Friday, May 26, 2017

Matt Cained

2-0 loss in SF
Matt Cain found himself in familiar circumstances tonight: pitching well but the team failing to deliver runs. It felt like the good old days in '07 and '08 when he put up a 15-30 W-L record. The team was a robust 149-175 over those two seasons; that .460 win percentage looks pretty good right now. It was a 0-0 tie until the top of the 7th when the Giants intentional-walk-of-the-no.8-hitter gambit bit them in the ass. The Braves pitcher, veteran southpaw Jaime Garcia, got a two-out hit and two runs scored on the play and that was the ballgame. Garcia had thrown six scoreless by that point and he got two more outs in the bottom of the 7th before handing it over to the 'pen who kept the string of zeros going. The Giants got four hits, all singles, all against Garcia.

Buster Posey played first base. Imagine how rested and protected Posey would be if he could DH. He'd be a great DH. I say we lobby the NL to adopt the DH. I'm not willing to go there, usually, but we're talking about Buster here. I'm willing to go there for Buster. The question is: are you?

--M.C.

8 comments:

nomisnala said...

I do not know if Belt would have made the play, but Posey's failure to turn a grounder into a DP and get Cain out of the inning, ended up with the Braves scoring 2 runs. Although they did walk Posey once intentionally with runners in scoring position, in two other AB's with men on base he did nothing. Is it possible that a clean up man, with 7 homers and batting about 340 at this juncture in the season can only have 11 RBI. If he does not change his pace he could literally end up this season with approximately 40 RBI. Perhaps its time to move him out of the clean up spot if he is not driving in runs. Belt who bats in front of him often has a decent OBP. I still cannot rap my head around 11 RBI. Some teams now have 3 or 4 guys with over 30 RBI. I keep waiting for the team to hit, that this is just a small sample size and things will even out, so instead of hitting better, they are hitting worse.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I don't think anything is wrong with Buster. The team has the lowest OBP in the game. You can't drive in runs if you don't put guys on base. Not to say it isn't a weird season for Buster, but I don't think it says something about his baseball skills. It's a terrible lineup: there aren't enough rallies or scoring chances being created for anyone. He started poorly, not hitting with any power and hitting a lot of grounders, but he looks like Buster now, unfortunately Belt is slumping and he's the only other guy in the lineup with above league-average production.

Zo said...

In answer to your question: No.

Posey is invaluable as a catcher. He was on first last night, that is sort of like being a DH (or as close as the NL gets). Didn't help.

As you say, the Giants have the lowest OBP in the game. They also have the lowest Slugging percentage (and, naturally, lowest OPS) and and the lowest number of home runs, and the lowest number of walks in the NL. They lead only Kansas City in total bases and runs scored and lead only San Diego in batting average. Madison Bumgarner will not help that situation, and it is too much for Hunter Pence to help very much (although, last night the 5 hole in the batting order was a .224 hitter). Two-fucking-twenty four!

I think it is time to start asking the question, "Is this team full of under-performers, or is it poorly constructed?" Is it the capability of the players or the fact that the players are not playing up to their capability? I don't know why the team would be, after 3 WS titles, constructed too badly to have a chance of success, but neither do I understand how they could fare so badly on a player by player basis. We've had a few pitching fuck ups, but it is clearly not the pitchers. Were our batters mediocre, we would at least have a mediocre record, maybe a little better. I'm not seeing much that looks like a light at the end of this tunnel right now.

Zo said...

p.s. Everyone is using the phrase "cained" to describe a team loss when a starting pitcher pitches well. Krukow, Jon Miller, the goobers on the post game show. Remember, you heard it here first. Kind of a neologism.

nomisnala said...

We cannot excuse the low RBI total just because of the low team OBP. Look at his success or failure rate in RBI chances. Seems as if he is pressing with men on base. A more detailed analysis could be helpful to see exactly what he is doing with men on base. I do not think it is the lineup ahead of him that is the problem.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I don't think it is entirely due to one thing, but weak team hitting hurts everyone. Buster is hitting poorly with men on compared to his career norm, but it's a small sample, and over the long haul his numbers will trend toward what we are used to seeing. He was not hitting for power early in the year, that made a big difference. You can see Posey's splits for this year and his career in almost any situation you care to consider. He's had a bad stretch, no doubt, but I don't think it's an indicator of his decline or any sort of problem with him as a player. I think it's just Murphy's Law: all the things that could have gone wrong with the team this year HAVE gone wrong.

The TEAM sucks. Team stats (like RBIs and pitcher-wins) suffer. Look at Samardzija. He's pitched the best (Sorry, Johnny) but has the worst record. He has the lowest run support of the starters.

M.C. O'Connor said...

And although my tongue was in my cheek when I proposed DH for Buster and the NL, it's not an outrageous notion. Look at Victor Martinez. He's 38 and still playing. He stopped catching years ago, by age 32, but has 858 games and 7200+ innings over 12 seasons "in the squat." Buster is at 732 games and 6200+ innings over 9 seasons. After all the hand-wringing on this site about the abuse he takes at catcher I can't believe I'm the only one to suggest this. Yes, I prefer NL rules. Yes, Buster is more valuable as a catcher than in any other spot in the lineup or on the field. But if we really believe the team should maximize his chances to play until he's 40 then it has to be considered. I think we'll have uniform rules (100% DH) within five years anyway, why not get ahead of the thing? Buster has already been part of a significant rule change (for the better I might add), would it be so bad if he was part of another? I've accepted the inevitability of NL DH baseball, obviously.

Zo said...

The DH is an abomination. If it goes to the NL, it will make the game less interesting, which seems to be the trend these days. But that won't make it any less of an abomination.