SB Nation User Blog: giantsrainman

What Single Change Could Improve Us The Most?

giantsrainman — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:35:03 -0000

I took a long hard look at the 2008 pitching results and here is what I found:

AWL = Ahead When Starter Replaced W/L. BWL = Behind When Starter Replaced W/L. TWL = Tied when Starter Replaced W/L. CGWL = Complete Game W/L. OWL = Overall W/L.

Starter GS Innings Runs BpInnings BpRuns AWL BWL TWL CGWL OWL

Lincecum 34 227 72 80.2 47 20-4 1-4 0-3 1-1 22-12

Cain 34 217.2 95 91.2 56 8-3 3-14 2-3 1-0 14-20

Zito 32 180 115 102 37 10-0 2-17 1-2 - 13-19

Sanchez 29 158 90 97 56 9-2 4-12 2-0 - 15-14

Other 33 176.2 123 111.1 68 5-2 1-16 2-6 0-1 8-25

Total 162 959.1 495 482.2 264 52-11 11-63 7-14 2-2 72-90

Please note that I counted April 2nd (rain delay game) as a Lincecum start not a Valdez start and April 26th (oblique Injury game) as a Hennessey start not a Correia start.

To me the area we can make the biggest improvement in is obvious. Replace our 5th starter (Other) with a second #1 (CC) to combine with Lincecum and we should immediately improve to an above .500 team! We should be able to get an Overall Win Loss Record of 21-12 in these 33 starts if it was CC making these starts instead of the clowns we used. This would be 13 more wins which would improve our record to 85-77 which would put us one game ahead of the Dodgers and thus NL West Champs!

Right On!

giantsrainman — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:40:42 -0000

Right On!

"Rather than weaken the rotation, the Giants might take one bold move to strengthen it. According to a team source, the Giants plan to investigate the Hope Diamond of free-agent pitchers this winter, CC Sabathia, to gauge his interest in returning to his native Bay Area."

Who Should We DFA?

giantsrainman — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 04:53:08 -0000

Tomorrow (September 29th) all players on the 60 Day DL must be returned to the 40 Man Roster or DFAed. The Giants currently have two on this list (Noah Lowry and Melkin Valdez) and 39 others already on the 40 Man Roster. Clearly the Giants will not be DFAing either Lowry or Valdez so who do they DFA to make room? I supose the Giants could just DFA either Richie or Omar since they both become free agents anyway after the World Series. But, I am betting that they do not choose to do this and instead DFA Alfonzo since it is clear (at least to me) that he has no future with the Giants while I still see a chance that the Giants could re-sign both Omar and Richie to be the backup infielders next year.

I Blame Matt Cain

giantsrainman — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:19:02 -0000

Before we had Matt the Giants had 8 (count them 8) consecutive winning seasons with 4 (count them 4) playoff appearances and 1 World Series appearance.. Matt Cain is just a flat ass jinx. Just look at his Win Loss Record compared to his ERA. How is that possible without being a jinx? If we want to start winning again and making the playoffs again we need to trade his bad luck bad ass ASAP! It is our only hope.

I'm Sure The McCoven Will Disagree

giantsrainman — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:51:50 -0000

I'm Sure The McCoven Will Disagree

but Bruce Jenkins is making sense.

How Far Away For Competing In 2009 Are We?

giantsrainman — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 08:53:51 -0000

It seems to me that most here have already written off 2009 and want Giants Management to do the same. But is this the correct view of what it would take to compete in 2009 or is it just an emotional reaction to how bad the Giants have been since the last time we truely competed in 2004?

Let's look at the different elements of our beloved Giants and see whch ones are ready to compete now and which ones need upgrades. To me this really isn't very hard. The Starting Pitching Is clearly ready to compete now. The Outfield could compete now if none of the bats had to hit 4 or 5. The Catching could compete now if the bat was used hitting 6th, 7th, or 8th instead of cleanup. It is only the Infield and the Bullpen that are currently not ready to compete.

How far away are the Bullpen and the Infield?

To me the bullpen is close. Sabean has talked about adding an experienced arm or two in the offseason to close the gap. I think this would be a misuse of our trading chips and/or free agent dollars. We need to give our young arms the opportunity to fill these roles. Out of Sadler, Hinshaw, Romo, and Matoes I think we should be able to find an 8th inning guy to pair with Wilson to close out the games. I am fine with keeping Walker and Taschner in reduced roles as a righty/lefty pair in middle relief before the 8th. I think our current bullpen just needs more experience and will become a competative bullpen during the 2009 season.

Clearly the Inflied is where we come up short and today we are not even close. We need to find two bats that can legitimately hit 4th and 5th and man the corner infield spots with at least league average defense. We need to find two gloves that can man the middle infield spots with defense that is as much above average as their offense is below average. When we solve this infield puzzle is when we are ready to compete.

So is it possible and reasonable to try and sovle this infield puzzle this offseason so that we can compete in 2009? In my judgement it is. We have pitchers and outfielders to trade. If the salary budget for 2009 returns to $90M we have $30M in free agent dollars to spend. Why can't we fill these 4 holes with players that allow us to compete in 2009 with these resources to aquire them?

What Happened To Holm and Bowker

giantsrainman — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 02:07:30 -0000

What Happened To Holm and Bowker

Both have been removed from the 40 man roster. Have they been traded? Did they fail a drug test? Or, did a website tech just mess up?

Outside Of The Box Thinking

giantsrainman — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 05:47:09 -0000

I have suggested before that Nate Schierholtz be tried again at 3B since we clearly have a gapping hole there. Many of you have argued that this would not work because Nate proved he can't handle 3B defensively and this is why the Giants moved him to the outfield in the first place. Weither I agree or not it is clear that the Giants agree and Nate is not going back to 3B.

Randy Winn is perhaps the best all around athlete the Giants have. Randy was the starting backcout mate of Steve Nash at Santa Clara University. Randy does not have a cannon of an arm but he does have an accurate rifle of an arm. Being a starting guard at the Division I NCAA level proves that Randy also has very good quickess, reation time, footwork, and ball handling skills.

So, my "Outside Of The Box Thinking" is why not try and convert Randy Winn to 3B? Are not the skills above the skills a good defensive 3B needs? If this conversion was sucessful would this not solve our 3B problem for 2009 and open up RF for Nate Schierholtz too?

Aaron Rowand - Gamer/Leader - My Ass

giantsrainman — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:58:27 -0000

Aaron's last AB today really pissed me off. He took four staight pitches to strike out. The first and last were fastballs that he should have been able to handle. The second was a down the middle hanging slider that he should of been able to take deep.

What pissed me off the most was that he put forth this piss poor effort after calling out his teammates in the NY Series. Aaron Rowand 2008 = Jeff Kent 2007.

The Only Buy This Trade Deadline I Want To Make

giantsrainman — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:02:48 -0000

And it ain't for a bat it is for an arm. I want to trade for Greg Maddux. Yes, I still want to sell Ray Durham and Randy Winn but I also want to buy the Mad Dogg. We are only 5 games out of first place in the NL West. We still probably won't win it but I think we could make things mighty interesting with a starting Rotation of Lincecum, Sanchez, Cain, Maddux, and Zito. Move Correia to the bullpen and trade Yabu who is not part of our future.

By selling Durham and Winn we can open up RF for Nate Schierholtz and give Rich Aurilia an everyday job at 3B moving Castillo to 2B. I would also like to see Omar accept that he is at then end of his Hall Of Fame Career and willing to be a bench player until he retires at the end of the year. This would then give us the following lineup and bench that I think could both compete this year in the very weak NL West and build for the future in 2009 and beyond.

Lineup:

Fred Lewis LF

Jose Castillo 2B

Aaron Rowand CF

Bengie Molina C

John Bowker 1B

Rich Aurilia 3B

Nate Schierholtz RF

Manny Burriss SS

Bench:

Omar Vizquel SS

Dave Roberts OF

Dan Ortmeier 1B/OF

Brian Horwitz 1B/OF

Steve Holm C

Note:

Travis Denker returns to Fresno to play every day.