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I'm at the point wishing they'd swap everybody but Panda and Beltran for their AAA Fresno team. They couldn't do worse than this nugget of a stat: The Giants are batting .166 as a TEAM (not lately, or on this home stand, but as a TEAM!!!) with 2 outs and RiSP this year. And it's not like it's a small sample size. It's in 527 plate appearances. That is really hard to do. Really really hard. I mean, you have to really go out of your way to be that awful.
Maybe Rowand would start hitting if he penciled in "chicago" on his uniform. Check out his quote from this article: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/.... "JC: Thing you miss most about playing for Chicago? Rowand: Wearing the road uniform. And you know why? Because it said ‘Chicago’ across the front. I got goose bumps every time I would put it on. JC: Not so with San Francisco? Rowand: [Pause] Let’s talk about the Bears again
The number of at-bats given to Rowand, Torres and Huff is the reason this offense is terrible. All three are just consistent rally-killers. Torres has been figured out - he'll swing at everything, and pitchers know it. Huff has zero power and has shown no signs of figuring anything out. Rowand is Rowand. No team with an offense this bad should seem so terrified of shaking things up. What's the worst that could happen, we finish SUPER-LAST in runs?
Or be like Krukow for the 108th game in a row and blame it on the opposing pitcher... "He was outstanding tonight." NO, he wasn't outstanding, Kruk. The Giants don't take pitches, hit for power or run the bases... That's why they don't score. Was it just me, or did you guys think, "I wish this was Brandon Belt," every time Aaron Rowand came to the plate last night?
Except for Schierholtz, last night's offense doesn't even deserve to be sent down to Fresno, more like to Williamsport (Little League).... Although, we can always blame it on Pac Bell Park!
In 2004, the Giants not surprisingly were 1st in the NL in OBP (as they had been for a few years) and 2nd in Runs. The following spring training Bonds knee forgot to show up and the result was a 16 place tumble, as they fell to last in the league in OBP and 15th in Runs scored. Since then, with the single exception of 2010, their numbers have had a numbing consistency: 2005 15th Runs 16th OBP 13th SLG 2006 11th Runs 15th OBP 10th SLG 2007 15th Runs 15th OBP 16th SLG 2008 15th Runs 14th OBP 15th Slg 2009 13th Runs 16th OBP 14th SLG 2010 9th Runs 10th OBP 6th!! SLG 2011 16hth Runs 16th OBP 15th SLG I think it's fair to wonder when, if, or why not the FO will begin to question their assumptions about roster construction. Because hoping for career seasons out of scrap heap waiver acquisitions probably isn't a sustainable building process. (PS, I assume that table's going to look a fright when it gets posted. Sorry about that).
Thanks for the post, Roger. I agree that the offense has been on a horrific trend for the past 4-5 years. 2010 was a nice surprise in a league-average-ish kind of way. The NL West really feels like it's up in the air right now. I've said it time and time again, but one of the biggest reasons the Giants did so well last year was a league average offense. That's it. Not a league leading, but middle of the pack. Right in the middle. It's going to be really hard to win right now with the offense the way it is. No matter how well the pitching is going, it's going to be really, really hard. In a lot of respects, I think Sabean hit home run after home run last year on scrap heaps. I give the man credit for picking up the players, but Burrell, Ross, and Uribe (to an extent) were all scrap heap guys who had solid years in 2010. This year they've replaced those guys with Orlando Cabrera (terrible) and Jeff Keppinger (not so terrible). Injuries have really hurt this team, but I'm still convinced that Sabean has a real flaw when it comes to building offenses.
Not that this is overly meaningful, but FWIW, the full season minor league team's league ranks in OBP and SLG: Fresno 12th (out of 16) OBP, 13th SLG Richmond 12th (out of 12) OBP, 12th SLG San Jose 7th (out of 10) OBP, 7th SLG Augusta 11th (out of 14) OBP, 12th SLG. Looked at a little more closely, there are only 10 players in the system with double digit HRs: Pill (23), Eldred (20), Duvall (20), Dominguez (17), Kieschnick (14), Joseph (12) and then E. Gonzalez, Parker, Anders, Mazzola, and Devin Harris barely qualifying with 10 each. There are also only 10 full-time players on the fill season clubs with an OBP as high as .350: Belt (.459), Burriss (.421), Duvall (.391), Lollis (.388), G. Brown (.384), Parker (.380), Gillaspie (.380), E. Gonzalez (.374), Willoughby (.366), Pill (.350). There are two different kinds of bad news in those lists: 1) i set the bars ridiculously low; and 2) most of those guys are org fillers. the bottom line is that undervaluing patience and undervaluing power seems to be a failure of organizational philosophy rather than any kind of bad luck. Perhaps we should pray to the Gods that Adam Duvall is some kind of Jeff Kent redux, an honest to goodness late-round, late-blooming sleeper stud.
No wonder they don't like Belt, his OBP is too high. Gary Brown better stop cheating the game or he's going to be stuck in Fresno with Belt.
And if you consider the league averages for some of those leagues, like the PCL, Pill's OBP isn't even league average. And his HR total (as Eldred's) is surely inflated. Out of your OBP list, I'd say that Belt, Brown, and Duvall are really the only legit prospects in that list. Parker maybe, depending on how much (or how little) you hate his swing.