Word out of Giants front office...platoon in left field

[calsnowskier]

The closer in de fense is, the higher the hitter's OPS.

Um...

Yeah...

I am speechless. That is OFFICIALLY the greatest answer to that question that was humanly possible.

 

[Mays-Fan]

Um...

Yeah...

I am speechless. That is OFFICIALLY the greatest answer to that question that was humanly possible.

"Well, Amy, Cal is normally a tough pitcher, but he hung a curveball, and I just tried to hit it hard. Fortunately, I got some backspin on it, the wind picked it up and it carried over de fense."

 

[tzill]

Well first off #2 is nonsensical, how does the DH matter in showing the Giants had the s-hittiest bats in left in all of baseball? If anything it makes the Gs look worse. Left is where teamas put their bad fielding good hitters. With a DH the AL teams can hide that guy, left can be a w:eaker hitter. But the Giants still put the worst hitters there in all the game. We are supposed to have an advantage with a good hitting catcher, but if your left fielder hits like a catcher how does that help?

and talking about park adjustments is dancing around the issue our left fielderrs hit like shit last yr.

its hard to see how a guy as sharp as you doesn't see a problem .

The DH matters b/c AL pitchers are facing more hitting all the time. Thus, all hitters benefit from the attrition. I never include AL stats when evaluating NL players or teams. We don't know how the #7 AL hitters would fare without a DH.

And park adjustments are critical to evaluating hitters.

Not saying there couldn't be an upgrade in LF. I am saying the analysis to this point is shoddy.

 

[Band of Brothers]

More talk today of maybe moving Belt to left and the Giants going after a first baseman. The hot stove is heating up.

 

[tzill]

More talk today of maybe moving Belt to left and the Giants going after a first baseman. The hot stove is heating up.

That won't be happening. SabeySabes plan is to get JLo locked up and go into the Winter Meetings looking to trade for a LF. Think Ruggiano.

 

[msgkings322]

Interesting, and not surprising, the contrast to last year. We won the WS, and decided to bring back almost the exact same team in 2013 because why mess with it?

We saw the result, and so are actually making some moves (Hudson, and I assume some kind of LF upgrade).

So if Scott Rolen fields that ball cleanly in game 3 in Cincinatti, would we have made changes for 2013?

Baseball and path dependence are strange things.

 

[dubabay]

The problem with going with a platoon is that the Giants would be an injury away (like last year with Pagan) where they had to play with 2 bad OF's.

I agree that pitching was a problem but you can't downgrade how horrible LF was, and when Pagan was injured not having anyone in LF AND CF killed this team as much.

 

[tzill]

The problem with going with a platoon is that the Giants would be an injury away (like last year with Pagan) where they had to play with 2 bad OF's.

I agree that pitching was a problem but you can't downgrade how horrible LF was, and when Pagan was injured not having anyone in LF AND CF killed this team as much.

Nope, not even close to "as much." Our SP was LAST IN THE LEAGUE. 1/8 of the lineup can't compare to that in terms of impact.

 

[SF11704]

Nope, not even close to "as much." Our SP was LAST IN THE LEAGUE. 1/8 of the lineup can't compare to that in terms of impact.

Have to agree with TZILL. Our pitching was really crappy in general. If La Grope wasn't a pleasant surprise it would have been much worse. I still think that for a team to be a contender you have to be somewhat balanced. You need both pitching and hitting to carry you through 162 games. BUT, if you are somewhat unbalanced I'd would think that better pitching would still give you more of an edge over the season. I also think that if the SP was really good it would be very easy to fixate on all the 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 losses and just lose sight of how many games you actually held the other team to less than 3 runs ... win or lose.
I'd much rather face a team knowing we're going to throw 4 decent to very good starters at them. Still think that good pitching stops/or at least slows down good hitting 80-90 percent of the time. IHMO it would be very difficult to play the Doyers with shit for pitching even if we had a potent line-up. I think their SP will be difficult for any team. If your pitching contains them makes things pretty damn even

 

[moxie]

Looks like they're definitely going platoon this year by signing Michael Morse.
Giants sign Michael Morse to one-year deal | HardballTalk

 

[Stokes1931]

Giants sign OF Michael Morse | CSN Bay Area

 

[Hangman]

The San Francisco Giants have reached agreement on a one-year contract with outfielder Michael Morse, finding an option to help Gregor Blanco in left field.

A source told ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney that Morse will receive $5 million plus incentives for the 2014 season.

The deal is pending a physical, assistant general manager Bobby Evans said Thursday. Traded from Seattle to Baltimore on Aug. 30, Morse also can play first base and right field to give manager Bruce Bochy some flexibility in writing his lineup.

Morse missed time this past season with both a broken right pinkie and strained right quadriceps before returning from the disabled list in late July. The 31-year-old nine-year veteran, batted .215 with 13 home runs and 27 RBIs in 88 games between the Mariners and Orioles.

He will fill a void at a position the Giants had been determined to upgrade this winter.

Morse will be part of an outfield featuring Angel Pagan in center field and Hunter Pence in right. Pagan received a $40 million, four-year contract last December, while Pence was rewarded with a $90 million, five-year contract before the season ended. He played every game this year.

 

[calsnowskier]

Not a huge fan.

Seems expensive for a guy who offers no OBP and no D. It does offer some OF depth, so I guess that is good...

 

[calsnowskier]

Base salary is an even 6M...

 

[calsnowskier]

Apparently, Morse will be the everyday LF. They had to give him hat in order to sign him.

Yuck.


Pagan
Scoots
Belt
Posey
Pence
Sandoval
Morse
Crawford

Morse has a career 1.5 WAR. His dWAR is -6.6!!!

A least we will be prepared for interleague games.

 

[Kendal]

Bad signing in my opinion, especially if they had to "pledge him an everyday role" like it said in the article. Hopefully he bounces back and plays like he did a couple of years ago.

 

[sfsportsfan]

Guess I'm the only one who will go on the record and say I like this trade. He was banged up last year. Career numbers are solid and he can't be worse in the field than PTMFB. Get him his 3 ABs and bring in Blanco.

 

[msgkings322]

Meh. It's better than nothing at all, but not by much.

Hopefully Blanco gets a few starts vs righties. And hopefully JCP learns to hit.

 

[notmyfault]

Apparently, Morse will be the everyday LF. They had to give him hat in order to sign him.

Yuck.


Pagan
Scoots
Belt
Posey
Pence
Sandoval
Morse
Crawford

Morse has a career 1.5 WAR. His dWAR is -6.6!!!

A least we will be prepared for interleague games.

Pardon my ignorance on the matter, but I have question in regards to dWAR. Is it only good to use the stat on a certain postion (like OF)? I only ask, because I looked up JT Snow's dWAR, who I was a huge fan of growing up, and noticed (to my surprise) he had a career dWAR -11. So either Snow's defense was overrated or the dWAR is limited in its use? I'm just curious.

 

[calsnowskier]

Guess I'm the only one who will go on the record and say I like this trade. He was banged up last year. Career numbers are solid and he can't be worse in the field than PTMFB. Get him his 3 ABs and bring in Blanco.

It wasn't a trade, but I get what you are saying.


PTMFB was a bases-empty Grand Slam. Those signings are EXTREME outliers. To continue to compare every troubled hitter with bad D to him gets you onto a slippery slope. (Not to mention the fact that we only had to pay PTMFB a pro-rated portion of 100K vs the 6M plus incentives we have to pay Morse).

A more fair comparison would be Huffer, although Huffer signed for only 3M, and we had absolutely no hitters in the lineup when he was signed.