The Dodgers did in the 8th and 9th what the Giants did in the 1st and 2nd, get lots of guys off but leave them all on base. Nice symmetry.

I have slowly, torturously allowed my opinion of Feliz to change over time. He's looking since the All-Star break like a different hitter. Not a superstar or anything, but someone who MAY have a better idea of the strike zone and be a decent 3rd baseman to have IF you have other bats in the line-up. And his defense is plus-plus. I mean he's rated as one of the top 3rd basemen defensively in every chart and article I read. and I watch him make some sick plays out there.

So maybe I don't hate him, and wouldn't mind resigning him.

Gah! Did I just say that?

If the Giants had Mark Teixeira or Troy Glaus at first, Vlad in the OF, and the Ray Durham of last year (23 HRs, .360 OBP) in their lineup, Feliz would be tolerable as the 7th or 8th place hitter making a couple mil a year. But unless he takes a pay cut, he'll probably make $6 or $7 M next year.

Even with his hot streak of the last month, Pedro is right at his career average -- .290 OBP / .430 SLG -- which are still atrocious numbers for a key offensive position.

As I posted on the McChronic about this, I'm not saying Feliz has changed but his season thus far is marked by huge sea-changes as he apparently learns to use his new batting philosophy for good and not ridicule.

First, for his career as a mostly starter, he never had less than 10 strikeouts in a month until May of this year with 9 and he reduplicated that in July with an even better 6. So in other words, he has accomplished twice in 4 months what he could not accomplish once in 18 previous months. However, I should note that he had reached 10 K before.

However, second, on top of that, in July, for the first time ever in his career as a starter, he had more walks than strikeouts in a month. The closest he could ever get before this season was within 4 in 2005 (10BB/14K) and it beat his May 2007 (7BB/9K).

Third, since the start of May, his BB/K ratio is much improved and close to the magical 100% that you want to see in any hitter who is successful as a hitter (20 BB/26 K, that is roughly 75%).

Fourth, his contact rate is in the range where you find good hitters. With 40 K's in 371 AB, that's a contact rate of roughly 89%. The better hitters have a contact rate of over 85%, the good over 90%.

Fifth, while overall his stats look very similar, that's partly because he's learning his new philosophy so he makes mistakes sometimes, but each month he continues to achieve improvement, May marked the closest BB to K plus great contact rate, he continues the contact rate in June, then July had all the wonderful things happening at once as noted above.

Now the clouds in the coffee is that if you look at his actual stats month by month, he looked like he was regressing month by month from April to June and that July was just an aberration. July is his only good month statistically for a batting line, with a 818 OPS. And he has been up and down with his discipline, poor April, good May, poor June, great July.

The average 3B has an OPS in high 700's. That's probably why the Giants were so high on Feliz when he became a regular, he was in the high 700's plus his good defense, even while Giants fans denigrated him. If Feliz can hit 800 OPS with great defense, he's actually an above average 3B and valuable there.

And 3B is actually in the middle in terms of average OPS among offensive positions. 1B is first with an average OPS since 2000 of .838, LF is second with 817, RF right behind with 813, then 3B is fourth (out of 8 starters) with 775. But CF is close with 765. Then 2B with 741 (hence why Durham is so good; Frandsen is hitting around that in games where he had 3+ PAs), SS 727 (hence why Vizquel was so good last year), and C 723 (why Molino is good there past couple of years). I will note here that this includes all sorts of replacement level guys bringing down the average.

Then I found analysis at BP that showed why ELM noted 3B as a key offensive position. When looking at average, 3B is middle of road, but once you narrow it down to the best, then it shows how relatively rare good 3B are. Among the good, as BP defined it, 3B moved into 3rd by a good margin, but then among the elite, 3B was basically in a tie with LF for 2nd (just 1 point behind). And if Barry wasn't skewing the average for LF, 3B would be a clear 2nd probably.

So it is very hard to find really good offensive 3B, at least in recent times, which makes them rare and worth their weight in gold apparently. But that also means that by having an average hitting 3B, you are basically in the same boat as almost any other team.

Speaking of 3B, the Giants lost Brian Buscher in the Rule 5 draft last off-season and he was brought up to the Twins just the other day. Not that he's necessarily good, they have a sorry assortment of players playing at 3B, but still, couldn't we use someone who was good enough to bring up to 3B? I haven't seen his numbers, but maybe he had a breakout year finally, like Bowker did for us.

I was pretty surpised last night to see a couple balls just go by Omar. One was a shot, no question, but it was only two steps from him, and he was only able to take one step before the ball was by him.
I can't often see positioning on TV, but it seems like a lot of other team's SSs make plays in the hole that Omar doesn't. Perhaps they position more for balls hit up the middle. But I am wondering has Omar noticeable lost range?

Feliz has had many hot streaks in the past, but I've never been impressed with his approach the way I have been lately. Strikeouts have never been a huge problem for him, but grounding out on "pitchers' pitches" early in the count has been, and he's laying off those pitches a lot more these days. Plus, his defense has quietly jumped from solid to remarkable. God bless him.

Still, it's tough to erase six years worth of horrible at-bats, so I'm ready to move on. If he finishes the year strongly, however, I think offering him arbitration would be a good idea, something I wouldn't have even considered a month ago.

If you look at the defense stats on Baseball Musing, Vizquel doesn't compare very well with other SS, he doesn't get to the balls other SS do, but I don't think he's poor defensively, though I didn't check his stat for 2006.

That's a good idea, pantalones, maybe we can get a pick for him if he goes, though his poor stats last year and, as ELM noted, still this year, he might not even qualify for a pick. And yeah, it's tough to overlook his generally sad offense of his career. But if not him, then who? Not that I want him back, but who do we then get as replacement?

Interesting info, Martin (both on Omar and Feliz). The reason Feliz has value is that the good and the elite 3b men are RARE.
If you look at non platoon 3b men (I arbitrarily choose 240+ ABs), there are only 23 full time, non platoon 3b men. So, there is some value in having a full time guy as opposed to a platton, is there not? I mean, you can only platoon so many positions.
Of the 23 "regulars," 6 - SIX - have an OPS of over .900 (Braun, Cabrera, ARod, CJones, Ramirez, DWright); Only 8 have an OPS over .780. Combining the two, there are only 14 good or elite 3b men in MLB. Feliz is in a group of 9 (Punto is omitted) w/ OPS from .700 - .752, making him roughly equivalent, offensively, to Chavez, Zimmerman, Rolen, JBautista, Inge, and ENsberg (who doesn't qualify based on ABs, but I took a look at him as he was the subject of recent discussion). Feliz is significantly better, offensively, than the rookies, Gordon, Encarnacion, and Kouzmanoff.
I would opine, with his outstanding defense, he would rank very near, but still at the bottom, of the "good" category (the 8 w/ OPS of .780-.900). Which, if the assumption that full time players have more value than platoon players is accurate, puts Feliz somewhere in the top 15 or so of MLB 3b men. Also keep in mind, if there are only 23 MLB full time 3v men, 9 teams are still searching for a solution at 3b and mixing and matching. At $5 mil, I think that is a bargain. I also note the relative cascade of praise for him from players, which I think counts for something.

Martin, you comment, rightfully, on his "sad" career numbers. But, while they are at his peak ages of 28 and 29, he had OPSs of .793 and .790 in '03 and '04. This would, using my methodology, put him in the elite category. In the name of full disclosure, tho, I will point out his OPSs for '05 and '06 were .717 and .709.
When you factor in his outstanding D, his post ASB OPS of .921 (in only 72 ABs) is just tantalyzing as hell.

To quote from one of my non-favorite rock albums:

I get on my knees and pray /
We don't get fooled again