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

02.19.2008
Scary Spice

Here’s Ray Durham, in today’s Chron: "I think we have the makeup here to scare some people in the West."

Well, if that doesn’t scream for a silly picture, I don’t know what does. I searched Flickr for “scary makeup” and found several snapshots of people in Halloween costumes or looking at themselves in a mirror, but the rest were of a pasty chubby young man posing naked on a cheap sofa.

Urggh. Blech. Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of filter on these search engines?

I think the Goddess of Metaphors is trying to tell me something: Look for a quick easy laugh about the 2008 Giants’ state of affairs, and you only end up sad and slightly nauseated.



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[February 19, 2008 9:36 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Lars said

Early this off season, I was already grumbling about the '08 season. Perhaps I am at the "acceptance" grieving level, or maybe I have developed the "7 mile stare" of a war veteran, but in any case I am over it. The team is going to lose a lot of games this season. That is just the way it is.

With that said, I think the Giants have the pitching to make life pretty miserable for the other NL teams, but probably not the NL West. The Giants record against the NL West last season was a horrible 28-44 while going a combined 38-37 against the other two NL divisions. Maybe that record takes a hit with the diminished offense? Maybe they win a few more 1-run games this season to help offset that?

Or maybe (and most likely) I am talking out of my a** and lost the point of my post mid-stream! (honest, I had one) :p

[February 20, 2008 1:03 AM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive replied to Lars

Going by Pythagorean, the Giants should have won 2 more games against both Arizona and Colorado, and 1 more game against SD. They should have been 33-39.

Plus, they were 5-10 in interleague play, but the A's should be more of a pushover in 2008 (1-5 in 2007) plus they get 3 games against KC instead of TOR and, though 6 games against Det and Cle is not fun, it is still not like facing NYY and BOS in 2007...

[February 20, 2008 3:58 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Boof replied to obsessivegiantscompulsive

Too bad Pythagorus doesn't play the game. The Giants would have more hope.

[February 20, 2008 12:53 AM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

I still say that with the addition of Rowand, the loss of Bonds/"cast of thousands" will not be as dire (Giants LF in 2007 hit .260/.420/.494/.914; Rowand hit .309/.374/.515/.889 overall and .299/.368/.475/.843 on the road in 2007) plus having Roberts hit healthy for a season vs. half a season (.260/.331/.364/.695 overall vs. .291/.362/.388/.751 second half, which is very much like his career for the past few seasons.) would help make up for the difference between Bonds and Rowand.

In addition, either Durham is returned to a semblance of what he was before (mid-700's) or Frandsen takes over and hits that, which is way above what 2B hit for us in 2007: .226/.304/.337/.641.

Plus, if Durham is OK enough, Frandsen should be offensively better than Feliz at 3B, and even Aurilia would be approximately that bad, Feliz hit .253/.290/.418/.708 and Aurilia wasn't far off in the second half, after his neck problems ruined his first half, hitting .254/.324/.361/.684.

The team with Bonds averaged 4.2 runs per game in 2007 (actually 4.0 WITH Bonds, 4.6 without Bonds) and the lineup calculator at Baseball Musing says that - with FanGraph projections for the Giants expected to be in the lineup - the lineup would average 4.2 runs per game.

Assuming some improvement in the pitching because of improved talent (out with the bad - Benitez, Ortiz/Morris - in with the good - Wilson, Lincecum/Correia), the Giants, which Pythagorean said should have won 77 games in 2007, could end up a few wins higher, putting them squarely in the .500 range - not something to put up a banner about or shout from the nearest mountain top, but certainly not worthy of the depressing talks I have seen about the Giants 2008 season.

And if Cain and Lincecum can take a giant step forward in 2008 plus Zito return to his 2005-6 form, I think the Giants will be tough opponents for the NL West, maybe won't win that many, but there will be a lot of close games where the Giants just miss out on. The pitching rotation can possibly be scary to the opposition in 2008.

[February 20, 2008 2:42 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Chris said

OGC,

I still haven't seen a projection that projects Rowand to OPS over .800 and I just don't think its likely to happen. He might get close to .800 but I don't see him exceeding it, never mind what he did on the road last year.

Actually, I think the Bill James projection does but I don't care for the James projection system much.

Right now, PECTOA has the team OPS projected as 7 points worse than it was in '07.

The offense at best, I think, will hold steady to what it did last year. Read: be terrible. It also has the chance to be really terrible.

My two favorite projection systems, ZiPS and PECOTA, have Rowand at a .769 and .781 OPS respectively.

Durham is going to be a semi-wildcard but I don't think we can expect him to do much. His age plus his nagging injuries don't give him the best opportunity to bounce back.

The Giants will have to ride their pitching and hope that Cain and Lincecum both continue to get better. I think Lowry is going to regress and Correia could go either way. I'm not big on Correia but he did earn the chance to start after his spot starts last year.