Giants drop close one to Braves, 9-0 | McCovey Chronicles

 

I am growing a bit weary of the mantra that the Giants -- individually or in aggregate -- are the "unluckiest" team on the face of the earth.

Let's review the facts:

• They ended the last half of the 2016 with the worst record in baseball.
• They have started the first half of this season with the worst record in baseball, except for the pesky Phillies who at least had the decency to finish strong last season.
• Combined, this gives us the worst record in baseball for almost a full season worth of games.

Luck shows up in the short-term or in a short series. That's why the playoffs are such a crap shoot and the "best team" on paper doesn't always win.

Skill demonstrates itself over the long-term. Small sample sizes go bye bye and conclusions can be drawn. 

My conclusion: This team sucks. They are not unlucky, the are lesser skilled than their opponents.

Some in the blog-osphere are coming around to this conclusion. Like Grant over at McCovey Chronicles. 

from McCovey Chronicles:
https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2017/6/19/15835200/giants-recap-why-are-you-even-reading-this

The thing about bad teams is that they can keep it close. It's not like every 100-loss team is down 9-0 before the fifth inning of every game. That's not how baseball works. Most wins and losses are built incrementally. A misplay here. A missed location here. A double play with the bases loaded there. They build and build and build, and you wonder, hey, maybe this is just bad luck! 

No. You have watched bad baseball before. You have watched good baseball before. This is the former. I will admit to being someone hoping for bad luck in the second half of last season, but it's been almost a full calendar year. This team is abysmal.

There is another option in play and I hesitate to bring it up because it calls into question the professionalism of the individuals involved. As Micheal Mauboussin describes in his book The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports and Investing if you can lose on purpose, skill dominates the activity, if you can't lose on purpose then luck likely dominates that activity.

From Michael Mauboussin:

There’s a simple and elegant test of whether there is skill in an activity: ask whether you can lose on purpose. If you can’t lose on purpose, or if it’s really hard, luck likely dominates that activity. If it’s easy to lose on purpose, skill is more important.

Could the Giants be losing on purpose? Not like throwing games on purpose, but is the team chemistry so out of whack from the glory years when this was virtually Team Chemistry to the current version that appears to be a something constructed by the young ladies from Mean Girls? 

I'm just asking. It seems a little more likely than some of the other alternatives. A lot of guys are playing like they have just literally forgotten how to play baseball (Matt Moore, Derek Law, Hunter Pence). They certainly have forgotten how to play at the level they once performed at, so what gives?

In fairness, we do tend to say a winning team has "good chemistry" and the total is greater than the sum of the parts when they out-perform our expectations (some SABR types default to "luck" here).

Is it possible that since the Giants are grossly under-performing even our most modest expectations over the last full season of games that somewhere bad team chemistry is at work?

If that's the case, the Giants front-office needs to tinker with the roster. The bullpen is an absolute shambles right now. Melancon, Law, Osich all have terrible ERA/WHIP whatever your pet stat is. Osich makes me long for Will Smith and he's a big LHP who can't get LH hitters out.

The only guys I have some confidence in are Strickland, Guerrin and Kontos.

The starting pitchers are a mess. Cueto is crumbling under the weight of carrying the staff in Bumgarners absence, Samardzia, even though .he's cleaned it up lately, seems to lose his way just long enough to lose his way. Matt Moore has totally lost his way and Matt Cain is still doing it with smoke and mirrors. It's as if hitters who've been around for a few years are saying "That's Matt Cain? Really dude?" and swinging at the old Matt Cain stuff. Once they adjust, it's game over for Matty, Except that we owe him a lot of money and management seems to want to get at least some ROR on the money. Greedy capitalists!! It;s what Bernie's been telling us all along!!

Anyway, the pitchers should be suing the hitters for non-support. Or is this another example of bad luck run amok? Eight guys all swinging the bats like it was a wet newspaper or a girls purse simultaneously? What are the odds of that happening? No productive outs, no clutch 2 out RBI. Hell, most nights, hardly any RBI at all. What gives?

Maybe it's time for an intervention of some kind. We've tried a good, old-fashioned bench clearing brawl and that didn't turn out too well. Maybe Dr. Phil is available.

Or Peyton Manning:
https://www.hulu.com/watch/1603
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/united-way/n12129?snl=1

The 2014 Giants and Chemistry 101

This is the 2014 Giants (and the 2012 and 2010 versions for that matter): Team Chemistry.

It's an elusive thing and one that is hard to define at times within a baseball context, but you know it when you see it. You also know it when you lack it as a team, usually nobody mentions bad chemistry.

It is definitely when the total is greater than the sum of the parts. That is what Bumgarner is describing here.

from San Jose Mercury News:
Giants win, complete sweep of Minnesota Twins - San Jose Mercury News:

"We've got a good team," Bumgarner said. "It's better than a lot of people realized at the start of the year. We play together. On paper, it might not be the best, but I'd put it up against anybody."

'via Blog this'

The Values of the Game - Teamwork

Individual commitment to a group effort — that is what makes a team work a company work, a society work, a civilization work. Vince Lombardi

The above quote from Lombardi may at times seem like another relic from a bygone era. A Utopian vision of the power that the values imparted by subordinating individual glory to achieve team goals is still alive both in sports and society.

In one of my all-time favorite sports books, Values of the Game by Bill Bradley, he describes the essence of teamwork.

Imagine what happens when you´ve got an entire team of players who are passionate about the game. In my Knicks days, there was no feeling comparable to the one I got when the team´s game came together - those nights when five guys moved as one. The moment was one of beautiful isolation, the result of the correct blending of human forces at the proper time and to the exact degree.

When you see it on the basketball court it is a thing of beauty. The emphasis today ,especially at the higher levels, is placed on the individual. The game match ups are at times marketed as Kobe vs. LeBron rather than the Lakers vs. Cavaliers. Yet we still see time and again that reaching the pinnacle at that level is reached when the superstar blends his unique abilities with others and allows the total to be greater than the sum of the parts. The superstar allows other players to become better players around him.

Today in America, it can be difficult to find examples that exemplify teamwork in our everyday lives. Jobs are compartmentalized and specialized. Our large institutions emphasize winning, being the best, and the accomplishments of the individual.

If you don't think the teamwork model translates to larger societal change, the recently released Clint Eastwood movie Invictus is certainly a powerful example.

Plot Summary for Invictus

The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team to help unite their country. Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

By definition, most teams are made up of a small number of people, with a common goal, who are accountable to each other and have different skill sets that can complement each other.

Maximizing the talents of these individuals and keeping them focused on the team goals rather than individual achievements is the ultimate goal of any team leader, from coaches to CEO's to leaders of nations.

When it comes together, we refer to it as "chemistry" at times. We refer to the team that achieves at a level over and above the perceived value of the individual parts as a Cinderella story. But when we see it demonstrated and played out to it's conclusion, it becomes the stuff of legends, in sports and in life.

One of the themes of Bradley's book that connect the "sports as a metaphor for life" thread is the true values of sports are found in the countless hours spent in practice. It is here--unseen by the public--that the love of the game and dedication to teamwork is demonstrated by each individual athlete. And it is here that many of the positive values of sports are imparted. Somebody tell AI.
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TEAMWORK - Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:3-4

Because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.—Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

MIRACLE GAME-CHANGING SHOT ENDS GAME

YOU HAVE MAIL: THIS MESSAGE IS TO SOMALI PIRATES, FROM THE U.S. NAVY SEALS, YOU'RE GOING TO NEED A HARDER HAT THAN THAT, BITCH!!!

From the story title, you probably think this is about the heroics of a Lebron James or Kobe Bryant or any one of a number of athletes who are lionized for their ability to perform in the clutch.

Under normal conditions it would be. I always marvel at the ability of these guys to come through for their teams under though situations. We define it as clutch situation. There's nothing better you can say about a player than he comes through in the clutch.

A lot of guys don't even want to be in the position of taking the last shot to win or lose a game for their team. So we elevate the guys who step up and accept the responsibility of winning or losing a game on their shoulders.

I don't want to get to Barkley-esque but the real-life heroes revealed themselves far away from home--outside of Somalia--in what will be known as the "Easter Miracle" for more than just the family and friends of Capt. Richard Phillips.

Three Navy SEAL snipers stepped up and took the last shot--in a game of life or death for Capt. Phillips--and the GOOD GUYS WON.

The details of the game changer can be found here and they are phenomenal:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/africa/04/13/somalia.rescue.breakdown/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

In the end, it was a single moment that brought the hostage crisis to its dramatic finish.

Three gunshots. All three fatal. Fired in the dark by three specially trained U.S. Navy SEALs as the pirates' boat rocked in the water off Somalia.

"Phenomenal shots -- 75 feet away," said Navy Vice Adm. Bill Gortney, who oversees the region.

Even with the small boat "moving up and down a couple of feet," the SEALs hit their targets. "Remarkable marksmanship," Gortney said.

This was a last second shot in a high stakes game of life of death and these guys took it and made it.

In his CNN commentary, Bob Greene asks the question "where heroes like this come from":
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/13/greene.seals/index.html

Part of it is adherence to the following creed.

"My loyalty to country and team is beyond reproach. I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow Americans, always ready to defend those who are unable to defend themselves. I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions. I voluntarily accept the inherent hazards of my profession, placing the welfare and security of others before my own. I serve with honor on and off the battlefield. The ability to control my emotions and my actions, regardless of circumstance, sets me apart from other men. ... In the absence of orders I will take charge, lead my teammates and accomplish the mission. ... I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight."

They may not want the adulation that we instead shower on our "heroes" in the sports world, but events like this show that they will always deserve it.

Loyalty beyond reproach....
humble service as guardian to their neighbors....
defender of those unable to defend themselves....
service with honor.....

We know that there are arenas where kids are learning lessons like these all over the country.

We know that those, like the Somali pirates will never be able to match the strength of character--that comes from righteousness of mission--that these guys have. In the aftermath, in some strange, perverted, twisted logic they continue to shake the stick at America for their "aggression" in rescuing a kidnapped hostage.

Sorry, save that speech for the United Nations, if you dare. The Navy delivered a message that even the historically docile French seem to understand. The best way to handle bullies and thugs is to stand up and smack them across the mouth.

What a wonderful world-view these folks seem to have. We seem like we would have a lot in common. I'm sure we could negotiate with knuckleheads like this, perhaps we could begin with no preconditions and a blame the U.S.-first apology chaser.

NO THANKS. I'LL TAKE THE NAVY SEAL APPROACH, IF YOU PLEASE.

At times we may question where we will find the likes of these young Navy SEALS, I would just say this Easter, Thank God they are on our side.

IF YOUR SCORING AT HOME, IT'S U.S. NAVY 4, SOMALI PIRATES 0.