Sunday night linkage..
- Mike Axisa of River Ave. Blues (via Twitter) wonders if the recently released Eric Byrnes could be the Yankees' short-term replacement for the injured Curtis Granderson.
- Triple-A shortstop Chin-lung Hu may be promoted if Rafael Furcal lands on the DL, writes Evan Drellich of MLB.com. The Dodgers were reportedly shopping Hu in late March and one has to imagine that they're happy to still have him aboard.
- The Giants' patchwork job on offense may be enough for the club to make a serious run at the NL West title, says Tracy Ringolsby of FOX Sports.
- Two players in Boston's farm system who played together for quite a while will be reunited at the Triple-A level, writes Daniel Barbarisi of The Providence Journal.
Of course the Giants can make a run for the NL West…There is no runaway team.
This will be a race to the wire. I do expect the Pads to fall off but Giants, Rox, and Dodgers should all be there in Sept.
I just see no way the Giants offense holds up. Being completley unbiased, how is Molina going to continue on the pace he is on right now? That was like the guys who expected Matt Kemp to retain a 38% FB/HR ratio. Simply unsustainable. If they make a big bat addition, ok, but they cant rely on Molina, Huff and DeRosa to be the core of the offense along with Pablo..
You mention how Bengie Molina is unlikely to keep this pace up, but neglect to mention DeRosa on the flip side? Do you really think he is going to stay at a .607 OPS with a .246 BABIP? Face it, if the Giants can maintain just an average offense (maybe even slightly below average), with their starting rotation, the NL West title is a distinct possibility. On a side note, if they continue to skip Wellemeyer in the rotation like they’re doing this time around, they’re not going to need to score many runs to win games.
No, I dont think DeRosa is gonna remain that bad. However, I dont know how much of a help he will be even if he evens out like he should. He is, at best, an average hitter. 273 career average with a career 763 OPS, 96 OPS+(so slightly below average).
And after a while, they are going to have to throw Wellemeyer. And every time they do, it probably isnt going to be pretty.
Also, Zito is going to regress a lot. He has a BABIP against of just 209 and is stranding nearly 81% of base runners. His ERA and FIP are nice, but his xFIP is 4.09, which shows he is simply getting lucky early on. I mean, how far are you going to get when you strike out 6.11/9?
I see the fast start as a mirage of Molina and Zito. Hell, Cain’s xFIP is almost a run higher than his ERA right now. They are getting lucky with multiple people having lucky starts.
A better indication of what DeRosa will likely produce is his last four seasons, the only four in which he has been a full time player, when he produced 106 OPS+.
As for Wellemeyer, you might’ve missed his last start in which he gave up 3 hits and 2 ER to the Phillies lineup over 7 innings. While that’s not to say we should expect that out of him every time out, it is encouraging for the Giants that he might give them a chance when he takes the hill.
And you are flat out wrong about Zito. He has pitched unbelievably. Here’s a list of a few guys who posted a full season k/9 that started with a 6 in 2009: Jair Jurrjens, Chris Carpenter, Randy Wolf, James Shields and Roy Oswalt. Hell, Cliff Lee only struck out 6.85/9 in his cy young season. What’s actually impressive is that Zito is doing it with an average fastball 85.9mph.
Also Cain’s career xFIP is .97 higher than his career era. The Giants rotation as a whole was 2nd in all of baseball last season and leads mlb this season in your beloved xFIP.
“Being completley unbiased…”
Come on, give credit where credit is due.
I know you want Wellemeyer to do well, like the Dodgers and Haeger, but one start shouldn’t give you that much hope.
Regarding the Ks, look at one of the other replies, I don’t want to type it out for a 3rd time.
The Cain comment was just a side note, far from a reason why the Giants are bound to regress.
I have no problem with giving credit where credit is due. Hell, you have one of the best SPs in the league and one of the scariest 3B in the league… In more than one way ;)… My point is the guys who are carrying the team besides Timmy and Panda are doing it while producing unsustainable stats
6.11 K/9 really isn’t that bad. Plenty of pitchers throughout history have had great careers really never striking out a ton of batters.
I’m not saying that will make or break his career. What I’m saying that because he puts a lot of balls in play, a lot of runners are on base. But he isn’t able to get the big strikeout he needs, the batter will put the ball in play. When hitters BABIP against goes from 200 to 300, those lineouts to the shortstop become RBI singles…
You can’t argue with him….
If he said something complimentary about the Giants his head would explode. lol
He still thinks Kershaw and Billingsley is a better combo than Lincecum and Cain.
Im just saying the advanced stats paint a different picture than the surface ones… it’s not like im making up the stats…
You haven’t watched Zito…He is learning to pitch with his 87 fastball. He hasn’t just been good, he has been dominant. Only 2 runs given up to Colorado, Blanking both the Cards and Astros and giving up 1 to the Dodgers. It remains to be seen if he will keep it up or not…but I like to let things play out.
Bengie doesn’t have to keep up a huge pace. He has less pressure hitting in the 6th hole and is taking YES taking more pitches. If he falters there is Buster Posey primed to take over.
Wellemeyer is getting skipped this time around and could get replaced with Bumgarner by the all star break. Madison pitched today topping out at 94 mph while mostly sitting around 92. It is clear he came in to spring training out of shape. He got married in the off season. Definitely a learning experience for him.
I love how when the Giants win its luck but when Dodgers lose, its always “someone was hurt” blah blah…
Bottom line is, the Giants are winning and having fun while doing it. They have a great chemistry going. Hopefully they keep it up. As always, I’ll let the season play out. As you notice from my first post, I said the Dodgers will be there in Sept…
You’ll continue being a homer 😛
You’re right, I havent seen Zito pitch. Because I havent, i can only go by the stats that I have…
I’ll be shocked if Bengie is able to take pitches all year(he is seeing .5 more pitches per plate apperance this year from last). My point is there is no way you can expect him to continue this when his BABIP is 344, when his career BABIP is just 278. And do you expect Posey to waltz in and dominate the majors? Almost no prospects do that, especially catchers on offense.
Like I said with Bumgarner, if his velocity is back, thats great. But Im waiting for more than two starts when he struggled for a year with velocity… For the Giants sake, they hope it was just a learning experience..
With the Dodgers, they were simply horrible on the road. TBLA, a dodger blog, does weekly roundups and this week Matt Kemp had the 4th highest OPS… at 552. We simply werent scoring runs on the road. They came back home, and killed the Pirates. Honestly, I thought it was the lack of Manny, but then they show they dont need him.. Im confused haha
I cant comment on whether the Giants are having fun, but they are winning. Im just pointing out that their best players this year..besides Lincecum who is absolutely insane.. see, something nice ;)… are all being lucky compared to career norms, or in Zito’s case, his last few years.
It’s cool….I really don’t take your posts seriously anymore anyway. I just like talking baseball.
You always take the past couple years stats and hold them against the Giants but never the Dodgers. You said before that Bills would be great this season, but so far has only pitched 6 innings twice and has been blown out a couple times. You said Russell Martin would come back strong and he is hitting .267 so far.
Zito has re-invented himself. Players do that. Rick Ankiel failed as as a pitcher but became a pretty decent OF. Sanchez since his no hitter has become much more confident and it has shown so far this season. Players can get better…I should say GIANTS can get better. Will it hold up? We’ll see….I would have never guessed the Rockies would come back from as far down as they did last year but it happened.
I also hope Ned calls out Kemp again so he’ll be wanting to sign elsewhere when he becomes a FA….namely with us since Rowand aka “Gamer” will be gone! Even if he doesn’t sign with us…”Gamer” will still be gone 🙂
Well here’s a quote from Saturday’s SJ Mercury News following Zito’s Friday start that points to one of his remarkable “career norms” that might be pertinent to this discussion:
“The Giants came up with the perfect formula: Zito and run support, which have always been a potent combination. The left-hander now boasts a phenomenal career mark of 107-6 (22-2 as a Giant) when he gets four or more runs of support, and this latest performance ran his record to 4-0 in April.”
This suggests a possible correlation between Zito’s performance this year and the extra teensy bit of Giant offense (along with his [gasp] “reinvention”).
Also, as a sidenote to the Bumgarner discussion, don’t forget that besides getting married, he also tragically lost his half-sister in February – which could conceivably explain his being “out of shape” and poor mechanics this spring.
Baseball analysis sure can be complicated and speculative … but that’s why we love talking about it.
I didn’t know those stats about Zito, but it makes sense(especially when he was one of the best SPs in the league in Oak). When a pitcher is given good run support, they can just throw their game. My point is what happens when that run support vanishes and his BABIP goes back to about 300? Its not going to be pretty.
And, c’mon, that’s a huge stretch with Bumgarner. Maybe you could say the out of shape part, but the mechanics? And no one has still been able to explain the lost of velocity for a year…
Hilarious. Really. But you might have heard of this guy, Buster Posey? He’s supposed to be pretty good. And he’ll no longer be eligible for super two status at the start of June… which is historically when Bengie Molina starts to slump, no doubt owing to the stresses of catching combined with his body type. The Giants can save themselves a lot of money, and gain a lot of production, by transitioning from Molina to Posey mid-season, and keeping Bengie well rested down the stretch by making him the backup.
Yes, I am well aware of Posey. My point is how can you expect any prospect to come up and destroy the majors?
Also, the hot start by Molina could easily be enough for the Giants to continue playing him, hoping hed recapture the early season magic…
Short answer, Mr. Axisa, no. I know you’re no dummy. After a week in New York, Byrnes would probably be hung from the top of the foul pole.
You could walk into New Yankee stadium, relieve yourself in left field and what you left would outplay Byrnes.
I can’t lie, I would love the Padres to win the division. It would do their organization some good even though they still wont have the money to sign gonzalez.
Lars Anderson and Reddick are actually reuniting at the Triple A-level, not AA-level.