Joe Posnanski notes that the Dodgers Matt Kemp has more walks than any player on the Kansas City Royals:
…. Brilliant reader Preston sent in this gem. David DeJesus leads the Kansas City Royals with 46 walks. That is one behind Los Angeles’ Matt Kemp, who has 47 walks. OK … so what’s the big deal?
Here’s the big deal: Matt Kemp is EIGHTH on the Dodgers in walks. Eighth.
Which means that EVERY SINGLE PLAYER in the Dodgers starting lineup (with the exception of the pitcher, of course) has more walks than ANY player on the Kansas City Royals.
Well, you all know where I’m going here….
Pablo Sandoval leads the Giants with 42 walks. So, not only does every single player in the Dodgers starting lineup have more walks than any Giants player, so does a player from the woeful Kansas City Royals.
I’d mention that our sweep of the Rockies ten days ago really got both teams going in different directions, but you’d never guess which team was the one that got swept:
…. The Rockies down the Reds 5-1, finishing a 9-1 home stand. According to the broadcast, that’s their best home stand ever. The Giants went 4-5 in this stretch, losing 4 1/2 games in the wild card race after sweeping the Rockies in San Francisco. Colorado now returns to SF with a 4 1/2 game lead in the playoff race, the Giants needing another sweep to get back in the running.
First, the Giants get to play the Dodgers, then the Rockies, and the Dodgers again, so basically, we need to go something like 7-2 over the next nine to have any chance whatsoever. Maybe we should give this guy some at bats? All he’s done in 115 games so far this season is run out a staggeringly powerful 31 doubles, 18 home runs, 62 walks –or, need I remind you, more than any player on the big club– and a blast-off .325/.416/.531 .947 OPS line.
Maybe it would help if a player like this was available to take some at bats away from the out-makers that completely dominate any lineup Bochy has used all fucking season long.
8 Backtalkers
Buster Posey? At Bats? Bochy wouldn’t consider something that crazy until Posey has at least 14-16 years of experience and decreasing skills
I saw that article and had done this in Excel (Courtesy Baseball-reference.com)
(150 PA’s or more per team)
Player PA’s Walks % of PA’s
Dodgers:
Pierre 379 25 6.60%
Kemp 579 47 8.12%
Furcal 596 52 8.72%
Hudson 577 52 9.01%
Ethier 604 60 9.93%
Looney 571 60 10.51%
Loretta 188 20 10.64%
Blake 518 56 10.81%
Martin 517 58 11.22%
Ramirez 362 57 15.75%
Team 5570 517 9.28%
Rockies:
Barmes 533 26 4.88%
Torrealba 172 15 8.72%
Spilborghs 352 31 8.81%
Gonzales 243 23 9.47%
Atkins 364 39 10.71%
Stewart 431 47 10.90%
Tulowitzki 540 63 11.67%
Iannetta 333 40 12.01%
Smith 327 41 12.54%
Hawpe 523 66 12.62%
Helton 558 73 13.08%
Fowler 455 63 13.85%
TEAM 5389 568 10.54%
Giants:
Molina 473 12 2.54%
Bowker 39 1 2.56%
Whiteside 109 3 2.75%
Sanchez 72 2 2.78%
Shierholtz 281 14 4.98%
Rowand 486 27 5.56%
Uribe 345 20 5.80%
Velez 220 13 5.91%
Burris 220 14 6.36%
Aurilia 121 8 6.61%
Winn 537 38 7.08%
Ishikawa 310 22 7.10%
Sandoval 540 42 7.78%
Renteria 500 39 7.80%
Lewis 314 33 10.51%
Torres 114 12 10.53%
Team 5234 331 6.32%
I added Sanchez and Bowker to show how they fit the mold of a Giant under Sabean.
Interesting side notes:
Barmes looks like a future Giant!
Its clear that both Rockies and Dodgers were built around OPS and taking walks. Its clear that the Giants are built around, at best, batting average. The fact that the two best Giants at walk percentage (Lewis and Torres) are players struggling to get plate appearances says something.
Nice job. Don’t like what it says even though we all know it to be true. Its funny what you can tell by looking at something like the stats that Trantor posted and than viewing them in conjunction with something that Freddy Sanchez said yesterday after the loss to the Padres:
“We’ve got to learn to trust the guys behind us” he said, referring to the kinds of plate appearances the Giants have.
How fucking telling is that? Well it tells me what Trantor’s Walk rates analysis tells me. This is not a team that has team at bats. Its guys like Bengie Molina who think it is a lack of machismo to take a walk. It is an Aaron Rowand flailing away at sliders early in the count when he knows he can’t hit a slider to save his life. It is Randy Winn insisting on hitting against left-handed pitching when his OPS is worse than that of most guys in the pen. It is a roster full of guys trying to accumulate hits. For personal reasons. On their own. As individuals. It is using your dick instead of your brain at the plate. And thats what everybody is treated to night after night.
What they mean by calling Bochy a players manager is that he lets the old fuck nozzles do whatever they want, while he ignores the younger guys. Just like they did back in Charlie Comisky’s day. Thats tradition. That’s grit, savvy, and veteran leadership the Sabean way.
What a heaping steaming pile of shit.
John;
And now you know why the Giants let Torrealba go…. too many walks!
This venture into facts to support what many here have been writing for a long time is kind of interesting, really. That the Giants are mismanaged from a baseball organization standpoint raises the question of why so many Giants followers are so willing to not see the Giants for what they have become. And for what they are. A brilliantly run marketing organization. As effective in selling their product as pitchman Billy Mays was for Oxy Clean and any other number of useless, but shiny and curiosity-creating gimmicks.
I’m not exactly sure why so many want to buy into the illusion that because games that are being lost are not lopsided, that somehow the team is competitive, and well-managed, and well-run and has great chemistry, and veteran leadership and loyalty and all of these intangible qualities that get run out to confront the critics when there is no objective evidence to support the notion that this is a good team.
But, obviously there are enough people that do, to keep the turnstiles turning. For instance, two of the most common talking points floating around in response to the imminent failure of the Giants season and the negativity generated by the last 5 seasons of Brian Sabean’s reign of failure and being repeated like Buddhist chants, are:
1.) “If somebody had told you at the beginning of the season that the Giants would be contending for a play-off spot in September, you would have thought they were nuts, so you should just shut the fuck up and be grateful for Bochy’s and Sabean’s and Baer’s pure baseball brilliance.”
2.) “Wow, what an exciting season with all those close games!”
Well my response to these two outlandish canards is this.
To the first. Its like having a picture window in solitary confinement when you never committed a crime. Winning organizations are prepared to pounce on every opportunity, whether anticipated or not. They draw up “what if” scenarios and when those scenarios present themselves, they act on those plans. Like the Rockies, Dodgers, Cardinals, Yankees, Red Sox, Rangers, Angels. The Managing General Partner in a good baseball organization doesn’t go on the public record and explain away their lack of performance with a mealy-mouthed; “…well, this is a rebuilding year,”. And than fail to explain why guys like Posey, Ishikawa, Schierholtz, Lewis, and even Velez were and are treated like unwanted step-children by the GM and Field Manager.
That they got this close with only pitching would have made it a lock-down cinch for an astute GM to recognize what good things were happening by the end of May,and make plans accordingly to upgrade and secure the hitting he needed. A down economy, a buyers market, bulging coffers, and desirable minor league prospects, made it a slam dunk for anybody not named Sabean.
It is amazing how late to the party Sabean was in recognizing that the baseball gods were smiling upon him for the first time in years. The earlier mentioned performances of the pitching staff, needed only be supported by league average hitting to give the Giants an opportunity to not only compete, but to re-establish themselves once again as a power in the NL West.
But no. He continues to be who he is. Reactive and antiquated. Again at the last minute, in order to keep the marketing people happy as they came up with the “We’re In This Thing” ticket sales campaign, he signs two more filler players in Garko and Sanchez and calls it good.
2. ) Exciting? Thats like watching your daughter in the school play fall off the stage and than be really happy she didn’t break a leg.
This is what is commonly referred to in the real world as failure. It is like a negotiated armistice. At least the killing is stopped. And in war, thats a good thing. In baseball its not a good thing. It means you lost again and missed the playoffs again. For the sixth year in a row. The longest stretch since the advent of the Wild Card.
Only a sap, who worship at the feet of celebrity radio pitchmen, television hacks, prostituted msm writers and marketing shills while they get sunshine blown up their asses, could six consecutive years of failure, with more on the horizon, be called a “success”.
+mia,
Good analysis…and spot on. Sickening to hear “I’m in” from Krukow and the rest…on an hourly basis. How in the hell did he become such a suck up. What a waste of what once was a good announcer. “We’re in this thing” is a classic example of Baer and his lemmings.
You and I have been saying for almost two years that mgmt’s goals and priorities are 1.Profitability 2. Marketing 3. Stay Competitive and somewhere down the list winning. The Gigantes mgmt’s attitude and philosophy about winning is like the famous sign “Free Beer Tomorrow”…which hangs daily…as we all know…tomorrow never comes.
I do not think Bochy is calling the shots on Posey. Just reaks of Sabeanmetrics.
As long as they keep making tons of money…change will be slow.
Well Scott. There is this to add to that. From Andy Baggarly, one of the hardest working beat guys in the Bay Area, Extra Baggs, his blog lends some backup to what a lot of folks have maintained about Bochy’s slavish devotion to old players:
We had talked about the same thing about Bochy over here in the comments section some days ago.
We’re a little harder on Bochy than Baggs. But you’ll get the point. It was no act of whimsy on Sandy Alderson’s and Kevin Tower’s part to show Bochy the door, even after winning the division and with one year remaining on his contract. To them it was a sunk cost. Something the Giants ownership is too cheap to deal with, preferring to eke every last cent of worthlessness out of guys like Molina, Winn, Rowand, Zito, Roberts, Klesko, Renteria, Vizquel, Finley, Hillenbrand etc.
Marvin Gaye sang it best. “Make Me Want to Holler”
+Mia’s analysis of the Giants as driven by marketing/profits, with winning a secondary consideration, seems right on.
As a New York-area based fan (there are still some of us) who has followed the team since 1959, I find it fascinating to compare my favorite team with my least-favorite (the one in the Bronx; the one that gouges its fans perhaps even more than the Giants but puts a winning team on the field).
Sabean came from the Yankees after having a hand in building the early part of the Yankees revival. It’s obvious, however, that he missed the memos on things like OBP, plate discipline, etc. As little as I like the Yankees, it’s impossible not to respect their intelligence at the plate, their willingness to keep fouling off pitches (much like the Dodgers vs. Cain last night) and their ability to wear down pitchers.
That is how winning offensive baseball is played. The presence of Barry Bonds covered up a lot of offensive flaws. Without him, they’ve been completely exposed, as has Sabean’s inability/unwillingness to find players who can/will get on base.
In contrast to the Yankees (OBP about .360), we have the most hack-tastic team in MLB — not surprising, since the hitting coach was that kind of player. It is embarrassing at times to watch the Giants’ “attack” — it consists of a bunch of guys flailing at pitches out of the strike zone, hitting easy grounders and fly balls, and going down in 10-12 pitch innings. It’s as if working a pitcher for a walk or a good pitch to hit is against company policy.
Sabean must be replaced; maybe the late-season collapse will help. More important, Bochy and his staff (especially Lansford, and maybe not Righetti) MUST go. There has to be a complete re-thinking of the team’s offensive philosophy, and that’s not going to happen under the current administration.
The Giants have an excellent nucleus of starting pitchers and (last night excepted) a solid bullpen. A league-average offense would have won the pennant. The Giants are not the Kansas City Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates, who lack the resources and smarts to compete. We have the resources. It’s the smarts that aren’t there. We wasted the prime years of the greatest offensive player of the last 40 years, and we seem to be willing to do the same with an excellent rotation.