When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

11.21.2007
Thanks Given

It’s my favorite American holiday: no plastic trees or horrible music, no street parties that end in gun violence, no ridiculous assertions of national dominance. Just family, friends, and food, and a clear mandate to be thankful for everything we have, be it health, or children, or love; be it a good job or no job or the freedom to be creative, to worship (or not), to speak freely. 

011-baseballLet’s give thanks to the Giants for giving us the most beautiful place to watch baseball and for, ahem, not raising ticket prices this year. Even more thanks to Alexander Joy Cartwright and the New York Knickerbocker Base Ball Club (or, if you prefer, to Abner Doubleday) for getting this party started. I don’t know where I’d be without you guys. (Doing my day job more diligently, probably.)

OK, enough mawkishness. Yesterday’s comments brought up an interesting philosophical debate: who’s worth more, a front-line starting pitcher or a perennial All-Star position player? More specifically, Tim Lincecum or David Wright? Depends on what you mean by “worth,” I guess. To the Giants, who have a wealth of young pitching but a dearth of can’t-miss (or even might-not-miss) position players in the high minors, it seems obvious that David Wright would be more valuable.

Let’s use a geekier tool: Baseball Prospectus’s WARP, which measures the number of wins a player’s overall game contributes to his team. In this excellent article on the N.L. MVP vote, BP’s Joe Sheehan shows that Wright had the second highest WARP in the league this year, tied with Jake Peavy, the unanimous N.L. Cy Young. (Sheehan says Albert Pujols with his excellent defense factored in should have been MVP; the real-world winner, Jimmy Rollins, didn’t even have the highest WARP on his own team.)

So if Wright — in only his third full big-league year — can produce as many wins as the unanimous Cy Young winner, doesn’t it stand to reason that he’s worth more than a great starting pitcher and is head and shoulders above a merely good starting pitcher? And when will Tim Lincecum graduate from being a merely good starter to great? Anyone here want to bet that Lincecum will be a top-10 Cy Young candidate next year? As much as I love The Enchanter, I wouldn’t make that bet. Maybe in 2009, but by then David Wright could have an MVP under his belt.

How good does Lincecum have to be to equal Wright’s value? The past three years, Wright has contributed 26.4 wins to the Mets. Brandon Webb, probably the best pitcher in the NL over that period, has contributed 26.1 wins to the Padres. The best hurler in the A.L., Johan Santana, has added 29.6 wins to the Twins ledger.

Just for fun: In his best three years — 1997, 1999, and 2000 — Pedro Martinez was worth 39.5 wins. Whopping, baby.

Lincecum was worth 3.1 wins in 2007. He’s fun to watch. He could throw a no-hitter anytime he’s on the mound. He could be one of the greats. But David Wright is already great, is likely to be greater still — and comes without the injury risk.

The hypothetical trade that got all this started will never happen, of course. But I don’t think there’s much argument who would be worth more to the Giants right now and for the next three or four years.
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[November 21, 2007 2:50 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Giants Dwarf said

Wow, when did Webb join the Padres?

[November 21, 2007 3:25 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Boof said

Think Bob Gibson at his best....... That's what Tim would have to be in order to be Wright's equal.

[November 21, 2007 6:41 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM said

Whoops. I meant Diamondbacks, obviously.

[November 22, 2007 1:30 AM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Sure, when you throw out facts, yeah, that makes a difference. :^)

Given the stats you provided, yes, it would seem to be a no-brainer, you go with David Wright.

I think the problem with this analysis is that it focuses mainly on winning during a season, not winning when you are in the playoffs.

I think we can all acknowledge that when you have a good pitcher, there are many games he can dominate and control, and with a great one, he can dominate over half of his games.

I see your geek stat and present The Baseball Forecaster's P.Q.S. (Pure Quality Starts) which takes the quality starts concept and updates it for the sabermetric era. For each start, a pitcher gets one point each for doing something that sabermetrically shows that he pitched well, whether it be pitching over 6 innings, giving up hits equal or less than IP, striking out within 2 of IP, striking out double or more walks given up, and giving up less than 2 HR.

Thus a start can range from 0 to 5, with a score of 4 or 5 denoting a dominating game. Then they calculate the percentage of starts a pitcher dominates.

Good pitchers dominate over 40% of their starts. Elite pitchers dominate 50-70% of their starts. The best dominate over 70% of their starts. Most pitchers are under 40%.

I've kept this stat the past two seasons on my blog for the Giants and Cain dominated 52% of his starts in 2006, 56% in 2007. However, Lincecum dominated 67% of his starts.

Now, I don't know the stat for players this season, but in 2006 the only pitchers over that were over 60% while starting most of the season were:

Chris Carpenter 66%
Roger Clemens 68%
Francisco Liriano 69%
Pedro Martinez 70%
Mike Mussina 75%
Brett Myers 65%
C.C. Sabathia 68%
Johan Santana 76%
Curt Schilling 71%
Ben Sheets 76%
John Smoltz 74%
Brandon Webb 64%
Carlos Zambrano 70%

Pretty exclusive company, eh?

So in his first season, he dominated the league as well as pitchers who took years to reach that level of dominance.

I won't even mention that he was even better once he got over his rough patch in his second month. Or that he should be even better next season.

In a short series, when you have tough pitchers like Cain and Lincecum going at the other team, particularly when winning three games cinch the first round with them starting 3-4 of those games, that improves the odds greatly don't it?

Same with 7 game series, when they get to start 4 of the first 6 games.

Having a dominating pitcher helps things, but can you see that having two of them provides a tipping point where it greatly influences a team's chances of winning in a short series, particularly when you can set the rotation to begin with them?

And can you see how power it would be if one of our young pitchers come through in the next year or three and join the two of them in the rotation, how powerful THAT TRIO would be?

But having a David Wright does not do as much for us if the other team walks him all the time like they did Bonds. They can help neutralize his offense by pitching to our lesser players. And where will we pick up the protection for Wright in the lineup, trade Cain after trading Lincecum?

I think traditional sabermetrics ignores the significance of how much a pitcher can affect a game. It is really the only time in a baseball game when one player can dominate the other team simply by being good to great regularly. A home run every 10-20 AB is great but that's only 1-2 homer in a short series and you need more offense to win a game. A pitcher can dominate a game, and when you have two or more of them, you dominate series.

[November 22, 2007 1:17 PM]  |  link  |  reply
reeky said

Great analysis from OCG -- never heard of that PQS stat. 'Course it begs the question, what if you don't make the playoffs???

Put into yeoman-layman terms, there has to be balance between offense and defense. It's a very hard balance to maintain: look at the Yankees during their domination, and how their inept pitching acquisitions sunk them. The Red Sox have learned the lesson since their all-hit no-pitch days.

The Giants are out of whack, their Feng Shui is off, and I'm concerned that Grasshopper Sabean is not in touch with the Force. His moves should be smoother, more Tai Chi than slam dunk, more long term than tomorrow. He needs a Master with a long stick to bring him in line.

[November 22, 2007 3:58 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Boof said

You can't even think about the playoffs if you don't have an offense that is good enough to win games in the regular season. It' backasswards thinking.

[November 22, 2007 9:24 PM]  |  link  |  reply
MattChina said

Right...I'm not sure your analysis makes much sense, ogc. The Giants are not in a position where they can afford to tailor their roster toward a playoff run.

I know it's hard not to get excited about Lincecum, but let's not jump the gun here. He's a decent young pitcher with the potential to turn into an ace in the rotation. Wright already is a stud at third base, one of the best players in the league, and doesn't figure to get appreciably worse for the next several years.

As for Timmy, some have said he'd be better suited to the bullpen, anyway, and he's an arm injury away from a destroyed future. Cain is the keeper of the two. I'd say dangle Lincecum, see if a team overvalues young pitching and is willing to give up a superstar young player, and pull the trigger if that is the case.

[November 24, 2007 4:29 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Tom Clifton said

Hey, lets be thankful for what we have. Tim's on the roster.

We also picked up Travis Denker from the dodger's as a PTBNL. He played exceptionally in the post season for the SJ Giants. And is now on the 40-man roster.

We have good position players moving up. You might not see them in Fresno, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there.

[November 29, 2007 10:58 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Doug Purdie said

Win Share stats are great tools for comparing pitchers or hitters or defenders... to each other. I am skeptical about it being any value comparing pitchers to hitters, or any other kind of apple to any other kind of orange. I think it undervalues pitching.

So yes, I'd rather have Lincecum them Wright.