Thursday, May 24, 2012

Game Wrap 5/24/2012: Giants 14 Marlins 7

The Giants played two games in 1 tonight in Miami, a tight 1-1 pitching duel between Ryan Vogelsong and Anibal Sanchez for the first 5 innings followed by a 13-7 hitfest the rest of the way.  Key Lines:

Gregor Blanco- 2 for 4, 3B, 2 BB, SB(5).  BA= .256.  Blanco had been in a mini slump but reached base in 4 of 5 PA's tonight scoring 3 runs.  

Brandon Crawford- 1 for 4, 2B, BB.  BA= .232.  Crawford has hit .279 over his last 10 games with an OBP of .354.  

Melky Cabrera- 3 for 5, 2 2B, SB(7).  BA= .362.  Wow!  Just wow!  Melky is an absolute beast out there! Hitting .450 over his last 10 games.  Get 'er done, Sabes!

Angel Pagan- 2 for 5, 2B.  BA= .297.  Well, Pagan's BA was not empty tonight as he drove in 4 runs and scored 1.  Sabes might want to think about locking both Pagan and Melky up for the next 3-5 years.  Man, did Sabes win those two trades or what?

Ryan Vogelsong- 6.1 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 3 BB, 4 K's.  ERA= 2.50.  Another QS for Vogelsong.  He pitched a lot better than that until the Giants had a comfortable lead.

The Dodgers were idle so the Giants gain a half game on them to 6.5 games behind.  The rest of the NL West was idle too.  The D'Backs are in 3'rd place 10.5 games behind. The Rockies are in 4'th place 13.5 games behind while the Padres are bringing up the rear at a 14 game deficit.

Tim Lincecum tries once again to get his season on track tomorrow facing Josh Johnson who also got of the a rough start this season. JJ has been better his last 2 starts though.

20 comments:

  1. Burning incense and lighting candles for Timmy now. Let's hope the Giants saved dome runs for him too.

    Wow don't know how to feel when the Giants go up 8-1. Guess the bullpen doesn't either.

    And the Giants scored 14 runs without an HR, still sure we need dingerz to score?

    Nice to see Crawford in the middle of things. I think he will hit his stride now, much to P-duk's demise.

    Hope the Giants keep faith in Belt and let him work things out. Needs to find it against MLB, not PCL, pitching.

    Voggie is a stud, again. But man did he look pissed as his two runners left on scored.

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  2. need to be ready to be disapointed if the giants cannot resign both pagan and melky...or either...both continue to raise their market value and we saw what happened last offseason....and i dont think the powers that be want the org stuck in another over inflated contract

    l dont like that park....the colors are wrong, they have ushers dressed in neon green and all the friggin walls are neon green...they have an aquarium, a pool, a niteclub...i think they still have the cheerleaders (which i fine, i wish the giants had those too...bring in the girls from one of the sa winter leagues) but after 10 minutes...i had a freaking headache

    worse, i had to watch the fish feed...guess cuz they spent so much money on the park, couldnt spend anything on their tv announcers....they are idiots....they were talking about the giants current 20 games in a row, like it was something new in the league

    and praise the lord that when our players make a goof, they dont crack smiles like hanley and twitter boy did on that almost busted play to the plate....its not supposed to be funny when you are down 8-1

    as far as the giants go...they played well for the most part...belt apologists cant demand that belt plays and then whine when the team loses...cuz hard to win with little to no production from first...

    gonna take the full season for posey to gain enuf strength to jump out of the crouch to throw guys out...wonder more teams arent running on him

    and vogie was great, but he really looked uncomfortable all game

    oh, and men...carry around a glove for when you get angry....better to yell into it than at your wife or kids

    dont know if i will watch any of the rest of the series....that park bothers me

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    1. Well, at least if Melky and Pagan leave, they are both doing well enough to make a contract offer of 1 year/$13 M a slam dunk which means the Giants end up with a mother lode of draft picks, so the trades still end up being winners for Sabes. I mean, if he could've traded J Sanchez and Torres straight up for a first round + supplemental round draft pick straight up, they would be great trades, right?

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    2. Why do the Giants have to offer a 1year $13m? By the way, Sabs did a great job on both of these trades. If he just knew how to sign free agents he might be the best GM in the league.

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    3. Apparently the House that Loria built is worse in person. My buddy was there on business midweek and caught a game. He said it was completely soulless, and empty to boot. Much has been made of the bodypainted girls in LF by the pool, but that really shouldn't be the focus of a ballpark or a ballclub.

      Melky and Pagan are hitting their stride. Its pretty exciting to watch. Excellent pickups both. Getting their value and then either resigning them or getting draft picks is a win-win. Great job Mister Sabey Sabes, maybe you got your mojo back. I remember the days you were a ruthless hustler, before the interwebs 2nd guessers came on line and the House that Barry built crumbled. Snow. Burks. Schmidt. Nen. Even fat boy Livan. Sabean is a mixed bag, he isn't perfect, but he's much better than currently advertised by fangraphs and others.

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    4. Under the new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) 1 year and about $13M is the cut-off arbitration offer that nets the team a 1st round and supplementary round draft pick, if the player turns it down. (Or that's my understanding). DrB assumption is that Pagan and Cabrera would be able to get bigger contracts so would turn down the Giants $13M/1yr offer, getting 4 high level picks (especially since the supplementary round will probably be much shorter under the new CBA.) It also leaves the giants free to chase one with a big multi-year contract while using the other for draft picks.

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    5. Giants will sign one of Pagan or Melky. But offer them both Arb.

      3/$45MM or 5/$60MM for Melky. And sign him now for what discount you can get. Ideally three years as hopefully the draft produces a cheap OF or two in the next three years. I could go five years given Melky seems to have learned the discipline and focus to bring out the best of his substantial 5-tool talents. Note these talents are VERY valuable to the Giants - OPB, gap-to-gap slugging, BB IQ, speed, defense, RBI's, 155 gamer toughness, leadership by quiet example, hustle on every play. He has found himself a home on the Giants - make it so Sabes.

      1/$14MM for Pagan. I think the Giants will let him go for draft picks. IF they feel either of Nate/Brown/Keischnik/Pegs can step in for 2013 and IF Blanco keeps it up for a full year. Pagan's defense still has me doubting his long term value vs. cost. The Giants seem to have a a stream of speedy center fielders in the minors with Payne/Gallindo/Lofton/others?. So may be one more year of Pagan as a bridge to Brown or I can accept the draft choices.

      Note the Giants are saving unexpected $$$ on Wilson in 2013. So they don't have to go over budget for Pagan. Melky $$$ comes from Rowand/Huff.

      Either way great trading by Sabes.

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    6. Oh and Bacci, anything you did like about the 14-7 win?

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    7. the trades for pagan and melky were brilliant...melky was a straight steal

      all im saying is that i will not be surprised if both want to test the fa market, and no one should be upset if sabean cant match the offers they get

      and i liked last nite's game...i just got a headache watching it

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    8. If you like something, you are bound to be hurt when that soomething ia taken away. ..for moat people. I know there are exceptions.

      Generally it is more comforting to be pessimistic.

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    9. MS, I find that certain breeds of Giants fans just can't enjoy a good Giants team, they are totally flummoxed, like bacci.

      I still think that $13M+ per year for either is way too much, though Melky is making a pretty good case for it if he continues hitting like this.

      Still, I doubt he can sustain this pace. His BABIP is now .404. Even Ichiro in his best season had .389, and Melky is not Ichiro fast.

      I think once he cools off, he'll be about what he is, an average type player, maybe slightly above. Average players get around $9-10M per season now on the market. I think he deserves something in the 3-4 year contract range, $10M-ish per season (Cespedes' contract is the lowest I can see it going), so around 3 years, $27-30M or similarly for 4, maybe option years to mix things up, with buyouts and all that fun stuff.

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    10. Let's see OGC,

      Melky put up a 4 WAR season last year and is on pace for more than that this year. Even if he regresses a bit and only puts up another 4 WAR, how is he an average player and how is he only worth $9-10 M?

      Pagan is on a pace for 3+ WAR and that includes an ice cold start. Yeah, last year was a downer for him but the year before that he put up 5 WAR. I would think he is easily worth $13 M for 1 season too.

      I should think that 1 year offers of $13 M is a no brainer for both Pagan and Melky. If they accept, the Giants have them both for one more year with a very good chance of getting 8+ WAR out of them for a total of $26 M. If they sign elsewhere, the Giants get a mother lode of draft picks.

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    11. wow, when you go by WAR, they are much above average, I stand corrected on that point. I was just looking at their batting line and poor defense and thinking that they would only be slightly over when said and done.

      However, look at what happened when we signed Rowand, kind of in-between the two players starting his 30 YO season with us in 2008. If you go by his WAR over the prior, say, 4 seasons, he was roughly a 4-5 WAR those seasons, except for the year he was injured, i.e. when healthy. By that measure and, say, around $3.0M/WAR, that works out to $12-15M as a valid free agent salary.

      While I can see Melky staying at his current rate, Pagan has been up and down over recent seasons, and he's older, to boot. While a 3 year deal covers Melky's 28-30 years, it covers Pagan's 31-33 years.

      For Melky, between Baseball-Reference.com's 0.9 WAR for 2009 and Fangraph's 1.6 WAR, that's a floor of roughly $6M for what I consider the worse we can get out of him going forward (assuming he stays fit) vs. a high of $20M. That does average out to $13M, so I'm warming up to such a price for Melky, also because it sounds like he's now a maniac about fitness, whereas Rowand's idea of fitness involves riding a mountain bike. 3 years at $13M seems fair, or 4 at $12M.

      I would not pay similar money and time for Pagan, just due to age and lower production. He is producing around 3 for this year and that seems to be his average over recent years, but he had a low of 1, roughly, last season, for a $5-15M range, average around $10M. I can go for $13M for one season, since we do have need of at least that much to bridge to Brown, overpaying for that. Brown looks like he's figuring out AA in mid-May, and will hopefully move to AAA in 2013, majors by 2014. I was thinking 2 years but then thought about Huff, at basically similar money, and Huff's a good hitter.

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    12. Oh, and to get the draft pick for Pagan, if he goes Cody on us.

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    13. OGC,

      Here's where I think BA comes into play despite the derision from all the Sabers. Rowand always had a mediocre to bad BA. All his offensive value was in HR's hit mostly in very hitter-friendly parks. It was pretty easy to see that if the west coast ballparks sapped his power, his value would crater, which is exactly what happened. Melky and Pagan are different in that they have embraced their power limitations and are content to produce by being line drive/gap hitters which the west coast parks actually favor.

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    14. i enjoy good giants teams...enjoyed the hell out of the entire humm baby era...loved the bonds era and was giddy after the ws run

      but last night was a statistical anomaly

      and that park makes me ill

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    15. Well Bacci,

      I'm not sure how much of an anomaly it really was. The Giants are consistently getting a lot of baserunners on. The are something like 4'th or 5'th in baseball in games with 10+ hits. When they are doing that, it's to be expected that there will be games where they put up a prodigious number of runs. Just think of what they might be putting up on a nightly basis if Pablo hadn't gotten hurt and what they might do when he returns.

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    16. That's the thing, Rowand talent didn't crater, per se, it was his determination to be physically fit.

      Few people remember, but he actually started out his Giants career on a very positive note. He was hitting very well for the first couple of months, he was in the 900-ish OPS range. Then he started the slide that never really ended for him, physically. He realized the need for improved fitness but used mountain biking as his form of "professional" fitness.

      I still think that he could have justified his contract with some of that gamer warrior spirit that he alledgedly had.

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  3. Yep, good job on the trades.

    Remember the reaction to the Melky trade at the time? Very tepid. In the blogdom, it was mostly about how Sabean overpaid. How could he give up good young pitching? Melky's '11 was an outlier. That kind of stuff. So, yes, it's definitely time to give Sabean his due. We mostly run him down on his mistakes, so, fair's fair.

    Although Melky's great intensity makes comparisons to Winn dicey, lets not get carried away and sign while he's red hot. Still, as with Cain, I wouldn't mind stretching a bit with regard to price. I'd love 3 years + option at an overpay. Say $17 million per. I know, a lot. But I'd rather overpay short years, than get locked in for $13 million per for 6.

    As Doc said, Giants are offering arb for both Melky and Pagan at the very least. So, life is good regardless.

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  4. I think Melky has learned to own his 4.5-tool skills - this is THE key to his long-term value (next 3 - 5 years). Yes, the BABIP is unsustainable, but so is the Giants offense if they don't sign players like Melky (bird in hand) when they have the pitching staff they have. There is no player in the giants farm system that even projects to match Melky's 4.5-tool skills. And they are unlikely to find one in the draft this year. FA's hitters of Melky's caliber ain't coming here without warts and a tremendous overpay. So it's either overpay a FA hitter with warts or sign Melky (no warts). Your choice.

    And the Giants have the Melky budget $$$ with Wilson going down + Huff/Rowand coming off the books.

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