Two Tid Bits

[rog]

Trevor Cahill is said to signing with the Angels, and the Rangers are said to be considering a reunion with Derek Holland.  Cahill was projected at 2/$22 million, but is said to be signing for 1/$9.  Holland was projected at 2/$15, but Trade Rumors now notes that some other similar pitchers haven't received a second year.

We haven't really discussed re-signing Derek much.  How do you guys feel about a reunion not with the Rangers but with the Giants?  How high would we go?   (Limbo higher now!)  (A little bit higher now.)

[sfgdood]

If the Giants let DRod get away, Fargeek should follow him right out the door

[rog]

Huh? When did Dereck enter the conversation?

[sfgdood]

My bad...I mixed Dereks

[klaiggeb]

Last year was Holland's first GOOD year in a long, long while.

I'd like him back, but a very, very reasonable money.

One year is NOT going to sway me.

Look at his career; only TWO YEARS with ERAs UNDER 4.6!

Only TWO YEARS with ERA's in the 3's!

2 years at 15 million? that's 7.5 million/year.

No thank you.

With HIS track record, that's nuts!

[rog]

I would have much preferred Anibal Sanchez at 2/$19 or a little more than Derek at 2/$15. That's not to say I don't have an interest in him, but as you say, Boly, not at too high a price.

To me the thing to look at when a pitcher has a good season is, did he simply have a lucky year, or did he make a change that might lead to continued improvement? In Sanchez's case, he redid his pitch repertoire, focusing particularly on his cutter.

I would be looking too for smart pitchers who are intrigued by working on their effective velocity. Teams are beginning to focus more on improving from within.

For instance, would it help a pitcher to know how he fared with his various pitches immediately after a high fastball? Would it help him to learn how to throw his pitches out of the same tunnel, making them harder to pick up? Would it help him to throw fewer fastballs? Would it help him to throw more of his fastball high, making their effective velocity higher and setting up lower second pitches off the same tunnel?

It is likely some pitchers would pick up these things better than others, so those are the pitchers I would be looking for. The difficulty of course is that the other teams know these advantages as well now, making it tougher to pry those pitchers away. Could definitely be of help in evaluating free agent pitchers though.

Three of the reasons pitchers are better today are higher velocity, less pacing, and better pitch sequencing. More pitch variety and better usage of tunnels. More knowledge of opposing hitters.

[rog]

Regarding Derek Holland, one thing to consider is that he may indeed be learning something. He had a very poor season in 2017, but he began the year with a 2.37 ERA over his first 10 starts before falling apart the rest of the season. Perhaps he picked something up in early 2017, lost it, then got it back in 2018.

Last season he had kind of the opposite pattern, pitching poorly over his first dozen starts before pitching quite well over the final three and a half months. Not much change in his pitch utilization, but while all four of his pitches had been negative pitches the two previous seasons, all but his change up were positive in 2018. His fastball had totally fallen apart in 2017, but became a positive pitch last season.

If I were Farhan, I would want to know from my pitching coaches, my scouts and my sabermetricians what changes he made in 2018 and whether they were likely to be sustainable.

[Islandboagie]

I'm not sure I'd bring Holland back. He's got heart, but he's not a very good pitcher. The Giants got lucky last year with getting a decent season from him. If they bolster their roster with a significantly upgraded outfield and a frontline starter then I might being him back in a long relief/spot starter role, otherwise I'd prefer we look toward exploring younger options.

[klaiggeb]

You nailed it, boagie; the Giants got lucky with him last year.

I would look for a high 4's era from him going forward.

[rog]

Depth Charts projects Derek at 4.57 in 2019.

[klaiggeb]

Yep. Pretty much what he's been over his career.

Not worth the 7 million or so they think he'll get.

[rog]

To put into perspective how difficult it is to buy wins through free agency, Depths Charts Projects Holland at seven-tenths of a Win Above Replacement. With one win via free agency costing on average a little over $8 million, if he performs as projected, he wouldn't be worth the $7 million, but not by much. He would be worth about $6 million instead.

And that's over a projected 94 innings. If he were able to pitch the same 171 innings he pitched last year, his worth would grow to about $10 or $11 million. 1/$7 million is probaby a very fair price for Derek, who has actually been projected at 2/$15.

Depth Charts projects Anibal Sanchez to be worth about $14 million this season. I would have much preferred to sign him.

I believe the Giants' #1 pitching choice is Kikuchi. He's mine too. To me, signing Kikuchi and also acquiring two outfielders might make for a very successful winter, depending on who the outfielders are.

[klaiggeb]

Who in the world is Kikuchi, Rog?

I can't find him anywhere.

Who did he play for?

[rog]

Kikuchi is Yusei Kikuchi, a 27-year-old lefty from Japan who has been mentioned here quite a few times. Kikuchi isn't considered the pitching prospect Ohtani was, and he isn't a position prospect, but at 27 he's been a very good pitcher in Japan, and the Giants have expressed clear interest.


www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=kikuch000yus

[klaiggeb]

That explains why I couldn't find him; he played in Japan last year.

Thanks.

[rog]

The two best places for finding players that I've come across are:

baseball-reference.com

and

thebaseballcube.com


If you're looking for things such as how often a player hits the ball hard or hits a line drive, how often he swings and misses, and how often he chases:

fangraphs.com


Baseball-Reference and Fan Graphs are probably the two best baseball web sites going.

[rog]

And of course:

mlb.com

and

sfgiants.com


Then there's:

McCoveyChronicles.com

[rog]

And if we want to keep up with the transactions and rumors in the game:

MLBTradeRumors.com

[rog]

Throw in one more for minor league action:


MiLB.com

[rog]

With just those eight web sites, a person can keep up with baseball and the Giants better than 99 out of 100 fans.

[Islandboagie]

It's likely that a fairly good percentage of fans frequent those websites too. Most fans don't still have a flip phone. Those are normally the websites that pop up first when you search for baseball news. And I, myself, have a few baseball apps that alert me if there's Giants news. To act like those sites require dedicated research is not familiar with modern technology.

[klaiggeb]

boagie:

I'm relatively new to "Smart Phones," as Candee and I just got our first in March of this year.

Thus, I have no idea of the apps about which you are speaking.

Can you send them too me so I can download them to my phone?

Thanks!!!!

[rog]

I hope Santa brings you some perspective, Boagie.

How much time do you think our group spends on these websites? Do you think it is useful that at least they know about them? Virtually all have been mentioned here multiple times of course, but how often do you think a guy like Boly visits them.

I wasn't trying to make out that these are things that are hard to find. I simply began putting down baseball sites that I thought were useful, and when I did so, I wondered why I hadn't done so earlier.

Speaking of the flip phone, I once made a business call on mine and unfortunately shut the phone as I was speaking on it. I quickly called the person back and apologized. As I told her, you could say that in a way I flipped you off. Fortunately she had a sense of humor.

I know you do spend a little time on these websites, Boagie, but most here don't. I think Boly goes to NBC Sports Bay Area, which is a very good source I didn't even mention, but other than mlb.com and sfgiants.com, I doubt he has spent ten hours on the others combined.

Let me ask you this, Boagie: How much time do you spend a week studying baseball? I think it's probably a pretty fair amount -- probably more than at least 90% of baseball fans.

[rog]

As for the sports apps, the first time I came across one was when my son had his phone set to alert him every time there was an NHL goal scored. This was a bunch of years ago, but I had no idea until that such information was available.