The Giants put a forfeit lineup on the field last night, but not by choice. Melky Cabrera was a late scratch due to a painful corn on his toe. Madison Bumgarner batted 8'th, but could have just as appropriately batted 7'th or even 6'th. The result was predictable. Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 2 for 4. BA= .293. Not saying it's his fault, but have you ever seen a hitter with an emptier batting average than Pagan has right now? Sheesh! It seems like game after game he puts up a crooked number in the H column and 0's in the R and RBI column's.
Buster Posey- 3 for 4, 2B. BA= .295. Nice bounceback game from Buster after the previous 0 for 4.
Melky Cabrera- 0 for 1. BA= .331. Hopefully the Giants made sure Melky got to a good podiatrist to take care of that corn. This lineup is quite pathetic without him in it.
Madison Bumgarner- 7.1 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 0 BB, 3 K's, GO/AO= 12/3. ERA= 3.10. Bumgarner pitched great for 6.2 innings, but gave up a go ahead homer to David Freeze, who seems to have a knack for those, with 2 outs in the 7'th. Bochy then tried to go a bridge too far with him in the 8'th, but the game was probably lost by then anyway.
A lineup containing Angel Pagan, Melky Cabrera, Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey is not exactly Murderers Row, but it's also not half bad. Add in an OBP/SB threat at the top like Blanco appears to be and they should and did produce some runs. Take both Pablo and Melky out and you're left with, well, you're left with a not very good lineup! Hopefully Melky's toe is a short term issue and they can hang on until Pablo gets back, or else they better hope Belt or one of the other kids steps it up pretty fast. They may have to hope for that anyway. I don't think anyone is optimistic that Aubrey Huff can ride in and save this lineup, but it may come to that.
The best you can say about this one is the Giants did not lose a game to the NL West leading Dodgers who lost to the Pathetic Padres 4-2 to stay 6 games up on the G's. The Rockies defeated the Kirk Gibson managed D'Backs 6-1 to move into a third place tie at 8.5 games behind the Dodgers while the Pathetic Ones gained a game to 10.5 back.
Matt Cain goes against Adam Wainwright in a afternoon game. Hey! Maybe this will be the game Brandon Belt breaks out!
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Potential doesn't win games,clutch hits do.Nate and Culberson got hits last night but are hopeless when there are G's in scoring position.It's literally a case of men against boys.New name should be the SF Automatics,why?no clutch.Cardinals have depth.The young G's infielders are clearly out of theirs.Ian.
ReplyDelete"I don't think they made an effort at all," Beltran said upon his return to San Francisco with the Cardinals on Wednesday. "They didn't call my agent. At the same time, this is business. They knew I was available. I expressed I wanted to come back.
ReplyDelete===============================================================
It is the reason why Brian Sabean is the worst GM.
Brett Pill swing at every pitches and Bochy is praising his aggressiveness.
Pill's some HRs are just fluke. Pitchers know they don't have to throw strikes at him.
It is the reason why Bruce Bochy is the worst manager.
They have to leave now!
You need to go back and read the follow up to Beltran's comments on Extra Giants. The Giants did, in fact, have extensive discussions with Beltran's agents and they were asking for a lot of money. By the time his price came down, the Giants had already moved on with the Melky and Pagan acquisitions. It turns out Beltran's comments were exaggerated at best and downright untruthful at worst.
DeleteI know a lot of people out there hate Sabean and Bochy and want them gone, period. I do not agree with that sentiment. Bochy is a good manager and Sabes is a good GM. Their replacements could easily be, even likely be, worse. Be careful what you wish for.
BTW, Beltran sat out this game with a sore knee.
DeleteNot just last night's game. Today, Beltran will miss his 4'th game in a row with knee pain.
DeleteBe careful what you wish for is exactly right. There was a lively discussion at MCC (the series preview) that was fun. I had enough of the Beltran whining so I put down my position: yes it would have been nice to have Beltran, there are several factors that get ignored about his not signing: his demand for more offense and desire not to be the main guy; the timing of the negotiation; the risk factors that we all witnessed first hand last year: injury concern (ice packs on his knees in the dug out? Come on), lack of range in the OF (not a very strong RF from him), lack of speed on the basepaths. Against that, a probable 900 ops, which is pretty tasty in this day and age. Should the RDF have been looted on a line item above budget? Maybe, just maybe. But it didn't. Now its spilled milk.
DeleteThe final thing: every other major league team had a shot. His market did not develop. He ended up choosing between a Cleveland lowball and the Cardinal lowball. I thought he could get 3/36 relatively easy, what do I know. That should tell anybody who wants to be analytically curious something: teams were very scared off by the injury concern, not just the Giants. So the rage over the final "bargain" price, coupled with his hot start, for me it just gets tiring.
So I said the following on a previous MCC thread. If/when (and I hope it doesn't happen because injuries suck) Beltran does go down with something bad, there will be a solitary ironic "Sabes wuz right" and then on to the next thing he did wrong. I really don't like that position. Be hard, but be fair. Credit successes along with criticizing failures. The second guessing and nit picking of Sabey Sabes is beyond the pale.
I made another point. We had him come in cold, get injured, come back and get hot in September against expanded roster competition and he did what good hitters do: punish poor pitching. My argument was called strange, and attacked as a small sample size. Well, it is a month, you only have six in a baseball season. If Beltran HADN'T done that, Sabean would have been raked over the coals for trading for a bust. He is damned if he does, damned if he doesn't and held to an impossible double standard.
And yes, 4th straight day with knee pain. Giants fans would be freaking out right now. Sabean is always signing injured vets!
IF only Sabean get Josh Hamilton next offseason, I can understand he gave up Beltran.
DeleteWe have enough money to sign with Hamilton after this season.
We really really need 'true big bat'. And he is the one.
I hope Sabean just don't watch hamilton will go to LA.
Kemp+Hamilton will become disaster to our future.
Bochy Is not the worst. One can say he is pretty good and still point out his bad moves...like not playing Blanco early in place of 'then not hitting but now empty stats and always shaky defense' Pagan or sittng out a young hitter 5 straight games 3 games into the season.
DeleteIt doesn't always fail but when the atmosphere is
not supportive to young players, some will be too stressed to fulfill their potentials and some will do just fine.
What is RDF?
DeleteSabean is not damned if he does and damned if he doesn't by the SAME people all the time. Maybe sometimes. I am certain of at least one time he is damned only if he does and not damned if he doesn't.
Rainy Day Fund. In honor of the owners who fired Neukom because they were afraid Neukom would raid their rainy day fund for something useful, like a good hitter like Vlad in 2003.
DeleteSee, I can be snarky negative too.
Really, people are on the Hamilton train now? Like Shankbone, I don't wish the worse on anyone, but if there is anything that looks like a recipe for disaster is a recovering addict who recently had a very public relapse, where he lied through his teeth, and a big city team like LA or NY or Chicago (or SF) signs him up for 7 years of $150M worth of easy temptation. I see a team crashing and burning with a move like that.
Belt struck out 5 times in 10 ABs in 3 games and told his manager that he was pressing. Any manager worth his salt would sit the young guy out, he would just continue to press because nobody wants to strike out so many times and feel like he has no way of solving that issue, that just spirals his confidence downward even more. You pull him aside, you prop up his confidence, work on a few changes, let him feel good in BP. Plus, apparently the Giants think they have the answer to his problems, but he's been unable to do it so far, for whatever reason.
It doesn't always fail when you are not supportive.
DeleteThere are times when even competent people are doubtful of themselves.
It works sometimes to affirm their doubts.
It works sometimes to say to them it's just a temporary setback. You still have faith in them. Eventually the faith pays off
Human nature is such we humans don't know how it works. And even with hindsight we don't know fir sure it's a bad move by Bochy. And I should say it is a bad move only in so far as it went against my personal, natural inclination of encouraging people. It does however show who sees the world with unquestioning certainty.
OK, I don't unquestioning certainty. I have my doubts. Apparently Belt has his doubts.
DeleteThe Giants have faith in him. If they didn't, they would have been sending him up and down this season instead of keeping him up here. But sometimes people need a break from the pressure, as Huff showed recently. Have you considered that maybe Belt needed that break? And that telling his boss that he's pressing was his way of saying that?
My main point is that many people got mad that Bochy sat Belt down. We simply don't know the situation Belt was facing or felt he was facing. I believe in encouraging people too, but doing that blindly can lead to errors as well. We only know what the media has fed us, what Bochy fed us via the media.
I think he tries to do the right thing for Belt because he, just like us, know how much better it is for the Giants lineup if Belt was a .300+ 25+ HR 100+ RBI guy. If we know what the whole situation was, yeah, then I think we can make stronger assertions about what was wrong. There is no use to encourage someone if they are getting it wrong by not following your instructions. I once had to agree with management to fire someone: I gave him very simple instructions, told him to do that exactly, he went ahead and did something totally different, thinking he would impress me. Worse feeling ever, but I couldn't have been clearer about what he needed to do. Encourage did not help.
It's not always clear what will work with humans.
DeleteWith machines you can rely on formulas.
But we are a big mystery to ourselves.
Sometimes when a player goes 0 for 16 in a basketball game, or something like that, like the young Tim Hardaway did once under Nelson, you just tell him you have faith in him. Keep shooting.
It works with some and with others it might not
I can say this though. If someone says to me he has mechanical issues, I will give him time to work it out. If he says he's mentally pressing I will say to him, you are fine. But I could be wrong and he turns into another Huff. Alas, that's life (with my approach).
Rowand(12MM)+Huff(11MM)+Sanchez(6MM)+Riot(1.25MM)=30.25MM
ReplyDelete============================================================
Sabean wasted 30.25MM to his FA busts.
He gave up Wheeler for a rental.
The result is pathetic zero-depth lineup you see everyday.
How can you say Sabean is a good GM? Are you kidding me?
Sapbean is a complete joke. His lack of going for a big bat will haunt us forever.
Why he gave up Fonty? Riot and Burris are not major league players.
Why Bruce Bochy don't use Blanco as CF? Pangan is the worst CF now. He must move to LF.
Bochy can't handle youth. He can't handle Ofense and Defense.
Maybe the only way to save our offense is to sign with Josh Hamilton. Whatever price.
But I guess Sabean will get Swisher or Ethier. And Hamilton to LA.
I am so tired of this cheap and inable organization.
They have to leave right now. Plus the worst hitting coach "Bam Bam"
And Swisher or Ethier or Napoli will be another "Cheap" Aron Rowand. I bet.
DeleteWell, at least he's consistent with his formatting!
DeleteSo many comments I have!
First, wow, first time I have see such a list by a Sabean Naysayer without Zito on the top of the list. Amazing! Shows just how fickle fans are, how "what have you done for me lately". This has to be a first anywhere! Right here on DrB's!
Also shows the inability of the usual fans to account for the fact that the Giants were short their best hitter in Pablo Sandoval, for a whole two weeks now, plus one of our better hitters, Cabrera was out of the lineup. But that is mainly because Sabean Naysayers mostly look for reasons to complain, rather than to understand exactly what we have with the Giants, this is exactly why I said in 2010 that anybody who don't thank Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy, and admit that the fan was wrong, don't deserve to enjoy the championship. Nothing I've seen since has changed my mind, in fact, it is stuff like this that makes me feel very spot on.
Cheap and inable? Winning seasons in the past three seasons, World Series Champs in 2010, Top 3 defense in majors for three years running now (low RA), Top 3 pitching staff in the majors for three years, and $130M spent, a big boost from the $100M they were at in the World Series seasons, don't seem cheap and inable to me. Unless, of course, we are talking about fans inability to view what they have in front of them.
And if Sabean had gone for a big bat like Pujols or Fielder, fans would be up in arms about Zito Part 2 right now.
This rage about Fontenot is exactly what I've complained about here and with Shankbone, somehow decisions about 25th men are punishable crimes that GMs should be fired for.
Bochy can't handle youth? Where are the eyes on these Bochy Baiters!?! It is like I've been saying, these haters really do not appreciate our great YOUNG pitching. The Giants have had a lot of young players on the pitching staff for years now with Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo. If he didn't know how to handle young players, there is no way the Giants would have one of the top 3 pitching staffs in the majors for 3 years running now, and I have no doubts that 2012 will be a 4th year.
And, FYI, Bochy is one of the best managers, at minimum during his career and probably in MLB history, at winning 1-run games. I did research on the records of managers in 1-run games, and the saber rule on that is that teams regress to .500, so if a team is high one year, they should regress the next season. And lo and behold, AZ's Gibson was +12 last season and this season they are -6. Bochy however, is very significantly above .500, so much so that it is statistically significant at the 95% confidence level that he is an above .500 manager in 1-run games.
He is so far above that he could be -5 per season for the rest of this decade and still be much above .500. During his career, his managerial seasons represents about 6-7% of the seasons that a manager could manage (one of 16 teams, one of 14 teams), but out of managers during that time with seasons of +6 and higher, he represents over 40% of those seasons. On average, his managing (based solely on 1-run wins) has added four wins per season to his teams. In other words, he's like adding a great hitter to your team. An average .500 team would be 85-77 under him, on average.
Yet Giants fans want to fire him and most probably lose him to the Dodgers, where he can do his managerial magic there instead. Yeah, real smart, yeah, real good fans.
(cont.)
DeleteThe panic is also very familiar. I have seen this so many times, it is like these fans are an archtype. This reminds me of many moons ago, the panic was up all over, and I told people to chill, Jason Schmidt was coming off the DL soon and things would be very different. They went on a big winning streak, if I recall right. I think things will be fine once Sandoval returns.
But it doesn't help that the media is fanning the flames of this either. One journalist is writing as if he were a fan with a blog and stance. I thought that they are suppose to report the news, not inflame their readership. Then again, that newspaper has had a negative stance against the Giants for a while now, editorially, mainly because their stance is that the A's should be allowed to move down to San Jose.
Still, these fans don't really need much to get them going, even without the media, there are a lot of Giants blogs that already inflame these Giants fans to these extremes.
I guess it is only fair DrB. You lurk over at MCC, some MCCers lurk here and report back on you on MCC, somebody quoted you there recently when you made a comment about MCC in some way.
All I have to add now is about the only thing I can post on MCC without going into my rage at idiot fans: I'm glad the Giants gave Sabean and Bochy extensions, and I look forward to more good years from them. The Giants could be the Team of the 2010 Decade with the talent they have and have developing.
Too bad some fans are too blinded by their hatred of Sabean and Bochy to see.
Well, I walk a fine line and post at both DrB's and MCC and enjoy both. I'd be careful about lumping MCC into a naysayer bloc, there are differing opinions on everything over there, a regular arguers paradise. I also enjoy your optimistic view OGC as well as Lefty Malo's slightly cynical side, which is pretty close to where I land. I do enjoy this youth movement something fierce, despite the rough times.
DeleteWhat do Rowand, Huff, Sanchez and The Riot all have in common (besides the dead weight)? Oh yeah, they're all off the books next year. Sabean has a clean slate to work with. His first move was to secure Sandoval for 3 years. His next move was to hedge Timmy for 2 years. His third move was to sign up one Matthew Thomas Cain, a much debated topic here and elsewhere. And his fourth move was to lock up Madison Bumgarner, only the most likely best pitcher on the staff. Those all look like solid moves to me.
This is America. Everybody loves a comeback, and everybody deserves a second chance. I'm watching and waiting, lunatic fringe card in my desk. Let's see what the man does, not rehash old contracts. Bringing up Ol Warrior Spirit or Aubrey Huff is old bidness. I've enjoyed the hell out of the Sabean years, boneheaded moves and all.
Perhaps I've been away from MCC too long.
DeleteThere wasn't anyone at MCC like you, Shankbone, else I might have stayed around. It was always me against everyone else or seemed that way, because nobody would back me up in any way. And, frankly, there were people who didn't like my methods, and I understand that, and they were nasty about it, so it was just easier to move on than to fight everyone continuously. Plus, I probably could spend 30 hours a day answering all the stuff I had problems with there. For my sanity, I stay away, as much as I love reading FLA-Giants stuff and others, there was no balance before, and I'll grant that the time period I'm talking about was 2007-2009, so it was tougher then.
I love ELM's cynical side as well, if everyone was as talented as he is, and balanced, I would have stayed, and that is why I still regularly go to his blog (though I have noticed a negative bent to his writing this season that I don't agree with, but understand as well).
The youth movement just gives the Naysayers something else to complain about, the way I see it. Youth brings inconsistencies like we have seen, that is why you normally go with vets first, because there is a track record of performance. There will always be bumps in the road, but it seems like everyone is a charge hard forward type of personalities, unaccepting of this fact, and therefore it must be Sabean and/or Bochy's fault if things are not perfect.
Nice rundown of a good off-season. People need to be reminded of all the good things that happened this off-season.
And about Beltran, people forget, but as noted on KNBR this morning by I think Andy Baggarly, the reality is that hitters want more money to come to AT&T, even though the reality is that the park has been mostly neutral since just after the 2002 World Series, though I would note that it has become a pitcher's park again, somehow, the past two seasons.
Sure, he signed with St.Lou for 2 years, $26M, but that does not mean that he would have accepted that from the Giants. Also, Sabean was proactive and got us OK outfielders. If he had waited out Beltran's demands, he would have been stuck with overpaying Beltran to come back, people don't realize that players and their agents can and will leverage the fact that a team desperately needs a particular commodity and make the team pay more. You can bet that had Sabean waited around for Beltran, and was left with no option but to get Beltran, Boras would have put the screws on the Giants and he would have gotten at least 2 years, $30M. Bet on it.
Wow MCC is coming to DocB's place. Welcome all Bochy/Sabes haters, Hamilton "one bat to unite them all" lovers, Wheeler's lost whiners, Huff/Rowand/Sanchez/Zito FA $$$ all time bust list. And hey, why not mention Candlestick Park sucks too.
ReplyDeleteSince Hamilton is not here yet, reality-based discussion is welcome in the present...
Well, let just say the Giants won't go back to playing at the Stick and
Deletethe Niners are leaving too.
Dr.B I love your blog and everything but are you kidding me that another GM will be worst than Sabean? Who on earth will leave Huff, Burriss and Schierholtz on a major league roster. And sign to LH relievers for 10M knowing that the money would have been better spent on Beltran or another offensive weapon. Second, he greatly overpays old players or players that aren't worth. Third, Giants farm is overrated by us, we haven't produce a single impact player outside of the first round during his 16 year dictatorship and they can't even produce a .260 20hr 75rbi guy. That's pathetic.
ReplyDeleteYes, what a horrible GM, finding players like Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, Bumgarner, Wilson, Romo, Sandoval, Posey, Belt, Crawford, with Brown, Panik, Hembree, and possibly others on the way up, who would want great young players like that? And, who, BTW, won a World Series (I used to see lots of people wanting Beane here over Sabean, but he hasn't won yet, and he has been copying Sabean's methods in recent years, even going after the same players and picking up Sabean's scraps that fall into their grasp.
DeleteTop 3 team in runs allowed in the majors, three seasons in a row, looking to make it four this season.
FYI, $10M would not have done it for Beltran, especially at the point at which Sabean picked up the pitchers. Beltran wanted a lot more at that point, he only accepted the Cards offer because he had nothing better and learned that the market did not value him as much as he and his agent valued him.
And people don't seem to understand how important bullpens are to teams today, studies at Diamond Mind by Tom Tippett showed that teams hoping to win in today's game need a great bullpen to do it, as well as pitching and hitting. If we lost both Affeldt and Lopez (and clearly the Giants were worried about Wilson already and that influenced this move), we would be left with Casilla, Romo, Hensley, plus who, Edlefson, Blackley, Loux, and ???.
Maybe we have Beltran, but there is no guarantee that what he's doing now for Cards is what he does in SF, in fact, he's hitting no better than Cabrera right now on the road, .257/.333/.529/.862, which is right in line with his career numbers at home and road. And we're only paying Cabrera $6M to play LF. On top of that, Beltran is negative in the OF defense again, he cost his teams roughly 1 win on defense last season. Though I must note that Cabrera has been bad in RF for us as well, but at least that's small samples, he's actually been slightly above average defensively in RF during his career (though again, small samples, only 11 games there for us in 2012, 60 starts total in his career. The Fielding Bible's DRS really loves him in LF (the other method just says he is below average there and everywhere).
Hmm, no impact player outside first round... I guess Brian Wilson is no impact. Sergio Romo, OK, he's not a closer, I guess we can give anon that (for his cowardice). Jonathan Sanchez, though, he came through for us when we needed him in 2010, no way we get in the playoffs without win, let alone win it all, so I consider him an impact player. And I find Pablo Sandoval to be a pretty good impact player, and he wasn't drafted.
DeletePlus, anon doesn't understand how hard it is to find players with even the 10th pick overall. I do. Here is the list: http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?overall_pick=10&draft_type=junreg&
47 years of picks. Lets just go with the first 43, to Madison. Here's some stats. Only 11 of the 43 (25%) have 18.0 WAR or more (I use 18.0 WAR as the threshold for good players). Lincecum obviously qualifies, Madison does not - yet. Lincecum still probably have many years more to add to his WAR but right now, only 6 10th pick overall has greater WAR than he, and he should pass Carlos Pena any month now. So no, not really that easy to find a good player with even the 10th pick, and Lincecum is probably a generational good pick.
Even Bumgarner, with just short of two years worth of stats, is at 6.4 WAR already and looks to get better still. But let's say he just continues at that rate, 3.2 WAR average, so lets be conservative and call it 2.5 WAR, which should earn him his two option years, to 2019. That's roughly 8 seasons or 20.0 WAR, putting him in Lincecum's current class at the end of his Giants tenure. That would make him a generational pick as well, just one season after Lincecum.
Even at 6.4 WAR, there is only 13 out of 43 who have better WAR, in other words, he is already better than 67% of the other #10 overall draft picks in the history of the draft (and he'll pass Dave Chalk very soon, perhaps his next start, certainly by the end of May). So again, no, not very easy to find a player as good as Bumgarner with the 10th overall pick.
Let's go even deeper with Posey. 5th pick overall. Should be a slam dunk, according to your uninformed knowledge of the draft. He's already at 6.0 WAR, despite playing barely over a season's worth of games. In the history of baseball, there have been 47 #5 overall picks, 44 to Posey. There have been only 6 players with greater than 18.0 WAR. 6! Posey already has a greater WAR than 34 of those picks, or 77% of those picks. ALREADY! Barely over one season played and Posey is already better than 77% of all #5 picks.
So tell me again how overrated Sabean is in selecting these first round players? It is simply not easy to find players in the first round, even for the top picks. It is factually false to claim that any team can find a good player like Sabean has in the first round. It has been and remains very hard to accomplish, it is still very much an art and not a science, else #1 would be greater than #2, would be greater than #3, and so on, if it were a science.
And it is exponentially worse when you are competing for the playoffs and getting picks in the back of the first round. I've written on this since, like, 2005 (http://sfgiants.scout.com/2/343576.html), and all over MCC from 2005-2009, plus any time there is an article on the draft. Once you start winning, it is nearly impossible to find a good player using your first round pick, virtually impossible to find a good player outside of the first round. It is simply and plainly not easy to find talent via the draft.
I agree to some extend. But do you really know if he is the one that has drafted these guys?
DeleteSecond, you're only talking the positives not the negatives, just like me, only the negatives. And am not rating Sabs or Bochy on the draft, am rating Sabs on his free agent signings and the lack of hitters that are true ML on the roster. With the pitching staff that the Giants have we should be first every year in the NL and favourites to the win the WS but no he ain't got the brains of the GMs of Cardinals, Texas, Tigers, Marlins,etc. You don't build a team one-sided. Bunch of pitching and no hitting. thats like buying a car and not have money for the gas.
Teams dont produce only 1st Rounders. Its seems that the Giants prospects when they come up to the bigs are either superstars or busts, there's no one that is average, lets say for instance a .270 25hr 80rbi type of hitter.
So far Belt hasnt shown anything and with Crawford the Giants and fans don't expect much from him (in terms of batting), in others words he by no means was never a great prospect. Brown and Panik are really struggling (am most surprised by Panik) both haven't shown pop. Hembree still needs work. And until they reach the ML we both or anybody can't call them busts or great players.
I used to read your blog a lot but now it doesn't show up again. Can you give your link, please?
Lastly, let's look at the #1 pick overall. Should be a slam dunk, shooting fish in a barrel, easy as (Felix) Pie, if one wants to dismiss any first round pick as easy to find talent. If the first round is easy, #1 OVERALL should be like breathing. http://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?overall_pick=1&draft_type=junreg&
DeleteOnly 17 players in 47 years of selections have greater than 18.0 WAR. Even Pat Burrell don't beat that threshold. Of course, some of them still might. Harper, Strasburg, Price, Upton look like they probably will do it at some point. So lets cut it off at Matt Bush in 2004, making it 40 picks total, making it only 17 of 40 picks, or 42.5% of them are good players, if good is defined as 18.0 WAR. I get better odds flipping a coin, heck, I get better odds in Reno and Las Vegas betting black or red on the roulette table.
And that's for the first pick overall, which should be obvious to EVERYBODY, since it is so easy to find good players with a first round pick, so therefore when you have the first pick, you can pick ANYBODY, so it would behoove you to select the best player, right?
Here is a quick look, first 10 years, 10 years from 1995-2004. In these 20 years of drafts, only 1 of the 20 was the pick with the highest WAR. Ironically, it was in the first draft, 1965, when Rick Monday was selected. 10 of the 20 at least was in the Top 5 overall in WAR, but only 5 of the 20 were good (good being >= 18.0 WAR). 2 of the 20 never made the majors, 4 of them had negative WAR, another 6 had 0.0-10.0 WAR. In other words, 12 of the 20 #1 picks overall never earned more than 10.0 WAR in their careers.
On average, there were 3 good players (18.0 WAR+) to be found in the first round, in this 20 year sample (out of 47). Out of 63 good players selected in the first round, only 5 of them were selected with the first pick. Meaning that 15 teams had 58 good players in those 20 years that they could have selected instead of their pick, and still had a good player, let alone the best player.
Hopefully, this shows to most people that 1) even with the first pick overall, it is not very easy to find a good player, let alone the best player, of the players in the first round (there could be better players selected in later rounds, like when the Dodgers lucked into Mike Piazza due to a mercy charity pick (Piazza had a connection to Lasorda somehow) with a 50th round pick (most teams pick in 50 rounds or less), and 2) it is not very easy, period, finding a good player in the draft, even with your first round pick.
OK, I got to post this on my blog, that's basically the article I've had in my head about the draft...
DeleteMy link is kindly provided by DrB on the side.
DeleteYeah, you are not the first one to question if he's the one selecting the players. Most people will agree that it had been Tidrow, then Barr, running the drafts for Sabean. But as clearly shown in lots of prior draft interviews with Giants personnel, they want Sabean to look at the top prospect, generally, if they are interested in drafting that prospect.
But I'm prepared because I wrote about this about 7 years ago. Sabean used to run the draft for the Yankees, before joining the Giants. In his years there, the Yankees picked up Jeter, Duncan, Posada, Petitte, Carl Everett, Deion Sanders, JT Snow, and others who, while not stars or good, had some length of major league careers (look for "Sabean’s Successful History of Player Development" for full list at: http://sfgiants.scout.com/2/354472.html). Also, if you look objectively at his career in trading prospects, he has never traded away anyone really good (Nathan was not a prospect), Foulke, Howry, and Francisco Liriano tops his list of best prospects traded away, and his side of the ledger includes Jeff Kent, Jason Schmidt, Robb Nen, Ellis Burks, Livan Hernandez, Randy Winn, who are the best to come to mind, Kirk Rueter too is considered one of his trades, I think Shawn Estes too, maybe.
His main negative is free agents, and a pretty big negative at that. I think people's view on that reflects their bias regarding him, including my view. It is pretty easy just to slam him on it. But to me, it is a mixed bag. Zito and Rowand I consider to be Magowan/marketing driven signs, not Sabean. A lot of his signings, to me, are moves forced upon him due to circumstances of the roster's need. Of course, most of the Sabean Naysayers say that is because he's bad at constructing teams.
DeleteThe way I see it, a lot of his signings were to serve Magowan's goal of winning one with Bonds. You obviously can't really do that by putting an unheralded rookie in a starting position (like they could have with Pedro Feliz). The farm was light because when you win for so many years in a row, without even one good losing year, you don't get a chance to draft with a higher probability pick. At the average success rate that I found with my draft study, a team competing for the playoffs every year (as they used to like to boast about Sabean's record), on average, will find ONE good player in TEN years of first round draft picks. One. When you then pick pitchers with almost every one of those picks, you have almost zero chance of developing a good player via the draft.
So Sabean was forced to sign free agents to fill lineup holes, and often, the best guy available still had big question marks. Even when he made a good signing - Durham for example, great hitter, never on DL, young - Durham didn't have even one uninjured year with us. And Alfonzo had question marks but his one good trait was the ability to have a high walk rate lead to a high OBP. He was never even that for us. Yet he was a better sign than the other 3B that season, David Bell, who was with the Giants. Benitez had his flaws and faults as well, but he was a good reliever for many years, he was never that for us over a full season. Given our problems at closer, even his worse year prior would have been an improvement for the Giants.
When a GM is forced to accept the best option on the market, he is at the mercy of the market. So how does one judge how good an evaluator of talent is a GM then? You take in other indicators, such as never trading away a really good prospect (big three of Foulke, Howry, Liriano, and I just realized, probably could add Vogelsong to the list, but at almost 10 years later contributing good value at the MLB level, should not really count against Sabean's record). Such as building a team of mostly homegrown top contributors (harder than you think, look around to other teams, look at MLB history).
(Cont.) Such as having a pretty good trade record. People like to carp about the deals that did nothing, but if a GM is to be fired for that, no GM would last very long. He at least tried to do something, and it didn't cost him much to try. It is not his fault that Hillenbrand was the best he could get on the market for Accardo. Still, if Hillenbrand could have been the average hitter he was all his career, we might have won enough games to win the title, as Niekro wasn't doing anything better.
DeleteIf you want to go by WAR, he's gotten more in trade than lost. If you want to go by people lost and gained, I gave the list above with Kent, Schmidt, Nen, Winn, others, plus I forgot Franchez, and our biggest losses were Nathan, Foulke, Howry, Liriano, Hamilton, Matt Williams, Russ Ortiz (though I blame ownership for that), I still view the ledger on his side. In terms of significance, Kent, Schmidt, Nen for us, losing Nathan, Ortiz, I guess A.J. too.
Overall, I think Sabean has been a good skill evaluator. From his successes with the Yankees, to his guidance with the Giants, he has been associated with a lot of good drafts and rebuilt teams. He has been excellent in deciding which of his prospects to keep or not keep, thus far (Wheeler and Neal pending). And, you know, part of being a good GM is not just being the best at everything, it is finding and acknowledging that maybe someone else is better than you at something and putting that guy in position to help you, like Tidrow and Barr. As Henry Ford once testified in court, he might not be the brightest guy in the room, but he can find the guy who is and hire him. Sabean's record overall is not perfect - he's only human - but has been good overall, keeping the above things in mind.
I personally like to point out that the Giants defense - pitching and fielding - has put the Giants in the top 3 in Runs Allowed for three straight years now, and look to be a fourth this season, even with Lincecum scuffling. That is a huge accomplishment because there are numerous benefits to that.
DeleteFirst of all, you don't need as much offense to win then. Using Pythagorean, one sees that for every 0.1 runs allowed reduced, runs scored to stay at 90 wins go down by 0.11 runs scored. Meaning that low RA teams are more efficient at winning games with any given offense. When you are a top 3 MLB team, all you need is a below average offense to win 90 games, and an average offense wins you 95 games.
Second of all, the top researchers in sabermetrics - Baseball Prospectus and The Hardball Times - found using different methodologies that teams that go deep into the playoffs generally are very good at defense - pitching and fielding - whereas no matter how good or bad the offense is for the playoff team, it has very little effect on whether the team went deep into the playoffs or not. In other words, the optimal way to go deep into the playoffs is to construct the best pitching staff around, including closer, support that with good fielding, and to just have enough offense so that you make the playoffs, then you have a better chance of winning in the playoffs with your good pitching than other teams.
Furthermore, BP's research found that key traits of such deep playoff teams are that they are one of the top strikeout K/9 in the majors that season, and that they had a dominant closer (which is usually associated with a high K/9 pitcher), and that they had good fielding.
This also fits into business theory as well, because the strategy is to find the core competency for success in your industry and to focus on being the best there is in that, while the rest is commoditized functions that you can outsource (in baseball's case, free agent signings of position players).
Third, given pitching's importance, a team can overbalance your draft (and international free agent signings) to focus on getting more pitching, both first round and overall.
(cont.)
DeleteFourth, I believe that a focus on pitching eases the rebuilding process. If you draft a position player, he can maybe play 2-3 positions competently, at best. Once you have too many of one position, you are put in the position of risking a trade. For example, Texas had three great 1B prospects, Teixiera, A-Gon, and Travis Hafner, but they ended up trading that latter two and those trades didn't really return equivalent value, and they ended up trading Teixiera too, though it did net them Elvis and, I think, Neftali Feliz.
However, every good pitcher you find, you can probably slot into the pitching staff somewhere. Each ace starting pitcher you got, you push out the worse one, who now can perhaps be a good reliever. Each failed starting prospect could become a good reliever. You can find a lot of relievers given up by other teams. Sometimes you can trade for a good reliever for a very minor prospect, because there is always a team out there who would rather trade a reliever for the possibilities of your prospect. The pool of talent can expand for a number of years as talent is found, before you have so much that you can trade off someone to get something you need. The cream rises to the top and the pool gets better and better, until age becomes a factor.
Fifth, given pitching's importance and TINSTAAPP, the focus on pitching helps to reduce the damage when one of your pitcher's arm or body going BOINNNG! Once you built up a good core and critical mass of talent, you can have Lincecum scuffling and Wilson out, and the team still has great pitching overall.
Sixth, because of the reduced need for offense, eventually, once the strategy is rolling pretty well, your team can focus more on peripheral fill-ins for the lineup that is more known for playing great defense, meaning that there should be a larger pool of free agents you can consider, and at a lower signing price because they are not good on offense. That also works for having worse picks in the draft due to winning so many games, it is much easier finding average type players, which Brown and Panik profiles as, in the back of the first round, and that is still a good win for the team because an average offense can still win a lot of games with this pitching staff.
Overall, good strategy, I think.
Gotta say, these anonymous guys don't have nearly the sense of humor that those other anonymous guys did. Will the funny anonymous guys come back?
ReplyDeleteShank get over yourself - or step away from the keyboard. Sabes - the worst ever. Bochy - the 2nd worst ever. If Zito/Rowand/Huff/ gave me their money, then I would be rich, famous and love them. If you want to argue this point - I will destroy you with my alpha stats acumen and TWSENNTARTP!!! Further I once played softball and still have my first whiffelball - so when I say Belt can't play 1st base I mean it!
DeleteMS ;-)
The only problem with Shankbone is HUATM - he uses abbreviations too much.
DeleteNot the only problem by any means. But I am in love with my abbreviations. I have 3 letter acronyms for pretty much every player on the Giants BTW. I don't bust those out.
DeleteLuckily I don't struggle with BTW this time.
DeleteWhen times go bad, it seems everything goes down the stool... Is it that some want to believe the the Giants are really this bad, regardless of the injures. Heck, if we didn't have these bad times, we wouldn't remember the goodies.
ReplyDeleteSabean is a tough guy type of GM. At times, arrogant... I just don't see a opposing GM that would give him a break. I respect what he believes in because I think it is meant for the betterment of the Giants, but somewhere along the trail, he steps in some pretty deep ruts.
Bochy is a nice guy in a tough situation. "Jobu" is sticking needles in Bochy's team and it is getting so bad that the team members are losing faith in themselves. I was anti-Bochy till I started paying attention to his dugout management. The man has smarts and deserves this job. Just because Bruce handles a game different than the way WE would, doesn't make him a bad manager. He has a WS Trophy and we have...
Question: What is hurting the Giants the most with their postion players? Drafting or developement???
ReplyDeleteWhat has been hurting the Giants most has been their usage of their first round pick, when available, to select a pitcher, and their habit of picking more pitchers than hitters overall, in any draft, when an MLB roster is made up of more position players (13) than pitchers (12).
DeleteThat first puts all their first round eggs in finding pitchers (except for the Posey pick during that stretch), and second gives them more lottery tickets at finding pitchers, resulting in finds like Brian Wilson, Sergio Romo, Jonathan Sanchez, even Jeremy Accardo, Kevin Correia, may as well throw in Ryan Vogelsong as well, and there were others, some traded, like Keith Foulke, Bob Howry, I'm probably forgetting somebody, oh, Joe Nathan too.
These strategies/tactics plus the fact that player development normally takes 3-5 years for a player to go from drafted to playing regularly in the majors, means that the Giants shift to position players in the John Barr era have just recently begun bearing position player fruits at the major league level.
When you take that into account, the Giants look good in the near future in terms of position players, starting lineup. Our middle lineup should be set for years with Sandoval, Posey, Belt. Top of the lineup should be good with Brown and Panik. We have a lot of promising (remember, hurdle for good at 6-7-8 in the lineup is much less) players to fill out the rest of the lineup, Peguero, Kieschnick, Gillaspie, Joseph, Susac, Hanchez, even Crawford and Schierholtz, heck Schierholtz is probably good enough to bat 7th for anybody right now, even with hot and colds, his career batting line favorably compares to the average 7th place hitter: .737 OPS in NL 2012, Nate career .730 OPS. I still like Noonan and Culberson might also prove valuable in the bottom of the lineup as well, should Panik not become our starting 2B.
And anywhere we don't have an internal option, we could always get an OK free agent. Melky Cabrera is the most obvious example right now. And it won't be like free agents in previous years, most of those times, we are relying on the free agent to be a cog in our offense. If we have Brown, Panik, Sandoval, Posey, Belt to start our lineup, any free agent we get can be more focused on defense than offense, since they will be bottom of lineup hitters. And finding good defense is much cheaper (and frankly easier to find internally) than good offense.
Remember, with our great pitching, we don't need great or even good offense to win, we only need around average. Even with just Sandoval, Posey, Belt in the middle (assuming Belt develops as expected), our offense probably could be at least average. Just look at average offenses, most do not have a lineup full of good hitters, they have maybe 2-3 good ones, a bunch of average ones, and a couple of bad ones.
Great pitching makes it that much easier to build a division title winner because you don't need that good an offense to win with that great pitching. An average offense with our pitching should yield 95+ wins. So a slightly below average offense should still yield 90-93 wins.
Wow, a lot to respond to here. First of all, I just want to thank everybody for their contributions to the discussion. Secondly, I have to wonder if the Anon who is yelling about Sabes and Bochy is doing it as satire, because it certainly is a caricature of the Sabean/Bochy hating crowd!
ReplyDeleteOK, as Shankbone has said to me several times, you don't want to get so tied town looking at Sabeans trees, you lose sight of the forest he has built and is still building. So, here's my response to the discussion above:
Brian Sabean is the most successful GM in the history of the Giants franchise since John McGraw. He has led the Giants to winning records in 11 of 15 seasons as GM. They have appeared in 5 postseasons with 2 pennants and the only WS championship since they moved to SF. He has a top 10 winning percentage out of all GM's in baseball since 1930! That's not Wins which could be attributed to his longevity but winning percentage!!
Currently, Sabean has assembled one of the finest cores of young homegrown players in baseball. His drafting record over the last 6 drafts is arguably the best in baseball. Yes, Sabean is involved in the draft. While he probably does not scout the players taken in round 36 or 42 or whatever, it is well documented that he personally scouts first round draft picks. The Farm system, though depleted by all the recent graduations, it still strong and has several prospects who are likely to strengthen the team in coming years.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: The Giants are as well positioned for the future as any team in baseball!
As for Bruce Bochy, his track record is also strong. He has managed several NL West champions. He has won two NL Pennants and won a WS. Not a lot of managers out there with that kind of resume'.
Ownership: They are NOT cheap! They have just spent a very large amount of money to keep the pitching together into the future and continue to have one of the larger payrolls in baseball.
Oh, and signing Josh Hamilton to a big long contract is about as bad an idea as I've heard in awhile. I really hope that was a joke!
DeleteI thought I said you don't want to spend too much time defending all of Brian Sabean's moves on the internet. Totally agree on Sabean weighing in on the top picks, that's one thing that shouldn't get taken away from him, and the trifecta of Timmy/MadBum/Posey is pretty amazing stuff. Saved his job. I have slightly different views on the ownership group, but wow there was a lot of stuff said today, better just leave that alone.
DeleteJosh Hamilton would be a high risk high reward contract. I bet the Rangers lock him up, which will move the money some more for our buddy Melky Cabrera.
Defending all of Sabean's moves, forest for trees, it's all pretty much the same idea in my book. Whatever it is, I'm giving you all the credit for pointing it out.
DeleteThe Anon caricature replying to Shank and tagged with MS is all mine...and hopefully taken all in good humor. The other Anons were just too willfully ignorant and prejudiced, not to respond in kind. However, OGC did us all proud by trying to reply in earnest, bravo.
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