Torture, Re-Visited
Someone mentioned it last night and I agree–there wasn’t any pain felt (by me) after Span made that catch. It was more like a joke that was funny that I didn’t laugh at. Anyway, here are the 3 *hilarious* catches this year that ended with the Giants as the punchline each time:
The first one was Venable’s on 6/17:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=28124669
Next, we have Matt Kemp’s grab on 6/25:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=28350815
Finally, last night, Span takes a circuitous route to finish off the humor:
http://wapc.mlb.com/play?content_id=29716503
I’m not sure which was the best catch or which one hurt more. Or which one was funnier.
________________________________________
Also, here’s a tweet that I found interesting. I have said the same thing many times:
Additionally, Brandon Crawford has negative defensive ratings in 4 of 5 categories at fangraphs. THAT is a joke.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
1….Venable,easily the most difficult catch,hands down.Line smash directly over his head,full extension dive, quite impressive.Not as great as Jim Reminds catch but still a great play.
2…Span , had to cover alot of ground but still easy lung at the end.
3… Kemp, not tough at all, most CF make that play.Never had to leave his feet,just reach up and snag it.
Don’t get home from work in time to catch these road games, only the wrap on the radio. Kruk said he thought Belt’s blast woke the guys up, including the other middle order guys, who all got at least 2 hits last night. 5 runs, rare occurrence, should mean a W.
As for Posey, he’s the reigning MVP. According the B/R splits I was looking at before the game, in giants wins he is hitting .370, in the losses .240. Since the AS break he has been in a long slump, batting under .200 in 70 some ABs without pop and an OPS of .550. And his RISP numbers during this time are terrible.
He’s a guy SF has come to rely on, and that is part of the burden of being a star player. Might not be fair, but stars can carry their teams, something Posey has been unable to do. Yes his stats look good overall, but he has lost 100 pts of his OPS and all his numbers are down significantly from last year all across the board, and that is (yet another) disappointment to me in the 2013 version of the Giants.
Here’s some Posey stats from henry in yesterday’s Chron: “His drought reached 11 for 66 in his past 20 games….His recent failing with RISP, 1-12 and 5-24, have mirrored his teammates’.”
He’s just more important to Giants success, and failure, than a blanco or Torres, or anyone else. Even when they have gotten on he’s been unable to drive them in; lot of recent Giants losses have been by a run or two in *torture* games. That’s where you are looking for your big guns to make something happen, your stars to shine.
All sports are that way.
Hopefully, as Kruk said, middle order guys get the bats going. I’d like to see Giants at least get out of last place and pick up a split on the road trip. The next homestand has Pirates and Red Sox, two teams in the thick of division races that have way more at stake.
defensive metrics *are* a work in progress and are not perfect, as fans are cautioned. ‘Before drawing any conclusions about a player’s defense, look at a full three years of defensive data”..crawford is only in his 2nd full year but looking at that larger sample size, he has positive ratings in all categories.
Agree Mike.
And if we go by offensive metrics,Willie Mays would of been a “BUM” in most critics eyes with his 0-24 or something BL start.
Durocher knew the kid was special though and kept him in the LU and well, the rest is history “The Best Player Ever” IMO.
if a site such as fangraphs existed then, they would never make an assertion such as what you cite about mays. no site would make a conclusion about a hitter based on 24 ab. i’m not sure what your point is. fangraphs rates crawford as a very good defensive ss.
i think i misunderstood kat’s excellent post.
Of the three, I think Venable’s was the best.
Not sure if anyone else has seen this. My friend Mike (Demp28) sent it to me…thought I would share it with The Flap:
http://tinyurl.com/m5yvtlr
Joe bleeping West needs instant replay!
You mean Joe FUCKING CAN’T SEE STRAIGHT West? We talking about the same guy?
I’m not saying I like it or would necessarily encourage losing but I’m not sweating losing 90+ either.
They had losing seasons between 2005-2008 and netted top 10/picks Tim, Bum Buster and Wheeler. Might have a three peat if things had worked out. Maybe there’s a special position player in the 2014 draft who could be ready when the new wave of pitching arrives.
Btw, good news on Hembree. Curious to see how he looks in Sept. Mentioned before how key these guys in AAA are, either as replacements or trade bait. They feel good about him, they could package Romo for an OFer.
as to the potd, ellis singled to open up that ninth inning. while hits that start rallies are obviously key hits, they are not part of the ‘clutch hitter’ debate. that has always revolved around how a hitter performs with risp. in that regard, ellis is .265 for his career vs. his .266 average in all situations…
additional note: we have now lost 11 games to first place since the break. citing posey’s numbers during that disastrous slide does not demean his overall excellence as a hitter but it’s totally relevant in looking for why we have gone feet up.
btw, fangraphs does not give span a negative rating as a cfer, he has a negative rating in some categories ( his arm) . in the most important categories- runs saved and range- he has positive ratings ( tzl is no longer used). zuck is looking at his range rating without heeding the caution about sample size. span has a plus 21.3 range rating taking into account the sample size warning.
they give him a negative rating range rating, which it clearly states in the tweet I posted, and I think that’s funny considering how much ground he covered to make that catch
and I now realize that the – is jsut for this season. But still, why the – for this season?
again, the numbers are arrived at by actual play-by- data. i’m not understanding why the sample size thing is still a problem. depending on many factors- ground ball vs. fly ball picthers for example, a player may have a poor or mediocre rating for a small sample size, and one year is too small…but at any rate, the ratings are certainly not based on one catch.span is rated 2nd among mlb center fielders in range using the 3 year sample as recommended, he’s also 2nd in uzr/150, 3rd in uzr for 2011 thru 2013..
“I think this game beats you down so bad at times that I feel like we kind of hit rock bottom and were kind of just like, Let’s just go out there and play, not worry about what’s going on, . .
Sandoval, since May 22, is hitting .209 with one home run and a .279 slugging percentage.
And Bruce is still telling the fans: “we’ve got to get Pablo going.”
hehe
Gametime Forecast: 77°F • Partly Cloudy • 0%PoP
1. Marco Scutaro (R) 2B
2. Brandon Crawford (L) SS
3. Brandon Belt (L) 1B
4. Buster Posey (R) C
5. Hunter Pence (R) RF
6. Pablo Sandoval (S) 3B
7. Roger Kieschnick (L) LF
8. Gregor Blanco (L) CF
9. Ryan Vogelsong (R) P
Chi, I like the new replay rules, but I don;t like the idea of limiting them. I know the idea is that they don’t fuck up enough to use them all, but as we’ve seen, there are close plays (now challengeable) pretty frequently. I guess looking at all of them would slow the game down considerably. Do you get one extra for extra-inning games?
One of the big bitches about IR was that it would slow the game down too much…so yeah, maybe three is a number they felt they could live with without grinding the game to a halt.
I don’t see managers mis-using it the way Flav suggests (and yeah, I could be wrong). If I was managing…I would want those in my hip pocket for a potential situation where you might really need it on a call that could have a huge bearing on the game/who wins.
the new replay rules are terrible. 3 challenges? You should get one and if you lose then you’re done. Imagine how those 3 challenges will get used. Managers might use them just to give a reliever more time to warm up. if you have 3, why not?
Or to give a pitcher a breather in the middle of a rough inning.
and the sample size warning doesn’t seem to effect Simmons who is leading all shortstops by a country mile in his first year at the big league level. Fangraphs has Crawford ranked 15th out of 23 qualified shortstops.
the point of the sample size is that simmons hasn’t played enough yet to make his numbers relevant in evaluating him defensively. actually, crawford still falls short as well. i think you are misunderstanding the sample size caution. fangraphs warns that 3 years of data is needed to get an accurate reading. the reason is that most numbers, uzr and uzr/150 among them, are compiled by actual play-by- play data and one year is not enough to make a determination.
didn’t see your post below, craig. 9th seems a bit low to me as well. but he has had some fielding ‘slumps’ in both years, that may account for it.
I like replay when the call changes the ball from live to dead (i.e., after review a hit off the top of the wall becomes a HR, or a bloop down the line goes from fair to foul), or when it changes one dead ball to another (i.e., a hit into the stands called foul turns into a HR, or vice versa). Otherwise, I hate instant replay in baseball.
The idea of reviewing plays at the bases truly sucks. Basketball and football move from time out to time out. Adding the replay timeouts didn’t ruin the rhythm. It’ll mess baseball up, however, even if it’s limited to six challenges per game (not counting the umps’). Worst thing since the DH.
I see what you mean now, Twin. If you look at the last 3 years Craw is ranked 9th, not 15th. Still, I think he’s better than 9th
Reblogged this on THE LIGHTER SIDE OF SPORTS and commented:
FORTUNA IS SPINNING DOWNWARD
Seems nothing has gone right for our San Francisco Giants. Some of the plays made by opposing players have been “other worldly” causing me to shake my head rather than stomp my foot. Things have been supernaturally bad, only thing that makes sense is that Fortuna is not in our corner at this time.
Please Fortuna, hear my plea, spin upwards.
enjoy the game, i have to go. what’s that cheering sound i hear? maybe it’s the crickets chirping.,..
Prefer to not see a jam like that, but great to see Vogey work out of it.
Xoot, I can’t agree that the replay challenges would stop the flow of the game, unless you consider managers arguing with umpires to be part of the flow of the game.
Billy Martin was pretty entertaining to watch, though. Watching him have a meltdown in front of 30,000 people was kind of interesting.
If managers came out of the dugout and argued with the umps 6 times per game, most games, I’d object. Once or twice per game, along with the usual barking from the side, is part of the flow. Stopping dead to let umps waddle under the stands to peer for a while at video is very different.
The umps won’t be peering at video, according to Selig. They’ll just be getting a message from New York or somewhere, from some master video control center. The umps could have earpiece connection of some kind.
The first year could be a bit clunky, but they should be able to iron things out as they go along.
None of the reports about the announcement that I’ve seen were so detailed about how the guy in NY will make the “final call.” If you have a link to a good story, I’d appreciate seeing it.
I see one LA Times story that says only the NY official will review the video and make the final call after a challenge. So the umps will be standing around waiting for word on high. TV timeouts, no doubt.
You cannot stop The Grip. You can only hope to contain it.
Not sure I’ve ever seen Belt throw his helmet down like that before. I kinda liked seeing it
Gotta love that!
Fuckin’ awesome. And the belly-rubber has to find something else to do. Fuck that guy
I wish they’d go back to that blonde in the red dress from earlier in the AB.
no doubt. If she peeled that off and started rubbing those tight abs I might have started rooting for Soriano to close that game out 🙂
Hector yeah!!!
I think Craw’s defensive rankings just went up.
I don’t know how any stat can reflect a play like that stab in the bottom of the 9th.
well, it wouldn’t, by itself.
9th best shortstop? Um, no.
by which stat are they ranking him 9th ?
uzr/150. And now he’s 8th (he was 9th this morning). Maybe Mac was right.
http://tinyurl.com/kj98ft4
and that’s from 2011-2013. If you just look at this year he’s 15th
i’m not sure where you’re getting that from -for 2011 thru 2013, he ranks 4th by both uzr and uzr/150 amonq nl shorststops with at least 1500 innings a little more than 1 season. among nl ss who have played over 2500 innings ( a little more than brandon has played, he’s second for 2011-2013.
http://tinyurl.com/qbwjml5
1500 innings? a little more than a full season- he’s 4th,
http://tinyurl.com/p97ldm7
one of us is missing something. could be me.
i’m only counting nl shortstops. if he’s 8th or 9th among ss in both leagues, that doesn’t sound so out of line.
but that’s if you ignore what fangraphs has said about sample size.this comment is relying to craig’s comment that crawford is 15th this year.
I was ranking him across MLB, no reason not to
Very cool win. Hector doesn’t do much to stoke up about but he can pinch hit his ass off late in the game
chi asked about my recipe for the seared scallop and lobster salad that i’m preparing merna’s 70th birthday on sunday. as i said, i don’t really have a recipe, more of an outline. i’ll make a simple marinara sauce for the bottom of the plate. the seared scallops and strips of roasted peppers will ring the plate. arugula will be tossed with a dijon mustard vinaigrette. in the center of the greens will be a lobster stuffed deviled egg.
Sounds great Twin.What time you want me over?I’ll bring the wine.
🙂
Wow, way cool. Yesterday there were 6 blown saves, 3 in each league including the one Zum talked about in the POTD, and Soriano should have had one too. Seems like the Great Karmatic Equalizer has smiled on Giants form.
Bout freaking time.
To ‘equalize’ we need about 15 wins like that in a row . . .
great win, huh? i’m going to watch it now, had things to do earlier.
From Baggs: “Sergio Romo, after Brandon Crawford’s diving catch prevented the first batter from reaching in the ninth: “He’s one of the best shortstops I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Well maybe if fangraphs pulled their heads out of their collective asses they would rank Crawford deservedly higher.Dude should be a Gold Glover this year and beyond.
Fangraphs hides behind their *wait 3 years* shit but the fact is, defensive metrics are WAY behind the rest of the Sabermetric world. And I’ve said this for a while….
When it comes to the 3 year “wait and see plan” all bets are off when it comes to that rook Manny Machado 3B Orioles,human highlight reel. Don’t know where he ranks with fangraphs and don’t really give a shit,cause this kid is something special.And should easily get his 1st” of many GG this year.
Even HOF Jim Palmer, who played forever with “The Vaccum Cleaner” HOF Brooks Robinson says he can be better then him.Super high praise considering Brooks had a zillion gold gloves.
I really wanted to go to the Padre game tonight to see Wheeler pitch, but it didn’t work out. He’s got 12 strikeouts through 6. I am going Sunday when Harvey is pitching, which should be cool.
Wheeler is gonna be a fun one tO follow. i could care less about his outcome, we won a WS since we traded him, but I’m interested in his immediate career. I think he’s gonna be a #3 or get hurt and be a # never been
I’m with you on that-not bitter. We took a shot on Beltran that I supported. I am gonna keep an eye on Wheeler though with great interest.
Didn’t see the game today
But “Major Props” for Hector Sanchez!
Down to your last strike and blasts a GW Bomb to win it!
From little league to softball leagues to the Big leagues,no finer moment, to be the “Guy” that came through.
Especially in Softball, the Pitchers of beer after the game with your buddy’s taste so much better!!
Kat–that Pad game last week where I caught the foul ball, my seats gave me a great angle on Machado playing D. Dude made some nice plays and has an absolute cannon for an arm.
Yeah Dawg,kinda forgot to mention that bazooka of an arm.They were showing a couple highlight reel plays at the A/S game when he fielded fair shots down the line and his momentum carried him into the 3rd base coaching box and he still gunned the runners out.”Major Wow Factor”
Here’s a good description of the new replay-review format on the mlb table, from NYT:
“the existing procedure for home run replays — the umpires leave the field, watch a video review and make their own determination — would stay the same, Schuerholz said. After the newly reviewable calls, the manager could leave the dugout to inform the plate umpire of his challenge, presumably before the next pitch was thrown. The umpires would then use a secure phone line in a nearby area and call the umpires at the headquarters, where a technician would cue up the play in question.”
And it gets worse. According to the same NYT story, if a manager uses a challenge and gets a call reversed, he keeps that challenge and can use it again (although the challenge available for the first six innings won’t carry over into later innings).
More time calls, more commercials, longer games.
“More time calls, more commercials, longer games” and Xoot will be watching!
Why send the manager out for challenges?
Just send out “Clyde the Oragatane” to Joe West,Angel Hernandez,Dana DeMuth and the other terrible umps and say “Right turn Clyde”.