You’ll notice I said was. Past tense. The Giants have traded Lewis to the Blue Jays for a PTBNL or cash considerations.

The Lewis debate, at it’s core, boils down to realistic expectations. After a successful 2008 in which Lewis was worth 2.4 wins backed by solid hitting, above-average defense, and good baserunning, the Giants entered 2009 with the idea that Lewis could be more. So much more that in fact they wanted to hit him 3rd in the lineup. And they wanted him to hit for power.

Somewhere in the world, this following paragraph should be carved into stone.

The Giants expect Lewis to be more of a presence in the batter’s box while spending less time in it. Though the Giants did virtually nothing during the offseason to upgrade their offense, they believe that Lewis can be one of the power sources they sorely need — not a 40-homer slugger, but somebody who can hit at least half that.

You could call this a Spring Training fluff piece, and rightfully so, but I think at some level it’s a peak inside the Giants’ mindset with Lewis. He’s athletic as heck, fast, and just looks like he should be able to hit some dingers. How he looks is such an old school philosophy that it seems to fit right in with the Giants of the past 5 years. But as we’ve learned, how a player looks really has nothing to do with his on-field performance and unfortunately lends itself to the pitfalls of wish-casting. What you would most likely get from Lewis seems to have been well established by his track record in the minors. He’ll strikeout, but he’s going to post an above-average OBP with moderate power. He’ll swipe a few bags, too. The similarity between Lewis’ career slash-lines in the minors vs. majors is startling — .283/.383/.423 in the minors vs. 277/.355/.420 in the majors. The team was expecting the player with a career .423 slugging percentage in the minors to magically transform into a 20 HR hitter by the mere move of a few spots in the batting order.

It’s science!

Lewis struggled some in 2009, I don’t think anyone can question that, but he still offers several skills that would have benefited the Giants. Most noted is his ability to hit right-handed pitching. Examine the following:

Name	wOBA vs. RHP
Lewis	.349
Rowand	.335
DeRosa	.325
Bowker	.322
Velez	.321
Torres	.245

That’s the current OF roster for the Giants by career split against righties. You can make the argument that Bowker and maybe Torres have improved over what their career split would indicate, but Lewis is still probably the best — or 2nd best — option the Giants have in the OF when a RHP is on the mound. Remember this every time Velez is taking swings against RHP and playing the OF.

Here’s to you, Fred. As I stated above, you were a weirdly divisive Giant. Maybe the most divisive one that I can remember in recent history. I wish you the best in Toronto.

Henry Schulman, Giants beat-writer and seemingly all around nice guy, let’s all of us SABR nerds have it in his latest post on the topic of Fred Lewis and sabermetrics. Hank sets up his post with the following blurb:

This is going to be an anti-Sabermetrics screed, specifically the notion that Lewis needs to be the Giants’ everyday left fielder because his .348 on-base percentage last year was 90 points higher than his .258 batting average. In other words, Lewis can take a walk.

Or, in other words: Fred Lewis doesn’t make outs. But we’ll get into that later. Schulman is obviously a little tweaked about this newfangled saber stat, on-base percentage. The catalyst for Schulman’s anti-saber creed is “noted Sabermetrician Joe Sheehan” (his words, not mine) and a new SI piece that he wrote on each team. In Sheehan’s piece, he has a few suggestions for the Giants: (1) Posey should play over Molina, (2) Fred should play over Nate in RF, and (3) Ishikawa should play over Huff at 1B. The basis for all three moves is that the Giants need players who get on base.

(1) is obvious, Molina is a terrible hitter — his .308 wOBA places him 16th among 23 ’09 qualified catchers in baseball when sorting by 350 plate appearances — and there’s a good chance that his perceived solid defense is actually a few ticks (or more) below average. His baserunning is among the worst in baseball and costs him a half-win or more each year. And he’ll be 35-years-old in 2010. Next up, (3) Huff vs. Ishikawa.

This one is a little more debatable depending on how much of a bonus you’ll want to give Huff for coming to the NL, but if you’re into valuing players, Huff and Ishikawa are close. Huff’s a better hitter but he’s going to give back 4-5 runs while playing first base. Ishikawa’s glove puts him at 4-5 runs above average. Just on defense alone there’s a swing of 8-10 runs between the two. It closes the gap between their bats pretty quickly. Huff might be a little better, but you can make an intelligent argument between the two.

Instead, Schulman offers up this tidbit:

Ishikawa over Huff? Ishikawa had a chance to capture the job last year and didn’t. His hitting this spring has been terrible, and the Giants need something in their offense they used to have a lot of. They’re called “home runs.” Remember those? If Huff is right he’ll hit a few.

We’ve gone over this, spring training stats are meaningless and to the average fan home runs are very exciting, but there’s more to being a good offensive player than hitting home runs. Need I remind Giants fans of Pedro Feliz? He was good for 20 annual home runs, but every aspect of his offensive game was terrible outside of one: hitting the occasional home run. Furthermore, if Schulman thinks the Giants hit the dingers jackpot with Huff, I’m not sure what to tell him. Huff is coming off a brutal year where he blasted a league leading 15 home runs in the American League. Oh, and he’s moving to one of the toughest parks for left-handed batters to go yard in. Yes, I’ll enjoy the plethora of taters, dingers, and moon shots Aubrey will provide us! All 9 of them.

Finally, Hank rounds out his post with this:

I don’t even know where to start, although I should start in the outfield, where has Lewis had difficulty playing the easiest of the three outfield positions at AT&T Park. Now Sheehan wants him to play the most difficult?

…

Well of course! Freddy did walk 36 times in 336 plate appearances last year, bolstering his on-base percentage. Strikeouts? Oh yeah: 84 of them, probably half of them looking. Let me let you digest this.

Ah, yes. Downplay the “not making outs” while sticking it to Lewis for his strikeouts. I’m not sure if Schulman has access to things like Baseball-Reference, Minor League Splits, or The Baseball Cube but I would urge him to spend 3 minutes at each site looking up Lewis’ minor league stats. I’ll wait patiently right here while Mr. Schulman fires up his dialup modem. OK, done? See, the thing is, Lewis has always struck out. His struck out in A-ball. He struck out in AA-ball. And, yes, he struck out in AAA-ball. I’m shocked that he’s striking out in the majors! Lewis’ plate approach will result in some strikeouts, but he’s still a league average hitter. You can’t argue otherwise. It’s played out in the statistics, even if you admittedly don’t like them.

It’s almost as if getting on base helps your team score runs…

On the defensive end of things, it does matter, and Nate is most likely a better fielder than Fred. But I think sportswriters and fans place too much importance on needing a good defender in RF at AT&T. But that’s for another post.

When looking at Lewis in LF, the Giants haven’t upgraded at the position (unless Bowker can step in and post a .350 wOBA, which at this point giving him the chance might be worth it) with DeRosa. I think I’ve gone over it a billion times by this point but the Giants ended up paying the premium for wins this offseason that were already sitting around on the roster. Winning teams just don’t do that. It’s the reason half of our payroll is tied up among a few average players. In baseball, league average sounds worse than it actually is — it’s actually quite useful. But if you can avoid paying market dollars for it, you should. Especially when it’s sitting on your bench. It’s the reason why the Giants future can be so bright on the pitching side of things, but so, so very dim in the other aspects of the team.

Baggs drops some information on us:

Frandsen has another minor league option. Lewis does not. So at least the Giants have some flexibility with Frandsen. But if they’ve determined, for instance, that they’d prefer to start Matt Downs and Ryan Rohlinger in the middle infield at Fresno (and ultimately, when he’s healthy, Emmanuel Burriss), then they might prefer to give Frandsen a change of scenery rather than deal with any fallout by having him on the bench at Triple-A. (That’s all pure speculation on my part, by the way.)

I would rather the Giants hold on to Frandsen because he does have an option remaining — meaning they can send him back to Fresno if they want — but getting rid of Lewis in favor of someone like Velez, who would theoretically most likely make the team if Lewis is released/traded/etc., seems like poor planning. First, the case for Lewis. I’ll give you the cliff notes since I’ve written an inordinate amount about Fred over the time-span of BCB.

Fred Lewis is:

~ A career better than league average hitter with a wRC+ of 109. He struggles against LHP (wOBA of .298) but has hit RHP well (wOBA of .349).

~ A better than average left fielder. Yes, he looks hectic on defense occasionally, but remember that he’s playing against a largely immobile peer group in LF. Despite the weird routes, and occasional missed catch, Lewis sports a career UZR/150 of +10.2 runs in left field. The most common misconception about Lewis is that he’s a poor fielder, he’s not. His plus range and footspeed make up for any weird route and/or missed catch.

~ Prone to striking out. Lewis owns a career K% of 26.1% — meaning that he’s going to strike out in almost a quarter of his at-bats. But, he’s also likely to take a walk. He owns a career BB% of 10.1%.

~ A better than average baserunner. By Baseball Prospectus’ baserunning numbers, Lewis was +2 runs above the average runner in 2009 and +5.7 runs above average in 2008. Bengie Molina he’s not.

It all adds up — defense, offense, and baserunning — to a league average player. Or, someone that if given a full season of playing time we would expect to be a +2 win player. With the FA market taking a dip, generally guys are getting paid around $3-4M per win, meaning that Lewis would be worth somewhere (give or take) around $5-6M as an asset. He wouldn’t be a starter on a front-line team, but a team like the Giants hurting for offense (and defense to an extent) really can’t afford to throw out league average players. There’s a really solid chance that Mark DeRosa, playing LF, won’t outproduce Fred Lewis and I don’t have to tell you that paying the market price for production you already have in-house is a bad idea.

But, here we are. Lewis is almost already out of the organization and the Giants outfield situation doesn’t look exactly strong. If the team is committed to moving Lewis to another team, I would hope that it means that John Bowker will get the lion’s share of playing time as a 4th OF in the corners. He doesn’t have Lewis’ defensive profile, but his revamped hitting approach in AAA last year gives the team some hope that he can stick in the majors as a hitter. Only time will tell if trade/releasing Lewis is a good move, but for the moment the odds seem stacked against the Giants.

Hypothetical outfield makeup:

LF – DeRosa
CF – Rowand
RF – Schierholtz
OF – Bowker (or *shudder* Velez)
OF – Torres

So, at the moment: NCAA basketball > Jesus Guzman learning a knuckleball or some other nonsense.

A few bits of news from the baseball world:

~ Manny Burriss is apparently mentoring all the younger players in camp right now. Burriss’ latest injury has him on the shelf for an undetermined amount of time. The speedy infielder has never shown enough with the bat int he minors to warrant a starting job, but if he could ever learn how to play SS satisfactorily, he might eek out a career as a back-up infielder. When you own a career batting line of: .284/.344/.339 over 4 seasons in the the minor leagues, you had better be able to pick it defensively.

~ Grant, of McC, has a nice post on the Giants and their organizational philosophy. Grant sums it up quite nicely with this:

Last year, the monster under the bed was poorly executed bunt attempts and other Little Things, and that was a totally bogus and made-up problem. The Giants were wasting time trying to find the Magic Wyvern-Repelling Laser Gun in case they were attacked by wyverns, but they were doing it when the place was on fire.

The only thing standing between the Giants and a respectable (read: non-terrible) offense is bunting! And taking the extra base! And situational hitting. Or, I wish they would give that new “getting on-base” thing a whirl.

~ Give ‘em Some Stankeye has a really nice piece on Fred Lewis and his tenure as a Giant. Maybe the most divisive Giant in recent memory, I’ve always been a fan of Fred. Godspeed, Fred. I hope you enjoy whichever team picks you up next and I’ll enjoy the shock from fans when you’re batting .275/.355/.420 while being quite helpful to your new team.

The Yankees were on the verge of bringing Nick Johnson back to the Bronx Thursday night on a one-year contract worth about $5.5 million, a move that could mean the end of Johnny Damon’s time in pinstripes

This is a pretty big bummer for the Giants. I’ve written a little about why I liked the addition of Johnson to this team. For a hacking team, Johnson would have added a nice dose of patience to an otherwise impatient lineup. And, if he can stay healthy, or at least healthy enough for 450 PA’s, he would have had some nice upside. It’s hard to believe that the Giants couldn’t top a 1-year, $5.5M deal but it’s also possible that playing in New York might have more allure to a player than playing in San Francisco. Also, water is still wet.

In a worst case scenario, losing out on Nick Johnson is the first domino to fall in a horrible set of events to come. I don’t like the idea that an offer to Adam LaRoche is still out in the open and the Giants are obviously trying to upgrade at first base. I don’t like the idea that the team might be looking at Johnny Damon to play LF.

On the topic of Damon.

Damon had a very nice 2009 season with the Yankees. Playing in the launching pad in the Bronx he, like many other Yankees, posted a career high ISO of .207. He belted 24 home runs, walked in 11.4% of his PA’s, and posted a wRC+ (think of this as the wOB based version of OPS+) of 130. All fine components of a fine season. On the total, Damon’s ’09 was worth +3 wins to the Yankees. A solid, above-average season.

There are some concerns with Damon as a FA signing. He’ll be 36-years-old for the 2010 season and even though his player-type has tended to age well, there should some expected slow down despite what Scott Boras would like you to believe. How much power Damon would hit for while playing half his games at AT&T is also another question. Damon’s power is all on his pull-side to RF. Check out this graph from Hit Tracker and tell me how many Yankee Stadium HR’s would either bang off the RF wall or turn into outs? We don’t have park factors for the new Yankee Stadium but it’s surely a hitters park. AT&T has played more as a neutral park over the past few years and it’s going to be tougher on hitters who hit all their HR’s to RF.

Damon’s defense is also another concern. He posted a UZR in LF last season of -12.1 runs prorated to 150 defensive games. He got dinged pretty badly on his terrible throwing arm (-4.2 runs) and his range and error components of UZR were also below average. Damon’s throwing arm is one of the worst in the game. He’s no longer a CF and thus should be cemented in LF. The good news is that over his career he’s been an above-average defender in LF (career UZR/150 of +2.9 runs) but for a former CF, you would hope that he would rate better in LF against a much slower peer group.

If we roughly project Damon as a .360 wOBA hitter next season in the NL and a +2 run defender in LF, he should look like the following:

Batting Wins Above Average (.360 wOBA, league wOBA .332): +1.6 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: +.2 wins
LF Positional Adjustment: -.75 wins
Replacement Level: +2 wins
—————————————–
= 3.07 wins * .8 (or about 560 PA’s for PT) = +2.46 WAR

If you still consider him an above-average baserunner next season, you can chip in a couple of runs to his total, pushing to essentially a 2.5-ish win player. With super-agent extraordinaire, Scott Boras, how much money will Damon get? Not to get all Fred Lewis on you, but I’m not sure Damon is that much of an upgrade over Lewis. Sure, he’s the better hitter, but Lewis is a better baserunner and his defense could play better in 2010. They aren’t that far apart as players. If you do a quick 5/4/3 weighting of Damon’s last three years in the field by UZR (which he’s going to get penalized a little more heavily for his time in CF in ’07 and ’08) his defense rates out around -2.5 runs. If we call Damon a -2.5 run defender with the same hitting stats and adjust him for 560 PA’s, he rates right around a 2.1 win player.

Since the Giants hate logic and have publicly stated that they are ready to enter into 2010 with a combination of Velez/Torres in LF, signing Damon would prove to be good Velez/Torres insurance. Still, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to pay the market price for wins that are already sitting on your roster.

The good news is that if the Giants sign Damon, we can all marvel at his rocket arm. Johnny Damon makes Barry Bonds’ throwing arm look like Ichiro.

Comment Starter: Why do the Giants hate Fred Lewis so much?

On the other side of things, Fred Lewis rarely swings at pitches outside of the zone. Fred has an O-Swing% of 19.4 this season while posting an above-average OBP of .352. Sandoval gets on base by swinging at everything and making contact. Fred, on the other hand, is more selective at the plate, rarely goes outside the zone, and compliments his OBP by taking walks.

Two hitters with wildly different approaches, but nearly similar results. Thankfully, with PitchF/X we can take a visual look at how Sandoval and Lewis swing the bat at the plate. Below, I’ve plotted every at-bat this season for Pablo and Fred and broken their AB’s down by swings vs. non-swings. I’m not tackling what type of contact they’re making in today’s post, but rather a simplified look at how many times they swing — or don’t swing — outside of the zone.

Click to enlarge

Pretty interesting. Right from the start you can really see that Sandoval has a very large swing zone. Up, down, in, or away, he’s likely to take a hack. Fred Lewis is much less likely to go outside of the strike zone when he swings. If Lewis does swing at a pitch outside of the zone, it looks like it’s going to be either down or away in the zone. It will be interesting to see how Sandoval changes his plate approach over time — if he changes it at all. In 2008, he swung at around 50% of pitches outside of the strike zone. This year, he’s “lowered” it to 40% of pitches outside of the zone. Pablo Sandoval and Fred Lewis are as different as it gets when it comes to their plate approaches. But, they’ve both excelled at getting on base.

One of the many reasons why I like baseball so much is that you can have two different players succeed with totally different play styles. You won’t find a better example of that theory in Pablo Sandoval and Fred Lewis.

Commence freakout.

Before you preorder your World Series tickets, realize that there’s a lot of baseball left to play. BP’s postseason odds projection has us pegged at a 22.4% chance of winning the Wild Card. The Rockies’ odds are currently at a 53.9%. With that being said, let’s look at a few things that the Giants should do down to maximize their chances down the stretch.

1. Start Ishikawa against RHP, Garko against LHP

I’ve been beating this drum for awhile now on this site. There really is no difference, offensively, between Garko and Ishikawa against RHP. They both play as .750 OPS hitters when right-handers take the mound. The difference is that Ishikawa is vastly superior to Garko on defense. On the other side of things, Garko has crunched LHP over his career. In 458 career PA’s Garko owns a .896 OPS, 9.17 BB%, and a .190 ISO against southpaws.

I doubt that Ishikawa will ever be a better than average hitter, but he provides a significant boost in the field when he plays. Since joining the Giants, Garko has primarily been the Giants first baseman, even against RHP. If the Giants want to maximize their team efforts, they should start Ishikawa when they play righties and let Garko ride the bench. When they face a lefty, let Garko get some hacks.

2. Start Fred Lewis in LF against RHP

Eugenio Velez, starting LF. Try thinking about that for a second. There is no good reason why the Giants should continue to start Velez in LF when Fred Lewis is on the bench. After Velez returned from AAA, he put up a batting line of: .353/.389/.553 in 20 games. Velez has shown us why “playing the hot hand” often turns out to be a small sample size illusion. It’s hard to put much stock in a hitter’s performance over just 90 plate appearances. That’s essentially what they’ve done with Velez. Chances are that he hasn’t figured something out by hitting off a tee, he hasn’t fixed some mechanical flaw in his swing, and he isn’t succeeding because he’s somehow more confident. Chances are that he’s the same player that he’s shown to be over his career.

Velez has hundreds upon hundreds of at-bats in the minors and majors that should tell us that while his .353/.389/.553 hot streak was nice, it probably wasn’t an accurate picture of who Velez truly is as a player. And, not an accurate picture of who he will be in the future. All things considered, Velez just isn’t that impressive in a starting role. Whether or not he’ll hit (and defend) enough to be a bench player some day is still an unanswered question.

Meanwhile, despite a horrible June, Fred Lewis has posted a .339 wOBA this year. That’s a slightly better than average hitter. Fred’s OPS+ is 101. Velez’s is 88.

Fred is the same player he’s always been. He slumped in June, had a hot August, but his overall numbers are nearly identical to his 2008 season. If the Giants are serious about playing for the Wild Card, they need to stop starting Velez in LF and run Fred out against RHP. Lewis’ at-bats might frustrate the casual fan, but he’s basically the 2nd best hitter on the Giants. He strikes out a lot (K% of 28.2) but he also gets on base more than any other hitter not named Sandoval. His .360 OBP is only 2nd to Fat Ichiro’s .383 OBP.

Can you think of any other contending team in the majors that refuses to start a guy who’s arguably their 2nd best hitter? Can you think of any other team in the majors that refuses to start a hitter with a .360 OBP?

I can’t.

3. Don’t be afraid to call up Buster Posey

I’ve enjoyed watching Eli Whiteside throw out baserunners as much as the next guy. But, if Molina can’t get healthy enough to start the Giants can’t afford to keep starting Whiteside. He’s a career .244/.288/.393 hitter in over 2,500 PA’s in the minor leagues over 9 season. Take a stroll through his minor league work. It’s not a pretty sight. No amount of catcher defense is going to make up for a .250-.270 wOBA hitter.

Reports indicate that the Giants won’t be calling up Posey to the majors but if Molina can’t get healthy, starting Eli Whiteside for more than 2-3 games over the remaining stretch of baseball doesn’t make any sense. Posey has posted a .385 wOBA in AAA already and chances are that he’ll be a league average hitter right now in the majors. Bold decisions are sometimes required to make the playoffs and calling up Posey would indeed be a bold decision.

The Giants won’t do it, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t strongly consider it. Molina’s fragile ego would be crushed, but it might need to happen if he can’t get healthy.

Comment Starter: Your best laid plans for a September push, let’s hear it.

Some stats re: Lincecum’s dominance this season.

• His FIP now sits at 2.08. That’s the 2nd best FIP in baseball — only Zack Greinke has a better FIP (1.90). Even if you normalize his HR rate, his xFIP is 2.80.
• Lincecum’s 10.63 strikeouts per 9 innings ranks him 3rd in baseball. Only Justin Verlander (10.84) and Javier Vasquez (10.64) squeak by Lincecum.
• Lincecum is punching out hitters via the strikeout as usual, but what’s really encouraging is that he’s walking fewer hitters this year. Lincecum’s maturation at the big league level is pretty amazing. During his first two years at Washington Lincecum was wild, walking nearly 6+ hitters a game. His BB/9 dropped to 4.5 during his final year at Washington and since he joined the Giants, he’s reduced it even more. In ’07 with the Giants, Lincecum walked 4 hitters per 9. In 2008 he walked 3.3 hitters per 9 and this year he’s lowered it to 2.4 hitters per 9. To be able to cut your walks like that against the highest level of competition speaks to the special talent that Lincecum possesses.
• I think most would agree that Lincecum’s changeup has been a large reason that he’s had so much success early in his career. According to Fangraph’s pitch type linear values — Lincecum’s changeup is the best changeup in baseball.

Lincecum finished the night with a line of: 9 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, and 12 SO.

—

I thought it would be fun to check up on the Giants and baserunning up to this point in the season. Baseball Prospectus has a handy (and free) player baserunning section on their website. The metric — EQBRR — is defined as:

Equivalent Base Running Runs. Measures the number of runs contributed by a player’s advancement on the bases, above what would be expected based on the number and quality of the baserunning opportunities with which the player is presented, park-adjusted and based on a multi-year run expectancy table. EqBRR is calculated as the sum of various baserunning components: Equivalent Ground Advancement Runs (EqGAR), Equivalent Stolen Base Runs (EqSBR), Equivalent Air Advancement Runs (EqAAR), Equivalent Hit Advancement Runs (EqHAR) and Equivalent Other Advancement Runs (EqOAR).

In short, how many runs above or below average a player chipped in with his feet. To the numbers.

Even though he’s struggling, Fred Lewis is still adding postive runs when he’s running the bases. Randy Winn, as usual, is a very steady and solid baserunner. He’s added almost +2 runs to this point in the season by running the bases well. Most of the rest of the team shakes out as average-ish on the base paths. Bengie Molina, probably the worst baserunner in baseball, has been docked about -3 runs to this point because of his lack of baserunning skills. But, fear not Bengie, Melvin Mora (-5.6 runs) and Carlos Lee (-4.4 runs) aren’t burning up the base paths either.

Baserunning is often an overlooked component to a player’s value. Most players won’t add much to their total lines by baserunning but occasionally you’ll get players like Fred Lewis that might add up to +5 runs — or a half-win — to their total value just by running the bases well. Or, you’ll get players like Bengie Molina who could lose up to a half-win by their baserunning.

—

The above baserunning numbers really make me think that Fred Lewis does a lot of things that add to his value that are pretty easy to overlook. His hitting has been in a bit of funk lately, but his components really aren’t that far off from his 2008 season.

He’s walking slightly more, striking out a little more, and hitting for a little less power. His BABIP has dropped from .367 to .340 and that might very well be indicative of his true talent BABIP level. Maybe Fred is more of a .340 BABIP guy than a .360+ BABIP guy. But, otherwise, he’s pretty close to the same guy that he was in 2008.

He’s still playing above-average defense in LF — currently around +6 runs per 150 games — and he’s still running the bases well. This all begs the question: What exactly did the Giants expect from Lewis in 2009? The preseason talk was mostly centered around him hitting 3rd and somehow, magically, transforming into a 20 HR hitter. It seems to me that the Giants saw Fred Lewis and were guilty of wish casting. Instead of focusing on the things he’s done well in his major and minor league career, the Giants’ had warped expectations of what he should be. The truth is that he’s going to strikeout, but he’s also going to walk and he’s going to hit for average power. He’s going to look bad on defense sometimes, but he’s still better than your average slow-footed LF by a half-win or more.

I like Andres Torres as much as the next fan. He’s been a really great addition to this team. He can defend in CF and he’s fast and he can handle the bat some. He’s a fine player. But he really shouldn’t be starting over Lewis against RHP. If the Giants want to sit Fred against tough lefties, I’m OK with that. But yanking him out of the lineup against RHP for doing pretty much as well as he always has is weird.

The Giants need to stop wish casting with Fred and frankly, and accurately, examine his strengths and weaknesses. The Giants will be a better team, both in the short term and long term, for it.

I hope you were sitting down but it’s true, the Giants offense has done more sputtering this season than anything else. A graph and then a bunch of words.

This basic graph shows how many runs the Giants have scored thus far in their first 25 games. On the year, the offense has scored an average of 3.6 runs per game as indicated by the red line. The Giants have a total of — before today’s 6-2 win against the Cubs — 84 runs scored on the year. That number is the lowest total of runs scored for any team in baseball. If we use a linear weights stat like wOBA, things don’t improve much. The Giants have a team wOBA of .299. The only team with a worse wOBA is the struggling Oakland Athletics. The A’s wOBA is currently at .291. The biggest problem with Giants is that they don’t hit for any power, they strike out a lot, and they don’t walk much. The team ISO (.119) is ranked 29th in baseball. Team K% (23.7) is ranked 26th in baseball. And the team BB% (7.5) is ranked 29th in baseball. Piling up strikeouts isn’t really a bad thing if you’re doing other things well — drawing walks and hitting for power — but the Giants aren’t doing either of those two things.

Or, to put it in simple terms: We don’t make a lot of contact, but when we do it’s not very likely to go for extra-bases, and we don’t walk.

The season is still young — only 15% of the schedule has been played — so things could get better. But, losing games 1-0 can get frustrating quick. Let’s check out some of the individual hitters who are doing well — all two of them — and the ones who are struggling.

Doing Fine

Bengie Molina
.338 wOBA / .227 ISO / 0 BB% / 12.5 K% / .301 BABIP

You didn’t read the above stat line wrong, Molina has a zero BB% on the season. In 90+ PA’s Molina has yet to draw a walk. Molina has never been one to walk a lot — his career high is 27 walks in a full season with most years being in the teens — but not one-single-walk in almost 100 PA’s is almost impressive. He’s hitting for a career high ISO on the young season and when you consider his position, a .330+ wOBA catcher is a valuable thing to have. Stay hot, Bengie.

Fred Lewis
.378 wOBA / .104 ISO / 13.5 BB% / 36.4 K% / .490 BABIP

Meet your team wOBA leader, Fred Lewis. Fred truly has a weird stat line. The Giants had visions of shuffling Fred Lewis to the #3 spot and turning him into some sort of power hitter — but dreams of power have been put on hold. Fred’s ISO is nearly 40 points lower than his full season ISO in 2008. His BB% is solid but his K% is in the top five for the MLB. The BABIP is unsustainable but hopefully Fred will cut his K% some while hitting for more power as the season goes on. Still, despite the large number of K’s, Fred has been the best hitter on the Giants thus far.

Pablo Sandoval
.372 wOBA / .178 ISO / 4.3 BB% / 15.6 K% / .365 BABIP

Pablo is actually seeing less pitches in the strike zone this seasons — 39.6% this season to 46.6% in ’08 — but he’s still hacking. Pablo still profiles as a swing-at-everything hitter with slightly above-average power. He will most likely go through frustrating slumps — ie: when his hits aren’t falling and his BABIP is — but when the hits are falling, everything will look fine and dandy. At just 22-years-old, Sandoval still has some upside to reach and despite some early season struggles, he’s having a fine start to his first full season in the big leagues.

Not Doing Fine

Travis Ishikawa
.239 wOBA / .065 ISO / 4.6 BB% / 32.3 K% / .310 BABIP

Maybe the most depressing thing about Ishikawa’s struggles this season is his BABIP of .310, indicating that he’s been slightly lucky. His defense has been quite good, but alas, this is a post on offense. His .239 wOBA is reminiscent of Omar Vizquel’s collapsing wOBA from previous years. He’s hitting for no power and he’s striking out a bunch. There’s a ton of baseball left, and I’ll give Ishikawa more time to figure things out, but for a prospect with a rocky development path this isn’t the start you want to see.

Emmanuel Burriss
.257 wOBA / .026 ISO / 8.4 BB% / 19.7 K% / .262 BABIP

Oh, you poor rushed prospect. You can’t fault Burriss for not hitting for power because it’s not in his toolset. Burriss is a contact-oriented hitter than needs to whack balls on the ground and his near 20% K% is troubling. Ideally, Burriss would still be honing his craft between AA/AAA and not struggling in the majors. But, this is the Giants, and we live by the moves they make. Like Ishikawa, I’m not ready to give up on Burriss just yet — mainly because the options to replace him are lackluster — but when you’ve got a struggling young player in the MLB who probably shouldn’t be there, things can get ugly quick. He’ll add value with his legs and defense at second base, but he’s got to get a lot closer to the .300 wOBA mark.

Aaron Rowand
.296 wOBA / .133 ISO / 8.5 BB% / 22.7 K% / .268 BABIP

Rowand hasn’t been one of the worst hitters on the team but he hasn’t exactly been good either. His lame 2008 was mostly written off on a rib injury and if this is the best Rowand can do fully healthy, the Giants are in trouble. He broke out of an 0-20 slump in today’s game with a 2 RBI double, so maybe he’s heating up. The further the Giants head into his 5-year deal, the less comfortable I feel.

Comment Starter: Your early season MVP? Early season LVP?

“The biggest thing I talk to Freddie about is having a certain attitude,” Lansford said. “When you’re the No. 3 hitter, you’re our best hitter. I don’t care who’s on the mound. There’s a way you walk into the box and [maintain a] thought process, the whole way you handle yourself. I want him to start doing that now in Spring Training. He’s done it right away.”

OK, being a good hitter is all about attitude. Check. Let me get my shades, a leather jacket, and some brass knuckles. I’ll be right back.

The Giants expect Lewis to be more of a presence in the batter’s box while spending less time in it. Though the Giants did virtually nothing during the offseason to upgrade their offense, they believe that Lewis can be one of the power sources they sorely need — not a 40-homer slugger, but somebody who can hit at least half that.

A dialogue…

Scene: It’s ST in Arizona. Giants starting left fielder, Fred Lewis, is shagging flyballs in the outfield on a sunny, breezy day. The Giants braintrust slowly approaches Fred in LF…

Giants: Fred, we want you to hit more home runs in a single season of pro-ball than you’ve ever done before. This is in no way unrealistic or crazy.

/doffs hat made of monkey hair

Freddie: You do realize my career seasonal high in homeruns is 12, right?

G’s: That’s not important. What you need is ‘tude. Swagger. Grit. Balls. Dingers. It’s all about the ‘tude. Now, where’s your leather jacket…

F: Um, OK. I’ll get a leather jacket, but my skill-set is more of a ‘Can do a little bit of everything’-type than a whatever you’re thinking a #3 hitter should be. I’ll hit some doubles, maybe 10-ish HRs, draw some walks, and play really good defense in LF.

G’s: Wait, did you just say walks?

/G’s squint eyes at FL

F: Yeah, the thing that happens when you don’t swin…

G’s: NO WALKS. NONE, I SAID NO!

F: But, walks are a big part of my game…

G’s: WHAT DID WE JUST SAY. NOW, PUT ON  YOUR JACKET AND GO GET YOUR SWAGGER ON.

F: /sighs

/puts on jacket

—

Final quote of absurdity.

“I think he realized that if he’s going to hit third, we need him to hit home runs,” Lansford said.

I like this new trend of player management. Taking a player’s strengths, and having them do the exact opposite? Brilliant! I just hope the Giants are also talking with Bengie Molina right now on stealing more bags.