It seemed like a matter of time, given the weakness and passivity of recent Giants offensive efforts. Tonight, Homer Bailey dropped the hammer on them allowing just one baserunner, a walk to Gregor Blanco over 9 frames in Cincinnati. Not much else about the game matters. Key Lines:
Tim Lincecum- 5.1 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 BB, 8 K's. ERA= 4.66. Timmy did not pitch badly, but he had to pitch shutout ball just to stay even. Timmy just does not have the consistency from batter-to-batter and inning-to-inning to pitch shutout ball these days. He clearly has good stuff. You don't strike out 8 MLB batters in under 6 innings without it. It's all about inconsistency and unreliable command.
Homer Bailey(Reds)- 9 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 9 K's. ERA= 3.57. Bailey has always had the tools and the stuff. He has been a lot like the current version of Timmy in that he has not been able to harness that talent into sustained success. With the way he pitched at the end of last season, including an no-hitter, I thought he was poised for a breakout season this year. So far that has not happened. The Giants have had a lot of success getting opposing pitchers out of slumps lately, though. Certainly, Bailey has always had the talent.
With the loss, the Giants remained 3 games behind the NL West leading D'Backs who lost to the Mets 9-1, but they dropped into last place, 0.5 games behind the Dodgers who blanked the Rockies 8-0 and are now 2.5 games out tied for 3'rd place. The Rockies remain 1.5 games behind the D'Backs while the Padres lost to the BoSox 4-1 to remain 2.5 games back, tied with the Dodgers for 3'rd place.
It does not get any easier tomorrow as Barry Zito faces wunderkind Tony Cingrani.
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Haven't seen the Giants look this bad in years. They're in last place. And yet ... and yet ... only three games back.
ReplyDeleteSomething tells me Sabean is about to drop a hammer or two. I have a feeling I won't like it. If I were to bet, I'd say Peavy and something else, for too much from the farm.
Yee of little faith. Sabean has been great about keeping the best fruit of our farm system with us, he's never traded away any very good farm prospect, the best given up so far include Foulke, Howry, Aardsma, Villanueva, and of course Liriano, but he's been more curse than benefit, Correia (technically not traded and not a prospect; same for Williams, I guess Schierholtz), Accardo, Buscher, Gillaspie, I'm sure there's others but nobody good.
DeleteNot like the strikes on Beane's resume: Ethier, CarGon, and even worse, he got nothing ultimately for either of them.
Last place, but only 3 games out of first place.. good thing the whole division is playing terrible too. Although very unlikely to happen, it would be pretty funny to see a team win this division with a losing record.. sort of reminiscent when the NFC West was that terrible of a division.
ReplyDeleteNot a good way to start the month of July though. At what point would you consider the Giants being sellers at the trade deadline?
As long as they are close, under double digits, I don't see the Giants being sellers, and even then, the only one really sellable would be Pence and maybe Zito if they paid most of his remaining salary, but I still think that they would like to sign Pence back. Else, most of the team they would want back to try to win next season, so they will not be big sellers, only players they might lose after the season. Lincecum I would be shocked to see traded, both because of his stature with the team and because he's not been good enough that a team would want to pay his salary, but even if the Giants paid his salary, the trade offer would not be that good either, I would think at that point the Giants would rather just experiment with him from the bullpen to see if they might sign him to do that instead or something (though I think he will still get a relatively good contract to start if he looks around for a while into January).
DeleteThe historical precedence I would point to is the Mets winning the NL East with a .500 record, I think it was early 70's, but not so sure now (and I think they made the World Series too!). (But my memory hasn't been as good lately....)
Brian Sabean will not throw in the towel unless/until the Giants find themselves 10 or more games out of a playoff spot.
DeleteOGC, good memory, the Mets won the NL East in 1973 with a 82-79 record. They lost to the A's in the World Series. What makes it memorable was that Willie Mays retired as a Met that year after playing in the WS..
ReplyDeleteLG
Yeah, I read that caused a lot of people pain seeing our hero Willie plodding around the outfield like that. The amazing thing is that once he lost his power in his mid-30's, he changed himself into a walking machine and generated very high OBP, presumably so that Willie Mac could drive him in.
Deletean intelligent and forward thinking fo would look at the reality of this org and the west and see that even if the giants make the post, they wont last long
ReplyDeleteteams that are 14 games under 500 on the road...shouldnt be in the post season
teams that cant beat teams outside their division...dont belong in the post season
and comparing this team to the mets of 73, when a team only had to win the lcs to get into the ws...is absurd
this team should not risk its future buying rentals
ocg can continue his hero worship of sabean all he wants...and can put down beane, all he wants...but facts are facts...and the fact is, beane has lost more as caliber pitchers than sabean has developed...and the depth of the a's in that department, should make sabean green with envy
i dont understand the point of putting kickham in the pen....the kid needs work on skills...he aint gonna get that toting around the pink goody bag
as an aside...this was the first no hitter of the season
just last season, most of the talking heads were saying that the no no was meaningless
amazing how none understand the game....players adjust
pitching dominance is cyclical
baseball is a great game, cuz you cannot predict from one season to the next, exactly what is gonna happen
it really is amazing how this team is so much like the teams i grew up with
there is more talent on this squad...but they are losing in the exact same manner
if there is pitching...no hitting
hitting....no pitching
hitting and pitching...the d falls apart
this aint the giants year...the extra month of an off season will do them all a world of good
bacci
I'll disagree with the first part of your comment, Bacci. Any team that makes the playoffs has a chance. Everything re-sets and you never know what might happen. The Braves might lose half their infield to injury and have to bring Brooks Conrad back to play 2B. Barry Zito might throw 3 shutouts in a row. Pablo Sandoval might go crazy against Justin Verlander and hit 3 dingers in one game. You just cannot predict the outcome of playoff baseball.
DeleteI think I agree with all of this.
DeleteWe've been dancing this dance for a long time and 2009 to 2013 shows that my view of Sabean and the team has been closer to the truth than your view. Your view aint even in the mirror.
DeleteThough I do agree with your statements, the only problem is that the season is barely half over, there is still a lot of season left, yet you have consigned them to the garbage bin, much like fans did the same in 2010 and 2012, or even 2009 and 2011.
If Beane can waste $10M on Sheets and Holliday, and on free agent pitchers like that guy who was caught doing over 90 MPH on the freeway but couldn't do that on a baseball mound, he could have afforded to keep those pitchers that he thought so much of. And it makes no use developing them, if you can't do that at the same time so that you have a great rotation, instead of a mediocre one, even today his teams are low on the K/9, even though BP wrote a book nearly 10 years ago saying that Beane's strategies don't work in today's MLB, yet Beane continues the same tired formula, still not understanding the value of having a reliable shutdown closer. If Beane understood pitching as you suggest, his teams should be leading in K/9 every season, particulary given BP's usage of Beane's quote that they are great, then why don't he listen to their cogent advice, free for the price of a cheap book?
Nice rant Bacci. Now that you've got that out of your system... go look at the NL West standings. AZ is 1 game above .500. All 5 teams within 3 of each other. 79 games to go. This is going to be a dogfight. And things will swing back the Gigantes way. They have been jacked by great catches, balls not falling, and the herky jerky hitting/pitching/defense like you described. But they are sleepwalking as well, something has to wake em up.
DeleteThey need another trade like Scutaro and Pagan. Also, Pagan really has been the straw that stirs the drink. Losing him is a pretty big blow. They hang tough, get Vogelsong and Pagan back in September, you don't know what will happen.
I'd point out that the Nats were supposed to be a juggernaut. That hasn't happened. And the Cards have had everything go their way. The Reds have been struggling as well, they're getting healthy at our expense.
I do think we need some sort of reinforcements, just to shake up the clubhouse.
To CoveChatter's point below, if you love Beane so much, and hate Sabean so much, you are really following the wrong team.
DeleteAbout your point about A's losing more caliber pitchers than Sabean has developed, I prefer quality over quantity, what three A's pitchers compare with Cain, Lincecum, Bumgarner? Also, a lot of that was generated by continuous trading, like trading that pitcher to Cards for Haren, then Haren for other pitchers. And I would note that I don't consider guys that he picked up in trade as ones that Beane developed, he got value for value given up, so all the pitchers you probably are thinking as "wins" for Beane, I would not count, getting a Top BA prospect from another team means that they developed them, not the A's.
I think Bacci was reacting to you bringing up Beane (I'm looking at timestamps here, I'm late to the conversation) not the other way around OGC. Of course, there is a lot of history here.
DeleteWith the extra wild card, teams are more cautious about going for it/giving up. There are only a few clear sellers right now, which makes trades difficult. I do think the Gigantes need some help. Timmy has pitched well, and like in 2011 has received no run support (9 runs in 9 games!). I still think if the Gigantes can snag starting pitching they put Timmy in the pen and they might be able to rock and roll.
Losing Pagan, and having Pablo go into a deep funk of weight related/no-hit funkiness is killing. Then you have a lot of young guys/roll players. We're forcing Blanco and Torres into full time, and that isn't where we want them. Pablo is supposed to be an anchor in the lineup to provide big OPS+ support to Posey along with Pence and Belt. Instead, he's at 102 OPS+. Its like 2010 all over. Well, where the hell is our next Juan Uribe? That's the question.
He may be reacting, but he's still showing Beane the love, as I don't think much of Beane's efforts of building up a pitching rotation nor his handling of the closer position. Again, if he thinks Beane is so much better than Sabean, he's following the wrong team. There are plenty of people who switch allegiance to another team as they get older and tired of how their team is being handled, just look at the former Royals fans out there. He has been against Sabean for as long as I can remember, he was hammering on him when I started up my blog, he's still been hammering on Sabean here as well, despite the two championships inbetween.
DeleteThe problem in June was that only Posey was hitting, even Pence was underperforming. If he can get his bat in gear in July, I think we can survive Sandoval's act a while longer. I still prefer Timmy pitching until he proves he can't. He's been close all year, unlike last year's first half, where he was mostly lost. I'm still hoping he can break out of this soon, at worse in the second half.
Billy Beane is a genius. Best GM in the business. Sabean has just been lucky. Doesn't anyone remember how bad the Giants were from 2003 to 2009. Wasted all draft picks just to sign bonafide scrubs like Michael Tucker, Armando Benitez and Renteria, LOL. Sabean has just been lucky that top picks such as Lincecum, Posey, Bumgarner, Cain became not only good players but superstars. That does rarely happen.
ReplyDeleteWhile Beane has assembled a competitive team year in year out with half of the Giants' payroll to work with. He is also very innovative unlike Sabean who is set on his ways. This year for example he built the team around power guys who can hit home runs at any time unlike the Giants who need at least 4 hits just to manufacture a run. Oakland has also produced a lot of very good pitchers who were not even top picks. Sabean has won two World Series and that covers up all his flaws. But I am sure Bean could do a much better job. The guy is so good they even made a movie about him.
I'll take this as at least partly satire.
DeleteYeah, but it touched on all the points a Beane lover would say.
DeleteI'll repeat what A's fans have been saying to me over my lifetime, but now it's directed towards them: how many World Series rings does Beane have? And every GM has his flaws, including ones foisted upon him by the owners (like Zito), the key is overcoming them.
I can remember how bad the Giants were, and they used that rebuilding period to create the marvelous teams from 2009 to today which I have loved. So I have no problem with the losing period, Sabean used that period well. Beane however, had repeated aborted rebuilds, with no clear strategy or tactic, switching back and forth between competing and selling, I got whiplash watching that. Given how poorly his draft picks have been, generally, since early in his tenure as GM, even during his losing years, does that mean he was just lucky bad if Sabean is lucky good?
I will say that Billy Beane seems to have gotten more focused in the last couple of years, but for awhile there he sure did seem to be trading just for the sake of trading.
DeleteI've just got to say, this is ridiculous. How can anybody say that a GM is lucky for winning two championships?! You realize how many GM's don't come cloe to building a championsip club or even a contender? I'm so sick of "fans" who call for the management's head when things go wrong. Are we all disappointed in the team's performance this year? Absolutely. But it's not because this team wasn't built to win again. All a GM can do is put the best team on the field, and I feel he did a fine job of that this offseason. Sure, I was hoping we'd find a regular LF with a productive bat, but Blanco has been great this year, and you don't predict your starting CF to miss half the season. At some point, the players on the field need to pull their heads out and start playing with some conviction. Sabean will likely try to boost the team at the deadline if we can manage to make it their wit a decent record (and if we lose a couple of our Top 40 prospects, so be it). Right now, this is not a good baseball team. But to put that on Sabean and say he's been "lucky" makes me sick. Maybe it's time for some of the fair-weather fans to start following a different team.
DeleteHey, I say give it up to Trader Billy in the past year plus. Why any team would buy a reliever off of Beane and give up an OF I have no idea... But Boston sure did give it up. The Cespedes signing was good. And how about that Josh Donaldson? Plus he had a good evaluation on pitchers for his AZ trade. Is this a squirrel getting a nut or has he changed his evaluation process? Alls I know is I love his pick of Addison Russell, that was an inspiring change of strategy.
DeleteOnly way for Sabean to quiet the critics is to win another. The third one won't be luck, we swear.
I'd point out Jon Daniels had a juggernaut in Texas, and they are able to bring fresh reinforcements because they are the most aggressive team on the IFA market. But they sure do trade off a lot of bats. Using a very low barrier of 5 WAR, here are the Rangers "wins" in drafting: Tommy Hunter 2007 (traded); Chris Davis 2006 (traded); Craig Gentry 2006; Derek Holland 2006; John Danks 2003 (traded); Ian Kinsler 2003; Scott Feldman 2003 (released).
Now the Rangers get their players from reclamation and trades and IFA, different strokes for different folks. But they live and die on those trades. The Giants are a lot more conservative on the trades. And the IFA hasn't treated them well except for Fat Ichiro. And they haven't hit on the reclamation the way the Rangers did with Cruz and Hamilton.
To me it looks like sideways trade, ala Shea Hey Hillebrand or Garko time. Those trades were not kind, but they also didn't hurt. The hope is the player catches fire, like Scutaro did. Of course, every once in a while the trade is for something terrible like Orlando Cabrera, and the Giants are stubborn about their evaluation and he sits and sits in the lineup... So it can go both ways for sure. Exciting times. I want to see something creative to shake things up, and the team has been creative.
BTW, no rumors about Jeffy Frenchy yet? He's gotta be a FA within 72 right?
And yes, I'm not saying that he doesn't have some smarts, after so many years as GM, he has to have some to survive that long. And I applaude what he has done the past couple of years.
DeleteThough I would note that a lot of that success was built on his bold bet on Cespedes, otherwise that would be a $9M annual hole in his budget, particularly given the very poor history of Cuban prospects trying to make it in the majors, particularly as hitters. If Sabean is considered lucky, then this signing has to be considered extremely lucky because the history of big money international free agent signings in the Carribean region is littered with a lot of big money busts, BA's list of top signees is a cautionary tale of woe. That Cespedes and Puig have been so successful so far could be a sign that things are changing.
And as I noted above, BP's formula for playoff dominance is built on strong K-oriented pitching, and Billy's teams are usually at or below average in that way, and thus generally woefully underequipped to do battle in the playoffs, reducing their chances of going deep greatly.
Pitching to win in the playoffs are built with pitchers like Cain, Lincecum, and Bumgarner. Pitchers who are dominant in starts, striking out a lot. Billy has never really developed anyone like them nor traded for players like that, though there was Gio, one out of many non-strikeout pitchers. Look at their main rotation last year, not one broke 7.0 K/9, and only Straily among all their starters broke that barrier.
And a linchpin of their winning is a 40-ish YO pitcher that they signed, not developed, Bartolo Colon. They were 14-10 last year, 13-3 this year with him starting. Take that away and they are 36-32 this season, 4 games over .500, and they would be farther behind in the division, that's equivalent to a 44-40 record, 4.5 games behind Texas.
And picking up Blackley from the Giants was a stroke of luck for them too, he was actually good for the Giants in AAA, I was unhappy to lose him. While he was only .500 roughly starting for them, he saved them from having to start Ross or Godfrey or other AAA starters, even more times.
What are you talking about? They developed Zito, Hudson, Mulder, Gonzales, Haren, Cargo all solid regulars in the majors. Name me one solid regular from the Giants system in another major league team maybe Schierholtz and he is having a career year. Sabean can only win with top talent like Posey, Cain, Bumgarner, Lincecum, Romo while Billy Bean has done trades, bargain signings with half the payroll the Giants possess.
DeleteZito/Hudson/Mulder are from Alderson's tenure. Hudson is one of those awesome draft stories and Zito/Mulder are bonus babies. Gonzales and Cargo are the same guy right? The A's had Haren from the Mulder trade. So he's a St. Louis draft/develop story. Then they traded Haren to Arizona for among others Cargo. Then of course they shipped him along for our buddy Matt Holiday. So you actually didn't name a single guy the A's developed under Beane.
DeleteGonzales = Gio I'm guessing (who came from the White Sox in the deal with Swisher). Also, isn't the argument that other teams don't have quality players from the Giants system a sign that the Giants know who to keep and who to let go?
Delete-Not the previous Anonymous
Cargo does not count as a win for Beane, it counts as a negative. If Beane really knew what CarGo was capable of, thought he was all developed, why the hell did he trade him (and OTHERS!) to rent Holiday for one season?
DeleteSame with Ethier, that trade was bad from almost the moment it was made, Ethier HIT BETTER than Milton Bradley that first season and then Beane let Bradley go, whereas Ethier has been producing for LA since.
You trade enough times, you are going to find somebody good along the way. Name me one really good player that Beane has drafted in the last dozen years?
2001: Crosby and Bonderman, and the A's never played Bonderman, trading him to Tigers for renting Lily basically
2002: Swisher has been pretty good, Blanton OK, Ziegler too
2003: Ethier ahs been good, and I noted how Beane basically threw all that value away
2004: Street and Suzuki have been OK, Braden contributed
2005: Pennington and Buck, contributors
2006: Cahill has been good, Bailey too.
2007: Wow, basically a goose-egg (and Sabean has had those too, any good GM will at one time or another), but Doolittle looks like he'll be OK to good
2008: Weeks (I don't follow minors much anymore, maybe someone on BA prospect list?)
2009: Straily looks like he'll be at least contributor, but otherwise another swing and miss
2010: Choice has been good prospect, but Yordy not so much, and still lots of hurdles for Choice, but still, so far so very good, though his OK year in AAA this season suggest that his potential is limited. AJ Griffin looks like he'll be OK at minimum, maybe good.
2011: Gray is looking very good right now in AAA, but he's actually been very disapointing up to this season, so maybe this year is fluke, I mean, how did he go from 5.9 K/9 in 2012 in AA to 9.3 K/9 in 2013 in AAA? He must have developed a heck of an off-speed pitch or something. Speaks to the logic of TINSTAAPP, as either you are a pitcher or you aren't, there are no pitching prospect, per se.
2012: Shankbone has been extolling the wonders of Addison Ruseell, so who am I to disagree? :^) Seriously, though, 19 YO SS hitting .822 OPS in Advanced A ball, that IS a heck of a pick. And most of that is power, not HR power, but XBH power. Like what we've been hoping Brown would be.
So far, no really good player, though Swisher is pretty darn close but not really a star player, plus Ethier but Beane basically threw him away for negative value because Ethier actually outhit Bradley that first season, and he did that in pitcher's park LAD plus pitchers parks in SF and SD. I noticed that he did select Harden the year before, but while good, I think his injuries mitigated a lot of his value.
Sabean with similar value picks, plus lost all those picks due to signings, found Cain, Lowry, Correia, Wilson, Dirty, Lincecum, Romo, Bumgarner, Posey, Belt, Crawford, plus Brown, Panik, Hembree, Kickham, Crick, Susac, Blackburn, Osich, Stratton, Agosta, all look like good prospects who might contribute to the team (off top of my head, there are probably a few others, but I think these are the major names). Even better, he never traded any of them away before they hit it big in the majors.
Wasted money on free agents: well, obviously, better not to do that, but you need to field a team so you pay for a free agent knowing that you will probably not get your money back, studies by Matt Swartz at BP and THT showed that teams know how good or bad their prospects are, generally, and thus keep them, as well as know who to keep and who to let go, as free agents let go by teams generally perform less well than the players kept by their teams. So if you need a 3B, you hold your nose and sign the best one you can, and hope he can deliver, knowing the odds are against you.
But trading away a prospect when he's ready to be a beast for you? Twice?? That's just shooting yourself in the foot big time, may as well dig the grave for that season.
Thanks for the catch not-anon#1
DeleteGio Gonzo might have been the pick if we weren't punting picks back in the day.
And that's be one thing to add to the mix - Sabean definitely inherited a win now mantra and was pushed to have low effort and money's on the farm front. So while he does have more moneys than Beane, he also didn't have any pipeline.
Yes the As had Haren because of a trade but what I am saying is that Beane is not afraid to trade guys and still remain competitive with a very low payroll. Sabean just signs some scrubs and hope they perform while overpaying. Burrell after batting .200 with Tampa came and hit over 18 home runs. Huff after batting .180 with Detroit came and batted .290 with over 25 home runs. Scutaro was batting barely .250 and then came batting .360 last year. If you don't call that luck I don't know what it is because all these players failed badly the year after except Scutaro who is still playing. Sabean would never go after someone like Cespedes or Puig. He is just too conservative and now the team has fallen way off the pace.
ReplyDeleteSo trading away Wheeler then Joseph the next season is conservative?
DeleteThat's what I would be afraid of, Beane trading guys when he has no idea how good they are. If he had a really good sense of that, how could they ever have traded away Ethier and CarGon the very off-season before they broke out in the majors? That's what Beane should be striving for, keeping those types of players, no matter what, particularly so if you are dealing with a limited budget, which is what Beane fans always throw out whenever they defend him. Again, keeping Ethier would have been better THAT FIRST SEASON, he out hit Bradley and of course, there is all that value afterward.
Funny an A's fan wants to talk lucky. Does Colon ring a bell? Cespedes is also up there, few Cubans (and I can't even recall one, but I assume there has been one, right?) big money guys have done well in the majors. How about all those fliers Beane has done over the years, Geronimo, The Big Hurt, Cust, to name but a few fliers Billy took. Billy succeeds, he's a genius, Sabean succeeds, he's lucky
I think there are logical explanations for all the ones you list for the Giants. Burrell didn't do well for Rays, but it is well known that most players, including veterans, find it hard to adjust from playing daily to DH-ing. There is a skill to that. Look at his last season with Phillies and what he did for Giants:
Delete2008-PH: .250/.367/.507/.875, with 33 HR in 536 AB, 16 AB/HR
2010-SF: .266/.364/.509/.872, with 18 HR in 289 AB, 16 AB/HR
Huff, on the other hand, had been a Jeckyll and Hyde type of hitter, somebody took all his half seasons and combined them, 2nd half plus next 1st half, and found his batting line to be relatively consistent. Given that we learned that he has had panic disorder issues, it is not surprisingly that he cratered once he was actually on a good team, expected to be a significant contributor. If you look at his 2009 stats, his batting peripherals were basically the same as it had been for his career, the only major difference was a horrible BABIP, and that came when he was traded to Detroit and expected to contribute big time (sound familiar?).
But look at the season before and his SF season:
2008-BAL: .304/.360/.552/.912, with 32 HR in 598 AB, 19 AB/HR, 85% contact rate, 8.0% BB%
2010-SFG: .290/.385/.506/.891, with 26 HR in 569 AB, 22 AB/HR, 84% contact rate, 12.4% BB%
I should also note here that a study in THT found that players who joined Bruce Bochy managed teams ended up hitting better, enough so that the study found that this added 1 win per season, just due to Bochy's influence.
Scutaro, well, he was just damn hot, and I had nothing last year, but this year, after learning his legs are mis-matched - one is one inch shorter - leading to chronic issues with back problems, his batting line now makes sense to me. Scutaro is actually a very good hitter. Very low K-rate leads to great contact rate. He has also been very good at taking walks all his career, yet guys like that are usually not career .278 hitters, and only .341 OBP.
Baseball Forecaster has research that explains the goodness of all this. Hitters with more walks than strikeouts are very rare, those who do that typically, on average, should hit .290 or above (not .278; though if you cover only his years since he became full-time starter at age 32, his batting line is .288/.353/.396/.749). 51% of hitters with more walks than hits batted at least .300.
As well, when the hitter's contact rate is over 90%, like it is for Scoots, hitters on average are in the .280-.290 range, which shows the power of taking walks.
And he really is good, he had some amazing stat last year, forgot what it exactly was, but he only had a handful of swinging strikes (over a whole season!) and did not have a swinging strikeout, or something great like that. And as great as he hit for us, he was basically due because he was getting BABIPed with Colorado earlier, here is his 3 prior season stats and his total 2012 stats:
09-11: .284/.356/.404/.761, .302 BABIP
2002T: .306/.348/.405/.753, .319 BABIP
So he did hit a little over what we might think, but he was basically in line with what he had done previously, dealing with the same aches and pains, just at different points of the season. And he's hitting .312/.365/.408/.773 this season.
So I understand why you think it might be luck, with a surface look, but if you look objectively at the stats, the players did not have an outlier in terms of performance, they had various reasons for bad luck that made it look like the Giants got lucky but the players actually was performing in line with prior levels of performance.
It appears to me the Anon is just trolling here to cause trouble. I'll let it go this time, but if this continues in future comment sections, it's gonna get the button.
DeleteSo should the Giants be buyers or sellers? I know they are within 4 games and anything can happen, but this year is a sellers market. Maybe it would be prudent to be sellers this year. Could see what u can get for Pence and Pablo. Might be able to add to the core of Cain, Madbum, Buster, Bcraw, etc. plus Brown and Hembree. If we can get AA guys, it could help them make another run in 2014 or 2015.
ReplyDeleteThe Giants WILL be buyers unless they fall more than 10 games out of a playoff spot.
Delete