Some data, the top 10 teams in the majors against LHP ranked by wOBA.

sOPS+ is the split version of OPS+, meaning that the Red Sox hit LHP +31% better than your league average offense (when hitting against LHP).

To this point, Bumgarner has spent his entire year in AAA Fresno pitching for the Grizzlies. The results have been both good and bad. He’s still not striking out hitters like he was when he dominated the lower minor leagues — he owns a rather pedestrian 6.15 K/9 in AAA — and it’s likely that in the majors, he’s going to play as more of a 5-6 K/9 guy. Prospecthounds will remember that while pitching in Augusta in 2008, Bummarner posted a K/9 of 10.16. Those days seem long gone. He’s pitched 2 years in a row now with K/9′s closer to 6. The good news is that he’s still throwing strikes — 2.29 walks per 9 in AAA — and his velocity readings have generally been better. Most games he seems to work around 88-92. It’s not the mid-90′s that made him so sexy as a prospect, but often times minor league velocity readings are somewhat exaggerated (see: Williams, Jerome).

Bumgarner’s other development this season has been an uptick in his ground ball percentage. He’s added incrementally to his GB% as he’s gone up each level (A: 41.6%, A+/AA: 42.9%, AAA: 46.2%). He’s reportedly been working on a cutter this year in AAA, too. That could have an impact on his ability to coax more groundballs. Hopefully what we’ll see tonight in Bumgarner, as opposed to his brief time in the majors last year, is a pitcher that works around 90mph most of the time, has a good feel for his fastball, and (hopefully) has improved his slider. Bumgarner’s presence on the roster should also mean an end to the phrase: “Todd Wellemeyer, starting pitcher.” and that’s never a bad thing for a team with playoff aspirations.

Also, Buster is catching tonight. Hallelujah!

Stepping aside from whether or not it’s normal for a 20-year-old to lose 4-6 mph on his fastball, we should ask the question, does velocity really matter all that much for a pitcher? I took this chance to continue my scatter plot kick of late to try and find out. I took every starting pitcher in the majors that tossed at least 100 innings between 2008-09 and then plotted their average velocity on their fastballs by their FIP. All data was pulled from FanGraphs.

A quick note of procedure, I omitted Tim Wakefield from the numbers because as a knuckle-baller, he’s his own creature. He rarely throws a fastball — 10% of the time on average — and when he does, it’s closer to BP fastball at 72 mph. Also, this isn’t meant to be a final statement on velocity and pitcher quality, but more of a sketch than the final word. Quick and dirty.

The graph’s results should be pretty self-explanatory. The harder a pitcher throws, the more likely he is to strikeout hitters, which means less chances for his defense to muck things up. I’m not sure if FIP is the right way to go about this, since it’s already rewarding guys who strike hitters out but I wanted to remove defense from the equation when trying to value a pitcher. I’m open to any suggestions. Still, I think the graph does make a good point. Throwing hard is almost always going to help your average starting pitcher. There are some exceptions: Johnny Cueto of the Reds is a hard-thrower, on average his fastball was clocked at 93.4 mph, but his FIP of 4.9 isn’t particularly appealing. Clearly, velocity only does not a pitcher make. But, overall, we can see that a relationship does exist. It’s  not the only relationship (I assume batted-ball types, control, other pitch-types, LOB%, etc. come in to play) but throwing hard does have it’s advantages.

Two guys I wanted to note are Mike Mussina and Jamie Moyer. Neither throw hard: Mussina at 86.4 mph and Moyer at 81.2 mph. But, should we hold them up as examples for Bumgarner? I don’t think so. Mussina and Moyer might not throw hard, but unlike Bumgarner, they’ve got diverse repertoires. They both have at least 4 pitches — maybe more — that they can use against hitters. Mussina’s curveball was rated well by FanGraph’s pitch-type values, as was Moyer’s changeup and cutter. Bumgarner has been able to locate his fastball well, and there is some deception in his delivery, but the pitch becomes a lot less sexier with the drop in miles-per-hour. Outside of that particular pitch, Bumgarner is still learning to throw his slider and his changeup is a 3rd best pitch in a predominately 2-pitch arsenal.

It seems to me that unless Bumgarner can regain some of his lost velocity with his current set of pitches, he’s going to be in for a bumpy ride in the present. Not may pitchers can thrive off of 1-pitch in a starter’s role and Bumgarner should be no different. If his slider develops and if he can hone his change some more and if he’s healthy, then he could be starting in San Francisco sometime this season for an extended period even without the velocity. But it’s quite clear, at the moment, he should start the year in Fresno. Hopefully the Giants can figure out what’s going on in his very talented arm. If they can, we could be in for a treat.

Yesterday Giants pitchers and catchers (and a few position players, too) found their way down to Arizona for the start of Spring Training. Today is first the official day when pitchers and catchers start working out. On February 23rd the rest of the roster should start trickling in (this article notes that 24 of the 40 players on the 40-man are already in camp) with March 2nd being the mandatory reporting date for anyone not in camp yet.

Some news from the early stages of ST:

~ Aaron Rowand reported to camp about 10lbs lighter according to Andrew Baggarly. Rowand reports his weight loss due to some cycling he did over the offseason and he expects to be quicker and stronger for the 2010 season. Offensively, Rowand has been pretty much the same player in his first 2 years with the Giants, posting wRC+’s of 97 and 96 in each season. Spring Training is the time for optimism, but don’t buy too much into these stories. Everyone is in the best shape of their life, better, stronger, faster, learned a new pitch, fixed a mechanical batting flaw, etc. But players usually play like they always have.

~ Unlike Rowand, Jonathan Sanchez has packed on about 12lbs in an effort to throw harder. Hmm, I’m not sure more weight = more velocity, but if Sanchez can build off of his 2009 season, the Giants would be very pleased.

~ Freddy Sanchez states that he’s ahead of his rehab schedule but still isn’t sure when he’ll have his full range of motion back. He should be able to resume baseball activities within the next couple of weeks. For now, Juan Uribe should be in the lead for the 2B job, but the Giants could always shift DeRosa over to 2B and then move someone like John Bowker into LF. In other injury news, Travis Ishikawa is hurting from 2 torn ligaments in his left foot. He’s wearing a boot right now. Surgery is a possibility if the ligaments don’t heal. If Ishikawa goes under the knife, he could be out for up to 3 months.

~ Todd Wellemeyer is in competition with Madison Bumgarner for the 5th starter’s spot. This contradicts what the team initially said about Wellemeyer when he was signed, calling him a long reliever, but I think most expected Wellemeyer would get his chance in ST. We talked about Wellemeyer, here. He’s not very good, but he should give Bumgarner a chance to work on his secondary pitchers and/or stamina in AAA before the Giants call him up. The other benefit of Wellemeyer is that he’ll keep Bumgarner’s service time in check. Hopefully the Giants will also look at Joe Martinez or Kevin Pucetas as other possible options — both could pitch better than Wellemeyer in the full season and it’s well known that I’m somewhat of a Martinez fan.

And a quick word on Spring Training statistics: don’t worry about them. Dave Cameron of FanGraphs has a nice article on the topic of ST stats. They just aren’t predictive of anything. Things get muddy when you consider parks, sample size, level of competition, and yes, even effort.

For fun, here’s the top Giants hitters last spring by OPS sorted by 50 at-bats.

Name	        OPS
J. Guzman	1.366
P. Sandoval	1.168
A. Torres	1.077
F. Lewis	1.028
R. Aurilia	0.989
T. Ishikawa	0.929
E. Burriss	0.855
E. Velez	0.852
J. Uribe	0.734
K. Frandsen	0.717
B. Molina	0.693
J. Bowker	0.669
R. Winn	        0.628
E. Renteria	0.609
A. Rowand	0.595

We all know that Rich Aurilia went on to great success during the 2009 season!

Wellemeyer’s career stats:

Additional career stats of the batted-ball variety: LD% 19.7, GB% 40, and FB% 40.3.

I was this close to adding Wellemeyer to our post on 5th starter options a couple of weeks ago. If he had been in the post he would have been of the scrap heap variety. Wellemeyer has spent most of his career as a reliever, posting an uninspiring career FIP of 5.07 in the bullpen. In 2008 the Cardinals turned Wellemeyer into a starter and got 191.2 innings of 115 ERA+ starting out of him — or a 4.51 FIP. All told, that season was worth 1.6 wins. Last season Wellemeyer struggled with injuries and ineffectiveness, posting a 70 ERA+ vs. a FIP of 5.31. Any way you slice it (FIP, xFIP, tERA, ERA+) it was a poor season. On the way home from work yesterday I caught a portion of Wellemeyer’s interview on the MLB channel on XM Radio. They asked him about his ’09 and Wellemeyer basically said that after throwing a career high in innings pitched in ’08, his arm wasn’t ready for ’09. He then stated that he’s worked harder this offseason and is in really good shape.

Ignoring that Wellemeyer is in the best shape of his career, his ’08 looks out of line with most of his career. After walking 5.6 hitters per 9 from 2003-07, Wellemeyer chopped his BB/9 rate down to 2.9 walks. That’s a huge step to take but it regressed back to the 4′s last year. I have trouble believing that Wellemeyer really is a 3-ish BB/9 pitcher. He also posted a .273 BABIP to go along with a 76.9% left on base percentage in ’08. Both scream fluke with a return to earth in the following season, which happened. CHONE projects Wellemeyer to throw a 5.14 FIP next season in the starter’s role. It seems like a reasonable projection. If he’s more of a reliever, you can place his FIP closer to 4.75-5 depending on how optimistic you are.

Still, I don’t mind him on team. I would much rather watch 100 IP of Wellemeyer (or Pucetas or Martinez) to start the year than Bumgarner. The Giants are still stating that Bumgarner is in the lead for the final rotation slot, but I’d rather they ease him along a little more. If he shows up to camp throwing 94 mph, I’ll be less worried, but his arsenal of pitches doesn’t seem MLB ready.

It wouldn’t be totally crazy to start the season with Bumgarner in the rotation, but I’m not sure it’s the best situation, either.

The yeas would break it down like this:

• He excelled in the minor leagues
• His velo drop could be the result of his workload and not any physical issues
• The Giants think he’s ready and I’ll trust their judgment. If it’s one thing I trust the Giants on, it’s pitching

The nays respond:

• Outside of his fastball (which was a lot slower in the majors than scouting reports) Bumgarner really only has 1 pitch. It’s a terrific pitch, but it’s all he has.
• He’s yet to top 140 innings of starting in a season. Why not ease him along? Let him develop in AAA (working on pitches and stamina) and then bring him up.
• If you call him up late, you can delay his arb-clock. The Giants might have learned this the hard way with Lincecum.

I have to admit, at this point, I’m siding with the nays. It’s not completely crazy to start Bumgarner in the majors, but it’s also not completely crazy to eat a mayonnaise and broccoli sandwich. Hey, it could be good.

There are a few remaining free agent pitchers on the market — do any of them fit with the Giants? Let’s check them out. I’ve listed 3 groups of pitchers. ‘Could Be Expensive’, ‘Old and/or  Injured’, and the ‘Scrap Heap’. I think each group is self explanatory. Also listed in ()’s is the 2009 pitching stats of that pitcher.

Could Be Expensive

Jarrod Washburn (176 IP, 5.11 K/9, 2.51 BB/9, 4.58 FIP):

Washburn is most likely the best pitcher left on the market. But, buyer-beware, he’s going to need a top-notch outfield defense in front of him. In 2009, Washburn pitched 133 innings in front of Seattle’s monster defense and looked great posting a 2.64 ERA in the process. Traded to Detroit at the deadline, Washburn struggled and posted a 7.33 ERA as his new outfielders were less adept at turning flyballs into outs.  As a flyball pitcher that doesn’t strike out many hitters, whichever team picks him up should pair him with a good defensive outfield. He’s a strike-thrower (career BB/9 of 2.75) that throws a lot of fastballs. Another data point of interest from Washburn’s ’09 season is the number .244 — that’s his BABIP. We expect most pitchers to pitch around a .300 BABIP. CHONE projects Washburn as a 4.70 FIP pitcher in 2010. I can’t see the Giants bidding on Washburn. He’ll probably earn around $4-5M per season and the Giants seem to be done spending big money.

Old and/or Injured

Erik Bedard (83 IP, 9.76 K/9, 3.69 BB/9, 3.55 FIP):

There’s no denying that of the remaining free agent pitchers left, Bedard has the best stuff. But, durability and injury issues place him directly in our ‘old and/or injured’ category. When Bedard is healthy, he’s one of the better pitchers in the game. He works off of a low-90′s fastball and a tough curveball that’s given batters nightmares since he came into the league. By FanGraphs’ pitch values, Bedards curveball has been worth 58.5 runs above the average curve over his career. That’s a great pitch. Bedard rattled off back-to-back +5 win seasons between 2006-07 with Baltimore, but over the past two seasons he’s only pitched around 80 innings per year. When he’s healthy, he’s very good, but there’s a good chance he might not be ready to go until sometime in May. Because of his health, he’ll have to sign a 1-year deal. And because of his health I’m not sure he fits in with the Giants. They need someone at the start of the year that can log time in the rotation to give Bumgarner time. Whichever team that picks up Bedard and can wait for him to get back might just have one of the better bargains of this offseason.

John Smoltz (78 IP, 8.42 K/9, 2.08 BB/9, 3.87 FIP):

The 43-year-old John Smoltz could be an option for a team like the Giants that needs a veteran to hold down the fort until Bumgarner is ready. Because of his age, you can’t really expect Smoltz to pitch more than 100 innings. If Smoltz would take on a role like or not is another question, but he does fill some of the criteria for what the Giants need. His AL tenure was short, but overall he was still an above-average starting pitcher. Much like Randy Johnson, if Smoltz goes down with an injury then you can promote Bumgarner, but he should give the Giants a little breathing room. CHONE has Smoltz projected as a 4.01 FIP pitcher next year. I like the idea of Smoltz in the rotation. Do the Giants?

Pedro Martinez (44.2 IP, 7.46 K/9, 1.61 BB/9, 4.28 FIP):

Martinez is a lot like Smoltz. You can’t expect him to throw more than 100 innings, and he’s not the same pitcher he once was, but he’s still got some value. Pedro doesn’t throw in the mid-90′s any more but he’s got enough secondary pitches to keep hitters honest.

Scrap Heap

Braden Looper (194.2 IP, 4.62 K/9, 2.96 BB/9, 5.74 FIP):

Well, one thing you can say about Looper is that he’ll probably give you 200 innings of baseball and he’ll throw strikes. The former reliever had an awful season in ’09. Despite going 14-7, his underlying numbers weren’t pretty. He doesn’t strike out hitters, he’s not really a groundball pitcher, but he is durable. In this market, Looper is going to have to settle for a minor league deal. He might find his way into Giants camp but I’m not sure he’ll make the rotation. I’m also not sure he’s better than internal options. He’s in the scrap heap for a reason.

Livan Hernandez (183.2 IP, 5.0 K/9, 3.28 BB/9, 4.44 FIP):

This is the Comedy Option. I’m always amazed that year in and year out Livan manages to find work. Teams that need a warm body in their rotation always seem to pick up Livan. Livan’s numbers from 2009 aren’t all that bad. He posted a solid FIP and was worth +1.7 wins. He actually looks to be the best in our scrap heap, so why shouldn’t we be interested? First, Livan’s fastball has slowed in almost each season. In 2002 he was throwing his fastball around 88 mph, it’s closer to 83 mph these days. Second, his K/9 of 5.0 was his highest strike-out rate since 2006. Between 2007-08 Livan was striking out around 3 hitters per 9 — for a guy that doesn’t get groundballs that’s horrific. Livan’s approach is to nibble around the strike zone and let hitters put the ball in play. He mixes in a slider, a slow curve, and a changeup. He could probably throw 200 innings a year until he’s 60-years-old but the Giants can do better. Is it bad when your fastball is slower than Kirk Rueter’s best heat?

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If the Giants want to bring in FA to pitch in the 5th spot to give Madison Bumgarner more time in AAA, my first choice would be Smoltz. He offers the best chance for above-average pitching and with his age (and injury history) you can only really expect 100 innings or less — making him the perfect candidate to hold down a rotation spot for a young prospect. Ideally when Bumgarner is ready, you could shift Smoltz into the bullpen and let him work from there. If Smoltz is agreeable to this plan, he would be a fine addition to the Giants. Bedard would be nice, but with his injuries I’m not sure he fits the time table for the Giants.

If the Giants want to with internal options, I like Joe Martinez. He’s shown some GB tendencies in his career and he could fill in for Bumgarner until he’s ready. I think I much prefer him to Kevin Pucetas.

Comment Starter: Is Madison ready?

Toss in some reports of decreased velocity, and it’s been and up-and-down year for one of the better pitching prospects in the game. With Madison making his first major league start, we can get a sense of where he’s at, what he throws, and what the next step for him might be.

Let’s move on to some data.

What Does He Throw

Bumgarner has been scouted as primarily a fastball first pitcher with developing offspeed offerings. The book on Bumgarner’s fastball, to this point, has been that it’s a pitch that he can run into the mid-90′s and throw for strikes repeatedly. His slider has room for development, it’s a pitch that he’s still learning how to throw. His low arm angle, almost side-armed, will make it tough to throw quality sliders at times.

Thankfully for PitchF/X, we can go a little deeper into what Bumgarner is throwing right now. Let’s check some numbers from his first major league start.

These are the averages for Bumgarner’s first MLB start. It should be pretty self explanatory. You’ve got the pitch, how many he threw, what’s the percentage thrown for the pitch-type, the average velocity on each pitch, the average horizontal movement, and the average vertical movement.

For example: 69.7% of Bumgarner’s pitches last night were fastballs that, on average, were clocked at 88 mph.

I think the first thing that jumped out at me (and I’m sure other Giants fans) was Madison’s velocity. It looks like the reports of decreased velocity from the minor leagues are true. At times, his fastball has scouted as a mid-90′s pitch. But, in the game last night, his fastball only touched 90 mph twice — 90.1 and 90.4 mph. For most of the evening Bumgarner averaged between 87-89 mph on the heater.

It sounds like Bumgarner realizes that he’s not throwing as hard as he previously was. It’s a question that he candidly touched on in the SFGiants.com post-game wrap:

“It feels the same coming out. It’s just not reading on the radar gun,” said Bumgarner, sounding not the least bit surprised at the question. “I guess [I'm] maybe getting a little tired. I don’t feel it, but I guess that’s what’s happening.”

Whether or not he’ll get his velocity back is anyone’s guess. Is it a mechanical thing? A tired arm?

Keeping with velocity, here is Bumgarner’s velocity plot. The plot is by mph vs. pitch count.

He mostly worked in the upper-80′s with his fastball. Between 77-80 mph you get the slider and in the low 80′s he mixed in a few changeups. Around the 60th pitch of the game, Bumgarner’s velocity on his fastball dropped to around 86-87 mph.

This plot represents the data table above. This is Bumgarner’s break plot — how much each pitch he threw moved. Pitches that are on the negative end of the x-axis move in on right-handed batters. Likewise, pitches on the positive end of the x-axis, move in on left-handed batters. Because of Bumgarner’s handedness, his slider works away from LHB’s and in on RHB’s. His fastball will work itself away from RHB’s. During the game, his fastball seemed to have pretty good action, working away from RHBs with some cut. The slider still needs some work. It looked pretty flat at times, but considering the arm angle, it’s a feel pitch that Bumgarner is going to have to learn.

Location Matters

While Bumgarner’s “stuff” might have not lived up to it’s billing — his location was pretty good. Throughout the night, Bumgarner show a pretty good ability to repeat his delivery and throw strikes. Above is a location plot by pitch-type and batter handedness. When pitching to RHB’s, Bumgarner did a pretty good job of keeping the heater in the lower portion of the zone. He wasn’t perfect, you can see a pretty good cluster of fastballs up in the zone in the right-hand corner. For the most part, Bumgarner pitched in and around the zone against the Padres. When his slider missed, it either missed wide or below the zone. If you can’t snap them off perfectly, at least keep them low in the zone or out of the zone altogether.

Also surprising was the groundballs that Bumgarner induced. Bumgarner allowed 10 ground outs to 2 fly outs in the game. In AA this year, Bumgarner posted a GB% of 43, indicating that he’s not much of a groundballer. For his minor league career, he’s induced grounders at a clip of 42.3%. Here’s a plot of the location, by pitch-type, of the grounders that Bumgarner induced against the Padres. I’ll note here that only 9 of the 10 are represented. For some reason, PFX has some missing data on the 10th grounder. Grounders are labled by the bold colored dots with black trim.

Out of the 9 tracked grounders, Bumgarner got 6 of them from his fastball, the slider was responsible for the other 3.

Closing Thoughts

You can only take so much from a single start, but despite diminished velocity, I think there’s a lot to like about Bumgarner’s first career game. The heat might have not been there, but he showed a skill for throwing strikes. Even if it was with a lesser fastball. He’s still a big projectable body with a pretty damn good track record. He might have not debuted throwing 95, but I think he showed Giants fans something last night.

Still, on the other side of things, if MadBum is truly a 87-90 mph pitcher, you can probably scale back some of his projections. Without a premium fastball (at this stage in his development) he probably moves back from a front of the rotation starter to a mid-rotation starter. I think we also saw a pitcher that’s still learning how to throw non-fastball pitches. The slider looked decent-ish at times, but it’s still definitely a work-in-progress. He barely threw his changeup, and quite frankly, I have no idea how far along he is with a changeup or any other 3rd pitch. I think it’s pretty clear that as of now, his current repertoire needs polish.

Basically, it’s how I imagined a 20-year-old pitcher would look in his first start. It might not have been a 10 K game with 95 mph heat, but it was a pretty good ‘getting-your-feet-wet’ game for Bumgarner. I imagine that the Giants will start him in AAA next season. If he can regain velocity and/or work on his breaking pitches, he should be next in line for a rotation spot.

From Schulman:

Madison Bumgarner, the Giants’ best pitching prospect, is being called up to the majors today.

If it was a surprise catcher Buster Posey got a September promotion, this is even more of a stunner considering Bumgarner is two years out of high school. He was the 10th overall pick in the 2007 draft.

The Giants might want to see how Bumgarner handles himself this month because he might be a candidate for a rotation spot next year.

Leave it to Bumgarner to squash my pro-Uribe post.

First reaction … wow?

Second reaction … wow, really?

After mercilessly destroying A-ball in 2008, Bumgarner made his way to AA this year and was indeed challenged. His progression through the minor leagues looks like this:

His sharp drop in K’s combined with reports of velocity loss has had a lot of prospect watchers squirming in their seats. In all honesty, Bumgarner has no business pitching in the majors this year. Will he start tonight? Will he pitch to Posey tonight? I guess we’ll be finding out.

This is a bold move by the Giants. I’m not sure what they accomplish by calling Bumgarner up so early. Chances are, he wasn’t going to be ready for the majors by 2010 and, for whatever reason, they’ve started his arbitration clock by calling him up. By most scouting reports, his breaking stuff is still very much a work in progress. Can a wildly talented LHP survive in the majors (with reported diminished velocity) as a starter with just a fastball?

Is Brian Sabean going all in? Or is there a more logical reason for Bumgarner making the big club? I don’t like the way this story is developing. I guess we’ll get to see if the velocity reports are true, or not, now.

Wow.

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Update: Sounds like Bumgarner will be starting tonight. Tim is out with an unspecified injury. The Giants are to make a statement soon-ish.

More info from Baggs:

Tim Lincecum has a sore back. He was scratched but could return to the rotation when his turn comes up again, Bochy said. He had diagnostics and saw a back specialist. This flared up Sunday night when the team traveled back from Milwaukee. It showed improvement Monday, but not sufficient to start him. Of course, any injury to Lincecum is a “sky is falling” occasion, but at least initially, the Giants are not framing this as an ultra-serious issue.

Barry Zito hurled 7 innings of 3-hit, 1-run baseball for the Giants while striking out 6 batters and walking 5. The bottom of the 4th inning was particularly weird when Zito did the following:

Martin Prado walks. None out.

Chipper Jones called out on strikes. One out.

Yunel Escobar walks. Martin Prado to 2nd. One out.

Matt Diaz called out on strikes. Two out.

David Ross walks. Martin Prado to 3rd. Yunel Escobar to 2nd. Two out.

Casey Kotchman called out on strikes. Three out.

That’s the definition of walking a tightrope. Despite some unintelligent chatter about the Giants cutting Zito, he’s still around an average pitcher in the National League. Grossly overpaid? Most definitely. But there are worse pitchers (Bronson Arroyo, Livan Hernandez, Jeff Suppan) in the NL who are starting once every 5 days. Zito’s current WAR of 1.2 wins, puts him on pace for a season in the neighborhood of +2 wins — ie: an average pitcher in the NL.

In fact, since Zito joined the Giants, he’s actually pitching some of his best baseball this year.

Let’s check out a few of his peripherials:

A few encouraging signs for Zito. First, he’s striking out almost 7 hitters per 9 innings — a high mark since he joined the Giants. Second, after walking 5.1 hitters per 9 in ’08, he’s back to his career average for BB/9 of 3.71. Zito’s not a control pitcher, but you just can’t survive with marginal stuff when you’re walking 5+ per game.

Maybe the most important of all is that Zito is incuding infield flyballs at 11% this year — again, another high mark since he joined the Giants. It’s been proven that Zito’s IFFB% was a important indictator of his success in previous years. During his best years in Oakland he was posting rates between 13-16%. Why are IFFB’s so important? They are easily turned into outs. It’s an encouraging sign for Barry that while he hasn’t returned to his IFFB% to his Oakland days, it’s in the double-digits for the first time since he put on a Giants uni.

Zito is also leaving a few more runners on base this year and his FIP is at 4.47. FIP has never liked Zito all that much, but if he can rattle off a few 4.50 run seasons for the Giants while throwing 200+ innings a year, he’ll have some value.

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The contract the Giants gave to Zito is still a gross overpay, make no mistake, but you really can’t cut him loose without replacing him with a pitcher that can match his +2 win per year contributions. Bumgarner and Alderson are great prospects but there’s little reason to believe that they could step into the Giants rotation, right now, and throw 200 innings while being an average pitcher in the NL. And, there’s no reason to start their service clocks now when they might not be a clear upgrade for the team. You’ll be paying them in arbitration sooner and without the added bonus of getting solid production in the present.

The Giants will have Zito under contract until 2013 (a $7M club buyout for 2014 exists). If he can continue to pitch like an average pitcher, the Giants won’t cut him. He’ll be overpaid. But, like it or not, the Giants won’t cut him.

If you’re worried about Randy Johnson’s performance so far this year (his FIP of 5.92 is 2+ runs over his FIP from 2008) you should console yourself with this fact: He’s still striking out hitters. His K/9 of 9.57 is 2nd on the staff only to Tim Lincecum’s K/9 of 11.77. RJ’s mechanics have been a little out of whack this year, resulting in a BB/9 of 3.93. That’s his highest BB/9 since 1992 when he was walking 6.16 batters per 9 innings. In addition, Johnson has been a little unlucky with the longball. His HR/FB% of 27 percent is the worst among all MLB starters with at least 20 IP. AT&T has played as a neutral park for runs scored over the last few years — and it’s been one of the harder parks to HR in — and eventually RJ’s HR/FB% should regress by a good 10-12% and his numbers should improve some.

Next, Johnson will get the Mets as he tries for career win #299. The Mets team wOBA currently sits at .351. That places them as the 3rd best hitting team in the National League.

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Madison Bumgarner made his AA debut last night for the Connecticut Defenders and pitched 6 innings of 1 run baseball. He struck out 2 hitters, gave up 7 hits, and didn’t walk a batter. Bumgarner will turn 20-years-old this August and it’s possible that if he excels in AA and does a brief stint in AAA, that he could make the Giants near the end of the season as a September call-up. It all depends on how the Giants evaluate him during the rest of this year.

There’s no need to rush his development but Bumgarner continues to be the Giants most interesting prospect.

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Heading back to last night’s game for a second, it was good to see the Giants drop 11 runs on the Nationals but before you go off singing the praises of the Giants offense remember that the Nationals have horrible, horrible pitching. Their team FIP of 5.11 is among the bottom 5 for all of baseball and their 4.56 walks per 9 innings is the worst in baseball.

A few Giants hitters seem to be warming up — Winn most noted — but when your offensive outburst is the result of the opposing team walking in three straight runs with the bases loaded, you might want to consider the strength of the opponent that you’re playing. If you would have told me that at some point during this season that Pablo Sandoval would draw a bases-loaded walk, I probably wouldn’t have believed you.

Today, news is out that the Giants have promoted three of their better prospects from A+ San Jose to AA Connecticut. Madison Bumgarner and Tim Alderson — the system’s two best pitching prospects — make their way to AA and tagging along is 2008 draft pick, SS Brandon Crawford. The Bumgarner and Alderson promotions were expected but it’s slightly surprising to see Crawford get pushed up a level. Though, as a college prospect it’s not shocking.

Crawford has been excellent for San Jose. According to First Inning’s wOBA leaderboard for the California League, Crawford’s wOBA of .440 is good for 5th place in the league. Crawford has hit for power (ISO of .219) and he’s walking some (BB% of 8.4) but he’s also whiffing a good bit (K% of 26.9). His near .500 BABIP is due for some regression as well and it’ll be very interesting to see how he handles the much, much tougher hitting environment of the Eastern League. The Good News ™ for Crawford is that his defense is considered very good and at this point, there aren’t any questions of whether or not he can stick at SS. So, he doesn’t need to hit like a #3 hitter to be a very valuable player at his position. Crawford has immediately become the best SS prospect in the Giants system. AA should be a good opportunity for Crawford to work on his plate discipline. Keep an eye on him.

Something else I noticed while browsing through the California League is that Giants prospect, Thomas Neal, is having a great start to his season. Neal’s wOBA of .451 is 3rd in the Cal League and he’s flashing some power (ISO of .276). Neal has always been a semi-interesting prospect with some power potential but position issues. He’s moved between 1B and the OF where he’ll likely remain. At 21-years-old he’s not overly old for his level, but he could use a promotion this year if he keeps hitting.

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For the 7th time this year, the Giants scored 1 run or less in a game when they took a 11-1 loss to the Rockies last night. At 26 games played, the Giants have scored 1 run or less 26.9% of the time this season. Their offense is still in dead last for runs scored (the current number sits at 91 making them the only team under 100 runs scored). Giants first basemen are collectively hitting a .235 wOBA, good for worst 1B production in the majors.

Here’s the Giants rank by position and wOBA for the MLB:

Reeeetch.

The right-side of the infield is amazingly bad. Neifi Perez (career wOBA of .290) bad. The OF has ranged from average-ish to bad. SS and 3B have been adequate, even a little above average. And C is above-average. The Giants should give Ishikawa and Burriss a little more rope to play with, but don’t be surprised if the team makes a roster move at 1B and 2B in a couple of weeks. This type of production (and offense) is unbearable.

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Good news on the bullpen front, Sergio Romo is throwing in extended ST.

From SFGiants.com:

Romo has been sidelined since Spring Training with a sprained throwing elbow. But Bochy said that the 26-year-old pitched a game Tuesday without incident in extended spring training at the team’s Scottsdale, Ariz., training complex. Bochy said that after one more outing, Romo likely will report to either Class A San Jose or Triple-A Fresno to pitch and make sure his arm is in shape.

A healthy Romo would be a boost to the bullpen and would most likely knock out someone like Brandon Medders. I’m always concerned when a pitcher has an elbow injury and the Giants should take it slow with him.