How Good Is The San Francisco Giants Pitching Staff?

Quick Note: While xFIP is my favorite popularized metric to predict future (luck-neutral) ERA, I have become more enamored with xFIP 2.0 lately, which uses HR/OF_FB% (outfield flyball%) to calculate the xFIP metric. However, calculating a player's xFIP 2.0 (or maybe just xxFIP) would take too much time right now (as it is not pre-calculated) and I have a law review to get back to writing. Therefore, for the quick and dirty purposes of this post, I shall use xFIP (as I did in the preseason) as the baseline for my analysis.

The 2010 SF Giants are currently the best defensive team in baseball. They have accumulated a team Fielding Runs Above Replacement (FRAR) of +18.0, meaning their defense alone has won them an additional ~1.8 games compared to the mythical "league average team." At this rate, Giants gloves are preventing +0.38 runs per inning. If all stays constant, what does this say about the 2010 Giants pitching staff going forward??

Right now, the Giants are fourth in baseball with a team ERA of 3.25 and are sporting the highest team K/9 mark (8.00, slightly ahead of the Cubs' 7.98 mark) in the league. The starting five -- Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Jonathan Sanchez, Barry Zito and Todd Wellemeyer -- have respective ERAs of 3.14, 2.36, 2.90, 2.78, 5.03. At the behest of a friend, who claimed that Zito was awesome, I took a look at what would happen if we adjusted each starter's peripherals based on park/defensive metrics. The results are interesting.

According to Baseball-Reference's 3-year park factor data, AT&T Park has inflated total run scoring by ~4%. Using this index, the Giants' FRAR/Inning rate and xFIP data, we can project each starter's prospects for the rest of the season, boldly assuming all (such as K/9, BB/9, GB%, FRAR/Inning) stats remain constant. Adjust mentally based on where you think each player will improve/regress as the season progresses.

All of the above produced the following chart:


Cain has obviously outpitched his peripherals so far this season with a career low K/9 rate. If Cain can regain his strikeout talents going forward, I'd take the under on his ERA projection.

Other than Cain, the rest of those numbers seem about right to me. What do you think?

Giants Seeking Left-Handed Bat, Sign Aubrey Huff

After Adam LaRoche (surprisingly) turned down the Giants offer of two-years, $17 million, the Giants -- who ranked second-to-last in ISO (with a team mark of .132) and dead last in all of OBP, BB% and wOBA last season -- concluded their search for a "lefty-hitter" by signing Aubrey Huff to $3 million, one-year deal. The same Aubrey Huff who hit .241/.310/.384 (.684 OPS) last season. How this is an upgrade for the Giants, who hit .257/.309/.389 (.699 OPS) as a team, is anyone's guess. Even when you account for Huff's .263 BABIP (.311 xBABIP), Huff's adjusted batting line (assuming all additional hits would be singles) last season would have been .282/.347/.426 (.773 OPS).

Yes, at $3 million/1-year, the Giants are only paying for less than even a single WAR on the open market. Such a signing makes sense if the team is in no position to compete, rebuilding for the future, and does not wish to waste resources by plugging temporary holes. The Giants are not in such a position, however. They were top 5 in FIP and #2 in xFIP last season. They have a super rotation of Lincecum-Cain-Sanchez in the top 3 spots, while Zito manages to be the highest paid (and most overpaid) number five guy in all of baseball. Furthermore, the Giants have one of baseball's best pitching prospects, lefty starter Madison Bumgardner, waiting in the wings alongs with baseball's top catching prospect, Buster Posey.

On the other end of the field, the Giants have Kung Fu Panda. That's it. Sure, Aaron Rowand is trolling around somewhere in the outfield, making web-gem-like diving catches at routine flyballs, but he's a 2 WAR player at this point in his career. What does it say about your offense last year when your second best offensive player was Juan Uribe? It says "hmm, maybe I should have offered more money to a better offensive player (like Jason Bay, Matt Holliday or Russell Branyan) or even try upping my offer to Adam LaRoche, rather than wasting salary on an old-as-balls guy in the twilight of his career (2008 aside, Huff has been on the decline since 2004.)." Don't believe me? Check out these 2010 percentile forecasts from ZiPS (click to enlarge):



According to ZiPS, only two players on the Giants 2009 roster have a greater than 2% chance to hit (at least) 30 home runs next year, and the Giants non-tendered one of them. Ryan Garko was also one of only three players on the Giants in 2009 who is projected to have a 20% or greater chance of posting an OBP greater than or equal to .375. Of those who will be with the Giants next season, only Kung Fu Panda has a remotely and statistically relevant (5% or greater) chance of hitting 45+ doubles in 2010. Furthermore, if you click the ZiPS link (above) rather than look at my screen shot, you will notice that only Kung Fu Panda is projected to be at least 5% better than the average offensive player next season.

In plain English, the Giants need some real (and serious) offensive help.

Perhaps this move was just Brian Sabean's way of telling Dayton Moore (who recently signed Scotty Pods) that he is challenging him for the title of worst GM ever.