Steven Duggar CF- 2 for 4, 2B, SB(3). BA= .265. Duggar is still pushing his case to the the starting CF out of the gate.
Madison Bumgarner LHP- 2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 3.43. The Giants entire offseason plan rested squarely on the notion that Bumgarner would be back as healthy and strong as ever, making a significant pitching acquisition unnecessary. Well, that blew up in their collective face today with a line drive comebacker off the bat of Whit Merrifield that struck his left hand and fractured the 5'th metacarpal. With the announcement that Jeff Samardzija will start the season on the DL just yesterday, the Giants suddenly have just 4 starting pitchers in camp and really nobody in minor league camp who seems ready to step in. It was also deemed essential for the Giants to get off to a strong start to the season. It looked like Bumgarner could start a game in each of the first 3 series due to off days. Well, THAT ain't gonna happen! Hate to say it Giants fans, but but this is devastating news and may well be the end of the 2018 season before it starts. It is just extremely difficult to imagine them fielding a competitive starting rotation in the first half without Bumgarner. And we haven't even touched on the disaster of a bullpen performance we saw today.
Tony Watson LHP- 1 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 0 K. ERA= 9.95. Spring training stats don't mean anything, but they also do. Watson finished last year strong, but his first half was not good at all. So far we have not seen anything to inspire confidence that he will be any better early this season.
Mark Melancon RHP- 0.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 5.79. Lots of questions about whether Melancon's arm is 100%. IMO, it probably is not. He couldn't even get out of this inning as Julian Fernandez had to come in and get the final out. I guess we don't have to worry about a scenario where Bummy hits a 2-run dinger off Kershaw on Opening Day and hands a 2-1 lead to Melancon in the 9'th anymore, but I didn't have a lot of faith in his ability to protect such a lead even before today's awful performance.
Julian Fernandez RHP- 0.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 13.50. Don't look at the ERA. This kid has electric stuff and has really turned it around after getting bombed in his first couple of spring appearances. Now more than ever, the Giants have to find a way to hang onto him longterm as this season may be already done anyway.
Well, the Bumgarner news sucks. I'm kind of stunned and I'm just going to have to digest it for now.
ReplyDeletetime to sign scott feldman and roll with suarez while feldman catches up spring training!!
ReplyDeleteI like Feldman and have thought the Giants should sign him for awhile now. They seemed to have interest. I'm guessing they only wanted to give him a minor league deal and he was holding out for a MLB guaranteed deal?
DeleteWade LeBlanc was released by the Yankees today. He has SP experience and has pitched pretty well in a relief role the past 2 years.
Internal possibilities include Roberto Gomez and of course Beede and Suarez.
Jake Peavy is still out there looking for a gig.
DeleteLeBlanc is already off the market, snapped up by the Mariners.
Deletethe only downside of signing feldman is keeping a warm body up while he is in extended spring training getting caught up
DeleteDifference between this year and last is that the Giants may have a bit of an offense to carry them while the pitchers get healthy
ReplyDeleteBilly baseball
I totally agree with this, the offense is actually above average now with McCutchen and Longoria, and the Giants will need to rely on the offense to survive the time Bumgarner is on the DL.
DeleteIf Bumgarner goes on the 60-day DL, thus being removed from counting on the 40-man, does his salary for that 60 days count as against the Luxury Tax cap? That is, could the Giants have some financial room because of the injury? If they have some, I don’t know what they would do with it, which is the consequent issue; but that’s a different consideration.
ReplyDeleteI don't know for sure, but I've never seen any mention of a DL benefit. But maybe the 60-day is a different beast?
DeleteIf you cant find or pay for a capable 5th starter for after the first few weeks, maybe you do what Tampa Bay is doing aand go with 4 starters and then a "bullpen" day...No need or use to rush in a younger starter that isn't ready..or go over the luxuary tax level...or maybe to squeeze in a starter, you dump/trade soebody like DYSON..Can that work?
ReplyDeleteYhis BUMGARNER injury, and the Shark's to a lesser extent, really blows..Was reallly looking ofrward to the season and the Giants surprising people...
SteveVA
I'm still trying to get my head around the notion of a "bullpen day" every 5'th game. How do you do that without overtaxing your bullpen? Seems like you would need at least 3 or 4 relievers who are comfortable going more than 1 inning at a time. It seems like most Giants relievers and Bruce Bochy are more comfortable with a 1 inning limit, at least most of the time. Otherwise, yes, that is one viable solution.
DeleteI remember when 4 starters with the odd long-guy coming out for the 5th start, usually because of double headers, was the norm. But it became 'accepted' that pitchers did better on 4-days rest than 3-days. But, as always, some geek ran the numbers and found out the 'new' conventional wisdom is wishful thinking.
DeleteSo we could go with a 4-man rotation until Samardzija is back.
The key is, what you have to do is make sure they don't go over 100 pitches. That's the real issue. If they go over 100 pitches, the quality of the next start drops. But that's true of 5-man rotations too.
Further, 5-man rotations are suboptimal. It costs, for 40 innings a 5th starter pitches, a taem 4.5 runs on defense compared to what would have happened with a 4-man rotation with an occasional swing-man coming in.
However, math be damned, the Giants, like every other club, won't depart the conventional 5-man rotation unless in the playoffs. So it's kind of moot.
Could be wrong, but I think that's a bit different than what the Rays are planning to do. I thought they were going to go with 4 days rest, so if there was an off-day, you could skip the bullpen day. Also they tend to only leave their SP's in the game for 2 trips through the lineup. It will be interesting to see how that works out. It seems to me, most of the RP's are going to be flirting with 100 IP. Is that sustainable?
DeleteWell, they don't have a lot of good choices and I see a number of different, non-mutually-exclusive options.
Delete1. Go over the luxury tax with a FA.
2. Swingman in a four-man rotation for the three-to-four weeks until Samardzija gets back. (Cueto, Stratton, Blach, Holland.)
3. Sacramento express.
4. Trade for a blocked back-of-the-rotation prospect.
5. Trade for a quality, cost-controlled (luxury tax friendly) player.
6. Do nothing.
7. I'm sure there are others.
Our reasonable in-house options are three non-roster players in Gregario, Suarez & Heston (we signed Heston to a minor league contract this year, I don't recollect him being released) and two prospects on the 40-man -- Beede & Herb (AA last year and probably AAA this year). And that's probably it.
Anyway, I'd just go Cueto, Stratton, Blach, Holland and let the chips fall where they may.
Essentially, they need a filler til Shark is back. They can go with four for the first week, but Shark is out 3-4. You have 2-3 weeks where they’ll need someone. Maybe someone shakes loose at the end of camp, but otherwise there isn’t really a guy sitting around who is ready to pitch.
ReplyDeleteWatson should have gotten out of the inning without giving up any runs. With two outs a long, high fly was hit to left center field. Belt and Duggar converged, but apparently Duggar lost it in the sun as it almost hit him. Either of them should have caught it. APGianstfan
ReplyDelete