McCovey Chronicles

Community Projections: Tim Lincecum

2010-03-19T20:10:44Z

McCovey Chronicles: Now with nifty AP-created graphics to go along with the knock-knock jokes.

According to Baseball-Reference’s Play Index, there have been 30 seasons since 1901 in which a pitcher 25 or younger had over 250 strikeouts, and Lincecum has two of them. According to Lame-Joke-Reference’s Tired Joke Index, only two other athletes have come close to the number of marijuana-related jokes since 1901. By all measures, Lincecum is an absolute gift.

He’ll always have to ignore the doubters, though. You know that in 2001 there were a few elated jackasses who were finally proven right about that frail, frail Pedro Martinez. Sure, it was after 1000 innings of the best baseball ever pitched, but the diminutive Pedro finally broke down. And it’s happening to Lincecum as we speak!

Tim Lincecum

IP: 134
ERA: 4.59
BB: 77
K: 98
HR: 16

Well, it was good while it...wait a second, I don’t believe in that projection for a second. Yes, Lincecum’s velocity was down a little last year, which would be a pretty big concern if he didn’t continue to be the best pitcher in the National League. It’s those subtle, obscure signs that help me feel better. If hitters keep swinging, the dude can roll the ball to the plate for all I care. And the slow start this spring means as much as his Galaga scores.

This is Tim Lincecum. His bones are made of adamantium, and his hair helps ward off most lesser spells and witchcraft. His changeup is the best pitch in baseball, and his fastball still has a ton of life on it, velocity be damned. I’m not sure where that life came from, because we all know that Lincecum’s fastball has always been completely straight.

One scout thinks San Francisco No. 1 prospect Tim Lincecum should be used as a closer, but it has nothing to do with his size or mechanics. "I'm not bothered by his delivery at all, and he pitches taller because he's long and lean," said the scout. "His fastball is so straight that I think hitters will line it up after the first time through," he continued. "I know you always want 200 innings out of guys instead of 70, but as a closer he'd be so tough and he has the demeanor, and absolutely no fear."

In an alternate universe, this scout might run things. The greatest argument to make against the Large Hadron Collider is that we might find ourselves in that universe. Science is scary stuff.

Well, not all science is scary. Some projections:

ZiPS: 225 IP, 260 IP, 78 BB, 13 HR
PECOTA: 214 IP, 248 K, 68 BB, 2.94 ERA, 18 HR
CHONE: 196 IP, 224 K, 68 BB, 3.12 ERA, 12 HR
Bill James: 228 IP, 261 K, 80 BB, 2.80 ERA, 12 HR

The only one I don’t like a lot is CHONE. Last year, I played it safe. That just makes me look like a weenie.

Tim Lincecum

IP: 235
ERA: 2.70
K: 274
BB: 62
HR: 12

The first time the Giants get shutout this year, we should all make a point to visit Lincecum’s BB-Ref page and stare at it for a while. We are so lucky to watch him pitch.

Open GameThread, 3/19

2010-03-19T19:16:21Z

Open GameThread, 3/19

Battle of the Underrated Historical Loser Teams! No Cubs allowed, please. Take it somewhere else.

Organizational Philosophies

2010-03-18T20:48:46Z

Right before Hensley Meulens was hired, I wondered aloud if hitting coaches mattered a whole lot. I’m still not sure about that one. But when the new guy makes a player like Bengie Molina say this…

"For all my career, I've been very aggressive," Molina said. "But, yes, I want to work on taking some more pitches. The more pitches you see, the better you should be. Hopefully it works."

…hey, at least it’s a little encouraging. Yeah, "I want to take more pitches," is right up there with "Best shape of his life!" when it comes to spring clichés, but there’s also that famous, unfairly scrutinized data point:

Bowker in 2007: 41 walks in 587 plate appearances.

Bowker in 2008: 26 walks in 452 plate appearances.

Bowker after working with Meulens in 2009: 78 walks in 523 plate appearances.

John Bowker wanted to improve his patience. He worked with Meulens. Bowker improved his patience. But while Meulens is batting 1.000 in warm ‘n’ fuzzy OBP anecdotes, it’s with a sample size of one. I still don’t know what to think.

When I want players to be more patient – and I think I speak for most of the internet baseball nerd consortium on this – I’m not just hoping they’ll take more pitches. The idea isn’t to accumulate the highest percentage of pitches seen outside of the strike zone, it’s to a) get better pitches to hit, and b) not help the pitcher by swinging at garbage. By doing a. and b., the walks will come naturally. Outside of a few speedsters and utility guys, no one is actively trying to get a walk in every at-bat. It seems as if this is closer to Meulens’s philosophy than is something silly like "get ‘em early in the count." So I’m cautiously optimistic about the effects he might have.

But something else I’d like the Giants to do, from the front office on down, is to seek out evidence when forming an opinion. Realize that the human brain is fallible. When the brain says, "Fred Lewis takes too many pitches," try to figure out if there is anything that can support that claim other than a loose feeling. Because the premise isn’t ridiculous – if a hitter isn’t doing anything with the pitches he’s forcing pitchers to throw in the strike zone, he isn’t fulfilling his potential. But Lewis is swinging at plenty of pitches in the strike zone. His Z-Swing % – defined by FanGraphs as "percentage of pitches a batter swings at inside the strike zone" – is near the league average at 69.6%. When a pitcher throws a strike to Fred Lewis, Lewis is swinging just as often as the next guy.

I’m not trying to be tricky by substituting the word "evidence" for "stats." I just want to get rid of feelings and hunches. Last year, the monster under the bed was poorly executed bunt attempts and other Little Things, and that was a totally bogus and made-up problem. The Giants were wasting time trying to find the Magic Wyvern-Repelling Laser Gun in case they were attacked by wyverns, but they were doing it when the place was on fire.

More patience is good, so I hope for good things from Meulens and his fresh approach. It would also be great if the Giants stopped paying attention to unsupported opinions. Maybe a combination of the two would lead to better execution, better player evaluation, and an offense that can score more than 700 runs.

Better players wouldn’t hurt either, but let’s not get crazy.

Open GameThread, 3/17

2010-03-17T20:11:13Z

This game pairs well with Guinness and regional snobbery.

First Baseball Memories

2010-03-17T17:25:42Z

It’s so easy to be the overly cynical guy, mumbling something about how spring games don’t mean anything every chance you get, but then you start believing what you’re saying. It’s easy to harumph a Thomas Neal double off the wall because a) it doesn’t mean anything, b) he’ll be down in minor league camp soon, and c) I’m not in Arizona, sitting in a cheap, shady outfield seat drinking a $5 Coke with a splash of crotch-concealed bourbon, laughing at the starch-collared peons who have to work under fluorescent lights. I can’t get excited about reading box scores. It’s hard to get excited about web-only radio broadcasts; during the baseball season, I’m trying to juggle a radio broadcast with work once a week, at most. Having to do so every single day is almost stressful.

This happens every year. Usually what I do to snap out of the funk is reread The Glory of Their Times, which is my favorite baseball book of all time. This year, though, someone mentioned they read The Soul of Baseball, so I gave it a shot. It’s a fantastic, quick read. It’s 200 pages that covers the following:

Buck O’Neil was a fascinating man.
Buck O’Neil might have been the most positive person to ever live.
Buck O’Neil liked to reminisce about baseball, which is a game he loved as much as anyone could love it.
The catty know-nothings who kept Buck O’Neil out of the Hall of Fame all deserve to be poked in the eye with a year-old Dodger Dog until they get gastroenteritis of the eye, even though O’Neil was too positive to think such of a thing.
Baseball is awesome.

The book is about enjoying the game in the present, but it’s also deeply concerned with personal baseball memories. O’Neil was fond of asking people what their best day in baseball was. He’d also ask what their first baseball memories were, which is today’s comment starter. My first baseball memories:

Being so excited before my first Giants game, bouncing off the walls and driving my mom nuts with so many arewegoingnowarewegoingnowarewegoingnows, she set a timer for me. When the timer rang, we’d get in the car and head to Candlestick. She was smart -- I shut up and stared at the timer for a while.
Going to an A’s/Orioles game with just my dad and clapping so loudly for Benny Ayala that my dad had to tell me to stop. See, I had a collection of about 15 baseball cards at the time, and this was one of them. So Ayala was my favorite player playing in the game, and shame on my dad for stifling would could have been a life-long obsession with Benny Ayala. Eventually, my collection grew to about 12,983,200 baseball cards, half of which are in my car right now because my mom got sick of storing them for me. I’ll have to look for that Ayala card.
Asking my mom if I could bring a drum to the game -- like Crazy George, or something -- and my mom defusing the situation by telling me I could bring a drum only if I found one at the garage sale they were stopping by on the way to the game. There was a drum at the garage sale, a small tambourine-sized thing that was still able to produce a nice amount of noise. My mom couldn’t go back on her deal, so she had to explain to her seat neighbors why she brought a six-year-old kid with a drum to a baseball game.
Walking around the upper-deck concourse in Candlestick when the crowd started to roar. My mom grabbed me, and we ran out to the entrance to the closest section just in time to see Joe Morgan round second base.

Reading The Soul of Baseball got me in that sentimental baseball mood, dang it. Your first baseball memories, if you would.

Season Preview

2010-03-16T20:16:25Z

I did a season preview for SBNation.com. Read it.

Giants on TV again on Tuesday/Open GameThread, 3/16

2010-03-16T04:00:21Z

Straight from the source:

FYI, the blackout has been lifted in the San Francisco Giants' local television market for MLB Network's simulcast of the Giants at Cleveland Indians Spring Training game tomorrow, March 16, live at 2:00 p.m. Pacific. MLB Network will carry Sports Time Ohio's call of the game.

This will allow me to finish that 3,000-word scouting report on Felix Romero that I've been planning for a while.

Open GameThread, 3/15

2010-03-16T00:02:55Z

Open GameThread, 3/15

On TV tonight! Well, on the computer. It's on TV on the computer. And you have to pay for it. It also might be blacked out. You know, so you are forced to watch the CSN Bay Area feed that doesn't exist. We'll see.

Quick poll...

2010-03-15T20:55:10Z

Ultimate comment starter:

If you were some sort of omnipotent deity, and you were bored with starting and/or stopping wars and junk, who would you smite first?

Person A
Yeah. It was a totally weird dream. Yeah, like, Mr. Jegflaps, my high school principal, called me in the office because I had an alligator at school, right? But then it wasn’t really an alligator, I knew it was just a hummingbird and it wasn’t even mine, but I couldn’t talk. Like, my mouth was sewn shut, and I wanted to say the words, but I couldn’t, and then my teeth started falling out, and I was like…

Person B
Did the Reds win today? You don’t know? Yeah, I have Bronson Arroyo on my fantasy team, so I was just curious. Yeah, Arroyo sucks, but he was there in the late rounds, and I thought he was a better bet than Kyle Loshe, but I probably could have gotten under my league’s innings requirement if I went with a middle reliever, and I was going to get Sergio Romo to keep my WHIP down, but….

It’s not that I’m against fantasy baseball – in fact, I endorse it heartily. It’s fun. And for a limited time, you can get 50% your fantasy league from CBSSports.com’s Fantasy Commissioner League by clicking this link.! And…wait, where was I….

Vote in the poll. Crucial stuff, this is. This is what a March looks like on a blog that’s covering a team without any position battles. Well, there’s Wellemeyer v. Bumgarner, but that’s only good for a weekly post.

If you dare, you can read the depressing reason why I thought of this after the jump.

The reason: I noticed that in fantasy baseball rankings, every non-Pablo hitter on the Giants is dead last, or close to it. Well, Bengie Molina is usually pretty high up there, because on-base percentage usually doesn’t make a difference, and he’s a good RBI-guy as far as catchers go. Other than that, the hitters are all total bottom-feeders.

That’s not a big deal by itself – there’s a reason it’s called fantasy baseball. It’s not like it reflects reality. Fantasy baseball is concerned with batting average, home runs, RBI, runs scored, and stolen bases. Those aren’t great ways to evaluate individual players. So the worst players on a fantasy ranking aren’t necessarily going to be the worst players in baseball.

What depresses me, though, is that I’m pretty sure that the Giants evaluate players by using fantasy baseball metrics. The Giants are concerned with batting average, home runs, RBI, runs scored, and stolen bases…and they still screw that up. It’s not like the Giants have a bad offense because they’re focusing on the wrong stats and acquiring the players who are the best at accumulating those wrong stats – they’re focusing on the wrong stats, and acquiring the wrong players for those stats.

Then I got sad. And then I thought about writing this, but then I though it would fall under the category of Grant’s Law, which posits:

No one wants to hear about your fantasy team.

Science. Open Avoid Talking About the Offense Thread.

Poll

More annoying?

Open Gameday Thread, 3/14

2010-03-14T18:19:20Z

Open Gameday Thread, 3/14

From SFGiants.com: "No word whether Prince Fielder would make the trip." Dammit, we need closure! As soon as someone figures out if Fielder is making the trip, they need to tweet with wild abandon! We must know!

Open Gameday Thread 3/13

2010-03-13T20:07:04Z

Open Gameday Thread 3/13

And Huff already can't field again.

Open Gameday Thread, 3/12

2010-03-12T19:57:23Z

Open Gameday Thread, 3/12

Wellemeyer. Rockies. All the marbles.

Bumgarner's velocity is still down

2010-03-12T17:39:44Z

Bumgarner was clocked at 94 mph last spring, when he struck out the Dodgers' Manny Ramirez. But his velocity dropped into the high 80s by June, and he hasn't recaptured the crackle on his fastball this spring.

From Andrew Baggarly this morning. It’s far too early in the spring to jump to conclusions, so we should just remain calm. There’s no reason to...

Yeah. Pretty much.

I don’t care if Bumgarner shows up with the 94-mph fastball in his next appearance, he shouldn’t be the fifth starter. Even if it’s a mechanical problem instead of a health issue, there’s no reason to fill a rotation slot with a) a 20-year-old pitcher b) who has never pitched regularly on four days of rest and c) whose fastball velocity has dropped significantly without explanation.

Yeah. Pretty much. It’s just a wee bit obvious to think that. So, of course, the Giants are on board.

Bumgarner remains the top choice among Giants officials to open the season as the No. 5 starter

Dammit. To be fair, it’s not like Bochy can say, "Wow. That kid throws like Kirk Rueter now. He’s going to Fresno for sure." So I hope that they’re already leaning toward Todd Wellemeyer, Joe Martinez, or Steven Johnson. My personal preference is Johnson, if only because he needs to stay on the roster all season for the Giants to keep him.

I’m trying to think of a happy ending to the Bumgarner-lost-his-velocity story, but I really can’t. Not in the short-term, at least. Maybe Beau Mills is still available.

Community Rejection: Fred Lewis

2010-03-11T21:21:12Z

More photos » Morry Gash - AP

San Francisco Giants' Fred Lewis tries to catch a double hit by Milwaukee Brewers' Prince Fielder in the fifth inning. The double was hit down the first-base line, just under the glove of Aubrey Huff.

Browse more photos »

From a Mychael Urban chat session:

OK, let's get rolling. Which member of McCovey Chronicles or Athletics Nation wants to rip me first?

Hey! Play nice, gentle readers. Please do not troll the Urban. But that’s not the relevant quote:

a prediction: … (Fred) Lewis is cut loose near the end of camp.

Urban is probably right, though I’ll guess that the Giants have a decent chance of extracting a token "prospect." The good news is that the prospect has a 5% chance of turning into Darren Ford, who has a 25% chance of turning into Rajai Davis, who has a 1.35% chance of turning into Kenny Lofton. So, yeah, we’re sittin’ pretty.

What happened? Take a spin around last year’s Lewis projection thread, you’ll see plenty of optimism. Lewis was the only hitter who could take a walk, so a lot of us thought he’d be the only non-panda worth penciling in the 2011 roster. Flash-forward a year, and Lewis might be given away.

If a team can’t find a fifth-outfielder slot for a speedy guy with a .355 career on-base percentage, that team must be stacked. That, or they might not care so much about the witchery that is "on-base percentage."

I can understand playing DeRosa over Lewis – similar OBP, but DeRosa has more power.

I can understand starting Rowand in center – Lewis is quick, but he’d drive us mad playing centerfield.

I can understand playing Nate Schierholtz over Lewis – Nate has a better minor league history, and he's a better defensive fit for right field.

I can understand keeping Torres on the roster over Lewis – there should always be at least one true center fielder on the bench, and Torres also adds a touch of lefty-thumping.

So we’re at the fifth-outfielder’s spot. Lewis would fit nicely here. The haters chime in here, saying things like "Lewis drives me nuts when he plays the outfield! He takes weird routes! He makes stupid baserunning mistakes! He just isn’t a heady baseball player!" I can see your point. I disagree with the premise that it adds up to Lewis being a below-average player, but I can see how he’s a frustrating player to watch. However, the alternative is to keep Eugenio Velez. There isn’t a weirder route-taking, more stupid baserunning mistake-making, just as unheady baseball player in the game. He can out-Lewis Lewis in any given game.

The argument for Velez, in two simple bullet points:

He can play second base poorly, which makes a difference on a team that will likely have three other players who can play second base.
He got hot when he was called up in July, and because that streak had an easily identifiable starting point, it means more than getting hot in the middle of the season. Heck, Lewis hit .300/.401/.438 Velez was called up, but Lewis made the mistake of burying that good performance in the middle of the season. He was already on the roster. Velez brought a spark! and a jolt! to the lineup, so he was better.

I just don’t get it. Well, I do. The Giants don’t care much for OBP, and they overreact to small samples. I wonder how many other teams in the league would choose Velez over Lewis. I bet most of the bad teams would even take Lewis.

Comment starter: Have I ever mentioned my theory that the Giants don’t care much for OBP, and they overreact to small samples? I think this is the first time. So please discuss this pioneering, groundbreaking exposé. You know your mind was just blown.

Open GameThread, 3/11

2010-03-11T20:03:44Z

Open GameThread, 3/11

This is a must-win if we want to have spring bragging rights over those jerks from Lookout Landing.

The Personal Side of Baseball

2010-03-10T20:43:37Z

Every set and subset of Giants fans has that one player who drives them nuts. Here in elitist know-it-all land it’s Eugenio Velez. In the wilds of the unwashed, ignorant masses, it’s Fred Lewis. When Velez runs the bases, I expect him to do something bizarre -- say, dig several feet below the mound looking for the fabled "fifth base," which sounds weird, but no more so than sliding ten feet past second base. When he’s at the plate, I expect two things: a distinguished display of impatience, and a wild, sack-of-antlers-in-the-spin-cycle swing. When he succeeds, I call it a fluke. When he doesn’t, it’s because he’s only one of the best 10,000 baseball players in the world, and not the best 1,000, but I still call it other, less savory things.

But I don’t know Eugenio Velez. I don’t know if he likes backgammon, Clive Cussler novels, falconry, and long walks on the beach. I don’t know if he’s the kind of guy who will pick you up from the airport at 3:00 a.m., and I don’t know if he’s the kind of guy who passes up the last glass of milk because he knows you have a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch left. When he’s on the field, he’s a part of the theater. I pretend that I don’t have any other problems except for the team opposing the Giants, and Velez is a character in that pretend-world. I’m not sure if I want to know if Velez is a great guy. He does just fine as the oft-maddening, speedy extra that he is.

Sometimes, though, you’re reminded that baseball is filled with people. The game isn’t like the Hall of Presidents at Disneyland, where animatronic figures do a little jig for your amusement. Well, maybe Velez looks a little like Lincoln, but that’s not the point. And, heck, Velez isn’t even really the point; he’s just one example. It’s just as tough to find out that a truly great player is a truly troubled human. And maybe the toughest thing at all is to read about a guy hanging it up after years of riding buses.

Which brings us to Garrett Broshius, who is retiring after six seasons in the Giants organization and recently wrote a thank-you note to all of the people and fans he met over minor league career. Just over a year after leaving the University of Missouri, Broshius was playing at Fresno, knocking on the door of the major leagues. Five years later, he retires without having ever pitched in the majors. There was no crushing injury, no Lifetime movie-of-the-week reason for this. He was effective and efficient in almost every season. For some reason, things line up for a guy like Ryan Sadowski where they don’t for a guy like Broshius. There’s no science to it.

Broshius was talented enough to share his minor league career with us through columns in The Sporting News, Baseball America, and his blog, so he became a bit of a fan favorite. How can you not root for a guy who writes things like this:

A conversation with Steve Kline is like a conversation with a flying cow. Even if you don't learn anything, it's going to be memorable.

It’s easy to read a name on a minor league transaction log and forget all about it by the time you’ve tweeted your choice of toilet paper. That’s what it’s like when the players are just names or faceless entities. Brett Pill doesn’t walk enough, and the Giants should trade him for a middle reliever. See? That’s easy to write from my perch in nerd world.

But Pill is a guy who probably works hard as heck, who hasn’t had anything handed to him, and it would be a fine story if he came up. Pablo Sandoval is mirthful and jolly. Barry Bonds is, uh, complicated. Omar Vizquel wears shirts that seem like they’re lit by six C-batteries. And Garrett Broshius probably knows where to get a good sandwich at a good price in Akron, and he can write a mighty fine story about it if he wants to. That's all pretty danged cool to know, even if it makes it a little harder to see things in a binary, my team/your team kind of way. It’s easier not to know anything about the players we root for, but it's also a hell of a lot less interesting.

Open Gameday Thread, 3/10

2010-03-10T20:11:47Z

Open Gameday Thread, 3/10

This one's actually a must-lose for the Giants, as they don't want the rest of the baseball world to know just how great of a team they are. If they go something like 23-2 in the Cactus League, everyone will be gunning for them in the regular season. Better to lose a few and sneak up on them.

Open GameThread, 3/9

2010-03-09T20:40:37Z

Open GameThread, 3/9

Another must-win.

Community Projection: Pablo Sandoval

2010-03-09T20:17:29Z

More photos » Eric Risberg - AP

San Francisco Giants' Pablo Sandoval hits an RBI single of Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Chad Billingsley during the first inning of their spring training game in Scottsdale, Ariz., Monday, March 8, 2010. Upon reaching first, Sandoval muttered, "Man, that guy has really let himself go."

Browse more photos »

Last season, Pablo Sandoval hit .330 with a .387 on-base percentage and a .556 slugging percentage. He led the team in walks and home runs, and was tied for second in triples. Hey, he was also seventh on the team in stolen bases. Look out, ’85 Cardinals.

That’s all swell. We all know he was the only good hitter in the lineup last year, and depending on your appreciation for Mark DeRosa, Sandoval is probably going to be the only good hitter in the lineup this year. What often gets taken for granted, though, is just how freaking young he is. For some perspective, here’s a post from my 2010 top-30 prospects list. Well, not the one that was posted here, but the one posted in an alternate dimension:

3. Pablo Sandoval was 22 in the California League last year – so even though he was helping save humanity from the space locusts instead of playing baseball for the last two seasons, he still wasn’t so old that we shouldn't get excited about his performance in 2009 (.330/.387/.556, 25 HR, 52/83 BB/K in 572 at-bats). He hit for average and power, and his walk rate even climbed a little bit. He proved that he could play a decent third base, which helps his value a little as well, even if he isn’t going to catch again.
The Giants haven’t developed an All-Star position player since RBI Baseball was released, so it’s easy to get a little excited here. If everything goes right, Sandoval will continue hitting at AA, and maybe he’ll get a midseason promotion to AAA. And if things go well at AAA, you might see him get a cup of coffee in September. And if things go well in his 15 September at-bats, the Giants might keep him on the major league roster for a little bit in 2011, jerking around with his playing time and stifling his development in favor of half-busted retreads.

So I’m looking forward to Sandoval establishing himself in 2012 and becoming the first All-Star position player to come up with the Giants since Matt Williams. Then the world will end, but that’s only because the Mayans were Giants fans too, so they had some idea how this would turn out.

We’d all be excited about Sandoval if he had the same performance in A-ball at the same age. He’d be a top prospect in the organization. Instead, he had a ridiculously productive season in the majors as the only hitter in a bad lineup, in a park that hurts power numbers for left-handers. He finished seventh in MVP voting while charming the pocket protectors off of all of us. And he’s already good. We don’t have to worry about the Giants finding a lineup spot for him, and we don’t have to worry about the Giants signing Joe Crede to block him in 2011.

But will he regress? The established projection systems:

Bill James: .335/.382/.552, 556 AB, 24 HR
CHONE: .325/.368/.526, 458 AB, 18 HR
PECOTA: .319/.368/.522, 539 AB, 21 HR
ZiPS: .320/.368/.516, 597 AB, 22 HR

So pretty. Even though Sandoval’s 2009 was a bit of a surprise, the abacus twiddlers don’t see him giving a lot of those gains back. And when you watch him hit – when you watch him square up a pitch that almost hits the third-base coach in the knee – you know you’re watching a fellow with an unusual skill set.

If you want pessimism, take it back to last year. That projection was a poor attempt to feign responsibility. Not this year.

Pablo Sandoval:

AB: 553
AVG: .342
OBP: .392
SLG: .599
HR: 28

One more season like last year’s, and he’s tied in awesome points with Tim Linececum. We sat through the Lance Niekros, the Tony Torcatos, the huddling hackers yearning to breath free. We’ve earned this. Thank you, Pablo.

Buster Posey and the Case of the First Baseman's Mitt

2010-03-08T21:44:12Z

More photos » Eric Risberg - AP

Buster Posey learns about catching, gravitational pulls from Bengie Molina.

Browse more photos »

Buster Posey is a catcher. See? Says so right here. The Giants might make questionable personnel moves, but they’re not going to move Posey off the position.

Catching is brutal on the body. Starting catchers need regular rest. So if Buster Posey is really a magical hitter from Planet Mauer, the Giants will need to have his bat in the lineup almost every day. So it’s probably a good idea for Posey to take grounders at first or third. Every sixth or seventh day, Posey can ply his trade at another position, and the reduced stress on his knees could extend his career. The Dodgers did this with Russell Martin, who a) has played some third base, and b) can still suck it, and that's why Martin has been completely healthy for his entire career.

The only reason Posey isn’t starting this year is because the Giants think his receiving skills need some work. So the best thing for Posey would be to start as many games at catcher as he can, which almost certainly means that he’ll have to go to Fresno. If the Giants keep him as a backup, starting him at catcher once a week while shuffling him around the infield to get at-bats, the organization is truly run by a bunch of solvent-inhaling baboons, and we should probably just follow soccer.

If you enjoyed this post, please check out some of my other greatest hits:

Why I Think Barry Zito Isn’t Worth His Contract
Tim Lincecum: Good Pitcher
Bengie Molina Should Not Attempt to Steal Bases
Why an Underwater Stadium Would Be Too Expensive (1995)

Even internet nerds think Posey should learn another position to protect against excessive wear and tear. But if the Giants don’t let him learn catcher first, it would be the craziest, most short-sighted decision they’ve made regarding a prospect’s future during the Sabean era. It would be more egregious than the "he’s a starter, he’s a reliever, he’s a starter, he’s a reliever, he’s a startliever!" method with which they developed Jonathan Sanchez.

The front office, though, has to know that too. Even if Buster Posey could step in and be the team’s best hitter at seven different positions, he’ll help the organization more by convincing them he’s ready to be the starting catcher in 2011. There’s no way he’s going to be some two-bit platoon partner for Aubrey Huff when not the fluffer for Bengie Molina. No way.

If that's what happens, this site will melt from the histrionics. It would be pretty amusing, actually. But to recap:

Buster Posey taking groundballs at different positions is a good thing.
Buster Posey starting the season in Fresno and catching every day is a good thing.
This is a team that didn’t think they needed a legitimate shortstop to back up a 40-year-old starter, which begat the era of Bocock, but even they’re not crazy enough to make Posey some sort of super-utility man out of short-term need.

Comment starter: Well, nothing really. You all agree with that. Whole lot of groupthink going around these parts.