Spring Small Sample Freak Out

One of the things that has made Brandon Belt a special prospect compared to others that the Giants have had come through their system is that he has excellent plate discipline. Over his minor league career he has consistently posted walk rates north of 15 percent and over his multiple stints in the Majors last year posted a walk rate above 9 percent.

The Giants coaching staff saw this discipline (which must look extreme in the context of being compared to other Giants hitters) and thought that he was being passive and set out to get him to be more aggressive.

Being aggressive isn't a good or bad thing per se, it depends a lot on the player and what pitches are being swung at that weren't being swung at before and the type of contact that results. So if being more aggressive results in more strikes around the middle of the plate being swung at with solid contact then it is a good thing, if it results in more Aaron Rowand style flailing at sliders in the dirt, well that is obviously a bad thing.

Back to Belt, so far this spring he has said that he has made an effort to be more aggressive and it has been reflected in his rather un-Belt like walk rate of 5 percent. It hasn't hurt him too much because he has produced a .463 wOBA but I am still concerned about the scenario of him having bad luck with balls in play or his strikeout issues creeping up again and a depressed walk rate could really hurt his offensive value.

It is far too early to be freaking out about this because after all it is just 40 spring training plate appearances but let's just say that this is something that I am going to keep an eye on as the season moves along.

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Patience is a Virtue but No One Told the Giants Hitters

This is probably not going to be an earth shattering revelation but it needs to be said anyway. The Giants hitters are not very patient and the string of games the last week and a half is a great illustration of this lack of patience.

Here are the number of pitches seen against the starting pitchers dating back to the start of the last road trip in Philadelphia.

3.33, 3.72, 3.63, 3.7, 3.79, 3.96, 3.78, 3.51, 3.46


You have to go all the way back to Sunday July 24th for the last time that this team averaged over 4 pitches per at bat against a starting pitcher. It is no wonder that over this stretch that the opposing starting pitcher has averaged over 7 innings against the team.

This isn't a new or freak phenomenon either. This is just the Giants way. When the hitter comes to the plate it seems that the game plan is always be aggressive and put the ball in play. Not that this can't be an effective strategy but it certainly can backfire when players are swinging at pitcher pitches and not ones that are mistakes where they can do damage.

This seems to be the case with the Giants. The team's swing percentage while high is only slightly above average, but when it comes to swinging at pitches outside the zone this hack happy team zooms to the top of the list. Swinging at these pitches is not a recipe for success for most players not named Pablo Sandoval.

When you take this aggressive approach combined with a seemingly organization wide disdain for taking walks you get a team that is designed to see few pitches and this goes hand in hand with the team's lack of offense.

I believe that part of the offensive struggles of this team lie directly with this lack of patience. When the opposing pitcher is allowed to coast through into the late innings the opposing manager has a much easier time managing his bullpen. If he doesn't go to the bullpen until midway through the 7th inning he can play match ups with his guys and bypass the soft underbelly of his bullpen by leaning on his stronger arms.

This also plays into the team turning mediocre pitchers into Cy Young candidates for a game but oddly holding their own against the better pitchers in the league.

The guys without the spot on control dominate the Giants because they exploit the teams biggest weakness, instead of waiting for the pitcher to make a mistake the Giants go after stuff early in the count and often get them selves out.

This approach in turn works pretty well for them when they face a guy with good stuff or good control because they are around the plate and don't make too many mistakes. Going up to the plate with an aggressive approach pays dividends because the likely hood of a mistake pitch is much lower so taking your chances with a decent pitch to hit is a much better strategy.

I don't think that this frustrating trait is going to be changing anytime soon especially with the makeup of this team. But if you are looking for a silver lining I have one for you. If the Giants make the playoffs they will face a lot more of the type of pitchers that this strategy can be effective against, it is just a matter of being able to get there.

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Bonds' Season for the Ages

There is an excellent article on Fangraphs by Chris Cwik about Barry Bonds' 2004 season. The amazing thins is that with Bonds you could write something this like this nearly everyday and have enough material to last a few months.

Here is an excerpt but be sure to read the full thing:

Barry Bonds terrorized major league pitchers and managers in 2004. The proof: He walked 232 times — 120 of which were intentional. Both numbers are single-season records, which, to this point, no one has come close to touching. Needless to say, Bonds’ 2004 was a pretty unique year...

Bonds posted one of the most unique seasons of all time in 2004. The fear and intimidation he instilled in managers around the league may never be replicated. In 162 regular season games, Barry Bonds was handed 120 intentional base on balls; a truly staggering number. No player has ever come close to reaching those heights, and it’s nearly impossible to predict another player who can come along and duplicate the feat. Today, even the best hitters in baseball don’t receive the respect managers gave Bonds in 2004. What we have here is truly one of the most bizarre seasons in baseball history; one that we — as fans — will likely never experience again.

Some more amazing facts, he walked in 37.6% of his plate appearances, so even if he never got a hit he would have posted on base percentage of .376 which would have made him tied for 37th best without getting one single hit!

Yeah I really doubt we are ever seeing anything like this ever again. Simply amazing.

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Brian Wilson Loses Control

Brian Wilson was never going to be mistaken for a control artist like Cliff Lee or Greg Maddux, but after last season where he posted a career low 3.13 BB/9 after 3 straight seasons of improving walk rates there was reason to be optimistic.

The good vibes of the second half (2.43 BB/9) and the playoffs (3.1 BB/9) have disappeared under a barrage of walks.

This season Wilson the persona has grown into a huge star but Wilson the closer has slowly slipped away. With the walks mounting, the strikeouts falling and his fastball a mile and a half slower the future is not quite as rosy. To top everything off his fabled new 2 seam fastball appears to not by the miracle pitch that he makes it out to be.

While his counting stats sure look good (and are sure to make him very expensive in arbitration) the advanced stats that take into account the things most in control of by the pitcher show his decline. His FIP is up nearly a point and a half, his SIERA is up over a point and his tRA is up nearly two points.

Wilson needs to get the walks back under control, he doesn't need to be elite in limiting walks but like Jonathan Sanchez he just needs to be not be horrible, if not Bruce Bochy might need to start seriously considering someone else to pitch the highest leverage innings.

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The Dreaded Leadoff Walk

Here is a fun tidbit that should give fans of Jonathan Sanchez and his league leading 59 walks some relief. Courtesy of  John Dewan's Stat of the Week:

How often does the dreaded leadoff walk score?

How dreaded is the leadoff walk? Is it more dreaded than the leadoff single, for example? When a pitcher walks the first batter is it a bigger omen of problems than giving up a single? Let's take a dip into the Baseball Info Solutions database to see what it has to say.

How often does the leadoff walk score? Going back 10 years, it's 38 percent of the time. Not good (for the pitcher). How many runs score in the inning, on average, after the leadoff walk? .905 runs. That's an 8.15 ERA, assuming all the runs would be earned.

So, when a pitcher gives up a leadoff walk in an inning, his ERA is, in essence, 8.15. Very bad. Very bad, indeed. (Note: this assumes the pitcher stays in for the whole inning and all the runs are earned.)

Is a leadoff walk worse than a leadoff single? Nope. They're the same. Leadoff singles score 38 percent of the time, same as leadoff walks. The average number of runs are the same too, .902 runs per inning after a leadoff single.

I would even go as far to say that in some instances a walk may be the better choice compared to grooving a relativly easy to hit fastball. Anyway interesting stuff and I would recomend subscribing to get the stat of the week because it is almost without fail some good stuff.

Used with permission from John Dewan's Stat of the Week®, www.statoftheweek.com."

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Walks are Killing the Giants

It seems like every time a Giants pitcher issues a walk, it comes back to hurt them. The walks always come in the worst moments and compound the issues.

I took the time to painstakingly look through the play-by-play files to determine how many of those walks came into score and my tally was 27. [Side note: if someone knows a place that keeps track of this so I don't have to do it manually, leave me a comment.]

Breaking this down a little further, of the 76 walks, five were intentional, so we have 26 runs scored on 71 regular walks and one run scored on five intentional walks.

For the regular walks, the Giants pitchers have managed a strand rate of just 63.4%, which is far below the overall average this season of 69% and league average, which tends to be about 72%. This suggests that things will get better as the season goes on, but man, the early picture is not a pretty one.

This actually ties in with the picture painted by the overall team stats that I went over in the post about the Giants not having a claim to the best pitching staff in baseball. They rate well in two thirds of the stats that pitchers have the most control over, with the second best home run rate per nine and the third best strikeout rate per nine, but only the 19th best walk rate per nine.

When you add that to the fact that they haven't done well in keeping these base runners from scoring, it makes sense that the team is in the middle of the pack in ERA. If the Giants can do better in limiting the walks (I am not holding my breath, not with Jonathan Sanchez and Barry Zito in the rotation) or do a better job of stranding the runners they give a free pass to, things will get much better.

Until then, the walks will keep killing the Giants.

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