The Giants enjoyed a nice 6 game win streak and then resumed sucking, and we are right back where we started: the potential to be one of the worst teams in baseball this year and Giants’ history. Wheeeee!
A couple of weeks ago we looked at the offense and saw that nearly across the board the Giants are under performing. Now, we turn our attention to the pitching. (I will be using ERA+, a stat I enjoy, instead of WAR for the pitchers).
For the sake of reference here are the Giants’ team ERA+ records for recent #EvenYears:
- 2010: 117
- 2012: 96
- 2014: 99
- 2016: 108 (even with that horrid bullpen)
and 2017: 88!
Also for the sake of reference, here were the highest/lowest performers for the rotation and bullpen from each year:
- 2010: Madison Bumgarner 131/Barry Zito 94; Brian Wilson 210/Guiellermo Mota 91
- 2012: Matt Cain 126/Tim Lincecum 68 (PS. Lincecum’s struggles deflated the team’s over all #s in 2012); Sergio Romo 198/Clay Hensley 77
- 2014: Madison Bumgarner 116/Tim Lincecum 73 (although Jake Peavy’s 159 in 12 starts is crazy!); Santiago Casilla 204 (whoa!)/JC Gutierrez (remember him! Me neither) 88
- 2016: Madison Bumgarner 145 (also Cueto at 142)/Matt Cain 71; Derek Law (where have you gone!) 188/Josh Osich 85
and 2017: Johnny Cueto 91 (Samardzija 90)/Matt Moore 68; Hunter Strickland 207/Steven Okert 68 (ALSO: Madison Bumgarner in 4 starts…139)
And then, finally, just one simple stat, Runs Allowed:
- 2010: 583 (+114)
- 2012: 649 (+69)
- 2014: 614 (+41)
- 2016: 631 (+84)
- 2017: 453 (-99)…they are “on pace” to allow over 800 runs!!!
A few initial observations about all that:
- That 2010 team was really good and history is only proving this to be truer by the day
- Madison Bumgarner is really good
- The demise of Tim Lincecum hurt the overall performance of the 2012/2014 teams who had to do a lot of patch work to cover for him
- 2010 Barry Zito would be the ace on this team
- The 2016 Giants were also very good, and were a bullpen away from taking on/down the juggernaut Cubs
- The 2017 Giants have a lot of the same players as the 2016 Giants
To take things a step further, the 2017 Giants are not good because their pitching has been really bad. There are million ways to slice this pie, but the raw stats of runs allowed should be more than enough. Let’s take one more look:
- 2009 RA: 611
- 2010: 583
- 2011: 578 (!!!!!!!!!)
- 2012: 649
- 2013: 691
- 2014: 614
- 2015: 627
- 2016: 631
- 2017: 815
From 2009 to 2016, the golden age of Giant’s pitching, the team has sniffed 700 runs allowed only once, during the injury riddled down year of 2013. This year’s version is threatening to blow right past that and break 800 for the first time since 1999.
I know many people have been very frustrated by the offense, and it has not been great, no doubt about it. But, it is on pace to score 637 runs, which is not that far from the 665 scored in 2014 (Champions!).
The true problem here is with the pitching.
Now, none of this answers the why. Why has it been so bad? Explanations include the obvious (Bumgarner and Melancon have been hurt, some steady hands retired, etc).
But I have two issues I would like to point out:
- I haven’t done a deep dive into the #s but it seems like the Giants have had a really hard time striking guys out. In particular, Matt Moore has gotten killed with 2 strikes. But it’s not just Moore, it seems to happen all the time.
- The game has moved to strikeout/home run era. And the Giants, as a whole, don’t seem to be moving with the game.
Which leads to the conclusion: do the Giants have a philosophy that is letting them down? Their strikeout rate is not terrible, and I’ll have to do a deeper dive on some of the numbers, but the 2-strike issues are startling.
The bottom line: the Giants have some really tough/fascinating decisions to make for the 2018 club, and most of them have to do with the pitching staff. If there’s something to watch for in the second half, this would be it.
