Owww, My Wrist.

Published by on May 14, 2010 | 6 Responses

I know it’s tacky to quote yourself, but I never claimed to be non-tacky. I got the opportunity to write a guest post for Rob Neyer’s SweetSpot blog this week and I took the chance to talk a little about the Giants situation with Mark DeRosa.

It seems that the Giants are hoping that some rest will cure DeRosa’s wrist pain, but his inability to pull the ball this year suggests that he’s going to need surgery at some point. The meat-and-potatoes quote:

The above data (thanks to Baseball-Reference) indicates Mark DeRosa’s hit trajectory for the past three years, his current numbers and his career average. As you can see, DeRosa being a right-handed hitter, is most likely to pull the ball for hits (33.1% career average) or hit the ball up the middle (48.4% career average). DeRosa’s 2010 data sample is small, but I think it’s somewhat telling. DeRosa has flared a few hits up the middle (55.5%) but has nearly doubled his career average when hitting the ball to the opposite field. And, of course, this data only represents base hits and not all batted balls from DeRosa. If you examined his spray charts, you would see that he’s hitting an awful lot of balls into the opposite field.

The data backs up what we’ve seen. Mark DeRosa has been unable to pull the ball this year. It’s a minuscule sample size of 18 hits, but he hasn’t looked right. The Giants eased him along in Spring Training and now they’re hoping — maybe wishing is the better term — that he’ll be better by just resting. Call me skeptical, but it seems like an unlikely result for a player that called his surgery a “total failure”. In fact, the Giants seem steadfast about holding onto the idea that DeRosa might not need surgery during the season.

From the Mercury News:

For now, the Giants hope to get DeRosa back on the field as soon as possible. He had a cortisone injection in his wrist Wednesday, and Bochy pushed back his initial timetable, saying he’d be willing to wait until Sunday for DeRosa to show improvement before he’d go on the disabled list.

In other words: Oh jeez, please magically get better. Please!

As I suggest in the Neyer link above, DeRosa’s injury opens the door for John Bowker, who appears to have done something to improve himself last year in AAA. Giving him an extended shot to play LF might be risky, but the Giants have hardly any options. Unless you consider Eugenio Velez or The Ghost of Fred Lewis suitable options for LF. Instead, I get the feeling that the Giants will try to grit and gamer their way through DeRosa’s flapping wrist tendons for a few weeks before realizing that he’s going to continue to be hurt and play ineffectively.

Stubbornness, it’s the Giants Way.

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His Thrillness
His Thrillness

I think everyone's in agreement that DeRosa going down actually helps the Giants, so the question becomes: who should play LF. I think the one thing everyone is forgetting is that Bowker has legitimate power, while neither Torres of Schierholz does and while I love watching Schierholz play the drought is getting longer and longer and since the Giants are never going to bench Rowand I would suggest a 4 man platoon. Bowker and Schierholz can play either left or right field, Torres can play all three and Rowand can just play center when he plays, with Velez playing somewhere else (preferably L.A.). While I don't think that Schierholz should automatically start every game against lefties over Bowker, working out a platoon that gets each of them 4-5 starts per week would keep everyone fresh, maximize matchups and hot-bats and help cover up the fact that the Giants offense is mediocre at best. Or Sabean could do us all a favor and trade Rowand for a subscription to the jelly of the month club, move Huff to LF and bring up Posey. This of course assumes that he's not willing to do us all the ultimate favor of quitting and taking Bochy with him. The Giants lineup would then look like this: Torres Sanchez Sandoval Huff Uribe Posey Molina Schierholz/Bowker Pitcher Spot

BillWallace
BillWallace

I definitely thought DeRosa going down helped the team. Torres should already have been playing full time and now he is. I agree Bowker has earned more PAs, but I think he is and should be the 4th OF/PH right now. The Giants recent regular outfield lineup is really spectacular defensively. Peter, I agree with what you say. I don't mind waiting for Posey if it helps down the line with his service time and contract issues. But Molina should absolutely be batting 8th. I think Schierholtz is the team's 2nd best bat right now and should be hitting second in the lineup, or even ideally leadoff, although we all know that Rowand's spot. My ideal lineup is Schierholtz Torres Sandoval Rowand Huff Uribe Sanchez Molina pitcher

peterpullman
peterpullman

Am I alone in the (Giants) Universe? Can I look at the stars and realize I am an underling? Or am I right, that DeRosa's injury is helpful to the team? SF can't win with: Renteria hitting second, Molina hitting fourth, and DeRosa hitting anywhere. Why do I >feel< that I'm alone in having concluded that this is our best lineup? Rowand Torres Sanchez Sandoval Huff Uribe Schierholtz Posey pitcher (with Bowker getting some starts over Torres, and his hitting sixth -- with Uribe, Huff, Sandoval, and Sanchez moving up) (or, to be contrary, having Rowand bat sixth; Uribe, et al. move up; Torres bat first; and Schierholtz, second) Posey would have less pressure hitting eighth and, as he settles, he moves up. What will it take before it's realized that Molina is the worst cleanup hitter in baseball?

daveinexile
daveinexile

Sethedude: I won’t talk for Chris but simply put I would rather see Torres get more of his play time in Center. 1)Rowan is getting older he needs most rest and frankly we already know , batting wise, what he are going to get from him, hot streak or drek, so when he is not on a hot streak play the Kid (Bowker) now that he has had the chance to learn plate discipline and could legitimacy hit 20 hr with 450 PA’s and see what happens. We could get modestly lucky and have second batter that hit 15+ hrs and gets on base at better than 325 OBP by mid August. 2) Bowker is still learning the habits a what MLB pitching really looks like and how to react to them. A Bench player on a team that has a weak hitting bench already needs to know that stuff to a Veteran that has never really shined (Torres) is more natural fit for the role of bat off the Bench that plays a couple inings a couple games a week and maybe starts once ; and Bochey's use pattern for a 4th OF.

seththedude
seththedude

Seems to me Andres Torres is doing a great job as the LF fill-in, at least offensively. He basically created a run entirely by himself on the bases tonight in the 5th, stretching a single into a double, then aggressively tagging up to 3rd, then barely scoring on a subsequent wild pitch. He tripled later in the game and finished with 3 hits. This is the kind of player the Giants need in the lineup - someone who can get on base (.398 OBP this season) and create runs. Bowker seems to be a good fit as a bench player/4th OF -- having some power on the bench to step in during late game situations is very valuable (as we saw in the Mets series). Starting Bowker leaves the bench relatively punchless in that regard.

hitnrun
hitnrun

Chris, the best thing to do is let DeRosa go ahead and have surgery now, rather than hope that miraculously his wrist will heal itself. I can't believe that they would even consider bringing him back with just rest, he is batting .200 now, and he won't get better as is. The only reason they are dragging their feet is because Sabean does not want to admit that he screwed up and signed ANOTHER damaged player that is not going to help the team this year. I like DeRosa, but he could be finished with baseball, and this recurring theme of bringing in injured players every year is a Sabean nightmare. Time to put Sabean on the DL.