Are the 2021 Giants as simple as COVID?

[Just Regular]

BP ran a PECOTA wrong piece like all the old Buck Orioles ones this morning, but the Occam's Razor I'm tempted to go to is just.

99th percentile seasons for Posey, Belt, Longoria and Crawford.

They definitely have some in game tactics, roster management, matchup optimization stuff going on too, but I think I think that's the side dish to if you have Hall of Fame/Hall of Very Good players, a mid-career year off probably recharges them more than even the best scientific load management over the course of 162 can.   I heard recently a podcast tidbit that when they shuttle guys back and forth to Sacramento, the dudes just stay in San Fran and keep fresh.

They also have two Hitting Coaches (Darin Ruf!  LaMonte Wade!!), including former Orioles minor leaguer Justin Viele.   

https://www.mlb.com/giants/roster/coaches

I am curious if we keep/supplement Don Long for the appearance of activity, as I think Holt closer to regime and we just got our answer on Hyde.    If we can afford coaching depth, etc.

 

[SouthRider]

I love the Giants.  It's amazing how they have held off the star studded Dodgers.  These two teams remind me of 1980 when the O's finished second with 100 wins, only no wild card then.  

[waroriole]

On 10/2/2021 at 10:03 AM, SouthRider said:

I love the Giants.  It's amazing how they have held off the star studded Dodgers.  These two teams remind me of 1980 when the O's finished second with 100 wins, only no wild card then.  

I was thinking 1993 when the Giants won 103 but missed the playoffs due to the Braves winning 104. While this year is better than not having a wild card, it’s crazy that the second best ML team all season could get knocked out in a 1 game wildcard against the red hot Cardinals. 

[Just Regular]

Fangraphs Goldstein off the cuff in chat today.    Justin Viele has become kind of a mascot for this for me - I imagine the Giants deep depth of coaches are in for some lucrative offers coming up soon.

I imagine the Friedman/Neander/Zaidi type guy a little like the only exec knowing all the Coke ingredients, and silo'ing to protect organizational intellectual capital is a thing, but some of the troops have to touch the very best stuff to deploy it.

11:12

Roger: How replicable do you think the Giants’ innovations around matchups are?  Do you think that’s their key innovation, or do you think they did substantially more?

11:12

Kevin Goldstein: They did substantially more, and other teams will figure it out and catch up. It’s how it works.

[SteveA]

What exactly do they mean by "innovations around matchups"???

 

1 hour ago, Just Regular said:

Fangraphs Goldstein off the cuff in chat today.    Justin Viele has become kind of a mascot for this for me - I imagine the Giants deep depth of coaches are in for some lucrative offers coming up soon.

I imagine the Friedman/Neander/Zaidi type guy a little like the only exec knowing all the Coke ingredients, and silo'ing to protect organizational intellectual capital is a thing, but some of the troops have to touch the very best stuff to deploy it.

11:12

Roger: How replicable do you think the Giants’ innovations around matchups are?  Do you think that’s their key innovation, or do you think they did substantially more?

11:12

Kevin Goldstein: They did substantially more, and other teams will figure it out and catch up. It’s how it works.

 

[Just Regular]

18 hours ago, SteveA said:

What exactly do they mean by "innovations around matchups"???

Kevin Goldstein forthright in other chats that he doesn't know, and that's kind of the Rays/Giants game.

I just heard the contrast GIants relievers were 1st in ERA and 22nd in strikeout rate, and how on earth does that happen in 2021?   Orioles slow throwers could probably learn some command tips there.

Again just repeating Eno Sarris (kind of living the dream of growing baseball nut-dom into a life), but heard him say recently the best teams are tandem modeling swing paths and pitch shapes.   I assume anything he feels at liberty to say in podcast has attained such "well, duh" status that nobody cares if you say it.  

Now whether Bruce Zimmermann is well prepared for George Springer on Pitch1 of Game 162, who could say...

I assume this is why your Sigs and McKinsey clones in the world probably love machine learning so much - you probably want IBM Watson figuring out which AAAA reliever's newly refurbished breaking ball can throttle any All-Star caliber hitter a couple times a week.

Reliever with options on your roster 40% of the season's days, you can stretch out "three years of club control" like seven years if they're any good.

 

 

[Just Regular]

Brandon Crawford's team leading 549 PA were 96th MLB-wide.

Some 2019-2021 scans at Chase Rate.

Giants Team Rank in MLB: 26th, 17th, 2nd

Player Percentiles:

Posey,  58 - xx - 77

Belt, 80 - 91 - 92

Solano, xx - 11 - 25

Crawford, 42 - 23 - 47

Longoria, 40 - 52 - 94       (late career manifestation of ample blessing by baseball gods, plus the coaching secret sauce?)

A. Dickerson, xx - 33 - 24

Little Yaz, 68 - 87 - 74

Flores, xx - 36 - 61

La Stella, 84 - 80 - 87

Among some guys having nearly their first experience as semi-regulars: Duggar 84th, Wade 83rd, Slater 77th, Ruf 92nd, Casali 90th. 

The Longoria one is special - I believe the Giants have some intellectual capital very effectively at work, but his raw talent has to be some of it.   If I look at anyone who has posted one ~95th percentile type year recently, those guys are so good they are almost never middle of the pack.    Even as a graybeard, feel Longoria can still do some baseball things virtually nobody else can.

The brain drain could be an interesting show.  I figure I will be irrationally exuberant if Justin Viele gets Don Long's gig.

[Just Regular]

Giants brain drain begins as Donnie Ecker (the other hitting coach alongside former Oriole Justin Viele) gets some title inflation and probably a lot more money from the Rangers.