The Giants lineup brought their hitting shoes again and teamed up with the bullpen to once again pick up a less than quality start, this time by Ty Blach, to gain a split in the 4-game series with the Rockies. Key Lines:
Gorkys Hernandez RF- 2 for 4, HR(4). BA= .279. Speaking of hitting shoes, Gorkys just set a personal season HR record for himself and we're barely over 1/4 of the way through the season. Shows what a difference a healthy wrist can make and getting the ball in the air can make. Here's an interesting case study in launch angles:
2012: SLG%- .301, GO/AO= 1.90.
2016: SLG%- .463, GO/AO= 0.81.
2017: SLG%- .326, GO/Ao= 1.15.
2018: SLG%- .430, GO/AO= 0.84.
Gorkys has 4 HR's in 92 PA this season. He had 8 in 583 PA for his prior MLB career. He's been a defensive liablility in CF and RF but has a + UZR on LF. Giants needs a better hitter than that in LF, so Gorkys is still a nice bench option, but not starting OF material just yet.
Buster Posey 1B/C- 1 for 4, 3B, BB. BA= .306. Buster moved up to 2'nd in the lineup where he belongs. Now, all Bochy needs to put Cutch right where he put his replacement, Gorkys Hernandez, in the leadoff spot and we have a legit MLB lineup.
Evan Longoria 3B- 1 for 43 BB, SF. BA= .256. It seems like Longoria hasn't done much lately, but he's quietly hit .345 over his last 7 games.
Brandon Belt LF/1B- 2 for 4, HR(11), HBP. BA= .313. 5 dingers in last 7 games. I believe this is the hottest Belt has been at any time in his MLB career. Remember when he tore through 3 levels in the minors in 2010? This is what all of us envisioned he could be. He's been very good in between, just not THAT good. Maybe he's finally gotten there? Again, his big challenge is to stay healthy for a full season.
Nick Hundley C- 1 for 4, HR(5). BA= .267. Hundley continues to fill in ably when called upon to relieve Buster Posey behind he plate. He goes B2B with Belt in the 7'th. Both dingers came with 2 outs in the inning.
Austin Jackson CF- 2 for 4. BA= .248. AJax is hitting .308 over his last 15 games. Unfortunately, he's been a liability in CF by UZR.
Kelby Tomlinson 2B- 2 for 4, 3B. BA= .244. Whenever I am ready to write Kelby off, he comes through with a game like this.
Miguel Gomez PH- 1 for 1. BA= .333. Miguel Gomez can hit.
Ty Blach LHP- 4.1 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 2 BB, 1 K. ERA= 4.37. The 4.1 IP ties Blach for his longest start out of his last 3. Hats off to the bullpen, but right now, the Giants SP's are not going deep enough into games to prevent bullpen burnout.
Bullpen- 4.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 9 K's. They weren't quite perfect today. Cory Gearrin allowed 2 inherited runners to score. Admittedly, getting the bases loaded with 1 out is a tough gig. Sam Dyson allowed a run in the 7'th to tie the score before Brandon Belt untied it in the bottom of the inning with his 3-run blast. Will Smith again struck out the side and has not allowed an ER in 8 IP. The Giants have rebuilt their fearsome lefty reliever duo with him and Tony Watson, who also pitched a scoreless frame. Hunter Strickland did not have a Save Opportunity but needed to get some work in.
*********************************************************************************
The NL West leading D'Backs lost again, 4-1 to the Mets, so by beating the Rockies, the Giants gained a game on the two teams in front of them. They now trail the D'Backs by 2 games and the Rockies by 1.5 games. Here come the Dodgers who are storming back after sweeping the Nationals in Washington over the weekend. The Bad Guys are 5 games behind the D'Backs and 3 behind the Giants. The Pesky Padres completed a sweep of the Pirates over the weekend in Pittsburgh and are just 6 games out of the NL West lead, but still in last place.
*********************************************************************************
The Giants get a day off before starting a 2 game series against the Astros in Houston with Andrew Suarez facing the fearsome Gerrit Cole.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
.....On a wing and a prayer. That perfectly captures the 2018 Giants. The romantic notion that through guile and good fortune, the Gigantes can get magic to strike a forth time. Most of us know, in our hearts of heart, that the roster is just not quite playoff caliber, much less world championship caliber. And it's surely okay to hold tight to the idea that is things break right (a whole bunch of things), maybe, just maybe, the Giants can pull it off one more time.
ReplyDeleteExcept, this time, there are real consequences if the breaks don't go our way.
The Giants roster is badly flawed, and with the exception of a few pieces, the farm system is badly in need of a restocking.
This is a time for a steady, but rational hand on the wheel. It's time to bite the bullet and make moves to shape the 2019 and 2020 roster. The fact that the Giants are hanging in there makes it possible to negotiate from a position of strength, not desperation. But, if you don't see the situation as desperate, I think you are kidding yourself.
I disagree, not "most" of us know the roster isn't playoff caliber. I see a lot of believers to go with the people who disagree.
DeleteJust look at it this way, they've been playing .500 ball without Bumgarner all season, basically without Samardzija all season, he has taken far too long to get into playing shape, and without Cueto for about a month. Once we get these guys back, they should be on their way to the playoff caliber team that they were in the pre-season when they acquired Longoria and McCutchen.
I would agree that the roster is flawed - that's the price of playing playoff level baseball since 2009, the draft is skewed against playoff caliber teams in the draft, and it makes it exponentially harder to find talent in the draft for that reason.
But where you see a restocking (by which I assume you mean selling off our assets and getting young players), I see a veteran core of Posey, Belt, Crawford, Longoria, Panik, that will soon be supplemented by Williamson, Duggar, Shaw, Slater in some way and fashion, and probably Hanson, a starting staff of Bumgarner, Cueto, Samardzija, that will be supplemented by Stratton and someone among Suarez, Blach, Beede, and a pretty good bullpen of Strickland, Watson, Smith, Dyson, that is supplemented by Moronta, as well as others that needs to be figured out. That's not a roster that needs to be rebuilt.
On top of that, we got young guys coming up the system that look very promising, and if you've been reading DrB's reports on the farm, you'll recognize the names: Ramos, Fabian, Garcia, Webb, Marshall, Miller, Williams, Bahr, Black, Ziegler, Adon, Genoves, and I know I'm missing many others, but you see the names here regularly.
I can't be sure if the roster is playoff caliber or not, until I see how they play with all their injured players back. The Front office will need to make that assessment in July. I've read speculation about a Madbum trade before the deadline if they fall out of it, but Mark Derosa shot it down saying the Giants are in it to win it.. just imagine all the young talent they could get for Madbum, but it won't be easy to pull the trigger though.
DeleteLG
They’re .500 without their 1-2 pitchers. Come on. Stop acting like the sky is falling.
DeleteThis roster is playoff caliber with the addition of Bumgarner & Cueto, a return to 2017 form by Shark, and Suarez or Stratton stepping up.
DeleteThose are strong odds, and the lineup is plenty strong. Defense needs to improve, but that's also wondering well within their reach. Add Mac, and perhaps add Duggar in CF by season's end, and that's a dark horse contender. I see it.
I recognize mine is a minority view, and I fully respect all those who see the glass as half full, as opposed to half empty. Further, I too see the possibilities that come with a healthy Bumgarner and Cueto. And, I added Mac Williamson to my fantasy team the day he was brought up. So, it's not like I see the situation as hopeless, and I would be thrilled to eat a bunch of crow at the end of September. I promise I will come back at take my medicine if I am wrong.
DeleteHaving said all that, I see a 70 win team that happens to be playing well at the moment. That has me looking down the line at the roster decisions the Giants face over the next two years and thinking it may be time to make tough choices. Staying the course is choice for which many arguments can be made. But, making tough choices get way more difficult, and way more painful when those "choices" are being made when there are no good options.
As I said above, I will come back and take my medicine if I am wrong. I want to be wrong. I have bled orange and black for a very long time. Long enough to sit through scheduled Sunday doubleheaders at Candlestick and watch things like Dave Kingman go to the mound in a mop-up role. I was at Candlestick, sitting in the top row in the upper deck, no less, on October 17th. I even rooted for Tito Fuentes, when it was such a popular thing to root for him.
I hope my take on an aging, expensive roster is the wrong one. I hope Marty Lurie and I are both wrong about the pending Bumgarner contract decision. I hope Sabean and Evans can work magic over the next couple years and replenish the major league roster without busting the budget. But, if I'm right, the period of pain will long and dark.
See, it is not a glass situation for me at all, it is analysis. I used ZiPS projections for hitters to work out their expected run production by game for the lineup, and average out the starters and relievers to get a composite runs allowed figure, and then using Pythagorean, calculated that the Giants should be in the upper 80's wins pre-season. Taking out Bumgarner, Cueto, and Shark for periods of time reduced that projection, but looking at the projections, our lineup should be a good, above average run producing team, so I'm not surprised by the production, and it could be even better if Williamson or Pence can come up and hit like they have been in the minors. And especially so if Hanson can return and hit as well as Panik.
DeleteYou see a 70 win team, which is barely above last season, so I'm not even sure where you pulled that out from. I don't see that as being realistic, at all, unless you think the team we have right now is basically the same as the team the prior 1.5 seasons that people like to point out, but don't notice that each stretch had it's own particular badness that don't exist now, other than injured SP. At minimum, we have McCutchen and Longoria, huge improvements over what we had last season at 3B and RF, plus a great bullpen now that we added Smith and Watson, two gun slinging LHP we didn't have last season, which was a lot like trying to run with one leg. Plus, Crawford isn't battling whatever he was battling early in 2017, and hitting like he can. Guys we can count on for .750 OPS and better include: Posey, Belt, Crawford, Longoria, McCutchen. And Cutch has been hurt by hard hit balls being hit right at people for outs, as he is among the leaders in hitting balls hard.
I've bled orange and black for a long time too. I was excited for the new rookie hitting sensation, Dave Kingman, and was watching when Al Michaels gave John Montefusco his "The Count" nickname. I was also up in the upper deck, 3B side, near the top, when a light fixture broke loose near my brother and I when it hit. I watched the fires on my handheld TV as I heard stories of how the parking lot liquified in the rumble. So I've been through much the same thing.
From my viewpoint, it seems like a lot of fans who experienced the Giants of the 70's and early 80's as I did were broken by the experience. I used to go to USENET to talk Giants, and there was a huge crowd of complainers who thought the sky was falling. Using my analysis, I discussed how the 2003 Giants could be even better than the 2002 team, but most people pooh-poohed it and said that we going into the dumper. It was just as bad in the late 2000's when I said that a new era was coming and that the Giants would be the Team of the 2010 Decade, but everyone thought we were losing 100 games again.
Believe me, if I thought the team was crap, I would say it. I had friends in the 70's talking about how the Giants would win that season, and I would have to explain why they weren't. This team is not crap. It is on the edge, yes, of tipping into badness with enough injuries, just as last season, but 2018 has a different feel to it, in 2017, we were losing even before we lost Madison, but this year, even after losing so much time from our Top 3 starters, we are still at roughly .500, a lot of which is due to our offense, which is above average, based on projections.
Ultimately this is the rotation:
DeleteBlach 3-4, 4.37
Stratton 5-3, 4.92
Holland 2-5, 4.94
Samardzija 1-2, 6.30
Suarez 1-4, 5.68
We don't have a starter that's anywhere near AVERAGE (ERA+).
Bumgarner will return, he'll be fine. Cueto? Maybe.
Say both get back ok. That plugs two holes. But that rotation has more than two problems.
I'm with Scott on this. Although, I think the Giants are more like a .500 team in what's turning out to be a fairly soft division. Which is unfortunate, because it will prolong the inevitable.
I will thrilled to be wrong! It would be outstanding if this team makes the playoffs. And I'll come back and eat a ton of crow along with Scott.
Samardzija has a fighting chance to be a guy they can count on to deliver a Quality Start ROS. Bumgarner's injury is not the type that should be a problem once fully healed. Cueto is the wild card as he could come back and be close to ace level or he could walk off the mound after 2 pitches and go get Tommy John surgery.
DeleteIt brings up a couple of questions, hopefully the bullpen is not on fumes by the time Madbum and Cueto come back. Also, although I would be thrilled if the Giants pick a college bat with their 1st draft pick, it wouldn't surprise me if they pick a high ceiling starting pitcher instead, due to questions about Cueto s health, and Madbum s extension.
DeleteLG
Yeah, gotta think starting pitching is on the Giants mind in the draft. Their mid-to-late 1st round pitchers have not fared well in the last 5 or so years (Beede, Bickford, Stratton).
DeleteEven Wheeler. He hasn't been the same pitcher since the injuries.
You COULD throw Crick in there, Supplemental 1st. Definitely not the starter the Giants hoped for. He's had some success out of the pen. But, he's still walking 4-5 per 9IP, which makes me think he won't evolve into super-value: A Closer.
So, yeah, you have to go back 10 years to Bum to get legitimate solid starter. 10 years is long time. I think the Giants will want pitching.
Shame about the Casey Mize / Pablo situation. That would definitely settled things.
Stratton has had a 3.78 ERA and 4.14 FIP since he joined the rotation in early August 2017, so I would say, so far, so good, as it's still SSS. Also, his 2018 season started out well, but after his break to welcome his child into the world, he has not been the same since.
DeleteAlso, Suarez has been beaten up by bad luck. His ERA is sky high, but his xFIP is 3.50 and his SIERA is 3.6, so he's been suffering from a lot of BABIP bad luck, .348, plus 18.8% HR/FB when most pitchers regress to 10%.
So I would say that they have had a couple of potential successes, now coming to fruition, but, to your point, no real ace since Bumgarner. Which only goes to show how tough it is to find an ace pitcher when you are drafting outside of the Top 10 picks. So, like you, I'm hoping that the Giants find a SP worthy of the #2 pick, and maybe they can also pick up a prep SP with their second round pick, that has fallen because of money issues, as some reports that there is a lot of prep pitchers who look first round worthy.
I agree with the sentiment that the Giants have to eventually rebuild and have been dragging it out. That said - if Cueto and Bum get healthy this team can be a real threat if they snag a WC spot. You have a 1-2 that matches up with any other team in the NL, you have a pen that has the potential to be elite with Bochy have 2 lefties that can get LHH and RHH out, Dyson and Strickland look solid, and anything MM gives you at this point is a bonus // big addition.
ReplyDeleteIf Belt is going to hit like this we may have the best lineup in the NL West. It doesn't gave huge slugger potential but it's pretty deep 1-7(8 if Jackson gets going)
The fact is Sabeand doesn't rebuild the way fans have been clamoring for since last season. He reset things in 1996, and they won from 1997-2004. He walked away from Bonds after 2007, and from 2009 to 2016, the Giants were winning again. He did do resets after 2015 and 2017, acquiring Cueto and Samardzija, then Longoria and McCutchen, so we'll see how it all works out from 2018-2020. But I expect some big spending this off-season, since we'll be losing a big salary in Pence, plus they are planning on going over the threshold (and after 2020, there is no threshold unless it gets added again).
DeleteSabean don't do rebuilds the traditional way of selling off everything, losing a ton to get a lot of great draft picks (formula for A's, Expo's, Braves, Marlins, Rays, Royals, Nats, Cubs, Astros). That's partly ownership edict, as this area has been shown to not support losing teams very long. The drop in attendance this season is evidence of that, they were in the playoffs in 2016. I also think part of it is that he's an ornery son-of-a-gun, who hates losing.
He's also been much more successful than those teams with high picks, selecting Lincecum, Bumgarner, Posey when they did lose (Wheeler broke the streak; hopefully 2018 starts another one).
So I think you and others are going to be disappointed every year, because it's not going to happen with him around.
FYI, we already have a better lineup in the the NL West, the Giants are tied for 4th in NL in OPS, with .732, and the only NL West team that is above the average of .712 OPS. Next is the Bridegrooms, with .712 OPS, just slightly below average, as they were placed below the average line.
DeleteI think we got a new Core Four with Strickland, Watson, Smith, and Dyson, four guys who could probably close if their team needed them to, covering the 7-8-9, with an extra for the guy who has an off day. Gearrin is good, on and off, Moronta has been good, but still unproven, and we got Black looking great again, rising up the minors (now we need a reliever with the last name of Orange :)
Kudos to the Giants @ .500 through 48 games -- more than a quarter of the season, just 6 games less than a third, without 3 top SPs (11 starts, S/B 30), a starting 2Bman (23 starts, S/B 46), and a starting OFer (22 starts, S/B 48) for all or a large part of the season. Could throw their pricy closer in that, also (0 appearances).
ReplyDeleteCount me as kidding myself, if the Giants can get into the playoffs there's a WC and 3 series -- with good pitching anyone can win 1 game and a series, or 2, or 3.
The Giants WILL get OF help (arguably, the OFers at Sacramento are better than the Giants!), Panik will recover (with up to 4 reserve IFers), the pitching will be much better (even the pretty good BP). Reserves are reserves but they will be better. The major weakness is CF defense and Jackson is atrocious -- some of the bloggers here saw that coming, the Giants obviously didn't. He is not better than the combination of Blanco/Hernandez -- and they are pretty bad. If Duggar can hit .225 Jackson should be DFA's but the Giants don't readily admit mistakes. Someone might pick him up for the league minimum!
Am I delusional? We will soon know. Through 48 games .500 is at the high end of early expectations when too many didn't make the bell.
Yeah, that the odd thing, Jackson has been demonstrably bad defensively in CF for a number of years now and all I saw since we signed him was about how great he was against LHP, when one look at his LHP hitting would show that he was barely any better than he was against RHP, over his long career, that 2017 was a huge outlier.
DeleteSomebody on the Giants really screwed the pooch on that one, they would have been much better off waiting out Jarrod Dyson, or getting creative with his contract like they did with Watson, to get it done. Dyson hasn't been hitting either, but he's on pace for 1.2 bWAR just for his defense, something Jackson hasn't done since early in his career. Moreover, he's supplying superlative defense in all 3 OF positions, for just $750K more per season. On top of that, Dyson is a speedster who would be a great threat to steal off the bench (already has 8 SB).
I get that they were up against the threshold, and they did it so that they could have some space left to pick up a player mid-season, but they could have easily accommodated that extra $750K by doing something similar with his contract like they did with Watson, say, giving him the $6M contract they gave Jackson, but with an easy performance bonus of, say, playing at least 100 games, which activates the bonus (like with Watson), raising his salary for 2019 to cover the $1.5M extra that the D-backs gave him.
This was a huge swing and a miss, at a pitch that essentially was a wide one for a free base. I wouldn't fire the guy(s) who missed this, but this has to be a huge black mark on their annual evaluation , a horrible decision when the facts were all there, on any device that can read baseball-reference.com pages.
At a -1.1 bWAR difference between the two players right now, that is basically the difference between the two teams, as they are 1.5 games ahead of us in the standings. We should only be half a game behind.
Nationals have surfeit of injured OFers losing Howie Kendrick for the season along with ailments to Eaton and Goodwin and Taylor scuffling worse than any of the Giants OF scufflers.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Kendrick has played mostly 2B, he has seen LF duty as Washington has not lived up to expectations.
They could have any Giant OFer on the 25-man roster as long as they take Jackson and his salary for two years. Or Pence and his $$ for the rest of this year.
Might get something for Hernandez since he's almost credible as a LFer and has become a real power threat with league minimum salary!
Or sell high on Eury Perez, he'd be a ready fill-in.
MLBs top Giants prospects has 5 of top 6 as OFers (the non-OFer in the 6 is Beede @ 4 -- if he is really 4, the Giants are in a heap of trouble!)
Ha!
Pence can be SF 4th OF if you bring up Duggar CF, Williamson LF. Unless Nats want Pence, Jackson and Blanco for prospect(s).
DeleteNo one is giving prospects for those guys. I doubt someone would claim Pence or AJax. Pence has a no trade.
DeleteThey are only 2 games out of first - with Bum and Cueto for the second half they can win the NL West. Mac will be back in LF, Pence is almost back - someone's got to go and I vote AJ, then Blanco displaced by Duggar. Pence looks like 4th OF rotating with McCutch and Williamson at the corners. 2 games out of first - that's a dream come true given the early injuries. Forget the WC race - win the West!
ReplyDeleteHere's hoping no one gets hurt in Houston.
ReplyDeleteAfter facing Gerrit Cole (4-1) - 1.75 ERA & Justin Verlander (5-2) - 1.05 ERA, they need everyone healthy in Chicago to face probably neither Tyler Chatwood nor Jon Lester (may be a break) but Kyle Hendricks, Jose Quintana, & Yu Darvish.
They may be pretty good but they are NOT Cole and Verlander.
Hope Pablo starts against Verlander!
Great point about Belt, DrB!!! Did not make the connection, but yes, this is the Belt we have been waiting for.
ReplyDeleteRecent interview, he noted that instead of changing things up everytime he gets into some sort of slump, he's got a mindset of what he wants to do in each AB that he knows is successful, and tries to replicate that now, throughout the season. So far, so very good!