Friday, March 9, 2012

Spring Training Update: Game Wrap Giants 6 Reds 3

Buster Posey made his spring trainging debut and played in his first game since that day we try not to think about. Melky Cabrera stayed insanely hot and Matt Cain pitched an easily dominant 3 innings as the Giants upped their spring training record to 5-2. Key Lines:

Melky Cabrera- 2 for 3, HR(3). BA= .588. There was yet another article in Fangraphs saying Cabrera is going to regress this year. I think Melky may actually be undervalued because EVERYBODY thinks he's going to regress! Now, I know spring training stats don't mean a thing, especially early on, but I think these analysts may be missing the human element here. Melky has always had the tools, tools galore! There is a well known phenomenon in baseball called Post Hype Sleeper. That's what Melky was last year and lot of people are having trouble believing it. The human element is that in his first few seasons, Melky was very much out of shape and possibly had a problem with alcohol. He hit rock bottom in Atlanta. He got serious about his conditioning and the results in KC were obvious. Now, he appears to be in even better shape and has a totally focused, almost workaholic attitude. He's also just entering the age range where ballplayers typically have their peak seasons. So, tools, post hype sleeper, conditioning, attitude, age, contract year. I think it all adds up to last year being just the tip of the iceberg.

Freddy Sanchez- 1 for 4. BA= .250. Freddy made his debut in the lineup albeit as a DH. He may play in the field sometime next week.

Buster Posey- 0 for 1. BA= .000. Buster was greeted with loud cheers in Scottsdale. He's the Savior, the Future, the Promised One of this team. He's to the Giants now what Will "The Thrill" was years ago. The guy who Giants fans think of first when they think of the Giants. It's hard to fathom how damaging his injury was to the collective fan psyche or how much his return, no matter how modest, is uplifting. A great day for the Giants and their fans, and I'm sure for Buster too.

Brett Pill- 1 for 3, 2B. BA= .350. Pill continues to impress.

Aubrey Huff- 0 for 3. BA= .214. Again, spring training stats don't mean much, but Huff came to camp needing to make a statement. So far, it's the wrong statement! It could be telling that he played LF today.

Brandon Belt- 2 for 2, 2B, HR(2). BA= .389. If this keeps up, I'm not sure how the Giants send Belt down to Fresno.

Matt Cain- 3 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 0.00. Cain is Cain. Quietly dominant!

Brian Burres- 3 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 2.25. Not sure where Burres fits. Personally I might be more confident in him than Barry Zito, but Zito's not going anywhere for awhile.

Heath Hembree- 1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 2 K. ERA= 3.00. Hembree was hitting 96 on the gun today. I doubt he breaks camp with the Giants but he could well be up before the season is out.

The Giants play split squad games tomorrow against the Angels and BrewCrew with Zito and Shane Loux getting the starts.

16 comments:

  1. Well said about Melky. That's exactly right. He has several things going for him that have been discounted.

    So happy to have Buster on the field of play.

    Don't want to read too much into spring training but its sometimes nice to have bad things happening early and then come out swinging. Last year we rocked until the end, and then limped in with the Ross injury, Wilson shaky, wasn't so hot.

    Anybody who says they know what's happening with Belt is lying. 100% wide open, maybe until the last moment like last year.

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  2. Huff had a pretty good Spring last year, and we know how that translated to the regular season.

    Agreed, well-said on Melky Doc. I can't even find any non-Giants fan who believes Melky will even play as well as mid-way between the down years and last year. I cede some regression, and they want in all back saying last year was a fluke. I believe Pagan will have a good year, but I'm thinking Melky will absolutely give us our money's worth.

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  3. Bowa is also impressed with another young player, shortstop Brandon Crawford. “I like what he does – good range, good arm,” Bowa said. “When you first come up and you don’t tear up the league, you take heat. I was an out when I first came up, but I ended up with 2,000 hits.”

    i say slide panik over to second

    as for fangraphs...hey doc, did you see where one of their writers put the giants farm system at 23, while the bums were near the top 10 and the yanks are in the top 10?

    ive had a lot of nasty things to say about the farm system, but since all the wholesale changes have been made, no question in my mind that the system is near the middle of the pack

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    1. Given the rules of prospect ranking along with the technical "graduations" of Belt and Crawford, it's tough for me to defend putting the Giants much higher than 20 or so, but ranking the Bums and Yanks that high kind of undermines their credibility. I just stayed away from that one. I made one general comment about how it needs to be pointed out that these rankings are a snapshot of the organization AT THIS TIME. The rankings may be adversely affected by recent graduations and can improve quicky with a breakout or two.

      Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when Bowa first broke in. He hit right around .200 or something. Whenever people want to write off a prospect after 100 MLB AB's or so, I always go back to the roots of those 70's Phillies teams. Go back and look up what Bowa, Luzinski and Mike Schmidt did in their first season or two.

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    2. The bums stood out to me as well, but I thought our ranking was pretty fair. We have a lot of talent in the lower minors but they're just not hype guys... yet. I expect things to change pretty quick. But more guys are coming up soon - Hembree, H Sanchez aren't long for the minors. Good point about Belt/Crawford. Joseph is right on the cusp of a lot of national press, but he has to do it in the Eastern. His age relative to league is excellent. The pitching of Crick/Blackburn/Mejia will take a couple of years to build. If they do it successfully that could be a huge boon.

      I saw that Bowa quote. Looked up Schmidt, he had some big time hitting issues, although he was always a three true outcome guy. The way Giants fans (on the internet) have got on Crawford and dismissed him is just bizarre. After years of sending out statues we have a guy who can really pick it. The Pitching Staff sure appreciates him. Its nice that Panik can hang at short and the Giants can hedge this a bit. I would love them to draft another middle infielder in the 2nd if Valentin, Bregman or Renda drop as an additional hedge on Crawford, but there is huge value in a defensive shortstop, and its a shame it gets dismissed so fast by fans. Any hitting is gravy. We don't need Cal Ripken out there.

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    3. Who are the top 5 defensive shortstops in the NL today?

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    4. Are there even any better hitting shortstops out there right now (or last year for that matter) that can be had, and aren't in the Renteria/Tejada class of fielders?

      I'm not sure there are...

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    5. I don't think the rankings really matter as much as overall talent brought into the organization and implemented into the big league club. The Giants have been very successful since Foppert of shaping our best prospects into stars, like Cain, Lincecum, Buster, Wilson. And other guys who were below the radar too, like Panda, Romo, Nate, and possibly also Crawford, Belt, Hector and Hembree later this year. Belt is a funny case, he didn't have the hype, but dominated the minor leagues so much that it seemed like one year there was so much. He was the unheralded, then suddenly hyped prospect. A lot of great hitters have had seasons well below league average in their first taste of the majors at 23. Belt actually played pretty well, considering an injury and inconsistent playing time.

      I do think that within a year or two, Belt could (with his talent and developing power, maybe should) be our best hitter and one of the best 1B in the NL
      (unless Pablo steps his game up another freakish level).

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  4. Baggs always gets great stuff to write about. Here's a priceless one from yesterday on CSN Bay Area: Buster Posey was doing the John Hancock for a bunch of kids after his two inning stint. On kid yells out, "why are you so good?" Before Buster could get a response out another kid answered for him, "because he just is!" LOL!

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  5. Baggs also has a great article up about Posey and Todd Jennings "The Man Who Knows Posey's Pain".

    Jennings, a catcher, suffered almost the same injury as Posey and talks about how hard the recovery was. And it was very hard and long. He points out that Posey will be in constant rehab therapy and pain/stiffness this year - and because of it he will be limited in the number of starts he can make.

    Also bizarre baseball fact. Nate was in right field when both injuries occurred.

    Really insightful article.

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  6. I was listening to the radio broadcast yesterday and the announcer talked that Todd Linden is back with the Giants. Wow, I forgot about that guy. They said he hit near 40 homers in an independent league last year. Now that would be an interesting Vogelsong "hitting version" if he could make it back.

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    1. Linden hit 14 HRs in something called the North American Baseball League. (Candian cities mostly).

      He'd been in Japan for part of 09 and 10. (Yankees sold him.)

      Minor league deal, no worries. But Linden always struck the wrong chord with me. Too much cocky attitude didn't go so well with dropped pop ups.

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  7. Not that it matters, but the giants played the reds yesterday and not the padres as you have listed in the title of your post

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  8. I think we're all missing the really big point about Posey's return. My fourteen-year-old daughter (and sometimes catcher on her HS softball team) has pointed out to me that Posey has gone to a traditional catcher's mask (plus backwards batting helmet) rather than the hockey-goalie style mask he's worn up to now. I'm told it looks a lot better.

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  9. Last year, there were 8 SS's who played more than 500 innings with a UZR/150> Crawford's 8.2: Janish, Hardy, Alexei Ramirez, Barmes, Peralta, Escobar, Brendon Ryan and Stephen Drew.

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