The Giants scored early and often and held on to outscore the Padres in Peoria, but the injuries keep piling up with Brandon Crawford SS the latest to be shut down. Key Lines:
Blake Sabol LF- 1 for 2, BB SF. BA= .526. Injuries to Mitch Haniger OF and Austin Slater OF open the door for Sabol to make the team as a utility player rather than strictly as a catcher. Seems like the Giants would do almost anything to avoid giving him back the Pirates before getting a look at him in the regular season.
Thairo Estrada SS- 1 for 2, HR(1). BA= .222. Thairo is suddenly the starting SS. He follows up yesterday's double and triple with a HR today.
Michael Conforto RF- 2 for 4, HR(4). BA= .304. Conforto is looking like the pre-2021 version and that's a very good thing.
Casey Schmitt 3B- 2 for 4, 3B, HR(2). BA= .462. Villar is DTD with a mild hip flexor strain. If that carries past Opening Day, does that open a door for Schmitt? Bonus is Schmitt seems to be able to play SS too.
Bryce Johnson CF- 1 for 2, 2 BB, 4 SB's(7). BA= .333. The new rules may have opened a path for Bryce Johnson to have a significant MLB career. Players who can give you plus D, get on base and steal bases at this clip suddenly have a whole lot of value.
Austin Wynns C- 1 for 2, HR(2), BB. BA= .143. Wynns is the forgotten man in the catcher competition but a nice game here. He finished strong for the Giants last season.
Lamonte Wade Jr DH drove in a pair of runs with a single and SF.
Patrick Bailey C and Isan Diaz 2B had a double each.
Sean Manaea LHP- 3.1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 3 K's, GO/AO= 3/1. ERA= 6.75. The two run rally for the Padres came after two outs in the second inning: Walk, flyball double to LF, groundball single to drive in 2. Without an video available we have to wonder about Blake Sabol in LF. Would Haniger or Conforto have caught it?
Tyler Rogers RHP gave up 2 runs in 0.2 IP and Kyle Harrison LHP gave up a run in 1 IP.
As mentioned, Brandon Crawford is shut down with left knee soreness. This is the same knee that gave him problems most of last season so this is very disappointing, especially since the Giants have no clear back up plan for SS.
Logan Webb RHP makes the start tomorrow with Tommy Henry LHP going for the D'Backs at Talking Stick.
What "seemed a good idea" in August 2021 looked bad last year and worse this – did no one realize 2021 was an outlier? Crawford had been on a steady decline from 2016: Scourge of the 30's...
ReplyDeleteThis seems like a very bad sign for Crawford and the Giants have no safety net.
DeleteI didn't think it was a good idea for on-the-field purposes, though it was a positive move for marketing purposes. Short-stops start losing range in the late 20s but make up for it with experience. But that caps as well and the player, with rare exceptions, and (as a population) short-stops really start to degrade at age 30 and by 35 you're playing with fire.
DeleteSince 1972 only 74 shortstops have managed to play 100-games a season at age 30. At 31 it's down to 71 players. At 32 we've dropped to just 48. By 33 we're down to 35. At 34 it's just 26. And at 35, you have just 17.
Now they all were great short-stops at one point. Many are HOFers. Some of them ended up at 2B like Scutaro. Others were like Ozzie Smith who played at a high level through age 38. But mostly they were barely above replacement by that time and not always then. Look Alan Trammell, the great Detriot HOF SS. At 35 he was a 4+ bWAR player. The last three years of his career, he earned a -0.2 WAR and played less than 80 games a season.
Interestingly, they really don't see worried.
DeleteMy best guess is that option no. 1 is Estrada at short. I recall comments from more than one source last year that his defense at second was good but not stellar in part because he is more comfortable at shortstop.
Option no. 2 seems to be Schmitt. It is not at all clear that his plus defense suffers at all when shifted to short. The bat may or may not be ready, but the glove probably is.
Option 3 appears to be Wisely. Kapler has said a couple of times this spring that Wisely is more of a shortstop than second baseman, which surprised me; my impression was the opposite.
With those in hand, my guess is they stay in house if Crawford has to go on the IR. My bigger concern is that Crawford's knee never fully recovers and leaves him struggling through a mediocre year and dragging down the team. So the real option no. 1 should be for Crawford to heal up and go out in his last year with a flourish!
Our safety net would have costed $350 mill... but where is Ford Proctor or Donovan Walton?
DeleteSaw the play with Sabol. Should not have been ruled a 2B. Sabol did not go to the wall right away (mistake #1). Lost it in the sun (mistake #2). Flinched at the wall as the ball was coming down, because he did not know where he was in relation to the wall ( mistake #3). A 2B error, by any fair measure.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, Michael Conforto made an excellent play on a ball hit into the RF corner, just a 2 feet in front of the fence. Long run. Good tracking. Did not overrun the ball. Did not need to reach for it (unlike Sabol) - like a good OF, he put himself in position for the ball to drop into his mitt and be ready to make the throw back to the IF. IMHO, Conforto is good enough to play CF.
Sabol is on a par with Joc Pederson.
Well, it was Sabol's first OF game of the spring so we'll give him a pass but Oracle can be a very tough sky for outfielders so he'll have to be able to make those plays if he's going to be a part time OF.
DeleteAnd there is 1B, last played in 2018, college.
Delete