The Giants stormed back from a 4-0 deficit to take a 9-5 lead, then held off late rallies by the Rockies to win a wild one at Coors Field. Key Lines:
Angel Pagan- 1 for 5, 3B(12). BA= .289. Pagan's triple drove in a run and he later scored on Scooter's SF. The triple tied him with Willie Mays and Steve Finley for the single season Giants record.
Marco Scutaro- 2 for 4, SF. BA= .290. Scooter was in the middle of just about everything again today.
Pablo Sandoval- 0 for 4. BA= .276. Pablo's slump continued tonight.
Buster Posey- 2 for 3, 2B, 2 BB. BA= .332. Hail to the Buster! MVP!
Brandon Belt- 2 for 4, 2B, HR(6). BA= .274. We're starting to see the Belt we all hoped he would be. 4 huge RBI's tonight.
Madison Bumgarner- 2 for 2, HR(2). BA= .156. Bumgarner picked himself up in this one. The dinger was a 3 run jack.
Madison Bumgarner- 4.1 IP, 11 H, 5 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 3.32. I'm inclined to discount these games at Coors Seems like the conditions strongly favor the hitters right now, even more than usual. Still, gotta be concerned that having the rotation start all but 1 game all season may turn out to be not such a good thing. Bumgarner threw a lot of pitches in the Kershaw game and hasn't really been the same since.
George Kontos- 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB 2 K's. ERA= 2.37. Kontos got 2 high leverage K's to strand 2 baserunners and get Bumgarner out of the 5'th inning.
Jose Mijares- 0.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. Right now, I trust Mijares out of the bullpen a lot more than I do Affeldt.
Guillermo Mota- 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K's. ERA= 5.51. Kontos, Mijares and Mota, recorded 8 consecutive outs by K with just 1 basehit in between. Mota seems rejuvenated. I'm thinking he's a lock for a post-season roster spot(knocks furiously on wood).
The Dodgers lost to the D'Backs 1-0 in Arizona to fall 6 games behind the NL West leading San Francisco Giants. D'Backs remain the 10'Backs.
Tim Lincecum tries for a series win against Jeff Francis tomorrow night.
20 games to go. Go Giants!!
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i still dont get the rox 4 man rotation experiment, especially after sep 1. what is tracy trying to prove?
ReplyDeletehuff with the boner of the week, if not the year...guess its nice to see that he can still hit, even if he cant do anything else
pablo is fat...this is 2010 redux. affecting him at the plate and in the field. prob is, this time, they really need him in the post seasson
giants arent the only team having issues, the wc races are starting to expand thanks to teams starting to run out of gas
good news...the brandon and amanda mccarthy show is back on twitter, so looks like brandon is gonna be ok
From what I've read, the 4 man thingy is not Tracy's idea, probably why he seems to have such a short fuse lately. This clunker came from the front office. We think Sabean is bad?
DeleteSpeaking of running out of gas, how beaten do the Dodgers look?
This race is reminding me a bit of 1971 when Mays had to play every game down the stretch and Marichal had to pitch the final game of the season to clinch. Neither one had any gas left in the tank for the playoff against the Pirates. Hopefully the Giants can put this one to bed a bit earlier so some of the guys can get some rest. Not Brandon Belt, though. He needs to just keep playing!
My first playoffs. That was a painful series against the Bucs. Just no spark to the Giants. Hard to watch Mays and Marichal going into the sunset after that let down.
DeleteThe Giants would be wise to build their lead now and be able to rest/reduce innings on their starters to be sharp for the playoffs. This year when the starters have thrown a high pitch count game, it seems the next few games they are not sharp. Not sure why this is, but it seems every pitcher has really struggled after hing pitch count games.
Okay DocB, THAT was a Coors Field game. But the Giants starters can't keep going down by 4 runs and expect to win in the postseason.
ReplyDeleteScoots in the middle of everything in a good way, Pablo not. Pablo must sit and watch a few games while riding the bike.
Mijares is Lopez for the 6th - 8th innings. Another freebie bullpen gem pickup by Sabes - how does he do this every year?
The Giants should carry just three starters and nine in the pen into the playoffs. The problem is which nine? These guys are just sick right now.
It's nice to see Belt get playing time on this trip to Colorado where many hitters, in a game that is very mental, get their confidence further boosted or just boosted.
ReplyDeleteGood for Belt. Taking care of business. Now he just needs to smile once in a while.
ReplyDeleteYeah, right now, Pablo is Option #3, after #1 Arias, or #2 Theriot (with Scutaro at 3rd). I don't think he's ever going to really get the drive. Being more-or-less benched for lack of conditioning in '10 didn't really sink in. Here we are again.
Wow, the pen is wobbly. Starters having issues too. It looks like it's going to be crucial to be able to shut things down for the last week of the season and rest everyone. Dunno if that's going to be possible. But some rest will help everyone.
I've said all along I would not want to see the Giants sign Pablo to a big $$$ long-term contract. They should consider trading him in the offseason if they can find a taker. If they have to keep him and he bounces back next year, they should definitely trade him then.
DeleteI completely agree - Pablo Sandoval should be traded at the first opportunity to get value in return, whenever that happens. And I wouldn't hold out for huge return; a decent-ish AA player would be fine with me. His conditioning problems are just going to get worse, not better.
DeleteFor that matter, I think Posey should be moved to 3B. But I realize I'm in the minority on that opinion.
I think they should try to get Panda to see the light, in private, before thinking about moving him.
DeletePeople and players can be changed or improved upon. That's where you make your money...a new grip, a new technique, a new attitude, or whatever.
From this distance, it's hard for a fan to say definitively what the team should do.
I do not understand the hate for Pablo. 900+ OPS hitters do not fall out of the tree regularly. Even at his current overall numbers, .276/.330/.423/.753, he is basically an average offensive 3B, .267/.332/.431/.763 in the NL for 3B. As long as we are not paying him more than $10M he's a bargain. And we are not, he's getting $3.2M this year, that's like 0.6 WAR cost of production. But when he is on, that's 4+ WAR production (over $20M).
DeleteSo I'm willing to live with his ups and downs. Based on saber lineup theories (and the lineup calculator), it is a fallacy to place one of your best hitters in the #3 spot. That's because he comes up more often with 2 outs than any other lineup position (mainly because of the first inning), and thus the odds of getting a run is lower. And the regression analysis used in the calculator confirms that. The only lineup positions where SLG is less important is 1st, 8th, and 9th. Heck 2nd is even more important than 3rd. What is important at 3rd is OBP, but it is still less than 1st, 2nd, 5th, and 9th (hence why LaRussa loves to hit his pitcher 8th and secondary leadoff 9th; Blanco should really be batting 9th with the pitcher 8th).
So his SLG is wasted there when he's on, but he's not as big a liability when he is not on, particularly if he is still able to get on base. And with so many good hitters now, he needs to bat somewhere, so 3rd minimizes his downs and his ups, but that is OK because Posey and Pence are arguably as good or better in the 4/5 spots. This is why I advocated to bat Belt 3rd previously, as he was able to get on base OK, mostly, but his SLG was up and down.
Of course, while Pablo is hitting this poorly, he should be 6th or worse. But the Giants seem pretty sure they found his mechanical flaw. I am willing to give him a few games to adjust to this new mechanics physically, and see if there is any improvement, before I would want to shift him downward. If he is on, he would be a huge asset in the playoffs, because it don't matter who is pitching, he can square up balls outside of the zone better than anyone.
Another point I would make is that he just turned 26 YO. For whatever reasons, the male brain is still not fully developed until they are older than 25, from what I understand (DrB?). I think I saw an ad (car insurance?) that said that males basically have a hole in their brain until then, as something is missing. Which leads to these ups and downs in judgement.
So I would rather wait this out, see if he can make better judgements with his weight and eatting habits in 2013 and 2014, at which time his contract would be up, and at that point, if he's still struggling with his weight, then I would let him move on to another team for a long term contract. But I'm not going to easily give up a 900+ hitter.
Still, I agree with you to a certain extent. He should not be an untradeable player. If we can trade him for a huge bundle of great prospects, particularly young ace-type starters, I would be willing to go for that, as long as the Giants sign Pence up to a long-term contract first. With Belt looking like he knows what he is doing now, we have three good hitters for the middle - Posey, Pence, Belt - so Sandoval could be trade bait to get a bundle of young prospects to fuel the 2015-2020 period of hopefully Giants playoff contention. Fat player do not age that well usually. Still, 900+ hitter, I'm going to hold onto him unless I get a bundle of ace-type starters, and those are rare, so I'm not expecting such a deal to materialize.
Not saying he can't do it, but for a person of Pablo's body type, it takes a tremendous, sustained effort to keep the pounds off, much more so than someone with, say Joaquin Arias' body type. Again, you can be overweight and in good shape and be ideal weight and be in poor shape, so there are all kinds of combinations and degrees here. It's just that, on average, a guy like Pablo is going to have to work a lot harder in a much more sustained effort to stay in shape than the average player.
DeleteFor that reason, if I was in the GM's chair, I would not be entertaining thoughts of signing Pablo to any long term 8 or 9 figure contracts. He's currently has 2 more years to go on this one. If the opportunity presents itself to get a good return in a trade during that time, I would take it. This is not a new position for me either. I've said this all along about Pablo.
I am aware that this is your position DrB, but since there were others chiming in agreeing with this stance, I thought I should speak.
DeleteI don't think the decision to sign him long-term is nigh. I think he would want to stay here. As long as he is relatively productive and responsive to requests to get healthy, I would do like we did with Cain, when we get close (like after the 2013 season), extend him a couple of years, try to get into the late 20's before we cut him loose. I think we got two extensions out of Cain before we had to pony up.
Again, hitters like this are very rare (from 2010-12, average around 15 qualifiers .900+ OPS), I would rather try to live with that for now than trade that away, so that our offense will be strong enough to support our pitchers as they enter the age range where performances could go down (and has so far for Timmy).
Yes, when it is time for his agents to demand an 8 or 9 figure contract, we should offer Panda a one year contract valuable enough to earn us a draft pick, plus enough to tempt him to go one more year with us. But I think we can stretch that out to 2016-7 before we have to look into trading him. Meanwhile, let other teams know starting 2013-5 that he's available for the right price in top-line starting pitching prospects (or if we grew a bunch among Crick, Stratton, Blackburn, then at least a couple of top-line hitting prospects, like the deal SD got for Latos).
Based on saber lineup theories (and the lineup calculator), it is a fallacy to place one of your best hitters in the #3 spot. That's because he comes up more often with 2 outs than any other lineup position (mainly because of the first inning), and thus the odds of getting a run is lower.
DeleteThat's a static view.
When one of your best hitters is in the #3 spot, that lineup might turn over a certain way so that he comes up with 2 outs more often.
So far so good.
But if you put that hitter in another spot, the lineup now turns over in a different way. A dynamic analysis would have to accout for this. Does it change the 2 out frequency for the new #3 hitter?
Given Pablo's current contract, I'm not for moving him.
DeleteBut, yeah, nothing long-term, nothing in the mid eight figures. Someone else can take that risk.
Some males brains (mine being one of them) NEVER develop fully into responsible adult mode. Pablo seems like a prime candidate for that.
I agree that some have it much harder than most, in keeping physically fit, and keeping the weight down. But asking Pablo to stay in shape is not the same as asking him to take vows of celibacy. He is an athlete, and a very well-paid one. He has no respect for that.
And that lack of respect is what the fans are all angry about now. Such incredible talent that he could not care less about wasting. So f'n Be It. So long as the Giants don't put themselves into a Rowand/Zito type contract with him, he can do as he pleases. As OGC points out, he's worth the dinero as is.
OT: BA Prospect Chat by Jim Callis:
ReplyDeleteTerry (Concord, CA): Is Clayton Blackburn now the Giants' top pitching prospect? How high is his ceiling?
Jim Callis: I'd go with Kyle Crick No. 1, then Chris Stratton, then Blackburn.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/chat/2012/2614030.html
Seems about right to me.
And then its a Agosta Mejia argument! Thanks for the link. Crick is wild but crazy upside.
DeleteFor those who have been questioning Blanco, since Melky left with his tail between his legs, the White Shark has hit .276/.344/.328/.671. Not the best, but not shabby either, when his OBP which is more key to offense than his SLG. And he has turned it up a notch in recent games, as well.
ReplyDeleteI liked that Eno Sarris article on Fangraphs. He is a very good 4th OF being pressed into duty. Nothing wrong with that, he just needs to pick up the contact rate and avoid the Ks. His defense is sweet, and he can get on base and steal, you know, the part that Darren Ford can't figure out, getting to 1B.
Delete