RSS Feed
Filed under: Uncategorized
… the highest-paid relief pitcher of all time.
Oh, Sabean. To think he got an extension AFTER signing this contract. Sigh.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Sunday Barry Zito capped off what may be the worst month of his career with the worst game of his season.
Zito allowed eight runs in three innings in a complete disaster of a game. He walked three while striking out only one, picking up -.429 WPA. The Albatross now sits 0-6 with a 7.58 and the grim spectre of 20 losses staring him straight in the face.
The reasons for Zito’s lack of effectiveness have been well documented. His fastball is sitting at around 83 mph and he’s lost velocity on all of his pitches. His K/9 rate has dropped from 8.61 in 2001 to 3.45 so far this year.
I’ve been digging through his stats – his peripherals, splits, tea leaves – trying to pick up any other causes and there are a few odd things. His batted ball rates (line dive, ground ball, fly ball and HR/FB rates) are all within his career norms. I expected his line drive rate (19.6) to have skyrocketed with lessened stuff but it’s actually lower than last year.
And that makes his .346 BABIP seem a little fluky. Zito has always had lower than expected BABIP and so far this year it’s almost .030 more than expected. He has given up 41 hits in 28.2 IP. Below is Zito’s H/9 since 2004
H/9 2004 9.13 2005 7.29 2006 8.59 2007 8.33 2008 12.86
So Zito has been somewhat unlucky but he hasn’t been helping himself out much. Fewer strikeouts mean more balls in play and more walks mean when those unlucky hits fall it hurts that much more.
Looking through the splits it’s hard to find any situation he’s done well in. What really struck me was his stats after the count went 1-2. In 38 PA batters are hitting .316 with a sOPS+ of 211. That seems to go to his lack of an out pitch. According to Josh Kalk’s pitch fx tool Zito is still throwing his weak-ass fastball nearly half the time with two strikes.
It’s been said around that Zito needs to learn to be Jamie Moyer. He needs to spend more time with his huge hook and pitch instead of try to overpower people. If his two-strike selections are any indication he’s a long way from that.
Filed under: Giants
The big to-do the last week has been Bruce Bochy’s idea to move to a six-man rotation once Noah Lowry gets back instead of sending Kevin Correia or Jonathan Sanchez either to the bullpen or Fresno.
Yesterday Nick at Giants’ Cove was none too pleased with the idea. His argument was that babying the young pitchers by about five starts isn’t going to help train their arms for when the team does need 32 starts a year and 200 IP out of them:
When and if the Giants return to a 5-man staff, starters will have to re-adjust to four days off between starts instead of the five they’d be undoubtedly accustomed to. Essentially, it’s like walking 3 miles a day in order to run 8 miles in the near future; their arms are being protected, but in exchange for the valuable ability to endure a long season.
He said the team would be better of trading some of the extra parts now and keeping Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum, the Albatross and the rest on a five-day rotation.
Overall it makes a lot of sense. Why make the two best players, those most likely to contribute to the next winning team, readjust their habits season to season?
The only problem is that the next winning team is not 2009. It’s probably not 2010 either but let’s not think about that. That means that whatever happens this year would have at least one season to be undone.
Relaxing the load on a few young pitchers this year, around 160 IP, and then bringing them back up to 180 IP next year is not a terrible thing. As long as their pitch counts are still controlled they should get some on the job experience while not taxing their arms unnecessarily.
But that’s not the only gain. I agree with Nick that trading one of the extra parts will benefit the club in the long run. But now is not the time.
Teams pay premiums for known quantities. One of the greatest tools general managers have at their disposal is playing time. Put a player in good situations and build up a history and you’ve added value they didn’t have before. It’s what Billy Beane used to do with closers. Take an unknown quantity, build up its value and then trade it off.
That’s where a six man rotation can help the Giants. By giving all six playing time the Giants are building value in each. Sabean can then trade off one at the deadline or in the offseason or whenever the value has reached its peak.
I see a six-man rotation as harmless this season and potentially a way to get more talent into the lineup. But I’m only in support if this is a temporary thing. Once the situation is figured out get back to five or hell, try a four man rotation. But for now I think this could work.
Filed under: Brian Sabean
Today I’m counting my series looking at Brian Sabean’s track record as GM of the Giants. Last time out I wrapped up my look at Sabean’s trade record so today we start looking at the draft.
There has been an image of the Giants’ draft strategy under Brian Sabean: They draft pitchers or they don’t draft at all.
The team has a reputation of drafting and developing mainly pitchers and during the team’s run of success of using free agency to get rid of as many picks as possible.
I’ll get to those topic eventually but today I wanted to start small and just see how well the Giants have done compared to other teams in finding major league talent in the draft since Sabean took over. I’m using restrosheet transaction info, Dave Studeman’s win shares database and the Lahman database to see how many win shares teams have drafted and kept during Sabean’s tenure, starting with the 1997 draft.
During that time the Giants drafted players who would generate 220 win shares in their time in the majors, with 129 coming with the Giants. That means of all the value the Giants have drafted in that time they kept 59 percent of it.
Those 220 win shares rank 24th in baseball during that time span (this study doesn’t look at players who debuted in 2007). For comparison here are the top five teams:
Team WS 1 SLN 725 2 OAK 706 3 TOR 673 4 PHI 546 5 COL 531
The Giants kept percentage of 59 percent was 19th in baseball. Again, here are the leaders:
Team WS WSKept PCT 1 MIN 272 259 95% 2 MIL 185 171 92% 3 HOU 469 407 87% 4 ATL 228 196 86% 5 TBA 417 354 85%
The Giants were in the bottom half of the league in both respects. And it wasn’t simply a lack of first round picks. The Giants had more first round picks, 18, than all but five teams. Unfortunately the team’s average position in those picks was 28th, lower than all but five teams.
Just for fun here’s Sabean’s greatest hits list, first for win shares with the Giants and then win shares overall:
First Last WS Marvin Benard 71 Bill Mueller 63 Russ Ortiz 50 Noah Lowry 30 Joe Nathan 19 ----- Bill Mueller 139 Keith Foulke 110 Russ Ortiz 74 Marvin Benard 71 Joe Nathan 66
Finally, a list Marvin Bernard can top.
Overall the Giants have been a poor drafting team in Sabean’s time as GM. Of course that’s not Earth-shaking analysis as the farm system has been threadbare for quite a while.
But why has the team done so poorly? Next time I’m going to dig into the types of players that Sabean likes to draft and see if I can’t figure out what it is about those players that keeps them from developing.
Filed under: Tim Lincecum
Before I get into today’s post a little update on the Brian Sabean series I’m working on. I’ll be starting on Sabean’s draft record this weekend. I was hoping to have it up yesterday but got called into work for an overtime shift. In a related story, my free time is worth about $200. So give me a call if you need any help around the house. I’m available.
In a surprise move Giants have actually had a bunch of interesting story lines recently. From winning five of their last seven games to the force that is John Bowker and a bullpen that gets outs, things are slightly different than I may have expected only a month ago. And even slightly different is a good thing.
But even with things changing I’m still drawn to one of the few things we all looked forward to this season, the right arm of Tim Lincecum. And while the young man is 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA if you look at the numbers he could have been better.
Lincecum has a .424 BABIP so far, compared to .295 last season. His expected BABIP is around .350 since he’s given up 23 percent line drives and BABIP is close to LD percentage plus 12 percent.
Now it’s early. His 23 percent line drives are nine balls in play. Still, just for fun I checked up the run value of a line drive (around .35 runs) and the run value of the line drives Lincecum has given up and found his have hurt his line more than one would expect.
Lincecum’s line drives have had a combine value of 4.78 runs, while the expected runs would have been 3.20. So that means even though Lincecum has a 2.25 ERA he’s been unlucky so far. His FIP shows that, coming in at a stingy 1.44.
Like I said, 16 IP isn’t really any kind of a sample to look at. But this is still fun stuff to play with, especially when it makes Lincecum look better than he really is.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Ah, the blessed off-day, a time of reflection and self-contemplation.
The Giants started the season a disastrous 1-6, confirming everyone pundit and casual fan’s idea of the team. There was no offense, Barry Zito looked terrible and the old guys were dropping like flys.
But we are now faced with a three-game winning streak. Damn you Giants! All this talk of winning with pitching, defense and base running and you go out and do it three times in a row?
Deadspin noticed by putting the team at the top of the MLB Closer with the headline “Giants Win Three Straight? That’s Unpossible!“
But before we get too cocky lets remember what this season has inspired already:
- Rob Neyer(subscription only) looked at just how bad the Giants could be, projecting what turned out to be an optimistic 70 wins.
- Baseball Prospectus took Bochy to task for his handling of the lineup late in the Benjie Molina walk-off game.
- And the Onion is even mocking this team with the heartwarming story “San Francisco Giants Band Together To Score Run.”
- And the No. 1 reason not to get excited about a three-game winning streak? The 100-loss 1985 Giants had a four-game streak.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Whoever said Benjie Molina isn’t the greatest cleanup hitter in all of baseball?
Two home runs, including a walk-off shot in the 11th, means he now owns a .600 SLG. Never mind that he hasn’t drawn a walk and his OBP sits below .300 and that he’s never slugged above .467 in a season. Benjie is a cleanup hitter and we shall all believe.
Without MLB.tv (or more specifically the disposable income to purchase MLB.tv this year) I took up the expatriate view of the game: Constantly refreshing Yahoo and FanGraphs to see how everything played out.
My favorite part of the game in a strictly observational sense was Brian Giles’ sac-fly in the ninth. Notice how Tony Clark’s single absolutely killed the Giants chances of winning, putting them below 50 percent for the first time since the second inning.
But when Giles’ got the run in by giving up the out it decreased the expected runs for the remainder of the inning to .55, meaning it wasn’t likely anymore they would get the winning run in. And with the Giants being at home the win probabilty swung in their favor again.
Eugenio Velez did a great job with a single and a stolen base in the 10th, increasing the win probabilty from 64 percent to more than 80, though the double play wiped that out.
Overall Giant pitchers came through when they needed to, lowering the expected runs in seven of the top-10 highest leverage situations. Unfortunately two of those times (the sac-fly and Kahlil Greene’s FC RBI in the sixth) scored runs. And while it’s good that Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson got out of those situations with only one run apiece it’s still never good to get to that point.
Of course the hero of the game was Molina, who came through with .404 WPA.
I’ve lost many hours of my life at FanGraphs. I’m currently wasting my lunch break sitting in a coffee shop looking up advanced Giants statistics from the first seven games.
It’s probably a lost cause. Seven games, even in BRAA and WPA, probably can’t tell you anything meaningful about the team than that they had a bad stretch of seven games. Sample size and such.
But I wanted to check and see how good the win probability and batting runs above average stats are working in such a small sample.
Currently the team has -16.95 BRAA, meaning they’ve scored around 17 fewer runs than an average team given their circumstances. It just so happens that the team has scored 15 runs fewer than the average National League team so far this season, 31 to 16.
Only three hitters have contributed positive BRAA this season: Benjie Molina (1.26), Aaron Rowand (1.23) and Tim Lincecum (0.27). Which isn’t too out of keeping with the recent Giants. Last year only five of the 14 Giants with at least 100 at bats created posiitive BRAA (Bonds, Winn, Molina, Lewis and Davis).
Of course that’s probably too harsh. The Diamondbacks last year had six of 15 players make it above average and the Rockies had eight of 13, so there are different ways to win.
But overall the stats don’t paint a pretty picture. On the stats listed in the first page of ESPN’s team offense page (AVG, OBP, 2B, HR, etc…) the Giants are below average in every category except tipples, where they have two.
Not to b discouraged tough, as I mentioned it’s way too early to start saying the Giants have proven they are one of the worst offenses in history. Yes, 16 runs in seven games is sad and disturbing and an excellent start to confirming our worst fears, but the Giants aren’t last in the majors or even in the National League.
So it could be worse. At least we’re not rooting for the Tigers (15 runs in six games) or Rockies (12 runs in seven games). Man, that would suck.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Previously in the series:
Brian Sabean: The Trade Record, Part I. Brian Sabean Trade Record Part II: The Failures.
Today is the last post looking at Sabean’s trade record. With the best and worst trades out of the way I wanted to look a little deeper at the trends that have appeared, at least dealing with talent at the major league level. As I have in the other parts I’m using Dave Studeman’s win shares database, restrosheet transactions files and the Lahman database to pull out win shares numbers for Sabean’s trades.
Early on Sabean developed a reputation as a great negotiator. As I found, four of his five most successful trades came by 1998. In that time he picked up players such as Jeff Kent, J.T. Snow and Robb Nen. These players, along with the ever-present Barry Bonds, would help lead the Giants to the World Series in 2002.
But more recently that shine has faded. Highlighted by the deal that sent Joe Nathan, Boof Bonser and Francisco Liriano to the Twins for A.J. Pierzynski, Sabean has yet to recreate his early successes. It may be that he is a little gun-shy since the Pierzynski deal. Since then he’s really only had two deals that brought a starter over, those being for Randy Winn and Shea Hillenbrand (Unless of course you count Steve Finley. I’d rather not count Steve Finley). One of those turned out great but was tainted by an extension paying for a career year and the other, well, the other will be showing up in a future “Failures” post. Here’s the list of all players Sabean has traded for since 2004:
Leo Estrella Wayne Franklin Ricky Ledee Dave Burba LaTroy Hawkins Doug DeVore Randy Winn Dusty Bergman Steve Kline Steve Finley Vinnie Chulk Shea Hillenbrand Mike Stanton Travis Blackley Randy Messeng Rajai Davis
Not exactly a distinguished group. But of course what you get is dependent on what you give, and the Giants haven’t had a lot of tradeable assets recently. Though much of that lies at the feet of Sabean’s free agency and draft policies, which we’ll start digging into next week. The fact is that for whatever reason the Giants haven’t been getting much production from their trades recently, at least at the major league level. Take a look at the win shares generated by year from players Sabean has traded for:
Year WS 1997 97 1998 97 1999 99 2000 139 2001 103 2002 136 2003 87 2004 77 2005 37 2006 52 2007 31
The number starts out high because of the Kent and Snow trades and peaks between 2000 and 2002. In the World Series year 15 players that had been acquired by trade made contributions, including the starting center fielder (Kenny Lofton), the closer (Nen), two starting pitchers (Jason Schmidt and Livan Hernandez) and 3/4 of the infield (Kent, Snow and David Bell).
Last year only five players Sabean acquired by trade earned win shares and only one, Winn, was a starter.
So what’s this all tell us? Sabean has gone from the crazy dealer who sent Matt Williams to Cleveland to the guy who tried to get by with Shea Hillenbrand. From someone who will take chances to find starters such as J.T. Snow to someone who basically deals for backup outfielders, middle relievers and to move bloated contracts. Nothing in his record in the last five years shows he has the ability he came into the game with or that he’s willing to take chances to improve the team through trade. Whether that means the game has passed him by or that years of poor talent-management has left the cupboard bare is hard to tell, though betting on both is probably the right answer.
With his new contract Sabean has two years to prove he still has the ability to be a major league general manager and trading will be a major part of that. There are rumors out now that the team is active shopping all of its veterans and has kicked the tires on young first basemen such as Scott Thorman and Dan Johnson. I’m not ready to give up on Seabean’s ability to get a good deal, but he’s running out of time to reverse a very poor record.
Welcome to part II in my way-too-long look into the transaction history of one Brian Sabean. You can find part I here, which deals with his trade successes. Today lets wallow in what might have been.
1. July 31, 1997: Traded Ken Vining, Brian Manning, Lorenzo Barcelo, Mike Caruso, Keith Foulke and Bobby Howry to the Chicago White Sox for Wilson Alvarez, Danny Darwin, and Roberto Hernandez.
This isn’t usually brought up among Sabean’s worst deals but the numbers say it is, so let’s take a look.
The 1997 Giants weren’t supposed to be that great, with even Sabean saying before the season that a winning record would be a success. But at the time of the trade the Giants were in first place, though they had just lost five of their last seven and gone from being up four games in the West to 0.5 games.
Alvarez, Darwin and Hernandez added nine win shares down the stretch, in theory helping the team to three extra wins. The Giants would win the division by two games.
Now these aren’t win shares above bench so it can’t be said that the team would have finished lower without the trio of White Sox, but the Giants did make the playoffs for the first time since 1989 so in many eyes it was worth it.
What killed the Giants in this deal was that both Hernandez and Alvarez were free agents after the season and both choose to leave. So they did their job in the second half (well, Hernandez anyway, who was the only one of the trio to have an above-average ERA+) but never put on a Giants uniform again.
It’s always funny to look back at prospect-dumps after the fact and feel superior. The Chronicle wrote “The key man in Thursday’s swap for the White Sox may well have been shortstop Caruso, who is thought to be a prime major league prospect.” But as it turned out the keys were a pair of relief pitchers.
Keith Foulke earned 68 win shares with the White Sox while Bobby Howry picked up 34. Caruso added 18 but eventually only played 281 major league games in three seasons.
So would the Giants have been better off not doing the deal? Foulke had a 127 ERA+ and 1.15 WHIP in 28.7 IP with the White Sox that year, then WHIPs of 1.08 and 0.88 the next two seasons. It’s hard to say he would have been more valuable than Hernandez in 1997, but considering they gave up control of a player that was already capable of contributing at the major league level for a player who would leave in one season you have to ask now if it was worth it.
But the big part of the deal was the starting pitching. The ‘97 team prominently featured William Van Landingham and Osvaldo Fernandez with Foulke himself getting eight starts from May to July. So while Alvarez only had a 4.48 ERA in his time with the Giants he significantly out-pitched his predecessors.
So maybe it was worth it to get into the playoffs, despite the eventual sweep to the Marlins. And as we saw before the team already had a closer in Nen so Foulke would have been a setup man at best. Either way, this trade stands as the one where Sabean gave up the most productive seasons.
Total Damage: -107 win shares.
2. Nov. 14, 2003: Traded Francisco Liriano, Boof Bonser and Joe Nathan to the Minnesota Twins for A.J. Pierzynski and cash.
The only pitcher Sabean has traded who has been successful elsewhere is Keith Foulke, now with the A’s. Foulke was part of a trade that brought Wilson Alvarez, Roberto Hernandez and Danny Darwin in July 1997, which helped the Giants win the division.
– Glenn Dickey, March 22, 2003
That statement would officially become dated less than eight months later.
The 2003 Giants won 100 games and then lost in the first round to the Marlins. Two of the scapegoats of that series — Jose Cruz Jr and Joe Nathan — were never heard from again. At least not in San Francisco.
Nathan was coming off a season where he had thrown 79 innings with a 2.96 ERA. On the other side Pierzynski was expendable for the Twins because he was entering arbitration and the team had Joe Mauer waiting in the wings.
Here’s what Sabean had to say at the time of the trade:
“While it didn’t necessarily come easy giving up Joe, we feel we’ve got alternatives within the organization and in a market that’s going to be flooded with possibilities. It’s not often you can send a reliever and two prospects away for a front-line, All-Star, left-handed-hitting catcher.”
The Giants leaders in saves in 2004 and 2005:
Year Player Ag G ERA W L SV 2004 Matt Herges 34 70 5.23 4 5 23 2005 Tyler Walker 29 67 4.23 6 4 23
After those seasons the Giants would go out and buy Armando Benitez and we all know how well that turned out.
As for Pierzynski, the man was hailed as the Giants solution at catcher for the next three years. From Bruce Jenkins the day after the trade:
Moving swiftly and boldly, in his usual fashion, Giants GM Brian Sabean crossed a major issue off his list with the acquisition of A.J. Pierzynski. Like Benito Santiago, Pierzynski is a respected catcher, a character and a strong clubhouse presence. He’s also in his prime, with two . 300 seasons behind him. Giants fans won’t miss Joe Nathan, about to experience the horrors of Metrodome pitching, or a guy named Boof Bonser (seriously), who went a combined 8-12, with a 3.87 ERA at two minor-league levels. It’s a steal …
But Pierzynski lasted only one season, getting released just over a year after the trade. Why did the team give up on a player that just a year ago it traded two pitching prospects and a future all-star closer for? Well, maybe things such as this, once again from Jenkins:
During a Giants exhibition game last spring, Pierzynski took a shot to his, shall we say, private parts. Trainer Stan Conte rushed to the scene, placed his hands on Pierzynski’s shoulders in a reassuring way, and asked how it felt. “Like this,” said Pierzynski, viciously delivering a knee to Conte’s groin.
This would all be bad enough if the trade had been Nathan for Pierzynski straight up, but the trade also included Boof Bonser, who threw 173 innings for the Twins last year, and Francisco Liriano, who is nearly ready to return after posting an insane 2006.
Total damage so far: – 76 win shares. But this is definitely No. 2 with a bullet.
3. March 24, 2003: Traded Livan Hernandez, Edwards Guzman and cash to the Montreal Expos for Jim Brower and Matt Blank.
Our last trade included a scapegoat from one playoff series loss and so does our next. From the Chronicle the day after the Hernandez trade:
There are myriad reasons why it made sense for the Giants to trade Hernandez. They include the financial albatross of his 2004 contract option, a decline in performance since his 17-11 season in 2000 and fears that his Game 7 loss in the World Series cast a pall over his future.
Hernandez was due around $6 million in 2004 if he pitched 217 innings and in 2003 he would throw 233.3. So the Giants paid $3.2 million of his $3.5 million salary for 2003 and sent him to Montreal for whatever they could get, which turned out to be Jim Brower.
But money wasn’t the only issue. Hernandez had lost game 7 of the 2002 World Series and it was no secret the Cuban native hadn’t really agreed with the trade that sent him west in 1999. So the Giants shipped him off and no one really batted an eyelash that a player who would throw nearly 500 above-average innings over the next two years (to be fair, it was the best two-year stretch of his career) was gone with almost nothing to show for it.
Hell, the Giants had Kurt Ainsworth and Jesse Foppert ready to go. Why worry?
Total damage: -28 win shares (the trade that brought him to San Francisco was worth 25, fwiw).
4. Dec. 17, 2002: Traded Russ Ortiz to the Atlanta Braves for Damian Moss and Merkin Valdez.
Done in the same offseason has Livan, Ortiz was also a cost cutting measure:
Sabean termed his decision to trade Ortiz a “brutal” but necessary step to reduce payroll after retooling the offense by signing Ray Durham, Edgardo Alfonzo and Marquis Grissom. With those additions, the Giants had 16 players signed for $73 million, leaving only $2 million to spend on the rest of their 40-man roster
Good times.
At the time it appeared the Giants were trading a top young pitcher for an up-and-coming rookie and some dude who didn’t know what to call himself (Manuel, Marvin, Snatchwig?). Turns out it was really the last two productive years of Ortiz’ career for the roting corpse of Moss and … well, we still don’t know.
This trade is also famous for being the basis for the acquisition of Sir Sydney Ponson, who would never have been needed if this trade had worked out.
That’s where we’ll stop for now. The rest of the bottom of the barrel is full of trades of prospects for relief pitchers and backup catchers and the like. Though of the ones that will skipped over for now the loss of Jeremy Accardo may son give me something to write about in the fifth position.
