The Giants Might Have Gotten Lucky by Missing out on James Shields

I guess if you knew in advance that the market would back up on Shields and you could get him at 4 / $75-$80M you would have waited. But the Giants moved when they did, the problem being that now Shields is in the division, and while I don't think the Padres are better yet than the Giants, they have closed the gap and are now serious contenders to compete for the second wild-card. Which is perhaps about where the Giants are again.

It is odd that Shields calling card -- his reliability, dependability and durability -- came back to haunt him, proving once again that it sucks to get old.

from Bleacher Report:
The Giants Might Have Gotten Lucky by Missing out on James Shields:

This comes up now because the combination of Peavy and Vogelsong adds up to about one James Shields. The Giants probably would have had to pay a little more to get him away from his hometown, but they're going to pay two starting pitchers -- one of whom might not even be in the rotation -- about the same as Shields. They went for quantity, not quality.

'via Blog this'

So the Giants starting pitching staff now is what it is, The Magnificent Seven of Bumgarner, Cain, Peavy, Hudson, Lincecum, Vogelsong and Petit. Not bad. We need some bounce back years, some good health reports and a little luck to compete perhaps, but the top five have pitched great at times in their career and mediocre at other times.

Do the Giants have enough starting pitching?

 To find out, I looked to the past three times the Giants won the title -- 2010, 202 and 2014 and used the somewhat controversial statistic called quality starts. According to Baseball Reference.com, a quality start is one where the starting pitcher pitches six or more innings and allows three runs or fewer. In theory, the starter has given his team a better than average chance of winning the game. The rest is on the offense, the bullpen, etc. Would I prefer the Nolan Ryan stat High Quality Start, which requires seven inning pitched and three earned runs or less? Yes!! But ESPN.com / STAT Inc. don't use that standard so I'm stuck with the other version.

Side note: According to wikipedia.com, the highest quality start percentage for a season was recorded by Greg Maddux, who had 24 of 25 quality starts in 1994. Bob Gibson was 32 for 34 in 1968.

Also, from 1950 to June 2013, the overall leaders by quality start percentage (min 100 starts) includes:

1. Tom Seaver 70.2%
2. Mel Stottlemyre 69.4%
3. Adam Wainwright 68.8%
4. Bob Gibson 68%
5. Josh Johnson 67.7%
6. Roy Oswalt 67%
7. Randy Johnson 66.8%
8. Jered Weaver 66.8%
9. Brandon Webb 66.7%
10. Pedro Martinez 66.7%

A list that identifies four legit Hall of Famers and some other stud pitchers that can be best described as "glue" guys, -- maybe not outstanding, maybe under-appreciated, but hold things together -- can't be all that bad. Plus it leads with Tom Terrific, so....

Anyway, back to the Gigantes......

2010 
Cain had 25/33 quality starts or a 76% quality start percentage
Lincecum 22/33 67%
Zito 19/33 58%
J. Sanchez 14/33 42%
Bumgarner 11/18 61%
Wellmeyer 4/11 36%
J. Martinez 0/1 0%
for a team total of 95 / 162 quality starts or 59% QSP

Bumgarner was nails even back then!!!

2012
Vogelsong 22/31 71%
Cain 21/32 65%
Bumgarner 19/32 59%
Zito 17/32 53%
Lincecum 13/33 40%
Hacker 1/1 100%
Petit 0/1 0%
for a team total of 93 /162 or 57% QSP

A little bit of slippage, but still good enough. You can see just how long Timmy has been scuffling though.

2014
Bumgarner 21/33 64%
Hudson 18/31 58%
Vogelsong 15/32 47%
Lincecum 13/26 50%
Peavy 8/12 67%
Cain 6/15 40%
Petit 5/12 42%
for a team total of 86 / 162 or 53% QSP

Here, you can clearly see a bounce back from Timmy, to bottom of the rotation status. Also clear is how valuable Peavy's contribution was (turned Cain's spot from a disaster to a passable effort) and how much Vogelsong slipped, almost off the roster. Under 50% QSP just won't do it.

It really is amazing that this team made the playoffs with the slippage in overall performance of the starting rotation. It was almost held together by spit and bailing wire.  That is pretty much the makings of a .500 team starting rotation.

So, the questions for 2015 become:

• How much are you getting out of Matt Cain? A return to 60+% QSP would be great. 
• What can you expect from the four older warriors? And I include Lincecum/Vogelsong in there with Peavy and Hudson. Have to run between 55-60% QSP IMO.

In my mind, some combination of Lincecum / Vogelsong and Petit are the fifth starters for the 2015 Giants with battlefield promotions due to any injuries that occur. 

If Cain, Bumgarner, Peavy and Hudson give you near 60% QSP for their 128 starts (32 each) this team will be OK. Then you only need 50% from the Vogie/Timmy/Petit troika. Very doable. 

By comparison, the Dodgers will throw out their own troika of 

Kerhsaw 24/27 89% QSP

Greinke 21/32 65% QSP 

Ryu 19/26 73% QSP

64/85 75% QSP out of the top three!! Incredible. Even if you only get 50% out of the other starts, you're looking at 102-103 Quality Starts. That is Quality starting pitching and will be very tough to beat.

The good news for the good guys is this is an odd numbered year, so expectations will be low. On the other hand, this is your third chance to get the whole defending your title thing right, so whatever.

More good news is if this turns out to be a bridge or transition year, a lot of payroll dollars (maybe $40M?) come off the books and there will be a treasure trove of starters coming on the market, led by David Price.

Sabean should fee like a fat kid, with a fat allowance in a candy store next Hot Stove League.