I know. The San Francisco Giants are old. They have a roster full of players as likely to wind up on the DL with a broken hip as a pulled hamstring. They have prune juice in the Gatorade coolers in the dugout. They have spring training in Arizona, because that’s where most other senior citizens spend February and March. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
However, an interesting twist on the same old, same old has started to take place at AT & T Park in recent weeks. The Giants have actually, gasp, gotten younger. And I’m not talking about the supposed rejuvenating effects of HGH. I’m talking about actual major league players in their 20’s playing for the black-and-orange.
Sure, there were a number 20-something pitchers who were expected to play key roles for the team from the very start of the season. Matt Cain (22) has been thought of as a future ace, Noah Lowry (26) already had two full seasons in the starting rotation prior to 2007, Jonathan Sanchez (24) showed promise as a useful bullpen arm after a mid-season call-up last year, and Kevin Correia (26) was the team’s best reliever in 2006. Even the Giants’ biggest free agent acquisition of the off-season, Barry Zito (29) is among that group.
However, a decidedly rarer species of baseball player (at least for the Giants’ organization of recent vintage) has been spotted around the old ballpark for San Francisco lately, the 20-something position player. With an offense built around Barry Bonds, Ray Durham, and Rich Aurilia, any infusion of youth was welcomed.
Though Bonds is still a dangerous and feared hitter, he’s also 42, has a pair of creaky knees, and is dragging around enough personal baggage to fill a #### trunk. Oh, and if all of that isn’t enough, he’s also probably viewed by most sports fans, fairly or not, as the biggest villain in the game. Durham is 35, had a career year in 2006 (26 homers, 93 RBI), and is far better suited to being a solid, complimentary hitter than a go-to guy batting clean-up. Aurilia is also 35, also had a nice bounce-back season a year ago (.300, 23 homers for Cincinnati), and is also far better in a supporting role than center stage.
So when 26-year old Fred Lewis hit for the cycle a couple weeks ago in Colorado, it was like a bolt out of the blue for a team with an offense mostly on the wrong side of 30. For Giants fans, who had gotten so used to seeing their star hitters sporting a touch of grey, seeing a young guy who could actually swing the bat was a bewildering experience. It was almost like a UFO sighting. Or rather a UBPO, an unidentified baseball-playing object.
Most Giants fans had the same two questions: who’s Fred Lewis and why hadn’t we heard of him before?
Turns out, Lewis wasn’t exactly tearing up the minor leagues before his big league call-up. In 2006, he hit .276 with 12 homers, 18 steals, and 105 k’s at AAA-Fresno. In 2007, he was going along at about the same pace (.263 with 4 homers and 22 k’s in 114 AB’s). He hadn’t shown up on many people’s radar simply because he hadn’t produced much to show up on radar.
But there he was, going 5-for-6 with 4 RBI against the Rockies on Mother’s Day, just four days after being called up from Fresno. And he looked for all the world like a guy who could make some noise at the MLB level – a slashing hitter with blazing speed and good defensive range.
However, the biggest surprise in the Giants’ 15-3 thumping of the Rockies was that Lewis wasn’t the only young hitter to make a splash in the San Francisco lineup that day. Utility man Kevin Frandsen (25) collected four hits and drove in three and outfielder Dan Ortmeier (26) added a pair of hits and a pair of RBI.
That’s three, count ‘em, three young players fresh off the farm who were all making loud noises from the batter’s bax. UBPO’s, indeed.
Of the three, Frandsen was the most well-known by Giants fans. A scrappy infielder with a head-first mentality on the diamond, Frandsen was being groomed to be the Giants’ starting 2B until Ray Durham channeled his inner Rogers Hornsby and prompted the team to re-up their newly found slugger. Frandsen’s recent call-up came with the caveat that his playing time would be based on his ability to adapt to other places on the field. Defensively, the results have been mixed, though he’s shown some impressive natural ability in the outfield. At the plate, his pesky, slap-hitting tendencies have translated much better. Through 18 games, he’s hitting .294.
Ortmeier has apparently taken Todd Linden’s place as Barry Bonds’ designated omni-replacement. Whether spelling Bonds late in games as a defensive sub or pinch-runner, it is now Ortmeier’s responsibility to take the field once Bruce Bochy has decided the big fellah has had enough. Linden had that job for 30 games before sputtering to a .182 average which led to a demotion to Fresno, and, eventually, his release from the team. To his credit, Ortmeier has fared much better (.364), albeit in limited duty (22 AB’s).
Since his headline-grabbing day in Colorado, Lewis has predictably cooled off. However, he’s still hitting a fairly robust .326 in 46 AB’s and has shown that his dangerous, slashing swing is, apparently, for real.
So, what to make of the three anomalies in black-and-orange? Are they hidden gems who just needed an opportunity to make their mark at the MLB level? Or are they middling prospects riding a short hot streak before a stumble back to mediocrity? Granted, their collective 2007 MLB sample size is as miniscule as the limited freebies handed out at the end-cap of a local supermarket. So, it’s difficult to know what, if anything, to make of this smattering of MLB games.
What I do know is that Lewis looks the most likely to have any long-term impact with the team. His speed is impressive, and he’s shown some ability to use the whole field when he’s at the plate. He probably needs to take some of the venom out of his swing to speed up his bat, but the potential is there. Frandsen looks like a player who can and will do all of the little things a good team needs its role players to do. There’s likely no stardom in his future, but there could well be several more seasons of MLB service time ahead of him. Ortmeier probably ought to get used to what he’s doing right now. If he stays on an MLB roster, it is likely to be as a late-inning backup who does just enough right to be a safety net on the bases and in the field.
Of course, the team’s highest-ceiling youngsters are still a pair of 22-year old pitchers, Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum. Lincecum, in particular, has bounced back nicely from his shaky MLB debut. However, that is another story for another day.
Today, the focus is on the rare bird that is a San Francisco Giants position player in his 20’s and the fact that the team actually has three of them making a little noise right now. And speaking of noise, in the words of the World's Loudest Rock Band, the kids are, for the moment, alright.
I have seen the future of the San Francisco Giants, and it has an 10.38 ERA.
Ok, in fairness to the Giants’ 22-year old pitching phenom, Tim Lincecum, that unimpressive ERA is the result of only a single start. Further, that start was Lincecum’s MLB debut in a nationally-televised game against a dangerous offensive team, the Philadelphia Phillies. So, if it is normal for a young pitcher to have butterflies before his MLB debut anyway, Lincecum likely walked out to the mound last night with small birds flying around in his stomach. However, the hoopla and anticipation of Lincecum’s maiden voyage in MLB waters was well-deserved.
Lincecum, the Giants’ first-round draft choice in 2006, was leaving the AAA Pacific Coast League in smoking ruins. The PCL, notoriously a hitter-friendly league, was proving no challenge for the Giants’ prized prospect. In five starts with Fresno this season, he was 4-0 and had only allowed a single run in 31 innings for a ridiculously low 0.29 ERA. That number is probably worth repeating, the kid’s ERA was 0.29. And it was no great surprise that his peripheral numbers were equally impressive: 12 hits, 11 walks, and 46 strikeouts in those 31 innings.
However, success was nothing new to Lincecum. In his senior season at the University of Washington, he went 12-4 with a 1.94 ERA, struck out 199 hitters in just over 125 innings, and won the 2006 Golden Spikes Award as the nation’s best amateur baseball player. San Francisco made him the 10th pick overall in the 2006 MLB amateur draft and sent him immediately to rookie ball in Salem-Keizer and then to A-ball in San Jose. His combined minor-league numbers in 2006 seemed to justify his draft status – 2-0, 1.71 ERA, 14 hits, 12 walks, and 58 strikeouts in 31 2/3 innings.
So, Lincecum, who bears an eerie resemblance to Ferris Bueller’s sidekick Cameron, stepped on the pitcher’s mound last night at AT & T Park with a minor league stat sheet that read like something out of Walter Johnson’s scrapbook - 6-0 record, 1.01 ERA, 101 strikeouts in just over 62 innings. And it took him exactly one inning to find out that The Show isn’t easily impressed.
After Jimmy Rollins bounced a single up the middle to lead off the game, Lincecum flashed his high-90’s fastball by Shane Victorino twice to get ahead in the count, 0-2. Now, he’d probably been able to get away with a bad pitch or two at lesser levels, but when his 0-2 curveball hung in the fat part of the strike zone, Victorino hit it all the way Sausalito. And just like that, Lincecum had already given up more runs than he’d given up all year at AAA. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.
To his credit, Lincecum ended up striking out the side, including zipping a nasty outside fastball by reigning NL MVP Ryan Howard. However, one thing that Lincecum will learn is that big league hitters can hit big league fastballs if they eat up too much of the strike zone, even those that are thrown in the high-90’s. So, in the third inning with two out and a man on, he missed on a pitch at the belt to Ryan Howard, and the big fellah crushed it. If Victorino’s first-inning blast ended up in Sausalito, Howard’s third-inning bomb probably went all the way to Santa Rosa.
When Howard came up again with one out and one on in the fifth, his mammoth blast two innings earlier earned him an intentional walk with first base open. An unintentional walk to Pat Burrell loaded the bases, brought Lincecum to the 100-pitch mark, and ended his big league debut when Vinny Chulk was summoned from the bullpen. The Giants ended up losing the game, 8-5, but Lincecum did not figure in the decision.
So, the Giants’ potential future staff ace headed off to the showers with the following pitching line: 4 1/3 innings, 5 hits, 5 earned runs, 5 walks, 5 strikeouts, and a no-decision. Not exactly the stuff of Walter Johnson.
However, what Lincecum did show was that he belongs in the major leagues. His fastball is as nasty as advertised, but his command and pitch pattern needs some work. Experience and some growing pains should allow that to work itself out. His curveball can be a great off-speed weapon, but command (or lack thereof) is again a key. In all, he pitched better than the numbers indicate. He was hurt by the walks but was really stung by the two bad pitches to Victorino and Howard. And since Howard hit 58 round-trippers in 2006, there’s no real shame in allowing a homer to such a prodigious power hitter.
If anything, last night was a fairly ringing wake-up call to a talented young pitcher who may have had things going a little too perfect in his favor. If he’s smart, and he appears to be, he will learn from his mistakes and keep improving each time out by applying that experience to each of those situations. In fact, he needs only to look in his own dugout for inspiration.
Matt Cain, who’s actually two-and-a-half months younger than Lincecum, came into the league in 2005 with nearly as much fanfare and had to work on some of the same issues that Lincecum is now facing - controlling an overpowering fastball, learning to mix pitches to keep hitters off-balance, and limiting mistake pitches in dangerous parts of the strike zone.
To Cain’s credit, his hard work has paid off. He already has 275 innings of MLB experience on his resume and an impressive 3.70 ERA over that stretch.
If Lincecum should work out as well, the Giants would have a one-two punch that would be the envy of the league. So, Lincecum’s future is still bright, but it’s probably safe not to have to wear shades for the time being.
With the first month of the MLB season in the books, I've noticed an alarming number of celebrity lookalikes on the baseball diamond so far this year. Last month, I did a college basketball "Separated at Birth" post (here) of collegiate hoops players and their celebrity lookalikes. This month, here are some MLB players and their "Separated at Birth" twins.
Exhibit 1 - Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Brad Penny and Larry the Cable Guy
Do you think Penny asked the Dodgers if he could cut the sleeves off of his jersey?
Exhibit 2 - San Francisco Giants pitching phenom Matt Cain and Bobby Hill from the animated TV series "King of the Hill"
I wonder if Cain says, "I said, 'Good Day, Sir!' " to each batter he strikes out.
Exhibit 3 - Boston slugger David Ortiz and stand-up comic George Wallace
Big Papi seems like a pretty funny guy, so if he were to switch places with Wallace, people probably wouldn't notice. However, I'm guessing if Wallace were to don a Sox uniform, things might not go as well.
Exhibit 4 - Phillies slugger Ryan Howard and Rapper KRS-One
The Teacha meets the Hittah.
Exhibit 5 - Arizona manager Bob Melvin and former "America's Funniest Home Videos" host Bob Saget
I'm guessing that showing a bunch of videos of people getting hit in the nads is easier than being a Major League manager.
Exhibit 6 - New York Yankees outfielder Johnny Damon and the Geico caveman
Geico, so easy even a New York Yankee can do it?
Exhibit 7 - Former journeyman reliever Will Cunnane and the kid from "Deliverance"
Brings new meaning to the term "banjo hitter", I guess.
Exhibit 8 - Arizona closer Jose Valverde and former "Fresh Prince" star Alfonso Ribeiro
Carlton Banks throwing 90+ mph cheese. It just doesn't look right.
Exhibit 9 - Reds reliever David Weathers and Tackleberry from the "Police Academy" movies
I wonder how many times a day Weathers gets called "Tackleberry" or if he can sit and watch a "Police Academy" movie without wanting to throw his TV set out the window.
Baseball, sunny summer afternoons, frosty beer, and pitchers who look like Larry the Cable Guy. What more could you ask for? Play Ball!
The San Francisco Giants under GM Brian Sabean have been rather underwhelming in the risk department. In baseball terms, they tend to wait the full 60 minutes before swimming after a meal. An extended warranty on that $75 DVD player? Yes, please. Check both sides of the street before crossing and then wait another minute or two, just to make sure.
As such, established veterans trump high-ceiling youngsters. Cheap, short-term contracts render scary long-term deals moot. And the back of a baseball card yields so much more useful information than a scouting report.
The Giants simply haven’t had the stomach for the big splash in recent years. They’ve been committed to building around Barry Bonds and mix and match the parts around him as needed without a second thought to any philosophical shift.
Until yesterday.
Yesterday, December 28, 2006, Sabean pushed every last one of his chips into the center of the table (in a move that would make Mike Matasow check himself) for a pitcher, a young pitcher. And in a blink, the team’s power shifted from one “Barry” to another “Barry”, and the entire direction of the team spun on its ear with a single personnel decision.
The San Francisco Giants have always prided themselves on having a thunderous offense. Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda, Will Clark, and Barry Bonds are all part of the Giants’ power-hitting pedigree. Pitching has always been an afterthought in the organization, preventative medicine at best and a necessary evil at worst.
By offering 28-year old Barry Zito $126 million over seven years, the Giants turned that philosophy upside down. Their brightest star, their biggest bread winner is now a pitcher. It is one of the richest deals in MLB history, and there is little question that Zito’s fortunes are now tied as closely to his team’s fortunes as any player in the league for the foreseeable future.
And what are the Giants getting for their roughly $18 million per season?
If nothing else, Barry Zito is dependable. In his career, he’s never missed a start to injury and regularly throws 220 innings a season. At 24, he won the AL Cy Young Award with a 23-5 record and a sparkling 2.75 ERA. Last season, at 28, he went 16-10 with a 3.83 ERA for a division winner.
Given that the Giants had a serious need in their rotation after Jason Schmidt bolted for Los Angeles and the hated Dodgers in the off-season, the team actually had few choices in landing an impact starter other than Zito. That they needed to pony up astronomical dollars to so do is a much more a by-product of this year’s market for dependable starters than anything else.
And outside of the money, the prospects for San Francisco’s rotation are highly promising. Zito brings a Cy Young and a playoff pedigree to the table. 22-year old Matt Cain has one of the highest ceilings of all young NL pitchers. 26-year old Noah Lowry is only a year removed from having one of the best second-halves in the league. Veteran Matt Morris is a legitimate luxury at the #4 spot.
Granted, the terms of Barry Zito’s new contract represent enormous risk. However, for a franchise that has played it so safe for such a long time, it also represents the fresh start that management had promised for 2007 and now seems intent on actually making good on.
Nooch is a lifelong sports fan who believes that Indianapolis ended up with a slightly better QB than San Diego in the 1998 NFL Draft, the Golden State Warriors may not make the NBA playoffs again in his lifetime (how was I supposed to know that Chris Mullin would make a coaching hire and a mid-season trade that would basically save the franchise?), and that Mike Ivie's pinch-hit, game winning grand slam for the Giants against the Dodgers in 1978 may have been the greatest moment in baseball history.
