AAA Fresno Grizzlies pounded the Red Rock Express 10-4:
Justin Christian(CF)- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .378.
Roger Kieschnick(LF)- 2 for 5, HR(11). BA= .325.
Todd Linden(1B)- 4 for 5, 2B, HR(5), SB(3). BA= .291.
Eric Hacker(RHP)- 7 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 3.35.
George Kontos(RHP)- 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 1.99.
I wonder if Linden has learned some things in his travels? If Huff ever gets dumped, and all he's doing right now is getting splinters in his butt, I could see Linden being a potential bat off the bench, a role he might be thankful for at this point in his career.
AA Akron Aeros destroyed the Richmond Flying Squirrels 15-5:
Gary Brown(CF)- 2 for 3, 2B, 2 BB. BA= .244.
Juan Perez(DH)- 2 for 4, 2B, HR(3). BA= .276.
Johnny Monell(1B)- 2 for 4, 2B, BB. BA= .231.
High A Visalia Rawhide topped the San Jose Giants 7-5:
Adam Duvall(3B)- 2 for 4. BA= .252.
Ricky Oropesa(1B)- 1 for 3, 2B, BB. BA= .277.
Dan Burkhart(C)- 1 for 3, 2B, SF. BA= .273.
Edward Concepcion(RHP)- 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 6.50.
Haven't seen too much of Burkhart this year. Catching is awfully crowded in the Giants system, or maybe he's been dinged up?
Low A Savannah Sand Gnats stung the Augusta Greenjackets 7-4:
Mark Minicozzi(DH)- 2 for 4, HR(1), BB. BA= .182.
Kelby Tomlinson(SS)- 0 for 1, 3 BB, 2 SB(13). BA= .278.
Kyle Crick(RHP)- 4.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 6 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 3.16.
Hey, I remember Mark Minicozzi. I thought he could turn into a pretty good second baseman at one point. He last played in the minors in 2007. Wonder what happened in the meantime. Man, the Giants sure are generous with giving old prospects another chance, huh? Crick takes a stumble.
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dont understand the penny deal. guaranteeing the guy a spot in the mlb pen is one thing....talking letting him close on occasion is something else...why do bochy and sabean want to mess around with casilla?
ReplyDeletelinden has learned humility. was always the factor that was missing from his game.
concerned about the play in augusta. some of the guys seem over their heads. crick is definitely a work in progress.
Casilla was out for elbow issues last season, we do not know what he might be battling right now, but just like the people who were complaining about the use of Romo, until it has become clearer that there are injury issues. Maybe we should trust the people closest to the action know a little something about what they are doing.
DeleteI agree about Linden. This might be the break he needs to not obscure his skills in the majors, just like those pitchers who view as starters, and so do not do well as reliever until accept.
Seems like the Giants have found some potential starters. Hacker is posting awful good numbers and we have Surkamp and Heston. Seems like those guys could make nice No. 5 guys. Do you think they'll be too old once Zito is gone?
ReplyDeleteThere is a long ways between putting up nice numbers in Richmond and being a #5 starter in the major leagues. Hacker is strictly an emergency starter. I saw Surkamp pitch in spring training and was impressed, but he's having more elbow issues and sounds like he's about one tendon fiber away from TJ surgery. I'll be interested to see how Heston progresses. The K's to go along with an extreme groundball tendency are definitely intriguing. Yeah, I think both Surkamp and Heston will still be around in 2 years.
DeleteThere I go away from my computer for a day and already behind on the comments again. That is why I come here, I love the back and forth but unfortunately I am not at my computer enough to be able to comment each time. As I mentioned in the post after the friday night game, I may not be the stat nerd that most of you guys are and I rely on the eye test and over 25 years of watching and playing baseball when making my observations but here are just a few that even the biggest stat nerds (and the occasional shark from Monterrey) can't deny.
ReplyDeletePart of the great thing about these posts is that you can go back and see what people said previously and call them out when they are wrong or eat crow and admit when they have a point. Here are a few of the things I have been saying since the offseason:
Affeldt sucks - This is debatable obviously as he does have good games but he also looks horrible at times and when one of you stat nerds has a chance, look up his WAR for me and let me know if it is anywhere close to being worth 5 million. The fact that this guy is left handed is the only reason he still has a job IMO.
The middle infield needed more depth - I wanted Cuddyer or Rollins, yes they would have been expensive but I don't know that there is a weaker MI in the majors and possibly in the last 20 years then this one. Please don't tell me again how horrible Cuddyer is on D, this whole entire team has been horrible on D all year so he would have fit right in!
Yoenis Cespedes would have been a good acquisition - Although he is injured now, having not played the last 15 games or so he would still lead this team in HR and RBI's. Seems like we could use more HR and RBI's but what the hell do I know.
Yu Darvish is ligit - Gosh, Dr. B, you may be the only one that was arguing with me on this one but my point with Yu was that for the same money it would have taken to sign Cain or Timmy long term, you could have bought Yu Darvish and then traded Cain or Timmy for more pieces (couple of prospect arms and a bat possibly?). This probably wouldn't have been the greatest move but my argument was based on the fact that the money spent to keep a guy like Timmy could have been spent on Yu who would have performed at a similar level (or way better as it turns out) and as a bonus we would have a bounty of talent in return in a trade. How is Yu Darvish fairing so far in your eyes Dr. B?
Gregor Blanco should be the leadoff hitter - From before the season even started I was singing his praises based on minimal at bats that I had seen, my "eye test" told me that this guy has great approaches as a leadoff hitter and very very good baserunning skills. I argued that even after Nate's hot start when Bacci and several others thought he should be playing every day that Blanco adds more value as he fills more of a need in the lineup then Nate as he could hold down Leadoff. I was ridiculed for that and now look at all the bandwagon Blanco fans! I also said that Pagan wasn't a leadoff hitter and would be better suited hitting 2nd or further down the lineup and gosh, seems like I hit a homerun on both of those or maybe I still have no idea what I am talking about!
Melky should be batting 3rd - It was about the second week of the season when I said that they should bump Melky down to 3, Panda cleanup, and Posey 5. This was predicated on Blanco being the leadoff hitter and Pagan hitting 2nd. When Pablo comes back this would be a lineup that could do some damage. Melky sure seems to be doing ok at 3 so far.
ReplyDeleteFinally, I made a bet with Shankbone that Craw would lose his starting job sometime before the 40 game mark - There were several factors that would negate the bet like injuries (we were referring to injuries to Crawford but without the injury to Panda he would still be in a platoon with Arias right now) and if he ever ended up in a platoon (it was one week where Arias was getting starts over him before Panda got injured). Have I been wrong about Crawford? I like the kid but he hasn't been ready and even though lately he has shown a lot more, I don't think my evaluation of him has been off at all. He has been shaky on D (his glove has been better the last week or 2 but he still throws at least a ball or 2 a game in the dirt to first base) and his bat is swiss cheese. Great to see him pick it up and maybe he is learning quicker then I was giving him credit but I don't think this evaluation was all that ridiculous.
I am sure there were plenty of other things I said that didn't make any sense but these are a few things that do. I realize that people don't change their opinions and convincing someone of your point of view is impossible especially in a format like this but at least I have owned up to the statements I have made and haven't waffled like a lot of people who run their mouths on the internets!!
Pato, here are some answers.
ReplyDeleteAffeldt has a negative WAR right now per Baseball-Reference.com, but the problem there is that they count runs allowed against Affeldt, even though almost half of them are labeled as unearned runs. Otherwise, his numbers look great: 13 games, 14.0 IP, 15 hits, 4 walks (2.6 BB/9, which is good) and 13 K's (8.4 K/9, which is good too).
Oh, Fangraphs has him at 0.4 WAR. Assuming he has zero in the rest of the month, that works out to 1.2 WAR for the season (and I would note that the actual earn rate is higher because he missed time with his 15 day DL; so really that 0.4 WAR was earned in one month of play, which would result in much higher earnings, but we'll keep the lower conservatively). At roughly $5M per WAR, that's $6M worth of production at the rate described above, against his $5M salary. So by this, he is earning his salary.
I think his stats earned him his salary, but given he missed so much time, he has to play the full season to ascertain exactly what to say.
Speaking of which, that is why I hate discussions like this mid-season. These invariable involves the original commenter to show how "smart" or "good" they were, when, as the saying goes, we still have a whole season to play out. For example, in 2004, the Marlins around this time was headed to a lousy season, but then Dontrelle Willis came up and they found their mojo overall, and they ended up World Series champions.
You want to complain about Affeldt, and bring up WAR, so I thought it would be interesting to explore Cuddyer with WAR.
DeleteFirst, FYI, I am a stats nerd while I speak the language. Stats nerds think that the human spirit can be reduced to a stat that they can analyze. I know the complete story goes far beyond that, but stats can be and should be part of the discussion, depending on how strongly the stats message is. There is a lot of SSS and misunderstanding or plain ignorant of what is significant in stats and what is not. Still, there is baseball knowledge as well as observational knowledge, psychology, etc.
Back to Cuddyer. Fangraphs: -0.1 WAR. Baseball-Reference.com: -0.7 WAR, with a -1.0 on defense already. Either way you want to examine it by advanced stats, the team would have been better off not signing him, let along signing him to a 3 year, $31.5M contract.
Looking at his stats, he still looks worse. Batting line of .252/.307/.432/.739 is pretty bad, even for a middle infielder, really bad if he were a corner fielder, especially bad if you are counting on him to be a middle of lineup bat.
And the problem is that I thought that talking defense would get people to stop crying for him, but the bigger issue has always been for me that his stats reflect his ability to hit in the Twins' home park. Lifetime road numbers: .255/.326/.416/.742, which is pretty much what he has done so far in Colorado, despite playing in a hitters park. I said it then, I'll say it now, anyone signing him expecting him to be an offensive contributor would be extremely disappointed. I'm only surprised that it's happening now with Colorado, one of the most extreme home parks in the majors.
So no, I'm very glad we did not get him, and so far he has shown me no reason to change my mind.
You also bring up Rollins, who signed a 3 year, $33M contract.
DeleteEven if he were hitting at what he was hitting last season, .268/.338/.399/.736, that is not worth $11M per year.
He is currently hitting .227/.291/.282/.573. Don't need to see WAR to see he's not doing it. And Crawford is hitting .233/.276/.342/.617. And as many errors as Crawford has committed, his fielding WAR is still positive, and by the Fielding Bible, at a 16 runs/year rate, or +1.6 wins per year. Rollins by either method is roughly zero.
Just by those stats, Crawford is clearly better than Rollins so far, but then Rollins is paid $11M per year, Crawford basically minimum baseball wage.
Yoenis Cespedes is also a good thing to discuss. Again, way too early to say he was a good or bad sign, but don't know why you bring him up.
DeleteCespedes costed the A's 4 years, $36M, $6.5M this season.
he is their CF, so we are comparing him with Angel Pagan.
Cespedes was hitting .245/.319/.434/.753 with 4 HR and 4 SB (2 CS) before DLing with his injury, with a scary 29 K's in only 106 ABs, only 9 BB. His defense is bad, so his WAR is -0.6
Pagan is hitting .304/.353/.462/.815 with 4 HR and 8 SB (1 CS), with only 15 K in 158 AB (among best in majors) plus 12 walks for a really good 0.8 BB/K ratio (1.0 is best, want at least 0.5). His defense has not been good either, but with much better offense, his WAR by Baseball-Reference.com is 1.2 WAR so far. That's a 3.5-4.0 WAR rate if he can continue that for the whole season.
Giants are paying him $4.85M, less than Cespedes both for the year and long term, and one of the main reason why we don't get Cespedes is that we have Brown in the wings. He's no guarantee, that is Brown, but the history of Cuban defectors is not pretty, lots of money wasted there, including the Giants with that pitcher signed in the 90's.
Yu Darvish. Yes, so far, so great, he's been the real deal so far, though I would note his really bad walk rate (4.5 BB/9) resulting in an OK but good 2.23 K/BB ratio, which does not support a 2.60 ERA, so we'll see how he'll do over a full season, over the life of his 6 years contract.
DeleteStill, the history of Japanese hurlers coming to the MLB is not pretty. I've examined most of the main examples of starters coming over (plus Koreans) and really, the main difference between the ones who succeed and the ones who don't is whether they start their careers in a pitchers park (like Chan Ho Park with LAD). And they looked horrible once they left their cushy pitcher's park home park.
Admittedly, most of them were older, in their 30's. So it might be instructive look at the other major example of a fireballing young mid-20's hurler to come from Japan, Daisuke Matsuzaka. I think fondly of him because he was a major draft pick in my keeper league and lucky for me the league died after the 2008 season because Dice-K really only had one OK season and one great season (2007 and 2008, respectively). After his great 2008 2.90 ERA, his bad walk rate got to him and he had horrible 209-2011 period, and he's still recovering from an injury, probably the same one that ended his 2011 season prematurely (though mercifully so).
Boston committed roughly $51M to him and roughly the same to the Japanese team, for a total of over $100M. For that, they got an OK season (2007) and a great one (2008), and pretty much nothing since.
Good for Nolan Ryan if he is a good enough judge of pitching talent and human genome potential to know 1) that Darvish will pitch well in the majors and 2) will last long enough at a good performance level to make his big investment worth while.
And while you carp on the Giants committing so much to Lincecum, Cain, and Bumgarner, you don't bat an eye towards committing similar amounts of money (when the money paid to Japanese team is counted) to an unproven major league pitcher like Darvish. How is that even consistent?
Pato,
DeleteI would not trade Darvish for any of the Giants current starters which is what you'd essentially be doing. Still think over the long haul he's not worth the price. Wait until he's been through the league a time or two and see how he holds up over a full season.
Cespedes has some potential. He can definitely put a charge into the ball. Like OGC, I'd rather have Melky and Pagan for the price.
We've discussed why WAR is not an accurate measure of the value of LOOGY's in the past and there is more than one WAR calculation out there. Affeldt is well worth his salary.
Rocks can keep Cuddyer, whose D completely negates his O, as far as I'm concerned. I'm definitely not pining after him.
Rollins on a 3 year deal? No thank you! How on Earth can Sabean haters criticize not signing Rollins? That is exactly the type of deal Sabes has been burned at the stake for many times over!
So yeah, Pato. I'd say you're still striking out in my book!
Enjoy the discussion though.
Oh, the full freight for Darvish is $108M total, including the $51.7M posting fee the Rangers paid, on top of the $56M in guaranteed salary to Yu and $4M in roster bonuses for $60M in total. That's a lot to commit - i.e. a lot of risk - to take on an unproven prospect, and the history of success from players from Japan making the move to the MLB is fraught with disasters and mediocre performances.
DeleteDrb, with Hawaii finishing its regular season baseball and the college tournaments being next week, I'm starting to look forward to the draft in 2 weeks.. I hope they take the best player available in the 1st round but hope they address their lack of SP depth afterwards.. Do you have a favorite player that you want?
ReplyDeleteLG
I'm working on a draft post. I'll post it as soon as I get some time. Maybe the next off day or something?
DeleteLots of players I like. Part of me wants them to go for the downs and take a 5 tool HS OF like Courtney Hawkins or Lewis Brinson. Part of me realizes that's never going to happen. I don't think I'd be too excited about another low ceiling college hitter, though so I'm not rooting for Jankowski or Naquin even though I think it is quite possible they take one of those two.
If I can't have a 5 tooler, I'll settle for a pitcher. Stratton for the college ranks or Ty Hensley from HS are my two current faves.
More complete rundown to come in near future.
Hensley and Stratton are two of my favorites as well.
DeleteDrB, what about Victor Roache. Can you give me a scouting report on him? Do you like him for the Giants?
ReplyDeleteVictor Roache is the premier college power hitter in this year's draft class. I don't really know all that much about him. I think a lot of scouts think his swing is long and are skeptical of it playing in the pros. The Giants are on record as saying they think they will have to draft their own power because FA power hitters don't like their ballpark, so they may start going after raw power in the first round. That would be a major shift in philosophy for their first round picks though. I could definitely see them drafting Roache if he's still there in round 2, but I doubt he will be.
DeleteAnd that is why I love your site and all the intelligent feedback from you guys on a consistent basis! I still think you are looking at an upgrade with either Rollins or Cuddyer over what we have right now but maybe the numbers don't prove it. I also wouldn't trade any of our pitching for Yu Darvish but I would have traded Timmy for prospects and possibly a major league ready bat which would enable the Giants to sign Yu without giving anything up to get him (I also admitted this may not be the best option but watching Timmy again today and he is just flat out bad, any argument you have against Yu is laughable when comparing to what Timmy has done this year).
ReplyDeleteFinally, I didn't see any arguments about Blanco at leadoff and Melky in the 3 hole so if nothing else, those were 2 moves I suggested that worked out! I also think Cespedes's value would have been greater for us since we are so starved for power and 8 million for a guy who could go 20 and 80 isn't the worst thing in the world on a team that will be lucky to have one of those guys by seasons end.
Thanks for the stimulating conversation and if you can explain what the hell has happened to Timmy this year that would help too! I don't see him straightening things out, he looked dominant for a few innings but just like every other game he ran his pitch count up and inevitably bit himself in the ass. In order for this theory of paying ungodly amounts of cash for our SP's to work, they need to perform up to expectations or it is just like having Pujols in the middle of the order this year for the Angels.
Pato - All of us have grown up looking at stats, the traditional ones. I would consider myself more of a history guy than a saber, but I have my analytic side as well. Gotta take exception to your Crawford Arias platoon idea as fact. That could have been a day off, an injury that was noted but not publicized or the shift due to injury as you stated. No matter what it was, the Giants stuck with him, and you lost the bet. His hitting has been as expected, but nobody expected the defensive struggles. The Giants put him in 34 of 40, and you lost, fair and square.
DeleteYour Rollins argument isn't fleshed out, it actually has buyouts and an option that vests so its very easily 4/48, before Sabean whips out the Razr. With bidding, that contract goes Rowand with a quickness.
I enjoy your baseball observations immensely Pato, if there was a spot where I think you need to tighten up your game, it would have to be long term planning, strategy stuff. I've said this a bunch, Cots contracts is your friend. Some folks like to go day to day baseball fan, some like the Armchair Gm, lots of people on gints blogs like both. I enjoy rapping it out with you, even with the different perspectives. Its important to remember we're all Giants fans and we all want our team to do well.
Well, the fact that Timmy has looked dominant for a few innings at a time, tells me that he still has the potential in him to pull it back together and be dominant for whole starts again. On the other hand, I think Timmy as some fundamental problems that are longer term than just a slump:
Delete1. Declining velocity- not sure what the cause is, but his velocity is very dependent on his flexibility and there's a reason why you don't see many successful gymnasts older than 18 years of age.
2. His best pitch for several years now has been the split-change. Hitters have figured out how to neutralize it by recognizing it and laying off. Since it goes out of the strike zone by design, there is nothing to force hitters to swing at it if they recognize it early.
I'll play armchair pitching coach here and suggest that Timmy go to a more conventional circle change and junk the slider for a cut fastball. That gives hitters more to worry about than whether he is just throwing a fastball or splitter. A circle change or straight change may be harder for hitters to distinguish from the splitter and make it tougher to recognize again.
I think the issue with Rollins and Cuddyer is not just improvement for this season but also the commitment of significant money in future years. We have player projected for the meat of the lineup: Brown, Panik, Belt, Sandoval, Posey. We have players projected for SS and 2B (which is where you are slotting Cuddyer): Crawford and Panik/Culberson/Noonan, even Adrianza is a possibility there. Rollins would probably be an upgrade over Crawford, but he's what most Naysayers been calling a typical Sabean overpay, he would be compared with Tejada, only worse, as Shankbone noted, Rowand-esque. Cuddyer is an even worse signing than Huff, at least Huff had 2 of his prior seasons being very good seasons, Cuddyer's last good season was 2009, and his peak years would only be maybe 5th or 6th best among Huff's best seasons, but for similar money on the season and for an extra season.
DeleteI think you miss the point about Yu: if you make all those moves, you are not only betting that Darvish will be pretty good this season, you are betting he'll be pretty good for a total of 6 years, it don't really matter what we got for Lincecum if Darvish, say, duplicates what Dice-K did, for example. And yeah, of course what Lincecum has done is laughable vs. Darvish, easy to say right now when the numbers are so clear. Are you stating here that Darvish will be better than Lincecum over the next 6 seasons PLUS that Darvish will prove to be worth the $18M per season that the Rangers paid in total for him?
I think it is funny that you pooh-pooh the Crawford situation by noting that Sandoval was injured and thus stopped the platoon that you thought was happening, but then ignored the fact that the only reason Cabrera is batting 3rd is because Sandoval was out injured.
However, the flaw in your timeline is that even after Sandoval went down, Crawford was still held out of games 26, 27, and 29. The Giants, to me, appeared to pinpoint what they viewed as Crawford's mechanical issues, held him out some games to work on it, but kept him in the mix so as not to get rusty. Since game 29, he has started every game, and has hit .308/.386/.385/.771 since then.
Again, about Blanco, hard to argue against, as above with Yu vs. Timmy, but as I noted above, the season is long.
DeleteHey, I would love for him to prove out, just like I would love Belt to start hitting like a middle lineup bat. However, his BABIP is .352, vs. a career .329, suggesting that he's above where he should be. He's also striking out a lot, contact rate of only 76% (good hitters >= 85%), suggesting that he won't be able to support his current .282 BA. With a career contact rate of 78%, the best guess is that he hits .258, his career BA before this season. That drops 24 points off his BA and OBP, and around 30 points off his SLG, which drops his OBP to roughly .392 and SLG to .350, for a .742 OPS.
That's still pretty good if he were playing CF (he's RF), but he would have to maintain that high walk rate for a whole season, but his other seasonal stats were not that stellar (19.1% BB% this season, 13.4% career, 14.3% in best season). Losing 5% would drop him roughly 50 points on OBP, and now his OPS is in the high 600's, which is not that great even for a CF.
So if you want to say that you are right about Blanco right now, yeah, probably can right now. We'll see how the season pans out. Maybe he pulls a Torres 2009-10 or Vogelsong 2011. I would love nothing else. But realistically, his career stats suggest otherwise, and unlike Torres, who had a well publicized change in batting style to explain why he might start hitting better, Blanco does not have a similar story of revelation. So we will see.
Personally, if you are going to take credit for any moves that work out, you have to look at it at the end of the season, as best as possible given that we can't create an alternative universe to "prove" alternative scenarios.
The best theory I can proffer on Timmy is that he's been Zitoed by the contract he signed. As DrB noted, he's looked good in spots but then when the pressure goes up a bit (when guys get on base) he's suddenly all over the place. It's like that Malcolm Gladwell article on Choking, the player's flip switches from seasoned professional to an unpracticed tyro, and beatable.
DeleteNot all players succumb to that, and I would offer up Will the Thrill as one who thrived off that pressure (and Posey probably will prove that too). But many players do, because they are human too. Apparently, Pujols too. Happens to the best of us.
This is why I feel that closers are a different breed, sure, especially in today's "save" where the closer gets to pitch the 9th with a 2-3 run lead, there is not as much pressure and relievers can do well there, but who you really want in there with a 1-run lead and the winning run at 2B is a closer who don't let the pressure get to them and then they do what they are capable of doing, instead of a guy switching over to unpracticed tyro.
I think that is why they are thinking of going with Penny as closer in certain situations, to create a pool because our top two candidates - Casilla and Romo - had elbow problems last season. And starters have a lot more experience dealing with pressure situations like that.
I think once Timmy gets a good game under his belt, he'll loosen up a bit and get over his contract, and then be able to start being the Timmy we know. But until then, I think we see games like today where he's dominant for a while, then loses it for a key inning or two. I like DrB's suggestion. That is exactly what Tim has done in prior years when he's struggling, add a new pitch that adds a new wrinkle (and for all we know, maybe he's been practicing a new one in the bullpen). I like the idea about the cutter, that seems to be a pitch that works well, once a pitcher masters it.
Last thought: I'm hoping that the guy running over Lincecum fires him up and get him over his hump in his next start. Much like Cain's hustle and "Don't Give Up" attitude last Saturday seemed to carry over to their play this past week.
Delete