So right now, I don't have cable and I like it fine that way. But I want to be able to - you know- watch baseball when April rolls around. I was looking at the MLB.tv package, but noticed that it's blackout restrictions seem to imply that I could watch any team BUT the Giants. Has anyone else tried it out and if so, was it the case that you couldn't watch any games? Are there any alternatives?

The Giants have, you know, taken a pretty brutal thumping over the last week. The first brutal beat-down came at the hands of the to the division leaders. Having successfully saddened us about the divisional race, the Giants have now failed to show up for two straight games against the wild card leader. As has been noted, for the last week they've
been deficient in every aspect of the game.

This stretch has had the predictable effect on McCovey Chronicles. We've collapsed into a hysterical pile of cuss-words and spreadsheet clutching.

But wait, you say, is oldjacket about to berate us for overreacting?

No, I say. I'm going to ask you to step it up. We'll come back to that.

First off, right now you have every right to be irritated. Against long odds, this team has put together an honest contender full of crazy unrepeatable amazingness. We got Pat Burrell for free from a contending team. Andres Torres emerged from his cocoon to turn into Grady Sizemore. Aubrey Huff has turned in the King of all "he was good two years ago performances) Then, over the last week, the Giants'  playoff odds  have dropped by an excruciating 20%. To make matters worse , our GM's idea of the cavalry is a Grant doppelganger, two fungible middle relievers and a corner outfielder who runs like he has a bad alternator.

The other thing is, it's okay to overreact about your baseball team. being a fan springs from the depths of irrational lizard brain activity.Even those of us who love the rationalist outlook of probabilities and statistics are prone to wishing that harm befall Armando Benitez for his inability to properly place his feet while making a pickoff throw.

So here's what I propose. The Giants, god bless em, are actually good at baseball. Even Emmanuel Burris is capable of playing decent baseball for stretches at a time. Hopefully they'll start actually playing like they are - that's out of our hands. What we're good at is complaining. So lets do that. let it all out. wring those hands until they're bleeding

Right now I hate watching this sucky baseball team play sucky baseball. I would rather listen to this CD :

via img220.imageshack.us

I've never listened to it . But I'm pretty sure it has to be the worst thing ever made by a human. But that's how bad the Giants suck right now.

I spent some time this last year matching up Fangraphs's defensive data with the salary data in the Lahman database. My idea was to test the commonly asserted hyposthesis that defense was the "New Moneyball".

I started by doing some pretty basic investigations of UZR. Most of what I found  seemed to be similar to what Jeff Zimmerman found in these pages a few months ago. In my data, UZR correlates pretty well with runs prevented, with a coefficient of close to 1 (0.91), which matches what you would expect from theory nicely. It also declines with age, like an athletic ability should:

So, finally, I loaded UZR into a salary regression. I took salaries and performance statistics from 2002-2008. The salaries were adjusted to reflect 2008 dollars. Then I used a player's position (using corner outfielders as the control group), offensive stats (Extra Bases, Outs, Reached Bases) and tenure in the major leagues to try to predict a player's salary in the following year.

What I found was that Dave Cameron was right. UZR adds nothing to a player's expected salary. Teams pay players differently based on what position they play, but not based on the ability to play it better than any other player, at least as measured by UZR. 

Regression Results

If this is correct, that superior defense is not compensated,  then that means that the smart teams can essentially improve their team for free, if they can hold their offense constant and add defense. Though perhaps, that may be harder than it sounds.

This may well be changing in this very offseason. The Mariners are often pointed to as team that's taking defensive metrics seriously, and maybe enough teams will start to pay for defense to the point where the price will rise.

So what do you think? Are there any problems with this approach that undermine my result? Any questions left unanswered?

These are some thoughts on the Giant's various players in multiple parts. This week, the infield.

UZR/150 is the amunt of runs a player would save on defense, relative to average at their position over 150 game period..

SGE is my guess at the  Subjective Groupthink Evaluation of a players defense.

Travis Ishikawa

BB% K% BB/K

8.40% 27.30% 0.34

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.261 0.329 0.387 363

UZR/150: 13.5

SGE: very good

He could improve some next year, but realistically, it seems like a stretch that he'll improve enough to actually be a good hitter. Also, He just swung at a slider at his back foot. 

Ryan Garko

BB% K% BB/K

7.6 % 14.1 % 0.58

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.268 0.344 0.421 400

UZR/150: 4.5

SGE: bad

Yeah, Ryan Garko is not +5 defending first baseman. You all know the story, not actually as bad a hitter as he looked with the Giants, but still a far cry from what you'd want out of first base. Garko would be the slowest player on any team that didn't already have Bengie Molina.  

Rich Aurilia

BB% K% BB/K

6.20% 19.70% 0.33

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.213 0.256 0.279 133

UZR/150: 18.7 (at 1b)

SGE: bad

Bye, Rich! Looking forward to your broadcasting career!  

Jesus Guzman

BB% K% BB/K

0.00% 15.00% 0

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.250 0.250 0.250 20

UZR/150: -5

SGE: Dunno, but we've heard it's pretty bad.

Like a less toolsy Velez, they keep trying to find a position for him, without much cooperation grom Guzman's glove. His PCL batting line was merely ok, but he could probably put up similar production to Ryan Garko.  

Freddy Sanchez

BB% K% BB/K

4.6 % 16.6 % 0.29

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.293 0.326 0.416 489

UZR/150: 13.7

SGE: Looks good, when he plays

Hey, great. A second baseman on the wrong side of 30 with knee and shoulder problems.But he won a batting title once.

Emmanuel Burriss

BB% K% BB/K

6.50% 16.80% 0.41

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.238 0.292 0.267 220

UZR/150: -8.6

SGE: Occasionally briliant, but meh overall

Well, that didn't really work out. Burriss had a nice two weeks, but otherwise had the bat knocked out of his hands. His fielding needs work, but at least you can see how it could be MLB-quality someday. 

Matt Downs

BB% K% BB/K

10.20% 24.50% 0.46

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.17 0.25 0.264 60

UZR/150: 6.1 (at 2B)

SGE: Unmemorable

Downs actually out hit Frandsen at AAA this year. He's still a utility player at best, and one of those guys that jcb9 reminisces about at worst.

Juan Uribe

BB% K% BB/K

5.90% 20.60% 0.3

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.289 0.329 0.495 432

UZR/150: -7.1 (at SS), 4.7 at 2B

SGE: Perfect Game-ruining, but otherwise acceptable.

Hey, Juan Uribe was not only good, he was fun. Maybe a wise few could have seen the first one coming, but the second one certainly caught me off-guard. Why does it seem like the baseball gods are setting us up for a long term contract filled with hacking and deteriorating defense, then?

Kevin Frandsen

BB% K% BB/K

5.70% 8.00% 0.75

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.140 0.204 0.18 54

UZR/150: 37.3

SGE: Who?

It's not like Kevin Frandsen takes walks or hits for power or anything, but this is the Giants, those facts should be in hisfavor, shouldn't they? He's was outhit in AAA this year by younger "prospects" this year so the Giants really should be moving on anyway.

Pablo Sandoval

BB% K% BB/K

8.30% 14.50% 0.63

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.330 0.387 0.556 633

UZR/150: -7.7

SGE: Bad, but not disastrous.

That was awesome. 

Edgar Renteria

BB% K% BB/K

7.80% 15.00% 0.57

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.25 0.307 0.328 510

UZR/150: -1.2

SGE: All we saw were dollar signs.

Other than the two grand slams, that was not awesome. Edgar Rentaria was the picture of a player who still knows how to hit, but whose abilities were failing him. And just  because it was injury-related doesn't mean he's bouncing back. I hope the Giants have a good plan B next year.

Ryan Rohlinger

BB% K% BB/K

5.00% 31.60% 0.17

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.158 0.200 0.211 20

UZR/150: 38.2 (at 3B)

SGE: HE NEEDS TO WORK ON HIS THROWING

Chelsea Memmel's favorite Giant would be a good utility prospect, too bad that's not an actual thing.He seems like a capable infielder who can hit the occasional home run. I know this website hopes he can stick around.

These are some thoughts on the Giant's various players in multiple parts. This week, the outfield.

UZR/150 is the amunt of runs a player would save on defense, relative to average at their position over 150 game period..

SGE is my guess at the  Subjective Groupthink Evaluation of a players defense.

Randy Winn

BB% K% BB/K

8.00% 17.30% 0.51

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.262 0.318 0.353 597

UZR/150: 16.4

SGE: Very Good

597 PAs of THAT. If only that were the only reason why the Giants sucked so much this year. Randy Winn used to hit just enough for his defense to make him a good player. This year, he fell apart against lefties, went out of the strike zone more, and just flat seemed to be unable to hit a major league fastball.

Winn's defense is still good for a corner, and he's got all the Barry Bonds techniques of not letting his weak arm hurt him much. At this point, though, there are a lot of guys at AAA that give you good corner defense and not hit major league pitching. 

Andres Torres

BB% K% BB/K

9.50% 29.60% 0.36

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.270 0.343 0.533 170

UZR/150: 28.9

SGE: Excellant

I'm pretty sure that UZR, you and I all agree that Andres Torres was the best defensive outfielder the Giants used this year. His range is so good, that he's a threat to run into other players on routine flyaballs to either corner. If the Giants ever want to give the "Inner-outifield/outer-outfield" defense a try, they'll just need two of Andres Torres.

He also had a nice season with the bat. Torres is a hard guy to figure out. He has crazy platoon splits (.667 OPS vs righties, 1.116 vs. lefties), strikes out a ton and didn't start hitting in the minors until he turned 29. He's at least a quality 4th outfielder on glovework alone.   

Nate Schierholtz

BB% K% BB/K

5.30% 20.40% 0.28

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.267 0.302 0.400 308

UZR/150: 8.9

SGE: Very Good

Schierholtz was starting to put togethera pretty nice season, then got hurt, then disappeared offensively and from the lineup card. The overall line is ugly and no one is really sure if he'll ever get on base or hit for power. Defensively, Nate had a few adventures learning the pinball machine that is rightfield at At&T, but all in all looked solid. It would appear that his reputation hasn't caught up with his arm yet. Dude had 10 asissts this year.

Fred Lewis

BB% K% BB/K

10.90% 28.50% 0.43

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.258 0.348 0.390 336

UZR/150: 8.4 

SGE: [Picture of Nuclear Explosion]

One of Fred Lewis's problems is that he seems like he should be a much better player than he is. What he is isn't great, but it isn't terrible either. It just falls short of what someone with his tools should be. Just about everything in his defensive game belies poor technique coupled with good athleticism.His routes are weird, his angles poor, his hands awful. The real argument between the two Lewis factions is whether or not you think that his superior footspeed allows him to make more than enough outs to make up for the all the drops.

Offensively he continues with the theme of doing things that are easy to see poorly, and things that are tough to see well. He strikes out a ton, doesn't hit for power, but was one of the better OBP men for the Giants. That, of course is damning him with faint praise. 

Eugenio Velez

BB% K% BB/K

5.30% 19.30% 0.29

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.267 0.308 0.400 307

UZR/150: 11.4 (in the outfield)

SGE: Suspicious

Last game of the season's shenanigans aside, Velez's outfield defense has progressed to the point where it's now his bat that's the weakest part of his game (and proud we all are of that). His second base play is still awful, and I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone take more time on the double play pivot. Wilriv used to claim that CF was going to be his eventual destination, and that no longer seems crazy to me. Still, fans can be forgiven if they expect the Baron to return at any moment.

Offensively, even his second half hot streak was pretty bleh (.277/.321/.426). 

John Bowker

BB% K% BB/K

5.60% 26.90% 0.22

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.194 0.247 0.373 73

UZR:29.1

SGE: Unsure

Bowker reworked his approach in Fresno, but didn't really get a chance to show if he could apply it in the majors, and seemed like the same (bad) hitter as last year when he did play. UZR gets pretty wonky with as small a sample size as Bowker got in the outfield. I'm pretty certain that he's the worst defensive outfielder trotted out by the Giants this year, but that's not really saying much. 

Aaron Rowand

BB% K% BB/K

5.70% 25.10% 0.24

AVG OBP SLG PA

0.261 0.319 0.419 546

UZR/150:-.3

SGE: Good

Actually worse at the plate this year than he was last year, he put up Renteria numbers in the second half. He can not hit a low breaking ball and unfailingly swings at every one. Rowand is still good enough to play center field, when healthy and he showed that this year. He still makes poor throwing decisions, and would be better if he knew his limitations. The strikeouts and the salary combine to make him one of the most infuriating players to watch on the current squad. 

Julian Tavarez thinks that the Nationals are a 600 lb woman at 4 a.m.. Given his looks and pitching abilities, I would say that the Nationals probably also required a few shots of tequila to brace themselves for "The Julian Experience".

Jason Schmidt is not going to be the fifth starter for the Dogs. That should surprise no one. But the guys that he lost the fifth starter job to should make you feel sorry for him: Eric Stultz, Eric Milton, Eric Roberts (okay, not really), Claudio Vargas and Shawn Freakin' Estes are all still in the running for the job. That list reads like like the Jeopardy answer to the question: "Who are four pitchers worse than Barry Zito?"

I've volunteered to help in a systematic projection of the Giants for Beyond the Boxscore. and I need your help. There are two things we're looking to project: performance and playing time. I've used the CHONES and my own brain to offer you a starting point on the hitters, and then I flat out stole Xanthan's pitching projections for a starting point on those.

Now I need you to rip them apart. Especially the playing time projections, as the estimates of knowledgeable fans are likely to be way better than some dumb ol' algorithm. I will revisit this at least one more time before the season to adjust the estimates based on injuries and (God help us) Spring Training performance.

If you disagree with these projections even a little bit, here's what to do:

1) If it's related to fielding, baserunning, hitting or pitching feel free to comment below.

2) If it's just about hitting, you can go to this application that I stole from The Other Fifteen  and make your own projection which I will use to create a mean community projection for each hitter.

General Guidelines-

• for playing time I used a hard cap of 695 at bats for each position. It's fine to go over or under that number, but the end result should be in the neighborhood 695 at bats per position.
  
• Not too many players add more than 1 win with baserunning over the season. Not too many cost their team more than a half.
• -2 wins to +2 wins is a reasonable range for defense.
• For relievers, leverage is a measure of how crucial a game situation is. A closer will generally end up with the highest leverage score in the bullpen, followed by the set-up guys.

Here are the initial projections:

Hitters 

Pitchers 

Finally here's the link to worksheet  that this is all based off of.

Thanks for your help.

Everybody knows that the offense this year will probably not be that good. We don't really have that much pitching depth. We shouldn't trade Jonathan Sanchez without someone good to replace him in the rotation. Noah Lowry may never pitch again. Other general managers are not willing to unload star players onto us for the hell of it. Defense matters too. Randy Winn is good at baseball.

Is there anything I didn't cover?

I've noticed that while the McCoven argue an awful lot about this or that thing, there does seem to be an awful lot that the McCoven agree upon. THese things may or may not be common to Giants fans, but I thought I would take a stab at defining what seems like the current conventional wisdom as of August on this site. Let me know if you think I've missed something, included something wacky or just plain disagree.

• Jose Castillo is a cheap stopgap but should not take at bats from homegrown young players. Perhaps he should not even take that many at bats from grizzled fan favorite Rich Aurilia.
• Brian Wilson is a pretty good reliever, and has a reasonably bright future in a late inning role.
• While Travis Ishikawa is not a guarantee to be a useful major leaguer, he should be given a shot on the big league team either this year or next.
• Nate Schierholtz may not prove to be a better player than Randy Winn,  but Winn's value is not such that trading WInn to find out represents a huge risk.
• Of all the possible uses of the team finances, money spent signing draft picks is currently the best use.
• Matt Cain is not a #3 starter.
• Eugenio Velez is not likely to be a major league regular. 
• Jonathan Sanchez's current struggles do not obliviate the progress he made earlier this season. 

Someone may have posted this before, but it's a fact:

Diamondback fans HATE Randy Winn.

Though a lot of the damage has been done at Chase field, Randy has put up a pretty awesome .352/.406/.597 line against them over the last 3 years. (Though that's nothing compared to the unholy terror he has inflicted upon the Astros pitching corps).

I just find it fun that the Giants have a player that torments another franchise the way that say, Scott Hairston or Steve Finley torment us.

Yabu baffles me.

When I watch him pitch, with all that movement and craftiness, I think "Damn, he's good!"

When I look at his shiny ERA, I think that my impression is confirmed. Then I look at his strikout rate and walk rate and FIP, and I think how the hell does he have that ERA? You can't forge an ERA out of sheer craftiness, can you?

Then I look at his GB%, and see that it's a pretty solid 50.9%.  That kinda explains the shiny ERA, right? Except that his LD% is an unexceptional 22.3%. That trick doesn't usually work!

So, what do you think? Are you buying this guy? I guess I'm kinda leaning towards "not really" in the he's really about as good as Jack Taschner sort of way. I don't think we're in for another Henneplosion or Chulkification, but let's keep our expectations set for decent if not spectacular.

Possible Hijack for those who dislike talking about 39 year old middle relievers: I really do believe in Brian Wilson despite his palpitationy closes.

Hey, I just want to remind everybody how awesome Lincecum's punchout of Pujols after falling behind 3-0 was.

To be 3-0 with this offense, and leading the league in K/9 . . . The Kid's been everything we could ask for.

To fill up the required word count, I give you these sentences:

colorless green ideas sleep furiously

colorless green ideas sleep furiously

colorless green ideas sleep furiously

colorless green ideas sleep furiously

I'm pleased with Brian Bocock.

Yes,  he is a graduate of the Ruben Rivera school for Runners Who Can't Run Good and Can't Do Other Stuff Good Too. But the D has been exceptional in the regular season, so far. He looks good turning the Duece, hasn't made any terrible throws.

The best part has been the offense.I know this has a lot to do with my expectations of him, and probably a lot to do with him hitting eighth as well. But,he has an Approach! 6 walks! That's an awful lot for a Giant.  And does he pay royalties to Lansford for that opposite field nubber based  hitting style? Love it.

Of course, it's only been a week, and I'm sure the scouting departments aren't knocking themselves out trying to come up with ways to get Brian Bocock out (especially since the best way so far is let him get on - he'll do the work from there).

This is the kind of season we're looking at. I'm just happy that one part of the team hasn't been as bad as I expected.

Shouldn't we cut Steve Kline? It seems like a harsh thing to say, but we have an awful lot of out of options guys with some potential. We also have more lefty relievers than any last place team should want or need. If we lose, say, Threets because of SK's roster spot I would feel like this is bad roster management.

What do y'all think?

(I'm from the foothills, we say y'all. If you think it doesn't sound classy, imagine I said vous)

Like many here, I haven't been particularly happy with Giants roster construction over the last couple of years. I thought I would make a list of what would make me happy so that if the Giants aren't doing what I would like, I could distinguish that from say, knee-jerk whining.

*Don't waste money. Free agents that take playing time from young, cheap possibly good players are a DO NOT WANT! Every dollar not spent is a dollar and ten cents we can put towards someone at a time when they might make a difference.

*That being said it's okay to go after an impact guy if someone of his quality just doesn't come along every year. ARod falls into this category obviously, but I suspect that his contract would cripple any one who isn't the Yankees. It's possible that Tori Hunter is this kind of guy, but that would surprise the hell out of me.

*more undrafted free agants from overseas plz!

*It would be really nice to trade most of the vets, but it is understandable that this may be hard to do. Not much of a demand for Aurilia/Durham/Roberts.

*It's okay to resign Dreamy and Peter Happy to short term deals. There is absolutely nothing in the system to take their place and strong defense can keep the young pitchers from wanting to slit their wrists or get traded.

*It's okay to improve the bullpen, but sweet Jeebus don't spend a ton of money doing it. Exhibit A: 2007 Balmer Orioles. There are very few areas of a team where an extra dollar seems to be more likely to find you a less effective player, but bullpens seem to work that way.

*It's okay to trade a pitcher or two, but we had better get some value. Even for Lowry, who once upon a time had good periphereals and results. Other things equal, trading Correia is a better idea than trading Sanchez.

I know most everyone here is basically  looking at next year or maybe even the year after that.

The bullpen is full of youngish guys who have been playing. My question is have we learned anything about them? Is there anybody you would like to see back next year? Anyone that you doubt can be useful to the team?

THis is how I see the skill sets.

Kevin Correia - Gives up too many home runs and too many walk in too many high leverage spots. Can strike a guy out, and may actually get better.

Jonathan Sanchez - This year Sanchez  has been one of the better strikout pitchers in the league, and one the worst at giving out walks. Could be good enough to start, could be a lights out reliever, could be Felix Rodriguez.

Randy Messenger - Doesn't strike anybody out, doesn't walk anybody, doesn't give up the long ball, but he doesn't seem to be able to handle high leverage duties.

Brad Hennessey - Similar to Messenger but a few more K's and a few less walk's. Leads the bullpen in WXRL.

Vinnie Chulk - Chulk is better than league average at almost everything you would want a pitcher to do, but I still don't trust the guy, and neither does Bochy. Doesn't really seem to flourish in the high leverage stuff.

Jack Taschner - Taschner is like Sanchez in every category, but a little less so. He strikes out almost a batter per inning, but he'll walk the ballpark. Perhaps because he keeps the ball out of play, he's stranded more inheritated runners than any other Giant this season.