Hitting The Cutoff Man

2009: 88-74, 3rd in NL West. Pythagorean record of 86-76.
Key Additions: 1B Aubrey Huff, LF Mark DeRosa, SP Todd Wellemeyer
Key Losses: SPs Randy Johnson and Brad Penny, RP Bob Howry, OF Randy Winn, 1B Ryan Garko 2010 Projections: PECOTA – 81-81, 4th in NL West. CHONE – 76-86, 5th. CAIRO – 78.3-83.7, 4th.

Pitching: 2009 – 3.85 FIP (4th in MLB), 3.85 for starters, 3.86 for relievers
2010 – The No. 1 spot in the rotation obviously is taken care of here, and Matt Cain is a solid No. 2. Thankfully for the Giants, it appears Barry Zito might have figured out a way to provide a little bit of value for the remainder of his insane contract.
Hitting: 2009 – .305 wOBA (30th in MLB)
2010 – The Giants, desperate for offense, signed DeRosa and Huff and brought back Freddy Sanchez. These guys probably are upgrades over the players San Francisco otherwise would have penciled in at those positions, but it's also not clear the difference is going to be nearly great enough to pull the team out of its offensive stupor. Nate Schierholtz might be the only player besides Pablo Sandoval in the everyday starting lineup under the age of 32.
Fielding: 2009 – UZR of 51.2(4th in MLB)
2010 – Replacing Winn with DeRosa in the outfield subtracts defensive prowess, and if Huff takes a lot of innings away from Travis Ishikawa at first, that will hurt the run-stopping as well. The Giants also have a couple of once sterling defenders up the middle in Aaron Rowand and Edgar Renteria who are starting to show their age with the glove.

Reasons to Watch
1. Pablo Sandoval: Kung Fu Panda has the best nickname around and the talent to back it up. In his first full major league season last year, he hit .330/.387/.556 and finished 16th in MLB in wOBA. It was an impressive display, to say the least. But there is one issue with Sandoval: his weight. The Giants want to improve his fitness, even instituting an "Operation Panda" program this offseason, and San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler believes Sandoval needs to get in better shape in order to enjoy a long and successful career.
2. Tim Lincecum: Not only is Lincecum the best pitcher in baseball, with two Cy Youngs to his credit at age 25, but he is also unique due to his unorthodox pitching style and delivery. Of course, those factors also lead people to question if The Freak will stay healthy, especially with more than 450 innings on his arm over the last two years. Injuries are always lurking in the shadows for any pitcher, but it's certainly possible Lincecum has found something that will keep his arm going. That would be bad news for MLB hitters, who have put up a line of .217/.290/.318 against Linecum in his career (in other words, Adam Everett-type production).
3. The catcher situation: Bengie Molina will turn 36 this season and put up a .308 wOBA in 2009. Yet, the Giants chose to bring him back for 2010, when he will most certainly poach at-bats from Buster Posey, the team's first-round draft pick in 2008. Posey just turned 23 and tore the cover off the ball in both Class-A and Triple-A last season. The bat seems ready, and he apparently is strong behind the plate. Despite this, it sounds like Posey either will start the year in the minors or get moved around to different positions. The Giants don't figure to make the playoffs in 2010, no matter who their catcher is, but making Posey their primary backstop would help.

Paint By Numbers: Molina's 2.5 percent walk rate was the lowest of any qualified hitter last season and held his OBP down to .285 despite a .265 batting average. ... In 2009, the Giants as a team drew 29 fewer walks than anyone else and finished last in OBP. Fred Lewis and Andres Torres were the only San Francisco players with at least 100 plate appearances to post a walk rate of better than the league average of 8.9 percent. ... Barry Zito's 4.31 FIP last season was his best since 2005. A big reason why was Zito's strikeout rate of 7.2/9 IP, which was actually slightly better than his mark in 2002, when he won the AL Cy Young Award.

Blog Jog: Grant at McCovey Chronicles analyzes news involving Matt Cain and Nate Schierholtz and also weighs in on the Brian Wilson contract extension. ... Raising Matt Cain's M.C. O'Conner looks at the Giants' chances of scoring some runs this season. ... This shirt featured at El Lefty Malo is kind of awesome.

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We all remember when we were kids and the athletes we followed and rooted for seemed larger than life and awe-inspiring. Meeting one of our heroes was enough to nearly cripple us.

As fans, this can persist even into adulthood. Through my experience in journalism, I've been fortunate enough to cover a fair amount of MLB games as a reporter, and after a while you get used to talking to the players. Nonetheless, the first time I interviewed Albert Pujols, it required all of my will power to keep my composure and some form of professional demeanor.

You would figure things would be different for the athletes themselves, especially one like Tim Lincecum who has spent the past two seasons coolly mowing down opposing hitters. Think again.

From ESPN.com's Spring Training blog comes this anecdote:

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Lincecum, a Seattle native, was taking to reporters after throwing an inning against the Mariners when Ken Griffey Jr. -- a player he rooted for as a boy -- dropped by to say hello.

"Lincecum, what's up? I just wanted to say hi," Griffey said, extending his hand.

"It's a pleasure," Lincecum replied, looking awestruck as he shook Griffey's hand and watched him walk away. "It was nice meeting you," he added as Griffey headed for the Mariners' clubhouse.

Lincecum paused, let out a breath and said, "Man. Wow. He just came over. That was pretty cool."

He paused again. Then, he asked the media surrounding him, "What were we just talking about?"
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It's a pretty great image, a two-time Cy Young Award winner briefly turned back into a little kid, pleasantly shaken by a meeting with his baseball idol.

Even if we can't relate to someone throwing 95 miles per hour, we can certainly relate to that.

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Yesterday, I took a look at the best hitters in the game who are 25 years old or younger. Now it’s time to complete our 25-man roster with the pitching staff. To review, players must have been no older than 25 at the start of the calendar year and have at least 50 innings pitched at the Major League level.

Let’s get this going, and again, feel free to point out any oversights in the comments.

SP – Tim Lincecum, SF, 25 years old. This is as obvious as it gets. The University of Washington product has pitched two full seasons and won two Cy Youngs. Fangraphs has him as the most valuable pitcher in baseball over the past two years, by a comfortable margin over Roy Halladay. He is small of stature and has an unorthodox delivery, but to say it works for him would be a massive understatement.

SP – Felix Hernandez, SEA, 23. It seems like King Felix has been around for too long to be on this list, but he first came up at age 19. His development hasn’t always been smooth, but make no mistake: Hernandez is one of the best pitchers in the big leagues. He also took major strides in 2008, as he set what was easily a career-best in FIP (which stands for Fielding Independent Pitching, a stat that works on the same scale as ERA but only measures things a pitcher has complete control over: home runs, hit batters, walks and strikeouts). His 3.09 mark was 66 points better than his previous low.

SP – Josh Johnson, FLA, 25. Playing for the Marlins has kept his profile low, and injuries have caused him to miss much of two seasons. But since Johnson returned from the DL in the middle of 2008, he is 22-6, and last season he posted a 3.06 FIP. The 6-foot-7, 252-pound fireballer will draw a ton of interest if he stays relatively healthy until he hits free agency after the 2011 season.

SP – Clayton Kershaw, LAD, 21. Kershaw led all left-handed starters in FIP last season, finishing just ahead of Cliff Lee. He only gave up 119 hits in 171 innings while striking out 185, but had trouble with his control at times, walking 91. That number should improve as he learns to trust his stuff, which is terrific and includes a sizzling fastball and a huge hook.

SP – Jon Lester, BOS, 25. The Red Sox southpaw sneaks in just ahead of our age cutoff, as his 26th birthday was Jan. 7. Despite playing in Boston, Lester doesn’t get a ton of publicity, but Fangraphs has him as the ninth most valuable pitcher over the past two years, and he pitches in MLB’s toughest division.

RP – Tommy Hanson, ATL, 23. We’ll sneak in a sixth starter as our long reliever/ swing man. Hanson put on quite a show in 21 starts during his rookie season, posting a 2.89 ERA and a solid 3.50 FIP. The 116 strikeouts in 127.2 innings are evidence of his electric stuff.

RP – Jonathan Broxton, LAD, 25. Big Jon is our closer, as he was easily the most valuable reliever in baseball last season. Broxton just continues to get better, too. In his four full seasons, his FIP has progressed steadily, from 3.13 to 2.73 to 2.26 to 1.97.

RP – Joakim Soria, KC, 25. Playing in Kansas City keeps you anonymous, but Soria not only has one of the best nicknames in sports (The Mexicutioner); he’s one of the best closers around. The only relievers who have been worth more over the past three years are guys by the names of Rivera, Papelbon, Broxton and Nathan. Soria missed some time due to injury in 2009 but still saved 30 games and stuck out 69 in 53 innings.

RP – Andrew Bailey, OAK, 25. The 2009 American League Rookie of the Year wasn’t as good as his 1.84 ERA would indicate. But his 91 strikeouts and 49 hits allowed in 83.1 innings show that he’s still likely to be a force to be reckoned with in coming years.

RP – Luke Gregerson, SD, 25. Who? Gregerson had never pitched above Double-A until last season, when he came over from the St. Louis organization as a player to be named later in the trade that brought Khalil Greene to the Cards. As it turned out, Gregerson had a much better year than Greene, notching a 3.24 ERA in 72 games and striking out 93 in 75 innings. Due to a some bad luck on balls in play, he was actually even better than that, as his 2.50 FIP suggests.

RP – Phil Hughes, NYY, 23. The Yankees might put Hughes in the starting rotation this year, and it would be hard to argue with the decision. That said, the guy was outstanding out of the pen in 2009, posting a 1.40 ERA in 51.1 innings with an outstanding 65-13 strikeout-to-walk ratio. In the event he doesn’t develop into a solid starter, he has proven he is at least a shutdown reliever.