San Francisco Giants

KA: So what are we going to sling around this time, Don---mud or numbers?

DM: Probably some variable combination of both, don'tcha think?

KA: I'd be disappointed if it weren't that way.

DM: And you know how much we both hate to be disappointed. But when we're talking about the Giants, it's going to be hard for their fans---and you still qualify for that designation---not to be disappointed in the 2004 team.

KA: So can I sling mud first?

DM: Hey, I'm wearing my Bud Selig™ T-shirt and a pair of old blue jeans that can walk under their own power-muddy it up to your heart's content.

KA: Brian Sabean is an idiot.

DM: You know, that sounds vaguely familiar.

KA: Yes, but he's REALLY an idiot this time.

DM: As opposed to all those other times?

KA: Uh-huh. And let me elaborate. Sabean has apparently decided that he can ride Barry Bonds to a division title with an ever-diminishing cast of talent, and as a result he's made no effort to create any safety valve in case Bonds does a swan dive.

DM: Yeah, that's true---but so far that approach has worked, and the question of when Bonds does swan dive is a daunting one. What can you say about that?

KA: If we look at the two players that Bonds resembles most in terms of late-career performance---Ted Williams and Babe Ruth---you see that those two guys hung on pretty well in their age-39 seasons (176 OPS+ for Ted, 161 for the Babe). And if we estimate a .330/.420 OBP/SLG for the NL in '04, ZiPS suggests that Bonds will have an OPS+ of around 205 this year.

DM: Which would be a great season, but a sizable downturn from 2001-03.

KA: Right. So it doesn't make sense to thin out the supporting talent as the offensive bellwether starts to decline.

DM: What does the runs scored/runs allowed data projection look like?

KA: Last year, the Giants scored 755, allowed 638. That's a 93-win season according to Pythagoras. They caged out seven extra wins. This year, Bonds and the new players project to ~720 runs. If the pitching staff performs at the same level---

DM: ---And that's a big if, isn't it?

KA: Yes it is---but if it performs at the same level, you're looking at around 90 wins.

DM: Given how torn up the NL West seems to look in '04, though, that might be enough to squeak by, though, yes?

KA: Maybe---but you're not going to do that if your #1 starting pitcher is either injured or ineffective for a good part of the season.

DM: As could be the case with Jason Schmidt.

KA: Right. And that doesn't factor in the continuing likelihood that the Giants will be without Robb Nen for most or all of '04. Felipe Alou managed to sidestep that problem last year with Tim Worrell, but he's gone. That leaves Matt Herges and Felix Rodriguez to try to take up the slack.

DM: Who would you go with between those two, if you had to choose?

KA: I think I'd try Herges, if only because he shows a much better K/W ratio and better control. Felix is just too erratic.

DM: And Sabean traded away Joe Nathan to get A.J. Pierzynski.

KA: Yeah, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was trading away starting pitcher depth for Sidney Ponson, and then not either keeping Ponson or replacing him with someone better than Brett Tomko or Dustin Hermanson---for instance, Greg Maddux. The bullpen the Giants have now could probably squeak through if the starters were able to give them more innings---but they're not likely to do that, especially if Schmidt has to be replaced by Kevin Correia or Ryan Jensen.

DM: So that's why Sabean is an "idiot?"

KA: Basically. A serious dropoff from Bonds this year---which, yes, isn't really something that looks like it's in the cards---would put this team in the tank with a single resounding splash. And there's no way around it if that happens.

DM: Let's sling some numbers with that mud, whaddya say?

KA: OK. Take 50 runs away from the Giants' projected runs scored (670 instead of 720) and add those to their runs allowed total (688 instead of 638) and you've got a sub-.500 Pythagorean projection. You had some data about home vs. road Pythagorean performance that you were going to toss in---what does that stuff look like?

DM: What we see when we break down the Pythagorean data by home vs. road is that teams play below their projections on the road and above them at home.

KA: What's the amount of the deviation?

DM: Over the last four years, it works out to 5.5%. What's more interesting, though, is that when you control for quality of team, you get differing results in terms of this deviation.

KA: How does it work?

DM: There's a linear progression in terms of team quality and amount of underachievement relative to the Pythagorean projection for teams on the road---really bad teams underplay their Pythagorean by around 12%, while really good teams have only a slight underachievement---just 1%. However, for home teams, there is very little difference in actual vs. Pythagorean performance as you go from bad teams to good teams. Teams that played under .440 at home had almost the same gain (+4.6%) as teams that played .550 or higher at home (+4.9%).

KA: So what does that mean?

DM: That means, as I see it at least, that teams that do well at home relative to their PWP projection are probably more purely lucky than teams that buck the odds on the road, because it's harder to do it on the road. You need to examine both elements to arrive at a more informed perspective.

KA: How does that relate to the Giants?

DM: In 2003, the Giants' actual WPCT at home was 12% (6 games) above their Pythagorean. For the first time since moving into Pac Bell (or whatever the heck it's being called this year), they scored more runs at home than on the road, but also managed to beat their projected road WPCT. In the past four years, only the 2002 Twins were also able to beat their home PWP by more than 10% and also beat their road PWP.

KA: The Twins kept their home field actual vs. PWP spike last year, but gave ground in their PWP on the road, right? So how do you fold that into this data?

DM: Well, winning above the projection at home is kind of a random thing, so you can expect that the Twins won't be able to sustain that kind of record without making some serious adjustments to their roster. The Giants are in a similar position. They have to rely on being able to reproduce a "home win spike" that can cover the likelihood of a backslide on the road. The Twins did that last year, and Sabean is counting on Bonds to have another season that can offset the likely decline on the road.

KA: What is Bonds' SLG at Pac Bell?

DM: Pretty good.

KM: C'mon---what's the exact number?

DM: He has slugged .804 at Pac Bell Park. That's 90 points higher than what's he's done in Denver. It is the single most astonishing baseball stat in the history of the game.

KA: What happens to the park factor at Pac Bell if you replace Bonds with a league average hitter?

DM: It drops about five points, I think.

KA: One guy can affect a park factor that much?

DM: In this case, that's true.

KA: So the Giants are even more vulnerable than I thought. Now I'm really mad at Sabean.

DM: Look on the bright side, Ken---Barry could respond to the drug controversy with one more season at his recent level, and Sabean could finally realize that he has to look for some way to deal with what is almost certainly going to be a monster decline in '05---I mean, let's face it, it's got to happen sometime.

KA: That's the bright side, huh? Then I don't want to think about the dark side.

DM: It looks as though Sabean is playing a game of chicken with his roster.

KA: It sure does, and my point is that he didn't have to strip away so much pitching talent---Ortiz and Ainsworth were basically just given away.

DM: They got a draft choice for Ponson.

KA: But that won't help them this year or next.

DM: Sling some more numbers before you go away in a huff...

KA: OK. The good news is that Bonds' percentage of the team runs created/extrapolated runs total is sinking faster than their offense is. He account for 26% of the Giants' XR in '01, 24% in '02 and only 20% last year. The bad news is that the '04 lineup is probably going to reverse that trend, and lose more runs than Bonds does.

DM: So there's another type of measure you can use for assessing the overall health of a team's offense---what's their run total minus the extrapolated run value of their best hitter? The rest of the Giants' offense nosedived in '01---despite the fact that Bonds hit 73 HRs. The rest of the team produced a net -190. They've gained back a few measly runs in the past two years, but they're still at -177 to -185 relative to their best non-Bonds years ('99, when he was hurt, and '00, when they had a great offense). There are very few cases where the situation is this extreme, but Sabean has managed to keep the rest of the offense at about the same level relative to Bonds for the last three years, and I think he's decided he can just keep doing that.

KA: Sure, but what I'm saying is that he also knows that one of these years it'll be the wrong assumption, and he has no back-up plan.

DM: Aside from the idea that Alou can make a workable pitching staff out of just about anything.

KA: Well, Felipe managed to keep the Expos' ERA above league average for his first five years in Montreal; after that, when the fix was in, they slipped to ninth, ninth and thirteenth respectively. It was the offense that tanked first, dropping from third in '94 to twelfth in '95, then eleventh, tenth, sixteenth, fourteenth. Without Bonds in the lineup---or with a Bonds that isn't the one we've seen for the past three years, Felipe will be in over his head, and the Giants' offense is going to evoke memories of the late 70s.

DM: The Johnnie LeMaster era. But it wasn't quite as bleak as you paint it.

KA: True, but the Giants developed Jack Clark in that time frame---something that just doesn't seem to be anywhere on the horizon right now. I'd have settled for them to have developed a group of young pitchers, but they keep trading them away for little or nothing in return.

DM: So---can they get more from their offense than what the projections indicate?

KA: Well, maybe. They'd need a career year from Durham, a big spike from Alfonzo, a scenario that forced them into acquiring someone like Graham Koonce or some other spare part first baseman and giving them a shot, and some kind of miracle platoon in right field. If half of that happens, and Bonds stays on projection, they've got some chance to score a few more runs than last year---but only a few, and not that much of a chance.

DM: Let's toss out a chart like the one I presented in the Red Sox preview, looking at last year's OPS+, peak OPS+, and career OPS+ for the projected starting lineup:

Player       '03 OPS+  Peak OPS+  Career OPS+
Pierzynski        114        114          105
Snow              112        135          105
Durham            111        116          103
Perez              65         85           63
Alfonzo            90        150          111
Bonds             231        275          179
Grissom           104        124           93
Mohr               86        102           91
Tucker             92        117           95

Looks like the probability for exceeding projections comes down in the following order: Alfonzo, Durham, Tucker, Pierzynski, Mohr.

KA: And the three most useful of these would be Alfonzo and the two guys in right field, since they've got to take up the RBI slots in the batting order.

DM: So what do you think will happen?

KA: Aw, heck, 80 to 90 wins, depending on how all of these bacon bits shake out. They should've signed Maddux.

DM: They tried.

KA: They should've tried harder. Even though Maddux isn't an innings-eater, the innings he does eat would've been better than the ones Hermanson or Rueter will chew on in '04. If they are hanging around the fringes of the race, they'll have to go to the well for more pitching---and it's a well that's down to a trickle thanks to their profligate trading policies in the past couple of years.

DM: Wanna make that obligatory leftist parting shot as we duck out the door?

KA: OK. Maybe the Giants could sign Condi Rice---she seems to have a helluva curve ball.

DM: I thought it was a split-finger, but maybe I'm not privy to the proper classified reports...

KA: Hey, it just might come out under oath...

DM: In the immortal words of Jim Gosger in Ball Four: "Yeah, surre."

2004 ZiPS Projections

Name               P    AVG   OBP   SPC    G   AB    R    H  2B  3B  HR  RBI   BB    K  SB  CS 
Bonds*             lf  .309  .504  .638  135  392   96  121  25   1  34   96  145   63   7   2 
Pierzynski*        c   .315  .361  .466  134  470   60  148  35   3  10   63   22   56   2   3 
Durham#            2b  .275  .360  .430  134  512   80  141  37   6  10   60   63   91  16   8 
Alfonzo            3b  .271  .357  .410  138  505   62  137  26   1  14   66   62   49   5   1 
Snow*              1b  .246  .361  .386  116  350   42   86  24   2   7   40   56   70   0   1 
Mohr               rf  .277  .344  .417  136  441   59  122  30   1  10   57   41  109   6   5 
Tucker*            rf  .250  .330  .414  127  428   60  107  24   5  12   52   47   95  12  11 
Grissom            cf  .271  .302  .430  136  495   64  134  30   2  15   67   20   78   8   3 
Dallimore          2b  .283  .335  .373  105  399   48  113  22   1   4   42   27   56   5   5 
Hammonds           rf  .245  .327  .389   93  319   32   78  22   3   6   35   37   62   3   4 
Torrealba          c   .270  .318  .386   84  267   31   72  12   2   5   30   16   47   1   1 
Linden#            rf  .253  .326  .374  134  479   62  121  24   2  10   54   47  125   8   4 
Feliz              3b  .245  .282  .454   90  216   25   53   8   2  11   34   10   46   1   1 
Valderrama         cf  .271  .330  .376  116  420   53  114  17   3   7   45   33   71  12   9 
Minor*             1b  .228  .290  .406  124  416   52   95  19   2  17   58   32   83   1   1 
Lunsford           c   .265  .337  .328   71  238   22   63  10   1   1   21   23   42   1   2 
Ellison            lf  .266  .324  .343  126  481   63  128  18   2   5   45   36   61  14  12 
Santos*            1b  .253  .284  .377  108  395   35  100  26   4   5   39   13   50   3   2 
Haynes*            cf  .252  .306  .346  109  436   56  110  15   7   4   35   29   84  17   9 
Torcato*           3b  .270  .300  .343  125  463   41  125  17   1   5   45   15   49   3   2 
Stratton           lf  .203  .263  .429  103  359   52   73  10   1  23   61   25  167   4   4 
Niekro             1b  .268  .301  .338   96  358   37   96  14   1   3   33   13   39   1   2 
Ransom             ss  .210  .280  .327  132  443   52   93  16   3  10   44   39  133   8   4 
Perez#             ss  .238  .269  .316  135  488   46  116  21   4   3   38   21   46   5   8 
Castillo           c   .192  .250  .250   41  104    6   20   6   0   0    7    7   21   1   0 

Name                  ERA   W   L   G  GS     INN    H   ER  HR   BB    K 
Nen                  2.49   6   2  73   0    76.0   56   21   3   21   85 
Schmidt              3.06  14   7  28  28   185.0  146   63  13   58  192 
Herges               3.36   6   3  68   0    83.0   73   31   4   31   67 
Rodriguez            3.57   6   5  73   0    68.0   56   27   5   28   64 
Correia              3.70   7   5  26  22   124.0  111   51  11   40   99 
Williams             3.92  10   8  28  28   163.0  153   71  14   54  112 
Eyre*                3.96   4   3  74   2    75.0   65   33   6   34   64 
Zerbe*               4.00   3   2  45   2    63.0   64   28   5   19   29 
Lowry*               4.02   7   6  29  25   121.0  116   54   9   43   73 
Urban*               4.15   6   5  30  20   128.0  126   59  13   40   80 
Foppert              4.21   8   8  24  23   126.0  103   59  14   64  133 
Brower               4.24   6   6  50   5   102.0   95   48   9   45   71 
Pettyjohn*           4.33   5   8  27  19   131.0  137   63  15   34   78 
Walker               4.46   3   7  27  22   127.0  130   63  15   40   86 
Christiansen*        4.50   0   1  44   0    28.0   25   14   3   13   25 
Rueter*              4.63   9  12  31  31   177.0  192   91  19   55   66 
Jensen               4.66   6   7  32  25   145.0  147   75  18   53   86 
Tomko                4.68   9  11  31  30   196.0  208  102  29   58  113 
Pickford*            4.73   5   7  29  21   135.0  143   71  12   53   52 
Cooper               4.79   9  13  30  28   169.0  178   90  23   56   87 
Hermanson            5.01   7  10  31  21   133.0  136   74  20   54   87 
Gissell              5.69   6  10  31  21   136.0  152   86  22   60   92 

ZiPS Projections are not playing time predictors; they project a player's performance given playing time in the majors in their accustomed role. As with all projections, specific knowledge of non-statistical attributes of the player should temper what the computer says. ZiPS Projections are computer projections and not generated by the author. Yes, Dan knows that a certain young pitcher within these projections is currently very injured.