Friday, March 12, 2021

Kevin Gausman

The Giants are hoping for a lot from Kevin Gausman. If he can perform close to his projections, there's a good chance they'll make him a multi-year offer. The team has learned a lesson or two about long-term contracts, so I suspect the 30-year old righty would get something like three years, not five. But in today's market three years is a long time. The only new Giants player with a three-year deal is Tommy La Stella, for example. Even Trevor Bauer signed a three-year deal, and he has a CYA on his shelf.

Gausman made his spring debut today and pitched two uneventful innings. The Giants have over 40 pitchers in camp and we've seen an inning, it seems, from every one of them! Now that they are getting closer to the opener the projected starters are getting scheduled for some game time. (Scott Kazmir also pitched today.)

It will be all about the results for Gausman. He's said publicly that he'd like to stay in San Francisco, and I think the Giants feel similarly. The former first-round draft pick (#4 in 2012) has some strong seasons behind him but injury and ineffectiveness pushed him into baseball limbo. Last year he changed his pitch mix and increased his velocity and saw the payoff with a career-high strikeout rate and a career-low FIP. Walk and homer rates edged below career averages, too. It's hard to know how that will translate to a 30-start season rather than a 10-start one, but the Giants like his attitude and work ethic. They'd like to see him be the ace they can match up with Kershaw and Buehler and Snell and Darvish and the rest.

He may not be quite at their level, but he has a good chance to be very close. Close enough to give the team a fair chance against them. Projections tend to give Gausman about 30 starts (~170 IP) with solid peripherals, around a 3.65 FIP and 3+ WAR. The Giants would be happy with that, as would I. What the 2021 team needs is some solid, consistent pitchers. They need a starter they can count on every turn through the rotation. (Johnny Cueto, can you be that guy, too?) And if Kevin Gausman turns into the second coming of Jason Schmidt that could make the year very interesting indeed.

--M.C.

22 comments:

nomisnala said...

Gausman to me also reminds me so much of Jason Schmidt. A few years of that type of pitching and he will indeed be that formidable ace. I just hope he has it in his mind set. It is interesting how Vogelsong used mind of matter to deliver several very good years. Cueto last year seemed to get bogged down into throwing way too many pitches. Often after he was able to get 2 strikes on hitters he had trouble putting them away. His former ability to get the K, turned into many a fouled off good pitches, increasing his pitch counts to limit his outings. He needs to get more crisp. Lets hope that at least 3 of the other arms amassed by the giants brass can become a workable if not formidable rotation.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I just hope Gausman is healthy and can pitch all year. I think he will pitch well but it is all about staying on the field!

Cueto is a big question mark. I can't get a handle on what we'll see from him. Projection systems are not optimistic.

Alex Wood is probably the most project-able of the rest, he'll likely be good but not pitch a whole season. There's a lot of uncertainty with Sanchez and DeSclafani. I like both moves, and once again I think it is all about health. If they are healthy I think they'll be solid.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Speaking of health, Luis Alexander Basabe has a wrist injury and will be out 6-8 weeks. That narrows down the pool of potential CFs.

Steven Duggar is looking good in camp. He's 27 and this is his make-it-or-break-it year, it seems. MLB is the ultimate cut-sport! He has one option left and I'll bet he has the edge over FNG lefty LaMonte Wade, Jr. who is also 27 and has one option left. In the same box is Joe McCarthy, LH 27-y.o. w/ one option left.

Lefty Hunter Bishop, the 2019 1st-rounder, will be 23 this year, and has yet to play above A-ball, and there's of course the precocious righty masher Heliot Ramos. He'll be 22 in September and has a great shot of seeing some real ML-time this season.

Jaylin Davis seems to be lost in the shuffle. He's a righty and not yet 27, and has two options left. I suppose if he lights it up in AAA again he'll get a shot as a replacement if one of the starters goes down. Right now CF consists of Dubon, some Yaz, and maybe a bit of Slater.

nomisnala said...

Dubon surprised me in centerfield last year. I thought he was better than anticipated, and possibly under-rated. He seemed to easily get to the ball, get good jumps, and rarely had a misread on a ball. For someone who had played very little center field in the past, he made the transition look rather easy. With more time in center, he should turn out to be a darn good center fielder. I hope his extra weight does not slow him down, and does add more power. Not sure how that will translate to actual results. Slater and Duggar have both been quite injury prone. Slater has shown some signs of being a decent hitter. In the last game vs. the Pads last year, he was called out twice on pitches that were not even close. He did seem to have a much better eye than the man in blue behind the plate, but it did not translate well into positive results.

Zo said...

I can't disagree with this:
https://www.dailyherald.com/sports/20210313/rozner-mlb-is-just-asking-you-to-abandon-the-game

M.C. O'Connor said...

I don't spend much time thinking one way or the other about Manfred. I will give him credit for at least trying out some thing even if they are goofy (I like the bigger base idea, actually).

I don't think it is good for the game for the Commissioner to impose changes. It should be a more organic process. But there is no mechanism in place to try some things out and see if they might work. MLBPA is no help. They are stuck with their out-of-date CBA and are focused on the wrong things. The owners are clueless. The fans want the game they watched 30 years ago but are also against any changes to the rules. (It's been 50 years and people still hate the DH, for example!)

M.C. O'Connor said...

Remember Joe Martinez? He pitched for the Giants and took a liner to the head. He got a skull fracture, concussion, etc. He recovered and stayed in baseball after that. He's got a new position, "senior director of on-field strategy" for MLB. He does things like report to the owners on the Competition Committee. There is an article by Andrew Baggarly about this at The Athletic.

I get the impression that the experiments in the minors are going to be looked at from a lot of angles and guys like Martinez are like coordinators and liaisons between players and managers and owners. I actually have a more optimistic take on all of it, mostly because it seems like there are a lot of people involved who all take it seriously and want to do it right. Manfred puts on a lousy front but it seems like the people actually doing the work are OK. Guys like Nick Hundley, Gregor Blanco, Rajai Davis, and etc. are MLB employees who are part of the process, too. Martinez is college-educated and worked outside of baseball (finance degree) and seems well-liked and well-respected. Hey, if Manfred listens to the results of the experiments before making decisions then I feel like there could be some good outcomes.

Giants owner Greg Johnson (son of the old guy who gave money to nut jobs) is vocal about his desire to see more balls-in-play:

“I think we can do a lot to bring back the old game with more balls in play,” Johnson said in a recent Q&A with The Athletic. “In 10 years, I think it’s gone from having a ball in play every 2 1/2 minutes to every 3 1/2 minutes. Despite what we’ve tried to do to shorten the game, it’s still three hours-plus. Now, I think it’s a beautiful game and a great game. I don’t want to sound like I think otherwise. But like any business, you have to be open to change, and for my involvement with the other owners, there is more openness to change now than there ever has been.

“The big goal is we’ve got to get millennials more engaged with baseball and there are a lot of things we’re putting on the table right now that we’ll be thoughtful about. We won’t just install changes. We’re going to get player buy-in first, we’re going to study it with analytics, but we’re going to make changes that I think will get the game back to a more action-oriented sport that we’re all used to.”



nomisnala said...

quicker games, less commercials, more money then coming from the fans, than from commercial interests. The 16 inning Marichal vs Spahn game was one of the greatest games I saw. I would have hated to start the 10th inning in that game with a runner on second. If you love baseball you love all the excitement of extra innings and long games. If you like to get in, and get out, and move on to something else, maybe just maybe baseball is not your game. Not meaning you personally but meaning you generically.

M.C. O'Connor said...

That game, according to B-R, was 4 hours and 10 minutes long. A 4:10 game over 16 innings is equivalent to a 2:21 time for 9 innings.

Game 4 of of the 2020 World Series (8-7 TB win) was also 4 h and 10 m. That game featured 13 pitchers. It was a 9 inning game.

We are watching a very different game today than we watched back then. Some of it I have no problem with. Some of it I do. Today's game is too slow. Plate appearances take too long. There are too few balls in play. I think some simple tweaks can improve that, and I think MLB should look for such solutions. I would really like to see most games be over in 2-1/2 hours and certainly under three hours. That could come about just by increasing the tempo.

I like extra innings, and have seen plenty of great such games, but I get why the league wants to cut them down. I could see them using a tie-breaker scheme for the regular season and saving extras for playoffs. They limit extra innings in the Asian leagues, for example, and it seems to work fine. But that's not my issue. Extra innings is not going to make or break the game. It's not about length so much, but about pace.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Alex Wood and Dedniel Nunez both dealing with injuries. Nunez is Rule 5 and they could lose him if he's out for an extended time. Wood is a projected starter and this might open a lot for Webb. I wonder if that's why they are looking so hard at Menez.

nomisnala said...

I would expect that a 16 inning 1-0 game vs. Marichal and Spahn would be a relatively quick game per inning, but it was not the typical game even at the time as far as time goes. We had two pitchers with excellent control, with excellent stuff, despite Spahn's age. It all depends on who is watching. I took my kids to a Marlin's, Rockies game years ago, with Al Leiter on the Mound. My kids were getting a little fidgety and started in the 6th inning to ask when are we going to leave. I told them if you want to leave we will go after Leiter gives up his first hit and the no hitter is off the table. As it turns out he pitched the no-hitter and we stayed the entire game. Even years after, my kids are glad that we stayed to see the no hitter. I understand when children get fidgety and lose their patience, but for me if a game goes three and a half hours instead of two and a half hours, I feel as if I am getting more of my money's worth. My wife may not feel the same, but I am the die hard baseball fan. Is it really the die hard fans that want to see the games shortened, or is it the run-of-the-mill fan? If so, are the numbers of the run-of-the-mill fan so great that baseball is willing to tamper with the game? One could argue that it is generational, well maybe everything today has to be done superface. For some, cooking in the microwave is too slow. For me, I like quick service at some businesses, but like a few other things, I like my baseball games, nice and slow. I have not been questioned by any marketing firm about this issue. Maybe I am just a dinosaur, but one who spends a lot of money on baseball.

M.C. O'Connor said...

In the 60s and 70s, games averaged 2-1/2 hours. In the 80s they crept past 2:45 and in the "teens" of this century they average just over three hours. We have an extra half hour of nothing! See this link to Baseball-Reference for the history.

Another thing about that chart at B-R is seeing the number of pitchers per game. Before 1990 the average number of pitchers used per game was under 3.0 and by 2015 it was over 4.0 and that of course adds time without adding action.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/misc.shtml

I'm a diehard lifelong fan and I like to relax and watch a game but I'm tired of the wasted time. They need to pick up the pace. In 1999 the number of pitches per PA was 3.74 and now it is 3.97, not a big change, but when pitchers take so damn long BETWEEN pitches it gets annoying, as it does when batters step out after every pitch. They need to clean that up, it was not part of the game in my youth.

Zo said...

I'll agree that pitchers need to get the lead out and pitch if you'll agree that batters need to quit acting like prima donnas and stand in the box and hit. But even if we can agree on that, the top three reasons that games take much longer than they used to is, in order: 1) advertising, 2) advertising, and 3) advertising. Since they will change any and every damn thing about the game before they do away with any revenue, games are not going to get shorter. The pace of play may increase, but not the time spent. So either quit complaining about wasted time or convince yourself that your 8th Chevy add per day is interesting.

Right now, I have much less interest in baseball than I did in 2019, 2018, or any earlier year in my life and I am angry about it. A pitch clock or bigger bases is not going to make millenials flock to the game, nor is it going to save anyone any real amount of time. But it is going to change the game, and so far, I don't see it doing it for the better.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I like to think of a baseball game on TV as a TV show about a baseball game. It is a television event first and sporting contest second.

They've actually cleaned up the between-innings stuff. They now have a time limit. I noticed a few times last year that KNBR didn't come back quickly enough and missed a pitch. I see that as a positive development.

If they can ditch all the in-game interviews that would be nice. I really want some manager to rip off the head phones and say "I gotta work, man" and go back to his spot in the dugout. Kapler did that last spring in an exhibition game and I would like to see that catch on.

Unfortunately we are stuck with broadcasters and ex-players who are all experts and so they don't know how to shut up and stay out of the goddamn way and let us enjoy the game. But TV loves its celebrities and MLB trots 'em out every year, the same schmucks, and the advertisers pay giant gobs of cash for the privilege of fucking everything up. Welcome to capitalism without a free market.

Hey, if that means we have to pick up the pace of play then I am all for it. Times change, the game changes. Pace-of-play is my biggest issue, and I understand it is a matter of taste. But what about Balls-in-play? Surely you can both agree that the game would be better with more balls put into play and thus more emphasis on fielding and baserunning. I think MLB should consider some tweaks to the game to improve that. (Supposedly they have "deadened" the ball this year to reduce HRs.)

M.C. O'Connor said...

Baseball-reference has charts worth looking at. In the 40s, there were fewer than 4 whiffs per team per game. In the 60s it was over 5 K/game. It hit 6 K/g in the 90s, rocketed past 7 in the teens and now is over 8 and pushing 9 K/game. It is nearly one strikeout per inning! That's a lot of non-action, that is, balls NOT put into play. Homers have made a big jump too, averaging fewer than 1 per team per game through almost all of baseball history until the big post-strike jump in the 1990s. It's now about 1.2 HR/g.

Look at the chart and you will see the corresponding drop in stolen bases and sacrifices. Players know the payoff for homers is better than for anything else so they swing for the fences. I hear from a lot of fans, casual and serious, that the game is less interesting because there is less variety in the outcomes of a plate appearance.

In 1968, when Bob Gibson had 13 shutouts and a 1.12 ERA and the AL batting champ (Carl Yastrzemski) was the only regular in the league to hit over .300, MLB changed the rules. They lowered the mound and began tinkering with a smaller strike zone. The league knew the suppressed-offense environment was not going to keep enough fans interested. Pitching duels are fine, but not every night. The game was too skewed toward pitching. It was an unusual and anomalous season. So there is nothing wrong, in principle, with MLB tweaking the game to create some positive change. It's not like baseball suddenly started to suck in 1969--there was still plenty of great baseball in the 70s, 80s, etc., etc.

nomisnala said...

The quickest way to speed up games is if a person has two strikes and fouls off a pitch, it becomes strike 3. We do that in some of our leagues to speed up our games because there just may be so many teams and so many acceptable fields to play on. However, I would hate to see that in professional baseball. Some of Belt's 14 pitch AB's have been classical, and if Belt or the pitcher wins, it becomes a battle and an entertainment piece all on its own. However, those long AB's certainly increase the the length of the game. I read a case the other day of a 22 pitch AB in spring training. Foul ball strike 3, shorten the game to 7 innings, Start every inning of a tie game with a man on third. The creative options, vary from the sublime to the ridiculous. Folks like myself love the game the way it is. Although a progressive in politics, I am an ultra-conservative when it comes to screwing around with the greatest game ever created and its time honored protocols. By the way, when I watch the few games on 4000k instead of 1080P, they do not show the commercials or have any inbetween inning banter on the 4000K. Those half innings on 4000k seem endless. I still haven't gotten over the DH rule, but I am glad to accept it as a differentiating factor between leagues. It has made me so much more of a fan of NL baseball. Imagine how much less of a factor Bruce Bochy would have been in the A.L. While my youngest son, in his 30's wants everything done as of yesterday, I like things to simmer unless of course those things are life-saving medical emergencies, or excessive waits on line for minor services that can be done much more quickly and efficiently. But the more time I can sit back, relax, and enjoy baseball games, the less time I need to worry about everything else in life. I suspect that I am on the eventual losing end of the batter. That does not mean that I am wrong. At least not for me.

M.C. O'Connor said...

A good manager is a good manager, DH or no DH. NL managers don't really make that many difficult choices because of the lack of DH. In fact, most of the decisions to lift a pitcher for a PH or to do double switch are so obvious most fans could make them. I think that is one of the most over-hyped "distinctions" between NL and AL ball. You don't see managers who switch leagues having any difficulties with the NL vs. AL.

I'd be more willing to stick with traditional NL ball (which I grew up with) if pitchers could hit. You can count on one hand pitchers who can hit! That's a big change in the game--pitchers don't hit in amateur ball or the minors so they are mostly a joke at the ML-level. And watching a reliever hit is even worse, in fact, most of the time relievers are never given the chance to hit, thank goodness.

I have no problem with selective hitters and long PAs. Belt is a personal favorite of mine because of his excellent strike zone discipline. It's the constant stepping out (batters) and stepping off (pitchers) that makes the pace-of-play a problem, and MLB does not seem to have a solution.

I think batters should not leave the box unless it is two strikes or they are knocked down by a pitch or if they hit a foul ball. Otherwise they should stay in the box. That would save a lot of the stupid dilly-dallying and sweatband adjusting. Pitchers could be limited in step-offs as well, like one or two per PA (unless a catcher calls time, and he should have a limit on that!), unless of course there are runners on base. MLB is considering even limiting pickoff throws, but I think that's a bad idea. They may be boring, but getting the fans to "boo" loudly after too many is actually a good part of the game. Plus pitchers often throw one away and that's fun for the baserunning team.

nomisnala said...

If one full major league has pitchers hitting, than it is baseballs problem in bringing pitchers up to the majors who have zero hitting skills. It it is part of the game. Of course there will always be some players who have great pitching talent, who cannot hit no matter how much they practice, but for hitting to be almost completely ignored on the minor league level, when one half of MLB prefers not having a DL, is perhaps a form of malpractice. How did so many great pitchers in the past have at least a modicum of hitting skills. When a pitcher was truly good, and could not hit major league pitching, he would become an MLB pitcher because hit pitching skills were so good it did not matter as much if he could hit or not. I know we want hitting prospects to get all the AB's they can get in the minors, and perhaps avoid injuries to pitching prospects from their roles as hitters, but it is part of the game. Not sure with all the gains in rehab technology, and orthopedic surgery, why injuries remain so prevalent. But that is a complete other issue.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Yeah, you'd think MLB would want all-around athletes, but they don't seem to. Pitching is such a premium position and everybody always needs more pitchers, so they don't get development as hitters any more. It is a kind of malpractice, that's a good word, but it has been going on so long now I don't see it changing. DH is used in every level so it is easy for amateurs to start specializing.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I think owners/GMs see the investment in pitching talent as too important and don't want them to risk injury by hitting and running. Pitchers get hurt all the time just pitching so there is no reason to give them more chances to hurt themselves. In the end I think that's why we'll get universal DH.

Joe Maddon once said, about baseball, "they should just call it 'pitching' ".

nomisnala said...

extending on these changes, if this is the case, and it may be so, the ultimate end will be to field your best fielding team, which may not be the same as your best hitting team. Baseball will become more like football with separate offense and defense. It is a logical extension to the arguments being made. Why should your best fielder get hurt by being hit by a pitch, and why should your best hitter be injured diving for a ball in the outfield. Also it provides the highest level for hitting and fielding for the fans. In addition, one may also have a designated base-runner who can run for people once they reach base, without taking the hitter out of the game. Why not just have the best at each function play. Once we start changing the game, there are folks that will always take it a step further. How far are we willing to go? Baseball said no to anabolic steroids? I wonder if they will change that position sometime in the future, especially if newer and safer anabolic steroids become available with limited or almost no side-effects. We use other techniques to enhance baseball players abilities. Anabolic steroids were often taboo, not only because of the advantage it theoretically yields, but because of the risk that one taking them may incur. If that risk were severely minimized or eliminated, the argument against them would be much weaker. We already use ophthalmic techniques which alter the lens in a players eye, so that their vision can be vastly improved. Many procedures including Tommy John surgery are used to enhance performance. I do think that baseball traditionalists are traditionalists for many reasons. When folks talk about the slippery slope, baseball could end up being one that once it gets started could end up becoming a downhill slalom.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I'm not one for "slippery slope" arguments. It's reductio ad absurdem. We can't necessarily assume that a change to something will generate a cascade of changes. Nor can we assume all changes are bad.

Baseball has had many rule changes in my lifetime, the two biggest being the DH and division play. They've tinkered with the strike zone and lowered the mound height. They adopted "The Posey Rule" about collisions at the plate, got rid of the neighborhood play at second base as well banning the take-out slide. In the very olden days you could throw a spitter legally, that rule was changed of course. I do think that medical advances (like safe steroids) will result in some unpredictable outcomes for all sports

Not to mention the biggest "rule change" of all, free agency. Or you could say Jackie Robinson was the biggest.

The pitcher, at some point in the future, will pitch behind a screen or will have a fielder positioned next to him to protect him. It will start in amateur ball. With the exit velocities hitters can generate today there will be an increase in serious injuries from comebackers and liners up the middle. I hope that is many years away. MLB tried to get a safety helmet for pitchers going a few years ago but the players who tried it were mocked and they unfortunately looked really weird. Even Mike Krukow, who should know better, was dismissive of the attempt. We've seen with the NFL that CTE is "the next big thing" and baseball will have a reckoning with concussions and head injuries, too.