Slater up Rodriguez down

[klaiggeb]

I have to admit I was not surprised Dereck got sent down.

As I posted in the off season, this is exactly what I feared would happen in his second season.

It's something Kruk spoke of many times.

Players often have success early, but really have no idea how they did it.

They lose their mechanics and can'find them again very easily because they don't know/haven't yet learned the "feel."

It may take some time.

, and being with the big club and failing and failing and failing only makes things worse.

Anxiety grows and confidence wanes.

A sense of hopelessness sets in.

It's a cycle that just goes around and around.

Most of the time they need the off season: To get away from the game for a while to clear their head.

I've sort of been there before. Came up with a stiff arm from sleeping in a draft, lost my rhythm, lost my release point and went into a long, LONG funk.

Killed my confidence, but when I finally figured it out,a couple of months into the off season I'd learned a valuable lesson about "feel" and I became a better pitcher.p

That is my hope for Dereck

My hope is that by going down, getting away from the pressure + the All-Star break help.

[rog]

Derreck should be able to look at before and after pictures and see what he's doing differently mechanically. If I were he, I would try to find a way to develop more of a velocity gap between his pitches (perhaps using his slow curve more often) and would do an advanced study of pitch sequencing. I would examine the pitches and patterns that are getting hit and try to make changes.

In Derreck's case, I think it is sometimes a case of simply losing the plate, and that should be a mechanical thing he can identify and mitigate. But I'd be looking for ways to increase my spin rate to get a little better movement. Sometimes walks occur because a pitcher just can't put away a guy once he gets to two strikes, and eventually one or two of those pitches miss -- either off the plate or out over it.

[rog]

I like that the Giants sent down a pitcher and added a hitter, lengthening the bench.

[klaiggeb]

That is not what Boch said, Rog.

Noah said that he felt Derek was throwing better but that he needed to build up arm strength so he could go back into the rotation.

THAT tells me a deal is coming soon involving 1 or more of our starters.

If that's the case I'm hoping the 1st to go is Jeff and that A MUCH bigger deal for Bum will follow.

[rog]

That makes sense about Dereck. He was better until his last time out. Two guys who have really gotten lost this year are Andrew Suarez and Ty Blach.

I'm wondering if Drew Pomeranz's recent upswing might bode well for trading him. Drew has 18 strikeouts and only two runs in his last 10 innings. If Madison, Jeff and Drew all went (wouldn't that be great!), I'm guessing the Giants would try to pick up a starter who is near major league ready. They would still have Beede, Anderson, Rodriguez, Suarez and Blach or the new guy.

Johnny Cueto may well be back in September, although I don't know if it will immediately be in a starting role. And of course the Giants could always return Derek Holland to the rotation at least temporarily.

More than usual, I'd be willing to trade darn near anyone on the team.

[sfgdood]

The giants ruin the career of yet another promising player. RIP Dereck Rodriguez

[rog]

Dereck's career was going nowhere until the Giants signed him to a minor league contract a year ago. As Boly and I pointed out over the winter, he pitched over his head last season. He has declined more this season than I expected, but regression was written all over his career.

[sfgdood]

Fargeek is doing a far lousier job than Rodriguez did. He's the one should be shit canned

[rog]

It is you.

[sfgdood]

I dont give a crap what happened before he got here. Rodriguez was badass last year and his start this year wasnt so awful to warrant the treatment he received. Sent down, then put into the bullpen then sent down again. Totally unfair.

Dereck deserved better

[rog]

When a pitcher doesn't strike out a lot of hitters, he becomes vulnerable to luck on balls put in play. If the batters hit at-'em balls, the pitcher can look good. But if the balls find holes, it can make for a rough day.

As I posted yesterday, the warning signs with Dereck were right there. All one had to do was look.

. Dereck threw only 57% first-pitch strikes. That's not good enough, but he was able to get away with it. He was vulnerable unless he improved his first-pitch accuracy, and he was extremely vulnerable if his accuracy declined. When that has happened this season, the result was predictable. If you paid attention here, you would recognize risks like this.

. Dereck allowed the ball to be hit hard againsts him 39% of the time. Yet his Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP) was only .270, about 10% below the league average. Unless Dereck cut down on the hard-hit balls he allowed, he was vulnerable. When his hard-hit balls allowed jumped to 46% this season, he became increasingly vulnerable. Trevor Story hits the ball hard 46% of the time. Dereck has turned the average batter into Trevor Story.

. Batters swung at 30% of the bad pitches Dereck threw last season, which favors the hitter slightly. This season that has dropped to 24%, meaning that Dereck has fooled batters just slightly more often than the 23% of the time Joe Panik has gone outside the zone this year.

. No one knows how much a fastball's speed has to drop before it becomes vulnerable to being hit consistently. Tim Lincecum was an excellent pitcher as his fastball velocity dropped from 94 mph to 91 mph, but when it fell to 90.4 mph in 2012, his ERA leaped from 2.74 to 5.18. Dereck's fastball stood precariously at 91.4 mph last season. With it dipping to 90.8 this season, his luck hasn't been nearly as good. Last season Dereck's fastball was a slightly positive pitch. This season it has been one of the least effective heaters in baseball.


The bottom line here, Randy, is that the analytics you despise allow one to judge the game a lot better than you have been able to. If the people who understand these things are right far more often than you even though in your opinion they "don't get it," what does that say about you?

I'm trying to be nicer to you, Randy, but most of your posts show a big lack of understanding. What's so bad though is that you refuse to learn. Worse, you try to put down the very knowledge you lack.

I had the advantage of watching Dereck pitch in AAA this season. He was awful. After 1.2 innings, he gave up a grand slam home run to Justin Bour on his final pitch of the day. He was gone from a AAA game before he could even get through the second inning. You had the advantage of having a scouting report stating that and explaining that Dereck's lack of speed differential made it difficult for him to put hitters away with a fastball that ran between 89 and 92 mph. Then he simply couldn't find the plate and issued two or three walks to load the bases.

You said Dereck wasn't pitching all that badly when he was sent down. He had given up 18 runs in 13 innings over his last three starts. That's not all that badly? Clearly something had gone wrong. The Giants gave him a chance to work things out under less pressure. He didn't work them out, but they brought him back up after only two weeks anyway. After being recalled, he has pitched overall about the same as he pitched overall before being sent down.

You can say that is because the Giants shouldn't have sent him down, but if a pitcher with his modest stuff is going to succeed, he has to be that bulldog Boly describes Shaun Anderson as. He has to go to Sacramento with the attitude that he's going to show the Giants how foolish they were to send him down. The day I saw him pitch, he didn't look like he belonged in AAA -- but not in the direction he intended.

If Dereck is a favorite of yours, I can understand your disappointment. But you set yourself up for that disappointment by not seeing Dereck clearly and being fooled by his early success. Boly wasn't.

By the way, am I asking too much for you to give us a scouting report on Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos? I hope you enjoyed the one I posted after seeing the two play a game in Stockton. They've been back from injury for quite a while now, but if you posted your scouting report, I missed it.

[rog]

By the way, Randy, Fargeek? That's 12-year-old stuff. It's way, way beneath you.

[sfgdood]

Ive given my last scouting report. Nobody here seems to appreciate them. I feel you only ask for them so you can tell me how bad they are based on numbers anyway so just stick to your stats.

[sfgdood]

Ill tell whats beneath us is putting up with a GM that mnows nothing about the game on the field and has shown zero ability to acquire legit big league talent

[Islandboagie]

I appreciate what you have to say, Randy. Just because I don't respond, doesn't mean I'm not reading it. I actually agree with you, based on last season, Dereck should have been given a much longer rope.

Boly has a differing opinion on Dereck, which is fine too. Based on this season, he may be correct about Dereck.

Rog of course is just going to defend Zaidi at all cost while trying to educate us on how to think more like him and less like ourselves. Any move made now from the executive office is the right move according to Rog. Any disagreement with a move is going to result in a personal attack.

I look at this season from a rebuilding standpoint. When you're rebuilding, you have to see what the younger players can offer in the future, even if we lose games. Pomeranz or Samardjiza might pitch a good game, or Melancon might pitch a scoreless inning, but who cares? We know if there was any pressure to these games these guys would go back to shitting the bed.

[rog]

Boagie, why not use the brains that God gave you instead of simply spouting stuff?

If you look at what I've said about Farhan's performance to date, I've said essentially that he hasn't done much of anything. I've said that the best thing he's done is not to make expensive mistakes.

He may have done well with the draft, but at this point, who knows? His strategy of spreading the Giants' money around the international market instead of signing any of the top 20 prospects may provide the Giants depth in what might be a down year at the top for that market, but who knows at this point?

One of the positives I see are that a few of the Giants' players have improved their trade value, but the only think Farhan did to contribute to that was to show the patience to give them the chance to improve their value. He's given a ton of players a chance to contribute. Most have washed out, but a few have given hope for at least providing trade value or the ability to fill in for a traded player.

What you would find if you looked closely, Boagie, is that I get a lot of facts, and then I try hard to stay objective, analytical and reasonable.

As for Pomeranz, Samardzija and Melancon, it's important that they fare well because it makes it easier for the Giants to trade them. None of the three -- with the long shot exception of perhaps Pomeranz -- is a part of the future the Giants are building.

I'm a lot more encouraged now than I was at the beginning of the season. And it has little to do with Farhan, one way or the other. Here is why I'm more favorable now:

. The overall trade value of the older guys is up. It hasn't been a great season, but there have been enough sparks or at least avoidances of big declines that the Giants should be able to get some return at the trade deadline even in a more intelligent buyers' market.

. A lot of really young guys are playing well. I'm talking about the teens playing in the minors and showing nice signs of development. Those guys are the future.

. The draft looks encouraging, although I'll be the first to tell you that at this point I'm mostly guessing.

. The Giants' biggest problem after last season was that they have more money on the books for older players than any team in the majors. They've kept their commitments under control, positioned themselves to be poised to trade some of them away, and gotten a little younger in the process.


If I were to pick one thing that has gotten me excited this season, it would be the progress of the teens. Let me mention a few, although you already know much of this if you've read the threads about the top prospects:

OF Heliot Ramos -- Age 19. High A San Jose. .299/.384/.503/.886

OF Alexander Canario -- Age 19. Arizona Rookie League and Short Season Salem-Keizer. .327/.393/.818/1.212

SS Marco Luciano -- Age 17. Arizona Rookie League. .385/.492/.846/1.338

OF Jairo Pomares -- Age 18. Arizona Rookie League. .383/.431/.553/.985

RHP Gregory Santos -- Age 19. Low A Augusta. 2.10 ERA. 1.21 WHIP. 1.62 air outs to ground outs.


Instead of seeing a potential outfield of Steven Duggar, Chris Shaw and Austin Slater, it's not possible to envision one of Ramos (19), Canario (19) and Hunter Bishop (21, .356/.482/.792/1.274 at Arizona State), with Pomares as the fourth outfielder. It's possible to envision those players still being under team control in 2025 or later.

Several of the Giants' top prospects are pitchers. That might form their rotation, perhaps with Shaun Anderson, Dereck Rodriguez and Andrew Suarez in the mix.

Missing a month and a half to injury, Joey Bart hasn't developed as quickly as hoped, but he's clearly the Giants' catcher of the future.

The Giants need more infielders (and six of their top draft picks were shortstops) and more top line pitching, but if they're going to attract free agents, it's most likely to be pitchers and infielders who don't rely on power.

There's light at the end of the tunnel, guys. And all the oncoming trains are on strike. We should be very guarded in our optimism, but it's possible we have more than the independence of our nation to celebrate today.

I'm not trying to give Farhan credit for that. I don't see that much of it has been his doing. But I do have more optimism for the future than I've had in a long time.

[rog]

As for Dereck's being sent down, unless he has a fragile psyche (which I doubt, but it possible), criticizing the Giants for sending him down is foolish at best and wrong at worst. The guy had given up 18 runs in 13 innings. That would seem to indicate he was in quite a funk, and the Giants should have taken the action they deemed appropriate to help get him back on track. After being sent down, Dereck pitched well in his first start (6 IP, 2 ER), but was awful in his second, not even making it out of the second inning.

That Dereck pitched well in his first outing after being sent down probably shows that they Giants didn't hurt him psychologically with the demotion, but that second outing -- which I observed first-hand -- clearly showed he still had work to do.

The more I look at this, the more foolish I realize it was to criticize the Giants for sending Dereck down. Yes, Dereck pitched well last season (although it appears luck may have had as much to do with the results as his skill), but he had fallen apart in his three most recent starts before being sent down. Has any other Giants' pitcher given up 18 runs over three starts this season? It may have been a while since any starter had pitched that badly. Perhaps the injured Jeff Samardzija last season.

We're criticizing the Giants for taking an action in a situation they knew far more about than we. That they have just sent Dereck down again to get his innings back to starter innings shows they haven't lost confidence in him and took the action they felt was best for his future -- BOTH times he was sent down.

This is what gets me, Randy. You criticize others for not being able to understand the game, then you criticize something you don't have as much knowledge about as the Giants had when they made the move. The facts don't back you up.

If you were standing up for Dereck in a situation where you thought he was being taken advantage of, that's admirable. But the facts don't make it appear that he was being taken advantage of, which would make your comment fools gold.

[rog]

We know if there was any pressure to these games these guys would go back to shitting the bed.


Rog -- How do we know that, Boagie? The facts seem to indicate that we're simply talking about your opinion -- not anything that we know.




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/5418/slater-rodriguez?page=1#ixzz5sjTycwex

[sfgdood]

You keep jumping on Derecks 18 runs in 13 innings, which is indeed bad, but would it shock anyone if I told you every other starter had a similar stretch? I think not. Before Derecks tough run, he looked a lot like the guy we saw last season.

[rog]

Ive given my last scouting report.


Rog -- Well, you haven't given us your first report this season. First you said that Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos were injured (although I had found a way to see them play), and now you tell us you're done.

We appreciate your scouting reports. None of us is a pro scout, so our best shot at evaluating these guys is combining what each of us sees.

[rog]

You keep jumping on Derecks 18 runs in 13 innings, which is indeed bad, but would it shock anyone if I told you every other starter had a similar stretch? I think not. Before Derecks tough run, he looked a lot like the guy we saw last season.


Rog -- Derek Holland and Jeff Samardzija are the two Giants starters who have had similar stretches this season. Derek was sent to the bullpen, while Jeff remained in the rotation. Given the career record of the three pitchers involved, that seems reasonable.

Prior to the three very bad outings, Dereck had given up seven-tenths of a run more per game than last season, but you are correct that he hadn't fallen back too badly.

The bottom line here is that the Giants went the direction they thought was the best for Dereck. They're in a much better position than we are to make that call. We're second-guessing them without having nearly as much information as they.

To me, that's an exercise in futility.




Read more: sfgiantsmessageboard.proboards.com/thread/5418/slater-rodriguez?page=1#ixzz5skPHGfAB

[klaiggeb]

I will echo what boagie says, Randy.

My not responding these last 3 weeks is because of my move to Idaho.

We are in the new house and our furniture is coming today so in a day or so I will be back to posting regularly

[sfgdood]

Really cool and exciting boly