Spring Training Retrospective: Matt Lutovsky, George Winkler, and David A. Arnott talk about the players whose spring training performances might actually tell us something about how they’ll produce in the regular season.
Unfortunately, in the 48th game, [Buster Posey] broke his leg while blocking the plate, prematurely ending his year. But what’s often ignored in the disappointment of a lost season is that up to that point, Posey’s power had mostly deserted him.
Sure, he was hitting .284, but with only four home runs, he was on pace to hit only about 13 for the season. Even those four home runs obscure how little power he’d displayed: he only had five doubles and was slugging .389, for an ISO of .105. True, he’d also stolen three bases — he started out as a shortstop in college, after all — but that’s not the offensive profile of an elite fantasy catcher. Even assuming he would have gotten hot later in the season, we’re talking about, at best, matching Miguel Montero’s production, the fourth-best catcher by our Roto Rater measure.
And that’s where I went wrong in our Winter Mock Draft. In our projection for Posey, we’re guessing he comes back from injury essentially the same hitter he was in ‘10 and will be a top-five fantasy catcher. If he had simply repeated his ‘10 line in ‘11, one could take into account his age and justify picking him as the first or second catcher off the board. However, he got hurt in ‘11, and he wasn’t hitting particularly well when his season ended.
My full article is behind the paywall at SportingNews.com’s Fantasy Source.
Grant pretty much nails my feelings on the matter:
The love letter to Andres Torres will come. He is, and always will be, one of my favorite Giants of all-time. I’ll miss him, even as I appreciate that Angel Pagan is a pretty good player.
I wrote a piece for The Good Point about the mid-80s St. Louis Cardinals. Here’s the lede:
Imagine your favorite baseball team decided to eschew both home run hitters and strikeout pitchers. There would probably be some kind of fan revolt, since dingers and punchouts are nearly synonymous with offense and defense in the modern game. It’s a near-universal assumption that if a team wants to win it all, they have to possess power at the plate or power on the mound, and preferably both.
There was, however, a relatively recent mini-dynasty that won league championships without either home run hitters or strikeout pitchers. Three times in the last 30 years, a National League team was below league average in home runs and strikeout rate and went to the World Series. Those three teams were the St. Louis Cardinals of 1982, 1985 and 1987.
I actually dug up a copy of Game 1 of the 1987 NLCS while doing research for this, and several things jumped out:
Ozzie Smith was The Man; if you get a chance to watch archived Cardinals games, pay close attention to him and try not to let your jaw drop. Herzog only carried EIGHT pitchers on his playoff roster, and when Danny Cox got hurt, that left him with only three relievers. It still amazes me that Will Clark batted sixth in the Giants’ lineup, when he was their best hitter that year. Finally, Kevin Mitchell had a ferocious swing, very Sheffield-like, or Jose Bautista-like, if you will.
Rangers: Eh, we’ll give you this 26-year-old first baseman with defensive problems and power in AAA. Pirates: Yeah, we have one of those. We’ll do that and a LOOGY in double-A. Braves: Okay, fine. We have this prospect that we were kind of saving for a special occasion. But, he’s okay, I guess. Look, you can have him. Phillies: We have something a little better than that. The Braves call that a prospect? I mean, our guy isn’t a top-100 guy, but he’s good. Rangers: Wait, wait, wait. Did we say a 26-year-old first baseman? He’s but a part of our overall package. We have a prospect too. He’s good! One of our five best. Braves: Our prospect is our fourth best. Rangers: We’ll include our third best. Braves: Alright, I didn’t want to do this, but … Phillies: We’re out of here. Peace. Pirates: Hello? I think I hit the mute button with my cheek. Hello? Braves: Two prospects. Both in the top ten of our organization. There. We’ll arrange the finer det… Giants: Zack Wheeler.
Or that he’s out of his mind, depending on how you look at it. (Emphasis added.)
With Miguel Tejada joining right-handed-hitting infielders Freddy Sanchez and Bill Hall on the disabled list Tuesday, the Giants acquired Keppinger from the Houston Astros for minor league pitchers Henry Sosa and Jason Stoffel.
Keppinger will be in uniform Wednesday, and Bochy said he envisions him in the lineup at second base, where he will get the lion’s share of playing time.
Giants G.M. Brian Sabean said he talked with the Astros about Keppinger a week ago but switched gears and engaged another club on “something we thought was much bigger.” Sabean might have been referring to Minnesota Twins outfielder Michael Cuddyer; sources confirmed that Giants officials had expressed interest in Cuddyer with an eye toward playing him at second base.
This oddball sensibility pervades the rest of the organization, we suppose, because the Giants’ TV partner, Comcast Sports Net Bay Area, is now hunting for the baby born after some post-last-out procreation. More specifically: the baby born nearest to 7:54 p.m. PST, August 1, exactly nine months after Brian Wilson slammed the door on Texas.
You want analysis? The Giants will replace an All-Star catcher with a scrub, and it will cost them some wins.
But that’s not why most Giants fans feel nauseous right now. Giants fans were in love with Buster Posey.
[snip]
There will never be a perfect storm like this again: Posey is a guy who helped break an organizational drought for hitters and championships, he played a position that the fans were repeatedly told was almost impossible to do well, and he is possibly the most likable personality on the team, combining perfect amounts of seriousness and charm in a goofy clubhouse.
Does this read like a fan-boy’s love letter to Buster Posey? Good. It’s supposed to.
