Chad Gaudin turned in his second clutch start in a row and the Giants offense was clicking. Juan Perez made his MLB debut memorable with a sensational catch at the right-centerfield wall. Key Lines:
Marco Scutaro- 3 for 4, HR(2), BB. BA= .332. Not much to say that hasn't been said. Scutaro puts on a hitting clinic almost every game.
Buster Posey- 2 for 5. BA= .302. Another day at the office.
Hunter Pence- 2 for 4, 2B, BB. BA= .291. The 2,3, 4 hitters went a combined 7 for 13 with 2 BB's.
Brandon Belt- 1 for 4, HR(7), BB. BA= .251. It did not look like Belt got all of his HR ball, but it carried out into the pool area in right-centerfield. He lined out earlier in the game. The D'Backs put on a pretty radical shift on him. He is capable of punching the ball down the LF line. That would be fun to watch!
Juan Perez- 1 for 3. BA= .333. Perez beat out an IF hit and made the fantastic catch in the first inning. A memorable MLB debut. Hope he didn't get beat up too bad on the collision with the padded fence.
Chad Gaudin- 6 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 7 K's. ERA= 2.32. Another terrific clutch start. Very gutty when we hear he was hurling between innings due to an upset stomach. Man, when that happens to me, there is no way I could pitch, not that I could anyway!
With the Win, the Giants gained a game on the NL West leading D'Backs and now trail by 1.5 games. The Rockies remained tied for 2'nd place with an 8-7 win over the Padres who remained in 4'th place 6 games back. The Dodgers lost to the Braves 8-1 to remain in last place, 7.5 games behind the D'Backs.
This was a very nice series win by the Giants in the home park of the division leaders, especially considering the heartbreak of the first game loss. This team has become known for shaking off tough losses and discouraging runs and they did it again in this series.
They now get a travel day before starting a 3 game series in Pittsburgh. Tim Lincecum face Gerrit Cole who makes his MLB debut on Tuesday night.
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winning 2 out of 3 in az, with all the injury issues was huge
ReplyDeleteguess the brain trust knew what they were doing when they brought up a defensive specialist
gaudin is a gamer....right after the game he tweeted that he felt much better
tuesday night should be an interesting one for the crawford family..
bacci.
Oh but for one swing from the fabulous Goldschmidt eh? The Gigantes played a very nice series, and the offense, pitching and defense all got on track.
ReplyDeleteLoved the Juan Perez debut. And this is a guy who was pretty much written off by prospect hounds as far as top 15 lists, but that is the kind of depth the Giants have been building by having money in their pocket from ownership, and some time to develop.
The UCLA buzz will be huge, especially coming off that Fullerton win as well. The Gints have a habit of making rookie pitchers look very, very good. And not playing good ball this stretch of games. It'd be nice for that to turn around.
If Panda is DL'd, do they go crazy and bring up Roger K, send Perez to 3b? I doubt it, I think they'll keep him around for a bit and see what's what though. A guy who can play IF and OF is a valuable piece, if he can hit a little and run.
Hunter Pence is getting paid this offseason! It might even be Los Gigantes footing the bill. Unfortunately the 4/60MM is most likely very light...
Good to see Belt get another HR. I was starting to worry. I hope he can get going again. I still have big concerns about him, though (his swing in 2011 looked much more natural). I fear he may not be the 25 HR guy we all thought but instead our James Loney. I hope that isn't the case.
ReplyDeleteAnnnd . . . I really hope Gaudin turns out to be another steal ala Vogelsong. He has good stuff--maybe he's learning to put it to good use. *fingers crossed*
Belt is on a pace to hit 20 HR's right now. He wouln't have to turn it up very far to get to 25.
DeleteAnother hot streak, and Belt is halfway to 20 well before the mid-point in the season. If he repeats last year's pattern of getting better as the season progresses, we may see surprisingly good numbers from him when all's said and done.
DeleteLucky
I have been questioned why I thought drafting a player with a 3% walk rate was probably a waste of money. First, the hitter's plate approach will not change much, that is set in stone. What you draft is what you wind up with. If a hitter walks 3% pre draft, that's what you have for life, pretty much.
ReplyDeleteA decent On-Base-Percent is around .350. For a 3% walker to have .350 OBP he has to hit around .320. That is unlikely.
As has been pointed out, the Giants have been drafting some low-walk players for years. So how has that worked out?
Over the past 10 years (2004 to today) the Giants are:
23rd in walks (out of 30 teams).
26th in OBP
25th in runs
The top three teams in walks in that period are the Yankees, Red Sox and Athletics.
Walter Guest
Dude! His OBP was .524 before he drew even one walk!! I do not agree that his walk rate is set in stone. When you can barrel up the ball at that rate, there is no point in not swinging. None whatsoever!
DeleteAs Yogi Berra famously put it, "I hit the bad pitches so good, I didn't see the point in waiting for a good one!"
I would also point out that over the last 10 years, the Giants have won as many World Series as the Red Sox, one more than the Yankees and 2 more than the A's, so I don't know why we should be all envious of them!
Read Ted Williams book. Of course Bill James should be required reading for all who would want to give opinions on baseball. It's hard to believe someone deeply interested in the game would not have read him.
DeleteWalter Guest
There's a couple things wrong with the analysis here. It has more to do with having bad hitters than a bad OBP profile. First off, the Giants from 97-02 had some gigantic OBP profiles. They are always conveniently chopped off any discussion, because they kill the Sabean doesn't know how to build an offense arguments or the even weaker one that the Giants don't "get" OBP. Jeff Kent, JT Snow, Billy Mueller, Daryl Hamilton, hell even Marvin Bernard had a .400 OBP in 98, and of course Ellis Burks. Burks is a good one - you get good hitters, they take care of the OBP, no problem.
DeleteThe Giants from 05-08 were bad. Very bad. Its what happens when you have marching orders to build a team around Barry with spendthrift owners. You get duck tape and bailing wire moves, and then it craters. And as has been pointed out a ton - Alfonso and Durham both had huge OBP profiles. Alfonso was hurt from the beginning (bad scouting) and Durham was always pulling hammies. So when 2008 rolls around and you're going to war with Rowand, Winn, Molina and Freddy Lew - did you expect to be good, good? The Giants were in full rebuild mode and these guys were placeholders because the farm was shot.
Most people who post on this site have read Ted Williams book. OGC and I are both big advocates of it. I'm sure DrB has as well.
I'd split up the NL/AL, they are different styles of play, different parks, different pitchers. The 2011 Giants would have had a good offense but for injuries. 2010, 2012 and 2013 are looking just fine. 2009, the pitching came correct one year too soon. Its hard to turn the ship fast. The Giants actually turned in record time from the bad years as Barry faded into the sunset.
Walter Guest.
DeleteListen up, newby. If you knew anything at all about this site, you would know that pretty much everybody here is well aware of Ted Williams and Bill James. You are welcome to come on this site and express your opinions. If you are just going to spout the kneejerk stuff that is standard fare on other sites, then you can expect pushback. If you you are just going to come barging in here insulting people, then I am going to hit the button on you, and believe me, it only takes me a very small fraction of the time it takes you to write a post.
Just looked up Derek Jeter's career stats over on Fangraphs. His full season BB% has varied from 6.1% to 12.3 % over the years. I think that pretty much proves that a BB% is NOT written in stone based on 1 HS season.
DeleteOf course we don't know what that kids walk rate was. One poster here said it was around 8%, which wouldn't be awful.
ReplyDeleteBut if it is 3%, it means he's swinging the bat from the moment he gets in the batters box. Smart pitchers will likely eat him up.
Of course I could be wrong and he could turn out to be another Pablo Sandoval who also swings at everything. But hitters like Sandoval don't come along very often and it's not likely he's that good.
Just my view, for what it's worth.
Walter Guest
Which player are we talking about here with the 3% walk rate?
DeleteI think he is still harping on Arroyo who also hit .524 in high school. The idea that a HS kid who hits .524 has a walk rate that is set in stone for the rest of his career is pretty far off base. He also happened to have a very low K rate so he's not up there wildly swinging. There are so many things wrong with this discussion it almost boggles the mind, but we can just start with why on Earth are we arguing about HS stats or even looking at them. When you draft a HS kid, you gotta trust the scouts. I'll do that until they are proven to be wrong.
DeleteThe important thing with Arroyo is the hit tool. The scouts have seen that he has the ability to consistently barrel up pitches. That is the starting point with any hitter. It is the single most important tool out of the 5 tools. The exciting part of getting that out of HS is because the rest of it is NOT set in stone. You have 3 extra years of pro AB's for him to learn whatever else he needs to know about hitting.
DeleteAh yes, Arroyo. I'm considering wading into that other giants site to take on some silliness, I finally read some of the draft chatter last night. But I think it might not be that fun to do. A well known poster who is a frantic birthdate checker has put down a lot of criticism of Barr, including a lot of chiming in on the old familiar "Giants don't know how to develop hitting" saw. I am curious what an acceptable # of hitters developed in an acceptable amount of time is. How about a nice round 8? 8 hitters is all it takes to field a squad, so they should have 8! How about a nice round 4 years to do that? 2 a year, that's not hard at all! Get to steppin' Giants, we expect you to be the best in baseball at this, and we don't want to take budget or draft position into account!
DeleteI'm getting a little sarcastic here, but I stand by my point - Posey, Crawford and Belt with more in the pipe is enough to earn some trust. Its kind of fun to post up the Giants have the best drafting in baseball 2006-9 at Sickels. There isn't any response to it, because its true, and its delivered amazing results, the results all teams dream of, the ultimate prize.
Its a great time to be a Giants fan. But there sure are a lot of cranks on the interwebz!
I stand by my Alex Bregman comp. Its kind of funny, because the well-known poster is on that hunt as well, but he didn't put up the source, which was me harping on it last year from the get-go of my message board adventures. Its all his idea now.
DeleteI like them LSU guys. I would have been a tad happier with Jacoby Jones instead of Ryder Jones (hey, that would have provided nearly as much criticism!) but now that a couple days have soaked in, the obvious point is that Jones needed to be drafted in the 2nd to have a chance of a buy-out. And along that line of developing the hit tool and getting the 2K pro at-bats early, what would Jones look like in 3 years, comped to this draft? I'd say his floor is Chad Pinder, somebody I would have liked in the 2nd round. But the ceiling is most likely one of the college bats like Jagielo or Moran - except he can stick at third.
The Giants are expecting to be drafting from the 20s for a while. They need to think outside the box to go acquire the top talent they can. I think this is a daring, and risky, move towards those means.
I get that Posey didn't really need developing as a hitter and Sandoval is an outlier talent, but the patience and success the Giants have shown with Crawford and Belt, to me, puts the lie to the notion that they cannot develop hitters. Neither of those guys rolled out of the cradle hitting.
DeleteShankbone,
DeleteJust read your comments over on Minor League Ball in Sickels' wrap thread. I thought you more than held your own over there. In fact, I think your comments turned the discussion around!
Nice work!
Things are looking quite good on the signing front. Ryder Jones has apparently agreed to term and is headed to Arizona. Arroyo and Arenado have both signaled a willlingness, even eagerness to sign. The Puerto Rican kids should be fairly easy to sign. Looking good so far!
DeleteGood news on Jones! Thanks for the compliment on minor league ball. They are pretty serious folk over there, but there are about 20 posters that have a good idea of what they're talking about and I want to expand my knowledge of other teams systems so I'm participating some more. The guy I replied to is a MCC guy but also is a part time writer for Sickels covering college b-ball (with his real name). Then one of the young whippersnappers wanted to debate Belt and mean Bruce Bochy, and I'm not having it!
DeleteDrB - I got something for you that isn't message board material. If you don't mind, hit me on theshankbone at gmail.com with an email addy I can send to. If that's not your bag, no worries.
Are we comparing HS to MLB??. Having a 3% or a 70% walk rate in HS does not mean its going to translate to the bigs (its like saying because a QB throws 50td in college hes going to do the same in the NFL, doesn't work that way).
DeleteI find HS stats to be meaningless (I myself played HS ball and I can tell you that some of the competition is really mediocre, some pitchers dont even touch 75mph, heck I batted my junior yr .372 4hr 24rbi in 18games for buchholz hs and was never considered a real prospect to even get drafted, which eventually I didnt).
The level of competition that HS kids face varies from state to state, Florida has some of the best (Arroyo is from there) as well as California and Texas as Ohio and some areas in Alabama. Last years 2nd pick Buxton didn't have impressive stats and he was facing mediocre competition but he still went 2nd as the tools where there and look the guy is demolishing minor league pitching so far this year.
Am just recommending not to get to caught up in HS stats whether is from BA to OBP to SLG.
Anon,
DeleteCompletely agree with the point about HS stats. Gotta trust the scouts on HS picks. Giants stuck to their guns and cut against the grain. It will take a minimum of 3 years to get a good read on the results. They will be proven to be either right or wrong. I would rather have them stick to their guns and draft the kid they believe in than just go with the consensus which is often wrong. I also like the emphasis on the hit tool which is very moneyballish.
As to Walter Guest or "Walter Guest," the Giants' record over the last ten years is not germane to their future. At the moment, they are fifth in the NL in OBP and sixth in RS, and around the middle of the pack as to walks. Last year, they were fourth in OBP and sixth in RS. One would clearly be misled if one's reading froze one into insisting on a rigid set of proportions of the components of OBP and scoring.
ReplyDelete