When It's Time for a Change...

Moving Day

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:14:00 +0000

I've decided to move this blog to Word Press. You can now find it here.

Linky

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:46:00 +0000

That word sounds dirty, doesn't it? I have a shorter break at work today so this will be a little short.

I will be continuing my arbitration predictions but I recently found some recent cases missing from my database so I'm going to try and fix that before continuing. I have a terrible feeling I'll be digging through news reports from MLB.com for a few days.

Jim Callis laid out the first five picks in next summer's draft with our San Francisco Giants holding on at No. 5. He predicts the Giants take first-baseman Justin Smoak out of South Carolina because apparently the team is bereft of position prospects. Who knew?

Not to make a fuss but isn't that the exact same reasoning from last year when Sabean started off by picking two starting pitchers?

The Hardball Times finished off it's greatest World Series games series by grabbing the top-10 game sevens. The Giants lose three of the top-5, not counting 2002.

Finally, the Giants are looking into developing a parking lot near Mays Field into some kind of shopping center. I haven't been to a game in a few years since I'm now 500 miles north so I'm not sure how that would affect everything in the area. But I know that I haven't enjoyed driving out there when I have gone and normally BART it. The article suggests that other parking options would need to be created, but it still seemed intersting enough to pass on.

Arbitration Goodness

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 02:13:00 +0000

Looking at this post over at Biz of Baseball, I wanted to take my hand at predicting arbitration cases.

The one that seemed most interesting to me was Ryan Howard. He has the largest gap between the player and club offer and will get the highest raise of any player regardless how the case is decided.

Howard is asking the Phillies for $10 million and the club is only willing to pay $7. Another thing that interested me was that those figures are almost exactly what Albert Pujols and the Cardinals proposed four years ago.

Pujols lost that case despite hitting more than 40 home runs that year.

The first stumbling block for Howard is that his offer is so much higher than the club's. Since arbitration started more than 30 years ago 116 cases have been decided where the player had an offer more than 45 percent higher than the club. Players have won those cases nine times.

Howard comes in just under that mark at around 43 percent but I think those numbers show just how hard it is for a player to get closer to market value in arbitration. Matt Holiday recently opted for a 2-year, $23 million deal with the Rockies.

Pujols' case is the best comparable. In 2003, the year before his case, Pujols posted an 11.6 WARP and a line of .359/.439/.667. This last year Howard had a 6.4 WARP and hit .268/.392/.584. Pujols was second in the MVP voting and Howard was fifth.

The average player salary has gone up about 15 percent between 2004 and 2007, which would make Pujols' award just over $8 million now and probably more once the 2008 average comes in.

For now it looks as if Howard's best shot is to try and work out a deal with the Phillies before the case is decided.

Approach the bench

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 00:36:00 +0000

Today is arbitration numbers day! Hooray!

Players and clubs exchange figures today for what we can only hope become horribly divisive arbitrations hearings to determine their 2008 salaries. It's helped the Giants out before.

Coming into today the Giants had three players eligible for hearings, but that changed with Brad Hennessey agreed to a $1.6 million, one-year deal.

That leaves Kevin Correa and Vinne Chulk as the two remaining cases. But don't expect them to get all the way to the bench.

The Giants have had only one case in the last 10 years reach a hearing, losing a decision to A.J. Pierzynski in 2004. The team offered $2.25 million, he wanted $3.5 million, and by God he got it.

Since arbitration began in 1973, the Giants have had (as far as I can find, anyway) only six cases reach a hearing but they lost all but two. The lost their first case in 1981 over a $20,000 difference with Johnnie LeMaster. Pierzynski's millions are the most ever awarded, be it a win or a loss.

One intersting thing about the Pierzynski deal was that it is currently the 13th greatest difference ever between a team and a player. The tops is still Albert Pujols' $3.5 million gap in 2004. In 2003 he made $900,000 after hitting .359/.439/.667 for the Cardinals. He wanted $10.5 million, the team offered $7 million and the team won out. Still, the $6.1 million difference between his 2003 and 2004 salaries is the second-greatest difference awared in an arbitration case. The tops is the $6.9 million difference Miguel Cabrera was awarded in a win over the Marlins last year.

No wonder he's a Tiger now.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 03:03:00 +0000

Link dumps are fun!

John Sickels: Giants' Top 20 Prospects
John Sickels at Minor League Ball lays out the preliminary Giants top 20. The top is mostly as expected with Manny Burriss a little lower than I had hoped, as John really is wary of Manny's bat. Henry Sosa is No. 2 overall which surprised me a little bit. A lot times I lose track of players during the season and since he wasn't among Baseball America's top 30 last year I sort of didn't climb him in my mental list despite a good 2007.

We're really getting bored now
Wouldn't Johnny Estrada be a more suitable option for a backup catcher than what we have already?
-- Randy S., Paradise, Calif.

That's a question from Chris Haft's recent mailbag. Are we all getting desperate for action? Even discussing who would be a better backup catcher for the 2008 Giants is so far from useful I can't imagine how Randy S. spends the rest of his days. Arguing with his wife over the color of garbage bags? Agonizing over which copy of Harlan County War to rent at Blockbuster. Sure they're the exact same thing but you can tell from the box which one may have more scratches.

Haft does have some good answers to mostly on point questions but occasionally he'll slip something like "... ideally, the club will address the third-base issue and add a veteran reliever to provide experience and stability before pitchers and catchers report on Feb. 13 ..." in there just to mess with me. He seems to hint at times he gets the whole stathead thing and then something like that will just make me twitch a little bit. We don't really need veteran anything. We need to throw as many young arms at the wall as possible and keep throwing until enough stick.

Chris Shelton and other players who wont be on the 2008 Giants
Chris at Bay City Ball rounds up the 15 spring training invitees and continues the discussion over Chris Shleton being DFA'd by the Rangers. Sure Shelton would be an excellent pick up but these players always seem to elude the Giants, even with the glaring need they have. That's why Craig Brazell will be playing in Japan this year.

Steroids climb the ladder
I try to stay away from the whole steroid issue - it just doesn't interest me at all. The steroid era is just that, an era in the game where all the players did something that changed the environment. Stop the holy war.But when the commissioner of baseball openly, in a way, discusses sanctions against your team's general manager, well, maybe I'll start to pay attention. Selig only responded when directly asked whether he would consider punishing Brian Sabean and I don't think this will ever go anywhere, but in this environment where everyone is so in need of at least one head at every level to role, well, it's hard to tell.

Pete Happy has a friend

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:24:00 +0000

Check out this Ken Rosenthal article on possible landing places for Pedro Feliz. Interested teams - besides the Giants, of course - are the Dodgers, Brewers and Phillies.

Rosenthal doesn't see the Dodgers as fitting and with the signing of Mike Cameron I can't see there being enough space on the BrewCrew for Feliz unless Bill Hall finds a new address.

But after you read and digest it go back to the lede. If it still says Feliz's career OBP is .248, congratulations, you just read an error in a Ken Rosenthal column.

And the lede itself is kind of weird. It suggests that since The Worst Third Baseman in the Major Leagues has averaged 21 home runs the last four years in an environment such as Mays Field, if he only had an OBP 60 points higher than his career average (though in the article it's written as 100 points) he would be getting $10 million a year.

(OK, quick aside. Feliz was not TWTBITML last season. That was Nick Punto, based on RC/27. But I'm sure we can all agree anything that happens in Minnesota doesn't really count, at least when it comes to offense.)

Last year Feliz drew 29 walks in 2007. To get to .348 Feliz would have needed to reach base an extra 34 times based on his PA from 2007. That means replacing 34 strikeouts with walks, hits or being hit by a pitch. If Ken Rosenthal magically extended the season the walk Pedro Feliz to respectability and treasure it would take around 55 straight walks to get him there. That would be about 14 extra games of walking in every plate appearance.

So yeah, Pedro Feliz is close to a $10 million player. All he needs is 14 games a year against a 10-year-old who really just wants to go home and play X-Box instead of the stupid Little League game his parents signed him up for. That is all that separates Happy from his rightful glory.

Doing it right

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 20:56:00 +0000

As a journalist who feels that online is the only way to distribute and digest information I have a deep appreciation for people and organizations that know how to get the word out. Conversely, I have an intense loathing for anyone who can't figure it out.

I have 11 Giants related feeds in my Google reader. That's mainly because I'm still selective about the information I receive directly sent to me. I'm more a person that wants the very best at my door and I'll follow links to the rest when they warrant it.

One of the chosen few is the Chronicle's Giants feed. I also subscribe to Henry Schulman's podcast on iTunes. While the podcast can be nice occasionally while I'm reading something else the feed itself is terrible.

Today I had seven new entries waiting for me. One was Giants related, this Schulman piece on the Pedro Feliz talks which has made the rounds. Two others were on the hall of fame vote and four were about Roger Clemens and steroids.

Those six other articles may have something Giants related. The hall of fame articles could compare Jim Rice to Orlando Cepeda or tell some interesting story of Goose Gossage discussing facial hair with Gaylord Perry, a renown barber from his college days in Akron, Ohio. I don't know. I didn't read them.

San Francisco is in the middle of one of the most technologically advanced areas in the country and it can't even put up a blog on it's hometown team that does more than post a comment starter every few days. What I want, and I'm guessing others like me, is something like what the Mariners have at the Seattle Times.

I know the Chronicle shouldn't be considered the premier source of Giants information for the stats based community, that would most likely be the San Jose Mercury-News. But shouldn't we as fans expect more information from the city's paper?

Lineup Analysis of Doom

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 23:17:00 +0000

I’ve been putting this off for a while now. The tools were there. The Baseball Musings lineup analyzer. The Bill James Handbook predictions. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.

But with Aaron Rowand now set to man centerfield and hopefully no major acquisitions forthcoming I thought it was time to see just how bad the 2008 San Francisco Giants lineup could be.

Here’s the lineup I used:

C: Benjie Molina
1B: Dan Ortmeir
2B: Ray Durham
3B: Kevin Frandsen
SS: Omar Vizquel
LF: Randy Winn
CF: Rowand
RF: Nate Schierholtz

The names and numbers went in and out came the answer: 3.698 runs per game.

That translates to 600 runs in 162 games. That would have put the Giants dead last in the NL last year by 70 runs (Washington scored 673, the Giants 683). Here’s the link to the full report.

But that is kind of a worst-case scenario. The best has the lineup scoring closer to 700, better than last year’s team, which included Barry Bonds. But that is still more than 150 runs behind the Phillies and Rockies.

This exercise isn’t a prediction that the Giants will score exactly 695 runs next year. It’s just a way to temper my expectations for the year. Looking at past and likely future performance, the 2008 Giants will be around the worst team in the league but not historically bad. With a few breaks, who knows.

Of course Ray Durham could be traded mid-year, Pedro Feliz could be resigned or Brian Sabean could decide Jason Lane is the best young player in the game and must be acquired at all costs. And really, this is all just for fun anyway.

UPDATE: I wanted to add the annual Diamond Mind sims at Replacement Level Yankees Blog to the mix. They have the Giants scoring 714 runs in 2008, which is close to the best lineup the generator spit out. Of course the Diamond Mind excercise is a little more complex than what I ran, so hopefully (or not depending on how low you'd like to see the draft pick be) that's closer to the truth.

Quickly

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 06:19:00 +0000

It's a holiday (Happy New Year's to everyone) and I don't pay myself overtime so this will be quick.

If you click here two things will happen. You will (1) see Shea Hillenbrand holding a horse. And (2) you will read that the Giants inquired as to his availability to play baseball next season.

I can't decide which is more frightening, but I know which has the lowest WARP potential for 2008 (and it's not the horse).

A title for all season

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 06:59:00 +0000

As is quickly becoming a tradition I received the Bill James Handbook for Christmas yet again. This is a very good tradition. And as I've found happens when I get the handbook I start writing a bit more.

I wont go into most of the player stats, which can be obtained in some form elsewhere, or the projections which can be had (in sortable tables no less) here.

But one of the things I enjoy most is the manager profiles. For as little as a I think a manager can affect a game, it's fun to see what they think they can do. For instance the Mets under Willie Randolph attempted 246 steals, leading the league for the second time in three years. But that may have had more to do with Jose Reyes than Randolph.

I always head straight for the Giants' manager first and this year was an interesting experiment. Bruce Bochy, who had a huge track record established with only one team, finally moving to a new situation. Would he change his tendencies away from Petco and with a new set of talent, or would he manage strictly to the team?

Bochy lead the league in two categories; long outings (110+ pitches) and platoon percentage.

Platoon percentage is something he's lead the league in twice and also something he's done pretty consistently throughout his career so it makes sense it would continue in San Francisco.

And most of Bochy's decisions went with his career norms, be that a little above or below the average manager. He used a few more lineups and attempted a few more steals than other managers in 2007, but otherwise he was pretty boring.

But what bothers me is the long outings. In his previous 12 years with the Padres Bochy average 42 quick-hook games and 15 long outings. This year he had 26 quick-hooks and 36 long outings.

And what bothers me the most is that 16 of those starts, nearly half, belonged to Matt Cain, owner of a 22-year-old right arm. According to BP Cain finished seventh in the majors with 1885.34 abuse points per start and eighth overall. Abuse points exist to show when arms are being overused and pushing dangerously close to injury. Why would Bochy be pushing Cain in the middle of a lost season to possibly injure half of the organization's hope in a post-Barry world?

Well, here're the averages from Cain's 16 starts with 110 or more pitches:

GS	Record	IP	H	ERA	BB	SO	HR	BF	Pit	Str	GmScr	Score
16	3-7	6.81	5.3	2.64	2.688	6.25	0.5	28.31	114.5	72.06	61	+0.33

It seems obvious looking at the Games why Bochy let him pitch so long: In only two starts did he leave with a difference of three or more runs, both times with the Giants ahead (one of which they ended up losing). In those 16 games Cain had an ERA of 2.64. Bochy was just letting a good pitcher finish up a good game.

Cain also came out at the end of an inning 10 times. I wonder if his pitch counts would have been maybe a batter or two smaller in the American League where Bochy wouldn't have had to worry about Cain's spot in the order.

While those may be reasons why Bochy chose to stretch Cain it's no excuse for letting your best young pitcher hit 110+ 16 times, half of his starts in 2007. But maybe this can't all be laid at Bochy's feet.

Cain came out in the sixth three times, four times after the seventh and nine times in or at the completion of the seventh. Only five times all year did he pitch into the seventh and not get over 110 pitches.

It seems Cain needs to be more efficient with his pitches. His walks were a tick higher in these starts then his season average. And maybe the only way Cain can learn to pitch better while tired late in a game is to do so.

But the funny thing about that is how different his walks were in his first eight 110+ starts than the second half. His first eight starts he walked fewer than three only once, a loss to the Mets on May 31. In his second eight starts he walked three or more not once. But the results weren't that much better.

	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	Pit	Str	GmSc	Pit/BF
First 8	55.4	39	15	15	30	46	3	2.44	233	918	555	493	3.9
Second 8	53.5	46	19	17	13	54	5	2.86	220	914	598	483	4.2

It'll be interesting to watch how Cain's efficiency progresses next season and how he's treated by his manager.

We came to dance, Aaron

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 03:34:00 +0000

I promised a non-alarmist, calm headed look at Aaron Rowand. Maybe even looking into the good side of the signing. This may not live up to those high-minded ideals but it will shoot for them.

OK, here we go. Unlike Petco, Mays Field only slightly reduces runs. What it does that helps pitchers is kill home runs. Rowand is the type of player that the Giants should sign to take advantage of this unique space the team plays in.

Mays Field's Triple's Alley in left-center plays to hitters with doubles power with enough speed to stretch those to extra bases and not enough power to kill their value through decreased home run power. It also requires quick, plus-fielding outfielders.

Rowand has hit 30 or more doubles in every season he's had at least 500 PA ('04, '05, and '07) and since 2005 is +21 on the Fielding Bible +/- system. While not the best fielder, by many accounts he is above average.

While Barry Bonds has shown that no park can defend against a guy who can hit the ball 500 feet, those guys are expensive and few and far between. Until the team can develop one of those it needs to go after outfielders such as Rowand with a little power and good range to play to the strengths of the park.

But the reason to do that is to get players other teams don't value so you can build cheap and mistakes don't cost you that much. The Giants are so far behind the game at this point they need to steal talent wherever they possibly can and save money to lock up the pitchers they seem to be able to develop. Finding players whose talents can only be best used on your field is definitely a start.

Signing Rowand at his peak value is not the way to go about it. So my happy face analysis is that Sabean has found himself a player that should work well in San Francisco, but not at this price, at 30 years old and at this team's pace of development. Maybe in a few years, if Rowand continues to play at his current level, this might turn out to be a key signing for a winning team. But so many steps have to happen between here and there it just looks like Sabean is grasping for anyone who can help keep this team out of the record books offensively next year.

Oh Sabean of old, how I missed thee

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:09:00 +0000

But for the Giants the best thing that can happen is nothing. No free agent signings. No major trades. No discussions with Pedro Feliz.
-Me, Dec. 3, 2007

Just over a week. That was all the time it took for Brian Sabean to completely destroy any remaining faith I had in him. And really, I'm surprised he held out that long.

Today he signed Aaron Rowand to a five-year, $60 million deal. Which isn't so bad in itself than in what it represents.

Rowand serves no particular need for a team in the Giants' situation. Not only do they have a player who can hold down center in Randy Winn (not to mention Fred Lewis, Dave Roberts and Rajai Davis, though those aren't great options) but the team isn't at that point where Rowand can make any significant difference.

This year Rowand was worth around 8-9 wins to the Phillies (7.8 WARP1, 90 win shares), though outside of Philly and with a slight drop next year let's just say the Giants improve by six games just from him. Congratulations, even going by Pythagoras you are now an 83-win team. And that's with Barry Bonds.

Rowand is a player you add when you are at 80-wins on paper and you need to get into the playoffs. Yes, the rise of Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain could potentially offset the loss of Bonds, Ray Durham could return to professional baseball and in Bruce Jenkins' wet-dream Rowand could provide the spark everyone was lacking while a Bonds-less clubhouse gains a magical five wins by not being so pissy anymore. But with two huge holes bookending the infield and nothing waiting until Angel Villalona, Rowand doesn't seem to make much sense.

This signing shows Sabean is either overly optimistic at how fast this team can rebuild or has no plan on how to rebuild. After months of talking about how the young players were going to get a chance and that there would be an acceptance of starting over, Sabean pulls out a decidely Sabean move.

At five years Rowand will be 35 when this contract finishes. The Giants do not need a 35-year-old starting CF in 2012 or a $12 million bench player.

But the numbers that really get me are the ones below.

.309/.374/.515

.313/.368/.521

That top line what Rowand did this year. The line below? His 90th percentile PECOTA projection. Way to skim for potential bargains, Sabes.

(I'll try and look at the good side of this deal tomorrow, but I just needed to get that out now before calm and reason returned.)

If only we could get Alex Rios, I could forget Bonds

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:07:00 +0000

Most off-seasons present a chance to be optimistic. Adding that new third starter or that guy for the fifth-slot to protect the core from last year is all it will take. Those young guys who came on like gangbusters in September will come into their own and rule the division.

But for the Giants the best thing that can happen is nothing. No free agent signings. No major trades. No discussions with Pedro Feliz. Not that losing Noah Lowry would be small, but it's not like auctioning off Johan Santana to the Evil Empires or the semi-annual Fish Swap Fire Sale.

All Brian Sabean needs to do to reclaim my and maybe many other fans' faith is not screw things up more than he already has. That's what was so reassuring about his statement that Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum were hanging around unless he was "shocked." And what makes things such as this so shocking.

Now, remember, the link above goes to a Canadian source. Who knows what kind of crazy things are going on up there.

But if Sabean is pulling out of the Miguel Cabrera talks over Cain and Lincecum but is simply waiting for Alex Rios to pull the trigger ... well, that is a world I no longer want to be a part of.

I have no faith in the rumor as reported (Troy Glaus is also mentioned). Sabean may be trying to pull that off but unless he has been flat out lying than Jonathan Sanchez is probably the target.

Either way it is just one more reminder that while these rumors are fun they are worth less than the stock of the newspapers that publish them.

Unnecessary Worrying

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 00:04:00 +0000

The first few months of After Barry seem to be going as well as anyone could have expected. Brian Sabean appears to have woken up from his nearly decade long infatuation with over priced veterans at every position. In a well publicized conference call he came out and said that the team has to be ready to take chances with unproven young players in starting positions.

The newest rumor is that fallen prospect Andy Marte of the Indians is on the radar. Whether or not he will someday be a star isn't really the point. The key is that he is the type of player the team has to look at. Nine Andy Marte's could produce one Carlos Pena. That would go a long way over the next five years to making a competitive offense to go with Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and the rest of the staff.

This isn't new stuff. But in looking at the Marte rumor I saw what the Giants have that matches up well with the Indians is relief pitching. They know Joe Borowski isn't a real closer. If he implodes that moves Rafeal Betancourt out of the eighth and the team wants a player ready to step in to that role.

The Giants have a glut of relievers that are sitting just below that level, but Marte may be so far in the dog house it doesn't matter. I started looking first at Brad Hennessey, because 19 shinny saves can go a long way in creating an overvalued player.

But is Hennessey the new Joe Nathan? Both players began as starters, performed around average and then pitched somewhat better as relievers. Nathan had an ERA+ of 142 in 2003, compared to 130 for Hennessey this year. Hennessey's K/BB wasn't as impressive, but if you match the two up by age they follow a similar path (Especially age's 24 and 25 when both were starters). Nathan's 2003 was his age 29 season, 2007 was Hennessey's 27.

What kills the comparison is the huge jump in K/9 Nathan had in 2003, to over a K per inning. Hennessey isn't anywhere near that and probably wont be. But as I said Nathan was two years older than Hennessey, so we'll see how he progresses. But in an offseason where it seems like most people will be happy as long as Cain and Lincecum stay put, that there're are plenty of ways to lose talent for nothing. Taking a flyer on Marte is great, but that's no reason to just throw players off the bus.

The Giles brothers play naked robber

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:58:00 +0000

I’d like to say the lake of updates over the last few months – missing Bonds breaking Aaron’s record, the Matt Morris trade and other Giants related, um … news – was some sort of symbolic protest against the abortion that was the 2007 San Francisco Giants.

Unfortunately the real reason was a combination of a change in lifestyle (my fiancé moved in with me), the consequences of that change (planning a wedding) and the release of OOTP 2007. I’m not proud of that last one, put if there was any year I needed fake baseball, this was it.

Mercifully the regular season ended, at least for the Giants. Right now I’m watching the Rockies play the Padres in ONLY THE SEVENTH TIEBREAKER GAME IN HISTORY!!11!!!11!!! (thanks TBS announcers).

I am firmly in the Rockies camp. I have a hatred for the Padres that rivals that for the Dodgers. Even when they were bad they always seemed to play just well enough to steal one from the Giants when they needed it most. And the Giles brothers creep me out.

The Rockies are the middle child of the NL West. They don’t have the history of the Giants or Dodgers – Hell, even the Padres – and don’t have the success of the Diamond backs, the baby of the division people just love to heap praise on.

What has really brought me over to them is that this is the most wins this franchise has ever seen and it would be heart breaking for me to know that the most successful season in their history would go for not. I even picked the Padres at the beginning of the season as my NL representative in the World Series, but I would give that up to see the Rockies lose in three games to the Cubs.

My picks:

NL
Padres over Cubs
Phillies over Diamond backs

Padres over Phillies

AL
Red Sox over Indians
Yankees over Angels

Yankees over Red Sox

World Series
Yankees over Padres (Yawn and a tear)

Cain-related pun with the word 'close'

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 19:24:00 +0000

Running a baseball team is hard. People seem to forget this sometimes. There are 25 players on the major league roster, plus the 40-man which must be meticulously managed as well as hundreds of minor league players scattered around the country. The available pool of talent is more or less every baseball player in the world. And all of this is done on a restricted budget and in competition with 29 other teams, many of which have much more money.

And like almost anything in life one move can have lasting impacts on others. Brian Sabean liked to say during the Vlad Guerrero chase that signing him would have kept five role players off the roster. Signing Barry Zito to The Albatross will have lasting effects for the next seven years. Good lord, seven years. Let’s move on, shall we?

So as the market for Matt Morris has dried and crumbled, it seems from the various rumor mongers on the tubes that attention has redoubled on Noah Lowry. He’s young, cheap and relatively effective, especially compared to the other pitchers available right now. So while it may be enticing to start speculating what bounty of young position players could be pried away for young Noah, no move is made in a vacuum.

Henry Schulman repeated a rumor that’s been sent around recently that the organization is looking into turning Matt Cain into a closer next year to help him regain his control, cut down on his innings (Cain currently ranks eighth in the majors in abuse points, right behind Zito) and supposedly help is confidence after the disastrous run support of this season.

The common wisdom is that pitchers are more valuable as starters. They throw more innings, get more outs. What’s there to debate? But since Jonathan Papelbon it seems everyone wants to convert every other young starter into a closer. Looking at John Smotlz, someone who has spent prime years and succeeded at both roles, its obvious you can be value from both spots. Looking at his final two years as a closer (03-04) and his last two complete seasons, Smoltz had 117 PARA as a closer and 169 as a starter. His WARP1 totals were 12.8 and 15.7. So yes, even someone who acted as one of the best closers in the game had more value as a starter, though a 7.3WARP1 season out of the bullpen (Smoltz’s 2003) is not too bad either.

But that means someone needs to replace Cain in the rotation. If Lowry is traded that means in 2008 the Giants have Zito, Morris, Tim Lincecum, possibly the corpse of Russ Ortiz and a converted Jonathan Sanchez. Would the team really be that much better off getting 150 innings from whoever fill the cagey veteran fifth starter slot for Ortiz or letting Brad Hennesey or Randy Messenger close and have Cain in the rotation?

Really, if they’re worried about Cain’s workload (and they should be), monitor his pitch counts more and skip a start occasionally, such as they did last season. Cain is young, younger than Lincecum. This season hasn’t been good for any of the Giants and the organization probably just needs to hit the reset button at the end of the year. Bring everyone back in spring training and see how everyone has recovered. Sure, discus turning Cain into a closer. Options are fun. But let starting be the goal.

It's wrong. WRONG.

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 06:18:00 +0000

A coworker recently asked me what it's like for my favorite team to be a sideshow. I told him I've been a Raiders fan for a long time so I'm used to it.

Overall the attention given to the Barry Bonds home run chase hasn't bothered me too much. really, on any given night who else on this team deserves any attention. On numerous occasions I've read the line (or something similar): 'I can't wait until the Giants go back to being like any other last place team.' But for the most part I'm OK with it because I've been expecting it, prepared for it and now that it's here I'm ready for it. Yes, one player has taken over my favorite team but he is also the best player on that team and has done more to help this franchise win than any player since his godfather.

But then there are times such as tonight when I can't take it. Tim Lincnecum threw another decent start, six innings only two runs and two walks. While checking the boxscore on ESPN I saw the highlight video available so I clicked on it. I got to see Bonds popout and hit a double. No Lincecum, no Dave Roberts RBI. Just two almost meaningless at bats from a player who went 1-4. No one else on either team in the entire game deserved 10 seconds of time?

So tonight I'm ready for this whole thing to be over. I have nothing against Bonds really. I'm off the opinion that he wasn't the only one taking steroids if he did. If he's facing pitchers and opposing hitters juiced up then his records aren't out of context in his era and shouldn't be asterisked. I'd really rather players didn't do steroids, because of the effects on their health not the record book or so called sanctity of the game, but I don't think they were really cheating if it was an option freely available to all and not banned by the league. But this whole thing is making it harder for me to see Tim Lincecum highlights and that's just wrong. It's wrong.

You can jump now or jump later

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 06:50:00 +0000

I wanted to address this Ken Rosenthal tidbit real quick:

The Giants have expressed past interest in Sexson, who is owed the balance of his $14 million salary this season and $14 million next season.
The two teams apparently are not talking, but a Sexson-for-Matt Morris trade would make sense. Morris, also signed through next season, has struggled of late. Then again, Sexson is batting just .204.

Before I get into whether the Giants should do this I wanted to look at whether Sexson is even worth considering before putting him up against Morris. He’s had a terrible season so far but I’ve been surprised just how high the cliff he fell off of was, so I wanted to see if this is something we can expect him to rebound from.

First I went to Baseball Reference and neutralized his stats to get a quick and dirty idea of how unlucky he’s been (Do this for Matt Cain. It’s fun.). No luck. His line raises, but only to .203/.305/.406. Still crap.

So I went to FanGraphs. The big difference looks like Sexson has replaced a lot of line drives with groundballs, driving his BABIP to a staggering low .211. This isn’t all him being a terrible hitter, though that helps. For proof, Nick Punto, of the .218 average, has a .260 BABIP. Sexson is also hitting fewer home runs per flyball taking his ISO down to .203 from .240 last season. Those numbers have been on a steady decline since about 2004. One positive is that he is walking more and striking out less this season, for what it’s worth.

So is he worth it? As Rosenthal points out, Sexson and Morris are each making about the same next year so money is a wash. I hate to say it but having a big power hitter regress to the mean in a Giants uniform doesn’t sound that bad. Losing Morris would kill some space in the rotation and force someone such as Russ Ortiz up a little soon, but what the Hell.

But then I remembered this USS Mariner post from the off-season. Remember, this was written before the collapse. So yes, Sexson is on the decline.

Of course, Morris’ strikeouts rates have been on the decline since 2001 so who are we to quibble? And that’s the real point. I’ve spent this whole time arguing who is a better bet for the next season and a half, Richie Sexson or Matt Morris. Both are aging, declining and overpaid. Yet one of these two may be the best option for the Giantsin a deal this month. Is it 2010 yet?

Cast away me boys

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 18:25:00 +0000

We’re going notes style today because, well … because I’m lazy. Take that.

Jonathan Sanchez and Russ Ortiz are imminent. Sanchez will be up today with Ortiz following soon after. That means two relievers are taking the long trip to Fresno as Bochy said that Sanchez isn’t ready to spend time in Fresno to be converted to a starter just yet. Apparently Pat Misch had two long innings because the team wanted to give him some time before a demotion and Lefty suggests we send down Jack Taschner for the other spot.

Wednesday I started thinking about how much Boston wants to be rid of Wily Mo Pena and wondered in my head whether they would take someone such as Steve Kline just to be rid of him and clear room for a different trade. Seemed like a good idea. The Giants need to get young power hitters and get rid of old everybody. Perfect match. But Pena isn’t an ideal player. Tell me, which of these two career lines belongs to Pena and which belongs to Pedro Feliz?

Player A .251 .287 .434
Player B .256 .311 .468

If you’re a Giants fan you’ll probably guess Pena is the one with a slight lead in each category, which is correct. But still. Not so good. Of course Pena is seven years younger than Pete Happy and has had plenty of potential-establishing seasons, including his .301/.349/.489 line in 276 AB in 2006. His BABIP was over .400 that season but he does have a .339 career mark in that category. Basically he’s not the perfect player for the Giants but at this point they aren’t in a position to gripe. It’s going to take chances on guys like Pena to try and fins the next Jack Cust or Carlos Pena, who can give the team cheap power to supplement whatever hopefully comes up through the farm system.

Well apparently I was just a little off in my speculating as both Boston papers said today that Pena is indeed a marked man, but that the team wants a right handed hitting outfielder how can play center. Where could they find one of those?

And to prove I’m not insane, not only does the Herald mention Roberts and Winn by name today, but Chris over at Bay City Ball notes the same thing. Two Giants bloggers named Chris citing the same article on the same day? Let’s hope it’s a happy coincidence.

Just for old time’s sack I wanted to acknowledge all of the Salomon Torres trade rumors that have been flying around. This game is still one of my favorite as a Giants fan so Torres will always have a special place in my memory. Right now Torres is being linked to, who else, the Red Sox.

I also wanted to link to this article at The Hardball Times (even if it's written by a Padres fan), going over the top young talent in the NL West. Cain, Sanchez and Lincecum are all mentioned and itseems to be somewhat optimistic predictions for what it's worth.

Last and probably least, I’ve been listening to the new Against Me! Album, New Wave, since it came out last week. It’s still a good record, I love American’s Abroad and The Ocean, but seems to have more 70s and 80s style pop riffs embedded in the music. Still better than most of the music I listen to, but not the best the band has done.

Someday we'll all look back on this and laugh

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 06:37:00 +0000

At this point in the season I feel like when I think back to the 2007 season I’ll remember:

The beginning of the Lincecum era
Bonds’ chase
Losing 3-2 games

That’s why Monday’s 3-2 loss to the Cubs just seemed so perfect. It was the Giants great 12-year-old hope getting a no-decision in a close loss. If only Barry had hit a home run in the first it would have been the most memorable game of the season.

Tim Lincecum did well but his five walks were not a good sign. They didn’t hurt him too much but there’s no reason to do it just because you can.

More Trade Stuff

Figured I‘d just tack this on instead of making a new post.

As the Merc pointed out earlier the Mariners are interested in Matt Morris, at least enough to send a scout, but apparently so are the Braves, if the rumors hold. I know Balentien and Salty are way too much to ask for Morris but I’ll take anything the Braves or Mariners have to offer.

Something else that has been pointed out before but is now being talked about again by the Great Ken Rosenthal. Prospects are now way overvalued. It makes me wonder if maybe trading someone such as Jonathan Sanchez might not be such a bad idea. Rebuilding is all about ending up with more than you started with, normally through the draft and trading veterans for multiple prospects. But if the Giants can increase their overall talent and tradeable assets by giving up a youngster maybe they should, especially is the reward is (semi)young hitting.

Matt Morris really wants to stay in San Francisco

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 18:54:00 +0000

So after the Giants come back from a 6-0 deficit against the Dodgers, including a grand slam from a gimpy Randy Winn, go through 12 innings, use all but one player on the roster and lose 8-7, my only thought this morning was this:

They can never trade Matt Morris now.

The old man who had so much magic early in the season is showing his true colors the last month or so. We knew during his 2.50 ERA May that he wasn’t that good. This is the man who threw the fifth-lowest amount of pitches over 80 mph last season and hasn’t struck out at least six batters per nine since 2003. Even looking at his month-by-month splits, he had a 1.58 whip in five April starts, almost as bad as his 1.64 in two July starts.

Following his June 11 start against the Blue Jays, a complete game win where he gave up three runs, Morris was positioning himself as one of the top available starters for July if the Giants remained out of it. All he needed to do was to not blow up down the stretch and it seemed as if the Giants would have something to negotiate with.

But as one month of outstanding performance can make a mediocre veteran seem like the last piece a contender needs to get into the playoffs, so can one mistimed week destroy it. In his last five starts Morris has given up six or more runs three times. He gave up more than three once in his previous 13 to start the season. His ERA has gone from 2.56 after the Blue Jays game to 3.86 after his six-run fifth on Saturday.

Morris still had interest from some teams even on Saturday. Andrew Baggarly in the Merc reported that a Mariners scout was in attendance, who we can only hope lost the notes from the game on the way back to Washington. And this lovely message was on Morris’ Rotoworld page today:

… his trade value should be mostly gone. He's not someone any contender should feel confident about starting in October.

At this point it seems the Giants will get nothing for Morris they can use unless they are desperately short on baseball and things to carry them in.

It's putting the I and F so close together that scares me

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:26:00 +0000

Friday the Giants officially announced Brian Sabean’s two-year extension.

Considering I just put down my thoughts on Sabean I’ll keep this brief. But there was one thing that popped up here and here specifically that I wanted to address. From Henry Schulman’s article:

"The hope is we can surprise ourselves with what I think the team could be, led by (our) young pitching staff," Magowan said, "but if in fact we need to develop patience so that we're in a better chance to win and sustain winning in a couple of years or so, we're prepared to do that.

Developing patience and growing a farm system is not an if. It is the smart way to run a baseball team. Having home grown players allows you to move in cheap options who most likely will sign for less than they would get on the open market if you choose to keep them. Look at the deal Travis Hafner got recently. You want to develop players like that yourself because buying them on the open market is nearly impossible to do for nine-spots in the lineup.

Having a roster full of guys making the minimum or below market value allows you to go out and sign guys like, forgive the comparison but I think it fits, Vladimir Guerrero. Right now the Angels have five starters who were either drafted by the team or have never played major league ball for any other club. That has allowed them to go out and get guys like Guerrero, Orlando Cabrera and Gary Matthews (even if they should have passed on that last one). Minimum guys give you flexibility to enhance a contender when the time comes.

A deep farm system keeps you from having to spend millions on average players to fill bench spots. It gives you trading chips if necessary. There are other ways to win, but if the Giants truly want to create a new wave, as Sabean puts it, a sustainable stretch of winning, then that is how it’s done. Look at the Braves. Six of their eight position starters were drafted or came up through the club’s minor league system. Same goes for three of the five starting pitchers. The team occasionally adds a Gary Sheffield or J.D. Drew, but relies mainly on the players they can develop on their own.

So while the press conference talk is nice, I don’t buy it yet. I want to see who Matt Morris is playing for in August and how the roster in San Jose and Connecticut looks before I get comfortable with Sabean Redux.

The man in charge

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 06:28:00 +0000

The Giants begin the second half Friday but the games aren’t really the focus from now on. Sure, at bats will be checked for Barry Bonds home runs and to figure out which youngsters can hack it for next season. But from now on this is Brian Sabean’s season.

The second half starts amid rumors of his impending extension, to which I’m moving between slight nausea and a deep depression that I will never seen a champion at May’s Field in my lifetime. Sabean hasn’t done much in the last five years at least to prove he knows how the game, both on the field and in the GM’s office, is played anymore. Not to say the game has changed significantly in that time frame, but he seems less and less able to learn from what has happened and execute a plan.

Through the rest of this month at least he has the ability to try and change that. I’m sure the team could win its next 10 (sure meaning possible in the coin-flip sense) and make it to .500. San Diego and Los Angeles don’t play each other out of the break so they could both lose their first 10 and the Giants could be right back in this. But if the whole NL West doesn’t meet in the middle over the next two weeks the Giants are sellers at the deadline.

With Matt Morris and Ray Durham on the block the team can’t get much back but Sabean can prove he has a plan and try and execute it. It’s pretty much accepted the team has to move to rebuild the farm system and develop young hitters. Morris and Durham, even Jonathan Sanchez, aren’t going to get Adm Jones from Seattle are anything like that but moving guys such as that will show that Sabean knows this team isn’t built to contend. Even though he’s around hitting milestone homeruns every couple of weeks, the window to win a championship has passed. Basically all I’m looking for from Sabean is an acknowledgment of that fact.

There have been rumblings that Peter Magowan and the rest of the Giants management have been hampering Sabean (see link above), including hoisting the Barry Zito contract on him, which is infinitely more frightening. As any Raiders fan can tell you, having crazy people in ownership can kill any franchise. If Magowan is the problem there is no one to fire him and no hope beyond praying he comes to his senses and gets out of the way. If all he wants is to contend enough to keep revenue up there’s nothing a fan can do besides abandoning the team, which very few want to do.

Some have said one of Sabean’s conditions for the extension is more autonomy. If he stays I hope he gets it. But right now I want to see him take steps to fix the mess that was created, whoever made it. I’ll take a symbolic Morris for B-level prospect, something that shows he’s looking to what he can do and not what has happened.

A thing of beauty

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 02:35:00 +0000

As much as today's 7-3 loss to the Reds could be about Barry Bonds and his 751st home run, I was left with nothing but thoughts of Barry Zito.

As a former Bay Area resident and the fiance of an A's fan I had plenty of knowledge of Zito before he came over to the Giants this winter. My top three things:

That curveball
That guitar
At any moment he could collapse in on himself like a dying star

To me Zito was a good pitcher who got caught in a lot of disastrously bad innings. Seven run innings. He had a ton of starts, at least for a higher rotation starter, that ended after two or three innings with more than five runs given up.

But having him on the Giants has taught me more about his ability to fall apart and almost appreciate them in a coffee-house interpretive dance sort of way.

Tonight he had a no-hitter through four innings but gave up two runs. Twice -- TWICE! -- in a row he walked a batter with the bases loaded. That raises his career total to 13, not including three HBP. Tonight Zito got through five innings but had to come out becuase he threw 113 pitches.

I think in course of a season the Giants are better to have Zito than a AAA scrub. Obviously the team expects more with the money they're paying him, but through 162 games he does have the ability to dominate occasionally, so let's not get into the Through him off the Team discussion. That scenario's not coming up any time soon. The key to living with a pitcher like Zito on your team is just to take some comedy out of performances like this. If the bullpen had picked him up and the Giants had and offense that was not the Giants offense, he could have gotten away with a no decision.

Zito's just a horribly expensive piece of the puzzle to what will hopefully be a decent team in three to four years with Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum.

The good, the bad and Livermore

noreply@blogger.com (Chris) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 05:03:00 +0000

I recently talked a little bit about of unlucky Matt Cain has been this season, going 2-9 with a 3.38 ERA so far. But Cain hasn’t been the only Giants pitcher with luck issues, both good and bad.

Tim Lincecum

The Enchanter’s fantastic performance today seems to have put off those discussions of him skipping a start. Three hits, 12 strikeouts and no walks in seven innings will do that. But while Lincecum’s previous skid got a lot of attention no all of it was the rookie’s fault.

Coming into Sunday, Linceum’s FIP of 3.77 was 1.42 lower than his ERA of 5.19. That would rank him first in the majors if he had enough innings to qualify. That doesn’t say Linceum isn’t to blame. Sunday broke a streak of four straight games with at least four walks, including the rebound game against San Diego of Monday. But though Lincecum hadn’t been flawless, the Giants defense wasn’t helping the rookie out at all.

Noah Lowry

Lowry has had a bit of actual luck this season. The lefty is sort of the opposite of Lincecum, picking up a lot from the Giants in the field. This season Lowry has an ERA of 3.46, nearly a full run better than his FIP of 4.34. Lowry has had a slight dip in his BAPIP and home runs per game, with his home runs per fly ball down almost 4 percent from last season. It seems Lowry may grow into his FIP if those numbers fall back to where they’ve been.

Matt Morris

MattyMo has been the Anti-Cain this season, getting great results out of less than stellar stuff. His strikeout rate has continued to decline, and so far he’s actually been walking more batter than normal (2.83 in 2007 to 2.53 career). What’s so interesting is that his BABIP has remained almost constant along with his peripherals, right around .300. Even his batted ball rates are similar. Looking through his FanGraphs page it’s hard to tell, with my limited statistical knowledge, what the Hell is different. His home run per flyball rate is about half of last year, but I’m not sure if that’s enough. Hey, his FIP is 3.60, so maybe it isn’t all luck.

Barry Zito

No luck here. The $1 Billion Man is getting exactly what he deserves. And so if Giants management. Fans, no so much. Seven years is a very long time, and aging hippies are so sad.

Now non of these are end alls on luck. All of these pitchers have earned their stats to some extent, so to say someone is all good or bad luck is missing the point. It’s just interesting how pitchers on the same staff can have such different outcomes based on their peripherals.

Player A	.251	.287	.434
Player B	.256	.311	.468