Buster Posey made his first appearance as a player since his injury last May. Melky Cabrera had a big night at the plate to lead the Giants. Key Lines:
Melky Cabrera- 3 for 4, HR(4). BA= .359. Cabrera was robbed of another hit by Jemile Weeks ranging far into the hole on the right side. Q: If Melky has another strong year, how much is he going to get paid in FA next year?
Pablo Sandoval- 1 for 4. BA= .250. If anything Pablo looks like he's gained some weight during spring training. Yikes! He was overswinging last night trying to hit everything into McCovey Cove.
Brandon Belt- 2 for 3, 2B. BA= .391. Belt turned on two pitches that he drove to the right side. The swing on the double was kind of funny looking. He's obviously trying to draw his hands in on inside pitches to avoid getting tied up. I'm going to play armchair hitting coach here and say I think he might be able to solve this problem by choking up by an inch or inch and a half on the bat handle. I really doubt that gripping down on the nob of the bat really gives a hitter all that much more leverage. Choking up allows you to get more of the barrel on inside pitches. It worked for Barry Bonds and it works for Hunter Pence. I don't know why more hitters don't do it. Belt's arms are long enough to still get leverage and still cover the outer half of the plate.
Madison Bumgarner- 4 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 7 K's. ERA= 2.59. Bumgarner had the strikeout stuff going, but seemed to have inconsistent command. Max velocity was 92, but I'm wondering if the TV gun was a bit slow?
Matt Yourkin- 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 1.50. Right now, I have more confidence in Yourkin getting MLB hitters out than Barry Zito and it's not particularly close.
Brian Wilson- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 0.00. Wilson had great command Throwing mostly cutters and even a couple of nice curveballs that he used to steal strike one. Max velocity was 92 MPH. Again, I wonder if the gun was off by a MPH or two although his FB did not look like the old BWillie heaters. If he does have to adjust to lower velocity, he has some pretty good pitches to do it with.
Matt Cain starts the first game of the rest of his life tonight in Oakland.
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The only channel the game was on last night was on an A's broadcast. Makes me appreciate that much more the announcers we have on this side of the bay and I also wonder who does the hiring for the A's coaching staff. Up and down that team looks and acts like they play in the Bush league not the major leagues.
ReplyDeleteI'm not terribly a Wilson fan, but he looked great last night. Especially the curveballs, which I don't remember him throwing much (or very well) before.
ReplyDeleteMaybe Sandoval's LASIK is still throwing him off? How long does it take to get used to the new vision?
Yourkin looked great as well.
Wilson never really used his curveball, but when he was drafted his curveball was considered a good pitch already. But because of his TJS, the Giants and maybe him too, laid off of using that, and while he discussed adding it back one spring, he never incorporated it into his repertoire as far as I can recall.
DeleteDrB - Mejia was assigned to the Augusta team. Blackburn, Crick and Mejia all in the same place right away. That is some exciting stuff.
ReplyDeleteFriday cannot come soon enough. We'll see what happens with Belt. If the Giants are so concerned with this big hole in his swing, they should have sent him down the day they announced it. This brew up is entirely of their own making, they just can't seem to manage fans expectations or make up their mind. I made the prediction that they can't afford to not break camp with Hector Sanchez and Belt, I'm at 50-50 it happens. And if not, they'll be up soon.
Melky Cabrera keeps up his spring streak, that is a huge win for Sabean and I might just have to post some snark at a couple of Giants blogs who raged on the deal.
A good business attitude is that the customer is always right, even if he/she/it is not.
DeleteThat's why I like my vet - she thinks my cat is always right.
As a customer, I like to see Belt on the team.
Well, the problem is that we only know what is public.
DeletePerhaps the Giants thought he was close enough that they kept him around but then, as I suggested in a comment somewhere, Belt at some point stopped working on it, thinking he's doing fine ("just look at my spring numbers!" :^). and he stagnated afterward, bringing about the public shaming by Muellens.
If that is the case, is that the Giants fault that Belt stopped working on it?
Sometimes a player needs a public kick in the butt to get going. The Giants skipped a start for young starters a couple of times (I recall Williams, Cain, and Dirty) plus gave Ishikawa the public "We're going to use other people" to get people going (Ishikawa hit nearly .800 OPS the rest of the season, tailing off at the end, but that was when Garko came in) and Sandoval the threat of AAA.
We don't know the history with Belt, maybe he's resisting change behind the scenes (just look at his comment when asked about his spring, in the interview, he said was ready but then switched and said the company line of "whatever! Up to management!".)
I mean, if the Giant thought he was close enough, would you rather they throw him down anyway and for sure he's in AAA, or keep him around and give him a chance to figure it out with the big boys? Just to manage fans' expectations.
I think the Giants know what they got with Belt, and they are trying to coax it out of him, but sometimes you need to kick the spurs to get the prospect moving.
About Melky, not just spring streak, but also the 2011 season. Looking at his spring training stats, he looks like he improved each spring, each year mostly, until he got traded to the Braves, where he just stunk. This spring is similar to last year in that he has double digit extra-base hits and it mostly rose year to year: 5, 1, 5, 7, 4, 12, 11.
And looking at his stats, it looks like he was taking too many good pitches that he could handle before. He walked at a much higher rate before 2011, but in 2011-12, while his walks went down a lot and his strikeout went up a lot, his extra-base hits went up a lot in terms of spring stats. His 2012 stats looks like his 2011, and nothing like the ones before. All very encouraging, that is why I've been wondering if the Giants might want to try to sign him up for an extension now, before the price gets too high in free agency, probably at least 3 years $30M, maybe as high as $35M.
Ah OGC I'm in too good a mood to argue about this. Can I just say any possible goosing of Belt also has the unintended consequence of enraging fans and call it a day?
DeleteThis is a good ballclub. The Giants are trusting their farm in ways I wouldn't have thought possible even 3 years ago - and once Huff takes his buyout next year and Freddy most likely hangs it up, the squad is almost entirely home grown and young.
Not really Sabean's style to lock up midseason, he is a wait and pay more later guy. That has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is Melky could get us one of them thar draft picks with a 12MM or so qualifying offer, hint hint.
I didn't see the game, but where was Belt in the batter's box?
ReplyDeleteDid he take their suggestion to move back further in the box or did those 2 hits come with him at his regular spot in the box?
I didn't really notice where Belt was in the box because I was concentrating on where he was gripping the bat and what he was doing with his arms. I'm thinking maybe his stance was a little less spread out than when I saw him earlier in spring training.
DeleteRichmond Squirrels' roster is up.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120402&content_id=27842976&vkey=pr_t3410&fext=.jsp&sid=t3410
The interesting bit s that C. Dominguez is listed and discusses as an OF.
That would fit in with my speculation that 3B is Posey's eventual position when another catcher is ready to take over the starting position. Either Sandoval or Posey would block Dominguez, whereas we are still looking for corner OF long term. That is why I wondered if the Giants might try to sign Melky to an extension at some point.
DeleteI agree DrB, choking up is a very good technique that players have used for a long time, I think I recall seeing one of the old-timers batting that way (Cobb? Ruth?)
ReplyDeleteI think choking up got a reputation for being a grip that old-time hitters like Cobb used to place balls where they wanted, "hit 'em where they ain't." Baseball is funny in that once something gets a reputation like that it just never dies. Power hitters wanted that extra leverage and completely exchewed the choke up grip.
DeleteBarry Bonds and Hunter Pence are examples of hitters who have used the choke up as a power grip. It allows them to get more of the bat's barrel into the hitting zone, but they still swing hard and generate the power to hit it out of the park. Just my opinion, but Belt and Nate seem like 2 guys who could be a lot better hitters with a choke up grip.
From Monty Poole's boring article on the Giants trying to emulate the Braves of the 90s:
ReplyDelete"Just because there's a big name (free agent) out there doesn't mean he wants to come to San Francisco," general manager Brian Sabean said. "Going forward, we have to find our big bats internally. We think we have guys with the potential to fill that role."
Yup. And now with Matt Cain signed, we may just have a John Barr special: Victor Roache has dropped off the draft radar. The question is can he adjust to breaking balls, he had great success in the Cape last year and then faded. The answer is he "punishes the baseball" like no other college hitter and most likely no HS hitter. He is a prototypical power hitting LF, and it will be very interesting to see what develops with his return from injury and the timing of the draft.
Sabes is on record as saying the Giants are going to have to find their own power hitters from within. When he says things like that, he usually telling it like it is, so it wouldn't surprise me, especially with Barr's MO of drafting previously high ranked players who fall in the draft for whatever reason. Brandon Crawford is a prime example.
Deletecouple things
ReplyDeletemoving dominguez to the of?
is panik in sj as a pr deal, cuz i thought for sure he would jump to aa
and nice comments on fangraphic, doc....those guys look at press releases for their info
I think the Giants like Dominguez' power bat, but see that Pablo has him blocked at 3B. He has plenty of arm to play corner OF. The question is does he have the speed and athleticism to get to balls out there? He is fast and athletic for a dude his size.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure where you got the idea Panik would jump to AA. I've never read that anywhere. I've always assumed he would be assigned to SJ. Kickham and Bochy are jumping over SJ, but they are both pitchers and they played full season ball last year.
I'm glad Fangraphs ranked the Giants as the #12 organization. That's fair enough. If you take the longer term picture, I might rank them higher, but 12 is certainly a very respectable ranking. The article was terrible. I don't know who Wendy Thurm is, but I think she is getting away with substandard writing, possibly out of some sort of reverse gender discrimination or something. Every article I've ever read by her just regurgitates the conventional wisdom about the Giants ownership, Brian Sabean, Bochy, their farm system, you name it. Unfortunately, she is their resident Giants specialist now so we are probably get a lot more of that.
Heads up everybody. Dave Flemming wrote a response to that Fangraphs article! You might want to check it out after the Giants Organization Ranking article.
DeleteHe apparently criticized the article on Twitter and Wendy asked him to write a response. The rankings are a consensus of the Fangraphs staff, so it's possible she doesn't agree with the FO ranking herself, although she made no effort to mitigate it in her writeup and even went so far as to say that Sabes S#&@$.
I would agree that Wendy Thurm being the Giants expert is going to stir up debate. I don't think she digs very deep most of the time. There is an interesting fanpost up on MCC entitled "Fangraphs ranking, the fallout, and historical revisionism" where there are some tough yet fair assessments being put down. My view is Sabean has made mistakes in the past but seems to have learned from those mistakes, and throwing his free agent record at him (cherry picked no less) is a very weak argument, especially to try and justify an unfair ranking of the Giants baseball operations.
DeleteI'm just sick of him getting nitpicked and monday morning quarterbacked. The Beltran trade. The non-signing of Beltran. If he signs him, he overpays. If Beltran gets hurt, Sabean is always signing old vets. The Zito signing. Peter the Pink. The Rowand signing. Everybody signs bad contracts. Chasing everybody in 2007 under the sun, Mathews jr, Pierre, Lee. Well, he was burned by that and has stated repeatedly he won't be a stalking horse. And perhaps the results he saw on that convinced him the free agent market isn't the place to be?
Basically buttonholing the guy because he is blunt, grumpy or old school and he doesn't do things the way you like is a weak argument. I am proud of the way people stood up for him in fangraphs, and on that MCC post. He's not perfect. He's a man, he's made some mistakes. What has he done lately? Set the Giants up quite nicely, if people will just shut the hell up about Rowand and Zito. (By the way - this Zito insistence is a RDF issue, not a baseball ops issue. Anybody who thinks Bochy wants to run a 82MPH lefty who can't hit his spots is insane)