Comments on: Schadenfreude http://www.baycityball.com/2007/07/27/schadenfreude/ Giants Baseball With a Side of STATS Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:21:47 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: obsessivegiantscompulsive http://www.baycityball.com/2007/07/27/schadenfreude/comment-page-1/#comment-1246 obsessivegiantscompulsive Sat, 28 Jul 2007 06:22:18 +0000 http://www.baycityball.com/2007/07/27/schadenfreude/#comment-1246 Messenger I like. He's a local guy - Reno - who is a big Giants fan and glad to be here. The Giants should do more of that sort of drafting, much like the Braves concentrating on the Georgia area, though they have to be careful as there are a lot of A's fans, like Tulowitski of the Rockies, who has stated his hatred for the Giants before. But if they can get Giants fans, signings should be easier, and if they make it to the majors, it will be more meaningful to them plus they might give a hometown discount when they go free agent. Messenger is lucking out right now with a HR/FB of 1.5% - way under the 10% mean pitchers regress to. He's never been a strikeout guy, except for a year in AA in 2004 when apparently he applied his knowledge of the league from the year before, when he stunk, and did really well, in fact, he was their closer that year, saving 21 games and finishing 45 games. Looking at his past seasons, he appears to counteract his lack of K's by inducing the groundball more often than other pitchers. And his control, while not impecable, is OK, around 3.0. But typically you want relievers to have a K/BB ratio of 2.4+ and he's been only in the high 1's in his short career thus far. He appears to have figured out the majors at age 25 (he'll be 26 in 3 weeks), after having really bad seasons (5+ ERA) the past two seasons, he has done well this year, particularly after joining the Giants, apparently he was jazzed at joining the Giants. His K/BB with us is a nice 2.33, but his K/9 is around 5.0, and BB/9 is around 2.15, which is excellent, and his BABIP while with us is approximately .280, so he's right around the .300 mean. With his fastball, he should be striking out more, hopefully Righetti will help him with that, not sure what the problem is. But that was his pattern with AA in 2004 and 2005, he did poorly, then figured things out. He could have a nice bust out year for us in 2008 then. Of course, the low HR/FB is going to result in poorer results going forward, but he's been doing really well for us and looks to continue going forward. That's not too bad a haul for Benitez and $5M. Messenger I like. He’s a local guy – Reno – who is a big Giants fan and glad to be here. The Giants should do more of that sort of drafting, much like the Braves concentrating on the Georgia area, though they have to be careful as there are a lot of A’s fans, like Tulowitski of the Rockies, who has stated his hatred for the Giants before. But if they can get Giants fans, signings should be easier, and if they make it to the majors, it will be more meaningful to them plus they might give a hometown discount when they go free agent.

Messenger is lucking out right now with a HR/FB of 1.5% – way under the 10% mean pitchers regress to. He’s never been a strikeout guy, except for a year in AA in 2004 when apparently he applied his knowledge of the league from the year before, when he stunk, and did really well, in fact, he was their closer that year, saving 21 games and finishing 45 games.

Looking at his past seasons, he appears to counteract his lack of K’s by inducing the groundball more often than other pitchers. And his control, while not impecable, is OK, around 3.0. But typically you want relievers to have a K/BB ratio of 2.4+ and he’s been only in the high 1’s in his short career thus far.

He appears to have figured out the majors at age 25 (he’ll be 26 in 3 weeks), after having really bad seasons (5+ ERA) the past two seasons, he has done well this year, particularly after joining the Giants, apparently he was jazzed at joining the Giants. His K/BB with us is a nice 2.33, but his K/9 is around 5.0, and BB/9 is around 2.15, which is excellent, and his BABIP while with us is approximately .280, so he’s right around the .300 mean. With his fastball, he should be striking out more, hopefully Righetti will help him with that, not sure what the problem is. But that was his pattern with AA in 2004 and 2005, he did poorly, then figured things out. He could have a nice bust out year for us in 2008 then.

Of course, the low HR/FB is going to result in poorer results going forward, but he’s been doing really well for us and looks to continue going forward. That’s not too bad a haul for Benitez and $5M.

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