Did the corpse of Darin Erstad really hit a 3-run home run to tie the game? Erstad hasn’t been a good hitter in almost 7 years now and he knocks a 3-run shot to knot the game? The Fangraph for this game was particularly horrific. Click with caution.

Erstad’s OPS+ from 2001-2007

2001 - 82
2002 - 86
2003 - 72
2004 - 97
2005 - 87
2006 - 57
2007 - 68

When the Astros signed Erstad this year for $1M I was really surprised. Even as a 5th OF or PH he’s not worth that money but that’s the beauty of Ed Wade. I guess if baseball has shown us anything, it’s that any one can get lucky and run into one. The Giants bullpen ERA now stands at 24th in the majors at 4.39. That’s not good enough for a team that can’t score runs and doesn’t play sparkling defense. If the Giants can get a lead, the bullpen must protect it because they don’t have the firepower to go toe-to-toe with teams and play catchup.

This is also brings me back to the subject of Tyler Walker who I’ve always felt has been overrated by Giants fans. I’m almost certain he’s one of the “good guys” in the game and he’s a local kid, but his career numbers are very middle of the road and not someone I would want to use in high leverage situations — which let’s face it, he wasn’t in a high leverage situation until he gave up 4 runs in .2 IP.

Let’s take a quick look at some of Tyler Walker’s underlying career numbers in the form of K%, BB%, GB%, FB%, and LD%

Year     K%     BB%     GB%    FB%    LD%
Career   18.1   9.1     39.3   39.6   21.1

Walker has a slightly above average strikeout rate but he also has a slightly above average walk rate. He’s a flyball pitcher that gives up as many flyballs as he does groundballs and his line drive percentage is right around the league average of 20%.

To me, those look like the numbers of a middle reliever and not someone I’d necessarily want to use in high leverage or close game situations. Walker has a career FIP of 4.43 which when considering that 98% of his career work has come from the bullpen, isn’t very impressive. Because starting is harder than relieving, pitchers will usually post better stats from the bullpen.

The Giants won’t remove Walker from his 8th inning duties just yet after his meltdown but it’s something to keep an eye on. With Hennessey throwing BP every time he’s taken the mound this year and Merkin Valdez moving to the 15-day DL with an elbow strain, the Giants don’t have many options to slot into 8th inning duties right now.

Here’s some options that I like to replace Walker in the 8th inning.

Billy Sadler - Great stuff with control problems. Sadler, a teammate of Brian Wilson at LSU, has always been able to strike hitters out — career K/9 of 10.41 in the minors — but he’s also battled control problems as well — career BB/9 of 5.41 in the minors. There’s a lot to like about Sadler’s arm and if he can ever get his control near acceptable levels, his swing-through stuff could play in the late innings.

Chances of claiming the 8th inning this year? - I’ll stick him at 20%. Sadler has control problems to overcome before the Giants will move him to a more important role but his potential is huge.

Alex Hinshaw - You might start to notice a trend with Giants relievers. Hinshaw has good stuff but also has control problems. In 148.2 career minor league innings pitched he’s got a K/9 of 10.99 but a BB/9 of 6.19. This lanky lefty has looked good this year while serving as AAA Fresno’s closer. His ‘08 line from AAA this year looks like this: 7 S, 15.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 HR, 4 BB, 21 SO. The sample is small but it’s nice to see him cut his walks down. The strikeouts are also inline with his career numbers. Like Sadler, Hinshaw’s progression to a more important role depends on his ability to cut his walks and maintain his strikeouts.

Chances of claiming the 8th inning this year? - He just got called up, so at least his chances are initially good if he can pitch well — he struck out the only hitter he faced yesterday, the lefty Michael Bourn — but I doubt that Bochy will put a rookie in the 8th inning role or be able to cure himself of his matchupitis. Because of the Bochy hurdle, I’ll put him at 15% initially with a chance to move to 30% if he pitches well during this callup.

Sergio Romo - I absolutely love Romo and despite an average fastball, he’s been getting it done for four years in the minor leagues. Even though Romo is currently in AA, he’s my darkhorse candidate to get some serious time in the Giants bullpen this year. Over 4 years in the minor leagues Romo has displayed elite command — walking only 1.57 per 9 innings — and the ability to strikeout hitters — 9.96 K’s per 9 — even if he doesn’t light up the radar gun. Romo’s command and control allow him to place all of his pitches wherever he wants in the strike zone. His pitching motion has some deception to it and he throws from various arm angles. His ability to strikeout batters and not issue the free pass make him a very attractive bullpen member. Key your eye on Romo, he’s currently pitching great in AA as the Defenders closer. Line of: 8 S, 14.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 HR, 1 BB, 13 SO

Chances of claiming the 8th inning this year? - I’m pushing Romo to 45% just because I like him so much and he appears to have all the tools to succeed in a bullpen role. The only roadblock might be the Giants and how they view him. They’ve tended to move him one level at a time and they’ve never promoted him during a season even though he’s always pitched strongly. The Giants might have some doubts about how his “stuff” will play at the next level but Romo has done everything and more to cement his status as a very interesting pitching prospect.

—

A very frustrating loss yesterday after Lincecum struck out 10 through 6. The Giants need the bullpen to be in the top half of the league if they want to win games. As it stands, they’re in the bottom half right now and it cost them a game yesterday.

Keep in mind that of the three pitchers I’ve listed above I didn’t talk about Kelvin Pichardo or Osiris Matos. Pichardo and Matos are already on the Giants 40-man roster and might get the call before someone like Romo who’s not. If Merkin Valdez comes back healthy he could be a serious candidate for a setup role. Bochy has made some statements early in the season about increasing his role but it all hinges on how healthy his arm is. The Giants might chose to keep Keichi Yabu in a long relief role but he should be the first to get optioned or released if they need room for a younger prospect.

Comment Starter: Who would you move into the 8th inning?

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Link Update: A.J. Pierzynski says he’s not so bad. The White Sox roll into town tonight and it’ll be interesting, to say the least, to see the fan reaction towards A.J.

From the Chron

…Sabean sees a San Francisco team that can contend.

Not in two seasons, not next season, but in 2008.

“As long as we’ve got a chance to stay in and around third place, why not?” Sabean said as he stood along the dugout rail and watched his players take batting practice. “Why wouldn’t you want to think that way? These guys think that way.

These guys are gamers, gritty gamers. They’re rough, tough, dedicated, and can’t really hit all that much. Or play defense that well, either. I know that GM’s like Sabean like to stay positive — or maybe it’s blindly ignoring the obvious — but I can’t help but get twisted the wrong way when I read stuff like this. The Giants haven’t been the worst team in baseball — Seattle or even the Padres might deserve that dubious honor right now — but the Giants have an enormous amount of deficiencies and talk of contention, no matter how starry eyed and whimsical it might be, is just, how do you say, insane?

The formula for success before the season started was three parts. One part speed, one part defense, and one part pitching. Add to a shaker, gently toss, and pour over ice with a marciano cherry on the side. I call this drink ‘Optimistic Failure’ or the ‘08 San Francisco Giants. It might go down smooth the first time, but after a few you’re feeling sickly and wanting an actual third or first baseman that can hit.

Speed? Check. The Giants are 3rd in the majors in stolen bases with a team total of 40. But, even with the large amount of base thievery, the Giants’ offense is still a bottom dweller in the major leagues. Their EqA puts them at 5th worst — ahead of powerhouses such as San Diego, Kansas City, Washington, and Cleveland — out of all 30 teams. This team can steal a base but it can’t necessarily get on base all that well. The Giants are 25th in OBP.

Defense? No-check. In the early parts of this season the Giants have been one of the worst defensive teams in the majors. As a team they are converting 82% of balls, hit into their respective zones, into outs. A league average defensive team in the NL is converting at 83% and what is really hurting the Giants is their infield D. The Giants have the worst infield defense in all of baseball. Read that again if you have to, the-worst-in-baseball. The infield is only converting 73.2% of balls hit in play, into the infield zone, into outs. This is what happens when you give Jose Castillo significant playing time. Castillo is only converting 57.7% of balls in play, in his zone, into outs. 71 balls have been hit into his zone, he’s gotten to 41 of them. That’s amazingly bad. More on Castillo in a bit.

Pitching? Incomplete. We’ve had some great pitching so far in the season. Lincecum has been otherworldly. Cain has gotten better lately. Sanchez has struggled with consistency even though his promise is high. Barry Zito is still trying to learn to pitch with 83mph gas. And a series of injuries and setbacks have hurt SP depth. Correia and Lowry are both injured and can’t be counted on for significant contributions. Pat Misch looks nice but isn’t much more than a 5th starter right now. The league average FIP in the NL is 4.23 and the Giants have a team FIP of 4.32 which while is pretty solid, isn’t the world beating pitching staff that many expected before the season. The way I see it, the Giants have two really good pitchers in Cain and Lincecum and a potential very good pitcher in Sanchez. And then a bunch of question marks after that.

Another quote from Sabes, from the same article. Emphasis mine.

“You’re seven games under .500. That’s where you don’t want to be, but I really feel good about the energy around the club and I feel good about some of our choices. We’ve now got a solution at first base. We’ve got a solution at third. We’ve gotten Omar (Vizquel) back. Freddie Lewis has come into his own and (Emmanuel) Burriss has been a real factor lately.

I don’t think Jose Castillo is actively solving anything at third base. He’s a below average hitter with league worst defense. Once again, the Giants are deferring to intangibles such as “good energy” in a weird attempt to defy scientific logic. The numbers don’t lie, the Giants are probably a 4th place team in the NL West with the collapse of the Padres. Furthermore, the Giants’ standing is really helped by the crash and burn of the Padres and Rockies. Both teams have just fallen completely apart. The Giants might be in third place right now but it’s not because this team is on the rise and making moves. Rather, two other teams in this division have fallen off the charts and whether or not they right themselves is another question but I think mistaking the Giants current position as the byproduct of strength, and not the weakness of the other teams in this division, is bad news.

Freddie, I can agree with. He’s been outstanding and I hope he stays a starter year-long. The Giants would be supremely dumb to give any playing time to Dave Roberts at the expense of young Fred when he comes back. Lewis is the stronger hitter of the two and his defense has been solid — 2nd in the NL for left fielders. You can’t platoon Roberts with Lewis because both have issues against lefty pitching, making Roberts not very useful in the outfield. I can think of at least 2 guys I would play ahead of Dave Roberts right now.

Puff piece or not, I get a little scared at the thought of us sitting around 3rd place — of course, probably 15 games under .500 — near the trading deadline. Will Brian attempt to trade for a playoff push? I can’t tell you because I have a hard time figuring out crazy people. He could very well trade prospects for a crappy 1B or smear himself in grape jelly while running down Lombard Street. It could happen.

With that in mind, Sabean said he does not contemplate moving his most marketable experienced players before the trade deadline, as many rebuilding teams do. Catcher Bengie Molina and outfielder Randy Winn, both signed through 2009, might yield the most in return. But as of now, Sabean plans to keep them

Ugh. I can see the argument for keeping Molina. We have little-to-no depth at catcher right now and if he doesn’t break down, he heads into 2009 as our starter. Fine, I’m cool with that. But Randy Winn? Really, Brian? We’ve got 18 billion outfielders and Randy Winn will be 35 years-old next year. He’s the definition of a guy you should move. A surplus at the position? Check. Semi-valuable commodity that a team could be interested in at the treading deadline? Check. Randy Winn does nothing for the team in this year or next, besides blocking someone like Nate Schierholtz who should be given a shot. Or, I can use the common argument among fans online. Will Randy Winn be on the next good Giants team? And the answer is no. Move him.

Brian Sabean needs to understand that this 2008 team isn’t a good team. And that without changes, the 2009 team won’t be good either. You’ve got to start the process at some point, regardless of how “energetic” this team is playing, it still has major problems and if you can’t evaluate them properly, how good of a job are you doing? I can only hope that as Magowan is on the way out, Sabean goes with him. Or that the new owner has the cojones to deviate from the franchise game plan of the last 10 years. It’s time for change and until someone can frankly and honestly examine this team, change will never come. Instead the Giants seem perfectly happy with selling $15 crab sandwiches and fielding a bad team. At what point do the fans stop coming? It’s already starting to happen and I’d rather not turn into Baltimore West.

Check out the all-time leader board for home runs by Giants pitchers.

1. Hal Schumacher, 1934, 6 HR
2. Art Nehf, 1924, 5 HR
3. Johnny Antonelli, 1955, 4 HR
4. Jim Hearn, 1955, 4 HR
5. Clint Hartung, 1949, 4 HR
6. Clint Hartung, 1947, 4 HR
7. Freddie Fitzsimmo, 1931, 4 HR
8. Don Robinson, 1989, 3 HR
9. Jim Gott, 1985, 3 HR
10. Jack Sanford, 1961, 3 HR

The great Hal Schumacher owns the Giants franchise record for most home runs in a season with 6. He also went 23-10 with a 3.18 ERA that year. A year in which the Giants made it to the World Series but lost to the Yankees. Cain is currently ranked 16th and 17th for his 2007 and 2008 seasons. Cain’s a big dude and it’s possible that he could belt 4 or more home runs before this year is over to tie or take the franchise record for most home runs by a Giants pitcher. The Giants always seem to have a few decent hitting pitchers but Cain is one of the more powerful ones in recent memory. Livan Hernandez, Russ Ortiz, and Noah Lowry could all swing the bat but none of them seem to have the same power that Cain does.

A few more thoughts from Cain’s start against the Astros.

Cain seemed to throw a lot of curveballs in the game last night. We’ve seen Cain move from his curveball to favor his slider and changeup over the last couple of years. Here’s Cain’s pitch selection from last night with the help of PITCHf/x and MLB’s Gameday application.

*A warning about my data, for whatever reason, PITCHf/x pegged a few sub-90mph pitches as fastballs and not what I’m assuming was a changeup. I’m not correcting for this because it looks like it only missed 4 pitches. I actually didn’t get to see Cain throw last night — internet cable problems — but I heard Krukow on KNBR this morning say that Cain didn’t have his change working last night and the data supports this theory. While PITCHf/x only tracked 1 changeup, at most Cain threw around 5 of them last night. That’s a big decrease for a pitch that Cain threw 10.6% of the time last year.

So, like usual, it looks like Cain was brining the heat. Last night he threw the fastball 68.75% of the time and at an average of 92.09mph, slightly under his 93.2mph average of last year. The runner up to the fastball, somewhat surprisingly, was the curveball. Cain threw the curveball 19.6% of the time last night. In 2006 Cain threw his curveball 14.1% of the time but backed off to 8.6% in 2008 in favor of the change and slider. As for the slider, Cain threw the pitch 10.7% of time last night.

It looks like Krukow was right and that Cain didn’t have a good feel for his changeup last night. But Cain has the ability to defer to his slider or curveball in times like last night when his changeup isn’t working so well for him. That’s a big reason that I believe that Cain took a step forward last year. The emergence of his slider and changeup gives him more options to work with when he’s struggling with a certain pitch and instead of turning into a 2-pitch pitcher and being predictable, he can still remain versatile with two quality pitches in his slider or curveball.

Here are the outcomes of the 22 curves that Cain threw last night

Cain gave up three hits on his curve, a single, double, and a HR to Carlos Lee in the 8th inning. The Lee HR was on a hanger that Cain left up in the zone. The curve induced two groundouts, two infield popouts, and a flyball out. 8 curves went balls, 3 went for foul balls, 2 for called strikes, and 1 for a strike swinging.

Final Thoughts

We’ve seen that since the beginning of last year, Cain has thrown the curve less in comparison to his first full season of ‘06 but if last night shows us anything it’s that Cain still seems comfortable with the pitch. The curve might not be his #2 choice for attacking hitters anymore but last night he showed us that if and when his changeup, or maybe even his slider aren’t working, Cain has no problem with using his curveball to give hitters something to think about. Even if he threw 8 of his 22 curves for balls, it appears that he created enough strikes with it — 5 total: fouls, strikes swinging, and called strikes — that hitters couldn’t just sit on his fastball all night. A nice job of adjusting by Cain when he didn’t have all of his pitches working for him.

The move went amazingly well, no boxes were lost, or items shattered into a million pieces. I’ve got all my fingers left and just a few things are left to move, but the bulk of the work is done. I can’t thank my friends enough who volunteered their Saturday to help us move. Things went smoothly despite our U-Haul breaking down as soon as I got it home. The U-Haul lady I spoke to earlier in the day drove me out another truck that thankfully worked. She had to crawl around under the first one, banging on various engine parts with a wrench, muttering under her breath about how “stubborn” this truck could be before she could start it and drive it back to the U-Haul place across town.*

*A U-Haul Sidenote: Is driving a U-Haul, for any amount of distance, one of the diciest things you can do? I think it’s somewhere between eating expired dairy products and bathing yourself in diesel fuel in terms of dicey-ness. Our truck had several features, including: a non-working car horn, a malfunctioning middle seat safety belt, and oddly enough, several thousand safety stickers inside the cabin of the truck.

“Warning, You’re Driving a U-Haul!”

Let’s see check out some Giants related news that happened while I was away from the blog.

- Barry Zito strings together two passable starts against Pittsburgh and the Astros. Zito is still winless but his last two starts, which border on something more than mediocre, are a welcome sight after his horrible start to the season. Zito’s line over the last two starts looks something like this: 11 IP, 12 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 3 BB, 7 SO, 2 HR, 4.09 ERA. Even if it’s over a stupidly small sample size, I’m glad to see these numbers, I’m just not sure if they’ll continue.

- Tim Lincecum is still composed of 1000% awesomeness. Timmy moved to 5-1 after beating the Phillies, who, by-the-way, can swing the bat with the best of them. Lincecum went 8 innings while striking out 8 hitters and he only gave up two runs. Lincecum is still the best pitcher on the Giants and a true ace in the National League. Beside pitching, Lincecum also added an RBI knock in the game to raise his batting average to .286 on the year.

- Backup catchers everywhere, rejoice. Steve Holm hit his first career major league HR to boost the Giants to a 4-3 win over the Phillies. In limited playing time, Holm has done well. Hitting a (.306/.375/.500) over 36 AB’s. It’s very possible that he’ll get more playing time with Molina playing banged up.

- Youth reborn? Omar has looked like a new man since coming off the DL. He’s 4 for 10 with a double and a run scored. He’s even stolen a base. I haven’t seen him play the field yet, how’s he looking? How does his mobility look? I’ll be on the lookout for him when I can catch my next Giants game on TV.

- After a slump, John Bowker has been hitting a little more lately. He popped a HR last night against Roy Oswalt, his first HR since April 20th and his first HR against a team that wasn’t the Cardinals. Over the last 8 games and 21 AB’s, Bowker has hit (.524/.564/.714). His OPS+ is at 107 while mainly playing first base. What’s this!? A league average or better Giants’ 1B? Do my eyes deceive me? Bowker still looks really raw at times but you’ve got to like that swing.

It’s good to be back and hopefully I’ll be able to start catching some games again.

Go Giants!

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Welcome newcomer to the Giants blogging community, Orange Black and Blue. I can’t be certain, but I think that ‘blogging and writing about the Giants’ is listed in the DSM under mental disorders. Welcome to the fold OBnB!

So with moving in mind, I’ll have to take a short hiatus from the blog and I probably won’t be able to get back to it until early next week. My current schedule is as following: Work, come home and pack, sleep, repeat.

There’s little time for baseball watching or blogging or really anything else of fun. I’ve got some ideas kicking around my head that I’d like to write about once the move is finished, so stay tuned.

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Small Site Change: You have have noticed the new ‘preview’ button in the comments section. This allows you to preview a comment before you actually post it, good for proof reading. The button currently looks out of place but when I get the time, I’ll try to make it more inline with the current style.

Comment Starter: How much does moving suck? Share the pain.

*Is ‘blogosphere’ the stupidest word ever? I say yes.

Leading off, the fine gentleman at Raising Matt Cain are giving Freddie-Loo some much deserved love. Not only is Freddie the best hitting Giant right now by EqA — a score of .321 — he’s also been playing some very passable D in the LF for a guy with a poor defensive reputation.

Check it out, the top 3 LF’s in the NL by RZR.

1. Eric Byrnes (.971)
2. Jason Bay (.957)
3. Fred Lewis (.939)

33 balls have been hit into Lewis’ zone and he’s turned 31 of them into outs. Keep up the good work, Fred.

John over at OBM, is talking Sabean and has some nice back-talk going on in the user comments section. Head on over to see what the hubbub is about.

And from the stats side of things, the Giants are leading the majors in stolen bases. The team has stolen 33 total bases — 5 more than the Baltimore Orioles — and sports a decent 77% CS rate. The team with the fewest stolen bases? San Diego, they’ve only swiped 7 so far on the season. The last time the Giants finished the season as the leader in steals was 1921. The 1921 team stole 137 bases out of 251 attempts for a 55% CS rate.

Oh, and by-the-way, that 1921 team won the World Series. By my logic, the 2008 Giants will win the World Series.

SB/CS Leaders from the 1921 Giants
1. Frankie Frisch - 49/13
2. Ross Youngs - 21/17
3. George Burns - 19/20

Maybe Youngs and Burns shouldn’t have tried to steal so much. My favorite from that team was infielder Goldie Rapp who attempted 14 steals and only successfully stole 3 bases! Atta’ boy, Goldie!

The Giants’ 13-16 record is a little misleading because the team still has some big problems, namely the ability to put runs on the board — 15th in the NL in runs scored and 14th in OPS — and play defense. The Giants Revised Zone Rating of .806 is lowest in the National League and Pythagoras says that our record should be closer to 10-19 than 13-19. This team just isn’t one or two pieces away from being good again.

But enough of the weak points, how’s one of our perceived strengths, pitching, been playing out? It’s been a mixed bag. Lincecum and Sanchez have been great, Cain has struggled some, Correia got hurt, and Zito has been tremendously bad. Let’s check out some numbers.

1. Matt Cain 1-2, 4.41 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     4.73      3.97
BABIP   .300      .272
K%      19.7      20.2
BB%     15.6      10.5
LD%     23.1      17
GB%     36.3      36.7
FB%     40.7      46.3

The first thing that pops out at me about Cain’s numbers is his BB% which is ungodly. Cain has always had some control issues — a career 10.6 BB% that could use some lowering before he takes another step forward as a pitcher — but never this bad. In 32.2 innings he’s walked 23 hitters. In 6 starts, Cain has waked 5 in two games, 3 in three games, and 4 in one game. Even in his first win of the season against the Rockies, he didn’t pitch marvelously, having trouble throwing strikes. His release point and arm slot really got out of whack in the Rockies game and he appeared to be “slinging” the ball.

I’ve always thought that Bochy was hard on Cain last year and in the first start of this season Bochy ran Cain out for 114 pitches. His control issues will be something to keep an eye on. I think it’s easy to forget that Cain is only 23 and on precipice of the injury nexus for young pitching. Let’s hope he’s healthy.

Otherwise, most of Cain’s numbers are inline with his career. He’s giving up less flyballs and more line drives right now, which has contributed to his higher-than-usual BABIP. If Cain can move his BB% back to his career levels and give up a few less LD’s, we should see some improvement but it’s all going to start with better control of the strike zone.

2. Tim Lincecum 4-1, 1.73 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     2.68      3.41
BABIP   .352      .307
K%      26.4      24.7
BB%      9.9      10.4
LD%     21.7      16.6
GB%     46.7      47
FB%     31.5      36.4

Tim Lincecum has been the best pitcher for the Giants in 2008, a true ace. Notice how good his numbers look despite that really high BABIP — a testament to the Giants terrible defense. I suspect most Giants starters are going to have higher BABIP’s than normal because of the defense. Balls hit into play that would be turned into outs by an average defense are falling for hits. So much for the defense part of speed and defense?

Lincecum is doing a bunch of things right this year. He cut his BB% slightly and raised his K% by almost 2 percent. What’s always amazed me about Lincecum is the amount of groundballs he gets. League average GB% is around 42% and Lincecum is 4-5% above that. His line drive percentage is a little higher than usual and if he rolls it back some to previous levels, his numbers should improve even more. Lincecum is basically the best type of pitcher you could ask for, great strike out rate and when hitters do make contact, it’s usually on the ground and easier to turn into an out. You can’t hit a groundball over the fence.

Speaking of home runs, even though I’m not posting the HR/FB percentage for each pitcher, Lincecum’s is impossibly low right now at 3.4%. He’s given up 1 home run in 36.2 innings pitched and pitchers tend to give up HR’s at a percentage of 10-12%. So, Lincecum will most certainly see some correction at some point in this season in terms of giving up the longball.

3. Jonathan Sanchez 2-1, 3.48 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     3.41      4.21
BABIP   .304      .334
K%      27.7      23.8
BB%     11.1      11.8
LD%     15.7      19.5
GB%     39.8      38.1
FB%     44.6      42.4

If Lincecum has been the best Giants starting pitcher this season, then Sanchez has been the 2nd best. He owns the best K% of any starting pitcher, even surpassing Lincecum. His BB% is high and in a perfect world, would come down, but Sanchez has always had some command problems. When he’s throwing strikes, he’s tough on hitters.

A flyball pitcher, Sanchez gives up a bunch of flyballs which Mays Field should help suppress. Sanchez has also kept his line drives down, almost 4% under his career levels. It’s interesting to see that Sanchez’s K% numbers have actually improved this year as a starter when the previous bulk of his MLB work has been out of the bullpen, which I would assume would add to his K% numbers. Coming out of the pen you can go full steam and not have to pace yourself throughout the game but Sanchez has a stronger K% right now as a starter. FIP tells us that given Sanchez’s current peripherals his ERA is for real. Go Sanchez!

I’ve been extremely pleased with the way Sanchez has thrown so far this season — being a self proclaimed huge fan of him — but he’ll probably hit speed bumps now and then when his control problems flair up. If Sanchez could throw 160 innings as a starter this year and gradually improve his control, it would be a great success for him and the team. He’s off to a great start.

4. Barry Zito 0-6, 7.53 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     5.82      4.40
BABIP   .346      .271
K%       7.8      17.7
BB%     10.6       9.4
LD%     19.6      19.2
GB%     36.6      38.2
FB%     43.8      42.6

As bad as Zito has been, he’s not the 7+ ERA pitcher that we might think he his. According to FIP, he’s a 5.82 ERA pitcher right now. Hey, you take the small wins wherever you can get them.

His BABIP is enormous, which can be partially linked to our terrible defense but hitters are making a lot of hard contact against Zito with a batting line of (.336/.403/.525). The usual suspects are still problems for Zito — K’s and BB’s — he’s not striking out anybody at 7.8% for his K% and his BB% has slightly moved up from his career numbers. Hitters are only swinging and missing at Zito pitches 8% of the time which means that they’re making a lot of contact and that Zito lacks the command, control, pitch quality, or velocity to induce swing-throughs.

He’s currently in the bullpen working on pitching after taking a beating this month. When was the last time you saw a Cy Young award winner get yanked out of the rotation to “work on stuff” in the bullpen? That’s not a good sign my friends, not a good sign at all. Who knows that the Giants will get when Zito comes back from the bullpen but my bet is that it still won’t be that good.

5. Kevin Correia* 1-3, 4.50 ERA

	2008      Career
FIP     5.74      4.73
BABIP   .254      .259
K%      14.8      17.4
BB%      9.2       9.5
LD%     18.3      19.7
GB%     39.0      39.0
FB%     42.7      41.3

* Correia is currently on the DL with the dreaded oblique strain that has bothered Noah Lowry in the past.

Correia is what-he-is, a decent 5th option in a rotation but the only problem is that Barry Zito has been pitching like a 5th starter if not worse. Primarily a bullpen member and spot starter in the majors, Correia had a nice string of starts to round out the ‘07 season and earned himself a rotation spot for ‘08. He lost some strike outs it appears from his transition from the bullpen to the rotation, that seems to be expected.

He’s a flyball pitcher that has slightly worse than average control and a slightly lower than average K%. Not too much to get excited about but he’s most likely going to be “serviceable” in the role of 5th starter but with his injury he might not come back into the starting rotation. I’d much rather see Misch get a shot in the rotation than Correia. That’s not a dig against Correia but he’s entirely average, which won’t kill you from his rotation spot, but I’ll take a guy with upside — however slight Misch’s upside is — right now rather than someone who will be average at best. If and when Lowry get’s healthy, the Giants will probably slot him into the rotation and move Correia or Misch back into the bullpen.

—

The Giants have had some tremendous pitching performances early in the season. Lincecum and Sanchez have been two of the better pitchers in the NL. But the Giants have been absolutely killed by Barry Zito who could be one of the worst pitchers in the entire MLB right now. Cain has struggled with consistency and I pray that he’s not secretly hurting, I’d love to see him get on a roll. And Correia has been about what you would expect from his rotation spot, though I prefer to see Misch get some starts.

I think we can draw one conclusion from the early season and it’s that fans of this team could have drastically overstated our pitching depth. It’s something that I’ve been slightly worried with for some time since Lowry began to have injury problems and declining numbers. At this point you can’t count on Lowry and Zito to be productive pitchers, anything positive they give you is a plus. Sanchez, even with his dynamite start, still has a ways to go before we can count on him to be a corner of the rotation. Cain has struggled and I’ve got this nagging voice in the back of my head about him. And Lincecum has been an elite starter so far. To me, looks like there’s a lot more question marks than certainties right now but the rotation has a good chance to be good, maybe not “the best in the NL” as some fans had dreamed, but good. Let’s see what happens over the next month.

Comment Starter: Report card time! How would you grade our 5 starters thus far? Flunking out or star students?

It’s official, the Giants have the most expensive middle reliever, ever, in the history of baseball.

From the Chronicle:

The man who leads the majors in starts the past eight seasons will miss his turn in the rotation for the first time in his career. Zito, who’s 0-6 with a 7.53 ERA, was told by Giants manager Bruce Bochy before Monday night’s 4-0 win over Colorado that he’ll work out of the bullpen in the immediate future, and he accepted the demotion with reluctance but without protest.

The Chron article is peppered with Zito quotes and even a few from P-Mags, as the kids say, but as hopeful as Zito sounds, there’s a myriad of quotes that try to boil the situation down to the mental aspect of pithing.

Some examples:

Zito told a group of reporters. “From my standpoint, it’s a bump in the road. It’s a big bump. It’s a battle. It’s stuff I’ve gone through (with the A’s), but there wasn’t the kind of scrutiny around it because of the market or the contract.

“Oakland’s under the radar. There weren’t microscopes. I don’t resist the microscope or any of that stuff. It’s a new challenge. It’s good. There’s a lot of growth and strength that comes out of these things.”

“It’s not about stuff. It’s not about velocity,” he said. “It’s just about attacking the strike zone and being aggressive.”

Don’t let me fool you, I do believe that mental preparation is very important for starting pitchers. Sure, why not, but I strongly, strongly, disagree that it’s not about velocity or pitch quality. Batters are making a ton of contact against Zito — only an 8% swinging strike rate, which not only is extremely low, it’s a career low for Zito — and unless mental preparation can give him 4-5mph back on his fastball, it might not matter much how much you prepare for the game. Zito’s fastball has atrophied, his control has slipped further, and his breaking stuff ain’t breaking so much.

For example, we’ve been hearing from Zito himself, since he got here, about how many things are tripping him up. It’s been the contract, the media market, the pressure, and everything else. But you’ve never heard Zito blame it on his pitch quality and velocity. I think he could know, deep down, that he’s in trouble and that he doesn’t posses the same type of stuff he once did and he lacks the physical tools to compensate for the changes — better command of the strike zone.

This entire situation is just bizarre and great fodder for the rest of the sports community — trying googling Barry Zito and reading any sports blog, hoo-boy. The Giants overpaid for Zito when nobody else would approach the deal they gave him. Hoodwinked by Scott Boras or an organizational failure representative of changes needing to be made? You decide!

Put bluntly, I think the Giants overvalued Zito tremendously and not essentially from a statistical viewpoint. Yeah, yeah, we know he had shiny win totals over the years but I think the Giants wanted to, convinced themselves they needed to, invest in someone who they could plaster on T-Shirts. Barry Bonds? Well, he’s kinda mean and cranky and he had his own recliner in the clubhouse. Barry Zito? Kooky! Kids will love him!

The usual PR fluff was in full force when Zito signed, I recall specifically Magowan mentioning that Zito was the most important signing that the Giants have made since they signed Bonds in the early 90’s, umpteen some years ago. But was it more than PR niceties? A part of me thinks that Magowan and everyone else believed what they were selling. That Barry Zito could actually be just as important to the Giants as Barry Bonds had been. That he would lead the franchise into it’s next phase as it’s premiere player.

Magowan may have been right, Zito will be important but for all the wrong reasons. Overpaid, expensive, and declining. What I wouldn’t give to hear some of the internal discussions right now in Giants HQ. The Giants have invested themselves heavily in Zito and with that investment they’ve bought themselves some time. Time to see if Zito can ever regain anything and become an average pitcher once again. The money is spent and they have to find out what they can get from Zito. Just don’t expect any great advances to come from this move to the bullpen.

Prove me wrong Zito, it wouldn’t be the first time, but everything else points to a very messy next couple of years.

—

For the price conscious, Barry Zito Fathead’s are now on sale at 60% off! Time to stock up and save! Me, personally, I just think they are clearing out stock for the new and improved, more realistic Zito Fathead.

On the other hand I think I feel like most Giants fans do. Zito is eating payroll — which face it matters to the team, even if you take a “it’s not my cash” approach it’s a limited resource that the Giants have a finite amount of, and affects their future ability to operate the team — and maybe even worse, he could soon be blocking talented young up-and-coming pitching from the Giants system. Maybe not this year because the pitching is still a bit off, but what do you do when Henry Sosa, Tim Alderson, Madison Bumgarner, Clayton Tanner, Ben Synder, or any semi-quasi interesting and talented Giants pitching prospect is knocking on the door while Zito continues to struggle in the year 201X? Heck, Patrick Misch might be a better starting pitcher than Barry Zito right now.

Zito’s problem is two-fold. Hitters are making a lot of contact against him and he’s walking hitters. Small sample size caveat aside, here’s Zito’s career numbers over the years in terms of BB% and K% and what he’s done so far in 2008.

Year     K%     BB%
2001    22.7    8.8
2002    19.3    8.3
2003    15.2    9.1
2004    17.6    8.7
2005    17.9    9.3
2006    15.9    10.4
2007    15.4    9.7
2008     7.8    10.6

Here’s a graph to illustrate the changes over time for Barry.

The yellow line is league average K% and the green line is league average BB%. I don’t think Zito was ever going to maintain a 20%+ K% like he did in 2001 and almost in 2002, but he settled into a nice groove from 2003-2006 where he was right around or above league average. He dropped to below league average in 2007 and in his small sample size in ‘08, he’s striking out hitters like Carlos Silva — career K% of 9.8 — but without his control or GB tendencies. The pattern that emerged in the spring for Zito, not striking out hitters, has continued into the early season. If you recall, Zito struck out just 4 hitters in 18 innings of Spring Training baseball. Zito’s fastball is also down by almost another mile-per-hour this year compared to last. On average, Zito is throwing his fastball at 83.7mph this year, compared to 84.5mph last year. Over the course of just 4 seasons, Zito has lost almost 4mph on his fastball. How much more will he lose?

Zito’s strong suit has never been his control and from the graph you can see that he’s been trending upward over the past few years, moving from around league average to above and beyond. Therein lies the problem for Barry Zito. He’s going to need to learn how to locate his pitches without walking hitters. Zito just doesn’t have that ability right now and he might not ever have it.

A question for my readers: Are there any historical examples of pitchers drastically improving their control at Zito’s age? Can it be done? I lean towards “no” but there might be a few examples of hope out there for Zito.

Asking Zito to turn into Greg Maddux or any other control artist is almost like asking Kirk Rueter to throw 95mph instead of 85mph, some guys just can’t pitch with that level of control and command. Zito has never demonstrated above average control in his career and I doubt he’ll be able to figure it out now.

For a pitcher like Zito that’s going to put the ball in play — doesn’t strike out many hitters — he’s also got another significant roadblock in his way. The Giants defense is pretty bad this year. The subtraction of Feliz and Omar has damaged the left side of the infield while Ray Durham continues to display the range of a wheelbarrow loaded full of bowling balls at second base.*

*Ray Durham Defense Tangent: Durham’s Revised Zone Rating of .657 is amazingly bad. That means that Durham is only converting 65.7% of balls hit into his zone into outs. Compare him to chronic bad defenders Dan Uggla (73.5%) and Jeff Kent (82.1%) and you get an idea of just how bad Durham is. Eugenio Velez is no gold-glover, but in 114 innings at 2B, his rate of (76.5%) while still poor, is much better than Durhams’. There is no reason to play Durham right now, both offensively and defensively.

The Giants, as a team, are also terrible defensively this year. As a team, they are well below average. The average NL team has a RZR of .836, the Giants are at .802. Thus, because of the poor defense behind Zito, his BABIP is very high (.339), when hitters hit the ball into play against Zito, they are hitting like a batting champion. The BABIP should come down some, eventually, but the defense isn’t going to do any Zito any favors, at least now barring any improvements.

According to the Mercury News, there’s a good chance that Zito will get moved to the bullpen soon. At minimum I’m almost certain they’ll skip his next start.

After another erratic and utterly hittable start in a 10-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday at AT&T Park, Giants Manager Bruce Bochy all but declared he would skip Zito or demote him to the bullpen.

“We’ve got to do something,” said Bochy, after Zito allowed a six-run first inning. “We can’t keep doing what we’re doing and getting what we’re getting.”

Here is what the Giants have received from their opening-day starter: an 0-6 record in six starts, a 7.53 ERA, a growing soundtrack of boos at home and no sign of a break in the clouds.

I’m not sure what moving him to the bullpen would do, but it might be the best option right now. I have no doubt that Zito is a bright guy but I think he’s got an extremely large challenge in front of him that he might not ever be able to get past. He’s a poor fit for this Giants team at the moment or any team. You’re essentially placing a pitcher who’s losing the ability to miss bats and control the strike zone and putting him in front of one of the worst defenses in the National League. Zito is forced to let hitters make contact — when he’s not walking them — and when they do make contact, most of that contact is going for hits. Even if you moved Zito to a team with an elite defense, he’s still going to have trouble. You can’t survive in baseball and do what he’s doing — walking hitters, not striking out hitters, all while throwing 83mph. Barring an injury that could explain his control problems and velocity loss — indicators of arm issues — Barry Zito is going to be the most expensive 5th starter in the history of baseball.

The Giants have to be really, really worried about how Zito is pitching and his prospects for future success. This is easily the worst contract in baseball history. In 2009 his salary kicks up to $18.5M. At least in contract blunders like Darren Dreifort or Mike Hampton, they were injured for lengths of their deals and couldn’t play. Zito is healthy, as far as we know, and continuing to take the mound. What’s better, expensive and not hurting the team by not playing or expensive and hurting the team by playing?

Comment Starter: Zito’s chances for setting the record for most losses by a Giants pitcher in a season? The record is currently held by Ray Sadecki for his 1968 season that ended in 18 losses. I’ll put Zito at a 60% chance right now, he’s already a third of the way there and it’s not even May.

Your options are:

A. Send back out your starting pitcher. Sure, he’s throw 109 pitches, but he’s a “freak” and he did it in college all the time.

B. Warm up the bullpen, despite a dominant performance, your pitcher has thrown some high stress innings and it’s best not to push things. Your team is going to be bad this year and you must protect your one strength — pitching.

C. Eat some sunflower seeds and try to look busy.

—

Put yourself in Bochy’s giant thunderskull last night. Which option would you take? A, B, or C? I know which one I would have taken and it’s not A or C.

Last night Tim Lincecum set a career high in his young MLB career for pitches thrown in a game with 122 total pitches thrown over 7.1 innings pitched. His previous high had been 116, I believe. I also believe this is a high for any starting pitcher on the Giants this year. As “freaky” and gifted Lincecum is, I don’t like this move for a couple of reasons that I feel like I’ve gone over-and-over about on this blog.

My goal for the year, to quote Fred Sanford, is “Keep the young pitching healthy, you big dummy!” Anytime you talk about pitch-counts people tend to get worked up over these things. It’s still something in baseball analysis that some agree with as having an effect on a pitcher, long term, while others are unsure, or just plain skeptical*.

*Links to an an online preview of The Rob Neyer and Bill James Guide to Pitchers, a fantastic read on a calvacade of pitching topics. Recommended reading.

I know I personally believe that pitch-counts can prove as a useful tool in keeping pitchers healthy, but I also realize that a large part of pitching could harder to define, or at least more nebulous but I don’t think it’s outlandish to assume that there is a point at which a pitcher starts to fatigue and as a result, lose his mechanics — release point, arm slot, tempo, etc. — which in turn can do physical harm. Is Lincecum’s point 120+? Maybe, who knows, but what do the Giants have to gain by pushing Lincecum back out in the 7th inning after he’s thrown 109 pitches? Another win for Lincecum but at what cost to the future? In an April game against the Padres, I can’t see the advantages of pushing Lincecum this far, or this hard.

These high stress innings that pitchers work through are the ones that put the most wear on them. You’ll often hear in defense of Lincecum: “He’s a freak, he threw high pitch-counts in college and even relieved between games, he’s just a freak!” but while that might be true, you’ve also got to realize that the stress level isn’t the same. Major league hitters are tougher to retire, generating more stress. The environment is also totally different, pitching in front of 30,000 people is a lot different than pitching in front of 300 people on a Tuesday night in college. This is why I have some apprehensions about comparing a college workload to a major league workload, the environments are drastically different.

Let’s glance at Lincecum’s pitch count by inning.

Inning     # Pitches
1           21
2           17
3           15
4           28
5           14
6           14
7*          13

Lincecum threw 20+ pitches in the 1st and 4th inning. You could argue that the 4th was one of the more stressful innings that he threw last night. The bases were loaded with 1 out but Chris Young ended up swinging away and hitting into a double play. His quickest innings were the 5th and 6th, he threw 14 pitches in each inning. The 7th also proved to be a stressful inning for Lincecum. Heading back out to the mound after 109 pitches, he didn’t complete the inning. He started the inning by walking Khalil Greene. He then got Tadahito Iguchi to ground into a force out. Next, the Padres called Tony Clark to pinch-hit and he served a 1st pitch single to LF on Lincecum’s 122nd and final pitch of the night.

Bochy could have been motivated by the previous nights’ 13-inning game — 5 relievers were used — but Chulk should have been available to start the 7th. Chulk isn’t a great reliever, he’s good - not great, but the Padres were sending up their bottom half of the order.

Still, I think the question can be reduced to what do the Giants have to gain by trying to squeeze another inning from Lincecum? A win? Yeah, but what are the long term ramifications? That’s my only question and one that I can’t answer right now, but at least I’m pondering it. Something I wish I felt the Giants were also doing.

For PAP believers, Lincecum is currently 4th in the entire majors in pitcher abuse points. His next start is something to keep an eye on.

Bullpen Gold Star Goes To: Jack Taschner, who came in during the 7th after Lincecum left, walked one, but got out of a bases-loaded jam. He got out two very tough hitters in Scott Hairston — a certified Giants killer — and Adrian Gonzalez. Check out the leverage index from when Taschner came in, doesn’t get any higher than that.