Uncategorized – Giantspod

Episode 129: The Trevor-Ending Story

Thomas Todd — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 07:31:31 +0000

Episode 129:Â The Trevor-Ending StoryÂ

In the hundred-and-twenty-ninth episode, Thomas and DannyÂ recap the first series of the season, discuss how the Padres haven’t scored any runs, and preview the looming Bumgarner vs. Kershaw matchup.

Click on the image below to find it on iTunes:Â

You can also find it on theÂ RSS feed, or by clicking on the play button below. We look forward to your feedback, either by commenting here on the blog, emailing us atÂ giantspod@gmail.com, or ourÂ Twitter feed. Go Giants!

Episode 127: Baseball Geeks (With Outtakes!)

Thomas Todd — Thu, 24 Mar 2016 06:54:09 +0000

Episode 127: Baseball Geeks (With Outtakes!)

In the hundred-and-twenty-seventh episode, Thomas and Danny talk about Spring Training box scores, Matt Cain’s progress and the sky-rocketing value of the New York Yankees.

Click on the image below to find it on iTunes:Â

Episode 124: The Bowflex Era

Thomas Todd — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 08:01:07 +0000

Episode 124: The Bowflex Era

In the hundred-and-twenty-fourth episode, Thomas and Danny talk about the first Spring Training game, the bullpen, and Barry Bonds’ Hall of Fame case.

Click on the image below to find it on iTunes:Â

Baseball Experts Really Don’t Like the Giants

Daniel Zarchy — Mon, 31 Mar 2014 18:49:51 +0000

In the Worldwide Leader’s annual act of making-so-many-predictions-you’re-probably-going-to-get-at-least-one-right, the panel of so-called experts made their picks for MLB division winners and World Series champions for the 2014 season. The Dodgers and the Nationals were the big winners, snagging eleven and twelve votes to win the World Series, respectively. The Giants…not so much.

Thirty-eight of the 44 total experts on the site picked the Dodgers to win the NL West, with three votes going to the Giants, two to the Diamondbacks, and ESPN.com’s Michael Knisley alone sticking his head out for the Padres. The Giants won a surprising 20 votes to win one of the wild card spots. In an unrelated-but-let’s-find-the-silver-lining connection, Pedro Gomez knows Barry Bonds pretty well, and picked the Giants after watching Bonds as a hitting coach this spring. Â That’s basically a guarantee.

Just for laughs though, let’s look at how the experts did last year!Â The Tigers won 17 votes to win it all, with the Nationals winning 16 votes. The Tigers did well last year, but the Nationals, if you remember, didn’t even make the playoffs. How many picked the Red Sox to win it all? Zero. How many picked the Red Sox to even make the playoffs? Four… as a wild card.

Turning to Hardball Talk, where they actually rank who will finish where in each division, the Giants almost swept second place in the West, with only the hilarious Bill Baer dropping them down to 4th place in the division, ahead of only the hapless Rockies. Then again, at least Podcast Survivor Craig Calcaterra admitted the folly of such predictions:

Weâ€re usually way wrong with this stuff. Waaaay wrong. All of us picked the Phillies to win the NL East in 2012. We all picked the Nationals last year. Not picking the Braves is probably always madness, I have no idea. But weâ€re all likely going to all whiff on one or 24 of these picks this year, too. Bank on it.

Bill Baer, who has the clout to throw shade on the Giants fromÂ both of the previously mentioned websites, had this to say about his prediction.

Either way, expert predictions are ridiculous. We know they’re ridiculous, they know they’re ridiculous, and either way it’ll give us something to laugh at in a few months.

#NeverForget:

What if Max Scherzer Pitched for the White Sox?

Daniel Zarchy — Thu, 22 Aug 2013 15:30:15 +0000

Max Scherzer is having a very good season. This has been the best season of his career, by quite a large margin. Heâ€s missing bats, his walks are down, and heâ€s turned into one of the best pitchers in the American League. Still, the most important thing to help his case for the Cy Young Award happened four years ago: he joined the Detroit Tigers.

Scherzer currently leads the league in wins, with an absurd 18-1 record. He nabbed his latest victory on Sunday when his Tigers topped the Kansas City Royals, 6-3. In fact, Sundayâ€s game represented Scherzerâ€s season perfectly. Scherzer pitched eight strong innings, gave up just two runs and five baserunners, and struck out four batters. Meanwhile, Miguel Cabrera launched his 40th homer of the season, four Tigers doubled, and every batter who came to bat for Detroit got at least one hit.

This is not an anomaly. The Tigers have scored 626 runs this season, averaging a majors-best 5.05 runs per game. 151 of these runs have come in Scherzerâ€s 25 starts, giving him an average of 6.04 runs of support per game, the best in the majors.

For White Sox starter Chris Sale, July 27 was a representation ofÂ hisÂ season. On that fateful Saturday evening, Sale tossed a complete game, striking out seven and allowing just one run. The South Siders, however, were completely helpless against Royals starter Wade Davis and his then-5.92 ERA, and the Sox lost 1-0. Sale took the loss, his tenth of the season.

This, also, is not an anomaly. The White Sox, despite playing in an extreme hitterâ€s park, have scored just 460 runs, averaging an American League-worst 3.74 runs per game. 68 of these runs have come in Saleâ€s 23 starts â€“ an average of just three runs of support per game.

Sale has received one run of support or fewerÂ eight times, which, not surprisingly, has turned into seven losses for Sale. This is what we in the Giants fan community refer to as getting â€œCained,â€ after our own talented-but-unlucky Matt Cain (who, for instance, went 8-14 in 2008, while getting one or zero runs of support ten times). The Tigers, on the other hand, haveÂ neverÂ failed to score for Scherzer. They scored one run just once, which resulted in Scherzerâ€s only loss of the season.

Pundits for the significance of the pitcher win often say that a pitcher knows how to â€œpitch to the score,â€ or that hitters will be inspired by excellent pitching to support their pitchers. So, how common is it for a great pitcher to receive such excellent run support? Letâ€s look at some past AL Cy Young Award winners (average run support in parentheses).

2012: David Price (4.80)

2011: Justin Verlander (4.73)

2010: Felix Hernandez (3.07)

2009: Zack Greinke (3.78)

2008: Cliff Lee (5.58)

2007: CC Sabathia (5.10)

2006: Johan Santana (5.23)

2005: Bartolo Colon (5.55)

2004: Johan Santana (5.20)

2003: Roy Halladay (5.67)

2002: Barry Zito (5.91)

2001: Roger Clemens (5.74)

2000: Pedro Martinez (4.51)

1999: Pedro Martinez (5.68)

1998: Roger Clemens (4.50)

1997: Roger Clemens (4.67)

1996: Pat Hentgen (5.70)

1995: Randy Johnson (5.75)

1994: David Cone (5.11)

1993: Jack McDowell (4.97)

Receiving such ample run support is, in fact, really rare. Even in the â€œsteroid era,â€ only Barry Zito came close to Scherzerâ€s 6.04. The level that Scherzer has received this season really is historic.

The problem, of course, is that neither pitcher has any influence into how many runs their team scores for them. For a completely unscientific look at how Scherzerâ€s sparkly record would look on another team â€“ say, the White Sox â€“ letâ€s see how Mad Max would have done with Saleâ€s run support (Sale has made two fewer starts than Scherzer, so Iâ€ll just use the average of three runs per game). This does not include exactly when the teams scored the runs, or how the bullpens affected the outcome, but should give you some idea what each pitcher was working with.

WHAT IF MAX SCHERZER WERE ON THE WHITE SOX?
Date	Earned Runs Allowed	White Sox Run Support	White Sox Decision
April 6	4	1	LOSS (0-1)
April 12	1	4	WIN (1-1)
April 17	1	4	WIN (2-1)
April 24	5	1	LOSS (2-2)
April 29	3	5	WIN (3-2)
May 4	1	5	WIN (4-2)
May 10	4	2	LOSS (4-3)
May 15	5	3	LOSS (4-4)
May 21	1	3	WIN (5-4)
May 26	1	3	WIN (6-4)
May 31	3	3	NO DECISION
June 6	1	0	LOSS (6-5)
June 11	2	3	WIN (7-5)
June 17	1	1	NO DECISION
June 22	2	4	WIN (8-5)
June 28	3	5	WIN (9-5)
July 3	2	0	LOSS (9-6)
July 8	2	0	LOSS (9-7)
July 13	4	6	WIN (10-7)
July 22	2	3	WIN (11-7)
July 27	0	0	NO DECISION
August 3	0	1	WIN (12-7)
August 8	2	3	WIN (13-7)
August 13	2	6	WIN (14-7)
August 18	2	8	WIN (15-7)

What you see here is Scherzer winning most of his great starts, but taking a loss essentially every time he slips, like most pitchers.

Now, letâ€s see how Sale would have done if he had made the wise choice to have the best run support in the majors.

WHAT IF CHRIS SALE WERE ON THE TIGERS?
Date	Earned Runs Allowed	Tigers Run Support	Tigers Decision
April 1	0	8	WIN (1-0)
April 7	3	3	NO DECISION
April 13	8	2	LOSS (1-1)
April 18	2	7	WIN (2-1)
April 25	2	4	WIN (3-1)
May 1	2	17	WIN (4-1)
May 6	1	10	WIN (5-1)
May 12	0	5	WIN (6-1)
May 17	0	5	WIN (7-1)
June 2	1	6	WIN (8-1)
June 7	4	5	WIN (9-1)
June 14	0	5	WIN (10-1)
June 19	4	3	LOSS (10-2)
June 25	3	5	WIN (11-2)
June 30	3	10	WIN (12-2)
July 6	2	6	WIN (13-2)
July 11	3	6	WIN (14-2)
July 22	2	4	WIN (15-2)
July 27	1	1	NO DECISION
August 1	5	7	WIN (16-2)
August 6	0	10	WIN (17-2)
August 12	2	3	WIN (18-2)
August 17	3	10	WIN (19-2)

Bizarro-Sale, shown above, would look like an almost perfect player. The run support would cover up Saleâ€s few mistakes, and he would be an easy favorite for the Cy Young Award.

Max Scherzer is having a very, very good season, particularly in terms of his extraordinary consistency. Heâ€s taken everything the Tigers have given him and run with it, leading the pitching staff while Justin Verlander has an uncharacteristically bad year (by his lofty standards). Still, the Tigers offense has bailed Scherzer out the few times that heâ€s been off his game and made him look like a superstar. Give him average run support and he becomes simply elite. Give average run support to Chris Sale and he becomes Pedro Martinez.

Scherzer will likely be a strong candidate for Cy Young Award this year, as will Sale. I just hope that if he wins, itâ€s because of his actual dominance and his accomplishments, not because of what his teammates did while he was on the mound.

This article was originally published on The Platoon Advantage.

G-Minus Presents: Bronson Arroyo

Daniel Zarchy — Fri, 26 Jul 2013 00:27:31 +0000

For a little off-day madness, I decided to play our old game, G-Minus. In case you missed our introduction, G-Minus basically takes a pitcher’s career statistics and strips them of their games against the Giants, and compares the results. Let’s see how this works for Reds starting pitcher Bronson Arroyo.

Arroyo Career Stats: 133-122, 4.17 ERA in 343 starts.

Arroyo Stats Against Giants: 5-5, 2.69 ERA in 13 starts. Hoo boy.

Then we remove the 87 IP and 26 ER that Arroyo has against the Giants… carry the 2…

Arroyo’s G-Minus Stats:Â 128-117, 4.23 ERA

That’s right, Bronson Arroyo’s starts against the Giants have lowered his ERA a full 0.06 over a pretty long career. Ouch.

SF Giants transactions: Kensuke Tanaka makes major-league debut, w/GIF

Thomas Todd — Wed, 10 Jul 2013 06:46:50 +0000

A team grasping at straws, the Giants made two moves before Tuesday’s game against the Mets.

First, they placed Hector Sanchez on the disabled list with an injury I care less about than Phish cares about brevity. Mike Kickham gets his third trip to the big-league roster to replace the Giants’ thirdÂ catcher. But the bizarre move was the call-up of Kensuke Tanaka, the Japanese import that lost a backup infield role when his bat and glove failed him in Spring Training.

The move was so bizarre it almost worked. Upon being recalled, Tanaka was immediately written into the lineup as the starting left fielder and No. 2 hitter. Who he was vexed the more casual fan, while the Lunatic Fringe was curious why a guy who has played nine games in American outfields was ready for a corner spot in AT&T.

Then there was The Catch. No, Dwight Clark or T.O. didn’t show up. But this happened:

h/t to @gidget

Follow that up with his first big-league hit and another trip to the base paths via a walk, and it was a hell of a debut for Tanaka. Not so much for the rest of the Giants, who gave up double-digits to the Mets. But let’s focus on the positives.

I am leading the train of “hold your horses” on Tanaka. He got a decent shot at multiple positions in spring and proved to be a clank-mitt. At 32, there isn’t much room for his raw tools to improve. But left field is a mess, with Andres Torres doing his best Tanaka-in-spring and Angel Pagan’s return nowhere in sight. It can’t hurt to have a happy-to-be-there guy with a flashy smile who is playing for his job every day he is on the field. Also the Giants DFA’d Cole Gillespie to make room. Ho hum.

—

Sanchez’s departure solves a lot of the head-scratching about three catchers being on the roster when the bullpen is burnt and left field looks like this:

h/t internet

Even when healthy, Sanchez is a fringy pinch-hitter who needs reps if the Giants ever plan on making him the everyday catcher. Which they will in 2015 when Buster Posey becomes a corner infielder. There isn’t even a joke to be made here. I think that’s the plan.

Kickham has shown that he has the velocity and (sometimes) enough command to get hitters out in spurts, something that can be more useful in relief. I wouldn’t be surprised if he spends the next three months as a pitcher who often appears in the 6th or 7th inning. The real quetion is: glasses or no glasses?

Dodgers acquire Carlos Marmol

Thomas Todd — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 19:40:23 +0000

The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol, according to Jim Bowden of ESPN. LA sends reliever Matt Guerrier in exchange for Marmol and around $209,000 of internation signing bonus money.

Winners of eight of their last nine, the Dodgers remain in last but are now just 3.5 games behind the first-place Diamondbacks. The NL West is the tightest (read: worst) division in baseball this year and a key deadline acquisition could decide who backs into a playoff spot.

Carlos Marmol is not that acquisition. The Cubs designated him for assignment six days ago after briefly running his season ERA over 6.00. The 30-year-old is on pace to set career highs in BB/9, H/9 and HR/9 and his lowest K/9 total since 2006. Primarily an eighth- and ninth-inning guy in Chicago, Marmol was just two of five in save opportunities before being sent down.

Guerrier, 34, was having his worst season since 2008 and was designated for assignment Sunday. His lone peripheral that stands out is hit rate, as his walks and strikeouts are close to career norms. Guerrier was giving up 9.6 hits per nine innings, his worst total since that dreaded 2008 season. The culprit appears to be infield hits, as 12.5% of the ground balls Guerrier has allowed have gone for base hits. Compare that to his 0.0% last season and you can see where the small sample size goblins can work their magic. To be clear, Guerrier has not pitched well, but there is data to back up the notion that he has been a bit unlucky.

If I had to bet on one pitcher to perform better — or at least pitch closer to career averages — my money is on Guerrier.

Now, about the money. The 209K the Dodgers receive will be added to their international player signing bonus pool. In the most recent MLB Collective Bargaining Agreement, each team is assigned a cap for international spending. The cap is determined by team performance and cap money be traded between teams. Ben Badler of Baseball America breaks down the 2013-2014 bonus pools available to teams here.

The Dodgers have the 18th-highest total with $2,112,900. For reference, the Astros have the most with almost $5 million and the Nationals have the least, under $2 mil. The Cubs, even after the 209K to the Dodgers, have over $4 million to spend on international players.Â

Guerrier and Marmol, both free agents after this season, will play out their current contracts being paid by their new team. Marmol will earn about $5 million in the second half of the season while Guerrier is due about half that.

The Dodgers certainly don’t mind the extra payroll, having racked up a league-leading $220 million in 2013 salary already. The only limit placed on the Dodgers’ spending is the CBA itself, which assigns draft and international bonus limits. So good work, Dodgers. Always finding ways to spend more money.

Postgame Wrap: Giants Finally Remember How to Baseball, But Too Little Too Late

Daniel Zarchy — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 06:00:00 +0000

Update: I wrote this whole wrap after the sixth inning, assuming the worst. And hey, I was right aside from the last hurrah in the ninth. Obligatory LOLeague and BeatLA.

Things looked good for a while there. The Giants hung with the Puigs for five whole innings, and a small part of me wondered if Mike Kickham would turn out to be some kind of crazy Dodger-killer, some secret weapon who would charge bull-like at anything blue. Sure he gave up a two-run homer to Mark Ellis, but that’s basically what Mark Ellis does. I gave up two homers to Mark Ellis while eating my cereal this morning. It’s a force majeure that just can’t be avoided.
But then the wheels came off. Hanley Ramirez, still the least likeable player even before he donned the Dodger blue, winged one off the foul pole just to remind us how close we came to avoiding tragedy. Then Jake Dunning made a bad throw he shouldn’t have made and that was that was that.
Remember when we actually felt confident in the Giants to come from behind and win games they were losing? No I swear, that was earlier this year.

And the worst part is that the Dodgers didn’t even play that well. Puig was a non-factor, Kemp didn’t do much, and Fife managed to stump the Giants with trickery and brainteasers. Clayton Kershaw didn’t even play, the lazy bum. It’s one thing when Puig goes 4-5 with seven homers and Kershaw throws a complete game shutout, but tonight really felt like one bad team just couldn’t keep up with another bad team.
Oh well. At least the standings still like the Giants better than the Dodgers.

On the bright side, the Brandons looked good: Crawford flashed some mighty leather and Belt homered. Buster Posey continued to climb out of his mini slump. Gregor Blanco keeps up his hot streak, and Tim Lincecum didn’t walk anyone. Every inning that George Kontos doesn’t give up runs is a step toward an effective and confident bullpen, Scutaro went another day without causing himself permanent nerve damage, and Ryan Vogelsong has a sweet injury beard. So all in all, not too bad of a day.

Tomorrow please consider beating LA.

SF Giants lineup: Crawford returns, pending batting practice

Thomas Todd — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 19:11:33 +0000

Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford returns to the lineup Saturday after missing three games with a pair of sprained fingers. He sustained the injury sliding into second base during a stolen attempt on Tuesday, a 5-4 win against San Diego. The spot in the lineup is not guaranteed, as Hank Schulman reports that he could be scratched if batting practice doesn’t go well. Joaquin Arias would most likely fill in, having started the last three games at short.

Crawford will try to help the Giants stop a nasty streak. After taking the first two of the the four-game series, the Marlins have now won 9 straight games in AT&T Park. This is the longest current streak of any team against the Giants, and especially painful against a team that has lost 25 more games than it has won this season.

Since the start of the 2012 season the Marlins have won 93 games, which is more than just the Cubs (91) and Astros (83) . Combine that with the Giants 71-47 record at home in the same time period and it’s hard to fathom a streak like this.

Here’s the lineup against RHP Jacob Turner (1-0, 2.18 ERA):

LF Blanco

2B Scutaro

C Posey

RF Pence

1B Belt

SS Crawford

CF Perez

3B Noonan

LHP Zito (4-5, 4.67 ERA)