Detailed look at the Giants RISP troubles from last night

The Giants with runners in scoring position last night were abysmal. The Giants put a bunch of guys on base and then decided that it would be rude to their hosts to drive them in.

For those that want to take a stroll through the nightmare I am going to go through each at bats the Giants had taking a detailed look at each one.

Top of the 2nd:

Brandon Belt walks, Gregor Blanco grounds out to first moving Belt to second with two outs.

Situation: Brandon Crawford, runner on second, two outs:



Crawford get’s one pitch that is near the middle of the strike zone on a pretty nice slider from Lohse and swings through it. Everything else is on the corner’s or well outside the strike zone. Crawford has a nice at bat and draws a walk.

Verdict: Good at bat, decent result

Situation: Matt Cain, runners on first and second, two outs:



Cain gets a heavy does of hard two seamers on the outside corner. Lohse gets a generous called strike two and then finally gets Cain on a caught foul tip. Not a bad at bat considering that Cain is a pitcher who came up with two outs.

Verdict: Good at bat, bad result

Top of the 3rd:

Angel Pagan leads off with a single, Marco Scutaro doubles. Runners on second and third with the heart of the order coming up, a big inning looks possible.

Situation: Pablo Sandoval, runner on second and third, no outs:



With the infield back Sandoval at the very least gets the runner in from third with his grounder to short. The ball wasn’t hit particularly hard but it was a productive out that put the Giants on the board.

Verdict: Decent at bat, decent result

Situation: Buster Posey, runner on third, one out:

Posey is intentionally walked.

Situation: Hunter Pence, runner on first and third, one out:



Lohse gives Pence a steady diet of sliders, eventually getting him to pull a slider on the outside corner weakly to the short stop for a double play. This killed the rally and was something that  the Giants did far too much against Lohse. He was living on the outside corner and Giants hitters kept trying to pull it only to weakly ground out to the middle infielders.

Verdict: Bad at bat

Top of the 4th:

With one out Blanco walks, Crawford singles up the middle.

Situation: Cain, runners on first and third, one out:



This is a tough position for a manager; with the pitcher up what would you do in this position? Have him swing away and risk the possibility of a double play? Sacrifice bunt to have two runners in scoring position but two outs? Try for a suicide squeeze of some sort? Pinch hit for your ace in the 4th inning?

Bruce Bochy ultimately went with the sacrifice bunt that Cain was successful in getting down. I don’t know if it was the right call and it probably wasn’t the one that I would have made. The win probability says that this move hurt the Giants chances of winning but that doesn’t take into account that this was a pitcher hitting.

It’s hard to say what would have been best move but Bochy went with the “safe” and conventional route this time.

Verdict: Questionable decision

Situation: Pagan, runners on second and third, two outs:



After the bunt, the duty to score the runs fell onto Pagan. Pagan got a few hittable pitches that he fouled off and ultimately flied out to deep centerfield. If Pagan get’s a hit Bochy looks like a genius, if Pagan makes an out everyone second guesses his bunt decision. The horrible life of a MLB Manager.

Verdict: Decent at bat, bad result

Top of the 6th:

With two outs, Crawford and Cain both hit singles finally knocking out Lohse, in comes flamethrower Trevor Rosenthal.

Situation: Pagan, runners on first and second, two outs:



Rosenthal reaches back and unleashes fastballs at 98, 98, 99, 101 and 100 to Pagan who does well to work the count but ultimately grounds out to the short stop. Another threat for the Giants extinguished.

Verdict: Decent at bat, bad result

Top of the 7th:

With one out, Sandoval rips a ball off the left field wall that only a fortunate bounce right to Matt Holiday allows him to keep it to a single. Posey follows it up with a ground ball through the left side of the infield (if only Sandoval could have gotten to second on his liner!). Mike Matheny brings in Mitchell Boggs to face Pence.

Situation: Pence, runners on first and second, one out:



Boggs comes in and gives Pence a heavy does of sliders. Pence helps him out by swinging for the fences on each one and swings right through them. Both the second on the third pitches of this at bat were pretty hittable with out two much break and were middle in. Luckily for the Cardinals Pence is in a funk and couldn’t punish the mistakes.

Verdict: Bad at bat

Situation: Belt, runners on first and second, two outs:



Belt committed the cardinal sin that will probably send him to the bench for tonight’s game, he looked at strike three with a runner in scoring position.

In the end Belt was probably wrong. The pitch sure looks like it was a strike. It was a well thrown slider that started outside and caught the outside corner as it broke back to the plate. The one that really sucks however was strike one, that pitch was probably a good four to six inches off the plate but was called a strike. That put Belt in the whole where he was on the defensive and he never recovered.

Verdict: Bad at bat

After this last threat the Giants never threatened again. In came the Cardinals closer for a two inning save and the Giants went meekly into the night. If they want to have a chance to come back in this series their at bats with runners in scoring position will have to improve.

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Diagnosing the Giants Issues Driving in Runners

Last nights game was vintage 2011 Giants offense, they get a bunch of guys on base (10 hits, 2 walks) but fail to cash those runners in (1 for 6 with RISP and 9 left on base). The starting pitching is good but a couple mistakes cost the team a game that very well could have been a win.

Last year the Giants had a triple slash line of .219/ .301/ .329 with runners in scoring position compared to .248/ .305/ .387 when no one was on. Many figured it would be bound to get better this year but so far that doesn't seem to be the case, in fact the gap has widened. This years triple slash is .194/ .282/ .312 with runners in scoring position compared to .288/ .333/ .419 with no one on.

So what gives here?

Well to try to figure this out it is important to take a look at who is getting the opportunities to drive the runners in. Luckily for us, baseball prospectus keeps these stats so we can take a look.

NAME	2nd + 3rd	2nd + 3rd Scored	2nd + 3rd %	wOBA
Brandon Crawford	27	5	19%	0.239
Melky Cabrera	26	5	19%	0.364
Pablo Sandoval	22	8	36%	0.395
Angel Pagan	21	2	10%	0.303
Aubrey Huff	18	3	17%	0.275
Buster Posey	17	1	6%	0.451
Nate Schierholtz	16	4	25%	0.398
Emmanuel Burriss	15	4	27%	0.280
Pitchers	15	1	7%	0.058
Hector Sanchez	13	5	38%	0.329
Brandon Belt	10	1	10%	0.324
Gregor Blanco	9	2	22%	0.304
Ryan Theriot	9	0	0%	0.154
Brett Pill	5	1	20%	0.463
Joaquin Arias	1	0	0%	0.000

Right off the bat you see that three of the top five guys with the most opportunities are guys with some of the lowest wOBA on the team. That right there is a recipe for struggling in run scoring positions.

Brandon Crawford who is on the team for his glove and not his bat leads the team in opportunities with runners in scoring position. While Crawford has done a respectable job getting 19 percent of the runners in scoring position in, it really isn't great when you take into account that 70 percent of his plate appearances have come with less than 2 outs. For comparison half of Melky Cabrera's at bats have come with 2 outs so he doesn't have as many chances to make an out but still get a runner in.

The big surprise in all of this is Buster Posey, he has been the teams best hitter by wOBA but has been one of the teams worst people at driving in runners. This to me seems like quite a bit of bad luck (I don't think think clutch is much of a repeatable skill and it would go totally against the narrative of BUSTER POSEY so I don't think anyone is going to suggest that) that will likely rebound as the season goes along.

Aubrey Huff and Angel Pagan haven't hit well this season and it is not a huge surprise that it has carried over into their at bats with runners in scoring position. They have a combined 39 opportunities and have driven in just 5 of those runners.

Overall I would say that the Giants struggles have been part luck and part a result of players not hitting well being the ones with high chances (115 opportunities with players under 100 wRC+ vs 109 for players above 100) to drive in runners. The first part should hopefully even out but the second part is harder to fix without being able to play better players (#FreeBelt).

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A Look at the Giants Defense

To start off the young season the Giants defense has looked rather poor. This is a pretty big departure from the last few seasons where even with considerably less athletic teams the Giants have been above average defensively (since 2009 they have averaged +11.3 defensive runs saved [DRS] and a +47.76 in UZR as a team).

So what is the matter this year and should we expect this team to turn it around?

I’m inclined to say that this team is much better than they have shown so far and as the season plays out the defense should be a net positive. For the fun of it let’s take a look position by position to compare what the team has now compared to what they have had in seasons past.

Catcher:

Buster Posey is by all accounts at least an average defensive catcher, it is hard to quantify catcher defense but what has been reported seems to point that over a full season he is probably in the range of a plus 5 runs saved defender. If you look at the stats complied at Beyond the Boxscore he ranked 12th in 2010 and 16th in 2011 in less than a full season of work.

His backup Hector Sanchez probably isn’t as good defensively as Chris Stewart was but again from the reports he seems to be at least somewhere around league average and to this point he hasn’t really logged all that many innings behind the plate.

Overall the catcher defense should be a strength for the Giants.

First Base:

According to scouting reports Brandon Belt should be an above average defensive first baseman, but so far the very early stats don’t back it up but this is really far too early for anything definitive, according to both UZR (-1.2) and DRS (+1) he is right around average. I would say that as he gets more innings at first base his numbers should improve but I feel pretty safe going with that he is average at first base.

For Aubrey Huff at first base he has been above average with the Giants, for his career he has a negative UZR and DRS but that could be partly because he only played first base part time. As with Belt I would feel pretty comfortable saying that he is at least an average defensive first baseman and might be slightly above average when playing first base as a regular.

Overall the defense at first base should be about average.

Second Base:

Emmanuel Burriss is probably not a great defender but he is again not a bad option at second base. In his 1081 innings in the big leagues he has a positive UZR (+0.7) but a negative DRS (-5). From what I have seen of him and the scouting reports of his minor league career I would say that he is probably below average but not to the point that he would be a defensive liability. With his weak bat he probably shouldn’t be starting in the Major League’s but the Giants options are pretty limited.

Ryan Theriot at second base is not a bad choice but keep him away from short stop where he would bring back bad memories of the Miguel Tejada/Orlando Cabrera era. For his career Theriot grades out positively in both UZR (+7.8) and DSR (+4), he isn’t going to win a gold glove but he will make the plays you would expect an average second baseman to make.

Freddy Sanchez is a bit of a question mark here; with his shoulder still bothering him when he throws his past numbers probably don’t tell us all that much about what we should expect if he is able to come back. For his career he has been above average according to UZR (+16.9, 4.5 UZR/150) while DSR sees him as below average (-5). Taking the shoulder into account I wouldn’t feel comfortable calling him above average defensively so he is probably below average with the best case of being average.

Overall the defense at second base isn’t great and is probably below average.

Shortstop:

Brandon Crawford’s calling card is his defense. The scouts all seem to be in agreement that he should be above average. While his fielding percentage isn’t pretty right now (.933 with 4 errors) both UZR (+1.5, +28.2 UZR 150) and DRS (+3) think that he has been a very good shortstop this season. This backs up what the scouting reports say, and I think watching him play that he has been a net plus defensively getting to balls that would have been through the infield the last few seasons with guys like Tejada, Cabrera and Edgar Renteria manning short.

Overall Crawford should be one of the best defensive shortstops the Giants have had in a long while and should be a strength of this team defensively.

Third Base:

Pablo Sandoval who is another infielder with an ugly fielding percentage right now (.886) but like Crawford he hasn’t been as bad as that would suggest. According to UZR (-.01, -3.1 UZR/150) and DSR (-1) he has hurt the team with his defense but not by as much as the fielding percentage would suggest. In addition last season Sandoval was one of the best defensive third basemen in the National League so it is possible that he could bounce back to that level. Right now I would feel comfortable saying that over the course of the season he will at least be average defensively and could be better than that. What we are seeing now is probably the absolute worse you could expect and that would only make him slightly below average.

Overall, third base should be another position where the Giants are average and if Sandoval bounces back from his early mistakes could be above average.

Outfield:

Melky Cabrera has played all over the outfield in his career but in reality he is best suited for a corner spot defensively. In centerfield he is a liability but in the corner spots he is an average defender. Both UZR and DRS have his numbers hovering around 0 for the last few seasons in both right and left so it is pretty safe to assume that he is an average corner outfielder.

Angel Pagan in his career has shown that he is a good defender in the outfield. The only outlier appears to be 2011 and the start of 2012 where he has posted well below average numbers according to UZR and DSR. It might be the start of a new trend where his defense is slipping or it might just be the issues with defensive metrics where looking at single season numbers give you some pretty wild swings in the numbers. From what I have seen I am disposed to say that he is still a good defender but for this I will error on the conservative side and say that he is an average centerfielder.

Nate Schierholtz has the reputation as being one of the best right fielders in baseball and both DSR (+8) and UZR (+15.7, 10.1 UZR/150) back that up for his career. I don’t think I would be going out on a limb by suggesting that he is an above average outfielder.

Aubrey Huff will also be logging some time in the outfield for the Giants this season and that really hurts the teams defense. For one when Huff is in the outfield it most likely pushes Shierholtz to the bench and also that he is just plain not a great defender in the outfield. For his career in the outfield (both left and right combined) both UZR (-25.2, -12.2 UZR/150) and DSR (-10) suggest that he is hold your breath when a ball is headed to him bad. The Giants think he is a better option than Belt in the outfield but it probably still leaves whoever is out there as below average.

Gregor Blanco who is the Giants 4th/5th outfielder who for his career has played a little bit of each outfield spot and done pretty well in all three. There isn’t a huge Major League track record to go off of but I would feel comfortable saying he is an above average defender. In the end Blanco’s defense probably matters the least because he will most likely see the fewest innings barring someone above getting injured.

Overall the outfield defense can be good or bad depending on the lineup that Bochy puts out there. If it is Cabrera, Pagan, Schierholtz it is probably above average. If it is Huff, Pagan, Cabrera it is probably below average. With Bochy’s ability to put in defensive substitutions in late game situations I would say that on net the defense is probably around league average but that might be generous.

All together now:

Taking the team as a whole we have above two average spots, 3 average spots and one below average spot. The outfield defense is the biggest uncertainty that can range from above average to below average.

All in all with the Giants high strike out pitching staff, the defense isn’t called on to make a huge bulk of the outs and even with a below average defense this team should still do a good job at preventing runs. If the defense gets better like I expect they should be just fine going forward.

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Checking out the Competition: NL West Short Stops

Now that the start of the season is within view I thought it would be nice to take a little bit of time and take a look at how the teams in the NL West compare to each other.

Yesterday I took a look at the third basemen and today it is time to move on to the short stops, the projections for each player are from the ZIPS projections from Baseball Think Factory and projected starters from MLB Depth Charts.

So first the not so surprising news, Troy Tulowitzki is awesome and I am incredible jealous and secondly I wish that the Giants had a guy who could be a league average hitter at short stop like Stephan Drew.

Now the somewhat surprising news, by comparison Brandon Crawford doesn't look as bad when you look at the rest of the NL West short stops. On a strict OPS perspective Crawford is within spitting distance of being the third best hitting short stop in the NL West by OPS! This is looking really hard for a silver lining because really at this point as a Giants fan that is all we have when it comes to short stop this season. That Marco Scutaro trade kills me every time I look at this.

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Giants End of Season Review: Infielders

Aubrey Huff:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.277	0.356	0.466	84	34	3	21	82	5
2011 Actual	0.246	0.306	0.370	45	27	1	12	59	5

Looking back at this projection makes me sad. I had such high hopes for Huff, even my “Worst Case Scenario” ended up being too rosy with a .249/ .320/ .419 triple slash line. Of all the disappointments on the 2011 Giants this one is probably the one that hurts the most.

First of all getting this tiny amount of production out a first baseman is a travesty, getting this level of production on an already offensively challenged team is a death sentence for an offense. Huff didn’t have a single month where he was able to post an OPS above .800, of the 14 NL first baseman that played at least 60 games only Lyle Overbay was worse.

To put the icing on the cake it came out that Huff was out of shape to start the season but because he has veteran grit he wasn’t benched and was allowed to be an anchor for the Giants offense. All this is certainly making me look forward to next season…

Freddy Sanchez:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.287	0.331	0.390	63	27	2	8	51	3
2011 Actual	0.289	0.332	0.397	21	15	1	3	24	0

Freddy Sanchez was having very nice season. It wasn’t spectacular but at the time that he was injured he was arguably the Giants second best hitter and with him gone the Giants went from a bad Major League lineup to a bad AAA lineup. The drop off from Sanchez’s backups wasn’t as severe as the one from Buster Posey to the Whiteside/Stewart duo but it still meant a whole lot more Miguel Tejada which was no ones idea of a perfect situation.

I have to say that I am pretty worried about Sanchez ability to stay healthy for a full season next year. You have to go back to 2008 to find the last time that he was able to play at least 145 games and each injury that he has sustained over the last few years has a tendency to nag and flare up especially now that he is coming into his mid-30’s.

Seeing as Sanchez is somewhat fragile I think it would be in the Giants best interest to bring back a Mike Fontenot as a back up plan in case there is a replay of the last few years.

Miguel Tejada:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.269	0.315	0.399	77	30	1	14	77	3
2011 Actual	0.239	0.270	0.326	28	16	0	4	26	4

If Huff was the biggest disappointment of the 2011 team, Miguel Tejada was probably a close second. Not that I had too high of expectations for him but he was able to slip under even that very low bar. Here is what I said at the time:

Here is what I expect; a free swinger who will avoid walks at nearly all costs. He will play rickety defense that will make fans cover their eyes at times and, baring catastrophic failure, should give the Giants league average or better offense for a shortstop.

Man was I an idiot. I should have listened to the devil on my shoulder that was trying to convince me that this was a bad idea. I was right about the defense and I couldn’t have been more wrong about the offense, his bat looked slow and his ability to drive the ball seemed to be all but gone last year.

If next season the Giants sign a free agent short stop they should send a fruit basket to Tejada because he set the bar so low for the next guy that if he can play any sort of defense and hit even a little bit it will be like adding Babe Ruth in comparison.

Pablo Sandoval:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.294	0.346	0.466	70	38	3	18	77	3
2011 Actual	0.315	0.357	0.552	55	26	3	23	70	2

For all the hype surrounding Pablo Sandoval’s off season it sure seemed to live up to things. Sandoval turned a very impressive season and considering the down offensive year around the league and his hamate bone fracture it was arguably better than his 2009 season that got us all excited about him.

What was really exciting is that in the second half of the season he was really, really good after he had a month or so to have his hand recover. In the second half of the year he posted a .325/ .370/ .593 triple slash line and was one of the best hitters in the league even while playing with a pretty bad shoulder injury down the stretch that limited him from switch hitting.

This season makes his down year in 2010 seem like a hazy memory and if he shows dedication to coming into Spring Training in good shape again I am thinking another big season is definitely a big possibility. He is probably the only position player on the Giants that doesn’t have any big question marks for next season, which is great for him but makes me nervous about the rest of the team.

Jeff Keppinger:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
2011 Actual	0.255	0.285	0.333	17	11	0	2	15	0

I had hopes that Keppinger could be a decent replacement for Sanchez, but I turned out to be off the mark. I said that I expected Keppinger to be a 0.7 to 1 win player over his time with the Giants and his actual production was a dismal -0.3 fWAR. I was hopeful that the Giants would keep him around for next season as Sanchez’s backup and now I am on the same page as Brian Sabean thinking that he might be an expensive luxury who isn’t likely to live up the salary that he will command in arbitration.

Just about everything about him took a nose dive when he put on the Giants uniform. His power disappeared, his ability to make contact dropped off and he certainly didn’t walk enough to make up for the lack of hits that fell in and to top it off his range was rather abysmal at second base.

In a perfect world I wouldn’t mind giving Keppinger another shot with the team as a back up infielder but with the Giants budget constraints I think I would rather have Mike Fontenot in that role.

Mike Fontenot:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	0.270	0.327	0.388	36	19	3	4	35	2
2011 Actual	0.227	0.304	0.377	22	15	3	4	21	5

Mike Fontenot put together a nice little season, sure his batting average isn’t pretty but he made up for it with decent power numbers and a respectable walk rate that kept his OBP above .300. When you compare him to Keppinger who he will be competing for with next season for a roster spot he looks even better. Each had similar amounts of plate appearances with the Giants and Fontenot was significantly more valuable to the team in terms of fWAR because of his better defense and ability to get on base even when he didn’t get hits.

If we are looking at backups I think that Fontenot fits that role nicely. He doesn’t have a huge amount of upside but he is a high floor guy that can actually play a passable short stop in addition to third and second base.

Orlando Cabrera:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
2011 Actual	0.222	0.241	0.270	4	3	0	1	13	2

Orlando Cabrera was not a good player to get and I don’t think anyone will miss him when he is not with the team next season. He had pitiful offense and only slightly better than Miguel Tejada defense. This was a classic Brian Sabean move and it didn’t quite work out.

The fact that Cabrera got any at bats let alone more than 50 in the first two spots of the lineup makes me depressed. The guy didn’t hit at all but because he has some track record of hitting in the past he go the benefit of the doubt despite what the results on the field were screaming out.

I don’t really want to think about this any more.

Brandon Crawford:

	BA	OBP	SLG	R	2B	3B	HR	RBI	SB
2011 Projection	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA	NA
2011 Actual	0.204	0.288	0.296	22	5	2	3	21	1

Brandon Crawford was rushed up to the big leagues and I have to say that even though his offensive numbers weren’t great I think that he did fairly well. He more than anything else just was the victim of bad luck at the major league level and his batted ball data suggests a hitter better than the one in the above stat line.

The defense was as good as advertised and baring a big free agent I think that he is probably a better option than most of the second tier free agent short stops on the market this season (see Tejada, Miguel and Cabrera, Orlando for an idea of what is out there). He is putting up some good numbers in the AFL (although it is coming with a high BABIP that isn’t sustainable) which is encouraging.

Crawford showed that he can play MLB caliber defense and showed that he is no worse offensively than some of the other MLB short stops out there, given his MLB minimum contract for team with a pretty tight budget it could certainly be worse if the Giants can’t get a decent guy to play short next season.

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