Their infield includes Panik, Crawford and Posey. Imagine if Elmhurst Steve's predictions about Cubs players underscored how well they would do... that describes the current state of the Giants infield. Pence is also unlikely to miss time again in 2016.

Bumgarner
Cueto
Samardzija (who you just know will suddenly become lights out because Sabean grabbed him and he's back in his AAAA league mowing down teams tanking for a draft pick)
Cain
Peavy/Heston/whatever

Panik and Crawford are nice players. Posey means a lot less at first than he did at catcher.

Bumgarner is great. Cueto has had nagging injury issues. Samardzija is a non-winning turd. That won't change. His numbers will look a little better because he can strike out pitchers. Who knows how Cain will come back? Peavy is a decent pitcher, a winner like Lester, but on the back end of his career.

I'm not too impressed.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

...and by the way, they have the WS 3 of the last 5 years....now, if you arent impressed then not really sure what you are looking at....as all the WAR, stats, etc dont mean anything compared to those RINGS.....and the nucleus of that group is still with them....Bumgarner, Posey, Pence and added Cueto and Shark...

Its not like they just signed some guys who had a good 2012 season and hoped they are going to win...

Giants are the most impressive team in baseball over the last 5 years. End of story...

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

JORR, you are unimpressed with the Royals and Giants. They have won 4 of last 7 WS and a combined 5 Pennants.


Which is weird because you're a guy who has actively pointed out how we are getting back to normal baseball (as opposed to the ridiculous steroid era numbers) and these teams are seemingly playing that style better than anyone.

I was impressed with the teams that won the World Series. That isn't this team. Adding Samardzija isn't some positive. And I doubt Cueto will be very good. I'm gonna guess he misses seven starts. Those teams that won the World Series had much stronger pitching than the current team. And as I said, Posey is the best catcher in the world. I'm not sure he's one of the ten best first basemen in the game.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I'm not assuming they are going to win 95 games. I'm expecting them to and will be disappointed if they do not. (Of course, that 95 as an exact number as irrelevant. I care more about whatever the number is to win the division).

The World Series is a bit different. I don't know if 2016 is the year. But I do know 2016 is another great bite at the apple.

And I guess you'll ignore that this team is structured much differently than any of the teams you've mentioned before.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

That's not right. The Giants won with good teams. I'm not sure how the Royals are winning.

Anyway, it's one thing to have two of Cain and Bumgarner and Lincecum at the the top of their games. Now you're asking a bum like Samardzija to be that. I don't like your chances.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

You're actually asking Cueto to be that, not Samardzija.

Obviously they are counting on Cueto for that, not Samardzija.

The 2014 Giants had only Bumgarner. Cain was awful and Lincecum was half the man he used to be.

Cueto is 92-63 in the NL.

He's made 30 starts in 6 of 8 seasons. Its not like he's some always injured guy.

I guess we'll see on that but Samardzija is a #3 at best in that rotation.

I wish you cocksuckers would take this Giants bullshit some place else.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Cueto could be that, but he hasn't been 100% healthy in awhile.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I don't believe that's good enough. And the 2014 Giants were the worst of their World Series winners. They got in and Bumgarner carried them.

As for the Royals, I guess the one thing you could say is that they are putting lie to something that has been accepted as conventional wisdom and repeated ad nauseam over the past ten years- that a strikeout is no worse than any other out. It clearly is since the other outs had a random 33% chance to result in a man reaching safely.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Are you saying that because of the BAPIP thing?


The numbers are the numbers. A strikeout lowers the probability of scoring in an inning ___ amount. A groundout lowers it __ amount. If the strikeout one is virtually the same as the groundout, then that's what it is.

But that's an after the fact stat. Its not a ground ball that might be an error. It's a groundout. I think a lot of the issues with these stats is people (myself included) make leaps like that.

Also no one gives any thought to whether a stat is meant to be predictive of the future or a representation of what happened. That's important.


It'll be interesting to see how these numbers and probabilities change now that we've been out of the steroid era for a while.


Anyway, Id say the Royals difference is bullpen and defense.

Obviously the bullpen has been a big factor for the Royals. Who knows how sustainable that is. Bullpens are notoriously erratic. The samples are so small.

After the outs have been recorded, they equal. But before the out occurs, they are not equal. It's better to have the 33% chance of a runner reaching safely than the minute chance (dropped third strike) that you have on a strikeout. The Royals are simply putting a lot of balls in play. And good things will happen about a third of the time.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Hmm Mmm. Whatever you say, Elmhurst IMU.

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there is twice the chance a ball will be a double play than an error. plus dropped third strikes and others. I ran Diamond-Mind simulations on this and found K's to be very slightly worse than balls in play. very slightly.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

It doesn't need to be an error. Approximately a third of all balls in play will result in the batter reaching base. That's simply a fact. (That number may be dropping slightly with the constant information-driven shifts that are being put on.) It's hardly arguable that a ball in play has potential for a better batter's outcome than a strikeout, even with double plays and dropped third strikes factored in.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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This is well said.

...Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say that strikeouts are good. They’re bad, we all know it. However, it’s okay to sacrifice a few strikeouts from position players in exchange for other things, like hitting for power or getting on-base at better than average rates.


http://riveraveblues.com/2010/01/what-d ... nce-22897/

I dunno man, this stuff has been researched over and over by guys way smarter than us. Ozzie Guillen never struck out, but sucked because he had no bat speed. If Abreu could miraculously not strike out and instead hit line drives, then yes, I agree, that would be a good thing.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

The first part has always been true of most power hitters. Babe Ruth struck out a lot (though certainly not by today's standards). The problem is that so many guys without those mitigating skills are striking out more than ever in the interest of seeing pitches simply for the sake of seeing them. The second part- getting on base at better than average rates (presumably via walks) is true for specific players but as an overall philosophy it's not really working since strikeouts are at an all time high and walks have remained pretty much static.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
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With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I wouldn't say Guillen "sucked". Bill James has an entire chapter with his opinion that Guillen was a better offensive player than the numbers suggest, for whatever that's worth.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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well, you get the idea.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Sure, and I'm not sure I agree with James on Guillen. Human beings are going to have biases. James likes Guillen and he hates Dick Allen. When the numbers fail to support one's biases, people often go looking for new/different numbers. Especially with regard to modern baseball analytics. There is precious little that could withstand real scientific rigor.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
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With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

That's a very strange way to say something, forget about " balls in play" for a minute and isolate straight up hits, what percentage of runners reach base in errors or sloppy fielding? Its minuscule.

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I don't know the numbers but I have my doubts they're "minuscule". Regardless, I should say that approximately 30% of all balls in play (not including homers) result in an actual hit, i.e. the overall BABIP for all balls ever hit is about .300, when you add in errors and homers it's got to mean reaching base around a third of the time.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
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One of these stat heads went through like 20 years of actual play-by-play data to figure out what the ACTUAL results were. not estimating. that is where they figured out that K's weren't much different than any other outs. those were facts, not opinions.

Course things have changed a lot with all the pitchers on roids now instead of the hitters and the SABR revolution, so the result may be somewhat different.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Did he write that before or after he proclaimed Kerrie Woods was doing the chucking during the Greatest Pitched Game in history?

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The actual results are that a batted ball results in a man reaching base about a third of the time. That isn't theory.

Again, I think you're looking at it from an after the fact perspective. Once the out is recorded, there is no longer a 30% chance for the hit. Look at similarly to Schrodinger's Cat. There is a point when the bat is connecting with the ball where we don't know if it is a hit or an out.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

what you are saying makes no sense. I'm sure if Jose Abreu choked up and used a 31 inch bat and all he cared about was making contact, his K's would go way down and so would his offensive value.

Of course a hard it ball is better than a strikeout. Nobody is arguing that.

_________________
Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

What do you mean it's making no sense? I'm not offering opinion here. I'm stating the fact that a batted ball results in a hit 30% of the time. That doesn't even include home runs. Jose Abreu isn't the guy in question here. As I said earlier, strikeout rates for elite power hitters have always been relatively high. You have to look at the overall numbers. Strikeouts are way up for all types of hitters.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don