Some Good, Some Surprises, But No Good Surprises in April

Published by on April 29, 2011 | 6 Responses

So, the mothership is asking us to tell them what the pleasant surprises have been for the Giants.

When this question was first asked, the Bay City Ball writing staff collectively stuck our hands in our pockets and shrugged: I’ve got nothin’. I distilled this into a non-answer answer that’s up on the Sweetspot Blog right now. Basically I say that the best surprise is that the unpleasant surprises haven’t lead to a worse record.

I was tempted, tempted to say that Aaron Rowand’s competence with the bat has been the pleasant surprise. But, let’s just go to one of the many places on the internet where they track baseball statistics, shall we?

Aaron Rowand’s season: .290/.329/.455
Aaron Rowand’s career: .276/.334/.443

They don’t give out licenses to baseball bloggers, but if I claimed that a player basically replicating his career averages through a month of play were a pleasant surprise, they should issue me one just for the pleasure of revoking it.

Pablo Sandoval has had a nice April, and I guess some people are surprised by that. Those people are silly, though. He’s Pablo Sandoval, he’ll do that every once in a while. Yes, he wasn’t great last year, but even then he managed to have a great April. So how surprising can that be?

Another option: Ramon Ramirez and Guillermo Mota pitching well. But labelling 25 good innings of mostly low-leverage relief work as the pleasant surprise of April smacks of sheer delusion. If that’s the pleasant surprise, then there really haven’t been any pleasant surprises.

And now we have Ryan Vogelsong. He looked excellent in yesterday’s start against the Pirates. I was sorta surprised by that, but if he really wants to work his way into this competition he’ll need to rattle off like 4 out of 5 quality starts or something.

Really, this is a team for whom almost every surprise has been of the unpleasant variety. It’s like every day the UPS man drops off another package, but instead of your Amazon order, it’s a severed toe or a live wolverine.

Aubrey Huff plays the outfield like he has an inner ear problem? A little surprising, I guess. How about when he hits like he’s using a wet cardboard roll for a bat? SURPRISE! Miguel Tejada can’t make routine plays at SS. Fine. How about if he hits like a less patient version of Brian Bocock? SURPRISE! Andres Torres’s achilles tendon? SURPRISE! Cody Ross’s calf? SURPRISE! Barry Zito’s ankle? SURPRISE!

Suggested goal for May: no more freaking surprises.

Coming into the season, everyone knew that the Giants strength was depth of position players. They’ve gotten through their rough month mostly on depth. Yesterday, however, they started a game with Emannuel Burris playing second, so mark that down: April 28th – depth all used up. They’ll need the unfortunate events to abate for a while to stay in the race.

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doormanforthecat
doormanforthecat

I think you have to remember for Rowand's performance last year that he broke his face about this time last year. I think it takes some time to recover from a broken face regardless of age.

blandwilson
blandwilson

Points taken. In fact, I looked back at Rowand's splits since joining the Giants, and, according to espn.com, he hit .302/.351/.471 in April between 2008 and 2010! So, not only is the 'one-month sample size argument' valid, but you could say that his trend is to hit well early and then lose steam. (Ironically, in spring training I argued against a buddy that Rowand couldn't possibly be as bad as last year, so we should expect a better contribution from him this year. I guess my real early surprise is how easily I contradict myself.) On a related note, I've heard lots of chatter that when Torres returns, the Giants will keep Rowand in the lineup, probably at the expense Burrell's playing time. In my view, although Burrell is a streaky hitter, he seems (I don't have the data on this) to be fairly consistent in terms of getting on base and mixing in enough jacks to keep his SLG respectable. That said, I'd be inclined to keep him in the lineup unless Ross just blows up. Defensively, I don't think a Burrell-Torres-Rowand OF is any worse than what they've often thrown out there, though Rowand-Torres-Ross is likely significantly better.

yogiberra
yogiberra

'Baseball Torture' is back!!!

blandwilson
blandwilson

Like this blog, but I disagree with your assessment of the Rowand situation. Surprises are relative to expectation, and I don't know how one could've expected Rowand to match his career numbers. His slash line for his first three years in SF (2008-2010) was .257/.318/.405, which is significantly worse than this year. In addition, he'd gotten worse each year -- his batting average, for example, went from .271 to .261 to .230. In addition, although I haven't done the research, I'm guessing that having a career rebound at age 33 is fairly rare. Given that, I think it's somewhat surprising that Rowand is even starting, much less producing. So, in my view, if you'd predicted at the beginning of the season that Rowand would match his career numbers and arguably be the Giants' second most consistent offensive player, that would have been cause for revocation of your "blogger's license". In short, I do think Rowand is the Giants' biggest surprise. What's really surprising, however, is that he played well enough at Chicago and Philadelphia to run up those career numbers!

Otis Anderson
Otis Anderson

I think that there some interesting reasons why we shouldn't be too surprised at Rowand's semi-resurgence. The first is one that Rory already covered - not that many games played yet. Due to age and the fact that he no longer plays in bandboxes, Rowand's true talent is below what his career numbers are. But it's not so far below that we should be surprised if he matches his career numbers in a month. The other point is that player aging looks like a smooth trend when you add a bunch of players together, but on an individual level it is often quite noisy. Translated into plain english: when a player is as crap as Aaron Rowand was last year, it's usually partly due to erosion of talent and partly due to bad luck. A rebound to closer to career numbers following an utter crap season is not all that uncommon, even well into a player's 30s. Your last point I agree with. Looking at his career numbers, you'd think this slider thing was a recent invention.

Rory Paap
Rory Paap

I see your point, and it's a fair one. Expectations for Rowand were at an all-time low to be sure. He was rotten last year and horrible this spring. People were ready to release him, were they pulling the strings, and I probably would have too if Ross wasn't hurt before the bell rang. That said, I still don't find it particularly surprising because we're talking about a few weeks. If Rowand does this into July, that will be a pleasant surprise. Any player can hit for three weeks -- see Jeff Francoeur. Plus, it's all BABiP driven with decent power. 21 games of league-average hitting isn't really shocking. And he's playing because Torres is hurt. Side note that's sort of funny. You say that a rebound at 33 is rare. I think you're probably right. But, Huff nailed that feat last season. Now, if Rowand matches his career numbers for a full season, THAT will be a really pleasant surprise.