Skip to content

Real Life Calls

I’m currently doing one of my least favorite things besides watching the Giants lose; packing up all my stuff and moving. Moving has to be one of the most excruciating and painful tasks that anyone can undertake in this day-and-age. The constant quest for cardboard boxes, moving heavy furniture, and then moving it again all add to my displeasure.

So with moving in mind, I’ll have to take a short hiatus from the blog and I probably won’t be able to get back to it until early next week. My current schedule is as following: Work, come home and pack, sleep, repeat.

There’s little time for baseball watching or blogging or really anything else of fun. I’ve got some ideas kicking around my head that I’d like to write about once the move is finished, so stay tuned.

Small Site Change: You have have noticed the new ‘preview’ button in the comments section. This allows you to preview a comment before you actually post it, good for proof reading. The button currently looks out of place but when I get the time, I’ll try to make it more inline with the current style.

Comment Starter: How much does moving suck? Share the pain.

Friday Blog Roundup!

Time to share some recommended reading from around the Giants blogosphere.*

*Is ‘blogosphere’ the stupidest word ever? I say yes.

Leading off, the fine gentleman at Raising Matt Cain are giving Freddie-Loo some much deserved love. Not only is Freddie the best hitting Giant right now by EqA — a score of .321 — he’s also been playing some very passable D in the LF for a guy with a poor defensive reputation.

Check it out, the top 3 LF’s in the NL by RZR.

1. Eric Byrnes (.971)
2. Jason Bay (.957)
3. Fred Lewis (.939)

33 balls have been hit into Lewis’ zone and he’s turned 31 of them into outs. Keep up the good work, Fred.

John over at OBM, is talking Sabean and has some nice back-talk going on in the user comments section. Head on over to see what the hubbub is about.

And from the stats side of things, the Giants are leading the majors in stolen bases. The team has stolen 33 total bases — 5 more than the Baltimore Orioles — and sports a decent 77% CS rate. The team with the fewest stolen bases? San Diego, they’ve only swiped 7 so far on the season. The last time the Giants finished the season as the leader in steals was 1921. The 1921 team stole 137 bases out of 251 attempts for a 55% CS rate.

Oh, and by-the-way, that 1921 team won the World Series. By my logic, the 2008 Giants will win the World Series.

SB/CS Leaders from the 1921 Giants
1. Frankie Frisch - 49/13
2. Ross Youngs - 21/17
3. George Burns - 19/20

Maybe Youngs and Burns shouldn’t have tried to steal so much. My favorite from that team was infielder Goldie Rapp who attempted 14 steals and only successfully stole 3 bases! Atta’ boy, Goldie!

Early Season Starter Review

We’ve officially played a month of baseball and the Giants have done surprisingly well. Their current record of 13-16 puts them at 3rd place in the National League West. A traditionally strong NL West has looked slightly weaker this year than previous years. The Rockies and Padres have both gotten off to slow starts and both share the same 11-17 record and last place. The Dodgers are in 2nd place with a 14-13 record and the Diamondbacks look like one of the best teams in baseball at 20-8.

The Giants’ 13-16 record is a little misleading because the team still has some big problems, namely the ability to put runs on the board — 15th in the NL in runs scored and 14th in OPS — and play defense. The Giants Revised Zone Rating of .806 is lowest in the National League and Pythagoras says that our record should be closer to 10-19 than 13-19. This team just isn’t one or two pieces away from being good again.

But enough of the weak points, how’s one of our perceived strengths, pitching, been playing out? It’s been a mixed bag. Lincecum and Sanchez have been great, Cain has struggled some, Correia got hurt, and Zito has been tremendously bad. Let’s check out some numbers.

1. Matt Cain 1-2, 4.41 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     4.73      3.97
BABIP   .300      .272
K%      19.7      20.2
BB%     15.6      10.5
LD%     23.1      17
GB%     36.3      36.7
FB%     40.7      46.3

The first thing that pops out at me about Cain’s numbers is his BB% which is ungodly. Cain has always had some control issues — a career 10.6 BB% that could use some lowering before he takes another step forward as a pitcher — but never this bad. In 32.2 innings he’s walked 23 hitters. In 6 starts, Cain has waked 5 in two games, 3 in three games, and 4 in one game. Even in his first win of the season against the Rockies, he didn’t pitch marvelously, having trouble throwing strikes. His release point and arm slot really got out of whack in the Rockies game and he appeared to be “slinging” the ball.

I’ve always thought that Bochy was hard on Cain last year and in the first start of this season Bochy ran Cain out for 114 pitches. His control issues will be something to keep an eye on. I think it’s easy to forget that Cain is only 23 and on precipice of the injury nexus for young pitching. Let’s hope he’s healthy.

Otherwise, most of Cain’s numbers are inline with his career. He’s giving up less flyballs and more line drives right now, which has contributed to his higher-than-usual BABIP. If Cain can move his BB% back to his career levels and give up a few less LD’s, we should see some improvement but it’s all going to start with better control of the strike zone.

2. Tim Lincecum 4-1, 1.73 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     2.68      3.41
BABIP   .352      .307
K%      26.4      24.7
BB%      9.9      10.4
LD%     21.7      16.6
GB%     46.7      47
FB%     31.5      36.4

Tim Lincecum has been the best pitcher for the Giants in 2008, a true ace. Notice how good his numbers look despite that really high BABIP — a testament to the Giants terrible defense. I suspect most Giants starters are going to have higher BABIP’s than normal because of the defense. Balls hit into play that would be turned into outs by an average defense are falling for hits. So much for the defense part of speed and defense?

Lincecum is doing a bunch of things right this year. He cut his BB% slightly and raised his K% by almost 2 percent. What’s always amazed me about Lincecum is the amount of groundballs he gets. League average GB% is around 42% and Lincecum is 4-5% above that. His line drive percentage is a little higher than usual and if he rolls it back some to previous levels, his numbers should improve even more. Lincecum is basically the best type of pitcher you could ask for, great strike out rate and when hitters do make contact, it’s usually on the ground and easier to turn into an out. You can’t hit a groundball over the fence.

Speaking of home runs, even though I’m not posting the HR/FB percentage for each pitcher, Lincecum’s is impossibly low right now at 3.4%. He’s given up 1 home run in 36.2 innings pitched and pitchers tend to give up HR’s at a percentage of 10-12%. So, Lincecum will most certainly see some correction at some point in this season in terms of giving up the longball.

3. Jonathan Sanchez 2-1, 3.48 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     3.41      4.21
BABIP   .304      .334
K%      27.7      23.8
BB%     11.1      11.8
LD%     15.7      19.5
GB%     39.8      38.1
FB%     44.6      42.4

If Lincecum has been the best Giants starting pitcher this season, then Sanchez has been the 2nd best. He owns the best K% of any starting pitcher, even surpassing Lincecum. His BB% is high and in a perfect world, would come down, but Sanchez has always had some command problems. When he’s throwing strikes, he’s tough on hitters.

A flyball pitcher, Sanchez gives up a bunch of flyballs which Mays Field should help suppress. Sanchez has also kept his line drives down, almost 4% under his career levels. It’s interesting to see that Sanchez’s K% numbers have actually improved this year as a starter when the previous bulk of his MLB work has been out of the bullpen, which I would assume would add to his K% numbers. Coming out of the pen you can go full steam and not have to pace yourself throughout the game but Sanchez has a stronger K% right now as a starter. FIP tells us that given Sanchez’s current peripherals his ERA is for real. Go Sanchez!

I’ve been extremely pleased with the way Sanchez has thrown so far this season — being a self proclaimed huge fan of him — but he’ll probably hit speed bumps now and then when his control problems flair up. If Sanchez could throw 160 innings as a starter this year and gradually improve his control, it would be a great success for him and the team. He’s off to a great start.

4. Barry Zito 0-6, 7.53 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     5.82      4.40
BABIP   .346      .271
K%       7.8      17.7
BB%     10.6       9.4
LD%     19.6      19.2
GB%     36.6      38.2
FB%     43.8      42.6

As bad as Zito has been, he’s not the 7+ ERA pitcher that we might think he his. According to FIP, he’s a 5.82 ERA pitcher right now. Hey, you take the small wins wherever you can get them.

His BABIP is enormous, which can be partially linked to our terrible defense but hitters are making a lot of hard contact against Zito with a batting line of (.336/.403/.525). The usual suspects are still problems for Zito — K’s and BB’s — he’s not striking out anybody at 7.8% for his K% and his BB% has slightly moved up from his career numbers. Hitters are only swinging and missing at Zito pitches 8% of the time which means that they’re making a lot of contact and that Zito lacks the command, control, pitch quality, or velocity to induce swing-throughs.

He’s currently in the bullpen working on pitching after taking a beating this month. When was the last time you saw a Cy Young award winner get yanked out of the rotation to “work on stuff” in the bullpen? That’s not a good sign my friends, not a good sign at all. Who knows that the Giants will get when Zito comes back from the bullpen but my bet is that it still won’t be that good.

5. Kevin Correia* 1-3, 4.50 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     5.74      4.73
BABIP   .254      .259
K%      14.8      17.4
BB%      9.2       9.5
LD%     18.3      19.7
GB%     39.0      39.0
FB%     42.7      41.3

* Correia is currently on the DL with the dreaded oblique strain that has bothered Noah Lowry in the past.

Correia is what-he-is, a decent 5th option in a rotation but the only problem is that Barry Zito has been pitching like a 5th starter if not worse. Primarily a bullpen member and spot starter in the majors, Correia had a nice string of starts to round out the ‘07 season and earned himself a rotation spot for ‘08. He lost some strike outs it appears from his transition from the bullpen to the rotation, that seems to be expected.

He’s a flyball pitcher that has slightly worse than average control and a slightly lower than average K%. Not too much to get excited about but he’s most likely going to be “serviceable” in the role of 5th starter but with his injury he might not come back into the starting rotation. I’d much rather see Misch get a shot in the rotation than Correia. That’s not a dig against Correia but he’s entirely average, which won’t kill you from his rotation spot, but I’ll take a guy with upside — however slight Misch’s upside is — right now rather than someone who will be average at best. If and when Lowry get’s healthy, the Giants will probably slot him into the rotation and move Correia or Misch back into the bullpen.

The Giants have had some tremendous pitching performances early in the season. Lincecum and Sanchez have been two of the better pitchers in the NL. But the Giants have been absolutely killed by Barry Zito who could be one of the worst pitchers in the entire MLB right now. Cain has struggled with consistency and I pray that he’s not secretly hurting, I’d love to see him get on a roll. And Correia has been about what you would expect from his rotation spot, though I prefer to see Misch get some starts.

I think we can draw one conclusion from the early season and it’s that fans of this team could have drastically overstated our pitching depth. It’s something that I’ve been slightly worried with for some time since Lowry began to have injury problems and declining numbers. At this point you can’t count on Lowry and Zito to be productive pitchers, anything positive they give you is a plus. Sanchez, even with his dynamite start, still has a ways to go before we can count on him to be a corner of the rotation. Cain has struggled and I’ve got this nagging voice in the back of my head about him. And Lincecum has been an elite starter so far. To me, looks like there’s a lot more question marks than certainties right now but the rotation has a good chance to be good, maybe not “the best in the NL” as some fans had dreamed, but good. Let’s see what happens over the next month.

Comment Starter: Report card time! How would you grade our 5 starters thus far? Flunking out or star students?

Barryzitobarryzitobarryzitoerrrrggghh.

With the deluge of Zito-centric news lately, I think I should change this blog’s name to “Zito City Ball” or something. Ugh.

It’s official, the Giants have the most expensive middle reliever, ever, in the history of baseball.

From the Chronicle:

The man who leads the majors in starts the past eight seasons will miss his turn in the rotation for the first time in his career. Zito, who’s 0-6 with a 7.53 ERA, was told by Giants manager Bruce Bochy before Monday night’s 4-0 win over Colorado that he’ll work out of the bullpen in the immediate future, and he accepted the demotion with reluctance but without protest.

The Chron article is peppered with Zito quotes and even a few from P-Mags, as the kids say, but as hopeful as Zito sounds, there’s a myriad of quotes that try to boil the situation down to the mental aspect of pithing.

Some examples:

Zito told a group of reporters. “From my standpoint, it’s a bump in the road. It’s a big bump. It’s a battle. It’s stuff I’ve gone through (with the A’s), but there wasn’t the kind of scrutiny around it because of the market or the contract.

“Oakland’s under the radar. There weren’t microscopes. I don’t resist the microscope or any of that stuff. It’s a new challenge. It’s good. There’s a lot of growth and strength that comes out of these things.”

“It’s not about stuff. It’s not about velocity,” he said. “It’s just about attacking the strike zone and being aggressive.”

Don’t let me fool you, I do believe that mental preparation is very important for starting pitchers. Sure, why not, but I strongly, strongly, disagree that it’s not about velocity or pitch quality. Batters are making a ton of contact against Zito — only an 8% swinging strike rate, which not only is extremely low, it’s a career low for Zito — and unless mental preparation can give him 4-5mph back on his fastball, it might not matter much how much you prepare for the game. Zito’s fastball has atrophied, his control has slipped further, and his breaking stuff ain’t breaking so much.

For example, we’ve been hearing from Zito himself, since he got here, about how many things are tripping him up. It’s been the contract, the media market, the pressure, and everything else. But you’ve never heard Zito blame it on his pitch quality and velocity. I think he could know, deep down, that he’s in trouble and that he doesn’t posses the same type of stuff he once did and he lacks the physical tools to compensate for the changes — better command of the strike zone.

This entire situation is just bizarre and great fodder for the rest of the sports community — trying googling Barry Zito and reading any sports blog, hoo-boy. The Giants overpaid for Zito when nobody else would approach the deal they gave him. Hoodwinked by Scott Boras or an organizational failure representative of changes needing to be made? You decide!

Put bluntly, I think the Giants overvalued Zito tremendously and not essentially from a statistical viewpoint. Yeah, yeah, we know he had shiny win totals over the years but I think the Giants wanted to, convinced themselves they needed to, invest in someone who they could plaster on T-Shirts. Barry Bonds? Well, he’s kinda mean and cranky and he had his own recliner in the clubhouse. Barry Zito? Kooky! Kids will love him!

The usual PR fluff was in full force when Zito signed, I recall specifically Magowan mentioning that Zito was the most important signing that the Giants have made since they signed Bonds in the early 90’s, umpteen some years ago. But was it more than PR niceties? A part of me thinks that Magowan and everyone else believed what they were selling. That Barry Zito could actually be just as important to the Giants as Barry Bonds had been. That he would lead the franchise into it’s next phase as it’s premiere player.

Magowan may have been right, Zito will be important but for all the wrong reasons. Overpaid, expensive, and declining. What I wouldn’t give to hear some of the internal discussions right now in Giants HQ. The Giants have invested themselves heavily in Zito and with that investment they’ve bought themselves some time. Time to see if Zito can ever regain anything and become an average pitcher once again. The money is spent and they have to find out what they can get from Zito. Just don’t expect any great advances to come from this move to the bullpen.

Prove me wrong Zito, it wouldn’t be the first time, but everything else points to a very messy next couple of years.

For the price conscious, Barry Zito Fathead’s are now on sale at 60% off! Time to stock up and save! Me, personally, I just think they are clearing out stock for the new and improved, more realistic Zito Fathead.

My Least Favorite Topic, Barry Zito

It can’t be stressed enough. It just can’t. Barry Zito is probably my least favorite topic to think about, discuss, or devote any brain power to. On one hand, I feel bad for watching a once talented pitcher dissolve in front of our very eyes. It’s a metamorphosis none of us thought would happen this soon or this completely. Nobody expected Zito to do what he’s doing right now and I think even the most hard boiled critic of the Zito deal assumed that he’d be alright for the first couple of years and then slowly start to decline. The decline is now and it’s frightening.

On the other hand I think I feel like most Giants fans do. Zito is eating payroll — which face it matters to the team, even if you take a “it’s not my cash” approach it’s a limited resource that the Giants have a finite amount of, and affects their future ability to operate the team — and maybe even worse, he could soon be blocking talented young up-and-coming pitching from the Giants system. Maybe not this year because the pitching is still a bit off, but what do you do when Henry Sosa, Tim Alderson, Madison Bumgarner, Clayton Tanner, Ben Synder, or any semi-quasi interesting and talented Giants pitching prospect is knocking on the door while Zito continues to struggle in the year 201X? Heck, Patrick Misch might be a better starting pitcher than Barry Zito right now.

Zito’s problem is two-fold. Hitters are making a lot of contact against him and he’s walking hitters. Small sample size caveat aside, here’s Zito’s career numbers over the years in terms of BB% and K% and what he’s done so far in 2008.

Year     K%     BB%
2001    22.7    8.8
2002    19.3    8.3
2003    15.2    9.1
2004    17.6    8.7
2005    17.9    9.3
2006    15.9    10.4
2007    15.4    9.7
2008     7.8    10.6

Here’s a graph to illustrate the changes over time for Barry.

The yellow line is league average K% and the green line is league average BB%. I don’t think Zito was ever going to maintain a 20%+ K% like he did in 2001 and almost in 2002, but he settled into a nice groove from 2003-2006 where he was right around or above league average. He dropped to below league average in 2007 and in his small sample size in ‘08, he’s striking out hitters like Carlos Silva — career K% of 9.8 — but without his control or GB tendencies. The pattern that emerged in the spring for Zito, not striking out hitters, has continued into the early season. If you recall, Zito struck out just 4 hitters in 18 innings of Spring Training baseball. Zito’s fastball is also down by almost another mile-per-hour this year compared to last. On average, Zito is throwing his fastball at 83.7mph this year, compared to 84.5mph last year. Over the course of just 4 seasons, Zito has lost almost 4mph on his fastball. How much more will he lose?

Zito’s strong suit has never been his control and from the graph you can see that he’s been trending upward over the past few years, moving from around league average to above and beyond. Therein lies the problem for Barry Zito. He’s going to need to learn how to locate his pitches without walking hitters. Zito just doesn’t have that ability right now and he might not ever have it.

A question for my readers: Are there any historical examples of pitchers drastically improving their control at Zito’s age? Can it be done? I lean towards “no” but there might be a few examples of hope out there for Zito.

Asking Zito to turn into Greg Maddux or any other control artist is almost like asking Kirk Rueter to throw 95mph instead of 85mph, some guys just can’t pitch with that level of control and command. Zito has never demonstrated above average control in his career and I doubt he’ll be able to figure it out now.

For a pitcher like Zito that’s going to put the ball in play — doesn’t strike out many hitters — he’s also got another significant roadblock in his way. The Giants defense is pretty bad this year. The subtraction of Feliz and Omar has damaged the left side of the infield while Ray Durham continues to display the range of a wheelbarrow loaded full of bowling balls at second base.*

*Ray Durham Defense Tangent: Durham’s Revised Zone Rating of .657 is amazingly bad. That means that Durham is only converting 65.7% of balls hit into his zone into outs. Compare him to chronic bad defenders Dan Uggla (73.5%) and Jeff Kent (82.1%) and you get an idea of just how bad Durham is. Eugenio Velez is no gold-glover, but in 114 innings at 2B, his rate of (76.5%) while still poor, is much better than Durhams’. There is no reason to play Durham right now, both offensively and defensively.

The Giants, as a team, are also terrible defensively this year. As a team, they are well below average. The average NL team has a RZR of .836, the Giants are at .802. Thus, because of the poor defense behind Zito, his BABIP is very high (.339), when hitters hit the ball into play against Zito, they are hitting like a batting champion. The BABIP should come down some, eventually, but the defense isn’t going to do any Zito any favors, at least now barring any improvements.

According to the Mercury News, there’s a good chance that Zito will get moved to the bullpen soon. At minimum I’m almost certain they’ll skip his next start.

After another erratic and utterly hittable start in a 10-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday at AT&T Park, Giants Manager Bruce Bochy all but declared he would skip Zito or demote him to the bullpen.

“We’ve got to do something,” said Bochy, after Zito allowed a six-run first inning. “We can’t keep doing what we’re doing and getting what we’re getting.”

Here is what the Giants have received from their opening-day starter: an 0-6 record in six starts, a 7.53 ERA, a growing soundtrack of boos at home and no sign of a break in the clouds.

I’m not sure what moving him to the bullpen would do, but it might be the best option right now. I have no doubt that Zito is a bright guy but I think he’s got an extremely large challenge in front of him that he might not ever be able to get past. He’s a poor fit for this Giants team at the moment or any team. You’re essentially placing a pitcher who’s losing the ability to miss bats and control the strike zone and putting him in front of one of the worst defenses in the National League. Zito is forced to let hitters make contact — when he’s not walking them — and when they do make contact, most of that contact is going for hits. Even if you moved Zito to a team with an elite defense, he’s still going to have trouble. You can’t survive in baseball and do what he’s doing — walking hitters, not striking out hitters, all while throwing 83mph. Barring an injury that could explain his control problems and velocity loss — indicators of arm issues — Barry Zito is going to be the most expensive 5th starter in the history of baseball.

The Giants have to be really, really worried about how Zito is pitching and his prospects for future success. This is easily the worst contract in baseball history. In 2009 his salary kicks up to $18.5M. At least in contract blunders like Darren Dreifort or Mike Hampton, they were injured for lengths of their deals and couldn’t play. Zito is healthy, as far as we know, and continuing to take the mound. What’s better, expensive and not hurting the team by not playing or expensive and hurting the team by playing?

Comment Starter: Zito’s chances for setting the record for most losses by a Giants pitcher in a season? The record is currently held by Ray Sadecki for his 1968 season that ended in 18 losses. I’ll put Zito at a 60% chance right now, he’s already a third of the way there and it’s not even May.

Rolling the Dice

Q: Your young phenom ace has throw 109 pitches through 6 innings of dominant baseball. The opposing pitcher has matched him pitch-for-pitch but in the top of the 7th, your team gets lucky, and pops a solo home run from your struggling third baseman. You’ve got the 1-0 lead heading into the bottom of the 7th, what do you do?

Your options are:

A. Send back out your starting pitcher. Sure, he’s throw 109 pitches, but he’s a “freak” and he did it in college all the time.

B. Warm up the bullpen, despite a dominant performance, your pitcher has thrown some high stress innings and it’s best not to push things. Your team is going to be bad this year and you must protect your one strength — pitching.

C. Eat some sunflower seeds and try to look busy.

Put yourself in Bochy’s giant thunderskull last night. Which option would you take? A, B, or C? I know which one I would have taken and it’s not A or C.

Last night Tim Lincecum set a career high in his young MLB career for pitches thrown in a game with 122 total pitches thrown over 7.1 innings pitched. His previous high had been 116, I believe. I also believe this is a high for any starting pitcher on the Giants this year. As “freaky” and gifted Lincecum is, I don’t like this move for a couple of reasons that I feel like I’ve gone over-and-over about on this blog.

My goal for the year, to quote Fred Sanford, is “Keep the young pitching healthy, you big dummy!” Anytime you talk about pitch-counts people tend to get worked up over these things. It’s still something in baseball analysis that some agree with as having an effect on a pitcher, long term, while others are unsure, or just plain skeptical*.

*Links to an an online preview of The Rob Neyer and Bill James Guide to Pitchers, a fantastic read on a calvacade of pitching topics. Recommended reading.

I know I personally believe that pitch-counts can prove as a useful tool in keeping pitchers healthy, but I also realize that a large part of pitching could harder to define, or at least more nebulous but I don’t think it’s outlandish to assume that there is a point at which a pitcher starts to fatigue and as a result, lose his mechanics — release point, arm slot, tempo, etc. — which in turn can do physical harm. Is Lincecum’s point 120+? Maybe, who knows, but what do the Giants have to gain by pushing Lincecum back out in the 7th inning after he’s thrown 109 pitches? Another win for Lincecum but at what cost to the future? In an April game against the Padres, I can’t see the advantages of pushing Lincecum this far, or this hard.

These high stress innings that pitchers work through are the ones that put the most wear on them. You’ll often hear in defense of Lincecum: “He’s a freak, he threw high pitch-counts in college and even relieved between games, he’s just a freak!” but while that might be true, you’ve also got to realize that the stress level isn’t the same. Major league hitters are tougher to retire, generating more stress. The environment is also totally different, pitching in front of 30,000 people is a lot different than pitching in front of 300 people on a Tuesday night in college. This is why I have some apprehensions about comparing a college workload to a major league workload, the environments are drastically different.

Let’s glance at Lincecum’s pitch count by inning.

Inning     # Pitches
1           21
2           17
3           15
4           28
5           14
6           14
7*          13

Lincecum threw 20+ pitches in the 1st and 4th inning. You could argue that the 4th was one of the more stressful innings that he threw last night. The bases were loaded with 1 out but Chris Young ended up swinging away and hitting into a double play. His quickest innings were the 5th and 6th, he threw 14 pitches in each inning. The 7th also proved to be a stressful inning for Lincecum. Heading back out to the mound after 109 pitches, he didn’t complete the inning. He started the inning by walking Khalil Greene. He then got Tadahito Iguchi to ground into a force out. Next, the Padres called Tony Clark to pinch-hit and he served a 1st pitch single to LF on Lincecum’s 122nd and final pitch of the night.

Bochy could have been motivated by the previous nights’ 13-inning game — 5 relievers were used — but Chulk should have been available to start the 7th. Chulk isn’t a great reliever, he’s good - not great, but the Padres were sending up their bottom half of the order.

Still, I think the question can be reduced to what do the Giants have to gain by trying to squeeze another inning from Lincecum? A win? Yeah, but what are the long term ramifications? That’s my only question and one that I can’t answer right now, but at least I’m pondering it. Something I wish I felt the Giants were also doing.

For PAP believers, Lincecum is currently 4th in the entire majors in pitcher abuse points. His next start is something to keep an eye on.

Bullpen Gold Star Goes To: Jack Taschner, who came in during the 7th after Lincecum left, walked one, but got out of a bases-loaded jam. He got out two very tough hitters in Scott Hairston — a certified Giants killer — and Adrian Gonzalez. Check out the leverage index from when Taschner came in, doesn’t get any higher than that.

New Theme

I’ve decided to change the look of Bay City Ball just a little. What you’re looking at is the new theme that I’m going to be using. This is the fourth incarnation of the site. It’s a little more simple and basic and hopefully easier to read. Everything isn’t running completely the way I’d like it, so you might see a few changes happen over the next couple of days but this should serve as a pretty good base to work from.

To do list

  1. Create a new logo for the site that’ll be displayed at the top, replacing the bare bones text option that we currently have. Done.
  2. See about enabling avatars for user comments. The jury is still out on this, if you’re for or against this, be sure to post about it in the comments. Avatars are on for users in the comments section. Done. Go to Gravatar and set up your avatar, if you want one, making sure that you use the same email address there, as you do here for this site.
  3. Some minor theme changes — adding a home, pages, and about button to the top of every page. Done.
  4. Some minor text and color changes. Done.

That’s whats on the list for now. If you have any suggestions as to what would make the site better, easy to use, and more readable, please, please, leave a comment. Readability and user satisfaction are two of the biggest goals for me.

Thanks for reading!

Looking at John Bowker’s Early Success

The Giants’ offense was supposed to be punch-less this year and for the most part is has been. Let’s take a quick look at how the offense has performed so far, courtesy of The Hardball Times team statistics page.

	R/G	OPS	GB%	LD%	BABIP
SF      3.15   .655     47%     20%     .286
League  4.53   .739     45%     19%     .289

The average team in the NL is scoring 1.38 more runs per game than the Giants. Team OPS is also below average, not shocking, but we’re slightly above with LD% and our BABIP is pretty close to league average. The Giants offense is-what-it-is, hitting a lot of singles with a few doubles sprinkled in — we’re 7th in the NL for doubles hit with 39. A good portion of those doubles are the product of speedy guys hitting the ball in the right place: Lewis, Velez, and Randy Winn have combined for a third of the doubles output with 13. Jose Castillo has been a doubles monster with 9 already, on pace for a yearly total of 79, which something tells me he won’t reach.

The Giants are tied with the Mets for last in the NL with 10 HR’s. We’re 15th in OBP, only ahead of Houston, and 14th in SLG, ahead of San Diego and Washington. We’ve also scored the fewest runs in the NL. If you wanted to get even more accurate, you could use EqA as a measure, a BP stat that I’m fond of. EqA is a offensive metric that is adjusted for park effects and league environment and is contextualized as a batting average. For example: .260 is league average, .200 is a terrible performance, .300 is a very good performance, and .400+ is tremendous performance. EqA is useful for the Giants because it also takes into account baserunning in it’s calculations, something that the Giants are planning to do a lot of this year.

Top 5 Teams by EqA
1. Arizona (.287)
2. Boston (.286)
3. Atlanta (.284)
4. Florida (.280)
5. St. Louis (.280)

Bottom 5 Teams by EqA
1. Kansas City (.234)
2. San Francisco (.236)
3. Washington (.238)
4. Minnesota (.239)
5. San Diego (.240)

Even with baserunning factored in, the Giants are next to the Kansas City Royals as having the worst offense in baseball. Again, this is nothing surprising but I just wanted to throw some numbers out there.

As veterans Rich Aurilia and Ray Durham receive less and less playing time, there is some room for slight improvements because when you produce as badly as Durham and Aurilia have so far this season, there aren’t many ways to go but up. One of the prospects that’s show some ability in the early part of this season has been John Bowker. The Giants have liked his bat so much that they’ve even stuck him at first base to get him in the lineup, a position that Aurilia hasn’t done jack at. No one expects Bowker to carry his torrid pace over a full season but his swing is nice and he’s been making solid contact. He’s even drawn a couple of walks, which is unheard of for a Giants hitter.

Lets take a look via MLB’s Gameday at the pitches that Bowker has hit out of the yard this year.

Home run #1 - April 12th vs St. Louis
Pitching: Todd Wellemeyer

Bowker jumped on a first pitch fastball from Todd Wellemeyer for his first career home run. Wellemeyer started the at-bat with a 89mph fastball in the middle of the plate, slightly in on Bowker, and he turned on the pitch quite nicely, showcasing his quick and compact swing. The ball was pulled to RF for a HR. You’ll start to notice this trend as we look at his other two HR’s. Bowker is quick on the middle-to-inside part of the plate and has shown no problems getting around on pitches in that area.

Home run #2 - April 13th vs St. Louis
Pitching: Joel Pineiro

Bowker homered again against the Caridnals — he’s terrorized them this year, hitting all three of his home runs against them — the very next day. Once again, the pitch was middle of the plate and slightly in. The pitch in question was a 84mph slider from Joel Pineiro in the middle of the plate. Not a good pitch to throw and right in Bowker’s happy zone. Once again, he pulled the ball to RF and out of the park.

Home run #3 - April 20th vs St. Lous
Pitching: Braden Looper

This was definitely a mistake pitch, a 90mph fastball down the pipe that Looper threw as he started to get knocked around by the Giants. Once again, it was in Bowker’s happy zone in the middle of the plate. He pulled the pitch down the RF line and into the stands. All three of his home runs have been pulled to RF. Why was the pitch a mistake? We know that Bowker has done all of his damage against the Cardinals and they’ve obviously become aware of where not to pitch Bowker — middle of the plate and even slightly inside to him — and the game plan was to pitch him on the outside and work him upstairs occasionally. Let’s check out the rest of Bowker’s AB’s from the April 20th game, the successful ones for the Cardinals and see how they pitched him.

2nd Inning, Braden Looper pitching

This was the game plan. Work Bowker away with an assortment of fastballs and off-speed pitches. Looper threw three changeups in this AB — pitches 1,2, and 5 — and the rest were fastballs. Each pitch, except for the 1st pitch changeup, was down and away. On the 5th pitch of the at-bat, Bowker hit a changeup that was down and away on the ground to 2nd base for a groundout.

4th inning, Anthony Reyes pitching

Bowker actually saw more pitches in the middle of the plate during this AB and it might have something to do with the score of the game. At the time the Cardinals were down 8-0 and Reyes obviously didn’t want to walk anyone. The count was 2-1 when Bowker got two hittable pitches, 4 and 5 both fastballs, which he fouled off. Bowker eventually flied out to left field on the 7th pitch, a fastball, but you can still see that Reyes attempted to work Bowker away some in the early stage of the at-bat.

7th inning, Ron Villone pitching

In the 7th the Cardinals brought in lefty Ron Villone to face Bowker. Villone worked Bowker away in pitches 1, 2, and 4 but then went inside on him in pitches 5, 6, 7, and 8. Lefties are probably more likely to work Bowker in than a right handed pitcher because a lefty is already throwing to that side of the plate. You can also see that Villone also worked Bowker up and in more with pitches 8 and 6. Bowker struck out swinging on pitch 8, a 92mph fastball.

9th inning, Ron Villone pitching

Bowker’s final at-bat of the game and his second against Ron Villone. Villone struck out Bowker again and worked him away in pitches 1 and 3 and up in the zone on pitches 2 and 4. All four pitches that Villone threw were fastballs.

Theres no doubt that Bowker has quick hands and a good swing. His swing isn’t long, or loopy, and he seems to be able to get around on the ball with some authority when it’s middle to the inside of the plate. This is apparent by all three of his home runs being mostly located in the same area and pulled into RF. I believe that Bowker’s hot start has made teams more likely to pitch him either up and in or away, so that he’ll have more difficulty in pulling the ball to RF where his pull power is. It’s possible that Bowker is going to have to make some adjustments and look to hit the ball the other way on occasion when he’s pitched away and to lay off the high hard stuff.

He’s an interesting player to keep an eye on as the season progresses and one of the reasons that the Giants offense could get better. Players like John Bowker that display smatterings of talent are the entire reason to watch the 2008 San Francisco Giants.

Needs More Shortstop

The online Giants community has been perkin’ this past weekend. The team won a series against the Cardinals, which featured more Lincecum goodness with a side of Bowker power, and made a roster move that has some scratching their heads and others going “meh”.

Let’s talk about the roster move that took place. The Giants have DFA’d Rajai Davis, who is most famously not Matt Morris, and purchased the contract of SS Emmanuel Burriss from AAA Fresno. Burriss was the 33rd overall pick in the 2006 June Draft, also known as ‘The Year of the Lincecum’, out of Kent State.

Burriss’ 2007 had it’s ups and downs. He started the year in San Jose in the California League and struggled offensively — in a league known for it’s offense — and was eventually rolled back a level to the Augusta team. He only hit (.165/.237/.180) in San Jose over 139 AB’s. He finished the year strongly, both in Augusta and by his AFL performance. In Augusta he hit (.321/.374/.381) with 51 stolen bases. In the AFL he hit well but I believe he only got a little over 50 AB’s since he was a late addition. The AFL is generally a league with top prospects but I think that Burriss’ numbers are a little overstated. The AFL is usually a hitters league and 50 AB’s is the equivalent of 12-13 games. So, I’m slightly skeptical of numbers coming from the AFL, even more so when the league leader in OPS is Sam Fuld. If anyone could post his AFL numbers in the comments of this post, I’d greatly appreciate it. The AFL site is really buggy and impossible to navigate.

Burriss is a contact-styled hitter without any power. Over his Minor League career, he’s only slugged .340 — not including this year’s numbers in AAA. He’s got blazing speed — rated at the fastest baserunner in the Giants system by BA — and can field SS decently. His arm is probably below Bocock’s arm but he shouldn’t embarrass himself at the position. For Burriss to succeed, he needs to slap the ball on the ground and run, taking advantage of his speed.

Here’s Burriss’ Top 10 Comparable Players by PECOTA, comments are mine.

1 Wylie Campbell - Stole 34 bases in A-ball but never made it past A+ ball.

2 Shawn Livsey - One of two 1st round draft picks on our list — Remember that Burriss was a 1st rounder — Livsey played 7 years in the minor leagues and had a career line of (.264/.350/.350)

3 Freddie Bynum - So far, the 1st on our list to actually get MLB at-bats. To this date, has had 239 AB’s in the majors, most of which came in 2006 under Dusty Baker. Bynum is the classic Dusty Baker player — much like Neifi Perez, Jose Macias, and Shawon Dunston — low on talent, but high on heart which made him one of “Dusty’s guys” which translates into way more playing time than actually deserved, driving fans crazy.

4 Chone Figgins - Probably the best comp for Burriss so far on the list if everything goes right for him. Figgins has the most MLB playing time of anyone on this list and he’s turned into a decent utility player-slash-starter for the Angels. He’s stolen 200+ bases in both the minors and the majors.

5 Juan Francia - Mark down as a ‘Never Made It’. Stole a bunch of bases in the minors — 245 over 8 seasons — but at a poor rate of 69%. Split time last year between AA/AAA for the Yankees. Has hit only 8 HR’s over 2856 career AB’s.

6 Willie Bloomquist - A Mariner fan favorite! Another slappy MI on this list that has somehow, someway has gotten actual playing time in the MLB.

7 Cleatus Davidson - Great name. Not-so-good at the baseball thing. Minor league lifer that has played 13 seasons in the minors. He snuck into the majors in 1999 for 22 glorious career AB’s for the Twins. Stole 274 career bags in the minors at a 74% rate. Hasn’t been seen in baseball since ‘06.

8 Justin Baughman - Not much to say, 7 seasons in the minor leagues and 2 seasons in the majors. Speedy with a good SB% — 254 career thefts in the minors at 79% — but a weak bat. Has a career minor league OPS of .659

9 Alfredo Amezaga - Is Amezaga the 2nd most successful comp to Burriss so far on this list? You might be able to make that argument. Currently playing for the Marlins, he has 6 seasons in the majors. Utility player that played SS/2B/3B in the minors and has played CF in the majors, among other positions. It’s not pretty when a possible 2nd best comp has a career major league line of (.249/.314/.339)

10 Chris Burke - Our 2nd 1st round pick to make this list. Burke was chosen 10th overall in the 2001 draft by the Houston Astros. His 2001 season for the University of Tennessee was tremendous, he hit (.435/.537/.815) with 20 HR’s, 21 2B’s, and 11 3B’s while playing shortstop. That kind of power production form shortstop is very interesting and no doubt the reason he went so high in the draft. He struggled some initially in the minors, not reaching double digit HR’s until ‘04, and eventually made the Astros team as a utility guy. He never flashed the same power or promise that he did at the University of Tennessee — Ahhh, the beauty that is aluminum bats. On this list, he’s clearly the player with the most power, hitting 30 career minor league HR’s and another 20 in the majors.

By first glance, that’s some ugly company to be a part of. The list is mostly composed of players that never made it and players that did make it but as utility-type players.

The Giants have been aggressive with Burriss, sending him to AAA this year after his mixed results of ‘07, and I don’t mind that aggressiveness so much. He’s obviously the closest major-league-ready SS prospect that the Giants have, even if that says more about the lack of SS options in the Giants system than it does about Burriss as a player. But, what I do mind is the idea that Burriss will be a backup on the team, or that he and Bocock will swap time at SS.

From SFGiants.com

Burriss is expected to provide some depth in the infield, specifically behind rookie shortstop Brian Bocock. Burriss and Bocock both played in Class A last season, so Giants manager Bruce Bochy isn’t expecting either of them to knock around Major League pitchers from the start.

What Burriss needs is steady playing time to help him develop and hopefully, hone his hitting abilities which at this point, are Bocockian. Consider that he’s only hitting (.258/.281/.306) in AAA right now. That’s over a small sample size of 60-some AB’s but it’s most likely the case that he has miles to go as a hitter and it’s hard to work on hitting, well, if you know, if you can’t actually get into the game and hit.

And if the Giants need SS depth, why not call up someone like Ochoa and let Burriss continue to play regularly in AAA? The other thing that drives me crazy about this scenario is Rich Aurilia. Sure, he’s not a SS anymore, but if Bocock needs a rest, he could most likely start 1-2 games a week at short. He played 12 games at short last year and I can’t remember them being particularly horrific. And furthermore, is there a more useless player on any major league roster than Rich Aurilia? He’s yet to hit a extra base hit in 55 AB’s. Yet, he still makes his way into the lineup a few times a week. If you ranked XHB’s by players with at least 50 minimum PA’s in the NL, only Brian Schneider and Rich Aurilia have zero XBH’s. It’s amazing that he hasn’t been cut yet.

I’m getting the feeling that the theme of this year is: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”. Just because you can promote Bocock/Burriss to the majors, doesn’t mean you actually should. Both players are obviously not ready for this level of play. It’s like for all the years that fans griped about the abundance of veterans on this roster, Sabean is trying to reverse it all in one season. “See! I’m calling up all sorts of youngsters to play! Are you happy now!?” It almost feels bipolar. Part of this season is to nurture what prospects we have and I’m not sure sending them directly into the fire is the best way to help them progress. Sure, you could say “Either you hit, or you don’t” but you just don’t see teams call up players who are woefully unprepared for this level of play. The moves made to fill shortstop, if anything, have shown how unprepared this team was for that position. Omar was only 1,000 years-old and players do eventually break down, you would think that the Giants would have a better contingency plan than a couple of A-ball shortstops who might hit as well as Noah Lowry over a full season.

Pure Speculation edit: I forgot to add this the first time through, I’ve heard some speculation that because Burriss got called up, it’s possible that Omar’s rehab is going worse than expected. He’s already had mobility concerns, could this mean that Omar might retire before he ever gets back to the majors? It’s something to chew on and I would dislike this move less if it means that Burriss could get more starting time in the bigs.

Losing Davis to this whole situation isn’t the worst thing because the Giants have a ton of OF’s, so while his time was brief with the Giants, it’s ultimately unimportant if he stays or goes. He made some dynamite catches last year and played quite well, so I hope he catches on somewhere else. If Juan Pierre can carve out a major league career, I’m sure Davis can too.

Comment Starter: Burriss time? Yay or Nay? Too soon, or just riiiight. Help convince me that this isn’t as stupid as I might think it is.

Thursday Blog Roundup!

I’m in between some ideas right now, so new content will be coming shortly, but I wanted to share some links from fellow SFGs bloggers that I’ve been reading lately. All of these links get the BCB Stamp of Approval and they should be a staple for anyone who loves to torture themselves by watching this team play ball.

First out of the gate are the guys from Raising Matt Cain who are already pondering the 2009 season. The post hits on why it’s going to be hard to rebuild this team when a good portion of the older players are signed through ‘09. Players such as: Molina, Winn, Roberts will all be coming back for more. In my perfect world, Sabean will jettison Winn and Roberts before ‘09 freeing up OF space for the troika that is Lewis/Schierholtz/Bowker. Thankfully, Durham and Aurilia will not be Giants in ‘09, so we’ve got that going for us.

Martin over at OGC, has a very nice post on John Bowker and why we should be just a little excited about his prospects. Like I noted briefly in a previous post, Bowker played in a very tough offensive environment — Eastern League and that pesky Dodd Stadium — and did quite nicely. He’s got a chance to be a useful part on the next good Giants team.

Crafty blog veteran, El Lefty Malo, is wondering what the Giants should do with their shortstop position after ‘08. Vizquel won’t be able to hit his vesting option this year and he’s already had some mobility concerns as he makes his way back from his knee injury. Brian Bocock is still hitting lightly but playing a nice defensive shortstop, he could definitely use some more minor league seasoning. Just who should the Giants look to for shortstopery in ‘09 and beyond? Free Agents? Minor leaguers? Make a trade? The discussion is a good one and one that the Giants will have to consider as they make their way through this season.

There you are, consider these links a homework assignment. Read them, learn them, and love them. I’ll be handing out the test on Friday. Be sure to bring your #2 pencils.