We were willing to pay Sandoval 90 million, and offered similar contracts to Lester and Shields. Why would we NOT want Price who is clearly better than both Shields and Lester?
Rog -- Price is my personal choice to sign this off-season. The question I asked was if we would be willing to spend $100 million per season for him. And, yes, that would hamstring the organization, wouldn't it?
By the way, it is believed that the Giants offered or were prepared to offer Sandoval 5/$95, Lester 6/$155 and Shields 4/$80. Those were all fair offers. No player received more, and Shields wound up with less.
Even without any of those three players, the Giants -- despite massive injuries -- outscored their opponents by enough runs that they should have won 89 games and either tied with the Dodgers or fallen one game behind them, as the Dodgers should have won 89 games as well based on their run differential.
The Giants were clearly better than their record last season. Aside from the injuries, their biggest problem was their sequencing of runs.
What do I mean by sequencing of runs? let me give an example.
Let's suppose two teams play a three-game series and each scores 13 runs. If our team scores 1, 2 and 10 runs and limits the opposition to 4, 4, and 5 runs, our team finishes the series with a 1-2 record, having lost games 1-4 and 2-5 before winning the finale 10-5. If instead our team scores 6, 5 and 2 runs while limiting the opposition to the same amount as before, we win 6-4 and 5-4 before losing 2-5. We finish the series with a 1-2 record.
In both instances, our team has played essentially the same. In fact, if a game were 27 innings, we would be going into extra innings.
The same thing is true with hits. If our teams hits a home run, a single, a walk, two strikeouts and a pop up, we score one run. If it instead does the same thing, but goes single, walk, home run, two strikeouts and a pop up, we score three. Single, home run, walk, two strikeouts and a pop up result in two runs scored.
In each case, the team performed in the same way. The difference was the sequencing. That sequencing meant one, two or three runs scored. The team performed the same in each instance, but the number of runs scored differed in a way that could have a pronounced influence on a game. Depending on the sequencing, our team might have lost by a run, gone into extra innings or won by a run.
When it came to runs scored, the Giants' sequencing of runs wasn't nearly as effective as the Dodgers'. The Giants outscored their opponents by only three runs fewer. The most likely result of such an occurrence is that the Giants would have tied the Dodgers or finished a game behind. Instead, the Dodgers' sequencing was good, the Giants was bad, and the Giants won 8 fewer games than the Dodgers.
The bad news is that the Dodgers won the West, while the Giants didn't even make the playoffs. The good news looking forward is that the Giants don't need to outscore the Dodgers by more. They simply need to sequence their runs better.
If the Giants had remained healthy, they likely would have outscored the Dodgers in double digit run differential. That wouldn't have guaranteed they would have won the West, since sequencing of runs -- which is in great part luck -- would still have been important. But if we played the season over and the Giants outscored the Dodgers by say 20 runs, I would certainly take my chances.
Is a team that scores 1, 2 and 10 runs worse than one that scored 6, 5 and 2? Not really. But in our hypothetical series above, the first team finishes the series 1-2, while the 2nd team finishes 2-1. Same team. Same number of runs. Simply different sequencing.
If a team goes home run, single, walk, two strikeouts and a pop up, it scored one run. If it goes single, walk, home run, two strikeouts and a pop up, it scored three. Same performance. Two very different results.
That's baseball!
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sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/3089/spend#ixzz3oumiAR5s
