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Defense
Sept 3, 2014 10:14:27 GMT -5
Post by klaiggeb on Sept 3, 2014 10:14:27 GMT -5
I find it fascinating that, in light of all that's going on, no one is talking about the spectacular defense we've seen Brandon Crawford! No one has posted even once comment that I've seen.
Strange, because some of his plays have been game changers!
I mean, since last Friday, he has made some of THE best defensive plays I've seen since Omar Vizquel!
Talk about clutch!
His offense, which has STUNK for the last 3 months, seems to have picked up, too.
And right on time!
boly
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Defense
Sept 3, 2014 12:22:09 GMT -5
Post by Rog on Sept 3, 2014 12:22:09 GMT -5
Brandon has indeed made some marvelous plays of late. He executed a bushel basket-full of open-range productions early in the season. In fact, he's built up a vast portfolio of prodigious plays this year. He's also struggled on many occasions to make the routine play. I believe you were gone, Boly, when Brandon recently made something like three errors in two games.
I don't think the shortstop position has ever been played as it's being played these days. Shortstops are better positioned than ever, they seem rangier than ever, and they seem to have guns for arms. Andrelton Simmons made a play last month when he sprinted deep into the hole, fielded a ball at full speed going toward what would be the left field bullpen area in AT&T Park, then threw from at least two steps onto the outfield grass -- and got the batter/runner easily.
Crawford is but one among an agile, smooth crop of shortstops protecting pitchers against their mistakes and oddly hit balls. At his best, he is as smooth as they come and with an arm to match. When on the move, he's about as good as anyone on balls he gets to. But his range is above average at best, and this season in particular he's had those routine play difficulties. For all the great plays he's made, he's likely little if any better than a second-quartile shortstop.
But, yes, he's been fabulous the past few games.
As for his hitting, I don't think he's suddenly become Cal Ripken, but we agreed a couple of weeks ago that he would likely bounce back at some point this season. Early on, his hitting was quite good for a shortstop. He slumped off, but his walks and power hits kept his season numbers -- with the exception of raw batting average -- more than acceptable. As you point out, he's beginning to hit again, and unless he turns his early September rebound into a later-September slump, his overall hitting this season should wind up at more than acceptable levels for a shortstop.
Overall, he's probably a bit underrated at his position. He probably won't ever become a good hitter, but he's at least as good in the box as I expected him to be. His ability to hang in against southpaws this season should portend well for his future.
The Giants as a team are hitting like crazy. This is the way we want them to be hitting a month from now. Suddenly Posey, Pagan and Panik are each hitting over .300. Posey, Sandoval, Pence and Morse are hitting with power. Blanco and Susac are hitting like major league starters. Crawford, as you mentioned, is improving.
For a fair amount of time now, the Giants have been doing their best hitting of the season. Early on, they were scoring a lot of runs, but doing it with an unlikely power surge and the luck of timely hitting. Now they're doing their scoring with fairly consistent good hitting overall.
Hitting as they are and with a good pitching staff as they possess, the Giants are nearly unstoppable. When the hitting cools down to a more sustainable rate, they should still be a good team. If they fall back into the hitting malaise they suffered through in June and part of July, they won't be.
The Giants aren't a good enough team to overcome poor play. But they're a good enough team to play well as long as they play at "their" level. That level isn't as bad as it seemed in June or July, but it isn't as good as it was the first two months or during this recent stretch. Whether the Giants make the playoffs and how far they advance in the postseason will depend on which end of their performance spectrum they are playing at the rest of the season and postseason.
If they and all the other teams play at the midpoint of their abilities -- and all teams are equally healthy -- the Giants should make the postseason and perhaps win a series or two. The Giants aren't likely to be one of the healthier teams the rest of the way, so they'll probably need to play a little above their mean performance level in order to advance far in the postseason. They've got a semi-cushion for making the postseason, so unless the competition gets quite hot or the Giants falter a bit, they should at least get there.
Their odds of making the postseason appear to be clearly above 50%. As for knowing how far they'll advance in the postseason, we'd need to know how hot they will be at the time.
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Post by rxmeister on Sept 7, 2014 8:38:13 GMT -5
Great analysis, Rog. The problem, of course, is that even though they seem playoff bound, unless they can overtake the Dodgers for the division then all analysis goes out the window and it becomes a one game crapshoot. One bad day and you're done. Then even if you survive, you face a situation where your number two starter has to open the series against the opponent's number one. The deck is stacked against the wild card under the new system. The Giants really need to keep playing like this and then overtake the Dodgers.
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Defense
Sept 7, 2014 10:04:58 GMT -5
Post by Rog on Sept 7, 2014 10:04:58 GMT -5
Although it may hurt the Giants this season, I like the new playoff structure. IMO Wild Card teams SHOULD have a disadvantage. After all, they didn't win their divisions.
You mentioned the problem of perhaps having to use your #1 starter in the play-in game. That's only if a team is strong enough that it doesn't have to go down to the wire to make it into the playoffs, and is able to set it up that way. They might even have a clear path to the playoffs, yet use their #1 starter in the last few days of the season so that they have their best chance at winning the division.
But let's suppose the Giants have a worst-case scenario and can't start their #1 starter until game #4. Worst case, they could wind up having to use their #4 starter in the play-in game. Pitching Ryan Vogelsong would be less than ideal, but it would be far from horrible. Jake Peavy? Will he still be hot? Tim Hudson? Appears to be wearing down in the stretch run, as could have been expected from his heavy early schedule.
This season the Giants have had a decent starting rotation, one through four. Bumgarner has been strong, Peavy has been hot, Vogelson has been consistent, and Hudson was as dominant as any pitcher early in the season.
In order to win it all, a team has to be hot at the right time. The best doesn't always win, and it is now possible the, say, 11th- or 12-best team will win. How could it be the #11 or #12 (or in an extreme case, perhaps only #13-#15, or worse)? Because it won't always be the 10 best teams that make the playoffs.
Clearly, the better a team is, the better its chances. And as you point out, the Wild Card teams face much higher odds. But once a team wins the play-in game, it's chances aren't that much worse than the other teams.
You hate to be in a one-game, winner take all series -- but your chances of winning that series are somewhere around 50%. If you're in a five-game of seven-game series, your chances of winning are somewhere around 50%. The worse the team, the better its chances in a shorter series.
It would be great to win the division. The Giants' chances of doing so aren't too far off 50%. (They're now tied in the loss column.) But the base goal should still be to make the playoffs. Winning the division would be very well cooked gravy.
A possibly good bit of news regarding the post season: The Giants were hot in September of both 2010 and 2012 and were able to carry it into the post season. Perhaps they can continue their very hot streak for another month and two-thirds. Perhaps they can go through a lull and then get it back for the post season (although if the lull is too bad or too long, they might not GET a chance to regain it in the post season).
Guess what? If the Giants hit as well in the post season as they have been, they'll win it all. Guess what else? They won't hit as well in the post season as they have been hitting recently. It is unlikely that ANY team will hit that well.
Two ways to get an idea of how hot the Giants are:
First, look at all the players who are hot. It's darn near everybody.
Second, look at how hot some of those players have been. Joe Panik was hitting just .200 on August 2nd. Just over a month later, he's hitting .310. On July 12th, Buster Posey was hitting .277. Now, he too is hitting .310. To get an idea of how hot Buster has been in his last 10 games, his OPS entering those 10 games was .790. It now stands at .855. Buster is essentially back to his career averages. It didn't look like that would happen, did it?
Remember too, that they've put together their present hot streak (9 of 11) without Brandon Belt. Remember too that the answer hasn't totally been the return of Angel Pagan. Much has been made of how much better the Giants' record has been with Pagan in the lineup than with him out. Yet the Giants lost 5 of their last 6 before he went on the disabled list, and lost their five 5 games when he came off.
Angel has certainly helped. But he has been far from the elixer the won-loss figures they showed on yesterday's telecast indicated.
It's been a team effort. let's hope it continues. For about eight more weeks.
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Defense
Sept 7, 2014 13:51:33 GMT -5
Post by klaiggeb on Sept 7, 2014 13:51:33 GMT -5
I agree, Rog. I like the playoff structure, too.
If you can't win the division your team doesn't deserve any favorable scheduling breaks
We have 6 with LA.
They have a huge edge in starting pitching.
We have a decent edge in offense.
We have a slight to decent bullpen advantage.
We'll see.
boly
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Defense
Sept 8, 2014 3:15:23 GMT -5
Post by Rog on Sept 8, 2014 3:15:23 GMT -5
The thing about the Giants' hitting is that when it's been good, it's been good to exceptional. But when it's been bad, it's been awful. The Giants have been the most inconsistent team in baseball.
Which team will we see the rest of the way against the Dodgers -- and in the post season? The good team has a very nice shot at going all the way. The bad teams doesn't come close to belonging in the post season.
Can anyone here remember a team so volatile as this year's team has been? In another post I mentioned how amazingly consistent Ryan Vogelsong had been in 2011 and the first 2/3rds of 2012. This year's Giants have been the antithesis of that.
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Post by rxmeister on Sept 8, 2014 8:04:39 GMT -5
I don't agree, because many times the wild card team will have a better record than a winner in another division. There's a good chance the Giants will finish the season with a better record than the Cardinals, but be forced into a one game playoff while the Cardinals play a full series. I don't think that's really fair. If you're a division winner and you deserve to advance, then go out and beat the wildcard. The Giants won their division in 2010 and 2012, I don't remember them whining (or us whining) if a wildcard team had knocked them out. In 2003 we won 100 games and were knocked out by the eventual champion wild card Marlins. They beat us and deserved it.
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Defense
Sept 9, 2014 14:50:19 GMT -5
Post by Rog on Sept 9, 2014 14:50:19 GMT -5
I wouldn't have a problem with seeding the playoff teams by record. I wouldn't even have a problem with only the top four or five records making the playoffs, regardless of division. I would have no issue with eight teams making the postseason, adding an extra round to the tournament. In that format, maybe give the three division winners the top seeds and then follow with the five other teams with the best records.
As for the Marlins' deserving to move on after they beat the Giants, that's the way the tournament works. But the tournament doesn't determine the best team. It determines the best and luckiest team AT THAT TIME.
Clearly 162 games is a better test than a maximum of 16. Some teams also get an unfair bonus in the post season. Because of the TV days off, the importance of depth is greatly diminished. Over the long haul of the 162-game season, depth is an important factor. In a short tournament, the need for depth is minimized.
In the regular season, the #5 starter makes close to 20% of the team's starts. In the post season, he may not even be on the roster.
The playoffs are a tournament. Very, very exciting -- but not necessarily determining the best team, although the thought that it does makes it even more exciting.
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