#2 Joe Panik, SS. 6'1", 193 lbs. BD: 10/30/1990. B-L, T-R.
Cape Cod League 2010: .297, 9 2B, 3 HR, 23 BB, 15 K's, 11 SB in 175 AB.
St. John's(college): .398/.509/.642, 19 2B, 3 3B, 10 HR, 21 SB, 6 CS, 44 BB, 24 K, 9 HBP in 226 AB.
Short Season: .341/.401/.467, 10 2B, 3 3B, 6 HR, 13 SB, 5 CS, 28 BB, 25 K in 270 AB.
AFL: .323/.394/.473, 6 2B, 1 3B, 2 HR, 0 SB, 9 BB, 10 K in 93 AB.
Joe Panik was a busy boy in 2011 playing the equivalent of a full MLB season between college, short season ball and the AFL. Is this guy too good to be true, or what? There were some raised eyebrows when the Giants selected him as their first round draft pick, although in retrospect, it probably should not have been a surprise. Panik was a late riser on several analysts draft boards after a terrific junior season at St Johns. Giants fans who were initially skeptical were quickly won over when Panik signed immediately and started raking in the Northwest League.
Just looking at his stat lines is almost a surreal experience as they practically ooze with a seemingly endless supply of statistical goodness. By now, everybody knows how much I love to see high batting averages. Well, Panik has those. Power, maybe just a tad short, but it's there. Speed? Between college and the pros, he stole 34 bases with a 75% success rate. Consistency? Just notice how similar the lines are across every level he played! But, if you really want to get your sabermetric juices flowing, just take a look at those BB and K numbers. When was the last time you saw a Giants prospect with consistently more walks than K's? OK, want one more? He hit .393 against lefthanders in the AFL! To top it all off, Panik didn't turn 21 yo until after the season and already has close to a full season's worth of professional AB's under his belt. That is almost unheard of in a college draftee.
So, what's the problem with Joe Panik and why isn't he considered an elite prospect? Unfortunately, a ton of his value is tied to his ability to play shortstop in the majors and there are questions about that. He has a history of a shoulder injury and there is concern about whether he can make the throw from the hole. Also, his range may be a bit short. He makes up for these perceived deficiencies with excellent footwork, positioning and hands. Analysts are divided on whether he can stick at SS. The Giants insist he can, but the doubters were not assuaged by him playing 2B in the AFL. The stated reason for him playing 2B in the AFL was because the Giants wanted Brandon Crawford to start there and they wanted Panik to get the extra AB's. Besides, it's not a bad thing to gain versatility. It's not that he's a bad prospect at 2B, but he might be an elite prospect at SS due to the position scarcity factor.
I expect he will be the starting SS for San Jose in 2012, but wouldn't be totally shocked if he skipped SJ and went to Richmond on the strength of his AFL showing. Whether he is the Giants SS of the future or their 2B of the future, there seems little doubt that Giants fans can safely dream about the day when he bats 2'nd in the lineup behind Gary Brown with Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey waiting to drive them in. Now, how great of a mental picture is that, anyway?
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I am not too worried if he cannot stick at SS. 2012 is probably the last time we will see Franchez in a Giants uniform unless he can prove to be healthy and hit like his normal self. If we can bring in a cost controlled player such as Panik in 2013 to be our starting 2B, we should do it. The extra 5-6 million can be spent in other areas. It makes no sense to try to keep him at SS and have to keep an aging 2B like Franchez for another year. Brandon Crawford has a great glove and from what I have seen has some power potential. I would not be surprised to see Crawford hit 10-15 homers in a full season. If he could do that and keep his average around .240-.270 that would be great. I like Crawford a lot and I do not believe we need to look for replacements for him just yet. Lets give him a full season and see what he can do. I am thinking Panik will do very well at AT&T. He does not have a lot of power but he will be able to split the gaps and hit a decent amount of 2B's and 3B's. He has kept a decent OBP his entire collegiate and professional career which is something we need badly. I began looking for people who fit the profile of a gap power hitter and great OBP and the player I think we should look at to complement a guy like Panik is Billy Butler. This guy puts up crazy numbers such as last year where he hit .291/.361/.461 with 44 2B's and 19 homers. He recently was moved to DH to allow Eric Hosmer an everyday spot. Kansas City is not a hitter's ballpark and he was able to put up those numbers there. He is only 25 and he is starting to get a little expensive for the Royals making 8M/2012 8M/2013 8M/2014 and a team option with a 1M buyout for 2015. That is cheaper than Huff for god sakes! DrB, how would you feel about acquiring him?
ReplyDeleteGood post as always DrB. I too really like Joe Panik, but think he can stick at short. From what I have heard, his range is above average, and the only concerns are his arm. Even if he went to second, I could see him being a Franchez clone with more power, steals, and walks. I am also SUPER excited about his BB/K ratio, when was the last time a Giant had three more walks than strikeouts?
ReplyDeleteI like Billy Butler as a hitter, but he's strictly a first baseman, if that. I guess I see Brandon Belt as being the logical successor to Huff at 1B. I think Belt has as much offensive upside as Butler and he's a far superior fielder.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Panik looks good as a 2B prospect to me although he would be stupendous at SS, but if Crawford can hit in the .250 range with a bit of power, a Crawford SS/Panik 2B tandem might be the better combination.
Watching the draft live on MLB network, it was high comedy, Selig butchering Panik's name, the analysts scrambling for something to say, the shot of the Giants draft room all smug and happy. The Giants are the monks of MLB, they like to do their own thing and be all secretive about it.
ReplyDeleteIf Panik sticks at short that is icing on the cake. Looks like a great #2 contact hitter who can work the walk. Its great timing with Freddy Sanchez, the Gints can keep him around to provide stability/mentoring if they like. If he sticks at short, I'd love to grab Cal's Tony Renda in the 2nd/3rd round, he looks like another great scrappy hitter.
I'd be shocked if they skipped him to the Eastern but if they want to pair him with Brown that sounds good to me.
I agree with the field. Why worry about SS v. 2nd, when we've got a great guy who is just as young for the former. If Crawford can handle it, then having a guy who is the second coming of Freddy Sanchez from an AB stand point is just fine with me. From a line up stand point, 2012/2013, you'd have Panda, Belt and Posey as your power hitters, and Crawford/Panik as contact hitters (recognizing that Crawford has yet to prove his bat). We have three solid OFs who it for average now, and Brown replaces at least one of them going forward. What we need is a power hitting outfielder to take over Right/Left, rather than worrying if Panik can play a position already managed by Crawford.
ReplyDeleteAnon - where's your handle, come on man!
ReplyDeleteYup, we need a power hitting RF/LF, a big time stud. The straw who stirs the drink. Where the hell is Reggie Jackson when you need him? Seriously, the Giants are one big bat away from having a murderers row with Posey/Sando and most likely Belt. Table setters with Brown/Panik. We shouldn't count chickens, but this is definitely the most exciting thing about the minors to me, these 2 guys.
All signs are pointing to Brown and Panik as solid picks. They remind me of players Billy Beane might have gone after before turning into the king of the fire sale. Power can be developed and with a ballpark like ours, speed and contact are huge.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that and since we are talking about 2 years from now, I am extremely curious about what the payroll will look like in 2014. No more Zito, Rowand, and Huff means no bad contracts and a lot more money to spread around. Lets say we lock up Timmy and Cain, Madbum gets a club friendly extension, and we keep Wilson around, there should still be a significant amount of cash available for that RF/LF power hitting stud to anchor the middle of the lineup around all of our contact hitters.
Maybe someone has done a projection to see what the payroll would look like in 2014 with increases for guys like Posey and Panda, if so please post!
I'm also torn between whether they should lock up Timmy or not. With the rumor from yesterday that both sides are far apart on years and dollars, it is a hot topic on the radio today as well and there are some mixed feelings about whether Timmy deserves an 8 year deal.
ReplyDeleteAssuming he stays dominant and healthy which are 2 big assumptions, would this team be better off balancing the money spent between offense and pitching instead of investing 25-30% of the payroll on 2 starting pitchers? Eventually guys like Posey, Sandoval, and Bumgarner are going to get expensive as well and I would almost rather see them sign Cain long term and then trade Timmy before the end of next year and have a couple more solid young prospects coming through the system.
My argument for not keeping Timmy is based in large part on the ballpark. For the longest time Sabes would cry about not being able to sign any big bats because nobody wanted to play here and have to hit in this park 81 games a year. Based on that logic, shouldn't pitchers be thrilled to come here and perhaps take less to pitch in a ballpark that hitters hate? Do we really need 2 20+ million dollar starting pitchers in our rotation with a ballpark that can make Kirk Rueter look like an ace?
I know Shankbone wants to keep the starting rotation intact and so does every Giants fan but I question whether it is a sound investment to spend that much money on pitching when theoretically we should be able to plug in guys like Lowry, Rueter, Livan, Ortiz, and even Schmidt who was never an ace until he started pitching here.
Back when we had Bonds, the starting pitching was very average at best but we still won. If the pitching were a lot better then those years but we were able to plug in a player like Prince or Josh Hamilton or Jose Bautista into the middle of the lineup, I think we would have a much more balanced team equally or more ready to compete every year.
We have had Timmy and Cain for 5 years now and have 1 playoff to show for it. This year should tell a lot in terms of whether the plan Sabes has is actually working. If we struggle to score runs again this year and find ourselves in the playoff conversation but not running away with the division, I would argue that the plan is not working.
Well, if Sandoval, Posey and Bumgarner stay on their career trajectories, the Giants could easily have 5 players who command more than $20 M/year in salary. They are 5 excellent players, but can any team other than the Yankees afford to have $100 M tied up in 5 players?
ReplyDeleteI sure seems to me that somebody is going to have to go. The big questions are when, and what comes back in return. Much as I've been a Sabes supporter over the last 4-5 years, I'm not totally convinced he's the guy to finesse this one. He sort of did something like this with Matt Williams, but that was a long time ago now.
Finesse and Brian Sabean don't go very well together. I agree, things will get pretty thick with big money contracts. The only point I can make is I'd rather they hand out bad contracts to home grown players than imported ones.
ReplyDeleteWith Timmy, come on, why wouldn't his side ask for 8 years. 2 CYs, 1 WS, dominant stats. I do think his ratios need to be watched closely, and the Giants should go to 6 or 7, but why not ask for the moon if you've got those creds and you're that young?
The only stud OF to watch in the horizon is McCutchen I think. He hasn't broken out yet, but the Pirates may have a hard time getting him locked up. Most other big time players are getting locked up early now.
That's the thing, it doesn't seem like as many quality bats are reaching the free agent market as before. This year being the exception of course and the Giants signed none of them. Next year doesn't have a single big name after Hamilton who will probably get extended before he goes on the market as well. So the best bet is to develop and trade once players have become valuable like Timmy to get the pieces you need in return.
ReplyDeleteI like McCutchen a lot and would love to see him roaming the OF in black and orange. Anyone else that is remotely interesting gonna reach the free agent market in the following years?
Shankbone,
ReplyDeleteYou are correct. McCutchen is a stud. However, his value is way too high right now. You would have to give up the entire farm for him. I would rather try to pry Alex Gordon from the Royals. He will still be expensive but probably not as much as McCutchen.
Alex Gordon: .303,.376,.502 with 45 2B's and 23 homers.
Another name is Logan Morrison. He is kind of a headcase but he is very talented. There was a lot of drama with him and Twitter last year but nothing a good organization and a change of scenery can't fix.
Logan Morrison: .247/.330/.468 with 25 2B's and 23 homers.
The biggest stud in my opinion last year was Hunter Pence but we thought Carlos Beltran was a better/cheaper fit. I am just wondering if we could of thought of a trade that would include Wheeler and not Brown and Belt. Maybe Wheeler, Hembree, and Joseph? I would have liked that trade better than the Beltran trade. If we couldn't sign Pence in 2013 we could have received a haul for him and been okay.
I would actually go younger than 'Cutch/Gordon/Morrison in the return I was seeking. You want prospects who are MLB ready, but haven't started the clock on their service time.
ReplyDeleteI was just looking at the Yankees Top 10 Prospects in BA. I'm not wild about Montero even though he's a beast of a hitter because I'm not sure where he plays in the NL, but how about Betances and Banuelos plus a much younger prospect like Mason Williams, Dante Bichette, Jr. or Slade Heatchcott?
Or, maybe once Zito/Rowand/Huff are off the books they can afford 5 $20 M salaries if they can fill in the rest of the roster with pre-arbitration guys like Belt, Brown, Panik, Surkamp, plus maybe a sleeper or 2 like Frankie Pegs or Roger K or Charlie Culberson?
Anyway, it's really too bad if there's a full on freakout on the radio about Heyman's comments. Of course the 2 sides are a long ways apart at this point! There is still a lot of negotiating to do. Remember 2 years ago, Timmy signed his contract in the courtroom waiting area as the 2 sides arrived for his arbitration hearing.
Both of Cain's extensions were inked in March as well. So staying square and avoiding the freakout would be best.
ReplyDeleteWe have inked Yusmeiro Petit to a minor league deal, according to VZL twitter sources. 27 year old righty who played for FLA/ARZ.
Good point about the clock on the service time. You have to hand it to the Royals for not giving up on Gordon, that is finally turning the corner, but it'll be expensive for them as they benefit.
Betances/Banuelos both look legit, Heatchcott seems like another of those white boy OFs the Yankees seem mandated to have on their roster to me. With Cashman basically playing moneyball in a way with so many positions tied up already, do they really give up prospects? I guess they would for Cain. I like Bichette Jr's first year - he looks very interesting. It's crazy to see the Yanks big moves of the offseason being 2 Rule 5 picks and the ex-Sox LOOGY to a minor league deal.
I think the Brain Trust/RDF crew are serious about the 100MM on 5 players. The statements on salary not going down would lend credence to them at least trying. And with FA looking more and more like dregs, you want to get your own guys instead.
Roger - I liked Hunter as well. OGC had a pretty good retort on his value though. I think Wade wasn't about to give us Pence without both Brown and Wheeler. He's already returned to the mothership after giving them Oswalt and Pence. This GM stuff is all about relationships and unfortunately Sabey Sabes isn't always on peoples good sides for sweetheart deals either. I thought Wade gave the Braves and the Phils much better deals but maybe I'm just overvaluing our farm like a hometown fan.
Boof is back as well. Looks like the earliest we will see him is mid season but another bit of insurance for when Zito tanks. The Royals would be the team I would want to deal with but unfortunately their top prospects are so highly touted that they are untouchable.
ReplyDeleteThat is the challenge now, every team knows that the free agent market is getting thinner and more expensive every year. Top prospects are for the most part untouchable so it all reverts back to the draft or having the balls to pull off a trade of a major chip like Timmy or Cain. I just hope that when the time comes, Sabes isn't in a corner trying to get value for either of them because he was blindsided and didn't realize they wouldn't resign.
No sense in worrying now but it is kind of hard not to. I can remember the uproar this preseason when the niners lost to New Orleans and the offense couldn't move the ball. If expectations were that high for a team without a winning record in 9 years, hard to expect Giants fans to have more patience.
Pato,
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping that IF the time comes to trade either Timmy or Cain, Sabean and ownership are on the same page. What if Sabes wants to make a trade, but ownership disapproves it? That would not be good.. Then the scenerio you described could happen if they try to trade him too late. I remember reading a Ray Ratto column years ago, saying that Sabean wanted to trade Bonds for some prospects to rebuild the team, but ownership was against it.
Its too early in the negotiating process to worry about it. These things get settled at the last minute.
LG
I just can't stand this "The Giants must trade Cain or Lincecum" conspiracy. Want to know why 99% of these rumors and the arguments for them are started by other teams fans?
ReplyDeleteBecause they envy our players. That is exactly why we should keep them. Aces are not easily replaced; it is a privilege and an incredible competitive advantage to have three of them, and for all three to be under 27. That is the sort of core dynasties are built around. You don't trade the best one for prospects, unless we're going to get back a super-elite talent--the guys no team would trade, like Harper, Profar, Trout, Moore, and Strausburg.
Even if we cleaned out the Yankees farm system in a trade for Timmy, who do you think would end up better? The Yankees. Montero has no place on this team. Banuelos and Betances could easily go up in flames. Mason Williams and Bichette have only played A- ball.
That sounds terrible to me.
Meanwhile, if from 2013-onward we are paying Cain/Lincecum $45m/year, that still leaves 90m or so to fill out the rest of the team. With no bad/big contacts, that is really easy
And meanwhile, I do think Buster, Panda, and MadBum should all be extended. The value of having all of those guys is having 5 guys that can produce > 5War/each means that simply a mediocre team around them will be devastatingly powerful (all of these guys have projections on fangraphs for about 5War in 2012).
If all five of them continue to produce and all deserve $20m salaries in their free agent years, we should be so lucky! That would equate to MVP-contender performances from five different players without injury! And if we get just a couple extended at $10m or so for 2016/2017 (like MadBum/Buster) and Panda locked in around $15m for those years, that would be about $80m for five of the best players in baseball at their respective positions, which again, is a privilege worth paying for. We would be extremely lucky to have all five for the next 5-6 years perform at their best, if one falters, the team is still strong and that solves the payroll issue.
I just want the Giants to avoid big contracts in FA. Pay the guys we know that have earned it; there is no such thing as a bad contract if the guy is a franchise legend and cornerstone. I hope only our OWN stars are paid top dollar to stick around.
As long as we can afford to extend Cain and Timmy now, we have to. Whether or not Posey, MadBum, Panda and other guys like Belt, etc deserve big money depends on their performance over the next 3-6 years. We should be so lucky if they all become so valuable; we could easily trade one of them then to rebuild the farm if we have to save money.
ReplyDeleteThis team is built to WIN BIG over the next five years. The 2010 WS was not a fluke; it just came early when a bunch of bargain bin vets all had career years.
To crunch some numbers to demonstrate how valuable our Core 5 is and how easy it is to imagine a dynasty-like team if we keep them together for the next five years, let's get into the nitty-gritty of WAR.
A replacement level-team is pegged to win about 50 games. Go through BBRef and count WAR, with regularly, the total WAR for any given team's Pitching and Hitting, added to 50, will equal the team's ACTUAL win total or the Pythag win total.
So let's assume we have a replacement level team. Let's also assume, quite conservatively, that the Core 5 of Posey, Panda, MadBum, Cain, Timmy all produce an average of ~5WAR each (which is the minimum each of them is projected to produce), for a total of 25WAR
Now we have a 75-win team with another 20 roster spots to provide value. That is remarkable.
Let's say we have three other lineup regulars who produce 2.5 WAR over a season (fairly low estimates for the production of Belt, Cabrera, Pagan in 2012 and Belt, Brown, Panik in 2013.) That gives us 82.5 wins with only 17 roster spots used.
So therefore, to reach the playoffs (which 92 wins is usually enough), we need 10 more WAR from 17 players--pretty easy considering we're talking about at least 3 starting position players, 2 SP, an entire bullpen, and bench to produce only 10 WAR to make this a playoff contender. You can have a lot of awful/barely above average performers among that group, and still be a regular contender.
The key is having those five guys who perform at elite levels, with any of them capable of an MVP-like performance. That is an enormous competitive advantage, and puts very little pressure on the rest of the team to be a winner. I will argue with anybody, that is the best homegrown core in baseball, or even the best core of guys under 30 if homegrown is too selective. This is a once-in-a-generation core this team has, and I will be furious if any of them are traded for prospects. Give them 3-8 years together to win.
Meanwhile, cost-controlled regulars with defined roles that fit like round pegs in the round holes in the lineup and roster are coming soon. Joe Panik and Gary Brown are almost the exact players this team needs. Brandon Belt needs a full year to hit; he has talent, patience, and power. Brandon Crawford can at least defend the SS position well enough to not provide negative value, no matter how awful his bat is. Nate is Nate. The bullpen is fantastic, and looks to stay that way with Hembree and the 2011 Draft power arms coming along.
But this is what this team is looking forward to soon as a lineup--why do we need to spend big on a free agent who will under-perform his contract?
(May 2012 ages)
RHH Gary Brown, CF - 23
LHH Joe Panik, 2B - 21
BHH Pablo Sandoval, 3B - 25
RHH Buster Posey, C - 25
LHH Brandon Belt, 1B/LF - 24
that is a 1-5 who is still entering its prime, even including the two established stars in Panda/Posey. Panik and Brown are perfect table setters, while Brandon Belt is a great three-true-outcomes power-threat to protect Posey and Panda and be a tough out. Their handedness is balanced. 4 of them play difficult-to-fill defensive positions, and either already are or profile as plus bats at those positions. All five are plus defenders. And all of them, even including Belt, who was a monster with extremely high BAs in the minors, could be .300+ hitters with gap power or more.
I just don't see why it would be good to get rid of any piece of the core we have before the final pieces are added. Let them play together for five years; if it is too expensive after that, we can make a trade for another team's farm system them.
ReplyDeleteProven talent is a valuable commodity; that is the only reason why some of our players are WORTH another team's farm system, and why some teams would do such a trade.
Finally, want to introduce a couple points to further demonstrate the sort of upside, in addition to floor, that Joe Panik has.
ReplyDeleteCompare him to Dustin Pedroia at BaseballCube; Pedroia and Panik had remarkably similar K and BB-rates, although Pedey's K-rate was a little lower, while Panik's BB-Rate, Iso, secondary average, runs created/game, and BA were all a tad higher in each of his three years played in college(at the same ages as Pedroia too).
Having a K-rate below 10% is considered mega-elite. Panik has never posted one above 9%, at any level, ever. In college, it was above 8% once.
For reference, look at the research done by redsoxfaithful on Beyond the Box Score on MiLB K-rates and their correlation to MLB success. In the study, there were 20 total players on BA Top 100 lists over a nearly 20 year period with a K-rate less than 10%. All but 2 of them, for a total of a 90% success rate, became MLB regulars. That is by far the highest success rate for any grouping you could make for BA Top 100 prospects. Gary Brown, with an also fantastic 12% K-rate, is also in an elite grouping with a 76% (or better) success rate.
I find it highly likely that Joe Panik will be a good MLB player. He is young, extremely polished, and has been who he is everywhere and at every level he has ever played. He will be an enormously valuable member of this team.
And for further thought on the importance of K-rates to success, look at the split between the batting average and BABIP between players of different K-rates. Quite obviously, the gap between BABIP and BA shrinks with either 1. extreme HR power or 2. very low K-rates.
Panik's career batting averages have been only about .010 points lower, on average, than his BABIP. That means that whatever his BABIP is--which should generally stay above .300--would be really close to his actual average. That makes Panik the sort of guy who can win batting titles in a lucky season with an inflated BABIP.
Can't say how excited I am about Panik, Brown too. In my mind, they are equal. They are the table setters/run scorers/up-the-middle defenders of the future.
Mano, Pan/OrgoneDonor got me to motivate: here's my rant to Pato that I threw down on Lefty's about retaining Cain/Timmy:
ReplyDeletePato, these 2 guys are what legends are made of. You think anybody cares about the offense that Johnny Sain and Warren Spahn had? Think of trading away Perry, one of the worst moves of the sixties Giants. I know it can be frustrating to watch this offense, I am pissed all the time. But this pitching is just beyond special. They need to find a way to pay their pitchers. They need to buy a line to the minor league guys who can help. They need to get creative with a (non-Ace division) trade.
End Rant from Leftys
You put Brown/Panik at the top. You have Buster/Sando/Belt. You get this extremely unlikely but impossibly cool LF/RF power hitter (and yeah - we have a couple alternatives here - Sanchez or Susak or Joseph at C, Ricky O or Chris D at 1st, Belt is flexible - but you bring a legit bat from somewhere that lands in LF/RF) and this offense EXPLODES. Coupled with the fact practically all mentioned are good at defense and baseball intelligence and that is the reason we are all optimistic about Los Gigantes.
Sabean gets a lot of grief, some deserved, but he has not traded off the core group of players right now. Giants fans are frustrated about the window provided by the pitching. We've had the pitching for a while, they actually figure out the hitting and its a juggernaut. Its natural to be nervous about the pitching, you'd better be nervous about things that matter.
In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy the close games with them damn lefties and these new OFs. Hope Angel Pagan is jumping rope like Ali right now. Less than 60 til pitchers and catchers...
Wow Pan! Well said, I must say! You said it much better than I could. And, thanks for the chime in, Shankbone.
ReplyDeleteI've been saying for almost 3 years now that the Giants are as well positioned for the future as any team in baseball, practically until I'm blue in the face. I've taken my share of heat for that too. But Pan, wow, you've defended that much better than I was ever able to do, or even better than OGC. Now that's saying a heckuva lot, because OGC has his ducks in a row! Thanks again for the ringing defense of the Giants and how they have rebuilt this team and continue to rebuild it.
ReplyDeleteMy only argument to all the ligit points that Pan made is 1 playoff in the last 5 years of Cain and Timmy. One playoff. We are talking about building a dynasty and all the talent and WAR that these core players bring to the table but none of that matters if at the end of 2012 we are out of the playoffs yet again. Next year will tell everything IMO because if we don't make the playoffs after the conservative moves this offseason, the plan is not working and we need to fix it. I love Cain and Timmy like they were my brothers but I want playoff appearances, nothing else really matters.
ReplyDeleteYou may argue that winning the world series is better then making it 5 years in a row without winning it all but I would argue that Florida Marlins fans are still pissed from being burned twice after winning it all. The Giants aren't doing a fire sale like the Marlins did both times but by not reinforcing this lineup so that we can actually score more then the second fewest runs in the league, it has the same affect. Love the discussions and hope I am wrong but look forward to more heated debates in the coming months!!
"I just don't see why it would be good to get rid of any piece of the core we have before the final pieces are added." - Pan
ReplyDeleteVery sound point here Pan but if the team isn't balanced offensively and defensively then it doesn't matter how good the pitching is if they can't score enough runs to support it. Look at the Cardinals last year, they lost one of their aces in Wainwright and were still able to win it all not because of their pitching but because they had the offense to support them. We don't have the offense to be able to afford an injury like that to one of our studs so essentially we are skating on thin ice every game they play in. Back when we had Bonds the pitching wasn't very good at all but in this ballpark it doesn't have to be. Why not trade a huge chip in Timmy to get several good offensive players in return that can boost this offense to the top of the league allowing the pitching to be affective with lesser talent? This is the strategy I will be pushing for if 2012 turns out to be a lot like 2011, give me offense and let the ballpark help our pitchers whoever they are.
Pato,
ReplyDeleteNot to be rude here, but did you really read everything Pan wrote? I mean, the vast majority of it was about how the Giants ARE fixing the offense from WITHIN. The point is they need to keep the pitching intact long term so it will still be here when the offense is not just average, not just good, but great.
They already have Sandoval and Posy in place with Belt, Brown and Panik getting close. There is also a fairly long list of players who could surprise us by being a lot better than we have come to expect. Players like Peguero, Kieschnick and Culberson. Don't forget about Hector Sanchez. They also have accumulated a reservoir of younger offensive talent in the lower minors that is working its way to fruition, but more slowly.
While all this is going on, the Giants are also addressing the long term relative organizational deficit in pitching so they can keep this going well into the next decade.
Next year will tell everything? Are you kidding? You are going to make 2012 the litmus test for the entire rebuilding plan when it is still obvious it is very much a work still in progress? That's pretty much the same myopic stuff that gets endlessly churned out on MCC and the sfgiants.com message board and OBM and all the other naysaying sites.
I would also take issue with your simplistic statement about 1 playoff in 5 years of Timmy and Cain. 1. The first of those 5 years was a development year for Timmy. He didn't break out until 2008. 2. Cainer has been continuously improving over that same time span. 3. The Giants had winning records in 3 of the 4 years starting in 2008 which should be the true starting point for the Timmy/Cain tandem, so it's not like they won a WS out of nowhere and were in the toilet the other 4 years. 4. Last year they had a winning record while experiencing both a perfect storm of injuries and career worst performances as well as an obvious emotional hangover from the WS celebrations.
Once again, Pan is right, OGC is right, I've been right. I'll repeat it here one more time. The Giants are as well positioned for the future(next decade) as any team in baseball.
All research I have found so far is that pitching excellence is the only area of competitive advantage. Hitting does not matter. HR power does not matter. Scoring runs do not matter.
ReplyDeleteUntil I see good research showing otherwise, I am going with that as the key strategic for building a great team. In fact, I will be showing my latest research soon about the beauty of our pitching in the playoffs.
Hence, you do NOT trade any of the great starting pitchers until you either have to or you have their replacement in hand. So I would not trade Lincecum until it is clear that he is not signing a long term deal with us, which should be pretty clear by next off season for him.
Until then, you build the offense as best as you can with what you got in hand. You do not trade to get offense. You are totally screwed if the guys you get for Lincecum do not develop (see Hudson trade). Trading is the last resort.
Rebuilding is a long process. Rushing it by making hasty moves just reduces the potential for long term greatness (see Milwaukee). 1 in 5 years is the improper way to view it, it just makes you over anxious to mark a move. It makes you desperate. Nothing good in life comes out of desperation moves.
Loops, DrB beat me to the punch. 3years is the proper view, once they were ready to compete. And they would have made the playoffs last season if Posey was not taken out, he is that valuable an offensive cog. So they would have made the playoffs in 2of the last 3 years.
ReplyDeletePlayoffs being made or not, along as our prospects are progressing, we need to stay the course. As DrB and I and others been pointing out, you need to look ahead and see where the team is going, see the big picture.
The offense is fine as long as Posey and Sandoval are in the middle. We just need complementary players to get the rest done. We have enough to win 90-95 games as is. Losing Posey hurt that much. Trades introduces too much risk. And Sabean has been great at identifying who to keep. At least give him that much.
Let me try to explain my perspective because I don't disagree that things are looking good for the future and there are a lot of good things about what the Giants are doing. However, to say that we are still in a rebuilding period is unacceptable since we had 4 or 5 years of suckiness to rebuild and shouldn't have to be rebuilding after winning a world series!
ReplyDeleteI used to work in sales and one of my pet peaves was at the beginning of each year when my sales manager would try to forecast what sales would be over the year. This is a very common practice and widely accepted and necessary in most industries but forecasts and reality are rarely the same thing. Therefore, I am not going to base the Giants success on what they should do next year, I am going to base it on what they actually do next year!!
Everyone is saying that pitching is the key to success and you would be crazy to trade away pitching. I think there are several examples of this being true but there are also enough examples of when trading pitching actually worked out (Volquez for Josh Hamilton, Haren for Cargo, Mulder for Haren, Edwin Jackson for Ian Kennedy, Josh Beckett for Hanley, and those are just the examples I have come up with off the top of my head).
Another point, having great starting pitchers is awesome but it doesn't always equate to success. Last year you had teams like Seattle (Felix and Pineda), LAA (Haren and Weaver), Oakland (Gio, Anderson, Cahill), LA (Kershaw and Billingsley), and the Giants who weren't successful not because their pitching wasn't good enough but because their offense sucked! On the other side you have teams like St. Louis, Milwaukee, Arizona, Tampa Bay, and Texas who didn't have the stud starters and they all ended up having very successful years.
Yes, you have to get good performances out of your pitchers if you want to win but that doesn't mean you need great pitchers and especially with a ballpark like ours, average pitchers can have great years. Look at what Ian Kennedy did last year for Arizona, look at the job the St. Louis staff was able to do with one over the hill ace, look at Texas who lost a great pitcher in Cliff Lee and still made it back to the world series!! Was it because of Alexi Ogando or CJ gascan Wilson? No, it was because they had OFFENSE!!!! Vogelsong, Rueter, Livan, Lowry, Moss, Ortiz, and a few others I can't remember right now have all proven my point.
I said before that I would wait until the end of this year to pass judgement and I stand behind that as totally fair. If they don't make the playoffs in 2012 then it would be the 5th time in 6 years or according to Dr. B, the 3rd time in 4 years (to be fair) which is still unacceptable for a team that supposedly has two of the greatest pitchers in the game and plays in a cake walk division.
We aren't going to have Timmy and Cain around forever which means the window is closing. it is great that we have the young prospects that look promising but realistically they are 2 years away from playing and according to you Dr. B, they shouldn't be held accountable until years 2 or 3 in the bigs much like you aren't counting the first few years with Cain and Timmy counting towards the playoff drought.....
Wow, good to see all the love for the Giants. As a kid watching (in horror) during the 70s, nice to have fellow lunatics.
ReplyDeleteAs for the raging debate, I'm taking a more forest v. trees issue on Lincecum and Cain. First, I doubt we lose both of them. Second, we have Bumgarner too, so 2/3 of a dynamic rotation. Third, Giants farm system is out of control in terms of their talent and scouting. They have clearly figured out they need to build from within, doing short term FA deals to bridge gaps. They now have 6 position players in or coming up (Posey, Belt, Crawford, Panik, Brown, and Panda), with legit candidates (for at least depth) in the OF, IF and back up Catcher. I've never seen that (perhaps in the days of Mays, it was like that, but not since the 70s).
My guess is this year's draft will focus on OF and Pitching, and maybe some more IF (with Burg and last year's picks, I'd expect middle fielders). I'd expect that they will have some very smart choices that will be 3-5 years off. That is how you truly build a dynasty, a la the Dodgers. We're spoiled now (and more than appropriatley entitled).
ps, no longer Anon
So realistically you are saying that we shouldn't expect much out of Brown, Sanchez, Panik, and the others until maybe 2015 to be fair. Well, who knows what Cain and Timmy will have left in the tank at that point. The window of opportunity to win with them realistically is this year and next and anything after that is a crap shoot. This is my point, if Cain and Timmy are less affective, injured, or just plain leave for free agency by 2015, all of your cool projections of how great it is going to be with all the young talent coming up are shot! Those predictions are based on Timmy and Cain being great in 2015 and the chances of that happening are just as good as the chances of it not happening.
ReplyDeleteI hate arguing with you guys about this because I think we all agree that we like the direction the Giants are going in the future but you guys refuse to be realistic about the present. If I wanted to root for a team that is projected to be good in 3-4 years then I would be an A's fan. Once again, if they do well this year then I will gladly praise their efforts but if they don't make the playoffs again I think it is fair to criticize them no matter how good the future looks.
One more thing for OGC, you say that if Posey wasn't injured last year we would have made the playoffs but do you remember the offense when Posey was healthy? They weren't scoring runs then either and all of the 1 run games they won early in the year ended up being loses later in the year. The pitching stayed the same and you could argue that Beltran took over where Posey left off so it wasn't like the team was totally stripped of its offensive prowess. The offensive prowess was a joke even before Posey was injured.
Just so you guys know, I get a ton of enjoyment out of these discussions and I really appreciate the hard work you guys put into forming your opinions and points of view. I do get a little frustrated though when you guys refuse to be critical and always look at the positives! We live in a results driven world and much like when I had to answer to my sales manager when I didn't hit my forecast, the Giants will have to answer to their fans if they don't make the playoffs this year.
PiLamBear - awesome handle. I think fans of the 70s/80s teams have a different appreciation of this current era.
ReplyDeletePato - you bring up some interesting points about other teams. Seattle and Oakland are my favorite whipping boys - they have been trying to build around UZR OBP fueled position players and failing pretty miserably at it. They do have good pitchers, at least until Trader Billy gets his groove on. I think both those GMs are extremely overrated, and seem to be lacking in the player evaluation department.
The Doyers are run by a guy who is doing everything the Sabers are accusing Sabey Sabes of doing - gobbling up mediocre players at redundant positions. With every signing this year Agent Ned managed to make me breath a little easier - a core of Kemp and Kershaw can be pretty dangerous with some better pieces. The continual backloading of contracts should hamper them for a bit, but they are always going to be dangerous.
The Angels are an interesting one. DrB makes the point they signed Vlad, haven't won a world series since beating us. It just came out that Pujols contract is heavily backloaded, to let them burn off all the bad OF contracts. They have a pretty nice core with Weaver, Mike Trout coming (if they can get those vets out of the way), Pujols for the next 4-5 prime years. But even with a guy like Trumbo raking they still had trouble scoring runs last year. I'd put most of that on the mediocre OF guys they ran out, Hunter and Abreau aging and Vernon Wells flat out Rowanding.
Rangers though, that is just a well run org. Every team had a shot at Hamilton and Cruz, the Rangers got em. I wouldn't dis CJ Wilson that much, he had a rough season on center stage but he is a good pitcher. But behind him Holland came up big, Colby Lewis is a nice solid 2-3 pitcher, I'd argue that Texas finally got some good pitching, they've always been able to hit. And look at the way they shored up their D by stealing Beltre from under the Angels noses, and got a ton of value from stealing Napoli. If Sabey Sabes steps down I'd say go all out for Jon Daniels, he's the best of the young generation in my opinion.
I feel if we made the postseason we would have buzzsawed through MIL/Arizona. St. Louis had a pretty good pen in the end, and the Phils are tough, so who knows. I can't give you the numbers like OGC but my point with Posey is he wouldn't have let the G's wallow in that losing streak we got into. That's leadership. Something that Beltran doesn't do well. The regression of Huff and Torres sure did hurt as well, and allowing Rowand/Tejada the ABs they got when they were completely washed up was a final nail in the flaming coffin. But with a healthy Posey and the Beltran acquisition? No doubt they make the postseason, maybe as NL West champs.
The D-backs have to be the target, they have the flag. I'm more scared of their farm arms than the current rotation. They have a great defensive OF, that Towers weakened by grabbing Kubel. I would expect some severe regression from Neck Tattoo guy, and all these middle infielders don't make a lot of sense. OGC maintains that Kirk Gibson's rah rah style may wear them down. I like that theory, we'll see how it plays out.
Oh, and one more thing - these guys are coming possibly in 2012, definitely 2013. Not 2015. I don't think anybody is refusing to acknowledge the shortcoming on offense. I think we're looking at the Giants build from one position to the next, Sandoval to Posey to Belt. We'll see how Cain/Timmy turn out. Nobody is burying their head in the sand about that, but until they are moved or leave, they are Giants, so you play the hand dealt. If they fill up on Reyes/Fielder then there is definitely no money for Cain/Timmy and they're definitely gone.
Thanks Shankbone! I pretty much agree with your analysis, and my observation on 3-5 years was the "next" generation of kids, not the ones you note. Brown will be there in 2013, if not next year for some time. I'd expect Panik in 2013. Belt will hopefully force his way into to the line up too. I'm hoping one of our new OFs (who are both relatively young) stick, so you'd have:
ReplyDeletePanda
Belt
Posey (with Sanchez as backup)
Crawford
Panik
Brown
Pagan/Melky
+?
That would be almost entirely home grown offense.
As for pitching, I think the Giants get there with Timmy and Cain. We have a ton of payroll coming off in the next two years (Huff, dead weight on Rowand which I'm sure impacts the $130mm number and Sanchez next year, with Zito the following). They will absolutely deploy that money and I think a 2 year deal for Timmy would give them the flexiblity to do what they need to. Also nice to see Hembree tearing it up in the minors to give us a back stop with Wilson.
Shankbone,
ReplyDeleteMy point about 2015 was that even if Panik and Brown are up in the bigs in 2013, you still have to let them settle in a bit before expecting them to light the league on fire. Maybe they come out all Posey like and hit the ground running but I could see them struggle a bit for the first year or two.
That is a concern for me, bridging the gap to all the young talent with better acquisitions then Jose Castillo or Dave Roberts but definitely not going all in by getting Melky and Pagan. If we win the division then it won't matter and we all know what this team can do once they get into the playoffs. I am ready for baseball season to start!!
Happy New Year to everyone!
Pato - Tempering expectations on prospects is wise. We should expect Belt hickups like this year and not Posey Sandoval explosions for sure from these guys.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for stacking the deck if we can. We've rehashed Beltran enough before, but ultimately we don't even know if we could have got him. It'd be nice to have things more set for sure. But taking away from one area (damn lefties) to plug in somewhere else might not have even taken down those offensive improvements. Sabean is very wary of overbidding, being used for overbidding, and seems to have really tempered himself. The declarations of being out on Beltran and Ross sticks out to me in that regard. I'm just happy we don't have David Dejesus roaming the OF.
Mariners sign up George Sherill. I've noticed the Mariners do a lot of moves that Sabers approve of. Has not led them anywhere good though. I am glad to have Affeldt and his burdensome salary instead of Sherill or Hideki Okajima. It would be nice to have enough cheddar to get that 5th Starter competition started legit though. Is Zack Duke down to minor league/spring training status yet or is he getting a MLB deal?
ReplyDeletePato, I assume you know something about small samples? Also, are you really arguing that the lost of Posey was not catastrophic for the lineup? Look at my post on my blog about the difference in runs created offensively between Posey projected and what the Giants got in 2011. Very eye opening on the lost of his bat.
ReplyDeleteAbout pitching, that you note pitchers who are not proven or, worse, not really good sabermetrically (like Mulder) brings up my problem with all the people who say that trading pitching is OK.
Are you arguing that all the pitchers you list are of equivalent to Lincecum or Cain? As I've been showing in my study of PQS, pitchers like them are a level above most of the pitchers you list there.
Are pitching a panacea? No. But by listing all those teams with pitching, you seem to think we are saying that. Correct me if I'm wrong.
My point all along is that I follow the latest research on success in the playoffs. Success comes from having pitchers who are good sabermetrically, high K-rates, great K/BB ratios, and, from a study I will publish as soon as I have time, pitchers with good DOM rates.
Lincecum and Cain and BUmgarner provides the Giants that competitive disadvantage in the playoffs. I would rather risk losing with them than trading one of them in order to boost the offense, which, by the way, the latest research says conveys ZERO advantage in the playoffs. Best BA, best HR, best run scoring, none of that mattered. ONly pitching and fielding mattered.
I would rather increase the odds of winning it all when we do make it in, than to increase the odds of making the playoffs, which you appear to care more about with you points about the lack of playoffs.
I think at least Haren, Weaver, Kershaw, and the King are at Timmy and Cain's level with Pineda potentially as well. I haven't seen your PQS or your blog so I will have to take a look at it but I would be surprised if both Timmy and Cain were better then King and Kershaw and Weaver can't be very far behind either.
ReplyDeleteThe point wasn't who has the best pitchers, it was look at other teams that have good pitching but aren't successful because of lack of offense. Small sample sizes yes but Seattle has had Felix for a few years and before Pineda they had Cliff Lee and they still sucked horribly. The Rangers don't have much pitching at all probably according to your PQS but they were in the world series the last 2 years and will probably be back again in 2012 and this time they win it.
About the competitive advantage in the playoffs, first we have to make it there and even then it is no guarantee that we repeat our success. Great starting pitching didn't seem to work for the Phillies the last 3 years or Milwaukee last year or Atlanta when we beat them. Our pitchers are better then a few of the pitchers on those teams but my guess is that Lee, Halladay, Hanson, Gallardo, and Greinke are all in the conversation. If your expectation is that Timmy and Cain will perform the same as they did in 2010 the next time they reach the playoffs then take your own advice and check the sample size before praising them as the playoff gods.
You say that Lincecum, Cain, and Bumgarner provide the competitive advantage in the playoffs so if all we need are 3 very good starting pitchers according to you, couldn't we afford to trade just Timmy and keep Cain along with Bumgarner and Voggie and still have the same competitive advantage? Voggie had the lowest ERA on the Giants last year so if you don't like him because he doesn't project well for 2012 then do me a favor and check what the projections were for him before last year. Were they anywhere around a .2.71 ERA with 13 Wins? All your arguments are based on projections when I am trying to base mine off of past performance and what I see with my own 2 eyes as someone who has played and watched baseball for all my life. I think both points of view should get equal consideration.
Oh and of course the loss of Posey was huge last year but who the hell knows what would have happened had he not been injured. Management probably would have never traded Wheeler for Beltran (honestly ask yourself whether you really think the Giants would have given up Wheeler if Posey was healthy all year) and we may have lost by a few games just the same.
ReplyDeleteYou can project all you want but that's the problem with projections, sometimes shit happens and then you end up making excuses for why the player or the team didn't meet the projections! The cold hard facts are not pretty even though your projections sure paint a pretty picture.
One more thing, - "I would rather increase the odds of winning it all when we do make it in, than to increase the odds of making the playoffs, which you appear to care more about with you points about the lack of playoffs."
ReplyDeleteI think you are in the minority on this one. I would rather be in the playoffs every year then make it once or twice a decade and management should want this too. That is how you sustain a fanbase and build a brand. Don't tell me you think all those consecutive division championships the Braves won were a failure cuz they only won 1 WS. You think the Marlins ownership was livin it up the last 6 years or so since they won a WS and haven't sniffed the playoffs since? You don't think your argument kinda goes right in the toilet when you take a look at all the empty seats at the Marlins games over the years? Someone please tell me if I'm not making any sense here.
Rangers will get around the 51st pick of the draft for Darren Oliver, as he's headed to Toronto. Just tracking them LOOGYs, that's all. Next up are Mike Gonzo and Arthur Rhodes.
ReplyDeleteDave Cameron has a piece up on dumpster dive pitchers and how much fantastic value they brought. Keeping with his Giants bias, he didn't mention the minor league portions of the dumpster dive, so no mention of Vogelsong, aka the best of them all. (Joking, joking about Cameron - well, mostly) Interesting read.
There's a reason you play the game, and as Voggie got mentioned by Pato, it is always fun to see players come out of nowhere and do amazing things.
My argument with Cain and Timmy as a fan is simple: I think they have an excellent chance to be legends of the game. I want them to do it with the Giants. Tom Seaver. Gaylord Perry. Come on man! I'll put up with some straight up 30s bunt ball to watch those guys pitch in the french vanilla.
That playoff analysis OGC did is very interesting. I cannot stand how Trade Billy dealt with it: "My s&&t doesn't work in the postseason". OK. Actually, good defense, good baserunning (remember the A's crashing and burning on absolutely sloppy terrible baserunning, something Beane has never addressed or cared about) and good pitching count for a hell of a lot. The one thing that stands out also, is even on the stacked Yankee teams of the late 90s, they had some very unlikely hitting heroes. Then you have Schilling and Johnson shutting them down in 2001. Small sample size I guess....
Happy New Year! DrB is out celebrating instead of posting up #3. Good stuff.
I've enjoyed reading everyone's comments and good points were brought up.. However I would have to disagree with the notion that the Giants should consider trading Timmy or Cain for offense. I had the chance to watch the Braves on the superstation win all those division titles between 1991-2003 and those teams were built with great pitching staffs. Their pitching staffs were ranked between #1-#3 in the entire league every year. They didn't trade away pitchers like Tom Glavine, John Smoltz, Steve Avery, Greg Maddox because they were the keys to their successful run. Their offense ranked anywhere between #9-#26 in the entire league during their run. They built their team around pitching similar to the Giants. They won the World Series in 1995 with the 26 ranked offense. They were not great offensive teams but they hit well in the clutch.. I agree that the Giants offense needs to be better then last year (ranked #29). I'm sure that Sabean will continue to look for offensive upgrades during the offseason and during the 2012 season, where he can actually see how the offense performs.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year everyone!
LG
Hey guys! Spent the last day of my vacay on a day trip with my daughter and her friend. Just got back. BTW, I spotted Jennifer Aniston sitting in the passenger seat of a Ranger Rover on Rodeo Drive this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteMy daughter likes to try to spot celebrities. I always figure I would never recognized any of them if I saw them in real life, but we usually spot at least one every time we go down to the Hollywood/Beverly Hills area.
Just want to clarify a couple of things here:
The key to long term success is having a good scouting/drafting/player development program. After practically ignoring the draft, or at least using it mainly to acquire trading chips in the first 10 years of his tenure as GM, Sabes seems to have gotten found the religion in the last 6 years. Drafting Timmy seemed to be the turning point. Like I say, Sabes tends to go back to what works until it doesn't. The AJ trade blew up in his face and then he drafted Timmy who became an ace almost overnight. Since bringing John Barr on board, the Giants have had success with drafting hitters too, so the scouting department is now hitting on all cylinders.
I love having a 3 headed monster of Timmy, Cainer and Bum in the rotation. I don't want the Giants to trade any of them. I think they are relatively safe bets to sign longer term contracts which will extend beyond the time that offensive reinforcements come aboard. Hopefully with Zito/Rowand/Huff/Franchez coming off the books, the Giants can afford to retain the Big 5 and add to it from within while supplementing with relatively inexpensive FA's to fill in the gaps.
On the other hand, I reject the notion that the Giants entire future is tied to this so called "window" and if or when the pitching breaks up all is lost. The whole point of having a strong farm system to to keep replenishing the talent. The scouts who found Timmy, Cain, Bum can find new, younger pitchers who are equally good. There is a whole boatload of position talent currently headed the Giants way. If, at some point, it becomes clear that Matt or Timmy are set on testing the FA market, they can be traded for even more young talent. It's not that I want that, but it is an option, and one that would help the Giants keep winning in the future.
Once again, the Giants are as well positioned for the future as any team in baseball whether that future includes every member of the Big 5 or not. If 2010 and 2011 taught us anything, it should be that in any given season, ANYTHING can happen. To peg one season as a make or break season is about as sabermetrically unsound as you can get, sample size, sample size, sample size. Things don't necessarily even out over the course of one season, even a full season. No matter what happens in 2012, the long term outlook for the Giants is good because they have a strong scouting, drafting and player development system, not because they are going to have Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum forever.
Honestly, Pato, I use projections because that gets less rebuttals. The Giants were up four games at the time the Beltran trade was made. If Posey was as bad you say (and you are right, projections don't always work out), can we at least agree that he wouldn't have been as bad as Whiteside was? The Giants were leading by 4 games or so when the trade was made, but the offense would not have been that much better, still scuffling overall, even with Posey and Sandoval. Thus the trade would have still been done, but with Posey, Beltran, and Sandoval in there, maybe Posey was scuffling earlier, but that lineup would have done better sooner, and the Giants would have likely at least beat out the Cards for the wildcard, being only four games behind.
ReplyDeleteObviously, if Posey did hit as well as he was projected to do. the Giants would have been about 8-10 games ahead around the time of the trade had been made. In that case, yeah, I would agree with you, no trade would have been done, but being ahead that many games at that time of the season, I doubt the D-backs would have pulled out all the stops that they did in August and September to catch up with the Giants, they would have realized that the difficulty of catching up was too high a hurdle, and the Giants in that case would have coasted into the playoffs.
Yes, stuff happens, but there are still actions still taken, in alternative scenarios.
I never said those pitchers were not equal to the Giants. I did say that pitching is not a panacea. Basically, the Giants, as DrB and I have been saying, are on an uptrend. Trading away now would upset that trend. Those teams may have good pitching, but are in a different stage of their rebuilds (in my opinion, they either screwed up their rebuild, or really are at the end of the rebuild, or both).
Pato, one thing that sabermetrics has definitively shown is that the Pythagorean formula works for estimating win-loss record.
ReplyDeleteOne of the key facts about that is the lower your team is capable of keeping runs allowed, the lower your team has to score to win 90 games. Look at the RA for the Giants for the past three seasons. Despite the changes, injuries and poor performances, they have been remarkably similar. Calculate the Runs Scored to win 90 games with that RA. Way below average, you will see.
One of the beauties of having a superior, best in the majors defense is that your runs scored win-efficiency goes up as your runs allowed goes down. In other words, your team has to score less runs per runs allowed in order to net a win. Roughly, for every 0.1 runs allowed you reduce your team's runs allowed, your team reduces the runs scored necessary to win 90 games by 0.11 runs. That is, you need less runs scored to win 90 games relative to runs allowed.
Yes, the offense was bad last season. No team can ever eliminate that type of risk, even the Yankees. You have to rely on what players project, otherwise you may as well give up now, because everything bad in the baseball could happen. I think Sabean did very well in improving the offense this off-season.
Pagan is more reliable for providing a certain level of production, much more so than Torres. Cabrera can also be relied upon for a certain level of production, give or take, and I'm not talking his great 2011 season, but just what he produced previously. Huff, for whatever reasons had a sucky season, but his walk and strikeout rates were not much different from 2010, 2009, 2008, for his career. That suggests a bounceback in 2012 closer to his career numbers than his poor 2011 season. Posey had a poor start, but you know what, he also had a bad start in 2010 too, he was below .700 OPS when he got the starting job, at which point, the summer heat was upon us and he warmed up as well. And Sandoval, I think, has shown what he can do when he is reasonably fit.
We don't need them to perform great in 2012 to win 90-95 games. If they can provide something along the lines of their career, we will win that many games, barring another avalanche of injuries and poor performances.
That is the difference between people who congregate here vs., say, MCC, for them, the sky is falling unless we have Albert Pujols at every position, whereas we believe, by whatever means we chose to apply, that the offense is good enough, as is, with possibilities of upsides that counter any bad luck we may run into.
Positives include basically every position player, with Belt as the wild card who could push his way into the lineup.
Not to take anything away from the Giants great pitchers, but a big part of their success has been Sabes apparent reliance on defensive metrics long before they came into vogue. One think I've noticed about this off-season is a renewed emphasis on D while modestly upgrading the offense. That is why a guy like Carlos Quentin, who some Giants fans are angry about "losing out on" to San Diego would be a bad fit. He would give up at least as many runs on defense as he would produce extra on offense, probably more.
ReplyDeletePato, my point about the playoffs is that you are only focused on winning there. Useless to work to get into the playoffs, if you are then equal to everyone else and are as unlikely to win it all as the other teams.
ReplyDeleteI understand that it don't matter if you are configured to win in the playoffs but then don't get into the playoffs. Per my comment above, that is the key difference between you and me: I believe we can make the playoffs every year, almost, with our great defense and good enough offense. I reiterate that we should have made it in last season with Posey. We were only 4 games away from Cards, a few more behind D-Backs. If you don't think he makes that much of a difference between his performance and what Whiteside/Stewart did, then you don't really think much of his abilities then, and that would also be a difference between you and me (and virtually all other Giants and baseball fans).
As my new research will show, teams with our configuration of great pitching, 1 to 4, maximizes their chances in the playoffs. You literally have to be lucky to get to World Series without such a set of pitchers.
You can also be unlucky, as the Phillies were, losing despite great pitching, but as I agreed above, great pitching don't guarantee you anything.
What it does guarantee is that if you get in, you will be maximizing your chances of winning in the playoffs and going deep.
So, unless a replacement is in the farm system, or they think that the pitcher they are getting in exchange for Lincecum is capable of being a replacement, the Giants should not trade any of their starting pitchers unless they are within a year of losing the player for nothing to free agency (and the draft picks are essentially nothing, as my draft research showed), at which point, they must trade that pitcher for as many top prospects as they can, and not screw it up, like the Twins did in their trade of Johan Santana.
Otherwise, sign them long-term into their early 30's, and keep them around to keep the window of opportunity open for a long time, like the Braves did. Trading away young guys for older players is a sure way of cutting short your team's potential for a dynasty.
I want a dynasty. The means for a dynasty is within the Giants grasp right now, if Giants ownership don't screw it up by being cheap. Sabean has managed the payroll well enough so that we can retain Lincecum and Cain long-term, but securing Sandoval, Posey, and Bumgarner will be harder if ownership is cheap.
I want the Giants to be the Team of the 2010's, I want their imprint on that decade, I want them to put their cleats on the throats of other teams with their crop of young and good to great players. I'm tired of hearing about the A's dynasty, I'm tired of being second to the D-gers, I want them to fear us.
OGC, your knowledge and overall evaluations are unquestionably impressive. The Giants should be paying you for your work IMO. My problem with projections is that they are just good guesses and I get frustrated when at the end of the year if those projections aren't accurate, there are always reasons and excuses as to why not. In pro sports, people lose their jobs when their projections don't work out but Sabes has gotten away with it more then most.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I agree 100% with most of the evaluations from you and Dr. B and Shankbone about the future which looks incredibly bright and exciting. I would like some short term success as well and although the projections say we should win 90-95 games, I don't want more excuses if at the end of the year we don't. I want someone to be responsible for it and it may be time to go in another direction in regards to Sabes.
About Posey, again your evaluations I think are spot on. If healthy then either the Giants are up by a few more games by the trade deadline or they are where they were and maybe they do pull the trigger on Beltran. Pretty hard to think they wouldn't have beaten out St. Louis at that point at least but who knows. I really think the offense didn't score runs more because of the lack of table setters then run producers and who knows what one more bat in the lineup would do if there is nobody on base in front of them to drive in. Torres and Sanchez were the reason we scored runs in 2010, they got on base so that Posey and Huff and Uribe could drive them in but they also didn't make the outs that the top 2 in the lineup did in 2011 causing the middle of the lineup to bat with more outs and less baserunners.
I don't know if we have had a player with Pagans speed in the last 10 years. I am looking forward to having a leadoff hitter who can create that runner in scoring position without having to give up an out to do it. I like Melky too but you have to admit, these are not the sexiest acquisitions when names like Reyes, Prince, and Pujols were out there. I guess what I am most sore about is idea of having this hard salary cap which just makes us look cheap when for 5 to 10 mil a year more they could have gotten one more piece that could have calmed my nerves enough to be happy with the offseason. When other teams like the Marlins who have no fans and the Angels who have 5 dollar beers and even the Phillies who continue to reload are able to spend to improve and we aren't, it is frustrating even if we are still in a very good position despite not making any big splashes.
Oh and I checked out MCC once or twice and there was nothing really there that interested me. I would rather here opinions and points of view from you guys then just listen to a bunch of cry babies. I try not to be one of those guys and support my arguments instead of just bitch and moan, half the time I am just expressing my frustrations as it is quite therapeutic so sorry if it makes you feel like my shrink!
One more thing, even though I just mentioned that I thought the top of the lineup was the real culprit for why the offense struggled last year, if Sabes would have pulled off a trade for Ramon Hernandez, I think they make the playoffs as well. That kind of upset me because he may have been more valuable then Beltran and much cheaper.
ReplyDeleteThink about it, if Sabes had done his job a little better at the trade deadline then we would have had Hernandez catching which would have allowed us to keep Crawford at SS. We couldn't afford to have him at SS with Whiteside and Stewart catching because of the auto 3 outs at the bottom of the lineup so we had to go and trade for Cabrera. No Cabrera last year probably makes a difference of 2 games that we would have won just from him booting balls in key moments of the games. The top of the lineup would still be underperforming but the bottom of the lineup wouldn't have been as awful meaning less outs made and more opportunities to turn over the lineup.
That was a big frustration for me, that Sabes didn't make the right trades or didn't want to do one more and get Hernandez and I see the same frustration possibly happening this year by him refusing to get a RH bat to back up the MI like Cuddyer who everyone is doing a great job of convincing me I was wrong about. But what about Clint Barmes? 5 mil for him could be the difference between us making it to the playoffs in 2012 if things don't go as planned with Sanchez and Crawford.
Pato,
ReplyDeleteProjections are projections, that is true, there is a reason why they play the games, but they are more than just good guesses. They are based on statistical analysis. As with any statistical projection, they are subject to the laws of chance variability. If you look at a projection for one player/one season, yes, it is close to a crapshoot. If you look at projections for all the players in baseball over several seasons, there will be a nice bell curve of variability, both positive and negative that clusters around zero variation from the projection. In other words, a lot more players will be close to their projections than far off.
In 2010, a couple of players, Torres and Huff outperformed their projections by a lot. At least one player, Pablo Sandoval underperformed his projection by a lot. Everybody else was right about where you would expect them so the net was a bit above projection.
In 2010, there was a perfect storm of injuries and career worst performances that are not likely to happen again. So, try to stop fretting about who might not perform well and enjoy the season knowing that if, ON AVERAGE, the team performs to it's projections, they will likely make the playoffs. Whether they go all the way again or whether they have another perfect storm of injuries again is not projectable and the reason why they play the games and why they are exciting.
Sabes would have to try a lot harder then this to get me to not enjoy the season! The fretting part is a little tougher. This team is going to be good don't get me wrong but they could be great with a little more help. In 2010, good was good enough but last year it wasn't. If we have a chance to be great rather then good I would prefer we went for it but either way, nothing is going to stop me from rooting for this team with all my heart every year until I die!
ReplyDeletePato - there's circumstantial evidence Sabes did try for Ramon Hernandez. First, he played for Bochy in SD. Second, he was obviously the best vet/good bat guy on the market. Third, there were rumors from Baggs, not big ones, but there were rumblings. Sabean stated many times the price was too great for catchers. Cincy didn't trade him for anything despite having the best catching prospects in MLB besides those overhyped Yankee ones. (we're going to challenge this very soon if not now) Tells me that Cincy GM wanted his draft pick, and wanted to be blown out of the water for... Ramon Hernandez. I think its a good walkaway if the price was high, which it sure looked like to me.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I've learned to appreciate about Sabean the reboot version is he doesn't want to give up his building blocks. As OGC points out, his record is quite excellent in giving away the "wrong" players, especially the prospect division of that (Nathan was an established major leaguer at the time).
DrB - you are right about Quentin and his defense. And I'm convincing myself that's why they walked away from Beltran as well. Defense is a very hard to measure stat. But its pretty important for sure. I like both Quentin and Beltran's bats, but we'll just have to toil along. I just keep thinking back to the 2010 2nd half where we had a whole lot of dingerz flying out, and that catapulted us to the mythical league average offense...
And just to flesh this out a bit, because its interesting to me - the "Brian Sabean doesn't return phone calls" dustup from around the time of the Bengie trade to Texas. Buster Olney slammed Sabey Sabes based on a partial survey of 12 GMs where 7 said he's the most difficult to deal with and one GM in particular threw that phone call quote down...
ReplyDeleteBaggs story is interesting. Here's the Sabean quote that stuck out to me: “Lets not be naïve,” Sabean said. “There are 30 teams. Some you don’t have anything in common with. Some are young guys cutting their teeth, chatterboxes throwing things against the wall to see what sticks, or gathering intelligence.
“I’m a cut-to-the-chase guy.”
I'll bet money the guy who complained was Jed Hoyer. He seems like every stereotype of the new chatterbox GM to me.
Sabean has done a remarkable job of protecting his core players. At times you have to be stubborn and difficult to do that. And take your lumps with vets who may bust. And take lumps from the press or other GMs, and lunatic fringe fans fo sho.
The thing that stands out to me about Sabey Sabes is his core group of greybeards. They have been with him for the long haul, and he obviously inspires tremendous loyalty. I can see him being short, abrasive and awkward as well, but it does stand out to me that this crew of guys have been working together for so long with a very distinct style and commitment. Obviously there is something there to inspire this loyalty and commitment. That gets discounted big time by Giants fans.
I watched MLB network all night after the world series. Yes, I tivo'd the damn things also. Sabean was interviewed right away. His response showed a huge appreciation for Giants history: "We finally buried the bones of the 62, the 89 and the 2002 teams". A few days later he was interviewed by Tolbert on KNBR. He mentioned seeing Olney on the field, and said something along the lines of "He didn't even have the respect to congratulate us - well forget about him, I don't want to mention his name". Sabean does this a lot - a tad bit sensitive for such a tough talker - but the "mention his name" thing is very similar to what he said about Cousins. Maybe Tolbert just eggs him on. Ralph B was not on the broadcast the day he talked about Olney, and Ralph always has the rep as an instigator.
Some GMs are comfortable with high profile, high risk trades. Texas seems to be doing this a lot. Sabean is the opposite, especially after being burned on AJ/Nathan. He is low profile, sideways moving, and yes, most likely obsessed about certain players. Winn, Finley and even Freddy Sanchez come to mind. But Texas was pretty miserable for a long time to get the early picks to have that depth. You look at any GMs resume and you have bad trades and bad FA signings. Why Sabean has to have his constantly brought up isn't exactly fair. It might be his reclusive and difficult personality, just like this "doesn't return phone calls" nonsense. I've said it before - he carrys a lot of water for the ownership group. They appreciate that.
Back to the trades - especially with the Giants being more solid further back, no GM wants to play guess games with the Single A or DSL guys. They want the most proven guys. I imagine every catcher discussion started with Hembree or Frankie Pegs. That's a pretty quick hang up in my book.
Is it that Sabean is uncomfortable with high profile, high risk trades, or that he doesn't see many that he likes? He did, after all, start his GM career with a very high profile, high risk, controversial trade of Matt Williams, which generated the first of his famous lines.
ReplyDeleteAnd for the most part, in most trades that Sabean has made, he has either come ahead by a lot or basically broke even, in that both sides didn't get much of anything. So I think that speaks to his knowledge of what talent he has in hand as trade pieces.
Don't you think Billy Beane wishes he had Ethier and CarGon in his lineup? If he still had them, he might not have had to trade away all his good players again, that Holliday trade just sucked the talent out of the team.
I recall you mentioning somewhere (here?) about how Sabean changed his strategy of trading away young pitchers to keeping them. I would proffer this alternative view: his strategy has been the same the whole time, he trades away the pitchers that he don't think will make it and keeps the ones he thinks might.
And honestly, either view works, I see where I might be seen as a Sabean apologist because I don't add the final bit, that either works, but I find that a lot of the thinking about Sabean to be one-sided (not you but generally), without considering the full puzzle that is Brian Sabean, and so I put in my two-cents without putting in all my sense. So thanks for making me cognizant of this lack of completeness, I hate not being complete.
And to your point about Hernandez for Hembree or Pegs, that's a quick hang up, I agree.
Here's my take on the whole Sabean doesn't communicate with other GMs brouhaha. I think he is like me, not that I'm comparing me to him, but in how we react to stupid trade suggestions. When I was active in baseball fantasy leagues, I would get the stupidest trade offers. Do I be nice and acknowledge them or just ignore them?
For a nice example, take the whole Lincecum-Rios trade rumor. As I noted on Sickel's site, that was pretty clearly a Toronto rumor that Ricciardi spun out to the media, probably because Sabean didn't bother to return his original message. As a negotiator, where is there middle ground on that one? I wouldn't have took TWO Alex Rios for Tim Lincecum, let alone one, so clearly, to me at least, it would be a waste of time to negotiate with Toronto on that. The way I saw it, Sabean used that media storm to broadcast to the rest of baseball, give me your best offers or shut up.
I can see why that commenter thought that Sabean was offering up Lincecum, but that, to me, clearly was not what happened, he was put in the center because Toronto leaked out their offer, put the challenge to baseball to give him something good, and when he didn't he publicly let every other GM know they can blow off and not bother him with stupid trades for Lincecum (or Cain, people forget that Toronto was waffling between the two pitchers in that rumor).
Ooops, didn't finish my thought. So, per your comment about how others are throw things to the wall and see what sticks, that bespeaks to me of someone who don't really understand the value of the players they have.
ReplyDeleteI didn't make very many trade offers in my fantasy league because I tried to make things as fair as I could be, and not one-sided. Either the other teams were assholes trying to rip me off of huge value or they really didn't understand talent value. Either way, I didn't think it was worth my time trying to negotiate with them, which I tried a few times in a fair way. Eventually, I ended up getting annoyed and then countered with an equally outrageous trade offer that worked for me, and they didn't bother me much after that.
In Sabean's case, I think it is pretty clear from his trades of prospects that he knows talent and would rather hold them than trade it away.
So once a prospect has lost the favor of the Giants scouting staff, he becomes trade bait that is available, at least from the Giants perspective. His list of non-"Keeper List" prospects (it was once shared in an interview with someone that the Giants have a Keeper List who are not tradeable, and thus everyone else is fair game) is internal, but the way I see it, other teams are not extremely smart about trades, and the discussion that Sickels had with some people on the Giants prospect list talked about how he found that many GMs and staff don't really scout everybody in person, as that would require a large traveling budget, confirms that.
So the other teams would always come to Sabean and offer up somebody to the Giants in exchange for their top prospect, and if he is a non-keeper, the Giants keep them in mind for future trade talks and eventually trade him before his trade value drops much, like Alderson or Barnes, or Foppert.
Hence, to me, his strategy did not change, his level of prospects did. And judging by his success rate in not giving away a good player via trade (besides AJ trade), without getting good value back, he has been a good GM in that regard.
Ricciardi was truly a terrible GM. Wells and Rios. Ouch. I don't think he's a very good junior guy either, poor Mets. I agree, he forced some issues into the press, which as we know Sabey Sabes hates.
ReplyDeleteNot sure what I said about trading pitchers at the moment, I agree Sabean likes to trade guys they figure aren't going to make the grade, and has been pretty darn successful with that strategy, and that continues today. I wish we kept Verdugo, we don't have a lotta lefties, but oh well, I'll trust the track record.
I didn't make the throw things at the wall, (this time!) that was the Sabean quote. I do think the Giants throw stuff against the wall at times with the promotions, specifically Hector Sanchez last year. But from the quote, yeah, its simple poker for Sabean not to want to give away any information. Which as I've mentioned, is why I like the press conferences so much.
Only thing I can add about trades is there is tons of information out on every player now in a way there wasn't in the past. Teams value prospects more - look at the yanks lockdown on theirs for example. Trades are much harder today. At least I think they are, when you don't want to give away the guys you value. We'll definitely have this theory tested in a couple years, I'm with you on the Wheeler thing, I don't think they'd give him away if they were that high on him, I think he'll be a good reliever but more on the Alderson side of things. But we could be way wrong about this one...