Bear
05-15-2009, 04:11 PM
MAY 15, 2009
By Richard Dyer
MLB Outsider
MVN
The top two 2009 pre-season predictions about the National League West have come true:
1. For the third year in a row, the NL West continues to be a dramatically
weak division.
Although it was obvious last spring the San Diego Padres would essentially be a middling triple A team for the next several years, and that the Colorado Rockies franchise has comfortably settled into permanent decline mode, no one could have predicted the precipitous downslide of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Snakes are a team with serious young talent and two premier starting pitchers, but their loss of ace Brandon Webb can't begin to explain their 13-22 mid-May record, which has left them ten games out of first place. This indicates ominous, broader organizational issues exist, which even a managerial change likely can't fix.
2. The Giants will not score enough runs to consistently compete even in a
weak division.
At mid-May 2009, only two other teams in all of baseball have scored fewer runs than the Giants: the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres. (Hello.) The Giants have made a good initial run, and their 18-15 record is the same as the New York Mets. However, Giants team pitching is 7th overall in the Majors, while Mets pitchers are 4th overall, and the Dodgers' pitching staff comes in at 2nd overall. Even without Manny Ramirez and his 50 game timeout, the Giants' offense cannot begin to match LA's.
And don't think a trade for a "big bat" in July will magically solve the Giants offensive problems. To delicately paraphrase Mr. Wolf from the 1994 film "Pulp Fiction", let's not prematurely celebrate the success of that eventuality quite yet. Giants' management has created a dysfunctional organizational logjam of historic proportions, which only a mass movement of starting players can solve.
For starters, the current Giants batting line-up consists of five #6 batters (Randy Winn, Aaron Rowand, Edgar Renteria, Rich Aurilia, and Fred Lewis), one double A batter (Travis Ishikawa), one lead-off batter with great potential (Emmanual Burriss), one clean-up hitter who should be batting 5th (Bengie Molina), and of course the amazing Pablo Sandoval, a potent #3 hitter who will do great things in the National League the next ten years.
Not a pretty picture, but it gets worse. A lot worse.
The Giants have a first baseman playing third base (Sandoval), a minor league-caliber player taking up critical at-bats every day at first base (Ishikawa), and a high-priced mediocre player at shortstop (Renteria). So there would seem to be desperate needs in the infield, specifically at the corners.
But wait. The Giants have a dynamite young hitter, Jesus Guzman, currently in the process of being converted into a first baseman at AAA Fresno, and batting .361 with 29 RBIs. The Giants also have a multi-million dollar investment in Angel Villalona, the 18 year-old phenom due to take over first base in a couple of years. By my count, including Pablo Sandoval, that makes three up and coming young first basemen. We could play all three of them at first, but long-standing Major League tradition seems to go against that.
Nick Noonan, one of the Giants' top hitting minor league prospects, was an excellent shortstop whom the Giants decided to convert into a second baseman. Emmanual Burriss is an excellent shortstop whom the Giants decided to convert into a second baseman. And Edgar Renteria is the older, limited range shortstop the Giants decided to overpay ($18 million for two years) and who continues to miss plays and take up critical at-bats every day.
And guess what? There are several excellent third base candidates in the minors, one of whom should be at AT&T Park improving the Giants infield defense on a daily basis: Ryan Rohlinger batting .333 at Fresno, or Conor Gillaspie, the 3rd baseman of the future, at San Jose.
Is it me, or is there massive organizational dysfunction and incompetence on display here? Instead of long-range team planning, there is incoherence. Instead of a current line-up template that supports the outstanding starting pitching assembled at the Major League level, there is confusion and wasted at-bats every game.
Add to that another catastrophic team-created nightmare. Despite the Giants destructive late term dependency on Barry Bonds, they were fortunate that Bengie Molina came along and developed into a 100 RBI threat with power in the fourth hole. Last year, he had 95 RBIs and was the only starting catcher in the Majors to consistently bat fourth.
Now, the Giants are faced with yet another lose-lose scenario as Molina's contract comes up at the end of this year: in order to bring up number one prospect catcher Buster Posey in 2010, the team will be forced to either 1) trade Molina before the 2009 season ends to get some value for him, leaving a run-thirsty team without its only real run producer; or, 2) keep Molina the entire year and lose him to free agency without any significant compensation.
But, as San Francisco Chronicle sports writer Bruce Jenkins reported a week ago, the supreme irony in the Giants' massive organizational mess is that, with all the problems in the infield, the team's biggest need right now is to replace the three #6 hitters they have inexplicably installed in the outfield. And they need to make those moves pretty much right now-- before the Molina decision is made, before the run support for that great starting staff goes from 4.0 runs per game to 3.0 runs per game.
It is appropriate that AT&T Park lies close by the deep waters of San Francisco Bay. As we watch those in charge of the Giants organization scramble to come up with yet another confused reconfiguration of the deck chairs in an effort to distract us from that large iceberg we just hit (oh, I'd say about five or six times) we can always turn to that wise baseball maven and philosopher, Charles "Casey" Stengel, who might well have asked, "is there anyone here who knows how to run this baseball club?"
I found this today and thought some of you might enjoy reading it. Do you agree or disagree with the author?:p
By Richard Dyer
MLB Outsider
MVN
The top two 2009 pre-season predictions about the National League West have come true:
1. For the third year in a row, the NL West continues to be a dramatically
weak division.
Although it was obvious last spring the San Diego Padres would essentially be a middling triple A team for the next several years, and that the Colorado Rockies franchise has comfortably settled into permanent decline mode, no one could have predicted the precipitous downslide of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Snakes are a team with serious young talent and two premier starting pitchers, but their loss of ace Brandon Webb can't begin to explain their 13-22 mid-May record, which has left them ten games out of first place. This indicates ominous, broader organizational issues exist, which even a managerial change likely can't fix.
2. The Giants will not score enough runs to consistently compete even in a
weak division.
At mid-May 2009, only two other teams in all of baseball have scored fewer runs than the Giants: the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres. (Hello.) The Giants have made a good initial run, and their 18-15 record is the same as the New York Mets. However, Giants team pitching is 7th overall in the Majors, while Mets pitchers are 4th overall, and the Dodgers' pitching staff comes in at 2nd overall. Even without Manny Ramirez and his 50 game timeout, the Giants' offense cannot begin to match LA's.
And don't think a trade for a "big bat" in July will magically solve the Giants offensive problems. To delicately paraphrase Mr. Wolf from the 1994 film "Pulp Fiction", let's not prematurely celebrate the success of that eventuality quite yet. Giants' management has created a dysfunctional organizational logjam of historic proportions, which only a mass movement of starting players can solve.
For starters, the current Giants batting line-up consists of five #6 batters (Randy Winn, Aaron Rowand, Edgar Renteria, Rich Aurilia, and Fred Lewis), one double A batter (Travis Ishikawa), one lead-off batter with great potential (Emmanual Burriss), one clean-up hitter who should be batting 5th (Bengie Molina), and of course the amazing Pablo Sandoval, a potent #3 hitter who will do great things in the National League the next ten years.
Not a pretty picture, but it gets worse. A lot worse.
The Giants have a first baseman playing third base (Sandoval), a minor league-caliber player taking up critical at-bats every day at first base (Ishikawa), and a high-priced mediocre player at shortstop (Renteria). So there would seem to be desperate needs in the infield, specifically at the corners.
But wait. The Giants have a dynamite young hitter, Jesus Guzman, currently in the process of being converted into a first baseman at AAA Fresno, and batting .361 with 29 RBIs. The Giants also have a multi-million dollar investment in Angel Villalona, the 18 year-old phenom due to take over first base in a couple of years. By my count, including Pablo Sandoval, that makes three up and coming young first basemen. We could play all three of them at first, but long-standing Major League tradition seems to go against that.
Nick Noonan, one of the Giants' top hitting minor league prospects, was an excellent shortstop whom the Giants decided to convert into a second baseman. Emmanual Burriss is an excellent shortstop whom the Giants decided to convert into a second baseman. And Edgar Renteria is the older, limited range shortstop the Giants decided to overpay ($18 million for two years) and who continues to miss plays and take up critical at-bats every day.
And guess what? There are several excellent third base candidates in the minors, one of whom should be at AT&T Park improving the Giants infield defense on a daily basis: Ryan Rohlinger batting .333 at Fresno, or Conor Gillaspie, the 3rd baseman of the future, at San Jose.
Is it me, or is there massive organizational dysfunction and incompetence on display here? Instead of long-range team planning, there is incoherence. Instead of a current line-up template that supports the outstanding starting pitching assembled at the Major League level, there is confusion and wasted at-bats every game.
Add to that another catastrophic team-created nightmare. Despite the Giants destructive late term dependency on Barry Bonds, they were fortunate that Bengie Molina came along and developed into a 100 RBI threat with power in the fourth hole. Last year, he had 95 RBIs and was the only starting catcher in the Majors to consistently bat fourth.
Now, the Giants are faced with yet another lose-lose scenario as Molina's contract comes up at the end of this year: in order to bring up number one prospect catcher Buster Posey in 2010, the team will be forced to either 1) trade Molina before the 2009 season ends to get some value for him, leaving a run-thirsty team without its only real run producer; or, 2) keep Molina the entire year and lose him to free agency without any significant compensation.
But, as San Francisco Chronicle sports writer Bruce Jenkins reported a week ago, the supreme irony in the Giants' massive organizational mess is that, with all the problems in the infield, the team's biggest need right now is to replace the three #6 hitters they have inexplicably installed in the outfield. And they need to make those moves pretty much right now-- before the Molina decision is made, before the run support for that great starting staff goes from 4.0 runs per game to 3.0 runs per game.
It is appropriate that AT&T Park lies close by the deep waters of San Francisco Bay. As we watch those in charge of the Giants organization scramble to come up with yet another confused reconfiguration of the deck chairs in an effort to distract us from that large iceberg we just hit (oh, I'd say about five or six times) we can always turn to that wise baseball maven and philosopher, Charles "Casey" Stengel, who might well have asked, "is there anyone here who knows how to run this baseball club?"
I found this today and thought some of you might enjoy reading it. Do you agree or disagree with the author?:p