I don't know about you guys (and gals) but I am as pessimisitic and melancholic as good fan of 80s british post-punk rock can be. Yes, we may have won the world series but victory was only a temporary salve for my broodingly handsome and tormented soul. Why is this relevant? Because I was absolutely convinced that this the year that Timmy lincecum breaks (or at least falls from the ranks of super elite pitchers). In 2010, Lincecum experienced a 2 mph loss on his fastball, a decline in his k/9 below 10 and an increase in his walk rate above 3. Given his slight build and atypical delivery, Timmy looked to me like a guy on the way out. For a pitcher who lives off his changeup (it's probably the best change in baseball) velocity loss is lethal. So I watched with trepidation as the season started. So far lincecum has allayed my fear. Through his first 2 starts (at a time of the season when pitchers are still building strength) he had managed a 93+ mph fastball. Interestingly he has also abandoned his curve and upped his slider frequency. Regardless, I am currently very reassured. Now excuse me while I listen to the Smiths before I get happy

I think we should trade Bumgarner for Matt Holliday

I have a soft spot for the pirates for 2 reasons.  1. We swiped Bonds from the Pirates, dooming them to 20 years of irrelevance.   2. They gave us a sweat-heart of a deal for Matt Morris, a move which led directly to the firing of one of the most incompetent GM's in baseball.

Here's part 3 of my monthly look at the contributions in win values of the Giants position players and starting pitchers.

As many of you know, the win value stat represents the latest, and by far the best IMO method to evaluate players.   Using the best available offensive stat (wOBA), defensive stat (UZR) and pitching stat (FIP), win values literally allows one to assess how many wins a player has been worth compared to an equivalent minor league replacement (think Willie Bloomquest).  Additionally, since major league teams pay roughly 5 million/ win on the FA market, win values enables us to think of player value in monetary terms (which is ridiculously cool and intuitive).  Since MGL generously allowed access of UZR to fangraphs win values are now updated continuously throughout the season.   So how have the Giants done up to June 28th? 

Disclaimer: UZR requires a large sample size (probably 1-2 seasons) before it is terribly accurate.  2 months of data still contains a tremendous amount of noise.

April values

May Values

Observations:

1.Tim Lincecum- To quote a reputable Giants source, "Tim Lincecum is good. It’s almost like he should get some sort of award. Something like: "Award for Guy Who Throws Good" or something."  He has been unquestionably the best Giants' player this season by a margin of 2 wins.  2 wins is the difference between a league average player and a AAA scrub. 

2. Panda Sandoval-  Sandoval had an great month.   I recently went into how unique a hitter he is at a none-mccovey chronicles site .    I don't know if he can sustain his approach over the long haul but he  performed brilliantly in June.

3.  Aaron Rowand-  Rowand sweats pure testosterone and eats grittiness for breakfast.   I hate this contract and the thought process behind it but he has been pretty good (even his defense!) in 2009.

4. Edgar Renteria-  Renteria is just killing us with his bat.  -11.6 runs below average is positively Burris-esque.  I like this contract and the thought process behind it but he has been pretty bad (even his defense!) in 2009.

5. Kevin Frandsen- I included Frandsen mainly to annoy his supporters.  He hit poorly in his 28 PA stint in the majors this season but even Albert Pujols can hit poorly over so small a stretch

Blah Blah Blah Long-winded diatribe railing about Sabean's horrid roster construction and his complete lack of understanding of modern statistical techniques.

*Kenshin suddenly convulses*

OMG!!!! The Giants currently sit 7 games over .500 near the end of June!!!     YAAY!!!!!

*Kenshin gradually becomes lucid*

Ummmm.... I think I blacked out.  What happened??

Thread on, you crazy diamond.

Preface:  Rosterbation is extremely boring and utterly pointless.   We have no idea about player availability and what the potential trading partner is demanding in return.  Therefore, I am not going to propose any specifics.

Emmanuel is having an awful year.  A really awful year.  A Neifi Perez says "hello" kind of year.   If he doesn't change his current rate stats he will be worth -2 wins below replacement over the entire season (or -1.2 over the remaining games).  Now the good news:  Since Burriss sucks more than a Heidi Fleiss escort (yay for dated pop-culture references!), replacing him with an average player results in a huge swing for the Giants.

Here is a list of 2nd baseman who are in +/- .3 wins of essentially a league average player right now (from best to worst).

Robinson Cano

Akinori Iwamura

Placido Polanco

Alberto Callaspo

Adam Kennedy

Craig Counsell

Howie Kendrick

David Eckstein

Jeff Keppinger

Acquiring any one of these players would essentially add 2 wins to the Giants season total.  That's huge! For perspective,  if the Giants were to trade the entire farm system to Milwaukee for Ryan Braun (1 of the 3 most valuable outfielders so far this season) and then insert Braun into the lineup in place of Fred Lewis, the Giants would gain.... 2.5 wins.   The Giants can do the equivalent of adding a star to the roster just by trading for a decent 2nd baseman.  If they are serious about competing in the NL this year, Sabean HAS to do this.     There is probably no cheaper (realistic) trade in all of baseball that can have more influence on a single team's season than the potential replace-Burris trade.

John Hart loves this game day thread.   He thinks it has tremendous makeup.

As Randy sits at the bar and waits to see if destiny turns up, we the fans are left to contemplate deep mysteries.    For instance, if a space ship traveling at the speed of light were to pass through the center of the Giants offense, would it go backwards in time?

Part 5/5 of our evaluation of the Giants starting pitching is a look at the big unit which I am sure will make you SWELL with anticipation.  Johnson has proved something of a disappointment  1/3 of the way through this season.   After all, at the time of his signing, many of us hoped for a repeat of his successful 2008 campaign in which he posted a 3.76 FIP.    His FIP this season is a full run worse than last year (4.68).  That said, little evidence exists that he has lost the ability to be an above average starter as he has maintained a great K rate (9.35/G) and experienced almost no change in his velocity. 

How have Johnson's individual pitches changed since 2002?  Read on to find out.

Observations.

1.  Johnson is the only Giants pitcher that, at least from a historical perspective, I would have loved to see data extending back beyond 2002.   Johnson clearly was a very different pitcher in his earlier years and this data set fails to capture his prime.    Since 2002,  Johnson's major change has been a not unexpected drop in velocity.  From a terrifying  94.5 MPH in 2002, he has since declined to a much more human 90.7 in 2009.

2.  Much like Jonathan Sanchez,  Randy Johnson personifies the benefits of being a left-hander who can break 90.  Similar to Sanchez, Johnson relies on a fewer number of pitch types than his right-handed brethren requires.   He, in fact, only throws 2 1/2 pitches  (his third pitch, the split finger, is really just a variation on a fastball).

3.  The value of Johnson's fastball really surprised me.    For the past 5 seasons, his fastball has actually been a slightly below average pitch.  Now some of this can be attributed to his decline in velocity; however, even in 2002 (94.5 MPH) this pitch was shockingly mediocre.  

4.  Once again the data, at least ostensibly, supports subjective evaluation.   As a spectator, I have noticed hitters absolutely crushing hanging "fastballs" left up in the zone by Johnson.   I suspect these pitches are splitters that fail to sink.

Well, I hope you enjoyed our tour of linear weight pitch values made possible by fangraphs.   It was a blast to write and, for me at least, quite enlightening.

Part 1 (Lincecum)

Part 2 (Cain)

Part 3 (Zito)

Part 4 (Sanchez)

Here's part 2 of my monthly look at the contributions in win values of the Giants position players and starting pitchers.

As many of you know, the win value stat represents the latest, and by far the best IMO method to evaluate players.   Using the best available offensive stat (wOBA), defensive stat (UZR) and pitching stat (FIP), win values literally allows one to assess how many wins a player has been worth compared to an equivalent minor league replacement (think Willie Bloomquest).  Additionally, since major league teams pay roughly 5 million/ win on the FA market, win values enables us to think of player value in monetary terms (which is ridiculously cool and intuitive).  Since MGL generously allowed access of UZR to fangraphs, win values are now updated continuously throughout the season.   So how have the Giants done up to May 28th? 

Disclaimer: UZR requires a large sample size (probably 1-2 seasons) before it is terribly accurate.  2 months of data still contains a tremendous amount of noise.

Here is the link to the april values

THE MOST PATHETIC TABLE IN THE WORLD (Giants Fielders vs Timmy)

Observations:

1. Sometimes I find it reassuring when advanced stats jive with subjective analysis.  We all know that the Giants' offense sucks so badly that it bends light and the starting pitching has been pretty good.  The above chart confirms this knowledge.   Our 5th starter (Zito) has been better than all but 3 of the Giants position players.

2. Randy Winn is turning in a typically classy season.   Good defense and adequate offense a good baseball player make.

3. Aaron Rowand digs deep and pulls out some veteran grit!!!*  UZR still hates him with the fury of 1000 suns (obviously the formula fails to take dirty uniforms into account).  That said, his offensive explosion (thanks Grant) has compensated quite nicely.   *NB  Rowand dove when he read this sentence.

4. Fred Lewis makes my heart hurt.   I have long defended Lewis' boneheaded fielding by pointing to the stats.  Alas, the stats have started to reflect Lewis' error prone catastrofucks.    He remains the 3rd most valuable Giants player but without good defense, he becomes significantly less valuable to real baseball teams.

5.  Burris continues his existence as a replacement level ball player.  It's pretty sad when one is the worst fielder AND the 2nd worst hitter and is not the least valuable player on one's own team.  Furthermore, it's sad when one is the worst fielder and the 2nd worst hitter on a team and has actually improved his play over the past month.

6.  Aurilia needs to go away.  It is unacceptable when the worst hitter on the team plays 1st friggin' base. 

7. Lincecum is unbelievably good.   I would liken his right arm to the love child of a threeway between Jessica Alba, Angelina Jolie, and Miranda Kerr.  That's how beautiful his arm is. 

8. It's nice that Johnson has stopped sucking.

9. As befitting average starting pitchers,  Sanchez and Zito have been average so far this season.

10. THE MOST PATHETIC TABLE IN THE WORLD is pretty self-explanatory.   Lincecum has been more valuable than all our position players put together.   Did I mention that the offense might have some problems?

Part 4/5 of our look at the individual pitch values of the Giants starting pitching.  

Methinks I  am a closeted strikeout fetishist because while I tend to underestimate Matt Cain's value (despite his solid K rate), I tend to inflate Jonathan Sanchez' value.   Jonathan Sanchez is, in reality, much closer to a league average pitcher than an above average one.  Of course, given the egregious price mediocre FA starting pitching commands, cheap league average starting pitching has significant value. On to the numbers.  NB: I chose not to include the season Sanchez spent in the bullpen.

Observations:

1. Jonathan Sanchez is proof that when you are left-handed and throw above 90 mph, you can survive as a major league starting pitcher with only 3 pitches (even when one is pretty terrible).  So remember parents,   tie your kid's right arm down when he is learning to throw a baseball.

2.  Jonathan Sanchez throws more fastballs than any other Giants starter.  In fact he throws many more fastballs than any other Giants starter (Matt Cain throws the 2nd most at 60%).   As befitting an average to slightly-above average fastball pitcher, Sanchez' fastball is slightly above average.

3. Sanchez has always struggled with his changeup.  This year his changeup has been "OMG, PLEASE DON'T THORW THAT AGAIN !1!" (in gameday thread speak) terrible.

4.  I included Sanchez fastball velocity mainly as an interesting fact.   Most pitchers experience a bump in velocity when they move to the bullpen and lose velocity when the move from the pen (which makes intuitive sense).   Sanchez patently ignores this tendency and throws the same velocity regardless of his role.

I hope you enjoyed this post!  If not, you only have one more to suffer through (or glance at and subsequently ignore)

There is no hope.

Next up in my look at the pitch types of the Giants starter is Barry Zito.  Apologies to those of you who dislike this stuff.

Barry Zito has us Giants fans in something of a quandary these days as he currently sports a shiny 3.6 ERA.  After all, we have derived such masochistic joy in hating him over the past few years.   We have hated his contract.  We have hated his seasons.   We have hated his attitude.  We have hated his ex-girlfriends (OK, that last one is not true.  Alyssa, CALL ME).    I initially intended my typical Gibbonesque Thesis-Antithesis statement here to the effect that despite his ERA  Zito has not been an appreciably different pitcher this season (4.7 FIP in 2008 vs 4.4 FIP in 2009); however, as you will see later,  Zito HAS been a different pitcher this season.

Observations:

1.  What the hell happened in 2006?   Although his effectiveness had declined following his (undeserved) Cy Young in 2002, Zito had remained largely the same pitcher from 2002 through 2005.   In 2006 (bolded above), he lost velocity and started throwing fewer fastballs and curveballs and more changeups.  Throwing more changeups when your fastball has lost a step (or three0 may seem like a pretty silly idea; however, the changeup actually was his best pitch that season.

2.  Sometimes the common wisdom gets one right.    Traditional baseball  thought attributed Zito's decline largely to his lost velocity.  As you can see from above,  Zito has a directly proportionate relationship between fastball velocity and FIP.

3. Zito is no longer a curveball pitcher.  In fact, in 2009 he has thrown fewer curveballs than any other pitch.

4. Zito has been a different pitcher in 2009. He has increased his velocity and is throwing significantly more sliders.   Additionally he has had more success with 3 of his 4 pitches than at any other point during his Giants tenure.  So why is Zito still so resoundingly mediocre?  The answer lies in his fastball and his changeup.  Zito's fastball has become a league average pitch with the increased velocity.  Zito's changeup is the real problem.  He throws a ton of them (18.2%) and they are not very good (-.3).   When 70% of your pitches (fastball + changeup) are average or not very good, you are going to be a mediocre pitcher.

At the risk of inciting my fellow Mccoven to violence, I will admit to my luke warm feelings on Cain.  Allow me first to produce my now standard caveat: Matt Cain is a good pitcher.  He is young, durable, and has a reasonable contract.   He is a significantly valuable baseball commodity. 

That said, Cain, in my estimation, is not a great pitcher (or even a very good one). He allows a disproportionately low HR rate adjusted for his fly ball rate (thanks to marcello for pointing out my error) , walks too many people, and most surprisingly, just does not strike hitters outs.  I don't believe his problem is stuff as I actually like Cain's fastball and curveball.  Fortunately, the invaluable fangraphs allows us to further examine Cain's repertoire.

Observations:

1. Cain built his reputation as a prospect on his velocity and his curveball.  So, I am absolutely shocked that his curveball has not  been a very good pitch in the majors.  I need someone (that someone would happen to be known as Xanthan) to look at Cain's curve with pitch FX

2. I had no idea that Cain threw so many sliders.  His slider was actually his 2nd and 1st best pitch in 2006 and 2007 respectively.   Interestingly his slider has lost effectiveness in 2009 and he has compensated by throwing it far less.

3. I assumed before looking at the data that the FB would be Cain's major weakness.   It has actually consistently been a slightly above average pitch over the course of his career.  Like Lincecum, Cain has lost about 2 mph on his FB this season.  I wonder if something wanky is going on with the pitchFX data at Mays' Field.

We all know Tim Lincecum is totally ridiculously awesome.    He legitimately deserved his 2008 Cy Young and one can make  a legitimate argument that his 2009 season has been better so far (1.85 FIP vs 2.62 FIP).   However, have you ever wondered how Timmy is so good?  Well, the best baseball website on the planet,  fangraphs, has the answers for you.  I present below the value of each pitch type per 100 pitches lincecum throws for 2008 and 2009 as well as the % of each pitch he throws.

Credit to Xanthan for posting a similar fanshot 2 hrs earlier than my post.   I will keep mine up because I have a better format (and I spent 15 minutes on it)

NB: The 2009 values obviously have a relatively small sample size compared to 2008

1.  For those of you wondering how the decreased velocity (about 2 mph) has effected Lincecum's success with his fastball, it has transformed it from a very good pitch to a below average one.

2.  Ignore the slider.  Lincecum throws far too few of them to glean anything from the above info (although he has increased the number he has thrown in 2009)

3. Lincecum Throws a lot of changeups.  His changeup is awesome.

Suck it, Natto.

This is absolutely not a jinx thread for the Colorado Rockies pitcher.  Nope, No Sir, Not at all.

We have a documented report of Giants offense.   Do not be alarmed!

Fred Lewis-----> Epic Fail

As many of you know, the win value stat represents the latest, and by far the best IMO method to evaluate players.   Using the best available offensive stat (wOBA), defensive stat (UZR) and pitching stat (FIP), win values literally allows one to assess how many wins a player has been worth compared to an equivalent minor league replacement (think Willie Bloomquest).  Additionally, since major league teams pay roughly 5 million/ win on the FA market, win values enables us to think of player value in monetary terms (which is ridiculously cool and intuitive).  Since MGL generously allowed access of UZR to fangraphs, win values are now updated continuously throughout the season.   So how have the Giants done throughout April?

Comments:

wOBA is a great stat regardless of the sample size; however, UZR has a lot of noise this early in the season and should be taken with a grain of salt.    There is a positional adjustment which I did not include in my chart (CF defense is worth more than 1st base defense for instance), and which is why adding defensive RAA and offensive RAA does not completely explain win value.

1.  Lincecum is unbelievably good.   To wit: as good as Cain has been this season, he has only contributed about 1/2 as much as Timmy.  Lincecum has earned many times over his actual salary this season.

2. Summation of the Giants 2009 offense:   Andres friggin' Torres has been the 3rd best position player this season (depending on how much you believe the defensive stats)

3.  Despite his admittedly awful offense, Renteria has been OK so far this season.  UZR likes his defense (which jives with my subjective visual evaluation).   The dude cannot hit but Worst. Contract. Ever. this ain't.

4.  Travis Ishikawa  YIKES.    Emmanuel Burriss  DOUBLE YIKES.      If the world was a meritocracy, these two would PAY the Giants 4 million dollars for their play this season.   That is how much worse they have been than AAA veterans.  FREE KEVIN FRANDSEN.

5.  Barry Zito- 3rd best Giants starter this season.   <Cue weeping and gnashing of teeth>.   I am quite frankly terrified and astonished.

6.  I was completely on board with the Randy Johnson signing at the time.   In reality, it has not worked out very well so far.

7.  According to UZR,  Aaron Rowand has no business playing CF.   I hate this signing more with every passing day.

hmmm.... do you think the Alex Rios for Tim Lincecum deal is still on the table?

For Panda!!

Go Offense!   Go Cain!   Go Giants!

A summary of the game in visuals.   Longtime readers know of my affinity for win expectancy.  As you can see the game has been pretty close

PS: NO FRIGGIN TALKING IN THE DUGOUT (that goes for you too Kuip)

Woe is Giants baseball.

MLB baseball has instituted a new rule:   The Giants player in question must provide photographic evidence of any actual Giants homerun or it didn't happen.