For someone in the national media to say something stupid uninformed about the Giants:
…. If we look exclusively at the factors pitchers control most directly, which are strikeouts, walks and home runs, they look more like league-average innings eaters than shutdown stars.
…. the 2010 Giants are hardly a historically great run-prevention team. Their hitters will probably have to pick up some slack for them to win the World Series.
That someone happens to be Dan Rosenheck of the NY Times, who apparently was asleep every night of September while the Giants posted one of the great stretch runs of pitching in baseball history.
Over a span of 26 games, –during which they had to win every game– all the Giants pitching staff did was roll out a 1.78 ERA, throw 5 shutouts, allow 46 earned runs in 232 innings, pile up 234 strikeouts, allow just 58 walks, and hold the opposition to a Neifi Perez-like .181/.241/.283/ .524 OPS line, with just 15 home runs, and post a team-wide .90 WHIP, 4.02 K/BB and 9.06 K/9IP.
Just for the record, St Louis posted a 2.46 ERA in September of 2001, the only team in baseball over the last ten years to be within one run of matching what the Giants just did.
I was gonna do a side by side with Texas, but, really, there is no point. That is, in fact, an historically great run of pitching, and I challenge Dan Rosenheck (or anybody) to come up with a team that has had a run like that in the last twenty years.
By the by, during the postseason, the Giants numbers have regressed, just a bit.
So far, in 91 innings, the Giants have a 2.47 ERA, with 102 strikeouts, 28 walks, and 2 more shutouts. They’ve allowed 25 earned runs, and a .199/274/.297 .571 OPS line. They’re K/BB has dropped to 3.31, while their strikeouts per 9 has increased to 10.46. Their team-wide WHIP is 1.02.
But, this isn’t the same pitching staff that started the season, just as it isn’t the same offense.
UPDATE: The NY Times’ Dan Rosenheck took the time top reply to my rant. CVheck out the backtalk. Kudos to Dan for joining the fray here at OBM. I disagree with him, but his willingness to back and forth demonstrates his character and toughness.
Like the article!
hey rosenbeck,
you are now officially a fucktwit
stop blogging….you dont know shite about the game
It’s also interesting that ‘how guys are playing RIGHT NOW’ doesn’t seem to matter, except when it comes to Cliff Lee, who is almost unanimously regarded by media as easily the best pitcher in this series. Except of course that Timmy eclipses him in pretty much every important career statistic (K/9, WHIP, ERA+, HR etc.) except for BB/9 and BB/K (the latter of which, they’re tied in btw).
Not slamming Rosenheck for this, because as far as I know he didn’t write that Lee is the best pitcher in the series. But to reply to Rosenheck’s original question – ‘How, exactly, do you suggest one should determine “how guys are playing RIGHT NOW?” How far back in time should we look?’ – the answer would seem to be that you look at as many stats as you have available for every player except for Cliff Lee, in which case you just look at his last couple of years (editing out his somewhat pedestrian 2009 Cleveland totals and 2010 Rangers totals), with heavy, load-bearing weight on his last couple of postseason runs.
Whatever. As Uncle Joe says, ‘the guys like being underdogs’. Tomorrow they kick off the actual games – fuck yeah! – and in a week or so, we’ll know if the Giants are champs or if torture finally takes that evil twist that so many of us fear it will.
OBM: I’m concerned about Andres Torres. He has lost a step, lost power and speed in his swing and doesn’t evidence his typical range in center field. I don’t think anyone is leveling with the SF Giants fans and possibly for strategic reasons. From today’s Giants Splash blog today:
– Torres said his left hip/groin injury feels much better. He plans to get treatment and take it easy today and believes he will be able to start Game 1 Wednesday.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/giants/detail?entry_id=75443#ixzz13VwGEyNZ
This is horseshit. When Torres slid into first base versus the Phillies in the 6th game there was a very clear and large blood stain from bleeding visible on his uniform. Bochy ran out onto the field immediately to shield and check on him with the trainers. My guess and it is only a guess is that he is such a gamer that he came back from his appendectomy about 4 weeks too early (for a professional athlete) and that his diminished performance in the post season is due to this fact. I think Torres is playing with immense pain from the surgery. Anyone else see this?
Uhhh, did you watch the same series as everyone else?
He was visibly better after his benching, eventually getting 6 hits in his final 10 at bats with 2 walks. Remember game 5, when he worked a leadoff walk off Halladay? Yeah, that was the only first inning leadoff walk Halladay has allowed all year.
He also displayed his usual D, sprinting to the ball’s eventual landing spot, only to casually filed it once he was in place. The play on Howard’s double to left, which stranded Rollins at third, likely saved the game, and the series.
Did you watch many Giants games this year?
Not crazy about the rotation. Love the Lincecum v. Lee match up, but I think it makes more sense to go Cain (He’s plenty ready), Sanchez (he needs some friendly surroundings) Timmy (He can certainly deal with Texas and likely better than Durty) MadBum and then have Timmy available for 6 or 7.
The way it stands now, if Lee outduels Lincecum in game 1, we are at best split going to texas with a very iffy Sanchez going in game 3. Feels shaky to me.
Yes, the Giants’ staff as a whole legitimately pitched great in September. But since when did everything that ever happened before 9/1/2010 suddenly lose all relevance? It’s not like Sabean somehow reincarnated Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove at the waiver deadline. These are the same pitchers, and there is no statistically valid reason to weight their Septembers significantly more than any other month. Also, the collective staff numbers aren’t really the point, since I was limiting my commentary to Sánchez, Cain, and Bumgarner.
Dan;
Part of the evidence is how much better the staff pitches in cool weather. This staff does not have hot/high humidity style pitchers, with a possible exception of Cain and even he does not have the body fat to pitch in hot humid weather. Once the weather cooled a little, look at the results.
This is truly a staff which *should* excel in the fall. Expect the superb performances to continue, notwithstanding any mental blowouts from the pressure.
Couple of things here. A lot of the stats you cite are skewed by the jetsam that was Todd Wellemeyer, erstwhile no 5 starter and the flotsam that was Zito, your erstwhile no. 2 starter. Wellemeyer got booted at the end of June and Zito at the end of September. So there’s 40 percent of your rotation right there.
Also gone are Bautista, Runzler, Medders, Martinez, Joaquin, also known as napalm, gasoline, lighter-fluid, propane and molten lava.
The current rotation is Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Bumgarner. The numbers that John cited speak for themselves.
The Bullpen is Casilla, Romo, Lopez, Afeldt, Ramirez, Wilson, Mota. I think the seven shutout innings against the Phils says most of what needs to be said.
Better than a 50 percent turnover, so a lot of the numbers you’ve used can be thrown out simply because a majority of the pitchers who started the season are not relevant to the post-season or even to the second half of the season, which brings up my second point.
This season started almost 7 months ago. As a matter of fact, we are significantly closer to the beginning of the 2011 season then we are to the beginning of the current season. Cain and Sanchez and Bumgarner are all better pitchers now than they were 6 months ago. By far.
And this where the reliance upon metrics to the exclusion of observational judgment can get you in trouble, and why guys who play too much fantasy baseball get surprised all the time. This is really important. Insofar as the post-season is concerned, how guys pitched and hit in April, May, June, July, August, and September has absolutely zero relevance in October. None. Zero.
Why? Because we already know that to even get to this level, all but a few players are already the best of the best. So it really comes down to who is playing the best RIGHT NOW. It doesn’t matter that A-Rod hit a slug of homers in July or that Roy Halladay pitched a perfect game, or that Jonathan Sanchez no-hit the Padres in 2009, or that Albert Pujols had a WAR of over 7, or that Tim Lincecum pitched ineffectively during August.
The only thing that matters is how guys are playing RIGHT NOW. Not last week, and not next April. But right now. Baseball is not a game of emotional momentum like football or hoops. It is a game of immediacy and “in the now”. It really is a game of one-pitch-at-a-time. How a guy is playing now, during the post-season is what is important. And that can change at anytime as we know. And that’s why the only guys making consistent money on predicting baseball outcomes are bookies.
Obviously better players have a better chance to play better in the post-season than so-called average players, but we all know that even the worst pitchers and worst hitters have streaks of goodness and even greatness for days and even sometimes weeks at a time. And that’s what accounts for the Scott Brosius, and Scott Spezio’s and Joe Carters and Mickey Lolich’s and Bucky Dents of the world.
Thats why all the twits who picked the Yankees and the Phils to dominate their respective LDS and LCS were wrong. It’s not that their evaluations of the relative overall strengths were erroneous; in fact they were spot on…for looking backwards and awarding plastic statues. But it also tends to tell you very little about what is going to happen going forward except in a macroscopic viewpoint over many post-seasons.
But there is little predictive value in statistics generated in May, June or July to outweigh what is happening in October. In September and October, the Giants pitching was not only superior, it achieved what the Allies achieved in the skies over Europe by the spring of 1944. Air Supremacy. Both were unprecedented.
Combine this with fatigue and nagging injuries which cause even the best of glovemen to boot difficult, but catchable grounders, misjudge line drives, make errant throws, and run the bases stupidly, and metrics become meaningless unless accompanied by a healthy dose of observable comparative evaluation. And no amount of statistical calculations can do that for you. It can give you an initial GPS read-out, but after that you have to drive the car yourself with your own, or somebody else’s eyes.
One last thing. Any scout or baseball guy who has seen the Giants defense will tell you that the Giants defense consists for the most part of Andres Torres, Freddy Sanchez, Buster Posey and 5 statues. I know that their UZR is very good, but again I think what is being entirely overlooked are two things.
Though slow-footed except for Torres, the Giants defenders have soft hands and though not overly strong, accurate arms. They get to a lot of balls for one reason that is never mentioned. Ron Wotus. The smartest bench coach in the Majors and the advanced spray sheets that he has at his disposal.
The Giants aren’t going to exhibit a lot of range, but for the most part, Wotus and good location pitching by Cain and others will put them in a position to make a play. And thats what I think their superior UZR rating is reflecting.
Put the slide-rule down. Watch the game more.
How, exactly, do you suggest one should determine “how guys are playing RIGHT NOW?” How far back in time should we look? Is a guy who struck out in his last at-bat a .000 hitter, and a guy who hit a HR in his last at-bat a 4.000 slugger? No, OK, so we do need to look further back. A week or two? Should Texas have benched Vladimir Guerrero for Game 4 of the ALCS because he was hitting .219 in the postseason? Obviously not. Ok, what about a month, then, or a year, or three, or five? The answer, of course, is you look at as much information as you possibly can.
I think the point I’m not conveying very well, is “right now” means you have to rely more on observational evaluations relative to statistical analysis. Both have to be used together, and the more recent is the most valid. Now maybe you can’t see it, and most of us can’t, simply from watching a game on television other than the actual results of balls, and strikes and hits and outs, but let me give you an example of what you can see from the field or the dugout for evaluation purposes.
And for a pitcher I’ll use some of the things you look at like arm slot, follow through, release point, relative movement, location, mind-set, and velocity when you are trying to determine how a guy is going right now. He’s going to have a lot of guys leaning, swinging off balance, dribbling balls, breaking bats, and eventually guessing at location or type of pitch rather than being able to simply let the eyes and the hands work together automatically. And if he’s going good, his delivery will be absolutely consistent, thats why scouts are always harping about guys being compact; its easier to repeat with precision a compact delivery than it is a full-loose arm, drop and drive delivery like Lincecum’s or Sanchez’ or even Bumgarner’s
Now if you see a pitcher who has all those things going for him, (what he looks like when he’s putting down good hitters) and you look statistically how he has pitched in the past, the more recent the better obviously, against certain hitters, and that is a favorable matchup, with a particular umpire behind the plate that he feels comfortable with, then you have a good chance of that pitcher having a lot of success against that team regardless of what his k/9 or k/bb or whip or babip or era+ for the season were, or how good the hitters have been during the season (see the 2010 Phillies and 2010 Reds for example) particularly if those numbers are from May, June and July.
Now I wasn’t on the field, but what happened with Sanchez both times in Philadelphia, was typical of things you see from pitchers who are getting jammed up, and why Righetti told Bochy to get him out of the game in the third inning, even before he drilled Utley. Loss of command, a bit of velocity, agitation, perhaps over-correcting his arm slot, landing point, hip rotation, or hand separation point in an effort to “get in a groove”. These are mechanical observations, as well as body language that are different from that particular pitcher’s observed norm combined with results observations; wildness, reduced movement on breaking pitches, a hump in the change-up, a quarter-size spot on the slider, velocity reduction in certain pitches, etc.
These are things that will eventually manifest themselves statistically over a period of time…but in the post season, there is no time for that. You are reduced to a season of under 20 games. Far too few games for credible statistical analysis in any meaningful way other than a retrospective look. If a guy is obp at around a .500 clip in the recent 2 series, he’s playing well “right now”. If he’s hitting the ball hard and averaging an extra-base hit per 3 to 4 plate appearances, in his last 3 or 4 games, he is playing well “right now”. To me that is more important than what a guy’s ops was in August.
From a hitters standpoint. It is fairly easy to know if a hitter is picking up pitches and getting a good read on them. That is why pitchers like to move the ball around in the zone with late movement…it keeps the hitters eyes moving and hopefully causes a delay in him getting his hands to react to what his eyes see. This is observable if you’ve made a habit of knowing what a guy looks like when he is hitting well, and what he looks like when he isn’t hitting well.
Its not science, its simply comparing visually what eventually manifests itself statistically. For instance if I saw Aaron Rowand laying off sliders in the dirt, and seeing that he was picking the ball up fairly early, and driving pitches over the fence the opposite way off of 95mph fastballs, I would know I was seeing a reincarnation of Lazarus. On the other hand if I see Josh Hamilton driving that same pitch into McCovey Cove, I am not surprised. Both statistically and visually. But those are extremes.
Knowing what certain hitters look like at the plate when they’re hitting well (hitting the ball hard, hitting line drives, and/or getting a lot of lift on deep flyballs) is just as important as knowing what their stats indicate they’re capable of doing..
Matchups are also pretty important when you go to the statistics part of your evaluation. If I’m Ron Washington or Bruce Bochy, I’m more interested in how my guys match up against the actual guys I am going to face. For instance lets take a look at Cliff Lee and how Superman II matches up against what a lot of folks think is an over-matched Giants lineup.
There are currently 9 Giants who have faced Cliff Lee in the past for a total of 120 plate appearances. The equivalent of about 3 to 4 games worth of plate appearances.
Here are their slash lines Plate Appearances BAT OBP SLG OPS
Juan Uribe 40 PA .297 .325 .541 .866
Aaron Rowand 29 PA .280 .379 .560 .939
Aubrey Huff 19 PA .263 .263 .368 .632
Edgar Renteria 18 PA .235 .278 .529 .807
Pat Burrell 4 PA .250 .250 .250 .500
Pablo Sandoval 4 .000 .000 .000 .000
Freddy Sanchez 3 .000 .000 .000 .000
Cody Ross 2 .500 .500 2.000 2.500
Travis Ishikawa 1 1.000 1.000 1.000 2.000
Total 120 Plate Appearances .270 Batting Average .308 OBP .505 SLG and an .813 OPS. Thats a lot better than most folks would think and certainly better than what these guys had done in the past against Halladay, Oswalt and Hamels. Its not that the Giants owned those guys, its just that those guys were not at optimum at all times against them, coupled with some mistakes in location, defensive lapses and inconsistent umpiring. As a result you have the Phils going down in 6 games. Play this series in August and its not inconceivable the Phils run the Giants in 4 games. But it wasn’t played in August as we know.
Only three Rangers have ever faced Lincecum for a total of 21 plate appearances and Jeff Francouer has 17 of them, Jorge Cantu is 0 for 3 and Vlad had a single in 1 at bat. For what little its worth, the combined OPS is .588 in about the equivalent of 5-6 innings of work.
So even though the seasonal metrics line would appear to heavily favor Cliff Lee and the Rangers in Game one, the pitching advantage could go to the Giants just because they’ve never seen him, or anybody that even throws like him, before. The second time and third time through the lineup will be interesting for sure. But until they actually start pitching none of us have anything other than a clue as to how things will go.
Not as bad as most folks would think. Its not necessarily predictive of anything, but it wouldn’t come as a big surprise if the Giants were able to knock Lee around more than a little bit. On the other hand, the afternoon shadows, and a whole host of extraneous and non-controllable things enter into the equation too. I guess thats why we watch the games. There are no foregone conclusions.
There are other observable ques; hand position, stride, head angle, follow through, balance, and a whole lot of other things that guys in the dugout or on the field can see.
Anyway, I’ve rambled far longer than I intended but I’ll end with this. Anytime somebody from MSM comes in and is willing to engage in a non-dismissive manner, has all the respect in the world from me, because if nothing else it shows me that you’re a guy who really is trying to get it right. And that is something we just don’t seem to get a lot of these days as most of what is seen and heard is condescending, trivial or of the gossipy attention-seeking variety.
Always a pleasure to be given the opportunity to talk ‘ball, even if we don’t agree. Have to respect a journalist who is willing to engage at length a reader.
Dan,
First, thanks for taking the time to stop by OBM.
As for my post, I believe their collective September does carry some weight. I think that the collective failures of the pitchers in August, the team meetings, and the demand placed upon the pitchers to step up (by Sabean, Bochy and Righetti) made a big impression, and had significant impact. This staff is on one of those rolls that pitching staffs or offenses can get on. The long-term ability of these guys to sustain might not be as solid as I hope, but short-term they are as focused and sharp as any staff I’ve seen in my lifetime. You’re talking about 35 games of Cy Young Award-level performance from the entire staff!
Any analysis of the Serious has to take into consideration the current situation, and in some ways, the roll a team is on weighs more heavily than their collective history. Just ask Joe Girardi.
As for the things the pitchers can control, over 10 strikeouts per 9IP, almost 4 K/BB, and 20 home runs allowed in their last 330-plus innings, these things are real, they have happened, and they’ve happened in the pressure cooker of having to win virtually every night. The Giants have been playing one-run games for going on two seasons now, and they are pitching better than their season-long, or even career norms since September 1st. I’ve watched virtually every inning. Trust me, these guys are not eating innings.
Again, thanks for stopping by OBM. I appreciate the back and forth.
My pleasure; I’m always eager to discuss.
Not to get all “meta” here, but I think all of this is just making up narratives to account for the inevitable, inexplicable, and insignificant ups and downs of in-season performance, because we all like to believe that things happen for a reason and that human beings have more control over their lives than they do. Maybe it was the team meetings or motivational demands that caused the strong September performance, as you suggest. Or maybe the SF pitchers just happened to grip the ball a little better one day, or had the wind blowing in, or faced an offense that was starting a bunch of rookies, or had great sex the night before, or anything else we couldn’t begin to fathom.
It’s easy to come up with an explanation for what’s already happened, since it can’t be disproven. But if you really think you understand what’s going on beyond what the statistics say, then try predicting the future based on these observations. If you can beat the number-crunchers, you should start advertising that ability, because you could make a lot of money off it. If not, then I think you just need to accept that there may not be a reason why guys have better results one day than the next, and if there is, that we will never know what it is. Baseball is famously a humbling game. I believe the more thoughtful fans are the most humble as well about what they know, and what they know they don’t know.
I find it hard to believe that you read this. And if you did, you don’t seem to understand that what was written has been well known for years by folks in the game.
http://www.onlybaseballmatters.com/archives/2010/10/25/it-didnt-take-long/comment-page-1/#comment-39524
And just as I speculated, Cliff Lee was knocked around more than a little bit. And it was done before the fact. The Giants pitching has continued to be stellar, against all the metric data you tried to massage to fit your scenario of the Giants pitching staff as over-rated.
Too bad. Perhaps it’s just your oversensitivity to criticisim manifesting itself rather than trying to learn something. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, in spite of your snarkiness. Apparently it was a benefit ill-spent.
Here is a humorous twist on the Playoffs
From a blog called the Big Lead: (thebiglead.com)
Philadelphia fans were great as usual. “A table of women at DelFrisco’s asked a server to put Ex-Lax in the food of Giants Pat Burrell, Brian Wilson and several of their teammates who sat in the main dining room Friday night.” Classy ladies. At least their plan worked – the Giants shit all over the Phillies on Saturday.
John:
I had heard that the Times was cutting back on their sports department. It appears they are following the lead of the Philadelphia Inquirer, also formerly a highly respected news daily.
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/phillies/20101020_Gonzo___In_a_bubble_by_the_bay.html#ixzz12uIHGo4h
Since it appears that html tags are not available, I’ve posted up the actual url. Sorry for the mess.
Trolls in the East Coast print media disguised as columnists and bloggers. Buck and McCarver. ESPN Baseball Tonight with John Kruk. Tom Verducci, Mike Lupica.
Do I need to cite any other reasons to stay away from commercial media for World Series coverage?
Asked and Answered.
Keep up the good work
read the comments…seems that gonzo gets ripped by even the philly fans
his article after game 6 was also a doozy
no one in the national media is really giving the giants any respect…thats fine
i think the guys like being underdogs