*Bullpen Facts of Horror: In 2008, the Giants bullpen had a collective FIP of 4.72. That’s, um, not very good. Only two bullpens in Major League Baseball — Baltimore (4.57) and Pittsburgh (4.78) — did worse in terms of FIP. The Giants pen ERA of 4.45 shows that our bullpen was, hold on to your seat, actually a little lucky when you compare it to FIP. By FanGraphs’ WPA/LI metric, the Giants’ score of -3.39 sticks them at dead last in MLB. To put it bluntly, the bullpen stunk.

The Giants looking to improve their bullpen have already added LHP Jeremy Affeldt into the mix — you can find his PFX article here — but, not satisfied with just one reliever, the Giants added another. Yesterday the team announced the signing of RHP Bob Howry to a 1-year deal worth $2.75M. Howry, who was originally drafted by the Giants in 5th round of the 1994 draft, had a down year in 2008 for the Chicago Cubs. After posting solid-to-very-good FIP’s over the last four years — 3.73, 3.07, 3.43, and 3.52 — Howry had trouble in ’08 and posted a FIP of 4.49 to go along with an ERA of 5.35.

What happened to the 34-year-old reliever known for his consistency? You could usually write Howry down for 70+ relief innings and a FIP of 4.00 or less. If you check out Howry’s underlying stats — GB%, FB%, LD%, K%, and BB% — most of them stayed the same or slightly improved. He cut his LD% to 17.9, nearly 2 percentage points under his career average. His BB% of 4.21 was tops among relievers in the National League — only 5 relievers in all of baseball had better BB%’s — and while his K% dropped slightly to 18.45, it was still average for relievers.

So, what happened?

Home runs happened. Home runs and he gave up a bunch of base hits. In just 70 innings, Howry gave up 90 hits. His career HR/FB% of 8.5 increased to 11.7. A 11.7 HR/FB isn’t outlandish, but it’s clear that Howry gave up more HR’s in ’08 than ever before in his career. His BABIP rose to a bloated .354 as a result of all the base hits. Howry’s BABIP has me scratching my head. He didn’t give up an inordinate amount of line drives and the Cubs — when ranked by Defensive Efficiency — had the 2nd best defense in the game. How did Howry give up so many hits, without giving up a rash of line drives, and playing in front of one of the best defenses in baseball? Howry did see some changes to his pitch-selection. According to his FanGraphs page, his fastball velocity dropped about 1mph to an average of 91.2mph. Another interesting thing is that Howry was throwing his slider — 23.1% of the time — more than ever. His previous career high for usage of the slider was 15.6% in 2004 with the Indians. In 2007, he only threw it 9.7% of the time.

Let’s run through some PITCHf/x plots of Howry’s 2008 season to see what we can learn. First, let’s check out the averages on what Howry throws.

Pitch, number thrown, average velocity, average X-Break (horizontal), and average Z-Break (vertical)

A quick note on the data. PITCHf/x tracked up to 40-50 changeups that Howry may have thrown in 2008. I usually don’t toss pitch-types out of an analysis, but I decided to this time. Howry probably does throw an occasional changeup — BIS has him throwing it 2.1% of the time in ’08 — but MLBAM is known for struggling to properly identify the changeup in it’s pitch-type classification algorithms. I decided to exclude them. The changeup isn’t a pitch that Howry is going to throw except for a handful of times over the year. Josh Kalk, who is using a more finely tuned classification system, has no changeups tracked by Howry in ’08. I would have loved to gotten the 40 or so changeups that Howry threw into the data-set, but all things considered, I didn’t think it was a crime to toss them out.

Howry is a two-pitch reliever that primarily pitches off of his fastball. His heater was clocked at an average of 91.3mph. Being a RHP, his fastball broke in on right-handed batters at an average of -8.46 inches on the horizontal axis. His other pitch, which saw increased usage in ’08, is his slider which came in at an average of 83.4mph. Howry’s slider, on average, broke at 1.15 inches on the horizontal axis, meaning that it’s breaking slightly away from right-handed batters but mostly staying centered in terms of horizontal break. The slider was Howry’s pitch with the most vertical break at 3.22 inches.

Let’s check out Howry’s Vertical/Horizontal Break Plot.

You can see with Howry’s two pitches, he’s getting more separation in terms of horizontal break than he is in terms of vertical break. Because Howry is right-handed, his fastball will work it’s way in on right-handed batters and away from lefties. The slider will move away from right-handed batters and into left-handed batters.

Howry is getting some nice action on his fastball in on right-handed batters in the speed/horizontal plot. The slider will work itself slightly away from that same righty but you’ll also notice that he’s getting a little separation in terms of velocity between the two pitches. Almost 8mph separates the two pitches in addition to the horizontal break.

None of Howry’s pitches have what I would call great vertical break. The slider gets the most, but still not a whole lot and the fastball, well, it’s a fastball. After looking at the separate plots for horizontal and vertical break in regards to velocity, I think it’s easy to say that Howry is more of a horizontal break pitcher. He’s getting about 9 inches of break between his fastball and slider on the horizontal axis and only about 5 inches between the pitches on the vertical axis. Meaning that he’s moving the ball more left-to-right than he is upward-and-downward.

Finally, let’s check out Howry’s Release Point plot.

Howry has a pretty consistent release point which no doubt helps him throw strikes. The slider is centered in the mass grouping of fastballs and Howry doesn’t appear to change his delivery between either pitch. Depending on how well he sells the pitch, batters shouldn’t have any obvious release point clues as to when he’s throwing the slider or the fastball.

Thoughts

For the price, you can’t argue with what the Giants are doing with Bob Howry. He’ll earn $2.75M on a 1-year contract. If he flames out and his 2008 performance was a sign of things to come, the Giants can dust their hands and say goodbye. The contract is short and cheap, the perfect deal for a bullpen reliever. If things turn out well — AT&T reduces his HR/FB, he boosts his K% slightly, his velo returns, etc. — Howry could be a nice bargaining chip around the trading deadline for a team looking for bullpen help. The Giants have added a bullpen piece that should help their extremely weak bullpen and while not damaging future teams.

Marcel projects Howry to as 4.17 FIP pitcher in ’09. It has his BABIP dropping to the .320 range and his HR/9 mellowing out some after his HR-happy ’08. Dave Cameron of FanGraphs has a nice little article on why Howry is a decent pick up. I agree with Dave and I think for a bullpen that struggled to throw strikes, Howry is a very nice addition. He doesn’t walk hitters and if he can return to his 2004-2007 years, he’ll be a steal. If he doesn’t, no harm and we can move on to the next reliever.

Think of it like this: The Giants turned Walker, Hennessey, and Correia into Howry. Another very nice bullpen signing that demonstrates the way you should build a ‘pen.

—

Edgar Renteria has signed with the Giants for a 2-year, $18.5M deal. From SFGiants.com:

The Giants had pursued Renteria and Rafael Furcal, another free-agent shortstop. But Renteria proved to be more economical than Furcal, who reportedly is seeking a four-year contract worth more than $10 million annually. The Giants and Renteria’s agents, Jeff Lane and Barry Meister, began exchanging proposals about two weeks ago, as initially reported on MLB.com.

“Jeff and I really felt like this was the right place for him,” Meister said.

Renteria’s arrival is expected to prompt change throughout the Giants’ infield. Emmanuel Burriss, who began the offseason as the heir apparent at shortstop, likely will play second base, where he’ll compete with Kevin Frandsen and Eugenio Velez.

The price is right and like the other deals the Giants have given the FA’s this offseason, the deal length is short. Marcel projects Renteria is a .336 wOBA hitter and if he can defend around -5 runs — a slight bump over his ’08 defensive performance — he’ll be worth around +2 wins over replacement. Teams have tended to pay around $5M per replacement win meaning that Renteria should be worth about $10M per year. Under the current deal, he’ll be getting paid $9M per year. Not a bad value for the Giants. Check out the newly updated* positional depth chart and you can see that the organization doesn’t have a lot of depth at the shortstop position.

I’m fine with Burriss, Frandsen, and *shudder* Velez competing for the second base job. Renteria might not have the overall value of Furcal — who should defend better and hit around the same — but the deal is much shorter than Furcal’s rumored 4-year pact with the Oakland Athletics. I’m OK with this deal as well.

*Changes include: Renteria moving to #1 at SS, Schoop gets bumped off the positional depth list. Burriss moves to #1 at 2B — until further Spring Training developments and/or FA signings — and to #2 at SS. I also bumped Frandsen up to #2 behind Sandoval at 3B. Howry is added to the bullpen list which is kinda crowded at the moment. It should sort itself out some by Dec. 12th when the Giants decide what to do with Jack Taschner.

From MLB.com:

Hennessey, generally viewed as a middle reliever and spot starter, throws a 90-mph-plus fastball with movement. Murphy, mostly a utility infielder, has played his most Major League games — 48 — at second base, with 46 at shortstop. He can also play third base.

The 28-year-old Hennessey was a first-round pick of the Giants in the 2001 First-Year Player Draft and spent his first five seasons in the Major Leagues with San Francisco, compiling a 17-23 record with a 4.69 ERA in 148 appearances — 44 of them starts.

I’m slightly surprised that Hennessey settled for a Minor League deal so quickly but let’s face it, he was coming off a disastrous 2008. Brad saw his fastball velocity dip by about 2mph and his WPA/LI of -1.43, when relieving, ranked him as the worst reliever in all of baseball. The damage that was done by Hennessey in just 17.1 innings pitched is incredible. Opposing hitters had a line of: .449/.495/.719 against Hennessey when he was coming out of the bullpen. His upside is minimal and going to arbitration with him didn’t make any sense. The Giants cut bait and the Orioles dredged him up.

Marcel sees Hennessey pitching 56 innings and putting up a FIP of 4.81. That includes a K/9 of 5.63 and a BB/9 of 3.83. If you ever needed an example of how the save stat can inflate the value of a relief pitcher, look no further than Hennessey’s 2007 when he saved 19 games. Because of the 19 saves, his salary was boosted to $1.6M and now he has to settle for a minor league deal. He did make a string of solid-ish starts to end this year but the Giants made the right move by letting him go.

Baltimore relievers had a cumulative ERA of 4.57 in 2008, so Hennessey might work his way into the bullpen. He picked a decent team to try to find work with, but moving to a tougher league will be hard on him. My prediction is that if he starts the season with the Orioles, he’ll be back in the minors by the All-Star break.

Best of luck, Brad. I think most Giants fans will remember you for this splendid game against the Brewers in 2005.

Jamaica was hot. The weather was nice and I did my best to soak up some Jamaican culture while I was there; read: I drank my fair share of Red Stripes. We stayed at one of those ‘all inclusive’ styled resorts and the best way I can describe the experience was like going to Epcot. You know the section of Epcot where you can walk through several different countries all in an afternoon’s stroll? It was a lot like that. Except drinking was allowed. And there was a wealth of poor bathing suit choices being made all around me. Good times but it’s even better to be home.

Various happenings in Giants Land while I was away:

~ The Giants cleared some pitching room in-house by outrighting Tyler Walker, Brad Hennessey, Kevin Correia, and Geno Espineli to AAA Fresno. Now that they’ve been outrighted, each pitcher can pursue free agency except Espineli, who missed some requirements in able to do so. In the end, the Giants chose not to pay arbitration to Walker, Hennessey, and Correia. By the rules of arbitration, the Giants must offer at least 20% of their current salary to them in arbitration for the 2009 season. This made Hennessey ($1.6M) and Correia ($1.075M) semi-expensive for what they’ve provided. Walker was making 750K this season.

Walker and Hennessey were basically no-brainers, but Correia’s removal from the team is a tad surprising. With his poor performance this year I had filed him in the group of players who might not make it to 2009, but I had my doubts if the Giants would ever actually pull that trigger. Though, the article states that Correia might be interested in coming back instead of pursuing free agency, I can’t see him doing that. He’ll surely get some interest as a middle reliever and to turn down the money isn’t a likely scenario.

Scott McClain, Ivan Ochoa, Eliezer Alfonzo, and Travis Denker were the other casualities. McClain, Ochoa and Alfonzo losing their roster spots is no big whoop. Denker getting the heave-ho is a little weird. Grant and ELM have already pondered this problem, so I won’t go into too much depth here, but the Giants aren’t exactly brimming with MI depth in the minor leagues. If you grabbed a pencil and paper and started to scribble down likely candidates for 2B on the Giants in ’09, your list would be pretty short and pretty bad. Eugenio Velez, Kevin Frandsen, and, uhhh… that one guy with the glove and the arms.

Denker isn’t the next Chase Utley or anything, but as they say, in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king. Denker is a player with modest pop, modest OBP skills, and youth. He was only 22 as compared to the mid-to-late 20′s of Frandsen and Velez. He’s not a great defender at 2B, but neither is Velez and how Frandsen’s mobility is affected by his injury could still be a factor for him on defense. Denker didn’t have to travel far, the Padres ended up claiming him and he now resides on their 40-man roster. Someone once made the player comp of Todd Walker (career line of: .289/.348/.435) for Travis Denker and I love that comp.

The 40-man roster now stands at 33 players and it should drop a couple after Omar Vizquel vacates the team and Rich Aurilia could also be gone. I’ve got a strong feeling that the Giants might pursue Orlando Hudson to play 2B and with so many open slots on the roster, you can expect that they’ll probably use the cash saved from the Walker-Henn-Correia trio to spend on a reliever.

~ The Neukom era has begun. All hail the bow tie. Baggs has the full transcript of Bill Neukom’s first meeting with reporters and it outlines some principles for moving forward with the franchise. The transcript includes the nebulous concept of “The Giants Way” which is a organizational philosophy that Nuekom wants to drive toward the future with.

Neukom drops the phrase “Giants Way” several times in the transcript but never out-and-out defines what it is. The closet we get is this:

The Giants Way itself will have broader themes to it, but certainly the way the game is played between the lines is an essential part of the Giants Way. The Giants Way also has to be, `What is the kind of talent we want to find and how do we find it?’

You really can’t say much about what TGW might be, but on the surface it sounds suspiciously like doing-all-the-little-things-right-and-playing-the-game-the-right-way-ball. Almost an extension of the GAMER-tude in that they’ll play hard. I hope it’s much, much more than that.

BK also notes that he’s favorable to statistical analysis in baseball. It’ll be interesting to see how his style jives (or fails to) with Sabes more gutty, gritty, and scout based approach to running a baseball team. Still, hearing the question on statistics answered as:

Q: What role should Sabermetrics or other advanced statistical tools be used in player evaluation? Is it more or less important than a conventional scouting approach?

A: Some of each, I think. Baseball is a science and an art. When it comes to picking the talent, we need the sharpest baseball eyes: people who can pick the 16-year-old arm out of the cornfield. We also need to be very well informed with all that is at our fingertips. We need to be smart about that. It’ll be a blend.

Made me very happy. I love the “baseball is a science and an art” line. Whether or not any of this happens is to be seen, but it’s a nice-ish start.

~ I haven’t seen much playoff baseball on TV — I fear the horror that is Joe Buck and McCarver — but watching Matt Stairs hit a 600ft 2-run HR last night against the Dodgers in the 8th was amazing. I’ve always been a fan of Stairs because he strikes me as the regular-dude-who-plays-ball type of guy, but he’s had a very nice career when you look at the big picture. A career line of: .266/.358/.483 with an OPS+ of 118 is very good. Mix in 254 career dingers and the fact that he’s from Canada and what’s not to like? Go, Matt!

Let’s check out some of the numbers on Hennessey.

Here’s Brad’s velocity / pitch count plot and a brief table detailing what pitches he threw, the average velocity on each, and the average vertical and horizontal break on each pitch.

Like most pitchers, Hennessey works primarily off of his fastball. It’s a tick below average for a major league fastball — the last study I saw had the average major league fastball at just under 92mph — but it’s the pitch he throws the most. In the start against the D-Backs he threw it 56% of the time. He threw his slider the 2nd most at 25% of the time. The average velocity on Brad’s slider is 83.7mph. Finally, his third pitch is a changeup that he threw 19% of the time and it was clocked at 82.9mph on average.

Hennessey’s line in yesterday’s game looks as follows: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 3 BB, 3 SO, 1 HR

If you examine the V/PC plot, you’ll notice something that I think could be a problem for Hennessey. He’s not getting much separation between his pitches in terms of velocity. We’ve seen that Zito threw as low as the upper-60′s in his last start and as high as the mid-80′s. With Hennessey everything is between 82-88mph, leaving hardly any room for separation in regards to velocity. That’s something that I think could be a problem for Brad as he moves forward, everything is coming in at the same speed and with three pitches that I would rate as ‘average’ he doesn’t have one pitch that hitters are going to have a hard time with. I often think that learning a new pitch for a pitcher is a ‘gimmick’ as they rarely seem to work out, but Brad might want to learn something else or learn to take more off of his offspeed pitches — especially his changeup and slider which are practically the same speed — in order to get some separation.

Now, let’s look at his break plot. Both horizontal and vertical break are plotted.

Positive numbers on the Horizontal axis indicate a pitch that moves away from a RHB. Negative, the opposite. On the vertical axis, negative indicates more downward break, and positive the opposite.

Hennessey is a right-handed pitcher and as such, his slider will tail away from a RHB. On average, his slider broke 3.73 inches on the horizontal axis. Meanwhile, his changeup and fastball will work themselves in on a RHB or away from LHB. The changeup on average broke in 4.24 inches in to a RHB and his fastball broke 2.1 inches in on the same hitter. Because of the break on Hennessey’s slider, he’s going to throw it to RHB’s. 24 of his 25 sliders were thrown to RHB’s, except for the 1 slider that he threw to a LHB, which Stephen Drew smashed out of the park. The slider to Drew was in the middle of the plate, and started to cut down in on Drew, but the break on Brad’s slider isn’t huge and Drew got every piece of it.

If the slider is thrown predominately to RHB’s, then his changeup should be thrown mostly to LHB’s because of it’s break, which should move away from the lefty batter. Indeed, all 19 of the changeups that Hennessey threw went to left-handed batters.

I stated earlier that Hennessey isn’t getting much separation with velocity alone, but you’ll also notice that he isn’t getting much separation with the movement on his pitches, either.

I’ll post my next two plots to better illustrate my point. Horizontal only break and vertical only break plots are next.

Hennessey gets some horizontal break with his pitches. But, they are still pretty closely grouped together. The changeup and slider are coming in at nearly the same speed except one is going to move away from a RHB and one is going to move into a RHB. Like we’ve shown above, when Hennessey is facing a LHB, he’s essentially a two-pitch pitcher, throwing only his changeup and fastball. When he’s facing a RHB, it’s the same scenario except with just a slider and fastball.

On the vertical plot, Hennessey’s changeup and slider are coming in on the same plane, vertically. They both don’t have much downward break and are nearly the same speed. This could cause some problems trying to separate the two pitches in terms of velocity and downward break.

Here is the outcome plot or what happens after Hennessey threw the ball:

One thing you can say about Hennessey, is that unlike Zito, he tended to work around the zone. Zito has a tendency to miss up and Hennessey was missing down more than up in the zone, this is good. For what Hennessey is throwing — 3 average pitches at best — he needs to keep the ball down. He did walk three hitters in 6 innings, something that he might work on for his next start but he was generally around the zone.

Batters made what I would consider to be good contact against Hennessey. He only struck out three hitters and you’ll notice that in the strike zone, you’ll see a lot of ‘in play, out(s)’ icons. Here is a more detailed list of the outcomes of the 16 times hitters hit the ball into play and it was turned into an out.

1 bunt out, 1 error, 3 fly outs, 3 ground outs, 4 line outs, and 2 pop outs. In the traditional box score line, Hennessey had 4 groundouts to 11 fly outs. I’m assuming that the box score is counting the bunt out as a groundout. AT&T will help supress some of the flyballs, but that’s a ratio that could get ugly in some other ballparks really fast.

Thoughts on Hennessey’s Future

Hennessey is what he is, a 28-year-old pitcher (he turns 29 next year) who’s probably best suited for long relief but might be able to sneak in a rotation as a 5th starter. My main concerns with Hennessey is that he doesn’t have a single plus-pitch and the separation concerns. Velocity wise, everything Hennessey throws is within the same 6mph window. Break wise, it’s a mixed bag that tends towards the same. He’s getting some separation horizontally but not vertically.

Add to the fact that if you’re hitting against Hennessey as a RHB, you probably know what’s coming (slider and fastball) and the same for a LHB (changeup and fastball). If you take away one of his breaking pitches from each side of the plate as the handedness of the hitter dictates, he’s no longer getting horizontal seperation. True, the fastball and offspeed pitches are vertically seperated, but neither would rate above average as pitches and major league hitters can pick up a offspeed pitch from a fastball. That is, unless you’re Pedro Feliz.

Hennessey should get a couple of more starts to end the year but what the Giants decide to do with him is anyone’s guess. I think if he pitches well enough, they could bring him back next year but the team has left him in AAA for most of this year, which is a strong statement of how they view him. His age and pitch quality indicate that what you see with Hennessey is what you’re going to get. He has no upside and won’t be better in 2009 than he is right this very moment.

I’ll wait and see what the Giants do with Brad, but they should be able to find a better 5th starter for ’09. He earned $1.6M this year is up for aribitration again after this season. The Giants can either non-tender him or go to arbitration with him. Keep in mind that they cannot offer him less than 80% of his current salary. Meaning that the Giants will have to pay him $1.28M at minimum.

Comment Starter: Do you like Brad for the 5th starter? And will the Giants offer him a contract for ’09?

Lincecum’s final line of the night was: 8.1 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9 SO, 2.54 ERA

Let’s check a couple of charts using PITCHf/x data.

Obviously, the first thing that pops out at you about this chart is the fact that Bruce Bochy left Lincecum in to throw 127 pitches in a September game against the D-Backs. Just two starts ago, Lincecum threw 132 pitches. That’s quite a large workload over three starts and even though his last start only lasted 92 pitches against Colorado, a good portion of that game included stress filled innings where Linecum was pitching out of the stretch and in Coors. Not the easiest of environments to work in.

If you want to defend the pitch count by stating reasons for trying to win the Cy Young Award or trying to get Linecum his first career game, I won’t stop you, but I’ll have a hard time agreeing with you. I’ve been waiting for the Giants to ease up on Lincecum for most of the year and it hasn’t happened. I much favor the long term outlook of keeping Lincecum healthy over the immediate short term rewards of a first career CG or a Cy Young Award, which even though Linecum is the best pitcher in the NL this year, he isn’t a lock to win the award.

In the Chron recap, Bochy was quoted as saying:

“He’s a human being, not a toy,” Bochy said. “We can’t keep running him out there.”

I wish I could say that his statement comforted me. It’s nice to hear but I have no doubt that next week we’ll see another 115+ pitch game from Lincecum. In fact, Baggs touches on some chatter that’s floating around on the possibility that the Giants could move Lincecum up in the rotation order to get him the last start of the year against the Dodgers.

There’s some chatter the Giants could have Lincecum pitch the season finale on three days of rest, but I just don’t believe it. Even if the Dodgers need to win on the final day to make the playoffs, can you imagine if Lincecum were to get hurt in that start?

I have a hard time believing it, too, but at this point it’s not far off from the “see how far we can bend him” mentality that the Giants have taken with Lincecum.

Back to the plot. Lincecum’s fastest pitch on the night was clocked at 95.3mph and his slowest was a 76.4mph curveball. You can see that Lincecum maintained most of his fastball velocity as the game progressed, he hit 93.8mph in the 9th. Lincecum was also getting some nice seperation from his fastball and his offspeed offerings. Most of his offspeed pitches hung around 85, that would be the change and the slider, and he had quite a few that hung around 80mph, that would be the curve. The separation in speed is good but Lincecum also sells his offspeed pitches extremely well, which when mixed in with his delivery and quality of his pitches, makes him very tough to hit.

Next, we’ll examine the pitch selection of Lincecum’s start.

In 2008, according to Fangraphs pitch data, Lincecum has thrown his fastball 66.7% of the time, his curveball 13.9% of the time, his changeup 17.3% of the time, and his slider 2% of the time. In last night’s game, Lincecum threw his fastball 65% of the time, his curveball 9% of the time, his changeup 12% of the time, and his slider 14% of the time. His use of the slider looks to have increased last night but it’s possible that PITCHf/x is grouping some of his curveballs into the slider category. He may have thrown more sliders than usual, but probably not 12% more than usual.

Here’s what happened when Lincecum threw the ball

36% of Lincecums pitches went for a ball — 33% of them were balls and another 3% were balls in the dirt. 47% of Lincecum pitches earned him a strike. I found it interesting that 20% of his strikes were the result of a called strike and another 19% were the result of fouled pitches. 8% of his strikes came from the swing and miss variety — 6% of them on the fly and 2% of them as blocked strikes. When the D-Backs hit the ball into play, 11% of the balls in play were turned into outs compared to the 6% that fell for hits.

Lincecum gave up 7 hits: 2 doubles and 5 singles. He struck out 9 hitters with 4 changeups,  3 sliders, 1 curveball, and 1 fastball. Though, remember, the slider and curveball numbers might need a little tweaking.

Great start from Tim. And yes, if you’re wondering, he deserves to win the CYA.

Update: I’ve included two bonus plots from the game last night. I still need to group and classify the pitches, but it should be pretty obvious as to what is what.

First up is a plot of the vertical and horizontal break on the pitches:

Click to huge-ify

And next is just the vertical break on Lincecum’s pitches from the game:

Click to huge-ify

Notice the break on Lincecum’s curve, very nice. The groupings are pretty distinct. The top grouping would be the fastball, the middle is the change, and the lower group — the one with the greatest vertical break — is the curveball.

I’ll be sure to post any updated versions that are better illustrated.

—

Other News and Notes

~ Emmanuel Burriss left the game in the 5th inning with the dreaded oblique strain. Because the season is almost done, he probably won’t be back this year. Omar and Ochoa should split time at SS with Velez being the most likely candidate to see more playing time at 2B. According to Sabes, Burriss will head into ’09 as the favorite to start at SS.

~ Hennessey will be starting on Wednesday in the D-Backs finale. The Giants want to give Correia a break from the rotation and Hennessey is on the verge of getting non-tendered, so they’ll take one last lookat him. The Giants are: “…curious to see whether they can receive an upgrade from Hennessey” which might not be too difficult to do since Correia has struggled all year. Don’t expect much from Brad.

Note: Translations are NOT a guarantee of performance nor are they a prediction of what a player will do, but they are a translation of what a player has done. They do have predictive value and they let us sort out some things in the move from the minor leagues to the major leagues.

I’m using Dan Szymborski’s zMLE worksheets which you can download for free at BBTF. They are a handy tool to keep stashed away in your analytical toolbox.

The Giants’ September call-ups are as follows: 1B/3B Scott McClain, C Steve Holm, OF Nate Schierholtz, 1B/OF John Bowker, RHP Brad Hennessey, LHP Pat Misch, LHP Geno Espineli.

Name	        League	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Scott McClain	AAA PCL	0.300	0.388	0.553	0.941
Scott McClain	NL	0.289	0.358	0.484	0.842

McClain is your typical 36-year-old AAAA slugger that never got a shot in the majors. He has 5,878 career AB’s in the minors to go along with 287 career U.S. Minor League home runs. He hit an additional 71 in Japan during a few years with the Seibu Lions. His translation is pretty favorable, he lost about 100 points of OPS coming from Fresno but if he was on the current Giants team with an 842 OPS, he would be the best hitter by a fair margin. That’s among players with at least 250 PA’s or more, so Pablo Sandoval’s hot start doesn’t qualify him for the lead. Randy Winn is leading the team in OPS at the moment with a score of .796, meaning that no Giant has an OPS of .800 or greater. He’s probably an average, at best, defender at 1B/3B. Lefty Malo notes that he could see McClain taking on a Aurilia-type role on next year’s team. I like it, he could platoon against LHP, the same thing that Aurilia has been doing, and get time at 1B/3B. McClain probably has some value in a right-now sense, but the Giants haven’t used him much and I think it might be a stretch to see him on the team next year.

Name	        League	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Steve Holm	AAA PCL	0.273	0.367	0.333	0.700
Steve Holm	NL	0.273	0.347	0.333	0.680

Small sample size warning: Holm’s translation is based on only 70-some AB’s at Fresno. The translation is similar because Holm wasn’t doing much other than hitting singles and walking in his brief time in Fresno. Both his AAA line and his translation are pretty close to what he did in his first go-around in the MLB. He hit .256/.351/.390 in 80 AB’s earlier this year. Holm shouldn’t play a role in any future Giants team unless injuries strike.

Name	            League   BA     OBP   SLG   OPS
Nate Schierholtz    AAA PCL  0.320  0.363 0.594 0.957
Nate Schierholtz    NL       0.303  0.336 0.506 0.842

Nate seems to be having his usual year in Fresno and his translation is also favorable. The Giants would be thrilled to have a .842 OPS bat in their OF but will Nate get his chance? Randy Winn has played well this year and despite all he brings to the table, the Giants might do well to try and trade him this winter. LF and CF are locked down with Lewis and Rowand and until either Randy Winn or Dave Roberts is traded, Nate doesn’t really have a place on the current Giants roster. It is amazing that he’s been sitting in AAA for 2-years in a row now for a team that’s desperately needed hitting. Whether or not he’ll hit in the majors — his power never showed up last year in 112 AB’s — could still be a question, but the Giants should do their best to find playing time for Schierholtz. A trade of Roberts or Winn would be a step in that direction.

Name	        League	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
John Bowker	AAA PCL	0.237	0.304	0.355	0.659
John Bowker	NL	0.226	0.273	0.312	0.585

Another small sample alert, Bowker has only grabbed 93 AB’s this year in AAA. Bowker hit .246/.295/.395 in 301 AB’s this year in the majors. Bowker started April in AAA and only had 27 AB’s before the Giants called him up. He started off hot but cooled down considerably in July and August and was sent back to Fresno. I like his swing but his plate approach needs work. I keep flip-flopping on his ultimate upside, rotating between 4th OF and a fringe corner OF. As of today, I think he might be a guy that starts occasionally in the OF and 1B and PH’s against RHP now-and-then.

Name	        League	W/L	IP	K/BB	H/9	ERA
Brad Hennessey	AAA PCL	7/10	132.1	1.86	10.7	4.83
Brad Hennessey	NL	6/11	132	1.55	10.9	5.66

It’s been a tough year for the 28-year-old Hennessey. He lost his bullpen job very early in the season after 16+ innings of getting battered around. For his age and experience, you wold expect something better than a 4.83 ERA against AAA competition. He’s given up a lot of hits in AAA, nearly 11 per 9 innings of work. He’s got a low walk rate, which helps his K/BB some, but his strikeout rate is sub-par at 12.1% in AAA. I think Hennessey has a real chance of getting non-tendered after this year. As a bullpen candidate, there are better choices and as a starter, he’s really fringey. I think the Giants made a statement on how they view him this year after calling up younger bullpen arms before him. He’s also earning $1.6M this year and I just can’t see him coming back.

Name	        League	W/L	IP	K/BB	H/9	ERA
Pat Misch	AAA PCL	6/5	87	2.07	10.44	5.38
Pat Misch	NL	4/7	87	1.72	10.75	5.69

Misch made 7 starts this year for the Giants in the majors and was extremely unlucky with the longball. His HR/FB% of 23% is about 11% higher than league average, indicating that Misch was unlucky when the ball was hit into the air. His xFIP, which normalized fly balls, is a much more respectable 4.48 as compared to his actual ERA of 5.94. Misch was then sent down to AAA after his 7 starts and has, much like Hennessey, struggled. Like Brad, he’s giving up a lot of hits. He’s been reliever lately, indicating that the Giants might move him back to the role that he found success at in ’07 with Fresno. He’ll be relieving in the majors for now.

Name	        League	W/L	IP	K/BB	H/9	ERA
Geno Espineli	AAA PCL	1/1	61	4.36	8.26	2.66
Geno Espineli	NL	1/1	87	3.70	8.85	3.00

Geno, like some of our other call-ups, found his way onto the Giants roster earlier this year. He pitched a brief 11.2 innings with the Giants this year. In those 11.2 IP he gave up 4 HR’s. He’s had a fine year in AAA, posting very strong numbers, keeping the ball in the yard — only 2 HR’s in 61 IP — and striking out hitters while walking hardly anyone. His translation is the best out of all of our pitchers, the zMLEs see him as a 3.00 ERA reliever in the majors. I think Geno’s upside is probably a LOOGY. He works with a 82mph fastball that he throws from a low, sidearm motion. In a perfect world he would pitch much better during his September call-up and work his way into the bullpen next year. We’ll see.

—

The September call-ups are a good mix of old and semi-old players (McClain, Hennessey, Misch, Holm) and some younger guys who might shake out to be something useful down the road (Bowker, Geno, Nate). Here’s how I would rank them, in terms of who I’d like to see play over these last few weeks of the season.

1. Nate – Still our best upper-level hitting prospect
2. McClain – I just want to see some DINGERS.
3. Bowker – Will he be able to improve his plate discipline?
4. Geno – Funky motion, stirrups, the potential to be a bullpen cog.
5. Misch – At the moment, I believe in him as a reliever. Maybe even still a 5th starter.
6. Steve Holm – He looks like Adam Savage from MythBusters.
7. Brad Hennessey – Not a fan.

Comment Starter: Which Sept. call-up has your eye? Out of the 7 listed, who has the best chance to be on the team next year?

Hennessey doesn’t have the flashiest of stuff, a nice 90mph fastball and a tight slider, that when it’s on, is a good pitch for him. Can the Giants expect Hennessey to continue to pitch well in the bullpen? Let’s take a look at some of Hennessey’s underlying stats from 2007.

Brad Hennessey
2007

K% - 13.9
BB% - 8.0
GB% - 46.3
FB% - 34.1
LD% - 19.6
LOB% - 80.3
HR/F% - 9.6
BABIP - .279

I’ve decided to use K%, BB%, GB%, FB%, LD%, LOB%, HR/F%, and BABIP as my measures to evaluate Hennessey’s ’07 season. They all give a pretty good idea of how Hennessey pitched last year. I think one thing that you’ll learn about Hennessey is that he does a lot of stuff well, above league average, but not by much. I think that makes sense when you take into account his “stuff” which isn’t overly impressive but tends to get the job done.

The league average K% for pitchers tends to be around 16%, and as you can see, Hennessey was below average in the K-department. This was the only measure that Hennessey was below league average in. Hennessey also tends to throw strikes, with a BB% of 8% he’s right at league average for a pitcher. From what I can remember about watching Hennessey pitch in ’07, was that he never seemed to strike a lot of guys out — only 40 strikeouts in 68.1 innings pitched — but instead he kept the ball on the ground as much as he could, letting hitters make contact. This idea is backed up by Hennessey’s GB% which is above league average at 46.3%. The league average GB% is 42% while the groundball masters like Brandon Webb and Derek Lowe induce groundballs at a 60% clip or better. Hennessey is good at keeping the ball on the ground but he’s not in the same class as Webb or Lowe. Because of Hennessey’s slight GB tendancies, his FB% is slightly better than league average at 34.1%. The league average pitcher gives up flyballs at an 36%.

Line drives are the worst type of contact that a pitcher can give up, because they fall for hits about 75% of the time. The league average pitcher gives up LD’s at a 20% rate. Hennessey was right around this number with his own LD% of 19.6%. Hennesey posted a really high LOB% in ’07 with his percentage of 80.3%. League average LOB% is 70% and it’s often a way to figure out how lucky or effective — depending on your viewpoint — a pitcher was at stranding runners in a particular year. Hennessey’s career LOB% is 72.8%, or just slightly above league average. Good pitchers are more likely to have a higher LOB% because they have superior stuff — velocity, pitch quality, command, etc — to get outs but LOB% can fluctuate between seasons for pitchers who aren’t as good. Chances are that if a pitcher has a super high LOB% it could correct itself next season. I wouldn’t consider Hennessey to possess the type of pitching ability to consistently throw up a 80%+ LOB% from year to year and I think he could settle back closer to his career of 70% next year. If he pitches closer to a LOB% of 70%, his numbers should regress some next year.

HR/F% is also in the same vein as LOB%. Sometimes pitchers just get unlucky and see a boost in their HR/F% rate which tends to be around 11-12% for all pitchers. Hennessey could be considered lucky with his HR/F% of 9.6%, a few points under league average, but the difference between his percentage and the league average percentage isn’t so huge that I wouldn’t think he would be able to do it again. His modest GB% certainly helps him keep the ball in the park as it’s hard to hit a groundball over the outfield wall for a home run. For his career, Hennessey has a HR/F% of 10.2, so his 2007 performance isn’t hugely different from what he’s done over 251.3 previous major league innings.

Hennessey’s BABIP, batting average on balls in play, is also better than league average. BABIP tends to be around .300 for all pitchers. Hennessey kept this BABIP under the .300 threshold with his BABIP of .279. For his career, Hennessey has posted a BABIP of .283.

As you can see Hennessey does a lot of stuff a little bit better than league average but nothing hugely better. He’s got a modest groundball percentage but he doesn’t strike out many batters. I would wager that his groundball tendencies aren’t strong enough to offest his lack of strikeouts. His LOB% is also something that should regress next year will probably bring his ERA closer to 4 than in the mid-to-low 3′s.

All the projection systems that I’ve read — ZiPS, Bill James, Chone, Marcel — have Hennessey anywhere between an ERA of 4.01 to 4.46, which I think is reasonable. In today’s market, is an average relief pitcher worth about $1.6M? I think so. I don’t think that the Giants should try Hennessey at the closer slot anymore, I’d much rather see Brian Wilson take his chances as the closer or if he struggles and the Giants really want to get crazy, maybe give Jonathan Sanchez a shot (though, I prefer him as a starter).

Enjoy your newfound cash, Brad.