II. By EqBRR, Angel Pagan has been worth +13.3 runs on the basepaths over the past couple seasons. Now, he’s obviously a speedy baserunner. He’s stolen 30+ bases in each of the last two seasons, and he’s done so at an 81% success rate. That’s not an outstanding success rate, but it’s good enough such that the value of his steals outweighs the cost of his occasional caught-stealings. But he’s also good at the stuff that isn’t so obvious. He’s good at going from first to third on a single. He’s good at advancing on the basepaths on a groundout. He’s good at tagging up on a flyout. And that adds up. In fact, he was so valuable on the basepaths in 2010 that he ranked second in the majors in EqBRR at +9.3 runs, right behind Michael Bourn.

III. Angel Pagan had the 12th best contact rate in the majors in 2011, among qualified hitters. 

IV. In 2011, Angel Pagan had an opponent RPA+ of 93, which was the lowest mark in the majors among players with 500+ plate appearances. This means that opponents were 7% worse than average against the pitchers Pagan had to face; or to put it another way, no hitter in the majors faced tougher pitching than Pagan, on average. As a New York Met, he had to see a lot of Cole Hamels, Roy Halladay, Jair Jurrjens, Tim Hudson, Josh Johnson, et al. That skewed his numbers.

In case you can’t tell at this point, I like Angel Pagan. A lot. Perhaps too much. There are certainly reasons to worry about Pagan. If you’re looking for reasons, here are 20 (courtesy of Baseball Prospectus).

But I’m feeling quite good about him.

• Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy (blogger interview session)
• Brandon Belt
• Madison Bumgarner
• Sergio Romo
• Eric Surkamp
• Aubrey Huff
• Jeremy Affeldt
• Bruce Bochy
• Ryan Vogelsong
• Ron Wotus

• He doesn’t seem to know yet what the plan is for Brandon Belt.
• Spring Training will definitely be used to sort some things out (though that’s not really surprising).
• Bochy didn’t believe Huff’s struggles were just about his shape, and doesn’t have any regrets in giving him a lot of playing time to work through his struggles. He took a lot longer to answer the final two questions (the ones about Huff)

What follows is a transcript of the interview…

Giants Nirvana: Do you see Angel Pagan as your leadoff hitter?

Bruce Bochy: Well, I think that’s a question we can answer better as we get into Spring Training. He’s certainly a very very strong candidate. We got Cabrera, too, who could lead off, and these are things that we need to figure out in Spring Training.

Giants Nirvana: Right now, how does Brandon Belt fit into your plans for the 2012 season?

Bruce Bochy: Great question, ‘cause we’re not really positive right now whether it’s at first base, left field, or, you know, being a role player. It’s gonna be competitive this Spring, and certainly his position is gonna be very competitive.

Giants Nirvana: Several years down the road, do you think Buster Posey will still be catching on a regular basis?

Bruce Bochy: Uh, that’s a hard one to answer too, because a lot of that will depend on Buster and of course, our team, what makes the most sense — to have him at first base or catching. But I will say, for right now, that’s what he’s gonna do.

Giants Nirvana: One of the things last year with Aaron Rowand’s struggles and Andres Torres’ inconsistencies… the Giants had sort of a vacancy in centerfield. Nate Schierholtz was hitting well; do you think he could handle centerfield at all? That was something that was never tried…was that considered?

Bruce Bochy: Well, we have talked about Nate going to centerfield, but now with Pagan and Cabrera that wouldn’t make any sense for us because Nate is such a good rightfielder, particularly in our ballpark. So it would just make sense to leave him in right field, where he’ll give us the great defense he gives us there, and have Pagan or Melky in centerfield.

Giants Nirvana: Now that it’s been made clear that Aubrey Huff was out of shape last season, do you have any regrets in the patience you exercised in handling him?

Bruce Bochy: Uh, no, I don’t think it’s just about him being out of shape. You know, we all have our ups and downs, and I think what’s important sometimes is you stay behind these guys whether young or veterans, but he was a guy that we certainly needed to get on track because we’re losing Posey and Sanchez; you know, he had done it before, so no, I don’t have any regrets. But it’s a lesson learned from everybody including Aubrey. You know, it’s just like you talk about Aaron Rowand. We ended up sitting him on the bench. You do what you think is right, and at that time, we thought Aubrey was one of our best options as far as somebody to help drive in runs.

Giants Nirvana: So you don’t think his struggles were because he was out of shape?

Bruce Bochy: Ehhh (pause), it could be a number of things…losing confidence, not quite being in the same shape. You know, it’s hard to say, you just have a year that you don’t see the ball as well, you don’t have the same confidence. But he’s gotta get that back. He knows it, and he looks determined to get back into what he thinks is the kind of shape he was in two years ago.