TO SUPPORT THIS CONCLUSION, WE TURN TO STAT-MAN
That's the way the rest of the season may be shaping up if things don't change pretty quickly.
Last years 88W 74L 657 RS 611 RA stat line looks pretty much in line with the current trajectory.
Currently we stand at 68W 54L 528RS 459 RA which projects to 89W 73L 701 RS 609 RA, virtually no improvement from last years squad. A slight improvement in the offensive metrics is offset by a virtual flat line from the pitching staff.
The improvements made across the diamond offensively have been offset a little bit by a backslide in the production of one Pablo Sandoval. Whether the pre-season tinkering with his weight, conditioning and vision issues are the root cause or his personal issues regarding a rumored divorce I suppose nobody really knows except Panda, but he's clearly not the same offensive force this season after a decent start. The bright spots that are Huff, Torres, Posey and Burrell have been virtually offset by the disappointments of Panda, Rowand and DeRosa.
The recent key series brought to light a couple of the issues that I think are holding the Giants back. Throughout the Padres and Phillies series I would see the final score flash as an ESPN trailer and then the stat line of the opposing pitcher and the stat that kept jumping out to me was 10K 0BB or 9K 1BB. Do opposing pitchers turn into strike throwing machines against the Giants or what?
When the Giants made the change from Carney Lansford to Hensley Meulens as hitting coach the team preached patience. A key discipline.
"Being at the bottom of the pile in those numbers, of course there are improvements to be made," Meulens said. "They don't come overnight. We have to be patient."
The numbers he was talking about were as follows:
The Giants finished 88-74 this season, four games behind wild-card winner Colorado—and with 16 more victories than in 2008. But the team is looking to boost its run production after having the second-fewest homers (122) and drawing the fewest walks (392) in the majors in 2009. The Giants were 13th in the National League in runs.
Runs / Game (RPG) are up from 4.06 to 4.34 (League wide RPG are down from 4.43 to 4.28)
HR/G are up from 0.75 to 0.91
BB/G are up from 2.54 to 3.15
K/G are down from 7.15 to 6.68
BB/K are up from 0.355 to 0.472
AVG/OBA/OPS improved from .257/.309/.699 to .260/.326/.731
OPS+ improved from 80 to 92
So clearly, statistically the Giants have improved under Meulens. He has done the job he set out to do, so far. The problem goes further down the chain as far of development of hitter's.
THE OFFENSE HAS BEEN ABOUT AS EXPECTED THIS SEASON, A BIT BETTER THAN LAST, BUT STILL AVERAGE AND PEDESTRIAN. NO SPEED - NO HIT & RUN - NO SMALL BALL - WAIT FOR THE OCCASIONAL HR TO PRODUCE RUNS AND HOPE SOMEBODY IS ON BASE AT THE TIME IS NOT GOING TO CUT IT. THEY ALSO PICKED A BAD TIME (MOST OF AUGUST) TO GO INTO A DITCH. OTHER THAN THE CUBS SERIES - AND THE CUBS HAVE QUIT - THEY ARE AVERAGING ABOUT 2-3 RUNS PER GAME CONSISTENTLY AND THE NUMBER OF RUNS THAT ARE PRODUCED FROM OTHER THAN THE HR HAS, OF LATE, BEEN ALMOST NON-EXISTENT.
The last couple of series have been an eye-opener.
During the three-game series vs. The Padres and the first two vs. the Phillies (1W - 4L overall) the Giants produced 43K - 8BB and only manufactured 4 RUNS in 5 GAMES. Manufactured runs meaning runs coming the result of something other than a HR.
They have basically turned into an AL offense, waiting for the 3-run HR and if they don't get it, look for 3 or under Runs Scored. The major characteristics used to describe the Giants hitters are all negatives:
IMPATIENT (average BB/K ratio 16th in the league)
UNDISCIPLINED (Highest O_Swing% in baseball)
SLOW (least # of SB in baseball)
STAT LINES FROM THE PADRES - PHILLIES SERIES:
Friday Lost 3-2 to Padres Clayton Richard
4K, 3BB,M 0 HR'S - 2 MANUFACTURED
Saturday W 3-2 to Padres (11 Innings) Mat Latos
11K, 3BB, 1 SOLO HR BY SANDOVAL - 1 MANUFACTURED
Sunday Lost 8-2 to Padres to Wade LeBlanc
10K, 2BB, 2 RUN HR BY POSEY - 0 MANUFACTURED
( 2-9 23 RS 40 RA VS. PADRES)
Tuesday's Notes - Lost 9-3 vs. Oswalt
Giants starters are 0-8 with a 5.97 ERA in the last 13 games.
10K, 0BB, 2 SOLO HR'S - 1 MANUFACTURED
8-2 Wednesday Lost 8-2 vs. Blanton
8K, 0BB, 2 SOLO HR'S - 0 MANUFACTURED
San Francisco failed to get a win from its starting pitcher for the 14th consecutive game.
The Giants' rotation, usually one of the team's strengths, is 0-9 with a 5.97 ERA during that stretch.
46 RUNS SCORED LAST 15 GAMES (3.07 AVG.)
23 RUNS SCORED CUBS 4 GAMES
23 RUNS IN LAST 11 NON-CUBS SERIES (2.09 AVG.)
1 vs. COL, 4 vs. ATL, 4 vs. CUBS, 3 vs. SD, 2 vs. PHI
The website Fan Graphs has a stat that I think leads to where the Giants major challenge lies offensively.
FANGRAPHS WEBSITE:
http://www.fangraphs.com/teams.aspx?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&type=5&season=2010&month=0
If you look here you see the Giants are a worst in the majors 32.3% O_Swing% or Outside Swing Percentage.
This measures the % of pitches a batter swings at that are outside the Strike Zone.
The League Average is around 29%, Just eyeballing the table you can see that the better teams offensively are clustered at the top The Yankees at 25.8%, Red Sox 26.7%, Braves 26.7% and so on. After the D-Backs you see the A's, Twins, Rays, Phillies and Dodgers.
Intuitively, you would think that swinging at pitches outside the strike zone makes the pitchers job of getting you out easier. Does it? And if so how much does it hurt an offense or a team?
Is the patient, milk the count, Yakees-Red Sox, Moneyball approach more efficient offensively and does it correlate to winning better than an aggressive, swing at the fist pitch you like approach?
If we accept that O_Swing% identifies the various approaches and correlate the O-Swing% to Runs Scored or RS and then to Win%, we see that:
O-Swing% correlates to RS negatively -0.3912 (15.30% R-squared) a moderate negative correlation, which implies that the more you swing at pitches outside the strike zone, the less you will score runs. Makes sense. Moderate because you can recover from a bad swing here and there and salvage the AB.
There is a low correlation between O_Swing% and Win% of -0.2697 (7.27% R-squared). Makes sense. You can recover from having a poor overall team hitting approach offensively by having a strong defense and pitching.
The surprising number to me, at first, was the correlation between BB/K and winning. The walk to strikeout ratio to me is the most useful identifier and predictor of how a hitter or pitcher will progress or advance from the minors to the majors.
And now I think I see why. Follow me here. Because it plays into the Voros McCracken/SABR analysis that puts forth the theory that once the pitcher throws the ball and the hitter hits the ball, neither has control over its eventual destination. Short term. AB to AB. The idea is to make consistently good pitches (as a pitcher) and take consistently good swings (as a hitter) and let the "Law of Averages" or law of large numbers work in your favor. This explains the rise of BABIP as a closely watched and evaluated metric.
Hitters know this theory explained by the days when they hit four balls on the screws, at-em balls right at somebody, and go 0 for 4 and somebody else hits a humpback liner, a seeing eye grounder, a duck snort and a swinging bunt and end up 4 for 4. Pitchers see this in reverse after they make a good pitch and see a bad result and at times make a bad pitch and get away with it.
Process matters long-term, it feeds into long-term results. Short-term almost any approach can work. Remember the pitchers hitting philosophy "Swing hard in case you make contact". It explains why hitters and pitchers regurgitate what seems like throw-away, shop-worn lines like, "I'm just taking it one pitch at a time, trying to make good pitches/take good swings, etc." They get it.
But I digress. The ultimate confrontation in baseball is between the pitcher and the hitter, it feeds into every other metric. The objective of the game is to score runs and win games. You get 27 outs, to be used judiciously to score said runs and win said games. Anything that leads you closer to an out moves you further away from a run and a win.
If we accept the premise put forth by the BABIP'ers that once the pitch is thrown and the bat is swung the result is random and out of the control of the participants, then the most reliable, efficient and objective statistic available to evaluate the pitcher / hitter confrontation is BB/K ratio.
So I looked at that statistic and found that the Giants are about league average. 0.47 as an offense, but down to 0.19 in the last five disaster games versus the Padres and the Philies.
What was surprising was the extent to which this statistic correlates to Win% 0.6386 (40.76% r-squared). This indicates a moderate to nearly high correlation and a substantial to marked relationship. The 40.76% r-squared indicates that almost 41% of winning and losing can be attributed to controlling, maintaining and improving the performance that flows through to this statistic.
The Numbers are posted here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/36147619/Stats-OSwing-vs-Win-amp-RS
More patience and discipline at the plate, making better contact, swinging at better pitches, making the pitchers job tougher rather than easier.
The Ted Williams approach is what we seem to need a little more of around the organization. The first rule is to get a good pitch to swing at. To the extent that the Giants continue to lead the league in O_Swing%, they continue to violate Rule #1.
The second rule is to put a good swing out there. That doesn't seem to be a problem, these guys are major leaguers, but to the extent that you violate Rule #1, you hurt Rule #2 and eventually, long-term, you hurt the end results, which are Batting Average, Run Production and Wins and Losses.
BTW, the Giants O_Swing% per batter were as follows:
BURRELL 23.8%
RENTERIA 25.7%
FONTENOT 26.3%
TORRES 27.9%
POSEY 28.5%
GUILLEN 28.6%
HUFF 28.9%
DEROSA 30%
SCHIERHOLZ 30.4%
URIBE 34.5%
ISHAKAWA 35.2%
MOLINA 35.5%
SANCHEZ 36.4%
ROWAND 38.5%
SANDOVAL 43.6%
The surprise is that Rowand's number, as a veteran, is so high. Sandoval's is abysmal. It may be cute when he's hitting .300, but not so much at .265.
I don't want to leave the pitching staff out of the analysis. Prior to the season, I envisioned a dominant starting staff that would win approx. 60% of it's decisions and leave the rest of the staff to play .500.
The results have been tepid at best and of late they have shown signs of fraying at the seams.
LINCECUM 11-7
CAIN 9-10
ZITO 8-7
SANCHEZ 9-8
BUMGARNER 4-4
TOTAL 41-36
THE PITCHER'S, ESPECIALLY THE VAUNTED STARTING ROTATION HAS BEEN LIVING ON REPUTATION AND IT HAS CAUGHT UP WITH THEM THIS MONTH. THE GIANTS LEAD THE LEAGUE IN WALKS, LINCECUM LOOKS TIRED OR HURT, CERTAINLY NOT A DOMINANT PITCHER. CAIN IS BACK TO A LESS THAN .500 PITCHER. INFACT THE STAFF IS VIRTUALLY .500 ACROSS THE BOARD. THE BRIGHT SPOT HAS BEEN WILSON AS THE CLOSER. THE MIDDLE RELIEF HAS BEEN ABOUT AS EXPECTED.
ESPN Notes on the staff: I added the WHIP for comparison, Lincecum is the only starter above the team average
• ON TIM LINCECUM: "He's not the same guy. And if he's not the same guy, they're in trouble. He doesn't have confidence in his fastball right now. He's got a good enough change to get by, but he can't become a changeup monster at age 26."
News: Lincecum lost for the third straight time on Sunday, giving up six runs (five earned) on eight hits and three walks over only 3.2 innings. He struck out six.
Spin: With the bad outing, Lincecum's ERA climbed to a mere-mortal 3.62. He was a little unlucky, but once again his control wasn't as precise as it has been in previous years. "I missed my spots here and there. There were a lot of bloop hits here and there but hits are hits and a loss is a loss," he said. "At the end of the day that's what I have to look at it as and just get better from here." 1.34 WHIP VS. 1.33 TEAM AVG.
News: Cain took the loss against the Phillies on Wednesday after allowing five runs - two earned - on seven hits in six innings.
Spin: Cain fell victim to a four run rally in the fourth inning, but breezed through the Phillies aside from that. He entered the game with a 3.62 ERA and 1.31 WHIP on the road, a far cry from his 2.62 ERA and 1.01 WHIP at home. 1.16 WHIP
News: Zito took the loss Tuesday when he allowed four runs over five innings against the Phillies.
Spin: Zito surrendered eight hits, walked one and failed to strike out a single batter. His record now sits at 8-7 on the season, with a 3.56 ERA and 1.26 WHIP. Giants starters are 0-8 with a 5.97 ERA over the last 13 games. ZITO 1.26 WHIP
News: Sanchez lasted just 5.1 innings Friday against the Padres, allowing three runs on five hits to drop to 8-8.
Spin: Sanchez's inconsistency continues. His 144 strikeouts in 137.1 innings are offset by the 70 walks and 15 home runs. There is still some upside here, but the ups and downs will continue. 1.27 WHIP
News: Bumgarner pitched seven innings of two-run ball Saturday, allowing eight hits and two walks. He struck out two.
Spin: Bumgarner pitched well even though he was left with no decision. He's allowed two runs or less in five of 10 starts this season. 1.33 WHIP
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