My Expectations...

[klaiggeb]

Concerning Posey, since HE'S drawing most of my wrath, I thought I'd be more clear on what I BELIEVE are reasonable expectations for "Our best hitter."

1-I DON'T expect him to hit .300. He's a catcher and won't get many leg hits.

I DO expect .290 or better.


2-I DON'T expect him to hit 20-30 HRs. Not in our park, anyway.

But I DO expect him to hit close to 20 HRs each year.



3-I DON'T expect him to consistently drive in 100+ runs.

I DO expect him to drive in 85 + each and every year.

For crying out loud! He's the 4 hole hitter! Crawford has 70 already and he's had a TERRIBLE year!


I don't believe any of my expectations are unreasonable for a 3/4 hole hitter.

boly

[Rog]

Buster has been short on power and RBI's. But he's hit higher than your expectation.

One of the reasons Crawford leads the team in RBI's is that he's driven in Buster, whom we're criticizing here, and Brandon Belt, who has been criticized for years, a combined 32 times. Almost half Crawford's RBI's have been those two. Especially with Belt, we don't give him a lot of credit for getting on base, but getting on base often leads to runs scored.

The Giants haven't had tons of runners on base this season. Plus, Buster has played in only 128 games. Overall, Buster has played the equivalent of seven seasons, during which time he's driven in 588 runs. He hasn't driven in runs particularly well this season, but we've documented that pretty much all season long. After a horrid start, he's been decent at driving them in.

[klaiggeb]

Well, rog, you see it your way, I see it mine.

I don't agree, and here's where your argument falls apart:

Crawford has played in only 2 games more than Posey.

Posey has only scroed 56 runs.

sorry, Crawford isn't responsible for all, or even most of those.

boly

[Rog]

Posey has only scroed 56 runs.

sorry, Crawford isn't responsible for all, or even most of those.


Rog -- You're right. Brandon is responsible for only a quarter of those runs. He has driven home Buster 14 times. Brandon bats behind Buster, yet has accounted for only a fourth of the RBI's Buster has scored?

I'm not sure how most of the runs Buster has scored has to do with Brandon's RBI's. However, 14 of them do.

By the way, I agree with you that Brandon has been the best RBI man on the Giants. I haven't looked at the opportunities each guy has had, but I would be surprised if Brandon weren't the best. Buster hasn't had a good year in driving in runs.

But your expectation for Buster is that he drive in 85 or more runs per season. Even Johnny Bench didn't drive home 85 or more in 10 of his 17 seasons, and as a member of The Big Red Machine, Johnny had a lot more runners to drive in than Buster has had on the hitting-challenged Giants.

Because of his lack of power, I don't think Buster is great at driving in runs, but your expectations for a guy who averages about 145 games a season for a weak-hitting team might be a bit high.




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[klaiggeb]

Bench is likely the ONLY exception you can find.

Then again, look at Bench's lineup: Everyone was driving in runs, including Rose who frequently hit 1 hole.

That tells me there wasn't anyone LEFT to drive in.

boly

[Rog]

Bench is likely the ONLY exception you can find.

Then again, look at Bench's lineup: Everyone was driving in runs, including Rose who frequently hit 1 hole.

That tells me there wasn't anyone LEFT to drive in.


Rog -- Good point about Bench not having a lot of runners left to drive in. On the other hand, unless the last guy ahead of him to drive in a run hit a home run, sacrifice fly or ground ball out that drove in a run, Johnny had at least one runner on after someone else drove in a run.

Easily Johnny's best RBI season came in 1970 when he drove in 103 runners besides himself. Clearly Bobby Tolan, Tony Perez and Pete Rose were on base ahead of him a lot. He drove in those three guys a combined 90 times.

I think the biggest reasons Johnny drove in more runs than Buster were that he hit a lot more homers and had a lot more runners to drive in. The homers aren't to be discounted, but in terms of RUNNERS driven in, they are.

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[klaiggeb]

Good points.

Bench WAS a power guy, Buster, really is not.

Though to be fair, IF he played in one of those cracker Jack box yards like Arizona or others, he'd likely eclipse 20 HRs most years.

boly

[Rog]

I believe that last season AT&T played at 78% for right-handed homers. That means in theory that Buster would have had about a quarter more homers. In Buster's case, he might be affected more than most right-handed hitters because he hits a lot of his power hits in the alleys and specifically goes to right-center more than most power guys.

That said, Buster hasn't hit with as much power as I thought he would.

[Rog]

Perhaps an indication that Buster didn't have as much power as he showed in his junior season was that prior to hitting his 26 homers that season, he hit only seven in his first two college seasons.

I looked to see if wood bats might have affected his power, but it's hard to tell. He hit only five homers in two seasons in the college wood bat Cape Cod League, but he had hit just seven in his two college seasons before. It was in 2008 that Buster broke out his power, and he began playing in the minors after that season.

Buster never really hit all that many homers in the minors, knocking out 25 in 631 at bats. It looks to me like my expectations were simply too high. There was really no valid reason for my power expectations for him to be so high.

His 98 minor league walks against 102 strikeouts certainly indicated he would be a good hitter, but I misjudged his power potential. Probably because I saw him hit a mammoth shot in the games leading up to the College World Series.

I shouldn't have been affected so much by one at bat. Guilty as charged.

[klaiggeb]

and once AGAIN last night, failed in 2 or 3 (can't remember) RBI opportunities.

Though to his credit, in one of those at bats he hat the ball hard.

Still, the opportunities he's had, + his failures I find alarming.

boly

[sfgdood]

When Posey hits in the 3 or 4 spots and is playing every day, 100 RBI is the LEAST we should expect at his pay rate. He's a smart enough player to do it so his failure to drive in runs is appalling. That said his smarts on the field is refreshing...he plays MUCH smarter at first base than I've ever seen from Brandon Smelt.

[Rog]

When Posey hits in the 3 or 4 spots and is playing every day, 100 RBI is the LEAST we should expect at his pay rate.


Rog -- Just not true. Should we expect more than this season? Of course. With the season nearly over, Buster's 62 RBI's is his full-season lowest by 10. But each season needs to be looked at on its own. Buster hasn't done a great job of driving in runs, and the Giants have done an even worse job at getting runners on for him.

I have mentioned this before, but in 2015, Joey Votto finished 3rd in the MVP voting despite driving in only 80 runs. And that came despite 29 homers. Votto drove home only 51 RUNNERS, which is just one more than Buster has driven home this frustrating season.

Since runs are a TEAM statistic, expecting 100 RBI's -- especially from a batter who isn't a big home run hitter -- is ludicrous. Clearly the voters who placed Votto third in the MVP voting despite his driving in only one more RUNNER than Buster has this season understand that far better than we do.



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