Updates on Cain, Belt, Pagan, Sanchez and others - Giants Extra

So Cain is now done for 2014, but should be good for 2015 and that is probably as good as we could have hoped for. I like where the Giants are right now regarding Sabean's comment about trying to win and develop at the same time. It's a tricky move to pull off for an organization, ask the White Sox, but the plethora of pitching talent and maybe just enough hitting talent percolating throughout the system may just allow the Giants to thread the needle. Time will tell.

from Giants Extra:
Updates on Cain, Belt, Pagan, Sanchez and others - Giants Extra:

— Sabean on today’s moves: “If you can’t do anything from the outside you have to turn internally, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. There are times when you try to win and develop at the same time.”

'via Blog this'

The Peavy deal looks much better now in hindsight. Peavy looks ready to step in and be the hard luck starter, replacing Cain. Hopefully, he doesn't fall into the Anthony Young Syndrome of pitching just good enough to lose. I like his intensity, but it may have come back to bite him a bit in his epic duel of no-nos with deGrom of the Mets. The youngster kept his poise more than the veteran and that was the difference.

In looking at Peavys stat line you can see the fine line between victory and defeat. In his better years recently Peavy walked 2.7 per 9 innings, that goes up to 3.5 per 9 during the down years. His strikeouts slide from 8.6 to 7.2 per 9 IP and the WHIP goes from 1.19 to 1.425. HR's go from 1.0 to 1.5.  The good news is that in the two starts ( small sample size alert ) Peavy has reduced his walks to 1.4 per 9, K's are at 6.2 per 9, HR's are at zero and WHIP is a dominating 0.923. Adrenaline is a powerful drug, let's hope he can keep up the rush.

BTW, the 1.40 WHIP level is the danger zone that Anthony Young pitched in when he posted a 3-30 record for the Mets in 1992-93. His walks were at a 3.05 BB/9 level as well. So he wasn't getting beat -- 0.65 HR/9 -- as much as he was beating himself. Peavy's misses on a couple of key pitches during the no-no seemed to upset the apple cart a bit and caused the one bad inning (and there's always one bad inning) that got a little more out of control than de Grom's one bad inning.

I like what Peavy adds to the rotation, a Full Throttle, Hunter Pence on the mound, and he seems to be just the adrenaline kick the Giants need. Oh, and good health to first Brandon Belt and hopefully soon Angel Pagan. This team can still get to and make some noise in the playoffs.

On the prospect front, I think Panik should stick around, he just throws good AB's out there and the average is going to follow. Susac looks good at the plate and behind the dish, showing good plate discipline. The bat can certainly use some more AB's in AAA, but what are you going to do? Duvall and Matt Duffy are going to be the odd men out, I think. Duvall looks good as a power hitting prospect, that's going to make the Panda decision a lot tougher. If it's a choice between keeping Panda or Morse instead of Panda and Morse, I think you have to go Panda, and in that instance Duvall likely gets dealt. It looks like pitchers have discovered that Matt Duffy needs more work laying off the slider. It is major league meal money, travel and accommodations, but the flip side is that you will see major league sliders.

Also on a positive note, Gregor Blanco is putting up some really good AB's of late after looking totally lost earlier in the season. Good to see, as his defensive value -- like Crawford -- is indisputable. As we have seen lately with the number of Giants pitchers being labelled hard-luck and the victim of lack of run support, you do need to score some runs here and there.