There’s a good chance the Giants could use the FA market this offseason to upgrade at first base. The good news for the Giants is that the 1B market is cram-packed with options. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a first baseman looking for work. The market is full of guys like: Carlos Delgado, Nick Johnson, Russell Branyan,… Read more →
How many times this past season did Aaron Rowand swing at a slider and miss completely? Thanks to the magic (and nerdery) of PitchF/X we can answer that question. In 2009, Rowand swung at, and missed, the slider 63 separate times. Seems more than that, doesn’t it? For most of the season, the slider seemed to give Rowand a good… Read more →
The bullpen was a major reason why the Giants were able to play better than .500 baseball this past season. When your team collectively fails at the plate, every little bit of run prevention, be it defense or pitching, can be a huge difference between wins and loses. Fortunately for the Giants, their bullpen did an outstanding job of preventing… Read more →
Anyone who’s watched a Pablo Sandoval at-bat should be able to realize within a few pitches that Sandoval likes to swing the stick. According to Fangraph’s O-Swing% statistic (the number of pitches outside of the strike zone that a batter swings at) Sandoval has swung at 41.8% of the pitches he’s seen this year outside of the strike zone. Among… Read more →
In a September game against the San Diego Padres, prized Giants’ prospect, Madison Bumgarner, made his major league debut at the age of 20-years-old. After being drafted in the 2007 draft, Bumgarner has made quick work of minor league hitters. In just two years, Bumgarner has thrown 273 innings, struck out 256 batters, and posted a cumulative ERA of 1.65… Read more →
After the last soul-crushing defeat, the Giants needed this game. Matt Cain chipped in 7 innings of 2 run baseball and Travis Ishikawa belted a 3-run HR in the 8th inning to break a 2-2 tie. Something that I’ve noticed about Cain this year is that his K/9 has dropped by almost 1 full strikeout per 9 innings. Cain owns… Read more →
I don’t like the Giants’ offense. Not much to say. I just got off work and I’m beat. The Giants also just lost a heart breaker to the Reds 2-1. There’s nothing like pounding out 11 hits in a game and only scoring 1 run. That’s Giants baseball for you. Anyways, here’s a quick graph post today on the Giants… Read more →
Updates have been a little slow lately but watching tonight’s game against the Reds made me think. It seems that teams have really started to pitch Pablo pretty hard inside. Currently, it’s the bottom of the 8th and the game is tied 5-5, but I wanted to share my quick observation with a PitchF/X graph. At the moment, the Reds… Read more →
Run prevention is a hugely important team skill in baseball. Baseball highlights will often be composed of those who can hit the longest home runs, but having a top defensive team can do wonders for a team’s record. For example, take the Giants. Collectively as a team the Giants can’t hit their way out of wet paper bag. Despite Sandoval… Read more →
Wow, what a great game to come back to the blog with. If you didn’t know, last night Jonathan Sanchez pitched the first no-hitter of 2009 and the first Giants no-hitter since John Montefusco did it to the Braves in 1976. You’ll often hear sports fans and announcers say: ‘This game had it all’ but it’s rarely true. Well, this… Read more →