I know I’ve been away for awhile but I’m back. Packing, moving, and tackling all the tasks that come with buying a house has been time consuming to say the last. But, here I am. It’s good to be back.

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Turing yourself off to Giants’ news for a few weeks and then coming back to read SFGiants.com is like being locked into a deep freeze time capsule for a few centuries. “They did what with Garko? We’ve offered a deal to Adam LaRoche? Dan Uggla? Nick Johnson? Wahhh?” It’s like waking up in the future. Except flying cars still don’t exist. And Brian Sabean’s frozen heard-in-a-jar is still the GM. It’s the year 20XX and the Giants still can’t score runs. Some things change, some stay the same.

I can’t tackle all the news I missed while I was away but I’ll talk about Garko a little.

A questionable trade just got worse. At the bare minimum, even if you don’t like Scott Barnes chances of pitching in the major leagues, I think even the most die-hard Sabean supporter would say that the trade to Cleveland that landed us Garko ended up to be a very poor use of prospect resources. Barnes, a player that would most likely still be ranked among our 10 best prospects, was cashed in for Ryan Garko. Garko, a defensively challenged LHP masher, never hit for the Giants and, as the Giants sometimes do, locked themselves into the small sample room and made a grand decision of what Garko would be going forward based on 100-something at-bats.

Garko is no prized jewel but he’s pretty close to being a +2 win player in the NL. He crushes LHP but isn’t anything special against RHP. He’s got a career wOBA of .347 and can’t play much defense at first base. It’s not that Garko would have been a key cog of the 2010 team, but why trade for a player (and using a pretty good prospect, too) when you’d rather non-tender him at the end of the year? It begs the question: if the Giants didn’t like Garko enough to tender him a contract, what exactly did they see in him last July?

Oh, and here’s the punchline: Adam LaRoche and Ryan Garko are really very similar. Gakro career wOBA .347. LaRoche career wOBA .353. And neither plays a good defensive first base. If the Giants replace Garko with LaRoche they haven’t improved the team one bit. It’s easy to say, it’s called a lateral move. Only LaRoche is going to cost more in both years and salary.

Now, back to unpacking.

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.

Ryan Garko

The 28-year-old Garko was drafted in the 2003 First Year Player Draft by the Cleveland Indians. Garko was originally drafted as a catcher but at the major league level he’s played 342 of his career 354 games at first base. So, it’s safe to say that he’s probably not going to be strapping on the tools of ignorance any time soon. By 2005, Baseball America had ranked Garko as the 5th best prospect in the Indians’ farm system. BA noted his strengths as possessing above-average power, having a short stroke to the ball, and using the entire field to hit. Negatives included poor defensive skills (at C and 1B) and calling him a “liability on the basepaths”.

As a player, Garko does a few things well, but nothing great. Over his major league career, he’s hit for some power, but despite hitting 21 HR’s in 2007, he’s not much of a power hitter. His career ISO of .167 is essentially right around the league average mark of .150-ish. His career BB% of 7.4 is right around the league average for BB%. Defensively at just under 3,000 career innings at 1B, he’s rated as a -4 run defender per 150 games played.

Against RHP, Garko is merely adequate — a career .768 OPS — but against LHP, he really mashes. Garko’s career .906 OPS against southpaws should get him into the lineup any time the Giants are playing against LHP.

To summarize: Average-ish bat, crushes LHP, below-average hitter for a 1B against RHP, and plays below-average defense at 1B.

Scott Barnes

Barnes was drafted by the Giants in the 8th round of the 2008 First Year Player Draft out of St. John’s University. Coming into 2009, Barnes was ranked as the 9th best prospect in the Giants farm system by Baseball America. Barnes works in the upper-80′s and can touch 92 mph on occasion and also sports solid offspeed offerings between his changeup and curveball. He’s got a clean delivery and a good pickoff move.

This season Barnes has continued where he left off in ’08. In 98 innings pitched in the California League for the San Jose Giants, Barnes has a FIP of 3.93. For a lefty without overpowering stuff, he’s doing a good job of striking out hitters. He’s struck out 99 in his 98 IP. And, at just 21-years-old, he’s age appropriate for his level.

To summarize: Barnes is a solid lefty pitching prospect with good (even if it’s not overpowering) stuff. He’s shown good command in his brief minor league career and solid pitching acumen.

How Much Does Garko Help Us Now?

If you read my post on Travis Ishikawa vs. Adam LaRoche, this should look familiar. Using ZiPS rest-of-season projections, let’s look at the difference (in wins above replacement) between Ryan Garko and Travis Ishikawa from here on out. The results are shockingly similar.

Ishikawa:

Batting Wins Above Average (.317 wOBA, league wOBA .332): –0.87 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: +0.8 wins
1B Positional Adjustment: –1.25 wins
Replacement Level: +2.25 wins
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= .93 wins above replacement * .4 (or 40% playing time ie: 280 PA’s) = +.372 wins over the remaining season

Garko:

Batting Wins Above Average (.350 wOBA, league wOBA .332): +1.04 wins
Defensive Wins Above Average: –0.4 wins
1B Positional Adjustment : –1.25 wins
Replacement Level: +2.25 wins
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= 1.64 wins above replacement * .4 (or 40% playing time ie: 280 PA’s) = +.656 wins over the remaining season

Garko (.656) – Ishikawa (.372) = a difference of .284 wins for the rest of the season.

Note: ZiPS has Garko projected as a .342 wOBA hitter over the remainder of the season, but we will give him a slight bump to .350 for coming to the NL.

Much like the LaRoche WAR calculations, the difference between Garko and Ishikawa over the rest of the season is only about .3 wins. At most, I’d call Garko a .5 win improvement to the Giants from here on out. Doesn’t seem like much, does it? Garko is a good hitter with average power and below-average defense at 1B. He’s been great against LHP, but the difference between Garko and Ishikawa vs. RHP is probably non-existent. Which begs the question: Did the Giants really need to trade for a platoon bat at first base? Isn’t there like 10 guys floating around the minor leagues (or are otherwise easily acquirable) who can play -5 run defense at 1B and mash LHP? For the price, Barnes seems a little steep to give up for a left-side of a first base platoon.

Something we haven’t really talked about is that the Giants will be able to control Garko for the next three years. He’ll be hitting arbitration at the end of this season and what he’ll make is anyone’s guess. Some of his past RBI totals and HR’s will be an asset for him in the negotiations.

I don’t hate this trade necessarily, but I don’t really have a great feeling about it either. The Giants add a player who’s most likely a +2 win player at first base over a full season for a promising pitching prospect. Garko’s likely to get more expensive as he goes through arbitration and that’s where the seperation between what he’s paid to what he’s worth will probably widen. What the Giants shouldn’t do, at all costs, is to try and “get Garko’s bat into the lineup” by sticking him in LF on occasion. He’s a first basemen without another position in the NL and to play him in the OF would be a really bad idea. The Giants OF defense has been one of the team’s best strengths (currently 2nd best OF by UZR in baseball) and putting Garko in LF will do more damage than good.

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I’ll keep this short: Tim Lincecum is pretty good. If you haven’t watched the following clip from Tim’s 15K game last night against the Pirates, do so now.