This blog has been slow to start and infrequently updated. I
recently looked over my previous posts and decided that I would take a bit of a
different approach to this season. I’m starting over. Many of my readers are
casual fans (or non-fans in the case of my mother) so I’ve decided to start
from scratch. I’m going to write about players on my beloved Giants without the
inside jokes, stay light on the stats and put them into context when I do. I
think a part of the reason why I tried so hard to be funny and incorporate
advanced statistics goes back to my earliest fandom. Ever since my first
ballgame at Candelstick I’ve been into baseball’s mathematical beauty. You
could look at the back of a baseball card and the relative merits of that
player were written in black and white. My dad used to bet his friends that I
knew more stats than they did. I wish I still had that rotating solar system
lamp I won off his friend Jim. But even more than obsessing over the backs of
my baseball cards, I loved the players the most. I took special pride in
finding the “glue” guys that held the team together. I rooted for stolen bases
over home-runs. This fundamental core hasn’t changed. The stats and approach to
analytical thinking has evolved over the past 25 years, but the spirit of it
remains the same. The popular heroes are the home-run machines, but the
character guys that keep my interest are the zany characters that are even more
accessible since the dawn of the interwebs.
Since I’m starting over, I decided to write bios for all of
the Giants players. I want to share my point of reference going forward into
the 2014 season. I plan on doing this without looking up any information on the
internets other than for fact verification. Example: I want to be accurate that
so-and-so was an All-Star in 2009 instead of 2010. Other than that this will be
a good way to find out how full of crap I am, or just how much baseball flotsam
is floating around inside my noggin. I’ll break this post into 4 sections, one
each for the starting line-up, starting pitchers, relievers/bullpen,
bench-guys/other interesting players and coaches.
Starting Pitchers:
Madison Bumgarner:
Bumgarner is one of 4 starting pitchers that was drafted by the Giants. He made
his MLB debut as a September call-up in 2009, but was called up to the team on
June 26th 2010 against the Boston Red Sox. I remember hearing about
him as a prospect that off-season but didn’t know that much about him other
than that the front office was a little upset with his off-season conditioning.
They blamed him for spending too much time on his wedding and not enough time
on baseball. The ironic part is that now Giants marketing makes little jokes
every so often about him giving his bride a bull calf as a wedding gift. He
hails from a very small town in North
Carolina that has the nickname “Bum-town” because of
all the Bumgarner’s in the area. Last year he earned his first All-Star
appearance of many and will turn 25 in August.
The most important things you need to know about him are
that he is a very tall lefty with good power and movement to his pitches. The
same analysis goes for his famous snot-rockets on the mound. I have no idea how
one person can generate that much mucus. He was probably that big kid in
elementary school that always had a runny nose and was given the nickname
snot-nose until he concussed a kid with a baseball, thus ending the unfortunate
nickname and beginning a bright and lucrative career.
One of the stats that most intrigues me about Bumgarner is
that he signed a lengthy contract 2 years ago to stay with the Giants. This was
an interesting move by both the organization and Bumgarner because normally a
young player will only sign one year contracts to maximize their earning
potential. To sign early for him means that he doesn’t have to worry about an
off year and has more stability. The Giants got him to sign early so that they
give him more money upfront, and don’t have to pay out the snot nose later.
Matt Cain:
Matt Cain’s nickname is “The Horse.” I’ve been too afraid to
find out if that nickname comes from the locker room or from people referring to him as a
“workhorse”. He hasn’t pitched fewer than 200 innings since he was called up to
the big leagues for good. He is also the only current Giant who played on the
same team as Barry Bonds. He is 2 years into a 7 year 135 million dollar
contract.
An interesting thing about Cain is that he was an outlier
statistically for such an extended period of time that he helped change
conventional wisdom. In the past pitcher success was based on ERA (earned run
average) and wins. Cain’s early years were spent pitching for miserable teams
and as such they gave him little help in earning the all important “W”. Cain
also is an outlier when it comes to success based on the number of fly-balls
versus ground-balls. Numbers suggest that pitchers who give up a large number
of fly-balls are less successful than pitchers who keep the ball on the ground.
Cain is far outside the mean in terms of success vs. statistical models. He is
considered an extreme fly-ball pitcher and yet has kept the number of home-runs
given up to league average or below (these numbers all regressed towards the
mean last year, but he has 6 years of history that keeps him an outlier).
Cain is also the only Giant pitcher to ever pitch a perfect
game. In the same year he came within one batter of a perfect game. Against the
Pirates he allowed a single to their pitcher in the 5th or 6th
inning. It takes more than a little bit of luck to get the perfect game. Many
pitchers will go down in history as better than Matt Cain without ever throwing
a perfect game, but then again, none of them were Giants!
Tim Lincecum:
Big Time Timmy-Jim/The Freak/Timmay was the face, or more
accurately the hair, of the franchise in the post-Barry Bonds era. When Timmay
entered the league many scouts questioned his durability and chances to
dominate in the ways he did at the collegiate level. At 5’10” and 165lbs
dripping wet the conventional wisdom was that his body would breakdown. This
analysis was exasperated by the fact that he has a totally unique delivery.
Despite the questions entering the league Lincecum came out of the gates like
gang-busters. He won back to back Cy-Young awards, which is given to the best
pitcher in baseball, in 2008 and 2009. Once considered on of the most dominate
and promising young pitchers in the majors, his status has fallen over the past
two seasons.
The funky delivery system, where he explodes off the mound
towards the batter, nor his slender frame seem to be the culprit. Over the past
3 seasons Lincecum has lost 3-4 mph off his fastball, yet he is still striking
batters out at relatively the same rate as his Cy-Young seasons. What has
seemed to affect his ability to dominate is his pitch location. Even without statistical
analysis many casual observers have noticed that he leaves more pitches toward
the top of the strike zone which is more conducive to batters hitting for
power.
Despite his struggles over the past few years the Giants
just extended his contract for two more seasons at a rate that is slightly
higher than the Giants would pay someone from another team. I believe a part of
this is the organizations confidence that he still “has the stuff”, and part is
paying him as a fan favorite.
Ryan Vogelsong:
What can be succinctly said about Vogey? Vogey was drafted
by the Giants in 1998. He was developed into great trade-bait and was traded to
the Pittsburgh Pirates for Jason Schmidt. Schmidt became the Giants Ace-Pitcher
for the next half decade, while Vogelsong went on to become the worst pitcher
in baseball. In the mid 2000s he was out of baseball and went to resurrect his
career in Japan.
In 2010 Vogelsong decided to try one last shot at being a big-league pitcher.
By 2011 he had earned enough credit in the minors for one last shot by the
Giants. In April/May of the year Zito went down with an injury and Vogelsong
got his long awaited shot. 3 months later he was named to the National League
All-Star team.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around that story. Out of
options, one last ditch hope to becoming one of the best pitchers on the planet
within 6 months. On the mound he is all spit and fire, to the point that it can
be scary. One of these days I’ll post the video of him getting pitched inside
and his going bezerk. His flared nostrils may not contain the magical mucus of
Bumgarner, but they do contain the chasm of chaos. Despite his inhuman ferocity
on the mound he is widely considered the best when it comes to recognizing the
fans within games. The old fashioned tip-of-the-hat is an art form for
Vogelsong. He will always extend the hat tip just enough to recognize the fans
without showing up an opponent. His pitching is even worth watching for this
ability alone.
Tim Hudson:
Hudson
comes to the Giants as a free agent who is coming off of ankle surgery. The
past few seasons Hudson
has pitched for the Atlanta Braves. He is a sinkerball pitcher, which means
that his fastball drops as it crosses the plate and induces more ground balls.
This bodes well for his increasing age and loss of velocity. A pitcher with
good sinker movement has the ability to pitch longer and more effectively than
pitchers without the same dynamic movement.
He is the only new starting pitcher for the Giants,
replacing the much maligned and disappointing era of Barry Zito. The ironic
thing is that both Zito and Hudson were teammates on the “Moneyball A’s” of the
early 2000’s. Michael Lewis’ book made waves in popular culture about the
importance of statistical analysis in team building. The one problem I had with
the book is that it had a clear agenda and did give credit to the “three aces”
of Hudson, Zito and Mulder (alas no Scully). Each of them was a great pitchers
in their prime and used those Moneyball seasons to lead them to their subsequent
free-agency signings.
I have few anecdotal memories of his pitching; I just
remember being really annoyed when we had to play against him. Hopefully now
that he is on the Giants others will be as annoyed at facing him as I was. I’m
specifically hoping that my roommate John, a Dodgers fan, feels that sting of 4
hit, 1 run and weak grounders all afternoon. It can seriously feel like an
eternity.
………………………………..
That pretty much sums up the starting pitching; Mucas,
Horse, Hair, Hats and the New Guy.
Sometime in the next week keep an eye out for the starting
lineup.
