Left field. Why?

[Rog]

Why is the name of the left fielder in Abbott and Costello's famous baseball skit "Who's on first?" 

We have been asking "why?" about the Giants' off-season, and sometimes it has even been "why oh why?"  But we see it coming together now, replacing the question of "why?" with "who's in left field?"

First, do we think it will come via trade or free agency?  Second, who do we think it will be?  And, of course, why?

[rxmeister]

After the Cueto signing I'm thinking small, and I won't be disappointed if they're doing the same. You could even sell me on a Parker/ Williamson platoon and Blanco if they don't work out. Even so, I expect them to do something. A Marlon Byrd re-signing would be an example. That gives them the option of the young platoon with the veteran platoon behind them if it doesn't work out

[Rog]

There is a confirmed rumor that the Giants are looking at Denard Span. He's a very nice player (.300+ each of the past two seasons), but he's a middle-aging speedster who had trouble staying healthy last season.

I would like to have you guys look closely at this idea of a Parker/Williamson platoon. No one has been able to answer me as to which player has ever struck out as often in the minors as Jarrett and gone on to become a successful major leaguer. I believe that is because there has never been one. Jarrett could become the first, but the odds certainly don't favor it.

I think Mac Williamson has more of a chance. But look at his performance last season and tell me if he looks ready to you. I think we're at least a year premature here.

I've been liking Span for some time now, but the track record of agings speedster outfielders hasn't been good.

[Islandboagie]

Rog- I would like to have you guys look closely at this idea of a Parker/Williamson platoon. No one has been able to answer me as to which player has ever struck out as often in the minors as Jarrett and gone on to become a successful major leaguer.

Boagie- I'll answer you, Rog, nobody cares. Trying to find that kind of information would be mind numbing, and finding it wouldn't prove anything.

It's likely that very few if any started catching as late as Buster did, would it have been smart to pass on him based on the fact that it rarely or never happened before?

Rog- Jarrett could become the first, but the odds certainly don't favor it.

Boagie- The odds don't favor anyone making the major leagues, let alone Jarrett Parker. The odds certainly were against him hitting 3 homeruns in one game. What Parker has is power and speed, and that's a desirable combination for any team.

I like the kid, but I'm no expert. I only base my opinion on what I've seen from him on the field, not what he's done in the last few years in the system. I'm merely listening to my own hunch, then again, I had the same hunch when you were adamant about Crawford's poor offense based on what he did years prior.

Perhaps the percentage of likelihood we should be concentrating on is you being wrong again, because after last September, it would appear Parker is ringing the dinner bell and your plate of crow is about to be served.

I will agree with you though, Williamson looks good as well

[Rog]

I had the same hunch when you were adamant about Crawford's poor offense based on what he did years prior


Rog -- While I have said for the past two seasons now that Brandon has hit better than I thought he would, I'd like to clarify the situation a little.

First, a little context: When I said Brandon wouldn't become a good hitter, he was hitting .371/.445/.600/1.045 at San Jose. Just for fun, let's compare that with Buster Posey and the other Giants infielders:

Posey -- .326/..428/.540/.967

Belt -- .383/.492/.628/1.121

Panik -- .297/.368/.402/.770

Duffy -- .292/.342/.509/.852


I didn't predict Brandon would be a lousy hitter; I said he wouldn't be a good one. He certainly was last season, and he wasn't bad in 2014 either. But his career averages are .246/.313/.383/.696. That's not a lousy hitter, but it isn't a good one, either.

Looking at the above numbers, which player has become the outlier to the downside? Clearly it is Brandon. He's improved tremendously, particularly this past season, and one could certainly argue that his career numbers are as low as they are because he was brought up too soon in 2011. I agree.

I also "agree" that until the early part of 2014 and then again last season, he didn't hit better than I thought he would. Last season he killed it, and I thought he was the best all-around shortstop in the majors. But he's still been the outlier to the downside, given that he had the 2nd-best numbers in the California League of the players mentioned above.

I have never questioned Brandon as a fielder, and in fact defended him in early 2012 when he was under fire here for getting off to a slow start in the field, making 10 errors in his first 38 games. The closest thing I came to saying anything negative about him in the field was when I mentioned that the Giants considered Ehire Adrianza an even better fielding prospect than Brandon himself.

So how has Brandon's career evolved compared to what I expected? Given that Adrianza was considered the better fielding prospect and that most consider Brandon to be in the top two (if not the best) at defensive shortstop, I would say he has exceeded my expectations. Based on what I had read and the very little I saw of him in the minors I didn't expect him to be THIS good.

At the plate, he has been fairly close over his career to what I expected. But he's certainly been better in early 2014 and during last season than I expected.

At this point I don't truly remember HOW I expected him to do. But I know I didn't expect him to be lousy at the plate, and I didn't expect he would hit nearly as well as his San Jose numbers would indicate. No one in the Cal League that 2009 season wound up with as high an OPS as Brandon did in his partial season. Only three other players exceeded 1.000.

Brandon's career OPS is 375 points lower than his San Jose mark. Last season it was only 289 points lower, as he had a good season at the plate and a very good season overall.

I don't think I'm backtracking here. But I am trying to put into perspective what I believe may be a downward exaggeration of what my expectations for Brandon were.

In his MVP season of 2012, Buster Posey more or less duplicated his San Jose numbers. Brandon has never come close. Last season Joe Panik actually outdid his San Jose numbers. Matt Duffy has come close. Brandon Belt hasn't come very close either, and it about him that I have been more wrong.



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[Islandboagie]

I'm not sure when the conversation of Brandon's offense started. I don't recall it being a hot topic while he was in San Jose, but I could be wrong. I thought it started in 2011 when Crawford was being discussed as a possible call up to replace Tejada. It was then that his San Jose numbers were discussed. Then the discussion continued from there.

As I recall only Don and I were eager to jump on the side of Crawford's ability to hit at the major league level. Most of the other posters (Mark, Boly and Allen) took the middle ground, You and Randy were more adamant that he was no better than maybe a platoon player. There was even a point when some here were ready to make Adrianza the starting shortstop.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I would have ever predicted Crawford would hit 20 homerun in a season. So even I wasn't right there. But I do remember predicting him to hit as many as 10-15.

My argument has always been Brandon's ability to save his biggest hits for big situations. Even without his breakout season this year, I believe Crawford was good enough a hitter to make contributions offensively to help the Giants win. That's really all that matters to me, I could care less about the numbers.

If we look solely at the numbers, Brandon still isn't a very good hitter, but he continues to get hits when the Giants need them most, and he makes the great defensive plays.

Either way, last season Brandon closed the book on the topic of his offense to quiet his doubters. He's proven he can drive in runs, and has some pop too, and that's certainly good enough for a great defensive shortstop.

[klaiggeb]

Brandon is, indeed, boagie a clutch hitter.

Has been for a while.

I hope we can rest him more because IMHO, in the 2nd half, he wears down, or at least, seems to.

boly

[Rog]

I'm not sure when the conversation of Brandon's offense started. I don't recall it being a hot topic while he was in San Jose, but I could be wrong. I thought it started in 2011 when Crawford was being discussed as a possible call up to replace Tejada. It was then that his San Jose numbers were discussed. Then the discussion continued from there.


Rog -- It did start in 2009, Boagie. Not that it was anything approaching my prime reason for my opinion, but that was the first time I saw Brandon play. In fact, I mentioned that with the designated hitter, the little Giants were so strong at the plate that Thomas Neal began the season hitting 9th. Before long, he was batting third or fourth.

One guy I really wanted to see was Angel Villalona. I wrote that he was more agile than I expected, but that he too wouldn't hit well. In both his and Crawford's case it was due to his high K/BB ratio. One thing Brandon did do better than Angel was to take the occasional walk.

No telling how well Angel's career would have turned out if not for his legal troubles, but, sadly, I wasn't optimistic.

Other players who played on that team included Buster Posey, Nick Noonan, Roger Kieschnick, Conor Gillaspie and Darren Ford, all of whom went on to play for the Giants. I have forgotten who the designated hitter was, but I'm pretty sure he didn't make it. It was the first time I had seen any of those guys play, with the exception of Buster, whom I had seen catch former first rounder (behind Madison Bumgarner) Tim Alderson in the 2008 Cal League playoffs. Alderson was traded for Freddy Sanchez in the 2009 season. Buster had played for the Arizona Rookie League team and Salem-Keizer after being drafted in 2008, and was called up at the end of San Jose's regular season specifically to catch in the playoffs.

The scouting report I posted here on Buster was not surprisingly fastball high and inside and secondary pitches low and away. Naturally I was impressed with him. I mentioned that Alderson's specialty was control, but that the radar gun guy said he pitched only in the high 80's and hadn't hit higher than 91 or 92 during the season.

Alderson, not Bumgarner, opened the 2009 season for San Jose. I had anticipated that and took my son to the second game of the season, on April 10th. As I reported here (well, probably AOL), my son and I were two of only three who watched the full pre-game bullpen session of Bumgarner pitching to Buster. My report on Madison was that I wished he had thrown more secondary pitches in the game, since the scouting report at that time said he needed to work on them. He looked good throwing them in the bullpen, which I mentioned both to my son and here on the board. I stated that he didn't throw really, really hard, but batters just couldn't hit his fastball, probably because of his three-quarters delivery.

It wasn't at all hard to like Bumgarner, who was considered the Giants' #1 prospect at time, ahead even of Buster.

Since Randy and I both watched games at San Jose (I began during the strike in 1994), we might have seen some of the same games. I'm sure he saw a lot more games there than I did, but I saw enough that my son won a pizza playing bingo between innings.

It's a lot of fun watching games in San Jose (baseball or hockey, either one). It was especially fun watching Tim Lincecum pitch there, as well as Stockton and Fresno.

Anyway, Boagie, I began talking about Brandon when he was leading the California League in OPS, so I wasn't exactly kicking him when he was down. It's pretty easy to predict that a guy with an OPS over 1.000 isn't going to do that well. But I didn't think Brandon would do NEARLY that well. Not that he would be a lousy hitter, but that he wouldn't be anywhere close to what a guy hitting that well would indicate.




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[Rog]

Brandon is, indeed, boagie a clutch hitter.

Clutch hitting is hard to quantify. Is it how a guy hits with runners in scoring position? Is it how he hits in late & close situations? Is it how he hits in high-leverage situations? Is it how well he hits in games within one run?

Brandon's OPS in those situations last season varied wildly. In order, they were .856, .562, .636 and .800. Depending on how one rates those four categories as clutch, he may have been OK in the clutch, but not great. I certainly don't think he was bad, which is why his late & close and high-leverage numbers were surprisingly low.

Brandon had a lot of RBI's on the season. In order again, here is how many he had in each situation: 57, 5, 20 and 37.

[Rog]

By the way, I don't believe I predicted that Brandon would never be more than a platoon player. I didn't do that even with Gary Brown. In Gary's case, I mentioned that after two or three years with the Giants, scouts thought he might be anywhere between a starting and a fourth outfielder -- or less.

It's been a while, and it's possible I did so, but I don't recall doing it. Given that he was a shortstop and a good fielder, that wouldn't really have made sense unless he was a pretty poor hitter.

[Rog]

Incidentally, the scouting report on Joe Panik was that he didn't have a high ceiling, but that his floor was high. I didn't expect Joe to hit for as much power as he did last season. He's been better than I expected. I did hold him in high esteem though and was posting his results a lot of times before he was called up in 2014.

Surprisingly, given what we know now, Joe didn't hit particularly well in AA ball. Not nearly as well as Matt Duffy did a year later.

[Islandboagie]

I'll take your word for it on the Crawford, San Jose topic, Rog.

I know the 2009 San Jose team was a popular topic at the time, at least for some of us.

I visited my brother in San Jose in 2009 and we went to a game. I remember thinking at the time that every player in the lineup seemed like he was destined for the majors.

Surprisingly, Neal and Kieshnick never really stuck in the majors, but at the time they seemed like a sure bet.

I never saw Bumgarner in San Jose. But I was at the Spring Training game the next year when he struck out Manny Ramirez on 3 pitches.

[Islandboagie]

Oh, and to answer your question on the DH that year in San Jose, I think it was a rotating spot. Buster DHed some, and they had Neal, Kieshnick, Ford and Tyler Graham in the outfield, so I believe they each had some time as the DH, more so Kieshnick and Neal.

[Rog]

Surprisingly, Neal and Kieshnick never really stuck in the majors, but at the time they seemed like a sure bet.


Rog -- I expected Neal to make it. To me, it would have been a surprise if Kieschnick had, although I liked his first name.




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[Rog]

Going back, I expected Buster (naturally), Neal, Gillaspie and Crawford to make it. I remember thinking at the time that Darren Ford was about the quickest player I had ever seen, but he just struck out too much.

Buster was a no-brainer; Neal and Gillaspie had reasonably good K/BB ratios; and Brandon hit well enough to make it as a shortstop with a good glove. The other guys had K/BB issues.

I agree that the San Jose lineup looked like a spectacular one. That is why I commented on Neal's batting 9th when I saw them play that second game of the season. I'm not sure I saw them play any others, although I may have been a couple of games on TV.

But, man, that lineup looked spectacular -- until we delved a little deeper. Posey has turned out to be a superstar, and Crawford has been a solid major leaguer who has continued to improve. Gillaspie has turned out to be good enough to hit right-handers pretty well in a platoon-type role.

You were Conor's biggest backer, Boagie, and while he hasn't turned out to be quite everday starter caliber, he's had major league value. He's accumulated 3.7 WAR.

I once had Steve Corkran, beat writer for the Raiders, as my mentor. He wrote a very good feature article on that 2009 team. I spoke with him and told him how much I liked the article and that with the exception of erroneously calling Gillaspie a good fielder, it was quite good. He talked about going to some games the next season (it was near the end of season), but I moved up the coast and haven't even talked with him since.

Good guy though. And, unlike me, a very efficient writer.

[Rog]

Oh, and to answer your question on the DH that year in San Jose, I think it was a rotating spot. Buster DHed some, and they had Neal, Kieshnick, Ford and Tyler Graham in the outfield, so I believe they each had some time as the DH, more so Kieshnick and Neal.


Rog -- When I saw them early in the season, I believe it was a catcher, so I'll try to look him up. I had forgotten about Tyler Graham. It was probably he. Whoever it was batted ahead of poor Neal. Anyway, all those good players show how hard it is to reach and stay in the big leagues.




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