Thursday, March 28, 2019

The San Francisco Giants Open the 2019 Season!

Madison Bumgarner, L, 29
The most visible Giant, for his contract status and his pitching

Dereck Rodriguez, R, 27
Last year's breakout rookie is no kid no longer; it's time to shine

Derek Holland, L, 32
The Giants' unheralded pitching ace in 2018 earned this spot

Jeff Samardzija, R, 34
Has looked strong this spring: keep your fingers crossed

Drew Pomeranz, L, 30
A fine pitcher from 2014-2017; was last year just a fluke?

Will Smith, L, 29
Inning-for-inning, the team's most effective pitcher last year

Tony Watson, L, 34
Took over the "Affeldt role" and played it exceptionally well

Reyes Moronta, R, 26
Cut down on the walks and we could have a closer here

Mark Melancon, R, 34
Seems to have settled into a late-inning, possible setup role

Nick Vincent, R, 32
A career 1.11 WHIP, 9 K/IP, 4/1 K/BB, with bad teams. Why not?

Sam Dyson, R, 31
Was the closer two years ago, now one of five righty relievers

Travis Bergen, L, 25
Third lefty in the 'pen is a rookie making his MLB debut

Trevor Gott, R, 25
Appeared in 19 forgettable innings for Washington last year

Johnny Cueto, R (DL), 33
If the TJS was successful, presume he'll be back in 2020



Buster Posey, c, 32
Can a repaired hip return this HOFer to the MVP level?

Brandon Belt, 1b, 31
Everyone's watching Buster, but a healthy Belt's the key to this lineup

Evan Longoria, 3b, 33
It's simple, really; he has to re-learn how to go deep in the count

Brandon Crawford, ss, 32
The one 2018 regular who did not spend significant time on the DL

Joe Panik, 2b, 28
Looking good in the spring; how will he look in the summer?

Steven Duggar, cf, 25
Opens season as starter, may eventually platoon

Gerardo Parra, rf, 32
No power, but brings a reputation for good defense

Michael Reed, lf, 26
He's young and he had a .453 OBP in 97 AAA games last year

Yangervis Solarte, ut, 31
He's averaged 15 homers a year, so he'll play if he can do that here

Pablo Sandoval, ut, 32
Can't explain, but the team does better when he's on it

Connor Joe, ut, 26
Giants must like him 'cause he beat out popular Alen Hanson

Erik Kratz, c, 38
Veteran trade pickup did well with Milwaukee in 2018 postseason



Well, if nothing else, it's nice seeing three lefties in the starting rotation. It's been awhile.

The cognoscenti  consensus has tabbed the Giants to lose 90 games this year, which could consign them to dead last in the NL West if San Diego gets a boost from mighty Manny Machado and Arizona isn't ready to roll over dead. On paper the upgrades from Farhan Zaidi's first winter at the helm aren't much-- Drew Pomeranz is the biggest-name addition and that's primarily because he was so awful for the world champion Red Sox last year. It's hard to see how guys like Gerardo Parra and the tongue-twisting Yangervis Solarte are measurably different from guys like Gorkys Hernandez and Alen Hanson. An awful lot seems to be riding on the notion that, having been bit by the DL viper at multiple positions all at once last year, the Giants are due for a full season of health from their infield veterans-- and that, with an outfield-by-committee, will be enough to score the 700 or so runs they'll need to contend if they get a strong year from the pitchers.

A successful Giants team this year will be a lot like an iceberg-- unimpressive above the surface, but strong and wide down below the waterline. So we'll start with the bullpen. The "Big Three"-- Smith, Watson, Moronta-- were as effective as any group in baseball last year. Newcomer Vincent brings an impressive resume. And Melancon, at full health, free from "closer" pressure, and well-rested after two years of light duty, has a real chance to start paying off that contract. Sam Dyson and the two rooks provide depth, maybe too much depth-- no one really needs 13 pitchers, even with the shift toward daily planned use of relievers, which we'll discuss in a bit.

The entertaining Will Leitch on mlb.com predicts Madison Bumgarner will not be traded, but will instead be re-signed by the Giants. We've been beating this drum for a year or so, so it's nice to have company. "Bum" is another one who's had lighter-than-usual duty for two years-- 241 innings total, which is a normal single-season's workload for him. Fatigue will not be an issue for the big guy. But everyone else in the starting rotation is a question mark. Can Dereck Rodriguez adjust, now that the league has adjusted to him? (Back in the day they called this the "sophomore jinx.") Derek Holland, after his first year in the NL, will be in a similar situation. Samardzija and Pomeranz both are in the "show me" category after disastrous seasons.

The overall trend is toward more relief pitching per game, and at the same time a slower but definite shift away from one-batter specialist relievers (there's a rule change coming, by the way). The concept of the "opener" underscores the idea that perhaps once through the lineup is best for most--that a team may be best served by planning for three to five pitchers per game, regardless of how well one of those may be doing at any given point during the game.  There will be exceptions, of course, for the Cy Young-level aces such as "Bum," Chris Sale, and Max Scherzer. But, especially at the back end of the rotation, managers may increasingly look for five innings, max. How can this help the Giants? With a strong bullpen behind them, the team's starters may find they are a whole lot more effective over five, even four in some cases, than they would be over seven. Does anyone doubt Bruce Bochy has the aptitude and experience to maximize the effectiveness of this situation? The iceberg drifts, unseen, across the bow.

With Posey, it's power. If he can drive the ball again, he's back. With Belt, it's health-- if he's well enough to play, he'll hit. With Longoria, it's walks. He needs to average one base on balls per ten AB. Minimum. If he does, watch his numbers jump. With Panik, it's left-handers. He couldn't hit them last year. With Crawford, it's still defense first. Since he won't go on the DL, he plays hurt, and when he can't make the acrobatic plays in the field you know you won't see any power at the plate. And what about that outfield? No one knows. Steven Duggar can play the position, no question, but can he wait for a good pitch to hit, and take a walk if none come his way? Will Brandon Belt move to left field when Posey moves to first base? Gerardo Parra is no Andrew McCutchen, though he's a good player. Reed, the rookie, brings good minor-league comps. Behind them are-- well, the other newcomers, Joe and Solarte, are primarily backup infielders, not outfielders, so we've generously listed them as utilitymen. It feels like sink-or-swim time for a lot of unproven talent. Is this group even as good as the outfield that was an aggregate 4 wins below average a year ago? 

It says here the National League overall, and the West in particular, will not be as strong as it was in 2018. Colorado and LA are obviously superior to the Giants as the season starts, but it's doubtful  both are 20 wins better. One is likely to win the West, and our money's on the Rockies. The question is whether a .500 Giants team this summer will be fighting for second place, or for third. The Central has Milwaukee, who jumped forward, Chicago, who fell back, and St Louis, who are likely to improve, with Pittsburgh about where the Giants are and Cincinnati a year or so away. In the East, Atlanta could easily have a fallback/consolidation year. Philadelphia, if Bryce Harper delivers a 8+ WAR MVP season, could approach 90 wins. More realistically, we see one of those two and Washington converging at about 85 wins, with two of the Central powers a few wins ahead.  And if the division leaders get way out in front, it will tend to drop the rest of the pack below .500.

Where does that leave the Giants, if they can play .500 ball into August? About where they were at that time a year ago, except the wild-card contenders will likely be fewer in number and easier to catch. And, if they can't play .500 ball past the All-Star break... well, Mr Zaidi will be asked to start earning his money.

This is Bruce Bochy's last season. No Giants manager has ever gone out a winner. Dusty Baker came close, but his final year saw so much second-guessing it almost obscured his legacy for a time. The beloved Roger Craig finished with two losing years. Herman Franks and Alvin Dark never had losing seasons in their four-year terms, but neither won a championship.  If nothing else, a strong 2019 campaign in which the Giants contend, win or lose, would avoid the last few months of the season being devoted to morbid speculation over Bochy's successor. The greatest manager in San Francisco history, retiring after a record 13 years, deserves a better farewell.


  

Friday, March 1, 2019

Snow Way This is Spring

"The Giants have spent every year of essentially the last five trying to rally the troops and squeeze one more title out of the Bumgarner/Posey/manager Bruce Bochy crew. Well, this is Bochy’s final season, and with Bumgarner a free agent after this year and a new sheriff in the front office, this is all there probably is left. Zaidi didn’t dismantle the team in the offseason, so he’s giving them one last chance. If the Giants get off to a slow start, the dismantling might begin early. But if they can hang around the postseason chase, maybe Zaidi decides to add rather than subtract. It’d sure be nice to send Bochy out a winner."

-- Will Leitch, " 20 questions that will define the NL West", 2/27/2019, at  https://www.mlb.com/giants/news/2019-nl-west-preview


It's always nice to find agreement out there. This is the same message we've been sending out since the disastrous 2017 campaign. The Giants have, for the last two years and this one, committed themselves to one more shot at the brass ring with the "core"-- essentially Buster, Bum, and Crawford-- before any serious rebuild will be considered. 

Team ownership and management know that getting to the postseason is the key-- that, as Billy Beane has long maintained, the playoffs are a crapshoot and any team can get hot and win. The Giants are proof positive, especially the 2014 team. The 2010 team, such a great outfit in retrospect, only got to the postseason because San Diego collapsed down the stretch and the Giants took advantage. The 2012 team was the best of the three, and the only one of them that could legitimately claim to be the best in baseball that year. The difference between the 2014 team, which went all the way, and the 2016 team, which didn't, was one game: 88-74 versus 87-75. And until the ninth inning of Game 4 of the NLDS, it sure seemed like the 2016 Giants had every chance of doing what the 2014 team had done.   

A lot of the weeping and wailing that has accompanied this chilly offseason has been overly influenced by September of last year, when the Giants essentially took the month off, trading or inactivating every effective position player and fielding a Triple-A team for 30 days, which went 5-21.  We forget the Giants, with Gorkys Hernandez, Steven Duggar, Austin Slater, and a declining Hunter Pence at two of the three outfield positions, were 68-68 on August 31. That's a 15-game improvement over the pestilential 2017 team, which was 53-83 at the same point and lost 98 games.

By comparison, take a look at the 2013 Giants. They were 60-75 on August 31, 2013, eight games worse than last year's team. They finished 76-86, just three games ahead of last year's team. They won the world championship the next season. And they got older, not younger. That's what Farhan Zaidi and Larry Baer and Brian Sabean are looking at right now. It's a thin line when five teams qualify for the postseason and a .500 record in July means you're a contender. They don't just know this intellectually; they've seen it played out, with this team.

Contrary to revisionist claims, the Giants did not get younger each year they won the World Series. In fact, they generally got a little older. In 2010 the big contributions were from veterans-- Aubrey Huff, Pat Burrell, Cody Ross, Juan Uribe-- plus the Rookie of the Year, Buster Posey.

In 2012, Marco Scutaro, Hunter Pence, and the healthy Angel Pagan, veterans all, balanced out against the youth of the Brandons, Belt and Crawford, and MVP Posey. 

In 2014, Joe Panik was the lone youngster added to a veteran group with a bunch of part-timers-- Mike Morse, Gregor Blanco, Juan Perez, Travis Ishikawa-- at two of the outfield positions. Sound familiar?

And while the Giants' best pitchers in 2010 were younger than the overall team age, it was the same crew in 2012, except they were two years older and 34-year-old Ryan Vogelsong had replaced then-29-year-old Jonathan Sanchez. And the whole pitching staff, starters and "Core Four", added veterans and was much older in 2014. 

So there is no recent precedent for an "influx of youth" transforming the San Francisco Giants from losers to winners overnight. There is ample precedent for an influx of veterans doing it, though.

An influx of youth means a rebuild. Houston, Atlanta, Boston, and Philadelphia know all about it. And in San Francisco, the rebuild is coming, but not yet. A year ago we had figured on 2021, but with Zaidi's arrival the timetable has moved up. It will be next year, no matter what happens this year. Except for Buster Posey, probably Brandon Crawford, and perhaps Madison Bumgarner, every position player, and every pitcher over 29 years of age, will be tradeable next winter. And the selling will begin this summer if the Giants are below .500 the last week of July.

So don't give up the ship just yet. She's getting one more chance to circle the globe.