That's the Giants' final record thanks to Pablo Sandoval's moonshot over San Diego, and it's a hell of a lot better than 76-86, which was Baseball Prospectus's smarty-pants projection on Opening Day. Based on the big fancy PECOTA computer housed in Nate Silver's parents' basement BP figured the Giants would score 683 runs and give up 717.
Instead, the team scored 657 and allowed 611. Think about that a moment. The Giants' offense was even worse than predicted (and all kidding aside, PECOTA is a very good system), and their pitchers were 100 runs better than predicted. Pitchers and defenders, actually. The Giants were the best team in the majors converting balls in play into outs, what BP calls Defensive Efficiency. (While we were pulling our hair out, Randy Winn was turning hits into outs.)
The pitchers also had the most strikeouts in the majors, 1,294. That's a bit misleading because they faced opposing pitchers at least a couple times a night instead of, say, Hideki Matsui or Vlad Guerrero or David Ortiz. (If you want to know, the Giants, Cubs and Dodgers were tops, then the Yankees were fourth, leading the AL with 1,252 strikeouts.)
But strikeouts are strikeouts. They are not balls put into the play. So the Giants were extremely good at keeping balls out of play, and extremely good at turning balls in play into outs. That, señoras y señores, is how you only allow 3.77 runs per game.
Can they maintain such stellar pitching and D next year? It'll be very interesting to see which players get the nod because of their gloves. Travis Ishikawa comes to mind first. If he had enough playing time to qualify, he would be the top defensive 1B in the majors by a very wide margin, according to Fangraphs UZR/150. If he can bump his offense up a bit from .265 / .332 / .391 to, say, .280 / .350 / .450 he could be quite valuable. (As it was, Fangraphs said he gave the Giants nearly $4 m worth of performance this year.)
The Giants' biggest concern this off-season, other than finding a couple guys who hit the crap out of the ball, is regression to the mean. Teams that make 16-win leaps in a year often backslide a bit the next. Awesome bullpens have a way of clanking and clunking the next year. This is not my prediction, necessarily. I don't have a creepy talking mainframe in my parents' basement, I'll have you know.
I'm just saying a lot of attention must be paid to avoid the backslide. That's why the Giants want Pablo Sandoval to strap on the leggings and do a little more Jazzercise this winter. That's why Barry Zito's bromance with Brian Wilson is not over. (Thanks, Baggs, for getting Zito to admit to the bromance in the first place.) That's why Edgar Renteria will start at shortstop next year. I can just imagine Bochy saying, hey, he's got nowhere to go but up, right? Regression to the mean works both ways!
