Reactions to the Michael Morse Signing

Reactions to the Giants signing Michael Morse:

Giants take a gamble on Mike Morse - Me at BASG

The Giants are taking a gamble that he can play the Pat Burrell role from 2010, three at-bats and then a late defensive replacement while providing some home runs down the lineup. Perhaps that’s not a bad bet to make, but it’s far from a sure thing. If he stays healthy and hits the Giants might have a bargain on their hands. If not, well, Gregor Blanco is probably a pretty decent fallback with Morse perhaps helping out against left-handed pitching.

It is not an ideal solution to the left field problem but in this free agent/trade market there wasn’t really a perfect solution to be found.

The Beast Commeth - You Gotta Like These Kids

Verdict: Good signing, especially considering the alternatives. Giving up 2 big prospects for Mark Trumbo? Chasing a bigger contract in years with Corey Hart (an overbid situation that might have/didn't happen)? Trading a SP prospect for 1 year of Brett Gardner? All this costs is a little cashish, and has some good upside, with a PLAN IN PLACE for dealing with his defensive shortcomings.

Contingency Plans: Its not perfect by any means, but if Pagan gets hurt again you send Blanco/Perez to platoon in CF. If Morse gets hurt or folds, you have Blanco/Perez as the backup plan. If Pence gets hurt you're screwed, because you don't have another 5/90MM Kale Krunching Ironman ready to go. Blanco or Perez in CF would be able to sub in for Morse still if lightning strikes twice on Pagan. Further, you still have all your AAA guys except for Peggs ready to give it a shot. No team has a full time OF ready to step in for injury. Not many teams have 3 full time OFs if you actually take the time to look around MLB. Except for the Dodgers. Those guys have a 60MM OF, all shiny and what not. We'll see how this plays out, its not the worst solution to the markets problems

Mike Morse signs, and the Giants swap defense for home runs - McCovey Chronicles

Dingers are grand. But there are other ways for players to be valuable. And there are certainly a lot of ways they can be awful. I'm not optimistic about this one.

I'll embrace the risk, though, because this team has been feckless for a while, now. Heck, wind him up and let's see if he can hit 30 homers again. Could happen. And the auxiliary benefit of the move is the Giants have some decent outfield depth for the first time in a while. Blanco is a pretty good fourth outfielder, just as Juan Perez is almost an ideal fifth outfielder. If the Giants mix and match, this could work out.

It's not Nelson Cruz for five years. It's not Shin-Soo Choo for seven. It's not a three-year deal, and it's not Jeff Francoeur. Just think of all the ways it could be worse! As such, it's pretty harmless. Except for all the harm it could cause. But, dingers! I like those. Apparently, the Giants do, too. It's not the move I would have made, but it's not the move that makes me dust off the torchfork, either.

Mike Morse: Very Large, Slow Giant - Lefty Malo

In other words, Morse is a buy-low lottery ticket. (And believe you me, a $6 M base salary these days is low, low, low.) It's a nice get for a team with little in the upper minors to speak of, hitting-wise, and lacking the resources of the big... oh wait. What did a New York scribe recently call the low-budget team from Queens? The San Diego Mets?

Then again, no one in their right Giant mind wanted Nelson Cruz for three years or Shin-Soo Choo for seven (or eight). So was Mike Morse, who has a 30-HR season in his recent past, the best possible scenario? We'll never know definitively. Retroactive rumors will emerge that the Giants were THIS CLOSE to trading for Brett Gardner or Josh Willingham, but they weren't willing to part with, well, pick a prospect. Morse isn't really what most people wanted, but then again, what people wanted wasn't so hot, either

Morse’s one-year deal with Giants a bigger risk for him than the team - The Strike Zone SI.com

As a righthanded power source, Morse is a nice compliment to the lefthanded Blanco, whose game is based around speed and defense. In addition, Morse can also play first base, where he will occasionally spell lefty Brandon Belt, and he will be the team’s best pinch-hitter on days that he doesn’t start. At $6 million, Morse is earning what, in free agency, is now a part-time salary but with half the commitment; already this offseason the Indians have signed David Murphy to a two-year, $12 million deal and the Tigers signed Rajai Davis for two years and $10 million to be backups. 

For the Giants, it’s a nice fit. For Morse, however, it’s a risk.

And the hottest take of them all from the genius behind 8th Inning Weirdness:

Overall, the consensus is that the Giants are hoping that Morse rebuilds his value and hits a bunch of home runs on a low risk one year deal. I can live with that.

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Assessing the Giants Weak Spots

The trade deadline is just 33 days away and the trade rumor machine is already heating up. The Giants as currently constructed are far from perfect and they could certainly use some help in getting better if they want to defend their title.

To help get an idea of where the Giants are at currently and where they could use help, over at Bay Area Sports Guy I took a look at where the Giants weak spots were and what the outlook looks like.

Offensive weak spots

The injury bug has not been kind, taking out Angel Pagan until at least mid-September, Pablo Sandoval for the last couple weeks, not to mention Marco Scutaro, Brandon Crawford and now Joaquin Arias. 

With all of the injuries, the Giants could use some depth — especially in the outfield with Pagan needing surgery on his hamstring, and possibly in the infield depending on the extent of Arias’ hamstring injury. But overall, things aren’t too bad. With 319 runs the Giants are the 5th highest scoring team in the National League and should be able to score enough as long as they don’t lose too many more players.

Starting Pitching weak spots:

This is the first season going back to 2006 that the Giants are not in the top third of NL teams in either starting pitcher ERA or FIP. That sustained run of excellence is impressive and perhaps we have grown spoiled expecting top flight starting pitching year after year. This year, things have fallen off a cliff.

Matt Cain is in the middle of the worst season of his career, Tim Lincecum has been better than last season but is still allowing earned runs at a rate 25% higher than league average, Barry Zito has been his normal self (with some horrible home/road splits), Ryan Vogelsong was a disaster in all but his last start before getting hurt, and Chad Gaudin filled in admirably before getting hurt himself and hitting the disabled list.

Relief Pitching weak spots:

At first glance the Giants’ bullpen doesn’t look so bad. They currently rank 5th in the NL in both ERA and FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) with marks of 3.14 and 3.47, respectively. Even looking at an individual level the only member of the bullpen with an ERA above 4.00 is George Kontos. 

On the surface everything looks good, but a deeper look shows that everything hasn’t been perfect this season.

Be sure to read them all.

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Graphing Giants Runs Scored and Allowed by Inning

Data courtesy Baseball Reference, runs scaled to 9 innings total

If it feels like the Giants are always fighting from behind it is because they probably are, the Giants have been outscored in the first 5 innings of games by a healthy margin this year.

I wouldn't consider myself a great baseball stragestist but I will go out on a limb and say that this is bad and if they want to win more games than the they lose they should stop doing this.

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Tim Lincecum's Declining Strikeout Percentage

Data courtesy of Fangraphs

Today's graph illustrates the three month moving average for Tim Lincecum's strikeout percentage since 2008.

The graph makes me sad because it just reminds me how awesome a pitcher Lincecum was from 2008 to 2011.

Anyway happy Linceum Day, hopefully he regains some of that old magic against the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw today.

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Giants OPS+ rankings by position

Data courtesy of baseball-reference.com

A fun graph showing how the Giants stack up compared to the league average production position by position.

Overall the team does pretty well with only 1B and CF below average. The first base spot is also not as bad as this seems with Brandon Belt actually sporting an OPS+ of 115 but it is tough when compared to the position with the highest offensive output.

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What's the matter with Ryan Vogelsong?

Ryan Vogelsong has not gotten off to a great start and it lead me to take a look at what has and has not been different with him this season compared to previously with the Giants.

I looked into the statistics and I think for the most part he has been a victim of bad luck.

Here is what I wrote for Bay Area Sports Guy:

When you look at the peripheral numbers things really haven’t changed all that much; in 2011 he struck out 18.5% of the batters he faced while walking 8.1%, last year he struck out 20.1% while walking 7.9%, and so far this season he has struck out 18.8% while walking 7.5%.

For the most part he is striking out and walking about the same number of people. That’s good news for Vogelsong as we go forward.

If we switch and take a look at his batted ball data, courtesy of Fangraphs:

Season	Team	GB/FB	LD%	GB%	FB%	IFFB%	HR/FB	IFH%	BUH%
2011	Giants	1.34	20.40%	45.60%	34.00%	9.30%	8.20%	7.00%	16.70%
2012	Giants	1.14	18.50%	43.50%	38.00%	11.10%	8.20%	6.70%	7.70%
2013	Giants	1.14	20.00%	42.60%	37.40%	7.00%	18.60%	6.10%	0.00%
Total	- – -	1.11	20.90%	41.60%	37.60%	11.30%	8.90%	6.90%	11.50%

Things look mostly the same over the last three seasons.

• A few less ground balls this year than the previous two, but nothing drastic.
• A slightly higher line drive rate, but still lower than his excellent 2011 season.
• The flyball rate is right in between the last two years.
• His infield fly ball rate is lower, but not significantly so.

The big difference is that the number of balls that have gone over the fence per flyball is much higher than the last two seasons and well above his career rate.

If we look further into the balls that have been put into play against Vogelsong, we see that currently 35% are falling in for hits. The number of balls in play that turn into hits is not something that is fully in the control of the pitcher and tends to hover around 30%. If we again take a look at the mix of balls that Vogelsong has given up you would expect that only 29.8% of the balls in play would have fallen in for hits with an average defense behind him.

Going forward I wouldn’t expect him to continue to give up home runs and fly balls like every hitter he faced was David Ortiz. Nor would I expect him to continue to allow 35% of balls in play to fall into hits, especially not with the Giants posting the highest ultimate zone rating in baseball right now.

Check out the full thing.

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Brandon Belt discusses swing mechanics with Keith Law

Brandon Belt is one of my favorite Giants players.

Keith Law is one of my favorite baseball writers.

Having said that, when I saw that they sat down for a lunch interview to discuss Belt's swing mechanics it made me very excited to read what would come of the meeting.

I was not disappointed.

The full interview requires ESPN Insider so I will only include a few snippets.

Belt first emerged as a prospect in 2010, racing through three levels of the minors and finishing the year by ripping up the Arizona Fall League, a time when his swing was very balanced and he kept his weight back consistently enough to be able to hit left-handed pitching and handle fastballs inside. Keeping his weight back -- which means waiting to transfer his weight to his front leg until he gets his hands moving forward -- has turned out to be the biggest challenge for Belt in translating his minor league success into major league performance. It was a problem for him at the end of 2012 and carried over into spring training and the start of 2013.

"I was real off balance, I don't know what the reason for that was, maybe I had crossed that line again," Belt said Tuesday. "I was lunging at the ball. They wanted me to stay back, and the thing that happened right there is that [Bruce Bochy] told me what they saw, and they let me fix it. I think that's what helped out a lot. Sometimes [the coaches] are all saying the same thing but saying it in different ways, then one person says it and it clicks in my head."

-snip- 

After the Giants benched Belt on April 21, he ran off a nine-game stretch in which he hit .357 with all three of his homers on the season, one of which came on a 95 mph David Hernandez fastball on the inner half. He was keeping his weight back, which allows him to get to fastballs on time and to "keep rotating," using his hips to create torque that leads to power, whether he's trying to pull the ball or to drive something out to left-center. In short, he looked like the player I predicted would be an above-average regular at first base. On the flip side, Belt is just 1-for-15 thus far in May, which shows how fickle mechanics can be and that he still isn't completely locked in on his swing.

If you have insider you should read the whole thing, if you don't it is worth considering getting insider just to get the Law articles not to mention the other great baseball (not to mention the other sports) content.

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Giants' prospect Chris Stratton off to a nice start

Giants' pitching prospects Chris Stratton has gotten off to a hot start in A ball. In three starts he has been dominate allowing less than one base runner per inning, striking out 26% of the batters he has faced and keeping the ball in the park.

This is excellent news after he was sidelined at the end of last season and could force the Giants to promote him quickly, at the start of the season I expected him to start in High-A San Jose but the Giants took the safer route which makes sense giving his limited professional experience.

Even better here is a nice quick report from Baseball Prospectus on his early season success:

A first-round pick of the Giants last year, Stratton’s professional debut was cut short when he suffered a concussion after being struck in the head by a batting practice line drive. His injury forced him out for the remainder of the season and the Giants’ Instructional League, causing him to slide a little under the radar as members of his draft class posted impressive numbers and made names for themselves during his absence.

With a blazing start to the 2013 season, Stratton may not fly under the radar much longer. Stratton has a 1.08 ERA in three starts at Low-A and he could be forcing the typically slow-moving Giants to promote him to High-A in the first half. Stratton’s total package isn’t sexy, featuring two plus pitches in his fastball and slider, two average pitches in his curveball and changeup, and plus command projection.

What Stratton does well is sequence pitches, change sight lines and avoid the fat part of the bat. As a member of a Giants organization that has an apparent knack for successfully developing highly drafted pitching prospects, Stratton’s future could be as bright as the start to his first full season.

I had him rated as my number two prospect to start the season and so far he has only shown that it was wise to rate him highly. I hope that he continues to impress, the Giants could certainly use more high ceiling starting pitching depth.

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Series Preview: Giants vs. Cardinals

The Giants were able to take two out of three from the Dodgers to kick off the season. Ruining their opening series and perhaps putting a touch of doubt in the minds of fans after all the money that was spent to build the team.

Now the Giants come home and look to avoid suffering the same fate against the Cardinals.

In what will be a weekend long celebration with a flag raising, an MVP ceremony for Buster Posey and finally the ring ceremony, it might be difficult for the team to focus on the games at hand. I imagine the  Cardinals won't have nearly the trouble, looking to get some revenge for the NLCS.

So let's take a look at the series.

In case you forgot or haven’t seen the explanation, here is a quick description of how the model works:

• I start by estimating the runs scored and allowed for each team given the starting pitcher, bullpen, defense and each team’s offense.
• The data used in the projection model is based on the current season’s statistics to date and ZiPS projections, with the weighting shifting more toward the actual stats as the season progresses. To start the season it is based entirely on ZiPS projections put into the lineup analysis tool from Baseball Musings.
• The estimated run differential is then converted into a projected winning percentage using the pythagorean expectation.
• Then, it’s converted into an odds of winning the game using the log5 method developed by Bill James

Probables (Via MLB.com):

Friday, April 5, 1:35 PM: Barry Zito vs. Jake Westbrook

Saturday, April 6, 1:05 PM: Ryan Vogelsong vs. Shelby Miller

Sunday, April 7, 1:05 PM: Matt Cain vs. Adam Wainwright

Odds:

	Giants	Cardinals
Game 1	57%	43%
Game 2	52%	48%
Game 3	50%	50%
Sweep	15%	10%
2 out 3	40%	35%
1 out 3	35%	40%
0 out 3	10%	15%
Win Series	54%	46%
Lose Series	46%	54%

The Giants are slight favorites in the series according to the model, but I doubt that they will be easy games. The Cardinals are a very good team and I am always nervous when the Giants matchup against them.

I was a little surprised Game 1 gave the Giants the best odds but for the first time in what seems like ages Zito wasn't destroyed by the projection systems. Hopefully he still has some magic left in the tank and has the big curveball working.

It will be nice to have three straight day games as well. I wonder when the last time that happened was?

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Madison Bumgarner Dazzles Against the Dodgers

At the end of last year Madison Bumgarner was not his normal self as he struggled through inconsistent mechanics. He spent all offseason and spring working on it and last night that hard work paid dividends.

Over at Bay Area Sports Guy, I took a look at how good Bumgarner was last night:

Bumgarner cruised through eight innings, giving up just a pair of doubles, walking none and striking out six. He was a model of efficiency — his most labored inning was the eighth, and even then he was able to get his three outs with fewer than 20 pitches.

What made this start all the more special was that it allowed Giants fans to quit holding their breath and stop worrying about the mechanical issues that plagued him at the end of last season. After an offseason spent building his strength, followed by spending Spring Training working on his mechanics with Dave Righetti, it all paid off last night.

His fastball had good life. According to Pitch f/x he spent most of the game in the 91-92 mph range and by the looks of things it seemed to have some good movement. His slider was in the 87-89 mph range and was his true out pitch, generating nearly half of his swing through strikes and 11 of his 24 outs.

Check out the whole thing, including release point graphs!

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Giants and Posey agree to 9 year deal

Buster Posey will be sticking around for a long, long time.

The deal was first reported by Bay Area Sports Guy and the total value comes out to $167 million over the nine years. This includes the $8 million he was slated to make this season for a grand total of $159 million in new money guaranteed. In addition the deal includes a full no trade clause and a team option for a 10th season at $22 million.

This deal is pretty close to about the best I could have expected when I heard a mega deal was in the works.

I had got it in my head that it would be hard to see him sign for less than $200 million even with his arbitration years helping to push the price down for the Giants.

Looking at what actually happened and I really couldn't be any happier. One of my favorite players is going to be with the team for a long time and it didn't come at an outrageous cost that will hurt who the Giants can put around him.

Rough estimate of the Giants break even in this deal in terms of wins above replacement is probably in the 30 to 35 win range which really isn't all that high of a barrier to meet. This assumes a 7 percent rate of salary inflation, which in honesty might be a little low considering all the money flowing into the league right now.

Here is the breakdown on a yearly WAR basis:

2013	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
4	3.5	3.5	3.5	3.5	3	3	2.5	2.5	2.5

Tough to ask for a better deal for the player or the club.

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Giants Notes and Links 3/26

Time to catch up on what is going on with the Giants.

Andrew Baggarly has a bunch of notes as Spring Training comes to an end, most importantly Pablo Sandoval is likely to not have surgery and is determined to make the opening day lineup.

Chris at Bay City Ball took a look at Tim Lincecum's fastball over that last couple of seasons. A great article, I wish I had thought to pull this data and examine it.

The Hardball Times has five questions for the Giants coming into 2013.

Dave Pinto takes a look at the Giants optimal lineup and discovers the offense hopefully shouldn't be too bad this season.

Some fantasy baseball advice from Bryan Murphy at McCovey Chronicles, basically he says don't draft Giants.

Last but not least, if you are looking for tickets, TiqIQ's job is finding the best deals and sellers out there for for San Francisco Giants tickets.

Giants Notes and Links

It has been a while since I have done this but with Spring Training wrapping up it seemed like a good time to try to catch up with all of the Giants news.


The Giants and Buster Posey are working on a big contract extension. Also SI.com has some thoughts on what he is worth.

I think it is probably better to wait a bit, they aren't likely to get a huge discount buying after an MVP season and he is at a minimum staying for this season plus three more. If they get it done great, if they don't well there is plenty of time down the road.

Keith Law has some interesting things to say about some Giants, first he scouted Tim Lincecum last week and he was having similar issues to last year, he had some more on Lincecum and the coming year and he also listed Brandon Belt on his breakout list.

The Giants made some cuts and are looking at Nick Noonan as the second backup infielder. All I can say is that the Giants bench might be the worst I can remember in a while, those late pinch hitters are not going to put much fear into opposing managers.

Bay Area Sports Guy has some needed thoughts on how to properly handle the injury to Dodgers star Hanley Ramirez.

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Can Hunter Pence rebound in 2013?

Hunter Pence has been the talk of the Giants, partially for his crazy singing and dancing and also because he will play a very import role in the 2013 Giants offense. Over at Bay Area Sports Guy I wrote up a post looking at what to expect from Pence in 2013.

When the Giants traded for Hunter Pence last season they thought that they were getting a big bat to fill the middle of their lineup.

It didn't quite turn out that way for the Giants with Pence hitting just .219/.287/.384 in 248 plate appearances, not that it ultimately mattered as the Giants won the World Series in spite of his offensive ineptitude.

Looking back at his partial season with the Giants, he put up numbers well below his career norms. His full year stats also resulted in career lows in batting average, slugging, isolated power, strike out rate and Wins Above Replacement. His season was so bad that he lost 7 points on his career batting average, 4 points on his on base percentage and 10 points on his slugging percentage.

Overall, things were ugly.

So the big question for the Giants is what to expect this season? Should we expect the weak hitting guy who suited up for the Giants last year or the middle of the order threat they thought they traded for last season?

Check out the full post.