McCovey Chronicles

Top 30 Prospects, Part IV: 11-15

2010-02-09T21:19:16Z

If you're really dogmatic about your rankings, here's the segment that will give you a ton to complain about...

15. Aaron King – LHP

King is 20, he’s a left-handed starter, and he can reach 95 MPH with his fastball. He didn’t have gaudy strikeout numbers in low-A, and his mechanics frighten some folks.

When ranking prospects, a good way to decide whom to rank on top is to think about a hypothetical trade – would you trade #15 for a player just like #16?, for example. The back-half of a list like this is littered with raffle tickets. All things being equal, I prefer my raffle tickets to be left-handed starters who can reach 95 MPH with their fastballs while putting up respectable numbers in a league they aren’t too old for.

That whole 95 MPH is a bit of a red herring; King is usually closer to 90/91 MPH with his fastball. And he’s wild as all heck – along with the 4.5 walks per nine innings, he plunked 10 batters and threw 12 wild pitches. But he’s a youngish prospect, and I’ll take my chances that the Giants can make the same tweaks to King that they did with another raw, hard-throwing lefty.

14. Jorge Bucardo - RHP

Bucardo gets groundballs, he has good command for a teenager, and while he isn’t a flamethrower just yet (high-80s/low-90s), he should add more as he fills out. Well, I don’t know that. It’s just what I’ve heard around the water cooler. I mean, I didn’t add velocity when I filled out. The years of bourbon and cheesecake kind of settled in a thick paste around my midsection, and I’m pretty sure my fastball can’t crack 80 MPH these days.

I probably overrate pitchers who show good command in leagues they’re a little young for. In retrospect, Jerome Williams probably wasn’t the bestest prospect who ever prospected, especially since he was always supposed to add velocity but didn’t. But velocity junkies probably underrate pitchers like Bucardo. If the lower end of his ceiling is a sinker/slider/control pitcher with a two-seamer in the high-80s, he’ll still have a good chance to help a major league club. I’ll take the over on that projection, and predict that Bucardo does add a little velocity, for no other reason than I want him to.

13. Eric Surkamp – LHP

This is probably more of a crazy overranking that King was, actually, even though Surkamp had prettier stats. Surkamp was among the minor league leaders for K/9 among starting pitchers, a gaudy 11.6, and he was only 21 years old, which isn’t out of place at all in low-A. If he threw in the low/mid-90s instead of 86-88 MPH, he’d be a top-100 prospect in baseball!

Also, if I could bend the laws of physics with my mind, I probably would be a top-100 prospect in baseball too. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.

So, fine, Surkamp doesn’t throw especially hard, and he’ll likely have a tough time as he moves up the ladder, maybe aping the Pat Misch career path. But until that happens, I’ll overrate Surkamp’s K-inducing curve, I’ll ignore that he’s a fly ball pitcher, and I’ll note that the bottom of FanGraphs’ velocity rankings have lefties who are still quite successful.

Yeah, this is probably ten spots too high. But it worked out so well for Ben Snyder.

12. Francisco Peguero – OF

The Pablo Sandoval comparisons are cute – both are free swingers who play the game with a boyish glee – until you realize that Sandoval is less than two years older than Peguero. The Giants are really excited about Peguero, which doesn’t mean that much to me. They probably don’t care that Peguero isn’t walking at all – "when you hit .350, why do you need to take a walk?" –they probably don’t think that his age has anything to do with how he’s expected to develop (he’s 21, which is appropriate for low-A, but not unusual), and they surely have no concept of Peguero’s BABIP of .400 being a red flag.

But John Sickels and Baseball America – and anyone who watches Peguero, really – have respect for his tools.

Yep. Bunch of tools. So against my better judgment, he’s up high on the list. If he can’t learn to take a pitch, he’ll be in the minors for a while. Just kidding. If he hits an empty .300 with a .310 on-base percentage, he’ll be leading off for the Giants in 2012. That’s the Giants Way.

11. Ehire Adrianza – SS

Some people love him, some people aren’t nearly as impressed. But if we live in a world in which Jack Wilson’s defense combines with a career .268/.310/.374 line to form an underpaid asset, I’ll focus on Adrianza’s positives more than his negatives.

He can play a mean shortstop. So could Brian Bocock, of course, so it takes more than just a glove to be a prospect. But Adrianza’s offense gets a little bit of a bad rap. A 19-year-old who shows good plate control in the Sally isn’t anything to dismiss. He wasn’t a walking machine, but he held his own, and he didn’t strike out a ton. The lack of power is disconcerting, but he’s still young and thin. He’ll never be a guy who hits double digits in homers with regularity, but he’s a shortstop. If he can walk a little, hit enough doubles to keep the defense honest, and play superior defense, he’ll be a very valuable asset.

In a perfect world, he’ll grow up to be Asdrubal Cabrera, though Cabrera was already showing more power at this stage. In the imperfect world in which we live, Adrianza is more likely to be a backup, glove-only bench guy. But he’s young enough to hope for a little more.

Top 30 Prospects, Part III: 16 -20

2010-02-08T21:11:40Z

Is Madison Bumgarner in this batch? Well, you'll just have to click the link to find out....

20. Henry Sosa - RHP

Sosa is the new Merkin. Wait for the explanation before you ask your beautician for a "sosa" to cover up that Nair ‘n’ duct tape accident. It seems like Sosa has been a prospect for so long, that when he has an injury-filled, low-strikeout season, it’s way too easy to write him off. He’ll only be 24, and the strikeout-rate drop makes sense now that he’s recovering from a torn shoulder muscle.

Sosa should be ready early in 2010, and he’s one of the only starters in the organization who has top-of-the-rotation stuff (when he’s right, of course) in the upper minors. He might be a bullpen candidate soon, but as long as he’s a starter – and assuming that he’ll be able to reclaim his mid-90s fastball – this is probably too conservative of a ranking.

19. Clayton Tanner – LHP

I’m pretty sure that I’ve consistently overrated Tanner for years because he’s been a little young for his level. He repeated the California League, but he almost did everything right: he dropped his walk rate, improved his strikeout rate, and allowed fewer baserunners. His home runs allowed total, though, when from one to 17. He must have munterated a lot of sinkers last year.

I’ll always give lefties the benefit of the doubt, especially young lefties who can keep the ball on the ground. Tanner is the kind of pitcher that might not have flashy numbers in the minors, but surprises in the majors once he gets to play in front of a good defense. He’s above Sosa, Graham, and the hard-throwing right-handed relievers because of little more than a hunch.

18. Darren Ford – CF

Ford is probably the most enigmatic player on the list. He’s old for his level, and he was repeating a league. Red flag. His performance in San Jose was heavily aided by an unusually high BABIP. Red flag. He can take a walk. Red flag (Giants front office only). Why should he be ranked in the top 20?

I’ll go against my gut and trust the scouts on this one. They say Ford is toolsy, unrefined type who turned into a different player in the second half of last season, which is when he stopped switch-hitting. Sometimes the toolsy, unrefined types figure it out late. If I had to place a wager, I’d put Ford down for a Calvin Murray career path. But I wouldn’t want to place the wager, if that makes sense.

17. Conor Gillaspie – 3B

Gillaspie doesn’t have a big platoon disparity, he can take a walk, and he’s expected to hit for a little more average. So why was his year so disappointing? The expectations were too high, for one. Gillaspie was expected to move quickly through the system – it’s likely why the Giants weren’t scared to give him a 40-man roster spot right away. But if he isn’t going to hit for any power, he’ll have to hit better than .286 to have any value at third without a stellar glove.

Something in Gillaspie’s defense: He’s young. For all of the Bill Mueller comps that Gillaspie gets by default, Mueller wasn’t tearing up the Cal League until he was two years older than Gillaspie is now. It was almost certainly a mistake to give him a 40-man spot, but he’s still an interesting prospect.

16. Hector Sanchez – C

It’s probably a good idea not to project Sanchez as a perennial .400 on-base guy in the majors based on his performances in the Arizona League. The sample isn’t a big one, and he wasn’t super-young for the league. But reports of Sanchez’s glove are positive – in his 2010 Prospect Book, John Sickels goes as far as to call Sanchez a "glove-first" guy. If his defense is above-average, and he can keep up the bat control and patience, he’ll be a ridiculously valuable player – think of this guy as a perfect-world offensive comp. If the defense is even close, then, shucks, Sanchez can be an All-Star too.

It’s a bad idea to get goofy over AZL stats, though. If Sanchez has a similar performance in low-A, he’ll probably be worthy of the top ten. Until then, this is probably a little too optimistic of a ranking based on two things: a) guys who take walks in the Giants organization are beautiful, rare creatures, and they should be given praise, plaudits, and flowered leis at every opportunity, and b) good-fielding catchers who can hit even a little bit are really, really valuable.

Plus, once Sanchez catches over 200 games in the minors, he’ll magically become worthy of a starting spot in the majors. There will be the Ritual of Flames and Swords, the Blood Oath will be taken, and Sanchez will become a Major League Catcher until the end of time. Then he’ll be able to push Buster Posey to first base. Maybe the NL will adopt the designated hitter by that time, and we’ll really get some value out of Posey. We can only hope.

Top 30 Prospects, Part II: 21-25

2010-02-05T19:42:06Z

Pitchers, pitchers, pitchers. It's like a Mötley Crüe song for nerds.

25. Craig Clark - LHP

If this system were Esteves-thin, Clark would be a more visible prospect. He’s had excellent walk rates, and his strikeout rates are a little above average. In a thin system, Clark would also have been promoted aggressively. When he pitched well in Salem-Kaizer right out of college, he probably should have started the next season in San Jose. If he did well in San Jose, he probably should have been moved up to AA, with a chance at a midseason promotion to AAA.

As is, one of the biggest marks against Clark is that he was older than a lot of his peers in the California League, which isn’t entirely fair to him. Another mark is that he shows definite platoon splits: righties hit him much better than lefties, which means his future is probably in the bullpen. That’s not a terrible thing, though. Clark throws a little harder than you might think -- he’s more of a high-80s/touching-90 guy than a Rueterian soft tosser, and a permanent move to the bullpen could add a little more to his fastball.

It’s not a bad idea to keep him as a starter while he’s still successful. But if the Giants are contending this season, and if either Jeremy Affeldt or Dan Runzler are hurt or ineffective, it wouldn’t be craziness to see Clark start a LOOGY career early.

24. Jason Stoffel - RHP

Guys like Stoffel need an acronym. Uh, let’s see, how about "First Rounder Once; Dropped Off?" Then we can say things like, "Yeah, Brian Wilson was a FRODO because he needed Tommy John surgery, but I’m glad the Giants took a chance on him."

No? Fine. But you don’t have to be so rude about it. You get the point, at least. Stoffel was once considered a Huston Street/Chad Cordero type -- a college closer that a team would take in the first round and put on the major league roster after 25 minor league innings. He struggled a little bit in his last season at the University of Arizona, though, and he dropped to the fourth round. He looked like mighty nice in his short introduction to pro ball. He’s on the list mostly because he’s a FRODO.

23. Waldis Joaquin - RHP

Ah, the anti-Clark. Right-handed, throws a bazillion miles per hour, and doesn’t have especially impressive K/BB ratios. When deciding between two prospects like Joaquin and Clark, always go with the bazillion miles guy. Joaquin is the kind of pitcher who moves the grip on his slider over an eighth of an inch and makes $4M in arbitration four years later. That sort of dramatic improvement isn’t likely, mind you, but every season a couple of bazillion-miles-per-hour pitchers in professional baseball make a small adjustment and become late-inning forces in the majors.

Until then, Joaquin really doesn’t strike out a lot of guys, and his control is wonky. He’s just as likely to be off the list entirely next year as he is a late-inning regular.

22. Matt Graham - RHP

Hey, a FRODO! He hasn’t thrown a pitch in professional baseball yet, but watch the video that’s linked up there. The first pitch of the video explains why he was considered a possible first-rounder, why the Giants gave up a little extra scratch to keep him from going to North Carolina, and why he’s already one of the Giants better right-handed pitching prospects. Big dude. Throws hard with movement when his delivery is right. Okay, I’m sold after a single pitch.

The reason he slipped out of the first round, though, is that he wasn’t always throwing that hard. He’s raw even by high school pitcher standards. Graham will be given every chance to develop into a dominant starter, and that’s why he’s above a guy like Joaquin, who has a much, much, much better chance of being on a baseball card. Joaquin is a package of Hostess Cupcakes. Graham is a bunch of gourmet cake ingredients and a cookbook in the hands of a dude who has never stepped into a kitchen. I can cross my fingers and wait.

21. Jose Casilla - RHP

Throws hard. Successful at a young age in a short-season league. Sounds nice, but why would he rank over players who have already cracked the major league roster?

Crazy sink. There isn’t a lot of performance data to go on, but his career 68.8% groundball rate is very nice. Every organization has a bunch of live-armed youngsters trying to learn how to pitch; guys with a sinker like Casilla’s aren’t nearly as common. He’s the second-highest reliever on the list, and I’m scared I’m ranking him way too low.

Top 30 Prospects, Part I: 26-30

2010-02-04T20:59:39Z

By unpopular demand, the first installment of McCovey Chronicles’ Top 30 Prospects for 2010*:

30. Ryan Cavan - SS

It’s a little tradition of mine to reserve the last spot of the list for a stats-only type of prospect. Last year was the 29-year-old Felix Romero, a reliever with a gaudy K/BB in AA the previous season. That didn’t make me look quite as clever as I had hoped. But the tradition continues onward. And when I finally hit on one of these #30 prospects in 2023, I’ll never let you forget it.

Cavan is a shortstop with 200 at-bats that showed an ability to hit for high isolated power and high isolated on-base percentage – that is, his slugging percentage and on-base percentage are much higher than you would expect from a guy who hit .277. It shows a measure of extra-base power and patience, and from a middle infielder, that would be incredibly nice to have.

The caveats: it’s only 200 short-season at-bats, and I haven’t been able to get a defensive report on him. He might play shortstop like Pedro Feliz plays catcher. But Cavan is a local guy – he went to Menlo before attended UCSB – so he’ll be an easy guy to root for as he moves up the organization.

29. Mike McBryde - CF

The new sabermetric orthodoxy: defense is a very big deal. Defense has a library that smells of rich mahogany, and it has many leather-bound books. If you trust the FanGraphs metrics from last year, light-hitting Nyjer Morgan was more valuable than Ryan Howard, Ryan Braun, and Alex Rodriguez. That’s hard to believe, but it isn’t hard to fathom the idea that a hit saved in the top half of an inning is just as valuable as a hit earned in the bottom half. So when looking at superlative defender in center who hits .276/.328/.386, maybe it makes sense to consider him as valuable as an average defender who hits .300/.350/.450. Note: all numbers pulled from nether regions.

And by all accounts, McBryde is an unbelievable defender. His range is supposed to be top-shelf, and he even has a cannon for a right arm. The best part is that he improved his offensive numbers while moving up a level and hitting in a pitcher’s park.

He’ll be 25 when he starts AAA this year, so he’s not the kind of prospect that you make room for. But if he has a good season in Fresno, he’ll be a nice fit as a fourth outfielder somewhere.

28. Edward Concepcion - RHP

It’s hard to get too excited about a 21-year-old reliever who put up a 4.61 ERA in rookie ball while walking 26 in only 54 innings. But people love his arm.

27. Brock Bond - 2B

He’s on over Ryan Rohlinger only because of Bond’s willingness to take a walk. If Rohlinger can really handle short in a pinch – and if Bond’s defense at second is only adequate – maybe I’m overrating the OBP factor. And maybe I’m underrating Bond’s complete lack of power – two home runs in two minor league seasons is pretty hard to do. But I’m a sucker for a high on-base percentage, and Bond has a career .419 mark, including a .429 spot in Connecticut last season.

By law, I’m required to leave this link right here.

26. Chris Dominguez - 3B

Dingerz. Plenty of them. But he makes Glenallen Hill look like a slap-hitting, light-swinging walk machine. Dominguez is already 23, and his defense at third is questionable, so he’ll need to make more contact to go along with those dingerz. He was a little unlucky with his BABIP in Salem, so we might not have a clear read on him yet, but a 57/9 K/BB ratio in 181 at-bats is as ugly of a line as you’ll see. With great power comes great responsibility. If Dominguez doesn’t figure out how to work the count, he’ll just be another Rob Stratton.

^{* Translated by our sister site, МцЦовей Чроницлес, as "List for Future Accolades and Stretching of Offseason Idea Writings to be Past Conclusion of Logical Enjoyment"}

Top 30 Prospects, Part I: Just Missed

2010-02-03T19:23:06Z

In the 2001 Baseball America Prospect Handbook, here were the prospects who made up #s 26-30:

26. A 24-year-old outfielder who had hit .272/.333/.402 in AA (Texas League)
27. An 18th-round draft-and-follow who had his contract voided due to elbow problems and sat out a year.
28. A 7th-round pick who threw hard, but had no professional experience yet.
29. A hacking 24-year-old who moved to catcher to attempt a career as a super-utility player
30. A 28-year-old soft-tossing lefty with a chance to be a LOOGY one day.

The names aren’t as important (Doug Clark, David Brous, Erick Threets, Edwards Guzman, and Chad Zerbe) as the descriptions. When trawling through the bottom end of a prospect list, all you have are descriptions, for the most part. A 24-year-old rightie with below-average stuff but above-average command. A 23-year-old with enormous power potential but substantial contact issues. Those are the kinds of descriptions that pepper the bottom of a prospect list.

And just going off those vague descriptions, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have ranked most of the 26-30 bunch from 2001 in the top 50 of this year’s crop, with the lone exception of Threets, who would probably be analogous to Matt Graham from this year’s list. Maybe that’s a little harsh -- four of the above five did make the majors for a brief time, with one of them even busting the record books -- but it’s a testimony to the improved depth of the system. I can’t speak to how this year’s depth stacks up with other teams around the league, but it sure beats the dregs from the bottoms of Giants’ prospect lists in the past.

This is all a long-winded introduction to the honorable mentions of my top-30 list. I’m not sure where these guys would rank if I stretched the list out to 40 or 50, but some of you value them enough that you might be expecting them to pop up from #10 to #20 when they don’t show up from #21 to #30. I’ll just kill the suspense here. And by "suspense," I mean "indifference." And by "kill the indifference," I mean, "feed the indifference until it grows stronger and more powerful, eventually morphing into hostile apathy."

Five guys who aren’t on the top-30 list:

Wendell Fairley

Couldn’t do it. Tools be damned, there’s no reason to be excited about a 21-year-old in low-A who doesn’t show a single average offensive skill. He isn’t hitting for power, he isn’t hitting for average, he isn’t stealing bases, and he isn’t walking a lot.

Brandon Belt

He’s as close to #10 as he is to #31, if that makes sense. With a productive season, he’ll shoot up the list. Without any professional at-bats, though, it’s hard to put him on the list just based on the opinion of the Giants, which is pretty persuasive.

But why should he be punished for not having any pro at-bats, while Chris Dominguez -- who had a bunch of them and stunk -- makes the list? Good question, and the answer is simple. My reasoning is th

Kevin Pucetas

He should be on the list. But I started Mike McBryde’s entry with the same sentence, and I eventually convinced myself to swap him out with Pucetas. Control pitchers who put up good numbers at lower levels are often tested at higher levels. Pucetas didn’t do well in his AAA time, and he has two things working against him: age and right-handedness. If there’s a good comp for Pucetas it’s the seasons in which Livan Hernandez gets released, not the ones in which Hernandez eats a bunch of quality innings.

Ryan Rohlinger

In five years, after Rohlinger carves out a Mark DeRosa-like career, this might retroactively seem like the most egregious oversight. I think the comp right now, though, is Mike Benjamin with more pop. That’s not a terrible thing, but it’s not something that’s hard to find in the minor league free agent pool in any given offseason.

Brett Pill

Something I forgot to put in my secret sauce post from yesterday: when a player has a much better season than he’s ever had before, but the walk rate is still pretty bad, I will almost completely ignore the improvement until it’s repeated at a higher level. Pill’s power was kind of impressive by Connecticut standards, but certainly not by "24-year-old first baseman in AA"-standards. Pill’s defense is supposed to be impressive, but until he does anything in AAA, he’s not much of a consideration for a top-30 list.

Ranking Prospects

2010-02-02T15:00:27Z

More photos » Fernando Llano - AP

This picture doesn't have much to do with the story, but I can't stop staring at it. It's like an Escher print.

Browse more photos »

Three years ago, Kevin Goldstein told the following to both of the readers of this site:

McCovey Chronicles: When ranking prospects, how do you balance the five-tool, high-ceiling types with the one- or two-tool types who are already close to impacting a major-league roster at something less than an All-Star level?
Kevin Goldstein: That's kind of the secret sauce in many ways. Ranking prospect combines two things - predicting a player's ultimate ceiling and crossing that with a players chances of actually reaching that ceiling. It's really different for every guy and you have to develop a feel for it really.

That description always stuck with me. Secret sauce. It’s a quick and vivid way to describe the art of prospectin’. The problem is that anyone can slap together a secret sauce and call it a secret sauce, but that doesn’t make it a good secret sauce. If my knowledge of the Giants’ best prospects were analogous to a secret sauce, for example, it would be some vinegar and buttermilk in a fondue pot, heated lukewarm before it’s poured over a pile of mushy cauliflower. That’s why this stuff is free. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I was only able to see a few minor league games this year, and I’m certainly not qualified to do anything scouty when I’m there.

That isn’t to say that I’m humble enough to forgo a top-10 list this year like I used to. No, I’ve been getting more and more arrogant as the years have built up, so I’m going to stretch this thing out into a top-30 list over several days. Hold up your plate; I’ve got something I’d like to ladle onto it. Mmmmm.

When I’m pretending to be qualified, here are some of my prospectin' tenets:

Ignore references to "TINSTAAPP," that wacky acronym of dogmatic baseball nerds everywhere. It’s only useful for creating false dichotomies. All prospects will break your heart. Pretending that hitters turn out swell in a nice, linear fashion is a good way to do something stupid. Like, oh, ranking Todd Linden over Matt Cain.

Instead of flipping a coin to decide between two prospects, though, go with the hitter. I’ll give the TINSTAAPP partisans that much.
Overrate players who show an above-average ability to hit for power, take a walk, or strike a hitter out while being among the youngest players in their league. Pablo Sandoval wasn’t lighting the prospect world on fire, but 20-year-olds usually don’t have a .189 ISO in High-A. Should have paid more attention.
Value high ceilings more than lower ceilings who are more of a sure thing to make a major league roster. Brandon Medders struck out 53 in 41 innings in his pro debut, coasting to an ERA of 1.32. The scouts said, meh, he’s projectable, but he’ll never be a closer. He has a good chance of being a useful middle reliever, they’d say, but nothing more. Some folks believe in cost certainty with their prospect rankings, so they’ll look at a player like this and argue forcefully in his favor.

And the cost certainty folks had part of it right: Medders provided a major league team with value. But he didn’t do it for the team that drafted him. He did it for a team that picked him up off the scrap heap. Teams share players like Medders like hydrogen atoms share electrons, or like Dylan McKay and Brandon Walsh share girlfriends. So when a player’s ceiling is something akin to what Brandon Medders has proven he can do, I respond with: You want a Medders? I can get you a Medders, believe me. Hell, I can get you a Medders by 3 o’clock this afternoon. I used to be tempted by the Adam Cowarts and Brian Horwitzes of the world. No more.

Nothing especially scientific, mind you, but that’s most of what goes into my secret sauce. That, and a couple teaspoons of dill. Maybe some nutmeg. Over the next week or so, I’ll go over my amateur list of 30. Please, no wagering.

Comment starter: Your secret sauce. Divulge your secrets. Keep the lawyers and their non-disclosure agreements out of this.

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum announced today that Jon Miller, who has spent parts...

2010-02-01T20:07:01Z

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum announced today that Jon Miller, who has spent parts of five decades as the voice of five Major League Baseball teams and has been the voice of ESPN’s national Sunday Night Baseball telecasts for 20 years, has been selected as the 2010 recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for major contributions to baseball broadcasting. Miller will be honored during Hall of Fame Induction Ceremonies on Sunday, July 25, 2010 in Cooperstown, N.Y.

...sez the Hall of Fame

Former closer Kim, Giants agree to deal

2010-02-01T20:02:47Z

Former closer Kim, Giants agree to deal

Some of you might be too young to remember, but Byung-Hyung Kim used to be really good. Then he became a starting pitcher, lost six or seven miles off his fastball, and had all sorts of arm injuries, not necessarily in that order.

I'd give a spring training invite to Greg Minton if he wanted one. It's an no-risk, all-reward proposition, and I especially like when they're given to 31-year-old relievers with a history of past success. A distant, distant history, sure, but....

Thoughts on "calling a good game."

2010-01-29T15:00:18Z

From Lookout Landing....

We would expect better game-callers to post lower (CERAs), and we would expect worse game-callers to post higher CERAs. Adjusted for pitchers and opponents, of course. Obviously, if you're calling a better game, that means your pitchers are allowing fewer runs. And here's where it gets interesting. Catchers catch a lot of innings. There's nobody out there who's, say, a full CERA point better than average, but do you think a study could really pick up on a difference of 0.2? What about 0.1? With all the variables and all the adjustments, do you think that, if there were a spread from -0.1 to +0.1, any study would be able to catch it?

Over 900 innings - the average of the top 30 catchers in innings caught - a 0.1 CERA effect would be equal to ten runs. So if such a true-talent spread from -0.1 to +0.1 did exist, that would come out to a spread of 20 runs over a full season, or roughly two wins.

The implication being that, even given a spread that small, we could be talking about the best game-caller being two wins better than the worst game-caller over a full season by true talent, on game-calling alone.

This makes sense to my English major brain. Calling a good game might be a big deal, and it's not necessarily something that we can quantify just yet. Of course, that sets up this question: Does a catcher magically become a good game caller through experience, or can a lunkheaded ten-year veteran still be a lunkhead when it comes to baseball strategy? Because I've seen veteran catchers make unbelievably silly pitch calls -- a first pitch fastball to Vinny Castilla? Sure! Why not? -- so independent of any evidence, I'm not ready to assign pitch-calling bonus points to one catcher and demerits to another catcher just based on experience. That would be like assuming Bengie Molina would have better plate discipline than Buster Posey because of the disparity in major league at-bats.

But now I get how pitch-calling can make a huge difference. Until there's a way to quantify it, the choices are a) to use anecdotal evidence and personal observation when determining who calls a good game, or b) ignore it entirely because we can't properly quantify it yet. Both are pretty repugnant choices.

_{And I'd still like Posey to start, dang it...}

An early look at fifth starter options...

2010-01-28T21:29:14Z

I’m not opposed to Madison Bumgarner being in the rotation at the start of the season, just as I’m not opposed to him starting the season in AAA. If he shows up to camp throwing hard with clean mechanics, he’d give the Giants a better chance to win than any of the in-house alternatives.

If Bumgarner comes to camp and throws 89 MPH, looking like a quality pitcher but not a world-beater, there’s no sense in putting him through the rigors of a full season in the majors. Put him in Fresno, limit his workload, and call him up if he dominates.

Simple…except the Giants aren’t going to know until spring training, at which point any free agent options are likely to be off the market. And this is the perfect offseason to look for back-end starters on one-year deals. Heck, I wish there were a clever all-offense, no-pitching team with money at the beginning of the offseason, just so we could have watched a rotation of Pedro Martinez, Erik Bedard, John Smoltz, Ben Sheets, and Rich Harden. That would’ve been a high-risk, crazy-high-reward gamble for a single season. It would have been a fascinating experiment.

The Randy Johnson gambit from last season might have been a marketing success, but it was on-field bust. That’s a shame, because it was a fantastic idea. Not only was Johnson a marketable player, but his peripheral statistics indicated that he was still likely to be effective if he remained healthy. High-risk, high-reward. The Giants ended up with a leaky sack full of fermented risk for their money.

The Giants say that they’re probably done making moves for the offseason. Okay, fine. But I’ve been surprised by enough Giants-related news to know that the team says a lot of things that they don’t necessarily mean. I’m hoping that they’re at least having internal discussions about any of the following:

Pedro Martinez
John Smoltz
Erik Bedard

Oh, they’ll need to do due diligence on the pitchers’ health, and they’ll need to kick several tires at the end of the day, but if healthy, all three pitchers could be bargains. It’s kind of a false dichotomy when we yap about the Giants needing more hitters – it’s true, but it’s more accurate to say that the Giants need to improve the team. If adding John Smoltz for $5M, say, might give the Giants an extra couple of wins over what they can expect from Bumgarner, Joe Martinez, Kevin Pucetas, or Steve Johnson, it’s an idea worth thinking about. The on-field improvements are the main selling point, but it also helps that Bumgarner can be stretched out in a five-man rotation, held to five or six innings at a time when needed, and eligible for arbitration later than he would have.

If the fragile vet breaks down like Randy Johnson did, Bumgarner is the likely replacement anyways. Nothing lost but money…which is exactly why the Giants probably aren’t going to do this. They’ve spent their money for the offseason. This is the part that I grumble about Bengie Molina, except I think I’ll pick on Juan Uribe this time. Utility infielders for $3M are luxury items, and the Giants aren’t a luxury kind of team. I would have rather seen Pedro Martinez try to stay healthy in a Giants uniform. Not at goofy Ben Sheets prices, mind you, so maybe that's the catch to this whole thing.

I’m not as rabidly anti-Bumgarner-starting-in-the-majors as some of y’all, but if there were ever a season in which a team didn’t have to rush up a prospect to be a fifth starter, this is it. Here’s hoping the Giants weren’t scared away from a good idea just because it didn’t work last year.

(Partly) excusing the underwhelming offseason

2010-01-27T19:48:36Z

Everyone has their own idea of how the offseason should have gone. More on-base percentage, or more power, or more Holliday, or more musical interludes, or whatever. A popular variation -- at least around these parts -- is that if the choice was between "DeRosa/Huff/Uribe/Molina/F. Sanchez" and "nothing with savings of $24M to use on international free agents", the latter was a much better idea.

In theory, I agree. It’s not a given that the quintet of free agent acquisitions will improve the team. Again, that quintet cost around $24M. The Giants spent $24M, and there’s a strong chance they didn’t improve the team. That becomes a sillier sentence every time I type it.

But we live in a cute little nerd bubble here. Some small differences:

**Baseball Nerds vs. Regular Fans**
	What we see	What they see
Fred Lewis	Patient, if unrefined, league-average player	Strikeout-prone goof who should have "Yakity Sax" playing as he goes after fly balls
John Bowker	Promising player who revamped his hitting approach in AAA with great success	Strikeout-prone goof
Kevin Frandsen	Serviceable and cheap utility infielder	An arrogant disappointment who didn't get that bunt down that one time, REMEMBER THAT?
Ryan Garko	A clankmitt, but a decent hitter at a very reasonable price	A total stiff who can’t handle the pressure of a pennant race
Buster Posey	The lovechild of Will Clark and JFK. A guy who wears catcher’s gear made of adamantium and rides to work on Pegasus	An unknown quantity who might not be ready to catch in the major leagues

Another small difference: The group on the right is about 10,000 times the size of the group on the left, and they have money. Season ticket money. Merchandise money. Thirty-dollar-beer money. If the Giants go into the season relying on those four players, the perception isn’t going to be that it’s because that’s the right way to build a team. The perception would be that the Giants are miserly, cheap hoarders. Why couldn’t they get Jason Bay? Why couldn’t they get Matt Holliday? Why couldn’t they re-sign their cleanup hitter? And if the Giants didn’t repeat their modest success from last year, the fallout would be brutal. How can the team get so close and then refuse to spend money on the offense? Screw this, Mortimer. I’m not springing for season tickets next year.

With Huff and DeRosa, the team brought in known quantities. Huff had some great years. So did DeRosa. Even in down years, they get a bunch of RBI. Juan Uribe and Bengie Molina? Clutch favorites. Did you really think we were going to let them go? Freddy Sanchez? A gamer. You’ll see. It’s unfortunate he didn’t help more last year, but give him a chance to win you over.

Everyone in the lineup is a known quantity. Kind of. Well, Nate Schierholtz is the token youngster, but the veterans -- and the money spent on them -- represent an honest effort to improve the offense. If doesn’t work, well, jeez, they tried.

This is a gross simplification -- not every season-ticket holder is on board with the revival of Operation Veteran Grit -- but after a season of excruciatingly poor hitting, it would have been a political disaster to stand pat. Is the marginal improvement worth $24M? No. Is the marginal improvement plus the public relations help worth $24M? Maybe. That’s not my area of expertise, but it’s not crazy to think it’s a sound business decision.

So it’s not a bad thing to ask why the Giants acquired the players they did. I doubt that Aubrey Huff was Sabean’s ninth choice to improve the infield in October, so there are probably things even Sabean would have done differently with the benefit of hindsight. But it was never realistic to think the Giants could have said, "Good show! Now we’re going to avoid free agents and put the money back into player development." That might have been a sound long-term baseball strategy, but it would have been a questionable short-term business strategy.

A very special announcement from McCovey Chronicles

2010-01-26T22:29:59Z

I don't get it either, but Michael Lewis -- author of Moneyball and The Blind Side -- has agreed to share an exclusive sneak preview of his forthcoming book, Up the Middle, with McCovey Chronicles. He approached me, much to my surprise, and I agreed before he even finished the sentence.

I hate to sound like a blushing fanboy, but, wow. This is unbelievable. The preview is in .pdf format, so my apologies to those of you with slow connections.

Click here for a sneak preview of Up the Middle by Michael Lewis

The Case of the Broken Second Baseman

2010-01-25T20:37:50Z

Brian Sabean: …so with that said, I’d like to introduce our newly acquired second baseman, Freddy Sanchez!
Sanchez steps to the podium. Five seconds later, his labrum catches on fire. Sanchez writhes in pain on the ground.

Sabean: I, uh…well, shoot.

two months later

Sabean: I’d like to keep you, Freddy, but we’re not going to pick up this option. It’s more than what you’d get on the market.

Freddy Sanchez: How about two years and, uh…

Sanchez looks at a dozen donuts in a box on Sabean’s desk.

Sanchez:…a dozen million? I mean, $12M?

Sabean: Done. Sign here, here, and here.

Sanchez signs

Sabean: Great. Say, you’re not injured are you?

Sanchez: Notaybe.

Sabean: I don’t think that’s a real word.

Sanchez: Uh, the shoulder that was injured is now fine.

Sabean: Good. But why did you start rubbing your other shoulder when you said that?

Sanchez: I, uh, well, the thing is…

Sanchez’s other labrum turns into a fog and leaks out his nose.

Sabean: I, uh…well, shoot.

Yeah, har har. It’s easy to poke fun at Sabean and possibly the medical staff that signed off on two major Sanchez transactions, but over the last 13 years, this hasn’t been a recurring theme. Maybe there were some oddities with Noah Lowry’s prognosis, but that’s the only other medical funkiness I can think of in recent history. When the Giants traded for Ellis Burks, they took a similar chance on his preexisting conditions, and that worked out quite well. The Giants checked out Freddy Sanchez’s knee, and it was his shoulder that went kerblooey. It’s probably fair to chalk it up to bad luck rather than incompetence. Usually, the Giants’ staff is sending people like Armando Rios the other way, or passing on a long-term deal for a guy like Jason Schmidt.

So it doesn't make a ton of sense to rail against the front office or the medical staff for this one. After the Ray Durham years, maybe they should question the strategy of acquiring second basemen over the age of 30, but considering the overall value Durham provided, that probably isn’t the scariest campfire free agent flashlight story.

The biggest problem with the Sanchez re-signing isn’t that he won’t be ready for Opening Day, it’s that it came so early in an offseason flooded with second basemen. Felipe Lopez and Orlando Hudson still haven’t signed, and when they do, it will certainly be for less guaranteed money than Sanchez received. A lot of this is 20/20 hindsight – I certainly wasn’t screaming this from the rooftops when the deal was made – but if the Giants had the offseason to do over, they’d probably start by waiting a little bit to see how the market played out.

If this happens again – if another midseason acquisition comes over with preexisting injuries, doesn’t provide any value at all, and then gets signed to a lucrative extension before having surgery for a different injury concern – then I’ll get all indignant. But…wait. After reading that, I’m starting to get indignant. Now I get it. That’s pretty lame.

Still, it’s probably best to focus on the confirmed organizational problems. Like, oh, pretending that Bengie Molina is a net positive to the offense because of his RBI blood, his home run sweat, and his clutch tears. That sort of thing should be the main concern. That the Giants’ due diligence might not have been especially diligent with regard to Freddy Sanchez’s medical status? There’s no sense in getting too worked up about it unless it proves to be the rule, not the exception.

Jesus Guzman designated for assignment...

2010-01-22T22:56:42Z

Jesus Guzman designated for assignment...

...to make room for Bengie Molina. This isn't likely to be anything to freak out over -- Guzman's glove and patience were probably going to limit him to the bench -- but I suggest we all freak out anyways.

And just because I want the Giants succeed doesn't mean that it wouldn't be funny to watch Ryan Garko and Guzman hit a combined 45 home runs in the near future.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The San Francisco Giants have extended non-roster invitations for Major League S...

2010-01-21T23:17:26Z

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — The San Francisco Giants have extended non-roster invitations for Major League Spring Training to the following 22 players, club Senior Vice President and General Manager Brian Sabean announced today: right-handed pitchers - Denny Bautista, Santiago Casilla, Rafael Cova, Steven Edlefsen, Eric Hacker, Osiris Matos, Tony Pena Jr., Felix Romero, Dan Turpen and Craig Whitaker; left-handed pitchers – Craig Clark and Clayton Tanner; catchers – Steve Holm, Johnny Monell, Hector Sanchez and Jackson Williams; infielders – Ehire Adrianza, Brandon Crawford, Nick Noonan; outfielders – Wendell Fairley, Roger Kieschnick and Thomas Neal.

The tone of the offseason (and every season, really)

2010-01-21T23:14:35Z

If you haven’t figured out, the tone of this site can careen out of control, bust past the guardrails, and flip upside down into a ravine of negativity. It’s not a new thing, but it isn’t what everyone would prefer. It’s understandable to wonder why a lot of Giants fans are so negative following a winning season. Heck, they did better than a lot of us expected them to do. Isn’t that worth something?

Yes. Wait, no. I’m not sure. All I know is that Giants are so damned close to having a fantastic team. Not in terms of personnel – they aren’t one or two players away from that fantastic team – but in terms of philosophy. Last year, they had the best pitching staff of any Giants team in my lifetime. They also had one of the worst lineups I’ve ever seen. The Giants’ front office can draft and develop pitching like few other organizations. Brian Sabean is adept at finding relief bargains in discount bins, as well as in his own minor league system.

The team just has no concept of what makes a good offense. This offseason, they were entrusted with one job: try to make an awful offense better. Every move they’ve made since then is a lateral move, at best. Most of us didn’t expect it to be different, but that infected piece of hope that’s lodged in the dark recesses of our brain made some a little irrational.

I’m terrified that the Giants are going to let this window of brilliant pitching close. I’m terrified that by the time the offense approaches the league average, key members of the staff will be gone, hurt, or ineffective. So when the Giants acquire a player or five who are on the wrong side of 30, and whose on-base percentage is either not much of a help (Aubrey Huff) or is a complete catastrophe (Bengie Molina), that terror manifests itself in criticism. The criticism usually is done with a sneering tone. The sneering tone becomes oppressive. I get that, and it isn’t for everyone.

There’s no reason for me to put this as a disclaimer to every post:

The Giants’ front office can draft and develop pitching like few other organizations. Brian Sabean is adept at finding relief bargains in discount bins, as well as in his own minor league system.

…but it’s there in spirit. That’s why it’s so frustrating. I didn’t want to cheapen the frustration with anything the Analogotron 3500 spit out, but, who am I kidding? I love that little thing.

The Giants are like a fantastic WWII movie script with Martin Scorsese set to direct, financing in place, and locations all scouted out. The offense is like the casting director coming back and saying, "Have you thought about Pauly Shore for the role of Sarge?" When you say, no, that’s not going to work, they shuffle off and return in six months to ask, "Okay, what about Corey Feldman?" When that suggestion is politely rebuffed, they come back in six months to ask, "Say, have you thought about Alex Guinness?" You point out that Sir Alec is in a better place now, and this continues on for another couple of years.

Meanwhile, Scorsese isn’t sure if he wants to commit anymore , the producers are pulling out, and everything is crumbling around you. The next time the casting director shows up to suggest Soliel Moon Frye, you’re a little frazzled. You’re terrified that the opportunity is passing you by. And you lash out.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope Aubrey Huff is the Huff of 2008. I hope Mark DeRosa rebounds to be the DeRosa of 2008. I hope Edgar Renteria repeats his season of 2007. I hope Aaron Rowand relives his last year as a Phillie. I hope Bengie Molina keeps the pitching staff happy, I hope he maintains his power, and I hope he’s able to turn the spot over to Buster Posey in a bloodless coup.

I hope I look like a pessimistic goofball at this time next year. I hope my thousands and thousands of words of wrong are mocked, belittled, and laughed at. I hope they carry an effigy of me down Market Street during the championship just so people can throw tomatoes at it.

Until that day, I’m a gonna complain. I appreciate the things the organization does well; I’ll focus on the things that are preventing the team from winning their first championship since they moved from New York.

DiamondView 2.010: San Francisco Giants

2010-01-21T18:39:05Z

DiamondView 2.010: San Francisco Giants

Beyond the Boxscore has their nifty DiamondView preview up for the Giants, and they asked me to give a little commentary about the players in the lineup. Is it optimistic or pessimistic? Uh, well, uh...yeah. Sorry. It's how I'm wired.

I want to start making McCovey Chronicles shirts again.

2010-01-21T05:29:26Z

How should I do that, and what should they say?

Poll

I would buy one of those shirts, throwing in a couple of bucks on top of the already substantial price as a tip for the proprietor of this fine site!

Yes.

406 votes

Of course.

300 votes

706 votes | Poll has closed

Warning: A long-winded, often boring, essay on why the Giants drive me nuts

2010-01-20T18:51:59Z

Maybe it’s a good idea to step back and analyze the distaste for the Bengie Molina move even more. Dig deep. Get out the pocketwatches, start them a-swingin’, and head on back to a past life if you must.

It isn’t necessarily that Molina is one of the hardest players to watch, though he is. On average, every seven games, he’ll hit a home run. Everything else that he does on the baseball field is aesthetically displeasing. He can’t score from second on a single; he allows pitchers to control every at-bat he takes; his defense is the first thing to go when he gets tired. But, heck, that’s probably holding him to too high of a standard. Catchers aren’t supposed to be fast, they’re not supposed to be especially good hitters, and it’s a tough and taxing position to play.

It isn’t necessarily that Molina means that Buster Posey is AAA-bound. Posey has excited Giants fans like no other prospect since Will Clark. That’s over 20 years of waiting for an All-Star position player from the farm. Sandoval was a surprise -- a beautiful, welcome, and rotund surprise -- so the anticipation wasn’t nearly the same. Since the ‘08 draft, though, we’ve been waiting for Posey.

Will he sign?....when does he start A-ball?...now that he’s dominated A-ball, when does he get promoted?...now that he’s hitting well in AAA, when do we see him in the majors?...now that he’s in the majors, is there a chance that a St. Bernard can get a flagon of rum to the end of the bench?

Wait, wait, wait. When the Giants declined to offer Molina arbitration, it was possible that the wait was over. Not so. But I’ll accept the possibility that Posey isn’t ready, that his defense needs work, and that it isn’t a good idea to drop a full-time catching gig in his lap for a team ready to contend. I disagree, but I don’t think I know enough to be dogmatic about it. A year in AAA isn’t going to ruin his development, and it might actually aid it.

The distaste for the re-signing comes mostly because I’m pretty sure that the Giants start with a deeply held belief -- that the difference between a good catcher and a bad catcher is worth 10 wins or more, that a team with a low on-base percentage can make up for that with speed and sound fundamental play, that aging players coming off a down year are likely to bounce back -- and move on from there. There’s no curiosity, no admission that there’s room for intellectual growth in the sport or anything that challenges long-held beliefs.

Forget VORP, WAR, UZR, and the like. I don’t necessarily want the Giants to become a member of the sabermetric orthodoxy. I just want the Giants to think, gee, we’ve finished in the bottom third for runs scored for five straight years. Is that because of the park? Let’s find out. (The answer is no, it’s not the park.) Okay, then what’s going on? Is it a lack of execution on sacrifice bunts and moving runners over? Let’s find out where we stack up to the rest of the league. (The answer is no, the Giants execute bunts and move runners over as well as other teams.) Well, what is it? Let’s get a variety of opinions.

I want them to examine issues from a variety of sides. If Posey really isn’t ready on defense, what does that mean? What would happen if he allowed 20 passed balls? (It would lead to more runs for the other team, but maybe not as many as you might think.) What is the difference between a catcher who calls a great game and a catcher who doesn’t know what he’s doing? Why, if there is a difference, has it never, ever, ever shown up consistently where you think it should, which is in a team’s ERA? Maybe it would be a good idea to get some scouts together and ask who, in their opinions, were the worst defensive catchers in the past ten years. Then look at how their teams did when the poorly fielding catcher started, as well as when an adept catcher was behind the plate. Was there a difference? Is it such a difference that it’s worth committing to a sub-.300 on-base percentage over someone who could improve on that?

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe these questions are all being asked, but the research isn’t the sort of thing that makes it into the morning paper. Maybe. Somehow, I doubt it. I think the Giants are starting with a truism and moving on from there.

"Well, we know that all matter is made from earth, air, water, fire, and aether. So now we have to figure out how to manipulate them. I think that...."

"Well, the catcher is the most important position on the field. The pitching staff would be significantly affected by an inexperienced catcher. So I think that...."

The difference between the two is that the first statement is a proven falsehood, and the second is very much up for debate. But if a team believes in something because that’s what baseball people have always believed, and there’s no desire to verify the theory with any empirical methods, they might as well be believing in aether, the four humors, and yeti. And if that team has only had one winning season in the past five years, it’s more than a little arrogant to think that those beliefs are unquestionable truths.

Bengie Molina handles a pitching staff well. (That’s what everyone says, anyways.) He gets a lot of RBI. (That must mean the horrible offense would be even worse without him.) An inexperienced catcher would really hurt the team’s chances to contend. (It’s just science.) His penchant for making outs is a minor, minor concern compared with his RBI and home runs (On-base percentage is just a more confusing version of an established stat, batting average.) Therefore, the Giants are a better team with Bengie Molina than they would be with Rod Barajas and $4M extra to save for the trade deadline, or Buster Posey and $6M to buy out draft prospects who fall in the draft because of strong college commitments. This is true because it’s always been true.

I just want a team that honestly evaluates why they’re successful in some areas but not others. I want a team that can admit that they don’t have the game of baseball figured out, especially when a lot of the available evidence should be humbling, not encouraging. It’s not too much to ask. But the idea that Bengie Molina is an indispensable part of a team on a budget is just another slide in the three-hour PowerPoint presentation that confirms it’s never going to happen.

The 35-year-old Molina can earn an additional $1.5 million in performance bonuses based on games...

2010-01-20T06:58:39Z

The 35-year-old Molina can earn an additional $1.5 million in performance bonuses based on games started.

Just awesome.