5-3 Loss to That One Team

This was an ugly game to watch as a Giants fan. So many missed opportunities for the orange and black. And while bad defense and baserunning errors may have cost San Francisco this game, Bruce Bochy sure didn't help.

In the bottom of the 7th the Giants were down by one, 2-3. Nate Shierholtz led off the inning with a pinch hit. Fred Lewis came up to bat next with a runner on first and nobody out. At this point the Giants had a win expectancy of 44.5%.

Lewis managed to work the count to 3-2, at which point the manager had a decision to make. Should he put Shierholtz in motion or have him stay put and let Lewis swing away? Unfortunately for San Francisco fans, Bochy decided to start the runner and the bums ended up with a double play. The Giants were left with nobody on and two outs, and a win expectancy of just 28.4%. That one play made them 16.1% less likely to win the game.

The guys on T.V. hinted that the play might turn out poorly before it happened, and indeed it did. Sending the runner in this situation was a bad idea for a couple of reasons. First, Lewis has been striking out a lot. His strikeout rate is 39% so far this season, and he has now struck out six times in the last two games.

This problem was exacerbated by the fact that according to The Book, putting a runner in motion lowers the wOBA of the batter by 22 points on average. This made it even more likely that Lewis would in fact strikeout.Which is what ended up happening, and Shierholtz was subsequently thrown out at 2nd base.

While the Giants did end up tying the game in the 8th, this play was an example of bad strategy on the part of Bruce Bochy.

Twittergate Is Over

One of the funnier non stories of the season has now been put to rest by Brian Wilson himself (You can read the first part in this post). Andrew Baggarly made a post on his blog, Extra Baggs, asking Wilson to clarify the Twitter situation. My favorite quote from the whole thing is this, "Obviously I’m not doing things like going toe-to-toe with a ninja. Find me a ninja, for one." I'll let you read the rest.

I for one am disappointed that Brian will no longer be tweeting it up with random updates about ninjas and Reebok pumps, but at least we still got to watch him strikeout the side against the bums!

Last night before the game, Eugenio Velez was optioned to Triple-A Fresno and relief pitcher Osiris Matos was called up. Matos pitched 8.2 innings in Fresno, posting a 1.04 ERA and 10 strikeouts. The thought was the Giants needed some fresh relief arms after the bullpen got chewed up in Sunday's game.

Unfortunately, Velez will not be gone for long. Andres Torres tweaked his hamstring running after a pinch hit and will have to go on the 15-day DL. That means we will get to see Eugenio's softball beer league batting stance and nonsensical route running for another two weeks!

Monday Updates

Lots of interesting links today. Henry Shulman has a post over at The Splash about Brian Wilson's Twitter . Basically people are upset that Wilson is up at 12 am posting updates like this,

"i respect fighters. does that mean people who wear affliction are all fighters. you need a blackbelt right? no way this guy next to me has."

And,

"he didnt have a blackbelt. he said my hair was stupid and i said his girlfriend liked it. 38 wins. she said she liked it uhhhhhh!"

While it does sound like Wilson was out someplace in Scottsdale being a tool the night before he blew a 3 run lead in the bottom of the ninth, I find this situation more funny than concerning. 38 definitely sounds like he would be hilarious to go out with, and bullpen meltdowns happen. I don't mind if he wants to go around acting like a hardass, I just hope he can flex on people when he's on the mound as well.

Andrew Baggarly has a nice write up on some possible roster moves and the lack of work for Merkin Valdez. Valdez has completely fallen off the radar over the last two weeks. I almost forgot he was even on the roster.

El Lefty Malo also has some good ideas on which relief pitcher may be getting called up for the Dodgers series.

Nothing will ease the pain of a tough extra innings loss like a win over the bums tonight, Go Giants!

Giants Lineup According to The Book

About a week ago I went ahead and bought The Book: Playing the Percentages In Baseball. If you are interested in baseball strategy, sabermetrics, and/or how to improve your criticism of your favorite team's manager, I highly recommend reading this book. It's written by three noted sabermetricians: Tom M. Tango, Mitchel G. Lichtman, and Andrew E. Dolphin. While the writing style can be a bit stale at times, you can tell they've wasted a majority of their adult lives on baseball statistics and it has resulted in some great content for the rest of us.

One of my favorite chapters is the one on optimizing a batting order. They managed to fill thirty pages discussing the batting order in all its gory detail, a feat that is both sick and beautiful at the same time. I will not go into the great detail they do, mostly because you should buy it and read it for yourself, but I've decided to make a lineup for the Giants based on some of the principles laid out in The Book.

Here are the main points that I used to put this lineup together:

We want our three best hitters to bat somewhere in the #1, #2, and #4 slots. The cleanup hitter gets his value in his SLG, the leadoff hitter leads the team in OBP, and the #2 hitter is somewhat more balanced. The #3 and #5 hitters are the same quality, with the #3 hitter having more HR than the #5 hitter (p 144).

Try to put your good baserunners in front of good hitters, especially if those hitters are predominantly singles or doubles hitters (p 140).

The second leadoff hitter theory exists. You can put your pitcher in the eighth slot and gain a couple of extra runs per year (p 149).

Now onward with the lineup!

1. Fred Lewis - Lewis is our best OBP guy and draws the most walks. This makes him ideal for the leadoff spot. He is also a good baserunner and potentially a good basestealer.
2. Randy Winn - Winn is not a big power hitter, but he certainly has been one of our top three hitters over the bast few seasons. He will probably finish the season with an OPS in the top 3-4 on the team. He is also a good baserunner.
3. Aaron Rowand - Rowand is one of the better hitters on the team. He is probably the second best slugger behind Molina, which means he should go in the three hole.
4. Bengie Molina - Molina continues to be the biggest offensive threat on the Giants. He is the best slugger and RBI guy, so he should stay in the cleanup spot.
5. Edgar Renteria - Renteria is a professional hitter and should be one of the top offensive performers for the Giants. He will not SLG as much as Rowand though so he bats fifth in this lineup. I could see switching Renteria and Winn.
6. Emmanuel Burris - Burriss has been our top basestealer so far. This is a good spot in the lineup for a basestealer, because Pablo Sandoval is a good hitter but will probably not hit for much power.
7. Pablo Sandoval - Excellent contact hitter. One problem with him in this spot is that he has been hitting a lot of groundballs (52%), which could lead to a lot of double plays. Still I think he is a better hitter than Ishikawa so he gets the nod for the seventh spot.
8. Pitcher - Sucky no matter where they bat (Unless they're batting against Randy Johnson).
9. Travis Ishikawa - So far the worst hitter on the team. He has struggled with major league pitching throughout most of his career.

Keep in mind that the improvement you gain from optimizing your lineup according to sabermetric principles is relatively small. We're talking like 50 runs over the course of the season, which is equal to about five wins. So it's not like our lineup would all of a sudden turn into the Cardinals or the Red Sox lineup. But for a team like the Giants that's fighting to stay at .500, those five wins could prove to be tremendously important.

Lincecum Gets His First Win

It took four starts, but Tim Lincecum finally got his first win of the season on Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Giants won 5-1 as Lincecum defied the conventional wisdom that pitchers perform worse when they face the same team in consecutive starts, by going eight innings and only allowing one earned run. He struck out 12 batters to bring his total up to 25 in the last two games!

I've read in a couple of different places that some people are worried Bruce Bochy is pushing Lincecum too hard this early in the season. They cite a drop in his fastball velocity during the 8th inning as a sign he is being overworked, but that should not be a cause for concern. Timmy's fastball has occasionally dropped into the high 80's ever since he's been called up to the Giants, so a temporary drop in velocity by itself is not enough to cause alarm.

Clearly the Giants' ace has cured whatever ailed him during his first two starts. Of course pitching against the Diamondbacks' lineup can't hurt. Despite having a plethora of young talent, Arizona has not gotten off to a good start offensively. Their team OPS is a meager .674, good for 26th best in the Major Leagues.

Unfortunately for San Francisco the Giants offense has been even more anemic. Their team OPS is the second worst in the league at .667.

On Friday though, they drove in more than enough runs. The offense was highlighted by Bengie Molina's 3 run home run in the top of the 4th. This guy just continues to impress, and he is one of the lone bright spots in the Giants lineup.

I put a poll up to see who you think is the best catcher in the NL West. There are some pretty solid ones in this division, but my vote went for Bengie. Call me a homer if you must!

San Jose Giants Top Performers

Since the Giants have an off day on Thursday, I decided to take a look at how some of their top young prospects are doing with the class-A San Jose Giants. I came up with a list of four top performers.

Keep in mind that we are dealing with a small sample size here, so these statistics alone are not a true representation of the player's talent. However, all logic and reason aside the San Jose fans have seen some truly remarkable performances thus far and it bodes well for the future of the big league club. Onward with the list!

1. C Buster Posey - Not much of a surprise here. Last years fifth overall pick has looked impressive in 50 at bats with the San Jose Giants. So far he has displayed above average power, hitting three home runs and four doubles while driving in twelve runs and leading the team with 20 hits. He has shown a good command of the strike zone, as evidenced by his ten walks. Strike outs have not been a problem, Buster only has nine after 13 games. Posey's slash line is .4oo/.500/.660. That's an OPS of 1.160, very impressive indeed! The young Giant was named the CAL Player of the Week for 4/20/09.

2. 1B Angel Villalona - The 18 year old Villalona finished the season strong last year. He batted .308 while hitting five home runs and driving in twenty during the month of August for the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes. He has turned that good finish into a good start for the San Jose Giants. His rate statistics are solid, .375/.404/.583. In 48 at bats he has hit three home runs and driven in ten runs. He could improve on his walk rate, Angel has just three walks compared to seven strikeouts.

3. SS Brandon Crawford - Although less heralded than Buster Posey and Angel Villalona, Brandon Crawford has gotten off to a hot start with the San Jose Giants. He is leading the team with four home runs and 35 total bases (Buster Posey is second in total bases with 33). Crawford's slash line looks like this, .373/.467/.686. After 51 at bats he is second on the team with a mind blowing 1.153 OPS! One area of relative weakness has been Brandon's strikeouts. So far he has struck out 17 times and has only drawn six walks.

4. SP Madison Bumgarner - The Giant's prized lefty has certainly lived up to the hype in San Jose. In three starts he has been downright filthy. Opposing lineups have combined for just 11 hits against Bumgarner, who is off to a 3-0 start. He has allowed only one earned run in 16 innings pitched, that's a 0.56 ERA! Bumgarner's K/BB ratio is even better. After 16 innings Madison has 14 strikeouts and has only given up two bases on balls, for an unheard of K/BB ratio of 7/1. All of this leads one to believe that San Francisco's young prodigy has not had many runners on base, and his microscopic 0.81 WHIP confirms it.

Other players off to good starts with San Jose include Nick Noonan and Tim Alderson.

On May 9th I will be going to see the San Jose Giants play the Modesto Nuts in Modesto. Hopefully most of the top prospects will still be with the San Jose club and I will be able to give some first hand impressions.

Giants Beat the Padres, 1-0.

The San Francisco Giants ended their five game home stand with a 4-1 record after beating the San Diego Padres in extra innings Wednesday afternoon, 1-0. The win brought their home record to 6-2 this year.

Barry Zito shut out the Padres through seven innings in one of his best starts as a Giant. Zito gave up no walks and struck out five batters. Barry's performance was the fifth straight quality start by a member of San Francisco's rotation, which seems to be rounding into form.

Unfortunately for him, Zito was not able to earn a win as Chris Young matched the Giants' starter pitch for pitch. San Francisco's lineup was only able to muster two hits in seven innings against Young. In his two starts against the Giants this season, Young has managed to pitch an impressive 14 scoreless innings!

The pitchers duel lasted until the bottom of the 10th when Bengie Molina came in and hit a pinch hit ground ruled double to score Andres Torres and give the Giants the win.

After 14 games the Giants are 3-1 when they score four or more runs. They are 5-0 when leading after seven innings. Clearly this team has good enough starting pitching and a strong enough bullpen to win a lot of games if they can just score an average amount of runs. However, the lineup has averaged a meager 3.29 runs/game so far.

The team begins a three game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday, April 24th at 6:40 PM. Tim Lincecum will be on the mound for the Giants against Dave Davis.