What a difference a day makes! After the shame and despair from last night's game, this one felt mighty darn good. Ryan Voglesong pitched a gutsy game. The defense supported him with 4 DP's. Brett Pill provided all the needed offense with a 2 run jack in the second inning, and Bruce Bochy managed the pitching brilliantly. Key Lines:
Brett Pill- 1 for 3, HR(2). BA= .270. The Giants managed just 6 hits and 4 of them were infield hits. The two that weren't were a line drive hit to left by Buster Posey followed by Pill's blast in the second. Vogelsong and the bullpen made it stand up.
Ryan Vogelsong- 7.1 IP, 8 H, 1 R, 3 BB, 1 K, GO/AO= 9/4. ERA= 2.94. 2 of the walks were IBB's. Vogelsong's ability to put the ball on the ground resulted in 2 of the 4 DP's which were decisive in this game.
Javier Lopez- 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K's, GO/AO= 3/0. ERA= 1.42. Lopez looked really sharp facing 3 LH batters. The first one was Ethier with the bases loaded. The Dodgers scoreboard showed a replay of Ethier hitting a grand slam last year while Lopez was warming up. Javy got a quick 0-2 on him, DP grounder! Take that scoreboard guy!! Spending money on LOOGY's pays off once again.
Santiago Casilla- 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 0 K, Save(6). ERA= 1.50. I have to confess that I wanted Bochy to bring in Romo to face Uribe. I thought Uribe might be able to catch up with a Casilla fastball, but would have fits with Romo's sliders. Happily, my fears were unfounded as Casilla threw what Vin Scully said was a 99 MPH fastball for strike on and got the final out on a weak grounder to 2B. Have to also admit my heart almost stopped every time Riot handled the ball in the last 2 innings.
With the W, the second place Giants gained a full game on the Dodgers back to a 4 game deficit. They also got back to .500 once again. The 3'rd place D'Backs lost to the Cardinals 6-1 as Carlos Beltran hit 2 HR's to stay 5.5 games behind the Dodgers. The Rockies lost to the Pesky Ones 3-1 to stay 6.5 games back while the Peskys gained a game to an 8.5 game deficit.
Big Time Timmy Jim has a chance to right his ship and gain a series win tomorrow night facing Chad "Mr Baggy Pants" Billingsley.
Great win for the Giants. That one felt good!
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Oh, the ups and downs of baseball. Yesterday they couldn't do anything right... Tonight, 4 DP's and a very Giant-esque 2-1 nail biting win.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad we're talking about the LOOGY, I think sometimes Javy gets buried in our conversations behind Romo, Casilla and Wilson when he was around. Javy is a damn good situational lefty and won us a game tonight. Love Vogelsong's reaction after the DP.
As for the bums. Didn't even fill that old crap-hole 60% tonight.
Watching Loney's diving play last night and his heads up on the no-infield-fly rule tonight only makes me think having Belt at first is more and more important. Maybe first is only a premium defensive position twice a year and I just saw the Dodgers have their two, but I like the leather being flashed!
What's the deal with Pagan? I walked away from the game for a few minutes and he was out? My old man said he limped to first, but was upset at being taken out as if he was fine? News?
AF
Pagan was running down the line in the process of beating out a slow roller to the left side. The throw was high and on the home plate side of the bag. Pagan had to kind of duck and crouch to get out of the way while still running full stride. He may have said it was a cramp, but the way he pulled up after crossing 1B it looked like every other hammy pull I've seen. Stay tuned.
DeleteSo that's what the Giants been doing wrong, putting up Lincecum instead of Vogelsong against Kershaw.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe we should start a #FreePill movement, the step-prospect overlooked by the bandwagon fringe who demands that Belt plays no matter what.
I like to hang out in the grey area of this argument, but it is worth pointing out that Belt's defense at first is nothing short of excellent, and having a 6'5 guy with long arms is the best arrangement on the team. Sure, 1B is a flux position you can fill in hitting. But like JT Snow says, its not easy either. Belt has been nothing short of excellent in the young season, throwing strikes home to nail runners when our pitchers are having problems fielding sacrifice bunts.
DeleteHey, I want Belt to succeed as much as anybody, and he seems to be making the changes necessary to stick, so good for him. And I'm not saying that Belt shouldn't be our starting firstbaseman eventually. I think his development is a key tipping point for our offense's success in the future and, like I was early in the Giants winning ways now, hopeful that the prospects will turn out the way I hope, but acknowledged that prospects do not always turn out as hoped. And, not to jinx, he seems to be turning the corner, as I was noting on my blog, his contact rate has been inching upward as the season has progressed, to an area that would be good enough given his ability to take walks as well as his power.
DeleteAnd I'm sure there will be a lot of #FreeBelters claiming that they were right if Belt continues to do well starting with more regularity, forgetting that he started with regularity before and failed, and if I recall right, they blame the Giants handling for him failing, yet, one could also say that their handling led to him reaching this point as well (I'm sure they will say he did it in spite of the Giants handling; everything wrong is Sabean/Bochy's fault in their minds).
My point is that - and I just realized that it was someone's comment (DrB?) noting that some #FreeBelters were hating on anyone interfering with their wet dream of starting Belt in every game - fans are overlooking a prospect - Brett Pill - who has been doing it for us, even with irregular usage - which supposedly is a killer for any prospect - who is also an excellent defensive firstbaseman - Snow named Pill the best defensive player in our farm system before Belt came along - as well as providing OK OBP with good power. Plus his defensive runs saved on Baseball-Reference.com is better than Belt's so far, albeit SSS. And Pill is 6' 4", so he's no shrinking violet either.
But that's not my point, that he should replace Belt at 1B, which is the tone I got from your comment. My point is that Pill is a prospect who has actually been performing, and well so far, in the majors, and all some people seem to care about is their current prospect love-of-the-moment, Brandon Belt. All they do is push, push, push, that media member I noted is at it with latest blog post, pointing out how well Belt did against a lefty.
Was that the most important point of yesterday's game, that Belt did well against a LHP? How about focusing instead on the fact that Brett Pill took one of the best pitchers in the majors DEEP and won the game for us? How about giving him some love?
I was and still am worried/wondering what our outfield might look like in 2013 and Beyond, as we didn't have many prospects who looked like sure things, besides Gary Brown, and he started out cold though warming lately. If Pill develops as well as Belt, it might be better defensively to start Pill at 1B and Belt in LF, as Belt is more athletic and he's been OK defensively in the OF in short stints last season, whereas Pill has not, plus Pill has been better than Belt at 1B defensively, based on the defensive metrics, albeit SSS.
In any case, if Pill is ready and Belt is not (scenario, not what I think right now; Belt is looking good now and should start), I have no problem giving Pill the opportunity to start, he has actually been hitting well. And, whoa!, you want to hear something really weird? Pill has been doing his mashing against RHP, he's like Barry Bonds vs. RHP, good but not great against LHP, plus striking out a LOT more: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.cgi?id=pillbr01&year=Career&t=b#plato::none
The point, which I think some fans forget in their zeal to promote Belt, is for the Giants to do well and win a lot of games. Pill doing well is a good thing, not, say, something to jump over, in search of something good to say about Belt's performance. Him playing more, given how good he has played so far, should be a good thing, as long as he continues to play well.
First off, I was just poking a little fun, I know this is a heated issue so I should be careful. Brandon Belt is a great defensive first baseman. He saved our bacon twice on throws, it looked like he came off the bag early on one Double Play, deking the Ump, and scooped up a bad Riot throw as well. He goes home with confidence and accuracy of a seasoned vet. I really, really like his defense.
DeleteI don't have much bad to say about Pill. He is a fastball hitter, and from what I've seen when MLB breaking stuff comes his way its not pretty. I like his short swing and his good attitude. I agree with you Pill shouldn't be shunted to the side. I think LF is most likely the best place for him at the moment though. And I do consider Belt the much better hitter. Pill on the pinch hit side can be very useful. He'll most likely get fastballs from relievers who don't have advanced breaking stuff, something that was recently pointed out to me.
I said grey area because I hate the free belt "all Belt needs is solid ABs and he's ready to go" but I also don't like the "Giants can do no wrong" angle. They have made a horrid mess of this from a PR fan expectations building angle, and I am by no means convinced about this hole in his swing. I think the best way to handle Belt is to do as Bochy has been doing but more aggressively, reinforcing his success. So I'm in between the positions and open to attack from all angles. Push comes to shove? I think you have to say screw his contact rate and get him in, if only for his defense. But I try to be understanding of the position Bochy is in, and that bringing along rookies is a tough road to row.
I've said over and over, great point about contact rate. But the devil's advocate can easily say those 20 extra K's at AAA and MLB are from the Giants pushing him to swing more and be aggressive, and from umps treating the rook just like rooks get treated. There isn't enough data to make that theory, interesting that it is, a reality. There could be other plausible explanations.
We've been going back and forth, but a hitter who is striking out so much has a HUGE hole in his swing, SOMEWHERE, else the pitchers would not be schooling him so regularly.
DeleteI agree that PR could have been handled better, but overall, without further inside knowledge of what exactly was going on with Belt and the Giants, I'm OK with what has happened.
Perhaps I've been stating my stance wrong. It is not "the Giants can do no wrong", it's "the Giants are closest to the situation, I'm willing to let them handle it in the way they think best."
My stance is not theory. I doubt the Giants did very much with him regarding the hole until last season once he proved that he was screwing up by striking out so much. I assume that they are like most people, we'll deal with the problem when it happens. It didn't really become real until he started struggling in 2011 with major league pitching.
So, the sequence I see is: 1) he goes into AAA, he hits well but strikes out a ton, but that's OK because there are hitters who can make a good living doing that in the majors, 2) he goes into the majors, he strikes out a ton still, but he's no longer hitting well, pitchers aren't making the mistakes that he dined on in AAA, 3) they bring him up and down to work on the issues that they noticed in the majors, but mostly wanted him in the majors (because they need his bat, ASAP). No matter what, he shows poor contact rate, whether AAA or majors, and if I recall those minimum PAs for a rate stat to become significant, strikeout rate is on the lower side.
Here is the website: http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/when-do-stats-become-meaningful/
At 150 PA, the hitter's contact rate becomes meaningful. He had much more than that both in AAA and majors in 2011, alone, making his contact rate a meaningful issue to worry about. You keep on saying that it's SSS, but the saber rules on that says, nunchance.
Damn, all my arguments, down in flames. Mowded by hardball times. I can't fight saber rules AND you on this OGC.
DeleteLets strive for middle ground here. We're happy Belt is doing well, and we want that to continue. If he proves out, the Giants were right and FreeBelt will exist alongside each other, with a little snickering back and forth.
As a guy who enjoys statistics but likes little nuances and (ducks) the human side of the game, some of these arguments that Giants fans get into take up too much time and energy away from rooting from the team. I have my lunatic fringe cynical side, but in the end the sure beauty of a home grown lineup is going to win out big time with me. Just trying to introduce a different voice in the matter, and I hope I come off as reasonable part of the time.
You are a very reasonable voice - most of the time :^) - and I get the devil's advocate role: I have been mostly playing that role the past 7 years at least, as I couldn't say for certain that things will change for the better, but I think I've been a very moderate voice for the Giants future for a long while.
DeleteI'll admit that I'm cranky now. The dustup at MCC just drove home to me that some people will never change, no matter how right you have been for the most part, no matter how I'd been trying to save people's energy from worrying so much about things, about how things were going to get better. Some people like to wallow in their snarkiness, Bill James-wannabes who have higher opinions of their ability to bring that off well. I say: you can never copy an original, you just have to be yourself. And there is a talent to snarkiness: unfortunately, the vast majority of them don't really have the talent for that.
Even worse, they act like they had seen this all along. All while the pitching was developing and improving, I get questions: "when will we win?" "when can we trade off the pitching to get hitting?" Things were never as bad as they thought, they thought we were 100 loss teams, I was telling people we weren't that bad. And they weren't, but still: "Let's trade Cain!" "Let's trade Lincecum!" "When can we trade Sanchez?" It would be some pitcher they want to trade.
That last one drove me crazy. They apparently don't realize that trades are a zero-sum game. Sure, you get better hitters in trade, but then your pitching just went down a lot too. Plus, offense don't matter in the playoffs, so build your advantage where it matters, in the pitching.
So they give their opinions as if they have known all this all the time. As if they were right all along.
I apologize if I get too grumpy sometimes. I go off on tangents sometimes (OK, oftentimes :^), tackling another issue that has some connection to the original issue.
Yes, isn't a home grown TEAM great? People don't seem to understand how hard it is to actually does that. And the Giants look legitimately capable of doing that. The rotation top of Lincecum, Bumgarner, Cain is awesome, Surkamp should be here soon, plus Wilson and Romo in the pen, and Hembree here soon, then the lineup looks like it'll be Brown, Panik, Sandoval, Posey, Belt, plus Crawford, perhaps Pill, perhaps Schierholtz, perhaps Peguero, perhaps Cabrera, who we got for Dirty.
DeleteI've challenged a lot of people who argue the homegrown angle, that the Giants are bad: if you can find me a team that has ever built a starting team entirely out of homegrown prospects, tell me about it. Heck, if you can find me one who has done a better job than the Giants, tell me. Nobody has taken or met the challenge yet.
So I have a screw them attitude now. I feel sorry for them. Bitch and moan, and laugh at each other's poor attempts at adolescent humor, and be like Chicken Little, thinking that the sky is falling. I had written that for sooo many years in a row about how Giants fans were reacting poorly to things early in the season. The only really bad thing was Posey last season. Still the Giants pulled out a good winning season again (due to Bochy's genius at winning 1-run games).
They were not afraid of treading on my feelings, so I don't feel any need to go to places where I'm not welcome and contribute my valuable content. It's funny though, I probably post something maybe once a month on MCC now, also Bay City Ball, and according to the Google Analytics, I get most of my visitors coming to me via their links. Wot a country!!! (Nothing wrong with BCB, just don't have enough time to hit all the good places and contribute, lots of good analysis there, though I find they are more MCC than ogc in regards to Giants management, so that is part of it too)
I like BCB a lot, you need different points of view. Sure, they skew a bit towards MCC. I think at times, folks get a little too invested in their arguments and lose the big picture. All Giants fans AND the Giants want Belt to do well. I also think its fair to criticize the Giants at times, they tend to be a bit stick in the mud and slow to react. But there are advantages sometimes to this. I wouldn't extend it out to batting Rowand leadoff to "get him going", but there are times where it'll pay off to stick with a player. It might with Huff.
DeleteWe have to move on, but I gotta take issue with the only really bad thing being Posey last season. We've danced around that plenty of course.
I'll think about that homegrown angle. I think its impossible to do. Here are two teams that have done much more than the Giants with much emphasis on home grown: Texas and St. Louis. Texas has hit with big time cast offs, they are going big on the international market and they are competing at the highest level, well. The Cardinals have produced the most major league players from their farm. They have also been much more successful on their free agent gambles. Both teams have a great core farm system and have supplemented successfully. The Giants have an excellent foundation, we'll see where they go.
Good point about two teams that are good at developing players. Though I would note that they only have 3 players in their starting lineup who was internally developed, plus one who they got in trade for a farm hand, Hamilton (what a steal that was!). Oh and Elvis for Teixiera.
DeleteBut their forte, to me, is picking up players and getting very good production out of them. Napoli, Beltre, Cruz. Beltre especially, I suppose part of it is home park, but still, what is in his cough medicine, if he continues to hit this well in 2012, that would give him his 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best OPS seasons of his long career, ages 31, 32, 33, right after his poorest season of this career when he was 30. (Ah, Cruz, he was one of my sleepers in my keeper league, but the league died before he broke out...)
Then you throw in Lewis and Darvish from Japan, while "homegrown", I consider both to have been free agent signings. And Neftali was in trade (also for Teixiera).
And the Cards, while they have been good with their farm system, if you look at their roster, very few of them are homegrown. They benefited greatly from Pujols, a very late round pick who turned out to be one of the best of his era, that you can't attribute to a good farm system, that's just plain luck. And if you look at the rotation that they had in 2006, and you have to wonder how the hell they won. They have been built up via very shrewd trading and pickups. They may have produced the most major league players from their farm, but how many of them are impact players?
That statement reminds me of the Giants of the 70's and 80's, one thing I used to do was look at all the former Giants on other teams. If we had kept all of them, we would have had great teams, instead of the mediocre ones that we had.
pagan had a tight hammy earlier in the day and got a cramp. he gets tomorrow off.
ReplyDeletepill and vogie beat the bums and kershaw the fugly...the bums are the one of the fugliest teams in all the majors...backed by the dumbest fans...
fat tommy was in the house, stuffing his fat face...
one of the owners was present last nite...jon guber...who's first production was shampoo...the story of his life....scuzzy owner for a scuzzy team
on a very sad note...maurice sendak passed today...he had to be a ball fan...he was too awesome not to have been....and since i loved his work, im sure he hated the frickin bums
Bacci,
DeleteYou pumped up tonight or what! Even calling out the old Tommy and the new owners. Let's close the deal tomorrow Timmy.
i despise that fat man...
Deletei dont wanna hate magic...but i must
the rest of the new owners are about as crooked as mccourt....but you can say that about any uber rich person...but guber is a hollywood sleazebag
according to alex, vogie was locked in as of yesterday....YESTERDAY
man...i would love to get some tips from him on focus and concentration
Yeah, Vogelsong definitely had his game face on last night. He refused to lose! Interesting that he had Kershaw in his crosshairs ever since he knew he'd be facing him. Now, THAT is setting a goal for yourself and delivering! Can you imagine the ovation he would have gotten in SF? Kudos to Lopez for not letting in any of those inherited runs. It would have been crushing for Vogie to lose that one after pitching with that kind of heart.
DeleteGiants won despite the insertion of The-Riot,whom Bochy plays at his own peril.Yes, I've been critical of Posey, but I really do feel for the kid. His injury exposed mediocre glove work.Deep down, don't think he really wants to be behind the plate. He's gun shy and who can blame him.But Belt's got a better glove and while he's yet to be a consistent average or long ball hitter, G's need the jack.One swing and a 2-1 win. What a gutsy performance by Vogelsong. I didn't hold out much hope for a win tonight. Nice to be up by 2 instead of down. Tonight's lineup was good, however, insert Burriss for The-Riot, then you have a lineup. Ian.
ReplyDeleteNow don't get me wrong about Buster. I'm not writing him off just yet. I just brought up some observations to keep watch in going forward.
DeleteDon't worry DrB, we've all noted your MCC freakout moment for future reference. Everybody deserves one from time to time. BTW, Vin Scully wouldn't shut up about Posey's ground ball tendencies, even making up a fake 2.5 ground ball to fly ball ratio, all this while Posey has a line drive single and a fly ball out.
DeleteWith all due respect, my comments on Buster are in a little different category than my comments on the Bumgarner draft. Posey has always had a pretty strong GB tendency and it seems to be trending toward getting more pronounced. Good player, but there are some things to keep an eye on, GB tendency and getting beat up behind the plate are two.
DeleteWhat did I miss? DrB had an MCC freakout moment? I thought he doesn't have the password to get in there?
DeleteSee Shankbone, this anon comment is what I'm talking about, Belt gets the mention here, yet Pill was the one who hit the jack and he's not even named at all or given any direct love.
Not to defend Scully, but looking at Posey's splits, while his GB/FB ratio is not above 2.0, his GO/AO ratio is 2.1 this season, perhaps he meant that? (That's GroundOuts and AirOuts)
That's actually interesting though, his GB/FB ratio in 2012 is basically the same as it was in his short 2011 season, 1.21 vs. 1.22, whereas in 2010, it was 0.97, which is a huge difference. However, his GO/AO ratio jumped between 2011 and 2012. This data suggests that 1) pitchers adjusted to Posey, getting him to hit more groundballs, and he hasn't adjust back yet, and 2) with the huge increase in GO leading to a higher GO/AO ratio in 2012, that suggests that Posey is not able to run fast enough to 1B to get as many hits, though it could also mean that he is getting very lucky with flyballs and linedrives, leading to a relative paucity of AO. However, his LD% is back to 2010's level, not the lower 2011 level, so he's at least making better contact, just it is a matter of extremes, pitchers are getting him to hit more groundballs, while Posey is also hitting more line drives (though only around league average), leading to much less flyballs.
Looking deeper into his GB/FB/LD stats, it looks more like it is his good hitting with the ball in the air, particularly FB, that is the reason for the increase in GO/AO, plus his batting line for GB is basically the same as for his career, so I was off there, he appears to be running OK, just hitting better when the ball is in the air. Which suggests that his batting line is inflated right now, as his BABIP for FB is almost triple what he done before and triple what the NL average is in 2012.
Sorry, still feeling my way to this type of analysis.
DrB - Oh no, my comments have been misread here, I'm just poking a little bit of fun. MCC tends to freak out about everything. I recently got into a silly confrontation when Lincecum had a rough 1st inning and a poster started cursing at him. I usually just let that stuff go, a lot of bagging on players, but I couldn't with Timmy.
DeleteIt was just a joke along those lines, that everybody has the right to freak out on players, even premium players. Nothing at all to do with the Bumgarner draft. BTW I'm running the minor league ball mock draft for the sf giants if you want to check it out. I think its hilarious that you like Smoral with the MadBum comps, and I don't. We're narrowing down a list of candidates to look at. It'd be cool if you found your account login and could weigh in.
Anyways, I was just kidding a bit, didn't want you to take it personal.
Luckily Buster didn't take it personally either...
DeleteOGC - I looked up the 2.1 in the previous game thread, his ROY year it was about 1.5 or so, I comped it shooting from the hip to Matt Kemp's 1.4 HIS rookie year. The premier player in baseball right now has bout a 1 to 1 ratio. My point was Scully had found a bone to passive aggressively rag on Posey. He is definitely trending up in his GO/AO, but its not 2.5 (as Scully said after watching a line drive single and while the ball is going on a fly out to left field). I'd just say its too soon to say. He had his 2011 interrupted abruptly, and he's feeling his way back from injury and just passed 100 ABs. Definitely something to keep an eye on.
DeleteI appreciate the analysis you put down. I'm feeling my way around it as well. And I'm mulling over this Pitchers/AB that is the latest "what the hell are the Giants doing" making its rounds. I'm not sure its necessarily an indictment of their coaches. I think it might be the fact pitchers don't fear them as power hitters. They throw a lot of strikes and attack Gints hitters aggressively. That is completely me talking from the gut, I need to go check the stats now.
Yes, definitely too soon to say, I was just trying to be helpful by noting what he might have been referring to, then going off on a tangent, as usual. :^)
DeleteAnd he doesn't really even have more than a year's worth of stats yet, so really, all his stats should be viewed for trends and stuff, not concluded about because he has such a short track record, even if he had played last season. Good point.
I think the Pitches/AB is just another way for Naysayers to carp on Sabean/Bochy and management. As I noted somewhere, the Giants hitters overall are just not good talent. They are average hitters overall and that's actually good enough to win with our pitching.
Good talent is what you are looking for if you want a team that takes a lot of pitches per AB. But if you spent all your best bullets (draft picks) on pitching over a 10 year period (or punting them :^), you are going to have a bad barrel of hitters to chose from when promoting from the farm system.
Even with that, even the best hitters have some flaws. Pablo will probably never meet a pitch he wouldn't love to swing at. I think it will take McCovey levels of IBB to get his walk rate to respectable levels. As nicely as Posey has hit, his OPS isn't really that good, it is just very good for a catcher, good for any other position except for 1B, where it is below average, at least for what he has shown so far. Still, he's a good hitter, and yet his P/AB is right at the league average, roughly. And if they want to complain, Belt is one of the worse on the team in P/AB, should we sit him down too?
If you want high P/AB, you are really talking about hitters who either take a lot of walks, or worse, take a lot of strikeouts. Pitchers are not going to care to walk you unless you scare them, and typically, as you aptly note, those are power hitters. And our best two are Pablo and Posey, and Huff and Belt, if they are hitting as they had shown before. Still Pablo and Posey will not scare many pitchers, at least not yet, maybe in two years, if they continue to develop.
But they are babies! Very young prospects. Learning to be better MLB hitters. Complaining about their flaws like they are is like complaining that their baby is still crawling when you want them running, without considering whether that is where they are in their development.
It is the just Bowker and Lewis lovers who are just finding another nit to pick on. Never mind that neither players, despite taking more pitches are not good enough to hold a regular starting job in the majors (and one is in Japan, if I recall right). Let's put it this way, Ethier is one of the low hitters at 3.50, but I don't think fans would be complaining about his lack of taking pitches.
Shankbone,
DeleteYeah, I saw that you are doing the Giants draft on Sickels' site. Just take Ty Hensley and we'll both be happy.
I'm almost more interested in who you will take in rounds 2,3, 4, 5(not sure how many rounds they'll do over there). I feel like if you can get 1 keeper out of rounds 2-5 every year, you have a huge advantage over most other organizations.
You guys catch the semi-rip job at Fangraphs on Voggie - one day after he beats down Kershaw. A great treatise in how use selected stats, SSS, and ignore the real world fact that Voggie was injured, missed Spring Training and is just now getting his stamina, velocity and control back.
ReplyDeleteFinally, the writer somehow failed to mention the most important stat - Voggie won the damn game against the best NL pitcher. I guess some things just can't be measured.
Come on Timmy, close this one out - or at least the first two innings.
Yeah, I wrote a response to that piece on Vogey in Fangraphs. When are those guys going to learn to stop predicting that Giants pitchers are going to regress? They write another one before they can wipe the egg off their faces from the last one.
DeleteI know, DrB, right? John Shea was on Gary and Larry's show on KNBR yesterday and said that the pitching staff couldn't repeat what it did in 2011 in 2012, not realizing that it has repeated it for three straight years now, 2009-2011. As I've been noting, people forget that each season, there is someone injured or performing poorly, but in the aggregate, the Giants pitching staff has been in the top 3 in RA in the majors for three straight years now. And though Vogelsong is unlikely to repeat his 2011 performance (though doing a good job of it so far), we don't need him to do that for the starters to repeat 2011, we just need OK performances out of Zito and Vogie, and anything better is gravy.
DeleteThe beauty of such a strong rotation is that when even our ace is struggling, our other pitchers pitch well enough to cover things while he's figuring things out. How many teams are there where you can say that their ace starting pitcher has been lost for the first month of the season, searching for his mojo, and yet the team is still at .500. Few teams can achieve .500 while their ace is struggling.
So, I agree with DrB, Fangraphs wannabe sabers come up with their latest analysis why the Giants will fail, only to get egg on their face. I've posted a number of comments there, mostly supporting Monterey Sharks (sorry I was adding the extra "r", the spellcheck told me too...) spot on observation that Vogelsong was in spring training mode early on, and the game by game velocity charts support that theory, as his velocity has risen with each start across all his pitches and in the last start or two, has been back in the range where he was in 2011, in terms of velocity.
These mistakes by Fangraphs, and really any other analysis sites, like The Hardball Times and Baseball Prospectus, just supports my contention, which I've posted on both Fangraphs and THT, that when you try to attempt analysis at the team level, the fans who are in there, following the day to day minutiae, are better able to provide a more accurate examination of the issues at hand for the team.
General analysts generally don't know enough about any particular team than the team that they root for, and thus miss things like Monterey Shark noting that Vogelsong has been making up for lost time in spring training. I was also able to point out that his sabermetric performances on a game by game basis per PQS has been just as good this season, as last season, suggesting that he's just continuing what he was doing last season: pitch high quality games without having too many disaster games, leading to a much better ERA than a better pitcher who just happens to have too many disaster starts.
I've made this point many times at both sites (BP don't allow non-subscribers to comment) but to no avail, they continue to have analysts who set their sights on the Giants, so I rarely bother any more. I just give them both barrels, as deserved, or praise them, on the rare occasions that they get it right.
100% a rip job. The writing at fangraphs went downhill fast.
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