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Filed under: Omar Vizquel | Tags: injury, Kevin Frandsen, Omar Vizquel, ray durham, speculation
I know that doesn’t seem like a lot but for any player in their 40’s this has to be taken as a sign that things aren’t going to get better.
From the Chronicle it sounds like Kevin Frandsen will get the majority of playing time at short until Vizquel comes back, which is April 8 at the earliest. That’s the team’s eighth game and the second game of a home stand against the Padres.
Chris over at Bay City Ball has already discussed the impact on team defense, but what worries me is how this will affect Sabean’s ability to move players at the deadline.
One of the keys of the season was where Frandsen and Ray Durham would find playing time and how much Sabean could get for the elder second baseman if he turned it around. Richie Sexson? A new Kayak for the dog?
But with one fewer players in the mix to start the season Sabean may just stay with what he has. The only other middle infielders on the 40-man are Eugenio Velez and Travis Denker. Velez had 32 games at short in 2006, is listed at short on the 40-man and is preping for a super-utility role, so he might see some time early in the season. Denker hasn’t played short professionally.
If Vizquel is still showing signs of the injury in June does Sabean keep from pulling the trigger on Durham in July? Probably. He also probably has no shot to trade Durham because there isn’t much market for an aging middle infielder who has fallen off a cliff.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: dan johnson, dan ortmeier, mlb trade rumors, Transactions
MLB Trade Rumors, which is like crack this time of year, is reporting that Mike Sweeney is set to sign with the A’s (from this Susan Slusser post). Does it make me a bad Giants fan that I had to think for a quick second whether he was Kansas City Sweeney or our former Sweeney? I’m sure their own mothers forget sometimes.
But Mr. Dierkes kindly points out that if Mike makes the team (it is only an unconfirmed minor league deal) that could mean the end of Dan Johnson and suggests Mays Field as a possible landing spot.
Johnson would be taking at bats from Daniel Ortmeier, Professional Starting First Baseman. In 62 games with the big club he hit .287/.317./497, better than his numbers at Fresno (.262/.333/.430).
Despite the level of success with the Giants last year PECOTA has Ortmeier down to slug only .398 next year with an OBP of .311. That wouldn’t be fun for anyone.
Johnson’s main strength would be his ability to get on base. In just over 1,000 career at bats Johnson has an OBP of .344. Player who will be on the Giants this season who did that last year: Rowand, Aaron; Winn, Randy; Lewis, Fred.
He was picked in a BP piece last month as a breakout candidate and PECOTA has him pegged at .254/.355/.416 (Looking at other projections those seem like the midpoint). The only Giants in the PECOTA projections with an .OBP of .350 are Ryan Klesko and Barry Bonds. So, yeah …
But what really took me by surprise were their ages. Johnson at a seasonal age of 28 is only one year older than Ortmeier.
The only thing that concerns me is there may have to be some discussions with Oakland to get Johnson across the Bay. I’m worried that even if Johnson is released outright Sabean could end up losing Noah Lowry and purchasing a time share in Cabo simply asking Billy Beane for the first baseman’s phone number.
But this so wildly speculative and ahead of time it will mean nothing in seconds. God bless the internet.
And just for good measure, Scott Willamson.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Baseball Musings, Doom, Giants Cove, projections
David Pinto at Baseball Musings reached the Giants in his series of projecting team offense using his lineup analyzer tool and ZiPS projections. I can only hope his family was shielded while it ran.
The outcome? An average of 3.99 runs a game, or around 645 runs for the season.
Over at Giants Cove PECOTA is the poison of choice but the outcome isn’t much better.
Me? I’d like to see a historically bad offense, something our children will ask us about when they feel they’re old enough. We’ll startle for the briefest of moments but before those young eyes can sense our disquiet we’ll turn slowly and look out an open window. The breeze will blow slightly, unsettling the drapes and creating a nearly silent rustle.
We’ll stare back down at the child — our child — and the images will pass by our eyes in such a blur we nearly fall off our chair. The sound of a ball smacking the leather of a catcher’s mitt suddenly makes it all come back. We jump. The child screams in surprise. The seal has been broken now. They know something terrible is hiding behind our minds. Something unspeakable, but something they know they must hear.
Both quiet, both vulnerable now, we take the child by the hand, searching our mind for how to start. Then it all becomes clear.
“Once there was a man named Brian Sabean … “
Watching your favorite team disintegrate around itself is a surreal experience. After years of watching the Giants contend in someway, including the delusion last March that maybe if things fell the right way this wouldn’t be a terrible team, this offseason has been bleak.
Even my mock outrage at the Aaron Rowand signing was based around one premise: Who cares, this guy can’t help us get to .500 anyway.
The Giants have reached the pit of despair filled with the Pirates, Royals and every team in the AL East spending less than $150 million. They are already out of contention and with the plan in place it will take years for that to change.
My biggest pet peeve while waiting for this season to start has been Chris Haft’s desperate pleas for a receiver with some veteran savvy. He repeated that again in his roundup recently of the 2008 bullpen.
Yes, the Giants relievers lost a National League high 33 games, had the lowest relief winning percentage (.377) of any major league team. They also finished third in the percentage of their losses to come from their bullpen at 36 percent. But these really tell only half the story.
The Giants had a terrible offense last year, which created a lot of games where even if the pitching was fantastic the game was close (see Cain, Matt). That isn’t the bullpen’s fault, and the high number of losses and poor record are a direct reflection of that.
In the seventh inning and beyond the Giants gave up 233 runs last season. The National League average was 238. That includes some innings by starters but the majority was the bullpen. Meanwhile the offense scored 204 runs, 33 below the NL average.
Yeah, the bullpen wasn’t great, but the offense was worse and overall the team the terrible which makes not great acceptable.
Haft seems to knock the youth of the current group as much as anything which is where I think he misses the point. As I said above, this team is not going to contend. Signing Scott Linebrink doesn not change that fact.
I started thinking though, does that mean that you only add players that will push your team over the edge? Obviously thats not the case, but I could see myself starting to think that way. I that case there’s no reason to sign anyone because no one player can make that much diference.
But when you start planning for the the future those little individual choices pay off. Seeing that you’re close and signing Ivan Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez makes sense.
Bringing in an older player who may contribute a little now but have no effect on the next Giants contender is worthless. But stacking the pen with young players who the Giants can build value in makes sense.
There is no curerncy greater in major league baseball than proven major league talent. Giving innings to a reliever this year who can be flipped later on down the line will help build a stronger team, whether that player is here or not. That is taking the resources you already have and making them more valuable instead of paying above market value for a proven commodity.
So give the young guys a chance. The more innings on the back of that baseball the card the more chance there will
On some odd level this feels like it validates my entire existence as a baseball nerd.
I am somewhat sad I came to it through a Dodgers blog. But Baseball Toaster comes before Fire Joe Morgan alphabetically in my Google reader.
Filed under: Matt Cain | Tags: Buster Olney, development, Matt Cain, mental
Buster Olney has a great post where he simply posts a bunch of different opinions of unnamed insiders on Matt Cain.
The general consensus is that Cain is great, needs to not try and strike everyone out and that the losing in San Francisco may soon rot out his soul from the inside out.
It’s common knowledge the Giants will not have an offense able to compete for quite a while. So even though Cain is locked up for a while he may not have a chance to pitch on a lot of contending teams.
My thoughts have focused on how can the Giants maximize the years they do have Cain and Lincecum under control and compete the most. But what surprised me is how many of those Olney quoted were concerned about how the losing would affect Cain mentally.
I think part of this boils down to the old ‘You nerds need to get out of the basement’ argument. My worry was that the Giants would waste Cain’s performance on losing teams, not that the losing would somehow affect Cain himself.
Considering that one of the knocks on Cain is that he tries too hard to strike everyone out, maybe he is trying to win the game on his own. If losing is forcing Cain to change his strategy as a pitcher then maybe it’s a valid argument.
But I can only hope the Giants coaches can find ways to keep Cain’s head on straight while he and the team grow up together. While Cain is great most of Olney’s commenters point out he could grow into a No. 1 starter. There is still room for him to progress.
Hopefully I’m just making something out of nothing. Cain is a professional and while losing is frustrating on a competitive level it shouldn’t stop him from developing into the pitcher we all hope he can be.
But it will be interesting to watch is how he handles a second-consecutive year of poor offense.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: David Tyree, Eli Manning, football, Oh My God, Super Bowl XLVI
This has nothing to do with baseball, the San Francisco Giants or statistical analysis. But I just can’t stop watching it.
My favorite part is still when all Troy Aikman can say is “Oh my God.”
