End of the Season Evaluation: Part I-Pitching

[klaiggeb]

Concerning our pitching, or lack-thee-of, what follows are my opinions of where we are, and what we need to do

1-Starting pitching
Smyly was as advertised and more. Looks to me like he's recovered fully from his TJ surgery of a couple of years ago.

Guasmann was a very pleasant surprise for me, especially late in the year when he began to use that devastating change up more and more.
There were times, and Sunday's game was one of them, where that Change UP was so good, I had flash backs to Jason Schmidt coming into his own when he got here.

Webb-He certainly had his moments, but mostly what I saw was a guy who had poor command of all of his pitches.
Then again, this was a year of growth for him, and I did see that growth.
If he continues to improve with his command, him being our # 3 guy is possible.

Anderson-I don't know what to think about his guy.IF...IF he throws strikes, we have seen just how effect he can be. But all too often, way too often he throws fat strikes which get hit.
I can see him as a very serviceable #3 or #4 guy.

Cueto-I'm going to reserve judgement on Johnny because he's not that far removed from TJ... and as Reed pointed out, his hip was an issue.
A much bigger concern is his age; he turns 39 in the near future and not many 39-40 year old pitchers are that effective.
As a number 5 guy, unless he significantly improves as he recovers from TJ, he'd be fine.

Bottom line: I we have any illusions of winning anything, Farhan MUST get at least one quality starter.


2-Bullpen in general
In general, take them all out to the walk-way over looking McCovey Cove and push them in!

I'm being facetious, of course, because some of the guys did have their moments.

Sellman-I liked the improvement I saw in him as the season wore on.

Baragar-I see a lot of potential for Caleb, a lot of upside...but his command IS an issue. That MUST improve.

Jarlin Garcia-From the little I saw I was very pleased. Good velocity, good breaking stuff and much better command than Baragar

Coonrod-So much stuff, so little command. All the stuff and velocity in the world is meaningless until his control improves.
If it EVER improves.

S. Anderson-What a disappointment he proved to be. As a former college closer, I expected a better strike thrower. But 9 walks in 12 ip? You've got to be kidding me!
That's ludicrous!

Rogers I like a lot! I think he can be a very serviceable set up guy who should induce a LOT of GB's with that submarine-sinker.

Watson, Perralta, Cahill and the rest are just guys at this point, and though Watson was very effective for most of the year, he simply will not be worth the money he'll command.

Bottom line: We need a guy who can legitimately close. And I don't see that guy on the current roster.



Farhan has his work cut out for him this off season, be it through trades, which I think he can do, or FA.

I don't care which.

He got lucky with Smyly and Gausmann. He needs to get very lucky again.

[reedonly]

I expect half of these guys to be gone in 2021. They have to get more input from the old guys such as Righetti. This was the piece of the team that was a position of strength of the old regime and now is a position of neglect and the largest weakness of the team. The relievers had a few good moments but continual meltdowns at key moments were costly.

[Islandboagie]

I dont think there will be too much emphasis on the bullpen until they prove they are capable of getting leads against good teams. They should focus on drafting starting pitchers who can actually go deep in the game.

[klaiggeb]

I would not have thought so either,Noah is, but the GM said yesterday that one of their top three priorities is to go out and get veteran help for the bullpen.

I really do not understand that, unless they are hoping that the veteran can school the youngsters that they're bringing up.

What I don't like is that giant management still wants the team to be more than competitive, I think management wants them to have a shot to win.

In my opinion, that's a huge mistake, because it's stunts the growth oh, and development, of the younger players in the system.

Then again, maybe management is just treading water, waiting for the younger, younger players in the system to finally be ready.

[reedonly]

The teams in the playoffs are on 3 levels.  To be honest, the Giants were really close to if not better than some of the teams that made it (Brewers, Cardinals, for example).  However, if they revert to the old format in 2021, they probably wouldn't make it.  I think a lot depends on what kind of playoff format they will adopt in 2021.  If Zaidi expects the team to be in the playoffs in 2021, we're probably hoping to be .500+. 

Boly, you are correct to say they are treading water as they are waiting for the kids to mature but also for the fat contracts to expire.  I think after next season, we will be done with all of them except Longoria. As we see with Dubon and Duggar, its not just a case of giving the kids more playing time but I think the Giants' new system is complicated and they may need to learn how to deal with shifts at lower levels.   Also, I have this nagging feeling that when Belt and Crawford's contracts expire, they might try to re-sign them to a lesser contract.  Not what I would do but Zaidi seems to like re-signing legacy players. 

[klaiggeb]

Agree, Reed.

I just wish that Farhan would get off his schtick of "we want to be competitive while we rebuild," because that attitude, that kind of leadership, ultimately, IMHO, will slow down the rebuilding process that needs to take place.

Yes, Biship, Heliot, Luciano, Bart, Corry, Canario, Hjelle, and Bailey, and probably Davis are a season or 2 away... but my point is, that his strategy will slow the rebuilding process down.

Some of these youngsters, like Bart, this season, need to get into the show sooner rather than later, and see what they are facing, and the kinds of adjustments they'll need to make to stick.

Now I'm NOT advocating that all of them be on the field next year. But reading article after article that implies that management wants 2 or more seasons in the minors is not practical, nor, IMHO, wise.

I don't want a kid brought up to just fall on his face, but they need the at bats, or ip to "see for themselves" what they are up against and to see just HOW big leaguers prep and get ready.

[reedonly]

If we have minor leagues next season, I would like them to keep the younger ones on the farm while bringing up some of the older ones to get their feet wet.  I think they brought up too many relievers at once and most of them couldnt make necessary adjustments.  I'm also concerned about the head case types like Tyler Beede not being able to adjust to the system.  Most of the pitchers regressed under the new system and I'm not sure if it was the system or lack of talent or injury.  I'm not a fan of working off of the spreadsheet from your back pocket but that seems to be the way baseball is headed now. 

[klaiggeb]

Reed, you seem to be a man of the same heart as myself.

I too do not like to see managing by spreadsheets alone.

I would like to see a balance strike somewhere between the manager's gut in want the stats show, but this guy, kapler, and the rest of the major leagues seem to be doing as you are saying, managing by spreadsheets.

We are also of a like mind and that we would like to see our kids get at least one year in the minors before getting called up.

That's what I was saying in my previous post.

But that said, I would like to see some of them get called up at the end of the next season 2, as you put it, get their feet wet.

Hearing about adjustments they will have to make is one thing, actually seeing and experiencing, is another.

I don't know what to think about Tyler beede.

All that Talent seemingly going to waste because his brain can't handle it

[garyd4sf]

Excellent series of write-ups above. I agree with most so I will just indicate where I differ in opinion.

Pitching: BTW the Giants need to stop the big inning. In 60 games they gave up 3 or more runs 23 times. 8 of these were by 4 or more runs in an inning. They may have won 8 games more under lesser big innings.

SP- the concept of signing an experienced #1 is not fruitful to me. They either flame out like MadBum or Greinke, or spend time on the DL. Cueto is 34 and will become 35 in Spring training 2011. Concentrate on getting a #2 or #3 from a trade and develop the #1 from the farm clubs. Better to be the one trading away a grizzled vet SP than getting one IMO.

RP- again, this is a developmental position although a guy like Will Smith can show results for a few years while the building up of a younger reliever works. I agree the closer could come from Watson, Coonrod, Selman or Barager (the best at a near 4 to 1 SO/BB ratio), or by committee. . The one aspect is throwing strikes which hurts Peralta. I have been up and way down on Rogers. He seemed to be able to control his pitch placement mostly, but when he comes across the plate it gets blasted. He would benefit more if the 3 batter rule is not in place. Anderson needs a head implant. The Giants seem to do a good job on rehabilitating or retraining Pitchers and that’s the #1 thing on this staff in going forward

[klaiggeb]

Though I like to have a # 1, dominant guy, Reed, I actually like your logic of getting a # 2 or 3 in a trade, and #1 from in house.

That's really what we did with Cain, Lincecum and Bum.

As to Rogers, i don't know what to think.

I like submariners, but control HAS to be a big part of their game.

I'm not sure Rogers has all that good of command.

[Islandboagie]

The problem is we don't have a #1, 2 or 3 in our system...and the back end is iffy too. If we want to compete in the next few years we will have to look outside our organization for pitching.

[klaiggeb]

Totally agree, boagie. Reed and I were looking at the problem from the perspective of what we would do in an ideal situation, which clearly, as you stated, we do not have.

I still like his idea, though. Go out and get 2's and 3's until we DO have that guy.

[reedonly]

I think I read that the people who use the new sabermetrics (Farhan, Freidman, etc) don't like drafting pitchers because they tend to be more brittle commodities and they feel that drafting position players is a safer bet and they play more on a daily basis.  Now that we have a bit of a core of position players, maybe it is time to look at getting some pitching.  Also, during the Evans regime, they felt a need to draft or trade for hitters because no free agent would choose to come to play in San Francisco due to the park effect.  

Most of the time, we do well with the first round pick but the later picks don't give us much value.  Player development has been sorely lacking for decades.  I think Farhan has recognized this since his system seems to have a lot more micromanagment types but with the pandemic, it remains to be seen where most of the job cuts were. LA Dodgers seemed to weather the pandemic by cutting the salaries of those who made the most money.  I've read that Oakland and the Cubs had some really deep organizational cuts, especially in the area of player development and that will hurt the way they operate. 

Like Boly says, we needed to do the tank and draft to get the process rolling and then rely on drafting and development in the future as a steady pipeline.  I know upper management loves to jump the process but taking shortcuts actually slow it down.  With the Dodgers doing well right now, there is a sense of urgency to get better as soon as possible but I feel they have to ignore that and stay the course. 

[reedonly]

As far as the Dodgers go, the way they are currently built is tailor made for a short season sprint. If it were a full season, the rotation would be held together with duct tape as Kershaw and Buehler are presently not "horse" types like when we had Cain and Bumgarner. Going forward, we might start seeing cracks.

[garyd4sf]

Oct 22, 2020 15:53:59 GMT -5 reedonly said:

As far as the Dodgers go, the way they are currently built is tailor made for a short season sprint. If it were a full season, the rotation would be held together with duct tape as Kershaw and Buehler are presently not "horse" types like when we had Cain and Bumgarner. Going forward, we might start seeing cracks.

Very good observations.  The last 2  series (vs Atlanta, and so far TB) shows that very thing.

The other aspect is how much LA depends on the HR. They are lacking speed but do have a patient approach at the plate keying walks at times that are cashed in by the subsequent HR. It makes than a very dangerous hitting team, but also one that can be worked around by pitchers that work the corners as they wait for the sweetheart pitch to hit a HR.

[reedonly]

In addition to playing "Giants Ball" what really killed the Brave was when the Dodgers ran up the pitch counts and the bases on balls. The walks ended up hurting as much as the homers.

Tampa plays a lot smarter than Atlanta and this type of team could give them trouble. Hopefully the Rays figure them out.