This post will feature a two-pronged attack: 1) Madison Bumgarner is good at pitching baseballs and 2) Brandon Belt is starting to hit a little bit and that’s awesome Madison Bumgarner Every time I watch Bumgarner pitch, I think to myself “This guy is good. This guy is really, really good.” And then I’ll watch a few more innings, watch… Read more →
Brad Penny has already thrown 18 innings for the Giants this season. I’m honestly not sure how that happened. It seems like one day Brad Penny was in Japan and the next day he was grooving 91 mile per hour fastballs down the middle of the plate for the Giants in early August. How did we get here? Where are… Read more →
One of the concerns about adding any hitter to AT&T Park is how that player’s power will translate and now that the Giants have traded for Hunter Pence, I think that’s a question that’s on everyone’s mind. So, with that question in mind, let’s look at a few numbers. First, let’s take a look at some park factors. According to… Read more →
Tweet I once read that in the sea of mediocrity, the guy with his own jet ski is king, or something. The Giants’ bullpen is by no means mediocre – all things considered, the relievers have done an admirable job – but, I still get a little twitchy in the late innings. I say that because I mostly know that… Read more →
My thesis on why Madison Bumgarner is really, really good: he’s very young; he’s good at pitching; and, he’s very young. Writing post-game reactions to Bumgarner starts has become one of the most brainless exercises I can think of. He’s really, really good. And he’s really, really young. Add two parts youth-to-league; one part strong pitching peripherals; bake for an… Read more →
Something recently caught my eye (ear?) after the series win against the Los Angeles Dodgers. In a post-game interview with Jaymee Sire, Hector Sanchez stated that Tim Lincecum did a good job of keeping his pitches down in the zone. (Also, for fun, count how many times Hector says “you know.”) There’s not much to glean from the Sanchez interview,… Read more →
In last night’s win against the Dodgers, Ryan Vogelsong, feel good baseball story of the century, continued to excel for the San Francisco Giants in a way that is truly perplexing to me. I know the facts by heart: he’s throwing a little slower this season, but the results are nearly identical. In 2011, by PitchF/X, Vogelsong threw 979 pitches… Read more →
I’ll be honest, I can’t stop talking about Brandon Belt. Two graphs this morning for your Sunday enjoyment. The first is a graph of Brandon Belt’s batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage by game and the second is a graph of Belt’s strikeout and walk percentages by game. There’s a lot of impressive things going on in each graph,… Read more →
This will be your weekly Brandon Belt post. Also, I’m writing under the influence of cold medicine, so this could be interesting. Well, well, would you look at that? It’s a mistake to read too much into small samples (and a three game series against the Astros is definitely in the realm of SSS), but I’m going to push that… Read more →
Not too long ago, reader, Levi Davis, sent me an email asking about Madison Bumgarner’s strikeout rate. Levi wrote: Can someone much smarter than me take a look a look at Bumgarner’s K-rate? It seems a big part of his improvement last year was a jump in K-rate, which has dropped back down this year. I know it’s too early… Read more →