The Giants had toonder in their bats today as they hit 7 HR's including 4 in one inning with two separate back-to-backs. That offensive explosion overshadowed a terrific start by Anthony DeSclafani in a runaway win. Key lines:
Lamonte Wade Jr 1B- 2 for 6. BA= .214. LMWJ did not figure in the scoring but had two hits. I've seen some griping about him batting leadoff on other sites. I know it's early but dude has an OBP of .421. That is exactly what you want out of a leadoff batter! So I say, keep putting him up there until he stops getting on base.
Michael Conforto RF- 2 for 6, HR(1). BA= .167. Conforto is off to a slow start but we weren't seriously worried. He started the dinger barrage in the 5'th inning with shot to RF and added a single. I think he's going to be alright.
Thairo Estrada 2B- 2 for 4, HR(1), BB, SB(1). BA= .375. We're looking for a breakout year from Estrada and the early returns sure look promising. He did leave the game after taking a foul ball of his leg. He finished the AB but felt tightness in the leg later. Better to be cautious in the early spring cold weather. Estrada might be the player the Giants can least afford to lose for an extended period. Oh, and the HR was a monster deep into the seats on LF.
Joc Pederson DH- 1 for 3, HR(2). BA= .214. Pederson started the Giants scoring with a bomb leading off the 2'nd inning and you could see it coming as he worked his way into a 3-2 count.
Mike Yastrzemski CF/LF- 2 for 3, 2B, HR(1), 2 BB. BA= .357. I gotta say, after the last two seasons and an awful spring training, I thought YtY might be done. So far it looks like he is most definitely not done and that is a very good thing. It looks like he has gotten away from trying to yank everything down the line and is driving the ball into the gaps like he did in 2019 and 2020.
David Villar 3B/2B- 2 for 4, 2 HR(2), BB. BA= .286. Per some tweets I saw today, Villar is tied with two other players for most HR's in MLB since his second callup on Sept 2 last season and this was his third multi-homer game. This has to be a huge confidence boost for him and we could be witnessing the dawning of an era.
Bryce Johnson CF- 1 for 1, HR(1). BA= .500. Bryce Johnson said "Hey! Don't forget about me!" He went in as a defensive replacement for Blake Sabol and ended up hitting the 7'th HR of the game for the Giants. Johnson's yearly HR output in the minors was limited to single digits so I don't think we should expect to see him join the 20 HR club anytime soon.
Anthony Desclafani RHP- 6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 K's. GO/AO= 9/1. ERA= 0.00. DeSclafani kept the White Sox off balance with great command and mixing his pitches. At one point Andrew Vaughn yelled at him while running down the 1B line on a soft tapper. DeSclafani had the be restrained by LMWJ. Apparently Vaughn was upset that DeSclafani threw a slider on 3-0. Really? Then what was he doing swinging in 3-0?
Sean Manaea LHP- 2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 1 K, GO/AO= 4/1. ERA= 13.50. Manaea got knocked around but was sitting at 96 MPH with the FB. If he can maintain that velocity, he'll get it figured out. Meanwhile with the Giants leading by 7 runs, he forced the White Sox to burn 6 outs to get 3 runs without Kap having to use his late-inning relievers and that has value in a game like this.
It's on off day in The Windy City tomorrow. Logan Webb RHP is listed as the SP on Wednesday facing Dylan Cease RHP.
There is no doubt that FZ and Kap are able to get more out of less with their platoons and pinch hitters. I would argue that they overpay for subpar talent that ends up performing above expectations but the results are undeniable. As a fan it’s hard to root for a team that doesn’t have a single player who you can buy their jersey for your kid but getting more out of less will win games and maybe even enough to make playoffs. My question is what could these guys do with a few above average talent players? Would they get more or less out of a superstar if we had 2-3 of them instead of this blue collar bunch? That may be the only difference between us and the Dodgers if you really look closely. They have 2 of the best players in the league at the top of their lineup but after that they look a lot like us! Pitching may even be closer than you think especially when Harrison comes up. I’ve had a lot of mean things to say about FZ but if he can figure out how to sign/acquire/develop 3 superstars on offense, we will own this division for years!
ReplyDeletePlus, are they really platooning that much? So far the only position that's a definite platoon this year is 1B where Wade Jr definitely should not start against LHP's. C is unsettled but not yet a true platoon. CF may turn into one when/if Slater gets back and it should. Other than that you have Conforto RF, Haniger LF, Villar 3B, Crawford SS and Estrada 2B as everyday players.
DeleteJust look at 2021 - Posey's final year - when we had someone to anchor the lineup, and two co-aces.
DeleteDylan Cease, Thursday's starter against the Giants, is one of the Leagues' very good pitchers.
DeleteCan the G-men break the 2-game shutout against a good arm? Can another very good pitcher, Logan Webb, give the Giants a chance by holding down the White Sox?
Do we need a 1-0 or 2-1 outcome?
In the 14 Amateur Drafts since the Giants netted Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford in 2008, there have been 515 rounds. There have been Rounds that the Giants had more than 1 pick and at least one when they didn't have a pick. They have drafted at least 515 players.
ReplyDeleteAs of this date, April 4, 2023, there is exactly ONE position player drafted by the Giants in the last 14 years who might be a regular starter for them this year: David Villar from the 11th round of the 2018 Draft with a slight chance Bryce Johnson (2017) will join him, and perhaps Heliot Ramos (2017). A chance.
Joey Bart (2018) seemed assured but is fading. Austin Slater (2014) will play but not every day. Could have re-signed Brandon Belt (2008) this year (don't check his 1 for 11, 6 K's for the Jays).
Don't want to toot Zaidi's horn these days but McCray (2019), Schmitt (2020), even Bailey (2020), and Brown (2021) have adherents. Could they be future starters?
The Giants' drafted strengths for the Championship years were the pitchers and Buster Posey (2008). Certainly, Crawford and Belt helped for 2012 and 2014.
Should the Giants go back to picking pitchers first?
And hope for the Best outcome. They haven't picked very well for a very long time, before Zaidi and currently.
How many times do we have to go over this? I did an exhaustive review of the drafts from 2012 through 2016(Joe Panik was drafted in 2011). I looked at the 20 players drafted after the Giants picked looking for players who performed better than the Giants pick. Guess what? There were extremely few and they were far enough downstream that it was likely simple luck that they turned out. Conclusion: The primary cause of Giants failed first round draft picks from 2012-2016 was all of the high probability players were already taken by the time they drafted.
DeleteGiants should always draft the best player available. Statistically the most likely demographic to return the highest WAR value is college hitters. Giants have had surprising success with HS pitchers. Since that is a demographic a lot of organizations stay away from, it may be an undervalued commodity for the Giants. Probably better to continue their strategy of drafting them later and signing them with overslot money than risking a first round pick on them but given their lack of success with first rounders they might be better off taking HS pitching in round 1.
DeleteMy take on the draft is a bit different Doc. A good farm director and FO should be able to find one or two core pieces or at least an MLB contributor, like a Joe Panik, in most drafts. Some drafts are better than others so you can't expect something consistent, but say in a 7 year period, you have to expect at least 5 or 6, even on the low side. The Giants did NOT do that between 2012-2018. And I remember your analysis but looking back over these drafts, there are multiple big misses and certainly not far and few between.
DeleteOne significant year, 2013, still haunts Giants fans. They drafted Christian Arroyo with the #25 pick in the 1st round. 7 picks later was one Aaron Judge. Of course after failing to sign him, there's more of a regret that he was a Giants fan and local guy who went to school at Fresno St. Two picks after that was Sean Manaea. Four picks after that, Michael Lorenzen and right after that Corey Knebel. Ryan McMahon went 3 picks later. Cody Bellinger was picked in the 4th round. After the first 2 rounds, I don't think it matters much whether a pick was less or more than 20 picks away.
2014, Beede was #14. Matt Chapman was #25. Jack Flaherty #34. Aramis Garcia in the 2nd round, but Alex Verdugo and Spencer Turnbull not far after. Verdugo was the key piece in returning Mookie Betts.
2015, Phil Bickford at #18. Walker Buehler at #24, which hurts because, Dodgers.
2016, famously they don't have a 1st round pick, get that one homerun pick in the 2nd round, Bryan Reynolds, and trade him away. 3rd round, Heath Quinn. Several picks later, Zac Gallen.
2017, Jacob Gonzalez, #58, Daulton Varsho, #68
2018, Jake Wong, #80, Cal Raleigh, #90.
This is not even counting many good picks after Joey Bart at #2. And didn't look further than Round 4 because it's pretty obvious that these drafts were objectively bad. I think maybe the only other team that has such futility over this period is the Twins.
Again, missing 1st round draft picks happens. I actually liked the Arroyo pick, a little outside the box, a gym rat type of player with plus makeup. Hated the Beede and Bickford picks. Isolated, every team has bad picks. But put them together, Giants have really bad picks from rounds 1-5. You usually need to find talent from 1 out of those 5 picks. Their 2nd rounders are especially atrocious. There's good reason why the farm was barren and outside of Logan Webb and Doval and Villar, and Slater, nothing in the cupboard. And they traded away their one great pick for someone that wasn't a long term piece.
Sure there were random successes scattered here and there later in those drafts but 6 more teams could have picked Aaron Judge after the Giants and elected not to. 11 teams could have picked Matt Chapman but didn't. 19 other teams could have picked Flaherty but didn't. Walker Buehler's arm was already hanging by a thread. I wonder if that is why 6 other teams passed on him after the Giants? OK so FZ drafted Buehler and FZ is known to like injury-prone pitchers. Maybe he's onto something? The rest of it sure looks like a crapshoot to me.
DeleteI agree with you that on a pick by pick basis, you can do this with every pick and every team. But I do disagree if you think the Giants drafts were run of the mill. I haven't done a thorough analysis, but I would put the aggregate draft results from 2012-2018 by the Giants at the very bottom two or three, as I said, the Twins are the only other team that might have been as futile. This is one of the main reasons Evans was let go.
DeleteTo add my two-cents, the Giants were mostly picking low. Percentage to find a superior (2.5+ fWAR/season) player, by slot range: Slots 1-5 is just 11%, slots 6-10 is just 15%, slots 11-15 drops back to 11%, slots 16-20 crashed to 5%, slots 21-25 rebounded to 11% and the last five slots crashed back to 5%.
DeleteThe chances to get a bust (under 1.5 fWAR/year) are, respectively, at each slot grouping are: 60%, 65%,71%, 85%, 76% and 84%. There is a small number of in-betwen players who run between 1.5 and 2.5 fWAR/year.
I know the Giants drafts were fairly unproductive for quite some time but there is a reality that most drafts don't yield much. Baseball players are notoriously difficult to project into professional players. Even with all the sophisticated tools they use, Randal Grichuck i#24 is drafted before Mike Trout at #25.
For perspective's sake, let's look at Round 1, 2010. Good Round 1 players should starting showing up in the majors some time in 2013. Maybe a little sooner, maybe a little later. But that should give them 10-years of MLB experience.
How many have 25, or more, fWAR? The answer is FOUR (Machado, Harper, Sale, Yelich). Six more have between 10.0 fWAR and 24.9 fWAR but of those six, THREE WERE IN ROUND 1 SUPPLEMENTARY. So the number of players drafted in Round 1, between Pick 1 and Pick 30 that have earned 10, or more, fWAR for their career is merely 7. You have three just stars, four guys who are good but, for various reasons, have not performed as elites through-out their career. Syndergaard is one of those players - great when healthy, often hurt. That's a fairly typical Round 1. And, yes, some are better. And some worse.
Slot range percentage can be skewed by one Mike Trout kind of player so I don't find that to be of much use. Generally we know that high picks have higher percentage of success. That's why the best way is to compare at least 5 or more years in the aggregate. Some years you get a few core players, some years you don't. But if you check teams that have drafted even lower than the Giants during those years, like the Cardinals and Dodgers, etc., they have plenty of swings and misses, but in the aggregate, between 2012-2018, they've produced more than 7 core players/regulars. So we're not even talking about all-stars. Just guys you can plug into the starting lineup or rotation or bullpen. I've checked pretty much all the better drafting teams, many of them picking lower than the Giants. They did anywhere from better to much better. As I said, the only other team that I was like, whoa, this team fired blanks after blanks is the Twins.
DeleteIf you just look up teams and the aggregate WAR of each draft year from 2012-2018, the first thing you'll realize is how many guys, even top picks, never make it to the majors. Then you'd be pretty horrified by the wretched barrenness of the Giants drafts. You see the Cardinals and Dodgers and see how in the midst of the usual number of unproductive picks, you just get 1 or 2 guys in a draft and that's enough to make a difference. For example, just finding a Walker Buehler is enough of a differentiator.
DeleteBobby Evans got fired because Chucky Johnson woke up one morning and noticed the Dodgers had a lower payroll than his team and said, "I want what they are having!" Of course, since he hired FZ, the Dodgers payroll has exploded and the Giants lagged far behind but hey! Chucky is sitting on one of the most profitable teams in the league.
DeleteWhat do Logan Webb, Camilo Doval, Tyler Rogers, Sean Hjelle, David Villar, Austin Slater, Joey Bart and Bryce Johnson have in common? They were all drafted or signed when Bobby Evans was the GM. The same scouting team that drafted Buster Posey, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik had all those bad drafts that followed then some success in the last few years of their tenure. I don't think they suddenly forgot how to scout and draft then suddenly remembered again. Drafting is crazy hard and goes tends to go in cycles. There are very few teams that sustain success over as long as a decade.
DeleteIt's doesn't matter anymore, but it's ironic that I think Evans was fired because he gave in to the pressure from the fans to win every year by making big $ risky free agent signings and questionable trades such as McCutcheon and Longoria. The results were 98 losses in 2017 and 90 losses in 2018. If Evans could have changed the direction of the team by getting younger players instead during one of those years instead, he might still be GM today. I'm rooting for players like Bart, Luciano, who were drafted or signed by Evans become solid major league starters, so he can get the credit.
DeleteBobby Evans got fired for doing exactly what the fanbase is demanding of FZ now.
DeleteThe righty-lefty "leverage" should be used when most effective.
ReplyDelete(1) Start of game. Opposing pitcher to start and probably for several innings is known: load up the starting lineup.
(2) End of game. Behind, must score to contiue and have an bad match-up.
(3) Advantage. Runners on base when runs are needed or wanted.
(4) Mid game. Runners in scoring position and facing bad match up like Pederson up against a LHP with runners in scoring position with 2 outs in close game.
(5) When obvious! There are times when the situation screams for a pinch-hitter - you know it when you see it!
(6) When, mid-game, there's a chicken for picking and you have a bad match-up and it's not going to weaken you going forward.
(7) When it really doesn't make sense!
That's a pretty long list of situations.
DeleteYes, it makes sense to get leverage. Start with your best line-up and use advantage when there are returns.
DeleteLead-off: Best OBP batter.
ReplyDeleteSecond-up: Best OPS batter.
This, unlike the traditional lineup, maximizes the scoring potential of your two best players. One of the hardest things to do in the majors is get a man on first with no outs. People who complain about the high OBP guy leading off don't understand that. Worse, you can see at least two-third of baseball managers don't either. It's amazing we still have 1800s thinking in baseball.