It really isn't that funny. Blanco is younger and probably faster, and finally has a good coaching staff and he made some nice swing adjustments at the end of the year. Crawford is a speed guy that can hit for AVG but doesn't know how to take a walk. He also isn't very good in the OF. That doesn't translate well in the long term, plus hes injury prone and a complete question mark after TJ. Blanco is younger and was having hell of a year but had some struggles mid season, made adjustments and was HUGE for us in the Reds series. He is probably the best defensive OF next to Para in the NL West (Chris Young isn't here anymore). Blanco works the count very well and was on pace to hit 9-10 HRs as a lefty at AT&T. Hes 28 and in his prime, and actually did worse this year then he has in the past. If he can do .283/.360/.367/.727 as a bottom of the order speed guy.. That's amazing.
Hanley Ramirez and Adrian Gonzalez > Giants INF.
Not really. Considering your INF also consists of Cruz and Ellis and well Ellis.
Pablo was on pace to hit 37+ HRs in 2011 but broke his hamate which the #1 power sapping injury in baseball especially for his style of hitting. He still hit 23 with losing 200+ PA's and another 100 PA's with zero wrist strength, that's 200+ PA's without the chance of a HR and 100 PA's + with ONE hr. 15 HR in half a seasons worth of PA is something Pablo has done, multiple times.
Now put that in front of Posey who just won the MVP with a monster year and an OPS+ of 172 which is the SAME as Matt Kemps adjusted stats in 2011. Neither Posey or Pablo have reached their prime yet as they both have only had ONE full healthy season. Think about that. Pablo will see so many pitches to hit next year because teams will not want to pitch to Posey.
While Ramirez is a great talent, hes a headcase. Add in a few more self centered head cases on the team and an inexperienced manager. He can be bad or great. His line with the Dodgers really wasn't all that great.
.271/.324/.450/.774... I mean its definitely better then what Crawford will do, but Ramirez is simply an atrocious defensive SS. Crawford is a defense first player, but he did hit over .280 in the last two months and he has the perfect approach for AT&T. He hits lots of 2Bs and is one of the best defensive SS in the game. He was rushed to the bigs last year due to injuries and has steadily gotten better. Not he isn't going to be better then Hanley, and will never have the power Hanley does but he doesn't need to be hitting in the 8th hole.
There is no part of my imagination that I think Belt is a better player then Agon. But please remember that Belt was a top tier prospect that every scout in baseball where ga-ga over and still are. He was miss handled badly last year with the whole Huff situation, and the same thing happened at the start of this year. But he is now looked as the answer. In 2011 he hit 9 HRs in 1/3 of a season. That is 25-28 HRs in a season with a guy capable of having a .400+ OBP and 15 steals with GG caliber defense while hitting .300?? That is valuable. Power wise he won't be hitting 30+ bombs, that's Pablos job.
Belts line was .275/.360/.421/.781 he also has 12 steals while only getting caught twice. And hes only 24.
Agon hit .299/.340/.463/.806... The thing that alarms me with him is the walks. Now it may go up, who knows but honestly an OBP going down that steep is a bit alarming for someone his age. He will turn 31 early in the season, but we'll just have to see how it goes. He could turn it around but he along with Ramirez will be "We'll see how it goes".. Not very convincing.
Yes Scutaro hit .362 with the Giants... No he won't do it again. But put it in perspective. When the Giants acquired him from the Rockies, and our Broadcasters spoke the Rockies broadcaster and they said that his hits weren't falling. In a 162 game season you have hot and cold months, his hot months were with the Giants. Look at the whole season in perspective with the last few years.
2009: .282/.379/.409/.789
2010: .275/.333/.338/.721
2011: .299/.358/.423/.781
2012: .306/.348/.405/.753
He plays above average defense at Second and Third and Average at Short. With those numbers at the #2 slot in our order to set up the thump is very nice. His game is very simple, doesn't strike out, puts the ball in play, knows the strike zone very well and works walks and loves going to right center. We have a huge outfield and he LOVES putting those sexy gaps to use. He is heads and toes better then Ellis. Unless Ellis finds a fountain of youth and returns to 2007 Oakland A's form.
I shouldn't have to compare Pablo to Cruz and Posey to Ellis... But if you want I can.
No you don't. As a matter of fact the Dodgers had the second best bullpen in the NL last year. Check both ERA and HR/9, only Cincy had a better all-around 'pen.
Are all these numbers that I keep posting over and over not facts? As for bullpens I can't use numbers because our bullpen sucked for the first two months. Losing Wilson didn't help either. But our end of the year bullpen was so much better then the beginning. We added Kontos, Mijares who both had sub 3 ERA's, (along with Casilla, Affeldt, and Lopez and Romo with his sub 2 ERA and his 5.77 K/BB ratio and 10.7 K/9 LIFETIME). Now add that we have Brian Wilson 2.0 in AAA waiting for a call up... I think our pen is deeper. Thanks to the fact we don't have to deal with Hensley, Penny, Mota or any number of other crap we tried early on.
Just gave you a factoid, kiddo.
And I countered it with more facts.
Yes, it was quite the unlikely run for the Giants. But yea, if you think Scutaro and Pagan will be able to repeat their second-half numbers from last year then you're insane. C'mon, Scutaro hit like .500 with RISP last fall.
Angel Pagan
2009: .306/.350/.487/.837 (half year)
2010: .290/.340/.425/.765
2011: .262/.322/.372/.694
2012: .288/.338/.440/.778
I'm pretty sure repeating is completely possible. Hell he might even do better, he was down right terrible in June and July.
That's not happening again. Belt had a James Loney 2011 season last year - bad a first, heated up in the second half. It still remains to be seen if he can keep production up.
Well Belt's trend has been pretty much up word, constantly. James Loney's best year was 2009 with .281/.357/.399/.756 with a 104 OPS+.
Belts 2012 is 275/.360/.421/.781 with a 124 OPS+ Yes, similar. But outside of that one season his OBP has been around .335... The best thing about Belt is his patience. Bonds many times has talked about how he didn't understand the strike zone until after a few years. Bonds first two years look mighty similar to Belts as well. And no, I'm not saying hes going to be Bonds. I'm simply saying its highly touted prospects struggle. At this point Belt can certainly turn out to be James Loney... But he could also turn out to be a Will Clark. Who was kind of like... You know... a damn good first basemen. Though neither Clark or Loney has the speed that Belt does.
IMHO, there are only two SFG position players that you can really count on. 1) Posey will produce (I hate that he's on the Giants, easily one of my favorite players in MLB),
Its pretty easy to like the guy. Hes a good ol' southern boy that keeps his mouth shut, plays the game and works really hard.
and 2) Sandoval will mash against righties, and flail against lefties.
Pablo is actually evenly split. But no doubt he has more power as a lefty, as he is naturally lefty.
Lifetime:
VS LH: .313/.361/.461/.822
VS RH: .299/.350/.502/.852
Giants have a stellar starting rotation, there's no denying that, but you have to have big question marks when it comes to Zito and Lincecum. You don't know what to expect from them.
I agree, on Lincecum but not with Zito actually. Zito has actually been pretty consistent the last few years accept for 2011.
2009: 4.03 ERA, 192 IP, 1.35 WHIP
2010: 4.15, 199 IP, 1.34 WHIP
2012: 4.15, 184 IP, 1.38 WHIP
He was terrible in 2011 and 2008 and bleh in 2007. His control has been better though but his K rate has been dropping. I'm decently concerned next year as we don't have much in line for replacing him if he blows. But he has some incentive to do well because it will be the last year of his contract and he will want to continue pitching in 2014.
Same with Lincecum. Tim definitely was erratic last year with a career worse 4.4 BB/9, but Yu Darvish had a 4.2 BB/9 and no ones complaining! Timmy wasn't quite at his old 10.4/10.5 K/9 but he still had 9.2 K/9 a slight increase from last year (9.1) So stuff isn't the problem. No he isn't throwing 98 any more but he maxes out at 93 (94 on a good day) and with his movement and deception that shouldn't be a problem. His biggest issue was with runners on base and tipping pitches. Especially early on he was tipping his change ups and that dramatically spiked his HR/9 (1.1) (career AVG 0.7) and his H/9 (8.9) (career AVG 7.6). If he can fix his mechanics like he did in the playoffs then he should be fine. Also keep in mine he is on his contract year and this will be a big one, so if he wants to continue making 20M a year then he will get his **** together.
I don't think I'd be surprised either way if both were awesome or both were terrible (or one and one). Cain - solid. Bumgarner - solid. Vogelsong - hot and cold (more often hot).
Vogelsong was leading the league in ERA at the ASG and then he gave up 8 runs in 1.1 innings of work or something like that and fell apart and couldn't have a good game for the life of him. He figured out the problem in the playoffs. Maddie was the same way pretty much. He had like a 2.5 ERA at the break and then slowed down after the break. I think he might of just got tired as he is still very young (23). One thing he did really well though was cut down on hits. Maddie is a more polished version of Matt Cain (same age obviously).
Cain for me is the interesting one. He also slowed down in the end and didn't look very good in the Playoffs (a far cry from 0 ERA in 2010) but up until the last few months he was having a Cliff Lee style season. With a 1.5 or w/e BB/9. His command has gotten so good, and he can he also one of those guys that throws harder as the game goes on.
Now that's not to say that Belt won't be good, but he's definitely not a sure-thing (Of course no one is, but you know what I mean). The rest of the infield, puhleease. Decent defense, that's about it.
I think my formatting got screwed up but who cares... Defensively our INF is probably one of the best in baseball. I think overall our team is probably top 5 defensively. And that was the difference between the Giants and the Tigers. Offensively (as much as people don't like to admit it) we scored 12 less runs all year then they did WITHOUT a DH. Our SP was deeper, defensively we were better at every position except CF. And our Bullpen was light years better. Our bench was also better.
