[quote]DBCooper wrote:
And one other thing, Raj. At best, Belt is equal to Crawford and Theriot when all three struggle, not half the team. And that doesn’t negate from the fact that Belt has also shown a propensity to struggle much more often than either Crawford or Theriot.[/quote]
I’ll just make a couple more points and stop:
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He walks a ton and gets on base the 3rd most on the team (behind Melky and Posey). That is much more telling than batting average. This is where I think the disagreement is taking place. Based on the Giants teams stats, I would say his offensive production is 4-5th best even with the fuck ton of k’s. From an all-encompassing stat perspective, he has the 4th best WAR on the team.
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Scouting reports are far from meaningless. They dictate the value of young players and how they should be treated. I think it should contribute to how much “rope” you give a player.
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My annoyance is with Bochy’s general treatment of Belt. There are reports surfacing Brandon Belt will be optioned once Huff comes off the DL. Ridiculous!
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
And one other thing, Raj. At best, Belt is equal to Crawford and Theriot when all three struggle, not half the team. And that doesn’t negate from the fact that Belt has also shown a propensity to struggle much more often than either Crawford or Theriot.[/quote]
I’ll just make a couple more points and stop:
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He walks a ton and gets on base the 3rd most on the team (behind Melky and Posey). That is much more telling than batting average. This is where I think the disagreement is taking place. Based on the Giants teams stats, I would say his offensive production is 4-5th best even with the fuck ton of k’s. From an all-encompassing stat perspective, he has the 4th best WAR on the team.
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Scouting reports are far from meaningless. They dictate the value of young players and how they should be treated. I think it should contribute to how much “rope” you give a player.
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My annoyance is with Bochy’s general treatment of Belt. There are reports surfacing Brandon Belt will be optioned once Huff comes off the DL. Ridiculous!
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Look, the reports about Belt getting sent down are totally untrue. Huff will probably be released when he’s healthy. As far as his OBP goes, yes, it’s good. But guess what? They need him to HIT the ball. The Giants don’t have any problem putting runners on base. They have problems knocking them in. Belt’s job is not to get on base; it’s to hit the ball hard and drive it somewhere. He’s shown a complete inability to do so.
This entire argument is totally ridiculous. We’re talking about someone with a career batting avg of .239 and who’s been hitting under .200 for most of the last month.
WAR is a meaningless, totally arbitrary statistic. I have issues with VORP as well, but it’s still a better indicator of value. And I’ll tell you right now that any statistic that shows that Belt is the fourth or fifth most valuable player on the Giants’ offense is misleading. They don’t have a great offense so being middle of the pack isn’t necessarily a good thing. I would argue that Blanco, Theriot, Crawford, Posey, Sandoval and Cabrera have all hit better than Belt for all or most of the season.
Jesus Christ, Raj. Your boy Belt had another horrendous weekend. He must have left about a dozen runners on base. Here are the recent stats for the guy you think should get all the at-bats at first: 1 for 20 on the road trip with 8 strikeouts and 9 for his last 66 with 25 strikeouts. That’s about as close to an automatic out as one can get.
Belt may have a bright future, but his present is absolutely dismal. Unfortunately, the Giants don’t have anyone else to put there on a regular basis so they’re stuck with him. I’m sure they’re exploring every possibility in terms of trading for a first baseman. They’d be fools not to.
Ya he’s struggling, I just want to see him do well I guess. He may need to be sent down.
I’d be surprised if they traded Belt to get that 1b tho. His value is at its absolute low point.
Some guys just need time to figure it out. Just look at Jacoby Ellabury, Jose Bautista, etc
[quote]therajraj wrote:
Ya he’s struggling, I just want to see him do well I guess. He may need to be sent down.
I’d be surprised if they traded Belt to get that 1b tho. His value is at its absolute low point.
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I don’t think they’ll trade him. I want to see him do well also, but I guess I’m in the small minority of people who feel that the Giants shouldn’t exercise patience with him if it it comes to the detriment of the team’s chances of winning this year.
I think he should stay in the bigs, but I’d like to see the Giants either recall Brett Pill or acquire some sort of halfway decent right-hander at first so that Bochy can at least use a platoon. I think running him out there to continuously fail may be more damaging in the long run than letting him play through what’s essentially been about a 400 at-bat slump.
Tell me this, Raj. What do you think it would take for the Giants to land Encarnacion in a trade with the Giants, assuming that Belt was a part of the trade?
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Tell me this, Raj. What do you think it would take for the Giants to land Encarnacion in a trade with the Giants, assuming that Belt was a part of the trade?[/quote]
They signed him to an extension a couple of weeks ago, so he’s not on the trading block anymore. 3yr/29M. Especially right now while Jose Bautista is on the DL, I highly doubt they would trade him unless Sabean is willing to overpay.
In other news Ichiro asked for a trade and is now a Yankee.
Encarnacion is kind of like a less extreme case of Melky. He had some bad years which could be blamed on a nagging wrist injury and confidence issues but it’s still possible he could regress. If he does regress the contract is reasonable enough that it won’t kill you.
To add with the new WC spot, the Jays aren’t true buyers or sellers.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Tell me this, Raj. What do you think it would take for the Giants to land Encarnacion in a trade with the Giants, assuming that Belt was a part of the trade?[/quote]
They signed him to an extension a couple of weeks ago, so he’s not on the trading block anymore. 3yr/29M. Especially right now while Jose Bautista is on the DL, I highly doubt they would trade him unless Sabean is willing to overpay.
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Yeah, I didn’t think he was readily available. I read it on some sports website. I can’t remember which one, but I got the distinct feeling that the writer was thinking optimistically at best about possible first base options for the Giants. Tonight they used Sandoval at first and Joaquin Arias at third. Arias might be the superior defender between himself, Belt and Sandoval, but his numbers are similar to Belt’s in several significant areas and his upside isn’t close. Sandoval is actually pretty good at first as far as his decision-making on balls to his right, which is usually the hardest adjustment for first basemen to make. He’s pretty good with the glove over there, but his range is a little limited since he’s only about 5’10" and his glove on the backhand side has been below average this year.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Tell me this, Raj. What do you think it would take for the Giants to land Encarnacion in a trade with the Giants, assuming that Belt was a part of the trade?[/quote]
They signed him to an extension a couple of weeks ago, so he’s not on the trading block anymore. 3yr/29M. Especially right now while Jose Bautista is on the DL, I highly doubt they would trade him unless Sabean is willing to overpay.
[/quote]
This is a time when it really makes me think that MLB has GOT to change their rules regarding draft picks. I’m sure the Blue Jays would welcome an extra pick or two in, I don’t know, the top ten rounds or something like that, along with Belt and maybe a decent prospect like Tommy Joseph or Connor Gillaspie for Encarnacion.
I don’t know what the Jays would take for him since he just signed for three years, but the point is that teams like the Giants who have a thin farm system but might just be that one impact player away from being a legitimate favorite to win the NL pennant, could stand a much better chance of making a big trade without losing a couple big-time prospects if they could sweeten a deal with some decent draft picks. And the teams that are out of contention but have good players that might bring back prospects, picks or major leaguers or some combination thereof in a trade could benefit as well.
I also think that what this would do is really ramp up the trading possibilities and results this time of the year. Tradable draft picks means more bargaining pieces for teams, which will only ramp up the bidding for guys who can make an impact an a contending team. In this specific situation, I don’t think the Giants, along with a couple other postseason contenders, have the prospects to pull off a big deal, but draft picks would enable them to do so. Furthermore, I think we would see more players who aren’t necessarily available right now become trading pieces as well. It wouldn’t come down to trading guys in the last year or nearing the end of a contract anymore.
I don’t ever envision the MLB draft becoming something as big as the NFL or NBA draft, but I can’t help but think the fact that those two leagues can trade picks is part of what makes their drafts as compelling as they appear to be to a lot of fans.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
In other news Ichiro asked for a trade and is now a Yankee.[/quote]
You know, I wonder how that trade went down. I mean, did Ichiro walk into his manager’s office, or otherwise make known he wanted to be traded, and then BOOM, they trade him the same day? Or did he make this request several days ago? I wonder how the Mariners went about making known that Ichiro was available and whether they looked primarily for a good situation for Ichiro or for the team.
One last thing about Brandon Belt, Raj. After that I promise i won’t bring him up again, unprovoked that is.
If you were in a fantasy league, say a really deep one like 12 or 14 teams, if he was on your team (and he IS, so don’t give me this “he wouldn’t be on my team” bullshit because I know you would have taken a flyer on him during his one hot streak a few weeks back like I did) would he be in your starting lineup right now or over the last week or so? Keep in mind he would have 1B and LF eligibility.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
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Yeah it’s ridiculous they disallow the trading of draft picks. I’m not sure what the reasoning behind that is. Maybe in the event of catastrophic injuries they don’t want a team to field a bunch of 4A/Org guys in the Major leagues?
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No I wouldn’t have Belt in my starting lineup but the problem here is Fantasy Leagues only take into account the present. I probably would’ve also traded away Josh Hamilton or Bryce Harper or Albert Pujols since they all have strugged at some point in the year. I played fantasy once in 2010 and didn’t like it. You had to change your starting rotation on a daily basis, defense was heavily undervalued and stats like ERA, HR, RBI and AVG drove your score.
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I also think that they disallow trading picks to possible protect some teams from themselves. I can only imagine what would happen if some team had ended up trading so many picks over the course of a few years that it actually hampers their ability to field their minor league teams. The draft is as long as it is because the teams need that many picks to end up with enough players to fill their instructional league team, low-A, high-A, AA and AAA teams.
I don’t like fantasy baseball that much either, but mostly because I fly into a violent rage any time success by a Giants player harms my team or one of my pitchers shoves it up the Giants’ ass that night.
maybe the Giants should consider Hanley. He’s on the trading block.
Eric Byrnes on KNBR is suggesting that the Giants are going after Jose Bautista. HA!
And shortly after I say that he is dealt to the Dodgers for Nathan Eovaldi and a minor leaguer (Hanley Ramirez)
Paul Konerko, Hall of Famer? Hit his 400th home run this year, but he’s only a five-time all-star (tough position for it however) and his highest MVP placing was 5th. Pretty damn consistent over the years though, and with 412 hr at 36 yrs old he has a decent shot at 500. Also he has no connections to PEDs that we know of, which like it or not, counts for a lot amongst Hall voters. I think he gets in eventually.