There's a link to an interview Brian Sabean did with Mychal Urban over on sfgiants.com Message Board. Sabes had a few interesting things to say:
1. He sees Theriot as taking pressure off Crawford against certain LHP's.
2. I sounds like he really, really wants Brandon Belt to be the starting 1B.
3. He talked about Huff playing LF, but you get the feeling that they don't quite know what to do with Huff.
4. Sounds like if Huff is still on the team at the start of the season, Nate is the 4'th OF
Nick Cafardo who writes a baseball column for the Boston Globe ranked the teams by the the success of their offseasons. I was pleasantly surprised to see him rank the Giants #15. He had some good things to say about the two trades for Cabrera and Pagan and about Brian Sabean. The link is on MLBTR.
In a sad and surprising development, somebody hacked the MLB Draft Guide site and destroyed all the files. I absolutely love what Matt Grabusky is doing on that site and here's a shout out to Matt to keep his chin up and keep going.
....and a shout out to Calvin n Hobbs over on MCC for a link to mlbreport.com and a great interview with Giants prospect Mike Murray. Not sure off the top of my head if he made honorable mention on my top prospect list. If not, maybe I will have to add him.
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im having a very hard time dealing with the thought of nate coming off the bench...how many times does the guy have to prove his worth?
ReplyDeletei would love for belt to be the starting first baseman, but not if it means that nate is riding the pine and only getting in to play d in the late innings
doesnt matt have a backup?
and doc...typo...its urban
I know, Bacci. I feel a special attachment to Nate after watching him work all the way up the Giants minor league system against a lot of odds and seemingly very little help and encouragement from the organization. Love his D and I do think he still has some offensive upside.
DeleteOn the other hand, it's very hard to imagine Belt struggling more than he did last year. If you project his HR total from last year to a full season of AB's, you get 27 or so. If that's his offensive floor, then it's pretty darn close to Nate's ceiling, maybe even a bit higher. So, objectively, If it comes down to Belt vs Nate, I think you have to go with Belt.
What I'd really like is for the Giants to find a trade for Huff and go with Belt at first and a starting OF of Melky in LF, Pagan in CF and Nate in RF. With Crawford at SS, it would be one of the great defensive alignments of all time and not terrible offensively. Keep Pill as the RH backup at 1B and get a RH hitting OF and you have yourself a nice little team there.
Thanks for the typo alert. Fixed!
How about the Pirates for Huff? We have traded with them in the past and they aren't exactly locked in with Garret Jones at 1B and he could be useful to them in the OF as well. They seem to like to collect our garbage so worth a shot and not really expecting anything in return. The other one I was thinking about were the twins. If Morneau doesn't come back strong they may be in need of someone like Huff. Other then that maybe Texas if you pay them since he is probably better then Mitch Moreland and since they are dying to get rid of Michael Young, why not trade one for the other along with a few prospects.
Deletecant see anyone taking huff with his salary, unless he has a great...and i mean great, out of his mind, hitting everything with pop, st
Deleteand it would also probably cost the giants another prospect
the mets owe the giants for wheeler...and if they really bring in the fences, huff may do well
Hey Dr. B, I found this video of RHP Ryan Bean working out this winter and thought you may enjoy seeing it. I have a question for you about his workout, do you know why he throws the ball backwards one handed at the wall, what is he working on? That exercise seems like a violent dangerous action to me, but wanted to see if you see any benefit in it. Lastly his mechanics look good and compact to me so he will now be a guy I watch this year.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why he is throwing the ball backwards. The two handed backwards throw with the heavy ball is reminiscent of Andres Torres throwing cement blocks backward up the hill in his winter workouts.
DeleteI agree the windup and delivery looks good. Just off the top of my head, I'd say it reminds me of Troy Percival.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVhMhuEgetU
DeleteI forgot to attach the video, sorry
I could work with a Percival 2.0
DrB,
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of starting Belt and trading Huff. I think the Brewers need a cheap 1B. I would pay most of Huff's contract for maybe a second tier young pitching prospect. Pill could take his spot on the 25 man roster and start Nate in RF. Unfortunately with the aquisition of Theriot that might be the last of Burriss or Pill back to Fresno. I don't think Burriss got that much of a chance.
Ummmmm, if Burriss could hit it more than 200' in the air, then maybe. I like his speed factor and think the Giants could definitely use a Bullet for late in 1 run games. But, Burriss has had his chances, more than most light hitting middle infielders. No tears here for Burriss and if he sticks out of Spring all to the Giants better.
DeleteBurriss did not have his chances. Most of his AB's came sporadically. When a player is called up and down and not able to play everyday consistently, that is not getting chances. I would have like to see him getting 350-400 AB's in a season. 2008 was a decent year for him as he hit .283/.357/.329 and had about the same amount of BB's to K's. 2009 was not great and then the injuries came in. He was barely used in 2011. I agree it would be nice to have his speed off the bench. However, if Sanchez goes down again like most people think he will, I would love to see Burriss grab his spot. Theriot does not have a future past 2012 with the Giants but Burriss is young enough to.
DeleteI don't think you can say that every prospect fails because they don't get 350-400 AB's in a season. At some point you have to weed out the ones who are less likely to make it so you don't suffer through 350-400 bad AB's just to find out the guy is a pumpkin, and yes, in doing that you may well discard an occasional player who might have made it. I think Burriss is fairly close to that point if not past it. I wouldn't mind seeing what he could do with 350 AB's if, say, Franchez gets injured again, but I wouldn't make it a priority at all.
DeleteI'm just a little tired of hearing every time a Giants prospect goes bust it's because the Giants mismanaged them. How many of these mismanaged prospects have gone on to flourish in other organizations? Yes, there are some who have stuck on the fringes of other teams, but I can't think of very many who have gone on to become impact players. It's not because other teams don't give them chance either. Bowker, Fred Lewis, Rajai Davis and others have all gotten extended looks with other teams and have even had short runs of brilliance, but they have all ultimately fallen short of winning longstanding starting jobs.
Kevin Frandsen is another one who got a second chance with the Angels and even looked good for a short run but was not able to sustain it.
DeleteThank you DrB! Amen and bravo!
DeleteThere are chances and there are chances. If Burriss is unable to hit for any power in the minors, plus can't take many walks down there, there's no use giving him much time up in the majors just to prove that he can't do those things there. It is unlikely that he's going to suddenly start hitting against the best pitchers in the world if he can't even manhandle the ones in AAA.
And I like Burriss. If anyone is to blame for Burriss's lack of development, and thus opportunity, he only has to look in the mirror. It has been well documented that he was the straw that broke Carney Lansford's trial as hitting coach for the Giants. Carney thought that Burriss' arms were strong enough that he should be zinging out line drives and taking advantage of that strength. Instead, Burriss has steadfastly stuck to his "slap at the ball" technique that he has clearly been using (based on his embarrassingly low ISO in the minors). My only guess is that Manny's father (or similar authoritarian figure in his life) taught him to hit that way, most likely to take advantage of his speed (just like Torres), and he has refused to change his way, as that would repudiate that teacher's teachings.
Instead, he would rather let his major league dreams be repudiated by his lack of power that is the result of this hitting style and technique.
I believe that he has a great batting eye. He knows the strike zone very well, being able to avoid strikeouts well, and at least getting balls into play. But because he does not use his strength appropriately, he hits weak grounders instead of stinging line drives to the outfield.
As the saying goes, you can steal first base. And he needs to get on base to use his speed, a lesson Gary Brown clearly knows, people complain about this lack of walks, but he's a HBP machine and will take walks when he's unable to hit well enough in the league to be one of the leaders in OBP. In addition, he swings to hit line drives, because that is truly when his speed can pay off, running the bases, stretching singles to doubles, doubles to triples. And being able to do that means that you drive in runs as well. He understands how offense works in baseball, Burriss needs to bunk with him and learn how to be an offensive force, but after all this time and poor results, with no resultant inclination to change despite evidence to the contrary, I am afraid Burriss' time is going to pass without him making it, which is sad, because I think he is that close to being a long-term veteran in baseball, starter for a few years, then a long journeyman career as a speedster off the bench, good defensive MI, and nice OBP/SLG guy. Maybe even longer term starter if he can hit for more power, as Carney seemed to envision.
Pretty much like a Theriot, but the way it is going, he's probably will be out in a year or two, Lewis at least did something in the majors that will draw teams to take a chance on him, Manny has not. He's going to be more like Frandsen, on the fringe, never able to quite make it. And I liked Frandsen too, his injury blew his chance to do something with the Giants, the timing just was not there, nor did his attitude help either.
I can't think of *any* position players in recent years who were ditched by the Giants and went on to become impact players elsewhere for any length of time. Nor have I seen real evidence that the Giants mismanaged any young players, including Belt in 2011. This isn't to weigh in as to whether he should have been played instead of head-in-the-toilet Huff, or to whether Crawford should have displaced the deplorable O. Cabrera last year. It is to be skeptical that their handling was unfair or detrimental to them.
DeleteThe argument about mismanagement characteristically seems to be that fan or journalist X thinks young player A is highly promising, and when this turns out not to be so, X prefers to blame the team for mishandling A rather than himself for misjudging A. Or in Frandsen's case, he took the parts of both X and A in this scenario. If these guys were in fact promising, scouts for other teams would surely have singled them out as minor league players, and tried to get them on the cheap from the Giants. That didn't happen with Lewis or Frandsen or Bowker (though he was tearing up the PCL), whose talents the Giants judged correctly.
I'm in agreement with the anti-Burriss camp. I liked the guy a lot too, but he offers not much power and he doesn't have a good approach at the plate to boot. Plus, I'm not sure if he's as good on the bases as people would like to believe. Sure, he did have 24 SB in Fresno last year, but Tyler Graham had 60, and I don't think Graham is going to be competing for playing time at the Major League level anytime soon.
DeleteAdd that with mediocre defensive metrics (minus UZR numbers at SS, barely above average numbers at 2B), a poor plate approach (sub-0.50 BB/K ratio in past two Giants stints), and a lack of ability to hit anything beyond singles (career 0.31 ISO) and Burriss is really a bench infielder at best. I want to be optimistic about him and he seems like a good character guy, but he certainly isn't worth giving regular at-bats to at this point in his career.
I really hope Belt plays more first base this year, simply because he is the Giants' first baseman of the future and Huff is most likely gone after this year. To be honest, while playing Huff would be an adventure in left, I would rather have him there with Belt at first. First off, Belt's defense at first is far superior, and I think Pagan can cut Huff some slack (though if we had Andres Torres back, I'd be a lot more comfortable with the notion of Huff in left). The big mistake last year was that we couldn't play Huff in right because Burrell was equally statuesque. Now that Burrell is gone, that isn't the problem. Of course, the issue is that Nate is regulated to bench status (again) and though I like Nate a lot and agree that his defense is phenomenal, I think the upside of having Belt at first is much more advantageous for the Giants in the future (and as pointed out, it's not like Belt doesn't offer anything...he looked very comfortable at the plate in September).
ReplyDeleteThe dream scenario would be to trade Huff but good luck trying to find anybody to take that 10 million off the Giants hands. That being said, I am glad Sabes is high on Belt not only in the Giants' future plans but immediate as well.
Nice interview - the last part was hilarious - sabey sabes called himself a dinosaur and the flip phone?
ReplyDeleteVery apparent to me the gints love Belt. I would say they are putting a lot of pressure on huff to make sure last year doesn't happen again.
You can add ishikawa to that list. Schierholz is going to have to fight it off some more. There is also eugenio velez - someone who busted through despite fan mockery and was a anti-frandsen of sorts. I would agree that while the giants might be a little too old school they also haven't messed up anything big. Wilson, romo, Sandoval etc are all proof of that. It's extremely hard to scrap your way on the 25, and burriss did it last year due to injuries.
pretty tired of hearing all the blame or lack of development being placed on the players
ReplyDeleteto that, i have but 2 words....JIM HARBAUGH....that man took a team that went 6-10 in 2010 to the cusp of the superbowl
facts are facts....good coaches get the most out of their players....and the mlb still runs its development program like its the early 20th century
Apples and Oranges, Bacci. Football is a far different game than baseball. I don't dispute that MLB has a lot to learn about player development, but no matter how sophisticated they get, they still are not going to turn sow's ears into silk purses.
DeleteFor all the raging about the Giants mismanaging their prospects, you can't show me an example of a prospect the Giants gave up on that flourished with another team. At the same time, the Giants have one of the best homegrown cores of young players in baseball. Those are the facts, Bacci, and yes, facts are facts!
One more thing, Bacci. In 2010, the Giants didn't just get to the cusp of the World Series, THEY WON THE DARN THING! They did it with a core of young homegrown players too!
DeleteThen Bochy qualifies as one of the best in baseball.
DeleteWhen I studied the saber rule that a manager's 1-run win/loss record regresses to the mean of .500, I found that Bochy, at least among NL managers (can't find my notes, so I can't recall if I covered AL; but I don't think so), has had the best record in 1-run games over his career. He not only regularly is among the leaders in games over .500 for his 1-run win/loss record, he has basically done that once every two seasons over his career. No other NL manager is even close, Baker is the closest but whereas Bochy regularly hits 8-10 games above .500, Baker was around 5 games above. Bochy was the manager in, like, 40-50% of the seasons where any manager in the NL has a leading positive wins above .500 in win/loss.
Using the assumed .500 mean that managers are suppose to regress to, at the 95% statistical significance, Bochy is clearly above .500, though only slightly so, but in any case he exhibits the ability to win more than .500 in 1-run games in his career, probably the only NL manager to do so, and if he were to end up -10 wins each year in 1-run games, it would take 5-10 straight years (can't remember the exact number, lost my research notes) of that to bring him down to .500 for his career.
Bochy is clearly heads and heads above his NL managerial brethren.
Facts are facts: Bacci, you just don't understand the fundamental differences between football and baseball player development, which undermines any of your thoughts on how baseball should work.
DeleteIn football, the draft, if done optimally, can provide you with a good number of starters for your team the next season. For great recent examples, Aldon Smith, their first round pick, had 14 sacks, which qualified him for one of the best in the league in that stat. The Niners also got significant contributions from other later draftees. Bill Walsh once got SIX starters out of one draft, and many of them excellent contributors.
The Giants selected well in picking Joe Panik, but as well as he did, he's probably at least 2 seasons away from contributing as a starter, and even that is questionable to a reasonable degree because he hasn't even played at AA or above yet.
And that's for top prospects from any draft. Most players take up to 4-6 years before becoming a regular starter, first moving up the minors, then doing a lot of backup in the majors before becoming a regular. If a baseball team can get two good starters out of one draft, that's actually excellent, it is just that hard to find a good player in any particular draft, let alone two.
Fundamentally different player development and player pipeline systems, not even comparable on any level, yet you compare them without batting an eyelash.
But I will agree that good coaches get the most of out their players. And Bochy clearly has been doing that, as evidenced by his ability to win at above a .500 winning percentage in 1-run games.
And while I agree that the MLB runs their player development behind the times and could be improved (FYI, the modern farm system was a radical development that Branch Rickey pioneered in the 1930's), I don't think that there are that many players who would have been stars in the game if only they were developed properly. I think that baseball is relatively efficient and effective in finding and developing the stars of the game.
Now, if you are talking about guys who might start, but aren't stars, I could be persuaded to agree (Andres Torres comes to mind), but honestly, we don't follow baseball because of these marginal players, it's the good players we come for, really, and the experience of following prospects as they grow and develop into good players. Randy Winn is nice, Aubrey Huff better, but it is players like Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Posey, Sandoval who draw us in.
JOE NATHAN......BOOOOOOOOOM
ReplyDeleteI WIN
Kent, Schmidt, Nen, Livan, Rueter, Winn, Franchez, Burks, Lincecum, Cain, Lowry, Sanchez, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo, Sandoval, Posey, Belt, Brown, Panik, Hembree, two World Series, one World Championship ...
DeleteNathan was traded for a lefthanded hitting All-Star catcher. Those don't grow on trees. It just turned out that a huge part of AJ's offensive success in Minnesota was tied to playing on artificial turf. Oh, and he had this attitude problem too. So no, Nathan doesn't count! Keep looking!
DeleteIf you would have said Nathan and Francisco Liriano, I would have given you some credit. Remember who Joe Nathan was at the time: the organization wasn't sure if he was going to be a starter or a reliever (and they mixed him up doing both), he had a some pretty mediocre K/BB ratios in the majors with the Giants (1.17 and 0.97...average MLB pitcher is around 2), and he was a sixth round pick who had a pretty unspectacular minor league career (career 4.90 ERA in the minors, 1.59 K/BB ratio, 1.52 WHIP). The Giants weren't exactly giving away Tim Lincecum, and I also remember at the time the Twins were pretty much relying on Nathan at the time because Eddie Guardado burned them in free agency and they were scrambling. Nathan looked like the best temporary option, and he ended up being better than expected.
DeleteI hated the trade more for the fact that we lost Liriano, who actually was a legit prospect (ranked No. 83 in Baseball America's Top 100 prior to 2003) for a guy who obviously wasn't that good and we only got one year out of. I understood the trade at the time, but Pierzynski just wasn't the right fit on the team, and it's always disheartening to trade multiple guys with multiple years left on their contracts for one year of somebody. But as far as people bringing up Nathan? Come on...nobody was predicting that, and I don't remember a lot of people at the time jumping the Nathan bandwagon when he was wearing a Giants uniform.
"you can't show me an example of a prospect the Giants gave up on that flourished with another team."
ReplyDeletenathan was only traded cuz alou and sabean gave up on him
i still win....you only wanted one
now if you had said...give me an example of a position player prospect that the giants gave up on and flourished with another team....you would be right
i didnt say liriano because of his injury history....sabean is pretty good at weeding out the guys who look like they are gonna have arm probs
and i still think the giants should hire harbaugh as a consultant...that man can inspire anyone to put out 150 percent
Nathan was not a prospect when he was traded, he already had 3 years of major league service time, and established himself as a very good reliever in 2003, I was not happy giving him up.
DeleteThe best prospect traded away, in terms of what he did afterward, is probably Keith Foulke, who had a very good career as a reliever and closer. But it was not like he is a core piece of a winning team. Next is probably Bob Howry.
Meanwhile, Sabean traded for Kent, Schmidt, Burks, plus kept Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo, Posey, Sandoval.
Liriano, as good as he can be at times, really is detrimental to a baseball team's pennant hopes. The Twins rely on him to be their ace starter, but if he's injured (really, more when), then they have nobody to replace his production and the team is sunk, no playoffs that season most likely. He has pitched only one full season (and barely, 31 starts is not usually a full season, at least to me), he's been injured for at least a month in two of his seasons (and he missed a full season as well). He costed them the title in 2008 by not being able to win at least one more game. And really wasn't that good in 2 of the past four seasons. The only season he really helped the Twins was in 2010 and 2006. Two out of six seasons. No big loss, his ERA+ is 101 for his career, basically average.
No Bacci, you don't win. If the Giants had DFA'd Nathan or traded him for a low level prospect, then you would get credit. Being included in a trade for an All Star catcher is not the same as giving up on a player. It's that you need to give up quality to get quality. AJ is a quality catcher. Just not quite All Star outside the Metrodome and he was not a fit personality-wise in SF. You and AJ have something in common though. You both hate Brian Sabean!
Delete