El Lefty Malo

LinCYcum

2009-11-20T07:05:53Z

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Not only was Tim Lincecum's second straight Cy a huge pick-me-up for Giants fans, it was a big vindication for people who have let go of the hidebound notion that wins and losses in a pitcher's record is a leading indicator of talent. It can be, but it doesn't have to be.

As you all probably know, Lincecum won 15 games, and his two main competitors Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals won 17and 19, respectively. The voters saw through Wainwright's win total, boosted by generous run support, and rightly had a hard time deciding between Carpenter and Lincecum. They were close in many respects.

But the closeness also brought out the bias toward W-L that some writers still harbor. I have a lot of respect for Andy Baggarly, but his blog post Thursday rankled me. He would have voted Carpenter-Lincecum 1-2 if he had had a BBWAA vote:

I do think wins are important, though. You can't completely discard them. Some pitchers just know how to win, whether it's 6-5 or 2-1. That's just as much a skill as anything else. There is a human element to this game that doesn't fit in any computer simulation. There's no stat to measure fortitude. But it's an important component in a performance-driven industry. There's a reason teams spend a lot of time assessing makeup and personality when they research draftees and potential free-agent signings. It matters. Just ask Matt Cain.

I don't know, and I will never know, how you would prefer a pitcher who "knows how to win" by giving up five runs in five innings when his team scores six to a pitcher who "pitches just well enough to lose" (i.e., "a loser") by giving up two runs in eight innings when his team only scores one. It makes absolutely no sense, and that's essentially Baggs's argument.

Granted, he acknowledges a bit earlier that wins "often are misleading" -- very true -- because they put responsibility on a pitcher for "things out of his control." Also true. But when the chips are down -- when Baggs can't decide between Lincecum and Carpenter -- he lets W-L record tip the scale.

I'm not saying Tim Lincecum doesn't have the fortitude to be a big-game pitcher. But I do believe he wasn't at his best in the second half. He didn't get consistent run support. He played for an inferior team, despite its 88 wins. And yes, his ERA demonstrates that he certainly pitched well overall. But at the end of the day, wins and losses are what matters. And a Cy Young Award winner doesn't allow his team, a contending team, to go 7-7 in his starts after the All-Star break.

What? Did Baggs actually look at Timmy's post-ASG game log? Fourteen starts, three of which could be assessed as mediocre or worse. Of the rest, he went at least 7 innings every time, and gave up zero earned runs three times, one earned run twice, two earned runs five times, and three earned runs once.

I'll allow that Carpenter could have been better than Lincecum down the stretch. Carpenter is an impressive, polished, dominating pitcher, and I am open-minded to the possibility that a non-strikeout artist like Carpenter can be as good as a guy who dominates with Ks. It's not as easy, because the pitch-to-contact guy needs great D and more luck so those bleeders and bloopers don't fall in; on the other hand the strikeout guy needs to learn to keep his pitch counts down and go deep into games.

But Baggs isn't making an argument for Carpenter's slight edge of sublimity. He's saying it's Lincecum's fault the Giants didn't win more of his starts, as if somehow he could have willed Aaron Rowand not to suck in the second half. Or Randy Winn to hit more than the occasional single. Or Ryan Garko to find his American League mojo.

Sorry, this has been rant-against-the-beat-writer week for me, but when these guys, God bless 'em, give credence to notions that make no sense, I can't sit still.

Let's move on. Even before the second Cy award, Tim was going to get bankalicious, probably breaking the first-time arbitration record for pitchers. Now there's no doubt, because the award itself is a market-fixing device. It's a codification of perceived value. His agent will say, Tim isn't just statistically the best pitcher in the National League the past two years, he's officially the best. Perhaps the judge will find that superfluous, perhaps not.

I'd love to see Lincecum sign long-term, but I don't think it will happen unless the Giants can move a big contract. And which one would that be? Uh, yeah.

A Hat Tip to Jason Schmidt

2009-11-19T07:25:21Z

Looks like Jason Schmidt is going to retire. For many Giants fans, Schmidt was purged from the history books when he signed with the Dodgers after the 2006 season.

Then he really disappeared: A total of 10 games in three years with L.A. thanks to a series of injuries that were about as predictable as tomorrow's sunrise. Dodger fans never had a chance to gloat.

From my memory Schmidt was a diminished pitcher and often injured in his last couple years with S.F. I'm surprised, then, to see that he made 29 and 32 starts in those years, '05 and '06. What I'm remembering, I guess, is that he wasn't nearly the monster he was in '02, '03 and '04, when he registered FIPs of 3.11, 2.64, and 2.92. (FIP is like ERA, but taking out all the things a pitcher can't control. If you think FIP is weird and nerdy, just ask new AL Cy Young winner Zack Greinke about it.)

Schmidt was awesome. Check this: In his career year, 2003, he threw 76% fastballs and 14% changeups. He was basically a two-pitch pitcher. That remained the case the next two years, but the ratio of changeups rose. He refined it -- or if you saw him throw it on this night, you'd say he perfected it.

The best changeup I've seen since then is from the guy who might win the NL Cy Young tomorrow, and whose use of the pitch continues to rise.

Jason Schmidt. Tim Lincecum. Best Giant pitchers of the decade. And the nod goes to....(envelope please)...

Who's The Cat That Won't Cop Out When There Are Giants All About?

2009-11-17T20:32:04Z

For those of you not down with classic '70s soul, the answer is "Haft!" As in Chris, as in the beat writer for sfgiants.com and a former daily newspaperman. The number of real news outlets is ever dwindling, as is the number of real, paid reporters competing for baseball news. Haft's role has become more important. Basically, there are only three people covering the Giants full-time: Baggs of the Merc, Hank of the Chron, and Haft.

Who's got the laptop -- click-click-clack
That's a sex machine to the orange and black?
Haft! You damn right!

So we rely on a shrinking pool of interrogators to get us important info about the Giants, and one of those interrogators works for the Giants' bosses, a problematic relationship -- though Haft is certainly better than his predecessor Rich Draper at sprinkling skepticism into his coverage. (That's not hard to do; Draper often tied himself in linguistic pretzels to plant wet kisses on the Giants' asses.)

I'm glad a former daily beat writer now has the job, because the job grants him access that few others have. For example, he interviewed Sabean for yesterday's article, in which Sabean made it clear Bengie Molina probably won't return unless he accepts a likely arbitration offer. He also quoted Sabean saying Brad Penny and Juan Uribe were asking too much at this point. Sabean downplayed the chance of trades, which as Haft noted, makes Dan Uggla less of a possibility.

All good stuff. Haft may be passing along what Sabean wants those players' agents to hear, but he's also creating a public record that we can go back and check and use to hold Sabean accountable. That's a large part of a reporter's job.

What concerned me and caught my eye recently, though, was Haft's recent mailbag and in particular, this question:

I was wondering why you stated that Bay is a better defensive left fielder then Holliday. Has anyone in the Giants organization told you that this is their opinion, or is this just your opinion? If this is your opinion, then are you aware that all defensive metrics that I am aware of strongly disagree? If this is the opinion of someone in the Giants organization, is he or she aware that the publicly available defensive metrics strongly disagree? Whoever's opinion this is, what is that person's opinion of publicly available defensive metrics, such as Ultimate Zone Rating found on fangraphs.com, which shows Holliday's defense to be about 25 runs per season better than Bay's?
-- Mark R., Folsom, Calif.

Here is Haft's response:

I suspect that you aren't Mark R. You're actually my ex-wife, who remains undefeated in arguments with me. This was among two or three e-mails Inbox received that pointed out the flaws in my conclusion, which I drew from chatting with a couple of scouts and having seen both Bay and Holliday play (not enough, obviously). Yes, I do find merit in zone ratings, and I'll strive to consult them the next time I undertake a project like comparing Johnny Bench to Eliezer Alfonzo.

Obviously the ex-wife comment is a joke, but as Dr. Freud would have us know, jokes are an excellent window into the subconscious.

He's a complicated man
But no one understands him but his woman
Chris Haft!

In fact, Haft's next joke about comparing Johnny Bench to Eliezer Alfonzo just adds to my concern (aside from it not being funny). Haft apparently takes umbrage at being questioned in public (not a good trait for a reporter), and the questioner in question, Mark R., isn't even being snotty or rude. He's very straightforward: Are you stating your own opinions or passing along the Giants' opinions about defense? And what do you think of newfangled defensive metrics like UZR? Perfectly valid questions, particularly because we have doubts about the Giants ability or willingness to evaluate position players in new and interesting ways.

Haft shoots the guy down by first comparing him to an ex-wife (always an easy laugh when your audience is mainly adult male), then being smart-ass about the value of defensive metrics. I'll check them next time my head is so far up my ass I can't tell the difference between a hall of famer and a scrub. What's more, he can't resist another rabbit-punch in his next answer on a completely different topic: "That said, they'd be extremely reluctant to trade Wilson, who improved this year upon his All-Star season of 2008 (if you don't believe me, have Mark R. check the statistics for you)."

Take that, Mark R., you...you...you...statistics-checker!

So what gives? Haft could have ignored the question. It's his mailbag, after all. But he runs it then proceeds to make fun of Mark R., like the lead jock in high school who invites a nerd to football practice so he can break his glasses with a tight spiral. Bad form, Chris.

They say this cat Haft is a bad mother
[Shut your mouth!]
I'm talkin' 'bout Haft.
[Then we can dig it!]

I'm no stat-hound, as anyone who reads my half-assed analyses knows, in part because I don't have time to learn how a lot of them work, and in part because they often leave me befuddled. The ones I understand, though, I'm always happy to try to use. Hey, new tools! Fun! And if someone paid me a decent wage to do nothing but think and write about baseball, damn skippy I'd learn all the new stats, decide which ones worth using, and figure out ways to describe them to my readers without throwing alphabet soup in their faces. After all, baseball fans like stats. They love stats. They just need a reason to give the new ones a shot. Chris Haft's snide remarks aren't helping.

If one of the few remaining Giant beat writers is hostile to new ways of thinking about the game -- or worse, his attitude reflects that of the people who ultimately sign his paycheck -- then we the fans are the ones getting shafted.

How Many Runs is Enough?

2009-11-15T07:06:48Z

We're all chomping at the bit -- nyom nyom nyom -- to get these Giants fixed up right for next year.

The conventional wisdom says all this team needs to compete is an average offense, instead of an historically bad one. If you want to talk averages, how about this: The Giants averaged 749 runs a year this decade, right about middle of the pack. To get back to that mediocre mark in 2010, the Giants would need to add nearly 100 runs. They scored 657 in 2009, fifth worst in MLB.

Round it up: Will 750 be enough to win a pennant? It depends how many runs they allow, of course. Let's say, just for fun, the Giants maintain their MLB-leading ability to prevent runs. (They tied with the Dodgers for fewest allowed in 2009: 611.) That would give them 750 runs for (mediocre), 611 against (awesome!). Plug that into Bill James' pythagorean expectation formula* and you get a predicted record of 97 wins, plenty to win the NL West or at least the Wild Card.

(The average numbers of wins for NL West division winners the past five years is 89. The average number of wins for NL wild card winners past five years is 91.)

Wait a second. Ninety-seven wins would be fine and dandy, but seeing how they probably need at least 90 wins for a good shot at a playoff berth, let's revise our runs scored/allowed totals to reflect more realism.

Before we get to the reality check on the Giants adding 100 runs to their season total -- i.e., no way in hell it's going to happen -- let's check the other side of the ledger, runs allowed. Gut feeling says the Giants won't repeat the astounding pitching/defense they displayed this year.

Just this decade, which has flaws as a sample size that we'll ignore for now, four teams have allowed fewer than 611 runs: Toronto in 2008 (610), Houston in 2005 (609), the Dodgers in 2003 (556), and Atlanta in 2002 (565). We might as well throw the 2002 Giants in the group, too, with 616 runs allowed. Add this year's Giants and Dodgers, and seven teams in ten years have managed the feat. That's 2.3% percent of all major-league teams.

Repeatable? I could be pollyannish (Best! Pitching! Staff! Ever!) but I prefer to be slightly pessimistic and say they give up 650 runs next year, 39 more than this year. That's about one extra run every fourth game. (Six-hundred fifty, by the way, would have put them fifth in the majors this year.)

Let's be even more pessimistic and say they give up an extra run every two games, or 692 runs. That's still good for sixth-best in the majors this year, by the way, and it's just a smidge under their seasonal average for the decade, 714 runs allowed.

It's not hard to imagine the starters being as good collectively in 2010 as they were this year, and the Giants have enough interesting young arms to fashion a pretty good bullpen, with some luck and freedom from injury, every year. With the expected turnover at a few positions, defense is hard to project.

So let's take two different runs-allowed figures. First, 650. To get to 90 wins, they would have to score about 725. That's 68 more than 2009, or about two extra runs every 5 games.

Now let's pretend they allow 690 runs. To get to 90 wins, they would need about 770 runs. That's 113 more than 2009, or nearly two extra runs every three games.

I can't see the team adding 100+ runs, but 68..... Start with a full year of a healthy Freddy Sanchez (perhaps a pipe dream). Even if he's not at his peak, he should be worth 30 or 35 runs, at a position where Emmanuel Burriss in 200 at-bats actually subtracted 8 runs from the ledger (I'm using the "Runs Above Replacement" statistic on Fangraphs, which includes contributions on offense and defense). Uribe was better, though I don't know how much of his offense came while playing second base. Sanchez himself was practically invisible once a Giant, so let's take a rough guess that a 35-RAR season from Sanchez would be a 25-run improvement over what the Giants got from their second basemen in 2009.

Now let's pretend they sign Matt Holliday (57 RAR in 2009) or Jason Bay (35 RAR). Simply adding one of them and subtracting Randy Winn (17 RAR in '09) would make up quite a bit more. (Remember, this is rough -- I'm not trying to project what they're likely to do in 2010, I'm just comparing '09 to '09 seasons and assuming they won't suffer a serious decline).

Of course, the Giants aren't likely to sign Holliday or Bay. One name that's surfaced in rumors is Johnny Damon (30 RAR). One who hasn't but is intriguing is Mike Cameron (43 RAR). So perhaps we can assume 15 or 20 more runs.

On the infield, it's rumored the Giants are pursuing a trade for Dan Uggla (29 RAR), who would either play third base, likely eroding his suspect defense even further, or bumping Sanchez to third. That would move Pablo Sandoval to first, where he would replace the Aurilia/Ishikawa/Garko trio from last year that on offense barely registered a blip. (Ishikawa however was valuable for his glove.) Call it a 20-run bump -- Uggla over last year's first basemen.

Sanchez, New Outfielder, Uggla: 60 more runs? Then Renteria does something, anything to improve upon his 2-RAR season, Posey is a pleasant surprise and beats Molina's 18 RAR from last year, and Nate Schierholtz shows steady improvement. Bit by bit, the team could climb above that 68-run mark.

Again, it's all rough, but you get the picture. The Giants likely can't afford to give up 690 runs next year. But if the pitching staff (and defense, don't forget) fare slightly worse and allow an extra run every few games, the necessary offensive improvement of 68 more runs to get to a theoretical 90-win mark isn't impossible to imagine. It would have to come from a few positions. Not even Matt Holliday could close the gap by himself. But you don't have to twist yourself into self-delusional pretzels to get there.

* There are more refined versions of the Pythagorean formula, but I'm keeping it crude tonight.

Let's Salute Dock

2009-11-14T07:49:47Z

The guy with kaleidoscope eyes...

The Thought of Bengie Molina Returning Makes Me Wanna...

2009-11-11T21:44:32Z

__________________!!!!

Fill in that blank, because the hot stove chatter has the Giants "open" to bringing him back. Baggs says it could happen for one year and at the same $6 M he earned in 2009, but probably not more, either in years or dollars.

Before you fill in the blank, though, let's run through some questions:

- Why shouldn't Buster Posey be ready to start next April? He might, he might not. He has played a total of 125 games in the minor leagues, a tiny sum. Carlton Fisk? About 270. Ivan Rodriguez? 270. Benito Santiago? About 450. Even Matt Wieters, the Baltimore top draftee who shot to the bigs, played 169 games on the farm.

Problem is, we won't really know until April, or perhaps later. Some of you say go ahead, start the kid, throw him into the fire. It's the only way to learn. OK, fine. but what if he's hitting .150 / .250 / .300 in mid-May, runners are taking advantage of him, his confidence is shot, and the Dodgers have taken a three-game division lead? To ignore this possibility is to be willfully ignorant. If the Giants start the year with Posey behind the plate, they must have a plan B.

- Does Plan B need to include Bengie Molina? No. But having him around in case Posey needs to go back to AAA is not the worst-case scenario, despite all the wailing about his crappy offense (yes, Molina's offense is crappy). Internally, the Giants have Eli Whiteside and Steve Holm. Do you want either of them playing five times a week? Externally, there are superficially enticing options like Pudge Rodriguez, as Baggs noted yesterday. But Pudge's days as an everyday player are likely over. In nearly 450 plate appearances this year, playing his home games in hitter-friendly Houston and Arlington, he posted a .249 / .280 / .384 line. That is sub-Molina. Lightly-used backup and mentor? Yes. Everyday player? No. Please find another free-agent catcher you can envision taking over and playing several days a week. I'm not saying Molina is a great option, but as a backup who might have to play more often than expected, he's not the worst option.

- But if he's the "backup," won't Old Veteran-Lovin' Bochy be tempted to play him more, even if Posey's doing OK? Yes. But this is true to some extent with any grizzled veteran backstop Sabean brings in. We can only hope Bill Neukom has attached electrodes to Bochy's nipples that emit a painful shock every time he displays unwarranted veteran love. In other words, the season is riding on covert acts of sado-masochism.

- So maybe Sabes should bring in someone who really sucks so Bochy won't be tempted to play him! Brilliant. You've got this whole roster-building thing figured out.

- Calm down. I was kidding. It's kinda sad when you have to worry about your field manager playing the wrong guy. Yes, but I think that, Bochy or no, there's a good chance Posey won't be playing as much as we're hoping/praying. He's going to need rest, he's going to need mental breaks, and unless he's a super-phenom he's going to have setbacks. It's a good idea to have a decent catcher on hand to fill the gaps. Someone like...

- Gregg Zaun? Not bad, actually. I don't know what kind of arm remains dangling from his 62-year-old body, but he's always gotten on base a fair amount, and he can still hit a few home runs. I have another idea, though: Pablo Sandoval.

- Why risk him behind the plate? Hear me out on this. He can still be the starting third baseman or first baseman, but his presence means the Giants don't have to worry so much about an expensive backup for Posey. They can keep a Whiteside on the roster, give Pablo a few innings back there, too, to keep off the rust, and in a month or two, if Posey needs a rescue, they go to Plan B: Pablo steps in and at least splits time behind the plate. If there's a real disaster, like Posey sustains a serious injury or needs to spend the year in the minors, the Giants can always trade for a guy like Zaun or Javier Valentin or Pudge or Jason Varitek.

- OK, if Pablo spends a lot of time behind the plate, who becomes the first or third baseman? It might require a mid-season trade. It might require signing (or re-signing) someone like Mark DeRosa or Juan Uribe as a super-utility guy and hope that he can do what Uribe did in '09.

- So what to do about Bengie and arbitration? Offer it, by all means. If he accepts, the worst is the Giants have him as a backup for one year and roughly $6 million. He is a proud man, and the threat of being a backup will most likely make him sign elsewhere, even if he might earn less in unknown free agency waters. And that means the Giants get two draft picks.

No-Winn Defense in 2010, and No Subtle Pot Jokes Whatsoever

2009-11-10T06:33:46Z

Blogging several days after Tim Lincecum's pot-and-speeding bust, now reduced to a minor infraction, I am too late to drop giggly marijuana references into my post. Besides, it's nothing to make light of. I'm certainly not one to spark up controversy by suggesting a contraband substance is somehow worthy of comedic kindness. No siree, bud. That sort of humor doesn't resinate with me.

On to today's news: Baggs reports that Randy Winn's services are no longer needed in the House of Mays. It's no surprise, but let's pause to officially acknowledge that Randy Winn was a good Giant. He was not a good Giant hitter in 2009 or 2006, when he hobbled around much of the year after fouling spherical objects off his shinbone. But his defense, baserunning, and offense for more than half his Giant career added up to being more valuable than the three year, $23 million extension Brian Sabean gave him in 2006. Whatever you do, however you mock Sabean, you cannot put Winn's contract on the bad side of his ledger. You can mock him, however, for not putting Winn in center field in 2008 instead of signing Aaron Rowand, a real center fielder.

So now the Giants have informed Winn's agent they won't be asking him back, which means a lot more Nate Schierholtz, yes? Is that a good thing? Bochy's refusal to play Nate in 2009, citing among other things his tremendous value off the bench, was often infuriating. Overall Schierholtz kinda sucked for the year, but it could be the kind of part-time, young-player suckage that heralds the blossoming of a less-young player who might not suck. (Note that Bill James's projection system predicts a .288 / .325 / .459 line from Nate next year, for what it's worth.)

What's clear is that Schierholtz is a very good defensive right fielder, and his mere presence out there will keep baserunners from trying to advance. He's that good. Before replacing Nate's bat in the lineup, which is an option the Giants have to consider this winter, the cost of replacing his defense with something worse also must be weighed.

Let's have a poll without all those complicated buttons and bars. Technology. Bah. Just enter your answers in the comments. Should the Giants:

a) Start 2009 with Nate as the RF and keep him there all year, no matter what.
b) Start 2009 with Nate but replace him with a big slugging outfielder if he slumps.
c) Use Nate as trade bait this winter.
d) Keep him as pinch-hitter deluxe and late-inning defensive replacement.
e) Don't bogart that Schierholtz.

I've Got My Stove to Keep Me Warm

2009-11-05T18:34:20Z

The snow is snowin', trade winds are blowin'....

It's finally time. Hot Stove Time. Thank you, Chase Utley and Cliff Lee, for making the World Series remotely interesting. Otherwise, yawn. In the post-game celebrations, Mark Teixeira thanked God for steering him toward New York. I know Scott Boras is all powerful, but come on, Mark, isn't that a bit strong?

Speaking of His Divine Boras, it'll be shocking if Matt Holliday doesn't get far north of $100 M, and I won't be surprised if the Yankees are the top bidders. Remember all those empty luxury box seats this spring at the new Stadium? Well, just like the Yankees, Wall Street is back, baby, while Main Street and the Royals and Pirates are still stuck in subprime foreclosure hell. (Though new Pittsburgh acquisition Aki Iwamura is thinking playoffs next year. Link tip from MLB Trade Rumors.)

And with their 27th World Series banner flying over their new sparkly house, I don't imagine those seats will be hard to fill next year. Translation: More boatloads of cash for the Yanks to spend. If their key players stay healthy, there's no reason they can't win a few more Series in the next five years. Like I said: Yawn.

Meanwhile the Giants need to figure out how to squeeze out more runs without losing the mojo of their pitching staff. Everyone assumes a trade of Jonathan Sanchez is inevitable, but we thought that last winter, too, and despite the flotation of names like Jorge Cantu, Hank Blalock and Edwin Encarnacion, Brian Sabean proved remarkably disciplined (or scared). One could argue he lost that discipline with the Garko and F. Sanchez trades this summer and got burned, which means he might fall back upon his free-agent-signin' ways this winter.

And his track record on that front is not good. Or is it? It's easy to highlight the big-ticket disappointments (Zito, Rowand, Renteria), but Sabean has also gotten good value from mid-level or scrap-heap signings like Winn, Vizquel, Molina, Uribe, and Medders. Do they balance out the busts? Using Fangraphs' dollar-value measurement it seems SF paid about $71 million to free agents in 2009 (players they signed in this or previous years) and got performances worth $59 million. You can go back and calculate other recent years, but I suspect they won't be much better.

Before we pass ultimate judgment on Sabes's free-agent work, however, we have to compare him to his peers. What's the league average for dollar-in/dollar-out value? Do most GMs break even? Or do spectacular free-agent failures (Gary Matthews Jr., Juan Pierre, Carl Pavano, Julio Lugo, to name a few) skew the numbers badly for most teams? The crack research department of tiny people living in my desk are on assignment, so if you want to jump on this puzzle, go for it.

His Mother Calls Him Hensley

2009-11-02T18:55:32Z

"Bam-Bam" Meulens is officially the new hitting coach. What looks like a Giants press release is being relayed by Comcast Sports Net, and it cites Meulens' work with John Bowker (.342 batting average in the PCL last year) and Jesus Guzman (.321) as key points on his curriculum vitae.

As of this writing (2pm PT), there's no sign of the news on the Giants' Web site, so there's a wee chance Comcast is doing something weird or perhaps posting a fake release someone slipped them. They leave me with a sliver of doubt because they originally spelled Meulens name "Neulins." It has since been corrected to "Meulins," which is still wrong. Hey, Comcast Web-posting intern: You're fired!

The other indication that something could be amiss: The announcement uses batting average as the main indicator of a hitter's Triple-A success, and as we all know, the Giants would never use such an unsophisticated tool for evaluating player performance. Oh gosh no. Never.

First question at his press conference: "Carney Lansford and most other sentient beings on the planet felt the Giants' hitting coach is doomed to fail because of the lack of organizational focus on plate discipline. How will you fix this?"

Second question: "How would you evaluate Eugenio Velez's performance after he returned to the big leagues this year? Is he ready to be a major-league leadoff hitter?"

Feel free to leave Mr. Henslow Neuwirth more questions. I will make sure they are placed in front of him on neatly-printed 3-by-5 cards.

I Like Johnny Damon

2009-11-02T04:36:52Z

He doesn't have his mountain beard anymore, but Johnny Damon's double steal in Sunday night's top of the ninth was not only the coolest heads-up play I've ever seen, it was probably the reason Brad Lidge fell apart and allowed the deciding three runs.

For those who missed it, it was two down in the ninth, the Phils had tied the game in the eighth on Pedro Feliz's two out home run off Joba Chamberlain, and Lidge had easily dispatched Matsui and Jeter. Up came Damon. He battled for nine pitches until finally lining a single to left. He soon took off for second, and with a shift on for Teixeira, Damon slid in safely, popped up to see no one covering third, and took off again. Because of the shift, 3B Feliz took the throw from the catcher and found himself on the first-base side of second base, unable to chase down Damon. Damon stole two bases on one play.

It was a lightning-quick realization and decision on Damon's part. On the TV side, Tim McCarver pointed out (yes, I'm actually giving McCarver props) that Damon reaching third, even with two outs, changed the game because Lidge might be more reluctant to throw his diving slider. Indeed -- he plunked Teixeira with a fastball, threw a fastball for called strike one to A-Rod, then grooved a second fastball, which A-Rod lined into the corner. Posada's killing blow, a single to left-center, also came on a fastball.

The biggest question for the rest of the Series, other than can the Phils make a remarkable comeback, is this: If Philly has a small lead in the ninth inning in any of the next three games, will Charlie Manuel hand the ball to Brad Lidge? Discuss.

Two More Years! Two More Years!

2009-11-01T07:10:41Z

I've been off the grid for 24 hours, part of which was spent here stuffing my face here, but plugging back in I've found two items of good news. First, Gavin Newsom has dropped out of the governor's race. I thought for a while early in his first term he would be a standard-bearer of sensible politics (yes, gay marriage is sensible), but between his inability to stand up to the kooks on the S.F. Board of Supervisors and his inability to keep his willie in his pants, he disappointed me tremendously. May he be merely a blip in our city and state political history.
I'm also slightly kinda heartened that the Giants signed Freddy Sanchez to a two-year, $12 million contract extension. There is a chance Sanchez's injuries at the end of 2009 are a grim harbinger of decline. It's a real possibility, which is why I hedge my enthusiasm. Well, that and the fact that Sanchez even at his best is not really that great.

But there is also a chance he could be a better-than-average second baseman with the glove and the bat for the next two years, and no matter how conflicted we are about trading Tim Alderson, Sanchez's work will be worth far more than what the Giants are paying, which is a very good thing. There's a good chance. For most of his career, he's been worth at least $10 million a year. Let's assume that the Giants' medical staff can get him fixed up right this off-season to get back to his usual decent-little-ballplayer kind of self. Then again, the medical staff probably greenlighted his acquisition in the first place, a move that made me, among others, say hmmmm, so I'm not quite as inclined to assume wondeful things about the Giants' docs these days.

What it certainly means is the Giants aren't going after Dan Uggla on the trade market, one name that's been bandied about as a possible power source. So as we've expected, the boppage will come at an outfield or infield corner. It also means that Kevin Frandsen isn't getting his big break next spring, but you didn't have to be Nostradamus to figure that one out. At this point, many planets and stars will have to align for Frandsen to get a full season of major-league at bats. The Giants seem dead-set on Frandsen as middle-infield utility, at best, and my guess is most other teams see him the same way, otherwise someone would have pried him loose from the Giants' death grip this year.

So let me qualify the Sanchez extension even more: It's a good move if the Giants find another big bat or two to boost this lineup. Sure, he's an upgrade over Emmanuel Burriss, in the same way that Edgar Renteria theoretically was an upgrade over 2008 Omar Vizquel, but unless he has another career year, he's a supporting character.

More 40-man roster movement: The Giants declined Noah Lowry's option and made him a free agent. They also outrighted Justin Miller and minor-leaguer Kelvin Pichardo to triple-A, removing them from the 40-man. I've updated the list to the right, removing all upcoming free agents, and I've included next year's estimated salaries for those on guaranteed contracts.

Yesterday, New York Laughed. Tonight, Not So Much.

2009-10-29T01:31:44Z

E.L.M. http://www.leftymalo.com

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My October Rotation

2009-10-26T03:28:21Z

I'm home for October, watching playoff baseball from afar. I'm already starting to rethink my rotation as we head into the Hot Stove season. In this month's installment, I'm getting ready to say goodbye to former heroes who've tried to hang on too long, I'm looking at familiar veterans with the need to prove themselves again, and I'm puzzling over heralded but inconsistent young talent.

The Rolling Stones, Live in Brussels 1973: I'll start by saying that for most of my adolescence, the Stones were my favorite band. When my friends and I gathered to debate who was the greatest of the British Invasion, I always took the Stones. I can still listen to Beggars Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main Street over and over again, and that's hard to say about albums you've been listening to for nearly 30 years. But venture beyond those albums, and to my adult ears, the Stones have long since begun to crumble. Whatever tiny vestige of myth I retained about these guys being at any time the Greatest Rock N Roll Band in the World (as they like to bill themselves) was destroyed by listening to this now-legendary concert. The guitars are slashing and riff-perfect, there are great supporting cast members filling out the sound, but Charlie Watts is often too fast, pushing songs like "Gimme Shelter" at a tempo that sours the mood. And Mick...oh Mick. He sounds terrible. Awful. At times unlistenable. He barks out phrases like a dog running in his yard from fence to fence. He was never a great singer, but on the best studio tracks he put a lot of thought and muscle into his craft -- the sneer of "Street Fightin' Man," the winking loucheness of "Live With Me," the spirit-moves-you of "Shine a Light." He knew what the song needed. In this concert, at the peak of the band's powers, he sounds no better than he does today. And that's not good at all.

Ron Carter and Richard Galliano, Panamanhattan: If you can get your ears around an entire album of jazz tango with just acoustic bass and French accordion, I guarantee this is the best album you've never heard. I probably found it in some bargain bin, drawn by Ron Carter's name. It was recorded live twenty years in a FNAC, a French media and electronics store with loads more class than, say, Best Buy (obviously, as they held a concert in one) and, for some reason, a travel agency. The melancholy songs have a startling crispness -- you can hear Galliano's fingers click the accordion keys and Carter's hand slide up and down the neck of his bass. The audience members are few enough to become recognizable by their claps and whoops of appreciation between songs. The only live recordings I've ever heard to match Panamanhattan's intimacy are the earliest cuts from the sprawling Bruce Springsteen live box set, in which it sounds like he's playing in a tiny roadside bar.

Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha: He's clever, he's mellow, he's wonderfully inventive. He sings about complex science, which warms my nerdy heart. But what's with the whistling? I could deal with one or two tracks, but Bird is determined to make his jaunty, out-for-a-stroll whistling a key component of nearly every song. Some folks love it, I guess, but for me it'll take some getting used to.

Kristin Hersh, Speedbath: Hersh has become a female Neil Young, constantly recording, constantly shifting her sound and her instrumentation. She's not as experimental as Young, who has veered from country to folk to swing to metal, inhabiting other genres like costumes. Hersh is a more subtle, occupying a mellow-alt-guitar-rock middle ground only to dash out for a quick foray into, say, the crunch of her punkish trio 50 Foot Wave, or an all-acoustic collection of traditional Appalachian murder ballads. (The former I love, the latter not so much.) But I'm old and grouchy enough to realize that I'm not going to love or even like a good deal of the output from my favorite artists. It's more about the effort, the progress, the ideas.

And so to Speedbath: a full-length, online-only album of some of Hersh's freshest material in years. You can listen all you want for free, or you can contribute a few bucks via PayPal as you listen. I love the gesture, first of all, but I love the songs even more. Her songs can sometimes feel stiff, as if she crafted different tempos and textures and fused them with a lack of...suppleness, perhaps. The songs on Speedbath shift gears and bring in odd (for her) choices of instrumentation, but the overall arc is always propulsive and fluid, not stiff at all. If you don't like or care about Hersh, you probably haven't read this far, but if you do, or at least you're curious about her work, I highly recommend Speedbath. And give her some money, too.

1950

2009-10-21T15:47:18Z

Three games to one. Three games to one. A Phillies-Yankees World Series is nearly a lock, which no doubt has Fox executives wetting their pants in anticipation. The only other time the two teams met in the Series was 1950. The Yanks swept in four low-scoring games, with only two home runs between the two teams (Berra, DiMaggio). This is fun. Watch 'til the end for the weird batting practice drill.

* Go check out AZ Giants, replete with game summaries, videos and superb photos of Giant youth playing in the desert. First day up, the blog featured video of top draft pick Zack Wheeler on the mound.

* One question to ponder as you see all the trade and free-agent suggestions thrown around this winter -- the Giants should sign this guy or trade for that guy -- is not just whom to get, but how many runs do the Giants really need to score next year? More on this later.

Go Phillies!

Carney Goes Down Swinging

2009-10-17T19:31:57Z

I missed this in yesterday's Chron: Carney Lansford wishes his successor good luck, because he's going to need it. Baggs talked to Lansford, too, and got quotes like this:

"A major league player should not be as poor at [situational hitting] as we were in my two years. Do I take it personally? Of course I do. I know it cost us games. I'm a human being. I'm not a machine. But I'll sleep good at night knowing I took my best shot."

I recommend reading both articles. It was kind of weird that Lansford took time to talk to both reporters on the day of his father-in-law's funeral. He must have really needed to get all that off his chest. Or he must have really needed to defend himself publicly as he starts to search for a new job, which he said he doesn't need. Or both.

When the Giants trot out their next hitting coach, expect to hear all sorts of talk about the new guy's track record in doing this or that (especially if it's Hensley Meulens and his work with Eugenio Velez, which we've already started to see floated in the press -- and which is basically a bunch of hand-waving, as I noted two days ago). Whatever the Giants say, remember Lansford's words: "I wish I had more offense to work with, but I had what I had. I don't know what I would've done differently."