How to Fix the Bullpen….
Let’s just assume there’s nothing in the minors that will be of immediate help. And I think we’ve all had our fill of the guys currently rounding out the bullpen. I do still have hopes that Affeldt will get it together. I think he’s been struggling with the hammy all season and it’s clearly got him out of sorts, mechanically. But at some point before the trade deadline Sabes is going to have to go after some BP help. We should all be fearful of who he might secure via trade since he’s so horrible at trading. But at least we are talking about pitching, something he knows a lot about….
Sabes is probably going to go after a *holds* guy— someone like Scott Downs or Jason Frasor (and yes, I used Toronto purposely as the example since we know that’s a phone number Sabean has access to). But if it were me, I’d go a different route. I’d go after a currently closer and make him my 8th inning guy. A guy like Matt Capps would cost a lot but what kind of a stud 1-2 punch would that be in the 8th/9th? If you don’t want to pay up for Capps then go after a closer who’s not doing his job right now. I will always maintain that closing is one of the hardest jobs in all of sports. Not everyone has the make up for it. There are guys out there right now who are failing as closers and, because they are failing, won’t cost much at all. And frankly, I think these three guys are much more suited for setting up a closer than being one: 1) Octavio Dotel. Here’s a guy who’s having a rough time of it in Pittsburgh but he’s put together a career of being a very solid set up guy and he DOES still have wicked stuff. He’d be cheap and Pitt is ready to deal (also a team Sabes talks too). 2) David Aardsma. Look, last year was fluky, everyone thought so. And he’s blowing saves now as many sabermetric fans thought he would. I think he’d be better off as a set up guy. Seattle will deal him soon enough. 3) Chad Qualls. THis guy is NOT a closer and he’s totally f-ed in the head right now. BUt go back and look at his recent career numbers, he’s a control pitcher (wouldn’t it be nice to see one of our set up guys come in and NOT walk the hitter) and he literally could be a scrap heap pick up from the WW in a matter of days….
Again, you can’t look at what these guys are doing NOW or you’d never want them. But if you believe they are miscast in their current roles AND you believe a change of scenery would do them good, then it’s a great move for Sabean to make. It would be bold, it would nail down the last 2+ innings of our BP. And I want to say Sabean has a history of doing this: In the big 1997 trade for ALvarez/Darwin/Hernandez I BELIEVE Hernandez had been closing for the White Sox but he was used as the 8th inning guy when we got him. THAT is the type of move Sabean should make to fix the bullpen. We can argue about who it should be, maybe the 3 guys I listed aren’t *the guys* to go after. But if it were me I’d do something bold like go after a closer instead of a *holds* guy……
And if all this doesn’t tickle your fancy we could always pick up the newly designated for assignment (which he refused and is now a FA) *Jack Trashner*! as bullpen savior. 🙂
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
Four unearned runs for the Orioles in the first at SD.
Jesus H Christ. Fuck
What the fuck is this guys problem?
I’m saying Fred Lewis is a bad defender and that the UZR is not the end all be all for measuring defense. Make what you want of my comments, but those are my true thoughts.
O’s 4 runs in the 1st!
You were wrong to call Fred Lewis an above average defender at any point in his career, so yes I am saying you were wrong.
Fine, You are saying what I said you were. “Fuck facts”.
Fun fact of the day: The UZR is adjusted every year, meaning it isn’t perfect.
Na na na na naaa naaaaa.
I have facts, you have, well, you have, uh… nothing.
I have eyes.
Flav, I am confident this will work: delete
my post regarding the reverse jinx. Next batter will make an out. Guar-an-teed.
This is unfuckingbelievable. This guy does not pitch again until he fucking figures it out. Get him the fuck out of there Bochy.
We all know that Fred couldn’t catch a cold on most days. Why even bother with further confirmation.
This is twice recently that JA has fucked up a lead to allow BW to come in and “vulture” a save.
Nice guy that Jeremy.
Ballgame!
It astounding how bad Affeldt has become considering his solid year last year…..
Cal, for what it’s worth, you’re right, Fred has always been and will always be a horrendous defensive player……
And BW nails it down. I have zero confidence this year in a guy who was fucking nails last year. Goddamn Affeldt sits or mops up until he gets it right. Jesus.
Ridiculous that Wilson had to get one out, but whatever. Great job by relievers not named Affeldt and nice comeback after Sanchez’s sluggish start, they finally win one in an AL park.
The fucking Blue Jays can have Fred Lewis. I don’t give a crap what his UZR says.
Lining up more idiots to support an “indefensible” position does not make it right. The facts speak for themselves. If you don’t understand all them numbers ‘n stuff, just say so. I’ll explain it fer ya.
http://tinyurl.com/2ursdhv
Indefensible? Are you talking about Fred Lewis?
Again, UZR is actually proving the point that Lewis sucks this year. You want to throw that out? Or you just want to throw out the numbers that you don’t like? I’m not real fond of the stat that says Freddy Sanchez won a batting title.
I put that in quotes just for you, fuckhead.
in the link I provided, it clearly states that one of the negatives about UZR is that one year one way or the other doesn’t prove shit about what he will do the next year…..
All it took for me was a three game set in Seattle last year to see all I needed of Lewis. And he hit a homer in that series. The man has zero baseball acumen. Show me a stat that reveals that.
“it clearly states that one of the negatives about UZR is that one year one way or the other doesn’t prove shit about what he will do the next year…..” which is a large part of MY point, asshole.
Twin: Is the UZR perfect? Is it the end all be all of defensive ability? Do you think Fred is an above average defender?
Answer those two questions.
I don’t need a number to tell me Fred is a bad defender. If the UZR supports that, good. If it doesn’t, like last year, that leads to doubt that the UZR is 100% accurate.
From an earlier post: “This is my problem with UZR. It isn’t fucking cookie cutter every play. It is IMPOSSIBLE to normalize every single player, stadium, play, etc with a formula.”
Followed by: “The UZR is adjusted every year, meaning it isn’t perfect.”
My points, no matter what Twin tries to say:
-Fred is a bad defender (UZR agreeing or not)
-The UZR isn’t perfect (Twin agreeing or not)
…
Way to salvage the series by the G-Men. Toronto is a very good team and I’ll take this series as long as we can at least win 2/3 from the Astros. A sweep there would make me forget this series.
As almost always, in the rush to somehow “catch” me, what I actually stated has been completely fucking distorted. UZR supports both what I’ve said AND what Cal said. The difference is that he’s trying to throw out the numbers that belie his prejudice.
“The man has zero baseball acumen. Show me a stat that reveals that.”
That requires eyes. There is no number for that. This is hard for some people to understand.
SABR stats are very cool and part of the future of baseball. That being said, don’t discount actually watching the game and making judgements about a player, like teams did for, oh, 80 years?
Players are NOT the same in the field every year. LAST year, COMPARED to the others who played LEFT FIELD, he was BETTER than average. Case closed, numbers are not refutable by prejudice.
You are the one doing all the “catching”.
Twin said CASE CLOSED. This is his blog. No one may ever speak of Fred Lewis and his defense again or the UZR. Everything has been settled.
Blog NAZI.
You said something stupid and it fell in my lap. Not really a catch. Fred could have handled it.
I have to go spend my requisite 6 hours outside today, seeing as it is a beautiful day.
“Catch” ya later, Twin.
It would be a first for ya, Cal.
A win! It feels good! Some HRS and a Wilson save on the road.
Woo-Hoo! Affeldt needs to go on the DL and rest his hammy if that’s what is wrong with him. He’s death out there right now…bleah!
Happy Father’s Day to all of you dads, uncles, big brothers, mentors, etc!!!
Well, Dustin Johnson just put about half a dozen guys back in the Open.
Now he just about put himself out. Four right! I feel bad for the poor guy. Seems likable enough. Easy Els just motoring along without a care.
McDowell is looking good but history shows these long shots don’t win this very often. Ten holes is a lot of time to choke it up. The Froggie Havret has the Van de Velde legacy to live down. So Mr. Jiggles and Ernie are still alive. I guess Father’s Day just brought up too many pussy memories for Eldrick…
If you have a McDowell/Havre Exacta you could be a very rich person in a few minutes… or not. Amazing that Els could still win this…
Ireland beats France by one. I thought that’s supposed to when they kick the white ball, not hit it.
Contest update through 18 games: 11-7, 74 runs and 18 bombs. Projects to 16/111/27
Okay….on this whole Fred Lewis thing. So what is being said here? Fred’s UZR last year justified him playing in LF, but does not justify him playing there this year?
At the opposite end, Huff was regarded by most as a horrible defensive player, as justified by UZR, yet everything to the contrary is actually happening.
I guess my real question then is how can there be such a disconnect in Fred’s last year’s UZR (showing him average) and what all of our eyes actually witnessed? And how Fred can all of sudden go from being an ‘average left fielder’ last to a bottom of the pack LF’er this year.
Cal_Stim25 said, on June 20, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Twin said CASE CLOSED. This is his blog. No one may ever speak of Fred Lewis and his defense again or the UZR. Everything has been settled.
This means you can’t talk about it anymore. Or you will be berated and called a Fuckwad and sent to some random part of the blog that Twin likes to jerk off to his own arguments in.
The Fred Lewis discussion is over, PGFuck.
And since when has it been decided that players don’t have better and worse years in the field? Huff is in fact proving that they can. Every argument that Room Fuckwad makes against UZR actually supports the validity of UZR…
It’s over because it’s actual baseball discussion that has been resolved, or because you deem it so? If the former, not so much, if the latter, par for the course.
For someone that is so ‘stats-driven’, this seems to be the perfect opportunity to have a baseball-only discussion, if you are willing. You haven’t explained the disconnect in the rating itself versus what we see on the field.
UZR does not make value judgements. If Fred gets to a ball but misses it, it’s not better or worse than Dunn never getting near it in the first place. Eye witnness “testimony” is among the most unreliable, BTW…
I’m not sweatin’ this UZR stuff for a second. It does me no good anyway in fantasy baseball. The numbers are interesting to check out I guess. The thing I like about OFFENSIVE saber stats is that they can often be a tool to predict something the next year that is hard to see about to happenyou’re just looking at the *basic* stats (rbi’s, BA, etc…) . UZR seems kinda random with the Fred example being the best one we’ve discussed here. Again, I really don’t give a huge shit about it or understand anything other than the basics regarding how they come up with the number. At the end of the discussion, I’m just happy as hell that we have Torres playing outfield every day instead of Freddy— the UZR stats support that feeling as do my eyes. Good enough for me……..
And with this, *I’m* done with it. I will never convince people who are willing to selectively dismiss statistics when they don’t jibe with their impeccable recollections… and the biggest part being ignored is the “quality” of competition in LF defensively. And that I never said that Fred was “good”. In fact, of players that put in at least 300 innings in LF last year, he was 22nd of 47, hardly a top flight defender. People just forget how many REALLY REALLY bad left fielders there are. .
UZR to me is like two scouts arguing about the ‘bite on a curveball’. One might say ‘but it’s 12 to 6, and according to the metrics, simply unhittable’. And the other saying, ‘but hitters hit it at a .280 clip so it can’t be unhittable’.
Before you go all TF on me, I’m simply just asking…
well, The Bat is supposed to be awful out there. And we’ve all seen huff creakin’ and crackin’ out there on the other corner. Look, if they’re bad outfielders then we’ll probably start losing games because of it. It hasn’t happened so far, just be happy about that. And I am DOWN with The Bat’s story. Dude comes back to the NL and starts raking. This is a great story……
I’m not going off on anything, I have finished. Your analogy is incorrect. If the “metrics” showed it was unhittable, the BA against would be .000…
I am not going to get into this Fred Lewis debate afte being tied up all weekend, but he sure looked horrible in left today watching the game on Tivo…but in regard to relievers, does it not seem obvious Affeldt has to be still hamstrung…like that pun???
Why dont they just DL him and get Hinshaw up here just to see if Hinshaw can show some value in order to try and move him for a possible more reliable lat-inning reliever. Mota and Romo are not making me very at ease late in games. Capps? He will be available but possibly a couple meltdowns away from oblivion. Frasor has been throwing smoke. Other idea, would a Kerry Wood or Chris Perez be available?
Statistics often just correct the fallible recollections of eyewitnesses. Not to pick on him, but Chuckles posted the other day that Dennis Martinez must have been “28-3” with several shut outs against the Giants…
I pointed out, after checking, that he was 7-7 and never had a shut out or CG against us…
Kerry Wood: likely done but I like that idea better than Perez. Perez has never done anything and he walks everyone. I’d be down with Frasor, not sure what we’d have to give up. Fuck Hinshaw he SUCKS. He’s filling out triple a right now that’s worth something. The medico’s need to sit Affeldt down and have a conversation/check him out. I’d like to think he’s covering an injury but I really just think the OLD hammy injury has fucked this dude’s mechanics up…….
Sorry – posted that last one before refreshing. I don’t ever dismiss stats, what I do know however is stats can be extremely misleading because with baseball being so stats driven, you can cite stats that either support or don’t support almost any baseball debate.
It’s pretty easy to see Panda has been scuffling, yet his numbers show him to be an above average third basemen. It’s pretty easy to see Cain is a stud pitcher, but the wins have never backed him up as ‘winning pitcher’.
For every Ying, there seems to be a Yang and I think that is where many of the heated arguments on this blog derive from – you might see something in a different light than me, and either you’re right, I’m right, we’re both right, or we’re both wrong. In almost all cases, they are merely opinions, nothing more, nothing less, and these opinions come down to perception, either of the stats or of the player. For example – you think Whiteside sucks, yet his numbers are superior to Molina this year, but Molina is the ‘better’ catcher due to his body of wqork and ability to handle a pitching staff – both arguments have relevance because both can be true. I happen to think they both suck and Posey should’ve been catching since day 1.
You don’t bring a guy up just for the helluvit, Ghead. Not in real life…
Bumgarner tonight, BTW:
7.2 5 3 3 2 11…
It’s not bad when you lose 2 of 3 and still gain a game on the dodgers….swept in Boston….
11K’s to 2 BB? That’a dominance. That’s all I care about and it’s good enough for me.
I said Posey should have been up all year and taking over the starting catcher’s job by 6/1… again, shit gets pretty distorted here. I pointed out ( correctly) Buster’s high ground ball ratio and you’d a thought I crucified the savior.
Flavor, that’s what they were waiting for, I’d guess.
I like to see the Bum, starting soon…but in regard to Hinshaw, and I dont see a future for him with us, but can we move him for something? Keeping him at Fresno is not going to entice a deal for him. Bring him up and if he sucks from day one, get rid of him.
But Flav, Chris Perez has only walked two in his last 10 appearance with a bunch of holds and two earned runs outside of one bad game against the Yankees…take that one bad game away and all relievers will have such outings, but Perez has given up two earned runs in his last 10 innings in 9 out of his last 10 appearances. Pretty decent numbers in my book and soemone thta could come in and hodl leads seems to be something we need to add. These guys with the Indians could be had…
Hinshaw cannot be any worse than Affeldt right now. Affeldt is hirt, needs time to get his hammy right and being on the DL is the only sensible move. Maybe stick Martinez in the pen and bring up Bum…good with me…
I agreed with you on the Posey GB rate. But he’s young, the power will come. And he’s still better than anything else we have in terms of getting base hits, getting on base, etc…..Waiting around for an 11/2 game? Fuck it, he had a bunch of nice starts in a row. He’s a #1 pick. He should have started the last Iron-Head game there was no reason to not just throw him out there then. I’m not sold on Bumgarner but I didn’t need an 11/2 game to want to bring him up. Joe Martinez i know about. Madison, I’d like to find out…….
Did not get to watch much of the Giants this weekend because of family…how did Renteria look?
Rent looked good…
And here is no fucking law they have to have two LH relievers. “Can’t be worse” isn’t exactly what they be lookin’ for, GHead.
You are preaching to the choir,Flavor. I’ve wanted him up for a month or more. I’m just making a guess on their thinking. You’re the Dominance Dude, not me..
And after three long years, I finally see that Bochy used my “rotation” word. He’s now talking about a 4 man rotation with Panda, Uribe, Sanchez, Renteria… I can “go” now.
Time to go shopping at the WhiteSox again. Get Thornton and/or Putz and you have the BP vastly improved.
GH– I don’t give one freaking fuck about 10 appearances. Perez has some potential and he was a decent speculative buy at the beginning of the season with Wood sidelined. He’s young, I’d like to see him throw more strikes. He wouldn’t be a terrible pick up to be our 8th inning guy–I’d still rather pick up a guy like Dotel or, for free, a guy like Qualls–you guys hate on the guy, and I’ve already said he’s been miscast as a closer, but he shuts righties down pretty well over his career and he throws strikes (not counting this year where he his miscast as a closer). He’s a disaster right now, get him out of the closer role, find him a new team, and you might find yourself a kickass set up guy……
Again, I am good with just sticking Martinez in the pen, making Bum the #5. Still think there is a need to add a reliable arm in the ben not named Hinshaw. Affeldt should be 100% by the All-Star game. Let him get the right treatment now. But we need a another good arm in the pen for the playoff run…
I am in the Renteria camp. If he is looking good in the field and is swinging the bat, need to get Posey behind the plate as much as possible, Panda at first and Uribe at third. Uribe is showing like last year that he will slow down with the bat and will need his rest. Burrell is showing a lot more than what anyone expected, so even playing Huff at first, keeping Panda at third and getting Uribe some rest and even Posey some off days is all proving that Bochy can handle the multiple options lineup. Good to see Bochy yank J. Sanchez when he did, probably saved today’s game…
‘He’s a disaster right now, get him out of the closer role, find him a new team, and you might find yourself a kickass set up guy’
I think we’re past looking for someone who ‘might’ be a good setup guy – we have plenty of those. A big and resounding ‘NO’ on even considering Qualls, at any time.
Qualls is a sinker baller whose ball doesn’t always sink so good… Flavor is correct in that he was better as a set up guy. But he’d hardly step into that role here. He’d still be behind Mota to start. And whoever said it with Dotel is right-not enough strikes. Hell, right now I’d bring Bumgarner up and move Joe into relief. Mota keeps the 8th inning job for now, Martinez might grow into it. There’s still a few weeks before they have to make a move outside the organization.
And I’ll repeat because he’s getting zero props: POTG is Bautista, IMO. It was 2nd and 3rd when he came in, he stranded them and then shut ’em down for two more. For one day at least, Denny is the MAN..
Gringo, I am not sure the White Sox will be sellers since I think they see themselves as being contenders even if they are not. Thornton has an arm and a lefty…
But Flav, I just glanced at Perez’ last 10 games, for a season, he has two meltdown appearances this year of 3 ERs each game. In his other 25 appearances in about 25 innings, he has given up two ERs and 8 walks and 17 hits for the entire year. That is what about a .67 ERA and and a WHIP of 1.00???…I still take those numbers as an 8th inning guy…
As a group, the pen is 6th in ERA in the NL and exactly middle of the pack in blown saves with 8 ( of 31 opportunities). Average is 8 of 32. So while we’ve been disappointed, it’s not quite as dire as that eyewitness testimony might lead one to believe ( gay fuck smiley face to follow)
🙂
Kenny Williams is ALWAYS in trade mode. He doesn’t have to be a ‘seller’, just a trade partner. And with some of the bloated salaries they have, even if they are buyers, that doesn’t mean deals don’t happen.
” Denny is the MAN..”
Can’t argue with that.