The Giants rallied for 5 runs in the bottom of the 8'th inning capped by a 3 run blast by Hunter Pence for the game winning hit. Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 1 for 4, 2B, BB. BA= .278. I figure if a leadoff batter gets a single and a walk in 5 PA's, that's a OBP of .400 and a darn good leadoff hitter. Pagan did one better by making the hit a double off the RF wall to lead off the first inning.
Melky Cabrera- 2 for 5. BA= .348. Melky's Hit Parade continues!
Buster Posey- 1 for 1, 3 BB, SF. BA= .332. Are opposing pitchers starting to pitch around Buster? Pablo will help that situation!
Hunter Pence- 1 for 5, HR(18). BA= .258. Pence will still have his detractors. 2 hits in 9 AB's with no walks over his last 2 games? Not so good, huh? Yes, but he has 6 total bases in those 9 PA's too. 2 game OPS= .939. I'll take it. This game winning HR was exactly why the Giants gave up 3 players in a trade for Pence. He was the difference in this game.
Brandon Belt- 4 for 4, 2 2B, BB. BA= .260. And Brandon Belt is on fire! He's now hitting .464 over his last 10 games. His overall slash line is up to .260/.360/.401 which ain't half bad, even for a first baseman.
Marco Scutaro- 1 for 5. BA= .277. Ryan Theriot- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .268 Brandon Crawford- 1 for 3, BB. Bochy is going to have some tough decisions to make on PT when Pablo gets back.
Barry Zito- 5.1 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.29. Eh, not the greatest start by Zito, but he kept the game from getting away from him and the offense picked him and the relievers up.
Good thing the Giants offense came through big time because the Dodges shut out the Marlins 5-0 to remain 1 game behind the NL West leaders. The D'Backs topped the Nationals 7-4 to remain 5 games off the pace.
The Nationals come to town for a 3 gamer starting tomorrow evening with Gio Gonzalez facing Ryan Vogelsong in a battle of division leaders. The Nationals are obviously a good team, but let's see how many dingers they can pop over the right-centerfield wall in AT&T.
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Hector Sanchez crushed that double in the 8th inning, unlucky that it wasn't a triple.. Posey is playing like the franchise player that he is.. They CAN'T let him leave.. Pence hit into tough luck earlier hittin 2 balls hard right at the 2nd baseman.. Belt is overdue for a dinger, but nice to see him get hot. The Giants righthanded relievers other then Romo are looking shaky right now.. I like their relievers from the left side.. Time to get some revenge against the Nats coming up!
ReplyDeleteLG
Noticed the hit by The Hector. Too much good stuff!
DeleteBelt just needs to concentrate on getting the bat off his shoulders, getting some hits and solidifying his confidence. The power will come.
DeleteOne more thing on Hector Sanchez: He doesn't walk much, but I've never considered him a "hacker." He's definitely up there looking to put wood on the ball, but he actually controls the strike zone quite well and looks for "his" pitch to hit and hit hard.
DeleteGrant, over on McCovey Chronicles, shows a very good example of it on this very AB from Pitch Fx. My only disagreement with his comment, is I don't think Hector has ever been a "hacker' in the same sense that Pablo was a hacker when he first came up. Pablo swung at EVERYTHING! It worked because he is such a great natural hitter, he can square up ANYTHING. Hector is much more patient at the plate and hunts for his pitch. Drawing Walks and Plate Discipline are not the same thing!
I have defended Sanchez a few times at MCC. He has a mixed record of plate discipline in his minor leagues, and I think the small # of walks might be more from being challenged than going up with a hacking mentality. At MCC he has been labeled a hacker (in addition to threatening Belt's ABs) so there it goes. I love his swing, and I think he is going to be very solid. The walks will come, I think Sanchez is a great addition to the club. His defense and framing need work, but he can get that with the big club while providing a much more dangerous bat than Whiteside or Stewart.
DeleteH. Sanchez = rib-eyes!
DeleteKid is not afraid to get the bat off his shoulder when runs are to be had. I firmly believe Hector has a bright future. Considering he was plucked out of A+ ball, he is doing a hell of a job this year. Beats watching Whiteside and CStew chase the Mendoza Line last year. Also his performance is part of the reason we were able to give Tommy Joseph and get Pence. All good!
Is Belt half bad for a 1st Baseman?
ReplyDeleteI was curious, so I looked up NL 1st Basemen OPS.
Average OPS: 796
All 16 current NL 1st Basemen in order of OPS, Belt comes in 9th at 761, slightly lower than average.
1069 Joey Votto
932 Allen Craig
918 Brett Wallace
890 Paul Goldschmidt
846 Adam LaRoche
832 Anthony Rizzo
829 Freddie Freeman
820 Corey Hart
761 Brandon Belt
743 Todd Helton
733 Yonder Alonzo
730 Ryan Howard
720 Carlos Lee
707 Ike Davis
629 James Loney
569 Gabby Sanchez
Then I wondered how much more offense is expected of a 1st Baseman. So, I looked up the OPS+ for all the 1st Basemen in the NL.
115 is the average OPS+ for NL 1st Basemen, while 100 is the average for all hitters. So NL 1st Basemen, as a group, provide 15% more offense than the average NL hitter.
Belt has on OPS+ of 119.
On this list, he come in 8th. Slightly better than average for 1B.
181 Joey Votto
150 Allen Craig
150 Brett Wallace
131 Paul Goldschmidt
126 Adam LaRoche
123 Anthony Rizzo
121 Freddie Freeman
119 Brandon Belt
114 Corey Hart
108 Yonder Alonzo
108 Ryan Howard
97 Carlos Lee
93 Ike Davis
88 Todd Helton
74 James Loney
63 Gabby Sanchez
So, I guess Doc hit the nail on the head. Belt is right in the middle. Not half bad.
DeleteYup, hope this little hot streak by the Belter convinces Bochy to give him a much longer leash, and can we not activate Huff?
DeleteBelt has been good overall for a 1B, but to me, that is not the point. This information just encourages the #FreeBelters to think to that they are right and the Giants are wrong. They only look at the top-line numbers and not the underlying performance, much like they did when they were crying for Freddie Lewis and John Bowker to start.
DeleteBy observing his contact rate game by game, over 10 to 30 game stretches, one can see that he really struggles with avoiding strikeouts. Sometimes he's locked in and doing well, and other times he is just lost and doing nobody any good with his bat. But his contact rate for his high tides have been increasing over time, so I've been very encouraged that Belt would eventually figure it out. The Giants seem to see that with their coaches and scouts, and start him pretty much all the time (except for Posey starts) when he is on, and sit him down more (but not shutting him down completely) when he's very lost.
This is very similar to how they handled Schierholtz, except that Nate would also get injured at some point and they would have to shut him down, then he would compound that by playing hurt, and he's not good enough to do that, he needed to be healthy, and instead he would slump his way onto the bench full-time. Thinking about it more, he's been very similar to Rowand except that Rowand was able to keep his hot streak going long enough over a season to get a starting job then a big contract.
Belt was pretty close to totally getting it 6-8 weeks ago (from memory) before a really bad cold streak, until his recent hot streak. Bochy would make a good gambler, he rides his hot streaks by "betting" on Belt, then would keep the motor revving on Belt while he is cold by playing him regularly but not all the time, before flooring it again when Belt is hot again. So I'm not worried about Belt getting a longer leash, I'm just hoping that Belt can continue his streak longer, not the hitting part per se (though obviously that's what we want eventually), but his ability to avoid strikeouts enough so that pitchers are forced to pitch to me, at which point his gift for hitting baseballs can take over and he starts mashing.
As key as getting Pence was in trade at the trade deadline, if Belt can figure out how to consistently hit as well as he is capable right now, we basically add two middle-lineup bats in Pablo and Brandon to Cabrera, Posey, Pence, which would give the Giants an explosive offense to go with their shutdown pitching.
Ooops, to clarify, he being Nate is similar to Rowand.
DeleteI had written on my blog that my appreciation for Bochy would go down if they bat Pence 6th, but with the way I'm starting to appreciate Scutaro batting in the 2-hole, I'm changing my mind some, as I'm realizing that Pence batting 6th is less to do with understanding lineup construction and more with the Giants having a riches of offensive weapons once Sandoval returns.
Pagan is not ideal leadoff, but still pretty good there. Scutaro is great batting 2nd, with his ability to make contact and extend ABs, Theriot had been pretty good too before apparently tiring out or something lately. Then Cabrera, Posey, Sandoval, Pence, 3 to 6, makes a lot of sense given how Scutaro hits relative to Pence, followed by Belt, great at 7th, particularly when he's hitting more like Posey than a pitcher, and even Crawford has been great at 8th, if he can continue this nice stretch of hitting, he actually adds value to the lineup batting 8th, and could be adequate batting 7th anywhere.
Still, I go back and forth on that. Scutaro is nice in the 2-hole, but Cabrera was pretty good there last season too, yet he's been doing great batting 3rd, so you hate to move him from there (and more importantly, Bochy don't like to move players succeeding in a lineup position). Think how nicely a Pagan, Cabrera, Sandoval, Posey, Pence, Scutaro, Belt, Crawford lineup would do, and that gets my pendulum swinging the other way, packing our top 4 hitters 2 to 5, as most lineup theories suggest that one should do (actually, The Book says that the 5th best hitter should be batting 3rd, as that position comes up a lot with 2 outs, reducing the offensive potential of that lineup position).
Either way, great dilemma to have, and once Pablo is hitting like he can, hopefully sooner than later, but no later than end of month, we should start pulling away from the other teams in the division, I think.
To clarify: Nate the Great broke his big toe, heading to the DL. Is that the classic Nate move or what? I am digging the Pence trade big time.
DeleteHonestly, I didn't know before posting this that Nate had broken his toe on his foot. Just saw headline putting him on the DL. He wasn't doing that well either, since his HR in his first game with the Phil's.
DeleteAt least Frandsen has been impressing, looks like he's going to get a good chance to stick with the club in 2013, he's been doing great playing 3B for them. Too bad he didn't consider the Giants (or did the Giants not consider him?). Second base long term didn't look great in the pre-season, though I don't know if he was available then or not, plus I would have preferred him as our backup utility MI over Burriss.
Now, though, Noonan has inserted himself into the picture long-term at 2B, and I prefer him over Frandsen, though obviously Nick hasn't proven anything yet, just talking potential and relative age. If Nick can continue to develop, he'll make a nice 2-hole hitter, just like how Panik looked good for that too. They could be battling for the starting position by the 2014 pre-season if Panick continues to develop nicely in 2013, though 2015 is more probable in terms of when they'll be battling, assuming both continues to develop and improve.
The Sabean Naysayers is slowly being proven wrong. First they said Sabean didn't know how to put together a competitive club. Then they allowed that maybe he knew something about pitching, particularly starting pitching, but that he didn't know anything about offense. This despite our lineup looking really nicely even as far back as the 2011 pre-season, with Brown, Sandoval, Posey, Belt all looking like our top 5 hitters. Now we got Brown, Noonan/Panik, Cabrera, Posey, Sandoval, Pence, Belt (sudden thought, Belt's continued development might lead the Giants to let go of Cabrera), and the Giants offense looks like it will be very good, at minimum, even without Cabrera, for the next couple of years, if not longer if long-term deals are signed in the off-season with Pence and Posey.
Hmmm, marketing opportunity, if Panik does make it, they couuld go with P's in a Pod with Panik, Pablo, Posey, and Pence. Or even just the latter three, since they could be the heart of the lineup going forward.
I prefer the Three Headed Goofy White Guy Monster with Pence, Belt and Gary Brown. Total bunch of goofs out there. High energy and aggressive on the basepaths. Me likey.
DeleteHa, that's true, they are three goofs out there, and if you throw out color, Sandoval would also fit in as a high energy goof as well.
DeleteI hope the same about a longer leach for Belt.
DeleteNo more Panda at first.
The loss outweighed the small gain.
Just be patient with Belt. I like his potential to rake, not much his OBP only.
Can't wait for the Three Peas (Posey, Panda and Pence).
DeleteThe Killer Peas!!!
Yep, agree OGC, when Belt is cold, he is really, really bad. And I'm comparing Belt right now, during his hot streak. I'm pretty sure this would be very different if we'd compared 1st Basemen a month ago.
DeleteI think we're all hoping that Belt is figuring things out more and more, and that his overall numbers will improve, and he'll stop disappearing for weeks at a time. He can't do that and start. Just ask Nate.
Also agree that Sabean definitely deserves a ton of credit. He totally revamped the outfield and held on to Panik and Brown. I've bellyached quite a lot about the Beltran trade. I better understand the dynamics of the non-offer to Beltran in the off-season now. But still, that just can't happen after we surrender Wheeler. We need to know ahead of time Beltran/Boras tactics and be ready for them. So, all things considered, some criticism is merited. But, ultimately, Pence. So, can't complain too much.
I disagree. We surrendered Wheeler to get into the World Series in 2011. He then became a sunk cost. When we made the trade we had an overwhelming likelihood of making the playoffs, and we needed a RH bat to replace Posey's. Because of further injuries to Schierholtz, Sandoval, Romo, and Wilson--and to Beltran himself--this ploy did not work. At the season's end, the Giants also had seen Beltran as a teammate and a right fielder at ATT, giving them more information than they had at the time of the trade.
DeleteThey then made decisions based on, presumably, the information on hand, plus a need to act quickly, a need for good team chemistry, a need for a younger, faster, healthier outfield, and so forth. Whether or not they made correct decisions I don't know--I'm inclined to think they did--but by the time they made those decisions, Wheeler was already gone, and was irrelevant to the decisions. Once a one-time cost is sunk, it doesn't, and shouldn't, affect plans for the future. Not only is no criticism merited, but (if anything) the Giants FO merits praise for avoiding sentimental reasoning, as they avoided it when they DFAd Rowand despite owing him (sunk cost) salary, and looking instead to what would be best for the team going ahead.
Camp, the criticism (from me anyway) is not what the Giants did after the trade was made. Beltran, as was noted here, is a mercenary. Pure paycheck player. I've never seen someone play so well with so little emotion as Beltran. Also a huge injury risk. I'm very happy that the Giants viewed this as a sunk cost and moved on.
DeleteMy problem is we live in an extreme information age. Beltran is hardly an unknown quantity. Boras? Infamous. Extend the view down the road a bit. I know the Giants were trying to roll into the 2011 playoffs.
But, in hindsight, the trade was really a kind of "Bay of Pigs" situation.
Giants management was feeling GOOD with WS victory, and was not realistically assessing the state of the 2011 team. The team had almost historic offensive problems.
Posey went down. Beltran can't catch.
Tejada could not play short. Baggerly pointed this out the problem immediately after signing Tejeada. He said, basically, when watching Tejada late in 2010, he couldn't move out at short. How'd Sabean miss that. Beltran can't play short either.
Outside of a 3-HR night in St. Louis, Huff was could not hit. Beltran is not a 1st baseman.
Freddy was down. Beltran can't play 2nd.
Andres Torres just could not put it together again. Not a surprise. But, yep, Beltran could no longer play CF.
(We did have one of the best fielding RFers in the game. So, we moved him to left to accommodate Beltran's RF position preference.)
Given all of that, the 2011 Giants were not going to repeat, If I'm giving up a piece like Wheeler, signing him for 2012 has to be part of the equation. Especially with no compensation when he left.
And, I take real issue with the front office insisting that the Giants had arms in the minor leagues to cover a loss of Wheeler. That simply is not the case. We have good pitching prospects, of course. But no one who is projected as a top-of-the-rotation arm.
Nice analysis Kelly. 1B has been such a powerhouse position for a long time, that is eye opening. There are very few names there I would even think about for a second as a better defensive 1B as well.
ReplyDeleteThis recent streak has elevated Belt's #s. If he can fill in on the SLG front...
I know, right? I've been envisioning a Joey Votto type hitter from Belt - good hitter, good for power, good for SB for 1B, great defensive - and with his recent surge, I think we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just think how great it would be to have so many hitters qualified to be middle lineup bats and, as I noted above, be forced to bat one of them 6th, or be able to bat them 2-5, or 2-6 if we can keep Melky around.
DeleteWe could use Belt much like the Braves used Jason Heywood, in the 2-spot, to use his OBP and SB ability up top, while his power is useful in driving in the leadoff guy plus putting himself in scoring position for the heart of the Giants lineup. At least until he starts hitting 30-HR level power regularly, at which point batting him 3rd is probably where Bochy puts him.
I hedge between free belt tendencies and embracing the Prove Out Rookie greybeard mentality. Its hard to stay completely consistent! I said this a long time ago (or maybe it was just the start of this season): when Belt proves out, he will know that he has earned it fair and square. If that is what we are seeing now, then all right all right its party time. I have a feeling we are in for more peaks and valleys though.
DeleteI think Belt would be nice at the 2 spot to stretch the # of pitches seen, utilize his OBP. However, Bochy really likes high contact hitters there (vets usually) who can put the ball in play and move the runner. And I can see that as a good strategy. Scutaro has been doing a very nice job. Having The Riot off the bench is a nice option, he can give a scrappy pinch hit.
I imagine either Huff or Nady will be up and Christian will be down again soon. The need for a vet bat with some power is acute now. Whether those 2 characters are the men for the job or not....
I think Christian was already sent down, to allow us to carry one more pitcher.
DeleteHa, ha, I was posting my post right when you posted about Nate above, you just beat me!
About Belt, I think he needed to prove out. Just reading his comments during the season, he wasn't going to change his ways until forced to. If he was a tinkerer, like I've seen with other hitters, then maybe he would have changed, but like a puppy he needed to see the stinking mess - hence why the Giants continued to play him regularly - but then he got rewarded when he was performing the way the Giants wanted him to.
I agree with you that there is more valleys and peaks, but I just think that he is close to figuring it all out. My study of his contact rate showed that he finally was able to sustain a good contact rate over an extended period of time (not just better), and after the recent cold spell, he's doing it again, albeit that it is small samples for now. He's slowly (for all us Giants fans at least) getting better and learning/adjusting more and more, as viewed by his contact rate, and trends with that, given that he finally reached the contact rate that good hitters maintain over a full season, that gives me a lot of encouragement that he's been improving and will keep improving.
And per your point about contact, Belt when he is on IS a good contact hitter, plus he's a good base-runner to boot, then you add on top of that the power to drive in the leadoff guy while putting himself in scoring position for the middle of our lineup, meanwhile, this position would utilize his skills without putting the "POWER MIDDLE LINEUP BAT" pressure on him for now, so I wouldn't mind seeing him there in 2013, but with Scutaro around right now and performing, I would rather ride that out before thinking of Belt there.
I feel bad about Theriot, though, basically pushing him out of the starting position now when he helped save out season with the Franchez shutdown. I'm hoping he'll be the super-utility guy that they are talkiing about with Scutaro right now, to give Theriot face, but Scutaro should be the starter the way he is playing right now. I would be OK with a semi-platoon at SS with Theriot and Crawford, with Theriot giving Scutaro plenty of rest at 2B too, plus with Scutaro giving Sandoval a rest here and there at 3B.
I think Nady will replace Pill on the 25-man roster as our RH power corner fielder bat, plus give Cabrera some rests in LF, Pence in RF. And with all the false starts with Huff, I think that he's not showing up until September when we can call up anybody, as who would he replace on our roster right now? I was thinking Arias, but while he has been an offensive hole until recently, we need MI backup because without him we only have Crawford, Theriot, and Scutaro. Whereas at 1B, we would have Belt, Posey, Nady, even Hector, maybe Scutaro, and we have plenty of players capable of playing LF, so the roster equation seems to reduced simply to this: who does Bochy believe will add more value to the team right now, Nady or Huff (or Pill)? I think Nady wins that right now. If Belt proves to be the starter, though, might want Huff on the bench over Nady, because of his LH power, and that can be decided in late August.
Thanks Kelly.
DeleteBelr can only get better, one hopes.
Shank, you know who the best defender at 1st is right now? Loney. Even though he usually heats up at the end of the season, he's going to be out of a job.
DeleteSLG is the thing. Obviously OPS kind of muddies the slugging thing, and with 4 HRs, Belt is very suspect as a starting corner. (That's why the whole Belt batting 2nd is so damn appealing. Belt's approach (and results) right now kind of make him look like a solid #2.)
I'm hoping some of Pence's aggressiveness rub off onto Belt. You just see Belt up there, serious and methodical, trying to work it out, and I want to yell, "Drop the damn hammer!"
Thanks for the correction OGC, I forgot they shipped Christian for a pitcher. With Pagan stepping up his game it looks like Blanco is getting the 4th OF/PR jobby. Belt can play in a pinch.
DeleteKelly - totally agree on Belt. Like Will The Thrill said - get you a pitch to hit and wack the piss out of it. Easy for us to say, hard to do, but that is what needs to happen with the shy Texan.
Man, it is getting harder and harder for these old eyes of mine to read those verification codes. Seems to get worse and worse! Google/blogger is making me work it to make comments!
ReplyDeleteFortunately I don't have to do it to post on my own blog. One time I had to try 3 times to get a comment onto OGC's blog.
DeletePence affords the Giants to give time to Belt to figure it out.
DeleteIf/When Pence is hitting and driving in the runs (Melky/Posey/Pablo) in front of him, then Belt won't be in the pressure spot or killing rallies. The Giants can afford the inevitable hot and cold streaks from Belt. So Pence extends the lineup so Belt can play every day. 2x win.
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