Thursday, July 28, 2005

 

Nothing Changed

See last's week post, repeat. It's uncanny how little anything has changed in the last two weeks, except that the Padres are now 51-51 and still in first place. Amazing.

Three days until the trading deadline, and the silence is deafening. There are a few small rumors that Tomko and Eyre are drawing interest from other teams. Of course, the problem is that the Giants need more pitching, not less...

Anyway, here are my wild-assed guesses on who will be wearing a different uniform on Monday:

Brett Tomko I find it hard to disagree with the Conventional Wisdom here. He's got the rep as a great second-half pitcher, he's a free agent at the end of the year, and all the contenders are going to want to bolster their rotations. I think Sabean moves him for some young pitching, since it's unlikely the Giants will resign him.

Pedro Feliz Of course, I've been expecting this for years. I will stubbornly continue to expect it now. Feliz gets traded for a minor league pitching prospect that I've never heard of.

Kirk Rueter This is my one surprise pick. I expect Rueter will get moved to a desperate team for pocket change. The way the Yankees are picking up old retreads, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them pick up Woody.

And that's it. I think Schmidt stays, I think Eyre stays, and I can't see anyone taking Durham or Alfonzo.

Jefferson 5:16 PM

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Friday, July 22, 2005

 

Fate Is Screwing With Us

Okay, we are now about a week and a half before the trade deadline. The Padres continue to disgrace the NL West. They have lost six of their last ten and are now only three games over .500. At yet, that's still good enough for first place. The Giants have won five of their last ten (and are leading tonight's game). If they win tonight, they will be only seven games back of the Padres.

This is still a freaking impossible situation for Brian Sabean. This might be the year you can win this division with 80 wins. Noboby seems to be able to win. The Dodgers are an injury-riddled mess; they have so many guys on the DL that even the Giants feel sorry for them. The Diamondbacks have a pitching staff that even the Giants rotation feels sorry for. If the commissioner were a true fan of good baseball, he'd banish the entire division to the PCL for the rest of the year. Sadly, he won't do that, so someone has to win it. Even if it means going 78-84 in the process.

Whatever happens, it's coming down to the wire. Sabean will have to wait until the very last minute to see what happens, and then act. His head will be telling him to pack it in. His heart will be telling him that a 40-28 finish could be enough to make the playoffs. He has never faced this kind of situation as a general manager.

We are about to find out what kind of man Brian Sabean is: the kind who listens to his head, or the kind who listens to his heart.

Jefferson 9:16 PM

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Thursday, July 14, 2005

 

Fear and Loathing After the Break

Those goddamned San Diego Padres. You know, if they were a real first-place team, with a real first-place record, the Giants would be about 250 games back. But no. Those pathetic Padres are giving everyone else in the division hope, including those who have no business messing around with dangerous things like expired milk, hope and rocket science.

So here are the Giants, with a GM who is in "acquisition mode." That's doubletalk for "we think we have a chance, and we're going for it." If all you do is look at the "GB" column in the standings, it's easy to delude yourself. Once you start deluding yourself, you start buying Rationalization Lite in the handy six-pack containers. You can find yourself thinking nonsense like this:

"Brett Tomko is always better in the second half!" You hear this a lot, and a cursory look at recent stats might lead you to believe it:

Brett Tomko, 2002-2005
                       ERA    K/9    WHIP   BB/9   HR/9
Pre All-Star Break     4.87   5.10   1.48   2.89   1.23
Post All-Star Break    4.30   5.32   1.30   2.48   1.32

That's a pretty good bump! But it's illusory. Going back to the 1997 season, I found only four seasons where Tomko had significant playing time after the break, and significantly improved: 1998, 1999, 2003 and 2004. In 1997 and 2002, he was a lot worse--1.50 ERA worse--in the second half. In 2000, not much of a change. In 2001, he didn't play enough for the numbers to matter.

If a guy is better half the time, about the same a quarter of the time, and tanks the rest of the time, there's no pattern. It's a crap shoot. We have no clue what Tomko is going to do in the second half. Counting on him to repeat last year's improvement is like believing in the Tooth Fairy. You might find a buck under your pillow, but it was your parents all along, and someday they'll break the bad news to you anyway.

"Schmidt will turn it around! He's not really this bad." From August 2001 until August 2004, Jason Schmidt was a very good pitcher. At his best, he was a favorite to win the Cy Young. Before August 2001, when he arrived in San Francisco, and after his groin injury last year, he has been a mediocre pitcher.

The Schmidt we're seeing now is the Pittsburgh edition: too many walks, a few too many homers, and not quite enough strikeouts to make up for his flaws. Overall, a .500 pitcher with flashes of brilliance. Yes, he can be this mediocre for the rest of the season. In fact, unless he proves otherwise by putting together a solid month of starts, you have to believe that Schmidt has already peaked.

It is interesting to note, though, that Schmidt's best years coincided quite nicely with the time he has played with Bonds in the lineup. Which leads us to our next delusion:

"Barry Bonds will come back and save the day!" Sure he will. The day you see him taking actual batting practice, we'll have this conversation. Until then, he's a 41-year-old dude with bad knees who hasn't played baseball in nearly a year. Rust never sleeps. The odds of Barry making a difference in this year's playoff race is about the same as me winning the World Series of Poker.

"If we have a fire sale, the fans will stay away in droves!!" They already are. The no-show rate seems higher than ever, based on what I've seen and heard. Here's the bigger risk: if you trade off the kids now for a desperate run, you risk turning a one-year dip into a five-year disaster. Without Bonds, and without a winning team, and with higher season ticket prices looming, the cell-phone-sucking fans will not show up to games. The fans will forgive and forget 2005; they'll blame it on Barry's injuries and leave it at that. If the team turns into the Royals, forget it.

That's why it's better to have the fire sale, and accelerate the rebuilding. Make sure the team is good for years to come. Don't listen to the nonsense, Brian Sabean. Pretend the Padres don't suck. Realize the Giants are 13 games under .500. Bite the fucking bullet, put it in the gun and shoot this season in the head. Bury 2005, and make 2006 a year to remember.

Jefferson 1:23 PM

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Thursday, July 07, 2005

 

Bizzaro Team

Work has kept me from posting anything long, but here's the gist of what I want to say in my next post:

In mid-March, this is what we expected from the Giants:

* The bullpen would still suck.
* The starting rotation would be pretty darn good.
* The offense, without Bonds, would probably suck, with little help from the new old guys.
* But that would be okay, since Bonds wouldn't be out long.
* The outfield defense would be horrible.

This is what we have now:

* The bullpen is looking pretty damn good, maybe because most of them are new.
* The starting rotation? We don't have one.
* The offense is holding its own quite well.
* And thank God, because only He knows if and when Bonds is coming back.
* The outfield defense is horrible.

Hey, one for five isn't...oh yes, it is.

Jefferson 8:53 PM

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Monday, July 04, 2005

 

All Praise Moises

Let us all bow our heads and speak words of praise for the Giants' All-Star, Moises Alou. Simply put, Alou is the best player on the team, and it's not really close.

Alou leads the Giants in batting average (.323), on-base percentage (.413), OPS (.928), home runs (12), and walks (36). No doubt he leads in any number of sabermetric categories as well, but I'm too lazy to look them up.

Those stats are good even outside the context of the Giants. Alou is fifth in the National League in batting average and seventh in OBP. All this at the tender age of 39. (I say "tender" because if he isn't sore after slamming into that chain-link fence yesterday, he should be.)

Alou was widely expected to decline quite a bit this year. Between his advancing age and his extreme home/road splits with Chicago in 2004, there was little hope that Alou could be the second slugger that the Giants have lacked since the departure of Jeff Kent. Alou has, without a doubt, exceeded all expectations. His BA and OBP are above last year, and his slugging percentage, while down, is still at his career average.

It's not hard to imagine Alou and a healthy Barry Bonds terrorizing National League pitching. Brian Sabean deserves applause for signing Alou, who has been one of the few bright spots this season.

Jefferson 10:32 AM

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