Hanson...re evaluated

[klaiggeb]

On both Thursday and Friday nights I noticed 1 HUGE thing about Hanson; from the left side, that front shoulder is NO LONGER flying open
as it had been doing since early to mid July.

And that speed! Last night, on what was essentially a single, he scampered it into a double!@

That impressed the crap outta me!


There is ZERO question in my mind that he's NOT an infielder who I want playing 2B or SS on a regular basis.

Fill in there, that's fine, but not a starter.
Having now watched him some 8 to 10 games in LF, and having seen incredible improvement out there...he just might work in LF, or maybe, with that speed, someday in RF.



And if he can be consistent and not fly open... he could reeeeeeeally work for us in the outfield.

Just keep out out of being a starting infielder!

[rog]

The diving catch Alen made on Mercer's line drive last night showed how tough it is to judge fielding with just the naked eye. What we saw on the replay was that while his route to the ball wasn't horrible, it wasn't pure, and that what he made look like a difficult catch came on a ball that is caught 88% of the time.

[klaiggeb]

I'm simply commenting that he looks much smoother out there than when he first began.

To me, that's improvement, and that's what I want to see.

[rog]

And I didn't mean to disagree with you at all. Your commenting on Hanson reminded me of the play he made Friday night. He made what should have been close to a routine play look like a special play.

And now that I think of it, I am reminded of when Eduardo Nunez came to the Giants and you were singing his defensive praises. I commented that the way he fielded balls made them look tougher than they were and that he wasn't all that good a defender (although I would agree that he played the best defense of his career then). IIRC the following season you concluded he wasn't nearly as good a fielder as you had thought.

And talking about Nunez reminds me of a year ago when Randy decried how little the Giants got in return for Nunez when they traded him. As sadly is usually the case with Randy, he had precious little information to judge the trade on. That of course didn't prevent him from making an immediate judgment, which not surprisingly was that the Giants got screwed once again.

I took the time to study the two players the Giants got and came away feeling much better.

First of all, I had studied the trade market a year ago and realized what Randy didn't -- that it was a buyer's market. I don't remember the precise reason for that. Probably there weren't all that many teams in the hunt and there were a lot of players available to be traded. I knew how to put the trade in context.

But that still left me not knowing what the Giants got in return. So I studied. And when I studied, I found there was decent information available on Shaun Anderson, who turned out to be a prospect with a fairly low ceiling (back of the rotation) but a high floor (back-inning reliever).

The player who was tough to find information on was 17-year-old Gregory Santos, who wasn't even pitching in the United States. What I found though was that despite his age, he could throw hard. Even more impressively, he was an extreme ground ball pitcher.

Unlike Randy, I know that the best pitchers are usually those who strike out a lot of batters and get the batters to hit the ball on the ground. The reason of course is obvious, although Randy never thought about it. A pitcher who strikes out a lot of batters doesn't allow as many balls to be put in play. Thus if he doesn't allow the ball to be hit harder than the average pitcher, he won't give up as many hits. If he's a ground ball pitcher, those grounders are usually singles and are almost never home runs.

This is stuff that is logical -- but logic most fans don't think about.

Regarding Shaun Anderson, he was judged good enough to pitch in baseball's Futures Game this summer. Regarding Gregory Santos, he came to the United States this season and despite being only 18, was able to skip the Rookie League, pitching instead for short-season Salem-Keizer. If Boagie had wanted to, he could have scouted Santos for us.

He probably still can, although after not pitching for 11 days due to what was probably a sore or "dead" arm, Santos was hit in the head with a line drive last night and taken off the field on a stretcher. Boagie may have missed his opportunity.
Santos has pitched fairly well for Salem-Keizer this season, increasing his strikeouts while continuing his extreme ground ball tendencies.

So your comments on how Hanson is smoothing out his play have led me all the way to finding out a top 10 Giants prospect was carried off the field on a stretcher.

When you study the game, there's just so much to learn. Which takes me back to Tim Lincecum and my decision to learn as much about him as I could. But I'll end here. I've said plenty about Tim.

[klaiggeb]

I praised Nunez play because of the WAY I saw him play.

Feet underneath him, balanced when fielding the ball, and good range.

But his throwing motion left a LOT to be desired.

At 3B you DON'T usually need to be throwing side arm as often happens when playing SS.

I'm guessing that most of his errors came on throws.

[rog]

I praised Nunez play because of the WAY I saw him play.


Rog -- My point is that evaluating defense with the naked eye is a tough proposition. You liked the way Eduardo fielded. Armed with advanced evidence that may have guided me, I felt that Eduardo essentially made plays look harder than they were. I do think he fielded the best of his career in those two-plus months, but I think his fundamentally poor fielding wasn't seen by most until 2017.

Again, I may have been aided by what I had read and looked up, but to me Eduardo didn't look all that good. Not bad -- as I said, I felt he played his best defense during that period -- but nothing to get excited about.

As a third baseman, Eduardo has made 32 errors, 22 of them fielding errors. You and I saw him differentlyin 2016.




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[rog]

I really hope Gregory Santos isn't negatively affected by being beaned with the line drive last night. As I mentioned when the Giants acquired him, he's high-risk, high-reward. But I think there is a chance he alone will make us feel the Giants did well in that trade. It's also possible he'll flame out by age 21.

But it wouldn't shock me to see him as a #2 starter, and that's the type of player I like to trade for in a buyers' market with only Eduardo Nunez to offer. High risk, but high reward. Balancing off Shaun Anderson, who is high floor, low ceiling.

[klaiggeb]

You keep using your numbers, roger, and I'll select my players by what I see; balance, footwork and so forth.

I've tried to point out the differences in fielding the ball at SS, which is where Nunez primarily played with Min, to fielding balls at 3B.

It's DIFFERENT!

Some guys aren't prepared to handle ground balls at SS, but are just fine at 3B or 2B

I suspect is has a lot to do with angle of the ball off the bat.

[rog]

With the Twins, Eduardo played all around the diamond. He did play more games (98) at shortstop than anywhere else, but the 69 he played at the hot corner weren't exactly dwarfed, and he also played 8 games at the keystone and 21 in the outfield. He was a true utilityman who played exactly half his Twins games at short, 35% at third, and also played second and the outfield.

[rog]

Playing shortstop and third base are of course very different. Although they say a shortstop can play all over the infield, the four positions have significant differences. You guys know all this, but I'll review for you:

Shortstop requires the most talent on the infield. The shortstop fields more batted balls than anyone on the infield, and he frequently has a long throw. His position requires fine range, soft hands, agility, the ability to frequently throw while moving away from first base, quick feet, solid balance, quick-start ability and a strong arm able to throw from multiple angles. In short (no pun) the position takes an athlete with good baseball skills, especially the ability to easily field ground balls and contort his body.

Third base doesn't require the range, but it requires quick reflexes and a strong arm. It also requires courage, since on average the ball reaches the third baseman more quickly than any other position on the diamond. The third baseman has to be able to dive (which is the reason I wonder about Buster Posey playing there), get to his feet quickly and/or throw from his knees and contorted positions.

Second basemen are often shortstops with arms that aren't as strong. The second baseman's throws are shorter, and as Boly has often pointed out, the spin on the ball is different than at short and third. Despite not having the requirement for as strong an arm as is necessary on the left side, the second baseman has to be able to puickly get rid of throws from the shortstop and third baseman on double plays, and he has to have courage and twisting ability to throw and avoid runners coming from behind his back.

First base is a position often played by slower players near the end of their careers, but it too requires quick reflexes and fine footwork around the bag. Being able to keep your foot on the base while making long stretches (requiring very good flexibility) is important, as is consistently digging the ball out of the dirt. The first baseman has to know when to come off the bag to make the tag on a throw, how far to go off first base to field a ground ball, and how to make a soft, accurate throw to the pitcher covering the bag.

I think Eduardo was best suited for the keystone and the hot corner. From second base, his side arm throws don't slide as much from his left to his right, and because he has more time, his footwork isn't as important. At third, Eduardo's fine reflexes came into play. I felt shortstop was his weakest position due to his side-arm throw and his so-so balance and footwork.

Well, weakest except for the outfield, where he obviously was an infielder trying to play the outfield. He had the speed, but not the routes or the comfort that experience gives an outfielder not not only on routes to fly balls, but in timing grounders to field them, and also to be in body position to make strong throws.

As a third baseman, I thought Eduardo left his feet too often and played the ball at strange angles that required throws that showed off his arm, but which made his fielding look more difficult than the play truly was.

[rog]

So what I did to evaluate Eduardo's fielding, Boly, was to watch it, to read about it, and to examine the numbers that it developed. I used three different methods, merely than relying totally on what I felt I "saw." Not that I didn't feel my visual judgment of Eduardo was fine, but that using the other two methods as well gave me more breadth to my fielding analysis. It sort of gave me a second and third opinion by which to fine tune my visual judgment.

[Islandboagie]

I don't mean to nitpick, but using the word "requires" when stating abilities an infielder should possess is. A strong arm is definitely a plus when playing shortstop or third base, but it's not a requirement. Didn't Vizquel prove this? Matt Duffy didn't have a strong arm, neither did David Bell or Jose Uribe.

Some shortstops can have excellent range, which allows them to circle the ball and put themselves in a good position to throw to first. Off the top of my head, good shortstops that used this style of fielding and were very successful with it were Vizquel and Jimmy Rollins. Examples of those who might not have had the very best of range, but had the arm and footwork to make up for it were/are Jeter, Tulowitzki and Crawford. To me, the ONLY thing that is a requirement for any infielder is good footwork. It is necessary to put yourself in a position to field the ball and throw with wasting very little time.

[Islandboagie]

To be brutally honest, Rog, you have a slightly one dimensional look at fielding, you might want to get to the library more often.

[rog]

I don't mean to nitpick, but using the word "requires" when stating abilities an infielder should possess is. A strong arm is definitely a plus when playing shortstop or third base, but it's not a requirement. Didn't Vizquel prove this?


Rog -- You make a very nice point here, Boagie. Omar played one of the best-looking shortstops ever. He surely was fun to watch, plus he shares my birthday! And we shouldn't forget that Omar played that well ON THE DOWNSIDE OF HIS CAREER. Few shortstops have ever been as good at such an advanced age. Metrically he had the best season of his career in 2007.

Now, let's look at the realities of the situation.

First, there were balls hit in the hole that would have b,een outs if fielding by, say, Brandon Crawford, that Omar didn't get an out on.

Second, and I'm not sure of this one, but it makes logical sense: Omar likely played shallower and perhaps a step to the right in order to compensate for his weaker arm. Now, he had the very quick release, so he wasn't necessarily at a disadvantage compared to the average shortstop, but when compared to Crawford, there would have been plays Brandon fielded in front of him that Omar couldn't have made from the same spot on the field.

On the other hand, Omar was much faster than Brandon, so he could get to balls more quickly. So let's say Omar minimized the difference here compared to Brandon. But he didn't minimize it compared to Ozzie Smith, who before he hurt his arm had a strong one and likely played the best shortstop ever.

So did Omar make a strong arm LESS than a requirement for the job? The second definition is: "a thing that is compulsory; a necessary condition." Using that definition, Omar certainly does. Under the first definition, "a thing that is needed or wanted," he doesn't necessarily do so.

What I can tell you is that when scouts evaluate a middle infielder, they look primarily at his ARM to see if they feel he can play shortstop. So, using our odd English language, it is a requirement but not a requirement, if you get what I mean.




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[rog]

To be brutally honest, Rog, you have a slightly one dimensional look at fielding, you might want to get to the library more often.


Rog -- You mean this in a joking manner, Boagie, since that would require I be there at 4:00 AM as well as 3:00 AM.




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[sfgdood]

I've noticed that Rog has a way of "not disagreeing" with you that seems a lot more combative than some disagreements.

[rog]

I've noticed that Rog has a way of "not disagreeing" with you that seems a lot more combative than some disagreements.


Rog -- Well hopefully not combative, Randy, but I did notice when I was posting in response to Boagie that I both agreed and disagreed with him. It all depended on which definition of requirement one chose to use. I even stated that "using our odd English language, it is a requirement but not a requirement, if you get what I mean."

I acknowledged that there were two different meanings to the word, and that using one of the two definitions, he made "a very nice point here, Boagie." I acknowledged that using the one definition, he did indeed make a good point by mentioning that Omar Vizquel was an outstanding shortstop without having a great arm.

If anyone was "combative" I think it was Boagie.

First of all, he was just trying to give me a hard time about what I wrote about shortstops. Having a strong arm is what differentiates middle infielders to scouts as to whether the infielder is a second baseman or a shortstop. As an example, it was said of Joe Panik that because of his arm, he would make only a decent shortstop, but could be a very good second baseman. That turned out to be a pretty reasonable scouting report.

Second, while using the one definition, he was right on the money with his comment, he easily could have realized I was using the other definition (which is the first definition in the dictionary) and that he could easily have let my comment go.

The important point, regardless of the precise wording, was that scouts look for strong arms from shortstops. I think Boagie knew that, but just wanted to be confrontational.

Boagie just LOVES it when I make a mistake. And when I do, if I haven't been the first one to point it out, I try to readily admit it. Sometimes whether I made a mistake or not comes down to opinion, but other times I simply make a mistake.

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[klaiggeb]

Once again, I didn't get to see Tuesday's game, but I watched some video.

And I was please, albeit surprised, to see that Alen Hanson still has that front shoulder under control.

Nice go ahead single off Maeda in the 9th.

I will say this for him, UNLIKE many giants who get so wound up with RISP that they pinch their butt cheeks so tightly together they couldn't walk, Hanson does not.

Made me think of Aurilia's comments about Will Clark before the game; pressure only made him better, more focused, and most importantly, more relaxed.

A number of these giants could take a lesson from Will.

He sure knew how to do what these guys cannot. RELAX