
193.1 IP, 9.54 K/9, 4.47 BB/9, .262 BABIP, 41.5% GB, 9.8% HR/FB, 4.11 xFIP, 2.6 WAR

Phillies: Roy Oswalt
211.2 IP, 8.21 K/9, 2.34 BB/9, .261 BABIP, 45.7% GB, 9.1% HR/FB, 3.45 xFIP, 4.7 WAR

The Phils Against Sanchez
According to Matt Becker’s game preview, Giant coach Bruce Bochy has shuffled his starting rotation, purposely pushing up Jonathan Sanchez to tonight’s Game Two in Philadelphia.

Becker writes: “One of the reasons Bochy decided for the change is because Sanchez was stellar in his two regular-season starts against the Phillies this year.”

So, some notes on that statement:

1. Obviously, the reference to “two regular-season starts” sets off the Small Sample Size Alarm in the baseballing nerd’s heart. It’s very probable that Sanchez’s season (and career) numbers — and the Phillies’ team platoon split — can tell us more about tonight’s match-up than two isolated starts this season.

2. As for Philadelphia’s lefty-righty platoon split, here’s what we get: per Baseball Reference, they recorded a 111 OPS+ versus lefties (relative to other teams versus lefties) as opposed to just a 102 OPS+ versus righties. Broadly speaking, the Phillies are probably better versus lefties than righties.

3. Even though Sanchez conceded only 2 ER in those 2 GS versus Philadelphia this season (the first at San Francisco on April 26, the second at Philadelphia on August 19), he didn’t actually pitch all that well. In 13 IP, his K:BB was 13:7, and of the 31 BIP, only 10 of them were grounders. If we figure Sanchez’s xFIP over those two starts, we get something like 4.60 or thereabouts.

The Giants, Oswalt, and Homers
Among National League teams, the Giants had the most homers in September (and October): 39 in 1048 PAs. They also had the NL’s highest HR/FB rate at 12.6%. Buster Posey had eight of the homers; Juan Uribe, seven; Pat Burrell, six; Freddy Sanchez, four; and Aubrey Huff, four. All are likely to start tonight.

Curiously, after coming to Philadelphia, Roy Oswalt saw his groundball rate increase to a level unseen since his 2008 season. After getting grounders on only 43.0% of balls in play with Houston this season — and 43.3% last year — Oswalt saw that number jump to 50.2% in his 12 starts with the Phillies.

There are obvious, and predictable, caveats here: 12 starts isn’t very many, and ground balls are prone to bias. BUT, it’s also possible that what we see here is Oswalt attempting to adjust to his new, more homer-friendly home park.

If I Had My Druthers
• Andres Torres and Chase Utley would spiral into a Handsome Vortex.
• Kool Keith would write an album of the same name.
• Handsome Vortex, that is.

The embattled executive liked the older performer. He’d done well for them in the past. Sure, the “critics” were getting sick of the older guy’s schtick, but the executive appreciated all that he’d done for the organization. Still, it was clearly time to move on. After all, they had a much more talented younger guy waiting in the wings as a replacement.

Once the younger guy did get his chance, onlookers (and the younger guy himself) probably thought it was a permanent arrangement. The older guy seemed resigned to his fate and was moving on. Sure, his new spot seemed like it was going to be a total disaster, but you take what you can get, and the money certainly didn’t look too bad. While some older fans might have wanted to old guy back, the younger, hipper crowd certainly understood that the younger performer was the wave of the future. Maybe the executive, who had squandered his resources so often in the past, was finally getting it.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the executive decided to bring the older guy back in a way that could only mean a demotion for the younger guy. And the hipper crowd was understandably up in arms. The once-proud organization quickly became a laughingstock (again).

At least NBC and Jeff Zucker could point to the ratings. What is Brian Sabean’s excuse?

While the rough analogy to the Late Night situation could apply to the Giant’ whole Ryan Garko–Adam LaRoche–Aubrey Huff fiasco, it is more apt with regard to the decision to bring catcher Bengie Molina back for a reported one-year, $4.5 million, months after Giants General Manager announced that the ‘ship has sailed‘,” thus (apparently) paving the way for the promising young catching prospect Buster Posey to be the starter in 2010. It was not to be.

It’s not as if Molina is without his uses. CHONE’s context-neutral projection for Molina is .259/.286/.419, or 15 runs below average per 150 games in context-neutral linear-weights. That seems to be the general consensus: ZiPS projects Molina at .271/.298/.424, and I have him at .259/.287/.417. The line is ugly, but not that unusual for a catcher. CHONE’s projection for Molina’s defense is also below average at -3. Altogether: -15 offense -3 defense + 12 positional adjustment +20/150 replacement = 1.4 WAR, adjusted for 130 games to account for a catcher’s playing time, we get 1.2 WAR. After removing the replacement salary (about $400,000), the contract implies about $3.5 million per marginal win, pretty much in line with the market this off-season. So, in a vacuum, this is a decent signing.

The problem is, of course, that Molina is projected to be worth the money… but only if he gets about 130 starts in 2010. And the Giants already have someone in the 11:30 slot: Buster Posey, the fifth overall pick of the 2008 draft. Based on impressive minor league performances, CHONE’s 2010 projection for Posey at is .265/.341/.402 (ZiPS has Posey roughly the same at .263/.343/.398), or -5/150. Defensively, CHONE projects him at -1. Over the same 130 games as Molina: -5 offense, -1 defense + 12 position +20/150 positional = 2.6 WAR, over 130 games that’s about 2.3 WAR.

In other words, San Francisco can get their (projected) money’s worth out of Bengie Molina, but only at the cost of giving him the majority of starts and blocking the younger, more talented, and, yes, less expensive player.

Maybe this makes sense of a level I haven’t explored: given the average age of the 2010 Giants’ starting position players, perhaps Brian Sabean simply prefers Jay Leno’s demographic.

Brian Sabean has been lampooned in the past for a wide array of his transactions. This offseason, however, he has done a very decent job in terms of bringing in the right personnel. Josh Phelps joined the team in order to platoon at first base with Travis Ishikawa. Then, Sabes inked Jeremy Affeldt and Bob Howry to fill out the bullpen. Edgar Renteria, coming off of a down year bound to regress, signed to replace Omar Vizquel. And, most recently, Sabean brought Randy Johnson to the rotation, finishing up quite the formidable pitching staff.

This all leads to one of the hottest topics on the inter-webs these days: can the Giants contend in 2009?

The simple answer is a yes given the context of the division. The Padres are in full rebuilding mode. The Diamondbacks have lost three key pieces in Orlando Hudson, Randy Johnson, and Adam Dunn. The Rockies traded away Matt Holliday and have been actively shopping Garrett Atkins. Even with a healthy Troy Tulowitzki, the Coors Gang is not all that threatening.

Lastly, even though the Dodgers will likely bring back Manny Ramirez, they will be losing ace Derek Lowe and relying on Jason Schmidt to help fill the void. The Dodgers will be the team to beat in the division, but they might not be as scary as some would think.

With this in mind, it seems that ~85 wins could net the division title for any of these teams. Do the Giants have what it takes to reach that threshold?

Their starting rotation, as mentioned above, is extremely stellar. R.J. called it potentially the best in the National League. Though this seemed like a stretch to many commenters, the projections for Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Randy Johnson, Jonathan Sanchez, and Barry Zito, range from +1.4 to +5.4 wins. Summed together, this quintet projects to be worth about +15 wins next season.

Affeldt and Howry joined a bullpen featuring the likes of Brian Wilson, Keichii Yabu, Billy Sadler, and Merkin Valdez among others. All of these relievers add up to around +3 wins. Considering that a team full of replacement players would win 50 games, before even venturing into the lineup, the Giants are up to 68 wins.

The lineup, however, is widely considered to be their achilles heel, as they do not really possess any terrific hitting talent. Phelps/Ishikawa look to platoon at first base. The projections for these two do not really tell the whole story, as they will be facing only opposite-handed pitchers. Ishi’s minor league equivalency is not all that sunny, either. These two combine to be about a league average hitter playing -5 run defense. This results in approximately +0.3 wins.

At the keystone corner, Emmanuel Burriss will apparently be logging most of the playing time. With only one year of data, we do not know all that much about Burriss. He appears to be a bit above average in the field while lacking any true offensive prowess. With adjustments for his position and production relative to the replacement level, not average, Burriss could range anywhere from +1.2 to +1.5 wins.

Renteria is a very interesting case, due to his disappointing 2008 campaign. Shifting back to the senior circuit should help his cause, and one would figure he could not perform any worse than he did last season, anyway. I’m calling Edgar a +2-run hitter and +1-run fielder for next season. After adjustments are thrown in for playing time and position, this amounts to +2.8 wins.

Pablo Sandoval will man the hot corner next season. A top-tiered prospect if there ever was one, Sandoval has all the tools to become a household name next season. Weighting his projections gives us a +7-run hitter and +1-run fielder, pitting Pablo at +2.5 wins. All told, this gives the Giants +6.8 wins in the infield. Solid production out of Burriss could bump that up to +7 wins very easily. And, if not from Burriss, a more optimistic projection for Sandoval could do the very same trick.

In the outfield, the Giants will bring back Fred Lewis, Aaron Rowand, and Randy Winn. Winn, one of the most underrated players in the game, has a +2.9 win projection next season, which actually leads all offensive players on the team.

After moving to the bay, Rowand struggled both offensively and defensively in 2008, in no way earning his $12 mil average annual value. Prior to last season, Rowand had posted +14, +3, and +8 marks in UZR, and +0, -6, +25 offensive runs respectively. In 2008, he produced like a league average hitter while costing the team -12 runs relative to an average centerfielder. Assuming both of these marks regress a bit, Rowand’s worth will be somewhere in the +2.3 win range.

Last, but not least, Fred Lewis combines some good pop with slick fielding. His 2009 projections call for +4 runs offensively and +5 with the glove. Playing a corner outfield position hurts his value, but overall, Lewis looks to be a +2 win player. These three combine to be worth +7.2 wins. Summing the infield and outfield results in +14 wins. Add Bengie Molina’s +2.3 win projection and we have +16.3 wins for the Giants offense.

The 2009 Giants will be getting approximately 18 wins out of their entire pitching staff and 16.3 wins out of their lineup. If we round that up to +17 for bench contribution or as “insurance” if certain players vastly outperform their projections, we are looking at an 85-win team.

Some of these projections may be a bit too optimistic for their owners, but the Giants appear to be talented enough to win anywhere from 78-85 games next season. Even a 78-win team could jump up to 85 wins a decent portion of the time, meaning that the Giants are in no way locks to win the NL West, but are definitely capable of contending next season.

If Sandoval really pulls his weight, Renteria shows that last season was a fluke, the bullpen holds fort, and the rotation meets their projections, there is no reason this team could not win the division. In the playoffs, we then are looking at a Lincecum-Cain-Unit rotation that could definitely scare some teams. A few key aspects of player performance will need to come to fruition for the team to surpass 80-wins, but it is not out of the realm of feasibility.